14302	----	Proofreading Team. [Frontispiece: Dining-room in "Pennyroyal" (in Mrs. Boudinot Keith's Cottage, Onteora)] Principles of Home Decoration With Practical Examples By Candace Wheeler New York Doubleday, Page & Company 1903 Published February 1903 CONTENTS CHAPTER I. Decoration as an Art. Decoration in American Homes. Woman's Influence in Decoration. CHAPTER II. Character in Homes. CHAPTER III. Builders' Houses. Expedients. CHAPTER IV. Colour in Houses. Colour as a Science. Colour as an Influence. CHAPTER V. The Law of Appropriateness. Cleanliness and Harmony Tastefully Combined. Bedroom Furnished in Accordance with Individual Tastes. CHAPTER VI. Kitchens. Treatment of Walls from a Hygienic Point of View. CHAPTER VII. Colour with Reference to Light. Examples of the Effects of Light on Colour. Gradation of Colour. CHAPTER VIII. Walls, Ceilings and Floors. Treatment and Decoration of Walls. Use of Tapestry. Leather and Wall-Papers. Panels of Wood, Painted Walls. Textiles. CHAPTER IX. Location of the House. Decoration Influenced by Situation. CHAPTER X. Ceilings. Decorations in Harmony with Walls. Treatment in Accordance with Size of Room. CHAPTER XI. Floors and Floor Coverings. Treatment of Floors--Polished Wood, Mosaics. Judicious Selection of Rugs and Carpets. CHAPTER XII. Draperies. Importance of Appropriate Colours. Importance of Appropriate Textures. CHAPTER XIII Furniture. Character in Rooms. Harmony in Furniture. Comparison Between Antique and Modern Furniture. Treatment of the Different Rooms. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Dining-room in "Penny-royal" (Mrs. Boudinot Keith's cottage, Onteora) Hall in city house, showing effect of staircase divided and turned to rear Stenciled borders for hall and bathroom decorations Sitting-room in "Wild Wood," Onteora (belonging to Miss Luisita Leland) Large sitting-room in "Star Rock" (country house of W.E. Connor, Esq., Onteora) Painted canvas frieze and buckram frieze for dining-room Square hall in city house Colonial chairs and sofa (belonging to Mrs. Ruth McEnery Stuart) Colonial mantel and English hob-grate (sitting-room in Mrs. Candace Wheeler's house) Sofa designed by Mrs. Candace Wheeler, for N.Y. Library in "Woman's Building," Columbia Exposition Rustic sofa and tables in "Penny-royal" (Mrs. Boudinot Keith's cottage, Onteora) Dining-room in "Star Rock" (country house of W.E. Connor, Esq., Onteora) Dining-room in New York house showing leaded-glass windows Dining-room in New York home showing carved wainscoting and painted frieze Screen and glass windows in house at Lakewood (belonging to Clarence Root, Esq.) Principles of Home Decoration CHAPTER I DECORATION AS AN ART "_Who creates a Home, creates a potent spirit which in turn doth fashion him that fashioned._" Probably no art has so few masters as that of decoration. In England, Morris was for many years the great leader, but among his followers in England no one has attained the dignity of unquestioned authority; and in America, in spite of far more general practice of the art, we still are without a leader whose very name establishes law. It is true we are free to draw inspiration from the same sources which supplied Morris and the men associated with him in his enthusiasms, and in fact we do lean, as they did, upon English eighteenth-century domestic art--and derive from the men who made that period famous many of our articles of faith; but there are almost no authoritative books upon the subject of appropriate modern decoration. Our text books are still to be written; and one must glean knowledge from many sources, shape it into rules, and test the rules, before adopting them as safe guides. Yet in spite of the absence of authoritative teaching, we have learned that an art dependent upon other arts, as decoration is upon building and architecture, is bound to follow the principles which govern them. We must base our work upon what has already been done, select our decorative forms from appropriate periods, conform our use of colour to the principles of colour, and be able to choose and apply all manufactures in accordance with the great law of appropriateness. If we do this, we stand upon something capable of evolution and the creation of a system. In so far as the principles of decoration are derived from other arts, they can be acquired by every one, but an exquisite feeling in their application is the distinguishing quality of the true decorator. There is quite a general impression that house-decoration is not an art which requires a long course of study and training, but some kind of natural knack of arrangement--a faculty of making things "look pretty," and that any one who has this faculty is amply qualified for "taking up house-decoration." Indeed, natural facility succeeds in satisfying many personal cravings for beauty, although it is not competent for general practice. Of course there are people, and many of them, who are gifted with an inherent sense of balance and arrangement, and a true eye for colour, and--given the same materials--such people will make a room pleasant and cozy, where one without these gifts would make it positively ugly. In so far, then, individual gifts are a great advantage, yet one possessing them in even an unusual degree may make great mistakes in decoration. What _not_ to do, in this day of almost universal experiment, is perhaps the most valuable lesson to the untrained decorator. Many of the rocks upon which he splits are down in no chart, and lie in the track of what seems to him perfectly plain sailing. There are houses of fine and noble exterior which are vulgarized by uneducated experiments in colour and ornament, and belittled by being filled with heterogeneous collections of unimportant art. Yet these very instances serve to emphasize the demand for beautiful surroundings, and in spite of mistakes and incongruities, must be reckoned as efforts toward a desirable end. In spite of a prevalent want of training, it is astonishing how much we have of good interior decoration, not only in houses of great importance, but in those of people of average fortunes--indeed, it is in the latter that we get the general value of the art. This comparative excellence is to be referred to the very general acquirement of what we call "art cultivation" among American women, and this, in conjunction with a knowledge that her social world will be apt to judge of her capacity by her success or want of success in making her own surroundings beautiful, determines the efforts of the individual woman. She feels that she is expected to prove her superiority by living in a home distinguished for beauty as well as for the usual orderliness and refinement. Of course this sense of obligation is a powerful spur to the exercise of natural gifts, and if in addition to these she has the habit of reasoning upon the principles of things, and is sufficiently cultivated in the literature of art to avoid unwarrantable experiment, there is no reason why she should not be successful in her own surroundings. The typical American, whether man, or woman, has great natural facility, and when the fact is once recognized that beauty--like education--can dignify any circumstances, from the narrowest to the most opulent, it becomes one of the objects of life to secure it. _How_ this is done depends upon the talent and cultivation of the family, and this is often adequate for excellent results. It is quite possible that so much general ability may discourage the study of decoration as a precise form of art, since it encourages the idea that The House Beautiful can be secured by any one who has money to pay for processes, and possesses what is simply designated as "good taste." We do not find this impulse toward the creation of beautiful interiors as noticeable in other countries as in America. The instinct of self-expression is much stronger in us than in other races, and for that reason we cannot be contented with the utterances of any generation, race or country save our own. We gather to ourselves what we personally enjoy or wish to enjoy, and will not take our domestic environment at second hand. It follows that there is a certain difference and originality in our methods, which bids fair to acquire distinct character, and may in the future distinguish this art-loving period as a maker of style. A successful foreign painter who has visited this country at intervals during the last ten years said, "There is no such uniformity of beautiful interiors anywhere else in the world. There are palaces in France and Italy, and great country houses in England, to the embellishment of which generations of owners have devoted the best art of their own time; but in America there is something of it everywhere. Many unpretentious houses have drawing-rooms possessing colour-decoration which would distinguish them as examples in England or France." To Americans this does not seem a remarkable fact. We have come into a period which desires beauty, and each one secures it as best he can. We are a teachable and a studious people, with a faculty of turning "general information" to account; and general information upon art matters has had much to do with our good interiors. We have, perhaps half unconsciously, applied fundamental principles to our decoration, and this may be as much owing to natural good sense as to cultivation. We have a habit of reasoning about things, and acting upon our conclusions, instead of allowing the rest of the world to do the reasoning while we adopt the result. It is owing to this conjunction of love for and cultivation of art, and the habit of materializing what we wish, that we have so many thoroughly successful interiors, which have been accomplished almost without aid from professional artists. It is these, instead of the smaller number of costly interiors, which give the reputation of artistic merit to our homes. Undoubtedly the largest proportion of successful as well as unsuccessful domestic art in our country is due to the efforts of women. In the great race for wealth which characterizes our time, it is demanded that women shall make it effective by so using it as to distinguish the family; and nothing distinguishes it so much as the superiority of the home. This effort adheres to small as well as large fortunes, and in fact the necessity is more pronounced in the case of mediocre than of great ones. In the former there is something to be made up--some protest of worth and ability and intelligence that helps many a home to become beautiful. As I have said, a woman feels that the test of her capacity is that her house shall not only be comfortable and attractive, but that it shall be arranged according to the laws of harmony and beauty. It is as much the demand of the hour as that she shall be able to train her children according to the latest and most enlightened theories, or that she shall take part in public and philanthropic movements, or understand and have an opinion on political methods. These are things which are expected of every woman who makes a part of society; and no less is it expected that her house shall be an appropriate and beautiful setting for her personality, a credit to her husband, and an unconscious education for her children. But it happens that means of education in all of these directions, except that of decoration, are easily available. A woman can become a member of a kindergarten association, and get from books and study the result of scientific knowledge of child-life and training. She can find means to study the ethics of her relations to her kind and become an effective philanthropist, or join the league for political education and acquire a more or less enlightened understanding of politics; but who is to formulate for her the science of beauty, to teach her how to make the interior aspect of her home perfect in its adaptation to her circumstances, and as harmonious in colour and arrangement as a song without words? She feels that these conditions create a mental atmosphere serene and yet inspiring, and that such surroundings are as much her birthright and that of her children as food and clothing of a grade belonging to their circumstances, but how is it to be compassed? Most women ask themselves this question, and fail to understand that it is as much of a marvel when a woman without training or experience creates a good interior _as a whole_, as if an amateur in music should compose an opera. It is not at all impossible for a woman of good taste--and it must be remembered that this word means an educated or cultivated power of selection--to secure harmonious or happily contrasted colour in a room, and to select beautiful things in the way of furniture and belongings; but what is to save her from the thousand and one mistakes possible to inexperience in this combination of things which make lasting enjoyment and appropriate perfection in a house? How can she know which rooms will be benefited by sombre or sunny tints, and which exposure will give full sway to her favourite colour or colours? How can she have learned the reliability or want of reliability in certain materials or processes used in decoration, or the rules of treatment which will modify a low and dark room and make it seem light and airy, or "bring down" too high a ceiling and widen narrow walls so as to apparently correct disproportion? These things are the results of laws which she has never studied--laws of compensation and relation, which belong exclusively to the world of colour, and unfortunately they are not so well formulated that they can be committed to memory like rules of grammar; yet all good colour-practice rests upon them as unquestionably as language rests upon grammatical construction. Of course one may use colour as one can speak a language, purely by imitation and memory, but it is not absolutely reliable practice; and just here comes in the necessity for professional advice. There are many difficulties in the accomplishment of a perfect house-interior which few householders have had the time or experience to cope with, and yet the fact remains that each mistress of a house believes that unless she vanquishes all difficulties and comes out triumphantly with colours flying at the housetop and enjoyment and admiration following her efforts, she has failed in something which she should have been perfectly able to accomplish. But the obligation is certainly a forced one. It is the result of the modern awakening to the effect of many heretofore unrecognized influences in our lives and the lives and characters of our children. A beautiful home is undoubtedly a great means of education, and of that best of all education which is unconscious. To grow up in such a one means a much more complete and perfect man or woman than would be possible without that particular influence. But a perfect home is never created all at once and by one person, and let the anxious house-mistress take comfort in the thought. She should also remember that it is in the nature of beauty to _grow_, and that a well-rounded and beautiful family life adds its quota day by day. Every book, every sketch or picture--every carefully selected or characteristic object brought into the home adds to and makes a part of a beautiful whole, and no house can be absolutely perfect without all these evidences of family life. It can be made ready for them, completely and perfectly ready, by professional skill and knowledge; but if it remained just where the interior artist or decorator left it, it would have no more of the sentiment of domesticity than a statue. CHAPTER II CHARACTER IN HOUSES "_For the created still doth shadow forth the mind and will which made it._ "_Thou art the very mould of thy creator_." It needs the combined personality of the family to make the character of the house. No one could say of a house which has family character, "It is one of ----'s houses" (naming one or another successful decorator), because the decorator would have done only what it was his business to do--used technical and artistic knowledge in preparing a proper and correct background for family life. Even in doing that, he must consult family tastes and idiosyncracies if he has the reverence for individuality which belongs to the true artist. A domestic interior is a thing to which he should give knowledge and not personality, and the puzzled home-maker, who understands that her world expects correct use of means of beauty, as well as character and originality in her home, need not feel that to secure the one she must sacrifice the other. An inexperienced person might think it an easy thing to make a beautiful home, because the world is full of beautiful art and manufactures, and if there is money to pay for them it would seem as easy to furnish a house with everything beautiful as to go out in the garden and gather beautiful flowers; but we must remember that the world is also full of ugly things--things false in art, in truth and in beauty--things made to _sell_--made with only this idea behind them, manufactured on the principle that an artificial fly is made to look something like a true one in order to catch the inexpert and the unwary. It is a curious fact that these false things--manufactures without honesty, without knowledge, without art--have a property of demoralizing the spirit of the home, and that to make it truly beautiful everything in it must be genuine as well as appropriate, and must also fit into some previously considered scheme of use and beauty. The esthetic or beautiful aspect of the home, in short, must be created through the mind of the family or owner, and is only maintained by its or his susceptibility to true beauty and appreciation of it. It must, in fact, be a visible mould of invisible matter, like the leaf-mould one finds in mineral springs, which show the wonderful veining, branching, construction and delicacy of outline in a way which one could hardly be conscious of in the actual leaf. If the grade or dignity of the home requires professional and scholarly art direction, the problem is how to use this professional or artistic advice without delivering over the entire creation into stranger or alien hands; without abdicating the right and privilege of personal expression. If the decorator appreciates this right, his function will be somewhat akin to that of the portrait painter; both are bound to represent the individual or family in their performances, each artist using the truest and best methods of art with the added gift of grace or charm of colour which he possesses, the one giving the physical aspect of his client and the other the mental characteristics, circumstances, position and life of the house-owner and his family. This is the true mission of the decorator, although it is not always so understood. What is called business talent may lead him to invent schemes of costliness which relate far more to his own profit than to the wishes or character of the house-owner. But it is not always that the assistance of the specialist in decoration and furnishing is necessary. There are many homes where both are quite within the scope of the ordinary man or woman of taste. In fact, the great majority of homes come within these lines, and it is to such home-builders that rules, not involving styles, are especially of use. The principles of truth and harmony, which underlie all beauty, may be secured in the most inexpensive cottage as well as in the broadest and most imposing residence. Indeed, the cottage has the advantage of that most potent ally of beauty--simplicity--a quality which is apt to be conspicuously absent from the schemes of decoration for the palace. CHAPTER III BUILDERS' HOUSES "_Mine own hired house_." A large proportion of homes are made in houses which are not owned, but leased, and this prevents each man or family from indicating personal taste in external aspect. A rich man and house-owner may approximate to a true expression of himself even in the outside of his house if he strongly desires it, but a man of moderate means must adapt himself and his family to the house-builder's idea of houses--that is to say, to the idea of the man who has made house-building a trade, and whose experiences have created a form into which houses of moderate cost and fairly universal application may be cast. Although it is as natural to a man to build or acquire a home as to a bird to build a nest, he has not the same unfettered freedom in construction. He cannot always adapt his house either to the physical or mental size of his family, but must accept what is possible with much the same feeling with which a family of robins might accommodate themselves to a wren's nest, or an oriole to that of a barn-swallow. But the fact remains, that all these accidental homes must, in some way, be brought into harmony with the lives to be lived in them, and the habits and wants of the family; and not only this, they must be made attractive according to the requirements of cultivated society. The effort toward this is instructive, and the pleasure in and enjoyment of the home depends upon the success of the effort. The inmates, as a rule, are quite clear as to what they want to accomplish, but have seldom had sufficient experience to enable them to remedy defects of construction. There are expedients by which many of the malformations and uglinesses of the ordinary "builder's house" may be greatly ameliorated, various small surgical operations which will remedy badly planned rooms, and dispositions of furniture which will restore proportion. We can even, by judicious distribution of planes of colour, apparently lower or raise a ceiling, and widen or lengthen a room, and these expedients, which belong partly to the experience of the decorator, are based upon laws which can easily be formulated. Every one can learn something of them by the study of faulty rooms and the enjoyment of satisfactory ones. Indeed, I know no surer or more agreeable way of getting wisdom in the art of decoration than by tracing back sensation to its source, and finding out why certain things are utterly satisfactory, and certain others a positive source of discomfort. In what are called the "best houses" we can make our deductions quite as well as in the most faulty, and sometimes get a lesson of avoidance and a warning against law-breaking which will be quite as useful as if it were learned in less than the best. There is one fault very common in houses which date from a period of some forty or fifty years back, a fault of disproportionate height of ceilings. In a modern house, if one room is large enough to require a lofty ceiling, the architect will manage to make his second floor upon different levels, so as not to inflict the necessary height of large rooms upon narrow halls and small rooms, which should have only a height proportioned to their size. A ten-foot room with a thirteen-foot ceiling makes the narrowness of the room doubly apparent; one feels shut up between two walls which threaten to come together and squeeze one between them, while, on the other hand, a ten-foot room with a nine-foot ceiling may have a really comfortable and cozy effect. In this case, what is needed is to get rid of the superfluous four feet, and this can be done by cheating the eye into an utter forgetfulness of them. There must be horizontal divisions of colour which attract the attention and make one oblivious of what is above them. Every one knows the effect of a paper with perpendicular stripes in apparently heightening a ceiling which is too low, but not every one is equally aware of the contrary effect of horizontal lines of varied surface. But in the use of perpendicular lines it is well to remember that, if the room is small, it will appear still smaller if the wall is divided into narrow spaces by vertical lines. If it is large and the ceiling simply low for the size of the room, a good deal can be done by long, simple lines of drapery in curtains and portieres, or in choosing a paper where the composition of design is perpendicular rather than diagonal. To apparently lower a high ceiling in a small room, the wall should be treated horizontally in different materials. Three feet of the base can be covered with coarse canvas or buckram and finished with a small wood moulding. Six feet of plain wall above this, painted the same shade as the canvas, makes the space of which the eye is most aware. This space should be finished with a picture moulding, and the four superfluous feet of wall above it must be treated as a part of the ceiling. The cream-white of the actual ceiling should be brought down on the side walls for a space of two feet, and this has the effect of apparently enlarging the room, since the added mass of light tint seems to broaden it. There still remain two feet of space between the picture moulding and ceiling-line which may be treated as a _ceiling-border_ in inconspicuous design upon the same cream ground, the design to be in darker, but of the same tint as the ceiling. The floor in such a room as this should either be entirely covered with plain carpeting, or, if it has rugs at all, there should be several, as one single rug, not entirely covering the floor, would have the effect of confining the apparent size of the room to the actual size of the rug. If the doors and windows in such a room are high and narrow, they can be made to come into the scheme by placing the curtain and portiere rods below the actual height and covering the upper space with thin material, either full or plain, of the same colour as the upper wall. A brocaded muslin, stained or dyed to match the wall, answers this purpose admirably, and is really better in its place than the usual expedient of stained glass or open-work wood transom. A good expedient is to have the design already carried around the wall painted in the same colour upon a piece of stretched muslin. This is simple but effective treatment, and is an instance of the kind of thought or knowledge that must be used in remedying faults of construction. Colour has much to do with the apparent size of rooms, a room in light tints always appearing to be larger than a deeply coloured one. Perhaps the most difficult problem in adaptation is the high, narrow city house, built and decorated by the block by the builder, who is also a speculator in real estate, and whose activity was chiefly exercised before the ingenious devices of the modern architect were known. These houses exist in quantities in our larger and older cities, and mere slices of space as they are, are the theatres where the home-life of many refined and beauty-loving intelligences must be played. In such houses as these, the task of fitting them to the cultivated eyes and somewhat critical tests of modern society generally falls to the women who represent the family, and calls for an amount of ability which would serve to build any number of creditable houses; yet this is constantly being done and well done for not one, but many families. I know one such, which is quite a model of a charming city home and yet was evolved from one of the worst of its kind and period. In this case the family had fallen heir to the house and were therefore justified in the one radical change which metamorphosed the entrance-hall, from a long, narrow passage, with an apparently interminable stairway occupying half its width, to a small reception-hall seemingly enlarged by a judicious placing of the mirrors which had formerly been a part of the "fixtures" of the parlour and dining-room. [Illustration: HALL IN CITY HOUSE SHOWING EFFECT OF STAIRCASE DIVIDED AND TURNED TO REAR] The reception-room was accomplished by cutting off the lower half of the staircase, which had extended itself to within three feet of the front door, and turning it directly around, so that it ends at the back instead of the front of the hall. The two cut ends are connected by a platform, thrown across from wall to wall, and furnished with a low railing of carved panels, and turned spindles, which gives a charming balcony effect. The passage to the back hall and stairs passes under the balcony and upper end of the staircase, while the space under the lower stair-end, screened by a portière, adds a coat-closet to the conveniences of the reception-hall. This change was not a difficult thing to accomplish, it was simply an _expedient_, but it has the value of carefully planned construction, and reminds one of the clever utterance of the immortal painter who said, "I never lose an accident." Indeed the ingenious home-maker often finds that the worse a thing is, the better it can be made by competent and careful study. To complete and adapt incompetent things to orderliness and beauty, to harmonise incongruous things into a perfect whole requires and exercises ability of a high order, and the consciousness of its possession is no small satisfaction. That it is constantly being done shows how much real cleverness is necessary to ordinary life--and reminds one of the patriotic New York state senator who declared that it required more ability to cross Broadway safely at high tide, than to be a great statesman. And truly, to make a good house out of a poor one, or a beautiful interior from an ugly one, requires far more thought, and far more original talent, than to decorate an important new one. The one follows a travelled path--the other makes it. Of course competent knowledge saves one from many difficulties; and faults of construction must be met by knowledge, yet this is often greatly aided by natural cleverness, and in the course of long practice in the decorative arts, I have seen such refreshing and charming results from thoughtful untrained intelligence,--I might almost say inspiration,--that I have great respect for its manifestations; especially when exercised in un-authoritative fashion. CHAPTER IV COLOUR IN HOUSES _"Heaven gives us of its colour, for our joy, Hues which have words and speak to ye of heaven."_ Although the very existence of a house is a matter of construction, its general interior effect is almost entirely the result of colour treatment and careful and cultivated selection of accessories. Colour in the house includes much that means furniture, in the way of carpets, draperies, and all the modern conveniences of civilization, but as it precedes and dictates the variety of all these things from the authoritative standpoint of wall treatment, it is well to study its laws and try to reap the full benefit of its influence. As far as effect is concerned, the colour of a room creates its atmosphere. It may be cheerful or sad, cosy or repellent according to its quality or force. Without colour it is only a bare canvas, which might, but does not picture our lives. We understand many of the properties of colour, and have unconsciously learned some of its laws;--but what may be called the _science_ of colour has never been formulated. So far as we understand it, its principles correspond curiously to those of melodious sound. It is as impossible to produce the best effect from one tone or colour, as to make a melody upon one note of the harmonic scale; it is skilful _variation_ of tone, the gradation or even judicious opposition of tint which gives exquisite satisfaction to the eye. In music, sequence produces this effect upon the ear, and in colour, juxtaposition and gradation upon the eye. Notes follow notes in melody as shade follows shade in colour. We find no need of even different names for the qualities peculiar to the two; scale--notes--tones--harmonies--the words express effects common to colour as well as to music, but colour has this advantage, that its harmonies can be _fixed_, they do not die with the passing moment; once expressed they remain as a constant and ever-present delight. Notes of the sound-octave have been gathered by the musicians from widely different substances, and carefully linked in order and sequence to make a harmonious scale which may be learned; but the painter, conscious of colour-harmonies, has as yet no written law by which he can produce them. The "born colourist" is one who without special training, or perhaps in spite of it, can unerringly combine or oppose tints into compositions which charm the eye and satisfy the sense. Even among painters it is by no means a common gift. It is almost more rare to find a picture distinguished for its harmony and beauty of colour, than to see a room in which nothing jars and everything works together for beauty. It seems strange that this should be a rarer personal gift than the musical sense, since nature apparently is far more lavish of her lessons for the eye than for the ear; and it is curious that colour, which at first sight seems a more apparent and simple fact than music, has not yet been written. Undoubtedly there is a colour scale, which has its sharps and flats, its high notes and low notes, its chords and discords, and it is not impossible that in the future science may make it a means of regulated and written harmonies:--that some master colourist who has mechanical and inventive genius as well, may so arrange them that they can be played by rule; that colour may have its Mozart or Beethoven--its classic melodies, its familiar tunes. The musician, as I have said--has gathered his tones from every audible thing in nature--and fitted and assorted and built them into a science; and why should not some painter who is also a scientist take the many variations of colour which lie open to his sight, and range and fit and combine, and write the formula, so that a child may read it? We already know enough to be very sure that the art is founded upon laws, although they are not thoroughly understood. Principles of masses, spaces, and gradations underlie all accidental harmonies of colour;--just as in music, the simple, strong, under-chords of the bass must be the ground for all the changes and trippings of the upper melodies. It is easy, if one studies the subject, to see how the very likeness of these two esthetic forces illustrate the laws of each,--in the principles of relation, gradation, and scale. Until very recently the relation of colour to the beauty of a house interior was quite unrecognised. If it existed in any degree of perfection it was an accident, a result of the softening and beautifying effect of time, or of harmonious human living. Where it existed, it was felt as a mysterious charm belonging to the home; something which pervaded it, but had no separate being; an attractive ghost which attached itself to certain houses, followed certain people, came by chance, and was a mystery which no one understood, but every one acknowledged. Now we know that this something which distinguished particular rooms, and made beautiful particular houses, was a definite result of laws of colour accidentally applied. To avail ourselves of this influence upon the moods and experiences of life is to use a power positive in its effects as any spiritual or intellectual influence. It gives the kind of joy we find in nature, in the golden-green of light under tree-branches, or the mingled green and gray of tree and rock shadows, or the pearl and rose of sunrise and sunset. We call the deep content which results from such surroundings the influence of nature, and forget to name the less spiritual, the more human condition of well-being which comes to us in our homes from being surrounded with something which in a degree atones for lack of nature's beauty. It is a different well-being, and lacks the full tide of electric enjoyment which comes from living for the hour under the sky and in the breadths of space, but it atones by substituting something of our own invention, which surprises us by its compensations, and confounds us by its power. CHAPTER V THE LAW OF APPROPRIATENESS I have laid much stress upon the value of colour in interior decoration, but to complete the beauty of the home something more than happy choice of tints is required. It needs careful and educated selection of furniture and fittings, and money enough to indulge in the purchase of an intrinsically good thing instead of a medium one. It means even something more than the love of beauty and cultivation of it, and that is a perfect adherence to the _law of appropriateness_. This is, after all, the most important quality of every kind of decoration, the one binding and general condition of its accomplishment. It requires such a careful fitting together of all the means of beauty as to leave no part of the house, whatever may be its use, without the same care for appropriate completeness which goes to the more apparent features. The cellar, the kitchen, the closets, the servants' bedrooms must all share in the thought which makes the genuinely beautiful home and the genuinely perfect life. It must be possible to go from the top to the bottom of the house, finding everywhere agreeable, suitable, and thoughtful furnishings. The beautiful house must consider the family as a whole, and not make a museum of rare and costly things in the drawing-room, the library, the dining-room and family bedrooms, leaving that important part of the whole machinery, the service, untouched by the spirit of beauty. The same care in choice of colour will be as well bestowed on the servants' floor as on those devoted to the family, and curtains, carpets and furniture may possess as much beauty and yet be perfectly appropriate to servants' use. On this upper floor, it goes almost without saying, that the walls must be painted in oil-colour instead of covered with paper. That the floors should be uncarpeted except for bedside rugs which are easily removable. That bedsteads should be of iron, the mattress with changeable covers, the furniture of painted and enameled instead of polished wood, and in short the conditions of healthful cleanliness as carefully provided as if the rooms were in a hospital instead of a private house--but the added comfort of carefully chosen wall colour, and bright, harmonizing, washable chintz in curtains and bed-covers. These things have an influence upon the spirit of the home; they are a part of its spiritual beauty, giving a satisfied and approving consciousness to the home-makers, and a sense of happiness in the service of the family. In the average, or small house, there is room for much improvement in the treatment and furnishing of servants' bedrooms; and this is not always from indifference, but because they are out of daily sight, and also from a belief that it would add seriously to the burden of housekeeping to see that they are kept up to the standard of family sleeping-rooms. In point of fact, however, good surroundings are potent civilizers, and a house-servant whose room is well and carefully furnished feels an added value in herself, which makes her treat herself respectfully in the care of her room. If it pleases her, the training she receives in the care of family rooms will be reflected in her own, and painstaking arrangements made for her pleasure will perhaps be recognised as an obligation. Of course the fact must be recognised, that the occupant is not always a permanent one; that it may at times be a fresh importation directly from a city tenement; therefore, everything in the room should be able to sustain very radical treatment in the way of scrubbing and cleaning. Wall papers, unwashable rugs and curtains are out of the question; yet even with these limitations it is possible to make a charming and reasonably inexpensive room, which would be attractive to cultivated as well as uncultivated taste. It is in truth mostly a matter of colour; of coloured walls, and harmonising furniture and draperies, which are in themselves well adapted to their place. As I have said elsewhere, the walls in a servant's bedroom--and preferably in any sleeping-room--should for sanitary reasons be painted in oil colours, but the possibilities of decorative treatment in this medium are by no means limited. All of the lighter shades of green, blue, yellow, and rose are as permanent, and as easily cleaned, as the dull grays and drabs and mud-colours which are often used upon bedroom walls--especially those upper ones which are above the zone of ornament, apparently under the impression that there is virtue in their very ugliness. "A good clean gray" some worthy housewife will instruct the painter to use, and the result will be a dead mixture of various lively and pleasant tints, any one of which might be charming if used separately, or modified with white. A small room with walls of a very light spring green, or a pale turquoise blue, or white with the dash of vermilion and touch of yellow ochre which produces salmon-pink, is quite as durably and serviceably coloured as if it were chocolate-brown, or heavy lead-colour; indeed its effect upon the mind is like a spring day full of sunshine instead of one dark with clouds or lowering storms. The rule given elsewhere for colour in light or dark exposure will hold good for service bedrooms as well as for the important rooms of the house. That is; if a bedroom for servants' use is on the north or shadowed side of the house, let the colour be salmon or rose pink, cream white, or spring green; but if it is on the sunny side, the tint should be turquoise, or pale blue, or a grayish-green, like the green of a field of rye. With such walls, a white iron bedstead, enameled furniture, curtains of white, or a flowered chintz which repeats or contrasts with the colour of the walls, bedside and bureau rugs of the tufted cotton which is washable, or of the new rag-rugs of which the colours are "water fast," the room is absolutely good, and can be used as an influence upon a lower or higher intelligence. As a matter of utility the toilet service should be always of white; so that there will be no chance for the slovenly mismatching which results from breakage of any one of the different pieces, when of different colours. A handleless or mis-matched pitcher will change the entire character of a room and should never be tolerated. If the size of the room will warrant it, a rocking-chair or easy-chair should always be part of its equipment, and the mattress and bed-springs should be of a quality to give ease to tired bones, for these things have to do with the spirit of the house. It may be said that the colouring and furnishing of the servants' bedroom is hardly a part of house decoration, but in truth house decoration at its best is a means of happiness, and no householder can achieve permanent happiness without making the service of the family sharers in it. What I have said with regard to painted walls in plain tints applies to bedrooms of every grade, but where something more than merely agreeable colour effect is desired a stencilled decoration from the simplest to the most elaborate can be added. There are many ways of using this method, some of which partake very largely of artistic effect; indeed a thoroughly good stencil pattern may reproduce the best instances of design, and in the hands of a skilful workman who knows how to graduate and vary contrasting or harmonising tints it becomes a very artistic method and deserves a place of high honour in the art of decoration. [Illustration: 1, AND 2, STENCILED BORDERS FOR BATH-ROOM DECORATION: 3, 4, AND 5, STENCILED BORDERS FOR HALLS (BY DUNHAM WHEELER)] Its simplest form is that of a stencilled border in flat tints used either in place of a cornice or as the border of a wall-paper is used. This, of course, is a purely mechanical performance, and one with which every house-painter is familiar. After this we come to borders of repeating design used as friezes. This can be done with the most delicate and delightful effect, although the finished wall will still be capable of withstanding the most energetic annual scrubbing. Frieze borders of this kind starting with strongly contrasting colour at the top and carried downward through gradually fading tints until they are lost in the general colour of the wall have an openwork grille effect which is very light and graceful. There are infinite possibilities in the use of stencil design without counting the introduction of gold and silver, and bronzes of various iridescent hues which are more suitable for rooms of general use than for bedrooms. Indeed in sleeping-rooms the use of metallic colour is objectionable because it will not stand washing and cleaning without defacement. The ideal bedroom is one that if the furniture were removed a stream of water from a hose might be played upon its walls and ceiling without injury. I always remember with pleasure a pink and silver room belonging to a young girl, where the salmon-pink walls were deepened in colour at the top into almost a tint of vermilion which had in it a trace of green. It was, in fact, an addition of spring green dropped into the vermilion and carelessly stirred, so that it should be mixed but not incorporated. Over this shaded and mixed colour for the space of three feet was stencilled a fountain-like pattern in cream-white, the arches of the pattern rilled in with almost a lace-work of design. The whole upper part had an effect like carved alabaster and was indescribably light and graceful. The bed and curtain-rods of silver-lacquer, and the abundant silver of the dressing-table gave a frosty contrast which was necessary in a room of so warm a general tone. This is an example of very delicate and truly artistic treatment of stencil-work, and one can easily see how it can be used either in simple or elaborate fashion with great effect. Irregularly placed floating forms of Persian or Arabic design are often admirably stencilled in colour upon a painted wall; but in this case the colours should be varied and not too strong. A group of forms floating away from a window-frame or cornice can be done in two shades of the wall colour, one of which is positively darker and one lighter than the ground. If to these two shades some delicately contrasting colour is occasionally added the effect is not only pleasing, but belongs to a thoroughly good style. One seldom tires of a good stencilled wall; probably because it is intrinsic, and not applied in the sense of paper or textiles. It carries an air of permanency which discourages change or experiment, but it requires considerable experience in decoration to execute it worthily; and not only this, there should be a strong feeling for colour and taste and education in the selection of design, for though the form of the stencilled pattern may be graceful, and gracefully combined, it must always--to be permanently satisfactory--have a geometrical basis. It is somewhat difficult to account for the fact that what we call natural forms, of plants and flowers, which are certainly beautiful and graceful in themselves, and grow into shapes which delight us with their freedom and beauty, do not give the best satisfaction as motives for interior decoration. Construction in the architectural sense--the strength and squareness of walls, ceilings, and floors--seem to reject the yielding character of design founded upon natural forms, and demand something which answers more sympathetically to their own qualities. Perhaps it is for this reason that we find the grouping and arrangement of horizontal and perpendicular lines and blocks in the old Greek borders so everlastingly satisfactory. It is the principle or requirement, of geometric base in interior design which, coupled with our natural delight in yielding or growing forms, has maintained through all the long history of decoration what is called conventionalised flower design. We find this in every form or method of decorative art, from embroidery to sculpture, from the Lotus of Egypt to the Rose of England, and although it results in a sort of crucifixion of the natural beauty of the flower, in the hands of great designers it has become an authoritative style of art. Of course, there are flower-forms which are naturally geometric, which have conventionalised themselves. Many of the intricate Moorish frets and Indian carvings are literal translations of flower-forms geometrically repeated, and here they lend themselves so perfectly to the decoration of even exterior walls that the fretted arches of some Eastern buildings seem almost to have grown of themselves, with all their elaboration, into the world of nature and art. The separate flowers of the gracefully tossing lilac plumes, and the five-and six-leaved flowers of the pink, have become in this way a very part of the everlasting walls, as the acanthus leaf has become the marble blossom of thousands of indestructible columns. These are the classics of design and hold the same relation to ornament printed on paper and silk that we find in the music of the Psalms, as compared with the tinkle of the ballad. There are other methods of decoration in oils which will meet the wants of the many who like to exercise their own artistic feelings and ability in their houses or rooms. The painting of flower-friezes upon canvas which can afterward be mounted upon the wall is a never-ending source of pleasure; and many of these friezes have a charm and intimacy which no merely professional painter can rival. These are especially suitable for bedrooms, since there they may be as personal as the inmate pleases without undue unveiling of thoughts, fancies, or personal experiences to the public. A favourite flower or a favourite motto or selection may be the motive of a charming decoration, if the artist has sufficient art-knowledge to subordinate it to its architectural juxtaposition. A narrow border of fixed repeating forms like a rug-border will often fulfil the necessity for architectural lines, and confine the flower-border into limits which justify its freedom of composition. If one wishes to mount a favourite motto or quotation on the walls, where it may give constant suggestion or pleasure--or even be a help to thoughtful and conscientious living--there can be no better fashion than the style of the old illuminated missals. Dining-rooms and chimney-pieces are often very appropriately decorated in this way; the words running on scrolls which are half unrolled and half hidden, and showing a conventionalised background of fruit and flowers. In all these things the _knowingness_, which is the result of study, tells very strongly--and it is quite worth while to give a good deal of study to the subject of this kind of decoration before expending the requisite amount of work upon a painted frieze. Canvas friezes have the excellent merit of being not only durable and cleanable, but they belong to the category of pictures; to what Ruskin calls "portable art," and one need not grudge the devotion of considerable time, study, and effort to their doing, since they are really detachable property, and can be removed from one house or room and carried to another at the owner's or artist's will. There is room for the exercise of much artistic ability in this direction, as the fact of being able to paint the decoration in parts and afterward place it, makes it possible for an amateur to do much for the enhancement of her own house. More than any other room in the house, the bedroom will show personal character. Even when it is not planned for particular occupation, the characteristics of the inmate will write themselves unmistakably in the room. If the college boy is put in the white and gold bedroom for even a vacation period, there will shortly come into its atmosphere an element of sporting and out-of-door life. Banners and balls and bats, and emblems of the "wild thyme" order will colour its whiteness; and life of the growing kind make itself felt in the midst of sanctity. In the same way, girls would change the bare asceticism of a monk's cell into a bower of lilies and roses; a fit place for youth and unpraying innocence. The bedrooms of a house are a pretty sure test of the liberality of mind and understanding of character of the mother or house-ruler. As each room is in a certain sense the home of the individual occupant, almost the shell of his or her mind, there will be something narrow and despotic in the house-rules if this is not allowed. Yet, even individuality of taste and expression must scrupulously follow sanitary laws in the furnishing of the bedroom. "Stuffy things" of any sort should be avoided. The study should be to make it beautiful without such things, and a liberal use of washable textiles in curtains, portières, bed and table covers, will give quite as much sense of luxury as heavily papered walls and costly upholstery. In fact, one may run through all the variations from the daintiest and most befrilled and elegant of guests' bedrooms, to the "boys' room," which includes all or any of the various implements of sport or the hobbies of the boy collector, and yet keep inviolate the principles of harmony, colour, and appropriateness to use, and so accomplish beauty. The absolute ruling of light, air, and cleanliness are quite compatible with individual expression. It is this characteristic aspect of the different rooms which makes up the beauty of the house as a whole. If the purpose of each is left to develop itself through good conditions, the whole will make that most delightful of earthly things, a beautiful home. CHAPTER VI KITCHENS The kitchen is an important part of the perfect house and should be a recognised sharer in its quality of beauty; not alone the beauty which consists of a successful adaptation of means to ends, but the kind which is independently and positively attractive to the eye. In costly houses it is not hard to attain this quality or the rarer one of a union of beauty, with perfect adaptation to use; but where it must be reached by comparatively inexpensive methods, the difficulty is greater. Tiled walls, impervious to moisture, and repellent of fumes, are ideal boundaries of a kitchen, and may be beautiful in colour, as well as virtuous in conduct. They may even be laid with gradations of alluring mineral tints, but, of course, this is out of the question in cheap buildings; and in demonstrating the possibility of beauty and intrinsic merit in small and comparatively inexpensive houses, tiles and marbles must be ruled out of the scheme of kitchen perfection. Plaster, painted in agreeable tints of oil colour is commendable, but one can do better by covering the walls with the highly enamelled oil-cloth commonly used for kitchen tables and shelves. This material is quite marvellous in its combination of use and effect. Its possibilities were discovered by a young housewife whose small kitchen formed part of a city apartment, and whose practical sense was joined to a discursive imagination. After this achievement--which she herself did not recognise as a stroke of genius--she added a narrow shelf running entirely around the room, which carried a decorative row of blue willow-pattern plates. A dresser, hung with a graduated assortment of blue enamelled sauce-pans, and other kitchen implements of the same enticing ware, a floor covered with the heaviest of oil-cloth, laid in small diamond-shapes of blue, between blocks of white, like a mosaic pavement, were the features of a kitchen which was, and is, after several years of strenuous wear, a joy to behold. It was from the first, not only a delight to the clever young housewife and her friends, but it performed the miracle of changing the average servant into a careful and excellent one, zealous for the cleanliness and perfection of her small domain, and performing her kitchen functions with unexampled neatness. The mistress--who had standards of perfection in all things, whether great or small, and was moreover of Southern blood--confessed that her ideal of service in her glittering kitchen was not a clever red-haired Hibernian, but a slim mulatto, wearing a snow-white turban; and this longing seemed so reasonable, and so impressed my fancy, that whenever I think of the shining blue-and-silver kitchen, I seem to see within it the graceful sway of figure and coffee-coloured face which belongs to the half-breed African race, certain rare specimens of which are the most beautiful of domestic adjuncts. I have used this expedient of oil-cloth-covered walls--for which I am anxious to give the inventor due credit--in many kitchens, and certain bathrooms, and always with success. It must be applied as if it were wall-paper, except that, as it is a heavy material, the paste must be thicker. It is also well to have in it a small proportion of carbolic acid, both as a disinfectant and a deterrent to paste-loving mice, or any other household pest. The cloth must be carefully fitted into corners, and whatever shelving or wood fittings are used in the room, must be placed against it, after it is applied, instead of having the cloth cut and fitted around them. When well mounted, it makes a solid, porcelain-like wall, to which dust and dirt will not easily adhere, and which can be as easily and effectually cleaned as if it were really porcelain or marble. Such wall treatment will go far toward making a beautiful kitchen. Add to this a well-arranged dresser for blue or white kitchen china, with a closed cabinet for the heavy iron utensils which can hardly be included in any scheme of kitchen beauty; curtained cupboards and short window-hangings of blue, or "Turkey red"--which are invaluable for colour, and always washable; a painted floor--which is far better than oil-cloth, and one has the elements of a satisfactory scheme of beauty. A French kitchen, with its white-washed walls, its shining range and rows upon rows of gleaming copper-ware, is an attractive subject for a painter; and there is no reason why an American kitchen, in a house distinguished for beauty in all its family and semi-public rooms, should not also be beautiful in the rooms devoted to service. We can if we will make much even in a decorative way of our enamelled and aluminum kitchen-ware; we may hang it in graduated rows over the chimney-space--as the French cook parades her coppers--and arrange these necessary things with an eye to effect, while we secure perfect convenience of use. They are all pleasant of aspect if care and thought are devoted to their arrangement, and it is really of quite as much value to the family to have a charming and perfectly appointed kitchen, as to possess a beautiful and comfortable parlour or sitting-room. Every detail should be considered from the double point of view of use and effect. If the curtains answer the two purposes of shading sunlight, or securing privacy at night, and of giving pleasing colour and contrast to the general tone of the interior, they perform a double function, each of of which is valuable. If the chairs are chosen for strength and use, and are painted or stained to match the colour of the floor, they add to the satisfaction of the eye, as well as minister to the house service. A pursuance of this thought adds to the harmony of the house both in aspect and actual beauty of living. Of course in selecting such furnishings of the kitchen as chairs, one must bear in mind that even their legitimate use may include standing, as well as sitting upon them; that they may be made temporary resting-places for scrubbing pails, brushes, and other cleaning necessities, and therefore they must be made of painted wood; but this should not discourage the provision of a cane-seated rocking-chair for each servant, as a comfort for weary bones when the day's work is over. In establishments which include a servants' dining-or sitting-room, these moderate luxuries are a thing of course, but in houses where at most but two maids are employed they are not always considered, although they certainly should be. If a corner can be appropriated to evening leisure--where there is room for a small, brightly covered table, a lamp, a couple of rocking-chairs, work-baskets and a book or magazine, it answers in a small way to the family evening-room, where all gather for rest and comfort. There is no reason why the wall space above it should not have its cabinet for photographs and the usually cherished prayer-book which maids love both to possess and display. Such possessions answer exactly to the _bric-a-brac_ of the drawing-room; ministering to the same human instinct in its primitive form, and to the inherent enjoyment of the beautiful which is the line of demarcation between the tribes of animals and those of men. If one can use this distinctly human trait as a lever to raise crude humanity into the higher region of the virtues, it is certainly worth while to consider pots and pans from the point of view of their decorative ability. CHAPTER VII COLOUR WITH REFERENCE TO LIGHT In choosing colour for walls and ceilings, it is most necessary to consider the special laws which govern its application to house interiors. The tint of any particular room should be chosen not only with reference to personal liking, but first of all, to the quantity and quality of light which pervades it. A north room will require warm and bright treatment, warm reds and golden browns, or pure gold colours. Gold-colour used in sash curtains will give an effect of perfect sunshine in a dark and shadowy room, but the same treatment in a room fronting the south would produce an almost insupportable brightness. I will illustrate the modifications made necessary in tint by different exposure to light, by supposing that some one member of the family prefers yellow to all other colours, one who has enough of the chameleon in her nature to feel an instinct to bask in sunshine. I will also suppose that the room most conveniently devoted to the occupation of this member has a southern exposure. If yellow must be used in her room, the quality of it should be very different from that which could be properly and profitably used in a room with a northern exposure, and it should differ not only in intensity, but actually in tint. If it is necessary, on account of personal preference, to use yellow in a sunny room, it should be lemon, instead of ochre or gold-coloured yellow, because the latter would repeat sunlight. There are certain shades of yellow, where white has been largely used in the mixture, which are capable of greenish reflections. This is where the white is of so pure a quality as to suggest blue, and consequently under the influence of yellow to suggest green. We often find yellow dyes in silks the shadows of which are positive fawn colour or even green, instead of orange as we might expect; still, even with modifications, yellow should properly be reserved for sunless rooms, where it acts the part almost of the blessed sun itself in giving cheerfulness and light. Going from a sun-lighted atmosphere, or out of actual sunlight into a yellow room, one would miss the sense of shelter which is so grateful to eyes and senses a little dazzled by the brilliance of out-of-door lights; whereas a room darkened or shaded by a piazza, or somewhat chilled by a northern exposure and want of sun, would be warmed and comforted by tints of gold-coloured yellow. Interiors with a southern exposure should be treated with cool, light colours, blues in various shades, water-greens, and silvery tones which will contrast with the positive yellow of sunlight. It is by no means a merely arbitrary rule. Colours are actually warm or cold in temperature, as well as in effect upon the eye or the imagination, in fact the words cover a long-tested fact. I remember being told by a painter of his placing a red sunset landscape upon the flat roof of a studio building to dry, and on going to it a few hours afterward he found the surface of it so warm to the touch--so sensibly warmer than the gray and blue and green pictures around it--that he brought a thermometer to test it, and found it had acquired and retained heat. It was actually warmer by degrees than the gray and blue pictures in the same sun exposure. We instinctively wear warm colours in winter and dispense with them in summer, and this simple fact may explain the art which allots what we call warm colour to rooms without sun. When we say warm colours, we mean yellows, reds with all their gradations, gold or sun browns, and dark browns and black. When we say cool colours--whites, blues, grays, and cold greens--for greens may be warm or cold, according to their composition or intensity. A water-green is a cold colour, so is a pure emerald green, so also a blue-green; while an olive, or a gold-green comes into the category of warm colours. This is because it is a composite colour made of a union of warm and cold colours; the brown and yellow in its composition being in excess of the blue; as pink also, which is a mixture of red and white; and lavender, which is a mixture of red, white, and blue, stand as intermediate between two extremes. Having duly considered the effect of light upon colour, we may fearlessly choose tints for every room according to personal preferences or tastes. If we like one warm colour better than another, there is no reason why that one should not predominate in every room in the house which has a shadow exposure. If we like a cold colour it should be used in many of the sunny rooms. I believe we do not give enough importance to this matter of personal liking in tints. We select our friends from sympathy. As a rule, we do not philosophise much about it, although we may recognise certain principles in our liking; it is those to whom our hearts naturally open that we invite in and have joy in their companionship, and we might surely follow our likings in the matter of colour, as well as in friendship, and thereby add much to our happiness. Curiously enough we often speak of the colour of a mind--and I once knew a child who persisted in calling people by the names of colours; not the colour of their clothes, but some mind-tint which he felt. "The blue lady" was his especial favourite, and I have no doubt the presence or absence of that particular colour made a difference in his content all the days of his life. The colour one likes is better for tranquillity and enjoyment--more conducive to health; and exercises an actual living influence upon moods. For this reason, if no other, the colour of a room should never be arbitrarily prescribed or settled for the one who is to be its occupant. It should be as much a matter of _nature_ as the lining of a shell is to the mussel, or as the colour of the wings of a butterfly. In fact the mind which we cannot see may have a colour of its own, and it is natural that it should choose to dwell within its own influence. We do not know _why_ we like certain colours, but we do, and let that suffice, and let us live with them, as gratefully as we should for more explainable ministry. If colours which we like have a soothing effect upon us, those which we do not like are, on the other hand, an unwelcome influence. If a woman says in her heart, I hate green, or red, or I dislike any one colour, and then is obliged to live in its neighbourhood, she will find herself dwelling with an enemy. We all know that there are colours of which a little is enjoyable when a mass would be unendurable. Predominant scarlet would be like close companionship with a brass band, but a note of scarlet is one of the most valuable of sensations. The gray compounded of black and white would be a wet blanket to all bubble of wit or spring of fancy, but the shadows of rose colour are gray, pink-tinted it is true; indeed the shadow of pink used to be known by the name of _ashes of roses_. I remember seeing once in Paris--that home of bad general decoration--a room in royal purples; purple velvet on walls, furniture, and hangings. One golden Rembrandt in the middle of a long wall, and a great expanse of ochre-coloured parquetted floor were all that saved it from the suggestion of a royal tomb. As it was, I left the apartment with a feeling of treading softly as when we pass through a door hung with crape. Vagaries of this kind are remediable when they occur in cravats, or bonnets, or gloves--but a room in the wrong colour! Saints and the angels preserve us! [Illustration: SITTING-ROOM IN "WILD WOOD." ONTEORA (BELONGING TO MISS LUISITA LELAND)] The number, size, and placing of the windows will greatly affect the intensity of colour to be used. It must always be remembered that any interior is dark as compared with out-of-doors, and that in the lightest room there will be dark corners or spaces where the colour chosen as chief tint will seem much darker than it really is. A paper or textile chosen in a good light will look several shades darker when placed in large unbroken masses or spaces upon the wall, and a fully furnished room will generally be much darker when completed than might be expected in planning it. For this reason, in choosing a favourite tint, it is better on many accounts to choose it in as light a shade as one finds agreeable. It can be repeated in stronger tones in furniture or in small and unimportant furnishings of the room, but the wall tone should never be deeper than medium in strength, at the risk of having all the light absorbed by the colour, and of losing a sense of atmosphere in the room. There is another reason for this, which is that many colours are agreeable, even to their lovers, only in light tones. The moment they get below medium they become insistent, and make themselves of too much importance. In truth colour has qualities which are almost personal, and is well worth studying in all its peculiarities, because of its power to affect our happiness. The principles of proper use of colour in house interiors are not difficult to master. It is unthinking, unreflective action which makes so many unrestful interiors of homes. The creator of a home should consider, in the first place, that it is a matter as important as climate, and as difficult to get away from, and that the first shades of colour used in a room upon walls or ceiling, must govern everything else that enters in the way of furnishing; that the colour of walls prescribes that which must be used in floors, curtains, and furniture. Not that these must necessarily be of the same tint as walls, but that wall-tints must govern the choice. All this makes it necessary to take first steps carefully, to select for each room the colour which will best suit the taste, feeling, or bias of the occupant, always considering the exposure of the room and the use of it. After the relation of colour to light is established--with personal preferences duly taken into account--the next law is that of gradation. The strongest, and generally the purest, tones of colour belong naturally at the base, and the floor of a room means the base upon which the scheme of decoration is to be built. The carpet, or floor covering, should carry the strongest tones. If a single tint is to be used, the walls must take the next gradation, and the ceiling the last. These gradations must be far enough removed from each other in depth of tone to be quite apparent, but not to lose their relation. The connecting grades may appear in furniture covering and draperies, thus giving different values in the same tone, the relation between them being perfectly apparent. These three masses of related colour are the groundwork upon which one can play infinite variations, and is really the same law upon which a picture is composed. There are foreground, middle-distance, and sky--and in a properly coloured room, the floors, walls, and ceiling bear the same relation to each other as the grades of colour in a picture, or in a landscape. Fortunately we keep to this law almost by instinct, and yet I have seen a white-carpeted floor in a room with a painted ceiling of considerable depth of colour. Imagine the effect where this rule of gradation or ascending scale is reversed. A tinted floor of cream colour, or even white, and a ceiling as deep in colour as a landscape. One feels as if they themselves were reversed, and standing upon their heads. Certainly if we ignore this law we lose our sense of base or foundation, and although we may not know exactly why, we shall miss the restfulness of a properly constructed scheme of decoration. The rule of gradation includes also that of massing of colour. In all simple treatment of interiors, whatever colour is chosen should be allowed space enough to establish its influence, broadly and freely, and here again we get a lesson from nature in the massing of colour. It should not be broken into patches and neutralised by divisions, but used in large enough spaces to dominate, or bring into itself or its own influence all that is placed in the room. If this rule is disregarded every piece of furniture unrelated to the whole becomes a spot, it has no real connection with the room, and the room itself, instead of a harmonious and delightful influence, akin to that of a sun-flushed dawn or a sunset sky, is like a picture where there is no composition, or a book where incident is jumbled together without relation to the story. In short, placing of colour in large uniform masses used in gradation is the groundwork of all artistic effect in interiors. As I have said, it is the same rule that governs pictures, the general tone may be green or blue, or a division of each, but to be a perfect and harmonious view, every detail must relate to one or both of these tints. In formulating thus far the rules for use of colour in rooms, we have touched upon three principles which are equally binding in interiors, whether of a cottage or a palace; the first is that of colour in relation to light, the second of colour in gradation, and the third of colour in masses. A house in which walls and ceilings are simply well coloured or covered, has advanced very far toward the home which is the rightful endowment of every human being. The variations of treatment, which pertain to more costly houses, the application of design in borders and frieze spaces, walls, wainscots, and ceilings, are details which will probably call for artistic advice and professional knowledge, since in these things it is easy to err in misapplied decoration. The advance from perfect simplicity to selected and beautiful ornament marks not only the degree of cost but of knowledge which it is in the power of the house-owner to command. The elaboration which is the privilege of more liberal means and the use of artistic experience in decoration on a larger scale. The smaller house shares in the advantage of beautiful colour, correct principles, and appropriate treatment equally with the more costly. The variations do not falsify principles. CHAPTER VIII WALLS, CEILINGS, AND FLOORS The true principle of wall treatment is to make the boundary stand for colour and beauty, and not alone for division of space. As a rule, the colour treatment of a house interior must begin with the walls, and it is fortunate if these are blank and plain as in most new houses with uncoloured ceilings, flat or broken with mouldings to suit the style of the house. The range of possible treatment is very wide, from simple tones of wall colour against which quiet cottage or domestic city life goes on, to the elaboration of walls of houses of a different grade, where stately pageants are a part of the drama of daily life. But having shown that certain rules are applicable to both, and indeed necessary to success in both, we may choose within these rules any tint or colour which is personally pleasing. Rooms with an east or west light may carry successfully tones of any shade, without violating fundamental laws. The first impression of a room depends upon the walls. In fact, rooms are good or bad, agreeable or ugly in exact accordance with the wall-quality and treatment. No richness of floor-covering, draperies, or furniture can minimise their influence. Perhaps it is for this reason that the world is full of papers and other devices for making walls agreeable; and we cannot wonder at this, when we reflect that something of the kind is necessary to the aspect of the room, and that each room effects for the individual exactly what the outer walls of the house effect for the family, they give space for personal privacy and for that reserve of the individual which is the earliest effect of luxury and comfort. It is certain that if walls are not made agreeable there is in them something of restraint to the eye and the sense which is altogether disagreeable. Apparent confinement within given limits, is, on the whole, repugnant to either the natural or civilised man, and for this reason we are constantly tempted to disguise the limit and to cover the wall in such a way as shall interest and make us forget our bounds. In this case, the idea of decoration is, to make the walls a barrier of colour only, instead of hard, unyielding masonry; to take away the sense of being shut in a box, and give instead freedom to thought and pleasure to the sense. It is the effect of shut-in-ness which the square and rigid walls of a room give that makes drapery so effective and welcome, and which also gives value to the practice of covering walls with silks or other textiles. The softened surface takes away the sense of restraint. We hang our walls with pictures, or cover them with textiles, or with paper which carries design, or even colour them with pigments--something--anything, which will disguise a restraining bound, or make it masquerade as a luxury. This effort or instinct has set in motion the machinery of the world. It has created tapestries and brocades for castle and palace, and invented cheap substitutes for these costly products, so that the smallest and poorest house as well as the richest can cover its walls with something pleasant to the eye and suggestive to the mind. [Illustration: LARGE SITTING-ROOM IN "STAR ROCK" COUNTRY HOUSE] It is one of the privileges and opportunities of art to invent these disguises; and to do it so thoroughly and successfully as to content us with facts which would otherwise be disagreeable. And we do, by these various devices, make our walls so hospitable to our thoughts that we take positive and continual pleasure in them. We do this chiefly, perhaps, by ministering to our instinctive love of colour; which to many temperaments is like food to the hungry, and satisfies as insistent a demand of the mind as food to the body. At this late period of the world we are the inheritors of many methods of wall disguise, from the primitive weavings or blanket coverings with which nomadic peoples lined the walls of their tents, or the arras which in later days covered the roughness and rudeness of the stone walls of kings and barons, to the pictured tapestries of later centuries. This latter achievement of art manufacture has outlived and far outweighed the others in value, because it more perfectly performs the object of its creation. Tapestries, for the most part, offer us a semblance of nature, and cheat us with a sense of unlimited horizon. The older tapestries give us, with this, suggestions of human life and action in out-of-door scenes sufficiently unrealistic to offer a vague dream of existence in fields and forests. This effectually diverts our minds from the confinements of space, and allows us the freedom of nature. Probably the true secret of the never-failing appreciation of tapestries--from the very beginning of their history until this day--is this fact of their suggestiveness; since we find that damasks of silk or velvet or other costly weavings, although far surpassing tapestries in texture and concentration of colour, yet lacking their suggestiveness to the mind, can never rival them in the estimation of the world. Unhappily, we cannot count veritable tapestries as a modern recourse in wall-treatment, since we are precluded from the use of genuine ones by their scarcity and cost. There is undoubtedly a peculiar richness and charm in a tapestry-hung wall which no other wall covering can give; yet they are not entirely appropriate to our time. They belong to the period of windy palaces and enormous enclosures, and are fitted for pageants and ceremonies, and not to our carefully plastered, wind-tight and narrow rooms. Their mission to-day is to reproduce for us in museums and collections the life of yesterday, so full of pomp and almost barbaric lack of domestic comfort. In studios they are certainly appropriate and suggestive, but in private houses except of the princely sort, it is far better to make harmonies with the things of to-day. Nevertheless if the soul craves tapestries let them be chosen for intrinsic beauty and perfect preservation, instead of accepting the rags of the past and trying to create with them a magnificence which must be incomplete and shabby. Considering, as I do, that tapestries belong to the life and conditions of the past, where the homeless many toiled for the pampered few, and not to the homes of to-day where the man of moderate means expects beauty in his home as confidently as if he were a world ruler, I find it hardly necessary to include them in the list of means of modern decoration, and indeed it is not necessary, since a well-preserved tapestry of a good period, and of a famous manufacturer or origin, is so costly a purchase that only our bounteous and self-indulgent millionaires would venture to acquire one solely for purposes of wall decoration. It would be purchased as a specimen of art and not as furnishing. Yet I know one instance of a library where a genuine old foliage tapestry has been cut and fitted to the walls and between bookcases and doors, where the wood of the room is in mahogany, and a great chimney-piece of Caen stone of Richardson's designing fills nearly one side of the room. Of course the tapestry is unapproachable in effect in this particular place and with its surroundings. It has the richness and softness of velvet, and the red of the mahogany doors and furniture finds exactly its foil in the blue greens and soft browns of the web, while the polished floor and velvety antique rugs bring all the richness of the walls down to one's feet and to the hearth with its glow of fire. But this particular room hardly makes an example for general following. It is really a house of state, a house without children, one in which public life predominates. There is a very flagrant far-away imitation of tapestry which is so far from being good that it is a wonder it has had even a moderate success, imitation which does not even attempt the decorative effect of the genuine, but substitutes upon an admirably woven cotton or woollen canvas, figure panels, copied from modern French masters, and suggestive of nothing but bad art. Yet these panels are sometimes used (and in fact are produced for the purpose of being used) precisely as a genuine tapestry would be, although the very fact of pretence in them, brings a feeling of untruth, quite at variance with the principles of all good art. The objection to pictures transferred to tapestries holds good, even when the tapestries are genuine. The great cartoons of Raphael, still to be seen in the Kensington Museum, which were drawn and coloured for Flemish weavers to copy, show a perfect adaptation to the medium of weaving, while the paintings in the Vatican by the same great master are entirely inappropriate to textile reproduction. A picture cannot be transposed to different substance and purpose without losing the qualities which make it valuable. The double effort to be both a tapestry and a picture is futile, and brings into disrepute a simple art of imitation which might become respectable if its capabilities were rightly used. No one familiar with collections of tapestries can fail to recognise the largeness and simplicity of treatment peculiar to tapestry subjects as contrasted with the elaboration of pictures. If we grant that in this modern world of hurry, imitation of tapestries is legitimate, the important question is, what are the best subjects, and what is the best use for such imitations? The best use is undoubtedly that of wall-covering; and that was, indeed, the earliest object for which they were created. They were woven to cover great empty spaces of unsightly masonry; and they are still infinitely useful and beautiful in grand apartments whose barren spaces are too large for modern pictures, and which need the disguise of a suggestion of scenery or pictorial subject. If tapestries must be painted, let them by all means follow the style of the ancient verdure or foliage tapestries, and be used for the same purpose--to cover an otherwise blank wall. This is legitimate, and even beautiful, but it is painting, and should be frankly acknowledged to be such, and no attempt made to have them masquerade as genuine and costly weavings. It is simply and always painting, although in the style and spirit of early tapestries. Productions of this sort, where real skill in textile painting is used, are quite worthy of admiration and respect. I remember seeing, in the Swedish exhibit of women's work in the Woman's Building at the Columbian Exposition, a screen which had evidently been copied from an old bit of verdure tapestry. At the base were broad-leaved water-plants, each leaf carefully copied in blocks and patches of colour, with even the effect of the little empty space--where one thread passes to the back in weaving, to make room for one of another colour brought forward--imitated by a dot of black to simulate the tiny shadow-filled pen-point of a hole. Now whether this was art or not I leave to French critics to decide, but it was at least admirable imitation; and any one able to cover the wall spaces between bookcases in a library with such imitation would find them as richly set as if it were veritable tapestry. This is a very different thing from a painted tapestry, perhaps enlarged from a photograph or engraving of a painting the original of which the tapestry-painter had never even seen--the destiny of which unfortunate copy, changed in size, colour, and all the qualities which gave value to the original, is probably to be hung as a picture in the centre of a space of wall-paper totally antagonistic in colour. When I see these things I long to curb the ambition of the unfortunate tapestry-painter until a course of study has taught him or her the proper use of a really useful process; for whether the object is to produce a decoration or a simulated tapestry, it is not attained by these methods. The ordinary process of painting in dyes upon a wool or linen fabric woven in tapestry method, and fixing the colour with heat, enables the painter--if a true tapestry subject is chosen and tapestry effects carefully studied--to produce really effective and good things, and this opens a much larger field to the woman decorator than the ordinary unstudied shams which have thrown what might become in time a large and useful art-industry into neglect and disrepute. I have seen the walls of a library hung with Siberian linen, stained in landscape design in the old blues and greens which give tapestry its decorative value, and found it a delightful wall-covering. Indeed we may lay it down as a principle in decoration that while we may use and adapt any decorative _effect_ we must not attempt to make it pass for the thing which suggested the effect. Coarse and carefully woven linens, used as I have indicated, are really far better than old tapestries for modern houses, because the design can be adapted to the specific purpose and the texture itself can be easily cleaned and is more appropriate to the close walls and less airy rooms of this century. For costly wall-decoration, leather is another of the substances which have had a past of pomp and magnificence, and carries with it, in addition to beauty, a suggestion of the art of a race. Spanish leather, with its stamping and gilding, is quite as costly a wall covering as antique or modern tapestry, and far more indestructible. Perhaps it is needlessly durable as a mere vehicle for decoration. At all events Japanese artists and artisans seem to be of this opinion, and have transferred the same kind of decoration to heavy paper, where for some occult reason--although strongly simulating leather--it seems not only not objectionable, but even meritorious. This is because it simply transfers an artistic method from a costly substance, to another which is less so, and the fact may even have some weight that paper is a product of human manufacture, instead of human appropriation of animal life, for surely sentiment has its influence in decoration as in other arts. Wood panelling is also a form of interior treatment which has come to us by inheritance from the past as well as by right of natural possession. It has a richness and sober dignity of effect which commends it in large or small interiors, in halls, libraries, and dining-rooms, whether they are public or private; devoted to grand functions, or to the constantly recurring uses of domesticity. Wood is so beautiful a substance in itself, and lends itself to so many processes of ornamentation, that hardly too much can be said of its appropriateness for interior decoration. From the two extremes of plain pine panellings cut into squares or parallelograms by machinery, and covered with paint in tints to match door and window casings, to the most elaborate carvings which back the Cathedral stalls or seats of ecclesiastical dignity, it is always beautiful and generally appropriate in use and effect, and that can hardly be said of any other substance. There are wainscotted rooms in old houses in Newport, where, under the accumulated paint of one or two centuries, great panels of old Spanish mahogany can still be found, not much the worse for their long eclipse. Such rooms, in the original brilliancy of colour and polish, with their parallel shadings of mahogany-red reflecting back the firelight from tiled chimney-places and scattering the play of dancing flame, must have had a beauty of colour hard to match in this day of sober oak and painted wainscottings. [Illustration: PAINTED CANVAS FRIEZE] [Illustration: BUCKRAM FRIEZE FOR DINING-ROOM] One of the lessons gained by experience in treatment of house interiors, is that plain, flat tints give apparent size to small rooms, and that a satisfying effect in large ones can be gained by variation of tint or surface; also, that in a bedroom or other small room apparent size will be gained by using a wall covering which is light rather than dark. Some difference of tone there must be in large plain surfaces which lie within the level of the eye; or the monotony of a room becomes fatiguing. A plain, painted wall may, it is true, be broken by pictures, or cabinets, or bits of china; anything in short which will throw parts of it into shadow, and illumine other parts with gilded reflections; but even then there will be long, plain spaces above the picture or cabinet line, where blank monotony of tone will be fatal to the general effect of the room. It is in this upper space, upon a plain painted wall, that a broad line of flat decoration should occur, but on a wall hung with paper or cloth, it is by no means necessary. Damasked cloths, where the design is shown by the direction of woven threads, are particularly effective and satisfactory as wall-coverings. The soft surface is luxurious to the imagination, and the play of light and shadow upon the warp and woof interests the eye, although there is no actual change of colour. Too much stress can hardly be laid upon the variation of tone in wall-surfaces, since the four walls stand for the atmosphere of a room. Tone means quality of colour. It may be light or dark, or of any tint, or variations of tint, but the quality of it must be soft and charitable, instead of harsh and uncompromising. Almost the best of modern inventions for inexpensive wall-coverings are found in what are called the ingrain papers. These have a variable surface, without reflections, and make not only a soft and impalpable colour effect, but, on account of their want of reflection, are good backgrounds for pictures. In these papers the colour is produced by a mixture in the mass of paper pulp of atoms of varying tint, which are combined in the substance and make one general tint resulting from the mixture of several. In canvases and textiles, which are a more expensive method of producing almost the same mixed effect, the minute points of brilliance of threads in light and darkness of threads in shadow, combine to produce softness of tone, impossible to pigment because it has but one plain surface, unrelieved by breaking up into light and shadow. Variation, produced by minute differences, which affect each other and which the eye blends into a general tone, produce quality. It is at the same time soft and brilliant, and is really a popular adaptation of the philosophy of impressionist painters, whose small dabs of pure colour placed in close juxtaposition and fused into one tone by the eye, give the purity and vibration of colour which distinguishes work of that school. Some skilful painters can stipple one tone upon another so as to produce the same brilliant softness of effect, and when this can be done, oil-colour upon plaster is the best of all treatment for bedrooms since it fulfils all the sanitary and other conditions so necessary in sleeping-rooms. The same effect may be produced if the walls are of rough instead of smooth plaster, so that the small inequalities of surface give light and shadow as in textiles; upon such surfaces a pleasant tint in flat colour is always good. Painted burlaps and certain Japanese papers prepared with what may be called a textile or canvas surface give the same effect, and indeed quality of tint and tone is far more easily obtained in wall-coverings or applied materials than in paint, because in most wall-coverings there are variations of tint produced in the very substance of the material. This matter of variation without contrast in wall-surface, is one of the most important in house decoration, and has led to the increased use of textiles in houses where artistic effects have been carefully studied and are considered of importance. Of course wall-paper must continue to be the chief means of wall-covering, on account of its cheapness, and because it is the readiest means of sheathing a plaster surface; and a continuous demand for papers of good and nearly uniform colour, and the sort of inconspicuous design which fits them for modest interiors will have the effect of increasing the manufacture of desirable and artistic things. In the meantime one should carefully avoid the violently coloured papers which are made only to sell; materials which catch the eye of the inexperienced and tempt them into the buying of things which are productive of lasting unrest. It is in the nature of positive masses and strongly contrasting colours to produce this effect. If one is unfortunate enough to occupy a room of which the walls are covered with one of these glaring designs, and circumstances prevent a radical change, the simplest expedient is to cover the whole surface with a kalsomine or chalk-wash, of some agreeable tint. This will dry in an hour or two and present a nearly uniform surface, in which the printed design of the paper, if it appears at all, will be a mere suggestion. Papers where the design is carried in colour only a few shades darker than the background, are also safe, and--if the design is a good one--often very desirable for halls and dining-rooms. In skilfully printed papers of the sort the design often has the effect of a mere shadow-play of form. Of course in the infinite varieties of use and the numberless variations of personal taste, there are, and should be, innumerable differences in application of both colour and materials to interiors. There are differences in the use of rooms which may make a sense of perfect seclusion desirable, as, for instance, in libraries, or rooms used exclusively for evening gatherings of the family. In such semi-private rooms the treatment should give a sense of close family life rather than space, while in drawing-rooms it should be exactly the reverse, and this effect is easily secured by competent use of colour. CHAPTER IX LOCATION OF THE HOUSE Besides the difference in treatment demanded by different use of rooms--the character of the decoration of the whole house will be influenced by its situation. A house in the country or a house in town; a house by the sea-shore or a house situated in woods and fields require stronger or less strong colour, and even different tints, according to situation. The decoration itself may be much less conventional in one place than in another, and in country houses much and lasting charm is derived from design and colour in perfect harmony with nature's surroundings. Whatever decorative design is used in wall-coverings or in curtains or hangings will be far more effective if it bears some relation to the surroundings and position of the house. If the house is by the sea the walls should repeat with many variations the tones of sea and sand and sky; the gray-greens of sand-grasses; the blues which change from blue to green with every cloud-shadow; the pearl tints which become rose in the morning or evening light, and the browns and olives of sea mosses and lichens. This treatment of colour will make the interior of the house a part of the great out-of-doors and create a harmony between the artificial shelter and nature. There is philosophy in following, as far as the limitations of simple colour will allow, the changeableness and fluidity of natural effects along the shore, and allowing the mood of the brief summer life to fall into entire harmony with the dominant expression of the sea. Blues and greens and pinks and browns should all be kept on a level with out-of-door colour, that is, they should not be too deep and strong for harmony with the sea and sky, and if, when harmonious colour is once secured, most of the materials used in the furnishing of the house are chosen because their design is based upon, or suggested by, sea-forms, an impression is produced of having entered into complete and perfect harmony with the elements and aspects of nature. The artificialities of life fall more and more into the background, and one is refreshed with a sense of having established entirely harmonious and satisfactory relations with the surroundings of nature. I remember a doorway of a cottage by the sea, where the moulding which made a part of the frame was an orderly line of carved cockle-shells, used as a border, and this little touch of recognition of its sea-neighbours was not only decorative in itself, but gave even the chance visitor a sort of interpretation of the spirit of the interior life. Suppose, on the other hand, that the summer house is placed in the neighbourhood of fields and trees and mountains; it will be found that strong and positive treatment of the interior is more in harmony with the outside landscape. Even heavier furniture looks fitting where the house is surrounded with massive tree-growths; and deeper and purer colours can be used in hangings and draperies. This is due to the more positive colouring of a landscape than of a sea-view. The masses of strong and slightly varying green in foliage, the red, brown, or vivid greens of fields and crops, the dark lines of tree-trunks and branches, as well as the unchanging forms of rock and hillside, call for a corresponding strength of interior effect. It is a curious fact, also, that where a house is surrounded by myriads of small natural forms of leaves and flowers and grasses, plain spaces of colour in interiors, or spaces where form is greatly subordinated to colour, are more grateful to the eye than prominently decorated surface. A repetition of small natural forms like the shells and sea-mosses, which are for the most part hidden under lengths of liquid blue, is pleasing and suggestive by the sea; but in the country, where form is prominent and positive and prints itself constantly upon both mental and bodily vision, unbroken colour surfaces are found to be far more agreeable. It will be seen that the principles of appropriate furnishing and adornment in house interiors depend upon circumstances and natural surroundings as well as upon the character and pursuits of the family who are to be lodged, and that the final charm of the home is attained by a perfect adaptation of principles to existing conditions both of nature and humanity. In cottages of the character we are considering, furniture should be simpler and lighter than in houses intended for constant family living. Chairs and sofas should be without elaborate upholstery and hangings, and cushions can be appropriately made of some well-coloured cotton or linen material which wind, and sun, and dampness cannot spoil, and of which the freshness can always be restored by laundering. These are general rules, appropriate to all summer cottages, and to these it may be added, that a house which is to be closed for six or eight months in the year should really, to be consistent, be inexpensively furnished. These general rules are intended only to emphasise the fact that in houses which are to become in the truest sense homes--that is, places of habitation which represent the inhabitants, directions or rules for beautiful colour and arrangement of interiors, must always follow the guiding incidents of class and locality. CHAPTER X CEILINGS As ceilings are in reality a part of the wall, they must always be considered in connection with room interiors, but their influence upon the beauty of the average house is so small, that their treatment is a comparatively easy problem. In simple houses with plaster ceilings the tints to be used are easily decided. The rule of gradation of colour from floor to ceiling prescribes for the latter the lightest tone of the gradation, and as the ceiling stands for light, and should actually reflect light into the room, the philosophy of this arrangement of colours is obvious. It is not, however, an invariable rule that the ceiling should carry the same tint as the wall, even in a much lighter tone, although greater harmony and restfulness of effect is produced in this way. A ceiling of cream white will harmonise well with almost any tint upon the walls, and at the same time give an effect of air and light in the room. It is also a good ground for ornament in elaborately decorated ones. If the walls are covered with a light wall-paper which carries a floral design, it is a safe rule to make the ceiling of the same colour but a lighter shade of the background of the paper, but it is not by any means good art to carry a flower design over the ceiling. One sometimes sees instances of this in the bedrooms of fairly good houses, and the effect is naturally that of bringing the ceiling apparently almost to one's head, or at all events, of producing a very unrestful effect. A wood ceiling in natural colour is always a good feature in a room of defined or serious purpose, like a hall, dining-room, or library, because in such rooms the colour of the side walls is apt to be strong enough to balance it. Indeed a wooden ceiling has always the merit of being secure in its place, and even where the walls are light can be painted so as to be in harmony with them. Plaster as a ceiling for bedrooms is open to the objection of a possibility of its detaching itself from the lath, especially in old houses, and in these it is well to have them strengthened with flat mouldings of wood put on in regular squares, or even in some geometrical design, and painted with the ceiling. This gives security as well as a certain elaborateness of effect not without its value. For the ordinary, or comparatively inexpensive home, we need not consider the ceiling an object for serious study, because it is so constantly out of the line of sight, and because its natural colourless condition is no bar to the general colour-effect. In large rooms this condition is changed, for in a long perspective the ceiling comes into sight and consciousness. There would be a sense of barrenness and poverty in a long stretch of plain surface or unbroken colour over a vista of decorated wall, and accordingly the ceilings of large and important rooms are generally broken by plaster mouldings or architectural ornament. In rooms of this kind, whether in public or private buildings, decorative painting has its proper and appropriate place. A painted ceiling, no matter how beautiful, is quite superfluous and indeed absolutely lost in a room where size prevents its being brought into the field of the eye by the lowering of long perspective lines, but when the size of the room gives unusual length of ceiling, no effect of decoration is so valuable and precious. Colour and gilding upon a ceiling, when well sustained by fine composition or treatment, is undoubtedly the highest and best achievement of the decorative painter's art. Such a ceiling in a large and stately drawing-room, where the walls are hung with silk which gives broken indications of graceful design in play of light upon the texture, is one of the most successful of both modern as well as antique methods of decoration. It has come down in direct succession of practice to the school of French decoration of to-day, and has been adopted into American fashion in its full and complete practice without sufficient adaptation to American circumstances. If it were modified by these, it is capable of absorbing other and better qualities than those of mere fashion and brilliance, as we see in occasional instances in some beautiful American houses, where the ceilings have been painted, and the textiles woven with an almost imaginative appropriateness of subject. Such ceilings as this belong, of course, to the efforts of the mural or decorative painter, who, in conjunction with the decorator, or architect, has studied the subject as connected with its surroundings. CHAPTER XI FLOORS AND FLOOR-COVERINGS Although in ordinary sequence the colouring of floors comes after that of walls, the fact that--in important houses--costly and elaborate floors of mosaic or of inlaid wood form part of the architect's plan, makes it necessary to consider the effect of inherent or natural colours of such floors, in connection with applied colour-schemes in rooms. Mosaic floors, being as a rule confined to halls in private houses, need hardly be considered in this relation, and costly wood floors are almost necessarily confined to the yellows of the natural woods. These yellows range from pale buff to olive, and are not as a rule inharmonious with any other tint, although they often lack sufficient strength or intensity to hold their own with stronger tints of walls and furniture. As it is one of the principles of colour in a house that the floor is the foundation of the room, this weakness of colour in hard-wood floors must be acknowledged as a disadvantage. The floors should certainly be able to support the room in colour as well as in construction. It must be the strongest tint in the room, and yet it must have the unobtrusiveness of strength. This makes floor treatment a more difficult problem, or one requiring more thought than is generally supposed, and explains why light rooms are more successful with hard-wood floors than medium or very dark ones. There are many reasons, sanitary as well as economic, why hard-wood floors should not be covered in ordinary dwelling-houses; and when the pores of the wood are properly filled, and the surface kept well polished, it is not only good as a fact, but as an effect, as it reflects surrounding tints, and does much to make up for lack of sympathetic or related colour. Yet it will be found that in almost every case of successful colour-treatment in a room, something must be added in the way of floor-covering to give it the sense of completeness and satisfaction which is the result of a successful scheme of decoration. The simplest way of doing this is to cover enough of the space with rugs to attract the eye, and restore the balance lost by want of strength of colour in the wood. Sometimes one or two small rugs will do this, and these may be of almost any tint which includes the general one of the room, even if the general tint is not prominent in the rug. If the use or luxury of the room requires more covered space, it is better to use one rug of a larger size than several small and perhaps conflicting ones. Of course in this the general tone of the rug must be chosen for its affinity to the tone of the room, but that affinity secured, any variations of colour occurring in the design are apt to add to the general effect. [Illustration: SQUARE HALL IN CITY HOUSE] A certain amount of contrast to prevailing colour is an advantage, and the general value of rugs in a scheme of decoration is that they furnish this contrast in small masses or divisions, so well worked in with other tints and tones that it makes its effect without opposition to the general plan. Thus, in a room where the walls are of a pale shade of copper, the rugs should bring in a variety of reds which would be natural parts of the same scale, like lower notes in the octave; and yet should add patches of relative blues and harmonising greens; possibly also, deep gold, and black and white;--the latter in minute forms and lines which only accent or enrich the general effect. It is really an interesting problem, why the strong colours generally used in Oriental rugs should harmonise so much better with weaker tints in walls and furniture than even the most judiciously selected carpets can possibly do. It is true there are bad Oriental rugs, very bad ones, just as there may be a villain in any congregation of the righteous, but certainly the long centuries of Eastern manufacture, reaching back to the infancy of the world, have given Eastern nations secrets not to be easily mastered by the people of later days. But if we cannot tell with certainty why good rugs fit all places and circumstances, while any other thing of mortal manufacture must have its place carefully prepared for it, we may perhaps assume to know why the most beautiful of modern carpets are not as easily managed and as successful. In the first place having explained that some contrast, some fillip of opposing colour, something which the artist calls _snap_, is absolutely required in every successful colour scheme, we shall see that if we are to get this by simple means of a carpet, we must choose one which carries more than one colour in its composition, and colour introduced as design must come under the laws of mechanical manufacture; that is, it must come in as _repeating_ design, and here comes in the real difficulty. The same forms and the same colours must come in in the same way in every yard, or every half or three-quarter yard of the carpet. It follows, then, that it must be evenly sprinkled or it must regularly meander over every yard or half yard of the surface; and this regularity resolves itself into spots, and spots are unendurable in a scheme of colour. So broad a space as the floor of a room cannot be covered by sections of constantly repeated design without producing a spotty effect, although it can be somewhat modified by the efforts of the good designer. Nevertheless, in spite of his best knowledge and intention, the difficulty remains. There is no one patch of colour larger than another, or more irregular in form. There is nothing which has not its exact counterpart at an exact distance--north, south, east and west, or northeast, southeast, northwest and southwest--and this is why a carpet with good design and excellent colour becomes unbearable in a room of large size. In a small room where there are not so many repeats, the effect is not as bad, but in a large room the monotonous repetition is almost without remedy. Of course there are certain laws of optics and ingenuities of composition which may palliate this effect, but the fact remains that the floor should be covered in a way which will leave the mind tranquil and the eye satisfied, and this is hard to accomplish with what is commonly known as a figured carpet. If carpet is to be used, it seems, then, that the simplest way is to select a good monochrome in the prevailing tint of the room, but several shades darker. Not an absolutely plain surface, but one broken with some unobtrusive design or pattern in still darker darks and lighter lights than the general tone. In this case we shall have the room harmonious, it is true, but lacking the element which provokes admiration--the enlivening effect of contrast. This may be secured by making the centre or main part of the carpet comparatively small, and using a very wide and important border of contrasting colour--a border so wide as to make itself an important part of the carpet. In large rooms this plan does not entirely obviate the difficulty, as it leaves the central space still too large and impressive to remain unbroken; but the remedy may be found in the use of hearth-rugs or skin-rugs, so placed as to seem necessities of use. As I have said before, contrast on a broad scale can be secured by choosing carpets of an entirely different tone from the wall, and this is sometimes expedient. For instance, as contrast to a copper-coloured wall, a softly toned green carpet is nearly always successful. This one colour, green, is always safe and satisfactory in a floor-covering, provided the walls are not too strong in tone, and provided that the green in the carpet is not too green. Certain brownish greens possess the quality of being in harmony with every other colour. They are the most peaceable shades in the colour-world--the only ones without positive antipathies. Green in all the paler tones can claim the title of peace-maker among colours, since all the other tints will fight with something else, but never with green of a corresponding or even of a much greater strength. Of course this valuable quality, combined with a natural restfulness of effect, makes it the safest of ordinary floor-coverings. In bedrooms with polished floors and light walls good colour-effects can be secured without carpets, but if the floors are of pine and need covering, no better general effect can be secured than that of plain or mixed ingrain filling, using with it Oriental hearth and bedside rugs. The entire second floor of a house can in that case be covered with carpet in the accommodating tint of green mentioned, leaving the various colour-connections to be made with differently tinted rugs. Good pine floors well fitted and finished can be stained to harmonise with almost any tint used in furniture or upon the wall. I remember a sea-side chamber in a house where the mistress had great natural decorative ability, and so much cultivation as to prevent its running away with her, where the floor was stained a transparent olive, like depths of sea-water, and here and there a floating sea-weed, or a form of sea-life faintly outlined within the colour. In this room, which seemed wide open to the sea and air, even when the windows were closed, the walls were of a faint greenish blue, like what is called _dead_ turquoise, and the relation between floor and walls was so perfect that it remained with me to this day as a crowning instance of satisfaction in colour. It is perhaps more difficult to convey an idea of happy choice or selection of floor-colour than of walls, because it is relative to walls. It must relate to what has already been done. But in recapitulation it is safe to say, first, that in choosing colour for a room, soft and medium tints are better than positively dark or bright ones, and that walls should be unobtrusive in design as well as colour; secondly, that floors, if of the same tint as walls, should be much darker; and that they should be _made apparent_ by means of this strength of colour, or by the addition of rugs or borders, although the relation between walls and floor must be carefully preserved and perfectly unmistakable, for it is the perfection of this relation of one colour to another which makes home decoration an art. There is still a word to be said as to floor-coverings, which relates to healthful housekeeping instead of art, and that is, that in all cases where carpets or mattings are used, they should be in rug form, not fitted in to irregular floor-spaces; so as to be frequently and easily lifted and cleaned. The great, and indeed the only, objection to the use of mattings in country or summer houses, is the difficulty of frequent lifting, and removal of accumulated dust, which has sifted through to the floor--but if fine hemp-warp mattings are used, and sewn into squares which cover the floor sufficiently, it is an ideal summer floor-covering, as it can be rolled and removed even more easily than a carpet, and there is a dust-shedding quality in it which commends itself to the housekeeper. CHAPTER XII DRAPERIES Draperies are not always considered as a part of furnishings, yet in truth--as far as decorative necessities are concerned--they should come immediately after wall and floor coverings. The householder who is in haste to complete the arrangement of the home naturally thinks first of chairs, sofas, and tables, because they come into immediate personal use, but if draperies are recognised as a necessary part of the beauty of the house it is worth while to study their appropriate character from the first. They have in truth much more to do with the effect of the room than chairs or sofas, since these are speedily sat upon and pass out of notice, while draperies or portières are in the nature of pictures--hanging in everybody's sight. As far as the element of beauty is concerned, a room having good colour, attractive and interesting pictures, and beautiful draperies, is already furnished. Whatever else goes to the making of it may be also beautiful, but it must be convenient and useful, while in the selection of draperies, beauty, both relative and positive, is quite untrammelled. As in all other furnishings, from the æsthetic point of view colour is the first thing to be considered. As a rule it should follow that of the walls, a continuous effect of colour with variation of form and surface being a valuable and beautiful thing to secure. To give the full value of variation--where the walls are plain one should choose a figured stuff for curtains; where the wall is papered, or covered with figures, a plain material should be used. There is one exception to this rule and this is in the case of walls hung with damask. Here it is best to use the same material for curtains, as the effect is obtained by the difference between the damask hung in folds, with the design indistinguishable, or stretched flat upon a wall-surface, where it is plainly to be seen and felt. Even where damask is used upon the walls, if exactly the same shade of colour can be found in satin or velvet, the plain material in drapery will enhance the value of design on the walls. This choice or selection of colour applies to curtains and portières as simple adjuncts of furnishing, and not to such pieces of drapery as are in themselves works of art. When a textile becomes a work of art it is in a measure a law unto itself, and has as much right to select its own colour as if it were a picture instead of a portière, in fact if it is sufficiently important, the room must follow instead of leading. This may happen in the case of some priceless old embroidery, some relic of that peaceful past, when hours and days flowed contentedly into a scheme of art and beauty, without a thought of competitive manufacture. It might be difficult to subdue the spirit of a modern drawing-room into harmony with such a work of art, but if it were done, it would be a very shrine of restfulness to the spirit. Fortunately many ancient marvels of needlework were done upon white satin, and this makes them easily adaptable to any light scheme of colour, where they may appear indeed as guests of honour--invited from the past to be courted by the present. It is not often that such pieces are offered as parts of a scheme of modern decoration, and the fingers of to-day are too busy or too idle for their creation, yet it sometimes happens that a valuable piece of drapery of exceptional colour belongs by inheritance or purchase to the fortunate householder, and in this case it should be used as a picture would be, for an independent bit of decoration. To return to simple things, the rule of contrast as applied to papered walls, covered with design, ordains that the curtains should undoubtedly be plain and of the most pronounced tint used in the paper. If the walls of a room are simply tinted or painted, figured stuffs of the same general tone, or printed silks, velvets, or cottons in which the predominant tint corresponds with that of the wall should be used. These relieve the simplicity of the walls, and give the desirable variation. Transparent silk curtains are of great value in colouring the light which enters the room, and these should be used in direct reference to the light. If the room is dark or cold in its exposure, to hang the windows with sun-coloured silk or muslin will cheat the eye and imagination into the idea that it is a sunny room. If, on the contrary, there is actual sunshine in the room, a pervading tint of rose-colour or delicate green may be given by inner curtains of either of those colours. These are effects, however, for which rules can hardly be given, since the possible variations must be carefully studied, unless, indeed, they are the colour-strokes of some one who has that genius for combination or contrast of tints which we call "colour sense." After colour in draperies come texture and quality, and these need hardly be discussed in the case of silken fabrics, because silk fibre has inherent qualities of tenacity of tint and flexibility of substance. Pure silk, that is silk unstiffened with gums, no matter how thickly and heavily it is woven, is soft and yielding and will fall into folds without sharp angles. This quality of softness is in its very substance. Even a single unwoven thread of silk will drop gracefully into loops, where a cotton or linen or even a woollen thread will show stiffness. Woollen fibre seems to acquire softness as it is gathered into yarns and woven, and will hang in folds with almost the same grace as silk; but unfortunately they are favourite pasture grounds as well as burying-places for moths, and although these co-inhabitants of our houses come to a speedy resurrection, they devour their very graves, and leave our woollen draperies irremediably damaged. It is a pity that woollen fabrics should in this way be made undesirable for household use, for they possess in a great degree the two most valuable qualities of silk: colour-tenacity and flexibility. If one adopts woollen curtains and portières, constant "vigilance is the price of safety," and considering that vigilance is required everywhere and at all times in the household, it is best to reduce the quantity whenever it is possible. This throws us back upon cottons and linens for inexpensive hangings, and in all the thousand forms in which these two fibres are manufactured it would seem easy to choose those which are beautiful, durable, and appropriate. But here we are met at the very threshold of choice with the two undesirable qualities of fugitive colour, and stiffness of texture. Something in the nature of cotton makes it inhospitable to dyes. If it receives them it is with a protest, and an evident intention of casting them out at the earliest opportunity--it makes, it is true, one or two exceptions. It welcomes indigo dye and will never quite relinquish its companionship; once received, it will carry its colours through all its serviceable life, and when it is finally ready to fall into dust, it is still loyally coloured by its influence. If it is cheated, as we ourselves are apt to be, into accepting spurious indigo, made up of chemical preparations, it speedily discovers the cheat and refuses its colouring. Perhaps this sympathy is due to a vegetable kinship and likeness of experience, for where cotton will grow, indigo will also flourish. In printed cottons or chintzes, there is a reasonable amount of fidelity to colour, and if chintz curtains are well chosen, and lined to protect them from the sun, their attractiveness bears a fair proportion to their durability. An interlining of some strong and tried colour will give a very soft and subtle daylight effect in a room, but this is, of course, lost in the evening. The expedient of an under colour in curtain linings will sometimes give delightful results in plain or unprinted goods, and sometimes a lining with a strong and bold design will produce a charming shadow effect upon a tinted surface--of course each new experiment must be tried before one can be certain of its effect, and, in fact, there is rather an exciting uncertainty as to results. Yet there are infinite possibilities to the householder who has what is called the artistic instinct and the leisure and willingness to experiment, and experiments need not be limited to prints or to cottons, for wonderful combinations of colour are possible in silks where light is called in as an influence in the composition. One must, however, expect to forego these effects except in daylight, but as artificial light has its own subtleties of effect, the one can be balanced against the other. In my own country-house I have used the two strongest colours--red and blue--in this doubled way, with delightful effect. The blue, which is the face colour, presenting long, pure folds of blue, with warmed reddish shadows between, while at sunset, when the rays of light are level, the variations are like a sunset sky. It will be seen by these suggestions that careful selection, and some knowledge of the qualities of different dyes, will go far toward modifying the want of permanence of colour and lack of reflection in cottons; the other quality of stiffness, or want of flexibility, is occasionally overcome by methods of weaving. Indeed, if the manufacturer or weaver had a clear idea of excellence in this respect, undoubtedly the natural inflexibility of fibre could be greatly overcome. There is a place waiting in the world of art and decoration for what in my own mind I call "the missing textile." This is by no means a fabric of cost, for among its other virtues it must possess that of cheapness. To meet an almost universal want it should combine inexpensiveness, durability, softness, and absolute fidelity of colour, and these four qualities are not to be found in any existing textile. Three of them--cheapness, strength, and colour--were possessed by the old-fashioned true indigo-blue denim--the delightful blue which faded into something as near the colour of the flower of grass, as dead vegetable material can approach that which is full of living juices--the possession of these three qualities doubled and trebled the amount of its manufacture until it lost one of them by masquerading in aniline indigo. Many of our ordinary cotton manufactures are strong and inexpensive, and a few of them have the flexibility which denim lacks. It was possessed in an almost perfect degree by the Canton, or fleeced, flannels, manufactured so largely a few years ago, and called art-drapery. It lacked colour, however, for the various dyes given to it during its brief period of favouritism were not colour; they were merely _tint_. That strong, good word, colour, could not be applied to the mixed and evanescent dyes with which this soft and estimable material clothed itself withal. It was, so to speak, invertebrate--it had no backbone. Besides this lack of colour stanchness, it had another fault which helped to overbalance its many virtues. It was fatally attractive to fire. Its soft, fluffy surface seemed to reach out toward flame, and the contact once made, there ensued one flash of instantaneous blaze, and the whole surface, no matter if it were a table-cover, a hanging, or the wall covering a room, was totally destroyed. Yet as one must have had or heard of such a disastrous experience to fear and avoid it, this proclivity alone would not have ended its popularity. It was probably the evanescent character of what was called its "art-colour" which ended the career of an estimable material, and if the manufacturers had known how to eliminate its faults and adapt its virtues, it might still have been a flourishing textile. In truth, we do not often stop to analyse the reasons of prolonged popular favour; yet nothing is more certain than that there is reason, and good reason, for fidelity in public taste. Popular liking, if continued, is always founded upon certain incontrovertible virtues. If a manufacture cannot hold its own for ever in public favour, it is because it fails in some important particular to be what it should be. Products of the loom must have lasting virtues if they would secure lasting esteem. Blue denim had its hold upon public use principally for the reason that it possessed a colour superior to all the chances and accidents of its varied life. It is true it was a colour which commended itself to general liking, yet if as stanch and steadfast a green or red could be imparted to an equally cheap and durable fabric, it would find as lasting a place in public favour. It is quite possible that in the near future domestic weavings may come to the aid of the critical house-furnisher, so that the qualities of strength and pliability may be united with colour which is both water-fast and sun-fast, and that we shall be able to order not only the kind of material, but the exact shade of colour necessary to the perfection of our houses. To be washable as well as durable is also a great point in favour of cotton textiles. The English chintzes with which the high post bedsteads of our foremothers were hung had a yearly baptism of family soap-suds, and came from it with their designs of gaily-crested, almost life-size pheasants, sitting upon inadequate branches, very little subdued by the process. Those were not days of colour-study; and harmony, applied to things of sight instead of conduct, was not looked for; but when we copy the beautiful old furniture of that day, we may as well demand with it the quality of washableness and cleanableness which went with all its belongings. It is always a wonder to the masculine, that the feminine mind has such an ineradicable love of draperies. The man despises them, but to the woman they are the perfecting touch of the home, hiding or disguising all the sharp angles of windows and doors, and making of them opportunities of beauty. It is the same instinct with which she tries to cover the hard angles and facts of daily life and make of them virtuous incitements. As long as the woman rules, house-curtains will be a joy and delight to her. Something in their soft protection, grace of line, and possible beauty of colour appeals to her as no other household belonging has the power to do. The long folds of the straight hanging curtain are far more beautiful than the looped and festooned creations which were held in vogue by some previous generations, and indeed are still dear to the hearts of professional upholsterers. The simpler the treatment, the better the effect, since natural rather than distorted line is more restful and enjoyable. Quality, colour, and simple graceful lines are quite sufficient elements of value in these important adjuncts of house furnishing and decoration. CHAPTER XIII FURNITURE Although the forms and varieties of furniture are infinite, they can easily be classified first into the two great divisions of good and bad, and after that into kinds and styles; but no matter how good the different specimens may be, or to what style they may belong, each one is subject again to the ruling of fitness. Detached things may be both thoroughly pleasing and thoroughly good in themselves, but unless they are appropriate to the place where, and purpose for which they are used, they will not be beautiful. [Illustration: COLONIAL CHAIRS AND SOFA (BELONGING TO MRS. RUTH MCENERY STUART)] It is well to reiterate that the use to which a room is put must always govern its furnishing and in a measure its colour, and that whatever we put in it must be placed there because it is appropriate to that use, and because it is needed for completeness. It is misapplication which makes much of what is called "artistic furnishing" ridiculous. An old-fashioned brass preserving-kettle and a linen or wool spinning-wheel are in place and appropriate pieces of furnishing for a studio; the one for colour, and the other for form, and because also they may serve as models; but they are sadly out of place in a modern city house, or even in the parlour of a country cottage. We all recognise the fact that a room carefully furnished in one style makes a oneness of impression; whereas if things are brought together heterogeneously, even if each separate thing is selected for its own special virtue and beauty, the feeling of enjoyment will be far less complete. There is a certain kinship in pieces of furniture made or originated at the same period and fashioned by a prevailing sentiment of beauty, which makes them harmonious when brought together; and if our minds are in sympathy with that period and style of expression, it becomes a great pleasure to use it as a means of expression for ourselves. Whatever appeals to us as the best or most beautiful thought in manufacture we have a right to adopt, but we should study to understand the circumstances of its production, in order to do justice to it and ourselves, since style is evolved from surrounding influences. It would seem also that its periods and origin should not be too far removed from the interests and ways of our own time, and incongruous with it, because it would be impossible to carry an utterly foreign period or method of thought into all the intimacies of domestic life. The fad of furnishing different rooms in different periods of art, and in the fashion of nations and peoples whose lives are totally dissimilar, may easily be carried too far, and the spirit of home, and even of beauty, be lost. Of course this applies to small, and not to grand houses, which are always exceptions to the purely domestic idea. There are many reasons why one should be in sympathy with what is called the "colonial craze"; not only because colonial days are a part of our history, but because colonial furniture and decorations were derived directly from the best period of English art. Its original designers were masters who made standards in architectural and pictorial as well as household art. The Adams brothers, to whom many of the best forms of the period are referable, were great architects as well as great designers. Even so distinguished a painter as Hogarth delighted in composing symmetrical forms for furniture, and preached persistently the beauty of curved instead of rectangular lines. It was, in fact, a period in which superior minds expressed themselves in material forms, when Flaxman, Wedgwood, Chippendale and many others of their day, true artists in form, wrote their thoughts in wood, stone, and pottery, and bequeathed them to future ages. Certainly the work of such minds in such company must outlast mere mechanical efforts. It is interesting to note, that many of the Chippendale chairs keep in their under construction the square and simple forms of a much earlier period, while the upper part, the back, and seats are carved into curves and floriated designs. One cannot help wondering whether this square solidity was simply a reminiscence or persistence of earlier forms, or a conscious return to the most direct principles of weight-bearing constructions. All furniture made under primitive conditions naturally depends upon perpendicular and horizontal forms, because uninfluenced construction considers first of all the principle of strength; but under the varied influences of the Georgian period one hardly expects fidelity to first principles. New England carpenters and cabinet-makers who had wrought under the masters of carpentry and cabinet-work in England brought with them not only skill to fashion, but the very patterns and drawings from which Chippendale and Sheraton furniture had been made in England. Our English forefathers were very fond of the St. Domingo mahogany, brought back in the ship-bottoms of English traders, but the English workmen who made furniture in the new world, while they adopted this foreign wood, were not slow to appreciate the wild cherry, and the different maples and oak and nut woods which they found in America. They were woods easy to work, and apt to take on polish and shining surface. The cabinet-makers liked also the abnormal specimens of maple where the fibre grew in close waves, called _curled_ maple, as well as the great roots flecked and spotted with minute knots, known as dotted maple. All these things went into colonial furniture, so beautifully cut, so carefully dowelled and put together, so well made, that many of the things have become heirlooms in the families for which they were constructed. I remember admiring a fine old cherry book-case in Mr. Lowell's library at Cambridge, and being told by the poet that it had belonged to his grandfather. When I spoke of the comparative rarity of such possessions he answered: "Oh, anyone can have his grandfather's furniture if he will wait a hundred years!" Nevertheless, with modern methods of manufacture it is by no means certain that a hundred years will secure possession of the furniture we buy to-day to our grandchildren. In those early days it was not uncommon, it was indeed the custom, for some one of the men who were called "journeymen cabinet-makers"--that is, men who had served their time and learned their trade, but had not yet settled down to a fixed place and shop of their own--to take up an abode in the house with the family which had built it, for a year, or even two or three years, carrying on the work in some out-house or dependence, choosing and seasoning the wood, and measuring the furniture for the spaces where it was to stand. There was a fine fitness in such furnishing; it was as if the different pieces actually grew where they were placed, and it is small wonder that so built and fashioned they should possess almost a human interest. Direct and special thought and effort were incorporated with the furniture from the very first, and it easily explains the excellences and finenesses of its fashioning. There is an interesting house in Flushing, Long Island, where such furniture still stands in the rooms where it was put together in 1664, and where it is so fitted to spaces it has filled during the passing centuries, that it would be impossible to carry it through the narrow doors and passages, which, unlike our present halls, were made for the passing to and fro of human beings, and not of furniture. [Illustration: COLONIAL MANTEL AND ENGLISH HOB-GRATE (SITTING-ROOM IN MRS. CANDACE WHEELER'S HOUSE)] It is this kind of interest which attaches us to colonial furniture and adds to the value of its beauty and careful adaptation to human convenience. In the roomy "high boys" which we find in old houses there are places for everything. They were made for the orderly packing and keeping of valuable things, in closetless rooms, and they were made without projecting corners and cornices, because life was lived in smaller spaces than at present. They were the best product of a thoughtful time--where if manufacture lacked some of the machinery and appliances of to-day, it was at least not rushed by breathless competition, but could progress slowly in careful leisure. Of course we cannot all have colonial furniture, and indeed it would not be according to the spirit of our time, for the arts of our own day are to be encouraged and fostered--but we can buy the best of the things which are made in our time, the best in style, in intention, in fittingness, and above all in carefulness and honesty of construction. For some reason the quality of durability seems to be wanting in modern furniture. Our things are fashioned of the same woods, but something in the curing or preparation of them has weakened the fibre and made it brittle. Probably the gradual evaporation of the tree-juices which old-time cabinet-makers were willing to wait for, left the shrunken sinews of the wood in better condition than is possible with our hurried and violent kiln-dried methods. What is gained in time in the one place is lost in another. Nature refuses to enter into our race for speedy completion, and if we hurry her natural processes we shorten our lease of ownership. As a very apt illustration of this fact, I remember coming into possession some twenty years ago of an oak chair which had stood, perhaps, for more than two hundred years in a Long Island farm-house. When I found it, it had been long relegated to kitchen use and was covered with a crust of variously coloured paints which had accumulated during the two centuries of its existence. The fashion of it was rare, and had probably been evolved by some early American cabinet-maker, for while it had all and even more than the grace of the high-backed Chippendale patterns, it was better fitted to the rounded surfaces of the human body. It was a spindle chair with a slightly hollowed seat, the rim of the back rounded to a loop which was continued into arm-rests, which spread into thickened blades for hand-rests. Being very much in love with the grace and ease of it, I took it to a manufacturer to be reproduced in mahogany, who, with a far-sighted sagacity, flooded the market with that particular pattern. We are used--and with good reason--to consider mahogany as a durable wood, but of the half-dozen of mahogany copies of the old oak chair, each one has suffered some break of legs or arms or spindles, while the original remains as firm in its withered old age as it was the day I rescued it from the "out-kitchen" of the Long Island farm-house. For the next fifty years after the close of our colonial history, the colonial cabinet-makers in New England and the northern Middle States continued to flourish, evolving an occasional good variation from what may be called colonial forms. Rush-and flag-bottomed chairs and chairs with seats of twisted rawhide--the frames often gilded and painted-- sometimes took the place of wrought mahogany, except in the best rooms of great houses. Many of these are of excellent shape and construction, and specially interesting as an adaptation of natural products of the country. Undoubtedly, with our ingenious modern appliances, we could make as good furniture as was made in Chippendale and Sheraton's day, with far less expenditure of effort; but the demon of competition in trade will not allow it. We must use all material, perfect or imperfect; we cannot afford to select. We must cover knots and imperfections with composition and pass them on. We must use the cheapest glue, and save an infinitesimal sum in the length of our dowels; we must varnish instead of polishing, or "the other man" will get the better of us. If we did not do these things our furniture would be better, but "the other man" would sell more, because he could sell more cheaply. Since the revived interest in the making of furniture, we find an occasional and marked recurrence to primitive form--on each occasion the apparently new style taking on the name of the man who produced it. In our own day we have seen the "Eastlake furniture" appear and disappear, succeeded by the "Morris furniture," which is undoubtedly better adapted to our varied wants. At present, mortising and dowelling have come to the front as proper processes, especially for table-building; and this time the style appears under the name of "Mission furniture." Much of this is extremely well suited for cottage furnishing, but the occasional exaggeration of the style takes one back not only to early, but the earliest, English art, when chairs were immovable seats or blocks, and tables absolute fixtures on account of the weighty legs upon which they were built. In short, the careful and cultivated decorator finds it as imperative to guard against exaggerated simplicity as unsupported prettiness. Fortunately there has been a great deal of attention paid to good cabinet work within the last few years, and although the method of its making lacks the human motive and the human interest of former days--it is still a good expression of the art of to-day, and at its best, worthy to be carried down with the generations as one of the steps in the evolutions of time. What we have to do, is to learn to discriminate between good and bad, to appreciate the best in design and workmanship, even although we cannot afford to buy it. In this case we should learn to do with less. As a rule our houses are crowded. If we are able to buy a few good things, we are apt instead to buy many only moderately good, for lavish possession seems to be a sort of passion, or birthright, of Americans. It follows that we fill our houses with heterogeneous collections of furniture, new and old, good and bad, appropriate or inappropriate, as the case may be, with a result of living in seeming luxury, but a luxury without proper selection or true value. To have less would in many cases be to have more--more tranquillity of life, more ease of mind, more knowledge and more real enjoyment. There is another principle which can be brought into play in this case, and that is the one of buying--not a costly kind of thing, but the best of its kind. If it is a choice in chairs, for instance, let it be the best cane-seated, or rush-bottomed chair that is made, instead of the second or third best upholstered or leather-covered one. If it is a question of tables, buy the simplest form made of flawless wood and with best finish, instead of a bargain in elaborately turned or scantily carved material. If it is in bedsteads, a plain brass, or good enamelled iron or a simple form in black walnut, instead of a cheap inlaid wood--and so on through the whole category. A good chintz or cotton is better for draperies, than flimsy silk or brocade; and when all is done the very spirit of truth will sit enthroned in the household, and we shall find that all things have been brought into harmony by her laws. [Illustration: SOFA DESIGNED BY MRS. CANDACE WHEELER FOR NEW LIBRARY IN "WOMAN'S BUILDING," COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION] Although the furnishing of a house should be one of the most painstaking and studied of pursuits, there is certainly nothing which is at the same time so fascinating and so flattering in its promise of future enjoyment. It is like the making of a picture as far as possibility of beauty is concerned, but a picture within and against which one's life, and the life of the family, is to be lived. It is a bit of creative art in itself, and one which concerns us so closely as to be a very part of us. We enjoy every separate thing we may find or select or procure--not only for the beauty and goodness which is in it, but for its contribution to the general whole. And in knowledge of applied and manufactured art, the furnishing of a house is truly "the beginning of wisdom." One learns to appreciate what is excellent in the new, from study and appreciation of quality in the old. It is the fascination of this study which has made a multiplication of shops and collections of "antiques" in every quarter of the city. Many a woman begins from the shop-keeper's point of view of the value of mere age, and learns by experience that age, considered by itself, is a disqualification, and that it gives value only when the art which created the antique has been lost or greatly deteriorated. If one can find as good, or a better thing in art and quality, made to-day--by all means buy the thing of to-day, and let yourself and your children be credited with the hundred or two years of wear which is in it. We can easily see that it is wiser to buy modern iridescent glass, fitted to our use, and yet carrying all the fascinating lustre of ancient glass, than to sigh for the possession of some unbuyable thing belonging to dead and gone Caesars. And the case is as true of other modern art and modern inventions, if the art is good, and the inventions suitable to our wants and needs. Yet in spite of the goodness of much that is new, there is a subtle pleasure in turning over, and even in appropriating, the things that are old. There are certain fenced-in-blocks on the east side of New York City where for many years the choice parts of old houses have been deposited. As fashion and wealth have changed their locality--treading slowly up from the Battery to Central Park--many beautiful bits of construction have been left behind in the abandoned houses--either disregarded on account of change in popular taste, or unappreciated by reason of want of knowledge. For the few whose knowledge was competent, there were things to be found in the second-hand yards, precious beyond comparison with anything of contemporaneous manufacture. There were panelled front doors with beautifully fluted columns and carved capitals, surmounted by half-ovals of curiously designed sashes; there were beautifully wrought iron railings, and elaborate newel-posts of mahogany, brass door-knobs and hinges, and English hob-grates, and crystal chandeliers of cost and brilliance, and panelled wainscots of oak and mahogany; chimney-pieces in marble and wood of an excellence which we are almost vainly trying to compass, and all of them to be bought at the price of lumber. These are the things to make one who remembers them critical about the collections to be found in the antique shops of to-day, and yet such shops are enticing and fashionable, and the quest of antiques will go on until we become convinced of the art-value and the equal merit of the new--which period many things seem to indicate is not far off. In those days there was but one antique shop in all New York which was devoted to the sale of old things, to furniture, pictures, statuary, and what Ruskin calls "portable art" of all kinds. It was a place where one might go, crying "new lamps for old ones" with a certainty of profit in the transaction. In later years it has been known as _Sypher's_, and although one of many, instead of a single one, is still a place of fascinating possibilities. To sum up the gospel of furnishing, we need only fall back upon the principles of absolute fitness, actual goodness, and real beauty. If the furniture of a well-coloured room possesses these three qualities, the room as a whole can hardly fail to be lastingly satisfactory. It must be remembered, however, that it is a trinity of virtues. No piece of furniture should be chosen because it is intrinsically good or genuinely beautiful, if it has not also its _use_--and this rule applies to all rooms, with the one exception of the drawing-room. The necessity of _use_, governing the style of furnishing in a room, is very well understood. Thus, while both drawing-room and dining-room must express hospitality, it is of a different kind or degree. That of the drawing-room is ceremonious and punctilious, and represents the family in its relation to society, while the dining-room is far more intimate, and belongs to the family in its relation to friends. In fact, as the dining-room is the heart of the house, its furnishing would naturally be quite different in feeling and character from the drawing-room, although it might be fully as lavish in cost. It would be stronger, less conservative, and altogether more personal in its expression. Family portraits and family silver give the personal note which we like to recognise in our friends' dining-rooms, because the intimacy of the room makes even family history in place. In moderate houses, even the drawing-room is too much a family room to allow it to be entirely emancipated from the law of use, but in houses which are not circumscribed in space, and where one or more rooms are set apart to social rather than domestic life, it is natural and proper to gather in them things which stand, primarily, for art and beauty--which satisfy the needs of the mind as distinct from those of bodily comfort. Things which belong in the category of "unrelated beauty" may be appropriately gathered in such a room, because the use of it is to please the eye and excite the interest of our social world; therefore a table which is a marvel of art, but not of convenience, or a casket which is beautiful to look at, but of no practical use, are in accordance with the idea of the room. They help compose a picture, not only for the eyes of friends and acquaintances, but for the education of the family. It follows that an artistic and luxurious drawing-room may be a true family expression; it may speak of travel and interest in the artistic development of mankind; but even where the experiences of the family have been wide and liberal, if the house and circumstances are narrow, a luxurious interior is by no means a happiness. It may seem quite superfluous to give advice against luxury in furnishing except where it is warranted by exceptional means, because each family naturally adjusts its furnishing to its own needs and circumstances; but the influence of mere beauty is very powerful, and many a costly toy drifts into homes where it does not rightly belong and where, instead of being an educational or elevating influence, it is a source of mental deterioration, from its conflict with unsympathetic circumstances. A long and useful chapter might be written upon "art out of place," but nothing which could be said upon the subject would apply to that incorporation of art and beauty with furniture and interior surrounding, which is the effort and object of every true artist and art-lover. The fact to be emphasised is, that _objects d'art_--beautiful in themselves and costly because of the superior knowledge, artistic feeling, and patient labour which have produced them--demand care and reserve for their preservation, which is not available in a household where the first motive of everything must be ministry to comfort. Art in the shape of pictures is fortunately exempt from this rule, and may dignify and beautify every room in the house without being imperilled by contact in the exigencies of use. Following out this idea, a house where circumstances demand that there shall be no drawing-room, and where the family sitting-room must also answer for the reception of guests, a perfect beauty and dignity may be achieved by harmony of colour, beauty of form, and appropriateness to purpose, and this may be carried to almost any degree of perfection by the introduction and accompaniment of pictures. In this case art is a part of the room, as well as an adornment of it. It is kneaded into every article of furniture. It is the daily bread of art to which we are all entitled, and which can make a small country home, or a smaller city apartment, as enjoyable and elevating as if it were filled with the luxuries of art. [Illustration: RUSTIC SOFA AND TABLES IN "PENNYROYAL" (IN MRS. BOUDINOT KEITH'S COTTAGE, ONTEORA)] But one may say, "It requires knowledge to do this; much knowledge in the selection of the comparatively few things which are to make up such an interior," and that is true--and the knowledge is to be proved every time we come to the test of buying. Yet it is a curious fact that the really _good_ thing, the thing which is good in art as well as construction, will inevitably be chosen by an intelligent buyer, instead of the thing which is bad in art and in construction. Fortunately, one can see good examples in the shops of to-day, where twenty years ago at best only honest and respectable furniture was on exhibition. One must rely somewhat on the character of the places from which one buys, and not expect good styles and reliable manufacture where commercial success is the dominant note of the business. In truth the careful buyer is not so apt to fail in quality as in harmony, because grade as well as style in different articles and manufactures is to be considered. What is perfectly good in one grade of manufacture will not be in harmony with a higher or lower grade in another. Just as we choose our grade of floor-covering from ingrain to Aubusson, we must choose the grade of other furnishings. Even an inexperienced buyer would be apt to feel this, and would know that if she found a simple ingrain-filling appropriate to a bed-chamber, maple or enamelled furniture would belong to it, instead of more costly inlaid or carved pieces. It may be well to reiterate the fact that the predominant use of each room in a house gives the clew to the best rules of treatment in decoration and furniture. For instance, the hall, being an intermediate space between in and out of doors, should be coloured and furnished in direct reference to this, and to its common use as a thoroughfare by all members of the family. It is not a place of prolonged occupation, and may therefore properly be without the luxury and ease of lounges and lounging-chairs. But as long as it serves both as entrance-room to the house and for carrying the stairways to the upper floors, it should be treated in such a way as to lead up to and prepare the mind for whatever of inner luxury there may be in the house. At the same time it should preserve something of the simplicity and freedom from all attempt at effect which belong to out-of-door life. The difference between its decoration and furniture and that of other divisions of the house should be principally in surface, and not in colour. Difference of surface is secured by the use of materials which are permanent and durable in effect, such as wood, plaster, and leather. These may all be coloured without injury to their impression of permanency, although it is generally preferable to take advantage of indigenous or "inherent colour" like the natural yellows and russets of wood and leather. When these are used for both walls and ceiling, it will be found that, to give the necessary variation, and prevent an impression of monotony and dulness, some tint must be added in the ornament of the surface, which could be gained by a forcible deepening or variation of the general tone, like a deep golden brown, which is the lowest tone of the scale of yellow, or a red which would be only a variant of the prevailing tint. The introduction of an opposing or contrasting tint, like pale blue in small masses as compared with the general tint, even if it is in so small a space as that of a water-colour on the wall, adds the necessary contrast, and enlivens and invigorates a harmony. No colour carries with it a more appropriate influence at the entrance of a house than red in its different values. Certain tints of it which are known both as Pompeiian and Damascus red have sufficient yellow in their composition to fall in with the yellows of oiled wood, and give the charm of a variant but related colour. In its stronger and deeper tones it is in direct contrast to the green of abundant foliage, and therefore a good colour for the entrance-hall or vestibule of a country-house; while the paler tones, which run into pinks, hold the same opposing relation to the gray and blue of the sea-shore. If walls and ceiling are of wood, a rug of which the prevailing colour is red will often give the exact note which is needed to preserve the room from monotony and insipidity. A stair-carpet is a valuable point to make in a hall, and it is well to reserve all opposing colour for this one place, which, as it rises, meets all sight on a level, and makes its contrast directly and unmistakably. A stair-carpet has other reasons for use in a country-house than æsthetic ones, as the stairs are conductors of sound to all parts of the house, and should therefore be muffled, and because a carpeted stair furnishes much safer footing for the two family extremes of childhood and age. The furniture of the hall should not be fantastic, as some cabinet-makers seem to imagine. Impossible twists in the supports of tables and chairs are perhaps more objectionable in this first vestibule or entrance to the house than elsewhere, because the mind is not quite free from out-of-door influences, or ready to take pleasure in the vagaries of the human fancy. Simple chairs, settles, and tables, more solid perhaps than is desirable in other parts of the house, are what the best natural, as well as the best cultivated, taste demands. If there is one place more than another where a picture performs its full work of suggestion and decoration, it is in a hall which is otherwise bare of ornament. Pictures in dining-rooms make very little impression as pictures, because the mind is engrossed with the first and natural purpose of the room, and consequently not in a waiting and easily impressible mood; but in a hall, if one stops for even a moment, the thoughts are at leisure, and waiting to be interested. Aside from the colour effect, which may be so managed as to be very valuable, pictures hung in a hall are full of suggestion of wider mental and physical life, and, like books, are indications of the tastes and experiences of the family. Of course there are country-houses where the halls are built with fireplaces, and windows commanding favourite views, and are really intended for family sitting-rooms and gathering-places; in this case it is generally preceded by a vestibule which carries the character of an entrance-hall, leaving the large room to be furnished more luxuriously, as is proper to a sitting-room. The dining-room shares with the hall a purpose common to the life of the family, and, while it admits of much more variety and elaboration, that which is true of the hall is equally true of the dining-room, that it should be treated with materials which are durable and have surface quality, although its decoration should be preferably with china rather than with pictures. It is important that the colour of a dining-room should be pervading colour--that is, that walls and ceiling should be kept together by the use of one colour only, in different degrees of strength. For many reasons, but principally because it is the best material to use in a dining-room, the rich yellows of oiled wood make the most desirable colour and surface. The rug, the curtains, the portières and screen, can then be of any good tint which the exposure of the room and the decoration of the china seem to indicate. If it has a cold, northern exposure, reds or gold browns are indicated; but if it is a sunny and warm-looking room, green or strong India blue will be found more satisfactory in simple houses. The materials used in curtains, portières, and screens should be of cotton or linen, or some plain woollen goods which are as easily washable. A one-coloured, heavy-threaded cotton canvas, a linen in solid colour, or even indigo-blue domestic, all make extremely effective and appropriate furnishings. The variety of blue domestic which is called denim is the best of all fabrics for this kind of furnishing, if the colour is not too dark. The prettiest country house dining-room I know is ceiled and wainscoted with wood, the walls above the wainscoting carrying an ingrain paper of the same tone; the line of division between the wainscot and wall being broken by a row of old blue India china plates, arranged in groups of different sizes and running entirely around the room. There is one small mirror set in a broad carved frame of yellow wood hung in the centre of a rather large wall-space, its angles marked by small Dutch plaques; but the whole decoration of the room outside of these pieces consists of draperies of blue denim in which there is a design, in narrow white outline, of leaping fish, and the widening water-circles and showery drops made by their play. The white lines in the design answer to the white spaces in the decorated china, and the two used together in profusion have an unexpectedly decorative effect. The table and chairs are, of course, of the same coloured wood used in the ceiling and wainscot, and the rug is an India cotton of dark and light blues and white. The sideboard is an arrangement of fixed shelves, but covered with a beautiful collection of blue china, which serves to furnish the table as well. If the dining-room had a northern exposure, and it was desirable to use red instead of blue for colouring, as good an effect could be secured by depending for ornament upon the red Kaga porcelain so common at present in Japanese and Chinese shops, and using with it the Eastern cotton known as _bez_. This is dyed with madder, and exactly repeats the red of the porcelain, while it is extremely durable both in colour and texture. Borders of yellow stitchery, or straggling fringes of silk and beads, add very much to the effect of the drapery and to the character of the room. [Illustration: DINING-ROOM IN "STAR ROCK" (COUNTRY HOUSE OF W.E. CONNOR, ESQ., ONTEORA)] A library in ordinary family life has two parts to play. It is not only to hold books, but to make the family at home in a literary atmosphere. Such a room is apt to be a fascinating one by reason of this very variety of use and purpose, and because it is a centre for all the family treasures. Books, pictures, papers, photographs, bits of decorative needlework, all centre here, and all are on most orderly behaviour, like children at a company dinner. The colour of such a room may, and should, be much warmer and stronger than that of a parlour pure and simple, the very constancy and hardness of its use indicating tints of strength and resistance; but, keeping that in mind, the rules for general use of colour and harmony of tints will apply as well to a room used for a double purpose as for a single. Of course the furniture should be more solid and darker, as would be necessary for constant use, but the deepening of tones in general colour provides for that, and for the use of rugs of a different character. In a room of this kind perhaps the best possible effect is produced by the use of some textile as a wall-covering, as in that case the same material with a contrasted colour in the lining can be used for curtains, and to some extent in the furniture. This use of one material has not only an effect of richness which is due to the library of the house, but it softens and brings together all the heterogeneous things which different members of a large family are apt to require in a sitting-room. To those who prefer to work out and adapt their own surroundings, it is well to illustrate the advice given for colour in different exposures by selecting particular rooms, with their various relations to light, use, and circumstances, and seeing how colour-principles can be applied to them. We may choose a reception-hall, in either a city or country house, since the treatment would in both cases be guided by the same rules. If in a city house, it may be on the shady or the sunny side of the street, and this at once would differentiate, perhaps the colour, and certainly the depth of colour to be used. If it is the hall of a country house the difference between north or south light will not be as great, since a room opening on the north in a house standing alone, in unobstructed space, would have an effect of coldness, but not necessarily of shadow or darkness. The first condition, then, of coldness of light would have to be considered in both cases, but less positively in the country, than in the city house. If the room is actually dark, a warm or orange tone of yellow will both modify and lighten it. Gold-coloured or yellow canvas with oak mouldings lighten and warm the walls; and rugs with a preponderance of white and yellow transform a dark hall into a light and cheerful one. It must be remembered that few dark colours can assert themselves in the absolute shadow of a north light. Green and blue become black. Gold, orange, and red alone have sufficient power to hold their own, and make us conscious of them in darkness. In a hall which has plenty of light, but no sun, red is an effective and natural colour, copper-coloured leather paper, cushions and rugs or carpets of varying shades of red, and transparent curtains of the same tint give an effect of warmth and vitality. Red is truly a delightful colour to deal with in shadowed interiors, its sensitiveness to light, changing from colour-tinted darkness to palpitating ruby, and even to flame colour, on the slightest invitation of day-or lamp-light, makes it like a living presence. It is especially valuable at the entrance of the home, where it seems to meet one with almost a human welcome. If we can succeed in making what would be a cold and unattractive entrance hospitable and cordial by liberal use of warm and strong colour, by reversing the effort we can just as easily modify the effect of glaring, or overpowering, sunlight. Suppose the entrance-hall of the house to be upon the sunny side of the street, where in addition to the natural effect of full rays of the sun there are also the reflections from innumerable other house-fronts and house-windows. In this case we must simulate shadow and mystery, and this can be done by the colour-tones of blues and greens. I use these in the plural because the shadows of both are innumerable, and because all, except perhaps turquoise and apple-green, are natural shadow-tints. Green and blue can be used together or separately, according to the skill and what is called the "colour-sense" with which they are applied. To use them together requires not only observation of colour-occurrences in nature but sensitiveness to the more subtle out-of-door effects, resulting from intermingling of shadows and reflection of lights. Well done, it is one of the most beautiful and satisfactory of achievements, but it may easily be bad by reason of sharp contrasts, or unmodified juxtaposition. But a room where blue in all its shades from dark to light alone predominates, or a room where only green is used, bright and gray tones in contrast and variation is within the reach of most colour-loving mortals, and as both of these tints are companionable with oak and gold, and to be found in nearly all decoration materials, it is easy to arrange a refined and beautiful effect in either colour. It will require little reflection to show that a hall skilfully treated with green or blue tints would modify the colour of sunlight, without giving a sense of discord. It would be like passing only from sunlight to grateful shadow, and this because in all art the actual representation shadow-colour would be blue or green. The shadow of a tree falling upon snow on a sunny winter day is blue. The shadow of a sunheated rock in summer is green, and the success of either of these schemes of decoration would be because of adherence to an actual principle of colour, or a knowledge of the peculiar qualities of certain colours and their proper use. It would be an intelligent application of the medicinal or healing qualities of colour to the constitution of the house, as skilful physicians use medicines to overcome constitutional defects or difficulties in man. This may be called _corrective_ treatment of a room, and may, of course, include all the decorative devices of ornament, design and furniture, and although it is not, strictly speaking, decoration, it should certainly and always precede decoration. It is sad to see an elaborate scheme of ornament based upon bad colour-treatment, and unfortunately this not infrequently happens. It is difficult to give a formula for the decoration of any room in relation to its colour-treatment, except by a careful description of certain successful examples, each one of which illustrates principles that may be of use to the amateur or student of the art. One which occurs to me in this immediate connection is a dining-room in an apartment house, where this room alone is absolutely without what may be called exterior light. Its two windows open upon a well, the brick wall of which is scarcely ten feet away. Fortunately, it makes a part of the home of a much travelled and exceedingly cultivated pair of beings, the business of one being to create beauty in the way of pictures and the other of statues, so perhaps it is less than a wonder that this square, unattractive well-room should have blossomed under their hands into a dining-room perfect in colour, style, and fittings. I shall give only the result, the process being capable of infinite small variations. At present it is a room sixteen feet square, one side of which is occupied by two nearly square windows. The wood-work, including a five-foot wainscot of small square panels, is painted a glittering varnished white which is warm in tone, but not creamy. The upper halves of the square windows are of semi-opaque yellow glass, veined and variable, but clear enough everywhere to admit a stained yellow light. Below these, thin yellow silk curtains cross each other, so that the whole window-space radiates yellow light. If we reflect that the colour of sunlight is yellow, we shall be able to see both the philosophy and the result of this treatment. The wall above the wainscot is covered with a plain unbleached muslin, stencilled at the top in a repeating design of faint yellow tile-like squares which fade gradually into white at a foot below the ceiling. At intervals along the wall are water-colours of flat Holland meadows, or blue canals, balanced on either side by a blue delft plate, and in a corner near the window is a veritable blue porcelain stove, which once faintly warmed some far-off German interior. The floor is polished oak, as are the table and chairs. I purposely leave out all the accessories and devices of brass and silver, the quaint brass-framed mirrors, the ivy-encircled windows, the one or two great ferns, the choice blue table-furniture:--because these are personal and should neither be imitated or reduced to rules. The lesson is in the use of yellow and white, accented with touches of blue, which converts a dark and perfectly cheerless room into a glitter of light and warmth. The third example I shall give is of a dining-room which may be called palatial in size and effect, occupying the whole square wing of a well-known New York house. There are many things in this house in the way of furniture, pictures, historic bits of art in different lines, which would distinguish it among fine houses, but one particular room is, perhaps, as perfectly successful in richness of detail, picturesqueness of effect, and at the same time perfect appropriateness to time, place, and circumstances as is possible for any achievement of its kind. The dining-room, and its art, taken in detail, belongs to the Venetian school, but if its colour-effect were concentrated upon canvas, it would be known as a Rembrandt. There is the same rich shadow, covering a thousand gradations,--the same concentration of light, and the same liberal diffusion of warm and rich tones of colour. It is a grand room in space, as New York interiors go, being perhaps forty to fifty feet in breadth and length, with a height exactly proportioned to the space. It has had the advantage of separate creation--being "thought out" years after the early period of the house, and is, consequently, a concrete result of study, travel, and opportunities, such as few families are privileged to experience. Aside from the perfect proportions of the room, it is not difficult to analyse the art which makes it so distinguished an example of decoration of space, and decide wherein lies its especial charm. It is undoubtedly that of colour, although this is based upon a detail so perfect, that one hesitates to give it predominant credit. The whole, or nearly the whole west end of the room is thrown into one vast, slightly projecting window of clear leaded glass, the lines of which stand against the light like a weaving of spiders' webs. There is a border of various tints at its edge, which softens it into the brown shadow of the room, and the centre of each large sash is marked by a shield-like ornament glowing with colour like a jewel. The long ceiling and high wainscoting melt away from this leaded window in a perspective of wonderfully carved planes of antique oak, catching the light on lines and points of projection and quenching it in hollows of relief. [Illustration: DINING-ROOM IN NEW YORK HOUSE SHOWING LEADED-GLASS WINDOWS] These perpendicular wall panels were scaled from a room in a Venetian palace, carved when the art and the fortunes of that sea-city were at their best, and the alternately repeating squares of the ceiling were fashioned to carry out and supplement the ancient carvings. If this were a small room, there would be a sense of unrest in so lavish a use of broken surface, but in one large enough to have it felt as a whole, and not in detail, it simply gives a quality of preciousness. The soft browns of the wood spread a mystery of surface, from the edge of the polished floor until it meets a frieze of painted canvas filled with large reclining figures clad in draperies of red, and blue, and yellow--separating the walls from the ceiling by an illumination of colour. This colour-decoration belongs to the past, and it is a question if any modern painting could have adapted itself so perfectly to the spirit of the room, although in itself it might be far more beautiful. It is a bit of antique imagination, its cherub-borne plates of fruit, and golden flagons, and brown-green of foliage and turquoise of sky, and crimson and gold of garments, all softened to meet the shadows of the room. The door-spaces in the wainscot are hung with draperies of crimson velvet, the surface frayed and flattened by time into variations of red, impossible to newer weavings, while the great floor-space is spread with an enormous rug of the same colour--the gift of a Sultan. A carved table stands in the centre, surrounded with high-backed carved chairs, the seats covered with the same antique velvet which shows in the portières. A fall of thin crimson silk tints the sides of the window-frame, and on the two ends of the broad step or platform which leads to the window stand two tall pedestals and globe-shaped jars of red and blue-green pottery. The deep, ruby-like red of the one and the mixed indefinite tint of the other seem to have curdled into the exact shade for each particular spot, their fitness is so perfect. The very sufficient knowledge which has gone to the making of this superb room has kept the draperies unbroken by design or device, giving colour only and leaving to the carved walls the privilege of ornament. It will be seen that there are but two noticeable colour-tones in the room--brown with infinite variations, and red in rugs and draperies. There is no real affinity between these two tints, but they are here so well balanced in mass, that the two form a complete harmony, like the brown waves of a landscape at evening tipped with the fire of a sunset sky. Much is to be learned from a room like this, in the lesson of unity and concentration of effect. The strongest, and in fact the only, mass of vital colour is in the carpet, which is allowed to play upwards, as it were, into draperies, and furniture, and frieze, none of which show the same depth and intensity. To the concentration of light in the one great window we must give the credit of the Rembrandt-like effect of the whole interior. If the walls were less rich, this single flood of light would be a defect, because it would be difficult to treat a plain surface with colour alone, which should be equally good in strong light and deep shadow. [Illustration: DINING-ROOM IN NEW YORK HOME SHOWING CARVED WAINSCOTTING AND PAINTED FRIEZE] Then, again, the amount of living and brilliant colour is exactly proportioned to that of sombre brown, the red holding its value by strength, as against the greatly preponderating mass of dark. On the whole this may be called a "picture-room," and yet it is distinctly liveable, lending itself not only to hospitality and ceremonious function but also to real domesticity. It is true that there is a certain obligation in its style of beauty which calls for fine manners and fine behaviour, possibly even, behaviour in kind; for it is in the nature of all fine and exceptional things to demand a corresponding fineness from those who enjoy them. I will give still another dining-room as an example of colour, which, unlike the others, is not modern, but a sort of falling in of old gentility and costliness into lines of modern art--one might almost say it _happened_ to be beautiful, and yet the happening is only an adjustment of fine old conditions to modern ideas. Yet I have known many as fine a room torn out and refitted, losing thereby all the inherent dignity of age and superior associations. A beautiful city home of seventy years ago is not very like a beautiful city home of to-day; perhaps less so in this than in any other country. The character of its fineness is curiously changed; the modern house is fitted to its inmates, while the old-fashioned house, modelled upon the early eighteenth century art of England, obliged the inmates to fit themselves as best they might to a given standard. The dining-room I speak of belongs to the period when Washington Square, New York, was still surrounded by noble homes, and almost the limit of luxurious city life was Union Square. The house fronts to the north, consequently the dining-room, which is at the back, is flooded with sunshine. The ceiling is higher than it would be in a modern house, and the windows extend to the floor, and rise nearly to the ceiling, far indeed above the flat arches of the doorways with their rococo flourishes. This extension of window-frame, and the heavy and elaborate plaster cornice so deep as to be almost a frieze, and the equally elaborate centre-piece, are the features which must have made it a room difficult to ameliorate. I could fancy it must have been an ugly room in the old days when its walls were probably white, and the great mahogany doors were spots of colour in prevailing spaces of blankness. Now, however, any one at all learned in art, or sensitive to beauty, would pronounce it a beautiful room. The way in which the ceiling with its heavy centre-piece and plaster cornice is treated is especially interesting. The whole of this is covered with an ochre-coloured bronze, while the walls and door-casings are painted a dark indigo, which includes a faint trace of green. Over this wall-colour, and joining the cornice, is carried a stencil design in two coloured bronzes which seem to repeat the light and shadow of the cornice mouldings, and this apparently extends the cornice into a frieze which ends faintly at a picture-moulding some three feet below. This treatment not only lowers the ceiling, which is in construction too high for the area of the room, but blends it with the wall in a way which imparts a certain richness of effect to all the lower space. The upper part of the windows, to the level of the picture-moulding, is covered with green silk, overlaid with an appliqué of the same in a design somewhat like the frieze, so that it seems to carry the frieze across the space of light in a green tracery of shadow. The same green extends from curtain-rods at the height of the picture-moulding into long under-curtains of silk, while the over-curtains are of indigo coloured silk-canvas which matches the walls. The portières separating the dining-room from the drawing-room are of a wonderfully rich green brocade--the colour of which answers to the green of the silk under-curtains across the room, while the design ranges itself indisputably with the period of the plaster work. The blue and green of the curtains and portière each seem to claim their own in the mixed and softened background of the wall. The colour of the room would hardly be complete without the three beautiful portraits which hang upon the walls, and suggest their part of the life and conversation of to-day so that it stands on a proper plane with the dignity of three generations. The beautiful mahogany doors and elaboration of cornice and central ornament belong to them, but the harmony and beauty of colour are of our own time and tell of the general knowledge and feeling for art which belongs to it. I have given the colour-treatment only of this room, leaving out the effect of carved teak-wood furniture and subtleties of china and glass--not alone as an instance of colour in a sunny exposure, but as an example of fitting new styles to old, of keeping what is valuable and beautiful in itself and making it a part of the comparatively new art of decoration. [Illustration: SCREEN BY DORA WHEELER KEITH SCREEN AND GLASS WINDOW IN HOUSE AT LAKEWOOD (Belonging to Clarence Roof, Esq.)] There is a dining-room in one of the many delightful houses in Lakewood, N.J., which owes its unique charm to a combination of position, light, colour, and perhaps more than all, to the clever decoration of its upper walls, which is a fine and broad composition of swans and many-coloured clusters of grapes and vine-foliage placed above the softly tinted copper-coloured wall. The same design is carried in silvery and gold-coloured leaded-glass across the top of the wide west window, as shown in illustration opposite page 222, and reappears with a shield-shaped arrangement of wings in a beautiful four-leaved screen. The notable and enjoyable colour of the room is seen from the very entrance of the house, the broad main hall making a carpeted highway to the wide opening of the room, where a sheaf of tinted sunset light seems to spread itself like a many-doubled fan against the shadows of the hall. All the ranges and intervals, the lights, reflections, and darks possible to that most beautiful of metals--copper--seem to be gathered into the frieze and screen, and melt softly into the greens of the foliage, or tint the plumage of the swans. It is an instance of the kind of decoration which is both classic and domestic, and being warmed and vivified by beautiful colour, appeals both to the senses and the imagination. It would be easy to multiply instances of beautiful rooms, and each one might be helpful for mere imitation, but those I have given have each one illustrated--more or less distinctly--the principle of colour as affecting or being affected by light. I have not thought it necessary to give examples of rooms with eastern or western exposures, because in such rooms one is free to consult one's own personal preferences as to colour, being limited only by the general rules which govern all colour decoration. I have not spoken of pictures or paintings as accessories of interior decoration, because while their influence upon the character and degree of beauty in the house is greater than all other things put together, their selection and use are so purely personal as not to call for remark or advice. Any one who loves pictures well enough to buy them, can hardly help placing them where they not only are at their best, but where they will also have the greatest influence. A house where pictures predominate will need little else that comes under the head of decoration. It is a pity that few houses have this advantage, but fortunately it is quite possible to give a picture quality to every interior. This can often be done by following the lead of some accidental effect which is in itself picturesque. The placing a jar of pottery or metal near or against a piece of drapery which repeats its colour and heightens the lustre of its substance is a small detail, but one which gives pleasure out of all proportion to its importance. The half accidental draping of a curtain, the bringing together of shapes and colours in insignificant things, may give a character which is lastingly pleasing both to inmates and casual visitors. Of course this is largely a matter of personal gift. One person may make a picturesque use of colour and material, which in the hands of another will be perhaps without fault, but equally without charm. Instances of this kind come constantly within our notice, although we are not always able to give the exact reasons for success or failure. We only know that we feel the charm of one instance and are indifferent to, or totally unimpressed by, the other. It is by no means an unimportant thing to create a beautiful and picturesque interior. There is no influence so potent upon life as harmonious surroundings, and to create and possess a home which is harmonious in a simple and inexpensive way is the privilege of all but the wretchedly poor. In proportion also as these surroundings become more perfect in their art and meaning, there is a corresponding elevation in the dweller among them--since the best decoration must include many spiritual lessons. It may indeed be used to further vulgar ambitions, or pamper bodily weaknesses, but truth and beauty are its essentials, and these will have their utterance. 
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12254	----	- [Illustration: Interior of a French Chateau Shewing Furniture of the Time. Period: Late XIV. or Early XV. Century.] Illustrated History Of Furniture: _From the Earliest to the Present Time._ by Frederick Litchfield. With numerous Illustrations 1893. Preface. In the following pages the Author has placed before the reader an account of the changes in the design of Decorative Furniture and Woodwork, from the earliest period of which we have any reliable or certain record until the present time. A careful selection of illustrations has been made from examples of established authenticity, the majority of which are to be seen, either in the Museums to which reference is made, or by permission of the owners; and the representations of the different "interiors" will convey an idea of the character and disposition of the furniture of the periods to which they refer. These illustrations are arranged, so far as is possible, in chronological order, and the descriptions which accompany them are explanatory of the historical and social changes which have influenced the manners and customs, and directly or indirectly affected the Furniture of different nations. An endeavour is made to produce a "panorama" which may prove acceptable to many, who, without wishing to study the subject deeply, may desire to gain some information with reference to it generally, or with regard to some part of it, in which they may feel a particular interest. It will be obvious that within the limits of a single volume of moderate dimensions it is impossible to give more than an outline sketch of many periods of design and taste which deserve far more consideration than is here bestowed upon them; the reader is, therefore, asked to accept the first chapter, which refers to "Ancient Furniture" and covers a period of several centuries, as introductory to that which follows, rather than as a serious attempt to examine the history of the furniture during that space of time. The fourth chapter, which deals with a period of some hundred and fifty years, from the time of King James the First until that of Chippendale and his contemporaries, and the last three chapters, are more fully descriptive than some others, partly because trustworthy information as to these times is more accessible, and partly because it is probable that English readers will feel greater interest in the furniture of which they are the subject. The French _meubles de luxe_, from the latter half of the seventeenth century until the Revolution, are also treated more fully than the furniture of other periods and countries, on account of the interest which has been manifested in this description of the cabinet maker's and metal mounter's work during the past ten or fifteen years. There is evidence of this appreciation in the enormous prices realised at notable auction sales, when such furniture has been offered for competition to wealthy connoisseurs. In order to gain a more correct idea of the design of Furniture of different periods, it has been necessary to notice the alterations in architectural styles which influenced, and were accompanied by, corresponding changes in the fashion of interior woodwork. Such comments are made with some diffidence, as it is felt that this branch of the subject would have received more fitting treatment by an architect, who was also an antiquarian, than by an antiquarian with only a limited knowledge of architecture. Some works on "Furniture" have taken the word in its French interpretation, to include everything that is "movable" in a house; other writers have combined with historical notes, critical remarks and suggestions as to the selection of Furniture. The author has not presumed to offer any such advice, and has confined his attention to a description of that which, in its more restricted sense, is understood as "Decorative Furniture and Woodwork." For his own information, and in the pursuit of his business, he has been led to investigate the causes and the approximate dates of the several changes in taste which have taken place, and has recorded them in as simple and readable a story as the difficulties of the subject permit. Numerous acts of kindness and co-operation, received while preparing the work for the press, have rendered the task very pleasant; and while the author has endeavoured to acknowledge, in a great many instances, the courtesies received, when noticing the particular occasion on which such assistance was rendered, he would desire generally to record his thanks to the owners of historic mansions, the officials of our Museums, the Clerks of City Companies, Librarians, and others, to whom he is indebted. The views of many able writers who have trodden the same field of enquiry have been adopted where they have been confirmed by the writer's experience or research, and in these cases he hopes he has not omitted to express his acknowledgments for the use he has made of them. The large number of copies subscribed for, accompanied, as many of the applications have been, by expressions of goodwill and confidence beforehand, have been very gratifying, and have afforded great encouragement during the preparation of the work. If the present venture is received in such a way as to encourage a larger effort, the writer hopes both to multiply examples and extend the area of his observations. F. L. Hanway Street, London, _July_, 1892. Contents. Chapter I. BIBLICAL REFERENCES: Solomon's House and Temple--Palace of Ahashuerus. ASSYRIAN FURNITURE: Nimrod's Palace--Mr. George Smith quoted. EGYPTIAN FURNITURE: Specimens in the British Museum--The Workman's Stool--Various articles of Domestic Furniture--Dr. Birch quoted. GREEK FURNITURE: The Bas Reliefs in the British Museum--The Chest of Cypselus--Laws and Customs of the Greeks--House of Alcibiades--Plutarch quoted. ROMAN FURNITURE: Position of Rome--The Roman House--Cicero's Table--Thyine Wood--Customs of wealthy Romans--Downfall of the Empire. Chapter II. Period of 1000 years from Fall of Rome, A.D. 476, to Capture of Constantinople, 1453--The Crusades--Influence of Christianity--Chairs of St. Peter and Maximian at Rome, Ravenna and Venice--Edict of Leo III. prohibiting Image worship--The Rise of Venice--Charlemagne and his successors--The Chair of Dagobert--Byzantine character of Furniture--Norwegian carving--Russian and Scandinavian--The Anglo-Saxons--Sir Walter Scott quoted--Descriptions of Anglo-Saxon Houses and Customs--Art in Flemish Cities--Gothic Architecture--The Coronation Chair in Westminster Abbey--Penshurst--French Furniture in the 14th Century--Description of rooms--The South Kensington Museum--Transition from Gothic to Renaissance--German carved work: the Credence, the Buffet, and Dressoir. Chapter III. THE RENAISSANCE IN ITALY: Leonardo da Vinci and Raffaele--Church of St. Peter, contemporary great artists--The Italian Palazzo--Methods of gilding, inlaying and mounting Furniture--Pietra-dura and other enrichments--Ruskin's criticism. THE RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE: Francois I. and the Chateau of Fontainebleau--Influence on Courtiers-Chairs of the time--Design of Cabinets--M.E. Bonnaffe on The Renaissance--Bedstead of Jeanne d'Albret--Deterioration of taste in time of Henry IV.--Louis XIII. Furniture--Brittany woodwork. THE RENAISSANCE IN THE NETHERLANDS: Influence of the House of Burgundy on Art--The Chimney-piece at Bruges, and other casts of specimens in South Kensington Museum. THE RENAISSANCE IN SPAIN: The resources of Spain in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries--Influence of Saracenic Art--High-backed leather chairs--The Carthusian Convent at Granada. THE RENAISSANCE IN GERMANY: Albrecht Dürer--Famous Steel Chair of Augsburg--German seventeenth century carving in St. Saviour's Hospital. THE RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND: Influence of Foreign Artists in the time of Henry VIII.--End of Feudalism--Hampton Court Palace--Linen pattern Panels--Woodwork in the Henry VII. Chapel at Westminster Abbey--Livery Cupboards at Hengrave--Harrison quoted--The "parler"--Alteration in English customs--Chairs of the sixteenth century--Coverings and Cushions of the time, extract from old Inventory--South Kensington Cabinet--Elizabethan Mirror at Goodrich Court--Shaw's "Ancient Furniture"--The Glastonbury Chair--Introduction of Frames into England--Characteristics of Native Woodwork--Famous Country Mansions--Alteration in design of Woodwork and Furniture--Panelled Rooms in South Kensington--The Charterhouse--Gray's Inn Hall and Middle Temple--The Hall of the Carpenters' Company--The Great Bed of Ware--Shakespeare's Chair--Penshurst Place. Chapter IV. English Home Life in the Reign of James I.--Sir Henry Wootton quoted--Inigo Jones and his work--Ford Castle--Chimney Pieces in South Kensington Museum--Table in the Carpenters' Hall--Hall of the Barbers' Company--The Charterhouse--Time of Charles I.--Furniture at Knole--Eagle House, Wimbledon--Mr. Charles Eastlake--Monuments at Canterbury and Westminster--Settles, Couches, and Chairs of the Stuart period--Sir Paul Pindar's House--Cromwellian Furniture--The Restoration--Indo-Portuguese Furniture--Hampton Court Palace--Evelyn's description--The Great Fire of London--Hall of the Brewers' Company--Oak Panelling of the time--Grinling Gibbons and his work--The Edict of Nantes--Silver Furniture at Knole--William III. and Dutch influence--Queen Anne--Sideboards, Bureaus, and Grandfather's Clocks--Furniture at Hampton Court. Chapter V. CHINESE FURNITURE: Probable source of artistic taste--Sir William Chambers quoted--Racinet's "Le Costume Historique"--Dutch influence--The South Kensington and the Duke of Edinburgh Collections--Processes of making Lacquer--Screens in the Kensington Museum. JAPANESE FURNITURE: Early History--Sir Rutherford Alcock and Lord Elgin--The Collection of the Shogun--Famous Collections--Action of the present Government of Japan--Special characteristics. INDIAN FURNITURE: Early European influence--Furniture of the Moguls--Racinet's Work--Bombay Furniture--Ivory Chairs and Table--Specimens in the India Museum. PERSIAN WOODWORK: Collection of Objets d'Art formed by Gen. Murdoch Smith, R.E.---Industrial Arts of the Persians--Arab influence--South Kensington specimens. SARACENIC WOODWORK: Oriental customs--Specimens in the South Kensington Museum of Arab Work--M. d'Aveune's Work. Chapter VI. PALACE OF VERSAILLES: "Grand" and "Petit Trianon"--The three Styles of Louis XIV., XV., and XVI.--Colbert and Lebrun--André Charles Boule and his Work--Carved and Gilt Furniture--The Regency and its Influence--Alteration in Condition of French Society--Watteau, Lancret, and Boucher. Louis XV. FURNITURE: Famous Ébenistes--Vernis Martin Furniture--Caffieri and Gouthière Mountings--Sêvres Porcelain introduced into Cabinets--Gobelins Tapestry--The "Bureau du Roi." LOUIS XVI. AND MARIE ANTOINETTE: The Queen's Influence--The Painters Chardin and Greuze--More simple Designs--Characteristic Ornaments of Louis XVI. Furniture--Riesener's Work--Gouthière's Mountings--Specimens in the Louvre--The Hamilton Palace Sale--French influence upon the design of Furniture in other countries--The Jones Collection--Extract from "The Times". Chapter VII. Chinese style--Sir William Chambers--The Brothers Adams' work--Pergolesi, Cipriani, and Angelica Kauffmann--Architects of the time--Wedgwood and Flaxman--Chippendale's Work and his Contemporaries--Chair in the Barbers' Hall--Lock, Shearer, Hepplewhite; Ince, Mayhew, Sheraton--Introduction of Satinwood and Mahogany--Gillows, of Lancaster and London--History of the Sideboard--The Dining Room--Furniture of the time. Chapter VIII. The French Revolution and First Empire--Influence on design of Napoleon's Campaigns--The Cabinet presented to Marie Louise--Dutch Furniture of the time--English Furniture--Sheraton's later work--Thomas Hope, architect--George Smith's designs--Fashion during the Regency--Gothic revival--Seddon's Furniture--Other Makers--Influence on design of the Restoration in France--Furniture of William IV. and early part of Queen Victoria's reign--Baroque and Rococo styles--The panelling of rooms, dado, and skirting--The Art Union--The Society of Arts--Sir Charles Barry and the new Palace of Westminster--Pugin's designs--Auction Prices of Furniture--Christie's--The London Club Houses--Steam--Different Trade Customs--Exhibitions in France and England--Harry Rogers' work--The Queen's cradle--State of Art in England during first part of present reign--Continental designs--Italian carving--Cabinet work--General remarks. Chapter IX. THE GREAT EXHIBITION: Exhibitors and contemporary Cabinet Makers--Exhibition of 1862, London; 1867, Paris; and subsequently--Description of Illustrations--Fourdinois, Wright and Mansfield--The South Kensington Museum--Revival of Marquetry--Comparison of Present Day with that of a Hundred Years ago--Æstheticism--Traditions--Trades-Unionism--The Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society--Independence of Furniture--Present Fashions--Writers on Design--Modern Furniture in other Countries--Concluding Remarks. APPENDIX. List of Artists and Manufacturers of Furniture--Woods--Tapestry used for French Furniture--The processes of Gilding and Polishing--The Pianoforte. Index. List of Subscribers. List of Illustrations. Frontispiece--Dwelling Room of a French Chateau Chapter I. Vignette of Bas-relief--egyptian Seated, as Ornament to Initial Letter. Assyrian Bronze Throne and Footstool Chairs From Khorsabad and Xanthus and Assyrian Throne Repose of King Asshurbanipal Examples of Egyptian Furniture in the British Museum: Stool; Stand for a Vase; Head-rest or Pillow; Workman's Stool; Vase on a Stand; Folding Stool; Ebony Seat inlaid with ivory An Egyptian of High Rank Seated An Egyptian Banquet Chair with Captives as Supports, and an Ivory Box Bacchus and Attendants Visiting Icarus Greek Bedstead with a Table Greek Furniture Interior of an Ancient Roman House Roman State Chair Bronze Lamp and Stand Roman Scamnum or Bench Bisellium, or Seat for Two Persons Roman Couch, Generally of Bronze A Roman Study Roman Triclinium or Dining Room Chapter II. Vignette of Gothic Oak Armoire, as Ornament to Initial Letter Chair of St. Peter, Rome Dagobert Chair A Carved Norwegian Doorway Scandinavian Chair Cover of a Casket Carved in Whalebone Saxon House (IX. Century) Anglo-saxon Furniture of About the X. Century The Seat on the Daïs Saxon State Bed English Folding Chair (XIV. Century) Cradle of Henry V Coronation Chair, Westminster Abbey Chair in York Minster Two Chairs of the XV. Century Table at Penshurst Bedroom (XIV. Century) Carved Oak Bedstead and Chair The New Born Infant Portrait of Christine De Pisan State Banquet with Attendant Musicians (Two Woodcuts) A High-backed Chair (XV. Century) Medieval Bed and Bedroom A Scribe or Copyist Two German Chairs Carved Oak Buffet (French Gothic) Carved Oak Table Flemish Buffet A Tapestried Room A Carved Oak Seat Interior of Apothecary's Shop Court of the Ladies of Queen Anne of Brittany Chapter III. Vignette of the Caryatides Cabinet, as Ornament to Initial Letter Reproduction of Decoration by Raffaele Salon of M. Bonnaffé A Sixteenth Century Room Chair in Carved Walnut Venetian Centre Table Marriage Coffer in Carved Walnut Marriage Coffer Pair of Italian Carved Bellows Carved Italian Mirror Frame, XVI. Century A Sixteenth Century Coffre-fort Italian Coffer Italian Chairs Ebony Cabinet Venetian State Chair Ornamental Panelling in St. Vincent's Church, Rouen Chimney Piece (Fontainebleau) Carved Oak Panel (1577) Fac-Similes of Engraving On Wood Carved Oak Bedstead of Jeanne D'albret Carved Oak Cabinet (Lyons) Louis XIII. and His Court Decoration of a Salon in Louis XIII. Style An Ebony Armoire (Flemish Renaissance) A Barber's Shop (XVI. Century) A Flemish Citizen at Meals Sedan Chair of Charles V. Silver Table (Windsor Castle) Chair of Walnut or Chesnut Wood, Spanish, with Embossed Leather Wooden Coffer (XVI. Century) The Steel Chair (Longford Castle) German Carved Oak Buffet Carved Oak Chest Chair of Anna Boleyn Tudor Cabinet The Glastonbury Chair Carved Oak Elizabethan Bedstead Oak Wainscoting Dining Hall in the Charterhouse Screen in the Hall of Gray's Inn Carved Oak Panels (Carpenters' Hall) Part of an Elizabethan Staircase The Entrance Hall, Hardwick Hall Shakespeare's Chair The "Great Bed of Ware" The "Queen's Room," Penshurst Place Carved Oak Chimney Piece in Speke Hall Chapter IV. A Chair of XVII. Century, as Ornament to Initial Letter Oak Chimney Piece in Sir W. Raleigh's House Chimney Piece in Byfleet House "The King's Chamber," Ford Castle Centre Table (Carpenters' Hall) Carved Oak Chairs Oak Chimney Piece From Lime Street, City Oak Sideboard Seats at Knole Arm Chair, Knole The "Spangle" Bedroom, Knole Couch, Chair, and Single Chair (Penshurst Place) "Folding" and "Drawinge" Table Chairs, Stuart Period Chair Used by Charles I. During His Trial Two Carved Oak Chairs Settle of Carved Oak Staircase in General Treton's House Settee and Chair (Penshurst Place) Carved Ebony Chair Sedes Busbiana The Master's Chair in the Brewers' Hall Carved Oak "Livery" Cupboard Carved Oak Napkin Press Three Chairs From Hampton Court, Hardwick, and Knole Carved Oak Screen in Stationers' Hall Silver Furniture at Knole Three Chimney Pieces by James Gibbs Chapter V. Pattern of a Chinese Lac Screen An Eastern (Saracenic) Table, as Ornament to Initial Letter Japanese Cabinet of Red Chased Lacquer Ware Casket of Indian Lacquer-work Door of Carved Sandal Wood From Travancore Persian Incense Burner of Engraved Brass Governor's Palace, Manfulut Specimen of Saracenic Panelling A Carved Door of Syrian Work Shaped Panel of Saracenic Work Chapter VI. Boule Armoire (Hamilton Palace) Vignette of a Louis Quatorze Commode, as Ornament to Initial Letter. Boule Armoire (Jones Collection) Pedestal Cabinet by Boule (Jones Collection) A Concert in the Reign of Louis XIV. A Screen Panel by Watteau Decoration of a Salon in the Louis XIV. Style A Boule Commode French Sedan Chair Part of a Salon (Louis XV.) Carved and Gilt Console Table Louis XV. Fauteuil (Carved and Gilt) Louis XV. Commode (Jones Collection) A Parqueterie Commode "Bureau Du Roi" A Boudoir (Louis XVI. Period) Part of a Salon in Louis XVI. Style A Marqueterie Cabinet (Jones Collection) Writing Table (Riesener) The "Marie Antoinette" Writing Table Bedstead of Marie Antoinette A Cylinder Secretaire (Rothschild Collection) An Arm Chair (Louis XVI.) Carved and Gilt Settee and Arm Chair A Sofa En Suite A Marqueterie Escritoire (Jones Collection) A Norse Interior, Shewing French Influence A Secretaire with Sêvres Plaques A Clock by Robin (Jones Collection) Harpsichord, About 1750 Italian Sedan Chair Chapter VII. Vignette of a Chippendale Girandole, as Ornament to Initial Letter Fac-simile of Drawings by Robert Adam English Satinwood Dressing Table Chimney-piece and Overmantel, Designed by W. Thomas Two Chippendale Chairs in the "Chinese" Style Fac-simile of Title Page of Chippendale's "Gentleman and Cabinet Maker's Director" Two Book Cases From Chippendale's "Director" Tea Caddy Carved in the French Style (Chippendale) A Bureau From Chippendale's "Director" A Design for a State Bed From Chippendale's "Director" "French" Commode and Lamp Stands Bed Pillars Chimney-piece and Mirror Parlour Chairs by Chippendale Clock Case by Chippendale China Shelves, Designed by W. Ince Girandoles and Pier Table, Designed by W. Thomas Toilet Glass and Urn Stand, From Hepplewhite's Guide Parlour Chairs, Designed by W. Ince Ladies' Secretaires, Designed by W. Ince Desk and Bookcase, Designed by W. Ince China Cabinet, Designed by J. Mayhew Dressing Chairs, Designed by J. Mayhew Designs of Furniture From Hepplewhite's "Guide" Plan of a Room. (Hepplewhite) Inlaid Tea Caddy and Tops of Pier Tables, From Hepplewhite's "Guide" Kneehole Table by Sheraton Chairs by Sheraton Chair Backs, From Sheraton's "Cabinet Maker" Urn Stand A Sideboard in the Style of Robert Adam Carved Jardiniere by Chippendale Cabinet and Bookcase with Secretaire, by Sheraton Chapter VIII. Vignette of an Empire Tripod, as Ornament to Initial Letter Cabinet Presented to Marie Louise Stool and Arm Chair (Napoleon I. Period) Nelson's Chairs by Sheraton Drawing Room Chair, Designed by Sheraton Drawing Room Chair, Designed by Sheraton "Canopy Bed" by Sheraton "Sisters' Cylinder Bookcase" by Sheraton Sideboard and Sofa Table (Sheraton) Design of a Room, by T. Hope Library Fauteuil, From Smith's "Book of Designs" Parlor Chairs Bookcase by Sheraton Drawing Room Chairs, From Smith's Book Prie-dieu in Carved Oak, Designed by Mr. Pugin Secretaire and Bookcase (German Gothic Style) Cradle for H.M. the Queen by H. Rogers Design for a Tea Caddy by J. Strudwick Design for One of the Wings of a Sideboard by W. Holmes Design for a Work Table. H. Fitzcook Venetian Stool of Carved Walnut Chapter IX. Examples of Design in Furniture in the 1851 Exhibition:-- Sideboard, in Carved Oak, by Gillow Chimney-piece and Bookcase by Holland and Sons Cabinet by Grace Bookcase by Jackson and Graham Grand Pianoforte by Broadwood Vignette of a Cabinet, Modern Jacobean Style, as Ornament to Initial Letter Lady's Escritoire by Wettli, Berne Lady's Work Table and Screen in Papier Maché Sideboard (Sir Walter Scott) by Cookes, Warwick A State Chair by Jancowski, York Sideboard, in Carved Oak, by Dorand, Paris Bedstead, in Carved Ebony, by Roulé, Antwerp Pianoforte by Leistler, Vienna Bookcase, in Lime Tree, by Leistler, Vienna Cabinet, with Bronze and Porcelain, by Games, St. Petersburg Casket of Ivory, with Ormolu Mountings, by Matifat, Paris Table and Chair, in the Classic Style, by Capello, Turin Cabinet of Ebony, with Carnelions, by Litchfield & Radclyffe (1862 Exhibition, London) Cabinet of Ebony, with Boxwood Carvings, by Fourdinois, Paris (1867 Exhibition, Paris) Cabinet of Satinwood, with Wedgwood Plaques, by Wright and Mansfield (1867 Exhibition, Paris) Cabinet of Ebony and Ivory by Andrea Picchi, Florence (1867 Exhibition, Paris) The Ellesmere Cabinet The Saloon at Sandringham House The Drawing Room at Sandringham House Carved Frame by Radspieler, Munich Carved Oak Flemish Armoire, as Tail Piece A Sixteenth Century Workshop Chapter I. Ancient Furniture. BIBLICAL REFERENCES: Solomon's House and Temple--Palace of Ahashuerus. ASSYRIAN FURNITURE: Nimrod's Palace--Mr. George Smith quoted. EGYPTIAN FURNITURE: Specimens in the British Museum--the Workman's Stool--various articles of Domestic Furniture--Dr. Birch quoted. GREEK FURNITURE: The Bas Reliefs in the British Museum--the Chest of Cypselus--Laws and Customs of the Greeks--House of Alcibiades--Plutarch quoted. ROMAN FURNITURE: Position of Rome--the Roman House--Cicero's Table--Thyine Wood--Customs of wealthy Romans--Downfall of the Empire. Biblical References. The first reference to woodwork is to be found in the Book of Genesis, in the instructions given to Noah to make an Ark of[1] gopher wood, "to make a window," to "pitch it within and without with pitch," and to observe definite measurements. From the specific directions thus handed down to us, we may gather that mankind had acquired at a very early period of the world's history a knowledge of the different kinds of wood, and of the use of tools. We know, too, from the bas reliefs and papyri in the British Museum, how advanced were the Ancient Egyptians in the arts of civilization, and that the manufacture of comfortable and even luxurious furniture was not neglected. In them, the Hebrews must have had excellent workmen for teachers and taskmasters, to have enabled them to acquire sufficient skill and experience to carry out such precise instructions as were given for the erection of the Tabernacle, some 1,500 years before Christ--as to the kinds of wood, measurements, ornaments, fastenings ("loops and taches"), curtains of linen, and coverings of dried skins. We have only to turn for a moment to the 25th chapter of Exodus to be convinced that all the directions there mentioned were given to a people who had considerable experience in the methods of carrying out work, which must have resulted from some generations of carpenters, joiners, weavers, dyers, goldsmiths, and other craftsmen. A thousand years before Christ, we have those descriptions of the building and fitting by Solomon of the glorious work of his reign, the great Temple, and of his own, "the King's house," which gathered from different countries the most skilful artificers of the time, an event which marks an era of advance in the knowledge and skill of those who were thus brought together to do their best work towards carrying out the grand scheme. It is worth while, too, when we are referring to Old Testament information bearing upon the subject, to notice some details of furniture which are given, with their approximate dates as generally accepted, not because there is any particular importance attached to the precise chronology of the events concerned, but because, speaking generally, they form landmarks in a history of furniture. One of these is the verse (Kings ii. chap. 4) which tells us the contents of the "little chamber in the wall," when Elisha visited the Shunamite, about B.C. 895; and we are told of the preparations for the reception of the prophet: "And let us set for him there a bed and a table and a stool and a candlestick." The other incident is some 420 years later, when, in the allusion to the grandeur of the palace of Ahashuerus, we catch a glimpse of Eastern magnificence in the description of the drapery which furnished the apartment: "Where were white, green, and blue hangings, fastened with cords of fine linen and purple, to silver rings and pillars of marble; the beds were of gold and silver, upon a pavement of red and blue and white and black marble." (Esther i. 6.) There are, unfortunately, no trustworthy descriptions of ancient Hebrew furniture. The illustrations in Kitto's Bible. Mr. Henry Soltan's "The Tabernacle, the Priesthood, and the Offerings," and other similar books, are apparently drawn from imagination, founded on descriptions in the Old Testament. In these, the "table for shew-bread" is generally represented as having legs partly turned, with the upper portions square, to which rings were attached for the poles by which it was carried. As a nomadic people, their furniture would be but primitive, and we may take it that as the Jews and Assyrians came from the same stock, and spoke the same language, such ornamental furniture as there was would, with the exception of the representations of figures of men or animals, be of a similar character. Assyrian Furniture. [Illustration: Part of Assyrian Bronze Throne and Footstool, about B.C. 880, Reign of Asshurnazirpat. (_From a photo by Mansell & Co. of the original in the British Museum._)] The discoveries which have been made in the oldest seat of monarchical government in the world, by such enterprising travellers as Sir Austin Layard, Mr. George Smith, and others, who have thrown so much light upon domestic life in Nineveh, are full of interest in connection with this branch of the subject. We learn from these authorities that the furniture was ornamented with the heads of lions, bulls, and rams; tables, thrones, and couches were made of metal and wood, and probably inlaid with ivory; the earliest chair, according to Sir Austin Layard, having been made without a back, and the legs terminating in lion's feet or bull's hoofs. Some were of gold, others of silver and bronze. On the monuments of Khorsabad, representations have been discovered of chairs supported by animals, and by human figures, probably those of prisoners. In the British Museum is a bronze throne found by Sir A. Layard amidst the rains of Nirnrod's palace, which shews ability of high order for skilled metal work. Mr. Smith, the famous Assyrian excavator and translator of cuneiform inscriptions, has told us in his "Assyrian Antiquities" of his finding close to the site of Nineveh portions of a crystal throne somewhat similar in design to the bronze one mentioned above, and in another part of this interesting book we have a description of an interior that is useful in assisting us to form an idea of the condition of houses of a date which can be correctly assigned to B.C. 860:--"Altogether in this place I opened six chambers, all of the same character, the entrances ornamented by clusters of square pilasters, and recesses in the rooms in the same style; the walls were coloured in horizontal bands of red, green, and yellow, and where the lower parts of the chambers were panelled with small stone slabs, the plaster and colours were continued over these." Then follows a description of the drainage arrangements, and finally we have Mr. Smith's conclusion that this was a private dwelling for the wives and families of kings, together with the interesting fact that on the under side of the bricks he found the legend of Shalmeneser II. (B.C. 860), who probably built this palace. [Illustration: Assyrian Chair from Khorsabad. (_In the British Museum._)] [Illustration: Assyrian Chair from Xanthus. (_In the British Museum._)] [Illustration: Assyrian Throne. (_In the British Museum._)] In the British Museum is an elaborate piece of carved ivory, with depressions to hold colored glass, etc., from Nineveh, which once formed part of the inlaid ornament of a throne, shewing how richly such objects were ornamented. This carving is said by the authorities to be of Egyptian origin. The treatment of figures by the Assyrians was more clumsy and more rigid, and their furniture generally was more massive than that of the Egyptians. An ornament often introduced into the designs of thrones and chairs is a conventional treatment of the tree sacred to Asshur, the Assyrian Jupiter; the pine cone, another sacred emblem, is also found, sometimes as in the illustration of the Khorsabad chair on page 4, forming an ornamental foot, and at others being part of the merely decorative design. The bronze throne, illustrated on page 3, appears to have been of sufficient height to require a footstool, and in "Nineveh and its Remains" these footstools are specially alluded to. "The feet were ornamented like those of the chair with the feet of lions or the hoofs of bulls." The furniture represented in the following illustration, from a bas relief in the British Museum, is said to be of a period some two hundred years later than the bronze throne and footstool. [Illustration: Repose of King Asshurbanipal. (_From a Bas relief in the British Museum._)] Egyptian Furniture. In the consideration of ancient Egyptian furniture we find valuable assistance in the examples carefully preserved to us, and accessible to everyone, in the British Museum, and one or two of these deserve passing notice. [Illustration: "Stool", "Stand for a Vase, Head Rest or Pillow", "Workman's Stool", "Vase on a Stand", "Folding Stool", "Ebony Seat Inlaid with Ivory" (_From Photos by Mansell & Co. of the originals in the British Museum._)] Nothing can be more suitable for its purpose then the "Workman's Stool:" the seat is precisely like that of a modern kitchen chair (all wood), slightly concaved to promote the sitter's comfort, and supported by three legs curving outwards. This is simple, convenient, and admirably adapted for long service. For a specimen of more ornamental work, the folding stool in the same glass case should be examined; the supports are crossed in a similar way to those of a modern camp-stool, and the lower parts of the legs carved as heads of geese, with inlayings of ivory to assist the design and give richness to its execution. [Illustration: An Egyptian of High Rank Seated. (_From a Photo by Mansell & Co. of the Original Wall Painting in the British Museum._) PERIOD: B.C. 1500-1400.] Portions of legs and rails, turned as if by a modern lathe, mortice holes and tenons, fill us with wonder as we look upon work which, at the most modern computation, must be 3,000 years old, and may be of a date still more remote. In the same room, arranged in cases round the wall, is a collection of several objects which, if scarcely to be classed under the head of furniture, are articles of luxury and comfort, and demonstrate the extraordinary state of civilisation enjoyed by the old Egyptians, and help us to form a picture of their domestic habits. [Illustration: An Egyptian Banquet. (_From a Wall Painting at Thebes._)] Amongst these are boxes inlaid with various woods, and also with little squares of bright turquoise blue pottery let in as a relief; others veneered with ivory; wooden spoons, carved in most intricate designs, of which one, representing a girl amongst lotus flowers, is a work of great artistic skill; boats of wood, head rests, and models of parts of houses and granaries, together with writing materials, different kinds of tools and implements, and a quantity of personal ornaments and requisites. "For furniture, various woods were employed, ebony, acacia or sont, cedar, sycamore, and others of species not determined. Ivory, both of the hippopotamus and elephant, was used for inlaying, as also were glass pastes; and specimens of marquetry are not uncommon. In the paintings in the tombs, gorgeous pictures and gilded furniture are depicted. For cushions and mattresses, linen cloth and colored stuffs, filled with feathers of the waterfowl, appear to have been used, while seats have plaited bottoms of linen cord or tanned and dyed leather thrown over them, and sometimes the skins of panthers served this purpose. For carpets they used mats of palm fibre, on which they often sat. On the whole, an Egyptian house was lightly furnished, and not encumbered with so many articles as are in use at the present day." The above paragraph forms part of the notice with which the late Dr. Birch, the eminent antiquarian, formerly at the head of this department of the British Museum, has prefaced a catalogue of the antiquities alluded to. The visitor to the Museum should be careful to procure one of these useful and inexpensive guides to this portion of its contents. Some illustrations taken from ancient statues and bas reliefs in the British Museum, from copies of wall paintings at Thebes, and other sources, give us a good idea of the furniture of this interesting people. In one of these will be seen a representation of the wooden head-rest which prevented the disarrangement of the coiffure of an Egyptian lady of rank. A very similiar head-rest, with a cushion attached for comfort to the neck, is still in common use by the Japanese of the present day. [Illustration: Chair with Captives As Supports. (_From Papyrus in British Museum._)] [Illustration: An Ivory Box.] [Illustration: Bacchus and Attendants Visiting Icarus. (_Reproduced from a Bas-relief in the British Museum._) Period: About A.d. 100.] Greek Furniture. An early reference to Greek furniture is made by Homer, who describes coverlids of dyed wool, tapestries, carpets, and other accessories, which must therefore have formed part of the contents of a great man's residence centuries before the period which we recognise as the "meridian" of Greek art. In the second Vase-room of the British Museum the painting on one of these vases represents two persons sitting on a couch, upon which is a cushion of rich material, while for the comfort of the sitters there is a footstool, probably of ivory. On the opposite leaf there is an illustration of a has relief in stone, "Bacchus received as a guest by Icarus," in which the couch has turned legs and the feet are ornamented with carved leaf work. [Illustration: GREEK BEDSTEAD WITH A TABLE. (_From an old Wall Painting._)] We know, too, from other illustrations of tripods used for sacred purposes, and as supports for braziers, that tables were made of wood, of marble, and of metal; also folding chairs, and couches for sleeping and resting, but not for reclining at meals, as was the fashion at a later period. In most of the designs for these various articles of furniture there is a similarity of treatment of the head, legs, and feet of lions, leopards, and sphinxes to that which we have noticed in the Assyrian patterns. [Illustration: Greek Furniture. (_From Antique Bas reliefs._)] The description of an interesting piece of furniture may be noticed here, because its date is verified by its historical associations, and it was seen and described by Pausanias about 800 years afterwards. This is the famous chest of Cypselus of Corinth, the story of which runs that when his mother's relations, having been warned by the Oracle of Delphi, that her son would prove formidable to the ruling party, sought to murder him, his life was saved by his concealment in this chest, and he became Ruler of Corinth for some 30 years (B.C. 655-625). It is said to have been made of cedar, carved and decorated with figures and bas reliefs, some in ivory, some in gold or ivory part gilt, and inlaid on all four sides and on the top. The peculiar laws and customs of the Greeks at the time of their greatest prosperity were not calculated to encourage display or luxury in private life, or the collection of sumptuous furniture. Their manners were simple and their discipline was very severe. Statuary, sculpture of the best kind, painting of the highest merit--in a word, the best that art could produce--were all dedicated to the national service in the enrichment of Temples and other public buildings, the State having indefinite and almost unlimited power over the property of all wealthy citizens. The public surroundings of an influential Athenian were therefore in direct contrast to the simplicity of his home, which contained the most meagre supply of chairs and tables, while the _chef d'oeuvres_ of Phidias adorned the Senate House, the Theatre, and the Temple. There were some exceptions to this rule, and we have records that during the later years of Greek prosperity such simplicity was not observed. Alcibiades is said to have been the first to have his house painted and decorated, and Plutarch tells us that he kept the painter Agatharcus a prisoner until his task was done, and then dismissed him with an appropriate reward. Another ancient writer relates that "the guest of a private house was enjoined to praise the decorations of the ceilings and the beauty of the curtains suspended from between the columns." This occurs, according to Mr. Perkins, the American translator of Dr. Falke's German book "Kunst im Hause," in the "Wasps of Aristophanes," written B.C. 422. The illustrations, taken from the best authorities in the British Museum, the National Library of Paris, and other sources, shew the severe style adopted by the Greeks in their furniture. Roman Furniture. As we are accustomed to look to Greek Art of the time of Pericles for purity of style and perfection of taste, so do we naturally expect the gradual demoralisation of art in its transfer to the great Roman Empire. From that little village on the Palatine Hill, founded some 750 years B.C., Rome had spread and conquered in every direction, until in the time of Augustus she was mistress of the whole civilised world, herself the centre of wealth, civilisation, luxury, and power. Antioch in the East and Alexandria in the South ranked next to her as great cities of the world. From the excavations of Herculaneum and Pompeii we have learned enough to conceive some general idea of the social life of a wealthy Roman in the time of Rome's prosperity. The houses had no upper story, but were formed by the enclosure of two or more quadrangles, each surrounded by courts opening into rooms, and receiving air and ventilation from the centre open square or court. The illustration will give an idea of this arrangement. In Mr. Hungerford Pollen's useful handbook there is a description of each room in a Roman house, with its proper Latin title and purpose; and we know from other descriptions of Ancient Rome that the residences in the Imperial City were divided into two distinct classes--that of _domus_ and _insula_, the former being the dwellings of the Roman nobles, and corresponding to the modern _Palazzi_, while the latter were the habitations of the middle and lower classes. Each _insula _ consisted of several sets of apartments, generally let out to different families, and was frequently surrounded by shops. The houses described by Mr. Pollen appear to have had no upper story, but as ground became more valuable in Rome, houses were built to such a height as to be a source of danger, and in the time of Augustus there were not only strict regulations as to building, but the height was limited to 70 feet. The Roman furniture of the time was of the most costly kind. [Illustration: Interior of an Ancient Roman House. Said to have been that of Sallust. Period: B.C. 20 TO A.D. 20.] Tables were made of marble, gold, silver, and bronze, and were engraved, damascened, plated, and enriched with precious stones. The chief woods used were cedar, pine, elm, olive, ash, ilex, beech, and maple. Ivory was much used, and not only were the arms and legs of couches and chairs carved to represent the limbs of animals, as has been noted in the Assyrian, Egyptian, and Greek designs, but other parts of furniture were ornamented by carvings in bas relief of subjects taken from Greek mythology and legend. Veneers were cut and applied, not as some have supposed for the purpose of economy, but because by this means the most beautifully marked or figured specimens of the woods could be chosen, and a much richer and more decorative effect produced than would be possible when only solid timber was used. As a prominent instance of the extent to which the Romans carried the costliness of some special pieces of furniture, we have it recorded on good authority (Mr. Pollen) that the table made for Cicero cost a million sesterces, a sum equal to about £9,000, and that one belonging to King Juba was sold by auction for the equivalent of £10,000. [Illustration: Roman State Chair. (_From the Marble example in the Musée du Louvre._)] [Illustration: Roman Bronze Lamp and Stand. (_Found in Pompeii._)] Cicero's table was made of a wood called Thyine--wood which was brought from Africa and held in the highest esteem. It was valued not only on account of its beauty but also from superstitious or religious reasons. The possession of thyine wood was supposed to bring good luck, and its sacredness arose from the fact that from it was produced the incense used by the priests. Dr. Edward Clapton, of St. Thomas' Hospital, who has made a collection of woods named in the Scriptures, has managed to secure a specimen of thyine, which a friend of his obtained on the Atlas Mountains. It resembles the woods which we know as tuyere and amboyna.[2] Roman, like Greek houses, were divided into two portions--the front for reception of guests and the duties of society, with the back for household purposes, and the occupation of the wife and family; for although the position of the Roman wife was superior to that of her Greek contemporary, which was little better than that of a slave, still it was very different to its later development. The illustration given here of a repast in the house of Sallust, represents the host and his eight male guests reclining on the seats of the period, each of which held three persons, and was called a triclinium, making up the favorite number of a Roman dinner party, and possibly giving us the proverbial saying--"Not less than the Graces nor more than the Muses"--which is still held to be a popular regulation for a dinner party. [Illustration: Roman Scamnum or Bench.] [Illustration: Roman Bisellium, or Seat for Two Persons. But generally occupied by one, on occasions of festivals, etc.] From discoveries at Herculaneum and Pompeii a great deal of information has been gained of the domestic life of the wealthier Roman citizens, and there is a useful illustration at the end of this chapter of the furniture of a library or study in which the designs are very similar to the Greek ones we have noticed; it is not improbable they were made and executed by Greek workmen. It will be seen that the books such as were then used, instead of being placed on shelves or in a bookcase, were kept in round boxes called _Scrinia_, which were generally of beech wood, and could be locked or sealed when required. The books in rolls or sewn together were thus easily carried about by the owner on his journeys. Mr. Hungerford Pollen mentions that wearing apparel was kept in _vestiaria_, or wardrobe rooms, and he quotes Plutarch's anecdote of the purple cloaks of Lucullus, which were so numerous that they must have been stored in capacious hanging closets rather than in chests. In the _atrium_, or public reception room, was probably the best furniture in the house. According to Moule's "Essay on Roman Villas," "it was here that numbers assembled daily to pay their respects to their patron, to consult the legislator, to attract the notice of the statesman, or to derive importance in the eyes of the public from an apparent intimacy with a man in power." The growth of the Roman Empire eastward, the colonisation of Oriental countries, and subsequently the establishment of an Eastern Empire, produced gradually an alteration in Greek design, and though, if we were discussing the merits of design and the canons of taste, this might be considered a decline, still its influence on furniture was doubtless to produce more ease and luxury, more warmth and comfort, than would be possible if the outline of every article of useful furniture were decided by a rigid adherence to classical principles. We have seen that this was more consonant with the public life of an Athenian; but the Romans, in the later period of the Empire, with their wealth, their extravagance, their slaves, their immorality and gross sensuality, lived in a splendour and with a prodigality that well accorded with the gorgeous colouring of Eastern hangings and embroideries, of rich carpets and comfortable cushions, of the lavish use of gold and silver, and meritricious and redundant ornament. [Illustration: Roman Couch, Generally of Bronze. (_From an Antique Bas relief._)] This slight sketch, brief and inadequate as it is, of a history of furniture from the earliest time of which we have any record, until from the extraordinary growth of the vast Roman Empire, the arts and manufactures of every country became as it were centralised and focussed in the palaces of the wealthy Romans, brings us down to the commencement of what has been deservedly called "the greatest event in history"--the decline and fall of this enormous empire. For fifteen generations, for some five hundred years, did this decay, this vast revolution, proceed to its conclusion. Barbarian hosts settled down in provinces they had overrun and conquered, the old Pagan world died as it were, and the new Christian era dawned. From the latter end of the second century until the last of the Western Caesars, in A.D. 476, it is, with the exception of a short interval when the strong hand of the great Theodosius stayed the avalanche of Rome's invaders, one long story of the defeat and humiliation of the citizens of the greatest power the world has ever known. It is a vast drama that the genius and patience of a Gibbon has alone been able to deal with, defying almost by its gigantic catastrophes and ever raging turbulence the pen of history to chronicle and arrange. When the curtain rises on a new order of things, the age of Paganism has passed away, and the period of the Middle Ages will have commenced. [Illustration: A Roman Study. Shewing Scrolls or Books in a "Scrinium;" also Lamp, Writing Tablets, etc.] [Illustration: The Roman Triclinium, or Dining Room. The plan in the margin shews the position of guests; the place of honor was that which is indicated by "No. 1," and that of the host by "No. 9." (_The Illustration is taken from Dr. Jacob von Falke's "Kunst im Hause."_)] [Illustration: Plan of a Triclinium.] Chapter II. The Middle Ages. Period of 1000 years from Fall of Rome, A.D. 476, to Capture of Constantinople, 1453--the Crusades--Influence of Christianity--Chairs of St. Peter and Maximian at Rome, Ravenna and Venice--Edict of Leo III. prohibiting Image worship--the Rise of Venice--Charlemagne and his successors--the Chair of Dagobert--Byzantine character of Furniture--Norwegian carving--Russian and Scandinavian--the Anglo-Saxons--Sir Walter Scott quoted--Descriptions of Anglo-Saxon Houses and Customs--Art in Flemish Cities--Gothic Architecture--the Coronation Chair at Westminster Abbey--Penshurst--French Furniture in the 14th Century--Description of rooms--the South Kensington Museum--Transition from Gothic to Renaissance--German carved work: the Credence, the Buffet, and Dressoir. [Illustration] The history of furniture is so thoroughly a part of the history of the manners and customs of different peoples, that one can only understand and appreciate the several changes in style, sometimes gradual and sometimes rapid, by reference to certain historical events and influences by which such changes were effected. Thus, we have during the space of time known as the Middle Ages, a stretch of some 1,000 years, dating from the fall of Rome itself, in A.D. 476, to the capture of Constantinople by the Turks under Mahomet II. in 1453, an historical panorama of striking incidents and great social changes bearing upon our subject. It was a turbulent and violent period, which saw the completion of Rome's downfall, the rise of the Carlovingian family, the subjection of Britain by the Saxons, the Danes, and the Normans; the extraordinary career and fortunes of Mahomet; the conquest of Spain and a great part of Africa by the Moors; and the Crusades, which, for a common cause, united the swords and spears of friend and foe. It was the age of monasteries and convents, of religious persecutions and of heroic struggles of the Christian Church. It was the age of feudalism, chivalry, and war; but, towards the close, a time of comparative civilisation and progress, of darkness giving way to the light which followed; the night of the Middle Ages preceding the dawn of the Renaissance. With the growing importance of Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Empire, families of well-to-do citizens flocked thither from other parts, bringing with them all their most valuable possessions; and the houses of the great became rich in ornamental furniture, the style of which was a mixture of Eastern and Roman: that is, a corruption of the Early Classic Greek developing into the style known as Byzantine. The influence of Christianity upon the position of women materially affected the customs and habits of the people. Ladies were allowed to be seen in chariots and open carriages, the designs of which, therefore, improved and became more varied; the old custom of reclining at meals ceased, and guests sat on benches; and though we have, with certain exceptions, such as the chair of St. Peter at Rome, and that of Maximian in the Cathedral at Ravenna, no specimens of furniture of this time, we have in the old Byzantine ivory bas-reliefs such representations of circular throne chairs and of ecclesiastical furniture as suffice to show the class of woodwork then in vogue. The chair of St. Peter is one of the most interesting relics of the Middle Ages. The woodcut will shew the design, which is, like other work of the period, Byzantine, and the following description is taken from Mr. Hungerford Pollen's introduction to the South Kensington catalogue:--"The chair is constructed of wood, overlaid with carved ivory work and gold. The back is bound together with iron. It is a square with solid front and arms. The width in front is 39 inches; the height in front 30 inches, shewing that a scabellum or footstool must have belonged to it.... In the front are 18 groups or compositions from the Gospels, carved in ivory with exquisite fineness, and worked with inlay of the purest gold. On the outer sides are several little figures carved in ivory. It formed, according to tradition, part of the furniture of the house of the Senator Pudens, an early convert to the Christian faith. It is he who gave to the Church his house in Rome, of which much that remains is covered by the Church of St. Pudenziana. Pudens gave this chair to St. Peter, and it became the throne of the See. It was kept in the old Basilica of St. Peter's." Since then it has been transferred from place to place, until now it remains in the present Church of St. Peter's, but is completely hidden from view by the seat or covering made in 1667, by Bernini, out of bronze taken from the Pantheon. Much has been written about this famous chair. Cardinal Wiseman and the Cavaliere de Rossi have defended its reputation and its history, and Mr. Nesbitt, some years ago, read a paper on the subject before the Society of Antiquaries. [Illustration: Chair of St. Peter, Rome.] Formerly there was in Venice another chair of St. Peter, of which there is a sketch from a photograph in Mrs. Oliphant's "Makers of Venice." It is said to have been a present from the Emperor Michel, son of Theophilus (824-864), to the Venetian Republic in recognition of services rendered, by either the Doge Gradonico, who died in 1864, or his predecessor, against the Mahommedan incursions. Fragments only now remain, and these are preserved in the Church of St. Pietro, at Castello. There is also a chair of historic fame preserved in Venice, and now kept in the treasury of St. Mark's. Originally in Alexandria, it was sent to Constantinople and formed part of the spoils taken by the Venetians in 1204. Like both the other chairs, this was also ornamented with ivory plaques, but these have been replaced by ornamental marble. The earliest of the before-mentioned chairs, namely, the one at Ravenna, was made for the Archbishop about 546 to 556, and is thus described in Mr. Maskell's "Handbook on Ivories," in the Science and Art series:--"The chair has a high back, round in shape, and is entirely covered with plaques of ivory arranged in panels carved in high relief with scenes from the Gospels and with figures of saints. The plaques have borders with foliated ornaments, birds and animals; flowers and fruits filling the intermediate spaces. Du Sommerard names amongst the most remarkable subjects, the Annunciation, the Adoration of the Wise Men, the Flight into Egypt, and the Baptism of Our Lord." The chair has also been described by Passeri, the famous Italian antiquary, and a paper was read upon it, by Sir Digby Wyatt, before the Arundel Society, in which he remarked that as it had been fortunately preserved as a holy relic, it wore almost the same appearance as when used by the prelate for whom it was made, save for the beautiful tint with which time had invested it. Long before the general break up of the vast Roman Empire, influences had been at work to decentralise Art, and cause the migration of trained and skilful artisans to countries where their work would build up fresh industries, and give an impetus to progress, where hitherto there had been stagnation. One of these influences was the decree issued in A.D. 726 by Leo III., Emperor of the Eastern Empire, prohibiting all image worship. The consequences to Art of such a decree were doubtless similar to the fanatical proceedings of the English Puritans of the seventeenth century, and artists, driven from their homes, were scattered to the different European capitals, where they were gladly received and found employment and patronage. It should be borne in mind that at this time Venice was gradually rising to that marvellous position of wealth and power which she afterwards held. "A ruler of the waters and their powers: And such she was;--her daughters had their dowers From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East Pour'd in her lap all gems in sparkling showers; In purple was she robed and of her feasts Monarchs partook, and deemed their dignity increased." Her wealthy merchants were well acquainted with the arts and manufactures of other countries, and Venice would be just one of those cities to attract the artist refugee. It is indeed here that wood carving as an Art may be said to have specially developed itself, and though, from its destructible nature, there are very few specimens extant dating from this early time, yet we shall see that two or three hundred years later ornamental woodwork flourished in a state of perfection which must have required a long probationary period. [Illustration: Dagobert Chair. Chair of Dagobert, of gilt bronze, now in the Museé de Souverains, Paris. Originally as a folding chair said to be the work of St. Eloi, 7th century; back and arms added by the Abbe Suger in 12th century. There is an electrotype reproduction in the South Kensington Museum.] Turning from Venice. During the latter end of the eighth century the star of Charlemagne was in the ascendant, and though we have no authentic specimen, and scarcely a picture of any wooden furniture of this reign, we know that, in appropriating the property of the Gallo-Romans, the Frank Emperor King and his chiefs were in some degree educating themselves to higher notions of luxury and civilisation. Paul Lacroix, in "Manners, Customs, and Dress of the Middle Ages," tells us that the trichorium or dining room was generally the largest hall in the palace: two rows of columns divided it into three parts: one for the royal family, one for the officers of the household, and the third for the guests, who were always very numerous. No person of rank who visited the King could leave without sitting at his table or at least draining a cup to his health. The King's hospitality was magnificent, especially on great religious festivals, such as Christmas and Easter. In other portions of this work of reference we read of "boxes" to hold articles of value, and of rich hangings, but beyond such allusions little can be gleaned of any furniture besides. The celebrated chair of Dagobert (illustrated on p. 21), now in the Louvre, and of which there is a cast in the South Kensington Museum, dates from some 150 years before Charlemagne, and is probably the only specimen of furniture belonging to this period which has been handed down to us. It is made of gilt bronze, and is said to be the work of a monk. For the designs of furniture of the tenth to the fourteenth centuries we are in a great measure dependent upon old illuminations and missals of these remote times. They represent chiefly the seats of state used by sovereigns on the occasions of grand banquets, or of some ecclesiastical function, and from the valuable collections of these documents in the National Libraries of Paris and Brussels, some illustrations are reproduced, and it is evident from such authorities that the designs of State furniture in France and other countries dominated by the Carlovingian monarchs were of Byzantine character, that pseudo-classic style which was the prototype of furniture of about a thousand years later, when the Cæsarism of Napoleon I., during the early years of the nineteenth century, produced so many designs which we now recognise as "Empire." No history of mediaeval woodwork would be complete without noticing the Scandinavian furniture and ornamental wood carving of the tenth to the fifteenth centuries. There are in the South Kensington Museum, plaster casts of some three or four carved doorways of Norwegian workmanship, of the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries, in which scrolls are entwined with contorted monsters, or, to quote Mr. Lovett's description, "dragons of hideous aspect and serpents of more than usually tortuous proclivities." The woodcut of a carved lintel conveys a fair idea of this work, and also of the old Juniper wood tankards of a much later time. [Illustration: A Carved Norwegian Doorway. Period: X. to XI. Century.] There are also at Kensington other casts of curious Scandinavian woodwork of more Byzantine treatment, the originals of which are in the Museums of Stockholm and Copenhagen, where the collection of antique woodwork of native production is very large and interesting, and proves how wood carving, as an industrial art, has flourished in Scandinavia from the early Viking times. One can still see in the old churches of Borgund and Hitterdal much of the carved woodwork of the seventh and eighth centuries; and lintels and porches full of national character are to be found in Thelemarken. Under this heading of Scandinavian may be included the very early Russian school of ornamental woodwork. Before the accession of the Romanoff dynasty in the sixteenth century, the Ruric race of kings came originally from Finland, then a province of Sweden; and, so far as one can see from old illuminated manuscripts, there was a similarity of design to those of the early Norwegian and Swedish carved lintels which have been noticed above. [Illustration: Carved Wood Chair, Scandinavian Work. Period: 12th to 13th Century.] The covers and caskets of early mediaeval times were no inconsiderable items in the valuable furniture of a period when the list of articles coming under that definition was so limited. These were made in oak for general use, and some were of good workmanship; but of the very earliest none remain. There were, however, others, smaller and of a special character, made in ivory of the walrus and elephant, of horn and whalebone, besides those of metal. In the British Museum is one of these, of which the cover is illustrated on the following page, representing a man defending his house against an attack by enemies armed with spears and shields. Other parts of the casket are carved with subjects and runic inscriptions which have enabled Mr. Stephens, an authority on this period of archæology, to assign its date to the eighth century, and its manufacture to that of Northumbria. It most probably represents a local incident, and part of the inscription refers to a word signifying treachery. It was purchased by Mr. A.W. Franks, F.S.A., and is one of the many valuable specimens given to the British Museum by its generous curator. [Illustration: Cover of a Casket Carved in Whalebone. (_Northumbrian, 8th Century. British Museum._)] Of the furniture of our own country previous to the eleventh or twelfth centuries we know but little. The habits of the Anglo-Saxons were rude and simple, and they advanced but slowly in civilisation until after the Norman invasion. To convey, however, to our minds some idea of the interior of a Saxon thane's castle, we may avail ourselves of Sir Walter Scott's antiquarian research, and borrow his description of the chief apartment in Rotherwood, the hospitable hall of Cedric the Saxon. Though the time treated of in "Ivanhoe" is quite at the end of the twelfth century, yet we have in Cedric a type of man who would have gloried in retaining the customs of his ancestors, who detested and despised the new-fashioned manners of his conquerors, and who came of a race that had probably done very little in the way of "refurnishing" for some generations. If, therefore, we have the reader's pardon for relying upon the _mise en scéne_ of a novel for an authority, we shall imagine the more easily what kind of furniture our Anglo-Saxon forefathers indulged in. [Illustration: Saxon House of 9th or 10th Century. (_From the Harleian MSS. in the British Museum._)] "In a hall, the height of which was greatly disproportioned to its extreme length and width, a long oaken table--formed of planks rough hewn from the forest, and which had scarcely received any polish--stood ready prepared for the evening meal.... On the sides of the apartment hung implements of war and of the chase, and there were at each corner folding doors which gave access to the other parts of the extensive building. "The other appointments of the mansion partook of the rude simplicity of the Saxon period, which Cedric piqued himself upon maintaining. The floor was composed of earth mixed with lime, trodden into a hard substance, such as is often employed in flooring our modern barns. For about one quarter of the length of the apartment, the floor was raised by a step, and this space, which was called the daïs, was occupied only by the principal members of the family and visitors of distinction. For this purpose a table richly covered with scarlet cloth was placed transversely across the platform, from the middle of which ran the longer and lower board, at which the domestics and inferior persons fed, down towards the bottom of the hall. The whole resembled the form of the letter <b>T</b>, or some of those ancient dinner tables which, arranged on the same principles, may still be seen in the ancient colleges of Oxford and Cambridge. Massive chairs and settles of carved oak were placed upon the daïs, and over these seats and the elevated table was fastened a canopy of cloth, which served in some degree to protect the dignitaries who occupied that distinguished station from the weather, and especially from the rain, which in some places found its way through the ill-constructed roof. The walls of this upper end of the hall, as far as the daïs extended, were covered with hangings or curtains, and upon the floor there was a carpet, both of which were adorned with some attempts at tapestry or embroidery, executed with brilliant or rather gaudy colouring. Over the lower range of table the roof had no covering, the rough plastered walls were left bare, the rude earthen floor was uncarpeted, the board was uncovered by a cloth, and rude massive benches supplied the place of chairs. In the centre of the upper table were placed two chairs more elevated than the rest, for the master and mistress of the family. To each of these was added a footstool curiously carved and inlaid with ivory, which mark of distinction was peculiar to them." A drawing in the Harleian MSS. in the British Museum is shewn on page 25, illustrating a Saxon mansion in the ninth or tenth century. There is the hall in the centre, with "chamber" and "bower" on either side; there being only a ground floor, as in the earlier Roman houses. According to Mr. Wright, F.S.A., who has written on the subject of Anglo-Saxon manners and customs, there was only one instance recorded of an upper floor at this period, and that was in an account of an accident which happened to the house in which the Witan or Council of St. Dunstan met, when, according to the ancient chronicle which he quotes, the Council fell from an upper floor, and St. Dunstan saved himself from a similar fate by supporting his weight on a beam. The illustration here given shews the Anglo-Saxon chieftain standing at the door of his hall, with his lady, distributing food to the needy poor. Other woodcuts represent Anglo-Saxon bedsteads, which were little better than raised wooden boxes, with sacks of straw placed therein, and these were generally in recesses. There are old inventories and wills in existence which shew that some value and importance was attached to these primitive contrivances, which at this early period in our history were the luxuries of only a few persons of high rank. A certain will recites that "the bed-clothes (bed-reafes) with a curtain (hyrite) and sheet (hepp-scrytan), and all that thereto belongs," should be given to his son. In the account of the murder of King Athelbert by the Queen of King Offa, as told by Roger of Wendover, we read of the Queen ordering a chamber to be made ready for the Royal guest, which was adorned for the occasion with what was then considered sumptuous furniture. "Near the King's bed she caused a seat to be prepared, magnificently decked and surrounded with curtains, and underneath it the wicked woman caused a deep pit to be dug." The author from whom the above translation is quoted adds with grim humour, "It is clear that this room was on the ground floor." [Illustration: Anglo Saxon Furniture of About the Tenth Century. (_From old MSS. in the British Museum._) 1. A Drinking Party. 2. A Dinner Party, in which the attendants are serving the meal on the spits on which it has been cooked. 3. Anglo-Saxon Beds. ] There are in the British Museum other old manuscripts whose illustrations have been laid under contribution representing more innocent occupations of our Anglo-Saxon forefathers. "The seat on the däis," "an Anglo-Saxon drinking party," and other illustrations which are in existence, prove generally that, when the meal had finished, the table was removed and drinking vessels were handed round from guest to guest; the storytellers, the minstrels, and the gleemen (conjurers) or jesters, beguiling the festive hour by their different performances. [Illustration: The Seat on The Daïs.] [Illustration: Saxon State Bed.] Some of these Anglo-Saxon houses had formerly been the villas of the Romans during their occupation, altered and modified to suit the habits and tastes of their later possessors. Lord Lytton has given us, in the first chapter of his novel "Harold," the description of one of such Saxonised Roman houses, in his reference to Hilda's abode. The gradual influence of Norman civilisation, however, had its effect, though the unsettled state of the country prevented any rapid development of industrial arts. The feudal system by which every powerful baron became a petty sovereign, often at war with his neighbour, rendered it necessary that household treasures should be few and easily transported or hidden, and the earliest oak chests which are still preserved date from about this time. Bedsteads were not usual, except for kings, queens, and great ladies; tapestry covered the walls, and the floors were generally sanded. As the country became more calm, and security for property more assured, this comfortless state of living disappeared; the dress of ladies was richer, and the general habits of the upper classes were more refined. Stairs were introduced into houses, the "parloir" or talking room was added, and fire places were made in some of the rooms, of brick or stonework, where previously the smoke was allowed to escape through an aperture in the roof. Bedsteads were carved and draped with rich hangings. Armoires made of oak and enriched with carving, and Presses date from about the end of the eleventh century. [Illustration: English Folding Chair, 14th Century.[3]] [Illustration: Cradle Of Henry V.] It was during the reign of Henry III., 1216-1272, that wood-panelling was first used for rooms, and considerable progress generally appears to have been made about this period. Eleanor of Provence, whom the King married in 1236, encouraged more luxury in the homes of the barons and courtiers. Mr. Hungerford Pollen has quoted a royal precept which was promulgated in this year, and it plainly shows that our ancestors were becoming more refined in their tastes. The terms of this precept were as follows, viz., "the King's great chamber at Westminster be painted a green colour like a curtain, that in the great gable or frontispiece of the said chamber, a French inscription should be painted, and that the King's little wardrobe should be painted of a green colour to imitate a curtain." In another 100 or 150 years we find mediaeval Art approaching its best period, not only in England, but in the great Flemish cities, such as Bruges and Ghent, which in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries played so important a part in the history of that time. The taste for Gothic architecture had now well set in, and we find that in this as in every change of style, the fashion in woodwork naturally followed that of ornament in stone; indeed, in many cases it is more than probable that the same hands which planned the cathedral or monastery also drew the designs for furniture, especially as the finest specimens of wood-carving were devoted to the service of the church. The examples, therefore, of the woodwork of this period to which we have access are found to be mostly of Gothic pattern, with quaint distorted conceptions of animals and reptiles, adapted to ornament the structural part of the furniture, or for the enrichment of the panels. To the end of the thirteenth century belongs the Coronation chair made for King Edward I., 1296-1300, and now in Westminster Abbey. This historic relic is of oak, and the woodcut on the following page gives an idea of the design and decorative carving. It is said that the pinnacles on each side of the gabled back were formerly surmounted by two leopards, of which only small portions remain. The famous Coronation stone which, according to ancient legend, is the identical one on which the patriarch Jacob rested his head at Bethel, when "he tarried there all night because the sun was set, and he took of the stones of that place and put them up for his pillows," Gen. xxviii., can be seen through the quatrefoil openings under the seat.[4] The carved lions which support the chair are not original, but modern work; and were regilt in honour of the Jubilee of Her Majesty in 1887, when the chair was last used. The rest of the chair now shows the natural colour of the oak, except the arms, which have a slight padding on them. The wood was, however, formerly covered with a coating of plaster, gilded over, and it is probably due to this protection that it is now in such excellent preservation. Standing by its side in Henry III.'s Chapel in Westminster Abbey is another chair, similar, but lacking the trefoil Gothic arches, which are carved on the sides of the original chair; this was made for and used by Mary, daughter of James II. and wife of William III., on the occasion of their double coronation. Mr. Hungerford Pollen has given us a long description of this chair, with quotations from the different historical notices which have appeared concerning it. The following is an extract which he has taken from an old writer: "It appears that the King intended, in the first instance, to make the chair in bronze, and that Eldam, the King's workman, had actually begun it. Indeed, some parts were even finished, and tools bought for the clearing up of the casting. However, the King changed his mind, and we have accordingly 100s. paid for a chair in wood, made after the same pattern as the one which was to be cast in copper; also 13s. 4d. for carving, painting, and gilding two small leopards in wood, which were delivered to Master Walter, the King's painter, to be placed upon and on either side of the chair made by him. The wardrobe account of 29th Ed. I. shows that Master Walter was paid £1 19s. 7d. 'for making a step at the foot of the new chair in which the Scottish stone is placed; and for the wages of the carpenters and of the painters, and for colours and gold employed, and for the making a covering to cover the said chair.'" [Illustration: Coronation Chair. Westminster Abbey.] In 1328, June 1, there is a royal writ ordering the abbot to deliver up the stone to the Sheriff of London, to be carried to the Queen-Mother; however, it never went. The chair has been used upon the occasion of every coronation since that time, except in the case of Mary, who is said to have used a chair specially sent by the Pope for the occasion. [Illustration: Chair in the Vestry of York Minster. Late 14th century.] The above drawing of a chair in York Minster, and the two more throne-like seats on the full-page illustration, will serve to shew the best kind of ornamental Ecclesiastical furniture of the fourteenth century. In the choir of Canterbury Cathedral there is a chair which has played its part in history, and, although earlier than the above, it may be conveniently mentioned here. This is the Archbishop's throne, and it is also called the chair of St. Augustine. According to legend, the Saxon kings were crowned therein, but it is probably not earlier than the thirteenth century. It is an excellent piece of stonework, with a shaped back and arms, relieved from being quite plain by the back and sides being panelled with a carved moulding. [Illustration: Chair. In St. Mary's Hall, Coventry. Chair. From an Old English Monastery. Period: XV. Century.] Penshurst Place, near Tonbridge, the residence of Lord de l'Isle and Dudley, the historic home of the Sydneys, is almost an unique example of what a wealthy English gentleman's country house was about the time of which we are writing, say the middle of the fourteenth century, or during the reign of Edward III. By the courtesy of Lord de l'Isle, the writer has been allowed to examine many objects of great interest there, and from the careful preservation of many original fittings and articles of furniture, one may still gain some idea of the "hall" as it then appeared, when that part of the house was the scene of the chief events in the life of the family--the raised daïs for host and honoured guests, the better table which was placed there (illustrated) and the commoner ones for the body of the hall; and though the ancient buffet which displayed the gold and silver cups is gone, one can see where it would have stood. Penshurst is said to possess the only hearth of the time now remaining in England, an octagonal space edged with stone in the centre of the hall, over which was once the simple opening for the outlet of smoke through the roof, and the old andirons or firedogs are still there. [Illustration: "Standing" Table at Penshurst, Still on the Daïs in the Hall.] [Illustration: Bedroom in which a Knight and His Lady are Seated. (_From a Miniature in "Othea," a Poem by Christine de Pisan. XIV. Century, French._)] An idea of the furniture of an apartment in France during the fourteenth century is conveyed by the above illustration, and it is very useful, because, although we have on record many descriptions of the appearance of the furniture of state apartments, we have very few authenticated accounts of the way in which such domestic chambers as the one occupied by "a knight and his lady" were arranged. The prie dieu chair was generally at the bedside, and had a seat which lifted up, the lower part forming a box-like receptacle for devotional books then so regularly used by a lady of the time. [Illustration: Bedstead and Chair in Carved Oak. _From Miniatures in the Royal Library, Brussels._ Period: XIV. Century.] Towards the end of the fourteenth century there was in high quarters a taste for bright and rich colouring; we have the testimony of an old writer who describes the interior of the Hotel de Bohême, which after having been the residence of several great personages was given by Charles VI. of France in 1388 to his brother the Duke of Orleans. "In this palace was a room used by the duke, hung with cloth of gold, bordered with vermilion velvet embroidered with roses; the duchess had a room hung with vermilion satin embroidered with crossbows, which were on her coat of arms; that of the Duke of Burgundy was hung with cloth of gold embroidered with windmills. There were besides eight carpets of glossy texture with gold flowers, one representing 'the seven virtues and seven vices,' another the history of Charlemagne, another that of Saint Louis. There were also cushions of cloth of gold, twenty-four pieces of vermilion leather of Aragon, and four carpets of Aragon leather, 'to be placed on the floor of rooms in summer.' The favourite arm-chair of the Princess is thus described in an inventory--'a chamber chair with four supports, painted in fine vermilion, the seat and arms of which are covered in vermilion morocco, or cordovan, worked and stamped with designs representing the sun, birds, and other devices bordered with fringes of silk and studded with nails.'" The thirteenth and fourteenth centuries had been remarkable for a general development of commerce: merchants of Venice, Geneva, Florence, Milan, Ghent, Bruges, Antwerp, and many other famous cities had traded extensively with the East and had grown opulent, and their homes naturally showed signs of wealth and comfort that in former times had been impossible to any but princes and rich nobles. Laws had been made in answer to the complaints of the aristocracy to place some curb on the growing ambition of the "bourgeoisie"; thus we find an old edict in the reign of Philippe the Fair (1285-1314)--"No bourgeois shall have a chariot, nor wear gold, precious stones, nor crowns of gold and silver. Bourgeois not being prelates or dignitaries of state shall not have tapers of wax. A bourgeois possessing 2,000 pounds (tournois) or more, may order for himself a dress of 12[5] sous 6 deniers, and for his wife one worth 16 sous at the most," etc., etc., etc. This and many other similar regulations were made in vain; the trading classes became more and more powerful, and we quote the description of a furnished apartment in P. Lacroix's "Manners and Customs of the Middle Ages." "The walls were hung with precious tapestry of Cyprus, on which the initials and motto of the lady were embroidered, the sheets were of fine linen of Rheims, and had cost more than 300 pounds, the quilt was a new invention of silk and silver tissue, the carpet was like gold. The lady wore an elegant dress of crimson silk, and rested her head and arms on pillows ornamented with buttons of oriental pearls. It should be remarked that this lady was not the wife of a great merchant, such as those of Venice and Genoa, but of a simple retail dealer who was not above selling articles for 4 sous; such being the case, we cannot wonder that Christine de Pisan should have considered the anecdote 'worthy of being immortalized in a book.'" [Illustration: "The New Born Infant." Shewing the interior of an Apartment at the end of the 14th or commencement of the 15th century. (_From a Miniature in "Histoire de la Belle Hélaine," National Library of Paris_)] As we approach the end of the fourteenth century, we find canopies added to the "chaires" or "chayers á dorseret," which were carved in oak or chesnut, and sometimes elaborately gilded and picked out in color. The canopied seats were very bulky and throne-like constructions, and were abandoned towards the end of the fifteenth century; and it is worthy of notice that though we have retained our word "chair," adopted from the Norman French, the French people discarded their synonym in favour of its diminutive "chaise" to describe the somewhat smaller and less massive seat which came into use in the sixteenth century. [Illustration: Portrait of Christine de Pisan, Seated on a Canopied Chair of carved wood, the back lined with tapestry. (_From Miniature on MS., in the Burgundy Library, Brussels._) Period: XV. Century.] The skilled artisans of Paris had arrived at a very high degree of excellence in the fourteenth century, and in old documents describing valuable articles of furniture, care is taken to note that they are of Parisian workmanship. According to Lacroix, there is an account of the court silversmith, Etienne La Fontaine, which gives us an idea of the amount of extravagance sometimes committed in the manufacture and decorations of a chair, into which it was then the fashion to introduce the incrustation of precious stones; thus for making a silver arm chair and ornamenting it with pearls, crystals, and other stones, he charged the King of France, in 1352, no less a sum than 774 louis. The use of rich embroideries at state banquets and on grand occasions appears to have commenced during the reign of Louis IX.--Saint Louis, as he is called--and these were richly emblazoned with arms and devices. Indeed, it was probably due to the fashion for rich stuffs and coverings of tables, and of velvet embroidered cushions for the chairs, that the practice of making furniture of the precious metals died out, and carved wood came into favour. [Illustration: State Banquet, with Attendant Musicians. (_From Miniatures in the National Library, Paris._) Period: XV. Century.] Chairs of this period appear only to have been used on very special occasions; indeed they were too cumbersome to be easily moved from place to place, and in a miniature from some MSS. of the early part of the fifteenth century, which represents a state banquet, the guests are seated on a long bench with a back carved in the Gothic ornament of the time. In Skeat's Dictionary, our modern word "banquet" is said to be derived from the banes or benches used on these occasions. [Illustration: A High Backed Chair, in Carved Oak (Gothic Style). Period: XV. Century. French.] [Illustration: Mediaeval Bed and Bedroom. (_From Viollet-le-Duc._) Period: XIV. to XV. Century. French.] The great hall of the King's Palace, where such an entertainment as that given by Charles V. to the Emperor Charles of Luxemburg would take place, was also furnished with three "dressoirs" for the display of the gold and silver drinking cups, and vases of the time; the repast itself was served upon a marble table, and above the seat of each of the princes present was a separate canopy of gold cloth embroidered with fleur de lis. [Illustration: Scribe or Copyist. Working at his desk in a room in which are a reading desk and a chest with manuscript. (_From an Old Minature_) Period: XV. Century.] The furniture of ordinary houses of this period was very simple. Chests, more or less carved, and ornamented with iron work, settles of oak or of chestnut, stools or benches with carved supports, a bedstead and a prie dieu chair, a table with plain slab supported on shaped standards, would nearly supply the inventory of the furniture of the chief room in a house of a well-to-do merchant in France until the fourteenth century had turned. The table was narrow, apparently not more than some 30 inches wide, and guests sat on one side only, the service taking place from the unoccupied side of the table. In palaces and baronial halls the servants with dishes were followed by musicians, as shewn in an old-miniature of the time, reproduced on p. 39. Turning to German work of the fifteenth century, there is a cast of the famous choir stalls in the Cathedral of Ulm, which are considered the finest work of the Swabian school of German wood carving. The magnificent panel of foliage on the front, the Gothic triple canopy with the busts of Isaiah, David, and Daniel, are thoroughly characteristic specimens of design; and the signature of the artist, Jorg Syrlin, with date 1468, are carved on the work. There were originally 89 choir stalls, and the work occupied the master from the date mentioned, 1468, until 1474. The illustrations of the two chairs of German Gothic furniture formerly in some of the old castles, are good examples of their time, and are from drawings made on the spot by Prof. Heideloff. [Illustration: Two German Chairs (Late 15th Century). (_From Drawings made in Old German Castles by Prof. Heideloff._)] There are in our South Kensington Museum some full-sized plaster casts of important specimens of woodwork of the fifteenth and two previous centuries, and being of authenticated dates, we can compare them with the work of the same countries after the Renaissance had been adopted and had completely altered design. Thus in Italy there was, until the latter part of the fifteenth century, a mixture of Byzantine and Gothic of which we can see a capital example in the casts of the celebrated Pulpit in the Baptistry of Pisa, the date of which is 1260. The pillars are supported by lions, which, instead of being introduced heraldically into the design, as would be the case some two hundred years later, are bearing the whole weight of the pillars and an enormous superstructure on the hollow of their backs in a most impossible manner. The spandril of each arch is filled with a saint in a grotesque position amongst Gothic foliage, and there is in many respects a marked contrast to the casts of examples of the Renaissance period which are in the Museum. [Illustration: Carved Oak Buffet in Gothic Style (Viollet le Duc). Period: XV. Century. French.] This transition from Mediaeval and Gothic, to Renaissance, is clearly noticeable in the woodwork of many cathedrals and churches in England and in continental cities. It is evident that the chairs, stalls, and pulpits in many of these buildings have been executed at different times, and the change from one style to another is more or less marked. The Flemish buffet here illustrated is an example of this transition, and may be contrasted with the French Gothic buffet referred to in the following paragraph. There is also in the central hall of the South Kensington Museum a plaster cast of a carved wood altar stall in the Abbey of Saint Denis, France: the pilasters at the sides have the familiar Gothic pinnacles, while the panels are ornamented with arabesques, scrolls, and an interior in the Renaissance style; the date of this is late in the fifteenth century. The buffet on page 43 is an excellent specimen of the best fifteenth century French Gothic oak work, and the woodcut shows the arrangement of gold and silver plate on the white linen cloth with embroidered ends, in use at this time. [Illustration: Carved Oak Table. Period: Late XV. or Early XVI. Century. French.] [Illustration: Flemish Buffet. Of Carved Oak; open below with panelled cupboards above. The back evidently of later work, after the Renaissance had set in. (_From a Photo, by Messrs. R. Sutton & Co. from the Original in the S. Kensington Museum._) Period: Gothic To Renaissance, XV. Century.] [Illustration: A Tapestried Room in a French Chateau, With Oak Chests as Seats.] [Illustration: Carved Oak Seat, With moveabls Backrest, in front of Fireplace. Period: Late XV. Century. French.] We have now arrived at a period in the history of furniture which is confused, and difficult to arrange and classify. From the end of the fourteenth century to the Renaissance is a time of transition, and specimens may be easily mistaken as being of an earlier or later date than they really are. M. Jacquemart notices this "gap," though he fixes its duration from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century, and he quotes as an instance of the indecision which characterised this interval, that workers in furniture were described in different terms; the words coffer maker, carpenter, and huchier (trunk-maker) frequently occurring to describe the same class of artisan. It is only later that the word "menuisier," or joiner, appears, and we must enter upon the period of the Renaissance before we find the term "cabinet maker," and later still, after the end of the seventeenth century, we have such masters of their craft as Riesener described as "ebenistes," the word being derived from ebony, which, with other eastern woods, came into use after the Dutch settlement in Ceylon. Jacquemart also notices the fact that as early as 1360 we have record of a specialist, "Jehan Petrot," as a "chessboard maker." [Illustration: Interior of An Apothecary's Shop. Late XIV. or Early XV. Century. Flemish. (_From an Old Painting._)] [Illustration: Court of the Ladies of Queen Anne of Brittany. (_From a Miniature in the Library of St. Petersburg_) Representing the Queen weeping on account of her Husband's absence during the Italian War. Period: XV. Century.] Chapter III. The Renaissance. THE RENAISSANCE IN ITALY: Leonardo da Vinci and Raffaele--Church of St. Peter, contemporary great artists--The Italian Palazzo--Methods of gilding, inlaying and mounting Furniture-Pietra-dura and other enrichments--Ruskin's criticism. THE RENAISSANCE IN FRANCE: Francois I. and the Chateau of Fontainebleau--Influence on Courtiers, Chairs of the time--Design of Cabinets--M.E. Bonnaffé on The Renaissance, Bedstead of Jeanne d'Albret--Deterioration of taste in time of Henry IV., Louis XIII. Furniture--Brittany woodwork. THE RENAISSANCE IN THE NETHERLANDS: Influence of the House of Burgundy on Art--The Chimney-piece at Bruges, and other casts of specimens at South Kensington Museum. THE RENAISSANCE IN SPAIN: The resources of Spain in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries--Influence of Saracenic Art, high-backed leather chairs, the Carthusian Convent at Granada. THE RENAISSANCE IN GERMANY: Albrecht Dürer--Famous Steel Chair of Augsburg--German seventeenth century carving in St. Saviour's Hospital. THE RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND: Influence of Foreign Artists in the time of Henry VIII.--End of Feudalism--Hampton Court Palace--Linen pattern Panels--Woodwork in the Henry VII. Chapel at Westminster Abbey--Livery Cupboards at Hengrave--Harrison quoted--the "parler," alteration in English customs--Chairs of the sixteenth century--Coverings and Cushions of the time, extract from old Inventory--South Kensington Cabinet--Elizabethan Mirror at Goodrich Court--Shaw's "Ancient Furniture" the Glastonbury Chair--Introduction of Frames into England--Characteristics of Native Woodwork--Famous Country Mansions, alteration in design of Woodwork and Furniture--Panelled Rooms at South Kensington--The Charterhouse--Gray's Inn Hall and Middle Temple--The Hall of the Carpenter's Company--The Great Bed of Ware--Shakespeare's Chair--Penshurst Place. [Illustration] It is impossible to write about the period of the Renaissance without grave misgivings as to the ability to render justice to a period which has employed the pens of many cultivated writers, and to which whole volumes, nay libraries, have been devoted. Within the limited space of a single chapter all that can be attempted is a brief glance at the influence on design by which furniture and woodwork were affected. Perhaps the simplest way of understanding the changes which occurred, first in Italy, and subsequently in other countries, is to divide the chapter on this period into a series of short notes arranged in the order in which Italian influence would seem to have affected the designers and craftsmen of several European nations. Towards the end of the fifteenth century there appears to have been an almost universal rage for classical literature, and we believe some attempt was made to introduce Latin as a universal language; it is certain that Italian Art was adopted by nation after nation, and a well known writer on architecture (Mr. Parker) has observed:--"It was not until the middle of the nineteenth century that the national styles of the different countries of Modern Europe were revived." As we look back upon the history of Art, assisted by the numerous examples in our Museums, one is struck by the want of novelty in the imagination of mankind. The glorious antique has always been our classic standard, and it seems only to have been a question of time as to when and how a return was made to the old designs of the Greek artists, then to wander from them awhile, and again to return when the world, weary of over-abundance of ornament, longed for the repose of simpler lines on the principles which governed the glorious Athenian artists of old. The Renaissance in Italy. Italy was the birthplace of the Renaissance. Leonardo da Vinci and Raffaele may be said to have guided and led the natural artistic instincts of their countrymen, to discard the Byzantine-Gothic which, as M. Bonnaffe has said, was adopted by the Italians not as a permanent institution, but "faute de mieux" as a passing fashion. It is difficult to say with any certainty when the first commencement of a new era actually takes place, but there is an incident related in Michael Bryan's biographical notice of Leonardo da Vinci which gives us an approximate date. Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, had appointed this great master Director of Painting and Architecture in his academy in 1494, and, says Bryan, who obtained his information from contemporary writers, "Leonardo no sooner entered on his office, than he banished all the Gothic principles established by his predecessor, Michelino, and introduced the beautiful simplicity and purity of the Grecian and Roman styles." A few years after this date, Pope Julius II. commenced to build the present magnificent Church of St. Peter's, designed by Bramante d'Urbino, kinsman and friend of Raffaele, to whose superintendence Pope Leo X. confided the work on the death of the architect in 1514, Michael Angelo having the charge committed to him some years after Raffaele's death. These dates give us a very fair idea of the time at which this important revolution in taste was taking place in Italy, at the end of the fifteenth and the commencement of the following century, and carved woodwork followed the new direction. [Illustration: Reproduction of Decoration By Raffaelle. In the Loggie of the Vatican. Period: Italian Renaissance.] [Illustration: A Sixteenth Century Room. Reproduced from the "Magazine of Art" (By Permission)] [Illustration: Salon of M. Edmond Bonnaffé, Decorated and Furnished in the Renaissance Style.] Leo X. was Pope in 1513. The period of peace which then ensued after war, which for so many decades had disturbed Italy, as France or Germany had in turn striven to acquire her fertile soil, gave the princes and nobles leisure to rebuild and adorn their palaces; and the excavations which were then made brought to light many of the works of art which had remained buried since the time when Rome was mistress of the world. Leo was a member of that remarkable and powerful family the Medicis, the very mention of whom is to suggest the Renaissance, and under his patronage, and with the co-operation of the reigning dukes and princes of the different Italian states, artists were given encouragement and scope for the employment of their talents. Michael Angelo, Titian, Raffaele Sanzio, Andrea del Sarto, Correggio, and many other great artists were raising up monuments of everlasting fame; Palladio was rebuilding the palaces of Italy, which were then the wonder of the world; Benvenuto Cellini and Lorenzo Ghiberti were designing those marvellous chef d'oeuvres in gold, silver, and bronze which are now so rare; and a host of illustrious artists were producing work which has made the sixteenth century famous for all time. [Illustration: Chair in Carved Walnut. Found in the house of Michael Angelo.] The circumstances of the Italian noble caused him to be very amenable to Art influence. Living chiefly out of doors, his climate rendered him less dependent on the comforts of small rooms, to which more northern people were attached, and his ideas would naturally aspire to pomp and elegance, rather than to home life and utility. Instead of the warm chimney corner and the comfortable seat, he preferred furniture of a more palatial character for the adornment of the lofty and spacious saloons of his palace, and therefore we find the buffet elaborately carved, with a free treatment of the classic antique which marks the time; it was frequently "garnished" with the beautiful majolica of Urbino, of Pesaro, and of Gubbio. The sarcophagus, or _cassone_, of oak, or more commonly of chesnut or walnut, sometimes painted and gilded, sometimes carved with scrolls and figures; the cabinet designed with architectural outline, and fitted up inside with steps and pillars like a temple; chairs which are wonderful to look upon as guardians of a stately doorway, but uninviting as seats; tables inlaid, gilded, and carved, with slabs of marble or of Florentine Mosaic work, but which from their height are as a rule impossible to use for any domestic purpose; mirrors with richly carved and gilded frames are so many evidences of a style which is palatial rather than domestic, in design as in proportion. [Illustration: Venetian Centre Table, Carved and Gilt. In the South Kensington Museum.] The walls of these handsome saloons or galleries were hung with rich velvet of Genoese manufacture, with stamped and gilt leather, and a composition ornament was also applied to woodwork, and then gilded and painted; this kind of decoration was termed "gesso work." [Illustration: Marriage Coffer in Carved Walnut. (Collection of Comte de Briges.) Period: Renaissance (XVI. Century) Venetian.] [Illustration: Marriage Coffer, Carved and Gilt with Painted Subject. Italian. XVI. Century.] A rich effect was produced on the carved console tables, chairs, stools and frames intended for gilding, by the method employed by the Venetian and Florentine craftsmen, the gold leaf being laid on a red preparation, and then the chief portions highly burnished. There are in the South Kensington Museum several specimens of such work, and now that time and wear have caused this red groundwork to shew through the faded gold, the harmony of color is very satisfactory. [Illustration: Pair of Italian Carved Bellows, in Walnut Wood. (_South Kensington Museum._)] Other examples of fifteenth century Italian carving, such as the old Cassone fronts, are picked out with gold, the remainder of the work displaying the rich warm color of the walnut or chesnut wood, which were almost invariably employed. Of the smaller articles of furniture, the "bellows" and wall brackets of this period deserve mention; the carving of these is very carefully finished, and is frequently very elaborate. The illustration on page 51 is that of a pair of bellows in the South Kensington collection. [Illustration: Carved Italian Mirror Frame, 16th Century. (_In the South Kensington Museum._)] The enrichment of woodwork by means of inlaying deserves mention. In the chapter on Ancient Furniture we have seen that ivory was used as an inlaid ornament as early as six centuries before Christ, but its revival and development in Europe probably commenced in Venice about the end of the thirteenth century, in copies of geometrical designs, let into ebony and brown walnut, and into a wood something like rosewood; parts of boxes and chests of these materials are still in existence. Mr. Maskell tells us in his Handbook on "Ivories," that probably owing to the difficulty of procuring ivory in Italy, bone of fine quality was frequently used in its place. All this class of work was known as "Tarsia," "Intarsia," or "Certosina," a word supposed to be derived from the name of the well-known religious community--the Carthusians--on account of the dexterity of those monks at this work.[6] It is true that towards the end of the fourteenth century, makers of ornamental furniture began to copy marble mosaic work, by making similar patterns of different woods, and subsequently this branch of industrial art developed from such modest beginnings as the simple pattern of a star, or bandings in different kinds of wood in the panel of a door, to elaborate picture-making, in which landscapes, views of churches, houses and picturesque ruins were copied, figures and animals being also introduced. This work was naturally facilitated and encouraged by increasing commerce between different nations, which rendered available a greater variety of woods. In some of the early Italian "intarsia" the decoration was cut into the surface of the panel piece by piece. As artists became more skilful, veneers were applied and the effect heightened by burning with hot sand the parts requiring shading; and the lines caused by the thickness of the sawcuts were filled in with black wood or stained glue to give definition to the design. [Illustration: A Sixteenth Century "Coffre-Fort."] The "mounting" of articles of furniture with metal enrichments doubtless originated in the iron corner pieces and hinge plates, which were used to strengthen the old chests, of which mention has been already made, and as artificers began to render their productions decorative as well as useful, what more natural progress than that the iron corners, bandings, or fastenings, should be of ornamental forged or engraved iron. In the sixteenth century, metal workers reached a point of excellence which has never been surpassed, and those marvels of mountings in steel, iron and brass were produced in Italy and Germany, which are far more important as works of art, than the plain and unpretending productions of the coffer maker, which are their _raison d'etre._ The woodcut on p. 53 represents a very good example of a "Coffre-fort" in the South Kensington Collection. The decoration is bitten in with acids so as to present the appearance of its being damascened, and the complicated lock, shewn on the inside of the lid, is characteristic of these safeguards for valuable documents at a time when the modern burglar-proof safe had not been thought of. The illustration on the following page is from an example in the same museum, shewing a different decoration, the oval plaques of figures and coats of arms being of carved ivory let into the surface of the coffer. This is an early specimen, and belongs as much to the last chapter as to the present. "Pietra-dura" as an ornament was first introduced in Italy during the sixteenth century, and became a fashion. This was an inlay of highly-polished rare marbles, agates, hard pebbles, lapis lazuli, and other stones; ivory was also carved and applied as a bas relief, as well as inlaid in arabesques of the most elaborate designs; tortoiseshell, brass, mother of pearl, and other enrichments were introduced in the decoration of cabinets and of caskets; silver plaques embossed and engraved were pressed into the service as the native princes of Florence, Urbino, Ferrara, and other independent cities vied with Rome, Venice, and Naples in sumptuousness of ornament, and lavishness of expense, until the inevitable period of decline supervened in which exaggeration of ornament and prodigality of decoration gave the eye no repose. Edmond Bonnaffe, contrasting the latter period of Italian Renaissance with that of sixteenth century French woodwork, has pithily remarked: "_Chez cux, l'art du bois consiste à le dissimuler, chez nous à le faire valoir._" [Illustration: Italian Coffer with Medallions of Ivory. 15th Century. (_South Kensington Museum._)] In Ruskin's "Stones of Venice," the author alludes to this over-ornamentation of the latter Renaissance in severe terms. After describing the progress of art in Venice from Byzantine to Gothic, and from Gothic to Renaissance he subdivides the latter period into three classes:--1. Renaissance grafted on Byzantine. 2. Renaissance grafted on Gothic. 3. Renaissance grafted on Renaissance, and this last the veteran art critic calls "double darkness," one of his characteristic terms of condemnation which many of us cannot follow, but the spirit of which we can appreciate. Speaking generally of the character of ornament, we find that whereas in the furniture of the Middle Ages, the subjects for carving were taken from the lives of the saints or from metrical romance, the Renaissance carvers illustrated scenes from classical mythology, and allegories, such as representations of elements, seasons, months, the cardinal virtues, or the battle scenes and triumphal processions of earlier times. [Illustration: Carved Walnut Wood Italian Chairs. 16th Century. (_From Photos of the originals in the South Kensington Museum._)] [Illustration: Ebony Cabinet. With marble mosaics, and bronze gilt ornaments, Florentine work. Period: XVII. Century.] The outlines and general designs of the earlier Renaissance cabinets were apparently suggested by the old Roman triumphal arches and sarcophagi; afterwards these were modified and became varied, elegant and graceful, but latterly as the period of decline was marked, the outlines as shewn in the two chairs on the preceding page became confused and dissipated by over-decoration. The illustrations given of specimens of furniture of Italian Renaissance render lengthy descriptions unnecessary. So far as it has been possible to do so, a selection has been made to represent the different classes of work, and as there are in the South Kensington Museum numerous examples of cassone fronts, panels, chairs, and cabinets which can be examined, it is easy to form an idea of the decorative woodwork made in Italy during the period we have been considering. [Illustration: Venetian State Chair. Carved and Gilt Frame, Upholstered with Embroidered Velvet. Date about 1670. (_In the possession of H.M. the Queen at Windsor Castle._)] The Renaissance In France. From Italy the great revival of industrial art travelled to France. Charles VIII., who for two years had held Naples (1494-96), brought amongst other artists from Italy, Bernadino de Brescia and Domenico de Cortona, and Art, which at this time was in a feeble, languishing state in France, began to revive. Francis I. employed an Italian architect to build the Chateau of Fontainebleau, which had hitherto been but an old fashioned hunting box in the middle of the forest, and Leonardo da Vinci and Andrea del Sarto came from Florence to decorate the interior. Guilio Romano, who had assisted Raffaele to paint the loggie of the Vatican, exercised an influence in France, which was transmitted by his pupils for generations. The marriage of Henry II. with Catherine de Medici increased the influence of Italian art, and later that of Marie de Medici with Henri Quatre continued that influence. Diane de Poietiers, mistress of Henri II., was the patroness of artists; and Fontainebleau has been well said to "reflect the glories of gay and splendour loving kings from Francois Premier to Henri Quatre." Besides Fontainebleau, Francis I. built the Chateau of Chambord,[7] that of Chenonceaux on the Loire, the Chateau de Madrid, and others, and commenced the Louvre. Following their King's example, the more wealthy of his subjects rebuilt or altered their chateaux and hotels, decorated them in the Italian style, and furnished them with the cabinets, chairs, coffers, armoires, tables, and various other articles, designed after the Italian models. The character of the woodwork naturally accompanied the design of the building. Fireplaces, which until the end of the fifteenth century had been of stone, were now made of oak, richly carved and ornamented with the armorial bearings of the "_seigneur_." The _Prie dieu_ chair, which Viollet le Due tells us came into use in the fifteenth century, was now made larger and more ornate, in some cases becoming what might almost be termed a small oratory, the back being carved in the form of an altar, and the utmost care lavished on the work. It must be remembered that in France, until the end of the fifteenth century, there were no benches or seats in the churches, and, therefore, prayers were said by the aristocracy in the private chapel of the chateau, and by the middle classes in the chief room of the house. [Illustration: Ornamental Panelling in St. Vincent's Church, Rouen. Period: Early French Renaissance. Temp. Francois I.] [Illustration: Chimney Piece. In the Gallery of Henri II., Chateau of Fontainebleau. Period: French Renaissance, Early XVI. Century.] The large high-backed chair of the sixteenth century "_chaire à haut dossier,"_ the arm chair "_chaire à bras," "chaire tournante_," for domestic use, are all of this time, and some illustrations will show the highly finished carved work of Renaissance style which prevailed. Besides the "_chaire_" which was reserved for the "_seigneur_," there were smaller and more convenient stools, the X form supports of which were also carved. [Illustration: Carved Oak Panel, Dated 1577.] Cabinets were made with an upper and lower part; sometimes the latter was in the form of a stand with caryatides figures like the famous cabinet in the Chateau Fontainebleau, a vignette of which forms the initial letter of this chapter; or were enclosed by doors generally decorated with carving, the upper, part having richly carved panels, which when open disclosed drawers with fronts minutely carved. M. Edmond Bonnaffé, in his work on the sixteenth century furniture of France, gives no less than 120 illustrations of "_tables, coffres, armoires, dressoirs, sieges, et bancs_, manufactured at Orleans, Anjou, Maine, Touraine, Le Berri, Lorraine, Burgundy, Lyons, Provence, Auvergne, Languedoc, and other towns and districts, besides the capital," which excelled in the reputation of her "menuisiers," and in the old documents certain articles of furniture are particularized as "_fait à Paris_." He also mentions that Francis I. preferred to employ native workmen, and that the Italians were retained only to furnish the designs and lead the new style; and in giving the names of the most noted French cabinet makers and carvers of this time, he adds that Jacques Lardant and Michel Bourdin received no less than 15,700 livres for a number of "_buffets de salles," "tables garnies de leurs tréteaux," "chandeliers de bois_" and other articles. [Illustration: Facsimiles of Engravings on Wood, By J. Amman, in the 16th century, showing interiors of Workshops of the period.] The bedstead, of which there is an illustration, is a good representation of French Renaissance. It formed part of the contents of the Chateau of Pau, and belonged to Jeanne d'Albret, mother of Henri Quatre, who was born at Pau in 1553. The bedstead is of oak, and by time has acquired a rich warm tint, the details of the carving remaining sharp and clear. On the lower cornice moulding, the date 1562 is carved. This, like other furniture and contents of Palaces in France, forms part of the State or National collection, of which there are excellent illustrations and descriptions in M. Williamson's "Mobilier National," a valuable contribution to the literature of this subject which should be consulted. [Illustration: Carved Oak Bedstead of Jeanne D'albret. From the Chateau of Pau. (Collection "Mobilier National.") Period: French Renaissance (Date 1562).] [Illustration: Carved Oak Cabinet. Made at Lyons. Period: Latter Part of XVI. Century.] Another example of four-post bedsteads of French sixteenth century work is that of the one in the Cluny Museum, which is probably some years later than the one at Pau, and in the carved members of the two lower posts, more resembles our English Elizabethan work. Towards the latter part of Henri IV. the style of decorative art in France became debased and inconsistent. Construction and ornamentation were guided by no principle, but followed the caprice of the individual. Meaningless pilasters, entablatures, and contorted cornices replaced the simpler outline and subordinate enrichment of the time of Henri II., and until the great revival of taste under the "_grand monarque,"_ there was in France a period of richly ornamented but ill-designed decorative furniture. An example of this can be seen at South Kensington in the plaster cast of a large chimney-piece from the Chateau of the Seigneur de Villeroy, near Menecy, by Germain Pillon, who died in 1590. In this the failings mentioned above will be readily recognized, and also in another example, namely, that of a carved oak door from the church of St. Maclou, Rouen, by Jean Goujon, in which the work is very fine, but somewhat overdone with enrichment. This cast is in the same collection. During the 'Louis Treize' period chairs became more comfortable than those of an earlier time. The word "chaise" as a diminutive of "chaire" found its way into the French dictionary to denote the less throne-like seat which was in more ordinary use, and, instead of being at this period entirely carved, it was upholstered in velvet, tapestry or needlework; the frame was covered, and only the legs and arms visible and slightly carved. In the illustration here given, the King and his courtiers are seated on chairs such as have been described. Marqueterie was more common; large armoires, clients of drawers and knee-hole writing tables were covered with an inlay of vases of flowers and birds, of a brownish wood, with enrichments of bone and ivory, inserted in a black ground of stained wood, very much like the Dutch inlaid furniture of some years later but with less colour in the various veneers than is found in the Dutch work. Mirrors became larger, the decoration of rooms had ornamental friezes with lower portions of the walls panelled, and the bedrooms of ladies of position began to be more luxuriously furnished. It is somewhat singular that while Normandy very quickly adopted the new designs in her buildings and her furniture, and Rouen carvers and joiners became famous for their work, the neighbouring province, Brittany, was conservative of her earlier designs. The sturdy Breton has through all changes of style preserved much of the rustic quaintness of his furniture, and when some three or four years ago the writer was stranded in a sailing trip up the Ranee, owing to the shallow state of the river, and had an opportunity of visiting some of the farm houses in the country district a few miles from Dinan, there were still to be seen many examples of this quaint rustic furniture. Curious beds, consisting of shelves for parents and children, form a cupboard in the wall and are shut in during the day by a pair of lattice doors of Moorish design, with the wheel pattern and spindle perforations. These, with the armoire of similar design, and the "huche" or chest with relief carving, of a design part Moorish, part Byzantine, used as a step to mount to the bed and also as a table, are still the _garniture_ of a good farm house in Brittany. The earliest date of this quaint furniture is about the middle of the fifteenth century, and has been handed down from father to son by the more well-to-do farmers. The manufacture of armoires, cupboards, tables and doors, is still carried on near St. Malo, where also some of the old specimens may be found. [Illustration: Louis XIII. And His Court in a Hall, Witnessing a Play. (_From a Miniature dated_ 1643.)] [Illustration: Decoration for a Salon in Louis XIII. Style.] The Renaissance in the Netherlands. In the Netherlands, the reigning princes of the great House of Burgundy had prepared the soil for the Renaissance, and, by the marriage of Mary of Burgundy with the Archduke Maximilian, the countries which then were called Flanders and Holland, passed under the Austrian rule. This influence was continued by the taste and liberality of Margaret of Austria, who, being appointed "Governor" of the Low Countries in 1507, seems to have introduced Italian artists and to have encouraged native craftsmen. We are told that Corneille Floris introduced Italian ornamentation and grotesque borders; that Pierre Coech, architect and painter, adopted and popularised the designs of Vitruvius and Serlio. Wood carvers multiplied and embellished churches and palaces, the houses of the Burgomasters, the Town Halls, and the residences of wealthy citizens. Oak, at first almost the only wood used, became monotonous, and as a relief, ebony and other rare woods, introduced by the then commencing commerce with the Indies, were made available for the embellishments of furniture and wood work of this time. One of the most famous examples of rich wood carving is the well known hall and chimney piece at Bruges with its group of cupidons and armorial bearings, amongst an abundance of floral detail. This over ornate _chef d'oeuvre_ was designed by Lancelot Blondel and Guyot de Beauregrant, and its carving was the combined work of three craftsmen celebrated in their day, Herman Glosencamp, André Rash and Roger de Smet. There is in the South Kensington Museum a full-sized plaster cast of this gigantic chimney piece, the lower part being coloured black to indicate the marble of which it was composed, with panels of alabaster carved in relief, while the whole of the upper portion and the richly carved ceiling of the room is of oak. The model, including the surrounding woodwork, measures thirty-six feet across, and should not be missed by any one who is interested in the subject of furniture, for it is noteworthy historically as well as artistically, being a monument in its way, in celebration of the victory gained by Charles V. over Francis I. of France, in 1529, at Pavia, the victorious sovereign being at this time not only Emperor of Germany, but also enjoying amongst other titles those of Duke of Burgundy, Count of Flanders, King of Spain and the Indies, etc., etc. The large statues of the Emperor, of Ferdinand and Isabella, with some thirty-seven heraldic shields of the different royal families with which the conqueror claimed connection, are prominent features in the intricate design. There is in the same part of the Museum a cast of the oak door of the Council Chamber of the Hotel de Ville at Audenarde, of a much less elaborate character. Plain mullions divide sixteen panels carved in the orthodox Renaissance style, with cupids bearing tablets, from which are depending floral scrolls, and at the sides the supports are columns, with the lower parts carved and standing on square pedestals. The date of this work is 1534, somewhat later than the Bruges carving, and is a representative specimen of the Flemish work of this period. [Illustration: An Ebony Armoire, Richly Carved, Flemish Renaissance. (_In South Kensington Museum._)] The clever Flemish artist so thoroughly copied the models of his different masters that it has become exceedingly difficult to speak positively as to the identity of much of the woodwork, and to distinguish it from German, English, or Italian, although as regards the latter we have seen that walnut wood was employed very generally, whereas in Flanders, oak was nearly always used for figure work. After the period of the purer forms of the first Renaissance, the best time for carved woodwork and decorative furniture in the Netherlands was probably the seventeenth century, when the Flemish designers and craftsmen had ceased to copy the Italian patterns, and had established the style we recognise as "Flemish Renaissance." Lucas Faydherbe, architect and sculptor (1617-1694)--whose boxwood group of the death of John the Baptist is in the South Kensington Museum--both the Verbruggens, and Albert Bruhl, who carved the choir work of St. Giorgio Maggiore in Venice, are amongst the most celebrated Flemish wood carvers of this time. Vriedman de Vriesse and Crispin de Passe, although they worked in France, belong to Flanders and to the century. Some of the most famous painters--Francis Hals, Jordaens, Rembrandt, Metsu, Van Mieris--all belong to this time, and in some of the fine interiors represented by these Old Masters, in which embroidered curtains and rich coverings relieve the sombre colors of the dark carved oak furniture, there is a richness of effect which the artist could scarcely have imagined, but which he must have observed in the houses of the rich burghers of prosperous Flanders. [Illustration: A Barber's Shop. From a Wood Engraving by J. Amman. 16th Century. Shewing a Chair of the time.] In the chapter on Jacobean furniture, we shall see the influence and assistance which England derived from Flemish woodworkers; and the similarity of the treatment in both countries will be noticed in some of the South Kensington Museum specimens of English marqueterie, made at the end of the seventeenth century. The figure work in Holland has always been of a high order, and though as the seventeenth century advanced, this perhaps became less refined, the proportions have always been well preserved, and the attitudes are free and unconstrained. A very characteristic article of seventeenth century Dutch furniture is the large and massive wardrobe, with the doors handsomely carved, not infrequently having three columns, one in the centre and one at each side, and these generally form part of the doors, which are also enriched with square panels, carved in the centre and finished with mouldings. There are specimens in the South Kensington Museum, of these and also of earlier Flemish work when the Renaissance was purer in style and, as has been observed, of less national character. The marqueterie of this period is extremely rich, the designs are less severe, but the colouring of the woods is varied, and the effect heightened by the addition of small pieces of mother of pearl and ivory. Later, this marqueterie became florid, badly finished, and the colouring of the veneers crude and gaudy. Old pieces of plain mahogany furniture were decorated with a thin layer of highly coloured veneering, a meretricious ornamentation altogether lacking refinement. There is, however, a peculiarity and character about some of the furniture of North Holland, in the towns of Alkmaar, Hoorn, and others in this district, which is worth noticing. The treatment has always been more primitive and quaint than in the Flemish cities to which allusion has been made--and it was here that the old farm houses of the Nord-Hollander were furnished with the rush-bottomed chairs, painted green; the three-legged tables, and dower chests painted in flowers and figures of a rude description, with the colouring chiefly green and bright red, is extremely effective. [Illustration: A Flemish Citizen at Meals. (_From a XVI, Century MS._)] The Renaissance in Spain. We have seen that Spain as well as Germany and the Low Countries were under the rule of the Emperor Charles V., and therefore it is unnecessary to look further for the sources of influence which brought the wave of Renaissance to the Spanish carvers and cabinet makers. [Illustration: Sedan Chair Of Charles V. Probably made in the Netherlands. Arranged with moveable back and uprights to form a canopy when desired. (_In the Royal Armoury, Madrid._)] After Van Eyck was sent for to paint the portrait of King John's daughter, the Low Countries continued to export to the Peninsula painters, sculptors, tapestry weavers, and books on Art. French artists also found employment in Spain, and the older Gothic became superseded as in other countries. Berruguete, a Spaniard, who had studied in the atelier of Michael Angelo, returned to his own country with the new influence strong upon him, and the vast wealth and resources of Spain at this period of her history enabled her nobles to indulge their taste in cabinets richly ornamented with repoussé plaques of silver, and later of tortoiseshell, of ebony, and of scarce woods from her Indian possessions; though in a more general way chesnut was still a favorite medium. Contemporary with decorative woodwork of Moorish design there was also a great deal of carving, and of furniture made, after designs brought from Italy and the North of Europe; and Mr. J.H. Pollen, quoting a trustworthy Spanish writer, Senor J.F. Riario, says:--"The brilliant epoch of sculpture (in wood) belongs to the sixteenth century, and was due to the great impulse it received from the works of Berruguete and Felipe de Borgoña. He was the chief promoter of the Italian style, and the choir of the Cathedral of Toledo, where he worked so much, is the finest specimen of the kind in Spain. Toledo, Seville, and Valladolid were at the time great productive and artistic centres." [Illustration: Silver Table, Late 16th or Early 17th Century. (_In the Queen's Collection, Windsor Castle._)] The same writer, after discussing the characteristic Spanish cabinets, decorated outside with fine ironwork and inside with columns of bone painted and gilt, which were called "Varguenos," says:--"The other cabinets or escritoires belonging to that period (sixteenth century) were to a large extent imported from Germany and Italy, while others were made in Spain in imitation of these, and as the copies were very similar it is difficult to classify them." * * * [Illustration: Chair of Walnut or Chesnut Wood, Covered in Leather with embossed pattern. Spanish, (Collection of Baron de Vallière.) Period: Early XVII. Century.] [Illustration: Wooden Coffer. With wrought iron mounts and falling flap, on carved stand. Spanish. (Collection of M. Monbrison.) Period: XVII. Century.] "Besides these inlaid cabinets, others must have been made in the sixteenth century inlaid with silver. An Edict was issued in 1594, prohibiting, with the utmost rigour, the making and selling of this kind of merchandise, in order not to increase the scarcity of silver." The Edict says that "no cabinets, desks, coffers, braziers, shoes, tables, or other articles decorated with stamped, raised, carved, or plain silver should be manufactured." The beautiful silver table in Her Majesty's collection at Windsor Castle, illustrated on page 68, is probably one of Spanish make of late sixteenth or early seventeenth century. Although not strictly within the period treated of in this chapter, it is convenient to observe that much later, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, one finds the Spanish cabinet maker ornamenting his productions with an inlay of ivory let into tortoiseshell, representing episodes in the history of _Don Quichotte_, and the National pastime of bull-fighting. These cabinets generally have simple rectangular outlines with numerous drawers, the fronts of which are decorated in the manner described, and where the stands are original they are formed of turned legs of ebony or stained wood. In many Spanish cabinets the influence of Saracenic art is very dominant; these have generally a plain exterior, the front is hinged as a fall-down flap, and discloses a decorative effect which reminds one of some of the Alhambra work--quaint arches inlaid with ivory, of a somewhat bizarre coloring of blue and vermilion--altogether a rather barbarous but rich and effective treatment. To the seventeenth century also belong the high-backed Spanish and Portuguese chairs, of dark brown leather, stamped with numerous figures, birds and floral scrolls, studded with brass nails and ornaments, while the legs and arms are alone visible as woodwork; they are made of chesnut, with some leafwork or scroll carving. There is a good representative woodcut of one of these chairs. Until Baron Davillier wrote his work on Spanish art, very little was known of the different peculiarities by which we can now distinguish examples of woodwork and furniture of that country from many Italian or Flemish contemporary productions. Some of the Museum specimens will assist the reader to mark some characteristics, and it may be observed generally that in the treatment of figure subjects in the carved work, the attitudes are somewhat strained, and, as has been stated, the outlines of the cabinets are without any special feature. Besides the Spanish chesnut (noyer), which is singularly lustrous and was much used, one also finds cedar, cypress wood and pine. In the Chapel of Saint Bruno, attached to the Carthusian Convent at Granada, the doors and interior fittings are excellent examples of inlaid Spanish work of the seventeenth century; the monks of this order at a somewhat earlier date are said to have produced the "tarsia," or inlaid work, to which some allusion has already been made. The Renaissance in Germany. German Renaissance may be said to have made its debut under Albrecht Dürer. There was already in many of the German cities a disposition to copy Flemish artists, but under Dürer's influence this new departure became developed in a high degree, and, as the sixteenth century advanced, the Gothic designs of an earlier period were abandoned in favour of the more free treatment of figure ornament, scrolls, enriched panels and mouldings, which mark the new era in all Art work. Many remarkable specimens of German carving are to be met with in Augsburg, Aschaffenburg, Berlin, Cologne, Dresden, Gotha, Munich, Manheim, Nuremberg, Ulm, Regensburg, and other old German towns. Although made of steel, the celebrated chair at Longford Castle in Wiltshire is worthy of some notice as a remarkable specimen of German Renaissance. It is fully described in Richardson's "Studies from Old English Mansions." It was the work of Thomas Rukers, and was presented by the city of Augsburg to the Emperor of Germany in 1577. The city arms are at the back, and also the bust of the Emperor. The other minute and carefully finished decorative subjects represent different events in history; a triumphal procession of Caesar, the Prophet Daniel explaining his dream, the landing of Aeneas, and other events. The Emperor Rudolphus placed the chair in the City of Prague, Gustavus Adolphus plundered the city and removed it to Sweden, whence it was brought by Mr. Gustavus Brander about 100 years ago, and sold by him to Lord Radnor. As is the case with Flemish wood-carving, it is often difficult to identify German work, but its chief characteristics may be said to include an exuberant realism and a fondness for minute detail. M. Bonnaffé has described this work in a telling phrase: "_l'ensemble est tourmenté, laborieux, touffu tumultueux_." [Illustration: The Steel Chair, At Longford Castle, Wiltshire.] There is a remarkable example of rather late German Renaissance oak carving in the private chapel of S. Saviour's Hospital, in Osnaburg Street, Regent's Park, London. The choir stalls, some 31 in number, and the massive doorway, formed part of a Carthusian monastery at Buxheim, Bavaria, which was sold and brought to London after the monastery had been secularised and had passed into the possession of the territorial landlords, the Bassenheim family. At first intended to ornament one of the Colleges at Oxford, it was afterwards resold and purchased by the author, and fitted to the interior of S. Saviour's, and so far as the proportions of the chapel would admit of such an arrangement, the relative positions of the different parts are maintained. The figures of the twelve apostles--of David, Eleazer, Moses, Aaron, and of the eighteen saints at the backs of the choir stalls, are marvellous work, and the whole must have been a harmonious and well considered arrangement of ornament. The work, executed by the monks themselves, is said to have been commenced in 1600, and to have been completed in 1651, and though a little later than, according to some authorities, the best time of the Renaissance, is so good a representation of German work of this period that it will well repay an examination. As the author was responsible for its arrangement in its present position, he has the permission of the Rev. Mother at the head of S. Saviour's to say that any one who is interested in Art will be allowed to see the chapel. [Illustration: German Carved Oak Buffet, 17th Century. (_From a Drawing by Prof. Heideloff._)] The Renaissance In England. England under Henry the Eighth was peaceful and prosperous, and the King was ambitious to outvie his French contemporary, Francois I., in the sumptuousness of his palaces. John of Padua, Holbein, Havernius of Cleves, and other artists, were induced to come to England and to introduce the new style. It, however, was of slow growth, and we have in the mixture of Gothic, Italian and Flemish ornament, the style which is known as "Tudor." It has been well said that "Feudalism was ruined by gunpowder." The old-fashioned feudal castle was no longer proof against cannon, and with the new order of things, threatening walls and serried battlements gave way as if by magic to the pomp and grace of the Italian mansion. High roofed gables, rows of windows and glittering oriels looking down on terraced gardens, with vases and fountains, mark the new epoch. [Illustration: Carved Oak Chest in the Style of Holbein.] The joiner's work played a very important part in the interior decoration of the castles and country seats of this time, and the roofs were magnificently timbered with native oak, which was available in longer lengths than that of foreign growth. The Great Hall in Hampton Court Palace, which was built by Cardinal Wolsey and presented to his master, the halls of Oxford, and many other public buildings which remain to us, are examples of fine woodwork in the roofs. Oak panelling was largely used to line the walls of the great halls, the "linen scroll pattern" being a favorite form of ornament. This term describes a panel carved to represent a napkin folded in close convolutions, and appears to have been adopted from German work; specimens of this can be seen at Hampton Court, and in old churches decorated in the early part of the sixteenth century. There is also some fine panelling of this date in King's College, Cambridge. In this class of work, which accompanied the style known in architecture as the "Perpendicular," some of the finest specimens of oak ornamented interiors are to be found, that of the roof and choir stalls in the beautiful Chapel of Henry VII. in Westminster Abbey, being world famous. The carved enrichments of the under part of the seats, or "misericords," are especially minute, the subjects apparently being taken from old German engravings. This work was done in England before architecture and wood carving had altogether flung aside their Gothic trammels, and shews an admixture of the new Italian style which was afterwards so generally adopted. There are in the British Museum some interesting records of contracts made in the ninth year of Henry VIII.'s reign for joyner's work at Hengrave, in which the making of 'livery' or service cupboards is specified. "Ye cobards they be made ye facyon of livery y is w'thout doors." These were fitted up by the ordinary house carpenters, and consisted of three stages or shelves standing on four turned legs, with a drawer for table linen. They were at this period not enclosed, but the mugs or drinking vessels were hung on hooks, and were taken down and replaced after use; a ewer and basin was also part of the complement of a livery cupboard, for cleansing these cups. In Harrison's description of England in the latter part of the sixteenth century the custom is thus described: "Each one as necessitie urgeth, calleth for a cup of such drinke as him liketh, so when he hath tasted it, he delivereth the cup again to some one of the standers by, who maketh it clean by pouring out the drinke that remaineth, restoreth it to the cupboard from whence he fetched the same." It must be borne in mind, in considering the furniture of the earlier part of the sixteenth century, that the religious persecutions of the time, together with the general break-up of the feudal system, had gradually brought about the disuse of the old custom of the master of the house taking his meals in the large hall or "houseplace," together with his retainers and dependants; and a smaller room leading from the great hall was fitted up with a dressoir or service cupboard, for the drinking vessels in the manner just described, with a bedstead, and a chair, some benches, and the board on trestles, which formed the table of the period. This room, called a "parler" or "privée parloir," was the part of the house where the family enjoyed domestic life, and it is a singular fact that the Clerics of the time, and also the Court party, saw in this tendency towards private life so grave an objection that, in 1526, this change in fashion was the subject of a court ordinance, and also of a special Pastoral from Bishop Grosbeste. The text runs thus: "Sundrie noblemen and gentlemen and others doe much delighte to dyne in corners and secret places," and the reason given, was that it was a bad influence, dividing class from class; the real reason was probably that by more private and domestic life, the power of the Church over her members was weakened. [Illustration: Chair Said To Have Belonged to Anna Boleyn, Hever Castle. (_From the Collection of Mr. Godwin, F.S.A._)] In spite, however, of opposition in high places, the custom of using the smaller rooms became more common, and we shall find the furniture, as time goes on, designed accordingly. [Illustration: Tudor Cabinet in the South Kensington Museum. (_Described below._)] In the South Kensington Museum there is a very remarkable cabinet, the decoration of which points to its being made in England at this time, that is, about the middle, or during the latter half, of the sixteenth century, but the highly finished and intricate marqueterie and carving would seem to prove that Italian or German craftsmen had executed the work. It should be carefully examined as a very interesting specimen. The Tudor arms, the rose and portcullis, are inlaid on the stand. The arched panels in the folding doors, and at the ends of the cabinet are in high relief, representing battle scenes, and bear some resemblance to Holbein's style. The general arrangement of the design reminds one of a Roman triumphal arch. The woods employed are chiefly pear tree, inlaid with coromandel and other woods. Its height is 4 ft. 7 in. and width 3 ft. 1 in., but there is in it an immense amount of careful detail which could only be the work of the most skilful craftsmen of the day, and it was evidently intended for a room of moderate dimensions where the intricacies of design could be observed. Mr. Hungerford Pollen has described this cabinet fully, giving the subjects of the ornament, the Latin mottoes and inscriptions, and other details, which occupy over four closely printed pages of his museum catalogue. It cost the nation £500, and was an exceedingly judicious purchase. Chairs were during the first half of the sixteenth century very scarce articles, and as we have seen with other countries, only used for the master or mistress of the house. The chair which is said to have belonged to Anna Boleyn, of which an illustration is given on p. 74, is from the collection of the late Mr. Geo. Godwin, F.S.A., formerly editor of "_The Builder_," and was part of the contents of Hever Castle, in Kent. It is of carved oak, inlaid with ebony and boxwood, and was probably made by an Italian workman. Settles were largely used, and both these and such chairs as then existed, were dependent, for richness of effect, upon the loose cushions with which they were furnished. If we attempt to gain a knowledge of the designs of the tables of the sixteenth, and early part of the seventeenth centuries, from interiors represented in paintings of this period, the visit to the picture gallery will be almost in vain, for in nearly every case the table is covered by a cloth. As these cloths or carpets, as they were then termed, to distinguish them from the "tapet" or floor covering, often cost far more than the articles they covered, a word about them may be allowed. Most of the old inventories from 1590, after mentioning the "framed" or "joyned" table, name the "carpett of Turky werke" which covered it, and in many cases there was still another covering to protect the best one, and when Frederick, Duke of Wurtemburg, visited England in 1592 he noted a very extravagant "carpett" at Hampton Court, which was embroidered with pearls and cost 50,000 crowns. The cushions or "quysshens" for the chairs, of embroidered velvet, were also very important appendages to the otherwise hard oaken and ebony seats, and as the actual date of the will of Alderman Glasseor quoted below is 1589, we may gather from the extract given, something of the character and value of these ornamental accessories which would probably have been in use for some five and twenty or thirty years previously. "Inventory of the contents of the parler of St. Jone's, within the cittie of Chester," of which place Alderman Glasseor was vice-chamberlain:-- "A drawinge table of joyned work with a frame," valued at "xl shillings," equilius Labour £20 your present money. Two formes covered with Turkey work to the same belonginge. xiij shillings and iiij pence A joyned frame xvj_d_. A bord ij_s_. vj_d_. A little side table upon a frame ij_s_. v_d_. A pair of virginalls with the frame xxx_s_. Sixe joyned stooles covr'd with nedle werke xv_s_. Sixe other joyned stooles vj_s_. One cheare of nedle worke iij_s_. iiij_d_. Two little fote stooles iiij_d_. One longe carpett of Turky werke vil_i_. A shortte carpett of the same werke xiij_s_. iij_d_. One cupbord carpett of the same x_s_. Sixe quysshens of Turkye xij_s_. Sixe quysshens of tapestree xx_s_. And others of velvet "embroidered wt gold and silver armes in the middesle." Eight pictures xls. Maps, a pedigree of Earl Leicester in "joyned frame" and a list of books. This Alderman Glasseor was apparently a man of taste and culture for those days; he had "casting bottles" of silver for sprinkling perfumes after dinner, and he also had a country house "at the sea," where his parlour was furnished with "a canapy bedd." As the century advances, and we get well into Elizabeth's reign, wood carving becomes more ambitious, and although it is impossible to distinguish the work of Flemish carvers who had settled in England from that of our native craftsmen, these doubtless acquired from the former much of their skill. In the costumes and in the faces of figures or busts, produced in the highly ornamental oak chimney pieces of the time, or in the carved portions of the fourpost bedsteads, the national characteristics are preserved, and, with a certain grotesqueness introduced into the treatment of accessories, combine to distinguish the English school of Elizabethan ornament from other contemporary work. Knole, Longleaf, Burleigh, Hatfield, Hardwick, and Audley End are familiar instances of the change in interior decoration which accompanied that in architecture; terminal figures, that is, pedestals diminishing towards their bases, surmounted by busts of men or women, elaborate interlaced strap work carved in low relief, trophies of fruit and flowers, take the places of the more Gothic treatment formerly in vogue. The change in the design of furniture naturally followed, for in cases where Flemish or Italian carvers were not employed, the actual execution was often by the hand of the house carpenter, who was influenced by what he saw around him. The great chimney piece in Speke Hall, near Liverpool, portions of the staircase of Hatfield, and of other English mansions before mentioned, are good examples of the wood carving of this period, and the illustrations from authenticated examples which are given, will assist the reader to follow these remarks. [Illustration: The Glastonbury Chair. (_In the Palace of the Bishop of Bath, and Wells._)] There is a mirror frame at Goodrich Court of early Elizabethan work, carved in oak and partly gilt; the design is in the best style of Renaissance and more like Italian or French work than English. Architectural mouldings, wreaths of flowers, cupids, and an allegorical figure of Faith are harmoniously combined in the design, the size of the whole frame being 4 ft. 5 ins. by 3 ft. 6 ins. It bears the date 1559 and initials R. M.; this was the year in which Roland Meyrick became Bishop of Bangor, and it is still in the possession of the Meyrick family. A careful drawing of this frame was made by Henry Shaw, F.S.A., and published in "Specimens of Ancient Furniture drawn from existing Authorities," in 1836. This valuable work of reference also contains finished drawings of other noteworthy examples of the sixteenth century furniture and woodwork. Amongst these is one of the Abbot's chair at Glastonbury, temp. Henry VIII., the original of the chair familiar to us now in the chancel of most churches; also a chair in the state-room of Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire, covered with crimson velvet embroidered with silver tissue, and others, very interesting to refer to because the illustrations are all drawn from the articles themselves, and their descriptions are written by an excellent antiquarian and collector, Sir Samuel Rush Meyrick. The mirror frame, described above, was probably one of the first of its size and kind in England. It was the custom, as has been already stated, to paint the walls with subjects from history or Scripture, and there are many precepts in existence from early times until about the beginning of Henry VIII.'s reign, directing how certain walls were to be decorated. The discontinuance of this fashion brought about the framing of pictures, and some of the paintings by Holbein, who came to this country about 1511, and received the patronage of Henry VIII. some fourteen or fifteen years later, are probably the first pictures that were framed in England. There are some two or three of these at Hampton Court Palace, the ornament being a scroll in gold on a black background, the width of the frame very small in comparison with its canvas. Some of the old wall paintings had been on a small scale, and, where long stories were represented, the subjects instead of occupying the whole flank of the wall, had been divided into rows some three feet or less in height, these being separated by battens, and therefore the first frames would appear to be really little more than the addition of vertical sides to the horizontal top and bottom which such battens had formed. Subsequently, frames became more ornate and elaborate. After their application to pictures, their use for mirrors was but a step in advance, and the mirror in a carved and gilt or decorated frame, probably at first imported and afterwards copied, came to replace the older mirror of very small dimensions for toilet use. Until early in the fifteenth century, mirrors of polished steel in the antique style, framed in silver and ivory, had been used; in the wardrobe account of Edward I. the item occurs, "A comb and a mirror of silver gilt," and we have an extract from the privy purse of expenses of Henry VIII. which mentions the payment "to a Frenchman for certayne loking glasses," which would probably be a novelty then brought to his Majesty's notice. Indeed, there was no glass used for windows[8] previous to the fifteenth century, the substitute being shaved horn, parchment, and sometimes mica, let into the shutters which enclosed the window opening. The oak panelling of rooms during the reign of Elizabeth was very handsome, and in the example at South Kensington, of which there is here an illustration, the country possesses a very excellent representative specimen. This was removed from an old house at Exeter, and its date is given by Mr. Hungerford Pollen as from 1550-75. The pilasters and carved panels under the cornice are very rich and in the best style of Elizabethan Renaissance, while the panels themselves, being plain, afford repose, and bring the ornament into relief. The entire length is 52 ft. and average height 8 ft. 3 in. If this panelling could be arranged as it was fitted originally in the house of one of Elizabeth's subjects, with models of fireplace, moulded ceiling, and accessories added, we should then have an object lesson of value, and be able to picture a Drake or a Raleigh in his West of England home. [Illustration: Carved Oak Elizabethan Bedstead.] A later purchase by the Science and Art Department, which was only secured last year for the extremely moderate price of £1,000, is the panelling of a room some 23 ft. square and 12 ft. 6 in. high, from Sizergh Castle, Westmoreland. The chimney piece was unfortunately not purchased, but the Department has arranged the panelling as a room with a plaster model of the extremely handsome ceiling. The panelling is of richly figured oak, entirely devoid of polish, and is inlaid with black bog oak and holly, in geometrical designs, being divided at intervals by tall pilasters fluted with bog oak and having Ionic capitals. The work was probably done locally, and from wood grown on the estate, and is one of the most remarkable examples in existence. The date is about 1560 to 1570, and it has been described in local literature of nearly 200 years ago. [Illustration: Oak Wainscoting, From an old house in Exeter. S. Kensington Museum. Period: English Renaissance (About 1550-75).] While we are on the subject of panelling, it may be worth while to point out that with regard to old English work of this date, one may safely take it for granted that where, as in the South Kensington (Exeter) example, the pilasters, frieze, and frame-work are enriched, and the panels plain, the work was designed and made for the house, but, when the panels are carved and the rest plain, they were bought, and then fitted up by the local carpenter. Another Museum specimen of Elizabethan carved oak is a fourpost bedstead, with the arms of the Countess of Devon, which bears date 1593, and has all the characteristics of the time. There is also a good example of Elizabethan woodwork in part of the interior of the Charterhouse, immortalised by Thackeray, when, as "Greyfriars," in "The Newcomes," he described it as the old school "where the colonel, and Clive, and I were brought up," and it was here that, as a "poor brother," the old colonel had returned to spend the evening of his gentle life, and, to quote Thackeray's pathetic lines, "when the chapel bell began to toll, he lifted up his head a little, and said 'Adsum!' It was the word we used at school when names were called." This famous relic of old London, which fortunately escaped the great fire in 1666, was formerly an old monastery which Henry VIII. dissolved in 1537, and the house was given some few years later to Sir Edward, afterwards Lord North, from whom the Duke of Norfolk purchased it in 1565, and the handsome staircase, carved with terminal figures and Renaissance ornament, was probably built either by Lord North or his successor. The woodwork of the Great Hall, where the pensioners still dine every day, is very rich, the fluted columns with Corinthian capitals, the interlaced strap work, and other details of carved oak, are characteristic of the best sixteenth century woodwork in England; the shield bears the date of 1571. This was the year when the Duke of Norfolk, who was afterwards beheaded, was released from the Tower on a kind of furlough, and probably amused himself with the enrichment of his mansion, then called Howard House. In the old Governors' room, formerly the drawing room of the Howards, there is a specimen of the large wooden chimney piece of the end of the sixteenth century, painted instead of carved. After the Duke of Norfolk's death, the house was granted by the Crown to his son, the Earl of Suffolk, who sold it in 1611 to the founder of the present hospital, Sir Thomas Sutton, a citizen who was reputed to be one of the wealthiest of his time, and some of the furniture given by him will be found noticed in the chapter on the Jacobean period. [Illustration: Dining Hall in the Charterhouse. Shewing Oak Screen and front of Minstrels' Gallery, dated 1571. Period: Elizabethan.] [Illustration: Screen in the Hall of Gray's Inn. With Table and Desks referred to.] There are in London other excellent examples of Elizabethan oak carving. Amongst those easily accessible and valuable for reference are the Hall of Gray's Inn, built in 1560, the second year of the Queen's reign, and Middle Temple Hall, built in 1570-2. An illustration of the carved screen supporting the Minstrels' Gallery in the older Hall is given by permission of Mr. William R. Douthwaite, librarian of the "Inn," for whose work, "Gray's Inn, its History and Associations," it was specially prepared. The interlaced strap work generally found in Elizabethan carving, encircles the shafts of the columns as a decoration. The table in the centre has also some low relief carving on the drawer front which forms its frieze, but the straight and severe style of leg leads us to place its date at some fifty years later than the Hall. The desk on the left, and the table on the right, are probably later still. It may be mentioned here, too, that the long table which stands at the opposite end of the Hall, on the daïs, said to have been presented by Queen Elizabeth, is not of the design with which the furniture of her reign is associated by experts; the heavy cabriole legs, with bent knees, corresponding with the legs of the chairs (also on the daïs), are of unmistakable Dutch origin, and, so far as the writer's observations and investigations have gone, were introduced into England about the time of William III. The same remarks apply to a table in Middle Temple Hall, also said to have been there during Elizabeth's time. Mr. Douthwaite alludes to the rumour of the Queen's gift in his book, and endeavoured to substantiate it from records at his command, but in vain. The authorities at Middle Temple are also, so far as we have been able to ascertain, without any documentary evidence to prove the claim of their table to any greater age than the end of the seventeenth century. The carved oak screen of Middle Temple Hall is magnificent, and no one should miss seeing it. Terminal figures, fluted columns, panels broken up into smaller divisions, and carved enrichments of various devices, are all combined in a harmonious design, rich without being overcrowded, and its effect is enhanced by the rich color given to it by age, by the excellent proportions of the Hall, by the plain panelling of the three other sides, and above all by the grand oak roof, which is certainly one of the finest of its kind in England. Some of the tables and forms are of much later date, but an interest attaches even to this furniture from the fact of its having been made from oak grown close to the Hall; and as one of the tables has a slab composed of an oak plank nearly thirty inches wide, we can imagine what fine old trees once grew and flourished close to the now busy Fleet Street, and the bustling Strand. There are frames, too, in Middle Temple made from the oaken timbers which once formed the piles in the Thames, on which rested "the Temple Stairs." In Mr. Herbert's "Antiquities of the Courts of Chancery," there are several facts of interest in connection with the woodwork of Middle Temple. He mentions that the screen was paid for by contributions from each bencher of twenty shillings, each barrister of ten shillings, and every other member of six shillings and eightpence; that the Hall was founded in 1562, and furnished ten years later, the screen being put up in 1574: and that the memorials of some two hundred and fifty "Readers" which decorate the otherwise plain oak panelling, date from 1597 to 1804, the year in which Mr. Herbert's book was published. Referring to the furniture, he says:--"The massy oak tables and benches with which this apartment was anciently furnished, still remain, and so may do for centuries, unless violently destroyed, being of wonderful strength." Mr. Herbert also mentions the masks and revels held in this famous Hall in the time of Elizabeth: he also gives a list of quantities and prices of materials used in the decoration of Gray's Inn Hall. [Illustration: Three Carved Oak Panels. Now in the Court Room of the Hall of the Carpenters' Company. Removed from the former Hall. Period: Elizabethan.] In the Hall of the Carpenters' Company, in Throgmorton Avenue, are three curious carved oak panels, worth noticing here, as they are of a date bringing them well into this period. They were formerly in the old Hall, which escaped the Great Fire, and in the account books of the Corporation is the following record of the cost of one of these panels:-- "Paide for a planke to carve the arms of the Companie iij_s_." "Paide to the Carver for carvinge the Arms of the Companie xxiij_s_. iiij_d_." The price of material (3s.) and workmanship (23s. 4d.) was certainly not excessive. All three panels are in excellent preservation, and the design of a harp, being a rebus of the Master's name, is a quaint relic of old customs. Some other oak furniture, in the Hall of this ancient Company, will be noticed in the following chapter. Mr. Jupp, a former Clerk of the Company, has written an historical account of the Carpenters, which contains many facts of interest. The office of King's Carpenter or Surveyor, the powers of the Carpenters to search, examine, and impose fines for inefficient work, and the trade disputes with the "Joyners," the Sawyers, and the "Woodmongers," are all entertaining reading, and throw many side-lights on the woodwork of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. [Illustration: Part of an Elizabethan Staircase.] The illustration of Hardwick Hall shews oak panelling and decoration of a somewhat earlier, and also somewhat later time than Elizabeth, while the carved oak chairs are of Jacobean style. At Hardwick is still kept the historic chair in which it is said that William, fourth Earl of Devonshire, sat when he and his friends compassed the downfall of James II. In the curious little chapel hung with ancient tapestry, and containing the original Bible and Prayer Book of Charles I., are other quaint chairs covered with cushions of sixteenth or early seventeenth century needlework. [Illustration: The Entrance Hall, Hardwick Hall. Period Of Furniture, Jacobean, XVII. Century.] Before concluding the remarks on this period of English woodwork and furniture, further mention should be made of Penshurst Place, to which there has been already some reference in the chapter on the period of the Middle Ages. It was here that Sir Philip Sydney spent much of his time, and produced his best literary work, during the period of his retirement when he had lost the favour of Elizabeth, and in the room known as the "Queen's Room," illustrated on p. 89, some of the furniture is of this period; the crystal chandeliers are said to have been given by Leicester to his Royal Mistress, and some of the chairs and tables were sent down by the Queen, and presented to Sir Henry Sydney (Philip's father) when she stayed at Penshurst during one of her Royal progresses. The room, with its vases and bowls of old oriental china and the contemporary portraits on the walls, gives us a good idea of the very best effect that was attainable with the material then available. Richardson's "Studies" contains, amongst other examples of furniture, and carved oak decorations of English Renaissance, interiors of Little Charlton, East Sutton Place, Stockton House, Wilts, Audley End, Essex, and the Great Hall, Crewe, with its beautiful hall screens and famous carved "parloir," all notable mansions of the sixteenth century. To this period of English furniture belongs the celebrated "Great Bed of Ware," of which there is an illustration. This was formerly at the Saracen's Head at Ware, but has been removed to Rye House, about two miles away. Shakespeare's allusion to it in the "Twelfth Night" has identified the approximate date and gives the bed a character. The following are the lines:-- "SIR TOBY BELCH.--And as many lies as shall lie in thy sheet of paper, altho' the sheet were big enough for the Bed of Ware in England, set em down, go about it." Another illustration shows the chair which is said to have belonged to William Shakespeare; it may or may not be the actual one used by the poet, but it is most probably a genuine specimen of about his time, though perhaps not made in England. There is a manuscript on its back which states that it was known in 1769 as the Shakespeare Chair, when Garrick borrowed it from its owner, Mr. James Bacon, of Barnet, and since that time its history is well known. The carved ornament is in low relief, and represents a rough idea of the dome of S. Marc and the Campanile Tower. We have now briefly and roughly traced the advance of what may be termed the flood-tide of Art from its birthplace in Italy to France, the Netherlands, Spain, Germany, and England, and by explanation and description, assisted by illustrations, have endeavoured to shew how the Gothic of the latter part of the Middle Ages gave way before the revival of classic forms and arabesque ornament, with the many details and peculiarities characteristic of each different nationality which had adopted the general change. During this period the bahut or chest has become a cabinet with all its varieties; the simple _prie dieu_ chair, as a devotional piece of furniture, has been elaborated into almost an oratory, and, as a domestic seat, into a dignified throne; tables have, towards the end of the period, become more ornate, and made as solid pieces of furniture, instead of the planks and tressels which we found when the Renaissance commenced. Chimney pieces, which in the fourteenth century were merely stone smoke shafts supported by corbels, have been replaced by handsome carved oak erections, ornamenting the hall or room from floor to ceiling, and the English livery cupboard, with its foreign contemporary the buffet, is the forerunner of the sideboard of the future. [Illustration: Shakespeare's Chair.] [Illustration: The Great Bed of Ware. Formerly at the Saracen's Head, Ware, but now at Rye House, Broxbourne, Herts. Period: XVI. Century.] Carved oak panelling has replaced the old arras and ruder wood lining of an earlier time, and with the departure of the old feudal customs and the indulgence in greater luxuries of the more wealthy nobles and merchants in Italy, Flanders, France, Germany, Spain, and England, we have the elegancies and grace with which Art, and increased means of gratifying taste, enabled the sixteenth century virtuoso to adorn his home. [Illustration: The "Queen's Room," Penshurst Place. (_Reproduced from "Historic Houses of the United Kingdom" by permission of Messrs. Cassell & Co., Limited._)] [Illustration: Carved Oak Chimney Piece in Speke Hall, Near Liverpool. Period: Elizabethan.] Chapter IV. Jacobean furniture. English Home Life in the Reign of James I.--Sir Henry Wootton quoted--Inigo Jones and his work--Ford Castle--Chimney Pieces in South Kensington Museum--Table in the Carpenters' Hall---Hall of the Barbers' Company--The Charterhouse--Time of Charles I.--Furniture at Knole--Eagle House, Wimbledon, Mr. Charles Eastlake--Monuments at Canterbury and Westminster--Settles, Couches, and Chairs of the Stuart period--Sir Paul Pindar's House--Cromwellian Furniture--The Restoration--Indo-Portuguese Furniture--Hampton Court Palace--Evelyn's description--The Great Fire of London--Hall of the Brewers' Company--Oak Panelling of the time--Grinling Gibbons and his work--The Edict of Nantes--Silver Furniture at Knole--William III. and Dutch influence--Queen Anne--Sideboards, Bureaus, and Grandfather's Clocks--Furniture at Hampton Court. [Illustration] In the chapter on "Renaissance" the great Art revival in England has been noticed; in the Elizabethan oak work of chimney pieces, panelling, and furniture, are to be found varying forms of the free classic style which the Renaissance had brought about. These fluctuating changes in fashion continued in England from the time of Elizabeth until the middle of the eighteenth century, when, as will be shewn presently, a distinct alteration in the design of furniture took place. The domestic habits of Englishmen were getting more established. We have seen how religious persecution during preceding reigns, at the time of the Reformation, had encouraged private domestic life of families, in the smaller rooms and apart from the gossiping retainer, who might at any time bring destruction upon the household by giving information about items of conversation he had overheard. There is a passage in one of Sir Henry Wootton's letters, written in 1600, which shews that this home life was now becoming a settled characteristic of his countrymen. "Every man's proper mansion house and home, being the theatre of his hospitality, the seate of his selfe fruition, the comfortable part of his own life, the noblest of his son's inheritance, a kind of private princedom, nay the possession thereof an epitome of the whole world, may well deserve by these attributes, according to the degree of the master, to be delightfully adorned." [Illustration: Oak Chimney Piece in Sir Walter Raleigh's House, Youghal, Ireland. Said to be the work of a Flemish Artist who was brought over for the purpose of executing this and other carved work at Youghal.] Sir Henry Wootton was ambassador in Venice in 1604, and is said to have been the author of the well-known definition of an ambassador's calling, namely, "an honest man sent abroad to lie for his country's good." This offended the piety of James I., and caused him for some time to be in disgrace. He also published some 20 years later "Elements of Architecture," and being an antiquarian and man of taste, sent home many specimens of the famous Italian wood carving. It was during the reign of James I. and that of his successor that Inigo Jones, our English Vitruvius, was making his great reputation; he had returned from Italy full of enthusiasm for the Renaissance of Palladio and his school, and of knowledge and taste gained by a diligent study of the ancient classic buildings of Rome; his influence would be speedily felt in the design of woodwork fittings, for the interiors of his edifices. There is a note in his own copy of Palladio, which is now in the library of Worcester College, Oxford, which is worth quoting:-- "In the name of God: Amen. The 2 of January, 1614, I being in Rome compared these desines following, with the Ruines themselves.--INIGO JONES." [Illustration: Chimney Piece in Byfleet House. Early Jacobean.] In the following year he returned from Italy on his appointment as King's surveyor of works, and until his death in 1652 was full of work, though unfortunately for us, much that he designed was never carried out, and much that he carried out has been destroyed by fire. The Banqueting Hall of Whitehall, now Whitehall Chapel; St. Paul's, Covent Garden; the old water gate originally intended as the entrance to the first Duke of Buckingham's Palace, close to Charing Cross; Nos. 55 and 56, on the south side of Great Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn; and one or two monuments and porches, are amongst the examples that remain to us of this great master's work; and of interiors, that of Ashburnham House is left to remind us, with its quiet dignity of style, of this great master. It has been said in speaking of the staircase, plaster ornament, and woodwork of this interior, "upon the whole is set the seal of the time of Charles I." As the work was probably finished during that King's reign, the impression intended to be conveyed was that after wood carving had rather run riot towards the end of the sixteenth century, we had now in the interior designed by Inigo Jones, or influenced by his school, a more quiet and sober style. [Illustration: The King's Chamber, Ford Castle.] The above woodcut shews a portion of the King's room in Ford Castle, which still contains souvenirs of Flodden Field--according to an article in the _Magazine of Art_. The room is in the northernmost tower, which still preserves externally the stern, grim character of the border fortress; and the room looks towards the famous battle-field. The chair shews a date 1638, and there is another of Dutch design of about fifty or sixty years later; but the carved oak bedstead, with tapestry hangings, and the oak press, which the writer of the article mentions as forming part of the old furniture of the room, scarcely appear in the illustration. Mr. Hungerford Pollen tells us that the majority of so-called Tudor houses were actually built during the reign of James I., and this may probably be accepted as an explanation of the otherwise curious fact of there being much in the architecture and woodwork of this time which would seem to have belonged to the earlier period. The illustrations of wooden chimney-pieces will show this change. There are in the South Kensington Museum some three or four chimney-pieces of stone, having the upper portions of carved oak, the dates of which have been ascertained to be about 1620; these were removed from an old house in Lime Street, City, and give us an idea of the interior decoration of a residence of a London merchant. The one illustrated is somewhat richer than the others, the columns supporting the cornice of the others being almost plain pillars with Ionic or Doric capitals, and the carving of the panels of all of them is in less relief, and simpler in character, than those which occur in the latter part of Elizabeth's time. [Illustration: Carved Oak Centre Table. _In the Hall of the Carpenters' Company._] The earliest dated piece of Jacobean furniture which has come under the writer's observation is the octagonal table belonging to the Carpenters' Company. The illustration, taken from Mr. Jupp's book referred to in the last chapter, hardly does the table justice; it is really a very handsome piece of furniture, and measures about 3 feet 3 inches in diameter. In the spandrils of the arches between the legs are the letters R.W., G.I., J.R., and W.W., being the initials of Richard Wyatt, George Isack, John Reeve, and William Willson, who were Master and Wardens of the Company in 1606, which date is carved in two of the spandrils. While the ornamental legs shew some of the characteristics of Elizabethan work, the treatment is less bold, the large acorn-shaped member has become more refined and attenuated, and the ornament is altogether more subdued. This is a remarkable specimen of early Jacobean furniture, and is the only one of the shape and kind known to the writer; it is in excellent preservation, save that the top is split, and it shews signs of having been made with considerable skill and care. [Illustration: Carved Oak Chair. From Abingdon Park. Carved Oak Chair. In the Carpenters' Hall _From Photos in the S. Kensington Museum Album._ Early XVII. Century. English.] The Science and Art Department keep for reference an album containing photographs, not only of many of the specimens in the different museums under its control, but also of some of those which have been lent for a temporary exhibition. The illustration of the above two chairs is taken from this source, the album having been placed at the writer's disposal by the courtesy of Mr. Jones, of the Photograph Department. The left-hand chair, from Abingdon Park, is said to have belonged to Lady Barnard, Shakespeare's grand-daughter, and the other may still be seen in the Hall of the Carpenters' Company. [Illustration: Oak Chimney Piece. Removed from an old house in Lime Street, City. (_South Kensington Museum._) Period: James I.] In the Hall of the Barbers' Company in Monkswell Street, the Court room, which is lighted with an octagonal cupola, was designed by Inigo Jones as a Theatre of Anatomy, when the Barbers and Surgeons were one corporation. There are some three or four tallies of this period in the Hall, having four legs connected by stretchers, quite plain; the moulded edges of the table tops are also without enrichment. These plain oak slabs, and also the stretchers, have been renewed, but in exactly the same style as the original work; the legs, however, are the old ones, and are simple columns with plain turned capitals and bases. Other tables of this period are to be found in a few old country mansions; there is one in Longleat, which, the writer has been told, has a small drawer at the end, to hold the copper coins with which the retainers of the Marquis of Bath's ancestors used to play a game of shovel penny. In the Chapter House in Westminster Abbey, there is also one of these plain substantial James I. tables, which is singular in being nearly double the width of those which were made at this time. As the Chapter House was, until comparatively recent years, used as a room for the storage of records, this table was probably made, not as a dining table, but for some other purpose requiring greater width. [Illustration: Oak Sideboard in the S. Kensington Museum. Period: William III.] In the chapter on Renaissance there was an allusion to Charterhouse, which was purchased for its present purpose by Thomas Sutton in 1611, and in the chapel may be seen to-day the original communion table placed there by the founder. It is of carved oak, with a row of legs running lengthways underneath the middle, and four others at the corners; these, while being cast in the simple lines noticed in the tables in the Barbers' Hall, and the Chapter House, Westminster Abbey, are enriched by carving from the base to the third of the height of the leg, and the frieze of the table is also carved in low relief. The rich carved wood screen which supports the organ loft is also of Jacobean work. There is in the South Kensington Museum a carved oak chest, with a centre panel representing the Adoration of the Magi, about this date, 1615-20; it is mounted on a stand which has three feet in front and two behind, much more primitive and quaint than the ornate supports of Elizabethan carving, while the only ornament on the drawer fronts which form the frieze of the stand are moulded panels, in the centre of each of which is a turned knob by which to open the drawer. This chest and the table which forms its stand were probably not intended for each other. The illustration on the previous page shows the stand, which is a good representation of the carving of this time, i.e., early seventeenth century. The round backed arm chair which the Museum purchased last year from the Hailstone collection, though dated 1614, is really more Elizabethan in design. There is no greater storehouse for specimens of furniture in use during the Jacobean period than Knole, that stately mansion of the Sackville family, then the property of the Earls of Dorset. In the King's Bedroom, which is said to have been specially prepared and furnished for the visit of King James I., the public, owing to the courtesy and generous spirit of the present Lord Sackville, can still see the bed, originally of crimson silk, but now faded, elaborately embroidered with gold. It is said to have cost £8,000, and the chairs and seats, which are believed to have formed part of the original equipment of the room, are in much the same position as they then occupied. In the carved work of this furniture we cannot help thinking the hand of the Venetian is to be traced, and it is probable they were either imported or copied from a pattern brought over for the purpose. A suite of furniture of that time appears to have consisted of six stools and two arm chairs, almost entirely covered with velvet, having the X form supports, which, so far as the writer's investigations have gone, appear to have come from Venice. In the "Leicester" gallery at Knole there is a portrait of the King;, painted by Mytens, seated on such a chair, and just below the picture is placed the chair which is said to be identical with the one portrayed. It is similar to the one reproduced on page 100 from a drawing of Mr. Charles Eastlake's. [Illustration: Seats at Knole. Covered with Crimson Silk Velvet. Period: James I.] In the same gallery also are three sofas or settees upholstered with crimson velvet, and one of these has an accommodating rack, by which either end can be lowered at will, to make a more convenient lounge. [Illustration: Arm Chair. Covered with Velvet, Ringed with Fringe and studded with Copper Nails. Early XVII. Century. (_From a Drawing of the Original at Knole, by Mr. Charles Eastlake._)] This excellent example of Jacobean furniture has been described and sketched by Mr. Charles Eastlake in "Hints on Household Taste." He says: "The joints are properly 'tenoned' and pinned together in such a manner as to ensure its constant stability. The back is formed like that of a chair, with a horizontal rail only at its upper edge, but it receives additional strength from the second rail, which is introduced at the back of the seat." In Marcus Stone's well-known picture of "The Stolen Keys," this is the sofa portrayed. The arm chair illustrated above is part of the same suite of furniture. The furniture of another room at Knole is said to have been presented by King James to the first Earl of Middlesex, who had married into the Dorset family. The author has been furnished with a photograph of this room; and the illustration prepared from this will give the reader a better idea than a lengthy description. [Illustration: The "Spangle" Bedroom At Knole. The Furniture of this room was presented by James I. to the Earl of Middlesex. (_Front a Photo by Mr. Corke, of Sevenoaks._)] It seems from the Knole furniture, and a comparison of the designs with those of some of the tables and other woodwork produced during the same reign, bearing the impress of the more severe style of Inigo Jones, that there were then in England two styles of decorative furniture. One of these, simple and severe, showing a reaction from the grotesque freedom of Elizabethan carving, and the other, copied from Venetian ornamental woodwork, with cupids on scrolls forming the supports of stools, having these ornamental legs connected by stretchers the design of which is, in the case of those in the King's Bedchamber at Knole, a couple of cupids in a flying attitude holding up a crown. This kind of furniture was generally gilt, and under the black paint of those at Knole are still to be seen traces of the gold. Mr. Eastlake visited Knole and made careful examination and sketches of the Jacobean furniture there, and has well described and illustrated it in his book just referred to; he mentions that he found a slip of paper tucked beneath the webbing of a settle there, with an inscription in Old English characters which fixed the date of some of the furniture at 1620. In a letter to the writer on this subject, Mr. Lionel Sackville West confirms this date by referring to the heirloom book, which also bears out the writer's opinion that some of the more richly-carved furniture of this time was imported from Italy. In the Lady Chapel of Canterbury Cathedral there is a monument of Dean Boys, who died in 1625. This represents the Dean seated in his library, at a table with turned legs, over which there is a tapestry cover. Books line the walls of the section of the room shown in the stone carving; it differs little from the sanctum of a literary man of the present day. There are many other monuments which represent furniture of this period, and amongst the more curious is that of a child of King James I., in Westminster Abbey, close to the monument of Mary Queen of Scots. The child is sculptured about life size, in a carved cradle of the time. In Holland House, Kensington,[9] which is a good example of a Jacobean mansion, there is some oak enrichment of the seventeenth century, and also a garden bench, with its back formed of three shells and the legs shaped and ornamented with scroll work. Horace Walpole mentions this seat, and ascribes the design to Francesco Cleyn, who worked for Charles I. and some of the Court. There is another Jacobean house of considerable interest, the property of Mr. T.G. Jackson, A.R.A. An account of it has been written by him, and was read to some members of the Surrey Archaeological Society, who visited Eagle House, Wimbledon, in 1890. It appears to have been the country seat of a London merchant, who lived early in the seventeenth century. Mr. Jackson bears witness to the excellence of the workmanship, and expresses his opinion that the carved and decorated enrichments were executed by native and not foreign craftsmen. He gives an illustration in his pamphlet of the sunk "Strap Work," which, though Jacobean in its date, is also found in the carved ornament of Elizabeth's time. Another relic of this time is the panel of carved oak in the lych gate of St. Giles', Bloomsbury, dated 1638. This is a realistic representation of "The Resurrection," and when the writer examined it a few weeks ago, it seemed in danger of perishing for lack of a little care and attention. It is very probable that had the reign of Charles I. been less troublous, this would have been a time of much progress in the domestic arts in England. The Queen was of the Medici family, Italian literature was in vogue, and Italian artists therefore would probably have been encouraged to come over and instruct our workmen. The King himself was an excellent mechanic, and boasted that he could earn his living at almost any trade save the making of hangings. His father had established the tapestry works at Mortlake; he himself had bought the Raffaele Cartoons to encourage the work--and much was to be hoped from a monarch who had the judgment to induce a Vandyke to settle in England. The Civil War, whatever it has achieved for our liberty as subjects, certainly hindered by many years our progress as an artistic people. But to consider some of the furniture of this period in detail. Until the sixteenth century was well advanced, the word "table" in our language meant an index, or pocket book (tablets), or a list, not an article of furniture; it was, as we have noticed in the time of Elizabeth, composed of boards generally hinged in the middle for convenience of storage, and supported on trestles which were sometimes ornamented by carved work. The word trestle, by the way, is derived from the "threstule," i.e., three-footed supports, and these three-legged stools and benches formed in those days the seats for everyone except the master of the house. Chairs were, as we have seen, scarce articles; sometimes there was only one, a throne-like seat for an honoured guest or for the master or mistress of the house, and doubtless our present phrase of "taking the chair" is a survival of the high place a chair then held amongst the household gods of a gentleman's mansion. Shakespeare possibly had the boards and trestles in his mind when, about 1596, he wrote in "Romeo and Juliet"-- "Come, musicians, play! A hall! a hall! give room and foot it, girls, More light, ye knaves, and turn the tables up." And as the scene in "King Henry the Fourth" is placed some years earlier than that of "Romeo and Juliet," it is probable that "table" had then its earlier meaning, for the Archbishop of York says:-- "... The King is weary Of dainty and such picking grievances; And, therefore, will he wipe his tables clean And keep no tell-tale to his memory." Mr. Maskell, in his handbook on "Ivories," tells us that the word "table" was also used in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries to denote the religious carvings and paintings in churches; and he quotes Chaucer to show that the word was used to describe the game of "draughts." "They dancen and they play at chess and tables." Now, however, at the time of which we are writing, chairs were becoming more plentiful and the table was a definite article of furniture. In inventories of the time and for some twenty years previous, as has been already noticed in the preceding chapter, we find mention of "joyned table," framed table, "standing" and "dormant" table, and the word "board" had gradually disappeared, although it remains to us as a souvenir of the past in the name we still give to any body of men meeting for the transaction of business, or in its more social meaning, expressing festivity. The width of these earlier tables had been about 30 inches, and guests sat on one side only, with their backs to the wall, in order, it may be supposed, to be the more ready to resist any sudden raid, which might be made on the house, during the relaxation of the supper hour, and this custom remained long after there was any necessity for its observance. In the time of Charles the First the width was increased, and a contrivance was introduced for doubling the area of the top when required, by two flaps which drew out from either end, and, by means of a wedge-shaped arrangement, the centre or main table top was lowered, and the whole table, thus increased, became level. Illustrations taken from Mr. G.T. Robinson's article on furniture in the "Art Journal" of 1881, represent a "Drawinge table," which was the name by which these "latest improvements" were known; the black lines were of stained pear tree, let into the oak, and the acorn shaped member of the leg is an imported Dutch design, which became very common about this time, and was applied to the supports of cabinets, sometimes as in the illustration, plainly turned, but frequently carved. Another table of this period was the "folding table," which was made with twelve, sixteen, or with twenty legs, as shewn in the illustration of this example, and which, as its name implies, would shut up into about one third its extended size. There is one of these tables in the Stationers' Hall. [Illustration: Couch, Arm Chair and Single Chair. Carved and Gilt. Upholstered in rich Silk Velvet. Part of Suite at Penshurst Place. Also an Italian Cabinet. Period: Charles II.] [Illustration: Folding Table at Penshurst Place. Period: Charles II. to James II.] [Illustration: "Drawing" Table with Black Lines Inlaid. Period: Charles II.] It was probably in the early part of the seventeenth century that the Couch became known in England. It was not common, nor quite in the form in which we now recognize that luxurious article of furniture, but was probably a carved oak settle, with cushions so arranged as to form a resting lounge by day, Shakespeare speaks of the "branch'd velvet gown" of Malvolio having come from a "day bed," and there is also an allusion to one in Richard III.[10] In a volume of "Notes and Queries" there is a note which would show that the lady's wardrobe of this time (1622) was a very primitive article of furniture. Mention is made there of a list of articles of wearing apparel belonging to a certain Lady Elizabeth Morgan, sister to Sir Nathaniel Rich, which, according to the old document there quoted, dated the 13th day of November, 1622, "are to be found in a great bar'd chest in my Ladie's Bedchamber." To judge from this list, Lady Morgan was a person of fashion in those days. We may also take it for granted that beyond the bedstead, a prie dieu chair, a bench, some chests, and the indispensable mirror, there was not much else to furnish a lady's bedroom in the reign of James I. or of his successor. [Illustration: Theodore Hook's Chair.] [Illustration: Scrowled Chair in Carved Oak.] The "long settle" and "scrowled chair" were two other kinds of seats in use from the time of Charles I. to that of James II. The illustrations are taken from authenticated specimens in the collection of Mr. Dalton, of Scarborough. They are most probably of Yorkshire manufacture, about the middle of the seventeenth century. The ornament in the panel of the back of the chair is inlaid work box or ash stained to a greenish black to represent green ebony, with a few small pieces of rich red wood then in great favour; and, says Mr. G. T. Robinson, to whose article mentioned above we are indebted for the description, "probably brought by some buccaneer from the West." Mr. Robinson mentions another chair of the Stuart period, which formed a table, and subsequently became the property of Theodore Hook, who carefully preserved its pedigree. It was purchased by its late owner, Mr. Godwin, editor of "The Builder." A woodcut of this chair is on p. 106. Another chair which played an important part in history is the one in which Charles I. sat during his trial; this was exhibited in the Stuart Exhibition in London in 1889. The illustration is taken from a print in "The Illustrated London News" of the time. [Illustration: Chair Used by King Charles I. During His Trial.] In addition to the chairs of oak, carved, inlaid, and plain, which were in some cases rendered more comfortable by having cushions tied to the backs and seats, the upholstered chair, which we have seen had been brought from Venice in the early part of the reign of James I., now came into general use. Few appear to have survived, but there are still to be seen in pictures of the period a chair represented as covered with crimson velvet, studded with brass nails, the seat trimmed with fringe, similar to that at Knole, illustrated on p. 100. There is in the Historical Portrait Gallery in Bethnal Green Museum, a painting by an unknown artist, but dated 1642, of Sir William Lenthall, who was Speaker of the House of Commons, on the memorable occasion when, on the 4th of January in that year, Charles I. entered the House to demand the surrender of the five members. The chair on which Sir William is seated answers this description, and is very similar to the one used by Charles I. (illustrated on p. 107.) [Illustration: Carved Oak Chair. Said to have been used by Cromwell. (_The original in the possession of T. Knollys Parr, Esq._)] [Illustration: Carved Oak Chair, Jacobean Style. (_The original in the Author's possession._)] Inlaid work, which had been crude and rough in the time of Elizabeth, became more in fashion as means increased of decorating both the furniture and the woodwork panelling of the rooms of the Stuart period. Mahogany had been discovered by Raleigh as early as 1595, but did not come into general use until the middle of the eighteenth century. The importation of scarce foreign woods in small quantities gave an impetus to this description of work, which in the marqueterie of Italy, France, Holland, Germany, and Spain, had already made great progress. [Illustration: Settle of Carved Oak. Probably made in Yorkshire. Period: Charles II.] Within the past year, owing to the extensions of the Great Eastern Railway premises at Bishopsgate Street, an old house of antiquarian interest was pulled down, and generously presented by the Company to the South Kensington Museum. It will shortly be arranged so as to enable the visitor to see a good example of the exterior as well as some of the interior woodwork of a quaint house of the middle of the seventeenth century. This was the residence of Sir Paul Pindar, diplomatist, during the time of Charles I., and it contained a carved oak chimney-piece, with some other good ornamental woodwork of this period. The quaint and richly-carved chimney-piece, which was dated 1600, and other decorative work, was removed early in the present century, when the possessors of that time were making "improvements." [Illustration: Staircase in General Ireton's House, Dated 1630.] [Illustration: Pattern of a Chinese Lac Screen. (_In the South Kensington Museum._)] In the illustration of a child's chair, which is said to have been actually used by Cromwell, can be seen an example of carved oak of this time; it was lent to the writer by its present owner, in whose family it was an heirloom since one of his ancestors married the Protector's daughter. The ornament has no particular style, and it may be taken for granted that the period of the Commonwealth was not marked by any progress in decorative art. The above illustration, however, proves that there were exceptions to the prevalent Puritan objection to figure ornament. In one of Mrs. S.C. Hall's papers, "Pilgrimages to English Shrines," contributed in 1849 to "The Art Journal," she describes the interior of the house which was built for Bridget, the Protector's daughter, who married General Ireton. The handsome oak staircase had the newels surmounted by carved figures, representing different grades of men in the General's army--a captain, common soldier, piper, drummer, etc, etc., while the spaces between the balustrades were filled in with devices emblematical of warfare, the ceiling being decorated in the fashion of the period. At the time Mrs. Hall wrote, the house bore Cromwell's name and the date 1630. We may date from the Commonwealth the more general use of chairs; people sat as they chose, and no longer regarded the chair as the lord's place. A style of chair, which we still recognise as Cromwellian, was also largely imported from Holland about this time--plain square backs and seats covered with brown leather, studded with brass nails. The legs, which are now generally turned with a spiral twist, were in Cromwell's time plain and simple. The residence of Charles II. abroad, had accustomed him and his friends to the much more luxurious furniture of France and Holland. With the Restoration came a foreign Queen, a foreign Court, French manners, and French literature. Cabinets, chairs, tables, and couches, were imported into England from the Netherlands, France, Spain, and Portugal; and our craftsmen profited by new ideas and new patterns, and what was of equal consequence, an increased demand for decorative articles of furniture. The King of Portugal had ceded Bombay, one of the Portuguese Indian stations, to the new Queen, and there is a chair of this Indo-Portuguese work, carved in ebony, now in the museum at Oxford, which was given by Charles II. either to Elias Ashmole or to Evelyn: the illustration on the next page shews all the details of the carving. Another woodcut, on a smaller scale, represents a similar chair grouped with a settee of a like design, together with a small folding chair which Mr. G.T. Robinson, in his article on "Seats," has described as Italian, but which we take the liberty of pronouncing Flemish, judging by one now in the South Kensington Museum. In connection with this Indo-Portuguese furniture, it would seem that spiral turning became known and fashionable in England during the reign of Charles II., and in some chairs of English make, which have come under the writer's notice, the legs have been carved to imitate the effect of spiral turning--an amount of superfluous labour which would scarcely have been incurred, but for the fact that the country house-carpenter of this time had an imported model, which he copied, without knowing how to produce by the lathe the effect which had just come into fashion. There are, too, in some illustrations in "Shaw's Ancient Furniture," some lamp-holders, in which this spiral turning is overdone, as is generally the case when any particular kind of ornament comes into vogue. [Illustration: Settee And Chair. In carved ebony, part of Indo-Portuguese suite at Penshurst Place, with Flemish folding chair. Period: Charles II.] [Illustration: Carved Ebony Chair of Indo-portuguese Work, Given by Charles II. to Elias Ashmole, Esq. (_In the Museum at Oxford_).] Probably the illustrated suite of furniture at Penshurst Place, which comprises thirteen pieces, was imported about this time; two of the smaller chairs appear to have their original cushions, the others have been lately re-covered by Lord de l'Isle and Dudley. The spindles of the backs of two of the chairs are of ivory: the carving, which is in solid ebony, is much finer on some than on others. We gather a good deal of information about the furniture of this period from the famous diary of Evelyn. He thus describes Hampton Court Palace, as it appeared to him at the time of its preparation for the reception of Catherine of Braganza, the bride of Charles II., who spent the royal honeymoon in this historic building, which had in its time sheltered for their brief spans of favour the six wives of Henry VIII. and the sickly boyhood of Edward VI.:-- "It is as noble and uniform a pile as Gothic architecture can make it. There is incomparable furniture in it, especially hangings designed by Raphael, very rich with gold. Of the tapestries I believe the world can show nothing nobler of the kind than the stories of Abraham and Tobit.[11] ... The Queen's bed was an embroidery of silver on crimson velvet, and cost £8,000, being a present made by the States of Holland when his majesty returned. The great looking-glass and toilet of beaten massive gold were given by the Queen Mother. The Queen brought over with her from Portugal such Indian cabinets as had never before been seen here." Evelyn wrote of course before Wren made his Renaissance additions to the Palace. After the great fire which occurred in 1666, and destroyed some 13,000 houses and no less than 80 churches, Sir Christopher Wren was given an opportunity, unprecedented in history, of displaying his power of design and reconstruction. Writing of this great architect, Macaulay says, "The austere beauty of the Athenian portico, the gloomy sublimity of the Gothic arcade, he was, like most of his contemporaries, incapable of emulating, and perhaps incapable of appreciating; but no man born on our side of the Alps has imitated with so much success the magnificence of the palace churches of Italy. Even the superb Louis XIV. has left to posterity no work which can bear a comparison with St. Paul's." [Illustration: Sedes, ecce tibi? quæ tot produxit alumnos Quot gremio nutrit Granta, quot. Isis habet. _From the Original by Sir Peter Lely, presented to Dr. Busby by King Charles_ "Sedes Busbiana" From a Print in the possession of J. C. THYNNE, Esq. Period: Charles II.] Wren's great masterpiece was commenced in 1675, and completed in 1710, and its building therefore covers a period of 35 years, carrying us through the reigns of James II., William III. and Mary, and well on to the end of Anne's. The admirable work which he did during this time, and which has effected so much for the adornment of our Metropolis, had a marked influence on the ornamental woodwork of the second half of the seventeenth century: in the additions which he made to Hampton Court Palace, in Bow Church, in the hospitals of Greenwich and of Chelsea, there is a sumptuousness of ornament in stone and marble, which shew the influence exercised on his mind by the desire to rival the grandeur of Louis XIV.; the Fountain Court at Hampton being in direct imitation of the Palace of Versailles. The carved woodwork of the choir of St. Paul's, with fluted columns supporting a carved frieze; the richly carved panels, and the beautiful figure work on both organ lofts, afford evidence that the oak enrichments followed the marble and stone ornament. The swags of fruit and flowers, the cherubs' heads with folded wings, and other details in Wren's work, closely resemble the designs executed by Gibbons, whose carving is referred to later on. It may be mentioned here that amongst the few churches in the city which escaped the great fire, and contain woodwork of particular note, are St. Helen's, Bishopgate, and the Charterhouse Chapel, which contain the original pulpits of about the sixteenth century. The famous Dr. Busby, who for 55 years was head master of Westminster School, was a great favourite of King Charles, and a picture painted by Sir Peter Lely, is said to have been presented to the Doctor by His Majesty; it is called "Sedes Busbiana." Prints from this old picture are scarce, and the writer is indebted to Mr. John C. Thynne for the loan of his copy, from which the illustration is taken. The portrait in the centre, of the Pedagogue aspiring to the mitre, is that of Dr. South, who succeeded Busby, and whose monument in Westminster Abbey is next to his. The illustration is interesting, as although it may not have been actually taken from a chair itself, it shews a design in the mind of a contemporary artist. Of the Halls of the City Guilds, there is none more quaint, and in greater contrast to the bustle of the neighbourhood, than the Hall of the Brewers' Company, in Addle Street, City. This was partially destroyed, like most of the older Halls, by the Great Fire, but was one of the first to be restored and refurnished. In the kitchen are still to be seen the remains of an old trestle and other relics of an earlier period, but the hall or dining room, and the Court room, are complete, with very slight additions, since the date of their interior equipment in 1670 to 1673. The Court room has a richly carved chimney-piece in oak, nearly black with age, the design of which is a shield with a winged head, palms, and swags of fruit and flowers, while on the shield itself is an inscription, stating that this room was wainscoted by Alderman Knight, master of the Company and Lord Mayor of the City of London, in the year 1670. The room itself is exceedingly quaint, with its high wainscoting and windows on the opposite side to the fireplace, reminding one of the port-holes of a ship's cabin, while the chief window looks out on to the old-fashioned garden, giving the beholder altogether a pleasing illusion, carrying him back to the days of Charles II. The chief room or Hall is still more handsomely decorated with carved oak of this time. The actual date, 1673, is over the doorway on a tablet which bears the names, in the letters of the period, of the master, "James Reading, Esq.," and the wardens, "Mr. Robert Lawrence," "Mr. Samuel Barber," and "Mr. Henry Sell." The names of other masters and wardens are also written over the carved escutcheons of their different arms, and the whole room is one of the best specimens in existence of the oak carving of this date. At the western end is the master's chair, of which by the courtesy of Mr. Higgins, clerk to the Company, we are able to give an illustration on p. 115--the shield-shaped back, the carved drapery, and the coat-of-arms with the company's motto, are all characteristic features, as are also the Corinthian columns and arched pediments, in the oak decoration of the room. The broken swan-necked pediment, which surmounts the cornice of the room over the chair, is probably a more recent addition, this ornament having come in about 30 years later. There are also the old dining tables and benches; these are as plain and simple as possible. In the court room, is a table, which was formerly in the Company's barge, with some good inlaid work in the arcading which connects the two end standards, and some old carved lions' feet; the top and other parts have been renewed. There is also an old oak fire-screen of about the end of the seventeenth century. Another city hall, the interior woodwork of which dates from just after the Great Fire, is that of the Stationers' Company, in Ave Maria Lane, close to Ludgate Hill. Mr. Charles Robert Rivington, the present clerk to the Company, has written a pamphlet, full of very interesting records of this ancient and worshipful corporation, from which the following paragraph is a quotation:--"The first meeting of the court after the fire was held at Cook's Hall, and the subsequent courts, until the hall was re-built, at the Lame Hospital Hall, i.e., St. Bartholomew's Hospital. In 1670 a committee was appointed to re-build the hall; and in 1674 the Court agreed with Stephen Colledge (the famous Protestant joiner, who was afterwards hanged at Oxford in 1681) to wainscot the hall 'with well-seasoned and well-matched wainscot, according to a model delivered in for the sum of £300.' His work is now to be seen in excellent condition." [Illustration: The Master's Chair. (_Hall of the Brewers' Company._)] Mr. Rivington read his paper to the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society in 1881; and the writer can with pleasure confirm the statement as to the condition, in 1892, of this fine specimen of seventeenth century work. Less ornate and elaborate than the Brewers' Hall, the panels are only slightly relieved with carved mouldings; but the end of the room, or main entrance, opposite the place of the old daïs (long since removed), is somewhat similar to the Brewers', and presents a fine architectural effect, which will be observed in the illustration on p. 117. [Illustration: Carved Oak Livery Cupboard. In the Hall of the Stationers'Company. Made in 1674, the curved pediment added later, probably in 1788.] [Illustration: Carved Oak Napkin Press Lent to the S. Kensington Museum by H. Farrer, Esq. Early XVII. Century.] There is above, an illustration of one of the two livery cupboards, which formerly stood on the daïs, and these are good examples of the cupboards for display of plate of this period. The lower part was formerly the receptacle of unused viands, distributed to the poor after the feast. In their original state these livery cupboards finished with a straight cornice, the broken pediments with the eagle (the Company's crest) having most probably been added when the hall was, to quote an inscription on a shield, "repaired and beautified in the mayoralty of the Right Honourable William Gill, in the year 1788," when Mr. Thomas Hooke was master, and Mr. Field and Mr. Rivington (the present clerk's grandfather) wardens. [Illustration: Arm Chairs. Chair upholstered in Spitalfields silk. Hampton Court Palace. Carved and upholstered Chair. Hardwick Hall. Chair upholstered in Spitalfields silk. Knole, Sevenoaks. Period: William III. To Queen Anne.] There is still preserved in a lumber room one of the old benches of seventeenth century work--now replaced in the hall by modern folding chairs. This is of oak, with turned skittle-shaped legs slanting outwards, and connected and strengthened by plain stretchers. The old tables are still in their places. [Illustration: Carved Oak Screen. In the Hall of the Stationers' Company, erected in 1674: the Royal Coat of Arms has been since added.] Another example of seventeenth century oak panelling is the handsome chapel of the Mercers' Hall--the only city Company possessing their own chapel--but only the lining of the walls and the reredos are of the original work, the remainder having been added some ten or twelve years ago, when some of the original carving was made use of in the new work. Indeed, in this magnificent hall, about the most spacious of the old City Corporation Palaces, there is a great deal of new work mixed with old--new chimney-pieces and old overmantels--some of Grinling Gibbons' carved enrichments, so painted and varnished as to have lost much of their character; these have been applied to the oak panels in the large dining hall. The woodwork lining of living rooms had been undergoing changes since the commencement of the period of which we are now writing. In 1638 a man named Christopher had taken out a patent for enamelling and gilding leather, which was used as a wall decoration over the oak panelling. This decorated leather hitherto had been imported from Holland and Spain; when this was not used, and tapestry, which was very expensive, was not obtainable, the plaster was roughly ornamented. Somewhat later than this, pictures were let into the wainscot to form part of the decoration, for in 1669 Evelyn, when writing of the house of the "Earle of Norwich," in Epping Forest, says, "A good many pictures put into the wainstcot which Mr. Baker, his lordship's predecessor, brought from Spaine." Indeed, subsequently the wainscot became simply the frame for pictures, and we have the same writer deploring the disuse of timber, and expressing his opinion that a sumptuary law ought to be passed to restore the "ancient use of timber." Although no law was enacted on the subject, yet, some twenty years later, the whirligig of fashion brought about the revival of the custom of lining rooms with oak panelling. It is said that about 1670 Evelyn found Grinling Gibbons in a small thatched house on the outskirts of Deptford, and introduced him to the King, who gave him an appointment on the Board of Works, and patronised him with extensive orders. The character of his carving is well known; generally using lime-tree as the vehicle of his designs, the life-like birds and flowers, the groups of fruit, and heads of cherubs, are easily recognised. One of the rooms in Windsor Castle is decorated with the work of his chisel, which can also be seen in St. Paul's Cathedral, Hampton Court Palace, Chatsworth, Burleigh, and perhaps his best, at Petworth House, in Sussex. He also sculptured in stone. The base of King Charles' statue at Windsor, the font of St. James', Piccadilly (round the base of which are figures of Adam and Eve), are his work, as is also the lime-tree border of festoon work over the communion table. Gibbons was an Englishman, but appears to have spent his boyhood in Holland, where he was christened "Grinling." He died in 1721. His pupils were Samuel Watson, a Derbyshire man, who did much of the carved work at Chatsworth, Drevot of Brussels, and Lawreans of Mechlin. Gibbons and his pupils founded a school of carving in England which has been continued by tradition to the present day. [Illustration: Silver Furniture at Knole. (_From a Photo by Mr. Corke, of Sevenoaks._)] A somewhat important immigration of French workmen occurred about this time owing to the persecutions of Protestants in France, which followed, the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, by Louis XIV., and these refugees bringing with them their skill, their patterns and ideas, influenced the carving of our frames and the designs of some of our furniture. This influence is to be traced in some of the contents of Hampton Court Palace, particularly in the carved and gilt centre tables and the _torchères_ of French design but of English workmanship. It is said that no less than 50,000 families left France, some thousands of whom belonged to the industrial classes, and settled in England and Germany, where their descendants still remain. They introduced the manufacture of crystal chandeliers, and founded our Spitalfields silk industry and other trades, till then little practised in England. The beautiful silver furniture at Knole belongs to this time, having been made for one of the Earls of Dorset, in the reign of James II. The illustration is from a photograph taken by Mr. Corke, of Sevenoaks. Electrotypes of the originals are in the South Kensington Museum. From two other suites at Knole, consisting of a looking glass, a table, and a pair of _torchères_, in the one case of plain walnut wood, and in the other of ebony with silver mountings, it would appear that a toilet suite of furniture of the time of James II. generally consisted of articles of a similar character, more or less costly, according to circumstances. The silver table bears the English Hall mark of the reign. As we approach the end of the seventeenth century and examine specimens of English furniture about 1680 to 1700, we find a marked Flemish influence. The Stadtholder, King William III., with his Dutch friends, imported many of their household goods[12], and our English craftsmen seem to have copied these very closely. The chairs and settees in the South Kensington Museum, and at Hampton Court Palace, have the shaped back with a wide inlaid or carved upright bar, the cabriole leg and the carved shell ornament on the knee of the leg, and on the top of the back, which are still to be seen in many of the old Dutch houses. There are a few examples of furniture of this date, which it is almost impossible to distinguish from Flemish, but in some others there is a characteristic decoration in marqueterie, which may be described as a seaweed scroll in holly or box wood, inlaid on a pale walnut ground, a good example of which is to be seen in the upright "grandfather's clock" in the South Kensington Museum, the effect being a pleasing harmony of colour. In the same collection there is also a walnut wood centre table, dating from about 1700, which has twisted legs and a stretcher, the top being inlaid with intersecting circles relieved by the inlay of some stars in ivory. As we have observed with regard to French furniture of this time, mirrors came more generally into use, and the frames were both carved and inlaid. There are several of these at Hampton Court Palace, all with bevelled edged plate glass; some have frames entirely of glass, the short lengths which make the frame, having in some cases the joints covered by rosettes of blue glass, and in others a narrow moulding of gilt work on each side of the frame. In one room (the Queen's Gallery) the frames are painted in colors and relieved by a little gilding. The taste for importing old Dutch furniture, also lacquer cabinets from Japan, not only gave relief to the appearance of a well furnished apartment of this time, but also brought new ideas to our designers and workmen. Our collectors, too, were at this time appreciating the Oriental china, both blue and white, and colored, which had a good market in Holland, so that with the excellent silversmith's work then obtainable, it was possible in the time of William and Mary to arrange a room with more artistic effect than at an earlier period, when the tapestry and panelling of the walls, a table, the livery cupboard previously described, and some three or four chairs, had formed almost the whole furniture of reception rooms. The first mention of corner cupboards appears to have been made in an advertisement of a Dutch joiner in "The Postman" of March 8th, 1711; these cupboards, with their carved pediments being part of the modern fittings of a room in the time of Queen Anne. The oak presses common to this and earlier times are formed of an upper and lower part, the former sometimes being three sides of an octagon with the top supported by columns, while the lower half is straight, and the whole is carved with incised ornament. These useful articles of furniture, in the absence of wardrobes, are described in inventories of the time (1680-1720) as "press cupboards," "great cupboards," "wainscot," and "joyned cupboards." The first mention of a "Buerow," as our modern word "Bureau" was then spelt, is said by Dr. Lyon, in his American book, "The Colonial Furniture of New England," to have occurred in an advertisement in "The Daily Post" of January 4th, 1727. The same author quotes Bailey's Dictionarium Britannicum, published in London, 1736, as defining the word "bureau" as "a cabinet or chest of drawers, or 'scrutoir' for depositing papers or accounts." In the latter half of the eighteenth century those convenient pieces of furniture came into more general use, and illustrations of them as designed and made by Chippendale and his contemporaries will be found in the chapter dealing with that period. Dr. Lyon also quotes from an American newspaper, "The Boston News Letter" of April 16th, 1716, an advertisement which was evidently published when the tall clocks, which we now call "grandfathers' clocks," were a novelty, and as such were being introduced to the American public. We have already referred to one of these which is in the South Kensington Museum, date 1700, and no doubt the manufacture of similar ones became more general during the first years of the eighteenth century. The advertisement alluded to runs, "Lately come from London, a parcel of very fine clocks--they go a week and repeat the hour when pulled" (a string caused the same action as the pressing of the handle of a repeating watch) "in Japan cases or wall-nut." The style of decoration in furniture and woodwork which we recognise as "Queen Anne," apart from the marqueterie just described, appears, so far as the writer's investigations have gone, to be due to the designs of some eminent architects of the time. Sir James Vanbrugh was building Blenheim Palace for the Queen's victorious general, and also Castle Howard. Nicholas Hawksmoor had erected St. George's. Bloomsbury, and James Gibbs, a Scotch architect and antiquary, St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, and the Royal Library at Oxford; a ponderous style characterises the woodwork interior of these buildings. We give an illustration of three designs for chimney-pieces and overmantels by James Gibbs, the centre one of which illustrates the curved or "swan-necked" pediment, which became a favourite ornament about this time, until supplanted by the heavier triangular pediment which came in with "the Georges." The contents of Hampton Court Palace afford evidence of the transition which the design of woodwork and furniture has undergone from the time of William III. until that of George II. There is the Dutch chair with cabriole leg, the plain walnut card table also of Dutch design, which probably came over with the Stadtholder; then, there are the heavy draperies, and chairs almost completely covered by Spitalfields silk velvet, to be seen in the bedroom furniture of Queen Anne. Later, as the heavy Georgian style predominated, there is the stiff ungainly gilt furniture, console tables with legs ornamented with the Greek key pattern badly applied, and finally, as the French school of design influenced our carvers, an improvement may be noticed in the tables and _torchéres_, which but for being a trifle clumsy, might pass for the work of French craftsmen of the same time. The State chairs, the bedstead, and some stools, which are said to have belonged to Queen Caroline, are further examples of the adoption of French fashion. [Illustration: Three Chimneypieces. Designed by James Gibes, Architect, in 1739.] Nearly all writers on the subject of furniture and woodwork are agreed in considering that the earlier part of the period discussed in this chapter, that is, the seventeenth century, is the best in the traditions of English work. As we have seen in noticing some of the earlier Jacobean examples already illustrated and described, it was a period marked by increased refinement of design through the abandonment of the more grotesque and often coarse work of Elizabethan carving, and by soundness of construction and thorough workmanship. Oak furniture made in England during the seventeenth century, is still a credit to the painstaking craftsmen of those days, and even upholstered furniture, like the couches and chairs at Knole, after more than 250 years' service, are fit for use. In the ninth and last chapter, which will deal with furniture of the present day, the methods of production which are now in practice will be noticed, and some comparison will be made which must be to the credit of the Jacobean period. * * * * * In the foregoing chapters an attempt has been made to preserve, as far as possible, a certain continuity in the history of the subject matter of this work from the earliest times until after the Renaissance had been generally adopted in Europe. In this endeavour a greater amount of attention has been bestowed upon the furniture of a comparatively short period of English history than upon that of other countries, but it is hoped that this fault will be forgiven by English readers. It has now become necessary to interrupt this plan, and before returning to the consideration of European design and work, to devote a short chapter to those branches of the Industrial Arts connected with furniture which flourished in China and Japan, in India, Persia, and Arabia, at a time anterior and subsequent to the Renaissance period in Europe. Chapter V. The Furniture of Eastern Countries. CHINESE FURNITURE: Probable source of artistic taste--Sir William Chambers quoted--Racinet's "Le Costume Historique"--Dutch influence--The South Kensington and the Duke of Edinburgh Collections--Processes of making Lacquer--Screens in the Kensington Museum. JAPANESE FURNITURE: Early History--Sir Rutherford Alcock and Lord Elgin--The Collection of the Shogun--Famous Collections--Action of the present Government of Japan--Special characteristics. INDIAN FURNITURE: Early European influence--Furniture of the Moguls--Racinet's Work--Bombay Furniture--Ivory Chairs and Table--Specimens in the India Museum. PERSIAN WOODWORK: Collection of Objets d'Art formed by General Murdoch Smith, R.E.--Industrial Arts of the Persians--Arab influence--South Kensington Specimens. SARACENIC WOODWORK: Oriental customs--Specimens in the South Kensington Museum of Arab Work--M. d'Aveune's Work. Chinese and Japanese Furniture. [Illustration] We have been unable to discover when the Chinese first began to use State or domestic furniture. Whether, like the ancient Assyrians and Egyptians, there was an early civilization which included the arts of joining, carving, and upholstering, we do not know; most probably there was; and from the plaster casts which one sees in our Indian Museum, of the ornamental stone gateways of Sanchi Tope, Bhopal in Central India, it would appear that in the early part of our Christian era, the carvings in wood of their neighbours and co-religionists, the Hindoos, represented figures of men and animals in the woodwork of sacred buildings or palaces; and the marvellous dexterity in manipulating wood, ivory and stone which we recognize in the Chinese of to-day, is inherited from their ancestors. Sir William Chambers travelled in China in the early part of the last century. It was he who introduced "the Chinese style" into furniture and decoration, which was adopted by Chippendale and other makers, as will be noticed in the chapter dealing with that period of English furniture. He gives us the following description of the furniture he found in "The Flowery Land." "The moveables of the saloon consist of chairs, stools, and tables; made sometimes of rosewood, ebony, or lacquered work, and sometimes of bamboo only, which is cheap, and, nevertheless, very neat. When the moveables are of wood, the seats of the stools are often of marble or porcelain, which, though hard to sit on, are far from unpleasant in a climate where the summer heats are so excessive. In the corners of the rooms are stands four or live feet high, on which they set plates of citrons, and other fragrant fruits, or branches of coral in vases of porcelain, and glass globes containing goldfish, together with a certain weed somewhat resembling fennel; on such tables as are intended for ornament only they also place little landscapes, composed of rocks, shrubs, and a kind of lily that grows among pebbles covered with water. Sometimes also, they have artificial landscapes made of ivory, crystal, amber, pearls, and various stones. I have seen some of these that cost over 300 guineas, but they are at best mere baubles, and miserable imitations of nature. Besides these landscapes they adorn their tables with several vases of porcelain, and little vases of copper, which are held in great esteem. These are generally of simple and pleasing forms. The Chinese say they were made two thousand years ago, by some of their celebrated artists, and such as are real antiques (for there are many counterfeits) they buy at an extravagant price, giving sometimes no less than £300 sterling for one of them. "The bedroom is divided from the saloon by a partition of folding doors, which, when the weather is hot, are in the night thrown open to admit the air. It is very small, and contains no other furniture than the bed, and some varnished chests in which they keep their apparel. The beds are very magnificent; the bedsteads are made much like ours in Europe--of rosewood, carved, or lacquered work: the curtains are of taffeta or gauze, sometimes flowered with gold, and commonly either blue or purple. About the top a slip of white satin, a foot in breadth, runs all round, on which are painted, in panels, different figures--flower pieces, landscapes, and conversation pieces, interspersed with moral sentences and fables written in Indian ink and vermilion." From old paintings and engravings which date from about the fourteenth or fifteenth century one gathers an idea of such furniture as existed in China and Japan in earlier times. In one of these, which is reproduced in Racinet's "Le Costume Historique," there is a Chinese princess reclining on a sofa which has a frame of black wood visible, and slightly ornamented; it is upholstered with rich embroidery, for which these artistic people seem to have been famous from a very early period. A servant stands by her side to hand her the pipe of opium with which the monotony of the day was varied--one arm rests on a small wooden table or stand which is placed on the sofa, and which holds a flower vase and a pipe stand. On another old painting two figures are seated on mats playing a game which resembles draughts, the pieces being moved about on a little table with black and white squares like a modern chessboard, with shaped feet to raise it a convenient height for the players: on the floor stand cups of tea ready to hand. Such pictures are generally ascribed to the fifteenth century, the period of the great Ming dynasty, which appears to have been the time of an improved culture and taste in China. From this time and a century later (the sixteenth) also date those beautiful cabinets of lacquered wood enriched with ivory, mother of pearl, with silver and even with gold, which have been brought to England occasionally; but genuine specimens of this, and of the seventeenth century, are very scarce and extremely valuable. The older Chinese furniture which one sees generally in Europe dates from the eighteenth century, and was made to order and imported by the Dutch; this explains the curious combination to be found of Oriental and European designs; thus, there are screens with views of Amsterdam and other cities copied from paintings sent out for the purpose, while the frames of the panels are of carved rosewood of the fretted bamboo pattern characteristic of the Chinese. Elaborate bedsteads, tables and cabinets were also made, with panels of ash stained a dark color and ornamented with hunting scenes, in which the men and horses are of ivory, or sometimes with ivory faces and limbs, the clothes being chiefly in a brown colored wood. In a beautiful table in the South Kensington Museum, which is said to have been made in Cochin-China, mother of pearl is largely used and produces a rich effect. The furniture brought back by the Duke of Edinburgh from China and Japan is of the usual character imported, and the remarks hereafter made on Indian or Bombay furniture apply equally to this adaptation of Chinese detail to European designs. The most highly prized work of China and Japan in the way of decorative furniture is the beautiful lacquer work, and in the notice on French furniture of the eighteenth century, in a subsequent chapter, we shall see that the process was adopted in Holland, France and England with more or less success. It is worth while, however, to allude to it here a little more fully. The process as practised in China is thus described by M. Jacquemart:-- "The wood when smoothly planed is covered with a sheet of thin paper or silk gauze, over which is spread a thick coating made of powdered red sandstone and buffalo's gall. This is allowed to dry, after which it is polished and rubbed with wax, or else receives a wash of gum water, holding chalk in solution. The varnish is laid on with a flat brush, and the article is placed in a damp drying room, whence it passes into the hands of a workman, who moistens and again polishes it with a piece of very fine grained soft clay slate, or with the stalks of the horse-tail or shave grass. It then receives a second coating of lacquer, and when dry is once more polished. These operations are repeated until the surface becomes perfectly smooth and lustrous. There are never applied less than three coatings and seldom more than eighteen, though some old Chinese and some Japan ware are said to have received upwards of twenty. As regards China, this seems quite exceptional, for there is in the Louvre a piece with the legend 'lou-tinsg,' i.e. six coatings, implying that even so many are unusual enough to be worthy of special mention." There is as much difference between different kinds and qualities of lac as between different classes of marquctcrie. The most highly prized is the LACQUER ON GOLD GROUND, and the specimens of this which first reached Europe during the time of Louis XV., were presentation pieces from the Japanese Princes to some of the Dutch officials. Gold ground lacquer is rarely found in furniture, and only as a rule in some of those charming little boxes, in which the luminous effect of the lac is heightened by the introduction of silver foliage on a minute scale, or of tiny landscape work and figures charmingly treated, partly with dull gold and partly highly burnished. Small placques of this beautiful ware were used for some of the choicest pieces of Gouthière's elegant furniture made for Marie Antoinette. Aventurine lacquer closely imitates in color the sparkling mineral from which it takes its name, and a less highly finished preparation is used as a lining for the small drawers of cabinets. Another lacquer has a black ground, on which landscapes delicately traced in gold stand out in charming relief. Such pieces were used by Riesener and mounted by Gouthière in some of the most costly furniture made for Marie Antoinette; some specimens are in the Louvre. It is this kind of lacquer, in varying qualities, that is usually found in cabinets, folding screens, coffers, tables, etagéres, and other ornamental articles of furniture. Enriched with inlay of mother of pearl, the effect of which is in some cases heightened and rendered more effective by some transparent coloring on its reverse side, as in the case of a bird's plumage or of those beautiful blossoms which both Chinese and Japanese artists can represent so faithfully. A very remarkable screen in Chinese lacquer of later date is in the South Kensington Museum; it is composed of twelve folds each ten feet high, and measuring when fully extended twenty-one feet. This screen is very beautifully decorated on both sides with incised and raised ornaments painted and gilt on black ground, with a rich border ornamented with representations of sacred symbols and various other objects. The price paid for it was £1,000. There are also in the Museum some very rich chairs of modern Chinese work, in brown wood, probably teak, very elaborately inlaid with mother-of-pearl; they were exhibited in Paris in 1867. Of the very early history of Japanese industrial arts we know but little. We have no record of the kind of furniture which Marco Polo found when he travelled in Japan in the thirteenth century, and until the Jesuit missionaries obtained a footing in the sixteenth century and sent home specimens of native work, there was probably very little of Japanese manufacture which found its way to Europe. The beautiful lacquer work of Japan, which dates from the end of the sixteenth and the following century, leads us to suppose that a long period of probation must have occurred before the Arts, which were probably learned from the Chinese, could have been so thoroughly mastered. Of furniture, with the exception of the cabinets, chests, and boxes, large and small, of this famous lac, there appears to have been little. Until the Japanese developed a taste for copying European customs and manners, the habit seems to have been to sit on mats and to use small tables raised a few inches from the ground. Even the bedrooms contained no bedsteads, but a light mattress served for bed and bedstead. The process of lacquering has already been described, and in the chapter on French furniture of the eighteenth century it will be seen how specimens of this decorative material reached France by way of Holland, and were mounted into the "_meubles de luxe_" of that time. With this exception, and that of the famous collection of porcelain in the Japan Palace at Dresden, probably but little of the art products of this artistic people had been exported until the country was opened up by the expedition of Lord Elgin and Commodore Perry, in 1858-9, and subsequently by the antiquarian knowledge and research of Sir Rutherford Alcock, who has contributed so much to our knowledge of Japanese industrial art; indeed it is scarcely too much to say, that so far as England is concerned, he was the first to introduce the products of the Empire of Japan. [Illustration: Japanese Cabinet of Red Chased Lacquer Work. XVII to XVIII Century.] The Revolution, and the break up of the feudal system which had existed in that country for some eight hundred years, ended by placing the Mikado on the throne. There was a sale in Paris, in 1867, of the famous collection of the Shôgun, who had sent his treasures there to raise funds for the civil war in which he was then engaged with the Daimio. This was followed by the exportation of other fine native productions to Paris and London; but the supply of old and really fine specimens has, since about 1874, almost ceased, and, in default, the European markets have become flooded with articles of cheap and inferior workmanship, exported to meet the modern demand. The present Government of Japan, anxious to recover many of the masterpieces which were produced in the best time, under the patronage of the native princes of the old _régime_, have established a museum at Tokio, where many examples of fine lacquer work, which had been sent to Europe for sale, have been placed after repurchase, to serve as examples for native artists to copy, and to assist in the restoration of the ancient reputation of Japan. There is in the South Kensington Museum a very beautiful Japanese chest of lacquer work made about the beginning of the seventeenth century, the best time for Japanese art; it formerly belonged to Napoleon I. and was purchased at the Hamilton Palace Sale for £722: it is some 3 ft. 3 in. long and 2 ft. 1 in. high, and was intended originally as a receptacle for sacred Buddhist books. There are, most delicately worked on to its surface, views of the interior of one of the Imperial Palaces of Japan, and a hunting scene. Mother-of-pearl, gold, silver, and aventurine, are all used in the enrichment of this beautiful specimen of inlaid work, and the lock plate is a representative example of the best kind of metal work as applied to this purpose. H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh has several fine specimens of Chinese and Japanese lacquer work in his collection, about the arrangement of which the writer had the honour of advising his Royal Highness, when it arrived some years ago at Clarence House. The earliest specimen is a reading desk, presented by the Mikado, with a slope for a book much resembling an ordinary bookrest, but charmingly decorated with lacquer in landscape subjects on the flat surfaces, while the smaller parts are diapered with flowers and quatrefoils in relief of lac and gold. This is of the sixteenth century. The collections of the Earl of Elgin and Kincardine, Sir Rutherford Alcock, K.C.B., Mr. Salting, Viscount Gough, and other well-known amateurs, contain some excellent examples of the best periods of Japanese Art work of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The grotesque carving of the wonderful dragons and marvellous monsters introduced into furniture made by the Chinese and Japanese, and especially in the ornamental woodwork of the Old Temples, is thoroughly peculiar to these masters of elaborate design and skilful manipulation: and the low rate of remuneration, compared with our European notions of wages, enables work to be produced that would be impracticable under any other conditions. In comparing the decorative work on Chinese and Japanese furniture, it may be said that more eccentricity is effected by the latter than by the former in their designs and general decorative work. The Japanese joiner is unsurpassed, and much of the lattice work, admirable in design and workmanship, is so quaint and intricate that only by close examination can it be distinguished from finely cut fret work. Indian Furniture. European influence upon Indian art and manufactures has been of long duration; it was first exercised by the Portuguese and Dutch in the early days of the United East India Company, afterwards by the French, who established a trading company there in 1664, and since then by the English, the first charter of the old East India Company dating as far back as 1600. Thus European taste dominated almost everything of an ornamental character until it became difficult to find a decorative article the design of which did not in some way or other shew the predominance of European influence over native conception. Therefore it becomes important to ascertain what kind of furniture, limited as it was, existed in India during the period of the Mogul Empire, which lasted from 1505 to 1739, when the invasion of the Persians under Kouli Khan destroyed the power of the Moguls; the country formerly subject to them was then divided amongst sundry petty princes. The thrones and State chairs used by the Moguls were rich with elaborate gilding; the legs or supports were sometimes of turned wood, with some of the members carved; the chair was formed like an hour glass, or rather like two bowls reversed, with the upper part extended to form a higher back to the seat. In M. Racinet's sumptuous work, "Le Costume Historique," published in Paris in 20 volumes (1876), there are reproduced some old miniatures from the collection of M. Ambroise Didot. These represent--with all the advantages of the most highly finished printing in gold, silver, and colours--portraits of these native sovereigns seated on their State chairs, with the umbrella, as a sign of royalty. The panels and ornaments of the thrones are picked out with patterns of flowers, sometimes detached blossoms, sometimes the whole plant; the colors are generally bright red and green, while the ground of a panel or the back of a chair is in silver, with arabesque tracery, the rest of the chair being entirely gilt. The couches are rectangular, with four turned and carved supports, some eight or ten inches high, and also gilt. With the exception of small tables, which could be carried into the room by slaves, and used for the light refreshments customary to the country, there was no other furniture. The ladies of the harem are represented as being seated on sumptuous carpets, and the walls are highly decorated with gold and silver and color, which seems very well suited to the arched openings, carved and gilt doors, and brilliant costumes of the occupants of these Indian palaces. After the break up of the Mogul power, the influence of Holland, France, and England brought about a mixture of taste and design which, with the concurrent alterations in manners and customs, gradually led to the production of what is now known as the "Bombay furniture." The patient, minute carving of Indian design applied to utterly uncongenial Portuguese or French shapes of chairs and sofas, or to the familiar round or oval table, carved almost beyond recognition, are instances of this style. One sees these occasionally in the house of an Anglo-Indian, who has employed native workmen to make some of this furniture for him, the European chairs and tables being given as models, while the details of the ornament have been left to native taste. It is scarcely part of our subject to allude to the same kind of influence which has spoiled the quaint bizarre effect of native design and workmanship in silver, in jewellery, in carpets, embroideries, and in pottery, which was so manifest in the contributions sent to South Kensington at the Colonial Exhibition, 1886. There are in the Indian Museum at South Kensington several examples of this Bombay furniture, and also some of Cingalese manufacture. In the Jones Collection at South Kensington Museum, there are two carved ivory chairs and a table, the latter gilded, the former partly gilded, which are a portion of a set taken from Tippo Sahib at the storming of Seringapatam. Warren Hastings brought them to England, and they were given to Queen Charlotte. After her death the set was divided; Lord Londesborough purchased part of it, and this portion is now on loan at the Bethnal Green Museum. The Queen has also amongst her numerous Jubilee presents some very handsome ivory furniture of Indian workmanship, which may be seen at Windsor Castle. These, however, as well as the Jones Collection examples, though thoroughly Indian in character as regards the treatment of scrolls, flowers, and foliage, shew unmistakcably the influence of French taste in their general form and contour. Articles, such as boxes, stands for gongs, etc., are to be found carved in sandal wood, and in _dalburgia,_ or black wood, with rosewood mouldings; and a peculiar characteristic of this Indian decoration, sometimes applied to such small articles of furniture, is the coating of the surface of the wood with red lacquer, the plain parts taking a high polish while the carved enrichment remains dull. The effect of this is precisely that of the article being made of red sealing wax, and frequently the minute pattern of the carved ornament and its general treatment tend to give an idea of an impression made in the wax by an elaborately cut die. The casket illustrated on p. 134 is an example of this treatment. It was exhibited in 1851. The larger examples of Indian carved woodwork are of teak; the finest and most characteristic specimens within the writer's knowledge are the two folding doors which were sent as a present to the Indian Government, and are in the Indian Museum. They are of seventeenth century work, and are said to have enclosed a library at Kerowlee. While the door frames are of teak, with the outer frames carved with bands of foliage in high relief, the doors themselves are divided into panels of fantastic shapes, and yet so arranged that there is just sufficient regularity to please the eye. Some of these panels are carved and enriched with ivory flowers, others have a rosette of carved ivory in the centre, and pieces of talc with green and red colour underneath, a decoration also found in some Arabian work. It is almost impossible to convey by words an adequate description of these doors; they should be carefully examined as examples of genuine native design and workmanship. Mr. Pollen has concluded a somewhat detailed account of them by saying:--"For elegance of shape and proportion, and the propriety of the composition of the frame and sub-divisions of these doors, their mouldings and their panel carvings and ornaments, we can for the present name no other example so instructive. We are much reminded by this decoration of the pierced lattices at the S. Marco in Venice." [Illustration: Casket of Indian Lacquer Work.] There is in the Indian Museum another remarkable specimen of native furniture--namely, a chair of the purest beaten gold of octagonal shape, and formed of two bowls reversed, decorated with acanthus and lotus in repousée ornament. This is of eighteenth century workmanship, and was formerly the property of Runjeet Sing. The precious metal is thinly laid on, according to the Eastern method, the wood underneath the gold taking all the weight. There is also a collection of plaster casts of portions of temples and palaces from a very early period until the present time, several having been sent over as a loan to the Indian and Colonial Exhibition of 1886, and afterwards presented by the Commissioners to the Museum. A careful observation of the ornamental details of these casts leads us to the conclusion that the Byzantine style which was dominant throughout the more civilized portion of Asia during the power of the Romans, had survived the great changes of the Middle Ages. As native work became subject more or less to the influence of the Indo-Chinese carvers of deities on the one side, and of the European notions of the Portuguese pioneers of discovery on the other, a fashion of decorative woodwork was arrived at which can scarcely be dignified by the name of a style, and which it is difficult to describe. Dr. Birdwood, in his work on Indian Art, points out that, about a hundred years ago, Indian designs were affected by the immigration of Persian designers and workmen. The result of this influence is to be seen in the examples in the Museum, a short notice of which will conclude these remarks on Indian work. The copy in shishem wood of a carved window at Amritzar, in the Punjaub, with its overhanging cornice, ornamental arches, supported by pillars, and the whole surface covered with small details of ornament, is a good example of the sixteenth and seventeenth century work. The various façades of dwelling-houses in teak wood, carved, and still bearing the remains of paint with which part of the carving was picked out, represent the work of the contemporary carvers of Ahmedabad, famous for its woodwork. Portions of a lacquer work screen, similar in appearance to embossed gilt leather, with the pattern in gold, on a ground of black or red, and the singular Cashmere work, called "mirror mosaic," give us a good idea of the Indian decoration of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. This effective decoration is produced by little pieces of looking-glass being introduced into the small geometrical patterns of the panels; these, when joined together, form a very rich ceiling. The bedstead of King Theebaw, brought from Mandalay, is an example of this mixture of glass and wood, which can be made extremely effective. The wood is carved and gilt to represent the gold setting of numerous precious stones, which are counterfeited by small pieces of looking-glass and variously-coloured pieces of transparent glass. Some of the Prince of Wales' presents, namely, chairs, with carved lions forming arms; tables of shishem wood, inlaid with ebony and ivory, shew the European influence we have alluded to. Amongst the modern ornamental articles in the Museum are many boxes, pen trays, writing cases, and even photograph albums of wood and ivory mosaic work, the inlaid patterns being produced by placing together strips of tin wire, sandal wood, ebony, and of ivory, white, or stained green: these bound into a rod, either triangular or hexagonal, are cut into small sections, and then inlaid into the surface of the article to be decorated. Papier maché and lacquer work are also frequently found in small articles of furniture; and the collection of drawings by native artists attests the high skill in design and execution attained by Indian craftsmen. Persia. The Persians have from time immemorial been an artistic people, and their style of Art throughout successive conquests and generations has varied but little. Major-General Murdoch Smith, R.E., the present Director of the branch of the South Kensington Museum in Edinburgh, who resided for some years in Persia, and had the assistance when there of M. Richard (a well-known French antiquarian), made a collection of _objets d'art_ some years ago for the Science and Art Department, which is now in the Kensington Museum, but it contains comparatively little that can be actually termed furniture; and it is extremely difficult to meet with important specimens of ornamental wordwork of native workmanship. Those in the Museum, and in other collections, are generally small ornamental articles. The chief reason of this is, doubtless, that little timber is to be found in Persia, except in the Caspian provinces, where, as Mr. Benjamin has told us in "Persia and the Persians," wood is abundant; and the Persian architect, taking advantage of his opportunity, has designed his houses with wooden piazzas--not found elsewhere--and with "beams, lintels, and eaves quaintly, sometimes elegantly, carved, and tinted with brilliant hues." Another feature of the decorative woodwork in this part of Persia is that produced by the large latticed windows, which are well adapted to the climate. [Illustration: Door of Carved Sandal Wood, from Travancore. India Museum, South Kensington. Period: Probably Late XVIII. Century.] In the manufacture of textile fabrics--notably, their famous carpets of Yezd and Ispahan, and their embroidered cloths in hammered and engraved metal work, and formerly in beautiful pottery and porcelain--they have excelled: and examples will be found in the South Kensington Museum. It is difficult to find a representative specimen of Persian furniture except a box or a stool; and the illustration of a brass incense burner is, therefore, given to mark the method of design, which was adopted in a modified form by the Persians from their Arab conquerors. [Illustration: Incense Burner of Engraved Brass. (_In the South Kensington Museum_).] This method of design has one or two special characteristics which are worth noticing. One of these was the teaching of Mahomet forbidding animal representation in design--a rule which in later work has been relaxed; another was the introduction of mathematics into Persia by the Saracens, which led to the adoption of geometrical patterns in design; and a third, the development of "Caligraphy" into a fine art, which has resulted in the introduction of a text, or motto, into so many of the Persian designs of decorative work. The combination of these three characteristics have given us the "Arabesque" form of ornament, which, in artistic nomenclature, occurs so frequently. The general method of decorating woodwork is similar to that of India, and consists in either inlaying brown wood (generally teak) with ivory or pearl in geometrical patterns, or in covering the wooden box, or manuscript case, with a coating of lacquer, somewhat similar to the Chinese or Japanese preparations. On this groundwork some good miniature painting was executed, the colours being, as a rule, red, green, and gold, with black lines to give force to the design. The author of "Persia and the Persians," already quoted, had, during his residence in the country, as American Minister, great opportunities of observation, and in his chapter entitled "A Glance at the Arts of Persia," has said a good deal of this mosaic work. Referring to the scarcity of wood in Persia, he says: "For the above reason one is astonished at the marvellous ingenuity, skill, and taste developed by the art of inlaid work, or Mosaic in wood. It would be impossible to exceed the results achieved by the Persian artizans, especially those of Shiraz, in this wonderful and difficult art.... Chairs, tables, sofas, boxes, violins, guitars, canes, picture frames, almost every conceivable object, in fact, which is made of wood, may be found overlaid with an exquisite casing of inlaid work, so minute sometimes that thirty-live or forty pieces may be counted in the space of a square eighth of an inch. I have counted four hundred and twenty-eight distinct pieces on a square inch of a violin, which is completely covered by this exquisite detail of geometric designs, in Mosaic." Mr. Benjamin--who, it will be noticed, is somewhat too enthusiastic over this kind of mechanical decoration--also observes that, while the details will stand the test of a magnifying glass, there is a general breadth in the design which renders it harmonious and pleasing if looked at from a distance. In the South Kensington Museum there are several specimens of Persian lacquer work, which have very much the appearance of papier maché articles that used to be so common in England some forty years ago, save that the decoration is, of course, of Eastern character. Of seventeenth century work, there is also a fine coffer, richly inlaid with ivory, of the best description of Persian design and workmanship of this period, which was about the zenith of Persian Art during the reign of Shah Abbas. The numerous small articles of what is termed Persian marqueterie, are inlaid with tin wire and stained ivory, on a ground of cedar wood, very similar to the same kind of ornamental work already described in the Indian section of this chapter. These were purchased at the Paris Exhibition in 1867. Persian Art of the present day may be said to be in a state of transition, owing to the introduction and assimilation of European ideas. Saracenic Woodwork From Cairo and Damascus. While the changes of fashion in Western, as contrasted with Eastern countries, are comparatively rapid, the record of two or three centuries presenting a history of great and well-defined alterations in manners, customs, and therefore, of furniture, the more conservative Oriental has been content to reproduce, from generation to generation, the traditions of his forefathers; and we find that, from the time of the Moorish conquest and spread of Arabesque design, no radical change in Saracenic Art occurred until French and English energy and enterprise forced European fashions into Egypt: as a consequence, the original quaintness and Orientalism natural to the country, are being gradually replaced by buildings, decoration, and furniture of European fashion. The carved pulpit, from a mosque in Cairo, which is in the South Kensington Museum, was made for Sultan Kaitbeg, 1468-96. The side panels, of geometrical pattern, though much injured by time and wear, shew signs of ebony inlaid with ivory, and of painting and gilding; they are good specimens of the kind of work. The two doors, also from Cairo, the oldest parts of which are just two hundred years earlier than the pulpit, are exactly of the same style, and, so far as appearances go, might be just as well taken for two hundred years later, so conservative was the Saracenic treatment of decorative woodwork for some four or five centuries. Pentagonal and hexagonal mosaics of ivory, with little mouldings of ebony dividing the different panels, the centres of eccentric shapes of ivory or rosewood carved with minute scrolls, combine to give these elaborate doors a very rich effect, and remind one of the work still to be seen at the Alhambra. The Science and Art Department has been fortunate in securing from the St. Maurice and Dr. Meymar collections a great many specimens which are well worth examination. The most remarkable is a complete room brought from a house in Damascus, which is fitted up in the Oriental style, and gives one a good idea of an Eastern interior. The walls are painted in colour and gold; the spaces divided by flat pilasters, and there are recesses, or cupboards, for the reception of pottery, quaintly formed vessels, and pots of brass. Oriental carpets, octagonal tables, such as the one which ornaments the initial letter of this chapter, hookas, incense burners, and cushions furnish the apartment; while the lattice window is an excellent representation of the "Mesherabijeh," or lattice work, with which we are familiar, since so much has been imported by Egyptian travellers. In the upper panels of the lattice there are inserted pieces of coloured glass, and, looking outwards towards the light, the effect is very pretty. The date of this room is 1756, which appears at the foot of an Arabic inscription, of which a translation is appended to the exhibit. It commences--"In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate," and concludes; "Pray, therefore, to Him morning and evening." [Illustration: Governor's Palace, Manfalut. Shewing a Window of Arab Lattice Work, similar to that of the Damascus Room in the South Kensington Museum.] A number of bosses and panels, detached from their original framework, are also to be seen, and are good specimens of Saracenic design. A bedstead, with inlay of ivory and numerous small squares of glass, under which are paper flowers, is also a good example of native work. [Illustration: Specimen of Saracenic Panelling of Cedar, Ebony, and Ivory. (_In the South Kensington Museum._)] The illustration on p. 142 is of a carved wood door from Cairo, considered by the South Kensington authorities to be of Syrian work. It shews the turned spindles, which the Arabs generally introduce into their ornamental woodwork: and the carving of the vase of flowers is a good specimen of the kind. The date is about the seventeenth century. For those who would gain an extended knowledge of Saracenic or Arabian Art industry, "_L'Art Arabe,"_ by M. Prisse d'Aveunes, should be consulted. There will be found in this work many carefully-prepared illustrations of the cushioned seats, the projecting balconies of the lattice work already alluded to, of octagonal inlaid tables, and such other articles of furniture as were used by the Arabs. The South Kensington Handbook, "Persian Art," by Major-General Murdoch Smith, R.E., is also a very handy and useful work in a small compass. While discussing Saracenic or Arab furniture, it is worth noticing that our word "sofa" is of Arab derivation, the word "suffah" meaning "a couch or place for reclining before the door of Eastern houses." In Skeat's Dictionary the word is said to have first occurred in the "Guardian," in the year 1713, and the phrase is quoted from No. 167 of that old periodical of the day--"He leapt off from the sofa on which he sat." [Illustration: A Carved Door of Syrian Work. (_South Kensington Museum._)] From the same source the word "ottoman," which Webster defines as "a stuffed seat without a back, first used in Turkey," is obviously obtained, and the modern low-seated upholsterer's chair of to-day is doubtless the development of a French adaptation of the Eastern cushion or "divan," this latter word having become applied to the seats which furnished the hall or council chamber in an Eastern palace, although its original meaning was probably the council or "court" itself, or the hall in which such was held. Thus do the habits and tastes of different nations act and re-act upon each other. Western peoples have carried eastward their civilisation and their fashions, influencing Arts and industries, with their restless energy, and breaking up the crust of Oriental apathy and indolence; and have brought back in return the ideas gained from an observation of the associations and accessories of Eastern life, to adapt them to the requirements and refinements of European luxury. [Illustration: Shaped Panel of Saracenic Work in Carved Bone or Ivory.] [Illustration: Boule Armoire. Designed by Le Brun, formerly in the "Hamilton Palace" Collection and purchased (Wertheimer) for £12,075 the pair. Period: Louis XIV.] Chapter VI. French Furniture. PALACE OF VERSAILLES: "Grand" and "Petit Trianon"--the three Styles of Louis XIV., XV. and XVI.--Colbert and Lebrun--André Charles Boule and his Work--Carved and Gilt Furniture--The Regency and its Influence--Alteration in Condition of French Society--Watteau, Lancret, and Boucher. Louis XV. FURNITURE: Famous Ebenistes--Vernis Martin Furniture--Caffieri and Gouthière Mountings--Sêvres Porcelain introduced into Cabinets--Gobelins Tapestry--The "Bureau du Roi." Louis XVI. AND MARIE ANTOINETTE: The Queen's Influence--The Painters Chardin and Greuze--More simple Designs--Characteristic Ornaments of Louis XVI. Furniture--Riesener's Work--Gouthière's Mountings--Specimens in the Louvre--The Hamilton Palace Sale--French influence upon the design of Furniture in other countries--The Jones Collection--Extract from the "Times." [Illustration] There is something so distinct in the development of taste in furniture, marked out by the three styles to which the three monarchs have given the names of "Louis Quatorze," "Louis Quinze," and "Louis Seize," that it affords a fitting point for a new departure. This will be evident to anyone who will visit, first the Palace of Versailles,[13] then the Grand Trianon, and afterwards the Petit Trianon. By the help of a few illustrations, such a visit in the order given would greatly interest anyone having a smattering of knowledge of the characteristic ornaments of these different periods. A careful examination would demonstrate how the one style gradually merged into that of its successor. Thus the massiveness and grandeur of the best Louis Quatorze _meubles de luxe_, became, in its later development, too ornate and effeminate, with an elaboration of enrichment, culminating in the rococo style of Louis Quinze. Then we find, in the "Petit Trianon," and also in the Chateau of Fontainebleau, the purer taste of Marie Antoinette dominating the Art productions of her time, which reached their zenith, with regard to furniture, in the production of such elegant and costly examples as have been preserved to us in the beautiful work-table and secretaire--sold some years since at the dispersion of the Hamilton Palace collection--and in some other specimens, which may be seen in the Musée du Louvre, in the Jones Collection in the South Kensington Museum, and in other public and private collections: of these several illustrations are given. We have to recollect that the reign of Louis XIV. was the time of the artists Berain, Lebrun, and, later in the reign, of Watteau, also of André Charles Boule, _ciseleur et doreur du roi_, and of Colbert, that admirable Minister of Finance, who knew so well how to second his royal master's taste for grandeur and magnificence. The Palace of Versailles bears throughout the stamp and impress of the majesty of _le Grande Monarque;_ and the rich architectural ornament of the interior, with moulded, gilded, and painted ceilings, required the furnishing to be carried to an extent which had never been attempted previously. Louis XIV. had judgment in his taste, and he knew that, to carry out his ideas of a royal palace, he must not only select suitable artists capable of control, but he must centralize their efforts. In 1664 Colbert founded the Royal Academy of Painting, Architecture, and Sculpture, to which designs of furniture were admitted. The celebrated Gobelins tapestry factory was also established; and it was here the King collected together and suitably housed the different skilled producers of his furniture, placing them all under the control of his favourite artist, Lebrun, who was appointed director in 1667. The most remarkable furniture artist of this time, for surely he merits such title, was André Charles Boule, of whom but little is known. He was born in 1642, and, therefore, was 25 years of age when Lebrun was appointed Art-director. He appears to have originated the method of ornamenting furniture which has since been associated with his name. This was to veneer his cabinets, pedestals, armoires, encoignures, clocks, and brackets with tortoiseshell, into which a cutting of brass was laid, the latter being cut out from a design, in which were harmoniously arranged scrolls, vases of flowers, satyrs, animals, cupids, swags of fruit and draperies; fantastic compositions of a free Renaissance character constituted the panels; to which bold scrolls in ormolu formed fitting frames; while handsome mouldings of the same material gave a finish to the extremities. These ormolu mountings were gilt by an old-fashioned process,[14] which left upon the metal a thick deposit of gold, and were cunningly chiselled by the skilful hands of Caffieri or his contemporaries. [Illustration: Boule Armoire, In the "Jones" Collection, S. Kensington Museum. Louis XIV. Period.] Boule subsequently learned to economise labour by adopting a similar process to that used by the marqueterie cutter; and by glueing together two sheets of brass, or white metal, and two of shell, and placing over them his design, he was then able to pierce the four layers by one cut of the handsaw; this gave four exact copies of the design. The same process would be repeated for the reverse side, if, as with an armoire or a large cabinet, two panels, one for each door, right and left, were required; and then, when the brass, or white metal cutting was fitted into the shell so that the joins were imperceptible, he would have two right and two left panels. These would be positive and negative: in the former pair the metal would represent the figured design with the shell as groundwork, and the latter would have the shell as a design, with a ground of metal. The terms positive and negative are the writer's to explain the difference, but the technical terms are "first part" and "second part," or "Boule" and "counter." The former would be selected for the best part of the cabinet, for instance, the panels of the front doors, while the latter would be used for the ends or sides. An illustration of this plan of using all four cuttings of one design occurs in the armoire No. 1026 in the Jones Collection, and in a great many other excellent specimens. The brass, or the white metal in the design, was then carefully and most artistically engraved; and the beauty of the engraving of Boule's finest productions is a great point of excellence, giving, as it does, a character to the design, and emphasizing its details. The mounting of the furniture in ormolu of a rich and highly-finished character, completed the design. The _Museé du Louvre_ is rich in examples of Boule's work; and there are some very good pieces in the Jones Collection, at Hertford House, and at Windsor Castle. The illustration on p. 144 is the representation of an armoire, which was, undoubtedly, executed by Boule from a design by Lebrun: it is one of a pair which was sold in 1882, at the Hamilton Palace sale, by Messrs. Christie, for £12,075. Another small cabinet, in the same collection, realised £2,310. The pedestal cabinet illustrated on p. 148, from the Jones Collection, is very similar to the latter, and cost Mr. Jones £3,000. When specimens, of the genuineness of which there is no doubt, are offered for sale, they are sure to realize very high prices. The armoire in the Jones Collection, already alluded to (No. 1026), of which there is an illustration, cost between £4,000 and £5,000. In some of the best of Boule's cabinets, as, for instance, in the Hamilton Palace armoire (illustrated), the bronze gilt ornaments stand out in bold relief from the surface. In the Louvre there is one which has a figure of _Le Grand Monarque_, clad in armour, with a Roman toga, and wearing the full bottomed wig of the time, which scarcely accords with the costume of a Roman general. The absurd combination which characterises this affectation of the classic costume is also found in portraits of our George II. [Illustration: Pedestal Cabinet, By Boule, formerly in Mr. Baring's Collection. Purchased by Mr. Jones for £3,000. (_South Kensington Museum_)] The masks, satyrs, and ram's heads, the scrolls and the foliage, are also very bold in specimens of this class of Boule's work; and the "sun" (that is, a mask surrounded with rays of light) is a very favourite ornament of this period. Boule had four sons and several pupils; and he may be said to have founded a school of decorative furniture, which has its votaries and imitators now, as it had in his own time. The word one frequently finds misspelt "Buhl," and this has come to represent any similar mode of decorations on furniture, no matter how meretricious or common it may be. [Illustration: A Concert during the Reign of Louis XIV. (_From a Miniature, dated 1696._)] Later in the reign, as other influences were brought to bear upon the taste and fashion of the day, this style of furniture became more ornate and showy. Instead of the natural colour of the shell, either vermilion or gold leaf was placed underneath the transparent shell; the gilt mounts became less severe, and abounded with the curled endive ornament, which afterwards became thoroughly characteristic of the fashion of the succeeding reign; and the forms of the furniture itself conformed to a taste for a more free and flowing treatment; and it should be mentioned, in justice to Lebrun, that from the time of his death and the appointment of his successor, Mignard, a distinct decline in merit can be traced. Contemporary with Boule's work, were the richly-mounted tables, having slabs of Egyptian porphyry, or Florentine marble mosaic; and marqueterie cabinets, with beautiful mountings of ormolu, or gilt bronze. Commodes and screens were ornamented with Chinese lacquer, which had been imported by the Dutch and taken to Paris, after the French invasion of the Netherlands. [Illustration: Panel for a Screen. Painted by Watteau. Louis XIV. Period.] About this time--that is, towards the end of the seventeenth century--the resources of designers and makers of decorative furniture were reinforced by the introduction of glass in larger plates than had been possible previously. Mirrors of considerable size were first made in Venice; these were engraved with figures and scrolls, and mounted in richly carved and gilt wood frames; and soon afterwards manufactories of mirrors, and of glass, in larger plates than before, were set up in England, near Battersea, and in France at Tour la Ville, near Paris. This novelty not only gave a new departure to the design of suitable frames in carved wood (generally gilt), but also to that of Boule work and marqueterie. It also led to a greater variety of the design for cabinets; and from this time we may date the first appearance of the "Vitrine," or cabinet with glass panels in the doors and sides, for the display of smaller _objets d'art._ [Illustration: Decoration of a Salon in Louis XIV. Style.] The chairs and sofas of the latter half of the reign of Louis Quatorze are exceedingly grand and rich. The suite of furniture for the state apartment of a prince or wealthy nobleman comprised a _canapé_, or sofa, and six _fauteils_, or arm chairs, the frames carved with much spirit, or with "feeling," as it is technically termed, and richly gilt. The backs and seats were upholstered and covered with the already famous tapestry of Gobelins or Beauvais.[15] Such a suite of furniture, in bad condition and requiring careful and very expensive restoration, was sold at Christie's some time ago for about £1,400, and it is no exaggeration to say that a really perfect suite, with carving and gilding of the best, and the tapestry not too much worn, if offered for public competition, would probably realise between £3,000 and £4,000. In the appendix will be found the names of many artists in furniture of this time, and in the Jones Collection we have several very excellent specimens which can easily be referred to, and compared with others of the two succeeding reigns, whose furniture we are now going to consider. As an example of the difference in both outline and detail which took place in design, let the reader notice the form of the Louis Quatorze commode vignetted for the initial letter of this chapter, and then turn to the lighter and more fanciful cabinets of somewhat similar shape which will be found illustrated in the "Louis Quinze" section which follows this. In the Louis Quatorze cabinets the decorative effect, so far as the woodwork was concerned, was obtained first by the careful choice of suitable veneers, and then, by joining four pieces in a panel, so that the natural figure of the wood runs from the centre, and then a banding of a darker wood forms a frame. An instance of this will also be found in the above-mentioned illustration. Louis XV. When the old King died, at the ripe age of 77, the crown devolved on his great-grandson, then a child five years old, and therefore a Regency became necessary; and this period of some eight years, until the death of Philip, Duke of Orleans, in 1723, when the King was declared to have attained his majority at the age of 13, is known as _L'Epoch de la Regence_, and is a landmark in the history of furniture. [Illustration: Boule Commode, Probably made during the period of the Regency (_Museé du Louvre._)] There was a great change about this period of French history in the social condition of the upper classes in France. The pomp and extravagance of the late monarch had emptied the coffers of the noblesse, and in order to recruit their finances, marriages became common which a decade or two before that time would hardly have been thought possible. Nobles of ancient lineage married the daughters of bankers and speculators, in order to supply themselves with the means of following the extravagant fashions of the day, and we find the wives of ministers of departments of State using their influence and power for the purpose of making money by gambling in stocks, and accepting bribes for concessions and contracts. [Illustration: French Sedan Chair. (_From an Engraving in the South Kensington Art Library._) Period: Louis XV.] It was a time of corruption, extravagance, licentiousness, and intrigue, and although one might ask what bearing this has upon the history of furniture, a little reflection shows that the abandonment of the great State receptions of the late King, and the pompous and gorgeous entertainments of his time, gave way to a state of society in which the boudoir became of far more importance than the salon, in the artistic furnishing of a fashionable house. Instead of the majestic grandeur of immense reception rooms and stately galleries, we have the elegance and prettiness of the boudoir; and as the reign of the young King advances, we find the structural enrichment of rooms more free, and busy with redundant ornament; the curved endive decoration, so common in carved woodwork and in composition of this period, is seen everywhere; in the architraves, in the panel mouldings, in the frame of an overdoor, in the design of a mirror frame; doves, wreaths, Arcadian fountains, flowing scrolls, Cupids, and heads and busts of women terminating in foliage, are carved or moulded in relief, on the walls, the doors, and the alcoved recesses of the reception rooms, either gilded or painted white; and pictures by Watteau, Lancret, or Boucher, and their schools, are appropriate accompaniments.[16] [Illustration: Part of a Salon, Decorated in the Louis Quinze style, showing the carved and gilt Console Table and Mirror, with other enrichments, _en suite_.] The furniture was made to agree with this decorative treatment: couches and easy chairs were designed in more sweeping curves and on a smaller scale, the woodwork wholly or partially gilt and upholstered, not only with the tapestry of Gobelins or Beauvais, but with soft colored silk brocades and brocatelles; light occasional chairs were enriched with mother-of-pearl or marqueterie; screens were painted with love scenes and representations of ladies and gentlemen who look as if they passed their entire existence in the elaboration of their toilettes or the exchange of compliments; the stately cabinet is modified into the _bombé_ fronted commode, the ends of which curve outwards with a graceful sweep; and the bureau is made in a much smaller size, more highly decorated with marqueterie, and more fancifully mounted to suit the smaller and more effeminate apartment. The smaller and more elegant cabinets, called _Bonheur du jour_ (a little cabinet mounted on a table); the small round occasional table, called a _gueridon_; the _encoignure_, or corner cabinet; the _étagère_, or ornamental hanging cabinet, with shelves; the three-fold screen, with each leaf a different height, and with shaped top, all date from this time. The _chaise à porteur_, or Sedan chair, on which so much work and taste were expended, became more ornate, so as to fall in with the prevailing fashion. Marqueterie became more fanciful. [Illustration: Console Table, Carved and Gilt. (_Collection of M. Double, Paris._)] The Louis Quinze cabinets were inlaid, not only with natural woods, but with veneers stained in different tints; and landscapes, interiors, baskets of flowers, birds, trophies, emblems of all kinds, and quaint fanciful conceits are pressed into the service of marqueterie decoration. The most famous artists in this decorative woodwork were Riesener, David Roentgen (generally spoken of as David), Pasquier. Carlin, Leleu, and others, whose names will be found in a list in the appendix. [Illustration: Louis XV. Carved And Gilt "Fauteui." Upholstered with Beauvais tapestry. Subject from La Fontaine's Fables.] During the preceding reign the Chinese lacquer ware then in use was imported from the East, the fashion for collecting which had grown ever since the Dutch had established a trade with China: and subsequently as the demand arose for smaller pieces of _meubles de luxe,_ collectors had these articles taken to pieces, and the slabs of lacquer mounted in panels to decorate the table, or cabinet, and to display the lacquer. _Ébenistés_, too, prepared such parts of woodwork as were desired to be ornamented in this manner, and sent them to China to be coated with lacquer, a process which was then only known to the Chinese; but this delay and expense quickened the inventive genius of the European, and it was found that a preparation of gum and other ingredients applied again and again, and each time carefully rubbed down, produced a surface which was almost as lustrous and suitable for decoration as the original article. A Dutchman named Huygens was the first successful inventor of this preparation; and, owing to the adroitness of his work, and of those who followed him and improved his process, one can only detect European lacquer from Chinese by trifling details in the costumes and foliage of decoration, not strictly Oriental in character. [Illustration: Commode. With Panels of fine old Laquer and Mountings by Caffieri. _Jones Collection, S. Kensington Museum._ Period of Louis XV.] About 1740-4 the Martin family had three manufactories of this peculiar and fashionable ware, which became known as Vernis-Martin, or Martins' Varnish; and it is singular that one of these was in the district of Paris then and now known as Faubourg Saint Martin. By a special decree a monopoly was granted in 1744 to Sieur Simon Etienne Martin the younger, "To manufacture all sorts of work in relief and in the style of Japan and China." This was to last for twenty years; and we shall see that in the latter part of the reign of Louis XV., and in that of his successor, the decoration was not confined to the imitation of Chinese and Japanese subjects, but the surface was painted in the style of the decorative artist of the day, both in monochrome and in natural colours; such subjects as "Cupid Awakening Venus," "The Triumph of Galatea," "Nymphs and Goddesses," "Garden Scenes," and "Fêtes Champêtres," being represented in accordance with the taste of the period. It may be remarked in passing, that lacquer work was also made previous to this time in England. Several cabinets of "Old" English lac are included in the Strawberry Hill sale catalogue; and they were richly mounted with ormolu, in the French style; this sale took place in 1842. George Robins, so well known for his flowery descriptions, was the auctioneer; the introduction to the catalogue was written by Harrison Ainsworth. [Illustration: In Parqueterie with massive Mountings of Gilt Bronze, probably by Caffieri, (_Formerly in the Hamilton Palace Collection. Purchased_ (_Westheims_), £6,247 ICS.) Louis XV. Period.] The gilt bronze mountings of the furniture became less massive and much more elaborate: the curled endive ornament was very much in vogue; the acanthus foliage followed the curves of the commode; busts and heads of women, cupids, satyrs terminating in foliage, suited the design and decoration of the more fanciful shapes; and Caffieri, who is the great master of this beautiful and highly ornate enrichment, introduced Chinese figures and dragons into his designs. The amount of spirit imparted into the chasing of this ormolu is simply marvellous--it has never been equalled and could not be excelled. Time has now mellowed the colour of the woodwork it adorns; and the tint of the gold with which it is overlaid, improved by the lights and shadows caused by the high relief of the work and the consequent darkening of the parts more depressed while the more prominent ornaments have been rubbed bright from time to time, produces an effect which is exceedingly elegant and rich. One cannot wonder that connoisseurs are prepared to pay such large sums for genuine specimens, or that clever imitations are exceedingly costly to produce. Illustrations are given from some of the more notable examples of decorative furniture of this period, which were sold in 1882 at the celebrated Hamilton Palace sale, together with the sums they realised: also of specimens in the South Kensington Museum in the Jones Collection. We must also remember, in considering the _meubles de luxe_ of this time, that in 1753 Louis XV. had made the Sêvres Porcelain Manufactory a State enterprise; and later, as that celebrated undertaking progressed, tables and cabinets were ornamented with plaques of the beautiful and choice _pâte tendre_, the delicacy of which was admirably adapted to enrich the light and frivolous furnishing of the dainty boudoir of a Madame du Barri or a Madame Pompadour. Another famous artist in the delicate bronze mountings of the day was Pierre Gouthière. He commenced work some years later than Caffieri, being born in 1740; and, like his senior fellow craftsman, did not confine his attention to furniture, but exercised his fertility of design, and his passion for detail, in mounting bowls and vases of jasper, of Sêvres and of Oriental porcelain. The character of his work is less forcible than that of Caffieri, and comes nearer to what we shall presently recognise as the Louis Seize, or Marie Antoinette style, to which period his work more properly belongs: in careful finish of minute details, it more resembles the fine goldsmith's work of the Renaissance. [Illustration: Bureau Du Roi. Made for Louis XV. by Riesener. (Collection of "Mobilier National.") (_From a pen and ink drawing by H. Evans._) Period: Louis XV.] Gouthière was employed extensively by Madame du Barri; and at her execution, in 1793, he lost the enormous balance of 756,000 francs which was due to him, but which debt the State repudiated, and the unfortunate man died in extreme poverty, the inmate of an almshouse. The designs of the celebrated tapestry of Gobelins and of Beauvais, used for the covering of the finest furniture of this time, also underwent a change; and, instead of the representation of the chase, with a bold and vigorous rendering, we find shepherds and shepherdesses, nymphs and satyrs, the illustrations of La Fontaine's fables, or renderings of Boucher's pictures. Without doubt, the most important example of _meubles de luxe_ of this reign is the famous "Bureau du Roi," made for Louis XV. in 1769, and which appears fully described in the inventory of the "Garde Meuble" in the year 1775, under No. 2541. This description is very minute, and is fully quoted by M. Williamson in his valuable work, "Les Meubles d'Art du Mobilier National," and occupies no less than thirty-seven lines of printed matter. Its size is five-and-a-half feet long and three feet deep; the lines are the perfection of grace and symmetry; the marqueterie is in Riesner's best manner; the mountings are magnificent--reclining figures, foliage, laurel wreaths, and swags, chased with rare skill; the back of this famous bureau is as fully decorated as the front: it is signed "Riesener, f.e., 1769, à l'arsenal de Paris." Riesener is said to have received the order for this bureau from the King in 1767, upon the occasion of the marriage of this favourite Court _ébeniste_ with the widow of his former master Oeben. Its production therefore would seem to have taken about two years. This celebrated chef d'oeuvre was in the Tuileries in 1807, and was included in the inventory found in the cabinet of Napoleon I. It was moved by Napoleon III. to the Palace of St. Cloud, and only saved from capture by the Germans by its removal to its present home in the Louvre, in August, 1870. It is said that it would probably realise, if offered for sale, between fifteen and twenty thousand pounds. A full-page illustration of this famous piece of furniture is given. A similar bureau is in the Hertford (Wallace) collection, which was made to the order of Stanilaus, King of Poland; a copy executed by Zwiener, a very clever _ébeniste_ of the present day in Paris, at a cost of some three thousand pounds, is in the same collection. Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette. [Illustration: Boudoir Furnished in the Taste of the Louis XVI. Period.] It is probable that for some little time previous to the death of Louis XV., the influence of the beautiful daughter of Maria Theresa on the fashions of the day was manifested in furniture and its accessories. We know that Marie Antoinette disliked the pomp and ceremony of Court functions, and preferred a simpler way of living at the favourite farm house which was given to her husband as a residence on his marriage, four years before his accession to the throne; and here she delighted to mix with the bourgeoise on the terrace at Versailles, or, donning a simple dress of white muslin, would busy herself in the garden or dairy. There was, doubtless, something of the affectation of a woman spoiled by admiration, in thus playing the rustic; still, one can understand that the best French society, weary of the domination of the late King's mistresses, with their intrigues, their extravagances, and their creatures, looked forward, at the death of Louis, with hope and anticipation to the accession of his grandson and the beautiful young queen. [Illustration: Part of a Salon. Decorated and furnished in the Louis XVI. Style.] Gradually, under the new regime, architecture became more simple; broken scrolls are replaced by straight lines, curves and arches only occur when justifiable, and columns and pilasters reappear in the ornamental façades of public buildings. Interior decoration necessarily followed suit; instead of the curled endive scrolls enclosing the irregular panel, and the superabundant foliage in ornament, we have rectangular panels formed by simpler mouldings, with broken corners, having a patera or rosette in each, and between the upright panels there is a pilaster of refined Renaissance design. In the oval medallions supported by cupids, is found a domestic scene by a Fragonard or a Chardin; and the portraits of innocent children by Greuze replace the courting shepherds and mythological goddesses of Boucher and Lancret. Sculpture, too, becomes more refined and decorous in its representations. As with architecture, decoration, painting, and sculpture, so also with furniture. The designs became more simple, but were relieved from severity by the amount of ornament, which, except in some cases where it is over-elaborate, was properly subordinate to the design and did not control it. Mr. Hungerford Pollen attributes this revival of classic taste to the discoveries of ancient treasures in Herculaneum and Pompeii, but as these occurred in the former city so long before the time we are discussing as the year 1711, and in the latter in 1750, these can scarcely be the immediate cause; the reason most probably is that a reversion to simpler and purer lines came as a relief and reaction from the over-ornamentation of the previous period. There are not wanting, however, in some of the decorated ornaments of the time, distinct signs of the influence of these discoveries. Drawings and reproductions from frescoes, found in these old Italian cities, were in the possession of the draughtsmen and designers of the time; and an instance in point of their adaptation is to be seen in the small boudoir of the Marquise de Serilly, one of the maids of honour to Marie Antoinette. The decorative woodwork of this boudoir is fitted up in the Kensington Museum. A notable feature in the ornament of woodwork and in metal mountings of this time, is a fluted pilaster with quills or husks filling the flutings some distance from the base, or starting from both base and top and leaving an interval of the hollow fluting plain and free. An example of this will be seen in the next woodcut of a cabinet in the Jones collection, which has also the familiar "Louis Seize" riband surmounting the two oval Sêvres china plaques. When the flutings are in oak, in rich mahogany, or painted white, these husks are gilt, and the effect is chaste and pleasing. Variation was introduced into the gilding of frames by mixing silver with some portion of the gold so as to produce two tints, red gold and green gold; the latter would be used for wreaths and accessories, while the former, or ordinary gilding, was applied to the general surface. The legs of tables are generally fluted, as noticed above, tapering towards the feet, and are relieved from a stilted appearance by being connected by a stretcher. [Illustration: Marqueterie Cabinet. With Plaques of Sêvres China (_In the Jones Collection, South Kensington Museum._)] [Illustration: Writing Table. Made by Riesener for Marie Antoinette. Collection "Mobilier National." (_From a-pen and ink drawing by H. Evans._) Period: Late Louis XV.] There occurs in M. Williamson's valuable contribution to the literature of our subject ("_Les Meubles d'Art du Mobilier National_,") an interesting illustration of the gradual alterations which we are noticing as having taken place in the design of furniture. This is a small writing table, some 3 ft. 6 in. long, made during the reign of Louis XV., but quite in the Marie Antoinette style, the legs tapering and fluted, the frieze having in the centre a plaque of _bronze doré_, the subject being a group of cupids, representing the triumph of Poetry, and on each side a scroll with a head and foliage (the only ornament characteristic of Louis Quinze style) connecting leg and frieze. M. Williamson quotes verbatim the memorandum of which this was the subject. It was made for the Trianon and the date is just one year after Marie Antoinette's marriage:--"Memoire des ouvrages faits et livrés, par les ordres de Monsieur le Chevalier de Fontanieu, pour le garde meuble du Roy par Riesener, ébeniste a l'arsenal Paris," savoir Sept. 21, 1771; and then follows a fully detailed description of the table, with its price, which was 6,000 francs, or £240. There is a full page illustration of this table. The maker of this piece of furniture was the same Riesener whose masterpiece is the magnificent _Bureau du Roi_ which we have already alluded to in the Louvre. This celebrated _ébeniste_ continued to work for Marie Antoinette for about twenty years, until she quitted Versailles, and he probably lived quite to the end of the century, for during the Revolution we find that he served on the Special Commission appointed by the National Convention to decide which works of Art should be retained and which should be sold, out of the mass of treasure confiscated after the deposition and execution of the King. Riesener's designs do not show much fertility, but his work is highly finished and elaborate. His method was generally to make the centre panel of a commode front, or the frieze of a table, a _tour de force_, the marqueterie picture being wonderfully delicate. The subject was generally a vase with fruits and flowers; the surface of the side panels inlaid with diamond-shaped lozenges, or a small diaper pattern in marqueterie; and then a framework of rich ormolu would separate the panels. The centre panel had sometimes a richer frame. His famous commode, made for the Château of Fontainebleau, which cost a million francs (£4,000)--an enormous sum in those days--is one of his _chefs d'oeuvre_, and this is an excellent example of his style. A similar commode was sold in the Hamilton Palace sale for £4,305. An upright secretaire, _en suite_ with the commode, was also sold at the same time for £4,620, and the writing table for £6,000. An illustration of the latter is on the following page, but the details of this elaborate gem of cabinet maker's work, and of Gouthière's skill in mounting, are impossible to reproduce in a woodcut. It is described as follows in Christie's catalogue:-- "Lot 303. An oblong writing table, _en suite_, with drawer fitted with inkstand, writing slide and shelf beneath; an oval medallion of a trophy and flowers on the top, and trophies with four medallions round the sides: stamped T. Riesener and branded underneath with cypher of Marie Antoinette, and _Garde Meuble de la Reine_." There is no date on the table, but the secretaire is stamped 1790, and the commode 1791. If we assume that the table was produced in 1792, these three specimens, which have always been regarded as amongst the most beautiful work of the reign, were almost the last which the unfortunate Queen lived to see completed. [Illustration: The "Marie Antoinette" Writing Table. (_Formerly in the Hamilton Palace Collection._)] [Illustration: Bedstead of Marie Antoinette, From Fontainebleau. Collection "Mobilier National." (_From a pen and ink drawing by H. Evans._) Period: Louis XVI.] The fine work of Riesener required the mounting of an artist of quite equal merit, and in Gouthière he was most fortunate. There is a famous clock case in the Hertford collection, fully signed "Gouthière, ciseleur et doreur du roi à Paris Quai Pelletier, à la Boucle d'or, 1771." He worked, however, chiefly in conjunction with Riesener and David Roentgen for the decoration of their marqueterie. In the Louvre are some beautiful examples of this co-operative work; and also of cabinets in which plaques of very fine black and gold lacquer take the place of marqueterie; the centre panel being a finely chased oval medallion of Gouthière's gilt bronze, with caryatides figures of the same material at the ends supporting the cornice. [Illustration: Cylinder Secretaire, In Marqueterie, with Bronze Gilt Mountings, by Gouthière. (_Mr. Alfred de Rothschild's Collection._) Period: Louis XVI.] A specimen of this kind of work (an upright secretaire, of which we have not been able to obtain a satisfactory representation) formed part of the Hamilton Palace collection, and realised £9,450, the highest price which the writer has ever seen a single piece of furniture bring by auction; it must be regarded as the _chef d'oeuvre_ of Gouthière. In the Jones Collection, at South Kensington, there are also several charming examples of Louis Seize _meubles de luxe_. Some of these are enriched with plaques of Sêvres porcelain, which treatment is better adapted to the more jewel-like mounting of this time than to the rococo style in vogue during the preceding reign. [Illustration: Arm Chair In Louis XVI. Style.] The upholstered furniture became simpler in design; the sofas and chairs have generally, but not invariably, straight fluted tapering legs, but these sometimes have the flutings spiral instead of perpendicular, and the backs are either oval or rectangular, and ornamented with a carved riband which is represented as tied at the top in a lover's knot. Gobelins, Beauvais, and Aubusson tapestry are used for covering, the subjects being in harmony with the taste of the time. A sofa in this style, with settees at the ends, the frame elaborately carved with trophies of arrows and flowers in high relief, and covered with fine old Gobelins tapestry, was sold at the Hamilton Palace sale for £1,176. This was formerly at Versailles. Beautiful silks and brocades were also extensively used both for chairs and for the screens, which at this period were varied in design and extremely pretty. Small two-tier tables of tulip wood with delicate mountings were quite the rage, and small occasional pieces, the legs of which, like those of the chairs, are occasionally curved. An excellent example of a piece with cabriole legs is the charming little Marie Antoinette cylinder-fronted marqueterie escritoire in the Jones Collection (illustrated below). The marqueterie is attributed to Riesener, but, from its treatment being so different from that which he adopted as an almost invariable rule, it is more probably the work of David. [Illustration: Carved and Gilt Causeuse or Settee, and Fauteuil or Arm Chair, Covered with Beauvais tapestry. (Collection "Mobilier National.") (_From a pen and ink drawing by H. Evans._) Period: End of Louis XVI.] [Illustration: Carved and Gilt Canapé or Sofa. Covered with Beauvais tapestry. (Colection "Mobilier Natioanal.") Period: End of Louis XVI.] Another fine specimen illustrated on page 170 is the small cabinet made of kingwood, with fine ormolu mounts, and some beautiful Sêvres plaques. [Illustration: Marqueterie Escritoire. By Davis, said to have belonged to Marie Antoinette. (_Jones Collection, South Kensington Museum._)] The influence exercised by the splendour of the Court of Louis Quatorze, and by the bringing together of artists and skilled handicraftsmen for the adornment of the palaces of France, which we have seen took place during the latter half of the seventeenth century, was not without its effect upon the Industrial Arts of other countries. Macaulay mentions the "bales of tapestry" and other accessories which were sent to Holland to fit up the camp quarters of Louis le Grand when he went there to take the command of his army against William III., and he also tells us of the sumptuous furnishing of the apartments at St. Germains when James II., during his exile, was the guest of Louis. The grandeur of the French King impressed itself upon his contemporaries, and war with Germany, as well as with Holland and England, helped to spread this influence. We have noticed how Wren designed the additions to Hampton Court Palace in imitation of Versailles; and in the chapter which follows this, it will be seen that the designs of Chippendale were really reproductions of French furniture of the time of Louis Quinze. The King of Sweden, Charles XII., "the Madman of the North," as he was called, imitated his great French contemporary, and in the Palace at Stockholm there are still to be seen traces of the Louis Quatorze style in decoration and in furniture; such adornments are out of keeping with the simplicity of the habits of the present Royal family of Sweden. A Bourbon Prince, too, succeeded to the throne of Spain in 1700, and there are still in the palaces and picture galleries of Madrid some fine specimens of French furniture of the three reigns which have just been discussed. It may be taken, therefore, that from the latter part of the seventeenth century the dominant influence upon the design of decorative furniture was of French origin. There is evidence of this in a great many examples of the work of Flemish, German, English, and Spanish cabinet makers, and there are one or two which may be easily referred to which it is worth while to mention. One of these is a corner cupboard of rosewood, inlaid with engraved silver, part of the design being a shield with the arms of an Elector of Cologne; there is also a pair of somewhat similar cabinets from the Bishop's Palace at Salzburg. These are of German work, early eighteenth century, and have evidently been designed after Boule's productions. The shape and the gilt mounts of a secretaire of walnutwood with inlay of ebony and ivory, and some other furniture which, with the other specimens just described, may be seen in the Bethnal Green Museum, all manifest the influence of the French school, when the bombe-fronted commodes and curved lines of chair and table came into fashion. Having described somewhat in detail the styles which prevailed and some of the changes which occurred in France, from the time of Louis XIV. until the Revolution, it is unnecessary for the purposes of this sketch, to do more than briefly refer to the work of those countries which may be said to have adopted, to a greater or less extent, French designs. For reasons already stated, an exception is made in the case of our own country; and the following chapter will be devoted to the furniture of some of the English designers and makers of the latter half of the eighteenth century. Of Italy it may be observed generally that the Renaissance of Raffaele, Leonardo da Vinci, and Michael Angelo, which we have seen became degenerate towards the end of the sixteenth century, relapsed still further during the period which we have been discussing, and although the freedom and grace of the Italian carving, and the elaboration of inlaid arabesques, must always have some merit of their own, the work of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Italy will compare very unfavourably with that of the earlier period of the Renaissance. [Illustration: A Norse Interior, Shewing Chairs of Dutch Design. Period: Late XVII. or Early XVIII. Century.] There are many other museum specimens which might be referred to to prove the influence of French design of the seventeenth and subsequent centuries on that of other countries. The above illustration of a Norse interior shews that this influence penetrated as far as Scandinavia; for while the old-fashioned box-like bedsteads which the Norwegians had retained from early times, and which in a ruder form are still to be found in the cottages of many Scottish counties, especially of those where the Scandinavian connection existed, is a characteristic mark of the country, the design of the two chairs is an evidence of the innovations which had been made upon native fashions. These chairs are in style thoroughly Dutch, of about the end of the seventeenth or early in the eighteenth century; the cabriole legs and shell ornaments were probably the direct result of the influence of the French on the Dutch. The woodcut is from a drawing of an old house in Norwav. [Illustration: Secretaire, In King and Tulip Wood, with Sêvres Plaques and Ormolu Mountings. Period: Early Louis XVI.] It would be unfitting to close this chapter on French furniture without paying a tribute to the munificence and public spirit of Mr. John Jones, whose bequest to the South Kensington Museum constitutes in itself a representative Museum of this class of decorative furniture. Several of the illustrations in this chapter have been taken from this collection. In money value alone, the collection of furniture, porcelain, bronzes, and _articles de vertú,_ mostly of the period embraced within the limits of this chapter, amounts to about £400,000, and exceeds the value of any bequest the nation has ever had. Perhaps the references contained in these few pages to the French furniture of this time may stimulate the interest of the public in, and its appreciation of, this valuable national property. [Illustration: Clock, By Robin, in Marqueterie Case, with Mountings of Gilt Bronze, (_Jones Collection. South Kensington Museum._) Louis XVI. Period.] Soon after this generous bequest was placed in the South Kensington Museum, for the benefit of the public, a leading article appeared in the _Times_, from which the following extract will very appropriately conclude this chapter:--"As the visitor passes by the cases where these curious objects are displayed, he asks himself what is to be said on behalf of the art of which they are such notable examples." Tables, chairs, commodes, secretaires, wardrobes, porcelain vases, marble statuettes, they represent in a singularly complete way the mind and the work of the _ancien régime_. Like Eisen's vignettes, or the _contes_ of innumerable story-tellers, they bring back to us the grace, the luxury, the prettiness, the frivolity of that Court which believed itself, till the rude awakening came, to contain all that was precious in the life of France. A piece of furniture like the little Sêvres-inlaid writing table of Marie Antoinette is, to employ a figure of Balzac's, a document which reveals as much to the social historian as the skeleton of an ichthyosaurus reveals to the palæontologist. It sums up an epoch. A whole world can be inferred from it. Pretty, elegant, irrational, and entirely useless, this exquisite and costly toy might stand as a symbol for the life which the Revolution swept away. [Illustration: Harpsichord, from the Permanent Collection belonging to South Kensington Museum. Date: About 1750.] [Illustration: Italian Sedan Chair. Used at the Baptism of the Grand Ducal Family of Tuscany, now in the South Kensington Museum. Period: Latter Half of XVIII. Century.] Chapter VII. Chippendale and his Contemporaries. Chinese style--Sir William Chambers--The Brothers Adams' work--Pergelesi, Cipriani, and Angelica Kauffmann--Architects of the time--Wedgwood and Flaxman--Chippendale's Work and his Contemporaries--Chair in the Barbers' Hall--Lock, Shearer, Hepplewhite, Ince, Mayhew, Sheraton--Introduction of Satinwood and Mahogany--Gillows of Lancaster and London--History of the Sideboard--The Dining Room--Furniture of the time. Soon after the second half of the eighteenth century had set in, during the latter days of the second George, and the early part of his successor's long reign, there is a distinct change in the design of English decorative furniture. Sir William Chambers, R.A., an architect, who has left us Somerset House as a lasting monument of his talent, appears to have been the first to impart to the interior decoration, of houses what was termed "the Chinese style," after his visit to China, of which a notice was made in the chapter on Eastern furniture: and as he was considered an "oracle of taste" about this time, his influence was very powerful. Chair backs consequently have the peculiar irregular lattice work which is seen in the fretwork of Chinese and Japanese ornaments, and Pagodas, Chinamen and monsters occur in his designs for cabinets. The overmantel which had hitherto been designed with some architectural pretension, now gave way to the larger mirrors which were introduced by the improved manufacture of plate glass: and the chimney piece became lower. During his travels in Italy, Chambers had found some Italian sculptors, and had brought them to England, to carve in marble his designs; they were generally of a free Italian character, with scrolls of foliage and figure ornaments: but being of stone instead of woodwork, would scarcely belong to our subject, save to indicate the change in fashion of the chimney piece, the vicissitudes of which we have already noticed. Chimney pieces were now no longer specially designed by architects, as part of the interior fittings, but were made and sold with the grates, to suit the taste of the purchaser, often quite irrespective of the rooms for which they were intended. It may be said that Dignity gave way to Elegance. Robert Adam, having returned from his travels in France and Italy, had designed and built, in conjunction with his brother James, Adelphi Terrace about 1769, and subsequently Portland Place, and other streets and houses of a like character; the furniture being made, under the direction of Robert, to suit the interiors. There is much interest attaching to No. 25, Portland Place, because this was the house built, decorated and furnished by Robert Adam for his own residence, and, fortunately, the chief reception rooms remain to shew the style then in vogue. The brothers Adam introduced into England the application of composition ornaments to woodwork. Festoons of drapery, wreaths of flowers caught up with rams' heads, or of husks tied with a knot of riband, and oval pateroe to mark divisions in a frieze, or to emphasize a break in the design, are ornaments characteristic of what was termed the Adams style. Robert Adam published between 1778 and 1822 three magnificent volumes, "Works on Architecture." One of these was dedicated to King George III., to whom he was appointed architect. Many of his designs for furniture were carried out by Gillows; there is a good collection of his original drawings in the Soane Museum, Lincoln's Inn Fields. The decoration was generally in low relief, with fluted pilasters, and sometimes a rather stiff Renaissance ornament decorating the panel; the effect was neat and chaste, and a distinct change from the rococo style which had preceded it. The design of furniture was modified to harmonize with such decoration. The sideboard had a straight and not infrequently a serpentine-shaped front, with square tapering legs, and was surmounted by a pair of urn-shaped knife cases, the wood used being almost invariably mahogany, with the inlay generally of plain flutings relieved by fans or oval pateroe in satin wood. Pergolesi, Cipriani and Angelica Kaufmann had been attracted to England by the promise of lucrative employment, and not only decorated the panels of ceilings and walls which were enriched by Adams' "_compo_'" (in reality a revival of the old Italian gesso work), but also painted the ornamental cabinets, occasional tables, and chairs of the time. [Illustration: Fac-simile of Original Drawings by Robert Adam (Reduced).] Towards the end of the century, satin wood was introduced into England from the East Indies; it became very fashionable, and was a favourite ground-work for decoration, the medallions of figure subjects, generally of cupids, wood-nymphs, or illustrations of mythological fables on darker coloured wood, formed an effective relief to the yellow satin wood. Sometimes the cabinet, writing table, or spindle-legged occasional piece, was made entirely of this wood, having no other decoration beyond the beautiful marking of carefully chosen veneers; sometimes it was banded with tulipwood or harewood (a name given to sycamore artificially stained), and at other times painted as just described. A very beautiful example of this last named treatment is the dressing table in the South Kensington Museum, which we give as an illustration, and which the authorities should not, in the writer's opinion, have labelled "Chippendale." Besides Chambers, there were several other architects who designed furniture about this time who have been almost forgotten. Abraham Swan, some of whose designs for wooden chimney pieces in the quasi-classic style are given, flourished about 1758. John Carter, who published "Specimens of Ancient Sculpture and Painting"; Nicholas Revitt and James Stewart, who jointly published "Antiquities of Athens" in 1762; J.C. Kraft, who designed in the Adams' style; W. Thomas, M.S.A., and others, have left us many drawings of interior decorations, chiefly chimney pieces and the ornamental architraves of doors, all of them in low relief and of a classical character, as was the fashion towards the end of the eighteenth century. Josiah Wedgwood, too, turned his attention to the production of plaques in relief, for adaptation to chimney pieces of this character. In a letter written from London to Mr. Bentley, his partner, at the works, he deplores the lack of encouragement in this direction which he received from the architects of his day; he, however, persevered, and by the aid of Flaxman's inimitable artistic skill as a modeller, made several plaques of his beautiful Jasper ware, which were let in to the friezes of chimney pieces, and also into other wood-work. There can be seen in the South Kensington Museum a pair of pedestals of this period (1770-1790) so ornamented. It is now necessary to consider the work of a group of English cabinet makers, who not only produced a great deal of excellent furniture, but who also published a large number of designs drawn with extreme care and a considerable degree of artistic skill. The first of these and the best known was Thomas Chippendale, who appears to have succeeded his father, a chair maker, and to have carried on a large and successful business in St. Martin's Lane, which was at this time an important Art centre, and close to the newly-founded Royal Academy. [Illustration: English Satinwood Dressing Table. With Painted Decoration. End of XVIII. Century.] [Illustration: Chimneypiece and Overmantel. Designed by W. Thomas, Architect. 1783. Very similar to Robert Adam's work.] Chippendale published "The Gentleman and Cabinet Maker's Director," not, as stated in the introduction to the catalogue to the South Kensington Museum, in 1769, but some years previously, as is testified by a copy of the "third edition" of the work which is in the writer's possession and bears date 1762, the first edition having appeared in 1754. The title page of this edition is reproduced in _fac simile_ on page 178. [Illustration: Chairs, With ornament in the Chinese style, by Thomas Chippendale.] This valuable work of reference contains over two hundred copperplate engravings of chairs, sofas, bedsteads, mirror frames, girandoles, torchéres or lamp stands, dressing tables, cabinets, chimney pieces, organs, jardiniéres, console tables, brackets, and other useful and decorative articles, of which some examples are given. It will be observed from these, that the designs of Chippendale are very different from those popularly ascribed to him. Indeed, it would appear that this maker has become better known than any other, from the fact of the designs in his book being recently republished in various forms; his popularity has thus been revived, while the names of his contemporaries are forgotten. For the last fifteen or twenty years, therefore, during which time the fashion has obtained of collecting the furniture of a bygone century, almost every cabinet, table, or mirror-frame, presumably of English manufacture, which is slightly removed from the ordinary type of domestic furniture, has been, for want of a better title, called "Chippendale." As a matter of fact, he appears to have adopted from Chambers the fanciful Chinese ornament, and the rococo style of that time, which was superseded some five-and-twenty years later by the quieter and more classic designs of Adam and his contemporaries. [Illustration: _Fac-Simile of the Title Page of Chippendale's "Director." (Reduced by Photography.) The Original is in Folio Size_. THE GENTLEMAN and CABINET-MAKER'S DIRECTOR: Being a large COLLECTION of the Most ELEGANT and USEFUL DESIGNS OF HOUSEHOLD FURNITURE, In the Most FASHIONABLE TASTE. Including a great VARIETY of CHAIRS, SOFAS, BEDS, and COUCHES; CHINA-TABLES, DRESSING-TABLES, SHAVING-TABLES, BASON-STANDS, and TEAKETTLE-STANDS; FRAMES for MARBLE-SLABS, BUREAU-DRESSING-TABLES, and COMMODES; WRITING-TABLES, and LIBRARY-TABLES; LIBRARY-BOOK-CASES, ORGAN-CASES for private Rooms, or Churches, DESKS, and BOOK-CASES; DRESSING and WRITING-TABLES with BOOK-CASES, TOILETS, CABINETS, and CLOATHS-PRESSES; CHINA-CASES, CHINA-SHELVES, and BOOK-SHELVES; CANDLE-STANDS, TERMS for BUSTS, STANDS for CHINA JARS, and PEDESTALS; CISTERNS for WATER, LANTHORNS, and CHANDELIERS; FIRE-SCREENS, BRACKETS, and CLOCK-CASES; PIER-GLASSES, and TABLE-FRAMES; GIRANDOLES, CHIMNEY-PIECES, and PICTURE-FRAMES; STOVE-GRATES, BOARDERS, FRETS, CHINESE-RAILING, and BRASS-WORK, for Furniture, AND OTHER ORNAMENTS, TO WHICH IS PREFIXED, A Short EXPLANATION of the Five ORDERS of ARCHITECTURE; WITH Proper DIRECTIONS for executing the most difficult Pieces, the Mouldings being exhibited at large, and the Dimensions of each DESIGN specified. The Whole comprehended in Two HUNDRED COPPER-PLATES, neatly engraved. Calculated to improve and refine the present TASTE, and suited to the Fancy and Circumstances of Persons in all Degrees of Life. By THOMAS CHIPPENDALE, CABINET-MAKER and UPHOLSTERER, in St. Martin's Lane, London. THE THIRD EDITION. LONDON: Printed for the AUTHOR, and sold at his House, in St. Martin's Lane; Also by T. BECKET and P.A. DeHONDT, in the Strand. MDCCLXII. ] [Illustration: Fac-simile of a Page in Chippendale's "Director." (The original is folio size.)] [Illustration: Tea Caddy, Carved in the French style. (From Chippendale's "Director.")] In the chapter on Louis XV. and Louis XVI. furniture, it has been shewn how France went through a similar change about this same period. In Chippendale's chairs and console tables, in his state bedsteads and his lamp-stands, one can recognise the broken scrolls and curved lines, so familiar in the bronze mountings of Caffieri. The influence of the change which had occurred in France during the Louis Seize period is equally evident in the Adams' treatment. It was helped forward by the migration into this country of skilled workmen from France, during the troubles of the revolution at the end of the century. Some of Chippendale's designs bear such titles as "French chairs" or a "Bombé-fronted Commode." These might have appeared as illustrations in a contemporary book on French furniture, so identical are they in every detail with the carved woodwork of Picau, of Cauner, or of Nilson, who designed the flamboyant frames of the time of Louis XV. Others have more individuality. In his mirror frames he introduced a peculiar bird with a long snipe-like beak, and rather impossible wings, an imitation of rockwork and dripping water, Chinese figures with pagodas and umbrellas; and sometimes the illustration of Aesop's fables interspersed with scrolls and flowers. By dividing the glass unequally, by the introduction into his design of bevelled pillars with carved capitals and bases, he produced a quaint and pleasing effect, very suitable to the rather effeminate fashion of his time, and in harmony with three-cornered hats, wigs and patches, embroidered waistcoats, knee breeches, silk stockings, and enamelled snuff-boxes. In some of the designs there is a fanciful Gothic, to which he makes special allusion in his preface, as likely to be considered by his critics as impracticable, but which he undertakes to produce, if desired-- "Though some of the profession have been diligent enough to represent them (espescially those after the Gothick and Chinese manner) as so many specious drawings impossible to be worked off by any mechanick whatsoever. I will not scruple to attribute this to Malice, Ignorance, and Inability; and I am confident I can convince all Noblemen, Gentlemen, or others who will honour me with their Commands, that every design in the book can be improved, both as to Beauty and Enrichment, in the execution of it, by "Their most obedient servant, "THOMAS CHIPPENDALE." [Illustration: A Bureau, From Chippendale's "Director."] The reader will notice that in the examples selected from Chippendale's book there are none of those fretwork tables and cabinets which are generally termed "Chippendale." We know, however, that besides the designs which have just been described, and which were intended for gilding, he also made mahogany furniture, and in the "Director" there are drawings of chairs, washstands, writing-tables and cabinets of this description. Fretwork is very rarely seen, but the carved ornament is generally a foliated or curled endive scroll; sometimes the top of a cabinet is finished in the form of a Chinese pagoda. Upon examining a piece of furniture that may reasonably be ascribed to him, it will be found of excellent workmanship, and the wood, always mahogany without any inlay, is richly marked, shewing a careful selection of material. [Illustration: Fac-simile of a Page In Chippendale's "Director." (The original is folio size.)] [Illustration: "French" Commode and Lamp Stands. Designed by T. Chippendale, and Published in His "Director."] [Illustration: Fac-simile of a Page in Chippendale's "Director." (The original is folio size.)] [Illustration: Chimneypiece and Mirror. Designed By T. Chippendale, and Published in His "Director."] [Illustration: PARLOUR CHAIRS BY CHIPPENDALE.] The chairs of Chippendale and his school are very characteristic. If the outline of the back of some of them be compared with the stuffed back of the chair from Hardwick Hall (illustrated in Chap. IV.) it will be seen that the same lines occur, but instead of the frame of the back being covered with silk, tapestry, or other material--as in William III.'s time--Chippendale's are cut open into fanciful patterns; and in his more highly ornate work, the twisted ribands of his design are scarcely to be reconciled with the use for which a dining room chair is intended. The well-moulded sweep of his lines, however, counterbalances this defect to some extent, and a good Chippendale mahogany chair will ever be an elegant and graceful article of furniture. One of the most graceful chairs of about the middle of the century, in the style of Chippendale's best productions, is the Master's Chair in the Hall of the Barbers' Company. Carved in rich Spanish mahogany, and upholstered in morocco leather, the ornament consists of scrolls and cornucopiæ, with flowers charmingly disposed, the arms and motto of the Company being introduced. Unfortunately, there is no certain record as to the designer and maker of this beautiful chair, and it is to be regretted that the date (1865), the year when the Hall was redecorated, should have been placed in prominent gold letters on this interesting relic of a past century. [Illustration: Clock Case, by Chippendale.] Apart from the several books of design noticed in this chapter, there were published two editions of a work, undated, containing many of the drawings found in Chippendale's book. This book was entitled, "Upwards of One Hundred New and Genteel Designs, being all the most approved patterns of household furniture in the French taste. By a Society of Upholders and Cabinet makers." It is probable that Chippendale was a member of this Society, and that some of the designs were his, but that he severed himself from it and published his own book, preferring to advance his individual reputation. The "sideboard" which one so generally hears called "Chippendale" scarcely existed in his time. If it did, it must have been quite at the end of his career. There were side tables, sometimes called "Side-Boards," but they contained neither cellaret nor cupboard: only a drawer for table linen. The names of two designers and makers of mahogany ornamental furniture, which deserve to be remembered equally with Chippendale, are those of W. Ince and J. Mayhew, who were partners in business in Broad Street, Golden Square, and contemporary with him. They also published a book of designs which is alluded to by Thomas Sheraton in the preface to his "Cabinet Maker and Upholsterer's Drawing Book," published in 1793. A few examples from Ince and Mayhew's "Cabinet Maker's Real Friend and Companion" are given, from which it is evident that, without any distinguishing brand, or without the identification of the furniture with the designs, it is difficult to distinguish between the work of these contemporary makers. It is, however, noticeable after careful comparison of the work of Chippendale with that of Ince and Mayhew, that the furniture designed and made by the latter has many more of the characteristic details and ornaments which are generally looked upon as denoting the work of Chippendale; for instance, the fretwork ornaments finished by the carver, and then applied to the plain mahogany, the open-work scroll-shaped backs to encoignures or china shelves, and the carved Chinaman with the pagoda. Some of the frames of chimney glasses and pictures made by Ince and Mayhew are almost identical with those of Chippendale. Other well known designers and manufacturers of this time were Hepplewhite, who published a book of designs very similar to those of his contemporaries, and Matthias Lock, some of whose original drawings were on view in the Exhibition of 1862, and had interesting memoranda attached, giving the names of his workmen and the wages paid: from these it appears that five shillings a day was at that time sufficient remuneration for a skilful wood carver. Another good designer and maker of much excellent furniture of this time was "Shearer," who has been unnoticed by nearly all writers on the subject. In an old book of designs in the author's possession, "Shearer delin" and "published according to Act of Parliament, 1788," appears underneath the representations of sideboards, tables, bookcases, dressing tables, which are very similar in every way to those of Sheraton, his contemporary. A copy of Hepplewhite's book, in the author's possession (published in 1789), contains 300 designs "of every article of household furniture in the newest and most approved taste," and it is worth while to quote from his preface to illustrate the high esteem in which English cabinet work was held at this time. [Illustration: China Shelves, Designed by W. Ince. (Reproduced by Photography from an old Print in the Author's Possession.)] [Illustration: Girandoles and Pier Table, Designed by W. Thomas, Architect, 1783. (Reproduced by Photography from an old Print in the Author's possession.)] "English taste and workmanship have of late years been much sought for by surrounding nations; and the mutability of all things, but more especially of fashions, has rendered the labours of our predecessors in this line of little use; nay, in this day can only tend to mislead those foreigners who seek a knowledge of English taste in the various articles of household furniture." It is amusing to think how soon the "mutabilities of fashion" did for a time supersede many of his designs. A selection of designs from his book is given, and it will be useful to compare them with those of other contemporary makers. From such a comparison it will be seen that in the progress from the rococo of Chippendale to the more severe lines of Sheraton, Hepplewhite forms a connecting link between the two. [Illustration: Toilet Glass. Urn Stand. (_From "Hepplewhite's Guide"._)] The names given to some of these designs appear curious; for instance: "Rudd's table or reflecting dressing table," so called from the first one having been invented for a popular character of that time. "Knife cases," for the reception of the knives which were kept in them, and used to "garnish" the sideboards. "Cabriole chair," implying a stuffed back, and not having reference, as it does now, to the curved form of the leg. "Bar backed sofa," being what we should now term a three or four chair settee, i.e., like so many chairs joined and having an arm at either end. "Library case" instead of Bookcase. "Confidante" and "Duchesse," which were sofas of the time. "Gouty stool," a stool having an adjustable top. "Tea chest," "Urn stand," and other names which have now disappeared from ordinary use in describing similar articles. [Illustration: Ladies' Secretaires, Designed by W. Ince. (Reproduced by Photography from an old Print in the Author's possession.)] [Illustration: Parlour Chairs, Designed by W. Ince.] [Illustration: Desk and Bookcase, Designed by W. Ince. (Reproduced by Photography from an old Print in the Author's possession.)] [Illustration: China Cabinet, Designed by J. Mayhew. (Reproduced from an old Print in the Author's possession).] [Illustration: "Dressing Chairs," Designed by J. Mayhew. These shew the influence of Sir W. Chamber's Chinese style.] Hepplewhite had a _specialité_, to which he alludes in his book, and of which he gives several designs. This was his japanned or painted furniture: the wood was coated with a preparation after the manner of Chinese or Japanese lacquer, and then decorated, generally with gold on a black ground, the designs being in fruits and flowers: and also medallions painted in the style of Cipriani and Angelica Kauffmann. Subsequently, furniture of this character, instead of being japanned, was only painted white. It is probable that many of the chairs of this time which one sees, of wood of inferior quality, and with scarcely any ornament, were originally decorated in the manner just described, and therefore the "carving" of details would have been superfluous. Injury to the enamelling by wear and tear was most likely the cause of their being stripped of their rubbed and partly obliterated decorations, and they were then stained and polished, presenting an appearance which is scarcely just to the designer and manufacturer. In some of Hepplewhite's chairs, too, as in those of Sheraton, one may fancy one sees evidence of the squabbles of two fashionable factions of this time, "the Court party" and the "Prince's party," the latter having the well known Prince of Wales' plumes very prominent, and forming the ornamental support of the back of the chair. Another noticeable enrichment is the carving of wheat ears on the shield shape backs of the chairs. "The plan of a room shewing the proper distribution of the furniture," appears on p. 193 to give an idea of the fashion of the day; it is evident from the large looking glass which overhangs the sideboard that the fashion had now set in to use these mirrors. Some thirty or forty year later this mirror became part of the sideboard, and in some large and pretentious designs which we have seen, the sideboard itself was little better than a support for a huge glass in a heavily carved frame. The dining tables of this period deserve a passing notice as a step in the development of that important member of our "Lares and Penates." What was and is still called the "pillar and claw" table, came into fashion towards the end of last century. It consisted of a round or square top supported by an upright cylinder, which rested on a plinth having three, or sometimes four, feet carved as claws. In order to extend these tables for a larger number of guests, an arrangement was made for placing several together. When apart, they served as pier or side tables, and some of these--the two end ones, being semi-circular--may still be found in some of our old inns.[17] [Illustration: Tea Tray.] [Illustration: Girandole.] [Illustration: Tea Tray.] [Illustration: Parlour Chair, with Prince Of Wales' Plumes.] [Illustration: Pier Table.] [Illustration: Parlour Chair.] [Illustration: Designs of Furniture. From Hepplewhite's "Guide," Published 1787.] [Illustration: Fac-simile of a Page in Hepplewhite's "Cabinet Maker's Guide." Published In 1787.] It was not until 1800 that Richard Gillow, of the well-known firm in Oxford Street, invented and patented the convenient telescopic contrivance which, with slight improvements, has given us the table of the present day. The term still used by auctioneers in describing a modern extending table as "a set of dining tables," is, probably, a survival of the older method of providing for a dinner party. Gillow's patent is described as "an improvement in the method of constructing dining and other tables calculated to reduce the number of legs, pillars and claws, and to facilitate and render easy, their enlargement and reduction." [Illustration: Inlaid Tea Caddy and Top of Pier Tables. (_From "Hepplewhite's Guide"_)] As an interesting link between the present and the past it may be useful here to introduce a slight notice of this well-known firm of furniture manufacturers, for which the writer is indebted to Mr. Clarke, one of the present partners of Gillows. "We have an unbroken record of books dating from 1724, but we existed long anterior to this: all records were destroyed during the Scottish Rebellion in 1745." The house originated in Lancaster, which was then the chief port in the north, Liverpool not being in existence at the time, and Gillows exported furniture largely to the West Indies, importing rum as payment, for which privilege they held a special charter. The house opened in London in 1765, and for some time the Lancaster books bore the heading and inscription, "Adventure to London." On the architect's plans for the premises now so well-known in Oxford Street, occur these words, "This is the way to Uxbridge." Mr. Clarke's information may be supplemented by adding that from Dr. Gillow, whom the writer had the pleasure of meeting some years ago, and was the thirteenth child of the Richard Gillow before mentioned; he learnt that this same Richard Gillow retired in 1830, and died as late as 1866 at the age of 90. Dowbiggin, founder of the firm of Holland and Sons, was an apprentice to Richard Gillow. Mahogany may be said to have come into general use subsequent to 1720, and its introduction is asserted to have been due to the tenacity of purpose of a Dr. Gibbon, whose wife wanted a candle box, an article of common domestic use of the time. The Doctor, who had laid by in the garden of his house in King Street, Covent Garden, some planks sent to him by his brother, a West Indian captain, asked the joiner to use a part of the wood for this purpose; it was found too tough and hard for the tools of the period, but the Doctor was not to be thwarted, and insisted on harder-tempered tools being found, and the task completed; the result was the production of a candle box which was admired by every one. He then ordered a bureau of the same material, and when it was finished invited his friends to see the new work; amongst others, the Duchess of Buckingham begged a small piece of the precious wood, and it soon became the fashion. On account of its toughness, and peculiarity of grain, it was capable of treatment impossible with oak, and the high polish it took by oil and rubbing (not French polish, a later invention), caused it to come into great request. The term "putting one's knees under a friend's mahogany," probably dates from about this time. [Illustration: Kneehole Table, by Sheraton.] Thomas Sheraton, who commenced work some 20 years later than Chippendale, and continued it until the early part of the nineteenth century, accomplished much excellent work in English furniture. The fashion had now changed; instead of the rococo or rock work (literally rock-scroll) and shell (_rocquaille et cocquaille_) ornament, which had gone out, a simpler and more severe taste had come in. In Sheraton's cabinets, chairs, writing tables, and occasional pieces we have therefore no longer the cabriole leg or the carved ornament; but, as in the case of the brothers Adam, and the furniture designed by them for such houses as those in Portland Place, we have now square tapering legs, severe lines, and quiet ornament. Sheraton trusted almost entirely for decoration to his marqueterie. Some of this is very delicate and of excellent workmanship. He introduced occasionally animals with foliated extremities into his scrolls, and he also inlaid marqueterie trophies of musical instruments; but as a rule the decoration was in wreaths of flowers, husks, or drapery, in strict adherence to the fashion of the decorations to which allusion has been made. A characteristic feature of his cabinets was the swan-necked pediment surmounting the cornice, being a revival of an ornament fashionable during Queen Anne's reign. It was then chiefly found in stone, marble, or cut brickwork, but subsequently became prevalent in inlaid woodwork. [Illustration: Chairs, by Sheraton.] Sheraton was apparently a man very well educated for his time, whether self taught or not one cannot say; but that he was an excellent draughtsman, and had a complete knowledge of geometry, is evident from the wonderful drawings in his book, and the careful though rather verbose directions he gives for perspective drawing. Many of his numerous designs for furniture and ornamental items, are drawn to a scale with the geometrical nicety of an engineer's or architect's plan: he has drawn in elevation, plan, and minute detail, each of the five architectural orders. [Illustration: Chair Backs, from Sheraton's "Cabinet Maker."] The selection made here from his designs for the purposes of illustration, is not taken from his later work, which properly belongs to a future chapter, when we come to consider the influence of the French Revolution, and the translation of the "Empire" style to England. Sheraton published "The Cabinet Maker and Upholsterer's Drawing Book" in 1793, and the list of subscribers whose names and addresses are given, throws much light on the subject of the furniture of his time.[18] Amongst these are many of his aristocratic patrons and no less than 450 names and addresses of cabinet makers, chair makers and carvers, exclusive of harpsichord manufacturers, musical instrument makers, upholsterers, and other kindred trades. Included with these we find the names of firms who, from the appointments they held, it may be inferred, had a high reputation for good work and a leading position in the trade, but who, perhaps from the absence of a taste for "getting into print" and from the lack of any brand or mark by which their work can be identified, have passed into oblivion while their contemporaries are still famous. The following names taken from this list are probably those of men who had for many years conducted well known and old established businesses, but would now be but poor ones to "conjure" with, while those of Chippendale, Sheraton, or Hepplewhite, are a ready passport for a doubtful specimen. For instance:--France, Cabinet Maker to His Majesty, St. Martin's Lane; Charles Elliott, Upholder to His Majesty and Cabinet Maker to the Duke of York, Bond Street; Campbell and Sons, Cabinet Makers to the Prince of Wales, Mary-le-bone Street, London. Besides those who held Royal appointments, there were other manufacturers of decorative furniture--Thomas Johnson, Copeland, Robert Davy, a French carver named Nicholas Collet, who settled in England, and many others. In Mr. J.H. Pollen's larger work on furniture and woodwork, which includes a catalogue of the different examples in the South Kensington Museum, there is a list of the various artists and craftsmen who have been identified with the production of artistic furniture either as designers or manufacturers, and the writer has found this of considerable service. In the Appendix to this work, this list has been reproduced, with the addition of several names (particularly those of the French school) omitted by Mr. Pollen, and it will, it is hoped, prove a useful reference to the reader. * * * * * Although this chapter is somewhat long, on account of the endeavour to give more detailed information about English furniture of the latter half of last century, than of some other periods, in consequence of the prevailing taste for our National manufacture of this time, still, in concluding it, a few remarks about the "Sideboard" may be allowed. The changes in form and fashion of this important article of domestic furniture are interesting, and to explain them a slight retrospect is necessary. The word "Buffet," sometimes translated "Sideboard," which was used to describe continental pieces of furniture of the 15th and 16th centuries, does not designate our Sideboard, which may be said to have been introduced by William III.; and of which kind there is a fair specimen in the South Kensington Museum; an illustration of it has been given in the chapter dealing with that period. The term "stately sideboard" occurs in Milton's "Paradise Regained," which was published in 1671, and Dryden, in his translation of Juvenal, published in 1693, when contrasting the furniture of the classical period of which he was writing with that of his own time, uses the following line:-- "No sideboards then with gilded plate were dressed." The fashion in those days of having symmetrical doors in a room, that is, false doors to correspond with the door used for exit, which one still finds in many old houses in the neighbourhood of Portland Place, and particularly in the palaces of St. James' and of Kensington, enabled our ancestors to have good cupboards for the storage of glass, crockery, and reserve wine. After the middle of the eighteenth century, however, these extra doors and the enclosed cupboard gradually disappeared, and soon after the mahogany side table came into fashion it became the custom to supplement this article of furniture by a pedestal cupboard on either side (instead of the cupboards alluded to), one for hot plates and the other for wine. Then, as the thin legs gave the table rather a lanky appearance, the _garde de vin_, or cellaret, was added in the form of an oval tub of mahogany with bands of brass, sometimes raised on low feet with castors for convenience, which was used as a wine cooler. A pair of urn-shaped mahogany vases stood on the pedestals, and these contained--the one hot water for the servants' use in washing the knives, forks and spoons, which being then much more valuable were limited in quantity, and the other held iced water for the guests' use. A brass rail at the back of the side table with ornamental pillars and branches for candles was used, partly to enrich the furniture, and partly to form a support to the handsome pair of knife and spoon cases, which completed the garniture of a gentleman's sideboard of this period. The full page illustrations will give the reader a good idea of this arrangement, and it would seem that the modern sideboard is the combination of these separate articles into one piece of furniture--at different times and in different fashions--first the pedestals joined to the table produced our "pedestal sideboard," then the mirror was joined to the back, the cellarette made part of the interior fittings, and the banishment of knife cases and urns to the realms of the curiosity hunter, or for conversion into spirit cases and stationery holders. The sarcophagus, often richly carved, of course succeeded the simpler cellaret of Sheraton's period. Before we dismiss the furniture of the "dining room" of this period, it may interest some of our readers to know that until the first edition of "Johnson's Dictionary" was published in 1755, the term was not to be found in the vocabularies of our language designating its present use. In Barrat's "Alvearic," published in 1580, "parloir," or "parler," was described as "a place to sup in." Later, "Minsheu's Guide unto Tongues," in 1617, gave it as "an inner room to dine or to suppe in," but Johnson's definition is "a room in houses on the first floor, elegantly furnished for reception or entertainment." [Illustration: Urn Stand.] To the latter part of the eighteenth century--the English furniture of which time has been discussed in this Chapter--belong the quaint little "urn stands" which were made to hold the urn with boiling water, while the tea pot was placed on the little slide which is drawn out from underneath the table top. In those days tea was an expensive luxury, and the urn stand, of which there is an illustration, inlaid in the fashion of the time, is a dainty relic of the past, together with the old mahogany or marqueterie tea caddy, which was sometimes the object of considerable skill and care. One of these designed by Chippendale is illustrated on p. 179, and another by Hepplewhite will be found on p. 194. They were fitted with two and sometimes three bottles or tea-pays of silver or Battersea enamel, to hold the black and green teas, and when really good examples of these daintily-fitted tea caddies are offered for sale, they bring large sums. [Illustration: A Sideboard in Mahogany with Inlay of Satinwood. In the Style of Robert Adam.] The "wine table" of this time deserves a word. These are now somewhat rare, and are only to be found in a few old houses, and in some of the Colleges at Oxford and Cambridge. These were found with revolving tops, which had circles turned out to a slight depth for each glass to stand in, and they were sometimes shaped like the half of a flat ring. These latter were for placing in front of the fire, when the outer side of the table formed a convivial circle, round which the sitters gathered after they had left the dinner table. One of these old tables is still to be seen in the Hall of Gray's Inn, and the writer was told that its fellow was broken and had been "sent away." They are nearly always of good rich mahogany, and have legs more or less ornamental according to circumstances. A distinguishing feature of English furniture of the last century was the partiality for secret drawers and contrivances for hiding away papers or valued articles; and in old secretaires and writing tables we find a great many ingenious designs which remind us of the days when there were but few banks, and people kept money and deeds in their own custody. [Illustration: Carved Jardiniere, by Chippendale.] [Illustration: A China Cabinet, and a Bookcase With Secretaire. Designed by T. Sheraton, and published in his "Cabinet Maker and Upholsterer's Drawing Book," 1793.] Chapter VIII. First Half of the Nineteenth Century The French Revolution and First Empire--Influence on design of Napoleon's Campaigns--The Cabinet presented to Marie Louise--Dutch Furniture of the time--English Furniture--Sheraton's later work--Thomas Hope, architect--George Smith's designs--Fashion during the Regency--Gothic revival--Seddon's Furniture--Other Makers--Influence on design of the Restoration in France--Furniture of William IV. and early part of Queen Victoria's reign--Baroque and Rococo styles--The panelling of rooms, dado, and skirting--The Art Union,--The Society of Arts--Sir Charles Barry and the new Palace of Westminster--Pugin's designs--Auction Prices of Furniture--Christie's--The London Club Houses--Steam--Different Trade Customs--Exhibitions in France and England--Harry Rogers' work--The Queen's cradle--State of Art in England during first part of present reign--Continental designs--Italian carving--Cabinet work--General remarks. Empire Furniture. [Illustration] There are great crises in the history of a nation which stand out in prominent relief. One of these is the French Revolution, which commenced in 1792, and wrought such dire havoc amongst the aristocracy, with so much misery and distress throughout the country. It was an event of great importance, whether we consider the religion, the politics, or the manners and customs of a people, as affecting the changes in the style of the decoration of their homes. The horrors of the Revolution are matters of common knowledge to every schoolboy, and there is no need to dwell either upon them or their consequences, which are so thoroughly apparent. The confiscation of the property of those who had fled the country was added to the general dislocation of everything connected with the work of the industrial arts. Nevertheless it should be borne in mind that amongst the anarchy and disorder of this terrible time in France, the National Convention had sufficient foresight to appoint a Commission, composed of competent men in different branches of Art, to determine what State property in artistic objects should be sold, and what was of sufficient historical interest to be retained as a national possession. Riesener, the celebrated _ébeniste_, whose work we have described in the chapter on Louis Seize furniture, and David, the famous painter of the time, both served on this Commission, of which they must have been valuable members. There is a passage quoted by Mr. C. Perkins, the American translator of Dr. Falke's German work "Kunst im Hause," which gives us the keynote to the great change which took place in the fashion of furniture about the time of the Revolution. In an article on "Art," says this democratic French writer, as early as 1790, when the great storm cloud was already threatening to burst, "We have changed everything; freedom, now consolidated in France, has restored the pure taste of the antique! Farewell to your marqueterie and Boule, your ribbons, festoons, and rosettes of gilded bronze; the hour has come when objects must be made to harmonize with circumstances." Thus it is hardly too much to say that designs were governed by the politics and philosophy of the day; and one finds in furniture of this period the reproduction of ancient Greek forms for chairs and couches; ladies' work tables are fashioned somewhat after the old drawings of sacrificial altars; and the classical tripod is a favourite support. The mountings represent antique Roman fasces with an axe in the centre; trophies of lances, surmounted by a Phrygian cap of liberty; winged figures, emblematical of freedom; and antique heads of helmeted warriors arranged like cameo medallions. After the execution of Robespierre, and the abolition of the Revolutionary Tribunal in 1794, came the choice of the Directory: and then, after Buonaparte's brilliant success in Italy, and the famous expeditions to Syria and Egypt two years later, came his proclamation as First Consul in 1799, which in 1802 was confirmed as a life appointment. We have only to refer to the portrait of the great soldier, represented with the crown of bay leaves and other attributes of old Roman imperialism, to see that in his mind was the ambition of reviving much of the splendour and of the surroundings of the Caesars, whom he took, to some extent, as his models; and that in founding on the ashes of the Revolution a new fabric, with new people about him, all influenced by his energetic personality, he desired to mark his victories by stamping the new order of things with his powerful and assertive individualism. [Illustration: Cabinet in Mahogany with Bronze Gilt Mountings, Presented by Napoleon I. to Marie Louise on his Marriage with her in 1810 Period: Napoleon I.] The cabinet which was designed and made for Marie Louise, on his marriage with her in 1810, is an excellent example of the Napoleonic furniture. The wood used was almost invariably rich mahogany, the colour of which made a good ground for the bronze gilt mounts which were applied. The full-page illustration shews these, which are all classical in character; and though there is no particular grace in the outline or form of the cabinet, there is a certain dignity and solemnity, relieved from oppressiveness by the fine chasing and gilding of the metal enrichments, and the excellent colour and figuring of the rich Spanish mahogany used. On secretaires and tables, a common ornament of this description of furniture, is a column of mahogany, with a capital and base of bronze (either gilt, part gilt, or green), in the form of the head of a sphinx with the foot of an animal; console tables are supported by sphinxes and griffins; and candelabra and wall brackets for candles have winged figures of females, stiff in modelling and constrained in attitude, but almost invariably of good material with careful finish. [Illustration: Tabouret, or Stool, Carved and Gilt; Arm Chair, In Mahogany, with Gilt Bronze Mountings. Period of Napoleon I.] The bas-reliefs in metal which ornament the panels of the friezes of cabinets, or the marble bases of clocks, are either reproductions of mythological subjects from old Italian gems and seals, or represent the battles of the Emperor, in which Napoleon is portrayed as a Roman general. There was plenty of room to replace so much that had disappeared during the Revolution, and a vast quantity of decorative furniture was made during the few years which elapsed before the disaster of Waterloo caused the disappearance of a power which had been almost meteoric in its career. The best authority on "Empire Furniture" is the book of designs, published in 1809 by the architects Percier and Fontaine, which is the more valuable as a work of reference, from the fact that every design represented was actually carried out, and is not a mere exercise of fancy, as is the case with many such books. In the preface the authors modestly state that they are entirely indebted to the antique for the reproduction of the different ornaments; and the originals, from which some of the designs were taken, are still preserved in a fragmentary form in the Museum of the Vatican. The illustrations on p. 205 of an arm chair and a stool, together with that of the tripod table which ornaments the initial letter of this chapter, are favourable examples of the richly-mounted and more decorative furniture of this style. While they are not free from the stiffness and constraint which are inseparable from classic designs as applied to furniture, the rich colour of the mahogany, the high finish and good gilding of the bronze mounts, and the costly silk with which they are covered, render them attractive and give them a value of their own. The more ordinary furniture, however, of the same style, but without these decorative accessories, is stiff, ungainly, and uncomfortable, and seems to remind us of a period in the history of France when political and social disturbance deprived the artistic and pleasure-loving Frenchman of his peace of mind, distracting his attention from the careful consideration of his work. It may be mentioned here that, in order to supply a demand which has lately arisen, chiefly in New York, but also to some extent in England, for the best "Empire" furniture, the French dealers have bought up some of the old undecorated pieces, and by ornamenting them with gilt bronze mounts, cast from good old patterns, have sold them as original examples of the _meubles de luxe_ of the period. In Dutch furniture of this time one sees the reproduction of the Napoleonic fashion--the continuation of the Revolutionists' classicalism. Many marqueterie secretaires, tables, chairs, and other like articles, are mounted with the heads and feet of animals, with lions' heads and sphinxes, designs which could have been derived from no other source; and the general design of the furniture loses its bombé form, and becomes rectangular and severe. Whatever difficulty there may be in sometimes deciding between the designs of the Louis XIV. period, towards its close, and that of Louis XV., there can be no mistake about _l'epoch de la Directoire_ and _le style de l'Empire._ These are marked and branded with the Egyptian expedition, and the Syrian campaign, as legibly as if they all bore the familiar plain Roman N, surmounted by a laurel wreath, or the Imperial eagle which had so often led the French legions to victory. It is curious to notice how England, though so bitterly opposed to Napoleon, caught the infection of the dominant features of design which were prevalent in France about this time. [Illustration: Nelson's Chairs. Designs Published by T. Sheraton, October 29th, 1806.] Thus, in Sheraton's book on Furniture, to which allusion has been made, and from which illustrations have been given in the chapter on "Chippendale and his Contemporaries," there is evidence that, as in France during the influence of Marie Antoinette, there was a classical revival, and the lines became straighter and more severe for furniture, so this alteration was adopted by Sheraton, Shearer, and other English designers at the end of the century. But if we refer to Sheraton's later drawings, which are dated about 1804 to 1806, we see the constrained figures and heads and feet of animals, all brought into the designs as shewn in the "drawing room" chairs here illustrated. These are unmistakable signs of the French "Empire" influence, the chief difference between the French and English work being, that, whereas in French Empire furniture the excellence of the metal work redeems it from heaviness or ugliness, such merit was wanting in England, where we have never excelled in bronze work, the ornament being generally carved in wood, either gilt or coloured bronze-green. When metal was used it was brass, cast and fairly finished by the chaser, but much more clumsy than the French work. Therefore, the English furniture of the first years of the nineteenth century is stiff, massive, and heavy, equally wanting in gracefulness with its French contemporary, and not having the compensating attractions of fine mounting, or the originality and individuality which must always add an interest to Napoleonic furniture. [Illustration: Drawing Room Chair. Design published by T. Sheraton, April, 1804.] [Illustration: Drawing Room Chair. Design published by T. Sheraton, April 1, 1804.] There was, however, made about this time by Gillow, to whose earlier work reference has been made in the previous chapter, some excellent furniture, which, while to some extent following the fashion of the day, did so more reasonably. The rosewood and mahogany tables, chairs, cabinets and sideboards of his make, inlaid with scrolls and lines of flat brass, and mounted with handles and feet of brass, generally representing the heads and claws of lions, do great credit to the English work of this time. The sofa table and sideboard, illustrated on the previous page, are of this class, and shew that Sheraton, too, designed furniture of a less pronounced character, as well as the heavier kind to which reference has been made. [Illustration: "Canopy Bed" Design Published by T. Sheraton, November 9th, 1803.] [Illustration: "Sister's Cylinder Bookcase." Designed by T. Sheraton, 1802.] [Illustration: Sideboard, In Mahogany, with Brass Rail and Convex Mirror at back, Design published by T. Sheraton, 1802.] [Illustration: Sofa Table, Design published by T. Sheraton, 1804.] A very favourable example of the craze in England for classic design in furniture and decoration, is shown in the reproduction of a drawing by Thomas Hope, in 1807, a well-known architect of the time, in which it will be observed that the forms and fashions of some of the chairs and tables, described and illustrated in the chapter on "Ancient Furniture," have been taken as models. There were several makers of first-class furniture, of whom the names of some still survive in the "style and title" of firms of the present day, who are their successors, while those of others have been forgotten, save by some of our older manufacturers and auctioneers, who, when requested by the writer, have been good enough to look up old records and revive the memories of fifty years ago. Of these the best known was Thomas Seddon, who came from Manchester and settled in Aldersgate Street. His two sons succeeded to the business, became cabinet makers to George IV., and furnished and decorated Windsor Castle. At the King's death their account was disputed, and £30,000 was struck off, a loss which necessitated an arrangement with their creditors. Shortly after this, however, they took the barracks of the London Light Horse Volunteers in the Gray's Inn Road (now the Hospital), and carried on there for a time a very extensive business. Seddon's work ranked with Gillow's, and they shared with that house the best orders for furniture. Thomas Seddon, painter of Oriental subjects, who died in 1856, and P. Seddon, a well-known architect, were grandsons of the original founder of the firm. On the death of the elder brother, Thomas, the younger one then transferred his connection to the firm of Johnstone and Jeanes, in Bond Street, another old house which still carries on business as "Johnstone and Norman," and who some few years ago executed a very extravagant order for an American millionaire. This was a reproduction of Byzantine designs in furniture of cedar, ebony, ivory, and pearl, made from drawings by Mr. Alma Tadema, R.A. [Illustration: Design of a Room, in the Classic Style, by Thomas Hope, Architect, In 1807.] Snell, of Albemarle Street, had been established early in the century, and obtained an excellent reputation; his specialité was well-made birch bedroom suites, but he also made furniture of a general description. The predecessor of the present firm of Howard and Son, who commenced business in Whitechapel as early as 1800, and the first Morant, may all be mentioned as manufacturers of the first quarter of the century. Somewhat later, Trollopes, of Parliament Street; Holland, who had succeeded Dowbiggin (Gillow's apprentice), first in Great Pulteney Street, and subsequently at the firm's present address; Wilkinson, of Ludgate Hill, founder of the present firm of upholsterers in Bond Street; Aspinwall, of Grosvenor Street; the second Morant, of whom the great Duke of Wellington made a personal friend; and Grace, a prominent decorator of great taste, who carried out many of Pugin's Gothic designs, were all men of good reputation. Miles and Edwards, of Oxford Street, whom Hindleys succeeded, were also well known for good middle-class furniture. These are some of the best known manufacturers of the first half of the present century, and though until after the great Exhibition there was, as a rule, little in the designs to render their productions remarkable, the work of those named will be found sound in construction, and free from the faults which accompany the cheap and showy reproductions of more pretentious styles which mark so much of the furniture of the present day. With regard to this, more will be said in the next chapter. There was then a very limited market for any but the most commonplace furniture. Our wealthy people bought the productions of French cabinet makers, either made in Paris or by Frenchmen who came over to England, and the middle classes were content with the most ordinary and useful articles. If they had possessed the means they certainly had neither the taste nor the education to furnish more ambitiously. The great extent of suburbs which now surround the Metropolis, and which include such numbers of expensive and extravagantly-fitted residences of merchants and tradesmen, did not then exist. The latter lived over their shops or warehouses, and the former only aspired to a dull house in Bloomsbury, or, like David Copperfield's father-in-law, Mr. Spenlow, a villa at Norwood, or perhaps a country residence at Hampstead or Highgate. In 1808 a designer and maker of furniture, George Smith by name, who held the appointment of "Upholder extraordinary to H.R.H. the Prince of Wales," and carried on business at "Princess" Street, Cavendish Square, produced a book of designs, 158 in number, published by "Wm. Taylor," of Holborn. These include cornices, window drapery, bedsteads, tables, chairs, bookcases, commodes, and other furniture, the titles of some of which occur for about the first time in our vocabularies, having been adapted from the French. "Escritore, jardiniere, dejuné tables, chiffoniers" (the spelling copied from Smith's book), all bear the impress of the pseudo-classic taste; and his designs, some of which are reproduced, shew the fashion of our so-called artistic furniture in England at the time of the Regency. Mr. Smith, in the "Preliminary Remarks" prefacing the illustrations, gives us an idea of the prevailing taste, which it is instructive to peruse, looking back now some three-quarters of a century:-- [Illustration: "Library Fauteuil." Reproduced from Smith's Book of Designs, published in 1804] "The following practical observations on the various woods employed in cabinet work may be useful. Mahogany, when used in houses of consequence, should be confined to the parlour and the bedchamber floors. In furniture for these apartments the less inlay of other woods, the more chaste will be the style of work. If the wood be of a fine, compact, and bright quality, the ornaments may be carved clean in the mahogany. Where it may be requisite to make out panelling by an inlay of lines, let those lines be of brass or ebony. In drawing-rooms, boudoirs, ante-rooms, East and West India satin woods, rosewood, tulip wood, and the other varieties of woods brought from the East, may be used; with satin and light coloured woods the decorations may be of ebony or rosewood; with rosewood let the decorations be _ormolu_, and the inlay of brass. Bronze metal, though sometimes used with satin wood, has a cold and poor effect: it suits better on gilt work, and will answer well enough on mahogany." [Illustration: "Parlor Chairs," Shewing the Inlay of Brass referred to. From Smith's Book of Designs, published 1808.] Amongst the designs published by him are some few of a subdued Gothic character; these are generally carved in light oak, or painted light stone colour, and have, in some cases, heraldic shields, with crests and coats of arms picked out in colour. There are window seats painted to imitate marble, with the Roman or Greco-Roman ornaments painted green to represent bronze. The most unobjectionable are mahogany with bronze green ornaments. Of the furniture of this period there are several pieces in the Mansion House, in the City of London, which apparently was partly refurnished about the commencement of the century. [Illustration: Bookcase. Design Published by T. Sheraton, June 12th, 1806. _Note_.--Very similar bookcases are in the London Mansion House.] In the Court Room of the Skinners' Company there are tables which are now used' with extensions, so as to form a horseshoe table for committee meetings. They are good examples of the heavy and solid carving in mahogany, early in the century before the fashion had gone out of representing the heads and feet of animals in the designs of furniture. These tables have massive legs, with lion's heads and claws, carved with great skill and shewing much spirit, the wood being of the best quality and rich in color. [Illustration: "Drawing Room Chairs in Profile." From G. Smith's Book, published 1808.] Early Victorian. In the work of the manufacturers just enumerated, may be traced the influence of the "Empire" style. With the restoration, however, of the Monarchy in France came the inevitable change in fashions, and "_Le style de l'Empire_" was condemned. In its place came a revival of the Louis Quinze scrolls and curves, but with less character and restraint, until the style we know as "baroque," [19] or debased "rococo," came in. Ornament of a florid and incongruous character was lavished on decorative furniture, indicative of a taste for display rather than for appropriate enrichment. It had been our English custom for some long period to take our fashions from France, and, therefore, about the time of William IV. and during the early part of the present Queen's reign, the furniture for our best houses was designed and made in the French style. In the "Music" Room at Chatsworth are some chairs and footstools used at the time of the Coronation of William IV. and Queen Adelaide, which have quite the appearance of French furniture. The old fashion of lining rooms with oak panelling, which has been noticed in an earlier chapter, had undergone a change which is worth recording. If the illustration of the Elizabethan oak panelling, as given in the English section of Chapter III., be referred to, it will be seen that the oak lining reaches from the floor to within about two or three feet of the cornice. Subsequently this panelling was divided into an upper and a lower part, the former commencing about the height of the back of an ordinary chair, a moulding or chair-rail forming a capping to the lower part. Then pictures came to be let into the panelling; and presently the upper part was discarded and the lower wainscoting remained, properly termed the Dado,[20] which we have seen revived both in wood and in various decorative materials of the present day. During the period we are now discussing, this arrangement lost favour in the eyes of our grandfathers, and the lowest member only was retained, which is now termed the "skirting board." As we approach a period that our older contemporaries can remember, it is very interesting to turn over the leaves of the back numbers of such magazines and newspapers as treated of the Industrial Arts. The _Art Union_, which changed its title to the _Art Journal_ in 1849, had then been in existence for about ten years, and had done good work in promoting the encouragement of Art and manufactures. The "Society of Arts" had been formed in London as long ago as 1756, and had given prizes for designs and methods of improving different processes of manufacture. Exhibitions of the specimens sent in for competition for the awards were, and are still, held at their house in Adelphi Buildings. Old volumes of "Transactions of the Society" are quaint works of reference with regard to these exhibitions. About 1840, Mr., afterwards Sir, Charles Barry, R.A., had designed and commenced the present, or, as it was then called, the New Palace of Westminster, and, following the Gothic character of the building, the furniture and fittings were naturally of a design to harmonize with what was then quite a departure from the heavy architectural taste of the day. Mr. Barry was the first in this present century to leave the beaten track, although the Reform and Travellers' Clubs had already been designed by him on more classic lines. The Speaker's chair in the House of Commons is evidently designed after one of the fifteenth century "canopied seats," which have been noticed and illustrated in the second chapter; and the "linen scroll pattern" panels can be counted by the thousand in the Houses of Parliament and the different official residences which form part of the Palace. The character of the work is subdued and not flamboyant, is excellent in design and workmanship, and is highly creditable, when we take into consideration the very low state of Art in England fifty years ago. This want of taste was very much discussed in the periodicals of the day, and, yielding to expressed public opinion, Government had in 1840-1 appointed a Select Committee to take into consideration the promotion of the fine Arts in the country, Mr. Charles Barry, Mr. Eastlake, and Sir Martin Shee, R.A., being amongst the witnesses examined. The report of this Committee, in 1841, contained the opinion "That such an important and National work as the erection of the two Houses of Parliament affords an opportunity which ought not to be neglected of encouraging, not only the higher, but every subordinate branch of fine Art in this country." Mr. Augustus Welby Pugin was a well-known designer of the Gothic style of furniture of this time. Born in 1811, he had published in 1835 his "Designs for Gothic Furniture," and later his "Glossary of Ecclesiastical Ornament and Costume"; and by skilful application of his knowledge to the decorations of the different ecclesiastical buildings he designed, his reputation became established. One of his designs is here reproduced. Pugin's work and reputation have survived, notwithstanding the furious opposition he met with at the time. In a review of one of his books, in the _Art Union_ of 1839, the following sentence completes the criticism:--"As it is a common occurrence in life to find genius mistaken for madness, so does it sometimes happen that a madman is mistaken for a genius. Mr. Welby Pugin has oftentimes appeared to us to be a case in point." [Illustration: Prie-dieu, In Carved Oak, enriched with Painting and Gilding. Designed by Mr. Pugin, and manufactured by Mr. Crace, London.] At this time furniture design and manufacture, as an Industrial Art in England, seems to have attracted no attention whatever. There are but few allusions to the design of decorative woodwork in the periodicals of the day; and the auctioneers' advertisements--with a few notable exceptions, like that of the Strawberry Hill Collection of Horace Walpole, gave no descriptions; no particular interest in the subject appears to have been manifested, save by a very limited number of the dilettanti, who, like Walpole, collected the curios and cabinets of two or three hundred years ago. [Illustration: Secretaire And Bookcase, In Carved Oak, in the style of German Gothic. (_From Drawing by Professor Heideloff, Published in the "Art Union," 1816._)] York House was redecorated and furnished about this time, and as it is described as "Excelling any other dwelling of its own class in regal magnificence and vieing with the Royal Palaces of Europe," we may take note of an account of its re-equipment, written in 1841 for the _Art Journal_. This notice speaks little for the taste of the period, and less for the knowledge and grasp of the subject by the writer of an Art critique of the day:--"The furniture generally is of no particular style, but, on the whole, there is to be found a mingling of everything, in the best manner of the best epochs of taste." Writing further on of the ottoman couches, "causeuses," etc., the critic goes on to tell of an alteration in fashion which had evidently just taken place:--"Some of them, in place of plain or carved rosewood or mahogany, are ornamented in white enamel, with classic subjects in bas-relief of perfect execution." Towards the close of the period embraced by the limits of this chapter, the eminent firm of Jackson and Graham were making headway, a French designer named Prignot being of considerable assistance in establishing their reputation for taste; and in the Exhibition which was soon to take place, this firm took a very prominent position. Collinson and Lock, who have recently acquired this firm's premises and business, were both brought up in the house as young men, and left some thirty odd years ago for Herrings, of Fleet Street, whom they succeeded about 1870. Another well-known decorator who designed and manufactured furniture of good quality was Leonard William Collmann, first of Bouverie Street and later of George Street, Portman Square. He was a pupil of Sydney Smirke, R.A. (who designed and built the Carlton and the Conservative Clubs), and was himself an excellent draughtsman, and carried out the decoration and furnishing of many public buildings, London clubs, and mansions of the nobility and gentry. His son is at present Director of Decorations to Her Majesty at Windsor Castle. Collmann's designs were occasionally Gothic, but generally classic. There is evidence of the want of interest in the subject of furniture in the auctioneers' catalogues of the day. By the courtesy of Messrs. Christie and Manson, the writer has had access to the records of this old firm, and two or three instances of sales of furniture may be given. While the catalogues of the Picture sales of 1830-40 were printed on paper of quarto size, and the subjects described at length, those of "Furniture" are of the old-fashioned small octavo size, resembling the catalogue of a small country auctioneer of the present day, and the printed descriptions rarely exceed a single line. The prices very rarely amount to more than £10; the whole proceeds of a day's sale were often less than £100, and sometimes did not reach £50. At the sale of "Rosslyn House," Hampstead, in 1830, a mansion of considerable importance, the highest-priced article was "A capital maghogany pedestal sideboard, with hot closet, cellaret, 2 plate drawers, and fluted legs," which brought £32. At the sale of the property of "A man of Fashion," "a marqueterie cabinet, inlaid with trophies, the panels of Sêvres china, mounted in ormolu," sold for twenty-five guineas; and a "Reisener (_sic_) table, beautifully inlaid with flowers, and drawers," which appears to have been reserved at nine guineas, was bought in at eight-and-a-half guineas. Frequenters of Christie's of the present day who have seen such furniture realize as many pounds as the shillings included in such sums, will appreciate the enormously increased value of really good old French furniture. Perhaps the most noticeable comparison between the present day and that of half-a-century ago may be made in reading through the prices of the great sale at Stowe House, in 1848, when the financial difficulties of the Duke of Buckingham caused the sale by auction which lasted thirty-seven days, and realised upwards of £71,000, the proceeds of the furniture amounting to £27,152. We have seen in the notice of French furniture that armoires by Boule have, during the past few years, brought from £4,000 to £6,000 each under the hammer, and the want of appreciation of this work, probably the most artistic ever produced by designer and craftsman, is sufficiently exemplified by the statement that at the Stowe sale two of Boule's famous armoires, of similar proportions to those in the Hamilton Palace and Jones Collections, were sold for £21 and £19 8s. 6d. respectively. We are accustomed now to see the bids at Christie's advance by guineas, by fives and by tens; and it is amusing to read in these old catalogues of marqueterie tables, satin wood cabinets, rosewood pier tables, and other articles of "ornamental furniture," as it was termed, being knocked down to Town and Emanuel, Webb, Morant, Hitchcock, Raldock, Forrest, Redfearn, Litchfield (the writer's father), and others who were the buyers and regular attendants at "Christie's" (afterwards Christie and Manson) of 1830 to 1845, for such sums as 6s., 15s., and occasionally £10 or £15. A single quotation is given, but many such are to be found:--Sale on February 25th and 26th, 1841. Lot 31. "A small oval table, with a piece of Sêvres porcelain painted with flowers. 6s." It is pleasant to remember, as some exception to this general want of interest in the subject, that in 1843 there was held at Gore House, Kensington, then the fashionable residence of Lady Blessington, an exhibition of old furniture; and a series of lectures, illustrated by the contributions, was given by Mr., now Sir, J.C. Robinson. The Venetian State chair, illustrated on p. 57, was amongst the examples lent by the Queen on that occasion. Specimens of Boule's work and some good pieces of Italian Renaissance were also exhibited. A great many of the older Club houses of London were built and furnished between 1813 and 1851, the Guards' being of the earlier date, and the Army and Navy of the latter; and during the intervening thirty odd years the United Service, Travellers', Union, United University, Athenaeum, Oriental, Wyndham, Oxford and Cambridge, Reform, Carlton, Garrick, Conservative, and some others were erected and fitted up. Many of these still retain much of the furniture of Gillows, Seddons, and some of the other manufacturers of the time whose work has been alluded to, and these are favourable examples of the best kind of cabinet work done in England during the reign of George IV., William IV., and that of the early part of Queen Victoria. It is worth recording, too, that during this period, steam power, which had been first applied to machinery about 1815, came into more general use in the manufacture of furniture, and with its adoption there seems to have been a gradual abandonment of the apprenticeship system in the factories and workshops of our country; and the present "piece work" arrangement, which had obtained more or less since the English cabinet makers had brought out their "Book of Prices" some years previously, became generally the custom of the trade, in place of the older "day work" of a former generation. [Illustration: Cradle, In Boxwood, for H.M. the Queen. Designed and Carved by H. Rogers, London.] In France the success of national exhibitions had become assured, the exhibitors having increased from only 110 when the first experiment was tried in 1798, by leaps and bounds, until at the eleventh exhibition, in 1849, there were 4,494 entries. The _Art Journal_ of that year gives us a good illustrated notice of some of the exhibits, and devotes an article to pointing out the advantages to be gained by something of the kind taking place in England. From 1827 onwards we had established local exhibitions in Dublin, Leeds, and Manchester. The first time a special building was devoted to exhibition of manufactures was at Birmingham in 1849; and from the illustrated review of this in the _Art Journal_ one can see there was a desire on the part of our designers and manufacturers to strike out in new directions and make progress. We are able to reproduce some of the designs of furniture of this period; and in the cradle, designed and carved in Turkey-boxwood, for the Queen, by Mr. Harry Rogers, we have a fine piece of work, which would not have disgraced the latter period of the Renaissance. Indeed, Mr. Rogers was a very notable designer and carver of this time; he had introduced his famous boxwood carvings about seven years previously. [Illustration: Design for a Tea Caddy, By J. Strudwick, for Inlaying and Ivory. Published as one of the "Original Designs for Manufacturers" in _Art Journal_, 1829.] The cradle was also, by the Queen's command, sent to the Exhibition, and it may be worth while quoting the artist's description of the carving:--"In making the design for the cradle it was my intention that the entire object should symbolize the union of the Royal Houses of England with that of Saxe-Coburg and Gothe, and, with this view, I arranged that one end should exhibit the Arms and national motto of England, and the other those of H.R.H. Prince Albert. The inscription, 'Anno, 1850,' was placed between the dolphins by Her Majesty's special command." [Illustration: Design for One of the Wings of a Sideboard, By W. Holmes. Exhibited at the "Society of Art" in 1818, and published by the _Art Journal_ in 1829.] In a criticism of this excellent specimen of work, the _Art Journal_ of the time said:--"We believe the cradle to be one of the most important examples of the art of wood carving ever executed in this country." Rogers was also a writer of considerable ability on the styles of ornament; and there are several contributions from his pen to the periodicals of the day, besides designs which were published in the _Art Journal_ under the heading of "Original Designs for Manufacturers." These articles appeared occasionally, and contained many excellent suggestions for manufacturers and carvers, amongst others, the drawings of H. Fitzcook, one of whose designs for a work table we are able to reproduce. Other more or less constant contributors of original designs for furniture were J. Strudwick and W. Holmes, a design from the pencil of each of whom is given. [Illustration: Design for a Work Table, By H. Fitzcook. Published as one of the "Original Designs for Manufacturers" in the _Art Journal_, 1850.] But though here and there in England good designers came to the front, as a general rule the art of design in furniture and decorative woodwork was at a very low ebb about this time. In furniture, straight lines and simple curves may be plain and uninteresting, but they are by no means so objectionable as the over ornamentation of the debased rococo style, which obtained in this country about forty years ago; and if the scrolls and flowers, the shells and rockwork, which ornamented mirror frames, sideboard backs, sofas, and chairs, were debased in style, even when carefully carved in wood, the effect was infinitely worse when, for the sake of economy, as was the case with the houses of the middle classes, this elaborate and laboured enrichment was executed in the fashionable stucco of the day. Large mirrors, with gilt frames of this material, held the places of honour on the marble chimney piece, and on the console, or pier table, which was also of gilt stucco, with a marble slab. The cheffonier, with its shelves having scroll supports like an elaborate S, and a mirror at the back, with a scrolled frame, was a favourite article of furniture. Carpets were badly designed, and loud and vulgar in colouring; chairs, on account of the shape and ornament in vogue, were unfitted for their purpose, on account of the wood being cut across the grain; the fire-screen, in a carved rosewood frame, contained the caricature, in needlework, of a spaniel, or a family group of the time, ugly enough to be in keeping with its surroundings. The dining room was sombre and heavy. The pedestal sideboard, with a large mirror in a scrolled frame at the back, had come in; the chairs were massive and ugly survivals of the earlier reproductions of the Greek patterns, and, though solid and substantial, the effect was neither cheering nor refining. In the bedrooms were winged wardrobes and chests of drawers; dressing tables and washstands, with scrolled legs, nearly always in mahogany; the old four-poster had given way to the Arabian or French bedstead, and this was being gradually replaced by the iron or brass bedsteads, which came in after the Exhibition had shewn people the advantages of the lightness and cleanliness of these materials. In a word, from the early part of the present century, until the impetus given to Art by the great Exhibition had had time to take effect, the general taste in furnishing houses of all but a very few persons, was at about its worst. In other countries the rococo taste had also taken hold. France sustained a higher standard than England, and such figure work as was introduced into furniture was better executed, though her joinery was inferior. In Italy old models of the Renaissance still served as examples for reproduction, but the ornament became more carelessly carved and the decoration less considered. Ivory inlaying was largely executed in Milan and Venice; mosaics of marble were specialites of Rome and of Florence, and were much applied to the decoration of cabinets; Venice was busy manufacturing carved walnutwood furniture in buffets, cabinets, Negro page boys, elaborately painted and gilt, and carved mirror frames, the chief ornaments of which were cupids and foliage. Italian carving has always been free and spirited, the figures have never been wanting in grace, and, though by comparison with the time of the Renaissance there is a great falling off, still, the work executed in Italy during the present century has been of considerable merit as regards ornament, though this has been overdone. In construction and joinery, however, the Italian work has been very inferior. Cabinets of great pretension and elaborate ornament, inlaid perhaps with ivory, lapislazuli, or marbles, are so imperfectly made that one would think ornament, and certainly not durability, had been the object of the producer. In Antwerp, Brussels, Liege, and other Flemish Art centres, the School of Wood Carving, which came in with the Renaissance, appears to have been maintained with more or less excellence. With the increased quality of the carved woodwork manufactured, there was a proportion of ill-finished and over-ornamented work produced; and although, as has been before observed, the manufacture of cheap marqueterie in Amsterdam and other Dutch cities was bringing the name of Dutch furniture into ill-repute--still, so far as the writer's observations have gone, the Flemish wood-carver appears to have been, at the time now under consideration, ahead of his fellow craftsmen in Europe; and when in the ensuing chapter we come to notice some of the representative exhibits in the great International Competition of 1851, it will be seen that the Antwerp designer and carver was certainly in the foremost rank. In Austria, too, some good cabinet work was being carried out, M. Leistler, of Vienna, having at the time a high reputation. In Paris the house of Fourdinois was making a name which, in subsequent exhibitions, we shall see took a leading place amongst the designers and manufacturers of decorative furniture. England, it has been observed, was suffering from languor in Art industry. The excellent designs of the Adams and their school, which obtained early in the century, had been supplanted, and a meaningless rococo style succeeded the heavy imitations of French pseudo-classic furniture. Instead of, as in the earlier and more tasteful periods, when architects had designed woodwork and furniture to accord with the style of their buildings, they appear to have then, as a general rule, abandoned the control of the decoration of interiors, and the result was one which--when we examine our National furniture of half a century ago--has not left us much to be proud of, as an artistic and industrious people. Some notice has been taken of the appreciation of this unsatisfactory state of things by the Government of the time, and by the Press; and, as with a knowledge of our deficiency, came the desire and the energy to bring about its remedy, we shall see that, with the Exhibition of 1851, and the intercourse and the desire to improve, which naturally followed that great and successful effort, our designers and craftsmen profited by the great stimulus which Art and Industry then received. [Illustration: Venetian Stool of Carved Walnut Wood.] [Illustration: Sideboard in Carved Oak, with Cellaret. Designed and Manufactured by Mr. Gillow, London. 1851 Exhibition.] [Illustration: Chimneypiece and Bookcase. In carved walnut wood with colored marbles inlaid and doors of perforated brass. Designed By Mr. T. R. Macquoid, Architect, and Manufactured by Messrs. Holland & Sons. London, 1851 Exhibition.] [Illustration: Cabinet in the Mediaeval Style. Designed and Manufactured by Mr. Grace, London. 1851 Exhibition.] [Illustration: Bookcase in Carved Wood. Designed and Manufactured by Messrs. Jackson & Graham, London, 1851 Exhibition.] [Illustration: Grand Pianoforte. In Ebony inlaid, and enriched with Gold in relief. Designed and Manufactured by Messrs. Broadwood, London. 1851 Exhibition] Chapter IX. From 1851 to the Present Time. THE GREAT EXHIBITION: Exhibitors and contemporary Cabinet Makers--Exhibition of 1862, London; 1867, Paris; and subsequently--Description of Illustrations--Fourdinois, Wright, and Mansfield--The South Kensington Museum--Revival of Marquetry--Comparison of Present Day with that of a Hundred Years ago--Æstheticism--Traditions--Trades-Unionism--The Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society--Independence of Furniture--Present Fashions--Writers on Design--Modern Furniture in other Countries--Concluding Remarks. [Illustration] In the previous chapter attention has been called to the success of the National Exhibition in Paris of 1849; in the same year the competition of our manufacturers at Birmingham gave an impetus to Industrial Art in England, and there was about this time a general forward movement, with a desire for an International Exhibition on a grand scale. Articles advocating such a step appeared in newspapers and periodicals of the time, and, after much difficulty, and many delays, a committee for the promotion of this object was formed. This resulted in the appointment of a Royal Commission, and the Prince Consort, as President of this Commission, took the greatest personal interest in every arrangement for this great enterprise. Indeed, there can be no doubt, that the success which crowned the work was, in a great measure, due to his taste, patience, and excellent business capacity. It is no part of our task to record all the details of an undertaking which, at the time, was a burning question of the day, but as we cannot but look upon this Exhibition of 1851 as one of the landmarks in the history of furniture, it is worth while to recall some particulars of its genesis and accomplishment. The idea of the Exhibition of 1851 is said to have been originally due to Mr. F. Whishaw, Secretary of the Society of Arts, as early as 1844, but no active steps were taken until 1849, when the Prince Consort, who was President of the Society, took the matter up very warmly. His speech at one of the meetings contained the following sentence:-- "Now is the time to prepare for a great Exhibition--an Exhibition worthy of the greatness of this country, not merely national in its scope and benefits, but comprehensive of the whole world; and I offer myself to the public as their leader, if they are willing to assist in the undertaking." [Illustration: Lady's Escritoire, In White Wood, Carved with Rustic Figures. Designed and Manufactured by M. Wettli, Berne, Switzerland. 1851 Exhibition, London.] To Mr. (afterwards Sir) Joseph Paxton, then head gardener to the Duke of Devonshire, the general idea of the famous glass and iron building is due. An enterprising firm of contractors. Messrs. Fox and Henderson, were entrusted with the work; a guarantee fund of some £230,000 was raised by public subscriptions; and the great Exhibition was opened by Her Majesty on the 1st of May, 1851. At a civic banquet in honour of the event, the Prince Consort very aptly described the object of the great experiment:--"The Exhibition of 1851 would afford a true test of the point of development at which the whole of mankind had arrived in this great task, and a new starting point from which all nations would be able to direct their further exertions." The number of exhibitors was some 17,000, of whom over 3,000 received prize and council medals; and the official catalogue, compiled by Mr. Scott Russell, the secretary, contains a great many particulars which are instructive reading, when we compare the work of many of the firms of manufacturers, whose exhibits are therein described, with their work of the present day. The _Art Journal_ published a special volume, entitled "The Art Journal Illustrated Catalogue," with woodcuts of the more important exhibits, and, by the courtesy of the proprietors, a small selection is reproduced, which will give the reader an idea of the design of furniture, both in England and the chief Continental industrial centres at that time. With regard to the exhibits of English firms, of which these illustrations include examples, little requires to be said, in addition to the remarks already made in the preceding chapter, of their work previous to the Exhibition. One of the illustrations, however, may be further alluded to, since the changes in form and character of the Pianoforte is of some importance in the consideration of the design of furniture. Messrs. Broadwood's Grand Pianoforte (illustrated) was a rich example of decorative woodwork in ebony and gold, and may be compared with the illustration on p. 172 of a harpsichord, which the Piano had replaced about 1767, and which at and since the time of the 1851 Exhibition supplies evidence of the increased attention devoted to decorative furniture. In the Appendix will be found a short notice of the different phases through which the ever-present piano has passed, from the virginal, or spinette--of which an illustration will be found in "A Sixteenth Century Room," in Chapter III.--down to the latest development of the decoration of the case of the instrument by leading artists of the present day. Mr. Rose, of Messrs. Broadwood, whose firm was established at this present address in 1732, has been good enough to supply the author with the particulars for this notice. Other illustrations, taken from the exhibits of foreign cabinet makers, as well as those of our English manufacturers, have been selected, being fairly representative of the work of the time, rather than on account of their own intrinsic excellence. It will be seen from these illustrations that, so far as figure carving and composition are concerned, our foreign rivals, the Italians, Belgians, Austrians, and French, were far ahead of us. In mere construction and excellence of work we have ever been able to hold our own, and, so long as our designers have kept to beaten tracks, the effect is satisfactory. It is only when an attempt has been made to soar above the conventional, that the effort is not so successful. [Illustration: Lady's Work Table and Screen. In Papier-maché. 1851 Exhibition, London.] In looking over the list of exhibits, one finds evidence of the fickleness of fashion. The manufacture of decorative articles of furniture of _papier-maché_ was then very extensive, and there are several specimens of this class of work, both by French and English firms. The drawing-room of 1850 to 1860 was apparently incomplete without occasional chairs, a screen with painted panel, a work table, or some small cabinet or casket of this decorative but somewhat flimsy material. [Illustration: Sideboard. In Carved Oak, with subjects taken from Sir Walter Scott's "Kenilworth." Designed And Manufactured by Messrs. Cookes, Warwick 1851 Exhibition, London.] [Illustration: A State Chair. Carved and Gilt Frame, upholstered in Ruby Silk, Embroidered with the Royal Coat of Arms and the Prince of Wales' Plumes. Designed and Manufactured by M. Jancowski, York. 1851 Exhibition, London.] [Illustration: Sideboard in Carved Oak. Designed And Manufactured by M. Durand, Paris. 1851 Exhibition, London.] [Illustration: Bedstead in Carved Ebony. Renaissance Style. Designed and Manufactured by M. Roulé, Antwerp. 1851 Exhibition, London.] [Illustration: Pianoforte. In Rosewood, inlaid with Boulework, in Gold, Silver, and Copper. Designed and Manufactured by M. Leistler, Vienna. 1851 Exhibition, London.] [Illustration: Bookcase, In Carved Lime Tree, with Panels of Satinwood. Designed and Manufactured by M. Leistler, Vienna. 1851 Exhibition, London.] [Illustration: Cabinet. In Tulipwood, ornamented with bronze, and inlaid with Porcelain. Manufactured by M. Games, St. Petersburg, 1851 Exhibition.] The design and execution of mountings of cabinets in metal work, particularly of the highly-chased and gilt bronzes for the enrichment of _meubles de luxe_, was then, as it still to a great extent remains, the specialite of the Parisian craftsman, and almost the only English exhibits of such work were those of foreigners who had settled amongst us. [Illustration: Casket of Ivory, With Ormolu Mountings. Designed and Manufactured by M. Matifat, Paris. 1851 Exhibition, London.] [Illustration: Table, In the Classic Style, inlaid with Ivory, Manufactured for the King of Sardinia by M. G. Capello, Turin. 1851 Exhibition, London.] [Illustration: Chair, In the Classic Style, inlaid with Ivory. Manufactured for the King of Sardinia by M. G. Capello, Turin. 1851 Exhibition, London.] Amongst the latter was Monbro, a Frenchman, who established himself in Berners Street, London, and made furniture of an ornamental character in the style of his countrymen, reproducing the older designs of "Boule" and Marqueterie furniture. The present house of Mellier and Cie. are his successors, Mellier having been in his employ. The late Samson Wertheimer, then in Greek Street, Soho, was steadily making a reputation by the excellence of the metal mountings of his own design and workmanship, which he applied to caskets of French style. Furniture of a decorative character and of excellent quality was also made some forty years ago by Town and Emanuel, of Bond Street, and many of this firm's "Old French" tables and cabinets were so carefully finished with regard to style and detail, that, with the "tone" acquired by time since their production, it is not always easy to distinguish them from the models from which they were taken. Toms was assistant to Town and Emanuel, and afterwards purchased and carried on the business of "Toms and Luscombe," a firm well-known as manufacturers of excellent and expensive "French" furniture, until their retirement from business some ten years ago. [Illustration: Cabinet of Ebony, in the Renaissance Style. With Carnelions inserted. Litchfield and Radclyffe. 1862 Exhibition.] Webb, of Old Bond Street, succeeded by Annoot, and subsequently by Radley, was a manufacturer of this class of furniture; he employed a considerable number of workmen, and carried on a very successful business. The name of "Blake," too, is one that will be remembered by some of our older readers who were interested in marqueterie furniture of forty years ago. He made an inlaid centre table for the late Duke of Northumberland, from a design by Mr. C. P. Slocornbe, of South Kensington Museum; he also made excellent copies of Louis XIV. furniture. The next International Exhibition held in London was in the year 1862, and, though its success was somewhat impaired by the great calamity this country sustained in the death of the Prince Consort on 14th December, 1861, and also by the breaking out of the Civil War in the United States of America, the exhibitors had increased from 17,000 in '51 to some 29,000 in '62, the foreign entries being 16,456, as against 6,566. Exhibitions of a National and International character had also been held in many of the Continental capitals. There was in 1855 a successful one in Paris, which was followed by one still greater in 1867, and, as every one knows, they have been lately of almost annual occurrence in various countries, affording the enterprising manufacturer better and more frequent opportunities of placing his productions before the public, and of teaching both producer and consumer to appreciate and profit by every improvement in taste, and by the greater demand for artistic objects. The few illustrations from these more recent Exhibitions of 1862 and 1867 deserve a passing notice. The cabinet of carved ebony with enrichments of carnelian and other richly-colored minerals (illustrated on previous page), received a good deal of notice, and was purchased by William, third Earl of Craven, a well-known virtuoso of thirty years ago. The work of Fourdinois, of Paris, has already been alluded to, and in the 1867 Exhibition his furniture acquired a still higher reputation for good taste and attention to detail. The full page illustration of a cabinet of ebony, with carvings of boxwood, is a remarkably rich piece of work of its kind; the effect is produced by carving the box-wood figures and ornamental scroll work in separate pieces, and then inserting these bodily into the ebony. By this means the more intricate work is able to be more carefully executed, and the close grain and rich tint of Turkey boxwood (perhaps next to ivory the best medium for rendering fine carving) tells out in relief against the ebony of which the body of the cabinet is constructed. This excellent example of modern cabinet work by Fourdinois, was purchased for the South Kensington Museum for £1,200, and no one who has a knowledge of the cost of executing minute carved work in boxwood and ebony will consider the price a very high one. The house of Fourdinois no longer exists; the names of the foremost makers of French _meubles de luxe_, in Paris, are Buerdeley, Dasson, Roux, Sormani, Durand, and Zwiener. Some mention has already been made of Zwiener, as the maker of a famous bureau in the Hertford collection, and a sideboard exhibited by Durand in the '51 Exhibition is amongst the illustrations selected as representative of cabinet work at that time. [Illustration: Cabinet of Ebony with Carvings of Boxwood. Designed and Manufactured by M. Fourdenois, Paris. 1867 Exhibition, Paris. (Purchased by S. Kensington Museum for £1,200.)] [Illustration: Cabinet in Satinwood, With Wedgwood plaques and inlay of various woods in the Adams' style. Designed and Manufactured by Messrs. Wright & Mansfield, London. 1867 Exhibition, Paris. Purchased by the S. Kensington Museum.] [Illustration: Ebony And Ivory Cabinet. In The Style of Italian Renaissance by Andrea Picchi, Florence, Exhibited Paris, 1867. NOTE.--A marked similarity in this design to that of a 17th Century cabinet, illustrated in the Italian section of Chapter iii., will be observed.] The illustration of Wright and Mansfield's satin-wood cabinet, with Wedgewood plaques inserted, and with wreaths and swags of marqueteric inlaid, is in the Adams' style, a class of design of which this firm made a specialité. Both Wright and Mansfield had been assistants at Jackson and Graham's, and after a short term in Great Portland Street, they removed to Bond Street, and carried on a successful business of a high class and somewhat exclusive character, until their retirement from business a few years since. This cabinet was exhibited in Paris in 1867, and was purchased by our South Kensington authorities. Perhaps it is not generally known that a grant is made to the Department for the purchase of suitable specimens of furniture and woodwork for the Museum. This expenditure is made with great care and discrimination. It may be observed here that the South Kensington Museum, which was founded in 1851, was at this time playing an important part in the Art education of the country. The literature of the day also contributed many useful works of instruction and reference for the designer of furniture and woodwork.[21] One noticeable feature of modern design in furniture is the revival of marquetry. Like all mosaic work, to which branch of Industrial Art it properly belongs, this kind of decoration should be quite subordinate to the general design; but with the rage for novelty which seized public attention some forty years ago, it developed into the production of all kinds of fantastic patterns in different veneers. A kind of minute mosaic work in wood, which was called "Tunbridge Wells work," became fashionable for small articles. Within the last ten or fifteen years the reproductions of what is termed "Chippendale," and also Adam and Sheraton designs in marqueterie furniture, have been manufactured to an enormous extent. Partly on account of the difficulty in obtaining the richly-marked and figured old mahogany and satin-wood of a hundred years ago, which needed little or no inlay as ornament, and partly to meet the public fancy by covering up bad construction with veneers of marquetry decoration, a great deal more inlay has been given to these reproductions than ever appeared in the original work of the eighteenth century cabinet makers. Simplicity was sacrificed, and veneers, thus used and abused, came to be a term of contempt, implying sham or superficial ornament. Dickens, in one of his novels, has introduced the "Veneer" family, thus stamping the term more strongly on the popular imagination. The method now practised in using marquetry to decorate furniture is very similar to the one explained in the description of "Boule" furniture given in Chapter VI., except that, instead of shell, the marquetry cutter uses the veneer, which he intends to be the groundwork of his design, and as in some cases these veneers are cut to the thickness of 1/16 of an inch, several layers can be sawn through at once. Sometimes, instead of using so many different kinds of wood, when a very polychromatic effect is required, holly wood and sycamore are stained different colours, and the marquetry thus prepared, is glued on to the body of the furniture, and subsequently prepared, engraved, and polished. This kind of work is done to a great extent in England, but still more extensively and elaborately in France and Italy, where ivory and brass, marble, and other materials are also used to enrich the effect. This effect is either satisfactory or the reverse according as the work is well or ill-considered and executed. It must be obvious, too, that in the production of marquetry the processes are attainable by machinery, which saves labour and cheapens productions of the commoner kinds; this tends to produce a decorative effect which is often inappropriate and superabundant. Perhaps it is allowable to add here that marquetry, or _marqueterie_, its French equivalent, is the more modern survival of "Tarsia" work to which allusion has been made in previous chapters. Webster defines the word as "Work inlaid with pieces of wood, shells, ivory, and the like," derived from the French word _marqueter_ to checker and _marque_ (a sign), of German origin. It is distinguished from parquetry (which is derived from "_pare_," an enclosure, of which it is a diminutive), and signifies a kind of joinery in geometrical patterns, generally used for flooring. When, however, the marquetry assumes geometrical patterns (frequently a number of cubes shaded in perspective) the design is often termed in Art catalogues a "parquetry" design. In considering the design and manufacture of furniture of the present day, as compared with that of, say, a hundred years ago, there are two or three main factors to be taken into account. Of these the most important is the enormously increased demand, by the multiplication of purchasers, for some classes of furniture, which formerly had but a limited sale. This enables machinery to be used to advantage in economising labour, and therefore one finds in the so-called "Queen Anne" and "Jacobean" cabinet work of the well furnished house of the present time, rather too prominent evidence of the lathe and the steam plane. Mouldings are machined by the length, then cut into cornices, mitred round panels, or affixed to the edge of a plain slab of wood, giving it the effect of carving. The everlasting spindle, turned rapidly by the lathe, is introduced with wearisome redundance, to ornament the stretcher and the edge of a shelf; the busy fret or band-saw produces fanciful patterns which form a cheap enrichment when applied to a drawer-front, a panel, or a frieze, and carving machines can copy any design which a century ago were the careful and painstaking result of a practised craftsman's skill. Again, as the manufacture of furniture is now chiefly carried on in large factories, both in England and on the Continent, the sub-division of labour causes the article to pass through different hands in successive stages, and the wholesale manufacture of furniture by steam has taken the place of the personal supervision by the master's eye of the task of a few men who were in the old days the occupants of his workshop. As a writer on the subject has well said, "the chisel and the knife are no longer in such cases controlled by the sensitive touch of the human hand." In connection with this we are reminded of Ruskin's precept that "the first condition of a work of Art is that it should be conceived and carried out by one person." Instead of the carved ornament being the outcome of the artist's educated taste, which places on the article a stamp of individuality--instead of the furniture being, as it was in the seventeenth century in England, and some hundred years earlier in Italy and in France, the craftsman's pride--it is now the result of the rapid multiplication of some pattern which has caught the popular fancy, generally a design in which there is a good deal of decorative effect for a comparatively small price. The difficulty of altering this unsatisfactory state of things is evident. On the one side, the manufacturers or the large furnishing firms have a strong case in their contention that the public will go to the market it considers the best: and when decoration is pitted against simplicity, though the construction which accompanies the former be ever so faulty, the more pretentious article will be selected. When a successful pattern has been produced, and arrangements and sub-contracts have been made for its repetition in large quantities, any considerable variation made in the details (even if it be the suppression of ornament) will cause an addition to the cost which those only who understand something of a manufacturer's business can appreciate. During the present generation an Art movement has sprung up called Æstheticism, which has been defined as the "Science of the Beautiful and the Philosophy of the Fine Arts," and aims at carrying a love of the beautiful into all the relations of life. The fantastical developments which accompanied the movement brought its devotees into much ridicule about ten years ago, and the pages of _Punch_ of that time will be found to happily travesty its more amusing and extravagant aspects. The great success of Gilbert and Sullivan's operetta, "Patience," produced in 1881, was also to some extent due to the humorous allusions to the extravagances of the "Aesthetetes." In support of what may be termed a higher Æstheticism, Mr. Ruskin has written much to give expression to his ideas and principles for rendering our surroundings more beautiful. Sir Frederic Leighton and Mr. Alma Tadema are conspicuous amongst those who have in their houses carried such principles into effect, and amongst other artists who have been and are, more or less, associated with this movement, may be named Rossetti, Burne Jones, and Holman Hunt. As a writer on Æstheticism has observed:--"When the extravagances attending the movement have been purged away, there may be still left an educating influence, which will impress the lofty and undying principles of Art upon the minds of the people." For a time, in-spite of ridicule, this so-called Æstheticism was the vogue, and considerably affected the design and decoration of furniture of the time. Woodwork was painted olive green; the panels of cabinets, painted in sombre colors, had pictures of sad-looking maidens, and there was an attempt at a "dim religious" effect in our rooms quite inappropriate to such a climate as that of England. The reaction, however, from the garish and ill-considered colourings of a previous decade or two has left behind it much good, and with the catholicity of taste which marks the furnishing of the present day, people see some merit in every style, and are endeavouring to select that which is desirable without running to the extreme of eccentricity. Perhaps the advantage thus gained is counterbalanced by the loss of our old "traditions," for amongst the wilderness of reproductions of French furniture, more or less frivolous--of Chippendale, as that master is generally understood--of what is termed "Jacobean" and "Queen Anne"--to say nothing of a quantity of so-called "antique furniture," we are bewildered in attempting to identify this latter end of the nineteenth century with any particular style of furniture. By "tradition" it is intended to allude to the old-fashioned manner of handing down from father to son, or master to apprentice, for successive generations, the skill to produce any particular class of object of Art or manufacture. Surely Ruskin had something of this in his mind when he said, "Now, when the powers of fancy, stimulated by this triumphant precision of manual dexterity, descend from generation to generation, you have at last what is not so much a trained artist, as a new species of animal, with whose instinctive gifts you have no chance of contending." Tradition may be said to still survive in the country cartwright, who produces the farmer's wagon in accordance with custom and tradition, modifying the method of construction somewhat perhaps to meet altered conditions of circumstances, and then ornamenting his work by no particular set design or rule, but partly from inherited aptitude and partly from playfulness or fancy. In the house-carpenter attached to some of our old English family estates, there will also be found, here and there, surviving representatives of the traditional "joyner" of the seventeenth century, and in Eastern countries, particularly in Japan, we find the dexterous joiner or carver of to-day is the descendant of a long line of more or less excellent mechanics. It must be obvious, too, that "Trades Unionism" of the present day cannot but be, in many of its effects, prejudicial to the Industrial Arts. A movement which aims at reducing men of different intelligence and ability, to a common standard, and which controls the amount of work done, and the price paid for it, whatever are its social or economical advantages, must have a deleterious influence upon the Art products of our time. Writers on Art and manufactures, of varying eminence and opinion, are unanimous in pointing out the serious drawbacks to progress which will exist, so long as there is a demand for cheap and meretricious imitations of old furniture, as opposed to more simply made articles, designed in accordance with the purposes for which they are intended. Within the past few years a great many well directed endeavours have been made in England to improve design in furniture, and to revive something of the feeling of pride and ambition in his craft, which, in the old days of the Trade Guilds, animated our Jacobean joiner. One of the best directed of these enterprises is that of the "Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society," of which Mr. Walter Crane, A.R.W.S., is president, and which numbers, amongst its committee and supporters, a great many influential names. As suggested in the design of the cover of their Exhibition Catalogue, drawn by the President, one chief aim of the society is to link arm in arm "Design and Handicraft," by exhibiting only such articles as bear the names of individuals who (1) drew the design and (2) carried it out: each craftsman thus has the credit and responsibility of his own part of the work, instead of the whole appearing as the production of Messrs. A.B. or C.D., who may have known nothing personally of the matter, beyond generally directing the affairs of a large manufacturing or furnishing business. In the catalogue published by this Society there are several short and useful essays in which furniture is treated, generally and specifically, by capable writers, amongst whom are Mr. Walter Crane, Mr. Edward Prior, Mr. Halsey Ricardo, Mr. Reginald T. Blomfield, Mr. W.R. Letharby, Mr. J.H. Pollen, Mr. Stephen Webb, and Mr. T.G. Jackson, A.R.A., the order of names being that in which the several essays are arranged. This small but valuable contribution to the subject of design and manufacture of furniture is full of interest, and points out the defects of our present system. Amongst other regrets, one of the writers (Mr. Halsey Ricardo) complains, that the "transient tenure that most of us have in our dwellings, and the absorbing nature of the struggle that most of us have to make to win the necessary provisions of life, prevent our encouraging the manufacture of well wrought furniture. We mean to outgrow our houses--our lease expires after so many years, and then we shall want an entirely different class of furniture--consequently we purchase articles that have only sufficient life in them to last the brief period of our occupation, and are content to abide by the want of appropriateness or beauty, in the clear intention of some day surrounding ourselves with objects that shall be joys to us for the remainder of our life." Many other societies, guilds, and art schools have been established with more or less success, with the view of improving the design and manufacture of furniture, and providing suitable models for our young wood carvers to copy. The Ellesmere Cabinet (illustrated) was one of the productions of the "Home Arts and Industries Association," founded by the late Lady Marian Alford in 1883, a well known connoisseur and Art patron. It will be seen that this is virtually a Jacobean design. In the earlier chapters of this book, it has been observed that as Architecture became a settled Art or Science, it was accompanied by a corresponding development in the design of the room and its furniture, under, as it were, one impulse of design, and this appropriate concord may be said to have obtained in England until nearly the middle of the present century, when, after the artificial Greek style in furniture and woodwork which had been attempted by Wilkins, Soane, and other contemporary architects, had fallen into disfavour, there was first a reaction, and then an interregnum, as has been noticed in the previous chapter. The Great Exhibition marked a fresh departure, and quickened, as we have seen, industrial enterprise in this country; and though, upon the whole, good results have been produced by the impetus given by these international competitions, they have not been exempt from unfavorable accompaniments. One of these was the eager desire for novelty, without the necessary judgment to discriminate between good and bad. For a time, nothing satisfied the purchaser of so-called "artistic" products, whether of decorative furniture, carpets, curtains or merely ornamental articles, unless the design was "new." The natural result was the production either of heavy and ugly, or flimsy and inappropriate furniture, which has been condemned by every writer on the subject. In some of the designs selected from the exhibits of '51 this desire to leave the beaten track of conventionality will be evident: and for a considerable time after the exhibition there is to be seen in our designs, the result of too many opportunities for imitation, acting upon minds insufficiently trained to exercise careful judgment and selection. [Illustration: The Ellesmere Cabinet, In the Collection of the late Lady Marian Alford.] The custom of appropriate and harmonious treatment of interior decorations and suitable furniture, seems to have been in a great measure abandoned during the present century, owing perhaps to the indifference of architects of the time to this subsidiary but necessary portion of their work, or perhaps to a desire for economy, which preferred the cheapness of painted and artificially grained pine-wood, with decorative effects produced by wall papers, to the more solid but expensive though less showy wood-panelling, architectural mouldings, well-made panelled doors and chimney pieces, which one finds, down to quite the end of the last century, even in houses of moderate rentals. Furniture therefore became independent and "beginning to account herself an Art, transgressed her limits" ... and "grew to the conceit that it could stand by itself, and, as well as its betters, went a way of its own." [22] The interiors, handed over from the builder, as it were, in blank, are filled up from the upholsterer's store, the curiosity shop, and the auction room, while a large contribution from the conservatory or the nearest florist gives the finishing touch to a mixture, which characterizes the present taste for furnishing a boudoir or a drawing room. There is, of course, in very many cases an individuality gained by the "omnium gatherum" of such a mode of furnishing. The cabinet which reminds its owner of a tour in Italy, the quaint stool from Tangier, and the embroidered piano cover from Spain, are to those who travel, pleasant souvenirs; as are also the presents from friends (when they have taste and judgment), the screens and flower-stands, and the photographs, which are reminiscences of the forms and faces separated from us by distance or death. The test of the whole question of such an arrangement of furniture in our living rooms, is the amount of judgment and discretion displayed. Two favorable examples of the present fashion, representing the interior of the Saloon and Drawing Room at Sandringham House, are here reproduced. [Illustration: The Saloon at Sandringham House. (_From a Photo by Bedford Lemère & Co., by permission of H. R. H. the Prince of Wales_).] [Illustration: The Drawing Room at Sandringham House. (_From a Photo by Bedford Lemère & Co., by permission of H. R. H. the Prince of Wales_).] There is at the present time an ambition on the part of many well-to-do persons to imitate the effect produced in houses of old families where, for generations, valuable and memorable articles of decorative furniture have been accumulated, just as pictures, plate and china have been preserved; and failing the inheritance of such household gods, it is the practice to acquire, or as the modern term goes, "to collect," old furniture of different styles and periods, until the room becomes incongruous and overcrowded, an evidence of the wealth, rather than of the taste, of the owner. As it frequently happens that such collections are made very hastily, and in the brief intervals of a busy commercial or political life, the selections are not the best or most suitable; and where so much is required in a short space of time, it becomes impossible to devote a sufficient sum of money to procure a really valuable specimen of the kind desired; in its place an effective and low priced reproduction of an old pattern (with all the faults inseparable from such conditions) is added to the conglomeration of articles requiring attention, and taking up space. The limited accommodation of houses built on ground which is too valuable to allow spacious halls and large apartments, makes this want of discretion and judgment the more objectionable. There can be no doubt that want of care and restraint in the selection of furniture, by the purchasing public, affects its character, both as to design and workmanship. These are some of the faults in the modern style of furnishing, which have been pointed out by recent writers and lecturers on the subject. In "Hints on Household Taste," [23] Mr. Eastlake has scolded us severely for running after novelties and fashions, instead of cultivating suitability and simplicity, in the selection and ordering of our furniture; and he has contrasted descriptions and drawings of well designed and constructed pieces of furniture of the Jacobean period with those of this century's productions. Col. Robert Edis, in "Decoration and Furniture of Town Houses," has published designs which are both simple and economical, with regard to space and money, while suitable to the specified purpose of the furniture or "fitment." This revival in taste, which has been not inappropriately termed "The New Renaissance," has produced many excellent results, and several well-known architects and designers in the foremost rank of art, amongst whom the late Mr. Street, R.A.; Messrs. Norman Shaw, R.A.; Waterhouse, R.A.; Alma Tadema, R.A.; T. G. Jackson, A.R.A.; W. Burgess, Thomas Cutler, E. W. Godwin, S. Webb, and many others, have devoted a considerable amount of attention to the design of furniture. The ruling principle in the majority of these designs has been to avoid over ornamentation, and pretension to display, and to produce good solid work, in hard, durable, and (on account of the increased labour) expensive woods, or, when economy is required, in light soft woods, painted or enamelled. Some manufacturing firms, whom it would be invidious to name, and whose high reputation renders them independent of any recommendation, have adopted this principle, and, as a result, there is now no difficulty in obtaining well designed and soundly constructed furniture, which is simple, unpretentious, and worth the price charged for it. Unfortunately for the complete success of the new teaching, useful and appropriate furniture meets with a fierce competition from more showy and ornate productions, made to sell rather than to last: furniture which seems to have upon it the stamp of our "three years' agreement," or "seven years' lease." Of this it may be said, speaking not only from an artistic, but from a moral and humane standpoint, it is made so cheaply, that it seems a pity it is made at all. The disadvantages, inseparable from our present state of society, which we have noticed as prejudicial to English design and workmanship, and which check the production of really satisfactory furniture, are also to be observed in other countries; and as the English, and English-speaking people, are probably the largest purchasers of foreign manufacturers, these disadvantages act and re-act on the furniture of different nations. In France, the cabinet maker has ever excelled in the production of ornamental furniture; and by constant reference to older specimens in the Museums and Palaces of his country, he is far better acquainted with what may be called the traditions of his craft than his English brother. With him the styles of Francois Premier, of Henri Deux, and the "three Louis" are classic, and in the beautiful chasing and finishing of the mounts which ornament the best _meubles de luxe_, it is almost impossible to surpass his best efforts, provided the requisite price be paid; but this amounts in many cases to such considerable sums of money as would seem incredible to those who have but little knowledge of the subject. As a simple instance, the "copy" of the "Bureau du Louvre" (described in Chapter vi.) in the Hertford House collection, cost the late Sir Richard Wallace a sum of £4,000. As, however, in France, and in countries which import French furniture, there are many who desire to have the effect of this beautiful but expensive furniture, but cannot afford to spend several thousand pounds in the decoration of a single room, the industrious and ingenious Frenchman manufactures, to meet this demand, vast quantities of furniture which affects, without attaining, the merits of the better made and more highly finished articles. In Holland, Belgium, and in Germany, as has already been pointed out, the manufacture of ornamental oak furniture, on the lines of the Renaissance models, still prevails, and such furniture is largely imported into this country. Italian carved furniture of modern times has been already noticed; and in the selections made from the 1851 Exhibition, some productions of different countries have been illustrated, which tend to shew that, speaking generally, the furniture most suitable for display is produced abroad, while none can excel English cabinet makers in the production of useful furniture and woodwork, when it is the result of design and handicraft, unfettered by the detrimental, but too popular, condition that the article when finished shall appear to be more costly really than it is. [Illustration: Carved Frame, by Radspieler, Munich.] The illustration of a carved frame in the rococo style of Chippendale, with a Chinaman in a canopy, represents an important school of wood carving which has been developed in Munich; and in the "Künst Gewerberein," or "Workman's Exhibition," in that city, the Bavarians have a very similar arrangement to that of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society of this country, of which mention has already been made. Each article is labelled with the name of the designer and maker. In conclusion, it seems evident that, with all the faults and shortcomings of this latter part of the nineteenth century--and no doubt they are many, both of commission and omission--still, speaking generally, there is no lack of men with ability to design, and no want of well trained patient craftsmen to produce, furniture which shall equal the finest examples of the Renaissance and Jacobean periods. With the improved means of inter-communication between England and her Colonies, and with the chief industrial centres of Europe united for the purposes of commerce, the whole civilized world is, as it were, one kingdom: merchants and manufacturers can select the best and most suitable materials, can obtain photographs or drawings of the most distant examples, or copies of the most expensive designs, while the public Art Libraries of London, and Paris, contain valuable works of reference, which are easily accessible to the student or to the workman. It is very pleasant to bear testimony to the courtesy and assistance which the student or workman invariably receives from those who are in charge of our public reference libraries. There needs, however, an important condition to be taken into account. Good work, requiring educated thought to design, and skilled labour to produce, must be paid for at a very different rate to the furniture of machined mouldings, stamped ornament, and other numerous and inexpensive substitutes for handwork, which our present civilization has enabled our manufacturers to produce, and which, for the present, seems to find favour with the multitude. It has been well said that, "Decorated or sumptuous furniture is not merely furniture that is expensive to buy, but that which has been elaborated with much thought, knowledge, and skill. Such furniture cannot be cheap certainly, but _the real cost is sometimes borne by the artist who produces, rather than by the man who may happen to buy it_." [24] It is often forgotten that the price paid is that of the lives and sustenance of the workers and their families. Conclusion. A point has now been reached at which our task must be brought to its natural conclusion; for although many collectors, and others interested in the subject, have invited the writer's attention to numerous descriptions and examples, from an examination of which much information could, without doubt, be obtained, still, the exigencies of a busy life, and the limits of a single volume of moderate dimensions, forbid the attempt to add to a story which, it is feared, may perhaps have already overtaxed the reader's patience. As has already been stated in the preface, this book is not intended to be a guide to "_collecting,"_ or "_furnishing";_ nevertheless, it is possible that, in the course of recording some of the changes which have taken place in designs and fashions, and of bringing into notice, here and there, the opinions of those who have thought and written upon the subject, some indirect assistance may have been given in both these directions. If this should be the case, and if an increased interest has been thereby excited in the surroundings of the Home, or in some of those Art collections--the work of bye-gone years--which form part of our National property, the writer's aim and object will have been attained, and his humble efforts amply rewarded. [Illustration] [Illustration: A Sixteenth Century Workshop.] Index. NOTE.--The Names of several Designers and Makers, omitted from the Index, will be found in the List in the Appendix, with references. Academy (French) of the Arts founded Adam, Robert and James Æstheticism Ahashuerus, Palace of Alcock, Sir Rutherford, collection of Angelo, Michael Anglo-Saxon Furniture Arabesque Ornament, origin of Arabian Woodwork Ark, reference to the Armoires, mention of Art Journal, The Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society Aspinwall, of Grosvenor Street Assyrian Furniture Aubusson Tapestry Audley End Austrian Work Barbers' Company, Hall of the Baroque, The style Barry, Sir Charles, R.A. Beauvais Tapestry Bedroom Furniture Bedstead of Jeanne d'Albret Bedstead in the Cluny Museum Bellows, Italian Benjamin, Mr., referred to Berain, Charles, French artist Bethnal Green Museum Biblical references Birch, Dr., reference to Birdwood, Sir George, referred to Black, Mr. Adam, reference to Blomfield, Mr. Reginald T. Boards and Trestles Boleyn, Anna, chair of Bombay Furniture Bonnaffé, referred to Boucher, artist Boudoir Boule, André Charles Brackets, Wall British Museum, references to specimens in the Brittany Furniture Broadwood, Messrs Bronze Mountings Bruges, Chimney-piece at Bryan, Michael, referred to Buffet, The Bureau du Roi Burgess, Mr. W Burleigh Byzantine-Gothic, discarded Byzantine style Caffieri, work of Cairo Woodwork Canopied Seats Canterbury Cathedral Carpenters' Company Cashmere Work Cauner, French carver Cellaret, The Cellini, B. Chambers, Sir William, R.A. Chair of Dagobert Chairs of St. Peter Chardin, reference to Charlemagne, reference to Charles I. reference to Charles II. reference to Charlton, Little Charterhouse, The Chaucer quoted Chippendale's Work Chippendale's "Gentleman and Cabinetmakers' Director" Christianity influence of Christie, Manson, & Wood, Messrs reference to old catalogues of Cicero's Tables Cipriani Clapton, Dr. Edward, reference to Club Houses of London Cluny Museum, reference to Colbert, Finance Minister Coliards' predecessors Collinson & Lock Collman, L.W., work of Constantinople, capture of Coronation Chair, The Correggio Grace, work of Crane, Mr. Walter Cromwell referred to Crusades, influence of the Cutler, Mr. T Cypselus of Corinth, Chest of Dado, the, described Dagobert Chair Dalburgia or Blackwood Damascus, Room from a house in Davillier, Baron "Dining Room," the, various definitions Divan, derivation of Dowbiggin (Gillow's apprentice) Dryden quoted Dürer, A., referred to D'Urbino Bramante Du Sommerard referred to Dutch Furniture Eastlake, Mr. C., reference to Edinburgh, H.R.H. the Duke of, Art Collection Edis, Col. Robert, referred to, Elgin and Kincardine, Earl of, Collection of Elizabethan Work Empire Furniture English Work Evelyn's Diary Exhibiton, The Colonial The Great (1851) Inventions Exhibitions, Local Falké, Dr., reference to Faydherbe, Lucas Fitzcook, H., designer Flaxman's Work Flemish Renaissance Flemish Work Florentine Mosaic Work Folding Stool Fontainebleau, Chateau of Fourdinois, Work of Fragonard, French artist, reference to Frames for pictures and mirrors Franks, Mr. A.W. Fretwork Ornament Gavard's, C., Work on Versailles German Work Gesso Work Ghiberti, L Gibbon, Dr., story of Gilding, methods of Gillow, Richard, extending table patented work of Gillow's Records Gillow's Work Glastonbury Chair Gobelins Tapestry Godwin, Mr. G., referred to Godwin, Mr. E.W. Goodrich Court Gore House, Exhibition at Gothic Architecture Gothic Work French German Chippendale's Gough, Viscount, collection of Gouthière, Pierre Gray's Inn Hall Greek Furniture Greuze, reference to Hamilton Palace Collection Hampton Court Palace Hardwick Hall Harpsichord, the Harrison quoted Hatfield House Hebrew Furniture Henri II. time of Henri IV. style of Art in France Henry VIII Hepplewhite, work of Herculaneum and Pompeii discovery of Herbert's "Antiquities" Hertford House Collection Holbein Holland House Holland & Sons Holmes, W., designer Home Arts and Industries Association Hope, Thomas, design by Hopkinson's Pianos Hotel de Bohême Howard & Sons, firm of, founded Ince W., contemporary of Chippendale Indian Furniture Indian Museum, The Indo-Portuguese Furniture Intarsia Work, or Tarsia Inventories, old Italian Carved Furniture Italian Renaissance Jackson, Mr. T.G., A.R.A., referred to Jackson & Graham Jacobean Furniture Jacquemart, M., reference to Japan, the Revolution in Japanese Joiner, the Japanned Furniture Jeanne d'Albret, Bedstead of Jones, Inigo Jones Collection, The Kauffmann, Angelica Kensington, South, Museum, foundation of Kensington, South, Museum, reference to specimens in the Khorsabad, reference to Kirkman's exhibit Knife cases Knole Lacquer Work, Chinese and Japanese Indian Persian Lacroix, Paul, reference to Lancret, artist Layard, Sir Austen, reference to Lebrun, artist Leighton, Sir F., referred to Leo X., Pope Letharby, Mr. W.R. Litchfield & Radclyffe Livery cupboards Longford Castle Collection Longman & Broderip Longleat Louis XIII. Furniture Louis XIV death of Louis XV death of Louis XVI Louvre, The Macaulay, Lord, quoted Machine-made Furniture Madrid, French Furniture in Mahogany, introduction of Mansion House, Furniture of the Marie Antionette Marie Louise, Cabinet designed for Marqueterie Maskell, Mr., reference to Mayhew, J., contemporary of Chippendale Medicis Family, influence of the Meyrick, S. Middle Temple Hall Miles and Edwards Milton quoted Mirror, Mosaic Mirrors, introduction of "Mobilier National," the collection of Modern fashion of Furnishing Mogul Empire, The Monbro Morant's Furniture Mounting of Furniture Munich, Work and Exhibition of Napoleon alluded to Nilson, French carver Norman civilization, influence of North Holland, Furniture of Notes and Queries Nineveh, Discoveries in Oak Panelling Oriental Conservatism Ottoman, derivation of Panelling (oak) Papier-maché Work Passe, C. de Paxton, Sir Joseph Penshurst Place Pergolesi Perkins, Mr. C. translator of "Kunst im Hause" Persian Designs Pianoforte, the Picau, French carver Pietra-dura introduced Pinder, Sir Paul, house of Pollen, Mr. J. Hungerford, references to Portuguese Work Prie Dieu Chair, the Prignot, Designs of Prior, Mr. Edward, essay on Furniture Pugin, Mr. A.W., work of Queen Anne Furniture Queen's Collection, The Racinet's Work, "Le Costume Historique" Radspieler of Munich (manufacturer) Raffaele, referred to Raleigh, Sir W. Regency, Period of the, in France Renaissance Renaissance in England France Germany Italy The Netherlands Spain Revolution, The French Revival of Art in France Ricardo, Mr. Halsey Richardson's "Studies" Riesener, Court Ebeniste Robinson, Mr. G.T., quoted Rococo Style, the Rogers, Harry, work of Roman Furniture Ruskin, Mr., quoted Russian Woodwork St. Augustine's Chair St. Giles', Bloomsbury St. Peter's Chairs St. Peter's Church St. Saviour's Chapel Sallust, House of Salting, Mr., collection of Salzburg, Bishop's Palace at Sandringham House, referred to Saracenic Art Sarto, Andrea del Satinwood, introduction of Scandinavian Woodwork Science and Art Department, The Scott, Sir Walter, reference to Screens, Louis XV. period Secret Drawers, etc., in Furniture Sedan Chair, the Seddon, Thomas, and his Sons, Work of Serilly. Marquise de, Boudoir of Sêvres Porcelain, introduction of Shakespeare's Chair Shakespeare, quoted Shaw, Mr. Norman, R.A. Shaw's "Ancient Furniture" Sheraton, Thomas, Work of Shisham Wood Sideboard, reference to the Skinners' Company, The Smith, Major General Murdoch, reference to Smith, Mr. George, explorer, reference to Smith, George, manufacturer Snell, Work of Soane Museum, The Society of Arts, The Society of Upholsterers and Cabinet Makers Sofa, derivation of South Kensington. See Kensington Spanish Furniture Speke Hall, Liverpool Spoon Cases Stationers' Hall Steam power applied to manufactures Stephens, Mr., referred to Stockton House Stone, Mr. Marcus Strawberry Hill Sale Street, Mr., R.A. Strudwick, J., designer Sydney, Sir Philip Tabernacle, The Table, "Dormant" "Drawings" Extending Folding Framed Kneehole Pier Side Joined Standing Wine Tables and Trestles Tadema, Mr. Alma, R.A., design by Tarsia Work, or Intarsia Tea Caddies Thackeray, quoted Theebaw, King, Bedstead of Thyine Wood "Times" Newspaper, The, quoted Titian Toms & Luscombe Town & Emanuel Trades Unionism Traditions, loss of old Transition period Trianon, The Trollopes founded Ulm, Cathedral of Urn Stands, the Veeners Venice, importance of Venice, referred to Verbruggens, the Vernis Martin Versailles, Palace of Victorian (early) Furniture Vinci, L. da Viollet-le-Duc Vriesse, V. de Wales, H.R.H. Prince of, Art Collection of Wallace, Sir Richard, Collection of Walpole, Horace Ware, Great Bed of Waterhouse, Mr., R.A. Watteau Webb, Mr. Stephen Wedgwood, Josiah Wertheimer, S. Westminster Abbey Wilkinson, of Ludgate Hill Williamson (Mobilier National) Wine Tables Woods used for Furniture Wootton, Sir Henry, quoted Wren, Sir Christopher, referred to Wright, Mr., F.S.A, referred to Wyatt, Sir Digby, paper read by York House, described in the "Art Journal" York Minster, Chair in List of Subscribers. HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN (For the Royal Library). H.I.M. THE EMPRESS FREDERICK OF GERMANY. H.R.H. THE DUKE OF EDINBURGH. H.R.H. THE PRINCESS LOUISE (Marchioness of Lorne). H.R.H. THE DUCHESS OF TECK. ABERCROMBY, RT. HON. LORD. ABERDEEN PUBLIC LIBRARY. AGNEW, SIR ANDREW NOEL, BART. AFFLECK, LADY. ALLEN, E.G., 28, Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, London. AMHERST, W. AMHURST TYSSEN, M.P., Didlington Hall, Norfolk. ANDERSON, W. & SONS, Newcastle. ANDREWS & Co., Durham. ANGST, H., H.B.M. Consul, Zurich. ASHBURNHAM, RT. HON. EARL OF. ASHWORTH, A., Manchester. BAGOTT, HENRY PEARMAN, Dudley, Worcester. BAILEY, THOMAS J., A.R.I.B.A., School Board of London, Victoria Embankment, Westminster. BALFOUR, CHARLES B., J.P., Balgonie, Fife. BALFOUR, GEORGE W., M.D., LL.D., 17, Walker Street, Edinburgh. BALFOUR, CAPTAIN J. E. H., 3, Berkeley Square, London. BAHR, WILLIAM, 119, Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square, London. BALL, NORRIS & HADLEY, 5, Argyll Place, London. BARBER, W., Swinden, Halifax. BARNES, J.W., F.S.A., Durham. BARRATT, THOMAS. BARTLETT, GEORGE A., 1, Wolverton Gardens, London. BATTERSEA PUBLIC LIBRARY. BATTISCOMBE & HARRIS, 49 and 50, Great Marylebone Street, London. BAXTER & Co., Colegate Street, Norwich. BAZLEY, SIR THOMAS S., BART. BELOE, EDWARD MILLIGEN, F.S.A., Paradise, King's Lynn. BENNETT-POE, J.T., Ashley Place, S.W. BERESFORD-PEIRSE, SIR HENRY, BART. BEVAN, REV. PHILIP CHARLES, March Baldon Rectory, Near Oxford. BIBBY, JAMES J. BIRCH, CHARLES E., 19, Bloomsbury Street, London. BIRDWOOD, SIR GEORGE, K.C.I.E., C.S.I., M.D. BLACKBURNE & JOHNSTON, Wells Street, Oxford Street, London. BLOMFIELD, SIR ARTHUR W., M.A., A.R.A. BONHAM, F.J., 65, Oxford Street, London. BOOLS, W.E., 7, Cornhill, London. BORRADAILE, CHARLES, Brighton. BOUCNEAU, A. J. H., 349, Euston Rd., London. BOYS & SPURGE, 79, Great Eastern Street, London. BRADSHAW, CHRISTOPHER, Manchester. BRADY & SON, 74, High Street, Perth. BRERETON, PROFESSOR W.W., Galway. BRETT, DR., 63, Shepherd's Bush Road, London. BRIGGS, R.A., F.R.I.B.A., 2, Devonshire Square, London. BROOKE, HENRY, 20, Holland Park Villas, London. BROWN BROTHERS, 114a, George Street, Edinburgh. BRUCE, ISAAC, 4, Maitland Street, Edinburgh. BULKELEY-OWEN, Rev. T.M., Tedsmore Hall, Oswystry. BURD, J.S., Compton Gifford, Plymouth. BURNARD, ROBERT, 3. Hillsborough, Plymouth. BUTTS, CAPTAIN, The Salterns, Parkstone, Dorset. CAINE, H.J., Deanwood, Newbury. CAMPBELL, SIR ARCHIBALD, S. J. (of Succoth), Bart. CAMPBELL, SIR GUY. CARLIUAN & BEAUMETZ, Rue Beaurepaire, Paris. CARMICHAEL, SIR T.D., Gibson, Bart. CARRINGTON, HOWARD, 39, High Street, Stockport. CASTLE, REUBEN, F.R.I.B.A., Westgate, Cleckheaton. CHAMBERLAIN, RT. HON. JOSEPH, M.P. CHAMBERLAIN, KING & JONES, 27, Union Street, Birmingham. CHAPMAN, H., Windsor Hall, Windsor Street, Brighton. CHRISTIE, MANSON & WOODS, King Street, St. James' Square, London. CIVIL SERVICE SUPPLY ASSOCIATION, Bedford Street, Strand, London. CLAPPERTON, W.R. & Co., 59, Princes Street, Edinburgh. CLAPTON, EDWARD, Esq., M.D., F.L.S., 22, St. Thomas Street, London. CLARK, WILLIAM, Oxford Street, London. CLIFFORD, SAMUEL, 14, Goldsmith Street, Nottingham. CLOWES, J.E., Quay, Great Yarmouth. COATES, MAJOR EDWARD F., Tayles Hill, Ewell, Surrey. COCHRAN, ALEX, 22, Blythewood Square, Glasgow. COHEN & SONS, B., 1, Curtain Road, London. COLT, E.W., M.A., Hagley Hall, Rugeley. CONRATH & SONS, South Audley Street, London. COOK, J., & SON, 80, Market Street, Edinburgh. COMBE, R.H., D.L., J.P., Surrey. COOPER, REV. CANON W.H., F.R.G.S., 19, Delahay Street, Westminster. COOPER, JOSEPH, Granville Terrace, Lytham. CORNFORD, L. COPE, A.R.I.B.A., Norfolk Road, Brighton. COUNT, F.W., Market Place, East Dereham. CORNISH BROS., 37, New Street, Birmingham. CORNISH & SON, J., Liverpool. CORNISH, J.E., 16, St. Ann's Square, Manchester. COUNT, F.W., Market Place, East Dereham. COWIE, ROBERT, 39b, Queensferry Street, Edinburgh. CRAIGIE, E.W., 8, Fopstone Road, London. CRANBROOK, RT. HON. VISCOUNT, G.C.S.I. CRANFORD, R., Dartmouth. CRANSTON & ELLIOT, 47, North Bridge, Edinburgh. CREIGHTON, DAVID H., Museum R.S.A.I, Kilkenny, Ireland. CRISP, H.B., Saxmundham. CROFT, ARTHUR, South Park, Wadhurst, Surrey. CROSS, F. RICHARDSON, M.B., F.R.C.S. CROWLEY, REGINALD A., A.R.I.B.A., 96, George Street, Croydon. CUNNINGHAM, GENERAL SIR A. CUTLER, THOMAS, F.R.I.B.A, 5, Queen's Square, London. DALRYMPLE, Hon. H.E.W., Bargany, Girvan, Ayrshire. DARMSTAEDTER, DR., Berlin. DAVENPORT, HENRY, C.C., Woodcroft, Leek. DAVIES, REV. GERALD S., Charterhouse, Godalming. DAVIS, COLONEL JOHN, Sifrons, Farnboro', Hants. DAVIS, JAMES W., F.S.A., Chevinedge, Halifax. DE BATHE, GENERAL SIR HENRY, BART. DE L'ISLE & DUDLEY, RT. HON. LORD, Penshurst Place, Tonbridge. DE TRAFFORD, HUMPHREY F., 36, Charles Street, Berkeley Square, London. DE SAUMAREZ, RT. HON. LORD. DEBENHAM & FREEBODY, Wigmore Street, London. DERBY, RT, HON. EARL OF., K.G. DORMER, ROLAND, Ministry of Finance, Cairo. DOUGLAS, GRENVILLE. DOWNING, WILLIAM, Afonwan, Acock's Green, Birmingham. DOVESTON'S, Manchester. DREY, A.S., Munich. DRUCE & Co., Baker Street, London. DRURY-LAVIN, MRS. DULAU & Co., 37, Soho Square, London. DUNDEE FREE LIBRARY. DURHAM, RT. HON. EARL OF. DUVEEN, J.J., Oxford Street, London. EASTER, GEORGE, Free Library, Norwich, EDIS, COLONEL, F.S.A., F.R.I.B.A., 14, Fitzroy Square, London. EDWARDS & ROBERTS, Wardour Street, London. EGGINTON, JOHN, Milverton Erleigh, Reading. ELLIOT, ANDREW, 17, Princes Street, Edinburgh. ELLIOTT, HORACE, 18, Queen's Road, Bayswater, London. ELWES, H. T., Fir Bank, East Grimstead. EMPSON, C. W., Palace Court, Bayswater, London. EVANS, COLONEL JOHN, Horsham. FANE, W. D., Melbourne Hall, Derby. FENWICK, J. G., Moorlands, Newcastle-on-Tyne. FERRIER, GEORGE STRATON, R.S.W., 41, Heriot Row, Edinburgh. FFOOLKES, His HONOUR JUDGE WYNNE, Old Northgate House, Chester. FIRBANK, J. T., D.L., J.P., Coopers, Chislehurst. FISHER, EDWARD, F.S.A. Scot., Abbotsbury, Newton-Abbot. FISHER, SAMUEL T., The Grove, Streatham. FLEMING, MRS. ROBERT, Walden, Chislehurst. FLETCHER, W., Tottenham Court Road, London. FORD, ONSLOW, A.R.A., 62, Acacia Road, Regent's Park, N.W. FORRESTER, ROBERT, Glasgow. FOSTER, CAPTAIN, J.P., D.L., Apley Park, Bridgnorth. FOSTER, J. COLLIE, 44a, Gutter Lane, London. FOX & JACOBS, 69, Wigmore Street, London. FRAEUR, FREDERICK, Greek Street, Soho, London. FRAIN, WILLIAM, Dundee. FRANCIS, JOHN H., 17, Regent Place, Birmingham. FRANKAU, Mrs., Weymouth Street, Portland Place, London. FRASER & Co., A., 7, Union Street, Inverness. FRITH, MISS LOUISE, 18, Fulham Road, London. FULLER, B. FRANKLIN, 16, Great Eastern Street, London. FUZZEY, J. & A. J., Penzance. GRAINER, J. W., M.B. Edin., Belmont House, Thrapstone, Northampton. GALLOWAY, JOHN, Aberdeen. GARDNER, GEORGE, 209, Brompton Road, London. GARNETT, ROBERT, J. P., Warrington. GARROD, TURNER & SON, Ipswich. GIBBONS, DR., 29, Cadogan Place, London. GIBSON, ROBERT, Pitt Street, Portobello. GILBERT, GEORGE RALPH, Dunolly, Torquay. GILLILAN, WM., 6, Palace Gate, Bayswater, London. GILLOW & Co., Lancaster. GILLOWS, Messrs., 406, Oxford Street, London. GODFREE, A. H., 18, Holland Villas Road, Bayswater, London. GOOCH, SIR ALFRED SHERLOCK. GOODALL, E. & Co., Limited, Manchester. GOLDSMID, SIR JULIAN, BART., M.P. GOSFORD, RIGHT HON. EARL OF, K.P., GOW, JAMES M., 66, George Street, Edinburgh. GRAND HOTEL, Northumberland Avenue, London. GREEN, J. L., 64, King's Road, Camden Road, London. GREENALL, LADY, Walton Hall, Warrington. GREENWOOD & SONS, Stonegate, York. GREGORY & Co., Regent Street, London. GUILD, The Decorative Arts, Limd., 2, Hanover-Square, London. GURNEY, RICHARD, Northrepps Hall, Norwich. GUTHRIE, D. C. HALL, MRS. DICKINSON, Whatton Manor, Nottingham. HAMBURGER BROS., Utrecht. HAMER, WILLIAM, Mayfield, Knutsford. HAMILTON, THOMAS, Manchester. HAMPTON & SONS, Pall Mall East, London. HANNAY, A. A., 80, Coleman Street, London. HANSELL, P. E., Wroxharn House, Norwich. HARDING, GEORGE, Charing Cross Road, London. HARDY, E. MEREDITH, 9, Sinclair Gardens, Kensington. HARRISON, H.E.B., Devonshire Road, Liverpool. HARVEY, REV. CANON, Vicar's Court, Lincoln. HAWES, G. E., Duke's Palace Joinery Works, Norwich. HAWKINS, A. P., New York. HAWKINS, THOMAS, Bridge House, Newbury. HAWSELL, P. E., Wroxham, Norfolk. HAYNE, CHARLES SEALE, M.P., 6, Upper Belgrave Street, London HAYWARD, MRS., Mossley Hill, Liverpool. HEADFORT, THE MOST NOBLE MARCHIONESS OF. HEMS, HARRY, Exeter. HERRING, DR. HERBERT T., 50, Harley Street, London. HESSE, Miss, The Lodge, Haslemere, Surrey. HEWITSON, MILNER & THEXTON, Tottenham Court Road, London. HILLHOUSE, JAMES, 50, Lincoln's Inn Fields, W.C. HIND, JOHN, Manchester. HOBSON, RICHARD, J. P., D.L, etc., The Marfords, Bromborough, Cheshire. HOCKLIFFE, T. H., High Street, Bedford. HODGES, W.D., 249, Brompton Road, London. HODGES, Figgis & Co. 104, Grafton Street, Dublin. HODGKINS, E. M., King Street, St. James's Square, London. HOGG & COUTTS, 61, North Frederick Street, Edinburgh HOLMES, W. & R., Dunlop Street, Glasgow. HOPWOOD, W., Scarborough. HORLOCK, REV. GEORGE, St. Olave's Vicarage, Hanbury Street, London. HORNBY, ADMIRAL SIR G. PHIPPS. HOTEL METROPOLIS, London. HOUGHTON, CEDRIC, 17, Ribblesdale Place, Preston. HOZIER, SIR WILLIAM W., Bart. HUMBERT, SON & FLINT, Watford and Lincoln's Inn. HUNT, WILLIAM, 5, York Buildings, Adelphi. HUNTER, REV. CHARLES, Helperby, Yorks. HUNTER, FREDERICK, 75, Portland Place, London. HUNTER, R. W., 19, George IV. Bridge, Edinburgh IVEAGIE, Rt. Hon. Lord. JACKSON, W. L., M.P., Chief Secretary for Ireland. JACOB, W. HEATON, 29, Sinclair Gardens, London. JARROLD & SONS, Norwich. JENKINS, JOHN J., The Grange, Swansea. JEROME, JEROME K., Alpha Place, St. John's Wood. JOICEY, MRS. E., Haltwhistle. JOHNSTON, WILLIAM, 43, Cambridge Road, Hove. JONES, YARRELL & CO., 8, Bury Street, Jermyn Street, London. JOSEPH, EDWARD, 25, Dover Street, Piccadilly, London. JOSEPH, FELIX, Eastbourne. Jowers, Alfred, A.R.I.B.A., 7, Gray's Inn Square, London. KEATES, DR. W. COOPER, 2, Tredegar Villas, East Dulwich Road, London. KELVIN, RT. HON. LORD. KEMP-WELCH, CHARLES DURANT, Brooklands, Ascot. KENDAL, MILNE & CO., Manchester. KENNETT, W. B., 89, High Street, Sandgate. KENT, A. T. KENYON, GEORGE, 35, New Bond Street, London. KING, ALFRED, Kensington Court Mansions, London. Knight, J. W., 33, Hyde Park Square, London, KNOX, JAMES, 31, Upper Kensington Lane, London. LAINSON, TH., & Son, 170, North Street, Brighton. LANGFORD, RT. HON. LORD. LANDSBERG, H. & SON, 1, Gordon Place, London. LARKINS-WALKER, LT. COLONEL, 201, Cromwell Road, London. LAURIE, THOMAS & SON, St. Vincent Street, Glasgow. LAW, CHARLES A., 53, Highgate Hill, London. LEE, A. G., Alexander House, Solent Road, W. Hampstead. LEIGH, MRS., Tabley House, Knutsford. LEIGHTON, Sir Frederic P.R.A. LEIGHTON, Captain F., Parsons Green, Fulham, London. LENNOX, D., M. D., 144, Nethergate, Dundee. LETHBRIDGE, CAPTAIN E., 20, St. Peter Street, Winchester. LEWIS, MISS WYNDHAM, 33, Hans Place, London. LITCHFIELD, SAMUEL, The Lordship, Cheshunt. LITCHFIELD, T. G., Bruton Street, London. LINDSAY-CARNEGIE, J. P., D.L., Co. Forfar. LODER, R. B., 47, Grosvenor Square, London. LONG, NATHANIEL, Tuckey Street, Cork. LORD & CO., W. TURNER, 120, Mount Street, Grosvenor Square, London. LONGDEN, H., London and Sheffield. LOWE, J. W., Ridge Hall, Chapel-En-Le-Frith. LUCAS, SEYMOUR, A.R.A., Woodchurch Road, West Hampstead. LYNAM, C., F.R.I.B.A., Stoke-On-Trent. MCANDREW, JOHN. MACDONALD, A. R., 10, Chester Street, S.W. MACDONALD, DUDLEY WARD, 15, Earls' Terrace, Kensington, W. MACK, THOMAS, Manchester. MCKIE, MISS, Dumfries, N.B MACKINTOSH, J. R., St. Giles Street, Edinburgh. MANCHESTER FREE LIBRARY. MANN, J. P., Adamson Road, N.W. MANNERING, E. H., Hillside, Arkwright Road, Hampstead. MANT, Rev. Newton, The Vicarage, Hendon, N.W. MAPLE, J. Blundell, M.P. MARKS, H. Stacy, R.A. MARSHALL, ARTHUR, A.R.I.B.A., Cauldon Place, Long Row, Nottingham. MARSHAM, MAJOR G. A., J.P., Thetford. MART, ALFRED, 22, Carleton Road, Tufnell Park, London. MARTIN, SIR THEODORE, K.C.B. MELVILLE, RT. HON. VISCOUNT. MENZIES, JOHN & Co., 12, Hanover Street, Edinburgh. MIALL, G. C., Bouverie Street, London. MILFORD, THE LADY. MILLER, ALFRED, Queen's Road, Weybridge. MILLAR, DAVID, 8, Fitzroy Street, London. MILLS, R. MASON, Bourne, Lincolnshire. MILNE, ROBERT O., Oakfield, Leamington. MILNER, JOHN, 180, Great Portland Street, London. MITCHELL LIBRARY, Miller Street, Glasgow. MITCHELL, SYDNEY & WILSON, 13, Young Street, Edinburgh. MORGAN & SONS, Hanway Street, W. MORRISON, H., Public Library, Edinburgh. MORTON, THOMAS H., M.D., C.M., Don House, Brightside, Sheffield. MOUNTSTEPHEN, THE LADY. MURRAY, WILLIAM, F.S.I., 81, Wood Green Shepherds Bush, London. MURPHY, JOHN, 215, Brompton Road, London. NELSON, RT. HON. EARL. NETTLEFOLD, HUGH, Hallfield, Edgbaston, Birmingham. NEVILL, CHARLES H., Bramall Hall, Cheshire. NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE PUBLIC LIBRARIES. NICOL, ROBERT E., 94, Morningside Road, Edinburgh. NIND, P. H., Lashlake House, Thame, Oxon. NORMAN, JAMES T., 57, Great Eastern Street, London. NOTTINGHAM MECHANICS' INSTITUTION. NUTTALL, JOHN R., Market Place, Lancaster. NYBURG & Co., 17, Hanway Street, W. OAKELEY, REV. W. BAGNALL, Newland, Coleford, Gloucester. OAKLEY, FRANK P., Hanging Bridge Chambers, Cathedral Yard, Manchester. OLIVER & LEESON, Bank Chambers, Mosley Street, Newcastle-on-Tyne. OSBORNE, WILLIAM, 30, Reform Street, Beith, N.B. OVEY, RICHARD, J.P., Badgemore, Henley-on-Thames. PALMER, THE REV. FRANCIS, 17, New-Cavendish-Street, W. PARLANE, JAMES, Rusholme, Manchester. PARR, T. KNOWLES, Isthmian Club, S.W. PATERSON, SMITH & INNES, 77, South Bridge, Edinburgh. PATTERSON, W. G., 54, George Street, Edinburgh. PATTISON, ROBERT P., Seacliffe, Trinity. PAUL, ALFRED S. H., Tetbury. PEARCE, S. S., 4, Victoria Parade, Ramsgate. PEARSE, H., Rochdale. PEARSON, JOHN L., R.A., 13, Mansfield Street, London. PECKITT, LIEUT.-COLONEL R. WM., Thornton-le-Moor, Northallerton. PENNEY, J. CAMPBELL, 15, Gloucester Place, Edinburgh. PENTY, WALTER, G., F.R.I.B.A., Clifford Chambers, York. PHILIP, G. STANLEY, 32, Fleet Street, London. PHILLIPS, F. W., The Manor House, Hitchin. PHILLIPS, MORO, West Street House, Chichester. PIGGOT, REVD. ALEXANDER, Leven, Fife. PITT-RIVERS, GENERAL, F.S.A., 4, Grosvenor Gardens, S.W. POLLARD, JOSEPH, Nicholas Street, Truro. POLLEN, J. HUNGERFORD, South Kensington Museum. PONSONBY, HON. GERALD, 57, Green Street, London. PORTAL, MELVILLE, J.P., Micheldever, Hants. POTT, HARRY KERBY, The Cedars, Sunninghill, Ascot. POWEL, H. PENRY, Castle Madoc, Brecknock. POWELL & POWELL, 18, Old Bond Street, Bath. POWELL & SONS, JAMES, 31, Osborn Street, Hull. POWIS, RIGHT HON. EARL OF. PROPERT, J. LUMSDEN, 112, Gloucester Terrace, London. PRUYN, MRS. JOHN V.L., Albany, New York. QUANTRELL, A. & S.S., 203, Wardour Street, London. RABBITS, W. T., 6, Cadogan Gardens, S.W. RADCLIFFE, H. MILES, Summerlands, Kendal. RADCLIFFE, R. D., M.A., F.S.A., Darley, Old Swan, Liverpool. RADNOR, THE RT. HON. THE COUNTESS OF RAMSAY, ROBERT, 33/437--Greendyke Street, Glasgow. RAMSEY, THE HON. MRS. CHARLES, 48, Grosvenor Street, W. RICHARDS, S., Hounds Gate, Nottingham. RIGDEN, JOHN, J. P., Surrey House, Brixton Hill, S.W. RILEY, ATHELSTAN, L.C.C., 2, Kensington Court. RILEY, JOHN, 20, Harrington Gardens, S.W. RIVINGTON, CHARLES ROBERT, F.S.A., Stationers' Hall, London. ROBERTS, D. LLOYD, M.D., F.R.C.P., Broughton Park, Manchester. ROBSON, EDWARD R., F.S.A., 9, Bridge Street, Westminster. ROBSON, R., 16, Old Bond Street, W. ROBSON.& SONS, 42, Northumberland Street, Newcastle-on-Tyne. ROGERSON, ARTHUR, Fleurville, Cheltenham. ROMAINE-WALKER, W. H., A.R.I.B.A., Buckingham Street, Strand, London. ROSE, ALGERNON, F.R.G.S., Great Pulteney Street, London. ROTHSCHILD, THE LADY. ROTHSCHILD, LEOPOLD DE, 5, Hamilton Place, W. RUSSELL, JOHN, M. B., 142, Waterloo Road, Burslem. SACKVILLE, RT. HON. LORD, Knole Park, Sevenoaks. SALMON, W. FORREST, F.R.I.B.A., 197, St. Vincent, Street, Glasgow. SAITER, S. JAMES A., F.R.S., Basingfield, near Basingstoke. SANDERS, T. R. H., Old Fore Street, Sidmouth. SANDERSON, JOHN, 52, Berners Street, London. SAVORY, HORACE R., 11, Cornhill, London. SAWERS, JOHN, Gothenburg, Sweden. SCIENCE AND ART DEPARTMENT of South Kensington. SCOTT, A. & J., Glasgow. SCOTT, J. & T., 10, George Street, Edinburgh. SCULLY, W. C., 32, Earl's Court Square, London. SHARP, J., Fernwood Road, Newcastle-on-Tyne. SHERBORNE, RT. HON. LORD. SHIELL, JOHN, 5, Bank Street, Dundee. SIMKIV, W. R., North Hill, Colchester. SIMPSON, THOMAS & SONS, Silver Street, Halifax. SIMS, F. MANLEY, F.R.C.S., 12, Hertford Street, London. SION COLLEGE LIBRARY, Thames Embankment, London. SLESSOR, REV. J. H., The Rectory, Headbourne, Worthy, Winchester. SMILEY, HUGH H., Gallowhill, Paisley. SMITH, CHARLES, 12, Gloucester Terrace, Hyde Park, London. SMITH, EDWARD ORFORD, Council House, Birmingham. SMITH, F. BENNETT, 17, Brazenose Street, Manchester. SMITH, W. J., 41 & 43, North Street, Brighton. SOPWITH, H. T., Newcastle-on-Tyne. SPENCE, C. J., South Preston Lodge, North Shields. STENHOUSE & SON, 4, Alexandra Gardens, Folkestone. STEPHENS, E. GEORGE, 5, Portman Street, Whalley Range, Manchester. STEPHENS, J. WALLACE, Belph, Whitmell, Nr. Chesterfield. STONE, J. H., J.P., Handsworth. STORR, J. S., 26, King Street, Covent Garden. TALBOT, LIEUT. COLONEL GERALD. TALBOT, Miss, 3, Cavendish Square, London. TANNER, ROBERT R.S., 9, Montagu Street, Portman Square, London. TANNER, SLINGSBY, 1046, Mount Street, Berkeley Square, London. TAPLIN, JOHN, 8, Blomfield Road, Maida Vale, London. TASKER, G. S., Glen-Ashton, Wimbourne, Dorset. TATE, JOHN, Oaklands, Alnwick. TAYLOR, JOHN & SONS, 109, Princes Street, Edinburgh. TEMPEST, SIR ROBERT T., BART. TEMPEST, MAJOR A.C., Coleby Hall, near Lincoln. THOMASON, YEOVILLE, F.R.I.B.A., 9, Observatory Gardens, Kensington, London. THOMPSON, THE LADY MEYSEY. THOMPSON, J. C. THOMPSON, RICHARD, Dringcote, The Mount, York. THONET BROS., 68, Oxford Street, London. THYNNE, J. C., Cloisters, Westminster, London. TRAILL, JAMES CHRISTIE, J.P, D.L., Rattan, Caithness; and Hobbister, Orkney. TAPNALL, C., 60, St. John's Road, Clifton. TUNISSEN, G., 64, Noordeinde, The Hague. TURNER, R. D., Roughway, Tonbridge. TURNER, WILLIAM, Manchester. VANDERBYL, MRS. PHILIP, Porchester Terrace, London. VAUGHAN & Co., 18, Gt. Eastern Street, London. VINCE, A. S., 14, Gt. Pulteney Street, London. VINEY, JOHN P., 26, Charlotte Street, Portland Place, London. VOST & FISHER, Halifax. WADE, MISS, Royal School of Art Needlework, South Kensington. WALLACE, MRS., French Hall, Gateshead. WALLIS & Co., Limited, Holborn Circus, London. WALTERS, FREDERICK A., A.R.I.B.A, 4, Great Queen Street, Westminster. WARBURTON, SAMUEL, 10, Witton Polygon, Cheetham Hill, Manchester. WARING, S. J. & SONS, Bold Street, Liverpool. WARNER & SONS, Newgate Street, E.C. WATKINS, REV. H. G., Lilliput Hill, Parkstone, Dorset. WATNEY, VERNON J., Berkeley Square, London. WATTERSON, WILLIAM CRAVEN, Hill Carr, Altrincham. WATTS, G. F., R.A., Little Holland House, Kensington, London. WATTS, JAMES, Old Hall, Cheadle, near Manchester. WEBB, R. BARRETT, Bristol. WEEKES, J.E., 19, Sinclair Gardens, W. WELLARD, CHARLES, St. Leonard Street, Bromley-by-Bow. WERTHEIMER, ASHER, 154, New Bond Street, W. WERTHEIMER, CHARLES, 21, Norfolk Street, Park Lane, W. WESTMINSTER, HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF. WESTON, MRS. E., Ashbank, Penrith. WHARTON, THE REV. GEORGE, Radley College, Abingdon. WHARTON, W. H. B., London Road, Manchester. WHEATLEY, COLONEL. WHEELER, WILLIAM, George Row, York Road, City Road, London. WHITAKER, WALTER, Combe Down, Bath. WHITAKER, W. W., Cornbrook House, Manchester. WIGAN PUBLIC LIBRARY. WILKINSON & SON, 8, Old Bond Street, London. WILLIAMS, MRS., Parcian, Anglesey. WILLS, GEORGE, Park Street, Bristol. WILSON, SAMUEL, 7, King Street, St. James's Square. WOLFSOHN, HELENA, Dresden. WOOD, ALEXANDER, Saltcoats. WOOD, HERBERT S., A.R.I.B.A., 16, Basinghall Street, London. WOOD, T. A., 67, Berners Street, London. WORCESTER PUBLIC LIBRARY. WORNUM, R. S., 26, Bedford Square, London. WORTHINGTON, HENRY H., Sale Old Hall, Manchester. WRIGHT, A. O., 25, Low Skellgate, Ripon. WRIGHT, E., 144, Wardour Street, London. WYLIE, S., Glasgow. WYLLIK & SONS, D., Aberdeen. YORKE, THE HON. MRS. ELIOT. RECEIVED TOO LATE FOR CLASSIFICATION. ANDERSON, MRS. J. H., Palewell, East Sheen, S.W. BETHELL, WILLIAM, Derwent Bank, Malton. EDWARDS, THOMAS & SONS, Wolverhampton. EMSLIE, A., Rothay, Border Crescent, Sydenham. GOSFORD, THE RT. HONBLE. THE COUNTESS OF. LARKING, T. J., 28, New Bond Street, W. MRS. HARRY POLLOCK. SIDNEY, T. H., Wolverhampton. [Illustration] Footnotes [1] Gopher is supposed to mean cypress wood. See notes on Woods (Appendix). [2] See also Notes on Woods (Appendix). [3] Folding stool--Faldistory or Faldstool--a portable seat, similar to a camp stool, of wood or metal covered with silk or other material. It was used by a Bishop when officiating in other than his own cathedral church. [4] Those who would read a very interesting account of the history of this stone are referred to the late Dean Stanley's "Historical Memorials of Westminster Abbey." [5] The sous, which was but nominal money, may be reckoned as representing 20 francs, the denier 1 franc, but allowance must be made for the enormous difference in the value of silver, which would make 20 francs in the thirteenth century represent upwards of 200 francs in the present century. [6] The panels of the high screen or back to the stalls in "La Certosa di Pavia" (a Carthusian Monastery suppressed by Joseph II.), are famous examples of early intarsia. In an essay on the subject written by Mr. T.G. Jackson, A.R.A., they are said to be the work of one Bartolommeo, an Istrian artist, and to date from 1486. The same writer mentions still more elaborate examples of pictorial "intarsia" in the choir stalls of Sta. Maria, Maggiore, in Bergamo. [7] Writers of authority on architecture have noticed that the chief characteristic in style of the French Renaissance, as contrasted with the Italian, is that in the latter the details and ornament of the new school were imposed on the old foundations of Gothic character. The Chateau of Chambord is given as an instance of this combination. [8] Dr. Jacob von Falké states that the first mention of glass as an extraordinary product occurs in a register of 1239. [9] "Holland House," by Princess Marie Liechtenstein, gives a full account of this historic mansion. [10] The following passage occurs in one of Beaumont and Fletcher's plays: "Is the great couch up, the Duke of Medina sent?" to which the duenna replies, "'Tis up and ready;" and then Marguerite asks, "And day beds in all chambers?" receiving in answer, "In all, lady." [11] This tapestry is still in the Great Hall at Hampton Court Palace. [12] [PG Note] The original text said "gods". [13] The present decorations of the Palace of Versailles were carried out about 1830, under Louis Phillipe. "Versailles Galeries Historiques," par C. Gavard, is a work of 13 vols., devoted to the illustration of the pictures, portraits, statues, busts, and various decorative contents of the Palace. [14] For description of method of gilding the mounts of furniture, see Appendix. [15] For a short account of these Factories, see Appendix. [16] Watteau, 1684-1721. Lancrel, _b_. 1690, _d_. 1743. Boucher, _b_. 1703, _d_. 1770. [17] The Court room of the Stationers' Hall contains an excellent set of tables of this kind. [18] The late Mr. Adam Black, senior partner in the publishing firm of A. and C. Black, and Lord Macaulay's colleague in Parliament, when quite a young man, assisted Sheraton in the production of this book; at that time the famous designer of furniture was in poor circumstances. [19] The word Baroque, which became a generic term, was derived from the Portugese "barroco," meaning a large irregular-shaped pearl. At first a jeweller's technical term, it came later, like "rococo," to be used to describe the kind of ornament which prevailed in design of the nineteenth century, after the disappearance of the classic. [20] Mr. Parker defines Dado as "The solid block, or cube, forming the body of a pedestal in classical architecture, between the base mouldings and the cornice: an architectural arrangement of mouldings, etc., round the lower parts of the wall of a room, resembling a continuous pedestal." [21] Owen Jones' "Grammar of Ornament," a work much used by designers, was published in 1856. [22] Essay by Mr. Edward S. Prior, "Of Furniture and the Room." [23] Published in 1868, when the craze for novelties was at its height. [24] Essay on "Decorated Furniture," by J. H. Pollen. 
14298	----	Proofreading Team THE ART OF INTERIOR DECORATION PLATE I There is something unusually exquisite about this composition. You will discover at a glance perfect balance, repose--line, everywhere, yet with it infinite grace and a winning charm. One can imagine a tea tray brought in, a table placed and those two attractive chairs drawn together so that my lady and a friend may chat over the tea cups. The mirror is an Italian Louis XVI. The sconces, table and chairs, French. The vases, Italian, all antiques. A becoming mellow light comes through the shade of deep cream Italian parchment paper with Louis XVI decorations. It should be said that the vases are Italian medicine jars--literally that. They were once used by the Italian chemists, for their drugs, and some are of astonishing workmanship and have great intrinsic value, as well as the added value of age and uniqueness. The colour scheme is as attractive as the lines. The walls are grey, curtains of green and grey, antique taffeta being used, while the chairs have green silk on their seats and the table is of green and faded gold. The green used is a wonderfully beautiful shade. [Illustration: _Portion of a Drawing Room, Perfect in Composition and Detail_] THE ART OF INTERIOR DECORATION BY GRACE WOOD AND EMILY BURBANK _ILLUSTRATED_ NEW YORK DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 1917 DEDICATED TO A.M.M. _At the age of eighty, an inspiration to all who meet her, because she is the embodiment of what this book stands for; namely, fidelity to the principles of Classic Art and watchfulness for the vital new note struck in the cause of the Beautiful._ FOREWORD If you would have your rooms interesting as well as beautiful, make them say something, give them a spinal column by keeping all ornamentation subservient to line. Before you buy anything, try to imagine how you want each room to look when completed; get the picture well in your mind, as a painter would; think out the main features, for the details all depend upon these and will quickly suggest themselves. This is, in the long run, the quickest and the most economical method of furnishing. There is a theory that no room can be created all at once, that it must grow gradually. In a sense this is a fact, so far as it refers to the amateur. The professional is always occupied with creating and recreating rooms and can instantly summon to mind complete schemes of decoration. The amateur can also learn to mentally furnish rooms. It is a fascinating pastime when one gets the knack of it. Beautiful things can be obtained anywhere and for the minimum price, if one has a feeling for line and colour, or for either. If the lover of the beautiful was not born with this art instinct, it may be quickly acquired. A decorator creates or rearranges one room; the owner does the next, alone, or with assistance, and in a season or two has spread his or her own wings and worked out legitimate schemes, teeming with individuality. One observes, is pleased with results and asks oneself why. This is the birth of _Good Taste_. Next, one experiments, makes mistakes, rights them, masters a period, outgrows or wearies of it, and takes up another. Progress is rapid and certain in this fascinating amusement,--study--call it what you will, if a few of the laws underlying all successful interior decoration are kept in mind. These are: HARMONY in line and colour scheme; SIMPLICITY in decoration and number of objects in room, which is to be dictated by usefulness of said objects; and insistence upon SPACES which, like rests in music, have as much value as the objects dispersed about the room. Treat your rooms like "still life," see to it that each group, such as a table, sofa, and one or two chairs make a "composition," suggesting comfort as well as beauty. Never have an isolated chair, unless it is placed against the wall, as part of the decorative scheme. In preparing this book the chief aim has been clearness and brevity, the slogan of our day! We give a broad outline of the historical periods in furnishing, with a view to quick reference work. The thirty-two illustrations will be analysed for the practical instruction of the reader who may want to furnish a house and is in search of definite ideas as to lines of furniture, colour schemes for upholstery and hangings, and the placing of furniture and ornaments in such a way as to make the composition of rooms appear harmonious from the artist's point of view. The index will render possible a quick reference to illustrations and explanatory text, so that the book may be a guide for those ambitious to try their hand at the art of interior decoration. The manner of presentation is consciously didactic, the authors believing that this is the simplest method by which such a book can offer clear, terse suggestions. They have aimed at keeping "near to the bone of fact" and when the brief statements of the fundamental laws of interior decoration give way to narrative, it is with the hope of opening up vistas of personal application to embryo collectors or students of periods. CONTENTS FOREWORD CHAPTER I. HOW TO REARRANGE A ROOM Method of procedure.--Inherited eyesores.--Line.--Colour.--Treatment of small rooms and suites.--Old ceilings.--Old floors.--To paint brass bedsteads.--Hangings.--Owning two or three antique pieces of furniture, how proceed.--Appropriateness to setting.--How to give your home a personal quality. CHAPTER II. HOW TO CREATE A ROOM Mere comfort.--Period rooms.--Starting a collection of antique furniture.--Reproductions.--Painted furniture.--Order of procedure in creating a room.--How to decide upon colour scheme.--Study values.--Period ballroom.--A distinguished room.--Each room a stage "set."--Background.--Flowers as decoration.--Placing ornaments.--Tapestry.--Tendency to antique tempered by vivid Bakst colours. CHAPTER III. HOW TO DETERMINE CHARACTER OF HANGINGS AND FURNITURE-COVERING FOR A GIVEN ROOM Silk, velvet, corduroy, rep, leather, use of antique silks, chintz.--When and how used. CHAPTER IV. THE STORY OF TEXTILES Materials woven by hand and machine, embroidered, or the combination of the two known as Tapestry.--Painted tapestry.--Art fostered by the Church.--Decorated walls and ceilings, 13th century, England. CHAPTER V. CANDLESTICKS, LAMPS, FIXTURES FOR GAS AND ELECTRICITY, AND SHADES Fixtures, as well as mantelpiece, must follow architect's scheme.--Plan wall space for furniture.--Shades for lights.--Important as to line and colour. CHAPTER VI. WINDOW SHADES AND AWNINGS Coloured gauze sash-curtains.--Window shades of glazed linen, with design in colours.--Striped canvas awnings. CHAPTER VII. TREATMENT OF PICTURES AND PICTURE FRAMES Selecting pictures.--Pictures as pure decoration.--"Staring" a picture.--Restraint necessary in hanging pictures.--Hanging miniatures. CHAPTER VIII. TREATMENT OF PIANO CASES Where interest centres abound piano.--Where piano is part of ensemble. CHAPTER IX. TREATMENT OF DINING-ROOM BUFFETS AND DRESSING-TABLES Articles placed upon them. CHAPTER X. TREATMENT OF WORK TABLES, BIRD CAGES, DOG BASKETS, AND FISH GLOBES Value as colour notes. CHAPTER XI. TREATMENT OF FIREPLACES Proportions, tiles, andirons, grates. CHAPTER XII. TREATMENT OF BATHROOMS A man's bathroom.--A woman's bathroom.--Bathroom fixtures.--Bathroom glassware. CHAPTER XIII. PERIOD ROOMS Chiselling of metals.--Ormoulu.--Chippendale.--Colonial.--Victorian.--The art of furniture making.--How to hang a mirror.--Appropriate furniture.--A home must have human quality, a personal note.--Mrs. John L. Gardner's Italian Palace in Boston.--The study of colour schemes.--Tapestries.--A narrow hall. CHAPTER XIV. PERIODS IN FURNITURE The story of the evolution of periods.-- Assyria.--Egypt.--Greece.--Rome.--France. --England.--America.--Epoch-making styles. CHAPTER XV. CONTINUATION OF PERIODS IN FURNITURE Greece.--Rome.--Byzantium.--Dark Ages.--Middle Ages.--Gothic.--Moorish.--Spanish.--Anglo-Saxon.--Cæsar's Table.--Charlemagne's Chair.--Venice. CHAPTER XVI. THE GOTHIC PERIOD Interior decoration of Feudal Castle.--Tapestry.--Hallmarks of Gothic oak carving. CHAPTER XVII. THE RENAISSANCE Italy.--The Medici.--Great architects, painters, designers, and workers in metals.--Marvellous pottery.--Furniture inlaying.--Hallmarks of Renaissance.--Oak carving.--Metal work.--Renaissance in Germany and Spain. CHAPTER XVIII. FRENCH FURNITURE Renaissance of classic period.--Francis I, Henry II, and the Louis.--Architecture, mural decoration, tapestry, furniture, wrought metals, ormoulu, silks, velvets, porcelains. CHAPTER XIX. THE PERIODS OF THE THREE LOUIS How to distinguish them.--Louis XIV.--Louis XV.--Louis XVI.--Outline.--Decoration.--Colouring.--Mural Decoration.--Tapestry. CHAPTER XX. CHARTS SHOWING HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF FURNITURE French and English. CHAPTER XXI. THE MAHOGANY PERIOD Chippendale.--Heppelwhite.--Sheraton.--The Adam Brothers.--Characteristics of these and the preceding English periods; Gothic, Elizabethan, Jacobean, William and Mary, Queen Anne.--William Morris.--Pre-Raphaelites. CHAPTER XXII. THE COLONIAL PERIOD Furniture.--Landscape paper.--The story of the evolution of wall decoration. CHAPTER XXIII. THE REVIVAL OF DIRECTOIRE AND EMPIRE FURNITURE Shown in modern painted furniture. CHAPTER XXIV. THE VICTORIAN PERIOD Architecture and interior decoration become unrelated.--Machine-made furniture.--Victorian cross-stitch, beadwork, wax and linen flowers.--Bristol glass.--Value to-day as notes of variety. CHAPTER XXV. PAINTED FURNITURE Including "mission" furniture.--Treatment of an unplastered cottage.--Furniture, colour-scheme. CHAPTER XXVI. TREATMENT OF AN INEXPENSIVE BEDROOM Factory furniture.--Chintz.--The cheapest mirrors.--Floors.--Walls.--Pictures.--Treatment of old floors. CHAPTER XXVII. TREATMENT OF A GUEST ROOM Where economy is not a matter of importance.--Panelled walls.--Louis XV painted furniture.--Taffeta curtains and bed-cover.--Chintz chair-covers.--Cream net sash-curtains.--Figured linen window-shades. CHAPTER XXVIII. A MODERN HOUSE IN WHICH GENUINE JACOBEAN FURNITURE Is APPROPRIATELY SET Traditional colour-scheme of crimson and gold. CHAPTER XXIX. UNCONVENTIONAL BREAKFAST-ROOMS AND SPORTS BALCONIES Porch-rooms.--Appropriate furnishings.--Colour schemes. CHAPTER XXX. SUN-ROOMS Colour schemes according to climate and season.--A small, cheap, summer house converted into one of some pretentions by altering vital details. CHAPTER XXXI. TREATMENT OF A WOMAN'S DRESSING-ROOM Solving problems of the toilet.--Shoe cabinets.--Jewel cabinets.--Dressing tables. CHAPTER XXXII. THE TREATMENT OF CLOSETS Variety of closets.--Colour scheme.--Chintz covered boxes. CHAPTER XXXIII. TREATMENT OF A NARROW HALL Furniture.--Device for breaking length of hall. CHAPTER XXXIV. TREATMENT OF A VERY SHADED LIVING-ROOM In a warm climate.--In a cool climate.--Warm and cold colours. CHAPTER XXXV. SERVANTS' ROOMS Practical and suitable attractiveness. CHAPTER XXXVI. TABLE DECORATION Appropriateness the keynote.--Tableware.--Linen, lace, and flowers.--Japanese simplicity.--Background. CHAPTER XXXVII. WHAT TO AVOID IN INTERIOR DECORATION: RULES FOR BEGINNERS Appropriateness.--Intelligent elimination.--Furnishings.--Colour scheme.--Small suites.--Background.--Placing rugs and hangings.--Treatment of long wall-space.--Men's rooms.--Table decoration.--Tea table.--How to train the taste, eye, and judgment. CHAPTER XXXVIII. FADS IN COLLECTING A panier fleuri collection.--A typical experience in collecting.--A "find" in an obscure American junk-shop.--Getting on the track of some Italian pottery.--Collections used as decoration.--A "find" in Spain. CHAPTER XXXIX. WEDGWOOD POTTERY, OLD AND MODERN The history of Wedgwood.--Josiah Wedgwood, the founder. CHAPTER XL. ITALIAN POTTERY Statuettes. CHAPTER XLI. VENETIAN GLASS, OLD AND MODERN Murano Museum collection.--Table-gardens in Venetian glass. IN CONCLUSION Four Fundamental Principles of Interior Decoration Re-stated. ILLUSTRATIONS PLATE I Portion of a Drawing-room, Perfect in Composition and Detail. PLATE II Bedroom in Country House. Modern Painted Furniture. PLATE III Suggestion for Treatment of a Very Small Bedroom. PLATE IV A Man's Office in Wall Street. PLATE V A Corner of the Same Office. PLATE VI Another View of the Same Office. PLATE VII Corner of a Room, Showing Painted Furniture, Antique and Modern. PLATE VIII Example of a Perfect Mantel, Ornaments and Mirror. PLATE IX Dining-room in Country House, Showing Modern Painted Furniture. PLATE X Dining-room Furniture, Italian Renaissance, Antique. PLATE XI Corner of Dining-room in New York Apartment, Showing Section of Italian Refectory Table and Italian Chairs, both Antique and Renaissance in Style. PLATE XII An Italian Louis XVI Salon in a New York Apartment. PLATE XIII Another Side of the Same Italian Louis XVI Salon. PLATE XIV A Narrow Hall Where Effect of Width is Attained by Use of Tapestry with Vista. PLATE XV Venetian Glass, Antique and Modern. PLATE XVI Corner of a Room in a Small Empire Suite. PLATE XVII An Example of Perfect Balance and Beauty in Mantel Arrangement. PLATE XVIII Corner of a Drawing-room, Furniture Showing Directoire Influence. PLATE XIX Entrance Hall in New York Duplex Apartment. Italian Furniture. PLATE XX Combination of Studio and Living-room in New York Duplex Apartment. PLATE XXI Part of a Victorian Parlour in One of the Few Remaining New York Victorian Mansions. PLATE XXII Two Styles of Day-beds, Modern Painted. PLATE XXIII Boudoir in New York Apartment. Painted Furniture, Antique and Reproductions. PLATE XXIV Example of Lack of Balance in Mantel Arrangement. PLATE XXV Treatment of Ground Lying Between House and Much Travelled Country Road. PLATE XXVI An Extension Roof in New York Converted into a Balcony. PLATE XXVII A Common-place Barn Made Interesting. PLATE XXVIII Narrow Entrance Hall of a New York Antique Shop. PLATE XXIX Example of a Charming Hall Spoiled by Too Pronounced a Rug. PLATE XXX A Man's Library. PLATE XXXI A Collection of Empire Furniture, Ornaments, and China. PLATE XXXII Italian Reproductions in Pottery After Classic Models. "Those who duly consider the influence of the _fine-arts_ on the _human mind_, will not think it a small benefit to the world, to diffuse their productions as wide, and preserve them as long as possible. The multiplying of copies of fine work, in beautiful and durable materials, must obviously have the same effect in respect to the arts as the invention of printing has upon literature and the sciences: by their means the principal productions of both kinds will be forever preserved, and will effectually prevent the return of ignorant and barbarous ages." JOSIAH WEDGWOOD: Catalogue of 1787. One of the most joyful obligations in life should be the planning and executing of BEAUTIFUL HOMES, keeping ever in mind that distinction is not a matter of scale, since a vast palace may find its rival in the smallest group of rooms, provided the latter obeys the law of _good line, correct proportions, harmonious colour scheme and appropriateness_: a law insisting that all useful things be beautiful things. THE ART OF INTERIOR DECORATION CHAPTER I HOW TO REARRANGE A ROOM Lucky is the man or woman of taste who has no inherited eyesores which, because of association, must not be banished! When these exist in large numbers one thing only remains to be done: look them over, see to what period the majority belong, and proceed as if you _wanted_ a mid-Victorian, late Colonial or brass-bedstead room. To rearrange a room successfully, begin by taking everything out of it (in reality or in your mind), then decide how you want it to look, or how, owing to what you own and must retain, you are obliged to have it look. Design and colour of wall decorations, hangings, carpets, lighting fixtures, lamps and ornaments on mantel, depend upon the character of your furniture. It is the mantel and its arrangement of ornaments that sound the keynote upon first entering a room. Conventional simplicity in number and arrangement of ornaments gives balance and repose, hence dignity. Dignity once established, one can afford to be individual, and introduce a riot of colours, provided they are all in the same key. Luxurious cushions, soft rugs and a hundred and one feminine touches will create atmosphere and knit together the austere scheme of line--the anatomy of your room. Colour and textiles are the flesh of interior decoration. In furnishing a small room you can add greatly to its apparent size by using plain paper and making the woodwork the same colour, or slightly darker in tone. If you cannot find wall paper of exactly the colour and shade you wish, it is often possible to use the wrong side of a paper and produce exactly the desired effect. In repapering old rooms with imperfect ceilings it is easy to disguise this by using a paper with a small design in the same tone. A perfectly plain ceiling paper will show every defect in the surface of the ceiling. If your house or flat is small you can gain a great effect of space by keeping the same colour scheme throughout--that is, the same colour or related colours. To make a small hall and each of several small rooms on the same floor different in any pronounced way, is to cut up your home into a restless, unmeaning checkerboard, where one feels conscious of the walls and all limitations. The effect of restful spaciousness may be obtained by taking the same small suite and treating its walls, floors and draperies, as has been suggested, in the same colour scheme or a scheme of related keys in colour. That is, wood browns, beiges and yellows; violets, mauves and pinks; different tones of greys; different tones of yellows, greens and blues. Now having established your suite and hall all in one key, so that there is absolutely no jarring note as one passes from room to room, you may be sure of having achieved that most desirable of all qualities in interior decoration--repose. We have seen the idea here suggested carried out in small summer homes with most successful results; the same colour used on walls and furniture, while exactly the same chintz was employed in every bedroom, opening out of one hall. By this means it was possible to give to a small, unimportant cottage, a note of distinction otherwise quite impossible. Here, however, let us say that, if the same chintz is to be used in every room, it must be neutral in colour--a chintz in which the colour scheme is, say, yellows in different tones, browns in different tones, or greens or greys. To vary the character of each room, introduce different colours in the furniture covers, the sofa-cushions and lamp-shades. Our point is to urge the repetition of a main background in a small group of rooms; but to escape monotony by planning that the accessories in each room shall strike individual notes of decorative, contrasting colour. PLATE II A room with modern painted furniture is shown here. Lines and decorations Empire. Note the lyre backs of chairs and head board in day-bed. Treatment of this bed is that suggested where twin beds are used and room affords wall space for but one of them. [Illustration: _Bedroom in Country House. Modern Painted Furniture._] * * * * * What to do with old floors is a question many of us have faced. If your house has been built with floors of wide, common boards which have become rough and separated by age, in some cases allowing dust to sift through from the cellar, and you do not wish to go to the expense of all-over carpets, you have the choice of several methods. The simplest and least expensive is to paint or stain the floors. In this case employ a floor painter and begin by removing all old paint. Paint removers come for the purpose. Then have the floors planed to make them even. Next, fill the cracks with putty. The most practical method is to stain the floors some dark colour; mahogany, walnut, weathered oak, black, green or any colour you may prefer, and then wax them. This protects the colour. In a room where daintiness is desired, and economy is not important, as for instance in a room with white painted furniture, you may have white floors and a square carpet rug of some plain dark toned velvet; or, if preferred, the painted border may be in come delicate colour to match the wall paper. To resume, if you like a dull finish, have the wax rubbed in at intervals, but if you like a glossy background for rugs, use a heavy varnish after the floors are coloured. This treatment we suggest for more or less formal rooms. In bedrooms, put down an inexpensive filling as a background for rugs, or should yours be a summer home, use straw matting. For halls and dining-rooms a plain dark-coloured linoleum, costing not less than two dollars a yard makes and inexpensive floor covering. If it is waxed it becomes not only very durable but, also, extremely effective, suggesting the dark tiles in Italian houses. We do not advise the purchase of the linoleums which represent inlaid floors, as they are invariably unsuccessful imitations. If it is necessary to economise and your brass bedstead must be used even though you dislike it, you can have it painted the colour of your walls. It requires a number of coats. A soft pearl grey is good. Then use a colour, or colours, in your silk or chintz bedspread. Sun-proof material in a solid colour makes an attractive cover, with a narrow fringe in several colours straight around the edges and also, forming a circle or square on the top of the bed-cover. * * * * * If your gas or electric fixtures are ugly and you cannot afford more attractive ones, buy very cheap, perfectly plain, ones and paint them to match the walls, giving decorative value to them with coloured silk shades. PLATE III Shows one end of a very small bedroom with modern painted furniture, so simple in line and decoration that it would be equally appropriate either for a young man or for a young woman. We say "young," because there is something charmingly fresh and youthful about this type of furniture. The colour is pale pistache green, with mulberry lines, the same combination of colours being repeated in painting the walls which have a grey background lined with mulberry--the broad stripe--and a narrow green line. The bed cover is mulberry, the lamp shade is green with mulberry and grey in the fringe. On the walls are delightful old prints framed in black glass with gold lines, and a narrow moulding of gilded oak, an old style revived. A square of antique silk covers the night table, and the floor is polished hard wood. Here is your hall bedroom, the wee guest room in a flat, or the extra guest room under the eaves of your country house, made equally beguiling. The result of this artistic simplicity is a restful sense of space. [Illustration: _Suggestion for Treatment of a Very Small Bedroom_] If you wish to use twin beds and have not wall space for them, treat one like a couch or day-bed. See Plate II. Your cabinet-maker can remove the footboard, then draw the bed out into the room, place in a position convenient to the light either by day or night, after which put a cover of cretonne or silk over it and cushions of the same. Never put a spotted material on a spotted material. If your couch or sofa is done in a figured material of different colours, make your sofa cushions of plain material to tone down the sofa. If the sofa is a plain colour, then tone it up--make it more decorative by using cushions of several colours. If you like your room, but find it cold in atmosphere, try deep cream gauze for sash curtains. They are wonderful atmosphere producers. The advantage of two tiers of sash curtains (see Plate IX) is that one can part and push back one tier for air, light or looking out, and still use the other tier to modify the light in the room. Another way to produce atmosphere in a cold room is to use a tone-on-tone paper. That is, a paper striped in two depths of the same colour. In choosing any wall paper it is imperative that you try a large sample of it in the room for which it is intended, as the reflection from a nearby building or brick wall can entirely change a beautiful yellow into a thick mustard colour. How a wall paper looks in the shop is no criterion. As stated sometimes the _wrong side_ of wall paper gives you the tone you desire. When rearranging your room do not desecrate the few good antiques you happen to own by the use of a too modern colour scheme. Have the necessary modern pieces you have bought to supplement your treasures stained or painted in a dull, dark colour in harmony with the antiques, and then use subdued colours in the floor coverings, curtains and cushions. If you own no good old ornaments, try to get a few good shapes and colours in inexpensive reproductions of the desired period. If your room is small, and the bathroom opens out of it, add to the size of the room by using the same colour scheme in the bathroom, and conceal the plumbing and fixtures by a low screen. If the connecting door is kept open, the effect is to enlarge greatly the appearance of the small bedroom, whereas if the bedroom decorations are dark and the bathroom has a light floor and walls, it abruptly cuts itself off and emphasises the smallness of the bedroom. Everything depends upon the appropriateness of the furniture to its setting. We recall some much admired dining-room chairs in the home of the Maclaines of Lochbuie in Argyleshire, west coast of Scotland. The chairs in question are covered with sealskin from the seals caught off that rugged coast. They are quite delightful in a remote country house; but they would not be tolerated in London. The question of placing photographs is not one to be treated lightly. Remember, intimate photographs should be placed in intimate rooms, while photographs of artists and all celebrities are appropriate for the living room or library. It is extremely seldom that a photograph unless of public interest is not out of place in a formal room. To repeat, never forget that your house or flat is _your_ home, and, that to have any charm whatever of a personal sort, it must suggest _you_--not simply the taste of a professional decorator. So work with your decorator (if you prefer to employ one) by giving your personal attention to styles and colours, and selecting those most sympathetic to your own nature. Your architect will be grateful if you will show the same interest in the details of building your home, rather than assuming the attitude that you have engaged him in order to rid yourself of such bother. If you are building a pretentious house and decide upon some clearly defined period of architecture, let us say, Georgian (English eighteenth century) we would advise keeping your first floor mainly in that period as to furniture and hangings, but upstairs let yourself go, that is, make your rooms any style you like. Go in for a gay riot of colour, such combinations as are known as Bakst colouring,--if that happens to be your fancy. This Russian painter and designer was fortunate in having the theatre in which to demonstrate his experiments in vivid colour combinations, and sometimes we quite forget that he was but one of many who have used sunset palettes. PLATE IV Here we have a man's office in Wall Street, New York, showing how a lawyer with large interests surrounds himself with necessities which contribute to his comfort, sense of beauty and art instincts. The desk is big, solid and commodious, yet artistically unusual. [Illustration: _A Man's Office in Wall Street_] Recently the fair butterfly daughters of a mother whose taste has grown sophisticated, complained--"But, Mother, we dislike _periods_, and here you are building a Tudor house!" forgetting, by the way, that the so-called Bakst interiors, adored by them, are equally a _period_. This home, a very wonderful one, is being worked out on the plan suggested, that is, the first floor is decorated in the period of the exterior of the house, while the personal rooms on the upper floors reflect, to a certain extent, the personality of their occupants. Remember there must always be a certain relationship between all the rooms in one suite, the relationship indicated by lines and a background of the same, or a harmonising colour-scheme. CHAPTER II HOW TO CREATE A ROOM One so often hears the complaint, "I could not possibly set out alone to furnish a room! I don't know anything about _periods_. Why, a Louis XVI chair and an Empire chair are quite the same to me. Then the question of antiques and reproductions--why any one could mislead me!" If you have absolutely no interest in the arranging or rearranging of your rooms, house or houses, of course, leave it to a decorator and give your attention to whatever does interest you. On the other hand, as with bridge, if you really want to play the game, you can learn it. The first rule is to determine the actual use to which you intend putting the room. Is it to be a bedroom merely, or a combination of bedroom and boudoir? Is it to be a formal reception-room, or a living-room? Is it to be a family library, or a man's study? If it is a small flat, do you aim at absolute comfort, artistically achieved, or do you aim at formality at the expense of comfort? If you lean toward both comfort and formality, and own a country house and a city abode, there will be no difficulty in solving the problem. Formality may be left to the town house or flat, while during week-ends, holidays and summers you can revel in supreme comfort. Every man or woman is capable of creating comfort. It is a question of those deep chairs with wide seats and backs, soft springs, thick, downy cushions, of tables and bookcases conveniently placed, lights where you want them, beds to the individual taste,--double, single, or twins! The getting together of a period room, one period or periods in combination, is difficult, especially if you are entirely ignorant of the subject. However, here is your cue. Let us suppose you need, or want, a desk--an antique desk. Go about from one dealer to the other until you find the very piece you have dreamed of; one that gives pleasure to you, as well as to the dealer. Then take an experienced friend to look at it. If you have every reason to suppose that the desk is genuine, buy it. Next, read up on the furniture of the particular period to which your desk belongs, in as serious a manner as you do when you buy a prize dog at the show. Now you have made an intelligent beginning as a collector. Reading informs you, but you must buy old furniture to be educated on that subject. Be eternally on the lookout; the really good pieces, veritable antiques, are rare; most of them are in museums, in private collections or in the hands of the most expensive dealers. I refer to those unique pieces, many of them signed by the maker and in perfect condition because during all their existence they have been jealously preserved, often by the very family and in the very house for which they were made. Our chances for picking up antiques are reduced to pieces which on account of reversed circumstances have been turned out of house and home, and, as with human wanderers, much jolting about has told upon them. Most of these are fortified in various directions, but they are treasures all the same, and have a beauty value in line colour and workmanship and a wonderful fitness for the purposes for which they were intended. "Surely we are many men of many minds!" PLATE V The sofa large, strong and luxuriously comfortable; the curtains simple, durable and masculine in gender. The tapestry and architectural picture, decorative and appropriately impersonal, as the wall decorations should be in a room used merely for transacting business. [Illustration: _A Corner of the Same Office_] Some prefer antiques a bit dilapidated; a missing detail serving as a hallmark to calm doubts; others insist upon completeness to the eye and solidity for use; while the connoisseur, with unlimited means, recognises nothing less than signed sofas and chairs, and other _objets d'art_. To repeat:--be always on the lookout, remembering that it is the man who knows the points of a good dog, horse or car who can pick a winner. Wonderful reproductions are made in New York City and other cities, and thousands bought every day. They are beautiful and desirable pieces of furniture, ornaments or silks; but the lover of the _vrai antique_ learns to detect, almost at a glance, the lack of that quality which a fine _old_ piece has. It is not alone that the materials must be old. There is a certain quality gained from the long association of its parts. One knows when a piece has "found itself," as Kipling would put it. Time gives an inimitable finish to any surface. If you are young in years, immature in taste, and limited as to bank account, you will doubtless go in for a frankly modern room, with cheerful painted furniture, gay or soft-toned chintzes, and inexpensive smart floor coverings. To begin this way and gradually to collect what you want, piece by piece, is to get the most amusement possible out of furnishing. When you have the essential pieces for any one room, you can undertake an _ensemble_. Some of the rarest collections have been got together in this way, and, if one's fortune expands instead of contracting, old pieces may be always replaced by those still more desirable, more rare, more in keeping with your original scheme. To buy expensive furnishings in haste and without knowledge, and within a year or two discover everything to be in bad taste, is a tragedy to a person with an instinctive aversion to waste. Antique or modern, every beautiful thing bought is a cherished heirloom in embryo. Remember, we may inherit a good antique or _objet d'art_, buy one, or bequeath one. Let us never be guilty of the reverse,--a bar-sinister piece of furniture! Sympathy with unborn posterity should make us careful. It is always excusable to retain an ugly, inartistic thing--if it is _useful_; but an ornament must be beautiful in line or in colour, or it belies its name. Practise that genuine, obvious loyalty which hides away on a safe, but invisible shelf, the bad taste of our ancestors and friends. Having settled upon a type of furniture, turn your attention to the walls. Always let the location of your room decide the colour of its walls. The room with a sunny exposure may have any colour you like, warm or cold, but your north room or any room more or less sunless, requires the warm, sun-producing yellows, pinks, apple-greens, beige and wood-colours, never the cold colours, such as greys, mauves, violets and blues, unless in combination with the warm tones. If it is your intention to hang pictures on the walls, use plain papers. Remember you must never put a spot on a spot! The colour of your walls once established, keep in mind two things: that to be agreeable to the artistic eye your ceilings must be lighter than your sidewalls, and your floors darker. Broadly speaking, it is Nature's own arrangement, green trees and hillsides, the sky above, and the dark earth beneath our feet. A ceiling, if lighter in tone than the walls, gives a sense of airiness to a room. Floors, whether of exposed wood, completely carpeted, or covered by rugs, must be enough darker than your sidewalls to "hold down your room," as the decorators say. If colour is to play a conspicuous part, brightly figured silks and cretonnes being used for hangings and upholstery, the floor covering should be indefinite both as to colour and design. On the other hand, when rugs or carpets are of a definite design in pronounced colours, particularly if you are arranging a living-room, make your walls, draperies and chair-covers plain, and observe great restraint in the use of colour. Those who work with them know that there is no such thing as an ugly colour, for all colours are beautiful. Whether a colour makes a beautiful or an ugly effect depends entirely upon its juxtaposition to other tones. How well French milliners and dressmakers understand this! To make the point quite clear, let us take magenta. Used alone, nothing has more style, more beautiful distinction, but in wrong combination magenta can be amazingly, depressingly ugly. Magenta with blue is ravishing, beautiful in the subtle way old tapestries are: it touches the imagination whenever that combination is found. PLATE VI The table is modern, but made on the lines of a refectory table, well suited in length, width and solidity for board meetings, etc. The chairs are Italian in style. [Illustration: _Another View of the Same Office_] We grow up to, into, and out of colour schemes. Each of the Seven Ages of Man has its appropriate setting in colour as in line. One learns the dexterous manipulation of colour from furnishing, as an artist learns from painting. Refuse to accept a colour scheme, unless it appeals to your individual taste--no matter who suggests it. To one not very sensitive to colour here is a valuable suggestion. Find a bit of beautiful old silk brocade, or a cretonne you especially like, and use its colour combinations for your room--a usual device of decorators. Let us suppose your silk or cretonne to have a deep-cream background, and scattered on it green foliage, faded salmon-pink roses and little, fine blue flowers. Use its prevailing colour, the deep cream, for walls and possibly woodwork; make the draperies of taffeta or rep in soft apple-greens; use the same colour for upholstery, make shades for lamp and electric lights of salmon-pink, then bring in a touch of blue in a sofa cushion, a footstool or small chair, or in a beautiful vase which charms by its shape as well by reproducing the exact tone of blue you desire. There are some who insist no room is complete without its note of blue. Many a room has been built up around some highly prized treasure,--lovely vase or an old Japanese print. A thing always to be avoided is monotony in colour. Who can not recall barren rooms, without a spark of attraction despite priceless treasures, dispersed in a meaningless way? That sort of setting puts a blight on any gathering. "Well," you will ask, "given the task of converting such a sterile stretch of monotony into a blooming joy, how should one begin?" It is quite simple. Picture to yourself how the room would look if you scattered flowers about it, roses, tulips, mignonette, flowers of yellow and blue, in the pell-mell confusion of a blooming garden. Now imitate the flower colours by _objets d'art_ so judiciously placed that in a trice you will admire what you once found cold. As if by magic, a white, cream, beige or grey room may be transformed into a smiling bower, teeming with personality, a room where wit and wisdom are spontaneously let loose. If your taste be for chintzes and figured silks, take it as a safe rule, that given a material with a light background, it should be the same in tone as your walls; the idea being that by this method you get the full decorative value of the pattern on chintz or silk. Figured materials can increase or diminish the size of a room, open up vistas, push back your walls, or block the vision. For this reason it is unsafe to buy material before trying the effect of it in its destined abode. Remember that the matter of _background_ is of the greatest importance when arranging your furniture and ornaments. See that your piano is so placed that the pianist has an unbroken background, of wall, tapestry, a large piece of rare old sills, or a mirror. Clyde Fitch, past-master at interior decoration, placed his piano in front of broad windows, across which at night were drawn crimson damask curtains. Some of us will never forget Geraldine Farrar, as she sat against that background wearing a dull, clinging blue-green gown, going over the score,--from memory,--of "Salomé." The aim is to make the performer at the piano the object of interest, therefore place no diverting objects, such as pictures or ornaments, on a line with the listener's eye, except as a vague background. There can be no more becoming setting for a group of people dining by candle or electric light, than walls panelled with dark wood to the ceiling, or a high wainscoting. A beautiful sitting-room, not to be forgotten, had light violet walls, dull-gold frames on the furniture which was covered in deep-cream brocades, bits of old purple velvets and violet silks on the tables, under large bowls of Benares bronze filled with violets. The grand piano was protected by a piece of old brocade in faded yellows, and our hostess, a well-known singer, usually wore a simple Florentine tea-gown of soft violet velvet, which together with the lighter violet walls, set off her fair skin and black hair to beautiful advantage. Put a figured, many-coloured sofa cushion behind the head of a pretty woman, and if the dominating colour is becoming to her, she is still pretty, but change it to a solid black, purple or dull-gold and see how instantly the degree of her beauty is enhanced by being thrown into relief. PLATE VII Gives attractive corner by a window, the heavy silk brocade curtains of which are drawn. A standard electric lamp lights the desk, both modern-painted pieces, and the beautiful old flower picture, black background with a profusion of colours in lovely soft tones, is framed by a dull-gold moulding and gives immense distinction. The chair is Venetian Louis XV, the same period as desk in style. Not to be ignored in this picture is a tin scrap basket beautifully proportioned and painted a vivid emerald green; a valuable addition a note of cheerful colour. The desk and wooden standard of lamp are painted a deep blue-plum colour, touched with gold, and the silk curtains are soft mulberry, in two tones. [Illustration: _Corner of Room, Showing Painted Furniture, Antique and Modern_] Study values--just why and how much any decorative article decorates, and remember in furnishing a room, decorating a wall or dining-room table, it is not the intrinsic value or individual beauty of any one article which counts. Each picture on the wall, each piece of furniture, each bit of silver, glass, china, linen or lace, each yard of chintz or silk, every carpet or rug must be beautiful and effective _in relation to the others used_, for the _art_ of interior decoration lies in this subtle, or obvious, relationship of furnishings. We acknowledge as legitimate all schemes of interior decoration and insist that what makes any scheme good or bad, successful, or unsuccessful presuming a knowledge of the fundamentals of the art, is the fact that it is planned in reference to the type of man or woman who is to live in it. A new note has been struck of late in the arranging of bizarre, delightful rooms which on entering we pronounce "very amusing." Original they certainly are, in colour combinations, tropical in the impression they make,--or should we say Oriental? They have come to us via Russia, Bakst, Munich and Martine of Paris. Like Rheinhardt's staging of "Sumurun," because these blazing interiors strike us at an unaccustomed angle, some are merely astonished, others charmed as well. There are temperaments ideally set in these interiors, and there are houses where they are in place. We cannot regard them as epoch-making, but granted that there is no attempt to conform to two of the rules for furnishing,--_appropriateness_ and _practicality_, the results are refreshingly new and entertaining. This is one of the instances where exaggeration has served as a healthy antidote to the tendency toward extreme dinginess rampant about ten years ago, resulting from an obsession to antique everything. The reaction from this, a flaming rainbow of colours, struck a blow to the artistic sense, drew attention back to the value of colour and started the creative impulse along the line of a happy medium. Whether it be a furnished porch, personal suite (as bedroom, boudoir and bath), a family living-room, dining-room, formal reception-room, or period ballroom, never allow members of your household or servants to destroy the effect you have achieved with careful thought and outlay of money, by ruthlessly moving chairs and tables from one room to another. Keep your wicker furniture on the porch, for which it was intended. If it strays into the adjacent living-room, done in quite another scheme, it will absolutely thwart your efforts at harmony, while your porch-room done in wicker and gay chintzes, striped awnings and geranium rail-boxes, cries out against the intrusion of a chair dragged out from the house. Remember that should you intend using your period ballroom from time to time as an audience room for concerts and lectures, you must provide a complete equipment of small, very light (so as to be quickly moved) chairs, in your "period," as a necessary part of your decoration. The current idea that a distinguished room remains distinguished because costly tapestries and old masters hang on its walls, even when the floor is strewn with vulgar, hired chairs, is an absurd mistake. Each room from kitchen to ballroom is a stage "set,"--a harmonious background for certain scenes in life's drama. It is the man or woman who grasps this principle of a distinguished home who can create an interior which endures, one which will hold its own despite the ebb and flow of fashion. Imposing dimensions and great outlay of money do not necessarily imply distinction, a quality depending upon unerring good taste in the minutest details, one which may be achieved equally in a stately mansion, in a city flat, or in a cottage by the sea. The question of background is absorbingly interesting. A vase, with or without flowers, to add to the composition of your room, that is, to make "a good picture," must be placed so that its background sets it off. Let the Venetian glass vase holding one rose stand in such a position that your green curtain is its background, and not a photograph or other picture. One flower, carefully placed in a room, will have more real decorative value than dozens of costly roses strewn about in the wrong vases, against mottled, line-destroying backgrounds. Flowers are always more beautiful in a plain vase, whether of glass, pottery, porcelain or silver. If a vase chances to have a decoration in colour, then make a point of having the flowers it holds accord in colour, if not in shade, with the colour or colours in the vase. There is a general rule that no ornament should ever be placed in front of a picture. The exception to this rule occurs when the picture is one of the large, architectural variety, whose purpose is primarily mural decoration,--an intentional background, as tapestries often are, serving its purpose as nature does when a vase or statue is placed in a park or garden. One sees in portraits by some of the old masters this idea of landscape used as background. Bear in mind, however, that if there is a central design--a definite composition in the picture, or tapestry, no ornament should ever be so placed as to interfere with it. If you happen to own a tapestry which is not large enough for your space by one, two or three feet, frame it with a plain border of velvet or velveteen, to match the dominating colour, and a shade darker than it appears in the tapestry. This expedient heightens the decorative effect of the tapestry. CHAPTER III HOW TO DETERMINE CHARACTER OF HANGINGS AND FURNITURE-COVERING FOR A GIVEN ROOM In a measure, the materials for hangings and furniture-coverings are determined more or less by the amount one wishes to spend in this direction. For choice, one would say silk or velvet for formal rooms; velvets, corduroys or chintz for living-rooms; leather and corduroy with rep hangings for a man's study or smoking-room; thin silks and chintz for bedrooms; chintz for nurseries, breakfast-rooms and porches. In England, slip-covers of chintz (glazed cretonne) appear, also, in formal rooms; but are removed when the owner is entertaining. If the permanent upholstery is of chintz, then at once your room becomes informal. If you are planning the living-room for a small house or apartment, which must serve as reception-room during the winter months, far more dignity, and some elegance can be obtained for the same expenditure, by using plain velveteen, modern silk brocades in one colour, or some of the modern reps to be had in very smart shades of all colours. If your furniture is choice, rarely beautiful in quality, line and colour, hangings and covers must accord. Genuine antiques demand antique silks for hangings and table covers; but no decorator, if at all practical, will cover a chair or sofa in the frail old silks, for they go to pieces almost in the mounting. Waive sentiment in this case, for the modern reproductions are satisfactory to the eye and improve in tone with age. If you own only a small piece of antique silk, make a square of it for the centre of the table, or cleverly combine several small bits, if these are all you have, into an interesting cover or cushion. Nothing in the world gives such a note of distinction to a room as the use of rare, old silks, properly placed. The fashion for cretonne and chintz has led to their indiscriminate use by professionals as well as amateurs, and this craze has caused a prejudice against them. Chintz used with judgment can be most attractive. In America the term chintz includes cretonne and stamped linen. If you are planning for them, put together, for consideration, all your bright coloured chintz, and in quite another part of your room, or decorator's shop, the chintz of dull, faded colours, as they require different treatment. A general rule for this material--bright or dull--is that if you would have your chintz _decorate_, be careful not to use it too lavishly. If it is intended for curtains, then cover only one chair with it and cover the rest in a solid colour. If you want chintz for all of your chairs and sofa, make your curtains, sofa cushions and lamp shades of a solid colour, and be sure that you take one of the leading colours in the chintz. Next indicate your intention at harmony, by "bringing together" the plain curtains or chairs, and your chintz, with a narrow fringe or border of still another colour, which figures in the chintz. Let us suppose chintz to be black with a design in greens, mulberry and buff. Make your curtains plain mulberry, edged with narrow pale green fringe with black and buff in it, or should your chintz be grey with a design in faded blues and violets and a touch of black, make curtains of the chintz, and cover one large chair, keeping the sofa and the remaining chairs grey, with the bordering fringe, or gimp, in one or two of the other shades, sofa cushions and the lamp shades in blues and violets (lining lamp shades with thin pink silk), and use a little black in the bordering fringe. PLATE VIII Shows an ideal mantel arrangement, faultless as a composition and beautiful and rare in detail. The exquisite white marble mantel is Italian, not French, of the time of Louis XVI. Though the designs of this period are almost identical, one quickly learns to detect the difference in feeling between the work of the two countries. The Italians are freer, broader in their treatment, show more movement and in a way more grace, where the French work is more detailed and precise, hence at times, by contrast, seems stilted and rigid. Enchantingly graceful are the two candelabra, also Louis XVI, while the central ornament is ideally chosen for size and design. The dull gold frame of the mirror is very beautiful, and the painting above the glass interesting and unusual as to subject and execution. The chair is a good example of Italian Louis XV. [Illustration: _Example of a Perfect Mantel, Ornaments and Mirror_] If you decide upon a very brilliant chintz use it only in one chair, a screen, or in a valance over plain curtains with straps to hold them back, or perhaps a sofa cushion. Whether a chintz is bright or dull, its pattern is important. As with silks, brocaded in different colours, therefore never use chintz where a chair or sofa calls for tufting. A tufted piece of furniture always looks best done in plain materials. In using a chintz in which both colour and design are indefinite, the kind which gives more or less an impression of faded tapestry, you will find that the very indefiniteness of the pattern makes it possible to use the chintz with more freedom, being always sure of a harmonious background. The one thing to guard against is that on entering a room you must not be conscious either of several colours, or of any set design. CHAPTER IV THE STORY OF TEXTILES The story of the evolution of textiles (any woven material) is fascinating, and like the history of every art, runs parallel with the history of culture and progress in the art of living,--physical, mental and spiritual. To those who feel they would enjoy an exhaustive history of textiles we recommend a descriptive catalogue relating to the collection of textiles in the South Kensington Museum, prepared by the Very Rev. Daniel Rock, D.D. (1870). In the introduction to that catalogue one gets the story of woven linens, cottons, silks, paper, gold and silver threads, interspersed with precious jewels and glass beads--all materials woven by hand or machine. The story of textiles includes: 1st, woven materials; 2nd, embroidered materials; 3rd, a combination of the two, known as "tapestry." If one reads their wonderful story, starting in Assyria, then progressing to Egypt, the Orient, Greece, Rome and Western Europe, in any history of textiles, one may obtain quickly and easily a clear idea of this department of interior decoration from the very earliest times. The first European silk is said to have been in the form of transparent gauze, dyed lovely tones for women of the Greek islands, a form of costume later condemned by Greek philosophers. We know that embroidery was an art three thousand years ago, in fact the figured garments seen on the Assyrian and Egyptian bas-reliefs are supposed to represent materials with embroidered figures--not woven patterns--whereas in the Bible, when we read of embroidery, according to the translators, this sometimes means woven stripes. PLATE IX An ideal dining-room of its kind, modern painted furniture, Empire in design. In this case yellow with decoration in white. Curtains, thin yellow silk. Note the Empire electric light fixtures in hand-carved gilded wood, reproductions of an antique silver applique. Even the steam radiators are here cleverly concealed by wooden cases made after Empire designs. The walls are white and panelled in wood also white. [Illustration: _Dining-room in Country House, Showing Modern Painted Furniture. Style Directoire._] The earliest garments of Egypt were of cotton and hemp, or mallow, resembling flax. The older Egyptians never knew silks in any form, nor did the Israelites, nor any of the ancients. The earliest account of this material is given by Aristotle (fourth century). It was brought into Western Europe from China, via India, the Red Sea and Persia, and the first to weave it outside the Orient was a maiden on the Isle of Cos, off the coast of Asia Minor, producing a thin gauze-like tissue worn by herself and companions, the material resembling the Seven Veils of Salome. To-day those tiny bits of gauze one sees laid in between the leaves of old manuscript to protect the illuminations, as our publishers use sheets of tissue paper, are said to be examples of this earliest form of woven silk. The Romans used silk at first only for their women, as it was considered not a masculine material, but gradually they adopted it for the festival robes of men, Titus and Vespasian being among those said to have worn it. The first silk looms were set up in the royal palaces of the Roman kings in the year 533 A.D. The raw material was brought from the East for a long time but in the sixth century two Greek monks, while in China, studied the method of rearing silk worms and obtaining the silk, and on their departure are said to have concealed the eggs of silk worms in their staves. They are accredited with introducing the manufacture of silk into Greece and hence into Western Europe. After that Greece, Persia and Asia Minor made this material, and Byzantium was famed for its silks, the actual making of which got into the hands of the Jews and was for a long time controlled by them. Metals (gold, silver and copper) were flattened out and cut into narrow strips for winding around cotton twists. These were the gold and silver threads used in weaving. The Moors and Spaniards instead of metals used strips of gilded parchment for weaving with the silk. We know that England was weaving silk in the thirteenth century, and velvets seem to have been used at a very early date. The introduction of silk and velvet into different countries had an immediate and much-needed influence in civilising the manners of society. It is hard to realise that in the thirteenth century when Edward I married Eleanor of Castile, the highest nobles of England when resting at their ease, stretched at full length on the straw-covered floors of baronial halls, and jeered at the Spanish courtiers who hung the walls and stretched the floors of Edward's castle with silks in preparation for his Spanish bride. The progress of art and culture was always from the East and moved slowly. Do not go so far back as the thirteenth century. James I of England owned no stockings when he was James VI of Scotland, and had to borrow a pair in which to receive the English ambassador. In the eleventh century Italy manufactured her own silks, and into them were woven precious stones, corals, seed pearls and coloured glass beads which were made in Greece and Venice, as well as gold and silver spangles (twelfth and thirteenth centuries). Here is an item on interior decorations from Proverbs vii, 16; "I have woven my bed with cords, I have covered it with painted tapestry brought from Egypt." There were painted tapestries made in Western Europe at a very early date, and collectors eagerly seek them (see Plate XIV). In the fourteenth century these painted tapestries were referred to as "Stained Cloth." Embroidery as an art, as we have already seen, antedates silk weaving. The youngest of the three arts is tapestry. The oldest embroidery stitches are: "the feather stitch," so called because they all took one direction, the stitches over-lapping, like the feathers of a bird; and "cross-stitch" or "cushion" style, because used on church cushions, made for kneeling when at prayer or to hold the Mass book. Hand-woven tapestries are called "comb-wrought" because the instrument used in weaving was comb-like. "Cut-work" is embroidery that is cut out and appliqued, or sewed on another material. Carpets which were used in Western Europe in the Middle Ages are seldom seen. The Kensington Museum owns two specimens, both of them Spanish, one of the fourteenth and one of the fifteenth century. In speaking of Gothic art we called attention to the fostering of art by the Church during the Dark Ages. This continued, and we find that in Henry VIII's time those who visited monasteries and afterward wrote accounts of them call attention to the fact that each monk was occupied either with painting, carving, modelling, embroidering or writing. They worked primarily for the Church, decorating it for the glory of God, but the homes of the rich and powerful laity, even so early as the reign of Henry III (1216-1272), boasted some very beautiful interior decorations, tapestries, painted ceilings and stained glass, as well as carved panelling. Bostwick Castle, Scotland, had its vaulted ceiling painted with towers, battlements and pinnacles, a style of mural decoration which one sees in the oldest castles of Germany. It recalls the illumination in old manuscripts. CHAPTER V CANDLESTICKS, LAMPS, FIXTURES FOR GAS AND ELECTRICITY, AND SHADES Candlesticks, lamps, and fixtures for gas and electricity must accord with the lines of your architecture and furniture. The mantelpiece is the connecting link between the architecture and the furnishing of a room. It is the architect's contribution to the furnishing, and for this reason the keynote for the decorator. In the same way lighting fixtures are links between the construction and decoration of a room, and can contribute to, or seriously divert from, the decorator's design. It is important that fixtures be so placed as to appear a part of the decoration and not merely to illuminate conveniently a corner of the room, a writing-desk, table or piano. PLATE X The dining-room of this apartment is Italian Renaissance--oak, almost black from age, and carved. The seat pads and lambrequin over window are of deep red velvet. The walls are stretched with dull red _brocotello_ (a combination of silk and linen), very old and valuable. The chandelier is Italian carved wood, gilded. Attention is called to the treatment of the windows. No curtains are used, instead, boxes are planted with ivy which is trained to climb the green lattice and helps to temper the light, while the window shades themselves are of a fascinating glazed linen, having a soft yellow background and design of fruit and vines in brilliant colours. [Illustration: _Dining-room Furniture, Italian Renaissance_] In planning your house after arranging for proper wall space for your various articles of furniture, keep in mind always that lights will be needed and must be at the same time conveniently placed and distinctly decorative. One is astonished to see how often the actual balance of a room is upset by the careless placing of electric fixtures. Therefore keep in mind when deciding upon the lighting of a room the following points: first, fixtures must follow in line style of architecture and furniture; second, the position of fixtures on walls must carry out the architect's scheme of proportion, line and balance; third, the material used in fixtures--brass, gilded wood, glass or wrought iron--must contribute to the decorator's scheme of line and colour; fourth, as a contribution to colour scheme the fixtures must be in harmony with the colour of the side walls, so as not to cut them up, and the shade should be a _light_ note of colour, not one of the _dark_ notes when illuminated. This brings us to the question of shades. The selecting of shapes and colours for shading the lights in your rooms is of the greatest importance, for the shades are one of the harmonics for striking important colour notes, and their value must be equal by day and by night; that is, equally great, _even if different_. Some shades, beautiful and decorative by daylight, when illuminated, lose their colour and become meaningless blots in a room. We have in mind a large silk lamp shade of faded sage green, mauve, faun and a dull blue, the same combination appearing in the fringe--a combination not only beautiful, but harmonising perfectly with the old Gothic tapestry on the nearby wall. Nothing could be more decorative in this particular room during the day than the shade described; but were it not for the shell-pink lining, gleaming through the silk of the shade when lighted, it would have no decorative value at all at night. In ordering or making shades, be sure that you select colours and materials which produce a diffused light. A soft thin pink silk as a lining for a silk or cretonne shade is always successful, and if a delicate pink, never clashes with the colours on the outside. A white silk lining is cold and unbecoming. A dark shade unlined, or a light coloured shade unlined, even if pink, unless the silk is shirred very full, will not give a diffused, yellow light. It is because Italian parchment-paper produces the desired _glow_ of light that it has become so popular for making shades, and, coming as it does in deep soft cream, it gives a lovely background for decorations which in line and colour can carry out the style of your room. Figured Italian papers are equally popular for shades, but their characteristic is to decorate the room by daylight only, and to impart no _quality_ to the light which they shade. Unless in pale colours, they stop the light, absolutely, throwing it down, if on a lamp, and back against the wall, if on side brackets. Therefore decorators now cut out the lovely designs on these figured papers and use them as appliques on a deep cream parchment background. When you decide upon the shape of your shades do not forget that successful results depend upon absolutely correct proportions. Almost any shape, if well proportioned as to height and width, can be made beautiful, and the variety and effect desired, may be secured by varying the colours, the design of decoration, if any, or the texture or the length of fringe. The "umbrella" shades with long chiffon curtains reaching to the table, not unlike a woman's hat with loose-hanging veil, make a charming and practical lamp shade for a boudoir or a woman's summer sitting-room, especially if furnished in lacquer or wicker. It is a light to rest or talk by, not for reading nor writing. The greatest care is required in selecting shades for side-wall lights, because they quickly catch the eye upon entering a room and materially contribute to its appearance or detract from it. CHAPTER VI WINDOW SHADES AND AWNINGS The first thing to consider in selecting window shades when furnishing a _house_, is whether their colour harmonises with the exterior. Keeping this point in mind, further limit your selection to those colours and tones which harmonise with your colour schemes for the interior. If you use white net or scrim, your shades must be white, and if ecru net, your shades must be ecru. If the outside of your house calls for one colour in shades and the interior calls for another, use two sets. Your dark-green sun shades never interfere, as they can always be covered by the inner set. Sometimes the dark green harmonises with the colouring of the rooms. A room often needs, for sake of balance, to be weighted by colour on the window sides more than your heavy curtains (silk or cretonne) contribute when drawn back; in such a case decorators use coloured gauze for sash curtains in one, two or three shades and layers, which are so filmy and delicate both in texture and colouring that they allow air and light to pass through them, the effect being charming. Another way to obtain the required colour value at your windows is the revival of glazed linens, with beautiful coloured designs, made up into shades. These are very attractive in a sunny room where the strong light brings out the design of flowers, fruits or foliage. Plate X shows a room in which this style of shade is used with great success. It is to be especially commended in such a case as Plate X, where no curtains are used at windows. Here the figured linen shade is a deliberate contribution to the decorative scheme of the room and completes it as no other material could. Awnings can make or mar a house, give it style or keep it in the class of the commonplace. So choose carefully with reference to the colour of your house. The fact that awnings show up at a great distance and never "in the hand," as it were, argues in favour of clear stripes, in two colours and of even size, with as few extra threads of other colours as possible. PLATE XI Shows a part of a fine, old Italian refectory table, and one of the chairs, also antiques, which are beautifully proportioned and made comfortable with cushions of dark red velvet, in colour like curtains at window, which are of silk brocade. The standard electric lamps throw the light _up_ only. There are four, one in each corner of the room, and candles light the table. The wall decoration here is a flower picture. [Illustration: _Corner of Dining-room in New York Apartment, Showing Section of Italian Refectory Table and Italian Chairs, Both Antique and Renaissance_] _All awnings fade_, even in one season; green is, perhaps, the least durable in the sun, yellows and browns look well the longest. Fortunately an awning, a discouraging sight when taken down and in a collapsed mass of faded canvas, will often look well when up and stretched, because the strong light brings out the fresh colour of the inside. Hence one finds these rather expensive necessities of summer homes may be used for several seasons. CHAPTER VII TREATMENT OF PICTURES AND PICTURE FRAMES Strive to have the subject of your pictures appropriate to the room in which they are to be hung. It is impossible to state a rule for this, however, because while there are many styles of pictures which all are able to classify, such as old paintings which are antique in colouring, method and subject, portraits, figure pictures, architectural pictures, flower and fruit pictures, modern oil paintings of various subjects (modern in subject, method and colouring), water colours, etchings, sporting prints, fashion prints, etc., there is, also, a subtle relationship between them seen and felt only by the connoisseur, which leads him to hang in the same room, portraits, architectural pictures and flower pictures, with beautiful and successful results. Often the relationship hangs on similarity in period, style of painting or colour scheme. Your expert will see decorative value in a painting which has no individual beauty nor intrinsic worth when taken out of a particular setting. The selecting of pictures for a room hinges first on their decorative value. That is, their colour and size, and whether the subjects are appropriate and sympathetic. Always avoid heavy gold frames on paintings, for, unless they are real objects of art, one gets far more distinction by using a narrow black moulding. When in doubt always err on the side of simplicity. If your object is economy as well as simplicity, and you are by chance just beginning to furnish your house and own no pictures, we would suggest good photographs of your favourite old masters, framed close, without a margin, in the passepartout method (glass with a narrow black paper tape binding). Old coloured prints need narrow black passepartout, while broad passepartout in pink, blue or pale green to match the leading tone in wall paper makes your quaint, old black-and-white prints very decorative. Never use white margins on any pictures unless your walls are white. The decorative value of any picture when hung, is dependent upon its background, the height at which it is hung, its position with regard to the light, its juxtaposition to other pictures, and the character of those other pictures--that is, their subjects, colour and line. If you are buying pictures to hang in a picture gallery, there is nothing to consider beyond the attraction of the individual picture in mind. But if you are buying a picture to hang on the walls of a room which you are furnishing, you have first to consider it as pure _decoration_; that is, to ask yourself if in colour, period and subject it carries out the idea of your room. A modern picture is usually out of place in a room furnished with antiques. In the same way a strictly modern room is not a good setting for an old picture, if toned by time. If you own or would own a modern portrait or landscape and it is the work of an artist, and beautiful in colour, why not "star" it,--build your room up to it? If you decide to do this, see that everything else representing _colour_ is either subservient to the picture, or if of equal value as to colour, that they harmonise perfectly with the picture in mind. PLATE XII From a studio one enters a smaller room, one side of which is shown here, a veritable Italian Louis XVI salon. [Illustration: _An Italian Louis XVI Salon in a New York Apartment_] We were recently shown a painting giving a view of Central Park from the Plaza Hotel, New York, under a heavy fall of snow, in the late afternoon, when the daylight still lingered, although the electric lights had begun to spangle the scene. The prevailing tone was a delicate, opalescent white, shading from blue to mauve, and we were told that one of our leading decorators intended to hang it in a blue room which he was furnishing for a New York client. Etchings are at their best with other etchings, engravings or water colours, and should be hung in rooms flooded with light and delicately furnished. The crowding of walls with pictures is always bad; hang only as many as _furnish_ the walls, and have these on a line with the eye and when the pictures vary but slightly in size make a point of having either the tops of the frames or the bottoms on the same line,--that is, an equal distance from floor or ceiling. If this rule is observed a sense of order and restfulness is communicated to the observer. If one picture is hung over the other uniformity and balance must be preserved. One large picture may be balanced by two smaller ones. Hang your miniatures in a straight line across your wall, under a large picture or in a straight line--one under the other, down a narrow wall panel. CHAPTER VIII TREATMENT OF PIANO CASES A professional pianist invariably prefers the case of his or her piano left in its simple ebony or mahogany, and would not approve of its being relegated to the furniture department and decorated accordingly, any more than your violinist, or harpist, would hand over his violin, or harp, for decoration. When a piano, however, is not the centre of interest in a house, and the artistic ensemble of decorative line and colour is, the piano case is often ordered at the piano factory to be made to accord in line with the period of the room for which it is intended, after which it is decorated so as to harmonise with the colours in the room. This can be done through the piano factory; but in the case of redecorating a room, one can easily get some independent artist to do this work, a man who has made a study of the decorations on old spinets in palaces, private mansions and museums. Some artists have been very successful in converting what was an inartistic piece of furniture as to size, outline and colour, into an object which became a pleasing portion of the colour scheme because in proper relation to the whole. You can always make an ebony or mahogany piano case more in harmony with its setting by covering it, when not in use, with a piece of beautiful old brocade, or a modern reproduction. PLATE XIII Another side of same Italian Louis XVI salon. The tea-table is a modern painted convenience, the two vases are Italian pharmacy jars and the standard for electric lights is a modern-painted piece. [Illustration: _Another Side of Same Italian Louis XVI Salon_] CHAPTER IX TREATMENT OF DINING-ROOM BUFFETS AND DRESSING-TABLES A dining-room buffet requires the same dignity of treatment demanded by a mantelpiece whether the silver articles kept on it be of great or small intrinsic value. Here, as in every case, appropriateness dictates the variety of articles, and the observance of the rule that there shall be no crowding nor disorder in the placing of articles insures that they contribute decorative value; in a word, the size of your buffet limits the amount of silver, glass, etc., to be placed upon it. The variety and number of articles on a dressing-table are subject to the same two laws: that is, every article must be useful and in line and colour accord with the deliberate scheme of your room, and there must be no crowding nor disorder, no matter how rare or beautiful the toilet articles are. CHAPTER X TREATMENT OF WORK TABLES, BIRD CAGES, DOG BASKETS AND FISH GLOBES Every bedroom planned for a woman, young or old, calls for a work table, work basket or work bag, or all three, and these furnish opportunities for additional "flowers" in your room; for we insist upon regarding accessories as opportunities for extra colour notes which harmonise with the main colour scheme and enliven your interior quite as flowers would, cheering it up--and, incidentally, its inmates! Apropos of this, it was only the other day that some one remarked in our hearing, "This room is so blooming with lovely bits of colour in lamp shades, pillows, and _objets d'art_, that I no longer spend money on cut flowers." There we have it! Precisely the idea we are trying to express. So make your work-table, if you own the sort with a silk work-bag suspended from the lower part, your work-basket or work-bag, represent one, two or three of the colours in your room. If some one gives you an inharmonious work-bag, either build a room up to it, or give it away, but never hang it out in a room done in an altogether different colour scheme. Bird-cages, dog-baskets and fish-globes may become harmonious instead of jarring colour notes, if one will give a little thought to the matter. In fact some of the black iron wrought cages when occupied by a wonderful parrot with feathers of blue and orange, red and grey, or red, blue and yellow, can be the making of certain rooms. And there are canaries with deep orange feathers which look most decorative in cages painted dark green, as well as the many-coloured paroquet, lovely behind golden bars. Many a woman when selecting a dog has bought one which harmonised with her costume, or got a costume to set off her dog! Certainly a dark or light brindle bull is a perfect addition to a room done in browns, as is a red Chow or a tortoise-shell cat. See to it that cage and basket set off your bird, dog or cat; but don't let them become too conspicuous notes of colour in your room or on your porch; let it be the bird, the dog or the cat which has a colour value. The fish-globe can be of white or any colour glass you prefer, and your fish vivid or pale in tone; whichever it is, be sure that they furnish a needed--not a superfluous--tone of colour in a room or on a porch. PLATE XIV Shows narrow hall in an old country house, thought impossible as to appearance, but made charming by "pushing out" the wall with an antique painted tapestry and keeping all woodwork and carpets the same delicate dove grey. [Illustration: _A Narrow Hall Where Effect of Width Is Attained by Use of Tapestry with Vista_] CHAPTER XI TREATMENT OF FIREPLACES Nothing is ever more attractive than the big open fireplace, piled with blazing logs, and with fire-dogs or andirons of brass or black iron, as may accord with the character of your room. If yours is a _period_ room it is possible to get andirons to match, veritable old ones, by paying for them. The attractiveness of a fireplace depends largely upon its proportions. To look well it should always be wider than high, and deep enough to insure that the smoke goes up the chimney, and not out into your room. If your fireplace smokes you may need a special flue, leading from fireplace to proper chimney top, or a brass hood put on front of the fireplace. Many otherwise attractive fireplaces are spoiled by using the wrong kind of tiles to frame them. Shiny, enamelled tiles in any colour, are bad, and pressed red brick of the usual sort equally bad, so if you are planning the fireplace of an informal room, choose tiles with a dull finish or brick with a simple rough finish. In period rooms often beautiful light or heavy mouldings entirely frame the three sides of the fireplace when it is of wood. _Well designed_ marble mantels are always desirable. This feature of decoration is distinctly within the province of your architect, one reason more why he and the interior decorator, whether professional or amateur, should continually confer while building or rebuilding a house. For coal fires we have a variety of low, broad grates; as well as reproductions of Colonial grates, which are small and swung high between brass uprights, framing the fireplace, with an ash drawer, the front of which is brass. If you prefer the _old_, one can find this variety of grate in antique shops as well as "Franklin stoves" (portable open fireplaces). If your rooms are heated with steam, cover the radiators with wooden frames in line with the period of your room cut in open designs to allow heat to come through, and painted to match the woodwork of the room. See Plate XIX. Let the fireplace be the centre of attraction in your room and draw about it comfortable chairs, sofas and settles,--make it easy to enjoy its hospitable blaze. CHAPTER XII TREATMENT OF BATHROOMS Sumptuous bathrooms are not modern inventions, on the contrary the bath was a religion with the ancient Greeks, and a luxury to the early Italians. What we have to say here is in regard to the bath as a necessity for all classes. The treatment of bathrooms has become an interesting branch of interior decoration, whereas once it was left entirely to the architect and plumber. First, one has to decide whether the bathroom is to be finished in conventional white enamel, which cannot be surpassed for dainty appearance and sanitary cleanliness. Equally dainty to look at and offering the same degree of sanitary cleanliness, is a bathroom enamelled in some delicate tone to accord in colour with the bedroom with which it connects. PLATE XV This illustration speaks for itself--fruit dishes and fruit, candlesticks, covered jars for dried rose leaves, finger bowls, powder boxes, flower vase, and scent bottles--all of Venetian Glass in exquisite shades. [Illustration: _Venetian Glass, Antique and Modern_] Some go so far as to make the bathroom the same colour as the bedroom, even when this is dark. We have in mind a bath opening out of a man's bedroom. The bedroom is decorated in dull blues, taupe and mulberry. The bathroom has the walls painted in broad stripes of dull blue and taupe, the stripes being quite six inches wide. The floor is tiled in large squares of the same blue and taupe; the tub and other furnishings are in dull blue enamel, and the wall-cabinets (one for shaving brushes, tooth brushes, etc., another for shaving cups, medicine glasses, drinking glasses, etc., and the third for medicines, soaps, etc.) are painted a dull mulberry. Built into the front of each cabinet door is an old coloured print covered with glass and framed with dull blue moulding and on the inside of each cabinet door is a mirror. One small closet in the bathroom is large enough to hang bath robe, pajamas, etc., while another is arranged for drying towels and holds a soiled clothes basket. On the inside of both doors are full-length mirrors. The criticism that mirrors in men's bathrooms are necessarily an effeminate touch, can be refuted by the statement that so sturdy a soldier as the Great Napoleon had his dressing room at Fontainebleau lined with them! This fact reminds us that we have recently seen a most fascinating bathroom, planned for a woman, in which the walls and ceiling are of glass, cut in squares and fitted together in the old French way. Over the glass was a dull-gold trellis and twined in and out of this, ivy, absolutely natural in appearance, but made of painted tin. The floor tiles, and fixtures were white enamel, and a soft moss-green velvet carpet was laid down when the bath was not used. Bathroom fixtures are to-day so elaborate in number and quality, that the conveniences one gets are limited only by one's purse. The leading manufacturers have anticipated the dreams of the most luxurious. Window-curtains for bathrooms should be made of some material which will neither fade nor pull out of shape when washed. We would suggest scrim, Swiss, or China silk of a good quality. When buying bath-mats, bath-robes, bath-slippers, bath-towels, wash-cloths and hand-towels, it is easy to keep in mind the colour-scheme of your rooms, and by following it out, the general appearance of your suite is immensely improved. For a woman's bathroom, Venetian glass bottles, covered jars and bowls of every size, come in opalescent pale greens and other delicate tints. See Plate XI. Then there are the white glass bottles, jars, bowls, and trays with bunches of dashing pink roses, to be obtained at any good department store. Glass toilet articles come in considerable variety and at all prices, and to match any colour scheme; so use them as notes of colour on the glass shelves in your bathrooms. Here, too, is an opportunity to use your old Bristol or Bohemian glass, once regarded as inherited eyesores, but now unearthed, and which, when used to contribute to a colour scheme, have a distinct value and real beauty. PLATE XVI Part of a room in a small suite where the furniture is all old and the majority of it Empire in style. However, the small piano at once declares itself American Empire. The beautifully decorative nameplate on its front reads, "Geib & Walker, 23 Maiden Lane, N.Y." The date of piano is about 1830. The brown mahogany commode on the right has the lion's claw-feet, and pilasters are topped by women's heads in bronze. This piece was bought in France. It has the original marble top, dark pink veined with white. The knobs on drawers are bronze lions' heads, holding rings in their mouths. Chairs are Italian and between Directoire and Empire. The table, a good specimen, was also found in France. On the table is a French vanity mirror, Louis XVI in time, very Greek in design. The mirror is on both sides and turns on a gold arrow which pierces it. The bronze frame of mirror has a design so intricate in detail that it resembles lace work. The vase on the piano is Empire and antique, decoration of green and gold. The flowers on table are artificial, a quaint Victorian contrast. Through the doorway one sees the end of an Empire bed which came from an old château in Brittany. Note the same pilasters as on bureau, only that in this case the woman's head is gilded wood and two little feet of gilded wood appear at base of mahogany pilaster. A gilded urn rests on a mahogany post of bed against the wall, the only position possible for beds of this style. The head and foot board are of equal height and alike. Few Empire beds are now on the market. This one is used with a roll at each end and is covered with genuine Empire satin in six-inch stripes of canary yellow and sage green divided by two narrow black stripes and a narrow white stripe between them. [Illustration: _Corner of a Room in a Small Empire Suite_] To-day a bathroom is considered the necessary supplement to every bedroom in an apartment or house, where the space allows, and no house is regarded as a good investment if built with less than one bath to communicate with every two rooms. Yet among the advertisements in the New York City Directory of 1828 we read the following naïve statement concerning warm baths, which is meant in all seriousness. It refers to the "Arcade Bath" at 32 Chambers Street, New York City. * * * * * "The warm bath is more conducive to health than any luxury which can be employed in a populous city; its beneficial effects are partially described as follows: "The celebrated Count Rumford has paid particular attention to the subject of Warm Bathing; he has examined it by the test of experiments, long and frequently repeated, and bears testimony to its excellent effects. 'It is not merely on account of the advantages,' says the count, 'which I happen to see from Warm Bathing, which renders me so much an advocate of the practice; exclusive of the wholesomeness of the warm bath, the luxury of bathing is so great, and the tranquil state of the mind and body which follows, is so exquisitely delightful, that I think it quite impossible to recommend it too highly, if we consider it merely as a rational and elegant refinement. The manner in which the warm bath operates, in producing the salutary consequences, seems very evident. The genial warmth which is so applied to the skin in the place of the cold air of the atmosphere, by which we are commonly surrounded, expands all those very small vessels, where the extremities of the arteries and veins unite, and by gently stimulating the whole frame, produces a full and free circulation, which if continued for a certain time, removes all obstructions in the vascular system, and puts all the organs into that state of regular, free, and full motion which is essential to health, and also to that delightful repose, accompanied by a consciousness of the power of exertion, which constitutes the highest animal enjoyment of which we are capable.' "N.B.: As the Bath is generally occupied on Saturday evenings and Sunday mornings, it is recommended to those who would wish to enjoy the Bath and avoid the crowded moment, to call at other times. The support of the public will be gratefully received and every exertion made to deserve it. For the Proprietor, G. Wright. "Strangers will recognise the Bathing House from the front being extended over two lots of ground, and the centre basement being of free-stone." * * * * * The bathtub then was the simple tin sort, on the order of the round English tub. To-day the variety of bathtubs as to size, shape, material and appointments is bewildering; tubs there are on feet and tubs without feet, tubs sunken in the floor so that one goes down steps into them, tubs of large dimensions and tubs of small, and all with or without "showers," as the purchaser may prefer. Truly the warm baths so highly recommended in Count Rumford's rhapsody are to be had for the turning of one's own faucet at any moment of the day or night! The Count Rumford in question is that romantic figure, born of simple English parents, in New England (Woburn, Mass., 1753), who went abroad when very young and by the great force of his personality and genius, became the power behind the throne in Bavaria, where he was made Minister of War and Field Marshal by the Elector, and later knighted in recognition of his scientific attainments and innumerable civic reforms. There is a large monument erected to the memory of Count Rumford in Munich. He died at Auteuil, France, in 1814. CHAPTER XIII PERIOD ROOMS We use the term "period rooms" with full knowledge of the difficulties involved, in defining Louis XIV, Louis XV, Louis XVI, Directoire, Jacobean, Empire, Georgian, Victorian and Colonial decorations. Each period certainly has its distinctive earmarks in line and typical decoration, but you must realise that a period gradually evolves, at first exhibiting characteristics of its ancestors, then as it matures, showing a definite _new_ type, and, later, when the elation of success has worn off, yielding to various foreign influences. By way of example, note the Chinese decoration on some of the painted furniture of the Louis XVI type, the Dutch influence on Chippendale in line, and the Egyptian on Empire. One fascinating way of becoming familiar with history, is to delve into the origin and development of periods in furniture. The story of Napoleon is recorded in the unpretentious Directoire, the ornate Empire of Fontainebleau, while the conversion of round columns into obelisk-like pilasters surmounted by heads, the bronze and gilded-wood ornaments in the form of the Sphynx, are frank souvenirs of Egypt. Every period, whether ascribed to England, France, Italy or Holland, has found expression in all adjacent countries. An Italian Louis XVI chair, mirror or applique is frequently sold in Paris or London as French and Empire furniture was "made in Germany." Periods have no restricted nationality; but nationality often declares itself in periods. That is to say, lines may be copied; but workmanship is another thing. Apropos of this take the French Empire furniture, massive as much of it is, built squarely and solidly to the floor, but showing most extraordinary grace on account of the amazing delicacy of intricate designs, done by the greatest French sculptors of the time and worked out in metal by the trained hands of men who had a special genius for this art. At no other time, nor in any other country, has an equal degree of perfection in the fine chiselling of metals so much as approached the standard attained during the Louis[1] and the Empire periods. If in your wandering, you happen upon a genuine bit of this work in silver or ormoulu, buy it. The writer once found in a New Jersey antique shop, a rare Empire bronze vase, urn-shaped, a specimen of the very finest kind of this metal engraving. The price asked for it (in ignorance, of course) was $2.50! The piece would have brought $40 in Paris. But the quest of the antique is another story. When one realises the eternal borrowing of one country from another, the ever-recurring renaissance of past periods and the legitimate and illegitimate mixing of styles, it is no wonder that the amateur feels nervously uncertain, or frankly ignorant. Many a professional decorator hesitates to give a final judgment. To take one case in point, we glibly speak of "Colonial" furniture, that term which covers such a multitude of sins, and inspiring virtues, too! We have the Colonial which closely resembles the Empire, and we have what is sometimes styled the Chippendale Colonial, following the Chippendale of England. Our Colonial cabinet-makers used as models, beautiful pieces imported from England, Holland and France by the wealthier members of our communities. Also a Chinese and Japanese influence crept in, on account of the lacquer and carved teak wood, brought home by our seafaring ancestors. It is quite possible that the carved teak wood stimulated the clever maker of some of the most beautiful Victorian furniture made in America, which is gradually finding its way into the hands of collectors. Some of these cabinet-makers glued together and put under heavy pressure seven to nine layers of rosewood with the grain running at every angle, so as to produce strength. When the layers had been crushed into a solid block, they carved their open designs, using one continuous piece of wood for the ornamental rim of even large sofas. The best of the Victorian period is attractive, but how can we express our opinion of those American monstrosities of the sixties or seventies, beds in rosewood and walnut, the head-boards covering the side of a room, bureaus proportionately huge, following out the idea that a piece of furniture to be beautiful must be very large and very expensive! It is to be hoped that the lovely rosewood and walnut wasted at that time are to-day being rescued by wary cabinet-makers. The art of furniture making, like every other art, came into being to serve a clearly defined purpose. This must not be forgotten. A chair and a sofa are to sit on; a mirror, to _reflect_. Remember this last fact when hanging one. It is important that your mirror reflect one of the most attractive parts of your room, and thus contribute its quota to your scheme of decoration. It is interesting to note that chairs were made with solid wooden seats when men wore armour, velvet cushions followed more fragile raiment, and tapestries while always mural decorations were first used in place of doors and partitions, in feudal castles, before there were interior doors and partitions. Any piece of furniture is artistically bad when it does not satisfactorily serve its purpose. The equally fundamental law that everything useful should at the same time be beautiful cannot be repeated too often. Period rooms which slavishly repeat, in every piece of furniture and ornament, only one type, have but a museum interest. If your rooms are to serve as a home, give them a winning, human quality, keep before your mind's eye, not royal palaces which have become museums, but _homes_, built and furnished by men and women whose traditions and associations gave them standards of beauty, so that they bought the choicest furniture both at home and abroad. In such a home, whether it be an intimate palace in Europe, a Colonial mansion in New England, or a Victorian interior of the best type, an extraneous period is often represented by some _objet d'art_ as a delightful, because harmonious note of contrast. For example, in a Louis XVI salon, where the colour scheme is harmonious, one gradually realises that one of the dominant ornaments in the room is a rare old Chinese vase, brought back from the Orient by one of the family and given a place of honour on account of its uniqueness. Every one understands and feels deeply the difference between the museum palace or the period rooms of the commonplace decorator, and such a marvellous, living, breathing, palatial home as that "Italian palace" in Boston, Massachusetts, created, not inherited, by Mrs. John L. Gardner. Here we have a splendid example to illustrate the point we are trying to make; namely, regardless of its dimensions, make your home _home-like_ and like _you_, its owner. Never allow any one, professional or amateur, to persuade you to put anything in it which you do not like yourself; but if an expert advises against a thing, give careful consideration to the advice before rejecting it. Mrs. Gardner's house is unique among the great houses of America as having that quality of the intimate palaces abroad,--a subtle mellowness which in the old world took time and generations of cultivated lovers of the rare and beautiful, to create. Adequate means, innate art appreciation, experience and the knowledge which comes from keeping in touch with experts, account for the intrinsic value of Mrs. Gardner's collection; but the subtle quality of harmony and vitality is her own personal touch. The colour scheme is so wisely chosen that it actually does unite all periods and countries. One is surprised to note how perfectly at home even the modern paintings appear in this version of an old Italian palace. Be sure that you aim at the same combination of beauty, usefulness, and harmony between colour scheme and _objets d'art_. It is in colour scheme that we feel the personality of our host or hostess, therefore give attention to this point. Always have a colour scheme sympathetic to _you_. Make your rooms take on the air of being your abode. It is really very simple. What has been done with vast wealth can be just as easily done by the man of one room and a bath. Know what you want, and buy the best you can afford; by best, meaning useful things, indisputably beautiful in line and colour. Use your Colonial furniture; but if you find a wonderful Empire desk, with beautiful brass mounts and like it, buy it. They are of the same period in point of date, as it happens, and your Louis XVI bronze candlesticks will add a touch of grace. The writer recalls a simple room which was really a milestone in the development of taste, for it was so completely harmonious in colouring, arrangement of furniture, and placing of ornaments. Built for a painter's studio, with top light, it was used, at the time of which we speak, for music, as a Steinway grand indicated. The room was large, the floors painted black and covered with faded Oriental rugs; woodwork and walls were dark-green, as were the long, low, open bookcases, above which a large foliage tapestry was hung. On the other walls were modern paintings with antique frames of dulled gold, while a Louis XVI inlaid desk stood across one corner, and there was an old Italian oval table of black wood, with great, gold birds, as pedestal and legs, at which we dined simply, using fine old silver, and foreign pottery. This room was responsible for starting more than one person on the pursuit of the antique, for pervading it was a magic atmosphere, that wizard touch which comes of _knowing, loving_ and _demanding beautiful things_, and then treating them very humanly. Use your lovely vases for your flowers. Hang your modern painting; but let its link with the faded tapestry be the dull, old frame. To be explicit, use lustreless frames and faded colours with old furniture and tapestry. Your grandmother wears mauves and greys--not bright red. If your taste is for modern painted furniture and vivid Bakst colours in cushions and hangings, take your lovely old tapestry away. Speaking of tapestries, do not imagine that they can never be used in small rooms and narrow halls. Plate XIV shows an illustration of a hall in an old-fashioned country house, that was so narrow that it aroused despair. We call attention to the fact that it gains greatly in width from the perspective shown in the tapestry, one of the rare, old, painted kind, which depicts distance, wide vistas and a scene flooded with light. (An architectural picture can often be used with equally good results.) To increase size of this hall, the woodwork, walls and carpets were kept the same shade of pale-grey. The landscape paper in our Colonial houses of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, often large in design, pushed back the walls to the same amazing degree. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 1: Louis XIV, XV, and XVI.] CHAPTER XIV PERIODS IN FURNITURE Periods in furniture are amazingly interesting if one plunges into the story, not with tense nerves, but gaily, for mere amusement, and then floats gently, in a drifting mood. One gathers in this way many sparkling historical anecdotes, and much substantial data really not so cumbersome as some imagine! To know anything at all about a subject one must begin at the beginning, and to make the long run seems a mere spin in an auto, let us at once remind you that the whole fascinating tale lies between the covers of one delightful book, the "Illustrated History of Furniture," by Frederick Litchfield, published by Truslove & Hanson, London, and by John Lane, New York. There are other books--many of them--but first exhaust Litchfield and apply what he tells you as you wander through public and private collections of furniture. If you care for furniture at all, this book, which tells all that is known of its history, will prove highly instructive. One cannot speak of the gradual development of furniture and furnishing; it is more a case of _waves of types_, and the story begins on the crest of a wave in Assyria, about 3000 years before Christ! Yes, seriously, interior decoration was an art back in that period and can be traced without any lost links in the chain of evidence. From Assyria we turn to Egypt and learn from the frescoes and bas-reliefs on walls of ruined tombs, that about that same time, 3000 B.C., rooms on the banks of the Nile were decorated more or less as they are to-day. The cultured classes had beautiful ceilings, gilded furniture, cushions and mattresses of dyed linen and wools, stuffed with downy feathers taken from water fowl, curtains that were suspended between columns, and, what is still more interesting to the lover of furniture, we find that the style known as Empire when revived by Napoleon I was at that time in vogue. Even more remarkable is the fact that parts of legs and rails of furniture were turned as perfectly (I quote Litchfield) as if by a modern lathe. The variety of beautiful woods used by the Egyptians for furniture included ebony, cedar, sycamore and acacia. Marquetry was employed as well as wonderful inlaying with ivory, from both the elephant and hippopotamus. Footstools had little feet made like lion's claws or bull's hoofs. According to Austin Leyard, the very earliest Assyrian chairs, as well as those of Egypt, had the legs terminating in the same lion's feet or bull's hoofs, which reappear in the Greek, Roman, Empire and even Sheraton furniture of England (eighteenth century). The first Assyrian chairs were made without backs and of beautifully wrought gold and bronze, an art highly developed at that time. In Egypt we find the heads of animals capping the backs of chairs in the way that we now see done on Spanish chairs. The pilasters shown on the Empire furniture, Plate XVI, capped by women's heads with little gold feet at base, and caryatides of a kind, were souvenirs of the Egyptian throne seats which rested on the backs of slaves--possibly prisoners of war. These chairs were wonderful works of art in gold or bronze. We fancy we can see those interiors, the chairs and beds covered with woven materials in rich colours and leopard skins thrown over chairs, the carpets of a woven palm-fibre and mats of the same, which were used as seats. Early Egyptian rooms were beautiful in line because simple; never crowded with superfluous furnishings. It is amusing to see on the very earliest bas-reliefs Egyptian belles and beaux reclining against what we know to-day as Empire rolls,--seen also on beds in old French prints of the fourteenth century. Who knows, even with the Egyptians this may have been a revived style! One talks of new notes in colour scheme. The Bakst thing was being done in Assyria, 700 B.C.! Sir George Green proved it when he opened up six rooms of a king's palace and found the walls all done in horizontal stripes of red, yellow and green! Also, he states that each entrance had the same number of pilasters. Oh wise Assyrian King and truly neutral, if as is supposed, those rooms were for his six wives! In furniture, the epoch-making styles have been those showing _line_, and if decorated, then only with such decorations as were subservient to line; pure Greek and purest Roman, Gothic and early Renaissance, the best of the Louis, Directoire and First Empire, Chippendale, Adam, Sheraton and Heppelwhite. The bad styles are those where ornamentations envelop and conceal line as in late Renaissance, the Italian Rococo, the Portuguese Barrocco (baroque), the curving and contorted degenerate forms of Louis XIV and XV and the Victorian--all examples of the same thing, _i.e._: perfect line achieved, acclaimed, flattered, losing its head and going to the bad in extravagant exuberance of over-ornamentation. There is a psychic connection between the _outline_ of furniture and the _inline_ of man. Perfect line, chaste ornamentation, the elimination of the superfluous was the result of the Greek idea of restraint--self-control in all things and in all expression. The immense authority of the law-makers enforced simple austerity as the right and only setting for the daily life of an Athenian, worthy of the name. There were exceptions, but as a rule all citizens, regardless of their wealth and station, had impressed upon them the civic obligation to express their taste for the beautiful, in the erecting of public buildings in their city of Athens, monuments of perfect art, by God-like artists, Phidias, Apelles, and Praxiteles. CHAPTER XV CONTINUATION OF PERIODS IN FURNITURE From Greece, culture, borne on the wings of the arts, moved on to Rome, and at first, Roman architecture and decoration reproduced only the classic Greek types; but, as Rome grew, her arts took on another and very different outline, showing how the history of decorative art is to a fascinating degree the history of customs and manners. Rome became prosperous, greedy, powerful and imperious, enslaving the civilised world, and, not having the restraining laws of Greece, waxed luxurious and licentious, and chafed, in consequence, at the austere rigidity of the Greek style of furnishing. We know that in the time of Augustus Cæsar the Romans had wonderful furniture of the most costly kind, made from cedar, pine, elm, olive, ash, ilex, beach and maple, carved to represent the legs, feet, hoofs and heads of animals, as in earlier days was the fashion in Assyria, Egypt and Greece, while intricate carvings in relief, showed Greek subjects taken from mythology and legend. Cæsar, it is related, owned a table costing a million sesterces ($40,000). But gradually the pure line swerved, ever more and more influenced by the Orient, for Rome, always successful in war, had established colonies in the East. Soon Byzantine art reached Rome, bringing its arabesques and geometrical designs, its warm, glowing colours, soft cushions, gorgeous hangings, embroideries, and rich carpets. In fact all the glowing luxury that the _new_ Roman craved. The effect of this _mésalliance_ upon all Art, including interior decoration, was to cause its immediate decline. Elaboration and _banal_ designs, too much splendour of gold and silver and ivory inlaid with gold, resulted in a decadent art which reflected a decadent race and Rome fell! Not all at once; it took five hundred years for the neighbouring races to crush her power, but continuous hectoring did it, in 476 A.D. Then began the Dark Ages merging into the Middle Ages (fifth to fifteenth centuries). Dark they were, but what picturesque and productive darkness! Rome fell, but the Carlovingian family arose, and with it the great nations of Western Europe, to give us, especially in France, another supreme flowering of interior decoration. Britain was torn from the grasp of Rome by the Saxons, Danes and Normans, and as a result the great Anglo-Saxon race was born to create art periods. Mahomet appeared and scored as an epoch-maker, recording a remarkable life and a spiritual cycle. The Moors conquered Spain, but in so doing enriched her arts a thousandfold, leaving the Alhambra as a beacon-light through the ages. Finally the crusades united all warring races against the infidels. Blood was shed, but at the same time routes were opened up, by which the arts, as well as the commerce, of the Orient, reached Europe. And so the Byzantine continued to contend with Gothic art--that art which preceded from the Christian Church and stretched like a canopy over Western Europe, all through the Middle Ages. It was in the churches and monasteries that Christian art, driven from pillar to post by wars, was obliged to take refuge, and there produced that marvellous development known as the Gothic style,--of the Church, for the Church, by the Church, perfected in countless Gothic cathedrals,--crystallised glorias lifting their manifold spires to heaven,--ethereal monuments of an intrepid Faith which gave material form to its adoration, its fasting and prayer, in an unrivalled art. There is one early Gothic chair which has come down to us, Charlemagne's, made of gilt-bronze and preserved in the Louvre, at Paris. Any knowledge beyond this one piece, as to what Carlovingian furniture was like (the eighth century) we get only from old manuscripts which show it to have been the pseudo-classic, that is, the classic modified by Byzantine influence, and very like the Empire style of Napoleon I. Here is the reason for the type. Constantinople was the capital of the Eastern Empire, when in 726 A.D., Emperor Leo III prohibited image worship, and the artists and artisans of his part of the world, in order to earn a livelihood, scattered over Europe, settling in the various capitals, where they were eagerly welcomed and employed. Even so late as the tenth to fourteenth centuries the knowledge we have of Gothic furniture still comes from illustrated manuscripts and missals preserved in museums or in the national libraries. Rome fell as an empire in the fifth century. In the eighth century, Venice asserted herself, later becoming the great, wealthy, Merchant City of Eastern Europe, the golden gate between Byzantium and the West (eleventh to fifteenth centuries). Her merchants visiting every country naturally carried home all art expressions, but, so far as we know, her own chief artistic output in very early days, was in the nature of richly carved wooden furniture, no specimens of which remain. CHAPTER XVI THE GOTHIC PERIOD The Gothic Period is the pointed period, and dominated the art of Europe from about the tenth to the fifteenth century. Its origin was Teutonic, its development and perfection French. At first, the house of a feudal lord meant one large hall with a raised dais, curtained off for him and his immediate family, and subdivided into sleeping apartments for the women. On this dais a table ran crossways, at which the lord and his family with their guests, ate, while a few steps lower, at a long table running lengthwise of the hall, sat the retainers. The hall was, also, the living-room for all within the walls of the castle. Sand was strewn on the stone floor and the dogs of the knights ate what was thrown to them, gnawing the bones at their leisure. This rude scene was surrounded by wonderful tapestries hung from the walls:--woman's record of man's deeds. Later, we read of stairs and of another room known as the _Parloir_ or talking-room, and here begins the sub-division of homes, which in democratic America has arrived at a point where more than 200 rooms are often sheltered under one private roof! Oak chests figured prominently among the furnishings of a Gothic home, because the possessions of those feudal lords, who were constantly at war with one another, often had to be moved in haste. As men's lives became more settled, their possessions gradually multiplied; but even at the end of the eleventh century bedsteads were provided only for the nobility, probably on account of expense, as they were very grand affairs, carved and draped. To that time and later belong the wonderfully carved presses or wardrobes. Carved wood panelling was an important addition to interior decoration during the reign of Henry III (1216-72). In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries England with Flanders led in the production of mediæval art. Hallmarks of the Gothic period are animals and reptiles carved to ornament the structural parts of furniture and to ornament panels. Favourite subjects with the wood carvers of that time were scenes from the lives of the saints (the Church dominated the State) and from the romances, chanted by the minstrels. CHAPTER XVII THE RENAISSANCE Following the Gothic Period came the Renaissance of Greek art which began in Italy under the leadership of Leonardo Da Vinci and Raphael, who, rejecting the existing types of degraded decorative art, in Italy a combination of the Byzantine and Gothic--turned to the antique, the purest Greek styles of Pericles' time. The result was another period of perfect line and proportion, called the Italian Renaissance, a great wave of art which swept over all Europe, gaining impetus from the wise patronage of the ruling Medicis. One of them (Pope Leo X with the co-operation of Italy's reigning dukes and princes) employed and so developed the extraordinary powers of Michael Angelo, Titian, Raphael, Andrea del Sarto and Correggio. By the end of the fifteenth century, Classic Greek art was engrossing the mind of Western Europe, classical literature was becoming the fashion and there was even an attempt to make Latin the popular language. It was during the Renaissance that Palladio rebuilt the palaces of Italy,--beautiful beyond words, and that Benvenuto Cellini designed in gold, silver and bronze in a manner never since equalled. From that same period dates the world-famous Majolica of Urbino, Pesaro and Gubbio, shown in our museums. So far as house-furnishing went, aside from palaces, there was but little that was appropriate for intimate domestic life. The early Renaissance furniture was palatial, architectural in outline and, one might almost say, in proportions. The tables were impossibly high, the chairs were stiff, and the cabinets immense and formal in outline. It had, however, much stately beauty, and very lovely are certain old pieces of carved and gilded wood where the gilt, put on over a red preparation and highly burnished, has rubbed off with time, and shows a soft glow of colour through the gold. But as always, the curse of over-elaboration to please perverted minds, was resorted to by cabinet-makers who copied mosaics with their inlaying, and invented that form known as _pietra-dura_--polished bits of marble, agates, pebbles and lapis lazuli. Ivory was carved and used as bas-reliefs and ivory and tortoise shell, brass and mother-of-pearl used as inlay. Elaborate Arabesque designs inlaid were souvenirs of the Orient, and where the cabinetmaker's saw left a line, the cuts were filled in with black wood or stained glue, which brought out the design and so gave an added decorative effect. Skilled artisans had other designs bitten into wood by acids, and shading was managed by pouring hot sand on the surface of the wood. Hallmarks of the Renaissance are designs which were taken from Greek and Roman mythology, and allegories representing the elements, seasons, months and virtues. Also, battle scenes and triumphal marches. The insatiable love for decoration found still another expression in silver and gold plaques of the highest artistic quality, embossed and engraved for those princes of Florence, Urbino, Ferrara, Rome, Venice and Naples, who vied with one another in extravagance until the inevitable reaction came. PLATE XVII An example of good mantel decoration. The vases and clock are Empire, the chairs Directoire, and footstools Louis XV. A low bowl of modern green Venetian glass holds flowers. [Illustration: _An Example of Perfect Balance and Beauty in Mantel Arrangement_] Edmund Bonneffé says that in the latter part of the Renaissance, while the effort of the Italians seems to have been to disguise wood, French cabinet-makers emphasised its value--an interesting point to bear in mind. * * * * * If we trace the Renaissance movement in Germany we find that it was Albrecht Dürer who led it. Then, as always, the Germans were foremost in wood carving; with Holland and Belgium they are responsible for much of the antique oak furniture on Renaissance lines. The Scandinavians have also done wonderful wood carving, which is easily confused with the early wood carving of the Russians, for the reason that the Swedes settled Finland, and Russia's Ruric rulers (before the Romanoff house,--sixteenth century) were from Finland. In the sixteenth century metal work in steel, iron and brass reached its height in Germany and Italy. It is supposed that the elaborate mounts in furniture which were later perfected in France had their origin in iron corners and hinge-plates used, at first, merely to strengthen, but as the men who worked in metals became more and more skilful, the mounts were made with the intent of mere decoration and to draw attention to the beauty of the wood itself. Before Dürer turned Germany's mind toward the Greek revival of Art, the craftsmen of his country had been following Dutch models. This was natural enough, for Charles V was king at that time, of Holland, Germany and Spain, and the arts of the three countries, as well as their commerce were interchangeable. In fact it was the Dutch painter, Van Eyck, who took the Renaissance into Spain when called thereto paint royalty. Sculptors, tapestry weavers, books on art, etc., followed. That was the Spanish awakening, but the art of Spain during the sixteenth century shows that the two most powerful influences were Moorish and Italian. The most characteristically Spanish furniture of that period are those cabinets,--"_Vargueos_," made of wood ornamented on the outside with wrought iron, while inside are little columns made of fine bone, painted and gilded. Much of the old Spanish furniture reproduces German and Italian styles. Embossed leather put on with heavy nails has always been characteristic of Spain, and in the seventeenth century very fine Spanish mahogany and chestnut were decorated with tortoise-shell inlaid with ivory, so as to make elaborate pictures in the Italian style. (See Baron Davillier on Spanish Furniture.). CHAPTER XVIII FRENCH FURNITURE The classic periods in French furniture were those known as Francis I, Henry II and the three Louis,--XIV, XV, and XVI. One can get an idea of all French periods in furnishing by visiting the collection in Paris belonging to the government, "Mobilier National," in the new wing of the Louvre. It is always necessary to consult political history in order to understand artistic invasions. Turn to it now and you will find that Charles VIII of France held Naples for two years (1495-6), and when he went home took with him Italian artists to decorate his palaces. Read on and find that later Henry II married Catherine de Medici and loved Diane de Poitiers, and that, fortunately for France, both his queen and his mistress were patronesses of the arts. So France bloomed in the sunshine of royal favour and Greek influence, as few countries ever had. Fontainebleau (begun by Francis I) was the first of a chain of French royal palaces, all monuments without and within, to a picturesque system of monarchy,--Kings who could do no wrong, wafting sceptres over powerless subjects, whose toil produced Art in the form of architecture, cabinetmaking, tapestry weaving, mural decoration, unrivalled porcelain, exquisitely wrought silver and gold plate, silks, lovely as flower gardens (showing the "pomegranate" and "vase" patterns) and velvets like the skies! And for what? Did these things represent the wise planning of wise monarchs for dependent subjects? We know better, for it is only in modern times that simple living and small incomes have achieved surroundings of artistic beauty and comfort. The marvels of interior decoration during the classic French periods were created for kings and their queens, mistresses and favoured courtiers. Diane de Poitiers wished--perhaps only dreamed--and an epoch-making art project was born. Madame du Barry admired and made her own the since famous du Barry rose colour, and the Sèvres porcelain factories reproduced it for her. But how to produce this particular illusive shade of deep, purplish-pink became a forgotten art, when the seductive person of the king's mistress was no more. If you would learn all there is to know concerning the sixteenth century furnishings in France read Edmund Bonneffé's "Sixteenth Century Furniture." It was the Henry II interior decoration and architecture which first showed the Renaissance of pure line and classic proportion, followed by the never-failing reaction from the simple line to the undulating over-ornate when decoration repeated the elaboration of the most luxurious, licentious periods of the past. One has but to walk through the royal palaces of France to see French history beguilingly illustrated, in a series of volumes open to all, the pages of which are vibrant with the names and personalities of men and women who will always live in history as products of an age of great culture and art. PLATE XVIII A delightful bit of a room. The furniture, in line, shows a Directoire influence. The striped French satin sofa and one chair is blue, yellow and faun, the Brussels tapestry in faded blues, fauns and greys. Over a charmingly painted table is a Louis XV gilt applique, the screen is dark in tone and has painted panels. The rug, done in cross-stitch, black ground and design colours, was discovered in a forgotten corner of a shop, its condition so dingy from the dust of ages that only an expert would have recognised its possibilities. [Illustration: _Corner of a Drawing Room, Furniture Showing Directoire influence_] The Louis XIV, XV and XVI periods in furniture are all related. Rare brocades, flowered and in stripes, bronze mounts as garlands, bow-knots and rosettes, on intricate inlaying, mark their common relationship. The story of these periods is that gradually decoration becomes over-elaborated and in the end dominates the Greek outline. The three Louis mark a succession of great periods. Louis XIV, though beautiful at its best, is of the three the most ornate and is characterised in its worst stage by the extremely bowed (cabriole) legs of the furniture, ludicrously suggestive of certain debauched courtiers who surrounded the _Grande Monarch_. Louis XV legs show a curve, also, but no longer the stoggy, squat cabriole of the over-fed gallant. Instead we are entranced by an ethereal grace and lightness of movement in every line and decoration. Here cabriole means but a courtly knee swiftly bending to salute some beauty's hand. So subtly waving is the curving outline of this furniture that one scarcely knows where it begins or ends, and it is the same with the decorations--exquisitely delicate waving traceries of vines and flora, gold on gold, inlay, or paint in delicate tones. All this gives to the Louis XV period supremacy over Louis XVI, whose round, grooved, tapering straight legs, one tires of more quickly, although fine gold and lovely paint make this type winning and beloved. From Louis XVI we pass to the Directoire, when, following the Revolution, the voice of the populace decried all ostentation and everything savouring of the superfluous. The Great Napoleon in his first period affected simplicity and there were no longer bronze mounts, in rosettes, garlands and bow-knots, elaborate inlaying, nor painted furniture with lovely flowering surfaces; in the most severe examples not even fluted legs! Instead, simple but delicately proportioned furniture with slender, squarely cut, chastely tapering legs, arms and backs, was the fashion. In fact, the Directoire type is one of ideal proportions, graceful outlines with a flowing movement and the decoration when present, kept well within bounds, entirely subservient to the main structural material. One feels an almost Quaker-like quality about the Directoire, whether of natural wood or plain painted surface. With Napoleon's assumption of regal power and habits, we get the Empire (he had been to Rome and Egypt), pseudo-classic in outline and richly ornamented with mounts in ormoulu characteristic of the Louis. The Empire period in furniture was dethroned by the succeeding régime. When we see old French chairs with leather seats and backs, sometimes embossed, in the Portuguese style, with small regular design, put on with heavy nails and twisted or straight stretchers (pieces of wood extending between legs of chairs), we know that they belong to the time of Henry IV or Louis XIII. Some of the large chairs show the shell design in their broad, elaborate stretchers. The beautiful small side tables of the Louis and First Empire called consoles, were made for the display of their marvellously wrought pieces of silver, hammered and chiselled by hand,--"museum pieces," indeed, and lucky is the collector who chances upon any specimen adrift. CHAPTER XIX THE PERIODS OF THE THREE LOUIS The only way to learn how to distinguish the three _Louis_ is to study these periods in collections of furniture and objects of art, or, where this is impossible, to go through books showing interiors of those periods. In this way one learns to visualise the salient features of any period and gradually to acquire a _feeling_ for them, that subtle sense which is not dependent wholly upon outline, decoration, nor colour, but upon the combined result. French writers who specialise along the lines of interior decoration often refer to the three types as follows: Period of Louis XIV--heavily, stolidly masculine; Period of Louis XV--coquettishly feminine; Period of Louis XVI--lightly, alertly masculine. One soon sees why, for Louis XIV furniture does suggest masculinity by its weight and size. It is squarely made, straight (classic) in line, equally balanced, heavily ponderous and magnificent. Over its surface, masses of decoration immobile as stone carving, are evenly dispersed, and contribute a grandiose air to all this furniture. There was impressive gallantry to the Louis XIV style, a ceremonious masculine gallantry, while Louis XV furniture--the period dominated by women when "poetry and sculpture sang of love" and life revolved about the boudoir--shows a type entirely _intime_, sinuously, lightly, gracefully, coquettishly feminine, bending and courtesying, with no fixed outline, no equal balance of proportions. Louis XV was the period when outline and decoration were merged in one and the _shell_ which figured in Louis XIV merely as an ornament, gave its form (in a curved outline) and its name "rococo" (Italian for shell) to the style. As a reaction from this we get the Louis XVI period, again masculine in its straight rigidity of line, its perfectly poised proportions, the directness of its appeal to the eye, a "reflection of the more serious mental attitude of the nation." Louis XVI had an aristocratic sobriety and was masculine in a light, alert, mental way, if one can so express it, which stimulates the imagination, in direct contrast to the material and literal type of Louis XIV which, as we have said, was masculine in its ponderous magnificence, and unyielding over-ornamentation. So much for _outline_. Now for the _decoration_ of the three periods. Remember that the Louis XIV, XV and XVI periods took their ideas for decoration from the Greeks, via Italy, and the extreme Orient. A national touch was added by means of their Sèvres porcelain medallions set into furniture, and the finely chiselled bronzes known as ormoulu, a superior alloy of metals of a rich gold colour. The subjects for these chiselled bronzes were taken from Greek and Roman mythology; gods, goddesses, and cupids the insignia of which were torches, quivers, arrows, and tridents. There were, also, wreaths, garlands, festoons and draperies, as well as rosettes, ribbons, bow-knots, medallion heads, and the shell and acanthus leaf. One finds these in various combinations or as individual motives on the furniture of the Louis. PLATE XIX Shows the red-tiled entrance hall of a duplex apartment in New York. On the walls are two Italian mirrors (Louis XVI), a side table (console) of the same epoch, and two Italian carved chairs. [Illustration: _Entrance Hall in New York Duplex Apartment. Italian Furniture_] The backgrounds for these mounts were the woods finely inlaid with ivory shell and brass in the style of the Italian Renaissance. Oriental lacquer and painted furniture, at that time heavily gilded. The legs of chairs, sofas and tables of the Louis XIV period were cabrioles (curved outward)--a development of the animal legs of carved wood, bronze or gold, used by the ancient Assyrians, Egyptians and Greeks as supports for tables and chairs. Square grooved legs also appeared in this type. The same grooves are found on round tapering legs of Louis XVI's time. In fact that type of leg is far more typical of the Louis XVI period than the cabriole or square legs grooved, but one sees all three styles. Other hallmarks of the Louis XVI period are the straight outlines, perfectly balanced proportions, the rosettes, ribbon and bow-knot with torch and arrows in chiselled bronze. That all "painting and sculpture sang of love" is as true of Louis XVI as of Louis XV. In both reigns the colouring was that of spring-tender greens, pale blossoms, the grey of mists, sky-blues, and yellows of sunshine. During Louis XV's time soft cushions fitted into the sinuous lines of the furniture, and as some Frenchman has put it, "a vague, discreet perfume pervaded the whole period, in contrast to the heavier odour of the First Empire." The walls and ceilings of the three Louis were richly decorated in accordance with a scheme, surpassing in magnificence any other period. An intricate system of mouldings (to master which, students at the École des Beaux Arts, Paris, must devote years) encrusted sidewalls and ceilings, forming panels and medallions, over-doors and chimney-pieces, into which were let paintings by the great masters of the time, whose subjects reflected the moods and interests of each period. The Louis XV and XVI paintings are tender and vague as to subject and the colours veiled in a greyish tone, full of sentiment. That was the great period of tapestry weaving--Beauvais, Arras and Gobelin, and these filled panels or hung before doors. It may be said that the period of Louis XVI profited by antiquity, but continued French traditions; it was a renaissance of line and decoration kept alive, while the First Empire was classic form inanimate, because an abrupt innovation rather than an influence and a development. One may go farther and quote the French claim that the colour scheme of Louis XVI was intensely suggestive and personal, while the Empire colouring was literal and impersonal. Under Louis XVI furniture was all but lost in a crowd of other articles, tapestry, draperies of velvet, flowered silks, little objects of art in porcelain, more or less useless, silver and ormoulu, exquisitely decorated with a précieuse intricacy of chiselled designs. The Louis XVI period was rigid in its aristocratic sobriety, for although torch and arrows figured, as did love-birds, in decoration--(souvenirs of the painter Boucher), everything was set and decorous, even the arrow was often the warrior's not cupid's; in the same way the torch was that of the ancients, and when a medallion showed a pastoral subject, its frame of straight lines linked it to the period. Even if Cupid appeared, he was decorously framed or pedestaled. To be sure, Marie Antoinette and the ladies of her court played at farming in the Park of the Petite Trainon, at Versailles; but they wore silk gowns and powdered wigs. To be rustic was the fad of the day (there was a cult for gardening in England); but shepherdesses were confined to tapestries, and, while the aristocracy held the stage, it played the game of life in gloves. There was about the interior decoration of Louis XVI, as about the lives of aristocratic society of that time, a "penetrating perfume of love and gallantry," to which all admirers of the beautiful must ever return for refreshment and standards of beauty and grace. Speaking generally of the three Louis one can say that on a background of a great variety of wonderful inlaid woods, ivory, shell, mother-of-pearl and brass, or woods painted and gilded, following the Italian Renaissance, or lacquered in the manner of the Orient, were ormoulu wrought and finely chiselled, showing Greek mythological subjects; gods, goddesses and their insignia, with garlands, wreaths, festoons, draperies, ribbons, bow-knots, rosettes and medallions of cameo, Sèvres porcelain, or Wedgwood paste. Among the lost arts of that time are inlaying as done by Boule and the finish known as Vernis Martin. PLATE XX This large studio is a marked example of comfort and interest where the laws of appropriateness, practicableness, proportion and balance are so observed as to communicate at once a sense of restfulness. Here the comfortable antiques and beautifully proportioned modern furniture make an ideal combination of living-room and painter's studio. [Illustration: _Combination of Studio and Living Room in a New York Duplex Apartment_] Tapestries and mural paintings were framed by a marvellous system of mouldings which covered ceilings and sidewalls. The colour scheme was such as would naturally be dictated by the general mood of artificiality in an age when dreams were lived and the ruling classes obsessed by a passion for amusements, invented to divert the mind from actualities. This colour scheme was beautifully light in tone and harmoniously gay, whether in tapestries, draperies and upholstery of velvets, or flowered silks, frescoes or painted furniture. It had the appearance of being intended to act as a soporific upon society, whose aim it was to ignore those jarring contrasts which lay beneath the surface of every age. CHAPTER XX CHARTS SHOWING HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF FURNITURE LOUIS XIV, 1643 to {Compressed regularity {Straight, square, 1715 { giving way in { grooved and very Key-note { reaction to a { squat cabriole The Grand { ponderous ugliness. { legs. Audience Rooms { { THE REGENCY AND {The Reign of Woman. {Cabriole legs of a LOUIS XV, 1715 to { { perfect lightness 1774 { { and grace. Key-note { { The Boudoir { { {The transition style {Legs tapering { between the Bourbon { straight, rounded { Interior Decoration { and grooved. A { and that of { few square-grooved { the "Directorate" { legs and LOUIS XVI, 1774 to { and "Empire," { a few graceful, 1793 { characterised by a { slender cabriole Key-note { return to the classic { legs. The Salon _Intime_ { line which reflects { { a more serious turn { { of mind on part of { { the Nation in an age { { of great mental { { activity. { {Classic lines. {Classic decorations with subjects taken from { Greek mythologies. {Winged figures, emblems of liberty; antique { heads of helmeted warriors, made like { medallions, wreaths, lyres, torches, { rosettes, etc. {Besides the wonderful mounts of Ormoulu, { designed by the great sculptors and painters { of the period, there was a great deal { of fine brass inlaying. {Antique vases taken from ancient tombs were THE FIRST EMPIRE, { placed in recesses in the walls of rooms NAPOLEON I, 1804 { after the style of the ancient "Columbaria." to 1814 {Every effort was made to surround Napoleon I { with the dignity and austere sumptuousness { of a great Roman Emperor. As we have said, { he had been in Rome and he had been in Egypt; { the art of the French Empire was reminiscent { of both. Napoleon would outstrip the other { conquerors of the world. {Some Empire furniture shows the same fine { turning which characterizes Jacobean furniture { of both oak and walnut periods. We refer to { the round, not spiral, turning. See legs of { Empire sofa on which Madame Récamier reclines { in the well-known portrait by David (Louvre). ENGLISH FURNITURE {Gothic, through 14th Century. THE OAK PERIOD {Renaissance, 16th Century. (including early {Elizabethan, 16th Century. Jacobean) {Jacobean or Stuart, 17th Century; James I, { Charles I and II, and James II, 1603-1688. {Late Jacobean. THE WALNUT PERIOD {William and Mary, 1688. {Queen Anne, 1702. "MAHOGANY" PERIOD {Chippendale. {18th Century. (and other imported {HEPPELWHITE. { woods), or {SHERATON { CHIPPENDALE PERIOD. {THE ADAM BROTHERS. { {Almost no furniture exists of the 13th { Century. We get the majority of our GOTHIC PERIOD, { ideas from illustrated manuscripts of Through 14th Century. { that time. The furniture was carved { oak or plain oak ornamented with { iron scroll work, intended both for { strength and decoration. RENAISSANCE OR {The characteristic, heavy, wide mouldings ELIZABETHAN, { and small panels, and heavy round 16th Century. { carving. {Panels large and mouldings very narrow and { flat, or no mouldings at all, and flat { carving. The classic influence shown during JACOBEAN OR { the period of the Commonwealth in designs, STUART PERIOD, { pilastars and pediments was the result of a 17th Century. { classic reaction, all elaboration being { resented. WALNUT PERIOD, {The Restoration brought in elaborate late 17th Century. { carving. Dutch influence is exemplified { in the fashion for inlaying imported from { Holland, as well as the tulip design. { Turned legs, stretchers, borders and spiral { turnings, characterized Jacobean style. In the GOTHIC PERIOD (extending { through 14th Century), as { the delightful irregularity in { line and decoration shows, {Tables, chests, presses (wardrobes), there was NO SET TYPE; each { chairs and benches or piece was an individual creation { settles. and showed the personality { of maker. { During RENAISSANCE OR ELIZABETHAN { PERIOD (16th Century) {Table chests, presses, chairs, types begin to establish { benches, settles, and small and repeat themselves. { chests of drawers. {Inlaying in ebony, ivory, { mother-of-pearl, and ebonised { oblong bosses of the jewel type { (last half of 17th Century). In the JACOBEAN (17th Century) { The tulip design introduced there was already a set type, { from Holland as decoration. pieces made all alike, turned {Turned and carved frames and out by the hundreds. { stretchers; caned seats and { backs to chairs, velvet cushions, { velvet satin damask and { needlework upholstery, the { seats stuffed. Henry VIII made England _Protestant_, it having been Roman Catholic for several hundred years before the coming of the Anglo-Saxons and for a thousand years after. {QUEEN ELIZABETH. PROTESTANT. { {"The Elizabethan Period." STUART. {JAMES I. 1603. ROMAN CATHOLIC. { "JACOBEAN." {CHARLES I. (Puritan Revolution), 1628. {Oliver Cromwell. 1649. PURITAN. { {Commonwealth. STUART. {Charles II. (1660), Restoration. ROMAN CATHOLIC. { "JACOBEAN." {James II. (1686), Deposition and Flight. {William--Prince of Orange (Holland), 1688. PROTESTANT. { Who had married the English Princess { Mary and was the only available _Protestant_ { (1688). PROTESTANT. --Queen Anne (1702-1714). CHAPTER XXI THE MAHOGANY PERIOD It is interesting to note that the Great Fire of London started the importation of foreign woods from across the Baltic, as great quantities were needed at once for the purpose of rebuilding. These soft woods aroused the invention of the cabinet-makers, and were especially useful for inlaying; so we find in addition to oak, that mahogany, pear and lime woods were used in fine furniture, it being lime-wood that Grinling Gibbons carved when working with Sir Christopher Wren, the famous architect (seventeenth century). During the early Georgian period the oak carvings were merely poor imitations of Elizabethan and Stuart designs. There seemed to have been no artist wood-carvers with originality, which may have been partly due to a lack of stimulus, as the fashion in the decoration of furniture turned toward inlaying. THE PERIOD OF WILLIAM III AND QUEEN MARY AND EARLY GEORGIAN are characterised by _turned_ work, giving way to _flattened forms_, and the disappearance of the elaborate front stretcher on Charles II chairs. The coming of mahogany into England and its great popularity there gives its name to that period when Chippendale, Heppelwhite, Sheraton and the Adam Brothers were the great creative cabinet-makers. The entire period is often called CHIPPENDALE, because Chippendale's books on furniture, written to stimulate trade by arousing good taste and educating his public, are considered the best of that time. There were three editions: 1754, 1759, and 1762. The work was entitled "The Gentleman and Cabinet-maker's Director and Useful Designs of Household Furniture in the Gothic, Chinese and Modern Taste" (and there was still more to the title!). Chippendale's genius lay in taking the best wherever he found it and blending the whole into a type so graceful, beautiful, perfectly proportioned, light in weight and appearance, and so singularly suited to the uses for which it was intended, that it amounted to creation. The "Chinese Craze" in England was partly due to a book so called, written by Sir William Chambers, architect, who went to China and not only studied, but sketched, the furniture, he saw there. Thomas Sheraton, we are assured, was the most cultivated of this group of cabinet-makers. The three men made both good and bad styles. The work of the three men can be distinguished one from the other and, also, it can be very easily confused. To read up a period helps; but to really know any type of furniture with certainty, one must become familiar with its various and varying characteristics. The houses and furniture designed and made by the Adam brothers were an epoch in themselves. These creations were the result of the co-operation of a little band of artists, consisting of Michael Angelo Pergolesi, who published in 1777, "Designs for Various Ornaments"; Angelica Kauffman and Cipriani, two artist-painters who decorated the walls, ceilings, woodwork and furniture designed by the Adam brothers; and another colleague, the great Josiah Wedgwood, whose medallions and plaques, cameo-like creations in his jasper paste, showed both classic form and spirit. The Adam brothers' creations were rare exotics, with no forerunners and no imitators, like nothing the world had ever seen--yet reflecting the purest Greek period in line and design. One of the characteristics of the Mahogany Period was the cabriole leg, which is, also, associated with Italian and French furniture of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. As a matter of fact this form of leg is as old as the Romans and is really the same as the animal legs of wood or bronze, used as supports for tripods and tables by Assyrians, Egyptians and Greeks. The cabriole leg may be defined as "a convex curve above a concave one, with the point of junction smoothed away. On Italian console tables and French commodes we see the two simple curves disguised by terminal figures." The rocaille (shell) ornament on the Chippendale as well as the cabriole leg copied from Italy and France, and the Dutch foot from Holland, substantiate our claim that Chippendale used what he found wherever he found it irrespective of the stigma of plagiarism. There is a beautiful book by F.S. Robinson in which the entire subject of English furniture is treated in a most charming fashion. Now let us return a moment to the Jacobean period. It was under Charles I that couches and settles became prominent pieces of furniture. Some of the Jacobean chairs are like those made in Italy, in the seventeenth century, with crossed legs, backs and seats covered with red velvet. Other Jacobean chairs had scrollwork carved and pierced, with central panel in the back of embroidery, while the seat was of cane. Some of the Jacobean cabinets had panels of ebony, the other parts inlaid with mother-of-pearl and ivory. The silver Jacobean furniture is interesting and the best examples of this type are said to be those belonging to Lord Sackville. They are of ebony with silver mountings. Yorkshire is noted for its Jacobean furniture, but some famous rooms done in this style are at Langleys, in Essex, the seat of Col. Tufnell, where the ceilings and mantels are especially fine and the library boasts interesting panelled walls, once enlivened by stained glass windows, when this room was used as a private chapel for the family. Jacobean carving was never ornate. Twenty years later came the Queen Anne period. Queen Anne chairs show a solid splat, sometimes vase-shaped, and strap-work arabesques. Most of the legs were cabriole, instead of the twisted turnings (on Stuart lines) which had been Supports for chairs, cabinets and tables. The Queen Anne chair legs terminated when cabriole, in claws and balls or simple balls. Settees for two were then called "love seats," and "pole-screens" belonged to this period, tall, slender poles with small, sliding screens. Queen Anne hangings were of rich damasks, silks and velvets, and the wainscot of rooms was painted some pale colour as an effective background to set off the dark, turned walnut or gorgeous lacquer made in red, green or black, and ornamented with gold. Some of the Queen Anne pieces of this variety had hinges and lockplates of chased brass. Another variety was of oak, veneered with walnut and inlaid. The very high ceilings of the Queen Anne period led to the use of "tall boys" or family bureaus, those many-storied conveniences which comprised a book-case above, writing desk in the middle, and drawers below. Lockwood says in giving the history of chairs, in his "Cabinet Makers from 1750 to 1840": "Extravagance of taste and fluctuation of fashion had reached high water mark due to increase of wealth in England and her colonies. From the plain, stately pieces of Queen Anne the public turned to the rococo French designs of early Chippendale, then tiring of that, veered back to classic lines, as done by the Adam brothers, and so on, from heavy Chippendale to the overlight and perishable Heppelwhite. Then public taste turned to the gaudily painted Sheraton and finally, took to copying the French Empire." The American Revolutionary War stopped the exportation of furniture to America, with the result that cabinet-makers in the United States copied Chippendale and neglected all other later artists. When America began again to import models, Sheraton was an established and not a transitional type. Beautiful specimens are shown in the Nichols house, at Salem, Mass., furnished in 1783. The furniture used by George Washington when President of the United States in 1789, and now in the City Hall, New York, is pure Sheraton. (See Colonial Furniture, Luke Vincent Lockwood.) Sir Christopher Wren, architect, with Grinling Gibbons, designer and wood-carver, were chiefly responsible for the beautifully elaborate mouldings on ceilings and walls, carved from oak and used for forming large panels with wide bevels, into which were sometimes set tapestries. The Italian stucco mouldings were also used at that time. The fashion for elaborate ceilings and sidewalls had come to England via Italy and France. The most elaborate ones of those times were executed under Charles II and William III, the ceilings rivalling those of Louis XIV. William and Mary (1687-1702) brought over with them from Holland, Dutch cabinet makers, which accounts for the marked Dutch influence on the Mahogany Period, an influence which shows in a Dutch style of inlaying, cabriole legs and the tulip design. A sure sign of the William and Mary period is the presence of jasmine, as designed for inlaying in bone, ivory or hollywood. Lacquer came to England via Holland, the Dutch having imported Chinese workmen. The entire Mahogany Period, including the Adam brothers, used the shell as a design and the backs of settees resembled several chair backs places side by side. A feature of the Mahogany Period were the knife-boxes and cases for bottles, made of mahogany and often inlaid, which stood upon pedestals constructed for the purpose, at each side of the sideboard. Later the pedestals became a part of the sideboard. The urn-shaped knife-boxes were extremely graceful as made by Adam, Chippendale and Heppelwhite. It is impossible to clearly define all of the work of the cabinet-makers of the mahogany or any other period, for reasons already stated. So one must be prepared to find Chippendale sofas which show the shapes originated by him and, also, at times, show Louis XVI legs and Louis XV outline. Chippendale's contemporaries were quite as apt to vary their types, and it is only by experience that one can learn to distinguish between the different artists, to appreciate the hall marks of creative individuality. The early Chippendale was almost identical with Queen Anne furniture and continued the use of cabriole leg and claw and ball feet. The top of the Chippendale chairs were bow-shaped with ends extending beyond the sides of the back and usually turned _up_. If turned down they never rounded into the sides, as in the case of Queen Anne chairs. The splats have an upward movement and were joined to chair seats, and not to a cross-rail. They were pierced and showed elaborate ribbon and other designs in carving. There were, also, "ladder backs," and the Chinese Chippendale chairs, with lattice work open carved and extending over entire backs. The characteristic Chippendale leg is cabriole with claw and ball foot. The setting for Chippendale furniture was a panelled dado, classic mantelpiece, architraves and frieze, and stretched over sidewalks, above dado, was silk or paper showing a large pattern harmonising with the furniture. The Chinese craze brought about a fashion for Chinese wall papers with Chinese designs. This Chinese fashion continued for fifty years. Chippendale carved the posts of his bedsteads, and so the bed curtains were drawn back and only a short valance was used around the top, whereas in the time of William and Mary bed curtains enveloped all the woodwork. Still earlier in the Elizabethan period bed posts were elaborately carved. In the eighteenth century it was the fashion to embroider the bed curtains. The Chippendale china-cabinets with glass fronts, were the outcome of the fad for collecting Chinese and French porcelain, and excellent taste was displayed in collecting these small articles within definite and appropriate limits. Cabinets with glass doors were also used as receptacles for silverware. Thomas Sheraton (1760-1786), another great name in the Mahogany Period, admired Louis XV and Louis XVI and one can easily trace French influence in the "light, rhythmic style" he originated. Sheraton's contribution to interior decoration was furniture. His rooms, walls, ceilings, over-doors, windows and chimney pieces, are considered very poor; which accounts for the fact that Sheraton furniture as well as Heppelwhite was used in Adam rooms. Sheraton made a specialty of pieces of furniture designed to serve several purposes, and therefore adapted for use in small rooms; such as dressing-tables with folding mirrors, library step-ladders convertible into tables, etc. The backs of Sheraton chairs had straight tops and several small splats joined to a cross-rail, and not to the seat. The legs were straight. Sheraton introduced the use of turned work on the legs and outer supports of the backs of chairs, and produced fine examples of painted furniture, especially painted satin-wood. He, also, did some very fine inlaying and used cane in the seats and backs of chairs which he painted black and gold. Among those who decorated for him was Angelica Kauffman. Heppelwhite chairs are unmistakable on account of their _shield_, _heart_ or _oval_ backs and open splats, which were not joined to the seat in the centre of backs. The most beautiful were those with carved Prince of Wales feathers, held together by a bow-knot delicately carved. They were sometimes painted. The legs of Heppelwhite furniture were straight. We see in the book published by A. Heppelwhite & Co., a curious statement to the effect that cabriole chairs were those having stuffed backs. This idea must have arisen from the fact that many chairs of the eighteenth century with cabriole legs, did have stuffed backs. Robert Adam, born in 1785, was an architect and decorative artist. The Adam rooms, walls, ceilings, mantels, etc., are the most perfect of the period; beautiful classic mouldings encrust ceilings and sidewalls, forming panels into which were let paintings, while in drawing-rooms the side panels were either recessed so as to hold statuary in the antique style, or were covered with damask or tapestry. It is stated that damask and tapestry were never used on the walls of Adam dining-rooms. James Adam, a brother, worked with Robert. Every period had its own weak points, so we find the Adam brothers at times making wall-brackets which were too heavy with ram's heads, garlands, etc., and the Adam chairs were undoubtedly bad. They had backs with straight tops, rather like Sheraton chairs, and several small splats joining top rail to seat. The bad chairs by Adam, were improved upon by Sheraton and Heppelwhite. The legs of Adam furniture were straight. The ideal eighteenth century interior in England was undoubtedly an Adam room with Heppelwhite or Sheraton furniture. Sir John Soane, architect, had one of the last good house interiors, for the ugly Georgian style came on the scene about 1812. Grinling Gibbons' carvings of heavy fruits and flowers, festoons and masks made to be used architecturally we now see used on furniture, and often heavily gilded. William Morris was an epoch maker in English interior decoration, for he stood out for the "great, simple note" in furnishings. The pre-Raphaelites worked successfully to the same end, reviving classic simplicity and establishing _the value of elimination_. The good, modern furniture of to-day, designed with reference to meeting the demands of modern conditions, undoubtedly received a great impetus from that reaction to the simple and harmonious. CHAPTER XXII THE COLONIAL PERIOD The furniture made in America during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was reproduced from English models and shows the influence of Chippendale, Sheraton, Heppelwhite and the Adam brothers. For those interested in these early types of American output, the Sage and other collections in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, give a delightful object lesson, and there has been much written on the subject in case any data is desired. If some of our readers own heirlooms and plan reproducing Colonial interiors of the finest type, we would advise making an effort to see some of the beautiful New England or Virginia homes, which remain quite as they were in the old days; fine square rooms with hand-carved woodwork, painted white, their walls panelled in wood and painted the same white. Into these panels were set hand-painted wall paper. The authors saw some made for a house in Peabody, near Salem, Massachusetts, some time between 1760 and 1800, and were amazed to find that the colours were as vivid as when first put on. Here let us say that the study of interior decoration throws a strong light on the history of walls. In Gothic days the stone or wood of the feudal hall was partially concealed by tapestries,--the needlework of the women of the household, a record of the gallant deeds of men used as interior decoration. Later of course, the making of tapestries became a great industry in Italy, France and Belgium, an industry patronised by kings and the nobility, and subsidised by governments. Next we have walls sheathed with wood panelling. Then during the late Renaissance, painted portraits were let into these panels and became a part of the walls. Later, the upper half, or two-thirds of the panelling, was left off, and only a low panelling, or "dado," remained. This, too, disappeared in time. Landscape paper was the bridge between the panelled walls with pictures built into them, and the painted or papered walls with pictures hung on them. The paper which we have already referred to, is one of the finest examples of its kind, and while there is only enough for one side of a room, it is valued at $5,000. The design is eight feet high, each strip 22 inches wide, and there are eighteen of the original twenty strips. Two breaks occur, numbers 16 and 18. The owner believes that the Puritan attitude of her ancestors caused them to destroy the panels which showed nude figures engaged in battle. This paper is now the property of Mrs. Eliza Brown of Salem, Massachusetts. It was found in her grandfather's attic in Gloucester, and was given to Mrs. Brown by her grandmother. It was in an army chest belonging to Judutham Baldwin, a Colonel of Engineers in the Revolutionary Army, who laid out the forts in Boston Harbour. Kate Sanborn, in her book on "Old Wall Papers" speaks of this particular paper. "Paper from the Ham House at Peabody, Massachusetts, now occupied by Dr. Worcester. Shows tropical scenes. These scenes are quite similar to those of the Pizarro paper and may have been the work of the same designer." (The so-called "Pizarro in Peru" paper is shown in plate 34 and 35 of the same book, and is in Duxbury, Mass.) Pizarro's invasion of Peru was in 1531. The colouring of Mrs. Brown's paper is white background with foliage in vivid greens, while figures of Peruvians wear costumes of brilliant blues and vermillion reds, a striking contrast to their soft, brown skins. This paper is now in the market, but let us hope it may finally rest in a museum. CHAPTER XXIII THE REVIVAL OF DIRECTOIRE AND EMPIRE FURNITURE The revival of Directoire and Empire furniture within the past few years, is attributed by some, to that highly artistic, and altogether illuminating publication, the _Gazette do Bon Ton_--Arts, Modes and Frivolities--published in Paris by the Librarie Centrale des Beaux Arts, 13 rue Lafayette and contributed to by the leading artists of Paris--the ultra moderns. There was a time, fifteen or twenty years ago, when one could buy Empire furniture at very low figures, for in those days there was many a chance to pick up such pieces. To-day, a genuine antique or a hand-made reproduction of an antique made sixty years ago, will command a large price, and even in Paris one has difficulty in finding them in the shops at any price. Empire furniture ceased to be admired in America when the public got "fed up" on this type by its indiscriminate use in hotels and other public buildings. The best designers of modern painted furniture are partly responsible for the revived interest in both Empire and Directoire. From their reproductions of the beautiful simple outlines, we, as a people, are once more beginning to _feel_ line and to recognise it as an intrinsic part of beauty. PLATE XXI A Victorian group in a small portion of a very large parlour, 70 x 40 feet, one of the few remaining, if not the last, of the old Victorian mansions in New York City, very interesting as a specimen of the most elegant style of furnishing in the first half of the nineteenth century. We would call attention to the heavy moulding of ceilings, the walls painted in panels (painted panels or wall paper to represent panels, is a Victorian hallmark), beautifully hand-carved woodwork, elaboration of design and colon carpet, woven in one piece for the room; in fact the characteristic richness of elaboration everywhere: Pictures in gilded carved frames, hung on double silk cords with tassels, heavily carved furniture made in England, showing fruits, flowers and medallion heads, and a similar elaboration and combination of flora and figures on bronze gas fixtures. Heavy curtains of satin damask hung at the windows, held back by great cords and tassels, from enormous brass cornices in the form of gigantic flowers. Also of the period is an immense glass case of stuffed birds, standing in the corner of the large dining-room. This interior was at the height of its glory at the time of the Civil War, and one is told of wonderful parties when the uniforms of the Northern officers decorated the stately rooms and large shaded gardens adjoining the house. As things go in New York it may be but a matter of months before this picturesque landmark is swept away by relentless Progress. [Illustration: _Part of a Victorian Parlour in One of the Few Remaining New York Victorian Mansions_] CHAPTER XXIV THE VICTORIAN PERIOD Gradually architecture and interior decoration drew apart, becoming two distinct professions, until during the Victorian era the two were unrelated with the result that the period of Victorian furniture is one of the worst on record. There were two reasons for this divorce of the arts, which for centuries had been one in origin and spirit; first, the application of steam to machinery (1815) leading to machine-made furniture, and second, the invention of wall-paper which gradually took the place of wood panelling and shut off the architects from all jurisdiction over the decoration of the home. With the advent of machine-made furniture came cheap imitations of antiques and the rapid decadence of this art. Hand-made reproductions are quite another thing. Sir Richard Wallace (of the Wallace Collection, London) is said to have given $40,000 for a reproduction of the _bureau du Louvre_. Fortunately, of late years a tide has set in which favours simple, well made furniture, designed with fine lines and having special reference to the purposes for which each piece is intended, and to-day our houses can be beautiful even if only very simple and inexpensive furniture is used. In the Victorian prime, even the carved furniture, so much of which was made in England both for that country and the United States (see Plate XXI), was not of the finest workmanship, compared with carvings of the same time in Belgium, France, Germany and Austria. To-day Victorian cross-stitch and bead work in chairs, screens, footstools and bell-pulls, artificial flowers of wax and linen, and stuffed birds, as well as Bristol glass in blue, green and violet, are brought out from their hiding places and serve as touches of colour to give some of the notes of variety which good interior decoration demands. To be fascinating, a person must not be too rigidly one type. There must be moments of relaxation, of light and shade in mood, or one is not charmed even by great beauty. So your perfect room must not be kept too rigidly in one style. To have attraction it must have variety in both line and colour, and reflect the taste of generations of home lovers. The contents of dusty garrets may add piquancy to modern decorations, giving a touch of the unusual which is very charming. CHAPTER XXV PAINTED FURNITURE Painted furniture is, at present, the vogue, so if you own a piece made by the Adam brothers of England, decorated by the hand of Angelica Kauffman, or Pergolesi, from Greek designs, now is the moment to "star" it. Different in decoration, but equal in charm, is the seventeenth and eighteenth century painted lacquers of Italy, France, China and Japan. In those days great masters laboured at cabinetmaking and decorating, while distinguished artists carved the woodwork of rooms, and painted the ceilings and walls of even private dwellings. To-day we have reproductions (good and bad) of the veteran types, and some commendable inventions, more or less classic in line, and original in colouring and style of decoration. At times, one wishes there was less evident effort to be original. We long for the repose of classic colour schemes and classic line. In art, the line and the combination of colours which have continued most popular throughout the ages, are very apt to be those with which one can live longest and not tire. For this reason, a frank copy of an antique piece of painted furniture is generally more satisfactory than a modern original. If you are using dull coloured carpets and hangings, have your modern reproductions antiqued. If you prefer gay, cheering tones, let the painted furniture be bright. These schemes are equally interesting in different ways. It is stupid to decry new things, since every grey antique had its frivolous, vivid youth. One American decorator has succeeded in making the stolid, uncompromising squareness of mission furniture take on a certain lightness and charm by painting it black and discreetly lining it with yellow and red. Yellow velour is used for the seat pads and heavy hangings, thin yellow silk curtains are hung at the windows, and the black woodwork is set off by Japanese gold paper. In a large house, or in a summer home where there are young people coming and going, a room decorated in this fashion is both gay and charming and makes a pleasant contrast to darker rooms. Then, too, yellow is a lovely setting for all flowers, the effect being to intensify their beauty, as when flooded by sunshine. Another clever treatment of the mission type, which we include under the heading Painted Furniture, is to have it stained a rich dark brown, instead of the usual dark green. Give your dealer time to order your furniture unfinished from the factory, and have stained to your own liking; or, should you by any chance be planning to use mission in one of those cottages so often built in Maine, for summer occupancy, where the walls are of unplastered, unstained, dove-tailed boards, and the floors are unstained and covered with matting rugs, try using this furniture in its _natural_ colour--unfinished. The effect is delightfully harmonious and artistic and quite Japanese in feeling. In such a cottage, the living-room has a raftered ceiling, the sidewalls, woodwork, settles by the fireplaces, open bookcases and floor, are all stained dark walnut. The floor colour is very dark, the sidewalls, woodwork and book shelves are a trifle lighter, and the ceiling boards still lighter between the almost black, heavy rafters. The mission furniture is dark brown, the hangings and cushions are of mahogany-coloured corduroy, and the floor is strewn with skins of animals. There are no pictures, the idea being to avoid jarring notes in another key. Instead, copper and brass bowls contribute a note of variety, as well as large jars filled with great branches of flowers, gathered in the nearby woods. The chimney is exposed. It and the large open fireplace are of rough, dark mottled brick. A room of this character would be utterly spoiled by introducing white as ornaments, table covers, window curtains or picture-mats; it is a colour scheme of dull wood-browns, old reds and greens in various tones. If you want your friends' photographs about you in such a room, congregate them on one or two shelves above your books. CHAPTER XXVI TREATMENT OF AN INEXPENSIVE BEDROOM The experience of the author is that the most attractive, inexpensive furniture is that made by the Leavens factory in Boston. This furniture is so popular with all interior decorators that it needs no further advertising. Order for each single iron bed two _foot boards_, instead of a head and a footboard. This the factory will supply upon demand. Then have your bed painted one of the colours you have chosen as in the colour scheme for your room. Say, the prevailing note of your chintz. Have two rolls made, to use at the head and foot (which are now of equal height) and cover these and the bed with chintz, or, if preferred, with sun-proof material in one of the other colours in your chintz. By this treatment your cheap iron bed of ungainly proportions, has attained the quality of an interesting, as well as unique, "day-bed." PLATE XXII Two designs for day-beds which are done in colours to suit the scheme of any room. These beds are fitted with box springs and a luxurious mattress of feathers or down, covered with silk or chintz, coverlet and cushions of similar material, in colours harmonising with beds. If desired, these lounges can be made higher from the floor. [Illustration: _Two Styles of Day-beds_] The most attractive cheap bureau is one ordered "in the plain" from the factory, and painted like the bed. If you would entirely remove the factory look, have the mirror taken off the bureau and hang it on the wall over what, by your operation, has become a chest of drawers. If you want a long mirror in your rooms, the cheapest variety is mirror glass, fastened to the back of doors with picture moulding to match woodwork. This is also the cheapest variety of over-mantel mirrors. We have seen it used with great success, let into walls of narrow halls and bedrooms and framed with a dull-gold moulding in the style of room. For chairs, use the straight wooden ones which are made to match the bureau, and paint them like the bed and bureau. For comfortable arm-chairs, wicker ones with chintz-covered pads for seat and back are best for the price, and these can also be painted. Cheap tables, which match the bureau, when painted will do nicely as a small writing-table or a night-table for water, clock, book, etc. If the floors are new and of hard wood, wax them and use a square of plain velvet carpet in a dark tone of your dominant colour. Or if economy is your aim, use attractive rag rugs which are very cheap and will wash. If your floors are old and you intend using a large velvet square, paint the edges of the floor white, or some pale shade to match the colour of the walls. Or, use filling all over the floor. If you cannot afford either and must use small rugs, stain or paint your floors a dark colour, to be practical, and use only necessary rugs; that is, one before bed, bureau and fireplace. Sofas are always expensive. That is one reason for advising that beds be treated like "day-beds." Wall papers, at ten cents a roll, come in charming colours and designs, and with a few cheap French coloured prints, framed in passepartout, your room is attractive at once. If your prints are black and white use broad passepartout in same colour as the wall paper, only a tone deeper. If you use favourite photographs, suppress all margins and frame with narrow black passepartout. For curtains use one of the sixty-or seventy-cent chintzes which come in attractive designs and colours, or what is still cheaper, sun-proof material, fifty inches wide (from $1.10 to $1.50 a yard), and split it in half for curtains, edging them with a narrow fringe of a contrasting colour which appears in the chintz of chair-pads. Another variety of cheap curtains is heavy cream scrim with straps (for looping back) and valance of chintz. These come cheaper than all chintz curtains and are very effective, suggesting the now popular and expensive combination of plain toned taffetas combined with chintz. Use for sash curtains plain scrim or marquesette. Let your lamps be made of inexpensive one-toned pottery vases, choosing for these still another colour which appears in the chintz. The lamp shades can be made of a pretty near-silk, in a plain colour, with a fringe made up of one, two or three of the colours in the chintz. If you happen to have your heart set on deep rose walls and your bedroom furniture is mahogany, find a chintz with rose and French blue, and then cover your arm-chair pads and bed with chintz, but make your curtains of blue sun-proof material, having a narrow fringe of rose, and use a deep rose carpet, or rugs, or if preferred, a dull brown carpet to harmonise with the furniture. A plain red Wilton carpet will dye an artistic deep mulberry brown. They are often bought in the red and dyed to get this shade of brown. For attractive cheap dining-room furniture, buy simple shapes, unfinished, and have the table, sideboard and chairs painted dark or light, as you prefer. In your dining-room and halls, if the house is old and floors bad, and economy necessary, use a solid dark linoleum, either deep blue or red, and have it _waxed_, as an economical measure as well as to improve its appearance. In a small home, where no great formality is observed, well chosen doilies may be used on all occasions, instead of table cloths. By this expedient you suppress one large item on the laundry bill, the care of the doilies in such cases falling to the waitress. To make comfortable, convenient and therefore livable, a part of a house, formerly an attic, or an extension with small rooms and low ceilings, seems to be the special province of a certain type of mind, which works best when there is a tax on the imagination. When reclaiming attic rooms, one of the problems is how to get wall space, especially if there are dormer windows and very slanting ceilings. One way, is to place a dressing table _in_ the dormer, under windows, covering the sides of the dormer recess with mirror glass, edged with narrow moulding. The dressing-table is not stationary, therefore it can be easily moved by a maid, when the rooms are cleaned. CHAPTER XXVII TREATMENT OF A GUEST ROOM (Where economy is not an item of importance) Here we can indulge our tastes for beautiful quality of materials and fine workmanship, as well as good line and colour, so we describe a room which has elegant distinction and atmosphere, yet is not a so-called period room--rather a modern room, in the sense that it combines beautiful lines and exquisite colouring with every modern development for genuine comfort and convenience. The walls are panelled and painted a soft taupe--there are no pictures; simply one very beautiful mirror in a dull-gold frame, a Louis XVI reproduction. PLATE XXIII In another suite we have a boudoir done in sage greens and soft browns. The curtains of taffeta, in stripes of the two colours. Two tiers of creme net form sash curtains. The carpet is a rich mulberry brown, day-bed a reproduction of an antique, painted in faded greens with _panier fleuri_ design on back, in lovely faded colours, taffeta cushions of sage green and an occasional note about the room of mulberry and dull blue. Electric light shades are of decorated parchment paper. Really an enchanting nest, and as it is in a New York apartment, and occasionally used as a bedroom, a piece of furniture has been designed for it similar to the wardrobe shown in picture, only not so high. The glass door, when open, disclose a toilet table, completely fitted out, the presence of which one would never suspect. [Illustration: _Boudoir in New York Apartment. Painted Furniture, Antique and Reproductions._] The carpet made of dark taupe velvet covers the entire floor. The furniture is Louis XV, of the wonderful painted sort, the beautiful bed with its low head and foot boards exactly the same height, curving backward; the edges a waved line, the ground-colour a lovely pistache green, and the decoration gay old-fashioned garden flowers in every possible shade. The bureau has three or four drawers and a bowed front with clambering flowers. These two pieces, and a delightful night-table are exact copies of the Clyde Fitch set in the Cooper Hewitt Museum, at New York; the originals are genuine antiques, and their colour soft from age. A graceful dressing-table, with winged mirrors, has been designed to go with this set, and is painted like the bureau. The glass is a modern reproduction of the lovely old eighteenth century mirror glass which has designs cut into it, forming a frame. For chairs, all-over upholstered ones are used, of good lines and proportions; two or three for comfort, and a low slipper-chair for convenience. These are covered in a chintz with a light green ground, like the furniture, and flowered in roses and violets, green foliage and lovely blue sprays. The window curtains are of soft, apple-green taffeta, trimmed with a broad puffing of the same silk, edged on each side by black moss-trimming, two inches wide. These curtains hang from dull-gold cornices of wood, with open carving, through which one gets glimpses of the green taffeta of the curtains. The sash-curtains are of the very finest cream net, and the window shades are of glazed linen, a deep cream ground, with a pattern showing a green lattice over which climb pink roses. The shades are edged at the bottom with a narrow pink fringe. The bed has a cover of green taffeta exactly like curtains, with the same trimming of puffed taffeta, edged with a black moss-trimming. The mantelpiece is true to artistic standards and realises the responsibility of its position as keynote to the room. Placed upon it are a beautiful old clock and two vases, correct as to line and colour. Always be careful not to spoil a beautiful mantel or beautiful ornaments by having them out of proportion one with the other. Plate XXIV shows a mantel which fails as a composition because the bust, an original by Behnes, beautiful in itself, is too heavy for the mantel it stands on and too large for the mirror which reflects it and serves as its background. Keep everything in correct proportion to the whole. We have in mind the instance of some rarely beautiful walls taken from an ancient monastery in Parma, Italy. They were ideal in their original setting, but since they have been transported to America, no setting seems right. They belonged in a building where there were a succession of small rooms with low ceilings, each room perfect like so many pearls on a string. Here in America their only suitable place would be a museum, or to frame the tiny "devotional" of some précieuse Flower of Modernity. CHAPTER XXVIII A MODERN HOUSE IN WHICH GENUINE JACOBEAN FURNITURE IS APPROPRIATELY SET An original scheme for a dining-room was recently carried out in a country house in England by a woman whose hobby is illuminating. It will appeal to experts in the advance guard of interior decoration. The woman in question was stimulated for her task by coming into possession of some interesting Jacobean pieces of furniture, of oak, squarely and solidly made, with flat carvings, characteristic of the period. PLATE XXIV A beautiful mantel, a beautiful mirror, beautiful ornaments, and a rare and beautiful marble bust by Behnes, but because the bust is too large for both mantel and reflecting mirror, the composition is poor. [Illustration: _Example of Lack of Balance in Mantel Arrangement_] The large Jacobean chest happened to be lined, as many of those old chests were, with quaint figured paper, showing a coat-of-arms alternating with another design in large squares of black and grey. This paper, the owner had reproduced to cover the walls of her dining-room, and then she stained her woodwork black (giving the effect of old black oak), also, the four corner cupboards, but the _inside_ of these cupboards--doors and all--she made a rich Pompeian red and lackered it. The doors are left open and one sees on the shelves of the corner cupboards a wonderful collection of old china, much of it done in rich gold. At night the whole is illuminated with invisible electric bulbs. The gleaming effect is quite marvellous. The seat-pads on chairs, are made of hides, gilded all over, and on the gilt the owner has painted large baskets holding fruit and flowers done in gay colours. The long Jacobean bench has a golden cushion with baskets painted on it in gay colours. A part of the wonderful gold china is used at every meal, and the rest of it being left on the shelves of the four cupboards with their Pompeian red lining, when lit up, forms part of the glowing blaze of colour, concentrated in all four corners of this unique room. The Jacobean library in this house has the same black oak effect for panelling and at the windows, hang long, red silk curtains, with deep borders of gold on which are painted gay flowers. This blaze of colour is truly Jacobean and recalls the bedroom at Knole, occupied by James I where the bed-curtains were of red silk embroidered in gorgeous gold, and the high post bedstead heavily carved, covered with gold and silver tissue, lined with red silk, its head-board carved and gilded. Another room at Knole was known as the "Spangle" bedroom. James I gave the furniture in it to Lionel, Earl of Middlesex. Bed curtains, as well as the seats of chairs and stools, are of crimson, heavily embroidered in gold and silver. CHAPTER XXIX UNCONVENTIONAL BREAKFAST-ROOMS AND SPORTS BALCONIES "Sun-rooms" are now a feature of country and some town houses. One of the first we remember was in Madrid, at the home of Canovas del Castillo, Prime Minister during the Regency. Déjeuner used to be served at one end of the conservatory, in the shadow of tall palms, while fountains played, birds with gay plumage sang, and the air was as fragrant as the tropics. For comfort, deep red rugs were put down on the white marble floors. Which reminds us that in many Spanish hand-made rugs, what is known as "Isabella white" figures conspicuously. The term arises from the following story. It seems that Queen Isabella during the progress of some war, vowed she would not have her linen washed until her army returned victorious. The war was long, hence the term! In furnishing a conservatory or porch breakfast room, it is best to use some variety of informal tables and chairs, such as painted furniture, willow or bamboo, and coloured, not white, table cloths, doilies and napkins, to avoid the glare from the reflection of strong light. Also, informal china, glass, etc. Screens, if necessary, should have frames to accord with the furniture, and the panels should be of wood, or some simple material such as sacking or rough linen, which comes in lovely vivid, out-of-door colours. The bizarre and fascinating sports balconies overlooking squash courts, tennis courts, golf links, croquet grounds, etc., are among the newest inventions of the decorator. Furnished porches we have all grown accustomed to, and when made so as to be enclosed by glass, in inclement weather, they may be treated like inside rooms in the way of comforts and conveniences. The smart porch-room is furnished with only such chairs, tables, sofas and rugs as are appropriate to a place not thoroughly protected from the elements, for while glass is provided for protection, a summer shower can outstrip a slow-footed servant and valuable articles made for indoors cannot long brave the effect of rain and hot sun. PLATE XXV In this case the house stood so near the road that there was no privacy, so the ingenious architect-decorator became landscape-gardener and by making a high but ornamental fence and numerous arbours, carried the eye to the green trees beyond and back to the refreshing tangle of shrubs and flowers in the immediate foreground, until the illusion of being secluded was so complete that the nearby road was forgotten. [Illustration: _Treatment of Ground Lying Between House and Much Travelled Country Road_] For this reason furnish your porch with colours which do not fade, and with wicker furniture which knows how to contract and expand to order! The same rule applies to rugs. Put your Oriental rugs indoors, and use inexpensive, effective porch rugs which, with a light heart, you can renew each season, if necessary. The sports balcony is fitted out with special reference to the comfort of those who figure as audience for sports, and as a lounge between games, and each hostess vies with her friends in the originality and completeness of equipment, as well as in the costumes she dons in her commendable desire to make of herself a part of her scheme of decoration. A country place which affords tennis courts, golf links, cricket and polo grounds or has made arrangements for the exercise of any sports, usually makes special provision for the comfort of those engaging in them, more or less as a country club does. There is a large porch for lounging and tea, and a kitchenette where tea, cooling drinks and sandwiches are easily and quickly prepared, without interfering with the routine of the kitchens. There are hot and cold plunge baths, showers, a swimming pool, dressing rooms with every convenience known to man or woman, and a room given over to racks which hold implements used in the various sports, as well as lockers for sweaters, change of linen, socks, etc., belonging to those stopping in the house. Where sports are a main issue, an entire building is often devoted to the comfort of the participants. We have in mind the commodious and exceptionally delightful arrangements made for the comfort and pleasure of those playing court tennis in a large and architecturally fine building erected for the purpose on the estate of the Neville Lyttons, Crabber Park, Poundhill, England. If sport balconies overlook tennis courts or golf links, they are fitted out with light-weight, easily moved, stiff chairs for the audience, and easy, cushioned arm-chairs and sofas of upholstered wicker, for the participants to lounge in between matches. Card tables are provided, as well as small tea tables, to seat two, three or four, while there is always one oblong table at which a sociable crowd of young people may gather for chatter and tea! If you use rail-boxes, or window-boxes, holding growing plants, be sure that the flowers are harmonious in colour when seen from the lawn, road or street, against their background of _house_ and the awnings and chintzes, used on the porch. The flowers in window-boxes and on porch-rails must first of all decorate the _outside_ of your house. Therefore, before you buy your chintz for porches, decide as to whether the colour of your house, and its awnings, demands red, pink, white, blue, yellow or mauve flowers, and then choose your chintz and porch rugs as well as porch table-linen, to harmonise. In selecting porch chairs remember that women want the backs of most of the chairs only as high as their shoulders, on account of wearing hats. CHAPTER XXX SUN-ROOMS There are countless fascinating schemes for arranging sun-rooms. One which we have recently seen near Philadelphia, was the result of enclosing a large piazza, projecting from an immense house situated in the midst of lawns and groves. The walls are painted orange and striped with pale yellow; the floors are covered with the new variety of matting which imitates tiles, and shows large squares of colour, blocked off by black. The chintzes used are in vivid orange, yellow and green, in a stunning design; the wicker chairs are painted orange and black, and from the immense iridescent globes of electric light hang long, orange silk tassels. PLATE XXVI Shows how to utilise and make really very attractive an extension roof, by converting it into a balcony. An awning of broad green and white stripes protect this one in winter as well as summer, and by using artificial ivy, made of tin and painted to exactly imitate nature, one gets, as you see, a charming effect. [Illustration: _An Extension Roof in New York Converted into a Balcony_] Iron fountains, wonderful designs in black and gold, throw water over gold and silver fish, or gay water plants; while, in black and gold cages, vivid parrots and orange-coloured canaries gleam through the bars. Iron vases of black and gold on tall pedestals, are filled with trailing ivy and bright coloured plants. Along the walls are wicker sofas, painted orange and black, luxuriously comfortable with down cushions covered, as are some of the chair cushions, in soft lemon, sun-proofed twills. Here one finds card-tables, tea-tables and smoking-tables, a writing-desk fully equipped, and at one end, a wardrobe of black and gold, hung with an assortment of silk wraps and "wooleys"--for an unprovided and chilly guest, in early spring, when the steam heat is off and the glass front open. Even on a grey, winter day, this orange and gold room seems flooded with sun, and gives one a distinctly cheerful sensation when entering it from the house. Of course, if your porch-room is mainly for mid-summer use and your house in a warm region, then we commend instead of sun-producing colours, cool tones of green, grey or blue. If your porch floor is bad, cover it with dark-red linoleum and wax it. The effect is like a cool, tiled floor. On this you can use a few porch rugs. Black and white awnings or awnings in broad, green-and-white stripes, or plain green awnings, are deliciously cool-looking, and rail-boxes filled with green and white or blue and pale pink flowers are refreshing on a summer day. By the sea, where the air is bracing, and it is not necessary to trick the senses with a pretence at coolness, nothing is more satisfactory or gay than scarlet geraniums; but if they are used, care must be taken that they harmonise with the colour of the awnings and the chintz on the porch. Speaking of rail-boxes reminds us that in making over a small summer house and converting a cheap affair into one of some pretensions, remember that one of the most telling points is the character of your porch railing. So at once remove the cheap one with its small, upright slats and the insignificant and frail top rail, and have a solid porch railing (or porch fence) built with broad, top rail. Then place all around porch, resting on iron brackets, rail-flower boxes, the tops of these level with the top of the rail, and paint the boxes the colour of the house trimmings. Filled with running vines and gay flowers, nothing could be more charming. Window-boxes make any house lovely and are a large part of that charm which appeals to us, whether the house be a mansion in Mayfair or a Bavarian farm house. Americans are learning this. The window and rail-boxes of a house look best when all are planted with the same variety of flowers. Having given a certain air of distinction to your porch-railing, add another touch to the appearance of your small, remodelled house by having the shutters hung from the top of the windows, instead of from the sides. A charming variety of awning or sun-shades, to keep the sun and glare out of rooms, is the old English idea of a straw-thatching, woven in and out until it makes a broad, long mat which is suspended from the top of windows, on the outside of the house, being held out and permanently in place, at the customary angle of awnings. We first saw this picturesque kind of rustic awnings used on little cottages of a large estate in Vermont, cottages once owned and lived in by labourers, but bought and put in comfortable condition to be used as overflow rooms for guests, in connection with the large family mansion (once the picturesque village inn). The art of making these straw awnings is not generally understood in America. In the case to which we refer, one of the gardeners employed on the estate, chanced to be an old Englishman who had woven the straw window awnings for farm houses in his own country. The straw awnings, with window-boxes planted with bright geraniums and vines, make an inland cottage delightfully picturesque and are practical, although by the sea the straw awnings might be destroyed by high winds. CHAPTER XXXI TREATMENT OF A WOMAN'S DRESSING-ROOM Every house, or flat, which is at all pretentious, should arrange a Vanity Room for the use of guests, in which there are full-length mirrors, a completely equipped dressing-table with every conceivable article to assist a lady in making her toilet, slipper-chairs and chairs to rest in, and a completely equipped lavatory adjoining. The woman who takes her personal appearance seriously, just as any artist takes her art (and when dressing is not an art it is not worth discussion) can have her dressing-room so arranged with mirrors, black walls and strong, cleverly reflected, electric lights, that she stands out with a cleancut outline, like a cameo, the minutest detail of her toilet disclosed. With such a dressing-room, it is quite impossible to suffer at the hands of a careless maid, and one can use the black walls as a background for vivid chair covers, sofa cushions and lamp shades. Off this dressing-room should be another, given over to clothes, with closets equipped with hooks and shelves, glass cabinets for shoes and slippers, and the "show-case" for jewels to be placed in by the maid that the owner may make her selection. At the time of the Louis, knights and courtiers had large rooms devoted to the care and display of their wardrobes, and even to-day there are men who are serious connoisseurs in the art of clothes. PLATE XXVII Interior decoration not infrequently leads to a desire to chic the appearance of one's "out-of-doors." We give an example of a perfectly commonplace barn made interesting by adding green latticework, a small iron balcony, ornamental gate and setting out a few decorative evergreens. Behold a transformation! [Illustration: _A commonplace Barn Made Interesting_] The dressing-table should be constructed of material in harmony with the rest of your furniture. It may be of mahogany, walnut, rose wood, satin wood, or some painted variety, or, as is the fashion now, made of silk,--a seventeenth and eighteenth century style (in vogue during the time of the Louis). These are made of taffeta with lace covers on top, and in outline are exactly like the simple dotted-swiss dressing-tables with which every one is familiar,--the usual variety, so easily made by placing a wooden packing box on its side. In this case have your carpenter put shelves inside for boots, shoes and slippers. The entire top is covered with felt or flannel, over which is stretched silk or sateen, in any colour which may harmonise with the room. A flounce, as deep as the box is high, is made of the same material as the top, and tacked to the edges of the table-top. Cover the whole with dotted or plain swiss. A piece of glass, cut to exactly fit the top of the table, is a practical precaution. A large mirror, hung above yet resting on the table, is canopied in the old style, with the same material with which you cover your dressing-table. If the table is made of the beautiful taffeta, now so popular for this purpose, as well as for curtains, it is, of course, not covered with swiss or lace, except the top, on which is used a fine, hand-made cover, of real lace and hand embroidery, in soft creams,--cream from age, or a judicious bath in weak tea. The glass top laid over this cover protects the lace. If the table has drawers, each can be neatly covered with the taffeta, as can the frame of any table. A good, up-to-date cabinet-maker understands this work as so much of it is now done. CHAPTER XXXII THE TREATMENT OF CLOSETS The modern architect turns out his closets so complete as to comfort and convenience, that he leaves but little to be done by the professional or amateur decorator. Each perfectly equipped bedroom suite calls for, at least, two closets: one supplied with hooks, padded hangers for coats, and covered hangers for skirts, if the closet is for a woman; or, if it is for a man, with such special requirements as he may desire. In the case of a woman's suite, one closet should consist entirely of shelves. Paint all the closets to harmonise with the suite, and let the paint on the shelves have a second coat of enamel, so that they may be easily wiped off. Supply your shelves with large and small boxes for hats, blouses, laces, veils, etc., neatly covered with paper, or chintz, to harmonise with the room. Those who dislike too many mirrors in a room may have full length mirrors on the inside of the closet doors. Either devote certain shelves to your boots, shoes and slippers, or have a separate shallow closet for these-shallow because it is most convenient to have but one row on a shelf. Where economy is not an item of importance, see that electric lights are placed in all the closets, which are turned on with the action of opening the door. The elaboration of closets, those with drawers of all sizes and depths, cedar closets for furs, etc., is merely a matter of the architect's planning to meet the specific needs of the occupants of any house. CHAPTER XXXIII TREATMENT OF A NARROW HALL A long, narrow hall in a house, or apartment, is difficult to arrange, but there are methods of treating them which partially corrects their defects. One method is shown on Plate XIV. The best furnishing is a very narrow console (table) with a stiff, high-backed chair on either side of it, and on the wall, over console, a tapestry, an architectural picture or a family portrait. On the console is placed merely a silver card tray. Have a closet for wraps if possible, or arrange hooks and a table, out of right, for this purpose. Keep your walls and woodwork light in colour and in the same tone. PLATE XXVIII An idea for treatment of a narrow hall, where the practical and beautiful are combined. The hall table and candlesticks are an example of the renaissance of iron, elaborately wrought after classic designs. The mirror over table is framed in green glass, the ornaments are of dull gold (iron gilded). The Venetian glass jar is in opalescent green, made to hold dried rose leaves, and used here purely as an ornament which catches and reflects the light, important, as the hall is dark. The iron of table is black touched with gold, and the marble slab dark-green veined with white. [Illustration: _Narrow Entrance Hall of a New York Antique Shop_] An interesting treatment of a long narrow hall is to break its length with lattice work, which has an open arch, wide enough for one or two people to pass through, the arch surmounted by an urn in which ivy is planted. The lattice work has lines running up and down--not crossed, as is the usual way. It is on hinges so that trunks or furniture may be carried through the hall, if necessary. The whole is kept in the same colour scheme as the hall. CHAPTER XXXIV TREATMENT OF A VERY SHADED LIVING-ROOM By introducing plenty of yellow and orange you can bring sunshine into a dark living-room. If your house is in a part of the country where the heat is great, a dark living-room in summer is sometimes a distinct advantage, so keep the colourings subdued in tone, and, therefore, cool looking. If, on the contrary, the living-room is in a cool house on the ocean, or a shaded mountainside, and the sun is cut off by broad porches, you will cheer up your room, and immensely improve it, by using sun-producing colours in chintzes and silks; while cut flowers or growing plants, which reproduce the same colouring, will intensify the illusion of sunshine. Sash curtains of thin silk, in bright yellows, are always sun-producing, but if you intend using yellows in a room, be careful to do so in combination with browns, greens, greys, or carefully chosen blues, not with reds or magentas. Try not to mix warm and cold colours when planning your walls. Grey walls call for dull blue or green curtains; white walls for red or green curtains; cream walls for yellow, brown buff or apple green curtains. If your room is too cold, warm it up by making your accessories, such as lamp shades, and sofa pillows, of rose or yellow material. CHAPTER XXXV SERVANTS' ROOMS Whether you expect to arrange for one servant or a dozen, keep in mind the fact that efficiency is dependent upon the conditions under which your manor maid-servant rests as well as works, and that it is as important that the bedroom be _attractive_ as that it be comfortable. For servants' rooms it is advised that the matter of furnishing and decorating be a scheme which includes comfort, daintiness and effectiveness on the simplest, least expensive basis, no matter how elaborate the house. There is a moral principle involved here. In the case of more than one servant the colour scheme alone needs to be varied, for similar furniture will prevent jealousy among the servants, while at the same time the task of inventing is reduced to the mere multiplying of one room; even the wall paper and chintz being alike in pattern, if different in colour. The simplest iron beds, or wooden furniture can be painted white or any colour which may be considered more durable. In maids' rooms for summer use, a vase provided for flowers is sometimes an incentive to personally contribute a touch of beauty. That sense of beauty once awakened in a maid does far more than any words on the subject of order and daintiness in her own room or in those of her employer. CHAPTER XXXVI TABLE DECORATION For the young and inexperienced we state a few rules for table decoration. If you have furnished your dining-room to accord not only with your taste, but the scale upon which you intend living, be careful that the dining-table never strikes a false note, never "gets out of the picture" by becoming too important as to setting or menu. You may live very formally in your town house and very simply, without any ostentation, in the country, but be sure that in all of your experimenting with table decoration you observe above all the law of appropriateness. Your decoration, flowers, fruit, character of bowl or dish which holds them, or _objet d'art_ used in place of either; linen or lace, china, glass and silver,--each and all must be in keeping. The money value has nothing whatever to do with this question of appropriateness, when considered by an artist decorator. Remember that in decorating, things are classified according to their colour value, their lines and the purpose for which they are intended. The dining-table is to eat at, therefore it should primarily hold only such things as are required for the serving of the meal. So your real decoration should be your silver, glass and china, with its background of linen or lace. The central decoration, if of flowers or fruit, must be in a bowl or dish decorative in the same sense that the rest of the tableware is. Flowers should be kept in the same key as your room. One may do this and yet have infinite variety. Tall stately lilies, American Beauty roses, great bowls of gardenias and orchids are for stately rooms. Your small house, flat or bungalow require modest garden flowers such as daffodils, jonquils, tulips, lilies-of-the-valley, snapdragons, one long-stemmed rose in a vase, or a cluster of shy moss-buds or nodding tea-roses. A table set with art in the key of a small menage and on a scale of simple living, often strikes the note of perfection from the expert's point of view because perfect of its kind and suitable for the occasion. This appropriateness is what makes your "smart" table quite as it makes your "smart" woman. Wedgwood cream colour ware "C.C." is beautiful and always good form. For those wanting colour, the same famous makers of England have an infinite variety, showing lovely designs. Unless you are a collector in the museum sense, press into service all of your beautiful possessions. If you have to go without them, let it be when you no longer own them, and not because they are hoarded out of sight. You know the story of the man who bought a barrel of apples and each day carefully selected and ate those that were rotten, feeling the necessity of not being wasteful. When the barrel was empty he realised that be had deliberately wasted all his good apples _by not eating one_! Let this be a warning to him who would save his treasures. If you love antiques and have joyously hunted them down and, perhaps, denied yourself other things to obtain them, you are the person to use them, even though the joy be transient and they perish at the hand of a careless man or maid-servant. Remember, posterity will have its own "fads" and prefer adding the pleasure of pursuit to that of mere ownership. So bring out your treasures and use them! As there are many kinds of dining-rooms, each good if planned and worked out with an art instinct, so there are many kinds of tables. The usual sort is the round, or square, extension table, laid with fine damask and set with conventional china, glass and silver, rare in quality and distinguished in design. For those who prefer the unusual there are oblong, squarely built Jacobean and Italian refectory tables. With these one makes a point of showing the rich colour of the time-worn wood and carving, for the old Italian tables often have the bevelled edge and legs carved. When this style of table is used, the wood instead of a cloth, is our background, and a "runner" with doilies of old Italian lace takes the place of linen. In Feudal Days, when an entire household, master and retainers, sat in the baronial hall "above and below the salt," tables were made of great length. When used out of their original setting, they must be cut down to suit modern conditions. In Krakau, Poland, the writer often dined at one of these feudal boards which had been in our hostess's family for several hundred years. To get it into her dining-room a large piece had been cut out at the centre and the two ends pushed together. * * * * * For those who live informally, delightfully decorative china can be had at low prices. It was once made only for the peasants, and comes to us from Italy, France, Germany and England. This fact reminds us that when we were travelling in Southern Hungary and were asked to dine with a Magyar farmer, out on the windy Pasta, instead of their usual highly coloured pottery, gay with crude, but decorative flowers, they honoured us by covering the table with American ironstone china! The Hungarian crockery resembles the Brittany and Italian ware, and some of it is most attractive when rightly set. When once the passion to depart from beaten paths seizes us it is very easy to make mistakes. Therefore to the housekeeper, accustomed to conventional china, but weary of it, we would commend as a safe departure, modern Wedgwood and Italian reproductions of classic models, which come in exquisite shapes and in a delicious soft cream tone. If one prefers, it is possible to get these varieties decorated with charming designs in artistic colourings, as previously stated. For eating meals out of doors, or in "sun-rooms," where the light is strong, the dark peasant pottery, like Brittany, Italian and Hungarian, is very effective on dull-blue linen, heavy cream linen or coarse lace, such as the peasants make. Copper lustre, with its dark metallic surface; is enchanting on dark wood or coloured linen of the right tone. Your table must be a _picture_ composed on artistic lines. That is, it must combine harmony of line and colour and above all, appropriateness. Gradually one acquires skill in inventing unusual effects; but only the adept can go against established rules of art and yet produce a pleasing _ensemble_. We can all recall exceptions to this rule for simplicity, beautiful, artistic tables, covered with rare and entrancing objects,--irrelevant, but delighting the eye. Some will instantly recall Clyde Fitch's dinners in this connection, but here let us emphasise the dictum that for a great master of the art of decoration there need be no laws. A careful study of the Japanese principles of decoration is an ideal way of learning the art of simplicity. It is impossible to deny the immense decorative value of a single _objet d'art_, as one flower in a simple vase, provided it is given the correct background. Background in decoration is like a pedal-point in music; it must support the whole fabric, whether you are planning a house, a room or a table. PLATE XXIX Shows how a too pronounced rug which is out of character, though a valuable Chinese antique, can destroy the harmony of a composition even where the stage is set with treasures; Louis XV chairs, antique fount with growing plants, candelabra, rare tapestry, reflected by mirror, and a graceful console and a settee with grey-green brocade cushions. [Illustration: _Example of a Charming Hall Spoiled by Too Pronounced a Rug_] CHAPTER XXXVII WHAT TO AVOID IN INTERIOR DECORATION: RULES FOR BEGINNERS We all know the saying that it is only those who have mastered the steps in dancing who can afford to forget them. It is the same in every art. Therefore let us state at once, that all rules may be broken by the educated--the masters of their respective arts. For beginners we give the following rules as a guide, until they get their bearings in this fascinating game of making pictures by manipulating lines and colours, as expressed in necessary furnishings. * * * * * Avoid crowding your rooms, walls or tables, for in creating a _home_ one must produce the quality of restfulness by order and space. As to walls, do not use a cold colour in a north or shaded room. Make your ceilings lighter in tone than the side walls, using a very pale shade of the same colour as the side walls. Do not put a spotted (figured) surface on other spotted (figured) surfaces. A plain wall paper is the proper, because most effective, background for pictures. Avoid the mistake of forgetting that table decoration includes all china, glass, silver and linen used in serving any meal. In attempting the decoration of your dining-room table avoid anything inappropriate to the particular meal to be served and the scale of service. Do not have too many flowers on your table, or flowers not in harmony with the rest of the setting, in variety or colour. Do not use peasant china, no matter how decorative in itself, on fine damask or rare lace. By so doing you strike a false note. The background it demands is crash or peasant laces. Avoid crowding your dining-table or giving it an air of confusion by the number of things on it, thus destroying the laws of simplicity, line and balance in decoration. Avoid using on your walls as mere decorations articles such as rugs or priests' vestments primarily intended for other purposes. Avoid the misuse of anything in furnishing. It needs only knowledge and patience to find the correct thing for each need. Better do without than employ a makeshift in decorating. Inappropriateness and elaboration can defeat artistic beauty--but intelligent elimination never can. Beware of having about too many vases, or china meant for domestic use. The proper place for table china, no matter how rare it is, is in the dining-room. If very valuable, one can keep it in cabinets. Useless bric-à-brac in a dining-room looks worse than it does anywhere else. Your dining-room is the best place for any brasses, copper or pewter you may own. If sitting-room and dining-room connect by a wide opening, keep the same colour scheme in both, or, in any case, the same depth of colour. This gives an effect of space. It is not uncommon when a house is very small, to keep all of the walls and woodwork, and all of the carpets, in exactly the same colour and tone. If variety in the colour-scheme is desired, it may be introduced by means of cretonnes or silks used for hangings and furniture covers. Avoid the use of thin, old silks on sofas or chair seats. Avoid too cheap materials for curtains or chair covers, as they will surely fade. Avoid too many small rugs in a room. This gives an impression of restless disorder and interferes with the architect's lines. Do not place your rugs at strange angles; but let them follow the lines of the walls. Avoid placing ornaments or photographs on a piano which is in sufficiently good condition to be used. Avoid the chance of ludicrous effects. For example, keep a plain background behind your piano. Make sure that, when listening to music you are not distracted by seeing a bewildering section of a picture above the pianist's head, or a silly little vase dodging, as he moves, in front of, above, or below his nose! Avoid placing vases, or a clock, against a chimney piece already elaborately decorated by the architect, as a part of his scheme in using the moulding of panel to frame a painting over the mantel. In the old palaces one sees that a bit of undecorated background is provided between mantel and the architect's decoration. If your room has a long wall space, furnish it with a large cabinet or console, or a sofa and two chairs. Avoid blotting out your architect's cleverest points by thoughtlessly misplacing hangings. Whoever decorates should always keep the architect's intention in mind. Avoid having an antique clock which does not go, and is used merely as an ornament. Make your rooms _alive_ by having all the clocks running. This is one of the subtleties which marks the difference between an antique shop, or museum, and a home. Avoid the desecration of the few good antiques you own, by the use of a too modern colour scheme. Have the necessary modern pieces you have bought to supplement your treasures, stained or painted a dull dark colour in harmony with the antiques, and then use dull colours in the floor coverings, curtains and cushions. If you have no good _old_ ornaments, try to get a few good shapes and colours in inexpensive reproductions of the period to which your antiques belong. Avoid the mistake of forgetting that every room is a "stage setting," and must be a becoming and harmonious background for its occupants. Avoid arranging a Louis XVI bedroom, with fragile antiques and delicate tones, for your husband of athletic proportions and elemental tastes. He will not only feel, but look out of place. If he happens to be fond of artistic things, give him these in durable shades and shapes. Avoid the omission of a thoroughly masculine sitting-room, library, smoking-room or billiard-room for the man, or men, of the house. Avoid the use of white linen when eating out of doors. Saxe-blue, red or taupe linen are restful to the eyes. In fact, after one has used coloured linen, white seems glaring and unsympathetic even indoors, and one instinctively chooses the old deep-cream laces. Granting this to be a bit précieuse, we must admit that the traditional white damask, under crystal and silver, or gold plate with rare porcelains, has its place and its distinction in certain houses, and with certain people. PLATE XXX Shows a man's library, masculine gender written all over it-strength, comfort, usefulness and simplicity. The mantel is arranged in accordance with rules already stated. It will be noticed that the ornaments on mantel in a way interfere with design of the large architectural picture. [Illustration: _A Man's Library_] Avoid in a studio, bungalow or a small flat, where the living-room and dining-room are the same, all evidences of _dining-room_ (china, silver and glass for use). Let the table be covered with a piece of old or modern brocade when not set for use. A lamp and books further emphasises the note of living-room. Avoid the use of light-absorbing colours in wall papers if you are anxious to create sympathetic cheerfulness in your rooms, and an appearance of winning comfort. Almost all dark colours are light-absorbing; greens, dull reds, dark greys and mahogany browns will make a room dull in character no matter how much sunlight comes in, or how many electric lights you use. Perhaps the only dark colour which is not light-absorbing is a dark yellow. Avoid the permanent tea-table. We are glad to record that one seldom happens upon one, these days. How the English used to revile them! In the simplest homes it is always possible at the tea hour, to have a table placed before whoever is to "pour" and a tray on which are cups, tea, cream, sugar, lemon, toast, cake or what you will, brought in from the pantry or kitchen. There was a time when in America, one shuddered at the possibility of dusty cups and those countless faults of a seldom-rehearsed tea-table! Avoid serving a lunch in an artificially lighted room. This, like a permanent tea-table, is an almost extinct fashion. Neither was sensible, because inappropriate, and therefore bad form. The only possible reason for shutting out God's sunlight and using artificial lights, is when the function is to begin by daylight and continue until after nightfall. If in doubt as to what is _good_, go often to museums and compare what you own, or have seen and think of owning, with objects in museum collections. CHAPTER XXXVIII FADS IN COLLECTING In a New York home one room is devoted to a so-called _panier fleuri_ collection which in this case means that each article shows the design of a basket holding flowers or fruit. The collection is to-day so unique and therefore so valuable, that it has been willed to a museum, but its creation as a collection, was entirely a chance occurrence. The design of a basket trimmed with flowers happened to appeal to the owner, and if we are not mistaken, the now large collection had its beginning in the casual purchase of a little old pendant found in a forgotten corner of Europe. The owner wore it, her friends saw it, and gradually associated the _panier fleuri_ with her, which resulted in many beautiful specimens of this design being sought out for her by wanderers at home and abroad. To-day this collection includes old silks, laces, jewellery, wax pictures, old prints, some pieces of antique furniture, snuffboxes and ornaments in glass, china, silver, etc. Every museum is the result of fads in collecting, and when one considers all that is meant by this heading, which sounds so trifling and unimportant to the layman, it will not seem strange that we strongly recommend it as a dissipation! At first, quite naturally, the collector makes mistakes; but it is through his mistakes that he learns, and absolutely nothing gives such a zest to a stroll in the city, a tramp in the country, or an unexpected delay in an out-of-the-way town, as to have this collecting bee in your bonnet. How often when travelling we have rejoiced when the loss of a train or a mistake in time-table, meant an unexpected opportunity to explore for junk in some old shop, or, perhaps, to bargain with a pretty peasant girl who hoarded a beloved heirloom, of entrancing interest to us (and worth a pile of money really), while she lived happily on cider and cheese! It is doubtless the experience of every lover of the old and the curious, that one never regrets the expenses incurred in this quest of the antique, but one does eternally regret one's economies. The writer suffers now, after years have elapsed, in some cases, at the memory of treasures resisted when chanced upon in Russia, Poland, Hungary, Bohemia--where not! Always one says, "Oh, well, I shall come back again!" But there are so many "pastures green," and it is often difficult to retrace one's steps. Then, too, these fads open our eyes and ears, so that in passing along a street on foot, in a cab or on a bus, or in glancing through a book, or, perhaps, in an odd corner of an otherwise colourless town, where fate has taken us, we find "grist for our mill"--just the right piece of furniture for the waiting place! Know what you want, _really want it_, and you will find it some time, somewhere, somehow! As a stimulus to beginners in collecting, as well as an illustration of that perseverance required of every keen collector, we cite the case of running down an Empire dressing-table. It was our desire to complete a small collection of Empire furniture for a suite of rooms, by adding to it as a supplement to the bureau, a certain type of Empire dressing-table. It is no exaggeration to say that Paris was dragged for what we wanted--the large well-known antique shops and the smaller ones of the Latin Quarter being both ransacked. Time was flying, the date of our sailing was approaching, and as yet the coveted piece had not been found. Three days before we left, a fat, red-faced, jolly cabby, after making a vain tour of the junk shops in his quarter, demanded to know exactly what it was we sought. When told, he looked triumphant, bade us get into his cab, lashed his horse and after several rapidly made turns, dashed into an out-of-the-way street and drew up before a sort of junk store-house, full of rickety, dusty odds and ends of furniture, presided over by a stupid old woman who sat outside the door, knitting,--wrapped head and all in a shawl. We entered and, there, to our immense relief, stood the dressing table! It was grey with dust, the original Empire green silk, a rusty grey and hanging in shreds on the back of the original glass. There was a marble top set into the wood and grooved in a curious way. The whole was intact except for a loose back leg, which gave it a swaying, tottering appearance. We passed it in silence--being experienced traders! Then, after buying several little old picture frames, while Madame continued her knitting, we wandered close to the coveted table and asked what was wanted for that broken bit "of no use as it stands." "Thirty francs" (six dollars) was the answer. Later a well-known New York dealer offered seventy-five dollars for the table in the condition in which we found it, and repaired as it is to-day it would easily bring a hundred and fifty, anywhere! As it happened, the money we went out with had been spent on unexpected finds, and neither we nor our good-natured cabby were in possession of thirty francs! In fact, cabby was rather staggered to hear the price, having offered to advance what we needed. He suggested sending it home "collect" but Madame would not even consider such an idea. However, at last our resourceful jehu came to the rescue. If the ladies would seat themselves in the cab, he could place the table in front of them, with the cover of the cab raised, and Madame of the shop could lock her door and mounting the box by the side of our _cocher_, she might drive with us to our destination and collect the money herself! He promised to bring her home safely again! As we had only the next day for boxing and shipping, there was no alternative. Before we had even taken in our grotesque appearance, the horse was galloping, as only a Paris cab horse can gallop, toward our abode in Avenue Henri Martin, past carriages and autos returning from the _Bois_, while inside the cab we sat, elated by our success and in that whirl of triumphant absorbing joy which only the real collector knows. This same modest little Empire collection had a treasure recently added to it, found by chance, in an antique shop in Pennsylvania. It was a mirror. The dealer, an Italian, said that he had got it from an old house in Bordentown, New Jersey. "It's genuine English," he said, certain he was playing his winning card. It has the original glass and a heavy, squarely made, mahogany frame. Strange to say it corresponds exactly with the bed and bureau in the collection, having pilasters surmounted by women's heads of gilded wood with small gilded feet showing at base. PLATE XXXI An end of a room containing genuine Empire furniture, Empire ornaments and a rare collection of Empire cups, which appear in a _vitrine_ seen near the dull-blue brocade curtains drawn over windows. We would especially call attention to the mantelpiece, which was originally the Empire frame of a mirror, and to a book shelf made interesting by having the upper shelf supported by a charming pair of antique bronze cupids. This plate is reproduced to show as many Empire pieces as possible; it is not an ideal example of arrangement, either as to furniture in room or certain details. There is too much crowding. [Illustration: _A Collection of Empire Furniture, Ornaments and China_] As the brother of the great Napoleon, Joseph Bonaparte, king of Spain and Rome, passed many years of his self-imposed exile in Bordentown, in a house made beautiful with furnishings he brought from France, it is possible this old mirror has an interesting story, if only it could talk! Then, too, it was Bordentown that sheltered a Prince Murat, the relative of Joseph Bonaparte. If it was he who conveyed our mirror to these shores, a very different, but as highly romantic a tale might unfold! For fear the precious ancient glass should be broken or the frame destroyed, we bribed a Pullman-car porter to let us bring its six by four feet of antiquity with us, in the train! When you see a find always take it with you, or the next man may, and above all, always be on the lookout. It was from a French novel by one of the living French writers that we first got a clue to a certain obscure Etruscan museum, hidden away in the Carrara Mountains, in Italy. That wonderful little museum and its adjacent potteries, which cover the face of Italy like ant-hills, are to-day contributors to innumerable beautiful interiors in every part of America. We recall a dining-room in Grosvenor Square, London, where a world-renowned collection of "powder-blue" vases (the property of Mr. J.B. Joel) is made to contribute to a decorative scheme by placing the almost priceless vases of old Chinese blue and white porcelain, in niches made for them, high up on the black oak panelling. There are no pictures nor other decorations on the walls, hence each vase has the distinction it deserves, placed as it were, in a shrine. In the Peter Hewitt Museum, New York, you may see an antique Italian china cabinet, made of gilded carved wood, which shows on its undulating front, row after row of small niches, lined with red velvet. When each deep niche held its porcelain _chef d'oeuvre_, the effect must have been that of a gold screen set with gems! Speaking of red velvet backgrounds, in the same museum, standing near the Italian cabinet, is an ancient Spanish one; its elaborate steel hinges, locks and ornaments have each a bit of red velvet between them and the oak of the cabinet. One sees this on Gothic chests in England and occasionally on the antique furniture of other countries. The red material stretched back of the metal fret-work, is said to be a souvenir of the gruesome custom prevailing in ancient times, of warning off invaders by posting on the doors of public buildings, the skin of prisoners of war, and holding it in place with open-work metal, through which the red skin was plainly seen! At Cornwall Lodge, in Regents Park, London, the town house of Lady de Bathe (Lily Langtry) the dining-room ceiling is a deep sky-blue, while the sidewalls of black, serve as a background for her valuable collection of old, coloured glass, for the most part English. The collection is the result of the owner's eternal vigilance, when travelling or at home. A well-known Paris collector, now dead, found in Spain a bust which had been painted black. Its good lines led him to buy it, and, when cleaned, it proved to be a genuine Canova, and was sold by this dealer, a reliable expert, to an American for five thousand dollars! It had been painted during a Revolution, to save it from destruction. The same dealer on another occasion, when in Spain, found an old silk gown of lovely flowered brocade, but with one breadth missing. Several years later, in an antique shop in Italy, he found that missing gore and had it put back in the gown, thus completing the treasure which some ruthless hand had destroyed. CHAPTER XXXIX WEDGWOOD POTTERY, OLD AND MODERN Many of our museums have interesting collections of old Wedgwood. Altogether the most complete collection we have ever seen is in the museum adjoining the Wedgwood factories in Staffordshire, England. The curator there, an old man of about seventy, loves to tell the story of its founding and growth. He began as a labourer in the potteries and has worked his way up to be guardian of the veterans in perfected types. Many of the rare and beautiful specimens he has himself dug up in the grounds, where from time to time, since 1750, they were thrown out as broken, useless debris. The recovery of these bits, their preservation and classification, together with valuable donations made by English families who have inherited rare specimens, have not only placed at the disposal of those interested, the fascinating history of Wedgwood, in a thrilling object lesson, but has made the modern Wedgwood what it is:--one of the most beautiful varieties of tableware in the market to-day. Josiah Wedgwood is said to have been the first English potter, counting from the Roman time to the first quarter of the eighteenth century, who made vases to be used for _mere decoration_. Chelsea, Worcester and Derby were just then beginning to make fine porcelain. In Wedgwood's day it was the rule for young men of title and wealth to go abroad, and the souvenirs which they brought back with them, such as pictures and vases, helped to form a taste for the antique, in England. Then, too, books on Greek art were being written by English travellers. Josiah Wedgwood had a natural bent for the pure line and classic subjects, but he was, also, possessed with the keen businessman's intuition as to what his particular market demanded. So he sat about copying the line and decorations of the antique Greek vases. He reproduced lines and designs in decoration, but invented the "bodies," that is to say, the materials from which the potters moulded his wares. He is said to have invented in all, twenty varieties. We say that he reproduced Greek designs, and so he did, but John Flaxman, his chief decorator, who lived in Rome, where he had a studio and clever assistants, studied the classics, imbibed their spirit and originated the large majority of Wedgwood's so-called "Greek" designs, --those exquisite cameo-like compositions in white, on backgrounds of pastel colours, which appeared as miniatures mounted for jewellery, medallions let into wall panels, and on furniture and Carrara marble mantelpieces, wonderful works of art wrought of his "Jasper" paste, which make Josiah Wedgwood outrank any producer of ceramics who has ever lived in any age. Wedgwood's first vases were for use, although they were ornamental, too. Those were the pots he made in which to grow bulbs or roots, and the "bough pots" which were filled with cut flowers and used to ornament the hearth in summer. Mr. Frederick Rathbone, compiler of the Wedgwood catalogue in 1909, a memorial to Josiah Wedgwood made possible by his great-granddaughter, says that during his thirty-five years' study of Wedgwood's work, he had yet to learn of a single vase which was ever made by him, or sent out from his factory at Etruria, which was lacking in grace or beauty. The Etrurian Museum, Staffordshire, shows Josiah Wedgwood's life work from the early Whieldon ware to his perfected Jasper paste. Josiah's "trials" or experiments, are the most interesting specimens in the museum, and prove that the effort of his life was "converting a rude and inconsiderable manufactory into an elegant art and an important part of national commerce." Yet, although he is acknowledged by all the world to have been the greatest artist in ceramics of his or any period, remember pottery was only one of his interests. He was by no means a man who concentrated day and night on one line of production. He occupied himself with politics, and planned and carried through great engineering feats and was, also, deeply interested in the education of his children. When Wedgwood began his work, all tea and coffee pots were "salt-glazed," plain, or, if decorated, copies of Oriental patterns, which were the only available models, imported for the use of the rich. Wedgwood invented in turn his tortoise shell, agate, mottled and other coloured wares, and finally his beautiful pale-cream, known as "Queen's" ware, in honour of Queen Charlotte, his patron. It is the "C.C." (cream colour) which is so popular to-day, either plain or decorated. He invented colours, as well as bodies, for the manufacture of his earthenware, both for use and for decoration, and built up a business employing 15,000 persons in his factories,--and 30,000 in all the branches of his business. In 1896 the census showed 45,914 persons employed in the factories, and at that time the annual amount paid in wages was over two million pounds (ten million dollars). We must remember that in 1760, the only way of transporting goods to and from the Wedgwood factory was by means of pack-horses. Therefore Josiah Wedgwood had to turn his attention to the construction of roads and canals. As Mr. Gladstone put it in his address at the opening of the Wedgwood Institute at Burslem, Staffordshire, "Wedgwood made the raw material of his industry abundant and cheap, which supplied a vent for the manufactured article and which opened for it materially a way to what we may term the conquest of the outer world." Yet he never travelled outside his own country; always employed English workmen to carry out his ideas, and succeeded entirely by his own efforts, unaided by the state. His first patroness was Catherine II of Russia, for whom he made a wonderful table service, and his best customers were the court and aristocracy of France, during that country's greatest art periods (Louis XV and XVI). In fact Wedgwood ware became so fashionable in Paris that the Sèvres, Royal Porcelain factory, copied the colour and relief of his Jasper plaques and vases. It is claimed by connoisseurs, that the Wedgwood useful decorative pottery is the only ceramic art in which England is supreme and unassailable. It has been said at the Wedgwood works, and with great pride, that the copying of Wedgwood by the Sèvres factories, and the preservation of many rare examples of his work to-day, in French museums, to serve as models for French designers and craftsman, is a neat compliment to the English--"those rude islanders with three hundred religions and only one _sauce_"! PLATE XXXII In the illustration five of the four vases, four with covers and one without, are reproductions of old pharmacy jars, once used by all Italian druggists to keep their drugs in. The really old ones with artistic worth are vanishing from the open market into knowing dealers' or collectors' hands, or the museums have them, but with true Latin perspicuity, when the supply ceased to meet the demand, the great modern Italian potters turned out lovely reproductions, so lovely that they bring high prices in Italy as well as abroad, and are frequently offered to collectors when in Italy as genuine antiques. [Illustration: _Italian Reproductions in Pottery after Classic Models_] CHAPTER XL ITALIAN POTTERY About nine years ago, an American connoisseur, automobiling from Paris to Vienna, the route which lies through Northern Italy, quite by chance, happened to see some statuettes in the window of a hopeful, but unknown, potter's little shop, on a wonderful, ancient, covered bridge. You, too, may have seen that rarely beautiful bridge spanning the River Brenta, and have looked out through broad arches which occur at intervals, on views, so extraordinary that one feels they must be on a Gothic tapestry, or the journey just a dream! One cannot forget the wild, rushing river of purplish-blues, and the pines, in deep greens, which climb up, past ruined castles, perched on jutting rocks, toward snow-capped mountain peaks. The views were beautiful, but so were the statuettes which had caught our collector's eye. He bought some, made inquiries as to facilities for reproduction at these potteries, and exchanged addresses. The result was that to-day, that humble potter directs several large factories, which are busy reviving classic designs, which may be found on sale everywhere in Italy and in many other countries as well as America. CHAPTER XLI VENETIAN GLASS, OLD AND MODERN If you have been in Venice then you know the Murano Museum and its beguiling collection of Venetian glass, that old glass so vastly more beautiful in line and decoration than the modern type of, say, fifteen years ago, when colours had become bad mixtures, and decorations meaningless excrescences. A bit of inside information given out to some one really interested, led to a revival of pure line and lovely, simple colouring, with appropriate decorations or none at all. You may already know that romantic bit of history. It seems that when the museum was first started, about four hundred years ago, the glass blowers agreed to donate specimens of their work, provided their descendants should be allowed access to the museum for models. This contract made it a simple matter for a connoisseur to get reproduced exactly what was wanted, and what was not in the market. Elegance, distinguished simplicity in shapes, done in glass of a single colour, or in one colour with a simple edge in a contrasting shade, or in one colour with a whole nosegay of colours to set it off, appearing literally as flowers or fruit to surmount the stopper of a bottle, the top of a jar, or as decorations on candlesticks. It was in the Museo Civico of Venice that we saw and fell victims to an enchanting antique table decoration--a formal Italian garden, in blown glass, once the property of a great Venetian family and redolent of those golden days when Venice was the playground of princes, and feasting their especial joy; days when visiting royalty and the world's greatest folk could have no higher honour bestowed upon them than a gift of Venetian glass, often real marvels mounted in silver and gold. We never tired of looking at that fairy garden with its delicate copings, balustrades and vases of glass, all abloom with exquisite posies in every conceivable shade, wrought of glass--a veritable dream thing! Finally, nothing would do but we must know if it had ever been copied. The curator said that he believed it had, and an address was given us. How it all comes back! We arose at dawn, as time was precious, took our coffee in haste and then came that gliding trip in the gondola, through countless canals, to a quarter quite unknown to us, where at work in a small room, we came upon our glass blower and the coveted copy of that lovely table-garden. This man had made four, and one was still in his possession. We brought it back to America, a gleaming jewelled cobweb, and what happened was that the very ethereal quality of its beauty made the average taste ignore it! However, a few years have made a vast difference in table, as well as all other decorations, and to-day the same Venetian gardens have their faithful devotees, as is proved by the continuous procession of the dainty wonders, ever moving toward our sturdy shores. IN CONCLUSION In bringing our book to an end we would reiterate four fundamental principles of Interior Decoration (and all decoration): Good lines. Correct proportions. Harmonious colour scheme (which includes the question of background) and Appropriateness. Observe these four laws and any house, all interior decoration, and any lawn or garden, will be beautiful and satisfying, regardless of type and choice of colours. Whether or not you remain content with your achievement depends upon your mental makeup. Really know what you want as a home, _want it_, and you can work out any scheme, provided you have intelligence, patience and perseverance. To learn what is meant by _good line_, one must educate oneself by making a point of seeing beautiful furniture and furnishings. Visit museums, all collections which boast the stamp of approval of experts; buy at the best modern and antique shops, and compare what you get with the finest examples in the museums. This is the way that _connaisseurs_ are made. INDEX Acanthus leaf Accessories Adam, James and Robert Alhambra Amateur Andirons Angelo, Michael (See Michelangelo) Antique "Antiqued" Apelles Applique Appropriate Arabesques Architectural picture Architrave Arras Assyria Athenian Attic rooms Awnings Background Bakst Balance Barrocco Bathroom Beauvais Behnes Belgium Benares "Bodies" Bohemian glass Boucher François Boudoir Boule, André Charles Bric-à-brac Bristol glass Brocotello Byzantine Cabriole Cæsar, Augustus Carlovingian Carpets (_See_ Floor) Ceiling Cellini, Benvenuto Charlemagne Charles I Charles II Charles V Chares VIII Charts _Chef d'oeuvre_ Chimney-pieces Chinese "Chinese Craze" Chintz Chippendale Cipriani, Giovanni Battista Classic Clocks Closets Cold Colours Collecting Colonial Colour Commode Composition Connoisseur Console Correggio, Antonio Allegri Cretonne (_See_ Chintz) Cross-stitch Dado Dark Ages Day-bed Decoration Decorative Dining-tables Directoire Distinction Dressing-room Dressing-table Du Barry, Madame Du Barry rose Dürer, Albrecht Dutch Egypt Elimination Elizabethan Empire England _Ensemble_ Fads Feudal Fire-dogs (_See_ Andirons) Fireplace Fixtures Flaxman, John Floors (_See_ Carpets) Flower-pictures Flowers Fontainebleau France Francis I Franklin Stoves French Frieze Georgian Germany Gibbons, Grinling Gimp Glass Glazed Linen Gobelin Gothic Greek Gubbio Hallmark Hangings Henry II Henry III Henry IV Henry VIII Heppelwhite Holland Homes Hungarian Inappropriateness Iron Work Italian Italian Louis XVI Ivy Jacobean James I James II James VI Japan Japanese Kauffman, Angelica Key Key Note Knife-boxes Lacquer Lamp Shades Landscape Paper Library, a Man's Light-absorbing colours Light-producing Lines Living-room Louis XIII Louis XIV Louis XV Louis XVI Lustre copper Mahogany Period Majolica Man's Room (_See_ Men's Rooms) Mantel Marie Antoinette Marquetry Mediæval Art Medici Medici, Catherine de Medicine jars Men's Rooms Metal Work Michelangelo Middle Ages Mirrors Mission Furniture Moors Morris, William Mouldings Mounts Napoleon I Narrow halls New England Oak Period _Objets d'art_ Oriental Ormolu Outline Over-doors Painted Furniture Painted Tapestry Palladio, Andrea Panelling Panier fleuri Parchment Paper Shades for Lights Passepartout Peasant China Peasant Lace Pergolese, Michael Angelo Pericles Period Rooms Pesaro Pharmacy Jars (_See_ Medicine Jars) Phidias Photographs Picture Frames Pictures _Pietra-dura_ Pilasters Poitiers, Diane de Poland Pomegranate Pattern Porcelain Porch-room Portuguese "Powder-Blue" Vases Praxiteles Pre-Raphaelites Proportion Pseudo-Classic Puritan Queen Anne Queen Elizabeth Rail-boxes Raphael Refectory Tables Renaissance Reproductions Rocaille (_See_ Shell Design) Rococo Rolls, Empire Rome Sarto, Andrea del Sash-curtains Servants'-rooms Sèvres porcelain Shades for Lights Shell Design (_See_ Rocaille) Sheraton Silks Slipper-chairs Sofa cushions Spain Sports Balconies Stained Glass Straw Awnings Stuart Sun-producing Sun-proof Sun-rooms Table decoration Table-garden Tables Tableware Taffeta Tapestry Tea-tables Textiles Titian Tone-on-tone Tudor Twin beds Urbino Valance Values Van Eyck Vanity-room _"Vargueos"_ "Vase pattern" Vases Venetian Glass Venice Vernis Martin Victorian Period Vinci, Leonardo da Virginia Homes Vitrine Wainscoting Wall-papers Walls Warm colours Wedgewood Wicker Furniture William and Mary Period Window-boxes Wren, Sir Christopher THE END 
20590	----	LETTERS & LETTERING A TREATISE WITH 200 EXAMPLES FRANK CHOUTEAU BROWN [Illustration] BOSTON BATES & GUILD COMPANY MCMXXI * * * * * _Copyright, 1921, by_ BATES & GUILD COMPANY Printed by PERRY & ELLIOTT CO LYNN BOSTON Printed in the U. S. A. * * * * * NOTE This book is intended for those who have felt the need of a varied collection of alphabets of standard forms, arranged for convenient use. The alphabets illustrated, while primarily intended to exhibit the letter shapes, have in most cases been so arranged as to show also how the letters compose into words, except in those instances where they are intended to be used only as initials. The application of classic and medieval letters to modern usages has been, as far as possible, suggested by showing modern designs in which similar forms are employed. In view of the practical aim of this treatise it has been deemed advisable to include a larger number of illustrative examples rather than to devote space to the historical evolution of the letter forms. To the artists, American and European, who have so kindly furnished him with drawings of their characteristic letters--and without whose cordial assistance this book would hardly have been possible--to the master-printers who have allowed him to show types specially designed for them, and to the publishers who have given him permission to borrow from their books and magazines, the author wishes to express his sincere obligations. F. C. B. * * * * * LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 1 AND 2 ALPHABET AFTER SEBASTIAN SERLIO (1473-1554). Reconstructed by Albert R. Ross. 3 WIDTH PROPORTIONS OF MODERN ROMAN CAPITALS. F. C. B. 4 DRAWING FOR INCISED ROMAN CAPITALS. For cutting in granite. Letter forms based upon those shown in figures 1 and 2. F. C. B. 5 PHOTOGRAPH OF INCISED ROMAN CAPITALS. Cut in granite from drawing shown in figure 4 6 INCISED ROMAN CAPITALS. From the Arch of Constantine, Rome. 315 A.D. From a photograph 7 MODEL FOR INCISED ROMAN CAPITALS. Used for inscriptions cut in granite on Boston Public Library. McKim, Mead & White, Architects. Photographed from a cast 8 ROMAN INCISED CAPITALS. From fragments in marble. National Museum, Naples. Rubbing 9 ROMAN INCISED INSCRIPTION. Museo Civico, Bologna. From a photograph 10 ROMAN INCISED INSCRIPTION. Museo Civico, Bologna. From a photograph 11 DETAIL FROM A ROMAN INCISED INSCRIPTION. Showing composition. Redrawn from a rubbing. F. C. B. 12 "RUSTIC" ROMAN CAPITALS. Of pen forms, but cut in stone. Redrawn from a rubbing. From fragment in the National Museum, Naples. F. C. B. 13 ROMAN CAPITALS FROM FRAGMENTS OF INSCRIPTIONS. Showing various characteristic letter forms. Redrawn from rubbings. F. C. B. 14 MODERN ROMAN INCISED CAPITALS. Executed in sandstone. From the Harvard Architectural Building, Cambridge, Mass. McKim, Mead & White, Architects 15 LETTERS SHOWN IN ALPHABET 1 AND 2, IN COMPOSITION. By Albert R. Ross 16 and 17 CLASSIC ROMAN CAPITALS. Cut in marble. Redrawn from rubbings made in the Forum, Rome. F. C. B.-21 18 and 19 CLASSIC ROMAN CAPITALS. Late period. Cut in marble. Redrawn from rubbings. F. C. B. 20 PORTION OF ROMAN INSCRIPTION. With supplied letters. Redrawn from a rubbing. F. C. B. 21 CLASSIC ROMAN INSCRIPTION. Incised in marble. Redrawn from a rubbing. F. C. B. 22 CLASSIC ROMAN INSCRIPTION. In stone. Redrawn from a rubbing. F. C. B. 23 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE INSCRIPTION. Square-sunk in marble. From a photograph of a mortuary slab 24 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE MEDAL. By Vittore Pisano. 15th Century. From a photograph 25 MODERN FRENCH MEDAL. By Oscar Roty. From a photograph of the original in the Luxembourg, Paris 26 CAPITALS ADAPTED FROM RENAISSANCE MEDALS. F. C. B. 27 SPANISH RENAISSANCE ALPHABET. By Juan de Yciar. From "Arte por la qual se ese[=n]a a escrevir perfectamente." (Saragossa, 1550) 28 RENAISSANCE INLAID MEDALLION. From a floor-slab in Santa Croce, Florence. Redrawn from a rubbing. F. C. B. 29 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE CAPITALS. From an inlaid floor-slab in Santa Croce, Florence. (Compare figure 28.) Redrawn from a rubbing. F. C. B. 30 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE PANEL. From Raphael's tomb, Pantheon, Rome. From a photograph 31 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE INCISED INSCRIPTION. From the Marsuppini Tomb, Santa Croce, Florence, 1455. Rubbing 32 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE INCISED INSCRIPTION. From a floor-slab in Santa Croce, Florence. Early 15th Century. Rubbing 33 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE CAPITALS. Redrawn from inscription on the Marsuppini Tomb, Santa Croce, Florence, 1455. (Compare figure 31.) F. C. B. 34 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE CAPITALS. Redrawn from rubbings of inscriptions in Santa Croce, Florence. F. C. B. 35 and 36 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE CAPITALS. By G. A. Tagliente. From 'La vera arte dello eccellento scrivere.' (Venice, 1524) 37 and 38 GERMAN RENAISSANCE CAPITALS. By Albrecht Dürer. Adapted from 'Underweyssung der messung, mit dem zirckel, [u]n richtscheyt, in Linien, etc.' (Nuremberg, 1525) 39 and 40 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE CAPITALS. By Sebastian Serlio. (1473-1554.) Compare figures 1 and 2 41 GERMAN RENAISSANCE CAPITALS. By Urbain Wÿss. From 'Libellus valde doctus ... scribendarum literarum genera complectens.' (Zurich, 1549) 42 ITALIAN RENAISSANCE PANEL. Above the door of the Badia, Florence. Redrawn by Claude Fayette Bragdon. From 'Minor Italian Palaces.' (Cutler Manufacturing Company, Rochester, N.Y., 1898) 43 MODERN TITLE IN ANGLO-SAXON CAPITALS. By Bertram G. Goodhue. (Compare figure 46.) From 'The Quest of Merlin.' (Small, Maynard & Co., Boston, 1891) 44 MODERN TITLE WITH CHARACTERISTICS OF 16TH CENTURY ENGLISH CAPITALS. By Walter Crane. (Compare figure 49.) From 'The Story of Don Quixote.' (John Lane, New York, 1900) 45 TITLE IN EARLY ENGLISH CAPITALS. By W. Eden Nesfield. From 'Specimens of Medieval Architecture.' (Day & Sons, London, 1862) 46 ANGLO-SAXON CAPITALS. 6TH CENTURY. From 'The Rule of St. Benedict.' Bodleian Library, Oxford 47 ANGLO-SAXON CAPITALS. 7TH CENTURY. From 'The Gospels of St. Cuthbert' 48 ANGLO-SAXON CAPITALS. EARLY 10TH CENTURY. From an Anglo-Saxon Bible 49 EARLY ENGLISH CAPITALS. 16th Century. From tomb of Henry VII, Westminster Abbey, London 50 and 51 SCHEME FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF ROMAN SMALL LETTERS. F. C. B. 52 SPANISH ROMAN PEN DRAWN LETTERS. By Francisco Lucas. From 'Arte de Escr[=e]virde.' (Madrid, 1577) 53 SPANISH ROMAN PEN DRAWN LETTERS. Showing use of above. By Francisco Lucas. From 'Arte de Escr[=e]virde.' (Madrid, 1577) 54 SPANISH ITALIC PEN DRAWN LETTERS. By Francisco Lucas. From 'Arte de Escr[=e]virde.' (Madrid, 1577) 55 SPANISH ITALIC PEN DRAWN LETTERS. Showing use of above. By Francisco Lucas. From 'Arte de Escr[=e]virde.' (Madrid, 1577) 56 ITALIAN SMALL LETTERS. By J. F. Cresci. From 'Perfetto Scrittore.' (Rome, 1560) 57 ENGLISH 17TH CENTURY LETTERS. Incised in slate. From tombstones 58 MODERN SMALL LETTERS. After C. Hrachowina's 'Initialen Alphabete und Randleisten verschiedener Kunstepochen.' (Vienna, 1883) 59 MODERN SMALL LETTERS. By Claude Fayette Bragdon. Based on Venetian types cut by Nicholas Jenson, 1471-81 60 INSCRIPTION FROM ENGLISH 17TH CENTURY TOMBSTONE. From slate tombstone at Chippenham, England. 1691. F. C. B. 61 ROMAN AND ITALIC TYPE. Designed by William Caslon. From his Specimen Book. (London, 1734) 62 MODERN ROMAN TYPE, "MONTAIGNE." Designed by Bruce Rogers for The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass. 63 MODERN ROMAN TYPE, "RENNER." Designed by Theo. L. De Vinne for The De Vinne Press, New York 64 MODERN ROMAN TYPE, "MERRYMOUNT." Designed by Bertram G. Goodhue for The Merrymount Press, Boston, Mass. 65 MODERN ROMAN TYPE, "CHELTENHAM OLD STYLE." Designed by Bertram G. Goodhue for The Cheltenham Press, New York. (Owned by American Type Founders Company and Linotype Company) 66 MODERN GREEK TYPE. Designed by Selwyn Image for The Macmillan Company, London 67 MODERN ROMAN TYPE. Designed by C. R. Ashbee for a Prayerbook for the King of England 68 MODERN GERMAN CAPITALS. After lettering by J. M. Olbrich 69 MODERN GERMAN CAPITALS. By Gustave Lemmen. From 'Beispiele Kunstlerische Schrift.' (A. Schroll & Co., Vienna) 70 MODERN GERMAN CAPITALS. After lettering by Alois Ludwig 71 MODERN GERMAN CAPITALS. After lettering by Otto Eckmann 72 MODERN GERMAN CAPITALS. By Otto Hupp. From 'Beispiele Kunstlerische Schrift.' (A. Schroll & Co., Vienna) 73 MODERN GERMAN CAPITALS. By Joseph Plécnik. From 'Beispiele Kunstlerische Schrift.' (A. Schroll & Co., Vienna) 74 MODERN GERMAN CAPITALS. After lettering by Franz Stuck 75 MODERN GERMAN CAPITALS. Arranged from originals. F. C. B. 76 MODERN GERMAN CAPITALS. After lettering by Bernhard Pankok 77 MODERN FRENCH POSTER. 'La Libre Esthétique.' By Theo. van Rysselberghe 78 MODERN FRENCH BOOK-COVER. By M. P. Verneuil. From 'L'Animal dans la décoration.' (E. Lévy, Paris) 79 MODERN FRENCH LETTERS. After lettering by M. P. Verneuil 80 MODERN FRENCH POSTER. 'La Revue Blanche.' By P. Bonnard 81 MODERN FRENCH MAGAZINE COVER DESIGN. By George Auriol. From 'L'Image.' (Floury, Paris, 1897) 82 MODERN FRENCH CAPITALS. By Alphons M. Mucha. From 'Beispiele Kunstlerischer Schrift.' (A. Schroll & Co., Vienna) 83 MODERN FRENCH LETTERED PAGE IN "CURSIVE." By George Auriol. From 'Le Premier Livre des Cachets, etc.' (Librairie Centrale des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1901) 84 MODERN FRENCH LETTERS, "CURSIVE." By George Auriol 85 MODERN FRENCH COVER DESIGN. By Eugène Grasset. From 'Art et Décoration.' (Paris) 86 MODERN ENGLISH CAPITALS. By Walter Crane. From 'Beispiele Kunstlerischer Schrift.' (A. Schroll & Co., Vienna) 87 MODERN ENGLISH THEATRICAL POSTER. By Walter Crane 88 MODERN ENGLISH CAPITALS. By Walter Crane. From 'Alphabets Old and New.' (B. T. Batsford, London, 1899) 89 MODERN ENGLISH LETTERS. By Walter Crane. From 'Beispiele Kunsterischer Schrift.' (A. Schroll & Co., Vienna) 90 MODERN ENGLISH TITLE. By Joseph W. Simpson. From 'The Book of Book-plates.' (Williams & Norgate, Edinburgh) 91 MODERN ENGLISH POSTER. By Joseph W. Simpson 92 MODERN ENGLISH BOOK-COVER. By William Nicholson. From 'London Types.' (R. H. Russell, New York, 1898) 93 MODERN ENGLISH MAGAZINE COVER. By Lewis F. Day. From 'The Art Journal.' (H. Virtue & Co., London) 94 MODERN ENGLISH TITLE. By Gordon Craig. From 'The Page' (The Sign of the Rose, Hackbridge, Surrey) 95 MODERN ENGLISH CAPITALS. By Lewis F. Day. From 'Alphabets Old and New.' (B. T. Batsford, London, 1899) 96 MODERN ENGLISH TITLE PAGE. By Robert Anning Bell. From 'Poems by John Keats.' (George Bell & Sons, London, 1897) 97 MODERN ENGLISH BOOK-COVER. By Edmund H. New. From 'The Natural History of Selborne.' (John Lane, London, 1900) 98 MODERN ENGLISH BOOK-COVER. By Selwyn Image. From 'Representative Painters of the 19th Century.' (Sampson, Low, Marston & Co., London, 1899) 99 MODERN ENGLISH CAPITALS. Anonymous. From an advertisement 100 MODERN ENGLISH TITLE. By Charles Ricketts. From 'Nimphidia and the Muses Elizium.' (The Vale Press, London) 101 MODERN AMERICAN TITLE. By Edwin A. Abbey. From 'Selections from the Poetry of Robert Herrick.' (Harper & Brothers, New York, 1899) 102 MODERN AMERICAN TITLE. Anonymous. From 'Harper's Weekly.' (New York) 103 MODERN AMERICAN MAGAZINE COVER. By Edward Penfield. From 'Harper's Weekly.' (New York) 104 MODERN AMERICAN CAPITALS. By Edward Penfield 105 MODERN AMERICAN SMALL LETTERS. By Edward Penfield 106 MODERN AMERICAN COVER DESIGN. By H. Van Buren Magonigle 107 MODERN AMERICAN CAPITALS. By H. Van Buren Magonigle 108 MODERN AMERICAN CAPITALS. By Bertram G. Goodhue. From 'Masters in Art.' (Boston, 1900) 109 MODERN AMERICAN TITLE. By Will Bradley. From 'The Book List of Dodd, Mead & Co.' (New York, 1899) 110 MODERN AMERICAN CAPITALS AND SMALL LETTERS. By Will Bradley. From 'Bradley, His Book.' (The Wayside Press, Springfield, Mass., 1896) 111 MODERN AMERICAN MAGAZINE COVER. By Will Bradley. From 'The International Studio.' (New York) 112 MODERN AMERICAN TICKET. By A. J. Iorio 113 MODERN AMERICAN CAPITALS. After lettering by Will Bradley 114 MODERN AMERICAN CAPITALS. By Maxfield Parrish 115 MODERN AMERICAN TITLE. By Maxfield Parrish. From 'Knickerbocker's History of New York.' (R. H. Russell, New York, 1900) 116 MODERN AMERICAN TITLE. By Addison B. Le Boutillier 117 MODERN AMERICAN CAPITALS. By Addison B. Le Boutillier 118 MODERN AMERICAN SMALL LETTERS. By Addison B. Le Boutillier 119 MODERN AMERICAN POSTER. By Addison B. Le Boutillier 120 MODERN AMERICAN BOOK-PLATE. By Claude Fayette Bragdon 121 MODERN AMERICAN TITLE. By Claude Fayette Bragdon. From 'Literature.' (New York) 122 MODERN AMERICAN LETTER-HEADING. By Claude Fayette Bragdon 123 MODERN AMERICAN ADVERTISEMENT. By H. L. Bridwell. (Strowbridge Lithographic Co., Cincinnati) 124 MODERN AMERICAN CAPITALS. By H. L. Bridwell 125 MODERN AMERICAN CAPITALS. By Frank Hazenplug 126 MODERN AMERICAN CAPITALS, "HEAVY FACE." By Frank Hazenplug 127 MODERN AMERICAN BOOK-COVER. By Frank Hazenplug. From ''Ickery Ann and other Girls and Boys.' (Herbert S. Stone & Co., Chicago, 1899) 128 MODERN AMERICAN TITLE. By Edward Edwards. From 'Harper's Pictorial History of the War with Spain.' (Harper & Brothers, New York, 1899) 129 MODERN AMERICAN CATALOGUE COVER. By Frank Hazenplug. From the Catalogue of the Chicago Arts and Crafts Society. (Chicago) 130 MODERN AMERICAN TITLE. By Guernsey Moore. From 'The Saturday Evening Post.' (Philadelphia) 131 MODERN AMERICAN TITLE. By Harry Everett Townsend. From 'The Blue Sky.' (Langworthy & Stevens, Chicago, 1901) 132 MODERN AMERICAN HEADING. By Howard Pyle. From 'Harper's Magazine.' (New York) 133 MODERN AMERICAN LETTERS. Compiled from various sources. F. C. B. 134 MODERN AMERICAN CAPITALS. After lettering by Orson Lowell 135 MODERN AMERICAN SMALL LETTERS. F. C. B. 136 MODERN AMERICAN TITLES. By Orson Lowell. From 'Truth.' (New York) 137 MODERN AMERICAN TITLE. By Orson Lowell. From 'Truth.' (New York) 138 MODERN AMERICAN LETTERS. For rapid use. F. C. B. 139 MODERN AMERICAN ITALIC. For use in lettering architects' plans, etc. By Claude Fayette Bragdon 140 MODERN AMERICAN LETTERS, "CURSIVE." For rapid use. By Maxfield Parrish 141 ITALIAN ROUND GOTHIC SMALL LETTERS. After Lucantonii Giunta. Redrawn from 'Graduale Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae.' (Venice, 1500) 142 ITALIAN ROUND GOTHIC SMALL LETTERS. 16th Century. Redrawn from Italian originals 143 SPANISH ROUND GOTHIC LETTERS. By Francisco Lucas. From 'Arte de Escr[=e]virde.' (Madrid, 1577) 144 GERMAN BLACKLETTER CONSTRUCTION. By Albrecht Dürer. From 'Underweyssung der messung, mit dem zirckel, [=u]n richtscheyt, in Linien, etc.' (Nuremberg, 1525) 145 GERMAN BLACKLETTERS. Redrawn from manuscripts 146 GERMAN BLACKLETTERS. With rounded angles. Redrawn from manuscripts 147 ITALIAN BLACKLETTER TITLE-PAGE. By Jacopus Philippus Foresti (Bergomensis). From 'De Claris Mulieribus, etc.' (Ferrara, 1497) 148 GERMAN BLACKLETTER PAGE. By Albrecht Dürer. From the Prayerbook designed by him for the Emperor Maximilian. (Nuremberg, 1515) 149 GERMAN MEMORIAL BRASS WITH BLACKLETTER INSCRIPTION. Ascribed to Albrecht Dürer. Cathedral of Meissen, 1510. From 'Fac-similes of Monumental Brasses on the Continent of Europe.' (W. F. Creeney, Norwich, 1884) 150 MODERN AMERICAN CALENDAR COVER IN BLACKLETTER. By Bertram G. Goodhue. From 'Every Day's Date Calendar.' (Fleming, Schiller & Carnrick, New York, 1897) 151 MODERN GERMAN BLACKLETTERS. By Walter Puttner. From 'Jugend.' (Munich) 152 MODERN GERMAN TITLE IN BLACKLETTER. By Otto Hupp. From 'Münchener Kalendar.' (Munich, 1900) 153 MODERN AMERICAN PAGE IN ENGLISH BLACKLETTER. By Edwin A. Abbey. From 'Scribner's Magazine.' (New York) 154 UNCIAL GOTHIC INITIALS. Redrawn from 12th Century examples. F. C. B. 155 UNCIAL GOTHIC INITIALS. Redrawn from 13th Century examples. F. C. B. 156 UNCIAL GOTHIC CAPITALS. Redrawn from 14th Century examples. F. C. B. 157 UNCIAL GOTHIC CAPITALS. 14th Century. After J. Weale. Redrawn from 'Portfolio of Ancient Capital Letters.' (London, 1838-9) 158 ITALIAN UNCIAL GOTHIC CAPITALS, IN THE "PAPAL" HAND. From a Florentine manuscript of 1315. British Museum, London. F. C. B. 159 SPANISH UNCIAL GOTHIC CAPITALS. By Juan de Yciar. Adapted from 'Arte por la qual se ese[=n]a escrevir perfectamente.' (Saragossa, 1550) 160 VENETIAN WALL PANEL, of Marble, Inscribed with Uncial Gothic Letters. 15th Century. From the Church of S. Giovanni e Paolo, Venice. Rubbing 161 VENETIAN GOTHIC CAPITALS. 15th Century. Redrawn from the rubbing shown in figure 160. F. C. B. 162 GERMAN UNCIAL CAPITALS. 1341. Redrawn from a memorial brass in the Cathedral of Lübeck 163 FRENCH AND SPANISH GOTHIC CAPITALS. 14th Century. After W. S. Weatherley 164 and 165 ITALIAN GOTHIC INITIALS. After G. A. Tagliente, in 'La vera arte dello eccellento scrivere.' (Venice, 1524) 166 ITALIAN GOTHIC INITIALS. By Giovanni Battista Palatino. From 'Libro nel qual s'insegna a scrivere.' (Rome, 1548) 167, 168 and 169 GERMAN GOTHIC INITIALS. By P. Frank. Nuremberg, 1601. From Petzendorfer's 'Schriften-Atlas.' (Stuttgart, 1889) 170 ITALIAN GOTHIC CAPITALS. 16th Century. Redrawn from old examples 171 GOTHIC CAPITALS OF ENGLISH FORM. 16th Century. Redrawn from old examples 172 ITALIAN GOTHIC CAPITALS. 17th Century. Redrawn from various examples 173 GERMAN GOTHIC CAPITALS. 17th Century. Redrawn from various manuscripts 174 GERMAN GOTHIC CAPITALS. From manuscripts 175 GERMAN GOTHIC CAPITALS. From manuscripts 176 GERMAN GOTHIC CAPITALS, HEAVY FACED 177 ENGLISH GOTHIC "TEXT," INITIALS AND BLACKLETTERS. 15th Century. From manuscripts 178 ENGLISH GOTHIC UNCIALS AND BLACKLETTERS. 15th Century. From Queen Eleanor's tomb. F. C. B. 179 ENGLISH GOTHIC CAPITALS AND BLACKLETTERS. 15th Century. From tomb of Richard II, Westminster Abbey, London. F. C. B. 180 GERMAN BLACKLETTERS. From a brass. Redrawn from a rubbing. F. C. B. 181 GERMAN BLACKLETTERS. With Albrecht Dürer's initials. 16th Century. F. C. B. 182 ITALIAN BLACKLETTERS. By G. A. Tagliente. From 'La vera arte dello eccellento scrivere.' (Venice, 1524) 183 GERMAN BLACKLETTERS. After lettering by Albrecht Dürer. 16th Century 184 GERMAN BLACKLETTERS. After lettering by Albrecht Dürer. 16th Century 185 GERMAN GOTHIC CAPITALS. By Albrecht Dürer. 16th Century 186 ENGLISH GOTHIC BLACKLETTERS. Late 15th Century. Redrawn from a brass. F. C. B. 187 ITALIAN INLAID BLACKLETTERS. From a marble slab in Santa Croce, Florence. Redrawn from a rubbing. F. C. B. 188 and 189 MODERN AMERICAN BLACKLETTERS WITH GOTHIC CAPITALS. By Bertram G. Goodhue 190 MODERN GERMAN BLACKLETTERS. After lettering by Julius Diez 191 MODERN GERMAN BLACKLETTERS, FLOURISHED. F. C. B. 192 GERMAN ITALIC. By Gottlieb Münch. From 'Ordnung der Schrift.' (Munich, 1744) 193 SPANISH SCRIPT. By Torquato Torio. From 'Arte de Escribir.' (Madrid, 1802) 194 SPANISH SCRIPTS. By Torquato Torio. From 'Arte de Escribir.' (Madrid, 1802) 195 SPANISH SCRIPT. By Francisco Lucas. From 'Arte de Escr[=e]virde.' (Madrid, 1577) 196 SPANISH CURSIVE. By Francisco Lucas. From 'Arte de Escr[=e]virde.' (Madrid, 1577) 197 MODERN AMERICAN SCRIPT TITLE. By Claude Fayette Bragdon. From an advertisement 198 MODERN AMERICAN SCRIPT TITLE. By George Wharton Edwards. From 'Collier's Weekly.' (New York) 199 FRENCH SCRIPT CAPITALS. 18th Century. F. C. B. 200 GERMAN SCRIPT. 18th Century forms. Adapted from C. Hrachowina's 'Initialen, Alphabete und Randleisten verschiedener Kunstepochen.' (Vienna, 1883) 201 SPANISH SCRIPT CAPITALS. Early 18th Century. Adapted from a Spanish Writing-book. F. C. B. 202 SPANISH SCRIPT ALPHABETS. Late 17th Century. Adapted from Spanish Writing-books. F. C. B. 203 ENGLISH INCISED SCRIPT. Redrawn from inscriptions in slate and stone in Westminster Abbey, London. F. C. B. 204 MODERN AMERICAN SCRIPT BOOK TITLE. By Bruce Rogers. From cover design of 'The House of the Seven Gables.' (Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston, 1899) 205 MODERN AMERICAN SCRIPT. By Bruce Rogers 206 MODERN AMERICAN SCRIPT CAPITALS. After lettering by Frank Hazenplug 207 MODERN AMERICAN ITALIC CAPITALS. F. C. B. 208 MODERN AMERICAN SCRIPT TITLE. Anonymous. From 'Harper's Weekly.' (New York) 209 MODERN AMERICAN SCRIPT TITLE. By Edward Penfield. From 'Harper's Weekly.' (New York) 210 DIAGRAM TO SHOW METHOD OF ENLARGING A PANEL, from upper left corner 211 DIAGRAM TO SHOW METHOD OF ENLARGING A PANEL, from perpendicular center line END PAPERS. From an embroidered Altar-cloth. 17th Century. Church of St. Mary, Soest, Westphalia, Germany. * * * * * CONTENTS I. ROMAN CAPITALS 1 II. MODERN ROMAN LETTERS 52 III. GOTHIC LETTERS 127 IV. ITALIC AND SCRIPT 182 V. TO THE BEGINNER 199 [1] * * * * * CHAPTER I ROMAN CAPITALS In speaking of the "Roman" letter throughout this chapter its capital form--the form in monumental use among the Romans--will always be implied. The small or "minuscule" letters, which present nomenclature includes under the general title of "Roman" letters, and which will be considered in the following chapter, were of later formation than the capitals; and indeed only attained their definitive and modern form after the invention of printing from movable types. The first point to be observed in regard to the general form of the Roman capital is its characteristic squareness. Although the letter as used to-day varies somewhat in proportions from its classic prototype, its skeleton is still based on the square. Next to this typical squareness of outline, the observer should note that the Roman letter is composed of thick and thin lines. At first sight it may seem that no systematic rules determine which of these lines should be thick and which thin; but closer investigation will discover that the alternate widths of line were evolved quite methodically, and that they exactly fulfil the functions of making the letters both more legible and more decorative. Arbitrary rearrangements of these thick and thin lines, differing from the arrangement of them in the classic examples, have, [2] indeed, been often attempted; but such rearrangements have never resulted in improvement, and, except in eccentric lettering, have fallen into complete disuse. The original thickening and thinning of the lines of the classic Roman capitals was partly due to the imitation in stone inscriptions of the letter forms as they were written on parchment with the pen. The early Latin scribes held their stiff-nibbed reed pens almost directly upright and at right angles to the writing surface, so that a down stroke from left to right and slanted at an angle of about forty-five degrees would bring the nib across the surface broadwise, resulting in the widest line possible to the pen. On the other hand, a stroke drawn at right angles to this, the pen being still held upright, would be made with the thin edge of the nib, and would result in the narrowest possible line. From this method of handling the pen the variations of line width in the standard Roman forms arose; and we may therefore deduce three logical rules, based upon pen use, which will determine the proper distribution of the thick and thin lines: I, Never accent horizontal lines. II, Always accent the sloping down strokes which run from left to right, including the so-called "swash" lines, or flying tails, of Q and R; but never weight those which, contrariwise, slope up from left to right, with a single exception in the case of the letter Z, in which, if rule I be followed, the sloping line (in this case made with a down stroke) will be the only one possible to accent. III, Always accent the directly perpendicular lines, except in the N, where these lines seem originally to have been made with an up stroke of the pen; and the first line of the M, where the perpendiculars originally sloped in towards the top of the letter (see 2). On the round letters [3] the accents should occur at the sides of the circle, as virtually provided in rule III, or on the upper right and lower left quarters (see 1-2), where in pen-drawn letters the accent of the down sloping stroke would naturally occur, as virtually determined in rule II. The "serif"--a cross-stroke or tick--finishes the free ends of all lines used in making a Roman capital. The value of the serif in stone-cut letters seems obvious. To define the end of a free line a sharp cut was made across it with the chisel, and as the chisel was usually wider than the thin line this cut extended beyond it. Serifs were added to the ends of the thick lines either for the sake of uniformity, or may have been suggested by the chisel-marked guide lines themselves. Indeed in late stone-cut Roman work the scratched guide lines along the top and bottom of each line of the inscription are distinctly marked and merge into the serifs, which extend farther than in earlier examples. The serif was adopted in pen letters probably from the same reasons that caused it to be added to the stone-cut letters, namely, that it definitely finished the free lines and enhanced the general squareness and finish of the letter's aspect. [Illustration: 1. ALPHABET AFTER SERLIO. RECONSTRUCTED BY ALBERT R. ROSS] [Illustration: 2. ALPHABET AFTER SERLIO. RECONSTRUCTED BY ALBERT R. ROSS] [Illustration: 3. WIDTH PROPORTIONS OF MODERN ROMAN CAPITALS. F.C.B.] An excellent model for constructing the Roman capitals in a standard form will be found in the beautiful adaptation by Mr. A. R. Ross, 1 and 2, from an alphabet of capitals drawn by Sebastian Serlio, an Italian architect, engraver and painter of the sixteenth century, who devised some of the most refined variants of the classic Roman letter. Serlio's original forms, which are shown in 39 and 40, were intended for pen or printed use; but in altering Serlio's scheme of proportions it will be observed that Mr. Ross [6] has partially adapted the letter for use in stone, and has further varied it in details, notably in serif treatment. In most modern stone-cut letters, however, the thin strokes would be made even wider than in this example, as in 14. Mr. Ross's adaptation shows excellently how far the classic letters do or do not fill out the theoretical square. Width proportions, which may be found useful in laying out lettering for lines of a given length, are shown in 3 in a more modern style of the Roman capital. In the classic Roman letter the cross-bar is usually in the exact center of the letter height, but in 3 the center line has been used as the bottom of the cross-bar in B, E, H, P, and R, and as the top of the cross-bar in A; and in letters like K, Y and X the "waist lines," as the meeting points of the sloping lines are sometimes called, have been slightly raised to obtain a more pleasant effect. The Roman alphabet, although the one most in use, is unfortunately the most difficult to compose into words artistically, as the spacing between the letters plays a great share in the result. The effect of even color over a whole panel is obtained by keeping as nearly as possible the same area of white between each letter and its neighbor; but the shape of this area will be determined in every case by the letters which happen to be juxtaposed. Individual letters may, however, be widened or condensed to help fill an awkward "hole" in a line of lettering;--the lower lobe of the B may be extended, the center bar of the E pulled out (in which case the F should be made to correspond), the lower slant stroke of the K may be used as a swash tail, and the R may have its tail extended or drawn closely back against the upright line, and so on. Indeed, each and [8] every letter of the alphabet is susceptible to such similar modifications in shape as may make it best suit the space left for it by its neighbors. Observe, for example, the spacing of the word MERITAE in 34, and notice how the tail of the R is lengthened to hold off the I because the T on the other side is perforce held away by its top. In the page of capitals, 124, by Mr. Bridwell, see also how the different spacing of the word FRENCH in the first and second lines is managed. In the advertisement, 123, also by Mr. Bridwell, note how the letters are spaced close or wide in order to produce a definite effect. The whole problem of spacing is, however, one of such subtle interrelation and composition, that it can only be satisfactorily solved by the artistic sense of the designer. Any rules which might be here formulated would prove more often a drawback than a help. Certain optical illusions of some of the Roman letter forms should be briefly mentioned. These illusions are caused by the failure of certain letters to impinge squarely with determining serifs against the demarking top and bottom guide lines. The round letters C, G, O and Q often seem to be shorter and smaller than the other characters in a word unless the outsides of their curves run both above and below the guide lines. For the same reason S should be sometimes slightly increased in height, though in this case the narrowness of the letter makes less increase necessary; and J, on account of its kern, is governed by the same conditions as S, save when letters with distinct serifs come closely against it at the bottom. Theoretically the right side of D would require similar treatment, but actually this is seldom found necessary. The pointed ends of [9] the letters V and W should, for similar optical reasons, be extended slightly below the bottom guide lines, the amount of this extension being determined by the letters on each side of them. In the A, the Roman letterer at first got over the optical difficulty caused by its pointed top by running this letter also higher than its neighbors; but he later solved the problem by shaping its apex as shown in I, thus apparently getting the letter into line with its companions while still obtaining a sufficient width of top to satisfy the eye. Because of its narrowness, I should generally be allowed more proportionate white space on either side of it than the wider letters. Some idea of the proportionate variations required to counteract the optical illusions of the letters above named may be obtained from the practice of type-founders. In making the designs for a fount of type, it has been customary to first draw each letter at a very large size. Taking an arbitrary height of twelve inches as a standard, the points of A and V were made to extend about three-quarters of an inch above or below the guides, the letter O was run over about half an inch at both top and bottom, and the points of the w were made to project about the same distance. In pen lettering, however, it is possible and preferable to adapt each letter more perfectly to its individual surroundings by judgment of the eye than to rely upon any hard and fast rules. Certain variations between the stone-cut forms of the Roman letters and their forms as drawn or printed should be understood before an intelligent adaptation of stone forms to drawn forms, or the opposite, is possible. When drawn or printed a character is seen in black against a [10] white ground with no illusory alterations of its line widths caused by varying shadows. In stone-cut letters, on the other hand, where the shadows rather than the outlines themselves reveal the forms, different limitations govern the problem. The thin lines of a letter to be V-sunk should generally be made slightly thicker in proportion to the wide lines than is the case with the pen-drawn letter, especially as the section is likely to be less deeply and sharply cut nowadays than in the ancient examples, for the workmanship of to-day seems to be less perfect and the materials used more friable. A slight direct sinkage before beginning to cut the V-sunk section is a useful method of [11] partially atoning for modern shallow cutting, as shadows more directly defining the outlines are thus obtained. The student should, however, be warned at the outset that all reproductions or tracings from rubbings of ancient stone-cut letters are apt to be more or less deceptive, as all the accidental variations of the outlines are exaggerated, and where the stone of the original has been chipped or worn away it appears in the reproduction as though the letter had been actually so cut. [Illustration: 4. DRAWING FOR INCISED ROMAN CAPITALS IN GRANITE. F.C.B] [Illustration: 5. PHOTOGRAPH FROM INCISED ROMAN CAPITALS SHOWN IN 4] [Illustration: 6. INCISED ROMAN CAPITALS. ARCH OF CONSTANTINE, ROME] The photograph of a panel of lettering from the upper part of the Arch of Constantine, Rome, shown in 6, well indicates the effect of shadows in defining the classic Roman letters; and the effect of shadows on an incised letter may be clearly observed by comparing 4 and 5, the former showing a drawing for an inscription in which the Serlio-Ross [14] alphabet was used as a basis for the letter forms, and the latter being a photograph of the same inscription, as cut in granite. It will be noted how much narrower the thin lines appear when defined only by shadow than in the drawing. The model used for the lettering on the frieze of the Boston Public Library, 7, which shows some interesting modern forms intended for cutting in granite, should be studied for the effect of the cast shadows; while 14, a redrawing of inscriptions on the Harvard Architectural Building, Cambridge, Mass., exhibits an excellent type of letter with widened thin lines for v-cutting in sandstone. [Illustration: 7. MODEL FOR INCISED ROMAN CAPITALS. McKIM, MEAD & WHITE] [Illustration: 8. ROMAN INCISED CAPITALS. FROM A RUBBING] The special requirements of the stone-cut forms for either incised or raised inscriptions are, however, quite apart from the subject of this book, and are too various to be taken up in greater detail here. It is important, nevertheless, that the designer should be reminded always to make allowance for the material in which a letter was originally executed. Otherwise, if exactly copied in other materials, he may find the result annoyingly unsatisfactory. [15] [Illustration: 9. ROMAN INCISED INSCRIPTION. BOLOGNA] [Illustration: 10. ROMAN INCISED INSCRIPTION. BOLOGNA] The examples of letters taken from Roman and Renaissance Italian monuments, shown in the pages of this chapter, will illustrate the variety of individual letter forms used by the Classic and Renaissance designers. The shape of the same letter will often be found to vary in the same inscription and even in apparently analogous cases. The designers evidently had in mind more than the directly adjacent words, and sometimes even considered [16] the relation of their lettering to objects outside the panel altogether. This is especially true in the work of the Italian Renaissance, which is almost invariably admirable in both composition and arrangement. [Illustration: 11. DETAIL FROM A ROMAN INCISED INSCRIPTION. F.C.B.] [Illustration: 12. ROMAN CAPITALS OF PEN FORMS CUT IN STONE. F.C.B.] Figures 8 to 22 show examples, drawn from various sources, which exhibit different treatments of the classic Roman letter forms. The differentiation will be found to lie largely in the widths of the letters themselves, and in the treatment of the serifs, angles, and varying widths of line. Figures 11 to 13 and 16 to 22 are redrawn from rubbings [17] of Roman incised inscriptions. Figures 16 and 17 show beautifully proportioned letters cut in marble with unusual care and refinement, considering the large size of the originals. A later Roman form of less refinement but of greater strength and carrying power, and for that reason better adapted to many modern uses, is shown in 18 and 19. In this case the original letters were cut about seven and [27] one-half inches high. The letters in 20 are curiously modern in character. Part of the panel of Roman lettering shown in 21 exhibits the use of a form very like that shown in 18 and 19. Figure 11 shows a detail composed in a quite representative fashion; while on the other hand figure 12 depicts a Roman letter of quite unusual character, and of a form evidently adapted from pen work, in which the shapes are narrow and crowded, while the lines are thickened as though they were of the classical square outline. The bits of old Roman inscriptions shown in 8 to 10 and in 13 are included to exhibit various different forms and treatments of classic capitals. [Illustration: 13. ROMAN CAPITALS FROM INSCRIPTIONS. FROM RUBBINGS. F.C.B.] [Illustration: 14. MODERN INCISED ROMAN CAPITALS IN SANDSTONE. ARCHITECTURAL BUILDING, CAMBRIDGE, MASS.] [Illustration: 15. LETTERS SHOWN IN ALPHABET 1-2, IN COMPOSITION. ALBERT R. ROSS] [Illustration: 16. CLASSIC CAPITALS CUT IN MARBLE. ROMAN FORUM. F.C.B.] [Illustration: 17. CLASSIC CAPITALS CUT IN MARBLE. ROMAN FORUM. F.C.B.] [Illustration: 18. CLASSIC CAPITALS CUT IN MARBLE. FROM RUBBINGS. F.C.B.] [Illustration: 19. CLASSIC CAPITALS CUT IN MARBLE. FROM RUBBINGS. F.C.B.] [Illustration: 20. PORTION OF ROMAN INSCRIPTION WITH SUPPLIED LETTERS. F.C.B.] [Illustration: 21. CLASSIC ROMAN INSCRIPTION IN MARBLE FROM A RUBBING. F.C.B.] [Illustration: 22. CLASSIC ROMAN INSCRIPTION IN STONE FROM A RUBBING. F.C.B.] After the fall of Rome and during the Dark Ages the practice of lettering, at least in so far as the Roman form was concerned, was distinctly retrograde. With the advent of the Renaissance, however, the purest classic forms were revived; and indeed the Italian Renaissance seems to have been the golden age of lettering. With the old Roman fragments of the best period constantly before their eyes the Renaissance artists of Italy seem to have grasped the true spirit of classicism; and their work somehow acquired a refinement and delicacy lacking in even the best of the Roman examples. As much of the Italian Renaissance lettering was intended for use on tombs or monuments where it might be seen at close range, and was cut in fine marble, the increased refinement may be due, at least in part, to different conditions. [Illustration: 23. ITALIAN RENAISSANCE INSCRIPTION IN MARBLE.] [Illustration: 24. ITALIAN RENAISSANCE MEDAL. PISANO.] [Illustration: 25. MODERN FRENCH MEDAL. O ROTY.] The panel from Raphael's tomb in the Pantheon, Rome, 30, shows a beautiful and pure form of typical Renaissance letter; and the composition of the panel is as well worthy [28] of careful study as are the letter forms. Figure 34, devised from a tomb in Santa Croce, portrays a letter not only beautiful in itself, but one which, with two minor changes (for the top bar of the T might advantageously be shortened to allow its neighbors to set closer, and the M might be finished at the top with a serif, after the usual fashion), is exactly applicable to the purposes of the modern draughtsman. This type of letter appears to best advantage when used in such panel forms as those shown in the rubbing from the Marsuppini tomb, 31, and in the floor slab from the same church, 32. Two very refined examples, 28 and 29, also from slabs in Santa Croce, Florence, date from about the same period. The latter exhibits the alphabet itself, and the former shows a similar letter form as actually used. The letters in 33, redrawn from rubbings from the Marsuppini tomb, are shown for comparison with the rubbing itself, which is reproduced in smaller size in 31. Taken together, plates 30, 31 and 32 will fairly represent not only the usual fashion of composing Renaissance panels, but capital forms which illustrate some of the most excellent work of this period. [30] A very different and interesting type of letter was used on many of the best medals of the Italian Renaissance (see 24), which has been recently adapted and employed by modern medal designers in France, as exhibited in figure 25. Although absolutely plain, it is, when properly composed, much more effective in the service for which it was intended than a more elaborate and fussy form; and although sometimes adapted with good results to other uses, it is particularly appropriate for casting in metal. Similar forms rendered in pen and ink are shown in 26. [Illustration: 26. CAPITALS ADAPTED FROM RENAISSANCE MEDALS. F. C. B.] [Illustration: 27. SPANISH RENAISSANCE ALPHABET. JUAN De YCIAR, 1550] [Illustration: 28. RENAISSANCE INLAID MEDALLION. FROM A RUBBING. F. C. B.] [Illustration: 29. ITALIAN RENAISSANCE CAPITALS. SANTA CROCE. F. C. B.] Figures 27, and 35 to 41 show various pen or printed forms of capital letters redrawn from the handiwork of Renaissance masters. The capital letters shown in 27 are unusually beautiful, and their purity of form is well [31] displayed in the outline treatment. Perhaps the best known standard example of a Renaissance pen-drawn letter is that by Tagliente, reproduced in 35 and 36. In spite of their familiarity it has seemed impossible to omit the set of capitals, with variants, by Albrecht Dürer, 37 and 38; for Dürer's letters were taken as a basis by nearly all such Renaissance designers of lettering as Geoffrey Tory, Leonardo da Vinci, etc. It should be observed in the Dürer [32] alphabet that among the variant forms of individual letters shown, one is usually intended for monumental use, while another exhibits pen treatment in the characteristic swelling of the round letters, etc. [Illustration: 30. ITALIAN RENAISSANCE PANEL FROM RAPHAEL'S TOMB. PANTHEON ROME.] [Illustration: 31. ITALIAN RENAISSANCE INSCRIPTION. MARSUPPINI TOMB, FLORENCE.] [Illustration: 32. ITALIAN RENAISSANCE INSCRIPTION FLOOR SLAB IN SANTA CROCE, FLORENCE.] Serlio's alphabet, 39 and 40, should be compared with Mr. Ross's modification of it, reproduced in 1 and 2. The alphabet shown in 41 is a somewhat expanded form of classic capital, contrasting markedly in various respects with more typical forms. [Illustration: 33. ITALIAN RENAISSANCE CAPITALS. MARSUPPINI TOMB. F. C. B.] [Illustration: 34. ITALIAN RENAISSANCE CAPITALS FROM RUBBINGS. F. C. B.] [Illustration: 35. ITALIAN RENAISSANCE CAPITALS. G. A. TAGLIENTE, 1524] [Illustration: 36. ITALIAN RENAISSANCE CAPITALS. G. A. TAGLIENTE, 1524] [Illustration: 37. GERMAN RENAISSANCE CAPITALS. ALBRECHT DÜRER, 1525] [Illustration: 38. GERMAN RENAISSANCE CAPITALS. ALBRECHT DÜRER, 1525] [Illustration: 39. ITALIAN RENAISSANCE CAPITALS. SERLIO, 16TH CENTURY.] [Illustration: 40. ITALIAN RENAISSANCE CAPITALS. SERLIO, 16TH CENTURY.] [Illustration: 41. GERMAN RENAISSANCE CAPITALS. URBAIN W�SS, 16th CENTURY.] [45] A practically unlimited number of other examples might have been included to show various capital forms of Renaissance letters; but the specimens chosen will adequately illustrate all the more distinctive and refined types of the individual letters. [Illustration: 42. ITALIAN RENAISSANCE PANEL, FLORENCE. C. F. BRAGDON] Before, during and after the Renaissance movement many local and extraneous influences temporarily modified the forms of the Roman letters. There are, for instance, numerous examples of lettering in which Byzantine and Romanesque traits are strongly apparent, such as the free manipulation of the letter forms in order to make them fit into given lines and spaces. The drawing of the panel over the doorway of the Badia, Florence, 42, notable for the characteristic placing and composition of the letters, will serve as a case in point. This example is further interesting because it shows how the Uncial form of the letter was beginning to react and find a use in stone--a state of affairs which at first glance might seem anomalous, for the Uncial letter was distinctly a pen-drawn form; but it was discovered that its rounder forms made it particularly useful for inscribing stones which were likely to chip or sliver, in carving which it was consequently desirable to avoid too acute angles. The Roman letter underwent various salient modifications [46] at the hands of the scribes of extra-Italian nations. We find very crude variants of the Roman letter, dating hundreds of years after the Roman form had reached its highest development; and, on the other hand, some very beautiful and individual national variants were produced. The continual interchange of manuscripts among the nations on the continent of Europe probably explains the more conventional character and strong general resemblance of most of the early Continental work; but the scribes of insular England, less influenced by contemporary progress and examples, produced forms of greater individuality (see 46, 47, 48). In Ireland, letter forms originally derived from early Roman models were developed through many decades with no ulterior influences, and resulted in some wonderfully distinctive and beautiful variations of the Roman letters, [47] though the beauty of these Irish examples can only be faintly suggested by reproductions limited to black and white, and without the decorations of the originals. [Illustration: 43. MODERN TITLE (compare 46). B. G. GOODHUE] [Illustration: 44. MODERN TITLE (compare 49). WALTER CRANE] [Illustration: 45. TITLE IN EARLY ENGLISH CAPITALS. W. E. NESFIELD] Figures 43 and 44 illustrate, respectively, modern employments of such strongly characteristic letters as those shown in 46 and 49. From these ancient examples the designers have evolved letters suitable to the character of their work. In 44 Mr. Crane has engrafted upon a form quite personal to himself a characteristic detail of treatment borrowed from the letter shown in 49. Figure 45 shows a similar and modernized employment of a standard form of Uncial capital. [Illustration: 46. ANGLO SAXON CAPITALS. 6th CENTURY] [Illustration: 47. ANGLO SAXON CAPITALS. 7th CENTURY] [Illustration: 48. ANGLO-SAXON CAPITALS. EARLY 10th CENTURY] [Illustration: 49. EARLY ENGLISH CAPITALS. 16th CENTURY] [52] * * * * * CHAPTER II MODERN ROMAN LETTERS The small or "minuscule" letter that we now use in all printed books attained its modern and definitive form only after the invention of printing. The first printed books were made to imitate, as closely as possible, the handwritten work of the scribes of the early fifteenth century, and as printing was first done in Germany, the earliest book types were those modeled upon German scripts, somewhat similar to that shown in 141, and their condensed or blackletter variants. The Italian printers, of a more classical taste, found the German types somewhat black and clumsy; for though Gothic characters were also used in Italy, they had become lighter and more refined there. The Italians, therefore, evolved a new form of type letter, based upon the _Italian_ pen letters then in use, which though fundamentally Gothic in form had been refined by amalgamation with an earlier letter known as the "Caroline", from its origin under the direction of Charlemagne. The "Caroline" was in its turn an imitation of the Roman "Half-uncial." The close relationship of the first small type letter forms in Italy with the current writing hand of the best Italian scribes is well indicated by the legend that the "Italic," or sloped small letter, was taken directly from the handwriting of Petrarch. The new Italian types, in which classic capitals were combined with the newly evolved minuscule [53] letters, were called "Roman" from the city of their origin, and sprang into almost immediate popularity, spreading from Italy into England, France and Spain. In Germany, on the other hand, the national blackletter form persisted, and is still in use to-day. The minuscule "Roman" letters thus evolved were developed to their most perfect individual forms by the master-printers of Venice; and it is to the models which they produced that we must revert to-day when we attempt to devise or reproduce an elegant small letter of any conservative form. The modern pen draughtsman should bear in mind, however, that, perfect as such forms of letters may be for the uses of the printer, the limitations of type have necessarily curtailed the freedom and variety of their serif and swash lines, and that therefore, though accepting their basic forms, he need not be cramped by their restrictions, nor imitate the unalterable and sometimes awkwardly inartistic relations of letter to letter for which he finds precedents in the printed page. Indeed, the same general rules for spacing and the same freedom in the treatment of the serifs, kerns and swash lines are quite as applicable to pen-drawn small letters as to the capital forms. The only true path of progress lies in this freedom of treatment; and if the same fertile artists of the Renaissance who have bequeathed to us such beautiful examples of their unfettered use of the capital had used the minuscule also, we should undoubtedly possess small letters of far more graceful and adaptable forms than those which we now have. [Illustration: 50. SCHEME FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF ROMAN SMALL LETTERS. F. C. B.] [Illustration: 51. SCHEME FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF ROMAN SMALL LETTERS. F. C. B.] In 50 and 51 may be found an attempt to formulate a scheme to assist in the reconstruction of an alphabet of Roman small letters, after somewhat the same fashion as [56] that devised for the Roman capitals by Mr. Ross, in 1 and 2. A small-letter diagram must, for obvious reasons, be less exact and detailed than one for the more defined capital form; but the diagram given will serve to determine sufficiently the main outlines and proportions. In their shapes the letters shown in 50 and 51 adhere fairly closely to the best type forms of the small letter; and the drawing will serve, further, to show the space generally allowed by modern founders between one lower-case letter and another when set into type words. This spacing is based on the m of the fount employed. The open space between all but k, w and y (in which the outlines of the letters themselves hold them further away from their neighbors) and the round letters being the space between the upright strokes of the m; an interval represented in the diagram by a square and a half. The round letters, as has already been said in speaking of the capital forms, should be spaced nearer together; and it will be observed that they are only separated by one square in the diagram. Although suggestive, the rules which govern the spacing of types are not to be blindly followed by the pen letterer. In type, for instance, it would be impossible, for mechanical reasons, to allow the kerns of the f, j and y to project far over the body of the next letter, and in these letters the kerns consequently have either to be restrained or the letters spaced farther apart. In pen lettering, however, the designer is not restrained by such limitations, and his spacing of letters should be governed solely by the effect. The disposition of the accented lines in the small letters follow the same general rules that govern those of the capitals (see page 2); the only deviation being in the case of [57] the g, in which the shading of the bottom seems to have been determined largely by the effect upon the eye. It will be noticed in the diagram that the "ascenders" of the smaller letters rise about three squares to their extreme top points above the body of the letter; that the body of each letter is inclosed in a square that is three units high, and that the "descenders" fall but two squares below the letter body. These proportions are not by any means invariable, however, and indeed there is no fixed rule by which the proportions of ascenders and descenders to the body of the Roman minuscule may be determined. In some forms of the letter both are of the same length, and sometimes that length is the same as the body height of the letter. In general a better result is obtained by making both ascenders and descenders of less than the length of the body, and keeping the descenders shorter than the ascenders in about the proportion of two-fifths to three-fifths. Parallel lines of small letters cannot be spaced closer to each other than the ascenders and descenders will allow; the projections above and below the line are awkward, and interrupt the definite lines of demarkation at the top and bottom of the letter-bodies; the capitals necessarily used in connection with the small letters add to the irregularity of the line--all of which reasons combine to limit the employment of minuscule for formal or monumental uses. On the other hand, the small letter form is excellently adapted for the printed page, where the occasional capitals but tend to break the monotony, while the ascenders and descenders strongly characterize and increase the legibility of the letter forms. [Illustration: 52. SPANISH ROMAN LETTERS. PEN DRAWN. FRANCISCO LUCAS, 1577] [Illustration: 53. SPANISH ROMAN LETTERS. PEN DRAWN. FRANCISCO LUCAS, 1577] [Illustration: 54. SPANISH ITALIC LETTERS. PEN DRAWN. FRANCISCO LUCAS, 1577] [Illustration: 55. SPANISH ITALIC LETTERS. PEN DRAWN. FRANCISCO LUCAS, 1577] [Illustration: 56. ITALIAN SMALL LETTERS. J. F. CRESCI, 1560] [Illustration: 57. ENGLISH 17TH CENTURY INCISED LETTERS. FROM TOMBSTONES] [Illustration: 58. MODERN SMALL LETTERS. AFTER HRACHOWINA] [Illustration: 59. MODERN SMALL LETTERS. CLAUDE FAYETTE BRAGDON] [64] Figures 52 to 59 show several forms of small letter alphabets; those shown in 52 to 56 being taken from "Writing books" by Spanish and Italian writing masters. These writing masters often chose to show their skill by imitating type forms of letters with the pen, but though similar in the individual forms of the letters the written examples exhibit a freedom and harmony in composition impossible for type to equal, and therefore are immeasurably more interesting to the modern penman. Figure 61 illustrates a type form of minuscule which may be commended for study. Other examples of small letters by modern designers will be found in 105, 110, 118 and 131, where they are used in connection with their capital forms. [Illustration: 60. INSCRIPTION FROM ENGLISH SLATE TOMBSTONES, 1691. F. C. B.] [Illustration: 61. ROMAN AND ITALIC TYPE. FROM THE SPECIMEN BOOK OF WILLIAM CASLON, 1734] The minuscule alphabet by Mr. Claude Fayette Bragdon, 59, is a carefully worked-out form which in its lines closely follows a type face devised by Jenson, the celebrated Venetian printer who flourished toward the end of the sixteenth century. This example together with those shown in 50, 51 and 56 exhibits some conservative variations of the standard models for minuscule letters; and the same may be said of the modern type faces shown in 62, 63 and 64. The various other examples of the small-letter forms illustrated evidence how original and interesting modifications of conservative shapes may be evolved without appreciable loss of legibility. [Illustration: 62. MODERN ROMAN TYPE "MONTAIGNE". BRUCE ROGERS] [Illustration: 63. MODERN ROMAN TYPE "RENNER". THEO. L. DE VINNE] [Illustration: 64. MODERN ROMAN TYPE "MERRYMOUNT" BY B. G. GOODHUE] [Illustration: 65. MODERN ROMAN TYPE "CHELTENHAM" BY B. G. GOODHUE] Figure 61 shows the capital, small letter and italic forms of a type based on old Venetian models, cut by William Caslon in the early part of the eighteenth century, and ever [69] since known by his name. This face has comparatively recently been revived by modern type-founders; and though this revival has provided us with a text letter far superior to the forms previously in use, the modern imitation falls short of the beauty of Caslon's original, as may be seen by comparing the letters shown in 61, which are reproduced from Caslon's specimen-book, issued by him about the middle of the eighteenth century, with the type used in printing this volume, which is a good modern "Caslon." Figures 62 to 67 show some newly devised type faces, all designed by artists of reputation. Figure 62 illustrates a fount called the "Montaigne" which has been recently completed by Mr. Bruce Rogers for the Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., and cut under his immediate direction, with especial insistance upon an unmechanical treatment of serifs, etc. As a result the "Montaigne" is, for type, remarkable in its artistic freedom, and its forms are well worthy the study of the designer. Both its capitals and small letters suggest the purity of the Italian Renaissance shapes. The letters space rather farther apart than in most types, and the result makes for legibility. Although several other modern faces of type have been designed on much the same lines, notably one for The Dove's Press in England, the "Montaigne" seems the best of them all, because of its freedom, and its absolute divorce from the overdone, exaggerated, heavy-faced effects of the Morris styles of type. Mr. De Vinne of the De Vinne Press, New York City, has introduced a new type called the "Renner", 63, which was originally cut for some of the Grolier Club's publications. The letters were first photographed from a selected page of Renner's "Quadrigesimale," then [71] carefully studied and redrawn before the punches were cut. Mr. De Vinne has added small capitals and italics to the fount, as well as dotted letters to serve as substitutes for the italic for those who prefer them. The "Renner" type would have been more effective on a larger body; but for commercial usefulness it is generally deemed expedient to employ as small a body as the face of a type will allow. Mr. De Vinne notes, in this connection, that all the important types of the early printers were large, and that a fount designed to-day with regard only to its artistic effectiveness would be cast upon a large body and be of good size. Mr. Bertram G. Goodhue has designed two founts of Roman type, and is now at work on a Blackletter face. His first fount, cut for Mr. D. B. Updike, of the Merrymount Press, Boston, and known as the "Merrymount," is shown in 64. Intended for large pages and rough paper it necessarily shows to disadvantage in the example given, where the blackness and weight of the letters makes them seem clumsy, despite the refinement of their forms. [Illustration: 66. MODERN GREEK TYPE. SELWYN IMAGE] [Illustration: 67. MODERN ROMAN TYPE. C. R. ASHBEE] The "Cheltenham Old Style," 65, is the other Roman face recently designed by the same artist. It was cut for the Cheltenham Press of New York City; and embodies in its present form many ideas suggested by Mr. Ingalls Kimball of that press. Observe especially the excess in length of the ascenders over the descenders, and that the serifs have been reduced to the minimum. Contrary to the usual custom in type cutting, the round letters do not run above or below the guide lines. The capitals compose excellently; but the small letters are too closely spaced and seem too square for the best effect, and weight has been obtained by so thickening the lines that much delicacy and variety has been lost. [72] The "Cheltenham Old Style" is, however, very legible when composed into words, and is effective on the page. Any attempt to get the effect of Blackletter with the Roman form is likely to result clumsily. The celebrated Roman faces designed by William Morris (too familiar to require reproduction here) are, despite their real beauty, over-black on the page, and awkward when examined in detail. While the stimulus Morris's work gave to typography was much needed at that time, the present reaction toward more refined faces is most gratifying. By precept and example Mr. Morris produced a salutary revolt against the too thin and light and mechanical type faces before in use, but he went too far in the opposite direction, and we are now certainly falling back upon a more desirable mean. Mr. Herbert P. Horne is at present designing a new fount of type for the Merrymount Press, Boston, to be [73] known as the "Mont' Allegro," which seems, from the designs so far as at present completed, likely to prove in some respects the most scholarly and severe of modern faces. The Greek type designed for the Macmillan Company of England, by Mr. Selwyn Image, 66, is of sufficient interest to be shown here, despite the fact that it is not strictly germane to our subject. In this face Mr. Image has [74] returned to the more classic Greek form, although the result may at first glance seem illegible to the reader familiar with the more common cursive letters. The type shown in 67 is a new English face designed by Mr. C. R. Ashbee for a prayerbook for the King. Interesting as it is, it seems in many ways too extreme and eccentric to be wholly satisfactory: the very metal of type would seem to postulate a less "tricky" treatment. It is interesting to attempt a discrimination between the various national styles of pen letters which the recently revived interest in the art of lettering is producing; and it is especially worth while to note that the activity seems, even in Germany, to be devoted almost exclusively to the development and variation of the Roman forms. It is noteworthy, too, after so long a period of the dull copying of bad forms, and particularly of bad type forms, that the modern trend is distinctly in the direction of freedom; though this freedom is more marked in French and German [75] than in English or American work. Hand in hand with this increased freedom of treatment has naturally come a clearer disclosure of the mediums employed; and indeed in much of the best modern work the designer has so far lent himself to his tools that the tools themselves have, in great measure, become responsible for the resulting letter forms. [76] Moreover modern designers are showing a welcome attention to minuscule letters, and it even seems possible that before long some small letter forms that shall be distinctively of the pen may be developed, and that the use of type models for minuscule pen letters will no longer be found necessary or commendable. [Illustration: 68. MODERN GERMAN CAPITALS. AFTER J. M. OLBRICH] [Illustration: 69. MODERN GERMAN CAPITALS. GUSTAVE LEMMEN] [Illustration: 70. MODERN GERMAN CAPITALS. AFTER ALOIS LUDWIG] [Illustration: 71. MODERN GERMAN CAPITALS. AFTER OTTO ECKMANN] Another noticeable tendency in modern lettering seems to be the gradual promotion of small letter forms to the dignity of capitals, (see 79 and 98 for examples) in much the same way as the Uncial letter and its immediate derivatives produced the present small letter. It is surely to be hoped that this movement may not lose vitality before it has had time to enrich us with some new and excellent forms. [Illustration: 72. MODERN GERMAN CAPITALS. OTTO HUPP] [Illustration: 73. MODERN GERMAN CAPITALS. JOSEPH PLÉCNIK] [Illustration: 74. MODERN GERMAN CAPITALS. AFTER FRANZ STUCK] [82] [Illustration: 75. MODERN GERMAN CAPITALS. F. C. B.] [Illustration: 76. MODERN GERMAN CAPITALS. AFTER BERNHARD PANKOK] [Illustration: 77. MODERN FRENCH POSTER. THEO. VAN RYSSELBERGHE] [Illustration: 78. MODERN FRENCH COVER. M. P. VERNEUIL] The influence of nationality is strongly shown in the modern lettering of all countries; and it is generally as easy to recognize a specimen as the work of a German, French, English, or American artist, respectively, no matter how individual he may be, as it is to tell the difference between the work of two different designers. The modern German seems to have an undeniable freshness of outlook on the Roman alphabet. He treats it with a freedom and variety and a certain disregard of precedent--induced, perhaps, by his schooling in Blackletter--that often produces delightful, though sometimes, be it added, direful results. But if the extreme and bizarre forms be thrown aside the designer may obtain suggestions of great benefit and value from the more restrained examples of German work. Many eminent German draughtsmen, whose work is all too little known in this country, are [84] using letters with the same distinction that has of late years marked their purely decorative work, as the specimens shown in 68 to 76 will evidence. Figures 68 and 75 show forms which are perhaps especially representative of the general modern tendency in German work and many German artists are using letters of very similar general forms to these although, of course, with individual variations. Figures 70 and 73 show two very original and pleasing styles, also markedly German. In spite of the national drift toward the Roman, much modern German lettering still takes the Gothic and Blackletter forms; and the specimen reproduced in 71 shows a curious combination of the Gothic, Uncial and Roman forms pervaded by the German spirit. The beautiful lettering in 72 seems to have been inspired from a stone-cut Uncial. Figure 74 shows an almost strictly Roman letter, and yet is as unmistakably German in handling as any of the other examples shown. [Illustration: 79. MODERN FRENCH LETTERS. AFTER M. P. VERNEUIL] [Illustration: 80. MODERN FRENCH POSTER. P. BONNARD] [Illustration: 81. MODERN FRENCH COVER. GEORGE AURIOL] [Illustration: 82. MODERN FRENCH CAPITALS. ALPHONS M. MUCHA] [86] Among the examples of modern French lettering, those shown in 78 and 79 are perhaps the most typical of the modern school. This style of letter was given its most consistent form by the joint efforts of M. P. Verneuil and some of the pupils of Eugène Grasset, after whose letter it was originally modeled. Grasset freely varies his use of this form in his different designs, as in 85, but founds many of his best specimens upon the earlier French models. [Illustration: 83. MODERN FRENCH LETTERED PAGE. GEORGE AURIOL] [Illustration: 84. MODERN FRENCH LETTERS "CURSIVE". GEORGE AURIOL] [Illustration: 85. MODERN FRENCH COVER DESIGN. EUGÈNE GRASSET] [Illustration: 86. MODERN ENGLISH CAPITALS. WALTER CRANE] [88] M. George Auriol has extended the modern use of drawn letters by publishing a number of small books which he has handwritten throughout, although the form of letter he generally uses for this purpose is purely modern and not at all like the texts of the medieval scribes. M. Auriol's letter is beautifully clear, readable and original; "brushy" in its technique, yet suitable for rapid writing. He calls [91] it a "Cursive" letter, and has recently made designs for its use in type. The page shown in 83 is from the preface to a book of his well-known designs for monograms, and the entire text is written in this cursive form. The individual letters of this "Cursive" may be more easily studied in 84. The cover for "L'Image", 81, shows the same designer's use of a more conventional Roman form. The poster by M. Theo. van Rysselberghe shown in 77 exhibits two interesting forms of French small letters that are worthy of study and suggestive for development. M. Alphons Mucha employs a distinctive letter, especially fitted to his technique, which he uses almost invariably, 82. Much recent French lettering inclines toward a certain formlessness, that, although sometimes admirable when regarded merely from the point of view of harmony with the design, has little value otherwise. A typical specimen of such formless lettering is that shown in the very charming [92] "Revue Blanche" poster, 80. Excellent when considered with the design, the lettering alone makes but an indifferent showing. The Italian designers of letters have not yet evolved any very distinctive national forms. In many ways Italian work resembles the German. It has less originality, but greater subtlety and refinement. [Illustration: 87. MODERN ENGLISH POSTER. WALTER CRANE] [Illustration: 88. MODERN ENGLISH CAPITALS. WALTER CRANE] [Illustration: 89. MODERN ENGLISH LETTERS. WALTER CRANE] [Illustration: 90. MODERN ENGLISH TITLE. JOSEPH W. SIMPSON] The strongest personality among modern British letterers is Mr. Walter Crane. Characteristic examples of his work are shown in 86, 87, 88 and 89. Although sometimes apparently careless and too often rough, his lettering has the merit and charm of invariably disclosing the instrument and the material employed. Mr. Crane is especially fond of an Uncial pen form, which he varies with masterful freedom. It may be mentioned in passing that he is perhaps the only designer who has been able to make the wrongly accented Q seem consistent (compare 86), or who has conquered its swash tail when the letter is accented in this unusual way. [93] Mr. Lewis F. Day has become a recognized authority on lettering, both through his writings and his handiwork. His great versatility makes it difficult to select a specimen which may be taken as characteristic of his work; but perhaps the lettering shown in 95 is as representative as any that could be chosen. Among his designs the magazine cover, 93, is an unusually free and effective composition, and its letter forms possess the variety required to satisfy the eye when so much of the whole effect of the design depends upon them. [Illustration: 91. MODERN ENGLISH POSTER. JOSEPH W. SIMPSON] [Illustration: 92. MODERN ENGLISH COVER. WILLIAM NICHOLSON] [Illustration: 93. MODERN ENGLISH COVER. LEWIS F. DAY] [Illustration: 94. MODERN ENGLISH TITLE. GORDON CRAIG] The style of lettering ordinarily employed by Mr. Selwyn Image--a style of marked originality and distinction--is well exhibited in the design for a book cover, 98. The name of Mr. Charles Ricketts is intimately associated with the Vale Press. The detail of the title-page reproduced in 100 shows a characteristic bit of his work. Mr. J. W. Simpson, one of the younger British draughtsmen, uses a graceful and interestingly linked Roman form shown in the panel from a title-page, 90. The bizarre [95] letter by the same artist, 91, is fairly representative of a style recently come into vogue among the younger British draughtsmen, which is related to a form of letter brought into fashion by the new English school of designers on wood, among whom may be mentioned Mr. William Nicholson and Mr. Gordon Craig, both of whom have done lettering distinguished by its indication of the medium employed. Figure 92 shows Mr. Nicholson's favorite type of letter [96] fairly, and the style of Mr. Craig's work is suggested by the title for a book cover in 94. The book cover, 97, by Mr. Edmund H. New, shows variants of the Roman capital and minuscule forms, which closely adhere to classic models. Mr. Robert Anning Bell has done much distinctive lettering in intimate association with design. Figure 96 is fairly representative of his style of work. [Illustration: 95. MODERN ENGLISH CAPITALS. LEWIS F. DAY] [Illustration: 96. MODERN ENGLISH TITLE. ROBERT ANNING BELL] [Illustration: 97. MODERN ENGLISH COVER. EDMUND H. NEW] [Illustration: 98. MODERN ENGLISH COVER. SELWYN IMAGE] Such other British artists as Messrs. Alfred Parsons, James F. Sullivan, Hugh Thompson, Herbert Railton, Byam Shaw, H. Granville Fell and A. Garth Jones, although much better known for their designs than for their letters, [97] occasionally give us bits of lettering which are both unusual and excellent; but these bits are commonly so subordinated to the designs in which they are used and so involved with them as to be beyond the scope of the present book. [Illustration: 99. MODERN ENGLISH CAPITALS. ANONYMOUS] [Illustration: 100. MODERN ENGLISH CAPITALS. CHARLES RICKETTS] In illustrating the lettering of American artists it has been unfortunately found necessary to omit the work of many well-known designers, either because their usual style of lettering is too similar in fundamental forms to the work of some other draughtsman, or because the letters they commonly employ are not distinctive or individual. [Illustration: 101. MODERN AMERICAN TITLE. EDWIN A. ABBEY] [Illustration: 102. MODERN AMERICAN TITLE. ANONYMOUS] [Illustration: 103. MODERN AMERICAN COVER. EDWARD PENFIELD] Mr. Edwin A. Abbey is a notable example of an artist who has not disdained to expend both time and practice on such a minor art as lettering [100] that he might be able to letter his own designs, as the beautiful page, shown in 153 in the succeeding chapter, will sufficiently prove. The lettering of the title-page for Herrick's poems, 101, by the same draughtsman, is likewise excellent, being both original and appropriate. The letters in both these examples are modeled after old work, and both display an unusually keen grasp of the limitations and possibilities of the forms employed, especially in the former, 153, where the use of capitals to form words is particularly noteworthy, while in general composition and spacing the spirit of the letter used (compare 179) has been perfectly preserved. [Illustration: 104. MODERN AMERICAN CAPITALS. EDWARD PENFIELD] [Illustration: 105. MODERN AMERICAN SMALL LETTERS. EDWARD PENFIELD] [Illustration: 106. MODERN AMERICAN COVER DESIGN. H. VAN B. MAGONIGLE] [Illustration: 107. MODERN AMERICAN CAPITALS. H. VAN B. MAGONIGLE] Mr. Edward Penfield's work first attracted attention through the series of posters which he designed for 'Harper's Magazine' with unfailing fertility of invention for several years. During this time he evolved a style of letter which exactly fitted the character of his work. The cover design shown in 103 displays his characteristic letter in actual use; while the two interesting pages of large and small letter alphabets by him, 104 and 105, show the latest and best development of these letter forms. The heading [102] shown in 102 exhibits a slightly different letter, evidently based upon that used by Mr. Penfield. The capitals by Mr. H. Van B. Magonigle, shown in 107, are derived from classic Roman forms but treated with a modern freedom that makes them unusually attractive. They appear, however, to better advantage in actual use in conjunction with a design, 106, than when shown in the necessarily restricted form of an alphabetical page panel. [Illustration: 108. MODERN AMERICAN CAPITALS. B. G. GOODHUE] Mr. Bertram G. Goodhue, whose designs for type have already been mentioned, is a [104] most facile and careful letterer. Although his name is more intimately associated with Blackletter (examples of his work in that style are shown in the following chapter), he has devised some very interesting variations of the Roman forms, such as that used in 108, as an example. [Illustration: 109. MODERN AMERICAN TITLE. WILL BRADLEY] Mr. Will Bradley uses a very individual style of the Roman capital, often marked by a peculiar exaggeration in the width of the round letters, contrasted with narrow tall forms in such letters as E, F and L. Mr. Bradley has become more free and unconventional in his later work, but his specimens have always been noteworthy for beauty of line and spacing; see 111. Figure 109 shows his employment of a brush-made variant of the Roman form; [107] and 110 shows both capitals and small letters drawn in his earlier and less distinctive style. [Illustration: 110. MODERN AMERICAN CAPITALS AND SMALL LETTERS. WILL BRADLEY (1896)] [Illustration: 111. MODERN AMERICAN COVER. WILL BRADLEY] [Illustration: 112. MODERN AMERICAN TICKET. A. J. IORIO] The ticket, 112, designed by Mr. A. J. Iorio, suggests what our theatre tickets might be made. In spacing and general arrangement of the letters and the freedom of treatment, Mr. Iorio's work may be compared with much of the [110] work of Mr. Bradley. Figure 113 shows a modern Roman capital form modeled upon the work of Mr. Bradley. [Illustration: 113. MODERN AMERICAN CAPITALS. AFTER WILL BRADLEY] [Illustration: 114. MODERN AMERICAN CAPITALS. MAXFIELD PARRISH] [Illustration: 115. MODERN AMERICAN TITLE. MAXFIELD PARRISH] [Illustration: 116. MODERN AMERICAN CAPITALS. A. B. Le BOUTILLIER] Mr. Maxfield Parrish commonly employs a widely spaced letter, fashioned closely after the old German models, beautiful in its forms, and displaying the individuality of the artist in its composition. The form and use of Mr. Parrish's usual letter is well shown in 114; and the title from a book cover design, 115, shows yet another example of the letter in service. The lettering of Mr. A. B. Le Boutillier is always notable for spacing and composition. Figures 117 and 118 exhibit excellent capital and small-letter forms (which, by the way, were drawn at the same size as the reproductions); and [111] the two other specimens of Mr. Le Boutillier's work, 116 and 119, which are reproduced to show his letters in use, will be found exemplars for spacing, composition, balance of weight and color, and, in the latter drawing, for harmony between the lettering and the treatment of the design. [Illustration: 117. MODERN AMERICAN CAPITALS. A. B. Le BOUTILLIER] [Illustration: 118. MODERN AMERICAN SMALL LETTERS. A. B. Le BOUTILLIER] [Illustration: 119. MODERN AMERICAN POSTER. A. B. LE BOUTTILLIER] [Illustration: 120. AMERICAN BOOK-PLATE. CLAUDE FAYETTE BRAGDON] The form of letter preferred by Mr. Claude Fayette Bragdon is represented by the page of small letters, 59, which, as we have already said, are closely modeled on the type alphabet designed by Jenson. In Mr. Bragdon's version they represent an excellently useful and conservative style of small letter. They are shown in use, with harmonious capitals and italics, in the 'Literature' cover design, 121. In the small book-plate, reproduced in 120, Mr. [112] Bragdon has used a very graceful variant, especially noteworthy for its freedom of serif treatment; and in the letter-heading, 122, he has employed an attractive capital of still different character. [Illustration: 121. MODERN AMERICAN TITLE. C. F. BRAGDON] [Illustration: 122. MODERN AMERICAN LETTER-HEAD. C. F. BRAGDON] Mr. H. L. Bridwell has originated the singularly excellent letter shown in 124, which is founded upon some of the modern French architectural forms. He uses it with great freedom and variety in spacing according to the effect that he desires to produce. In one instance he will jam the letters together in an oddly crowded line, while in another we find them spread far apart, but always with excellent results as regards the design as a whole. Something of this variation of spacing is shown in 123. In the numerous theatrical posters which Mr. Bridwell has designed--and which too seldom bear his signature--he employs a great variety of lettering. Sometimes, of course, the freedom of his work is restricted by the conservatism of clients; but often the letter forms here illustrated add to the style and distinction of his designs. [Illustration: 123. MODERN AMERICAN COVER. H. L. BRIDWELL] [Illustration: 124. MODERN AMERICAN CAPITALS. H. L. BRIDWELL] [Illustration: 125. MODERN AMERICAN CAPITALS. FRANK HAZENPLUG] [Illustration: 126. MODERN AMERICAN CAPITALS. FRANK HAZENPLUG] [116] [Illustration: 127. MODERN AMERICAN COVER. FRANK HAZENPLUG] Mr. Frank Hazenplug, the author of much clever decorative lettering, has evolved a very black and striking style of capital that still retains grace. Figures 125 and 126 show two sets of Mr. Hazenplug's capitals. A book cover on which he has used small letters in an original way is reproduced in 127. Figure 129 shows the employment of a heavy-faced letter similar to that exhibited in alphabet 126, but suggestive in its serif treatment of Mr. Penfield's letter. [Illustration: 128. MODERN AMERICAN TITLE. EDWARD EDWARDS] Mr. Edward Edwards employs a letter, 128, which, though rather conventional in its lines, is noteworthy for its treatment of serifs and its spacing. Mr. Guernsey Moore's letters shown in 130 are naturally better both in intrinsic form, spacing and composition than the widely used "Post Old Style" types which were based upon them. The large and small letters displayed in 133 show a form that, at the present writing, seems to be in considerable favor. It is, however, too extreme, and its peculiarities are too exaggerated to allow it to become a permanent style. But like the extravagant German forms [117] already referred to, it has also apparent advantages; and a few of its characteristics are not unlikely to survive in some more conservative adaptation. [Illustration: 129. MODERN AMERICAN COVER. FRANK HAZENPLUG] [Illustration: 130. MODERN AMERICAN TITLE. GUERNSEY MOORE] [Illustration: 131. MODERN AMERICAN TITLE. HARRY E. TOWNSEND] The letter by Mr. Harry Everett Townsend shown in 131 is most distinctive in effect--a more refined form of the rapidly drawn character shown in 138. Mr. Howard Pyle often gives us charming bits of lettering in connection with his illustrations. The heading, 132, shows a characteristic line. Most of Mr. Pyle's lettering is "Colonial" or Georgian in style, though the initials he uses with it are generally rendered in the fashions of the early German woodcuts, somewhat similar to Holbein's initials for the "Dance of Death." [Illustration: 132. MODERN AMERICAN HEADING. HOWARD PYLE] One of the most original of American letterers is Mr. Orson Lowell. Usually closely conjoined with design, his lettering does not show to its full value when reproduced apart from its surroundings, for much of its charm depends [118] upon its harmony in line and color with the accompanying drawing Mr. Lowell has taken the same basic forms as those used by Mr. Penfield, and has played with them until he has developed a series of most ingenious and fanciful letters. The examples reproduced in 136 and 137 but inadequately show a few of the many forms that Mr. Lowell employs with remarkable fertility of invention and delightfully decorative effect of line. The small letters, 135, shown opposite his capitals, 134, are not by Mr. Lowell, nor are they in any way equal to his own small letters, of which regrettably few appear in his published work; but they may serve to exhibit a similar method of treating a much more conventional form of minuscule than Mr. [122] Lowell would himself use for the same purpose. Despite its unconventionally, however, an examination of Mr. Lowell's work will show that each letter has been developed to fit the space between its neighbors and to balance and relieve their forms; and that, fanciful as some of the shapes may appear, they have invariably been knowingly worked out, and always appear harmonious and fit. [Illustration: 133. MODERN AMERICAN LETTERS. F. C. B.] [Illustration: 134. MODERN AMERICAN CAPITALS. AFTER ORSON LOWELL] [Illustration: 135. MODERN AMERICAN SMALL LETTERS. F. C. B.] [Illustration: 136. MODERN AMERICAN TITLES. ORSON LOWELL] The pages of letters shown in 138, 139 and 140 are intended to suggest forms which, while suitable for rapid use, yet possess some individuality and character. The so-called "Cursive" letter by Mr. Maxfield Parrish, 140, is particularly effective for such informal use--in fact, its very charm lies in its informality--and is quite as distinctively "pen-ny" as any of Mr. Crane's work of the same kind. A glance over the field of modern examples will disclose, first, a general tendency to break away from the older type models in pen-drawn forms; second, a growing partiality for the small letter, and third, a sporadic disposition to use capital and minuscule forms interchangeably. The first [123] trend may be noticed by comparing the letter shown in 132, which is closely modeled after type, with that shown in 136, in which an opposite method is followed, and the letters are so treated in handling form and color as to best harmonize with the design itself. The possibilities latent in the small letter are indicated by such interesting uses as those shown in figures 77, 89, 98, 101, 111, 112, 121, 127, 130 and 131. American designers seem to be especially interested in the development of the small letter. Of the intermingling of the capital and small letter shapes examples may be found in figures 71, 75, 77, 78, 79, 82, 83, 84, 98, 127 and 134. In these examples it will be noted that the minuscules seem to be more easily transformed into capitals than do the capitals into minuscules; only a few of the latter appearing to lend themselves harmoniously to the small letter guise. [Illustration: 137. MODERN AMERICAN TITLE. ORSON LOWELL] [Illustration: 138. MODERN AMERICAN LETTERS, FOR RAPID USE. F. C. B.] [Illustration: 139. MODERN AMERICAN ITALIC, FOR PLANS, ETC. C. F. BRAGDON] [Illustration: 140. MODERN AMERICAN LETTERS. MAXFIELD PARRISH] Such tendencies as these, if allowed to develop slowly and naturally, are certain to evolve new forms--a process of modification which it should be fully as instructive and entertaining to observe as any of the historical changes that have already become incorporated into our present letter shapes. [127] * * * * * CHAPTER III GOTHIC LETTERS The name "Gothic" applies rather to the spirit than to the exact letter forms of the style. The same spirit of freedom and restlessness characterises the architecture of the period wherein this style of letter was developed; and Gothic letters are in many ways akin to the fundamental forms of Gothic architecture. Their effect is often tiring and confusing to the eye because of the constant recurrence of very similar forms with different letter meanings; yet this very similarity is the main cause of the pleasing aspect of a page of Gothic lettering. Unlike the Roman letters, which attained a complete and final development, Gothic letters never reached authoritative and definitive forms, any more than did Gothic architecture. Every individual Gothic letter has several quasi-authoritative shapes, and all of these variants may be accepted, as long as they display an intelligent conception of the spirit of the style as a whole. Because of this lack of finality, however, it is impossible to analyze each of the letter forms as we were able to do with the Roman alphabet in Chapter I; yet this very variability and variety constitute at once the peculiar beauty of Gothic and the great difficulty of so drawing it as to preserve its distinctive character. Any letter of Gothic form is usually called either "Gothic" or "Blackletter" indiscriminately, but this use is inexact [128] and confusing. The term "Blackletter" should, strictly, be applied only to letters in which the amount of black in the line overbalances the white; and the proper application of the title should be determined rather by this balance or weight of the letter than by its form. [Illustration: 141. ITALIAN ROUND GOTHIC SMALL LETTERS. 1500] The original Gothic letter was a gradual outgrowth from the round Roman Uncial. Its early forms retained all the roundness of its Uncial parent; but as the advantages of a condensed form of letter for the saving of space became manifest, (parchment was expensive and bulky) and the [131] beauty of the resulting blacker page was noticed, the round Gothic forms were written closer and narrower, the ascenders and descenders were shortened, with marked loss of legibilty, that the lines of lettering might be brought closer together, until a form was evolved in which the black overbalanced the white--the Blackletter which still survives in the common German text of to-day. Thus, though a Gothic letter may not be a Blackletter, a Blackletter is _always_ Gothic, because it is constructed upon Gothic lines. On the other hand, a Roman Blackletter would be an obvious impossibility. The very essential and fundamental quality of a Roman letter lies in the squareness or circularity of its skeleton form. For clearness and convenience, then, the following discrimination between the terms Gothic and Blackletter will be adopted in this treatise: When a letter is Gothic but not a Blackletter it will be called "Round Gothic"; when it is primarily a Blackletter it will be termed "Blackletter," the latter name being restricted to such compressed, narrow or angular forms as the small letters shown in 144, 147 and 148. The name "Round Gothic" will be applied only to the earlier forms, such as those shown in 141 and 142. Such a distinction has not, I believe, hitherto been attempted; but the confusion which otherwise results makes the discrimination seem advisable. The three pages of examples, figures 141, 142 and 143, exhibit the characteristic forms and standard variations of the Round Gothic. In lieu of any detailed analysis of these letter shapes, it may perhaps be sufficient to say that they were wholly and exactly determined by the position of the quill, which was held rigidly upright, after the fashion [132] already described in speaking of Roman lettering; and that the letters were always formed with a round swinging motion of hand and arm, as their forms and accented lines clearly evidence; for the medieval scribes used the Round Gothic as an easy and legible handwritten form, and linked many of the letters. [Illustration: 142. ITALIAN ROUND GOTHIC SMALL LETTERS. 16th CENTURY] [Illustration: 143. SPANISH ROUND GOTHIC LETTERS. FRANCISCO LUCAS, 1577] [Illustration: 144. GERMAN BLACKLETTER CONSTRUCTION. ALBRECHT DÜRER] Figures 158, 170, 172 and 173 show some capitals adapted for use with these Round Gothic letters; but the beginner should be extremely wary of attempting to use any Gothic capitals alone to form words, as their outlines are not suited for inter-juxtaposition. Occasionally they may thus be used, and used effectively, as is shown, for instance, in the beautiful page of lettering by Mr. Edwin A. Abbey, 153; but so successful a solution is rare, and implies an intimate knowledge of the historic examples and use of Gothic lettering. The late Gothic or Blackletter is condensed and narrowed in the extreme. No circles are employed in the construction of the small letters, which have angular and generally acute corners. As in all pen-drawn letters, the broad lines are made on the down right-sloping strokes, and the narrow lines are at right angles to these. Blackletter shapes, like those of the Round Gothic, cannot, as has been said, be defined by any set of general rules; the intrinsic quality of all Gothic letters almost demands a certain freedom of treatment that would transgress any laws that could be formulated. Indeed the individual forms should always be subservient to the effect of the line or page. Observe in almost every example shown how the form of the same letter constantly varies in some minor detail. The drawing by Albrecht Dürer, reproduced in 144, will, [134] however, serve to show the construction of an excellent Blackletter, which may fairly be considered as typical. [Illustration: 145. GERMAN BLACKLETTERS. FROM MANUSCRIPTS] [Illustration: 146. GERMAN BLACKLETTERS WITH ROUNDED ANGLES] The first essential of a good Blackletter line or page is that it shall be of a uniform color. Unlike the Roman, the Blackletter form does not permit that one word be wider spaced than others in the same panel. The amount of white left between the several letters should be as nearly as possible the same throughout, approximately the same as the space between the perpendicular strokes of the minuscule letters themselves. Usually, the less the white space the better will be the general effect of the page, for its beauty depends much upon a general blackness of aspect;--and let it be noted in passing that, for this reason, it is doubly difficult to judge of the final effect of a Blackletter page from any outlined pencil sketch. Even in the cases of those capital letters that extend both above and below the guide lines it will be found possible to so adjust the spaces [135] and blacks as not to interrupt the general uniformity of color, and it is sometimes advisable to fill awkward blanks by flourishes; although flourishing, even in Blackletter, is an amusement that should be indulged in cautiously. As a general rule the more solidly black a panel of Blackletter is the better (a principle too often disregarded in the modern use of the form); though on the other hand, the less legible the individual letters will become. The designer should therefore endeavor to steer a middle course, making his panel as black as he can without rendering the individual letters illegible. No style permits more of liberty in the treatment of its separate letter forms than the Blackletter. The same letter may require a different outline at the beginning of a word than in the middle or at the end. The ascenders and descenders may be drawn so short as hardly to transcend the guide lines of the minuscules, or may grow into [136] flourishes up and down, to the right or to the left, to fill awkward blanks. Indeed so variable are these forms that in ancient examples it is often difficult to recognize an individual letter apart from its context. The two pages drawn by Mr. Goodhue, 188 and 189, deserve careful study as examples of modern use of the Blackletter. It will be observed that almost as many variants of each letter are employed as the number used would permit, thus giving the panel variety and preventing any appearance of monotony or rigidity. Notice the freedom and variety of the swash lines in the capitals, and yet that each version is quite as graceful, logical and original as any of its variants. The examples of old lettering reproduced in figures 147, 148 and 149, together with the drawings by Mr. Goodhue, will indicate the proper spacing of Blackletter; but in most of the pages here devoted to illustrating the individual forms the letters have been spaced too wide for their proper effect that each separate shape might be shown distinctly. The style appears at its best in compositions which fill a panel of more or less geometrical form, as, for example, the beautiful title-page reproduced in 147. Could anything be more delightful to the eye than its rich blackness, energetic lines, and refreshing virility? In this design surely we have a specimen that, from the proportion and balance of its blacks, is more effective than anything which could have been accomplished by the use of the more rigid Roman letter; but despite its many beauties it suffers from the inherent weakness of the individual letter forms,--it is more effective than readable! [Illustration: 147. ITALIAN BLACKLETTER TITLE-PAGE. JACOPUS FORESTI, 1497] [Illustration: 148. GERMAN BLACKLETTER PAGE. ALBRECHT DÜRER, 1515] [Illustration: 149. GERMAN MEMORIAL BRASS. MEISSEN, 1510] [Illustration: 150. MODERN AMERICAN COVER IN BLACKLETTER. B. G. GOODHUE] Another excellent example of the old use of Blackletter is the page from the prayerbook of the Emperor Maximilian, [138] shown in 148, in which observe again the variety of the individual letter forms. Figure 149 shows the use of a Blackletter on an admirable monumental brass, which is reputed to have been designed by Albrecht Dürer. A similar Blackletter form, also from a brass, is shown at larger scale in 186. [139] Any of the minuscule forms of Blackletter which have been illustrated may be used with the Gothic capitals of figures 164-5, 166, 177, 179, 185, 188-9; or with such Uncial capitals as are illustrated in 155 to 162; care being taken, of course, that these capitals are made to agree in style and weight with the small letters chosen. Although Uncial capitals are historically more closely allied with the Round Gothic, we have abundant precedent for their use with the minuscule Blackletter in many of the best medieval specimens. When the Gothic Uncial capitals were cut in stone and marble there was naturally a corresponding change in character, as is shown in the Italian examples illustrated in 160 [140] and 161. These examples, which are reproduced from rubbings, exhibit the characteristic stone cut forms very clearly. A Gothic Uncial alphabet redrawn from a German brass is illustrated in 162. The group of specimens from 154 to 159 exhibit the chronological growth of the Uncial capitals, which were used, as has been said, with the various small Blackletter forms, though they were also used alone to form words, as is shown in 160. The historical progression in these Uncial examples is most interesting; and, allowing for the variations of national temperament, traces itself connectedly enough. Figures 154 to 159 are pen forms, while 160 to 163 are from stone or metal-cut letters. Figures 164 to 166 show alphabets of Gothic pen-drawn capitals that will serve as a basis for such adaptations as are shown in the modern examples 152 and 153. Figures 167 to 169 show a more elaborate but an excellent and typical variety of this form of capital, which is one of the most beautiful and distinctive of Gothic letters. Shorn of its fussy small lines the main skeleton is eminently virile; and, though extremely difficult to draw, it cannot be surpassed for certain limited uses. Figures 170 to 173 exhibit a group of Gothic capitals more or less allied in character and all pen letters. Figures 174 to 176 show forms similar to those of the previous group, but adapted for use in various materials. [Illustration: 151. MODERN GERMAN BLACKLETTER. WALTER PUTTNER] [Illustration: 152. MODERN GERMAN BLACKLETTER. OTTO HUPP] [Illustration: 153. MODERN BLACKLETTER. EDWIN A. ABBEY] Figures 177 to 179 show some English Gothic letters, the last being that employed so effectively in the pen-drawn page by Mr. Abbey, 153. Figures 180 to 184 illustrate various forms of Blackletter: 180 is from a German brass, 182 illustrates an Italian pen form, and 183 and 184 show [141] Blackletters drawn by Albrecht Dürer, the latter being the simplest and strongest variant in this style. It is the same letter that is employed to show Blackletter construction in diagram 144. Figure 185 shows the well-known and unusually beautiful initials designed by Dürer. Figure 186 is a Blackletter from an English brass, although the letter forms in this example, as well as those of many other English brasses, may perhaps have been derived from Flanders, as many of the finest early Continental brasses were imported from the Netherlands. The Italian forms of Gothic Blackletters are generally too fussy and finikin to be of practical value for modern use, though they often possess suggestive value. The letters shown in 182 are fairly typical of the characteristic Blackletter minuscules of Italy. Figure 187 exhibits an example of beautiful lettering in the Italian style, redrawn from a rubbing of an inlaid floor-slab in Santa Croce, Florence. The omission of capitals in long, confined lines is typical of many Blackletter inscriptions, as may be seen in 149, as well as in the plate just mentioned. In view of the number of fine specimens of Blackletter which have been handed down to us, it has been deemed [142] unnecessary to reproduce many examples of its employment by modern draughtsmen. The pages by Mr. Goodhue, 188-9, have already been referred to; and figure 150 shows a very consistent and representative use of similar letter forms by the same designer. Figures 190 and 191 illustrate two modern varieties of Blackletter, one very simple and the other very ornate. The small cuts, 151 and 152, show excellent modern Blackletters; the first, of unusually narrow form, being by Herr Walter Puttner, and the second, with its flourished initials, by Herr Otto Hupp. [Illustration: 154. UNCIAL GOTHIC INITIALS. 12TH CENTURY. F. C. B.] [Illustration: 155. UNCIAL GOTHIC INITIALS. 13TH CENTURY. F. C. B.] [Illustration: 156. UNCIAL GOTHIC CAPITALS. 14TH CENTURY. F. C. B.] [Illustration: 157. UNCIAL GOTHIC CAPITALS. 14TH CENTURY. F. C. B.] [Illustration: 158. ITALIAN UNCIAL GOTHIC CAPITALS. 14TH CENTURY. F. C. B.] [Illustration: 159. SPANISH UNCIAL GOTHIC CAPITALS. JUAN DE YCIAR, 1550] [Illustration: 160. VENETIAN WALL PANEL, 15TH CENTURY. FROM RUBBING] [Illustration: 161. VENETIAN GOTHIC CAPITALS. 15TH CENTURY. F.C.B.] [Illustration: 162. GERMAN UNCIAL CAPITALS, FROM A BRASS. 14TH CENTURY] [Illustration: 163. FRENCH AND SPANISH UNCIAL CAPITALS. 14TH CENTURY] [Illustration: 164. ITALIAN GOTHIC INITIALS. G. A. TAGLIENTE, 16TH CENTURY] [Illustration: 165. ITALIAN GOTHIC INITIALS. G. A. TAGLIENTE, 16TH CENTURY] [Illustration: 166. ITALIAN GOTHIC INITIALS. GIOV. PALATINO, 16TH CENTURY] [Illustration: 167. GERMAN GOTHIC INITIALS. P. FRANK, 1601] [Illustration: 168. GERMAN GOTHIC INITIALS. P. FRANK, 1601] [Illustration: 169. GERMAN GOTHIC INITIALS. P. FRANK, 1601] [Illustration: 170. ITALIAN GOTHIC CAPITALS. 16TH CENTURY] [Illustration: 171. ENGLISH GOTHIC CAPITALS. 16TH CENTURY] [Illustration: 172. ITALIAN GOTHIC CAPITALS. 17th CENTURY] [Illustration: 173. GERMAN GOTHIC CAPITALS. 17th CENTURY] [Illustration: 174. GERMAN GOTHIC CAPITALS. FROM MANUSCRIPTS] [Illustration: 175. GERMAN GOTHIC CAPITALS. FROM MANUSCRIPTS] [Illustration: 176. GERMAN GOTHIC CAPITALS. FROM MANUSCRIPTS] [Illustration: 177. ENGLISH GOTHIC TEXT LETTERS. FROM MANUSCRIPTS] [Illustration: 178. ENGLISH GOTHIC LETTERS. 15th CENTURY. F. C. B.] [Illustration: 179. ENGLISH GOTHIC LETTERS. 15th CENTURY. F. C. B.] [Illustration: 180. GERMAN BLACKLETTERS FROM A BRASS. F. C. B.] [Illustration: 181. GERMAN BLACKLETTERS. 16th CENTURY. F. C. B.] [Illustration: 182. ITALIAN BLACKLETTERS. G. A. TAGLIENTE, 16th CENTURY] [Illustration: 183. GERMAN BLACKLETTERS. ALBRECHT DÜRER, 16th CENTURY] [Illustration: 184. GERMAN BLACKLETTERS. ALBRECHT DÜRER, 16th CENTURY] [Illustration: 185. GERMAN GOTHIC CAPITALS. ALBRECHT DÜRER, 16th CENTURY] [Illustration: 186. ENGLISH GOTHIC BLACKLETTERS. 15th CENTURY. F. C. B.] [Illustration: 187. ITALIAN INLAID BLACKLETTERS. FROM A RUBBING. F. C. B.] [Illustration: 188. MODERN AMERICAN BLACKLETTERS. B. G. GOODHUE] [Illustration: 189. MODERN AMERICAN BLACKLETTERS. B. G. GOODHUE] [Illustration: 190. MODERN GERMAN BLACKLETTERS. AFTER JULIUS DIEZ] [Illustration: 191. MODERN GERMAN BLACKLETTERS, FLOURISHED. F. C. B.] [182] * * * * * CHAPTER IV ITALIC AND SCRIPT The regrettable modern neglect of those free and very interesting forms of the Roman letter, Italic and Script, seem to authorize consideration of them in a separate chapter, even at the risk of appearing to give them undue importance. [Illustration: 192. GERMAN ITALIC. GOTTLIEB MUNCH, 1744] The first Italic type letter was derived, it is said, from the handwriting of Petrarch, and several admirable examples of the style, variously treated, have come down to us. As far as construction goes Italic is, theoretically, only the exact Roman form sloped, and with such changes as are necessitated by the sloping of the letters. Practically, however, it will be found that certain alterations in the outlines of the Roman letters must be made after giving them a slope in order to adapt them to their new requirements of inter-juxtaposition; and, by a reflex action, when words in Italic capitals are used in the same panel with upright Roman letters, certain variations must be made in the latter, such as accenting the Roman O in the same fashion as the Italic _O_ is accented, an altered treatment of serifs, and other changes in detail. The Script form of letter was developed out of the running or writing hand, and still retains a cursive tendency in the linking together of its letters; although in some forms it so closely approximates to Italic as to be almost [183] indistinguishable from it. Script lettering came into its greatest vogue during the Georgian period in England and at the same time in France; and was extensively employed, usually in conjunction with the upright Roman, in carved panels of stone or wood, and in engraving. The Script forms are well worthy of the attention of modern designers since they offer unusual opportunities for freedom and individuality of treatment; and because of this vitality and adaptility to modern uses the present chapter will be devoted largely to the illustration of Script examples. The old Spanish and Italian writing-books (referred to in a previous chapter), which in a measure took the place filled so much less artistically to-day by our modern school copybooks, contain many specimens of beautiful Script, both capitals and small letters. Figures 193 to 196 show pages from such books published in Spain. [Illustration: 193. SPANISH SCRIPT. TORQUATO TORIO, 1802] [Illustration: 194. SPANISH SCRIPTS. TORQUATO TORIO, 1802] [Illustration: 195. SPANISH SCRIPT. FRANCISCO LUCAS, 1577] [Illustration: 196. SPANISH CURSIVE. FRANCISCO LUCAS, 1577] [188] A simple type of Spanish capital Script letter is shown in 201, while a corresponding small letter, redrawn from a Spanish source, is illustrated in 202. It should be noted in the latter figure that the three lower lines are further removed from the ordinary writing hand and are more interesting than the letters in the three upper lines. [Illustration: 197. MODERN AMERICAN TITLES. CLAUDE FAYETTE BRAGDON] [Illustration: 198. MODERN AMERICAN TITLE. GEORGE WHARTON EDWARDS] The French artists and engravers were, as has been said, among the first to appreciate the qualities of Script, and used it in many of their engraved title-pages, especially during the reigns of Louis xv. and xvi. Figure 199 shows a set of French Script capitals of the time of Louis XV., highly flourished but more formal than those shown in 201. A form of Script very nearly allied to the Italic was frequently used for the lettering on headstones and wall tombs in the churches and churchyards of England. Figure 203, in which the lettering is taken from a tomb in Westminster Abbey, illustrates this style of Script. A set of Script small letters with some unusual characteristics, adapted by Hrachowina from the German Renaissance form shown in outline in 192, is exhibited as a solid letter in figure 200. [Illustration: 199. FRENCH SCRIPT CAPITALS. 18th CENTURY. F. C. B.] [Illustration: 200. GERMAN SCRIPT AFTER HRACHOWINA. 18th CENTURY.] [Illustration: 201. SPANISH SCRIPT CAPITALS. EARLY 18th CENTURY. F. C. B.] [Illustration: 202. SPANISH SCRIPT ALPHABETS. LATE 17th CENTURY. F. C. B.] [Illustration: 203. ENGLISH INCISED SCRIPT. FROM INSCRIPTIONS. F. C. B.] [194] [Illustration: 204. MODERN AMERICAN TITLE. BRUCE ROGERS] [Illustration: 205. MODERN AMERICAN SCRIPT. BRUCE ROGERS] [Illustration: 206. MODERN AMERICAN SCRIPT. AFTER FRANK HAZENPLUG] [Illustration: 207. MODERN AMERICAN ITALIC CAPITALS. F. C. B.] Among modern American designers, Mr. Bruce Rogers has admirably succeeded in catching the French and Georgian spirit in his treatment of the Script characters; yet, nevertheless, his lettering in this style is still modern in feeling. In the title from a book cover, 204, Mr. Rogers has allowed himself just the proper amount of interlacement and flourishing--both of which require the restraint of a subtle taste or the result may prove to be over-elaborate. The page of lettering by the same designer, shown in 205, is a successful solution of a difficult problem, and, together with the book cover, will serve to exhibit the possibilities of this style of Script. Mr. George Wharton Edwards is another modern designer who has a penchant for the Script form. He uses one distinctive and personal style of it in which the larger letters are formed by two black lines separated by a narrow white space, as exhibited in 198. The lines from an advertisement, 197, by Mr. Claude Fayette Bragdon, in which Script, Italic and Roman letters are combined, are of especial interest from the easy manner in which the three different styles have been adapted to each other and made to harmonize in one small panel, [198] while still preserving an appropriate Georgian aspect. The interlacement and flourishing, too, are handled with commendable restraint. Few modern artists have so successfully treated Italic capitals with Script freedom as Mr. Will Bradley. Sometimes employing forms of Italic capitals and small letters little removed from type, he will again give us an example of his handiwork in which Italic is used with examplary freedom, as is shown in the specimen from a book catalogue, 109. The modern trick of wide spacing often lends itself aptly to the swing and freedom of the swashed and flourished lines of Script, as may be seen in figure 207. An excellent modern Script letter, adapted from a design by Mr. Frank Hazenplug, is shown in 206. Its heavy face and originality of form make it a useful and pleasing variant. [Illustration: 208. MODERN AMERICAN TITLE. ANONYMOUS] [Illustration: 209. MODERN AMERICAN TITLE. EDWARD PENFIELD] The magazine heading, by an anonymous designer, 208, and the line from the pen of Mr. Edward Penfield, 209, suggest still other useful varieties of the Script form. [199] * * * * * CHAPTER V TO THE BEGINNER The beginner in any art or craft is likely to have an undue respect for the mere instruments of his trade. He will eventually learn that tools play a much less important part in his work than he at first thinks; but, as it is unlikely that any sudden change in human nature will occur, it seems as well to devote here some consideration to the tools which the student will always believe to be an important part of his equipment. He will ultimately ascertain for himself what is best adapted to his own individual needs. Though every draughtsman will recommend a pen that he has discovered to be especially suitable for his own use, few will be found to agree. Perhaps it is safe to say, however, that the best all-round pen for lettering is the Gillot No. 303. It is not too sharp, and when broken in is flexible and easy. The crowquill pen will be found of little use. It is an advantage to have at hand a large coarse pen of little flexibility and smooth point for drawing heavy lines of even width. In using water-color in place of ink such a pen will be found more satisfactory than the Gillot 303, as the thinness of the fluid causes the line to spread whenever pressure is applied to a limber and finely pointed pen, with the result that the line is not only broadened, but when dry shows darker than was intended, as more color is deposited than in a narrow line. When a [200] narrow line of even width and sharpness is desired it is best to use a new pen; an older pen will, on the other hand, allow of more ease in swelling and broadening the line under pressure. A thin dry line may be obtained by turning the pen over and drawing with the back of the nib, although if the pen so used be worn it is apt to have a "burr" over the point that may prevent its working satisfactorily in this way. A new hard pen is likely to be the cause of a "niggling" line; a too limber one of a careless or undesirably broad line. On rare occasions, and for obtaining certain effects, a stub pen may be found of value, but it cannot be recommended to the beginner, as it is very difficult to find one that has sufficient flexibility of nib. Quill pens are undoubtedly useful in drawing a few types of letters (see some of the designs by Mr. Walter Crane shown in previous pages, for examples) but, not to allude to the difficulty of properly pointing a quill, which seems to be a well-nigh lost art nowadays, the instrument possesses so many annoying peculiarities that it is as well to avoid its use until a satisfactory command over the more dependable steel pens has been obtained. A pencil is, of course, a necessity in laying out the first scheme for lettering. The softer the pencil the more felicitous will the composition seem; but the beginner should guard against being too easily pleased with the effect thus obtained, as it is often due to the deceptive indefiniteness of line and pleasant gray tone. When inked-in, in uncompromising black against the white paper, the draughtsman is apt to find that his sketch has developed many an imperfection, both in composition and in individual letter shapes, that the vague pencil lines did not reveal. [201] As to paper, Bristol-board has the best smooth surface for lettering. The English board is in some ways better than the American, but has the disadvantage of being made in smaller sheets. The difficulty with any smooth board is that erasures, even of pencil lines, are likely to spoil its surface. The rough "Strathmore" American board has a very grateful surface upon which the pen may be used with almost as much freedom as the pencil. All rough surfaces, however, while tending to promote interesting lines, are not suited for careful lettering, and the classic and Italian forms especially require to be drawn upon the smoothest possible surface. The American "Strathmore" board may also be obtained in smooth finish; and, indeed, is less injured by erasures than most Bristol-boards. The prepared India or carbon inks such as "Higgin's" or "Carter's" are best for the beginner; although all prepared inks have a tendency to get muddy if allowed to stand open, and the so-called "waterproof" inks are easily smudged. In devising a panel of lettering, such as a title-page for example, the draughtsman's first step would naturally be to sketch out the whole design at a very small size, say an inch and a half high, in pencil. This small sketch should determine, first, the general balance of the page; second, the inter-relations and spacings of the various lines and words and their relative importance and sizes. From this thumb-nail sketch the design should be drawn out at full size in pencil, and much more carefully. In this redrawing the separate letter shapes and their harmonious relations to each other should be determined, and such deviations made from the smaller sketch as seem to benefit the effect. [202] Some draughtsmen sketch out each line of lettering separately on thin paper, and then, after blackening the back of this sheet, lay each line over the place where it is needed in the design, tracing the outlines of the letters with a hard point, and thus transferring them to the design beneath. In this way a page of lettering may be studied out line by line, and accurately placed or centered; but the process is tedious, and there is always danger of losing sight of the effect as a whole. In outlining letters which are ultimately intended to be solidly blacked-in, the beginner should guard against making his outlines too wide, especially as regards the thin lines, for the eye in judging an outline sketch follows the insides of the bounding lines rather than the outsides which will really be the _out_lines of the blacked-in letter, so that when finished the letter is likely to look heavier and more clumsy than in the sketch. When the entire pencil scheme seems satisfactory in every detail, and each line has been exactly determined, the whole should be carefully inked-in. In inking-in letters the swing of the arm should be as free and unobstructed as possible. For the best result it is absolutely necessary to work at a wide board on a solid table of convenient height and angle. It is impossible to letter well in a cramped or unsteady position. One thing cannot be too strongly urged upon the beginner. Never use a T-square, triangle or ruling pen in inking-in lettering. It will be found ultimately much easier to train hand and eye to make a straight and true line free-hand than to attempt to satisfactorily combine a ruled and free-hand line. The free-hand method is, be it acknowledged, both more lengthy and [203] difficult at first, but when the draughtsman does finally gain a mastery over his line he has achieved something which he will find of the greatest value. In a drawing to be reproduced by mechanical processes, the proportions of the design are, of course, unalterably determined by the required panel or page; but the _size_ of the _drawing_ may be such as best suits the inclination and convenience of the draughtsman. If the drawing is to be reduced in size (and that is the usual method, because, in general, it is easier to draw large rather than small), the draughtsman must first decide on the amount of reduction to which his style of rendering and the subject itself are best adapted, remembering, however, that a drawing is sure to suffer from excessive reduction, not only in general effect but in interest, for the quality of the line is sure in a measure to disappear. A reduction of height or width by one-third is the usual amount; but many of our modern designers obtain their best effects by making their drawings but a trifle larger than the required reproduction. Some even make their drawings of the same size; others only from a twelfth to a sixth larger. As a rule, the less the reduction the less the departure from the effect of the original, and the more certainly satisfactory the result, although more careful drawing and greater exactness of line are necessary. [Illustration: 210. DIAGRAM TO SHOW METHOD OF ENLARGING A PANEL] To keep the outlines of a panel in the same proportion while enlarging its area for the purpose of making a drawing for reproduction, lay out the required _finished_ size of the panel near the upper left hand corner of the paper, and draw a diagonal line through the upper left hand and lower right hand corner of this panel, extending it beyond the panel [204] boundaries. From any given point along this diagonal, lines drawn parallel to the side and top lines of the original panel, and extended till they intersect the extended left side line and top line of the original panel, will give an outline of the same proportions as the required panel. By taking various points on the diagonal, panels of any height or width but still of the proper proportions may be obtained (see diagram 210). Diagram 211 illustrates a variation of the previous method of enlarging the proportions of a panel, in which, by the use of two diagonals, both perpendicular and horizontal center lines are retained. When it is necessary to lay out a border of a predetermined width within the required panel, the foregoing method can only be used to determine the _outside_ lines of such a border, and it becomes necessary to make the drawing some numerical proportion, say, one-half as large again, or twice as large as the finished panel. The width of the border will then be of the same proportionate width. The beginner will find it always wise to base his lettering on penciled top and bottom guide lines, and occasionally to add "waist" guide lines, as in 193. Indeed, it is rare that even accomplished letterers dispense with these simple aids. These guide lines should invariably be laid-in with the [205] T-square and triangle. After drawing the horizontal guides, it is often advisable to run a few perpendicular lines up and down the paper, which will serve to guard against the very common likelihood of the letters acquiring a tilt. In drawing Italic, Script, and all sloping letters numerous sloping guide lines are especially necessary; see 193. Perpendicular guide lines will be found of marked assistance, also in drawing Gothic small letters, which, as they do not come against the top and bottom guide lines squarely, but at an angle, are often deceptive. [Illustration: 211. DIAGRAM TO SHOW METHOD OF ENLARGING A PANEL] If it is desirable to make two lines of lettering of the same length, although they contain an unequal number of letters, this may be effected--provided, of course, that the number of letters does not vary too greatly--by broadening or narrowing the letters that occur in one line but not in the other, and by varying the spacings about the I's and the open letters. Note, for example, the spacing of the upper lines in the poster by Mr. Crane, 87. It is by no means essential to draw the same letter always exactly alike even in the same line; in fact, variation is generally demanded by the different surroundings and neighboring letters. So long as the general character of the letter remains unchanged in its distinctive features, such as weight, [206] treatment of serifs, angles, height of waist and cross lines, etc., its width and outlines may be varied and arranged to help out the spacing without interfering, to any noticeable extent, with the uniform appearance of the line. In Roman lettering emphasis may be obtained for any special word by spacing its letters farther apart. This has something of the same emphasizing effect as the use of Italic, without so greatly breaking the harmony of the line. Much of the lettering of the Italian Renaissance shows a very subtle appreciation of this use, and in some of the most beautiful inscriptions the important words are often so differentiated, while others are emphasized by slightly larger characters. As a general rule, and within certain limits, the wider a letter the more legible it is likely to be. Blackness and boldness of stem alone will not make a letter readable. Width, boldness of hair lines and serifs, and a proper amount of surrounding white space are more essential. The Roman letter is more legible than the Blackletter mainly because it is black against a roomy white ground; while Blackletter, on the contrary, is really defined by small interrupted areas of whites upon a black ground. A common limitation of many draughtsmen is that they become accomplished in the rendering of but one style of letter, and find themselves obliged to use it on all occasions, whether it be suited to the work in hand or not, because they can command no other. In the case of certain designers, of course, the individuality of their work is strong enough to bind both lettering and design so closely together that they can never seem at dissonance; but, speaking generally, the adherance to the use of but [207] one type of letter can be but narrowing. The beginner is urged, therefore, to practice the use of many styles, even at the expense of gaining an immediate mastery over no one form. He will find himself amply repaid in the end by the increase in freedom and variety. While the student should possess enough knowledge of the historic styles and examples of lettering to prevent him from using incongruous or anachronous forms in the same design, historic accuracy need not prevent him from engrafting the characteristics of dissimilar styles upon one another, provided that the results prove harmonious and appropriate. Finally, the draughtsman's first aim should be to make his lettering readable: after this has been accomplished he should strive to give it beauty. Art in lettering is only to be attained by solving the problem of legibility in the way most pleasing to the eye. Good lettering should appeal both to the eye and to the mind. Only when it combines legibility with beauty can it be excellent. * * * * * INDEX A., 6, 9. Abbey, Edwin A., 97, 132, 140. Accenting, of Blackletters, 132; of Roman Capitals, 2; of Minuscules, 56; of Round Gothic, 132; of Italic and Script, 182. American Lettering, Modern Roman, 53, 64, 75, 82, 97; Classic Roman, 3, 14; Gothic, 132, 136, 140, 142; Italic, 194, 198; Script, 194, 198. Anglo-Saxon Letters, 46, 47; modern use of, 46. Ascenders, height above body, 57; in "Cheltenham Old Style" type, 71; in Gothic, 131; in Blackletters, 135. Ashbee, C. R., 74. Auriol, George, 88. B., 6. Badia, Florence, lettering from, 45. Bell, Robert Anning, 96. Blacked-in letters, 202. Blackletters, 127, 131, 132, 140, 141, 142; accents of, 132; ascenders and descenders of, 135; capitals for use with, 134, 136, 139; a condensed form of Gothic, 128; construction of, 132, 141; definition of, 128, 131; effect of page of, 132; with Roman letters, 72; even color of, 134; flourishes, 135; individual letter forms, 132, 136; illegibility of, 135, 136, 206; a part-Roman form, 84; a narrow form, 132; old examples of, 136; in panel forms, 136; used solidly, 134, 135; spacing of, 134, 136; variety of, 82, 132, 135, 136. Bonnard, Pierre, 91, 92. Border, to lay out a, 204. Boston Public Library, 14. Bragdon, Claude Fayette, 64, 111, 194. Brasses, Blackletters from, 138, 140. Bridwell, H. L., 8, 112. Bristol-board, 201. Byzantine influence on Italian lettering, 45. C., 8. Capitals, used with Roman minuscules, 57; with Round Gothic, 132; with Blackletters, 136, 139; (see also under Blackletter, Roman, Gothic, Italic, Modern Roman Capitals, Script, Round Gothic, Uncial). "Caroline" Text, 52. Caslon, William, 64; his type, 69. Centering lines of lettering, 202. Charlemagne, 52. "Cheltenham Old Style" type, 71. Cheltenham Press, The, 71. Chisel-cut guide lines, 3. Classic Capitals, see Roman Capitals. Classic forms of letters, to draw, 3, 6, 201; composition of, 6; Italian Renaissance, 15, 27, 30. "Colonial" lettering, 117. Constantine, Arch of, lettering from, 11. Construction, of Blackletters, 132; of Roman Capitals, 3, 6; of Roman Minuscules, 53, 56. Craig, Gordon, 95, 96. Crane, Walter, 47, 92, 200, 205. Cross-bar in Roman Capitals, 6. "Cursive" Letters, 91, 122. Cursive tendency in Script lettering, 182. D., 8. 'Dance of Death,' Holbein's, 117. Day, Lewis F., 93. Descenders, (see Ascenders). De Vinne, Theo. L., 69. Dove's Press, The, 69. Drawing of letters, 201, 202, 205; for reproduction, 203, 204. Dürer, Albrecht, 31, 132, 138, 141. E., 6, 104. Early Gothic, (see Round Gothic). Early Printing, 52, 64, 71. Edwards, Edward B., 116. Edwards, George Wharton, 194. Emphasis in lettering, placing of, 206 (see also Accenting). English Brasses derived from Flanders, 141. English Gothic, 140, 141. English lettering, modern, 75, 82, 92. English, Letters, 47; Script, 188, (see also Anglo-Saxon). Engraved Title-pages, French, 188. Enlarging Drawings, 203, 204. F., 6, 104. f., 56. Fell, H. Granville, 96. Flanders, Brasses from, 141. Flourishing, of Blackletters, 135; of Script, 194, 198. Free-hand lines, 202. French, modern lettering, 74, 82, 86; Script, 188, 194. Freedom, in lettering, 53, 74, 82, 92, 102, 118, 122, 201; in Blackletters, 136; in Gothic, 127; in Italic, 198; in kerns, serifs and swash-lines, etc., 53; in Roman letters, 82; in Script, 183. G., 8. g., 57. Georgian English lettering, 117, 183, 194, 198. German lettering, modern, 74, 82, 84, 92; early, 110, 117; Script, 52, 188; types, 52. Goodhue, Bertram Grosvenor, 71, 102, 136, 142. Gothic Capitals, for use with Blackletters, 139; pen drawn, 140; not to be used to form words, 132. Gothic, English, (see English Gothic). Gothic lettering, 127, 131, 134, 205; cut in stone, 140; (see also Blackletters and Uncial). Granite, letters cut in, 11, 14, (see also Stone-cut, V-sunk and Incised). Grasset, Eugène, 86. Greek type, 73. Grolier Club, 69. Guide-lines, 3, 204. H., 6. "Half-Uncial," 52. Harvard Architectural Building, lettering on, 14. Hazenplug, Frank, 116, 198. Historic styles of lettering, knowledge of, 207. Holbein's 'Dance of Death' initials, 117. Horne, Herbert P., 72. Hrachowina, C., 188. Hupp, Otto, 142. I., 8, 9; space around, 205. Illegibility of Blackletters, 135, 136. Image, Selwyn, 73, 93. Incised letters in stone, Gothic, 139, 140; Classic Roman, 9, 14, 45; (see also Granite, Inlaid, Marble, Sandstone, V-sunk and Stone-cut). Ink, 201. Inking-in lettering, 200, 202. Inlaid lettering, Gothic, 141. Interlacement of Script letters, 194. Inter-relation of letters, 6, 135, 201. Iorio, Adrian J., 107. Irish letters, (see Anglo-Saxon). Italian, Blackletters, 139, 141; modern lettering, 92; Renaissance (see Renaissance); Roman small letters, 64; types, 52; writing-books, 64, 183; letters, drawing of, 201. Italic, 52, 182, 188, 194, 198; capitals, 182, 198; drawing of, 205; emphasis of, 206. J., 8. j., 56. Jenson, Nicholas, 64. Jones, A. Garth, 96. K., 6. k., 56. Kerns, 53, 56. Kimball, H. Ingalls, 71. L., 104. Late Gothic, (see Blackletter). Laying out, lettering, 200, 201, 203, 204, 205; a border, 204. Le Boutillier, Addison B., 110. Legibility of lettering, 206, 207; of Round Gothic, 132. Letters, outlines of, 202, 206; widths of, 206; to lay out, 205; execution of in various materials, 14; (see also Brasses, Inlaid, Marble, Granite, Pen and Printed forms, Sandstone, Type). Lines, heavy, 199; narrow, 199; thin, 200; in water-color, 200; freehand, 202, 203; ruled, 202. Linking, of Blackletters, 136; of Round Gothic, 132; of Roman Capitals, 45; of Script, 182. Lowell, Orson, 117. M., 2, 28. m., 56. Marble, letters cut in, 17, 27, (see also Incised, Inlaid). Marsuppini tomb, Florence, 28. Magonigle, H. Van Buren, 102. McKim, Mead & White, architects, 14. Medals, lettering on, 30. Merrymount Press, The, 71, 72. "Merrymount" type, 71. Minuscule, 1; modern Roman, 52, 53, 56, 57, 64; monumental uses, 57; composition of, 64; growing use of, 76, 122; spacing of, 57; (see also, Roman, Gothic, Italic, Script). Modern lettering, (see under countries, American, English, French, German, Italian). Modern Roman Capitals, 6; (see Chapter II). Modern type, (see Type). "Montaigne" type, 69. "Mont' Allegro" type, 73. Moore, Guernsey, 116. Morris, William, 72; types of, 69. Mucha, Alphons M., 91. N., 2. Netherlands, brasses from, 141. New, Edmund H., 96. Nicholson, William, 95. O., 8, 182. o., 182 Optical Illusions in Roman Capitals, 8. Outline letters, 202. P., 6. Pantheon, Rome, Raphael's tomb, 27. Papers, drawing, 201. Parchment, 128. Parrish, Maxfield, 110, 122. Parsons, Alfred, 96. Pens, 199, 201; crowquill, 199; reed, 2; ruling, 202; stub, 200; quill, 200. Pen drawn forms of letters, 9, 27, 30, 31, 45, 56, 64, 74, 76, 122, 140, 182, 199, 202. Pencils, 200, 201. Penfield, Edward, 100, 116, 118, 198. Petrarch, 52; handwriting of, 182. Pisano, Vittore, 30. "Post Old Style" type, 116. Presses, (see Merrymount, Vale, Riverside, Cheltenham, Dove's, and De Vinne). Printed forms of Roman letters, 9, 30, 52, 53, 56, 64, 69, 122. Printers, German, 52; Italian, 52, 64; American, 69; English, 64, 69, 72, 73; Venetian, 53, 64. Proportions of a design, 203. Puttner, Walter, 142. Pyle, Howard, 117. Q., 2, 8, 92. "Quadrigesimale," 69. Quill pens, 200; method of holding, 2, 131. R., 2, 6, 8. Railton, Herbert, 96. Raphael's tomb, lettering from, 27. Reduction of drawings, 203, 204. Renaissance, letters, 15, 27, 30; artists of the, 53; lettering of the Italian, 206; medals, 30; purity of letter shapes, 69. Renner, 69. Renner type, 69. Reproduction of drawings, 203. Ricketts, Charles, 93. Riverside Press, The, 69. Rogers, Bruce, 69, 194. Roman Capitals, 1, 27; (see also Modern Roman); thick and thin lines of, 1, 6; model for, 3; rules for, 2; squareness of, 1, 6, 131; peculiarities of, 6, 8. Roman letters, 127, 136; with Italic, 182; combined with Script and Italic, 194; cross bars of, 6; definition of, 1; legibility of, 206; waist lines of, 6; width proportions of, 6. Roman minuscules, (see Minuscule). Roman forms, Gothic Spirit in, 84; Uncial, 128. Romanesque influence on Italian lettering, 45. Ross, Albert R., 3, 11, 32, 56. Roty, O., 30. Round Gothic, analysis of, 131; definition of, 131; capitals to use with, 132, 139. Round letters, capitals, 2, 3; Minuscules, 56, 71; stone-cut, 3, 9. Rubbings, from inscriptions, 11, 16. Ruling pen, 202. S., 8. Sandstone, letters cut in, 14. Santa Croce, Florence, lettering from, 28, 141. Script, 182, 183, 188, 194, 198; capitals, 188; cursive tendency in, 182; developed from writing hands, 182; drawing of, 205; French, 188; German, 188; on English headstones and wall tombs, 188; Spanish, 188; used in engravings, 188; used with upright Roman, 182, 183. Serifs, 8, 16; definition of, 3; in Minuscule letters, 53, 69, 71; in Italic letters, 182; treatment of, 206. Serlio, Sebastian, 3, 11, 32. Shadows in V-sunk letters, 10, 11, 14. Shaw, Byam, 96. Simpson, Joseph W., 93. Small letters, (see Minuscule, also Modern Roman, Gothic, Script and Italic). Spacing, of Classic Roman letters, 6, 8; of Blackletters, 128, 134, 136; of Minuscules, 53, 56, 57; of type, 56; of "Montaigne" type, 69; of "Cheltenham" type, 71; of letters and words, 201, 205; emphasis obtained by, 206. Spanish, Script, 188; Roman letters, 64; writing-books, 64, 183. Stone-cut letters, Roman, 3, 9, 14; (see also Incised, V-sunk, Granite, Marble, Sandstone). Sullivan, James F., 96. Swash lines, 2, 53, 136. T., 8, 28. Tagliente, G. A., 31. Thompson, Hugh, 96. Tory, Geoffrey, 31. Townsend, Harry Everett, 117. Transferring of lettering, 202. Type, 9, 52, 64, 74. Type-founders, 9, 56, 64. Type models for pen lettering, use of, 74, 76, 122. Uncial letters, 45, 76, 84, 92, 128; Gothic, 139; meta forms of, 140; pen forms of, 140; stone-cut, 140; stone and marble, 139. Updike, D. Berkeley, 71. V., 9. Vale Press, The, 93. Van Rysselberghe, Theo., 91. Venetian printers, 53, 64. Verneuil, M. P., 86. Vinci, Leonardo da, 31. V-sunk Roman lettering, 9, 10, 14; (see also Incised). W., 9. w., 56. Waist lines, 6, 204; of Roman letters, 6, 204, 206. Westminster Abbey, England, 188. Width proportions, of Roman Capital letters, 6. Writing-books, 64, 183. Writing hand, 188; of Petrarch, 182; Script developed from, 182. X., 6. Y., 6. y., 56. Z., 2. * * * * * BATES & GUILD COMPANY'S PUBLICATIONS PEN DRAWING By CHARLES D. MAGINNIS An illustrated treatise, with many examples of the work of all the more eminent modern pen draughtsmen. A practical text-book, which aims to put the student in the most direct way of attaining successful proficiency in the art of drawing. "The book is very useful; all the features are good."--JOHN P. KUHL, Carlstadt, N. J. "I have learned a great deal in a short time from Mr. Maginnis's treatise."--H. E. HUNT, Ambridge, Pa. "I have found it a great help in pen drawing, and consider it a most instructive book."--WM. E. MEVINS, Buffalo, N. Y. "Would recommend it to any one wishing to do pen drawing or to a student wishing to take up the work as I did."--E. E. CHRISTOPHER, St. Louis, Mo. "I find it a most delightful little book, valuable for the student, as also for those desirous of gaining some insight into this art."--CHAS. J. FELLGER, Philadelphia, Pa. "The illustrations are excellent, and the instructions clear and to the point. It is a guide to the beginner and material help to the experienced. I am very pleased with it."--A. E. BUCKLER, Niagara Falls, N. Y. "'Pen Drawing' has benefited me a great deal, as it would anybody who made a proper use of it. Its many illustrations, together with their descriptive text, make the book what I think it was intended for, a good teacher."--H. W. BONNAH, Port Huron, Mich. "I think it a most excellent little book, well worth careful reading by any artist or draughtsman. Everything seems to me clearly stated and all points aptly illustrated with good examples. I do not see how it could be much better for the price."--S. GIFFORD SLOCUM, Architect, New York City PRICE, POSTAGE PREPAID, $1.50 144 CONGRESS STREET, BOSTON, MASS. * * * * * BATES & GUILD COMPANY'S PUBLICATIONS DETAILS OF Building Construction By CLARENCE A. MARTIN A collection or 33 plates, 10 × 12½ inches, giving over 300 separate details covering all the ordinary methods of building, and in many cases showing alternative methods. The plates are models of detail drawing, and the text is in the form of notes lettered on the drawings. "I think it a valuable book to have near one in the draughting-room."--C. A. MCGREEN, Columbus, O. "I have studied all the details and I have found them very profitable to me."--ERNEST H. DOWNING, New York City "This book and 'Kidder's' are two that I could hardly get along without."--LOREN O. KIRK, Minneapolis, Minn. "The best book of its kind on the market. It is concise, practical, saves time and gives new ideas."--S. R. QUICK, Fort Collins, Col. "It saves me considerable time, is twice worth the price I paid for it, and also gives me endless number of new ideas."--JOHN SCHIER, Milwaukee, Wis. "Has saved me time, labor and trouble. A good book for ready reference in the draughting-room."--A. C. STORCH, Pittsburg, Pa. "The work has proven to be very useful to me, and I do not hesitate to recommend it highly, especially to students."--W. R. TROWBRIDGE, Altoona, Pa. "During the last few years I have purchased from you at least 25 or 30 copies. My customers are well pleased with it."--THOMAS HENRY, Book Dealer, Toronto, Ont. "The most practical work on the subject there is, or at least that I have seen. I have never regretted the money I paid for it, and the book is always near at hand."--H. A. GOODSPEED, Providence, R. I. PRICE, POSTAGE PREPAID, $2.50 144 CONGRESS STREET, BOSTON, MASS. * * * * * BATES & GUILD COMPANY'S PUBLICATIONS ARCHITECTURAL SHADES & SHADOWS By HENRY McGOODWIN The purpose and usefulness of this book is twofold: it is intended, first, as a practical reference hand-book for the architect's office--a "dictionary," as it were, of all the shades and shadows of those architectural forms and details which are used in rendering drawings; and second, as a clear and accurate course of study in the methods of determining shadows, for use in schools, offices, and ateliers. As a text-book for draughtsmen it is the clearest and most thorough work that has ever been written on the subject. The study is approached from the standpoint and in the language of the architect rather than of the geometrician; and great pains have been taken to demonstrate every problem in the simplest terms and by the simplest methods. The book measures 9½ × 12½ inches, and is substantially bound in cloth. PRICE, EXPRESS PAID, $4.00 144 CONGRESS STREET, BOSTON, MASS. * * * * * [Illustration] 
22107	----	THE ARTISTIC CRAFTS SERIES OF TECHNICAL HANDBOOKS EDITED BY W. R. LETHABY WOOD-CARVING: DESIGN AND WORKMANSHIP ARTISTIC CRAFTS SERIES OF TECHNICAL HANDBOOKS. Edited by W. R. LETHABY. The series will appeal to handicraftsmen in the industrial and mechanic arts. It will consist of authoritative statements by experts in every field for the exercise of ingenuity, taste, imagination--the whole sphere of the so-called "dependent arts." BOOKBINDING AND THE CARE OF BOOKS. A Handbook for Amateurs, Bookbinders, and Librarians. By DOUGLAS COCKERELL. With 120 Illustrations and Diagrams by Noel Rooke, and 8 collotype reproductions of binding. 12mo. $1.25 net; postage, 12 cents additional. SILVERWORK AND JEWELRY. A Text-Book for Students and Workers in Metal. By H. WILSON. With 160 Diagrams and 16 full-page Illustrations. 12mo. $1.40 net; postage, 12 cents additional. WOOD CARVING: DESIGN AND WORKMANSHIP. By GEORGE JACK. With Drawings by the Author and other Illustrations. _In Preparation_: CABINET-MAKING AND DESIGNING. By C. SPOONER. D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. [Illustration: A SUGGESTION FROM NATURE AND PHOTOGRAPHY. See page 197.] WOOD-CARVING DESIGN AND WORKMANSHIP BY GEORGE JACK WITH DRAWINGS BY THE AUTHOR AND OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS NEW YORK D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 1903 COPYRIGHT, 1903, BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY _All rights reserved_ _Published October, 1903_ EDITOR'S PREFACE In issuing these volumes of a series of Handbooks on the Artistic Crafts, it will be well to state what are our general aims. In the first place, we wish to provide trustworthy text-books of workshop practise, from the points of view of experts who have critically examined the methods current in the shops, and putting aside vain survivals, are prepared to say what is good workmanship, and to set up a standard of quality in the crafts which are more especially associated with design. Secondly, in doing this, we hope to treat design itself as an essential part of good workmanship. During the last century most of the arts, save painting and sculpture of an academic kind, were little considered, and there was a tendency to look on "design" as a mere matter of _appearance_. Such "ornamentation" as there was was usually obtained by following in a mechanical way a drawing provided by an artist who often knew little of the technical processes involved in production. With the critical attention given to the crafts by Ruskin and Morris, it came to be seen that it was impossible to detach design from craft in this way, and that, in the widest sense, true design is an inseparable element of good quality, involving as it does the selection of good and suitable material, contrivance for special purpose, expert workmanship, proper finish, and so on, far more than mere ornament, and indeed, that ornamentation itself was rather an exuberance of fine workmanship than a matter of merely abstract lines. Workmanship when separated by too wide a gulf from fresh thought--that is, from design--inevitably decays, and, on the other hand, ornamentation, divorced from workmanship, is necessarily unreal, and quickly falls into affectation. Proper ornamentation may be defined as a language addressed to the eye; it is pleasant thought expressed in the speech of the tool. In the third place, we would have this series put artistic craftsmanship before people as furnishing reasonable occupations for those who would gain a livelihood. Although within the bounds of academic art, the competition, of its kind, is so acute that only a very few per cent can fairly hope to succeed as painters and sculptors; yet, as artistic craftsmen, there is every probability that nearly every one who would pass through a sufficient period of apprenticeship to workmanship and design would reach a measure of success. In the blending of handwork and thought in such arts as we propose to deal with, happy careers may be found as far removed from the dreary routine of hack labor as from the terrible uncertainty of academic art. It is desirable in every way that men of good education should be brought back into the productive crafts: there are more than enough of us "in the city," and it is probable that more consideration will be given in this century than in the last to Design and Workmanship. * * * * * This third volume of our series treats of one branch of the great art of sculpture, one which in the past has been in close association with architecture. It is, well, therefore, that besides dealing thoroughly, as it does, with the craftsmanship of wood-carving, it should also be concerned with the theory of design, and with the subject-matter which the artist should select to carve. Such considerations should be helpful to all who are interested in the ornamental arts. Indeed, the present book contains some of the best suggestions as to architectural ornamentation under modern circumstances known to me. Architects can not forever go on plastering buildings over with trade copies of ancient artistic thinking, and they and the public must some day realize that it is not mere shapes, but only _thoughts_, which will make reasonable the enormous labor spent on the decoration of buildings. Mere structure will always justify itself, and architects who can not obtain living ornamentation will do well to fall back on structure well fitted for its purpose, and as finely finished as may be without carvings and other adornments. It would be better still if architects would make the demand for a more intellectual code of ornament than we have been accustomed to for so long. On the side of the carver, either in wood or in stone, we want men who will give us their own thought in their own work--as artists, that is--and will not be content to be mere hacks supplying imitations of all styles to order. On the teaching of wood-carving I should like to say a word, as I have watched the course of instruction in many schools. It is desirable that classes should be provided with casts and photographs of good examples, such as Mr. Jack speaks of, varying from rough choppings up to minute and exquisite work, but all having the breath of life about them. There should also be a good supply of illustrations and photographs of birds and beasts and flowers, and above all, some branches and buds of real leafage. Then I would set the student of design in wood-carving to make _variations_ of such examples according to his own skill and liking. If he and the teacher could be got to clear their minds of ideas of "style," and to take some example simply because they liked it, and to adapt it just because it amused them, the mystery of design would be nearly solved. Most design will always be the making of one thing like another, with a difference. Later, motives from Nature should be brought in, but always with some guidance as to treatment, from an example known to be fine. I would say, for instance, "Do a panel like this, only let it be oak foliage instead of vine, and get a thrush or a parrot out of the bird book." In regard to the application of carving, I have been oppressed by the accumulation in carving classes of little carved squares and oblongs, having no relation to anything that, in an ordinary way, is carved. To carve the humblest real thing, were it but a real toy for a child, would be better than the production of these panels, or of the artificial trivialities which our minds instinctively associate with bazaars. W. R. LETHABY. _September, 1903._ AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE READER, Be you 'prentice or student, or what is still better, both in one, I introduce the following pages to you with this explanation: that all theoretical opinions set forth therein are the outcome of many years of patient sifting and balancing of delicate questions, and these have with myself long since passed out of the category of mere "opinions" into that of settled convictions. With regard to the practical matter of "technique," it lies very much with yourself to determine the degree of perfection to which you may attain. This depends greatly upon the amount of application which you may be willing or able to devote to its practise. Remember--the laws which govern all good art must be known before they can be obeyed; they are subtle, but unalterable. The conditions most favorable to your craft must first be understood before these laws can be recognized. There yet remains at your own disposal that devotion of energy which is the first essential step, both in the direction of obtaining clearer views and in conquering technical difficulties. I have to thank the following gentlemen for their assistance in providing photographs for some of the illustrations: Messrs. Bedford Lemere & Co.--H. Sandland--Charles C. Winmill--W. Weir--J. R. Holliday and F. K. Rives. G. J. _September, 1903._ CONTENTS PAGE Editor's Preface 7 Author's Preface 15 CHAPTER I PREAMBLE Student and Apprentice, their Aims and Conditions of Work--Necessity for Some Equality between Theory and Practise--The Student's Opportunity lies on the Side of Design 25 CHAPTER II TOOLS Average Number of Tools required by Carvers--Selection for Beginners--Description of Tools--Position when in Use--Acquisition by Degrees 31 CHAPTER III SHARPENING-STONES--MALLET AND BENCH Different Stones in Use--Case for Stones--Slips--Round Mallet Best--A Home-Made Bench--A Makeshift Bench--Cramps and Clips 42 CHAPTER IV WOODS USED FOR CARVING Hard Wood and Soft Wood--Closeness of Grain Desirable--Advantages of Pine and English Oak 48 CHAPTER V SHARPENING THE TOOLS The Proper Bevel--Position of Tools on Oilstone--Good and Bad Edge--Stropping--Paste and Leather--Careless Sharpening--Rubbing Out the Inside--Stropping Fine Tools--Importance of Sharp Tools 52 CHAPTER VI "CHIP" CARVING Its Savage Origin--A Clue to its only Claim to Artistic Importance--Monotony better than Variety--An Exercise in Patience and Precision--Technical Methods 63 CHAPTER VII THE GRAIN OF THE WOOD Obstinacy of the Woody Fiber--First Exercise in Grounding--Description of Method--Cutting the Miters--Handling of Tools, Danger of Carelessness--Importance of Clean Cutting 69 CHAPTER VIII IMITATION OF NATURAL FORMS Difficulties of Selection and Arrangement--Limits of an Imitative Treatment--Light and Distance Factors in the Arrangement of a Design--Economy of Detail Necessary--The Word "Conventional" 82 CHAPTER IX ROUNDED FORMS Necessity for every Carver Making his own Designs--Method of Carving Rounded Forms on a Sunk Ground 88 CHAPTER X THE PATTERNED BACKGROUND Importance of Formal Pattern as an Aid to Visibility--Pattern and Free Rendering Compared--First Impressions Lasting--Medieval Choice of Natural Forms Governed by a Question of Pattern 96 CHAPTER XI CONTOURS OF SURFACE Adaptation of Old Designs to Modern Purposes--"Throwing About"--Critical Inspection of Work from a Distance as it Proceeds 103 CHAPTER XII ORIGINALITY Dangers of Imposing Words--Novelty more Common than Originality--An Unwholesome Kind of "Originality" 108 CHAPTER XIII PIERCED PATTERNS Exercise in Background Pattern--Care as to Stability--Drilling and Sawing out the Spaces--Some Uses for Pierced Patterns 110 CHAPTER XIV HARDWOOD CARVING Carvings can not be Independent Ornaments--Carving Impossible on Commercial Productions--The Amateur Joiner--Corner Cupboards--Introduction of Foliage Definite in Form, and Simple in Character--Methods of Carving Grapes 115 CHAPTER XV THE SKETCH-BOOK Old Work Best Seen in its Original Place--Museums to be approached with Caution.--Methodical Memoranda--Some Examples--Assimilation of Ideas Better than Making Exact Copies 137 CHAPTER XVI MUSEUMS False Impressions Fostered by Fragmentary Exhibits--Environment as Important as Handicraft--Works Viewed as Records of Character--Carvers the Historians of their Time 149 CHAPTER XVII STUDIES FROM NATURE--FOLIAGE Medieval and Modern Choice of Form Compared--A Compromise Adopted--A List of Plant Forms of Adaptable Character 153 CHAPTER XVIII CARVING ON FURNITURE Furniture Constructed with a View to Carving--Reciprocal Aims of Joiner and Carver--Smoothness Desirable where Carving is Handled--The Introduction of Animals or Figures 161 CHAPTER XIX THE GROTESQUE IN CARVING Misproportion Not Essential to the Expression of Humor--The Sham Grotesque Contemptible--A True Sense of Humor Helpful to the Carver 180 CHAPTER XX STUDIES FROM NATURE--BIRDS AND BEASTS The Introduction of Animal Forms--Rude Vitality better than Dull "Natural History"--"Action"--Difficulties of the Study for Town-Bred Students--The Aid of Books and Photographs--Outline Drawing and Suggestion of Main Masses--Sketch-Book Studies, Sections, and Notes--Swiss Animal Carving--The Clay Model: its Use and Abuse 191 CHAPTER XXI FORESHORTENING AS APPLIED TO WORK IN RELIEF Intelligible Background Outline Better than Confused Foreshortening--Superposition of Masses 205 CHAPTER XXII UNDERCUTTING AND "BUILT-UP" WORK Undercutting as a Means and as an End; its Use and Abuse--"Built-up" Work--"Planted" Work--"Pierced" Work 214 CHAPTER XXIII PICTURE SUBJECTS AND PERSPECTIVE The Limitations of an Art not Safely Transgressed--Aerial Perspective Impossible in Relief--Linear Perspective only Possible in a Limited Way 219 CHAPTER XXIV ARCHITECTURAL CARVING The Necessity for Variety in Study--A Carver's View of the Study of Architecture; Inseparable from a Study of his own Craft--Importance of the Carpenter's Stimulating Influence upon the Carver--Carpenters' Imitation of Stone Construction Carried too Far 223 CHAPTER XXV SURFACE FINISH--TEXTURE Tool Marks, the Importance of their Direction--The Woody Texture Dependent upon Clearness of Cutting and Sympathetic Handling 234 CHAPTER XXVI CRAFT SCHOOLS, PAST AND PRESENT The Country Craftsman of Old Times--A Colony of Craftsmen in Busy Intercourse--The Modern Craftsman's Difficulties: Embarrassing Variety of Choice 240 CHAPTER XXVII ON THE IMPORTANCE OF COOPERATION BETWEEN BUILDER AND CARVER The Infinite Multiplicity of Styles--The "Gothic" Influence: Sculpture an Integral Element in its Designs--The Approach of the so-called "Renaissance" Period--Disturbed Convictions--The Revival of the Classical Style--The Two Styles in Conflict for a Time; their Respective Characteristics Reviewed--Carvers Become Dependent upon Architects and Painters--The "Revival" Separates "Designer" and "Executant" 249 NOTES ON THE COLLOTYPE PLATES 265 THE COLLOTYPE PLATES 271 INDEX 305 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Page A Suggestion from Nature and Photography Frontispiece FIG. 1. 37 FIG. 2. 37 FIG. 3. 39 FIG. 4. 43 FIG. 5. 46 FIG. 6. 46 FIG. 7. 47 FIG. 8. A. ANGLE FOR SOFTWOOD B. ANGLE FOR HARDWOOD 52 FIG. 9. C. GOOD CUTTING EDGE D. BADLY FORMED EDGE. 54 FIG. 10. 58 FIG. 11. 61 FIG. 12. 68 FIG. 13. 74 FIG. 14. 74 FIG. 15. 78 FIG. 16. 88 FIG. 17. 91 FIG. 18. 94 FIG. 19. 94 FIG. 20. 96 FIG. 21. 100 FIG. 22. 103 FIG. 23. 105 FIG. 24. 111 FIG. 25. 113 FIG. 26. 113 FIG. 27. 116 FIG. 28. 119 FIG. 29. 120 FIG. 30. 120 FIG. 31. 120 FIG. 32. 123 FIG. 33. 123 FIG. 34. CARVING IN PANELS OF FIG 33 126 FIG. 35. 127 FIG. 36. 127 FIG. 37. 131 FIG. 38. 131 FIG. 39. _a._ 131 FIG. 39. _b._ 131 FIG. 40. 133 FIG. 41. 133 FIG. 42. 135 FIG. 43. 135 FIG. 44. 137 FIG. 45. 137 FIG. 46. 139 FIG. 47. 145 FIG. 48. 145 FIG. 49. 145 FIG. 50. 145 FIG. 51. 145 FIG. 52. 145 FIG. 53. 151 FIG. 54. 166 FIG. 55. 166 FIG. 56. 168 FIG. 57. 170 FIG. 58. 174 FIG. 59. 174 FIG. 60. 176 FIG. 61. 179 FIG. 62. 179 FIG. 63. 183 FIG. 64. 187 FIG. 65. 187 FIG. 66. 190 FIG. 67. 190 FIG. 68. 199 FIG. 69. 199 FIG. 70. 202 FIG. 71. 208 FIG. 72. 209 FIG. 73. 209 FIG. 74. 213 FIG. 75. 229 FIG. 76. 229 FIG. 77. 229 THE COLLOTYPE PLATES 271 I. Old Carved Chest in York Cathedral. II.--Figure from the Tomb of Henry IV. in Canterbury Cathedral. III.--Aisle Roof--Mildenhall Church, Suffolk. IV.--Nave Roof--Sall Church, Norfolk. V.--Portion of a Carved Oak Panel--The Sheepfold. VI--Portion of a Carved Oak Panel--The Sheepfold. VII.--Preliminary Drawing of a Lion for Carving. By Phillip Webb. VIII.--Book Cover Carved in English Oak--"Tale of Troy." (only carved portion shown.) IX.--Book Cover Carved in English Oak--"Tale of Troy." (only carved portion shown.) X.--Book Cover Carved in English Oak--"Reynard the Fox." (only carved portions shown.) XI.--Carving from Choir Stalls in Winchester Cathedral. XII.--Carving from Choir Screen--Winchester Cathedral. XIII.--Font Canopy--Trunch Church, Norfolk. XIV.--Two designs for Carving, by Philip Webb. One executed, one in drawing. XV.--Leg of a Settle, carved in English Oak. XVI.--Pew Ends in Carved Oak--Brent Church, Somersetshire. PREAMBLE Student and Apprentice, their Aims and Conditions of Work--Necessity for some Equality between Theory and Practise--The Student's Opportunity lies on the Side of Design. The study of some form of handicraft has of late years become an important element in the training of an art student. It is with the object of assisting such with practical directions, as well as suggesting to more practised carvers considerations of design and treatment, that the present volume has been written. The art of wood-carving, however, lends itself to literary demonstration only in a very limited way, more especially in the condensed form of a text-book, which must be looked upon merely as a temporary guide, of use only until such time as practise and study shall have strengthened the judgment of the student, and enabled him to assimilate the many and involved principles which underlie the development of his craft. If the beginner has mastered to some extent the initial difficulties of the draftsman, and has a fair general knowledge of the laws of design, but no acquaintance with their application to the art of wood-carving, then the two factors which will most immediately affect his progress (apart from natural aptitude) are his opportunities for practise, and his knowledge of past and present conditions of work. No one can become a good carver without considerable practise--constant, if the best results are to be looked for. Just as truly, without some knowledge of past and existing conditions of practise, none may hope to escape the danger of becoming, on the one hand, dull imitators of the superficial qualities of old work; or on the other, followers of the first will-o'-the-wisp novelty which presents itself to their fancy. If use of the tools and knowledge of materials were the only subjects of which a carver need become master, there would be no way equal to the old-fashioned one of apprenticeship to some good craftsman. Daily practise with the tools insures a manual dexterity with which no amateur need hope to compete. Many traditional expedients are handed down in this way that can be acquired in no other. There is, however, another side of the question to be considered, of quite as much importance as the practical one of handicraft skill. The art of wood-carving has also to fulfil its intellectual function, as an interpreter of the dreams and fancies of imagination. In this respect there is little encouragement to be looked for in the dull routine of a modern workshop. There are, therefore, two widely separated standpoints from which the art may be viewed. It may be looked at from the position of a regular craftsman, who regards it primarily as his means of livelihood; or it may be dealt with as a subject of intellectual interest, based upon its relation to the laws of art in general. As, in the first instance, the use of the tools can not be learned without _some_ accompanying knowledge of the laws of art, however slight that acquaintance may be, the method of apprenticeship has the advantage of being the more practical of the two; but it must be accepted with all the conditions imposed upon it by the pressure of commercial interest and its usages: conditions, which, it may easily be imagined, are far more favorable to the performance of dull task-work, than to the adventurous spirit of curiosity which should prompt the enterprise of an energetic student. On the other hand, although an independent study of the art offers a wider range of interest, the student is, for that very reason, exposed to the risk of involving himself in a labyrinth of confusing and ineffectual theories. The fact is, that neither method can at the present time be exclusively depended upon as a means of development; neither can be pronounced complete in itself nor independent of the other. The only sure safeguard against the vagueness of theory is constant practise with the tools; while, to the craftsman in the full enjoyment of every means for exercising and increasing his technical skill, a general study and intelligent conception of the wide possibilities of his art is just as essential, if it were only as an antidote to the influence of an otherwise mechanical employment. The more closely these contradictory views are made to approximate, the more certain will become the carver's aims, and the clearer will be his understanding of the difficulties which surround his path, enabling him to choose that which is practicable and intrinsically valuable, both as regards the theory and practise of his art. If the student, through lack of opportunities for practise, is debarred from all chance of acquiring that expertness which accompanies great technical skill, he may at least find encouragement in the fact that he can never exhaust the interest afforded by his art in its infinite suggestion to the imagination and fancy; and also that by the exercise of diligence, and a determination to succeed, he may reasonably hope to gain such a degree of proficiency with the tools as will enable him to execute with his hands every idea which has a definite existence in his mind. Generally speaking, it will be found that his manual powers are always a little in advance of his perceptions. Thus the student may gradually work out for himself a natural and reliable manner of expressing his thoughts, and in a way, too, that is likely to compensate for his technical shortcomings, by exciting a more lively interest in the resources of the art itself. The measure of his success will be determined partly by his innate capacity for the work, and partly by the amount of time which he is enabled to give to its practise. The resources of his art offer an infinite scope for the exercise of his powers of design, and as this is the side which lies nearest to his opportunities it should be the one which receives his most earnest attention, not merely as experiments on paper, but as exercises carried out to the best of his ability with the tools. Such technical difficulties as he may encounter in the process will gradually disappear with practise. There is also encouragement in the thought that wood-carving is an art which makes no immediate calls upon that mysterious combination of extraordinary gifts labeled "genius," but is rather one which demands tribute from the bright and happy inspirations of a normally healthy mind. There is, in this direction, quite a life's work for any enthusiast who aims at finding the bearings of his own small but precious gift, and in making it intelligible to others; while, at the same time, keeping himself free from the many confusions and affectations which surround him in the endeavor. CHAPTER II TOOLS Average Number of Tools required by Carvers--Selection for Beginners--Description of Tools--Position when in Use--Acquisition by Degrees. We will suppose that the student is anxious to make a practical commencement to his studies. The first consideration will be to procure a set of tools, and we propose in this place to describe those which will answer the purposes of a beginner, as well as to look generally at others in common use among craftsmen. The tools used by carvers consist for the most part of chisels and gouges of different shapes and sizes. The number of tools required by professional carvers for one piece of work varies in proportion to the elaborateness of the carving to be done. They may use from half a dozen on simple work up to twenty or thirty for the more intricate carvings, this number being a selection out of a larger stock reaching perhaps as many as a hundred or more. Many of these tools vary only in size and sweep of cutting edge. Thus, chisels and gouges are to be had ranging from 1/16th of an inch to 1 inch wide, with curves or "sweeps" in each size graduated between a semicircle to a curve almost flat. Few carvers, however, possess such a complete stock of tools as would be represented by one of each size and shape manufactured; such a thing is not required: an average number of, say seventy tools, will always give a sufficient variety of size and sweep for general purposes; few pieces of work will require the use of more than half of these in its execution. The beginner, however, need not possess more than from twelve to twenty-four, and may even make a start with fewer. It is a good plan to learn the uses of a few tools before acquiring a complete set, as by this means, when difficulties are felt in the execution of work, a tool of known description is sought for and purchased with a foreknowledge of its advantages. This is the surest way to gain a distinct knowledge of the varieties of each kind of tool, and their application to the different purposes of design. The following list of tools (see Figs. 1 and 2) will be found sufficient for all the occasions of study: beginning by the purchase of the first section, Nos. 1 to 17, and adding others one by one until a set is made up of twenty-four tools. The tools should be selected as near the sizes and shapes shown in the illustration as possible. The curved and straight strokes represent the shape of the actual cuts made by pressing the tools down perpendicularly into a piece of wood. This, in the case of gouges, is generally called the "sweep." Nos. 1, 2, 3 are gouges, of sweeps varying from one almost flat (No. 1) to a distinct hollow in No. 3. These tools are made in two forms, straight-sided and "spade"-shaped; an illustration of the spade form is given on the second page of tools. In purchasing his set of tools the student should order Nos. 1, 2, 3, 10, 11 in this form. They will be found to have many advantages, as they conceal less of the wood behind them and get well into corners inaccessible to straight-sided tools. They are lighter and more easily sharpened, and are very necessary in finishing the surface of work, and in shaping out foliage, more especially such as is undercut. [Illustration: FIG. 1.] [Illustration: FIG. 2.] Nos. 5, 6, 7 are straight gouges graduated in size and sweep. No. 8 is called a Veiner, because it is often used for making the grooves which represent veins in leaves. It is a narrow but deep gouge, and is used for any narrow grooves which may be required, and for outlining the drawing at starting. No. 9 is called a V tool or "parting" tool, on account of its shape. It is used for making grooves with straight sides and sharp inner angles at the bottom. It can be used for various purposes, such as undercutting, clearing out sharply defined angles, outlining the drawing, etc., etc. It should be got with a square cutting edge, not beveled off as some are made. Nos. 10, 11, 12 are flat chisels, or, as they are sometimes called, "firmers." (Nos. 10 and 11 should be in spade shape.) No. 13 is also a flat chisel, but it is beveled off to a point, and is called a "corner-chisel"; it is used for getting into difficult corners, and is a most useful tool when used as a knife for delicate edges or curves. Nos. 14 and 16 are what are known as "bent chisels"; they are used principally for leveling the ground (or background), and are therefore also called "grounders." These tools are made with various curves or bends in their length, but for our present uses one with a bend like that shown to tool No. 23, Fig. 2, and at _a_ in Fig. 3, will be best; more bend, as at _b_, would only make the tool unfit for leveling purposes on a flat ground. No. 15 is a similar tool, but called a "corner grounder," as it is beveled off like a corner-chisel. No. 17 is an additional gouge of very slow sweep and small size. This is a very handy little tool, and serves a variety of purposes when you come to finishing the surface. These seventeen tools will make up a very useful set for the beginner, and should serve him for a long time, or at least until he really begins to feel the want of others; then he may get the remainder shown on Fig. 2. Nos. 18, 19, 20 are deep gouges, having somewhat straight sides; they are used where grooves are set deeply, and when they are required to change in section from deep and narrow to wide and shallow. This is done by turning the tool on its side, which brings the flatter sweep into action, thus changing the shape of the hollow. Nos. 21, 22 are gouges, but are called "bent gouges"--"front bent" in this case, "back bent" when the cutting "sweep" is turned upside down. It is advisable when selecting these tools to get them as shown in the illustration, with a very easy curve in their bend; they are more generally useful so, as quick bends are only good for very deep hollows. These tools are used for making grooves in hollow places where an ordinary gouge will not work, owing to its meeting the opposing fiber of the wood. No. 23 is a similar tool, but very "easy" both in its "sweep" and bend--the sweep should be little more than recognizable as a curve. This tool may be used as a grounder when the wood is slightly hollow, or liable to tear up under the flat grounder. No. 24 is called a "Maccaroni" tool. This is used for clearing out the ground close against leaves or other projections; as it has two square sides it can be used right and left. In the illustration, Fig 3, _a_ shows the best form of grounding tool; _b_ is little or no use for this purpose, as it curves up too suddenly for work on a flat ground. It is a good thing to have the handles of tools made of different colored woods, as it assists the carver in picking them out quickly from those lying ready for use. [Illustration: FIG. 3.] When in use, the tools should be laid out in front of the carver if possible, and with their points toward him, in order that he may see the shape and choose quickly the one he wants. The tempering of tools is a very important factor in their efficiency. It is only of too common occurrence to find many of the tools manufactured of late years unfit for use on account of their softness of metal. There is nothing more vexatious to a carver than working with a tool which turns over its cutting edge, even in soft wood; such tools should be returned to the agent who sold them. With a selection from the above tools, acquired by degrees in the manner described, almost any kind of work may be done. There is no need whatever to have a tool for every curve of the design. These can readily be made by using straight chisels in combination with such gouges as we possess, or by sweeping the curves along their sides with a chisel used knife fashion. No really beautiful curves can be made by merely following the curves of gouges, however various their sweeps, as they are all segments of circles. Tools generally come from the manufacturer ground, but not sharpened. As the student must in any case learn how to sharpen his tools, it will be just as well to get them in that way rather than ready for use. As this process of sharpening tools is a very important one, it must be reserved for another place. Should tools be seriously blunted or broken they must be reground. This can be done by the carver, either on a grindstone or a piece of gritty York stone, care being taken to repeat the original bevel; or they may be sent to a tool shop where they are in the habit of grinding carving tools. Catalogues of tools may be had from good makers; they will be found to consist mainly in a large variety of the tools already mentioned. Those which are very much bent or curved are intended for special application to elaborate and difficult passages in carving, and need not concern the student until he comes to find the actual want of such shapes; such, for instance, as bent parting tools and back bent gouges. In addition to the above tools, carvers occasionally use one called a "Router." This is a kind of plane with a narrow perpendicular blade. It is used for digging or "routing" out the wood in places where it is to be sunk to form a ground. It is not a tool to be recommended for the use of beginners, who should learn to make sufficiently even backgrounds without the aid of mechanical contrivances. Carvers also use the "Rifler," which is a bent file. This is useful for very fine work in hard wood, and also for roughly approximating to rounded forms before finishing with the tools. A few joiner's tools are very useful to the carver, and should form part of his equipment. A wide chisel, say about 1-1/4 in. wide, a small iron "bull-nose" plane, and a keyhole saw, will all be helpful, and save a lot of unnecessary labor with the carving tools. CHAPTER III SHARPENING-STONES--MALLET AND BENCH Different Stones in use--Case for Stones--Slips--Round Mallet Best--A Home-Made Bench--A Makeshift Bench--Cramps and Clips. The stones which are most generally used for the purpose of sharpening carving tools are "Turkey" and "Washita." There are many others, some equally good, but "Washita" is easily procured and very serviceable. It is to be had in various grades, and it may be just as well to have one coarse and one fine, but in any case we must have a fine-grained stone to put a keen edge on the tools. A "Turkey" stone is a fine-grained and slow-cutting one, and may take the place of the finer "Washita." The "India" oilstone is a composition of emery with some kind of stone dust, and is a useful stone for quickly rubbing down superfluous steel before putting an edge to the tool. It is better to get these stones without cases, as they can then be used on both sides, one for flat tools and one for gouges, which wear the face of a stone into grooves. A case may be made by hollowing out a block of wood so as to take the stone loosely; and if at one end a small notch is made in this block, a screwdriver may be inserted under the stone when it is necessary to turn it. Two brads or pins should be inserted in holes, having their points just appearing below the bottom of the block. These prevent it slipping about when in use. These stones should be lubricated with a mixture of olive oil and paraffin in equal parts. Bicycle lubricating oil is very good for this purpose. [Illustration: FIG. 4.] For sharpening the insides of tools, "slips" are made with rounded edges of different sizes. One slip of "Washita" stone and one of "Arkansas" will be enough for the present, as they will fit moderately well most of the gouges in the beginner's set of tools; the "Arkansas" being used for the smaller tools. The "Arkansas" slip should be what is called "knife-edged." This is required for sharpening such tools as the veiner and V tool; it is a very fine marble-like stone, and exceedingly brittle; care must be taken in handling it, as a fall would in all probability be fatal. THE BENCH AND MALLET _The Mallet._--The carver's mallet is used for driving his tools where force is required. The most suitable form is the round one, made of beech; one 4 ins. diameter will be heavy enough. _The Bench._--Every carver should provide himself with a bench. He may make one for himself according to the size and construction shown in the illustration, Fig. 5. The top should be made of two 11 x 2 in. boards, and, as steadiness is the main feature to be aimed at, the joints should have some care. Those in illustration are shown to be formed by checking one piece of wood over the other, with shoulders to resist lateral strain. Proper tenons would be better, but more difficult to make. It must have a projecting edge at the front and ends, to receive the clamps. The bench should have a joiner's "bench-screw" attached to the back leg for holding work which is to be carved on its edges or ends. The feet should be secured to the floor by means of iron brackets, as considerable force is applied in carving hard wood, which may move the bench bodily, unless it is secured, or is very heavy. Professional carvers use a bench which is composed of beech planks, three or four inches in thickness, and of length according to shop-room. [Illustration: FIG. 5.] [Illustration: FIG. 6] Should it not be possible to make or procure a bench, then a substitute must be used. Fig. 6 gives a suggestion for making such a temporary bench. The top is composed of one piece of board, 11 ins. wide and 1-1/2 in. thick. It should be about 2 ft. 6 ins. long and rest on two blocks fixed about 1-1/2 in. from the ends, which must project, as in Fig. 6. This may be used on any ordinary table, to which it should be secured by means of two 3-1/2-in. clamps. The height from the floor should be 3 ft. 2 ins. to top of board. This gives a good height for working, as carvers invariably stand to their work. The height can be regulated by making the blocks, _a_, higher or lower to suit the table which is to be used. [Illustration: FIG. 7.] _Cramps._--Cramps for holding the work in position on the bench are of several kinds. For ordinary thicknesses of wood, two 4-1/2-in. screw clamps, like the one in Fig. 7, will be sufficient. Wooden blocks may be also used to hold one end of the work down while the other is held by a clamp. These blocks are notched out to fit over the thickness of the board being carved, as in Fig. 7. Carvers use for their heavier work a "bench-screw," as it is called; that is, a screw which passes through the bench into the back of the work, which may thus be turned about at will; also, if the work is very thick, they hold it in position by means of a bench "holdfast," a kind of combined lever and screw; but neither of these contrivances is likely to be required by the beginner, whose work should be kept within manageable dimensions. CHAPTER IV WOODS USED FOR CARVING Hard Wood and Soft Wood--Closeness of Grain Desirable--Advantages of Pine and English Oak. The woods suitable for carving are very various; but we shall confine our attention to those in common use. Of the softer woods, those which are most easily procured and most adaptable to modern uses are yellow pine, Bass wood, Kauri pine, and Lime. These are all good woods for the carver; but we need not at present look for any better qualities than we shall find in a good piece of yellow pine, free from knots or shakes. The following woods may be considered as having an intermediate place between soft and hard: Sycamore, Beech, and Holly. They are light-colored woods, and Very useful for broad shallow work. _English Oak._--Of the hard woods in common use, the principal kinds are Oak, Walnut, and occasionally Mahogany. Of oak, the English variety is by far the best for the carver, being close in the grain and very hard. It is beyond all others the carvers' wood, and was invariably used by them in this country during the robust period of medieval craftsmanship. It offers to the carver an invigorating resistance to his tools, and its character determines to a great extent that of the work put upon it. It takes in finishing a very beautiful surface, when skilfully handled--and this tempts the carver to make the most of his opportunities by adapting his execution to its virtues. Other oaks, such as Austrian and American, are often used, but they do not offer quite the same tempting opportunity to the carver. They are, by nature, quicker-growing trees, and are, consequently, more open in the grain. They have tough, sinewy fibers, alternating with softer material. They rarely take the same degree of finish as the English oak, but remain somewhat dull in texture. Good pieces for carving may be got, but they must be picked out from a quantity of stuff. Chestnut is sometimes used as a substitute for oak, but it is better fitted for large-scaled work where fineness of detail is not of so much importance. _Italian Walnut._--This is a very fine-grained wood, of even texture. The Italian variety is the best for carving: it cuts with something of the firmness of English oak, and is capable of receiving even more finish of surface in small details. It is admirably suited for fine work in low relief. In choosing this wood for carving, the hardest and closest in grain should be picked, as it is by no means all of equal quality. It should be free from sap, which may be known by a light streak on the edges of the dark brown wood. English walnut has too much "figure" in the grain to be suitable for carving. American walnut is best fitted for sharply cut shallow carving, as its fiber is caney. If it is used, the design should be one in which no fine modeling or detail is required, as this wood allows of little finish to the surface. _Mahogany_, more especially the kind known as Honduras, is very similar to American walnut in quality of grain: it cuts in a sharp caney manner. The "Spanish" variety was closer in grain, but is now almost unprocurable. Work carved in mahogany should, like that in American walnut, be broad and simple in style, without much rounded detail. It is quite unnecessary to pursue the subject of woods beyond the few kinds mentioned. Woods such as ebony, sandalwood, cherry, brier, box, pear-tree, lancewood, and many others, are all good for the carver, but are better fitted for special purposes and small work. As this book is concerned more with the _art_ of carving than its application, it will save confusion if we accept yellow pine as our typical soft wood, and good close-grained oak as representing hard wood. It may be noted in passing that the woods of all flowering and fruit-bearing trees are very liable to the attack of worms and rot. No carving, in whatever wood, should be polished. I shall refer to this when we come to "texture" and "finish." CHAPTER V SHARPENING THE TOOLS The Proper Bevel--Position of Tools on Oilstone--Good and Bad Edge--Stropping--Paste and Leather--Careless Sharpening--Rubbing Out the Inside--Stropping Fine Tools--Importance of Sharp Tools. Having given this brief description of the tools and materials used by carvers, we shall suppose a piece of work is about to be started. The first thing the carver will require to do is to sharpen his tools. That is, if we may assume that they have just come from the manufacturer, ground but not yet brought to an edge. It will be seen that each has a long bevel ending in a blunt ridge where the cutting edge should be. We shall take the chisel No. 10 and sharpen that first, as it is the easiest to do, and so get a little practise before we try the gouges. The oilstone and oil have already been described. The first thing is to well oil the stone and lay it on the bench in a position with its end toward the operator. [Illustration: A. ANGLE FOR SOFTWOOD B. ANGLE FOR HARDWOOD FIG. 8.] Tools which are going to be used in soft wood require rather a longer bevel and more acute edge than when they are wanted for hard wood. Both angles are shown in Fig. 8. Lay the flat of the tool on the stone at an angle of about 15°, with the handle in the hollow of the right hand, and two fingers of the left pressed upon the blade as near to the stone as possible. Then begin rubbing the tool from end to end of the stone, taking care not to rock the right hand up and down, but to keep it as level as possible throughout the stroke, bearing heavily on the blade with the left hand, to keep it well in contact with the stone. Rocking produces a rounded edge which is fatal to keenness. C (Fig. 9) gives approximately, to an enlarged scale, the sections of a good edge, and D that of an imperfect one. [Illustration: C. GOOD CUTTING EDGE D. BADLY FORMED EDGE. FIG. 9.] Practise alone will familiarize the muscles of the wrist with the proper motion, but it is important to acquire this in order to form the correct habit early. It should be practised very slowly at first, until the hands get accustomed to the movements. When one side of the tool has been rubbed bright as far as the cutting edge, turn it over and treat the other in the same way. Carvers' tools, unlike joiners', are rubbed on both sides, in the proportion of about two-thirds outside to one-third inside. When a keen edge has been formed, which can easily be tested by gently applying the finger, it should be stropped on a piece of stout leather. It will be found, if the finger is passed down the tool and over its edge, that the stoning has turned up a burr. This must be removed by stropping on both sides alternately. A paste composed of emery and crocus powders mixed with grease is used to smear the leather before stropping; this can either be procured at the tool shop, or made by the carver. When the tool has been sufficiently stropped, and all burr removed, it is ready for use, but it is as well to try it on a piece of wood first, and test it for burr, and if necessary strop it again. Before we leave this tool, however, we shall anticipate a little, and look at it after it has been used for some time and become blunt. Its cutting edge and the bevel above it are now polished to a high degree, owing to friction with the wood. We lay it on the stone, taking care to preserve the original angle (15°). We find on looking at the tool after a little rubbing that this time it presents a bright rim along the edge in contrast with the gray steel which has been in contact with the stone. This bright rim is part of the polished surface the whole bevel had before we began this second sharpening, which proves that the actual edge has not yet touched the stone. We are tempted to lift the right hand ever so little, and so get rid of this bright rim (sometimes called the "candle"); we shall thus get an edge quicker than if we have to rub away all the steel behind it. We do this, and soon get our edge; the bright rim has disappeared, but we have done an unwise thing, and have not saved much time, because we have begun to make a rounded edge, which, if carried a little farther, will make the tool useless until it is reground. There is no help for it: time must be spent and trouble taken in sharpening tools; with method and care there need be very little grinding, unless tools are actually broken. To resume our lesson in tool-sharpening: we can not do much carving with one chisel, so we shall now take up gouge No. 2 as being the least difficult. This being a rounded tool, we must turn the stone over and use the side we have determined to keep for gouges, etc. We commence rubbing it up and down the stone in the same manner as described for the chisel, but, in addition, we have now another motion. To bring all the parts of the edge into contact with the stone the gouge must be rolled from side to side as it goes up and down. To accomplish this the wrist should be slowly practised until it gets into step with the up and down motions; it matters very little whether one turn of the tool is given to one passage along the stone, or only one turn to many up and down rubbings. The main thing is evenness of rubbing all along the circular edge, as if one part gets more than its share the edge becomes wavy, which is a thing to be avoided as much as possible. When the outside has been cleanly rubbed up to the edge, the inside is to be rubbed out with the Washita slip and oil to the extent of about half as much as the outside. The handle of the tool should be grasped in the left hand, while its blade rests on a block of wood, or on the oilstone. Hold the slip between the fingers and thumb, slanting a little over the inner edge; and work it in a series of short downward strokes, beginning the stroke at one corner of the gouge and leaving off at the other (see Fig. 10). Strop the outside of the tool, and test for burr, then lay the leather over the handle of another tool and strop the inside, repeating the operation until all burr has been removed, when probably the tool will be ready for use. [Illustration: FIG. 10.] The Veiner requires the same kind of treatment, only as this tool is not part of a circle in its section (having straight sides), only one-half must be done at a time; and it is as well to give the straight sides one stroke or so in every half-dozen all to itself to keep it in shape. Care must be taken with this tool as it is easily rubbed out of shape. The inside must be finished off with the Arkansas knife-edged slip, one side at a time, as it is impossible to sweep out the whole section of these deep tools at one stroke. Stropping must follow as before, but as this tool is so small that the leather will not enter its hollow, the leather must be laid down flat and the hollow of the tool drawn along its edge until it makes a little ridge for itself which fills the hollow and clears off burr (see Fig. 11); if any such adheres outside, a slight rub on the Arkansas stone will probably remove it. When the edges of the tools begin to get dull, it often happens that they only require to be stropped, which should be frequently done. As the treatment of all gouges is more or less like what has been described, practise will enable the student to adapt it to the shape of the tool which requires his attention. There remains only the V tool, the Spoon tools, and the Maccaroni, which all require special attention. The point of the V tool is so acute that it becomes difficult to clear the inside. A knife-edged slip is used for this purpose, and it is well also to cut a slip of wood to a thin edge, and after rubbing it with paste and oil, pass it down frequently over the point between the sides. Unless a very sharp point is obtained, this tool is practically useless; the least speck of burr or dullness will stop its progress or tear up the wood. In sharpening it, the sides should be pressed firmly on the stone, watching it every now and then to see what effect is being produced. If a gap begins to appear on one side, as it often does, then rub the other side until it disappears, taking care to bear more heavily on the point of the tool than elsewhere. If the sides get out of shape, pass the tool along the stone, holding it at right angles to the side of the stone, but at the proper angle of elevation; in this case the tool is held near its end, between fingers and thumb. Spoon tools must be held to the stone at a much higher angle until the cutting edge is in the right relation to the surface, or they may be drawn sidewise along it, taking care that every part of the edge comes in contact and receives an equal amount of rubbing. These may be treated half at a time, or all round, according to the size and depth of the tool. However it is produced, the one thing essential is a long straight-sectioned cutting bevel, not a rounded or obtuse one. Strop the inside by folding up the leather into a little roll or ball until it fills the hollow of the tool. [Illustration: FIG. 11.] For the small set of tools described in Chapter II one flat oilstone and two slips will be found sufficient for a beginning, but as a matter of fact, it will be advisable, as the number of tools is enlarged, to obtain slips of curves corresponding to the hollows of all gouges as nearly as possible. Many professional carvers have sets of these slips for the insides of tools, varying in curves which exactly fit every hollow tool they possess, including a triangular one for the inside of the V tool. The same rule sometimes applies to the sweeps of the outsides of gouges, for these, corresponding channels are ground out in flat stones, a process which is both difficult and laborious. If the insides are dealt with on fitting slips, which may be easily adapted to the purpose by application to a grindstone, the outsides are not so difficult to manage, so that grooved stones may be dispensed with. Before we leave the subject of sharpening tools it will be well to impress upon the beginner the extreme importance of keeping his tools in good order. When a tool is really sharp it whistles as it works; a dull tool makes dull work, and the carver loses both time and temper. There can be no doubt that the great technical skill shown in the works of Grinling Gibbons and his followers could not have been arrived at without the help of extraordinarily sharp tools. Tools not merely sharpened and then used until they became dull, but tools that were always sharp, and never allowed to approach dullness. Sharpening tools is indeed an art in itself, and like other arts has its votaries, who successfully conquer its difficulties with apparent ease, while others are baffled at every point. Impatience is the stumbling-block in such operations. Those most painstaking people, the Chinese, according to all accounts, put magic into their sharpening stones; the keenness of their blades being only equaled by that of their wits in all such matters of delicate application. To make a good beginning is a great point gained. To carefully examine every tool, and at the expense of time correct the faults of management, is the only way to become expert in sharpening tools. CHAPTER VI CHIP CARVING Its Savage Origin--A Clue to its only Claim to Artistic Importance--Monotony better than Variety--An Exercise in Impatience and Precision--Technical Methods. One of the simplest forms of wood-carving is that known as "chip" carving. This kind of work is by no means of modern origin, as its development may be traced to a source in the barbaric instinct for decoration common to the ancient inhabitants of New Zealand and other South Sea Islands. Technically, and with modern tools, it is a form of the art which demands but little skill, save in the matter of precision and patient repetition. As practised by its savage masters, the perfection of these two qualities elevates their work to the dignity of a real art. It is difficult to conceive the contradictory fact, that this apparently simple form of art was once the exponent of a struggling desire for refinement on the part of fierce and warlike men, and that it should, under the influence of polite society, become the all-too-easy task of esthetically minded schoolgirls. In the hands of those warrior artists, and with the tools at their command, mostly fashioned from sharpened fish-bones and such like rude materials, it was an art which required the equivalent of many fine artistic qualities, as such are understood by more cultivated nations. The marvelous dexterity and determined purpose evinced in the laborious decoration of canoe paddles, ax-handles, and other weapons, is, under such technical disabilities as to tools, really very impressive. This being so, there is no inherent reason why such a rudimentary form of the art as "chip" carving should not be practised in a way consistent with its true nature and limitations. As its elemental distinctions are so few, and its methods so simple, it follows that in recognizing such limitations, we shall make the most of our design. Instead, then, of trusting to a forced variety, let us seek for its strong point in an opposite direction, and by the monotonous repetition of basket-like patterns, win the not-to-be-despised praise which is due to patience and perseverance. In this way only can such a restricted form of artistic expression become in the least degree interesting. The designs usually associated with the "civilized" practise of this work are, generally speaking, of the kind known as "geometric," that is to say, composed of circles and straight lines intersecting each other in complicated pattern. Now the "variety" obtained in this manner, as contrasted with the dignified monotony of the savage's method, is the note which marks a weak desire to attain great results with little effort. The "variety," as such, is wholly mechanical, the technical difficulties, with modern tools at command, are felt at a glance to be very trifling; therefore such designs are quite unsuitable to the kind of work, if human sympathies are to be excited in a reasonable way. An important fact in connection with this kind of design is that most of these geometric patterns are, apart from their uncomfortable "variety," based on too large a scale as to detail. All the laborious carving on paddles and clubs, such as may be seen in our museums, is founded upon a scale of detail in which the holes vary in size from 1/16 to something under 1/4 in. their longest way, only in special places, such as borders, etc., attaining a larger size. Such variety as the artist has permitted himself being confined to the _occasional_ introduction of a circular form, but mostly obtained by a subtle change in the proportion of the holes, or by an alternate emphasis upon perpendicular or horizontal lines. As a test of endurance, and as an experimental effort with carving tools, I set you this exercise. In Fig. 12 you will find a pattern taken from one of those South Sea carvings which we have been considering. Now, take one of the articles so often disfigured with childish and hasty efforts to cover a surface with so-called "art work," such as the side of a bellows or the surface of a bread-plate, and on it carve this pattern, repeating the same-shaped holes until you fill the entire space. By the time you have completed it you will begin to understand and appreciate one of the fundamental qualities which must go toward the making of a carver, namely, patience; and you will have produced a thing which may give you pleasant surprises, in the unexpected but very natural admiration it elicits from your friends. [Illustration: FIG. 12.] Having drawn the pattern on your wood, ruling the lines to measurement, and being careful to keep your lines thin and clear as drawn with a somewhat hard pencil, proceed to cut out the holes with the chisel, No. 11 on our list, 1/4 in. wide. It will serve the purpose much better than the knife usually sold for this kind of work, and will be giving you useful practise with a very necessary carving tool. The corner of the chisel will do most of the work, sloping it to suit the different angles at the bottom of the holes. Each chip should come out with a clean cut, but to insure this the downward cuts should be done first, forming the raised diagonal lines. When you have successfully performed this piece of discipline, you may, if you care to do more of the same kind of work, carry out a design based upon the principles we have been discussing, but introducing a very moderate amount of variety by using one or more of the patterns shown in Fig. 12, all of which are from the same dusky artist's designs and can not be improved upon. If you wish for more variety than these narrow limits afford, then try some other kind of carving, with perhaps leafage as its motive. CHAPTER VII THE GRAIN OF THE WOOD Obstinacy of the Woody Fiber--First Exercise in Grounding--Description of Method--Cutting the Miters--Handling of Tools, Danger of Carelessness--Importance of Clean Cutting. It is curious to imagine what the inside of a young enthusiast's head must be like when he makes his first conscious step toward artistic expression. The chaotic jumbles of half-formed ideas, whirling about in its recesses, produce kaleidoscopic effects, which to him look like the most lovely pictures. If he could only learn to put them down! let him but acquire the technical department of his art, and what easier than to realize those most marvelous dreams. Later in his progress it begins to dawn upon him that this same technical department may not be so very obedient to his wishes; it may have laws of its own, which shall change his fairy fancies into sober images, not at all unlike something which has often been done before by others. But let the young soul continue to see visions, the more the better, provided they be of the right sort. We shall in the meantime ask him to curb his imagination, and yield his faculties for the moment to the apparently simple task of realizing a leaf or two from one of the trees in his enchanted valley. With the student's kind permission we shall, while these lessons continue, make believe that teacher and pupil are together in a class-room, or, better still, in a country workshop, with chips flying in all directions under busy hands. I must tell you then, that the first surprise which awaits the beginner, and one which opens his eyes to a whole series of restraints upon the freedom of his operations, lies in the discovery that wood has a decided grain or fiber. He will find that it sometimes behaves in a very obstinate manner, refusing to cut straight here, chipping off there, and altogether seeming to take pleasure in thwarting his every effort. By and by he gets to know his piece of wood; where the grain dips and where it comes up or wriggles, and with practise he becomes its master. He finds in this, his first technical difficulty, a kind of blessing in disguise, because it sets bounds to what would otherwise be an infinitely vague choice of methods. We shall now take a piece of yellow pine, free from knots, and planed clean all round. The size may be about 12 ins. long by 7 ins. wide. We shall fix this to the bench by means of two clamps or one clamp and a screwed block at opposite corners. Now we are ready to begin work, but up to the present we have not thought of the design we intend executing, being so intent upon the tools and impatient for an attack upon the silky wood with their sharp edges. The illustration, Fig. 13, gives a clue to the sort of design to begin with; it measures about 11 ins. long by 7 ins. wide, allowing a margin all round. The wood should be a little longer than the design, as the ends get spoiled by the clamps. This little design need not, and indeed should not, be copied. Make one for yourself entirely different, only bearing in mind the points which are to be observed in arranging it, and which have for their object the avoidance of difficulties likely to be too much for a first effort. These points are somewhat to this effect: the design should be of leaves, laid out flat on a background, with no complication of perspective. They should have no undulations of surface. That is to say, the margins of all the features should be as nearly as possible the original surface of the wood, which may have just the least possible bit of finish in the manner I shall describe later on. The articulation of the leaves and flower is represented by simple gouge cuts. There should be nothing in the design requiring rounded surfaces. The passage for tools in clearing out the ground between the features must not be less than 1/4 in.; this will allow the 3/16 in. corner grounder to pass freely backward and forward. The ground is supposed to be sunk about three-sixteenths of an inch. As you have not got your design made, I shall, for convenience' sake, explain how Fig. 13 should be begun and finished. First having traced the full-size design it should be transferred to the wood by means of a piece of blue carbon paper. [Illustration: FIG. 13.] [Illustration: FIG. 14.] Then with either the Veiner or V tool outline the whole of the leaves, etc., about 1/8 in. deep, keeping well on the outside of the drawing. Ignore all minor detail for the present, blocking out the design in masses. No outline need be grooved for the margin of the panel at present, as it should be done with a larger tool. For this purpose take gouge No. 6 (1/4 in. wide), and begin at the left-hand bottom corner of the panel, cut a groove about 1/16 in. within the blue line, taking care not to cut off parts of the leaves in the process; begin a little above the corner at the bottom, and leave off a little below that at the top. The miters will be formed later on. In this operation, as in all subsequent ones, the grain of the wood will be more or less in evidence. You will by degrees get to know the piece of wood you are working upon, and cut in such a way that your tool runs _with_ the grain and not _against_ it; that is to say, you will cut as much as possible on the up-hill direction of the fiber. This can not always be done in deep hollows, but then you will have had some practise before you attempt these. Now take chisel No. 11, and with it stab into the grooved outline, pressing the tool down perpendicularly to what you think feels like the depth of the ground. The mallet need not be used for this, as the wood is soft enough to allow of the tools being pressed by the hand alone, but remember that the force must be proportioned to the depth desired, and to the direction of the grain; much less pressure is wanted to drive a tool into the wood when its edge is parallel with the grain than when it lies in a cross direction; small tools penetrate more easily than large ones, as a matter of course, but one must think of these things or accidents happen. When you have been all round the design in this way with such gouges as may be needed for the slow and quick curves, get the wood out nearly down to the ground, leaving a little for finishing. Do this with any tool that fits the spaces best; the larger the better. Cut across the grain as much as possible, not along it. The flat gouge, No. 1, will be found useful for this purpose in the larger spaces, and the grounders for the narrow passages. This leaves the ground in a rough state, which must be finished later on. Now take gouges Nos. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and chisels Nos. 10, 11, 12, and with them cut down the outline as accurately as possible to the depth of the ground, and, if you are lucky, just a hair's breadth deeper. In doing this make the sides slope a little outward toward the bottom. If the gouges do not entirely adapt themselves to the contours of your lines, do not trouble, but leave that bit to be done afterward with a sweep of the tool, either a flat gouge, or the corner-chisel used like a knife. Now we have all the outline cut down to the depth of the background, and may proceed to clear out the wood hanging about between the design and the ground all round it. We shall do this with the "grounders," using the largest one when possible, and only taking to the smallest when absolutely necessary on account of space. This done, we shall now proceed to finish the hollow sides of the panel and make the miters. Again, take No. 6 gouge and drive a clear hollow touching the blue line at end of panel, and reaching the bottom of the sinking, i.e., the actual ground as finished, see _a_, Fig. 15. To form the miter at top of left-hand side of panel, carry the hollow on until the tool reaches the bottom of the hollow running along the top; as soon as this point is gained, turn the tool out and pitch it a little up in the way shown at _c_, Fig. 15, in which the tool is shown at an angle which brings the edge of the gouge exactly on the line of the miter to be formed. Beginning as it does at _b_, this quick turn of the handle to the left takes out the little bit of wood shown by dotted lines at _b_, and forms one-half of the miter. The cross-grain cut should be done first, as in this way there is less risk of splintering. Now repeat the process on the long-grain side of the panel, and one miter is in a good way for being finished. [Illustration: FIG. 15.] A word now about these sides of sunk panels. They always look better if they are hollowed with a gouge instead of being cut square down. In the first case they carry out the impression that the whole thing is cut out of a solid piece of wood, whereas when they are cut sharply down they always suggest cabinet-making, as if a piece had been glued on to form a margin. We have now got the work blocked out and the ground fairly level, and we are ready to do the little carving we have allowed ourselves. Before we begin this I shall take the opportunity of reminding you that you must be very careful in handling your tools; it is a matter of the greatest importance, if the contingency of cut fingers or damaged work is to be avoided. The left hand in carving has nearly as much to do as the right, only in a different way. Grasp the chisel or gouge in the left hand with the fingers somewhat extended, that is, the little finger will come well on to the blade, and the thumb run up toward the top of the handle; the wrist meanwhile resting on the work. The right hand is used for pushing the tool forward, and for turning it this way and that, in fact does most of the guiding. Both hands may be described as opposing each other in force, for the pressure on the tool from the right hand should be resisted by the left, until almost a balance is struck, and just enough force left to cut the wood gently, without danger of slipping forward and damaging it or the fingers. The tool is thus in complete command, and the slightest change of pressure on either hand may alter its direction or stop it altogether. Never drive a tool forward with one hand without this counter-resistance, as there is no knowing what may happen if it slips. Never wave tools about in the hand, and generally remember that they are dangerous implements, both to the user and the work. Never put too much force on a tool when in the neighborhood of a delicate passage, but take time and eat the bit of wood out mouse-like, in small fragments. Now we are ready to finish our panel. Take the grounders, according to the size required, always using the biggest possible. Keep the tool well pressed down, and _shave_ away the roughness of the ground, giving the tool a slight sideway motion as well as a forward one. Work right up to the leaves, etc., which, if cut deep enough, should allow the chips to come away freely, leaving a clear line of intersection; if it does not, then the upright sides must be cut down until the ground is quite clear of chips. Grounder tools are very prone to dig into the surface and make work for themselves: sharp tools, practise, and a slight sideway motion will prevent this. Tool No. 23 is useful in this respect, its corners being slightly lifted above the level of the ground as it passes along. Corners that can not be reached with the bent chisels may be finished off with the corner-chisel. Now we come to the surface decorations, for the carving in this design consists of little more. This is all done with the gouges. Generally speaking, enter the groove at its widest end and leave it at the narrowest, lowering the handle of the tool gradually as you go along to lift the gouge out of the wood, producing the drawing of the forms at the same time. A gouge cut never looks so well as when done at one stroke; patching it afterward with amendments always produces a labored look. If this has to be done, the tool should be passed finally over the whole groove to remove the superfluous tool marks--a sideway gliding motion of the edge, combined with its forward motion, often succeeds in this operation. To form the circular center of the flower, press down gouge Nos. 5 or 6, gently at first and perpendicular to the wood. When a cut has been made all round the circle, work the edge of the tool in it, circus-like, by turning the handle in the fingers round and round until the edge cuts its way down to the proper depth. (See A, Fig. 15.) Carve the sides of the leaves where necessary with flat gouges on the inside curves, and with chisels and corner-chisels on the outside ones. These should be used in a sliding or knife-like fashion, and not merely pushed forward. Finish the surface in the same manner all over between the gouge grooves and the edges of the leaves, producing a very slight bevel as in section _a_, Fig. 13, and this panel may be called finished. Fig. 14 is another suggestion for a design, upon which I hope you will base one of your own as an exercise at this stage of your progress. Before we begin another, though, I shall take this opportunity of reading you a short lecture on a most important matter which has a great deal to do with the preparation of your mind in making a suitable choice of subject for your future work. CHAPTER VIII IMITATION OF NATURAL FORMS Difficulties of Selection and Arrangement--Limits of an Imitative Treatment--Light and Distance Factors in the Arrangement of a Design--Economy of Detail Necessary--The Word "Conventional." Broadly stated, the three most formidable difficulties which confront the beginner when he sets out to make what he is pleased to call his design for carving in relief, are: Firstly, the choice of a subject; secondly, how far he may go in the imitation of its details; thirdly, its arrangement as a whole when he has decided the first two points. Just now we shall deal only with the second difficulty, that is, how far may likeness to nature be carried. We shall do this, because until we come to some understanding on that point, a right choice of subject becomes practically impossible, consequently the consideration of its arrangement would be premature. There is, strictly speaking, only one aim worthy of the artist's attention, be he carver or painter; and that is the representation of some form of life, or its associations. Luckily, there is a mighty consensus of opinion in support of this dictum, both by example and precept, so there is no need to discuss it, or question its authority. We shall proceed, therefore, to act upon it, and choose for our work only such material as in some way indicates life, either directly, as in trees, animals, or figures, or by association, and as explanation thereof, as in drapery and other accessories--never choosing a subject like those known to painters as "still life," such as bowls, fiddles, weapons, etc., unless, as I have said, they are associated with the more important element. You have already discovered by practise that wood has a grain which sets bounds to the possibilities of technique. You have yet to learn that it has also an inordinate capacity for swallowing light. Now, as it is by the aid of light that we see the results of our labor, it follows that we should do everything in our power to take full advantage of that helpful agency. It is obvious that work which can not be seen is only so much labor thrown away. There is approximately a right relative distance from which to view all manner of carvings, and if from this position the work is not both distinct and coherent, its result is valueless. Then what is the quality which makes all the difference between a telling piece of carving, and one which looks, at a moderate distance, like crumpled paper or the cork bark which decorates a suburban summer-house? The answer is, attention to _strict economy in detail_. Without economy there can be no arrangement, and without the latter no general effect. We are practically dealing, not with so much mere wood, but unconsciously we are directing our efforts to a manipulation of the light of day--playing with the lamps of the sky--and if we do not understand this, the result must be undoubtedly failure, with a piece of wood left on our hands, cut into unintelligible ruts. But what, you will say, has all this to do with copying the infinite variety of nature's detail; surely it can not be wrong to imitate what is really beautiful in itself? You will find the best answer to this in the technical difficulties of your task. You have the grain of the wood to think of, and now you have this other difficulty in managing the light which is to display your design. The obstinacy of the wood may be to some extent conquered, and indeed has been almost entirely so, by the technical resources of Grinling Gibbons, but the treatment demanded by the laws of light and vision is quite another question, and if our work is to have its due effect, there is no other solution of the problem than by finding a way of complying with those laws. If I want to represent a rose and make it intelligible at a glance from such and such a point of view, and I find after taking infinite pains to reproduce as many as I can of its numerous petals, and as much as possible of its complicated foliage, that I had not reckoned with the light which was to illuminate it, and that instead of displaying my work to advantage, it has blurred all its delicate forms into dusky and chaotic masses, would I not be foolish if I repeated such an experiment? Rather, I take the opposite extreme, and produce a rose this time which has but five petals, and one or two sprays of rudimentary foliage. Somehow the result is better, and it has only taken me a tenth part of the time to produce. I now find that I can afford, without offending the genius of light, or straining my eyesight, to add a few more petals and one or two extra leaves between those I have so sparingly designed, and a kind of balance is struck. The same thing happens when I try to represent a whole tree--I can not even count the leaves upon it, why then attempt to carve them? Let me make one leaf that will stand for fifty, and let that leaf be simplified until it is little more than an abstract of the form I see in such thousandfold variety. The proof that I am right this time is that when I stand at the proper distance to view my work, it is all as distinct as I could wish it to be. Not a leaf-point is quite lost to sight, except where, in vanishing into a shadow, it adds mystery without creating confusion. We have in this discovery a clue to the meaning of the word "Conventional": it means that a particular method has been "agreed upon" as the best fitted for its purpose, i.e., as showing the work to most advantage with a minimum of labor. Not that experience had really anything to do with the invention of the method. Strange to say, the earliest efforts in carving were based upon an unquestioning sense that no other was possible, certainly no attempts were made to change it until in latter days temptations arose in various directions, the effects of which have entailed upon ourselves a conscious effort of choice in comparing the results of the many subsequent experiments. Before I continue this subject further, I shall give you another exercise, with the object of making a closer resemblance to natural forms, bearing in mind the while all that has been said about a sparing use of minute detail with reference to its visible effect. We shall in this design attempt some shaping on the surface of the leaves and a little rounding too, which may add interest to the work. In my next lecture to you, I shall have something to say about another important element in all designs for wood-carving. I mean the shapes taken by the background between the leaves, like the patches of sky seen behind a tree. CHAPTER IX ROUNDED FORMS Necessity for Every Carver Making his own Designs--Method of Carving Rounded Forms on a Sunk Ground. [Illustration: FIG. 16.] Fig. 16, our second exercise, like the first one, is only to be taken as a suggestion for a design to be made by yourself. It is a fundamental principle that both design and execution should be the work of one and the same person, and I want you to begin by strictly practising this rule. It was indeed one of the main conditions of production in the best times of the past, and there is not a shadow of doubt that it must again come to be the universal rule if any real progress is to be made in the art of wood-carving, or in any other art for that matter. Just think for a moment how false must be the position of both parties, when one makes a "design" and another carries it out. The "designer" sets his head to work (we must not count his hands at present, as they only note down the results in a kind of writing), a "design" is produced and handed over to the carver to execute. He, the carver, sets his hands and eyes to work, to carry out the other man's idea, or at least interpret his notes for the same, his head meanwhile having very little to do, further than transfer the said notes to his hands. For very good reasons such an arrangement as this is bound to come to grief. One is, that no piece of carving can properly be said to be "designed" until it is finished to the last stroke. A drawing is only a map of its general outline, with perhaps contours approximately indicated by shading. In any case, even if a full-size model were supplied by the designer, the principle involved would suffer just the same degree of violence, for it is in the actual carving of the wood that the designer should find both his inspiration and the discipline which keeps it within reasonable bounds. He must be at full liberty to alter his original intention as the work develops under his hand. Apparently I have been led into giving you another lecture; we must now get to work on our exercise. Draw and trace your outline in the same manner as before, and transfer it to the wood. You may make it any convenient size, say on a board 18 ins. long by 9 ins. wide, or what other shape you like, provided you observe one or two conditions which I am going to point out. It shall have a fair amount of background between the features, and the design, whatever it is, shall form a traceable likeness to a pattern of some description; it shall have a rudimentary resemblance to nature, without going into much detail; and last, it shall have a few _rounded_ forms in it, rounded both in outline and on the surface, as, for instance, plums. [Illustration: FIG. 17.] In setting to work to carve this exercise, follow the same procedure as in the first one, up to the point when the surface decorations began. In the illustration, there is a suggestion for a variety in the background which does not occur in the other. In this case the little branches are supposed to lie along the tops of gentle elevations, and the plums to lie in the hollows. It produces a section something like this, Fig. 17. There is a sufficient excuse for this kind of treatment in the fact that the branches do not require much depth, and the plums will look all the better for a little more. The depth of the background will thus vary, say between 3/16 in. at the branches and 3/8 in. at the plums. The branches are supposed to be perfectly level from end to end, that is, they lie parallel to the surface of the wood, but of course curve about in the other direction. The leaves, on the other hand, are supposed to be somewhat rounded and falling away toward their sides and points in places. The vein in the center of the leaves may be done with a parting tool, as well as the serrations at the edge, or the latter may perhaps be more surely nicked out with a chisel, after the leaves have received their shapes, the leaves being made to appear as if one side was higher than the other, and as though their points, in some cases, touched the background, while in others the base may be the lowest part. The twigs coming out from the branches to support the plums should be somewhat like this in section, and should lie along the curve of the background, and be in themselves rounded, as in Fig. 18, see section _a a_. The bottom of the panel shows a bevel instead of a hollow border: this will serve to distinguish it as a starting-point for the little branches which appear to emerge from it like trees out of the ground. The plums should be carved by first cutting them down in outline to the background, as A, Fig. 19. Then the wood should be removed from the edge all round, to form the rounded surface. To do this, first take the large gouge, No. 2, and with its hollow side to the wood, cut off the top, from about its middle to one end, and reversing the process do the same with the other side. Then it will appear something like B (Fig. 19). The remainder must be shaped with any tool which will do it best. There is no royal road to the production of these rounded forms, but probably gouge No. 1 will do the most of it. [Illustration: Fig. 18.] [Illustration: Fig. 19.] Here it may be observed that the fewer tools used the better, as if many are used there is always a risk of unpleasant facets at the places where the various marks join each other. Before you try the plums, or apples, or other rounded fruit which you may have in your design, it would be as well to experiment with one on a piece of spare wood in order to decide upon the most suitable tools. The stems or branches may be done with flat gouge No. 1, or the flat or corner chisel. A very delicate twist or spiral tendency in their upward growth will greatly improve their appearance, a mere faceting produced by a flat gouge or chisel will do this; anything is better than a mere round and bare surface, which has a tendency to look doughy. The little circular mark on the end of the plum (call it a plum, although that fruit has no such thing) is done by pressing gouge No. 7 into the wood first, with the handle rather near the surface of the wood, and afterward at a higher inclination, this taking out a tiny chip of a circular shape and leaving a V-shaped groove. Now I am going to continue the subject of my last lecture, in order to impress upon you the importance of suiting your subject to the conditions demanded by the laws of technique and light. Practise with the tools must go hand in hand with the education of the head if good results are to be expected; nor must it be left wholly to hand and eye if you are to avoid the pitfalls which lie in wait for the unwary mechanic. CHAPTER X THE PATTERNED BACKGROUND Importance of Formal Pattern as an Aid to Visibility--Pattern and Free Rendering Compared--First Impressions Lasting--Medieval Choice of Natural Forms Governed by a Question of Pattern. [Illustration: FIG. 20.] By a comparison of the piece of Byzantine sculpture, Fig. 20, with the more elaborate treatment of foliage shown in Fig. 21, from late Gothic capitals, in Southwell Minster, it will be seen how an increasing desire for imitative resemblance has taken the place of a patterned foundation, and how, in consequence, the background is no longer discernible as a contrasting form. The Byzantine design is, of course, little more than a pattern with sunk holes for a background, and it is in marble; but those holes are arranged in a distinct and orderly fashion. The other is a highly realistic treatment of foliage, the likeness to nature being so fully developed that some of these groups have veins on the _backs_ of the leaves. The question for the moment is this, which of the two extremes gives the clearest account of itself at a distance? I think there can be little doubt that the more formal arrangement bears this test better than the other, and this, too, in face of the fact that it has cost much less labor to produce. Remember we are only now considering the question of _visibility_ in the design. You may like the undefined and suggestive masses into which the leaves and shadows of the Southwell one group themselves better than the unbending severity of the lines in the other, but that is not the point at present. You can not _see_ the actual work which produces that mystery, and I may point out to you, that what is here romantic and pleasing on account of its changeful and informal shadows, is on the verge of becoming mere bewildering confusion; a tendency which always accompanies attempts to imitate the accidental or informal grouping of leaves, so common to their natural state. The further this is carried, the less is it possible to govern the forms of the background pattern; they become less discernible as contrasting _forms_, although they may be very interesting as elements of mystery and suggestive of things not actually seen. The consequence is a loss of power in producing that instantaneous impression of harmony which is one of the secrets of effectiveness in carving. This is greatly owing to the constant change of plane demanded by an imitative treatment, as well as the want of formality in its background. The lack of restful monotony in this respect creates confusion in the lights, making a closer inspection necessary in order to discern the beauty of the work. Now the human imagination loves surprises, and never wholly forgives the artist who, failing to administer a pleasant shock, invites it to come forward and examine the details of his work in order to see how well they are executed. [Illustration: FIG. 21.] These examples, you will say, are from architectural details which have nothing to do with wood-carving. On the contrary, the same laws govern all manner of sculpturesque composition--scale or material making no difference whatever. A sculptured marble frieze or a carved ivory snuff-box may be equally censurable as being either so bare that they verge on baldness and want of interest, or so elaborate that they look like layers of fungus. Do not imagine that I am urging any preference for a Byzantine treatment in your work; to do so would be as foolish as to ask you to don medieval costume while at work, or assume the speech and manners of the tenth century. It would be just as ridiculous on your part to affect a bias which was not natural to you. I am, however, strongly convinced that in the choice of natural forms and their arrangement into orderly masses (more particularly with regard to their appearance in silhouette against the ground), and also in the matter of an economical use of detail, we have much to learn from the carvers who preceded the fourteenth century. They thoroughly understood and appreciated the value of the light which fell upon their work, and in designing it arranged every detail with the object of reflecting as much of it as possible. To this end, their work was always calculated for its best effects to be seen at a fairly distant point of view; and to make sure that it would be both visible and coherent, seen from that point, they insisted upon some easily understood pattern which gave the key to the whole at a glance. To make a pattern of this kind is not such an easy matter as it looks. The forms of the background spaces are the complementary parts of the design, and are just as important as those of the solid portions; it takes them both to make a good design. Now I believe you must have had enough of this subject for the present, more especially as you have not yet begun to feel the extraordinary difficulty of making up your mind as to what is and what is not fit for the carver's uses among the boundless examples of beauty spread out for our choice by Dame Nature. Meantime, I do not want you to run away with the impression that when you have mastered the principles of economy in detail and an orderly disposition of background, that you have therefore learned all that is necessary in order to go on turning out design after design with the ease of a cook making pancakes according to a recipe. You will find by experience, I think, that all such principles are good for is to enforce clearness of utterance, so to speak, and to remind you that it is light you are dealing with, and upon which you must depend for all effects; also that the power of vision is limited. Acting upon them is quite another matter, and one, I am afraid, in which no one can help you much. You may be counseled as to the best and most practical mode of expressing your ideas, but those thoughts and inventions must come from yourself if they are to be worth having. In my next lecture I shall have something to say with regard to originality of design, but now we must take up our tools again and begin work upon another exercise. CHAPTER XI CONTOURS OF SURFACE Adaptation of Old Designs to Modern Purposes--"Throwing About"--Critical Inspection of Work from a Distance as it Proceeds. [Illustration: FIG. 22.] Here are two fragments of a kind of running ornament. Fig. 22 is a part of the jamb molding of a church in Vicenza. If you observe carefully, you will find that it has a decidedly classical appearance. The truth is that it was carved by a Gothic artist late in the fourteenth century, just after the Renaissance influence began to make itself felt. It is an adaptation by him of what he remembered having seen in his travels of the new style, grafted upon the traditional treatment ready to his hand. It suits our purpose all the better on that account, for the reason that we are going to re-adapt his design into an exercise, and shall attempt to make it suitable to our limited ability in handling the tools, to the change in material from stone to wood, and lastly, to our different aims and motives in the treatment of architectural ornament. Please do all this for yourself in another design, and look upon this suggestion merely in the light of helping a lame dog over a stile. [Illustration: FIG. 23.] In this exercise (Fig. 23) you will repeat all you have already done with the others, until you come to the shaping of the leaves, in which an undulating or up and down motion has been attempted. This involves a kind of double drawing in the curves, one for the flat and one for the projections; so that they may appear to glide evenly from one point to the other, sweeping up and down, right and left, without losing their true contours. Carvers call this process "throwing about," i.e., making the leaves, etc., appear to rise from the background and again fall toward it in all directions. The phrase is a very meager one, and but poorly expresses the necessity for intimate sympathy between each surface so "thrown about." It is precisely in the observance of this last quality that effects of richness are produced. You can hardly have too much monotony of surface, but may easily err by having too much variety. Therefore, whatever system of light and shade you may adopt, be careful to repeat its motive in some sort of rhythmic order all over your work; by no other means can you make it rich and effective at a distance. It is well every now and then to put your work up on a shelf or ledge at a distance and view it as a whole; you will thus see which parts tell and which do not, and so gain experience on this point. Work should also be turned about frequently, sidewise and upside down, in order to find how the light affects it in different directions. Of course, you must not think that because your work may happen to look well when seen from a little way off that it does not matter about the details, whether they be well or poorly carved. On the contrary, unless you satisfy the eye at both points of view, your work is a partial failure. The one thing is as important as the other, only, as the first glance at carved work is generally taken at some little distance, it is the more immediately necessary to think of that, before we begin to work for a closer inspection. First impressions are generally lasting with regard to carved work, and, as I have said before, beauty of detail seldom quite atones for failure in the arrangement of masses. The rounded forms in this design may give you a little trouble, but practise, and that alone, will enable you to overcome this. Absolute smoothness is not desirable. Glass-papered surfaces are extremely ugly, because they obtrude themselves on account of their extreme smoothness, having lost all signs of handiwork in the tool marks. We shall have something to say presently about these tool marks in finishing, as it is a very important subject which may make all the difference between success or failure in finishing a piece of work. CHAPTER XII ORIGINALITY Dangers of Imposing Words--Novelty more Common than Originality--An Unwholesome Kind of "Originality." I told you that I should have something to say about originality. Almost every beginner has some vague impression that his first duty should be to aim at originality. He hears eulogiums passed upon the individuality of some one or other, and tries hard to invent new forms of expression or peculiarities of style, only resulting, in most cases, in new forms of ugliness, which it seems is the only possibility under such conscious efforts after novelty. The fact is that it takes many generations of ardent minds to accomplish what at first each thinks himself capable of doing alone. True originality has somewhat the quality of good wine, which becomes more delightful as time mellows its flavor and imparts to it the aroma which comes of long repose; like the new wine, too, originality should shyly hide itself in dark places until maturity warrants its appearance in the light of day. That kind of originality which is strikingly new does not always stand the test of time, and should be regarded with cautious skepticism until it has proved itself to be more than the passing fashion or novelty of a season. There is a kind of sham art very conspicuous at the present time, which was at quite a recent date popularly believed to be very original. It seems to have arisen out of some such impatient craving for novelty, and it has been encouraged by an easy-going kind of suburban _refinement_, which neither knows nor cares very much what really goes to the making of a work of art. This new art has filled our shops and exhibitions with an invertebrate kind of ornament, which certainly has the doubtful merit of "never having been seen before." It has evidently taken its inspiration from the trailing and supine forms of floating seaweed, and revels in the expression of such boneless structure. By way of variety it presents us with a kind of symbolic tree, remarkable for more than archaic flatness and rigidity. Now, this kind of "originality" is not only absolutely valueless, but exceedingly harmful; its only merit is that, like its ideal seaweed, it has no backbone of its own, and we may hope that it will soon betake itself to its natural home, the slimy bottom of the ocean of oblivion. Meantime, the only thing we are absolutely sure of in connection with that much-abused word "originality" is this, that no gift, original or otherwise, can be developed without steady and continuous practise with the tools of your craft. CHAPTER XIII PIERCED PATTERNS Exercise in Background Pattern--Care as to Stability--Drilling and Sawing out the Spaces--Some Uses for Pierced Patterns. The present exercises may be described as a kind of carved open fretwork--that is to say, the ground is entirely cut away, leaving the pattern standing free. This will form an excellent piece of discipline with regard to the design of background forms, because in such work as this, those forms assert themselves in a very marked manner; if they are in any way found to be conspicuously unequal in size or are awkwardly designed as to shape, the whole effect of the work is spoiled. [Illustration: FIG. 24.] For your first effort make a design based upon No. 24, and please to observe these rules in its construction. The main or leading lines of the pattern are to run as much as possible without crossing each other. The holes are to be fairly equal in size, or rather in area, as they need not be at all like each other in shape. The amount of wood left standing to be of a width averaging never less than half the length of the average-sized hole. This is necessary for securing sufficient strength of material in the cross-grained pieces, which would be liable to split if made too long and narrow. The pattern should be formal in character, not necessarily symmetrical, but it should be well balanced. You may have one part of your design composed of large holes and another of small ones, provided the change is part of a definite design, as in Fig. 25. You may even leave the wood in some parts forming a solid background, or you may treat it as a separate piece of simple carving on the solid, as in Fig. 26, being careful to execute it in a consistently simple manner, as in this kind of work much change of manner in execution is inadvisable, although, at the same time, it is open to any amount of variety in design of outline and combination of contrasts. [Illustration: FIG. 25.] [Illustration: FIG. 26.] Take a piece of pine about 3 or 4 ft. long and 7 or 9 ins. wide by 3/4 in. thick. Trace on your pattern and drill circular holes in the middle of each space to be cut through. Then take a keyhole saw, and remove the wood by sawing round the space close to the blue line, taking care not to cut through it in any place. The saw must be held very truly upright in order to cut the sides of the spaces at right angles to the face of the wood. Now carve the pattern on the surface in whatever manner you have designed--in grooves suggesting the articulation of the leaves, in short grooves which may pass for additional leaves, or in a dozen ways which practise may help you to invent. The wood should be held tightly down to the bench in all its parts, or, at least, in those being operated upon, as it may, if unsupported, crack across some of the narrow parts. The sides of all the holes must be carved out clean to remove the rough saw marks. This can be done partly by gouges, or still better, the wood may be held up on its edge and the holes cut round with a sharp penknife where the grain allows it. Now turn the work over on its face and carve bevels round each of the holes. This reduces the apparent thickness of wood, and adds to the effect of delicacy in the pattern. This work may be used for the cresting of some large piece of furniture, or may be adapted to fill screens or partitions, stair newels, and balusters, or it may be used as a cornice decoration in the manner suggested by No. 26, where the pierced work can be backed by a hollow cornice which it fills and enriches. In our next exercise we shall try our hands upon a piece of hardwood for a change--meantime do one or two of these fret patterns by way of disciplinary exercise in outline forms. CHAPTER XIV HARDWOOD CARVING Carvings can not be Independent Ornaments--Carving Impossible on Commercial Productions--The Amateur Joiner--Corner Cupboards--Introduction of Foliage Definite in Form, and Simple in Character--Methods of Carving Grapes. We now come to the question, what are we going to do with all the pieces of carving which we propose to undertake. There is no more inexorable law relating to the use of wood-carving than the one which insists upon some kind of passport for its introduction, wherever it appears. It must come in good company, and be properly introduced. The slightest and most distant connection with a recognized sponsor is often sufficient, but it will not be received alone. We do not make carvings to hang on a wall and be admired altogether on their own account. They must decorate some object. A church screen, a font, a piece of furniture, or even the handle of a knife. It is not always an easy matter to find suitable objects upon which to exercise our wood-carving talents. Our furniture is all made now in a wholesale manner which permits of no interference with its construction, while at the same time, if we wish to put any carving upon it, it is absolutely essential that both construction and decoration should be considered together. [Illustration: FIG. 27.] A very modest beginning may be made in adapting ornament to a useful article, by carving the surface of a bread plate. These are usually made of some hard wood, such as sycamore. They may be made of oak, but sycamore has the advantage in its lighter color, which is more likely to be kept clean. Two suggestions are given in Figs. 27 and 28 for carving appropriate to this purpose. The essentials are, that there should be a well-defined _pattern_ simple in construction, and as effective as possible with little labor; that there should be little or no rounding of surface, the design consisting of gouge cuts and incisions arranged to express the pattern. The incisions may form a regular sunk ground, but it should not be deep, or it will not be easily kept clean. Then, as in cutting bread the knife comes in contact with the surface, no delicate work is advisable; a large treatment with broad surfaces, and some plain spaces left to protect the carved work, is likely to prove satisfactory in every way. A piece of sycamore should be procured, ready for carving; this may be got from a wood-turner, but it will be as well to give him a drawing, on which is shown the section of edge and the position of all turned lines required for confining the carving. If the plate is to be of any shape other than circular, then it must be neatly made by a joiner, unless you can shape it yourself. [Illustration: FIG. 28.] Many of you are, I have no doubt, handy joiners, and may with a little help put together some slight pieces of furniture to serve at least as an excuse for the introduction of your carving. Here are some suggestions for corner cupboards, chosen as giving the largest area for carved surface with the minimum of expense in construction. The material should be oak--English if possible, or it may be Italian walnut. The doors of Figs. 40 and 41 are in three narrow boards with shallow beads at the joints, those of the others are each made of a single board, and should be 1/2 in. to 5/8 in. thick, the doors may be about 2 ft. 6 ins. high, each having two ledges about 3 ins. wide, screwed on behind top and bottom to keep them from twisting. All moldings, beads, etc., are to be carved by hand, no planes being used. Having traced the lines of your design upon the board, you may begin, if there are moldings as in Fig. 32, by using a joiner's marking gage to groove out the deepest parts of the parallel lines in the moldings along the edges, doing the same to the curved ones with a V tool or Veiner. Then form the moldings with your chisels or gouges. Keep them very flat in section as in Fig. 29. The fret patterns on Figs. 32, 35, and 36, where not pierced, should also be done in low relief, not more than 1/8 in. deep, and the sides of the bands beveled as in section _a_, Fig 30. The widths of these bands ought not to be less than 1/2 in., and look better if they are wider. Very narrow bands have a better appearance, if, instead of being cut straight down, they are hollowed at sides like _b_ in Fig. 30. [Illustration: FIG. 29.] [Illustration: FIG. 30.] [Illustration: FIG. 31.] Fig. 31 is a detail of a kind of gouge work which you must all know very well. One perpendicular cut of a gouge driven in with the mallet, and one side cut, should form one of these crescent or thimble-shaped holes. They should not be too deep in proportion to their size. Their combinations may be varied to a great extent. Two or three common ones are shown in the illustration. This form of ornament was in all likelihood invented by some ingenious carpenter with a turn for art and a limited stock of carving tools. His humble contribution to the resources of the carver's art has received its due share of the flattery which is implied by imitation. In all these patterns it is well to remember that the flat surface of the board left between the cuts is really the important thing to consider, as all variety is obtained by disposing the holes in such a way as to produce the pattern required by means of their outlines on the plain surface. Thus waved lines are produced as in Fig. 31, and little niches like mimic architecture as in Fig. 34, by the addition of the triangular-shaped holes at the top, and the splayed sills at the bottom. (It is obvious that an arrangement like the latter should never be turned upside down.) If this attention to the surface pattern is neglected the holes are apt to become mere confused and meaningless spots. In small pieces of furniture like these, which are made of comparatively thin wood, the carving need not have much depth, say the ground is sunk 1/4 in. at the deepest. As oak is more tenacious than pine, you will find greater freedom in working it, although it is so much harder to cut. You may find it necessary to use the mallet for the greater part of the blocking out, but it need not be much used in finishing. A series of short strokes driven by gentle taps of the mallet will often make a better curve than if the same is attempted without its aid. It will be well now to procure the remainder of the set of twenty-four tools if you have not already got them, as they will be required for the foliage we are about to attempt. The deep gouges are especially useful: having two different sweeps on each tool, they adapt themselves to hollows which change in section as they advance. Fig. 32 contains very little foliage, such as there is being disposed in small diamond-shaped spaces, sunk in the face of the doors, and a small piece on the bracket below. All this work should be of a very simple character, definite in form and broad in treatment. [Illustration: FIG. 31. _Half_] [Illustration: FIG. 32. _Half_] Fig. 33 is more elaborate, but on much the same lines of design varied by having a larger space filled with groups of leaves. Fig. 34 gives the carving to a larger scale; in it the oak-leaves are shown with raised veins in the center, the others being merely indicated by the gouge hollows. There is some attempt in this at a more natural mode of treating the foliage. While such work is being carved, it is well to look now and then at the natural forms themselves (oak and laurel in this case) in order to note their characteristic features, and as a wholesome check on the dangers of mannerism. It is a general axiom founded upon the evidence of past work, and a respect for the laws of construction in the carpenter's department, that when foliage appears in panels divided by plain spaces, it should never be made to look as if it grew _from one panel into the other_, with the suggestion of boughs passing behind the solid parts. This is a characteristic of Japanese work, and may, perhaps, be admirable when used in delicate painted decorations on a screen or other light furniture, but in carvings it disturbs the effect of solidity in the material, and serves no purpose which can not be attained in a much better way. [Illustration: CARVING IN PANELS OF FIG 33 FIG. 34.] Expedients have been invented to overcome the difficulty of making a fresh start in each panel, one of which is shown in Fig. 34, where the beginning of the bough is hidden under a leaf. It is presumable that the bough _may_ go on behind the uncarved portions of the board to reappear in another place, but we need not insist upon the fancy, which loses all its power when attention is called to it, like riddles when the answer is known. [Illustration: FIG. 35.] [Illustration: FIG. 36.] In Fig. 35, like the last, the treatment is somewhat realistic. This is shown to a larger scale in Fig. 38. Nevertheless, it has all been "arranged" to fit its allotted space, and all accidental elements eliminated; such, for instance, as leaves disappearing in violent perspective, or even turned sidewise, and all minute details which would not be likely to show conspicuously if carved in wood. In Fig. 39, (_a_) is an outline of a group of vine-leaves taken from nature, as it appeared, and in which state it is quite unfitted for carving, on account of its complicated perspective and want of definite outline; Fig. 39 (_b_) is a detail also copied from nature, but which might stand without alteration provided it formed part of a work delicate enough to note such close elaboration in so small a space. This, of course, would entirely depend upon the purpose for which the carving was intended, and whether it was meant for distant view or close inspection. As there is arrangement necessary in forming the outline, so there is just as much required in designing the articulation of the surfaces of the leaves, which should be so treated that their hollows fall into a semblance of some kind of pattern. Fig. 36 is a more formal design, or, to use a very much abused word, more "conventional," in which such leafage as there is only serves the purpose of ornamental points, marking the divisions of the general design. The gouge work upon the leaves should be of the simplest description, but strict attention is necessary in drawing the grooves, so that their forms may be clear and emphatic, leaving no doubt as to the pattern intended. Designs of this kind have no interest whatever except as pieces of patterned work, to which end every other consideration should be sacrificed. It must not be cut too deep--say 1/4 in. at the deepest--and the sides of the panels should be very gently hollowed out with a flattish sweep (see section on Fig. 37) in order to avoid any appearance of actual construction in what more or less imitates the stiles and rails of a door. Fig. 37 shows a portion of the leafage to a larger scale, and also a plan explaining the construction of all these cupboards. [Illustration: FIG. 37.] [Illustration: FIG. 38.] [Illustration: FIG. 39 (_a_).] Fig. 40 is designed upon the barest suggestion of natural foliage, the wavy stem being quite flat, and running out flush into the flat margins at the sides, connecting them together. The leaves in this case should be carved, leaving the veins standing solid; grooved veins would have a meager look upon such rudimentary leaves. Of course a more natural treatment may be given to this kind of design, but in that case it would require to be carried all over the door, and replace the formally ornamental center panel. The pierced pattern in cresting should be done as already described for Fig. 24. [Illustration: FIG. 39 (_b_).] [Illustration: FIG. 40.] [Illustration: FIG. 41] Fig. 41 is a variant on the last design. In this case a little more play of surface is attempted, making a point of carving the side lobes of the leaves into little rounded masses which will reflect points of light. This is shown better on Fig. 42. [Illustration: FIG. 42.] [Illustration: FIG. 43.] In carving foliage like that of the vine, where small dark holes or eyes occur, enough wood should be left round them to form deep dark little pits. They are very valuable as points of shadow. In doing this, cut the rim all round with a very slight bevel as in section, Fig. 43. Whenever leaves run out to a fine edge they also should have a small bevel like this in order to avoid an appearance of weakness which acute edges always present. As a general rule leave as much wood as possible about the edges of leaves as you want shadow from them--dipping them only where you are sure the variety will be effective. In the execution of bunches of rounded forms like grapes there is no special mechanical expedient for doing them quickly and easily; each must be cut out separately, and carved with whatever tools come handiest to their shape and size. It is a good way to begin by cutting triangular holes between the grapes with the point of a small chisel (see Fig. 44), after which the rough shapes left may gradually be formed into ovals. When the work is very simple in character, and does not require a realistic treatment, the grapes may be done in a more methodical way, as in Fig. 45. First cut grooves across both ways with a V tool, dividing the grapes as at _a a_, then with a gouge turned hollow down round each line of grapes into rolls as at _b b_. Do this both ways, and afterward finish the form as best you can. [Illustration: FIG. 44.] [Illustration: FIG. 45.] CHAPTER XV THE SKETCH-BOOK Old Work Best Seen in its Original Place--Museums to be Approached with Caution--Methodical Memoranda--Some Examples--Assimilation of Ideas Better than Making Exact Copies. In holiday time, and as other opportunity arises, be sure to visit some old building, be it church or mansion. In this way you will make acquaintance with many a fine specimen of old work which will set your fancy moving. In the one there may be a carved choir-screen or bench ends, in the other a fireplace or table. The first sight of such things in the places and among the surroundings for which they were designed, is always an eventful moment in the training of a carver, because the element of surprise acts like a tonic to the mind by arousing its emulative instincts. It is by seeing such things in their proper home and associations that the best lessons are learned. One sees in that way, for instance, _why_ the tool marks left by the old carvers on their work look more effective than smoothly perfect surfaces, when associated with the rough timbers of the roof, or the uneven surface of the plastered wall. One sees, too, the effect of time and friction in the polished surfaces of bench ends, rubbed and dusted by countless hands until they have become smooth to the eye and touch, and a mental note is made to avoid sharp or spiky work in anything that is likely to be within reach of the fingers. In this way a certain balance is given to the judgment in proportioning to each piece of work its due share of labor, and we come away with a fixed determination to pay more attention in future to breadth of design and economy of actual carving, a problem which no carver finds easy, but which must be faced if wasted work is not to be his only reward. [Illustration: FIG. 46.] In museums, too, we shall find many useful lessons, although there we see things huddled together in a distracting fashion which demands great wariness of selection. The great point to be observed in making our notes for future reference is, that each sketch should contain some memorandum of a special quality, the one which attracted us at the time of making it. One may be made for sake of a general arrangement, another to remind us of some striking piece of detail or peculiarity of execution. The drawings need not be elaborate or labored, provided they make clear the points they were intended to record. Thus Fig. 46 is a sketch which is meant as a memorandum of a lively representation of birds, taken from an old Miserere seat. Fig. 47 was done for sake of the rich effect of an inscription on the plain side of a beam, and also for the peculiar and interesting section to which the beam had been cut. Fig. 48, again, for sake of the arrangement of the little panels on a plain surface, and the sense of fitness and proportion which prompted the carver to dispose his work in that fashion, by which he has enriched the whole surface at little cost of labor, and by contrast enhanced the value of the little strips and diamonds of carved work, otherwise of no particular interest. Figs. 49 and 50 are two sketches of Icelandic carved boxes. Fig. 49 was drawn as an example of the rich effect which that kind of engraved work may have, and of the use which it makes of closely packed letters in the inscription. The pattern is, of course, a traditional Norse one, although the carving is comparatively modern. The points to be noted in the other box were its quaint and simple construction, the use of the letters as decoration, more especially the unpremeditated manner in which they have been grouped, the four letters below making a short line which is eked out by a rude bit of ornament. The letters are cut right through the wood, and are surrounded with an engraved line. Fig. 51 was noted on account of the way in which a very simple pierced ornament is made much of by repetition. The ornament is on a Portuguese bed, and this is only a detail of a small portion. The effect greatly depends upon the quantity, but in this case that is a point which is easily remembered without drawing more of it than is shown. The fact that this work is associated with richly turned balusters is, however, noticed in the sketch, as that might easily be forgotten. Figs. 47 to 51 are from South Kensington Museum. [Illustration: FIG. 47.] [Illustration: FIG. 48.] [Illustration: FIG. 49.] [Illustration: FIG. 50.] [Illustration: FIG. 51.] Then we come to the sketch of a chair (Fig. 52), or combined table and chair. The richly carved back is pivoted, and forms the table top when lowered over the arms, upon which it rests. The points to be noted in this are, the general richness of effect, the contrast of wavy and rigid lines, and the happy way in which the architectural suggestion of arch and pillars has been translated into ornament. As this sketch was not made so much for the chair itself as for its enriched back, no measurements have been taken; otherwise chairs, as such, depend very much upon exact dimensions for their proportions. This chair is at Exning in Suffolk. [Illustration: FIG. 52.] Now we shall suppose that you are going to make many such sketches both in museums and in country churches or houses. You will find some too elaborate for drawings in the time at your disposal, in which case you should obtain a photograph, if possible, making notes of any detail which you wish particularly to remember--such, for instance, as the carved chest shown in Plate I. The subject, St. George and the Dragon, is given with various incidents all in the one picture. This is a valuable and suggestive piece of work to have before you, as the manner in which the pictorial element has been managed is strikingly characteristic of the carver's methods, and well adapted to the conditions of a technique which has no other legitimate means of dealing with distant objects. The king and queen, looking out of the palace windows, are _almost_ on the same scale as the figures in the foreground; the walls of the houses, roofs, etc., have apparently quite as much projection as the foreground rocks--distance is inferred rather than expressed. The very simple construction, too, is worth noting. It is practically composed of three boards, a wide one for the picture, and two narrower ones for ends and feet. The object in making these sketches should be mainly to collect a variety of ideas which may brighten the mind when there is occasion to use its inventive faculties. Suggestive hints are wanted; rarely will it be possible, or wise, to repeat anything exactly as you see it. These sketches, if made with care, and from what Constable used to call "breeding subjects," will give your fancy a very necessary point of vantage, from which it may hazard flights of its own. As much of our knowledge must necessarily be gained from museums, and as they now form such an important feature of educational machinery, I think it will be well to devote a word or two of special notice to the drawbacks which accompany their many advantages. This I propose to do in the following chapter. CHAPTER XVI MUSEUMS False Impressions Fostered by Fragmentary Exhibits--Environment as Important as Handicraft--Works Viewed as Records of Character--Carvers the Historians of their Time. A new world of commerce and machinery, having slain and forgotten a past race of artist craftsmen, makes clumsy atonement by sweeping together the fragments of their work and calling the collection a museum. From the four corners of the earth these relics have been gathered. Our hungry minds are bidden to make choice according to fancy, for here is variety of food! Here are opportunities, never before enjoyed by mortal, for an intellectual feast!--and of a kind which might be considered god-like, were it not for the suspicion of some gigantic joke. That out of all this huge mass of chaotic material we have not as yet been able to make for ourselves some living form of art, must indeed be to the gods a continual subject of merriment. Museums of art are in no respect the unmixed blessings which they appear to be. They have, to be sure, all the advantages of handy reference; but at the same time, on account of the great diversity in the character of their exhibits, they tend to encourage the spread of a patchy kind of knowledge, far from being helpful to the arts in the interests of which they are established. It must be remembered that, in these collections, all specimens of architecture and architectural carving are invariably seen in false positions. All have been wrenched from their proper settings, and placed, more or less at random, in lights and relationships never contemplated by their designers. To the environment of a piece of architecture, and the position and surroundings of carved decorations, are due quite half of their interest as works of art. Deprive them of these associations, and little is left but fragmentary specimens of handicraft, more or less unintelligible in their lonely detachment, misleading to the eye, and dangerous as objects of imitation, in proportion to the dependence they once had upon those absent and unknown associations. The educational purpose which these collections are intended to serve is liable to be construed into an unreasoning assumption that every specimen exhibited is equally worthy of admiration. How often the plodding student is to be seen carefully drawing and measuring work of the dullest imaginable quality, with no other apparent reason for his pathetically wasted industry! It would be strange, indeed, if all in this vast record of past activity was of equal value; if merely to belong to the past was a sure warrant that such work was the best of its kind. Far from this being the case, it requires the constant use of a more or less trained and critical judgment to separate what is good from the indifferent or really bad in these collections, for all are usually present. There is inequality in artistic powers, in technical skill, and a distinction of yet greater importance, which lies in the significance the works bear as records of the inner life of their creators. Artists, carvers in particular, are the true scribes and historians of their times. Their works are, as it were, books--written in words of unconscious but fateful meaning. Some are filled with the noblest ideals, expressed in beautiful and serious language, while others contain nothing but sorry jests and stupidities. As all the works of the past, whether good or bad, are the achievements of men differing but little from ourselves, save in the direction of their energies and in their outward surroundings, there is surely some clue to the secret of their success or failure, some light to be thrown by their experience upon our own dubious and questioning spirit. What better could we look for in this respect than a little knowledge of the lives led by the carvers themselves, a mental picture of their environment, an acquired sense of the influence which this, that, or the other set of conditions must have imposed upon their work. With a little aid from history in forming our judgments, their works themselves will assist us--so faithful is the transcript of their witness--for, with more certainty than applies to handwriting, a fair guess may be made by inference from the work itself as to the general status and ideals of the workman. The striking analogy between its salient characteristics and the prevailing mood of that ever-changing spirit which seeks expression in the arts, is nowhere more marked than in the work of the carver. CHAPTER XVII STUDIES FROM NATURE--FOLIAGE Medieval and Modern Choice of Form Compared--A Compromise Adopted--A List of Plant Forms of Adaptable Character. It is high time now that we had some talk about the studies from nature which are to furnish you with subjects for your work. I shall at present deal only with studies of foliage, as that is what you have been practising, and I wish you to carry on your work and studies as much as possible on the same lines. Between the few abstract forms, representing a general type of foliage, so dear to the heart of the medieval carver, and the unstinted variety of choice displayed in the works of Grinling Gibbons and his time, there is such a wide difference that surely it points to a corresponding disparity of aim. Although there is no doubt whatever that such a striking change of views must have had its origin in some deeper cause than that which is to be explained by artistic and technical development, yet I think that for our immediate purpose we shall find a sufficiently good lesson in comparing the visible results of the two methods. Broadly speaking, then, the medieval carver cared more for general effect than for possibilities of technique. He therefore chose only such natural forms as were amenable to his preconceived determination to make his work telling at a distance. He had no botanical leanings, and rejected as unfit every form which would not bend to his one purpose--that of decoration on a large scale--and which he aimed at making comprehensive at a glance, rather than calling for attention to its details. He invented patterns which he knew would assist in producing this result, and here he further handicapped his choice by limiting it to such forms as would repeat or vanish at regulated intervals, reflecting light or producing shadow just where it was wanted to emphasize his pattern. The more modern carver, on the contrary, offered an all-embracing welcome to every form which presented itself to his notice. He rejected nothing which could by any possibility be carved. Nothing was too small, too thin, or too difficult for his wonderful dexterity with the carving tools. His chief end was elaboration of detail, and it was often carried to a point which ignored the fact that nearly all of it would become invisible when in position, or, if seen at all, would only appear in confused lumps and unintelligible masses. Now, for many reasons, I think we had better take the medieval method as our model up to a point, and make a certain selection of material for our studies, based upon some relation to general effect, but not necessarily imitating a medieval austerity of rejection, which would be the merest affectation on our part. Upon these principles, and taking somewhat of a middle course, I shall here note a few types of foliage which I think may be useful to you in the work upon which you are engaged. Leaf forms, with their appropriate flowers or fruit, afford the carver a very large proportion of his subject material. They serve him as principal subject, as bordering or background to figures of men or animals; they occur as mere detached spots, to break the monotony of spaces or lines; and in a thousand other ways give exercise to his invention. As a general rule, those leaves with serrated, or deeply cleft and indented edges, lend themselves most readily to decorative treatment. Large, broad leaves, with unbroken surfaces, and triangular or rounded outlines, are less manageable. Those most commonly taken as models are: _The Vine, with its Grapes._--This was freely used by medieval carvers, at first for its symbolic significance, but afterward even more on account of its rare beauty of form. The play of light and shade on its vigorous foliage, the variety of its drawing in leaf, vine, and tendril, and the contrast afforded by its bunches of oval fruit, caused it to be accepted as a favorite subject for imitation in all kinds of carving. It lends itself kindly to all sorts of relief, either high or low, in almost any material. It is so recognizable, even in the rudest attempts at imitation, that its popularity is well deserved. The hop-vine shares some of these qualities, though much less strongly marked in character. _The Acanthus._--This leaf was first adapted for the purpose of ornament by the workmen of classical Greece. The inspiration was one of the few which they took directly from nature's models. It was also freely used by medieval carvers, but with an insistence upon the flowing and rounded character of its surface forms; and again by the Renaissance artists, with a return to its classical character of fluted and formal strength of line. The graceful drawing of its elaborately articulated surface, and the extraordinary accentuation of its outline, provide an endless source of suggestion. It has been adapted in all manners, according to the fancy of the carver--sometimes long and drawn out, at others wide and spreading. Altogether it has been more thoroughly "generalized" than any other natural form. _The Oak, with its Acorns_, appears in early medieval work, but without much attempt to represent its form with anything like individual character. In later work it has more justice done to its undoubted merits as a decorative feature by a clearer recognition of its beauty in clumps and masses. Fruit, other than the grape and a nondescript kind of berry, was seldom represented by medieval craftsmen; it formed, however, a marked feature in Renaissance ornament, where pomegranate, apple, fig, and melon were in constant requisition. _Flowers_ in general were very little used in early times, and then only in a highly abstract form corresponding to that of the foliage. The rose and lily were the two most frequently seen, but they seldom had more individuality about them than was sufficient to make them recognizable. During the Renaissance flowers were treated with much more regard to their inherent beauties, and were represented with great skill and power of imitation, although often carried beyond legitimate limits in this direction. When dealt with as ornaments, rather than botanical details, they form a rich source of suggestion to the carver, and offer a ready means of contrast with masses of foliage. The rose and lily are such conspicuous flowers that they should, in modern times, be used in a way consistent with our demands for individual character and likeness. They should be fairly well defined and easily recognizable. It is quite possible to treat these flowers in a very realistic way, without endangering their effect as decorative details: they have both such distinguished forms in flower and foliage. Flowers should be chosen for their _forms_; color should not be allowed to deceive the eye in this respect, unless the color itself is suggestive of lines and contours. _Foliage_ should always be studied at its prime, never when it is dried and contorted in its forms. Here is a short list of subjects, including those I have mentioned, all having a sufficiently pronounced character to make them valuable as stock in trade. Many more might be named, but these are chosen as being commonly familiar, and as being representative types of various forms. _For their Leaves and Fruit._--The grapevine, hop-vine, globe artichoke, tomato, apple, plum, pear, bramble, and strawberry. _For Fruit and Vine-like Growths (leafage too massive and smooth to be of much value without adaptation)._--The melon, vegetable-marrow, pumpkins, and cucumber. _For Leafage, Flowers, or Seed Vessels._--The acanthus, oak, thistles, teazle, giant hemlock, cow-parsley, buttercup. _Of Garden Flowers._--The rose, lily, larkspur, peony, poppies, columbine, chrysanthemum, tulip, Christmas rose, Japanese anemone. _For Close and Intricate Designs._--Periwinkle, winter aconite, trefoils of various kinds. Many valuable hints on this subject may be gleaned by a study of Gerrard's Herbal, which is full of well-drawn illustrations, done in a way which is very suggestive to the designer. A careful study of the outline forms of leaves is a schooling in itself, so much may be learned from it. It teaches the relation between form and growth in a way which makes it possible to use the greatest freedom of generalization without violating structural laws. The same causes which govern the shaping of a tree are present in the leaf, settling its final outline, so that, however wandering and fantastic it may appear, there is not the smallest curve or serration which does not bear witness to a methodical development, and to every accidental circumstance which helped or hindered its fulfilment. You could not do better than make a collection of suitable leaves, press them flat and trace them very carefully, keeping the tracings together in a book for reference. Accompanying this you should have in each case a drawing of the leaf as it appears in its natural state, always being careful to do this from a point of view which will accommodate itself to carving the leaf if you should have occasion to use it. CHAPTER XVIII CARVING ON FURNITURE Furniture Constructed with a View to Carving--Reciprocal Aims of Joiner and Carver--Smoothness Desirable where Carving is Handled--The Introduction of Animals or Figures. [Illustration: FIG. 53.] You will find in the illustrations, Figs. 53 to 62, certain suggestions for various pieces of furniture. They are given with the intention of impressing upon you the fact that very little carving can be done at all without some practical motive as a backbone to your fancies. To be always carving inapplicable panels is very dull work, and only good for a few preliminary exercises. It is much better to consider the matter well, and resolve upon some "opus," which will spread your efforts over a considerable period. When you have decided upon the piece of furniture which is most likely to be useful to you, and which lies within your powers of design and execution, then make a drawing for it, and have it made by a joiner (unless you can make it entirely yourself), to be put together in loose pieces for convenience of carving, and glued up when that is finished. You should certainly design the piece yourself, as you should make all your own designs for the carving. The two departments must be carried on in the closest relation to each other while the work is in progress, otherwise their association will not be complete when it is finished. Take, for instance, the head of the bed in the illustration. Why should it stand up so high, like the gable of a house? It is for no other reason than to give an opportunity for carving. A plain board of half the height would have been just as effective as a protection to the sleeper. Useless as carving may be from this practical point of view, it must nevertheless be amenable to utilitarian laws. It must be smooth where it is likely to be handled, as in the case of the knobs on top of the posts; and even where it is not likely to be handled, but may be merely touched occasionally, it should still have an inviting smoothness of surface. As a matter of fact, all carving on a bed should be of this kind, with no deep nooks or corners to hold dust. Here, then, are a number of conditions, which, instead of being a hindrance, are really useful incentives to fresh invention. Just as the construction of joiner's work entails concessions on the part of the carver, so the carver may ask the joiner to go a little out of his way in order to give opportunities for his carving. A little knowledge of this subject will make a reasonable compromise possible. You will find a further advantage in undertaking a fairly large piece of work. As it is almost certain to be in several parts, each may thus receive a different treatment, by which means you not only obtain contrast, but get some idea of the extraordinary power with which one piece of carving affects another when placed in juxtaposition. Whatever designs you may decide upon, should you undertake to carve the panels for a bed, let them be in decidedly low relief. The surface must be smoothly wrought, doing away with as much of the tool marking as you can, but this smoothing to be done entirely with the tools, not by any means with glass paper. Great attention must be paid to the drawing of the forms, as it is by this that the impression of modeling and projection will be expressed. A very pleasant treatment of such low relief when a smooth and even appearance is wanted, is to carve the ground to the full depth, say 1/8 in., only along the outlines of the design, and form the remainder into a kind of raised cushion, almost level in the middle with the original surface of the wood. The whole design need thus be little more than a kind of deepish engraving, depending for its effect upon broad lights defined by the engraved shadows. See Fig. 54 for an example of this treatment applied to letters. [Illustration: FIG. 54.] Now I expect you to make a fresh design. The illustrations in all such cases are purposely drawn in a somewhat indefinite way, in order that they may suggest, without making it possible to copy. [Illustration: FIG. 55.] Now we come to the mirror frame, Fig. 55. I should suggest that this be done in some light-colored wood like pear-tree, which has an agreeably warm tone, or if a hard piece of cedar can be found, it would look well, but in no case should polish be added except that which comes from the tool. The construction need not be complicated. Take two 3/4-in. boards, glue them together to form the width, shape out the frame in the rough. Put behind this another frame of 3/4-in. thick stuff, and make the cornice out of wood about 1-1/2 in. thick. The parts to be kept separate until the carving is finished, and afterward glued or screwed together. The carving on the body of the frame, that is, in the gable above and the front of bracket below, should be in very low relief, the lower part being like the last, a kind of engraving. The fret above may be sunk about 1/16 in. and the ground slightly cushioned. The carving on sides and cornice is of a stronger character, and may be cut as deeply as the wood will allow, while the cornice is actually pierced through in places, showing the flat board behind. The design for this cornice should have some repeating object, such as the kind of pineapple-looking thing in the illustration, and its foliage should be formed with plenty of well-rounded surfaces, that may suggest some rather fat and juicy plant. [Illustration: FIG. 56.] In Fig. 56 you have a suggestion for carving a bench or settle, the proportions of which have been taken from one found at a Yorkshire village inn. The actual measurements are given in order that these proportions may be followed. It is a well-known fact, that chairs, or seats of any kind, can not be successfully designed on paper with any hope of meeting the essential requirements of comfort, lightness, and stability. Making seats is a practical art, and the development of the design is a matter of many years of successive improvements. A good model should therefore be selected and copied, with such slight changes as are necessary where carving is to be introduced. The main lines should not be interfered with on any account, nor should the thickness of the wood be altered if possible. The carving on this settle is intended to be in separate panels, about two inches apart. These panels will look all the better if no two are quite alike; a good way to give them more variety will be to make every alternate one of some kind of open pattern, like a fret. These piercings need not extend all over the design in the panel in every case: some may have only a few shapely holes mixed up with the lines, others again may be formed into complete frets with as much open as solid. (See Fig. 57.) The carving should be shallow, and not too fine in detail, as it will get a great deal of rubbing. The material should be, if possible, oak; but beech may be used with very good effect--in neither case should it be stained or polished. [Illustration: FIG. 57.] Fig. 58 is a clock case. Something of this kind would make an excellent "opus" such as I have alluded to, and give plenty of scope for invention. As clocks of this kind are generally hung on a wall, the brackets, from a practical point of view, are of course unnecessary, but as it is important that they should _look_ as if they were supported and to satisfy the eye, something in the way of a bracket or brackets is generally added. A bracket like the one in the illustration, not being a real support constructively speaking, but only put there to give assurance that such has not been overlooked or neglected, becomes a kind of toy, and may be treated as such by adding some little fancy to make it amusing, and give an excuse for making a feature of it. This will be a good place to try your hand at some modest attempt at figure work. In designing your bracket, should you wish to introduce a little figure of man or beast, I think you will find it more satisfactory if the figure is separated from the structural part by a slight suggestion of solid surroundings of its own. Thus the little roof over, and the solid bit of wood under, the figure in the illustration serve this purpose, lending an appearance of steadiness which would be wanting in a bracket formed of a detached figure. At any rate, never make your figures, whether of man or beast, seem to carry the clock; you may hunch them up into any shape you like, but no weight should be supposed to rest upon them. [Illustration: FIG. 58.] For sake of the carving, oak will be the best wood to employ in making this clock, or one like it, but Italian walnut will do equally well. The size should be fairly large, say about three feet over all in height. This will give a face of about ten inches in diameter, which face will look best if made of copper gilt, and not much of it, perhaps a mere ring, with the figures either raised or cut out, leaving nothing but themselves and two rings surrounding. This should project from the wood, leaving a space of about one inch. [Illustration: FIG. 59.] If you are inclined to try a heavier piece of work, the bench or settle-end in Fig. 59 may give you a suggestion. In this there is a bird introduced in the shape of a cock roosting on the branch of a tree. It would require to be done in a thick piece of wood, say 3 ins. thick, and would be best in English oak. The idea will be, to cut away the wood from the outer lower portion, leaving only about 1-1/4 or 1-1/2 in. thickness, but at the top retaining the full thickness; in which the bird must be carved, the outer edges being kept full thickness in order to give the structural form and enclose the carving. The inside of this upper part, toward the seat, should also be carved, but with a smooth and shallow pattern of some kind, as both may be seen together, and in contrast to each other. [Illustration: FIG. 60.] The introduction of figures leads me to a subject which it will be better to discuss in the next chapter, i.e., the question as to how far it is possible or consistent with present conditions to attempt anything that may bear the character of humor. But in the meantime here are three more subjects upon which fancy and ingenuity may be expended with profit. In Fig. 60 you have a heraldic subject. In all such cases the heraldry should be true, and not of the "bogus" kind. This shield represents a real coat of arms, and was done from a design by Philip Webb, being finally covered with gesso, silvered and painted in transparent colors. Figs. 61 and 62 are suggestions for wooden crosses, oak being the best material to use for such a purpose. The carving should be so arranged as to form some kind of pattern on the cross. In Fig. 62 the black trefoils are supposed to be cut right through the thin pieces of wood forming the center portion, and the carving on that part is very shallow. [Illustration: FIG. 61.] [Illustration: FIG. 62.] CHAPTER XIX THE GROTESQUE IN CARVING Misproportion not Essential to the Expression of Humor--The Sham Grotesque Contemptible--A True Sense of Humor Helpful to the Carver. The dullness which comes of "all work and no play" may be said to affect the carver at times. He tires of carving leaves and ornaments: what more natural than to seek change and amusement in the invention of droll figures of men or animals? The enjoyment which we all feel in contemplating the outcome of this spirit in ancient work, leads us to the imitation of both subject and manner, hoping thereby that the same results may be obtained; but somehow the repetition is seldom attended with much success, while of original fancies of the same sort we are obliged to confess ourselves almost destitute. Who can behold the fantastic humors of Gothic carvings without being both amused and interested? Those grotesque heads with gaping mouths recall the stories of childhood, peopled with goblins and gnomes. It is all so natural, and so much in keeping with the architecture which surrounds it, the carving is so rude and simple, that it seems absurd when some authority on such matters makes a statement to the effect that all such expression of humor has become forever impossible to ourselves. This important part of the question must be left to your own meditation, to settle according to your lights; experience will probably lead you ultimately to the same opinion. Meantime, the point I wish to impress upon you is this, that until you feel yourself secure, and something of a master of various branches of your craft, you should not attempt any subject which aims at being decidedly grotesque. There are very good and practical reasons for this; one is, that while you are studying your art, you must do nothing that may tend to obscure what faculties you have for judging proportion. Now, as all grotesque work is based more or less on exaggeration, it forms a very dangerous kind of exercise to the beginner, therefore I should never allow a pupil of mine to so much as attempt it. Do not think that I wish to discourage every effort which has not an ultra-serious aim. On the contrary, I am but taking a rather roundabout way to an admission that the humorous element has, and must have at all times, a powerful attraction for the wood-carver; and to the statement of an opinion that it should not be allowed to take a prominent place in the work of a student; moreover, that it is quite possible to find in nature a varied and unfailing source of suggestion in this respect (more, in fact, than we are ever likely to account for), and which requires no artificial exaggeration to aid its expression. Some tincture of the faculty is absolutely necessary to the carver who takes his subjects from birds or beasts, in order that he may perceive and seize the salient lines and characteristic forms, of which the key-note is often to be found in a faint touch of humor, and which, like the scent of a flower, adds charm by appealing to another sense. The same argument applies to the treatment of the human figure. Let no student (and I may include, also, master-carver) think that a grotesque treatment will raise the smile or excite the interest which is anticipated. The "grotesque" is a vehicle for grim and often terrible ideas, lightly veiled by a cloak of humorous exaggeration; a sort of Viking horse-play--it is, in fact, a language which expresses the mixed feelings of sportive contempt and real fear in about equal proportions. When these feelings are not behind the expression, it becomes a language which is in itself only contemptible. [Illustration: FIG. 63.] If, carried away by fancy, you must find vent for its impulses, and carve images of unearthly beings, at least make them cheerful looking; one can imagine such demons and goblins as being rather nice fellows than otherwise. A grim jest that fails is generally a foolish one--at least its perpetrator neither deserves nor receives sympathy for his discomfiture. Now, I shall show you one or two examples which may make this matter a little clearer to you, if you are at all inclined to argue the position. I think, at any rate, they will prove that the expression of humor does not always depend upon exaggeration, and may exist in a work which is, one may say, almost copied from nature. Fig. 63 is an example to this effect. The little jester just emerging from a flower, one of the side-pieces to a Miserere seat carving, is undoubtedly a true portrait, carved without the slightest attempt at exaggeration. The quiet humor which it evinces required only sympathy to perceive and skill to portray on the part of its carver. He had nothing to invent in the common acceptation of the word. The carving of the mendicant, which comes on the other side, is equally vivid in its truth to nature. It is so lifelike that we do not notice the humorous enjoyment of the artist in depicting the whining lips and closed eyes of the professional beggar. Observe the good manners of it all--the natural refinement of the artist who leaves his characters to make all the fun, without intrusion from himself other than to give the aid of his skill in representation. Now, subjects of this class will, in all probability, present themselves until the end of the world; but artists like this Gothic one are not so likely to be common. Great technical skill, a large fund of vitality, and many other controlling qualities are necessary to the production of such an artist; but he gives a clue to the right action, which we may with safety accept, even if we can not hope to equal his performance. [Illustration: FIG. 64.] [Illustration: FIG. 65.] The center-piece, Fig. 64, tells a little story of Samson. It is noticeable in these medieval picture subjects, how, when a story has to be told, the details are treated in a broad and distinct fashion, as if the story could take care of itself, and only required to be stated clearly as to facts. The detached ornamental parts, on the contrary, receive a degree of careful attention not given to the picture, seemingly with the object of making their loneliness attractive. The broad-humor characteristic of the companion picture of medieval life, in the little domestic scene, Fig. 65, is equally free from forced exaggeration or intentional misproportion. Scale and anatomy, to be sure, have had little consideration from the carver, but we readily forgive the inaccuracies in this respect, on account of his quick wit in devising means to an end. Before we leave this subject, look at Plate II, in which you will see a curious use of misproportion--intentional, too, in this case--and used for quite other than humorous purposes. This is a little ornamental figure from the tomb of Henry IV, in Canterbury Cathedral. You will see that the body is out of all proportion; too small for the head which surmounts it, or too big for the feet upon which it stands. Now, what could have induced the carver to treat a dainty little lady thus? It certainly was not that he considered it an improvement upon nature, nor was it a joke on his part. It could only be done for some practical reason such as this: that the little figure does part duty as a bracket, hence, more appearance of solidity is required at the top, and less at the foot, than true proportions would admit. It is all done so unostentatiously that one might look for hours at the figure without noticing the license. Not that I should advise you to imitate this naive way out of a difficulty. The childlike simplicity of its treatment succeeds where conscious effort would only end in affectation. [Illustration: FIG. 66.] [Illustration: FIG. 67.] In Fig. 66 you will see another little figure doing duty in connection with a stall division in the Lady Chapel at Winchester Cathedral. Its smooth roundness of form is very appropriate to the position it occupies; while its polished surface bears ample testimony that it has given no offense to the touch of the many hands which have rested upon it. Fig. 67 shows another example of the same sort, but perched on a lower part of the division. This one is from the cathedral at Berne, each division of the stalls having a different figure, of which this is a type. CHAPTER XX STUDIES FROM NATURE--BIRDS AND BEASTS The Introduction of Animal Forms--Rude Vitality Better than Dull "Natural History"--"Action"--Difficulties of the Study for Town-Bred Students--The Aid of Books and Photographs--Outline Drawing and Suggestion of Main Masses--Sketch-Book Studies, Sections, and Notes--Swiss Animal Carving--The Clay Model: its Use and Abuse. Nothing enlivens or gives more variety of interest to wood-carving than the introduction of animal forms. They make agreeable halting-places on which the eye may rest with pleasure. They are, in general, both beautiful in their shapes and associated with ideas which appeal strongly to the imagination, thus affording in masses of abstract ornament the pleasantest kind of relief by adding to it points of definite lineament and meaning. To carve animals as they ought to be carved, one must have something more than a passing interest in their forms; there must be included also an understanding of their natures, and some acquaintance with their habits. A cattle-drover is likely to know the salient points of a bullock, a horse-breeder all those connected with a horse, and so on. We students, however, not having the advantage of such accurate and personal knowledge, must make shift in the best way we can to discover and note the points so familiar to trained eyes. To see animals in this way, and, with knowledge of their forms and habits, treat their sculptured images according to the laws of our craft, is no light task. If choice were to be made between a rude manner of carving--but which familiarity with the subject invested with lively recognition of character--and a more cultured and elaborate, but lifeless study in natural history, there should be no hesitation in making choice of the former method, because animal forms, without some indication of vitality, are the dullest of all dull ornaments. It is quite impossible to describe in words the kind of "action" which is most appropriate to sculpture, it being much more a question of treatment, and the guiding spirit of the moment, than a subject which can be formulated. As a broad and general principle which may be taken for guidance, you will always find yourself on surer ground in the attempt to indicate the _capacity_ for energy and the suggestion of _movement_, than you will if your aim is the extremity of action in any direction. You may, with some justice, point to the illustration given in Fig. 65, and which appears to contradict this statement, as being an example in which violent action is the key-note. You must notice, however, that the two figures, although struggling, are for the moment still, or may be supposed so. There is enough suggestion of this pause to excuse the attitudes and save the composition from restlessness--even the raised hands may be supposed to remain in the same position for a second or two. This imaginary pause, however infinitesimal, is essential to the dignity of the sculptor's art, as nothing is more irritating to the mind than being forced to recognize the contradiction between a motionless image and its suggestion of restless action. It is necessary to observe the same rule in the expression of actual repose, as some clue must be given, some completed action be suggested, in order to distinguish dormant energy from downright inertia. I should like to impress upon you the importance of making a special study of the characteristic movements of animals. You will in time become so far familiar with them that certain standards of comparison and contrast will be established in your mind as aids to memory. Thus you will be all the better able to carve with significance the measured and stately action of a horse, if you have in your mind's eye at the same time a picture of the more cumbrous and slower movements of a cow; and you will be helped in the same way when you are carving a dog, by remembering that the movements of a cat afford a striking contrast, in being stealthy where the other is nervous and quick. For the unfortunate town-bred student or artist, who has had few opportunities to study birds and beasts familiar to the country schoolboy, there is no other way but to make the best of stuffed birds, photographs, etc. Much may be done with these aids if a little personal acquaintance with their habits and associations is added like salt, to keep the second-hand knowledge sweet and wholesome. In the absence of opportunity for study from the life, no pictures of animals can compare in their usefulness to the carver with those by Bewick. They are so completely developed in essential details, so full of character and expressive of life, that even when personal acquaintance has been made with their various qualities, a glance at one of his engravings of birds or beasts conveys new meaning, either of gesture or attitude, to what we have previously learned. Every student who wishes to make a lively representation in carving of familiar beast or bird should study Bewick's engravings of "Quadrupeds" and "Birds." Drawings made for the purpose of study need not be elaborate: indeed, such drawings are only embarrassing to work from. The most practical plan is to make a drawing in which the main masses are given correctly, and in about the same relative position that they will occupy in the carving. I give you in Plate VII an example of this in a drawing made by Philip Webb, who, by the study of a lifetime, has amassed a valuable store of knowledge concerning animals, and acquired that extraordinary skill in their delineation and the expression of character which is only to be attained by close observation and great sympathy with the subject. The drawing in question was made for myself at the time I was carving a lion for the cover of a book (given in Plate VIII). It was made, in his good-natured way, to "help a lame dog over a stile," as I had got into difficulties with the form. This drawing is all that a carver's first diagram should be, and gives what is always the first necessity in such preliminary outlines--that is, the right relationship of the main masses, and the merest hint of what is to come in the way of detail; all of which must be studied separately, but which would be entirely useless if a wrong start had been made. In Fig. 68 I give you tracings from some notes I made myself while carving the sheep in Plates V and VI. The object was to gain some definite knowledge of form by noting the relation of planes, sections of parts, projections, etc., etc. The section lines and side-notes are the most valuable part of the memoranda. In the same manner the illustration, Fig. 69, shows diagrams made from a heron, giving section lines of beak, etc. The side-notes about the colors are valuable, as, although not translatable into carving, they do to some extent influence the manner of interpreting forms. Photographs must not be despised, but they are only of use if read by the light of previous knowledge. For this reason you can not make too many notes of sectional structure through heads, necks, and legs, which will help to explain the mystery common to all photographs. The bear shown in the frontispiece is traced from a photographic illustration which appeared in the Westminster Budget some time ago. By the merest accident it is suggestive of a subject almost ready for the carver's hand. [Illustration: FIG. 68.] [Illustration: FIG. 69.] Until tourists began to explore the beauties of Switzerland, there were no better carvers of animals than the serious but genial craftsmen of that noble country, more especially of such animals as were familiar to their eyes. This preeminence shows distinct signs of soon becoming a thing of the past in the endeavors to meet the demands created by thoughtless visitors. Still, it is possible to obtain a little of the traditional work, uninfluenced by that fatal impetus originating in modern commerce. A piece of this kind is shown in Fig. 70, bought by a friend only a year or two ago in the Grindelwald, and which, although forming part of the usual stock of such things made for tourist consumption, was picked out with judicious discrimination from a number of stupid and trivial objects which displayed neither interest of design nor other than mechanical skill of carving. This little bear, a few inches in size, is carved in a way which shows long experience of the subject, and great familiarity with the animal's ways. The tooling of the hair is done with the most extraordinary skill, and without the waste of a single touch. Now, a word or two more on studies from the life before we leave this subject. I have given you examples of diagrams made for this purpose, but much may be done without any drawings, further than a preliminary map of the general masses. In the case of such an animal as the horse, which can be seen in every street, I have myself found it useful to follow them in my walks, taking mental note of such details as I happened to be engaged upon, such as its legs and joints, its head or neck; another day I would confine my attention to eyes, ears, mane, etc., always with reference to the work immediately in hand, as that is the time to get the best results from life study; because the difficulties have presented themselves, and one knows exactly what to look for. Five minutes spent thus after the work has been started (provided the start has been right and involves no mistake in the general masses) is more valuable than hours of labor in making preliminary drawings. [Illustration: FIG. 70.] The use of experimental models in clay or wax has, of course, its advantages, but it will be well to know just how far such an aid is valuable, and at what point its use becomes hurtful to one's work. It is a common practise in large carving shops for one man to design the figure or animal subjects in clay, while another carves them in stone or wood. Now, apart from the difference in material and the unnatural "division of labor," which we have discussed before, it is beyond question that a model of this kind has even a more paralyzing effect on the actual carver than a drawing would have. Of course, the work is more certain to reach a recognized standard, and the risk of total failure is reduced to a minimum, but there is literally nothing left for the carver to invent; who, if he is a man with a turn for that kind of thing, and of a nervous temperament, must suffer untold irritation in its execution. The good and bad results of the use of a modeled pattern attend in a modified degree even where both are done by the same hand, but for all that it is a useful and convenient way of making experiments in doubtful passages of the work. The "how far" a model is to be carried must be regulated by the amount of confidence the carver has in his own foresight, but in any case it is always well to remember the difference of treatment required in plaster, clay, and hard wood, which lead to such different results that often fresh difficulty arises in having to translate the one manner into the other. For the purpose of roughing out the general scheme, the clay, if it must be resorted to, should be used in soft masses, then a drawing in outline made from this; but all doubtful detailed work should be carved, not modeled, and for this purpose the clay should be allowed to harden until it is nearly dry. The opinions of the well-known wood-carver, Mr. W. Aumonier, on this subject, will be of value to you; he says with regard to the best method of going to work: "A fresh piece of wood-carving executed without a model is distinctly a created work," and that much good work may come by "chopping boldly at a block without any preconceived design, but designing as you go on." But he thinks it is best to work from drawings; "rough, full-size charcoal cartoons, which give the effect wanted by their light and shade." He also says that he "strongly protests against the too frequent use of clay or plaster models, because they are often worse than useless, and not infrequently absolutely immoral in their tendency, because they absorb time and money, which ought more legitimately to be spent on the carving itself." CHAPTER XXI FORESHORTENING AS APPLIED TO WORK IN RELIEF Intelligible Background Outline Better than Confused Foreshortening--Superposition of Masses. I have spoken of the necessity for careful balance between the outlines of subject and background: that both should be agreeable in shape. This becomes complicated and more difficult to arrange when we admit into our design anything resembling what painters call foreshortening, and the awkwardness is felt even in the placing of such a small thing as an apple-leaf, which may be treated in such a way that the intention of the drawing is entirely lost in the confusion which arises between the inferred and the actual projection. In designing such subjects it will be good to bear in mind as a guiding principle that no matter what excuse there may be in the nature of the inferred position of the leaf or limb, the outline against the background must be at once agreeable and explanatory. Every kind of work in relief develops a species of compromise in the expression of form, lying somewhere between the representation of an object on a perfectly flat ground, as in a painting, and the complete realization of the same form, copied from nature in some solid material, without any background whatever. In proportion to the amount of actual projection from the background, of course the necessity diminishes for that kind of foreshortening which is obtained by delineation. It might be inferred, therefore, that in very low relief--which is more nearly akin to the nature of a picture--more liberty may be taken in this direction. It is not so, however, for where actual depth or projection exists, as in carving, be it only so much as the depth of a line, it makes foreshortening well-nigh impossible, except to a very limited extent. There must be, of course, _some_ appearance of this quality, so a certain conventional standard has been set up, beyond which one only ventures at one's own risk. Thus, care is taken that every object composing the subject lies with its _longest lines_ parallel to the background. In this way the least possible violence is done to the imagination in completing the picture. As an example, no single leaf should be represented in relief as turning or coming forward more than it would do if plucked from the tree and laid loosely down upon a sheet of paper. A, Fig. 71, is an outline of an apple-leaf pressed out flat. B is an attempt to present it in violent foreshortening, showing its back to the spectator, while its point is supposed to be buried in the background. C is the same leaf turned the other way, and supposed to be projecting forward; both are exceedingly awkward and unintelligible as mere outlines, and if expressed in relief would not be any more convincing as portraits of the thing intended--rather less so, in fact, than the diagram, which has no projection to interfere with the drawing. So we must turn our leaf until it presents its long side more or less to the spectator, as in D; but even here part of the edge is so thin at _a_ that it will be better to turn it a little farther, as in E, showing more of its surface, as at _b_. [Illustration: FIG. 71.] Again, if we take as another example two apples, one partly covering the other, as in _a_, Fig. 72, where one apple is supposed to be behind the other, and so implies distance. There is no means of expressing this distance in carving. Lowering the surface of the hindmost apple would merely throw out the balance of masses without giving a satisfactory explanation of its position, while to cut a deep groove between the two would be an equally unsightly expedient. The difficulty should, whenever it is possible, be avoided by partially separating the two forms, as in _b_, where the center of the hindmost apple clears the outline of the other; thus making it possible to get a division without awkwardness. [Illustration: FIG. 72.] [Illustration: FIG. 73.] A good expedient, where leaf or scroll forms are to be carved, and when very truthful drawing is necessary to explain their convolutions, is that adopted by Professor Lethaby at the Royal College of Art. It consists in cutting the leaf out of a piece of stiffish paper, and with a knife or pen-handle curling it into the required form. The main lines will thus be seen in true relation to one another, and all the distortion avoided which arises from disconnection of parts; not only that, but it is a useful aid to the invention, as much variety can be hinted at by a skilful manipulation in curling its lobes. Fig. 73 was drawn from a paper model of this kind. Of course, it is quite without the necessary veins or minor articulations, but is useful as a suggestion of main lines. With regard to subjects containing figures of men or animals, the same principle governs the placing of the whole body in the first instance, then of the different members, so that heads, arms, and legs take up a position as nearly as may be with a piece of background all to themselves. Thus, no two bodies should be super-imposed if it can be in any way avoided. (I am speaking now of moderate and low relief, although even in high relief the best masters have always respected the principle.) The temptation to imitate effects of foreshortening for its own sake is not without some excuse, as it is quite possible to make presentable pictures in this way. A horse, for instance, may be carved in low relief, presenting either its head or hindquarters to the spectator, and yet not look absolutely absurd. Again, a front face may be carved in the same way, notwithstanding the difficulty presented by the projection of the nose. Neither of these experiments can ever be said to prove entirely successful. It is not so much that they are either difficult or impossible, as that a more suitable method, one more natural to the technique of the carver, is being neglected, and its many good qualities sacrificed for sake of an effect which can never be fully realized in sculpture. To so dispose the various masses, great and small, that they fall easily into groups, each having some relation to, and share of the background, is a true carver's artifice. A skilful use of this arrangement makes it quite unnecessary to encroach upon the domain of another art in the imitation of an effect which may be successfully rendered with the pencil, but only so to a very limited extent with the carving tools. You have all seen the actors, when called before the curtain at the close of the play, how they pass before it one by one, and perhaps joining hands make their bows _in line_, to all appearance, on a very narrow platform. The curtain is your background, while the footlights may stand for the surface of your wood. In illustration of this principle, let me call your attention to the arrangement of the animals in Plate VI, where economy of space, and a desire to display each detail to advantage, are the leading motives. I give it as the readiest example to hand, and because it fairly illustrates the principle in question. You must excuse the apparent vanity in making choice of one of my own works to exemplify a canon of art. The sheep at the top is supposed to be scampering over rocks; the ram below may be any distance from the sheep that you choose to imagine--the only indication of relative position is _separation_, by means of a ridge that may pass for a rock. The head of the ram is somewhat foreshortened, but there was enough thickness of wood contained in the big mass of the body to allow of this being done in the smaller mass of the head, without leaving too much to be supposed. The heads of the sheep in the fold have been as closely packed as was consistent with showing as much of each as possible, as it was considered better to give the whole head and no body than to show only a part of both: most of the bodies, therefore, are supposed to be hidden behind the wall, only one showing in part. It is a general axiom of the craft, that every mass (be it body or leaf) must be made as complete in itself as the circumstances will allow; but, if partly hidden, the concealment should be wilful, and without ambiguity. Thus, a dog's head may be rightly carved as being partly hidden in a bucket, but ought not to be covered by another head if it is possible to avoid it. CHAPTER XXII UNDERCUTTING AND "BUILT-UP" WORK Undercutting as a Means and as an End; its Use and Abuse--"Built-up" Work--"Planted" Work--"Pierced" Work. By undercutting is meant the cutting away of the solid portions of projections in such a manner as to make them invisible, thus throwing the carved surface work into more complete relief by detaching it from the background. This device has often been carried so far, where the projection was sufficient, that entire groups of figures and foliage have been practically detached from the background, like pieces of separate sculpture carved all round. This desire for completeness of relief was more or less a departure from the orthodox aims of the carvers' craft, and led ultimately to what is known as "built-up" work--that is to say, work in which the projecting parts were composed of many different pieces of wood, each carved separately, and afterward glued or pinned together to form the composition. Many of the most elaborate carvings by Grinling Gibbons are of this kind; they have a charm of their own, but it is one of quite separate interest, and belongs to a category entirely removed from the art of carving objects in a solid piece of wood. Apart from this distinction, the difficulty of the method requires the most accomplished mechanical skill and a highly trained eye to either carve or compose such work in a way to command respect. I shall therefore dismiss this branch of the subject as being outside of our present limits. Undercutting, on the other hand, is an expedient distinctly characteristic of solid wood-carving, and some experiments ought to be made by you in designing work in which it can be used. It may be either partial or complete--complete, of course, only up to a point; that is to say, the connection with the background must in every case be not only maintained but visibly demonstrated. Partial undercutting applies to such portions as the sides of leaves, the receding parts of heads, wings, etc., where the wood between the object and its background is cut away on an inward bend, either completing the projecting form, as in the case of a head, or merely to hide the superfluous wood in the case of a leaf. All this presupposes a certain amount of elevation in the relief; indeed, it is only in such cases that the process is necessary or can be carried out. The use of undercutting of this kind is like every other technical process, liable to abuse through too much being made of its effects. Fortunately the time it consumes is a safeguard against any tendency to run riot in this direction. The point at which it should in all cases stop, and that relentlessly, is where it begins to cause a separation between any entire mass of ornament and its background. If _portions_ are thus relieved almost to complete detachment, but visibly reconnect themselves in another place, a certain piquancy is gained which adds charm without destroying character. A curious use is made of undercutting in the bunch of leaves given in Plate XI from a Miserere seat in Winchester Cathedral; it may be said to be completely undercut in so far that the whole bunch is hollowed out under the surface, leaving from 1/4 to 1/2 in. thickness of wood, in which the leaves are carved, so that you may put your finger in at one hole and see it at the bottom of another. The only end all this extra labor seems to have attained is that of changefulness in the shadows of the holes between the leaves, in which one sees dark rims with light at the bottom, a condition which certainly adds a mysterious lightness to the whole mass. It is a very refined and appropriate use of undercutting, but would only be possible where time could be spent to secure a variant of such epicurean delicacy, as all the superfluous wood must be taken out through the spaces between the leaves, and in this case they are not overlarge for that purpose. Work which has its background entirely cut away, and which is afterward glued or "planted" on a fresh background to save labor, can not be called "undercut"; this method has generally a cheap look, as it is used with the object of saving time and expense. Carving which is treated in this way, but instead of being "planted" close to the background, is fixed at a little distance from it (as is the case with the lace-like designs fitted into the hollow moldings of fifteenth-century choir-screens), is of quite a different order, although even in this case it can not be strictly described as undercut: it is more nearly akin to pierced fretwork. It has, however, all the general effect of undercut work, and is the only possible way of obtaining this effect in wood where a large quantity of such ornament is required. The face of such carving is generally a little convex, while the back is hollowed out to give an equal thickness of section. The ornaments in Figs. 75, 76, and 77 are of this description, and are calculated to give great play of light and shade, and be seen well at a considerable distance. Undercutting in the strict and more laborious sense must be reserved for occasions where the labor is repaid by the additional charm. It must be considered in the light of a _tour de force_, which, on account of its cost in the matter of time, should only be used under exceptional circumstances, care being taken to make it clear that it is _an exception_ to the general rule of solid carving on a solid background. CHAPTER XXIII PICTURE SUBJECTS AND PERSPECTIVE The Limitations of an Art not Safely Transgressed--Aerial Perspective Impossible in Relief--Linear Perspective only Possible in a Limited Way. Those vague and shadowy boundaries which separate the domains of the different arts are being perpetually called in question. By what landmarks such indefinite frontiers may be distinguished, and how far they may be extended or transgressed, will always be a matter of dispute. Excursions of conquest are continually being made, and conspicuous among these, one which animates the hopes of many sculptors and modelers. Its aim is the appropriation of those charms which are the peculiar property of the graphic arts, more especially their power of expressing the effects of distance by means of linear and aerial perspective. The background of a piece of carving is so obviously solid and impenetrable that any attempt to imitate an appearance of distance is sure to defeat its own ends, the loss being greater than the gain. If there are limits to be observed in the foreshortening of a single leaf, how much more must they apply to the representation of whole landscapes? Properly speaking, there is no _distance_ available in the carver's art; its whole interest lies near the surface, and in the direct rays of the light which illuminates it. There is even a distinct pleasure to be derived from the sense that it is all carved out of a block of such and such thickness, pointing to the reasonable conclusion that this thickness should never be lost sight of, the carving ever and anon returning to the surface as a measure of music does to its key-note. This is exemplified in all the great works of antiquity, among which the Parthenon frieze may be quoted as evidence. On the other hand, all pictorial sculpture, such as carved landscapes with figures diminishing both in scale and projection, necessarily fail to uphold this sense of solidity, as there must occur large spaces which are hollowed out far below the surface to give another plane on which to carve the more distant objects in low relief, in the vain hope of making them appear to recede. Work in which perspective of this kind is used must be viewed as nearly as possible from the point of vision produced by its vanishing-lines; this point is intelligible enough in the case of a painting, but when it comes to be carved into relief, if it happens to be seen from any other point of view, it necessarily looks all wrong, because every part is thrown into false relationship. All this, of course, forms no argument against the use of explanatory landscapes with trees, buildings, etc. It only means that all such features must be treated in a way entirely different to that adopted by the painter--that is to say, in detached groups, each having some due relation to the original surface of the wood, and only very little to their perspective positions. In Fig. 74 are two diagrams of a landscape composition. The one is appropriate to a painted picture and the other to carving; both have pretty nearly the same number of features, except that in the carving there is no _effect_ of distance attempted, whereas in the painting everything leads to this one particular distinction. The road goes _into_ the picture, the bridge is seen end on, the house and mill are diminished in size, and the horizon is strongly enforced by a shadow echoed in the sky. The carving looks ridiculous beside the painting, but it is a severe test, as it is not a subject which should be carved at all in that condensed way. [Illustration: FIG. 74.] CHAPTER XXIV ARCHITECTURAL CARVING The Necessity for Variety in Study--A Carver's View of the Study of Architecture; Inseparable from a Study of his own Craft--Importance of the Carpenter's Stimulating Influence upon the Carver--Carpenter's Imitation of Stone Construction Carried too Far. That the study of wood-carving should be confined to the narrow field of its own performances would be the surest way to bring contempt upon an art which already offers too many temptations for the easy embodiment of puerile motives. Such a limited range would exclude all the stimulating lessons to be derived from the many other kinds of carving and sculpture; forgetful that they are, after all, but different forms of the same art, differing only in technique and application. It would take no note of the stately sculptures of Greece--the fountain-head of all that is technically and artistically perfect in expression of form--or of the splendor of imagination displayed in the ivories of Italy. Many another source of inspiring impetus would be neglected, including the greatest of all, the influence of architecture, and through it, the dignified association or the carver's art with all that is noble in the life of mankind. The dry and uninviting aspect which a serious study of architecture presents to some minds is such that it is too often avoided as both useless and wearisome. Much of this diffidence is due to a misconception of the aims which should govern the student of decorative design in making an acquaintance with its principles. The study should not be looked upon as pertaining exclusively to the functions of an architect, nor as having only an accidental connection with particular crafts. It must be remembered that in the old days mason and carpenter were both craftsmen and architects, and the sculptor and wood-carver had an equal share in creating every feature which gives any distinction of style to the buildings that were the outcome of their united efforts. So, instead of looking upon the subject as only a study of dates for the antiquary, and rules of construction for the architect, the carver should take his own view, and regard architecture for the time being as what in some sense it really is: a very large kind of carving, which includes and gives reason for his own particular branch. The importance of the subject is proved by the experience of centuries; history showing plainly how the two arts grew in strength and beauty only when closely associated, and shared each other's fate in proportion to their estrangement. In this place I can say but very little upon such a vast subject; all I can do is to call your attention to one or two examples of carved work combined with structural carpentry, in order that you may see for yourselves what a power of effect lies in that union, and how by contrast it enhances the value and interest of both. I do this in the hope that it may possibly lead you to a more complete study of architecture, for which there is no lack of opportunity in books and museums, but more especially in what remains of the old buildings themselves, with which a familiar and personal acquaintance will be much better than a theoretical or second-hand one. No carver with a healthy ambition can long continue to make designs and produce them in wood without feeling intensely the want of some architectural occasion for his efforts. Had he only a barge-board to carve, or the canopy of a porch, it would be such a relief to turn to its large and general treatment after a course of the panels and ornaments peculiar to domestic furniture. Look, for instance, at the carved beams of the aisle roof in Mildenhall Church given in Plate III, and think what a fund of powerful suggestion lay in the bare timbers before they were embellished by the carver with lion, dragon, and knight. Even the carpenter became inspired with a desire to make something ornamental of his own department, and has shaped and carved (literally carved) his timbers into graceful moldings. Then, again, in the roof of Sall Church, Norfolk, shown in Plate IV, you have a noble piece of carpentry which is as much the work of an artist as the carved figures and tracery which adorn it--indeed it is all just as truly carved work as those figures, being chopped out of the solid oak with larger tools, ax and adze, so that one knows not which to admire most, carved angels or carved carpentry. Plates XI and XII are details of the carvings which fill the spandrels of arch and gable in the choir stalls and screen at Winchester Cathedral. There are a great many of these panels similar in character but differing in design, some having figures, birds, or dragons worked among the foliage. They are comparatively shallow in relief, and this appears less than it really is owing to the fact that many parts of the carving dip down almost to the background, giving definite but not deep shadows. The main intention seems to have been to allow only enough shadow to secure the pattern, and then to emphasize this by means of a multitude of little _illuminated_ masses. The leading lines run through the pattern as continuously as possible, but the surface of the leafage is divided up into numbers of little hills and hollows. The sides of these prominences catch and reflect light more readily than they produce shadow, so that it is possible to trace the pattern at a considerable distance by means of the lights alone. Unfortunately for all believers in the historical evidence of ancient handicrafts, this work was overhauled some half century ago, and in parts "_restored_." The old work has been imitated in the new with surprising cleverness, but for that, no one who has a clear sense of the true function of the carver's art, or of the historical value of its witness to past modes of life, will thank those who carried out the "restoration," so confusing is it to be unable to distinguish at a glance the old from the new, so depressing to find such laborious efforts wasted in pleasing a childish desire for uniformity of treatment when it could only be achieved at the cost of deception, and, I may add, so irritating to find oneself for a moment deceived into accepting one of the "restored" parts as genuine old work. To add to the deception, the whole of the old woodwork, as well as the new, was smeared over with a black stain in order the better to hide the difference of color in old and new wood, thus forever destroying its soft and natural color, as well as the texture of its surface, so dear to the wood-carver. The fifteenth century in England was a period of great activity among wood-carvers, and many beautiful choir-screens were added about this time to the existing churches, all in the traditional Gothic manner, as the Renaissance influence was a full century at work in other countries before its power began seriously to affect the national style. The West of England (Somerset and Devon in particular) is rich in the remains of this late Gothic carving, some details of which are shown in the accompanying illustrations, Figs. 75, 76, 77. [Illustration: FIG. 75.] [Illustration: FIG. 76.] [Illustration: FIG. 77.] As a general rule the supporting carpentry of these screens bears a strong resemblance to stonework; so imitative is it in treatment, that it is only by the texture of the wood and its lightness of construction that the distinction is made evident. Now a certain degree of modified imitation, where one craft models its forms of design upon those of another, using a different material, as in the case of woodwork imitations of arches, tracery, etc., is not only legitimate, but very pleasing in its results. To attain this end, the carpenter need only be true to his own ideals--there is no occasion to abandon the methods of his own craft in order to copy the construction which is peculiar to another. The resources of carpentry offer an infinite field for the invention of new and characteristic forms, and these may be made all the more attractive if they show, to some extent, the influence of an associated craft, but never fail to become wearisome if essential character has been sacrificed for the sake of an ingenious imitation. The structural parts of some of these screens are composed of elaborate imitations of stone vaulting and tracery, so closely copied as to be almost deceiving, therefore they can not be taken as good examples of suggestive opportunity for the wood-carver. The carved work, on the other hand, is marked by a strong craft character, essentially _woody_ both in design and execution. The illustrations referred to are typical examples of this kind of work, and, although the execution can not be indicated, they at least give the disposition of parts, and some idea of the contrast obtained by the use of alternate bands of ornament differing in scale, or, as in some cases, the agreeable monotony produced by a repetition of almost similar designs, varied slightly in execution. Another prominent feature of church woodwork, which developed about this time into magnificent proportions, was the font cover and canopy. Many of these were, however, more like glorifications of the carpenter's genius for construction than examples of the carver's art, as they were composed of a multitude of tiny pinnacles and niches, the carver's work being confined to a repetition of endless crockets, tracery, and separate figures or groups. However, in Plate XIII an example is given of what they could do when working together on a more equal footing; although much mutilated, enough remains to show how the one craft gains by being associated with the other in a wholesome spirit of rivalry. CHAPTER XXV SURFACE FINISH--TEXTURE Tool Marks, the Importance of their Direction--The Woody Texture Dependent upon Clearness of Cutting and Sympathetic Handling. The term "texture" is sometimes applied to the quality of finish which is characteristic of good carving; it has a somewhat misleading sound, which seems to suggest that the final treatment of the surface is the work of a separate operation. However, it is a right enough word, as the texture which wood-carvers aim at is that of the wood in which they are carving. One might naturally think that this texture must necessarily appear when the work was finished, but that is not the case, as it is only rescued by the most skilful use of the tools, and easily disappears under the mismanagement of clumsy or unsympathetic hands. Texture in carving is in some respects on a parallel with tone in painting--it depends upon a right relation of many qualities. As in the painting good tone is the outcome of the combined effects of truth in color and a right balance of what are called the "values," together with decision in the handling of the brush, so in carving, texture depends upon, first, having a clear idea of what is being carved, and making it clear to others; that if it be round, hollow, or flat, it must be so indeed; that edges and sharpnesses be really where they were intended to be, and not lost in woolly confusion. Then again, as with the painter's brush, the tool must be moved by a hand which adapts itself to every changing plane, to all manner of curves and contours, with touches sometimes delicate and deliberate, at others broad and sweeping, or even, at times, brought down with the weight and force of an ax-blow. A good quality of finish may exist in the most divergent kinds of work, each having its own characteristic texture. Thus a broad treatment on a large scale will make much of the natural texture of the wood, enforcing it by crisp edges and subtle little ridges which catch the light and recall the momentary passage of the sharp tool, while elaborate work in low relief may have a delicate texture which partly imitates that of the details of its subject, and partly displays the nature of the wood. In either case, the texture must be consciously aimed at by the carver as the last but by no means least quality which is to give vitality to the work of his hands. A sense of the capabilities of his wood in this respect is one of the best aids to the carver, as it reacts on his sense of form and compels him to precision. Manual dexterity alone may succeed in making its work clearly intelligible, but that is all, and it generally leaves a surface in which there is little indication of any feeling for the material in which the work is carved, nothing, in fact, that marks it specially as carving in wood, or distinguishes it from a casting in metal. The technical operation which is most immediately answerable for the making or marring of texture is the disposition and nature of the final tool marks. These should be so managed that they help the eye to understand the forms. They should explain rather than confuse the contours of the surface. Just as in a good chalk drawing the strokes and cross-hatchings are put in with method, and if well done produce the effect of something solid, so in carving, the tool marks should emphasize the drawing without in any way calling attention to themselves. It is quite impossible to explain in words that will not be open to misconstruction the subtle commingling of qualities which make all the difference between good and bad texture. We may succeed better by describing those conditions which are unfavorable to it. Thus work which is very much cut up into minute detail, and which lacks a proper contrast of surface, or, for the same reason, work which is too generally bald and smooth, rarely exhibit a good surface texture. Again, work which is overlabored, or where delicate details have been attempted on a coarse-grained wood, or finally, work which, although done with success in the matter of mechanical dexterity, is deficient in feeling for its woody possibilities, are all likely to fail in the matter of texture. Punch-marked backgrounds have undoubtedly a legitimate place among the expedients of the carver for obtaining contrast, but on the whole, as such, they are of a somewhat meretricious order, and in almost every case their use is fatal to the charm of fine texture, as this always depends on an appreciation of the homogeneous connection of carving and background. If they are used at all they should be made to form patterns on the background, and not put down promiscuously. Little gouge marks are still better, as they are not so mechanical. I shall conclude this part of my subject with a quotation from the words of Mr. W. Aumonier, in a lecture delivered at the Royal Institute of British Architects. "_All carving to be treated according to the position it is to occupy._ Not only the design, but the actual carving itself, should be considered with a view to the position it is to take and the light it will receive. Thus, even if quite close to the eye, where, of course, its position warrants or demands a certain amount of finish, it must be remembered that real finish rather means perfection of form than smoothness of surface, so that even there it should still show its cuts and its tool marks fearlessly, and be deepened in parts to make it tell its proper tale in the combined scheme of decoration; while if it is going a great height or distance from the eye it should be left as rough as ever you can leave it. The only points that have to be regarded are the outlines, varieties of planes, and depths, and if these be properly considered everything else will take care of itself, and then the whole work can not be left too rough. Its very roughness and choppy cuts will give it a softness and quality when in its place that no amount of smoothing or high finish can possibly attain to." Beware of putting a wrong interpretation upon the word "rough"--refer to what he says of the points to be regarded, i.e., the "varieties of planes, and depths." If they are right the "roughness" is not likely to be of the offensive kind. Nothing so effectually destroys the quality of texture as polish applied to carving. If furniture _must_ be polished it should not be carved. The only polish that improves carving is that which comes of use. On hard woods, such as oak or Italian walnut, the pressure of the tools leaves a pleasant polish, which is all that is necessary; the _most_ that should be allowed may be given by a little burnishing with the handle of the tool. CHAPTER XXVI CRAFT SCHOOLS, PAST AND PRESENT The Country Craftsman of Old Times--A Colony of Craftsmen in Busy Intercourse--The Modern Craftsman's Difficulties: Embarrassing Variety of Choice. The present revival of interest in the arts, especially with regard to those of a decorative kind, is based on the recently awakened esthetic desires of a small section of the general public, who owe their activity in this direction to the influence of men like John Ruskin and William Morris. The first of these, by his magic insight, discerned the true source of vitality which lay in the traditions of medieval workmanship, i.e., their intensely _human_ character and origin. His fiery words compelled attention, and awakened a new enthusiasm for all that betokens the direct and inspiring influence of nature. They raised the hope that this passion might in some way provide a clue to the recovery of a fitting form of expression. William Morris, with no less power as a craftsman, was the first to give practical embodiment to this newly awakened impulse by a modified return to the older methods of production. His rare knowledge of medieval history, and manly sympathy with all that is generous in modern life, made it impossible for him to become a superficial imitator. His work is an example of what may be achieved by a union of high artistic instincts with a clear understanding of the conditions of modern life. Cheering as is the present activity in its encouragement of endeavor, the difficulties of establishing anything like an efficient system of education for the artist, more especially the sculptor, or carver artist, is only being gradually realized. The difficulties are not so much academic as practical. It is less a question of where to study than one of knowing what direction those studies should take. Before any genuine development in the art can be looked for, continuity of effort must be established, and that in a single direction, undisturbed as it is at present by differences of public taste. Opportunities for study are now afforded to an extent never before dreamed of: in books and schools, and in museums; but division of opinion mars the authority of the two first, while the last is confessedly but a kind of catalogue, which may only be read with profit by the light of considerable experience. A certain amount of success has undoubtedly attended the progress of the new system, but it must always be more or less at a disadvantage; firstly, by reason of its divided aims; secondly, because the system is more theoretic than practical, and is often based on the false assumption that "design" may be learned without attaining a mastery over technique, and _vice versa_. Until students become disillusioned on this latter point, and are at the same time permitted to follow their natural bent with as little interference as possible from the exigencies of public taste, uniformity of aim will be impossible, and consequently the system must remain artificial. It can never, under any circumstances, entirely replace that more natural one adopted by our ancestors. How can its methods compare for a moment with the spontaneous and hearty interest that guided the tools of those more happily placed craftsmen, whose subjects lay around them, of daily familiarity; whose artistic language was ready to hand and without confusion, affording an endless variety of expression to every new and individual fancy. Many of these craftsmen were, owing to their invigorating surroundings, gifted with a high poetic feeling for their art--a quality which gives to their work a transcendent value that no learning or manual cleverness could supply. They acquired their technical knowledge in genial connection with equally gifted members of other crafts, and in consequence expressed themselves with corresponding and justly proportioned skill in execution. Conditions that can not be altered must be endured while they last, but the first step toward their improvement must be made in gaining a knowledge of the facts as they are. This will be the surest foundation upon which to build all individual effort in the future. Who that has felt the embarrassing doubts and contradictory impulses, peculiar to modern study, can have failed to look disconsolately away from his own surroundings to those far-off times when craft knowledge was acquired under circumstances calculated to awaken the brightest instincts of the artist? The imaginary picture calls up the ancient carver at his bench, cheerfully blocking out images of leaves and animals in his busy workshop, surrounded with the sights and sounds of country life. His open door frames a picture of the village street, alive with scenes of neighborly interest. From the mill-wheel comes a monotonous music making pleasant cadence to his own woody notes, or the blacksmith's hammer rings his cheery counterpart in their companionable duet. Short as is the distance between workshop and home, it provides a world of beauty and incident; suggesting to his inventive mind the subjects suitable for his work. Birds, beasts, and flowers are as familiar to him as the tools with which he works, or the scent and touch of the solid oak he handles daily. There, among the aromatic chips, he spends the long working hours of a summer day; varied by the occasional visits of a rather exacting Father from the neighboring monastery; or perhaps some idle and gossiping acquaintance who looks in to hold a long parley with his hand upon the latch. Or it may be that the mind turns to another carver, at work in one of the many large colonies of craftsmen which sprang up amid the forest of scaffolding surrounding the slow and mysterious growth of some noble cathedral. Here all is organized activity--the best men to be found in the country have been banded together and commissioned to do their best, for what seems, in modern eyes, a ridiculously small rate of pay. Some are well known and recommended; others, as traveling artists, are seeking change of experience and daily bread. Foreigners are here, from France, Italy, and the East. All have been placed under the direction of competent masters of their craft; men who have long since served their apprenticeship to its mysteries, and earned an honorable position in its gilds. Here the carver works in an atmosphere of exhilarating emulation. Stone-carver and wood-carver vie with each other in producing work that will do credit to their respective brotherhoods. Painter and decorator are busy giving to the work of their hands what must have appeared to those concerned an aspect of heavenly beauty; the most precious materials not being considered too costly for use in its adornment. What an interchange of artistic experience!--interchange between those of similar craft from different countries, and the stimulating or refining influence of one craft upon another--sculptors, goldsmiths, wood-carvers, and painters, all uniting in a sympathetic agreement to do their utmost for the high authorities who brought them together; with a common feeling of reverence, alike for the religious traditions which formed the motives of their work and the representatives of that religion in the persons of their employers. What an endless variety of interruptions must have been common! all of a kind eminently calculated to stimulate the imagination. Municipal functions, religious festivals with their splendid gatherings and processions, the exciting events of political contest, often carried to the point of actual combat, to say nothing of the frequent Saint's day holidays, enjoyed by the craftsman in jovial social intercourse. All and every scene clothed in an outward dress of beauty, ranging from the picturesque roughness of the village inn to the magnificent pageantry of a nobleman's display, or the majestic surroundings of an archi-episcopal reception. From dreams of the past with its many-sided life and background of serious beauty, we turn with feelings almost bordering on despair to the possibilities of the present. Not only has the modern craftsman to master the technicalities of his business, but he must become student as well. No universally accepted form of his art offers him a ready-made language; he is left fatally free to choose style, period, or nationality, from examples of every conceivable kind of carving, in museums, photographs, and buildings. As proud but distracted heir to all, he may cultivate any one of them, from Chinese to the latest style of exhibition art. For his studies he must travel half a dozen miles before he can reach fields, trees, and animals in anything like inspiring conditions. He must find in books and photographs the botanical lineaments of foliage and flowers, of which he mainly seeks to know the wild life and free growth. With but one short life allowed him in which to make his poor effort in a single direction, he must yet study the history of his craft, compare styles, and endeavor with all the help he can get to shape some course for himself. Can he be assured of selecting the right one, or out of the multitude of counselors and contradictory views, is there not a danger of taking a false step? No wonder, if in the cloudy obscurity of his doubts, he sometimes feels a tired desire to abandon the problem as too intricate to be resolved. CHAPTER XXVII ON THE IMPORTANCE OF COOPERATION BETWEEN BUILDER AND CARVER The Infinite Multiplicity of Styles--The "Gothic" Influence: Sculpture an Integral Element in its Designs--The Approach of the so-called "Renaissance" Period--Disturbed Convictions--The Revival of the Classical Style--The Two Styles in Conflict for a Time; their Respective Characteristics Reviewed--Carvers Become Dependent upon Architects and Painters--The "Revival" Separates "Designer" and "Executant." The prevailing architectural fashion of a time or country, known as its style, has generally been determined by the influence of more advanced nations on those of a ruder constitution; each modifying the imported style to suit its own climatic and social conditions, and imbuing it with its own individual temperament. The foreign idea was thus developed into a distinct and national style, which in its turn bore fruit, and was passed on as an initiative for other nations and new styles. The current of this influence, generally speaking, trended from east to west as though following the course of the sun, upon whose light it depended for the illumination of its beauties. There are so many styles of architecture, and consequently of carving, both in wood and other materials, that a history of such a subject would be a life study in itself, and be quite barren of results except those of a professional kind. It would include the characteristics of carvings from every country under the sun, from the earliest times known. Engravings on boars' tusks found in prehistoric caves, carvings on South Sea Island canoe paddles, Peruvian monstrosities of terror, the refined barbarity of India and China, the enduring and monumental efforts of Egyptian art, and a hundred others, down to times and countries more within reach. In fact, it would only be another name for a history of mankind from the beginning of the world. Nothing could be better for the student's purpose than to begin his studies of history at that point where the first indication of the Gothic or medieval period of architecture makes its appearance. For it was from this great and revolutionary change in the manner of building that all the subsequent variety of style in carving as well as building in medieval Europe took its origin. The first rudiments of the great school of art, which has been broadly classified as having a "Gothic" origin, began to make their appearance in Byzantium some three or four centuries after the birth of Christ. This city, said to have been founded by a colony of Greek emigrants, became the seat of Roman government in their eastern empire, and is now known as Constantinople: it contains a noted example of ancient art in the great church of St. Sophia. From the date of the building of this church in the sixth century A. D. to the beginning of the fifteenth century in Italy, and about a hundred years later, more or less, according to distance from that center, we have roughly the period during which the "medieval" spirit ruled the arts of Europe. The work of this long period is distinguished beyond all others by the varied beauty and interest of its carvings, a preeminence it owes in part to the strong bias in this direction which was given by its early founders, but still more to the unbroken alliance maintained between builders and carvers throughout the entire period. An inherited talent for sculpture, handed down, no doubt, from their classical forefathers, distinctly marks the commencement of the era; but from that time until the appearance of the "Renaissance" influence, builder and carver are no longer conceivable as being independent of each other. Sculpture of one kind or another not only played an important part in the decoration of its buildings, but became a necessary and integral element in every architectural conception, be its importance little or great. The masons designed their structural features with a view to the embellishments to follow from the hand of the carver; they were in full sympathy with the artistic intention of the decoration, therefore their own ideas were in complete conformity with those of the sculptor, while even in some cases they did this part of the work themselves. The sculptors, restrained by the severe laws of structural design, never transgressed the due limits of their craft, or became insistent upon the individuality of their own work. Hence, throughout all the successive changes of style brought about by time and difference of country, climate, or material, the art of carving steadily progressed hand in hand with the art of building. The changes were so very gradual, and grew so naturally from the conditions and requirements of social life, that ample time was allowed for the education of public feeling, which became in this way identified with the inventive progress of the craftsmen. As a happy result, one aim and desire governed alike builders, carvers, and people, and one style at a time, enjoyed and understood by all, was the wholesome regimen by which the architectural appetite of the period was sustained. Cathedral and cottage differed only in their relative grades of importance; each shared in due proportion the advantages of an architectural style common to all forms of building, and adaptable in the highest degree to every varying purpose of design, from the simplest piece of walling, with the barest indication of style, to the most elaborate arrangement of masonry and carving which could be devised to distinguish a stately and important structure. Time was, however, preparing a revolution which was destined to sweep away many old beliefs and established institutions, and with them those familiar motives and habits of thought, which had long formed the bountiful source of medieval inspiration and invention. The period between the beginning of the fifteenth century and the Reformation was like a fiery furnace, in which the materials for a new world were being prepared; it was no time for the leisurely enjoyment of the pleasures of art, which presupposes settled convictions and imperceptible developments. About this time many new forms of intellectual activity began to engage the minds of the more gifted. Speculative philosophy, the opening fields of science, the imaginative literature of the ancients; these were among the subjects which, while they enlarged the sphere of individual thought, destroyed that social ideal which had its roots in a common belief, and with it, the secret source of all past development in architecture. With the deep-lying causes and far-reaching effects of the unrest which disturbed this period, we are not here concerned, beyond the point where it touches our interest in architecture and sculpture. That drastic changes were in progress affecting the popular regard for these arts is undeniable. Educated and illiterate minds became alike indifferent to the authority of established religion--either they succumbed to the tyranny of its powerful but corrupt ministers, or stood out in open rebellion against its disputed dogmas. In either case, that architecture which had formerly been regarded as the chief symbol of united faith, shared the neglect of one section or the abhorrence of the other. That strong sense of beauty, once the common possession of builders, sculptors, and people, was now between the upper and nether millstones of fate, being ground into the fine dust which has served for centuries as the principal ingredient in the manufacture of an endless succession of moral puddings and pies, known in modern times as "art criticism." To earnest minds in all classes at that time, any enthusiasm for architectural styles, old or new, must have appeared as futile as an anxiety about appearances while one's house was burning. To the art of this period the title "Renaissance" has been foolishly applied. When used in association with the arts of architecture and sculpture, it is essentially a misnomer. For these arts it was merely a time of revival, not in any sense one of rebirth, as the word implies. In no way can this period claim to have conferred vitality along with the resuscitation of outward form. The revival of a classical style in architectural design, which began in the early years of the fifteenth century, was the sequel to a similar "revival" in the study of Greek and Roman literature, then occupying the interests of cultivated scholars. It was but a step further to desire also the realization of those architectural splendors which were associated with these studies. Such dilettante dreams can not be supposed to have deeply interested the general public, with whose concerns they had but a remote connection; so under these circumstances, probably the classical style was as suitable as any other, chosen on such narrow and exclusive grounds. There was even a certain fitness in it, a capability of much expansion on theatrical and grandiose lines. Its unbending demeanor toward craft talent of the humbler kind at once flattered the vanity of the cultured, and cowed uneducated minds. The Duomo at Florence was finished early in that century, and was one of the first buildings in which the new style was adopted. In this case it was used mainly in the completion of a building already well advanced on lines based upon the older traditions. The character of its design, although not of a strictly imitative kind, was distinctly based on a classical ideal. Imitations followed, mingling, as in the case of the Duomo, Gothic and classic elements, often with fine effect. It is quite possible to believe that, had this intermarriage of the two schools continued to bear fruit, some vertebrate style might have resulted from the union, partaking of the nature of both parents; but the hope was of short duration. Its architects, becoming enamored by the quality of scientific precision, which is the fundamental principle of classical design, soon abandoned all pretense of attempting to amalgamate the native and imported styles. They gave themselves up wholly to the congenial task of elaborating a scholarly system of imitation; so that, by the middle of the sixteenth century, no trace whatever remained of native feeling in the architecture of its important buildings. During the progress of this revolution in style, the old medieval habits of cooperation between master mason and sculptor were slowly being exchanged for a complete dependence upon a special architect, who was not necessarily a craftsman himself; but whose designs must be carried out line for line with the most rigid adherence to measurements. For a moment in history, the rival spirits of the two great schools of architecture stand face to face like opposing ideals. The classical one, recalled from the region of things past and forgotten, again to play a part on earth with at least the semblance of life; the Gothic spirit, under notice to quit and betake itself to that oblivion from which its rival is reemerging. In the heyday of their power, the first had shown a distinctly autocratic bearing toward its workmen; offering to its sculptors of genius opportunities for the exercise of highly trained powers, and to the subordinate workmen only the more or less mechanical task of repeating a limited number of prescribed forms. The other, a more genial spirit, had possessed the largest toleration for rude or untrained workmanship, provided that in its expression the carver had a meaning which would be generally understood and appreciated. If skill could be commanded, either of design or technique, it was welcomed; but it gave no encouragement to work which was either so distinctive as to be independent of its surroundings, or of a kind which could have no other than a mechanical interest in its execution. The abrupt contrasts, the variety and mystery, characteristic of Gothic architecture, had been a direct and irresistible invitation to the carver, and the freest playground for his fancy. The formality of the classical design, on the other hand, necessarily confined such carving as it permitted to particular lines and spaces, following a recognized rule; and except in the case of bas-relief figure subjects and detached statues, demanded no separate interest in the carvings themselves, further than the esthetic one of relieving such lines and spaces as were otherwise uncomfortably bare. Some modification of this extreme arrogance toward the decorative carver was only to be expected in the revived style, but the freedom allowed to the individual carver turned out to be more apparent than real. A new race of carvers sprang up, imbued with the principles of classical design; but being no longer in touch with natural and popular interests, nor stimulated by mutual cooperation with their brother craftsmen, the mason builders, they adopted the fashionable mode of expression invented by the new architects and the painters of the time. Elaborate "arabesque" and other formal designs gave employment to the carvers, in making an infinite repetition of fiddles, festoons, and ribbons, in the execution of which they became so proficient, that their work is more often admired for its exquisite finish than for any intrinsic interest in the subject or design. Judged by its effects upon the art of carving, without the aid of which a national style of architecture is impossible, the revival of classical architecture never had a real and enduring life in it. Strictly speaking, no organic style ever grew out of its ambitious promises; the nearest approach to such a thing is to be found in those uncouth minglings of Gothic tradition with fragments of classical detail which distinguish much of the domestic architecture during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Amusing in their quaint and often rich and effective combinations, humanly interesting in proportion to the predominance of the Gothic element, association has grown up around these homely records of a mixed influence, until they have come to be regarded with affection, if not with the highest admiration. The "revival" brought nothing but harm to the carver himself--that is, to the carver who found it impossible to reach the elevation of a sculptor of genius. He sacrificed his own small but precious talent as a creator of pleasant images for the attainment of a finesse in the execution of other people's ideas. To the "Renaissance" must be attributed that fatal separation of the craftsman's function into the hands of designer and executant which has so completely paralyzed the living spirit of individual invention. It has taken close upon four centuries to open the eyes of our craftsmen to this inconsistency, and "revive" the medieval truth that invention and execution are strictly but one and the same thing. Let us hope that the present awakening to the importance of this fact may yet lead to what will be truly worthy of being called a "Renaissance"; not merely of outward forms, but of that creative energy which alone justifies the true meaning of the word. NOTES ON THE COLLOTYPE PLATES PLATE I.--_Old Carved Chest in York Cathedral._ The front of a chest of almost similar design, only reversed, is to be seen in South Kensington Museum, which looks from its resemblance both in design and technique to be the work of the same carver, or at least to have been done about the same time. Note the absence of any attempt at elaborate perspective, and the "decorative" aspect of houses, rocks, trees, etc., also the distinctive treatment of the Knight and Princess who appear in the picture several times, representing various incidents of the story. PLATE II.--_Figure from the Tomb of Henry IV in Canterbury Cathedral._ This figure is one of the corner ornaments on the canopy. The whole of the upper structure is of wood, painted in colors with parts picked out in gold. PLATE III.--_Aisle Roof, Mildenhall Church, Suffolk._ This is one of the many beautiful carved roofs which abound in Norfolk and Suffolk. The nave roof is enriched with carvings of angels with wings outspread. PLATE IV.--_Nave Roof, Sall Church, Norfolk._ This is another very beautiful timber roof showing the union of practical carpentry with carving to perfection. PLATE V.--_Portion of a Carved Oak Panel. The Sheepfold._ The other part is shown in Plate VI, as, owing to the proportion of this panel and the necessity for keeping the scale of the plates as large as possible, it has been divided and shown in two portions. It was begun without any premeditated intention as to use, the sloping end being the shape of the board as it came into the author's hands, the other end being sloped off to match it. PLATE VI.--_Portion of a Carved Oak Panel. The Sheepfold._ See description of Plate V. PLATE VII.--_Preliminary Drawing of a Lion for Carving._ This plate is, as explained in the text, from a drawing by Philip Webb, the well-known architect. It was done by him to explain certain facts about the pose of a lion when the author was engaged in carving the book covers which are shown in Plates VIII and IX. PLATES VIII and IX.--_Book-Covers carved in English Oak._ These were done by the author for one of the "Kelmscott Press" books, Tale of Troy, at the instance of Mr. Cobden-Sanderson. The relief is very slight, and is rather exaggerated by the light and shade of the photograph. The carved portion only of these covers is shown, the size of which is 11-1/2 x 5-3/4 ins. PLATE X.--_Book-Covers carved in English Oak._ These were done by the author for Mr. F. S. Ellis's translation of Reynard the Fox. The size of the carved part is 8-3/4 x 5-1/4 ins. PLATE XI.--_Carvings from Winchester Cathedral._ This plate is from sketches made by the author at Winchester Cathedral. The upper one is a spandrel piece from the traceried arcading of the stalls. The lower one is a part of one of the carved Miserere seats. The spandrel carving is pierced; that is, has the ground cut right through. The other piece is elaborately undercut. PLATE XII.--_Carving from Choir-Screen, Winchester Cathedral._ This plate is from a sketch done for the purpose of noting the general effect of a large mass of carved foliage with particular reference to the distribution of lighted surfaces in the design. PLATE XIII.--_Font Canopy, Trunch Church, Norfolk._ The plate gives the upper portion only of this beautiful canopy; it is supported upon six posts richly carved on all sides, of which there are five to each post. The height of the whole canopy is about fifteen or sixteen feet--it presumably dates somewhere toward the end of the fourteenth century or beginning of the fifteenth. PLATE XIV.--_Designs for Carving, by_ _Philip Webb._ This plate gives two examples of designs for carving by Philip Webb. The upper one is part of a richly carved cornice which was done for a chimney-piece; the carving was executed by Mr. Laurence Turner, from whom the author got his first lesson in wood-carving. The other example is a design on paper for carving to be done in oak. This was carried out in the paneling of the dining-room at Clouds House, Salisbury, and looked exceedingly effective. Much of the articulation on the surface of the leaves, it will be noticed, is got by sharp facets produced by the intersection of gouge cuts. PLATE XV.--_Leg of a Settle carved in English Oak._ This was begun by the author as forming part of a large oak seat or "settle," but has never been completed. The wood out of which it is carved came out of an old house at Tewkesbury and was full of cracks which were filled up with slips of oak glued in and carved over. PLATE XVI.--_Pew Ends in Carved Oak, Brent Church, Somersetshire._ The three bench ends shown in this plate are from Brent Church, Somersetshire. Although rude in execution, they are extremely effective in design. The bounding form of the molded edges and gracefully shaped top are worth noticing; the whole evidently the outcome of a nice and inherited sense of design, without any particular technical knowledge or experience. The termination of the finials was unfortunately omitted in the photograph, hence the abrupt line at the top. THE COLLOTYPE PLATES [Illustration: I. Old Carved Chest in York Cathedral.] [Illustration: II.--Figure from the Tomb of Henry IV. in Canterbury Cathedral.] [Illustration: III.--Aisle Roof--Mildenhall Church, Suffolk.] [Illustration: IV.--Nave Roof--Sall Church, Norfolk.] [Illustration: V.--Portion of a Carved Oak Panel--The Sheepfold.] [Illustration: VI--Portion of a Carved Oak Panel--The Sheepfold.] [Illustration: VII.--Preliminary Drawing of a Lion for Carving. By Phillip Webb.] [Illustration: VIII.--Book Cover Carved in English Oak--"Tale of Troy." (only carved portion shown.)] [Illustration: IX.--Book Cover Carved in English Oak--"Tale of Troy." (only carved portion shown.)] [Illustration: X.--Book Cover Carved in English Oak--"Reynard the Fox." (only carved portions shown.)] [Illustration: XI.--Carving from Choir Stalls in Winchester Cathedral.] [Illustration: XII.--Carving from Choir Screen--Winchester Cathedral.] [Illustration: XIII.--Font Canopy--Trunch Church, Norfolk.] [Illustration: XIV.--Two designs for Carving, by Philip Webb. One executed, one in drawing.] [Illustration: XV.--Leg of a Settle, carved in English Oak.] [Illustration: XVI.--Pew Ends in Carved Oak--Brent Church, Somersetshire.] INDEX Acanthus, the, 156 Aims and conditions of work, 25 American woods, 48 Animal carving, 161, 191 Animal carving, Swiss, 191 Animals, or figures, in carving, 161, 191 Apprentice and student, their aims and conditions of work, 25 Architectural carving, 223 "Arkansas" slips, 44, 58 Arms, coats of, 177 Aumonier, W., 204, 238 Background, patterned, 96 Bas wood, 48 Beads and moldings to be carved, 119 Beam, carved, in South Kensington Museum, 140, 142 Bear, drawing of (frontispiece), 197, 200 Beast and bird studies, 191 Bed, design and carving for a, 163 Beech wood, 49 Bench or settle, design and carving for, 168, 174, 269, 302 Benches, 44 Bench screw, 48 Berne Cathedral, carved figure from, 191 Bevels, tool, 52 Bewick, studies from, 195 Bird and beast studies, 191 Book-covers in oak, 267, 288, 289, 291 Books, aid of, 191 Boxwood, 51 Brackets, 172 Bread plates, 116 Brent Church, pew ends in, 269, 304 Brier-wood, 51 Builder and carver, notes on the importance of cooperation between, 249 "Built-up" work, 214 Byzantine design, 96 "Candle," 56 Canopy, Font, 233, 268, 298 Canterbury Cathedral, carved figure from, 188, 275 Carpenter's imitation of stone construction, 223 Carpenter's influence on carver, 223 Cartoons, charcoal, 204 Carver and builder, notes on the importance of cooperation between, 249 Carver and joiner, reciprocal aims of, 161 Carving and sculpture, 249 Carving, architectural, 223 Carving, "chip," 63 Carving, heraldic, 176 Carving, Icelandic, 143 Carving, New Zealand, 63 Carving, Norse, 143 Carving, South Sea, 63 Carving, stone, 96, 223 Carving, Swiss, 191 Cedar wood, 166 Chair, sketch of, etc., 145 Character, works viewed as records of, 149 Charcoal cartoons, 204 Cherry wood, 51 Chest, carved, from York Cathedral, 147, 265, 273 Chestnut wood, 50 "Chip" carving, 63 Chisels, 31, 34, 35 Choir-screens, 227, 229, 267, 295 Choir-stalls at Winchester Cathedral, 227, 267, 293 Classical style, revival of, 249 Clay models, 191 Clips, 47 Clock, suggestion of design and carving for, 174 Clock case, suggestion of design and carving for, 170 Coats of arms, 176 Cock, suggestion for carving a, 174 Collotype plates, 273-304 Collotype plates, notes on the, 265 Colors noted on diagrams, 197, 199 Colors of woods, 48 Contours of surface, 103 Corner cupboards, 119 Cornice, design for, by Philip Webb, 268, 300 Craft schools, past and present, 240 Craftsmen, old-time and modern, 240 Cramps, 42, 47 Cross, design for, 177 Cupboards, corner, 119 Cutting, clearness of, 52, 69, 235 Design, 71, 88 Design, application of, 72 Design, Byzantine, 96 Design, factors in the arrangement of, 82 Design, outline, and suggestion of main masses, 191 "Designer" and "Executant," 88, 249 Designs, adaptation of old, to modern purposes, 103 Designs, humor in, 180 Designs, list of fruit, flower, and vegetable subjects, 159 Designs, necessity for every carver making his own, 88 Designs, transferring, 72 Detail, economy in, 84 Diagrams, colors noted on, 197, 199 Distance and light in design, 82 Drilling and sawing, 110 Duomo, the, at Florence, 257 Ebony wood, 51 Economy in detail, 84 Edges of tools, 52 Environment as important as handicraft, 149 Execution and design, 88, 249 Exning, chair at, 145 Figures, or animals, in carving, 161, 191 Finish, surface--texture, 234 Florence, the Duomo at, 257 Flowers as subjects, 158 Foliage, 115, 153, 159 Font canopy, 233, 268, 298 Foreshortening as applied to work in relief, 205 Forms, imitation of natural, 82 Forms, plant, list of, 153 Forms, rounded, 88 Free rendering, 96 Fruit subjects, 94, 157, 159 Furniture, carving on, 161 Gerrard's "Herbal," a source of design, 160 Gibbons, Grinling, 62, 85, 153, 215 Glass paper, 107, 164 Gothic capital in Southwell Minster, 96 Gothic carvings, 96, 180, 229, 249 Gothic influence, 249 Gouges, 31, 34, 35 Gouges, sharpening, 56 Grain of the wood, 48, 69 Grapes, 115, 156, 159 Grindelwald, carved bear from, 200 Grotesque in carving, 180 "Grounders," 34, 37 Grounding, 69 Handling tools, 27, 52, 78 "Hard" wood, 48, 51 Hardwood carving, 115 Henry IV, figure from tomb of 188, 265, 275 Heraldic carving, 176 "Herbal," Gerrard's, a source of design, 160 Heron, drawing of a, 197 Holdfasts, 48 Hollywood, 49 Hop-vine, the, 156 Humor in designs, 180 Icelandic carving, 143 Imitation of natural forms, 82 "India" oilstone, 42 Japanese work, a characteristic of, 125 Joiner and carver, reciprocal aims of, 161 Joiner, the amateur, 115 Joiner's tools, 41 Kauri pine wood, 48 "Kelmscott Press," carved oak covers for, 267, 288, 289 Lance-wood, 51 Landscape in carving, 221 Leather for stropping, 55 Leaves, expedient for explaining convolutions, 209 Leaves, list of, 159 Letters, carved, 165 Light and distance in design, 82 Lime wood, 48 Lion, preliminary drawing for carving a, 196, 267, 286 "Maccaroni" tool, 35, 38, 59 Mahogany wood, 48 Mallets, 44 Masses, right relationship of, 196 Masses, suggestion of main, 191 Masses, superposition of, 205 Medieval and modern choice of form compared, 153 Memoranda, methodical, 137 Memoranda, sketch-book, 137 Method, 137 Mildenhall Church, aisle roof, 226, 266, 277 Mirror frame, suggestion of design and carving for, 166 Miserere seats, 139, 142, 185, 186, 187, 216, 293 Miters, 77 Models, clay, 202 Morris, William, 240 Moldings, to be carved, 119 Museums, 137, 140, 145, 149 Natural forms, imitation of, 82 Nature, studies from, 153, 191 New Zealand carving, 63 Norse patterns, 143 Notes on cooperation, 249 Oak, 48, 157 Oilstones, 42, 52 Old work, 137 Originality, 108 Outline drawing, 191 Panel, carved, "The Sheepfold," 197, 212, 266, 282, 284 Paneling, design for, by Philip Webb, 268, 300 Panels, 72, 125, 170, 197 "Parting" tool, 34, 36 Paste for stropping, 52 Pattern and free rendering compared, 96 Pattern, background, 110 Pattern, importance of formal, 96 Pattern, medieval choice of natural forms governed by a question of, 96 Pattern, Portuguese, 145 Patterned background, 96 Patterns, 121 Patterns, Icelandic, 143 Patterns, New Zealand, 63 Patterns, Norse, 143 Patterns, pierced, 110, 145 Patterns, South Sea, 63 Pear-tree wood, 51 Period "Renaissance," revival of the classical style, 249 Perspective, 127, 205, 219 Pew ends, 269, 304 Photographs, aid of, 191 Picture subjects and perspective, 219 Pierced patterns, 110, 145 "Pierced" work, 214 Pine wood, 48, 71 Pine wood, yellow, 48, 71 Plant forms, list of, 153 "Planted" work, 214 Plums, 91 Polish, 138, 164 Portuguese pattern, 145 Position of tools, 27, 52 Practise and theory, 25 Preamble, 25 Relief, work in, 205 "Renaissance," the, 249 "Reynard, the Fox," carved oak book-cover, 267, 291 "Rifler," 41 Rounded forms, 88 "Router," 41 Ruskin, John, 240 "S," pattern, 121 St. Sophia, church of, 251 Sall Church, nave roof, 226, 266, 279 Sandalwood, 51 Sawing and drilling, 110 Schools, craft, past and present, 240 Screens, choir, 227, 229, 268, 295 Sculpture and carving, 249 Settle or bench, design and carving for, 168, 174 Settle, carved leg of, 269, 302 Sharpening stones, 42 Sharpening tools, 52 Sheep, drawing of, 197, 212, 266, 282, 284 Sheepfold, the, collotype plate, 266, 282, 284 Sketch-book, use of the, 137, 191 Slips, 43, 58, 61 "Soft" wood, 51 South Kensington Museum, carvings from, 140, 141, 142 South Sea carving, 63 Southwell Minster, Gothic capital in, 96 Spoon tools, 59 Stalls, choir, 227, 267, 293 Stone carving, 96, 223 Stones, sharpening, 42 Stones (sharpening), case for, 42 Stropping, 54 Student and apprentice, their aims and conditions of work, 25 Students, the, opportunity lies on the side of design, 25 Studies, beast and bird, 191 Studies from nature, 153, 191 Study, necessity for variety in, 249 Style, 249 Subjects, animal, 161, 191 Subjects, choice of, 82 Subjects, flower, 158 Subjects, foliage, 159 Subjects, fruit, 159 Subjects, in perspective, 219 Subjects, picture, 219 Subjects, still life, 83 Subjects, vegetable, 159 Surface contours, 103 Surface finish, 234 Swiss carving, 191 Sycamore wood, 49 "Tale of Troy," carved oak book-cover for, 267, 288, 289 Tempering tools, 39 Texture and surface finish, 234 Theory and practise, 25 Thimble pattern, 121 "Throwing about," 106 Time, carvers the historians of their, 149 Tool marks, the importance of their direction, 234 Tools, 31 Tools, average number, 31 Tools, blunted or broken, 40 Tools, description of, 27 Tools, handling, 27, 52, 78 Tools, joiner's, 41 Tools, position on oilstone, 52 Tools, position when in use, 27 Tools, sharpening, 52 Tools, spoon, 59 Tools, stropping, 54 Tools, tempering, 39 Tracing, 72 Trunch Church, font canopy at, 233, 268, 298 "Turkey," oilstone, 42 Turner, Laurence, 269 Undercutting and "built-up" work, 214 "V" tool, 31, 34, 36, 59 Vegetable designs, 159 "Veiner," 31, 34, 36, 58 Vines, the, 115, 156, 159 Walnut wood, 48, 50 "Washita" oilstone, 42 Wave pattern, 121 Webb, Philip, drawings and designs by, 177, 196, 268, 286, 300 Winchester Cathedral, carvings from, 190, 216, 227, 267, 293, 295 Wood, hard, 48, 51 Wood, soft, 48, 51 Woods, 48 Woods, American, 48 Woods, colors of, 48 Woods, grain of, 48, 69 Woods, list of, 48 Woods, "soft" and "hard," 48, 51 Work, critical inspection of, from a distance, as it proceeds, 103 Yellow pine wood, 48, 71 York Cathedral, old chest in, 265, 273 Yorkshire settle, 168 THE END Transcriber's Note: Minor corrections were made to normalize spelling and punctuation. Small caps were replaced with all-caps. 
14715	----	Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 14715-h.htm or 14715-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/4/7/1/14715/14715-h/14715-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/4/7/1/14715/14715-h.zip) THE HOUSE IN GOOD TASTE by ELSIE DE WOLFE Illustrated with photographs in color and black and white New York The Century Co. 1913 [Illustration] CONTENTS CHAPTER I. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE MODERN HOUSE II. SUITABILITY, SIMPLICITY AND PROPORTION III. THE OLD WASHINGTON IRVING HOUSE IV. THE LITTLE HOUSE OF MANY MIRRORS V. THE TREATMENT OF WALLS VI. THE EFFECTIVE USE OF COLOR VII. OF DOORS, AND WINDOWS, AND CHINTZ VIII. THE PROBLEM OF ARTIFICIAL LIGHT IX. HALLS AND STAIRCASES X. THE DRAWING-ROOM XI. THE LIVING-ROOM XII. SITTING-ROOM AND BOUDOIR XIII. A LIGHT, GAY DINING-ROOM XIV. THE BEDROOM XV. THE DRESSING-ROOM AND THE BATH XVI. THE SMALL APARTMENT XVII. REPRODUCTIONS OF ANTIQUE FURNITURE AND OBJECTS OF ART XVIII. THE ART OF TRELLIAGE XIX. VILLA TRIANON XX. NOTES ON MANY THINGS LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Elsie de Wolfe (Frontispiece) In this hall, simplicity, suitability and proportion are observed Mennoyer drawings and old mirrors set in panelings A portrait by Nattier inset above a fine old mantel The Washington Irving house was delightfully rambling A Washington Irving House bedroom Miss Marbury's bedroom The fore-court and entrance of the Fifty-fifth Street house A painted wall broken into panels by narrow moldings A wall paper of Elizabethan design with oak furniture The scheme of this room grew from the jars on the mantel A Louis Seize bedroom in rose and blue and cream The writing corner of a chintz bedroom Black chintz used in a dressing-room Printed linen curtains over rose colored silk Straight hangings of rose and yellow shot silk Muslin glass curtains in the Washington Irving house Here are many lighting fixtures harmoniously assembled in a drawing-room Detail of a fine old French fixture of hand wrought metal Lighting fixtures inspired by Adam mirrors The staircase in the Bayard Thayer house The drawing-room should be intimate in spirit The fine formality of well-placed paneling The living-room in the C.W. Harkness house at Morristown, New Jersey Miss Anne Morgan's Louis XVI boudoir Miss Morgan's Louis XVI _lit de repos_ A Georgian dining-room in the William Iselin house Mrs. Ogden Armour's Chinese paper screen Mrs. James Warren Lane's painted dining-table The private dining-room in the Colony Club An old painted bed of the Louis XVI period Miss Crocker's Louis XVI bed A Colony Club bedroom Mauve chintz in a dull green room Mrs. Frederick Havemeyer's Chinoiserie chintz bed Mrs. Payne Whitney's green feather chintz bed My own bedroom is built around a Breton bed Furniture painted with chintz designs Miss Morgan's Louis XVI dressing-room Miss Marbury's chintz-hung dressing-table A corner of my own boudoir Built-in bookshelves in a small room Mrs. C.W. Harkness's cabinet for _objets d'art_ A banquette of the Louis XV period covered with needlework A Chinese Chippendale sofa covered with chintz The trellis room in the Colony Club Mrs. Ormond G. Smith's trellis room at Center Island, New York Looking over the _tapis vert_ to the trellis A fine old console in the Villa Trianon The broad terrace connects house and garden A proper writing-table in the drawing-room A cream-colored porcelain stove in a New York house Mr. James Deering's wall fountain Fountain in the trellis room of Mrs. Ormond G. Smith I THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE MODERN HOUSE I know of nothing more significant than the awakening of men and women throughout our country to the desire to improve their houses. Call it what you will--awakening, development, American Renaissance--it is a most startling and promising condition of affairs. It is no longer possible, even to people of only faintly æsthetic tastes, to buy chairs merely to sit upon or a clock merely that it should tell the time. Home-makers are determined to have their houses, outside and in, correct according to the best standards. What do we mean by the best standards? Certainly not those of the useless, overcharged house of the average American millionaire, who builds and furnishes his home with a hopeless disregard of tradition. We must accept the standards that the artists and the architects accept, the standards that have come to us from those exceedingly rational people, our ancestors. Our ancestors built for stability and use, and so their simple houses were excellent examples of architecture. Their spacious, uncrowded interiors were usually beautiful. Houses and furniture fulfilled their uses, and if an object fulfils its mission the chances are that it is beautiful. It is all very well to plan our ideal house or apartment, our individual castle in Spain, but it isn't necessary to live among intolerable furnishings just because we cannot realize our castle. There never was a house so bad that it couldn't be made over into something worth while. We shall all be very much happier when we learn to transform the things we have into a semblance of our ideal. How, then, may we go about accomplishing our ideal? By letting it go! By forgetting this vaguely pleasing dream, this evidence of our smug vanity, and making ourselves ready for a new ideal. By considering the body of material from which it is good sense to choose when we have a house to decorate. By studying the development of the modern house, its romantic tradition and architectural history. By taking upon ourselves the duty of self-taught lessons of sincerity and common sense, and suitability. By learning what is meant by color and form and line, harmony and contrast and proportion. When we are on familiar terms with our tools, and feel our vague ideas clearing into definite inspiration, then we are ready to talk about ideals. We are fit to approach the full art of home-making. We take it for granted that every woman is interested in houses--that she either has a house in course of construction, or dreams of having one, or has had a house long enough wrong to wish it right. And we take it for granted that this American home is always the woman's home: a man may build and decorate a beautiful house, but it remains for a woman to make a home of it for him. It is the personality of the mistress that the home expresses. Men are forever guests in our homes, no matter how much happiness they may find there. You will express yourself in your house, whether you want to or not, so you must make up your mind to a long preparatory discipline. You may have only one house to furnish in your life-time, possibly, so be careful and go warily. Therefore, you must select for your architect a man who isn't too determined to have _his_ way. It is a fearful mistake to leave the entire planning of your home to a man whose social experience may be limited, for instance, for he can impose on you his conception of your tastes with a damning permanency and emphasis. I once heard a certain Boston architect say that he taught his clients to be ladies and gentlemen. He couldn't, you know. All he could do is to set the front door so that it would reprove them if they weren't! Who does not know, for instance, those mistaken people whose houses represent their own or their architects' hasty visits to the fine old _châteaux_ of the Loire, or the palaces of Versailles, or the fine old houses of England, or the gracious villas of Italy? We must avoid such aspiring architects, and visualize our homes not as so many specially designated rooms and convenient closets, but as individual expressions of ourselves, of the future we plan, of our dreams for our children. The ideal house is the house that has been long planned for, long awaited. [Illustration: IN THIS HALL, SIMPLICITY, SUITABILITY AND PROPORTION ARE OBSERVED] Fortunately for us, our best architects are so very good that we are better than safe if we take our problems to them. These men associate with themselves the hundred young architects who are eager to prove themselves on small houses. The idea that it is economical to be your own architect and trust your house to a building contractor is a mistaken, and most expensive, one. The surer you are of your architect's common sense and professional ability, the surer you may be that your house will be economically efficient. He will not only plan a house that will meet the needs of your family, but he will give you inspiration for its interior. He will concern himself with the moldings, the light-openings, the door-handles and hinges, the unconsidered things that make or mar your house. Select for your architect a man you'd like for a friend. Perhaps he will be, before the house comes true. If you are both sincere, if you both purpose to have the best thing you can afford, the house will express the genius and character of your architect and the personality and character of yourself, as a great painting suggests both painter and sitter. The hard won triumph of a well-built house means many compromises, but the ultimate satisfaction is worth everything. I do not purpose, in this book, to go into the historic traditions of architecture and decoration--there are so many excellent books it were absurd to review them--but I do wish to trace briefly the development of the modern house, the woman's house, to show you that all that is intimate and charming in the home as we know it has come through the unmeasured influence of women. Man conceived the great house with its parade rooms, its _grands appartements_ but woman found eternal parade tiresome, and planned for herself little retreats, rooms small enough for comfort and intimacy. In short, man made the house: woman went him one better and made of it a home. The virtues of simplicity and reticence in form first came into being, as nearly as we can tell, in the _Grotta_, the little studio-like apartment of Isabella d'Este, the Marchioness of Mantua, away back in 1496. The Marchioness made of this little studio her personal retreat. Here she brought many of the treasures of the Italian Renaissance. Really, simplicity and reticence were the last things she considered, but the point is that they were considered at all in such a restless, passionate age. Later, in 1522, she established the _Paradiso_, a suite of apartments which she occupied after her husband's death. So you see the idea of a woman planning her own apartment is pretty old, after all. The next woman who took a stand that revealed genuine social consciousness was that half-French, half-Italian woman, Catherine de Vivonne, Marquise de Rambouillet. She seceded from court because the court was swaggering and hurly-burly, with florid Marie-de-Medicis at its head. And with this recession, she began to express in her conduct, her feeling, her conversation, and, finally, in her house, her awakened consciousness of beauty and reserve, of simplicity and suitability. This was the early Seventeenth Century, mind you, when the main salons of the French houses were filled with such institutions as rows of red chairs and boxed state beds. She undertook, first of all, to have a light and gracefully curving stairway leading to her salon instead of supplanting it. She grouped her rooms with a lovely diversity of size and purpose, whereas before they had been vast, stately halls with cubbies hardby for sleeping. She gave the bedroom its alcove, boudoir, ante-chamber, and even its bath, and then as decorator she supplanted the old feudal yellow and red with her famous silver-blue. She covered blue chairs with silver bullion. She fashioned long, tenderly colored curtains of novel shades. Reticence was always in evidence, but it was the reticence of elegance. It was through Madame de Rambouillet that the armchair received its final distribution of yielding parts, and began to express the comfort of soft padded backward slope, of width and warmth and color. It was all very heavy, very grave, very angular, this Hôtel Rambouillet, but it was devised for and consecrated to conversation, considered a new form of privilege! The _précieuses_ in their later jargon called chairs "the indispensables of conversation." I have been at some length to give a picture of Madame de Rambouillet's hôtel because it really is the earliest modern house. There, where the society that frequented it was analyzing its soul in dialogue and long platonic discussion that would seem stark enough to us, the word which it invented for itself was _urbanité_--the coinage of one of its own foremost figures. It is unprofitable to follow on into the grandeurs of Louis XIV, if one hopes to find an advance there in truth-telling architecture. At the end of that splendid official success the squalor of Versailles was unspeakable, its stenches unbearable. In spite of its size the Palace was known as the most comfortless house in Europe. After the death of its owner society, in a fit of madness, plunged into the _rocaille_. When the restlessness of Louis XV could no longer find moorings in this brilliancy, there came into being little houses called _folies_, garden hermitages for the privileged. Here we find Madame de Pompadour in calicoes, in a wild garden, bare-foot, playing as a milkmaid, or seated in a little gray-white interior with painted wooden furniture, having her supper on an earthen-ware service that has replaced old silver and gold. Amorous alcoves lost their painted Loves and took on gray and white decorations. The casinos of little _comédiennes_ did not glitter any more. English sentiment began to bedim Gallic eyes, and so what we know as the Louis XVI style was born. And so, at that moment, the idea of the modern house came into its own, and it could advance--as an idea--hardly any further. For with all the intrepidity and passion of the later Eighteenth Century in its search for beauty, for all the magic-making of convenience and ingenuity of the Nineteenth Century, the fundamentals have changed but little. And now we of the Twentieth Century can only add material comforts and an expression of our personality. We raise the house beyond the reach of squalor, we give it measured heat, we give it water in abundance and perfect sanitation and light everywhere, we give it ventilation less successfully than we might, and finally we give it the human quality that is so modern. There are no dungeons in the good modern house, no disgraceful lairs for servants, no horrors of humidity. [Illustration: MENNOYER DRAWINGS AND OLD MIRRORS SET IN PANELINGS] And so we women have achieved a house, luminous with kind purpose throughout. It is finished--that is our difficulty! We inherit it, all rounded in its perfection, consummate in its charms, but it is finished, and what can we do about a thing that is finished I Doesn't it seem that we are back in the old position of Isabella d'Este--eager, predatory, and "thingy"? And isn't it time for us to pull up short lest we sidestep the goal? We are so sure of a thousand appetites we are in danger of passing by the amiable commonplaces. We find ourselves dismayed in old houses that look too simple. We must stop and ask ourselves questions, and, if necessary, plan for ourselves little retreats until we can find ourselves again. What is the goal? A house that is like the life that goes on within it, a house that gives us beauty as we understand it--and beauty of a nobler kind that we may grow to understand, a house that _looks_ amenity. Suppose you have obtained this sort of wisdom--a sane viewpoint. I think it will give you as great a satisfaction to re-arrange your house with what you have as to re-build, re-decorate. The results may not be so charming, but you can learn by them. You can take your indiscriminate inheritance of Victorian rosewood of Eastlake walnut and cocobolo, your pickle-and-plum colored Morris furniture, and make a civilized interior by placing it right, and putting detail at the right points. Your sense of the pleasure and meaning of human intercourse will be clear in your disposition of your best things, in your elimination of your worst ones. When you have emptied the tables of _rubbish_ so that you can put _things_ down on them at need, placed them in a light where you can write on them in repose, or isolated real works of art in the middle of them; when you have set your dropsical sofas where you want them for talk, or warmth and reading; when you can see the fire from the bed in your sleeping-room, and dress near your bath; if this sort of sense of your rights is acknowledged in your rearrangement, your rooms will always have meaning, in the end. If you like only the things in a chair that have meaning, and grow to hate the rest you will, without any other instruction, prefer--the next time you are buying--a good Louis XVI _fauteuil_ to a stuffed velvet chair. You will never again be guilty of the errors of meaningless magnificence. To most of us in America who must perforce lead workaday lives, the absence of beauty is a very distinct lack. I think, indeed, that the present awakening has come to stay, and that before very long, we shall have simple houses with fireplaces that draw, electric lights in the proper places, comfortable and sensible furniture, and not a gilt-legged spindle-shanked table or chair anywhere. This may be a decorator's optimistic dream, but let us all hope that it may come true. II SUITABILITY, SIMPLICITY AND PROPORTION When I am asked to decorate a new house, my first thought is suitability. My next thought is proportion. Always I keep in mind the importance of simplicity. First, I study the people who are to live in this house, and their needs, as thoroughly as I studied my parts in the days when I was an actress. For the time-being I really am the chatelaine of the house. When I have thoroughly familiarized myself with my "part," I let that go for the time, and consider the proportion of the house and its rooms. It is much more important that the wall openings, windows, doors, and fireplaces should be in the right place and should balance one another than that there should be expensive and extravagant hangings and carpets. My first thought in laying out a room is the placing of the electric light openings. How rarely does one find the lights in the right place in our over-magnificent hotels and residences! One arrives from a journey tired out and travel-stained, only to find oneself facing a mirror as far removed from the daylight as possible, with the artificial lights directly behind one, or high in the ceiling in the center of the room. In my houses I always see that each room shall have its lights placed for the comfort of its occupants. There must be lights in sheltered corners of the fireplace, by the writing-desk, on each side of the dressing-table, and so on. Then I consider the heating of the room. We Americans are slaves to steam heat. We ruin our furniture, our complexions, and our dispositions by this enervating atmosphere of too much heat. In my own houses I have a fireplace in each room, and I burn wood in it. There is a heating-system in the basement of my house, but it is under perfect control. I prefer the normal heat of sunshine and open fires. But, granted that open fires are impossible in all your rooms, do arrange in the beginning that the small rooms of your house may not be overheated. It is a distinct irritation to a person who loves clean air to go into a room where a flood of steam heat pours out of every corner. There is usually no way to control it unless you turn it off altogether. I once had the temerity to do this in a certain hotel room where there was a cold and cheerless empty fireplace. I summoned a reluctant chambermaid, only to be told that the chimney had never had a fire in it and the proprietor would rather not take such a risk! [Illustration: A PORTRAIT BY NATTIER INSET ABOVE A FINE OLD MANTEL] Perhaps the guest in your house would not be so troublesome, but don't tempt her! If you have a fireplace, see that it is in working order. We are sure to judge a woman in whose house we find ourselves for the first time, by her surroundings. We judge her temperament, her habits, her inclinations, by the interior of her home. We may talk of the weather, but we are looking at the furniture. We attribute vulgar qualities to those who are content to live in ugly surroundings. We endow with refinement and charm the person who welcomes us in a delightful room, where the colors blend and the proportions are as perfect as in a picture. After all, what surer guarantee can there be of a woman's character, natural and cultivated, inherent and inherited, than taste? It is a compass that never errs. If a woman has taste she may have faults, follies, fads, she may err, she may be as human and feminine as she pleases, but she will never cause a scandal! How can we develop taste? Some of us, alas, can never develop it, because we can never let go of shams. We must learn to recognize suitability, simplicity and proportion, and apply our knowledge to our needs. I grant you we may never fully appreciate the full balance of proportion, but we can exert our common sense and decide whether a thing is suitable; we can consult our conscience as to whether an object is simple, and we can train our eyes to recognize good and bad proportion. A technical knowledge of architecture is not necessary to know that a huge stuffed leather chair in a tiny gold and cream room is unsuitable, is hideously complicated, and is as much out of proportion as the proverbial bull in the china-shop. A woman's environment will speak for her life, whether she likes it or not. How can we believe that a woman of sincerity of purpose will hang fake "works of art" on her walls, or satisfy herself with imitation velvets or silks? How can we attribute taste to a woman who permits paper floors and iron ceilings in her house? We are too afraid of the restful commonplaces, and yet if we live simple lives, why shouldn't we be glad our houses are comfortably commonplace? How much better to have plain furniture that is comfortable, simple chintzes printed from old blocks, a few good prints, than all the sham things in the world? A house is a dead-give-away, anyhow, so you should arrange is so that the person who sees your personality in it will be reassured, not disconcerted. Too often, here in America, the most comfortable room in the house is given up to a sort of bastard collection of gilt chairs and tables, over-elaborate draperies shutting out both light and air, and huge and frightful paintings. This style of room, with its museum-like furnishings, has been dubbed "Marie Antoinette," _why_, no one but the American decorator can say. Heaven knows poor Marie Antoinette had enough follies to atone for, but certainly she has never been treated more shabbily than when they dub these mausoleums "Marie Antoinette rooms." I remember taking a clever Englishwoman of much taste to see a woman who was very proud of her new house. We had seen most of the house when the hostess, who had evidently reserved what she considered the best for the last, threw open the doors of a large and gorgeous apartment and said, "This is my Louis XVI ballroom." My friend, who had been very patient up to that moment, said very quietly, "What makes you think so?" Louis XVI thought a salon well furnished with a few fine chairs and a table. He wished to be of supreme importance. In the immense salons of the Italian palaces there were a few benches and chairs. People then wished spaces about them. Nowadays, people are swamped by their furniture. Too many centuries, too many races, crowd one another in a small room. The owner seems insignificant among his collections of historical furniture. Whether he collects all sorts of things of all periods in one heterogeneous mass, or whether he fills his house with the furniture of some one epoch, he is not at home in his surroundings. The furniture of every epoch records its history. Our ancestors of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries inherited the troublous times of their fathers in their heavy oaken chests. They owned more chests than anything else, because a chest could be carried away on the back of a sturdy pack mule, when the necessity arose for flight. People never had time to sit down in the Sixteenth Century. Their feverish unrest is recorded in their stiff, backed chairs. It was not until the Seventeenth Century that they had time to sit down and talk. We need no book of history to teach us this--we have only to observe the ample proportions of the arm-chairs of the period. Our ancestors of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth centuries worked with a faith in the permanence of what they created. We have lost this happy confidence. We are occupied exclusively with preserving and reproducing. We have not succeeded in creating a style adapted to our modern life. It is just as well! Our life, with its haste, its nervousness and its preoccupations, does not inspire the furniture-makers. We cannot do better than to accept the standards of other times, and adapt them to our uses. Why should we American woman run after styles and periods of which we know nothing? Why should we not be content with the fundamental things? The formal French room is very delightful in the proper place but when it is unsuited to the people who must live in it it is as bad as a sham room. The woman who wears paste jewels is not so conspicuously wrong as the woman who plasters herself with too many real jewels at the wrong time! This is what I am always fighting in people's houses, the unsuitability of things. The foolish woman goes about from shop to shop and buys as her fancy directs. She sees something "pretty" and buys it, though it has no reference either in form or color to the scheme of her house. Haven't you been in rooms where there was a jumble of mission furniture, satinwood, fine old mahogany and gilt-legged chairs? And it is the same with color. A woman says, "Oh, I love blue, let's have blue!" regardless of the exposure of her room and the furnishings she has already collected. And then when she has treated each one of her rooms in a different color, and with a different floor covering, she wonders why she is always fretted in going from one room to another. Don't go about the furnishing of your house with the idea that you must select the furniture of some one period and stick to that. It isn't at all necessary. There are old English chairs and tables of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries that fit into our quiet, spacious Twentieth Century country homes. Lines and fabrics and woods are the things to be compared. There are so many beautiful things that have come to us from other times that it should be easy to make our homes beautiful, but I have seen what I can best describe as apoplectic chairs whose legs were fashioned like aquatic plants; tables upheld by tortured naked women; lighting fixtures in the form of tassels, and such horrors, in many houses of to-day under the guise of being "authentic period furniture." Only a connoisseur can ever hope to know about the furniture of every period, but all of us can easily learn the ear-marks of the furniture that is suited to our homes. I shan't talk about ear-marks here, however, because dozens of collectors have compiled excellent books that tell you all about curves and lines and grain-of-wood and worm-holes. My business is to persuade you to use your graceful French sofas and your simple rush bottom New England chairs in different rooms--in other words, to preach to you the beauty of suitability. Suitability! _Suitability!_ SUITABILITY!! It is such a relief to return to the tranquil, simple forms of furniture, and to decorate our rooms by a process of elimination. How many rooms have I not cleared of junk--this heterogeneous mass of ornamental "period" furniture and bric-a-brac bought to make a room "look cozy." Once cleared of these, the simplicity and dignity of the room comes back, the architectural spaces are freed and now stand in their proper relation to the furniture. In other words, the architecture of the room becomes its decoration. III THE OLD WASHINGTON IRVING HOUSE I have always lived in enchanting houses. Probably when another woman would be dreaming of love affairs, I dream of the delightful houses I have lived in. And just as the woman who dreams of many lovers finds one dream a little dearer than all the rest, so one of my houses has been dearer to me than all the others. [Illustration: THE WASHINGTON IRVING HOUSE WAS DELIGHTFULLY RAMBLING] This favorite love of mine is the old Washington Irving house in New York, the quaint mansion that gave historic Irving Place its name. For twenty years my friend, Elizabeth Marbury, and I made this old house our home. Two years ago we reluctantly gave up the old house and moved into a more modern one--also transformed from old into new--on East Fifty-fifth Street. We have also a delightful old house in France, the Villa Trianon, at Versailles, where we spend our summers. So you see we have had the rare experience of transforming three mistreated old houses into very delightful homes. When we found this old house, so many years ago, we were very young, and it is amusing now to think of its evolution. We had so many dreams, so many theories, and we tried them all out on the old house. And like a patient, well-bred maiden aunt, the old house always accepted our changes most placidly. There never was such a house! You could do anything to it, because, fundamentally, it was good. Its wall spaces were inviting, its windows were made for framing pleasant things. When we moved there we had a broad sweep of view: I can remember seeing the river from our dining-room. Now the city has grown up around the old house and jostled it rudely, and shut out much of its sunshine. There is a joy in the opportunity of creating a beautiful interior for a new and up-to-date house, but best of all is the joy of furnishing an old house like this one. It is like reviving an old garden. It may not be just your idea of a garden to begin with, but as you study it and deck its barren spaces with masses of color, and fit a sundial into the spot that so needs it, and give the sunshine a fountain to play with, you love the old garden just a little more every time you touch it, until it becomes to you the most beautiful garden in all the world. Gardens and houses are such whimsical things! This old house of ours had been so long mistreated that it was fairly petulant and querulous when I began studying it. It asked questions on every turn, and seemed surprised when they were answered. The house was delightfully rambling, with a tiny entrance hall, and narrow stairs, and sudden up and down steps from one room to another like the old, old house one associates with far-away places and old times. The little entrance hall was worse than a question, it was a problem, but I finally solved it. The floor was paved with little hexagon-shaped tiles of a wonderful old red. A door made of little square panes of mirrors was placed where it would deceive the old hall into thinking itself a spacious thing. The walls were covered with a green-and-white-stripe wall-paper that looked as old as Rip Van Winkle. This is the same ribbon-grass paper that I afterward used in the Colony Club hallway. The woodwork was painted a soft gray-green. Finally, I had my collection of faded French costume prints set flat against the top of the wall as a frieze. The hall was so very narrow that as you went up stairs you could actually examine the old prints in detail. Another little thing: I covered the handrail of the stairs with a soft gray-green velvet of the same tone as the woodwork, and the effect was so very good and the touch of it so very nice that many of my friends straightway adopted the idea. But I am placing the cart before the horse! I should talk of the shell of the house before the contents, shouldn't I? It is hard to talk of this particular house as a thing apart from its furnishings, however, for every bit of paneling, every lighting-fixture, the placing of each mirror, was worked out so that the shell of the house and its furnishings might be in perfect harmony. The drawing-room and dining-room occupied the first floor of the house. The drawing-room was a long, narrow room with cream woodwork and walls. The walls were broken into panels by the use of a narrow molding. In the large panel above the mantel-shelf I had inset a painting by Nattier. You will see the same painting used in the Fifty-fifth Street house drawing-room, in another illustration. The color scheme of rose and cream and dull yellow was worked out from the rose and yellow Persian rug. Most of the furniture we found in France, but it fitted perfectly into this aristocratic and dignified room. Miss Marbury and I have a perfect right to French things in our drawing-room, you see, for we are French residents for half the year. And, besides, this gracious old house welcomed a fine old Louis XIV sofa as serenely as you please. I have no idea of swallowing my words about unsuitability! Light, air and comfort--these three things I must always have in a room, whether it be drawing-room or servant's room. This room had all three. The chairs were all comfortable, the lights well placed, and there was plenty of sunshine and air. The color of the room was so subdued that it was restful to the eye--one color faded into another so subtly that one did not realize there was a definite color-scheme. The hangings of the room were of a deep rose color. I used the same colors in the coverings of the chairs and sofas. The house was curtained throughout with fine white muslin curtains. No matter what the inner curtains of a room may be, I use this simple stuff against the window itself. There isn't any nicer material. To me there is something unsuitable in an array of lace against a window, like underclothes hung up to dry. [Illustration: A WASHINGTON IRVING HOUSE BEDROOM] The most delightful part of the drawing-room was the little conservatory, which was a plain, lamentable bay-window once upon a time. I determined to make a little flower-box of it, and had the floor of it paved with large tiles, and between the hardwood floor of the drawing-room and the marble of the window space was a narrow curb of marble, which made it possible to have a jolly little fountain in the window. The fountain splashed away to its heart's content, for there was a drain pipe under the curb. At the top of the windows there were shallow white boxes filled with trailing ivy that hung down and screened the glass, making the window as delightful to the passer-by without as to us within. There were several pots of rose-colored flowers standing in a prim row on the marble curb. You see how much simpler it is to make the best of an old bay window than to build on a new conservatory. There are thousands of houses with windows like this one of ours, an unfortunate space of which no use is made. Sometimes there is a gilt table bearing a lofty jar, sometimes a timid effort at comfort--a sofa--but usually the bay window is sacred to its own devices, whatever they may be! Why not spend a few dollars and make it the most interesting part of the room by giving it a lot of vines and flowers and a small fountain? It isn't at all an expensive thing to do. From the drawing-room you entered the dining-room. This was a long room with beautifully spaced walls, a high ceiling, and quaint cupboards. The arrangement of the mirrors around the cupboards and doors was unusual and most decorative. This room was so beautiful in itself that I used very little color--but _such_ color! We never tired of the gray and white and ivory color-scheme, the quiet atmosphere that made glorious the old Chinese carpet, with its rose-colored ground and blue-and-gold medallions and border. The large India-ink sketches set in the walls are originals by Mennoyer, the delightful Eighteenth Century artist who did the overdoors of the Petit Trianon. The mirror-framed lighting fixtures I brought over from France. The dining-table too, was French, of a creamy ivory-painted wood. The chairs had insets of cane of a deeper tone. The recessed window-seat was covered with a soft velvet of a deep yellow, and there were as many little footstools beside the window-seat as there were chairs in the room. Doesn't everyone long for a footstool at table? I believe that everything in one's house should be comfortable, but one's bedroom must be more than comfortable: it must be intimate, personal, one's secret garden, so to speak. It may be as simple as a convent cell and still have this quality of the personality of its occupant. There are two things that are as important to me as the bed in the bedrooms that I furnish, and they are the little tables at the head of the bed, and the lounging chairs. The little table must hold a good reading light, well shaded, for who doesn't like to read in bed? There must also be a clock, and there really should be a telephone. And the _chaise-longue_, or couch, as the case may be, should be both comfortable and beautiful. Who hasn't longed for a comfortable place to snatch forty winks at midday? My own bedroom in this house was very pleasant to me. The house was very small, you see, and my bedroom had to be my writing-and reading-room too, so that accounts for the bookshelves that fill the wall space above and around the mantel and the large writing-table. The room was built around a wonderful old French bed which came from Brittany. This old bed is of carved mahogany, with mirrored panels on the side against the wall, and with tall columns at the ends. It is always hung with embroidered silk in the rose color that I adore and has any number of pillows, big and little. The _chaise-longue_ was covered with this same silk, as were the various chair cushions. The other furnishings were in keeping. It was a delightfully comfortable room, and it grew a little at a time. I needed bookshelves, and I built them. A drop-light was necessary, and I found the old brass lantern which hung from the ceiling. And so it was furnished, bit by bit, need by need. Miss Marbury's bedroom in this house was entirely different in type, but exactly the same in comfort. The furniture was of white enamel, the walls ivory-white, and the rug a soft dull blue. The chintz used was the familiar Bird of Paradise, gorgeous in design, but so subdued in tone that one never tires of it. The bed had a flat, perfectly fitted cover of the chintz, which is tucked under the mattress. The box spring was also covered with the chintz, and the effect was always tidy and satisfactory. This is the neatest disposal of the bed-clothes I have seen. I always advise this arrangement. Besides the bed there was the necessary little table, holding a reading-light and so forth, and at the head of the bed a most adorable screen of white enamel, paneled with chintz below and glass above. There was a soft couch of generous width in this room, with covers and cushions of the chintz. Over near the windows was the dressing-table with the lighting-fixtures properly placed. This table, hung with chintz, had a sheet of plate glass exactly fitting its top. The writing-table, near the window is also part of my creed of comfort. There should be a writing-table in every bedroom. My friends laugh at the little fat pincushions on my writing-tables, but when they are covered with a bit of the chintz or tapestry or brocade of the room they are very pretty, and I am sure pins are as necessary on the writing-table as on the dressing-table. [Illustration: MISS MARBURY'S BEDROOM] Another thing I like on every writing-table is a clear glass bowl of dried rose petals, which gives the room the faintest spicy fragrance. There is also a little bowl of just the proper color to hold pens and clips and odds and ends. I get as much pleasure from planning these small details as from the planning of the larger furniture of the room. The house was very simple, you see, and very small, and so when the time came to leave it we had grown to love every inch of it. You can love a small house so completely! But we couldn't forgive the skyscrapers encroaching on our supply of sunshine, and we really needed more room, and so we said good-by to our beloved old house and moved into a new one. Now we find ourselves in danger of loving the new one as much as the old. But that is another story. IV THE LITTLE HOUSE OF MANY MIRRORS One walks the streets of New York and receives the fantastic impression that some giant architect has made for the city thousands of houses in replica. These dismal brownstone buildings are so like without, and alas! so like within, that one wonders how their owners know their homes from one another. I have had the pleasure of making over many of these gloomy barracks into homes for other people, and when we left the old Irving Place house we took one of these dreary houses for ourselves, and made it over into a semblance of what a city house should be. You know the kind of house--there are tens of thousands of them--a four story and basement house of pinkish brownstone, with a long flight of ugly stairs from the street to the first floor. The common belief that all city houses of this type must be dark and dreary just because they always _have_ been dark and dreary is an unnecessary superstition. My object in taking this house was twofold: I wanted to prove to my friends that it was possible to take one of the darkest and grimiest of city houses and make it an abode of sunshine and light, and I wanted to furnish the whole house exactly as I pleased--for once! The remaking of the house was very interesting. I tore away the ugly stone steps and centered the entrance door in a little stone-paved fore-court on the level of the old area-way. The fore-court is just a step below the street level, giving you a pleasant feeling of invitation. Everyone hates to climb into a house, but there is a subtle allure in a garden or a court yard or a room into which you must step down. The fore-court is enclosed with a high iron railing banked with formal box-trees. Above the huge green entrance door there is a graceful iron balcony, filled with green things, that pulls the great door and the central window of the floor above into an impressive composition. The façade of the house, instead of being a commonplace rectangle of stone broken by windows, has this long connected break of the door and balcony and window. By such simple devices are happy results accomplished! The door itself is noteworthy, with its great bronze knob set squarely in the center. On each side of it there are the low windows of the entrance hall, with window-boxes of evergreens. Compare this orderly arrangement of windows and entrance door with the badly balanced houses of the old type, and you will realize anew the value of balance and proportion. From the fore-court you enter the hall. Once within the hall, the, house widens magically. Surely this cool black and white apartment cannot be a part of restless New York! Have you ever come suddenly upon an old Southern house, and thrilled at the classic purity of white columns in a black-green forest? This entrance hall gives you the same thrill; the elements of formality, of tranquillity, of coolness, are so evident. The walls and ceiling are a deep, flat cream, and the floor is laid in large black and white marble tiles. Exactly opposite you as you enter, there is a wall fountain with a background of mirrors. The water spills over from the fountain into ferns and flowers banked within a marble curb. The two wall spaces on your right and left are broken by graceful niches which hold old statues. An oval Chinese rug and the white and orange flowers of the fountain furnish the necessary color. The windows flanking the entrance doorway are hung with flat curtains of coarse white linen, with inserts of old filet lace, and there are side curtains of dead black silk with borderings of silver and gold threads. In any house that I have anything to do with, there is some sort of desk or table for writing in the hall. How often I have been in other people's houses when it was necessary to send a message, or to record an address, when the whole household began scurrying around trying to find a pencil and paper! This, to my mind, is an outward and visible sign of an inward--and fundamental!--lack of order. [Illustration: THE FORECOURT AND ENTRANCE OF THE FIFTY-FIFTH STREET HOUSE] In this hall there is a charming desk particularly adapted to its place. It is a standing desk which can be lowered or heightened at will, so that one who wishes to scribble a line or so may use it without sitting down. This desk is called a _bureau d'architect_. I found it in Biarritz. It would be quite easy to have one made by a good cabinet-maker, for the lines and method of construction are simple. My hall desk is so placed that it is lighted by the window by day and the wall lights by night, but it might be lighted by two tall candlesticks if a wall light were not available. There is a shallow drawer which contains surplus writing materials, but the only things permitted on the writing surface of the desk are the tray for cards, the pad and pencils. The only other furniture in the hall is an old porter's chair near the door, a chair that suggests the sedan of old France, but serves its purpose admirably. A glass door leads to the inner hall and the stairway, which I consider the best thing in the house. Instead of the usual steep and gloomy stairs with which we are all familiar, here is a graceful spiral stairway which runs from this floor to the roof. The stair hall has two walls made up of mirrors in the French fashion, that is, cut in squares and held in place by small rosettes of gilt, and these mirrored walls seemingly double the spaciousness of what would be, under ordinary conditions, a gloomy inside hallway. The house is narrow in the extreme, and the secret of its successful renaissance is plenty of windows and light color and mirrors--mirrors--mirrors! It has been called the "Little House of Many Mirrors," for so much of its spaciousness and charm is the effect of skilfully managed reflections. The stair-landings are most ingeniously planned. There are landings that lead directly from the stairs into the rooms of each floor, and back of one of the mirrored stair walls there is a little balcony connecting the rooms on that floor, a private passageway. The drawing-room and dining-room occupy the first floor. The drawing-room is a pleasant, friendly place, full of quiet color. The walls are a deep cream color and the floor is covered with a beautiful Savonnerie rug. There are many beautiful old chairs covered with Aubusson tapestry, and other chairs and sofas covered with rose colored brocade. This drawing-room is seemingly a huge place, this effect being given by the careful placing of mirrors and lights, and the skilful arrangement of the furniture. I believe in plenty of optimism and white paint, comfortable chairs with lights beside them, open fires on the hearth and flowers wherever they "belong," mirrors and sunshine in all rooms. But I think we can carry the white paint idea too far: I have grown a little tired of over-careful decorations, of plain white walls and white woodwork, of carefully matched furniture and over-cautious color-schemes. Somehow the feeling of homey-ness is lost when the decorator is too careful. In this drawing-room there is furniture of many woods, there are stuffs of many weaves, there are candles and chandeliers and reading-lamps, but there is harmony of purpose and therefore harmony of effect. The room was made for conversation, for hospitality. A narrow landing connects the dining-room and the drawing-room. The color of the dining-room has grown of itself, from the superb Chinese rug on the floor and the rare old Mennoyer drawings inset in the walls. The woodwork and walls have been painted a soft dove-like gray. The walls are broken into panels by a narrow gray molding, and the Mennoyers are set in five of these panels. In one narrow panel a beautiful wall clock has been placed. Above the mantel there is a huge mirror with a panel in black and white relief above it. On the opposite wall there is another mirror, with a console table of carved wood painted gray beneath it. There is also a console table under one of the Mennoyers. The two windows in this room are obviously windows by day, but at night two sliding doors of mirrors are drawn, just as a curtain would be drawn, to fill the window spaces. This is a little bit tricky, I admit, but it is a very good trick. The dining-table is of carved wood painted gray and covered with yellow damask, which in turn is covered with a sheet of plate glass. The chairs are covered with a blue and gold striped velvet. The rug has a gold ground with medallions and border of blue, ivory and rose. Near the door that leads to the service rooms there is a huge screen made of one piece of wondrous tapestry. No other furniture is needed in the room. The third floor is given over to my sitting-room, bedroom, dressing-room, and so forth, and the fourth floor to Miss Marbury's apartments. These rooms will be discussed in other chapters. The servants' quarters in this house are very well planned. In the back yard that always goes with a house of this type I had built a new wing, five stories high, connected with the floors of the house proper by window-lined passages. On the dining-room floor the passage becomes a butler's pantry. On the bedroom floors the passages are large enough for dressing-rooms and baths, connecting with the bedrooms, and for outer halls and laundries connecting with the maids' rooms and the back stairs. In this way, you see, the maids can reach the dressing-rooms without invading the bedrooms. The kitchen and its dependencies occupy the first floor of the new wing, the servants' bedrooms the next three floors, and the top floor is made up of clothes closets, sewing-rooms, store rooms, etc. I firmly believe that the whole question of household comfort evolves from the careful planning of the service portion of the house. My servants' rooms are all attractive. The woodwork of these rooms is white, the walls are cream, the floors are waxed. They are all gay and sweet and cheerful, with white painted beds and chests of drawers and willow chairs, and chintz curtains and bed-coverings that are especially chosen, _not_ handed down when they have become too faded to be used elsewhere! V THE TREATMENT OF WALLS Surely the first considerations of the house in good taste must be light, air and sanitation. Instead of ignoring the relation of sanitary conditions and decorative schemes, the architect and client of to-day work out these problems with excellent results. Practical needs are considered just as worthy of the architect as artistic achievements. He is a poor excuse for his profession if he cannot solve the problems of utility and beauty, and work out the ultimate harmony of the house-to-be. If one enters a room in which true proportion has been observed, where the openings, the doors, windows and fireplace, balance perfectly, where the wall spaces are well planned and the height of the ceiling is in keeping with the floor-space, one is immediately convinced that here is a beautiful and satisfactory room, before a stick of furniture has been placed in it. All questions pertaining to the practical equipment and the decorative amenities of the house should be approached architecturally. If this is done, the result cannot fail to be felicitous, and our dream of our house beautiful comes true! Before you begin the decoration of your walls, be sure that your floors have been finished to fulfil their purposes. Stain them or polish them to a soft glow, keep them low in tone so that they may be backgrounds. We will assume that the woodwork of each room has been finished with a view to the future use and decoration of the room. We will assume that the ceilings are proper ceilings; that they will stay in their place, i.e., the top of the room. This is a most daring assumption, because there are so many feeble and threatening ceilings overhanging most of us that good ones seem rare. But the ceiling is an architectural problem, and you must consider it in the beginning of things. It may be beamed and have every evidence of structural beauty and strength, or it may be beamed in a ridiculous fashion that advertises the beams as shams, leading from nowhere to nowhere. It may be a beautiful expanse of creamy modeled plaster resting on a distinguished cornice, or it may be one of those ghastly skim-milk ceilings with distorted cupids and roses in relief. It may be a rectangle of plain plaster tinted cream or pale yellow or gray, and keeping its place serenely, or it may be a villainous stretch of ox-blood, hanging over your head like the curse of Cain. There are hundreds of magnificent painted ceilings, and vaulted arches of marble and gold, but these are not of immediate importance to the woman who is furnishing a small house, and are not within the scope of this book. So let us exercise common sense and face our especial ceiling problem in an architectural spirit. If your house has structural beams, leave them exposed, if you like, but treat them as beams; stain them, and wax them, and color the spaces between them cream or tan or warm gray, and then make the room beneath the beams strong enough in color and furnishings to carry the impressive ceiling. If you have an architect who is also a decorator, and he has ideas for a modeled plaster ceiling, or a ceiling with plaster-covered beams and cornice and a fine application of ornament, let him do his best for you, but remember that a fine ceiling demands certain things of the room it covers. If you have a simple little house with simple furnishings, be content to have your ceilings tinted a warm cream, keep them always clean. When all these things are settled--floors and ceilings and woodwork--you may begin to plan your wall coverings. Begin, you understand. You will probably change your plans a dozen times before you make the final decisions. I hope you will! Because inevitably the last opinion is best--it grows out of so many considerations. The main thing to remember, when you begin to cover your walls, is that they are walls, that they are straight up and down, and have breadth and thickness, that they are supposedly strong, in other words, that they are a structural part of your house. A wall should always be treated as a flat surface and in a conventional way. Pictorial flowers and lifelike figures have no place upon it, but conventionalized designs may be used successfully--witness the delighted use of the fantastic landscape papers in the middle of the Eighteenth Century. Walls should always be obviously _walls_, and not flimsy partitions hung with gauds and trophies. The wall is the background of the room, and so must be flat in treatment and reposeful in tone. Walls have always offered tempting spaces for decoration. Our ancestors hung their walls with trophies. Our pioneer of to-day may live in an adobe hut, but he hangs his walls with things that suggest beauty and color to him, calendars, and trophies and gaudy chromos. The rest of his hut he uses for the hard business of living, but his walls are his theater, his literature, his recreation. The wolf skin will one day give place to a painting of the chase, the gaudy calendars to better things, when prosperity comes. But now these crude things speak for the pioneer period of the man, and therefore they are the right things for the moment. How absurd would be the refined etching and the delicate water-color on these clay walls, even were they within his grasp! The first impulse of all of us is to hang the things we admire on our walls. Unfortunately, we do not always select papers and fabrics and pictures we will continue to admire. Who doesn't know the woman who goes to a shop and selects wall papers as she would select her gowns, because they are "new" and "different" and "pretty"? She selects a "rich" paper for her hall and an "elegant" paper for her drawing-room--the chances are it is a nile green moire paper! For her library she thinks a paper imitating an Oriental fabric is the proper thing, and as likely as not she buys gold paper for her dining-room. She finds so many charming bedroom papers that she has no trouble in selecting a dozen of them for insipid blue rooms and pink rooms and lilac rooms. She forgets that while she wears only one gown at a time she will live with all her wall papers all the time. She decides to use a red paper of large figures in one room, and a green paper with snaky stripes in the adjoining room, but she doesn't try the papers out; she doesn't give them the fair test of living with them a few days. You can always buy, or borrow, a roll of the paper you like and take it home and live with it awhile. The dealer will credit the roll when you make the final decisions. You should assemble all the papers that are to be used in the house, and all the fabrics, and rugs, and see what the effect of the various compositions will be, one with another. You can't consider one room alone, unless it be a bedroom, for in our modern houses we believe too thoroughly in spaciousness to separate our living rooms by ante-chambers and formal approaches. We must preserve a certain amount of privacy, and have doors that may be closed when need be, but we must also consider the effect of things when those doors are open, when the color of one room melts into the color of another. [Illustration: A PAINTED WALL BROKEN INTO PANELS BY NARROW MOLDINGS] To me, the most beautiful wall is the plain and dignified painted wall, broken into graceful panels by the use of narrow moldings, with lighting fixtures carefully placed, and every picture and mirror hung with classic precision. This wall is just as appropriate to the six-room cottage as to the twenty-room house. If I could always find perfect walls, I'd always paint them, and never use a yard of paper. Painted walls, when very well done, are dignified and restful, and most sanitary. The trouble is that too few plasterers know how to smooth the wall surface, and too few workmen know how to apply paint properly. In my new house on East Fifty-fifth Street I have had all the walls painted. The woodwork is ivory white throughout the house, except in the dining-room, where the walls and woodwork are soft gray. The walls of most of the rooms and halls are painted a very deep tone of cream and are broken into panels, the moldings being painted cream like the woodwork. With such walls you can carry out any color-plan you may desire. You would think that every woman would know that walls are influenced by the exposure of the room, but how often I have seen bleak north rooms with walls papered in cold gray, and sunshiny south rooms with red or yellow wall papers! Dull tones and cool colors are always good in south rooms, and live tones and warm colors in north rooms. For instance, if you wish to keep your rooms in one color-plan, you may have white woodwork in all of them, and walls of varying shades of cream and yellow. The north rooms may have walls painted or papered with a soft, warm yellow that suggests creamy chiffon over orange. The south rooms may have the walls of a cool creamy-gray tone. Whether you paint or paper your walls, you should consider the placing of the picture-molding most carefully. If the ceiling is very high, the walls will be more interesting if the picture-molding is placed three or four feet below the ceiling line. If the ceiling is low, the molding should be within two inches of the ceiling. These measurements are not arbitrary, of course. Every room is a law unto itself, and no cut and dried rule can be given. A fine frieze is a very beautiful decoration, but it must be _very_ fine to be worth while at all. Usually the dropped ceiling is better for the upper wall space. It goes without saying that those dreadful friezes perpetrated by certain wall paper designers are very bad form, and should never be used. Indeed, the very principle of the ordinary paper frieze is bad; it darkens the upper wall unpleasantly, and violates the good old rule that the floors should be darkest in tone, the side walls lighter, and the ceiling lightest. The recent vogue of stenciling walls may be objected to on this account, though a very narrow and conventional line of stenciling may sometimes be placed just under the picture rail with good effect. In a great room with a beamed ceiling and oak paneled walls a painted fresco or a frieze of tapestry or some fine fabric is a very fine thing, especially if it has a lot of primitive red and blue and gold in it, but in simple rooms--beware! Lately there has been a great revival of interest in wood paneling. We go abroad, and see the magnificent paneling of old English houses, and we come home and copy it. But we cannot get the workmen who will carve panels in the old patterns. We cannot wait a hundred years for the soft bloom that comes from the constant usage, and so our paneled rooms are apt to be too new and woody. But we have such a wonderful store of woods, here in America, it is worth while to panel our rooms, copying the simple rectangular English patterns, and it is quite permissible to "age" our walls by rubbing in black wax, and little shadows of water-color, and in fact by any method we can devise. Wood paneled walls, like beamed ceilings, are best in great rooms. They make boxes of little ones. Painted walls, and walls hung with tapestries and leather, are not possible to many of us, but they are the most magnificent of wall treatments. I know a wonderful library with walls hung in squares of Spanish leather, a cold northern room that merits such a brilliant wall treatment. The primitive colors of the Cordova leather workers, with gold and crimson dominant, glow from the deep shadows. Spanish and Italian furniture and fine old velvets and brocades furnish this room. The same sort of room invites wood paneling and tapestry, whereas the ideal room for painted walls in a lighter key is the ballroom, or some such large apartment. I once decorated a ballroom with Pillement panels, copied from a beautiful Eighteenth Century room, and so managed to bring a riot of color and decoration into a large apartment. The ground of the paneling was deep yellow, and all the little birds and flowers surrounding the central design were done in the very brightest, strongest colors imaginable. The various panels had quaint little scenes of the same Chinese flavor. Of course, in such an apartment as a ballroom there would be nothing to break into the decorative plan of the painted walls, and the unbroken polished floor serves only to throw the panels into their proper prominence. Painted walls, when done in some such broad and daring manner, are very wonderful, but they should not be attempted by the amateur, or, indeed, by an expert in a room that will be crowded with furniture, and curtains, and rugs. If your walls are faulty, you must resort to wall papers or fabrics. Properly selected wall papers are not to be despised. The woodwork of a room, of course, directly influences the treatment of its walls. So many people ask me for advice about wall papers, and forget absolutely to tell me of the finish of the framing of their wall spaces. A pale yellowish cream wall paper is very charming with woodwork of white, but it would not do with woodwork of heavy oak, for instance. [Illustration: A WALL PAPER OF ELIZABETHAN DESIGN WITH OAK FURNITURE] A general rule to follow in a small house is: do not have a figured wall paper if you expect to use things of large design in your rooms. If you have gorgeous rugs and hangings, keep your walls absolutely plain. In furnishing the Colony Club I used a ribbon grass paper in the hallway. The fresh, spring-like green and white striped paper is very delightful with a carpet and runner of plain dark-green velvet, and white woodwork, and dark mahogany furniture, and many gold-framed mirrors. In another room in this building where many chintzes and fabrics were used, I painted the woodwork white and the walls a soft cream color. In the bedrooms I used a number of wall papers, the most fascinating of these, perhaps, is in the bird room. The walls are hung with a daringly gorgeous paper covered with birds--birds of paradise and paroquets perched on flowery tropical branches. The furniture in this room is of black and gold lacquer, and the rug and hangings are of jade green. It would not be so successful in a room one lived in all the year around, but it is a good example of what one can do with a tempting wall paper in an occasional room, a guest room, for instance. Some of the figured wall papers are so decorative that they are more than tempting, they are compelling. The Chinese ones are particularly fascinating. Recently I planned a small boudoir in a country house that depended on a gay Chinoiserie paper for its charm. The design of the paper was made up of quaint little figures and parasols and birds and twisty trees, all in soft tones of green and blue and mauve on a deep cream ground. The woodwork and ceiling repeated the deep cream, and the simple furniture (a day bed, a chest of drawers, and several chairs) were of wood, painted a flat blue green just the color of the twisty pine-trees of the paper. We had a delightful time decorating the furniture with blue and mauve lines, and we painted parasols and birds and flowers on chair backs and drawer-knobs and so forth. The large rug was of pinky-mauve-gray, and the coverings of the day bed and chairs were of a mauve and gray striped stuff, the stripes so small that they had the effect of being threads of color. There were no pictures, of course, but there was a long mirror above the chest of drawers, and another over the mantel. The lighting-fixtures, candlesticks and appliqués, were of carved and painted wood, blue-green with shades of thin mauve silk over rose. Among the most enchanting of the new papers are the black and white ones, fantastic Chinese designs and startling Austrian patterns. Black and white is always a tempting combination to the decorator, and now that Josef Hoffman, the great Austrian decorator, has been working in black and white for a number of years, the more venturesome decorators of France, and England and America have begun to follow his lead, and are using black and white, and black and color, with amazing effect. We have black papers patterned in color, and black velvet carpets, and white coated papers sprinkled with huge black polka dots, and all manner of unusual things. It goes without saying that much of this fad is freakish, but there is also much that is good enough and refreshing enough to last. One can imagine nothing fresher than a black and white scheme in a bedroom, with a saving neutrality of gray or some dull tone for rugs, and a brilliant bit of color in porcelain. There is no hint of the mournful in the decorator's combination of black and white: rather, there is a naïve quality suggestive of smartness in a gown, or chic in a woman. A white walled room with white woodwork and a black and white tiled floor; a black lacquer bed and chest of drawers and chair; glass curtains of white muslin and inside ones of black and white Hoffman chintz; a splash of warm orange-red in an oval rug at the bedside, if it be winter, or a cool green one in summer--doesn't this tempt you? I once saw a little serving-maid wearing a calico gown, black crosses on a white ground, and I was so enchanted with the cool crispness of it that I had a glazed wall paper made in the same design. I have used it in bedrooms, and in bathrooms, always with admirable effect. One can imagine a girl making a Pierrot and Pierrette room for herself, given whitewashed walls, white woodwork, and white painted furniture. An ordinary white cotton printed with large black polka dots would make delightful curtains, chair-cushions, and so forth. The rug might be woven of black and white rags, or might be one of those woven from the old homespun coverlet patterns. The landscape papers that were so popular in the New England and Southern houses three generations ago were very wonderful when they were used in hallways, with graceful stairs and white woodwork, but they were distressing when used in living-rooms. It is all very well to cover the walls of your hall with a hand-painted paper, or a landscape, or a foliage paper, because you get only an impressionistic idea of a hall--you don't loiter there. But papers of large design are out of place in rooms where pictures and books are used. If there is anything more dreadful than a busy "parlor" paper, with scrolls that tantalize or flowers that demand to be counted, I have yet to encounter it. Remember, above all things that your walls must be beautiful in themselves. They must be plain and quiet, ready to receive sincere things, but quite good enough to get along without pictures if necessary. A wall that is broken into beautiful spaces and covered with a soft creamy paint, or paper, or grasscloth, is good enough for any room. It may be broken with lighting fixtures, and it is finished. [Illustration: THE SCHEME OF THIS ROOM GREW FROM THE JARS ON THE MANTEL] VI THE EFFECTIVE USE OF COLOR What a joyous thing is color! How influenced we all are by it, even if we are unconscious of how our sense of restfulness has been brought about. Certain colors are antagonistic to each of us, and I think we should try to learn just what colors are most sympathetic to our own individual emotions, and then make the best of them. If you are inclined to a hasty temper, for instance, you should not live in a room in which the prevailing note is red. On the other hand, a timid, delicate nature could often gain courage and poise by living in surroundings of rich red tones, the tones of the old Italian damasks in which the primitive colors of the Middle Ages have been handed down to us. No half shades, no blending of tender tones are needed in an age of iron nerves. People worked hard, and they got downright blues and reds and greens--primitive colors, all. Nowadays, we must consider the effect of color on our nerves, our eyes, our moods, everything. Love of color is an emotional matter, just as much as love of music. The strongest, the most intense, feeling I have about decoration is my love of color. I have felt as intimate a satisfaction at St. Mark's at twilight as I ever felt at any opera, though I love music. Color! The very word would suggest warm and agreeable arrangement of tones, a pleasing and encouraging atmosphere which is full of life. We say that one woman is "so full of color," when she is alert and happy and vividly alive. We say another woman is "colorless," because she is bleak and chilling and unfriendly. We demand that certain music shall be full of color, and we always seek color in the pages of our favorite books. One poet has color and to spare, another is cynical and hard and--gray. We think and criticize from the standpoint of an appreciation of color, although often we have not that appreciation. There is all the difference in the world between the person who appreciates color and the person who "likes colors." The child, playing with his broken toys and bits of gay china and glass, the American Indian with his gorgeous blankets and baskets and beads--all these primitive minds enjoy the combination of vivid tones, but they have no more feeling for color than a blind man. The appreciation of color is a subtle and intellectual quality. Sparrow, the Englishman who has written so many books on housefurnishing, says: "Colors are like musical notes and chords, while color is a pleasing result of their artistic use in a combined way. So colors are means to an end, while color is the end itself. The first are tools, while the other is a distinctive harmony in art composed of many lines and shades." We are aware that some people are "color-blind," but we do not take the trouble to ascertain whether the majority of people see colors crudely. I suppose there are as many color-blind people as there are people who have a deep feeling for color, and the great masses of people in between, while they know colors one from another, have no appreciation of hue. Just as surely, there are some people who cannot tell one tune from another and some people who have a deep and passionate feeling for music, while the rest--the great majority of people--can follow a tune and sing a hymn, but they can go no deeper into music than that. Surely, each of you must know your own color-sense. You know whether you get results, don't you? I have never believed that there is a woman so blind that she cannot tell good from bad effects, even though she may not be able to tell _why_ one room is good and another bad. It is as simple as the problem of the well-gowned woman and the dowdy one. The dowdy woman doesn't realize the degree of her own dowdiness, but she _knows_ that her neighbor is well-gowned, and she envies her with a vague and pathetic envy. If, then, you are not sure that you appreciate color, if you feel that you, like your children, like the green rug with the red roses because it is "so cheerful," you may be sure that you should let color-problems alone, and furnish your house in neutral tones, depending on book-bindings and flowers and open fires and the necessary small furnishings for your color. Then, with an excellent background of soft quiet tones, you can venture a little way at a time, trying a bit of color here for a few days, and asking yourself if you honestly like it, and then trying another color--a jar or a bowl or a length of fabric--somewhere else, and trying that out. You will soon find that your joy in your home is growing, and that you have a source of happiness within yourself that you had not suspected. I believe that good taste can be developed in any woman, just as surely as good manners are possible to anyone. And good taste is as necessary as good manners. We may take our first lessons in color from Nature, on whose storehouse we can draw limitlessly. Nature, when she plans a wondrous splash of color, prepares a proper background for it. She gives us color plans for all the needs we can conceive. White and gray clouds on a blue sky--what more could she use in such a composition? A bit of gray green moss upon a black rock, a field of yellow dandelions, a pink and white spike of hollyhocks, an orange-colored butterfly poised on a stalk of larkspur--what color-plans are these! [Illustration: A LOUIS SEIZE BEDROOM IN ROSE AND BLUE AND CREAM] I think that the first consideration after you have settled your building-site should be to place your house so that its windows may frame Nature's own pictures. With windows facing north and south, where all the fluctuating and wayward charm of the season unrolls before your eyes, your windows become the finest pictures that you can have. When this has been arranged, it is time to consider the color-scheme for the interior of the house, the colors that shall be in harmony with the window-framed vistas, the colors that shall be backgrounds for the intimate personal furnishings of your daily life. You must think of your walls as backgrounds for the colors you wish to bring into your rooms. And by colors I do not mean merely the primary colors, red and blue and yellow, or the secondary colors, green and orange and violet, I mean the white spaces, the black shadows, the gray halftones, the suave creams, that give you the _feeling_ of color. How often we get a more definite idea of brilliant color from a white-walled room, with dark and severe furniture and no ornaments, no actual color save the blue sky framed by the windows and the flood of sunshine that glorifies everything, than from a room that has a dozen fine colors, carefully brought together, in its furnishings! We must decide our wall colors by the aspect of our rooms. Rooms facing south may be very light gray, cream, or even white, but northern rooms should be rich in color, and should suggest warmth and just a little mystery. Some of you have seen the Sala di Cambio at Perugia. Do you remember how dark it seems when one enters, and how gradually the wonderful coloring glows out from the gloom and one is comforted and soothed into a sort of dreamland of pure joy, in the intimate satisfaction of it all? It is unsurpassable for sheer decorative charm, I think. For south rooms blues and grays and cool greens and all the dainty gay colors are charming. Do you remember the song Edna May used to sing in "The Belle of New York"? I am not sure of quoting correctly, but the refrain was: "Follow the Light!" I have so often had it in mind when I've been planning my color schemes--"Follow the Light!" But light colors for sunshine, remember, and dark ones for shadow. For north rooms I am strongly inclined to the use of paneling in our native American woods, that are so rich in effect, but alas, so little used. I hope our architects will soon realize what delightful and inexpensive rooms can be made of pine and cherry, chestnut and cypress, and the beautiful California redwood. I know of a library paneled with cypress. The beamed ceiling, the paneled walls, the built-in shelves, the ample chairs and long tables are all of the soft brown cypress. Here, if anywhere, you would think a monotony of brown wood would be obvious, but think of the thousands of books with brilliant bindings! Think of the green branches of trees seen through the casement windows! Think of the huge, red-brick fireplace, with its logs blazing in orange and yellow and vermillion flame! Think of the distinction of a copper bowl of yellow flowers on the long brown table! Can't you see that this cypress room is simply glowing with color? I wish that I might be able to show all you young married girls who are working out your home-schemes just how to work out the color of a room. Suppose you are given some rare and lovely jar, or a wee rug, or a rare old print, or even a quaint old chair from long ago, and build a room around it. I have some such point of interest in every room I build, and I think that is why some people like my rooms--they feel, without quite knowing why, that I have loved them while making them. Now there is a little sitting-room and bedroom combined in a certain New York house that I worked out from a pair of Chinese jars. They were the oddest things, of a sort of blue-green and mauve and mulberry, with flecks of black, on a cream porcelain ground. First I found a wee Oriental rug that repeated the colors of the jugs. This was to go before the hearth. Then I worked out the shell of the room: the woodwork white, the walls bluish green, the plain carpet a soft green. I designed the furniture and had it made by a skilful carpenter, for I could find none that would harmonize with the room. The day bed which is forty-two inches wide, is built like a wide roomy sofa. One would never suspect it of being a plain bed. Still it makes no pretensions to anything else, for it has the best of springs and the most comfortable of mattresses, and a dozen soft pillows. The bed is of wood and is painted a soft green, with a dark-green line running all around, and little painted festoons of flowers in decoration. The mattress and springs are covered with a most delightful mauve chintz, on which birds and flowers are patterned. There are several easy chairs cushioned with this chintz, and the window hangings are also of it. The chest of drawers is painted in the same manner. There are glass knobs on the drawers, and a sheet of plate glass covers the top of it. An old painting hangs above it. The open bookshelves are perfectly plain in construction. They are painted the same bluish-green, and the only decoration is the line of dark green about half an inch from the edge. Any woman who is skilful with her brush could decorate furniture of this kind, and I daresay many women could build it. There is another bedroom in this house, a room in red and blue. "Red and blue"--you shudder. I know it! But _such_ red and _such_ blue! Will you believe me when I assure you that this room is called cool and restful-looking by everyone who sees it? The walls are painted plain cream. The woodwork is white. The perfectly plain carpet rug is of a dull red that is the color of an old-fashioned rose--you know the roses that become lavender when they fade? The mantel is of Siena marble, and over it there is an old mirror with an upper panel painted in colors after the manner of some of those delightful old rooms found in France about the time of Louis XVI. If you have one very good picture and will use it in this way, inset over the mantel with a mirror below it, you will need no other pictures in your room. [Illustration: By permission of the Butterick Publishing Co. THE WRITING CORNER OF A CHINTZ BEDROOM] The chintz used in this room is patterned in the rose red of the carpet and a dull cool blue, on a white ground. This chintz is used on the graceful sofa, the several chairs and the bed, which are ivory in tone. The hangings of the bed are lined with taffetas of rose red. The bedcover is of the same silk, and the inner curtains at the window are lined with it. The small table at the head of the bed, the kidney table beside the sofa, and the small cabinets near the mantel, are of mahogany. There is a mahogany writing-table placed at right angles to the windows. From this rose and blue bedroom you enter a little dressing-room that is also full of color. Here are the same cream walls, the dull red carpet, the old blue silk shades on lamps and candles, but the chintz is different: the ground is black, and gray parrots and paroquets swing in blue-green festoons of leaves and branches. The dressing-table is placed in front of the window, so that you can see yourself for better or for worse. There is a three-fold mirror of black and gold lacquer, and a Chinese cabinet of the same lacquer in the corner. The low seat before the dressing-table is covered with the chintz. A few costume prints hang on the wall. You can imagine how impossible it would be to be ill-tempered in such a cheerful place. VII OF DOORS, AND WINDOWS, AND CHINTZ What a sense of intimacy, of security, encompasses one when ushered into a living room in which the door opens and _closes_! Who that has read Henry James's remarkable article on the vistas dear to the American hostess, our portiere-hung spaces, guiltless of doors and open to every draft, can fail to feel how much better our conversation might be were we not forever conscious that between our guests and the greedy ears of our servants there is nothing but a curtain! All that curtains ever were used for in the Eighteenth Century was as a means of shutting out drafts in large rooms inadequately heated by wood fires. How often do we see masses of draperies looped back and arranged with elaborate dust-catching tassels and fringes that mean nothing. These curtains do not even draw! I am sure that a good, well-designed door with a simple box-lock and hinges would be much less costly than velvet hangings. A door is not an ugly object, to be concealed for very shame, but a fine architectural detail of great value. Consider the French and Italian doors with their architraves. How fine they are, how imposing, how honest, and how well they compose! Of course, if your house has been built with open archways, you will need heavy curtains for them, but there are curtains _and_ curtains. If you need portieres at all, you need them to cut off one room from another, and so they should hang in straight folds. They should be just what they pretend to be--honest curtains with a duty to fulfil. For the simple house they may be made of velvet or velveteen in some neutral tone that is in harmony with the rugs and furnishings of the rooms that are to be divided. They should be double, usually, and a faded gilt gimp may be used as an outline or as a binding. There are also excellent fabrics reproducing old brocades and even old tapestries, but it is well to be careful about using these fabrics. There are machine-made "tapestries" of foliage designs in soft greens and tans and browns on a dark blue ground that are very pleasing. Many of these stuffs copy in color and design the verdure tapestries, and some of them have fine blues and greens suggestive of Gobelin. These stuffs are very wide and comparatively inexpensive. I thoroughly advise a stuff of this kind, but I heartily condemn the imitations of the old tapestries that are covered with large figures and intricate designs. These old tapestries are as distinguished for their colors, their textures, and their very crudities as for their supreme beauty of coloring. It would be foolish to imitate them. As for windows and their curtains--I could write a book about them! A window is such a gay, animate thing. By day it should be full of sunshine, and if it frames a view worth seeing, the view should be a part of it. By night the window should be hidden by soft curtains that have been drawn to the side during the sunshiny hours. In most houses there is somewhere a group of windows that calls for an especial kind of curtain. If these windows look out over a pleasant garden, or upon a vista of fields and trees, or even upon a striking sky-line of housetops, you will be wise to use a thin, sheer glass curtain through which you can look out, but which protects you from the gaze of passers-by. If your group of windows is so placed that there is no danger of people passing and looking in, then a short sash curtain of swiss muslin is all that you require, with inside curtains of some heavier fabric--chintz or linen or silk--that can be drawn at night. If you are building a new house I strongly advise you to have at least one room with a group of deep windows, made up of small panes of leaded glass, and a broad window-seat built beneath them. There is something so pleasant and mellow in leaded glass, particularly when the glass itself has an uneven, colorful quality. When windows are treated thus architecturally they need no glass curtains. They need only side curtains of some deep-toned fabric. [Illustration: By permission of the Butterick Publishing Co. BLACK CHINTZ USED IN A DRESSING-ROOM] As for your single windows, when you are planning them you will be wise to have the sashes so placed that a broad sill will be possible. There is nothing pleasanter than a broad window sill at a convenient height from the floor. The tendency of American builders nowadays is to use two large glass sashes instead of the small or medium-sized panes of older times. This is very bad from the standpoint of the architect, because these huge squares of glass suggest holes in the wall, whereas the square or oblong panes with their straight frames and bars advertise their suitability. The housewife's objection to small panes is that they are harder to clean than the large ones, but this objection is not worthy of consideration. If we really wish to make our houses look as if they were built for permanency we should consider everything that makes for beauty and harmony and hominess. There is nothing more interesting than a cottage window sash of small square panes of glass unless it be the diamond-paned casement window of an old English house. Such windows are obviously windows. The huge sheets of plate glass that people are so proud of are all very well for shops, but they are seldom right in small houses. I remember seeing one plate glass window that was well worth while. It was in the mountain studio of an artist and it was fully eight by ten feet--one unbroken sheet of glass which framed a marvelous vista of mountain and valley. It goes without saying that such a window requires no curtain other than one that is to be drawn at night. The ideal treatment for the ordinary single window is a soft curtain of some thin white stuff hung flat and full against the glass. This curtain should have an inch and a half hem at the bottom and a narrow hem at the sides. It should be strung on a small brass rod, and should be placed as close to the glass as possible, leaving just enough space for the window shade beneath it. The curtain should hang in straight folds to the window sill, escaping it by half an inch or so. I hope it is not necessary for me to go into the matter of lace curtains here. I feel sure that no woman of really good taste could prefer a cheap curtain of imitation lace to a simple one of white swiss-muslin. I have never seen a house room that was too fine for a swiss-muslin curtain, though of course there are many rooms that would welcome no curtains whatever wherein the windows are their own excuse for being. Lace curtains, even if they may have cost a king's ransom, are in questionable taste, to put it mildly. Use all the lace you wish on your bed linen and table linen, but do not hang it up at your windows for passers-by to criticize. [Illustration: PRINTED LINEN CURTAINS OVER ROSE-COLORED SILK] Many women do not feel the need of inside curtains. Indeed, they are not necessary in all houses. They are very attractive when they are well hung, and they give the window a distinction and a decorative charm that is very valuable. I am using many photographs that show the use of inside curtains. You will observe that all of these windows have glass curtains of plain white muslin, no matter what the inside curtain may be. Chintz curtains are often hung with a valance about ten or twelve inches deep across the top of the window. These valances should be strung on a separate rod, so that the inside curtains may be pulled together if need be. The ruffled valance is more suitable for summer cottages and bedrooms than for more formal rooms. A fitted valance of chintz or brocade is quite dignified enough for a drawing-room or any other. In my bedroom I have used a printed linen with a flat valance. This printed linen is in soft tones of rose and green on a cream ground. The side curtains have a narrow fluted binding of rose-colored silk. Under these curtains are still other curtains of rose-colored shot silk, and beneath those are white muslin glass curtains. With such a window treatment the shot silk curtains are the ones that are drawn together at night, making a very soft, comforting sort of color arrangement. You will observe in this photograph that the panels between doors and windows are filled with mirrors that run the full length from the molding to the baseboard. This is a very beautiful setting for the windows, of course. It is well to remember that glass curtains should not be looped back. Inside curtains may be looped when there is no illogical break in the line. It is absurd to hang up curtains against the glass and then draw them away, for glass curtains are supposed to be a protection from the gaze of the passers-by. If you haven't passers-by you can pull your curtains to the side so that you may enjoy the out-of-doors. Do not lose sight of the fact that your windows are supposed to give you sunshine and air; if you drape them so that you get neither sunshine nor air you might as well block them up and do away with them entirely. To me the most amazing evidence of the advance of good taste is the revival of chintzes, printed linens, cottons and so forth, of the Eighteenth Century. Ten years ago it was almost impossible to find a well-designed cretonne; the beautiful chintzes as we know them were unknown. Now there are literally thousands of these excellent fabrics of old and new designs in the shops. The gay designs of the printed cottons that came to us from East India, a hundred years ago, and the fantastic chintzes known as Chinese Chippendale, that were in vogue when the Dutch East India Company supplied the world with its china and fabrics; the dainty French _toiles de Jouy_ that are reminiscent of Marie Antoinette and her bewitching apartments, and the printed linens of old England and later ones of the England of William Morris, all these are at our service. There are charming cottons to be had at as little as twenty cents a yard, printed from old patterns. There are linens hand-printed from old blocks that rival cut velvet in their lustrous color effect and cost almost as much. There are amazing fabrics that seem to have come from the land of the Arabian nights--they really come from Austria and are dubbed "Futurist" and "Cubist" and such. Some of them are inspiring, some of them are horrifying, but all of them are interesting. Old-time chintzes were usually very narrow, and light in ground, but the modern chintz is forty or fifty inches wide, with a ground of neutral tone that gives it distinction, and defies dust. When I began my work as a decorator of houses, my friends, astonished and just a little amused at my persistent use of chintz, called me the "Chintz decorator." The title pleased me, even though it was bestowed in fun, for my theory has always been that chintz, when properly used, is the most decorative and satisfactory of all fabrics. At first people objected to my bringing chintz into their houses because they had an idea it was poor and mean, and rather a doubtful expedient. On the contrary, I feel that it is infinitely, better to use good chintzes than inferior silks and damasks, just as simple engravings and prints are preferable to doubtful paintings. The effect is the thing! One of the chief objections to the charming fabric was that people felt it would become soiled easily, and would often have to be renewed, but in our vacuum-cleaned houses we no longer feel that it is necessary to have furniture and hangings that will "conceal dirt." We refuse to _have_ dirt! Of course, chintzes in rooms that will have hard wear should be carefully selected. They should be printed on linen, or some hard twilled fabric, and the ground color should be darker than when they are to be used in bedrooms. Many of the newer chintzes have dark grounds of blue, mauve, maroon or gray, and a still more recent chintz has a black ground with fantastic designs of the most delightful colorings. The black chintzes are reproductions of fabrics that were in vogue in 1830. They are very good in rooms that must be used a great deal, and they are very decorative. Some of them suggest old cut velvets--they are so soft and lustrous. My greatest difficulty in introducing chintzes here was to convert women who loved their plush and satin draperies to a simpler fabric. They were unwilling to give up the glories they knew for the charms they knew not. I convinced them by showing them results! My first large commission was the Colony Club, and I used chintzes throughout the Club: Chintzes of cool grapes and leaves in the roof garden, hand-blocked linens of many soft colors in the reading-room, rose-sprigged and English posy designs in the bedrooms, and so on throughout the building. Now I am using more chintz than anything else. It is as much at home in the New York drawing-room as in the country cottage. I can think of nothing more charming for a room in a country house than a sitting-room furnished with gray painted furniture and a lovely chintz. [Illustration: STRAIGHT HANGINGS OF ROSE AND YELLOW SHOT SILK] Not long ago I was asked to furnish a small sea-shore cottage. The whole thing had to be done in a month, and the only plan I had to work on was a batch of chintz samples that had been selected for the house. I extracted the colorings of walls, woodwork, furniture, etc., from these chintzes. Instead of buying new furniture I dragged down a lot of old things that had been relegated to the attic and painted them with a dull ground color and small designs adapted from the chintzes. The lighting fixtures, wall brackets, candle sticks, etc.--were of carved wood, painted in polychrome to match the general scheme. One chintz in particular I would like to have every woman see and enjoy. It had a ground of old blue, patterned regularly with little Persian "pears," the old rug design, you know. The effect of this simple chintz with white painted walls and furniture and woodwork and crisp white muslin glass curtains was delicious. The most satisfactory of all chintzes is the _Toile de Jouy_. The designs are interesting and well drawn, and very much more decorative than the designs one finds in ordinary silks and other materials. The chintzes must be appropriate to the uses of the room, well designed, in scale with the height of the ceilings, and so forth. It is well to remember that self-color rugs are most effective in chintz rooms. Wilton rugs woven in carpet sizes are to be had now at all first class furniture stores. Painted furniture is very popular nowadays and is especially delightful when used in chintz rooms. The furniture we see now is really a revival and reproduction of the old models made by Angelica Kaufman, Heppelwhite, and other furniture-makers of their period. The old furniture is rarely seen outside of museums nowadays, but it has been an inspiration to modern decorators who are seeking ideas for simple and charming furniture. A very attractive room can be made by taking unfinished pieces of furniture--that is, furniture that has not been stained or painted--and painting them a soft field color, and then adding decorations of bouquets or garlands, or birds, or baskets, reproducing parts of the design of the chintz used in the room. Of course, many of these patterns could be copied by a good draftsman only, but others are simple enough for anyone to attempt. For instance, I decorated a room in soft cream, gray, yellow and cornflower blue. The chintz had a cornflower design that repeated all these colors. I painted the furniture a very soft gray, and then painted little garlands of cornflowers in soft blues and gray-greens on each piece of furniture. The walls were painted a soft cream color. The carpet rug of tan was woven in one piece with a blue stripe in the border. The color illustrations of this book will give you a very good idea of how I use chintzes and painted furniture. One of the illustrations shows the use of a black chintz in the dressing-room of a city house. The chintz is covered with parrots which make gorgeous splashes of color on the black ground. The color of the foliage and leaves is greenish-blue, which shades into a dozen blues and greens. This greenish-blue tone has been used in the small things of the room. The chintz curtains are lined with silk of this tone, and the valance at the top of the group of windows is finished with a narrow silk fringe of this greenish-blue. The small candle shades, the shirred shade of the drop-light, and the cushion of the black lacquer chair are also of this blue. The walls of the room are a deep cream in tone, and there are a number of old French prints from some Eighteenth Century fashion journals hung on the cream ground. The dressing-table is placed against the windows, over the radiator, so that there is light and to spare for dressing. Half curtains of white muslin are shirred on the sashes back of the dressing-table. The quaint triplicate mirror is of black lacquer decorated with Chinese figures in gold, and the little, three-cornered cabinet in the corner is also of black and gold. The chintz is used as a covering for the dressing-seat. Another illustration shows the writing-corner of the bedroom which leads into this dressing-room. The walls and the rose-red carpet are the same in both rooms, as you see. This bedroom depends absolutely on the rose and blue chintz for its decoration. There is a quaint bed painted a pale gray, with rose-red taffeta coverlet. The bed curtains are of the chintz lined with the rose-red silk. There are several white-enamel chairs upholstered with the chintz, and there is a comfortable French couch with a kidney table of mahogany beside it. The corner of the room shown in the illustration is the most convenient writing-place. The desk is placed at right angles to the wall between the two windows. The small furnishings of the writing-desk repeat the queer blues and the rose-red of the chintz. A very comfortable stool with a cushion of old velvet is an added convenience. The chintz curtains at the windows hang in straight, full folds. A flat valance, cut the length of the design of the chintz, furnishes the top of the two windows. Some windows do not need these valances, but these windows are very high and need the connecting line of color. The long curtains are lined with the rose-red silk, which also shows in a narrow piping around the edges. [Illustration: MUSLIN GLASS CURTAINS IN THE WASHINGTON IRVING HOUSE] The other two color illustrations are of the most popular room I have done, a bedroom and sitting room combined. Everyone likes the color plan of soft greens, mauve and lavender. There is a large day bed of painted wood, with mattress, springs and cushions covered with a chintz of mauve ground and gay birds. The rug is a self-toned rug of very soft green, and the walls are tinted with the palest of greens. The woodwork is white, and the furniture is painted a greenish-gray that is just a little deeper than pearl. A darker green line of paint outlines all the furniture, which is further decorated with prim little garlands of flowers painted in dull rose, blue, yellow and green. The mauve chintz is used for the curtains, and for the huge armchair and one or two painted chairs. There is a little footstool covered with brocaded violet velvet, with just a thread of green showing on the background. The lighting fixtures are of carved wood, painted in soft colors to match the garlands on the furniture, with shirred shades of lavender silk. Two lamps made of quaint old green jars with lavender decorations have shirred shades of the same silk. One of these lamps is used on the writing-table and the other on the little chest of drawers. This little chest of drawers, by the way, is about the simplest piece of furniture I can think of, for any girl who can use her brushes at all. An ordinary chest of drawers should be given several coats of paint--pale yellow, green or blue, as may be preferred. Then a thin stripe of a darker tone should be painted on it. This should be outlined in pencil and then painted with a deeper tone of green color; for instance, an orange or brown stripe should be used on pale yellow, and dark green or blue on the pale green. A detail of the wall paper or the chintz design may be outlined on the panels of the drawers and on the top of the chest by means of a stencil, and then painted with rather soft colors. The top of the chest should be covered with a piece of plate glass which will have the advantage of showing the design of the cover and of being easily cleaned. Old-fashioned glass knobs add interest to this piece of furniture. A mirror with a gilt frame, or an unframed painting similar to the one shown in the illustration would be very nice above the chest of drawers. [Illustration: HERE ARE MANY LIGHTING FIXTURES HARMONIOUSLY ASSEMBLED IN A DRAWING-ROOM] VIII THE PROBLEM OF ARTIFICIAL LIGHT In all the equipment of the modern house, I think there is nothing more difficult than the problem of artificial light. To have the light properly distributed so that the rooms may be suffused with just the proper glow, but never a glare; so that the base outlets for reading-lamps shall be at convenient angles, so that the wall lights shall be beautifully balanced,--all this means prodigious thought and care before the actual placing of the lights is accomplished. In domestic architecture light is usually provided for some special function; to dress by, to read by, or to eat by. If properly considered, there is no reason why one's lighting fixtures should not be beautiful as well as utilitarian. However, it is seldom indeed that one finds lights that serve the purposes of utility and beauty. I have rarely, I might say never, gone into a builder's house (and indeed I might say the same of many architects' houses) but that the first things to require changing to make the house amenable to modern American needs were the openings for lighting fixtures. Usually, side openings are placed much too near the trim of a door or window, so that no self-respecting bracket can be placed in the space without encroaching on the molding. Another favorite mistake is to place the two wall openings in a long wall or large panel so close together that no large picture or mirror or piece of furniture can be placed against that wall. There is also the tendency to place the openings too high, which always spoils a good room. I strongly advise the woman who is having a house built or re-arranged to lay out her electric light plan as early in the game as possible, with due consideration to the uses of each room. If there is a high chest of drawers for a certain wall, the size of it is just as important in planning the lighting fixtures for that wall as is the width of the fireplace important in the placing of the lights on the chimney-breast. I advise putting a liberal number of base openings in a room, for it costs little when the room is in embryo. Later on, when you find you can change your favorite table and chair to a better position to meet the inspiration of the completed room and that your reading-lamp can be moved, too, because the outlet is there ready for it, will come the compensating moments when you congratulate yourself on forethought. There are now, fortunately, few communities in America that have not electric power-plants. Indeed, I know of many obscure little towns of a thousand inhabitants that have had the luxury of electric lights for years, and have as yet no gas or water-works! Miraculously, also, the smaller the town the cheaper is the cost of electricity. This is not a cut-and-dried statement, but an observation from personal experience. The little town's electricity is usually a byproduct of some manufacturing plant, and current is often sold at so much per light per month, instead of being measured by meter. It is pleasant to think that many homes have bridged the smelly gap between candles and electricity in this magic fashion. Gas light is more difficult to manage than electricity, for there is always the cumbersome tube and the necessity for adding mechanical accessories before a good clear light is secured. Gas lamps are hideous, for some obscure reason, whereas there are hundreds of simple and excellent wall fixtures, drop lights and reading lamps to be bought already equipped for electricity. The electric wire is such an unobtrusive thing that it can be carried through a small hole in any good vase, or jar, and with a suitable shade you have an attractive and serviceable reading light. Candlesticks are easily equipped for electricity and are the most graceful of all fixtures for dressing-tables, bedside tables, tea tables, and such. It is well to remember that if a room is decorated in dark colors the light will be more readily absorbed than in a light-colored room, and you should select and place your lighting-fixtures accordingly. Bead covers, fringes and silk shades all obscure the light and re-absorb it, and so require a great force of light to illuminate properly. The subject of the selection of lighting-fixtures is limitless. There are so many fixtures to be had nowadays--good, bad and indifferent--that it were impossible to point out the merits and demerits of them all. There are copies of all the best lamps and lanterns of old Europe and many new designs that grew out of modern American needs. There are Louis XVI lanterns simple enough to fit well into many an American hallway, that offer excellent lessons in the simplicity of the master decorators of old times. Contrast one of these fine old lanterns with the mass of colored glass and beads and crude lines and curves of many modern hall lanterns. I like a ceiling bowl of crystal or alabaster with lights inside, for halls, but the expense of such a bowl is great. However, I recently saw a reproduction of an old alabaster bowl made of soft, cloudy glass, not of alabaster, which sold at a fraction of the price of the original, and it seemed to meet all the requirements. Of course, one may easily spend as much money on lighting-fixtures as on the remainder of the house, but that is no reason why people who must practise economy should admit ugly fixtures into their homes. There are always good and bad fixtures offered at the lowest and highest prices. You have no defense if you build your own house. If you are making the best of a rented house or an apartment, that is different. But good taste is sufficient armor against the snare of gaudy beads and cheap glass. [Illustration: DETAIL OF A FINE OLD FRENCH FIXTURE OF HAND-WROUGHT METAL] There was recently an exhibition in New York of the craftsmanship of the students of a certain school of design. There were some really beautiful lanterns and wall brackets and reading lamps shown, designed and executed by young women who are self supporting by day and can give only a few evening hours, or an occasional day, to the pursuit of their avocation. One hanging lantern of terra cotta was very fine indeed, and there were many notable fixtures. There must be easily tens of thousands of young people who are students in the various schools of design, manual training high schools and normal art schools. Why doesn't some far-seeing manufacturer of lighting-fixtures give these young people a chance to adapt the fine old French and Italian designs to our modern needs? Why not have your daughter or son copy such an object that has use and beauty, instead of encouraging the daubing of china or the piercing of brass that leads to nothing? And if you haven't a daughter or son, encourage the young artisan, your neighbor, who is trying to "find himself." Let him copy a few good old fixtures for you. They will cost no more than the gaudy vulgar fixtures that are sold in so many shops. The photograph shown on page 108 illustrates the possibility of using a number of lighting-fixtures in one room. The room shown is my own drawing-room. You will observe that in this picture there are many different lights. The two old French fixtures of wrought gilt, which flank the mantel mirror, hold wax candles. The two easy chairs have little tables beside them holding three-pronged silver candlesticks. There is also a small table holding an electric reading-lamp, made of a Chinese jar, with a shade of shirred silk. The chandelier is a charming old French affair of gracefully strung crystal globules. For a formal occasion the chandelier is lighted, but when we are few, we love the fire glow and candlelight. If we require a stronger light for reading there is the lamp. The photograph here given may suggest a superfluous number of lights, but the room itself does not. The wall fixtures are of gilt, you see, the candlesticks of silver, the chandelier of crystal and the lamp of Chinese porcelain and soft colored silk; so one is not conscious of the many lights. If all the lights were screened in the same way the effect would be different. I use this picture for this very reason--to show how many lights may be assembled and used in one place. In considering the placing of these lights, the firelight was not forgotten, nor the effect of the room by day when the sunlight floods in and these many fixtures become objects of decorative interest. A lamp, or a wall fixture, or a chandelier, or a candlestick, must be beautiful in itself--beautiful by sunlight,--if it is really successful. The soft glow of night light may make commonplace things beautiful, but the final test of a fixture is its effect in relation to the other furnishings of the room in sunlight. [Illustration: LIGHTING FIXTURES INSPIRED BY ADAM MIRRORS] The picture on page 118 shows the proper placing of wall fixtures when a large picture is the chief point of interest. These wall fixtures are particularly interesting because they are in the style of the Adam mirrors that hang on the recessed wall spaces flanking the chimney wall. This photograph is a lesson in the placing of objects of art. The large painting is beautifully spaced between the line of the mantel shelf and the lower line of the cornice. The wall fixtures are correctly placed, and anyone can see why they would be distressingly out of key if they were nearer the picture, or nearer the line of the chimney wall. The picture was considered as an important part of the chimney-piece before the openings for the fixtures were made. Another good lamp is shown on the small table in this picture. There is really a reading-lamp beside a comfortable couch, which cannot be seen in the picture. This lamp, like the one in the drawing-room, is made from a porcelain vase, with a shirred silk shade on a wire frame. An electric light cord is run through a hole bored for it. If electricity were not available, an oil receptacle of brass could be fitted into the vase and the beauty of the lamp would be the same. There are so many possibilities for making beautiful lamps of good jars and vases that it is surprising the shops still sell their frightful lamps covered with cabbage roses and dragons and monstrosities. A blue and white ginger jar, a copper loving-cup, or even a homely brown earthenware bean-pot, will make a good bowl for an oil or electric lamp, but of the dreadful bowls sold in the shops for the purpose the less said the better. How can one see beauty in a lurid bowl and shade of red glass! Better stick to wax candles the rest of your life than indulge in such a lamp! I know people plead that they have to buy what is offered; they cannot find simple lamps and hanging lanterns at small prices and so they _must_ buy bad ones. The manufacturer makes just the objects that people demand. So long as you accept these things, just so long will he make them. If all the women who complain about the hideous lighting-fixtures that are sold were to refuse absolutely to buy them, a few years would show a revolution in the designing of these things. There has been of late a vulgar fashion of having a huge mass of colored glass and beads suspended from near-brass chains in the dining-rooms of certain apartments and houses. These monstrous things are called "domes"--no one knows why. For the price of one of them you could buy a three pronged candlestick, equipped for electricity, for your dining-room table. It is the sight of hundreds of these dreadful "domes" in the lamp shops that gives one a feeling of discouragement. The humblest kitchen lamp of brass and tin would be beautiful by contrast. When all is said and done, we must come back to wax candles for the most beautiful light of all. Electricity is the most efficient, but candlelight is the most satisfying. For a drawing-room, or any formal room where a clear light is not required, wax candles are perfect. There are still a few houses left where candlesticks are things of use and are not banished to the shelves as curiosities. Certainly the clear, white light of electricity seems heaven-sent when one is dressing or working, but for between-hours, for the brief periods of rest, the only thing that rivals the comfort of candlelight is the glow of an open fire. IX HALLS AND STAIRCASES In early days the hall was the large formal room in which the main business of the house was transacted. It played the part of court-room, with the lord of the manor as judge. It was used for dining, living, and for whatever entertainment the house afforded. The stairs were not a part of it: they found a place as best they could. From the times of the primitive ladder of the adobe dwelling to the days of the spiral staircase carried up in the thickness of the wall, the stairway was always a primitive affair, born of necessity, with little claim to beauty. With the Renaissance in Italy came the forerunner of the modern entrance hall, with its accompanying stair. Considerations of comfort and beauty began to be observed. The Italian staircase grew into a magnificent affair, "L'escalier d'honneur," and often led only to the open galleries and _salons de parade_ of the next floor. I think the finest staircases in all the world are in the Genoese palaces. The grand staircase of the Renaissance may still be seen in many fine Italian palaces, notably in the Bargello in Florence. This staircase has been splendidly reproduced by Mrs. Gardner in Fenway Court, her Italian palace in Boston. This house is, by the way, the finest thing of its kind in America. Mrs. Gardner has the same far-seeing interest in the furtherance of an American appreciation of art as had the late Pierpont Morgan. She has assembled a magnificent collection of objects of art, and she opens her house to the public occasionally and to artists and designers frequently, that they may have the advantage of studying the treasures. To return to our staircases: In France the intermural, or spiral, staircase was considered quite splendid enough for all human needs, and in the finest châteaux of the French Renaissance one finds these practical staircases. Possibly in those troublous times the French architects planned for an aristocracy living under the influence of an inherited tradition of treachery and violence, they felt more secure in the isolation and ready command of a small, narrow staircase where one man well nigh single-handed could keep an army at bay. A large wide staircase of easy ascent might have meant many uneasy moments, with plots without and treachery within. Gradually, however, the old feudal entrance gave way to its sub-divisions of guardroom, vestibule, and salon. England was last to capitulate, and in the great Tudor houses still extant one finds the entrance door opening directly into the Hall. Often in these English houses there was a screen of very beautiful carved wood, behind which was the staircase. Inigo Jones introduced the Palladian style into England, and so brought in the many-storied central salon which served as means of access to all the house. The old English halls and staircases designed by Inigo Jones would be perfect for our more elaborate American country houses. The severe beauty of English paneling and the carving of newel-post and spindles are having a just revival. The pendulum swings--and there is nothing new under the sun! Wooden staircases with carved wooden balustrades were used oftenest in England, while in the French châteaux marble stairs with wrought-iron stair-rails are generally found. The perfection to which the art of iron work may be carried is familiar to everyone who knows the fairy-like iron work of Jean L'Amour in the Stanislas Palace at Nancy. This staircase in the Hôtel de Ville is supreme. If you are ever in France you should see it. It has been copied often by American architects. Infinite thought and skill were brought to bear on all the iron work door-handles, lanterns, and so forth. The artistic excellence of this work has not been equaled since this period of the Eighteenth Century. The greatest artists of that day did not think it in the least beneath their dignity and talent to devote themselves to designing the knobs of doors, the handles of commodes, the bronzes for the decorations of fireplaces, the shaping of hinges and locks. They were careful of details, and that is the secret of their supremacy. Nowadays, we may find a house with a beautiful hall, but the chances are it is spoiled by crudely designed fittings. I have written somewhat at length of the magnificent staircases of older countries and older times than our own, because somehow the subject is one that cannot be considered apart from its beginnings. All our halls and stairs, pretentious or not, have come to us from these superb efforts of masterly workmen, and perhaps that is why we feel instinctively that they must suggest a certain formality, and restraint. This feeling is indirectly a tribute to the architects who gave us such notable examples. We do not, however, have to go abroad for historic examples of stately halls and stairs. There are fine old houses scattered all through the old thirteen states that cannot be surpassed for dignity and simplicity. One of the best halls in America is that of "Westover," probably the most famous house in Virginia. This old house was built in 1737 by Colonel Byrd on the James River, where so many of the Colonial aristocrats of Virginia made their homes. The plan of the hall is suggestive of an old English manor house. The walls are beautifully paneled from an old English plan. The turned balusters are representative of the late Seventeenth or early Eighteenth Century. The fine old Jacobean chairs and tables have weathered two centuries, and are friendly to their new neighbors, Oriental rugs older than themselves. The staircase has two landings, on the first of which stands an old Grandfather's-clock, marking the beginning of a custom that obtains to this day. This hall is characteristic of American houses of the Colonial period, and indeed of the average large country house of to-day, for the straightaway hall, cutting the house squarely in two, is so much a part of our architecture that we use it as a standard. It is to be found, somewhat narrower and lower of ceiling, in New England farmhouses and in Eastern city houses. The Southern house of ante-bellum days varied the stair occasionally by patterning the magnificent winding staircases of old England, but the long hall open at both ends, and the long stair, with one or two landings, is characteristic of all old American houses. The customary finish for these old halls was a landscape wall paper, a painted wall broken into panels by molding, a high white wainscoting with white plaster above, or possibly a gay figured paper of questionable beauty. Mahogany furniture was characteristic of all these halls--a grandfather's-clock, a turn-top table, a number of dignified chairs, and a quaint old mirror. Sometimes there was a fireplace, but oftener there were doors opening evenly into various rooms of the first floor. These things are irreproachable to-day. Why did we have to go through the period of the walnut hat-rack and shiny oak hall furniture, only to return to our simplicities? [Illustration: THE STAIRCASE IN THE BAYARD THAYER HOUSE] When I planned the main hall of the Colony Club I determined to make it very Colonial, very American, very inviting and comfortable, the sort of hall you like to remember having seen in an old Virginia house. One enters from the street into a narrow hall that soon broadens into a spacious and lofty living-hall. The walls are, of course, white, the paneled spaces being broken by quaint old Colonial mirrors and appropriate lighting-fixtures. There is a great fireplace at one end of the hall, with a deep, chintz-covered davenport before it. There are also roomy chairs covered with the same delightful chintz, a green and white glazed English chintz that is as serviceable as it is beautiful. Besides the chintz-covered chairs, there are two old English chairs covered with English needlework. These chairs are among the treasures of the Club. There are several long mahogany tables, and many small tea tables. The rugs are of a spring green--I can think of no better name for it. In modern English and American houses of the smaller class the staircase is a part of an elongated entrance hall, and there is often no vestibule. In many of the more important new houses the stairs are divided from the entrance hall, so that one staircase will do for the servants, family and all, and the privacy of the entrance hall will be secured. In my own house in New York, you enter the square hall directly, and the staircase is in a second hall. This entrance hall is a real breathing-space, affording the visitor a few moments of rest and calm after the crowded streets of the city. The hall is quite large, with a color-plan of black and white and dark green. You will find a description of this hall in another chapter. I have used this same plan in many other city houses, with individual variations, of course. The serene quality of such a hall is very valuable in the city. If you introduced a lot of furniture the whole thing would be spoiled. I used an old porcelain stove, creamy and iridescent in glaze, in such a hall in an uptown house very similar to my own. The stove is very beautiful in itself, but it was used for use as well as beauty. It really holds a fire and furnishes an even heat. The stove was flanked by two pedestals surmounted with baskets spilling over with fruits, carved from wood and gilded and painted in polychrome. Everything in this hall is arranged with precision of balance. The stove is flanked by two pedestals. The niche that holds the stove and the corresponding niche on the other wall, which holds a statue, are flanked by narrow panels holding lighting-fixtures. The street wall is broken by doors and its two flanking windows. The opposite wall has a large central panel flanked by two glass doors, one leading to the stairway and the other to a closet, beneath it. Everything is "paired," with resulting effect of great formality and restraint. Very little furniture is required: A table to hold cards and notes, two low benches, and a wrought iron stand for umbrellas. The windows have curtains of Italian linen, coarse homespun stuff that is very lovely with white walls and woodwork. There are no pictures on the wall, but there are specially designed lighting-fixtures in the small panels that frame the niches. In several of the finer houses that have been built recently, notably that of Mrs. O.H.P. Belmont, the staircase is enclosed, and is in no way an architectural feature, merely a possible means of communication when needed. This solution of the staircase problem has no doubt brought about our modern luxury of elevators. In another fine private house recently built the grand staircase only goes so far as the formal rooms of the second floor, and a small iron staircase enclosed in the wall leads to the intimate family rooms of the bedroom floor. The advantage of this gain in space can easily be appreciated. All the room usually taken up by the large wall of the staircase halls, and so forth, can be thrown into the bedrooms upstairs. The illustrations of the Bayard Thayer hall and staircase speak for themselves. Here lighting-fixtures, locks, hinges, have been carefully planned, so that the smallest part is worthy of the whole. This hall is representative of the finer private houses that are being built in America to-day. I had the pleasure of working with the architect and the owners here, and so was able to fit the decorations and furnishings of the hall to the house and to the requirements of the people who live in it. The present tendency of people who build small houses is to make a living-room of the hall. I am not in favor of this. I think the hall should be much more formal than the rest of the house. It is, after all, of public access, not only to the living-rooms but to the street. The servant who answers the front door must of necessity constantly traverse it, so must anyone--the guest or tradesman--admitted to the house. The furniture should be severe and architectural in design. A column or pedestal surmounted with a statue, a fountain, an old chest to hold carriage-rugs, a carved bench, a good table, a standing desk, may be used in a large house. Nothing more is admissible. In a small house a well-shaped table, a bench or so, possibly a wall clock, will be all that is necessary. The wall should be plain in treatment. The stair carpet should be plain in color. The floor should be bare, if in good condition, with just a small rug for softness at the door. A tiled floor is especially beautiful in a hall, if you can afford it. If your house happens to have the hall and living-room combined, and no vestibule, you can place a large screen near the entrance door and obtain a little more privacy. A standing screen of wooden panels is better than a folding screen, for the folding screen is rarely well-built, and will be blown down by the draft of the open door. A standing screen may be made by any carpenter, and painted or stained to match the woodwork of the room. A straight bench or settle placed against it will make the screened space seem more like a vestibule. Another objection to the staircase leading from the living-room of a small house is that such an arrangement makes it almost impossible to heat the house properly in winter. I have seen so many bewildered people whose spacious doorless downstairs rooms were a joy in summer, shivering all winter long in a polar atmosphere. The stair well seems to suck all the warmth from the living-room, and coal bills soar. Above all, don't try to make your hall "pretty." Remember that a hall is not a living-room, but a thoroughfare open and used by all the dwellers in the house. Don't be afraid of your halls and stairs looking "cold." It is a good idea to have one small space in your house where you can go and sit down and be calm and cool! You can't keep the rest of the house severe and cool looking, but here it is eminently appropriate and sensible. The visitor who enters a white and green hall and gets an effect of real reserve and coolness is all the more appreciative of the warmth and intimacy of the living-rooms of the house. After all, for simple American houses there is nothing better than a straightaway staircase of broad and easy treads, with one or two landings. There may be a broad landing with a window and window-seat, if there is a real view, but the landing-seat that is built for no especial purpose is worse than useless. It is not at all necessary to have the stairs carpeted, if the treads are broad enough, and turned balusters painted white with a mahogany hand rail are in scheme. Such a staircase adds much to the home-quality of a house. X THE DRAWING-ROOM A drawing-room is the logical place for the elegancies of family life. The ideal drawing-room, to my mind, contains many comfortable chairs and sofas, many softly shaded lights by night, and plenty of sunshine by day, well-balanced mirrors set in simple paneled walls, and any number of small tables that may be brought out into the room if need be, and an open fire. The old idea of the drawing-room was a horrible apartment of stiffness and formality and discomfort. No wonder it was used only for weddings and funerals! The modern drawing-room is intended, primarily, as a place where a hostess may entertain her friends, and it must not be chill and uninviting, whatever else it may be. It should not be littered up with personal things--magazines, books and work-baskets and objects that belong in the living-room--but it welcomes flowers and _objets d'art_, collections of fans, or miniatures, or graceful mirrors, or old French prints, or enamels, or porcelains. It should be a place where people may converse without interruption from the children. Most houses, even of the smaller sort, have three day rooms--the dining-room, the parlor and the sitting-room, as they are usually called. People who appreciate more and more the joy of living have pulled hall and sitting-room together into one great family meeting place, leaving a small vestibule, decreased the size of the dining-room and built in many windows, so that it becomes almost an outdoor room, and given the parlor a little more dignity and serenity and its right name--the drawing-room. We use the terms drawing-room and _salon_ interchangeably in America--though we are a bit more timid of the _salon_--but there is a subtle difference between the two that is worth noting. The withdrawing room of old England was the quiet room to which the ladies retired, leaving their lords to the freer pleasures of the great hall. Indeed, the room began as a part of my lady's bedroom, but gradually came into its proper importance and took on a magnificence all its own. The _salon_ of France also began as a part of the great hall, or _grande salle_. Then came the need for an apartment for receiving and so the great bed chamber was divided into two parts, one a real sleeping-room and the other a _chambre de parade,_ with a great state bed for the occasional visitors of great position. The great bed, or _lit de parade_, was representative of all the salons of the time of Louis XIII. Gradually the owners of the more magnificent houses saw the opportunity for a series of salons, and so the state apartment was divided into two parts: a _salon de famille_, which afforded the family a certain privacy, and the _salon de compagnie_, which was sacred to a magnificent hospitality. And so the salon expanded until nowadays we use the word with awe, and appreciate its implication of brilliant conversation and exquisite decoration, of a radiant hostess, an amusing and distinguished circle of people. The word has a graciousness, a challenge that we fear. If we have not just the right house we should not dare risk belittling our pleasant drawing-room by dubbing it "salon." In short, a drawing-room may be a part of any well regulated house. A salon is largely a matter of spirit and cleverness. A drawing-room has no place in the house where there is no other living-room. Indeed, if there are many children, and the house is of moderate size, I think a number of small day rooms are vastly better than the two usual rooms, living-room and drawing-room, because only in this way can the various members of the family have a chance at any privacy. The one large room so necessary for the gala occasions of a large family may be the dining-room, for here it will be easy to push back tables and chairs for the occasion. If the children have a nursery, and mother has a small sitting-room, and father has a little room for books and writing, a living-room may be eliminated in favor of a small formal room for visitors and talk. [Illustration: THE DRAWING-ROOM SHOULD BE INTIMATE IN SPIRIT] No matter how large your drawing-room may be, keep it intimate in spirit. There should be a dozen conversation centers in a large room. There should be one or more sofas, with comfortable chairs pulled up beside them. No one chair should be isolated, for some bashful person who doesn't talk well anyway is sure to take the most remote chair and make herself miserable. I have seen a shy young woman completely changed because she happened to sit upon a certain deep cushioned sofa of rose-colored damask. Whether it was the rose color, or the enforced relaxation the sofa induced, or the proximity of some very charming people in comfortable chairs beside her, or all of these things--I don't know! But she found herself. She found herself gay and happy and unafraid. I am sure her personality flowered from that hour on. If she had been left to herself she would have taken a stiff chair in a far corner, and she would have been miserable and self-conscious. I believe most firmly in the magic power of inanimate objects! Don't litter your drawing-room with bric-a-brac. Who hasn't seen what I can best describe as a souvenir drawing-room, a room filled with curiosities from everywhere! I shall never forget doing a drawing-room for a woman of no taste. I persuaded her to put away her heavy velvets and gilt fringes and to have one light and spacious room in the house. She agreed. We worked out a chintz drawing-room that was delicious. I was very happy over it and you can imagine my amazement when she came to me and said, "But Miss de Wolfe, what am I to do with my blue satin tidies?" In my own drawing-room I have so many objects of art, and yet I think you will agree with me that the room has a great serenity. Over the little desk in one corner I have my collection of old miniatures and fans of the golden days of the French court. There are ever so many vases and bowls for flowers, _but they are used_. There are dozens of lighting-fixtures, brackets, and lamps, and a chandelier, and many candlesticks, and they are used, also. Somehow, when a beautiful object becomes a useful object, it takes its place in the general scheme of things and does not disturb the eye. The ideal drawing-room has a real fireplace, with a wood fire when there is excuse for it. An open fire is almost as great an attribute to a drawing-room as a tactful hostess; it puts you at ease, instantly, and gives you poise. And just as an open fire and sunshine make for ease, so do well placed mirrors make for elegance. Use your mirrors as decorative panels, not only for the purpose of looking at yourself in them, and you will multiply the pleasures of your room. I have the wall space between mantel and frieze-line filled with a large mirror, in my New York drawing-room, and the two narrow panels between the front windows are filled with long narrow mirrors that reflect the color and charm of the room. Whenever you can manage it, place your mirror so that it will reflect some particularly nice object. Given plenty of chairs and sofas, and a few small tables to hold lights and flowers, you will need very little other furniture in the drawing-room. You will need a writing-table, but a very small and orderly one. The drawing room desk may be very elegant in design and equipment, for it must be a part of the decoration of the room, and it must be always immaculate for the visitor who wants to write a note. The members of the family are supposed to use their own desks, leaving this one for social emergencies. A good desk is a godsend in a drawing-room, it makes a room that is usually cold and formal at once more livable and more intimate. In my own drawing-room I have a small French writing-table placed near a window, so that the light falls over one's left shoulder. The small black lacquer desks that are now being reproduced from old models would be excellent desks for drawing-rooms, because they not only offer service, as all furniture should, but are beautiful in themselves. Many of the small tables of walnut and mahogany that are sold as dressing-tables might be used as writing-tables in formal rooms, if the mirrors were eliminated. [Illustration: THE FINE FORMALITY OF WELL-PLACED PANELING] There is a great difference in opinion as to the placing of the piano in the drawing-room. I think it belongs in the living-room, if it is in constant use, though of course it is very convenient to have it near by the one big room, be it drawing-room or dining-room, when a small dance is planned. I am going to admit that in my opinion there is nothing more abused than the piano, I have no piano in my own house in New York. I love music--but I am not a musician, and so I do not expose myself to the merciless banging of chance callers. Besides, my house is quite small and a good piano would dwarf the other furnishings of my rooms. I think pianos are for musicians, not strummers, who spoil all chance for any real conversation. If you are fortunate enough to have a musician in your family, that is different. Go ahead and give him a music room. Musicians are not born every day, but lovers of music are everywhere, and I for one am heartily in favor of doing away with the old custom of teaching every child to bang a little, and instead, teaching him to _listen_ to music. Oh, the crimes that are committed against music in American parlors! I prefer the good mechanical cabinet that offers us "canned" music to the manual exercise of people who insist on playing wherever they see an open piano. Of course the mechanical instrument is new, and therefore, subject to much criticism from a decorative standpoint, but the music is much better than the amateur's. We are still turning up our noses a little at the mechanical piano players, but if we will use our common sense we must admit that a new order of things has come to pass, and the new "canned" music is not to be despised. Certainly if the instrument displeases you, you can say so, but if a misguided friend elects to strum on your piano you are helpless. So I have no piano in my New York house. I have a cabinet of "canned" music that can be turned on for small dances when need be, and that can be hidden in a closet between times. Why not? But suppose you have a piano, or need one: do give it a chance! Its very size makes it tremendously important, and if you load it with senseless fringed scarfs and bric-a-brac you make it the ugliest thing in your room. Give it the best place possible, against an inside wall, preferably. I saw a new house lately where the placing of the piano had been considered by the architect when the house was planned. There was a mezzanine floor overhanging the great living-room, and one end of this had been made into a piano alcove, a sort of modern minstrel gallery. The musician who used the piano was very happy, for your real musician loves a certain solitude, and those of us who listened to his music in the great room below were happy because the maker of the music was far enough away from us. We could appreciate the music and forget the mechanics of it. For a concert, or a small dance, this balcony music-room would be most convenient. Another good place for the piano is a sort of alcove, or small room opening from the large living or drawing-room, where the piano and a few chairs may be placed. Of course if you are to have a real music-room, then there are great possibilities. A piano may be a princely thing, properly built and decorated. The old spinets and harpsichords, with their charming inlaid cases, were beautiful, but they gave forth only tinkly sounds. Now we have a magnificent mechanism, but the case which encloses it is too often hideous. There is an old double-banked harpsichord of the early Eighteenth Century in the Morgan collection at the Metropolitan Museum that would be a fine form for a piano, if it would hold the "works." It is long and narrow, fitting against the wall so that it really takes up very little room. The case is painted a soft dark gray and outlined in darker gray, and the panels and the long top are in soft colors. The legs are carved and pointed in polychrome. This harpsichord was made when the beauty of an object was of as real importance as the mechanical perfection. Occasionally one sees a modern piano that has been decorated by an artist. Sir Edward Burne-Jones, Sir Alma Tadema, and many of the other English artists of our generation have made beautiful pianos. Sir Robert Lorimer recently designed a piano that was decorated, inside and out, by Mrs. Traquair. From time to time a great artist interests himself in designing and decorating a piano, but the rank and file, when they decide to build an extraordinary piano, achieve lumpy masses of wood covered with impossible nymphs and too-realistic flowers, pianos suggestive of thin and sentimental tunes, but never of _music_. When you are furnishing your music-room or drawing-room, be careful always of your colors. Remember that not only must the room be beautiful in its broad spaces and long lines and soft colors, but it must be a background for the gala gowns of women. I once saw a music-room that was deliberately planned as a background to the gay colors of women's gowns and the heavy black masses of men's evening clothes, a soft shimmering green and cream room that was incomplete and cold when empty of the color of costume. Such a room must have an architectural flavor. The keynote must be elegant simplicity and aristocratic reserve. Walls broken into panels, and panels in turn broken by lighting-fixtures, a polished floor, a well-considered ceiling, any number of chairs, and the room is furnished. This room, indeed, may evolve into a _salon_. XI THE LIVING-ROOM The living-room! Shut your eyes a minute and think what that means: A room to _live_ in, suited to all human needs; to be sick or sorry or glad in, as the day's happenings may be; where one may come back from far-reaching ways, for "East or West, Hame's best." Listen a minute while I tell you how I see such a room: Big and restful, making for comfort first and always; a little shabby here and there, perhaps, but all the more satisfactory for that--like an old shoe that goes on easily. Lots of light by night, and not too much drapery to shut out the sunlight by day. Big, welcoming chairs, rather sprawly, and long sofas. A big fire blazing on the open hearth. Perhaps, if we are very lucky we may have some old logs from long since foundered ships, that will flame blue and rose and green. He must indeed be of a poor spirit who cannot call all sorts of visions from such a flame! [Illustration: THE LIVING-ROOM IN THE C.W. HARKNESS HOUSE AT MORRISTOWN, NEW JERSEY] There should be a certain amount of order, because you cannot really rest in a disorderly place, but there should be none of the formality of the drawing-room. Formality should be used as a sort of foundation on which the pleasant workaday business of the living-room is planned. The living-room should always have a flavor of the main hobby of the family, whether it be books, or music, or sport, or what not. If you live in the real country there should be nothing in the room too good for all moods and all weather--no need to think of muddy boots or wet riding-clothes or the dogs that have run through the dripping fields. I wonder if half the fathers and mothers in creation know just what it means later on to the boys and girls going out from their roof-tree to have the memory of such a living-room? A living-room may be a simple place used for all the purposes of living, or it may be merely an official clearing-house for family moods, one of a dozen other living apartments. The living-room in the modern bungalow, for instance, is often dining-room, library, hall, music-room, filling all the needs of the family, while in a large country or city house there may be the central family room, and ever so many little rooms that grow out of the overflow needs--the writing-room, the tea room that is also sun and breakfast room, the music-room and the library. In more elaborate houses there are also the great hall, the formal drawing-room and music-room, and the intimate boudoir. To all these should be given a goodly measure of comfort. Whether it be one or a dozen rooms, the spirit of it must be the same--it must offer comfort, order, and beauty to be worth living in. Just as when a large family is to be considered I believe in one big meeting-room and a number of smaller rooms for special purposes, so I believe that when a family is very small there should be one great living-room and no other day room. Two young people who purpose to live in a small cottage or a bungalow will be wise to have this one big room that will serve for dining-room, living-room, and all. The same house divided into a number of tiny rooms would suffocate them: there would be no breathing-space. In furnishing such a room it is well to beware of _sets_ of things: of six dining-room chairs, of the conventional dining-table, serving-table, and china closet. I advocate the use of a long table--four by seven feet is not too long--and a number of good chairs that are alike in style, but not _exactly_ alike. The chairs should not be the conventional dining-chairs. The idea that the only dining-room chair possible is a perfectly straight up and down stiff-backed chair is absurd. In a large house where there is a family dining-room the chairs should be alike, but in an informal living-room the chairs may be perfectly comfortable and useful between meals and serve the purposes of dining-room chairs when necessary. For instance, with a long oak table built on the lines of the old English refectory tables you might have a long bench of oak and cane; a large high back chair with arms of the Stuart order, that is, with graceful, turned legs, carved frame work, and cane insets; two Cromwellian chairs covered in some good stuff; and two or three straight oak-and-cane chairs of a simple type. These chairs may be used for various purposes between meals, and will not give the room the stiff and formal air that straight-backed chairs invariably produce. One could imagine this table drawn up to a window-seat, with bench and chairs beside it, and a dozen cheerful people around it. There will be little chance of stiffness at such a dining-table. It should be remembered that when a part of the living-room is used for meals, the things that suggest dining should be kept out of sight between meals. All the china and so forth should be kept in the pantry or in kitchen cupboards. The table may be left bare between meals. In a room of this kind the furniture should be kept close to the walls, leaving all the space possible for moving around in the center of the room. The book shelves should be flat against the wall; there should be a desk, not too clumsy in build near the book shelves or at right angles to some window; there should be a sofa of some kind near the fireplace with a small table at the head of it, which may be used for tea or books or what not. If there is a piano, it should be very carefully placed so that it will not dominate the room, and so that the people who will listen to the music may gather in the opposite corner of the room. Of course, a living-room of this kind is the jolliest place in the world when things go smoothly, but there are times when a little room is a very necessary place to retreat. This little room may be the study, library, or a tea room, but it is worth while sacrificing your smallest bedroom in order to have one small place of retreat. If you can have a number of living-rooms, you can follow more definite schemes of decoration. If you have a little enclosed piazza you can make a breakfast room or a trellis room of it, or by bringing in many shelves and filling them with flowers you can make the place a delightful little flower box of a room for tea and talk. Of course, if you live in the real country you will be able to use your garden and your verandas as additional living-rooms. With a big living-porch, the one indoor living-room may become a quiet library, for instance. But if you haven't a garden or a sun-room, you should do all in your power to bring the sunshine and gaiety into the living-room, and take your books and quiet elsewhere. A library eight by ten feet, with shelves all the way around and up and down, and two comfortable chairs, and one or two windows, will be a most satisfactory library. If the room is to be used for reading smallness doesn't matter, you see. We Americans love books--popular books!--and we have had sense enough to bring them into our living-rooms, and enjoy them. But when you begin calling a room a library it should mean something more than a small mahogany bookcase with a hundred volumes hidden behind glass doors. I think there is nothing more amusing than the unused library of the _nouveau riche_, the pretentious room with its monumental bookcases and its slick area of glass doors and its thousands of unread volumes, caged eternally in their indecent newness. Some day when you have nothing better to do visit the _de luxe_ book shops of some department store, and then visit a dusky old second hand shop, and you will see what books can do! In the _de luxe_ shop they are leathern covered things, gaudy and snobbish in their newness. In the old book shop they are books that have lived, books that invite you to browse. You'd rather have them with all their germs and dust than the soulless tomes of uncut pages. You can judge people pretty well by their books, and the wear and tear of them. Open shelves are good enough for any house in these days of vacuum cleaners. In the Bayard Thayer house I had the pleasure of furnishing a wonderful library of superb paneled walls of mahogany of a velvety softness, not the bright red wood of commerce. The open bookshelves were architecturally planned, they filled shallow recesses in the wall, and when the books were placed upon them they formed a glowing tapestry of bindings, flush with the main wall. I think the nicest living-room I know is the reading room of the Colony Club. I never enjoyed making a room more, and when the Club was first opened I was delighted to hear one woman remark to another: "Doesn't it make you feel that it has been loved and lived in for years?" The room is large and almost square. The walls are paneled in cream and white, with the classic mantel and mirror treatment of the Adam period. The large carpet rug is of one tone, a soft green blue. The bookcases which run around the walls are of mahogany, as are the small, occasional tables, and the large table in the center of the room. In this room I have successfully exploded the old theory that all furniture in a well planned room must be of the same kind! In this room there are several Marlborough chairs, a davenport and a semi-circular fireside seat upholstered in a soft green leather, several chairs covered in a chintz of bird and blossom design, and other chairs covered with old English needle-work. The effect is not discord, but harmony. Perhaps it is not wise to advise the use of many colors and fabrics unless one has had experience in the combining of many tones and hues, but if you are careful to keep your walls and floors in subdued tones, you may have great license in the selecting of hangings and chair coverings and ornament. I gave great attention to the details of this room. Under the simple mantel shelf there is inset a small panel of blue and white Wedgwood. On the mantel there are two jars of Chinese porcelain, and between them a bronze jardiniere of the Adam period; four figures holding a shallow, oblong tray, which is filled with flowers. The lamp on the center-table is made of a hawthorn jar, with a flaring shade. There are many low tables scattered through the room and beside every chair is a reading-lamp easily adjusted to any angle. The fireplace fittings are simple old brasses of the Colonial period. There is only one picture in this room, and that is the portrait of a long gone lady, framed in a carved gilt frame, and hung against the huge wall-mirror which is opposite the fireplace end of the room. I believe, given plenty of light and air, that comfortable chairs and good tables go further toward making a living-room comfortable than anything else. In the Harkness living-room you will see this theory proven. There are chairs and tables of all sizes, from the great sofas to the little footstools, from the huge Italian tables to the little table especially made to hold a few flower pots. Wherever there is a large table there is a long sofa or a few big chairs; wherever there is a lone chair there is a small table to hold a reading-light, or flowers, or what not. The great size of the room, the fine English ceiling of modeled plaster, the generous fireplace with its paneled over-mantel, the groups of windows, all these architectural details go far toward making the room a success. The comfortable chairs and sofas and the ever useful tables do the rest. So many people ask me: How shall I furnish my living-room? What paper shall I use on the walls? What woodwork and curtains--and rugs? One woman asked me what books she should buy! Your living-room should grow out of the needs of your daily life. There could be no two living-rooms exactly alike in scheme if they were lived in. You will have to decide on the wall colors and such things, it is true, but the rest of the room should grow of itself. You will not make the mistake of using a dark paper of heavy figures if you are going to use many pictures and books, for instance. You will not use a gay bed-roomy paper covered with flowers and birds. You will know without being told that your wall colors must be neutral: that your woodwork must be stained and waxed, or painted some soft tone of your wall color. Then, let the rugs and curtains and things go until you decide you have to have them. The room will gradually find itself, though it may take years and heartache and a certain self-confession of inadequacy. It will express your life, if you use it, so be careful of the life you live in it! XII SITTING-ROOM AND BOUDOIR In some strange way the word _boudoir_ has lost its proper significance. People generally think of it as a highfalutin' name for the bedroom, or for a dressing-room, whereas really a proper _boudoir_ is the small personal sitting-room of a woman of many interests. It began in old France as the private sitting-room of the mistress of the house, a part of the bedroom suite, and it has evolved into a sort of office _de luxe_ where the house mistress spends her precious mornings, plans the routine of her household for the day, writes her letters, interviews her servants, and so forth. The boudoir has a certain suggestion of intimacy because it is a personal and not a general room, but while it may be used as a lounging-place occasionally, it is also a thoroughly dignified room where a woman may receive her chosen friends when she pleases. Nothing more ridiculous has ever happened than the vogue of the so-called "boudoir cap," which is really suited only to one's bedroom or dressing-room. Such misnomers lead to a mistaken idea of the real meaning of the word. Some of the Eighteenth Century boudoirs were extremely small. I recall one charming little room in an old French house that was barely eight feet by eleven, but it contained a fireplace, two windows, a day bed, one of those graceful desks known as a _bonheur du jour_, and two arm-chairs. An extremely symmetrical arrangement of the room gave a sense of order, and order always suggests space. One wall was broken by the fireplace, the wall spaces on each side of it being paneled with narrow moldings. The space above the mantel was filled with a mirror. On the wall opposite the fireplace there was a broad paneling of the same width filled with a mirror from baseboard to ceiling. In front of this mirror was placed the charming desk. On each side of the long mirror were two windows exactly opposite the two long panels of the mantel wall. The two narrow end walls were treated as single panels, the day bed being placed flat against one of them, while the other was broken by a door which led to a little ante-chamber. Old gilt appliques holding candles flanked both mantel mirror and desk mirror. Two of those graceful chairs of the Louis Seize period and a small footstool completed the furnishing of this room. [Illustration: MISS ANNE MORGAN'S LOUIS XVI. BOUDOIR] The boudoir should always be a small room, because in no other way can you gain a sense of intimacy. Here you may have all the luxury and elegance you like, you may stick to white paint and simple chintzes, or you may indulge your passion for pale-colored silks and lace frills. Here, of all places, you have a right to express your sense of luxury and comfort. The boudoir furnishings are borrowed from both bedroom and drawing-room traditions. There are certain things that are used in the bedroom that would be ridiculous in the drawing-room, and yet are quite at home in the boudoir. For instance, the _chaise-longue_ is part of the bedroom furnishing in most modern houses, and it may also be used in the boudoir, but in the drawing-room it would be a violation of good taste, because the suggestion of intimacy is too evident. Nothing is more comfortable in a boudoir than a day bed. It serves so many purposes. In my own house my boudoir is also my sitting-room, and I have a large Louis XV day bed there which may be used by an overnight guest if necessary. In a small house the boudoir fitted with a day bed becomes a guest-room on occasion. I always put two or three of these day beds in any country house I am doing, because I have found them so admirable and useful in my own house. As you will see by the photographs, this bed in no way resembles an ordinary bed in the daytime, and it seems to me to be a much better solution of the extra-bed problem than the mechanical folding-bed, which is always hideous and usually dangerous. A good day bed may be designed to fit into any room. This one of mine is of carved walnut, a very graceful one that I found in France. In a small sitting-room in an uptown house, an illustration of which is shown, I had a day bed made of white wood that was painted to match the chintzes of the room. The mattress and springs were covered with a bird chintz on a mauve ground, and the pillows were all covered with the same stuff. The frame of the bed was painted cream and decorated with a dull green line and small garlands of flowers extracted from the design of the chintz. When the mattress and springs have been properly covered with damask, or chintz, or whatever you choose to use, there is no suggestion of the ordinary bed. I suppose there isn't a more charming room in New York than Miss Anne Morgan's Louis XVI boudoir. The everyday sitting-room of a woman of many interests, it is radiant with color and individuality, as rare rugs are radiant, as jewels are radiant. The cream walls, with their carved moldings and graceful panelings, are a pleasant background for all this shimmering color. The carvings and moldings are pointed in blue. The floor is covered with a Persian rug which glows with all the soft tones of the old Persian dye-pots. The day bed, a few of the chairs, and the chest of drawers, are of a soft brown walnut. There are other chairs covered with Louis XVI tapestries, brocade and needlework, quite in harmony with the modern chintz of the day bed and the hangings. Above the day bed there is a portrait of a lady, hung by wires covered with shirred blue ribbons, and this blue is again used in an old porcelain lamp jar on the bedside table. The whole room might have been inspired by the lady of the portrait, so essentially is it the room of a fastidious woman. But to go back to my own boudoir: it is really sitting-room, library, and rest-room combined, a home room very much like my down-town office in the conveniences it offers. In the early morning it is my office, where I plan the day's routine and consult my servants. In the rare evenings when I may give myself up to solid comfort and a new book it becomes a haven of refuge after the business of the day. When I choose to work at home with my secretary, it is as business-like a place as my down-town office. It is a sort of room of all trades, and good for each of them. The walls of the room are pretty well filled with built-in bookshelves, windows, chimney-piece, and doors, but there is one long wall space for the day bed and another for the old secretary that holds my porcelain figurines. The room is really quite small, but by making the furniture keep its place against the walls an effect of spaciousness has been obtained. The walls of the room are painted the palest of egg-shell blue-green. The woodwork is ivory white, with applied decorations of sculptured white marble. The floor is entirely covered with a carpet rug of jade green velvet, and there is a smaller Persian rug of the soft, indescribable colors of the Orient. The day bed, of which I spoke in an earlier paragraph, is covered with an old brocade, gray-green figures on a black ground. A large armchair is also covered with the brocade, and the window curtains, which cannot be seen in the picture, are of black chintz, printed with birds of pale greens and blues and grays, with beaks of rose-red. There is always a possibility for rose-red in my rooms, I love it so. I manage the other colors so that they will admit a chair or a stool or a bowl of rose color. In this room the two chairs beside the couch are covered with rose-colored damask, and this brings out the rose in the rug and in the chintz, and accents the deep red note of the leathern book-bindings. The rose red is subordinated to the importance of the book-bindings in this room, but there is still opportunity for its use in so many small things. In this room, you will notice, I have used open shelves for my books, and the old secretary which was once a combination desk and bookcase, is used for the display of my little treasures of porcelain and china, and its drawers are used for papers and prints. The built in shelves have cupboards beneath them for the flimsy papers and pamphlets that do not belong on open shelves. If the same room were pressed into service as a guest room I should use the drawers in the secretary instead of the usual chest of drawers, and the day bed for sleeping. [Illustration: MISS MORGAN'S LOUIS XVI. _LIT DE REPOS_] The writing-table is placed at right angles to one of the book-filled panels between the front windows. I have used a writing-table in this room because I like tables better than heavy desks, and because in this small apartment a desk would seem heavy and ponderous. The fittings of the desk are of dark red leather, like that of many of the book-bindings, and the personal touch that makes the desk _mine_ is a bowl of roses. Between the two windows in the shallow recess, I have placed an aquarium, a recent acquisition that delights my soul. The aquarium is simply an oblong glass box mounted on a teak stand, with a tracery of teak carving outlining the box, which is the home of the most gorgeous fan-tailed goldfish. There are water plants in the box, too, and funny little Chinese temples and dwarf trees. I love to house my little people happily--my dogs and my birds and my fish. Wee Toi, my little Chinese dog, has a little house all his own, an old Chinese lacquer box with a canopy top and little gold bells. It was once the shrine of some little Chinese god, I suppose, but Wee Toi is very happy in it, and you can see that it was meant for him in the beginning. It sits by the fireplace and gives the room an air of real hominess. I was so pleased with the aquarium and the Chinese lacquer bed for Wee Toi that I devised a birdcage to go with them, a square cage of gilt wires, with a black lacquer pointed canopy top, with little gilt bells at the pointed eaves. The cage is fixed to a shallow lacquer tray, and is the nicest place you can imagine for a whistling bullfinch to live in. I suppose I could have a Persian cat on a gorgeous cushion to complete the place, but I can't admit cats into the room. I plan gorgeous cushions for _other_ people's "little people," when they happen to be cats. Miss Marbury's sitting-room is on the next floor, exactly like mine, architecturally, but we have worked them out differently. I think there is nothing more interesting than the study of the different developments of a series of similar rooms, for instance, a dozen drawing-rooms, twelve stories deep, in a modern apartment house! Each room is left by the builder with the same arrangement of doors and windows, the same wall spaces and moldings, the same opportunity for good or bad development. It isn't often our luck to see all twelve of the rooms, but sometimes we see three or four of them, and how amazingly different they are! How amusing is the suggestion of personality, or lack of it! Now in these two sitting-rooms in our house the rooms are exactly the same in size, in exposure, in the placing of doors and windows and fireplaces, and we have further paralleled our arrangement by placing our day beds in the same wall space, but there the similarity ends. Miss Marbury's color plan is different: her walls are a soft gray, the floor is covered in a solid blue carpet rug, rather dark in tone, the chintz also has a black ground, but the pattern is entirely different in character from the room below. There is a day bed, similar to mine, but where my bed has been upholstered with brocade, Miss Marbury's has a loose slip cover of black chintz. The spaces between the windows in my room are filled with bookshelves, and in Miss Marbury's room the same spaces are filled with mirrors. The large wall-space that is background to my old secretary is in her room given up to long open bookshelves of mahogany. My over-mantel is mirrored, and hers is filled with an old painting. The recessed spaces on each side of the chimney breast hold small semi-circular tables of marquetry, with a pair of long Adam mirrors hanging above them. Another Adam mirror hangs above the bookshelves on the opposite wall. These mirrors are really the most important things in the room, because the moldings and lighting-fixtures and picture frames have been made to harmonize with them. The lighting-fixtures are of wood carved in the Adam manner and painted dark blue and gold. The writing-table has been placed squarely in front of the center window, in which are hung Miss Marbury's bird cages. There are a number of old French prints on the wall. The whole room is quieter in tone than my room, which may be because her chosen color is old-blue, and mine rose-red. In a small house where only one woman's tastes have to be considered, a small downstairs sitting-room may take the place of the more personal boudoir, but where there are a number of people in the household a room connecting with the bedroom of the house mistress is more fortunate. Here she can be as independent as she pleases of the family and the guests who come and go through the other living-rooms of the house. Here she can have her counsels with her children, or her tradespeople, or her employees, without the distractions of chance interruptions, for this one room should have doors that open _and_ close, doors that are not to be approached without invitation. The room may be as austere and business-like as a down-town office, or it may be a nest of comfort and luxury primarily planned for relaxation, but it must be so placed that it is a little apart from the noise and flurry of the rest of the house or it has no real reason-for-being. Whenever it is possible, I believe the man of the house should also have a small sitting-room that corresponds to his wife's boudoir. We Americans have made a violent attempt to incorporate a room of this kind in our houses by introducing a "den" or a "study," but somehow the man of the house is never keen about such a room. A "den" to him means an airless cubby-hole of a room hung with pseudo-Turkish draperies and papier-mâché shields and weapons, and he has a mighty aversion to it. Who could blame him? And as for the study, the average man doesn't want a study when he wants to work; he prefers to work in his office, and he'd like a room of his own big enough to hold all his junk, and he'd like it to have doors and windows and a fireplace. The so-called study is usually a heavy, cheerless little room that isn't any good for anything else. The ideal arrangement would be a room of average size opening from his bedroom, a room that would have little suggestion of business and a great flavor of his hobbies. His wife's boudoir must be her office also, but he doesn't need a house office, unless he be a writer, or a teacher, or some man who works at home. After all, I think the painters and illustrators are the happiest of all men, because they _have_ to have studios, and their wives generally recognize the fact, and give them a free hand. The man who has a studio or a workshop all his own is always a popular man. He has a fascination for his less fortunate friends, who buzz around him in wistful admiration. XIII A LIGHT, GAY DINING-ROOM First of all, I think a dining-room should be light, and gay. The first thing to be considered is plenty of sunshine. The next thing is the planning of a becoming background for the mistress of the house. The room should always be gay and charming in color, but the color should be selected with due consideration of its becomingness to the hostess. Every woman has a right to be pretty in her own dining-room. I do not favor the dark, heavy treatments and elaborate stuff hangings which seem to represent the taste of most of the men who go in for decorating nowadays. Nine times out of ten the dining-room seems to be the gloomiest room in the house. I think it should be a place where the family may meet in gaiety of spirit for a pause in the vexatious happenings of the day. I think light tones, gay wallpapers, flowers and sunshine are of more importance than storied tapestries and heavily carved furniture. These things are all very well for the house that has a small dining-room and a gala dining-room for formal occasions as well, but there are few such houses. We New Yorkers have been so accustomed to the gloomy basement dining-rooms of the conventional brown-stone houses of the late eighties we forgot how nice a dining-room can be. Even though the city dining-room is now more fortunately placed in the rear of the second floor it is usually overshadowed by other houses, and can be lightened only by skilful use of color in curtains, china, and so forth. Therefore, I think this is the one room in the city house where one can afford to use a boldly decorative paper. I like very much the Chinese rice-papers with their broad, sketchy decorations of birds and flowers. These papers are never tiresomely realistic and are always done in very soft colors or in soft shades of one color, and while if you analyze them they are very fantastic, the general effect is as restful as it is cheerful. You know you can be most cheerful when you are most rested! The quaint landscape papers which are seen in so many New England dining-rooms seem to belong with American Colonial furniture and white woodwork, prim silver and gold banded china. These landscape papers are usually gay in effect and make for cheer. There are many new designs less complicated than the old ones. Then, too, there are charming foliage papers, made up of leaves and branches and birds, which are very good. While we may find color and cheer in these gay papers for gloomy city dining-rooms, if we have plenty of light we may get more distinguished results with paneled walls. A large dining-room may be paneled with dark wood, with a painted fresco, or tapestry frieze, and a ceiling with carved or painted beams, or perhaps one of those interesting cream-white ceilings with plaster beams judiciously adorned with ornament in low relief. Given a large dining-room and a little money, you can do anything: you can make a room that will compare favorably with the traditional rooms on which we build. You have a right to make your dining-room as fine as you please, so long as you give it its measure of light and air. But one thing you must have: simplicity! It may be the simplicity of a marble floor and tapestried walls and a painted ceiling, it may be the simplicity of white paint and muslin and fine furniture, but simplicity it must have. The furniture that is required in a dining-room declares itself: a table and chairs. You can bring side tables and china closets into it, or you can build in cupboards and consoles to take their place, but there is little chance for other variation, and so the beginning is a declaration of order and simplicity. [Illustration: A GEORGIAN DINING-ROOM IN THE WILLIAM ISELIN HOUSE] The easiest way to destroy this simplicity is to litter the room with displays of silver and glass, to dot the walls with indifferent pictures. If you are courageous enough to let your walls take care of themselves and to put away your silver and china and glass, the room will be as dignified as you could wish. Remember that simplicity depends on balance and space. If the walls balance one another in light and shadow, if the furniture is placed formally, if walls and furniture are free from mistaken ornament, the room will be serene and beautiful. In most other rooms we avoid the "pairing" of things, but here pairs and sets of things are most desirable. Two console tables are more impressive than one. There is great decorative value in a pair of mirrors, a pair of candlesticks, a pair of porcelain jars, two cupboards flanking a chimney-piece. You would not be guilty of a pair of wall fountains, or of two wall clocks, just as you would not have two copies of the same portrait in a room. But when things "pair" logically, pair them! They will furnish a backbone of precision to the room. The dining-room in the Iselin house is a fine example of stately simplicity. It is extremely formal, and yet there is about it none of the gloominess one associates with New York dining-rooms. The severely paneled walls, the fine chimney-piece with an old master inset and framed by a Grinling Gibbons carving, the absence of the usual mantel shelf, the plain dining-table and the fine old lion chairs all go to make up a Georgian room of great distinction. The woman who cannot afford such expensive simplicity might model a dining-room on this same plan and accomplish a beautiful room at reasonable expense. Paneled walls are always possible; if you can't afford wood paneling, paint the plastered wall white or cream and break it into panels by using a narrow molding of wood. You can get an effect of great dignity by the use of molding at a few cents a foot. A large panel would take the place of the Grinling Gibbons carving, and a mirror might be inset above the fireplace instead of the portrait. The dining-table and chairs might give place to good reproductions of Chippendale, and the marble console to a carpenter-made one painted to match the woodwork. The subject of proper furniture for a dining-room is usually settled by the house mistress before her wedding bouquet has faded, so I shall only touch on the out-of-ordinary things here. Everyone knows that a table and a certain number of chairs and a sideboard of some kind "go together." The trouble is that everyone knows these things _too_ well, and dining-room conventions are so binding that we miss many pleasant departures from the usual. My own dining-room in New York is anything but usual, and yet there is nothing undignified about it. The room was practically square, so that it had a certain orderly quality to begin with. The rooms of the house are all rather small, and so to gain the greatest possible space I have the door openings at the extreme end of the wall, leaving as large a wall space as possible. You enter this room, then, through a door at the extreme left of the south wall of the room. Another door at the extreme right of the same wall leads to a private passage. The space left between the doors is thereby conserved, and is broken into a large central panel flanked by two narrow panels. The space above the doors is also paneled. This wall is broken by a console placed under the central panel. Above it one of the Mennoyer originals, which you may remember in the Washington Irving dining-room, is set in the wall, framed with a narrow molding of gray. The walls and woodwork of the room are of exactly the same tone of gray--darker than a silver gray and lighter than pewter. Everything, color, balance, proportion, objects of art, has been uniformly considered. Continuing, the east wall is broken in the center by the fireplace, with a mantel of white and gray marble. A large mirror, surmounted with a bas-relief in black and white, fills the space between mantel shelf and cornice. This mirror and bas-relief are framed with the narrow carved molding painted gray. Here again there is the beauty of balance: two Italian candlesticks of carved and gilded wood flank a marble bust on the mantel shelf. There is nothing more. On the right of the mirror, in a narrow panel, there is a wall clock of carved and gilded wood which also takes its place as a part of the wall, and keeps it. The north wall is broken by two mirrors and a door leading to the service-pantry. A large, four-fold screen, made of an uncut tapestry, shuts off the door. We need all the light the windows give, so there are no curtains except the orange-colored taffeta valances at the top. I devised sliding doors of mirrors that are pulled out of the wall at night to fill the recessed space of the windows. Ventilation is afforded by the open fireplace, and by mechanical means. You see we do not occupy this house in summer, so the mirrored windows are quite feasible. The fourth wall has no openings, and it is broken into three large paneled spaces. A console has the place of honor opposite the fireplace, and above it there is a mirror like that over the mantel. In the two side panels are the two large Mennoyers. There are five of these in the room, the smaller ones flanking the chimney piece. You see that the salvation of this room depends on this careful repetition and variation of similar objects. Color is brought into the room in the blue and yellow of the Chinese rug, in the chairs, and in the painted table. The chairs are painted a creamy yellow, pointed with blue, and upholstered with blue and yellow striped velvet. I do not like high-backed chairs in a dining-room. Their one claim to use is that they make a becoming background, but this does not compensate for the difficulties of the service when they are used. An awkward servant pouring soup down one's back is not an aid to digestion, or to the peace of mind engendered by a good dinner. [Illustration: MRS. OGDEN ARMOUR'S CHINESE-PAPER SCREEN] [Illustration: MRS. JAMES WARREN LANE'S PAINTED DINING-TABLE] The painted table is very unusual. The legs and the carved under-frame are painted cream and pointed with blue, like the chairs, but the top is as gay as an old-fashioned garden, with stiff little medallions, and urns spilling over with flowers, and conventional blossoms picked out all over it. The colors used are very soft, blue and cream being predominant. The table is covered with a sheet of plate glass. This table is, of course, too elaborate for a simple dining-room, but the idea could be adapted and varied to suit many color and furniture schemes. Painted furniture is a delight in a small dining-room. In the Colony Club I planned a very small room for little dinners that is well worth reproducing in a small house. This little room was very hard to manage because there were no windows! There were two tiny little openings high on the wall at one end of the room, but it would take imagination to call them windows. The room was on the top floor, and the real light came from a skylight. You can imagine the difficulty of making such a little box interesting. However, there was one thing that warmed my heart to the little room: a tiny ante-room between the hall proper and the room proper. This little ante-room I paneled in yellowish tan and gray. I introduced a sofa covered with an old brocade just the color of dried rose leaves--ashes of roses, the French call it--and the little ante-room became a fitting introduction to the dining-room within. The walls of the rooms were paneled in a delicious color between yellow and tan, the wall proper and the moldings being this color, and the panels themselves filled with a gray paper painted in pinky yellows and browns. These panels were done by hand by a man who found his inspiration in the painted panels of an old French ballroom. As the walls were unbroken by windows there was ample space for such decoration. A carpet of rose color was chosen, and the skylight was curtained with shirred silk of the same rose. The table and chairs were of painted wood, the chairs having seats of the brocade used on the ante-room sofa. The table was covered with rose colored brocade, and over this, cobwebby lace, and over this, plate glass. There are two consoles in the room, with small cabinets above which hold certain _objets d'art_ in keeping with the room. Under the two tiny windows were those terrible snags we decorators always strike, the radiators. Wrongly placed, they are capable of spoiling any room. I concealed these radiators by building two small cabinets with panels of iron framework gilded to suggest a graceful metal lattice, and lined them with rose-colored silk. I borrowed this idea from a fascinating cabinet in an old French palace, and the result is worth the deception. The cabinets are nice in themselves, and they do not interfere with the radiation of the heat. I have seen many charming country houses and farm houses in France with dining-rooms furnished with painted furniture. Somehow they make the average American dining-room seem very commonplace and tiresome. For instance, I had the pleasure of furnishing a little country house in France and we planned the dining-room in blue and white. The furniture was of the simplest, painted white, with a dark blue line for decoration. The corner cupboard was a little more elaborate, with a gracefully curved top and a large glass door made up of little panes set in a quaint design. There were several drawers and a lower cupboard. The drawers and the lower doors invited decorations a little more elaborate than the blue lines of the furniture, so we painted on gay little medallions in soft tones of blue, from the palest gray-blue to a very dark blue. The chair cushions were blue, and the china was blue sprigged. Three little pitchers of dark-blue luster were on the wall cupboard shelf and a mirror in a faded gold frame gave the necessary variation of tone. A very charming treatment for either a country or small city dining-room is to have corner cupboards of this kind cutting off two corners. They are convenient and unusual and pretty as well. They can be painted in white with a colored line defining the panels and can be made highly decorative if the panels are painted with a classic or a Chinese design. The decoration, however, should be kept in variations of the same tone as the stripe on the panels. For instance, if the stripe is gray, then the design should be in dark and light gray and blue tones. The chairs can be white, in a room of this kind, with small gray and blue medallions and either blue and white, or plain blue, cushions. Another dining-room of the same sort was planned for a small country house on Long Island. Here the woodwork was a deep cream, the walls the same tone, and the ceiling a little lighter. We found six of those prim Duxbury chairs, with flaring spindle-backs, and painted them a soft yellow-green. The table was a plain pine one, with straight legs. We painted it cream and decorated the top with a conventional border of green adapted from the design of the china--a thick creamy Danish ware ornamented with queer little wavy lines and figures. I should have mentioned the china first, because the whole room grew from that. The rug was a square of velvet of a darker green. The curtains were soft cream-colored net. One wall was made up of windows, another of doors and a cupboard, and against the other two walls we built two long, narrow consoles that were so simple anyone could accomplish them: simply two wide shelves resting on good brackets, with mirrors above. The one splendid thing in the room was a curtain of soft green damask that was pulled at night to cover the group of windows. Everything else in the room was bought for a song. [Illustration: THE PRIVATE DINING-ROOM IN THE COLONY CLUB] I have said much of cupboards and consoles because I think they are so much better than the awkward, heavy "china closets" and "buffets" and sideboards that dominate most dining-rooms. The time has come when we should begin to do fine things in the way of building fitment furniture, that is, furniture that is actually or apparently a part of the shell of the room. It would be so much better to build a house slowly, planning the furniture as a part of the architectural detail. With each succeeding year the house would become more and more a part of the owner, illustrating his life. Of course, this would mean that the person who planned the developing of the house must have a certain architectural training, must know about scale and proportion, and something of general construction. Certainly charming things are to be created in this way, things that will last, things immeasurably preferable to the cheap jerry-built furniture which so soon becomes shabby, which has to be so constantly renewed. People accept new ideas with great difficulty, and my only hope is that they may grow to accept the idea of fitment furniture through finding the idea a product of their own; a personal discovery that comes from their own needs. I have constantly recommended the use of our native American woods for panelings and wall furniture, because we have both the beautiful woods of our new world and tried and proven furniture of the old world, and what couldn't we achieve with such material available? Why do people think of a built-in cupboard as being less important than a detached piece of furniture? Isn't it a braggart pose, a desire to show the number of things you can buy? Of course it is a very foolish pose, but it is a popular one, this display of objects that are ear-marked "expensive." It is very easy to build cupboards on each side of a fireplace, for instance, making the wall flush with the chimney-breast. This is always good architectural form. One side could have a desk which opens beneath the glass doors, and the other could have cupboards, both presenting exactly the same appearance when closed. Fitted corner cupboards, triangular or rounded, are also excellent in certain dining rooms. Wall tables, or consoles, may be of the same wood as the woodwork or of marble, or of some dark polished wood. There are no more useful pieces of furniture than consoles, and yet we only see them in great houses. Why? Because they are simple, and we haven't yet learned to demand the simple. I have had many interesting old console-tables of wrought iron support and marble tops copied, and I have designed others that were mere semi-circles of white painted wood supported by four slender legs, but whether they be marble or pine the effect is always simple. There are charming consoles that have come to us from the Eighteenth Century, consoles made in pairs, so that they may stand against the wall as serving-tables, or be placed together to form one round table. This is a very good arrangement where people have one large living room or hall in which they dine and which also serves all the purpose of daily intercourse. This entirely removes any suggestion of a dining-room, as the consoles may be separated and stand against the wall during the day. Many modern houses are being built without the conventional dining-room we have known so long, there being instead an open-air breakfast room which may be glazed in winter and screened in summer. People have come to their senses at last, and realize that there is nothing so pleasant as eating outdoors. The annual migration of Americans to Europe is responsible for the introduction of this excellent custom. French houses are always equipped with some outdoor place for eating. Some of them have, in addition to the inclosed porch, a fascinating pavilion built in the garden, where breakfast and tea may be served. Modern mechanical conveniences and the inexpensive electric apparatus make it possible to serve meals at this distance from the house and keep them hot in the meantime. One may prepare one's own coffee and toast at table, with the green trees and flowers and birds all around. Eating outdoors makes for good health and long life and good temper, everyone knows that. The simplest meal seems a gala affair when everyone is radiant and cheerful, whereas a long and elaborate meal served indoors is usually depressing. XIV THE BEDROOM In olden times people rarely slept in their bedrooms, which were mostly _chambres de parade_, where everyone was received and much business was transacted. The real bedroom was usually a smallish closet nearby. These _chambres de parade_ were very splendid, the beds raised on a dais, and hung with fine damasks and tapestries--tapestries thick with bullion fringes. The horror of fresh air felt by our ancestors was well illustrated here. No draughts from ill-constructed windows or badly hung doors could reach the sleeper in such a bed. [Illustration: AN OLD PAINTED BED OF THE LOUIS XVI. PERIOD] This was certainly different from our modern ideas of hygiene: In those days furniture that could not be hastily moved was of little importance. The bed was usually a mere frame of wood, made to be covered with valuable hangings which could easily be packed and carried away on occasions that too often arose in the troublous days of the early Middle Ages. The benches and tables one sees in many foreign palaces to-day are covered with gorgeous lengths of velvet and brocade. This is a survival of the custom when furniture was merely so much baggage. With the early Eighteenth Century, however, there came into being _les petits appartements_, in which the larger space formerly accorded the bedroom was divided into ante-chamber, salon or sitting-room, and the bedroom. Very often the bed was placed in an alcove, and the heavy brocades and bullion embroideries were replaced by linen or cotton hangings. When Oberkampf established himself at Jouy in 1760 France took first place in the production of these printed linens and cottons. This was the beginning of the age of chintz and of the delightful decorative fabrics that are so suited to our modern ideas of hygiene. It seems to me there are no more charming stuffs for bedroom hangings than these simple fabrics, with their enchantingly fanciful designs. Think of the changes one could have with several sets of curtains to be changed at will, as Marie Antoinette used to do at the Petit Trianon. How amusing it would be in our own modern houses to change the bed coverings, window curtains, and so forth, twice or three times a year! I like these loose slip covers and curtains better than the usual hard upholstery, because if properly planned the slips can be washed without losing their color or their lines. Charming Eighteenth Century prints that are full of valuable hints as to furniture and decorations for bedrooms can be found in most French shops. The series known as "_Moreau le Jeun_" is full of suggestion. Some of the interiors shown are very grand, it is true, but many are simple enough to serve as models for modern apartments. A set of these pictures will do much to give one an insight into the decoration of the Eighteenth Century, a vivid insight that can be obtained in no other way, perhaps. I do not like the very large bedrooms, dear to the plans of the American architect. I much prefer the space divided. I remember once arriving at the Ritz Hotel in London and being given temporarily a very grand royal suite, overlooking the park, until the smaller quarters I had reserved should be ready for me. How delighted I was at first with all the huge vastness of my bedroom! My appreciation waned, however, after a despairing morning toilet spent in taking many steps back and forth from dressing-table to bathroom, and from bathroom to hang-closets, and I was glad indeed, when, at the end of several hours, I was comfortably housed in my smaller and humbler quarters. I think the ideal bedroom should be planned so that a small ante-chamber should separate it from the large outside corridor. The ideal arrangement is an ante-chamber opening on the boudoir, or sitting-room, then the bedroom, with its dressing-room and bath in back. This outer chamber insures quiet and privacy, no matter how small it may be. It may serve as a clothes-closet, by filling the wall with cupboards, and concealing them with mirrored doors. The ante-chamber need not be a luxury, if you plan your house carefully. It is simply a little well of silence and privacy between you and the hall outside. [Illustration: MISS CROCKER'S LOUIS XVI. BED] To go on with my ideal bedroom: the walls, I think, should be simply paneled in wood, painted gray or cream or white, but if wood cannot be afforded a plastered wall, painted or distempered in some soft tone, is the best solution. You will find plain walls and gay chintz hangings very much more satisfying than walls covered with flowered papers and plain hangings, for the simple reason that a design repeated hundreds of times on a wall surface becomes very, very tiresome, but the same design in a fabric is softened and broken by the folds of the material, and you will never get the annoying sense of being impelled to count the figures. One of the bedrooms illustrated in this book shows an Elizabethan paper that does not belong to the "busy" class, for while the design is decorative in the extreme you are not aware of an emphatic repeat. This is really an old chintz design, and is very charming in blues and greens and grays on a cream ground. I have seen bedrooms papered with huge scrolls and sea shells, many times enlarged, that suggest the noisy and methodical thumping of a drum. I cannot imagine anyone sleeping calmly in such a room! This bedroom is eminently suited to the needs of a man. The hangings are of a plain, soft stuff, accenting one of the deep tones of the wall covering, and the sash curtains are of white muslin. The furniture is of oak, of the Jacobean period. The bed is true to its inspiration, with turned legs and runners, and slatted head and foot boards. The legs and runners of the bed were really inspired by the chairs and tables of the period. This is an excellent illustration of the modern furniture that may be adapted from old models. It goes without saying that the beds of that period were huge, cumbersome affairs, and this adapted bed is really more suitable to modern needs in size and weight and line than an original one. There are so many inspirations for bedrooms nowadays that one finds it most difficult to decide on any one scheme. One of my greatest joys in planning the Colony Club was that I had opportunity to furnish so many bedrooms. And they were small, pleasant rooms, too, not the usual impersonal boxes that are usually planned for club houses and hotels. I worked out the plan of each bedroom as if I were to live in it myself, and while they all differed in decorative schemes the essentials were the same in each room: a comfortable bed, with a small table beside it to hold a reading light, a clock, and a telephone; a _chaise-longue_ for resting; a long mirror somewhere; a dressing table with proper lights and a glass covered top; a writing table, carefully equipped, and the necessary chairs and stools. Some of the bedrooms had no connecting baths, and these were given wash stands with bowls and pitchers of clear glass. Most of these bedrooms were fitted with mahogany four post beds, pie crust tables, colonial highboys, gay chintzes, and such, but there were several rooms of entirely different scheme. [Illustration: A COLONY CLUB BEDROOM] Perhaps the most fascinating of them all is the bird room. The walls are covered with an Oriental paper patterned with marvelous blue and green birds, birds of paradise and paroquets perched on flowering branches. The black lacquer furniture was especially designed for the room. The rug and the hangings are of jade green. I wonder how this seems to read of--I can only say it is a very gay and happy room to live in! There is another bedroom in pink and white, which would be an adorable room for a young girl. The bed is of my own design, a simple white painted metal bed. There is a _chaise-longue_, upholstered in the pink and white striped chintz of the room. The same chintz is used for window hangings, bed spread, and so forth. There is a little spindle legged table of mahogany, and another table at the head of the bed which contains the reading light. There is also a little white stool, with a cushion of the chintz, beside the bed. The dressing-table is so simple that any girl might copy it--it is a chintz-hung box with a sheet of plate glass on top, and a white framed mirror hung above it. The electric lights in this room are cleverly made into candlesticks which are painted to match the chintz. The writing-table is white, with a mahogany chair in front of it. Another bedroom has a narrow four post bed of mahogany, with hangings of China blue sprigged with small pink roses. There was another in green and white. In every case these bedrooms were equipped with rugs of neutral and harmonious tone. The dressing-tables were always painted to harmonize with the chintzes or the furniture. Wherever possible there was an open fireplace. Roomy clothes closets added much to the comfort of each room, and there was always a couch of delicious softness, or a _chaise-longue,_ and lounging chairs which invited repose. [Illustration: By permission of the Butterick Publishing Co. MAUVE CHINTZ IN A DULL-GREEN ROOM] Nothing so nice has happened in a long time as the revival of painted furniture, and the application of quaint designs to modern beds and chairs and chests. You may find inspiration in a length of chintz, in an old fan, in a faded print--anywhere! The main thing is to work out a color plan for the background--the walls, the furniture, and the rugs--and then you can draw or stencil the chosen designs wherever they seem to belong, and paint them in with dull tones and soft colors, rose and buff and blue and green and a little bit of gray and cream and black. Or, if you aren't even as clever as that (and you probably _are!_) you can decorate your painted furniture with narrow lines of color: dark green on a light green ground; dark blue on yellow; _any_ color on gray or cream--there are infinite possibilities of color combinations. In one of the rooms shown in the illustrations the posy garlands on the chest of drawers were inspired by a lamp jar. This furniture was carefully planned, as may be seen by the little urns on the bedposts, quite in the manner of the Brothers Adam, but delightful results may be obtained by using any simple modern cottage furniture and applying fanciful decorations. Be wary of hanging many pictures in your bedroom. I give this advice cheerfully, because I know you will hang them anyway (I do) but I warn you you will spoil your room if you aren't very stern with yourself. Somehow the pictures we most love, small prints and photographs and things, look spotty on our walls. We must group them to get a pleasant effect. Keep the framed photographs on the writing table, the dressing table, the mantel, etc., but do not hang them on your walls. If you have small prints that you feel you must have, hang them flat on the wall, well within the line of vision. They should be low enough to be _examined_, because usually such pictures are not decorative in effect, but exquisite in detail. The fewer pictures the better, and in the guest-room fewer still! I planned a guest-room for the top floor of a New York house that is very successful. The room was built around a pair of appliques made from two old Chinese sprays of metal flowers. I had small electric light bulbs fitted among the flowers, mounted them on carved wood brackets on each side of a good mantel mirror and worked out the rest of the room from them. The walls were painted bluish green, the woodwork white. Just below the molding at the top of the room there was a narrow border (four inches wide) of a mosaic-like pattern in blue and green. The carpet rug is of a blue-green tone. The hangings are of an alluring _Chinoiserie_ chintz, and there are several Chinese color prints framed and hanging in the narrow panels between the front windows. The furniture is painted a deep cream pointed with blue and green, and the bed covering is of a pale turquoise taffeta. Another guest room was done in gentian blue and white, with a little buff and rose-color in small things. This room was planned for the guests of the daughter of the house, so the furnishings were naively and adorably feminine. The dressing-table was made of a long, low box, with a glass top and a valance so crisp and flouncing that it suggested a young lady in crinoline. The valance was of chintz in gentian blue and white. The white mirror frame was decorated with little blue lines and tendrils. Surely any girl would grow pretty with dressing before such an enchanting affair! And simple--why, she could hinge the mirrors together, and make the chintz ruffle, and enamel the shelves white, and do every bit of it except cut the plate glass. Of course the glass is very clean and nice, but an enameled surface with a white linen cover would be very pleasant. The same blue and white chintz was used for the hangings and bed coverings. Everything else in the room was white except the thick cream rug with its border of blue and rose and buff, and the candlesticks and appliques which repeated those colors. [Illustration: MRS. FREDERICK HAVEMEYER'S CHINOISERIE CHINTZ BED] [Illustration: MRS. PAYNE WHITNEY'S GREEN FEATHER CHINTZ BED] There is a chintz I love to use called the Green Feather chintz. It is most decorative in design and color, and such an aristocratic sort of chintz you can use it on handsome old sofas and your post beds that would scorn a more commonplace chintz. Mrs. Payne Whitney has a most enchanting bed covered with the Green Feather chintz, one of those great beds that depend entirely on their hangings for effect, for not a bit of the wooden frame shows. Mrs. Frederick Havemeyer has a similar bed covered with a _Chinoiserie_ chintz. These great beds are very beautiful in large rooms, but they would be out of place in small ones. There are draped beds, however, that may be used in smaller rooms. I am showing a photograph of a bedroom in the Crocker house in Burlingame, California, where I used a small draped bed with charming effect. This bed is placed flat against the wall, like a sofa, and the drapery is adapted from that of a Louis XVI room. The bed is of gray painted wood, and the hangings are of blue and cream chintz lined with blue taffetas. I used the same idea in a rose and blue bedroom in a New York house. In this case, however, the bed was painted cream white and the large panels of the head and foot boards were filled with a rose and blue chintz. The bedspread was of deep rose colored taffetas, and from a small canopy above the bed four curtains of the rose and blue chintz, lined with the taffetas, are pulled to the four corners of the bed. This novel arrangement of draperies is very satisfactory in a small room. In my own house the bedrooms open into dressing-rooms, so much of the usual furniture is not necessary. My own bedroom, for instance, is built around the same old Breton bed I had in the Washington Irving house. The bed dominates the room, but there are also a _chaise-longue_, several small tables, many comfortable chairs, and a real fireplace. The business of dressing takes place in the dressing-room, so there is no dressing-table here, but there are long mirrors filling the wall spaces between windows and doors. Miss Marbury's bedroom is just over mine, and is a sunshiny place of much rose and blue and cream. Her rooms are always full of blue, just as my rooms are always full of rose color. This bedroom has cream woodwork and walls of a bluish-gray, cream painted furniture covered with a mellow sort of rose-and-cream chintz, and a Persian rug made up of blue and cream. The curtains at the windows are of plain blue linen bordered with a narrow blue and white fringe. The lighting-fixtures are of carved wood, pointed in polychrome. The most beautiful thing in the room is a Fifteenth Century painting, the Madonna of Bartolomeo Montagna, which has the place of honor over the mantel. I haven't said a word about our nice American Colonial bedrooms, because all of you know their beauties and requirements as well as I. The great drawback to the stately old furniture of our ancestors is the space it occupies. Haven't you seen a fine old four post bed simply overflowing a poor little room? Fortunately, the furniture-makers are designing simple beds of similar lines, but lighter build, and these beds are very lovely. The owner of a massive old four-post bed is justly proud of it, but our new beds are built for a new service and a new conception of hygiene, and so must find new lines and curves that will be friendly to the old dressing tables and highboys and chests of drawers. When we are fortunate enough to inherit great old houses, of course we will give them proper furniture--if we can find it. I remember a house in New Orleans that had a full dozen spacious bedrooms, square, closetless chambers that opened into small dressing-rooms. One of them, I remember, was absolutely bare of wall and floor, with a great Napoleon bed set squarely in the center of it. There was the inevitable mosquito net canopy, here somehow endowed with an unexpected dignity. One felt the room had been made for sleeping, and nothing _but_ sleeping, and while the bed was placed in the middle of the floor to get all the air possible, its placing was a master stroke of decoration in that great white walled room. It was as impressive as a royal bed on a dais. We are getting more sensible about our bedrooms. There is no doubt about it. For the last ten years there has been a dreadful epidemic of brass beds, a mistaken vogue that came as a reaction from the heavy walnut beds of the last generation. White painted metal beds came first, and will last always, but they weren't good enough for people of ostentatious tastes, and so the vulgar brass bed came to pass. Why we should suffer brass beds in our rooms, I don't know! The plea is that they are more sanitary than wooden ones. Hospitals must consider sanitation first, last, and always, and they use white iron beds. And why shouldn't white iron beds, which are modest and unassuming in appearance, serve for homes as well? The truth is that the glitter of brass appeals to the untrained eye. But that is passing. Go into the better shops and you will see! Recently there was a spasmodic outbreak of silver-plated beds, but I think there won't be a vogue for this newest object of bad taste. It is a little too much! If your house is clean and you intend to keep it so, a wooden bed that has some relation to the rest of your furniture is the best bed possible. Otherwise, a white painted metal one. There is never an excuse for a brass one. Indeed, I think the three most glaring errors we Americans make are rocking-chairs, lace curtains, and brass beds. [Illustration: MY OWN BEDROOM IS BUILT AROUND A BRETON BED] XV THE DRESSING-ROOM AND THE BATH Dressing-rooms and closets should be necessities, not luxuries, but alas! our architects' ideas of the importance of large bedrooms have made it almost impossible to incorporate the proper closets and dressing-places a woman really requires. In the foregoing chapter on bedrooms I advised the division of a large bedroom into several smaller rooms: ante-chamber, sitting-room, sleeping-room, dressing-room and bath. The necessary closets may be built along the walls of all these little rooms, or, if there is sufficient space, one long, airy closet may serve for all one's personal belongings. Of course, such a suite of rooms is possible only in large houses. But even in simple houses a small dressing-room can be built into the corner of an average-sized bedroom. In France every woman dresses in her _cabinet de toilette_; it is one of the most important rooms in the house. No self-respecting French woman would dream of dressing in her sleeping-room. The little _cabinet de toilette_ need not be much larger than a closet, if the closets are built ceiling high, and the doors are utilized for mirrors. Such an arrangement makes for great comfort and privacy. Here I find that most of my countrywomen dress in their bedrooms. I infinitely prefer the separate dressing-room, which means a change of air, and which can be thoroughly ventilated. If one sleeps with the bedroom windows wide open, it is a pleasure to have a warm dressing-room to step into. I think the first thing to be considered about a dressing-room is its utility. Here no particular scheme of decoration or over-elaboration of color is in place. Everything should be very simple, very clean and very hygienic. The floors should not be of wood, but may be of marble or mosaic cement or clean white tiles, with a possible touch of color. If the dressing-room is bathroom also, there should be as large a bath as is compatible with the size of the room. The combination of dressing-room and bathroom is successful only in those large houses where each bedroom has its bath. I have seen such rooms in modern American houses that were quite as large as bedrooms, with the supreme luxury of open fireplaces. Think of the comfort of having one's bath and of making one's toilet before an open fire! This is an outgrowth of our passion for bedrooms that are so be-windowed they become sleeping-porches, and we may leave their chill air for the comfortable warmth of luxurious dressing-rooms. [Illustration: By permission of the Butterick Publishing Co. FURNITURE PAINTED WITH CHINTZ DESIGNS] If I were giving advice as to the furnishing of a dressing-room, in as few words as possible, I should say: "Put in lots of mirrors, and then more mirrors, and then more!" Indeed, I do not think one can have too many mirrors in a dressing-room. Long mirrors can be set in doors and wall panels, so that one may see one's self from hat to boots. Hinged mirrors are lovely for sunny wall spaces, and for the tops of dressing-tables. I have made so many of them. One of green and gold lacquer was made to be used on a plain green enameled dressing-table placed squarely in the recess of a great window. I also use small mirrors of graceful contour to light up the dark corners of dressing-rooms. Have your mirrors so arranged that you get a good strong light by day, and have plenty of electric lights all around the dressing-mirrors for night use. In other words, know the worst before you go out! In my own dressing-room the lights are arranged just as I used to have them long ago in my theater dressing-room when I was on the stage. I can see myself back, front and sides before I go out. Really, it is a comfort to be on friendly terms with your own back hair! I lay great stress on the mirrors and plenty of lights, and yet more lights. Oh, the joy, the blessing of electric light! I think every woman would like to dress always by a blaze of electric light, and be seen only in the soft luminosity of candle light--how lovely we would all look, to be sure! It is a great thing to know the worst before one goes out, so that even the terrors of the arc lights before our theaters will be powerless to dismay us. If there is room in the dressing-room, there should be a sofa with a slip cover of some washable fabric that can be taken off when necessary. This sofa may be the simplest wooden frame, with a soft pad, or it may be a _chaise-longue_ of elegant lines. The _chaise-longue_ is suitable for bedroom or dressing-room, but it is an especially luxurious lounging-place when you are having your hair done. A man came to me just before Christmas, and said, "Do tell me something to give my wife. I cannot think of a thing in the world she hasn't already." I asked, "Is she a lady of habits?" "What!" he said, astonished. "Does she enjoy being comfortable?" I asked. "Well, rather!" he smiled. And so I suggested a _couvre-pieds_ for her _chaise-longue._ Now I am telling you of the _couvre pieds_ because I know all women love exquisite things, and surely nothing could be more delicious than my _couvre-pieds._ Literally, it is a "cover for the feet," a sort of glorified and diminutive coverlet, made of the palest of pink silk, lined with the soft long-haired white fur known as mountain tibet, and interlined with down. The coverlet is bordered with a puffing of French lace, and the top of it is encrusted with little flowers made of tiny French picot ribbons, and quillings of the narrowest of lace. It is supposed to be thrown over your feet, fur side down, when you are resting or having your hair done. [Illustration: MISS MORGAN'S LOUIS XVI. DRESSING-ROOM] You may devise a little coverlet for your own sofa, whether it be in your bedroom, your boudoir, or your dressing-room, that will be quite as useful as this delectable _couvre-pieds_. I saw some amusing ones recently, made of gay Austrian silks, lined with astonishing colors and bound with puffings and flutings of ribbon of still other colors. A coverlet of this kind would be as good as a trip away from home for the woman who is bored and wearied. No matter how drab and commonplace her house might be, she could devise a gay quilt of one of the enchanting new stuffs and wrap herself in it for a holiday hour. One of the most amusing ones was of turquoise blue silk, with stiff flowers of violet and sulphur yellow scattered over it. The flowers were quite large and far apart, so that there was a square expanse of the turquoise blue with a stiff flower at each corner. The lining was of sulphur yellow silk, and the binding was a puffing of violet ribbons. The color fairly made me gasp, at first, but then it became fascinating, and finally irresistible. I sighed as I thought of the dreary patchwork quilts of our great-grandmothers. How they would have marveled at our audacious use of color, our frank joy in it! Of course the most important thing in the dressing-room is the dressing-table. I place my dressing-tables _against_ a group of windows, not near them, whenever it is possible. I have used plate glass tops on many of them, and mirrors for tops on others, for you can't have too many mirrors or too strong a light for dressing. We must see ourselves as others will see us. My own dressing-table contains many drawers, one of which is fitted with an ink-well, a tray for pens and pencils, and a sliding shelf on which I write. This obviates going into another room to answer hurried notes when one is dressing. Beside the dressing-table stands the tall hat-stand for the hat I may be wearing that day. When the maid prepares the dress that is to be worn, she puts the hat that goes with the toilette on the tall single stand. Another idea is the little hollow table on casters that can easily be slipped under the dressing-table, where it is out of the way. All the little ugly things that make one lovely can be kept in this table, which can have a lid if desired, and even a lock and key. I frequently make them with a glass bottom, as they do not get stained or soiled, and can be washed. There are lots of little dodges that spell comfort for the dressing-room of the woman who wants comfort and can have luxury. There is the hot-water towel-rack, which is connected with the hot-water system of the house and which heats the towels, and incidentally the dressing-room. This a boon if you like a hot bath sheet after a cold plunge on a winter's morning. Another modern luxury is a wall cabinet fitted with glass shelves for one's bottles and sponges and powders. There seems to be no end to the little luxuries that are devised for the woman who makes a proper toilet. Who can blame her for loving the business of making herself attractive, when every one offers her encouragement? A closet is absolutely necessary in the dressing-room, and if space is precious every inch of its interior may be fitted with shelves and drawers and hooks, so that no space is wasted. The outside of the closet door may be fitted with a mirror, and narrow shelves just deep enough to hold one's bottles, may be fitted on the inside of the door. If the closet is very shallow, the inner shelves should be hollowed out to admit the bottle shelves when the door is closed. Otherwise the bottles will be smashed the first time a careless maid slams the door. This bottle closet has been one of my great successes in small apartments, where bathroom and dressing-room are one, and where much must be accomplished in a small space. In the more modern apartments the tub is placed in a recess in the wall of the bathroom, leaving more space for dressing purposes. This sort of combination dressing-room should have waterproof floor and wall, and no fripperies. There should be a screen large enough to conceal the tub, and a folding chair that may be placed in the small closet when it is not in use. When the bathroom is too small to admit a dressing-table and chair and the bedroom is quite large, a good plan is the building of a tiny room in one corner of the bedroom. Of course this little dressing-box must have a window. I have used this plan many times with excellent results. Another scheme, when the problem was entirely different, and the dressing-room was too large for comfort, was to line three walls of it with closets, the fourth wall being filled with windows. These closets were narrow, each having a mirrored panel in its door. This is the ideal arrangement, for there is ample room for all one's gowns, shoes, hats, veils, gloves, etc., each article having its own specially planned shelf or receptacle. The closets are painted in gay colors inside, and the shelves are fitted with thin perfumed pads. They are often further decorated with bright lines of color, which is always amusing to the woman who opens a door. Hat stands and bags are covered with the same chintzes employed in the dressing-room proper. Certain of the closets are fitted with the English tray shelves, and each tray has its sachet. The hangers for gowns are covered in the chintz or brocade used on the hat stands. This makes an effective ensemble whether brocades or printed cottons are used, if the arrangement is orderly and full of gay color. [Illustration: MISS MARBURY'S CHINTZ-HUNG DRESSING-TABLE] One of the most successful gown closets I have done is a long narrow closet with a door at each end, really a passageway between a bedroom and a boudoir. Long poles run the length of the closet, with curtains that enclose a passage from door to door. Back of these curtains are long poles that may be raised or lowered by pulleys. Each gown is placed on its padded hanger, covered with its muslin bag, and hung on the pole. The pole is then drawn up so that the tails of the gowns will not touch the dust of the floor. This is a most orderly arrangement for the woman of many gowns. The straightaway bathroom that one finds in apartments and small houses is difficult to make beautiful, but may be made airy and clean-looking, which is more important. I had to make such a bathroom a little more attractive recently, and it was a very pleasant job. I covered the walls with a waterproof stuff of white, figured with a small black polkadot. The woodwork and the ceiling were painted white. All around the door and window frames I used a two-inch border of ivy leaves, also of waterproof paper, and although I usually abominate borders I loved this one. A plain white framed mirror was also painted with green ivy leaves, and a glass shelf above the wash bowl was fitted with glass bottles and dishes with labels and lines of clear green. White muslin curtains were hung at the window, and a small white stool was given a cushion covered with green and white ivy patterned chintz. The floor was painted white, and a solid green rug was used. The towels were cross-stitched with the name of the owner in the same bright green. The room, when finished, was cool and refreshing, and had cost very little in money, and not so very much in time and labor. I think that in country houses where there is not a bathroom with each bedroom there should be a very good washstand provided for each guest. When a house party is in progress, for instance, and every one comes in from tennis or golf or what not, eager for a bath and fresh clothes, washstands are most convenient. Why shouldn't a washstand be just as attractively furnished as a dressing-table? Just because they have been so ugly we condemn them to eternal ugliness, but it is quite possible to make the washstand interesting to look upon as well as serviceable. It isn't necessary to buy a "set" of dreadful crockery. You can assemble the necessary things as carefully as you would assemble the outfit for your writing-table. Go to the pottery shops, the glass shops, the silversmiths, and you will find dozens of bowls and pitchers and small things. A clear glass bowl and pitcher and the necessary glasses and bottles can be purchased at any department store. The French peasants make an apple-green pottery that is delightful for a washstand set. So many of the china shops have large shallow bowls that were made for salad and punch, and pitchers that were made for the dining-table, but there is no reason why they shouldn't be used on the washstand. I know one wash basin that began as a Russian brass pan of flaring rim. With it is used an old water can of hammered brass, and brass dishes glass lined, to hold soaps and sponges. It is only necessary to desire the unusual thing, and you'll get it, though much searching may intervene between the idea and its achievement. The washstand itself is not such a problem. A pair of dressing-tables may be bought, and one fitted up as a washstand, and the other left to its usual use. In the Colony Club there are a number of bathrooms, but there are also washstands in those rooms that have no private bath. Each bathroom has its fittings planned to harmonize with the connecting bedroom, and the clear glass bottles are all marked in the color prevailing in the bedroom. Each bathroom has a full-length mirror, and all the conveniences of a bathroom in a private house. In addition to these rooms there is a long hall filled with small _cabinets de toilette_ which some clever woman dubbed "prinkeries." These are small rooms fitted with dressing-tables, where out-of-town members may freshen their toilets for an occasion. These little prinkeries would be excellent in large country houses, where there are so many motoring guests who come for a few hours only, dust-laden and travel-stained, only to find that all the bedrooms and dressing-rooms in the house are being used by the family and the house guests. A description of the pool of the Colony Club is hardly within the province of this chapter, but so many amazing Americans are building themselves great houses incorporating theaters and Roman baths, so many women are building club houses, so many others are building palatial houses that are known as girls' schools, perhaps the swimming-pool will soon be a part of all large houses. This pool occupies the greater part of the basement floor of the Club house, the rest of the floor being given over to little rooms where one may have a shampoo or massage or a dancing lesson or what not before or after one's swim. The pool is twenty-two by sixty feet, sunken below the level of the marble floor. The depth is graded from four feet to deep water, so that good and bad swimmers may enjoy it. The marble margin of floor surrounding the pool is bordered with marble benches, placed between the white columns. The walls of the great room are paneled with mirrors, so that there are endless reflections of columned corridors and pools and shimmering lights. The ceiling is covered with a light trellis hung with vines, from which hang great greenish-white bunches of grapes holding electric lights. One gets the impression of myriads of white columns, and of lights and shadows infinitely far-reaching. Surely the old Romans knew no pleasanter place than this city-enclosed pool. XVI THE SMALL APARTMENT This is the age of the apartment. Not only in the great cities, but in the smaller centers of civilization the apartment has come to stay. Modern women demand simplified living, and the apartment reduces the mechanical business of living to its lowest terms. A decade ago the apartment was considered a sorry makeshift in America, though it has been successful abroad for more years than you would believe. We Americans have been accustomed to so much space about us that it seemed a curtailment of family dignity to give up our gardens, our piazzas and halls, our cellars and attics, our front and rear entrances. Now we are wiser. We have just so much time, so much money and so much strength, and it behooves us to make the best of it. Why should we give our time and strength and enthusiasm to drudgery, when our housework were better and more economically done by machinery and co-operation? Why should we stultify our minds with doing the same things thousands of times over, when we might help ourselves and our friends to happiness by intelligent occupations and amusements? The apartment is the solution of the living problems of the city, and it has been a direct influence on the houses of the towns, so simplifying the small-town business of living as well. Of course, many of us who live in apartments either have a little house or a big one in the country for the summer months, or we plan for one some day! So hard does habit die--we cannot entirely divorce our ideas of Home from gardens and trees and green grass. But I honestly think there is a reward for living in a slice of a house: women who have lived long in the country sometimes take the beauty of it for granted, but the woman who has been hedged in by city walls gets the fine joy of out-of-doors when she _is_ out of doors, and a pot of geraniums means more to her than a whole garden means to a woman who has been denied the privilege of watching things grow. The modern apartment is an amazing illustration of the rapid development of an idea. The larger ones are quite as magnificent as any houses could be. I have recently furnished a Chicago apartment that included large and small salons, a huge conservatory, and a great group of superb rooms that are worthy of a palace. There are apartment houses in New York that offer suites of fifteen to twenty rooms, with from five to ten baths, at yearly rentals that approximate wealth to the average man, but these apartments are for the few, and there are hundreds of thousands of apartments for the many that have the same essential conveniences. One of the most notable achievements of the apartment house architects is the duplex apartment, the little house within a house, with its two-story high living room, its mezzanine gallery with service rooms ranged below and sleeping rooms above, its fine height and spaciousness. Most of the duplex apartments are still rather expensive, but some of them are to be had at rents that are comparatively low--rents are always comparative, you know. Fortunately, although it is a far cry financially from the duplex apartment to the tidy three-room flat of the model tenements, the "modern improvements" are very much the same. The model tenement offers compact domestic machinery, and cleanliness, and sanitary comforts at a few dollars a week that are not to be had at any price in many of the fine old houses of Europe. The peasant who has lived on the plane of the animals with no thought of cleanliness, or indeed of anything but food and drink and shelter, comes over here and enjoys improvements that our stately ancestors of a few generations ago would have believed magical. Enjoys them--they do say he puts his coal in the bath tub, but his grandchildren will be different, perhaps! But enough of apartments in general. This chapter is concerned with the small apartment sought by you young people who are beginning housekeeping. You want to find just the proper apartment, of course, and then you want to decorate and furnish it. Let me beg of you to demand only the actual essentials: a decent neighborhood, good light and air, and at least one reasonably large room. Don't demand perfection, for you won't find it. Make up your mind just what will make for your happiness and comfort, and demand that. You can make any place livable by furnishing it wisely. And, oh, let me beg of you, don't buy your furniture until you have found and engaged your apartment! It is bad enough to buy furniture for a house you haven't seen, but an apartment is a place of limitations, and you can so easily mar the place by buying things that will not fit in. An apartment is so dependent upon proper fittings, skilfully placed, that you may ruin your chances of a real home if you go ahead blindly. Before you sign your lease, be sure that the neighborhood is not too noisy. Be sure that you will have plenty of light and air and heat. You can interview the other tenants, and find out about many things you haven't time or the experience to anticipate. Be sure that your landlord is a reasonable human being who will consent to certain changes, if necessary, who will be willing for you to build in certain things, who will co-operate with you in improving his property, if you go about it tactfully. Be sure that the woodwork is plain and unpretentious, that the lighting-fixtures are logically placed, and of simple construction. (Is there anything more dreadful than those colored glass domes, with fringes of beads, that landlords so proudly hang over the imaginary dining-table?) Be sure that the plumbing is in good condition, and beware the bedroom on an air shaft--better pay a little more rent and save the doctor's bills. Beware of false mantels, and grotesque grille-work, and imitation stained glass, and grained woodwork. You couldn't be happy in a place that was false to begin with. Having found just the combination of rooms that suggests a real home to you, go slowly about your decorating. It is almost imperative that the woodwork and walls should have the same finish throughout the apartment, unless you wish to find yourself living in a crazy-quilt of unfriendly colors. I have seen four room apartments in which every room had a different wall paper and different woodwork. The "parlor" was papered with poisonous-looking green paper, with imitation mahogany woodwork; the dining-room had walls covered with red burlap and near-oak woodwork; the bedroom was done in pink satin finished paper and bird's-eye maple woodwork, and the kitchen was bilious as to woodwork, with bleak gray walls. Could anything be more mistaken? You can make the most commonplace rooms livable if you will paint all your woodwork cream, or gray, or sage green, and cover your walls with a paper of very much the same tone. Real hard wood trim isn't used in ordinary apartments, so why not do away with the badly-grained imitation and paint it? You can look through thousands of samples of wall papers, and you will finally have to admit that there is nothing better for every day living than a deep cream, a misty gray, a tan or a buff paper. You may have a certain license in the papering of your bedrooms, of course, but the living-rooms--hall, dining-room, living-room, drawing-room, and so forth--should be pulled together with walls of one color. In no other way can you achieve an effect of spaciousness--and spaciousness is the thing of all other things most desirable in the crowded city. You must have a place where you can breathe and fling your arms about! When you have it really ready for furnishing, get the essentials first; do with a bed and a chest of drawers and a table and a few chairs, and add things gradually, as the rooms call for them. Make the best of the opportunities offered for built-in furniture before you buy another thing. If you have a built-in china closet in your dining-room, you can plan a graceful built-in console-table to serve as a buffet or serving-table, and you will require only a good table--not too heavily built--and a few chairs for this room. There is rarely a room that would not be improved by built-in shelves and inset mirrors. Of course, I do not advise you to spend a lot of money on someone else's property, but why not look the matter squarely in the face? This is to be your home. You will find a number of things that annoy you--life in any city furnishes annoyances. But if you have one or two reasonably large rooms, plenty of light and air, and respectable surroundings, make up your mind that you will not move every year. That you will make a home of this place, and then go ahead and _treat_ it as a home! If a certain recess in the wall suggests bookshelves, don't grudge the few dollars necessary to have the bookshelves built in! You can probably have them built so that they can be removed, on that far day when this apartment is no longer your home, and if you have a dreadful wall paper don't hide behind the silly plea that the landlord will not change it. Go without a new gown, if necessary, and pay for the paper yourself. Few apartments have fireplaces, and if you are fortunate enough to find one with a real fireplace and a simple mantel shelf you will be far on the way toward making a home of your group of rooms. Of course your apartment is heated by steam, or hot air, or something, but an open fire of coal or wood will be very pleasant on chilly days, and more important still your home will have a point of departure--the Hearth. If the mantel shelf is surmounted by one of those dreadful monstrosities made up of gingerbread woodwork and distressing bits of mirrors, convince your landlord that it will not be injured in the removing, and store it during your residence here. Have the space above the mantel papered like the rest of the walls, and hang one good picture, or a good mirror, or some such thing above your mantel shelf, and you will have offered up your homage to the Spirit of the Hearth. When you do begin to buy furniture, buy compactly, buy carefully. Remember that you will not require the furniture your mother had in a sixteen-room house. You will have no hall or piazza furnishings to buy, for instance, and therefore you many put a little more into your living-room things. The living-room is the nucleus of the modern apartment. Sometimes it is studio, living-room and dining-room in one. Sometimes living-room, library and guest-room, by the grace of a comfortable sleeping-couch and a certain amount of drawer or closet space. At any rate, it will be more surely a living-room than a similar room in a large house, and therefore everything in it should count for something. Do not admit an unnecessary rug, or chair, or picture, lest you lose the spaciousness, the dignity of the room. An over-stuffed chair will fill a room more obviously than a grand piano--if the piano is properly, and the chair improperly placed. In one of the illustrations of this chapter you will observe a small sitting-room in which there are dozens of things, and yet the effect is quiet and uncrowded. The secretary against the plain wall serves as a cabinet for the display of a small collection of fine old china, and the drawers serve the chance guest--for while this is library and sitting-room, it has a most comfortable couch bed, and may be used as a guest-room as well. [Illustration: A CORNER OF MY OWN BOUDOIR] The bookshelves are built high on each side of the mantel and between the windows, thus giving shelf room to a goodly collection of books, with no appearance of heaviness. The writing-table is placed at right angles to the windows, so that the light may fall on the writer's left shoulder. There is a couch bed--over three feet wide, in this room, with frame and mattress and pillows covered in a dark brocaded stuff, and a fireside chair, a small chair at the head of the couch and a low stool all covered with the same fabric. It really isn't a large room, and yet it abundantly fills a dozen needs. I think it unwise to try to work out a cut-and-dried color plan in a small apartment. If your floors and walls are neutral in tone you can introduce dozens of soft colors into your rooms. Don't buy massive furniture for your apartment! Remember that a few good chairs of willow will be less expensive and more decorative than the heavy, stuffy chairs usually chosen by inexperienced people. Indeed, I think one big arm chair, preferably of the wing variety, is the only big chair you will require in the living-room. A fireside chair is like a grandfather's clock; it gives so much dignity to a room that it is worth a dozen inferior things. Suppose you have a wing chair covered with dull-toned corduroy, or linen, or chintz; a large willow chair with a basket pocket for magazines or your sewing things; a stool or so of wood, with rush or cane seats; and a straight chair or so--perhaps a painted Windsor chair, or a rush-bottomed mahogany chair, or a low-back chair of brown oak--depending on the main furniture of the room, of course. You won't need anything more, unless you have space for a comfortable couch. If you have mahogany things, you will require a little mahogany table at the head of the couch to hold a reading-lamp--a sewing-table would be excellent. A pie-crust or turn top table for tea, or possibly a "nest" of three small mahogany tables. A writing table or book table built on very simple lines will be needed also. If you happen to have a conventional writing-desk, a gate-leg table would be charming for books and things. The wing chair and willow chairs, and the hour-glass Chinese chairs, will go beautifully with mahogany things or with oak things. If most of your furniture is to be oak, be sure and select well-made pieces stained a soft brown and waxed. Oak furniture is delightful when it isn't too heavy. A large gate-leg table of dark brown oak is one of the most beautiful tables in the world. With it you would need a bench of oak, with cane or rush seat; a small octagonal, or butterfly oak table for your couch end, and one or two Windsor chairs. Oak demands simple, wholesome surroundings, just as mahogany permits a certain feminine elegance. Oak furniture invites printed linens and books and brass and copper and pewter and gay china. While mahogany may be successfully used with such things, it may also be used with brocade and fragile china and carved chairs. Use chintzes in your apartment, if you wish, but do not risk the light ones in living-rooms. A chintz or printed linen of some good design on a ground of mauve, blue, gray or black will decorate your apartment adequately, if you make straight side curtains of it, and cover one chair and possibly a stool with it. Don't carry it too far. If your rooms are small, have your side curtains of coarse linen or raw silk in dull blue, orange, brown, or whatever color you choose as the key color of your room, and then select a dark chintz with your chosen color dominant in its design, and cover your one big chair with that. The apartment hall is most difficult, usually long and narrow and uninteresting. Don't try to have furniture in a hall of this kind. A small table near the front door, a good tile for umbrellas, etc., a good mirror--that is all. Perhaps a place for coats and hats, but some halls are too narrow for a card table. The apartment with a dining-room entirely separated from the living-room is very unusual, therefore I am hoping that you will apply all that I have said about the treatment of your living-room to your dining-room as well. People who live in apartments are very foolish if they cut off a room so little used as a dining-room and furnish it as if it belonged to a huge house. Why not make it a dining-and book-room, using the big table for reading, between meals, and having your bookshelves so built that they will be in harmony with your china shelves? Keep all your glass and silver and china in the kitchen, or butler's pantry, and display only the excellent things--the old china, the pewter tankard, the brass caddy, and so forth,--in the dining-room. However, if you have a real dining-room in your apartment, do try to have chairs that will be comfortable, for you can't afford to have uncomfortable things in so small a space! Windsor chairs and rush bottom chairs are best of all for a simple dining-room, I think, though the revival of painted furniture has brought about a new interest in the old flare-back chairs, painted with dull, soft colored posies on a ground of dull green or gray or black. These chairs would be charming in a small cottage dining-room, but they might not "wear well" in a city apartment. [Illustration: BUILT-IN BOOKSHELVES IN A SMALL ROOM] If your apartment has two small bedrooms, why not use one of them for two single beds, with a night stand between, and the other for a dressing-room? Apartment bedrooms are usually small, but charming furniture may be bought for small rooms. Single beds of mahogany with slender posts; beds of painted wood with inset panels of cane; white iron beds, wooden beds painted with quaint designs on a ground of some soft color--all these are excellent for small rooms. It goes without saying that a small bedroom should have plain walls, papered or painted in some soft color. Flowered papers, no matter how delightful they may be, make a small room seem smaller. Self-toned striped papers and the "gingham" papers are sometimes very good. The nicest thing about such modest walls is that you can use gay chintz with them successfully. Use your bedrooms as sleeping-and dressing-rooms, and nothing more. Do not keep your sewing things there--a big sewing-basket will add to the homelike quality of your living-room. Keep the bedroom floor bare, except for a bedside rug, and possibly one or two other rugs. This, of course, does not apply to the large bedroom--I am prescribing for the usual small one. Place your bed against the side wall, so that the morning light will not be directly in your eyes. A folding screen covered with chintz or linen will prove a God-send. Perhaps you will have a guest-room, but I doubt it. Most women find it more satisfactory and less expensive to send their guests to a nearby hotel than to keep an extra room for a guest. The guest room is impractical in a small apartment, but you can arrange to take care of an over-night guest by planning your living-room wisely. As for the kitchen--that is another story. It is impossible to go into that subject. And anyway, you will find the essentials supplied for you by the landlord. You won't need my advice when you need a broom or a coffee pot or a saucepan--you'll go buy it! XVII REPRODUCTIONS OF ANTIQUE FURNITURE AND OBJECTS OF ART One must have preserved many naïve illusions if one may believe in all the "antiques" that are offered in the marketplaces of the world to-day. Even the greatest connoisseurs are caught napping sometimes, as in the case of the famous crown supposedly dating to the Fifth Century, B.C., which was for a brief period one of the treasures of the Louvre. Its origin was finally discovered, and great was the outcry! It had been traced to a Viennese artisan, a worker in the arts and crafts. [Illustration: MRS. C.W. HARKNESS'S CABINET FOR _OBJETS D'ART_] Surely, if the great men of the Louvre could be so deceived it is obvious that the amateur collector has little chance at the hands of the dealers in old furniture and other objects of art. Fortunately, the greatest dealers are quite honest. They tell you frankly if the old chair you covet is really old, if it has been partially restored, or if it is a copy, and they charge you accordingly. At these dealers a small table of the Louis XVI period, or a single chair covered in the original tapestry, may cost as much as a man in modest circumstances would spend on his whole house. Almost everything outside these princely shops (salons is a better word) is false, or atrociously restored. Please remember I am not referring to reputable dealers, but to the smaller fry, whose name is legion, in whose shops the unwary seeker after bargains is sure to be taken in. Italy is, I think, the greatest workshop of fraudulent reproductions. It has an output that all Europe and America can never exhaust. Little children on the streets of Naples still find simpletons of ardent faith who will buy scraps of old plaster and bits of paving stones that are alleged to have been excavated in Pompeii. In writing about antiques it is not easy to be consistent, and any general conclusion is impossible. Certain reproductions are objectionable, and yet they are certainly better than poor originals, after all. The simplest advice is the best and easiest to follow: The less a copy suggests an attempt at "artistic reproduction," the more literal and mechanical it is in its copy of the original, the better it is. A good photograph of a fine old painting is superior to the average copy in oils or watercolors. A chair honestly copied from a worm eaten original is better for domestic purpose than the original. The original, the moment its usefulness is past, belongs in a museum. A plaster cast of a great bust is better than the same object copied in marble or bronze by an average sculptor. And so it goes. Think it out for yourself. It may be argued that the budding collector is as happy with a false object and a fake bauble as if he possessed the real thing, and therefore it were better to leave him to his illusions; that it is his own fault; that it is so much the worse for him if he is deceived. But--you can't leave the innocent lamb to the slaughter, if you can give him a helping hand. If he must be a collector, let him be first a collector of the many excellent books now published on old furniture, china, rugs, pewter, silver, prints, the things that will come his way. You can't begin collecting one thing without developing an enthusiasm for the contemporary things. Let him study the museum collections, visit the private collections, consult recognized experts. If he is serious, he will gradually acquire the intuition of knowing the genuine from the false, the worth-while from the worthless, and once he has that knowledge, instinct, call it what you will, he can never be satisfied with imitations. The collection and association of antiques and reproductions should be determined by the collector's sense of fitness, it seems to me. Every man should depend on whatever instinct for rightness, for suitability, he may possess. If he finds that he dare not risk his individual opinion, then let him be content with the things he _knows_ to be both beautiful and useful, and leave the subtler decisions for someone else. For instance, there are certain objects that are obviously the better for age, the objects that are softened and refined by a bloom that comes from usage. An old rug has a softness that a new one cannot imitate. An old copper kettle has an uneven quality that has come from years of use. A new kettle may be quite as useful, but age has given the old one a certain quality that hanging and pounding cannot reproduce. A pewter platter that has been used for generations is dulled and softened to a glow that a new platter cannot rival. What charm is to a woman, the vague thing called quality is to an object of art. We feel it, though we may not be able to explain it. An old Etruscan jar may be reproduced in form, but it would be silly to attempt the reproduction of the crudenesses that gave the old jar its real beauty. In short, objects that depend on form and fine workmanship for their beauty may be successfully reproduced, but objects that depend on imperfections of workmanship, on the crudeness of primitive fabrics, on the fading of vegetable dyes, on the bloom that age alone can give, should not be imitated. We may introduce a reproduction of a fine bust into our rooms, but an imitation of a Persian tile or a Venetian vase is absurd on the face of it. The antiques the average American householder is interested in are the old mahogany, oak and walnut things that stand for the oldest period of our own particular history. It is only the wealthy collector who goes abroad and buys masses of old European furniture, real or sham, who is concerned with the merits and demerits of French and Italian furniture. The native problem is the so-called Colonial mahogany that is always alleged to be Chippendale or Heppelwhite, or Sheraton, regardless! There must be thousands of these alleged antiques in New York shops alone! It goes without saying that only a very small part of it can be really old. As for it having been made by the men whose names it bears, that is something no reputable dealer would affirm. The Chippendales, father, son and grandson, published books of designs which were used by all the furniture-makers of their day. No one can swear to a piece of furniture having been made in the workshops of the Chippendales. Even the pieces in the Metropolitan Museum are marked "Chippendale Style" or "In the Sheraton manner," or some such way. If the furniture is in the style of these makers, and if it is really old, you will pay a small fortune for it. But even then you cannot hope to get more than you pay for, and you would be very silly to pay for a name! After all, Chippendale is a sort of god among amateur collectors of American furniture, but among more seasoned collectors he is not by any means placed first. He adapted and borrowed and produced some wonderful things, but he also produced some monstrosities, as you will see if you visit the English museums. Why then lend yourself to possible deception? Why pay for names when museums are unable to buy them? If your object is to furnish your home suitably, what need have you of antiques? The serious amateur will fight shy of miracles. If he admires the beauty of line of a fine old Heppelwhite bed or Sheraton sideboard, he will have reproductions made by an expert cabinet-maker. The new piece will not have the soft darkness of the old, but the owner will be planning that soft darkness for his grandchildren, and in the meantime he will have a beautiful thing to live with. The age of a piece of furniture is of great value to a museum, but for domestic purposes, use and beauty will do. How fine your home will be if all the things within it have those qualities! Look through the photographs shown on these pages: there are many old chairs and tables, but there are more new ones. I am not one of these decorators who insist on originals. I believe good reproductions are more valuable than feeble originals, unless you are buying your furniture as a speculation. You can buy a reproduction of a Chippendale ladder back chair for about twenty-five dollars, but an original chair would cost at least a hundred and fifty, and then it would be "in the style and period of Chippendale." It might amuse you to ask the curator of one of the British museums the price of one of the Chippendales _by_ Chippendale. It would buy you a tidy little acreage. Stuart and Cromwellian chairs are being more and more reproduced. These chairs are made of oak, the Stuart ones with seats and backs of cane, the Cromwellian ones with seats and backs of tapestry, needlework, corded velvet, or some such handsome fabric. These reproductions may be had at from twenty-five to seventy-five dollars each. Of course, the cost of the Cromwellian chairs might be greatly increased by expensive coverings. There is a graceful Louis XV sofa in the Petit Trianon that I have copied many times. The copy is as beautiful as the original, because this sort of furniture depends upon exquisite design and perfect workmanship for its beauty. It is possible that a modern craftsman might not have achieved so graceful a design, but the perfection of his workmanship cannot be gainsaid. The frame of the sofa must be carved and then painted and guilded many times before it is ready for the brocade covering, and the cost of three hundred dollars for the finished sofa is not too much. The original could not be purchased at any price. Then there is the Chinese lacquer furniture of the Chippendale period that we are using so much now. The process of lacquering is as tedious to-day as it ever was, and the reproductions sell for goodly sums. A tall secretary of black and gold lacquer may cost six hundred dollars. You can imagine what an Eighteenth Century piece would cost! The person who said that a taste for old furniture and bibelots was "worse than a passion, it was a vice," was certainly near the truth! It is an absorbing pursuit, an obsession, and it grows with what it feeds on. As in objects of art, so in old furniture, the supply will always equal the demand of the unwary. The serious amateur will fight shy of all miracles and content himself with excellent reproductions. Nothing later than the furniture of the Eighteenth Century is included in the term, "old furniture." There are many fine cabinet makers in the early Nineteenth Century, but from them until the last decade the horrors that were perpetrated have never been equaled in the history of household decorations. I fancy the furniture of the mid-Victorian era will never be coveted by collectors, unless someone should build a museum for the freakish objects of house furnishing. America could contribute much to such a collection, for surely the black walnut era of the Nineteenth Century will never be surpassed in ugliness and bad taste, unless--rare fortune--there should be a sudden epidemic of appreciation among cabinet-makers, which would result in their taking the beautiful wood in the black walnut beds and wardrobes and such and make it over into worth-while things. It would be a fine thing to release the mistreated, velvety wood from its grotesqueries, and give it a renaissance in graceful cabinets, small tables, footstools, and the many small things that could be so easily made from huge unwieldy wardrobes and beds and bureaux. The workmen of to-day have their eyes opened. They have no excuse for producing unworthy things, when the greatest private collections are loaned or given outright to the museums. The new wing of the Metropolitan Museum in New York houses several fine old collections of furniture, the Hoentschel collection, for which the wing was really planned, having been given to the people of New York by Mr. Pierpont Morgan. This collection is an education in the French decorative arts. Then, too, there is the Bolles collection of American furniture presented to the museum by Mrs. Russell Sage. I have no quarrel with the honest dealers who are making fine and sincere copies of such furniture, and selling them as copies. There is no deception here, we must respect these men as we respect the workers of the Eighteenth Century: we give them respect for their masterly workmanship, their appreciation of the best things, and their fidelity to the masterpieces they reproduce. Not so long ago the New York papers published the experience of a gentleman who bought a very beautiful divan in a European furniture shop. He paid for it--you may be sure of that!--and he could hardly wait for its arrival to show it to his less fortunate neighbors. Within a few months something happened to the lining of the divan, and he discovered on the inside of the frame the maker's name and address. Imagine his chagrin when he found that the divan had been made at a furniture factory in his own country. You can't be sorry for him, you feel that it served him right. [Illustration: A BANQUETTE OF THE LOUIS XV. PERIOD COVERED WITH NEEDLEWORK] [Illustration: A CHINESE CHIPPENDALE SOFA COVERED WITH CHINTZ] This is an excellent example of the vain collector who cannot judge for himself, but will not admit it. He has not developed his sense of beauty, his instinct for excellence of workmanship. He thinks that because he has the money to pay for the treasure, the treasure must be genuine--hasn't _he_ chosen it? I can quite understand the pleasure that goes with furnishing a really old house with objects of the period in which the house was built. A New England farmhouse, for instance, may be an inspiration to the owner, and you can understand her quest of old fashioned rush bottomed chairs and painted settles and quaint mirrors and blue homespun coverlets. You can understand the man who falls heir to a good, square old Colonial house who wishes to keep his furnishings true to the period, but you cannot understand the crying need for Eighteenth Century furniture in a modern shingle house, or the desire for old spinning wheels and battered kitchen utensils in a Spanish stucco house, or Chippendale furniture in a forest bungalow. I wish people generally would study the oak and walnut furniture of old England, and use more reproductions of these honest, solid pieces of furniture in their houses. Its beauty is that it is "at home" in simple American houses, and yet by virtue of its very usefulness and sturdiness it is not out of place in a room where beautiful objects of other periods are used. The long oak table that is so comfortably ample for books and magazines and flowers in your living-room may be copied from an old refectory table--but what of it? It fulfils its new mission just as frankly as the original table served the monks who used it. The soft brown of oak is a pleasure after the over-polished mahogany of a thousand rooms. I do not wish to condemn Colonial mahogany furniture, you understand. I simply wish to remind you that there are other woods and models available. French furniture of the best type represents the supreme art of the cabinet-maker, and is incomparable for formal rooms, but I am afraid the time will never come when French furniture will be interchangeable with the oak and mahogany of England and America. In short, the whole thing should be a matter of taste and suitability. If you have a few fine old things that have come to you from your ancestors--a grandfather's clock, an old portrait or two--you are quite justified in bringing good reproductions of similar things into your home. The effect is the thing you are after, isn't it? Then, too, you will escape the awful fever that makes any antique seem desirable, and in buying reproductions you can select really comfortable furniture. You will be independent of the dreadful vases and candelabra and steel engravings "of the period," and will feel free to use modern prints and Chinese porcelains and willow chairs and anything that fits into your home. I can think of no slavery more deadly to one's sense of humor than collecting antiques indiscriminately! [Illustration: THE TRELLIS ROOM IN THE COLONY CLUB] XVIII THE ART OF TRELLIAGE When I planned the trellis room of the Colony Club in New York I had hard work finding workmen who could appreciate the importance of crossing and recrossing little strips of green wood, of arranging them to form a mural decoration architectural in treatment. This trellis room was, I believe, the first in America to be so considered, though the use of trellis is as old as architecture in Japan, China, Arabia, Egypt, Italy, France and Spain. The earliest examples of trellis work shown are in certain Roman frescoes. In Pompeii the mural paintings give us a very good idea of what some of the Roman gardens were like. In the entrance hall of the house of Sallust is represented a garden with trellised niches and bubbling fountains. Representations that have come down to us in documents show that China and Japan both employed the trellis in their decorative schemes. You will find a most daring example on your old blue willow plate, if you will look closely enough. The bridge over which the flying princess goes to her lover is a good model, and could be built in many gardens. Even a tiny modern garden, yours or mine, might hold this fairy bridge. Almost all Arabian decorations have their basis in trellis design or arabesques filled in with the intricate tracery that covers all their buildings. If we examine the details of the most famous of the old Moorish buildings that remain to us, the mosque at Cordova and the Alhambra at Granada, we shall find them full of endless trellis suggestions. Indeed, there are many documents still extant showing how admirably trellis decoration lends itself to the decoration of gardens and interiors. There are dozens of examples of niches built to hold fine busts. Pavilions and summer houses, the quaint gazebos of old England, the graceful screens of trellis that terminate a long garden path, the arching gateways crowned with vines--all these may be reproduced quite easily in American gardens. The first trellis work in France was inspired by Italy, but the French gave it a perfection of architectural character not found in other countries. The manuscript of the "Romance of the Rose," dating back to the Fifteenth Century, contains the finest possible example of trellis in a medieval garden. Most of the old French gardens that remain to us have important trellis construction. At Blois one still sees the remains of a fine trellis covering the walls of the kitchen gardens. Wonderful and elaborate trellis _pavillons_, each containing a statue, often formed the centers of very old gardens. These garden houses were called gazebos in England, and _Temples d'Amour_ (Temples of Love) in France, and the statue most often seen was the god of Love. In the Trianon gardens at Versailles there is a charming _Temple d'Amour_ standing on a tiny island, with four small canals leading to it. A knowledge of the history of trelliage and an appreciation of its practical application to modern needs is a conjurer's wand--you can wave it and create all sorts of ephemeral constructions that will last your time and pleasure. You may give your trellis any poetic shape your vision may take. You may dream and realize enchanting gardens, with clipped hedges and trellis walls. You may transform a commonplace porch into a gay garden room, with a few screens of trellis and many flower boxes of shrubs and vines. Here indeed is a delightful medium for your fancy! Trelliage and lattice work are often used as interchangeable terms, but mistakenly, for any carpenter who has the gift of precision can build a good lattice, but a trellis must have architectural character. Trellis work is not necessarily flimsy construction; the light chestnut laths that were used by the old Frenchmen and still remain to us prove that. Always in a garden I think one must feel one has not come to the end, one must go on and on in search of new beauties and the hidden delights we feel sure must be behind the clipped hedges or the trellis walls. Even when we come to the end we are not quite sure it is the end, and we steep ourselves in seclusion and quiet, knowing full well that to-morrow or to-night perhaps when the moon is up and we come back as we promise ourselves to do, surely we shall see that ideal corner that is the last word of the perfection of our dream garden--that delectable spot for which we forever seek! We can bring back much of the charm of the old-time gardens by a judicious use of trellis. It is suitable for every form of outdoor construction. A new garden can be subdivided and made livable in a few months with trellis screens, where hedges, even of the quick growing privet, would take years to grow. The entrance to the famous maze at Versailles, now, alas, utterly destroyed, was in trellis, and I have reproduced in our own garden at Villa Trianon, in Versailles, the entrance arch and doors, all in trellis. Our high garden fence with its curving gate is also in trellis, and you can imagine the joy with which we watched the vines grow, climbing over the gatetop as gracefully as if they too felt the charm of the curving tracery of green strips, and cheerfully added the decoration of their leaves and tendrils. [Illustration: MRS. ORMOND G. SMITH'S TRELLIS ROOM AT CENTER ISLAND, NEW YORK] Our outdoor trellis is at the end of the Villa Trianon garden, in line with the terrace where we take our meals. This trellis was rebuilt many times before it satisfied me, but now it is my greatest joy. The niches are planned to hold two old statues and several prim box trees. I used very much the same constructive design on one of the walls of the Colony Club trellis room, but there a fountain has the place of honor. Formal pedestals surmounted by gracefully curved urns, box trees, statues, marble benches, fountains--all these belong to the formal outdoor trellis. The trellis is primarily suitable for garden architecture, but it may be fitted to interior uses most skilfully. Pictures of the trellis room in the Colony Club have been shown so often it is not necessary to repeat more than one of them. The room is long and high, with a floor of large red tiles. The walls and ceiling are covered with rough gray plaster, on which the green strips of wood are laid. The wall space is entirely covered with the trellis design broken into ovals which hold lighting-fixtures--grapes and leaves in cloudy glass and green enamel. The long room leads up to the ivy-covered trellis of the fountain wall, a perfect background for the fountain, a bowl on the brim of which is poised a youthful figure, upheld by two dolphins. The water spills over into a little pool, banked with evergreens. Ivy has been planted in long boxes along the wall, and climbs to the ceiling, where the plaster is left bare, save for the trellised cornice and the central trellis medallion, from which is suspended an enchanting lantern made up of green wires and ivy leaves and little white flames of electric light. The roof garden of the Colony Club is latticed in a simple design we all know. This is lattice, not trellis, and in no way should be confounded with the trellis room on the entrance floor. This white-painted lattice covers the wall space. Growing vines are placed along the walls and clamber to the beams. The glass ceiling is supported by white beams. There are always blossoming flowers and singing birds in this room. The effect is springlike and joyous on the bleakest winter day. The room is heated by two huge stoves of green Majolica brought over from Germany when other heating systems failed. Much of the furniture is covered with a grape-patterned chintz and a green and white striped linen. The ceiling lights are hidden in huge bunches of pale green grapes. I recently planned a most beautiful trellis room for a New York City house. The room is long and narrow, with walls divided into panels by upright classic columns. The lower wall space between the columns is covered with a simple green lattice, and the upper part is filled with little mirrors framed in narrow green moldings, arranged in a conventional design which follows the line of the trellis. One end of the room is made up of two narrow panels of the trellis with a fireplace between. On the opposite wall the middle panel is a background for a delightful wall fountain. The fretwork of mirrors which takes the place of frieze in the room is continued all around the four walls. One of the walls is filled entirely with French doors of plate glass, beneath the mirrored frieze; the other long wall has the broad, central panel cut into two doors of plate glass, and stone benches placed against the two trellised panels flanking the doors. The ceiling is divided into three great panels of trellis, and from each of the three panels a lantern is suspended. In the Guinness house in New York there is a little hallway wainscoted in white with a green trellis covering the wall space above. Against this simple trellis--it is really a lattice--a number of plaster casts are hung. In one corner an old marble bowl holds a grapevine, which has been trained over the walls. The floor is of white tiles, with a narrow Greek border of black and white. This decoration of a little hall might be copied very easily. The architects are building nowadays many houses that have a sun-room, or conservatory, or breakfast room. The smallest cottage may have a little breakfast room done in green and white lattice, with green painted furniture and simple flower boxes. I have had furniture of the most satisfactory designs made for my trellis rooms. Green painted wood with cane insets seems most suitable for the small rooms, and the marbles of the old trellised _Temples d'Amour_ may be replaced by cement benches in our modern trellis pavillions. There is so much of modern furniture that is refreshing in line and color, and adapted to these sun-rooms. There is a desk made by Aitchen, a notable furniture designer in London, which I have used in a sun-room. The desk is painted white, and is decorated with heavy lines of dark green. The drawer front and the doors of the little cupboard are filled with cane. The knobs are of green. This desk would be nice in a white writing-room in a summer cottage, though it was planned for a trellis room. It could be used as a dressing table, with a bench or chair of white, outlined in green, and a good mirror in white and green frame. Another desk I have made is called a jardiniere table, and was designed for Mrs. Ogden Armour's garden room at Lake Forest. The desk, or table, is painted gray, with faint green decorations. At each end of the long top there is a sunken zinc-lined box to hold growing plants. Between the flower boxes there is the usual arrangement of the desk outfit, blotter pad, paper rack, ink pots, and so forth. The spaces beneath the flower boxes are filled with shelves for books and magazines. This idea is thoroughly practicable for any garden room, and is so simple that it could be constructed by any man who knows how to use tools. [Illustration: LOOKING OVER THE _TAPIS VERT_ TO THE TRELLIS] I had the pleasure recently of planning a trellis room for Mrs. Ormond-Smith's house at Center Island, New York. Here indeed is a garden room with a proper environment. It is as beautiful as a room very well can be within, and its great arched windows frame vistas of trees and water which take their place as a part of the room, ever changing landscapes that are always captivating. This trellis room is beautifully proportioned, and large enough to hold four long sofas and many chairs and tables of wicker and painted wood. The grouping of the sofas and the long tables made to fit between them is most interesting. These tables are extremely narrow and just the length of the sofas, and are built after the idea of Mrs. Armour's garden room desk, with flower boxes sunk in the ends. The backs of two sofas are placed against the long sides of the table, which holds a reading lamp and books in addition to its masses of flowers at the ends. Two such groups divide the room into three smaller rooms, as you can see by the illustration. Small tables and chairs are pulled up to the sofas, making conversation centers, or comfortable places for reading. The trellis work covers the spaces between windows and doors, and follows the contour of the arches. The ceiling is bordered with the trellis, and from a great square of it in the center a lamp is suspended. The wall panels are broken by appliques that suggest the bounty of summer, flowers and leaves and vines in wrought and painted iron. There are pedestals surmounted by marbles against some of the panels, and a carved bracket supporting a magnificent bust high on one of the wider panels. The room is classic in its fine balance and its architectural formality, and modern in its luxurious comfort and its refreshing color. Surely there could be no pleasanter room for whiling away a summer day. XIX VILLA TRIANON The story of the Villa Trianon is a fairy-tale come true. It came true because we believed in it--many fairy stories are ready and waiting to come true if only people will believe in them long enough. For many years Elizabeth Marbury and I had spent our summers in that charming French town, Versailles, before we had any hope of realizing a home of our own there. We loved the place, with its glamour of romance and history, and we prowled around the old gardens and explored the old houses, and dreamed dreams and saw visions. One old house that particularly interested us was the villa that had once been the home of the Duc de Nemours, son of Louis Philippe. It was situated directly on the famous Park of Versailles which is, as everyone knows, one of the most beautiful parks in all the world. The villa had not been lived in since the occupancy of de Nemours. Before the villa came to de Nemours it had been a part of the royal property that was portioned out to Mesdames de France, the disagreeable daughters of Louis XV. You will remember how disagreeable they were to Marie Antoinette, and what a burden they made her life. I wish our house had belonged to more romantic people; Madame du Barry or Madame de Pompadour would have suited me better! How many, many times we peeped through the high iron railing at this enchanted domain, sleeping like the castle in the fairy tale. The garden was overgrown with weeds and shrubbery, the house was shabby and sadly in need of paint. We sighed and thought how happy would be our fortune if we might some day penetrate the mysteries of the tangled garden and the abandoned villa. Little did we dream that this would one day be our home. We first went to Versailles as casual summer visitors and our stay was brief. We loved it so much that the next summer we went again, this time for the season, and found ourselves members of a happy pension family. Then we decided to rent an apartment of our own, for the next year, and soon we were considering the leases of houses, and finally we arrived at the supreme audacity of negotiating for the purchase of one. We had a great friend in Versailles, Victorien Sardou, the novelist and playwright so honored by the people of France. His wonderful house at Marly le Roi was a constant joy to us, and made us always more eager for a permanent home of our own in the neighborhood. Sardou was as eager for the finding of our house as we were, and it was he who finally made it possible for us to buy our historic villa. He did everything for us, introduced us to his friends, wonderful and brilliant people, gave us liberally of his charm and knowledge, and finally gave us the chance to buy this old house and its two acres of gardens. The negotiations for the house were long and tedious. Our offer was an insult, a joke, a ridiculous affair to the man who had the selling of it! He laughed at us, and demanded twice the amount of our offer. We were firm, outwardly, and refused to meet him halfway, but secretly we spent hours and hours in the old house, sitting patiently on folding camp-stools, and planning the remaking of the house as happily as children playing make-believe. I remember vividly the three of us, Miss Marbury, Sardou, and I, standing in the garden on a very rainy day. Sardou was bounding up and down, saying: "Buy it, buy it! If you don't buy it before twelve o'clock to-morrow I will buy it myself!" We were standing there soaking wet, perfectly oblivious to the downpour, wondering if we dared do such an audacious thing as to purchase property so far from our American anchorage. [Illustration: A FINE OLD CONSOLE IN THE VILLA TRIANON] Well, we bought it, and at our own price, practically, and for eight years we have been restoring the house and gardens to their Seventeenth Century beauty. Sardou was our neighbor, and his wonderful château at Marly, overlooking the valley and terraces of St. Germain, was a never-failing surprise to us, so full was it of beauty and charm, so flavored with the personality of its owner. Sardou was of great help to us when we finally purchased our house. His fund of information never failed us, there seemed to be no question he could not answer. He was quite the most erudite man I have ever known. He had as much to say about the restoration of our house as we. He introduced us to Monsieur de Nolhac, the conservator of the Château de Versailles, who gave us the details of our villa as it had been a century and a half ago, and helped us remake the garden on the lines of the original one. He loaned us pictures and documents, and we felt we were living in a modern version of the Sleeping Beauty, with the sleeping villa for heroine. Our house had always been called "Villa Trianon," and so we kept the name, but it should not be confused with the Grand Trianon or the Petit Trianon. Of course everyone knows about the Park at Versailles, but everyone forgets, so I shall review the history of the Park briefly, that you may appreciate our thrills when we really owned a bit of it. Louis XIV selected Versailles as the site for the royal palace when it was a swampy, uninteresting little farm. Louis XIII had built a château there in 1627, but had done little to beautify the flat acres surrounding it. Louis the Magnificent lavished fortunes on the laying out of his new park. The Grand Trianon was built for Madame de Main tenon in 1685, and from this time on, for a full century, the Park of Versailles was the most famous royal residence in the world. The Petit Trianon was built by Louis XV for Madame du Barry. Later, during the reign of Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, who was then Queen, tiring of court etiquette and scorning the stately rooms of Versailles, persuaded her husband to make over to her the Petit Trianon. Here she built a number of little rustic cottages, where she and the ladies of her court, dressed in calicoes, played at being milkmaids. They had a little cottage called the "Laiterie," where the white cows with their gilded horns were brought in to be milked. Here, too, little plays were presented in a tiny theater where only the members of the court were admitted. The Queen and her brother, Comte de Provence, were always the chief actors. Our villa adjoins the Park proper. In our deeds to the two acres there is a clause which reserves a right-of-way for the King! The deed is worded like the old lease that dates back to 1750, and so one day we may have to give a King a right-of-way through our garden, if France becomes a monarchy again. Anyone who knows French people at all knows how dearly they cherish the dream of a monarchy. [Illustration: THE BROAD TERRACE CONNECTS HOUSE AND GARDEN] One of the small houses we found on our small estate had once been a part of the _hameau_ of Marie Antoinette. We have had this little house rebuilt and connected with the villa, and now use it as a guest house. It is very charming, with its walls covered with lattices and ivy. Villa Trianon, like most French houses, is built directly on the street, leaving all the space possible for the garden. The façade of the villa is very simple, it reminds you of the square houses of the American Colonial period, except that there is no "front porch," as is inevitable with us in America. The entrance gate and the stone wall that surround the place give an interest that our detached and hastily built American houses lack. The wall is really a continuation of the façade of the villa, and is surmounted by a black iron railing. Vines and flowers that have flourished and died and flourished again for over a century climb over the wall and through the graceful railing, and give our home an air of permanence that is very satisfying. After all, that is the secret of Europe's fascination for us Americans--the ever-present suggestion of permanence. We feel that houses and gardens were planned and built for centuries, not for the passing pleasure of one brief lifetime. We people them with ghosts that please us, and make histories for them that are always romantic and full of happiness. The survival of an old house and its garden through centuries of use and misuse is always an impressive and dramatic discovery to us: it gives us courage to add our little bit to the ultimate beauty and history, it gives us excuse to dream of the fortunate people who will follow us in other centuries, and who will, in turn, bless us for our part in the remaking of one old house and garden. There was much to do! We hardly knew where to begin, the house was in such wretched condition. The roof was falling in, and the debris of years was piled high inside, but the walls and the floors were still very beautiful and as sound as ever, structurally. We had the roof restored, the debris removed, and the underbrush weeded out of the garden, and then we were ready to begin the real business of restoration. The house is very simply planned. There is a broad hall that runs straight through it, with dining-room and servants' hall on the right, and four connecting salons on the left. These salons are charming rooms, with beautiful panelings and over-doors, and great arches framed in delicate carvings. First comes the writing-room, then the library, then the large and small salons. The rooms opening on the back of the house have long French windows that open directly upon the terrace, where we have most of our meals. The note of the interior of the house is blue, and there are masses of blue flowers in the garden. The interior woodwork is cream, pointed with blue, and there are blues innumerable in the rugs and curtains and _objets d'art_. There must be a hundred different shades of blue on this living-floor, I think. We have tried to restore the rooms to a Louis XV scheme of decoration. The tables and cabinets are of the fine polished woods of the period. Some of the chairs are roomy affairs of carved and painted wooden frames and brocade coverings, but others are modern easychairs covered in new linens of old designs, linens that were designed for just such interiors when Oberkampf first began his designing at Jouy. The mirrors and lighting-fixtures are, of course, designed to harmonize with the carvings of the woodwork. Monsieur de Nolhac and Sardou were most helpful to us when such architectural problems had to be solved. We have not used the extravagant lace curtains that seem to go with brocades and carvings, because we are modern enough not to believe in lace curtains. And we find that the thin white muslin ones give our brocades and tapestries a chance to assert their decorative importance. Somehow, lace curtains give a room such a dressed-up-for-company air that they quite spoil the effect of beautiful fabrics. We have a few fine old Savonnerie carpets that are very much at home in this house, and so many interesting Eighteenth Century prints we hardly know how to use them. Our bedrooms are very simple, with their white panelings and chintz hangings. We have furnished them with graceful and feminine things, delicately carved mirror frames and inlaid tables, painted beds, and chests of drawers of rosewood or satinwood. We feel that the ghosts of the fair ladies who live in the Park would adore the bedrooms and rejoice in the strange magic of electric lights. If the ghosts should be confronted with the electric lights their surprise would not be greater than was the consternation of our builders when we demanded five bathrooms. They were astounded, and assured us it was not necessary, it was not possible. Indeed, it seemed that it was hardly legal to give one small French house five American bathrooms. We fought the matter out, and got them, however. We determined to make the house seem a part of the garden, and so we built a broad terrace across the rear of the villa. You step directly from the long windows of the salon and dining-room upon the terrace, and before you is spread out our little garden, and back of that, through an opening in the trees, a view of the Château, our never-failing source of inspiration. The terrace is built of tiles on a cement foundation. Vines are trained over square column-like frames of wire, erected at regular intervals. Between the edge of the terrace and the smooth green lawn there is a mass of blue flowers. We have a number of willow chairs and old stone tables here, and you can appreciate the joy of having breakfast and tea on the terrace with the birds singing in the boughs of the trees. I have written at length in the other chapters of my ideas of house-furnishing, and in this one I want to give you my ideas of garden guilding. True, we had the old garden plan to work from, and trees two hundred years old, and old vine-covered walls. Who couldn't accomplish a perfect garden with such essentials, people said! Well, it wasn't so easy as it seems. You can select furnishings for a room with fair success, because you can see and feel textures, and colors, and the lines of the furniture and curtains. But gardens are different--you cannot make grass and flowers grow just so on short notice! You plant and dig and plant again, before things grow as you have visualized them. There was a double ring of trees in one corner of our domain, enclosing the _salle de verdure_, or outdoor drawing-room. In the center of this enchanted circle there was a statue by Clodion, a joyous nymph, holding a baby faun in her arms. There were several old stone benches under the trees that must have known the secrets of the famous ladies of the Eighteenth Century courts. The _salle de verdure_ looked just as it did when the little daughters of Louis XV came here to have their afternoon cakes and tea, so we did not try to change this bit of our garden. My idea of making over the place was to leave the part of the garden against the stone walls in the rear in its tangled, woodsy state, and to build against it a trellis that would be in line with the terrace. Between the trellis and the terrace there was to be a smooth expanse of greensward, bordered with flowers. It seemed very simple, but I hereby confess that I built and tore down the trellis three times before it pleased me! I had to make it worthy of the statue by Pradier that was given us by Sardou, and finally it was done to please me. Painted a soft green, with ivy growing over it, and a fountain flanked by white marbles outlined against it, this trellis represents (to me, at least) my best work. The _tapis vert_ occupies the greater part of the garden, and it is bordered by gravel walks bordered in turn with white flowerbeds. Between the walks and the walls there are the groups of trees, the statues with green spaces about them, the masses of evergreen trees, and finally the great trees that follow the lines of the wall. Indeed, the _tapis vert_ is like the arena of an ample theater, with the ascending flowers and shrubs and trees representing the ascending tiers of seats. One feels that all the trees and flowers look down upon the central stretch of greensward, and perhaps there is a fairy ring here where plays take place by night. Nothing is impossible in this garden. Certainly the fairies play in the enchanted ring of the trees of the _salle de verdure_. We are convinced of that. So formal is the _tapis vert_, with its blossoming borders of larkspur and daisies and its tall standard roses, you are surprised to find that that part of the garden outside this prim rectangle has mysteries. There are winding paths that terminate in marble seats. There is the _pavilion_, a little house built for outdoor musicales, with electric connections that make breakfast and tea possible here. There is the guest house, and the motor house--quite as interesting as any other part of the garden. And everywhere there are blue and white and rose-colored flowers, planted in great masses against the black-green evergreens. We leave America early in June, tired out with the breathless business of living, and find ourselves in our old-world house and garden. We fall asleep to the accompaniment of the tiny piping of the little people in bur garden. We awake to the matins of the birds. We breakfast on the stone terrace, with boughs of trees and clouds for our roof, and as we look out over the masses of blue flowers and the smooth green _tapis vert_, over the arched trelliage with its fountains and its marbles, the great trees back of our domain frame the supremely beautiful towers of the Château le Magnificent, and we are far happier than anyone deserves to be in this wicked world! XX NOTES ON MANY THINGS A LITTLE TALK ON CLOCKS. The selection of proper clocks for one's house is always long-drawn-out, a pursuit of real pleasure. Clocks are such necessary things the thoughtless woman is apt to compromise, when she doesn't find exactly the right one. How much wiser and happier she would be if she decided to depend upon an ordinary alarm clock until the proper clock was discovered! If she made a hobby of her quest for clocks she would find much amusement, many other valuable objects by-the-way, and finally exactly the right clocks for her rooms. Everyone knows the merits and demerits of the hundreds of clocks of commerce, and it isn't for me to go into the subject of grandfather-clocks, bracket clocks, and banjo clocks, when there are so many excellent books on the subject. I plead for the graceful clocks of old France, the _objets d'art_ so lovingly designed by the master sculptors of the Eighteenth Century. I plead particularly for the wall clocks that are so conspicuous in all good French houses, and so unusual in our own country. [Illustration: A PROPER WRITING-TABLE IN THE DRAWING-ROOM.] Just as surely as our fine old English and American clocks have their proper niches, so the French clocks belong inevitably in certain rooms. You may never find just the proper clock for this room, but that is your fault. There are hundreds of lovely old models available. Why shouldn't some manufacturer have them reproduced? I feel that if women generally knew how very decorative and distinguished a good wall clock may be, the demand would soon create a supply of these beautiful objects. It would be quite simple for the manufacturers to make them from the old models. The late Mr. Pierpont Morgan gave to the Metropolitan Museum the magnificent Hoentschel collection of _objets d'art_, hoping to stimulate the interest of American designers and artisans in the fine models of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. There are some very fine examples of wall clocks in this collection which might be copied in carved wood by the students of manual training schools, if the manufacturers refuse to be interested. Wall clocks first came into France in the early part of the Seventeenth Century, and are a part of the furnishing of all the fine old French houses. A number of the most interesting clocks I have picked up were the wooden models which served for the fine bronze clocks of the Eighteenth Century. The master designer first worked out his idea in wood before making the clock in bronze, and the wooden models were sold for a song. I have one of these clocks in my dining-room. It is as much a part of the wall decoration as the lights or the mirrors. The wall clocks I like best are fixed directly on the wall, the dial glass opening so that the clock may be wound with a key. You will notice such a clock in the photograph of one of my dining-rooms. This fine old clock is given the place of honor in the main panel of the wall, above the console table. I often use such a clock in a dining-room, just as I use the fine old French mantel clocks in my drawing-rooms. You will observe a very quaint example of the Empire period in the illustration of my drawing-room mantel. This clock is happily placed, for the marble of the mantel, the lighting-fixtures near by and the fine little bronze busts are all in key with the exquisite workmanship of the clock. In another room in my house, a bedroom, there is a beautiful little French clock that is the only object allowed on the mantel shelf. The beautiful carving of the mirror frame back of it seems a part of the clock, a deliberate background for it. This is one of the many wall clocks which were known as bracket clocks, the bracket being as carefully designed and carved as the clock itself. Most of the clocks we see nowadays grew out of the old bracket models. The American clockmakers of the Eighteenth Century made many of those jolly little wall clocks called Wag-on-the-Wall. These clocks may be still picked up in out-of-the-way towns. In construction they are very much like the old cuckoo clock which has come to us from Switzerland, and the tile clock which comes from Holland. These clocks with long, exposed weights and pendulum, have not the dignity of the French wall clocks, which were as complete in themselves as fine _bas reliefs_, and of even greater decorative importance. Every room in my house has its clock, and to me these magic little instruments have an almost human interest. They seem always friendly to me, whether they mark off the hours that weigh so heavily and seem never-ending, or the happy hours that go all too quickly. I love clocks so much myself that it always astonishes me to go into a room where there is none, or, if there is, it is one of those abortive, exaggerated, gilded clocks that are falsely labeled "French" and sold at a great price in the shops. Somehow, one never expects a clock of this kind to keep time--it is bought as an ornament and if it runs at all it wheezes, or gasps, or makes a dreadful noise, and invariably stops at half-past three. I am such a crank about good clocks that I take my own with me, even on a railway train. I think I have the smallest clock in the world which strikes the hours. There are many tiny clocks made which strike if one touches a spring, but my clock always strikes of itself. Cartier, who designed and made this extraordinary timepiece, assures me that he has never seen so small a clock which strikes. It is very pleasant to have this little clock with its friendly chime with me when I am in some desolate hotel or some strange house. There are traveling clocks in small leather cases which can be bought very cheaply indeed now, and one of these clocks should be a part of everyone's traveling equipment. The humble nickeled watch with a leather case is infinitely better than the pretentious clocks, monstrosities of marble and brass and bad taste. A CORNER FOR WRITING. One of my greatest pleasures, when I am planning the furnishing of a house, is the selection and equipment of the necessary writing-tables. Every room in every house has its own suggestion for an original treatment, and I enjoy working out a plan for a writing-corner that will offer maximum of convenience, and beauty and charm, for in these busy days we need all these qualities for the inspiration of a pleasant note. You see, I believe in proper writing-tables, just as I believe in proper chairs. I have so many desks in my own house that are in constant use, perhaps I can give you my theory best by recording my actual practice of it. I have spoken of the necessity of a desk in the hallway, and indeed, I have said much of desks in other rooms, but I have still to emphasize my belief in the importance of the equipment of desks. Of course, one needs a desk in one's own room. Here there is infinite latitude, for there are dozens of delightful possibilities. I always place my desks near the windows. If the wall space is filled, I place an oblong table at right angles to a window, and there you are. In my own private sitting-room I have a long desk so placed, in my own house. In a guest-room I furnished recently, I used a common oblong table of no value, painting the legs a soft green and covering it with a piece of sage-green damask. This is one of the nicest writing-tables I know, and it could be copied for a song. The equipment of it is what counts. I used two lamps, dull green jars with mauve silk shades, a dark green leather rack for paper and envelopes, and a great blotter pad that will save the damask from ink-spots. The small things are of green pottery and crystal. In a young girl's bedroom I used a sweet little desk of painted wood, a desk that has the naïve charm of innocence. I do hope it inspires the proper love-letters. I always make provision for writing in dressing-rooms--a sliding shelf in the dressing-table, and a shallow drawer for pencils and paper--and I have adequate writing facilities in the servants' quarters, so that there may be no excuse for forgetting orders or messages. This seems to me absolutely necessary in our modern domestic routine: it is part of the business principle we borrow from the efficient office routine of our men folk. The dining-room and the bathrooms are the only places where the writing-table, in one form or another, isn't required. I like the long flat tables or small desks much better than the huge roll-top affairs or the heavy desks built after the fashion of the old _armoire_. If the room is large enough, a secretary after an Eighteenth Century model will be a beautiful and distinguished piece of furniture. I have such a secretary in my own sitting-room, a chest of drawers surmounted by a cabinet of shelves with glass doors, but I do not use it as a desk. I use the shelves for my old china and porcelains, and the drawers for pamphlets and the thousand and one things that are too flimsily bound for bookshelves. Of course, if one has a large correspondence and uses one's home as an office, it is better to have a large desk with a top which closes. I prefer tables, and I have them made big enough to hold all my papers, big enough to spread out on. There are dozens of enchanting small desks that are exactly right for guest-rooms, the extremely feminine desks that come from old France. One of the most fascinating ones is copied from a _bureau de toilette_ that belonged to Marie Antoinette. In those days the writing of letters and the making of a toilet went together. This old desk has a drawer filled with compartments for toilet things, powders and perfumes and patches, and above this vanity-drawer there is the usual shelf for writing, and compartments for paper and letters. The desk itself suggests brocade flounces and powdered hair, so exquisitely is it constructed of tulipwood and inlaid with other woods of many colors. Then there are the small desks made by modern furniture-makers, just large enough to hold a blotting-pad, a paper rack, and a pair of candlesticks. There is always a shallow drawer for writing materials. Such a desk may be decorated to match the chintzes of any small bedroom. If it isn't possible for you to have a desk in each guest-room, there should be a little writing-room somewhere apart from the family living-room. If you live in one of those old-fashioned houses intersected by great halls with much wasted space on the upper floors, you may make a little writing-room of one of the hall-ends, and screen it from the rest of the hall with a high standing screen. If you have a house of the other extreme type, a city house with little hall bedrooms, use one of these little rooms for a writing-room. You will require a desk well stocked with stationery, and all the things the writer will need; a shelf of address books and reference books--with a dictionary, of course; many pens and pencils and fresh blotters, and so forth. Of course, you may have ever so many more things, but it isn't necessary. Better a quiet corner with one chair and a desk, than the elaborate library with its superb fittings where people come and go. Given the proper desk, the furnishing of it is most important. The blotting-pad should be heavy enough to keep its place, and the blotting-paper should be constantly renewed. I know of nothing more offensive than dusty, ink-splotched blotting-paper. There are very good sets to be had, now, made of brass, bronze, carved wood, porcelain, silver or crystal, and there are leather boxes for holding stationery and leather portfolios to be had in all colors. I always add to these furnishings a good pair of scissors, stationery marked with the house address or the monogram of the person to whom the desk especially belongs, an almanac, and a _pincushion!_ My pincushions are as much a part of the equipment of a desk as the writing things, and they aren't frilly, ugly things. They are covered with brocade or damask or some stuff used elsewhere in the room and I assure you they are most useful. I find that pins are almost as necessary as pens in my correspondence; they are much more expedient than pigeon-holes. In country houses I think it shows forethought and adds greatly to the comfort of the guests to have a small framed card showing the arrival and departure of trains and of mails, especially if the house is a great distance from the railway-station. This saves much inquiry and time. In the paper rack there should be not only stamped paper bearing the address of the house, telephone number, and so forth, but also telegraph blanks, post cards, stamps, and so forth. Very often people who have beautiful places have post cards made showing various views of the house and garden. Test the efficiency of your writing-tables occasionally by using them yourself. This is the only way to be sure of the success of anything in your house--try it yourself. STOOLS AND BENCHES. I often wonder, when I grope my way through drawing-rooms crowded and jammed with chairs and sofas, why more women do not realize the advantages of stools and benches. A well-made stool is doubly useful: it may be used to sit upon or it may be used to hold a tray, or whatever you please. It is really preferable to a small table because it is not always full of a nondescript collection of ornaments, which seems to be the fate of all small tables. It has also the advantage of being low enough to push under a large table, when need be, and it occupies much less space than a chair apparently (not actually) because it has no back. I have stools, or benches, or both in all my rooms, because I find them convenient and easily moved about, but I have noticed an amusing thing: Whenever a fat man comes to see me, he always sits on the smallest stool in the room. I have many fat friends, and many stools, but invariably the fattest man gravitates to the smallest stool. The stools I like best for the drawing-room are the fine old ones, covered with needlework or brocade, but there are many simpler ones of plain wood with cane insets that are very good for other rooms. Then there are the long _banquettes_, or benches, which are so nice in drawing-rooms and hallways and nicest of all in a ballroom. Indeed, a ballroom needs no other movable furniture; given plenty of these long benches. They may be of the very simplest description, but when used in a fine room should be covered with a good damask or velvet or some rich fabric. I have a fine Eighteenth Century _banquette_ in my drawing-room, the frame being carved and gilded and the seat covered with Venetian red velvet. You will find these gilded stools all over England. There are a number at Hampton Court Palace. At Hardwick there are both long and short stools, carved with the dolphin's scroll and covered with elaborate stuffs. The older the English house, the more stools are in evidence. In the early Sixteenth Century joint stools were used in every room. In the bedrooms they served the purposes of small tables and chairs as well. There are ever so many fine old walnut stools and the lower stools used for bed-steps to be bought in London shops that make a specialty of old English furniture, and reproductions of them may be bought in the better American shops. I often wonder why we do not see more bedside stools. They are so convenient, even though the bed be only moderately high from the floor. Many of mine are only six inches high, about the height of a fat floor cushion. [Illustration: A CREAM-COLORED PORCELAIN STOVE IN A NEW YORK HOUSE] Which reminds me: the floor cushion, made of the same velvet made for carpeting, is a modern luxury we can't afford to ignore. Lately I have seen such beautiful ones, about three feet long and one foot wide, covered with tapestry, with great gold tassels at the corners. The possibilities of the floor cushion idea are limitless. They take the place of the usual footstool in front of the boudoir easy chair, or beside the day bed or _chaise-longue_, or beside the large bed, for that matter. They are no longer unsanitary, because with vacuum cleaners they may be kept as clean as chair cushions. They may be made to fit into almost any room. I saw a half dozen of them in a dining-room, recently, small square hard ones, covered with the gold colored velvet of the carpet. They were not more than four or five inches thick, but that is the ideal height for an under-the-table cushion. Try it. PORCELAIN STOVES. When the Colony Club was at last finished we discovered that the furnace heat did not go up to the roof-garden, and immediately we had to find some way of heating this very attractive and very necessary space. Even from the beginning we were sadly crowded for room, so popular was the club-house, and the roof-garden was much needed for the overflow. We conferred with architects, builders and plumbers, and found it would be necessary to spend about seven thousand dollars and to close the club for about two months in order to carry the heating arrangements up to the roof. This was disastrous for a new club, already heavily in arrears and running under heavy expenses. I worried and worried over the situation, and suddenly one night an idea came to me: I remembered some great porcelain stoves I had seen in Germany. I felt that these stoves were exactly what we needed, and that we should be rescued from an embarrassing situation without much trouble or expense. I was just leaving for Europe, so I hurried on to the manufacturers of these wonderful stoves and found, after much difficulty, a model that seemed practicable, and not too huge in proportion. The model, unfortunately, was white with gilded garlands, far too French and magnificent for our sun-room. I persuaded them to make two of the stoves for me in green Majolica, with garlands of soft-toned flowers, and finally we achieved just the stoves for the room. But my troubles were not over: When the stoves reached New York, we tried to take them up to the roof, and found them too large for the stairs. We couldn't have them lifted up by pulleys, because the glass walls of the roof garden and the fretwork at the top of the roof made it impossible for the men to get "purchase" for their pulleys. Finally we persuaded a gentleman who lived next door to let us take them over the roof of his house, and the deed was accomplished. The stoves were equal to the occasion. They heated the roof garden perfectly, and were of great decorative value. Encouraged by this success I purchased another porcelain stove, this time a cream-colored porcelain one, and used it in a hallway in an uptown house. It was the one thing needed to give the hall great distinction. Since then I have used a number of these stoves, and I wonder why our American manufacturers do not make them. They are admirable for heating difficult rooms--outdoor porches, and draughty halls, and rooms not heated by furnaces. The stoves are becoming harder and harder to find, though I was fortunate enough to purchase one last year from the Marchioness of Anglesey, who was giving up her home at Versailles. This stove was of white Majolica with little Loves in terra cotta adorning it. The new ones are less attractive, but it would be perfectly simple to have any tile manufacturer copy an old one, given the design. THE CHARM OF INDOOR FOUNTAINS. Wall fountains as we know them are introduced into our modern houses for their decorative interest and for the joy they give us, the joyous sound and color of falling water. We use them because they are beautiful and cheerful, but originally they had a most definite purpose. They were built into the walls of the dining-halls in medieval times, and used for washing the precious plate. If you look into the history of any _objet d'art_ you will find that it was first used for a purpose. All the superb masterly things that have come to us had logical beginnings. It has remained for the thoughtless designer of our times to produce things of no use and no meaning. The old designers decorated the small objects of daily use as faithfully as they decorated the greater things, the wall spaces and ceilings and great pieces of furniture, and so this little wall basin which began in such a homely way soon became a beautiful thing. Europe has countless small fountains built for interior walls and for small alcoves and indoor conservatories, but we are just beginning to use them in America. American sculptors are doing such notable work, however, that we shall soon plan our indoor fountains as carefully as we plan our fireplaces. The fact that our houses are heated mechanically has not lessened our appreciation of an open fire, and running water brought indoors has the same animate charm. [Illustration: FOUNTAIN IN THE TRELLIS ROOM OF MRS. ORMOND G. SMITH] [Illustration: MR. JAMES DEERING'S WALL FOUNTAIN] I am showing a picture of the wall fountain in the entrance hall of my own New York house in East Fifty-fifth Street. I have had this wall fountain built as part of the architectural detail of the room, with a background of paneled mirrors. It spills over into a marble curbed pool where fat orange-colored goldfish live. I keep the fountain banked with flowers. You can imagine the pleasure of leaving the dusty city streets and entering this cool, pleasant entrance hall. Our modern use of indoor fountains is perfectly legitimate: we use them to bring the atmosphere of outdoors in. In country houses we use fountains in our gardens, but in the city we have no gardens, and so we are very wise to bring in the outdoor things that make our lives a little more gay and informal. The more suggestive of out-of-doors the happier is the effect of the sun room. Occasionally one sees a rare house where a glass enclosed garden opens from one of the living-rooms. There is a house in Nineteenth Street that has such an enclosed garden, built around a wall fountain. The garden opens out of the great two-storied music-room. Lofty windows flank a great door, and fill the end of the room with a luminous composition of leaded glass. Through the door you enter the garden, with its tiled floor, its glass ceiling, and its low brick retaining walls. The wall fountain is placed exactly in front of the great door, and beneath it there is a little semi-circular pool bordered with plants and glittering with goldfish. Evergreens are banked against the brick walls, and flat reliefs are hung just under the glass ceiling. The garden is quite small, but takes its place as an important part of the room. It rivals in interest the massive Gothic fireplace, with its huge logs and feudal fire irons. The better silversmiths are doing much to encourage the development of indoor fountains. They display the delightful fountains of our young American sculptors, fountains that would make any garden room notable. There are so many of these small bronze fountains, with Pan piping his irresistible tune of outdoors; children playing with frogs or geese or lizards or turtles; gay little figures prancing in enchanted rings of friendly beasties. Why don't we make use of them? 
22427	----	ONE THOUSAND AND ONE Initial Letters Designed and Illuminated by OWEN JONES DAY & SON LITHOGRAPHERS TO THE QUEEN LONDON, 1864. [Illustration: A a] [Illustration: B b] [Illustration: C c] [Illustration: D d] [Illustration: E e] [Illustration: F f] [Illustration: G g] [Illustration: H h] [Illustration: I i] [Illustration: J j] [Illustration: K k] [Illustration: L l] [Illustration: M m] [Illustration: N n] [Illustration: O o] [Illustration: P p] [Illustration: Q q] [Illustration: R r] [Illustration: S s] [Illustration: T t] [Illustration: U u] [Illustration: V v] [Illustration: W w] [Illustration: X x] [Illustration: Y y] [Illustration: Z z] [Illustration: Numbers] 
23450	----	THE BOOK OF ORNAMENTAL ALPHABETS, Ancient and Mediæval, FROM THE EIGHTH CENTURY. WITH NUMERALS, INCLUDING Gothic; Church Text, Large and Small; German Arabesque; Initials for Illumination, MONOGRAMS, CROSSES, &c., FOR THE USE OF ARCHITECTURAL AND ENGINEERING DRAUGHTSMEN, MASONS, DECORATIVE PAINTERS, LITHOGRAPHERS, ENGRAVERS, CARVERS, &c. COLLECTED AND ENGRAVED BY F. DELAMOTTE. SIXTEENTH EDITION [Illustration: Capio Lumen] LONDON: CROSBY LOCKWOOD AND SON, 7, STATIONERS' HALL COURT. 1914. PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION. As there are no works of Ancient Alphabets of any excellence published in a cheap form, I have been induced, after many years' study and research in my profession as a Draughtsman and Engraver, to offer this collection to the favourable notice of the public, trusting that its very moderate price and general usefulness will be a sufficient apology for the undertaking. The demand for a Fourth Edition within so short a period of the publication of the Third, has convinced me in the most agreeable manner that it has been a work required by the public. To render it still more worthy of their attention, I have here introduced some additions, likely to enhance the interest and increase the value of the pages, as an indication of the esteem in which I have held the encouragement, and the respect I have paid to the suggestions of the purchasers of this book, and the critics by whom it has been so liberally reviewed. INDEX. PAGE 8TH CENTURY. VATICAN 1 8TH CENTURY. BRITISH MUSEUM 2 8TH AND 9TH CENTURIES. ANGLO-SAXON 3 9TH CENTURY. FROM AN ANGLO-SAXON MS. BATTEL ABBEY 4 FROM MS. LIBRARY OF MINERVA, ROME 5 10TH CENTURY. BRITISH MUSEUM 6 11TH CENTURY AND NUMERALS 7 12TH CENTURY. FROM THE MAZARIN BIBLE 8 12TH CENTURY. TWO SMALL. BRITISH MUSEUM 9 12TH CENTURY. BRITISH MUSEUM 10 12TH CENTURY. BODLEIAN LIBRARY 11 13TH CENTURY. HENRY III. WESTMINSTER ABBEY 12 13TH CENTURY. FROM LATIN MS 13 13TH CENTURY. MS 14 14TH CENTURY. DATE ABOUT 1340 15 14TH CENTURY. BRITISH MUSEUM 16 14TH CENTURY. ILLUMINATED MS 17 14TH CENTURY. RICHARD II. 1400. WESTMINSTER ABBEY 18 14TH CENTURY. RICHARD II. 1400. SMALL. WESTMINSTER ABBEY 19 14TH CENTURY. BRITISH MUSEUM 20 14TH CENTURY. FROM MS. MUNICH 21 14TH AND 15TH CENTURIES. TWO SMALL. BRITISH MUSEUM 22 1475. BRITISH MUSEUM 23 1480. BRITISH MUSEUM 24 1490. BRITISH MUSEUM 25 HENRY VII. WESTMINSTER ABBEY 26 15TH AND 16TH CENTURIES. GERMAN 27 15TH AND 16TH CENTURIES. GERMAN. SMALL 28 15TH AND 16TH CENTURIES. ORNAMENTAL RIBBON 29 16TH CENTURY. HENRY VIII. MS 30 16TH CENTURY. FROM ITALIAN MS 31 16TH CENTURY. FROM ALBERT DURER'S PRAYER BOOK. LARGE 32 16TH CENTURY. ALBERT DURER'S PRAYER BOOK 33 16TH CENTURY. VATICAN 34 16TH CENTURY. GOTHIC. MS 35 16TH CENTURY. GOTHIC 36 16TH CENTURY. GOTHIC. MS 37 16TH CENTURY. LARGE, SMALL, AND NUMERALS. FRENCH. MS 38 17TH CENTURY. MS 39 17TH CENTURY. CHURCH TEXT. MS 40 GERMAN ARABESQUE 41 GERMAN ARABESQUE. SMALL 42 METAL ORNAMENTAL 43 INITIALS 44 INITIALS 45 15TH CENTURY 46 INITIALS 47 NUMERALS 48 NUMERALS 49 16TH CENTURY 50 16TH CENTURY 51 16TH CENTURY. FROM WOOD ENGRAVINGS 52 MONOGRAMS, CROSSES, &C. 53 [Illustration: 8th Century. Vatican.] [Illustration: 8th Century. British Museum.] [Illustration: 8th and 9th Centuries. Anglo-Saxon.] [Illustration: 9th Century. From an Anglo-Saxon MS. Battel Abbey.] [Illustration: From MS. Library of Minerva, Rome.] [Illustration: 10th Century. British Museum.] [Illustration: 11th Century, and Numerals.] [Illustration: 12th Century. From the Mazarin Bible.] [Illustration: 12th Century. British Museum.] [Illustration: 12th Century. British Museum.] [Illustration: 12th Century. Bodleian Library.] [Illustration: 13th Century. Henry the Third. Westminster Abbey.] [Illustration: 13th Century. From Latin MS.] [Illustration: 13th Century. MS.] [Illustration: 14th Century. Date about 1340.] [Illustration: 14th Century. British Museum.] [Illustration: 14th Century. Illuminated MS.] [Illustration: 14th Century. Richard the Second. 1400. Westminster Abbey.] [Illustration: 14th Century. Richard the Second. 1400. Small. Westminster Abbey.] [Illustration: 14th Century. British Museum.] [Illustration: 14th Century. From MS. Munich.] [Illustration: 14th and 15th Centuries. Two Small. British Museum.] [Illustration: 1475. British Museum.] [Illustration: 1480. British Museum.] [Illustration: 1490. British Museum.] [Illustration: Henry the Seventh. Westminster Abbey.] [Illustration: 15th and 16th Centuries. German.] [Illustration: 15th and 16th Centuries. German. Small.] [Illustration: 15th and 16th Centuries. Ornamental Riband.] [Illustration: 16th Century. Henry the Eighth. MS.] [Illustration: 16th Century. From Italian MS.] [Illustration: 16th Century. Albert Durer's Prayer Book. Large.] [Illustration: 16th Century. Albert Durer's Prayer Book.] [Illustration: 16th Century. Vatican.] [Illustration: 16th Century. Gothic. MS.] [Illustration: 16th Century. Gothic.] [Illustration: 16th Century. Gothic. MS.] [Illustration: 16th Century. Large, Small, and Numerals. French. MS.] [Illustration: 17th Century. MS.] [Illustration: 17th Century. Church Text. MS.] [Illustration: German Arabesque.] [Illustration: German Arabesque. Small.] [Illustration: Metal Ornamental.] [Illustration: Initials.] [Illustration: Initials.] [Illustration: 15th Century.] [Illustration: Initials.] [Illustration: Numerals.] [Illustration: Numerals.] [Illustration: 16th Century.] [Illustration: 16th Century.] [Illustration: 16th Century. From Wood Engravings.] [Illustration: Monograms, Crosses, &c.] 
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18212	----	Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 18212-h.htm or 18212-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/8/2/1/18212/18212-h/18212-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/8/2/1/18212/18212-h.zip) ARTS AND CRAFTS IN THE MIDDLE AGES A Description of Mediaeval Workmanship in Several of the Departments of Applied Art, Together with Some Account of Special Artisans in the Early Renaissance by JULIA DE WOLF ADDISON Author of "The Art of the Pitti Palace," "The Art of the National Gallery," "Classic Myths in Art," etc. [Illustration: EXAMPLES OF ECCLESIASTICAL METAL WORK] INTRODUCTION The very general and keen interest in the revival of arts and crafts in America is a sign full of promise and pleasure to those who are working among the so-called minor arts. One reads at every turn how greatly Ruskin and Morris have influenced handicraft: how much these men and their co-workers have modified the appearance of our streets and houses, our materials, textiles, utensils, and all other useful things in which it is possible to shock or to please the æsthetic taste, without otherwise affecting the value of these articles for their destined purposes. In this connection it is interesting to look into the past, particularly to those centuries known as the Middle Ages, in which the handicrafts flourished in special perfection, and to see for ourselves how these crafts were pursued, and exactly what these arts really were. Many people talk learnedly of the delightful revival of the arts and crafts without having a very definite idea of the original processes which are being restored to popular favour. William Morris himself, although a great modern spirit, and reformer, felt the necessity of a basis of historic knowledge in all workers. "I do not think," he says, "that any man but one of the highest genius could do anything in these days without much study of ancient art, and even he would be much hindered if he lacked it." It is but turning to the original sources, then, to examine the progress of mediæval artistic crafts, and those sources are usually to be found preserved for our edification in enormous volumes of plates, inaccessible to most readers, and seldom with the kind of information which the average person would enjoy. There are very few books dealing with the arts and crafts of the olden time, which are adapted to inform those who have no intention of practising such arts, and yet who wish to understand and appreciate the examples which they see in numerous museums or exhibitions, and in travelling abroad. There are many of the arts and crafts which come under the daily observation of the tourist, which make no impression upon him and have no message for him, simply because he has never considered the subject of their origin and construction. After one has once studied the subject of historic carving, metal work, embroidery, tapestry, or illumination, one can never fail to look upon these things with intelligent interest and vastly increased pleasure. Until the middle of the nineteenth century art had been regarded as a luxury for the rich dilettante,--the people heard little of it, and thought less. The utensils and furniture of the middle class were fashioned only with a view to utility; there was a popular belief that beautiful things were expensive, and the thrifty housekeeper who had no money to put into bric-à-brac never thought of such things as an artistic lamp shade or a well-coloured sofa cushion. Decorative art is well defined by Mr. Russell Sturgis: "Fine art applied to the making beautiful or interesting that which is made for utilitarian purposes." Many people have an impression that the more ornate an article is, the more work has been lavished upon it. There never was a more erroneous idea. The diligent polish in order to secure nice plain surfaces, or the neat fitting of parts together, is infinitely more difficult than adding a florid casting to conceal clumsy workmanship. Of course certain forms of elaboration involve great pains and labour; but the mere fact that a piece of work is decorated does not show that it has cost any more in time and execution than if it were plain,--frequently many hours have been saved by the device of covering up defects with cheap ornament. How often one finds that a simple chair with a plain back costs more than one which is apparently elaborately carved! The reason is, that the plain one had to be made out of a decent piece of wood, while the ornate one was turned out of a poor piece, and then stamped with a pattern in order to attract the attention from the inferior material of which it was composed. The softer and poorer the wood, the deeper it was possible to stamp it at a single blow. The same principle applies to much work in metal. Flimsy bits of silverware stamped with cheap designs of flowers or fruits are attached to surfaces badly finished, while the work involved in making such a piece of plate with a plain surface would increase its cost three or four times. A craft may easily be practised without art, and still serve its purpose; the alliance of the two is a means of giving pleasure as well as serving utility. But it is a mistake to suppose that because a design is artistic, its technical rendering is any the less important. Frequently curious articles are palmed off on us, and designated as "Arts and Crafts" ornaments, in which neither art nor craft plays its full share. Art does not consist only in original, unusual, or unfamiliar designs; craft does not mean hammering silver so that the hammer marks shall show; the best art is that which produces designs of grace and appropriateness, whether they are strikingly new or not, and the best craftsman is so skilful that he is able to go beyond the hammer marks, so to speak, and to produce with the hammer a surface as smooth as, and far more perfect than, that produced by an emery and burnisher. Some people think that "Arts and Crafts" means a combination which allows of poor work being concealed under a mask of æsthetic effect. Labour should not go forth blindly without art, and art should not proceed simply for the attainment of beauty without utility,--in other words, there should be an alliance between labour and art. One principle for which craftsmen should stand is a respect for their own tools: a frank recognition of the methods and implements employed in constructing any article. If the article in question is a chair, and is really put together by means of sockets and pegs, let these constructive necessities appear, and do not try to disguise the means by which the result is to be attained. Make the requisite feature a beauty instead of a disgrace. It is amusing to see a New England farmer build a fence. He begins with good cedar posts,--fine, thick, solid logs, which are at least genuine, and handsome so far as a cedar post is capable of being handsome. You think, "Ah, that will be a good unobjectionable fence." But, behold, as soon as the posts are in position, he carefully lays a flat plank vertically in front of each, so that the passer-by may fancy that he has performed the feat of making a fence of flat laths, thus going out of his way to conceal the one positive and good-looking feature in his fence. He seems to have some furtive dread of admitting that he has used the real article! A bolt is to be affixed to a modern door. Instead of being applied with a plate of iron or brass, in itself a decorative feature on a blank space like that of the surface of a door, the carpenter cuts a piece of wood out of the edge of the door, sinks the bolt out of sight, so that nothing shall appear to view but a tiny meaningless brass handle, and considers that he has performed a very neat job. Compare this method with that of a mediæval locksmith, and the result with his great iron bolt, and if you can not appreciate the difference, both in principle and result, I should recommend a course of historic art study until you are convinced. On the other hand, it is not necessary to carry your artistry so far that you build a fence of nothing but cedar logs touching one another, or that you cover your entire door with a meander of wrought iron which culminates in a small bolt. Enthusiastic followers of the Arts and Crafts movement often go to morbid extremes. _Recognition_ of material and method does not connote a _display_ of method and material out of proportion to the demands of the article to be constructed. As in other forms of culture, balance and sanity are necessary, in order to produce a satisfactory result. But when a craftsman is possessed of an æsthetic instinct and faculty, he merits the congratulations offered to the students of Birmingham by William Morris, when he told them that they were among the happiest people in all civilization--"persons whose necessary daily work is inseparable from their greatest pleasure." A mediæval artist was usually a craftsman as well. He was not content with furnishing designs alone, and then handing them over to men whose hands were trained to their execution, but he took his own designs and carried them out. Thus, the designer adapted his drawing to the demands of his material and the craftsman was necessarily in sympathy with the design since it was his own. The result was a harmony of intention and execution which is often lacking when two men of differing tastes produce one object. Lübke sums up the talents of a mediæval artist as follows: "A painter could produce panels with coats of arms for the military men of noble birth, and devotional panels with an image of a saint or a conventionalized scene from Scripture for that noble's wife. With the same brush and on a larger panel he could produce a larger sacred picture for the convent round the corner, and with finer pencil and more delicate touch he could paint the vellum leaves of a missal;" and so on. If an artistic earthenware platter was to be made, the painter turned to his potter's wheel and to his kiln. If a filigree coronet was wanted, he took up his tools for metal and jewelry work. Redgrave lays down an excellent maxim for general guidance to designers in arts other than legitimate picture making. He says: "The picture must be independent of the material, the thought alone should govern it; whereas in decoration the material must be one of the suggestors of the thought, its use must govern the design." This shows the difference between decoration and pictorial art. One hears a great deal of the "conventional" in modern art talk. Just what this means, few people who have the word in their vocabularies really know. As Professor Moore defined it once, it does not apply to an arbitrary theoretical system at all, but is instinctive. It means obedience to the limits under which the artist works. The really greatest art craftsmen of all have been those who have recognized the limitations of the material which they employed. Some of the cleverest have been beguiled by the fascination of overcoming obstacles, into trying to make iron do the things appropriate only to wood, or to force cast bronze into the similitude of a picture, or to discount all the credit due to a fine piece of embroidery by trying to make it appear like a painting. But these are the exotics; they are the craftsmen who have been led astray by a false impulse, who respect difficulty more than appropriateness, war rather than peace! No elaborate and tortured piece of Cellini's work can compare with the dignified glory of the Pala d'Oro; Ghiberti's gates in Florence, though a marvellous _tour de force_, are not so satisfying as the great corona candelabrum of Hildesheim. As a rule, we shall find that mediæval craftsmen were better artists than those of the Renaissance, for with facility in the use of material, comes always the temptation to make it imitate some other material, thus losing its individuality by a contortion which may be curious and interesting, but out of place. We all enjoy seeing acrobats on the stage, but it would be painful to see them curling in and out of our drawing-room chairs. The true spirit which the Arts and Crafts is trying to inculcate was found in Florence when the great artists turned their attention to the manipulation of objects of daily use, Benvenuto Cellini being willing to make salt-cellars, and Sansovino to work on inkstands, and Donatello on picture frames, while Pollajuolo made candlesticks. The more our leading artists realize the need of their attention in the minor arts, the more nearly shall we attain to a genuine alliance between the arts and the crafts. To sum up the effect of this harmony between art and craft in the Middle Ages, the Abbé Texier has said: "In those days art and manufactures were blended and identified; art gained by this affinity great practical facility, and manufacture much original beauty." And then the value to the artist is almost incalculable. To spend one's life in getting means on which to live is a waste of all enjoyment. To use one's life as one goes along--to live every day with pleasure in congenial occupation--that is the only thing worth while. The life of a craftsman is a constant daily fulfilment of the final ideal of the man who spends all his time and strength in acquiring wealth so that some time (and he may never live to see the day) he may be able to control his time and to use it as pleases him. There is stored up capital represented in the life of a man whose work is a recreation, and expressive of his own personality. In a book of this size it is not possible to treat of every art or craft which engaged the skill of the mediæval workers. But at some future time I hope to make a separate study of the ceramics, glass in its various forms, the arts of engraving and printing, and some of the many others which have added so much to the pleasure and beauty of the civilized world. CONTENTS CHAPTER INTRODUCTION I. Gold and Silver II. Jewelry and Precious Stones III. Enamel IV. Other Metals V. Tapestry VI. Embroideries VII. Sculpture in Stone (France and Italy) VIII. Sculpture in Stone (England and Germany) IX. Carving in Wood and Ivory X. Inlay and Mosaic XI. Illumination of Books Bibliography Index LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Examples of Ecclesiastical Metal Work Crown of Charlemagne Bernward's Cross and Candlesticks, Hildesheim Bernward's Chalice, Hildesheim Corona at Hildesheim. (detail) Reliquary at Orvieto Apostle spoons Ivory Knife Handles, with Portraits of Queen Elizabeth and James I. Englis The "Milkmaid Cup" Saxon Brooch The Tara Brooch Shrine of the Bell of St. Patrick The Treasure of Guerrazzar Hebrew Ring Crystal Flagons, St. Mark's, Venice Sardonyx Cup, 11th Century, Venice German Enamel, 13th Century Enamelled Gold Book Cover, Siena Detail; Shrine of the Three Kings, Cologne Finiguerra's Pax, Florence Italian Enamelled Crozier, 14th Century Wrought Iron Hinge, Frankfort Biscornette's Doors at Paris Wrought Iron from the Bargello, Florence Moorish Keys, Seville Armour. Showing Mail Developing into Plate Damascened Helmet Moorish Sword Enamelled Suit of Armour Brunelleschi's Competitive Panel Ghiberti's Competitive Panel Font at Hildesheim, 12th Century Portrait Statuette of Peter Vischer A Copper "Curfew" Sanctuary Knocker, Durham Cathedral Anglo-Saxon Crucifix of Lead Detail, Bayeux Tapestry Flemish Tapestry, "The Prodigal Son" Tapestry, Representing Paris in the 15th Century Embroidery on Canvas, 16th Century, South Kensington Museum Detail of the Syon Cope Dalmatic of Charlemagne Embroidery, 15th Century, Cologne Carved Capital from Ravenna Pulpit of Nicola Pisano, Pisa Tomb of the Son of St. Louis, St. Denis Carvings around Choir Ambulatory, Chartres Grotesque from Oxford, Popularly Known as "The Backbiter" The "Beverly minstrels" St. Lorenz Church, Nuremberg, Showing Adam Kraft's Pyx, and the Hanging Medallion by Veit Stoss Relief by Adam Kraft Carved Box--wood Pyx, 14th Century Miserere Stall; An Artisan at Work Miserere Stall, Ely; Noah and the Dove Miserere Stall; the Fate of the Ale-wife Ivory Tabernacle, Ravenna The Nativity; Ivory Carving Pastoral Staff; Ivory, German, 12th Century Ivory Mirror Case; Early 14th Century Ivory Mirror Case, 1340 Chessman from Lewis Marble Inlay from Lucca Detail of Pavement, Baptistery, Florence Detail of Pavement, Siena; "Fortune," by Pinturicchio Ambo at Ravello; Specimen of Cosmati Mosaic Mosaic from Ravenna; Theodora and Her Suite, 16th Century Mosaic in Bas-relief, Naples A Scribe at Work; 12th Century Manuscript Detail from the Durham Book Ivy Pattern, from a 14th Century French Manuscript Mediæval Illumination Caricature of a Bishop Illumination by Gherart David of Bruges, 1498; St. Barbara Choral Book, Siena Detail from an Italian Choral Book ARTS AND CRAFTS IN THE MIDDLE AGES CHAPTER I GOLD AND SILVER The worker in metals is usually called a smith, whether he be coppersmith or goldsmith. The term is Saxon in origin, and is derived from the expression "he that smiteth." Metal was usually wrought by force of blows, except where the process of casting modified this. Beaten work was soldered from the earliest times. Egyptians evidently understood the use of solder, for the Hebrews obtained their knowledge of such things from them, and in Isaiah xli. 7, occurs the passage: "So the carpenter encouraged the goldsmith, and he that smootheth with the hammer him that smote the anvil, saying, 'It is ready for the soldering.'" In the Bible there are constant references to such arts in metal work as prevail in our own times: "Of beaten work made he the candlesticks," Exodus. In the ornaments of the tabernacle, the artificer Bezaleel "made two cherubims of gold beaten out of one piece made he them." An account of gold being gathered in spite of vicissitudes is given by Pliny: "Among the Dardoe the ants are as large as Egyptian wolves, and cat coloured. The Indians gather the gold dust thrown up by the ants, when they are sleeping in their holes in the Summer; but if these animals wake, they pursue the Indians, and, though mounted on the swiftest camels, overtake and tear them to pieces." Another legend relates to the blessed St. Patrick, through whose intercession special grace is supposed to have been granted to all smiths. St. Patrick was a slave in his youth. An old legend tells that one time a wild boar came rooting in the field, and brought up a lump of gold; and Patrick brought it to a tinker, and the tinker said, "It is nothing but solder. Give it here to me." But then he brought it to a smith, and the smith told him it was gold; and with that gold he bought his freedom. "And from that time," continues the story, "the smiths have been lucky, taking money every day, and never without work, but as for the tinkers, every man's face is against them!" In the Middle Ages the arts and crafts were generally protected by the formation of guilds and fraternities. These bodies practically exercised the right of patent over their professions, and infringements could be more easily dealt with, and frauds more easily exposed, by means of concerted effort on the part of the craftsmen. The goldsmiths and silversmiths were thus protected in England and France, and in most of the leading European art centres. The test of pure gold was made by "six of the more discreet goldsmiths," who went about and superintended the amount of alloy to be employed; "gold of the standard of the touch of Paris" was the French term for metal of the required purity. Any goldsmith using imitation stones or otherwise falsifying in his profession was punished "by imprisonment and by ransom at the King's pleasure." There were some complaints that fraudulent workers "cover tin with silver so subtilely... that the same cannot be discovered or separated, and so sell tin for fine silver, to the great damage and deceipt of us." This state of things finally led to the adoption of the Hall Mark, which is still to be seen on every piece of silver, signifying that it has been pronounced pure by the appointed authorities. The goldsmiths of France absorbed several other auxiliary arts, and were powerful and influential. In state processions the goldsmiths had the first place of importance, and bore the royal canopy when the King himself took part in the ceremony, carrying the shrine of St. Genevieve also, when it was taken forth in great pageants. In the quaint wording of the period, goldsmiths were forbidden to gild or silver-plate any article made of copper or latten, unless they left some part of the original exposed, "at the foot or some other part,... to the intent that a man may see whereof the thing is made for to eschew the deceipt aforesaid." This law was enacted in 1404. Many of the great art schools of the Middle Ages were established in connection with the numerous monasteries scattered through all the European countries and in England. The Rule of St. Benedict rings true concerning the proper consecration of an artist: "If there be artists in the monastery, let them exercise their crafts with all humility and reverence, provided the abbot shall have ordered them. But if any of them be proud of the skill he hath in his craft, because he thereby seemeth to gain something for the monastery, let him be removed from it and not exercise it again, unless, after humbling himself, the abbot shall permit him." Craft without graft was the keynote of mediæval art. King Alfred had a monastic art school at Athelney, in which he had collected "monks of all kinds from every quarter." This accounts for the Greek type of work turned out at this time, and very likely for Italian influences in early British art. The king was active in craft work himself, for Asser tells us that he "continued, during his frequent wars, to teach his workers in gold and artificers of all kinds." The quaint old encyclopædia of Bartholomew Anglicus, called, "The Properties of Things," defines gold and silver in an original way, according to the beliefs of this writer's day. He says of gold, that "in the composition there is more sadness of brimstone than of air and moisture of quicksilver, and therefore gold is more sad and heavy than silver." Of silver he remarks, "Though silver be white yet it maketh black lines and strakes in the body that is scored therewith." Marco Polo says that in the province of Carazan "the rivers yield great quantities of washed gold, and also that which is solid, and on the mountains they find gold in the vein, and they give one pound of gold for six of silver." Workers in gold or silver usually employ one of two methods--casting or beating, combined with delicacy of finish, chasing, and polishing. The technical processes are interestingly described by the writers of the old treatises on divers arts. In the earliest of these, by the monk Theophilus, in the eleventh century, we have most graphic accounts of processes very similar to those now in use. The naïve monastic instructor, in his preface, exhorts his followers to honesty and zeal in their good works. "Skilful in the arts let no one glorify himself," say Theophilus, "as if received from himself, and not from elsewhere; but let him be thankful humbly in the Lord, from whom all things are received." He then advises the craftsman earnestly to study the book which follows, telling him of the riches of instruction therein to be found; "you will there find out whatever... Tuscany knows of mosaic work, or in variety of enamels, whatever Arabia shows forth in work of fusion, ductility or chasing, whatever Italy ornaments with gold... whatever France loves in a costly variety of windows; whatever industrious Germany approves in work of gold, silver or copper, and iron, of woods and of stones." No wonder the authorities are lost in conjecture as to the native place of the versatile Theophilus! After promising all these delightful things, the good old monk continues, "Act therefore, well intentioned man,... hasten to complete with all the study of thy mind, those things which are still wanting among the utensils of the House of the Lord," and he enumerates the various pieces of church plate in use in the Middle Ages. Directions are given by Theophilus for the workroom, the benches at which the smiths are to sit, and also the most minute technical recipes for "instruments for sculping," for scraping, filing, and so forth, until the workshop should be fitted with all necessary tools. In those days, artists began at the very beginning. There were no "Windsor and Newtons," no nice makers of dividers and T-squares, to whom one could apply; all implements must be constructed by the man who contemplated using them. We will see how Theophilus proceeds, after he has his tools in readiness, to construct a chalice. First, he puts the silver in a crucible, and when it has become fluid, he turns it into a mould in which there is wax (this is evidently the "cire perdu" process familiar to casters of every age), and then he says, "If by some negligence it should happen that the melted silver be not whole, cast it again until it is whole." This process of casting would apply equally to all metals. Theophilus instructs his craftsman how to make the handles of the chalice as follows: "Take wax, form handles with it, and grave upon them dragons or animals or birds, or leaves--in whatever manner you may wish. But on the top of each handle place a little wax, round like a slender candle, half a finger in length,... this wax is called the funnel.... Then take some clay and cover carefully the handle, so that the hollows of the sculpture may be filled up.... Afterwards place these moulds near the coals, that when they have become warm you may pour out the wax. Which being turned out, melt the silver,... and cast into the same place whence you poured out the wax. And when they have become cold remove the clay." The solid silver handles are found inside, one hardly need say. In casting in the "cire perdu" process, Benvenuto Cellini warns you to beware lest you break your crucible--"just as you've got your silver nicely molten," he says, "and are pouring it into the mould, crack goes your crucible, and all your work and time and pains are lost!" He advises wrapping it in stout cloths. The process of repoussé work is also much the same to-day as it has always been. The metal is mounted on cement and the design partly beaten in from the outside; then the cement is melted out, and the design treated in more detail from the inside. Theophilus tells us how to prepare a silver vessel to be beaten with a design. After giving a recipe for a sort of pitch, he says, "Melt this composition and fill the vial to the top. And when it has become cold, portray... whatever you wish, and taking a slender ductile instrument, and a small hammer, design that which you have portrayed around it by striking lightly." This process is practically, on a larger scale, what Cellini describes as that of "minuterie." Cellini praises Caradosso beyond all others in this work, saying "it was just in this very getting of the gold so equal all over, that I never knew a man to beat Caradosso!" He tells how important this equality of surface is, for if, in the working, the gold became thicker in one place than in another, it was impossible to attain a perfect finish. Caradosso made first a wax model of the object which he was to make; this he cast in copper, and on that he laid his thin gold, beating and modelling it to the form, until the small hollow bas-relief was complete. The work was done with wooden and steel tools of small proportions, sometimes pressed from the back and sometimes from the front; "ever so much care is necessary," writes Cellini, "...to prevent the gold from splitting." After the model was brought to such a point of relief as was suitable for the design, great care had to be exercised in extending the gold further, to fit behind heads and arms in special relief. In those days the whole film of gold was then put in the furnace, and fired until the gold began to liquefy, at which exact moment it was necessary to remove it. Cellini himself made a medal for Girolamo Maretta, representing Hercules and the Lion; the figures were in such high relief that they only touched the ground at a few points. Cellini reports with pride that Michelangelo said to him: "If this work were made in great, whether in marble or in bronze, and fashioned with as exquisite a design as this, it would astonish the world; and even in its present size it seems to me so beautiful that I do not think even a goldsmith of the ancient world fashioned aught to come up to it!" Cellini says that these words "stiffened him up," and gave him much increased ambition. He describes also an Atlas which he constructed of wrought gold, to be placed upon a lapis lazuli background: this he made in extreme relief, using tiny tools, "working right into the arms and legs, and making all alike of equal thickness." A cope-button for Pope Clement was also quite a _tour de force_; as he said, "these pieces of work are often harder the smaller they are." The design showed the Almighty seated on a great diamond; around him there were "a number of jolly little angels," some in complete relief. He describes how he began with a flat sheet of gold, and worked constantly and conscientiously, gradually bossing it up, until, with one tool and then another, he finally mastered the material, "till one fine day God the Father stood forth in the round, most comely to behold." So skilful was Cellini in this art that he "bossed up in high relief with his punches some fifteen little angels, without even having to solder the tiniest rent!" The fastening of the clasp was decorated with "little snails and masks and other pleasing trifles," which suggest to us that Benvenuto was a true son of the Renaissance, and that his design did not equal his ability as a craftsman. Cellini's method of forming a silver vase was on this wise. The original plate of silver had to be red hot, "not too red, for then it would crack,--but sufficient to burn certain little grains thrown on to it." It was then adjusted to the stake, and struck with the hammer, towards the centre, until by degrees it began to take convex form. Then, keeping the central point always in view by means of compasses, from that point he struck "a series of concentric circles about half a finger apart from each other," and with a hammer, beginning at the centre, struck so that the "movement of the hammer shall be in the form of a spiral, and follow the concentric circles." It was important to keep the form very even all round. Then the vase had to be hammered from within, "till it was equally bellied all round," and after that, the neck was formed by the same method. Then, to ornament the vase, it was filled with pitch, and the design traced on the outside. When it was necessary to beat up the ornament from within, the vase was cleared out, and inverted upon the point of a long "snarling-iron," fastened in an anvil stock, and beaten so that the point should indent from within. The vase would often have to be filled with pitch and emptied in this manner several times in the course of its construction. Benvenuto Cellini was one of the greatest art personalities of all time. The quaintness of the æsthetic temperament is nowhere found better epitomized than in his life and writings. But as a producer of artistic things, he is a great disappointment. Too versatile to be a supreme specialist, he is far more interesting as a man and craftsman than as a designer. Technical skill he had in unique abundance. And another faculty, for which he does not always receive due credit, is his gift for imparting his knowledge. His Treatises, containing valuable information as to methods of work, are less familiar to most readers than his fascinating biography. These Treatises, or directions to craftsmen, are full of the spice and charm which characterize his other work. One cannot proceed from a consideration of the bolder metal work to a study of the dainty art of the goldsmith without a glance at Benvenuto Cellini. The introduction to the Treatises has a naïve opening: "What first prompted me to write was the knowledge of how fond people are of hearing anything new." This, and other reasons, induced him to "write about those loveliest secrets and wondrous methods of the great art of goldsmithing." Francis I. indeed thought highly of Cellini. Upon viewing one of his works, his Majesty raised his hands, and exclaimed to the Mareschal de France, "I command you to give the first good fat abbey that falls vacant to our Benvenuto, for I do not want my kingdom to be deprived of his like." Benvenuto describes the process of making filigree work, the principle of which is, fine wire coiled flat so as to form designs with an interesting and varied surface. Filigree is quite common still, and any one who has walked down the steep street of the Goldsmiths in Genoa is familiar with most of its modern forms. Cellini says: "Though many have practised the art without making drawings first, because the material in which they worked was so easily handled and so pliable, yet those who made their drawings first did the best work. Now give ear to the way the art is pursued." He then directs that the craftsman shall have ready three sizes of wire, and some little gold granules, which are made by cutting the short lengths of wire, and then subjecting them to fervent heat until they become as little round beads. He then explains how the artificer must twist and mould the delicate wires, and tastily apply the little granules, so as to make a graceful design, usually of some floriate form. When the wire flowers and leaves were formed satisfactorily, a wash of gum tragacanth should be applied, to hold them in place until the final soldering. The solder was in powdered form, and it was to be dusted on "just as much as may suffice,... and not more,"... this amount of solder could only be determined by the experience of the artist. Then came the firing of the finished work in the little furnace; Benvenuto is here quite at a loss how to explain himself: "Too much heat would move the wires you have woven out of place," he says, "really it is quite impossible to tell it properly in writing; I could explain it all right by word of mouth, or better still, show you how it is done,--still, come along,--we'll try to go on as we started!" Sometimes embossing was done by thin sheets of metal being pressed on to a wooden carving prepared for the purpose, so that the result would be a raised silver pattern, which, when filled up with pitch or lead, would pass for a sample of repoussé work. I need hardly say that a still simpler mechanical form of pressing obtains on cheap silver to-day. So much for the mechanical processes of treating these metals. We will now examine some of the great historic examples, and glance at the lives of prominent workers in gold and silver in the past. One of the most brilliant times for the production of works of art in gold and silver, was when Constantine, upon becoming Christian, moved the seat of government to Byzantium. Byzantine ornament lends itself especially to such work. The distinguishing mark between the earlier Greek jewellers and the Byzantine was, that the former considered chiefly line, form, and delicacy of workmanship, while the latter were led to expression through colour and texture, and not fineness of finish. The Byzantine emperors loved gold in a lavish way, and on a superb scale. They were not content with chaste rings and necklets, or even with golden crowns. The royal thrones were of gold; their armour was decorated with the precious metal, and their chariots enriched in the same way. Even the houses of the rich people were more endowed with precious furnishings than most of the churches of other nations, and every family possessed a massive silver table, and solid vases and plate. The Emperor Theophilus, who lived in the ninth century, was a great lover of the arts. His palace was built after the Arabian style, and he had skilful mechanical experts to construct a golden tree over his throne, on the branches of which were numerous birds, and two golden lions at the foot. These birds were so arranged by clockwork, that they could be made to sing, and the lions also joined a roar to the chorus! A great designer of the Middle Ages was Alcuin, the teacher of Charlemagne, who lived from 735 to 804; he superintended the building of many fine specimens of church plate. The school of Alcuin, however, was more famous for illumination, and we shall speak of his work at more length when we come to deal with that subject. Another distinguished patron of art was the Abbot Odo of Cluny, who had originally been destined for a soldier; but he was visited with what Maitland describes as "an inveterate headache, which, from his seventeenth to his nineteenth year, defied all medical skill," so he and his parents, convinced that this was a manifestation of the disapproval of Heaven, decided to devote his life to religious pursuits. He became Abbot of Cluny in the year 927. [Illustration: CROWN OF CHARLEMAGNE] Examples of ninth century goldsmithing are rare. Judging from the few specimens existing, the crown of Charlemagne, and the beautiful binding of the Hours of Charles the Bold, one would be inclined to think that an almost barbaric wealth of closely set jewels was the entire standard of the art of the time, and that grace of form or contour was quite secondary. The tomb was rifled about the twelfth century, and many of the valuable things with which he was surrounded were taken away. The throne was denuded of its gold, and may be seen to-day in the Cathedral at Aachen, a simple marble chair plain and dignified, with the copper joints showing its construction. Many of the relics of Charlemagne are in the treasury at Aachen, among other interesting items, the bones of the right arm of the Emperor in a golden shrine in the form of a hand and arm. There is a thrill in contemplating the remains of the right arm of Charlemagne after all the centuries, when one remembers the swords and sceptres which have been wielded by that mighty member. The reliquary containing the right arm of Charlemagne is German work (of course later than the opening of the tomb), probably between 1155 and 1190. Frederic Barbarossa and his ancestors are represented on its ornamentation. There is little goldsmith's work of the Norman period in Great Britain, for that was a time of the building of large structures, and probably minor arts and personal adornment took a secondary place. [Illustration: BERNWARD'S CROSS AND CANDLESTICKS, HILDESHEIM] Perhaps the most satisfactory display of mediæval arts and crafts which may be seen in one city is at Hildesheim: the special richness of remains of the tenth century is owing to the life and example of an early bishop--Bernward--who ruled the See from 993 to 1022. Before he was made bishop, Bernward was tutor to the young Emperor Otto III. He was a student of art all his life, and a practical craftsman, working largely in metals, and training up a Guild of followers in the Cathedral School. He was extremely versatile: one of the great geniuses of history. In times of war he was Commander in Chief of Hildesheim; he was a traveller, having made pilgrimages to Rome and Paris, and the grave of St. Martin at Tours. This wide culture was unusual in those days; it is quite evident from his active life of accomplishment in creative art, that good Bishop Bernward was not to be numbered among those who expected the end of the world to occur in the year 1000 A. D. Of his works to be seen in Hildesheim, there are splendid examples. The Goldsmith's School under his direction was famous. He was created bishop in 992; Taugmar pays him a tribute, saying: "He was an excellent penman, a good painter, and as a household manager was unequalled." Moreover, he "excelled in the mechanical no less than in the liberal arts." In fact, a visit to Hildesheim to-day proves that to this man who lived ten centuries ago is due the fact that Hildesheim is the most artistic city in Germany from the antiquarian's point of view. This bishop influenced every branch of art, and with so vital an influence, that his See city is still full of his works and personality. He was not only a practical worker in the arts and crafts, but he was also a collector, forming quite a museum for the further instruction of the students who came in touch with him. He decorated the walls of his cathedral; the great candelabrum, or corona, which circles above the central aisle of the cathedral, was his own design, and the work of his followers; and the paschal column in the cathedral was from his workshop, wrought as delightfully as would be possible in any age, and yet executed nearly a thousand years ago. No bishop ever deserved sainthood more, or made a more practical contribution to the Church. Pope Celestine III. canonized him in 1194. Bernward came of a noble family. His figure may be seen--as near an approach to a portrait of this great worker as we have--among the bas-reliefs on the beautiful choir-screen in St. Michael's Church in Hildesheim. [Illustration: BERNWARD'S CHALICE, HILDESHEIM] The cross executed by Bernward's own hands in 994 is a superb work, with filigree covering the whole, and set with gems _en cabochon_, with pearls, and antique precious stones, carved with Greek divinities in intaglio. The candlesticks of St. Bernward, too, are most interesting. They are made of a metal composed of gold, silver, and iron, and are wrought magnificently, into a mass of animal and floriate forms, their outline being well retained, and the grace of the shaft and proportions being striking. They are partly the work of the mallet and partly of the chisel. They had been buried with Bernward, and were found in his sarcophagus in 1194. Didron has likened them, in their use of animal form, to the art of the Mexicans; but to me they seem more like delightful German Romanesque workmanship, leaning more towards that of certain spirited Lombard grotesques, or even that of Arles and certain parts of France, than to the Aztec to which Didron has reference. The little climbing figures, while they certainly have very large hands and feet, yet are endowed with a certain sprightly action; they all give the impression of really making an effort,--they are trying to climb, instead of simply occupying places in the foliage. There is a good deal of strength and energy displayed in all of them, and, while the work is rude and rough, it is virile. It is not unlike the workmanship on the Gloucester candlestick in the South Kensington Museum, which was made in the twelfth century. Bernward's chalice is set with antique stones, some of them carved. On the foot may be seen one representing the three Graces, in their customary state of nudity "without malice." Bernward was also an architect. He built the delightful church of St. Michael, and its cloister. He also superintended the building of an important wall by the river bank in the lower town. When there was an uneasy time of controversy at Gandesheim, Bernward hastened to headquarters in Rome, to arrange to bring about better feeling. In 1001 he arrived, early in January, and the Pope went out to meet him, kissed him, and invited him to stay as a guest at his palace. After accomplishing his diplomatic mission, and laden with all sorts of sacred relics, Bernward returned home, not too directly to prevent his seeing something of the intervening country. A book which Bishop Bernward had made and illuminated in 1011 has the inscription: "I, Bernward, had this codex written out, at my own cost, and gave it to the beloved Saint of God, Michael. Anathema to him who alienates it." This inscription has the more interest for being the actual autograph of Bernward. He was succeeded by Hezilo, and many other pupils. These men made the beautiful corona of the cathedral, of which I give an illustration in detail. Great coronas or circular chandeliers hung in the naves of many cathedrals in the Middle Ages. The finest specimen is this at Hildesheim, the magnificent ring of which is twenty feet across, as it hangs suspended by a system of rods and balls in the form of chains. It has twelve large towers and twelve small ones set around it, supposed to suggest the Heavenly Jerusalem with its many mansions. There are sockets for seventy-two candles. The detail of its adornment is very splendid, and repays close study. Every little turret is different in architectonic form, and statues of saints are to be seen standing within these. The pierced silver work on this chandelier is as beautiful as any mediæval example in existence. [Illustration: CORONA AT HILDESHEIM (DETAIL)] The great leader of mediæval arts in France was the Abbot Suger of St. Denis. Suger was born in 1081, he and his brother, Alvise, who was Bishop of Arras, both being destined for the Episcopate. As a youth he passed ten years at St. Denis as a scholar. Here he became intimate with Prince Louis, and this friendship developed in after life. On returning from a voyage to Italy, in 1122, he learned at the same time of the death of his spiritual father, Abbot Adam, and of his own election to be his successor. He thus stood at the head of the convent of St. Denis in 1123. This was due to his noble character, his genius for diplomacy and his artistic talent. He was minister to Louis VI., and afterwards to Louis VII., and during the second Crusade, he was made Regent for the kingdom. Suger was known, after this, as the Father of his Country, for he was a courageous counsellor, firm and convincing in argument, so that the king had really been guided by his advice. While he was making laws and instigating crusades, he was also directing craft shops and propagating the arts in connection with the life of the Church. St. Bernard denounced him, as encouraging too luxurious a ritual; Suger made a characteristic reply: "If the ancient law... ordained that vessels and cups of gold should be used for libations, and to receive the blood of rams,... how much rather should we devote gold, precious stones, and the rarest of materials, to those vessels which are destined to contain the blood of Our Lord." Suger ordered and himself made most beautiful appointments for the sanctuary, and when any vessel already owned by the Abbey was of costly material, and yet unsuitable in style, he had it remodelled. An interesting instance of this is a certain antique vase of red porphyry. There was nothing ecclesiastical about this vase; it was a plain straight Greek jar, with two handles at the sides. Suger treated it as the body of an eagle, making the head and neck to surmount it, and the claw feet for it to stand on, together with its soaring wings, of solid gold, and it thus became transformed into a magnificent reliquary in the form of the king of birds. The inscription on this Ampula of Suger is: "As it is our duty to present unto God oblations of gems and gold, I, Suger, offer this vase unto the Lord." Suger stood always for the ideal in art and character. He had the courage of his convictions in spite of the fulminations of St. Bernard. Instead of using the enormous sums of money at his disposal for importing Byzantine workmen, he preferred to use his funds and his own influence in developing a native French school of artificers. It is interesting to discover that Suger, among his many adaptations and restorations at St. Denis, incorporated some of the works of St. Eloi into his own compositions. For instance, he took an ivory pulpit, and remodelled it with the addition of copper animals. Abbots of St. Denis made beautiful offerings to the church. One of them, Abbot Matthiew de Vendôme, presented a wonderful reliquary, consisting of a golden head and bust, while another gave a reliquary to contain the jaw of St. Louis. Suger presented many fine products of his own art and that of his pupils, among others a great cross six feet in height. A story is told of him, that, while engaged in making a particularly splendid crucifix for St. Denis, he ran short of precious stones, nor could he in any way obtain what he required, until some monks came to him and offered to sell him a superb lot of stones which had formerly embellished the dinner service of Henry I. of England, whose nephew had given them to the convent in exchange for indulgences and masses! In these early and half-barbaric days of magnificence, form and delicacy of execution were not understood. Brilliancy and lavish display of sparkling jewels, set as thickly as possible without reference to a general scheme of composition, was the standard of beauty; and it must be admitted that, with such stones available, no more effective school of work has ever existed than that of which such works Charlemagne's crown, the Iron Crown of Monza, and the crown of King Suinthila, are typical examples. Abbot Suger lamented when he lacked a sufficient supply of stones; but he did not complain when there occurred a deficiency in workmen. It was comparatively easy to train artists who could make settings and bind stones together with soldered straps! In 1352 a royal silversmith of France, Etienne La Fontaine, made a "fauteuil of silver and crystal decorated with precious stones," for the king. The golden altar of Basle is almost as interesting as the great Pala d'Oro in Venice, of which mention is made elsewhere. It was ordered by Emperor Henry the Pious, before 1024, and presented to the Prime Minister at Basle. The central figure of the Saviour has at its feet two tiny figures, quite out of scale; these are intended for the donors, Emperor Henry and his queen, Cunegunda. Silversmith's work in Spain was largely in Byzantine style, while some specimens of Gothic and Roman are also to be seen there. Moorish influence is noticeable, as in all Spanish design, and filigree work of Oriental origin is frequently to be met with. Some specimens of champlevé enamel are also to be seen, though this art was generally confined to Limoges during the Middle Ages. A Guild was formed in Toledo which was in flourishing condition in 1423. An interesting document has been found in Spain showing that craftsmen were supplied with the necessary materials when engaged to make valuable figures for the decoration of altars. It is dated May 12, 1367, "I, Sancho Martinez Orebsc, silversmith, native of Seville, inform you, the Dean and Chapter of the church of Seville, that it was agreed that I make an image of St. Mary with its tabernacle, that it should be finished at a given time, and that you were to give me the silver and stones required to make it." In Spain, the most splendid triumphs of the goldsmith's skill were the "custodias," or large tabernacles, in which the Host was carried in procession. The finest was one made for Toledo by Enrique d'Arphe, in competition with other craftsmen. His design being chosen, he began his work in 1517, and in 1524 the custodia was finished. It was in the form of a Gothic temple, six sided, with a jewelled cross on the top, and was eight feet high. Some of the gold employed was the first ever brought from America. The whole structure weighed three hundred and eighty-eight pounds. Arphe made a similar custodia for Cordova and another for Leon. His grandson, Juan d'Arphe, wrote a verse about the Toledo custodia, in which these lines occur: "Custodia is a temple of rich plate Wrought for the glory of Our Saviour true... That holiest ark of old to imitate, Fashioned by Bezaleel the cunning Jew, Chosen of God to work his sovereign will, And greatly gifted with celestial skill." Juan d'Arphe himself made a custodia for Seville, the decorations and figures on which were directed by the learned Francesco Pacheco, the father-in-law of Velasquez. When this custodia was completed, d'Arphe wrote a description of it, alluding boldly to this work as "the largest and finest work in silver known of its kind," and this could really be said without conceit, for it is a fact. A Gothic form of goldsmith's work obtained in Spain in the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries; it was based upon architectural models and was known as "plateresca." The shrines for holding relics became in these centuries positive buildings on a small scale in precious material. In England also were many of these shrines, but few of them now remain. The first Mayor of London, from 1189 to 1213, was a goldsmith, Henry Fitz Alwyn, the Founder of the Royal Exchange; Sir Thomas Gresham, in 1520, was also a goldsmith and a banker. There is an entertaining piece of cynical satire on the Goldsmiths in Stubbes' Anatomy of Abuses, written in the time of Queen Elizabeth, showing that the tricks of the trade had come to full development by that time, and that the public was being aroused on the subject. Stubbes explains how the goldsmith's shops are decked with chains and rings, "wonderful richly." Then he goes on to say: "They will make you any monster or article whatsoever of gold, silver, or what you will. Is there no deceit in these goodlye shows? Yes, too many; if you will buy a chain of gold, a ring, or any kind of plate, besides that you shall pay almost half more than it is worth... you shall also perhaps have that gold which is naught, or else at least mixed with drossie rubbage.... But this happeneth very seldom by reason of good orders, and constitutions made for the punishment of them that offend in this kind of deceit, and therefore they seldom offend therein, though now and then they chance to stumble in the dark!" Fynes Moryson, a traveller who died in 1614, says that "the goldsmiths' shops in London... are exceedingly richly furnished continually with gold, with silver plate, and with jewels.... I never see any such daily show, anything so sumptuous, in any place in the world, as in London." He admits that in Florence and Paris the similar shops are very rich upon special occasions; but it is the steady state of the market in London to which he has reference. The Company of Goldsmiths in Dublin held quite a prominent social position in the community. In 1649, a great festival and pageant took place, in which the goldsmiths and visiting craftsmen from other corporations took part. Henry III. set himself to enrich and beautify the shrine of his patron saint, Edward the Confessor, and with this end in view he made various extravagant demands: for instance, at one time he ordered all the gold in London to be detailed to this object, and at another, he had gold rings and brooches purchased to the value of six hundred marks. The shrine was of gold, and, according to Matthew Paris, enriched with jewels. It was commenced in 1241. In 1244 the queen presented an image of the Virgin with a ruby and an emerald. Jewels were purchased from time to time,--a great cameo in 1251, and in 1255 many gems of great value. The son of ado the Goldsmith, Edward, was the "king's beloved clerk," and was made "keeper of the shrine." Most of the little statuettes were described as having stones set somewhere about them: "an image of St. Peter holding a church in one hand and the keys in the other, trampling on Nero, who had a big sapphire on his breast;" and "the Blessed Virgin with her Son, set with rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and garnets," are among those cited. The whole shrine was described as "a basilica adorned with purest gold and precious stones." Odo the Goldsmith was in charge of the works for a good while. He was succeeded by his son Edward. Payments were made sometimes in a regular wage, and sometimes for "task work." The workmen were usually known by one name--Master Alexander the King's Carpenter, Master Henry the King's Master Mason, and so forth. In an early life of Edward the Confessor, there is an illumination showing the masons and carpenters kneeling to receive instruction from their sovereign. The golden shrine of the Confessor was probably made in the Palace itself; this was doubtless considered the safest place for so valuable a work to remain in process of construction; for there is an allusion to its being brought on the King's own shoulders (with the assistance of others), from the palace to the Abbey, in 1269, for its consecration. In 1243 Henry III. ordered four silver basins, fitted with cakes of wax with wicks in them, to be placed as lights before the shrine of Thomas à Becket in Canterbury. The great gold shrine of Becket appears to have been chiefly the work of a goldsmith, Master Adam. He also designed the Coronation Chair of England, which is now in Westminster Abbey. The chief goldsmith of England employed by Edward I. was one Adam of Shoreditch. He was versatile, for he was also a binder of books. A certain bill shows an item of his workmanship, "a group in silver of a child riding upon a horse, the child being a likeness of Lord Edward, the King's son." A veritable Arts and Crafts establishment had been in existence in Woolstrope, Lincolnshire, before Cromwell's time; for Georde Gifford wrote to Cromwell regarding the suppression of this monastery: "There is not one religious person there but what doth use either embrothering, wryting books with a faire hand, making garments, or carving." In all countries the chalices and patens were usually, designed to correspond with each other. The six lobed dish was a very usual form; it had a depressed centre, with six indented scallops, and the edge flat like a dinner plate. In an old church inventory, mention is made of "a chalice with _his_ paten." Sometimes there was lettering around the flat edge of the paten. Chalices were-composed of three parts: the cup, the ball or knop, and the stem, with the foot. The original purpose of having this foot hexagonal in shape is said to have been to prevent the chalice from rolling when it was laid on its side to drain. Under many modifications this general plan of the cup has obtained. The bowl is usually entirely plain, to facilitate keeping it clean; most of the decoration was lavished on the knop, a rich and uneven surface being both beautiful and functional in this place. Such Norman and Romanesque chalices as remain are chiefly in museums now. They were usually "coffin chalices"--that is, they had been buried in the coffin of some ecclesiastic. Of Gothic chalices, or those of the Tudor period, fewer remain, for after the Reformation, a general order went out to the churches, for all "chalices to be altered to decent Communion cups." The shape was greatly modified in this change. In the thirteenth century the taste ran rather to a chaster form of decoration; the large cabochons of the Romanesque, combined with a liquid gold surface, gave place to refined ornaments in niello and delicate enamels. The bowls of the earlier chalices were rather flat and broad. When it became usual for the laity to partake only of one element when communicating, the chalice, which was reserved for the clergy alone, became modified to meet this condition, and the bowl was much smaller. After the Reformation, however, the development was quite in the other direction, the bowl being extremely large and deep. In that period they were known as communion cups. In Sandwich there is a cup which was made over out of a ciborium; as it quite plainly shows its origin, it is naïvely inscribed: "This is a Communion Coop." When this change in the form of the chalice took place, it was provided, by admonition of the Archbishop, in all cases with a "cover of silver... which shall serve also for the ministration of the Communion bread." To make this double use of cover and dish satisfactory, a foot like a stand was added to the paten. The communion cup of the Reformation differed from the chalice, too, in being taller and straighter, with a deep bowl, almost in the proportions of a flaring tumbler, and a stem with a few close decorations instead of a knop. The small paten served as a cover to the cup, as has been mentioned. It is not always easy to see old church plate where it originally belonged. On the Scottish border, for instance, there were constant raids, when the Scots would descend upon the English parish churches, and bear off the communion plate, and again the English would cross the border and return the compliment. In old churches, such as the eleventh century structure at Torpenhow, in Cumberland, the deep sockets still to be seen in the stone door jambs were intended to support great beams with which the church had constantly to be fortified against Scottish invasion. Another reason for the disappearance of church plate, was the occasional sale of the silver in order to continue necessary repairs on the fabric. In a church in Norfolk, there is a record of sale of communion silver and "for altering of our church and fynnishing of the same according to our mindes and the parishioners." It goes on to state that the proceeds were appropriated for putting new glass in the place of certain windows "wherein were conteined the lives of certain prophane histories," and for "paving the king's highway" in the church precincts. At the time of the Reformation many valuable examples of Church plate were cast aside by order of the Commissioners, by which "all monuments of feyned miracles, pilgrimages, idolatry, and superstition," were to be destroyed. At this time a calf or a sheep might have been seen browsing in the meadows with a sacring-bell fastened at its neck, and the pigs refreshed themselves with drinking from holy-water fonts! Croziers of ornate design especially roused the ire of the Puritans. In Mr. Alfred Maskell's incomparable book on Ivories, he translates a satirical verse by Guy de Coquille, concerning these objectionable pastoral staves (which were often made of finely sculptured ivory). "The staff of a bishop of days that are old Was of wood, and the bishop himself was of gold. But a bishop of wood prefers gorgeous array, So his staff is of gold in the new fashioned way!" During the Renaissance especially, goldsmith's work was carried to great technical perfection, and yet the natural properties of the metal were frequently lost sight of, and the craftsmen tried to produce effects such as would be more suitable in stone or wood,--little architectonic features were introduced, and gold was frequently made to do the work of other materials. Thus it lost much of its inherent effectiveness. Too much attention was given to ingenuity, and not enough to fitness and beauty. [Illustration: RELIQUARY AT ORVIETO] In documents of the fourteenth century, the following list of goldsmiths is given: Jean de Mantreux was goldsmith to King Jean. Claux de Friburg was celebrated for a gold statuette of St. John which he made for the Duke of Normandy. A diadem for this Duke was also recorded, made by Jean de Piguigny. Hannequin made three golden crowns for Charles V. Hans Crest was goldsmith to the Duke of Orleans, while others employed by him were Durosne, of Toulouse, Jean de Bethancourt, a Flemish goldsmith. In the fifteenth century the names of Jean de Hasquin, Perrin Manne, and Margerie d'Avignon, were famous. Artists in the Renaissance were expected to undertake several branches of their craft. Hear Poussin: "It is impossible to work at the same time upon frontispieces of books: a Virgin: at the picture for the congregation of St. Louis, at the designs for the gallery, and for the king's tapestry! I have only a feeble head, and am not aided by anyone!" A goldsmith attached to the Court of King René of Anjou was Jean Nicolas. René also gave many orders to one Liguier Rabotin, of Avignon, who made him several cups of solid gold, on a large tray of the same precious metal. The king often drew his own designs or such bijoux. Among the famous men of Italy were several who practised the art of the goldsmith. Ugolino of Siena constructed the wonderful reliquary at Orvieto; this, is in shape somewhat similar to the façade of the cathedral. Verocchio, the instructor of Leonardo da Vinci, accomplished several important pieces of jewelery in his youth: cope-buttons and silver statuettes, chiefly, which were so successful that he determined to take up the career of a sculptor. Ghirlandajo, as is well known, was trained as a goldsmith originally, his father having been the inventor of a pretty fashion then prevailing among young girls of Florence, and being the maker of those golden garlands worn on the heads of maidens. The name Ghirlandajo, indeed, was derived from these garlands (ghirlandes). Francia began life as a goldsmith, too, and was never in after life ashamed of his profession, for he often signed his works Francesco Francia Aurifex. Francia was a very skilful workman in niello, and in enamels. In fact, to quote the enthusiastic Vasari, "he executed everything that is most beautiful, and which can be performed in that art more perfectly than any other master had ever done." Baccio Baldini, also, was a goldsmith, although a greater portion of his ability was turned in the direction of engraving. His pupil Maso Finniguerra, who turned also to engraving, began his career as a goldsmith. The great silver altar in the Baptistery in Florence occupied nearly all the goldsmiths in that city. In 1330 the father of the Orcagnas, Cione, died; he had worked for some years before that on the altar. In 1366 the altar was destroyed, but the parts in bas-relief by Cione were retained and incorporated into the new work, which was finished in 1478. Ghiberti, Orcagna, Verocchio, and Pollajuolo, all executed various details of this magnificent monument. Goldsmiths did not quite change their standing and characteristics until late in the sixteenth century. About that time it may be said that the last goldsmith of the old school was Claude Ballin, while the first jeweller, in the modern acceptation of the word, was Pierre de Montarsy. Silver has always been selected for the better household utensils, not only on account of its beauty, but also because of its ductility, which is desirable in making larger vessels; its value, too, is less than that of gold, so that articles which would be quite out of the reach of most householders, if made in gold, become very available in silver. Silver is particularly adapted to daily use, for the necessary washing and polishing which it receives keeps it in good condition, and there is no danger from poison through corrosion, as with copper and brass. In the middle ages the customary pieces of plate in English homes were basins, bottles, bowls, candlesticks, saucepans, jugs, dishes, ewers and flagons, and chafing-dishes for warming the hands, which were undoubtedly needed, when we remember how intense the cold must have been in those high, bare, ill-ventilated halls! There were also large cups called hanaps, smaller cups, plates, and porringers, salt-cellars, spoons, and salvers. Forks were of much later date. There are records of several silver basins in the Register of John of Gaunt, and also in the Inventory of Lord Lisle: one being "a basin and ewer with arms" and another, "a shaving basin." John of Gaunt also owned "a silver bowl for the kitchen." If the mediæval household lacked comforts, it could teach us lessons in luxury in some other departments! He also had a "pair of silver bottles, partly gilt, and enamelled, garnished with tissues of silk, white and blue," and a "casting bottle" for distributing perfume: Silver candelabra were recorded; these, of course, must have been in constant service, as the facilities for lighting were largely dependent upon them. When the Crown was once obliged to ask a loan from the Earl of Salisbury, in 1432, the Earl received, as earnest of payment, "two golden candelabra, garnished with pearls and precious stones." In the Close Roll of Henry III. of England, there is found an interesting order to a goldsmith: "Edward, son of Eudo, with all haste, by day and by night, make a cup with a foot for the Queen: weighing two marks, not more; price twenty marks, against Christmas, that she may drink from it in that feast: and paint it and enamel it all over, and in every other way that you can, let it be decently and beautifully wrought, so that the King, no less than the said Queen, may be content therewith." All the young princes and princesses were presented with silver cups, also, as they came to such age as made the use of them expedient; Lionel and John, sons of Edward III., were presented with cups "with leather covers for the same," when they were one and three years old respectively. In 1423 the chief justice, Sir William Hankford, gave his great-granddaughter a baptismal gift of a gilt cup and a diamond ring, together with a curious testimonial of eight shillings and sixpence to the nurse! Of dishes, the records are meagre, but there is an amusing entry among the Lisle papers referring to a couple of "conserve dishes" for which Lady Lisle expressed a wish. Husee had been ordered to procure these, but writes, "I can get no conserve dishes... however, if they be to be had, I will have of them, or it shall cost me hot water!" A little later he observes, "Towards Christmas day they shall be made at Bevoys, betwixt Abbeville and Paris." Flagons were evidently a novelty in 1471, for there is an entry in the Issue Roll of Edward IV., which mentions "two ollas called silver flagons for the King." An olla was a Latin term for a jar. Lord Lisle rejoiced in "a pair of flagons, the gilt sore worn." Hanaps were more usual, and appear to have been usually in the form of goblets. They frequently had stands called "tripers." Sometimes these stands were very ornate, as, for instance, one owned by the Bishop of Carpentras, "in the shape of a flying dragon, with a crowned damsel sitting upon a green terrace." Another, belonging to the Countess of Cambridge, was described as being "in the shape of a monster, with three buttresses and three bosses of mother of pearl... and an ewer,... partly enamelled with divers babooneries"--a delightful expression! Other hanaps were in the forms of swans, oak trees, white harts, eagles, lions, and the like--probably often of heraldic significance. A set of platters was sent from Paris to Richard II., all of gold, with balas rubies, pearls and sapphires set in them. It is related of the ancient Frankish king, Chilperic, that he had made a dish of solid gold, "ornamented all over with precious stones, and weighing fifty pounds," while Lothaire owned an enormous silver basin bearing as decoration "the world with the courses of the stars and the planets." The porringer was a very important article of table use, for pap, and soft foods such as we should term cereals, and for boiled pudding. These were all denominated porridge, and were eaten from these vessels. Soup was doubtless served in them as well. They were numerous in every household. In the Roll of Henry III. is an item, mentioning that he had ordered twenty porringers to be made, "like the one hundred porringers" which had already been ordered! An interesting pattern of silver cups in Elizabethan times were the "trussing cups," namely, two goblets of silver, squat in shape and broad in bowl, which fitted together at the rim, so that one was inverted as a sort of cover on top of the other when they were not in use. Drinking cups were sometimes made out of cocoanuts, mounted in silver, and often of ostrich eggs, similarly treated, and less frequently of horns hollowed out and set on feet. Mediæval loving cups were usually named, and frequently for some estates that belonged to the owner. Cups have been known to bear such names as "Spang," "Bealchier," and "Crumpuldud," while others bore the names of the patron saints of their owners. A kind of cruet is recorded among early French table silver, "a double necked bottle in divisions, in which to place two kinds of liquor without mixing them." A curious bit of table silver in France, also, was the "almsbox," into which each guest was supposed to put some piece of food, to be given to the poor. Spoons were very early in their origin; St. Radegond is reported by a contemporary to have used a spoon, in feeding the blind and infirm. A quaint book of instructions to children, called "The Babee's Booke," in 1475, advises by way of table manners: "And whenever your potage to you shall be brought, Take your sponys and soupe by no way, And in your dish leave not your spoon, I pray!" And a later volume on the same subject, in 1500, commends a proper respect for the implements of the table: "Ne playe with spoone, trencher, ne knife." Spoons of curious form were evidently made all the way from 1300 to the present day. In an old will, in 1477, mention is made of spoons "wt leopards hedes printed in the sponself," and in another, six spoons "wt owles at the end of the handles." Professor Wilson said, "A plated spoon is a pitiful imposition," and he was right. If there is one article of table service in which solidity of metal is of more importance than in another, it is the spoon, which must perforce come in contact with the lips whenever it is used. In England the earliest spoons were of about the thirteenth century, and the first idea of a handle seems to have been a plain shaft ending in a ball or knob. Gradually spoons began to show more of the decorative instinct of their designers; acorns, small statuettes, and such devices terminated the handles, which still retained their slender proportions, however. Finally it became popular to have images of the Virgin on individual spoons, which led to the idea, after a bit, of decorating the dozen with the twelve apostles. These may be seen of all periods, differently elaborated. Sets of thirteen are occasionally met with, these having one with the statue of Jesus as the Good Shepherd, with a lamb on his shoulders: it is known as the "Master spoon." [Illustration: APOSTLE SPOONS] The first mention of forks in France is in the Inventory, of Charles V., in 1379. We hear a great deal about the promiscuous use of knives before forks were invented; how in the children's book of instructions they are enjoined "pick not thy teeth with thy knife," as if it were a general habit requiring to be checked. Massinger alludes to a "silver fork To convey an olive neatly to thy mouth," but this may apply to pickle forks. Forks were introduced from Italy into England about 1607. A curiosity in cutlery is the "musical knife" at the Louvre; the blade is steel, mounted in parcel gilt, and the handle is of ivory. On the blade is engraved a few bars of music (arranged for the bass only), accompanying the words, "What we are about to take may Trinity in Unity bless. Amen." This is a literal translation. It indicates that there were probably three other knives in the set so ornamented, one with the soprano, one alto, and one tenor, so that four persons sitting down to table together might chant their "grace" in four-part harmony, having the requisite notes before them! It was a quaint idea, but quite in keeping with the taste of the sixteenth century. [Illustration: IVORY KNIFE HANDLES, WITH PORTRAITS OF QUEEN ELIZABETH AND JAMES I. ENGLIS] The domestic plate of Louis, Duke of Anjou, in 1360, consisted of over seven hundred pieces, and Charles V. of France had an enormous treasury of such objects for daily use. Strong rooms and safes were built during the fourteenth century, for the lodging of the household valuables. About this time the Dukes of Burgundy were famous for their splendid table service. Indeed, the craze for domestic display in this line became so excessive, that in 1356 King John of France prohibited the further production of such elaborate pieces, "gold or silver plate, vases, or silver jewelry, of more than one mark of gold, or silver, excepting for churches." This edict, however, accomplished little, and was constantly evaded. Many large pieces of silver made in the period of the Renaissance were made simply with a view to standing about as ornaments. Cellini alludes to certain vases which had been ordered from him, saying that "they are called ewers, and they are placed upon buffets for the purpose of display." The salt cellar was always a _piece de resistance_, and stood in the centre of the table. It was often in the form of a ship in silver. A book entitled "Ffor to serve a Lorde," in 1500, directs the "boteler" or "panter," to bring forth the principal salt, and to "set the saler in the myddys of the table." Persons helped themselves to salt with "a clene kniffe." The seats of honour were all about the salt, while those of less degree were at the lower end of the table, and were designated as "below the salt." The silver ship was commonly an immense piece of plate, containing the napkin, goblet, and knife and spoon of the host, besides being the receptacle for the spices and salt. Through fear of poison, the precaution was taken of keeping it covered. This ship was often known as the "nef," and frequently had a name, as if it were the family yacht! One is recorded as having been named the "Tyger," while a nef belonging to the Duke of Orleans was called the "Porquepy," meaning porcupine. One of the historic salts, in another form, is the "Huntsman's salt," and is kept at All Soul's College, Oxford. The figure of a huntsman, bears upon its head a rock crystal box with a lid. About the feet of this figure are several tiny animals and human beings, so that it looks as if the intent had been to picture some gigantic legendary hunter--a sort of Gulliver of the chase. The table was often furnished also with a fountain, in which drinking-water was kept, and upon which either stood or hung cups or goblets. These fountains were often of fantastic shapes, and usually enamelled. One is described as representing a dragon on a tree top, and another a castle on a hill, with a convenient tap at some point for drawing off the water. The London City Companies are rich in their possessions of valuable plate. Some of the cups are especially beautiful. The Worshipful Company of Skinners owns some curious loving cups, emblematic of the names of the donors. There are five Cockayne Loving Cups, made in the form of cocks, with their tail feathers spread up to form the handles. The heads have to be removed for drinking. These cups were bequeathed by William Cockayne, in 1598. Another cup is in the form of a peacock, walking with two little chicks of minute proportions on either side of the parent bird. This is inscribed, "The gift of Mary the daughter of Richard Robinson, and wife to Thomas Smith and James Peacock, Skinners." Whether the good lady were a bigamist or took her husbands in rotation, does not transpire. An interesting cup is owned by the Vintners in London, called the Milkmaid. The figure of a milkmaid, in laced bodice, holds above her head a small cup on pivots, so that it finds its level when the figure is inverted, as is the case when the cup is used, the petticoat of the milkmaid forming the real goblet. It is constructed on the same principle as the German figures of court ladies holding up cups, which are often seen to-day, made on the old pattern. The cups in the case of this milkmaid are both filled with wine, and it is quite difficult to drink from the larger cup without spilling from the small swinging cup which is then below the other. Every member is expected to perform this feat as a sort of initiation. It dates from 1658. [Illustration: THE "MILKMAID CUP"] One of the most beautiful Corporation cups is at Norwich, where it is known as the "Petersen" cup. It is shaped like a very thick and squat chalice, and around its top is a wide border of decorative lettering, bearing the inscription, "THE + MOST + HERE + OF. + IS + DUNNE + BY + PETER + PETERSON +." This craftsman was a Norwich silversmith of the sixteenth century, very famous in his day, and a remarkably chaste designer as well. A beautiful ivory cup twelve inches high, set in silver gilt, called the Grace Cup, of Thomas à Becket, is inscribed around the top band, "_Vinum tuum bibe cum gaudio_." It has a hall-mark of a Lombardic letter H, signifying the year 1445. It is decorated by cherubs, roses, thistles, and crosses, relieved with garnets and pearls. On another flat band is the inscription: "_Sobrii estote_," and on the cover, in Roman capitals, "_Ferare God_." It is owned by the Howard family, of Corby. Tankards were sometimes made of such crude materials as leather (like the "lether bottel" of history), and of wood. In fact, the inventory of a certain small church in the year 1566 tells of a "penny tankard of wood," which was used as a "holy water stock." An extravagant design, of a period really later than we are supposed to deal with in this book, is a curious cup at Barber's and Surgeon's Hall, known as the Royal Oak. It is built to suggest an oak tree,--a naturalistic trunk, with its roots visible, supporting the cup, which is in the form of a semi-conventional tree, covered with leaves, detached acorns swinging free on rings from the sides at intervals! Richard Redgrave called attention to some of the absurdities of the exotic work of his day in England. "Rachel at a well, under an imitative palm tree," he remarks, "draws, not water, but ink; a grotto of oyster shells with children beside it, contains... an ink vessel; the milk pail on a maiden's head contains, not goat's milk, as the animal by her side would lead you to suppose, but a taper!" One great secret of good design in metal is to avoid imitating fragile things in a strong material. The stalk of a flower or leaf, for instance, if made to do duty in silver to support a heavy cup or vase, is a very disagreeable thing to contemplate; if the article were really what it represented, it would break under the strain. While there should be no deliberate perversion of Nature's forms, there should be no naturalistic imitation. CHAPTER II JEWELRY AND PRECIOUS STONES We are told that the word "jewel" has come by degrees from Latin, through French, to its present form; it commenced as a "gaudium" (joy), and progressed through "jouel" and "joyau" to the familiar word, as we have it. The first objects to be made in the form of personal adornment were necklaces: this may be easily understood, for in certain savage lands the necklace formed, and still forms, the chief feature in feminine attire. In this little treatise, however, we cannot deal with anything so primitive or so early; we must not even take time to consider the exquisite Greek and Roman jewelry. Amongst the earliest mediæval jewels we will study the Anglo-Saxon and the Byzantine. Anglo-Saxon and Irish jewelry is famous for delicate filigree, fine enamels, and flat garnets used in a very decorative way. Niello was also employed to some extent. It is easy, in looking from the Bell of St. Patrick to the Book of Kells, to see how the illuminators were influenced by the goldsmiths in early times,--in Celtic and Anglo-Saxon work. [Illustration: SAXON BROOCH] The earliest forms of brooches were the annular,--that is, a long pin with a hinged ring at its head for ornament, and the "penannular," or pin with a broken circle at its head. Through the opening in the circle the pin returns, and then with a twist of the ring, it is held more firmly in the material. Of these two forms are notable examples in the Arbutus brooch and the celebrated Tara brooch. The Tara brooch is a perfect museum in itself of the jeweller's art. It is ornamented with enamel, with jewels set in silver, amber, scroll filigree, fine chains, Celtic tracery, moulded glass--nearly every branch of the art is represented in this one treasure, which was found quite by accident near Drogheda, in 1850, a landslide having exposed the buried spot where it had lain for centuries. As many as seventy-six different kinds of workmanship are to be detected on this curious relic. [Illustration: THE TARA BROOCH] At a great Exhibition at Ironmonger's Hall in 1861 there was shown a leaden fibula, quite a dainty piece of personal ornament, in Anglo-Saxon taste, decorated with a moulded spiral meander. It was found in the Thames in 1855, and there are only three other similar brooches of lead known to exist. Of the Celtic brooches Scott speaks: "...the brooch of burning gold That clasps the chieftain's mantle fold, Wrought and chased with rare device, Studded fair with gems of price." One of the most remarkable pieces of Celtic jewelled work is the bell of St. Patrick, which measures over ten inches in height. This saint is associated with several bells: one, called the Broken Bell of St. Brigid, he used on his last crusade against the demons of Ireland; it is said that when he found his adversaries specially unyielding, he flung the bell with all his might into the thickest of their ranks, so that they fled precipitately into the sea, leaving the island free from their aggressions for seven years, seven months, and seven days. One of St. Patrick's bells is known, in Celtic, as the "white toned," while another is called the "black sounding." This is an early and curious instance of the sub-conscious association of the qualities of sound with those of colour. Viollet le Duc tells how a blind man was asked if he knew what the colour red was. He replied, "Yes: red is the sound of the trumpet." And the great architect himself, when a child, was carried by his nurse into the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, where he cried with terror because he fancied that the various organ notes which he heard were being hurled at him by the stained glass windows, each one represented by a different colour in the glass! [Illustration: SHRINE OF THE BELL OF ST. PATRICK] But the most famous bell in connection with St. Patrick is the one known by his own name and brought with his relics by Columbkille only sixty years after the saint's death. The outer case is an exceedingly rich example of Celtic work. On a ground of brass, fine gold and silver filigree is applied, in curious interlaces and knots, and it is set with several jewels, some of large size, in green, blue, and dull red. In the front are two large tallow-cut Irish diamonds, and a third was apparently set in a place which is now vacant. On the back of the bell appears a Celtic inscription in most decorative lettering all about the edge; the literal translation of this is: "A prayer for Donnell O'Lochlain, through whom this bell shrine was made; and for Donnell, the successor of Patrick, with whom it was made; and for Cahalan O'Mulhollan, the keeper of the bell, and for Cudilig O'Immainen, with his sons, who covered it." Donald O'Lochlain was monarch of Ireland in 1083. Donald the successor of Patrick was the Abbot of Armagh, from 1091 to 1105. The others were evidently the craftsmen who worked on the shrine. In many interlaces, especially on the sides, there may be traced intricate patterns formed of serpents, but as nearly all Celtic work is similarly ornamented, there is probably nothing personal in their use in connection with the relic of St. Patrick! Patrick brought quite a bevy of workmen into Ireland about 440: some were smiths, Mac Cecht, Laebhan, and Fontchan, who were turned at once upon making of bells, while some other skilled artificers, Fairill and Tassach, made patens and chalices. St. Bridget, too, had a famous goldsmith in her train, one Bishop Coula. The pectoral cross of St. Cuthbert of Lindisfarne is now to be seen in Durham. It was buried with the saint, and was discovered with his body. The four arms are of equal length, and not very heavy in proportion. It is of gold, made in the seventh century, and is set with garnets, a very large one in the centre, one somewhat smaller at the ends of the arms, where the lines widen considerably, and with smaller ones continuously between. Among the many jewels which decorated the shrine of Thomas à Becket at Canterbury was a stone "with an angell of gold poynting thereunto," which was a gift from the King of France, who had had it "made into a ring and wore it on his thumb." Other stones described as being on this shrine were sumptuous, the whole being damascened with gold wire, and "in the midst of the gold, rings; or cameos of sculptured agates, carnelians, and onyx stones." A visitor to Canterbury in 1500 writes: "Everything is left far behind by a ruby not larger than a man's thumb nail, which is set to the right of the altar. The church is rather dark, and when we went to see it the sun was nearly gone down, and the weather was cloudy, yet we saw the ruby as well as if it had been in my hand. They say it was a gift of the King of France." Possessions of one kind were often converted into another, according to changing fashions. Philippa of Lancaster had a gold collar made "out of two bottles and a turret," in 1380. Mediæval rosaries were generally composed of beads of coral or carnelian, and often of gold and pearls as well. Marco Polo tells of a unique rosary worn by the King of Malabar; one hundred and four large pearls, with occasional rubies of great price, composed the string. Marco Polo adds: "He has to say one hundred and four prayers to his idols every morning and evening." In the possession of the Shah of Persia is a gold casket studded with emeralds, which is said to have the magic power of rendering the owner invisible as long as he remains celibate. I fancy that this is a safe claim, for the tradition is not likely to be put to the proof in the case of a Shah! Probably there has never been an opportunity of testing the miraculous powers of the stones. The inventory of Lord Lisle contains many interesting side lights on the jewelry of the period: "a hawthorne of gold, with twenty diamonds;" "a little tower of gold," and "a pair of beads of gold, with tassels." Filigree or chain work was termed "perry." In old papers such as inventories, registers, and the like, there are frequent mentions of buttons of "gold and perry;" in 1372 Aline Gerbuge received "one little circle of gold and perry, emeralds and balasses." Clasps and brooches were used much in the fourteenth century. They were often called "ouches," and were usually of jewelled gold. One, an image of St. George, was given by the Black Prince to John of Gaunt. The Duchess of Bretagne had among other brooches one with a white griffin, a balas ruby on its shoulder, six sapphires around it, and then six balasses, and twelve groups of pearls with diamonds. Brooches were frequently worn by being stuck in the hat. In a curious letter from James I. to his son, the monarch writes: "I send for your wearing the Three Brethren" (evidently a group of three stones) "...but newly set... which I wolde wish you to weare alone in your hat, with a Littel black feather." To his favourite Buckingham he also sends a diamond, saying that his son will lend him also "an anker" in all probability; but he adds: "If my Babee will not spare the anker from his Mistress, he may well lend thee his round brooch to weare, and yett he shall have jewels to weare in his hat for three grate dayes." In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the women wore nets in their hair, composed of gold threads adorned with pearls. At first two small long rolls by the temples were confined in these nets: later, the whole back hair was gathered into a large circular arrangement. These nets were called frets--"a fret of pearls" was considered a sufficient legacy for a duchess to leave to her daughter. In the constant resetting and changing of jewels, many important mediæval specimens, not to mention exquisite vessels and church furniture, were melted down and done over by Benvenuto Cellini, especially at the time that Pope Clement was besieged at the Castle of St. Angelo. Probably the most colossal jewel of ancient times was the Peacock Throne of Delhi. It was in the form of two spread tails of peacocks, composed entirely of sapphires, emeralds and topazes, feather by feather and eye by eye, set so as to touch each other. A parrot of life size carved from a single emerald, stood between the peacocks. In 1161 the throne of the Emperor in Constantinople is described by Benjamin of Tudela: "Of gold ornamented with precious stones. A golden crown hangs over it, suspended on a chain of the same material, the length of which exactly admits the Emperor to sit under it. The crown is ornamented with precious stones of inestimable value. Such is the lustre of these diamonds that even without any other light, they illumine the room in which they are kept." The greatest mediæval jeweller was St. Eloi of Limoges. His history is an interesting one, and his achievement and rise in life was very remarkable in the period in which he lived. Eloi was a workman in Limoges, as a youth, under the famous Abho, in the sixth century; there he learned the craft of a goldsmith. He was such a splendid artisan that he soon received commissions for extensive works on his own account. King Clothaire II. ordered from him a golden throne, and supplied the gold which was to be used. To the astonishment of all, Eloi presented the king with _two_ golden thrones (although it is difficult to imagine what a king would do with duplicate thrones!), and immediately it was noised abroad that the goldsmith Eloi was possessed of miraculous powers, since, out of gold sufficient for one throne, he had constructed two. People of a more practical turn found out that Eloi had learned the art of alloying the gold, so as to make it do double duty. A great many examples of St. Eloi's work might have been seen in France until the Revolution in 1792, especially at the Abbey of St. Denis. A ring made by him, with which St. Godiberte was married to Christ, according to the custom of mediæval saints, was preserved at Noyon until 1793, when it disappeared in the Revolution. The Chronicle says of Eloi: "He made for the king a great numer of gold vesses enriched with precious stones, and he worked incessantly, seated with his servant Thillo, a Saxon by birth, who followed the lessons of his master." St. Eloi founded two institutions for goldsmithing: one for the production of domestic and secular plate, and the other for ecclesiastical work exclusively, so that no worker in profane lines should handle the sacred vessels. The secular branch was situated near the dwelling of Eloi, in the Cité itself, and was known as "St. Eloi's Enclosure." When a fire burned them out of house and shelter, they removed to a suburban quarter, which soon became known in its turn, as the "Clôture St. Eloi." The religious branch of the establishment was presided over by the aforesaid Thillo, and was the Abbey of Solignac, near Limoges. This school was inaugurated in 631. While Eloi was working at the court of King Clothaire II., St. Quen was there as well. The two youths struck up a close friendship, and afterwards Ouen became his biographer. His description of Eloi's personal appearance is worth quoting, to show the sort of figure a mediæval saint sometimes cut before canonization. "He was tall, with a ruddy face, his hair and beard curly. His hands well made, and his fingers long, his face full of angelic sweetness.... At first he wore habits covered with pearls and precious stones; he had also belts sewn with pearls. His dress was of linen encrusted with gold, and the edges of his tunic trimmed with gold embroidery. Indeed, his clothing was very costly, and some of his dresses were of silk. Such was his exterior in his first period at court, and he dressed thus to avoid singularity; but under this garment he wore a rough sack cloth, and later on, he disposed of all his ornaments to relieve the distressed; and he might be seen with only a cord round his waist and common clothes. Sometimes the king, seeing him thus divested of his rich clothing, would take off his own cloak and girdle and give them to him, saying: 'It is not suitable that those who dwell for the world should be richly clad, and that those who despoil themselves for Christ should be without glory.'" Among the numerous virtues of St. Eloi was that of a consistent carrying out of his real beliefs and theories, whether men might consider him quixotic or not. He was strongly opposed to the institution of slavery. In those days it would have been futile to preach actual emancipation. The times were not ripe. But St. Eloi did all that he could for the cause of freedom by investing most of his money in slaves, and then setting them at liberty. Sometimes he would "corner" a whole slave market, buying as many as thirty to a hundred at a time. Some of these manumitted persons became his own faithful followers: some entered the religious life, and others devoted their talents to their benefactor, and worked in his studios for the furthering of art in the Church. He once played a trick upon the king. He requested the gift of a town, in order, as he explained, that he might there build a ladder by which they might both reach heaven. The king, in the rather credulous fashion of the times, granted his request, and waited to see the ladder. St. Eloi promptly built a monastery. If the monarch did not choose to avail himself of this species of ladder,--surely it was no fault of the builder! St. Quen and St. Eloi were consecrated bishops on the same day, May 14, St. Quen to the Bishopric of Rouen, and Eloi to the See of Noyon. He made a great hunt for the body of St. Quentin, which had been unfortunately mislaid, having been buried in the neighbourhood of Noyon; he turned up every available spot of ground around, within and beneath the church, until he found a skeleton in a tomb, with some iron nails. This he proclaimed to be the sacred body, for the legend was that St. Quentin had been martyred by having nails driven into his head! Although it was quite evident to others that these were coffin nails, still St. Eloi insisted upon regarding his discovery as genuine, and they began diligently to dismember the remains for distribution among the churches. As they were pulling one of the teeth, a drop of blood was seen to follow it, which miracle was hailed by St. Eloi as the one proof wanting. Eloi had the genuine artistic temperament and his religious zeal was much influenced by his æsthetic nature. He once preached an excellent sermon, still preserved, against superstition. He inveighed particularly against the use of charms and incantations. But he had his own little streak of superstition in spite of the fact that he fulminated against it. When he had committed some fault, after confession, he used to hang bags of relics in his room, and watch them for a sign of forgiveness. When one of these would turn oily, or begin to affect the surrounding atmosphere peculiarly, he would consider it a sign of the forgiveness of heaven. It seems to us to-day as if he might have looked to his own relic bags before condemning the ignorant. St. Eloi died in 659, and was himself distributed to the faithful in quite a wholesale way. One arm is in Paris. He was canonized both for his holy life and for his great zeal in art. He was buried in a silver coffin adorned with gold, and his tomb was said to work miracles like the shrine of Becket. Indeed, Becket himself was pretty dressy in the matter of jewels; when he travelled to Paris, the simple Frenchmen exclaimed: "What a wonderful personage the King of England must be, if his chancellor can travel in such state!" There are various legends about St. Eloi. It is told that a certain horse once behaved in a very obstreperous way while being shod; St. Eloi calmly cut off the animal's leg, and fixed the shoe quietly in position, and then replaced the leg, which grew into place again immediately, to the pardonable astonishment of all beholders, not to mention the horse. St. Eloi was also employed to coin the currency of Dagobert and Clovis II., and examples of these coins may now be seen, as authentic records of the style of his work. A century after his death the monasteries which he had founded were still in operation, and Charlemagne's crown and sword are very possibly the result of St. Eloi's teachings to his followers. While the monasteries undoubtedly controlled most of the art education of the early middle ages, there were also laymen who devoted themselves to these pursuits. John de Garlande, a famous teacher in the University of Paris, wrote, in the eleventh century, a "Dictionarius" dealing with various arts. In this interesting work he describes, the trades of the moneyers (who controlled the mint), the coining of gold and silver into currency (for the making of coin in those days was permitted by individuals), the clasp makers, the makers of cups or hanaps, jewellers and harness makers, and other artificers. John de Garlande was English, born about the middle of the twelfth century, and was educated in Oxford. In the early thirteenth century he became associated with the University, and when Simon de Montfort was slain in 1218, at Toulouse, John was at the University of Toulouse, where he was made So professor, and stayed three years, returning then to Paris. He died about the middle of the thirteenth century. He was celebrated chiefly for his Dictionarius, a work on the various arts and crafts of France, and for a poem "De Triumphis Ecclesiæ." During the Middle Ages votive crowns were often presented to churches; among these a few are specially famous. The crowns, studded with jewels, were suspended before the altar by jewelled chains, and often a sort of fringe of jewelled letters was hung from the rim, forming an inscription. The votive crown of King Suinthila, in Madrid, is among the most ornate of these. It is the finest specimen in the noted "Treasure of Guerrazzar," which was discovered by peasants turning up the soil near Toledo; the crowns, of which there were many, date from about the seventh century, and are sumptuous with precious stones. The workmanship is not that of a barbarous nation, though it has the fascinating irregularities of the Byzantine style. Of the delightful work of the fifth and sixth centuries there are scarcely any examples in Italy. The so-called Iron Crown of Monza is one of the few early Lombard treasures. This crown has within it a narrow band of iron, said to be a nail of the True Cross; but the crown, as it meets the eye, is anything but iron, being one of the most superb specimens of jewelled golden workmanship, as fine as those in the Treasure of Guerrazzar. [Illustration: THE TREASURE OF GUERRAZZAR.] The crown of King Alfred the Great is mentioned in an old inventory as being of "gould wire worke, sett with slight stones, and two little bells." A diadem is described by William of Malmsbury, "so precious with jewels, that the splendour... threw sparks of light so strongly on the beholder, that the more steadfastly any person endeavoured to gaze, so much the more he was dazzled, and compelled to avert the eyes!" In 1382 a circlet crown was purchased for Queen Anne of Bohemia, being set with a large sapphire, a balas, and four large pearls with a diamond in the centre. The Cathedral at Amiens owns what is supposed to be the head of John the Baptist, enshrined in a gilt cup of silver, and with bands of jewelled work. The head is set upon a platter of gilded and jewelled silver, covered with a disc of rock crystal. The whole, though ancient, is enclosed in a modern shrine. The legend of the preservation of the Baptist's head is that Herodias, afraid that the saint might be miraculously restored to life if his head and body were laid in the same grave, decided to hide the head until this danger was past. Furtively, she concealed the relic for a time, and then it was buried in Herod's palace. It was there opportunely discovered by some monks in the fourth century. This "invention of the head" (the word being interpreted according to the credulity of the reader) resulted in its removal to Emesa, where it was exhibited in 453. In 753 Marcellus, the Abbot of Emesa, had a vision by means of which he re-discovered (or re-invented) the head, which had in some way been lost sight of. Following the guidance of his dream, he repaired to a grotto, and proceeded to exhume the long-suffering relic. After many other similar and rather disconnected episodes, it finally came into possession of the Bishop of Amiens in 1206. A great calamity in early times was the loss of all the valuables of King John of England. Between Lincolnshire and Norfolk the royal cortège was crossing the Wash: the jewels were all swept away. Crown and all were thus lost, in 1216. Several crowns have been through vicissitudes. When Richard III. died, on Bosworth Field, his crown was secured by a soldier and hidden in a bush. Sir Reginald de Bray discovered it, and restored it to its rightful place. But to balance such cases several of the queens have brought to the national treasury their own crowns. In 1340 Edward III. pawned even the queen's jewels to raise money for fighting France. The same inventory makes mention of certain treasures deposited at Westminster: the values are attached to each of these, crowns, plates, bracelets, and so forth. Also, with commendable zeal, a list was kept of other articles stored in an iron chest, among which are the items, "one liver coloured silk robe, very old, and worth nothing," and "an old combe of horne, worth nothing." A frivolous scene is described by Wood, when the notorious Republican, Marten, had access to the treasure stored in Westminster. Some of the wits of the period assembled in the treasury, and took out of the iron chest several of its jewels, a crown, sceptre, and robes; these they put upon the merry poet, George Withers, "who, being thus crowned and royally arrayed, first marched about the room with a stately gait, and afterwards, with a thousand ridiculous and apish actions, exposed the sacred ornaments to contempt and laughter." No doubt the "olde comb" played a suitable part in these pranks,--perhaps it may even have served as orchestra. One Sir Henry Mildmay, in 1649, was responsible for dreadful vandalism, under the Puritan régime. Among other acts which he countenanced was the destruction and sale of the wonderful Crown of King Alfred, to which allusion has just been made. In the Will of the Earl of Pembroke, in 1650, is this clause showing how unpopular Sir Henry had become: "Because I threatened Sir Henry Mildmay, but did not beat him, I give £50 to the footman who cudgelled him. Item, my will is that the said Sir Harry shall not meddle with my jewels. I knew him... when he handled the Crown jewels,... for which reason I now name him the Knave of Diamonds." Jewelled arms and trappings became very rich in the fifteenth century. Pius II. writes of the German armour: "What shall I say of the neck chains of the men, and the bridles of the horses, which are made of the purest gold; and of the spears and scabbards which are covered with jewels?" Spurs were also set with jewels, and often damascened with gold, and ornamented with appropriate mottoes. An inventory of the jewelled cups and reliquaries of Queen Jeanne of Navarre, about 1570, reads like a museum. She had various gold and jewelled dishes for banquets; one jewel is described as "Item, a demoiselle of gold, represented as riding upon a horse, of mother of pearl, standing upon a platform of gold, enriched with ten rubies, six turquoises and three fine pearls." Another item is, "A fine rock crystal set in gold, enriched with three rubies, three emeralds, and a large sapphire, set transparently, the whole suspended from a small gold chain." It is time now to speak of the actual precious stones themselves, which apart from their various settings are, after all, the real jewels. According to Cellini there are only four precious stones: he says they are made "by the four elements," ruby by fire, sapphire by air, emerald by earth, and diamond by water. It irritated him to have any one claim others as precious stones. "I have a thing or two to say," he remarks, "in order not to scandalize a certain class of men who call themselves jewellers, but may be better likened to hucksters, or linen drapers, pawn brokers, or grocers... with a maximum of credit and a minimum of brains... these dunderheads... wag their arrogant tongues at me and cry, 'How about the chrysophrase, or the jacynth, how about the aqua marine, nay more, how about the garnet, the vermeil, the crysolite, the plasura, the amethyst? Ain't these all stones and all different?' Yes, and why the devil don't you add pearls, too, among the jewels, ain't they fish bones?" Thus he classes the stones together, adding that the balas, though light in colour, is a ruby, and the topaz a sapphire. "It is of the same hardness, and though of a different colour, must be classified with the sapphire: what better classification do you want? hasn't the air got its sun?" Cellini always set the coloured stones in a bezel or closed box of gold, with a foil behind them. He tells an amusing story of a ruby which he once set on a bit of frayed silk instead of on the customary foil. The result happened to be most brilliant. The jewellers asked him what kind of foil he had used, and he replied that he had employed no foil. Then they exclaimed that he must have tinted it, which was against all laws of jewelry. Again Benvenuto swore that he had neither used foil, nor had he done anything forbidden or unprofessional to the stone. "At this the jeweller got a little nasty, and used strong language," says Cellini. They then offered to pay well for the information if Cellini would inform them by what means he had obtained so remarkably a lustre. Benvenuto, expressing himself indifferent to pay, but "much honoured in thus being able to teach his teachers," opened the setting and displayed his secret, and all parted excellent friends. Even so early as the thirteenth century, the jewellers of Paris had become notorious for producing artificial jewels. Among their laws was one which stipulated that "the jeweller was not to dye the amethyst, or other false stones, nor mount them in gold leaf nor other colour, nor mix them with rubies, emeralds, or other precious stones, except as a crystal simply without mounting or dyeing." One day Cellini had found a ruby which he believed to be set dishonestly, that is, a very pale stone with a thick coating of dragon's blood smeared on its back. When he took it to some of his favourite "dunderheads," they were sure that he was mistaken, saying that it had been set by a noted jeweller, and could not be an imposition. So Benvenuto immediately removed the stone from its setting, thereby exposing the fraud. "Then might that ruby have been likened to the crow which tricked itself out in the feathers of the peacock," observes Cellini, adding that he advised these "old fossils in the art" to provide themselves with better eyes than they then _wore_. "I could not resist saying this," chuckles Benvenuto, "because all three of them wore great gig-lamps on their noses; whereupon they all three gasped at each other, shrugged their shoulders, and with God's blessing, made off." Cellini tells of a Milanese jeweller who concocted a great emerald, by applying a very thin layer of the real stone upon a large bit of green glass: he says that the King of England bought it, and that the fraud was not discovered for many years. A commission was once given Cellini to make a magnificent crucifix for a gift from the Pope to Emperor Charles V., but, as he expresses it, "I was hindered from finishing it by certain beasts who had the vantage of the Pope's ear," but when these evil whisperers had so "gammoned the Pope," that he was dissuaded from the crucifix, the Pope ordered Cellini to make a magnificent Breviary instead, so that the "job" still remained in his hands. Giovanni Pisano made some translucid enamels for the decorations of the high altar in Florence, and also a jewelled clasp to embellish the robe of a statue of the Virgin. Ghiberti was not above turning his attention to goldsmithing, and in 1428 made a seal for Giovanni de Medici, a cope-button and mitre for Pope Martin V., and a gold nutre with precious stones weighing five and a half pounds, for Pope Eugene IV. Diamonds were originally cut two at a time, one cutting the other, whence has sprung the adage, "diamond cut diamond." Cutting in facets was thus the natural treatment of this gem. The practise originated in India. Two diamonds rubbing against each other systematically will in time form a facet on each. In 1475 it was discovered by Louis de Berghem that diamonds could be cut by their own dust. It is an interesting fact in connection with the Kohinoor that in India there had always been a legend that its owner should be the ruler of India. Probably the ancient Hindoos among whom this legend developed would be astonished to know that, although the great stone is now the property of the English, the tradition is still unbroken! Marco Polo alludes to the treasures brought from the Isle of Ormus, as "spices, pearls, precious stones, cloth of gold and silver, elephant's teeth, and all other precious things from India." In Balaxiam he says are found "ballasses and other precious stones of great value. No man, on pain of death, dare either dig such stones or carry them out of the country, for all those stones are the King's. Other mountains also in this province yield stones called lapis lazuli, whereof the best azure is made. The like is not found in the world. These mines also yield silver, brass, and lead." He speaks of the natives as wearing gold and silver earrings, "with pearls and-other stones artificially wrought in them." In a certain river, too, are found jasper and chalcedons. Marco Polo's account of how diamonds are obtained is ingenuous in its reckless defiance of fact. He says that in the mountains "there are certain great deep valleys to the bottom of which there is no access. Wherefore the men who go in search of the diamonds take with them pieces of meat," which they throw into this deep valley. He relates that the eagles, when they see these pieces of meat, fly down and get them, and when they return, they settle on the higher rocks, when the men raise a shout, and drive them off. After the eagles have thus been driven away, "the men recover the pieces of meat, and find them full of diamonds, which have stuck to them. For the abundance of diamonds down in the depths," continues Marco Polo, naïvely "is astonishing; but nobody can get down, and if one could, it would be only to be incontinently devoured by the serpents which are so rife there." A further account proceeds thus: "The diamonds are so scattered and dispersed in the earth, and lie so thin, that in the most plentiful mines it is rare to find one in digging;... they are frequently enclosed in clods,... some... have the earth so fixed about them that till they grind them on a rough stone with sand, they cannot move it sufficiently to discover they are transparent or... to know them from other stones. At the first opening of the mine, the unskilful labourers sometimes, to try what they have found, lay them on a great stone, and, striking them one with another, to their costly experience, discover that they have broken a diamond.... They fill a cistern with water, soaking therein as much of the earth they dig out of the mine as it can hold at one time, breaking the clods, picking out the great stones, and stirring it with shovels... then they open a vent, letting out the foul water, and supply it with clean, till the earthy substance be all washed away, and only the gravelly one remains at the bottom." A process of sifting and drying is then described, and the gravel is all spread out to be examined, "they never examine the stuff they have washed but between the hours of ten and three, lest any cloud, by interposing, intercept the brisk beams of the sun, which they hold very necessary to assist them in their search, the diamonds constantly reflecting them when they shine on them, rendering themselves thereby the more conspicuous." The earliest diamond-cutter is frequently mentioned as Louis de Berquem de Bruges, in 1476. But Laborde finds earlier records of the art of cutting this gem: there was in Paris a diamond-cutter named Herman, in 1407. The diamond cutters of Paris were quite numerous in that year, and lived in a special district known as "la Courarie, where reside the workers in diamonds and other stones." Finger rings almost deserve a history to themselves, for their forms and styles are legion. Rings were often made of glass in the eleventh century. Theophilus tells in a graphic and interesting manner how they were constructed. He recommends the use of a bar of iron, as thick as one's finger, set in a wooden handle, "as a lance is joined in its pike." There should also be a large piece of wood, at the worker's right hand, "the thickness of an arm, dug into the ground, and reaching to the top of the window." On the left of the furnace a little clay trench is to be provided. "Then, the glass being cooked," one is admonished to take the little iron in the wooden handle, dip it into the molten glass, and pick up a small portion, and "prick it into the wood, that the glass may be pierced through, and instantly warm it in the flame, and strike it twice upon the wood, that the glass may be dilated, and with quickness revolve your hand with the same iron;" when the ring is thus formed, it is to be quickly thrown into the trench. Theophilus adds, "If you wish to vary your rings with other colours... take... glass of another colour, surrounding the glass of the ring with it in the manner of a thread... you can also place upon the ring glass of another kind, as a gem, and warm it in the fire that it may adhere." One can almost see these rings from this accurate description of their manufacture. The old Coronation Ring, "the wedding ring of England," was a gold ring with a single fine balas ruby; the pious tradition had it that this ring was given to Edward the Confessor by a beggar, who was really St. John the Evangelist in masquerade! The palace where this unique event occurred was thereupon named Have-ring-at-Bower. The Stuart kings all wore this ring and until it came to George IV., with other Stuart bequests, it never left the royal Stuart line. Edward I. owned a sapphire ring made by St. Dunstan. Dunstan was an industrious art spirit, being reported by William of Malmsbury as "taking great delight in music, painting, and engraving." In the "Ancren Riwle," a book of directions for the cloistered life of women, nuns are forbidden to wear "ne ring ne brooche," and to deny themselves other personal adornments. Archbishops seem to have possessed numerous rings in ancient times. In the romance of "Sir Degrevant" a couplet alludes to: "Archbishops with rings More than fifteen." Episcopal rings were originally made of sapphires, said to be typical of the cold austerity of the life of the wearer. Later, however, the carbuncle became a favourite, which was supposed to suggest fiery zeal for the faith. Perhaps the compromise of the customary amethyst, which is now most popularly used, for Episcopal rings, being a combination of the blue and the red, may typify a blending of more human qualities! [Illustration: HEBREW RING] In an old will of 1529, a ring was left as a bequest to a relative, described as "a table diamond set with black aniell, meate for my little finger." The accompanying illustration represents a Hebrew ring, surmounted by a little mosque, and having the inscription "Mazul Toub" (God be with you, or Good luck to you). It was the custom in Elizabethan times to wear "posie rings" (or poesie rings) in which inscriptions were cut, such as, "Let likinge Laste," "Remember the ? that is in pain," or, "God saw fit this knot to knit," and the like. These posie rings are so called because of the little poetical sentiments associated with them. They were often used as engagement rings, and sometimes as wedding rings. In an old Saxon ring is the inscription, "Eanred made me and Ethred owns me." One of the mottoes in an old ring is pathetic; evidently it was worn by an invalid, who was trying to be patient, "Quant Dieu Plera melior sera." (When it shall please God, I shall be better.) And in a small ring set with a tiny diamond, "This sparke shall grow." An agreeable and favourite "posie" was "The love is true That I O U." A motto in a ring owned by Lady Cathcart was inscribed on the occasion of her fourth marriage; with laudable ambition, she observes, "If I survive, I will have five." It is to these "posie rings" that Shakespeare has reference when he makes Jaques say to Orlando: "You are full of pretty answers: have you not been acquainted with goldsmiths' wives, and conned them out of rings?" In the Isle of Man there was once a law that any girl who had been wronged by a man had the right to redress herself in one of three ways: she was given a sword, a rope and a ring, and she could decide whether she would behead him, hang him, or marry him. Tradition states that the ring was almost invariably the weapon chosen by the lady. Superstition has ordained that certain stones should cure certain evils: the blood-stone was of very general efficacy, it was claimed, and the opal, when folded in a bay leaf, had the power of rendering the owner invisible. Some stones, especially the turquoise, turned pale or became deeper in hue according to the state of the owner's health; the owner of a diamond was invincible; the possession of an agate made a man amiable, and eloquent. Whoever wore an amethyst was proof against intoxication, while a jacynth superinduced sleep in cases of insomnia. Bed linen was often embroidered, and set with bits of jacynth, and there is even a record of diamonds having been used in the decoration of sheets! Another entertaining instance of credulity was the use of "cramp rings." These were rings blessed by the queen, and supposed to cure all manner of cramps, just as the king's touch was supposed to cure scrofula. When a queen died, the demand for these rings became a panic: no more could be produced, until a new queen was crowned. After the beheading of Anne Boleyn, Husee writes to his patroness: "Your ladyship shall receive of this bearer nine cramp rings of silver. John Williams says he never had so few of gold as this year!" A stone engraved with the figure of a hare was believed to be valuable in exorcising the devil. That of a dog preserved the owner from "dropsy or pestilence;" a versatile ring indeed! An old French book speaks of an engraved stone with the image of Pegasus being particularly healthful for warriors; it was said to give them "boldness and swiftness in flight." These two virtues sound a trifle incompatible! The turquoise was supposed to be especially sympathetic. According to Dr. Donne: "A compassionate turquoise, that cloth tell By looking pale, the owner is not well," must have been a very sensitive stone. There was a physician in the fourth century who was famous for his cures of colic and biliousness by means of an iron ring engraved with an exorcism requesting the bile to go and take possession of a bird! There was also a superstition that fits could be cured by a ring made of "sacrament money." The sufferer was obliged to stand at the church door, begging a penny from every unmarried man who passed in or out; this was given to a silversmith, who exchanged it at the cathedral for "sacrament money," out of which he made a ring. If this ring was worn by the afflicted person, the seizures were said to cease. The superstition concerning the jewel in the toad's head was a strangely persistent one: it is difficult to imagine what real foundation there could ever have been for the idea. An old writer gives directions for getting this stone, which the toad in his life time seems to have guarded most carefully. "A rare good way to get the stone out of a toad," he says, "is to put a... toad... into an earthen pot: put the same into an ant's hillocke, and cover the same with earth, which toad... the ants will eat, so that the bones... and stone will be left in the pot." Boethius once stayed up all night watching a toad in the hope that it might relinquish its treasure; but he complained that nothing resulted "to gratify the great pangs of his whole night's restlessness." An old Irish legend says that "the stone Adamant in the land of India grows no colder in any wind or snow or ice; there is no heat in it under burning sods" (this is such an Hibernian touch! The peat fuel was the Celtic idea of a heating system), "nothing is broken from it by striking of axes and hammers; there is one thing only breaks that stone, the blood of the Lamb at the Mass; and every king that has taken that stone in his right hand before going into battle, has always gained the victory." There is also a superstition regarding the stone Hibien, which is said to flame like a fiery candle in the darkness, "it spills out poison before it in a vessel; every snake that comes near to it or crosses it dies on the moment." Another stone revered in Irish legend is the Stone of Istien, which is found "in the brains of dragons after their deaths," and a still more capable jewel seems to be the Stone of Fanes, within which it is claimed that the sun, moon, and twelve stars are to be seen. "In the hearts of the dragons it is always found that make their journey under the sea. No one having it in his hand can tell any lie until he has put it from him; no race or army could bring it into a house where there is one that has made way with his father. At the hour of matins it gives out sweet music that there is not the like of under heaven." Bartholomew, the mediæval scientist, tells narratives of the magical action of the sapphire. "The sapphire is a precious stone," he says, "and is blue in colour, most like to heaven in fair weather and clear, and is best among precious stones, and most apt and able to fingers of kings. And if thou put an addercop in a box, and hold a very sapphire of India at the mouth of the box any while, by virtue thereof the addercop is overcome and dieth, as it were suddenly. And this same I have seen proved oft in many and divers places." Possibly the fact that the addercop is so infrequent an invader of our modern life accounts for the fact that we are left inert upon reading so surprising a statement; or possibly our incredulity dominates our awe. The art of the lapidary, or science of glyptics, is a most interesting study, and it would be a mistake not to consider it for a few moments on its technical side. It is very ancient as an art. In Ecclesiasticus the wise Son of Sirach alludes to craftsmen "that cut and grave seals, and are diligent to make great variety, and give themselves to counterfeit imagery, and watch to finish a work." Theophilus on glyptics is too delightfully naïve for us to resist quoting his remarks. "Crystal," he announces, "which is water hardened into ice, and the ice of great age hardened into stone, is trimmed and polished in this manner." He then directs the use of sandstone and emery, chiefly used by rubbing, as one might infer, to polish the stones, probably _en cabochon_ as was the method in his time; this style of finish on a gem was called "tallow cutting." But when one wishes to sculp crystal, Theophilus informs one: "Take a goat of two or three years... make an opening between his breast and stomach, in the position of the heart, and lay in the crystal, so that it may lie in its blood until it grow warm... cut what you please in it as long as the heat lasts." Just how many goats were required to the finishing of a sculptured crystal would be determined by the elaboration of the design! Unfortunately Animal Rescue Leagues had not invaded the monasteries of the eleventh century. In sculpturing glass, the ingenuous Theophilus is quite at his best. "Artists!" he exclaims, "who wish to engrave glass in a beautiful manner, I now can teach you, as I have myself made trial. I have sought the gross worms which the plough turns up in the ground, and the art necessary in these things also bid me procure vinegar, and the warm blood of a lusty goat, which I was careful to place under the roof for a short time, bound with a strong ivy plant. After this I infused the worms and vinegar with the warm blood and I anointed the whole clearly shining vessel; which being done, I essayed to sculp the glass with the hard stone called the Pyrites." What a pity good Theophilus had not begun with the pyrites, when he would probably have made the further discovery that his worms and goats could have been spared. In the polishing of precious stones, he is quite sane in his directions. "Procure a marble slab, very smooth," he enjoins, "and act as useful art points out to you." In other words, rub it until it is smooth! Bartholomew Anglicus is as entertaining as Theophilus regarding crystal. "Men trowe that it is of snow or ice made hard in many years," he observes complacently. "This stone set in the sun taketh fire, insomuch if dry tow be put thereto, it setteth the tow on fire," and again, quoting Gregory on Ezekiel I., he adds, "water is of itself fleeting, but by strength of cold it is turned and made stedfast crystal." Of small specimens of sculptured crystal some little dark purple beads carved into the semblance of human faces may be seen on the Tara brooch; while also on the same brooch occur little purple daisies. The Cup of the Ptolemies, a celebrated onyx cup in Paris, is over fifteen inches in circumference, and is a fine specimen of early lapidary's work. It was presented in the ninth century by Charles the Bald to St. Denis, and was always used to contain the consecrated wine when Queens of France were crowned. Henry II. once pawned it to a Jew when he was hard up, and in 1804 it was stolen and the old gold and jewelled setting removed. It was found again in Holland, and was remounted within a century. In the Treasury of St. Mark's in Venice are many valuable examples of carved stones, made into cups, flagons, and the like. These were brought from Constantinople in 1204, when the city was captured by the Venetians. Constantinople was the only place where glyptics were understood and practised upon large hard stones in the early Middle Ages. The Greek artists who took refuge in Italy at that time brought the art with them. There are thirty-two of these Byzantine chalices in St. Mark's. Usually the mountings are of gold, and precious stones. There are also two beautiful cruets of agate, elaborately ornamented, but carved in curious curving forms requiring skill of a superior order. Two other rock crystal cruets are superbly carved, probably by Oriental workmen, however, as they are not Byzantine in their decorations. One of them was originally a vase, and, indeed, is still, for the long gold neck has no connection with the inside; the handle is also of gold, both these adjuncts seem to have been regarded as simply ornament. The other cruet is carved elaborately with leopards, the first and taller one showing monsters and foliate forms. Around the neck of the lower of these rock crystal cruets is an inscription, praying for God's blessing on the "Imam Aziz Billah," who was reigning in Egypt in 980. This cruet has a gold stand. The handle is cleverly cut in the same piece of crystal, but a band of gold is carried down it to give it extra strength. The forming of this handle in connection with the rest of the work is a veritable _tour de force_, and we should have grave doubts whether Theophilus with his goats could have managed it! [Illustration: CRYSTAL FLAGONS, ST. MARK'S, VENICE] Vasari speaks with characteristic enthusiasm of the glyptics of the Greeks, "whose works in that manner may be called divine." But, as he continues, "many and very many years passed over during which the art was lost".... until in the days of Lorenzo di Medici the fashion for cameos and intaglios revived. In the Guild of the Masters of Wood and Stone in Florence, the cameo-cutters found a place, nevertheless it seems fitting to include them at this point among jewellers, instead of among carvers. The Italians certainly succeeded in performing feats of lapidary art at a later period. Vasari mentions two cups ordered by Duke Cosmo, one cut out of a piece of lapis lazuli, and the other from an enormous heliotrope, and a crystal galley with gold rigging was made by the Sanachi brothers. In the Green Vaults in Dresden may be seen numerous specimens of valuable but hideous products of this class. In the seventeenth century, the art had run its course, and gave place to a taste for cameos, which in its turn was run into the ground. Cameo-cutting and gem engraving has always been accomplished partly by means of a drill; the deepest point to be reached in the cutting would be punctured first, and then the surfaces cut, chipped, and ground away until the desired level was attained. This is on much the same principle as that adopted by marble cutters to-day. Mr. Cyril Davenport's definition of a cameo is quite satisfactory: "A small sculpture executed in low relief upon some substance precious either for its beauty, rarity, or hardness." Cameos are usually cut in onyx, the different layers and stratifications of colour being cut away at different depths, so that the sculpture appears to be rendered in one colour on another, and sometimes three or four layers are recognized, so that a shaded effect is obtained. Certain pearly shells are sometimes used for cameo cutting; these were popular in Italy in the fifteenth century. In Greece and Rome the art of cameo cutting was brought to astonishing perfection, the sardonyx being frequently used, and often cut in five different coloured layers. An enormous antique cameo, measuring over nine inches across, may be seen in Vienna; it represents the Apotheosis of Augustus, and the scene is cut in two rows of spirited figures. It dates from the first century A. D. It is in dark brown and white. Among the treasures of the art-loving Henry III. was a "great cameo," in a golden case; it was worth two hundred pounds. This cameo was supposed to compete with a celebrated work at Ste. Chapelle in Paris, which had been brought by Emperor Baldwin II. from Constantinople. [Illustration: SARDONYX CUP, 11TH CENTURY, VENICE] In Paris was a flourishing guild, the "Lapidaries, Jewel Cutters, and Engravers of Cameos and Hard Stones," in the thirteenth century; glass cutters were included in this body for a time, but after 1584 the revised laws did not permit of any imitative work, so glass cutters were no longer allowed to join the society. The French work was rather coarse compared with the classic examples. The celebrated Portland Vase is a glass cameo, of enormous proportions, and a work of the first century, in blue and white. There is a quaint legend connected with the famous stone cameo known as the Vase of St. Martin, which is as follows: when St. Martin visited the Martyr's Field at Agaune, he prayed for some time, and then stuck his knife into the ground, and was excusably astonished at seeing blood flow forth. Recognizing at once that he was in the presence of the miraculous (which was almost second nature to mediæval saints), he began sedulously to collect the precious fluid in a couple of receptacles with which he had had the foresight to provide himself. The two vases, however, were soon filled, and yet the mystical ruby spring continued. At his wit's ends, he prayed again for guidance, and presently an angel descended, with a vase of fine cameo workmanship, in which the remainder of the sacred fluid was preserved. This vase is an onyx, beautifully cut, with fine figures, and is over eight inches high, mounted at foot and collar with Byzantine gold and jewelled work. The subject appears to be an episode during the Siege of Troy,--a whimsical selection of design for an angel. Some apparently mediæval cameos are in reality antiques recut with Christian characters. A Hercules could easily be turned into a David, while Perseus and Medusa could be transformed quickly into a David and Goliath. There are two examples of cameos of the Virgin which had commenced their careers, one as a Leda, and the other as Venus! While a St. John had originally figured as Jupiter with his eagle! In the Renaissance there was great revival of all branches of gem cutting, and cameos began to improve, and to resemble once more their classical ancestors. Indeed, their resemblance was rather academic, and there was little originality in design. Like most of the Renaissance arts, it was a reversion instead of a new creation. Technically, however, the work was a triumph. The craftsmen were not satisfied until they had quite outdone the ancients, and they felt obliged to increase the depth of the cutting, in order to show how cleverly they could coerce the material; they even under-cut in some cases. During the Medicean period of Italian art, cameos were cut in most fantastic forms; sometimes a negro head would be introduced simply to exhibit a dark stratum in the onyx, and was quite without beauty. One of the Florentine lapidaries was known as Giovanni of the Carnelians, and another as Domenico of the Cameos. This latter carved a portrait of Ludovico il Moro on a red balas ruby, in intaglio. Nicolo Avanzi is reported as having carved a lapis lazuli "three fingers broad" into the scene of the Nativity. Matteo dal Nassaro, a son of a shoemaker in Verona, developed extraordinary talent in gem cutting. An exotic production is a crucifix cut in a blood-stone by Matteo del Nassaro, where the artist has so utilized the possibilities of this stone that he has made the red patches to come in suitable places to portray drops of blood. Matteo worked also in Paris, in 1531, where he formed a school and craft shop, and where he was afterwards made Engraver of the Mint. Vasari tells of an ingenious piece of work by Matteo, where he has carved a chalcedony into a head of Dejanira, with the skin of the lion about it. He says, "In the stone there was a vein of red colour, and here the artist has made the skin turn over... and he has represented this skin with such exactitude that the spectator imagines himself to behold it newly torn from the animal! Of another mark he has availed himself, for the hair, and the white parts he has taken for the face and breast." Matteo was an independent spirit: when a baron once tried to beat him down in his price for a gem, he refused to take a small sum for it, but asked the baron to accept it as a gift. When this offer was refused, and the nobleman insisted upon giving a low price, Matteo deliberately took his hammer and shattered the cameo into pieces at a single blow. His must have been an unhappy life. Vasari says that he "took a wife in France and became the father of children, but they were so entirely dissimilar to himself, that he had but little satisfaction from them." Another famous lapidary was Valerio Vicentino, who carved a set of crystals which were made into a casket for Pope Clement VII., while for Paul III. he made a carved crystal cross and chandelier. Vasari reserves his highest commendation for Casati, called "el Greco," "by whom every other artist is surpassed in the grace and perfection as well as in the universality of his productions."... "Nay, Michelangelo himself, looking at them one day while Giovanni Vasari was present, remarked that the hour for the death of the art had arrived, for it was not possible that better work could be seen!" Michelangelo proved a prophet, in this case surely, for the decadence followed swiftly. CHAPTER III ENAMEL "Oh, thou discreetest of readers," says Benvenuto Cellini, "marvel not that I have given so much time to writing about all this," and we feel like making the same apology for devoting a whole chapter to enamel; but this branch of the goldsmith's art has so many subdivisions, that it cries for space. The word Enamel is derived from various sources. The Greek language has contributed "maltha," to melt; the German "schmeltz," the old French "esmail," and the Italian "smalta," all meaning about the same thing, and suggesting the one quality which is inseparable from enamel of all nations and of all ages,--its fusibility. For it is always employed in a fluid state, and always must be. Enamel is a type of glass product reduced to powder, and then melted by fervent heat into a liquid condition, which, when it has hardened, returns to its vitreous state. Enamel has been used from very early times. The first allusion to it is by Philostratus, in the year 200 A. D., where he described the process as applied to the armour of his day. "The barbarians of the regions of the ocean," he writes, "are skilled in fusing colours on heated brass, which become as hard as stone, and render the ornament thus produced durable." Enamels have special characteristics in different periods: in the late tenth century, of Byzantium and Germany; in the eleventh century, of Italy; while most of the later work owes its leading characteristics to the French, although it continued to be produced in the other countries. It helps one to understand the differences and similarities in enamelled work, to observe the three general forms in which it is employed; these are, the cloisonné, the champlevé, and the painted enamel. There are many subdivisions of these classifications, but for our purpose these three will suffice. In cloisonné, the only manner known to the Greek, Anglo-Saxon, and Celtic craftsmen, the pattern is made upon a gold ground, by little upright wire lines, like filigree, the enamel is fused into all the little compartments thus formed, each bit being one clear colour, on the principle of a mosaic. The colours were always rather clear and crude, but are the more sincere and decorative on this account, the worker recognizing frankly the limitation of the material; and the gold outline harmonizes the whole, as it does in any form of art work. A cloisonné enamel is practically a mosaic, in which the separations consist of narrow bands of metal instead of plaster. The enamel was applied in its powdered state on the gold, and then fused all together in the furnace. [Illustration: GERMAN ENAMEL, 13TH CENTURY] Champlevé enamel has somewhat the same effect as the cloisonné, but the end is attained by different means. The outline is left in metal, and the whole background is cut away and sunk, thus making the hollow chambers for the vitreous paste, in one piece, instead of by means of wires. Often it is not easy to determine which method has been employed to produce a given work. Painted enamels were not employed in the earliest times, but came to perfection in the Renaissance. A translucent enamel prevailed especially in Italy: a low relief was made with the graver on gold or silver; fine raised lines were left here and there, to separate the colours. Therefore, where the cutting was deepest, the enamel ran thicker, and consequently darker in colour, giving the effect of shading, while in reality only one tint had been used. The powdered and moistened enamel was spread evenly with a spatula over the whole surface, and allowed to stand in the kiln until it liquefied. Another form of enamel was used to colour gold work in relief, with a permanent coating of transparent colour. Sometimes this colour was applied in several coats, one upon another, and the features painted with a later touch. Much enamelled jewelry was made in this way, figures, dragons, and animal forms, being among the most familiar. But an actual enamel painting--on the principle of a picture, was rendered in still another way. In preparing the ground for enamel painting, there are two things which have been essentially considered in all times and countries. The enamel ground must be more fusible than the metal on which it is placed, or else both would melt together. Also the enamel with which the final decoration is executed must be more easily made fluid than the harder enamel on which it is laid. In fact, each coat must of necessity be a trifle more fusible than the preceding one. A very accurate knowledge is necessary to execute such a work, as will be readily understood. [Illustration: ENAMELLED GOLD BOOK COVER, SIENA] In examining historic examples of enamel, the curious oval set in gold, known as the Alfred Jewel, is among the first which come within our province. It was found in Somersetshire, and probably dates from about the year 878. It consists of an enamelled figure covered by a thick crystal, set in filigree, around the edge of which runs the inscription, "AELFRED MEC REHT GAVUR CAN" (Alfred ordered me to be wrought). King Alfred was a great patron of the arts. Of such Anglo-Saxon work, an ancient poem in the Exeter Book testifies: "For one a wondrous skill in goldsmith's art is provided Full oft he decorates and well adorns A powerful king's nobles." Celtic enamels are interesting, being usually set in the spaces among the rambling interlaces of this school of goldsmithing. The Cross of Cong is among the most famous specimens of this work, and also the bosses on the Ardagh Chalice. The monk Theophilus describes the process of enamelling in a graphic manner. He directs his workmen to "adapt their pieces of gold in all the settings in which the glass gems are to be placed" (by which we see that he teaches the cloisonné method). "Cut small bands of exceedingly thin gold," he continues, "in which you will bend and fashion whatever work you wish to make in enamel, whether circles, knots, or small flowers, or birds, or animals, or figures." He then admonishes one to solder it with greatest care, two or three times, until all the pieces adhere firmly to the plate. To prepare the powdered glass, Theophilus advises placing a piece of glass in the fire, and, when it has become glowing, "throw it into a copper vessel in which there is water, and it instantly flies into small fragments which you break with a round pestle until quite fine. The next step is to put the powder in its destined cloison, and to place the whole jewel upon a thin piece of iron, over which fits a cover to protect the enamel from the coals, and put it in the most intensely hot part of the fire." Theophilus recommends that this little iron cover be "perforated finely all over so that the holes may be inside flat and wide, and outside finer and rough, in order to stop the cinders if by chance they should fall upon it." This process of firing may have to be repeated several times, until the enamel fills every space evenly. Then follows the tedious task of burnishing; setting the jewel in a strong bit of wax, you are told to rub it on a "smooth hard bone," until it is polished well and evenly. Benvenuto Cellini recommends a little paper sponge to be used in smoothing the face of enamels. "Take a clean nice piece of paper," he writes, "and chew it well between your teeth,--that is, if you have got any--I could not do it, because I've none left!" A celebrated piece of goldsmith's work of the tenth century is the Pala d'Oro at St. Mark's in Venice. This is a gold altar piece or reredos, about eleven feet long and seven feet high, richly wrought in the Byzantine style, and set with enamels and precious stones. The peculiar quality of the surface of the gold still lingers in the memory; it looks almost liquid, and suggests the appearance of metal in a fluid state. On its wonderful divisions and arched compartments are no less than twelve hundred pearls, and twelve hundred other precious gems. These stones surround the openings in which are placed the very beautiful enamel figures of saints and sacred personages. St. Michael occupies a prominent position; the figure is partly in relief. The largest medallion contains the figure of Christ in glory, and in other compartments may be seen even such secular personages as the Empress Irene, and the Doge who was ruling Venice at the time this altar piece was put in place--the year 1106. The Pala d'Oro is worked in the champlevé process, the ground having been cut away to receive the melted enamel. It is undoubtedly a Byzantine work; the Doge Orseolo, in 976, ordered it to be made by the enamellers of Constantinople. It was not finished for nearly two centuries, arriving in Venice in 1102, when the portrait of the Doge then reigning was added to it. The Byzantine range of colours was copious; they had white, two reds, bright and dark, dark and light blue, green, violet, yellow, flesh tint, and black. These tints were always fused separately, one in each cloison: the Greeks in this period never tried to blend colours, and more than one tint never appears in a compartment. The enlarging and improving of the Pam d'Oro was carried on by Greek artists in Venice in 1105. It was twice altered after that, once in the fourteenth century for Dandolo, and thus the pure Byzantine type is somewhat invaded by the Gothic spirit. The restorations in 1345 were presided over by Gianmaria Boninsegna. One of the most noted specimens of enamel work is on the Crown of Charlemagne,[1] which is a magnificent structure of eight plaques of gold, joined by hinges, and surmounted by a cross in the front, and an arch crossing the whole like a rib from back to front. The other cross rib has been lost, but originally the crown was arched by two ribs at the top. The plates of gold are ornamented, one with jewels, and filigree, and the next with a large figure in enamel. These figures are similar to those occurring on the Pala d'Oro. [Footnote 1: See Fig. 1.] [Illustration: DETAIL; SHRINE OF THE THREE KINGS, COLOGNE] The Shrine of the Three Kings in Cologne is decorated both with cloisonné and champlevé enamels,--an unusual circumstance. In Aix la Chapelle the shrine of Charlemagne is extremely like it in some respects, but the only enamels are in champlevé. Good examples of translucent enamels in relief may be seen on several of the reliquaries at Aix la Chapelle. Theophilus gives us directions for making a very ornate chalice with handles, richly embossed and ornamented with mello. Another paragraph instructs us how to make a golden chalice decorated with precious stones and pearls. It would be interesting as a modern problem, to follow minutely his directions, and to build the actual chalice described in the eleventh century. To apply the gems and pearls Theophilus directs us to "cut pieces like straps," which you "bend together to make small settings of them, by which the stones may be enclosed." These little settings, with their stones, are to be fixed with flour paste in their places and then warmed over the coals until they adhere. This sounds a little risky, but we fancy he must have succeeded, and, indeed, it seems to have been the usual way of setting stones in the early centuries. Filigree flowers are then to be added, and the whole soldered into place in a most primitive manner, banking the coals in the shape of a small furnace, so that the coals may lie thickly around the circumference, and when the solder "flows about as if undulating," the artist is to sprinkle it quickly with water, and take it out of the fire. Niello, with which the chalice of Theophilus is also to be enriched, stands in relation to the more beautiful art of enamel, as drawing does to painting, and it is well to consider it here. Both the Romans and the Anglo-Saxons understood its use. It has been employed as an art ever since the sixth and seventh centuries. The term "niello" probably is an abbreviation of the Italian word "nigellus" (black); the art is that of inlaying an engraved surface with a black paste, which is thoroughly durable and hard as the metal itself in most cases, the only difference being in flexibility; if the metal plate is bent, the niello will crack and flake off. [Illustration: FINIGUERRA'S PAX, FLORENCE] Niello is more than simply a drawing on metal. That would come under the head of engraving. A graver is used to cut out the design on the surface of the silver, which is simply a polished plane. When the drawing has been thus incised, a black enamel, made of lead, lamp black, and other substances, is filled into the interstices, and rubbed in; when quite dry and hard, this is polished. The result is a black enamel which is then fused into the silver, so that the whole is one surface, and the decoration becomes part of the original plate. The process as described by Theophilus is as follows: "Compose the niello in this manner; take pure silver and divide it into equal parts, adding to it a third part of pure copper, and taking yellow sulphur, break it very small... and when you have liquefied the silver with the copper, stir it evenly with charcoal, and instantly pour into it lead and sulphur." This niello paste is then made into a stick, and heated until "it glows: then with another forceps, long and thin, hold the niello and rub it all over the places which you wish to make black, until the drawing be full, and carrying it away from the fire, make it smooth with a flat file, until the silver appear." When Theophilus has finished his directions, he adds: "And take great care that no further work is required." To polish the niello, he directs us to "pumice it with a damp stone, until it is made everywhere bright." There are various accounts of how Finiguerra, who was a worker in niello in Florence, discovered by its means the art of steel engraving. It is probably only a legendary narrative, but it is always told as one of the apocryphal stories when the origin of printing is discussed, and may not be out of place here. Maso Finiguerra, a Florentine, had just engraved the plate for his famous niello, a Pax which is now to be seen in the Bargello, and had filled it in with the fluid enamel, which was standing waiting until it should be dry. Then, according to some authorities, a piece of paper blew upon the damp surface, on which, after carefully removing it, Maso found his design was impressed; others state that it was through the servant's laying a damp cloth upon it, that the principle of printing from an incised plate was suggested. At any rate, Finiguerra took the hint, it is said, and made an impression on paper, rolling it, as one would do with an etching or engraving. In the Silver Chamber in the Pitti Palace is a Pax, by Mantegna, made in the same way as that by Finiguerra, and bearing comparison with it. The engraving is most delicate, and it is difficult to imagine a better specimen of the art. The Madonna and Child, seated in an arbour, occupy the centre of the composition, which is framed with jewelled bands, the frame being divided into sixteen compartments, in each of which is seen a tiny and exquisite picture. The work on the arbour of roses in which the Virgin sits is of remarkable quality, as well as the small birds and animals introduced into the composition. In the background, St. Christopher is seen crossing the river with the Christ Child on his back, while in the water a fish and a swan are visible. In Valencia in Spain may be seen a chalice which has been supposed to be the very cup in which Our Saviour instituted the Communion. The cup itself is of sardonyx, and of fine form. The base is made of the same stone, and handles and bands are of gold, adorned with black enamel. Pearls, rubies, sapphires, and emeralds are set in profusion about the stem and base. It is a work of the epoch of Imperial Rome. In England, one of the most perfect specimens of fine, close work, is the Wilton Chalice, dating from the twelfth century. The Warwick Bowl, too, is of very delicate workmanship, and both are covered with minute scenes and figures. One of the most splendid treasures in this line is the crozier of William Wyckham, now in Oxford. It is strictly national in style. The agreement entered into between Henry VII., and Abbot Islip, for the building of the chapel of that king in Westminster, is extant. It is bound in velvet and bossed with enamels. It is an interesting fact that some of the enamels are in the Italian style, while others are evidently English. Limoges was the most famous centre of the art of enamelling in the twelfth century, the work being known as Opus de Limogia, or Labor Limogiae. Limoges was a Roman settlement, and enamels were made there as early as the time of Philostratus. Champlevé enamel, while it was not produced among the Greeks, nor even in Byzantine work, was almost invariable at Limoges in the earlier days: one can readily tell the difference between a Byzantine enamel and an early Limoges enamel by this test, when there is otherwise sufficient similarity of design to warrant the question. Some of the most beautiful enamels of Limoges were executed in what was called basse-taille, or transparent enamel on gold grounds, which had been first prepared in bas-relief. Champlevé enamel was often used on copper, for such things as pastoral staves, reliquaries, and larger bits of church furniture. The enamel used on copper is usually opaque, and somewhat coarser in texture than that employed on gold or silver. Owing to their additional toughness, these specimens are usually in perfect preservation. In 1327, Guillaume de Harie, in his will, bequeathed 800 francs to make two high tombs, to be covered with Limoges enamel, one for himself, and the other for "Blanche d'Avange, my dear companion." [Illustration: ITALIAN ENAMELLED CROZIER, 14TH CENTURY] An interesting form of cloisonné enamel was that known as "plique à jour," which consists of a filigree setting with the enamel in transparent bits, without any metallic background. It is still made in many parts of the world. When held to the light it resembles minute arrangements of stained glass. Francis I. showed Benvenuto Cellini a wonderful bowl of this description, and asked Cellini if he could possibly imagine how the result was attained. "Sacred Majesty," replied Benvenuto, "I can tell you exactly how it is done," and he proceeded to explain to the astonished courtiers how the bowl was constructed, bit by bit, inside a bowl of thin iron lined with clay. The wires were fastened in place with glue until the design was complete, and then the enamel was put in place, the whole being fused together at the soldering. The clay form to which all this temporarily adhered was then removed, and the work, transparent and ephemeral, was ready to stand alone. King John gave to the city of Lynn a magnificent cup of gold, enamelled, with figures of courtiers of the period, engaged in the sports of hawking and hare-hunting, and dressed in the costume of the king's reign. "King John gave to the Corporation a rich cup and cover," says Mackarel, "weighing seventy-three ounces, which is preserved to this day and upon all public occasions and entertainments used with some uncommon ceremonies at drinking the health of the King or Queen, and whoever goes to visit the Mayor must drink out of this cup, which contains a full pint." The colours of the enamels which are used as flat values in backgrounds to the little silver figures, are dark rose, clear blue, and soft green. The dresses of the persons are also picked out in the same colours, varied from the grounds. This cup was drawn by John Carter in 1787, he having had much trouble in getting permission to study the original for that purpose! He took letters of introduction to the Corporation, but they appeared to suspect him of some imposture; at first they refused to entertain his proposal at all, but after several applications, he was allowed to have the original before him, in a closed room, in company with a person appointed by them but at his expense, to watch him and see that no harm came to the precious cup! The translucent enamels on relief were made a great deal by the Italian goldsmiths; Vasari alludes to this class of work as "a species of painting united with sculpture." As enamel came by degrees to be used as if it were paint, one of the chief charms of the art died. The limits of this art were its strength, and simple straight-forward use of the material was its best expression. The method of making a painted enamel was as follows. The design was laid out with a stilus on a copper plate. Then a flux of plain enamel was fused on to the surface, all over it. The drawing was then made again, on the same lines, in a dark medium, and the colours were laid flat inside the dark lines, accepting these lines as if they had been wires around cloisons. All painted enamels had to be enamelled on the back as well, to prevent warping in the furnace when the shrinkage took place. After each layer of colour the whole plate was fired. In the fifteenth century these enamels were popular and retained some semblance of respect for the limitation of material; later, greater facility led, as it does in most of the arts, to a decadence in taste, and florid pictures, with as many colours and shadows as would appear in an oil painting, resulted. Here and there, where special metallic brilliancy was desired, a leaf of gold was laid under the colour of some transparent enamel, giving a decorative lustre. These bits of brilliant metal were known as _paillons_. When Limoges had finally become the royal manufactory of enamels, under Francis I., the head of the works was Leonard Limousin, created "Valet de Chambre du Roi," to show his sovereign's appreciation. Remarkable examples of the work of Leonard Limousin, executed in 1547, are the large figures of the Apostles to be seen in the church of St. Pierre, at Chartres, where they are ranged about the apsidal chapel. They are painted enamels on copper sheets twenty-four by eleven inches, and are in a wonderful state of preservation. They were the gift of Henri II. to Diàne de Poictiers and were brought to Chartres from the Chateau d'Anet. These enamels, being on a white ground, have something the effect of paintings in Faience; the colouring is delicate, and they have occasional gold touches. A treatise by William of Essex directs the artist how to prepare a plate for a painted enamel, such as were used in miniature work. He says "To make a plate for the artist to paint upon: a piece of gold or copper being chosen, of requisite dimensions, and varying from about 1/18 to 1/16 of an inch in thickness, is covered with pulverized enamel, and passed through the fire, until it becomes of a white heat; another coating of enamel is then added, and the plate again fired; afterwards a thin layer of a substance called flux is laid upon the surface of the enamel, and the plate undergoes the action of heat for a third time. It is now ready for the painter to commence his picture upon." Leonard Limousin painted from 1532 until 1574. He used the process as described by William of Essex (which afterwards became very popular for miniaturists), and also composed veritable pictures of his own design. It is out of our province to trace the history of the Limoges enamellers after this period. CHAPTER IV OTHER METALS The "perils that environ men that meddle with cold iron" are many; but those who attempt to control hot iron are also to be respected, when they achieve an artistic result with this unsympathetic metal, which by nature is entirely lacking in charm, in colour and texture, and depends more upon a proper application of design than any other, in order to overcome the obstacles to beauty with which it is beset. "Rust hath corrupted," unfortunately, many interesting antiquities in iron, so that only a limited number of specimens of this metal have come down to us from very early times; one of the earliest in England is a grave-stone of cast metal, of the date 1350: it is decorated with a cross, and has the epitaph, "Pray for the soul of Joan Collins." The process of casting iron was as follows. The moulds were made of a sandy substance, composed of a mixture of brick dust, loam, plaster, and charcoal. A bed of this sand was made, and into it was pressed a wooden or metal pattern. When this was removed, the imprint remained in the sand. Liquid metal was run into the mould so formed, and would cool into the desired shape. As with a plaster cast, it was necessary to employ two such beds, the sand being firmly held in boxes, if the object was to be rounded, and then the two halves thus made were put together. Flat objects, such as fire-backs, could be run into a single mould. Bartholomew, in his book "On the Properties of Things," makes certain statements about iron which are interesting: "Though iron cometh of the earth, yet it is most hard and sad, and therefore with beating and smiting it suppresseth and dilateth all other metal, and maketh it stretch on length and on breadth." This is the key-note to the work of a blacksmith: it is what he has done from the first, and is still doing. In Spain there have been iron mines ever since the days when Pliny wrote and alluded to them, but there are few samples in that country to lead us to regard it as æsthetic in its purpose until the fifteenth century. For tempering iron instruments, there are recipes given by the monk Theophilus, but they are unfortunately quite unquotable, being treated with mediæval frankness of expression. St. Dunstan was the patron of goldsmiths and blacksmiths. He was born in 925, and lived in Glastonbury, where he became a monk rather early in life. He not only worked in metal, but was a good musician and a great scholar, in fact a genuine rounded man of culture. He built an organ, no doubt something like the one which Theophilus describes, which, Bede tells us, being fitted with "brass pipes, filled with air from the bellows, uttered a grand and most sweet melody." Dunstan was a favourite at court, in the reign of King Edmund. Enemies were plentiful, however, and they spread the report that Dunstan evoked demoniac aid in his almost magical work in its many departments. It was said that occasionally the evil spirits were too aggravating, and that in such cases Dunstan would stand no nonsense. There is an old verse: "St. Dunstan, so the story goes, Once pulled the devil by the nose, With red hot tongs, which made him roar That he was heard three miles or more!" The same story is told of St. Eloi, and probably of most of the mediæval artistic spirits who were unfortunate enough to be human in their temperaments and at the same time pious and struggling. He was greatly troubled by visitations such as persecuted St. Anthony. On one occasion, it is related that he was busy at his forge when this fiend was unusually persistent: St. Dunstan turned upon the demon, and grasped its nose in the hot pincers, which proved a most successful exorcism. In old portraits, St. Dunstan is represented in full ecclesiastical habit, holding the iron pincers as symbols of his prowess. He became Archbishop of Canterbury after having held the Sees of Worcester and London. He journeyed to Rome, and received the pallium of Primate of the Anglo-Saxons, from Pope John XII. Dunstan was a righteous statesman, twice reproving the king for evil deeds, and placing his Royal Highness under the ban of the Church for immoral conduct! St. Dunstan died in 988. [Illustration: WROUGHT IRON HINGE, FRANKFORT] Wrought iron has been in use for many centuries for hinges and other decorations on doors; a necessity to every building in a town from earliest times. The word "hinge" comes from the Saxon, _hengen_, to hang. Primitive hinges were sometimes sockets cut in stone, as at Torcello; but soon this was proved a clumsy and inconvenient method of hanging a door, and hinges more simple in one way, and yet more ornate, came into fashion. Iron hinges were found most useful when they extended for some distance on to the door; this strengthened the door against the invasion of pirates, when the church was the natural citadel of refuge for the inhabitants of a town, and also held it firmly from warping. At first single straps of iron were clamped on: then the natural craving for beauty prevailed, and the hinges developed, flowering out into scrolls and leaves, and spreading all over the doors, as one sees them constantly in mediæval examples. The general scheme usually followed was a straight strap of iron flanked by two curving horns like a crescent, and this motive was elaborated until a positive lace of iron, often engraved or moulded, covered the surface of the door, as in the wonderful work of Biscornette at Notre Dame in Paris. Biscornette was a very mysterious worker, and no one ever saw him constructing the hinges. Reports went round that the devil was helping him, that he had sold his soul to the King of Darkness in order to enlist his assistance in his work; an instance of æsthetic altruism almost commendable in its exotic zeal. Certain jealous artificers even went so far as to break off bits of the meandering iron, to test it, but with no result; they could not decide whether it was cast or wrought. Later a legend grew up explaining the reason why the central door was not as ornate as the side doors: the story was that the devil was unable to assist Biscornette on this door because it was the aperture through which the Host passed in processions. It is more likely, however, that the doors were originally uniform, and that the iron was subsequently removed for some other reason. The design is supposed to represent the Earthly Paradise. Sauval says: "The sculptured birds and ornaments are marvellous. They are made of wrought iron, the invention of Biscornette and which died with him. He worked the iron with an almost incredible industry, rendering it flexible and tractable, and gave it all the forms and scrolls he wished, with a 'douceur et une gentillesse' which surprised and astonished all the smiths." The iron master Gaegart broke off fragments of the iron, and no member of the craft has ever been able to state with certainty just how the work was accomplished. Some think that it is cast, and then treated with the file; others say that it must have been executed by casting entire, with no soldering. In any case, the secret will never be divulged, for no one was in the confidence of Biscornette. Norman blacksmiths and workers in wrought iron were more plentiful than goldsmiths. They had, in those warlike times, more call for arms and the massive products of the forge than for gaudy jewels and table appointments. One of the doors of St. Alban's Abbey displays the skill of Norman smiths dealing with this stalwart form of ornament. Among special artists in iron whose names have survived is that of Jehan Tonquin, in 1388. Earlier than that, a cutler, Thomas de Fieuvillier, is mentioned, as having flourished about 1330. [Illustration: BISCORNETTE'S DOORS AT PARIS] Elaborate iron work is rare in Germany; the Germans always excelled rather in bronze than in the sterner metal. At St. Ursula's in Cologne there are iron floriated hinges, but the design and idea are French, and not native. One may usually recognize a difference between French and English wrought iron, for the French is often in detached pieces, not an outgrowth of the actual hinge itself, and when this is found in England, it indicates French work. Ornaments in iron were sometimes cut out of flat sheet metal, and then hammered into form. In stamping this flat work with embossed effect, the smith had to work while the iron was hot,--as Sancho Panza expressed it, "Praying to God and hammering away." Dies were made, after a time, into which the design could be beaten with less effort than in the original method. One of the quaintest of iron doors is at Krems, where the gate is made up of square sheets of iron, cut into rude pierced designs, giving scenes from the New Testament, and hammered up so as to be slightly embossed. The Guild of Blacksmiths in Florence flourished as early as the thirteenth century. It covered workers in many metals, copper, iron, brass, and pewter included. Among the rules of the Guild was one permitting members to work for ready money only. They were not allowed to advertise by street crying, and were fined if they did so. The Arms of the Guild was a pair of furnace tongs upon a white field. Among the products of the forge most in demand were the iron window-gratings so invariable on all houses, and called by Michelangelo "kneeling windows," on account of the bulging shape of the lower parts. One famous iron worker carried out the law of the Guild both in spirit and letter to the extent of insisting upon payment in advance! This was Nicolo Grosso, who worked about 1499. Vasari calls him the "money grabber." His specialty was to make the beautiful torch holders and lanterns such as one sees on the Strozzi Palace and in the Bargello. In England there were Guilds of Blacksmiths; in Middlesex one was started in 1434, and members were known as "in the worship of St. Eloi." Members were alluded to as "Brethren and Sisteren,"--this term would fill a much felt vacancy! Some of the Guilds exacted fines from all members who did not pay a proper proportion of their earnings to the Church. Another general use of iron for artistic purposes was in the manufacture of grilles. Grilles were used in France and England in cathedrals. The earliest Christian grille is a pierced bronze screen in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. In Hildesheim is an original form of grille; the leaves and rosettes in the design are pierced, instead of being beaten up into bosses. This probably came from the fact that the German smith did not understand the Frankish drawing, and supposed that the shaded portions of the work were intended to be open work. The result, however, is most happy, and a new feature was thus introduced into grille work. [Illustration: WROUGHT IRON FROM THE BARGELLO, FLORENCE] Many grilles were formed by the smith's taking an iron bar and, under the intense heat, splitting it into various branches, each of which should be twisted in a different way. Another method was to use the single slighter bar for the foundation of the design, and welding on other volutes of similar thickness to make the scroll work associated with wrought iron. Some of the smiths who worked at Westminster Abbey are known by name; Master Henry Lewis, in 1259, made the iron work for the tomb of Henry III. A certain iron fragment is signed Gilibertus. The iron on the tomb of Queen Eleanor is by Thomas de Leighton, in 1294. Lead workers also had a place assigned to them in the precincts, which was known as "the Plumbery." In 1431 Master Roger Johnson was enjoined to arrest or press smiths into service in order to finish the ironwork on the tomb of Edward IV. Probably the most famous use of iron in Spain is in the stupendous "_rejas_," or chancel screens of wrought iron; but these are nearly all of a late Renaissance style, and hardly come within the scope of this volume. The requirements of Spanish cathedrals, too, for wrought iron screens for all the side chapels, made plenty of work for the iron masters. In fact, the "_rejeros_," or iron master, was as regular an adjunct to a cathedral as an architect or a painter. Knockers were often very handsome in Spain, and even nail heads were decorated. An interesting specimen of iron work is the grille that surrounds the tomb of the Scaligers in Verolla. It is not a hard stiff structure, but is composed of circular forms, each made separately, and linked together with narrow bands, so that the construction is flexible, and is more like a gigantic piece of chain mail than an iron fence. Quentin Matsys was known as the "blacksmith of Antwerp," and is reported to have left his original work among metals to become a painter. This was done in order to marry the lady of his choice, for she refused to join her fate to that of a craftsman. She, however, was ready to marry a painter. Quentin, therefore, gave up his hammer and anvil, and began to paint Madonnas that he might prosper in his suit. Some authorities, however, laugh at this story, and claim that the specimens of iron work which are shown as the early works of Matsys date from a time when he would have been only ten or twelve years old, and that they must therefore have been the work of his father, Josse Matsys, who was a locksmith. The well-cover in Antwerp, near the cathedral, is always known as Quentin Matsys' well. It is said that this was not constructed until 1470, while Quentin was born in 1466. The iron work of the tomb of the Duke of Burgundy, in Windsor, is supposed to be the work of Quentin Matsys, and is considered the finest grille in England. It is wrought with such skill and delicacy that it is more like the product of the goldsmith's art than that of the blacksmith. [Illustration: MOORISH KEYS, SEVILLE] Another object of utility which was frequently ornamented was the key. The Key of State, especially, was so treated. Some are nine or ten inches long, having been used to present to visiting grandees as typical of the "Freedom of the City." Keys were often decorated with handles having the appearance of Gothic tracery. In an old book published in 1795, there is an account of the miraculous Keys of St. Denis, made of silver, which they apply to the faces of these persons who have been so unfortunate as to be bitten by mad dogs, and who received certain and immediate relief in only touching them. A key in Valencia, over nine inches in length, is richly embossed, while the wards are composed of decorative letters, looking at first like an elaborate sort of filigree, but finally resolving themselves into the autographic statement: "It was made by Ahmed Ahsan." It is a delicate piece of thirteenth or fourteenth century work in iron. Another old Spanish key has a Hebrew inscription round the handle: "The King of Kings will open: the King of the whole Earth will enter," and, in the wards, in Spanish, "God will open, the King will enter." The iron smiths of Barcelona formed a Guild in the thirteenth century: it is to be regretted that more of their work could not have descended to us. A frank treatment of locks and bolts, using them as decorations, instead of treating them as disgraces, upon the surface of a door, is the only way to make them in any degree effective. As Pugin has said, it is possible to use nails, screws, and rivets, so that they become "beautiful studs and busy enrichments." Florentine locksmiths were specially famous; there also was a great fashion for damascened work in that city, and it was executed with much elegance. In blacksmith's work, heat was used with the hammer at each stage of the work, while in armourer's or locksmith's work, heat was employed only at first, to achieve the primitive forms, and then the work was carried on with chisel and file on the cold metal. Up to the fourteenth century the work was principally that of the blacksmith, and after that, of the locksmith. The mention of arms and armour in a book of these proportions must be very slight; the subject is a vast one, and no effort to treat it with system would be satisfactory in so small a space. But a few curious and significant facts relating to the making of armour may be cited. The rapid decay of iron through rust--rapid, that is to say, in comparison with other metals--is often found to have taken place when the discovery of old armour has been made; so that gold ornaments, belonging to a sword or other weapon, may be found in excavating, while the iron which formed the actual weapon has disappeared. Primitive armour was based on a leather foundation, hence the name cuirass, was derived from _cuir_ (leather). In a former book I have alluded to the armour of the nomadic tribes, which is described by Pausanias as coarse coats of mail made out of the hoofs of horses, split, and laid overlapping each other, making them "something like dragon's scales," as Pausanias explains; adding for the benefit of those who are unfamiliar with dragons' anatomy, "Whoever has not _yet_ seen a dragon, has, at any rate, seen a pine cone still green. These are equally like in appearance to the surface of this armour." These horny scales of tough hoofs undoubtedly suggested, at a later date, the use of thick leather as a form of protection, and the gradual evolution may be imagined. The art of the armourer was in early mediæval times the art of the chain maker. The chain coat, or coats of mail, reached in early days as far as the knees. Finally this developed into an entire covering for the man, with head gear as well; of course this form of armour allowed of no real ornamentation, for there was no space larger than the links of the chain upon which to bestow decoration. Each link of a coat of mail was brought round into a ring, the ends overlapped, and a little rivet inserted. Warriors trusted to no solder or other mode of fastening. All the magnificence of knightly apparel was concentrated in the surcoat, a splendid embroidered or gem-decked tunic to the knees, which was worn over the coat of mail. These surcoats were often trimmed with costly furs, ermine or vair, the latter being similar to what we now call squirrel, being part gray and part white. Cinderella's famous slipper was made of "vair," which, through a misapprehension in being translated "verre," has become known as a glass slipper. [Illustration: ARMOUR, SHOWING MAIL DEVELOPING INTO PLATE] After a bit, the makers of armour discovered that much tedious labor in chain making might be spared, if one introduced a large plate of solid metal on the chest and back. This was in the thirteenth century. The elbows and knees were also treated in this way, and in the fourteenth century, the principle of armour had changed to a set of separate plates fastened together by links. This was the evolution from mail to plate armour. A description of Charlemagne as he appeared on the field of battle, in his armour, is given by the Monk of St. Gall, his biographer, and is dramatic. "Then could be seen the iron Charles, helmeted with an iron helmet, his iron breast and broad shoulders protected with an iron breast plate; an iron spear was raised on high in his left hand, his right always rested on his unconquered iron falchion.... His shield was all of iron, his charger was iron coloured and iron hearted.... The fields and open spaces were filled with iron; a people harder than iron paid universal homage to the hardness of iron. The horror of the dungeon seemed less than the bright gleam of iron. 'Oh, the iron! woe for the iron!' was the confused cry that rose from the citizens. The strong walls shook at the sight of iron: the resolution of young and old fell before the iron." By the end of the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, whole suits of armour were almost invariable, and then came the opportunity for the goldsmith, the damascener, and the niellist. Some of the leading artists, especially in Italy, were enlisted in designing and decorating what might be called the _armour-de-luxe_ of the warrior princes! The armour of horses was as ornate as that of the riders. The sword was always the most imposingly ornamented part of a knight's equipment, and underwent various modifications which are interesting to note. At first, it was the only weapon invariably at hand: it was enormously large, and two hands were necessary in wielding it. As the arquebuse came into use, the sword took a secondary position: it became lighter and smaller. And ever since 1510 it is a curious fact that the decorations of swords have been designed to be examined when the sword hangs with the point down; the earlier ornament was adapted to being seen at its best when the sword was held upright, as in action. Perhaps the later theory of decoration is more sensible, for it is certain that neither a warrior nor his opponent could have occasion to admire fine decoration at a time when the sword was drawn! That the arts should be employed to satisfy the eye in times of peace, sufficed the later wearers of ornamented swords. Toledo blades have always been famous, and rank first among the steel knives of the world. Even in Roman times, and of course under the Moors, Toledo led in this department. The process of making a Toledo blade was as follows. There was a special fine white sand on the banks of the Tagus, which was used to sprinkle on the blade when it was red hot, before it was sent on to the forger's. When the blade was red hot from being steeped four-fifths of its length in flame, it was dropped point first into a bucket of water. If it was not perfectly straight when it was withdrawn, it was beaten into shape, more sand being first put upon it. After this the remaining fifth of the blade was subjected to the fire, and was rubbed with suet while red hot; the final polish of the whole sword was produced by emery powder on wooden wheels. [Illustration: DAMASCENED HELMET] Damascening was a favourite method of ornamenting choice suits of armour, and was also applied to bronzes, cabinets, and such pieces of metal as lent themselves to decoration. The process began like niello: little channels for the design were hollowed out, in the iron or bronze, and then a wire of brass, silver, or gold, was laid in the groove, and beaten into place, being afterwards polished until the surface was uniform all over. One great feature of the art was to sink the incision a little broader at the base than at the top, and then to force the softer metal in, so that, by this undercutting, it was held firmly in place. Cellini tells of his first view of damascened steel blades. "I chanced," he says, "to become possessed of certain little Turkish daggers, the handle of which together with the guard and blade were ornamented with beautiful Oriental leaves, engraved with a chisel, and inlaid with gold. This kind of work differed materially from any which I had as yet practised or attempted, nevertheless I was seized with a great desire to try my hand at it, and I succeeded so admirably that I produced articles infinitely finer and more solid than those of the Turks." Benvenuto had such a humble opinion of his own powers! But when one considers the pains and labour expended upon the arts of damascening and niello, one regrets that the workers had not been inspired to attempt dentistry, and save so much unnecessary individual suffering! On the Sword of Boabdil are many inscriptions, among them, "God is clement and merciful," and "God is gifted with the best memory." No two sentiments could be better calculated to keep a conqueror from undue excesses. Mercia was a headquarters for steel and other metals in the thirteenth century. Seville was even then famous for its steel, also, and in the words of a contemporary writer, "the steel which is made in Seville is most excellent; it would take too much time to enumerate the delicate objects of every kind which are made in this town." King Don Pedro, in his will, in the fourteenth century, bequeathes to his son, his "Castilian sword, which I had made here in Seville, ornamented with stones and gold." Swords were baptized; they were named, and seemed to have a veritable personality of their own. The sword of Charlemagne was christened "Joyeuse," while we all know of Arthur's Excalibur; Roland's sword was called Durandel. Saragossa steel was esteemed for helmets, and the sword of James of Arragon in 1230, "a very good sword, and lucky to those who handled it," was from Monzon. The Cid's sword was similar, and named Tizona. There is a story of a Jew who went to the grave of the Cid to steal his sword, which, according to custom, was interred with the owner: the corpse is said to have resented the intrusion by unsheathing the weapon, which miracle so amazed the Jew that he turned Christian! [Illustration: MOORISH SWORD] German armour was popular. Cologne swords were great favourites in England. King Arthur's sword was one of these,-- "For all of Coleyne was the blade And all the hilt of precious stone." In the British Museum is a wonderful example of a wooden shield, painted on a gesso ground, the subject being a Knight kneeling before a lady, and the motto: "Vous ou la mort." These wooden shields were used in Germany until the end of Maximilian's reign. The helmet, or Heaume, entirely concealed the face, so that for purposes of identification, heraldic badges and shields were displayed. Later, crests were also used on the helmets, for the same purpose. Certain armourers were very well known in their day, and were as famous as artists in other branches. William Austin made a superb suit for the Earl of Warwick, while Thomas Stevyns was the coppersmith who worked on the same, and Bartholomew Lambspring was the polisher. There was a famous master-armourer at Greenwich in the days of Elizabeth, named Jacob: some important arms of that period bear the inscription, "Made by me Jacob." There is some question whether he was the same man as Jacob Topf who came from Innsbruck, and became court armourer in England in 1575. Another famous smith was William Pickering, who made exquisitely ornate suits of what we might call full-dress armour. Colossal cannon were made: two celebrated guns may be seen, the monster at Ghent, called Mad Meg, and the huge cannon at Edinburgh Castle, Mons Meg, dating from 1476. These guns are composed of steel coils or spirals, afterwards welded into a solid mass instead of being cast. They are mammoth examples of the art of the blacksmith and the forge. In Germany cannon were made of bronze, and these were simply cast. Cross bows obtained great favour in Spain, even after the arquebuse had come into use. It was considered a safer weapon to the one who used it. An old writer in 1644 remarks, "It has never been known that a man's life has been lost by breaking the string or cord, two things which are dangerous, but not to a considerable extent,"... and he goes on "once set, its shot is secure, which is not the case with the arquebus, which often misses fire." There is a letter from Ambassador Salimas to the King of Hungary, in which he says: "I went to Balbastro and there occupied myself in making a pair of cross bows for your Majesty. I believe they will satisfy the desires which were required... as your Majesty is annoyed when they do not go off as you wish." It would seem as though his Majesty's "annoyance" was justifiable; imagine any one dependent upon the shot of a cross bow, and then having the weapon fail to "go off!" Nothing could be more discouraging. [Illustration: ENAMELLED SUIT OF ARMOUR] There is a contemporary treatise which is full of interest, entitled, "How a Man shall be Armed at his ease when he shall Fight on Foot." It certainly was a good deal of a contract to render a knight comfortable in spite of the fact that he could see or breathe only imperfectly, and was weighted down by iron at every point. This complete covering with metal added much to the actual noise of battle. Froissart alludes to the fact that in the battle of Rosebeque, in 1382, the hammering on the helmets made a noise which was equal to that of all the armourers of Paris and Brussels working together. And yet the strength needed to sport such accoutrements seems to have been supplied. Leon Alberti of Florence, when clad in a full suit of armour, could spring with ease upon a galloping horse, and it is related that Aldobrandini, even with his right arm disabled, could cleave straight through his opponent's helmet and head, down to the collar bone, with a single stroke! One of the richest suits of armour in the world is to be seen at Windsor; it is of Italian workmanship, and is made of steel, blued and gilded, with wonderfully minute decorations of damascene and appliqué work. This most ornate armour was made chiefly for show, and not for the field: for knights to appear in their official capacity, and for jousting at tournaments, which were practically social events. In the days of Henry VIII. a chronicler tells of a jouster who "tourneyed in harneyse all of gilt from the head piece to the sabattons." Many had "tassels of fine gold" on their suits. Italian weapons called "lasquenets" were very deadly. In a letter from Albrecht Dürer to Pirckheimer, he alludes to them, as having "roncions with two hundred and eighteen points: and if they pink a man with any of these, the man is dead, as they are all poisoned." Bronze is composed of copper with an alloy of about eight or ten per cent. of tin. The fusing of these two metals produces the brown glossy substance called bronze, which is so different from either of them. The art of the bronze caster is a very old and interesting one. The method of proceeding has varied very little with the centuries. A statue to be cast either in silver or bronze would be treated in the following manner. A general semblance of the finished work was first set up in clay; then over this a layer of wax was laid, as thick as the final bronze was intended to be. The wax was then worked with tools and by hand until it took on the exact form designed for the finished product. Then a crust of clay was laid over the wax; on this were added other coatings of clay, until quite a thick shell of clay surrounded the wax. The whole was then subjected to fervent heat, and the wax all melted out, leaving a space between the core and the outer shell. Into this space the liquid bronze was poured, and after it had cooled and hardened the outer shell was broken off, leaving the statue in bronze exactly as the wax had been. Cellini relates an experience in Paris, with an old man eighty years of age, one of the most famous bronze casters whom he had engaged to assist him in his work for Francis I. Something went wrong with the furnace, and the poor old man was so upset and "got into such a stew" that he fell upon the floor, and Benvenuto picked him up fancying him to be dead: "Howbeit," explains Cellini, "I had a great beaker of the choicest wine brought him,... I mixed a large bumper of wine for the old man, who was groaning away like anything, and I bade him most winning-wise to drink, and said: 'Drink, my father, for in yonder furnace has entered in a devil, who is making all this mischief, and, look you, we'll just let him bide there a couple of days, till he gets jolly well bored, and then will you and I together in the space of three hours firing, make this metal run, like so much batter, and without any exertion at all.' The old fellow drank and then I brought him some little dainties to eat: meat pasties they were, nicely peppered, and I made him take down four full goblets of wine. He was a man quite out of the ordinary, this, and a most lovable old thing, and what with my caresses and the virtue of the wine, I found him soon moaning away as much with joy as he had moaned before with grief." Cellini displayed in this incident his belief in the great principle that the artist should find pleasure in his work in order to impart to that work a really satisfactory quality, and did exactly the right thing at the right minute; instead of trusting to a faltering effort in a disheartened man, he cheered the old bronze founder up to such a pitch that after a day or two the work was completed with triumph and joy to both. In the famous statue of Perseus, Cellini experienced much difficulty in keeping the metal liquid. The account of this thrilling experience, told in his matchless autobiography, is too long to quote at this point; an interesting item, however, should be noted. Cellini used pewter as a solvent in the bronze which had hardened in the furnace. "Apprehending that the cause of it was, that the fusibility of the metal was impaired, by the violence of the fire," he says, "I ordered all my dishes and porringers, which were in number about two hundred, to be placed one by one before my tubes, and part of them to be thrown into the furnace, upon which all present perceived that my bronze was completely dissolved, and that my mould was filling," and, such was the relief that even the loss of the entire pewter service of the family was sustained with equanimity; the family, "without delay, procured earthen vessels to supply the place of the pewter dishes and porringers, and we all dined together very cheerfully." Edgecumb Staley, in the "Guilds of Florence," speaks of the "pewter fattened Perseus:" this is worthy of Carlyle. Early Britons cast statues in brass. Speed tells of King Cadwollo, who died in 677, being buried "at St. Martin's church near Ludgate, his image great and terrible, triumphantly riding on horseback, artificially cast in brass, was placed on the Western gate of the city, to the further fear and terror of the Saxons!" In 1562 Bartolomeo Morel, who made the celebrated statue of the Giralda Tower in Seville, executed a fifteen branched candelabrum for the Cathedral. It is a rich Renaissance design, in remarkably chaste and good lines, and holds fifteen statuettes, which are displaced to make room for the candles only during the last few days of Lent. A curious form of mediæval trinket was the perfume ball; this consisted of a perforated ball of copper or brass, often ornamented with damascene, and intended to contain incense to perfume the air, the balls being suspended. The earliest metal statuary in England was rendered in latten, a mixed metal of a yellow colour, the exact recipe for which has not survived. The recumbent effigies of Henry III. and Queen Eleanor are made of latten, and the tomb of the Black Prince in Canterbury is the same, beautifully chased. Many of these and other tombs were probably originally covered with gilding, painting, and enamel. The effigies of Richard II. and his queen, Anne of Bohemia, were made during the reign of the monarch; a contemporary document states that "Sir John Innocent paid another part of a certain indenture made between the King and Nicolas Broker and Geoffrey Prest, coppersmiths of London, for the making of two images, likenesses of the King and Queen, of copper and latten, gilded upon the said marble tomb." There are many examples of bronze gates in ecclesiastical architecture. The gates of St. Paolo Fuori le Mura in Rome were made in 1070, in Constantinople, by Stauracius the Founder. Many authorities think that those at St. Mark's in Venice were similarly produced. The bronze doors in Rome are composed of fifty-four small designs, not in relief, but with the outlines of the subjects inlaid with silver. The doors are in Byzantine taste. The bronze doors at Hildesheim differ from nearly all other such portals, in the elemental principle of design. Instead of being divided into small panels, they are simply blocked off into seven long horizontal compartments on each side, and then filled with a pictorial arrangement of separate figures; only three or four in each panel, widely spaced, and on a background of very low relief. The figures are applied, at scattered distances apart, and are in unusually high modelling, in some cases being almost detached from the door. The effect is curious and interesting rather than strictly beautiful, on the whole; but in detail many of the figures display rare power of plastic skill, proportion, and action. They are, at any rate, very individual: there are no other doors at all like them. They are the work of Bishop Bernward. Unquestionably, one of the greatest achievements in bronze of any age is the pair of gates by Lorenzo Ghiberti on the Baptistery in Florence. Twenty-one years were devoted to their making, by Ghiberti and his assistants, with the stipulation that all figures in the design were to be personal work of the master, the assistants only attending to secondary details. The doors were in place in April, 1424. [Illustration: BRUNELLESCHI'S COMPETITIVE PANEL] The competition for the Baptistery doors reads like a romance, and is familiar to most people who know anything of historic art. When the young Ghiberti heard that the competition was open to all, he determined to go to Florence and work for the prize; in his own words: "When my friends wrote to me that the governors of the Baptistery were sending for masters whose skill in bronze working they wished to prove, and that from all Italian lands many maestri were coming, to place themselves in this strife of talent, I could no longer forbear, and asked leave of Sig. Malatesta, who let me depart." The result of the competition is also given in Ghiberti's words: "The palm of victory was conceded to me by all judges, and by those who competed with me. Universally all the glory was given to me without any exception." [Illustration: GHIBERTI'S COMPETITIVE PANEL] Symonds considers the first gate a supreme accomplishment in bronze casting, but criticizes the other, and usually more admired gate, as "overstepping the limits that separate sculpture from painting," by "massing together figures in multitudes at three and sometimes four distances. He tried to make a place in bas-relief for perspective." Sir Joshua Reynolds finds fault with Ghiberti, also, for working at variance with the severity of sculptural treatment, by distributing small figures in a spacious landscape framework. It was not really in accordance with the limitations of his material to treat a bronze casting as Ghiberti treated it, and his example has led many men of inferior genius astray, although there is no use in denying that Ghiberti himself was clever enough to defy the usual standards and rules. Fonts were sometimes made in bronze. There is such a one at Liege cast by Lambert Patras, which stands upon twelve oxen. It is decorated with reliefs from the Gospels. This artist, Patras, was a native of Dinant, and lived in the twelfth century. The bronze font in Hildesheim is among the most interesting late Romanesque examples in Germany. It is a large deep basin entirely covered with enrichment of Scriptural scenes, and is supported by four kneeling figures, typical of the four Rivers of Paradise. The conical cover is also covered with Scriptural scenes, and surmounted by a foliate knob. Among the figures with which the font is covered are the Cardinal Virtues, flanked by their patron saints. Didron considers this a most important piece of bronze from an iconographic point of view theologically and poetically. The archaic qualities of the figures are fascinating and sometimes diverting. In the scene of the Baptism of Christ the water is positively trained to flow upwards in pyramidal form, in order to reach nearly to the waist, while at either side it recedes to the ground level again,--it has an ingenuous and almost startling suddenness in the rising of its flood! An interesting comment upon the prevalence of early national forms may be deduced, when one observes that on the table, at the Last Supper, there lies a perfectly shaped pretzel! The great bronze column constructed by St. Bernward at Hildesheim has the Life of Christ represented in consecutive scenes in a spiral form, like those ornamenting the column of Trajan. Down by Bernward's grave there is a spring which is said to cure cripples and rheumatics. Peasants visit Hildesheim on saints' days in order to drink of it, and frequently, after one of these visitations, crutches are found abandoned near by. Saxony was famous for its bronze founders, and work was sent forth, from this country, in the twelfth century, all over Europe. [Illustration: FONT AT HILDESHEIM, 12TH CENTURY] Orcagna's tabernacle at Or San Michele is, as Symonds has expressed it, "a monumental jewel," and "an epitome of the minor arts of mediæval Italy." On it one sees bas-relief carving, intaglios, statuettes, mosaic, the lapidary's art in agate; enamels, and gilded glass, and yet all in good taste and harmony. The sculpture is properly subordinated to the architectonic principle, and one can understand how it is not only the work of a goldsmith, but of a painter. Of all bronze workers, perhaps Peter Vischer is the best known and is certainly one of the best deserving of his wide fame. Peter Vischer was born about the same time as Quentin Matsys, between 1460 and 1470. He was the most important metal worker in Germany. He and Adam Kraft, of whom mention will be made when we come to deal with sculptural carving, were brought up together as boys, and "when older boys, went with one another on all holidays, acting still as though they were apprentices together." Vischer's normal expression was in Gothic form. His first design for the wonderful shrine of St. Sebald in Nuremberg was made by him in 1488, and is still preserved in Vienna. It is a pure late-Gothic canopy, and I cannot help regretting that the execution was delayed until popular taste demanded more concession towards the Renaissance, and it was resolved in 1507, "to have the Shrine of St. Sebald made of brass." Therefore, although the general lines continue to hold a Gothic semblance, the shrine has many Renaissance features. Regret, however, is almost morbid, in relation to such a perfect work of art. Italian feeling is evident throughout, and the wealth of detail in figures and foliate forms is magnificent. The centre of interest is the little portrait statuette of Peter Vischer himself, according to his biographer, "as he looked, and as he daily went about and worked in the foundry." Though Peter had not been to Italy himself, his son Hermann had visited the historic land, and had brought home "artistic things that he sketched and drew, which delighted his old father, and were of great use to his brothers." Peter Vischer had three sons, who all followed him in the craft. His workshop must have been an ideal institution in its line. Some remnants of Gothic grotesque fancy are to be seen on the shrine, although treated outwardly with Renaissance feeling. A realistic life-sized mouse may be seen in one place, just as if it had run out to inspect the work; and the numbers of little tipsy "putti" who disport themselves in all attitudes, in perilous positions on narrow ledges, are full of merry humour. The metal of St. Sebald's shrine is left as it came from the casting, and owes much of its charm to the lack of filing, polishing, and pointing usual in such monuments. The molten living expression is retained. Only the details and spirit of the figures are Renaissance; the Gothic plan is hardly disturbed, and the whole monument is pleasing in proportion. The figures are exquisite, especially that of St. Peter. [Illustration: PORTRAIT STATUETTE OF PETER VISCHER] A great Renaissance work in Germany was the grille of the Rathaus made for Nuremberg by Peter Vischer the Younger. It was of bronze, the symmetrical diapered form of the open work part being supported by chaste and dignified columns of the Corinthian order. It was first designed by Peter Vischer the Elder, and revised and changed by the whole family after Hermann's return from Rome with his Renaissance notions. It was sold in 1806 to a merchant for old metal; later it was traced to the south of France, where it disappeared. Another famous bronze of Nuremberg is the well-known "Goose Man" fountain, by Labenwolf. Every traveller has seen the quaint half-foolish little man, as he stands there holding his two geese who politely turn away their heads in order to produce the streams of water! With the best bronzes, and with steel used for decorative purposes, the original casting has frequently been only for general form, the whole of the surface finishing being done with a shaping tool, by hand, giving the appearance of a carving in bronze or steel. In Japanese bronzes this is particularly felt. The classical bronzes were evidently perfect mosaics of different colours, in metal. Pliny tells of a bronze figure of a dying woman, who was represented as having changed colour at the extremities, the fusion of the different shades of bronze being disguised by anklets, bracelets, and a necklace! A curious and very disagreeable work of art, we should say. One sometimes sees in antique fragments ivory or silver eyeballs, and hair and eyelashes made separately in thin strips and coils of metal; while occasionally the depression of the edge of the lips is sufficient to give rise to the opinion that a thin veneer of copper was applied to give colour. The bronze effigies of Henry III. and Eleanor, at Westminster, were the work of a goldsmith, Master William Torel, and are therefore finer in quality and are in some respects superior to the average casting in bronze. Torel worked at the palace, and the statues were cast in "cire perdue" process, being executed in the churchyard itself. They are considered among the finest bronzes of the period extant. Gilding and enamel were often used in bronze effigies. Splendid bronzes, cast each in a single flow, are the recumbent figures of two bishops at Amiens; they are of the thirteenth century. Ruskin says: "They are the only two bronze tombs of her men of the great ages left in France." An old document speaks of the "moulds and imagines" which were in use for casting effigy portraits, in 1394. Another good English bronze is that of Richard Beauchamp at Warwick, the work of Thomas Stevens, which has been alluded to. In Westminster Abbey, the effigy of Aymer de Valence, dating from 1296, is of copper, but it is not cast; it is of beaten metal, and is enamelled, probably at Limoges. Bells and cannon are among the objects of actual utility which were cast in bronze. Statues as a rule came later. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in England, bronze was used to such an extent, that one authority suggested that it should be called the "Age of Bronze." Primitive bells were made of cast iron riveted together: one of these is at the Cologne museum, and the Irish bells were largely of this description. A great bell was presented to the Cathedral of Chartres in 1028, by a donor named Jean, which affords little clue to his personality. This bell weighed over two tons. There is considerable interest attaching to the subject of the making of bells in the Middle Ages. Even in domestic life bells played quite a part; it was the custom to ring a bell when the bath was ready and to announce meals, as well as to summon the servitors. Church bells, both large and small, were in use in England by 670, according to Bede. They were also carried by missionaries; those good saints, Patrick and Cuthbert, announced their coming like town criers! The shrine of St. Patrick's bell has been already described. Bells used to be regarded with a superstitious awe, and were supposed to have the ability to dispel evil spirits, which were exorcised with "bell, book, and candle." The bell of St. Patrick, inside the great shrine, is composed of two pieces of sheet iron, one of which forms the face, and being turned over the top, descends about half-way down the other side, where it meets the second sheet. Both are bent along the edges so as to form the sides of the bell, and they are both secured by rivets. A rude handle is similarly attached to the top. A quaint account is given by the Monk of St. Gall about a bell ordered by Charlemagne. Charlemagne having admired the tone of a certain bell, the founder, named Tancho, said to him: "Lord Emperor, give orders that a great weight of copper be brought to me that I may refine it, and instead of tin give me as much silver as I need,--a hundred pounds at least,--and I will cast such a bell for you that this will seem dumb in comparison to it." Charlemagne ordered the required amount of silver to be sent to the founder, who was, however, a great knave. He did not use the silver at all, but, laying it aside for his own use, he employed tin as usual in the bell, knowing that it would make a very fair tone, and counting on the Emperor's not observing the difference. The Emperor was glad when it was ready to be heard, and ordered it to be hung, and the clapper attached. "That was soon done," says the chronicler, "and then the warden of the church, the attendants, and even the boys of the place, tried, one after the other, to make the bell sound. But all was in vain; and so at last the knavish maker of the bell came up, seized the rope, and pulled at the bell. When, lo! and behold! down from on high came the brazen mass; fell on the very head of the cheating brass founder; killed him on the spot; and passed straight through his carcase and crashed to the ground.... When the aforementioned weight of silver was found, Charles ordered it to be distributed among the poorest servants of the palace." There is record of bronze bells in Valencia as early as 622, and an ancient mortar was found near Monzon, in the ruins of a castle which had formerly belonged to the Arabs. Round the edge of this mortar was the inscription: "Complete blessing, and ever increasing happiness and prosperity of every kind and an elevated and happy social position for its owner." The mortar was richly ornamented. At Croyland, Abbot Egebric "caused to be made two great bells which he named Bartholomew and Bethelmus, two of middle size, called Turketul and Tatwyn, and two lesser, Pega and Bega." Also at Croyland were placed "two little bells which Fergus the brass worker of St. Botolph's had lately given," in the church tower, "until better times," when the monks expressed a hope that they should improve all their buildings and appointments. Oil that dropped from the framework on which church bells were hung was regarded in Florence as a panacea for various ailments. People who suffered from certain complaints were rubbed with this oil, and fully believed that it helped them. The curfew bell was a famous institution; but the name was not originally applied to the bell itself. This leads to another curious bit of domestic metal. The popular idea of a curfew is that of a bell; a bell was undoubtedly rung at the curfew hour, and was called by its name; but the actual curfew (or _couvre feu_) was an article made of copper, shaped not unlike a deep "blower," which was used in order to extinguish the fire when the bell rang. There are a few specimens in England of these curious covers: they stood about ten to fifteen inches high, with a handle at the top, and closed in on three sides, open at the back. The embers were shovelled close to the back of the hearth, and the curfew, with the open side against the back of the chimney, was placed over them, thus excluding all air. Horace Walpole owned, at Strawberry Hill, a famous old curfew, in copper, elaborately decorated with vines and the York rose. [Illustration: A COPPER "CURFEW"] [Illustration: SANCTUARY KNOCKER, DURHAM CATHEDRAL] The Sanctuary knocker at Durham Cathedral is an important example of bronze work, probably of the same age as the Cathedral door on which it is fastened. They both date from about the eleventh century. Ever since 740, in the Episcopate of Cynewulf, criminals were allowed to claim Sanctuary in Durham. When this knocker was sounded, the door was opened, by two porters who had their accommodations always in two little chambers over the door, and for a certain length of time the criminal was under the protection of the Church. In speaking of the properties of lead, the old English Bartholomew says: "Of uncleanness of impure brimstone, lead hath a manner of neshness, and smircheth his hand who toucheth it... a man may wipe off the uncleanness, but always it is lead, although it seemeth silver." Weather vanes, made often of lead, were sometimes quite elaborate. One of the most important pieces of lead work in art is the figure of an angel on the chewet of Ste. Chapelle in Paris. Originally this figure was intended to be so controlled by clockwork that it would turn around once in the course of the twenty-four hours, so that his attitude of benediction should be directed to all four quarters of the city; but this was not practicable, and the angel is stationary. The cock on the weather vane at Winchester was described as early as the tenth century, in the Life of St. Swithin, by the scribe Walstan. He calls it "a cock of elegant form, and all resplendent and shining with gold who occupies the summit of the tower. He regards the world from on high, he commands all the country. Before him extend the stars of the North, and all the constellations of the zodiac. Under his superb feet he holds the sceptre of the law, and he sees under him all the people of Winchester. The other cocks are humble subjects of this one, whom they see thus raised in mid-air above them: he scorns the winds, that bring the rains, and, turning, he presents to them his back. The terrible efforts of the tempest do not annoy him, he receives with courage either snow or lightning, alone he watches the sun as it sets and dips into the ocean: and it is he who gives it its first salute on its rising again. The traveller who sees him afar off, fixes on him his gaze; forgetting the road he has still to follow, he forgets his fatigues: he advances with renewed ardour. While he is in reality a long way from the end, his eyes deceive him, and he thinks that he has arrived." Quite a practical tribute to a weather cock! The fact that leaden roofs were placed on all churches and monastic buildings in the Middle Ages, accounts in part for their utter destruction in case of fire; for it is easy to see how impossible it would be to enter a building in order to save anything, if, to the terror of flames, were added the horror of a leaden shower of molten metal proceeding from every part of the roof at once! If a church once caught fire, that was its end, as a rule. The invention of clocks, on the principle of cog-wheels and weights, is attributed to a monk, named Gerbert, who died in 1013. He had been instructor to King Robert, and was made Bishop of Rheims, later becoming Pope Sylvester II. Clocks at first were large affairs in public places. Portable clocks were said to have been first made by Carovage, in 1480. [Illustration: ANGLO SAXON CRUCIFIX OF LEAD] An interesting specimen of mediæval clock work is the old Dijon time keeper, which still performs its office, and which is a privilege to watch at high noon. Twelve times the bell is struck: first by a man, who turns decorously with his hammer, and then by a woman, who does the same. This staunch couple have worked for their living for many centuries. Froissart alludes to this clock, saying: "The Duke of Burgundy caused to be carried away from the market place at Courtray a clock that struck the hours, one of the finest which could be found on either side of the sea: and he conveyed it by pieces in carts, and the bell also, which clock was brought and carted into the town of Dijon, in Burgundy, where it was deposited and put up, and there strikes the twenty-four hours between day and night." This was in 1382, and there is no knowing how long the clock may have performed its functions in Courtray prior to its removal to Dijon. The great clock at Nuremberg shows a procession of the Seven Electors, who come out of one door, pass in front of the throne, each turning and doing obeisance, and pass on through another door. It is quite imposing, at noon, to watch this procession repeated twelve times. The clock is called the Mannleinlauffen. In the Statutes of Francis I., there is a clause stating that clockmakers as well as goldsmiths were authorized to employ in their work gold, silver, and all other materials. In Wells Cathedral is a curious clock, on which is a figure of a monarch, like Charles I., seated above the bell, which he kicks with his heels when the hour comes round. He is popularly known as "Jack Blandiver." This clock came originally from Glastonbury. On the hour a little tournament takes place, a race of little mounted knights rushing out in circles and charging each other vigorously. Pugin regrets the meaningless designs used by early Victorian clock makers. He calls attention to the fact that "it is not unusual to cast a Roman warrior in a flying chariot, round one of the wheels of which on close inspection the hours may be descried; or the whole front of a cathedral church reduced to a few inches in height, with the clock face occupying the position of a magnificent rose window!" This is not overdrawn; taste has suffered many vicissitudes in the course of time, but we hope that the future will hold more beauty for us in the familiar articles of the household than have prevailed at some periods in the past. CHAPTER V TAPESTRY A study of textiles is often subdivided into tapestry, carpet-weaving, mechanical weaving of fabrics of a lighter weight, and embroidery. These headings are useful to observe in our researches in the mediæval processes connected with the loom and the needle. Tapestry, as we popularly think of it, in great rectangular wall-hangings with rather florid figures from Scriptural scenes, commonly dates from the sixteenth century or later, so that it is out of our scope to study its manufacture on an extensive scale. But there are earlier tapestries, much more restrained in design, and more interesting and frequently more beautiful. Of these earlier works there is less profusion, for the examples are rare and precious, and seldom come into the market nowadays. The later looms were of course more prolific as the technical facilities increased. But a study of the craft as it began gives one all that is necessary for a proper appreciation of the art of tapestry weaving. The earliest European work with which we have to concern ourselves is the Bayeux tapestry. Although this is really needlework, it is usually treated as tapestry, and there seems to be no special reason for departing from the custom. Some authorities state that the Bayeux tapestry was made by the Empress Matilda, daughter of Henry I., while others consider it the achievement of Queen Matilda, the wife of William the Conqueror. She is recorded to have sat quietly awaiting her lord's coming while she embroidered this quaint souvenir of his prowess in conquest. A veritable mediæval Penelope, it is claimed that she directed her ladies in this work, which is thoroughly Saxon in feeling and costuming. It is undoubtedly the most interesting remaining piece of needlework of the eleventh century, and it would be delightful if one could believe the legend of its construction. Its attribution to Queen Matilda is very generally doubted by those who have devoted much thought to the subject. Mr. Frank Rede Fowke gives it as his opinion, based on a number of arguments too long to quote in this place, that the tapestry was not made by Queen Matilda, but was ordered by Bishop Odo as an ornament for the nave of Bayeux Cathedral, and was executed by Norman craftsmen in that city. Dr. Rock also favours the theory that it was worked by order of Bishop Odo. Odo was a brother of William the Conqueror and might easily have been interested in preserving so important a record of the Battle of Hastings. Dr. Rock states that the tradition that Queen Matilda executed the tapestry did not arise at all until 1730. The work is on linen, executed in worsteds. Fowke gives the length as two hundred and thirty feet, while it is only nineteen inches wide,--a long narrow strip of embroidery, in many colours on a cream white ground. In all, there are six hundred and twenty-three figures, besides two hundred horses and dogs, five hundred and five animals, thirty-seven buildings, forty-one ships, forty-nine trees, making in all the astonishing number of one thousand five hundred and twelve objects! The colours are in varying shades of blue, green, red and yellow worsted. The colours are used as a child employs crayons; just as they come to hand. When a needleful of one thread was used up, the next was taken, apparently quite irrespective of the colour or shade. Thus, a green horse will be seen standing on red legs, and a red horse will sport a blue stocking! Mr. J. L. Hayes believes that these varicoloured animals are planned purposely: that two legs of a green horse are rendered in red on the further side, to indicate perspective, the same principle accounting for two blue legs on a yellow horse! [Illustration: DETAIL, BAYEUX TAPESTRY] The buildings are drawn in a very primitive way, without consideration for size or proportion. The solid part of the embroidery is couched on, while much of the work is only rendered in outline. But the spirited little figures are full of action, and suggest those in the celebrated Utrecht Psalter. Sometimes one figure will be as high as the whole width of the material, while again, the people will be tiny. In the scene representing the burial of Edward the Confessor, in Westminster Abbey, the roof of the church is several inches lower than the bier which is borne on the shoulders of men nearly as tall as the tower! The naïve treatment of details is delicious. Harold, when about to embark, steps with bare legs into the tide: the water is laid out in the form of a hill of waves, in order to indicate that it gets deeper later on. It might serve as an illustration of the Red Sea humping up for the benefit of the Israelites! The curious little stunted figure with a bald head, in the group of the conference of messengers, would appear to be an abortive attempt to portray a person at some distance--he is drawn much smaller than the others to suggest that he is quite out of hearing! This seems to have been the only attempt at rendering the sense of perspective. Then comes a mysterious little lady in a kind of shrine, to whom a clerk is making curious advances; to the casual observer it would appear that the gentleman is patting her on the cheek, but we are informed by Thierry that this represents an embroideress, and that the clerk is in the act of ordering the Bayeux Tapestry itself! Conjecture is swamped concerning the real intention of this group, and no certain diagnosis has ever been pronounced! The Countess of Wilton sees in this group "a female in a sort of porch, with a clergyman in the act of pronouncing a benediction upon her!" Every one to his taste. A little farther on there is another unexplained figure: that of a man with his feet crossed, swinging joyously on a rope from the top of a tower. Soon after the Crowning of Harold, may be seen a crowd of people gazing at an astronomic phenomenon which has been described by an old chronicler as a "hairy star." It is recorded as "a blazing starre" such as "never appears but as a prognostic of afterclaps," and again, as "dreadful to be seen, with bloudie haires, and all over rough and shagged at the top." Another author complacently explains that comets "were made to the end that the ethereal regions might not be more void of monsters than the ocean is of whales and other great thieving fish!" A very literal interpretation of this "hairy star" has been here embroidered, carefully fitted out with cog-wheels and all the paraphernalia of a conventional mediæval comet. In the scenes dealing with the preparation of the army and the arrangement of their food, there occurs the lassooing of an ox; the amount of action concentrated in this group is really wonderful. The ox, springing clear of the ground, with all his legs gathered up under him, turns his horned head, which is set on an unduly long neck, for the purpose of inspecting his pursuers. No better origin for the ancient tradition of the cow who jumped over the moon could be adduced. And what shall we say of the acrobatic antics of Leofwine and Gyrth when meeting their deaths in battle? These warriors are turning elaborate handsprings in their last moments, while horses are represented as performing such somersaults that they are practically inverted. In the border of this part of the tapestry, soldiers are seen stripping off the coats of mail from the dead warriors on the battle-field; this they do by turning the tunic inside out and pulling it off at the head, and the resulting attitudes of the victims are quaint and realistic in the extreme! The border has been appropriately described as "a layer of dead men." In the tenth and eleventh centuries one of the regular petitions in the Litany was "From the fury of the Normans Good Lord Deliver us." The Bayeux Tapestry was designated, in 1746, as "the noblest monument in the world relating to our old English History." It has passed through most trying vicissitudes, having been used in war time as a canvas covering to a transport wagon, among other experiences. For centuries this precious treasure was neglected and not understood. In his "Tour" M. Ducarel states: "The priests... to whom we addressed ourselves for a sight of this remarkable piece of antiquity, knew nothing of it; the circumstance only of its being annually hung up in their church led them to understand what we wanted, no person then knowing that the object of our inquiries any ways related to the Conqueror." This was in the nineteenth century. Anglo-Saxon women spent much of their time in embroidering. Edith, Queen of Edward the Confessor, was quite noted for her needlework, which was sometimes used to decorate the state robes of the king. Formerly there existed at Ely Cathedral a work very like the Bayeux Tapestry, recording the deeds of the heroic Brihtnoth, the East Saxon, who was slain in 991, fighting the Danish forces. His wife rendered his history in needlework, and presented it to Ely. Unhappily there are no remains of this interesting monument now existing. The nearest thing to the Bayeux Tapestry in general texture and style is perhaps a twelfth century work in the Cathedral at Gerona, a little over four yards square, which is worked in crewels on linen, and is ornamented with scenes of an Oriental and primitive character, taken mainly from the story of Genesis. These tapestries come under the head of needlework. The tapestries made on looms proceed upon a different principle, and are woven instead of embroidered. Two kinds of looms were used under varying conditions in different places; high warp looms, or _Haute Lisse_, and low warp looms, known as _Basse Lisse_. The general method of making tapestries on a high warp loom has been much the same for many centuries. The warp is stretched vertically in two sets, every other thread being first forward and then back in the setting. M. Lacordaire, late Director of the Gobelins, writes as follows: "The workman takes a spindle filled with worsted or silk... he stops off the weft thread and fastens it to the warp, to the left of the space to be occupied by the colour he has in hand; then, by passing his left hand between the back and the front threads, he separates those that are to be covered with colours; with his right hand, having passed it through the same threads, he reaches to the left side, for the spindle which he brings back to the right; his left hand, then, seizing hold of the warp, brings the back threads to the front, while the right hand thrusts the spindle back to the point whence it started." When a new colour is to be introduced, the artist takes a new shuttle. He fastens his thread on the wrong side of the tapestry (the side on which he works) and repeats the process just described on the strings stretched up and down before him, like harp strings; the work is commenced at the lower part, and worked upwards, so that, when this strictly "hand weaving" is accomplished, it may be crowded down into place by means of a kind of ivory comb, so adjusted that the teeth fit between the warp threads. In tapestry weaving, the warp could be of any inferior but strong thread, for, by the nature of the work, only the woof was visible, the warp being quite hidden and incorporated into the texture under the close lying stitches which met and dove-tailed over it. The worker on a low loom does not see the right side of the work at all, unless he lifts the loom, which is a difficult undertaking. On a high loom, it is only necessary for the worker to go around to the front in order to see exactly what he is doing. The design is put below the work, however, in a low loom, and the work is thus practically traced as the tapestry proceeds. On account of the limitations of the human arm in reaching, the low warp tapestry requires more seams than does that made on the "haute lisse" loom, the pieces being individually smaller. One whole division of the workmen in tapestry establishments used to be known as the "fine drawers," whose whole duty was to join the different pieces together, and also to repair worn tapestries, inserting new stitches for restorations. Tapestry repairing was a necessary craft; at Rheims some tapestries were restored by Jacquemire de Bergeres; these hangings had been "much damaged by dogs, rats, mice, and other beasts." It is not stated where they had been hung! High warp looms have been known in Europe certainly since the ninth century. There is an order extant, from the Bishop of Auxerre, who died in 840, for some "carpets for his church." In 890 the monks of Saumur were manufacturing tapestries. Beautiful textiles had been used to ornament the Church of St. Denis as early as 630, but there is no proof that these were actually tapestries. There is a legend that in 732 a tapestry establishment existed in the district between Tours and Poitiers. At Beauvais, too, the weavers of arras were settled at the time of the Norman ravages. King Dagobert was a mediæval patron of arts in France. He had the walls of St. Denis (which he built) hung with rich tapestries set with pearls and wrought with gold. At the monastery of St. Florent, at Saumur in 985, the monks wove tapestries, using floral and animal forms in their designs. At Poitiers there was quite a flourishing factory as early as 1025. Tapestry was probably first made in France, to any considerable extent, then, in the ninth century. The historian of the monastery of Saumur tells us an interesting incident in connection with the works there. The Abbot of St. Florent had placed a magnificent order for "curtains, canopies, hangings, bench covers, and other ornaments,... and he caused to be, made two pieces of tapestry of large size and admirable quality, representing elephants." While these were about to be commenced, the aforesaid abbot was called away on a journey. The ecclesiastic who remained issued a command that the tapestries should be made with a woof different from that which they habitually used. "Well," said they, "in the absence of the good abbot we will not discontinue our employment; but as you thwart us, we shall make quite a different kind of fabric." So they deliberately set to work to make square carpets with silver lions on a red ground, with a red and white border of various animals! Abbot William was fortunately pleased with the result, and used lions interchangeably with elephants thereafter in his decorations. At the ninth century tapestry manufactory in Poitiers, an amusing correspondence took place between the Count of Poitou and an Italian bishop, in 1025. Poitou was at that time noted for its fine breed of mules. The Italian bishop wrote to ask the count to send him one mule and one tapestry,--as he expressed it, "both equally marvellous." The count replied with spirit: "I cannot send you what you ask, because for a mule to merit the epithet _marvellous_, he would have to have horns, or three tails, or five legs, and this I should not be able to find. I shall have to content myself with sending you the best that I can procure!" In 992 the Abbey of Croyland, in England, owned "two large foot cloths woven with lions, to be laid before the high altar on great festivals, and two shorter ones trailed all over with flowers, for the feast days of the Apostles." Under Church auspices in the twelfth century, the tapestry industry rose to its most splendid perfection. When the secular looms were started, the original beauty of the work was retained for a considerable time; in the tenth century German craftsmen worked as individuals, independently of Guilds or organizations. In the thirteenth century the work was in a flourishing condition in France, where both looms were in use. The upright loom is still used at the Gobelin factory. As an adjunct to the stained glass windows in churches, there never was a texture more harmonious than good mediæval tapestry. In 1260 the best tapestries in France were made by the Church exclusively; in 1461 King René of Anjou bequeathed a magnificent tapestry in twenty-seven subjects representing the Apocalypse, to "the church of Monsieur St. Maurice," at Angers. Although tapestry was made in larger quantities during the Renaissance, the mediæval designs are better adapted to the material. The royal chambers of the Kings of England were hung with tapestry, and it was the designated duty of the Chamberlain to see to such adornment. In 1294 there is mention of a special artist in tapestry, who lived near Winchester; his name was Sewald, and he was further known as "le tapenyr," which, according to M. G. Thomson, signifies tapestrier. One is led to believe that tapestries were used as church adornments before they were introduced into dwellings; for it was said, when Queen Eleanor of Castile had her bedroom hung with tapestries, that "it was like a church." At Westminster, a writer of 1631 alludes to the "cloths of Arras which adorn the choir." Sets of tapestries to hang entire apartments were known as "Hallings." Among the tapestries which belonged to Charles V. was one "worked with towers, fallow bucks and does, to put over the King's boat." Among early recorded tapestries are those mentioned in the inventory of Philip the Bold, in 1404, while that of Philip the Good tells of his specimens, in 1420. Nothing can well be imagined more charming than the description of a tapestried chamber in 1418; the room being finished in white was decorated with paroquets and damsels playing harps. This work was accomplished for the Duchess of Bavaria by the tapestry maker, Jean of Florence. Flanders tapestry was famous in the twelfth and fourteenth centuries. Arras particularly was the town celebrated for the beauty of its work. This famous manufactory was founded prior to 1350, as there is mention of work of that period. Before the town became known as Arras, while it still retained its original name, Nomenticum, the weavers were famous who worked there. In 282 A. D. the woven cloaks of Nomenticum were spoken of by Flavius Vopiscus. The earliest record of genuine Arras tapestry occurs in an order from the Countess of Artois in 1313, when she directs her receiver "de faire faire six tapis à Arras." Among the craftsmen at Arras in 1389 was a Saracen, named Jehan de Croisètes, and in 1378 there was a worker by the name of Huwart Wallois. Several of its workmen emigrated to Lille, in the fifteenth century, among them one Simon Lamoury and another, Jehan de Rausart. In 1419 the Council Chamber of Ypres was ornamented with splendid tapestries by François de Wechter, who designed them, and had them executed by Arras workmen. The Van Eycks and Memlinc also designed tapestries, and there is no doubt that the art would have continued to show a more consistent regard for the demands of the material if Raphael had never executed his brilliant cartoons. The effort to be Raphaelesque ruined the effect of many a noble piece of technique, after that. In 1302 a body of ten craftsmen formed a Corporation in Paris. The names of several workmen at Lille have been handed down to us. In 1318 Jehan Orghet is recorded, and in 1368, Willaume, a high-warp worker. Penalties for false work were extreme. One of the best known workers in France was Bataille, who was closely followed by one Dourdain. [Illustration: FLEMISH TAPESTRY, "THE PRODIGAL SON"] A famous Arras tapestry was made in 1386 by a weaver of the name of Michel Bernard. It measured over two hundred and eighty-five square yards, and represented the battle of Roosebecke. At this time a tapestry worker lived, named Jehanne Aghehe, one of the first attested women's names in connection with this art. In the Treasury of the church of Douai there is mention of three cushions made of high loom tapestry presented in 1386 by "la demoiselle Englise." It is not known who this young lady may have been. France and Flanders made the most desirable tapestries in the fourteenth century. In Italy the art had little vogue until the fifteenth. Very little tapestry was made in Spain in the Middle Ages,--the earliest well known maker was named Gutierrez, in the time of Philip IV. The picture by Velasquez, known as "The Weavers," represents the interior of his manufactory. A table cloth in mediæval times was called a "carpett:" these were often very ornate, and it is useful to know that their use was not for floor covering, for the inventories often mention "carpetts" worked with pearls and silver tissue, which would have been singularly inappropriate. The Arabs introduced the art of carpet weaving into Spain. An Oriental, Edrisi, writing in the twelfth century, says that such carpets were made at that time in Alicante, as could not be produced elsewhere, owing to certain qualities in both air and water which greatly benefited the wool used in their manufacture. In the Travels of Jean Lagrange, the author says that all carpets of Smyrna and Caramania are woven by women. As soon as a girl can hold a shuttle, they stretch cords between two trees, to make a warp, and then they give her all colours of wools, and leave her to her own devices. They tell her, "It is for you to make your own dowry." Then, according to the inborn art instinct of the child, she begins her carpet. Naturally, traditions and association with others engaged in the same pursuit assist in the scheme and arrangement; usually the carpet is not finished until she is old enough to marry. "Then," continues Lagrange, "two masters, two purchasers, present themselves; the one carries off a carpet, and the other a wife." Edward II.. of England owned a tapestry probably of English make, described as "a green hanging of wool wove with figures of Kings and Earls upon it." There was a roistering Britisher called John le Tappistere, who was complained of by certain people near Oxford, as having seized Master John of Shoreditch, and assaulted and imprisoned him, confiscating his goods and charging him fifty pounds for ransom. It is not stated what the gentleman from Shoreditch had done thus to bring down upon him the wrath of John the weaver! English weavers had rather the reputation of being fighters: in 1340 one George le Tapicier murdered John le Dextre of Leicester; while Giles de la Hyde also slew Thomas Tapicier in 1385. Possibly these rows occurred on account of a practical infringement upon the manufacturing rights of others as set down in the rules of the Company. There was a woman in Finch Lane who produced tapestry, with a cotton back, "after the manner of the works of Arras:" this was considered a dishonest business, and the work was ordered to be burnt. Roger van der Weyden designed a set of tapestries representing the History of Herkinbald, the stern uncle who, with his own hand, beheaded his nephew for wronging a young woman. Upon his death-bed, Herkinbald refused to confess this act as a sin, claiming the murder to have been justifiable and a positive virtue. Apparently the Higher Powers were on his side, too, for, when the priest refused the Eucharist to the impertinent Herkinbald, it is related that the Host descended by a miracle and entered the lips of the dying man. A dramatic story, of which van der Weyden made the most, in designing his wonderfully decorative tapestries. The originals were lost, but similar copies remain. As early as 1441 tapestries were executed in Oudenardes; usually these were composed of green foliage, and known as "verdures." In time the names "verdure" and "Oudenarde" became interchangeably associated with this class of tapestry. They represented woodland and hunting scenes, and were also called "Tapestry verde," and are alluded to by Chaucer. Curious symbolic subjects were often used: for instance, for a set of hangings for a banquet hall, what could be more whimsically appropriate than the representation of "Dinner," giving a feast to "Good Company," while "Banquet" and "Maladies" attack the guests! This scene is followed by the arrest of "Souper" and "Banquet" by "Experience," who condemns them both to die for their cruel treatment of the Feasters! There is an old poem written by a monk of Chester, named Bradshaw, in which a large hall decorated with tapestries is described as follows: "All herbs and flowers, fair and sweet, Were strawed in halls, and layd under their feet; Cloths of gold, and arras were hanged on the wall, Depainted with pictures and stories manifold Well wrought and craftely." A set of tapestries was made by some of the monks of Troyes, who worked upon the high loom, displaying scenes from the Life of the Magdalen. This task was evidently not devoid of the lighter elements, for in the bill, the good brothers made charge for such wine as they drank "when they consulted together in regard to the life of the Saint in question!" Among the most interesting tapestries are those representing scenes from the Wars of Troy, in South Kensington. They are crowded with detail, and in this respect exhibit most satisfactorily the beauties of the craft, which is enhanced by small intricacies, and rendered less impressive when treated in broad masses of unrelieved woven colour. Another magnificent set, bearing similar characteristics, is the History of Clovis at Rheims. There is a fascinating set of English tapestries representing the Seasons, at Hatfield: these were probably woven at Barcheston. The detail of minute animal and vegetable forms--the flora and fauna, as it were in worsted--are unique for their conscientious finish. They almost amount to catalogues of plants and beasts. The one which displays Summer is a herbal and a Noah's Ark turned loose about a full-sized Classical Deity, who presides in the centre of the composition. Among English makers of tapestries was a workman named John Bakes, who was paid the magnificent sum of twelve pence a day, while in an entry in another document he is said to have received only fourpence daily. The Hunting Tapestries belonging to the Duke of Devonshire are as perfect specimens as any that exist of the best period of the art. They are represented in colour in W. G. Thomson's admirable work on Tapestries, and are thus available to most readers in some public collection. Another splendidly decorative specimen is at Hampton Court, being a series of the Seven Deadly Sins. They measure about twenty-five by thirteen feet each, and are worked in heavy wools and silks. As technical facility developed, certain weaknesses began to show themselves. Tapestry weavers had their favourite figures, which, to save themselves trouble, they would often substitute for others in the original design. Arras tapestries were no longer made in the sixteenth century, and the best work of that time was accomplished in the Netherlands. About 1540 Brussels probably stood at the head of the list of cities famous for the production of these costly textiles. The Raphael tapestries were made there, by Peter van Aelst, under the order of Pope Leo X. They were executed in the space of four years, being finished in 1519, only a year before Raphael's death. In the sixteenth century the Brussels workers began to make certain "short cuts" not quite legitimate in an art of the highest standing, such as touching up the faces with liquid dyes, and using the same to enhance the effect after the work was finished. A law was passed that this must not be done on any tapestry worth more than twelve pence a yard. In spite of this trickery, the Netherlandish tapestries led all others in popularity in that century. It was almost invariable, especially in Flemish work, to treat Scriptural subjects as dressed in the costume of the period in which the tapestry happened to be made. When one sees the Prodigal Son attired in a delightful Flemish costume of a well-appointed dandy, and Adam presented to God the Father, both being clothed in Netherlandish garments suitable for Burgomasters of the sixteenth century, then we can believe that the following description, quoted by the Countess of Wilton, is hardly overdrawn. "In a corner of the apartment stood a bed, the tapestry of which was enwrought with gaudy colours, representing Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.... Adam was presenting our first mother with a large yellow apple gathered from a tree which scarcely reached his knee.... To the left of Eve appeared a church, and a dark robed gentleman holding something in his hand which looked like a pin cushion, but doubtless was intended for a book; he seemed pointing to the holy edifice, as if reminding them that they were not yet married! On the ground lay the rib, out of which Eve, who stood a head higher than Adam, had been formed: both of them were very respectably clothed in the ancient Saxon costume; even the angel wore breeches, which, being blue, contrasted well with his flaming red wings." In France, the leading tapestry works were at Tours in the early sixteenth century. A Flemish weaver, Jean Duval, started the work there in 1540. Until 1552 he and his three sons laboured together with great results, and they left a large number of craftsmen to follow in their footsteps. In Italy the art had almost died out in the early sixteenth century, but revived in full and florid force under the Raphaelesque influence. King René of Anjou collected tapestries so assiduously that the care and repairing of them occupied the whole time of a staff of workers, who were employed steadily, living in the palace, and sleeping at night in the various apartments in which the hangings were especially costly. Queen Jeanne, the mother of Henri IV., was a skilled worker in tapestry. To quote Miss Freer in the Life of Jeanne d'Albret, "During the hours which the queen allowed herself for relaxation, she worked tapestry and discoursed with some one of the learned men whom she protected." This queen was of an active mental calibre and one to whom physical repose was most repugnant. She was a regular and pious attendant at church, but sitting still was torture to her, and listening to the droning sermons put her to sleep. So, with a courage to be admired, Jeanne "demanded permission from the Synod to work tapestry during the sermon. This request was granted; from thenceforth Queen Jeanne, bending decorously over her tapestry frame, and busy with her needle, gave due attention." The Chateau of Blois, during the reign of Louis XII. and Ann of Brittany, is described as being regally appointed with tapestries: "Those which were hung in the apartments of the king and queen," says the chronicler, "were all full of gold; and the tapestries and embroideries of cloth of gold and of silk had others beneath them ornamented with personages and histories as those were above. Indeed, there was so great a number of rich tapestries, velvet carpets, and bed coverings, of gold and silk, that there was not a chamber, hall, or wardrobe, that was not full." In an inventory of the Princess of Burgundy there occurs this curious description of a tapestry: "The three tapestries of the Church Militant, wrought in gold, whereon may be seen represented God Almighty seated in majesty, and around him many cardinals, and below him many princes who present to him a church." Household luxury in England is indicated by a quaint writer in 1586: "In noblemen's houses," he says, "it is not rare to see abundance of arras, rich hangings, of tapestrie... Turkie wood, pewter, brasse, and fine linen.... In times past the costly furniture stayed there, whereas now it is discarded yet lower, even unto the inferior artificers, and many farmers... have for the most part learned to garnish their beds with tapestries and hangings, and their tables with carpetts and fine napery." Henry VIII. was devoted to tapestry collecting, also. An agent who was buying for him in the Netherlands in 1538, wrote to the king: "I have made a stay in my hands of two hundred ells of goodly tapestry; there hath not been brought this twenty year eny so good for the price." Henry VIII. had in his large collection many subjects, among them such characteristic pieces as: "ten peeces of the rich story of King David" (in which Bathsheba doubtless played an important part), "seven peeces of the Stories of Ladies," "A peece with a man and woman and a flagon," "A peece of verdure... having poppinjays at the nether corners," "One peece of Susannah," "Six fine new tapestries of the History of Helena and Paris." A set of six "verdure" tapestries was owned by Cardinal Wolsey, which "served for the hanging of Durham Hall of inferior days." The hangings in a hall in Chester are described as depicting "Adam, Noe, and his Shyppe." In 1563 a monk of Canterbury was mentioned as a tapestry weaver. At York, Norwich, and other cities, were also to be found "Arras Workers" during the sixteenth century. There was an amusing law suit in 1598, which was brought by a gentleman, Charles Lister, against one Mrs. Bridges, for accepting from him, on the understanding of an engagement in marriage, a suite of tapestries for her apartment. He sued for the return of his gifts! Among the State Papers of James I., there is a letter in which the King remarks "Sir Francis Crane desires to know if my baby will have him to-hasten the making of that suite of tapestry that he commanded him." In Florence, the art flourished under the Medici. In 1546 a regular Academy of instruction in tapestry weaving was set up, under the direction of Flemish masters. All the leading artists of the Golden Age furnished designs which, though frequently inappropriate for being rendered in textile, were fine pictures, at any rate. In Venice, too, there were work shops, but the influence of Italy was Flemish in every case so far as technical instruction was concerned. The most celebrated artists of the Renaissance made cartoons: Raphael, Giulio Romano, Jouvenet, Le Brun, and numerous others, in various countries. [Illustration: TAPESTRY, REPRESENTING PARIS IN THE 15TH CENTURY] The Gobelins work in Paris was inaugurated in the fifteenth century under Jean Gobelins, a native of Rheims. His son, Philibert, and later, many descendants persevered steadily at the work; the art prospered under Francis I., the whole force of tapestry weavers being brought together at Fontainebleau, and under Henry II., the direction of the whole was given to the celebrated artist Philibert Delorme. In 1630 the Gobelins was fully established as a larger plant, and has never made another move. The work has increased ever since those days, on much the same general lines. Celebrated French artists have designed tapestries: Watteau, Boucher, and others were interpreted by the brilliant manager whose signature appears on the works, Cozette, who was manager from 1736 until 1792. With this technical perfection came the death of the art of tapestry: the pictures might as well have been painted on canvas, and all feeling for the material was lost, so that the naïve charm of the original workers ceased to be a part of the production. Among European collections now visible, the best is in Madrid, where over six hundred tapestries may be seen, chiefly Flemish, of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The collection at the Pitti Palace in Florence comprises six hundred, while in the Vatican are preserved the original Raphael tapestries. South Kensington Museum, too, is rich in interesting examples of various schools. It is a very helpful collection to students, especially, although not so large as some others. In 1663, "two well intended statutes" were introduced dealing with curiously opposite matters: one was to encourage linen and tapestry manufacture in England, and the other was "for regulating the packing of herrings!" The famous English Mortlake tapestry manufactory was not established until the seventeenth century, and that is rather late for us. The progress of craftsmanship has been steady, especially at the Gobelins in France. Many other centres of industry developed, however, in various countries. The study of modern tapestry is a branch by itself with which we are unable to concern ourselves now. CHAPTER VI EMBROIDERIES The materials used as groundwork for mediæval embroideries were rich in themselves. Samit was the favourite--shimmering, and woven originally of solid flat gold wire. Ciclatoun was also a brilliant textile, as also was Cendal. Cendal silk is spoken of by early writers. The first use of silk is interesting to trace. A monopoly, a veritable silk trust, was established in 533, in the Roman Empire. Women were employed at the Court of Justinian to preside over the looms, and the manufacture of silk was not allowed elsewhere. The only hindrance to this scheme was that the silk itself had to be brought from China. But in the reign of Justinian, two monks who had been travelling in the Orient, brought to the emperor, as curiosities, some silkworms and cocoons. They obtained some long hollow walking sticks, which they packed full of silkworms' eggs, and thus imported the producers of the raw material. The European silk industry, in fabrics, embroideries, velvets, and such commodities, may owe its origin to this bit of monastic enterprise in 550. Silk garments were very costly, however, and it was not every lady in early times who could have such luxuries. It is said that even the Emperor Aurelian refused his wife her request for just one single cloak of silk, saying: "No, I could never think of buying such a thing, for it sells for its weight in gold!" Fustian and taffeta were less costly, but frequently used in important work, as also were sarcenet and camora. Velvet and satin were of later date, not occurring until the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Baudekin, a good silk and golden weave, was very popular. Cut velvets with elaborate patterns were made in Genoa. The process consisted in leaving the main ground in the original fine rib which resulted from weaving, while in the pattern these little ribs were split open, making that part of a different ply from the rest of the material, in fact, being the finished velvet as we now know it, while the ground remained uncut, and had more the appearance of silk reps. Velvet is first mentioned in England in 1295, but probably existed earlier on the Continent. Both Roger de Wendover and Matthew Paris mention a stuff called "imperial:" it was partly gold in weave, but there is some doubt as to its actual texture. Baudekin was a very costly textile of gold and silk which was used largely in altar coverings and hangings, such as dossals; by degrees the name became synonymous with "baldichin," and in Italy the whole altar canopy is still called a _baldachino_. During Royal Progresses the streets were always hung with rich cloth of gold. As Chaucer makes allusion to streets "By ordinance throughout the city large Hanged with cloth of gold, and not with serge," so Leland tells how the Queen of Henry VII. was conducted to her coronation and "all the stretes through which she should pass were clenely dressed... with cloths of tapestry and Arras, and some stretes, as Cheepe, hanged with rich cloths of gold, velvetts, and silks." And in Machyn's Diary, he says that "as late as 1555 at Bow church in London, was hangyd with cloth of gold and with rich Arras." The word "satin" is derived from the silks of the Mediterranean, called "aceytuni," which became "zetani" in Italian, and gradually changed through French and English influence, to "satin." The first mention of it in England is about 1350, when Bishop Grandison made a gift of choice satins to Exeter Cathedral. The Dalmatic of Charlemagne is embroidered on blue satin, although this is a rare early example of the material. At Constantinople, also, as early as 1204, Baldwin II. wore satin at his coronation. It was nearly always made in a fiery red in the early days. It is mentioned in a Welsh poem of the thirteenth century. Benjamin of Tudela, a traveller who wrote in 1161, mentions that the Jews were living in great numbers in Thebes, and that they made silks there at that time. There is record that in the late eleventh century a Norman Abbot brought home from Apulia a quantity of heavy and fine silk, from which four copes were made. French silks were not remarkable until the sixteenth century, while those of the Netherlands led all others as early as the thirteenth. Shot silks were popular in England in the sixteenth century. York Cathedral possessed, in 1543, a "vestment of changeable taffety for Good Friday." St. Dunstan is reported to have once "tinted" a sacerdotal vestment to oblige a lady, thus departing from his regular occupation as goldsmith to perform the office of a dyer of stuff. Many rich mediæval textiles were ornamented by designs, which usually show interlaces and animal forms, and sometimes conventional floral ornament. Patterns originated in the East, and, through Byzantine influence, in Italy, and Saracenic in Spain, they were adopted and modified by Europeans. In 1295 St. Paul's in London owned a hanging "patterned with wheels and two-headed birds." Sicilian silks, and many others of the contemporary textiles, display variations of the "tree of life" pattern. This consists of a little conventional shrub, sometimes hardly more than a "budding rod," with two birds or animals advancing vis-à-vis on either side. Sometimes these are two peacocks; often lions or leopards and frequently griffins and various smaller animals. Whenever one sees a little tree or a single stalk, no matter how conventionally treated, with a couple of matched animals strutting up to each other on either side, this pattern owes its origin to the old tradition of the decorative motive usual in Persia and in Byzantium, the Tree of Life, or Horn. The origin of patterns does not come within our scope, and has been excellently treated in the various books of Lewis Day, and other writers on this subject. Textiles of Italian manufacture may be seen represented in the paintings of the old masters: Orcagna, Francia, Crivelli, and others, who delighted in the rendering of rich stuffs; later, they abound in the creations of Veronese and Titian. A "favourite Italian vegetable," as Dr. Rock quaintly expresses it, is the artichoke, which, often, set in oval forms, is either outlined or worked solidly in the fabric. Almeria was a rich city in the thirteenth century, noted for its textiles. A historian of that period writes: "Christians of all nations came to its port to buy and to sell. From thence... they travelled to other parts of the interior of the country, where they loaded their vessels with such goods as they wanted. Costly silken robes of the brightest colours are manufactured in Almeria." Granada was famous too, a little later, for its silks and woven goods. About 1562 Navagiero wrote: "All sorts of cloth and silks are made there: the silks made at Granada are much esteemed all over Spain; they are not so good as those that come from Italy. There are several looms, but they do not yet know how to work them well. They make good taffetas, sarcenet, and silk serges. The velvets are not bad, but those that are made at Valencia are better in quality." Marco Polo says of the Persians in certain sections; "There are excellent artificers in the cities, who make wonderful things in gold, silk, and embroidery.... In veins of the mountains stones are found, commonly called turquoises, and other jewels. There also are made all sorts of arms and ammunition for war, and by the women excellent needlework in silks, with all sorts of creatures very admirably wrought therein." Marco Polo also reports the King of Tartary as wearing on his birthday a most precious garment of gold, while his barons wore the same, and had given them girdles of gold and silver, and "pearls and garments of great price." This Khan also "has the tenths of all wool, silk, and hemp, which he causes to be made into clothes, in a house for that purpose appointed: for all trades are bound one day in the week to serve him." He clothed his armies with this tythe wool. In Anglo-Saxon times a fabric composed of fine basket-weaving of thin flat strips of pure gold was used; sometimes the flat metal was woven on a warp of scarlet silk threads. Later strips of gilded parchment were fraudulently substituted for the genuine flat metal thread. Often the woof of gold strips was so solid and heavy that it was necessary to have a silk warp of six strands, to support its wear. Gold cloth was of varying excellence, however: among the items in an inventory for the Earl of Warwick in the time of Henry VI., there is allusion to "one coat for My Lord's body, beat with fine gold; two coats for heralds, beat with demi-gold." It is generally assumed that the first wire-drawing machines were made about 1360 in Germany; they were not used in England until about 1560. Theophilus, however, in the eleventh century, tells "Of the instruments through which wires are drawn," saying that they consist of "two irons, three fingers in breadth, narrow above and below, everywhere thin, and perforated with three or four ranges, through which holes wires are drawn." This would seem to be a primitive form of the more developed instrument. Wire drawing was introduced into England by Christian Schutz about 1560. In 1623 was incorporated in London, "The Worshipful Company of Gold and Silver Wire-Drawers." The preamble of their charter reads thus: "The Trade Art of Drawing and flattening of gold and silver wire, and making and spinning of gold and silver thread and stuffe." It seems as though there were some kind of work that corresponded to wire-drawing, earlier than its supposed introduction, for a petition was sent to King Henry VI. in 1423, by the "wise and worthy Communes of London, & the Wardens of Broderie in the said Citie," requesting protection against "deceit and default in the work of divers persons occupying the craft of embroidery;" and in 1461 "An act of Common Council was passed respecting the gold-drawers," showing that the art was known to some extent and practised at that time. In the reign of George II., in 1742, "An act to prevent the counterfeiting of gold and silver lace and for the settling and adjusting the proportions of fine silver and silk, and for the better making of gold and silver lace," was passed. Ecclesiastical vestments were often trimmed with heavy gold fringe, knotted "fretty wise," and the embroideries were further enriched with jewels and small plaques of enamel. Matthew Paris relates a circumstance of certain garments being so heavily weighted with gold that the clergy could not walk in them, and, in order to get the solid metal out again, it was necessary to burn the garments and thus melt the gold. Jewelled robes were often seen in the Middle Ages; a chasuble is described as having been made for the Abbot of St. Albans, in the twelfth century, which was practically covered with plaques of gold and precious stones. Imagine the unpleasant physical sensation of a bishop in 1404, who was obliged to wear a golden mitre of which the ground was set with large pearls, bordered with balas rubies, and sapphires, and trimmed with indefinite extra pearls! The body of St. Cecilia, who was martyred in 230, was interred in a garment of pure woven gold. The cloth of solid gold which was used for state occasions was called "tissue;" the thin paper in which it was wrapped when it was laid away was known as tissue paper, and Mr. William Maskell states that the name has clung to it, and that is why thin paper is called "tissue paper" to-day. St. Peter's in Rome possessed a great pair of silver curtains, which hung at the entrance to the church, given by Pope Stephen IV. in the eighth century. Vitruvius tells how to preserve the gold in old embroidery, or in worn-out textiles where the metal has been extensively used. He says: "When gold is embroidered on a garment which is worn out, and no longer fit for use, the cloth is burnt over the fire in earthen pots. The ashes are thrown into water, and quicksilver added to them. This collects all particles of gold, and unites with them. The water is then poured off, and the residuum placed in a cloth, which, when squeezed with the hands suffers the liquid quicksilver to pass through the pores of the cloth, but retains the gold in a mass within it." An early allusion to asbestos woven as a cloth is made by Marco Polo, showing that fire-proof fabrics were known in his time. In the province of Chinchintalas, "there is a mountain wherein are mines of steel... and also, as was reported, salamanders, of the wool of which cloth was made, which if cast into the fire, cannot burn. But that cloth is in reality made of stone in this manner, as one of my companions a Turk, named Curifar, a man endued with singular industry, informed me, who had charge of the minerals in that province. A certain mineral is found in that mountain which yields threads not unlike wool; and these being dried in the sun, are bruised in a brazen mortar, and afterwards washed, and whatsoever earthy substance sticks to them is taken away. Lastly, these threads are spun like ordinary wool, and woven into cloth. And when they would whiten those cloths, they cast them into the fire for an hour, and then take them out unhurt whiter than snow. After the same manner they cleanse them when they have taken any spots, for no other washing is used to them, besides the fire." In the Middle Ages it would have been possible, as Lady Alford suggests, to play the game "Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral" with textiles only! Between silk, hemp, cotton, gold, silver, wool, flax, camel's hair, and asbestos, surely the three elements all played their parts. Since the first record of Eve having "sewn fig leaves together to make aprons," women have used the needle in some form. In England, it is said that the first needles were made by an Indian, in 1545, before which time they were imported. The old play, "Gammer Gurton's Needle," is based upon the extreme rarity of these domestic implements, and the calamity occasioned in a family by their loss. There is a curious old story about a needle, which was supposed to possess magic powers. This needle is reported to have worked at night while its owner was resting, saving her all personal responsibility about her mending. When the old lady finally died, another owner claimed this charmed needle, and began at once to test its powers. But, do what she would, she was unable to force a thread through its obstinate eye. At last, after trying all possible means to thread the needle, she took a magnifying glass to examine and see what the impediment was, and, lo! the eye of the needle was filled with a great tear,--it was weeping for the loss of its old mistress, and no one was ever able to thread it again! Embroidery is usually regarded as strictly a woman's craft, but in the Middle Ages the leading needleworkers were often men. The old list of names given by Louis Farcy has almost an equal proportion of workers of both sexes. But the finest work was certainly accomplished by the conscientious dwellers in cloisters, and the nuns devoted their vast leisure in those days to this art. Fuller observes: "Nunneries were also good shee-schools, wherein the girls of the neighbourhood were taught to read and work... that the sharpnesse of their wits and suddennesse of their conceits (which even their enemies must allow unto them!) might by education be improved into a judicious solidity." In some of these schools the curriculum included "Reading and sewing, threepence a week: a penny extra for manners." An old thirteenth century work, called the "Kleine Heldenbuch," contains a verse which may be thus translated: "Who taught me to embroider in a frame with silk? And to draw and design the wild and tame Beasts of the forest and field? Also to picture on plain surface: Round about to place golden borders, A narrow and a broader one, With stags and hinds lifelike." A study of historic embroidery should be preceded by a general knowledge of the principle stitches employed. One of the simplest forms was chain stitch, in which one stitch was taken through the loop of the stitch just laid. In the Middle Ages it was often used. Sometimes, when the material was of a loose weave, it was executed by means of a little hook--the probable origin of crochet. Tapestry stitch, of which one branch is cross-stitch, was formed by laying close single stitches of uniform size upon a canvas specially prepared for this work. [Illustration: EMBROIDERY ON CANVAS, 16TH CENTURY, SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM] Fine embroidery in silk was usually executed in long smooth stitches of irregular length, which merged into each other. This is generally known as satin stitch, for the surface of the work is that of a satin texture when the work is completed. This was frequently executed upon linen, and then, when the entire surface had been hidden by the close silk stitches, it was cut out and transferred on a brocade background, this style of rendering being known as appliqué. Botticelli recommended this work as most durable and satisfactory: it is oftenest associated with church embroidery. A simple appliqué was also done by cutting out pieces of one material and applying them to another, hiding the edge-joinings by couching on a cord. As an improvement upon painted banners to be used in processions, Botticelli introduced this method of cutting out and resetting colours upon a different ground. As Vasari says: "This he did that the colors might not sink through, showing the tint of the cloth on each side." But Dr. Rock points out that it is hardly fair to earlier artificers to give the entire credit for this method of work to Botticelli, since such cut work or appliqué was practised in Italy a hundred years before Botticelli was born! Sometimes solid masses of silk or gold thread were laid in ordered flatness upon a material, and then sewn to it by long or short stitches at right angles. This is known as couching, and is a very effective way of economizing material by displaying it all on the surface. As a rule, however, the surface wears off somewhat, but it is possible to execute it so that it is as durable as embroidery which has been rendered in separate stitches. In Sicily it was a common practice to use coral in embroideries as well as pearls. Coral work is usually called Sicilian work, though it was also sometimes executed in Spain. The garments worn by the Byzantines were very ornate; they were made of woven silk and covered with elaborate devices. In the fourth century the Bishop of Amasia ridiculed the extravagant dress of his contemporaries. "When men appear in the streets thus dressed," he says, "the passers by look at them as at painted walls. Their clothes are pictures, which little children point out to one another. The saintlier sort wear likenesses of Christ, the Marriage of Galilee, and Lazarus raised from the dead." Allusion was made in a sermon: "Persons who arrayed themselves like painted walls" "with beasts and flowers all over them" were denounced! In the early Dark Ages there was some prejudice against these rich embroideries. In the sixth century the Bishop St. Cesaire of Arles forbade his nuns to embroider robes with precious stones or painting and flowers. King Withaf of Mercia willed to the Abbey of Croyland "my purple mantle which I wore at my Coronation, to be made into a cope, to be used by those who minister at the holy altar: and also my golden veil, embroidered with the Siege of Troy, to be hung up in the Church on my anniversary." St. Asterius preached to his people, "Strive to follow in your lives the teachings of the Gospel, rather than have the miracles of Our Redeemer embroidered on your outward dress!" This prejudice, however, was not long lived, and the embroidered vestments and garments continued to hold their popularity all through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. It has been said on grave authority that "Woman is an animal that delights in the toilette," while Petrarch, in 1366, recognized the power of fashion over its votaries. "Who can see with patience," he writes, "the monstrous fantastical inventions which people of our times have invented to deform rather than adorn their persons? Who can behold without indignation their long pointed shoes, their caps with feathers, their hair twisted and hanging down like tails,... their bellies so cruelly squeezed with cords that they suffer as much pain from vanity as the martyrs suffered for religion!" And yet who shall say whether a "dress-reform" Laura would have charmed any more surely the eye of the poet? Chaucer, in England, also deplores the fashions of his day, alluding to the "sinful costly array of clothing, namely, in too much superfluity or else indisordinate scantiness!" Changing fashions have always been the despair of writers who have tried to lay down rules for æsthetic effect in dress. "An Englishman," says Harrison, "endeavouring some time to write of our attire... when he saw what a difficult piece of work he had taken in hand, he gave over his travail, and onely drue a picture of a naked man unto whom he gave a pair of shears in the one hand and a piece of cloth in the other, to the end that he should shape his apparel after such fashion as himself liked, sith he could find no garment that could please him any while together: and this he called an Englishman." Edward the Confessor wore State robes which had been beautifully embroidered with gold by his accomplished wife, Edgitha. In the Royal Rolls of Edward III., in 1335, we find allusion to two vests of green velvet embroidered respectively with sea sirens and coats of arms. The tunics worn over armour offered great opportunities to the needleworker. They were richly embroidered, usually in heraldic style. When Symon, Bishop of Ely, performed the ceremony of Churching for Queen Philippa, the royal dame bestowed upon him the gown which she wore on that occasion; it is described as a murrey-coloured velvet, powdered with golden squirrels, and was of such voluminous pattern that it was cut over into three copes! Bridal gowns were sometimes given to churches, as well. St. Louis of France was what might be called temperate in dress. The Sire de Joinville says he "never saw a single embroidered coat or ornamented saddle in the possession of the king, and reproved his son for having such things. I replied that he would have acted better if he had given them in charity, and had his dress made of good sendal, lined and strengthened with his arms, like as the king his father had done!" At the marriage of the Lord of Touraine in 1389, the Duke of Burgundy presented magnificent habits and clothing to his nephew the Count of Nevers: among these were tunics, ornamented with embroidered trees conventionally displayed on their backs, fronts, and sleeves; others showed heraldic blazonry, while a blue velvet tunic was covered with balas rubies set in pearls, alternating with suns of solid gold with great solitaire pearls as centres. Again, in 1390, when the king visited Dijon, he presented to the same nephew a set of harnesses for jousting. Some of them were composed largely of sheets of beaten gold and silver. In some gold and silver marguerites were introduced also. Savonarola reproved the Florentine nuns for employing their valuable time in manufacturing "gold laces with which to adorn persons and houses." The Florentine gold lace was very popular in England, in the days of Henry VIII., and later the art was taken up by the "wire-drawers" of England, and a native industry took the place of the imported article. Among prohibited gowns in Florence was one owned by Donna Francesca degli Albizi, "a black mantle of raised cloth: the ground is yellow, and over it are woven birds, parrots, butterflies, red and white roses, and many figures in vermilion and green, with pavilions and dragons, and yellow and black letters and trees, and many other figures of various colours, the whole lined with cloth in hues of black and vermilion." As one reads this description, it seems as though the artistic sense as much as conscientious scruples might have revolted and led to its banishment! Costumes for tournaments were also lavish in their splendour. In 1467 Benedetto Salutati ordered made for such a pageant all the trappings for two horses, worked in two hundred pounds of silver by Pollajuolo; thirty pounds of pearls were also used to trim the garments of the sergeants. No wonder Savonarola was enthusiastic in his denunciation of such extravagance. Henry VIII. had "a pair of hose of purple silk and Venice gold, woven like a caul." For one of his favoured lady friends, also, there is an item, of a certain sum paid, for one pound of gold for embroidering a nightgown. The unrivalled excellence of English woollen cloths was made manifest at an early period. There was a fabric produced at Norwich of such superiority that a law was passed prohibiting monks from wearing it, the reason being that it was considered "smart enough for military men!" This was in 1422. The name of Worsted was given to a certain wool because it was made at Worsted, a town in Norfolk; later the "worsted thread" was sold for needleworkers. Ladies made their own gold thread in the Middle Ages by winding a fine flat gold wire, scarcely of more body than a foil, around a silk thread. Patches were embroidered into place upon such clothes or vestments as were torn: those who did this work were as well recognized as the original designers, and were called "healers" of clothes! Embroidered bed hangings were very much in order in mediæval times in England. In the eleventh century there lived a woman who had emigrated from the Hebrides, and who had the reputation for witchcraft, chiefly based upon the unusually exquisite needlework on her bed curtains! The name of this reputed sorceress was Thergunna. Bequests in important wills indicate the sumptuous styles which were usual among people of position. The Fair Maid of Kent left to her son her "new bed curtains of red velvet, embroidered with ostrich feathers of silver, and heads of leopards of gold," while in 1380 the Earl of March bequeathed his "large bed of black satin embroidered with white lions and gold roses, and the escutcheons of the arms of Mortimer and Ulster." This outfit must have resembled a Parisian "first class" funeral! The widow of Henry II. slept in a sort of mourning couch of black velvet, which must have made her feel as if she too were laid out for her own burial! A child's bedquilt was found mentioned in an inventory of furniture at the Priory of Durham, in 1446, which was embroidered in the four corners with the Evangelistic symbols. In the "Squier of Lowe Degree," a fifteenth century romance, there is allusion to a bed, of which the head sheet is described "with diamonds set and rubies bright." The king of England, in 1388, refers, in a letter, to "a bed of gold cloth." Wall hangings in bedrooms were also most elaborate, and the effect of a chamber adorned with gold and needlework must have been fairly regal. An embroiderer named Delobel made a set of furnishings for the bedroom of Louis XIV. the work upon which occupied three years. The subject was the Triumph of Venus. In South Kensington Museum there is a fourteenth century linen cloth of German workmanship, upon which occurs the legend of the unicorn, running for protection to a maiden. An old Bestiary describes how the unicorn, or as it is there called, the "monocerus," "is an animal which has one horn on its head: it is caught by means of a virgin." The unicorn and virgin, with a hunter in pursuit, is quite a favourite bit of symbolism in the middle ages. Another interesting piece of German embroidery in South Kensington is a table cloth, worked on heavy canvas, in heraldic style: long decorative inscriptions embellish the corners. A liberal translation of these verses is given by Dr. Rock, some of the sentences being quaint and interesting to quote. Evidently the embroideress indulged in autobiography in the following: "And she, to honour the esquire her husband, wished to adorn and increase his house furniture, and there has worked, with her own hand, this and still many other pretty cloths, to her memory." And in another corner, "Now follows here my own birthday. When one wrote 1565 my mother's heart was gladdened by my first cry. In the year 1585 I gave birth my self to a daughter. Her name is Emilia Catharina, and she has been a proper and praiseworthy child." Then, to her children the following address is directed: "Do not forget your prayers in the morning. And be temperate in your pleasures. And make yourselves acquainted with the Word of God.... I beseech you to be sincere in all matters. That will make you great and glorious. Honour everybody according to his station: it will make you honourably known. You, my truly beloved sons, beware of fiery wines... you, my truly beloved daughters, preserve and guard your honour, and reflect before you do anything: many have been led into evil by acting first and thinking afterwards." In another compartment, a lament goes up in which she deplores the death of her husband. "His age was sixty and eight years," she says. "The dropsy has killed him. I, his afflicted Anna Blickin von Liechtenperg who was left behind, have related it with my hand in this cloth, that might be known to my children this greater sorrow which God has sent me." The cloth is a naïve and unusual record of German home life. Ecclesiastical embroidery began in the fourth century. In earliest days the work was enhanced with quantities of gold thread. The shroud in which St. Cuthbert's body was wrapped is a mass of gold: a Latin inscription on the vestments in which the body was clad may be thus translated: "Queen to Alfred's son and successor, Edward the Elder, was one Aelflaed, who caused this stole and maniple to be made for a gift to Fridestan consecrated Bishop of Winchester, A. D. 905." The maniple is of "woven gold, with spaces left vacant for needlework embroidery." Such garments for burial were not uncommon; but they have as a rule perished from their long residence underground. St. Cuthbert's vestments are splendid examples of tenth century work in England. After the death of King Edward II., and his wife Aelflaed, Bishop Frithestan also having passed away, Athelstan, as King, made a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Cuthbert and bestowed these valuable embroideries there. They were removed from the body of the saint in 1827. The style of the work inclines to Byzantine. The Saxon embroideries must have been very decorative: a robe is described by Aldhelme in 709, as "of a most delicate thread of purple, adorned with black circles and peacocks." At the church at Croyland some vestments were decorated with birds of gold cut out and appliqué and at Exeter they had "nothing about them but true needlework." In the "Liber Eliensis," in the Muniment room at Ely, is an account of a gift to the church by Queen Emma, the wife of King Knut, who "on a certain day came to Ely in a boat, accompanied by his wife the Queen Emma, and the chief nobles of his kingdom." This royal present was "a purple cloth worked with gold and set with jewels for St. Awdry's shrine," and the Monk Thomas assures us that "none other could be found in the kingdom of the English of such richness and beauty of workmanship." The various stitches in English work had their several names, the opus plumarium, or straight overlapping stitches, resembling the feathers of a bird; the opus pluvarium, or cross stitch, and many others. A great deal of work was accomplished by means of appliqué in satin and silk, and sometimes the ground was painted, as has already been described in Italian work. In the year 1246 Matthew Paris writes: "About this time the Lord Pope, Innocent IV., having observed that the ecclesiastical ornaments of some Englishmen, such as choristers' copes and mitres, were embroidered in gold thread, after a very desirable fashion, asked where these works were made, and received in answer, 'England.' Then," said the Pope, "England is surely a garden of delight for us; it is truly a never failing Spring, and there where many things abound much may be extorted." This far sighted Pope, with his semi-commercial views, availed himself of his discovery. In the days of Anastatius, ecclesiastical garments were spoken of by name according to the motive of their designs: for instance, the "peacock garment," the "elephant chasuble," and the "lion cope." Fuller tells of the use of a pall as an ecclesiastical vestment, remarking tersely: "It is made up of lamb's wool and superstition." Mediæval embroiderers in England got into certain habits of work, so that there are some designs which are almost as hall-marks to English work; the Cherubim over the wheel is especially characteristic, as is also the vase of lilies, and various heraldic devices which are less frequently found in the embroidered work of European peoples. The Syon Cope is perhaps the most conspicuous example of the mediæval embroiderer's art. It was made by nuns about the end of the thirteenth century, in a convent near Coventry. It is solid stitchery on a canvas ground, "wrought about with divers colours" on green. The design is laid out in a series of interlacing square forms, with rounded and barbed sides and corners. In each of these is a figure or a scriptural scene. The orphreys, or straight borders which go down both fronts of the cope, are decorated with heraldic charges. Much of the embroidery is raised, and wrought in the stitch known as Opus Anglicanum. The effect was produced by pressing a heated metal knob into the work at such points as were to be raised. The real embroidery was executed on a flat surface, and then bossed up by this means until it looked like bas-relief. The stitches in every part run in zig-zags, the vestments, and even the nimbi about the heads, are all executed with the stitches slanting in one direction, from the centre of the cope outward, without consideration of the positions of the figures. Each face is worked in circular progression outward from the centre, as well. The interlaces are of crimson, and look well on the green ground. The wheeled Cherubim is well developed in the design of this famous cope, and is a pleasing decorative bit of archaic ecclesiasticism. In the central design of the Crucifixion, the figure of the Lord is rendered in silver on a gold ground. The anatomy is according to the rules laid down by an old sermonizer, in a book entitled "The Festival," wherein it is stated that the body of Christ was "drawn on the cross as a skin of parchment on a harrow, so that all his bones might be told." With such instruction, there was nothing left for the mediæval embroiderers but to render the figure with as much realistic emaciation as possible. The heraldic ornaments on the Syon Cope are especially interesting to all students of this graceful art. It is not our purpose here to make much allusion to this aspect of the work, but it is of general interest to know that on the orphreys, the devices of most of the noble families of that day appear. [Illustration: DETAIL OF THE SYON COPE] English embroidery fell off greatly in excellence during the Wars of the Roses. In the later somewhat degenerate raised embroidery, it was customary to represent the hair of angels by little tufted curls of auburn silk! Many of the most important examples of ancient ecclesiastical embroidery are in South Kensington Museum. A pair of orphreys of the fifteenth century, of German work (probably made at Cologne), shows a little choir of angels playing on musical instruments. These figures are cut out and applied on crimson silk, in what was called "cut work." This differed entirely from what modern embroiderers mean by cut work, as has been explained. The Dalmatic of Charlemagne is given by Louis Farcy to the twelfth century. He calls it the Dalmatic of Leo III. But Lady Alford claims for this work a greater antiquity. Certainly, as one studies its details, one is convinced that it is not quite a Gothic work, nor yet is it Byzantine; for the figures have all the grace of Greek work prior to the age of Byzantine stiffness. It is embroidered chiefly in gold, on a delicate bluish satin ground, and has not been transferred, although it has been carefully restored. The central ornament on the front is a circular composition, and the arrangement of the figures both here and on the back suggests that Sir Edward Burne Jones must have made a study of this magnificent dalmatic, from which it would seem that much of his inspiration might have been drawn. The composition is singularly restful and rhythmical. The little black outlines to the white silk faces, and to the glowing figures, give this work a peculiarly decorative quality, not often seen in other embroideries of the period. It is unique and one of the most valuable examples of its art in the world. It is now in the Treasury of the Vatican. When Charlemagne sang the Gospel at High Mass on the day of his Coronation, this was his vestment. It must have been a strangely gorgeous sight when Cola di Rienzi, according to Lord Lindsay, took this dalmatic, and placed it over his armour, and, with his crown and truncheon, ascended to the palace of the Popes! A very curious Italian piece of the fourteenth century is an altar frontal, on which the subjects introduced are strange. It displays scenes from the life of St. Ubaldo, with some incidents also in that of St. Julian Hospitaler. St. Ubaldo is seen forgiving a mason who, having run a wall across his private grounds, had knocked the saint down for remonstrating. Another scene shows the death bed of the saint, and the conversion of a possessed man at the foot of the bed: a lady is throwing her arms above her head in astonishment while the evil spirit flies from its victim into the air. Later, the saint is seen going to the grave in a cart drawn by oxen. [Illustration: DALMATIC OF CHARLEMAGNE] The peacock was symbolical both of knightly vigilance and of Christian watchfulness. An old Anglo-Norman, Osmont, writes: "The eye-speckled feathers should warn a man that never too often can he have his eyes wide open, and gaze inwardly upon his own heart." These dear people were so introspective and self-conscious, always looking for trouble--in their own motives, even--that no doubt many good impulses perished unnoticed, while the originator was chasing mental phantoms of heresy and impurity. Painting and jewelry were sometimes introduced in connection with embroideries. In the celebrated Cope of St. John Lateran, the faces and hands of the personages are rendered in painting; but this method was more generally adopted in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when sincerity counted for less than effect, and when genuine religious fervour for giving one's time and best labour to the Lord's service no longer dominated the workers. Gold thread was used extensively in English work, and spangles were added at quite an early period, as well as actual jewels set in floral designs. The finest work was accomplished in the Gothic period, before the Renaissance came with its aimless scrolls to detract from the dignity of churchly ornament. In the sixteenth century the winged angels have often a degenerate similitude to tightly laced coryphées, who balance themselves upon their wheels as if they were performing a vaudeville turn. They are not as dignified as their archaic predecessors. Very rich funeral palls were in vogue in the sixteenth century. A description of Prince Arthur's burial in 1502 relates how numerous palls were bestowed, apparently much as friends would send wreaths or important floral tributes to-day. "The Lord Powys went to the Queere Doore," writes Leland, "where two gentlemen ushers delivered him a riche pall of cloth of gould of tissue, which he offered to the corpse, where two Officers of the Armes received it, and laid it along the corpse. The Lord Dudley in like manner offered a pall... the Lord Grey Ruthen offered another, and every each of the three Earls offered to the corpse three palls of the same cloth of gould... all the palls were layd crosse over the corpse." The account of the obsequies of Henry VII. also contains mention of these funeral palls: the Earls and Dukes came in procession, from the Vestry, with "certain palls, which everie of them did bring solemnly between their hands and coming in order one before another as they were in degree, unto the said herse, they kissed their said palls... and laid them upon the King's corpse." At Ann of Cleves' burial the same thing was repeated, in 1557. Finally these rich shimmering hangings came to be known in England as "cloth of pall," whether they were used for funerals or coronations, for bridals or pageants. The London City Guilds possessed magnificent palls; especially well known is that of the Fishmongers, with its kneeling angels swinging censers; this pall is frequently reproduced in works on embroidery. It is embroidered magnificently with angels, saints, and strange to say, mermaids. The peacock's wings of the angels make a most decorative feature in this famous piece of old embroidery. The Arms of the Company are also emblazoned. French embroiderers are known by name in many instances; in 1299 allusion was made to "Clement le Brodeur," who furnished a cope for the Count of Artois, and in 1316 a magnificent set of hangings was made for the Queen, by one Gautier de Poulleigny. Nicolas Waquier was armourer and embroiderer to King John in 1352. Among Court workers in 1384 were Perrin Gale, and Henriet Gautier. In the "Book of Rules" by Etienne Boileau, governing the "Embroiderers and embroideresses of the City of Paris," one of the chief laws was that no work should be permitted in the evening, "because the work of the night cannot be so good or so satisfactory as that accomplished in the day." When one remembers the facilities for evening lighting in the middle ages, one fully appreciates the truth of this statement. Matthew Paris, in his Life of St. Alban, tells of an excellent embroideress, Christine, Prioress of Margate, who lived in the middle of the twelfth century. In the thirteenth century several names occur. Adam de Bazinge made, in 1241, by order of Henry III. of England, a cope for the Bishop of Hereford. Cunegonde, Abbess of Goss, in Styria, accomplished numerous important works in that period. Also, Henry III. employed Jean de Sumercote to make jewelled robes of state. On a certain thirteenth century chasuble are the words "Penne fit me" (Penne made me), pointing to the existence of a needleworker of that name. Among the names of the fourteenth century are those of Gautier de Bruceles, Renier de Treit, Gautier de Poulogne, and Jean de Laon, while Jean Harent of Calais is recorded as having worked, for Mme. d'Artois, in 1319, a robe decorated "a bestelettes et a testes." These names prove that the art had been taught in many cities and countries: Ogier de Gant, Jean de Savoie, Etienne le Hongre, and Roger de Varennes, all suggest a cosmopolitan and dispersed number of workers, who finally all appeared in Paris. René d'Anjou had in his employ a worker in embroidery, named Pierre du Villant. This artist executed a set of needlework pieces for the Cathedral of Angers, of such important proportions that they were known collectively as "La Grande Broderie." In 1462, when they were put in place, a special mass was performed by way of a dedication. The letter which accompanied this princely donation contained the following sentences: "We, René, by the Grace of God... give... to this church... the adornments for a chapell all composd of golden embroidery, comprising five pieces" (which are enumerated) "and an altar cloth illustrated with scenes from the Passion of Our Saviour.... Given in our castle in Angers, the fourth day of March, 1462. René." [Illustration: EMBROIDERY, 15TH CENTURY, COLOGNE] In 1479 another altar frontal was presented. Two other rich chapels were endowed by René. One was known as La Chapelle Joyeuse, and the other as La Grande Chapelle des Trépassés. It is likely that the same embroiderer executed the pieces of all these. A guild of embroiderers was in standing in Seville in 1433, where Ordinances were enforced to protect from fraud and otherwise to regulate this industry. The same laws were in existence in Toledo. One of the finest and largest pieces of embroidery in Spain is known as the Tent of Ferdinand and Isabella. This was used in 1488, when certain English Ambassadors were entertained. The following is their description of its use. "After the tilting was over, the majesties returned to the palace, and took the Ambassadors with them, and entered a large room... and there they sat under a rich cloth of state of crimson velvet, richly embroidered, with the arms of Castile and Aragon." A curious effect must have been produced by a piece of embroidery described in the inventory of Charles V., as "two little pillows with savage beasts having the heads of armed men, and garnished with pearls." After the Reformation it became customary to use ecclesiastical ornaments for domestic purposes. Heylin, in his "History of the Reformation," makes mention of many "private men's parlours" which "were hung with altar cloths, and their tables and beds covered with copes instead of carpetts and coverlids." Katherine of Aragon, while the wife of Henry VIII., consoled herself in her unsatisfactory life by needlework: it is related that she and her ladies "occupied themselves working with their own hands something wrought in needlework, costly and artificially, which she intended to the honour of God to bestow upon some churches." Katherine of Aragon was such a devoted needlewoman, in fact, that on one occasion Burnet records that she stepped out to speak to two ambassadors, with a skein of silk about her neck, and explained that she had been embroidering with her ladies when they were announced. In an old sonnet she is thus commemorated: "She to the eighth king Henry married was And afterwards divorced, when virtuously, Although a queen, yet she her days did pass In working with the needle curiously." Queen Elizabeth was also a clever embroiderer; she worked a book-cover for Katherine Parr, bearing the initials K. P., and it is now in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. Mary Queen of Scots was also said to be skilful with her needle; in fact it seems to have been the consolation of most queens in their restricted existence in those centuries. Dr. Rock considers that the "corporal" which Mary Queen of Scots had bound about her eyes at the time of her execution, was in reality a piece of her own needle-work, probably wrought upon fine linen. Knight, in describing the scene in his "Picturesque History of England," says: "Then the maid Kennedy took a handkerchief edged with gold, in which the Eucharist had formerly been enclosed, and fastened it over her eyes;" so accounts differ and traditions allow considerable scope for varied preferred interpretation. It is stated that Catherine de Medicis was fond of needlework, passing her evenings embroidering in silk "which was as perfect as was possible," says Brantôme. Anne of Brittany instructed three hundred of the children of the nobles at her court, in the use of the needle. These children produced several tapestries, which were presented by the queen to various churches. The volatile Countess of Shrewsbury, the much married "Bess of Hardwick," was a good embroideress, who worked, probably, in company with the Queen of Scots when that unfortunate woman was under the guardianship of the Earl of Shrewsbury. One of these pieces is signed E. S., and dated 1590. A form of intricate pattern embroidery in black silk on fine linen was executed in Spain in the sixteenth century, and was known as "black work." Viscount Falkland owns some important specimens of this curious work. It was introduced into England by Katherine of Aragon, and became very popular, being exceedingly suitable and serviceable for personal adornment. The black was often relieved by gold or silver thread. The Petit Point, or single square stitch on canvas, became popular in England during the reign Elizabeth. It suggested Gobelins tapestry, on a small scale, when finished, although the method of execution is quite different, being needlework pure and simple. In Elizabeth's time was incorporated the London Company of Broderers, which flourished until about the reign of Charles I., when there is a complaint registered that "trade was so much decayed and grown out of use, that a great part of the company, for want of employment, were much impoverished." Raised embroidery, when it was padded with cotton, was called Stump Work. This was made extensively by the nuns of Little Gidding in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Decided changes and developments took place in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in all forms of embroidery, but these are not for us to consider at present. A study of historic samples alone is most tempting, but there is no space for the intrusion of any subject much later than the Renaissance. CHAPTER VII SCULPTURE IN STONE (_France and Italy_) Sculpture is not properly speaking the "plastic art," as is often understood. The real meaning of sculpture is work which is cut into form, whereas plastic art is work that is moulded or cast into form. Terra cotta, which is afterwards baked, is plastic; and yet becomes hard; thus a Tanagra figurine is an example of plastic art, while a Florentine marble statuette is a product of sculpture. The two are often confounded. We shall allude to them under different heads, taking for our consideration now only such sculpture as is the result of cutting in the stone. The work of Luca Della Robbia will not be treated as sculpture in this book. Luca Della Robbia is a worker in plastic art, while Adam Kraft, hewing directly at the stone, is a sculptor. We have no occasion to study the art of the sculptor who produces actual statues; only so far as sculpture is a companion to architecture, and a decorative art, does it come within the scope of the arts and crafts. Figure sculpture, then, is only considered when strictly of a monumental character. In attacking such a subject as sculpture in the Middle Ages it is impossible to do more than indicate the general tendencies in different countries. But there are certain defined characteristics an observance of which will make clear to any reader various fundamental principles by which it is easy to determine the approximate age and style of works. In the first place, the great general rule of treatment of stone in the North and in the South is to be mentioned. In the Northern countries, France, Germany, and England, the stone which was employed for buildings and their decorations was obtainable in large blocks and masses; it was what, for our purposes, we will call ordinary stone, and could be used in the solid; therefore it was possible for carving in the North to be rendered as deeply and as roundly as the sculptor desired. In Southern countries, however, and chiefly in Italy, the stone used for building was not ordinary, but semi-precious stone. Marble, porphyry, and alabaster were available; and the use of such material led to a different ideal in architecture and decoration,--that of incrustation instead of solid piling. These valuable stones of Italy could not be used, generally speaking, in vast blocks, into which the chisel was at liberty to plough as it pleased; when a mass of marble or alabaster was obtained, the æsthetic soul of the Italian craftsman revolted against shutting up all that beauty of veining and texture in the confines of a solid square, of which only the two sides should ever be visible, and often only one. So he cut his precious block into slices: made slabs and shallow surfaces of it, and these he laid, as an outward adornment to his building, upon a substructure of brick or rubble. It is easy to perceive, then, the difference of the problem of the sculptors of the North and the South. The plain, solid Northern building was capable of unlimited enrichment by carving; this carving, when deeply cut, with forcible projection, acted as a noble embellishment in which the principal feature was a varied play of light and shade; the stone having little charm of colour or texture in itself, depended for its beauty entirely upon its bold relief, its rounded statuary, and its well shaped chiselled ornament. The shallow surface, already beautiful, both in colour and texture, in the Southern building material, called only for enrichment in low relief: ornament only slightly raised from the level or simply perforating the thin slab of glowing stone on which it was used was the more usual choice of the Italian craftsman. This statement applies, of course, only to general principles of the art of sculpture; there is some flat bas-relief in the North, and some rounded sculpture in the South; but as a rule the tendencies are as they have just been outlined. Another difference between sculpture in the North and South is due to the fact that in Italy the work was individual, as a rule, and in France it was the labour of a Guild or company. In Italy it is usually known who was the author of any striking piece of sculpture, while in France it is the exception when a work is signed, or the names of artisans recorded. In Italy, then, each piece was made more with a view to its own display, than as a part of a building, while in France statuary was regarded as an integral part of the architecture, and rows of figures were used as commonly as rows of columns in Italy. It is tragic to think of the personal skill and brilliancy of all these great French craftsmen being absorbed in one general reputation, while there were undoubtedly among them great art personalities who would have stood equally with the Pisani if they had been recognized. A good deal of flat carving, especially in the interlace and acanthus of Ravenna, was accomplished by commencing with a series of drilled holes, which were afterwards channelled into each other and formed patterns. When the subsequent finish is not particularly delicate, it is quite easy to detect these symmetrical holes, but the effect, under the circumstances, is not objectionable. [Illustration: CARVED CAPITAL FROM RAVENNA] The process of cutting a bas-relief was generally to outline the whole with an incision, and then cut away the background, leaving the simple elevated flat value, the shape of the proposed design. The modelling was then added by degrees, until the figure looked like half of a rounded object. While it is often unpractical to refer one's readers to examples of work in far and various countries, and advise them instantly to examine them, it is frequently possible to call attention to well-produced plates in certain modern art books which are in nearly every public library. To understand thoroughly the use of the drill in flat sculpture, I wish my readers would refer to Fig. 121 in Mr. Russell Sturgis's "Artist's Way of Working," Vol. II. In a quaint treatise on Belles Lettres in France nearly two centuries ago, by Carlencas, the writer says: "It is to no great purpose to speak of the Gothick sculptures: for everybody knows that they are the works of a rude art, formed in spite of nature and rules: sad productions of barbrous and dull spirits, which disfigure our old churches." Fie on a Frenchman who could so express himself! We recall the story of how Viollet le Duc made the people of Paris appreciate the wonderful carvings on Notre Dame. All the rage in France was for Greek and Roman remains, and the people persisted in their adoration of the antique, but would not deign to look nearer home, at their great mediæval works of art. So the architect had plaster casts made of the principal figures on the cathedral, and these were treated so as to look like ancient marble statues; he then opened an exhibition, purporting to show new discoveries and excavations among antiques. The exhibition was thronged, and everyone was deeply interested, expressing the greatest admiration for the marvellously expressive sculptures. Viollet le Duc then admitted what he had done, and confessing that these treasures were to be found in their native city, advised them to pay more attention to the beauties of Gothic art in Paris. We will not enter into a discussion of the relative merits of Northern and Southern art; whether the great revival really originated in France or Italy; but this is certain: Nicolo Pisano lived in the latter half of the thirteenth century, while the great sculptures of Notre Dame, Paris, and those of Chartres, were executed half a century earlier. But prior to either were the Byzantine and Romanesque sculptures in Italy and Southern France. Our attention must first be turned to them. Charles Eliot Norton's definition of this word Romanesque is as satisfactory as any that could be instanced: "It very nearly corresponds to the term of Romance as applied to language. It signifies the derivation of the main elements, both in plan and construction, from the works of the later Roman Empire. But Romanesque architecture" (and this applies equally to sculpture) "was not, as it has been called, a corrupted imitation of the Roman architecture, any more than the Provençal or the Italian language was a corrupted imitation of the Latin. It was a new thing, the slowly matured product of a long period of many influences." All mediæval carving was subordinate to architecture, therefore every piece of carving was designed with a view to being suitable to appear in some special place. The most striking difference between mediæval and later sculpture is that the latter is designed as a thing apart, an object to be stood anywhere to be admired for its intrinsic merit, instead of being a functional component in a general scheme for beautifying a given building. The use of the interlace in all primitive arts is very interesting. It undoubtedly began in an unconscious imitation of local architecture. For instance, in the British Isles, the building in earliest times was with wattles: practically walls of basket work. William of Malmsbury says that Glastonbury was "a mean structure of wattle work," while of the Monastery of Iona, it is related that in 563, Columba "sent forth his monks to gather twigs to build his hospice." British baskets were famous even so far away as Rome. So the first idea of ornament was to copy the interlacing forms. The same idea was worked out synchronously in metal work, and in illuminated books. Carving in stone, wood, and ivory, show the same influence. Debased Roman sculptural forms were used in Italy during the fourth and fifth centuries. Then Justinian introduced the Byzantine which was grafted upon the Roman, producing a characteristic and fascinating though barbaric combination. This was the Romanesque, or Romano-Byzantine, in the North of Italy generally being recognized as the Lombard style. The sculptures of this period, from the fifth to the thirteenth century, are blunt and heavy, but full of quaint expression due to the elemental and immature conditions of the art. Many of the old Byzantine carvings are to be seen in Italy. The Lombards, when invading Northern Italy, brought with them a mighty smith, Paul the Deacon, who had much skill with the hammer. When these rude Norsemen found themselves among the æsthetic treasures of Byzantium, and saw the fair Italian marbles, and the stately work of Theodoric and Justinian, they were inflamed with zeal for artistic expression, and began to hew and carve rough but spirited forms out of the Pisan and Carrara stones. The animals which they sculptured were, as Ruskin has said, "all alive: hungry and fierce, wild, with a life-like spring." The Byzantine work was quiescent: the designs formal, decent, and monumental. But the Lombards threw into their work their own restless energy, and some of their cruelty and relentlessness. Queen Theodolinda, in her palace at Monza, encouraged the arts; it was because of her appreciative comprehension of such things that St. Gregory sent her the famous Iron Crown, of which a description has been given, on the occasion of the baptism of her son. Under the influence of these subsequently civilized barbarians many of the greatest specimens of carving in North Italy came into being. The most delightful little stumpy saints and sacred emblems may be found on the façade of St. Michele at Pavia, and also at Lucca, and on the Baptistery at Parma. The sculptor who produced these works at Parma was a very interesting craftsman, named Antelami. His Descent from the Cross is one of the most striking pieces of early sculpture before the Pisani. He lived in the twelfth century. The figures are of Byzantine proportions and forms, but have a good deal of grace and suggestion of movement. Among the early names known in Italy is that of Magister Orso, of Verona. Another, in the ninth century, was Magister Pacifico, and in the twelfth there came Guglielmus, who carved the charming naïve wild hunting scenes on the portal of St. Zeno of Verona. These reliefs represent Theodoric on horseback, followed by an able company of men and horses which, according to legend, were supplied by the infernal powers. The eyes of these fugitives have much expression, being rendered with a drill, and standing out in the design as little black holes--fierce and effective. There is a fine round window at St. Zeno at Verona, designed and executed by one Briolottus, which, intended to represent the Wheel of Fortune, is decorated all over with little clinging figures, some falling and some climbing, and has the motto: "I elevate some mortals and depose others: I give good or evil to all: I clothe the naked and strip the clothed: in me if any one trust he will be turned to derision." Perhaps the most wonderful carvings on the church of St. Zeno at Verona are over the arched entrance to the crypt. These, being chiefly grotesque animal forms, are signed by Adaminus. Among the humourous little conceits is a couple of strutting cocks carrying between them a dead fox slung on a rod. Ruskin has characterized the carvings at Verona, especially those on the porch, as being among the best examples of the true function of flat decorative carving in stone. He says: "The primary condition is that the mass shall be beautifully rounded, and disposed with due discretion and order;... sculpture is essentially the production of a pleasant bossiness or roundness of surface. The pleasantness of that bossy condition to the eye is irrespective of imitation on one side, and of structure on the other." The more one considers this statement, the more he is convinced of its comprehensiveness. If the lights and shadows fall pleasantly, how little one stops to inquire, "What is the subject? Do I consider that horse well proportioned, or do I not? Is that woman in good drawing?" Effectiveness is almost independent of detail, except as that detail affects the law of proportion. There are varying degrees of relief: from flat (where the ornament is hardly more than incised, and the background planed away) to a practically solid round figure cut almost entirely free of its ground. In Venice, until the revival in the thirteenth century, the Greek Byzantine influence was marked. There is no more complete storehouse of the art of the East adapted to mediæval conditions than the Church of St. Mark's. If space permitted, nothing could be more delightful than to examine in detail these marvellous capitals and archivolts which Ruskin has so lovingly immortalized for English readers. Of all decorative sculpture there is none more satisfying from the ornamental point of view than the Byzantine interlace and vine forms so usual in Venice. The only place where these may be seen to even greater advantage is Ravenna. The pierced marble screens and capitals, with their restful combinations of interlacing bands and delicate foliate forms, are nowhere surpassed. The use of the acanthus leaf conventionalized in a strictly primitive fashion characterizes most of the Byzantine work in Italy. With these are combined delightful stiff peacocks, and curious bunches of grapes, rosettes, and animal forms of quaint grotesqueness. Such work exemplifies specially what has been said regarding the use of flat thin slabs for sculptural purposes in the South of Europe. Nearly all these carvings are executed in fine marbles and alabasters. The chief works of this period in the round are lions and gryphons supporting columns as at Ancona and Perugia, and many other Italian cities. In Rome there were several sculptors of the name of Peter. One of them, Peter Amabilis, worked about 1197; and another, Peter le Orfever, went to England and worked on the tomb of Edward the Confessor at Westminster. In Bologna is an interesting crucifix probably carved in the eighth or ninth century. Christ's figure is upon the cross and that of his mother stands near. The sculptor was Petrus Albericus. On the cross is an inscription in the form of a dialogue: "My son?" "What, Mother?" "Are you God?" "I am." "Why do you hang on the cross?" "That Mankind may not perish." The Masters of Stone and Wood were among the early Guilds and Corporations of Florence. Charlemagne patronized this industry and helped to develop it. Of craftsmen in these two branches exclusive of master builders, and recognized artists, there were, in 1299, about a hundred and forty-six members of the Guild. Italy was backward for a good while in the progress of art, for while great activities were going on in the North, the Doge of Venice in 976 was obliged to import artists from Constantinople to decorate St. Mark's church. The tombs of this early period in Italy, as elsewhere, are significant and beautiful. Recumbent figures, with their hands devoutly pressed together, are usually seen, lying sometimes on couches and sometimes under architectural canopies. The first great original Italian sculptor of the Renaissance was Nicola Pisano. He lived through almost the whole of the thirteenth century, being born about 1204, and dying in 1278. What were the early influences of Nicola Pisano, that helped to make him so much more more modern, more truly classic, than any of his age? In the first place, he was born at the moment when interest in ancient art was beginning to awaken; the early thirteenth century. In the Campo Santo of Pisa may be seen two of the most potent factors in his æsthetic education, the Greek sarcophagus on which was carved the Hunting of Meleager, and the Greek urn with Bacchic figures wreathing it in classic symmetry. With his mind tuned to the beautiful, the boy Nioola gazed at the work of genuine pagan Greek artists, who knew the sinuousness of the human form and the joy of living with no thought of the morrow. These joyous pagan elements, grafted on solemn religious surroundings and influences, combined to produce his peculiar genius. Basing his early endeavours on these specimens of genuine classical Greek art, there resulted his wonderful pulpits at Pisa and Siena, and his matchlessly graceful little Madonnas denote the Hellenistic sentiment for beauty. His work was a marked departure from the Byzantine and Romanesque work which constituted Italian sculpture up to that period. An examination of his designs and methods proves his immense originality. By profession he was an architect. Of his pulpit in Siena Charles Eliot Norton speaks with much appreciation. Alluding to the lions used as bases to its columns, he says: "These are the first realistic representations of living animals which the mediæval revival of art has produced; and in vivacity and energy of rendering, and in the thoroughly artistic treatment of leonine spirit and form, they have never been surpassed." It is usually claimed that one may learn much of the rise of Gothic sculpture by studying the models in the South Kensington Museum. In a foot-note to such a statement in a book edited by Ruskin, the indignant editor has observed, "You cannot do anything of the kind. Pisan sculpture can only be studied in the original marble: half its virtue is in the chiselling!" Nicola was assisted in the work on his shrine of St. Dominic at Bologna by one Fra Guglielmo Agnelli, a monk of a very pious turn, who, nevertheless, committed a curious theft, which was never discovered until his own death-bed confession. He absconded with a bone of St. Dominic, which he kept for private devotions all his subsequent life! An old chronicler says, naïvely: "If piety can absolve from theft, Fra Guglielmo is to be praised, though never to be imitated." [Illustration: PULPIT OF NICOLA PISANO, PISA] Andrea Pisano was Nicola's greatest scholar, though not his son. He took the name of his master after the mediæval custom. His work was largely in bronze, and the earlier gates of the Baptistery in Florence are by him. We have already alluded to the later gates by Ghiberti, when speaking of bronze. Andrea had the honour to teach the celebrated Orcagna,--more painter than sculptor,--whose most noted work in this line was the Tabernacle at Or San Michele. Among the loveliest of the figures sculptured by the Pisani are the angels standing in a group, blowing trumpets, on the pulpit at Pistoja, the work of Giovanni. Among Nicola's pupils were his son Giovanni, Donatello, Arnolfo di Cambio, and Lorenzo Maitani, who executed the delightful sculptures on the façade of the Cathedral of Orvieto,--perhaps the most interesting set of bas-reliefs in detail of the Early Renaissance, although in general symmetrical "bossiness" of effect, so much approved by Ruskin, they are very uneven. In this respect they come rather under the head of realistic than of decorative art. Lorenzo Maitani was a genuine leader of his guild of craftsmen, and superintended the large body of architects who worked at Orvieto, stone masons, mosaicists, bronze founders, painters, and minor workmen. He lived until 1330, and practically devoted his life to Orvieto. It is uncertain whether any of the Pisani were employed in any capacity, although for a time it was popularly supposed that the four piers on the façade were their work. An iconographic description of these sculptures would occupy too much time here, but one or two features of special interest should be noted: the little portrait relief of the master Maitani himself occurs on the fourth pier, among the Elect in heaven, wearing his workman's cap and carrying his architect's square. Only his head and shoulders can be seen at the extreme left of the second tier of sculptures. In accordance with an early tradition, that Virgil was in some wise a prophet, and that he had foretold the coming of Christ, he is here introduced, on the second pier, near the base, crowned with laurel. The incident of the cutting off of the servant's ear, by Peter, is positively entertaining. Peter is sawing away industriously at the offending member; a fisherman ought to understand a more deft use of the knife! In the scenes of the Creation, depicted on the first pier, Maitani has proved himself a real nature lover in the tender way he has demonstrated the joy of the birds at finding the use of their wings. The earliest sculptures in France were very rude,--it was rather a process than an art to decorate a building with carvings as the Gauls did! But the latent race talent was there; as soon as the Romanesque and Byzantine influences were felt, a definite school of sculpture was formed in France; almost at once they seized on the best elements of the craft and abandoned the worthless, and the great note of a national art was struck in the figures at Chartres, Paris, Rheims, and other cathedrals of the Ile de France. Prior to this flowering of art in Northern France, the churches of the South of France developed a charming Romanesque of their own, a little different from that in Italy. A monk named Tutilon, of the monastery of St. Gall, was among the most famous sculptors of the Romanesque period. Another name is that of Hughes, Abbot of Montier-en-Der. At the end of the tenth century one Morard, under the patronage of King Robert, built and ornamented the Church of St. Germain des Près, Paris, while Guillaume, an Abbot at Dijon, was at the head of the works of forty monasteries. Guillaume probably had almost as wide an influence upon French art as St. Bernward had on the German, or Nicola Pisano on that of Italy. In Metz were two noted architects, Adelard and Gontran, who superintended the building of fourteen churches, and an early chronicler says that the expense was so great that "the imperial treasury would scarce have sufficed for it." At Arles are two of the most famous monuments of Romanesque art, the porches of St. Trophime, and of St. Gilles. The latter exhibits almost classical feeling and influence; the former is much blunter and more Byzantine; both are highly interesting for purposes of study, being elaborately ornamented with figure sculptures and other decorative motives. Abbot Suger, the art-craftsman par excellence of the Ile de France, was the sculptor in chief of St. Denis from 1137 to 1180. This magnificent façade is harmonious in its treatment, betokening plainly that one brain conceived and carried out the plan. We have not the names of the minor architects and sculptors who were employed, but doubtless they were the scholars and followers of Suger, and rendered work in a similar manner. There are some names which have been handed down from early times in Normandy: one Otho, another Garnier, and a third, Anquetil, while a crucifix carved by Auquilinus of Moissac was popularly believed to have been created by divine means. If one will compare the statues of St. Trophime of Arles with those at St. Denis, it will be found that the latter are better rounded, those at St. Trophime being coarsely blocked out; although at first glance one would say that there was little to choose between them. The old font at Amiens is very ancient, older than the church. It is seven feet long, and stands on short square piers: it resembles a stone coffin, and was apparently so made that a grown person might be baptized by immersion, by lying at full length. Angels holding scrolls are carved at its four corners, otherwise it is very plain. There is an ancient Byzantine crucifix at Amiens, on which the figure of Our Lord is fully draped, and on his head is a royal crown instead of thorns. The figure, too, is erect, as if to invite homage by its outstretched arms, instead of suggesting that the arms had to bear the weight of the body. Indeed, it is a Christ triumphant and regnant though crucified--a very unusual treatment of the subject in the Middle Ages. It was brought from the East, in all probability, by a returning warrior from the Crusades. The foundation of Chartres was very early: the first Bishop St. Aventin occupied his see as early as 200 A. D. The early Gothic type in figure sculpture is always characterized by a few features in common, though different districts produced varying forms and facial expressions. The figures are always narrow, and much elongated, from a monumental sentiment which governed the design of the period. The influence of the Caryatid may have remained in the consciousness of later artists, leading them to make their figures conform so far as expedient to the proportions of the columns which stood behind them and supported them. In any case, it was considered an indispensable condition that these proportions should be maintained, and has come to be regarded as an architectural necessity. As soon as sculptors began to consider their figures as realistic representations of human beings instead of ornamental motives in their buildings, the art declined, and poor results followed. The west porch of Chartres dates from the twelfth century. The church was injured by fire in 1194. In 1226 certain restorations were made, and an old chronicle says that at that time it was quite fire-proof, remarking: "It has nothing to fear from any earthly fire from this time to the day of Judgment, and will save from fires eternal the many Christians who by their alms have helped in its rebuilding." The whole edifice was consecrated by St. Louis on Oct. 17, 1260. The King gave the north porch, and several of the windows, and the whole royal family was present at this impressive function. About the time of William the Conqueror it became customary to carve effigies on tombstones, at first simple figures in low relief lying on flat slabs: this idea being soon elaborated, however, into canopied tombs, which grew year by year more ornate, until Gothic structures enriched with finials and crockets began to be erected in churches to such an extent that the interior of the edifice was quite filled with these dignified little buildings. In many instances it is quite impossible to obtain any view of the sanctuary except looking directly down the central aisle; the whole ambulatory is often one continuous succession of exquisite sepulchral monuments. [Illustration: TOMB OF THE SON OF ST. LOUIS, ST. DENIS] Perhaps the most satisfying monument of French Gothic style is the tomb of the elder son of St. Louis at St. Denis. The majesty of the recumbent figure is striking, but the little procession of mourners about the main body of the tomb is absolutely unrivalled in art of this character. The device of little weeping figures surrounding the lower part of a tomb is also carried out in an exquisite way on the tomb of Aymer de Valence in Westminster. Some interesting saints are carved on the north portal of Amiens, among others, St. Ulpha, a virgin who is chiefly renowned for having lived in a chalk cave near Amiens, where she was greatly annoyed by frogs. Undaunted, she prayed so lustily and industriously, that she finally succeeded in silencing them! The thirteenth century revival in France was really a new birth; almost more than a Renaissance. It is a question among archæologists if France was not really more original and more brilliant than Italy in this respect. A glance at such figures as the Virgin from the Gilded Portal at Amiens, and another Virgin from the same cathedral, will show the change which came over the spirit of art in that one city during the thirteenth century. The figure on the right door of the western façade is a work of the early part of the century. She is grave and dignified in bearing, her hand extended in favour, while the Child gives the blessing in calm majesty. This figure has the spirit of a goddess receiving homage, and bestowing grace: it is conventional and monumental. The Virgin from the Gilded Portal is of a later generation. Her attention is given to the Child, and her aspect is human and spirited,--almost merry. It may be said to be less religious than the other statue, but it is filled with more modern grace and charm, and glorifies the idea of happy maternity: every angle and fold of the drapery is full of life and action without being over realistic. There is much in common between this pleasing statue and the Virgins of the Pisani in Italy. Professor Moore considers the statue of the Virgin on the Portal of the Virgin at the west end of Notre Dame in Paris as about the best example of Gothic figure sculpture in France. He says further that the finest statues in portals of any age are those of the north porch at Paris. The Virgin here is marvellously fine also. It combines the dignity and monumental qualities of the first of the Virgins at Amiens, with the living buoyancy of the Virgin on the Gilded Portal. It is the clear result of a study of nature grafted on Byzantine traditions. It dates from 1250. While sculpture was practised chiefly by monastic artists, it retained the archaic and traditional elements. When trained carvers from secular life began to take the chisel, the spirit of the world entered in. For a time this was a marked improvement: later the pendulum swung too far, and decadence set in. A favourite device on carved tympana above portals was the Last Judgment. Michael with the scales, engaged in weighing souls, was the tall central figure, and the two depressed saucers of the scales help considerably in filling the triangular space usually left over a Gothic doorway. At Chartres, there is an example of this subject, in which Mortal Sin, typified by a devil and two toads, are being weighed against the soul of a departed hero. As is customary in such compositions, a little devil is seen pulling on the side of the scale in which he is most interested! One of the most cheerful and delightful figures at Chartres is that of the very tall angel holding a sun dial, on the corner of the South tower. A certain optimistic inconsequence is his chief characteristic, as if he really believed that the hours bore more of happiness than of sorrow to the world. There is no limit to the originality and the symbolic messages of the Gothic grotesques. Two whole books might be written upon this subject alone to do it justice; but a few notable instances of these charming little adornments to the stern structures of the Middle Ages must be noticed here. The little medallions at Amiens deserve some attention. They represent the Virtues and Vices, the Follies, and other ethical qualities. Some of them deal with Scriptural scenes. "Churlishness" is figured by a woman kicking over her cup-bearer. Apropos of her attitude, Ruskin observes that the final forms of French churlishness are to be discovered in the feminine gestures in the can-can. He adds: "See the favourite print shops in Paris." Times have certainly changed little! One of these Amiens reliefs, signifying "Rebellion," is that of a man snapping his fingers at his bishop! Another known as "Atheism" is variously interpreted. A man is seen stepping out of his shoes at the church porch. Ruskin explains this as meaning that the infidel is shown in contradistinction to the faithful who is supposed to have "his feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of Peace;" but Abbé Roze thinks it more likely that this figure represents an unfrocked monk abandoning the church. One of these displays the beasts in Nineveh, and a little squat monkey, developing into a devil, is wittily characterized by Ruskin as reversing the Darwinian theory. The statues above these little quatrefoils are over seven feet in height, differing slightly, and evidently portrait sculptures inspired by living models, adapted to their more austere use in this situation. A quiet and inconspicuous example of exquisite refinement in Gothic bas-relief is to be seen in the medallioned "Portail aux Libraires" at the Cathedral in Rouen. This doorway was built in 1278 by Jean Davi, who must have been one of the first sculptors of his time. The medallions are a series of little grotesques, some of them ineffably entertaining, and others expressive of real depth of knowledge and thought. Ruskin has eulogized some of these little figures: one as having in its eye "the expression which is never seen but in the eye of a dog gnawing something in jest, and preparing to start away with it." Again, he detects a wonderful piece of realism and appreciative work in the face of a man who leans with his head on his hand in thought: the wrinkles pushed up under his eye are especially commended. In the south transept at Amiens is a piece of elaborate sculpture in four compartments, which are the figures of many saints. There is a legend in connection with those figures: when the millers were about to select a patron saint, they agreed to choose the saint on whose head a dove, released for the purpose, should alight; but as the bird elected to settle on the head of a demon, they abandoned their plan! The figures in these carvings are almost free of the ground; they appear to be a collection of separate statuettes, the scenes being laid in three or four planes. It is not restrained bas-relief; but the effect is extremely rich. The sculptures in high relief, but in more conventional proportion than these, which occur on the dividing wall between the choir and the north aisle, are thoroughly satisfactory. They are coloured; they were executed in 1531, and they represent scenes in the life of the Baptist. In the panel where Salomé is portrayed as dancing, a grave little monkey is seen watching her from under the table. The similar screen surrounding the sanctuary at Paris was the work of the chief cathedral architect, Jean Renoy, with whom worked his nephew, Jehan le Bouteiller. These stone carved screens are quite usual in the Ile de France. The finest are at Chartres, where they go straight around the ambulatory, the whole choir being fenced in, as it were, about the apse, by this exquisite work. This screen is more effective, too, for being left in the natural colour of the stone: where these sculptures are painted, as they usually are, they suggest wood carvings, and have not as much dignity as when the stone is fully recognized. The Door of St. Marcel has the oldest carving on Notre Dame in Paris. The plate representing the iron work, in Chapter IV., shows the carving on this portal, which is the same that has Biscornette's famous hinges. The central figure of St. Marcel himself presents the saint in the act of reproving a naughty dragon which had had the indiscretion to devour the body of a rich but wicked lady. The dragon is seen issuing from the dismantled tomb of this unfortunate person. The dragon repented his act, when the saint had finished admonishing him, and showed his attachment and gratitude for thus being led in paths of rectitude, by following the saint for four miles, apparently walking much as a seal would walk, beseeching the saint to forgive him. But Marcel was firm, and punished the serpent, saying to him: "Go forth and inhabit the deserts or plunge thyself into the sea;" and, as St. Patrick rid the Celtic land of snakes, so St. Marcel seems to have banished dragons from fair France. [Illustration: CARVINGS AROUND CHOIR AMBULATORY, CHARTRES] At Chartres there are eighteen hundred statues, and almost as many at Amiens and at Rheims and Paris. One reason for the superiority of French figure sculpture in the thirteenth century, over that existing in other countries, is that the French used models. There has been preserved the sketch book of a mediæval French architect, Vilard de Honcourt, which is filled with studies from life: and why should we suppose him to be the only one who worked in this way? Rheims Cathedral is the Mecca of the student of mediæval sculpture. The array of statues on the exterior is amazing, and a walk around the great structure reveals unexpected riches in corbels, gargoyles, and other grotesques, hidden at all heights, each a veritable work of art, repaying the closest study, and inviting the enthusiast to undue extravagance at a shop in the vicinity, which advertises naïvely, that it is an "Artistical Photograph Laboratory." On the door of St. Germain l'Auxerrois in Paris, there is a portrait statue of St. Geneviève, holding a lighted candle, while "the devil in little" sits on her shoulder, exerting himself to blow it out! It is quite a droll conceit of the thirteenth century. Of the leaf forms in Gothic sculpture, three styles are enough to generalize about. The early work usually represented springlike leaves, clinging, half-developed, and buds. Later, a more luxuriant foliage was attempted: the leaves and stalks were twisted, and the style was more like that actually seen in nature. Then came an overblown period, when the leaves were positively detached, and the style was lost. The foliage was no longer integral, but was applied. There is little of the personal element to be exploited in dealing with the sculptors in the Middle Ages. Until the days of the Renaissance individual artists were scarcely recognized; master masons employed "Imagers" as casually as we would employ brick-layers or plasterers; and no matter how brilliant the work, it was all included in the general term "building." The first piece of signed sculpture in France is a tympanum in the south transept at Paris, representing the Stoning of Stephen. It is by Jean de Chelles, in 1257. St. Louis of France was a patron of arts, and took much interest in his sculptors. There were two Jean de Montereau, who carved sacred subjects in quite an extraordinary way. Jean de Soignoles, in 1359, was designated as "Macon et Ymageur." One of the chief "imageurs," as they were called, was Jacques Haag, who flourished in the latter half of the fifteenth century, in Amiens. This artist was imprisoned for sweating coin, but in 1481 the king pardoned him. He executed large statues for the city gates, of St. Michael and St. Firmin, in 1464 and 1489. There was a sculptor in Paris in the fourteenth century, one Hennequin de Liege, who made several tombs in black and white marble, among them that of Blanche de France, and the effigy of Queen Philippa at Westminster. It was customary both in France and England to use colour on Gothic architecture. It is curious to realize that the façade of Notre Dame in Paris was originally a great colour scheme. A literary relic, the "Voyage of an Armenian Bishop," named Martyr, in the year 1490, alludes to the beauty of this cathedral of Paris, as being ablaze with gold and colour. An old record of the screen of the chapel of St. Andrew at Westminster mentions that it was "adorned with curious carvings and engravings, and other imagery work of birds, flowers, cherubims, devices, mottoes, and coats of arms of many of the chief nobility painted thereon. All done at the cost of Edmond Kirton, Abbot, who lies buried on the south side of the chapel under a plain gray marble slab." H. Keepe, who wrote of Westminster Abbey in 1683, mentioned the virgin over the Chapter House door as being "all richly enamelled and set forth with blue, some vestigia of all which are still remaining, whereby to judge of the former splendour and beauty thereof." Accounts make frequent mention of painters employed, one being "Peter of Spain," and another William of Westminster, who was called the "king's beloved painter." King René of Anjou was an amateur of much versatility; he painted and made many illuminations: among other volumes, copies of his own works in prose and verse. Aside from his personal claim to renown in the arts, he founded a school in which artists and sculptors were included. One of the chief sculptors was Jean Poncet, who was followed in the king's favour by his son Pons Poncet. Poor Pons was something of a back-slider, being rather dissipated; but King René was fond of him, and gave him work to do when he was reduced to poverty. The monument to his nurse, Tiphanie, at Saumur, was entrusted to Pons Poncet. After the death of Pons, the chief sculptor of the court was Jacques Moreau. CHAPTER VIII SCULPTURE IN STONE (_England and Germany_) A progressive history of English sculpture in stone could be compiled by going from church to church, and studying the tympana, over the doors, in Romanesque and Norman styles, and in following the works in the spandrils between the arches in early Gothic work. First we find rude sculptures, not unlike those in France. The Saxon work like the two low reliefs now to be seen in Chichester Cathedral show dug-out lines and almost flat modelling; then the Norman, slightly rounded, are full of historic interest and significance, though often lacking in beauty. The two old panels alluded to, now in Chichester, were supposed to have been brought from Selsea Cathedral, having been executed about the twelfth century. There is a good deal of Byzantine feeling in them; one represents the Raising of Lazarus, and the other, Our Lord entering the house of Mary and Martha. The figures are long and stiff, and there is a certain quality in the treatment of draperies not unlike that in the figures at Chartres. Then follows the very early Gothic, like the delightful little spandrils in the chapter house at Salisbury, and at Westminster, familiar to all travellers. They are full of life, partly through the unanatomic contortions by means of which they are made to express their emotions. Often one sees elbows bent the wrong way to emphasize the gesture of denunciation, or a foot stepping quite across the instep of its mate in order to suggest speed of motion. Early Gothic work in England is usually bas-relief; one does not find the statue as early as in France. In 1176 William of Sens went over to England, to work on Canterbury Cathedral, and after that French influence was felt in most of the best English work in that century. Before the year 1200 there was little more than ornamented spaces, enriched by carving; after that time, figure sculpture began in earnest, and, in statues and in effigies, became a large part of the craftsmanship of the thirteenth century. The transition was gradual. First small separate heads began to obtain, as corbels, and were bracketed at the junctures of the arch-mouldings in the arcade and triforium of churches. Then on the capitals little figures began to emerge from the clusters of foliage. In many cases the figures are very inferior to the faces, as if more time and study had been given to expressing emotions than to displaying form. The grotesque became very general. Satire and caricature had no other vehicle in the Middle Ages than the carvings in and out of the buildings, for the cartoon had not yet become possible, and painting offered but a limited scope to the wit, especially in the North; in Italy this outlet for humour was added to that of the sculptor. Of the special examples of great figure sculpture in England the façade at Wells is usually considered the most significant. The angel choir at Lincoln, too, has great interest; there is real power in some of the figures, especially the angel with the flaming sword driving Adam and Eve from Eden, and the one holding aloft a small figure,--probably typical of the Creation. At Salisbury, too, there is much splendid figure sculpture; it is cause for regret that the names of so few of the craftsmen have survived. Wells Cathedral is one of the most interesting spots in which to study English Gothic sculpture. Its beautiful West Front is covered with tier after tier of heroes and saints; it was finished in 1242. This is the year that Cimabue was three years old; Niccola Pisano had lived during its building, Amiens was finished forty-six years later, and Orvieto was begun thirty-six years later. It is literally the earliest specimen of so advanced and complete a museum of sculpture in the West. Many critics have assumed that the statues on the West Front of Wells were executed by foreign workmen; but there are no special characteristics of any known foreign school in these figures. Messrs. Prior and Gardner have recently expressed their opinion that these statues, like most of the thirteenth century work in England, are of native origin. The theory is that two kinds of influence were brought to bear to create English "imagers." In the first place, goldsmiths and ivory carvers had been making figures on a small scale: their trade was gradually expanded until it reached the execution of statues for the outside ornament of buildings. The figures carved by such artists are inclined to be squat, these craftsmen having often been hampered by being obliged to accommodate their design to their material, and to treat the human figure to appear in spaces of such shapes as circles, squares, and trefoils. Another class of workers who finally turned their attention to statuary, were the carvers of sepulchral slabs: these slabs had for a long time shown the effigies of the deceased. This theory accounts for both types of figures that are found in English Gothic,--the extremely attenuated, and the blunt squat statues. At Wells it would seem that both classes of workmen were employed, some of the statues being short and some extremely tall. They were executed, evidently, at different periods, the façade being gradually decorated, sometimes in groups of several statues, and sometimes in simple pairs. This theory, too, lends a far greater interest to the west front than the theory that it was all carried out at once, from one intentional design. St. Nicholas, the patron saint of Baptism, is here represented, holding a child on his arm, and standing in water up to his knees. The water, being treated in a very conventional way, coiling about the lower limbs, is so suggestive of tiers of flat discs, that it has won for this statue the popular name of "the pancake man," for he certainly looks as if he had taken up his position in the midst of a pile of pancakes, into which he had sunk. The old statue of St. Hugh at Lincoln is an attractive early Gothic work. In 1743 he was removed from his precarious perch on the top of a stone pinnacle, and was placed more firmly afterwards. In a letter from the Clerk of the Works this process was described. "I must acquaint you that I took down the antient image of St. Hugh, which is about six foot high, and stood upon the summit of a stone pinnacle at the South corner of the West Front... and pulled down twenty-two feet of the pinnacle itself, which was ready to tumble into ruins, the shell being but six inches thick, and the ribs so much decayed that it declined visibly.... I hope to see the saint fixed upon a firmer basis before the Winter." On the top of a turret opposite St. Hugh is the statue of the Swineherd of Stowe. This personage became famous through contributing a peck of silver pennies toward the building of the cathedral. As is usually the case, the saint and the donor therefore occupy positions of equal exaltation! The swineherd is equipped with a winding horn. A foolish tradition without foundation maintains that this figure does not represent the Swineherd at all, but is a play upon the name of Bishop Bloet,--the horn being intended to suggest "Blow it!" It seems hardly possible to credit the mediæval wit with no keener sense of humour than to perpetrate such a far-fetched pun. The Lincoln Imp, who sits enthroned at the foot of a cul-de-lampe in the choir, is so familiar to every child, now, through his photographs and casts, that it is hardly necessary to describe him. But many visitors to the cathedral fail to come across the old legend of his origin. It is as follows: "The wind one day brought two imps to view the new Minster at Lincoln. Both imps were greatly impressed with the magnitude and beauty of the structure, and one of them, smitten by a fatal curiosity, slipped inside the building to see what was going on. His temerity, however, cost him dear, for he was so petrified with astonishment, that his heart became as stone within him, and he remained rooted to the spot. The other imp, full of grief at the loss of his brother, flew madly round the Minster, seeking in vain for the lost one. At length, being wearied out, he alighted, quite unwittingly, upon the shoulders of a certain witch, and was also, and in like manner, instantly turned to stone. But the wind still haunts the Minster precincts, waiting their return, now hopelessly desolate, now raging with fury." A verse, also, is interesting in this connection: "The Bishop we know died long ago, The wind still waits, nor will he go, Till he has a chance of beating his foe. But the devil hopped without a limp, And at once took shape as the Lincoln Imp. And there he sits atop of a column, And grins at the people who gaze so solemn, Moreover, he mocks at the wind below, And says: 'You may wait till doomsday, O!'" The effigies in the Round Church at the Temple in London have created much discussion. They represent Crusaders, two dating from the twelfth century, and seven from the thirteenth. Most of them have their feet crossed, and the British antiquarian mind has exploited and tormented itself for some centuries in order to prove, or to disprove, that this signifies that the warriors were crusaders who had actually fought. There seems now to be rather a concensus of opinion that they do not represent Knights Templars, but "associates of the Temple." As none of them can be certainly identified, this controversy would appear to be of little consequence to the world at large. The effigies are extremely interesting from an artistic point of view, and, in repairing them, in 1840, Mr. Richardson discovered traces of coloured enamels and gilding, which must have rendered them most attractive. Henry III. of England was a genuine art patron, and even evinced some of the spirit of socialism so dear to the heart of William Morris, for the old records relate that the Master Mason, John of Gloucester, was in the habit of taking wine each day with the King! This shows that Henry recognized the levelling as Well as the raising power of the arts. In 1255 the king sent five casks of wine to the mason, in payment for five with which John of Gloucester had accommodated his Majesty at Oxford! This is an intimate and agreeable departure from the despotic and grim reputation of early Kings of England. In 1321 the greatest mediæval craftsman in England was Alan de Walsingham, who built the great octagon from which Ely derives its chief character among English cathedrals. In a fourteenth century manuscript in the British Museum is a tribute to him, which is thus translated by Dean Stubbs (now Bishop of Truro): "A Sacrist good and Prior benign, A builder he of genius fine: The flower of craftsmen, Alan, Prior, Now lying entombed before the choir... And when, one night, the old tower fell, This new one he built, and mark it well." This octagon was erected to the glory of God and to St. Etheldreda, the Queen Abbess of Ely, known frequently as St. Awdry. Around the base of the octagon, at the crests of the great piers which carry it, Prior Alan had carved the Deeds of the Saint in a series of decorative bosses which deserve close study. The scene of her marriage, her subsequently taking the veil at Coldingham, and the various miracles over which she presided, terminate in the death and "chesting" of the saint. This ancient term is very literal, as the body was placed in a stone coffin above the ground, and therefore the word "burial" would be incorrect. The tomb of Queen Eleanor in Westminster is of Purbeck marble, treated in the style of Southern sculpture, being cut in thin slabs and enriched with low relief ornamentation. The recumbent effigy is in bronze, and was cast, as has been stated, by Master William Torel. Master Walter of Durham painted the lower portion. Master Richard Crundale was in charge of the general work. Master John of St. Albans worked in about 1257, and was designated "sculptor of the king's images." There was at this time a school of sculpture at the Abbey. This Westminster School of Artificers supplied statuettes and other sculptured ornaments to order for various places. One of the craftsmen was Alexander "le imaginator." In the Rolls of the Works at Westminster, there is an entry, "Master John, with a carpenter and assistant at St. Albans, worked on the lectern." This referred to a copy which was ordered of a rarely beautiful lectern at St. Albans' cathedral, which had been made by the "incomparable Walter of Colchester." Labour was cheap! There is record of three shillings being paid to John Benet for three capitals! Among Westminster labourers was one known as Brother Ralph, the Convert; this individual was a reformed Jew. Among the craftsmen selected to receive wine from the convent with "special grace" is the goldsmith, Master R. de Fremlingham, who was then the Abbey plumber. There was a master mason in 1326, who worked at Westminster and in various other places on His Majesty's Service. This was William Ramsay, who also superintended the building then in progress at St. Paul's, and was a man of such importance in his art, that the mayor and aldermen ordered that he should "not be placed on juries or inquests" during the time of his activity. He was also chief mason at the Tower. But in spite of the city fathers it was not possible to keep this worthy person out of court! For he and some of his friends, in 1332, practically kidnapped a youth of fourteen named Robert Huberd, took him forcibly from his appointed guardian, and married him out of hand to William Ramsay's daughter Agnes, the reason for this step being evidently that the boy had money. Upon the complaint of his guardian, Robert was given his choice whether he would remain with his bride or return to his former home. He deliberately chose his new relations, and so, as the marriage was quite legal according to existing laws, everything went pleasantly for Master William! It made no difference, either, in the respect of the community or the king for the master mason; in 1344, he was appointed to superintend the building at Windsor, and was made a member of the Common Council in 1347. Verily, the Old Testament days were not the last in which every man "did that which was right in his own eyes." Carter gives some curious historical explanations of some very quaint and little-known sculptures in a frieze high up in the Chapel of Edward the Confessor in Westminster. One of them represents the Trial of Queen Emma, and is quite a spirited scene. The little accusing hands raised against the central figure of the queen, are unique in effect in a carving of this character. Queen Emma was accused of so many misdemeanours, poor lady! She had agreed to marry the enemy of her kingdom, King Canute: she gave no aid to her sons, Edward the Confessor and Alfred, when in exile; and she was also behaving in a very unsuitable manner with Alwin, Bishop of Winchester: she seems to have been versatile in crime, and it is no wonder that she was invited to withdraw from her high estate. The burial of Henry V. is interestingly described in an old manuscript of nearly contemporary origin: "His body was embalmed and cired and laid on a royal carriage, and an image like to him was laid upon the corpse, open: and with divers banners, and horses, covered with the arms of England and France, St. Edward and St. Edmund... and brought with great solemnity to Westminster, and worshipfully buried; and after was laid on his tomb a royal image like to himself, of silver and gilt, which was made at the cost of Queen Katherine... he ordained in his life the place of his sepulchre, where he is now buried, and every daye III. masses perpetually to be sungen in a fair chapel over his sepulchre." This exquisite arrangement of a little raised chantry, and the noble tomb itself, was the work of Master Mapilton, who came from Durham in 1416. Mr. W. R. Lethaby calls attention to the practical and expedient way in which mediæval carvers of effigies utilized their long blocks of stone: "Notice," he says, "how... the angels at the head and the beast at the foot were put in just to square out the block, and how all the points of high relief come to one plane so that a drawing board might be firmly placed on the statue." Only such cutting away as was actually necessary was encouraged; the figure was usually represented as putting the earthly powers beneath his feet, while angels ministered at his head. St. Louis ordered a crown of thorns to be placed on his head when he was dying, and the crown of France placed at his feet. The little niches around the tombs, in which usually stood figures of saints, were called "hovels." It is amusing to learn this to-day, with our long established association of the word with poverty and squalor. Henry VII. left directions for the design of his tomb. Among other stipulations, it was to be adorned with "ymages" of his patron saints "of copper and gilte." Henry then "calls and cries" to his guardian saints and directs that the tomb shall have "a grate, in manner of a closure, of coper and gilte," which was added by English craftsmen. Inside this grille in the early days was an altar, containing a unique relic,--a leg of St. George. Sculpture and all other decorative arts reached their ultimatum in England about the time of the construction of Henry VII.'s chapel at Westminster. The foundation stone was laid in 1502, by Henry himself. Of the interesting monuments and carvings contained in it, the most beautiful is the celebrated bronze figure by Torregiano on the tomb of the king and queen, which was designed during their lives. Torregiano was born in 1470, and died in 1522, so he is not quite a mediæval figure, but in connection with his wonderful work we must consider his career a moment. Vasari says that he had "more pride than true artistic excellence." He was constantly interfering with Michelangelo, with whom he was a student in Florence, and on one memorable occasion they came to blows: and that was the day when "Torregiano struck Michelangelo on the nose with his fist, using such terrible violence and crushing that feature in such a manner that the proper form could never be restored to it, and Michelangelo had his nose flattened by that blow all his life." So Torregiano fled from the Medicean wrath which would have descended upon him. After a short career as a soldier, impatient at not being rapidly promoted, he returned to his old profession of a sculptor. He went to England, where, says Vasari, "he executed many works in marble, bronze, and wood, for the king." The chief of these was the striking tomb of Henry VII. and the queen. Torregiano's agreement was to make it for a thousand pounds: also there is a contract which he signed with Henry VIII., agreeing to construct a similar tomb also for that monarch, to be one quarter part larger than that of Henry VII., but this was not carried out. St. Anthony appears on a little sculptured medallion on the tomb of Henry VII., with a small pig trotting beside him. This is St. Anthony of Vienna, not of Padua. His legend is as follows. In an old document, Newcourt's Repertorium, it is related that "the monks of St. Anthony with their importunate begging, contrary to the example of St. Anthony, are so troublesome, as, if men give them nothing, they will presently threaten them with St. Anthony's fire; so that many simple people, out of fear or blind zeal, every year use to bestow on them a fat pig, or porker, which they have ordinarily painted in their pictures of St. Anthony, whereby they may procure their good will and their prayers, and be secure from their menaces." Torregiano's contract read that he should "make well, surely, cleanly, and workmanlike, curiously, and substantially" the marble tomb with "images, beasts, and other things, of copper, gilte." Another craftsman who exercised his skill in this chapel was Lawrence Imber, image maker, and in 1500 the names of John Hudd, sculptor, and Nicolas Delphyn, occur. Some of the figures and statuettes on the tomb were also made by Drawswerd of York. On the outer ribs of Henry VII.'s chapel may be detected certain little symmetrically disposed bosses, which at first glance one would suppose to be inconspicuous crockets. But in an admirable spirit of humour, the sculptor has here carved a series of griffins, in procession, holding on for dear life, in the attitudes of children sliding down the banisters. They are delightfully animated and amusing. The well-known figures of the Vices which stand around the quadrangle at Magdalen College, Oxford, are interpreted by an old Latin manuscript in the college. The statues should properly be known as the Virtues and Vices, for some of them represent such moral qualities as Vigilance, Sobriety, and Affection. It is indeed a shock to learn from this presumably authoritative source, that the entertaining figure of a patient nondescript animal, upon whose back a small reptile clings, is _not_ intended to typify "back biting," but is intended for a "hippopotamus, or river-horse, carrying his young one upon his shoulders; this is the emblem of a good tutor, or fellow of the college, who is set to watch over the youth." But a large number of the statues are devoted to the Vices, which generally explain themselves. [Illustration: GROTESQUE FROM OXFORD, POPULARLY KNOWN AS "THE BACKBITER"] No more spirited semi-secular carvings are to be seen in England than the delightful row of the "Beverly Minstrels." They stand on brackets round a column in St. Mary's Church, Beverly, and are exhibited as singing and playing on musical instruments. They were probably carved and presented by the Minstrels or Waits, themselves, or at any rate at their expense, for an angel near by holds a tablet inscribed: "This pyllor made the meynstyrls." These "waits" were quite an institution, being a kind of police to go about day and night and inspect the precincts, announcing break of day by blowing a horn, and calling the workmen together by a similar signal. The figures are of about the period of Henry VII. [Illustration: THE "BEVERLY MINSTRELS"] The general excellence of sculpture in Germany is said to be lower than that of France; in fact, such mediæval German sculpture as is specially fine is based upon French work. Still, while this statement holds good in a general way, there are marked departures, and examples of extremely interesting and often original sculpture in Germany, although until the work of such great masters as Albrecht Dürer, Adam Kraft, and Viet Stoss, the wood carver, who are much later, there is not as prolific a display of the sculptor's genius as in France. The figures on the Choir screen at Hildesheim are rather heavy, and decidedly Romanesque; but the whole effect is most delightful. Some of the heads have almost Gothic beauty. The screen is of about 1186, and the figures are made of stucco; but it is exceptionally good stucco, very different in character from the later work, which Browning has designated as "stucco twiddlings everywhere." Much good German sculpture may be seen in Nüremberg. The Schöner Brunnen, the beautiful fountain, is a delight, in spite of the fact that one is not looking at the original, which was relegated to the museum for safe keeping long ago. The carving, too, on the Frauenkirche, and St. Sebald's, and on St. Lorenz, is as fine as anything one will find in Germany. Another exception stands out in the memory. Nothing is more exquisite than the Bride's Door, at St. Sebald's, in Nüremberg; the figures of the Wise and Foolish Virgins who guard the entrance could hardly be surpassed in the realm of realistic sculpture, retaining at the same time a just proportion of monumental feeling. They are bewitching and dainty, full of grace not often seen in German work of that period. The figures on the outside of Bamberg Cathedral are also as fine as anything in France, and there are some striking examples at Naumburg, but often the figures in German work lack lightness and length, which are such charming elements in the French Gothic sculptures. At Strasburg the Cathedral is generally conceded to be the most interesting and ornate of the thirteenth century work in Germany, although, as has been indicated, French influence is largely responsible. A very small deposit of this influence escaped into the Netherlands, and St. Gudule in Brussels shows some good carving in Gothic style. A gruesome statue on St. Sebald's in Nüremberg represents the puritanical idea of "the world," by exhibiting a good-looking young woman, whose back is that of a corpse; the shroud is open, and the half decomposed body is displayed, with snakes and toads depredating upon it. Among the early Renaissance artists in Nüremberg, was Hans Decker, who was named in the Burgher Lists of 1449. He may have had influence upon the youth of Adam Kraft, whose great pyx in St. Lorenz's is known to everyone who has visited Germany. Adam Kraft was born in Nüremberg in the early fifteenth century and his work is a curious link between Gothic and Renaissance styles. His chief characteristic is expressed by P. J. Rée, who says: "The essence of his art is best described as a naïve realism sustained by tender and warm religious zeal." Adam Kraft carved the Stations of the Cross, to occupy, on the road to St. John's Cemetery in Nüremberg, the same relative distances apart as those of the actual scenes between Pilate's house and Golgotha. Easter Sepulchres were often enriched with very beautiful sculptures by the first masters. Adam Kraft carved the noble scene of the Burial of Christ in St. John's churchyard in Nüremberg. [Illustration: ST. LORENZ CHURCH, NUREMBERG, SHOWING ADAM KRAFT'S PYX, AND THE HANGING MEDALLION BY VEIT STOSS] It is curious that the same mind and hand which conceived and carved these short stumpy figures, should have made the marvel of slim grace, the Tabernacle, or Pyx, at St. Lorenz. A figure of the artist kneeling, together with two workmen, one old and one young, supports the beautiful shrine, which rears itself in graduated stages to the tall Gothic roof, where it follows the curve of a rib, and turns over at the top exactly like some beautiful clinging plant departing from its support, and flowering into an exquisitely proportioned spiral. It suggests a gigantic crozier. Before it was known what a slender metal core followed this wonderful growth, on the inside, there was a tradition that Kraft had discovered "a wonderful method for softening and moulding hard stones." The charming relief by Kraft on the Weighing Office exhibits quite another side of his genius; here three men are engaged in weighing a bale of goods in a pair of scales: a charming arrangement of proportion naturally grows out of this theme, which may have been a survival in the mind of the artist of his memory of the numerous tympana with the Judgment of Michael weighing souls. The design is most attractive, and the decorative feeling is enhanced by two coats of arms and a little Gothic tracery running across the top. When Adam Kraft died in 1508, the art of sculpture practically ceased in Nüremberg. [Illustration: RELIEF BY ADAM KRAFT] CHAPTER IX CARVING IN WOOD AND IVORY If the Germans were somewhat less original than the French, English, and Italians in their stone carving, they made up for this deficiency by a very remarkable skill in wood carving. Being later, in period, this art was usually characterized by more naturalism than that of sculpture in stone. In Germany the art of sculpture in wood is said to have been in full favour as early as the thirteenth century. There are two excellent wooden monuments, one at Laach erected to Count Palatine Henry III., who died in 1095, and another to Count Henry III. of Sayne, in 1246. The carving shows signs of the transition to Gothic forms. Large wooden crucifixes were carved in Germany in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Byzantine feeling is usual in these figures, which are frequently larger than life. Mediæval wood carving developed chiefly along the line of altar pieces and of grotesque adornments of choir stalls. Among the most interesting of these are the "miserere" seats, of which we shall speak at more length. The general methods of wood carving resemble somewhat those of stone carving; that is to say, flat relief, round relief, and entirely disengaged figures occur in both, while in both the drill is used as a starting point in many forms of design. As with the other arts, this of carving in wood emanated from the monastery. [Illustration: CARVED BOX-WOOD PYX, 14TH CENTURY] The monk Tutilo, of St. Gall, was very gifted. The old chronicle tells us that "he was eloquent, with a fine voice, skilful in carving, and a painter. A musician, like his companions, but in all kinds of wind and stringed instruments... he excelled everybody. In building and in his other arts he was eminent." Tutilo was a monk of the ninth century. A celebrated wood carving of the thirteenth century, on a large scale, is the door of the Church of St. Sabina in Rome. It is divided into many small panels, finely carved. These little reliefs are crowded with figures, very spirited in action. Painted and carved shields and hatchments were popular. The Italian artists made these with great refinement. Sometimes stucco was employed instead of genuine carving, and occasionally the work was embossed on leather. They were painted in heraldic colours, and gold, and nothing could be more decorative. Even Giotto produced certain works of this description, as well as a carved crucifix. Altar pieces were first carved and painted, the backgrounds being gilded. By degrees stucco for the figures came in to replace the wood: after that, they were gradually modelled in lower relief, until finally they became painted pictures with slightly raised portions, and the average Florentine altar piece resulted. With the advance in painting, and the ability to portray the round, the necessity for carved details diminished. Orders from a great distance were sometimes sent to the Florentine Masters of Wood,--the choir stalls in Cambridge, in King's College Chapel, were executed by them, in spite of the fact that Torregiano alluded to them as "beasts of English." An early French wood carver was Girard d'Orleans, who, in 1379, carved for Charles V. "ung tableau de boys de quatre pieces." Ruskin considers the choir stalls in Amiens the best worth seeing in France; he speaks of the "carpenter's work" with admiration, for no nails are used, nor is the strength of glue relied upon; every bit is true "joinery," mortised, and held by the skill and conscientiousness of its construction. Of later work in wood it is a magnificent example. The master joiner, Arnold Boulin, undertook the construction of the stalls in 1508. He engaged Anton Avernier, an image maker, to carve the statuettes and figures which occur in the course of the work. Another joiner, Alexander Hust, is reported as working as well, and in 1511, both he and Boulin travelled to Rouen, to study the stalls in the cathedral there. Two Franciscan monks, "expert and renowned in working in wood," came from Abbeville to give judgment and approval, their expenses being paid for this purpose. Jean Troupin, a "simple workman at the wages of three sous a day," was added to the staff of workers in 1516, and in one of the stalls he has carved his own portrait, with the inscription, "Jan Troupin, God take care of thee." In 1522 the entire work was completed, and was satisfactorily terminated on St. John's day, representing the entire labour of six or eight men for about fourteen years. In the fifteenth century Germany led all countries in the art of wood carving. Painting was nearly always allied to this art in ecclesiastical use. The sculptured forms were gilded and painted, and, in some cases, might almost be taken for figures in faience, so high was the polish. Small altars, with carved reredos and frontals, were very popular, both for church and closet. The style employed was pictorial, figures and scenes being treated with great naturalism. One of the famous makers of such altar pieces was Lucas Möser, in the earlier part of the fifteenth century. A little later came Hans Schülein, and then followed Freidrich Herlin, who carved the fine altar in Rothenburg. Jorg Syrlin of Ulm and his son of the same name cover the latter half of the century. Bavaria was the chief province in which sculptors in wood flourished. The figures are rather stumpy sometimes, and the draperies rather heavy and lacking in delicate grace, but the works are far more numerous than those of other districts, and vary enormously in merit. Then followed the great carvers of the early Renaissance--Adam Kraft, and Veit Stoss, contemporaries of Peter Vischer and Albrecht Dürer, whom we must consider for a little, although they hardly can be called mediæval workmen. Veit Stoss was born in the early fifteenth century, in Nüremberg. He went to Cracow when he was about thirty years of age, and spent some years working hard. He returned to his native city, however, in 1496, and worked there for the rest of his life. A delicate specimen of his craft is the Rosenkranztafel, a wood carving in the Germanic Museum, which exhibits medallions in relief, representing the Communion of Saints, with a wreath of roses encircling it. Around the border of this oblong composition there are small square reliefs, and a Last Judgment which is full of grim humour occupies the lower part of the space. Among the amusing incidents represented, is that of a redeemed soul, quite naked, climbing up a vine to reach heaven, in which God the Father is in the act of "receiving" Adam and Eve, shaking hands most sociably! The friends of this aspiring climber are "boosting" him from below; the most deliciously realistic proof that Stoss had no use for the theory of a winged hereafter! Veit Stoss was a very versatile craftsman. Besides his wonderful wood carvings, for which he is chiefly noted, he was a bridge-builder, a stone-mason, a bronze caster, painter of altars, and engraver on copper! Like all such variously talented persons, he suffered somewhat from restlessness and preferred work to peace,--but his compensation lay in the varied joys of creative works. His naturalism was marked in all that he did: a naïve old chronicler remarks that he made some life-sized coloured figures of Adam and Eve, "so fashioned that one was _afraid_ that they were alive!" Veit Stoss was an interesting individual. He was not especially moral in all his ways, narrowly escaping being executed for forgery; but his brilliancy as a technician was unsurpassed. He lived until 1533, when he died in Nüremberg as a very old man. One of his most delightful achievements is the great medallion with an open background, which hangs in the centre of the Church of St. Lorenz. It shows two large and graceful figures,--Mary and the Angel Gabriel, the subject being the Annunciation. A wreath of angels and flowers surrounds the whole, with small medallions representing the seven joys of the Virgin. It is a masterly work, and was presented by Anton Tucher in 1518. Veit Stoss was the leading figure among wood carvers of the Renaissance, although Albrecht Dürer combined this with his many accomplishments, as well. Some of the carvings in wood in the chapel of Henry VII. at Westminster, are adapted from drawings by Albrecht Dürer, and are probably the work of Germans. Two of these, Derrick van Grove and Giles van Castel, were working at St. George's, Windsor, about the same time. The very finest example of Nüremberg carving, however, is the famous wooden Madonna, which has been ascribed to Peter Vischer the Younger, both by Herr von Bezold and by Cecil Headlam. It seems very reasonable after a study of the other works of this remarkable son of Peter Vischer, for there is no other carver of the period, in all Nüremberg, who could have executed such a flawlessly lovely figure. One of the noted wood carvers in Spain in the Renaissance, was Alonso Cano. He was a native of Granada and was born in 1601. His father was a carver of "retablos," and brought the boy up to follow his profession. Cano was also a painter of considerable merit, but as a sculptor in wood he was particularly successful. His first conspicuous work was a new high altar for the church of Lebrija, which came to him on account of the death of his father, who was commencing the work in 1630, when his life was suddenly cut off. Alonso made this altar so beautifully, that he was paid two hundred and fifty ducats more than he asked! Columns and cornices are arranged so as to frame four excellent statues. These carvings have been esteemed so highly that artists came to study them all the way from Flanders. The altar is coloured, like most of the Spanish retablos. Cano was a pugnacious character, always getting into scrapes, using his stiletto, and being obliged to shift his residence on short notice. It is remarkable that his erratic life did not interfere with his work, which seems to have gone calmly on in spite of domestic and civic difficulties. Among his works at various places, where his destiny took him, was a tabernacle for the Cathedral of Malaga. He had worked for some time at the designs for this tabernacle, when it was whispered to him that the Bishop of Malaga intended to get a bargain, and meant to beat him down in his charges. So, packing up his plans and drawings, and getting on his mule. Cano observed, "These drawings are either to be given away for nothing, or else they are to bring two thousand ducats." The news of his departure caused alarm among those in authority, and he was urged to bring back the designs, and receive his own price. Cano carved a life-size crucifix for Queen Mariana, which she presented to the Convent of Monserrati at Madrid. Alonso Cano entered the Church and became canon of the Cathedral of Granada. But all his talents had no effect upon his final prosperity: he died in extreme want in 1667, the Cathedral records showing that he was the recipient of charity, five hundred reals being voted to "the canon Cano, being sick and very poor, and without means to pay the doctor." Another record mentions the purchase of "poultry and sweet-meats" also for him. Cano made one piece of sculpture in marble, a guardian angel for the Convent at Granada, but this no longer exists. Some of his architectural drawings are preserved in the Louvre. Ford says that his St. Francesco in Toledo is "a masterpiece of cadaverous ecstatic sentiment." The grotesques which played so large a part in church art are bewailed by St. Bernard: "What is the use," he asks, "of those absurd monstrosities displayed in the cloisters before the reading monks?... Why are unclean monkeys and savage lions, and monstrous centaurs and semi-men, and spotted tigers, and fighting soldiers, and pipe-playing hunters, represented?" Then St. Bernard inadvertently admits the charm of all these grotesques, by adding: "The variety of form is everywhere so great, that marbles are more pleasant reading than manuscripts, and the whole day is spent in looking at them instead of in meditating on the law of God." St. Bernard concludes with the universal argument: "Oh, God, if one is not ashamed of these puerilities, why does not one at least spare the expense?" A hundred years later, the clergy were censured by the Prior de Coinsi for allowing "wild cats and lions" to stand equal with the saints. [Illustration: MISERERE STALL; AN ARTISAN AT WORK] The real test of a fine grotesque--a genuine Gothic monster--is, that he shall, in spite of his monstrosity, retain a certain anatomical consistency: it must be conceivable that the animal organism could have developed along these lines. In the thirteenth century, this is always possible; but in much later times, and in the Renaissance, the grotesques simply became comic and degraded, and lacking in humour: in a later chapter this idea will be developed further. The art of the choir stalls and miserere seats was a natural ebullition of the humourous instinct, which had so little opportunity for exploiting itself in monastic seclusion. The joke was hidden away, under the seat, out of sight of visitors, or laymen: inconspicuous, but furtively entertaining. There was no self-consciousness in its elaboration, it was often executed for pure love of fun and whittling; and for that very reason embodies all the most attractive qualities of its art. There was no covert intention to produce a genre history of contemporary life and manners, as has sometimes been claimed. These things were accidentally introduced in the work, but the carvers had no idea of ministering to this or any other educational theory. Like all light-hearted expression of personality, the miserere stalls have proved of inestimable worth to the world of art, as a record of human skill and genial mirth. [Illustration: MISERERE STALL, ELY: NOAH AND THE DOVE] A good many of the vices of the times were portrayed on the miserere seats. The "backbiter" is frequently seen, in most unlovely form, and two persons gossiping with an "unseen witness" in the shape of an avenging friend, looking on and waiting for his opportunity to strike! Gluttons and misers are always accompanied by familiar devils, who prod and goad them into such sin as shall make them their prey at the last. Among favourite subjects on miserere seats is the "alewife." No wonder ale drinking proved so large a factor in the jokes of the fraternity, for the rate at which it was consumed, in this age when it took the place of both tea and coffee, was enormous. The inmates of St. Cross Hospital, Winchester, who were alluded to as "impotents," received daily one gallon of beer each, with two extra quarts on holidays! If this were the allowance of pensioners, what must have been the proportion among the well-to-do? In 1558 there is a record of a dishonest beer seller who gave only a pint for a penny drink, instead of the customary quart! The subject of the alewife who had cheated her customers, being dragged to hell by demons, is often treated by the carvers with much relish, in the sacred precincts of the church choir! [Illustration: MISERERE STALL; THE FATE OF THE ALE-WIFE] At Ludlow there is a relief which shows the unlucky lady carried on the back of a demon, hanging with her head upside down, while a smiling "recording imp" is making notes in a scroll concerning her! In one of the Chester Mysteries, the Ale Wife is made to confess her own shortcomings: "Some time I was a taverner, A gentle gossip and a tapster, Of wine and ale a trusty brewer, Which woe hath me wrought. Of cans I kept no true measure, My cups I sold at my pleasure, Deceiving many a creature, Though my ale were nought!" There is a curious miserere in Holderness representing a nun between two hares: she is looking out with a smile, and winking! At Ripon the stalls show Jonah being thrown to the whale, and the same Jonah being subsequently relinquished by the sea monster. The whale is represented by a large bland smiling head, with gaping jaws, occurring in the midst of the water, and Jonah takes the usual "header" familiar in mediæval art, wherever this episode is rendered. A popular treatment of the stall was the foliate mask; stems issuing from the mouth of the mask and developing into leaves and vines. This is an entirely foolish and unlovely design: in most cases it is quite lacking in real humour, and makes one think more of the senseless Roman grotesques and those of the Renaissance. The mediæval quaintness is missing. At Beverly a woman is represented beating a man, while a dog is helping himself out of the soup cauldron. The misereres at Beverly date from about 1520. Animals as musicians, too, were often introduced,--pigs playing on viols, or pipes, an ass performing on the harp, and similar eccentricities may be found in numerous places, while Reynard the Fox in all his forms abounds. The choir stalls at Lincoln exhibit beautiful carving and design: they date from the fourteenth century, and were given by the treasurer, John de Welburne. There are many delightful miserere seats, many of the selections in this case being from the legend of Reynard the Fox. Abbot Islip of Westminster was a great personality, influencing his times and the place where his genius expressed itself. He was very constant and thorough in repairing and restoring at the Abbey, and under his direction much fine painting and illuminating were accomplished. The special periods of artistic activity in most of the cathedrals may be traced to the personal influence of some cultured ecclesiastic. A very beautiful specimen of English carving is the curious oak chest at York Cathedral, on which St. George fighting the dragon is well rendered. However, the termination of the story differs from that usually associated with this legend, for the lady leads off the subdued dragon in a leash, and the very abject crawl of the creature is depicted with much humour. Mediæval ivory carving practically commenced with the fourth century; in speaking of the tools employed, it is safe to say that they corresponded to those used by sculptors in wood. It is generally believed by authorities that there was some method by which ivory could be taken from the whole rounded surface of the tusk, and then, by soaking, or other treatment, rendered sufficiently malleable to be bent out into a large flat sheet: for some of the large mediæval ivories are much wider than the diameter of any known possible tusk. There are recipes in the early treatises which tell how to soften the ivory that it may be more easily sculptured: in the Mappae Clavicula, in the twelfth century, directions are given for preparing a bath in which to steep ivory, in order to make it soft. In the Sloane MS. occurs another recipe for the same purpose. Ahab's "ivory house which he made" must have been either covered with a very thin veneer, or else the ivory was used as inlay, which was often the case, in connection with ebony. Ezekiel alludes to this combination. Ivory and gold were used by the Greeks in their famous Chryselephantine statues, in which cases thin plates of ivory formed the face, hands, and exposed parts, the rest being overlaid with gold, This art originated with the brothers Dip�nus and Scillis, about 570 B. C., in Crete. "In sculpturing ivory," says Theophilus, "first form a tablet of the magnitude you may wish, and superposing chalk, portray with a lead the figures according to your pleasure, and with a pointed instrument mark the lines that they may appear: then carve the grounds as deeply as you wish with different instruments, and sculp the figures or other things you please, according to your invention and skill." He tells how to make a knife handle with open work carvings, through which a gold ground is visible: and extremely handsome would such a knife be when completed, according to Theophilus' directions. He also tells how to redden ivory. "There is likewise an herb called 'rubrica,' the root of which is long, slender, and of a red colour; this being dug up is dried in the sun and is pounded in a mortar with the pestle, and so being scraped into a pot, and a lye poured over it, is then cooked. In this, when it has well boiled, the bone of the elephant or fish or stag, being placed, is made red." Mediæval chessmen were made in ivory: very likely the need for a red stain was felt chiefly for such pieces. The celebrated Consular Diptychs date from the fourth century onwards. It was the custom for Consuls to present to senators and other officials these little folding ivory tablets, and the adornment of Diptychs was one of the chief functions of the ivory worker. Some of them were quite ambitious in size; in the British Museum is a Diptych measuring over sixteen inches by five: the tusk from which this was made must have been almost unique in size. It is a Byzantine work, and has the figure of an angel carved upon it. Gregory the Great sent a gift of ivory to Theodolinda, Queen of the Lombards, in 600. This is decorated with three figures, and is a most interesting diptych. The earliest diptych, however, is of the year 406, known as the Diptych of Probus, on which may be seen a bas-relief portrait of Emperor Honorius. On the Diptych of Philoxenus is a Greek verse signifying, "I, Philoxenus, being Consul, offer this present to the wise Senate." An interesting diptych, sixteen inches by six, is inscribed, "Flavius Strategius Apius, illustrious man, count of the most fervent servants, and consul in ordinary." This consul was invested in 539; the work was made in Rome, but it is the property of the Cathedral of Orviedo in Spain, where it is regarded as a priceless treasure. Claudian, in the fourth century, alludes to diptychs, speaking of "huge tusks cut with steel into tablets and gleaming with gold, engraved with the illustrious name of the Consul, circulated among great and small, and the great wonder of the Indies, the elephant, wanders about in tuskless shame!" In Magaster, a city which according to Marco Polo, was governed by "four old men," they sold "vast quantities of elephants' teeth." Rabanus, a follower of Alcuin, born in 776, was the author of an interesting encyclopædia, rejoicing in the comprehensive title, "On the Universe." This work is in twenty-two books, which are supposed to cover all possible subjects upon which a reader might be curious.... The seventeenth book is on "the dust and soil of the earth," under which uninviting head he includes all kinds of stones, common and precious; salt, flint, sand, lime, jet, asbestos, and the Persian moonstone, of whose brightness he claims that it "waxes and wanes with the moon." Later he devotes some space to pearls, crystals, and glass. Metals follow, and marbles and _ivory_, though why the latter should be classed among minerals we shall never understand. [Illustration: IVORY TABERNACLE, RAVENNA] The Roman diptychs were often used as after-dinner gifts to distinguished guests. They were presented on various occasions. In the Epistles of Symmachus, the writer says: "To my Lord and Prince I sent a diptych edged with gold. I presented other friends also with these ivory note books." While elephant's tusks provided ivory for the southern races, the more northern peoples used the walrus and narwhale tusks. In Germany this was often the case. The fabulous unicorn's horn, which is so often alluded to in early literature, was undoubtedly from the narwhale, although its possessor always supposed that he had secured the more remarkable horn which was said to decorate the unicorn. Triptychs followed diptychs in natural sequence. These, in the Middle Ages, were usually of a devotional character, although sometimes secular subjects occur. Letters were sometimes written on ivory tablets, which were supposed to be again used in forwarding a reply. St. Augustine apologizes for writing on parchment, explaining, "My ivory tablets I sent with letters to your uncle; if you have any of my tablets, please send them in case of similar emergencies." Tablets fitted with wax linings were used also in schools, as children now use slates. Ivory diptychs were fashionable gifts and keepsakes in the later Roman imperial days. They took the place which had been occupied in earlier days by illuminated books, such as were produced by Lala of Cyzicus, of whom mention will be made in connection with book illuminators. [Illustration: THE NATIVITY; IVORY CARVING] After the triptychs came sets of five leaves, hinged together; sometimes these were arranged in groups of four around a central plaque. Often they were intended to be used as book covers. Occasionally the five leaves were made up of classical ivories which had been altered in such a way that they now had Christian significance. The beautiful diptych in the Bargello, representing Adam in the Earthly Paradise, may easily have been originally intended for Orpheus, especially since Eve is absent! The treatment is rather classical, and was probably adapted to its later name. Some diptychs which were used afterwards for ecclesiastical purposes, show signs of having had the Consular inscription erased, and the wax removed, while Christian sentiments were written or incised within the book itself. Parts of the service were also occasionally transcribed on diptychs. In Milan the Rites contain these passages: "The lesson ended, a scholar, vested in a surplice, takes the ivory tablets from the altar or ambo, and ascends the pulpit;" and in another place a similar allusion occurs: "When the Deacon chants the Alleluia, the key bearer for the week hands the ivory tablets to him at the exit of the choir." Anastatius, in his Life of Pope Agatho, tells of a form of posthumous excommunication which was sometimes practised: "They took away from the diptychs... wherever it could be done, the names and figures of these patriarchs, Cyrus, Sergius, Paul, Pyrrhus, and Peter, through whom error had been brought among the orthodox." Among ivory carvings in Carlovingian times may be cited a casket with ornamental colonettes sent by Eginhard to his son. In 823, Louis le Debonaire owned a statuette, a diptych, and a coffer, while in 845 the Archbishop of Rheims placed an order for ivory book covers, for the works of St. Jerome, a Lectionary, and other works. The largest and best known ivory carving of the middle ages is the throne of Maximian, Archbishop of Ravenna. This entire chair, with an arched back and arms, is composed of ivory in intricately carved plaques. It is considerably over three feet in height, and is a superb example of the best art of the sixth century. Photographs and reproductions of it may be seen in most works dealing with this subject. Scenes from Scripture are set all over it, divided by charming meanders of deeply cut vine motives. Some authorities consider the figures inferior to the other decorations: of course in any delineation of the human form, the archaic element is more keenly felt than when it appears in foliate forms or conventional patterns. Diptychs being often taken in considerable numbers and set into large works of ivory, has led some authorities to suppose that the Ravenna throne was made of such a collection; but this is contradicted by Passeri in 1759, who alludes to the panels in the following terms: "They might readily be taken by the ignorant for diptychs.... This they are not, for they cannot be taken from the consular diptychs which had their own ornamentation, referring to the consultate and the insignia, differing from the sculpture destined for other purposes. Hence they are obviously mistaken who count certain tablets as diptychs which have no ascription to any consul, but represent the Muses, Bacchantes, or Gods. These seem to me to have been book covers." Probably the selected form of an upright tablet for the majority of ivory carvings is based on economic principles: the best use of the most surface from any square block of material is to cut it in thin slices. In their architecture the southern mediæval builders so treated stone, building a substructure of brick and laying a slab or veneer of the more costly material on its surface: with ivory this same principle was followed, and the shape of the tusk, being long and narrow, naturally determined the form of the resulting tablets. The Throne of Ivan III. in Moscow and that of St. Peter in Rome are also magnificent monuments of this art. Ivory caskets were the chief manifestation of taste in that medium, during the period of transition from the eighth century until the revival of Byzantine skill in the tenth century. This form of sculpture was at its best at a time when stone sculpture was on the decline. There is a fascinating book cover in Ravenna which is a good example of sixth century work of various kinds. In the centre, Christ is seen, enthroned under a kind of palmetto canopy; above him, on a long panel, are two flying angels displaying a cross set in a wreath; at either end stand little squat figures, with balls and crosses in their hands. Scenes from the miracles of Our Lord occupy the two side panels, which are subdivided so that there are four scenes in all; they are so quaint as to be really grotesque, but have a certain blunt charm which is enhanced by the creamy lumpiness of the material in which they are rendered. The healing of the blind, raising of the dead, and the command to the man by the pool to take up his bed and walk, are accurately represented; the bed in this instance is a form of couch with a wooden frame and mattress, the carrying of which would necessitate an unusual amount of strength on the part of even a strong, well man. One of the most naïve of these panels of the miracles is the curing of "one possessed:" the boy is tied with cords by the wrists and ankles, while, at the touch of the Master, a little demon is seen issuing from the top of the head of the sufferer, waving its arms proudly to celebrate its freedom! Underneath is a small scene of the three Children in the Fiery Furnace; they look as if they were presenting a vaudeville turn, being spirited in action, and very dramatic. Below all, is a masterly panel of Jonah and the whale,--an old favourite, frequently appearing in mediæval art. The whale, positively smiling and sportive, eagerly awaits his prey at the right. Jonah is making a graceful dive from the ship, apparently with an effort to land in the very jaws of the whale. At the opposite side, the whale, having coughed up his victim, looks disappointed, while Jonah, in an attitude of lassitude suggestive of sea-sickness, reclines on a bank; an angel, with one finger lifted as if in reproach, is hurrying towards him. An ingenuous ivory carving of the ninth century in Carlovingian style is a book cover on which is depicted the finding of St. Gall, by tame bears in the wilderness. These bears, walking decorously on their hind legs, are figured as carrying bread to the hungry saint: one holds a long French loaf of a familiar pattern, and the other a breakfast roll! Bernward of Hildesheim had a branch for ivory carving in his celebrated academy, to which allusion has been made. Ivory drinking horns were among the most beautiful and ornate examples of secular ivories. They were called Oliphants, because the tusks of elephants were chiefly used in their manufacture. In 1515 the Earl of Ormonde leaves in his will "a little white horn of ivory garnished at both ends with gold," and in St. Paul's in the thirteenth century, there is mention of "a great horn of ivory engraved with beasts and birds." The Horn of Ulphas at York is an example of the great drinking horns from which the Saxons and Danes, in early days, drank in token of transfer of lands; as we are told by an old chronicler, "When he gave the horn that was to convey his estate, he filled it with wine, and went on his knees before the altar... so that he drank it off in testimony that thereby he gave them his lands." This horn was given by Ulphas to the Cathedral with certain lands, a little before the Conquest, and placed by him on the altar. Interesting ivories are often the pastoral staves carried by bishops. That of Otho Bishop of Hildesheim in 1260 is inscribed in the various parts: "Persuade by the lower part; rule by the middle; and correct by the point." These were apparently the symbolic functions of the crozier. The French Gothic ivory croziers are perhaps more beautiful than others, the little figures standing in the carved volutes being especially delicate and graceful. [Illustration: PASTORAL STAFF; IVORY, GERMAN, 12TH CENTURY] Before a mediæval bishop could perform mass he was enveloped in a wrapper, and his hair was combed "respectfully and lightly" (no tugging!) by the deacon. This being a part of the regular ceremonial, special carved combs of ivory, known as Liturgical Combs, were used. Many of them remain in collections, and they are often ornamented in the most delightful way, with little processions and Scriptural scenes in bas-relief. In the Regalia of England, there was mentioned among things destroyed in 1649, "One old comb of horn, worth nothing." According to Davenport, this may have been the comb used in smoothing the king's hair on the occasion of a Coronation. The rich pulpit at Aix la Chapelle is covered with plates of gold set with stones and ivory carvings; these are very fine. It was given to the cathedral by the Emperor Henry II. The inscription may be thus translated: "Artfully brightened in gold and precious stones, this pulpit is here dedicated by King Henry with reverence, desirous of celestial glory: richly it is decorated with his own treasures, for you, most Holy Virgin, in order that you may obtain the highest gain as a future reward for him." The sentiment is not entirely disinterested; but are not motives generally mixed? St. Bernard preached a Crusade from this pulpit in 1146. The ivory carvings are very ancient, and remarkably fine, representing figures from the Greek myths. Ivory handles were usual for the fly-fan, or flabellum, used at the altar, to keep flies and other insects away from the Elements. One entry in an inventory in 1429 might be confusing if one did not know of this custom: the article is mentioned as "one muscifugium de pecock" meaning a fly-fan of peacock's feathers! Small round ivory boxes elaborately sculptured were used both for Reserving the Host and for containing relics. In the inventory of the Church of St. Mary Hill, London, was mentioned, in the fifteenth century, "a lytill yvory cofyr with relyks." At Durham, in 1383, there is an account of an "ivory casket conteining a vestment of St. John the Baptist," and in the fourteenth century, in the same collection, was "a tooth of St. Gendulphus, good for the Falling Sickness, in a small ivory pyx." [Illustration: IVORY MIRROR CASE; EARTH 14TH CENTURY] Ivory mirror backs lent themselves well to decorations of a more secular nature: these are often carved with the Siege of the Castle of Love, and with scenes from the old Romances; tournaments were very popular, with ladies in balconies above pelting the heroes with roses as large as themselves, and the tutor Aristotle "playing horse" was a great favourite. Little elopements on horseback were very much liked, too, as subjects; sometimes rows of heroes on steeds appear, standing under windows, from which, in a most wholesale way, whole nunneries or boarding-schools seem to be descending to fly with them. One of these mirrors shows Huon of Bordeaux playing at chess with the king's daughter: another represents a castle, which occupies the upper centre of the circle, and under the window is a drawbridge, across which passes a procession of mounted knights. One of these has paused, and, standing balancing himself in a most precarious way on the pommels of his saddle, is assisting a lady to descend from a window. Below are seen others, or perhaps the same lovers, in a later stage of the game, escaping in a boat. At the windows are the heads of other ladies awaiting their turn to be carried off. [Illustration: IVORY MIRROR CASE, 1340] An ivory chest of simple square shape, once the property of the Rev. Mr. Bowle, is given in detail by Carter in the Ancient Specimens, and is as interesting an example of allegorical romance as can be imagined. Observe the attitude of the knight who has laid his sword across a chasm in order to use it as a bridge. He is proceeding on all fours, with unbent knees, right up the sharp edge of the blade! Among small box shrines which soon developed in Christian times from the Consular diptychs is one, in the inventory of Roger de Mortimer, "a lyttle long box of yvory, with an ymage of Our ladye therein closed." The differences in expression between French, English, and German ivory carvings is quite interesting. The French faces and figures have always a piquancy of action: the nose is a little retroussée and the eyelids long. The German shows more solidity of person, less transitoriness and lightness about the figure, and the nose is blunter. The English carvings are often spirited, so as to be almost grotesque in their strenuousness, and the tool-mark is visible, giving ruggedness and interest. Nothing could be more exquisite than the Gothic shrines in ivory made in the thirteenth century, but descriptions, unless accompanied by illustrations, could give little idea of their individual charm, for the subject is usually the same: the Virgin and child, in the central portion of the triptych, while scenes from the Passion occupy the spaces on either side, in the wings. Statuettes in the round were rare in early Christian times: one of the Good Shepherd in the Basilewski collection is almost unique, but pyxes in cylindrical form were made, the sculpture on them being in relief. In small ivory statuettes it was necessary to follow the natural curve of the tusk in carving the figure, hence the usual twisted, and sometimes almost contorted forms often seen in these specimens. Later, this peculiarity was copied in stone, unconsciously, simply because the style had become customary. One of the most charming little groups of figures in ivory is in the Louvre, the Coronation of the Virgin. The two central figures are flanked by delightful jocular little angels, who have that characteristic close-lipped, cat-like smile, which is a regular feature in all French sculpture of the Gothic type. In a little triptych of the fourteenth century, now in London, there is the rather unusual scene of Joseph, sitting opposite the Virgin, and holding the Infant in his arms. Among the few names of mediæval ivory carvers known, are Henry de Grès, in 1391, Héliot, 1390, and Henry de Senlis, in 1484. Héliot is recorded as having produced for Philip the Bold "two large ivory tablets with images, one of which is the... life of Monsieur St. John Baptist." This polite description occurs in the Accounts of Amiot Arnaut, in 1392. A curious freak of the Gothic period was the making of ivory statuettes of the Virgin, which opened down the centre (like the Iron Maiden of Nüremberg), and disclosed within a series of Scriptural scenes sculptured on the back and on both sides. These images were called Vierges Ouvrantes, and were decidedly more curious than beautiful. In the British Museum is a specimen of northern work, a basket cut out from the bone of a whale; it is Norse in workmanship, and there is a Runic inscription about the border, which has been thus translated: "The whale's bones from the fishes' flood I lifted on Fergen Hill: He was dashed to death in his gambols And aground he swam in the shallows." Fergen Hill refers to an eminence near Durham. [Illustration: CHESSMAN FROM LEWIS] Some very ancient chessmen are preserved in the British Museum, in particular a set called the Lewis Chessmen. They were discovered in the last century, being laid bare by the pick axe of a labourer. These chessmen have strange staring eyes; when the workman saw them, he took them for gnomes who had come up out of the bowels of the earth, to annoy him, and he rushed off in terror to report what proved to be an important archæological discovery. One of the chessmen of Charlemagne is to be seen in Paris: he rides an elephant, and is attended by a cortège, all in one piece. Sometimes these men are very elaborate ivory carvings in themselves. As Mr. Maskell points out that bishops did not wear mitres, according to high authority, until after the year 1000, it is unlikely that any of the ancient chessmen in which the Bishop appears in a mitre should be of earlier date than the eleventh century. There is one fine Anglo-Saxon set of draughts in which the white pieces are of walrus ivory, and the black pieces, of genuine jet. Paxes, which were passed about in church for the Kiss of Peace, were sometimes made of ivory. There are few remains of early Spanish ivory sculpture. Among them is a casket curiously and intricately ornamented and decorated, with the following inscription: "In the Name of God, The Blessing of God, the complete felicity, the happiness, the fulfilment of the hope of good works, and the adjourning of the fatal period of death, be with Hagib Seifo.... This box was made by his orders under the inspection of his slave Nomayr, in the year 395." Ivory caskets in Spain were often used to contain perfumes, or to serve as jewel boxes. It was customary, also, to use them to convey presents of relics to churches. Ivory was largely used in Spain for inlay in fine furniture. King Don Sancho ordered a shrine, in 1033, to contain the relics of St. Millan. The ivory plaques which are set about this shrine are interesting specimens of Spanish art under Oriental domination. Under one little figure is inscribed Apparitio Scholastico, and Remirus Rex under another, while a figure of a sculptor carving a shield, with a workman standing by him, is labelled "Magistro and Ridolpho his son." Few individual ivory carvers are known by name. A French artist, Jean Labraellier, worked in ivory for Charles V. of France; and in Germany it must have been quite a fashionable pursuit in high life; the Elector of Saxony, August the Pious, who died in 1586, was an ivory worker, and there are two snuff-boxes shown as the work of Peter the Great. The Elector of Brandenburgh and Maximilian of Bavaria both carved ivory for their own recreation. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries there were many well-known sculptors who turned their attention to ivory; but our researches hardly carry us so far. For a moment, however, I must touch on the subject of billiard balls. It may interest our readers to know that the size of the little black dot on a ball indicates its quality. The nerve which runs through a tusk, is visible at this point, and a ball made from the ivory near the end of the tusk, where the nerve has tapered off to its smallest proportions, is the best ball. The finest balls of all are made from short stubby tusks, which are known as "ball teeth." The ivory in these is closer in grain, and they are much more expensive. Very large tusks are more liable to have coarse grained bony spaces near the centre. CHAPTER X INLAY AND MOSAIC There are three kinds of inlay, one where the pattern is incised, and a plastic filling pressed in, and allowed to harden, on the principle of a niello; another, where both the piece to be set in and the background are cut out separately; and a third, where a number of small bits are fitted together as in a mosaic. The pavement in Siena is an example of the first process. The second process is often accomplished with a fine saw, like what is popularly known as a jig saw, cutting the same pattern in light and dark wood, one layer over another; the dark can then be set into the light, and the light in the dark without more than one cutting for both. The mosaic of small pieces can be seen in any of the Southern churches, and, indeed, now in nearly every country. It was the chief wall treatment of the middle ages. [Illustration: MARBLE INLAY FROM LUCCA] About the year 764, Maestro Giudetto ornamented the delightful Church of St. Michele at Lucca. This work, or at least the best of it, is a procession of various little partly heraldic and partly grotesque animals, inlaid with white marble on a ground of green serpentine. They are full of the best expression of mediæval art. The Lion of Florence, the Hare of Pisa, the Stork of Perugia, the Dragon of Pistoja, are all to be seen in these simple mosaics, if one chooses to consider them as such, hardly more than white silhouettes, and yet full of life and vigour. The effect is that of a vast piece of lace,--the real cut work of the period. Absurd little trees, as space fillers, are set in the green and white marble. Every reader will remember how Ruskin was enthusiastic over these little creatures, and no one can fail to feel their charm. The pavements at the Florentine Baptistery and at San Miniato are interesting examples of inlay in black and white marble. They are early works, and are the natural forerunners of the marvellous pavement at Siena, which is the most remarkable of its kind in the world. The pavement masters worked in varying methods. The first of these was the joining together of large flat pieces of marble, cut in the shapes of the general design, and then outlining on them an actual black drawing by means of deeply cut channels, filled with hard black cement. The channels were first cut superficially and then emphasized and deepened by the use of a drill, in a series of holes. [Illustration: DETAIL OF PAVEMENT, BAPTISTERY, FLORENCE] Later workers used black marbles for the backgrounds, red for the ground, and white for the figures, sometimes adding touches of yellow inlay for decorations, jewels, and so forth. Some of the workers even used gray marble to represent shadows, but this was very difficult, and those who attempted less chiaroscuro were more successful from a decorator's point of view. This work covered centuries. The earliest date of the ornamental work in Siena is 1369. From 1413 to 1423 Domenico del Coro, a famous worker in glass and in intarsia, was superintendent of the works. The beauty and spirit of much of the earlier inlay have been impaired by restoration, but the whole effect is unique, and on so vast a scale that one hesitates to criticize it just as one hesitates to criticize the windows at Gouda. One compartment of the floor is in genuine mosaic, dating from 1373. The designer is unknown, but the feeling is very Sienese; Romulus and Remus are seen in their customary relation to the domesticated wolf, while the symbolical animals of various Italian cities are arranged in a series of circles around this centrepiece. One of the most striking designs is that of Absalom, hanging by his hair. It is in sharp black and white, and the foliage of the trees is remarkably decorative, rendered with interesting minutiæ. This is attributed to Pietro del Minella, and was begun in 1447. A very interesting composition is that of the Parable of the Mote and the Beam. This is an early work, about 1375; it shows two gentlemen in the costume of the period, arguing in courtly style, one apparently declaiming to the other how much better it would be for him if it were not for the mote in his eye, while from the eye of the speaker himself extends, at an impossible angle, a huge wedge of wood, longer than his head, from which he appears to suffer no inconvenience, and which seems to have defied the laws of gravitation! The renowned Matteo da Siena worked on the pavement; he designed the scene of the Massacre of the Innocents--it seems to have been always his favourite subject. He was apparently of a morbid turn. In 1505 Pinturicchio was paid for a work on the floor: "To master Bernardino Pinturicchio, ptr., for his labour in making a cartoon for the design of Fortune, which is now being made in the Cathedral, on this 13th day of March, 12 Lires for our said Master Alberto." The mosaic is in red, black, and white, while other coloured marbles are introduced in the ornamental parts of the design, several of which have been renewed. Fortune herself has been restored, also, as have most of the lower figures in the composition. Her precariousness is well indicated by her action in resting one foot on a ball, and the other on an unstable little boat which floats, with broken mast, by the shore. She holds a sail above her head, so that she is liable to be swayed by varying winds. The three upper figures are in a better state of preservation than the others. [Illustration: DETAIL OF PAVEMENT, SIENA; "FORTUNE," BY PINTURICCHIO] There was also in France some interest in mosaic during the eleventh century. At St. Remi in Rheims was a celebrated pavement in which enamels were used as well as marbles. Among the designs which appeared on this pavement, which must have positively rivalled Siena in its glory, was a group of the Seven Arts, as well as numerous Biblical scenes. It is said that certain bits of valuable stone, like jasper, were exhibited in marble settings, like "precious stones in a ring." There were other French pavements, of the eleventh century, which were similar in their construction, in which terra cotta was employed for the reds. "Pietra Dura" was a mosaic laid upon either a thick wood or a marble foundation. Lapis lazuli, malachite, and jasper were used largely, as well as bloodstones, onyx, and Rosso Antico. In Florentine Pietra Dura work, the inlay of two hard and equally cut materials reached its climax. Arnolfo del Cambio, who built the Cathedral of Sta. Maria Fiore in Florence, being its architect from 1294 till 1310, was the first in that city to use coloured slabs and panels of marble in a sort of flat mosaic on a vast scale on the outside of buildings. His example has been extensively followed throughout Italy. The art of Pietra Dura mosaic began under Cosimo I. who imported it, if one may use such an expression, from Lombardy. It was used chiefly, like Gobelins Tapestry, to make very costly presents, otherwise unprocurable, for grandees and crowned heads. For a long time the work was a Royal monopoly. There are several interesting examples in the Pitti Palace, in this case in the form of tables. Flowers, fruits, shells, and even figures and landscapes have been represented in this manner. Six masters of the art of Pietra Dura came from Milan in 1580, to instruct the Florentines: and a portrait of Cosimo I. was the first important result of their labours. It was executed by Maestro Francesco Ferucci. The Medicean Mausoleum in Florence exhibits magnificent specimens of this craft. In the time of Ferdinand I. the art was carried by Florentines to India, where it was used in decorating some of the palaces. Under Ferdinand II. Pietra Dura reached its climax, there being in Florence at this time a most noted Frenchman, Luigi Siriès, who settled in Florence in 1722. He refined the art by ceasing to use the stone as a pigment in producing pictures, and employing it for the more legitimate purposes of decoration. Some of the large tables in the Pitti are his work. Flowers and shells on a porphyry ground were especially characteristic of Siriès. There was a famous inlayer of tables, long before this time, named Antonio Leopardi, who lived from 1450 to 1525. The inlay of wood has been called marquetry and intarsia, and was used principally on furniture and choir stalls. Labarte gives the origin of this art in Italy to the twelfth century. The Guild of Carpenters in Florence had a branch of Intarsiatura workers, which included all forms of inlay in wood. It is really more correct to speak of intarsia when we allude to early Italian work, the word being derived from "interserere," the Latin for "insert;" while marquetry originates in France, much later, from "marqueter," to mark. Italian wood inlay began in Siena, where one Manuello is reported to have worked in the Cathedral in 1259. Intarsia was also made in Orvieto at this time. Vasari did not hold the art in high estimation, saying that it was practised by "those persons who possessed more patience than skill in design," and I confess to a furtive concurrence in Vasari's opinion. He criticizes it a little illogically, however, when he goes on to say that the "work soon becomes dark, and is always in danger of perishing from the worms and by fire," for in these respects it is no more perishable than any great painting on canvas or panel. Vasari always is a little extreme, as we know. The earliest Italian workers took a solid block of wood, chiselled out a sunken design, and then filled in the depression with other woods. The only enemy to such work was dampness, which might loosen the glue, or cause the small thin bits to swell or warp. The glue was applied always when the surfaces were perfectly clean, and the whole was pressed, being screwed down on heated metal plates, that all might dry evenly. In 1478 there were thirty-four workshops of intarsia makers in Florence. The personal history of several of the Italian workers in inlay is still available, and, as it makes a craft seem much more vital when the names of the craftsmen are known to us, it will be interesting to glance at a few names of prominent artists in this branch of work. Bernardo Agnolo and his family are among them; and Domenico and Giovanni Tasso were wood-carvers who worked with Michelangelo. Among the "Novelli," there is a quaint tale called "The Fat Ebony Carver," which is interesting to read in this connection. Benedetto da Maiano, one of the "most solemn" workers in intarsia in Florence, became disgusted with his art after one trying experience, and ever after turned his attention to other carving. Vasari's version of the affair is as follows. Benedetto had been making two beautiful chests, all inlaid most elaborately, and carried them to the Court of Hungary, to exhibit the workmanship. "When he had made obeisance to the king, and had been kindly received, he brought forward his cases and had them unpacked... but it was then he discovered that the humidity of the sea voyage had softened the glue to such an extent that when the waxed cloths in which the coffers had been wrapped were opened, almost all the pieces were found sticking to them, and so fell to the ground! Whether Benedetto stood amazed and confounded at such an event, in the presence of so many nobles, let every one judge for himself." A famous family of wood inlayers were the del Tasso, who came from S. Gervasio. One of the brothers, Giambattista, was a wag, and is said to have wasted much time in amusement and standing about criticizing the methods of others. He was a friend of Cellini, and all his cronies pronounce him to have been a good fellow. On one occasion he had a good dose of the spirit of criticism, himself, from a visiting abbot, who stopped to see the Medicean tomb, where Tasso happened to be working. Tasso was requested to show the stranger about, which he did. The abbot began by depreciating the beauty of the building, remarking that Michelangelo's figures in the Sacristy did not interest him, and on his way up the stairs, he chanced to look out of a window and caught sight of Brunelleschi's dome. When the dull ecclesiastic began to say that this dome did not merit the admiration which it raised, the exasperated Tasso, who was loyal to his friends, could stand no more. Il Lasca recounts what happened: "Pulling the abbot backward with force, he made him tumble down the staircase, and he took good care to fall himself on top of him, and calling out that the frater had been taken mad, he bound his arms and legs with cords... and then taking him, hanging over his shoulders, he carried him to a room near, stretched him on the ground, and left him there in the dark, taking away the key." We will hope that if Tasso himself was too prone to criticism, he may have learned a lesson from this didactic monastic, and was more tolerant in the future. Of the work of Canozio, a worker of about the same time, Matteo Colaccio in 1486, writes, "In visiting these intarsiad figures I was so much taken with the exquisiteness of the work that I could not withold myself from praising the author to heaven!" He refers thus ecstatically to the Stalls at St. Antonio at Padua, which were inlaid by Canozio, assisted by other masters. For his work in the Church of St. Domenico in Reggio, the contract called for some curious observances: he was bound by this to buy material for fifty lire, to work one third of the whole undertaking for fifty lire, to earn another fifty lire for each succeeding third, and then to give "forty-eight planks to the Lady," whatever that may mean! Among the instruments mentioned are: "Two screw profiles: one outliner: four one-handed little planes: rods for making cornices: two large squares and one grafonetto: three chisels, one glued and one all of iron: a pair of big pincers: two little axes: and a bench to put the tarsia on." Pyrography has its birth in intarsia, where singeing was sometimes employed as a shading in realistic designs. In the Study of the Palace at Urbino, there is mention of "arm chairs encircling a table all mosaicked with tarsia, and carved by Maestro Giacomo of Florence," a worker of considerable repute. One of the first to adopt the use of ivory, pearl, and silver for inlay was Andrea Massari of Siena. In this same way inlay of tortoise-shell and brass was made,--the two layers were sawed out together, and then counterchanged so as to give the pattern in each material upon the other. Cabinets are often treated in this way. Ivory and sandal-wood or ebony, too, have been sometimes thus combined. In Spain cabinets were often made of a sort of mosaic of ebony and silver; in 1574 a Prohibtion was issued against using silver in this way, since it was becoming scarce. In De Luna's "Diologos Familiarea," a Spanish work of 1669, the following conversation is given: "How much has your worship paid for this cabinet? It is worth more than forty ducats. What wood is it made of? The red is of mahogany, from Habaña, and the black is made of ebony, and the white of ivory. You will find the workmanship excellent." This proves that inlaid cabinets were usual in Spain. Ebony being expensive, it was sometimes simulated with stain. An old fifteenth century recipe says: "Take boxwood and lay in oil with sulphur for a night, then let it stew for an hour, and it will become as black as coal." An old Italian book enjoins the polishing of this imitation ebony as follows: "Is the wood to be polished with burnt pumice stone? Rub the work carefully with canvas and this powder, and then wash the piece with Dutch lime water so that it may be more beautifully polished... then the rind of a pomegranate must be steeped, and the wood smeared over with it, and set to dry, but in the shade." Inlay was often imitated; the elaborate marquetry cabinets in Sta. Maria della Grazia in Milan which are proudly displayed are in reality, according to Mr. Russell Sturgis, cleverly painted to simulate the real inlaid wood. Mr. Hamilton Jackson says that these, being by Luini, are intended to be known as paintings, but to imitate intarsia. Intarsia was made also among the monasteries. The Olivetans practised this art extensively, and, much as some monasteries had scriptoria for the production of books, so others had carpenter's shops and studios where, according to Michele Caffi, they showed "great talent for working in wood, succeeding to the heirship of the art of tarsia in coloured woods, which they got from Tuscany." One of the more important of the Olivetan Monasteries was St. Michele in Bosco, where the noted worker in tarsia, Fra Raffaello da Brescia, made some magnificent choir stalls. In 1521 these were finished, but they were largely destroyed by the mob in the suppression of the convents in the eighteenth century. In 1812 eighteen of the stalls were saved, bought by the Marquis Malvezzi, and placed in St. Petronio. He tried also to save the canopies, but these had been sold for firewood at about twopence each! The stalls of St. Domenico at Bologna are by Fra Damiano of Bergamo; it is said of him that his woods were coloured so marvellously that the art of tarsia was by him raised to the rank of that of painting! He was a Dominican monk in Bologna most of his life. When Charles V. visited the choir of St. Domenico, and saw these stalls, he would not believe that the work was accomplished by inlay, and actually cut a piece out with his sword by way of investigation. Castiglione the Courtier expresses himself with much admiration of the work of Fra Damiano, "rather divine than human." Of the technical perfection of the workmanship he adds: "Though these works are executed with inlaid pieces, the eye cannot even by the greatest exertion detect the joints.... I think, indeed, I am certain, that it will be called the eighth wonder of the world." (Count Castiglione did not perhaps realize what a wonderful world he lived in!) But at any rate there is no objection to subscribing to his eulogy: "All that I could say would be little enough of his rare and singular virtue, and on the goodness of his religious and holy life." Another frate who wrote about that time alluded to Fra Damiano as "putting together woods with so much art that they appear as pictures painted with the brush." In Germany there was some interesting intarsia made by the Elfen Brothers, of St. Michael's in Hildesheim, who produced beautiful chancel furniture. Hans Stengel of Nüremberg, too, was renowned in this art. After the Renaissance marquetry ran riot in France, but that is out of the province of our present study. The art of mosaic making has changed very little during the centuries. Nearly all the technical methods now used were known to the ancients. In fact, this art is rather an elemental one, and any departure from old established rules is liable to lead the worker into a new craft; his art becomes that of the inlayer or the enameller when he attempts to use larger pieces in cloissons, or to fuse bits together by any process. Mosaic is a natural outgrowth from other inlaying; when an elaborate design had to be set up, quite too complicated to be treated in tortuously-cut large pieces, the craftsman naturally decided to render the whole work with small pieces, which demanded less accurate shaping of each piece. Originally, undoubtedly, each bit of glass or stone was laid in the soft plaster of wall or floor; but now a more labour saving method has obtained; it is amusing to watch the modern rest-cure. Instead of an artist working in square bits of glass to carry out his design, throwing his interest and personality into the work, a labourer sits leisurely before a large cartoon, on which he glues pieces of mosaic the prescribed colour and size, mechanically fitting them over the design until it is completely covered. Then this sheet of paper, with the mosaic glued to it, is slapped on to the plaster wall, having the stones next to the plaster, so that, until it is dry, all that can be seen is the sheet of paper apparently fixed on the wall. But lo! the grand transformation! The paper is washed off, leaving in place the finished product--a very accurate imitation of the picture on which the artist laboured, all in place in the wall, every stone evenly set as if it had been polished--entirely missing the charm of the irregular faceted effect of an old mosaic--again mechanical facility kills the spirit of an art. Much early mosaic, known as Cosmati Work, is inlaid into marble, in geometric designs; twisted columns of this class of work may be seen in profusion in Rome, and the façade of Orvieto is similarly decorated. Our illustration will demonstrate the technical process as well as a description. The mosaic base of Edward the Confessor's shrine is inscribed to the effect that it was wrought by Peter of Rome. It was a dignified specimen of the best Cosmati. All the gold glass which once played its part in the scheme of decoration has been picked out, and in fact most of the pieces in the pattern are missing. [Illustration: AMBO AT RAVELLO; SPECIMEN OF COSMATI MOSAIC] The mosaic pavement in Westminster Abbey Presbytery is as fine an example of Roman Cosmati mosaic as one can see north of the Alps. An inscription, almost obliterated, is interpreted by Mr. Lethaby as signifying, that in the year 1268 "Henry III. being King, and Odericus the cementarius, Richard de Ware, Abbot, brought the porphyry and divers jaspers and marbles of Thaso from Rome." In another place a sort of enigma, drawn from an arbitrary combination of animal forms and numbers, marks a chart for determining the end of the world! There is also a beautiful mosaic tomb at Westminster, inlaid with an interlacing pattern in a ground of marble, like the work so usual in Rome, and in Palermo, and other Southern centres of the art. While the material used in mosaic wall decoration is sometimes a natural product, like marble, porphyry, coral, or alabaster, the picture is composed for the most part of artificially prepared smalts--opaque glass of various colours, made in sheets and then cut up into cubes. An infinite variety in gradations of colour and texture is thus made possible. The gold grounds which one sees in nearly all mosaics are constructed in an interesting way. Each cube is composed of plain rather coarse glass, of a greenish tinge, upon which is laid gold leaf. Over this leaf is another film of glass, extremely thin, so that the actual metal is isolated between two glasses, and is thus impervious to such qualities in the air as would tarnish it or cause it to deteriorate. To prevent an uninteresting evenness of surface on which the sun's rays would glint in a trying manner, it was usual to lay the gold cubes in a slightly irregular manner, so that each facet, as it were, should reflect at a different angle, and the texture, especially in the gold grounds, never became monotonous. One does not realize the importance of this custom until one sees a cheap modern mosaic laid absolutely flat, and then it is evident how necessary this broken surface is to good effect. Any one who has tried to analyze the reason for the superiority of old French stained glass over any other, will be surprised, if he goes close to the wall, under one of the marvellous windows of Chartres, for instance, and looks up, to see that the whole fabric is warped and bent at a thousand angles,--it is not only the quality of the ancient glass, nor its colour, that gives this unattainable expression to these windows, but the accidental warping and wear of centuries have laid each bit of glass at a different angle, so that the refraction of the light is quite different from any possible reflection on the smooth surface of a modern window. The dangers of a clear gold ground were, felt more fully by the workers at Ravenna and Rome, than in Venice. Architectural schemes were introduced to break up the surface: clouds and backgrounds, fields of flowers, and trees, and such devices, were used to prevent the monotony of the unbroken glint. But in Venice the decorators were brave; their faith in their material was unbounded, and they not only frankly laid gold in enormous masses on flat wall and cupola, but they even moulded the edges and archivolts without separate ribs or strips to relieve them; the gold is carried all over the edges, which are rounded into curves to receive the mosaic, so that the effect is that of the entire upper part of the church having been _pressed_ into shape out of solid gold. The lights on these rounded edges are incomparably rich. It is equally important to vary the plain values of the colour, and this was accomplished by means of dilution and contrast in tints instead of by unevenness of surface, although in many of the most satisfactory mosaics, both means have been employed. Plain tints in mosaic can be relieved in a most delightful way by the introduction of little separate cubes of unrelated colour, and the artist who best understands this use of mass and dot is the best maker of mosaic. The actual craft of construction is similar everywhere, but the use of what we may regard as the pigment has possibilities similar to the colours of a painter. The manipulation being of necessity slow, it is more difficult to convey the idea of spontaneity in design than it is in a fresco painting. To follow briefly the history of mosaic as used in the Dark Ages, the Middle Ages, and the period of the Renaissance, it is interesting to note that by the fourth century mosaic was the principal decoration in ecclesiastical buildings. Contantine employed this art very extensively. Of his period, however, few examples remain. The most notable is the little church of Sta. Constanza, the vaults of which are ornamented in this way, with a fine running pattern of vines, interspersed with figures on a small scale. The Libel Pontificalis tells how Constantine built the Basilica of St. Agnese at the request of his daughter, and also a baptistery in the same place, where Constance was baptized, by Bishop Sylvester. Among the most interesting early mosaics is the apse of the Church of St. Pudentiana in Rome. Barbet de Jouy, who has written extensively on this mosaic, considers it to be an eighth century achievement. But a later archæologist, M. Rossi, believes it to have been made in the fourth century, in which theory he is upheld by M. Vitet. The design is that of a company of saints gathered about the Throne on which God the Father sits to pass judgment. In certain restorations and alterations made in 1588 two of these figures were cut away, and the lower halves of those remaining were also removed, so that the figures are now only half length. The faces and figures are drawn in a very striking manner, being realistic and full of graceful action, very different from the mosaics of a later period, which were dominated by Byzantine tradition. In France were many specimens of the mosaics of the fifth century. But literary descriptions are all that have survived of these works, which might once have been seen at Nantes, Tours, and Clermont. [Illustration: MOSAIC FROM RAVENNA; THEODORA AND HER SUITE, 16TH CENTURY] Ravenna is the shrine of the craft in the fifth and sixth centuries. It is useless in so small a space to attempt to describe or do justice to these incomparable walls, where gleam the marvellous procession of white robed virgins, and where glitters the royal cortège of Justinian and Theodora. The acme of the art was reached when these mural decorations were planned and executed, and the churches of Ravenna may be considered the central museum of the world for a study of mosaic. Among those who worked at Ravenna a few names have descended. These craftsmen were, Cuserius, Paulus, Janus, Statius and Stephanus, but their histories are vague. Theodoric also brought some mosaic artists from Rome to work in Ravenna, which fact accounts for a Latin influence discernible in these mosaics, which are in many instances free from Byzantine stiffness. The details of the textiles in the great mosaics of Justinian and Theodora are rarely beautiful. The chlamys with which Justinian is garbed is covered with circular interlaces with birds in them; on the border of the Empress's robe are embroideries of the three Magi presenting their gifts; on one of the robes of the attendants there is a pattern of ducks swimming, while another is ornamented with leaves of a five-pointed form. There is a mosaic in the Tomb of Galla Placida in Ravenna, representing St. Lawrence, cheerfully approaching his gridiron, with the Cross and an open book encumbering his hands, while in a convenient corner stands a little piece of furniture resembling a meat-safe, containing the Four Gospels. The saint is walking briskly, and is fully draped; the gridiron is of the proportions of a cot bedstead, and has a raging fire beneath it,--a gruesome suggestion of the martyrdom. No finer examples of the art of the colourist in mosaic can be seen than in the procession of Virgins at San Apollinaire Nuovo in Ravenna. Cool, restrained, and satisfying, the composition has all the elements of chromatic perfection. In the golden background occasional dots of light and dark brown serve to deepen the tone into a slightly bronze colour. The effect is especially scintillating and rich, more like hammered gold than a flat sheet. The colours in the trees are dark and light green, while the Virgins, in brown robes, with white draperies over them, are relieved with little touches of gold. The whole tone being thus green and russet, with purplish lines about the halos, is an unusual colour-scheme, and can hardly carry such conviction in a description as when it is seen. In the East, the Church of Sta. Sophia at Constantinople exhibited the most magnificent specimens of this work; the building was constructed under Constantine, by the architects Anthemius and Isidore, and the entire interior, walls and dome included, was covered by mosaic pictures. Among important works of the seventh century is the apse of St. Agnese, in Rome. Honorius decorated the church, about 630, and it is one of the most effective mosaics in Rome. At St. John Lateran, also, Pope John IV. caused a splendid work to be carried out, which has been reported as being as "brilliant as the sacred waters." In the eighth century a magnificent achievement was accomplished in the monastery of Centula, in Picardie, but all traces of this have been lost, for the convent was burnt in 1131. The eighth was not an active century for the arts, for in 726 Leo's edict was sent forth, prohibiting all forms of image worship, and at a Council at Constantinople in 754 it was decided that all iconographic representation and all use of symbols (except in the Sacrament) were blasphemous. Idolatrous monuments were destroyed, and the iconoclasts continued their devastations until the death of Theophilus in 842. Fortunately this wave of zeal was checked before the destruction of the mosaics in Ravenna and Rome, but very few specimens survived in France. In the ninth century a great many important monuments were added, and a majority of the mosaics which may still be seen, date from that time: they are not first in quality, however, although they are more numerous. After this, there was a period of inanition, in this art as in all others, while the pseudo-prophets awaited the ending of the world. After the year 1000 had passed, and the astonished people found that they were still alive, and that the world appeared as stable as formerly, interest began to revive, and the new birth of art produced some significant examples in the field of mosaic. There was some activity in Germany, for a time, the versatile Bishop Bernward of Hildesheim adding this craft to his numerous accomplishments, although it is probable that his works resembled the graffiti and inlaid work rather than the mosaics composed of cubes of smalt. At the Monastery of Monte Cassino in the eleventh century was an interesting personality,--the Abbé Didier, its Superior. About 1066 he brought workers from Constantinople, who decorated the apse and walls of the basilica under his direction. At the same time, he established a school at the monastery, and the young members were instructed in the arts and crafts of mosaic and inlay, and the illumination of books. Greek influence was thus carried into Italy through Monte Cassino. In the twelfth century the celebrated Suger of St. Denis decorated one of the porches of his church with mosaic, in smalt, marbles, and gold; animal and human forms were introduced in the ornament. But this may not have been work actually executed on the spot, for another narrator tells us that Suger brought home from Italy, on one of his journeys, a mosaic, which was placed over the door at St. Denis; as it is no longer in its position, it is not easy to determine which account is correct. The mosaics at St. Mark's in Venice were chiefly the work of two centuries and a half. Greek artists were employed in the main, bringing their own tesseræ and marbles. In 1204 there was special activity in this line, at the time when the Venetians took Constantinople. After this, an establishment for making the smalts and gold glass was set up at Murano, and Venice no longer imported its material. The old Cathedral at Torcello has one of the most perfect examples of the twelfth century mosaic in the world. The entire west end of the church is covered with a rich display of figures and Scriptural scenes. A very lurid Hell is exhibited at the lower corner, in the depths of which are seen stewing, several Saracens, with large hoop earrings. Their faces are highly expressive of discomfort. This mosaic is full of genuine feeling; one of the subjects is Amphitrite riding a seahorse, among those who rise to the surface when "the sea gives up its dead." The Redeemed are seen crowding round Abraham, who holds one in his bosom; they are like an infant class, and are dressed in uniform pinafores, intended to look like little ecclesiastical vestments! The Dead who are being given up by the Earth are being vomited forth by wild animals--this is original, and I believe, almost the only occasion on which this form of literal resurrection is represented. In the thirteenth century a large number of mosaic artists appeared in Florence, many of whose names and histories are available. In the Baptistery, Andrea Tafi, who lived between 1213 and 1294, decorated the cupola. With him were two assistants who are known by name--Apollonius a Greek, which in part accounts for the stiff Byzantine figures in this work, and another who has left his signature, "Jacobus Sancti Francisci Frater"--evidently a monastic craftsman. Gaddo Gaddi also assisted in this work, executing the Prophets which occur under the windows, and professing to combine in his style "the Greek manner and that of Cimabue." Apollonius taught Andrea Tafi how to compose the smalt and to mix the cement, but this latter was evidently unsuccessful, for in the next century the mosaic detached itself and fell badly, when Agnolo Gaddi, the grandson of Gaddo, was engaged to restore it. Tafi, Gaddi, and Jacobus were considered as a promising firm, and they undertook other large works in mosaic. They commenced the apse at Pisa, which was finished in 1321 by Vicini, Cimabue designing the colossal figure of Christ which thus dominates the cathedral. Vasari says that Andrea Tafi was considered "an excellent, nay, a divine artist" in his specialty. Andrea, himself more modest, visited Venice, and deigned to take instruction from Greek mosaic workers, who were employed at St. Mark's. One of them, Apollonius, became attached to Tafi, and this is how he came to accompany him to Florence. The work on the Baptistery was done actually _in situ_, every cube being set directly in the plaster. The work is still extant, and the technical and constructive features are perfect, since their restoration. It is amusing to read Vasari's patronizing account of Tafi; from the late Renaissance point of view, the mosaic worker seemed to be a barbarous Goth at best: "The good fortune of Andrea was really great," says Vasari, "to be born in an age which, doing all things in the rudest manner, could value so highly the works of an artist who really merited so little, not to say nothing!" Gaddo Gaddi was a painstaking worker in mosaic, executing some works on a small scale entirely in eggshells of varying tints. In the Baroncelli chapel in Florence is a painting by Taddeo Gaddi, in which occur the portraits of his father, Gaddo Gaddi, and Andrea Tafi. About this time the delightful mosaic at St. Clemente, in Rome, was executed. With its central cross and graceful vine decorations, it stands out unique among the groups of saints and seraphs, of angels and hierarchies, of most of the Roman apsidal ornaments. The mosaic in the basilica of St. John Lateran is by Jacopo Torriti. In the design there are two inconspicuous figures, intentionally smaller than the others, of two monks on their knees, working, with measure and compass. These represent Jacopo Torriti and his co-worker, Camerino. One of them is inscribed (translated) "Jacopo Torriti, painter, did this work," and the other, "Brother Jacopo Camerino, companion of the master worker, commends himself to the blessed John." The tools and implements used by mosaic artists are represented in the hands of these two monks. Torriti was apparently a greater man in some respects than his contemporaries. He based his art rather on Roman than Greek tradition, and his works exhibit less Byzantine formality than many mosaics of the period. On the apse of Sta. Maria Maggiore there appears a signature, "Jacopo Torriti made this work in mosaic." Gaddo Gaddi also added a composition below the vault, about 1308. The well-known mosaic called the Navicella in the atrium of St. Peter's, Rome, was originally made by Giotto. It has been much restored and altered, but some of the original design undoubtedly remains. Giotto went to Rome to undertake this work in 1298; but the present mosaic is largely the restoration of Bernini, who can hardly be considered as a sympathetic interpreter of the early Florentine style. Vasari speaks of the Navicella as "a truly wonderful work, and deservedly eulogized by all enlightened judges." He marvels at the way in which Giotto has produced harmony and interchange of light and shade so cleverly: "with mere pieces of glass" (Vasari is so naïvely overwhelmed with ignorance when he comes to deal with handicraft) especially on the large sail of the boat. In Venice, the Mascoli chapel was ornamented by scenes from the life of the Virgin, in 1430. The artist was Michele Zambono, who designed and superintended the work himself. At Or San Michele in Florence, the painter Peselli, or Guliano Arrigo, decorated the tabernacle, in 1416. Among other artists who entered the field of mosaic, were Baldovinetti and Domenico Ghirlandajo, the painter who originated the motto: "The only painting for eternity is mosaic." In the sixteenth century the art of mosaic ceased to observe due limitations. The ideal was to reproduce exactly in mosaic such pictures as were prepared by Titian, Pordenone, Raphael, and other realistic painters. Georges Sand, in her charming novel, "Les Maitres Mosaïstes," gives one the atmosphere of the workshops in Venice in this later period. Tintoretto and Zuccato, the aged painter, are discussing the durability of mosaic:--"Since it resists so well," says Zuccato, "how comes it that the Seignory is repairing all the domes of St. Mark's, which to-day are as bare as my skull?" To which Tintoretto makes answer: "Because at the time when they were decorated with mosaics, Greek artists were scarce in Venice. They came from a distance, and remained but a short time: their apprentices were hastily trained, and executed the works entrusted to them without knowing their business, and without being able to give them the necessary solidity. Now that this art has been cultivated in Venice, century after century, we have become as skilful as even the Greeks were." The two sons of Zuccato, who are engaged in this work, confide to each other their trials and difficulties in the undertaking: like artists of all ages, they cannot easily convince their patrons that they comprehend their art better than their employers! Francesco complains of the Procurator, who is commissioned to examine the work: "He is not an artist. He sees in mosaic only an application of particles more or less brilliant. Perfection of tone, beauty of design, ingenuity of composition, are nothing to him.... Did I not try in vain the other day to make him understand that the old pieces of gilded crystal used by our ancestors and a little tarnished by time, were more favourable to colour than those manufactured to-day?" "Indeed, you make a mistake, Messer Francesco," said he, "in handing over to the Bianchini all the gold of modern manufacture. The Commissioners have decided that the old will do mixed with the new."... "But did I not in vain try to make him understand that this brilliant gold would hurt the faces, and completely ruin the effect of colour?"... The answer of the Procurator was, "The Bianchini do not scruple to use it, and their mosaics please the eye much better than yours," so his brother Valerio, laughing, asks, "What need of worrying yourself after such a decision as that? Suppress the shadows, cut a breadth of material from a great plate of enamel and lay it over the breast of St. Nicaise, render St. Cecilia's beautiful hair with a badly cut tile, a pretty lamb for St. John the Baptist, and the Commission will double your salary and the public clap its hands. Really, my brother, you who dream of glory, I do not understand how you can pledge yourself to the worship of art." "I dream of glory, it is true," replied Francesco, "but of a glory that is lasting, not the vain popularity of a day. I should like to leave an honoured name, if not an illustrious one, and make those who examine the cupolas of St. Mark's five hundred years hence say, 'This was the work of a conscientious artist.'" A description follows of the scene of the mosaic workers pursuing their calling. "Here was heard abusive language, there the joyous song; further on, the jest; above, the hammer: below, the trowel: now the dull and continuous thud of the tampon on the mosaics, and anon the clear and crystal like clicking of the glassware rolling from the baskets on to the pavement, in waves of rubies and emeralds. Then the fearful grating of the scraper on the cornice, and finally the sharp rasping cry of the saw in the marble, to say nothing of the low masses said at the end of the chapel in spite of the racket." [Illustration: MOSAIC IN BAS-RELIEF, NAPLES] The Zuccati were very independent skilled workmen, as well as being able to design their own subjects. They were, in the judgment of Georges Sand, superior to another of the masters in charge of the works, Bozza, who was less of a man, although an artist of some merit. Later than these men, there were few mosaic workers of high standing; in Florence the art degenerated into a mere decorative inlay of semi-precious material, heraldic in feeling, costly and decorative, but an entirely different art from that of the Greeks and Romans. Lapis-lazuli with gold veinings, malachite, coral, alabaster, and rare marbles superseded the smalts and gold of an elder day. CHAPTER XI ILLUMINATION OF BOOKS One cannot enter a book shop or a library to-day without realizing how many thousands of books are in constant circulation. There was an age when books were laboriously but most beautifully written, instead of being thus quickly manufactured by the aid of the type-setting machine; the material on which the glossy text was executed was vellum instead of the cheap paper of to-day, the illustrations, instead of being easily reproduced by photographic processes, were veritable miniature paintings, most decorative, ablaze with colour and fine gold,--in these times it is easy to forget that there was ever a period when the making of a single book occupied years, and sometimes the life-time of one or two men. In those days, when the transcription of books was one of the chief occupations in religious houses, the recluse monk, in the quiet of the scriptorium, was, in spite of his seclusion, and indeed, by reason of it, the chief link between the world of letters and the world of men. The earliest known example of work by a European monk dates from the year 517; but shortly after this there was a great increase in book making, and monasteries were founded especially for the purpose of perpetuating literature. The first establishment of this sort was the monastery of Vivaria, in Southern Italy, founded by Cassiodorus, a Greek who lived between the years 479 and 575, and who had been the scribe (or "private secretary") of Theodoric the Goth. About the same time, St. Columba in Ireland founded a house with the intention of multiplying books, so that in the sixth century, in both the extreme North and in the South, the religious orders had commenced the great work of preserving for future ages the literature of the past and of their own times. Before examining the books themselves, it will be interesting to observe the conditions under which the work was accomplished. Sometimes the scriptorium was a large hall or studio, with various desks about; sometimes the North walk of the cloister was divided into little cells, called "carrels," in each of which was room for the writer, his desk, and a little shelf for his inks and colours. These carrels may be seen in unusual perfection in Gloucester. In very cold weather a small brazier of charcoal was also introduced. Cassiodorus writes thus of the privilege of being a copyist of holy books. "He may fill his mind with the Scriptures while copying the sayings of the Lord; with his fingers he gives life to men and arms against the wiles of the Devil; as the antiquarius copies the word of Christ, so many wounds does he inflict upon Satan. What he writes in his cell will be carried far and wide over distant provinces. Man multiplies the word of Heaven: if I may dare so to speak, the three fingers of his right hand are made to represent the utterances of the Holy Trinity. The fast travelling reed writes down the holy words, thus avenging the malice of the wicked one, who caused a reed to be used to smite the head of the Saviour." When the scriptorium was consecrated, these words were used (and they would be most fitting words to-day, in the consecration of libraries or class rooms which are to be devoted to religious study): "Vouchsafe, O, Lord, to bless this workroom of thy servants, that all which they write therein may be comprehended by their intelligence, and realized by their work." Scriptorium work was considered equal to labour in the fields. In the Rule of St. Fereol, in the sixth century, there is this clause: "He who doth not turn up the earth with his plough, ought to write the parchment with his fingers." The Capitulary of Charlemagne contains this phrase: "Do not permit your scribes or pupils, either in reading or writing, to garble the text; when you are preparing copies of the Gospels, the Psalter, or the Missal, see that the work is confided to men of mature age, who will write with due care." Some of the scribes were prolific book transcribers. Jacob of Breslau, who died in 1480, copied so many books that it is said that "six horses could with difficulty bear the burden of them!" The work of each scriptorium was devoted first to the completion of the library of the individual monastery, and after that, to other houses, or to such patrons as were rich enough to order books to be transcribed for their own use. The library of a monastery was as much a feature as the scriptorium. The monks were not like the rising literary man, who, when asked if he had read "Pendennis" replied, "No--I never read books--I write them." Every scribe was also a reader. There was a regular system of lending books from the central store. A librarian was in charge, and every monk was supposed to have some book which he was engaged in reading "straight through" as the Rule of St. Benedict enjoins, just as much as the one which he was writing. As silence was obligatory in the scriptorium and library, as well as in the cloisters, they were forced to apply for the volumes which they desired by signs. For a general work, the sign was to extend the hand and make a movement as if turning over the leaves of a book. If a Missal was wanted, the sign of the cross was added to the same form; for a Gospel, the sign of the cross was made upon the forehead, while those who wished tracts to read, should lay one hand on the mouth and the other on the stomach; a Capitulary was indicated by the gesture of raising the clasped hands to heaven, while a Psalter could be obtained by raising the hands above the head in the form of a crown. As the good brothers were not possessed of much religious charity, they indicated a secular book by scratching their ears, as dogs are supposed to do, to imply the suggestion that the infidel who wrote such a book was no better than a dog! This extract is made from a book in one of the early monastic libraries. "Oh, Lord, send the blessing of thy Holy Spirit upon these books, that, cleansing them from all earthly things, they may mercifully enlighten our hearts, and give us true understanding, and grant that by their teaching they may brightly preserve and make a full abundance of good works according to Thy will." The books were kept in cupboards, with doors; in the Customs of the Augustine Priory of Barnwell, these directions are given: "The press in which the books are kept ought to be lined with wood, that the damp of the walls may not moisten or stain the books. The press should be divided vertically as well as horizontally, by sundry partitions, on which the books may be ranged so as to be separated from one another, for fear they be packed so close as to injure one another, or to delay those who want them." We read of the "chained books" of the Middle Ages, and I think there is a popular belief that this referred to the fact that the Bible was kept in the priest's hands, and chained so that the people should not be able to read it for themselves and become familiar with every part of it. This, however, is a mistake. It was the books in the libraries which were chained, so that dishonest people should not make way with them! In one Chapter Library, there occurs a denunciation of such thieves, and instructions how to fasten the volumes. It reads as follows: "Since to the great reproach of the Nation, and a greater one to our Holy Religion, the thievish disposition of some who enter libraries to learn no good there, hath made it necessary to secure the sacred volumes themselves with chains (which are better deserved by those ill persons, who have too much learning to be hanged, and too little to be honest), care shall be taken that the chains should neither be too long nor too clumsy, more than the use of them requires: and that the loops whereby they are fastened to the books may be rivetted on such a part of the cover, and so smoothly, as not to gall or graze the books, while they are moved to or from their respective places. And forasmuch as the more convenient way to place books in libraries is to turn their backs out showing the title and other decent ornaments in gilt work which ought not to be hidden, this new method of fixing the chain to the back of the book is recommended until one more suitable shall be contrived." Numerous monasteries in England devoted much time to scriptorium work. In Gloucester may still be seen the carrels of the scribes in the cloister wall, and there was also much activity in the book making art in Norwich, Glastonbury, and Winchester, and in other cities. The two monasteries of St. Peter and St. Swithin in Winchester were, the chronicler says, "so close packed together,... that between the foundation of their respective buildings there was barely room for a man to pass along. The choral service of one monastery conflicted with that of the other, so that both were spoiled, and the ringing of their bells together produced a horrid effect." One of the most important monasteries of early times, on the Continent, was that conducted by Alcuin, under the protection of Charlemagne. When the appointed time for writing came round, the monks filed into the scriptorium, taking their places at their desks. One of their number then stood in the midst, and read aloud, slowly, for dictation, the work upon which they were engaged as copyists; in this way, a score of copies could be made at one time. Alcuin himself would pass about among them, making suggestions and correcting errors, a beautiful example of true consecration, the great scholar spending his time thus in supervising the transcription of the Word of God, from a desire to have it spread far and wide. Alcuin sent a letter to Charlemagne, accompanying a present of a copy of the Bible, at the time of the emperor's coronation, and from this letter, which is still preserved, it may be seen how reverent a spirit his was, and how he esteemed the things of the spiritual life as greater than the riches of the world. "After deliberating a long while," he writes, "what the devotion of my mind might find worthy of a present equal to the splendour of your Imperial dignity, and the increase of your wealth,--at length by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, I found what it would be competent for me to offer, and fitting for your prudence to accept. For to me inquiring and considering, nothing appeared more worthy of your peaceful honour than the gifts of the Sacred Scriptures... which, knit together in the sanctity of one glorious body, and diligently amended, I have sent to your royal authority, by this your faithful son and servant, so that with full hands we may assist at the delightful service of your dignity." One of Alcuin's mottoes was: "Writing books is better than planting vines: for he who plants a vine serves his belly, while he who writes books serves his soul." Many different arts were represented in the making of a mediæval book. Of those employed, first came the scribe, whose duty it was to form the black even glossy letters with his pen; then came the painter, who must not only be a correct draughtsman, and an adept with pencil and brush, but must also understand how to prepare mordaunts and to lay the gold leaf, and to burnish it afterwards with an agate, or, as an old writer directs, "a dogge's tooth set in a stick." After him, the binder gathered the lustrous pages and put them together under silver mounted covers, with heavy clasps. At first, the illuminations were confined only to the capital letters, and red was the selected colour to give this additional life to the evenly written page. The red pigment was known as "minium." The artist who applied this was called a "miniator," and from this, was derived the term "miniature," which later referred to the pictures executed in the developed stages of the art. The use of the word "miniature," as applied to paintings on a small scale, was evolved from this expression. [Illustration: A SCRIBE AT WORK: 12TH CENTURY MANUSCRIPT] The difficulties were numerous. First, there was climate and temperature to consider. It was necessary to be very careful about the temperature to which gold leaf was exposed, and in order to dry the sizing properly, it was important that the weather should not be too damp nor too warm. Peter de St. Audemar, writing in the late thirteenth century, says: "Take notice that you ought not to work with gold or colours in a damp place, on account of the hot weather, which, as it is often injurious in burnishing gold, both to the colours on which the gold is laid and also to the gilding, if the work is done on parchment, so also it is injurious when the weather is too dry and arid." John Acherius, in 1399, observes, too, that "care must be taken as regards the situation, because windy weather is a hindrance, unless the gilder is in an enclosed place, and if the air is too dry, the colour cannot hold the gold under the burnisher." Illumination is an art which has always been difficult; we who attempt it to-day are not simply facing a lost art which has become impossible because of the changed conditions; even when followed along the best line in the best way the same trials were encountered. Early treatises vary regarding the best medium for laying leaf on parchment. There are very few vehicles which will form a connecting and permanent link between these two substances. There is a general impression that white of egg was used to hold the gold: but any one who has experimented knows that it is impossible to fasten metal to vellum by white of egg alone. Both oil and wax were often employed, and in nearly all recipes the use of glue made of boiled-down vellum is enjoined. In some of the monasteries there are records that the scribes had the use of the kitchen for drying parchment and melting wax. The introductions to the early treatises show the spirit in which the work was undertaken. Peter de St. Audemar commences: "By the assistance of God, of whom are all things that are good, I will explain to you how to make colours for painters and illuminators of books, and the vehicles for them, and other things appertaining thereto, as faithfully as I can in the following chapters." Peter was a North Frenchman of the thirteenth century. Of the recipes given by the early treatises, I will quote a few, for in reality they are all the literature we have upon the subject. Eraclius, who wrote in the twelfth century, gives accurate directions: "Take ochre and distemper it with water, and let it dry. In the meanwhile make glue with vellum, and whip some white of egg. Then mix the glue and the white of egg, and grind the ochre, which by this time is well dried, upon a marble slab; and lay it on the parchment with a paint brush;... then apply the gold, and let it remain so, without pressing it with the stone. When it is dry, burnish it well with a tooth. This," continues Eraclius naïvely, "is what I have learned by experiment, and have frequently proved, and you may safely believe me that I shall have told you the truth." This assurance of good faith suggests that possibly it was a habit of illuminators to be chary of information, guarding their own discoveries carefully, and only giving out partial directions to others of their craft. In the Bolognese Manuscript, one is directed to make a simple size from incense, white gum, and sugar candy, distempering it with wine; and in another place, to use the white of egg, whipped with the milk of the fig tree and powdered gum Arabic. Armenian Bole is a favourite ingredient. Gum and rose water are also prescribed, and again, gesso, white of egg, and honey. All of these recipes sound convincing, but if one tries them to-day, one has the doubtful pleasure of seeing the carefully laid gold leaf slide off as soon as the whole mixture is quite dry. Especially improbable is the recipe given in the Brussels Manuscript: "You lay on gold with well gummed water alone, and this is very good for gilding on parchment. You may also use fresh white of egg or fig juice alone in the same manner." Theophilus does not devote much time or space to the art of illuminating, for, as he is a builder of everything from church organs to chalices, glass windows, and even to frescoed walls, we must not expect too much information on minor details. He does not seem to direct the use of gold leaf at all, but of finely ground gold, which shall be applied with its size in the form of a paste, to be burnished later. He says (after directing that the gold dust shall be placed in a shell): "Take pure minium and add to it a third part of cinnibar, grinding it upon a stone with water. Which, being carefully ground, beat up the clear white of an egg, in summer with water, in winter without water," and this is to be used as a slightly raised bed for the gold. "Then," he continues, "place a little pot of glue on the fire, and when it is liquefied, pour it into the shell of gold and wash it with it." This is to be painted on to the gesso ground just mentioned, and when quite dry, burnished with an agate. This recipe is more like the modern Florentine method of gilding in illumination. Concerning the gold itself, there seem to have been various means employed for manufacturing substitutes for the genuine article. A curious recipe is given in the manuscript of Jehan de Begue, "Take bulls' brains, put them in a marble vase, and leave them for three weeks, when you will find gold making worms. Preserve them carefully." More quaint and superstitious is Theophilus' recipe for making Spanish Gold; but, as this is not quotable in polite pages, the reader must refer to the original treatise if he cares to trace its manufacture. Brushes made of hair are recommended by the Brussels manuscript, with a plea for "pencils of fishes' hairs for softening." If this does not refer to _sealskin_, it is food for conjecture! And for the binding of these beautiful volumes, how was the leather obtained? This is one way in which business and sport could be combined in the monastery, Warton says, "About the year 790, Charlemagne granted an unlimited right of hunting to the Abbot and monks of Sithiu, for making... of the skins of the deer they killed... covers for their books." There is no doubt that it had occurred to artists to experiment upon human skin, and perhaps the fact that this was an unsatisfactory texture is the chief reason why no books were made of it. A French commentator observes: "The skin of a man is nothing compared with the skin of a sheep.... Sheep is good for writing on both sides, but the skin of a dead man is just about as profitable as his bones,--better bury him, skin and bones together." There was some difficulty in obtaining manuscripts to copy. The Breviary was usually enclosed in a cage; rich parishioners were bribed by many masses and prayers, to bequeath manuscripts to churches. In old Paris, the Parchment Makers were a guild of much importance. Often they combined their trade with tavern keeping, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The Rector of the University was glad when this occurred, for the inn keeper and parchment maker was under his control, both being obliged to reside in the Pays Latin. Bishops were known to exhort the parchment makers, from the pulpit, to be honest and conscientious in preparing skins. A bookseller, too, was solemnly made to swear "faithfully to receive, take care of, and expose for sale the works which should be entrusted to him." He might not buy them for himself until they had been for sale a full month "at the disposition of the Masters and Scholars." But in return for these restrictions, the bookseller was admitted to the rights and privileges of the University. As clients of the University, these trades, which were associated with book making, joined in the "solemn processions" of those times; booksellers, binders, parchment makers, and illuminators, all marched together on these occasions. They were obliged to pay toll to the Rector for these privileges; the recipe for ink was a carefully guarded secret. It now becomes our part to study the books themselves, and see what results were obtained by applying all the arts involved in their making. The transition from the Roman illuminations to the Byzantine may be traced to the time when Constantine moved his seat of government from Rome to Constantinople. Constantinople then became the centre of learning, and books were written there in great numbers. For some centuries Constantinople was the chief city in the art of illuminating. The style that here grew up exhibited the same features that characterized Byzantine art in mosaic and decoration. The Oriental influence displayed itself in a lavish use of gold and colour; the remnant of Classical art was slight, but may sometimes be detected in the subjects chosen, and the ideas embodied. The Greek influence was the strongest. But the Greek art of the seventh and eighth centuries was not at all like the Classic art of earlier Greece; a conventional type had entered with Christianity, and is chiefly recognized by a stubborn conformity to precedent. It is difficult to date a Byzantine picture or manuscript, for the same severe hard form that prevailed in the days of Constantine is carried on to-day by the monks of Mt. Athos, and a Byzantine work of the ninth century is not easily distinguished from one of the fifteenth. In manuscripts, the caligraphy is often the only feature by which the work can be dated. In the earlier Byzantine manuscripts there is a larger proportion of Classical influence than in later ones, when the art had taken on its inflexible uniformity of design. One of the most interesting books in which this classical influence may be seen is in the Imperial Library at Vienna, being a work on Botany, by Dioscorides, written about 400 A. D. The miniatures in this manuscript have many of the characteristics of Roman work. The pigments used in Byzantine manuscripts are glossy, a great deal of ultramarine being used. The high lights are usually of gold, applied in sharp glittering lines, and lighting up the picture with very decorative effect. In large wall mosaics the same characteristics may be noted, and it is often suggested that these gold lines may have originated in an attempt to imitate cloisonné enamel, in which the fine gold line separates the different coloured spaces one from another. This theory is quite plausible, as cloisonné was made by the Byzantine goldsmiths. M. Lecoy de la Marche tells us that the first recorded name of an illuminator is that of a woman--Lala de Cizique, a Greek, who painted on ivory and on parchment in Rome during the first Christian century. But such a long period elapses between her time and that which we are about to study, that she can here occupy only the position of being referred to as an interesting isolated case. The Byzantine is a very easy style to recognize, because of the inflexible stiffness of the figures, depending for any beauty largely upon the use of burnished gold, and the symmetrical folds of the draperies, which often show a sort of archaic grace. Byzantine art is not so much representation as suggestion and symbolism. There is a book which may still be consulted, called "A Byzantine Guide to Painting," which contains accurate recipes to be followed in painting pictures of each saint, the colours prescribed for the dress of the Virgin, and the grouping to be adopted in representing each of the standard Scriptural scenes; and it has hardly from the first occurred to any Byzantine artist to depart from these regulations. The heads and faces lack individuality, and are outlined and emphasized with hard, unsympathetic black lines; the colouring is sallow and the expression stolid. Any attempt at delineating emotion is grotesque, and grimacing. The beauty, for in spite of all these drawbacks there is great beauty, in Byzantine manuscripts, is, as has been indicated, a charm of colour and gleaming gold rather than of design. In the Boston Art Museum there is a fine example of a large single miniature of a Byzantine "Flight into Egypt," in which the gold background is of the highest perfection of surface, and is raised so as to appear like a plate of beaten gold. There is no attempt to portray a scene as it might have occurred; the rule given in the Manual is followed, and the result is generally about the same. The background is usually either gold or blue, with very little effort at landscape. Trees are represented in flat values of green with little white ruffled edges and articulations. The sea is figured by a blue surface with a symmetrical white pattern of a wavy nature. A building is usually introduced about half as large as the people surrounding it. There is no attempt, either, at perspective. The anatomy of the human form was not understood at all. Nearly all the figures in the art of this period are draped. Wherever it is necessary to represent the nude, a lank, disproportioned person with an indefinite number of ribs is the result, proving that the monastic art school did not include a life class. Most of the best Byzantine examples date from the fifth to the seventh centuries. After that a decadence set in, and by the eleventh century the art had deteriorated to a mere mechanical process. The Irish and Anglo-Saxon work are chiefly characterized in their early stages by the use of interlaced bands as a decorative motive. The Celtic goldsmiths were famous for their delicate work in filigree, made of threads of gold used in connection with enamelled grounds. In decorating their manuscripts, the artists were perhaps unconsciously influenced by this, and the result is a marvellous use of conventional form and vivid colours, while the human figure is hardly attempted at all, or, when introduced, is so conventionally treated, as to be only a sign instead of a representation. Probably the earliest representation of a pen in the holder, although of a very primitive pattern, occurs in a miniature in the Gospels of Mac Durnam, where St. John is seen writing with a pen in one hand and a knife, for sharpening it, in the other. This picture is two centuries earlier than any other known representation of the use of the pen, the volume having been executed in the early part of the eighth century. Two of the most famous Irish books are the Book of Kells, and the Durham Book. The Book of Kells is now in Trinity College, Dublin. It is also known as the Gospel of St. Columba. St. Columba came, as the Chronicle of Ethelwerd states, in the year 565: "five years afterwards Christ's servant Columba came from Scotia (Ireland) to Britain, to preach the word of God to the Picts." [Illustration: DETAIL FROM THE DURHAM BOOK] The intricacy of the interlacing decoration is so minute that it is impossible to describe it. Each line may be followed to its conclusion, with the aid of a strong magnifying glass, but cannot be clearly traced with the naked eye. Westwood reports that, with a microscope, he counted in one square inch of the page, one hundred and fifty-eight interlacements of bands, each being of white, bordered on either side with a black line. In this book there is no use of gold, and the treatment of the human form is most inadequate. There is no idea of drawing except for decorative purposes; it is an art of the pen rather than of the brush--it hardly comes into the same category as most of the books designated as illuminated manuscripts. The so-called Durham Book, or the Gospels of St. Cuthbert, was executed at the Abbey of Lindisfarne, in 688, and is now in the British Museum. There is a legend that in the ninth century pirates plundered the Abbey, and the few monks who survived decided to seek a situation less unsafe than that on the coast, so they gathered up their treasures, the body of the saint, their patron, Cuthbert, and the book, which had been buried with him, and set out for new lands. They set sail for Ireland, but a storm arose, and their boat was swamped. The body and the book were lost. After reaching land, however, the fugitives discovered the box containing the book, lying high and dry upon the shore, having been cast up by the waves in a truly wonderful state of preservation. Any one who knows the effect of dampness upon parchment, and how it cockles the material even on a damp day, will the more fully appreciate this miracle. Giraldus Cambriensis went to Ireland as secretary to Prince John, in 1185, and thus describes the Gospels of Kildare, a book which was similar to the Book of Kells, and his description may apply equally to either volume. "Of all the wonders of Kildare I have found nothing more wonderful than this marvellous book, written in the time of the Virgin St. Bridget, and, as they say, at the dictation of an angel. Here you behold the magic face divinely drawn, and there the mystical forms of the Evangelists, there an eagle, here a calf, so closely wrought together, that if you look carelessly at them, they would seem rather like a uniform blot than like an exquisite interweavement of figures; exhibiting no perfection of skill or art, where all is really skill and perfection of art. But if you look closely at them with all the acuteness of sight that you can command, and examine the inmost secrets of this wondrous art, you will discover such delicate, such wonderful and finely wrought lines, twisted and interwoven with such intricate knots and adorned with such fresh and brilliant colours, that you will readily acknowledge the whole to have been the work of angelic rather than human skill." At first gold was not used at all in Irish work, but the manuscripts of a slightly later date, and especially of the Anglo-Saxon school, show a superbly decorative use both of gold and silver. The "Coronation Oath Book of the Anglo-Saxon Kings" is especially rich in this exquisite metallic harmony. By degrees, also, the Anglo-Saxons became more perfected in the portrayal of the human figure, so that by the twelfth century the work of the Southern schools and those of England were more alike than at any previous time. [Illustration: IVY PATTERN, FROM A 14TH CENTURY FRENCH MANUSCRIPT] In the Northern manuscripts of the eleventh and twelfth centuries it is amusing to note that the bad characters are always represented as having large hooked noses, which fact testifies to the dislike of the Northern races for the Italians and Southern peoples. The thirteenth and fourteenth centuries may be considered to stand for the "Golden Age" of miniature art in all the countries of Europe. In England and France especially the illuminated books of the thirteenth century were marvels of delicate work, among which the Tenison Psalter and the Psalter of Queen Mary, both in the British Museum, are excellent examples. Queen Mary's Psalter was not really painted for Queen Mary; it was executed two centuries earlier. But it was being sent abroad in 1553, and was seized by the Customs. They refused to allow it to pass. Afterwards it was presented to Queen Mary. At this time grew up a most beautiful and decorative style, known as "ivy pattern," consisting of little graceful flowering sprays, with tiny ivy leaves in gold and colours. The Gothic feeling prevails in this motive, and the foliate forms are full of spined cusps. The effect of a book decorated in the ivy pattern, is radiant and jewelled as the pages turn, and the burnishing of the gold was brought to its full perfection at this time. The value of the creamy surface of the vellum was recognized as part of the colour scheme. With the high polish of the gold it was necessary to use always the strong crude colours, as the duller tints would appear faded by contrast. In the later stages of the art, when a greater realism was attempted, and better drawing had made it necessary to use quieter tones, gold paint was generally adopted instead of leaf, as being less conspicuous and more in harmony with the general scheme; and one of the chief glories of book decoration died in this change. [Illustration: MEDIÆVAL ILLUMINATION] The divergences of style in the work of various countries are well indicated by Walter de Gray Birch, who says: "The English are famous for clearness and breadth; the French for delicate fineness and harmoniously assorted colours, the Flemish for minutely stippled details, and the Italian for the gorgeous yet calm dignity apparent in their best manuscripts." Individuality of facial expression, although these faces are generally ugly, is a characteristic of Flemish work, while the faces in French miniatures are uniform and pretty. One marked feature in the English thirteenth and fourteenth century books, is the introduction of many small grotesques in the borders, and these little creatures, partly animal and partly human, show a keen sense of humour, which had to display itself, even though inappropriately, but always with a true spirit of wit. One might suppose on first looking at these grotesques, that the droll expression is unintentional: that the monks could draw no better, and that their sketches are funny only because of their inability to portray more exactly the thing represented. But a closer examination will convince one that the wit was deliberate, and that the very subtlety and reserve of their expression of humour is an indication of its depth. To-day an artist with the sense of caricature expresses himself in the illustrated papers and other public channels provided for the overflow of high spirits; but the cloistered author of the Middle Ages had only the sculptured details and the books belonging to the church as vehicles for his satire. The carvings on the miserere seats in choirs of many cathedrals were executed by the monks, and abound in witty representations of such subjects as Reynard the Fox, cats catching rats, etc.; inspired generally by the knowledge of some of the inconsistencies in the lives of ecclesiastical personages. The quiet monks often became cynical. The spirit of the times determines the standard of wit. At various periods in the world's history, men have been amused by strange and differing forms of drollery; what seemed excruciatingly funny to our grandparents does not strike us as being at all entertaining. Each generation has its own idea of humour, and its own fun-makers, varying as much as fashion in dress. In mediæval times, the sense of humour in art was more developed than at any period except our own day. Even-while the monk was consecrating his time to the work of beautifying the sanctuary, his sense of humour was with him, and must crop out. The grotesque has always played an important part in art; in the subterranean Roman vaults of the early centuries, one form of this spirit is exhibited. But the element of wit is almost absent; it is displayed in oppressively obvious forms, so that it loses its subtlety: it represents women terminating in floral scrolls, or sea-horses with leaves growing instead of fins. The same spirit is seen in the grotesques of the Renaissance, where the sense of humour is not emphasized, the ideal in this class of decoration being simply to fill the space acceptably, with voluptuous graceful lines, mythological monstrosities, the inexpressive mingling of human and vegetable characteristics, grinning dragons, supposed to inspire horror, and such conceits, while the attempt to amuse the spectator is usually absent. In mediæval art, however, the beauty of line, the sense of horror, and the voluptuous spirit, are all more or less subservient to the light-hearted buoyancy of a keen sense of fun. To illustrate this point, I wish to call the attention of the reader to the wit of the monastic scribes during the Gothic period. Who could look at the little animals which are found tucked away almost out of sight in the flowery margins of many illuminated manuscripts, without seeing that the artist himself must have been amused at their pranks, and intended others to be so? One can picture a gray-hooded brother, chuckling alone at his own wit, carefully tracing a jolly little grotesque, and then stealing softly to the alcove of some congenial spirit, and in a whisper inviting his friend to come and see the satire which he has carefully introduced: "A perfect portrait of the Bishop, only with claws instead of legs! So very droll! And dear brother, while you are here, just look at the expression of this little rabbit's ears, while he listens to the bombastic utterance of this monkey who wears a stole!" [Illustration: CARICATURE OF A BISHOP] Such a fund of playful humour is seldom found in a single book as that embodied in the Tenison Psalter, of which only a few pages remain of the work of the original artist. The book was once the property of Archbishop Tenison. These few pages show to the world the most perfect example of the delicacy and skill of the miniaturist. On one page, a little archer, after having pulled his bow-string, stands at the foot of the border, gazing upwards after the arrow, which has been caught in the bill of a stork at the top of the page. The attitude of a little fiddler who is exhibiting his trick monkeys can hardly be surpassed by caricaturists of any time. A quaint bit of cloister scandal is indicated in an initial from the Harleian Manuscript, in which a monk who has been entrusted with the cellar keys is seen availing himself of the situation, eagerly quaffing a cup of wine while he stoops before a large cask. In a German manuscript I have seen, cuddled away among the foliage, in the margin, a couple of little monkeys, feeding a baby of their own species with pap from a spoon. The baby monkey is closely wrapped in the swathing bands with which one is familiar as the early trussing of European children. Satire and wrath are curiously blended in a German manuscript of the twelfth century, in which the scribe introduces a portrait of himself hurling a missile at a venturesome mouse who is eating the monk's cheese--a fine Camembert!--under his very nose. In the book which he is represented as transcribing, the artist has traced the words--"Pessime mus, sepius me provocas ad iram, ut te Deus perdat." ("Wicked mouse, too often you provoke me to anger--may God destroy thee!") In their illustrations the scribes often showed how literal was their interpretation of Scriptural text. For instance, in a passage in the book known as the Utrecht Psalter, there is an illustration of the verse, "The words of the Lord are pure words; as silver tried in the furnace, purified seven times." A glowing forge is seen, and two craftsmen are working with bellows, pincers, and hammer, to prove the temper of some metal, which is so molten that a stream of it is pouring out of the furnace. Another example of this literal interpretation, is in the Psalter of Edwin, where two men are engaged in sharpening a sword upon a grindstone, in illustration of the text about the wicked, "who whet their tongue like a sword." There is evidence of great religious zeal in the exhortations of the leaders to those who worked under them. Abbot John of Trittenham thus admonished the workers in the Scriptorium in 1486: "I have diminished your labours out of the monastery lest by working badly you should only add to your sins, and have enjoined on you the manual labour of writing and binding books. There is in my opinion no labour more becoming a monk than the writing of ecclesiastical books.... You will recall that the library of this monastery... had been dissipated, sold, or made way with by disorderly monks before us, so that when I came here I found but fourteen volumes." It was often with a sense of relief that a monk finished his work upon a volume, as the final word, written by the scribe himself, and known as the Explicit, frequently shows. In an old manuscript in the Monastery of St. Aignan the writer has thus expressed his emotions: "Look out for your fingers! Do not put them on my writing! You do not know what it is to write! It cramps your back, it obscures your eyes, it breaks your sides and stomach!" It is interesting to note the various forms which these final words of the scribes took; sometimes the Explicit is a pathetic appeal for remembrance in the prayers of the reader, and sometimes it contains a note of warning. In a manuscript of St. Augustine now at Oxford, there is written: "This book belongs to St. Mary's of Robert's Bridge; whoever shall steal it or in any way alienate it from this house, or mutilate it, let him be Anathema Marantha!" A later owner, evidently to justify himself, has added, "I, John, Bishop of Exeter, know not where this aforesaid house is, nor did I steal this book, but acquired it in a lawful way!" The Explicit in the Benedictional of Ethelwold is touching: the writer asks "all who gaze on this book to ever pray that after the end of the flesh I may inherit health in heaven; this is the prayer of the scribe, the humble Godemann." A mysterious Explicit occurs at the end of an Irish manuscript of 1138, "Pray for Moelbrighte who wrote this book. Great was the crime when Cormac Mac Carthy was slain by Tardelvach O'Brian." Who shall say what revelation may have been embodied in these words? Was it in the nature of a confession or an accusation of some hitherto unknown occurrence? Coming as it does at the close of a sacred book, it was doubtless written for some important reason. Among curious examples of the Explicit may be quoted the following: "It is finished. Let it be finished, and let the writer go out for a drink." A French monk adds: "Let a pretty girl be given to the writer for his pains." Ludovico di Cherio, a famous illuminator of the fifteenth century, has this note at the end of a book upon which he had long been engaged: "Completed on the vigil of the nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, on an empty stomach." (Whether this refers to an imposed penance or fast, or whether Ludovico considered that the offering of a meek and empty stomach would be especially acceptable, the reader may determine.) There is an amusing rhymed Explicit in an early fifteenth century copy of Froissart: "I, Raoul Tanquy, who never was drunk (Or hardly more than judge or monk,) On fourth of July finished this book, Then to drink at the Tabouret myself took, With Pylon and boon companions more Who tripe with onions and garlic adore." But if some of the monks complained or made sport of their work, there were others to whom it was a divine inspiration, and whose affection for their craft was almost fanatic, an anecdote being related of one of them, who, when about to die, refused to be parted from the book upon which he had bestowed much of his life's energy, and who clutched it in his last agony so that even death should not take it from him. The good Othlonus of Ratisbon congratulates himself upon his own ability in a spirit of humility even while he rejoices in his great skill; he says: "I think proper to add an account of the great knowledge and capacity for writing which was given me by the Lord in my childhood. When as yet a little child, I was sent to school and quickly learned my letters, and I began long before the time of learning, and without any order from my master, to learn the art of writing. Undertaking this in a furtive and unusual manner, and without any teacher, I got a habit of holding my pen wrongly, nor were any of my teachers afterwards able to correct me on that point." This very human touch comes down to us through the ages to prove the continuity of educational experience! The accounts of his monastic labours put us to the blush when we think of such activity. "While in the monastery of Tegernsee in Bavaria I wrote many books.... Being sent to Franconia while I was yet a boy, I worked so hard writing that before I had returned I had nearly lost my eyesight. After I became a monk at St. Emmerem, I was appointed the school-master. The duties of the office so fully occupied my time that I was able to do the transcribing I was interested in only by nights and in holidays.... I was, however, able, in addition to writing the books that I had myself composed, and the copies which I gave away for the edification of those who asked for them, to prepare nineteen missals, three books of the Gospels and Epistles, besides which I wrote four service books for Matins. I wrote in addition several other books for the brethren at Fulda, for the monks at Hirschfeld, and at Amerbach, for the Abbot of Lorsch, for certain friends at Passau, and for other friends in Bohemia, for the monastery at Tegernsee, for the monastery at Preyal, for that at Obermunster, and for my sister's son. Moreover, I sent and gave at different times sermons, proverbs, and edifying writings. Afterward old age's infirmities of various kinds hindered me." Surely Othlonus was justified in retiring when his time came, and enjoying some respite from his labours! Religious feeling in works of art is an almost indefinable thing, but one which is felt in all true emanations of the conscientious spirit of devotion. Fra Angelico had a special gift for expressing in his artistic creations is own spiritual life; the very qualities for which he stood, his virtues and his errors,--purity, unquestioning faith in the miraculous, narrowness of creed, and gentle and adoring humility,--all these elements are seen to completeness in his decorative pictures. Perhaps this is because he really lived up to his principles. One of his favourite sayings was "He who occupies himself with the things of Christ, must ever dwell with Christ." It is related that, in the Monastery of Maes Eyck, while the illuminators were at work in the evening, copying Holy Writ, the devil, in a fit of rage, extinguished their candles; they, however, were promptly lighted again by a Breath of the Holy Spirit, and the good work went on! Salvation was supposed to be gained through conscientious writing. A story is told of a worldly and frivolous brother, who was guilty of many sins and follies, but who, nevertheless, was an industrious scribe. When he came to die, the devil claimed his soul. The angels, however, brought before the Throne a great book of religious Instructions which he had illuminated, and for every letter therein, he received pardon for one sin. Behold! When the account was completed, there proved to be one letter over! the narrator adds naïvely, "And it was a very big book." [Illustration: ILLUMINATION BY GHERART DAVID OF BRUGES, 1498; ST. BARBARA] Perhaps more than any books executed in the better period, after the decline had begun, were the Books of Hours, containing the numerous daily devotions which form part of the ritual of the Roman Church. Every well appointed lady was supposed to own a copy, and there is a little verse by Eustache Deschamps, a poet of the time of Charles V., in which a woman is supposed to be romancing about the various treasures she would like to possess. She says: "Hours of Our Lady should be mine, Fitting for a noble dame, Of lofty lineage and name; Wrought most cunningly and quaint, In gold and richest azure paint. Rare covering of cloth of gold Full daintily it shall enfold, Or, open to the view exposed, Two golden clasps to keep it closed." John Skelton the poet did honour to the illuminated tomes of his day, in spite of the fact that the æesthetic deterioration had begun. "With that of the boke lozende were the clasps The margin was illumined all with golden railes, And bice empictured, with grasshoppers and waspes With butterflies and fresh peacock's tailes: Englosed with... pictures well touched and quickly, It wold have made a man hole that had be right sickly!" But here we have an indication of that realism which rung the death knell of the art. The grasshoppers on a golden ground, and the introduction of carefully painted insect and floral life, led to all sorts of extravagances of taste. But before this decadence, there was a very interesting period of transition, which may be studied to special advantage in Italy, and is seen chiefly in the illuminations of the great choral books which were used in the choirs of churches. One book served for all the singers in those days, and it was placed upon an open lectern in the middle of the choir, so that all the singers could see it: it will be readily understood that the lettering had to be generous, and the page very large for this purpose. The decoration of these books took on the characteristics of breadth in keeping with their dimensions, and of large masses of ornament rather than delicate meander. The style of the Italian choral books is an art in itself. The Books of Hours and Missals developed during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries into positive art galleries, whole pages being occupied by paintings, the vellum being entirely hidden by the decoration. The art of illumination declined as the art of miniature painting progressed. The fact that the artist was decorating a page in a book was lost sight of in his ambition to paint a series of small pictures. The glint of burnished gold on the soft surface of the vellum was no longer considered elegant, and these more elaborate pictures often left not even a margin, so that the pictures might as well have been executed on paper and canvas and framed separately, for they do not suggest ornaments in a book after this change had taken place. Lettering is hardly introduced at all on the same page with the illustration, or, when it is, is placed in a little tablet which is simply part of the general scheme. [Illustration: CHORAL BOOK, SIENA] Among the books in this later period I will refer specifically to two only, the Hours of Ann of Brittany, and the Grimani Breviary. The Hours of Ann of Brittany, illuminated by a famous French artist of the time of Louis XII., is reproduced in facsimile by Curmer, and is therefore available for consultation in most large libraries. It will repay any one who is interested in miniature art to examine this book, for the work is so excellent that it is almost like turning the leaves of the original. The Grimani Breviary, which was illuminated by Flemish artists of renown, was the property of Cardinal Grimani, and is now one of the treasures of the Library of St. Marc in Venice. It is impossible in a short space to comment to any adequate extent upon the work of such eminent artists as Jean Foucquet, Don Giulio Clovio, Sano di Pietro, and Liberale da Verona; they were technically at the head of their art, and yet, so far as taste in book decoration is to be considered, their work would be more satisfactory as framed miniatures than as marginal or paginal ornament. Stippling was brought to its ultimate perfection by Don Giulio Clovio, but it is supposed to have been first practised by Antonio de Holanda. One of Jehan Foucquet's assistants was Jehan Bourdichon. There is an interesting memorandum extant, relating to a piece of illumination which Bourdichon had accomplished. "To the said B. for having had written a book in parchment named the Papalist, the same illuminated in gold and azure and made in the same nine rich Histories, and for getting it bound and covered, thirty crowns in gold." At the time of the Renaissance there was a rage for "tiny books," miniature copies of famous works. M. Würtz possessed a copy of the Sonnets of Petrarch, written in italics, in brown ink, of which the length was one inch, and the breadth five-eighths of an inch, showing fifty lines on a page. The text is only visible through a glass. It is in Italian taste, with several miniatures, and is bound in gold filigree. The value of illuminated books is enormous. An Elector of Bavaria once offered a town for a single book; but the monks had sufficient worldly wisdom to know that he could easily take the town again, and so declined the exchange! With the introduction of printing, the art of illumination was doomed. The personal message from the scribe to the reader was merged in the more comprehensive message of the press to the public. It was no longer necessary to spend a year on a work that could be accomplished in a day; so the artists found themselves reduced to painting initial letters in printed books, sometimes on vellum, but more often on paper. This art still flourishes in many localities; but it is no more illumination, though it is often so designated, than photography is portrait painting. Both are useful in their departments and for their several purposes, but it is incorrect to confound them. [Illustration: DETAIL FROM AN ITALIAN CHORAL BOOK] Once, while examining an old choral book, I was particularly struck with the matchless personal element which exists in a book which is made, as this was, by the hand, from the first stroke to the last. The first page showed a bold lettering, the sweep of the pen being firm and free. Animal vigour was demonstrated in the steady hand and the clear eye. The illuminations were daintily painted, and the sure touch of the little white line used to accentuate the colours, was noticeable. After several pages, the letters became less true and firm. The lines had a tendency to slant to the right; a weakness could be detected in the formerly strong man. Finally the writing grew positively shaky. The skill was lost. Suddenly, on another page, came a change. A new hand had taken up the work--that of a novice. He had not the skill of the previous worker in his best days, but the indecision of his lines was that of inexperience, not of failing ability. Gradually he improved. His colours were clearer and ground more smoothly; his gold showed a more glassy surface. The book ended as it had begun, a virile work of art; but in the course of its making, one man had grown old, lost his skill, and died, and another had started in his immaturity, gained his education, and devoted his best years to this book. The printing press stands for all that is progressive and desirable; modern life and thought hang upon this discovery. But in this glorious new birth there was sacrificed a certain indescribable charm which can never be felt now except by a book lover as he turns the leaves of an ancient illuminated book. To him it is given to understand that pathetic appeal across the centuries. THE END. BIBLIOGRAPHY Arts and Crafts Movement. O. L. Triggs. Two Lectures. William Morris. Decorative Arts. William Morris. Treatises of Benvenuto Cellini. Library of British Manufactories. Gold and Silver. Wheatley. Ye Olden Time. E. S. Holt. Arts and Crafts Essays. Ed. by Morris. Industrial Arts. Maskell. Old English Silver. Cripps. Spanish Arts. J. E. Riañio. History of the Fine Arts. W. B. Scott. Art Work in Gold and Silver. P. H. Delamotte. Gold and Silver. J. H. Pollen. Une Ville du Temps Jadis. M. E. Del Monte. Industrial Arts. P. Burty. Arts of the Middle Ages. Labarte. Miscellanea Graphica. Fairholt. Artist's Way of Working. R. Sturgis. Jewellery. Cyril Davenport. Enamels. Mrs. Nelson Dawson. Precious Stones. Jones. Ghiberti and Donatello. Leader Scott. Iron Work. J. S. Gardner. Guilds of Florence. E. Staley. Armour in England. J. S. Gardner. Foreign Armour in England. J. S. Gardner. Cameos. Cyril Davenport. Peter Vischer. Cecil Headlam. St. Eloi and St. Bernward. Baring Gould; Lives of the Saint. European Enamels. H. Cunynghame. Intarsia and Marquetry. H. Jackson. Pavement Masters of Siena. R. H. Cust. Sculpture in Ivory. Digby Wyatt. Ancient and Mediæval Ivories. Wm. Maskell. Ivory Carvers of the Middle Ages. A. M. Cust. Arts of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. P. Lacroix. Ivories. A. Maskell. Old English Embroidery. F. and H. Marshall. The Bayeux Tapestry. F. R. Fowke. History of Tapestry. W. G. Thomson. La Broderie. L. de Farcy. Textile Fabrics. Dr. Rock. Needlework as Art. Lady Alford. History of Needlework. Countess of Wilton. Gilds; Their Origins, etc. C. Walford. Tapestry. A. Champeaux. Tapestry. J. Hayes. Ornamental Metal Work. Digby Wyatt. La Mosaïque. Gerspach. The Master Mosaic Workers. G. Sand. Revival of Sculpture. A. L. Frothingham. History of Italian Sculpture. C. H. Perkins. Art Applied to Industry. W. Burges. Four Centuries of Art. Noel Humphreys. Aratra Pentelici. Ruskin. Seven Lamps of Architecture. Ruskin. Val d'Arno. Ruskin. Stones of Venice. Ruskin. Lectures on Sculpture. Flaxman. Brick and Marble. G. E. Street. Sculpture in Wood. Williams. Greek and Gothic. St. J. Tyrwhitt. Westminster Abbey and Craftsmen. W. R. Lethaby. Le Roi René. L. de la Marche. English Mediæval Figure Sculpture. Prior and Gardner. Churches of Paris. Sophia Beale. Matthew Paris' Chronicle. Crowns and Coronations. Jones. Bell's Handbooks of Rouen, Chartres, Amiens, Wells, Salisbury and Lincoln. History of Sculpture. D'Agincourt. The Grotesque in Church Art. T. T. Wildridge. Choir Stalls and Their Carving. Emma Phipson. Memorials of Westminster Abbey. Dean Stanley. Memorials of Canterbury. Dean Stanley. Les Corporations des Arts et Metiers. Hubert Valeroux. Finger Ring Lore. Jones. Goldsmith's and Silversmith's Work. Nelson Dawson. The Dark Ages. Maitland. Rambles of an Archæologist. F. W. Fairholt. History of Furniture. A. Jacquemart. Embroidery. W. G. P. Townsend. Le Livre des Metiers. Etienne Boileau. Illuminated Manuscripts. J. H. Middleton. Illuminated Manuscripts. Edward Quaile. English Illuminated Manuscripts. Maunde Thompson. Les Manuscrits et l'art de les Orner. Alphonse Labitte. Les Manuscrits et la Miniature. L. de la Marche. Primer of Illumination. Delamotte. Primer of Illumination. Digby Wyatt. Ancient Painting and Sculpture in England. J. Carter. Vasari's Lives of the Painters. (Selected.) Benvenuto Cellini--Autobiography. Illuminated Manuscripts. O. Westwood. Celtic Illuminative Art. S. F. H. Robinson. Illuminated Manuscripts. Bradley. INDEX Aachen, 16 Abbeville, 265 Abbo, 57 Absalom, 299 Acherius, J., 335 Adam, 28 Adam, Abbot, 21 Adaminus, 222 Adelard, 229 Aelfled, 199 Aelst, 172 Agatho, 281 Agnelli, Fra, 226 Agnese, St., 14, 316 Agnolo, B., 303 Ahab, 276 Aignan, St., 354 Aix-la-Chapelle, 98, 287 Albans, St., 114, 186, 207, 250 Alberti, L., 131 Aleuin, 14, 278, 332 Aldobrandini, 131 Alfred, King, 4, 64, 67, 94, 199 Alford, Lady, 188, 303 Alicante, 167 Almeria, 183 Aloise, 20 Alwin, Bp., 252 Alwyn, H. F., 25 Amasia, Bp. of, 191 America, 25 Amiens, 65, 144, 230, 233, 236, 238, 240, 244, 265 Anastatius, 201, 281 "Anatomy of Abuses," 26 Ancona, 224 "Ancren Riwle," 75 Angers, 164, 208 Anglo-Saxons, 49, 92, 95, 100, 111, 159, 184, 294, 343 Anne of Bohemia, 65, 135 Anne of Brittany, 174, 211, 361 Anne of Cleves, 206 Anquetil, 230 Antelami, 221 Anthemius, 316 Anthony, St., 254 Antwerp, 116 Apollinaire, St., 316 Apollonius, 319 Apulia, 182 Arabia, 5, 14, 147 Arles, 18, 192, 229 Arnant, A., 292 Arnolfo di Cambio, 227 Armour, 121-132 Arphe, H. d' and J. d', 24, 25 Arras, 20, 165, 166, 167, 171 Arrigo (see Peselli) Arthur, Prince, 205 Artois, 166 Asser, 4 Asterius, St., 192 Atlas, 9 Athelmay, 4 August the Pious, 245 Augustine, St., 279, 354 Aurelian, 180 Auquilinus, 230 Austin, W., 129 Auxene, 162 Aventin, St., 231 Avernier, A., 265 Avignon, M. de, 33 "Babee's Book," 39 Bakes, J., 171 Balbastro, 130 Baldini, B., 34 Baldovinetto, 322 Ballin, C., 35 Bamberg, 258 Baptist, John, 65 Barbarossa, 16 Barcheston, 171 Bargello, 281 Barnwell, 330 Bartholomew Anglicus, 4, 81, 83, 110, 149 Basilewski, 291 Basle, 23 Basse-taille, 103 Bataille, 166 Bavaria, 165, 266, 295, 362 Bayeux Tapestry, 154-159 Bazinge, A. de, 207 Beauchamp, R., 144 Becket, T. à, 28, 46, 54, 61 Bede, 110, 145 Begue, J. de, 338 Bells, 145 Benedict, St., 4, 329 Benedictional of Ethelwold, 355 Benet, J., 250 Bergamo, 308 Bernard, M., 167 Bernard, St., 21, 22, 270, 287 Bernward, Bp., 16-20, 136, 140, 229, 317 Berquem, L., 74 Bess of Hardwick, 211 Bethancourt, J. de, 33 Beverly, 257, 274 Bezaleel, 1, 25 Bezold, H. van, 268 Bianchini, 324 Billiard Balls, 295 Birch, W. de G., 349 Biscornette, 113 Black Prince, 135 "Blandiver, Jack," 152 Bloet, Bp., 246 Blois, 174 Boabdil, 127 Boileau, E., 217 Boleyn, A., 78 Bologna, 224, 308 Bolognese, M. S., 337 Boningegna, G., 98 Boston Art Museum, 342 Bosworth, 66 Botticelli, 190 Boudichon, J., 361 Boulin, A., 265 Boutellier, J. le, 237 Bradshaw, 170 Brandenburgh, 295 Bridget, St., 53, 346 Briolottus, 222 Brithnoth, 160 British Museum, 292, 345 Bronze, 132-149 Brooches, 50-56 Browning, R., 258 Brunelleschi, 305 Brussels, 172 Brussels, M. S., 337 Burgundy, 194 Byzantine style, 13, 22, 24, 49, 63, 84, 87, 92, 97, 103, 183, 191, 199, 220, 224, 340 "Byzantine Guide," 342 Cadwollo, 134 Caffi, M., 307 Cambio, A. del, 301 Cambridge, 37, 364 Camerino, J., 321 Cameos, 85-90 Cano, A., 268 Canterbury, 54, 135, 176, 243 Canute (see Knut) Canozio, 305 Caradosso, 8 Caramania, 168 Carazan, 5 Carlencas, 218 Carovage, 151 Carpentras, Bp. of, 37 Carrara, 221 Carter, J., 106, 251, 290 Casati, 90 Cassiodorus, 327 Castel, G. van, 268 Castiglione, Count, 308 Cecilia, St., 186 Celestine III., Pope, 18 Cellini, Benvenuto, xii, 7-13, 43, 56, 68-71, 91, 96, 105, 127, 132, 304 Celtic style, 50-54, 92, 343 Centula, 317 Chained Books, 330 Chalices, 29 Champlevé, 94, 103 Charlemagne, 14, 15, 23, 62, 98, 124, 146, 181, 203, 224, 294, 328, 332, 338 Charles I., 212 Charles V., 40, 70, 165, 209, 265, 295, 359 Charles the Bold, 15 Chartres, 107, 145, 219, 229, 231, 234, 237, 238, 242, 312 Chaucer, 169, 181, 193 Chelles, J. de, 240 Cherio, L. de, 355 Chester, 170, 273 Chichester, 242 Chilperic, 38 Chinchintalas, 187 Christin of Margate, 207 Cid, The, 128 Claudian, 278 Clement le Brodeur, 207 Clement, Pope, 9, 56, 89 Clemente, St., 321 Clermont, 314 Clocks, 150 Clothaire II., 157 Clovio, G., 361 Clovis II., 62 Cluny, 14 Cockayne, W., 44 Coinsi, Prior, 270 Colaccio, M., 305 Cola di Rienzi, 204 Coldingham, 249 Cologne, 98, 115, 145 Columba, St., 220, 327, 344 Columbkille, 52 Constantine, 13, 313, 316, 340 Constantinople, 57, 84, 86, 97, 136, 181, 225, 316, 317, 318, 340 Constanza, Sta., 314 Coquille, G. de, 32 Cordova, 25 Coro, D. del, 299 Cosmati Mosaic, 310 Coula, 53 Courtray, 152 Coventry, 201 Cozette, 177 Cracow, 266 Crete, 276 Crest, H., 33 Crivelli, C., 183 Croisètes, J. de, 166 Cromwell, O., 29 Crown Jewels, 66 Croyland, 147, 164, 192, 200 Crumdale, R., 250 Cunegonde, 207 Cunegunda, Queen, 2, 24 Cups, 44 Curfew, 147 Curmer, 361 Cuserius, 315 Cuthbert, St., 53, 145, 199, 345 Cynewulf, 149 Cyzicus, L. de, 279, 341 Dagobert, 62, 162 Damascening, 126 Damiano, Fra, 308 Davenport, 287 Davenport, C., 86 Davi, J., 236 Day, Lewis, 183 Decker, H., 259 Delhi, 57 Delphyn, N., 255 Delobel, 196 Denis, St., 20, 22, 58, 83, 162, 230, 232 Deschamps, E., 359 Diamonds, 71-74 Diàne of de Poictiers, 107 Didier, Abbé, 318 Didron, 18, 140 Dijon, 152, 194, 229 Dipoenus, 276 Dioscorides, 341 Domenico of the Cameos, 88 Donatello, xiii, 227 Donne, Dr., 79 Dourdan, 166 Drawswerd, 255 Dresden, 85 Dublin, 27, 344 Ducarel, 159 Dunstan, St., 75, 110, 182 Dürer, A., 132, 258, 266, 268 Durham, 53, 148, 172, 197, 250, 252, 288, 318 "Durham Book," 344 Durosne, 33 Duval, J., 173 Ebony, 307 Ecclesiasticus, 81 Edinburgh, 130 Edgitha, 193 Edith, Queen, 159 Edrisi, 167 Edward, goldsmith, 28, 36 Edward I., 75 Edward II., 168, 199 Edward III., 36, 66, 193 Edward IV., 37, 117 Edward the Confessor, 26, 28, 75, 156, 193, 224, 251 Egebric, 147 Eginhard, 282 Egyptians, 1 Eleanor, Queen, 117, 135, 144, 165, 249 Elfen, 309 Elizabeth, Queen, 26, 129, 211 Eloi, St., 22, 57-62, 111 Ely, 159, 195, 200, 249 Embroideries, 179-212 Emesa, 65 Emma, Queen, 200, 251 Enamels, 91-108 England, 2, 4, 23, 135, 164, 214 Eraclius, 336 Essex, William of, 107 Etheldreda, St., 249 Explicit, 354 Exodus, 1 Ezekiel, 276 Fairill, 53 Falkland, Viscount, 211 Farcy, L., 189, 203 Ferdinand I., 302 Ferdinand II., 302 Fereol, St., 328 Ferucci, F., 302 Filigree, 12 Finger-rings, 74-78 Finiguerra, M., 34, 101 Flagons, 37 Flanders, 165 Florence, xii, 26, 34, 88, 115, 136, 147, 176, 224, 264, 298, 301, 303, 319, 322 Florence, Jean of, 165 Florent, St., 163 Fontaine, E. la, 23 Foucquet, J., 361 Fowke, F. R., 155 Fra Angelico, 357 France, 2, 3, 5, 23, 162, 164, 214-216, 257, 262, 291, 325 Francia, 34, 183 Francis I., 11, 105, 107, 133, 152, 177 Fremlingham, R. de, 250 Froissart, 131, 152, 356 Fuller, 189, 201 Gaddi, G. and A., 319-320, 322 Gaegart, 114 Gale, P., 207 Gall, St., 124, 145, 263, 285 Galla Placida, 315 "Gammer Gurton's Needle," 188 Gandesheim, 19 Garlande, J. de, 62 Garnier, 230 Gaunt, J. of, 35, 55 Gautier, R., 207 Gendulphus, St., 288 Genesis, 160 Genevieve, St., 3, 239 Genoa, 12, 180 Gerbert, 150 Germany, 5, 16, 17, 114, 130, 139, 141, 185, 198, 214, 257, 262, 291 George II., 186 George IV., 75 Gerona, 160 Ghent, 130 Ghiberti, xii, 34, 71, 136, 227 Ghirlandajo, 33, 322 Giacomo, Maestro, 306 Gifford, G., 29 Gilles, St., 229 Giralda, 135 Giraldus, Cambriensis, 335 Girard d'Orleans, 265 Giotto, 264, 322 "Giovanni of the Camelians," 88 Giudetto, Maestro, 296 Glastonbury, 110, 152, 220, 331 Gloucester, 327, 331 Gloucester, John of, 248 Gobelins Tapestry, 160, 164, 176 Godemann, 355 Gold Leaf, 335 Gontran, 229 Gothic style, 24, 29 Gouda, 299 Granada, 183 Gregory, St., 221, 277 Gresham, Sir T., 25 Grès, H. de, 292 Grimani Breviary, 361 Grosso, N., 116 Grotesques, 235-243, 273, 349, 353 Grove, D. van, 268 Guerrazzar, Treasure of, 63 Guillaume, Abbot, 229 Gutierez, 167 Haag, J., 240 Hall Mark, 3 Hankford, Sir W., 36 Hampton Court, 171 Hannequin, 32 Harleian MS., 352 Harrison, 193 Harold, 157, 158 Hasquin, J. de, 33 Hatfield, 171 Hayes, S. L., 156 Headlam, C., 268 Hebrides, 196 Hebrews, 1 Héliot, 292 Hennequin de Liege, 240 Henry I., 23, 155 Henry II., 83, 107, 197 Henry III, 27, 28, 36, 38, 86, 117, 135, 144, 207, 248, 287, 311 Henry V., 252 Henry VI., 185 Henry VII., 102, 181, 206, 253, 254, 257, 268 Henry VIII., 131, 175, 195, 209, 254 Henry the Pious, 23 Herlin, F., 266 Herman, 74 Herodias, 65 Hezilo, 20 Hildesheim, xii, 16-20, 116, 136, 139, 140, 258, 285, 286, 309, 317 Holanda, A. de, 361 Holderness, 273 Honorius, Pope, 316 Hudd, A., 255 Huberd, R., 251 Hugh, St., 246 Hughes, Abbot, 229 Husee, 37-78 Hust, A., 265 Il Lasca, 305 Illumination, 326-364 Imber, L., 255 Inlay, 296-309 Innocent IV., 200 Iona, 220 Ireland, 342-345 Iron, 109-121 Isaiah, 1 Isidore, 316 Isle of Man, 77 Islip, Abbot, 102, 275 Italy, 5, 21, 92, 141 Ivan III, 283 Ivory carving, 275-295 "Ivy Pattern," 347 Jackson, H., 307 Jacob of Breslau, 328 Jacobus, Fra, 319 James, 315 James I., 56, 176 Jeanne, Queen, 173 Jeanne of Navarre, 68 John, King, 66, 105, 207 John XII., 111 John IV., 316 Johnson, R., 117 Joinville, Sirede, 194 Jones, Sir E. B., 203 Jouy, B. de, 314 Justinian, 220, 221, 315 Katherine, Queen, 252 Katherine of Aragon, 209 Keepe, H., 241 Kells, Book of, 49, 344 Kent, Fair Maid of, 196 Keys, 119 Kildare, Gospels of, 345 Kirton, Ed., 241 "Kleine Heldenbuch," 189 Knight, 210 Knut, King, 200, 252 Kohinoor, 71 Kraft, A., 141, 213, 258, 259, 261, 266 Krems, 115 Laach, 262 Labenwolf, 143 Labarte, 302 Laborde, 74 Labraellier, J., 295 Lacordaire, 160 Lagrange, 168 Lambspring, B., 129 Lamoury, S., 166 Lateran, The, 205, 316, 321 Laura, 193 Lawrence, St., 315 Lead, 149 Lebrija, 269 Leighton, T. de, 117 Leland, 206 Leo III., 203 Leo X., 172 Leon, 25 Leopardi, 302 "Les Maitres Mosaïtes," 323 Lethaby, W. R., 252, 311 Lewis, 293 Lewis, H., 117 Liberale da Verona, 361 "Liber Eliensis," 200 Lille, 166 Limoges, 24-57, 103, 107, 144 Lincoln, 244, 246, 274 Lincoln Imp, 247 Lindisfarne, 53, 345 Limousin, E. and L., 107 Lisle, Lord, 35, 55 Little Gidding, 212 Locks, 120 Lombards, The, 18, 63, 220, 277 London, 25, 26, 44, 182, 185, 206, 248, 288 Lothaire, 38 Louis VI., 21 Louis VII., 21 Louis XII., 174, 361 Louis XIV., 197 Louis, Prince, 20 Louis, St., 22, 194, 232, 240, 253 Louvre, The, 270, 292 Lübke, xi Lucca, 221, 296 Luca della Robbia, 213 Ludlow, 273 Luini, B., 307 Luna, de, 306 MacDurnam, 344 "Mad Meg," 130 Madrid, 177-270 Maes Eyck, 358 Magaster, 278 Maiano, B. de, 304 Maitland, 14 Maitani, L., 227 Malaga, 269 Malmsbury, W. of, 65, 75, 220 Malvezzi, M., 308 Manne, P., 33 Mantegna, 101 Mantreux, J. de, 32 Manuello, 302 Mapilton, Master, 252 "Mappae Claviculae," 276 Marcel, St., 238 Marcellus, 65 Marche, L. de la, 341 Maretta, G., 8 Mariana, Queen, 270 Mark's, St., 318, 323, 361 Marten, 66 Martin, St., 17, 87 Martyr, Bp., 240 Mary, Queen of Scots, 210 Maskell, A. and W., 32, 186, 294 Massari, A., 306 Matilda, Queen, 155 Matsys, Q., 118, 141 Matteo da Siena, 300 Maximian, 282 Medici, The, 85, 176, 211, 254, 301 Memlinc, 166 Mexicans, 18 Michael, St., 18, 19 Michelangelo, 9, 90, 116, 254, 303 Milan, 281, 307 Mildmay, H., 67 Minella, P. de, 299 Miniato, San, 298 Miserere Stalls, 271-275 "Mons Meg," 130 Monte Cassino, 318 Montereau, J. de, 240 Montfort, S. de, 63 Montarsy, P. de, 35 Monza, 23, 63, 221 Monzon, 146 Moore, Charles, xi, 234 Moorish style, 24 Moreau, J., 241 Morel, B., 135 Mortlake, 178 Morris, Wm., v, x, 248 Moryson, F., 26 Mt. Athos, 341 Möser, L., 266 Mosaic, 309-327 Nantes, 314 Nassaro, M. dal, 88 Naumberg, 259 Navagiero, 183 Nevers, Count of, 194 Nicolas, J., 33 Niello, 49, 99-102 Nomenticum, 166 Norfolk, 31 Norman style, 29 Norton, C. E., 219, 226 Norwich, 45, 196, 331 Nôtre Dame, Paris, 218, 234, 238, 240 Noyon, 58, 60 Nüremberg, 141, 152, 258, 259, 266, 292, 309 Oath Book of the Saxon Kings, 346 Odericus, 311 Odo, goldsmith, 14, 27 Odo, Abbot, 115 Olivetans, 307-308 Orcagna, 34, 140, 183, 227 Orebsc, S. M., 24 Orghet, J., 166 Oriental, 24, 84 Orleans, 33 Orso Magister, 222 Orviedo, 278 Orvieto, 33, 227, 244, 302, 310 Osmont, 204 Othlonus, 356 Otho, 230, 286 Otto III., Emperor, 16 Oudenardes, 169 Ouen, St., 58 Oxford, 168, 210, 248, 255, 354 Pacheco, 25 Padua, 305 Pala d'Oro, 23, 97, 98 Palermo, 311 "Pancake Man" 245 Paris, 2, 17, 20-23, 26, 37, 52, 69, 86, 113, 149, 166, 186, 200, 218, 229, 234, 238, 239, 240, 339 Paris, Matthew, 27, 180, 207 Parma, 221 Patras, L., 139 Patrick, St., 2, 49, 52, 145, 238 Paul the Deacon, 221 Paulus, 315 Pausanias, 121 Pavia, 221 Pembroke, Earl, 67 Penne, 208 Perseus, 134 Persia, 55 Perugia, 224, 298 Peselli, 322 Peter Albericus, 224 Peter Amabilis, 224 Peter the Great, 295 Peter de St. Andeman, 335 Peter Orfever, 224 Peter of Rome, 310 Peter of Spain, 241 Petrarch, 192, 362 Philip IV., 167 Philip the Bold, 165 Philip the Good, 165 Philippa, Queen, 194 Philostratus, 91, 103 Philoxenus, 277 Picardie, 317 Pickering, W., 129 Pietra Dura, 301 Piggigny, J. de, 32 Pinturicchio, 300 Pirckheimer, W., 132 Pisa, 221, 225, 298 Pisani, The, 71, 216, 221, 225, 234, 244 Pistoja, 298 Pitti Palace, 101, 177, 301, 302 Pius II., 67 Pliny, 2, 110, 143 Poitiers, 162, 163 Pollajuolo, xiii, 34, 195 Polo, Marco, 5, 55, 71, 184, 187, 278 Pordenone, 323 Portland Vase, 87 Poucet, J. de and B., 241 Poulligny, G. de, 207 Poussin, N., 33 Precious Stones, 77-83 Prior and Gardner, 244 Probus, 277 "Properties of Things," 4 Psalter of Edwin, 353 Ptolemies, The, 83 Pudenziana, St., 314 Pugin, 120, 153 Quentin, St., 60 "Queen Mary's Psalter," 347 Rabanus, 278 Rabotin, L., 33 Raffaelo da Brescia, 308 Ralph, Brother, 250 Ramsay, W., 250 Raphael, 166, 172, 323 Rausart, J. de, 166 Ravenna, 216, 224, 282, 283, 312, 314, 315 Redgrave, R., xi, 47 Rée, J. P., 259 Reformation, The, 29, 31, 209 Reggio, 305 Renaissance, 32, 88, 117, 135, 141, 164, 192, 205, 227, 239, 268, 271, 362 René of Anjou, 33, 164, 173, 208, 241 Renoy, J., 237 Reynolds, Sir J., 139 Rheims, 150, 162, 229, 238, 239, 300 Richard II., 37, 135 Richard III., 66 Ripon, 273 Robert, King, 150, 229 Rock, Dr., 155, 183, 191, 197, 210 Rome, 17, 19, 24, 136, 187, 264, 278, 283, 310, 316, 321, 322 Romanesque style, 18, 29, 219, 220, 258 Romulus and Remus, 299 Rosebeque, 131, 167 Rossi, 314 Rothenburg, 266 Rouen, 60, 236, 265 Roze, Abbé, 236 Ruskin, J., v, 144, 221, 222, 226, 227, 235, 265, 298 Salinas, 130 Salisbury, 243 Salisbury, Earl, 35 Salt-cellars, 43 Salutati, B., 195 Sand, G., 323 Sandwich, 30 Sansovino, xii Sano di Pietro, 361 Saumur, 162, 241 Sauval, 114 Savonarola, 195 Schülein, H., 266 Scillis, 276 Scholastico, A., 295 Schutz, C., 185 Scott, W., 51 Sculpture, 213 Selsea, 242 Senlis, H. de, 292 Seville, 24, 25, 128, 132, 209 Sewald, 165 Shakespeare, 77 Shoreditch, J. of, 168 Shrewsbury, 211 Siena, 225, 298-300, 302 Silk, 179 Siriès, L., 302 Sithiu, 339 Skelton, J., 359 Smyrna, 168 Soignoles, J. de, 240 Solignac, 58 Sophia, Sta., 316 South Kensington Museum, 19, 170, 177, 197, 198, 303, 226 Spain, 24, 102, 110, 117, 120, 127-8, 130, 211, 258, 278, 294, 306 Spoons, 39 "Squire of Low Degree," 197 Staley, E., 134 Statius, 315 Stauracius, 136 Stengel, H., 309 Stephanus, 315 Stephen IV., 187 Stevens, T., 144 Strasburg, 259 Stoss-Veit, 258-266 Stubbes, 25 Stubbs, Charles, 249 Stump Work, 212 Sturgis, R., vii, 218, 307 Suger, Abbot, 20-23, 230, 318 Suinthila, 23, 63 Sumercote, J. de, 207 "Swineherd of Stowe," 246 Sylvester II., 151 Sylvester, Bp., 314 Symmachus, 279 Symonds, J. A., 139 Syon Cope, 201 Syrlin, J., 266 Tali, A., 319-320 Tanagra, 213 Tancho, 146 Tapestry, 154-178 Tapicier, G. le, 168 Tappistere, J. le, 168 Tara Brooch, 50, 83 Tartary, 184 Tassach, 53 Tasso, D. and G., 303, 304 Taugmar, 17 Tegernsee, 357 Temple Church, 248 Tenison Psalter, 347, 352 Texier, Abbé, xiii Textiles, 154 Thebes, 181 Thergunna, 196 Theodolinda, Queen, 221, 277 Theodora, 315 Theodoric, 221, 222, 327 Theophilus the Monk, 5, 6, 7, 74, 81, 85, 95, 99, 100, 110, 185, 276, 337 Theophilus, Emperor, 14, 317 Thillo, 58 Thomson, M. G., 165, 171 Tintoretto, 323 Titian, 323 Toledo, 24, 25, 63, 125, 209, 270 Tonquin, J., 114 Topf, J., 129 Torcello, 112, 319 Torel, W., 144, 249, 250 Torpenhow, 31 Torregiano, 254, 264 Torriti, J., 321 Touraine, 194 Tours, 17, 162, 173, 314 "Treatises" of Cellini, 11 Trittenham, J. of, 354 Trophimes, St., 229 Troupin, J., 265 Troyes, 170 Tucher, A., 268 Tudela, B. of, 57, 181 Tudor, 29 Tuscany, 5 Tutilon, or Tutilo, 229, 263 Ubaldo, St., 204 Ugolino of Siena, 33 Ulm, 266 Ulpha, St., 233 Urbino, 306 Utrecht Psalter, 156, 353 Valence, A. de, 144, 233 Valencia, 146 Valerio Vincentino, 89 Van Eyck, 166 Vasari, G., 34, 85, 89, 106, 116, 191, 254, 302, 320, 322 Vatican, 204 Velasquez, 25, 167 Venice, 84, 97, 136, 223, 312, 318, 322, 323, 361 Verocchio, 33, 34 Verona, 88, 117, 222 Villant, P. de, 208 Vinci, L. da, 33 Viollet-le-Duc, 52, 218 Virgil, 228 Vischer, Peter, 141-143, 266 Vischer, Peter, Jr., 268 Vitel, 314 Vitruvius, 187 Vivaria, 327 Vopiscus, F., 166 Wallois, H., 166 Walpole, H., 148 Walsingham, A. de, 248 Walter of Colchester, 250 Walter of Durham, 250 Ware, R. de, 311 Warwick, 144 Waquier, 207 Wechter, F. de, 166 Welburne, J., 275 Wells, 152, 244 Wendover, R. de, 180 Westminster, 66, 102, 117, 144, 156, 165, 224, 233, 240, 241, 243, 249-255, 268, 275, 311, 331 Westwood, O., 344 Weyden, van der, 169 Willaume, 166 William the Conqueror, 155, 232 Williams of Sens, 243 Wilton, Countess of, 157, 172 Winchester, 149, 165, 199, 272 Windsor, 118, 131, 268 Wire-drawing, 184 Withaf, King, 192 Withers, G., 67 Wolsey, Card., 175 Wood-carving, 262-275 Wood, 66 Woolstrope, 29 Worsted, 196 Wyckham, W., 102 Ypres, 166 York, 181, 275, 285 Zamborro, M., 322 Zuccati, The, 323-325 
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29234	----	Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 29234-h.htm or 29234-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/29234/29234-h/29234-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/29234/29234-h.zip) Transcriber's note: Superscripted test is preceded by a carat character, such as 2^nd. Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_). Text in bold face is enclosed by equal signs (=bold=). A more detailed transcriber's note is at the end of the e-book. Contributions from the Museum of History and Technology: Paper 47-- PRESENTATION PIECES IN THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY by MARGARET BROWN KLAPTHOR 18TH-CENTURY PIECES 84 19TH-CENTURY PIECES 85 20TH-CENTURY PIECES 99 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE Miniature ship presented to Adm. Robert E. Peary 81 Snuffbox inlaid with mother-of-pearl and horn made around 1769 83 Mark of Samuel Minott and monogram of Elias Hasket Derby on silver tankard 83 Punch set presented to Col. George Armistead 85 Tureen presented to Com. John Rodgers 87 Gold snuffbox presented to Maj. Gen. Jacob Brown 88 Peace pipe presented to the Delaware Indians by Gen. William Henry Harrison 89 Silver service given to Maj. Gen. John Hatch 90 Silver service presented to Gen. Judson Kilpatrick 92 Silver service presented to Mrs. Abraham Lincoln 93 Teakettle and stand given to Gen. Montgomery C. Meigs 93 Gold box presented to Cyrus W. Field 95 Silver-mounted tankard presented to Cyrus W. Field 95 Tray and saltcellar in shape of chair presented to Gustavus Vasa Fox 97 Centerpiece given to Adm. Winfield Scott Schley 101 Cup presented to the Honorable Brand Whitlock 103 Paperweight identical to those presented by William Jennings Bryan 103 Cup given to Susan B. Anthony 105 Belt given to H. W. Higham 107 The Vanderbilt Cup 107 Trowel used by President Ulysses S. Grant 108 [Illustration: Figure 1.--MINIATURE SHIP presented to Adm. Robert E. Peary by the Royal Scottish Geographical Society. Loan of Robert E. Peary. In Division of Naval History. (Acc. 52878, cat. 12185; Smithsonian photo 45992.)] Margaret Brown Klapthor Presentation Pieces In the Museum of History and Technology _As a social document, the collection of presentation pieces, mostly silver, in the United States National Museum provides evidence of the taste and craftsmanship in America at various periods from the mid-18th century to the 1920's._ _Although the representative items selected for illustration confirm the view that such pieces often lack artistic merit, the collection nevertheless reveals the deeds--in war, politics, technology, diplomacy, sports--that our forebears deemed worthy of special recognition. And it helps to bring alive some figures now submerged in our ever-expanding history._ THE AUTHOR: _Margaret Brown Klapthor is associate curator of political history in the Smithsonian Institution's Museum of History and Technology._ The custom of giving a piece of silver to an individual in recognition of service or in appreciation of accomplishment probably began as soon as man developed the fashioning of that metal into objects. Such a presentation piece was a tangible and durable form of recognition which could be appreciated, used, displayed, and enjoyed by the recipient. Many of these silver pieces became for succeeding generations the cherished evidence of recognition accorded to an ancestor, and they were preserved long after the more customary family silver had worn out or been lost. The Smithsonian Institution's Museum of History and Technology has what may well be the most varied and extensive collection of such presentation pieces ever to be preserved and exhibited in one place. The collection contains the work of some of the more prominent American silversmiths, but most of the pieces are by lesser known makers and are in the collection because of historic interest rather than artistic merit. The chief usefulness of the collection lies in its value as a social document and in the mute evidence it gives of the taste and craftsmanship of the periods covered. The collection is also helpful in dating type specimens that do not have specific associations with persons and dates. Perhaps even more interesting than the gamut of styles that the collection presents is the panorama of deeds, events, and persons that our forebears considered worthy of recognition. Silver presentation pieces were awarded to persons in almost every walk of life--to military men, to peace-loving Indians, and to men who achieved success in politics and agriculture. They were given for sea rescues, for heroic deeds by firemen and school-patrol boys, and for outstanding community and civic work. Within our time they have been given as trophies for excellence in athletics, automobile racing, and many other events. [Illustration: Figure 2.--SNUFFBOX inlaid with mother-of-pearl and horn made around 1769 by William Cario, who worked in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The box measures 2-7/8 × 2-1/8 × 1/2 inches. Bequest of Arthur Michaels. In Division of Cultural History. (Acc. 162866, cat. 383486; Smithsonian photo 36941.)] 18th-Century Pieces Silversmiths have been making presentation pieces from the earliest days of our country, but the Smithsonian Institution has only a few 18th-century pieces in its collection. The earliest of these is an inlaid silver snuffbox (fig. 2) made by William Cario, who worked in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, about 1763. The oval box--evidently a gift to the silversmith's second wife, Lydia Croxford, whom he married in 1768--has inscribed on its base "The property of Lydia Cario" and "1769." The cover has an undersurface of horn, and the silver on the outer surface is inlaid with mother-of-pearl and tortoise shell in a filigree pattern. Many of the earliest pieces of presentation silver were made for use in churches, and they were given by groups as well as by individuals. Representative of this type is a silver alms plate[1] with the following inscription on the rim: The Gift of the Hon^ble THOMAS HANCOCK ESQ^R to the CHURCH in Brattle Street Boston 1764. The plate is shallow with a slightly domed center. Engraved on the flat rim, in addition to the inscription, is a crest at the top and the cherub's head at the bottom. The piece is marked by John Coburn, who lived in Boston from 1725 to 1803. Five trays matching this one are in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.[2] [Illustration: Figure 3.--MARK OF SAMUEL MINOTT and monogram of Elias Hasket Derby on silver tankard. Bequest of Arthur Michaels. In Division of Cultural History. (Acc. 162866, cat. 383545; Smithsonian photos 44828-D, 44828-F.)] A silver tankard made by Samuel Minott, who worked in Boston from about 1765 to 1803, can be accurately placed by the account of ownership thoughtfully inscribed on its base by one of its later owners. The legend reads: Richard Derby to E. S. Hasket Derby 1763 John Derby George Derby 1831 Roger Derby 1874 The tankard has a tapered, ringed body, an S-shaped handle with a plain boss at the end, a scroll thumb-piece, a flat molded drop ornament on the handle, and a domed cover with an acorn finial. On the body beneath the Derby coat of arms, is monogrammed "E H D" for Elias Hasket Derby (fig. 3). Elias Hasket Derby achieved wealth and fame as a Salem merchant prince engaged in the China trade. Similar in design to these 18th-century pieces is a standing cup[3] or chalice with the inscription: Presented by the Sisters of the New South Church for its communion service--January 1, 1815. This cup, with a concave body and a baluster stem with a square foot, is marked "Moulton" and is in the style of Ebenezer Moulton who worked in Boston between 1768 and 1824. 19th-Century Pieces The collections of the United States National Museum that cover the political, cultural, military, and technological history of America in the 19th century are probably without rival, and the collection of presentation silver is no exception. The recognition of military prowess by the presentation of silver objects was especially popular during this century. FOR SERVICE IN WAR OF 1812 Some handsome pieces of silver of the federal style were given for service in the War of 1812. Historically the most important of these is a mammoth punch set (fig. 4) presented to Colonel George Armistead by the citizens of Baltimore in recognition of his services in the defense of Fort McHenry against the British attack in 1814. The service includes an oval silver tray with a handle on each end, the whole of which is supported on six winged-claw feet. The tray is 29 inches long and 22 inches wide. The ball-shaped punch bowl, 12-1/2 inches in diameter, is supported by four eagles mounted on a round base. There is a loop handle of silver rope on each side. The bowl is an exact copy in size and design of the mortar bombs the British hurled at the fort. On one side of the bowl is the following inscription: Presented by a number of the citizens of Baltimore to Lieutenant Colonel George Armistead for his gallant and successful defense of Fort McHenry during the bombardment by a large British Force, on the 12th and 13th September 1814 when upwards of 1500 shells were thrown; 400 of which fell within the area of the Fort and some of them of the diameter of this vase. (Note the discrepancy in the dates of the inscription. The Battle of Fort McHenry was fought on the 13th and 14th of September 1814.) [Illustration: Figure 4.--PUNCH SET presented to Col. George Armistead by the citizens of Baltimore in recognition of his services in the defense of Fort McHenry against the British in 1814. Gift of Alexander Gordon, Jr., great-grandson of the recipient. In Division of Political History. (Acc. 6642, cats. 30914-17; Smithsonian photo P-64357.)] On the other side is engraved a view of Fort McHenry and Baltimore Harbor. The bowl is marked by Thomas Fletcher and Sidney Gardiner, silversmiths who worked in Philadelphia from 1814 to 1838. In regard to the excellence of the work of these silversmiths, there is an interesting comment in a diary of Philip Hone that is owned by the New-York Historical Society. On February 14, 1838, Hone wrote: Fletcher and Co. are the artist who made the Clinton vases. Nobody in this "world" of ours hereabouts can compete with them in their kind of work.[4] In the set are ten silver cups, each 3-1/4 inches high and 3 inches in diameter. The cups have the same rounded shape as the bowl, without the loop handles, and are marked on the bottom by Andrew E. Warner, a silversmith who was working in Baltimore from 1805 until his death in 1870. The ladle, in the same shape as the cups, is also marked by Warner. During the defense of Fort McHenry Colonel Armistead had under him about 1,000 men, including soldiers, sailors, and volunteers. It is said he was the only man aware of the alarming fact that the powder magazine was not bombproof. During the night of September 13 the fort was under constant bombardment by the enemy, but the attack failed. Discouraged by the loss of the British general in land action, and finding that the shallow water and sunken ships prevented a close approach to the city by water, the British fleet withdrew. Fort McHenry was but little damaged and loss of life was small. [Illustration: Figure 5.--TUREEN presented to Com. John Rodgers by the citizens of Baltimore for his part in the defense of the city against the British in 1814. Bequest of Gen. M. C. Meigs. In Division of Political History. (Acc. 25386, cat. 5863; Smithsonian photo P-64357-A.)] Closely related to this punch set is a covered tureen (fig. 5) that the citizens of Baltimore gave to Commodore John Rodgers, U.S.N., for his part in the defense of Baltimore in September 1814. During the battle of North Point and the attack on Fort McHenry, the naval forces under Commodore Rodgers defended the water battery, the auxiliary forts Covington and Babcock, and the barges of the naval flotilla. The oval-shaped tureen is mounted on a square base that stands on four winged feet. The piece is 15 inches high. The handles at each end are supported by eagles' heads. An applied design of flying horses and winged cherub heads makes an attractive border around the edge of the tureen. The knob on the cover of the tureen is a stylized bunch of grapes. On the inside of the bottom of the base is inscribed: Presented by the citizens of Baltimore to Commodore John Rodgers in testimony of their sense of the important aid afforded by him in the defense of Baltimore on the 12th and 13th of Sept'^r, 1814. This piece too bears the mark of Philadelphia silversmiths Fletcher and Gardiner. [Illustration: Figure 6.--GOLD SNUFFBOX presented to Maj. Gen. Jacob Brown by the City of New York in recognition of his services in the War of 1812. Gift of Mrs. Susan Brown Chase. In Division of Political History. (Acc. 116682, cat. 37664; Smithsonian photo 57009.)] The gold snuffbox presented to Major General Jacob Brown by the City of New York in recognition of his services in the War of 1812 does not fall strictly within the province of this article, but it is included because it is similar to the silver pieces just described. The exterior of the box (fig. 6) is beautifully chased in a line design. The inside of the lid is inscribed as follows: The Corporation of the City of New York to Major General Jacob Brown in testimony of the high sense they entertain of his valor and skill in defeating the British forces superior in number, at the battles of Chippewa and Bridgewater on the 5th and 25th of July, 1814. FOR PEACE AND FRIENDSHIP Unusual in the Museum's collection of presentation silver is the treaty pipe (fig. 7) formally presented to the Delaware Indians in 1814 by General William Henry Harrison at the conclusion of the second Treaty of Greenville. The treaty was intended to commit the Indians to active resistance in the American cause during the War of 1812. General Harrison and Lewis Cass had been appointed commissioners by the U.S. Government to conclude the treaty. On July 8, 1814, General Harrison read to the Indians a message from the President of the United States, and afterward he presented to the Wyandotte, Delaware, and Shawnee Indian tribes large silver pipes elegantly ornamented and engraved with emblems signifying the protection and friendship of the United States.[5] [Illustration: Figure 7.--PEACE PIPE presented to the Delaware Indians by Gen. William Henry Harrison in 1814. Bequest of Victor J. Evans. In Bureau of American Ethnology. (Acc. 113604, cat. 362061; Smithsonian photos 44571, 44571-A.)] The pipe presented to the Delaware Indians has an urn-shaped bowl with a bead-edged cover bearing acanthus-leaf decorations. The S-shaped stem is 21 inches long and only one-fourth inch in diameter. The great length of the stem was necessary to cool the smoke; the S-shape added rigidity to the silver. The piece undoubtedly is the work of a competent craftsman but it bears no identifying mark.[6] Although not exactly a pipe of peace, another pipe in the collections of the Museum represents a gesture of friendship between nations. It is a meerschaum pipe[7] with a silver lid on the bowl and with a silver mouthpiece. The lid bears this inscription: This pipe was presented to Sir Frederick Hankey by the Grand Vizier of Turkey at Constantinople in the year 1830 and to Thomas Hankey Esq^re by the Daughter of Sir Frederick and by him to Charles Alexander Esq^re 9th March, 1873. The only information that has been obtained about Hankey is that he held an official position as Chief Secretary of Malta for the British Government. FOR POLITICS In 1838 the Whig Young Men of New York City presented to Robert Charles Wetmore a pair of large, ornate, silver pitchers[8] inscribed: To Robert Charles Wetmore their late Chairman from the General Committee of Whig Young Men of the City of New York a Memorial of political fellowship, a token of personal esteem and a tribute of patriotic service 1838. The bases of the pitchers are engraved: Presented to Chas Fredk Wetmore by his father, January 1st, 1840. These pitchers were made by Geradus Boyce, a New York silversmith who worked in the first half of the 19th century. FOR SERVICE IN THE MEXICAN, CIVIL, AND INDIAN WARS Most of these pieces, like the pitchers mentioned above, are not as pleasing aesthetically as the earlier ones, and they are much more closely allied with the exuberance of the Victorian era than they are with the classical lines of the Federal period. A large, elaborate vase[9] with two handles and a cover was presented to Major General Silas Casey, U.S.A., in recognition of his services during the Mexican War. The vase is inscribed: To Capt. Silas Casey, 2 inf. U.S.A. For his bravery and skill at Contreras, Churubusco and other battles of Mexico; for his gallant leading of the storming party of Regulars at Chapultepec where he was severely wounded. The gift of citizens of his native town and others, E. Greenwich, Rhode Island, August 1848. The vase is marked on the bottom with box-enclosed letters "G & H" and "1848." The letters probably refer to Gale and Hughes, New York silversmiths, or perhaps to Gale and Hayden, who were in business about the same time. Casey, a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, received votes of thanks from the Rhode Island legislature for his services in both the Mexican and Civil Wars. Lieutenant Colonel John Bankhead Magruder was given a silver pitcher by his friends in Baltimore for his Mexican War service. The pitcher[10] is urn-shaped, has a long, narrow neck, and stands on a tall base. The entire pitcher is elaborate repoussé in a design of roses, sunflowers, and grapes. An arched and turreted castle is depicted on each side, and on the center front is the inscription: Presented to Lt. Col. J. Bankhead Magruder by his Baltimore friends as a token of their appreciation of his Meritorious Services in the Mexican War, October 16, 1849. On the inside of the base are the marks "S. Kirk & Son" and "11 oz." Magruder graduated from the U.S. Military Academy in 1830, and his military career encompassed service under three flags within a period of 35 years. In the Mexican War he was brevetted major for gallantry at Cerro Gordo and lieutenant colonel for Chapultepec, where he was severely wounded. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Colonel Magruder, a native of Virginia, entered the Confederate Army and was soon placed in command of the Department of Texas, where he served until the close of the war. He then entered the army of Maximilian in Mexico as major general and was in active service until Maximilian's capture and execution. When he returned to the United States he settled in Houston and died there in 1871. A silver service (fig. 8) consisting of four goblets, pitcher, and tray, presented to Brevet Major General John Porter Hatch, U.S. Volunteers, is interesting because it was given in recognition of services during the Mexican War, the Indian expeditions of 1857-1859, and the Civil War. The gift is from Hatch's fellow citizens of Oswego, New York. [Illustration: Figure 8.--SILVER SERVICE given to Maj. Gen. John Hatch by the citizens of Oswego, New York. Gift of Mark Burckle Hatch. In Division of Political History. (Acc. 59476, cats. 16024-16026; Smithsonian photo 38259.)] The silver tray measures 15 by 20 inches and is decorated with four small waterscapes and a flower design. It is raised on four short scroll feet. The inscription reads: Genl. John Porter Hatch Presented by Citizens of Oswego, Jany 1863 The pitcher (14 inches high and 7 inches in diameter) has a design of grapevines and birds. The spout is in the form of a face, and the handle represents entwined vines. It is inscribed: Presented by citizens of Oswego, N.Y. to their esteemed fellow citizen Genl. John Porter Hatch as a testimonial of their appreciation of the gallantry and heroism displayed by him in the service of his country especially on the battle fields of Mexico and in the Army of the Potomac Jany 1863. The mark is "Tiffany & Co., 7899, G. & W., English Sterling 925-1000, 550 Broadway N.Y." The four silver goblets are also decorated with grape vines and birds, and they have gilt interiors. They are 8 inches high and 3-1/4 inches in diameter. Each goblet has the inscription: Testimonial of the Citizens of Oswego, N.Y. to Genl. John P. Hatch, Jan. 1863. Below this inscription each goblet is marked with one of the following: Mexico 1846-7 New Mexico 1857-8-9 Shenandoah Valley, May 25, 1862 South Mountain, Sep. 14, 1862 Each goblet is marked "Tiffany & Co." Hatch graduated from the Academy in 1845 and immediately saw active service in the Mexican War. He fought not only in General Taylor's campaign in northern Mexico but also in General Scott's campaign to capture Mexico City. In the years intervening before the Civil War he saw active service in Indian campaigns and took part in a number of scouting expeditions. With the outbreak of the Civil War he was assigned with the Volunteers in the Army of the Potomac until he was severely wounded at South Mountain, for which action he received the Congressional Medal of Honor. He spent the rest of the Civil War on duty behind the lines where he was in command of various districts in the Department of the South following Sherman's campaign. The largest and most elaborate set of presentation silver in the Museum is a complete table service (fig. 9) that was given to General Judson Kilpatrick by the Veterans Association of Connecticut on the occasion of his marriage to a Chilean in 1868 while he was serving as U.S. Minister to Chile. The set is engraved with emblems of the United States, Chile, the U.S. Army, and the U.S. Navy. The monograms on the individual pieces are in gold of four colors. More than any other silver service in the Museum this one may be said to epitomize the elaborate realism so popular during the height of the Victorian era. [Illustration: Figure 9.--SILVER SERVICE presented to Gen. Judson Kilpatrick by the Veterans Association of Connecticut. Loan of the estate of Mrs. Luisa V. Kilpatrick. In Division of Political History. (Acc. 57292, cats. 15145-15167; Smithsonian photo 28067.)] The pieces are marked "Meriden B * Company *" in a circle around a shield surmounted by balanced scales. This mark was used in the second half of the 19th century by the Meriden Britannia Company for its high-grade, silver-plated hollow-ware made on a base of silver nickel.[11] There are two trays in the set. The smaller tray is shown in figure 9. The larger one measures 22-1/2 inches by 38 inches and is inscribed: The Veteran Soldiers of Connecticut to Kilpatrick It is engraved in gold and silver with flags of the United States and Chile crossed with bayonets and spears. On one side there is a center medallion in gold with the monogram "L V K" (for Luisa V. Kilpatrick) in a circle surmounted on a shield of stars and stripes. Above the monogram there is a banner with three stars and a triangle. On the other side of the standing piece two eagles in fighting position are shown in front of a sunburst design. The United States flag can be seen directly behind the victorious eagle. The motto "Tuebor" is at the top of the sunburst. The entire design is encircled by a ring of stars, and there is a shield of stars and stripes at the top. This same design is repeated on all 40 pieces. The service contains napkin rings, vegetable dishes, syrup jar, spoon holder, large centerpiece, porcelain-lined pitcher, and other miscellaneous pieces of silver used for table service. The pieces of the tea and coffee service are mounted on four feet that are fastened to the bowl with cattle heads with branched horns. Each foot stands on a cloven hoof. The knob of each of the pots is a tiny horse jumping over a four-bar hurdle. One of the most interesting military presentation pieces in the collection is a silver and copper shield presented to Lieutenant General Nelson A. Miles, U.S. Army, by the officers of the 5th Infantry Regiment. General Miles served for many years as colonel of the regiment and led it in a number of notable Indian engagements. Beginning in 1869 his regiment defeated the Cheyenne, Kiowa, Comanche, Sioux, Nez Percé, and Bannock Indians, and, in 1886, after a long and difficult campaign, Miles compelled the surrender of the Apaches under Geronimo and Natchez. The heart-shaped shield[12] is surrounded by a rolled edge made of copper which originally had a gold wash. Inscribed on the inside of the rolled edge are the names "New Mexico," "Kansas," "Wyoming," "Montana," "Dakota," "Colorado," "Indian Territory," and "Texas." A profile portrait of General Miles, in relief, is suspended from an eagle's beak in the center, and below are the crossed weapons of the U.S. Army and the Indians surmounted by a peace pipe. The background of the shield is silver with etched scenes depicting incidents of the career of General Miles in the states named. The scenes depicted are of a buffalo hunt, a covered wagon on the trail, wild horses with Indian tepees in the background, an Army council of war, General Miles receiving the surrender of Chief Joseph of the Nez Percé Indians, and a peaceful agricultural scene. The plaque is inscribed as follows: Presented to General Nelson A. Miles, U.S. Army, by the officers of the fifth U.S. Infantry. As a token of personal esteem and their estimate of his distinguished services in which unequaled successes over savages in war were paralleled by humanity and justice towards the thousands of Indians whom he took captive and instructed in the Arts of Civilization. The plaque, measuring 18-1/2 by 23 inches overall, is marked "Tiffany & Co., 6565. Makers 2, Sterling Silver, 926-1000 and Other Metals, M." General Miles was colonel of the 5th Infantry Regiment for so many years that a modification of his family crest was selected as the crest on the coat of arms of the regiment. The Miles family crest is an arm in armor grasping an anchor. Arrows for each Indian campaign in which the regiment took part are substituted for the anchor in the regimental crest.[13] [Illustration: Figure 10.--SILVER SERVICE presented to Mrs. Abraham Lincoln when she was First Lady. Gift of Mr. Lincoln Isham. In Division of Political History. (Acc. 216335.6-.13; Smithsonian photo 44851-B.)] TO MARY TODD LINCOLN The Museum recently received a silver service (fig. 10) that belonged to Mary Todd Lincoln. The service consists of a large oval tray, a hot-water urn on a stand with a burner, coffeepot, teapot, hot-water pot, cream pitcher, sugar urn, and waste bowl. All the pieces have an overall repoussé floral and strapwork pattern with the monogram "MTL" on one side and an engraved crest on the other. The crest seems to be an adaptation of the Todd family crest. The pieces are marked with a lion, an anchor, and an old English "G," which are the early marks of the Gorham Silver Company. It is assumed that this silver service was a presentation gift to Mrs. Lincoln during the time she was First Lady of the White House, as a letter dated July 19, 1876, from her to her son Robert Todd Lincoln calls his attention to a silver service in his possession that was a gift to her from "the Citizens of New York." [Illustration: Figure 11.--TEAKETTLE AND STAND given to Gen. Montgomery C. Meigs in 1853 by the citizens of Washington for his work on the Washington Aqueduct. Gift of Gen. M. C. Meigs. In Division of Political History. (Acc. 25386, cat. 5864; Smithsonian photo 57008.)] FOR ENGINEERING By far the most fanciful of all the mid-19th-century pieces is the silver teakettle and stand (fig. 11) given to General Montgomery C. Meigs by the citizens of Washington for his work on the Washington Aqueduct. The kettle, 18 inches high, is mounted on a base that is 8-1/2 inches square and 3-1/4 inches high. The base is made in the shape of the stone arches of the aqueduct, and the head of George Washington, in profile, is depicted on the center front. There is a depression in the top of the base for holding a small alcohol lamp. Four rocks, one on each corner of the base, provide support for the kettle. The kettle's feet, in the form of fish, rest on the rocks and are fastened to them with hinges held by a chain and silver pin. The pins can be released so that the kettle can be tilted for pouring without moving it from the base. By withdrawing all four pins, the kettle can be completely detached from the base. The body of the kettle is decorated with nautical designs--waves, fish, shells, etc.--and cattails and lily pads. Under the spout is an anchor entwined with a fish over the initial "M." A belt ornamented with stars encloses the castellated towers of the Army Engineers symbol with the letters "U," "S," and "E" on one side of the kettle. On the other side is the inscription: Presented to Captain Montgomery C. Meigs U.S. Engineers by the Corporation of Washington with a Resolution of Thanks approved 12th March 1853 for his Report on the Washington Aqueduct. The handle of the kettle is in the form of a serpent's tail, and the spout is the serpent's open mouth. The lid is a nautilus shell on which stands an eagle with raised wings. On one side of the base is inscribed: Presented 9th June 1854 by John W. Maury--Mayor, Joseph Borrows of B^d Ald., A. W. Miller of B^d Com. C. Committee of the Corporation. The piece is marked "M. W. Galt & Bro.," a firm established in Washington in 1802 that has been in continuous business since that time. Montgomery Cunningham Meigs graduated from the U.S. Military Academy in 1836 and was soon assigned to the Engineer Corps. Thereafter, for a quarter of a century his outstanding talents were devoted to many important engineering projects. His favorite was the construction of the Washington Aqueduct, which carried a large part of Washington's water supply from the Great Falls of the Potomac to the city. This work, under his direction between 1852 and 1860, involved devising ingenious methods of controlling the flow and distribution of the water and also the design of a monumental bridge across the Cabin John Branch--a bridge that for 50 years was the longest masonry arch in the world. At the same time Meigs was supervising the building of wings and a new dome on the Capitol and an extension on the General Post Office Building. During the Civil War, Meigs served as quartermaster general, and in 1864 he was brevetted major general. As quartermaster general he supervised plans for the War Department Building, 1866-1867; the National Museum Building, 1876; and an extension of the Washington Aqueduct, 1876. After his retirement, in 1882, General Meigs became architect of the Pension Office Building. He served as a regent of the Smithsonian Institution, was a member of the American Philosophical Society, and one of the earliest members of the National Academy of Sciences. General Meigs himself gave the Museum this interesting piece of presentation silver. He also gave the previously described tureen (fig. 5) that had belonged to Commodore John Rodgers, who was General Meigs' father-in-law. Cyrus W. Field became interested in the idea of a cable across the Atlantic between Newfoundland and Ireland in 1854. It was not a new idea, and other shorter submarine cables had been successful, but this was the first time a transatlantic cable had been promoted by a man of Field's business ability and financial standing. Through his efforts, a governmental charter was secured and a company of prominent New Yorkers was formed to underwrite the venture. An unsuccessful attempt to lay the cable was made by the company in 1857. Field tried again in 1858; on the fourth attempt he was successful and immediately acclaimed as the "genius of the age." [Illustration: Figure 12.--GOLD BOX presented to Cyrus W. Field by the City of New York. Loan of Metropolitan Museum of Art. In Division of Political History. (Acc. 64761, cat. 26209; Smithsonian photo 57010.)] New York greeted Field with wild rejoicing, and the city authorities set September 1, 1858, as a day of celebration to give him an official public ovation. The celebration surpassed anything the city had ever before witnessed. Mr. Field and the officers of the cable fleet landed at Castle Garden and received a national salute. From there the procession progressed through crowded and gaily decorated streets to the crowd-filled Crystal Palace, where an address was given on the history of the cable. Then the mayor of New York gave an address honoring Mr. Field and presented him with a gold box stating: The municipal government of this city instructs me to present to you a gold box with the arms of the city engraved thereon, in testimony of the fact that to you mainly, under Divine Providence, the world is indebted for the successful execution of the grandest enterprise of our day and generation; and in behalf of the Mayor, Aldermen and Commonalty of the City of New York I now request your acceptance of this token of their approbation. The gold box (fig. 12) presented to Field by the City of New York is in the collections of the United States National Museum.[14] It measures 4-1/2 inches by 3 inches. On the lid and around an engraved representation of the cable fleet is inscribed: The City of New York to Cyrus W. Field The sides of the box are engraved with vignettes depicting the landing of the cable, the planning group at work, science and industry united, and Europe and America united. The bottom is engraved with the American eagle and the British shield. The inside lid of the box is inscribed: The City of New York to Cyrus W. Field commemorating his skill, fortitude and perseverance in originating and completing the first enterprise for an ocean telegraph successfully accomplished Aug. 5, 1858 uniting Europe and America. [Illustration: Figure 13.--SILVER-MOUNTED TANKARD presented to Cyrus W. Field by the workmen of Central Park, New York City. Loan of Metropolitan Museum of Art. In Division of Political History. (Acc. 64761, cat. 26209; Smithsonian photo 45992-H.)] Significant of the enthusiasm with which Field was greeted in 1858 is a silver-mounted tankard, made from the wood of the Charter Oak, that was given to him in December by the workmen of Central Park. On August 18, seemingly without advance publicity or elaborate preparations, there was a parade on Broadway of the workmen of Central Park. The procession was headed by a squad of policemen in full uniform, a band, and a standard bearer with a muslin banner inscribed "The Central Park People." The men marched in squads of four, and wore their everyday work clothes with evergreens stuck in their hats. Each squad carried a banner giving the name of its boss-workman. The procession included four-horse teams drawing wagons in which rode the workmen of the Engineers' Department. The parade was composed of 1,100 laborers and 800 carts from Central Park and 700 laborers and carts from the new Croton Reservoir, making a procession three miles long. Since it was altogether unexpected, it created no little excitement and inquiry.[15] The tankard (fig. 13) has a silver spout inscribed: The Oak of this Tankard is a part of the tree in which was preserved the Charter of the Liberties of the People of Connecticut during a temporary success of tyranny A.D. 1687. There is a silver shield on the left side with the monogram "C. W. F." and a silver shield on the right inscribed: The men, working in the Central Park Aug^st 17^th 1858 Present this tankard to Cyrus W. Field, as an expression of their respect, for the untiring labor which on that Day resulted in proving the practicability of Trans-Atlantic Communication, by the Electric Telegraph. The knob on the lid is made of silver and is decorated with an anchor and a rope in silver. No maker's mark is discernible. While the public adulation was at its peak the cable suddenly stopped working. Immediately public opinion changed and Field was accused of being a fake. He suffered severe business reverses and in 1860 went into bankruptcy. The outbreak of the Civil War prevented any further activity on the cable until 1865. Field engaged the world's largest steamer, the _Great Eastern_, to make the next attempt. The cable of 1865 parted in midocean during the laying operations, but in 1866 experience and technical improvements won the fight. The cable was laid and this time it continued to operate. Again Field was the darling of the American people and he was greeted with enthusiasm. Immediately on his return to New York in 1866 he sold enough of his cable stock to enable him early in November to write to those who had been hurt by his bankruptcy in 1860 and send to each the full amount of his indebtedness with 7 percent interest. The full amount paid out reached about $200,000. For this action George Peabody of New York City gave Field a silver service. The silver cake basket[16] from this service is in the United States National Museum. The shallow basket is on a pedestal with handles on each side. The inside of the basket is gilded. Inscribed on a plaque on one side is: George Peabody to Cyrus W. Field in testimony and commemoration of an act of very high Commercial integrity and honor, New York, 24 Nov. 1866. The inside of the foot of the basket is marked with the lion, anchor, and "G" of the Gorham Silver Company. Field continued to be active in many business enterprises but the last years of his life were again beset with severe financial difficulties. He and his wife celebrated their golden wedding anniversary in 1890, and in honor of this occasion their children presented them with a silver gilt vase.[17] The vase contains a portion of the first Atlantic cable mounted in the base, a part of the steamship _Great Eastern_, by which the cable was laid, and the inscribed names of all the Field's children and grandchildren. It is marked "Tiffany & Co. Sterling Silver, M." FOR DIPLOMACY AND LEGISLATION In January 1861, Dr. Samuel Lilly, physician, politician, and judge, was sent to British India as consul general from the United States. Dr. Lilly had been elected a representative to the 33d Congress as a Whig, and he served from 1853 to 1855. He also served as a judge of various lower courts in New Jersey. On his appointment as consul general he was given a silver goblet[18] 8 inches tall and 4-1/4 inches in diameter, having an embossed design of fruits, nuts, and flowers. On the goblet is inscribed: A Testimonial of Respect and Esteem Presented to Hon. Samuel Lilly by a few of his Fellow Citizens without distinction of Party; on the eve of his departure for Calcutta as Consul-General to British India January 29, 1861. The inside of the stem is marked with the lion, anchor, and "G" of the Gorham Silver Company, the word "coin," and the figure "8." When Dr. Lilly left India in 1862 he was given a silver pitcher and a silver tray.[19] The pitcher (13 inches high and 7-1/2 inches in diameter) has a tall, slender neck with a decided downturn to the pouring lip and a hinged lid with a thistle flower as a knob. The neck is engraved on each side with a design of grape leaves and grapes. The bowl of the pitcher has eight panels embossed with scrolls of vines and flowers. Both the tray and the pitcher are marked "Allen and Hayes." One side is engraved: To the Hon. Samuel Lilly, M.D. The other side is engraved: By the American Merchants in Calcutta July 1862. The silver tray (18 inches in diameter) has a scroll-leaf and flower design in relief around the edge. The scroll-leaf design is repeated on the surface. The tray is inscribed as follows: Presented to the Hon. Samuel Lilly M.D. by the American Merchants Resident in Calcutta as a token of regard and acknowledgment of the creditable manner with which he has upheld the dignity of the office and executed the duties appertaining to the post of Consul-General of the United States of America in British India, Calcutta, July 4th, 1862. American interest in European affairs, considerably increased by the middle of the century, is also reflected in the collection. In 1866 the life of the Czar of Russia was saved from a Nihilist's bullet by the brave action of one of the serfs who had recently been emancipated by royal decree. Czar Alexander II was well liked by his own people and was regarded as an enlightened ruler by the other nations of the West. He was especially respected in the United States because of the open support he gave to the Union side during the Civil War. His escape from death was a cause for official rejoicing in this country, and the Congress of the United States passed a resolution of congratulations on the deliverance of the life of the Czar and commissioned Gustavus Vasa Fox, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, to deliver it to the Czar. Fox set out for Europe in one of the newly designed Monitor ships that had proved so effective in naval fighting during the Civil War. His Monitor was escorted by other ships of the fleet with a large delegation of naval officers. The party was greeted by the Russians with great acclaim, and it was showered with gifts and honors. Many of the interesting items given to Fox personally were bequeathed to the United States National Museum by his widow, Mrs. V. L. W. Fox (accession 50021, Division of Political History). Among these objects are a silver tray (fig. 14), a silver saltcellar in the shape of a chair (fig. 14), and a gold snuffbox. [Illustration: Figure 14.--TRAY AND SALTCELLAR in shape of chair that were among items presented to Gustavus Vasa Fox on his visit to Russia in 1866. The tray measures 24 × 15 × 1-1/2 inches, and the saltcellar is 3-5/8 inches high, 4-9/10 inches long, and 2-3/4 inches wide. They were made by Sazkoff, St. Petersburg, 1863. Bequest of Mrs. V. L. W. Fox. In Division of Political History. (Acc. 50021, cats. 11267, 11263; Smithsonian photos 45602-A, 45602-H.)] The tray and saltcellar were presented to Fox on the estate of Prince Galitzine, one of the wealthiest members of the Russian nobility. These two items bear the marks of a Russian maker and are engraved "July 5, 1864," which date marked the coming-of-age of the Prince. On August 26, shortly after the American delegation arrived in Russia, Fox and his party drove to the beautiful Galitzine estate, about 12 miles from Moscow. The members of the party were met by the Prince and went with him to a part of the park where a deputation of peasants awaited them. Leader of the peasant group was the mayor of the neighboring village, an emancipated serf, who presented Fox with bread and salt--traditional symbols of Russian hospitality--on a silver salver and said: We wish to tell the envoy that we are come to congratulate him on his arrival, and to present him with bread and salt and also to say that we love him, and that we shall remember the love of his people for our country and our sovereign.[20] Two days later, on August 28, Fox met Prince Gortchakoff by appointment at the foreign office. After various complimentary allusions to the manner in which Mr. Fox had performed the delicate duties entrusted to him by his government, the Prince, in the name of the Emperor, presented a gold snuffbox set with diamonds.[21] The box, exquisitely chased, had the Emperor's miniature on the top surrounded by 26 diamonds. Six larger diamonds were set three on each side at equal distances from the inner circle. The Emperor was pictured in full military uniform with various orders on his breast.[22] The snuffbox minus its decorations is part of the Gustavus Vasa Fox collection in the Museum. The precious stones on the lid and the miniature in the center were bequeathed by Mrs. Fox to various members of the family when the box (cat. 11268) was willed to the Museum. A large and elaborate silver vase was presented by the members of the U.S. Life-Saving Service to Mrs. Samuel S. Cox in honor of the outstanding work of her husband, who as a congressman supported various bills for the improvement of the Service. Mr. Cox served as Congressman for 20 years, first from Ohio and later from New York State. He died in New York City in 1889. Two years later General Superintendent S. I. Kimball, in behalf of a committee representing the Service, presented the vase to Mrs. Cox. The ceremony took place at Mrs. Cox's home in Washington on December 12, 1891, in the presence of a gathering of relatives and friends. The vase[23] is 2 feet tall and 2 feet 1 inch in diameter; it weighs almost 8 pounds. Its design was selected by a subcommittee appointed by the Life-Saving Service, and the job was awarded to the Gorham Silver Company. The chasing is entirely the work of one man. The base of the vase has a design of clusters of acorns and oak leaves, and above these are dolphins sporting in billowing waves. The body of the vase begins with wide flutings between the tops of which are shells and seaweed. These are surrounded by a ring of marine cable. On the front, a scene represents the lifesavers at work. In perspective some distance out, where the sea rises in mountainous waves, there is a wrecked vessel, and in the foreground lifesavers are carrying the rescued to the beach. The ornamentation that covers the top of the body of the vase consists of a cable net in which are starfish, seaweed, and other marine flora and fauna. A ledge formed by a ship's chain surmounts the net, and above this is a profile of Mr. Cox circled with laurel. A lifebuoy crossed with a boat hook and oar ornaments the other side. Handles at the sides are two mermaids who with bowed heads and curved bodies hold in their upraised hands sea plants growing from the side of the top of the vase. The mermaids are the only portion of the ornamentation that was cast. The vase is inscribed as follows: This Memorial Vase is presented to _Mrs. Samuel S. Cox_ by the members of _The Life-Saving Service of the United States_ in Grateful Remembrance of the tireless and successful efforts of her Distinguished husband _The Honorable Samuel Sullivan Cox_ to promote the interests and advance the efficiency and glory of the Life-Saving Service. He was its early and constant friend; Its earnest and eloquent advocate; Its fearless and faithful Champion. I have spent the best part of my life in the public service; most of it has been like writing in water. The reminiscences of party wrangling and political strife seem to me like nebulae of the past, without form and almost void. But what little I have accomplished in connection with this Life-Saving Service is compensation "sweeter than the honey in the honeycomb." It is its own exceeding great reward.[24] Tangible evidence of the increased role that the United States was beginning to play in international affairs is a silver pitcher and salver[25] presented to Judge George S. Batcheller in appreciation of his services as president of the International Postal Congress, which was held in Washington, D.C., in 1897. Judge Batcheller's international career began when President Ulysses Grant appointed him as the U.S. judge in the newly created International Tribunal for legal administration of Egypt. The Tribunal had jurisdiction in cases between foreigners of different nationalities and also in cases of foreigners versus Egyptians. Batcheller later served as minister to Portugal and then as manager of European interests for various American companies. The International Postal Congress presented Judge Batcheller, its presiding officer, with a handsome urn-shaped pitcher with the following inscription engraved on the center front: Le Congrès postal de Washington à son Président le Général George S. Batcheller Juin 1897. The pitcher, 14-1/4 inches high, is marked inside the base "Galt & Bros., Sterling, 925--0--1879, 277, 7-1/2 pts." The "925" is circled, and the date is boxed. Accompanying the pitcher is a silver tray with the monogram "G S B" in script in the center. The tray is marked on the back with an eagle in a circle to the left, an "A" in a shield in the center, and a hammer and sickle in a circle to the right (an unidentified mark). 20th-Century Pieces FOR SERVICE IN THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR One of the most controversial figures of the Spanish-American War is represented in the Museum's collection of some of the silver that was presented to Rear Admiral Winfield Scott Schley.[26] Schley became a national hero primarily because of his genial personality, and he was acclaimed and supported by the masses of the American public even while his claims to fame were being challenged by his colleagues. Admiral Schley had already had a long and illustrious naval career before the outbreak of the war with Spain. After his graduation from the Naval Academy in 1860, he served on board the frigate _Niagara_ when it was detailed to bring to the United States the first representatives from Japan to this country. As a junior naval officer he took part in the Civil War engagements leading up to the capture of Port Hudson. Then followed a period with sea duty and alternate posts ashore at the Naval Academy and elsewhere. During this period he took part in the capture of some Korean forts in 1871, and later he commanded the relief expedition that rescued the Arctic explorer Lieutenant Adolphus W. Greeley and six of his companions near Cape Sabine, when they were near death, and brought them safely home after a perilous voyage through 1,400 miles of ice. The controversial period of Schley's career began with his appointment to command the Flying Squadron, stationed at Hampton Roads at the opening of the Spanish-American War, with the arrangement that should his squadron operate with the Atlantic Squadron in the West Indies, he would be under its senior officer, William T. Sampson. Since Sampson was junior to Schley in rank, this led to the famous Sampson-Schley controversy of the war. Despite his orders to blockade Santiago immediately, Schley took his time getting there with his squadron, and then he failed to establish a close blockade. During the month-long blockade in which the two squadrons were joined, matters were strained between the commands. Sampson was in conference about seven miles east of Santiago when the Spanish fleet finally emerged from the harbor. Schley immediately seized full command of the battle despite Sampson's proximity and his prompt return to action. The press, probably influenced by his likable personality, made a hero of Schley, but his fellow naval officers felt differently. A court of inquiry held in 1901 found Schley to be at fault, but despite this decision he retained his public popularity, a tribute to his affability and bluff, hearty manner. The many pieces in the Museum's collection of presentation silver given to Schley not only attest the recipient's popularity but seem to express the poor taste, debased design, and stereotyped workmanship that was characteristic at the beginning of the 20th century. Not just one presentation piece but an entire silver service was made from Spanish coins recovered from the _Cristóbal Colón_ that was sunk at Santiago. The original service consisted of 69 pieces, of which the Museum has the table centerpiece, soup tureen and ladle, fish platter, and a vegetable dish (cat. 39554). The centerpiece, measuring 14 by 30 by 8 inches, is designed with a circular base holding four classical female figures. On each side of the base is a shallow silver dish shaped like a seashell and supported by dolphins. A shield on one side of the base bears the following inscription: This service made of Spanish coins recovered from the _Cristobal Colon_ sunk in the battle off Santiago de Cuba July 3, 1898 is presented to Rear Admiral Winfield Scott Schley by his friends in loving appreciation of his heroic services to his country. An eagle ornaments the opposite side of the base. The covered oval soup tureen (7 inches by 13-1/4 inches; cat. 39555) bears the same inscription as the centerpiece and is marked "S. Kirk & Son Co." The cover, monogrammed "W S S," has a rather effective design of overlapped laurel leaves with clusters of berries. The ladle (14 inches long; cat. 39556) is monogrammed "W S S" on the bowl (4 inches in diameter), and it has the same design as the tureen. The fish platter (25 inches by 13 inches; cat. 39557) is similar to the tureen in design. The oval vegetable dish (11 inches by 15-1/4 inches; cat. 39558) is also similar and is inscribed the same way, including the mark of "S. Kirk & Son Co." An elaborate silver centerpiece given to Admiral Schley in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1902 consists of a bowl, vase, and candelabra made to be fitted into one unit (fig. 15). The large bowl (20 inches by 6 inches) is chased in marine designs and bears the following inscriptions: Presented to Winfield Scott Schley, Admiral U.S.N. in recognition of his services in destroying the Spanish Fleet off Santiago de Cuba, July 3, 1898. Twenty-thousand American citizens join in honoring valor, fidelity to duty and a lofty generosity that exemplified the sublimest manhood. Memphis, Tennessee, April 28, 1902. There is glory enough for All. The silver vase (32 inches high) is made to fit into the bowl, and it has a portrait of Admiral Schley on one side and a picture of his flagship, the _Brooklyn_, on the other. Each end of the bowl is fitted with a socket to hold a three-branch silver candelabra, and there are two solid blocks of silver for insertion in the sockets when the candelabra are not being used. These pieces are marked "Sterling" but no maker's mark is visible. A silver card (cat. 39518), measuring 3-1/4 inches by 5-1/2 inches, that was presented to Schley at a dinner given in his honor is engraved as follows: Rear Admiral Winfield Scott Schley, U.S.N. The Commercial club of Kansas City, Mo., November 19, 1902. The turn of the century marks the beginning of the popularity of loving cups as presentation pieces. There are four loving cups in the Admiral Schley collection. The earliest of these cups bears the following inscription: Presented to Rear Admiral W. S. Schley by the citizens of Atlanta Georgia, November 4, 1899. This cup (cat. 39571), 9 inches in diameter and 14-1/2 inches in depth, is shaped like a vase and is decorated with a scroll design. Each of its three handles is attached to the cup with two applied silver oak leaves. The piece is marked "Maier & Berkley, Atlanta, Georgia, Sterling, 385,16." [Illustration: Figure 15.--CENTERPIECE GIVEN TO Adm. Winfield Scott Schley in Memphis, Tennessee, for his services in Cuba during the Spanish-American War. Part of the Schley collection, gift of Mrs. R. S. Wortley. In Division of Naval History. (Acc. 136891, cat. 39548; Smithsonian photo 45992-G.)] Another silver cup with three handles was presented to Schley on February 5, 1902, by the Chamber of Commerce and the citizens of Knoxville, Tennessee, in recognition of his services during the Spanish-American War. This cup (cat. 39573) has the mark of the Gorham Silver Company and the words "Sterling, A 2219, 6 pints." The silver loving cup given to Admiral Schley by the City of Dallas reflects the exuberance of the Texas donors as well as the taste of the turn of the century. It bears the following inscription: Presented to Winfield Scott Schley, Rear Admiral, U.S.N. A token of the Affectionate Regard and Grateful Appreciation of the City of Dallas, Texas, For His Illustrious Achievements in the Service of our Country, October 20, 1902. This cup (cat. 39572) measures 8 inches in diameter and 21 inches in depth. The three handles terminate in eagles' heads. The design pictures a battleship in gold identified as the "U.S.S. Oregon," a head and laurel wreath with the words "U.S.S. Brooklyn," and an eagle and a star in a wreath for the "U.S.S. Texas." The base of the cup is decorated with three Texas longhorns with an anchor and shield. It bears the marks of the Gorham Silver Company. The fourth loving cup (cat. 39538) is made of vanadium steel rather than of silver. This too is a three-handled cup. It measures 7 inches in diameter and 12-1/2 inches in depth and is decorated with the emblem of the Masonic Order of the Mystic Shrine and the following inscriptions: Presented to Noble Winfield Scott Schley by Syria Temple, A.A.O.N.M.S. November 20, 1909. Syria Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania The war with Spain is further commemorated by a silver loving cup[27] presented to Rear Admiral Charles D. Sigsbee, U.S.N. Sigsbee, commissioned captain in 1897, was in command of the battleship _Maine_ when she blew up in Havana harbor in 1898. A naval court of inquiry exonerated Sigsbee, his officers, and crew from all blame for the disaster; and the temperate judicious dispatches from Sigsbee at the time did much to temper the popular demand for immediate reprisal. The cup bears the following inscription: The Commercial Club of St. Paul Minn. Sends Greetings to Capt. Charles Dwight Sigsbee who as Commander of the Auxiliary Cruiser St. Paul had a brilliant share in the Naval Exploits of the Spanish War of 1898. May you live long and prosper. Marks on the cup are those of the Gorham Silver Company and the words "Sterling," "Patented," and "5 pts." Admiral Sigsbee achieved greater distinction for his services as a scientist than as a naval hero. An outstanding hydrographer, he made a deep-sea survey of the Gulf of Mexico, and from 1893 to 1897 he was chief of the Navy's hydrographic office. FOR ARCTIC EXPLORATION In the midst of the myriad of soldiers, sailors, and politicians who have been presented with silver through the past two centuries, we find an arctic explorer being given similar recognition at the beginning of this century. Rear Admiral Robert E. Peary was the first man to reach the North Pole, and the United States National Museum has a collection of silver presented to him in recognition of this achievement. Peary became interested in arctic exploration as early as 1886 and discovered he had an aptitude for its grueling demands on several minor expeditions to Greenland and the arctic ice cap. In 1893 he became determined to reach the North Pole, and he spent the next 15 years in unsuccessful attempts to achieve his ambition. In 1908 Peary left on another polar expedition; after a hazardous trip, he reached his goal on April 6, 1909. His victory seemed a hollow one because of the claim of a rival explorer that was finally proven spurious. In October a committee of experts appointed by the National Geographic Society supported Peary's claims, and in 1911 he was tendered the thanks of Congress. Admiral Peary's work as an explorer had immense scientific value, as he developed a highly efficient method of exploration which has continued to be used advantageously. Three loving cups and a replica of a ship in silver[28] that were presented to Peary are in the collections of the United States National Museum. Two of the cups were gifts to Peary from cities in his home state of Maine. One loving cup (cat. 12186), 10 inches high, is marked with the old English "T" of Tiffany & Company, "7072," and "5 pts." It is inscribed: To Commodore Robert Edwin Peary, U.S.N. in recognition of his remarkable achievement in placing the flag of the United States at the North Pole, April 6, 1909. Presented September 23, 1909 by the City of Bangor, Me. The other loving cup from Maine (cat. 12187) is 12 inches deep and bears the Tiffany "T," "7056," "Sterling," and "5-1/2 pts." The inscription reads: Presented by the citizens of Portland, and South Portland, Maine, To Commodore Robert Edwin Peary, U.S.N. September 23, 1909 in recognition of his achievement in nailing the stars and stripes to the North Pole. The third loving cup (cat. 12188) is 18 inches high and is marked with the lion, anchor, and "G" of the Gorham Silver Company and with "Sterling," "332A," "7 pints," and "D. Kappa Epsilon." The inscription reads: Presented to Commodore Robert Edwin Peary, U.S.N. by the Delta Kappa Epsilon Association of New York City, December 18, 1909. In 1910 the Royal Scottish Geographic Society presented Admiral Peary with a silver replica of a ship (fig. 1) of the type used by Henry Hudson, John Davis, and William Baffin in their explorations for the Northwest Passage. The replica, representing a ship under full sail, is 24 inches high and 20 inches long. The foresail bears a long inscription in Latin likening Peary to other early arctic explorers. The marks indicate the piece was made in Great Britain. Also in the Museum's collection is a silver plaque[29] presented to Peary by the Circumnavigator's Club in New York. It bears the mark of Tiffany & Company and is inscribed: Circumnavigator's Club Presented to the Immortal Navigator Peary on the Occasion of his presence as guest of honor at our Annual dinner held at Delmonico's New York City, the Eleventh of December, 1913. Officers: President W. Tyre Stevens, 1st V. P. Wilson D. Lyon, 2nd V. P. W. D. Oelbermann, Treasurer, F. C. Schulze, Sec. F. W. Hilgar, Gov. E. H. Paterson, J. H. Burch Jr., George L. Carlisle, W. G. Paschoff, C. A. Haslett, William H. Zinn. The bottom edge of the plaque is engraved "Tiffany & Co. Makers" and "18417 Sterling Silver." [Illustration: Figure 16.--CUP PRESENTED TO the Honorable Brand Whitlock by the British Government. Gift of Mrs. Brand Whitlock. In Division of Political History. (Acc. 137815, cat. 40028; Smithsonian photo 45992-E.)] FOR SERVICE DURING WORLD WAR I Of all the silver pieces in the collections of the National Museum that commemorate military prowess, the sole piece relating to World War I was presented to a man who achieved fame for his humanitarian service as a diplomat--the Honorable Brand Whitlock, who was appointed American Minister to Belgium in 1913. Whitlock came to the position with a distinguished record as four-time mayor of Toledo, Ohio, where his administration was noted for its reforms. He had insisted on a fair deal for the working man; he liberalized the administration of justice; he kept the city government free of graft; and he won a battle against the power of vested interests in the city. After the invasion of Belgium in World War I, Whitlock remained at his post where he performed many services for the oppressed citizens. His presence in Brussels facilitated for both friend and foe the enormous task of organizing the distribution of food among the civilian population of Belgium and the occupied zone of France. In 1916 he chose to follow the Belgian Government into exile. His activities won him the lifelong affection and admiration of the people of Belgium, and after the war they showered him with evidences of their esteem. Among the many presentation medals, documents, and miscellaneous gifts that he received is a silver loving cup (fig. 16) from the British Government. On one side the cup bears the British coat of arms, and on the other side is inscribed: Presented to Brand Whitlock by his Britannic Majesty's Government, 11 November 1918. The base is marked "C & Co.," "130 Regent St., Carrington and Co., London W," and "Copy of Antique Irish 1717, 66 × 13, P 6610, xy P d." [Illustration: Figure 17.--PAPERWEIGHT identical to those presented by William Jennings Bryan to 30 diplomats who signed with him treaties for the investigation of all international disputes. Gift of William Jennings Bryan. In Division of Political History. (Acc. 57778, cat. 15307; Smithsonian photo 45992-C.)] A presentation piece made of polished steel is really outside the scope of this paper, but as it has an interesting bit of diplomatic history connected with it, it has been included in the catalogue. The object is a paperweight (fig. 17) designed by William Jennings Bryan when he was Secretary of State. The weight, in the form of a plowshare, was made from swords condemned by the War Department. Thirty of these weights were given by Secretary Bryan to the diplomats who in 1914 signed with him treaties providing for the investigation of all international disputes. The shaft of the plow bears the inscription: "Nothing is final between friends" "Diplomacy is the art of keeping cool" The blade is inscribed "They shall beat their swords into plowshares" Isaiah 2:4 On the base is engraved: "From William Jennings Bryan to the Smithsonian Institution, August 13, 1914" TO MR. AND MRS. ROBERT TODD LINCOLN Among the pieces of presentation silver acquired in 1960 by the Smithsonian Institution is a covered urn that was given to Mr. and Mrs. Robert Todd Lincoln by their children on the occasion of their 50th wedding anniversary.[30] Robert Todd Lincoln, son of the President, became a prominent lawyer in Chicago and later served as president of the Pullman Company, as Secretary of War in the cabinets of President Garfield and President Arthur, and as Minister to Great Britain under President Benjamin Harrison. The silver gilt urn has two handles, measures 13 inches from the base to the finial on the cover, and 7 inches at its widest point. Bands of ornamentation feature both the grape design and the acorn and oak-leaf design. It is inscribed: Robert Todd Lincoln--Mary Harlan 1868-1918 The gilt wash, although almost completely polished off the outside surface, still covers the inside of the urn and its lid. TO CONGRESSMEN A silver tureen and tray[31] were given to the Honorable James R. Mann, Republican leader of the House of Representatives, by the members of the House in 1919. Mann was elected a Representative from Illinois in 1897, and he remained a member of Congress until his death in 1922. In 1912 he became minority leader. In addition to the Mann Act, his name is associated with other important legislation of the period such as the Pure Food and Drugs Act and the Woman Suffrage Amendment. The tray, which holds the tureen, is inscribed: James R. Mann Republican Leader from House Members of the 65th Congress, March 3rd, 1919. It is marked on the back with "W. Sterling, 4086--16 in." The initial represents the Wallace Silver Company. The oval tureen is on a pedestal base. There is a scroll design around the edge of the base, the edge of the bowl, and the opening of the bowl. The piece measures 14 inches from handle to handle, is 10 inches high, and has the initials "J R M" in old English letters engraved on the side. In the Museum's collection is a loving cup of Chinese design that was presented by the Chamber of Commerce, Peking, China, to a party of American Congressmen on a tour of China and Japan in 1920.[32] The height of the cup is 17-5/8 inches, and its width, including the two large handles, is 15-5/16 inches. The piece is mounted on a papier-mâche base that is covered with silk. The engraved Chinese characters translate as follows: Commemorating the welcome of Congressmen from Great America traveling in China Respectfully presented by members of the Chinese Diet May the spring of your well-being be as vast as the ocean. TO SUFFRAGETTES Among the significant social changes that occurred in the 19th century was the movement for woman suffrage that began about the middle of the century as a concerted action by a nucleus of determined women. The crusade gained strength and numbers during the second half of the century, and finally achieved success with the ratification of the Suffrage Amendment in 1920. Many women worked in this cause, and the pieces of presentation silver in the National Museum's Woman Suffrage Collection constitute a record of the most important leaders. Chief spokesman of the movement and its leader for many years was Elizabeth Cady Stanton of New York State. She was instrumental in calling the first Woman's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848, and she served as president of the National Woman Suffrage Association from its beginning in 1869 and as president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association from 1890 to 1891. She continued to be an active worker in the movement until her death in 1902, writing and editing many works on suffrage in addition to her administrative work. On the occasion of her 80th birthday in 1895, Mrs. Stanton was presented with a silver tray[33] (8 inches wide and 1-1/2 inches deep) that is inscribed: From the Ladies of Seneca Falls, 1848-1895. This tray, presented at a meeting at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City, bears on the back a "W" in a circle, a two-headed lion in a rectangle (probably an early mark of the Wallace Silver Company), the word "Sterling," and the number "2048." [Illustration: Figure 18.--CUP GIVEN TO SUSAN B. ANTHONY by the Colorado Equal Suffrage Association. Gift of National American Woman Suffrage Association. In Division of Political History. (Acc. 64601, cat. 26163; Smithsonian photo 45992-J.)] On the same occasion Mrs. Stanton was presented a silver loving cup[34] that is inscribed: 1815-1895 Presented to Elizabeth Cady Stanton by the New York City Woman Suffrage League, November 12, 1895. Defeated day by day but unto victory born. The cup, 4-1/2 inches in diameter and 7-3/8 inches deep, is marked on the bottom with the Wallace "W," similar to the mark on the tray, and "Sterling, 3798, 4-1/2 pints, 925/100 fine, Pat 1892." The life story of Susan B. Anthony is a record of 60 years of devotion and work for the enfranchisement of women. An organizer and director of countless suffrage activities, she was tireless in conducting campaigns for woman suffrage. She is the one individual who has become so identified with the fight for woman suffrage that, more than any other, her name has become synonymous with that term. During her lifetime she worked in almost every capacity in the organized movement. She became president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association in 1892 and served until her 80th birthday in 1900. On that occasion the Colorado Equal Suffrage Association presented her with a miniature, three-handled loving cup that stands only 3-3/4 inches high (fig. 18). In one section of the cup there is engraved the word "Colorado" and the state's coat of arms; in an adjoining section is an engraving of the state flower; and in the third section is the following inscription: Colorado Equal Suffrage Association to Susan B. Anthony on her 80th Birthday 1900. The cup is marked on the bottom "Sterling, 590, A. J. Stark & Co., Denver." She was also given a silver-plated teakettle[35] by the Political Equality Club of Rochester, New York. The stand is 3-1/2 inches high, and the teapot is 5-1/4 inches high. Engraved around the top of the teapot is: Susan B. Anthony 1820-1893. The stand is marked "Mfd. & Plated Reed & Barton" and "65." The chosen leader of the Woman Suffrage Movement after 1900 was Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, a vigorous organizer and campaigner who led the drive for the constitutional amendment that was finally ratified in 1920. Mrs. Catt founded the International Woman Suffrage Alliance in 1902 and served as its president until 1923. Her late years were devoted to the cause of international peace and disarmament. Mrs. Catt was the prime mover in calling the first international conference on suffrage, which, in 1902, welcomed representatives from nine foreign nations--Great Britain, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Turkey, Russia, Australia, and Chile. The delegates were honored guests at the National Suffrage Convention then in session in Washington where they also attended two congressional hearings on suffrage and were received by President Theodore Roosevelt at the White House.[36] Mrs. Catt was given a silver tray[37] inscribed: To Carrie Chapman Catt from the foreign delegates to the First International Suffrage Conference, Washington, D.C., Feb. 12-18, 1902. The back of the tray is marked "Galt & Bro. Sterling, 386." The Galt silver firm is in Washington, D.C. The campaign for the first referendum in the state of New York on woman suffrage was considered to be the most decisive of all the state fights. New York was divided into 12 campaign districts working under Mrs. Catt. The campaign was most vigorously waged, but the referendum was defeated.[38] After the New York campaign Mrs. Catt received a silver gilt tray[39] inscribed: Honorable Carrie Chapman Catt from Katherine Howard Notman Eleventh Assembly District Campaign Chairman, 1915 The right of the citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. The tray is marked on the reverse "Tiffany and Co., 18154, Makers 811, Sterling Silver, 925/1000/M." Mrs. Catt had started the suffrage movement in the Philippine Islands when she visited there in 1912 and organized the first suffrage club in Manila. In 1937 the Philippine legislature submitted the question of votes for women to the women of the Islands themselves. The campaign committee working out of Manila sent native women campaigners throughout the Islands to be sure all races and religions were represented in the vote. Mrs. Catt raised money in this country and sent it to the campaign committee to help with the fight.[40] Over half a million Philippine women voted favorably on the question, and several months later Mrs. Catt was presented with a silver plaque, mounted on native woods, that is now in the Museum's collection.[41] It is inscribed: In grateful acknowledgement of the moral and financial aid given by the women of America through Carrie Chapman Catt to the women of the Philippines through the International Federation of Women's Clubs in their struggles for their political rights culminating in ultimate victory in April, 1937. [Illustration: Figure 19.--BELT GIVEN TO H. W. HIGHAM as the winner of a 6-day bicycle race at Glasgow, Scotland. Gift of Mr. H. W. Higham. In Division of Transportation. (Acc. 168449, cat. 313867; Smithsonian photo 45992-F.)] FOR SPORTS EVENTS The earliest of the sports trophies in the collection is an ornate belt (fig. 19) made of blue velvet upon which are mounted five engraved silver plates connected by silver straps. On the center plate is the inscription: 6 Days Bicycle Champion Belt of Scotland Won by H. W. Higham Nottingham 19th June 1880 Contested at Glasgow One of the two adjoining smaller plates has an engraving of a man riding a high-wheeled bicycle, and the other has an engraving of a man standing beside a similar bicycle. The two outer plates are engraved with Scottish coats of arms. The belt is 34-1/2 inches long and 3 inches wide. [Illustration: Figure 20.--THE VANDERBILT CUP, an annual award for automobile races in the early 20th century. Gift of William K. Vanderbilt, Jr. In Division of Transportation. (Acc. 131820, cat. 310894; Smithsonian photo 45992-B.)] Trophies were awarded for competition among the various makes of cars almost as early as the advent of the automobile itself. The earliest such trophy in the Museum's collection is a three-handled, cut-glass cup[42] with a wide silver rim on which is engraved: Automobile Club of New Jersey. Eagle Rock Hill Climbing Contest. First Prize Nov. 5, 1901. The prize was won by Charles E. Duryea who drove an automobile of his own manufacture. Most important of the automobile trophies was the Vanderbilt Cup (fig. 20) for racing, which was established by William K. Vanderbilt, Jr., in 1904 to bring the best cars of foreign make to the United States so that domestic manufacturers could observe them. It is believed that the trophy contributed in this way to the rapid development of the automobile in the United States. The Vanderbilt Cup races were held annually in the United States under the auspices of the American Automobile Association. The silver cup, measuring 23 inches high and 20 inches in diameter and weighing about 40 pounds, is engraved with statistics of the various races--such as dates, winners, types of cars, distances, and times.[43] There is a wreath around the brim, and the front is decorated with a period racing car in repoussé. The inscription reads: Challenge Cup Presented by W. K. Vanderbilt Jr. American Automobile Assn. under deed of gift to be raced for yearly by cars under 1000 kilos. On the inside of the stem is marked "Tiffany and Co." and "35 pints." Athletic trophies in the collection include eight silver and silver-plated loving cups awarded for athletic events to the crew members of various ships of the U.S. Navy.[44] The sporting events represented include baseball and football games, canoe and cutter races, and track meets held among the fleet between 1903 and 1915. TROWELS FOR CORNERSTONE LAYING The National Museum also has a small collection of silver trowels used for laying cornerstones of public buildings. There is an ivory-handled trowel (fig. 21) with the inscription: [Illustration: Figure 21.--TROWEL used by President Ulysses S. Grant in laying the cornerstone of the Museum of Natural History, New York City. Gift of Julia Dent Grant and William H. Vanderbilt. In Division of Political History. (Acc. 18528, cat. 3004; Smithsonian photo 45992-A.)] This Trowel was used by His Excellency Ulysses S. Grant. President of the United States in laying the Corner Stone of the Building erected by the Department of Public Parks for the American Museum of Natural History and presented to him by the Trustees of the Museum New York June 2^nd 1874. There are also some silver trowels in the Bishop Matthew Simpson Collection.[45] The earliest of these is inscribed: Presented to Bishop Simpson D.D.L.L.D. at a laying of a stone of the New Wesleyan Church, Willesden, in commemoration of the 1st Methodist OEcumenical Conference held in London, Sept. 10, 1881. This trowel (cat. 38199) bears the English standard marks with the initials "H. H." On the same trip to London Bishop Simpson received an ivory-handled silver trowel (cat. 38198) inscribed: Presented to Bishop Simpson upon his laying the foundation stone of Clouditte Methodist Church, Dublin, 12th October, 1881. Another silver trowel in the same collection is inscribed: Used by Bishop Simpson at the laying of the cornerstone of the Wenonah Methodist Episcopal Church, Wenonah, New Jersey, Aug. 15, 1883, and presented to him in loving remembrance of his presence. This trowel (cat. 38197) is marked "Coin" on the back. The fourth trowel, given to Mrs. Simpson, is inscribed as follows: Presented to Mrs. Bishop Matthew Simpson by the Lady Managers in loving remembrance of her laying the cornerstone of the Methodist Episcopal Orphanage, Philadelphia, Oct. 13, 1887. The back of this trowel (cat. 38208) is marked "Sterling." FIRE TRUMPETS Three fire trumpets in a collection[46] on loan from the Insurance Company of North America are inscribed as presentation pieces. One of these is 22 inches high and has eagle-head handles and an overall repoussé design. This trumpet is engraved: May 1871 Retired from active service by the establishment of the Volunteer Fire Department In grateful remembrance we restore to Samuel G. Simpson his handsome gift presented by him to the Southwark Fire Co. Nov. 7, 1865. Another trumpet is engraved with crossed ladders, pikes, and fire helmets against an overall floral design. It is 19-1/2 inches high. The inscription reads: Presented to Vigilant Engine Co. #6 of Paterson New Jersey at the Annual Fair of the Willis Street Baptist Church April 1879. The inscription on the third trumpet reads simply: Presented to Captain George W. Erb by the Ladies of St. Rose's Fair. It has an elaborate engine-engraved design and is 21-1/2 inches high. * * * * * U.S. Government Printing Office: 1965 For sale by Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Washington, D.C. 20402 Price 30 cents * * * * * _Paper 47, pages 81-108, from UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 241_: CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION WASHINGTON, D.C. 1965 * * * * * FOOTNOTES: [1] Bequest of Arthur Michaels (acc. 162866, cat. 383497), Division of Cultural History, USNM. [2] E. ALFRED JONES, _The Old Silver of American Churches_ (National Society of Colonial Dames of America, 1913), pp. 68-69 and pl. 27. [3] Bequest of Arthur Michaels (acc. 162866, cat. 383549), Division of Cultural History, USNM. [4] H. MAXSON HOLLOWAY, "American Presentation Silver," _New-York Historical Society Quarterly_ (October 1946), vol. 30, p. 228. [5] "The Journal of the Proceedings of the Commissioners Plenipotentiary, Appointed on Behalf of the United States to Treat with the Northwestern Tribes of Indians," _American State Papers ... Indian Affairs_, vol. 1, pp. 826-836. [6] G. Carroll Lindsay, "The Treaty Pipe of the Delawares," _Antiques_ (1958), vol. 74, no. 1, pp. 44-45. [7] Gift of Thomsen H. Alexander (acc. 63880, cat. 22995), Division of Political History, USNM. [8] Bequest of Amy Wetmore May (acc. 190331, cat. 387945), Division of Political History, USNM. [9] Gift of Estate of Sophie P. Casey (acc. 171620, cat. 44364), Division of Political History, USNM. [10] Bequest of Henry R. Magruder (acc. 47577, cat. 10793), Division of Political History, USNM. [11] EARL CHAPIN MAY, _Century of Silver 1847-1947: Connecticut Yankees and a Noble Metal_ (New York: McBride and Co., 1947), pl. 36. [12] Loan of Mrs. Samuel Reber (acc. 87949, cat. 35145), Division of Armed Forces History, USNM. [13] _Infantry_ (vol. 2 of _The Army Lineage Book_), Washington, 1953. [14] Loan of Metropolitan Museum of Art (acc. 64761, cat. 26209), Division of Political History, USNM. [15] ISABELLA FIELD JUDSON, ed., _Cyrus W. Field, His Life and Work_ (New York, 1896), p. 110. [16] Gift of Isabella Field Judson (acc. 116488, cat. 37662), Division of Political History, USNM. [17] Gift of Isabella Field Judson (acc. 32290, cat. 7214), Division of Political History, USNM. [18] Gift of William Lilly (acc. 103012, cat. 35780), Division of Political History, USNM. [19] Gift of William Lilly (acc. 103012, cats. 35781-82), Division of Political History, USNM. [20] JOHN D. CHAMPLIN, Jr., ed., _Narrative of the Mission to Russia in 1866 of the Hon. Gustavus Vasa Fox from the Journal and Notes of J. F. Loubat_ (New York, 1873), p. 264. [21] Snuffboxes were given by sovereigns to those who were not allowed to receive decorations. Such boxes were of three grades: plain gold boxes, boxes set with diamonds, and boxes having both diamonds and the sovereign's miniature. The latter were given only to persons of the highest distinction. [22] CHAMPLIN, p. 359. [23] Gift of Elizabeth Hardenburg (acc. 53695, cat. 12782), Division of Political History, USNM. [24] From a speech by Cox delivered in the House of Representatives, April 24, 1888. [25] Gift of Katherine Batcheller (acc. 112477, cat. 36871), Division of Political History, USNM. [26] Collection gift of Mrs. R. S. Wortley (acc. 136891), Division of Naval History, USNM. [27] Gift of Nellie G. Gunther (acc. 84594, cat. 35647), Division of Naval History, USNM. [28] Loan of Robert E. Peary (acc. 52878), Division of Naval History, USNM. [29] Loan of Mrs. Robert E. Peary (acc. 177710, cat. 46014), Division of Naval History, USNM. [30] Gift of Lincoln Isham (acc. 227132.1), Division of Political History, USNM. [31] Gift of Mrs. James R. Mann (acc. 70676, cats. 34113-14), Division of Political History, USNM. [32] The cup (acc. 66168, cat. 30852) was deposited in the United States National Museum (Division of Political History) by the Honorable John. H. Small, who was chairman of the group of traveling Congressmen. [33] Gift of Harriot Stanton Blatch (acc. 127776, cat. 38762), Division of Political History, USNM. [34] Gift of Harriot Stanton Blatch (acc. 127776, cat. 38763), Division of Political History, USNM. [35] Gift of National American Woman Suffrage Association (acc. 64601, cat. 26162), Division of Political History, USNM. [36] MARY GRAY PECK, _Carrie Chapman Catt_ (New York: H. W. Wilson Co., 1944), pp. 121-122. [37] Gift of National American Woman Suffrage Association (acc. 147840, cat. 42083), Division of Political History, USNM. [38] PECK, op. cit., pp. 220-232. [39] Gift of National American Woman Suffrage Association (acc. 147840, cat. 42084), Division of Political History, USNM. [40] PECK, op. cit., pp. 457-458. [41] Gift of National American Woman Suffrage Association (acc. 147840, cat. 42085), Division of Political History, USNM. [42] Gift of Mrs. Charles Duryea (acc. 144429, cat. 311338), Division of Transportation, USNM. [43] Statistics on the cup for the races held from 1904 to 1916 are an interesting record of the development of the automobile. For instance, the winning speed increased from 52.2 miles per hour in 1904 to 86.99 miles per hour in 1916. [44] These trophies were received as a transfer from the Department of Defense (acc. 83961). [45] Gift of the Misses Simpson (acc. 104604), Division of Political History, USNM. [46] (Acc. 138182, cat. 311087), Division of Transportation, USNM. * * * * * Transcriber's note: All footnotes were moved to the end of the text. Some illustrations have been moved. A List of Illustrations was added. Archaic and variable spelling is preserved. The author's punctuation style is preserved. The following changes were made to the original text: Page 92: =silverplated= standardized to =silver-plated= (by the Meriden Britannia Company for its high-grade, =silver-plated= hollow-ware made on a base of silver nickel.) Page 92: =old-English= standardized to =old English= (and has the initials "J R M" in =old English= letters engraved on the side.) Footnote 25: Added period after =cat= (Gift of Katherine Batcheller (acc. 112477, =cat.= 36871), Division of Political History, USNM.) Footnote 26: =UNSM= changed to =USNM= (Collection gift of Mrs. R. S. Wortley (acc. 136891), Division of Naval History, =USNM=.) 
30025	----	ANTIQUE TABRIZ SILK RUG SIZE 8 × 6.3 _This interesting and valuable rug is of antique Tabriz weave, of finely blended colors, and rare design. It represents the individual squares on the floor of a mosque, each one of which may be occupied by a worshipper kneeling in prayer. Rugs with a single design of this kind are usual, but a grouping of many such spaces in one rug is rare. Forms of the Tree of Life are represented in different panels, and the border is very rich and handsome. The fabric is fine, the texture soft and firm. The rich and splendid hues of the various panels are so soft in tone that, while there are several different colors in juxtaposition, these have been arranged so deftly and artistically that the effect is perfectly harmonious. It is impossible to describe in words the mellow richness and rare art displayed in this unique product of the loom._ OWNED BY MRS. L. G. BURNHAM, BOSTON. RUGS ORIENTAL AND OCCIDENTAL ANTIQUE & MODERN _A Handbook for Ready Reference_ BY ROSA BELLE HOLT New and Enlarged Edition, Entirely Reset _With 33 full-page Illustrations, 12 in full color, and other drawings in the text, and a Map of the Orient_ CHICAGO A. C. McCLURG & CO. 1908 COPYRIGHT A. C. MCCLURG & CO. 1901-1908 This Enlarged Edition published October 10, 1908 THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. PREFACE TO NEW ENLARGED EDITION When the first edition of this book was published in 1901, it stood almost alone as a reference work on Oriental Rugs. In the six years which have since elapsed, several volumes dealing with the subject have been published. The extended knowledge of the public concerning the subject has materially altered the conditions of buying and selling. It has also served to increase curiosity and enthusiasm regarding these products of Oriental workmanship. I have been gratified to observe that a desire for additional information is sought. My mail has contained an increasing number of requests for an enlarged edition of my book, and my own enthusiasm for the subject makes me believe in the interest of my readers. I take pleasure in sharing with them the results of recent investigations made in the United States, in the art centres of Europe, and in the Orient. ROSA BELLE HOLT. NEW YORK CITY, _February 1, 1908_. PREFACE While there is a singular lack of books in the English language treating directly of Rugs,--a theme which is so intensely interesting to buyers,--it is noteworthy that under the category of Oriental Carpets are to be found a few volumes of interest. These, however, are too rare and expensive for the general reader. For this reason I have undertaken to present in a concise form certain facts that may enable a novice to appreciate the beauty and interest attaching to rugs, and assist a prospective purchaser in judging of the merits of any particular rug he may desire to possess. For much valuable information on the subject I am indebted to publications which are referred to in my Bibliography, to correspondence with Ministers to Oriental countries and Consuls residing therein, to interviews with rug-dealers in various cities, and to certain learned Americans, Armenians, Greeks, Syrians and Turks. It has also been my good fortune to be intrusted, for purposes of description and reproduction, with many beautiful and rare rugs, from owners who cherish them as treasures. These true rug-lovers have generously contributed to whatever there may be of interest in this book. R. B. H. NEW YORK CITY, _August 1, 1901_. CONTENTS PAGE I. HISTORY AND DETAILS OF RUG-WEAVING The History 15 The Loom and Its Work 22 The Weavers 26 The Materials 30 The Quality 32 The Knotting 34 Designs 37 The Dyes 44 Oriental Colors 47 II. RUG-WEAVING IN EGYPT, PERSIA, AND TURKEY Rug-Weaving in Egypt 51 Persian Rugs 53 Characteristics of Certain Persian Rugs 58 Turkish Rugs 71 Characteristics of Certain Turkish Rugs 74 III. RUG-WEAVING IN INDIA, AFGHANISTAN, BELUCHISTAN, CENTRAL ASIA, AND THE CAUCASUS REGION Indian Rugs 87 Characteristics of Certain Indian Rugs 90 Afghanistan Rugs 95 Beluchistan Rugs 97 Turkoman Rugs 98 Characteristics of Certain Turkoman Rugs 100 Caucasian Rugs 105 IV. MISCELLANEOUS ORIENTAL RUGS Rugs of the Holy Land 111 Chinese Rugs 113 Japanese Rugs 116 Khilim Rugs 117 Polish Rugs 119 Prayer Rugs 120 Silk Rugs 123 Felt Rugs 126 Hunting Rugs 128 V. RUG-WEAVING IN EUROPE AND THE UNITED STATES Rug-Weaving in Europe and the United States 131 Greek Rugs 132 Moorish and Spanish Rugs 134 Bosnian, Servian, Roumanian, and Bulgarian Rugs 136 English Rugs 138 French Rugs 141 Rugs of the United States 143 VI. MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION Inscriptions on Rugs 153 Concerning Oriental Symbols 156 Chinese Symbols 157 Egyptian Symbols 158 Indian Symbols 159 Japanese Symbols 160 Persian Symbols 160 Turkish Symbols 160 Miscellaneous Symbols 161 Meanings of Some of the Place-Names Associated with Rugs 162 GEOGRAPHICAL DATA 164 Localities Arranged Geographically 165 Localities Arranged Alphabetically 170 LIST OF AUTHORITIES 175 INDEX 179 LIST OF PLATES PAGE Antique Tabriz Silk Rug _Frontispiece_ Oriental Rugs Decorating a Balcony 20 Turkish Loom and Weavers 24 Vats for Washing and Dyeing Wool--Turkey 28 Soumak Rug 30 Indian Rug Designers 32 Sinna Rug 34 Rugs being Transported 38 Wool Drying after Dyeing 44 Antique Persian Rug 54 Khorassan Rug 56 Bijar (Sarakhs) Rug 58 Camel's Hair Rug from Hamadan 60 Feraghan Rug 62 Shiraz Rug 68 Arabian Rug 70 Old Ghiordes Prayer Rug 74 Indian Prayer Rug 78 Indian Loom and Weavers 82 Afghanistan Rug 95 Tekké-Turkoman or "Bokhara" Rug 98 Samarkand Rug 102 Daghestan Rug 106 Kazak Rug 108 Antique Chinese Wool Rug 114 Khilim Rug 117 Old Kirman Prayer Rug 120 Old Anatolian Prayer Rug 122 Persian Silk Rug 124 Derbent Rug 126 Early English Rug 138 Navajo Rug 146 Antique Persian Rug 156 Map of the Orient 164 DRAWINGS IN THE TEXT A Loom 25 Persian or Sinna Knotting 35 Turkish or Ghiordes Knotting 35 Soumak Weave 35 Five Forms of the Palmette 39, 40 Herati Border 40 Central Design 41 Running Hook Design 41 Pomegranate 41 Palm Leaves 41 Cloud Bands 41 Lozenge 41 Wave-like Designs 42 Rosette 42 Reciprocal Trefoil 42 Central Design 42 Four Characteristic Caucasian Designs 42 Fylfot, or Swastika 42 Guli Hinnai 43 Lotus 43 Medallion 43 RUGS I HISTORY AND DETAILS OF RUG-WEAVING _Fair warp and fitting woof Weave a web that bideth proof._ MOTTO OF THE CANTERBURY WEAVERS. RUGS ORIENTAL AND OCCIDENTAL ANTIQUE AND MODERN I THE HISTORY AND DETAILS OF RUG-WEAVING The History Rugs, in the house beautiful, impart richness and represent refinement. Their manufacture was one of the earliest incentives for the blending of colors in such harmony as to please the eye and satisfy the mind; consequently, it is one of the most important of the industrial arts. Since the days when ancient peoples first lay down to sleep wrapped in the skins of animals, the human intelligence has quickened, and as the race has become more civilized, rugs have gradually taken the place of skins. Thus began the industry of rug-weaving, and it has grown to such an extent that it is now of world-wide importance. The word _Rug_ is used in this volume in the following sense: "A covering for the floor; a mat, usually oblong or square, and woven in one piece. Rugs, especially those of Oriental make, often show rich designs and elaborate workmanship, and are hence sometimes used for hangings," In several books rugs and carpets are referred to as identical. In fact most written information on rugs has been catalogued under the term _carpets_; and there seems to be good reason for assuming that the terms _tapestries_ and _carpets_, as used in ancient times, were synonymous with the word _rugs_ of the present day, for these were spread loosely on the floor without the aid of fastenings. Historical references to spinning and to the weaving of tapestries date back to a very early period. An ancient Jewish legend states that Naamah, daughter of Lamech and sister of Tubal-Cain, was the inventor of the spinning of wool and of the weaving of thread into cloth. On at least two of the wonderful rock-cut tombs at Beni-Hassan, in Egypt,--2800-2600 B.C.,--there are pictures of weavers at work. In one, women are filling a distaff with cotton, twisting it with a spindle into thread, and weaving this on an upright loom. Beside them is a man, evidently an overseer, watching the weavers and their work. The other wall-painting represents a man weaving a checkered rug on a horizontal loom. Other monuments of ancient Egypt and of Mesopotamia bear witness that the manufacture of rugs dates a considerable time prior to 2400 B.C. At Thebes a fresco, dating 1700-1000 B.C., represents three men weaving at an upright loom. A small rug, discovered in that city some time between the years 666 and 358 B.C., and now in the possession of Mr. Hay in England, is described by Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson as follows: "This rug is eleven inches long by nine broad. It is made like many carpets of the present day, with woollen threads on linen string. In the centre is the figure of a boy in white, with a goose above it, the hieroglyphic of 'child' upon a green ground, around which is a border composed of red, white, and blue lines. The remainder is yellow, with four white figures above and below, and one at each side, with blue outlines and red ornaments; and the outer border is made up of red, white, and blue lines, with a fancy device projecting from it, with a triangular summit, which extends entirely round the edge of the rug. Its date is uncertain, but from the child, the combination of the colors, and ornamental border, I am inclined to think it really Egyptian, not of the Pharaonic, but of the Greek and Roman period." Dr. Samuel Birch, who edited the last edition of Wilkinson's work, affirms that this is so. On the marbles of Nineveh is represented the pectoral worn by Sardanapalus. It is an exact miniature of a Kurdish rug of modern times. The Tree of Life, the motif of most of the Persian rug designs, is in the centre, and the border is ornamented with rosettes and bars. Phoenician art is intermediate between Egyptian and Assyrian. The color most prized in the art of Phoenicia was the rare and beautiful purple (properly crimson) dye used exclusively for the garments of royalty. For centuries the process of making this dye was lost, and even at the time of its highest fame it was familiar only to the maritime Canaanites, who procured the color from an animal juice of the murex, a shellfish. The shellfish and the dye were known to the ancients as _conchylium_. When Cleopatra, the famous Queen of Egypt, went to meet Cæsar for the first time, she knew that he would not allow her to enter his presence if recognized, and therefore she cleverly had herself carried into his palace wrapped in a rug of the finest texture. It may well be imagined that the unexpected disclosure of the charms of this subtle Egyptian shared largely in bringing the great Roman general into her toils. Besides Biblical writers, Homer, Æschylus, Plautus, Metellus Scipio, Horace, Pliny, Lucan, Josephus, Arrian, and Athenæus all speak of rugs. To persons interested in rugs the search for these allusions is a most fascinating occupation. The Egyptians bestowed the greatest care and patience upon the rugs they wove, as upon all else of their handiwork. They spread them before the images of their gods, and also on the ground for their sacred cattle to lie upon. They loved Nature intensely; like true lovers, they seemed to have reached her very heart, and they symbolized her works in their artistic designs. Even to this day many Oriental rugs have symbolic signs borrowed from the works of Nature. In design and color the rugs woven to-day in the Orient are similar to the Assyrian and Babylonian textile fabrics of 1000-607 B.C. (Fall of Nineveh) and 538 (Fall of Babylon). At that early period these were used for awnings and floor-coverings in the palaces of the Assyrian kings Sargon, Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, and Sardanapalus. The designs on the stone slab from the palace of Koyunjik, Nineveh, and on the door-sill from the palace at Khorsabad, are probably copied from rugs. From Egypt and Chaldea the manufacture of rugs was carried into Assyria, and then into Asia Minor. Ancient Egypto-Chaldean designs are occasionally seen in modern rugs, but usually in a modified form. For a long time the industry of rug-weaving was supreme in the countries mentioned, but about 480 B.C. it arrived at a high degree of perfection in Greece. Later, the art was corrupted by the Byzantine (Lower Roman) influence. In the seventh and eighth centuries the Saracens came into power in the Persian Empire after the fall of the Sassanian dynasty, and in the African and Syrian provinces. The Saracens believed that all labor tended to the glory of God; consequently, on their western campaigns they carried rug-manufacture into Sicily, Spain, France, and Italy; and thus it was introduced throughout Europe. It should be here noted that the name Saracen was given by the later Romans and Greeks to certain of the nomadic tribes on the Syrian borders of the Roman Empire. After the introduction of Mohammedanism the name was applied to the Arab followers of Mohammed. From earliest times it has been the custom in the East to hang rugs over graves. About the vault of the mosque at Hebron where the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are said to be buried, rugs are hung at the present day. During times of grand _fêtes_ in Europe, when house decoration is done with lavishness, people, to make their homes more attractive, drape with beautiful rugs the balconies, the loggias, and the front walls of buildings. The richness and color of these rugs blend harmoniously with flags and other emblems, producing an effect of great magnificence and splendor. [Illustration: ORIENTAL RUGS DECORATING A BALCONY _From a painting of the fifteenth century by Carpaccio Vittore, who was born in Istria, 1450, and died in Venice, 1522. The original painting is in the Correr Museum at Venice. On the balcony are several Oriental rugs in shades of rich red and rose color._] When we see the exquisite loom-work that has been wrought in the Orient, we sometimes wonder how the weavers have achieved such success, for they are destitute of what we call education, and they dwell amid the humblest surroundings. But Nature has been their instructor, and the rare shadings and varied designs of the rugs are excellent imitations of the forms and hues of the natural world. The weavers have intuitively grasped what is correct in color from the works of Nature surrounding them, and we reap the benefit in the rich specimens of their art which they export. These patient toilers of the East delight in subdued colorings and artistic designs; and without a doubt many a story is woven in with the threads that go to form the fabric, many a song of joy, many a dirge of woe and despair. The number of Orientals engaged in the manufacture of rugs in the United States is increasing. It is now not an uncommon sight to see these weavers at work before the loom in the show windows of the rug-importing establishments of the larger cities. The increasing use of polished hard wood and yellow pine floors and mosaic work, even in buildings of moderate cost, is displacing the use of cheap flooring, which could be covered satisfactorily only with carpets or matting. This has enormously increased the demand for rugs; and the selection of them affords a much wider range for the exercise of personal taste and discrimination in securing an article not only of greater artistic merit, but of greater durability. THE LOOM AND ITS WORK The hand loom is Oriental, the power loom Occidental. The former adds much to the fame of the Orient. The exquisite fabrics it produces have made it world-renowned, and although it is simple in structure, its products show careful and finished labor. Hand looms in all Oriental countries are similar, and are to-day almost as imperfectly developed as when used by the ancient Egyptians. To weave their mats, the ancient Egyptians took the coarse fibre of the papyrus and, with the help of pegs, stretched it between two poles which were fastened in the ground. Two bars were placed in between these poles, the threads of the warp serving to keep them apart. The woof thread was passed through and pressed down tightly a number of times with a bent piece of wood. The loom now generally used in the Orient is made by fastening two poles perpendicularly in the ground to a sufficient depth, leaving above ground as much of each pole as equals in length the desired rug. This framework supports two horizontal rollers, the warp threads being wound around the upper, while the ends are fastened to the lower; at this the weaving is begun, and on it the rug is rolled while in process of construction. To the warp threads of fine linen or cotton the weavers tie the tufts of worsted that form the pile. This worsted, which has been dyed previously, hangs over their heads in balls. When a row of knots is finished, it is pressed down to the underlying woof by a long and heavy comb with metal teeth. Then the tufts are clipped close with shears, to make the pile. In the finer rugs there are seldom more than two, or at the most three, threads between every two rows of knots, but in the coarser kinds there are more threads. In many districts every family possesses a loom, and it is generally small enough to be carried from place to place. Sir George C. Birdwood has seen the web in the horizontal loom in Western India kept stretched by being wrapped, as worked, round the body of the weaver. In some instances the spinners make thread from the cotton wool by using the left hand as a distaff, and the right one as a spindle. In other cotton rugs which he has seen, the warp threads were placed horizontally, and the loom was without treadles and reed. The woof threads were thrown across by the weaver and brought together with a small hand comb. The same style of loom, arranged vertically, is that on which some of the richly figured cotton rugs from the Deccan are woven. In some parts of Turkey there are European factories that have adopted some of the native methods; but as the majority of Turkish rugs are apt to be crooked, frames that weave them straight are now imported from Europe. Mrs. Isabella Bird Bishop describes a tribe of people living at Biratori, on the Island of Yezo, Japan, and bearing the name of Ainos, whose women employ their time in weaving mats. Their loom is certainly a most primitive arrangement. A comb-like frame, through which the threads pass, rests on the ankles of the weaver. There is a heavy hook fastened in the ground or floor, and to this the threads at the far end of the web are sewed. A cord fastens the near end to the waist of the weaver, who by spinal rigidity supplies the necessary tension. As the work proceeds, she drags herself along nearer and nearer the hook. This is slow work, only about a foot being accomplished in a day; as in other countries, however, the women enjoy the neighborly chats that their work allows; and often two or more will bring to the house of a neighbor their simple apparatus, and, hanging the hooks to the roof or to a tree, will weave all day. [Illustration: TURKISH LOOM AND WEAVERS] The power looms of modern civilization are chiefly to be found in the United States and Great Britain, Philadelphia being the principal American centre, and Kidderminster, Wilton, Worcester, Rochdale, Halifax, Dewsbury, and Durham, the English centres. Brussels and Scotland contain a number of such looms. In all Western countries schools of art furnish most of the designs, and have done much to improve taste. This can also be said of good colorists in their branch of this industry. [Illustration: A LOOM] THE WEAVERS Rug-weaving in the Orient is an industry that, until recent years, has been carried on almost exclusively by women and girls. From childhood to womanhood, and on to old age, these weavers are at work. Girls of six years of age help their mothers, until they become experienced by long practice. Even ladies of rank and wealth weave rugs of fine quality for their own homes. In some districts, besides weaving for the market, girls weave one or two rugs for their dowry; this purpose furnishes them with enough excitement to keep them interested in their work and ambitious to excel. Now that there is a greater demand for rugs, and not enough women to supply the demand, men and boys have come into the business, but generally only in places where there are large factories, and especially in the cities. This is noticeably the case in India, where boys from nine to fifteen years of age do much of the weaving. There are two classes of weavers, the sedentary and the nomadic. The former weave in their houses during the Winter, and in their courtyards during the Summer. The nomads spend the Winter in mud villages, and in the Summer go to the mountains with their flocks and live in tents made of goat's hair. The manner of life of the sedentary weaver works havoc with her constitution even in her youth; and consequently one is not surprised at her frail appearance. In Summer she is oppressed with heat as she sits before the frame, and in Winter she is almost frozen, for she has to work in the open air in order to have sufficient light. Hers is not an easy life. It would be pleasant to believe that in her toil, which she carries on with wondrous patience and in the humblest surroundings, the conscientious weaver finds the same inward satisfaction that comes to the true artist elsewhere. The duties of the male portion of the family are to tend the flocks, shear the sheep, separate the various qualities of the wool into bundles, dye it, and make the framework for the rug. With the extension of the industry, a class of workers has arisen whose sole task is to manipulate and dye the wool for use. The reason why men do not usually weave is that the occupation, besides not being a paying one, requires an amount of patience not within the power of men accustomed to work out of doors. Nor is it a remunerative occupation. The reader, who is perhaps also a prospective rug-buyer, may be interested in the following calculation of the amount of labor bestowed upon a given piece of the best type, the cost of the materials, and its value when completed. A square foot of the best Persian rug is worth about ten dollars, and it takes a single weaver twenty-three days to complete this portion. This allows the weaver about forty-four cents per day for her wool and her labor; but as three-fourths of this amount goes to pay for the wool, only eleven cents per day is left for her labor. The wages of the producer of the inferior article are somewhat better. A square foot of an inferior rug is sold for about sixty cents, and the time required for weaving it is but two days, thus allowing the weaver thirty cents per day for her wool and labor. She uses inferior wool, washes but little of it, and pays only a nominal sum for a cheap dye. The framework of her loom costs comparatively little, as the rug it produces is from twenty to thirty times the size of the superior rug. Thus it appears that, in the long run, the inferior weaver is better paid than the one who fatigues her brain with her efforts to produce a rug of the best quality. On the other hand, the weaver of the superior fabric has advantages which the other has not. As a general rule, she weaves to order, and is paid for her work in advance. This prepayment is of great importance, considering the poverty of the weaver. The situation of the weaver of the inferior article differs in that she has to buy her wool, dye it, finish her rug, and then watch the market for buyers. [Illustration: VATS FOR WASHING AND DYEING WOOL--TURKEY] The weavers live on the simplest fare; bread, cheese, and a raw onion make an average meal. In some districts the weavers have to work in underground huts, for the air at the surface is so dry that the threads would lose all their elasticity out of doors. In these underground places the weavers produce enough moisture by keeping at hand utensils full of water. Although the business is conducted with the manufacturer on a strictly commercial basis, it is very difficult to induce the weavers to keep their appointments and finish a rug at the time it is promised. In India, for example, the weavers are very superstitious; and if a boy weaver be taken ill, the entire force on that loom will stop until he recover. If he die, the entire force of native weavers may be changed. This of course causes vexatious delay, not only of days, but often of weeks and months. THE MATERIALS The materials used in the manufacture of rugs cover a wide range, and are indigenous to the place where the weavers are located. Sheep's wool, camel's hair, mohair from the Angora goat, hair from the yak and from the Thibetan goat, silk, cotton, linen, hemp, flax, and jute are all used. In the Spring the raw wool is generally taken to the nearest market, where it is cleaned, washed, and spun. The cleansing process is very necessary, as it affects in an important degree the quality of the material. The wool is usually washed in running water by the men, and then sorted and cleansed a second time. Persia, Turkey, and India all produce wool, the two former countries in larger quantities than India, but some of the very finest wool comes from that part of India known as Kashmir. The celebrated Turfani wool comes from Chinese Thibet. It is very choice, and beautiful fabrics are woven from it. [Illustration: SOUMAK RUG SIZE, 4.11 × 3.1 _The fine weaving of this Soumak Rug and its beautiful coloring are especially admirable. The texture is very firm, the threads being tightly drawn. On a field, which is a choice shade of blue, rest geometrical forms, each one of which has a ground of terra cotta, pale green, or soft yellow, and is ornamented with rich blue, ivory, or a light shade of terra cotta. All are outlined with black. The hook design is noticed in different parts of the rug, and especially in the border. The artistic effect of this bit of weaving is most pleasing._ OWNED BY MR. WILL J. DAVIS, CHICAGO.] The pashim is the soft downy wool growing next the body of the goat. In color it is white, dark gray, or drab; and of this many of the finest India rugs are woven. Large-tailed sheep are common in Kabul, Peshawar, and other districts; these furnish wool from which many a rug is woven. It is possible that the very sheep watched over by the shepherds of Judea the night of our Saviour's birth were reared partly for their wool, with a view to rug-weaving. The camel is useful not only as a beast of burden; its hair is woven into fabrics both fine and durable, chief of which are rugs, beautiful, much desired, and costly; the younger the animal the more is its hair esteemed. The natural colors harmonize readily with the furnishings in most rooms, and the soft texture of the best ones is attractive. The process of carding is accomplished by means of a block with vertical pins in even rows close together. The wool is drawn through these many times, and then spun into yarn. THE QUALITY The fineness of a rug depends largely upon the quality of the wool and the number of knots to the square foot. In one yard of the best made Persian rugs there are between twenty thousand and thirty thousand stitches made by hand. The wool must be of fine quality, but not too soft. It should be closely woven, and evenly cropped. A great deal depends upon the manipulation of the wool in the rough, and careful attention should be given to this particular. The quality of the wool is affected by whatever circumstances affect the well-being of the sheep, and in a marked degree by climate. Hence there is a decided difference in the wools of various districts and sections of a country. It is a well-known fact that the wool produced in cold countries is soft and fine, while that of the warmer climates is, on the other hand, harder, firmer, and more lasting. Hard wool is easier for the weaver to handle, and the tufts can be cropped with more facility. It is partly owing to these facts that the rugs of the cold districts are most in demand. [Illustration: INDIAN RUG DESIGNERS] The fact that some rugs are so much better than others is a natural result of the superior skill of the makers. Weavers are like other workers, some doing perfect work, some indifferent, and others very poor. But the quality of the rugs offered for sale in this country depends also upon the knowledge and the conscience of the wholesale buyer at the place of manufacture. When the buyer for an importing establishment brings over quantities of rugs not all of which are artistic, the question may be asked: "Why do you not always select rugs that are beautiful?" He may reply that it is his business to get those that will sell, and that as there is a great variety of taste among his customers he must try to please every one; or he may say that he buys a thousand rugs at a time, and does not see them individually. It is in the retail shop that the final purchaser may pick and choose. The most famous rugs of the Orient have been selected with great care by men who have special knowledge of the subject, and they are owned by museums and connoisseurs. Some have been brought to this country by distinguished soldiers and statesmen, to whom they have been presented by potentates as tokens of respect. Others have been obtained through the fortunes of war. THE KNOTTING Except in the Soumak and the Khilim, which have the flat stitch, there are only two kinds of knotting used in Oriental rugs. These knots are called the Persian or Sinna, and the Turkish or Ghiordes. In the Persian manner of knotting there are more knots to the square inch than in the Turkish, and the result is a finer surface. Often the Persian knotting is so fine that the surface of the fabric is like velvet. The Persian knot is tied in such a manner that one end of the pile yarn extends from every spacing that separates the warp threads. It is made in such a way that a noose is formed, which tightens as the yarn is pulled. Occasionally it is turned in the opposite direction, and executed from left to right. In this case two threads of yarn are employed, this of course making the pile twice as thick as in the other. The Turkish or Ghiordes knot has the yarn twisted about the warp threads in such a manner that the two raised ends of the pile alternate with every two threads of the warp. [Illustration: SINNA RUG SIZE, 4.6 × 6.6 _This is a beautiful example of the very fine texture and the even clipping that characterize the Sinna rugs. Thickly studding the dark blue field are minute designs in blue and rose hues, with which pale green, yellow, and a sapphire blue blend most harmoniously. All these small designs rest in the usual diaper design, which may be traced throughout the rug. The border is charming, with its groundwork of fine yellow, on which are delicate tracings of light green, ivory, and blue. The effect of light and shade upon this exquisite piece of weaving brings out plainly the marvellous sheen which is a feature of this rug. The innumerable small figures which appear throughout the rug, with their blending of soft hues, present a kaleidoscopic effect._ OWNED BY MRS. EMMONS BLAINE, CHICAGO.] Experts have spent much time and invested much capital in the endeavor to make the rug industry as perfect as possible. Judging from the examples of India rugs I have seen,--some with a seven-by-six knot, others with a sixteen-by-sixteen knot,--I am convinced that the beauty, durability, and artistic effects produced by the efforts of the manufacturers will be appreciated more and more. From the fact that the best-known firms in the rug business in New York, Chicago, and other cities in the United States, and several leading firms in England, are sponsors for the present rug industry in India, it may naturally be inferred that it is prosecuted with skill and care. [Illustration: PERSIAN OR SINNA KNOTTING] [Illustration: TURKISH OR GHIORDES KNOTTING] [Illustration: SOUMAK WEAVE] The different stitches made are as follows: seven by eight, or fifty-six hand-tied knots to the square inch; eight by eight, or sixty-four knots to the square inch; ten by ten, or one hundred knots to the square inch; twelve by twelve, or one hundred and forty-four knots to the square inch; and sixteen by sixteen, or two hundred and fifty-six knots to the square inch. These finer stitches are made in the very best examples produced by the finest Persian weavers. A specimen recently shown me was an exact reproduction of the rug owned by Prince Alexis Lobanow-Rostowsky, in which the stitch was the sixteen by sixteen. It was made in one of the factories in Kashmir. The famous rug of Ardebil in the South Kensington Museum has three hundred and eighty hand-tied knots to the square inch, or thirty-three million in the whole fabric. DESIGNS The designs of Eastern rugs are often the spontaneous outcome of the fancy of the weaver. Sometimes they are handed down from one generation to another; in some cases young girls are taught the design by an adult, who marks it in the sand; at other times a drawing of the rug is made on paper, the instructor showing her pupils the arrangement of every thread and the color to be used. When all this has been done, the pupil must make the rug without looking at the drawing. Persian rugs excel those of other countries in artistic design as well as in harmonious coloring. The Persians seem to have a natural intuition in the use and blending of different shades, and in the designs that contain these colors they achieve the happiest results. It is really wonderful what exquisite fabrics these people, born and reared in ignorance and poverty, produce. The designs in Persian rugs are generally floral; and in some districts, especially Fars, the women weavers invent the designs, varying them every two or three years. The Mohammedan religion does not allow any direct representation of animal forms; consequently rugs woven under its influence take floral, geometric, and vegetable forms. The Shiah sect of Moslems, however, numbering about fifteen millions,--of which eight millions are Persians,--do not regard representations of animals as unlawful. By the industry of this sect, and that of all who disregard the law of the Koran, animal forms are seen on some Persian rugs. Among the good antique Persian rugs there are about thirty designs, all having different borders. Each design is the peculiar work of a family or tribe, and is produced continuously, from generation to generation without noticeable change, except in compliance with the demand of a buyer, or by a weaver who carries out some special fancy. Many buyers select the color, design, and size, leaving their orders with an importer or a manufacturer. [Illustration: RUGS BEING TRANSPORTED] In the modern Oriental rug the designs are not to be entirely depended upon. They are apt to vary at the will of the weaver; and moreover, Occidental designs are now sent to the Orient to be woven into rugs by the native weavers of the Eastern country. The designs sent to India, to be reproduced by the different European and American firms having factories there, are almost universally strictly Oriental in character, being copies from fine old Persian pieces, or rearrangements of Oriental forms. When the design reaches India, it has to be re-drawn to the exact size of the rug that is to be made. From this is copied what is called a _talim_, which is the only direction the weavers have. This talim, or guide, shows the weavers exactly how many knots of a color are to be tied; and when these different colors are put together, the design is formed. These talims are carefully kept, and as they are records of the designs, can be reproduced at any time. Large rugs show best in large and bold designs, for small and crowded designs would not be artistic. Small designs are, however, preferable on small rugs; a bold design on a small rug is inappropriate. The finer the border of a rug of whatever size, the more beautiful and costly the rug. An average size for a large rug is six yards by four, and for this a bold vigorous design would be suitable. Some designs found in rugs are here reproduced. I. Five Forms of the Palmette. _a._ With sharply marked outlines this palmette is a characteristic of the Djushaghan rugs. [Illustration: _a_] _b._ This is a geometrical form of the palmette, frequently met with in modern Caucasian rugs. [Illustration: _b_] _c._ This form of the palmette has an oblong central nucleus, surrounded by wreaths of leaves. To the right and left lancet-shaped leaves nearly encircle the whole. This design is most frequently seen in old Persian rugs. [Illustration: _c_] _d._ In some old Persian rugs this form of the palmette with its diagonal projections is seen. It tends toward the geometrical, although its centre contains a small floral spray. [Illustration: _d_] _e._ This palmette, with its two flanking lancet-shaped leaves, is frequently seen in modern Feraghan and Kurdistan rugs. [Illustration: _e_] [Illustration: II] II. The Herati Border, or some form of it, may often be seen in Herat, Feraghan, Khorassan, Kurdistan, and Sinna rugs. III. The central design is formed by eight valvular or four heart-shaped leaves. This form is often seen in Kirmanshah and Shiraz, and sometimes in Caucasian rugs. [Illustration: III] IV. The Running Hook design found in the Daghestan, Shirvan, and Soumak rugs. [Illustration: IV] V. Pomegranate. The fruit is often depicted on ancient Assyrian and Egyptian sculptures. It had a religious significance in connection with several Oriental cults and was early introduced into rug designs. [Illustration: V] VI. A palm leaf with regular contour, its centre containing a small floral design. This form of design is found in more or less detail in the rugs of Persia and India. [Illustration: VI] VII. A palm leaf formed by a floral branch and without distinct outline. [Illustration: VII] VIII. Cloud bands, seen in Chinese and old Ghiordes rugs. IX. A lozenge surrounded by the Hook design. This is found in rugs made by nomadic tribes of Asia. [Illustration: VIII] [Illustration: IX] [Illustration: X] X. A continued wave-like design with rosettes attached. At intervals a delicate tendril effect is interposed on either side of the wave-line. [Illustration: XI] XI. A continued wave-like design interrupted by a two-cleft figure. [Illustration: XII] XII. A rosette, the tips of its leaves bending backward. The rosette is often met with in old Khorassan, Herat, Feraghan, and other Persian rugs. [Illustration: XIII] XIII. Reciprocal trefoil, or spade design. Found as a border design in many of the Caucasian and some Persian rugs, especially the Saraband. [Illustration: XIV] XIV. The central design holds a rosette, to which are joined four blossoms resting in valvular calyxes, the complete design forming a cross. [Illustration: XV] XV. Four designs characteristic of the Caucasian rug. [Illustration: XVI] XVI. The Fylfot is in the form of a Greek cross with each arm continuing at right angles. It is also known as the Swastika, and is the symbol of good fortune. It has been a favorite design in the rugs of Greece, and of the Orient, while it predominates in the Navajo rugs of the United States. XVII. The Guli Hinnai is a decorative floral design found at its best in the old rugs of Feraghan. It is copied from the flowers which grow in small clusters on the henna-plant, from which it derives its name. [Illustration: XVII] XVIII. The Lotus is the water lily of Egypt. In various forms it is found in antique rugs of Persia. [Illustration: XVIII] XIX. The Medallion, in both floral and geometrical designs, is seen in many rugs of all rug-weaving countries. [Illustration: XIX] There are many more designs which by careful investigation can be found. Among others the Arabesque, Chinese fret, Circle, Comb, various forms of the Cross, Mina Khani, Octagon, the S form, Scroll, Serrated leaves, Shah Abbas, the Star,--six or eight pointed,--the Tarantula, Triangle, the Y form, and the Zigzag. THE DYES When doing their best work, Oriental weavers use the softest of permanent dyes. The result obtained is in every case a thing of beauty and utility. The aniline dyes are, of course, not to be compared to the vegetable, although the best of them are not to be utterly condemned. The poorest aniline dye eats into the rug, and the color fades. [Illustration: WOOL DRYING AFTER DYEING] Madder ranks high among those plants which yield a permanent dye. It belongs to the genus _Rubia_; the root employed is that of the _Rubia tinctorum_. This is largely cultivated in certain districts of India, but the best comes from near Smyrna, and from other parts of Asiatic Turkey. The plant grows wild throughout a large section of Central Asia and Russia. With both the European and the Indian madders the roots of the plants are the only parts that yield the dye. In the roots three coloring matters are obtained: alizarin and purpurin, which are both red, and xanthin, which is yellow. Cochineal was introduced for dyeing purposes in 1856. It is the product of an insect called _Coccus cacti_, which lives on a species of cactus. Yellow is often produced from Persian berries, turmeric, saffron, and sumac. Tyrian purple dye was greatly prized by the Phoenicians. As stated above, it was obtained from a shellfish; but the secret was known only to the maritime Canaanites. The art of producing this dye has been lost, although some aver that in recent years it has been re-discovered. Kermes, red in color, is one of the oldest of all dyes. It was known in Syria, 1200 B.C. It is not so brilliant as cochineal, but it is much more durable. Plutarch is authority for the statement that after one hundred and ninety years stuffs dyed with kermes retained their original color. The dye is the product of the bodies of females of the species of coccus which infest certain trees along the Mediterranean coasts. When the Romans conquered Spain, a part of the tribute demanded was paid with these little bodies. Greens are obtained from various sources. The Chinese green is a dye obtained from _Rhamnus chlorophorus_ and _Rhamnus utilis_, a genus of shrubs. The fruit of several buckthorns, or the Persian berries, as they are generally called by dyers, also give greens and brilliant yellows. Most of the greens, however, are produced by the combination of indigo with yellow. Indigo, mentioned by Pliny as Indicum, yields the deep blue dye so much prized by the Romans. Arrian speaks of indigo, and says that it was exported from Barbarike, on the Indus, into Egypt. This plant is grown in India, China, North and South America, Mexico, Central America, Africa, Japan, Madagascar, and Jamaica. When the Indian indigo plant, _Indigofera tinctoria_, is in flower, it contains the largest quantity of coloring matter. The beautiful vegetable and animal dyes which were compounded with consummate skill are now largely supplanted by the chemical dyes which are easily obtained. But in years to come the commercialism of the present will probably give way to the restoration of the splendid dyeing of the past. ORIENTAL COLORS Among Orientals a good deal of significance has attached, from the earliest days, to color. In Babylon scarlet was the symbol of fire, blue of air, and purple of water. Tyrian purple was an exquisite and rare shade of crimson. Many allusions are made to it by classical writers. The principal colors of the ancient Egyptians were red, yellow, and blue. Black was the symbol of error. White signified a holy life, purity, innocence of soul. The priests of Zeus and of Osiris were robed in white. Red was the symbol of zeal for the faith. Yellow was supposed to bring evil and sorrow. Blue was the symbol of truth. Black and white were often used to outline other colors. The Persians, unlike most other Orientals, are not fond of bright colors. They are apt to avoid the light shades of red and green as being too showy, and further, as being liable to fade. Greens and yellows in dark shades they treat with more favor. They consider black and indigo as the symbols of sorrow; rose is the symbol of Divine Wisdom; green represents initiation into the knowledge of the Most High. Among the Chinese, yellow is the symbol of royalty. The Emperor of China and his sons may wear yellow robes; their descendants wear yellow sashes and have yellow bridles for their horses. Red is the symbol of truth, virtue, and sincerity. It is the color of the highest degree of official rank. White is the symbol of mourning; black represents vice and depravity. In Turkey, green is the most sacred color; and for that reason a true follower of Mahomet will not permit it to be used in his rugs, for fear it may be profaned by being stepped upon. Thirty-five or forty years ago no Christian was allowed to wear even a vestige of green anywhere upon him, while in Turkey; but this law is not now so rigidly enforced. If the Prophet or any of his family wear this color, no objection is raised, as he and they are considered holy, and thus exempt from the penalty. White is the color permitted to a student or a teacher of the law. To the Mohammedans of India and Persia, as to the Chinese, white is the emblem of mourning. In India, orange signifies devotion or pious resignation, and blue means ill-luck to the Hindoo. Red was the favorite color of the Gauls, purple of the Romans, and saffron of the Greeks. II RUG-WEAVING IN EGYPT, PERSIA, AND TURKEY RUG-WEAVING IN EGYPT The supply of skins having been found inadequate to the gratification of their desire for comfort, the ancient Egyptians gradually developed the art of making mats from papyrus, a plant as important to them as any of our trees, fibrous grasses, or hemp are to us. While at work on the manufacture of these mats, the weavers used to squat on the ground. They became skilful, both in constructing the fabric and arranging the colors; the latter were quite bright and effective, being chiefly red, blue, yellow, and green, with black and white to define. Egyptians used rugs in the decoration of their rooms, hanging them on walls and also suspending them between the pillars. But as the glory of Egypt departed, her skill in rug-making also declined; and the Egyptian rugs of the present day are of a coarse quality, being made in private houses under the primitive conditions that existed thousands of years ago. The last manufactory in working order was at Boulak, a suburb of Cairo, but it has been closed for several years. A great many rugs, however, are imported into Egypt, the majority being from Persia, Turkey, and India. Cairo is still one of the leading emporiums for the sale to tourists of rugs of Eastern make. PERSIAN RUGS In Persia the art of rug-making has attained a very high degree of excellence, having been practised there during many centuries; indeed, the exact period when this industry was introduced into that country is not known. Tradition has it that long before the days of Alexander the Great, rugs were woven at Shuster, then the capital; and being a luxury, they were woven solely for kings' palaces, and on the finest gold warp. The Persians having been an industrious and civilized people for many centuries, and a large proportion of them having been accustomed to the nomadic and pastoral life, it is a natural inference that love of gain and the demand from the growing towns for articles of beauty and luxury gave the wandering tribes the opportunity to utilize their wool by supplying the demand for rugs. Encouraged as it was under the reign of Shah Abbas, the industry prospered. Various kings of Persia cultivated certain branches of art and industry, but Shah Abbas especially gave a decided impetus to rug-weaving. He had a particular fondness for the beautiful creations of this industrial art, and the rugs made during his reign bring fabulous prices. After his death a reaction followed. Rugs fell into comparative disuse, and the manufacture deteriorated until about 1850, when, thanks to the demand in Europe, the industry revived. To-day it is in a flourishing condition and the most important source of Persia's income. Persians, from the Shah to the peasant, sit upon rugs when eating, with cushions placed behind them. It is only the lowest beggar who has no rug. The rugs used by the Persians themselves are rather small, the larger ones being exported to foreign countries. Usually the rooms of Persian homes are small, and narrow in proportion to their length; consequently only small rugs are required. But even when the rooms are large, the Persians prefer several small rugs to one large rug, as a floor covering. They often first cover the hard-beaten ground with a matting of split reeds, and then lay over this so many small rugs that the matting cannot be seen. This custom is becoming more and more common in Persia. With their taste in design and color, they produce beautiful effects. [Illustration: ANTIQUE PERSIAN RUG SIZE, 15.3 × 6.7 _The tree design in its best and strongest elements is typified in this wonderful and most interesting Persian fabrication of olden time. The harmony of design and color is most impressive, and the size of the rug enhances this effect. It was evidently woven by one weaver, and years of patient labor and the greatest skill must have been bestowed on it. The richness of coloring, the velvet-like texture, the repose of design, are all unusual. The foundation is of a deep rich blue, and the exquisite rose and sapphire blues and ivory tones are in the softest and richest of permanent dyes. The border is wide, the main stripe of the rose shade, and the coloring all so blended that the continuity of the rug is complete. It is doubtless a product of Kurdistan._ OWNED BY MRS. POTTER PALMER, CHICAGO.] The finest rugs are closely woven, with a pile like velvet, and with stitches on the back that resemble needlework. A rug has scarcely reached its prime until it has been down ten years; and it should last for centuries, if carefully used. As a partial explanation of this wonderful durability, it should be remembered that in their own homes the Persians use their finest rugs for hangings, and also that they take off their shoes before entering the house. In ancient days rug-weaving in Persia was generally restricted to Ispahan, Khorassan, and Shuster, but in modern times the most noted districts are those of Sultanabad, Fars, Hamadan, Feraghan, Bijar, Kurdistan, Khorassan, and Kirman. But the industry is so widely spread over Persia that there is not a class of women who do not live by it, and very often really fine pieces of work are produced in districts where the art receives no encouragement. The districts mentioned above are more noted for the quality of the rugs they produce than for anything else. The rug of each district has a peculiar character of its own, both as to the quality of the wool and the design. The peculiarities characterizing each district are so noticeable that an expert can generally tell at a glance where a rug was made. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to discover the exact value of the export and import trade of Persia. The source of this information is naturally the Customs Administration, which in Persia exists but in name. The duties of the ports and principal towns are farmed out to various persons, whose interest it is to send the inquirer away as ignorant upon the subject as he was before the interview began. But it is possible, after a great deal of labor in collecting statistics from the dealers of a particular article, to form an estimate probably not very far from the truth. By this method we judge that the average yearly export value of rugs in Aaragh (the Sultanabad district) is three hundred thousand dollars; Hamadan one hundred thousand; Bijar one hundred and ten thousand; Malair one hundred thousand dollars; Kurdistan fifty thousand; Fars seventy-five thousand; Kirman and Khorassan one hundred thousand; and in the less known districts collectively, fifty thousand dollars. The total of these figures classes the rug export in the very first order of exports. It is plain that this amount does not represent the full value of the manufacture, inasmuch as a great quantity of the goods does not leave the country. This quantity is perhaps small in comparison with that exported, but it is large enough to make the value nearly a million dollars. It may be of interest to mention here that the export duty on rugs on the average is two and a half cents per square foot, and carriage to the seaports ten cents per square foot, while the import duty to the United States is forty per cent _ad valorem_ and the specific duty ten cents per square foot. [Illustration: KHORASSAN RUG SIZE, 10 × 26 _This is a perfect example of a Meshhed rug. The capital city of Khorassan has furnished many characteristic specimens of fine handicraft, but none more representative or beautiful. Here, on a splendid rich blue field, is the elongated palm leaf, with its markings of magenta, red, and blue. These palm-leaf designs extend over the entire rug, which is of enormous size. The border is in harmony with the field, and in coloring has the same deep, rich hues. The texture is firm and the rug is very heavy and imposing, with an air of solidity and strength. The illustration shows a section of this rug, giving a clear idea of its detail._ OWNED BY MRS. SYDNEY RICHMOND TABOR, LAKE FOREST, ILLINOIS.] In Persia several firms have done a great deal in the way of encouraging the industry of rug-weaving in that country. To supply the demand for Persian rugs in Europe and America, these firms have erected buildings in Sultanabad, where they keep the weavers under control and steadily employed. These firms, having been long established, are conversant with the Persians and their character; and to prevent any deception they pay the weavers by the piece instead of by the day. The rugs produced by these firms are of the medium quality. The wool is bought in the rough and manipulated for use. Every day a quantity of it is given out to the laborers, who must reproduce the design placed before them, and each laborer is paid from two to four dollars per square yard, according to the quality of her work. In the service of these firms, the weaver is obliged to put aside her individual taste and follow closely the designs, which are prepared in accordance with the prevailing fashions abroad. The independent native weaver does not pay any attention to the taste of the buyer. She places her work in the local market, and the native merchant purchases it for exportation. CHARACTERISTICS OF CERTAIN PERSIAN RUGS _Bakhshis_ rugs are made in a small village in the district of Azerbijan, and in the neighborhood of Herez. Those of thirty years ago were excellent, but now the materials of which they are made are poor, the rugs badly woven and of indifferent coloring. They come in large sizes, usually having a medallion in the centre. _Bibikabad_ rugs are quite modern, and are supplied to the market at Hamadan. Aniline dyes prevail, and the rugs are of inferior design and texture. _Bijar_ rugs of olden time were artistic; of those of to-day this statement cannot be truthfully made. The wool is still fine and silky, but there is an element of crudeness of design and a defiance of the laws governing color. A pronounced medallion in the centre is usually seen. This is set in a solid field of a strong contrasting color. Sometimes the field is of a bright red or blue, with the medallion omitted. The borders are generally in the same color as the field, or in camel's hair, sometimes covered with crude figures of human beings or animals, or decorated with flowers in vivid red, yellow, or green. The rugs are heavy, and in the American markets are known as _Sarakhs_. [Illustration: BIJAR (SARAKHS) RUG SIZE, 6.9 × 11.4 _The texture of this rug is very fine. It is thick and soft, and very compact and smooth. There is a force both in color and design. On a deep blue field rests a medallion in rather strong colors, red, blue, green, and ivory. Heavily ornamented corner areas in the same shades give to the whole design a certain symmetry, and a wide floral border with much ivory gives an air of solidity._] _Birjand_ rugs (so called) are woven almost exclusively in the village of Daraksh, about fifty miles northeast of Birjand. The weavers of these rugs came originally from Herat. The rugs are generally satisfactory, the weaving being fine, although the pile is often uneven. _Burujird_ rugs are made sixty miles from Sultanabad, and south of Hamadan. They resemble in their field and in the firm texture the Saraband rug, the palm-leaf design being arranged throughout the field. The border is mainly white, with minute variations of the palm design. _Djushaghan_ rugs are woven in a district south of Feraghan. They are durable and attractive. The Shah Abbas design is a favorite one in antique rugs of this kind. The field is generally of a rich red, and occasionally a rare sage green. Often there is a lighter shade in the border than in the field. Crosses with angular ends are a feature, and between these are floral designs. _Feraghan_ rugs of olden time are as satisfactory as any rugs handed down to us. They are so harmonious in coloring and design as to be most restful to the eye. They have a richness and sheen that make them most desirable, and when to the usual soft colors a deep violet is added the attractiveness increases. A distinguishing feature is the Herati design, covering a field usually of a rich deep blue. Sometimes the Guli Hinnai design is observed, with its more elaborate treatment. The border is often a light ground covered with a design in the form of rosettes and palmettes connected by a running vine. The main border stripe is frequently in a rich green and sometimes of a deep rose. When there are corner areas and a centre medallion they are arranged so symmetrically that the harmony is complete. The colors in these areas and the medallion are often in cream, light green, or red. At the present time Feraghan exports annually a large number of rugs rather loosely woven, but soft and durable. These are made by the Bactrian tribes. The entire centre is often filled with rather small irregular figures on a dark blue field. Yellow is often employed in a modern Feraghan, both in the border and in the field. Quite an important feature of Feraghan and other places of high altitude is the rug-woven saddlebag. When stuffed, such bags make comfortable sofa-pillows, or they can be placed as seats on chairs. Throughout Asia, saddlebags are used for the transportation of household and personal effects and other goods, and by children for their schoolbooks. [Illustration: CAMEL'S HAIR RUG FROM HAMADAN SIZE, 4.1 × 2.8 _This rug is an example of the Hamadan weave, which is so frequently met. The field of camel's hair is in the natural color. The medallion in the centre is woven mainly in red, as is also the border of the mat. Both these, however, are ornamented with green, white, maroon, orange, and a few black lines. There is a fringe at each end of the rug, but at one end it is much deeper than at the other._] _Görevan_ rugs are woven in the neighborhood of Herez. They are exported in large sizes, and are generally rather showy and elaborate. Quite firm and durable, they are popular for dining-rooms. As they are in great demand in the trade, they are turned out too rapidly, but careful selection brings happy results, for sometimes a truly beautiful rug, with rich warm coloring and a medallion not too pronounced, is found. _Hamadan_ rugs are generally of camel's hair, although sometimes goat's hair is added. The field is in the natural shade, as is the surrounding border. An elongated medallion appears in the centre; this is ornamented with floral designs in red, blue, and yellow, as are also the corner areas. Antique Hamadans are very beautiful. Soft and silky, yet with firmness of texture, and in subdued coloring, they seem appropriate for any room. Some of them, with fine, delicate tracery, in soft shades, remind one of beautiful stained glass seen in the old cathedrals of Europe. _Herat_ rugs are now woven in Persia by tribes originally from Afghanistan. The old city of Herat was under Persian influence, which accounts for the fine character of its rugs. The modern Herat rug is of excellent quality and durable. The leading design is naturally the Herati, and again one sees the palm leaf with its apexes all pointing in the same direction. The field is generally a deep blue, although sometimes a rich red, and even ivory. Green is apt to be the main color in the border, and occasionally the butterfly motif is noticed. Some of the modern rugs have medallion centres, in which the wool is generally red or blue, and sometimes green or yellow. _Herez_ rugs are attractive, the chief color often being a fine blue, upon which rests a pronounced medallion. The corners are defined by serrated lines, and are in shades of the red in autumn leaves. Often these corners are decorated with small designs. The main border stripe is light in color--often cream--with good-sized markings. Herez rugs are made in the province of Azerbaijan. _Iran_ is the official name for Persia, and when a rug is called by this name, the meaning is simply that it is a Persian rug. [Illustration: FERAGHAN RUG SIZE, 24.8 × 15 _This is a most unusual antique Feraghan. It is rare to find an antique of such enormous size, and the marvellous sheen and good preservation of the rug render it a choice specimen. The texture is like velvet in its softness, the Persian knotting is firm, and the shadings of green, rose, blue, yellow, purple, violet, and red all blend in perfect harmony. The pile is even, and the border with its exquisite hues is a study in color blending. The green of the widest border-stripe is particularly reposeful in effect._ OWNED BY MR. BYRON L. SMITH, LAKE FOREST, ILLINOIS.] _Ispahan_ rugs are antiques. During the sixteenth century and the reign of the great Shah Abbas, and even earlier, these magnificent fabrics were woven. Superb in coloring, with beautiful designs and of superior workmanship, the examples still in existence are indeed precious. In these old rugs one finds a field of red that is rich and rare. It looks like carmine, and then again it seems as if one were looking into a goblet containing the choicest wine of past centuries. Once seen, the shade is not forgotten. So also with the wonderful moss-like green that occupies the main border and the running vines of the Ispahan rug. Black--the most corrosive of all dyes--although used, has disappeared, leaving only the foundation. A medallion, star-form in effect, often occupies the centre. Over the field are scattered palmettes and lotus forms, all connected by running vines. A wide middle border between two narrow stripes holds the rosette and palmette, and also the lancet leaf, in tiny form. When cloud bands are seen they show Chinese influence, as do the lotus forms. _Kara Dagh_ rugs are made by nomads who are called Aylauts, and who live in the mountainous region north of Tabriz. In appearance, as well as in texture and size, they resemble those produced in the Caucasian province of Karabagh on the other side of the boundary. The natural color of the camel's hair, and rose color too, are much used. Sometimes the camel's hair is mixed with goat's hair. The designs are floral and rather striking in effect. _Kermanshah_ rugs of modern make have usually a medallion with a lotus motif in the centre of the field. This is generally of ivory, ornamented in soft tones of blue, green, or rose. The usual light effect of the rug makes it rather more suitable for a reception room or a bedroom than for other places. There are, however, deeper tones in these rugs, and sometimes there are no medallions. Perhaps the rug is most pleasing with the palm-leaf design and that of the tree, or with many birds and various floral conceptions. The borders blend harmoniously with the rest of the rug. The finest rugs of Kermanshah were formerly made in the palace of the Governor, and many were presented to leading rulers. _Khorassan_ rugs are woven in the province of that name and are characterized by various forms. A long palm effect or floral design is apt to be in the borders of antique Khorassans; and a prominent color in these rugs is magenta, which, though sometimes rather harsh in the modern rugs, is soft and beautiful in the antiques. Blue is also a leading color, and animals, including the lion and the gazelle; birds of several varieties; flowers symmetrically arranged, and geometrical forms, are all often seen. The Herati design is a usual one. When stripes occur in the field they are beautifully decorated with small floral designs or with the palm, and occasionally with that migratory insect, the locust. The rugs are unevenly clipped, which gives a soft, lustrous effect. Meshhed, the capital city of Khorassan, weaves rugs of fine colors; the palm leaf when represented on this rug is very large and impressive, often on a deep blue field. Animals and birds are frequently seen on the Meshhed rug. _Kirman_ rugs, made in the province of Irak-Ajemi, frequently have a medallion in the centre, entwined with flowers. Sometimes the Tree of Life is represented, its branches bearing different fruits, and often there are symbolical little birds in the border. Sometimes a vase of flowers is the principal ornament, or several small trees either with or without foliage. Silk has often been introduced into the old rugs with charming effect. The Kirman rug is one of the most easily recognizable. It is of very fine quality, and is highly decorative. Antique rugs of this kind have the finest of wool, and, with the artistic arrangement of beautiful flowers, cypress trees, and palm effects, are most pleasing. One of the finest in this country is reproduced in this volume with a description accompanying it. _Kurdistan_ (the Persian portion) is a large region inhabited by the nomadic tribes called Kurds; and the sheep and goats belonging to these tribes furnish the fine wool that is woven into Kurdish rugs. The color effects are generally good. Often dark blues and reds form the groundwork, in the centre of which is a lozenge or large diamond form ornamented with small designs of the palm leaf. Then, again, a repeated design is laid out over the field. Designs of the tree, palm, and rosette, and various floral forms appear. By examining the web at one end, a design in colored wool is generally found. In one of these rugs in my own collection the centre contains twelve different symbolical designs, including the turtle, comb, star, and cross, while the corner areas and borders hold at least thirty-five others. All of them are so carefully woven that much thought must have been bestowed upon this very strong, splendid rug. _Laristan_ (see Niris) rugs. _Meshhed_ (see Khorassan) rugs. _Mir-Saraband_ (see Saraband) rugs. _Muskabad_ (see Sultanabad) rugs. _Niris_ rugs are made a little to the southeast of Shiraz, in the province of Laristan, and the latter name is that used in the Western markets. All around Lake Niris are pastured sheep with fine lustrous wool which is used in the manufacture of rugs. In the modern ones floral and geometric stripes often alternate through the field, or there is a medallion in the centre of a plain field, with corner areas. The border carries several designs. There is a checked effect in the webbing at the ends. The rugs are very strong and excellent for hard use. In the older ones blue was used in the field, with rather large forms of the palm leaf. _Oustri-Nan_ rugs have the palm-leaf design over the field, and a good deal of white in the borders. They are firm and durable. _Saraband_ (Serebend) rugs are woven in the district of Sarawan. They always have a distinct feature in the small palm leaves that fill the field. These leaves have the hook turned at the top from left to right in one row, and right to left in the next. Usually the field that these palm leaves adorn is soft red or rose in color. Again it may be deep blue, or occasionally ivory, in which case the palm design is in red or blue. The border is always harmonious, and there are many narrow stripes which form it. The widest one is generally in an ivory tone, while the undulating vine and small flower forms appear in some of the borders. Then, too, one finds the Caucasian influence in some of the borders, and the reciprocal trefoil is often seen. Occasionally a human figure is carefully outlined in the border, and this brings a personal element into the rug. Then again, the date is woven in. Mir is the name of the village in this district where the design had its source, and in the trade to-day the finest of these rugs is often called _Mir-Saraband_. _Sarakhs_ (see Bijar) rugs. _Saruk_ rugs are very closely woven in the hamlet bearing this name. The floral designs scattered over the field of rose, dark red, or blue show a spontaneity of workmanship that is not governed by Western enterprise, though, curiously enough, aniline dyes prevail. The wool is very fine. The border is composed of a wide middle stripe, with a narrow one on either side. _Savalan_ (see Sultanabad) rugs. _Serapi_ (see Sirab) rugs. _Shiraz_, the capital city of Pars, has exported some of the most interesting and exquisite rugs in existence. In the sixteenth century Shiraz was at the height of its prosperity, and all the neighboring country was noted for its flocks of sheep, which produced the finest of wool. Rugs were made at Shiraz for the reigning Shahs, who had palaces there, and the workmanship displayed in them was most beautiful. The city was visited by an earthquake in 1853, and since that catastrophe the manufacture of rugs has not regained its former prosperity; yet great improvement has been shown in recent years, and the same vegetable dyes are still in use. The Shiraz is often called the Mecca rug, as it is the one frequently selected by pilgrims to that city. Deep rich blues are often seen in a Shiraz rug, and frequently stripes extend throughout the centre, as well as in the border, where diamond forms and crosses are also frequently seen. The medallion and the palm leaf are also found. Many Persian poets have sung of the wonderful rose gardens of Shiraz, and the rug weaver there has faithfully reproduced in glorious hues these beautiful flowers. Other flowers, too, decorate this rug. The webbing at the ends is embroidered in colored yarns. [Illustration: SHIRAZ RUG SIZE, 4.3 × 7 _The field of this rug is marked with narrow perpendicular stripes of soft yellows, rose, deep blues, and ivory. These mellow tones of color are all thickly studded with a fine floral design in contrasting shades. The palm-leaf design, minute but distinct, is in pale green, with markings of blue and rose. The border stripes of tan, dark rich blue, and rose are floral in effect. The rug is heavy, firm, and of fine texture. Fringed ends finish this beautiful example of the Shiraz._ OWNED BY MR. WILL J. DAVIS, CHICAGO.] _Sinna_ rugs are made in the province of Irak-Ajemi. They have a very fine texture, and are greatly prized by rug-lovers. The pile is of the best wool, and very closely cut. The Herati design, minutely woven, often occupies the entire field. Again, a lozenge-shaped figure is in the centre, and covered with the most delicate tracery. The field of the rug is often in white or ivory, or in soft blue, red, yellow, or even peach-blow tint. Yellow is used frequently in the border and corner areas. Often the finest of these rugs will be puckered near the edges; that is because the yarn is so tightly twisted in the weaving. Owing in part to this firm twisting and also to the fine, close knotting, there is much durability in the best specimens. _Sirab_ rugs are woven in the village of that name in the district of Azerbaijan. In Western markets the name has been corrupted, and the rugs are there called _Serapi_. These rugs come in large sizes, and are of excellent colors. A medallion of good proportions occupies the field, and about this floral designs are arranged. Sometimes inscriptions are seen in the rug. _Sultanabad_ is one of the most important of the modern rug-producing regions of Western Asia. Factories are kept busy supplying the market, and in many cases excellent rugs are manufactured. This is especially true when old patterns are used, for no modern ones sent out by Western firms can be deemed worthy to take the place of original Oriental designs. Large quantities of rugs from this district are exported to the United States, and are then frequently called _Savalans_. The groundwork is generally light in color, and the designs are many, while the variety of brilliant hues is perhaps the largest in Persia. _Muskabad_ is a trade name for a certain grade of rug from this district. _Tabriz_ rugs are now supplied in large bales to the trade from factories that are under Western jurisdiction. They are of well selected yarn, closely woven, and very durable. The weaving is faultless. The centre medallion is in a rich color, set in a field of ivory or other solid color, and decorated with floral forms. The sharply defined corner areas and the borders also contain floral designs in attractive colors. Sometimes cartouches with lines from a Persian poet or birds and animal forms are seen in the borders. _Yezd_, where the fire-worshippers live, furnishes rugs with a short pile, but these are used chiefly in mosques, and seldom leave Persia. A fine Persian rug is valuable, even at the seat of manufacture. A small one, measuring three by four and a half feet, quite modern, but very fine and with splendid colors, has been sold at Teheran for eight hundred dollars. [Illustration: ARABIAN RUG SIZE, 4.10 × 7.5 _Although distinctly Arabic in style, this rug was probably woven in the vicinity of Shiraz. The squares which form the design resemble an old-fashioned log-cabin quilt in the variety of their colors and the regularity of their stripes. Some hues are green, then red comes into play, while plum, brown, yellow, and blue are also employed. The wide border of stripes shows the Shiraz ornamentation in its beauty, and the Greek crosses suggest the possibility of a Christian weaver. There is a fine sheen on the surface. This rug is quite heavy, and its very oddity makes it interesting to the collector._] TURKISH RUGS The term Turkish Rugs includes all those rugs that are manufactured within the Turkish Empire, whether the manufacturers be Kurds or Circassians or Christians; the last of these names comprises the Armenians, the Greeks, and the Syrians. Turkish rugs are not so finely woven as Persian; they have a longer pile and looser texture. As they are usually very soft and thick, the foot when walking upon them feels as if it were treading upon a bed of moss. The principal rug-manufacturing district of Turkey is Karajah Dagh. Much weaving is done also at Cæsarea. The rugs found at Adana are generally from the latter region, while those sold at Urfa are either from the Kurdish territory or from Persia. In Constantinople are seen rugs from almost every part of Asia, but the greatest number are from within the Turkish territory of Transcaucasia. Each rug-weaving district of Turkey seems to have a distinct and individual class of rugs; and this is not surprising, for there are a number of different tribes, each of which impresses its individuality upon the work. The surface configuration and the climate of a place have much to do with the quality of the rugs manufactured within it. Naturally, in the rocky, mountainous regions the flocks consist of goats instead of sheep. The sheep would be injured among the steep, sharp crags, and much of their wool would be lost, as it would adhere to the rocks. The goats, however, being hardy, easily jump from crag to crag, sustaining no injury to their hair. The hair of the goat is woven into the mohair and so-called Smyrna rugs, and also into what is known as Paul's Tent Cloth. This last is woven quite differently from other rugs; it is the coarsest of all, and the women weave it on the ground. To make it firm enough to keep out every drop of rain requires laborious work with the fingers, but when the cloth is woven with care it is a most excellent shelter from the storm. A large Paul's Tent, such as a rich man owns, costs about four hundred dollars. It shelters the women of the household, as well as the cattle; and one part is partitioned off for a guest-room. In Turkey the floor is always covered with matting, and the matting, in its turn, is so closely covered with rugs as to be quite concealed. In large cities rugs are used in the Summer for divan and couch covers; in the Winter the same rugs serve as beds. Constantinople is the greatest rug market in the world. Every known nation is represented in that wonderful city, where the ancient industrial skill of Asia meets the steadily increasing demands of the West. Nothing can be more interesting to the rug-lover than to wander through the streets and byways, observing the different phases of his favorite industry. The Custom House, where enormous bales of rugs await transportation; the great warehouses, which handle only at wholesale; the bazaars, and even the street vendors, possess each an absorbing interest. The travelling merchants from Persia, who yearly journey to Constantinople, establish themselves in that busy section of the city known as Stamboul. Here they erect their khans, covering the walls and floors with rugs, many of which are really splendid in tone and quality. The large retail houses at Constantinople usually have collections of very choice rugs. CHARACTERISTICS OF CERTAIN TURKISH RUGS Akhissar rugs have a thick pile, and are loosely woven. Their colors are usually red and green. Rugs of mohair are made at Akhissar. _Anatolia_, or Asia Minor, produces both rugs and mats of good quality. The Anatolian rug is large and very heavy. The Anatolian mats are made in large numbers, and are very thick and soft. They are used by the natives for pillows. Some are very beautiful; and although many are turned out with aniline dyes, many others are splendidly colored with vegetable dyes. The designs are many and varied. _Bergamo_ (ancient Pergamos) rugs have a long, silky pile, and are almost square. They are quite thick, and have geometrical figures in the centre, while the borders are floral in effect. The colors are rich, generally yellow, green, red, and blue. A red webbing at each end carries a blue or yellow embroidered stripe. Antique Bergamos are very beautiful. _Brusa_ (Broussa) had a fresh impetus in the rug industry a few years ago. Very fine and beautiful silk rugs are woven there now by Turkish women and girls. The Great Mosque and the Mosque of the Thunderbolt at Brusa both contain rare old rugs. [Illustration: OLD GHIORDES PRAYER RUG SIZE, 4.6 × 6.9 _The rich magenta which is the field of this rug has been mellowed by time. There is throughout the rug a softness and harmony of tone that is very pleasing. The niche is high, and the corner areas and the border are in richly blended blues and yellows, with magenta. The delicacy of the floral designs, and the warmth of tone, give it a particular charm._] _Cæsarean_ rugs have a thicker pile than any of the rugs woven in Anatolia. They are garish in color and are stained with chemical dyes. Large numbers are turned out by the factories, but they in no way resemble the good rugs of former years, except in their durability. _Cassaba_ (see Sparta) rugs. _Demirdji_ rugs are a product of modern growth, unknown thirty-five years ago. To-day the town is a large manufacturing centre. The rugs bear strong Turkish elements. They are heavy and durable, and woven of excellent wool when of the first quality. There are, however, three different qualities. The weavers of these rugs have a small pattern which they reproduce in the large sizes. _Ghiordes_ rugs of antiquity are not in the market. Once in a decade it is possible such a rug changes hands, but this is either the result of lack of knowledge on the part of the owner, or because he is in pecuniary straits. The rug derives its name from the ancient town of Ghiordium, and its form is that of a prayer rug. The weavers were most painstaking, and used the finest of dyes and designs. The hanging mosque lamp, or a tree form, is suspended from the high point of the niche, and a column appears on either side of the field, extending to the spandrels. Above is a horizontal panel, and there is generally one below the field. In colors there is a discriminating use of the old porcelain blue, rare green, red, yellow, ivory, and white. When white was chosen, the weavers often substituted cotton for wool, thinking it would keep its purity of tone longer. The field is generally in one of these solid colors. The borders are most interesting and beautiful. The main stripe is usually ornamented with well-defined designs of small flowers and leaves, arranged with a square effect. The other borders are generally floral, while the zigzag water motif encloses the field. The apex of the mihrab or niche runs high in the Ghiordes rug. A silk fringe often finishes the top. One collector in Constantinople has many very fine and rare specimens. He began to collect Ghiordes rugs years ago, before the value of the rug became generally known. The modern rugs are very coarse, and have no resemblance to the old ones. _Hereke_ rugs receive their name from the village about forty miles from Constantinople, on the Gulf of Ismid, where the Sultan has established the imperial factories and a school of art. About four hundred young women, mostly Greeks, are here actively employed in weaving rugs in silk and wool. His Imperial Majesty is anxious to give employment to the village girls, and takes much interest in this industry, which was started about fifteen years ago. The rugs are reproductions, for the most part, of famous antiques belonging to the Sultan. In 1898 Emperor William of Germany visited this factory. After his return home the Sultan sent him a large number of Hereke rugs. In 1902, during one of my sojourns in Berlin, I was permitted by the courtesy extended to me by the court official in charge of these rugs to see the entire collection arranged in one section of the Palace. Beside the magnificent antique Persian rugs belonging to the Imperial House of Germany these modern Turkish rugs were startling in color; but the texture was fine, and time will, of course, subdue the glowing colors, which are now often softened in the Western markets by a washing process known to certain firms. Old mohair rugs are also being reproduced at the Hereke factory with good results. Great attention is paid in all these rugs to exactness of detail in reproduction. _Kara-Geuz_ rugs are mostly of the runner order, with mixed designs and fugitive colors. _Karaman_ has a considerable trade with Smyrna. Its rugs are coarse, loosely woven, and not at all attractive. _Kir-Shehr_ rugs are made in the province of Angora. Because of their durability and thickness they are both useful and desirable. Their colorings are rather strong, but fine; green is the most usual color, although red and blue are frequent. The designs are mostly of Arabic origin, and quite highly decorative. _Konieh_ rugs are of great weight and resemble Ouchaks. They usually have a plain centre, and when there are panels these are also of one shade. Being firm and strong they are very durable. _Kulah_ prayer rugs of ancient make are most interesting and valuable. They are about the size of the old Ghiordes prayer rug, and have other points in common, which might be expected from the proximity of the towns. The Kulah rug, however, instead of the solid centre of its neighbor, is apt to have its field ornamented with small floral designs. The colors most prominent are a yellowish-brown, a blue, or a soft red. Green and white are seen at times. There are many narrow stripes as borders, often alternating in dark and light colors, and these are beautifully ornamented with floral effects in minute designs. The niche of the prayer rug is of medium height, often with serrated sides. [Illustration: INDIAN PRAYER RUG SIZE, 5.10 × 3.4 _This rug is a modern product of India. The prayer niche, with long lines leading to it, extends well toward the top. The niche is decorated with a delicate, dark blue floral design in ivory, red, and fawn, and the lines leading to it are ornamented in blue, red, and brown. The field is a beautiful sage-green, and the main border is embellished with reds, browns, ivory, and occasionally with light blue. The outer border is of the same green as the field. At each end is a full fringe. This rug was made in the jail at Amritsar, from a design sent from the United States._] _Kurdistan_ (the Turkish portion) rugs are woven by the women in odd moments, and one of the ways a girl gains distinction among her associates is by the skill she displays in rug-weaving. As the wool is taken from the flocks that are kept near home, and is spun and dyed there, and as the time consumed in the weaving is not counted, each rug is considered clear gain. In fact, the Kurdish women do not make their rugs entirely for the market, but for their own entertainment and use. Kurdish rugs are very durable, and they are much prized in Turkey; but they do not sell readily in America because of the lack of that harmony of color which our taste demands. Their coloring is often too bright and varied to attract us. An Armenian clergyman said to me recently: "I find Americans more devoted to harmony than to anything else. I have in my house one of the finest of Kurdish rugs, but I could never sell it in this country, should I wish. An American looks at it and says, 'What hideous colors!' and I doubt if I could even give it away, although it would be considered a superior rug in Turkey." _Kutahia_ sends out Anatolian rugs of goat's hair and wool. Some improvement has been noticed in the rugs recently. _Ladik_ prayer rugs were made in the ancient city of Laodicea. They are among the finest rugs of old workmanship. The field is of a solid color, often a rich wine-red. The niche is serrated on the inside to the apex, which is enclosed by straight lines. On the outside of the niche one often sees the hook design, extending into the upper field, which in its turn is frequently ornamented with lancet-shaped leaves and floral forms. The Rhodian lily sometimes plays a part in the border design. White, red, blue, a light tan, and green, with an occasional touch of violet, are used. The webbing is red, and extends about an inch and a half, when a narrow fringe finishes the ends. _Meles_ (Melhaz) rugs of modern make are of coarse texture, and brilliant in fugitive dyes of red, yellow, blue, and green. They find a market at Milassa. The modern prayer rug does not compare favorably in any way with the antique. The texture of the ancient rug is thin, but with a wealth of coloring and blending of hues, as beautiful as rare. Sometimes, too, the Ghiordes panel is seen above the niche. A good deal of black was used in the old rugs, but, as is usual in antiques, it has gradually disappeared with age. Violet, too, is a color that was sometimes used with great effect in old rugs. _Mohair_ rugs are made of the soft, silky hair of the Angora goat; but though beautiful, they are not durable, as experiments tried at Akhissar and Kulah have shown. _Mosul_ rugs are strong and rich in colorings of blue, yellow, green, and red. The designs are rather striking, and with their silky softness these rugs are generally desirable. The best are made of camel's hair, including the outer border, but occasionally they are made partly of goat's hair. They are now made in several Turkish provinces, and are often wrongly called Persian rugs. At _Ouchak_, with its large population, there are steadily at work about two thousand looms, giving employment to fully four thousand weavers, and as many as one hundred and fifty dyers. Ouchak is the principal city of Asiatic Turkey for the dyeing of the wool of which the rugs are woven, and that industry is carried on in many factories. Ouchak rugs have a thick pile; and though green is forbidden by Mohammedan law, the modern rugs frequently have green for their dominant color. The reason for this innovation is that the influence of their religious faith has waned, and consequently the law regarding that color is not now strictly enforced. The weavers of these rugs are mostly Moslem women and girls. The wool is generally bought in the interior from nomad tribes, and the weaving is carried on in private houses in a manner similar to that of other rugs, except that the yarn is spun more loosely. In the early history of rug-weaving these rugs were known in the Western market as the _Yapraks_, and the colors were, almost invariably, red with either green or blue. Until recently, even the best Ouchak rugs were apt to have inferior wool for their foundation, and hemp was frequently employed. The wool was loosely woven, and the dyes were fugitive. There are now, however, certain provinces in Turkey, including Ouchak, where the products are controlled by European and American firms, and where excellent wool and natural dyes are used. The rugs made under such control are very durable and in every way satisfactory. In size Ouchaks vary greatly, ranging from a few feet to fifty by twenty-five feet. _Sivas_ rugs are always woven of wool, and almost every hamlet carries on the industry of weaving in the homes. There are no factories, the young girls and women doing the work here, as in other parts of Turkey. Sivas rugs are in most cases small, measuring about eight by four feet; but lately larger and more attractive rugs are being made. Even the poorest families have fine rugs, and regard them as valuable property, to be sold only under the pressure of great extremity. The weavers are so frugal in their manner of living that their daily earning of fourteen to nineteen cents is sufficient to supply their wants. [Illustration: INDIAN LOOM AND WEAVERS] _Smyrna_, next to Constantinople, is the most important commercial centre in the East. It is the open door to mysterious Asia, and within its boundaries are found representatives of every race and religious belief of that little-known continent, the land of mystics, nomads, and fanatics. It is a mistake to imagine that the so-called Smyrna rugs are made in that city. As a matter of fact, no rugs are manufactured there. It is the export depot for goods from the interior, and dealers have allowed the name to be used merely for convenience, for commercial purposes. A student of rugs can readily understand that throughout the vast territory which concentrates its commerce in Smyrna there are a score or more of valuable manufactures which could never be known under one descriptive name. _Sparta_ rugs are made in a village bearing that name situated in the interior not far from Smyrna. They are very heavy, firm, and in different colors. Some of those recently made are especially fine. Attention is being paid to harmonious coloring as well as to quality and texture. A splendid specimen is in the home of the leading merchant of Smyrna. It is in the softest shades of rose and blue, with a lustrous sheen. The texture is as fine as velvet, and the medallion in the centre is most gracefully designed. Many rugs are sold under the name of _Cassaba_, which are really woven at Sparta. _Yaprak_ (see Ouchak) rugs. _Yuruk_ rugs are so called from a band of nomads who dwell among the mountains of Anatolia. They have large flocks of sheep, and weave rugs of strong, hardy texture. The colors are very good, the field often of brown, ornamented with large, bold designs. III RUG-WEAVING IN INDIA, AFGHANISTAN, BELUCHISTAN, CENTRAL ASIA, AND THE CAUSCASUS REGION INDIAN RUGS The manufacture of rugs was introduced into India by the Mohammedans at their first invasion in the beginning of the eleventh century. Persian rugs, however, were always preferred to those made in India, and princes and nobles of the Delhi Court, when it was in its greatest splendor, sought the fabrics woven in Herat, or by the Sharrokhs on the Attrek, or the nomad tribes of Western Kurdistan. These were purchased only by the princes and their wealthy followers. A few specimens of these rugs still remain in India, and are now and then reproduced with more or less accuracy. In the sixteenth century, however, the Emperor Akbar, or more properly Jalal-ud-Din Mahomed, sent for Persian weavers to make the exquisite fabrics for which Persia was then so famous. At first these weavers continued to weave according to the designs employed in their own land; but it is not surprising that as time went on, and the natives of India learned the art of weaving from the Persians, Hindoo ideas should have found expression, in Southern India especially. Thus geometrical designs were substituted for floral, although even now the designs of some Indian rugs revive memories of Persian teachers in the careful arrangement of flowers and leaves. The designs of Indian rugs were frequently named after the original owners, in which cases the weavers generally lived and worked in the houses of their employers. At the present time the manufacture of many Indian rugs is carried on largely in jails, where the old Persian designs are generally used. In Indian rugs, as in those of other countries, there are certain distinct characteristics that stamp them as coming from particular districts, and in India alone are to be detected the few Assyrian types still in existence. Genuine old India rugs are works of art, but they are rarely seen. The religion of the Hindoo does not permit of his tasting the flesh of sheep; and as India is not a wool-producing country, except in the northern part, cotton is often substituted. For this reason, and because the time consumed for weaving is less, Indian rugs are generally less expensive than Persian. Mr. Julian Ralph, in an interesting account of his visit to the home of a prince in India, published in one of our magazines, writes of the splendid rugs shown him by his host: "They were state rugs, and one was green with a border of gold that must have weighed twenty pounds or more. The other was red with a similar border, so stiff and cumbrous that it did not seem made to walk upon. However, the prince sent for his stiff-soled heavy-heeled ceremonial shoes which were quite as richly crusted with gold, and walked about on the rugs, crushing the gold embroidery in a ruthless way." When Mr. Ralph spoke of the damage, he said, "It is of no consequence, these borders have to be renewed very frequently." An Indian rug of great beauty was taken to England from India by Lord Clive, who ordered the architect of his magnificent palace--Claremont--then in process of building, to design a room especially for it. Such special care for the proper display of this work of art may be exceptional, but it shows true appreciative power on the part of Clive. From the time of the decadence of the industry of weaving fine shawls, which was so long a feature of Kashmir, the wool of which they were woven was gradually transferred to the rug industry, and the weavers turned their attention from the shawls to the rugs, on which they displayed the same patience and skill. CHARACTERISTICS OF CERTAIN INDIAN RUGS _Agra_ sends out very satisfactory rugs. These are mostly of great weight and thickness. Many of the best are woven in the jail. The finest specimen that I have seen belongs to Mrs. Potter Palmer, of Chicago, and is a duplicate of one owned by Mrs. Frederick D. Grant. The rug is of enormous size and weight, and the tree design is arranged in shades of exquisite blue upon a field of delicate fawn color. The border, in the same coloring, gives the most perfect harmony to the entire rug. Many more Agra rugs would be imported, but there is now a United States law prohibiting the importation of goods made in jail. _Allahabad_ rugs are similar to those of Agra, but the latter are as a rule preferable. _Amritsar_ gives employment to over twenty thousand men and boys, and supplies the market with some of the finest of modern Indian rugs. Leading English and American firms have factories located there, and for that reason rugs brought into the Occident from Amritsar are reliable. They are firm in texture, and have fast colors. The manufacturers realize the importance of these attributes in a rug, and their own responsibility in the matter. The _Dhurrie_ (Durrie) is a strong, well-made rug of cotton, often in stripes of blue, brown, or gray, with narrow yellow and red lines. Some Dhurries end in a fringe, and are square. In India they are largely used by the foreign population, and in the United States they are especially appropriate for summer time. They are made chiefly at Agra, Cawnpur, Delhi, Lucknow, and in the vicinity of Bombay. _Ellore_ rugs belong to the inexpensive class, but the designs and colors are pleasing. As they are made chiefly of fibre mixed with wool, they are not durable. Formerly _Haidarabad_ sent out rugs famous for their beauty, with designs in the forms of medallions, filled with flat floral ornaments and woven with wool pile on a cotton foundation. But the modern Haidarabad by no means compares with the antique. _Jaipur_ rugs are generally made in the schools of art. They contain many Persian designs representing animals and the cypress tree. The borders are floral, and the field is generally ivory, red, or blue. _Lahore_, the British capital of the Punjab, has rugs woven in both wool and cotton, and the work is done mostly in jails. The designs are Persian, and the texture embraces from forty to one hundred knots to the square inch. _Madras_ rugs are chiefly made in large quantities for commercial and export purposes. _Masulipatam_ rugs were once noted for their beauty, but now many of them are poor in design and workmanship. _Mirzapur_ rugs are sometimes wrongly sold for Turkish, which they somewhat resemble. The antiques are very durable, but this cannot be said of all the modern ones, the vegetable fibre that is used in part in the construction of them not being durable. Few are exported to the United States. The colors are often black, orange, or grayish-white. _Moodj_ is the name given to a coarse, hardy mat, suitable for the veranda. It is made of buffalo grass, which grows six to twelve feet high in India. This is harvested, the fibre extracted by pounding, and then it is twisted into rope or yarn. Afterward it is dyed. _Multan_ rugs have large geometrical figures in octagons, medallions, and circles. These rugs are very lasting. Their general coloring is dark red and blue. Sometimes a really beautiful modern Multan is discovered. Occasionally an emerald green or a yellow alternates with the usual reds and blues, and again we see a white ground with blue designs. The modern ones are not largely imported into America. The antique Multan is very fine, but scarce. _Mysore_ rugs are cheap and not interesting. _Patna_ rugs are usually in blue and white; in quality they resemble the modern Multan. _Pushmina_ rugs have their name from the manufacturers, who thus designate rugs that are woven of pashim. _Sindh_ rugs are the cheapest and least durable of all Indian rugs, and on this account not many are imported into the Western market. The colors are green and orange. _Srinagar_, the capital city of Kashmir, makes very beautiful rugs from the finest wool. This is soft and silky, and as natural dyes are employed, the Srinagar rugs, as well as many other rugs from the northern portion of India, are highly valued. Antique rugs of this character are attractive in soft tones of rose and yellow. _Warangul_ rugs. At Warangul, in the eastern part of the Deccan, modern rugs have been woven for the past sixty years. The designs are chiefly Persian, with a strong Indian influence. To show the beauty and delicacy of some of the old rugs, I may mention that one was made at Warangul, in the sixteenth century, which contained 3,500,000 knots on its entire surface, or 400 knots to the square inch, and the designs were so complicated that a change of needle was required for every knot. Leading importers now give names to designate the different qualities of India rugs, and therefore the name borne by a rug does not necessarily indicate the district in which it was woven. For example the Dhurrie rug is woven in several districts of the northern provinces. [Illustration: AFGHANISTAN RUG SIZE, 9.5 × 7.6 _This rug has a remarkably soft yet firm texture. The rough beauty and the fine coloring are very attractive. The field is a rich shade of red verging toward the hue of a blood orange, and again gleaming with far deeper shades. The large octagons are defined by a very narrow dark brown line. Two sides of these octagons are in a deep, sapphire blue, while the remaining two sides are of an orange cast. The octagon sections are all ornamented, the small red diamonds at the edges being separated by dark green lines. The lattice-work design in the squares of the border of the rug are decorated with green and ivory, the latter in the hook design. The centres of all the octagons are of the orange shade, and one only is crossed through the centre, the markings being knots of green. Large diamond forms, barred with sapphire blue and rich green, are between the octagons on the field. Occasionally a small geometrical figure in either blue or green, with pale yellow or ivory, is seen, and a wide red webbing with heavy dark brown lines across it extends at some length beyond the border. The rug was woven in that northern region of Afghanistan known as Afghan-Turkestan._ OWNED BY MR. GEORGE HUBBARD HOLT, CHICAGO.] AFGHANISTAN RUGS Afghanistan rugs are generally large and nearly square. They are coarser than the Turkoman rugs, but resemble them in color and design. The Afghans, however, are more striking, the octagon designs being larger and bolder. At Kabul, the capital city of Afghanistan, and in other cities rugs are found which are made by the nomad tribes on the frontier. The same tribes weave also the cotton and silk rugs said to be woven at Bhawulpore, India. The Great Rug in the Palace of Chehel Sitoon (forty pillars) at Ispahan, Persia, is said to be the largest ever woven, and to measure about sixty feet long by thirty feet wide. This rug was made in the sixteenth century, and is of Herat design and manufacture. Owing to political disturbances, weavers from Herat have settled in the province of Khorassan, Persia, since 1838, and prefer to call that their home. Some rugs have a strong odor, which is especially noticeable in those of Afghanistan. The reason for the presence of the odor is that the animal's hair has not been properly washed. Nothing but a thorough cleansing on the back as well as on the surface, with soap and hot water seems to be effective in carrying it away, although certain atmospheric changes affect it. A damp, wet day brings out the odor strongly. Fortunately this disturbing element is not in all Afghan rugs. There is a great deal of force and strength exhibited in these rugs, and a richness most attractive in the finest specimens. A color plate in this volume, with its accompanying description, explains the typical Afghanistan rug. BELUCHISTAN RUGS Beluchistan rugs bear the marks of nomadic workmanship. They show that they are woven by tribes who combine strength and skill. The designs are generally geometric, and bold in effect. The rugs have rich dull tones of blue, red, and often with markings of white or ivory on a foundation of dark brown, in fact so dark sometimes as to give the appearance of black. This is accounted for partly by the great abundance of goat's hair and camel's hair woven into it, which is sometimes dyed even darker than the natural color. There is a fine lustre in this rug, and it is one of the hardiest and most durable of all the Oriental rugs. The wool used is soft and the pile left rather long, which accounts in part for the rug being so thick and heavy. Occasionally we find a beautiful old prayer rug in brown tones, and with corner areas in fine dull reds and a wonderful deep rich blue. Some of the finest specimens are occasionally sold as blue Bokharas; and people who imagine that they have purchased one of the latter are likely to find themselves the possessors of a good Beluch, for there is no such thing as a blue Bokhara. CENTRAL ASIA TURKOMAN RUGS Turkoman rugs are woven by nomad tribes living in Central Asia. The tribes are known as the Ersari Goklan, Sarik, Tekké, and Yomud, and most of these rugs have some points in common, although they vary a good deal in detail. Generally speaking, the Turkoman takes the greatest care to have his work perfectly done. In order to give fixity to the color the dyer steeps the wool in a mordant of alum and water. The dye is almost invariably brought from Bokhara. At Ashkabad the Turkomans dye the wool themselves when it is intended to be yellow, but when any other shade is desired it is sent to the city to be dyed. Camel's hair is largely used in the rug-weaving of Central Asia. The camel itself is carefully washed, and the soft hair growing next its skin is used for fine rugs. The goats of this vast region also receive the same watchful attention as the camel; the soft, silky fleece is accounted precious, and is used for the finest Turkoman rugs. The natives use their rugs not only for the floors of their tents, but as _portières_, thereby dividing the tent into sections. This is one of the reasons for the heavy fringe one so frequently sees on the ends. It permits of hanging, and is very strong, as is the case with the Turkoman rugs themselves, no matter how fine the texture. [Illustration: TEKKÉ-TURKOMAN OR "BOKHARA" RUG SIZE, 6 × 3.1 _The field of this rug is of a deep rose hue, with a soft lustrous sheen. The texture is like velvet, and every stitch shows that the rug has been woven with the greatest care. The octagons are divided into four sections by distinct lines. The colors are orange, turquoise blue, and a deep blue with markings of yellow and ivory. Between the octagons are eight-pointed stars. The border is minute in detail, and the rug itself is a genuine treasure._ OWNED BY MR. RALPH OLIVER SMITH, NEW YORK.] CHARACTERISTICS OF CERTAIN TURKOMAN RUGS _Beshir_ rugs resemble in certain aspects the rugs of Afghanistan. The texture is similar, and the same rich blues and reds are seen; a red webbing at the ends extends at some length, and has dark lines crossing it. The rug is longer than the Afghanistan. The field differs. There is an Arabic effect in the design, and yet with a reminder of the Yomud in the general aspect. But the hook, which plays so important a part in the Yomud, is missing. _Bokhara_ rugs which are made in the city and Khanate of that name, are not the so-called Bokhara rugs of the Western world. The genuine Bokhara rugs are of good size, with large patterns, and are very strong and forceful in character. They are sold in the Occident under the name of Khiva or Afghanistan. _Genghis_ (often called Guendje) rugs are woven by a tribe of Turkomans who live the life of nomads. They are named after Genghis Khan, the great Mogul conqueror who invaded Central Asia in the year 1218. The rugs are woven of brown wool, or strong goat's hair, and have rather a long pile. The designs are mostly geometric, although the palm leaf and vine are often seen. _Guendje_ (see Genghis) rugs. _Kashgar_ rugs are made in Eastern Turkestan. They are quite coarse, with designs of a Chinese character in strong coloring. Yellows and a sort of lead-white are much used in these rugs; again, blues and ivory-white are seen, while reds, pinks, greens, and a deep orange are common. The Chinese fret, the dragon, and fishes are among the designs employed. The Tree of Life is of frequent occurrence, but is a crude representation. _Khalatch_ rugs are woven by a division of the Ersari tribe of the upper Oxus, bearing the name Khalatch. They are included under the one greater head of Turkomans. The rugs are recognized by the single stripes of bands that divide the field both vertically and horizontally. These bands are ornamented with single motifs, and are generally considered to be the earliest decoration of woven fabrics. Besides the bands, stars, crosses, forms of the hook, and small prayer niches,--one at the top and one at the bottom, but each facing in the same direction,--are seen. Often a stark tree effect is noticed. In the trade these Turkoman rugs are commonly called Kchatchli (pronounced Hatchli--Bokhara). _Khiva_ rugs are woven by Turkomans inhabiting Central Asia. The firmness, durability, and bold grandeur of these rugs render them very pleasing. The field is of one of the splendid reds so much favored by this great race. Arranged over the field are large forms of the lozenge. Frequently these large forms contain smaller lozenges, which are very decorative. Often a part of the larger lozenge forms are indented at both top and bottom. There is generally a stark tree form between the lozenges, in a peacock blue color. Much ivory is used throughout the field and border, in heavy lines of demarcation. These rugs are sold under the name of Afghan in the Western market. Well-toned shades of red, blue, tan, ivory, and an occasional green are the usual colors. Sometimes a Khiva has a long panel centre, with a prayer niche. In many fine specimens the lustre is an added attraction. _Samarkand_ rugs are a product of Central Asia. They show distinctly Chinese characteristics. Sometimes the field is covered with round medallions, from one to five in number, holding odd figures. The Chinese fret is common in the design, and sometimes a large crude flower arrangement is noticed. Reds, magenta, green, blues, a soft fawn, white, and much yellow, especially in the border, are the usual colors. Soft and rich, these rugs have a distinctive character, and are attractive. Their texture, however, is quite thin, and they are not very durable for the floor, but attractive on the wall or divan. [Illustration: SAMARKAND RUG SIZE, 11.6 × 5.10 _This is a fine specimen of the Samarkand rug. As usual in rugs of this class, the weaving is rather loose and the texture thin. The coloring is extremely rich and mellow. The field of red is in a warm tone, and the medallions are in fine shades of blue. One of the border stripes is a Chinese design. As in all rugs of this description, the Chinese element is plainly seen, both in design and color, showing what proximity of location will effect._] _Tekké-Turkoman_ rugs are sold in the Occident under the name of Bokharas. The design has little variety, and generally the rugs are among the easiest to distinguish. The design is usually octagon, in white or ivory tones with blue and orange, and occasionally green, upon a field of rich deep red, or rose. Brown and black, with white, are also used in the lines of demarcation or in the border. Sometimes the smaller designs are very decorative. Occasionally in the past this tribe, which is considered the most savage of all the Turkomans, has woven a rug with a diamond figure in place of the octagon, but this is not typical. Also instead of the usual red field a wonderful mahogany shade is seen with a rare green in place of the usual blue of the octagon. In the borders one often finds the eight-pointed star. The Tekké tribe use their rugs as _portières_, for divan covers, and for floor coverings. Rich in coloring, fine, yet durable, these rugs are greatly prized. _Yarkand_ rugs are very similar to Kashgar rugs, having the same general characteristics. _Yomud_ rugs are woven by the tribe bearing that name, whose territory seems to include both Astrabad and Khiva. The rugs woven by this tribe are in rich tones of deep red or plum, sometimes mahogany in tone. The design most frequently seen is the diamond, surrounded by the hook. The weaving is very satisfactory, and the coloring in brownish-reds is particularly good. In some odd and rare pieces among the Yomud Turkomans, blue figures conspicuously, as does green also. The border in these rugs is sometimes in stripes, sometimes in a sort of crudely drawn vine. CAUCASIAN RUGS _Caucasus_ is a general government belonging to Russia, and including Transcaucasia. The designs of the many rugs woven in this section of country are all parts of a system, and each design bears certain marks whereby its class may be identified. _Daghestan_ rugs are made in fine wools, and the mosaic designs are generally beautifully and skilfully done. The figures are nearly always geometrical, and in the form of diamonds, long octagons, lozenges, hooks, and small crosses. The colors of the best Daghestans are so well selected, that although there is no shading there is seldom anything aggressive or startling in the effect. Blues, reds, yellows, ivory, and other hues are chiefly used. The rug has a short, close pile, and although the texture is rather thin, the rug is very durable. _Derbent_ rugs, though woven at Derbent, the chief city of the province of Daghestan, differ somewhat from the Daghestans proper, being much softer and thicker. They are also more loosely woven, and have a longer pile. The designs are geometrical, several star devices often occupying the field; and here again we see the hook, which is a feature of the entire Daghestan province. There is a good lustre in the Derbent rugs, and the coloring is often quiet and inconspicuous in dark blue, red, yellow, and ivory. Sometimes a soft pink is noticed. _Kabistan_ (Cabistan) rugs are woven at Kuba. They resemble the Daghestans to such an extent that they are often sold under that name. They have, however, more variety of design, although, as in the Daghestans, the diamond is generally a prominent feature, and often three large and many small diamonds are seen. The texture is firm, and the pile cut very close. Soft reds, greens, a delicate fawn, and browns are the usual colors. The borders may be in stripes, or with crude animal or bird devices. The antique Kabistan is very beautiful. Its texture is like velvet. Often one, and sometimes two borders contain the small single pink which is a most decorative floral ornament. The reds, light greens, ivory, and plum colors are arranged artistically, and quaint animal forms are often seen. _Karabagh_ rugs have characteristics of the other Caucasian rugs, but are more crude in coloring. Red is the chief color used. The rugs are coarse and quite crude in effect. The old-time rugs were vastly superior in workmanship. [Illustration: DAGHESTAN RUG SIZE, 7 × 3.5 _This rug has a fine texture and is straighter than most Daghestans. It is an antique, but its colors are as fast and clear as when it was first woven. It has been cleaned again and again, but nothing seems to dim its hues. The field of light blue is thickly studded with large and small geometrical figures in reds, yellows, and white. Some of the forms are in the lozenge design, with colors in red and yellow, the reds containing fine shadings of blue. Again square forms are seen, many holding the same colors, ornamented with contrasting but harmonious hues. In the centre are two geometrical figures of considerable size, one in yellow, and one in red. Each of these has yellow and white in its centre. On either side are still larger forms in yellow and blue. The border is geometrical, the hook design in a bracket being in evidence, and outside of this is a narrower stripe in red, white, black, and yellow. The many markings add greatly to the beauty of this interesting Daghestan._ REPRODUCED BY COURTESY OF MR. CLARENCE BURLEY, CHICAGO.] _Kazak_ rugs are woven by a nomad tribe dwelling among the Caucasus Mountains. There is a certain strength and vigor about the Kazak rugs that seem to be in harmony with the tribe that weaves them. The word Kazak is a corruption of Cossack; and the durability of these rugs, as well as a certain boldness of effect in their designs and colors, corresponds with the hardihood of the people who weave them. The rugs are thick and soft; their colors are blues, soft reds, and greens. Often the field is a deep rose or a green, sometimes with one or more geometrical figures and several medallions, or with the palm-leaf design in rather large size throughout. When the palm leaf is used, it is generally decorated with a smaller leaf of a different hue. Many varieties of small designs are also seen, including circles, diamonds, squares, and the tau cross, which is almost always present. Some of the antique Kazaks are very fine. _Shirvan_ rugs are attractive from their quiet, agreeable tints, and fine, even texture. They are made in large quantities, and readily sold. The best are of white wool, but the inferior ones may hold cotton or goat's hair. Often blues and whites are the colors employed, with markings of red or yellow. Sometimes there are stripes in the border, one wide stripe followed by a series of narrow ones. The hook is a frequent design, and may be found in the field, incasing some geometrical figure. Sometimes a conventionalized floral design is observed in the border. _Soumak_ rugs ought really to be called Shemakha, for that is the name of the town in the government of Baku from which they are exported. But the contraction of the word into Soumak is now universal. Erroneously too, these rugs are known as "Kashmir," for the sole reason that they are woven with a flat stitch and the loose ends left hanging at the back, just as they are in the old Kashmir shawls. The designs bear a resemblance to those of the Daghestans, and the hook is omnipresent. The best are durable, and sometimes a rarely beautiful Soumak is discovered, distinguished from the ordinary specimens by its soft hues and fine texture. One that I have in mind is of a rich blue field, with geometrical figures in terra cotta shades, and a rare bit of green in the way of ornamentation; the field of another is rose, and the geometrical forms are in deep blues, old blues, and ivory. _Tchechen_ (Chichi or Tzitzi) rugs are made by the Chichi nomads living among the mountains of Daghestan. The rugs have a strong resemblance to the Shirvans, and are often sold under that name. They are of about the same color and quality, but are wider. In the border there are frequently geometrical designs arranged between two or more stripes, and the tau cross is sometimes seen. [Illustration: KAZAK RUG SIZE, 8.3 × 4.10 _This is an unusually fine specimen of a Kazak rug. Its softness, combined with its solidity, gives it force and beauty. On the wonderful rose field a series of geometrical figures, five in number, are placed. Odd figures, including stiff little animals, fill in the remaining field. The wide border is composed of small diamonds, with varied forms of the hook design. The strength of the Cossacks is displayed in this hardy, forceful, and richly colored rug._ OWNED BY MRS. CYRUS H. MCCORMICK, CHICAGO.] IV MISCELLANEOUS ORIENTAL RUGS RUGS OF THE HOLY LAND No rugs of importance are woven in Palestine. In several villages a coarse cloth is made which is waterproof because of its firm texture. It is used for cloaks or abas, and these are worn by all the men of the land. In Bethlehem is made the coarse cloth which is used as tent covering. This is produced from the sombre hair of the Palestine goat. All Syrian rugs are made of pure wool, a home product of an average quality. Looms operated by machinery are unknown. The rugs are made in a primitive fashion by the peasant women and girls, who work at the looms in their own homes when not engaged in field labor or domestic duties. They also do the washing, dyeing, and spinning of the wool. The introduction of rug-weaving into Syria took place about the beginning of the nineteenth century, when a number of families emigrated from Brusa to villages of Syria, where they taught their art. For many years excellent rugs were woven, Haidamur especially taking the lead in superiority of quality, design, and durability. Unfortunately, the original designs and blending of colors introduced from Turkey have entirely disappeared, and only inferior rugs are now made throughout the country. The chief colors in the modern Haidamur rugs are red and black, or sometimes crimson and black, with black or dark brown figures at each end. At Damascus a few rugs are woven, but not of any great value or distinctive beauty. CHINESE RUGS The Chinese rugs of antiquity are remarkable, and worthy of the closest inspection. Their texture, designs, and symbolism show the greatest patience and thought. Antique wool rugs woven in China are very scarce, and because of this, and for their historical interest as well as their uniqueness and attractiveness, they bring large prices. In fact, they are almost unprocurable. A large and very fine specimen of this kind of rug is in the home of the late Governor Ames of Boston. It measures nineteen by twenty-one feet. The colors are yellow and white, and these are arranged in odd designs over the entire rug. A member of the family owning it writes: "This rug is said to have originally been in the Emperor's Palace in China. As every emperor is obliged to have the palace newly furnished when he succeeds to the throne, owing to some superstition connected with the retaining of any of the former Emperor's possessions, everything is removed and destroyed. Fortunately this rug escaped destruction." A fine example of an antique Chinese rug is represented in one of the illustrations of this book. The modern Chinese rugs are vastly different from those of antiquity. There is, however, much of interest attached to them. They are sought because of their antique designs, their harmonious coloring, and their durability. The monstrous and fantastic forms that distinguished the antique are not so frequently met with in the modern production. The predominating colors in a modern Chinese rug are yellow, blue, white, and fawn, and these are arranged very effectively. The designs are quaint and odd. A border distinctly separated from the field is almost invariably seen. A most important geometrical motif observed in Chinese rugs is the Meandrian, especially the continuous and that derived from the hooked cross. The hooked cross we find with rounded arms, generally in connection with a cloud band. The rosette from the vegetable motifs is very frequent, especially in borders; also the branch and the continuous creeper. Bats, butterflies, storks, and the goose are in many borders. The lion--symbol of a happy omen--is often represented in those rugs designed especially for wedding ceremonies. [Illustration: ANTIQUE CHINESE WOOL RUG SIZE, 7.10 × 5.2 _The modern Chinese wool rugs are not at all like this antique specimen, which was woven in Shantung about the year 1750. The material is wool, the pile is very thick and soft, and the texture, though loosely woven, is lasting. A large circular form in the centre of the field is richly decorated in a fine blue, yellow, and white floral design. Ivory is also seen in the markings, but no other colors are used except light yellow and a deep blue. The field is of a rare apricot hue, very unusual and beautiful. The border holds a Chinese fret design, the symbol of long life. This is in a rich deep blue, and the out-most part of it is in a dark shade of blue. The separate sprays of flowers on this rug represent the tea flower, which the Chinese use for decorative purposes, and the larger sprays hold the imperial flower._ OWNED BY THE ESTATE OF THE LATE MR. H. O. HAVERMEYER, NEW YORK.] In the northern part of China rugs are decorated with colored threads in crude imitation of figures; they are woven in sections, and then sewed together. Camel's hair of a coarse quality is used extensively by the Chinese for their rugs, and the laboring class use felts in their houses. These are cheap and durable, and are placed on the tiled floors so common in the colder parts of China. The skins of the doe, deer, and fox are much used in China as rugs. These skins are sewed together in sections, according to various designs, and resemble mosaic work. There are more circular rugs found in China than in any other country, and some are exported. But they are seldom called for in this country, and clerks in the large establishments which import them express surprise when inquiries are made for them. The warp of the ordinary Chinese rug is mostly of cotton, and the woof and pile are of wool or camel's hair. Tsun-hua rugs are made of silk and camel's hair in the province of Chi-Li. JAPANESE RUGS In olden times woven rugs were not known in Japan. The wealthy classes of Japan covered their floors with grass, over which they spread the skins of animals. The poorer classes had not even skins, but only reeds or straw. About four hundred years ago silk and wool rugs were introduced into Japan from Persia, China, and India. For a time the Japanese imitated these rugs, but later the industry ceased. Since the opening up of the country, however, rug-weaving has prospered, and the introduction of fine cotton yarns of uniform quality has increased greatly the growth of all textile industries. The modern Japanese rugs are made of cotton or jute, and are used extensively in the United States in summer homes. In the towns which produce these rugs little children may be seen busily engaged in weaving, their small fingers being very deft at this work. The chief colors employed by the Japanese in their rug-weaving are blue, white, and sometimes a beautiful pink. In weaving, designing, and coloring, as in everything else the natives do, their exactness of finish and thoroughness in detail are noticeable. The Persian designs which were once reproduced in Japan are now supplanted by designs purely Japanese. The dragon is a favorite design in some of the older rugs. [Illustration: KHILIM RUG SIZE, 12.2 × 5.6 _This is an unusually fine specimen of the antique Shirvan Khilim. Its hues are softened by time, and the contrasting colors are so carefully blended that the artistic effect is not lost. This Khilim has been carefully woven, and is firm and durable. The broad bands of apple green and other hues, interrupted by narrower bands, give a certain character and strength of appearance to this beautiful piece of Oriental workmanship. Some of the bands are embroidered with much skill._ OWNED BY MRS. ROBERT DUNLAP, CHICAGO.] KHILIM RUGS WRITTEN ALSO GHILEEM, KELIM, KILIM The largest number of Khilims are woven in Turkish Kurdistan, although many are made in the adjoining territory, and at Sinna and Shirvan. They are also woven by the nomads of Anatolia and Merv, and Turkey in Europe now produces many Khilims, especially in the vicinity of Servia. Khilims are made in different sizes, and are alike on both sides, with a smooth surface. Perhaps the Khilims most familiar to us are those which are long and narrow. But there are also smaller sizes, the smallest of all being called mats. All are without nap, and are woven with the flat stitch by the means of shuttles. Karamanian is another name given to this decorative piece of tapestry. The Karamanian is woven in the tents of the nomad Yuruks and other Turkoman tribes. Occasionally this weave and the Kurdish have a mihrab at one end, showing it to be a prayer rug. The Sinna Khilims have a Herati design, and colors of green, yellow, and rose are frequent. The webbing at the end often contains a narrow stripe. A bit of romantic sentiment is woven into the Kis Khilims, as those made by the Turks in Anatolia are often called. It is asserted that the word means "Bride's rug," and that the name is derived from the fact that these rugs are woven by young girls, each of whom endeavors to finish her rug in time to win a husband. A lock of hair is often found in the Kis Khilim, said to have been woven in by the girl who made it. In Oriental countries the Khilim is used as a floor covering, and also as a curtain to divide the dwelling portion of the tent from that in which the cattle are sheltered from the storm. It is also used by the natives on their journeys, and for general wear on the floors. In the United States this fabric is exceedingly popular as a hanging, and for the cover of a divan it is equally effective, whether used in the home or in the studio. POLISH RUGS There are few of the so-called Polish rugs in existence, and these are priceless and cannot be bought. They are mostly seven feet long by four wide. The name takes its origin from the fact that a Pole (by name Mersherski), after travelling in Persia and India, established a rug factory in Warsaw. Polish rugs are of silk, with gold and silver thread interwoven. Their texture is looser than that of the usual Oriental rug, and for this reason they cannot stand hard wear; but they are exceedingly handsome with their gold lustre and silky sheen. In these rugs a number of warp threads are crossed by the metal threads and overspread, so that the lines or ribs are brought out more prominently. This in part accounts for the softness and looseness of the texture. Some time ago Dr. Wilhelm Bode, the eminent German scholar and authority on antique Oriental rugs, decided that these unusual rugs were of Persian origin, because of their general style and design. Since then Mr. R. Martin has proved this by documentary evidence. PRAYER RUGS The prayer rug is so distinctly _sui generis_ that it requires a little explanation. It is to be found wherever dwell the followers of Mohammed, and the design usually includes a representation of a mosque, or place of public worship, showing the mihrab, which is the niche in the wall of the mosque, so located that when the worshipper prostrates himself before it he will be prostrating himself toward Mecca.[A] [Footnote A: Some prayer rugs have a representation of the hands of Mohammed, and on them the suppliant places his own as he throws himself prostrate. In the corners of some of these rugs pulpits are represented, and occasionally trees.] The Mohammedan, if he build a mosque, locates it so that its axis extends in the direction of Mecca; in such buildings the mihrab is not necessary, as the natural position of the worshipper places him so that his face is toward the sacred city. Where Christian buildings, such as the great Basilica of St. Sophia at Constantinople have been appropriated for Moslem worship, the niche or mihrab may be located well toward one corner of the building. [Illustration: OLD KIRMAN PRAYER RUG SIZE, 6 × 4.1 _This beautiful and rare rug has an ivory field thickly studded with small floral designs woven most carefully. The knots are very closely tied, and the texture is soft and fine as velvet. A cypress tree occupies the centre of the field, and above its base on either side appears the head of a bird. Below there are two peacocks, in gorgeous plumage. The upper parts of the bodies of the peacocks seem actually to glisten like cloth-of-gold; silk threads appear in the tail feathers. At the top of the rug rests a bird of brilliant plumage, and on either side a bird evidently in the act of flying. The border of this fine rug is in stripes, the widest of a golden hue, with turquoise blue, light green, and soft reds in delicate tracery. The corner areas are deep and very minutely woven, corresponding perfectly with the field. Toward the centre of the corner areas and extending upward, is the mihrab, proclaiming for what purpose this rug was woven._ OWNED BY MISS BUCKINGHAM, CHICAGO.] The prayer rug was evidently invented for the purpose of providing the worshippers with one absolutely clean place on which to offer prayers. It is not lawful for a Moslem to pray on any place not perfectly clean, and unless each one has his own special rug he is not certain that the spot has not been polluted. With regard to the purity of the place of prayer Mohammedans are especially careful when making their pilgrimages, the rugs which they take with them having been preserved from pollution by being rolled up until the journey is begun, or until the hour of prayer arrives. It does not matter to these followers of Mohammed how unclean a rug that is on the floor may be, because over it they place the prayer rug when their devotions begin. About two hundred years ago small embroidered rugs were largely made in Persia, chiefly at Ispahan. These were prayer rugs, and on each of them, near one end, was a small embroidered mark to show where the bit of sacred earth from Mecca was to be placed. In obedience to a law in the Koran that the head must be bowed to the ground in prayer, this was touched by the forehead when the prostrations were made, and so the letter of the law was carried out. The custom still prevails. The Persian women who make the finest prayer rugs seldom weave any other kind of rug. But the encroachments of civilization and commerce have changed the original purpose of the prayer rug. Once it was sacred, and the masterpieces of workmanship in the products of Asia Minor were devotional in character. Upon these rugs many a soul prostrated himself before Allah in reverence; but now in the further interior only is the prayer rug made for aught but commerce. As a class the modern Anatolian prayer rugs are quite inferior, being woven irregularly, and without regard to details or finishing; yet there are among them some fine specimens of Anatolian weaving. The famous prayer rugs of Asia Minor (Anatolian) made at Ghiordes, Kulah, Laodicea, and Meles are described in preceding pages. They are the joy of the collector and the artist. The antique Ghiordes rugs are really fine in colors, generally with much pale green, red, or blue. The design most frequently seen is the Tree of Life. One special kind is distinguished by a yellow vine on a dark blue field. [Illustration: OLD ANATOLIAN PRAYER RUG SIZE, 6 × 3.8 _A deep, soft pile, firmness of texture, and superb coloring, characterize this rug. The lower section of the field is of cherry-red; the upper portion is a lighter shade of red, but blending perfectly, and forming by its shape at the top the niche which is characteristic of the prayer rug. This extends into the wonderful moss green of the upper section. The two tones (which appear exaggerated in the black and white plate) suggest the thought of a passing shadow upon a mossy bed. The red and green of the field are separated by heavy serrated lines of ivory, which unite at the top, leading up to and enclosing a small red lozenge, terminating beyond this in the hook design. It is in the centre of the lozenge that the Moslem places the stone or bit of earth when at prayer. Other hook designs and various geometrical forms are arranged upon the field. The wide stripe of the border is of a fine yellow, rich and lustrous, decorated in blue, green, and maroon devices. The outer border is in brown, and it is interesting to observe the series of nomad tents represented, each one worked in white wool, the entrances to the tents, however, being in reds, blues, or yellows. Alternating with each little dwelling are figures worked in red, blue, or green. This interesting rug is a product of Cæsarea._ OWNED BY MR. GEORGE HUBBARD HOLT, CHICAGO.] SILK RUGS Long before other countries learned the art of cultivating silkworms, China was at work weaving fabrics of silk. Chinese historians claim that the origin of reeling silk and putting it to use was discovered by a woman,--Se-Ling-She, wife of Hwang-te, third Emperor of China,--and for that reason she has always been regarded by them as the "goddess of silkworms," The date of this discovery is about 2640 B. C. For about two thousand years the Chinese kept secret their methods of reeling and weaving silk, but finally Japan, Persia, and India learned the art, Persia having for many centuries transported raw silk between China and the West. Very slowly grew the process of silk-weaving. Greece, Spain, and Sicily by degrees attained the knowledge. In A. D. 550 it was introduced into Constantinople, and in 1148 silk manufacture was carried into Italy, and the cultivation of mulberry trees was enforced by law. The industry soon spread into the south of France, where it rapidly advanced. At the present day enormous quantities of silk are produced in various parts of the world. The principal countries are China, Japan, India, Southern Europe, and some parts of Persia and Asia Minor. During the Middle Ages and down to the seventeenth century, the province of Ghilan in Persia produced very fine silk and in large quantities. In all the countries and districts just mentioned, magnificent silk rugs have been woven for many centuries. The silk rug when at its best is unsurpassed in beauty; it is distinguished by its richness, exquisite coloring, and rare sheen. But silk rugs require the most luxurious surroundings: nothing looks so out of place as one of these costly fabrics of the loom in a poor setting. They are more suitable for decorative purposes and museums than for service; they should be used as hangings, not for floor coverings. An exquisite silk rug interwoven with pearls is hung before the famous Peacock Throne of the Shah at Teheran, Persia. The most magnificent silk rugs have been woven in China, and these are interesting from every point of view, especially as regards history, color, and texture. The silk rugs of Khotan are remarkable for their beauty and fineness; on important occasions of state and ceremony the Chinese place them upon the table. Silk carpets of special beauty worked with gold threads are made in Pekin for the Imperial Palace, although many of this kind found at the Court are said to be of Central Asiatic origin. In making silk rugs, the greatest care is necessary in the shading. Sometimes the shading of woollen rugs is made more effective by the addition of silk. [Illustration: PERSIAN SILK RUG SIZE, 5.8 × 4.12 _This remarkable rug in some lights suggests the heart of a forest. Some of its sections indicate Chinese inspiration, and recall, too, the famous Hunting Rugs. The field is in an unusual shade of reddish bronze, with a strong metallic lustre. In certain lights the surface looks like a mass of gleaming gold. In the centre stands the Tree of Life, its branches rich with foliage, among which birds of bright plumage seem to flutter. At the base of the tree two wild animals are depicted, apparently in search of prey. In the corner area at the top of the rug two serpents are attacking young birds in a nest, which is guarded by an agitated parent bird. On either side at the base of the rug is a cypress tree. Across the top is an inscription in Arabic._ OWNED BY MRS. EMMONS BLAINE, CHICAGO.] As the demand for silk rugs is comparatively small, they are seldom woven on speculation. When made to order in Persia, they cost from ten dollars to fifteen dollars per square foot; thus the usual price of a silk rug of Persian make is from two hundred dollars up to thousands of dollars. Those made in Turkey can be bought much cheaper. The Turkoman silk rugs are generally twice the size of the usual sheep's wool or camel's hair rugs. They are very fine, and often two hundred dollars is paid for a rug of this kind eight feet square. Rugs made of raw silk are exported from Samarkand, and silk rugs of old Persian designs are copied and woven at Cæsarea. Some weavers of the modern silk rug, however, do not have recourse to established designs; they give play to their imagination, as do the weavers of wool rugs. Other weavers copy chiefly designs from chintz, and still others work from designs introduced from Europe. Mrs. Bishop tells us that silk produced at Resht is brought to Kashan to be spun and dyed. Then it is sent to Sultanabad to be woven into rugs. It is next returned to Resht to have the pile cut by the sharp instruments used for cutting the velvet pile. After the rugs are finished, they are sent to Teheran to be sold. FELT RUGS In the Orient a large and heavy rug is made of felt. This is used extensively by the natives, but is too heavy to export. Even the shepherds of the Kotan-Daria and of the Keriya-Daria use it in their primitive and isolated abodes. Sometimes an old felt rug is propped up by poles and becomes a tent, in which dwell the shepherds of Central Asia. This felt rug is made of the hair of the camel, goat, or sheep, or by a mixture of all these kinds. It is matted together by heavy and constant pounding, moistened with water, turned and beaten again and again until it becomes compact and solid. Sometimes the felts are decorated with colored threads and often the name of the weaver is woven in. Among the best felts are those made at Astrabad and Yezd. In color felts are gray, brown, or white. The last named are woven at Khotan. No dye is used; the hue is that of the hair of the animal, or the composite hue resulting from the mixture of the hair of different animals. [Illustration: DERBENT RUG SIZE, 7.2 × 4.6 As a representative Derbent rug, this is an excellent example. It has the soft thick texture and long pile characterizing this product of the Caucasus. The entire dark blue field is covered with well-proportioned lozenge-shaped forms, distinctly outlined with serrated lines. Every centre has a cross of a color contrasting with the form containing it. The main border stripe is geometrical, with a variety of the hook design. Several floral devices are arranged in the maroon stripes on either side the wide one. There is a good deal of lustre to the rug, and the coloring is particularly charming in fine blues, soft rose, fawn, copper brown, subdued yellows, ivory, and rich green. OWNED BY MRS. ARTHUR DANE WHEELER, CHICAGO.] The felts have no seams, and are from one to four inches thick. Although this material is of far more ancient date than the days of St. Clement, a legend connects his name with the discovery of felt. The tradition is that while on a pilgrimage the Saint, having put a wad of carded wool into his shoes to protect his feet from blisters, found at the end of his journey that the pressure and moisture had converted the wool into felt. HUNTING RUGS The hunting rugs of Persia are the most remarkable and interesting rugs in existence. They had their origin in the Chinese pictures of hunting scenes, from which they were copied. They were undoubtedly made as early as the sixteenth century for the Shah. Exquisite in their weaving, marvellous in coloring, and of rare sheen, they are worthy of the closest attention. Nor is this their only merit; they serve as records of ancient customs, depicting the method of the chase, and portraying the mounted hunters in pursuit of the elephant, lion, phoenix, deer, and other creatures, fabulous and real. There are perhaps twelve of these precious rugs in existence. One, in silk, belongs to the Imperial House of Austria, another to Baron Adolphe Rothschild, a third is in the Palace at Stockholm, and a fourth, in wool, smaller than those mentioned, is in the possession of M. J. Maciet, Paris. V RUG-WEAVING IN EUROPE AND THE UNITED STATES In the preparation of this section of this work, there has been no attempt or desire to slight in any way the weaving industry of the West. It has not seemed advisable, however, to go into many details on the subject, for it is one easily learned from many sources by any one who desires. There is not the mystery about Occidental weaving that there is about Oriental, the latter perhaps appealing to our innate desire of acquiring knowledge difficult of access. A short account of rug-weaving in Europe and the United States will, therefore, be quite as satisfactory to the general reader as a more lengthy description. GREEK RUGS Greek rugs are almost as ancient as Greece herself. Many an old love-song of this land has praised the skill of the woman deftly plying the hand loom. But if one expects to see the glory of ancient Greece, in its perfection of form and design, transmitted in any degree to the industry of modern rug-weaving he will be disappointed. From time immemorial rugs have constituted a most important part of the dowry of a young girl from the provinces. Even now the courting of a bride in Crete is often prefaced with the question whether the girl is skilled in the handling of a loom. But the modern Greek rug is seldom seen outside of its own country, for it is generally made for home use, and the weaver is not easily induced to part with it. Besides this, the foreign market would not be large for them, especially in competition with the well-known and excellent Oriental rugs. Greek rugs are of two kinds--the heavy ones which serve for floor coverings in the winter, and the thinner, which are used all the year round. Both are made of home-produced wool, often with hemp woof, and are worked by women and girls only, in wooden looms of a primitive order. Athens is the only place in Greece where rugs are produced in a factory. Under the patronage of Her Majesty the Queen, an Association for the Education of Poor Women exists. This philanthropic association has founded an industrial institution which employs four hundred women and girls in its various departments, of whom about thirty are engaged in rug-weaving. The best rugs are those purely Grecian in design and quality, and for these special orders are generally sent in. The rugs thus woven are durable and effective. Sometimes an attempt is made to imitate Turkish rugs, but without their superb effect. Coarse rugs of an inferior class are sold in the bazaars of Athens. The predominant color in these is a dingy white, with stripes of various colors at the ends. The rug is really durable, though the noticeable, fuzzy nap soon wears off. MOORISH AND SPANISH RUGS The Arab conquerors of Spain, or the Moors as they are often called, are believed to have taught the Spaniards and Venetians the art of rug-weaving. The rugs now known as Moorish are made by the descendants of this race. Their leading color is yellow, and in style and quality they resemble the so-called Smyrna rug. Antique Moorish rugs are found in the cathedrals of Toledo and Seville. These are relics of the thirteenth century and have geometric designs. _Morocco_ rugs are Moorish. Those of modern manufacture are very inferior. The poorest aniline dyes are used, and it seems hardly possible that the splendid specimens of the fourteenth to the end of the seventeenth century were woven in Morocco. But the rugs in the Sultan's palace at Fez prove this fact, as does the splendid antique rug in the possession of Prince Schwarzenberg, at Vienna. Fez was formerly one of the chief seats of the rug industry, which is now limited mostly to Rabat. Unfortunately, aniline dyes are now largely used, and even the designs are less artistic than in former years. There is, however, a rug not known to the trade, and only rarely met with outside its home. It is the _Tuareg_ rug, and is woven by the Berbers, a tribe occupying the desert south of Algeria and Tunis, and known as Tuareg or Tawarek by the Arabs. The Tuaregs are great traders, and control the principal caravan routes. Their rugs are woven by the women, and seldom if ever leave the families which weave them. The most beautiful are used as shrouds, and are buried with their owners. _Tunis_ sends out a few rugs woven at Kairuan. They are thick, heavy, but inferior in many ways to rugs of Oriental workmanship. BOSNIAN, SERVIAN, ROUMANIAN, AND BULGARIAN RUGS Bosnian rugs in olden times were sometimes very fine. Then came years of general depression, when the industry of weaving fell into decay. Finally the Austro-Hungarian administration was established at Bosnia, and new life was given to the work. Looms were erected by the Government, and a number of women were sent to Vienna, where they were taught the art of weaving. Returning to Bosnia, they were able to impart to others the knowledge they had gained, and thus the work prospered. To enhance further the value of these rugs, the latest designs in the old Bosnian rugs were selected, and by the harmonious blending of these with new designs and colors, modern rugs were made, which show decided improvement. _Servian_ rugs are woven throughout all Servia, but the principal seat of the industry is at Pirot, on the southern boundary of the Balkan Mountains. The rugs are of wool, and the best are very durable. The dyes are generally vegetable, the weaving is a home industry, and the designs are all worked on a black or red ground. The preferment in the modern rug is for red, but the older rugs had the black ground. The general design is an extended square, in the centre of which is a panel. The rest of the field is filled with stripes and geometrical forms in rather bright and varied coloring. _Roumanian_ rugs of modern make are quite inferior. They are woven on ordinary hand looms in the villages and towns among the mountains of Roumania. They are coarse, and the designs are in stripes, zigzag lines, or straight-lined figures. Occasionally flower designs have appeared, but these have been poorly reproduced, and in the most unsuitable combinations of color. Old Roumanian rugs are not in the market. They are owned by private individuals, and are not to be procured except at very high prices, if at all. These rugs differ from the modern ones in their better workmanship and designs. _Bulgarian_ rugs, as a rule, are very coarse in texture, loosely woven, and unattractive. Occasionally Bulgarian rugs are seen with finer weaving and well-chosen colors. Both men and women take part in preparing the wool, the former setting up the simple looms, preparing the darker dyes, and arranging the warp. The women choose the designs and colors, and weave the rugs. The colors commonly used are yellow, blue, brown, black, white, green, and red. ENGLISH RUGS In England the introduction of tapestries as hangings for walls was made by Eleanora, sister of Alfonso the Tenth of Castile, when she became the wife of Edward the First. In her journeyings these fabrics of the loom were carried as part of the royal baggage, and must have given some sense of cheer, particularly when they clothed the bare walls of the dreary castle of Cærnarvon. Edward the Third (1327-1377) invited Flemish weavers to settle in England. At that time England produced wool in large quantities, although very few fabrics were woven there, nine-tenths of the wool being sent to Ghent or Bruges to be manufactured; for the Flemish were the first people in the northern part of Europe who advanced in the arts and in manufactures. Throughout Northern and Western Europe rugs were seldom used, except for wall hangings and table covers, until the time of the Reformation in Germany. Great Britain is now quite active in the manufacture of rugs with certain designs, a decided impetus to the improvement of this industry being given by Mr. William Morris, the English poet and artistic decorator, who was born near London in 1834. [Illustration: EARLY ENGLISH RUG _Centre portion of a carpet woven in wool, with a continuous pattern of carnations, and a border of wavy floral design. In the diamond-shaped panel of the centre are the Royal Arms and the letters E R (Elizabeth Regina)._ OWNED BY THE RT. HON. THE EARL OF VERULAM.] _The Morris Rug._ With strong, firm texture, fine vegetable dyes, and with purely artistic designs, the Morris rug bears testimony to-day to the honesty, perseverance, and skill of the man for whom it is named. He himself testifies: "I am an artist or workman with a strong inclination to exercise what capacities I may have--a determination to do nothing shabby if I can help it." Decorative art in many branches is the richer to-day for the influence of Mr. Morris, but it is his rug-making that now claims attention. Mr. Bernhard Quaritch informs me in a letter dated August 31, 1899, that Mr. Morris learned the art of making rugs from a volume of the work entitled "Descriptions des Arts et Metiers." Mr. Morris had his own loom, and not only wove rugs, but dyed the wool for them himself, and instructed pupils, to whom his inspiration was a power. Long and laboriously he worked to achieve the best results, using vegetable dyes only, and he was finally successful. No dyer of the Orient could have been more pleased than was he when his efforts resulted in soft, glowing tints. In design Mr. Morris excelled. He educated the popular taste by bringing forth the beauties of the simpler forms of the floral and vegetable world; he delighted especially in displaying the acanthus in varied conventional forms. Every rug he designed bears witness to his enthusiasm for harmony. Too æsthetic, some critics declare him to have been; but no one can deny the importance of his creations, for England needed to be awakened to a knowledge of her own inability to appreciate artistic decoration of the home, especially by means of the productions of the loom. It was this very fact, and his inability to procure artistic furniture such as would satisfy his æsthetic taste, that started Mr. Morris to create those fabrics which he desired. FRENCH RUGS The art of rug-weaving was first introduced into the West by the Moors when they conquered Spain. With the advance of civilization it proceeded to the land of the Gauls, where during the reign of Henry the Fourth it was brought from Persia. An inventor named Dupont was placed in charge of a workroom by the King, in the _Palais du Louvre_ about the year 1605. In the year 1621 an apprentice of Dupont's, named Lourdes, was instructed to establish the industry of weaving in a district near Paris, where was the _Hospice de la Savonnerie_, an institution for poor children. The factory was called _La Savonnerie_ because the building had been previously used for the manufacture of soap. Since 1825 _La Savonnerie_ has been consolidated with the Gobelins manufactory. In 1664, Colbert, minister to Louis the Fourteenth, founded the establishment at Beauvais which is owned by the French Government, as is also that of the Gobelins, which Colbert bought of the Gobelin family. But it is to the Saracens that France ultimately owes the origin of her famous tapestries, and it is to the Saracens, through France, that Western and Northern Europe trace their obligation. The industry has attained large proportions in France. At Aubusson alone over two thousand work-men are employed in rug-weaving. A fine specimen of the work done there is a rug of Oriental design made for a collector in New York. The piece-work system is now generally used throughout the weaving districts of France. The manufacturers themselves usually place the rugs on the market. France buys the greater quantity, although many are exported. Austria-Hungary, Germany, Holland, and Italy have also had some experience in rug-weaving, and even little Switzerland at one time attempted its introduction, but with unsatisfactory results. Belgium, however, was more successful, for Brussels still produces a large number of rugs. THE UNITED STATES The United States is largely occupied in rug-weaving, and the centre of the Eastern section of this manufacture is Philadelphia. But in various sections of the country there are rug factories, both large and small. The _Abenákee_ rug is made at Pequaket, New Hampshire. It is the result of a desire on the part of Mrs. Helen R. Albee to give profitable employment to the women of the rural community where she lives. Her success is now assured, and the reward for much labor and thought has come in a lively demand for the rug. The Abenákee rugs are not woven. They are an evolved form of the much despised New England hooked rug, which was made by drawing strips of old rag through burlap. The thick, soft, velvety Abenákee rugs of the present day are far removed in color, design, and texture from their humble ancestors. These rugs are all wool, hand-dyed in warm tones of terra-cotta, old rose, old pink, tans, dull yellows, rich old blues, olive and sage greens, and old ivory. They are made to order usually, to match in their ground color some special color in the room where they are to be placed, and the borders are made in harmonious tones. The range of design is wide, from Oriental to Occidental--from Japanese to North American Indian. But all suggestions, so soon as received, are modified and removed as far as possible from direct imitation of any foreign rugs. Mrs. Albee has aimed, not to reproduce Oriental effects, but to have the designs original and distinctive. Fortunately, for years previous to the establishment of this industry, she had studied the principles of design and their application to various textiles, and the knowledge which she thus acquired has proved most valuable. The designs are bold and effective, but fineness of detail is precluded by the strips of material, each of which is a quarter of an inch wide. The color is arranged in broad masses. The _New England Hooked_ or _Rag_ rug has for its foundation a strip of burlap or sacking. Through this, strips of cloth are hooked, which form loops, and this surface may be sheared or not, as the maker desires. There is such an absence of attractiveness in the old-time rag rug, that several women of taste and experience in art methods have sought the improvement of this industry. The results have been excellent, so that, ugly as the original rug is, it is esteemed as being the progenitor of the more artistic Abenákee, Sabatos, and Onteora rugs. The _Sabatos_ rug is a product of the little mountain village of Center Lovell, Maine, started in 1900 by Mrs. Douglas Volk of New York. She has now about a dozen women engaged in the work, this number including the spinners, dyers, and weavers. The Sabatos rug is durable, harmonious in color and design, and is distinctly a home product. The wool of which it is made is sheared from the flocks of sheep in the vicinity. The shearing takes place annually in June; the wool is then carded, spun, and dyed. The threads of hand-spun wool are worked through a hand-woven webbing, and securely knotted or tied with a specially devised knot. The designs thus far are mainly adaptations from the native American Indian motives, which are simple and characteristic, furnishing a chance for broad color effects. A special point is made of the dyes employed, those of vegetable origin ruling, and only those dyes which from experience have been found to be practically fast are used,--such for instance as genuine old Indigo blue, madder root, and butternut. Berea College, Kentucky, is endeavoring to encourage the weaving of rag rugs of a superior order. So far, the industry which was started in 1905, is in a primitive state, the natives preferring to weave cotton and wool coverlets, the designs of which they brought across the mountains with them from Virginia in the early settlement of Kentucky. Floor rugs they consider troublesome. The weaving is carried on in the homes throughout the mountains of that region known as "Appalachian America"; it is really a survival of the old Colonial industry. The rugs are woven of strips of new ticking, and are especially designed for bath-rooms, children's nurseries, and porches. The coloring is done with the vegetable dyes and native barks and roots. The color schemes are the simple ones of a primitive people. _Navajo Rugs._ The Navajo Indian Reservation covers about eleven thousand square miles, about six hundred and fifty of which are in the northwest corner of New Mexico, and the remainder in the northeast portion of Arizona. The region is well adapted for the raising of sheep, and every family possesses flocks, which are driven from place to place for pasture. The Navajos, however, never go to any great distance for this, but keep generally within a radius of fifty or sixty miles from home. This tribe weaves a rug that is useful, unique, durable, and when at its best, impervious to rain. Among the tribes, and in some Western homes, they are used as blankets, but it has become a fashion in many of the best houses in the Eastern States to use them entirely as rugs, couch coverings, and _portières_. [Illustration: NAVAJO RUG SIZE, 3.9 × 4.9 _The field of this Navajo Rug is in a natural shade of grayish white. Six large diamond forms in black, with reddish edges and white centres, rest on the field. The centres contain a tiny red line, and there are smaller diamonds--seven in number--four having red centres and the remainder black, and at one end are two small figures. The border is in stripes of red, black, and an addition of white. The rug is a fine sample of the American Indian weaving, and its simplicity places it in striking and pleasing contrast to many of the modern productions of the Navajos._] It is believed that the Spaniards, when they arrived in that section of North America inhabited by the Pueblo tribe of Indians, communicated to them the industry of weaving these rugs, and that the Pueblos taught it to the Navajos. Thus it appears that the weaving of the Navajo rug was a result of the Moors' invasion of Europe. The sheep, which are raised by thousands, were also introduced by the Spaniards. The wool is not washed until after the shearing. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century the Navajos began to use the shears of the white man; previously they procured the wool by cutting it off the body of the animal with a knife, and pulling it from the legs. The native dyes are red, yellow, and black, and the natural colors of the wool are black, gray, and white. The dyes of the white man are now much used. Formerly there was a beautiful blue, which has given way to the indigo. A scarlet cloth called Bayeta was once much used in the weaving of these rugs, but Germantown yarn and other inventions of the white man have largely superseded the old-time materials and methods. The spindle is of the crudest form, and sometimes the wool is simply picked out from the mass, and rolled into the yarn or thread on the hand. The looms are fashioned after the most primitive ones of the Orient, and the weaver sits on the ground and weaves upward. Women do most of the weaving, but occasionally a dusky-faced man may be seen at the loom. It takes about a month to weave a rug six feet ten inches by five feet seven inches. The designs in the Navajo rugs are many, and mostly in angles and straight lines, the serrated diamond design being common, as is the swastika or fylfot. The weaver makes up her own designs as she goes along, occasionally only tracing it in the sand. There is a symbolism attached to many forms in these rugs. The square with four knit corners represents the four quarters of heaven and the four winds. A tau cross is a symbol of protection and safety, and a prayer to the Great Spirit. A spiral form represents the purified soul, and a double spiral is a symbol of the soul's struggle. A wave mark represents the sea, over which the people came from a far country. Black is the symbol of water, regarded as the mother or spirit. Red is the symbol of fire, and is regarded as the father. The native costume of the women of the Navajo tribe consists of two small rugs in dark blue or black, with a bright stripe at each end. They are of the same size, and sewed together at the sides, except where a place is left open for the arms. Formerly the Indians reserved their hand-made rugs for their own use, but now that there is so great a demand for the work of their hands, they sell those rugs, and content themselves with blankets of factory make. Old Navajo rugs, like Oriental ones, are growing scarcer every year, and naturally are becoming more valuable and desirable. The fine textures, perfect workmanship, and glowing colors are seen at their best in productions of the past. VI MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION INSCRIPTIONS ON RUGS We are occasionally indebted to an Oriental scholar for a translation of an inscription on a rug; often these inscriptions show the religious belief of the maker. One fine rug in a museum in Austria has the following inscription: "Allah! No God exists besides Him, the Living, the Eternal. Nothing causes Him to slumber or to sleep. To Him belongs everything in heaven and on earth. Who can intercede with Him without His permission? He knows what is before and what is behind, and only so much of His wisdom can be grasped as He permits. His throne fills heaven and earth, and the support of both to Him is easy. He is the High One, the Exalted!" A rug of Persian weave owned by Baron Nathaniel Rothschild has, worked in the oval cartouches, an inscription translated by Professor F. Bayer as follows: 1. "Honored mayst thou be in the world, Among the clever and wise. 2. May no sorrow be allotted thee by an unfavoring Heaven, And may no care torment thy heart. 3. May earth be all to thee that thou wouldst have it, and destiny prove thy friend. May high Heaven be thy protector. 4. May thy rising star enlighten the world, And the falling stars of thine enemies be extinguished. 5. May every act of thine prosper, And may every year and every day be to thee Spring-time." In the Industrial Museum at Berlin there is a rug with this inscription: "There is no Deity but God, and Mahomet is His Prophet." On a Persian silk rug is a line from the Koran: "All perisheth but His face." Another rug has: "God is greatest! He is great!" Often a marking in a corner of a rug is simply the name of the maker, and the date. The Holy Carpet of the Mosque at Ardebil, now in the South Kensington Museum, at London, has the following interesting inscription woven in black characters in the light cream cartouche at the top of the carpet. Translated it reads: "I have no refuge in the world other than thy threshold. My head has no protection other than this porchway. The work of the slave of this Holy Place, Maksoud of Kashan In the year 946." (The year 946 of the Hegira corresponds to A. D. 1568.) ORIENTAL SYMBOLS All Oriental rugs have designs, and every design is symbolical. To the connoisseur, as well as to the owners of rugs, it is vastly interesting to understand the meaning attached to these symbols by the Orientals. Every one is familiar with the tree design in some of its various forms, and with the stiff little birds and the many odd and strange-looking animals which frequently are seen on an Eastern fabric of the loom. Yet each unique figure has a meaning, and it is a fascinating, as well as an apparently endless task, to find the hidden significance of these symbols. If one goes no further, he should at least become familiar with the designs on his own rugs, and know, if possible, what they typify. The rug itself symbolizes Eternity and Space, and the filling or plan is the symbol of the world--beautiful, but fleeting and limited. [Illustration: ANTIQUE PERSIAN RUG _This rug dates from about 1500 A. D., and is of wool, with animal and floral forms._ FROM A PHOTOGRAPH LOANED BY DR. BODE, OF BERLIN.] CHINESE SYMBOLS BAT _Happiness._ BUDDHIST SCEPTRE _Success in literary labors._ CHI-LIN (a kind of doe) _Nobleness; gentleness._ CLOUD-BAND _The Deity._ COCK AND HEN ON AN ARTIFICIAL ROCK-WORK _Pleasures of country life._ CRANE _Immortality._ CROW _Evil._ DEER _Official emolument._ DRAGON _The imperial emblem, signifying increase and imperial grandeur._ DRAGON WITH FIVE CLAWS ON EACH OF ITS FOUR FEET _Exclusive emblem of the Emperor._ DRAGON AND PHOENIX _Newly wedded pair._ DUCK _Conjugal affection._ GOOSE _Domestic felicity._ GOURD _Happiness._ LION _Victory._ MAGPIE _Good luck._ OLD MAN LEANING ON A STAFF _Long life._ OWL _Dread._ PEACH _Old age._ PHOENIX _The Emblem of the Empress._ STORK _Long life._ TORTOISE _Long life._ TREE OF LIFE WITH SEVEN BRANCHES ON A SHORT STEM_Seven days of Creation._ YOUNG STAGS _Long life._ EGYPTIAN SYMBOLS ASPS _Intelligence_. BAT WITH A RING IN ITS CLAWS _Duration_. BEE _Immortality_. BEETLE _Earthly life and the development of man in the future state._ BLOSSOM _Life_. BOAT _Serene spirit gliding upon the waters._ BULL _Source of life._ BUTTERFLY _Soul._ CARTOUCHE _Eternity._ CRESCENT _Celestial virgin._ CROCODILE _Beneficent Deity._ DOVE _Love; mourning of a widow._ EAGLE _Creation; preservation; destruction; power._ EGG _Life._ EYE OF OSIRIS _Eye of the Eternal Judge over all._ FEATHER OF AN OSTRICH _Truth; justice. (The ostrich itself does not appear In Egyptian art.)_ FEATHERS OF RARE BIRDS _Sovereignty._ FROG _Renewed birth._ HAWK _Power._ IBIS _Usefulness; the heart._ LIZARD _Divine wisdom._ LOTUS _The Sun; creation; resurrection._ NILE KEY _Life._ PALM TREE _Immortality; longevity._ PAPYRUS _Food for mind and body._ PINE CONE _Fire._ POMEGRANATE _Life._ ROSETTE _A lotus motive._ SAIL OF A VESSEL _Breath; the belief that the soul is inactive and worthless until revived by the breath of the mind._ SCARABÆUS _Immortality; resurrection; a ruling providence._ SOLAR DISK WITH SERPENTS _Royalty._ SPHINX _Beneficent Being._ STAFF IN THE HANDS OF THE GODS _Purity._ SUN _Deity; life._ VIPER _Power._ WHEEL _Deity._ ZIGZAG _Water._ INDIAN SYMBOLS ASS _Humility; austerity._ BANIAN OR BURR TREE _Deity (because of its outstretched branches and overshadowing beneficence)._ BUTTERFLY _Beneficence of Summer._ FYLFOT CROSS OF BUDDHISM _Auspiciousness._ KNOT AND FLOWER DESIGN _Divine bounty and power._ SERPENT _Desire._ JAPANESE SYMBOLS PINE TREES _Long life._ STORKS _Long life._ TORTOISES _Long life._ PERSIAN SYMBOLS DESCENDING EAGLE _Bad luck._ EAGLE _Light; height._ FLYING EAGLE _Good luck._ HOUNDS _Fame; ever increasing honor._ LEOPARDS _Fame; ever increasing honor._ LION _Power; victory._ PEACOCK _Fire; light._ PHOENIX _Immortality._ STANDING EAGLE _Good luck._ SUN _Light._ SWORD _Force._ TREE OF HEALTH _Immortality._ TREE OF LIFE _Knowledge; truth._ The Coat of Arms of Persia is the Lion holding a sword in his paw, and with the Sun at his back. TURKISH SYMBOLS CRESCENT _Increasing power._ The Turkish Coat of Arms is the Crescent and the Star. These heavenly bodies are supposed to signify growth. MISCELLANEOUS SYMBOLS ANEMONE _Good fortune._ BAT _Maternity._ BIRD _Spirit._ BOAR _Winter._ BUTTERFLY _Ethereal soul._ CIRCLE _Eternity; perpetual continuity._ CYPRESS TREE _Tree of life; immortality; perfect and renewed life._ DOG _Destruction; vigilance._ ELEPHANT _Patient endurance; self-restraint._ EVERGREENS _Immortality._ FIR CONE _An existence terminated but united--the union of the tribes against the dominion of Rome._ FLY _Destroying attribute._ HARE _Fertility._ HEART _Man morally._ HIPPOPOTAMUS _Destroying power._ HOG _Deep meditation._ JUG _Knowledge._ LILY _Purity._ OLIVE _Consecration to immortality._ OWL _Wisdom._ OX _Patience; gentleness._ PEACOCK _Resurrection (because of the annual renewing of its plumage, and from a belief in the incorruptibility of its flesh)._ PHOENIX _Good luck; herald of prosperity; birth of great men._ PIG _Universal kindness._ RAM _Spiritual leadership._ REED _Royalty._ RHINOCEROS _Religious recluse._ SCORPION _Invincible knowledge._ SERPENT _Life; immortality._ SPEAR _Destructive power._ SPIDER _Slave of passion._ SQUIRREL _Averter of evil._ STARS _Divinity._ SWASTIKA _Good fortune._ TURTLE _Constancy._ WHEEL _Universe._ WINGS _Spontaneous motion._ WOLF _Destroying power._ MEANINGS OF SOME OF THE PLACE-NAMES ASSOCIATED WITH RUGS AKHISSAR _White Citadel._ BAGDAD _Abode of Peace._ BAKU _Place of Winds._ BELUCHISTAN _Land of the Beluchis._ BHAGULPORE _Tiger City._ BOKHARA _Treasury of Sciences; the Noble._ DECCAN _The South Land._ DERBENT _Fortified Gate._ FARS _Land of the Farsi or Persians._ FU-CHAU _Happy City._ GILAN _The Marshes._ GULISTAN _The Rose Garden._ HAIDERABAD _Gate of Salvation._ HERAT _The Pearl of Khorassan; the Gate of India._ ISLAMABAD _Abode of Islam._ ISPAHAN _Place of Horses._ JERUSALEM _Heir of Peace._ KANDAHAR _Key of India._ KARABAGH _Country of the Sun._ KARA DAGH _Black Mountains._ KELAT _Castle._ KHORASSAN _Land of the Sun._ KWATAH _Citadel._ MECCA _The Heart of Islam; the Holy City._ MESHED _Tomb of a Martyr._ MIRZAPORE _City of the Emir._ NING-PO _Peaceful Wave._ PESHAWAR _Advanced Fortress._ SAMARKAND _The Head of Islam._ SHANG-HAI _Approaching the Sea._ SRINAGAR _City of the Sun._ TABRIZ _Pinnacle of Islam._ TEHERAN _The Pure._ YEZD _City of Light; City of Worship._ GEOGRAPHICAL DATA Owing to the variety of ways in which the names of Oriental localities are spelled when transliterated, it is extremely difficult to establish a standard of spelling. Many curious examples of this occur both on maps and in dictionaries. It is certainly confusing to open an atlas that is supposed to be an authority, and find that the name one seeks differs in spelling from that used in the atlas first consulted. Then by looking into dictionaries it is found that each of these has a different way of spelling the word sought. Then turning to a guide book of the country there will probably be found not only another combination of the letters, but also a conflict between the descriptive matter in the book and the map accompanying it. When books of travel are consulted, the embarrassment is still further increased. After having accepted a mode of spelling geographical names for use in this volume, I propose in the pages that follow to assist the reader to locate the places mentioned, by assigning them to their respective countries, so that at a glance he may identify them. This classification will also be a key to the map. [Illustration: Map.] Occasionally the name of a place has been inserted which is not rug-producing, but only a mart for the selling of rugs. This has seemed advisable as the names are intimately associated with the rug industry. LOCALITIES ARRANGED GEOGRAPHICALLY Afghanistan BALKH. CHARIKAR. GHAZNI (GÄZNE). GULISTAN. HERAT. ISTALIF. JELALABAD. KABUL (CABUL, CABOOL). KANDAHAR. ZERNI. Beluchistan BAGH (BHAG). BELAR. GUNDAVA. JHALAWAN (DISTRICT). KELAT. KHOZDAR. MASTUNG. ORMARAH. QUETTA (KWATAH). RUSTAM KHAN. SARAWAN (DISTRICT). SONMEANI. Chinese Empire CANTON. FU-CHAU. HANG-CHAU. KIANG-SU. NING-PO. SHANG-HAI. SHAN-TUNG. SU-CHAU. TIENT-SING. TSI-NAN. TSING-CHAU. TSING-NING. Province of East Turkestan KARASHAR. KASHGAR. KUCHA. YANGI-HISSAR. YARKAND. India AGRA. AHMEDABAD. ALLAHABAD. ALLEPPI. AMBALA (UMBALLA). AMRITSAR. BAHADAPUR (DISTRICT). BANGALORE. BARDWAN. BARELI (BAREILLY). BELLARY. BENARES. BEYPUR. BHAGALPUR (BOGLIPOOR). BIJAPUR. BOMBAY. CALCUTTA. CAWNPUR. CHANDA. DECCAN (DEKKAN-PENINSULA). DELHI. ELLORE. GOA. GORAKHPUR (GORUKPORE). HAIDERABAD (HYDERABAD). JABALPUR (JUBBULPORE-JUBBULPUR). JAIPUR (JEYPORE). JALANDHAR (JULLINDER). JAMMU (JAMU). JODHPUR. KASHMIR (STATE, BRITISH INDIA). KHYRPUR. KOHAT. KOTAH. KUSHMORE. LAHORE. LUCKNOW. MADRAS. MALABAR (DISTRICT). MANDALAY. MASULIPATAM. MERUT. MIRZAPUR. MORADABOD. MULTAN. MURSHIDABAD. MYSORE. NAGPUR. NORTH ARCOT (DISTRICT). PATNA. PESHAWAR. POONA (POONEH). RAIPUR. RAMPUR. RANGPUR. SERAMPUR. SHIKARPUR. SRINAGAR (SERINUGGAR). SURAT. TANJORE. WARANGAL. Japan AITSI-KEN. KIOTO. SAKAI. TOKIO. Persia AARAGH (PROVINCE, WRITTEN IRAK ON MAPS). ARDEBAL (DISTRICT). ARDEBIL. ASTRABAD. AZERBAIJAN (PROVINCE). BIBIKABAD. BIJAR. BIRJAND. BUJNURD. BURUJIRD. BUSHIRE. ENZELI. FARS (PROVINCE FARSISTAN). FERAGHAN. GASK. GHILAN (GILAN). HAMADAN. HEREZ. IRAK-AJEMI (PROVINCE). ISPAHAN (MARKET ONLY). KAIN (GHAIN, GHAYN). KARA DAGH (DISTRICT). KASHAN. KERMANSHAH (KERMANSHAHAN). KHONSAR. KHORA-MABAD. KHORASSAN (KHORASAN, PROVINCE). KHUZISTAN (ANCIENT SUSIANA, PROVINCE). KIRMAN. KUCHAN. KURDISTAN (THE PERSIAN PORTION). LAR. LARISTAN (PROVINCE). LURISTAN (PROVINCE). MAKRAN (MEKRAN, DISTRICT). MAZANDARAN. MEHRAN. MESHHED. NIRIZ. NISHAPUR. OUSTRI-NAN. RAWAR. RESHT. SHIRAZ. SHIRWAN. SHUSTER. SINNA. SIRAB. SULTANABAD. TABRIZ (TABRIEZ). TEHERAN (MARKET ONLY). YEZD. ZARAND. Russian Empire ASTRAKHAN. BAKU. BATUM. DAGHESTAN (GOVERNMENT). DERBENT. ERIVAN. KARS. KAZAN. SHUSHU. { DAGHESTAN. CAUCASIA { DERBENT. { KUBA. { KARABAGH. TRANSCAUCASIA { SHEMAKHA. { SHIRVAN. Central Asia BOKHARA. FERGHANA (PROVINCE). HISSAR. KHIVA. KOKAND (KHOKAND). SAMARKAND. Turkey in Asia REGIONS ARABIA. ARMENIA. ASIA MINOR OR ANATOLIA. KURDISTAN. MESOPOTAMIA. SYRIA. DISTRICTS AND TOWNS ADANA. ADIAMAN (ADIYEMEN). AFIUM-KARA-HISSAR. AIDIN. AKHISSAR. AKSHEHR. ALEPPO. ALTUN. ANATOLIA (DISTRICT). ASIUM. BAGDAD (BAGHDAD), SHIPPING PORT. BEHESNE. BEIRUT. BERGAMA (BERGAMO, PERGAMO). BRUSA (BROUSSA). CÆSAREA. CHAL. CONSTANTINOPLE. DEMIRDJI. DIARBEKIR. EL-HOSN. ERZERUM. FAKEH. GEMERIK. GHIORDES (GORDIS, QOURDES, GÜRDIZ, ancient Gordus). HAIDAMOOR. HAKKAM. HAYZOOR. HEREKE. HISSAR. HOMS. HOSSU. JERUSALEM. KAISARIEH (CÆSAREA). KARAHISSAR. KARAMAN. KERKUK. KHORSABAD. KIR-SHEHR. KONIEH. KULAH (KOULA, COULA). KUTAHIA (KUTAI, KUTAYAH). LADIK. MARASH (MARESH). MECCA. MEDINA. MILASSA (MELASSO, MYLASSO). MOSUL (MOUSSUL). OUCHAK (USHAK, OUSHAK). SAFIETA. SAVAS. SHARJAH (SHARKAH). SHIRVAN. SMYRNA (MART ONLY). SOHAR. SPARTA. TREBIZOND. URFA (OORFA). ZILEH (ZILLEH, ZELI). Africa CAIRO (MART). KAIROUAN (the only place where the genuine Tunisian rugs are now made). MISRATAH. TAJURA. TRIPOLI. France AUBUSSON. BEAUVAIS. ROUBAIX. TOURCOING. TOURNAY. Greece AGRINION. RACHOVA. OWEPHISSA. LOCALITIES ARRANGED ALPHABETICALLY A AARAGH, PERSIA. ADANA, TURKEY IN ASIA. ADIAMAN, TURKEY IN ASIA. AFIUM-KARA-HISSAR, TURKEY IN ASIA. AGRA, INDIA. AGRINION, GREECE. AHMEDABAD, INDIA. AIDIN, TURKEY IN ASIA. AITSI-KEN, JAPAN. AKHISSAR, TURKEY IN ASIA. AKSHEHR, TURKEY IN ASIA. ALEPPO, TURKEY IN ASIA. ALLAHABAD, INDIA. ALLEPPI, INDIA. ALTUN, TURKEY IN ASIA. AMABALA, INDIA. AMRITSAR, INDIA. ANATOLIA, TURKEY IN ASIA. ARDEBAL, PERSIA. ARDEBIL, PERSIA. ASIUM, TURKEY IN ASIA. ASTRABAD, PERSIA. ASTRAKAN, RUSSIA IN ASIA. AUBUSSON, FRANCE. AZERBAIJAN, PERSIA. B BAGDAD, TURKEY IN ASIA. BAGH, BELUCHISTAN. BAHADAPUR, INDIA. BAKU, RUSSIA IN ASIA. BALKH, AFGHANISTAN. BANGALORE, INDIA. BARDWAN, INDIA. BATUM, RUSSIA IN ASIA. BEAUVAIS, FRANCE. BEHESNE, TURKEY IN ASIA. BEIRUT, TURKEY IN ASIA. BELAR, BELUCHISTAN. BELLARY, INDIA. BENARES, INDIA. BERGAMA, TURKEY IN ASIA. BEYPUR, INDIA. BHAGALPUR, INDIA. BIBIKABAD, PERSIA. BIJAPUR, INDIA. BIJAR, PERSIA. BIRJAND, PERSIA. BOKHARA, CENTRAL ASIA. BOMBAY, INDIA. BRUSA, TURKEY IN ASIA. BUJNURD, PERSIA. BURUJIRD, PERSIA. BUSHIRE, PERSIA. C CAIRO, EGYPT. CALCUTTA, INDIA. CANTON, CHINESE EMPIRE. CAWNPUR, INDIA. CHANDA, INDIA. CHARIKAR, AFGHANISTAN. D DAGHESTAN, RUSSIA IN ASIA. DECCAN, INDIA. DELHI, INDIA. DEMIRDJI, TURKEY IN ASIA. DERBENT, RUSSIA IN ASIA. DIABEKIR, TURKEY IN ASIA. E EL-HOSN, TURKEY IN ASIA. ELLORE, INDIA. ENZELI, PERSIA. ERIVAN, RUSSIA IN ASIA. ERZERUM, TURKEY IN ASIA. F FAKEH, TURKEY IN ASIA. FARS, PERSIA. FERAGHAN, PERSIA. FU-CHAN, CHINESE EMPIRE. G GEMERIK, TURKEY IN ASIA. GHAZNI, AFGHANISTAN. GHILAN, PERSIA. GHIORDES, TURKEY IN ASIA. GOA, INDIA. GORAKHPUR, INDIA. GULISTAN, AFGHANISTAN. GUNDAVA, BELUCHISTAN. H HAIDAMOOR, TURKEY IN ASIA. HAIDERABAD, INDIA. HAKKAM, TURKEY IN ASIA. HAMADAM, PERSIA. HANG-CHAU, CHINESE EMPIRE. HAYZOOR, TURKEY IN ASIA. HERAT, AFGHANISTAN. HEREZ, PERSIA. HISSAN, CENTRAL ASIA. HISSAR, TURKEY IN ASIA. HOMS, TURKEY IN ASIA. I IRAK-AJEMI, PERSIA. ISPAHAN, PERSIA. ISTALIF, AFGHANISTAN. J JABALPUR, INDIA. JAIPUR, INDIA. JALANDHAR, INDIA. JAMMU, INDIA. JELALABAD, AFGHANISTAN. JERUSALEM, TURKEY IN ASIA. JHALAWAN, BELUCHISTAN. JOOHPUR, INDIA. K KABUL, AFGHANISTAN. KAIN, PERSIA. KAIROUAN, AFRICA. KAISARIEH, TURKEY IN ASIA. KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN. KARABAGH, RUSSIA IN ASIA. KARAHISSAR, TURKEY IN ASIA. KARAMAN, TURKEY IN ASIA. KARASHAR, EAST TURKESTAN. KARS, RUSSIA IN ASIA. KASHAN, PERSIA. KASHGAR, EAST TURKESTAN. KASHMIR, INDIA. KAZAN, RUSSIA IN ASIA. KELAT, BELUCHISTAN. KERKUK, TURKEY IN ASIA. KERMANSHAH, PERSIA. KHIVA, CENTRAL ASIA. KHONSAR, PERSIA. KHORA-MABAD, PERSIA. KHORASSAN, PERSIA. KHORSABAD, TURKEY IN ASIA. KHOZDAR, BELUCHISTAN. KHUZISTAN, PERSIA. KHYRPUR, INDIA. KIANG-SU, CHINESE EMPIRE. KIOTO, JAPAN. KIRMAN, PERSIA. KIR-SHEHR, TURKEY IN ASIA. KOHAT, INDIA. KOKAND, CENTRAL ASIA. KONIEH, TURKEY IN ASIA. KOTAH, INDIA. KUBA, RUSSIA IN ASIA. KUCHA, EAST TURKESTAN. KULAH, TURKEY IN ASIA. KURDISTAN, PERSIA. KUSHMORE, INDIA. KUTAHIA, TURKEY IN ASIA. L LADIK, TURKEY IN ASIA. LAHORE, INDIA. LAR, PERSIA. LARISTAN, PERSIA. LUCKNOW, INDIA. LURISTAN, PERSIA. M MAKRAN, PERSIA. MALABAR, INDIA. MARASH, TURKEY IN ASIA. MASTUNG, BELUCHISTAN. MASULIPATAM, INDIA. MAZANDARAN, PERSIA. MECCA, TURKEY IN ASIA. MEDINA, TURKEY IN ASIA. MEHRAN, PERSIA. MERUT, INDIA. MESHHED, PERSIA. MILASSA, TURKEY IN ASIA. MIRZAPUR, INDIA. MISRATAH, AFRICA. MOSUL, TURKEY IN ASIA. MUJUR, TURKEY IN ASIA. MULTAN, INDIA. MURSHIDABAD, INDIA. MYSORE, INDIA. N NAGPUR, INDIA. NING-PO, CHINESE EMPIRE. NIRIZ, PERSIA. NISHAPUR, PERSIA. NORTH ARCOT, INDIA. O ORMARAH, BELUCHISTAN. OUCHAK, TURKEY IN ASIA. OUSTRI-NAN, PERSIA. OWEPHISSA, GREECE. P PATNA, INDIA. PESHAWAR, INDIA. POONA, INDIA. Q QUETTA, BELUCHISTAN. R RACHOVA, GREECE. RAMPUR, INDIA. RANGPUR, INDIA. RESHT, PERSIA. RUSTAM KHAN, BELUCHISTAN. S SAFITA, TURKEY IN ASIA. SAKAI, JAPAN. SAMARKAND, CENTRAL ASIA. SARAKHS, PERSIA. SARAWAN, BELUCHISTAN. SERAMPUR, INDIA. SHANG-HAI, CHINESE EMPIRE. SHAN-TUNG, CHINESE EMPIRE. SHARJAH, TURKEY IN ASIA. SHEMAKHA, RUSSIA IN ASIA. SHIKARPUR, INDIA. SHIRAZ, PERSIA. SHIRVAN, RUSSIA IN ASIA. SHIRVAN, TURKEY IN ASIA. SHIRWAN, PERSIA. SHUSHA, RUSSIA IN ASIA. SHUSTER, PERSIA. SINNA, PERSIA. SIRAB, PERSIA. SIVAS, TURKEY IN ASIA. SMYRNA, TURKEY IN ASIA. SOHAR, TURKEY IN ASIA. SONMEANI, BELUCHISTAN. SRINAGAR, INDIA. SU-CHAU, CHINESE EMPIRE. SULTANABAD, PERSIA. SURAT, INDIA. T TABRIZ, PERSIA. TAJURA, AFRICA. TANJORE, INDIA. TEHERAN, PERSIA. TIENT-SING, CHINESE EMPIRE. TOKIO, JAPAN. TOURCOING, FRANCE. TOURNAY, FRANCE. TREBIZOND, TURKEY IN ASIA. TRIPOLI, AFRICA. TSI-NAN, CHINESE EMPIRE. TSING-CHAU, CHINESE EMPIRE. TSING-NING, CHINESE EMPIRE. U URFA, TURKEY IN ASIA. W WARANGAL, INDIA. Y YARKAND, EAST TURKESTAN. YEZD, PERSIA. Z ZARAND, PERSIA. ZERNI, AFGHANISTAN. ZILEH, TURKEY IN ASIA. LIST OF AUTHORITIES ALLEN, J. ROWELLY: _Early Christian Symbolism._ _American Journal of Archeology._ ASHENHURST, THOMAS R.: _Design in Textile Fabrics._ AUBER, M.L., ABBÉ: _Bible Myths._ BABELON, ERNEST: _Manual of Oriental Antiquities._ BALL, J. DYER: _Things Chinese._ BIRDWOOD, SIR GEORGE C.: _The Industrial Arts of India._ BISHOP, Mrs. ISABELLA L. BIRD: _Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan._ BISHOP, Mrs. ISABELLA L. BIRD: _Unbeaten Tracks in Japan._ BLACKIE, C.: _Dictionary of Place Names._ BODE, WILHELM: _Vorderasiatische Knüpfteppiche._ _Bonnick's Egyptian Belief and Modern Thought._ BRUMMER, MARTIN: _Egypt, Three Essays on the History, Art, and Religion._ BUDGE, E.A. WALLIS: _The Mummy Badge._ _Century Atlas, The._ _Century Dictionary, The._ _Chambers's Encyclopædia._ CLARKE, SIR C. PURDON: _Oriental Carpets._ (English Edition. Published by the Imperial and Royal Austrian Commercial Museum. Vienna, 1892.) _Constable's Hand Atlas of India._ COXON, HERBERT: _Oriental Carpets._ CURSON, Hon. GEORGE N.: _Persia and the Persian Question._ DAVIS AND COBERN: _Ancient Egypt._ DENNY, M.B.: _The Folk Lore of China._ DRESSER, CHARLES: _Carpets._ EDWARDS, AMELIA: _Third Lecture, Pharaohs, Fellahs, and Explorers._ ELKINS, JOSEPH, D.D.: _Ancient Symbolism among the Chinese._ ELY, TALFOURD: _Manual of Archæology._ _Emmaus's Life in Ancient Egypt._ EVANS, E. P.: _Animal Symbolism in Ecclesiastical Architecture._ FABER, GEORGE STANLEY: _Origin of Pagan Idolatry._ FERGUSSON, JAMES: _Tree and Serpent Worship._ FUSENBETH, F. C., D.D.: _Emblems of Saints._ GOODYEAR, WILLIAM H.: _The Grammar of the Lotus._ HEDIN, SVEN: _Through Asia._ HULME, F. EDWARD: _Symbolism in Christian Art._ _Iconographic Encyclopædia of the Arts and Sciences._ INMAN, THOMAS, M.D.: _Ancient Faiths._ JAMES, A. G. F. ELIOT: _Indian Industries._ JONES, OWEN: _The Grammar of Ornament._ _Journal of the Society of Arts._ KARABACEK, Dr. JOSEPH: _Die Persische Nadelmalerei._ KNIGHT, RICHARD PAYNE: _The Symbolical Language of Ancient Art and Mythology._ LANDOR, A. HENRY SAVAGE: _In the Forbidden Land._ LAYARD, AUSTEN HENRY: _Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh._ LAYARD, AUSTEN HENRY: _Nineveh and Babylon._ LAYARD, AUSTEN HENRY: _Nineveh and Its Remains._ LENORMANT, FRANÇOIS AND CHEVALIER, CHARLES: _Manual of the Ancient History of the East._ LESSING, JULIUS: _Oriental Carpets._ LÜBKE, WILHELM: _History of Ancient Art._ MALCOM, Sir JOHN: _History of Persia._ MARVIN, CHARLES: _Merv, the Queen of the World._ MASPERO, GASTON C. CHARLES: _Manual of Egyptian Archæology._ MASPERO, GASTON C. CHARLES: _Dawn of Civilization._ _Meyer's Handbook of Ornament._ MUMFORD, JOHN KIMBERLY: _Oriental Rugs._ MÜNTZ, EUGENE: _A Short History of Tapestry._ O'DAGREE, H. EUGENE: _Les Symbols Antiques._ O'DONOVAN, EDMUND: _The Merv Oasis._ PERROT, GEORGES AND CHIPIEZ, CHARLES: _History of Art In Ancient Egypt._ PERROT, GEORGES AND CHIPIEZ, CHARLES: _History of Art In Chaldæa and Assyria._ PETRIE, WILLIAM MATTHEWS FLINDERS: _Decorative Art._ PETRIE, WILLIAM MATTHEWS FLINDERS: _Ten Years' Digging In Egypt._ PHILLIPS, G.: _British Manufactures and Industries._ RACINET, M. A.: _L'Ornement Polychrome._ REBER, FRANZ VON: _History of Ancient Art._ RECLUS, ELISIE: _The Earth and Its Inhabitants._ _Redgrave's Manual of Design._ RENOUF, P. LEPAGE: _Religion of Ancient Egypt._ RIEGL, DR. ALOIS: _Altorientalische Teppiche._ ROBINSON, VINCENT: _Eastern Carpets._ RYAN, CHARLES: _Egyptian Art._ SAYCE, ARCHIBALD HENRY, LL.D.: _Babylonians and Assyrians._ _Sculpture, Manual of._ Paris. SHARPE, SAMUEL: _Mythology and Egyptian Christianity._ SHELLEY, G. E.: _Birds of Egypt._ _Smith's Greek and Roman Antiquities._ SMITH, MAJOR R. MURDOCK, R. E.: _Persian Art._ _Smith's Religion of the Semites._ _Southesk's Origin of Pictish Symbolism._ _Spon's Encyclopædia of the Industrial Arts, Manufactures, And Raw Commercial Products._ (edited by Charles G. W. Lock.) STRICKLAND, AGNES: _Lives of the Queens of England._ STUART, H. VILLIERS: _Egypt After the War._ SYKES, ELLA C.: _Through Persia on a Side Saddle._ _Thompson's Paper on Beast and Bird in Ancient Symbolism._ (Trans. Roy. Soc., Edinburgh.) _Twining's Symbols of Early Christian Art._ VÁMBÉRY, ARMINIUS: _History of Bokhara._ VAN DYKE, JOHN CHARLES: _History of Painting._ WATSON, DR. FORBES: _The Textile Manufactures and Costumes Of the People of India._ WEALE, JOHN: _Quarterly Papers on Architecture._ WESTROFF, HODDER M., AND WAKE, CHARLES STANILAND: _Ancient Symbol Worship._ _Westwood's Illumination._ WHEELER, SAMUEL GREEN: _Persia and the Persians._ WILKINSON, SIR J. GARDNER: _The Ancient Egyptians._ WILLIAMS, S. WELLS: _The Middle Kingdom._ WILSON, THE REV. SAMUEL GRAHAM, M. A.: _Persian Life And Customs._ WINKLEMAN, JOHANN JOACHIM: _History of Art Among The Greeks._ WYATT, M. DIGBY: _Industrial Arts of the Nineteenth Century._ ZERFFI, G. C.: _A Manual of the Historical Development of Art._ INDEX A Aaragh, value of rug trade, 56; spelling, 167, 170. Abbas, Shah, 53; rugs woven during reign of, 62; _see_ Shah Abbas design. Abenákee rugs, 143, 144. Acanthus forms employed by Morris, 139. Adana, 71, 168, 170. Adiaman, 168, 170. Adiyemen, 168. Afghan rugs, 96, 102. Afghan-Turkestan, 95 (plate). Afghanistan place-names, 165. Afghanistan rugs, 95 (and plate), 96, 100. Afium-Kara-hissar, 168, 170. African place-names, 169. Agra, 166, 170. Agra rugs, 90. Agrinion, 170. Ahmedabad, 166, 170. Aidin, 168, 170. Ainos, their method of weaving, 24. Aitsi-ken, 167, 170. Akbar, Emperor, 87. Akhissar rugs, 74, 80; meaning, 162; spelling, 168, 170. Akshehr, 168, 170. Albee, Mrs. Helen R., 143, 144. Aleppo, 168, 170. Alexander the Great, rug-weaving in time of, 53. Alizarin (red coloring matter), 44. Allahabad, 166, 170. Allahabad rugs, 90. Allen, J. Rowelly, 175. Alleppi, 166, 170. "Altorientalische Teppiche," Riegl, 177. Altun, 168, 170. Amabala, 170. Ambala, 166. American interests in India, 35; in Ouchak, 81; in Amritsar, 90. _American Journal of Archæology_, 175. American rug-weaving, 24. Ames, late Gov., rug owned by, 113. Amritsar, 78 (plate), 166, 170. Amritsar rugs, 90. Anatolia, 74, 117, 168, 170. Anatolian mats, 74. Anatolian rugs, 74, 79, 122 (and plate). "Ancient Egypt," Davis and Cobern, 175. "Ancient Egyptians, The," Wilkinson, 178. "Ancient Faiths," Inman, 176. "Ancient Symbol Worship," Westroff and Wake, 178. "Ancient Symbolism among the Chinese," Elkins, 176. Anemone, symbolism of, 161. Angora goat's hair, 30. Angora province, 77. Aniline dyes, 44, 46, 134. Animal forms, not allowed by Mohammedan religion, 37; employed by Shiah sect and certain others, 38; in Jaipur rugs, 91; in Chinese rugs, 114; symbolism of, 156. "Animal Symbolism in Ecclesiastical Architecture," Evans, 176. "Appalachian America," 146. Arabesque design, 43. Arabian place-names, 168. Arabian rug, 70 (plate). Ardebal (District), 167, 170. Ardebil rug in South Kensington Museum, 36, 154; spelling, 167, 170. Armenia, 168. Armenian Christian weavers, 71. Arrian, quoted, 45. Ashenhurst, Thomas R., 175. Ashkabad, 98. Asia Minor, 168. Asiatic Turkey produces madder, 44. Asium, 168, 170. Asps, symbolism of, 158. Ass, symbolism of, 159. Association for the Education of Poor Women, Athens, 133. Assyrian rug-weaving, 19, 88. Astrabad, 103, 126, 167, 170. Astrakan, 170. Astrakhan, 168. Athens rug industry, 133. Auber, Abbé M. L., 175. Aubusson rug manufactory, 142, 169, 170. Austria, rug-weaving in, 142. Austrian Imperial House, owner of hunting rug, 128. Authorities consulted, 175-178. Awnings and floor-coverings, ancient, 19. Aylauts, nomadic weavers of Kara Dagh rugs, 63. Azerbaijan province, 62, 69, 167, 170. Azerbijan district, 58. B Babelon, Ernest, 175. Babylon, fall of, 19. Babylonian rug-weaving, 19; color symbolism, 47. "Babylonians and Assyrians," Sayce, 177. Bactrian tribes, rugs woven by, 60. Bagdad, 162, 168, 170. Bagh, 165, 170. Baghdad, 168. Bahadapur (District), 166, 170. Bakhshis rugs, 58. Baku, government of, 108; meaning of _Baku_, 162; spelling, 168, 170. Balkh, 165, 170. Ball, J. Dyer, 175. Bangalore, 166, 170. Banian or burr tree, symbolism of, 159. Barbarike, 46. Bardwan, 166, 170. Bareilly, 166. Bareli, 166. Basilica of St. Sophia at Constantinople, 120. Bat, symbolism of, 157, 161. Bat with a ring in its claws, symbolism of, 158. Batum, 168, 170. Bayer, Professor F., 153. Bayeta scarlet in Navajo rugs, 147. "Beast and Bird in Ancient Symbolism," Thompson's paper on, 178. Beauvais rug manufactory, 141, 169, 170. Bee, symbolism of, 158. Beetle, symbolism of, 158. Behesne, 168, 170. Beirut, 168, 170. Belar, 165, 170. Belgium, rug-weaving in, 142. Bellary, 166, 170. Beluch rug called "blue Bokhara," 97. Beluchistan rugs, 97; meaning of _Beluchistan_, 162; place-names, 165. Benares, 166, 170. Beni-Hassan, rug-weavers seen in wall-paintings at, 16. Berea College, Ky., rag rugs, 145. Bergama, 168, 170. Bergamo (Province), 168. Bergamo rugs, 74. Berbers, rugs woven by, 135. Beshir rugs, 100. Bethlehem tent cloth, 111. Beypur, 166, 170. Bhag, 165. Bhagalpur, 166, 170. Bhagulpore, 162. Bhawulpore, rugs said to be woven at, 95. Bibikabad, 167, 170. Bibikabad rugs, 58. "Bible Myths," Auber, 175. Bijapur, 166, 171. Bijar, 55, 56; spelling, 167, 171. Bijar rugs, 58 (and plate), 67. Birch, Dr. Samuel, quoted, 17. Bird, symbolism of, 161. "Birds of Egypt," Shelley, 177. Birdwood, Sir George C., quoted, 23, 175. Birjand, 167, 171. Birjand rugs, 59. Bishop, Mrs. Isabella Bird, quoted, 24, 125, 175. Black, symbolism of, 47, 48; corrosiveness of dye, 63, 80. Blackie, C., 175. Blaine, Mrs. Emmons, rugs owned by, 34 (plate), 124 (plate). Blossom, symbolism of, 158. "Blue Bokhara" a misnomer, 97. Blue, symbolism of, 47, 48. Boar, symbolism of, 161. Boat, symbolism of, 158. Bode, Wilhelm, 156 (plate), 175. Boglipoor, 166. Bokhara, dyes from, 98; meaning of _Bokhara_, 162; spelling, 168, 171. Bokhara rugs, no blue, 97; so-called and genuine, 98 (plate), 100, 103. Bombay, 166, 171. Bonnick's "Egyptian Belief and Modern Thought," 175. Borders, 38-42. Bosnia, 136. Bosnian rugs, 136. Boulak, Egypt, rug factory, 51. "Bride's rug," 118. "British Manufactures and Industries," Phillips, 177. Broussa, 74, 168; _see_ Brusa. Brummer, Martin, 175. Brusa, 74, 111, 168, 171. Brussels, power looms in, 24; rug-production, 142. Buckingham, Miss, rug owned by, 120 (plate). Buckthorns, certain species produce dyes, 45. Buddhist Sceptre, symbolism of, 157. Budge, E. A. Wallis, 175. Bujnurd, 167, 171. Bulgarian rugs, 137. Bull, symbolism of, 158. Burley, Clarence, rug owned by, 106 (plate). Burnham, Mrs. L. G., rug owned by, frontispiece plate. Burujird rugs, 59; spelling, 167, 171. Bushire, 167, 171. Butterfly, symbolism of, 158, 159, 161. Buyers' selection for Western market, 33, 38. Byzantine influence on rug-weaving, 19. C Cabistan rugs, _see_ Kabistan rugs. Cabool, 165. Cabul, 165. Cæsar first saw Cleopatra wrapped in rug, 18. Cæsarea, 71, 168, 169. Cæsarean rugs, 75, 125. Cairo, rug emporium, 52, 169, 171. Calcutta, 166, 171. Camel's hair, 30, 31, 98. Canton, 165, 171. Carding, 31. Carpaccio Vittore, painting by, 20 (plate). Carpets, catalogue term for rugs, 16. "Carpets," Dresser, 176. Cartouche, symbolism of, 158. Cassaba rugs, 75, 83. Caucasian rugs, modern, characteristic designs of, 39, 41, 42; descriptions, 105-108; place-names, 168. Cawnpur, 91, 166, 171. Center Lovell, Maine, 145. Central Asia, rugs, 98; place-names, 168. "Century Atlas," 175. "Century Dictionary," 175. Chal, 169. "Chambers's Encyclopædia," 175. Chanda, 166, 171. Charikar, 165, 171. Chehel Sitoon, Palace of, Ispahan, 95. Chemical dyes, 46. Chevalier, Charles, 176. Chichi rugs, 108. Chinese dye, green, 45. Chinese fret design, 43, 101, 102, 114 (plate). Chinese influence seen in design of Ispahan rugs, 63; of Kashgar rugs, 101; of Samarkand rugs, 102 (and plate). Chinese pictures copied in Persian hunting rugs, 124 (plate), 128. Chinese place-names, 165. Chinese rugs, 41, 113-115 (and plate facing 114); of silk, 124. Chinese silk industry, 123; silk rugs, 124. Chinese symbolism of colors, 47, 48; of various designs, 157. Chintz designs in silk rugs, 125. Chipiez, Charles, 177. Christian weavers of Turkish rugs, 71. Circassian rug-weavers, 71. Circle design, 43, 161. Circular rugs, 115. Claremont, English home of Lord Clive, 89. Clarke, Sir C. Purdon, 175. Cleopatra borne before Cæsar in a rug, 18. Chi-lin (a kind of doe), symbolism of, 157. Climatic influences on rug-weaving, 32, 71; on odors of rugs, 90. Clive, Lord, 89. Cloud bands, 41, 63, 157. Coat of arms of Persia, 160. Coat of arms of Turkey, 160. Cobern, ----, 175. _Coccus cacti_, insect which produces cochineal, 44. Cochineal, 44. Cock and hen on an artificial rock-work, symbolism of, 157. Colbert, fostered rug industry in France, 141. Colors, sensed by weavers, 21; Persians' intuition for, 37; obtained by aniline and vegetable dyes, 44; importance to Orientals, 47; Persian choice of, 47; symbolism of, 47, 48; in modern Turkish rugs, 77; in Kurdish rugs, 79. Comb design, 43. _Conchylium_, ancient name of Phoenician purple, 18. Cone, pine, symbolism of, 159; fir, 161. Constable's "Hand Atlas of India," 175. Constantinople, rug market, 71-73, 82; silk-weaving introduced into, 123; spelling, 169. Cossac (Kazak), 107, 108 (plate). Cotton, 30, 76. Cotton rugs, Indian, 23, 88, 91; Japanese, 116. Coula, 169. Coverlets woven in "Appalachian America," 145. Coxon Herbert, 175. Crane, symbolism of, 157. Crescent, symbolism of, 158, 160. Crete girl weavers, 132. Crimson, 18, 47. Crocodile, symbolism of, 158. Crooked Turkish rugs, 24. Cross designs, 43. Crow, symbolism of, 157. Curson, Hon. George N., 175. Customs administration in Persia, 55. Cypress tree design in Jaipur rugs, 91; symbolism of, 161; _see_ 120 (plate) and 124 (plate). D Daghestan, 168, 171. Daghestan rugs, 41, 105, 106 (and plate), 108. Damascus, 112. Daraksh, 59. Date woven into rugs, 67, 154, 155. Davis, ----, 175. Davis, Mr. Will J., rugs owned by, 30, 68. "Dawn of Civilization," Maspero, 177. Deccan, rugs from the, 23; meaning of _Deccan_, 162; spelling, 166, 171. "Decorative Art," Petrie, 177. Deer, symbolism of, 157. Definition of _rug_, 15. Dekkan-peninsula, 166. Delays caused by superstitious weavers, 29. Delhi, 91, 166, 171. Delhi Court, 87. Demirdji rugs, 75; spelling, 169, 171. Denny, M. B., 175. Derbent rugs, 105, 126 (plate); meaning of _Derbent_, 162; spelling, 168, 171. Descending eagle, symbolism of, 160. "Descriptions des Arts et Metiers," 139. Design, of Persian rugs, 17; Oriental designs adapted from Nature, 19; Egypto-Chaldean designs in modern rugs, 19; furnished by Western art schools, 25; hereditary, 37; manner of teaching to pupils, 37; of Persian rugs, 37; selected by buyer, 38; Occidental, copied by native weavers, 38; made from _talims_, or working drawings, 38, 39; proportioned to size of rug, 39; units described, 39-43; determines district where woven, 55; of modern Persian product, 57; Shah Abbas, 59; Herati border, 59, 61, 64, 69; Guli Hinnai, 60; Tree of Life, 17, 65; use of old patterns, 69; introduced by Persian weavers into India, 87; Hindoo, 88; floral, in Indian rugs, 88; Persian, in Jaipur rugs, 91; in Lahore rugs, 91; in Warangul rugs, 93; in Japanese rugs, 116; of silk rugs, 125; of Morris rugs, 139; of Navajo rugs, 148; symbolical, 156-162. "Design in Textile Fabrics," Ashenhurst, 175. Designers, Indian, 32 (plate). Dewsbury, power looms in, 24. Dhurrie, Indian, 91, 94. Diarbekir, 169, 171. "Dictionary of Place Names," Blackie, 175. Dining-rooms, Görevan rugs popular for, 61. "Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh," Layard, 176. Djushaghan rugs, characteristic palmette of, 39; description, 59. Dog, symbolism of, 161. Dove, symbolism of, 158. Dowry, girls weave rugs for, 26, 132. Dragon, symbolism of, 157. Dragon and Phoenix, symbolism of, 157. Dragon with five claws on each of its four feet, symbolism of, 157. Dresser, Charles, 176. Duck, symbolism of, 157. Dunlap, Mrs. Robert, rug owned by, 117 (plate). Dupont, French weaver, 141. Durability of fine Persian rugs, 54; of Kurdish rugs, 79. Durham, power looms in, 24. Durrie, _see_ Dhurrie, Indian. Duties, Persian system of collecting, 55; on rugs, 56. Dyes, 18, 44-46, 98, 139, 147. E Eagle, symbolism of, 158, 160. Eagle, descending, symbolism of, 160. Eagle, flying, symbolism of, 160. Eagle, standing, symbolism of, 160. "Early Christian Symbolism," Allen, 175. Earnings of weavers, 27, 28, 82. "Earth and Its Inhabitants, The," Reclus, 177. East Turkestan place-names, 165. "Eastern Carpets," Robinson, 177. Edwards, Amelia, 176. Egg, symbolism of, 158. "Egypt after the War," Stuart, 178. "Egypt: Three Essays on the History, Art, and Religion," Brummer, 175. "Egyptian Art," Ryan, 177. "Egyptian Belief and Modern Thought," Bonnick, 175. Egyptian wall-paintings of weavers, 16, 17; ancient rug-weaving, 18, 22; symbolic colors, 47; substitution of woven rugs for skins, 51; modern rugs, 51; factory, 51; imported rugs, 52; symbols, 158, 159. Egypto-Chaldean designs in modern rugs, 19. Eleanora introduced tapestries into England, 138. Elephant, symbolism of, 161. El-Hosn, 169, 171. Elkins, Joseph, D.D., 176. Ellore, 160, 171. Ellore, rugs, 91. Ely, Talfourd, 176. "Emblems of Saints," Fusenbeth, 176. Emmaus's "Life of Ancient Egypt," 176. "Encyclopædia of the Industrial Arts, Manufactures, and Raw Commercial Products," Spon's, 177. English interests in India, 35; in Amritsar, 90. English rugs, 138-140 (and plate). English rug-weaving centres, 24. Enzeli, 167, 171. Erivan, 168, 171. Ersari Goklan tribe, 98. Ersari tribe of upper Oxus, 101. Erzerum, 169, 171. Europe, introduction of rug-weaving into, 20; use of rugs at _fêtes_, 20; imports looms into Turkey, 24; demand for rugs since 1850, 54; factories to supply trade with, 57; interest in Ouchak industry, 81. Evans, E. P., 176. Evergreens, symbolism of, 161. Experts can determine where rug was made, 55. Export trade (Persian) in rugs, 55, 56. Eye of Osiris, symbolism of, 158. F Faber, George Stanley, 176. Factories, rug-weaving, 26, 38, 51, 56, 57, 69, 70, 90, 119. Fakeh, 169, 171. Fars, designs peculiar to, 37; modern rug-weaving district, 55; value of rug trade, 56; rugs exported from, 68; meaning of _Fars_, 162; spelling, 167, 171. Farsistan (Province), 167. Feather of an ostrich, symbolism of, 158. Feathers of rare birds, symbolism of, 158. Felt rugs, 126, 127. Felts, Chinese, 114. Feraghan, 167, 171. Feraghan rugs, characteristic designs of, 40, 42, 43; description, 59; plate, 62. Ferghana (Province), 168. Fergusson, James, 176. _Fêtes_, rugs used as decorations during, 20. Fez, 134. Fir cone, symbolism of, 161. Fire-worshippers of Yezd, 70. Flat stitch, in Soumak and Khilim rugs, 34, 117. Flax, 30. Flemish weavers, 138. Floor-coverings and awnings, ancient, 19. Floral designs in Indian rugs, 88; in Jaipur rugs, 91. Fly, symbolism of, 161. Flying eagle, symbolism of, 160. "Folk Lore of China, The," Denny, 175. France, rug-weaving introduced by Saracens, 20; silk industry in, 123; place-names, 169. French rugs, 141, 142. Fringe on rugs intended for hanging, 99. Frog, symbolism of, 158. Fu-Chan, 171. Fu-Chau, 162, 165. Fusenbeth, F. C., D.D., 176. Fylfot design, 42, 148, 159. G Gask, 167. Gauls, red favorite color of, 48. Gäzne, 165. Gemerik, 169, 171. Genghis Khan, 100. Genghis rugs, 100. Geometrical designs replace floral in India, 88. Germantown yarn used in Navajo rugs, 147. Germany, rug-weaving in, 142. Ghain, 167. Ghayn, 167. Ghazni, 165, 171. Ghilan, silk trade in, 124; spelling, 167, 171. Ghileem rugs, _see_ Khilim rugs. Ghiordes, 169, 171. Ghiordes knotting, 34, 35. Ghiordes panel in Meles prayer rug, 80. Ghiordes rugs, 41, 74 (plate), 75, 78, 122. Ghiordium, 75. Gilan, 163, 167. Goa, 166, 171. Goats replace sheep in rocky regions, 72; raised by Turkomans, 98. Gobelins manufactory, 141. "Goddess of silkworms," 123. Gold warp used for antique Persian rugs, 53; in state rugs of India, 89; in Polish rugs, 119; in Chinese silk rugs, 124. Goodyear, William H., 176. Goose, symbolism of, 157. Gorakhpur, 166, 171. Gordis, 169. Gordus, 169. Görevan rugs, 60. Gorukpore, 166. Gourd, symbolism of, 157. "Grammar of Ornament, The," Jones, 176. "Grammar of the Lotus, The," Goodyear, 176. Grant, Mrs. Frederick D., rug owned by, 90. Graves, custom of hanging rugs over, 20. Great Britain, power looms in, 24, 25; rug manufacture in, 138. Great Rug in the Palace of Chehel Sitoon, Ispahan, 95. Greece, rug-weaving in, 19; swastika design in rugs of, 43; saffron favorite color in, 48; silk-weaving in, 123; ancient and modern rugs of, 132, 133; place-names, 170. "Greek and Roman Antiquities," Smith, 177. Greek Christian weavers, 71; in Hereke, 76. Green dyes, how produced, 45; symbolism of, 47, 48; used though forbidden by law, 81. Guendje rugs, 100, 101. Guli Hinnai design, 43, 60. Gulistan, 163, 165, 171. Gundava, 165, 171. Gürdiz, 169. H Haidamoor, 169, 171. Haidamur rugs, 111, 112. Haidarabad rugs, 91. Haiderabad, 163, 166, 171. Hair, lock of, woven in Kis Khilims, 118. Hakkam, 169, 171. Halifax, power looms in, 24. Hamadam, 171. Hamadan, 55, 56, 58, 59, 167. Hamadan rugs, 60 (plate), 61. "Hand Atlas of India," Constable, 175. Hand looms, 22. "Handbook of Ornament," Meyer, 177. Hang-chau, 165, 171. Hangings, rugs used as, 16, 55. Hare, symbolism of, 161. Havermeyer, late H. O., rug owned by estate of, 114 (plate). Hawk, symbolism of, 158. Hay, Mr., owner of Theban rug, 17. Hayzoor, 169, 172. Heart, symbolism of, 161. Hedin, Sven, 176. Hemp, 30, 81. Herat, 59, 61, 87,95, 163, 165, 172. Herat design in Great Rug, 95. Herat rugs, 40, 42, 61. Herati border, 40, 59, 61, 64, 69, 117. Hereke, 169. Hereke rugs, 76. Herez, 58, 60, 167, 172. Herez rugs, 62. Hindoo designs, 88; religious abstinence from sheep flesh, 88. Hippopotamus, symbolism of, 161. Hissan, 172. Hissar, 168, 169, 172. "History of Ancient Art," Lübke, 176. "History of Ancient Art," Reber, 177. "History of Art among the Greeks," Winkleman, 178. "History of Art in Ancient Egypt," Perrot and Chipiez, 177. "History of Art in Chaldea and Assyria," Perrot and Chipiez, 177. "History of Bokhara," Vámbéry, 178. "History of Painting," Van Dyke, 178. "History of Persia," Malcom, 176. Hog, symbolism of, 161. Holland, rug-weaving in, 142. Holt, George Hubbard, rugs owned by, 95 (plate), 122 (plate). Holy Land, rugs of the, 111, 112. Homs, 169, 172. Hooked rugs, New England, 143, 144. Hossu, 169. Hounds, symbolism of, 160. Hulme, F. Edward, 176. Human figure introduced into design, 67. Hunting rugs, Persian, 124 (plate), 128. Hyderabad, 166. I Ibis, symbolism of, 158. "Iconographic Encyclopædia of the Arts and Sciences," 176. "Illumination," Westwood, 178. Import duties to United States on rugs, 56. "In the Forbidden Land," Landor, 176. India, looms used in, 23, 82 (plate); weavers, 26; superstitions among weavers, 29; wool from, 30; rugs woven of pashim, 30; rugs of various knottings, 35; firms having factories in, 35; Occidental designs introduced into, 38; use of talims in, 39; raises madder, 44; symbolism of colors, 48; of designs, 159; place-names, 166. Indian designers, 32 (plate). "Indian Industries," James, 176. Indian rugs, 78 (plate), 87-94; _see under_ India. Indicum, _see_ Indigo. Indigo, 45-47. _Indigofera tinctoria_, Indian indigo plant, 46. "Industrial Arts of India, The," Birdwood, 175. "Industrial Arts of the Nineteenth Century," Wyatt, 178. Industrial Museum at Berlin, rug in collection of, 154. Inman, Thomas, M.D., 176. Inscriptions on rugs, 70, 124 (plate), 153-155. Irak, 167. Irak-Ajemi province, 64, 69, 167, 172. Iran (Persia), 62. Islamabad, 163. Ispahan, 55, 95, 121, 163, 167, 172. Ispahan rugs, 62. Istalif, 165, 172. Italy, rug-weaving introduced by Saracens, 20; silk culture in, 123. J Jabalpur, 166, 172. Jails, rugs woven in, 78 (plate), 88, 90. Jaipur, 166, 172. Jaipur rugs, 91. Jalal-ud-Din Mahomed, 87. Jalandhar, 166, 172. James, A. G. F. Eliot, 176. Jammu, 166, 172. Jamu, 166. Japanese looms, 24; rugs, 116; symbols, 160; place-names, 167. Jelalabad, 165, 172. Jerusalem, 163, 169, 172. Jewish legend of invention of spinning and weaving, 16. Jeypore, 166. Jhalawan (District), 165, 172. Jodhpur, 166. Jones, Owen, 176. Joohpur, 172. _Journal of the Society of Arts_, 176. "Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan," Bishop, 175. Jubbulpore, 166. Jubbulpur, 166. Jug, symbolism of, 161. Jullinder, 166. Jute, 30, 116. K Kabistan rugs, 106. Kabul, 95, 165, 172. Kabul sheep, 30. Kain, 167, 172. Kairouan, 169, 172. Kairuan, 135. Kaisarieh, 169, 172. Kandahar, 163, 165, 172. Karabacek, Dr. Joseph, 176. Karabagh province, 63; meaning of _Karabagh_, 163; spelling, 168, 172. Karabagh rugs, 106. Kara Dagh rugs, 63; meaning of _Kara Dagh_, 163; spelling, 167. Kara-Geuz rugs, 77. Karahissar, 169, 172. Karajah Dagh, 71. Karaman rugs, 77; spelling, 169, 172. Karamanian rugs, 117. Karashar, 165, 172. Kars, 168, 172. Kashan, 125, 167, 172. Kashgar, 165, 172. Kashgar rugs, 101, 103. Kashmir, capital of, 93; spelling, 166, 172. Kashmir shawls and rugs, 89, 108. Kashmir wool, 30. Kazak rugs, 106, 107, 108 (plate). Kazan, 168, 172. Kchatchli rugs, _see_ Khalatch rugs. Kelat, 163, 165, 172. Kelim rugs, _see_ Khilim rugs. Kerkuk, 169, 172. Kermanshah rugs, 63; spelling, 167, 172. Kermanshahan, 167. Kermes, red dye, 45. Khalatch rugs, 101. Khalatch tribe, 101. Khilim rugs, 34, 117 (and plate), 118. Khiva, 103, 168, 172. Khiva rugs, 100, 102. Khokand, 168. Khonsar, 167, 172. Khora-mabad, 167, 172. Khorasan (Province), 167. Khorassan province, 55, 56, 64, 95; meaning of _Khorassan_, 163; spelling, 167, 172. Khorassan rugs, 40, 42, 56 (plate), 64, 66. Khorsabad, 169, 172. Khotan silk rugs, 124; felt rugs, 126. Khozdar, 165, 172. Khuzistan, 167, 172. Khyrpur, 166, 172. Kiang-su, 165, 172. Kidderminster, power looms in, 24. Kilim rugs, _see_ Khilim rugs. Kioto, 167, 172. Kirman, modern rug-weaving district, 55; value of rug trade, 56; spelling, 167, 172. Kirman rugs, 64, 120 (plate). Kirmanshah rugs, 41. Kir-Shehr rugs, 77; spelling, 169, 172. Kis Khilims, 117. Knight, Richard Payne, 176. Knot and flower design, symbolism of, 159. Knots and knotting, 23, 32, 34-36, 93. Kohat, 166, 172. Kokand, 168, 172. Konieh rugs, 78; spelling, 169, 172. Kotah, 166, 172. Koula, 169. Kuba, 106, 168, 172. Kucha, 165, 172. Kuchan, 167. Kulah rugs, 78, 80, 122; spelling, 169, 172. Kurdish rug design represented in ancient Nineveh, 17. Kurdish rugs, wool used in, 65; woven by girls and women, 78; durability and colors, 79; mihrab in, 117. Kurdistan, modern rug-weaving district, 55; nomadic tribes of Western, 87; spelling 167, 168, 172. Kurdistan rugs, characteristic designs of 40; value of trade in, 56; descriptions, 65, 78. Kurds, nomadic tribes, 65, 71. Kushmore, 166, 172. Kutahia rugs, 79; spelling, 169, 172. Kutai, 169. Kutayah, 169. Kwatah, 163, 165. L Ladik rugs, 79; spelling, 169, 173. Lahore, 166, 173. Landor, A. Henry Savage, 176. Laodicea, 79, 122. Lar, 167, 173. Largest rug woven, 95. Laristan province, 66, 167, 173. Laristan rugs, 66. Layard, Austen Henry, 176. Lenormant, François, 176. Leopards, symbolism of, 160. Lessing, Julius, 176. "Life in Ancient Egypt," Emmaus, 176. Lily, symbolism of, 161. Linen, 30. Lion, symbolism of, 157, 160. "Lives of the Queens of England," Strickland, 178. Lizard, symbolism of, 158. Lobanow-Rostowsky, Prince Alexis, rug owned by, 36. Lock, Charles G. W., 177. Looms, 22-24 (and plate), 82 (plate), 111, 147. Lotus design, 43, 158. Lourdes, French weaver, 141. _Louvre, Palais du_, rugs woven in, 141. Lübke, Wilhelm, 176. Lucknow, 91, 166, 173. Luristan (Province), 167, 173. M Maciet, M.J., Paris, rug owned by, 128. Madder, 44. Madras, 166. Madras rugs, 92. Magpie, symbolism of, 157. Makran, 167, 173. Malabar (District), 166, 173. Malair, 56. Malcom, Sir John, 176. Mandalay, 166. "Manual of Archæology," Ely, 176. "Manual of Design," Redgrave, 177. "Manual of Egyptian Archæology," Maspero, 176. "Manual of Oriental Antiquities," Babelon, 175. "Manual of Sculpture," 177. "Manual of the Ancient History of the East," Lenormant and Chevalier, 176. "Manual of the Historical Development of Art, A," Zerffi, 178. Manufacturers of rugs, 35. Marash, 169, 173. Maresh, 169. Marvin, Charles, 176. Maspero, Gaston C. Charles, 176, 177. Mastung, 165, 173. Masulipatam rugs,92; spelling, 166,173. Materials used in rug-weaving, 30. Mazandaran, 167, 173. McCormick, Mrs. Cyrus H., rug owned by, 108 (plate). Meandrian motif in Chinese rugs, 114. Mecca rug, 68; meaning of _Mecca_, 163; spelling, 169, 173. Medallion design, 43. Medina, 169, 173. Mehran, 167, 173. Mekran (District), 167. Melasso, 169. Meles rugs, 80, 122. Melhaz, _see_ Meles rugs. Mersherski, established Polish rug factory, 119. Merut, 166, 173. Merv, 117. "Merv Oasis, The," O'Donovan, 177. "Merv, the Queen of the World," Marvin, 176. Meshed, 163. Meshhed, 64, 167, 173. Meshhed rugs, 56 (plate), 64, 66. Mesopotamia, monuments show ancient rug-weavers, 16; spelling, 168. Meyer's "Handbook of Ornament," 177. "Middle Kingdom, The," Williams, 178. Mihrab in prayer rug, 120. Milassa, 80, 169, 173. Mina Khani design, 43. Mir, 67. Mir-Saraband rugs, 66, 67. Mirzapore, 163. Mirzapur rugs, 92; spelling, 166, 173. Misratah, 169, 173. Mohair from Angora goat, 30, 72. Mohair rugs, 72, 77, 80. Mohammedan religion does not allow use of animal forms, 37; used by Shiah sect and others, 38; green sacred color, 48, 81; white emblem of mourning, 48; introduction of rug-weaving into India, 87. Moodj mats, 92. Moorish rugs, 134. Moors introduced rug-weaving into the West, 141; indirectly taught weaving of Navajo blankets, 147. Moradabod, 166. Morocco rugs, _see_ Moorish rugs. Morris rug, 139. Morris, William, 138-140. Moslems, _see under_ Mohammedan. Mosques, location of, 120. Mosul rugs, 80; spelling, 169, 173. Moussul, 169. Mujur, 173. Multan rugs, 92, 93; spelling, 166,173. Mumford, John Kimberly, 177. "Mummy Badge, The," Budge, 175. Müntz, Eugene, 177. Murex, source of Phoenician purple, 18, 45. Murshidabad, 166, 173. Muskabad rugs, 66, 70. Mylasso, 169. Mysore, 166, 173. Mysore rugs, 93. "Mythology and Egyptian Christianity," Sharpe, 177. N Naamah, legendary inventor of spinning, 16. Nagpur, 166, 173. Names of rugs, 94. Natural forms in rug designs, 19, 21, 37, 65. Navajo Indian Reservation, 146. Navajo rugs, swastika design in, 43; description of, 146-149 (and plate). Navajo women's costume, 148. New England hooked or rag rugs, 143, 144. Nile Key, symbolism of, 158. "Nineveh and Babylon," Layard, 176. "Nineveh and its Remains," Layard, 176. Nineveh marbles, 17; fall of, 19. Ning-po, 163, 165, 173. Niris, Lake, 66. Niris rugs, 66. Niriz, 167, 173. Nishapur, 167, 173. Nomadic weavers, 26; design peculiar to, 41. North Arcot (District), 166, 173. O Octagon design, 43. O'Dagree, H. Eugene, 177. O'Donovan, Edmund, 177. Odor of rugs, 95, 96. Old man leaning on staff, symbolism of, 157. Olive, symbolism of, 161. Onteora rugs, 144. Oorfa, 169. Orange, symbolism of, 48. "Oriental Carpets," Clarke, 175. "Oriental Carpets," Coxon, 175. "Oriental Carpets," Lessing, 176. "Oriental Rugs," Mumford, 177. Oriental symbols, 156-162. "Origin of Pagan Idolatry," Faber, 176. "Origin of Pictish Symbolism," Southesk, 177. Ormarah, 165, 173. "Ornement Polychrome, L'," Racinet, 177. Ouchak, 81, 169, 173. Ouchak rugs, 78, 81. Oushak, 169. Oustri-Nan rugs, 66; spelling, 167,173. Outlines of black and white, 47. Owephissa, 170, 173. Owl, symbolism of, 157, 161. Ox, symbolism of, 161. P Palestine rugs, 111. Palm leaf designs, 41. Palm tree, symbolism of, 159. Palmer, Mrs. Potter, rug owned by, 90. Palmette, forms of, 39, 40. Papyrus, importance to Egyptians, 51; symbolism of, 159. Pashim (goat's wool), 30, 93. Patna, 166, 173. Patna rugs, 93. Patriarchs' graves, rugs hung over, 20. Patterns, small, used by Demirdji weavers, 75. Paul's Tent Cloth, 72. Peach, symbolism of, 157. Peacock, symbolism of, 160, 161. Peacock Throne at Teheran, 124. Pearls interwoven in silk rug, 124. Pequaket, N. H., 143. Pergamo, 168. Pergamos, 74. Perrot, Georges, 177. "Persia and the Persian Question," Curson, 175. "Persia and the Persians," Wheeler, 178. Persia, significance of white in, 48; antiquity of rug-making in, 53; civilization of, 53; rugs principal source of income, 54; use of rugs in, 54; export and import trade and value of rug industry, 55, 56; home consumption of part of product, 54, 56; manufacturing firms, 56, 57; official name, Iran, 62; silk trade with China, 123; place-names, 167. "Persian Art," Smith, 177. Persian berries, 44, 45. Persian coat of arms, 160. Persian designs in India, 87, 88; in Jaipur rugs, 91; in Lahore rugs, 91; in Warangul rugs, 93; once used in Japan, 116. Persian Empire, its conquest by Saracens, 19. Persian knotting, 34-36. "Persian Life and Customs," Wilson, 178. Persian rugs, Tree of Life design on, 17; value of, 28; excellence of design and coloring, 37; animal designs, 37, 38; designs and borders in good antiques, 38; characteristic designs, 40-43; choice of colors, 47; use of, in Persia, 54; small ones not exported, 54; durability of fine specimens, 54; used as hangings, 55; districts where woven, 55; experts can tell where woven, 55; value of trade in, 55, 56; export and import duties on, 56; manufactured for Western markets, 56, 57; descriptions of characteristic weaves, 58-70; preferred to Indian, 87; silk rugs, 124 (plate), 125; hunting rugs, 128; antique rug, 156 (plate); symbols, 160. Persian weavers taken to India, 87. Persian wool, 30. "Persische Nadelmalerei, Die," Karabacek, 176. Peshawar sheep, 30; meaning of _Peshawar_, 163; spelling, 166, 173. Petrie, William Matthews Flinders. 177. "Pharaohs, Fellahs, and Explorers," Third Lecture, Edwards, 176. Philadelphia, power looms in, 24; rug-production of, 143. Phillips, G., 177. Phoenician art, 18. Phoenician purple, 18. Phoenix, symbolism of, 157, 160, 162. Pig, symbolism of, 162. Pine cone, symbolism of, 169. Pine trees, symbolism of, 160. Pirot, Servia, 136. Place-names associated with rugs, meanings of, 162, 163; various spellings of, 164-174. Pliny, quoted, 45. Plutarch, quoted, 45. Polish rugs, 119. Pomegranate design, 41, 159. Poona, 166, 173. Pooneh, 166. Power looms, 22, 24. Prayer rugs, Ghiordes, 75; Ghiordes and Kulah, 78; Ladik, 79; modern and antique compared, 80; Beluchistan, 97; Karamanian and Kurdish, 117; description, 120-122. Puckered edges of Sinna rugs, 69. Pueblo Indians taught rug-weaving by Spaniards, 147. Punjab, capital of the, 91. Purple, _see_ Phoenician and Tyrian purple; symbolism of, 47; favorite color of Romans, 48. Purpurin (red coloring-matter), 44. Pushmina rugs, 93. Q Qourdes, 169. Quaritch, Bernhard, 139. "Quarterly Papers on Architecture," Weale, 178. Quetta, 165, 173. R Rabat, 134. Rachova, 170, 173. Racinet, M. A., 177. Rag rugs, New England, 143, 144. Raipur, 166. Ralph, Julian, 88, 89. Ram, symbolism of, 162. Rampur, 166, 173. Rangpur, 166, 173. Rawar, 167. Reber, Franz von, 177. Reciprocal trefoil design, 42, 67. Reclus, Elisie, 177. Red, symbolism of, 47, 48. Redgrave's "Manual of Design," 177. Reed, symbolism of, 162. "Religion of Ancient Egypt," Renouf, 177. "Religion of the Semites," Smith, 177. Renouf, P. LePage, 177. Resht, 125, 167, 173. Restoration of old dyeing, 46. _Rhamnus chlorophorus_, 45. _Rhamnus utilis_, 45. Rhinoceros, symbolism of, 162. Rhodian lily design, 79. Riegl, Dr. Alois, 177. Robinson, Vincent, 177. Rochdale, power looms in, 24. Romans, dyes prized by, 45; purple favorite color of, 48. Rose color, symbolism of, 47. Rosette, symbolism of, 159. Rothschild, Baron Adolphe, rug owned by, 128. Rothschild, Baron Nathaniel, rug owned by, 153. Roubaix, 169. Roumanian rugs, 137. Royalty, yellow symbol of, in China, 47. _Rubia_, dye-yielding genus, 44. _Rubia tinctorum_, 44. Rugs, utility of, 15; origin of need for, 15; weaving of, began, 15; definition of name, 15; identical with carpets, 16; represented in Egyptian wall-paintings, 16, 17; on Nineveh marbles, 17; Egyptian, 18; Assyrians used, as awnings and floor-coverings, 19; rug-weaving in Egypt, Chaldea, Assyria, Asia Minor, and Greece, 19; introduced into Europe, 20; hung over graves, 20; used in Europe during _fêtes_, 20; increasing use of, 21, 26; value by square foot, 28; sometimes woven underground, 29; pashim rugs from India, 30; of camel's hair, 31; knotting in Persian, 32; product of cold districts in demand, 32; selected for Western market, 33; famous rugs in collections, 33; industry encouraged in India, 35; designs in Persian, 37, 38; designs in modern Oriental, 38; proportion between size and design, 39; replace skins in Egypt, 51; modern Egyptian, 51; imported into Egypt, 52; Cairo emporium for sale of, 52; antique Persian, 53; Shah Abbas's encouragement of rug-weaving, 53; value of Shah Abbas rugs, 53; decline and growth of industry in Persia, 54; use of, in Persia, 54; durability of, 54; district where woven determined by design and fabric, 55, 88; value of trade to Persia, 55, 56; export and import duties upon, 56; firms prosecute trade in, 56, 57; quality and design of modern Persian, 57; characteristics of Persian, 58-70; value in Orient, 70; characteristics of Turkish, 71-83; use of, in Turkey, 72; in Constantinople market, 72, 73; characteristics of Indian, 87-94; less expensive than Persian, 88; Indian gold-embroidered state rugs, 89; Lord Clive's rug, 89; rugs have replaced shawls in Kashmir, 89; rugs of Afghanistan, 95, 96; of Beluchistan, 97; Turkoman rugs, 98-104; Caucasian rugs, 105-108; rugs of Holy Land, 111, 112; of China, 113-115; of Japan, 116; Khilim, 117, 118; Polish, 119; prayer, 120-122; silk, 123-125; felt, 126, 127; hunting, Persian, 128; Greek, 132, 133; Moorish and Spanish, 134, 135; Bosnian, Servian, Roumanian, and Bulgarian, 136, 137; English, 138-140; French, 141, 142; United States, 143-149; inscriptions on, 153-155; Oriental symbols on, 156-162; meanings of place-names associated with, 162, 163. Running hook design, 41. Russian Empire, place-names, 168. Rustan Khan, 165, 173. Ryan, Charles, 177. S S-form design, 43. Sabatos rugs, 144, 145. Saddlebags, rug-woven, 60. Saffron, 44, 48. Safieta, 169. Safita, 174. Sail of a vessel, symbolism of, 159. St. Clement, legendary discoverer of felt, 126, 127. Sakai, 167, 174. Samarkand rugs, 102 (and plate), 125; meaning of _Samarkand_, 163; spelling, 168, 174. Saraband rugs, 42, 59, 66. Saracens, their conquest and influence, 19; origin of name, 20; introduced tapestries to France, 141. Sarakhs rugs, 58 (and plate), 67; spelling, 174. Sarawan, 67, 165, 174. Sarik tribe, 98. Saruk rugs, 67. Savalan rugs, 68, 70. Savas, 169. _Savonnerie, La_, rug factory, 141. Sayce, Archibald Henry, LL.D., 177. Scarabæus, symbolism of, 159. Scarlet, symbolism of, 47. Schwarzenberg, Prince, Vienna, rug owned by, 134. Scorpion, symbolism of, 162. Scotland, power looms in, 25. Scroll design, 43. "Sculpture, Manual of," 177. Sedentary weavers, 26, 27. Se-Ling-She, legendary discoverer of silk-weaving, 123. Serampur, 166, 174. Serapi rugs, 69. Serebend rugs, 66. Serinuggar, 166. Serpent, symbolism of, 159, 162. Serrated leaf design, 43. Servian rugs, 136. Shah Abbas design, 43, 59. Shang-hai, 163, 165, 174. Shan-tung, 165, 174. Sharjah, 169, 174. Sharkah, 169. Sharpe, Samuel, 177. Sharrokhs on the Attrek, 87. Shawls, Kashmir, 89, 108. Shearing, Indian methods of, 147. Sheep, not raised in rocky regions, 72; not eaten by Hindoos, 88. Shelley, G. E., 177. Shemakha rugs, 108; spelling, 168,174. Shepherds use felt rugs, 126. Shiah sect of Moslems employ animal designs, 38 Shikarpur, 166, 174. Shiraz, 66, 68, 167, 174. Shiraz rugs, 41, 68 (and plate). Shirvan, 117, 168, 169, 174. Shirvan, rugs, 41, 107, 108. Shirwan, 167, 174. Shoes removed in house by Persians, 55. "Short History of Tapestry, A," Müntz, 177. Show-window demonstrations by Oriental weavers, 21. Shrouds, rugs used as, 135. Shusha, 174. Shushu, 168. Shuster, ancient capital of Persia, 53, 55; spelling, 167, 174. Sicily, rug-weaving introduced by Saracens, 20; silk-weaving in, 123. Silk for rug-weaving, 30; introduced into antique Kirman rugs, 65; silk rugs of Brusa, 74; silk Polish rugs, 119; use of, discovered in China, 123; use of, outside of China, 123; description and prices of silk rugs, 124 (and plate), 125; silk added to wool rugs, 124. Silver woven in Polish rugs, 119. Sindh rugs, 93. Sinna, 117, 167, 174. Sinna Khilims, 117. Sinna knotting, 34, 35. Sinna rugs, characteristic border of, 40; description, 69; plate, 34. Sirab rugs, 69; spelling, 167, 174. Sivas rugs, 82; spelling, 174. Skins sewed into rugs, 115. Smith, Byron L., rug owned by, 62 (plate). Smith, Ralph Oliver, rug owned by, 98 (plate). Smith, Major R. Murdock, R. E., 177. Smith's "Greek and Roman Antiquities," 177. Smith's "Religion of the Semites," 177. Smyrna, madder raised near, 44; trade with, 77, 82; spelling, 169, 174. Smyrna rugs, 72, 82, 134. Sohar, 169, 174. Solar disk with serpents, symbolism of, 159. Sonmeani, 165, 174. Soumak rugs, manner of knotting, 34, 35; characteristic design of, 41; description of, 108; _see_ plate, page 30. Southesk's "Origin of Pictish Symbolism," 177. Spade design, 42. Spain, rug-weaving in, 20, 134; silk-weaving in, 123. Spaniards taught weaving and sheep-raising to American Indians, 147. Sparta, 169. Sparta rugs, 83. Spear, symbolism of, 162. Spelling of place-names, 164-174. Sphinx, symbolism of, 159. Spider, symbolism of, 162. Spinning, legends of invention of, 16. Spon, ----, 177. Squirrel, symbolism of, 162. Srinagar rugs, 93; meaning of _Srinagar_, 163; spelling, 166, 174. Staff in the hands of the gods, symbolism of, 159. Stamboul, 73. Standing eagle, symbolism of, 160. Star designs, 43, 162. Stark tree form in Turkoman rugs, 101, 102. Stitches in Persian rugs, _see_ Knots. Stockholm Palace, rug in, 128. Stork, symbolism of, 157, 160. Strickland, Agnes, 178. Stuart, H. Villiers, 178. Subdued colors, preference given to, 21, 47. Su-chau, 165, 174. Sultanabad, 55, 56, 59, 69, 125; spelling, 167, 174. Sultanabad rugs, 69, 70. Sultan's factories and schools, 76. Sumac, 44. Sun, symbolism of, 159, 160. Superstitions among weavers, 29. Surat, 166, 174. Susiana, Ancient (Province), 167. Swastika design, 42, 148, 162. Switzerland, rug-weaving in, 142. Sword, symbolism of, 160. Sykes, Ella C., 178. "Symbolican Language of Ancient Art and Mythology, The," Knight, 176. "Symbolism in Christian Art," Hulme, 176. "Symbols Antiques, Les," O'Dagree, 177. Symbols, Navajo, 148; Oriental, 156; Chinese, 157; Egyptian, 158, 159; Indian, 159; Japanese, 160; Persian, 160; Turkish, 160; miscellaneous, 161, 162. "Symbols of Early Christian Art," Twining, 178. Syria, 168. Syrian Christian weavers, 71. Syrian rugs, 111. T Tabor, Mrs. Sydney Richmond, rug owned by, 56 (plate). Tabriez, 168. Tabriz, 63, 163, 168, 174. Tabriz rugs, 70 and frontispiece (plate). Tajura, 169, 174. Talim, or working drawing of rug design, 39. Tanjore, 166, 174. Tapestries synonymous with rugs, 16; introduced into England, 138; introduced into France by Saracens, 141. Tarantula design, 43. Tawarek tribe, 135. Tchechen rugs, 108. Teheran rug market, 70, 125; meaning of _Teheran_, 163; spelling, 168, 174. Tekké tribe, 98, 103. Tekké-Turkoman rugs, 98 (plate), 103. "Ten Years' Digging in Egypt," Petrie, 177. "Textile Manufactures and Costumes of the People of India, The," Watson, 178. Theban fresco represents rug-weavers, 17. Thibetan goat's hair, 30. "Things Chinese," Ball, 175. Thompson, ----, 178. "Through Asia," Hedin, 176. "Through Persia on a Side Saddle," Sykes, 178. Tient-sing, 165, 174. Tokio, 167, 174. Tortoise, symbolism of, 157, 160. Tourcoing, 169, 174. Tourists, Cairo rug-market for, 52. Tournay, 169, 174. Trade in Ghiordes rugs, 75. Transcaucasia, 71, 105, 168. Trebizond, 169, 174. "Tree and Serpent Worship," Fergusson, 176. Tree of Health design, symbolism of, 160. Tree of Life design on Persian rugs, 17, 65; on Kashgar rugs, 101; on Ghiordes rugs, 122; symbolism of, 157, 160. _See_ frontispiece plate and 124 (plate). Triangle design, 43. Tribute paid in insects for dye purposes, 45. Tripoli, 169, 174. Tsi-nan,165, 174. Tsing-chau, 165, 174. Tsing-ning, 165, 174. Tsun-hua rugs, 115. Tuareg rugs, 135. Tuareg tribe, 135. Tunis rugs, 135, 169. Turfani wool, 30. Turkey in Asia, place-names, 168. Turkey in Europe, Khilims woven in, 117. Turkish coat of arms, 160. Turkish knotting, 34, 35. Turkish Kurdistan, Khilim rugs woven in, 117. Turkish loom and weavers, 24 (plate). Turkish rug factories, 24. Turkish rugs, 24, 71-83; of silk, 125. Turkish symbolism, of green, 48; of crescent and star, 160. Turkish wool, 30. Turkoman rugs, 95, 98-104, 125. Turmeric, 44. Turtle, symbolism of, 162. Twining, ----, 178. Tyrian purple (_see_ Phoenician purple), 45, 47. Tzitzi rugs, 108. U Umballa, 166. "Unbeaten tracks in Japan," Bishop, 175. United States, Oriental weavers in, 21; power looms in, 24; import duties, 56; Persian rugs to supply trade of, 57; Sultanabad rugs imported into, 70; law against importation of jail-made goods, 90; rug-weaving in, 143-149. Urfa, 71, 169, 174. Ushak, 169. V Value of square foot of best Persian rug, 28; of rug trade to Persia, 55, 56; of Persian rugs in the Orient, 70; of silk rugs, 125. Vámbéry, Arminius, 178. Van Dyke, John Charles, 178. Vegetable dyes, 44, 46, 139. Vegetable fibre in Mirzapur rugs, 92. Verulam, Earl of, rug owned by, 138 (plate). Vienna, rug-weaving at, 136. Violet in old rugs, 80. Viper, symbolism of, 159. Volk, Mrs. Douglas, 145. "Vorderasiatische Knüpfteppiche," Bode, 175. W Wake, Charles Staniland, 178. Warangal, 166, 174. Warangul rugs, 93. Washing to subdue colors, 77; to overcome odor, 95. Watson, Dr. Forbes, 178. Weale, John, 178. Weavers, skilled Oriental, 20; correct color sense of, 20; demonstrating their craft in United States, 21; women and girls, 26; men and boys, 26; sedentary, 26, 27; nomadic, 26; men naturally unsuited, 27; profits of, 27, 28, 82; time consumed, 28; wages and advance payment, 28; fare, 29; work underground, 29; superstitions, 29; skill of, 32, 33; use of dyes by, 44; Egyptian, 51; women of all classes, 55; Persian, in employ of factories, 57; use small patterns, 75; Indian, 88; Japanese, 116; Greek, 132; Flemish, 138; Navajo, 148. Weaving, legends of invention of, 16; in ancient Egypt, 22; method of Oriental, 22; in India, 23. Westroff, Hodder M., 178. Westwood,----, 178. Wheel, symbolism of, 159, 162. Wheeler, Mrs. A. D., rug owned by, 126 (plate). Wheeler, Samuel Green, 178. White, symbolism of, 47, 48; use of cotton for, 76. Wilkinson, Sir J. Gardner, quoted, 17, 178. William of Germany, Emperor, his rug collection, 77. Williams, S. Wells, 178. Wilson, Rev. Samuel Graham, M.A., 178. Wilton, power looms in, 24. Wings, symbolism of, 162. Winkleman, Johann Joachim, 178. Wolf, symbolism of, 162. Wool, preparation of, 27, 30, 32; where produced, 30; handling, 32; quality, 32; not produced in India, 88. Worcester, power looms in, 24. Worsted used in rug-weaving, 23. Writers, ancient, allude to rugs, 18. Wyatt, M. Digby, 178. X Xanthin (yellow coloring matter), 44. Y Y-form design, 43. Yak's hair, 30. Yangi-hissar, 165. Yapraks (Ouchak rugs), 81, 83. Yarkand, 165, 174. Yarkand rugs, 103. Yellow-dyes, how produced, 44, 45; symbolism of, 47; used by Turkomans, 98. Yezd rugs, 70; felt rugs, 126; meaning of _Yezd_, 163; spelling, 168, 174. Yomud rugs, 100, 103, 104. Yomud tribe, 98, 103. Young stags, symbolism of, 157. Yuruk rugs, 83. Yuruk tribe, 117. Z Zarand, 168, 174. Zeli, 169. Zerffi, G.C., 178. Zerni, 165, 174. Zigzag design, 43, 159. Zileh, 169, 174. Zilleh, 169. THE END 
30215	----	INTARSIA AND MARQUETRY OTHER VOLUMES OF THE SERIES By the same Author Mural Painting--the Decoration of the Wall Surface by means of Paint Mosaic and Marble Inlay for Floor, Wall, and Vault HANDBOOKS FOR THE DESIGNER AND CRAFTSMAN INTARSIA AND MARQUETRY BY F. HAMILTON JACKSON EXAMINER TO THE BOARD OF EDUCATION IN PRINCIPLES OF ORNAMENT _With Illustrations from Photographs and from Drawings and Tracings by the Author_ LONDON SANDS & COMPANY 1903 PRINTED BY WILLIAM HODGE AND COMPANY GLASGOW AND EDINBURGH CONTENTS PAGE HISTORICAL NOTES--ANTIQUITY, 1 ITALY IN MEDIÆVAL AND RENAISSANCE TIMES, 8 THE CLOISTERED INTARSIATORI AND THEIR PUPILS, 55 IN GERMANY AND HOLLAND, ENGLAND AND FRANCE, 84 THE PROCESS OF MANUFACTURE, 104 THE LIMITATIONS AND CAPABILITIES OF THE ART, 118 WORKSHOP RECEIPTS, 133 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PLATE 1. Patterns used in Borders, _facing page_ 8 2. Various Patterns of Borders, " 9 3. Chair Back from S. Ambrogio, Milan, " 10 4. Door of the Sala del Papa, Palazzo Comunale, Siena, " 13 5. The Prophet Amos. Figure intarsia from the } Sacristy of the Cathedral, Florence, } 6. The Annunciation. Figure intarsia from the } _between pages Sacristy of the Cathedral, Florence, } 18 and 19_ 7. The Prophet Hosea. Figure intarsia from the } Sacristy of the Cathedral, Florence, } 8. The Nativity. Figure intarsia from the Sacristy of the Cathedral, Florence, _facing page 20_ 9. The Presentation in the Temple. Figure Intarsia from the Sacristy of the Cathedral, Florence, " 21 10. Panel from Sacristy of S. Croce, Florence, " 23 11. Detail of Frieze from the Sacristy of S. Croce, Florence, " 24 12. Lower Seats of Choir, Cathedral, Perugia, " 25 13. Upper Seats of Choir, Cathedral, Perugia, " 26 14. One Panel, from Upper Series, Cathedral, Perugia, " 27 15. Two Panels from the Sala del Cambio, Perugia, " 28 16. Frieze from S. Mark's, Venice, " 30 17. Frieze from S. Mark's, Venice, " 32 18. Stalls from the Cathedral, Lucca, " 33 19. Lectern in Pinacoteca, Lucca, " 34 20. Two-leaved Door in the Pinacoteca, Lucca, " 35 21. Stalls at the Certosa, Pavia, " 36 22. Detail of Arabesques, lower Seats, Certosa, Pavia, " 37 23. Panel from S. Petronio, Bologna, " 38 24. Panel from S. Petronio, Bologna, " 39 25. Panel from S. Miniato, Florence, " 40 26. Panel from S. Maria Novella, Florence, " 42 27. Panel from S. Maria Novella, Florence, " 44 28. Panel in Sacristy of S. Pietro in Casinense, Perugia, " 46 29. Panel from Door of Sala del Cambio, Perugia, " 48 30. Panel from lower row of Stalls, S. Maria in Organo, Verona, " 59 31. Panels from Monte Oliveto Maggiore, now in the Cathedral, Siena, " 60 32. Frieze from Monte Oliveto Maggiore, " 62 33. Panel from S. Mark's, Venice, " 68 34. Panel from Door in Choir of S. Pietro in Casinense, Perugia, " 74 35. Lunette from Stalls in Cathedral, Genoa, " 77 36. Panel from lower row of Stalls, Cathedral, Savona, " 78 37. Panel from the Ducal Palace, Mantua, " 80 38. Panel from the Rathaus, Breslau, 1563, " 84 39. Panel from Church of S. Mary Magdalene, Breslau, " 86 40. Pilaster Strip from the Magdalene Church, Breslau, " 87 41. Panel from S. Elizabeth's Church, Breslau, " 88 42. Lower Panel of Door, 1564--Tyrolese, " 90 43. Top of Card Table in the Drawing-room, Roehampton House; Dutch, 18th Century, " 92 44. Panelling from Sizergh Castle, now in Victoria and Albert Museum, " 93 45. Cabinet with falling front, in the Drawingroom, Roehampton House, " 94 46. Cabinet belonging to Earl Granville. Boulle work of about 1740, " 96 47. Top of Writing Table in the Saloon, Roehampton House. Period of Louis XV., " 97 48. Encoignure, signed J. F. Oeben, in the Jones Bequest. Victoria and Albert Museum, " 98 49. Panel from back of Riesener's bureau, made for Stanislas Leczinski, with figure of Secrecy, " 100 50. Roundel from bureau, made for Stanislas Leczinski, King of Poland, now in the Wallace Collection, " 102 51. Antonio Barili at work, by himself, " 104 52. Panel from the Victoria and Albert Museum, " 106 53. Panel from S. Maria in Organo, Verona, " 122 54. Panel from S. Maria in Organo, Verona, " 126 55. Panel from S. Pietro in Casinense, Perugia, " 130 GENERAL PREFACE TO THE SERIES If there is one quality which more than another marks the demand of the present day it is the requirement of novelty. In every direction the question which is asked is not, "Is this fresh thing good? Is it appropriate to, and well-fitted for, its intended uses?" but "Is it novel?" And the constant change of fashion sets a premium upon the satisfaction of this demand and enlists the commercial instinct on the side of perpetual change. While there are directions in which this desire is not altogether harmful, since at least many monstrosities offend our eyes but for a short time, a full compliance with it by the designer is likely to prove disastrous to his reputation, and recent phases in which an attempt has been made to throw aside as effete and outworn the forms which have gradually grown with the centuries, and to produce something entirely fresh and individual, have shown how impossible it is at this period of the world's history to dispense with tradition, and, escaping from the accumulated experience of the race, set forth with childlike _naïveté_. Careful study of these experiments discloses the fact that in as far as they are successful in proportion and line they approach the successes of previous generations, and that the undigested use of natural _motifs_ results not in nourishment but in nightmare. The object aimed at by this series of handbooks is the recall of the designer and craftsman to a saner view of what constitutes originality by setting before them something of the experience of past times, when craft tradition was still living and the designer had a closer contact with the material in which his design was carried out than is usual at present. Since both design and craftsmanship as known until the end of the 18th century were the outcome of centuries of experience of the use of material and of the endeavour to meet daily requirements, it may be justly called folly to cast all this aside as the fripperies of bygone fashion which cramp the efforts of the designer, and attempt to start afresh without a rag of clothing, even if it were possible. At the same time it is not intended to advocate the direct copyism of any style, whether regarded as good, bad, or indifferent. Some minds find inspiration in the contemplation of natural objects, while others find the same stimulus in the works of man. The fashion of present opinion lays great stress upon the former source of inspiration, and considers the latter heretical, while, with a strange inconsistency, acclaiming a form of design based upon unnatural contortions of growth, and a treatment which is often alien to the material. It is the hope of the author to assist the second class of mind to the rivalling of the ancient glories of design and craftsmanship, and perhaps even to convert some of those whose talents are at present wasted in the chase of the will-o'-the-wisp of fancied novelty and individuality. Much of what appears to the uneducated and ill-informed talent as new is really but the re-discovery of _motifs_ which have been tried and abandoned by bygone masters as unsuitable, and a greater acquaintance with their triumphs is likely, one would hope, to lead students, whether designers or craftsmen, to view with disgust undigested designs indifferently executed which have little but a fancied novelty to recommend them. It is intended that each volume shall contain an historical sketch of the phase of design and craft treated of, with examples of the successful overcoming of the difficulties to be encountered in its practice, workshop recipes, and the modes of producing the effects required, with a chapter upon the limitations imposed by the material and the various modes of evading those limitations adopted by those who have not frankly accepted them. PREFACE The subject treated of in this handbook has, until lately, received scant attention in England; and except for short notices of a general nature contained in such books as Waring's "Arts Connected with Architecture," technical descriptions, such as those in Holtzapffel's "Turning and Mechanical Manipulation," and a few fugitive papers, has not been treated in the English language. On the Continent it has, however, been the subject of considerable research, and in Italy, Germany, and France books have been published which either include it as part of the larger subject of furniture, or treat in considerable detail instances of specially-important undertakings. From these various sources I have endeavoured to gather as much information as possible without too wearying an insistence upon unimportant details, and now present the results of my selection for the consideration of that part of the public which is interested in the handicrafts which merge into art, and especially for the designer and craftsman, whose business it is or may be to produce such works in harmonious co-operation in the present day, as they often did in days gone by, and, it may be hoped, with a success akin to that attained in those periods to which we look back as the golden age of art. The books from which I have drawn my information are principally the following:-- In Italian--Borghese and Banchi's "Nuovi documenti per la storia dell' Arte Senese"; Brandolese's "Pitture, sculture, &c., di Padova"; Caffi's "Dei lavori d'intaglio in legname e d'intarsia nel Cattedrale di Ferrara"; Calvi's "Dei professori de belle arti che fiorirono in Milano ai tempi dei Visconti, &c."; Saba Castiglione's "Ricordi"; Erculei's paper in his "Catalogue of the Exhibition of works of carving and inlay held at Rome in 1885"; Finocchietti's "Report on carving and inlaid work in the Jurors' report on the Exhibition of 1867 in Paris"; Lanzi's "History of Painting in Italy"; Locatelli's "Iconografia Italiana"; Marchese's "Lives of Dominican Artists"; Milanesi's "Documenti per la Storia dell' Arte Senese"; Morelli's "Notizie d'opere di disegno nella prima metà dell' Secolo XVI."; Tassi's "Vite di pittori, architetti, &c., Bergamaschi"; Temanza's "Vite dei piu celebri architetti, &c., Dominicani"; Tiraboschi's "Biblioteca Modenese"; Della Valle's "Lettere Senesi sopra le belle Arti"; Vasari's "Lives," with Milanesi's notes and corrections, and papers in the "Bullettino di Arti, Industrie e Curiosità Veneziane," the "Atti e memorie della Società Savonese," the "Archivio Storico dell' Arte and its continuation as L'Arte," and the "Archivio Storico Lombardo," by such men as Michele Caffi, G. M. Urb, Ottavio Varaldo, Francesco Malaguzzi Valeri and L. T. Belgrano. In German--Becker and Hefner Alteneck's "Kunstwerke and Geräths Schaften des Mittelalters und der Renaissance"; Bucher's "Geschichte der Technischen Kunst"; Burckhardt's "Additions to Kugler's Geschichte der Baukunst, and Geschichte der Renaissance in Italien"; Demmin's "Studien über die Stofflich-bildenden Künste"; Von Falke's "Geschichte des deutsches Kunstgewerbes"; Scherer's "Technik und Geschichte der Intarsia"; Schmidt's "Schloss Gottorp"; Seeman's "Kunstgewerbliche Handbücher"; Teirich's "Ornamente aus der Blüthezeit italienischer Renaissance," and articles in "Blätter für Kunstgewerbe," and the "Kunstgewerbeblatt of the Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst," by such men as Teirich, Issel and Ilg. In French--Asselineau's "A. Boulle, ébéniste de Louis 14"; Burckhardt's "Le Cicerone"; Champeaux's "Le bois appliquée au mobilier," and "Le meuble"; Demmin's "Encyclopédie historique, archeologique, &c."; Luchet's "L'Arte industriel à l'Exposition Universelle de 1867," and other encyclopædias. In English--"The handmaid to the arts"; Holtzapffel's "Turning and mechanical manipulation"; Pollen's paper on "Furniture in the Kensington Catalogue of Ancient and Modern furniture"; Leader Scott's "The Cathedral builders"; Tomlinson's "Cyclopædia of Useful Arts"; Waring's "The Arts connected with architecture"; and Digby Wyatt's "Industrial Arts of the 19th Century," together with detached articles found in various publications. Those who desire further examples of arabesque patterns may find them in Issel's "Wandtäfelungen und Holzdecken"; Lacher's "Mustergültige holzintarsien der Deutschen Renaissance aus dem 16 und 17 Jahrhundert"; Lachner's "Geschichte der Holzbaukunst in Deutschland"; Lichtwark's "Der ornamentstich der deutschen Frührenaissance"; Meurer's "Italienische Flachornamente aus der Zeit der Renaissance"; Teirich's "Ornamente aus der Blüthezeit italienischer Renaissance," and Rhenius "Eingelegte Holzornamente der Renaissance in Schlesien von 1550-1650." I have thought it better to run the risk of incompleteness than to overload the text with the mere names of indifferent designers and craftsmen about whom and whose work scarcely anything is known, believing that my object would be attained more surely by pointing to the work and lives of those about whose capacity there can be no question. My thanks are due to the officials of the British Museum Library and of the Art Library at the Victoria and Albert Museum for the great assistance which they have given me in many ways, the facilities afforded me, and their unfailing kindness and courtesy; and to the Director of the Victoria and Albert Museum for similar kindness and assistance. I have also to thank my friend Mr. C. Bessant, whose experience in all kinds of cabinet work is so great, for very kindly looking over the section dealing with the processes of manufacture. F. HAMILTON JACKSON. INTARSIA AND MARQUETRY HISTORICAL NOTES--ANTIQUITY The word "intarsia" is derived from the Latin "interserere," to insert, according to the best Italian authorities, though Scherer says there was a similar word, "Tausia," which was applied to the inlaying of gold and silver in some other metal, an art practised in Damascus, and thence called damascening; and that at first the two words meant the same thing, but after a time one was applied to work in wood and the other to metal work. In the "Museo Borbonico," xii., p. 4, xv., p. 6, the word "Tausia" is said to be of Arabic origin, and there is no doubt that the art is Oriental. It perhaps reached Europe either by way of Sicily or through the Spanish Moors. "Marquetry," on the other hand, is a word of much later origin, and comes from the French "marqueter," to spot, to mark; it seems, therefore, accurate to apply the former term to those inlays of wood in which a space is first sunk in the solid to be afterwards filled with a piece of wood (or sometimes some other material) cut to fit it, and to use the latter for the more modern practice of cutting several sheets of differently-coloured thin wood placed together to the same design, so that by one cutting eight or ten copies of different colours may be produced which will fit into each other, and only require subsequent arranging and glueing, as well as for the more artistic effects of the marquetry of the 17th and 18th centuries, which were produced with similar veneers. The process of inlaying is of the most remote antiquity, and the student may see in the cases of the British Museum, at the Louvre, and in other museums, examples of both Assyrian and Egyptian inlaid patterns of metal and ivory, or ebony or vitreous pastes, upon both wood and ivory, dating from the 8th and 10th centuries before the Christian Era, or earlier. The Greeks and Romans also made use of it for costly furniture and ornamental sculpture; in Book 23 of the "Odyssey," Ulysses, describing to Penelope the bride-bed which he had made, says--"Beginning from this head-post, I wrought at the bedstead till I had finished it, and made it fair with inlaid work of gold, and of silver, and of ivory"; the statue and throne of Jupiter at Olympia had ivory, ebony, and many other materials used in its construction, and the chests in which clothes were kept, mentioned by Homer, were some of them ornamented with inlaid work in the precious metals and ivory. Pausanias describes the box of Kypselos, in the opisthodomos of the Temple of Hera, at Olympia, as elliptical in shape, made of cedar wood and adorned with mythological representations, partly carved in wood and partly inlaid with gold and ivory, in five strips which encircled the whole box, one above another. The Greek words for inlaying used by Homer and Pindar are "[Greek: daidallô]" and "[Greek: kollaô]," and their derivatives, the first being also used for embroidering; Homer and Hesiod also use "[Greek: poikilos]" for "inlaid," which shows how closely at that time the arts were interwoven. These words have left no trace in the later terms, though [Greek: kollaô] means to fix together, or to glue, and it is tempting to connect the French word "coller" with it. Vitruvius and Pliny use the words "cerostrata" or "celostrata," which means, strictly speaking, "inlaid with horn," and "xilostraton." The woods used by the Greeks were ebony, cypress, cedar, oak, "sinila," yew, willow, lotus (celtis australis), and citron (thuyia cypressoides), a tree which grew on the slopes of the Atlas mountains. The value of large slabs of this last was enormous. Pliny says that Cicero, who was not very wealthy according to Roman notions, spent 500,000 sesterces (about £5400) for one table. Asinius Pollio spent £10,800, King Juba £13,050, and the family of the Cethegi £15,150 for a single slab. The value of this wood consisted chiefly in the beautiful lines of the veins and fibres; when they ran in wavy lines they were called "tigrinæ," tiger tables; when they formed spirals like so many little whirlpools they were called "pantherinæ," or panther tables, and when they had undulating, wavy marks like the filaments of a feather, especially if resembling the eyes on a peacock's tail, they were very highly esteemed. Next in value were those covered with dense masses of grain, called "apiatæ," parsley wood. But the colour of the wood was also a great factor in the value, that of wine mixed with honey being most highly prized. The defect in that kind of table was called "lignum," which denoted a dull, log colour, with stains and flaws and an indistinctly patterned grain. Pliny says the barbarous tribes buried the wood in the ground when green, giving it first a coating of wax. When it came into the workmen's hands they put it for a certain number of days under a heap of corn, by which it lost weight. Sea water was supposed to harden it and act as a preservative, and after bathing it, it was carefully polished by rubbing by hand. The use of such valuable wood naturally led to the use of veneers, and the practice was universal in costly furniture. The word "xilotarsia" was used by the Romans to designate a kind of mosaic of wood used for furniture decoration. Its etymology suggests that the Greeks were then masters in the art. They divided works in tarsia into two classes--"sectile," in which fragments of wood or other material were inserted in a surface of wood, and "pictorial," in which the various pieces of wood covered the ground entirely. The slices of wood, "sectiles laminæ," were laid down with glue, as in modern work. Wild and cultivated olive, box, ebony (Corsican especially), ilex, and beech were used for veneering boxes, desks, and small work. Besides these the Romans used the citrus, Syrian terebinth, maple, palm (cut transversely), holly, root of the elder, and poplar; the centres of the trees being most prized for colour and markings. [See note giving extracts from Pliny.[1]] A few notes on the exceptional scantlings of timber in antiquity may be interesting, though not strictly belonging to our subject. A stick of fir prepared to repair a bridge over the Naumachia in the time of Nero was left unused for some time to satisfy public curiosity. It measured 120 feet by 2 feet the entire length. The mast of the vessel which brought the large obelisk from Egypt, afterwards set up in the Circus Maximus, and now in front of S. John Lateran, was 100 feet by 1-1/2 feet, and the tree out of which it was cut required four men, holding hands, to surround it. A stick of cedar, cut in Cyprus and used as the mast of an undecireme, or 11 banked galley of Demetrius, took three men to span the tree out of which it was cut. It was the exceptional sizes of such pieces of timber, and veneers cut from them, which made the value of tables in Rome. FOOTNOTES: [1] Pliny, Book 16, Chap. 83--"Glue, too, plays one of the principal parts in all veneering and works of marquetry. For this purpose the workmen usually employ wood with a threaded vein, to which they give the name of 'ferulea,' from its resemblance to the grain of the giant fennel, this part of the wood being preferred from its being dotted and wavy." Chap. 84--"The wood, too, of the beech is easily worked, although it is brittle and soft. Cut into thin layers of veneer it is very flexible, but is only used for the construction of boxes and desks. The wood, too, of the holm oak is cut into veneers of remarkable thinness, the colour of which is far from unsightly; but it is more particularly where it is exposed to friction that this wood is valued, as being one to be depended upon; in the axle trees of wheels, for instance, for which the ash is also employed, on account of its pliancy, the holm oak for its hardness, and the elm for the union in it of both these qualities.... The best woods for cutting into layers and employing as a veneer for covering others are the citrus, the terebinth, the different varieties of the maple, the box, the palm, the holly, the holm oak, the root of the elder, and the poplar. The alder furnishes, also, a kind of tuberosity, which is cut into layers like those of the citrus and the maple. In all the other trees, the tuberosities are of no value whatever. It is the central part of trees that is most variegated, and the nearer we approach to the root the smaller are the spots and the more wavy. It was in this appearance that originated that requirement of luxury which displays itself in covering one tree with another, and bestowing upon the more common woods a bark of higher price. In order to make a single tree sell many times over laminæ of veneer have been devised; but that was not thought sufficient--the horns of animals must next be stained of different colours, and their teeth cut into sections, in order to decorate wood with ivory, and, at a later period, to veneer it all over. Then, after all this, man must go and seek his materials in the sea as well! For this purpose he has learned to cut tortoise shell into sections; and of late, in the reign of Nero, there was a monstrous invention devised of destroying its natural appearance by paint, and making it sell at a still higher price by a successful imitation of wood. "It is in this way that the value of our couches is so greatly enhanced; it is in this way, too, that they bid the rich lustre of the terebinth to be outdone, a mock citrus to be made that shall be more valuable than the real one, and the grain of the maple to be feigned. At one time luxury was not content with wood; at the present day it sets us on buying tortoise shells in the guise of wood."--Pliny's Natural History, Bohn's Translation. ITALY IN MEDIÆVAL AND RENAISSANCE TIMES The mediæval craft seems, however, to have been derived from the East, though Theophilus mentions the Germans as clever practitioners in woodwork. A minnesinger's harp of the 14th century, figured by Hefner Alteneck, appears to bear out his remark, though later in date, with its powdering of geometrical inlays and curiously-designed sprigs, which might almost have been produced by the latest art craze, which apes archaic simplicity. It belonged to the knightly poet Oswald von Wolkenstein, who died in 1445; the colours used are two browns, black, white, and green. The oriental inlays of ivory upon wood, elaborate and beautiful geometrical designs, are still produced in India in much the same fashion as in the middle ages, for the possibilities of geometric design were exhausted by the Arabs in Egypt and the Moors in Spain; and in Venice there was a quarter inhabited by workmen of the latter race who made both metal work and objects in wood. Except for the inlaid ivory casket in the Capella Palatina, at Palermo, which seems to be a work of Norman times, we have no work of the kind which can be dated with precision before the appearance in the north of Italy of the similar "lavoro alla Certosa," or "tarsia alla Certosina"; but since inlaying with small pieces of marble and vitreous pastes was practised in central and southern Italy certainly from the 12th century, there is little difficulty in imagining how its use arose. This work has its derivative still existing in England in the so-called "Tonbridge ware," which is made by arranging rods of wood in a pattern and glueing them together, after which sections are sliced off--the same proceeding, in effect, as that which the Egyptians made use of with rods or threads of glass. One must allow, however, that the wooden border inlays, which are also placed under this heading, show greater craft mastery, as the examples appended show, which are typical instances. The chair-back from S. Ambrogio, Milan, is a characteristic example of the simpler form on a tolerably large scale. [Illustration: Plate 1.--_Patterns used in Borders._ _To face page 8._] [Illustration: Plate 2.--_Various Patterns of Borders._] Historians are agreed that the cradle of Italian carving and inlaying was Siena, where there is mention of a certain Manuello, who, with his son Parti, worked in the ancient choir of the Cathedral in 1259. Orvieto was another place where tarsia work was made at an early date, but the craftsmen were all Sienese. Mastro Vanni di Tura dell' Ammanato, the Sienese, made the design of the stalls for the Cathedral in 1331, and commenced the work, some remains of which are still preserved in the Museum of the Opera del Duomo. Twenty-eight artists were employed on these stalls; Giovanni Talini, Meo di Nuti, and others, all Sienese, assisted him, but he died before they were finished, and they remained incomplete till 1414, when Domenico di Nicolò is recorded as undertaking the work; but neither did he finish it, for in 1431 the overseers gave it to Pietro di Minella, and then to his brother Antonio, and to Giovanni di Lodovico di Magno. The woods used were ebony, box, walnut, and white poplar, and the cost was 3152 lire. In the 14th century tarsia was executed at Siena, Assisi, where in 1349 Nicolo di Nicoluccio and Tommaso di Ceccolo worked at the Cathedral stalls, which no longer remain; Verona, in the sacristy of S. Anastasia, in which city are some inlays resembling those at Orvieto, and Perugia, where some inlays remain in the Collegio della Mercanzia, but remains of the period are few, as may be expected. [Illustration: _To face page 10._ Plate 3.--_Chair Back from S. Ambrogio, Milan._] Domenico di Nicolò worked for 13 years at the chapel in the Palazzo Pubblico at Siena, using some of Taddeo Bartoli's designs, and also did the doors of the Sala di Balia, or of the Pope. This man, who was one of the best Sienese masters of intarsia and carving, and was head of the Opera del Duomo in 1400, and whose work brought him so much reputation that his family name of Spinelli was changed for himself and his descendants to Del Coro, or Dei Cori, is an example and a proof of the small profit which was to be made even then by conscientious and careful work. He was not only a worker in wood, in 1424 he also did the panels of the Cathedral floor, representing David and Goliath, the Amorite Kings, and Samson, ascribed by Vasari to Duccio; in 1415 he was paid 42 lire for a tabernacle made of gesso, while as early as February 28, 1397-8, he was paid 32 lire 10 soldi for 32-1/2 days' work on a window above the pulpit; yet on May 13, 1421, he petitions the priors and captain of the people to this effect. He says that he is poor, and cannot meet the requirements of his family and apprentices, each of whom, he says, costs 30 or 40 florins a year, and therefore suggests that he should have two or three boys to teach, and that the priors should subsidize him for that purpose, and binds himself to teach them all he can without reserve. The priors and captains recommended to the council that he should be paid by the chamberlain of Bicherna 200 lire, free of tax, by the year, "nomine provisionis libr: ducentos den: nitidas de gabella," and should have two or three Sienese youths to teach, and the council passed the recommendation the same day. Twenty-six years later, January 14, 1446-7, he appears again in the records with a petition to the Signory. He says that he has always, from his youth up, done his best to provide for his family, and that by his craft he has always tried to bring honour on the city and spread the fame of his works. That as they know he was granted money to teach his art to any young man who wanted to learn it, but "because this art was, and is, little profitable, there was no one who wished to go on with it except Master Mactio di Bernacchino, who followed the art thoroughly, and became an excellent master." That, as he thought he was fairly prosperous, he gave up the grant (like an honest man!), but the expenses of marrying and dowering his daughters had been so great, and added to the losses caused by the small profits on his work, had reduced him to such poverty that he did not see how he could go on, being 84 years of age, or thereabouts, and having a sick wife. He therefore asked to have a small pension settled on him for the few years he and his wife had to live. He was granted two florins a month, but three years later all mention of him ceases. [Illustration: Plate 4.--_Door of the Sala del Papa, Palazzo Comunale, Siena._ _To face page 13._] The choir of the Chapel of the Palace had been given in 1414 to Simone d'Antonio and Antonio Paolo Martini, but they did not satisfy the public, so it was taken from them and given to Domenico di Nicolò, August 26, 1415. The tarsie are 21 in number, and represent the clauses of the apostles' creed and the symbols of the apostles. The unsuccessful work was given to the prior of the Servites. In the Communal records occur the following, March 31, 1428:--"Domenico di Nicolò, called Domenico del Coro, is to have 45 florins at 4 lire the florin for his salary and the workmanship of the door which he has made at the entrance of the Sala del Papa in the Communal Palace, which salary was declared by Guido of Turin and Daniello di Neri Martini, two of the three workmen upon the contract of the said door, at 180 lire. And is to have 3152 lire for his salary and workmanship of 21 seats made in the Palace of the Magnificent Signors, with all both '_fornamenti et facti_,' in full according to his contract"--accepted by Guido di Torino and Daniello di Neri Martini. He was called to Orvieto in 1416 to refix the roof of the Cathedral; he was not to have more than 200 florins a year, but if he came himself all expenses were to be paid. This suggests an appointment like that of a consulting engineer. From Siena masters were continually sent to the other great towns to design and carry out works of architecture, sculpture, and woodwork, as entries in Sienese documents show. In early times the various arts connected with building were in close union, and it appears tolerably certain that one guild sheltered them all, proficiency being required in several crafts and mastery in one. We find the same man acting in one place as master builder or architect, and sometimes only giving advice, while elsewhere he is sculptor or woodworker. The painter, the mosaicist, and the designer for intarsia are confused in a similar manner. Borsieri calls Giovanni de' Grassi, the Milanese painter (known as Giovanni de Melano at first, a pupil of Giotto and Taddeo Gaddi; pictures of his are in the Academy, Florence, and in the cloister of S. Caterina Milan), "an excellent architect"; and he also worked in relief, besides conducting very important architectural works. He says that about 1385 Giovanni Galeazzo opened an academy of fine art in his palace, which was conducted by Giovanni de' Grassi and Michelino da Besozzo. On June 19, 1391, he was paid five florins for models executed by him, and something for the expense of execution in marble by another hand. In 1391 he was called upon by the Council of the Duomo, and after four months of uncertainty was assigned the position and pay of first engineer, with a servant who was paid by the Council. He did the door of the S. Sacristy; it was finished in July, 1395, when he was ordered to decorate it with gilding and blue. He also made designs for capitals and window traceries, and carved a God the Father for a centre boss of the vault of the N. Sacristy. He illuminated the initials, &c., of a copy of the Ambrosian ritual of Berold for the "Fabbriceria," and this was his last work, as he died July 5, 1398, and the price was paid to his son Solomon, the officials declaring that it was most moderate. His pupils were nearly all both painters and sculptors, and some of them became stained-glass painters. It is well known that Taddeo Gaddi was painter, architect, and mosaicist, and Giotto, painter, sculptor, and architect, and these details are an example of what was then continually going on. Both in mediæval times and at the beginning of the Renaissance the most celebrated architects often called themselves by the most humble titles--"Magister lignaminio," "maestro di legname," "faber lignarius," "carpentarius." Minerva, the worker, was the patron of all workmen from Pheidias to the lowest pottery thrower, and in Christian times the Quattro Coronati, the four workmen-saints, were the patrons of all who worked with their hands. The oldest of the differentiated guilds appears to be that of the painters, at least in Siena, where one was established in 1355, while in Florence they were obliged to enrol themselves in the "Art" of the "medici e speziali," unless they preferred, as many of them did, to be reckoned with the goldsmiths. In Siena the Goldsmiths' Guild followed the Painters' Guild in 1361, while the workers in stone formed their guild still later. Among the painters were included designers of every sort--moulders, and workers in plaster, stucco, and papier maché, gold beaters, tin beaters, &c., and masters and apprentices in stained glass, also makers of playing cards--a most comprehensive guild. Vasari, in his life of Jacopo Casentino, architect and painter, says, however, "Towards 1349 the painters of the old Greek style, and those of the new, disciples of Cimabue, finding themselves in great number, united and formed at Florence a company under the name and protection of S. Luke the Evangelist"; and Baldinucci, in his "Notizie dei professori di disegno," prints the articles of association at length. Others hold that the Confraternità dei Pittori was not founded till 1386. [Illustration: Plate 5.--_Figure intarsia from the Sacristy of the Cathedral, Florence._ THE PROPHET AMOS. _This and the two succeeding are part of the same composition._ _To face page 18._] [Illustration: Plate 6.--_Figure intarsia from the Sacristy of the Cathedral, Florence._ THE ANNUNCIATION.] [Illustration: Plate 7.--_Figure intarsia from the Sacristy of the Cathedral, Florence._ THE PROPHET HOSEA.] The rapid rise of the last-named city in wealth and importance was the reason that so much of the best later 15th century inlaid work was done there, or at least by Florentines, though the art was not new to Florence, the names of Matteo di Bernardino, Pietro Antonio, Giovanni del Mulinella, and Domenico Tassi being recorded as working there in the 14th century. Vasari, as usual, is somewhat inaccurate; he says that tarsia was first introduced in the time of Brunelleschi and Paolo Uccello, "that, namely, of conjoining woods, tinted of different colours, and representing with these buildings in perspective, foliage, and various fantasies of different kinds." Both he and Lanzi say that Brunelleschi gave lessons in perspective and "tarsia" to architects and others, of which Masaccio in painting and Benedetto da Majano in his inlaid works availed themselves. Vasari held but a poor opinion of tarsia, which, he said, "was practised chiefly by those persons who possessed more patience than skill in design," and goes on to say that the subjects most suitable to the process are "perspective representations of buildings full of windows and angular lines, to which force and relief are given by means of lights and shades"; that although he had seen some good representations of figures, fruit, and animals, "yet the work soon becomes dark, and is always in danger of perishing from the worms or by fires." He adds that it was first practised in black and white alone, but Fra Giovanni da Verona improved the art by staining the wood with various colours by means of liquors and tints boiled with penetrating oil in order to produce light and shadow with wood of various colours, making the lights with the whitest pieces of the spindle tree; to shade, some singed the wood by firing, others used oil of sulphur, or a solution of corrosive sublimate and arsenic. The "most solemn" masters of tarsia in Florence were the Majani, La Cecca, Il Francione, and the da San Gallo. The first name which he gives is that of Giuliano da Majano (1432-90), architect and sculptor, who executed as his first work the seats and presses of the sacristy of S. S. Annunziata at Florence, with Giusto and Minore, two masters in tarsia. He also did other things for S. Marco. In the archives of the Duomo, Giuliano di Nardo da Maiano is named in a contract for ornamental wood-work in the sacristy, to be finished in 1465. There is still existing in the Opera del Duomo a panel of S. Zenobio standing between two deacons, executed by him from cartoons by Maso Finiguerra, who designed five figures for the panels of the sacristy. The heads were painted by Alessio Baldovinetti. There are also several subjects in the sacristy, a Nativity, resembling Lippino Lippi's picture in the Accademia; a Presentation in the Temple, not without a reminiscence of Ghirlandajo's manner; and an Annunciation. The whole scheme of the decoration of this wall was Giuliano's, but it was the completion of work begun in 1439 by Angelo di Lazzero of Arezzo, Bernardo di Tommaso di Ghigo, Giovanni di Ser Giovanni detto Scheggione, painter and brother of Masaccio, and Antonio Manetti. Milanesi says his father was Leonardo d'Antonio da Majano, master of wood and stone work. He entered the Arte del legnajuolo in company with his younger brother Benedetto, and the first mention of his work in connection with the "Arte" is in 1455, when he made for the Compagnia di S. Agnese delle Laudi, which met in the Carmine, a chest with a bookcase of some sort. Five years later he carved some candlesticks for the Monastery of S. Monaca, and constructed some cupboards ornamented with inlaid work and perspectives for the Badia of Fiesole. Among his architectural work may be mentioned the Chapel of S. Fina at S. Gemignano, which Ghirlandajo embellished with frescoes. He commenced a choir for the Duomo at Perugia, decorated with both carving and tarsia, but since he went to Naples shortly after 1481, and died there in 1490, the greater part of the credit of this work must be given to Domenico del Tasso, who completed it in 1491. His brother Benedetto, to whom he turned over most of his commissions for tarsia, when he became much occupied with architectural work, was born in 1442. He assisted his brother in many of his works, such as the doors of the hall of audience in the Palazzo Vecchio, made between 1475 and 1480, representing Dante and Petrarch, with ornamental borders and other panels, in which Il Francione also had a hand. He gave up tarsia in disgust for the following reason, according to the story told by Vasari:--"He made two chests, with difficult and most splendid mastery, of wood mosaic, which he wished to show to Matthew Corvinus, then King of Hungary, who had many Florentines at his Court, and had summoned him with much favour; so he packed his chests up and sailed for Hungary, where, when he had made obeisance to the King, and had been kindly received, he brought forward the said cases and had them unpacked in his presence, who much wished to see them; but the damp of the water and the mouldiness of the sea had so softened the glue that when the parcels were opened almost all the pieces of the tarsia fell to the ground, at which every one may understand how astonished and speechless Benedetto was in the presence of so many lords. However, he put the work together again as he best might, and satisfied the King; still he was disgusted with that kind of work, not being able to forget the vexation which he had suffered, and gave it up, taking to carving instead." He finished his brother's presses in the sacristy of S. Maria dei Fiori, and, in the opinion of Vasari, surpassed him and became the best master of his period. He died in 1497. Vasari ascribes the celebrant's seat in Pisa Cathedral to Giuliano, together with another of spindlewood, "to be placed in the nave where the women sit," finished and sent home in 1477, and put up by Baccio Pontelli. Milanesi says, however, that the choir of this Cathedral was done by Francesco di Giovanni di Matteo da Firenze, called Il Francione. Guido da Seravallino, between 1490 and 1495, made for the choir of the sacristy of this Cathedral more than 15 perspectives; the usual price appears to have been 11 lire. He was a Pisan, and his father's name was Filippo. Domenico di Mariotto first appears in the accounts in 1489, when he began the choir and seats for the Campo Santo; he went on with various works of tarsia and carving till 1513. He was a Florentine, but lived in Pisa for many years, dying there in 1519. Other names which appear in the accounts are Giuliano di Salvatore and Michele Spagnuolo. In 1486 Cristophano d'Andrea da Lendinara and Jacopo da Villa came to make a seat for the choir, but this does not seem to have been a success, and Il Francione, who had been at Pisa as long before as 1462, and Baccio di Fino Pontelli, who appears in 1471, were put in charge of the work. Giovanni Battista Cervelliera is mentioned first in 1522. He was son of Pietro d'Altro Pietra, a native of Corsica, who began the singing gallery of the organ in S. Martino, Pietra Santa, finished by his son, who died in about 1570. In 1596 a great fire took place. After this the best pieces saved were used in the decoration of the new choir, in 1606, by Pietro Giolli, who also had some fresh ones made; others were mended by Girolamo Innocenti, and placed round the walls and round the nave piers in 1613. The pieces of Giuliano da Majano's work now remaining are in the side aisles, two at the right, one at the left; one represents King David with his harp and with a label in the other hand, "Laudate Pueri Dominum." The other two figures are prophets, and have scrolls, "Benedicam, benedicam," and "Ve qui condunt legem." Pontelli's Faith, Hope, and Charity are on the pier near the Chapel of S. Ranier, three half-length figures of women. The seated figures of the liberal arts on the side panelling of the church are Il Francione's, women with symbols, arithmetic, grammar, geometry, astrology, logic, and music. The great seat in the nave is the work of Giovanni Battista del Cervelliera. In the centre is a large round-headed panel with the Adoration of the Magi; at each side are three lower seats with architectural subjects in the centre and objects in the side panels and below the seats. It is signed and dated 1536. The whole collection of panels is well worth a stay at Pisa to see, even if there were not other attractions in that pleasant little town. In the registers of the "Opera" is an annual charge for two "sbirri," or two servants of the captain of the people, to watch the seats of the Cathedral "so that children may not damage them in the obscurity," which shows that even Italian children could not always be trusted not to be mischievous. [Illustration: Plate 8.--_Figure intarsia from the Sacristy of the Cathedral, Florence._ THE NATIVITY. _To face page 20._] [Illustration: Plate 9.--_Figure intarsia from the Sacristy of the Cathedral, Florence._ THE PRESENTATION IN THE TEMPLE. _To face page 21._] [Illustration: Plate 10.--_Panel from Sacristy of S. Croce, Florence._ _To face page 23._] [Illustration: _To face page 24._ Plate 11.--_Detail of frieze from the Sacristy of S. Croce, Florence._] [Illustration: Plate 12.--_Lower Seats of Choir, Cathedral, Perugia._] [Illustration: Plate 13.--_Upper Seats of Choir, Cathedral, Perugia._ _To face page 26._] [Illustration: Plate 14.--_One panel from upper series, Cathedral, Perugia._] Il Francione had a pupil called Il Cecca. His name was really Francesco d'Agnolo, but like most men at that time he went by a nick-name. Cecca is a corruption of Francesco into Cecco, Cecca, from being Francione's companion and disciple. He was born in 1447; his father was Angelo di Giovanni, a mender of leather or "galigajo." He came to Florence from Tonda, a little place near S. Miniato al Tedesco. His father died in 1460; he and three older sisters were left to his mother, Monna Pasqua. So the 13 year-old boy went bravely to work to keep his mother and sisters, and entered Il Francione's workshop. When he was 25 he left him and set up for himself, taking a shop in the Borgo de' Greci, where he lived and slept as well as worked. In 1481 he had a commission from the magistrates, called "degli ufficiali di Palazzo," for all the wood-work of the Hall of the Seventy, Bernardo di Marco Renzi helping him. Afterwards he did other work for different parts of the Palace and for other places, all of which has perished. Finally, he spent most of his time as architect and engineer, and had a great deal to do with the fortification of various places and with the great cars for the "feste"--a not uncommon juxtaposition of engagements. He died in 1488. The del Tasso lived in the village of S. Gervasio, and moved to a place near the walls of Florence, a few steps from the Porta a Pinti. Then they went into the city and had a house in the parish of S. Ambrogio, in which church Francesco di Domenico made a tomb for himself and his family in 1470. They had arms; at first they were a goldsmith's anvil (tasso or tassetto), and above a ball or heap of silver. Afterwards the field of the shield was divided, and they added in the upper part two little badgers (tassi) at the side of the anvil, and put below the keys of S. Peter, crossed, and interspersed with four roses. "And this they did, not only to point out the parish of S. Pier Maggiore in the gonfalon 'Chiavi' of the quarter of S. Giovanni, where the del Tasso lived, but also to differentiate their arms from those almost similar of another Florentine family of the same name." Evidently there was no College of Heralds in Florence in those days! The first of the family recorded is Chimenti di Francesco, who, in 1483-4 made a grating or gridiron of wood in the Chapel of S. Lorenzo in the Monastery of S. Ambrogio, and the dossal of the altar called "del Miracolo." In 1488 he carved a choir of walnut, outlined with tarsia, for the Chapel Minerbetti in S. Pancrazio, for which he was paid 100 florins of gold. He had, among others, two sons, Lionardo and Zanobi, who became sculptors under Benedetto da Majano and Andrea Sansovino. They also worked in S. Ambrogio, and the figure of S. Sebastian is by Lionardo. The two brothers in 1499 made nine antique heads of marble and bronze, which the republic sent as a gift to the Maréchal de Guise in France. Chimenti had two brothers, also carvers and joiners, Cervagio and Domenico, who brought up their sons to follow the same calling, who did many things for triumphal arches, cars, &c., for "feste." Domenico did the tarsia and rosettes in the seat backs of the refectory of S. Pietro, Perugia, and a credence of walnut, ordered on October 20, 1490, for the table of the priors, on which were festoons, griffins, and other inlaid work. The year after he finished the choir of the Cathedral left by Giuliano da Majano, and was paid 1404 florins, according to the estimate of Crispolto and Polimante, Perugian joiners. For the same choir he made the panelling of wood, for which he was paid 60 florins. There were 34 seats with ornaments at 36 florins each, and three with figures, which were estimated at 60 florins apiece. Payments were also made to him for work in the Sala del Cambio, sometimes for wood, sometimes on account of salary, so that it seems certain that he made the benches there on finishing the choir of the Cathedral, since they were being made between 1491 and 1494. The first cost 130 florins and 6 soldi in 1491, but it was not finished till the next year. Polimante da Nicola was made citizen of Perugia in 1473. Three years after he began the choir of S. Domenico, which cost 11 florins per seat. Four years later it was still unfinished. "Mastro Crespolto and Mastro Giovagne" were his assistants. Domenico had three sons, Chimenti, Francesco, and Marco, who followed the paternal calling. Chimenti was one of those who were judges in 1490 in the competition for the façade of S. Maria del Fiore, and in 1504 was one of those chosen to decide the position in the piazza to be occupied by Michael Angelo's David. Marco was an enthusiastic follower of Savonarola; in 1491 he was, with his brother Francesco, at Perugia helping his father, and six years later he undertook work there on his own account. They did half of the choir of La Badia in 1501-2, and the very elaborate lectern. The son of Mark was Giambattista, called Maestro Tasso, who was a fine carver in wood, and, in the opinion of Cellini, the best in his profession. He did many things both for ephemeral and lasting purposes, and became an architect, designing the door of the Church of S. Romolo and the Loggia of Mercato Nuovo, Florence, and superintending the construction of the latter between 1549 and 1551. In 1548 he designed an addition to the Palazzo Vecchio, then the ducal residence, and also undertook to execute all the joinery. At the same time he made a model of the Palace which he intended to build in Pisa, which, however, was not carried out. He died in 1555. He was said by Vasari to spend his time in playing the wag, in enjoyment rather than work, and in criticising the works of others. But Cellini calls him pleasant and gay; Bronzino, good, lovable, and honest; and so does Luca Martini, who was a great friend of his. The following story of him, related by Il Lasca, shows that he was not above playing a practical joke of a rough character, and that he took great pride in the achievements of his fellow-artists:--"A Lombard Benedictine abbot on the way to Rome stayed in Florence, and wished one day to see the figures on the Medicean tombs in the sacristy of San Lorenzo carved by Michael Angelo, and having therefore gone thither with his two attendant monks, the prior of the church asked Tasso, who was then working at the floor of the library together with his son-in-law Crocini Antonio di Romolo, under the direction of Michael Angelo, to show the abbot the sacristy and the said library. Which abbot, after having seen the figures in the sacristy, and thought very little of them, set off to see the library, and while he was gently ascending a stair which conducted to it, talking with Tasso, happened to turn his eyes on the cupola of Brunellesco, and stopping to look at it commenced to say that, although it was considered by all the world as a marvel, he had heard a person worthy of credence say that the dome of Norcia was much more beautiful, and made with greater art. Which words so much exasperated Tasso that, pulling the abbot backwards with force, he made him tumble down the staircase, and he took care to let himself fall on him (!) and calling out that the frater was mad, he got two cords, with which he bound his arms, his legs, and all his person, so that he could not move, and then taking him, hanging over his shoulders, carried him to a room near, and, stretching him on the ground, left him there in the dark, locking the door and taking away the key." What happened to the unfortunate abbot after, and whether he was much damaged or not one does not know, for the anecdote stops here. Another instance of a family which devoted itself for many years to the production of tarsia and wood-work, displaying hereditary aptitude in the craft and gaining great repute, is given by the Canozii of Lendinara. The first member who took up tarsia, abandoning his craft of painting for that purpose, was Lorenzo Genesino da Lendinara, surnamed Canozio, to give him his full description. From him descended many excellent workers in wood. He studied in Padua, where he had Mantegna as fellow-student, and worked in company with his brother, his son, and a relation called Pier Antonio dell' Abate di Modena, who did the intarsia in the choir of S. Francesco at Treviso in 1486. He died in 1477, and is buried in the first cloister of S. Antonio at Padua, for which he made the stalls, as his epitaph states. They were commenced in 1462, were worked at continuously for three years, and after an interval finished in 1468. They were then coloured and gilded in places by "Maestro Ugozon de Padoa, depentor." Burnt in 1749, only two stalls remain, made into confessional boxes, in the Chapel of the Beato Belludi. The designs for the tarsia of the sacristy were made by Squarcione, master of Mantegna and Lorenzo, who was paid for them in 1462. There were 90 seats in this choir, so that it was a very important piece of work. A contemporary account by Matteo Colaccio (1486) shows what were the aims of the intarsiatori of the period as understood and admired by the more or less cultivated populace. "In past days in visiting those intarsiad figures, I was so much taken with the exquisiteness of the work that I could not withhold myself from praising the authors to heaven! And to commence with the objects that one sees around every day, here are books expressed in tarsia that seem real. Some are one on the other, and arranged carelessly, or by chance, some closed, some newly bound and difficult to close; candles of wax with the ends of wicks, now in well-turned wooden candlesticks, one straight, one crooked, less or more, with another crossing it. Elsewhere one sees clouds of smoke which spread out from new chimneys, fish which turn round from a full basket, a cithern which hangs from the centre of a narrow niche. Close by is a cage of bars expressed with wonderful spirit. Palaces, towers, and churches, through the half-closed doors of which one can see in the interior arches and windows, cupolas and steps. Most natural, then, is it not to be able to decide which tower to approach; these mountains appear to one covered with grass and with stones; and where earth of various colours appears there all green is taken away. But what shall I say of the images of the saints. Of their uncut and curled beards, of their hands, the joints of their fingers, their nails? Of their clothes, their sinuous folds, and the shadows? Nor less pleased me the little collar of rich pearls under the chin of S. Prosdocimus. Then round the angel Gabriel and the most pious mother one admires branches with such fruit and twigs that nature does not make them more true. And this is specially admirable, that through the dull colour of their leaves they seem to have been taken from the tree scarcely a day ago." And then he praises in a pompous fashion the folds of the Virgin's and the Angel's drapery, the silk veil over a chalice, and the perspective of a flight of steps which support the feet of the Madonna, &c. One of his first works was done for S. Mark's, Venice, in 1450. His reputation was much increased by the stalls of the Cathedral of Modena, made in 1472 by Lorenzo and Cristoforo, and restored in 1540 by Mastro Angelo de Piacenza, one of their pupils. He also worked at Parma in 1473. Fra Luca Pacioli (1509) makes an enthusiastic eulogium upon Lorenzo, "who, in the said art (perspective), was in his time supreme, as he showed in all his famous works, as in tarsia in the worthy choir of the Santo and its sacristy, and in Venice in the Cha Grande, as well as in painting in the same places and elsewhere. And at the present time his son, Giovan Marco, my dear comrade, who is worthy of his paternity, as his work at Rovigo shows, and that in the choir of our convent in Venice, and in Mirandola, the architecture of which fortress is well understood." In the sacristy of the Cathedral at Lucca are five panels from the seats which once surrounded it, signed "Cristopharus de Canociis de Lendinaria fecit opus, MCCCCLXXXVIII." One shows S. Martin, the bishop, full length, the others perspectives, perhaps of various streets of the city as then existing. He did these in conjunction with Matteo Civitale, and they were his last works. He died in 1491. Bernardino da Lendinara, who worked at Parma in 1494, and later, and was a citizen of that town and of Modena, was son of Cristoforo, who was also citizen of those cities from 1463. [Illustration: Plate 15.--_Two panels from the Sala del Cambio, Perugia._ _To face page 28._] [Illustration: Plate 16.--_Frieze from S. Mark's, Venice._ _To face page 30._] [Illustration: _To face page 32._ Plate 17.--_Frieze from S. Mark's, Venice._] [Illustration: Plate 18.--_Stalls from the Cathedral, Lucca._] The stalls from the Cathedral at Lucca, which are illustrated, are now in the Picture Gallery. They were made by Leonardo Marti, of Lucca. When in 1620 the choir was spoilt (they thought that they were making grand improvements) they were moved to the church of the Riformati of S. Cerbone, being badly mutilated to adapt them to their new position. There, in two centuries of neglect they became in such a state that the brothers thought them no longer decent, and wished to sell them and make a new choir. The Opera of the Cathedral and the Commission of Art paid them something for them, and thus preserved them as they now are, having executed some restorations here and there. At Ferrara are some remains of stalls in the apse of the Cathedral which were commissioned from Bernardino da Lendinara in 1501, though not made by him owing to the defalcations of a dishonest steward. In 1519 the Chapter of the Cathedral renewed the contract with Pietro de' Rizzardi and Bernardino, but as he died in 1520, M. Angelo Discaccia, of Cremona, son of M. Cristoforo (da Lendinara?), was substituted, and assisted Rizzardi till the work was finished in 1525. The gilding was done by Baldassare dalla Viola and Albertino dalla Mirandola. A note in the books of the Fabbrica, June 30, 1525, states that "Mro. Piero di Richardo dale Lanze" owes for work not yet completed 58 lire 20 soldi. There are three rows of seats, 132 in all, and the Episcopal throne in the middle. The upper row is of 56 seats, without the throne, the middle one 42, the lowest 34. Originally there were 150, but in the alterations of 1715 nine from each side were taken away, as the high altar was placed further within the apse. The upper stalls are divided by a chancelled column with Corinthian capital, and terminated in a shell hood. The intarsia on the back showed ornament of fine style, drawings of sacred objects and perspectives of fine buildings drawn from various parts of the city. Two of the best preserved show the ducal castle and the ancient ducal courtyard with the still-existing staircase constructed by Ercole I. in 1481. The usual bird in a cage appears, the symbol of human passions conquered by religious abnegation. The lower rows of seats are also worked in tarsia, but with ornaments of geometrical form, books, and joint-stools, the diamond, the cognisance of Ercole I. (who gave the original commission), and the pomegranate, that of Alfonso, and this last figure, which only occurs in the third stall to the right in the lower order, makes one think that only that part was finished under him. The frames surrounding are carved with restraint. The work cost altogether 2771 lire 8 soldi 2 denari besides the expense of making the lower seats, which cost 3984 lire marchesane 16 soldi 10 denari. The lira marchesana in 1523-25 corresponded to 43 Roman bajocchi 9 denari, about 2 francs 35 centimes of modern Italian money. [Illustration: Plate 19.--_Lectern in Pinacoteca, Lucca._] [Illustration: Plate 20.--_Two-leaved door in the Pinacoteca, Lucca._ _To face page 35._] The Canozii were also at Reggio, in the Emilia, in 1474 and in 1485, but the work of the stalls in the Cathedral seems rather more archaic than their period, and the lectern is dated 1459. It is probably the work of Antonio da Melaria, who three years later made one exactly like it, with other things, for the Church of S. Domenico. This was done for Antonia di Fiordibelli, and the contract shows what were the conditions under which such work was done. He was given 50 lire at once to buy material with, 50 when he began working, 50 when he had finished a third of the work, 50 when it was half done, 50 more when three-quarters was finished, and the rest of the whole price of 336 lire when it was completed. He was to use wood of Piella, and give 48 planks to the lady--a very curious clause in the contract. At Città di Castello there are tarsie designed by Raffaello da Colle in the Cathedral. The choir stalls at the Certosa, Pavia, were made by Bartolommeo Poli, surnamed dalla Polla, from designs by Borgognone, as is said, and the style certainly seems to bear out the assertion, though no document has yet been found directly connecting him with them. They were restored in 1847 by Count Nava with wax and stucco coloured to imitate the missing pieces of wood. The upper row contains a series of figures of saints and prophets, and below are exceedingly graceful and flowing arabesques. A document in the Brera Library notes that in 1490 "Mro. Bartolommeo de Polli da Mantoa, who made the inlaid choir and the doors of the chapels, has a right to 8 ducats per door, and also for the wooden pulpits 30 ducats a pulpit." He was the son of Andrea da Mantova, who was born at Modena, but lived and worked at Mantua, and also with his brother Paolo in S. Mark's, Venice. The stalls were made between 1486 and 1501, and are the only work which he is recorded to have executed. A Cremonese, Pantaleone de' Marchi also worked on these stalls--a relation of the large family of the Marchi of Crema, perhaps, who worked in S. Petronio, Bologna, in 1495. The father was named Agostino, and he had six sons, Giacomo, Nicolo, Taddeo, Biagio, Agostino, and a second Giacomo. The stalls in the Chapel of S. Sebastian are signed Jacopo de Marchis. Some stalls by Pantaleone de' Marchi are in the Museum at Berlin, acquired in 1883. They probably came from Bramante's Church, the Madonna of Tirano, in the Valtelline, which was built in 1505, and where there are still some remains of seats similar in style. The upper range of panels has a few half-lengths of saints, landscapes, and the usual open cupboard doors revealing objects on the shelves within. On the backs of the seats below are arabesques, and the pilaster panels and divisions between are also inlaid, as is the cornice. He also worked at Savona. [Illustration: Plate 21.--_Stalls at the Certosa, Pavia._] [Illustration: Plate 22.--_Detail of Arabesques, lower seats, Certosa, Pavia._ _To face page 37._] One of the best Sienese masters has not yet been mentioned, Antonio Barili, much of whose work has perished, like that of many other intarsiatori, an example of which the collectors for the Austrian K.K. Museum at Vienna have picked up, however, where it may now be seen. He was born in Siena, August 12, 1453. His first work on his own account was the choir of the Chapel of S. Giovanni, in the Cathedral, Siena, of which a few poor remains have escaped the carelessness of the last century, and are in the Collegiate Church of S. Quirico in Osenna, 26 miles from Siena, on the old Roman road. The contract is dated January 16, 1483, and in it he engages to finish it in about two years. He was to be paid 50 florins of 4 lire beyond what he expended, and was to go on working at the rate of 10 florins a month. If he did not finish it in the given time he was to forfeit 100 florins, except for cause of infirmity, plague, &c. It was to be valued in the usual manner, and 100 florins was the penalty for the breaking of the contract on either side. As a matter of fact it took him nearly 20 years to complete. On one of the panels Barili made a portrait of himself at work, the one referred to above, now in the K.K. Austrian Museum at Vienna, which shows the very simple means used by the great intarsiatori. His tools consist of a folding pocket-knife, a square-handled gouge, and a short-bladed, long-handled knife, which he holds with the left hand and presses his shoulder against, so as to use the push of the shoulder in cutting, while in the right he holds a small pencil, with which he appears to direct the knife edge. The panel upon which he is at work bears the inscription, "Hoc ego Antonius Barilis opus c[oe]lo non penicello excussi. Anno. D., 1502." He works in a window opening with panelled framing, and behind him a tree spreads across a courtyard against the sky, upon a branch of which a parrot is seated. Von Tschudi says that the panel is about 2 feet 10 inches long by 1 foot 9-1/2 inches broad, and that the woods employed are pear and walnut, oak, maple, box, mahogany, palisander, and one as hard as birch in texture. A full description of it as it originally was is appended in a note taken from Della Valle's "Lettere Senese." It was valued by Fra Giovanni of Verona at 3990 lire. While this work was in progress he made the benches and other wood-work in the Cathedral Library for Francesco Piccolomini at a cost of 2000 lire, and did other work for private persons. Another great work was the choir of the Certosa of Maggiano, which has entirely disappeared. He was not only intarsiatore, but was much employed by the commune on architectural works. In 1484 he was sent to rebuild the bridge of Buonconvento, broken by a flood of the Ombrone, and in the same year, with Francesco di Giorgio, and on equal terms with him, restored the bridge of Macereto. In 1495 he was asked to make designs and models for a bastion to be erected over against the bridge of Valiano, taken by the Florentines. Owing to a bad guard being kept this was taken, and between 1498 and 1500 Barili was sent again to rebuild it larger and stronger. Finally, in 1503, he was sent to make designs and models of the new walls for the fortifications of Talamone, an important coast town. In his intarsias he was helped by his nephew, Giovanni, whose salary, when working for Leo X. at Rome, was five ducats a month. He died in 1516.[2] [Illustration: Plate 23.--_Panel from S. Petronio, Bologna._] [Illustration: Plate 24.--_Panel from S. Petronio, Bologna._ _To face page 39._] [Illustration: _To face page 40._ Plate 25.--_Panel from S. Miniato, Florence._] [Illustration: Plate 26.--_Panel from S. Maria Novella, Florence._ _To face page 42._] Other names mentioned by Vasari are Baccio Albini and his pupil Girolamo della Cecca, _pipers to the signoria_, as good intarsiatori who worked also in ivory when Benedetto da Majano was yet a young man, and David of Pistoia and Geri of Arezzo, who decorated the choir and pulpit of S. Agostino in the latter town. Geri also made intarsie for S. Michele, Arezzo. Milanesi says Girolamo della Cecca was of Volterra, and calls Baccio, di Andrea Cellini; he was in Hungary in 1480 with his brother Francesco; they were brothers of Giovanni, who was father of Benvenuto and piper also. The stalls in S. Miniato, Florence, were made in 1466 by Francesco Manciatto and Domenico da Gajuolo; but perhaps the highest point reached by Florentine intarsia is shown by the stalls of S. Maria Novella, made by Baccio d'Agnolo from Filippino Lippi's designs. There are 40 stalls and 30 different ornamental fillings; the capitals, pilasters, and frieze are inlaid, the rest carved; the execution of figures, scrolls, leaves, and ornamental forms is as near perfection as may be. Baccio, or Bartolommeo d'Agnolo Baglioni, was born May 19, 1462. "In his youth he did very fine intarsia in the choir of S. Maria Novella, in which are a very fine S. John Baptist and S. Laurence, and also carved the ornaments in the same place and the organ case"--so says Vasari. The organ case is no longer there, having been sold in England, but the stalls still remain. After carving the surroundings of the altar at S. S. Annunziata, which no longer exist, he went to Rome and studied architecture, of which Vasari remarks, "the science of which has not been exercised, for several years back, except by carvers and deceitful persons, who made profession of understanding perspective without knowing even the terminology and the first principles" (!) When he returned to Florence he made triumphal arches of carpentry for the entry of Leo X. But he still stuck to his shop, in which, especially in the winter, fine discourses and discussions on art matters were held, attended at different times by Raffaello, then quite young; by Andrea Sansovino, il Maiano, il Cronaca, Antonio and Giuliano San Gallo, il Granaccio, and sometimes, by chance, by Michel Agnolo, and many young men, both Florentines and strangers. He did a great deal of work for the great hall of the Palazzo Vecchio in conjunction with others, and the staircase of the Sala del Dugento. After this he did many architectural works, palaces and additions to churches, some of which are still existing. The design of Brunelleschi for the gallery to surround the dome of the Cathedral having been lost, Baccio was commissioned to make a fresh one, and a piece of it was put up; but when Michael Angelo came back from Rome he said it was not large enough in style for the dome; in fact, he called it a cage for grasshoppers (grilli), and made a design to replace it himself; as, however, the authorities could not make up their minds to accept it, and Baccio's work was much blamed, it went no farther, and was never finished. He died on May 6, 1543, at the age of 83, being still in full possession of his faculties, and leaving three sons, of whom the second, Giuliano, did a good deal of carving both in stone and wood, and architectural design, working in conjunction with Baccio Bandinelli, among which was the choir of the Cathedral of Florence. Another son, Domenico, showed great promise, but died young. [Illustration: Plate 27.--_Panel from S. Maria Novella, Florence._ _To face page 44._] The seats near the high altar at S. Maria Novella, and other things there were made between 1491 and 1496. The floor of the hall of the Great Council in the Palazzo Vecchio was begun in 1496, and with other works there went on till 1503. On October 1, 1502, he engaged to do the choir of S. Agostino Perugia from Perugino's designs at 1120 florins of 40 bolognini each, but he did not work at it much at that time, since on June 20, 1532, he made a fresh contract with the monks to continue and complete the choir of their church. Adamo Rossi gives other curious details about this work drawn from Perugian records, which are worth noting. He says that in 1501 Bacciolo d'Agnolo, not having a good design to show, agreed with the prior Federico di Giuliano in three months' time to submit two different seats for the choir of S. Agostino, and confessed to having received 50 broad ducats of gold as part of the price of the choir and the two stalls mentioned. He also agreed to return the money if he did not undertake the choir or did not finish it according to contract. He presented them accordingly, and in 1502 the contract was signed at 30 florins for each upper seat. Rossi also says that he finds trace of another Baccio d'Agnolo in the collection of wills of Pietro Paolo di Lodovico, under date June 11, 1529, and thinks that the work was done by him. One Baccio was elected capo-maestro of the Duomo in 1507 together with Giuliano and Antonio da San Gallo and il Cronaca (Simone del Pollajuolo), and continued in that office until 1529. Rossi also gives other interesting details about the making of various pieces of joinery in Perugia and their makers, from which I extract the following:--"In the refectory of S. Agostino two Sienese, Giovanni and Cristoforo de'Minelli, worked in 1477. The cupboards in the sacristy of S. Pietro in Casinense were made by Giusto di Francesco of Incisa and Giovanni di Filippo da Fiesole in 1472. They were bought in Florence, and are particularly fine and large in their treatment of flowers, &c. The work was finished with the assistance of Mariotto di Mariotto of Pesaro, three workmen coming from places at considerable distances from each other, proving that they wandered about the country a good deal. The lectern in the same church, which is well inlaid and finely carved, was made by Battista the Bolognese, Ambrose the Frenchman, and Lorenzo. The contract was between the abbot and Fra Damiano's brother, Maestro Stefano di Antoniuolo de' Zambelli da Bergamo, and was for the whole choir at 30 scudi for each seat, wood being provided. The lectern itself cost 176 florins, and was finished in 1535. In the Sala del Cambio, besides Domenico del Tasso's seats, there is a fine door which was made by Antonio di Benciviene da Mercatello da Massa, for which he was paid 10 florins 93 soldi 6 denari. The orator's desk, the 'ringhiera,' was made by Antonio di Antonio Masi, the Fleming, though often ascribed to Mercatello. It was estimated by Eusebio del Bastone as worth 68 florins. At Assisi the choir of the upper church, which is the most important in all Italy for the number of its stalls, the mastery of its figure intarsia, and the elegance of its form, was made by Domenico da S. Severino, who agreed with the superiors on July 8, 1491, to make it for 770 ducats of gold. It was not finished till 1501, but no payments are noted in the archives after November 18, 1498. In the lower church two Sienese worked in 1420, and a Florentine from 1448 to 1471. The choir of the Cathedral in the same city was made by Giovanni di Piergiacomo, also of S. Severino, and there is sometimes confusion between the two artists. The price was 57 florins. On one of the backs is carved the date 1520. The most ancient piece of joinery in Perugia is that executed for the Arte della Mercanzia in the 14th century." [Illustration: Plate 28.--_Panel in Sacristy of S. Pietro in Casinense, Perugia._ _To face page 46._] Rossi prints a priced list of joiners' tools, dated November 8, 1496, which is interesting as showing the small amount of tools and furniture required in a joiner and intarsiatore's workshop at that period. It runs thus:-- Bernardino di Lazzaro buys from Angelo di Maestro Jacopo, called Boldrino, joiner, the underwritten tools and apparatus at the price at which they were valued by Master Giovanni da Siena and Ercolano di Gabriele of Perugia. Florins. Soldi. Two benches, 2 0 Four planes, 1 0 Two screw profiles, one broad and one narrow, 0 40 Two rules, 0 16 Four straight edges, one large and three small, 0 28 One outliner for tarsia, 0 8 Rods for making cornices, 0 12 A cross beam, 0 6 Two compasses, one large and one small, 0 12 Two rulers, 0 5 Four one-handed little planes, 0 16 One two-handed little plane, 0 8 Two broad planes, 0 12 Two hollow moulding planes, 0 12 Three pieces of unfinished tarsia, and one with a wire drawing iron, 1 30 Two large squares and one "grafonetto" and one little square, 0 8 Two old irons for making cornices, 0 8 Nine files, large and small, round and straight, 0 30 Fifteen "gulfie," large and small, 0 24 Three chisels, one glued and one all of iron and one "a tiro colla manacha de legusa saietta," 0 7 One small hammer, 0 16 Two arm chairs, 0 8 A big "tenevello," 0 25 A little anvil, 0 20 A pair of big pincers, 0 32 Two little axes, 0 20 A two-handed axe, 0 25 A two-handed saw with a file, 0 60 A cutting saw, 0 25 Two stools, 0 16 Nine presses (clamps), 0 60 Two cupboards, 0 90 Five pieces of panels, two on the benches and three outside, 0 20 Three pieces of tarsia frieze and two pictures with a box without a lid, 1 0 A bench to put the tarsia on, 0 40 The words untranslated are, I suppose, Perugian words. At all events, they do not appear in the large Italian dictionary edited by Tommaseo and Bellini. This Bernardino six years earlier worked as apprentice with Maestro Mattia da Reggio, and was paid 6 florins 22 soldi for four months. His name appears in the list of masters of stone and wood. [Illustration: Plate 29.--_Panel from door of Sala del Cambio, Perugia._ _To face page 48._] Frederic of Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, built himself a splendid palace in that city between the years of 1468 and 1480, which cost 200,000 golden scudi. At that time a sack of corn cost rather less than five modern Italian lire in the duchy, and a hectolitre of wine only one franc sixty centimes, and one may gain some idea of the way in which princes of liberal tastes lavished their money over the production of works of art by comparing these figures. Among the decorations, which include much stone carving of the most extraordinary finish, which in the interior of the palace appears as fresh as the day it was completed, were some splendidly inlaid doors, eight or nine of which still remain. The palace was constructed upon the foundations of an older palace of 1350, much enlarged, and here he lived magnificently, and collected that fine library which was subsequently removed to Rome, of which Vespasiano da Bisticci, the Florentine bookseller, who had a good deal to do with it, says that it was the most perfect that he knew, for in others there were either gaps or duplicates, from which defects it was free. Castiglione's "Cortigiano," the ideal of a courtier in those days, describes the Court of Urbino as it was under Guidobaldo, his son and successor. Among the decorations of the palace which still remain is the panelling of a small studio on the _piano nobile_, close to the tiny chapel, which is entirely surrounded by intarsia of the finest description, which represents in the lower part a seat something like the misereres of choir stalls surrounding the apartment, some parts of which are raised and some lowered. In the spaces rest some portions of the duke's arms, a sword, a mace, &c., leaning in the corners, and on the lower parts of the seat are musical instruments, fruits and sweetmeats in dishes, cushions, books, &c. The upper panels show cupboards with doors partly open, showing all sorts of things within in the usual fashion, and there are four figure panels inserted at intervals containing the portrait of the duke and the Christian virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity which he strove to exemplify in his life. At one end of the room are two recesses divided by a projecting pier; in the one to the left the armour of the duke is represented as hanging piece by piece on the wall, in that on the right is shown his reading desk, made to turn on a pivot, with books upon it and around, and on the pier between, a landscape, seen through an arcade with a terrace in front, upon which are a squirrel and a basket of fruit. Close to the reading desk is a representation of an organ with a seat in front of it, upon which is a cushion covered with brocade or cut velvet, which is most realistic, and on the organ is the name Johan Castellano, which is supposed to be the name of the intarsiatore, though this name does not appear in the accounts. The custodian called him a Bergamase, I do not know on what authority. The designs of the figures are ascribed to Botticelli, and some of them look as if the ascription might possibly be correct. The only names of intarsiatori found in the ducal accounts are Beneivegni da Mercatello, who worked in the Sala del Cambio at Perugia, and no doubt had to do with the making of the doors, which resemble that work, and perhaps a Taddeo da Rovigno, the town from which the Olivetan Fra Sebastian came. Pungileone, however, found a payment of seven florins in 1473 to "Maestro Giacomo, from Florence, on account of intarsia for the audience hall." Dennistoun says that this study contained "arm-chairs encircling a table all mosaicked with tarsia, and carved by Maestro Giacomo of Florence," but it is now quite bare, though, fortunately, the tarsie are well preserved. He goes on to say that "on each compartment of the panelling was the portrait of some famous author and an appropriate distich," which leads one to suppose either that his information was inaccurate or that he was referring to the similar small study on the lower floor, in which Timoteto delle Vite did some painting. The duke and his son Guidobaldo were both great builders, and Urbino was not the only town in which they raised palaces, though the others were not of so much importance. The names by which they were denominated show this. It is always the _corte_ at Urbino, at Pesaro it is the _palazzo_, and at Gubbio the modest _casa_. Nevertheless, at this last place the intarsias were of almost as great importance, though now the palace is ruinous and the intarsias dispersed, some of them being at South Kensington. Dennistoun quotes descriptions from Sig. Luigi Bonfatti and Mr. F. C. Brooke, which are worth reproducing, as showing the care some times expended on the decoration of quite small apartments. This study, which was commissioned by Duke Guidobaldo, is only 13 by 6-1/2 feet in plan, though it is 19 feet high. The inlaid work only went half-way up, as at Urbino, the upper part of the walls having been covered with tapestries. The tarsie showed "emblematic representations of music, literature, physical science, geography, and war; bookcases, or rather cupboards, with their contents, among which were a ship, a tambourine, military weapons, a cage with a parrot in it, and as if for the sake of variety only, a few volumes of books, over one of which, containing music, with the word 'Rosabella' inscribed on its pages, was suspended a crucifix. On the central case opposite the window, and occupying as it were the place of honour, was the garter, with its motto, 'Honi soit q. mal i pense,' a device which was sculptured on the exterior of the stone architrave of the door of this apartment. It appeared again in tarsia in the recess of the window, where might also be seen, within circles, 'G. Ubaldo Dx. and Fe Dux.' Amongst the devices was the crane standing on one leg, and holding, with the foot of the other, which is raised, the stone he is to drop as a signal of alarm to his companions. Among other feigned contents of a bookcase were an hour-glass, guitar, and pair of compasses; in another were seen a dagger, dried fruits in a small basket made of thin wood, and a tankard, while in a third was represented an open book surmounted with the name of Guidobaldo, who probably made the selection inscribed on the two pages of the volume, comprising verses 457-491 of the tenth Æneid." On the cornice was an inscription. It was thought to be the work of Antonio Mastei of Gubbio, a famous artist in wood, who executed the choir of S. Fortunato at Todi, and who is known to have been much in favour with Dukes Guidobaldo and Francesco Maria I., the latter of whom gave him an exemption from imposts. In the 17th century tarsia was more used for domestic furniture than for stationary decoration. The character of the design changed in consequence, and mother-of-pearl, ivory, tortoiseshell, silver, and other materials were used. The first Tuscan, or one of the first who did so was Andrea Massari of Siena. A few works in tarsia were still executed, but none of much importance. The choir of S. Sigismondo, outside Cremona, commenced by Gabriel Capra and finished by his son Domenico in 1605, is one of the principal, and the choir of S. Francesco, Perugia, where Fortebraccio was buried, but this latter no longer exists. Marquetry was produced in Florence, Venice, Milan, and Genoa down to a still later date, but the fashion for ivory and ebony carried all before it. The Italian work of this kind is often most beautifully engraved, but less accurate than that produced in France. The later Italian marquetry does not lose decorative effect though the figure drawing becomes very conventional, and the curves of ornament are often cut with a mechanical sweep. A good deal of it is in only two colours, a return to the simplicity of earlier days. FOOTNOTES: [2] There were nineteen subjects, divided by channelled pilasters with a carved frieze, above a bench which ran round the circular wall from one doorpost to the other, the whole work crowned with a cornice also carved with foliated ornament. The first subject on the right was an open cupboard with architects' and joiners' tools. The second was the portrait described above. The third showed a cupboard half open, worked with a grille of pierced almond shapes and divided. "In the upper part is a naked boy, standing with a ball in his left hand, below is a large circle with a bridge within and without in the form of a diamond. Within the closed part of the grille one sees a ewer above and a basin below. The fourth is a figure of S. Ansano, half-length, below whom is the head of a man who receives baptism with joined hands, and the saint with a vase in his hand pours water on his head, holding in his right hand a standard. The fifth shows a cupboard open and shelved in the middle--above is a chalice and paten, below is a salver with fruit within and falling from it. The sixth contains an organ case with a man who, with raised head, enjoys the sweetness of the sounds, on the side of the organ are the arms of the Opera and below are the arms of the rector Arringhieri. The seventh is a cupboard half open with pierced doors, in the upper half a censer, and an incense boat, with a label above with these words, 'Dirigatur Domine oratio mea sicut incensum in conspectu tuo.' Below is the holy water pot with the sprinkler within, and with a pair of sacrament cruets. The eighth shows the figure of a man with a glory and a diadem on his head, with face and right arm raised to heaven, representing whom I do not understand; above him is a garden full of different flowers and trees. The ninth is a cupboard cut across and half open; in the upper part a label with these words 'Qui post me venit, ante me factus est. Cujus non sum dignus calceamente solvere;' below are different musical instruments, the words above are set to plain song. The tenth, that is the centre one, is a half-length of S. John Baptist with the cross in his left hand, and in the right a label with the words, 'Ecce Agnus Dei,' while with his finger he points to Christ in a figure which represents him. The eleventh shows another cupboard half open and shelved, above is a label on which are some lines of the hymn of S. John Baptist, with notes in plain song and with the name of the author above, which was Alessandro Agricola, and below is a flute and a violin with its bow. The twelfth is the figure of a young man with a label below which says, 'Johannis Baptistæ discipulus.' This is generally thought to represent S. Andrew the apostle. The thirteenth is another open cupboard with a shelf. In the upper part is a chalice and more fruit, and in the lower a hollow dish with a foot also full of fruit. The fourteenth shows the half-length of a man who plays a lute, above him appears a garden with different trees. The fifteenth is a cupboard with open division, with a little gate and grating with almond shaped openings, above is a candlestick with a candle half burnt, and below is a box full of yellow tapers. The sixteenth represents S. Catherine with her wheel, half-length, disputing with the tyrant, before her is an open book on which are cut these words, 'Catharina disputationis virginitatis ac martirii palmam reportat.' The seventeenth shows a cupboard divided and half closed, with a grating like the others, above is a missal laid down, with a chalice upright, and a paten on the missal, and there are also a pair of spectacles and another paten leaning against the wall, below there is a closed book which seems to be a breviary, upon which is an open book with these words, 'Ecce mitto angelum meum ante faciem tuam, qui preparabit viam tuam ante te. Vox clamantis in deserto; parate viam Domini: rectas facite semitas ejus.' The eighteenth shows a fine gate through which one sees a garden, within which appear different trees with fruit on them, and at the bottom is a little table upon which is an inkstand with a pen and a penknife with a label which issues from the inkstand with these words, 'Alberto Aringherio operaio fabre factum.' The last panel shows an open cupboard with shelf and grating, above is a harp and below is a violin and other musical instruments. The rector Arringhieri paid 4090 scudi for the work as a matter of compromise on the valuing of Fra Giovanni da Verona. It was in so dark a place that it could not be seen except with lighted torches, and it was also damaged because it was put in a newly built place, the walls of which were not sufficiently dry to receive such delicate work." This account was written in 1786. THE CLOISTERED INTARSIATORI AND THEIR PUPILS The Order of the Olivetans took its rise from the piety and liberality of a Sienese noble, Bernardo Tolomei, who, with two companions, Ambrogio Piccolomini and Patricio Patrizzi, established himself as a hermit on a barren point of land at Chiusuri, some miles from Siena, in the same manner as did S. Benedict at Subiaco. This was in 1312, but the Papal charter by which the Order was founded dates from 1319. It was called "Monte Oliveto," from a vision seen by Guido Tarlati, Bishop of Arezzo, the Papal commissary, in which the Virgin ordered that the monks should have a white habit, and that the badge of the Order should be three hills surmounted by a branch of olive. It was a branch of the Benedictines, and, like them, the monks devoted their lives to useful labours. As Michele Caffi says, "The Olivetans did not strive in political or party struggles, but spent their simple lives in works of charity and industry, and showing great talent for working in wood succeeded to the heirship of the art of tarsia in coloured woods, which they got from Tuscany." The first master of intarsia mentioned among the Olivetan monks is a certain lay brother, "laico Olivetano," who came from Tuscany in the first half of the fifteenth century, and taught the art to the monks of S. Elena, the island which lies just beyond the Public Gardens at Venice, and was so beautiful before the iron foundry was established upon it. His principal pupil was Fra Sebastiano of Rovigno, known as the "Zoppo Schiavone," the lame Slavonian, who taught Fra Giovanni da Verona and Domenico Zambello of Bergamo, Fra Damiano. Fra Giovanni, again, was master to Vincenzo dalle Vacche and Raffaello da Brescia, and perhaps to the oblate of S. Elena, Antonio Preposito, in 1493. Fra Sebastiano da Rovigno was probably born in 1420. The register of professions and deaths at Monte Oliveto Maggiore says--"In conventu Paduæ professus est sub die 15 Augusti, an 1461, fr: Sebastianus de Rovinio"; his death is shown by another extract--"Venetiis, obiit in Mon. S. Helenæ, anno Domini, 1505, fr: Sebastianus de Histria, conversus" (lay brother). He was at S. Maria in Organo, in 1464-5 and 1468-9, and at S. Elena in 1479-80-81, and again from 1484 to 1494. He was also at Monte Oliveto 1466-7, 1474-5, and 1482-3, and at S. Michele in Bosco, Bologna, from 1494 till shortly before his death, in all of which places were important works in tarsia. The inscription in the corner of the sacristy at S. Elena runs thus:--"Extremus hic mortalium operum fr: Sebastianus de Ruigno Montis Oliveti, qui III. id: Sept: diem obiit, 1505." Some of his work is in the stalls and sacristy cupboards of S. Marco, signed C.S.S., or S.S.C., that is, "Converso Sebastiano Schiavone," or "Seb: Sch: converso." His pupil Fra Giovanni da Verona was one of the most celebrated of the carvers and intarsiatori, and left works in many places in Italy. He was born in Verona in 1457, and no one has been able to discover either his family name nor who his father was. When still a boy he left his native town and went into Tuscany to Monte Oliveto di Chiusuri of Siena, the principal monastery of the Olivetan order. He may perhaps have gone with Liberale of Verona, who was of about the same age, the first time he went to Monte Oliveto, in 1467, or more probably on the second occasion, in 1474, his business being to illuminate the choir books. In the administration books of that convent it is recorded that in 1467 Liberale had as assistant a certain Bernardino, and in 1474 another whose name is not mentioned. This may have been Fra Giovanni, who might then have learnt to illuminate, which was his first profession, and in which he succeeded excellently. He resolved to "profess religion" about this time, and was received as novice in the beginning of 1475. The year of noviciate being passed he made his solemn profession on March 25, 1476, and remained for about four years more in the monastery, during which time he finished his studies and became priest. In 1480 he was sent for a short time to the monastery of S. Elena, near Venice. Here he found the lay brother Fra Sebastiano da Rovigno, whom he may perhaps have known before, since they were both at Monte Oliveto in 1475. At all events he spoke to him about learning his art, and finding him willing to teach him, "set about it with so much diligence and assiduity that he was soon able to give him valuable assistance." The work was on the cupboards of the sacristy and on the backs of the choir stalls, which were 34 in number. On these the principal cities of the world, as they then were, were drawn in perspective "with great beauty and cleverness." About 1485 he went to an abbey of Olivetan monks at Villanova, a small village in lower Lombardy, where he illuminated 20 choral books with heads of saints and prophets, with very beautiful borders of flowers, fruits, and animals. These were sold by an ignorant and greedy priest for 17 zecchins, and only a few of the miniatures have been recovered, which are now kept in the sacristy. Of them, Vincenzo Sabbia, the Olivetan abbot, who was "confratello di religione" and nearly contemporary, says, when describing the abbey and its treasures in 1594, that there are there "stupendous and wonderful choral books to the number of twenty, made about the year 1485, and rare and wonderful miniatures are among the letters, like lovely flowers in a delicious garden, and many most beautiful imaginings, heads of saints and of all the ancient prophets, and other wonderful things of like kind, made and illuminated by that celebrated Fra Giovanni da Verona, around the text." [Illustration: Plate 30.--_Panel from lower row of Stalls, S. Maria in Organo, Verona._ _To face page 59._] [Illustration: Plate 31.--_Panels from Monte Oliveto Maggiore, now in the Cathedral, Siena._ _To face page 60._] In 1490 he was summoned to the Certosa at Pavia to estimate the value of the stalls made by Bartolommeo dei Polli, in company with Giacomo dei Crocefissi and Cristoforo de' Rocchi. Except for these there are no notices of the work which he must have done till 1502, when the abbot and monks of Monte Oliveto Maggiore, having determined to renew the choir of their church, confided the work to Fra Giovanni, and necessarily recalled him. He worked with so much enthusiasm that in three years he entirely completed them "to his great repute and with no less satisfaction to the monks." "The whole comprised 52 stalls, with their backs, seats and arm rests, kneelers and all things appertaining" (it now consists of 48 stalls and 47 pictures), and the panels of the backs were worked in tarsia with perspective views "beautiful to a marvel," where were figured houses, views of the country, cupboards, grilles, sacred utensils, and other fancies. In the early years of the 19th century 38 of these perspectives were moved to Siena and placed in the Cathedral, where they now are. Another choir, smaller but not less beautiful, was made for the church of the Olivetan monastery of S. Benedetto fuori della Porta at Tufi, near Siena. This church is in ruins; 31 perspectives from the choir were sent to fill the gaps in Monte Oliveto Maggiore, the monks who returned after the revocation of the suppression in 1813 having appealed to the Archbishop to allow them to take them. Four of the ancient backs were found in a corner of the sacristy, and eight carried to Siena and found superfluous were returned, as well as one which a neighbouring villager had taken. Some of them show the conventual buildings as they were at the beginning of the 16th century. The frames resemble friezes, and are decorated with flowers, fruit, birds, musical instruments, arms, and ornament. Each back is separated from the next by a colonnette carved with delicate arabesques. In this choir is also an Easter candlestick much like that at S. Maria in Organo, Verona, and there are two doors which belonged to the library. Pope Julius II. called him to Rome in 1571, and commissioned the ornamentation of the Camera della Segnatura in the Vatican, the designs for which are ascribed to Raffaelle, not only the seat backs with their seats, but also the doors, all worked with perspectives, "in which he succeeded so well that he gained great favour with the pontiff." Then he went to Naples and did the same sort of carving and intarsia in the sacristy of the choir of the chapel of Paolo Tolosa, in the church of Monte Oliveto in that city, works not less successful and lauded than those of Siena and Rome. This church is now called that of S. Anna dei Lombardi. The tarsie in the sacristy are in a later setting, and include nine panels of perspectives of landscapes, buildings, &c., nine others showing cupboards with objects on the shelves, and one with a figure of an abbot around which the following inscription runs:-- ·T·EPRE·R·P·F·DOMI·DE·LEV·GNK·ABBATIS·ET R·P·ALOISII·DE·SALER·NO·PRIOR. The work is exceedingly delicate, pieces of wood no thicker than a thick pencil line being often used. In one panel is a well-executed lily, in another a hare is a foreground figure, in another are an owl and a bullfinch, while a hoopoe appears in another, with mountains behind him. The objects on the shelves of the cupboards are turned at queer angles to show his skill in perspective, but, since they lack tone, do not appear quite accurate. Among the architectural subjects are the choir of a church, a harbour, and a castle on a hill, seen from a balustraded terrace, and a circular building a little like that in the background of Raffaelle's "Sposalizio." They were well restored in 1860 by C. G. Minchiotti. In the monks' choir in the church are other intarsie said to be by Angelo da Verona, Giovanni's brother. They are principally arabesques, somewhat resembling the panels in the Cathedral at Genoa, but include four figure panels of little angels and an Annunciation in two panels, which are not without charm, though rather overstiff. [Illustration: Plate 32.--_Frieze from Monte Oliveto Maggiore._ _To face page 62._] In his last years he returned to Verona, where he had made the monks' choir in S. Maria in Organo, and the cupboards of the sacristy. These have the reputation of being not only the finest of the period but also the best which came from his hand. The Adige was in this church for two months during one of the inundations, but the tarsie did not suffer so much as might have been expected. He accepted a commission in 1523 for some stalls for the Olivetan church at Lodi, S. Cristopher, eleven of which are now in the suburban church of S. Bernardino in that city, but died before they were completed. Vincenzo Sabbia writes of these:--"In the year 1523 the reverend father Fra Filippo Villani of Lodi, prior of the convent of S. Cristoforo in that city, agreed with Fra Giovanni Veronese, an excellent master of perspective, to make him 35 pictures of perspective at the rate of 30 or 40 broad ducats of gold for each--which are worth 5 lire 4 soldi each--which were to be finished in two or three years, and 300 broad ducats of gold were counted out to him. The said brother was not able to finish more than 23, because he died on February 10, 1525. They were sent from Verona and taken to Lodi, and in 1586 the new church of S. Cristoforo being finished, Don Agostino, the prior, who had charge of the fabric, had the aforesaid 23 pictures with their ornaments set in the choir by the hand of Paolo Sasono." He died in the 68th year of his age, and was buried in S. Maria in Organo. He is called "prior" in a chronicle of the monastery under date 1511, and in the list of dead. In his portrait in the sacristy, by Caroto, he is represented with the tonsure and with the hood and cowl of the form which was proper to monks who were constituted "in sacris." Fra Raffaello da Brescia, whose name was Roberto Marone, was born in 1477. His father's name was Pietro Marone, and his mother was a Venetian, named Cecilia Tiepolo. When twenty-two years old he took the monastic habit as a lay brother in the convent of S. Nicolò di Rodengo, near Brescia, and a little later (in 1502) was sent to Monte Oliveto Maggiore. Fra Giovanni being then established there as "conventual brother," took young Marone and taught him, seeing that he had both liking and talent for the work, so that he soon became a clever workman. Between 1504 and 1507 he worked with him at the choir of Monte Oliveto, from 1506 to 1510 he was with him at Naples, when the famous sacristy panels were being executed, and in 1511 and 1512 he was at S. Nicolò di Rodengo, where he worked at the choir of that church. The lectern from Rodengo is now in the Galleria Tosi at Brescia; the inlays are in the lower portion, and show architectural compositions in perspective and the usual objects, such as a censer, an open book, &c. It is signed F.R.B. In 1513 Raffaello commenced the magnificent choir of S. Michaele in Bosco, Bologna, and here he also made the design for the campanile, which was built by Maestro Pedrino di Como, showing that like so many of the intarsiatori he was no mere worker in wood. While this work was in progress he executed a lectern for Monte Oliveto, ordered by the abbot Barnaba Cevenini, who was a Bolognese. It is signed and dated 1520, and shows on each side a choir book open, with notes of music and words. In one of the lower panels a black cat symbolises fidelity. S. Michele in Bosco was among the largest of the Olivetan convents. The Benedictines entered into possession in 1364, but these buildings were destroyed by the Bolognese in 1430, "so that they might not give shelter and a base for hostilities to the soldiers of Martin V." The re-construction began in 1437. The choir was raised on several steps, and called "Il Paradiso," ten years later, but subsequent alterations have left very little of the original work visible. Raffaello's stalls were probably finished in 1521, that being the date on a panel which was formerly in the centre of the choir. Of these splendid works only two confessionals still remain in the church. At the time of the suppression of the convents at the end of the 18th century the populace, drunk with rapine and devastation, tore down these stalls, and they were sold for a few pence to the Bolognese marine store dealers and rag merchants. Only 18 of the principal row were saved from destruction, the Marquis Antonio Malvezzi buying them in 1812, and having them restored and placed in the chapel of his family in S. Petronio (now the chapel of the Holy Sacrament), where they now are. He was not able to save the hoods and shell canopies, which were sold for firewood for 4 baiocchi each! (about two pence.) The designs are of the usual style, cupboards and various objects in perspective; one of the finest is the first on the left, which includes a fine sphere and sundial, and several books written in German letters, black and red, a chalice in a cupboard, two books, and a cross. In the seventh is the figure of Pope Gregory in the act of blessing, and the last on the right shows loggias and porticoes of good style, well put in perspective. With part of the tarsie from S. Michele pianoforte cases were made, other portions were used for the floor of the Casino, near the theatre of the Corso, and were worn to pieces by the feet of the dancers! In 1525 Fra Raffaello went to Rome, and no further notices of him or of his work occur till his death there in 1537; he was buried in S. Maria in Campo Santo. Another somewhat similar set of stalls, though rather later in date, also at Bologna, are the upper row in the choir of S. Giovanni in Monte, which have on their backs intarsie representing monuments, fantastic battlemented buildings, musical instruments, and geometrical motives, all executed with a mastery which reveals an artist old at the work. They recall in their general effect those in S. Prospero at Reggio, in the Emilia, which were executed by the brothers Mantelli in 1546. They are set in a carved framing of arches divided by pilasters which terminate above in brackets which support the cornice. The pilasters rest on the arms which divide the seats. Champeaux says they were made by Paolo del Sacha. The tarsie in S. Mark's, Venice, were worked by Fra Vincenzo da Verona, another Olivetan, under whom was Fra Pietro da Padova, Jesuit, with two youths to assist them. The commission was given in 1523. Three rooms in the hospital of "Messer Jesu Cristo" were assigned him as workshops, and 100 ducats for food and clothing, as stated in the registers of the procurators of S. Mark's. On January 15, 1524, they inspected the work done, and were not satisfied, and so suspended it, "praising, nevertheless, the manners and the life of Fra Vincenzo." According to Cicogna, the registers contained, under date April 7, 1526, a note of money paid to "Fra Vincenzio, of the order of the Jesuits, for the finishing of the works of inlay" in the choir of S. Marco. On February 25, 1537, certain moneys were given to more workmen for the construction of the doge's seat, which is said to have been "a great thing full of artistic pangs" (!), and rather hindered the genuflections to the altar. This was made for Andrea Gritti, who was doge that year. This Fra Vincenzo da Verona, or Vincenzo dalla Vacche, is mentioned by Morello in his "Notizie" as excellent, especially in his work at S. Benedetto Novello at Padua, four panels from which are now in the Louvre. He became novice in 1492, "Conventuale" of Monte Oliveto in 1498, was a priest like Fra Giovanni, and lived almost all his life in his native city. He died in 1531. The tarsie in the presbytery at S. Marco consist of seven great compartments, five lesser, and thirteen which are small. The eighteen smaller compartments are panels of ornament. The others are figure subjects, but by more than one hand. First comes a figure of S. Mark with a lion at his feet, which is not very good (it was restored in 1848-50 by Antonio Camusso); next, a figure of Charity side by side with one of Justice, a woman with a baby, and one holding the balances. Next comes a figure of Strength or Courage, older and rougher in character, then four ornamental panels, a door, and five others, also of ornament. The next panel in the corner bears date 1535, to which year the figures of Justice and Charity may be assigned. The other figures are Prudence and Temperance, the latter of which resembles Strength in character. The remaining subject, a Pietà, is like Charity and Justice, and is masterly. Three spaces are empty. The doge's seat, until the fall of the Republic, was on the right of the principal entrance to the choir, as Sansovino says. It had on its back a figure of Justice, now in the Museo Civico. He also says that Sebastiano Schiavone did these tarsie, but he died in 1505. Various initials appear here and there through the work; on each side of the figure of S. Mark are U.F.Q. and M.S.R. in cartouches, Charity and Justice have N. and P. at the sides, and Prudence has P.S.S. and S.S.C. attached to her. The panels of ornament seem to be of the same period as the figure of Charity. [Illustration: Plate 33.--_Panel from S. Mark's, Venice._ _To face page 68._] Fra Damiano of Bergamo, Fra Giovanni's fellow-pupil, attained, if possible, even greater reputation. He was considered the finest artist in tarsia of his time, he having, "with his woods, coloured to a marvel, raised the art to the rank of real painting." His family name was Zambello, he is thought to have been born about 1490, and he became a Dominican monk. An anonymous MS. of the 16th century, published by Morelli, calls him a pupil of a Slavonian, that is, Illyrian, brother of Venice, Fra Sebastiano da Rovigno. He passed the greater part of his life at Bologna, in the Dominican cloister there, into which he was admitted in 1528. In the records of the convent for that year occurs the note, "Frater Damianus de Bergomo, homo peritissimus, singularissimus, et unicus in l'arte della tarsia, conversus, receptatus fuit in filium conventus." At S. Domenico the choir stalls were his first work; he did seven, containing fourteen subjects and seven heads of saints. These were finished in 1530, and in consequence of their success he was commissioned to complete the choir. He carried the tinting of the wood farther than Fra Giovanni did, using solutions of sublimate of mercury, of arsenic, and what they called oil of sulphur. He is said to have had Vignola's designs for the architectural parts. Charles the Fifth was in Bologna with Clement VII., and was crowned Emperor in S. Petronio on December 5, 1529. One day he was in S. Domenico admiring the works of art, and, doubting that the tarsie were made of tinted wood, as he was told, drew his rapier and cut a bit out of one of the panels, which has always remained in the state in which he left it in memory of his act. Desiring to see how the work was done he determined to visit Fra Damiano's studio. Accordingly, on March 7, 1530, he took with him Alfonso d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, and several princes of his escort, and went to the convent, when, being conducted to Fra Damiano's poor cell, he knocked at the door. The friar, having opened and allowed the Emperor to enter, shut it quickly. "Stay," said the Emperor, "that is the Duke of Ferrara, who follows me." "I know him," answered Fra Damiano, "and that is why I will never let him enter my cell." "And why?" said Charles V.; "have you anything of his doing to complain of then?" "Listen, your majesty," answered the lay brother. "I had to come from Bergamo to Bologna to undertake the work of this choir. I had with me these tools which you see, few in number, but necessary for the work in which it is my study to worthily spend my life, and to delight in the art. I had scarcely touched the frontiers of Ferrara when they not only obliged me, a poor friar, to pay a heavy and unjust tax, but the manner of doing it was most offensive. Now, while that duke allows such roguery in his State, it is right that he should not see this work which you see." Charles smiled, and promised to obtain from Duke Alfonso the amplest satisfaction. Going out of the cell he told the duke the reason of Fra Damiano's anger, and he not only promised to repay the loss which he had suffered, but conceded a patent to him, by which he and his pupils were for ever free from any tax or duty when crossing the duchy of Ferrara. Then they all came laughing and joking into the cell, and Fra Damiano, to show them that his tarsie were not painted with a brush took a little plane and passed it over a panel with some force, showing how the colours, after that treatment, still retained their integrity and beauty. And then he gave the Emperor a most beautiful piece of the Crucifixion, and another to the Duke of Ferrara, who valued it greatly. Locatelli gives some conversations between Fra Damiano and his assistant Zanetto, which must have preceded this visit, which are worth recording for their racy expression, according well with his reported action. "If it were in my power I would nail up this door for Charles and for all the dukes of the world. This art which I exercise is exceeding dear to me, and I hate to have to do with these signori who manage things after their own fashion; and sad it is for those who have to endure it. I respect His Majesty the Emperor, and hold him to be a great man, but the fate of Rome sticks in my throat. That other, too, who accompanies him--" "Who?" interrupted Zanetto, "the Pope?" "Oh, rubbish; the Pope! The Duke of Ferrara. With him I have a special account, and he must not come here." He also adds the detail that Fra Damiano had no money with him, and had to go about begging for wherewithal to pay the duke's dues till he blushed. From 1530 to 1534 he worked at a great piece of panelling to be placed in the chapel of the "arca," the tomb of S. Dominic, which is now in the sacristy, and thought by some to be his masterpiece. There are eight cupboards in this, and on each are eight subjects. In 1534 the Order was so poor that such expenses were stopped. Seven years later the work was recommenced and finished in 1550 by Fra Bernardino and Fra Antonio da Lunigiano a few months after Fra Damiano's death, which occurred on August 30, 1549. The choir consists of a double row of 28 stalls on each side, making 112 in all, showing on the right subjects from the New, and on the left from the Old Testament. Those on the right are the best, and are probably Fra Damiano's own work. He had as assistants at one time Zanetto da Bergamo, Francesco di Lorenzo Zambelli, and a lay brother, Fra Bernardino, who afterwards did the sacristy door. At another time his brother Stefano helped him, together with Zampiero da Padova, Fra Antonio Asinelis, the brothers Capo di Ferro of Lovere, Pietro di Maffeis, Giovanni and Alessandro Belli. The choir of S. Domenico cost 2809 scudi. Henry II. of France commissioned a little chapel from him with an altar-piece, for his reputation had crossed the Alps, and Cardinal Salviati and Paul III., the Farnese Pope, also wished for his work, as did the Benedictine monks of S. Pietro in Casinense, at Perugia. He did for them a two-leaved door, which cost 120 scudi, now placed at the back of the choir, and opening on to a balcony, from which one sees, in fine weather, as far as the Castle of Spoleto. There are four subjects, two on each leaf; the Annunciation illustrated is one of them. Sabba Castiglione uses the most enthusiastic language about him and his work. "But, above all, those who can obtain them decorate their mansions with the works, rather divine than human, of Fra Damiano, who excelled not only in perspectives, like those other worthy masters, but in landscapes, in backgrounds, and what is yet more, in figures; and who effected in wood as much as the great Apelles did with his pencil. I even think that the colours of these woods are more vivid, brilliant, and beautiful than those used by painters, so that these most excellent works may be considered as a new style of painting without colours, a thing much to be wondered at. And what adds to the marvel is, that though these works are executed with inlaid pieces the eye cannot even by the greatest exertion detect the joints." He then goes on in the same grandiloquent strain--"This good father in dyeing woods in any colour that you may wish, and in imitation of spotted and marbled stones, as he has been unique in our century, so I think that he will be without equal in the future; it is certain that our Lord God has lent him grace, as I believe, because he wished so much that things might be well ended, to put his final work on the work of S. Domenico of Bologna. I think, indeed I am certain, that it will be called the eighth wonder of the world; and as the Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Egyptians, and the Greeks boasted of their temples, pyramids, colossi, and sepulchres, thus happy Bologna will be able to glory in and to boast of the choir of S. Domenico. And because I do not wish that the love and affection that I bear to my most excellent father should make me to be considered a flatterer (!), a thing far from me, and especially with friends about whom I always speak the truth, I say no more; yet all that which I could say would be little enough on the merit of his rare and singular virtue, and on the goodness of his religious and holy life." Fra Leandro Alberti, in his description of Italy, speaks in something the same manner--"Frate Damiano, lay brother of the Order of Preachers, has become a man of as much genius as is to be found in the whole world at present, in putting together woods with so much art that they appear pictures made with a brush." [Illustration: Plate 34.--_Panel from door in Choir of S. Pietro in Casinense, Perugia._ _To face page 74._] A few stalls made by him are now in the church of S. Bartolommeo, Bergamo, which were brought from the Dominican church of S. Stefano, destroyed for the fortifications in 1561. The designs were made by Trozo da Monza, Bernardo da Trevi (? Treviglio), and Bramantino. As Locatelli says, they preceded the famous choir at Bologna, and show the master trying his wings. Some think that his best works are those in which he did not employ colour, but only shading, but general opinion considers his highest point was reached in the doors of S. Pietro in Casinense. Another Dominican intarsiatore was Fra Antonio da Viterbo, who, in 1437, made the doors of S. Peter's at Rome by order of Eugenius IV., which were subsequently destroyed by Paul V. He was paid 800 ducats of gold before the Pope died, when they were nearly finished. They were both inlaid and carved in the most elaborate fashion, as the list of subjects shows:--The Saviour, the Blessed Virgin, SS. Peter and Paul, and Eugenius on his knees, the martyrdom of SS. Peter and Paul, S. Plautilla, who received the borrowed veil from S. Paul; the Coronation of the Emperor Sigismund in S. Peter's in 1433 by Eugenius, "and there you see the Prefect of Rome holding the sword before him, their march through Rome, the union of the Greek Church with the Latin, the entry of the ambassador from the King of Ethiopia, and other histories of the time." He had two assistants, Valentine and Leonardo. [Illustration: _To face page 77._ Plate 35.--_Lunette from Stalls in Cathedral, Genoa._] The choir stalls in the Cathedral at Genoa are attributed to Francesco Zambelli of Bergamo, a relative of Fra Damiano. He was helped by Anselmo de' Fornari, Andrea and Elia della Rocca, Giovanni Michele de Pantaleone, and Giovanni Piccardo, who had already worked in the choir of the Cathedral of Savona. The contract is still extant by which Francesco di Zambelli of Bergamo undertakes to make them with three of the procurators for the building and ornamentation of San Lorenzo, dated April 12, 1540. He agrees to get to work not later than the first of September next, and to stay in the city till the work is done. Nor must he undertake other work under a penalty of 100 scudi, which he is to pay in such case without demur or defence. The procurators agree to pay for every picture, with its frame, according to the design furnished to him, and they also promise to provide lodgings for himself and his family without any expense to him, and to give him a present when the work is finished. On the same day his relative, Fra Damiano, promises to make two pictures, one for the seat of the archbishop and one for the doge, to be ready by Christmas Day next, to be paid for at the rate of 27 scudi each, measure and design to be given by the signory. The same day the aforesaid "Magnifici" had it explained to them that they would have to pay the expenses of making sketches. In the panel with the history of Moses Zambelli signs his name and domicile. Fra Damiano's subjects appear to be the large ones in the panelling before the stalls commence, "The Massacre of the Innocents" and "The Martyrdom of S. Laurence." The figure subjects are not very successful, the arabesques are better; but the panels with open cupboard doors and objects within are not so well done as Fra Giovanni's. The stalls were restored in 1868, and a good deal of new work put in. The choir of the Cathedral of Savona was made in 1500 by Anselmo de' Fornari, a native of Castelnuovo da Scrivia; Pope Julius II. (della Rovere), who was born in the city, commissioned it. The intarsias are on the elbows of the stalls, half-figures of saints nearly life size, singly or in pairs, among which is a portrait of the donor, with perspectives of palaces, temples, or interiors on the backs. The lower stalls have less important subjects, such as censers, chalices, vases of flowers, animals, armillary spheres, musical instruments, etc. The cost of these stalls was 1132 scudi d'oro larghi (10 francs each and a little more) half of which was paid by Julius II. and half by the Commune of Savona. In the same Cathedral are a fine lectern, an episcopal throne, two doors of the chapel of our Lady of the Column, and a fine seat, the "banco dell' opera," commonly called "Massaria." Upon such a seat sat anciently the four citizens elected by the Commune to attend to the interests of the Church governed by them. Within this bench were preserved the diplomas, statutes, and arguments held to be most important to the greatness of the country. Anselmo de' Fornari was helped by Elia de' Rocchi, and the commission was given to them jointly on January 30, 1500, on which date Cardinal della Rovere promised to pay 570 ducats towards the expenses. [Illustration: _To face page 78._ Plate 36.--_Panel from lower row of Stalls, Cathedral, Savona._] Another intarsiatore who worked with Fra Damiano was Giovanni Francesco Capo di ferro of Lovere, on Lake Iseo. His masterpiece is the choir of S. Maria Maggiore, Bergamo. When it was determined to commence it in 1521 the presidents of the church fabric sent to various cities of Italy, especially to Milan, to consult over the model to be selected for so important a work with the excellent painter and architect M. Bernardo Zenale da Treviglio. In the archives of the Misericordia is a book entitled "Fabbrica Chori," in which is noted the great expense of the designs only, among which were some made by Lorenzo Lotto, by Alessandro Bonvicini, called Il Moretto; Andrea Previtali, Giacomo de' Scipioni, Filippo Zanchi, Giuseppe Belli, Domenico di Albano, Niccolino Cabrini, Pietro da Nembro, Francesco Boneri, and other painters, as well as the making of models and other similar operations. Those who worked at carving and tarsia under the direction of Giovanni Francesco were his son Zinino and Pietro his brother, who lived in Lodi; Paolo da Pesaro, and many others, including a whole family, Giovanni di Ponteranica and his four sons. The part towards the sacristy was designed by Lorenzo Lotto, the rest by Alessandro Belli. The sedilia on the Gospel side bear a signature hung from a tree, "Opus Jo: Franc: D. Cap. Ferr. Bergomi." The four panels outside the screen are Noah entering the ark, the passage of the Red Sea, the triumph of Judith by the death of Holofernes, and the victory of David over Goliath. Thus Tassi speaks of them--"These, to speak the truth, for their admirable workmanship, singular art, and beautiful colouring, do not appear to be pieces of wood put together, but rather pictures formed by an excellent brush, the pieces placed with such mastery, and the woods of different colours to form the chiaroscuro so arranged with the darkening of others that they make the half-tints appear as if really painted with oil by the same Lotto who made the coloured designs, and as he was a celebrated and finished painter and a powerful one, thus certainly these pieces of wood put together could stand in face of paintings by the most celebrated brushes, which, beyond the exactness of drawing, gave to their works singular force and finish; for in them all the possible excellences of drawing and of art are displayed, and whoever has had the opportunity of well considering them has remained surprised and delighted, never believing that human art could reach so high a pitch of perfection." His last work is mentioned in 1533, two pictures of Samson, at 60 lire each. In 1547 his son Zinino and his brother Giovanni Pietro went on with the choir, and finished it nine years later. The total cost for labour alone was 7000 lire Imperiali. [Illustration: _To face page 80._ Plate 37.--_Panel from the Ducal Palace, Mantua._] In Spain there must have been a good deal of intarsia done, seeing how long the Moors held the southern part of the country, but very little has come down to us. In the Mosque at Cordova was a finely inlaid mihrab of the 10th century, which was unfortunately destroyed in the 16th century and its material used to make an altar. In the Museum at South Kensington are some panels with Hispano-Moresque geometric inlays of bone of the 15th century, which are very pleasing; the ground is of chestnut, the bone is often stained green, and metal triangles and light wood are also used. This use of bone, which is frequently tinted, in conjunction with black and pale wood, is characteristic of Spanish work of the 16th century. The design is often exceedingly naive, employing birds, animals, plants, and trees, with scrolls and monsters. There is one cabinet at South Kensington with the animals entering the ark, which is most entertaining. The Portuguese carried this work on later, especially at Goa, in the 17th century, but neither here nor in Spain is the later work tasteful, except occasionally. Cabinets were then made at Toledo of ebony and ivory, and at Seville and Salamanca the same materials were used for chests and sideboards. At Burgos is a pulpit decorated with inlay as well as carving, and one of the most elaborate works of marquetry of comparatively modern times is Spanish. This consists of the decoration of four small rooms in the Escurial, upon which 28,000,000 reals (£300,000) was spent in 1831. They are called "piezas de maderas finas," rooms of perfect or delicate woods, and are entirely covered with landscapes, still-life subjects, flowers, etc., made of the finest and most costly woods, and almost like paintings; floor, frieze, panels, window recesses, and doors. There was a mode of decorating furniture much used in Spain and Portugal, especially the latter, in which metal plates, cut and pierced into elaborate and fanciful patterns, were fastened on to the surface of objects made of black wood by means of small pins. From this to the decoration of the same surfaces by sinking the metal in the wood is a short step, and some think that this was the origin of the metal inlay so well known a little later under the name of Boulle work. IN GERMANY AND HOLLAND, ENGLAND AND FRANCE [Illustration: Plate 38.--_Panel from the Rathaus, Breslau, 1563._ _To face page 84._] In Germany there can be little doubt that the art first struck root in the southern part of the country, the towns which produced the earliest furniture and other objects decorated in this manner being Augsburg and Nuremberg. The first names of workers recorded, however, are those of the two brothers Elfen, monks of S. Michael at Hildesheim, who made altars, pulpits, mass-desks, and other church furniture for their monastery, ornamented with inlays, at the beginning of the 16th century, and Hans Stengel, of Nuremberg, but none of the inlaid work of either has come down to us. Two earlier pieces are figured by Hefner Alteneck, the harp already referred to on p. 8, and a folding seat of brown wood inlaid with ivory, stained yellow or light green, and black or dark brown wood, in oriental patterns, both of the latter part of the 14th or beginning of the 15th century. Two other names are mentioned as capable craftsmen in Nuremberg, Wolf Weiskopf and Sebald Beck; the latter died in 1546. The Augsburg work was much sought after, the "so-called mosaic work of coloured woods." The designs for the panels were generally made by painters, architectural and perspective subjects being most common, but flower pieces, views of towns, and historical compositions were also made. A German work thus characterises the later 16th century productions of this type--"A certain kind of intarsia becomes common in the German panelling and architectural woodwork; also in cabinets, vases, and arabesques, with tasteless ruins and architectural subjects with arabesque growths clinging all over them, of which examples may be seen in the museums at Vienna and Berlin, where one may also see works in ebony with engraved ivory inlays, which are generally more satisfactory. In German work, however, inlay was never of so much importance as carving, and the Baroque influence almost immediately affected the character of the design for the worse." At Dresden and Munich there were several celebrated inlayers in the 17th century, among whom may be named Hans Schieferstein, Hans Kellerthaler, of Dresden, and Simon Winkler, N. Fischer, and his son Johann Georg, of Munich, the last of whom, with his contemporary Adam Eck, practised relief intarsia, of which the latter is said to have been the inventor. It was known in the art trade as "Präger arbeit," which was not a name which accurately described its origin. Panellings of walls and doors were often decorated with inlays, most frequently of arabesques, of which the town halls of Lübeck and Danzig furnish fine examples. The "Kriegsstube" at Lübeck was done by Antonius Evers, who in 1598-9 was master of the joiners' guild, with his companions. The Rathsaal at Lüneburg was made in 1566-78, and the name of Albert von Soest is connected with it. Danzig, in the "Sommerrathstube," shows intarsias and decorations of 1596 in which the painter Vriedeman Vriese and a certain Simon Herle, probably a local man, collaborated. Other similar works may be seen at Brunswick and Breslau, at Ulm, in the Michel Hofkirche at Munich, and in the Cathedral at Mainz. At Coburg, in the so-called "Hornzimmer," are intarsias worked from the designs of Lucas Cranach and others, at Rothenburgh, at Geminden, at Landshut, and in many places in Tyrol and Steiermark, most of them much mixed with carving, too numerous to describe. The intarsias at the Hofkirche at Innsbruck, begun in 1560 by Conrad Gottlieb, may, however, be mentioned as being remarkably fine. Schleswig Holstein is full of intarsias of the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th century, of which perhaps the finest are in the chapel of the Castle of Gottorp. The princes' prayer chamber or pew is elaborately panelled, and the panels are all filled with inlays, mostly arabesques. The door and wall panels have elaborate architectural forms in relief with base, frieze, and pilasters; and are also fully inlaid with arabesques, counterchanged bay by bay. The ceiling is coffered, and the male and female patterns are counterchanged diagonally. Bosses of lions' heads and rosettes project from the surfaces of the beams, between which the intarsia panels are flat. The central features in the several divisions are sunk, a central oblong with an oval in centre bearing the subject of the Resurrection and two side diamonds. The panels surrounding these have raised mouldings, so that there is considerable variety of level, and the whole is raised on a bracketed cornice, the flat surface of which has small panels inlaid in the same fashion. It was put up in 1612 by Duke Johann Adolf of Schleswig Holstein and his wife, Augusta of Denmark. [Illustration: Plate 39.--_Panel from Church of S. Mary Magdalene, Breslau._ _To face page 86._] [Illustration: Plate 40.--_Pilaster strip from the Magdalen Church, Breslau._] In the State archives of Schleswig, in 1608, the names of Andreas Sallig, court joiner; Jochim Rosenfeldt, carver; and others are noted. Also in 1609, with the addition of the painter Herman Uhr and Hans and Jürgen Dreyer, of Schleswig; also the carver Hans Preuszen, and Adam Wegener, the figure-cutter. In 1610 the names of Jürgen Koningh, joiner's workman, several carvers, and Herman Uhr, the painter, occur. In 1611 Herman Uhr and Klaus Barck work in the chapel, the first for 115 days, and the second for 178 days, and in 1612 several carvers and turners work for a long time at the rate of five "schillings" a day, as well as Herman Uhr and his assistant. These records distinctly suggest that the painter Herman Uhr was the designer, since his name is the only one which appears for four years consecutively, though the long period during which he worked in 1612 may be explained by the number of paintings which cover a portion of the exterior of the pew. [Illustration: Plate 41.--_Panel from S. Elizabeth's Church, Breslau._ _To face page 88._] In South Germany one often meets with musical instruments which are inlaid with conventionalised floral forms. They were produced in the 17th century in considerable quantities in Wurtemburg, Bavaria, and on the Southern Shores of Lake Constance. Nor must one forget the extraordinarily elaborate ivory inlays on the stocks of arquebuses. In the Wallace collection are many examples, and attention may be drawn to a jewel box made in 1630 by Conrad Cornier, arquebus mounter, which is decorated with most elaborate scrolls, leaves, and birds of ivory and mother-of-pearl, stained green in parts. It is made of walnut, and has metal scrolls at the corners of the panel framing. The German inlays on the whole rather run to arabesques and strapwork, or naturalistic vases of flowers, with butterflies and birds; one meets occasional perspectives and even figures, but the work is generally harder and less successful than the Italian technique, with a larger and less intelligent use of scorched tints. In the latter part of the 17th century they often made the ground of a cabinet or panelling of one wood and the mouldings which defined the panels and the carved ornaments added of another, or even of two others; the effect is not quite happy. Tortoiseshell also appears, and metal and coloured stones; the striving after what they thought to be greater artistry soon caused them to outstep more and more the proper limits of the art, and brought about decadence. The South German bride chests of the century before are decorated a good deal with inlays, Peter Flotner's designs often serving as patterns; a little green and red appear mixed with the commoner colours. The architectural forms project, and would form a tolerable design by themselves, though scarcely suitable to the object to which they are applied. In German work the cabinets are often of the most elaborate architectural design, like the façade of a palace, made of ebony, or occasionally even of ivory, and inlaid with ivory, silver, gold and enamels or precious stones. Augsburg was the most celebrated place for such work. The joiner, the woodcarver, the lapidary, and the goldsmith all worked together on such things. In the North of Germany tarsia was principally used on chests, cabinets, seats, and smaller objects of furniture; in South Germany, where the Italian influence was stronger, it was much used in wall-panelling and the panels of doors. The little castle of Völthurn, near Brixen, built by the bishop of that town in 1580-85 and decorated by Brixener artists and joiners (now belonging to Prince Lichtenstein), shows "panelled walls with architectural features, columns, cornices, and friezes, with gabled doorways with columns and pediments, decorated with very delicate intarsias, foliage ornaments, flowers, and fruit, a work which modern Brixener joiners could with difficulty understand"; so says Von Falke. Ebony and ivory work came to Germany in the latter half of the 16th century, when Augsburg and Nuremberg soon exported their productions of this sort to all the world, and with this commercial production the use of male and female designs begins, black on white and white on black. The latter is the better and more valued. Hans Schieferstein's cabinet, now at Dresden, a work of this period, has an ingenious use of this mode of inlay. It is made of ebony or veneered with that wood, and has inlays of brown cypress and of ivory. The panel on the inside of the door is of the same design as that on the outside, but what was white becomes brown, what was brown is black, and the black becomes white. [Illustration: Plate 42.--_Lower panel of door, 1564--Tyrolese._ _To face page 90._] In the Musée Cluny is a wire drawing bench made in 1565 for Augustus I., Elector of Saxony, who was an amateur craftsman. The two longitudinal surfaces are covered with a double frieze of marquetry, one side representing a satirical tournament between the Papacy and Lutheranism, and the other a carousal of wild men. In front one sees the marqueteur with his tools doing his work, below which he has placed his monogram, L--D., accompanied by a cup. In the Museum at Leipzig is a very fine cabinet, with many drawers within, elaborately inlaid with arabesques on a light ground, with a few architectural forms in ebony projecting. It is Tyrolese work of the beginning of the 17th century, and is a typical example. To the few names of German intarsiatori may be added those of Isaac Kiening, of Frissen, and Sixtus Loblein, of Landshut. In the lower Rhine and in Holland tarsia was used for great and small chests, sideboards and doors with rich gable crownings, with good drawing of flowers, and sprigs of leaves with birds and beasts among them, the ground being generally light. The doors ordered by the Swedish Chamberlain, Axel Oxenstiern, now in the drinking-room of the King's Castle of Ulriksdal, near Stockholm, are said by Von Falke to be the finest examples extant of this kind of work, and to have been made in the 17th century by a Dutch craftsman. The best period in Holland was the second half of the 16th and the first half of the 17th century. In the work of this period the handling is broad, and the composition often a little over-full, but the many different woods which Dutch commerce made available seduced the marqueteurs into too pictorial a treatment in point of colour. Their reputation was so great that Colbert engaged two Dutch marqueteurs, Pierre Gole and Vordt, for the Gobelins at the beginning of the 17th century, and Jean Macé also learnt the craft by a long stay in Holland. Here, as well as in France and Italy, rich chairs were commonly decorated with marquetry, and in William and Mary's reign such things became the fashion in England. The design employed tulips and other flowers, foliage, birds, etc., all in gay colours; ivory and mother-of-pearl were used occasionally for salient points, such as eyes. Examples of the use and misuse of these materials may be seen in the Victoria and Albert Museum at South Kensington. [Illustration: Plate 43.--_Top of card table in the Drawing-room, Roehampton House. Dutch, 18th Century._ _To face page 92._] [Illustration: Plate 44.--_Panelling from Sizergh Castle, now in Victoria and Albert Museum._] Although not much work of importance is known in England which is certainly the production of native craftsmen, a few notable examples may be called to mind, such as the room from Sizergh Castle, now at South Kensington, with inlays of holly and bog-oak, and the fine suite of furniture at Hardwick Hall, made for Bess of Hardwick by English workmen who had been to Italy for some years. Correspondence passed between her and Sir John Thynne on the subject of the craftsmen employed by both, and there seems no doubt that Longleat and Hardwick were the work of the same men. The inlays upon the long table are particularly fine, and except for a certain clumsiness almost recall the glories of the great period of Italian marquetry. The cradle of James I. (1566) is enriched with inlays. At Gilling Castle, near Wakefield, are some panels inlaid with flowers, etc., which local tradition says were executed by some of the ladies of the family, which probably points to their having been done under their superintendence by local workmen, and small panels of rough inlay are not uncommon in chest and bedstead, overmantel and cabinet from the Jacobean period onward. S. Mary Overie, Southwark, possesses a fine parish chest decorated with a good deal of Dutch-looking inlay in conjunction with carving, and a rather unusual piece of work may be seen at Glastonbury Hall, where the treads and landings of the oak stairs are inlaid with mahogany and a light wood with stars and lozenges and a cartouche with a monogram and date 1726. The use of satin wood came into fashion towards the end of the eighteenth century, and was accompanied by a delicate inlay of other woods, which, however, scarcely went beyond the simplest ornament, since the decoration of furniture by means of painting became fashionable at nearly the same period. [Illustration: Plate 45.--_Cabinet with falling front, in the drawing-room, Roehampton House._ _To face page 94._] It was in France that the most wonderful achievements of the later marqueteurs were produced, which have made French furniture recognised by the public as well as by connoisseurs as an art manufacture, in conjunction with the wonderfully chiselled ormolu mountings. Mention is made of intarsia in France as early as the end of the fifteenth century, however. In the inventory of Anne of Brittanny's effects (1498) may be read "ung coffret faict de musayeque de bois et d'ivoire," and in a still earlier one of the Duke de Berry's, dated 1416, is mentioned a "grant tableau, où est la passion de Nostre Seigneur, fait de poins de marqueterie." This is as early as the intarsias of Domenico di Nicolò at Siena, and was probably of foreign manufacture. In 1576 a certain Hans Kraus was called "marqueteur du roi," but the first Frenchman known to have practised the art is Jean Macé of Blois, who was at work in Paris from 1644 or earlier to 1672 as sculptor and painter. He is said to have been the first who brought intarsia into France, under the name of "marqueterie," having been for some time in the Netherlands. His title was "menuisier et faiseur de Cabinets et tableaux en marqueterie de bois." He was lodged in the Louvre in 1644 (when Louis XIV. was six years old), "en honneur de la longue et belle pratique de son art dans les Pays Bas." His daughter married Pierre Boulle, who in 1619 was turner and joiner to the King, probably both to Louis XIII. and Henry IV. In 1621 Paul Boulle was born, and five years later Jacques. The family was settled at Charenton-le-Pont, near Paris, the principal town of the Huguenots for eighty years. Here, in 1649, Pierre Boulle was buried, the father of seven children. The earlier seventeenth century designs show picturesque landscapes or broken ruins or figures, _motifs_ which recur a century later, as in the beautiful panel signed "Follet" in the Cabinet by Claude Charles Saunier in the Wallace collection. The colours are occasionally stained, and ebony and ivory are favourite materials. It is impossible to fix the exact time when copper and tortoiseshell came into use in France. Some of the cabinets in which they appear are certainly of the period of Louis XIII. It was probably imported either from Spain or Flanders; it became very fashionable about the middle of the seventeenth century, and ended by entirely absorbing the official orders of the Court of Louis XIV. With this work the name of Boulle is indissolubly associated. Pierre Boulle was lodged in the Louvre about 1642. In 1636 he is on the list for 400 livres annually. Jean Boulle died in the Louvre in 1680. He was the father of André Charles probably, who was born in November, 1642, and the nephew of Pierre. André Charles Boulle in 1672 succeeded to the lodging of Jean Macé in the same building, and seven years later by a second brévet to the "demilogement," formerly occupied by Guillaume Petit "to allow him to finish the works executed for His Majesty's service." It is told of him by a contemporary that the talented boy wanted to be a painter, but his father would not allow it, and insisted upon his keeping to handicraft. He was a man of most varied talent; when he was first granted apartments in the Louvre it was as "joiner, marqueteur, gilder, and chiseller," and in the decree of Louis XIV., by which he was appointed the first art-joiner to the King, he is called "architect, sculptor, and engraver." He had a passion for collecting drawings, paintings, and other works of art, and when his workshops were burnt his collection was valued at 60,000 livres. This taste brought him into money difficulties, and in 1704 his creditors obtained a decree against him, and he would have been imprisoned if the King had not extended the safeguard of the Palace of the Louvre to him on condition that he made an arrangement with them. He was a member of the Academy of S. Luke as sculptor and brass engraver. The Cabinet of the Dauphin was considered his masterpiece, in which the walls and ceiling were covered with mirrors in ebony frames, with inlays of rich gilding, and the floor laid with wood mosaic, in which the initials of the Dauphin and his wife were intertwined. The drawing made for it is now in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, but the work itself no longer exists. On August 30th, 1720, his works were burnt, it was thought by a thief whom the workmen of Marteau, his neighbour at the Louvre, had surprised some months before and punished summarily, who, by way of vengeance on the "menuisiers," set fire to the "ébénistes." Nearly everything he possessed was either burnt, lost, or stolen; models of the value of 37,000 livres, wood and tools worth 25,000, many pieces of furniture finished or in course of construction; works in metal, as well as in wood, and his whole collection of drawings, paintings, and objects of art. His total loss was estimated by experts at 383,780 livres, more than 1,000,000 of francs in the money of to-day, from which an income of 50,000 francs might be expected. This valuation was on an inventory drawn up shortly after, perhaps for the purpose of getting the King's help. The number of undeniable productions of his hand is small, but objects which came from the studio after his death are tolerably plentiful since his four sons carried on the business, though not the inspiration; contemporaries characterised them as "apes." Two commodes which were in Louis XVI.'s bedroom at Versailles are now in the Bibliothêque Mazarin, and a chest which was forgotten in the Custom House at Havre now belongs to the museum of that city. A cabinet is in the Mobilier National, and a pedestal is in the Grünes Gewölbe at Dresden. Other genuine Boulles are in the Wallace collection, in the Rothschild collection, and at the Hotel Cluny. A writing table, for which the millionaire Samuel Bernard (who died in 1739), a great collector of art treasures, had given 50,000 livres, appears to be lost. M. Luchet asks, with some truth, "Can you imagine a financier, Jew or Christian, paying 100,000 francs for a new bureau? Old, it would be another thing--an object of art to sell." Boulle was most careful over his materials. He had 12,000 livres worth of wood in his stores, fir, oak, walnut, battens, Norwegian wood, all collected and kept long and carefully for the benefit of the work. He also used real tortoiseshell, which, is replaced in the economical art industry of the day with gelatine. The mountings were always chiselled, cast quite roughly, so that the artist did nearly everything. He was helped in this part of the work by Domenico Cucci and others. The inlay, instead of being tortoiseshell, may have been horn, mother-of-pearl, ivory, or wood; the motive, instead of brass, may be pewter, silver, aluminium, or gold; it is still known by the name of Boulle work. Boulle himself worked intarsia of wood also at intervals all through his life. He died February 29th, 1732. [Illustration: Plate 46.--_Cabinet belonging to Earl Granville. Boulle work of about 1740._ _To face page 96._] [Illustration: Plate 47.--_Top of writing table in the Saloon, Roehampton House. Period of Louis XV._] [Illustration: Plate 48.--_Encoignure, signed J. F. Oeben, in the Jones bequest, Victoria and Albert Museum._ _To face page 98._] His pupil, J. F. Oëben, became "ébéniste du roi," with a lodging in the _dépendances_ of the Arsenal in 1754. He was marqueteur especially. Examples of his work are both at South Kensington and in the Wallace collection, and in the Gallerie d'Apollon at the Louvre is the great secretary bureau, which he was making for Louis XV. at the time of his death, in or about 1765. His widow carried on the establishment; her foreman, J. Henry Riesener, completed the unfinished work. He was also a German, born in 1735 at Gladbach, near Cologne, and coming to Paris quite young entered Oëben's atelier. On his death he was made foreman, and two years after, when he was thirty-two years of age, married his master's widow. The year following 1768 he was received as master _menuisier ébéniste_. In 1776 his wife died, and six years after he married again, but was divorced as soon as the new legislation allowed it. When he was married the first time he had no fortune, but fifteen years after he declared in his marriage contract that there was then owing to him by the King, the royal family, and other debtors 504,571 livres, without counting the finished objects in his warehouses, his models of bronze, his jewels, and personal effects, and several important life annuities. Between 1775 and 1785 he received from the Garde Meuble 500,000 livres, so profitable had the production of furniture of the highest class become. He was in full work at the time of the Revolution, and two of his finest pieces bear the dates 1790 and 1791 in their marquetry. When the furniture of the royal residences was sold, Riesener bought back several pieces, being aided by Charles Delacroix, the husband of his first wife's daughter, who directed the sale at Versailles. He tried to sell these again, but with poor success, and when he died, on January 8th, 1806, at the age of 71, he was again almost without fortune. His beautiful bureau secretary in the Wallace collection, made for Stanislas Leczinski, King of Poland, and dated 1769, shows him at his best. The workmanship is superb, and the design most pleasing, almost the only point to which exception may be taken being the crude green, obtained by staining, here and there. The half-length of Secrecy in the oval cartouche at the back is as good as the best Italian figure work, and was often reproduced by him. The flower panels are particularly delicate and beautiful. There is an upright secretary, also by him, in the same collection almost equally delicate and beautiful in its marquetry decorations. The diaper patterns so characteristic of this period are most beautifully executed, but are not very interesting, and the mountings take the interest rather from the marquetry, becoming more and more delicately designed and elaborately worked. The principal woods used by Riesener were tulip and rose wood, holly, maple, laburnum, purple wood, and sometimes snake wood. His contemporary, David Roentgen, used principally pear, lime, and light-coloured woods, burnt for the shades. [Illustration: Plate 49.--_Panel from back of Riesener's bureau, made for Stanislas Leczinski, with figure of Secrecy._ _To face page 100._] [Illustration: Plate 50.--_Roundel from bureau, made for Stanislas Leczinski, King of Poland, now in the Wallace Collection._ _To face page 102._] Paris has endured a regular invasion of German craftsmen from the middle of the eighteenth century, and the Faubourg S. Antoine still has a number of German-born joiners among its workmen. Among the most celebrated of them was David Roentgen, born either at Neuwied or Herrenhagen in 1743. In 1772 he succeeded his father, Abraham Roentgen, in his business at Neuwied am Rhein, which he had founded in 1753, and from which he retired into the house of the Moravian brethren, where he lived for twenty years longer. The engraver Wille relates that he came to his house in Paris in 1774 with letters of recommendation, and that he put him in touch with designers and sculptors. When Marie Antoinette became Queen he was appointed "Ébéniste méchanicien" to the Queen. He was in such good odour with her as to be charged on several occasions to carry presents to her mother and sisters. Her favour excited the jealousy of the other joiners, and they contested his right to sell foreign-made furniture. He got out of this difficulty by being admitted a member of their corporation on May 24th, 1780. He was so entirely master of his craft, and increased its resources so much by using exotic woods, that contemporary opinion thought it difficult to imagine greater success in the particular direction in which he worked. In 1779 he showed a table of marquetry, made in a new fashion, which he described as a mosaic, "in which the shades are neither burnt, nor engraved, nor darkened with smoke, as one has been obliged to express them until now," a return in fact to the earlier Italian method. His designs were many of them made by Johann Zick of Coblenz, others by Jean Baptiste Le Prince, chinoiseries, and shepherd games. Under him the later German marqueterie reached its highest point. His works went all over Europe, from St. Petersburg to Paris, and replicas were ordered by those who were obliged to forego the originals. He sold to Catherine of Russia a series of articles of furniture for 20,000 roubles, and the Empress added a present of 5000 roubles and a gold snuff-box. The King of Prussia was his constant protector, and in February, 1792, gave him the title of Secret Councillor, and in November of the same year named him Royal Agent on the Lower Rhine. The Revolution ruined him, and he was obliged in 1796 to close his factory. He abandoned France at this period, and the Government, considering him as an "Emigré," seized all his effects in 1793, including the furniture made at Neuwied, then in his stores. He died at Wiesbaden in 1807. With him these incomplete historical notes may terminate. Many of the names mentioned are but names, while in many cases names and works cannot be connected, for the carver and intarsiatori were often, like other craftsmen, content to do the work without caring about the reputation of doing it; but the cases in which facts of the lives or work of these men have been preserved are so much the more interesting from their rarity, and certainly do not show them to any disadvantage compared with other artists, or those among whom their lives were passed. THE PROCESS OF MANUFACTURE The early mode of working intarsia in Italy, where it is more than 100 years more ancient than in any other country, was by sinking forms in the wood, according to a prearranged design, and then filling the hollows with pieces of different coloured woods. At first the number of colours used was very small--indeed, Vasari says that the only tints employed were black and white, but this must be interpreted freely, since the colour of wood is not generally uniform, and there would consequently often be a difference in tint in portions cut from different parts of the same plank. A cypress chest of 1350, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, shows another mode of decoration standing between tarsia proper and the mediæval German and French fashion of sinking the ground round the ornament and colouring it. In this example the design is incised, the ground cleared out to a slight depth, and the internal lines of the drawing and the background spaces filled in with a black mastic, the result much resembling niello. If dark wood be substituted for the mastic background we have almost the effect of the stalls of the chapel of the Palazzo Pubblico at Siena, which, though an early work of Domenico di Nicolò, are well considered in design, well executed, and quite satisfactory in point of harmony between material and design. [Illustration: Plate 51.--_Antonio Barili at work, by himself._ _To face page 104._] At the commencement of the Renaissance the fancy of the intarsiatori overflowed in the most graceful arabesques, which are perfectly suited to the material and are often executed with absolute perfection, and these may perhaps be held to be the most entirely satisfactory of their works, though not the most marvellous. The ambition of the craftsman led him to emulate the achievements of the painter, and we find, after the invention of perspective drawing, views of streets and other architectural subjects, which are not always very successful, and the representation of cupboards, the doors of which are partly open, showing objects of different kinds on the shelves, which are often rendered with the most extraordinary realism, when the means adopted are considered.[3] This realism was much assisted by Fra Giovanni da Verona's discovery of acid solutions and stains for treating the wood, so as to get more variety of colour, and by the practice of scorching portions of the pieces of which the subject was composed, thus suggesting roundness by means of shading. It was a common practice to increase the decorative effect by means of gilding and paint, thus obtaining a brilliancy of colour at the expense of unity of effect sometimes, one may think, if one may judge from the panels in the stalls at the Certosa of Pavia--though perhaps it is scarcely fair to take them as examples of the effect of the older work since they have been restored in modern times. At the best period it was used almost entirely for church furniture and the furnishings of public edifices, in Italy at least, and many of the ranges of stalls still occupy their original positions. [Illustration: Plate 52.--_Panel from the Victoria and Albert Museum._ _To face page 106._] The principal woods used in the work of the best period were pear, walnut, and maple, though pine and cypress also appear. Ebony was imitated with a tincture of gall apples, green was obtained with verdigris, and red with cochineal. Sublimate of mercury, arsenical acid, and sulphuric acid were also used to affect the colour of the wood. This treatment lessened its lasting power, and often caused its decay through the attacks of worms. The scorching was done with molten lead, or in very dark places with a soldering-iron. It is now done with hot sand. The following technical description is taken from a German book of 1669--"Wood-workers paint with quite thin little bits of wood, which are coloured in different ways, and the same are put together after the form of the design in hollowed-out panels, fastened with glue and polished with an iron on the surface so that they may become quite smooth. They paint at the present time in this manner tables and jewel chests or trays, and all in the highest artistic manner. Also separate pictures are put together, which copy the works of the most celebrated masters. First, they take small, very thin pieces of pear or lime dyed through with different colour-stuffs, which are prepared by certain processes, so that the wood is the same colour within and without. Then they give them their several shapes as the kind of picture requires, cutting them according to the size and shape, and stick them with glue on the board. In the place of wood they sometimes use bone, horn, and tortoiseshell cut into fine strips, also ivory and silver. The whole work is called by the Germans 'Einlegen' or 'Furnieren,' because although each piece is separate from the others no part is taken out from the surface in which such figures are inlaid, but the whole is covered." With the use of the fret-saw for cutting the patterns, and the consequent discovery of the possibility of counterchanging the ground and the design (that which was black becoming white, and _vice versâ_), called male and female forms, the manufacture of tarsia, or marquetry rather, commenced to take a more commercial aspect, the cost being considerably reduced by the making of several copies by one sawing. This is the process used at the present day. The durability of inlaid work depends upon the tightness and completeness with which the inlaid parts are fitted together or mortised into the main body or bed of the wood, and also on the level grounding out of the matrix. In Spanish and Portuguese work ivory or ebony pins or pegs were used also. Marquetry is a form of veneering, and the operation is thus conducted:--The under surface of the veneer and the upper surface of the bed are both carefully levelled and toothed over so as to get a clean, newly-worked surface; the ground is then well wetted with glue, at a high temperature, and the two surfaces pressed tightly together so as to squeeze as much out as possible. The parts are screwed down on heated metal beds, or between wooden frames, made so as to exactly fit the surfaces in every part, called "cauls," until the glue is hard. In cutting the patterns of Boulle work two or three slices of material, such as brass and tortoiseshell or ebony, are glued together with paper between, so that they may be easily separated when the cutting is done. Another piece of paper is glued outside, upon which the pattern is indicated. A fine watch spring saw is then introduced through a hole in an unimportant part of the design, and the patterns sawn out as in ordinary fretwork. The slices are then separated, and that cut out of one slice is fitted into the others so that one cutting produces several repetitions of the design with variations in ground and pattern. When there are only two slices of material the technical term for them is Boulle and Counter. When the various parts have been arranged in their places, face downwards, paper is glued over them to keep the whole in place, and filings of the material rubbed in to fill up any interstices. The whole is then toothed over and laid down in the same manner as ordinary veneer, the ground being first rubbed over with garlic, or some acid, to remove any traces of grease. Marquetry of wood is made in the same way, but more thicknesses of wood are put together to be sawn through, as many as four not being an unusual number, while for common work even eight may be sawn at one time, and the various sheets are pinned together only with a stiff backing of common veneer of good thickness to steady the work. Dye woods are used as far as possible, and holly stained to the required colour serves for greens and blues and a few other tints. Pearl is always cut in one thickness, and is glued down on a backing of wood at least 1/8-inch thick. Another mode of cutting the design approximates more nearly to the ancient practice. The whole design is drawn on paper attached to the ground, or counter, and cut out entirely. The various portions of inlay are then cut from different veneers of the desired colour and fitted into their places. Another method is to paste the paper with the whole design on the ground, and on it to paste the various ornaments cut from suitable veneers, then to cut through the ground, the saw grazing the edges of the ornamental forms. The parts so cut out are then pushed through the ornaments, separated from the paper, and laid down in the vacant places. A variation on this method is to cut out the forms to be inlaid in different veneers, and glue them in their proper positions on a sheet of paper. A sheet of white paper is pasted on the veneer, which is to serve as the ground. A sheet of blackened paper is laid over it, and over this the sheet with the forms to be inlaid, which are then struck with a light mallet, so as to print an impression of their edges upon the paper. The printed shapes are then cut out one at a time, care being taken to make the saw exactly follow the outline. The object of all these processes is, of course, to ensure the ground and the inlaid forms exactly fitting. After cleaning the surface from paper and glue it is smoothed with plane and scraper, and the markings on leaves or other figures made by a graver, if not already made by saw cuts, and they and the lines between the male and female forms are filled with shellac or wood-dust and glue. In Germany the veneers used are one to two millimetres thick, _i.e._, one-twenty-fifth or two-twenty-fifths of an inch. The principal woods used are walnut, pear, ash, bird maple, holly, olive, amboyna, rose wood, violet wood, thuya, and palisander, which name is also used on the Continent for rose wood and violet, though it is really a sort of cedar. Tortoiseshell, ivory, and metal plates are also used, principally of pewter, brass, and zinc. Seeman's Kunstgewerbliche Handbücher advise thus:--"When ivory or hard precious metals are used it is better to divide the design into smaller parts. To avoid damage to the effect by time and change of colour in the woods such combinations as the following are to be preferred:--Mahogany and black walnut, pear and black walnut, Hungarian ash and black thuya, pear and palisander, brass and black, etc. For fine, small ornament smooth, even-textured woods should be used such as pear, mahogany, maple, or holly; for broad patches and backgrounds, which are not required to be dark, you should use patterned or streaked woods, like bird maple, amboyna, thuya, or olive. Ivory, mother-of-pearl, and metals in large pieces look hard and loud, so it is better to use them in quite small pieces. If engraved, larger pieces may be employed and used for inscription tablets, coats of arms, and cartouches, or for bits of figures, birds, and butterflies. Shading may be done in various ways. Lines may be engraved and filled up with a glue cement, or hatchings may be drawn with a scorching solution, or the wood may be burnt with hot sand. The sand is made hot in an iron pot, and the piece to be darkened inserted. Or it may be scorched with a hot iron or spirit or gas flame. The simplest way is with the poker used in poker work." In England the sand is heaped upon a metal plate which is heated underneath. The veneer is held with tweezers and pushed into the sand, the gradation of heat giving gradation of tone. The hot sand shrinks the wood, and allowance must be made for this. Veneers are both saw and knife cut; the saw wastes about as much as the thickness cut in sawdust. They range from 8 to 15 to the inch. The French saw-cut their veneers thinner than the English do. The woods in every-day use at the present day are white holly, box, pear (in various shades), and holly (dyed all colours); while the veneer merchants sometimes supply also planetree, sycamore, chestnut, Brazilwood, yellow fustic, barwood, tulipwood, kingwood, East and West India satinwood, rosewood, ebony, ash, harewood, Indian purplewood, hornbeam, and snakewood. Bird's-eye maple and partridgewood may also be bought. Dye woods used for marquetry--Braziletto, cam wood, logwood, Nicaragua, red sanders, sapan, ebony, fustic (a species of mulberry), Zante (a species of sumach). "Ebony is the black pear tree of Madagascar, at least they make cider of its fruit." So says M. Luchet in an interesting excursus on furniture manufacture in his book on the Paris Exhibition of 1867, in which he gives further details of ancient manufacture and its modern imitation. "I know a factory," he says, "where the tortoiseshell is false, the mother-of-pearl false, the ivory holly wood; the brass is the only real thing, because science applied to industry has not yet found out how to imitate it. When Boulle employed wood in his work it was ebony--they have abandoned that for blackened pear wood, under the pretext that ebony is a hard, close wood which twists, splits, and cracks, takes glue badly, and refuses varnish. So that they call a man who never uses ebony 'ébéniste.' They did not trouble about these things in the time of Louis XIV. They never varnished their furniture, so it did not matter that ebony would not take varnish.... There are two sorts of tortoiseshell, that of the Antilles, often bad and scaly, but good enough for common work, because it is thin and equal in thickness, and a little carmine vermilion gives it a not unpleasant red tint. The Indian tortoiseshell is thick and opaque and unequal, demanding preparation and welding. It can only be used for expensive work, and takes easily a black preparation which makes it magnificently austere." One ought to mention here that good shell was often treated with carmine vermilion or with gold, and that without a colour background it loses half its beauty and value. "In modern times six or eight couples of shell and metal are sawn together, whereas two was the number in the fine period. This saves money. A new Boulle bed, secretary, or chest of drawers should cost 15 to 20,000 francs. You may easily get one for 2000 made of rubbish. An honest chest of drawers with tolerable mountings is worth 1500 francs. In gelatine tortoiseshell and brass or zinc of the future 100 is the price.... The mode still practised in Paris of making a good 'placage' in preparation for marquetry or Boulle work is as follows:--A thicker or thinner sheet of Italian poplar is placed between two sheets of oak with the grain the other way, then on the external sheet of oak is placed the wood intended to be seen, also with the grain the other way, the whole of convenient thickness, and glued with the best glue. Good glue is the nurse of the wood, say the masters. These four or five thicknesses of wood pulling against each other neutralise all bad effects, and the result is very good. The external covering is usually either mahogany, American walnut, or violet wood (a sort of cedar). Sometimes it is ebony, or perhaps a collection of small pieces of wood, such as acacia, which are called by all sorts of pretty names. It is of this fine and good 'plaqué' that they still make cupboards at 1000 francs, beds at 600 francs, and bureaus at 800 francs, which are the success and the pride of Parisian joinery." The marqueteurs of Nice made use of olive for veined grey backgrounds, orange and lemon for pale yellow, carob for dark red, jujube tree for rose colour, holly for white, and charred fig for black; arbutus served for dark flesh, and sumach for light. It is advisable after the marquetry has been put together to reduce the surface to a level and do something in the way of polishing, though it is not necessary to carry the process as far as is often done by the cheap furniture manufacturers. If nothing but wood has been used, the surface should be reduced to a level with a toothing plane and scraped with a joiner's scraper, taking care to apply it obliquely to the joints as far as possible, so as to avoid digging down and so failing in the object aimed at. If done very well and carefully it sometimes only requires to be rubbed down with its own shavings, but it is more usually necessary to follow with a worn piece of glass-paper on a flat piece of cork, but the dust must not be allowed to collect into hard lumps upon it, as these lumps would scratch the surface. Holtzapffel says that when metal, ivory, pearl, shell, or tortoiseshell are mixed with the wood the surface must be carefully levelled with flat files, ending with a very smooth one, after which the scraper should be used if possible and followed by glass or emery paper very sparingly. When metal preponderates emery paper is best, and really good _sand_ paper may also be used, but all paper should have very little "cut," should be applied dry, and allowed to become clogged, so as to act principally as a hard dry rubber or burnisher. If the polishing is at all in excess the wood will get rubbed or worn down below the metal. The fine finish required when tortoiseshell and metal are used is got by rubbing with blocks of charcoal used endways with oil and the finest rotten-stone powder, much like polishing marble, using oil instead of water. Wet polishing should not be used for inlaid works; the water may soften the glue. A superficial wetting is likely to warp the woods and make them curl up at the edges, and the grain of the wood is almost certain to rise. Oil is better than water, but light woods are almost certain to become stained by polishing powders and fluid. To avoid this modern marquetry is often covered with varnish applied with friction like French polish, or laid on in several coats with a brush and polished off with pumice and rotten stone, like the Vernis Martin, being first levelled with a file or scraper and smoothed with glass-paper. FOOTNOTES: [3] The panel illustrated from the Albert and Victoria Museum is a good average specimen of this kind, but not quite a masterpiece. THE LIMITATIONS AND CAPABILITIES OF THE ART The process described, by which the early works in intarsia were produced, was slow and tedious; and, as may be supposed, though fame might be won by its exercise, the winning of fortune was a very different thing. Domenico di Nicolò, who made the stalls in the chapel of the Palazzo Pubblico, Siena, and was thence called "del Coro," or "dei Cori," a name which descended to his children in place of their proper name of Spinelli, is an example in point. The petitions to the priors already referred to, printed in Milanesi's Documenti per la Storia dell' Arte Senese, show how little a man of talent, who was constantly employed for many years and gained great reputation in his art, could do to provide for his old age; and many returns of both painters, sculptors, and woodworkers, made for the purposes of taxation and printed in the same book, show that even in a great and flourishing town like Siena, which prided itself on its artistic reputation, it was often most difficult for the craftsmen, on whose work that reputation was based, to make a living.[4] It is true that there were thirty-four workshops for wood carving and intarsia in Florence at one time (1478, as Fabroni says in his life of Lorenzo the Magnificent), from which one may conclude that work of a certain sort was plentiful and lucrative, and panels of intarsia were certainly sometimes exported, but it may be observed that all the most celebrated intarsiatori practised some other form of art also, and generally abandoned intarsia sooner or later; the exceptions being those who belonged to the Olivetan and Dominican orders, and therefore had no anxiety about their living. Of these craftsmen the most celebrated were Fra Giovanni da Verona and Fra Damiano of Bergamo, whose works were so elaborate and so finely executed as to excite the suspicion that they were painted with the brush, though supposed to be executed with wood and the chisel. The anecdote of the Emperor Charles V.'s trial of Fra Damiano's tarsia panel in S. Domenico, Bologna, attests the wonderful quality of the work, and its success in attaining a doubtful aim, and Barili's inscription in the panel showing himself at work shows that it was not uncommon for such panels to be supposed to be the work of the brush. The designs from which the intarsia was executed were often furnished by painters of repute, and pictures or portions of pictures were copied, a proceeding which Fra Giovanni's discovery of stains and washes of different kinds made easier, until the proper limits of the art were far overpassed, and its decorative quality quite lost sight of in the attempt to rival a form of art the requirements of which were quite different. The beautiful arabesques, which the designers of the early Renaissance poured forth with exhaustless fertility, show the capabilities of the process for decorating flat surfaces, and the perspectives of cupboards and buildings were often most successful without passing the limits imposed by the material. The question of the limits within which the craftsman's effort should be confined in any form of art craftsmanship is a thorny one, for the attempt to overstep those limits has always had attractions for the craftsman who is master of his craft, and who sighs for fresh fields to conquer, knowing better than the outsider what are the difficulties which he has overcome successfully in any piece of work from the side of craftsmanship, though often with disastrous results when the matter is regarded from the point of view of excellence in design and purity of taste. It has been maintained by purists in modern times that all engraving or shading of the pieces of wood used in forming the design is illegitimate; and if this be so, it is equally illegitimate to stain any of them; but it is undeniable that a great addition to the resources of the inlayer was made by the discoveries of Fra Giovanni, and it seems unreasonable to refuse to make any use of them because later intarsiatori abused these means of gaining effect. The earliest work, it is true, depends mainly upon silhouette for its beauty, but does not altogether disdain lines within the main outline, and the abandonment of these inner lines, whether made by graver or saw, so reduces the possibilities of choice of subject as to restrict the designer to a simplicity which is apt to become bald. A great deal may be done by choice of pieces of wood and arrangement of the direction of the lines of the grain; some of Fra Giovanni's perspectives show very suggestive skies made in this manner, and Fra Damiano was very successful in thus suggesting the texture of much veined and coloured marble and of rocks, but directly the human figure enters into the design these expedients are felt to be insufficient and inexpressive, and inner lines have perforce to be introduced. The opposite extreme is such work as the panels by the brothers Caniana in the Colleoni Chapel at Bergamo, in which the composition and drawing of the figures recall the designs of the Caracci, and the technique of the shading reminds one of a copper plate, while the tinting and gradation of the colours take away all impression of a work in wood, substituting that of a coloured engraving. Here it is quite evident that the desire to imitate pictorial qualities has led the craftsman far away from what should have been his aim, viz., to display the qualities of the material which he was using to the best advantage, consistently with the position and purpose of his work in it. Not that perfection of workmanship is to be decried, though it is only occasionally that one is able to make use of, or indeed produce it. But the æsthetic sense demands that consideration for material and purpose in every production which the joy and pride of the craftsman in overcoming difficulties sometimes prevents him from giving. Notwithstanding the beauty of much of the marquetry of the periods of Louis XIV. and Louis XV., one often feels that design has been put to one side in the endeavour to gain a realistic effect, and the same defect may be traced more clearly in the clumsier Dutch and German productions. Even in the Italian work of an earlier date every now and then the same fault peeps out, though the excellent taste of the nation at that period prevented the Italians from falling into such excesses, and one generally feels the wood even in their most elaborate perspectives. It may be asserted in a general way that the more colours are used the less likelihood is there of the effect being quite satisfactory, and that any light and shade introduced should be of the simplest kind. A slight darkening of parts of the wood to gain a certain suggestion of roundness is quite admissible, but the expedient should be used with discretion, lavish employment of it leading to heaviness of effect and a monotony of tone which are most unpleasing. If ivory or metals are introduced the greatest care is necessary to prevent them from giving a spotty and uneven effect to the design, for neither these two materials nor mother-of-pearl marry quite with the tone of the wood; and this inequality is likely to increase with age, as the wood becomes richer and mellower in colour. Such materials should be so used that the points where they occur may form a pattern in themselves independently of the rest of the design, so that the effect may be pleasing at first sight, before the general meaning of the less prominent details is realised. Any other way of using them courts failure, since the effect of the whole design is ruined by the uncalculated prominence and inequality of these materials here and there. The Dutch sometimes made use of mother-of-pearl, in pieces upon which engraving broke up the hard glitter of the material, mingled with brass wire and nails or studs driven into the surface of the wood. The two materials appear to be quite harmonious, and small articles decorated in this manner are effective and satisfactory. The Italian use of ivory for the decoration of musical instruments, chess and backgammon boards, and other small objects is almost always successful, the proportion between wood and ivory being well judged, and the forms of the ornament pleasing. [Illustration: _To face page 122._ Plate 53.--_Panel from S. Maria in Organo, Verona._] The modern French marquetry, though exceedingly clever and beautiful in its use of various woods, errs by want of consideration of the surface to be decorated, the subjects flowing over the surfaces and overflowing the proper boundaries very often; and also sins in using many woods of very slightly different tones and textures, which will almost certainly lose their reciprocal relation in the course of time, and thereby their decorative effect. The ancient intarsias were made of a small number of different woods, and the effect was kept simple; pear, white poplar, oak, walnut, and holly almost exhaust the list; while even Roentgen's work, in which he used a larger number of woods, including some of those foreign trees which Dutch commerce made available for him, has suffered from their changing and fading. I would advise the marqueteur to disregard most of the many foreign woods now in the market, and content himself with simple and well-proved effects for the most part, trusting rather to beauty of design to give distinction to his work than to variety of colour and startling effects of contrast. [Illustration: Plate 54.--_Panel from S. Maria in Organo, Verona._ _To face page 126._] It is the fashion at the present day to exhort the designer to found his design upon the study of nature, which is right enough if accompanied by discretion and a feeling for style. In many mouths, however, the exhortation means that the copying of natural forms is advised, and often, if one may judge from the examples which one sees around one, without selection either of subject or form. Now it is obvious that it is sometimes the beauty of form in natural objects which attracts the eye, and sometimes the beauty or strangeness of colours, either in their combination or from the unusual tint. And while the former quality fits the object for translation into ornament, by means of simplification and repetition, the latter is more likely to be the suggestive starting point for the production of something quite different than a factor in a directly-derived composition. Certain forms of flowers and leaves are also suitable for ornament expressed in a certain way, and when this harmony occurs the representation of nature is satisfactory as ornament; but the reverse is very often shown to be the case in work of a more modern type, in which the design is based on the dictum that the copying of natural forms will produce ornament. It is not the copying of natural forms, but the ordering of the spaces, the arranging and balancing of line and mass, and the adaptation of means to ends which produce satisfactory decoration, and in the best Italian intarsias founded upon freely-growing, natural plants this is well shown. The observation of natural growth shown in illustrations Nos. 53, 54, and 55 is considerable, but the panels are not so beautiful because the bay, the pink, or the lily are so well rendered, but because the pattern of waving lines is so well fitted to the space it has to fill, and the shapes of the silhouettes are so expressive. In the later French marquetry we often find an equal or almost equal dexterity in expressing the natural form, and an almost greater cleverness in adapting the design to the material; but the Italian work has a fineness of style shown in a grace of arrangement and of proportioning the ornament to the space to be filled which is unsurpassable. Certain remarks made by Mr. Stephen Webb, in a paper read to the Society of Arts on April 28, 1899, as to the qualities which the designer or craftsman must possess for successfully producing intarsia, are worth reproducing here as the sayings of a man who himself has done much beautiful work of the kind. "Tone harmony, and in a limited degree, the sense of values, he must certainly cultivate. He must be able to draw a line or combination of lines which _may_ be ingenious if you like, but _must_ be delicate and graceful, vigorous withal, and in proper relation to any masses which he may introduce into his design. He must thoroughly understand the value of contrast in line and surface form, but these matters, though a stumbling block to the amateur, are the opportunities of the competent designer and craftsman. The most charming possibilities of broken colour lie ready to his hand, to be merely selected by him and introduced into his design. If the wood be properly selected shading is rarely necessary, and if it is done at all should be done by an artist. In the hands of an artist very beautiful effects may be obtained, the same kind of wood being made to yield quite a number of varying shades of colour of a low but rich tone. Over-staining and the abuse of shading are destructive. Ivory has always been a favourite material with workers in tarsia, and in the hands of an experienced designer very charming things may be done with it. There is, however, no material suitable for tarsia which requires so much care and experience in its use. It is ineffective in light-coloured woods, and in the darker ordinary woods, such as ebony, stained mahogany, or rosewood, under polish, the contrast of colour is so great that the ivory must be used very sparingly. The ivory is sometimes stained in order to bring its colour more into harmony with a dark wood-ground, but it is never quite satisfactory. The use of inlay makes the direction from which the light enters the room a matter of no moment, so long as the light reaches the object decorated." The effect of intarsia has been sought by various imitative processes, some of which are indistinguishable from it except by close inspection. In one of these wax, either in its natural state or tinted with an addition of powder colour, was used; in another glue mixed with whiting or plaster, also sometimes tinged, or red lead. On April 7, 1902, a paper was read at the Royal Institute of British Architects on wax stoppings of this kind by Mr. Heywood Sumner, in the course of which he said that the process he himself had used was as follows:--"First trace the design on the panel of wood to be incised; cut it, either with a V tool or knife blade fixed in a tool-handle; clear out the larger spaces with a small gouge, leaving tool-mark roughness in the bottoms for key; when cut, stop the suction of the wood by several coats of white, hard polish. For coloured stoppings, resin (as white as can be got), beeswax, and powdered distemper are the three things needful. The melted wax may be run into the incisions by means of a small funnel with handle and gas jet affixed; it is attachable to the nearest gas burner by india-rubber tubing, so that a regulated heat can be applied to the funnel. When thus attached and heated, pieces of wax of the required inlay colour are dropped into the funnel, and soon there will be a run of melted wax dropping from the end of the funnel-spout, which is easily guided by means of the wooden handle, and thus the entire panel may be inlaid with the melted wax. Superfluous surface wax is cleared off with a broad chisel, so as to make the whole surface flush. The suction of the wood is stopped by means of white, hard polish, otherwise the hot wax will enter the grain of the wood and stain it. Incised panels may be filled successfully with japanner's gold size and powdered distemper colour, using a palette knife to distribute the slab mixture. A close grain is the one thing needful in the wood. As to design, that which is best suited may be compared to a broad sort of engraving." Red lead was also used sometimes, and in the furniture room at South Kensington there are several chests and other pieces of furniture which have the incised design filled in with a mixture of whiting, glue, and linseed oil. [Illustration: Plate 55.--_Panel from S. Pietro in Casinense, Perugia._ _To face page 130._] At Hardwick some of the door panels are painted with arabesques in Indian ink, and varnished (a process also employed on several pieces of furniture in the South Kensington collection), and even in certain cases, no doubt under the direction of Bess of Hardwick, engravings have been stuck on the panels, tinted, surrounded with similar painting, and then similarly varnished over. The sacristy cupboards at S. Maria delle Grazie, Milan, called "Lo Scaffale," show paintings of no less an artist than Luini, the ornamental part of which is intended to simulate tarsia. For small objects, such as trinket boxes, a marquetry of straw tinted to different colours was sometimes employed, which, though not very lasting, in the hands of a worker who possessed taste in colour sometimes produced pleasing results, a form of work practised both in Holland and England, and lasting well into the 19th century. The writer possesses one or two objects decorated by this process which were bought from the French prisoners taken in the Peninsular War, who provided themselves with little luxuries by making and selling them. In all these imitative processes the question of design becomes of the very highest importance, since the material has neither beauty nor intrinsic value in itself; and here, even more than in many other forms of manufacture, the presence and influence of the intelligent designer is most desirable, and should be paramount. FOOTNOTES: [4] In 1453 Matteo di Giovanni Bartoli, painter, says that he possesses the half of certain tools and appliances of his art, which are not worth 20 florins, and that the other half belongs to Giovanni di Pietro, painter, his partner. That they are in a house or dwelling that they hire from Guicciardo Forteguerri in the Palazzo Forteguerri, which they have as a house and not a shop, and that he has nothing else in the world but a few debts (!). He says that he makes no profit, but is learning as well as he can, and that his uncle, Ser Francescho di Bartolo, the notary, keeps him. This is a young and promising artist who cannot get on. Priamo della Quercia, brother of the celebrated sculptor Jacopo della Fonte, painter, says that he is poor and without anything to live on; that he has a girl of marriageable age and a young boy; that he owes money to several people. He had a dower of 200 florins which came from a possession which the nuns of Ogni Santi held, because they said that they were heirs to his daughter-in-law, a nun in that convent (!) and they had kept possession for six years and he could not sue these nuns at law on account of his poverty. There are several documents referring to money and property which his brother left to this man, but which he seems to have difficulty in obtaining possession of, and he gives one the impression of being unfortunate through life. In the same year Antonio di Ser Naddo, painter, says he has a house with an oven within the walls of Siena, "male in ponto," in which he lives in the Contrada of Camporegi. That he has three useless mouths in the house which gain nothing, two children, one a boy, and the other a girl of marriageable age, but if he dowered her, so that she could be married, he would have nothing to live on. Also that he owes 20 florins to various people. In the same year others, both painters and woodworkers, complain that they have nothing to live on and owe money, some saying that they have become old and poor in the art. In 1478 Ventura di Ser Giuliano, architect and woodcarver, says that he has a little house in the city division in the place called of S. Salvador, and that he is away at Naples because of his debts, for he is afraid to return. That he owes Ser Biagio, the priest, 80 florins and other persons 402. In 1488 Giovanni di Cristofano Ghini, painter, says that he has a vineyard at Terraia in the commune of S. Giorgio a Papaino from which he receives in dues about 24 florins. That he has a wife and three sons and nothing to keep them on. That five years ago he had sold all that he had in the house, for times were very bad. That though he sticks to his work so closely that he does not even go for a walk he has not made the bread which he has eaten in the last six years. That he and his father have to keep a sister who was married to Andreoccio d'Andrea di Pizichino with her three little sons unless they are to die of hunger, and that they have a girl of marriageable age in the house, his sister, "Che è il fiorimento d'ognichosa." In the same year Benvenuto di Giovanni says that he is obliged to work away from Siena because his gains are so small; and finally in 1521, Ventura di Ser Giuliano di Tura petitions the Balia as follows:--He was a master joiner and says that he passed his youth and almost all his age in gathering ancient objects and carvings, which the craftsmen of the city have copied, so that one may say that the antique in the city has been re-discovered by his labours. But that he has not by this benefit to the craftsmen provided for his old age, since both he and his wife have been very unwell for years past, and that he finds himself old, with four little daughters, "one no heavier than the other," so he asks for a little pension of eight lire a month (which has been suspended apparently), so that he may not have to go to the hospital for bread with his wife and the four little ones. WORKSHOP RECEIPTS The use of stains and chemical baths for changing the colour of the wood employed by the intarsiatori was common from the time of Fra Giovanni da Verona, to whom Vasari ascribes the invention, but is most distinctive of the work of the later Dutch and French marqueteurs. Receipts for the purpose were handed down from master to pupil, and while sometimes held as traditional secrets to be jealously guarded, were sometimes committed to writing; and several of these manuscripts have come down to us. The following have been collected from French, German, and Italian sources, and though not all of equal value, show the way in which the ancient workers produced the effects, most of which we admire in the present day:-- To stain wood yellow (No. 1).--Put saffron in water, and when it is well steeped place the jar over hot coals. Then spread the stuff over boxwood with a brush. To make it brilliant let it dry, and put it with oil on the wood to be coloured. (No. 2.)--Take the plant turmeric (curcuma longa), grind it to powder; put an ounce into a pint of spirit (12 oz.), and leave it for a day. If the tone is required reddish, add some dragon's blood. (No. 3.)--A cheaper but duller colour is to be obtained from steeped French berries, then dried, with weak alum water brushed over it. Thin pieces are dipped in it. The solution of French berries may be made thus--Take 1 lb. of French berries, and a gallon of water with 1/2 oz. of alum; boil for an hour in a pewter vessel, and filter through paper. Evaporate till the colour appears strong enough. Another receipt says 4 oz. of French berries put to steep in a pint of water is to have added to it 1 oz. of hazel nuts and as much alum. Wood may also be stained yellow with _aqua fortis_, used warm, and then immediately placed near the fire. The _aqua fortis_ must not be too strong, or the wood will go brown or black. This is apparently the same thing as Vasari calls "oil of sulphur," used in his time for colouring wood. A Nuremberg receipt book says that the plant Tournesol (croton tinctorium) may be steeped in water, and this solution mixed with yellow colour and glue may be spread over the wood warm, and finally polished with a burnisher. Holtzapffel gives the following:--A bright yellow stain may be obtained from 2 oz. of turmeric allowed to simmer for some hours in 1 quart of water in an earthen vessel, water being added from time to time to replace evaporation. Sparingly applied cold, it stains white woods the colour of satin wood. A canary yellow results from immersing the wood in the liquid, which can be rendered permanent without polishing by a strong solution of common salt. Washing the stained surface with nitro-muriate of tin for about a minute changes the colour to orange. The work should then be well rinsed in plain water to check the further action of the acid. Treating the canary yellow with 2 oz. of sulphate of iron dissolved in 3 quarts of water, after it has been allowed to dry, dyes a delicate olive brown. A tincture of 1/4 oz. of turmeric to 3 oz. of spirits of wine, allowed to stand for some days and well shaken daily, gives a rather higher colour. Red may be produced by (No. 1) taking a pound of Brazil wood, with some rain water, a handful of unslaked lime, and two handsful of ashes; soak all for half an hour in water, "cook" it, and pour it out into another pot, in which is a measure of gum arabic. The wood to be coloured must be cooked in alum water, and then brushed over with the warm colour; the result is a splendid scarlet red. If the wood was first grounded with saffron water and then had the Brazil decoction applied, the result was orange; a spoonful of lye made a browner colour, with a little alum. If whiter wood was taken the colour was correspondingly brighter. (No. 2.)--Orcanda or Akanna root powdered, with nut oil, gives a fine red. (No. 3.)--Put lime in rain water, strain it, scrape Brazil twigs in it, then proceed as in No. 1. You can also soak the Brazil in tartar. The same colour with Tournesol steeped in water gives a fine purple when spread on the wood. Lebrun gives the same receipt, adding that the beauty of the colour is increased by rubbing with oil, and that pear wood is the best to use. Another receipt says:--Make a strong infusion of Brazil wood in stale urine or water impregnated with pearl ash, 1 oz. to a gallon; to a gallon of either of which put 1 lb. of Brazil wood. Let it stand for two or three days, often stirring it. Strain the infusion, and brush over the wood boiling hot; then, while still wet, brush over with alum water, 2 oz. to a quart of water. A less bright red may be made with 1 oz. of dragon's blood in a pint of spirits of wine, brushed over the wood. Holtzapffel gives for red stains the following:--Dragon's blood, an East Indian resin, gives a crimson with a purple tinge. Put a small quantity in an open vessel, and add sufficient linseed oil to rather more than cover it; it will be fit for use in a few days, when the oil may be poured off and more added. This dissolves more readily in oil than spirit. The colouring matter of Alkanet root, from which another red may be obtained, is contained in the rind, so that small pieces are the most useful. A deep red of a crimson character may be made with 1/2 oz. of raspings of Brazil wood macerated in 3 oz. of alcohol. A wash of logwood (see below) given with the brush, and when dry followed with a wash of Brazil, produces a deep, full colour, and when the two are applied in the reverse order a more brilliant colour of the same kind. A decoction of Brazil (4 oz.) allowed to simmer for some hours in 1 quart of water yields a rather brown-red stain. Treating light woods so stained with nitro-muriate of tin gives a brilliant crimson of a purple tinge. A brown red is made from a decoction of 2 oz. of logwood dust in 1 quart of water, or 1/2 oz. of logwood in 3 oz. of alcohol. Nitro-muriate of tin used on it gives a deep, dusky crimson purple. The same treated with alum solution yields a medium purple, darker and bluer than that from Brazil. White wood stained with Brazil and then treated with alum (4 oz. dissolved in a quart of water) acquires a light pink tinge. Another receipt for pink or rose red says:--1 gallon of infusion of Brazil wood, with 2 oz. additional of pearl ash; but it is necessary to brush the wood often with alum water. By increasing the proportion of pearl ash the red may be made still paler, in which case make the alum water stronger. For purple one brushes the wood over several times with a strong decoction of logwood and Brazil, 1 lb. of logwood and 1/4 lb. of Brazil to a gallon of water boiled for an hour or more. When the wood is dark enough let it dry, and then lightly pass over with a solution of 1 drachm of pearl ash to a quart of water. Use this carefully, as the colour changes quickly from brown red to dark purple. Jet black may be made by using the logwood stain, followed by a solution of iron, 1 oz. sulphate of iron to 1 quart of water, and a less intense black by the same mixture about three times diluted. The Italian receipt books are well provided with receipts for producing black, which suggests that most of the ebony used in inlay was factitious. A 15th century MS. says:--"Take boxwood, and lay in oil with sulphur for a night, then let it stew for an hour, and it will become as black as coal." Evidently this means what Vasari calls oil of sulphur, _aqua fortis_. Others are founded upon the application of a solution of logwood, followed by one of iron. "Stew logwood till the liquid is reduced to one-third of its bulk, mix with stone alum, and leave for three days. Mix iron filings with very strong wine, and let it stand for twenty-four hours. On the quantity of iron filings the depth of the tone depends. Lastly, ox-gall is dissolved in this mixture, and the whole is three times worked over." An English receipt says:--"Brush the wood over several times with a hot decoction of logwood; take 1/4 lb. of powdered galls, and set in the sun or other gentle heat in 2 quarts of water for three or four days; brush the wood over with it three or four times, and, while wet, with a solution of green vitriol in water, 2 oz. to a quart; or use a solution of copper in _aqua fortis_, then the solution of logwood, and repeat until black enough." A German receipt says:--"Take half a measure of iron filings and a pennyweight of sal ammoniac, and put into a pot of vinegar; let it stand for twelve days at least. In another pot put blue Brazil and 3 measures of bruised gall apples in strong lime lye, and let it stand for the same time. The wood must be first washed over with lye, and then with hot vinegar, and finally polished with wax." "Pear wood may be grounded with Brazil steeped in alum water, then coloured with the black which the leather-stainers use, twenty times." Another says:--"Take a pennyweight of fine silver, with a pound of _aqua fortis_; add a measure of water, and soak the wood with it." The best wood for imitating ebony is holly; also, box cooked in olive oil is good for it, or well-planed pear soaked with _aqua fortis_, and then coloured with ink several times; or stew the wood in lamp-black, and soak with oil. Blue may be obtained by the use of a solution of copper brushed hot over the wood several times; then brush hot a solution of pearl ash, 2 oz. to a pint of water, until the wood becomes perfectly blue. The copper solution is prepared in this way:--"Take of the refiner's solution of copper made in the precipitation of silver from the spirit of nitre; or dissolve copper in spirit of nitre, or _aqua fortis_, by throwing in filings or putting in strips of copper gradually till all effervescence ceases. Add to it starch finely powdered, one-fifth or one-sixth of the weight of copper dissolved. Make a solution of pearl ash and filter it; put gradually to the solution of copper as much as will precipitate the whole of the copper. The fluid becomes colourless. Wash the powder, and when so well drained of water by means of a filter as to be of the proper consistence, grind well together, and lay out to dry. This makes dark verditer." Indigo may also be used, prepared with soap lees as when used by dyers; brush it over the wood boiling hot. With a solution of cream of tartar, 3 oz. to a quart of water, and boiled, brush over the wood copiously before the moisture is quite dried out. A German receipt says:--Put 4 oz. of Tournesol in three parts of lime water to cook for an hour and spread it on the wood. "Wood coloured green with verdigris can be made blue by using pearl ash." This is the process described first. For green verdigris dissolved in vinegar may be used; or crystals of verdigris in water, brushed hot over the wood. A 15th century MS. gives a traditional mode thus:--"Wood, bone, small leaves, and knife handles can be made green by strong, red vinegar and brass filings mixed together with a little Roman vitriol and stone alum in a glass vessel. When it has stood for a day the object is dipped in it, and steeps itself in the liquid. The colour will be very permanent." A German receipt says:--"Take walnut shells from the green fruit, and put in very strong lye with some copper vitriol and alum to stew for two or three hours. The wood must be put in strong wine vinegar for several days, then it is put in the above-mentioned mixture, to which ground verdigris mixed with vinegar is added. Or you can mix this ground verdigris with vinegar with some winestone, let it clarify, and spread the wood with the filtered stuff. The addition of saffron makes a grass green." A silver grey may be given to white wood by immersion in a decoction of 4 oz. of sumach in 1 quart of water, and afterwards in a very dilute solution of sulphate of iron. A dilute solution of bichromate of potash is frequently employed to darken oak, mahogany, and coloured woods. This should be used carefully, since its effects are not altogether stopped by thoroughly washing the wood with water when dark enough. To bleach woods, immerse them in a strong, hot solution of oxalic acid. Since ivory is often used in inlaying and is sometimes stained, a few receipts for its staining will not be out of place. These come from Holtzapffel's book:--A pale yellow will be given by immersing the ivory for one minute in the tepid stain given by 60 grains of saffron boiled for some hours in half-a-pint of water. Immersion for from five to fifteen minutes produces a canary yellow brighter or deeper according to the time given, but all somewhat fugitive. A stain from 4 oz. of fustic dust and chips boiled in 1 quart of water produces similar but somewhat darker and more permanent results. Ivory subjected to either of these stains for fifteen minutes, and then placed for one to three minutes in Brazil water stain acquires an orange colour. If then treated with nitro-muriate of tin, an orange of a brighter, redder tone is produced; transfer to a clean water bath directly the required colour appears, as the nitro-muriate of tin acts very rapidly upon the ivory. Fine scarlet cloth is used for dyeing various tones of red. A piece about a foot square may be cut into shreds and boiled, with the addition of 10 grains of pearl ash, in half-a-pint of water from 5 to 6 hours. Immersion in the liquid for from three to ten minutes gives tones of pink; for one hour and subsequently for half-an-hour in an alum mordant gives a pink of a bright crimson character. When the ivory is from two to three hours in the tepid stain a crimson red results, and the addition of 1 part of sulphuric acid to 60 of stain gives billiard ball colour. Pinks of a different and duller full tone may be obtained by immersion for three minutes in Brazil water stain, followed by treatment with nitro-muriate of tin; when the Brazil is used for six minutes a deeper colour results. Fifteen minutes in Brazil, then treatment with nitro-muriate of tin and immediate washing gives a duller and deeper red than the first red-cloth stain. The depth of colour may be increased by longer immersion _or_ a higher temperature. A dull scarlet or brick red is made by the Brazil bath, followed by thirty to sixty minutes in an alum mordant. The cloth stain for one hour, followed by pearl ash for half-an-hour, gives a bright purple; if iron is used instead of pearl ash a sombre purple results; if you add alkalies to the stain instead of sulphuric acid you obtain purple reds. Fifteen minutes in Brazil, and then three or four in pearl ash gives full red purples deepening to maroon. Five minutes in logwood water stain gives a good warm brown; half-an-hour, a chocolate brown. Ten minutes in logwood stain, washing, and one or two seconds in pearl ash, and instantly washing again gives a deep red brown, and if one minute in alum instead of pearl ash a deep purple brown. Blue stains may be made from sulphate of indigo, 1/2 drachm to 1 pint of previously boiled water, with 10 grains of carbonate of potash added. One to two minutes' immersion and immediate washing yields a delicate turquoise, five minutes a bright full blue; and ten to fifteen a considerable depth of colour. Blues are rather fugitive. Staining with saffron or fustic for five minutes, and then with indigo for the same time, produces a clear pea green; with indigo for ten minutes, a deep grass green. The greens from fustic are more permanent and yellower. The sequence of the stains also affects the green, the last used having most effect. Blue stain first for fifteen minutes, followed by fustic for thirty, stains ivory the green used for table knife handles--a colour which may also be obtained by immersion for some weeks in a clear solution of verdigris in dilute vinegar and water. Before applying these stains the ivory must be prepared by first polishing with whiting and water and washing quite clean. Next immerse it for three to five minutes in acid cold water (1 part muriatic acid to 40 or 50 of water, or the same proportion of nitric). This extracts the gelatine from the surface of the ivory. Extreme cleanliness and absence of grease or soiling is most important; the ivory is not to be touched by the fingers, but removed from one vessel to another by wooden tongs, one pair to each colour. After treating with the acid, place the ivory in clean, cold, boiled water for some minutes. Water stains are used, but strained or filtered and warm or only tepid, for fear of injuring the surface of the ivory. Increasing the temperature also sometimes deepens or changes the colour. The best temperature is 100 deg. Fahr. When sufficiently stained the ivory is well rinsed in water, and if there are two colours on top of each other always well rinsed before going into the second bath. After thoroughly drying, repolish by friction, first with a few drops of oil on a soft clean rag; continue with a dry clean rag till the oil disappears. An old Italian receipt for polishing wood blackened to imitate ebony runs thus:--"Is the wood to be polished with burnt pumice stone? Rub the work carefully with canvas and this powder, then wash the piece with Dutch lime water so that it may be more beautifully polished. Then it is to be cleaned with another cloth. Then the rind of a pomegranate must be steeped, and the wood smeared over with it and set to dry, but in the shade." INDEX A Angelo di Lazzero, of Arezzo, 19 Anselmo de' Fornari, 77-78 Antique inlaid furniture, 2, 3, 6 (note) Antonio da Melaria, 35 Antonio di Minella, of Siena, 10 Antonio Manetti, 19 Antonio Paolo Martini, 13 Assisi, 10, 46 ---- Stalls of the Upper church of S. Francesco, 46 Arezzo, S. Agostino and S. Michele, 41 Augsburg work, 85, 90 B Baccio Albini, 40 Baccio d'Agnolo, 42-43 Barck, Klaus, 88 Barili, Antonio, of Siena, 37, 38, 39 ---- ---- Panel in K.K. Museum at Vienna, 37, 38 ---- ---- description of Chapel of S. Giovanni, Siena, 39, 40, 41 ---- Giovanni, 39 Bartolommeo Poli, surnamed dalla Polla, 35, 36 Beck, Sebald, 84 Belli, Giovanni and Alessandro, 73 Bencivieni da Mercatello da Massa, Antonio di, 46-51 Benedetto da Majano, Vasari's story of the reason of his giving up working in tarsia, 20 Bergamo, Choir of S. Maria Maggiore, 79, 80 ---- Tassi's account of, 80 ---- Stalls in church of S. Stefano, 76 Bernardo di Tommaso di Ghigo, 19 Bernardino da Lendinara, 32 Brescia, Lectern from Rodengo in Galleria Tosi, 64 Bologna, S. Domenico tarsie, by Fra Damiano, 70, 73, 75 ---- Sabba Castiglione's account, 74, 75 ---- Stalls in S. Giovanni in Monte, 66 ---- S. Michele in Bosco, stalls now in S. Petronio, 65, 66 ---- S. Petronio, 36 Boulle, André Charles, 96, 97 ---- Works by him, 97, 98, 99 Boulle, Pierre, 75-96 C Canozio, of Lendinara, Lorenzo Genesino, 29 Capo di Ferro of Lodi, Zinino and Pietro, 80 Capo di Ferro of Lovere, Giovanni Francesco, 73, 79 Capra, Gabriel and Domenico, 54 Chapel of Palace, Siena, 13 Cecca, Il (Francesco d'Agnolo), 23, 24 Certosa, Pavia, 35 Cervelliera, Giovanni Battista, 22 Character of German inlays of late 16th Century, 85 Coburg, Hornzimmer, 86 Cornier, Conrad, 88 Cost of choir of S. Domenico, Bologna, 73 Cost of the stalls in Ferrara Cathedral, 34 Cost of stalls, Cathedral Orvieto, 10 Cremona, church of S. Sigismond, outside, 54 Cypress chest of 1350 in Victoria and Albert Museum, 104 D Daniello di Neri Martini, 13 Danzig Sommerrathstube, 86 David of Pistoia, 41 Del Tasso, arms of the family, 24 ---- Chimenti di Domenico, 26 ---- Chimenti di Francesco, 25 ---- Domenico, 19, 25, 26 ---- Francesco, 27 ---- Francesco di Domenico, 24 ---- Giambattista called Maestro Tasso, 27, 28 ---- Lionardo, 25 ---- Marco, 26 ---- Zanobi, 25 Della Rocca, Andrea and Elia, 77, 78 Designs for intarsia made by Painters, 121 De' Marchi, Pantaleone, stalls in Museum at Berlin, 36 Domenico da Gajuolo, 42 Domenico di Mariotto, 21 Domenico di Nicolò of Siena, 10, 11 Domenico Tassi of Florence, 17 Dreyer, Hans and Jürgen, of Schleswig, 87 Dutch work, characteristics of, 92 E Eck, Adam, 85 Elfen, brothers, of S. Michael, Hildesheim, 84 Escurial, rooms in, decorated with inlays, 86 Evers, Antonia, master of joiners' guild at Lübeck, 86 F Ferrara, stalls in Cathedral, 33 Fischer, N., and Johann Georg of Munich, 85 Florence, 16, 18 ---- stalls at S. Maria Novella, 42 ---- stalls at S. Miniato, 42 ---- tarsia in sacristy of the Cathedral, 18, 19 Flotner, Peter, 89 Folding seat of 14th century, 84 Fra Antonio Asinelis, 73 Fra Antonio da Lunigiano, Dominican, 73 Fra Antonio da Viterbo, Dominican, 76 Fra Bernardino, Dominican, 73 Fra Damiano of Bergamo, 69-76, 79 Fra Damiano of Bergamo, the Emperor Charles V., and the Duke of Ferrara, 70, 71, 72 Fra Giovanni da Verona, 17, 57, 63 Fra Raffaello da Brescia, 63, 64 Fra Sebastian da Rovigno, 56, 57 Fra Vincenzo da Verona, called dalla Vacche, 67 Francesco di Lorenzo, Zambelli, 73, 77 Francesco Manciatto, 42 Francione, Il (Giovanni di Matteo di Firenze), 21 French Cabinets of 17th Century, 95, 96 G Genoa, stalls in Cathedral, 77, 78 Geri of Arezzo, 41 German intarsiatori of 16th and 17th Century, 84, 85 Gilling Castle, near Wakefield, inlays, 93 Giovanni di Filippo da Fiesole, 45 Giovanni de Grassi (Giovanni de Melano), 14 Giovanni di Lodovico di Magno of Siena, 10 Giovanni Michele de Pantaleone, 77 Giovanni del Mulinella of Florence, 17 Giovanni Piccardo, 77 Giovanni di Ponteranica and his four sons, 80 Giovanni di Ser Giovanni detto Scheggione, 19 Giovanni Talini of Siena, 10 Girolamo della Cecca, 40 Giuliano di Salvatore, 21 Giusto di Francesco of Incisa, 45 Glastonbury Hall, Staircase, 94 Gole, Pierre, 92 Gottlieb, Conrad, 86 Gottorp, Castle of, Prince's prayer chamber in, 87 Gubbio, tarsia in study of Duke Guidobaldo, 52, 53 Guido da Seravallino, 21 Guido di Torino, 13 Guild of Painters, Siena, 16 H Hans Schieferstein's Cabinet at Dresden, 90 Hardwick Hall, furniture at, 93 Herle, Simon, 86 Heywood Sumner, paper at Royal Institute of British Architects, 129, 130 I Imitative processes, straw, wax, painting in Indian ink, &c., 129, 130, 131 Inlaid work, Greek and Latin names for, 3 ---- woods used for, by the ancients, 3, 5, 6 (note) ---- wood, cost of, in ancient times, 4 Inlaying, antiquity of, 2 Innsbruck, Hofkirche, 86 Intarsia, derivation of, 1 Invention of stains for wood, by Fra Giovanni da Verona, 18 Ivory or metals in intarsia, 124, 125 J Jacopo da Villa, 21 Joiners' tools, priced list of Perugian of 1496, 47, 48 K Kellerthaler, Hans, of Dresden, 85 Kiening, Isaac, of Frissen, 91 Kraus, Hans, marqueteur du roi, 94 L Lavoro alla Certosa, or tarsia alla Certosina, 9 Leipzig Museum, Cabinet in, 91 Lendinara, Cristophano d' Andrea da, 21 Limitations of the art of intarsia, 122, 123 Loblein, Sixtus, of Landshut, 91 Lodi, Stalls in S. Bernardino, by Fra Giovanni da Verona, 63 Louvre, 4 panels from S. Benedetto Novella, Padua, of Fra Vincenzo dalla Vacche, 68 Lübeck, Kriegs Stube, 86 Lucca, panels in sacristy of Cathedral, by Christoforo da Lendinara, 32 ---- Stalls from Cathedral in Pinacotheca, 32 Luchet, M., Excursus on furniture in France, 1867, 113, 114 Lüneburg, Rathsaal, 86 M Macé, Jean, of Blois, 92-95 Majano, Benedetto da, 19, 20 Majano, Giuliano di Nardo da, 18, 22 ---- Leonardo d' Antonio da, 19 Manuello, of Siena, 9 Marchi, of Crema, Family of, 6, 36 Mariotto di Mariotto, of Pesaro, 45 Marquetry, Derivation of, 1 Marti, Leonardo, 32 Masi, Antonio di Antonio, The Fleming, 46 Massari, Andrea, of Siena, 54 Mastei, Antonio, of Gubbio, 53 Mastro Crespolto, of Perugia, 26 Mastro Vanni di Tura dell' Ammanato, Sienese, 10 Matteo di Bernardino, of Florence, 17 Meo di Nuti, of Siena, 10 Michele Spagnuolo, 21 Milan, Cathedral, 15 Minelli, Giovanni and Cristoforo de, 45 Miniatures at Villanova, by Fra Giovanni da Verona, 59 Minnesinger's harp, of 14th Century, 8 Modern French marquetry, 125 Monte Oliveto, 55, 59, 60 Musée Cluny, wire-drawing bench made for Augustus, Elector of Saxony, 91 N Naples, tarsia by Fra Giovanni da Verona in S. Anna dei Lombardi, 61, 62 Nicolò di Nicoluccio, 10 Nuremberg work in ebony and ivory, 90 O [OE]ben, J. F., ébeniste du roi, 99 Orvieto, 10, 13 P Padua, stalls in Church of S. Antonio, account by Matteo Colaccio, 30, 31 Paint and gilding added to intarsia work, 106 Paolo da Pesaro, 80 Parti of Siena, 9 Perugia, 10, 19, 26 ---- choir of the Cathedral, 19 ---- choir of S. Domenico, 26 ---- door in choir of S. Pietro in Casinense by Fra Damiano, 74 ---- Sala del Cambio, 26, 46 ---- stalls of S. Agostino, 44 Pier Antonio dell 'Abate of Modena, 29 Pietro Antonio of Florence, 17 Pietro di Maffeis, 73 Pietro di Miaella of Siena, 10 Pietro di Rizzardi, 33 Pisa Cathedral, 21, 22, 23 Polimante da Nicola, 26 Pontelli, Baccio, 21 Portuguese decorations with pierced metal plates, 83 Poverty of craftsmen, Domenico del Coro, 10, 12 Preuszen, Hans, carver, 87 R Realism in intarsia panels, 105 Reasons for beauty in designs, 127 Reggio in Emilia, 35 Relief intarsia or Präger arbeit, 85 Returns made by Sienese craftsman for taxation, 119, 120 Riesener, J. Henry, 99, 100 Roentgen, David, 102, 103 Rome, doors of St. Peter's, by Fra Antonio da Viterbo, 76, 77 Rosenfeldt, Jochim, 87 S S. Mary Overie, Southwark, parish chest, 93 Sallig, Andreas, 87 San Sevrino, Domenico di, 46 Savona, choir of, Cathedral, 78 Schieferstein, Hans, 85, 90 Scraping and polishing marquetry, operation of, 115, 116 Shading of subjects in marquetry, 112 Siena, 9, 10, 13, 16, 37, 60 Simone d'Antonio of Siena, 13 Sizergh Castle, panelling from, 93 South German Bride chests, 89 South German inlaid Musical Instruments, 88 Spanish inlaid work in Victoria and Albert Museum, 81, 82 T Taddeo Bartoli's designs for chapel of Palazzo Pubblico, Siena, 11 Tassi, Domenico of Florence, 17 Tasso, Maestro, his practical joke on the Benedictine Abbot, 28 Technical description from German book of 17th century, 106 Thickness of veneers in the market, 112 Tommaso di Ceccolo, 10 Tonbridge ware, 9 To stain ivory blue, 144 To stain ivory green, 144 To stain ivory orange, 142 To stain ivory purple, 143 To stain ivory various kinds of red, 142, 143 To stain ivory yellow, 142 To stain wood black, 138, 139 To stain wood blue, 140 To stain wood green, 141 To stain wood pink, 137 To stain wood purple, 137, 138 To stain wood red, 135, 136, 137 To stain wood silver grey, 141 To stain wood yellow, 133, 134 U Uhr, Herman, 87, 88 Ulriksdal Castle, doors of drinking room, 92 Union of the crafts in one guild, 14 Urbino, tarsia in palace of Frederic of Montefeltro, 49, 50, 51 Use of mother-of-pearl, ivory, tortoiseshell, silver, &c., 54 V Vasari's opinion of tarsia, 17 Veneering, operation of, 108 Veneers for marquetry, thickness of, 109, 110 Venice, Sacristy of S. Elena, 57, 58 Venice, tarsia in Sacristy of S. Mark's, 67, 68, 69 Verona, Sacristy of S. Anastasia, 10 Volthurn Castle, near Brixen, 90 Von Soest, Albert, 86 Vordt, 92 Vriese, Vriedemann, 86 W Wallace Collection, Cabinet by Claude Charles Saunier, 95 Wallace Collection, Cabinets by Oeben and Riesener, 99, 100 Wallace Collection, jewel box by Conrad Cornier, 88 Webb, Stephen, paper at the Society of Arts, 128 Wegener, Adam, figure cutter, 87 Weiskopf, Wolf, 84 Winkler, Simon, 85 Wood, exceptional scantlings used by the ancients, 6, 7 Woods, combinations of, for marquetry, 111 Woods in use in England for marquetry, 112 ---- used by the marqueteurs of Nice, 115 ---- used by Riesener, 101 ---- used in Barili's panel, 38 ---- used in the best period, 106 ---- used in stalls, Cathedral, Orvieto, 10 ---- used on the Continent for veneers, 111 Z Zambelli, of Bergamo, Stefano di Antoniuolo de, 46, 73 Zampiero da Padova, 73 Zanetto da Bergamo, 72, 73 _Willam Hodge & Co., Glasgow and Edinburgh_ 
26120	----	Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 26120-h.htm or 26120-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/2/6/1/2/26120/26120-h/26120-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/2/6/1/2/26120/26120-h.zip) CHATS ON OLD LACE AND NEEDLEWORK by MRS. LOWES * * * * * BOOKS FOR COLLECTORS _With Frontispieces and many Illustrations Large Crown 8vo, cloth._ CHATS ON ENGLISH CHINA. By Arthur Hayden. CHATS ON OLD FURNITURE. By Arthur Hayden. CHATS ON OLD PRINTS. (How to collect and value Old Engravings.) By Arthur Hayden. CHATS ON COSTUME. By G. Woolliscroft Rhead. CHATS ON OLD LACE AND NEEDLEWORK. By E. L. Lowes. CHATS ON ORIENTAL CHINA. By J. F. Blacker. CHATS ON OLD MINIATURES. By J. J. Foster, F.S.A. CHATS ON ENGLISH EARTHENWARE. By Arthur Hayden. CHATS ON AUTOGRAPHS. By A. M. Broadley. CHATS ON PEWTER. By H. J. L. J. Massé, M.A. CHATS ON POSTAGE STAMPS. By Fred. J. Melville. CHATS ON OLD JEWELLERY AND TRINKETS. By MacIver Percival. CHATS ON COTTAGE AND FARMHOUSE FURNITURE. By Arthur Hayden. CHATS ON OLD COINS. By Fred. W. Burgess CHATS ON OLD COPPER AND BRASS. By Fred. W. Burgess. CHATS ON HOUSEHOLD CURIOS. By Fred. W. Burgess. CHATS ON OLD SILVER. By Arthur Hayden. CHATS ON JAPANESE PRINTS. By Arthur Davison Ficke. CHATS ON MILITARY CURIOS. By Stanley C. Johnson. CHATS ON OLD CLOCKS AND WATCHES. By Arthur Hayden. CHATS ON ROYAL COPENHAGEN PORCELAIN. By Arthur Hayden. LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN, LTD. NEW YORK: F. A. STOKES COMPANY * * * * * [Illustration: Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke.] MARY SIDNEY, COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE. Born about 1555. Died 1621. Buried at Salisbury Cathedral. Painted probably by MARC GHEERAEDTS. "Underneath this sable hearse Lies the subject of all verse. Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother. Death! ere thou hast slain another Fair and learn'd and good as she, Time shall throw a dart at thee!" CHATS ON OLD LACE AND NEEDLEWORK by MRS. LOWES With 76 Illustrations London T. Fisher Unwin, Ltd. Adelphi Terrace First Impression 1908 Second Impression 1912 Third Impression 1919 [All rights reserved.] PREFACE This little book has been compiled to emphasise and accentuate the distinct awakening of English women and Needlecraft Artists to the beauty of the ancient laces and embroideries which we own in the magnificent historic collections in our great public Museums. We are fortunate in possessing in the Victoria and Albert Museum monumental specimens of both lace and needlework. Among the sumptuous lace collection there are most perfect specimens of the art of lace-making, and priceless pieces of historic embroidery made when England was first and foremost in the world in the production of Ecclesiastical embroidery. The lace collection particularly, without compare, is illustrative of all that is best in this delightful art, being specially rich in magnificent pieces that can never be again obtained. These have mostly been given, or left as legacies, to the Museum by collectors and enthusiasts who have made this fascinating hobby the quest of their lives. In addition to the collection formed by the generosity of the donors, the authorities have exercised a very catholic judgment in selecting the choicest and most illustrative examples of the lace-maker's craft. In the section devoted to embroideries, more particularly English (as it is with our own country's needlework I propose to deal), nothing more glorious in the Nation's art records can be found than the masterpieces of embroidery worked by the great ladies, the abbesses and nuns of the Mediæval period. In almost every other branch of art England has been equalled, if not excelled, by Continental craftsmen; but in this one instance, up to the Reformation, English work was sought after far and wide, and as _opus Anglicum_ formed part of church furnishing and priestly vestments in every great cathedral in Italy, Spain, and France. It cannot be too soon realised that, as with old furniture, porcelain, and silver, much of the finest embroideries of England, and a vast quantity of the ancient laces of Italy, France, and Belgium are being slowly but surely carried off to the New World. American dollars are doing much to rob not only the Old Country of the fairest flowers of her garden, but the Continent of their finest and best examples of the genius of the past. The Vanderbilts and the Astors, among others, possess immense fortunes in lace, whilst that omnivorous collector Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan gives fabulous sums for any fine old relic of embroidery. Many pieces of both classes of needlecraft have found a permanent home in the Metropolitan Museum of New York, and are lost for ever to the English student. It is, therefore, a pleasant duty to add my little quota of information to the study of these fascinating and exquisite branches of fine art which so specially appeal to all women by their dainty grace and delightful handicraft. I hope I may arouse some little enthusiasm in my countrywomen in the study of the past glories of both subjects, and in the possibility of once again becoming first and foremost in the latter branch. I beg to acknowledge the pleasure and help I have received from the perusal of the late Mrs. Bury Palliser's exhaustive "History of Lace," and Lady Alford's "History of Needlework," and Dr. Rock's invaluable books on "Ecclesiastical Embroidery." EMILY LEIGH LOWES. HILLCREST, BRIXTON HILL, S.W. BIBLIOGRAPHY LACE. The History of Lace. 1 vol. Mrs. Bury Palliser. Sampson, Marston & Low. 1865. £2 2s. Dentelles and Guipures. 1 vol. E. Lefebure. Grevil. 1888. Ancient Needlepoint and Pillow Lace. Alan Sumnerly Cole. London. 1873. The Queen Lace Book. London. 1874. Of Lace. Alan Sumnerly Cole. 1893. Point and Pillow Lace. A. M. Sharp. George Newnes & Co. 7s. 6d. Venice and Burano. Ancient and Modern Lace. M. Jesuram. Venice. 1883. The History of Handmade Lace. Mrs. Jackson. Upcott Gill & Son. 1900. 18s. Seven Centuries of Lace. Mrs. Hungerford-Pollen. 1st vol. issued 1908. NEEDLEWORK. Textile Fabrics. Dr. Daniel Rock. South Kensington Handbook Series. 1876. 1s. Needlework as Art. Lady Marion Alford. London. 1886. £4 4s. English Embroidery. A.F. Kendrick. George Newnes & Co. 7s. 6d. Art in Needlework. Day & Buckle. Batsford. 7s. 6d. CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE 7 BIBLIOGRAPHY 10 OLD LACE CHAPTER I. A BRIEF HISTORY OF LACE 21 II. THE ART OF LACE-MAKING 33 III. THE LACES OF ITALY 45 IV. THE LACES OF GENOA AND MILAN 57 V. THE LACES OF FRANCE: NEEDLEPOINT 69 VI. THE LACES OF FRANCE: PILLOW 85 VII. THE LACES OF FLANDERS 99 VIII. MODERN BRUSSELS AND MECHLIN 119 IX. OTHER CONTINENTAL LACES 131 X. A SHORT HISTORY OF LACE IN ENGLAND 139 XI. ENGLISH LACES 155 XII. SCOTCH AND IRISH LACE 169 XIII. HOW TO IDENTIFY LACE 179 XIV. SALE PRICES 199 NEEDLEWORK CHAPTER PAGE I. OLD ENGLISH EMBROIDERY 205 II. THE GREAT PERIOD 217 III. ECCLESIASTICAL EMBROIDERIES AND VESTMENTS 229 IV. TUDOR EMBROIDERIES 245 V. EARLY NEEDLEWORK PICTURES AND ACCESSORIES 253 VI. STUART CASKETS AND MIRROR 267 VII. EMBROIDERED BOOKS AND "BLACK WORK" 275 VIII. STUART PICTURES 289 IX. SAMPLERS 305 X. THE WILLIAM AND MARY EMBROIDERIES 317 XI. PICTORIAL NEEDLEWORK OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 331 XII. NEEDLEWORK PICTURES OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 347 XIII. EMBROIDERY IN COSTUME 355 XIV. SALE PRICES 365 XV. CONCLUSION 373 INDEX--OLD LACE 381 NEEDLEWORK 384 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS MARY SIDNEY, COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE _Frontispiece_ OLD LACE PAGE EGYPTIAN CUT AND DRAWN WORK 20 OLD ITALIAN "CUTWORKE" 20 EARLY ENGLISH SAMPLERS 23 ORIGINAL PATTERNS BY VINCIOLA 27 ORIGINAL DESIGNS OF RETICELLA EDGINGS BY VINCIOLA 31 CHART OF NEEDLEPOINT RÉSEAUX 36 CHART OF PILLOW RÉSEAUX 39 VENETIAN ROSE POINT 43 VENETIAN ROSE POINT COLLAR 48 EXAMPLES OF FLAT VENETIAN POINT 51 MARIE DE MEDICIS WEARING VENETIAN POINT COLLAR 52 EXAMPLE OF GROS POINT DE VENICE 55 LOUIS XIII. WEARING GENOESE COLLAR LACE 60 GENOESE COLLAR LACE 63 MILANESE LACE 67 OLD ITALIAN AND FRENCH LACES AND CUT AND DRAWN WORK 72 "POINT DE FRANCE" 75 POINT D'ALENÇON 76 "POINT DE FRANCE" AND D'ARGENTELLA 79 POINT D'ARGENTAN AND POINT D'ARGENTELLA 83 VALENCIENNES 88 "LILLE" 91 EMPRESS EUGENIE WEARING BLONDE LACE 95 POINT D'ANGLETERRE 102 POINT D'ANGLETERRE LAPPET 105 BRUSSELS LACE 109 BRUSSELS LAPPET 113 COMTESSE D'ARTOIS WEARING BRUSSELS LACE 117 MARIE ANTOINETTE 122 MECHLIN LAPPET 125 MARIE ANTOINETTE WEARING MECHLIN LACE 129 "DUCHESSE" LACE 135 QUEEN ELIZABETH WEARING VENETIAN POINT RUFF AND CUFFS 141 EDMUND SPENSER: COLLAR TRIMMED WITH RETICELLA 145 RETICELLA FALLING COLLAR 149 COLLAR OF GROS POINT 153 OLD BUCKINGHAM AND EARLY DEVONSHIRE LACES 159 OLD HONITON LACE 163 MODERN HONITON LACE 167 LIMERICK "FILLINGS" 173 CARRICK-MA-CROSS LACE 177 RETICELLA WITH GENOA BORDERS 182 POINT D'ANGLETERRE 185 ITALIAN ECCLESIASTICAL LACE 189 BRUSSELS LAPPET 193 "POINT DE GAZE" 197 NEEDLEWORK EGYPTIAN EMBROIDERY 208 BAYEUX TAPESTRY 211 KING HAROLD FROM BAYEUX TAPESTRY 215 FRAGMENT FROM THE "JESSE" COPE 221 THE "SYON" COPE 225 THE STEEPLE ASTON ALTAR FRONTAL 232 THE "NEVIL" ALTAR FRONTAL 235 DIAGRAM SHOWING USE OF VESTMENTS 239 SET OF ECCLESIASTICAL VESTMENTS 243 EARLY "PETIT POINT" PICTURE 256 EARLY "PETIT POINT" PICTURE 259 STUART GLOVE 263 STUART MIRROR FRAME 271 STUART BOOK COVER 278 QUEEN ELIZABETH'S POCKET-BOOK 281 "BLACK WORK" CAP 285 EMBROIDERY PORTRAIT OF KING CHARLES I. 293 STUMP-WORK PICTURE 297 "PETIT POINT" PICTURE WORKED ON SATIN 301 A SEVENTEENTH CENTURY "SAMPLER" 309 EARLY ENGLISH "SAMPLER" 313 JACOBEAN HANGINGS 319 ENLARGEMENT OF SPRAY FROM HANGINGS 323 QUEEN ANNE PICTURE 327 EARLY GEORGIAN PICTURE 334 "THE LAST SUPPER" 337 EIGHTEENTH CENTURY SILK EMBROIDERED PICTURE 341 BLACK SILK AND HAIR PICTURE 345 A "GAINSBOROUGH" PICTURE 361 I A BRIEF HISTORY OF LACE [Illustration: EGYPTIAN CUT AND DRAWN WORK. Found in a tomb in Thebes.] [Illustration: OLD ITALIAN "CUTWORKE." (_Author's Collection._)] CHATS ON OLD LACE I A BRIEF HISTORY OF LACE Early vestiges in Egypt--Lace found in St. Cuthbert's Tomb (685 A.D.)--Drawn Thread and Cutworks--Venetian Lace--Flanders Lace--French Laces--English Lace. In every other art or craft we can search the history of ages and find some vestiges or beginnings among the earlier civilisations. Possibly owing to the exquisite fragility of Lace, there is a complete absence of data earlier than that of Egypt. The astonishing perfection in art handicrafts of all descriptions which we find in China many hundreds of years before the Christian era shows no vestiges of a manufacture of lace; but, in the tombs of ancient Egypt, garments have been discovered with the edges frayed and twisted into what we may call a primitive lace, and in some of the Coptic embroideries threads have been drawn out at intervals and replaced with those of coloured wools, making an uncouth but striking design. Netting must have been understood, as many of the mummies found at Thebes and elsewhere are discovered wearing a net to hold or bind the hair; and also, a fine network, interspersed with beads, is often discovered laid over the breast, sometimes having delightful little blue porcelain deities strung amongst their meshes. These early vestiges, however, are in no way representative of the later exquisite fabrics which we now know and recognise as Lace. Far nearer to them, as an art, are the early gold and silver laces of simple design found amongst the tombs of Mycenæ and Etruria, and those of a later date--_i.e._, the laces of gold used to decorate the vestments of the clergy, and the simple but sumptuous gowns of the Middle Ages. Along with the stole and maniple of St. Cuthbert, which are now at Durham Cathedral, was found a piece of detached gold lace, which must have formed a separate trimming. St. Cuthbert died in 685 A.D., and was buried at Lindisfarne, his body being afterwards transferred to Durham to save it from the desecration of the Danes who were ravaging the land. Over the body was a cloth, or sheet, which was worked in cutworks and fringes, showing that even at so early a date initial efforts at lace-making had been attempted. [Illustration: EARLY ENGLISH SAMPLERS, SHOWING CUT AND DRAWN WORK. (_S.K.M. Collection._)] As far as we can gather, the earliest endeavour at lace-making originated with the drawing of threads in linen fabrics, then dividing the existing threads into strands, and working over them, in various fanciful designs, either with a buttonhole stitch or simply a wrapping stitch. Exactly this method is used at the present day, and is known as hem-stitching and fine-drawing. A later development suggested, apparently, cutting away of some of the threads, their place being supplied with others placed angularly or in circles. Many delightful examples of the work are to be seen in our Old English samplers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and even so recently as thirty years ago specimens of this primitive and early lace-making were to be seen in the quaint "smock-frock" of the English farm labourer, a garment which, though discarded by the wearer in favour of the shoddy products of the Wakefield looms, is now deemed worthy of a place in the collector's museum. It required little effort of fancy and skill, by the simple process of evolution and survival of the fittest, to expand this plan of cutting away threads and replacing them with others to doing away _entirely_ with existing and attached threads, and supplying the whole with a pattern of threads laid down on some geometric fashion on a backing of parchment, _working over_ and _connecting_ the patterns together, and afterwards liberating the entire work from the parchment, thereby making what was known at the time as "punto in aria," or working with the needle-point in the air, literally "_out of nothing_." Strange as this may appear, this was the origin, in the fifteenth century, of the whole wonderful fabric which afterwards became known as "Point lace," which altered and even revolutionised dress, made life itself beautiful, and supplied the women of Europe with a livelihood gained in an easy, artistic, and delightful manner. It also, however, led to ruinous expenditure in every country, at times requiring special edicts to restrain its extravagance, and even the revival of the old Sumptuary laws to repress it. The earliest known lace, and by far the most popular with all classes, was "Reticella," which was the first kind evolved on the "punto in aria" principle. Until the discovery of an easy and simple way of decorating the linen ruffs and cuffs of the period these had been quite plain, as many contemporary portraits show. Afterwards the fashion of trimming garments of all descriptions with the pointed wiry edges of Venice became a mania, and led to imitation in almost every country of Europe. The convents turned out an immense quantity, thereby adding enormously to the incomes of their establishments. It is assumed that it is to the nuns of Italy we owe the succeeding elaboration of Reticella, "Needlepoint," the long, placid hours spent in the quiet convent gardens, lending themselves to the refinement and delicacy which this exquisite fabric made necessary. However this may be, it is certain that in a few years the rise and development of Needlepoint lace-making was little short of phenomenal, and every convent was busy making it and teaching their poorer lay sisters the art. Some of the wonderful Old Point of this period is absolutely finer than the naked eye can see, a powerful magnifying glass being necessary to discern how the marvellous "toile" or "gimpe" is made. [Illustration: ORIGINAL PATTERNS DESIGNED BY VINCIOLA. Seventeenth Century.] A little later, but still contemporary with the introduction of Venetian lace, a Pillow lace was being made in Flanders, the origin of which is not as yet discovered. It is possible that the fine flax thread grown and manufactured there may, at the time of weaving, have suggested a looser and more ornamental material, but that remains a matter of conjecture. There must, however, have been an interchange of examples, as about this time Pillow-made lace appeared in Italy, and led to the making of the Milanese and Genoese varieties, and Needlepoint motifs appeared amongst the woven network of Flanders. Lace, under the name of "Lacis," had been known in France from the time of Catherine de Medici, who patronised the manufacturers and used it lavishly. About 1585 she induced Federico di Vinciolo, a lace-maker and designer of Venice, to settle in France, and there the making of Venetian lace was attempted. A mere slavish imitation of the Venetian school resulted, and it was not until the age of the _Grande Monarque_, Louis XIV., that French lace rivalled that of Venice. Colbert, the great French Minister, becoming alarmed at the enormous sums spent on Italian lace, determined to put a check to its importation; and, by forbidding its use, establishing lace schools near Alençon, and bribing Italian workers to come over as organisers and teachers, started the manufacture of lace on an extensive scale, the beautiful fabrics known as Point d'Alençon, Point d'Argentan, and Point d'Argentella being the result. It is frequently said that the last-named lace came from Genoa or Milan, but most of the present-day authorities agree that this is one of the many fairy tales with which the passing of time has adorned the history of lace. The persecution of the Protestants when the Huguenots fled to England, bringing with them their arts of silk-weaving and lace-making, led to the introduction of English lace. Devonshire apparently received a contingent of laceworkers quite distinct from those who settled in Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire, and from the first stages showed far finer methods and designs. With the exception of "Old Honiton," England cannot boast of anything very fine, and even this is merely a meaningless meandering of woven tape-like design for the greater part. The lace of Buckinghamshire ranks, perhaps, lowest in the scale of lace products, its only merit being its extreme durability. The laces of Ireland are of comparatively recent growth, and though in many instances exquisitely fine, do not as yet show much originality. [Illustration: ORIGINAL PATTERNS DESIGNED BY VINCIOLA.] II THE ART OF LACE-MAKING [Illustration: NEEDLEPOINT RÉSEAUX. No. 1.--Brussels. No. 2.--Alençon. No. 3.--Argentan. No. 4.--Argentella.] II THE ART OF LACE-MAKING Needlepoint--Pillow Laces--Charts of various Réseaux--Technical Terms. Lace-making naturally falls into two classes--the Needlepoint and Pillow varieties. In some laces, more especially of the Belgian class, there is a _mixed_ lace, the "toile" or pattern, being worked with the needle, and the ground, or "réseau," made round it on the pillow and _vice versâ_. To the first-named class we must assign the Needlepoint laces of Italy and the exquisite handmade laces of France. To the latter order belong the early Macramé lace, called "Punto a Groppo"; the Genoese and Milanese laces of Italy; Mechlin and Brussels of Belgium; Valenciennes, Lille, and Chantilly of France; and the English laces of Honiton, Buckinghamshire, and Bedfordshire. Pillow lace may be easily distinguished from Point lace, as in the former the ground, or réseau, is made of plaited threads. That of Point lace is composed of threads made by the use of the buttonhole stitch only, or, in the case of Alençon point, the mesh is worked in a special manner. The later laces, _i.e._, those made during the last hundred years, have frequently a ground of machine lace, and thus, strictly speaking, are not lace at all, but only embroideries or appliqués. The machine-made ground can be distinguished by sense of touch alone. If we take a piece of hand-made net between the finger and thumb and slightly roll it, it will gather in a soft little roll, with the touch almost of floss silk. The machine-made net is hard, stiff, and wiry, and remains perceptibly so in this test. Also, the mesh of machine-made lace is as regular as though made with a fine machine fret-saw, that of hand-made lace being of varying sizes, and often following the pattern of the lace design. The accompanying diagram illustrates the various grounds, and will prove an infallible guide in distinguishing the points of difference between Point and Pillow lace. Various special and technical terms are used in describing the method of making lace. Without burdening the reader too much, a few special terms must be explained. _Brides_ (literally "bridges").--These are the connections between the various parts of a lace design, both in Needle-point and Bobbin lace. In the former, they are made entirely of a strand or two of thread thrown across, and then buttonholed over, sometimes with tiny loops on the edges, and in Venetian lace often having minute stars worked upon them. [Illustration: PILLOW RÉSEAUX. No. 1.--Valenciennes. No. 2.--Brussels. No. 3.--Lille. No. 4.--Mechlin.] _Beading._--A tiny looped edge used to finish woven or Pillow-made lace. _Bobbins._--One of the essential parts of a Pillow worker's outfit. These are small, elongated bobbins made of ivory, bone, or wood, on which is wound the lace-maker's thread. Sometimes they have been made very ornamental with carving and other decorations, and frequently have "gingles," or a bunch of coloured beads attached to one end. The terms "Bobbin lace" and "Bone lace" are derived from these and are synonymous with "Pillow lace." _Cordonnet._--In most _Point_ laces the design is outlined with a raised _cord_ either worked over closely with buttonhole stitches, or made separately and then stitched down. The Cordonnet is one of the characteristic features of the raised Venetian points and the French laces of Alençon or Argentan. _Couronnes._--These are decorations of the Cordonnet especially noticeable in the raised Venetian laces, in which sometimes the lace is raised and worked upon no less than four separate times. _Dentelé._--Lace designed in scallop-form, chiefly used for border laces. _Fillings._--This word most easily explains the ordinary terms of "modes" and "à jours." The inner parts of the pattern in Needlepoint and Pillow lace are filled in with various ornamental stitches, showing an amazing variety of design. By these fillings various laces may often be distinguished, as each factory had its favourite "modes." _Grounds._--There are two varieties of grounds, one made with Brides, and the other either with Needlepoint or Pillow network. Other names for these are "Réseaux" and "Fonds." The method of making Needlepoint or woven ground often decides the date and class of the lace. _Guipure._--Literally a _tape lace_. The name however is applied to all Pillow laces having a tape-like design on them. _Picots._--The little loops used to ornament a plain bride or tie. [Illustration: VENETIAN ROSE POINT. (_S.K.M. Collection._)] III THE LACES OF ITALY [Illustration: VENETIAN ROSE POINT. Seventeenth Century. (_Author's Collection._)] III THE LACES OF ITALY _The Venetian Laces_ Venetian lace--"Rose Point"--"Point de Neige"--"Gros Point"--"Punto Tagliato a Foliami"--The South Kensington Collection. Needlepoint lace is made with needle and thread and principally in buttonhole stitches. A traced parchment pattern is procured, the outline made with a solitary thread stitched down to the parchment at frequent intervals. The thread is then worked over with fine buttonhole stitches; the modes or fillings have a fine network of threads stretched across, afterwards being buttonholed into a variety of designs. The edges are then again worked upon with loops or picots, and in "Rose Point" tiny stars or roses are worked on suitable parts of the design, sometimes the "roses" or "stars" being three in numbers, one poised upon the other. This is known as "Point de Neige" the whole surface of the lace being literally sprinkled with tiny stars somewhat representing a fine snowfall. The design is then connected with fine "brides," these in their turn being dotted and purled with stars and loops. Most of this exquisite lace requires a powerful magnifying-glass to discern the intricacy of the work. The finest lace of this variety was produced in the sixteenth century, the designs being bold, handsome, and purely Renaissance in type. That of the Louis Quatorze period shows the personal influence of his reign, frequently having tiny figures worked in the design. A collar in my possession has the Indian worshipping the sun (the King's glory was said to rival that of the sun) repeated in each scallop. This was a favourite design in the magnificent "Point de France" which was made during the long reign of Louis, under the management of Colbert. It is absolutely certain that the laces known as Venetian Point originated in Italy. Pattern books still exist showing how the early Reticella developed into this magnificent lace. In the National Library at the South Kensington Museum, may be seen the very patterns designed by Vinciolo, Vicellio, and Isabella Parasole. These publications actually came from Venice, and being reproduced in France, Germany, Belgium, and England, quickly aroused immense enthusiasm, and lace-making spread far and wide, at first all other laces being mere imitations of the Venetian. [Illustration: CORALLINE POINT (VENETIAN).] [Illustration: POINT PLAT DE VENISE (FLAT VENETIAN). (_Author's Collection._)] [Illustration: MARIE DE MEDICIS WEARING THE MEDICIS COLLAR TO DISPLAY VENETIAN LACES.] The chief varieties of the Venetian laces are known as Rose Point, Point de Neige, Gros Point de Venise (often erroneously attributed to Spain and called Spanish Point), and Point Plat de Venise. A much rarer variety is "Venetian point à réseau," which is the flat point worked round with a Needlepoint ground or mesh, the network following no proper order but being simply worked round the pattern and following its curves. The chief characteristics of Venetian lace are the buttonhole Cordonnet, fine or thick according to the style of lace; the wonderful diversities of the fillings worked in buttonhole stitches; the elaborate decoration of the Cordonnet; and the starry effects of the brides or ties. In the flat Venetian Point there is no Cordonnet. These Italian laces were admired and purchased by all the European countries, and the cities of Venice and Florence made enormous fortunes. The fashions of the day led to their extensive use, Marie de Medicis introducing the Medici collar trimmed with Venetian points specially to display them. At a little later period the collar became more falling and the heavier "Gros point" was used. Men and women alike wore lace-trimmed garments to an excessive degree, the collar and cuff trimmings being composed of wide Venetian lace and the silken scarf worn across the body being edged with narrower and finer lace. The principal designs for the Venetian lace of all periods were scrolls of flowers conventionalised in the Renaissance taste of the time. The generic name for all laces of the finest period is "Punto tagliato a foliami." The laces of this time are now almost priceless. They are genuine works of art, worked slowly and patiently under the clear light of the Italian skies by women who were naturally artistic and beauty loving, and who, while working the shining needle and fairy thread in and out of the intricacies of the design sang the pretty "Lace Songs" which may be heard at the Burano Lace School even now, although 200 or 300 years old. Many specimens of this exquisite lace are to be found in the South Kensington Museum, where the flounce given by Mrs. Bolckow at once explains the whole scheme of Venetian lace-making. Such lace is not to be purchased now except at great price. The piece illustrated, see page 55, was only 1-1/8 yards in length, and was sold for £145 by one of our leading lacemen. Barely 5 yards of Venetian lace, only 2 inches wide and _in rags_, was sold at Debenham & Storr's in August, 1907, for £60; and even the smallest collar or a pair of cuffs runs well into £10. Even in the days of its manufacture this lace commanded high prices. In the inventory of Queen Elizabeth's gowns we find such entries as-- "To 1 yard Double Italian Cut-worke, 1/4 yd. wide. 55/4. " 3 yds. broad needlework lace of Italy, with purls. 50/- per yd." James II. paid £29 for a cravat. [Illustration: VERY FINE EXAMPLE OF "GROS POINT DE VENISE."] IV THE LACES OF GENOA AND MILAN [Illustration: LOUIS XIII. OF FRANCE, SHOWING VANDYKE LACE COLLAR AND NARROWER LACE ON SCARF.] IV THE LACES OF GENOA AND MILAN Argentella wrongly called Italian--Genoese--Mixed laces--Milanese--Macramé. These are mostly Pillow laces, but fine Point laces were also manufactured in these towns. In the first-named town it is said that the lace called "Argentella" was made, but this is extremely doubtful, most authorities arguing that it was certainly a French lace made at the best period. A very representative lace of Genoa is known as collar lace, very widely used for the falling collars of the Vandyke period. It was an exceedingly beautiful and decorative lace, and almost indestructible. Specimens of this lace can even now easily be secured at a fair price. The laces known as "Pillow Guipure" are somewhat open to question, the authorities at South Kensington Museum agreeing to differ, and labelling most of the specimens "Italian or Flemish." The finer pieces of this type of lace may safely be described as "Flemish," as the flax-thread grown and made in Flanders was much finer than that grown in the Southern Countries. Much of the Genoa lace was worked in what we term "mixed lace," the design being woven on the pillow, and the ground and fillings worked in with the needle either in a network or by brides and picots. A much inferior kind is made with a woven braid or tape, the turns of the pattern being made in twisted or puckered braid, much after the style of the handmade Point lace made in England some thirty years ago. This lace was known as "Mezzo Punto," though the French were discourteous enough to term it "Point de Canaille," as undoubtedly it was an imitation of the finer laces made in a loose, poor style. The lace of Milan is unquestionably the most beautiful of the Pillow laces of Italy. While resembling the plaited lace of Genoa, there is more individuality about it. Much of this fine lace was worked for church vestments and altar cloths. Various heraldic devices are frequently introduced, surrounded with elegant scroll designs, the whole being filled up with woven réseau, the lines of which are by no means regular, but are made to fill in the interstices. Yet another Italian lace is known as _Punto a Groppo, or Macramé_. No doubt this was the earliest form of woven lace, and, indeed, it may claim an origin as early as the first garments worn by mankind. In the earliest remains of antiquity a _fringe_ often decorates the edges of garments, curtains, and floor-covering, and seems to be a natural and fitting finish to what would otherwise be a hard, straight line. In the various Assyrian and Egyptian monuments this is noted again and again. [Illustration: GENOESE LACE. Sixteenth or Seventeenth Century. (_S.K.M. Collection._)] Some of the sixteenth-century pieces which we possess show simply an elaboration of the knotted fringe, while much of the later work is exceptionally fine. The work is so well known, owing to its revival during the last thirty years in a coarse form, that it needs little description. Its use, even at its best period, was confined to household use, for which purpose it seems particularly adapted. [Illustration: MILANESE LACE. (_Author's Collection._)] V THE LACES OF FRANCE [Illustration: "CUT-WORKE."] [Illustration: LACIS.] [Illustration: OLD ITALIAN AND FRENCH CUT AND DRAWN WORK AND "LACIS." (_Author's Collection._)] V THE LACES OF FRANCE _The Needlepoint Laces of France_ Catherine de Medici's collection of "Lacis"--Establishment of lace-making by Colbert--"Point de France"--"Point d'Alençon"--"Point d'Argentan"--Modern reproduction of these at Burano, Italy. France in the sixteenth century, as always, led the van of fashion. Lace appears to have been extensively used long before its apotheosis at the Court of Louis le Grand, otherwise Louis XIV. Catherine de Medici patronised the manufacture of "_Lacis_," which was merely darned netting, more or less fine. At this time "Lacis" and "Cut-worke" were practically all that was known or used. Bed-hangings, curtains, and furniture-coverings were covered with alternate squares of lacis and cutwork. Afterwards the Reticella laces of Italy were imported and had an immense vogue, but it was not until the artistically glorious time of Louis XIV. that an attempt was made to encourage a manufacture of French laces. Colbert, the astute Minister of Louis XIV., became alarmed at the immense sums of money which went out of the country to purchase the laces of Venice, and, by means of bribing the best workers of the Venetian schools, he induced them to settle at L'Onray, near Alençon. In 1665 he had so far succeeded that lace rivalling that of Venice was being produced. The Venetians became alarmed in their turn (as, indeed, they had need to be) and issued an edict, ordering the lace-workers to return forthwith, or, failing this, the nearest relative would be imprisoned for life, and steps would be taken to have the truant lace-worker _killed_. If, however, he or she returned, complete forgiveness would be extended, and work found them _for life_ at handsome remuneration. History does not tell us the result of this decree, but it evidently failed to destroy the lace manufacture of France. At first the lace manufactured at Alençon received the name of "Point de France," and was absolutely indistinguishable from that of Venice. Its magnificence of design, indeed, may be said to have exceeded anything before attempted. The introduction of tiny figures was attributable to the overwhelming personality of Louis XIV., and was symbolical of his magnificent sway and far-reaching influence. In the illustration, page 55, an especially fine specimen of the lace, Madame de Montespan is seen seated under the crown, two small Indians are on either side; a tree bearing flags and trophies completes this tribute to the genius of the lace-makers and the splendour of the Court. [Illustration: "POINT DE FRANCE." (_The property of Lady Kenmare._)] [Illustration: POINT D'ALENÇON. (_Author's Collection._)] The name "Point de France" is given to all lace made from its commencement by Colbert's direction until about 1678, when the lace-workers, perhaps forgetting the traditions of the Venetian school, developed a style of their own and the work became more distinctly French, being more delicate, finer in substance, the patterns clearer and more defined. The importation also of the finer flax thread from Flanders brought the more exquisite Pillow lace of Brussels to the notice of the French lace-workers. The French, as a nation, have always been foremost in seizing upon new ideas and adapting them to their own artistic requirements. In this instance the result was admirable, and it gave to the world, not the finest lace, as it was impossible to surpass the earliest Venetian Point laces, but certainly the next lace in order of merit, "Point d'Alençon." The chief characteristic of the lace is the fine, clear ground, the stiff Cordonnet outlining the pattern, and the exquisite patterns in the "jours" or fillings. The cordonnet of Alençon is the only one which has horsehair for its foundation. A strand of hair is carefully stitched down to the edges and is buttonholed over with the finest thread, and is said, although giving the lace quite a character of its own, to have been the cause of much of its destruction, as, in washing, the hair contracts and curls. It will be noticed also that the ground is worked in strips, _shortways of the lace of less than an inch in length_, afterwards being stitched together in what is known as "fine joining." So elaborate was the original Point d'Alençon that no less than eighteen workers were engaged on one single piece. Later the number was reduced to twelve, when the patterns became less ornate. Although the factory of Alençon existed well into the early nineteenth century, the style of lace gradually deteriorated, until it is now non-existent! The lace made during the long reign of Louis XIV. is considered by far the finest and best, showing both grandeur of style and pattern and exquisite workmanship. Under Louis XV. the lace was equally well made, but the patterns followed the Rococo designs which were now introduced into all other decorative work, while in the reign of the ill-fated Louis XVI. it went completely out of fashion, Marie Antoinette affecting a much simpler style of lace. The Revolution finally caused the complete overthrow of Alençon lace, as of all fine art work in France. An attempt was made by Napoleon I. to revive it, but its glories had passed, and the hands of the workers had lost their cunning, the result being known as the worst type of lace, stiff and ugly in design and coarse of execution. "_Point d'Argentan._" This lace is practically the same as Alençon with a variation of ground, which, to the uninitiated, appears coarse. A magnifying glass, however, will speedily dispel this illusion. The ground in itself is a marvellous piece of work, each of the sides of the mesh being covered with ten buttonhole stitches. Very frequently a mixed lace of Alençon and Argentan is found, the result being very fine. [Illustration: "POINT DE FRANCE." (_Author's Collection._)] [Illustration: POINT D'ARGENTELLA.] _Point d'Argentella._ About this lace most authorities dispute, some stoutly advocating its claims to be French lace entirely and others averring that it was made _in imitation_ of the Point d'Alençon by the Genoese. Be this as it may, the lace known as Point d'Argentella is exceptionally fine even amongst other fine laces, and is noted most specially for the fine "jours" which form an essential part of the pattern, every effort apparently being made to give extra scope for their employment. The specimen illustrated shows some of these "jours" having the characteristic mayflower, lozenge, and dotted patterns. Much modern lace of this type is now made at Burano, Italy, where the coarse Italian lace formerly made there has been entirely superseded. It strongly imitates Alençon and Argentan lace, but is without the raised cord which is so typical of these, having the pattern outlined with flat buttonhole stitches only. By many connoisseurs this is considered the finest lace of this age, being far superior to modern Brussels. It is entirely handmade, which cannot be, unfortunately, averred for Brussels, as the fine machine-made net, woven from the exquisitely fine thread manufactured in Flanders and Belgium, serves as the ground for all Brussels lace made at the present time, except when special orders like Royal trousseaux are in hand. The lace-makers of Burano, it may be added, imitate the finest Venetian Rose Point, Point de Gaze, Alençon, ever produced, the prices comparing very favourably with the old work, though still very costly. [Illustration: POINT D'ARGENTAN WITH POINT D'ALENÇON BORDER. (_S.K.M. Collection._)] [Illustration: ARGENTELLA LACE, SHOWING THE "PARTRIDGE-EYE" GROUND. (_S.K.M. Collection._)] VI THE PILLOW LACES OF FRANCE [Illustration: EARLY VALENCIENNES. (_S.K.M. Collection._)] [Illustration: OLD VALENCIENNES. (_Author's Collection._)] VI THE PILLOW LACES OF FRANCE Valenciennes, "Vraie" and "Fausse"--Lille--Chantilly-- Blonde--Caen and Brittany. _Valenciennes._ Valenciennes was formerly part of Flanders, being in the province of Hainault. It became a French town in 1668 by treaty. Being a Flemish town, the lace made there was purely Pillow lace, and in fineness of thread and beauty of design it rivalled in its early stages some of the fine old Flemish laces, which are more like ornamental cambric than anything else. There are two kinds of Valenciennes lace, known as "Vraie" and "Fausse." These names are very misleading, as they merely denote the laces made in the town itself, or in the outskirts. Early Valenciennes can only be distinguished from Flemish laces of the same age by the difference in the _ground_. By reference to the little chart of lace stitches the distinction will easily be seen, the Valenciennes being much closer and thicker in the plait, and having four threads on each side of its diamond-shaped mesh. Conventional scrolls and flowers were used as designs for the toile, the ground and the pattern being made at the same time. This lace is said to have been worked, like that of Brussels, in dark, damp cellars, the moist atmosphere being necessary to prevent the tiny thread breaking. The lace-workers became nearly blind, and quite useless, long before they reached thirty years of age. So expensive was the fabric that a pair of ruffles for a gentleman's coat would sell for 4,000 livres. Madame du Barri made extravagant use of this lovely lace. In her wardrobe accounts are mentioned, in 1771, head-dress, throatlets, fichus, and ruffles, "all plissé de Vraie Valenciennes." The amount of lace used for a head-dress alone is said to have cost 2,400 livres. The "Vraie Valenciennes" was practically indestructible, earning the nickname of the "Eternal Valenciennes" from its durability. The well-to-do bourgeoise used to invest her savings in real lace, treasuring and wearing it on all best occasions for a lifetime. The lace-makers of the town itself were so satisfied with their own lace that they proudly boasted that if a length commenced in the town of Valenciennes were taken and completed _by the same worker, and with the same thread_, outside their own damp atmosphere, the exact point of difference would be shown in the piece. [Illustration: "OLD LILLE." (_Author's Collection._)] The earliest Valenciennes laces show a closer design than that made later, which, by the way, many connoisseurs much prefer. The latter type is of clearer ground and more open design. The flowers do not follow the large scroll-like pattern of Flanders, but suggest the detached sprays and festoons of Alençon and Argentan. In both types there is no cord outlining either pattern or edge. All is flat as a piece of fine lawn. _Lille._ By no means a _favourite_ lace at any time, Lille ranks next in merit as a hand-made lace. The mesh is clearer and larger than most French or Belgian laces, being made by the simple twisting of two threads on four sides. The patterns are simple, and are outlined with a loose flax thread of silky appearance. The straight edges which characterise Old Lille lace certainly did not lend elegance to it. A large manufacture in black lace was commenced, and the black silk mantles of the eighteenth century were lavishly trimmed with it. It is entirely out of favour at this day, however, only the finest white variety being sought after. Lace is still manufactured at Lille, but the patterns of Mechlin are copied, although the tiny square dots, one of the distinguishing points of old Lille, are still used. _Chantilly._ The white laces of Chantilly much resemble Lille, having the same fine, clear ground and a thick, silky-looking thread outlining the pattern. A little lace school was established by the Duchesse de Rohan early in the seventeenth century, and for quite a hundred years white laces were made, and became popular. Marie Antoinette used this pretty lace as well as Valenciennes extensively to trim her favourite lawn dresses and fichus when she and the ladies of her Court retired to the Petit Trianon to play at being shepherdesses. About the middle of the eighteenth century Chantilly began to produce black silk lace of very fine quality. This is practically the only black lace for which there is any market. A Chantilly fan or a Chantilly shawl will always find purchasers. The exquisite fineness of its ground, the elegance of its floral festoons and bouquets, make it a desirable possession. With the Revolution the manufacture of real old black Chantilly ceased, and was only revived with the Empire, when, in addition to copying the old designs, the manufacture of the famous _blonde_ laces was commenced. _French Blonde Lace._ At first these filmy silk laces were made in the natural colour floss silk imported from China, hence its name "Blonde." Some of the finest specimens are in this colour. Afterwards, when the art of bleaching the silk was discovered, it was made in a peculiarly silvery colour, the loosely woven silk being worked in patterns on what appears a ground of gossamer. Black Blonde was afterwards manufactured, the lace being very different to that of nineteenth-century manufacture, the mesh being large and open. This was a favourite lace with the Spaniards for mantillas, and much prosperity resulted to the little town of Chantilly. As with all other laces, the introduction of machinery killed the industry as an art, and the only Blonde laces now made are by machine, and are quite inartistic and inelegant. Hand-made Chantilly in black silk is still manufactured, but it has only a limited output. [Illustration: "THE EMPRESS EUGENIE" WEARING BLONDE LACE. (_From a Baxter print._)] _Other French Laces._ Lace has been made in many smaller towns in France, but in no instance has it been of sufficient artistic merit to have made a name. Caen manufactured Blonde lace in imitation of Chantilly. In Normandy the peasant women and girls in the eighteenth century were specially diligent, and made praiseworthy imitations of Mechlin, Flemish guipure laces, and Brussels, and also introduced the working of gold and silver thread and even beads, which was much used in churches. Some really exquisite Blonde lace made in this manner was produced at Caen, fine pearls were used in the place of beads, and this lace became extremely popular in England. The Empress Eugénie was particularly fond of it, and in most of the portraits of her at the zenith of her beauty she is seen wearing decorated Blonde lace. It is said that this lace so soon soiled and spoiled in the making that only women having specially dry hands could be employed, and that during the summer months the lace was worked in the open air, and in the winter in rooms specially built over cow-houses, so that the animals' breath might just sufficiently warm the workers in this smokeless atmosphere. Other towns engaged in lace-making were Havre, Dieppe (the latter town making a lace resembling Valenciennes), Bayeux, which carried on an extensive trade with the Southern Islands; Mexico and Spain taking an inferior and heavy Blonde lace for mantillas. In Bretagne so dear is lace to the heart of the French peasant woman that every garment is trimmed with lace, often of her own making; and along with the provision of a little "dot" for her daughter she makes pieces of lace for her wedding dress. A curious custom is noted, that the peasant woman often wears this treasured garment only twice, once for her wedding and lastly for her funeral! VII THE LACES OF FLANDERS [Illustration: POINT D'ANGLETERRE. Period Louis XIV. (_Author's Collection._)] VII THE LACES OF FLANDERS Early Flemish--Brussels lace--Point d'Angleterre--Cost of real Flanders flax thread--Popularity of Brussels lace--Point Gaze. Whether Italy or Flanders first invented both Needlepoint and Pillow laces will ever remain a moot point. Both countries claim priority, and both appear to have equal right. Italian Needlepoint without doubt evolved itself from the old Greek or Reticella laces, that in turn being a development of "Cutworke" and drawn thread work. Flanders produces her paintings by early artists in which the portraits are adorned with lace as early as the fourteenth century. An altar-piece by Quentin Matys, dated 1495, shows a girl making Pillow lace, and later, in 1581, an old engraving shows another girl busy with her pillow and bobbins. An early Flemish poet thus rhapsodises over his countrywomen's handiworks: "Of many arts, one surpasses all; The threads woven by the strange power of the hand-- Threads, which the dropping of the spider would in vain attempt to imitate, And which Pallas herself would confess she had never known." Whether Flanders imitated the Italian laces or not, it is unquestioned that every other lace-making country imitated _her_. Germany, Sweden, France, Russia, and England have, one after the other, adopted her method to such an extent that, following the tactics of Venice in 1698, she also issued an edict threatening punishment to all who would entice her workers away. So alike are the early laces of Flanders that it is impossible to distinguish what is known as Flemish Point, Brussels Point, and Point d'Angleterre. The last-named lace is peculiar, inasmuch as it has a French appellation, is named "English," and yet is purely Brussels in character. Two stories gather round this lace, which accounts for its name. One is that the English Government in the time of Charles II., seeing so much money go out of the country, forbade the importation of Brussels lace. The English lace merchants, not to be done out of their immense profits, smuggled it over in large quantities, and produced it as having been made in Devonshire, and sold it under the name of English Point. Another legend is that when Colbert, in the reign of Louis XIV., determined to encourage lace-making in his own country, made prohibitive the importation of any other lace than France's own manufacture, the French Court, which had already become enamoured of Brussels lace, therefore had it smuggled into England and thence to France, as _English laces_ were at that time too insignificant to come under Colbert's ban. [Illustration: POINT D'ANGLETERRE. Period of Louis XIV. (_Author's Collection._)] Whichever tale we choose to believe is of little consequence. It is sufficient to say that fine Point d'Angleterre is simply Brussels of the best period when the glorious Renaissance was at its height. It is absolutely indistinguishable from Brussels of the same period. The specimen lappet, illustrated, shows the "figure" motif which appears in "Point de France" and the old "Venetian Point," and which at once dates its manufacture. Practically the term Flanders or Flemish lace can be applied to all the laces made in Flanders and Belgium of the earliest periods. It is peculiarly fine; the specimen shown is as fine as gossamer, showing a total absence of Cordonnet, of course, and not even having the loose thread which marks the stems and leaves of Brussels and Angleterre. The flax of Flanders was at the time of the great lace industry known and imported to all the towns engaged in making it. Italy could procure nothing so fine and eminently suitable to the delicate work she made her own as this fine thread, grown in Flanders, and spun in dark, damp rooms, where only a single ray of light was allowed to enter. The thread was so fine, it is said, that it was imperceptible to the naked eye and was manipulated by touch only. The cost of this thread was £240 a pound, and one pound could be made into lace worth £720! Real Flanders lace thread even now, spun with the help of machinery, costs £70, and is nothing like so durable as the old threads. When we consider that lace to be known as "Old Lace" must be two hundred or three hundred years old, we can understand the strength of this fairy thread, which was like a spider's web in filminess and yet durable enough to last centuries of wear, and remain as a lasting memorial of its beauty. BRUSSELS The early Flemish laces cannot be traced to any particular town, but Brussels early obtained a reputation for the production of the soft, elegant laces which are variously known as "Real old Brussels," "Point d'Angleterre," "Point d'Aiguille," and "Point de Gaze." Almost every woman, although knowing little about lace as an art, knows and easily recognises "Brussels." It has ever been the most popular lace, partly because its price has never been actually prohibitive, although always costly. Choice pieces of Old Brussels, with real ground, rank among the laces of France and Venice as pieces of price, but the later period, especially the kind known as Brussels applique, is within everybody's reach, even if only as a border for a best handkerchief. [Illustration: "OLD BRUSSELS" (HAND-MADE GROUND). (_Author's Collection._)] [Illustration: BRUSSELS LAPPET, MADE IN IMITATION OF ALENÇON AND ARGENTAN.] Lace made at Brussels at all periods has one characteristic that places it at once and makes identification easy at a glance. The threads of the toilé--that is, the pattern--follows the _curves_, instead of, as in other Flanders laces, being straight _up_ and _down_ and _across_, each thread being exactly at right angles to the other; Brussels lace also has a distinctive edge to its pattern. It has no Cordonnet, but a little set of looped stitches worked along the edge of the design, afterwards whipped over to keep the edge in place. This is most clearly seen in every specimen, and, in conjunction with the curved toilé, at once settles the vexed question of the origin of Point d'Angleterre. The mesh or ground is, again, quite different to other laces. It has three varieties of ground-- 1. One, mostly used in Point d'Angleterre, being of fine "brides" with four or five picots, but this ground is also seen in Venetian and French laces. 2. A hand-made ground made of looped buttonhole stitches, which is the finest and most gossamer-like of all; and 3. A woven ground made on the pillow with plaited thread, very like Mechlin, but under the magnifying glass having two longer sides to its hexagonal mesh, and therefore being more open and clear. The hand, or rather needlepoint, ground was three times more expensive than the woven, as it was stronger and more lasting. The special value of the "vrai reseau" in our own day is that it can be imperceptibly repaired, the broken stitches replaced, whereas in the woven ground the point of junction must show. The needle-made net is so fine that one piece in my possession, though measuring 3/4 yard by 8 inches can easily, in its widest part, be gathered and passed through a finger ring. At the present day this net is not made, and even the fine woven ground is not used except for Royal wedding orders or for exhibition purposes. A magnificent piece belonging to Messrs. Haywards, of New Bond Street (which cannot be photographed, unfortunately, as it is between two sheets of glass, and might fall to pieces if taken out), was made for George IV., and not delivered, owing no doubt to the usual depleted state of that monarch's exchequer. Messrs. Haywards (whose courtesy is as boundless as their reputation) are always pleased to show this and their other splendid specimen collections to those interested in old lace. Perhaps no lace is so diversified in style as Brussels. At first it was purely Flemish, and almost indistinguishable from it. Then the Venetian influence crept in, and elaboration of pattern and the Renaissance scrolls and flower work showed itself. At the Louis Quatorze period the introduction of the "fairy people," seen at its finest and best in Point de France, marks a time of special beauty. Afterwards the influence of Alençon was shown (though it never rivalled the exquisite lace of this factory), and from that time to the present day these designs have remained for use in its best work. Some of the choicest specimens of old Brussels are shown in the now discarded "lappets," which when a lace head-piece and lappets were part of every gentlewoman's costume, were actually regulated by Sumptuary Laws as to length. The longer the lappets the higher the rank. [Illustration: BRUSSELS LAPPET. Eighteenth Century. (_S.K.M. Collection._)] The great Napoleon, while reviving the lace-making of Alençon, specially admired fine old Brussels, and at the birth of his only son, the little "King of Rome," ordered a christening garment covered with the Napoleonic "N's," crowns and cherubs. This was sold in 1903 at Christie's for £120. At the same sale a Court train realised £140. In the "Creevy Papers, 1768-1838," mention is made of Lord Charles Somerset complaining of not having slept all night, "not having had a minute's peace through sleeping in 'Cambrik sheets,' the Brussels lace with which the pillows were trimmed tickling his face"! This occurred at Wynyards, the seat of the Earl of Londonderry. Queen Anne followed the extravagant fashion of wearing the costliest laces which William III. and Queen Mary carried to such an excess. In 1710 she paid £151 for 21 yards of fine Brussels edging, and two years later the account for Brussels and Mechlin laces amounted to £1,418. In the succeeding reign the ladies of George I.'s period wore lappets and flounces, caps, tuckers, aprons, stomachers, and handkerchiefs, all made of Brussels. In the time of George II. lace was even more worn, but English lace began to rival Brussels, not in quality, but as a substitute. George III. and his wife, Queen Charlotte, were economists of the first order, and personal decoration was rigidly tabooed; hence the almost total extinction of lace as an article of apparel, while in George IV.'s time dress had evolved itself into shimmery silks and lawns, lace being merely a trimming, and the enormous head-dress decorated more frequently with a band of ribbon. An exquisite portrait of Louis Philippe's Queen, Marie Amelia, by the early Victorian painter Winterhalter (whose paintings are again by the revival of fashion coming into favour) shows this fine old _grande dame_ in black velvet dress covered with three graduated flounces of Brussels lace, cap and lappets and "tucker" of the same lace, lace fan, and, sad to relate, a scarf of English machine-made net, worked with English run embroidery! Although good Queen Adelaide had a pretty fancy for lace, she wore little of it, and it was left to Queen Victoria to revive the glory of wearing Brussels to any extent; and she, alas! was sufficiently patriotic to encourage home-made products by wearing almost exclusively Honiton, which I personally am not good Englishwoman enough to admire except at its latest stage (just the past few years), when lace-making, as almost every other art work in this country, is emerging from what, from an artistic point of view, has been one long Slough of Despond. [Illustration: COMTESSE D'ARTOIS, WIFE OF ONE OF LOUIS XIV.'S GRANDSONS, WEARING FINE BRUSSELS LACE.] VIII THE MODERN BRUSSELS LACES AND MECHLIN [Illustration: AN OLD PRINT OF "MARIE ANTOINETTE," SHOWING THE SIMPLICITY OF ADORNMENT SHE AFFECTED. "MECHLIN" LACE.] VIII THE MODERN BRUSSELS LACES AND MECHLIN Modern Brussels, Point Gaze--Ghent--Duchesse Point--Mechlin (the Queen of Laces). Magnificent laces are still made at Brussels, but almost wholly on a machine-made ground, the workers and merchants apparently finding the old hand-made ground unprofitable. The machine-made ground is cheap, and often of mixed flax and cotton instead of being of purely Flanders flax thread, as in the old days. Both quality and colour suffer from this admixture, the lace washing badly and wearing worse. The most common lace is the Point Applique, in which the sprays, groups, and borders on the design are made separately by hand on the pillow, and are afterwards applied by tiny stitchings to the machine-made net. Some qualities are better than others. In the better class the sprays are appliqued to the net, which is then cut away and the interstices of the design filled in with hand-made modes and brides, making a very pretty and showy lace. The best lace made in Brussels now is _Point Gaze_, in which the finest modern lace is produced. Its chief characteristics are its superb designs, repeating many of the fine Renaissance patterns, its clear ground, and its use of shading in leaves and flowers, which, while it adds much to the sumptuous effect, is possibly too naturalistic. This lace is a mixture of hand and machine lace, the ground being of the best machine net, the flowers and sprays frequently needle made, the various fillings being composed of a variety of designs, and the shading often being produced in the needle-darning as in modern Ghent and Limerick. Point de Gaze is costly, but it has the reputation of appearing "worth its money" to which few other laces of the present day can aspire. Other lace-making towns in Belgium and Flanders are-- _Ghent_, which produces a fine machine-made net, worked and embroidered in exact imitation of the earliest Limerick lace. So _real_ is this imitation that a fine flounce of 4 yds. 32 in. wide was sold at a London auction-room a few months ago, as "real old Limerick," for £60! Ghent executes vast quantities of hand-made imitations of Valenciennes, a good and durable lace, but much more expensive than the machine-made varieties which flood the shops as "real Val." [Illustration: MECHLIN LAPPET. Eighteenth Century. (_S.K.M. Collection._)] Perhaps the only other lace worth mentioning in smaller and later varieties is that known as "Duchesse point" or "Bruges," which while being a showy, decorative, and cheap lace, is anything but satisfactory either in design, manufacture, or wear. It is largely composed of cotton, is heavy and cumbrous in design, and after washing becomes thick and clumsy. It is pillow-made, the flowers being made on the cushion and afterwards united by coarse and few brides. Almost equal in favour with old Brussels lace was MECHLIN, which was aptly termed "the Queen of Laces." Old Mechlin was wondrously fine, and transparent. It is often spoken of as "Point de Malines" which, of course, is entirely wrong, as it is not Point at all--being made entirely, all at one time, or in one piece, on the pillow. Much of the lace known under the general name of Flemish Point is really Malines or Mechlin, the only difference being the fine silvery thread which runs all through the designs of real Mechlin. The earliest date of the manufacture of Mechlin is unknown, but in 1681, it is recorded, that the people of Malines busied themselves with making a white lace known as Mechlin. It became a fashionable lace in England in 1699, Queen Mary using it considerably and Queen Anne buying it largely, in one instance purchasing 83 yards of it for £247. It has always remained a favourite lace with English royalties, Queen Charlotte almost exclusively using it. The other day I discovered in a bric-à-brac shop about twenty yards of it, old and discoloured, it is true, which came directly from Queen Caroline, the ill-used wife of George IV. In the earlier Mechlin, although pillow-made, the introduction of the "brides with picots," and also the may-flower patterns of Brussels, helped to make it more decorative. The ground or réseau was very similar to Brussels hand-made, but the hexagonal mesh is shorter, as reference to the diagram of réseaux will show. The exquisite "lightness" of Mechlin, so specially adapted to "quillings" and "pleatings," accounted for its popularity. It was specially suitable to the lawns and muslins of the eighteenth century, but little of this lace is left owing, no doubt, to its great favour except the ubiquitous "lappets," for which it was no doubt "the Queen of Lace." The immediate cause of its extinction was the introduction of Blonde laces, and later its final overthrow came from its being the easiest lace to reproduce by machinery. [Illustration: MARIE ANTOINETTE, QUEEN OF LOUIS XVI., SHOWING HOW MECHLIN LACE WAS USED. From an old fashion plate.] IX OTHER CONTINENTAL LACES IX OTHER CONTINENTAL LACES Spanish lace; Gold and silver laces of Spain--German laces--Russian laces--Maltese silk and thread laces. Outside the great lace-making countries of Italy, France, and Flanders, little lace was ever made, and that little of less consequence. _Spanish Lace._ Much of the old lace known as "Spanish Point" is not Spanish at all, but the best of Italian Rose Point on a large scale, being the variety known as Gros Point. It was not extensively used for dress purposes, as contemporary portraits show, but Spain being such an ultra-Romanist country, vast quantities of it were imported into Spain for church use. When Spain fell on unhappy days, in 1830, and the religious houses were dissolved, this lace was eagerly bought by connoisseurs and collectors and became known as Spanish Point. It is not unlikely that the Italian lace was copied by the nuns of the Spanish convents; indeed, at South Kensington Museum there is a set of church altar lace which is admittedly Spanish work and is a distinct but far off imitation of Italian Point. Spain made gold and silver laces of fine quality and gorgeous design. Blonde laces in both cream and black are almost indigenous to the soil, and a particular kind of black Blonde, embroidered with colours, specially appealed to the colour-loving people. _German Laces._ Perhaps at the present day more lace is made in Germany than at any other period. An enormous manufacture of good machine-made lace is exported yearly, the variety known as Saxony being both popular and cheap. Germany has no national lace, the clever _hausfraus_ caring more to decorate their table and bed-linen than their persons, and using the substantial and practical embroideries of the cross-stitch patterns more than the elegant frailties of lace trimming. Lacis network darned into patterns has always been popular here, as also in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. [Illustration: DUCHESSE LACE. Modern.] _Russia._ The Russian laces need little more than a passing note. As in Germany, Lacis and Cutworke form the only hand-made lace known, the people contenting themselves with these varieties and using coloured threads to further decorate them. Their laces may be called merely Russian embroideries. Peter the Great did much to found a lace school, but only gold laces were made, of a barbaric character. Recently an attempt has been made to imitate the Venetian laces, with very fair results, but the character is very stiff and mechanical, going back to the primitive forms of Reticella rather than the elegancies of Italian Point. The only other Continental lace requiring note is _Maltese_, a lace made entirely with bobbins and on a pillow. This lace is of ancient make, being known as early as the old Greek laces, which it strongly resembles. Its very popularity has killed its use as a fine lace, and at the present day it is copied as a cheap useful lace in France, England, Ireland, and even India. The old Maltese lace was made of the finest flax thread, afterwards a silk variety, which is well known, being made in cream. Black lace was also manufactured, and at the time of the popularity of black lace as a dress trimming it was much used. At the present day the lace is not of the old quality, cotton being frequently mixed with the flax threads. There is no demand for it, and it is about the most unsaleable lace of the day. X A SHORT HISTORY OF LACE IN ENGLAND [Illustration: QUEEN ELIZABETH: RUFF OF VENETIAN POINT. (_National Portrait Gallery._)] X A SHORT HISTORY OF LACE IN ENGLAND Early samplers--Lace worn by Queen Elizabeth; by the early Stuarts--Extravagant use of lace in time of Charles II.--William and Mary's lace bill. Even at the risk of being considered utterly unpatriotic, I cannot give much more than faint praise to the lace-making of England up to the present date, when notable efforts are at last being made to raise the poor imitation of the Continental schools to something more in accordance with artistic conception of what a great National Art might become. As in all countries, lace-making apparently commenced in its early English stages by drawn-thread and cutwork. In many of the charming old sixteenth-century English samplers just as exquisite cut-work, and its natural successor Reticella, or "punto in aria" is shown, as in the finest examples of the Venetian schools. Unfortunately, however, English fine lace-making came to a sudden and inexplicable end, although we know that any quantity of fine Venetian, exquisite Brussels, or Flemish laces, and the wonderful Point de France were being imported into the country and lavishly used. As early as the reign of Edward IV. lace was mentioned as being prohibited for importation amongst other items of feminine luxury, such as "ribans, fringes of silk and cotton," but it is considered that the word "laces" here means only the twisted threads that go to make up a lace or tie, commonly ending in tags or points. It must be allowed, however, that laces, or more probably "gimps" of gold and silver threads were used for trimming both lay and ecclesiastical garments, and in Henry VII.'s reign we find that importation of Venetian lace was permitted, but this is generally admitted still to refer to gold and silver lace, more probably coming from Genoa. It was not really until the time of bluff King Hal that lace became an article of fashion, when during the life of the last of his unfortunate queens he permits "the importation of all manner of gold and silver fringes, or _otherwise_, with all new 'gentillesses' of what facyion or value, for the pleasure of our dearest wyeff the Queen." Henry himself also began to indulge in all these little elegances of fashion, and wore his sleeves embroidered with cutwork, and handkerchiefs edged with gold and silver, treating himself liberally to "coverpanes" and "shaving-cloths" trimmed with gold lace. [Illustration: EDMUND SPENSER: COLLAR TRIMMED WITH RETICELLA. Early period.] Little mention of white work was made in the inventories of Henry VIII. or his Queens, but Cardinal Wolsey seems to have had more than his share of cutwork embroideries, judging from contemporary portraits. In Queen Mary's reign white work began to be more frequently spoken of, and in 1556 it is stated that Lady Jane Seymour presented the Queen with "a smock of fair white work, Flanders making." It was not until Queen Elizabeth's time that lace became freely mentioned; then suddenly we are introduced to an endless variety of lace and trimmings, both of gold and silver, pearl and embroideries, and various white work! In some of the old Chronicles mention was made of drawn work, cut-work, Crown lace, bone lace for ruffs, Spanish chain, parchment, hollow, and diamond lace. Many of these terms cannot be understood. The enormous ruffs worn by Queen Elizabeth were introduced into England in the time of her sister Mary. Portraits both of Philip of Spain and Queen Mary show ruffs, but not edged with lace. Queen Elizabeth's, on the contrary, are both edged with lace and, in some instances, covered with it. On her poor old effigy at Westminster Abbey, where her waxen image is dressed in her actual garments, the only lace that appears is on the enormous ruff, three-quarters of a yard wide, covered with a fine lace of the loose network kind. The rest of her garments are trimmed with gold and silver lace and _passementerie_. In the succeeding reign lace of a geometric design shows itself on the ruffs of the richest people. Pictures in the National Portrait Gallery show many exquisite examples of the beautiful Reticella of Venice, which must have been very costly to the purchaser, as twenty-five yards or more of this fine lace were required to edge a ruff. It was in the reign of James I. and his consort, Anne of Denmark, that Flanders lace and the expensive Point laces of Italy first became widely popular. Then, as now, they were costly--to such an extent that many gentlemen sold an estate to buy laces for their adornment. It was during this reign that we first learn of a lace being made in England, as Queen Anne of Denmark on her journey south purchased lace at _Winchester_ and _Basing_, but history mentions not what kind of lace it was. Apparently only a simple kind of edging was used, made on a pillow. The enormous ruffs went out of fashion with the death of James I. Charles I., in all his portraits, wears the falling collar edged with Vandyke lace. It was during this reign that Venetian lace reached its apotheosis in England. The dress of the day has never been surpassed, though it became much more elaborate and ostentatious in the time of Charles II. and William and Mary. Falling collars were specially adapted to the display of the handsome laces of Venice. The cuffs of the sleeves were likewise trimmed with the same; scarves were worn across the breast, trimmed with the narrower Reticella. [Illustration: SEVENTEENTH CENTURY FALLING COLLAR TRIMMED WITH FINE RETICELLA. (_S.K.M. Collection._)] During the Commonwealth the laces of Venice suffered a temporary eclipse, and the plainer laces of Flanders were freely used. Cromwell himself, it is said, did not disdain the use of it. His effigy at Westminster was dressed in a fine Holland lace-trimmed shirt, with bands and cuffs of the same. This effigy, by the way, was destroyed at the Restoration. Charles II., who during his exile in France had become imbued with the extravagant taste of the French Court, gave vast orders for "Points of Venice and Flanders," on the plea of providing English lace-workers with better patterns and ideas. The falling collar certainly went out of fashion, but lace was liberally used on other parts of the dress. Lace frills of costly Point edged the knee-breeches, lace cravats were worn and deep falling cuffs. Charles II., in the last year of his reign, spent £20 for a new cravat for his brother's birthday. During James II.'s reign extravagance in lace purchases are still mentioned, but it surely reached its culmination in the joint reign of William and Mary, when enormous sums were spent by both King and Queen. In one year Queen Mary's lace bill amounted to £1,918. New methods of using lace were fashioned. A huge head-dress called the "Fontange," with upright standing ends of Venetian Point, double hanging ruffles falling from elbow sleeves, lace-trimmed aprons, lace tuckers, characterised the feminine dress of the day, while the "Steinkirk" cravat and falling cuffs of William III.'s day ran up accounts not much less than that of his Queen. In 1690 his bill was £1,603, and in 1695 it amounted to £2,459! The effigies of William and Mary in the Abbey, wear the very finest Venetian Point laces. None of the other figures wear such costly lace, nor in such profusion. [Illustration: COLLAR IN GROS POINT DE VENISE. Louis XIV. period. (_S.K.M. Collection._)] XI ENGLISH LACES XI ENGLISH LACES Queen Anne and Mechlin--Establishment of lace-making in Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire--Buckingham lace--Wiltshire lace--Devonshire lace--Modern Honiton revival. It was in Queen Anne's time that the earliest really good lace manufactured in England appeared. Driven from France by the edict of Louis XIV., the refugees found a home in England, and encouraged by Queen Anne's fondness for laces other than Venetian, they made and taught the English lace-workers, among whom they settled, the art of real lace-making, which up to this time had apparently been only half understood. Numerous lace schools now sprang up, the counties of Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and Northampton specially becoming known. Valenciennes and Mechlin were the varieties of laces principally copied; a very pretty lace, very reminiscent of Mechlin, being the "Baby lace," which received its name from being so much used to trim babies' caps. Although very much like Valenciennes and Mechlin, the laces were much coarser both in thread and design than their prototypes. Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire did not long retain the art of lace-making, but Buckingham lace remained a staple manufacture, and is much esteemed even to-day, many connoisseurs considering it far better as a lace than the somewhat clumsy laces of Devonshire. The specimen shown is a piece of old Buckingham lace closely copying the réseau and sprigs of Lille which most lace-lovers consider it excels. The net of Buckinghamshire is an exact copy of the Lille mesh, being made of two threads twisted in a diamond pattern, the sprays being worked on the pillow at the same time. The patterns of the old Buckingham lace are not very varied, the best known being what is called "Spider lace," a coarse kind of open mesh being worked in the pattern. The principal town engaged in the eighteenth century was Newport Pagnel, which was cited as being most noted for making Bobbin lace. Old Brussels designs were used, and some quaint lace of early Flemish design, was made. The early English run lace, which was even so late as fifty years ago very popular, was mostly made here. Aylesbury, Buckingham, and High Wycombe also made lace, and in the last-named old town cottage lace-making may be seen to this day. Very quaint are the old lace bobbins that may be purchased in the "antique" shops of these lace-making towns. The lace-workers apparently indulged many a pretty fancy in shaping them in a diversity of ways, very few bobbins being alike. Some were made of bone, really prettily turned, with dotted and pierced patterns on them. Others were silver-studded, and again others were banded in silver. The wooden ones were always decorated, if possible, each one differently from the others, so that the worker might distinguish each thread without looking at it. Nearly every bobbin was ended with a bunch of coloured beads strung on wire, and a collection of these bobbins, with their "gingles," often yields up a pretty and quaint necklace. One in my possession has a quaint bead made of "ancient Roman glass," worth at least ten shillings. One wonders how this bit of Roman magnificence had strayed into an English cottage home! [Illustration: "OLD BUCKINGHAM." (_Author's Collection._)] [Illustration: EARLY DEVONSHIRE LACE. (_Author's Collection._)] Buckinghamshire is the only one of the Midland counties which has produced _wide_ lace; the adjoining counties confined themselves to edgings at most some 6 inches wide. A flounce in my collection measures 21 inches, and is of very elegant design, and of fine quality. In Wiltshire lace appears to have been made at an early date in the eighteenth century, but little lace is left to show its quality. A curious piece is said to belong to an old family in Dorset, who vouch for the lace having belonged to Queen Charlotte, the wife of George III. Like many other traditional "antiques," this is undoubtedly a fairy story, as it claims to have been made in commemoration of the defeat of the Spanish Armada, _at contemporary times_. It is exceedingly handsome, showing one of Philip's ships, very suggestively surrounded by big sea fish and apparently resting on the rocky bottom of the ocean. In the next panel Tilbury Fort is portrayed, and another ship, one of England's glory, proudly rules the waves. The design is undoubtedly English, and most probably it was made in commemoration of the historic event--but the lace is Point d'Argentan, and was most likely manufactured specially for Queen Charlotte. Lyme Regis at one time rivalled Honiton, the laces of both towns being equally prized. Queen Charlotte wore a "head and lappets" made here when she first came to England, and afterwards she ordered a splendid lace dress to be made. When, however, Queen Victoria, in her wish to encourage the English makers, sent an order for her marriage lace, not sufficient workers were found to produce it. DEVONSHIRE LACE. As early as 1614 the lace-makers of Devonshire were known. The influx of refugees from Flanders in the Midlands and southern counties undoubtedly established lace-making in both parts of the kingdom. Many of the Honiton lace-workers married these refugees, and to this day the people are of mixed descent. Quaint names of Flemish extraction appear over the shop doors. In the early days both men, women, and children seem to have pursued the art of lace-making, boys learning and working at it until the age of sixteen, when they were either apprenticed to some trade or went to sea. [Illustration: OLD HONITON (NEEDLEPOINT GROUND).] [Illustration: OLD HONITON. (_Author's Collection._)] Most of the old Devonshire laces bear distinct likeness to the fine Flemish lace, only the clumsiness of the design or the coarse workmanship differentiating them. It has, however, one special feature which gave it the name "Trolly lace," as, unlike the perfectly flat lace of Flanders, it has a coarse thread or "trolly" outlining its patterns, and being made of English thread, it was coarse and not very durable. _Honiton_ has always easily ranked first amongst our British laces, although by many not considered equal to fine Bucks. Like the Midland lace, it has been always made with Flanders thread, and therefore has maintained its popularity because of its _wear_ and its _colour_. The early Honiton workers copied "Brussels" lace, but because of their inability to produce an artistic design it has never been anything but a _poor_ copy. Even when the Brussels influence was most direct the flowers and sprays were placed inartistically, while the scroll copies of the early Flemish schools can only be termed the imitative handiwork of a child. The most prized specimens of old Honiton are those with hand-made ground, made of Flanders flax. Very little of this real ground Honiton lace is left. Queen Victoria did much to make Honiton lace _the_ lace of the land; but although a regular trade has been established, and much good work accomplished, Honiton of the past will never be regarded on the same plane as the laces of Venice, France, and Brussels. Even in its best variety it lacks the exquisite filmy touch of Brussels, the dainty grace of Alençon, and the magnificence of Point de France and Venetian Point. The Honiton laces made since the introduction of machine-made net is especially poor. Flower sprigs and sprays are made separately on the pillow, and afterwards applied to the machine-made ground. These are, as a rule, flowers and foliage treated naturalistically, and are heavy and close in design. These are often very sparingly applied over a wide expanse of net in order to make as much lace with as little trouble as possible. This is very different to the work of the old Honiton lace-worker, who made every inch of it herself--first the sprays and scrolls, then worked the ground round it, and received, it is said, from the middleman (who purchased it for the town market) as many shillings as would cover the lace offered for sale. We are glad to say, however, that very praiseworthy efforts are being made to introduce better methods and more artistic designs in the many lace schools which are being formed in various parts of Devon. Mrs. Fowler, of Honiton, one of the oldest lace-makers in this centre, making exquisite lace, the technique leaving nothing to be desired, and also showing praiseworthy effort in shaking off the trammels of the traditional designs. [Illustration: MODERN HONITON, MADE BY MRS. FOWLER.] XII SCOTCH AND IRISH LACES XII SCOTCH AND IRISH LACES Hamilton lace--Mary Queen of Scots--Modern lace-making in Ireland--Limerick lace--Carrick-ma-cross--Irish crotchet--Convent laces. Scotch lace can hardly be said to exist. At one time a coarse kind of network lace called "Hamilton lace" was made, and considerable money was obtained by it, but it never had a fashion, and deservedly so. Since the introduction of machinery, however, there has been considerable trade, and a tambour lace is made for flounces, scarfs, &c. The more artistic class of work made by Scotswomen is that of embroidering fine muslin, and some really exquisite work is made by the common people in their homes. Much mention is often made of Mary Queen of Scots and her embroideries and laces. It must be remembered that she married firstly the Dauphin of France, and while at the French Court imbibed the taste for elegant apparel and costly lace trimmings. There is no record that she ever wore lace of her own country's manufacture, and, although English writers often quote the lace made by her fair hands, really the needlework made by Queen Mary at Fotheringay was embroidery. _Irish Laces._ The early lace of Ireland was the usual cut and drawn work, and it was not until the earlier part of the nineteenth century that lace-making actually became a craft. In the eighteenth century many brave attempts were made to commence lace schools, and the best work was done in the convents, where really fine work was executed by the nuns, the patterns having been sent from Italy. It was not until 1829 that the manufacture of Limerick lace was first instituted. This really is not lace at all, as it is merely chain-stitch worked in patterns on machine-made net. This pretty so-called lace was first made at Limerick by an Oxford man, who established a school there, taking with him twenty-four girls as teachers. It quickly became very popular, in the early "fifties" every woman of either high or low degree possessing herself of at least a lace collar or fichu of Limerick lace. In 1855 more than 1,500 workers were employed, but decidedly the best lace of the manufacture belongs to the time prior to this date. The quality of the net ground has also deteriorated, or perhaps the best net has not been purchased. [Illustration: LIMERICK "FILLINGS."] Very dainty little sprays and flowers are produced in the fine chain or tambour stitch, the hearts of the flowers or the centres of the scallops being worked over in an endless variety of extra stitches, as will be seen in the illustration. Another variety of lace is Carrick-ma-cross, which was contemporary with Limerick. This is merely embroidery again, but has more claim to the title of lace, as the tiny little flowers and scrolls are connected with brides made of buttonhole stitch ornamented with picots. This is really a very handsome lace, its only drawback being that it will not _wash_. The fine lawn of which it is made is buttonholed round and then cut away. This, in cleaning or washing, _contracts_ and leaves the buttonhole edging, and in a few cleanings it is a mass of unmendable rags. Slightly more serviceable is another variety of Carrick-ma-cross, on which the lawn is appliquéd to a machine-made net, the pattern outlined with buttonhole stitches, and the surplus lawn cut away, leaving the network as a grounding, various pretty stitchings filling up the necessary spaces. Yet another kind of lace is made, and is really the only real lace that Ireland can claim. This is the Irish crotchet, which in its finer varieties is a close imitation of Venetian Point, but made with fine thread and with a crotchet needle. Some of the best is really worth purchasing, but it is costly, realising as much as five guineas per yard. A very delicate "Tatting" also comes from the Emerald Isle, and in comparing English and Irish laces one is inevitably struck with the reflection that there is more "artistry" in the production of Irish laces and embroidery than in England with all her advantages. The temperamental differences of the two races are distinctly shown in this, perhaps more than any other art. Much really notable work is now being executed in the Irish lace schools. At Youghal, co. Monaghan, an exact replica of old Venetian Point is being worked. Various fine specimens from the school occupy a place at South Kensington Museum, and the lace industry of Ireland may be said to be in a healthy condition. [Illustration: CARRICK-MA-CROSS LACE. (_Author's Collection._)] XIII HOW TO IDENTIFY LACE [Illustration: THE CENTRE STRIP IS OLD "RETICELLA," WITH GENOA BORDERS. (_Author's Collection._)] XIII HOW TO IDENTIFY LACE Style--Historical data--Réseaux. The great difficulty in attempting to identify any specimen of lace is that from time to time each country experimented in the manners and styles of other lace-making nations. The early Reticella workers copied what is known as the "Greek laces," which were found in the islands of the Grecian Archipelago. Specimens of these laces found in the excavations of the last thirty years show practically no difference in method and style. France copied the Venetian laces, and at one period it is impossible to say whether a given specimen was made at Alençon or Venice. Italy, in turn, imitated the Flemish laces--to such an extent that even the authorities at South Kensington Museum, with all their leisure and opportunities for study and the magnificent specimens at hand for identification, admit that certain laces are either "Italian or Flemish." Valenciennes was once a Flemish town, and though now French, preserves the Flemish character of lace, some specimens of Mechlin being so like Valenciennes as to baffle certainty. Later, Brussels borrowed the hand-made grounds of France and Venice, and still later England copied Brussels, the guipures of Flanders, and the ground and style of Lille! All this makes the initial stages of the study of lace almost a hopeless quest. The various expensive volumes on lace, although splendidly written and gorgeously illustrated, leave the student with little more than an interesting and historical knowledge on which to base the actual study of lace. Here I may refer my readers to the one and only public collection of lace, I believe, in England--that of the South Kensington Museum, where specimens of lace from all countries and of all periods are shown, and where many magnificent bequests, that of Mrs. Bolckow especially, make the actual study of lace a possibility. It is to be hoped that the governing body of the museum will, in its own good time, make this a pleasure instead of a pain. The specimens, the _most important to the student_, are placed in a low, dark corridor. Not a glimmer of light can be obtained on some of the cases, which also are upright, and placed so closely together that on attempting to see the topmost specimen on one side the unfortunate student literally bangs her head into the glass of the next one. A gentle complaint at the Directors' office concerning the difficulty brought forth the astonishing information that there was no room at their disposal, but that in good time better light might be found. As these cases have been in identically the same place for the past fifteen years, one hopes that the "good time" may come before one becomes a "spectacled pantaloon" with no desire to see the wonders of that Palace of Art. [Illustration: POINT D'ANGLETERRE. Style Louis XV. Eighteenth Century (_S.K.M. Collection._)] This little protest is made in the hope that the "Lords of the Committee" may possibly have their attention drawn to what amongst the lace-lovers and students in this country is a "standing grievance." It is almost impossible, even from the best of photographic illustrations, to learn all the intricacies of identification. The photographs clearly show style, but it needs specimens of the actual lace to show method of working. From the illustrations in this book, specially selected from the South Kensington Collection, and from specimens in my own collection, every variety of style may be easily understood, as they have been particularly selected to show each point of difference. Commencing with the earliest form of lacework--_i.e._, "cutworke"--nothing will better show this than the "Sampler" specimen, which, half way down, shows two rows entirely typical of this kind of early lace-making--for such it is. A little lower, examples of drawn threadwork are seen, while the upper portion illustrates satin stitch patterns, which more properly belong to embroidery. The ancient collar from the South Kensington Collection, page 149, shows some of the finest developments of cutwork, when the foundation of linen was entirely dispensed with. The work is exceedingly fine, the threads being no coarser, indeed in many cases less so, than the fine linen it adorns. This is known as Reticella, or "punto in aria." The last name is applicable to all the laces of Venice which succeeded Reticella, and means lace literally made out of nothing or without any building foundation. The specimen is still of the same class, but where before the design was simple geometric square and pointed as in all the early lace, it now takes on the lovely flowing scroll of the Renaissance that marks the latter half of the seventeenth century. The same grand styles may be noted all through the great period of Italian Needlepoint lace. It will be seen in a lesser degree in the Guipure laces of Milan and Genoa, but here the cramping influence of the Flemish school shows itself distinctly. [Illustration: ITALIAN ECCLESIASTICAL LACE.] [Illustration: FLEMISH OR GENOESE ECCLESIASTICAL LACE. (_S.K.M. Collection._)] The same bold lines may be noted in the early Needlepoint lace of France, which had not then become sufficiently sure of her capacity to develop a style of her own, and all show the Renaissance spirit. Afterwards when the superb Point de France was at its height of manufacture along with grand outline and exquisite handicraft, the influence of the mighty monarch Louis XIV. asserted itself and although the lace itself commands unbounded admiration, fantastic little notions, symbolical and naturalistic, showed itself--as an illustration page 75: little figures representing "the Indian," "canopied crown over a sealed lady," trees growing all manner of bizarre fruit and flowers, all symbolical of Louis the Magnificent's unbounded power and sway. In the South Kensington Museum there is a still finer specimen, which has not yet been photographed, I believe--a magnificent flounce, about eighteen inches wide (really two boot top pieces joined), of what is known as pseudo-Oriental character, which shows amongst the usual exquisite scrolling no less than seven different figures on each piece--viz., an Indian, a violinist in dress of Louis XIV. period, a lady riding on a bird, two other ladies, one with a pet dog and the other a parrot, a lady violinist, and another lady seated before a toilet-table. These little figures are not more than three-quarters of an inch high, but are worked with such minuteness that even the tiny features are shown. This fantastic adoption of the human figure was copied in Italy and Flanders. The finest specimens of Point d'Angleterre (Brussels) show the same designs; and it may broadly be stated that all lace with figures is of the Louis XIV. period, and over two hundred years old. Succeeding this period came the dainty elegance of the French laces, when the workers of Alençon and Argentan had developed a purely French style. Note the Point d'Alençon, illustration page 83, where the characteristics of the period are fully shown. The illustration shows a mixed lace, which only recently has been acknowledged by the South Kensington people as Point d'Argentan. Along with the typical Argentan ground of the upper portion is the fine Alençon mesh and varied jours of the border. This also is Louis XIV. style. The lappet shown next is exceedingly instructive, as till quite lately the people who professed to understand lace agreed to call this Genoese, although it was quite unlike anything else made there. This lappet was so labelled at South Kensington, but now is admittedly Argentella (or little Argentan). It is remarkably like Alençon, being of the same period, the only points of difference being that the design is not outlined with a raised Cordonnet (though in different places of the design a raised and purled Cordonnet is often stitched on it) and the special ground (partridge eye) which is agreed to denote "Argentella" lace--page 83. It is sometimes called the may-flower ground, but this is somewhat misleading as that design occurs in other laces. The only other great style is that of Flanders, which at its earliest period had received no influence from the Renaissance that had seized the southern countries of Europe and was still in the grip of mediæval art. It was not until Italian influence permeated France that Flemish lace perceptibly altered in character. These are to all intents and purposes the three great styles of lace. England had no style: she copied Flemish, Brussels, and Mechlin laces. Ireland, on the contrary, copied Italian in her Irish crotchet and Carrick-ma-cross (in style only, but not workmanship), and adapted Lille and Mechlin and Brussels and Buckingham in her Limerick lace. The student must next make herself familiar with the methods pursued by the old lace-workers, and here the difficulty commences. All lace is either Needlepoint, pillow-made, or machine-made. _Needlepoint_ explains itself. Every thread of it is made with a needle on a parchment pattern, and only two stitches are used, buttonhole and a double-loop which is really a buttonhole stitch. [Illustration: BRUSSELS LAPPET. Nineteenth Century. (_S.K.M. Collection._)] This can be clearly understood by referring to Charts Nos. I. and II., where the _two Brussels grounds_ are shown. The Needlepoint ground, No. I., is formed by a buttonhole stitch, which loops over again before taking the next. The pillow-made ground, No. II., shows the threads plaited or twisted together to form a hexagonal or a diamond-shaped network. This is all the difference between needle-made and pillow-made lace, and in itself helps to identify in many instances its country and period when it was produced. All the early Italian laces were Needlepoint, and all the early French laces were the same. All the Flemish laces (including Brussels) were pillow-made, and mixed laces in any of these countries are of later make. Italy adapted the Flemish pillow-lace, and produced Genoese and Milanese guipures, in addition to the coarse imitation of Reticella which she now made by plaiting threads on the pillow. Brussels adopted the needle-made motifs and grounds of Italy, and produced perhaps her finest lace, weaving her beautiful designs and outlines on the pillow, and afterwards filling the spaces with needle-made jours and brides, as in Point d'Angleterre. A study of Chart II. will show the different style of grounds or réseaux of both Needlepoint and pillow-made lace, the buttonhole grounds being either of "brides" with or without picots, or buttonhole loops, as in Brussels, and Alençon (with a straight thread whipping across to strengthen the ground), loops buttonholed over all as in Argentan, or made of tiny worked hexagons with separate buttonholed threads around them as in Argentella. The pillow-made grounds are made of two plaited or twisted threads, except in the case of Valenciennes, when it is made of four threads throughout (hence its durability). In Brussels, it will be noted, the threads are twisted twice to commence the mesh. These meet two other threads, and are plaited four times, dividing into two again, and performing the same twist, the whole making a hexagon rather longer than round. Mechlin has precisely the same ground, only that the threads are plaited _twice_ instead of four times, as in Brussels, making the hexagon roundish instead of long. The ground of Lille lace is of exactly the same shape as Valenciennes, but is composed of two threads twisted loosely twice each side of the diamond, and that of Valenciennes being made of four threads plaited. With the aid of these little charts, a remembrance of the various styles and a few actual specimens of lace, and _a powerful magnifying glass_, it is not beyond the power of any reader of this little book to become expert in the identification of old lace. [Illustration: REAL "POINT DE GAZE" (NEEDLE-MADE GROUND). (_Author's Collection._)] XIV SALE PRICES XIV SALE PRICES Lace is such an article of luxury, and, as a rule, only belonging to the wealthiest class, that it seldom or ever comes into the open market. In 1907 two collections were dispersed at Christie's--those of Mrs. Massey-Mainwaring and Mrs. Lewis Hill. The most costly laces are the Venetian Points, some of the fine Rose Points being priceless. It is so fragile that little of it remains, and the smallest piece is eagerly snapped up by collectors. In 1904 at Christie's lace sold for the following prices-- £ A 58-inch length of 24-ins. deep Point de Venise 600 A 4-yards length of Rose Point, 11 inches deep 420 The same year-- £ 4 yards of Point d'Argentan, 25 inches deep 460 44 inches Point d'Alençon, 17 inches deep 43 2-1/2 yards Point d'Alençon, 14 inches deep 46 In 1907, March 11, _Massey-Mainwaring Sale_ at Christie's-- sold for £ s. d. 1-1/2 yards Venetian Gros Point, 8 inches deep 16 16 0 5 yards length of Reticella, 7-1/2 inches deep 33 12 0 4 short lengths 42 0 0 7 pieces of Point d'Alençon 21 0 0 4 yards narrow Point d'Argentan 15 15 0 3 pairs Point d'Argentan lappets 15 15 0 30 yards narrow Mechlin in odd lengths 21 0 0 April 15th, the _Lewis-Hill Sale_ at Christie's:-- sold for £ s. d. 4 yards Venetian Point, 15-1/2 inches deep 68 5 0 4 " " " 8-1/2 " " 52 10 0 3 yards Spanish Point, 6-1/2 inches deep 73 10 0 An Old Brussels scarf in two pieces 10 10 0 6 yards Brussels applique 23 10 0 A Point Gaze parasol-cover 6 16 0 A Brussels flounce 12 1 6 3 yards Honiton flounce, 17 inches deep 69 6 0 Another similar 69 6 0 6 yards Honiton lace in three pieces 24 3 0 An old lace coverlet 25 4 0 Another ditto 26 5 0 A lace altar-frontal 21 1 0 With the exception of the Honiton flounces, which sold beyond their market value, all the above pieces were bought by London lace dealers! The famous collection of the late Mrs. Hailstone was sold in 1909. This lady had for many years been known as a lace collector, and the sale of her effects was eagerly anticipated. The result was extremely interesting to the collectors, as Mrs. Hailstone had collected specimen lengths of almost every known lace. No huge prices obtained, but the sale may be regarded as representative, and the prices quoted as being open-market value. £ s. d. A set of bed-hangings, forming six curtains, made of Italian lace and linen 40 0 0 A large portière curtain of Italian lacis-work 10 10 0 A Point d'Alençon fichu 30 0 0 " " " cravat end, a pair of sleeves, one odd piece 18 0 0 A pair of Argentan lappets and six yards lace 12 0 0 A panel fine raised Venetian Point, 22 inches wide, 28 inches long 24 0 0 A Berthe, Point de Venise, 1 yard 120 inches, 12 inches deep 25 0 0 A Point de Venise Berthe 36 0 0 A 1 yard 13 inches x 7 inches panel Venetian lace 50 0 0 Two specimen pieces, 3-1/4 inches, all of Point de Venise à réseau 14 10 0 A Buckinghamshire collar, sleeves, and pieces 5 5 0 A specimen of old Honiton, baby's cap, bodice, and handkerchief 3 5 0 An old Honiton baby's robe, said to have belonged to Princess Charlotte 15 10 0 Seven volumes of lace specimens of old and modern lace 35 0 0 In December, 1910, probably the most valuable collection ever placed upon the market was dispersed at Messrs. Christie's. The late Sir William Abdy Bt., had for many years devoted his time and money to the collection of valuable lace, such as now can only be seen in the great national collections. The prices obtained are significant of the huge sums which must be paid to obtain wearable pieces of valuable lace such as skirt lengths, 3- or 4-yard lengths of deep flouncings, shawls, coverlets, aprons, &c. £ s. d. A fine Point d'Alençon skirt, 2-1/2 yards, 44 inches deep 160 0 0 A fine Point d'Alençon scarf, 2 yards 9 inches × 10 inches deep 72 0 0 A Point d'Argentan Berthe, 9-1/2 inches deep 39 0 0 A Point d'Argentan flounce, 6 yards 30 inches × 5-1/2 inches deep 140 0 0 A Point d'Argentan flounce, 2 yards 26 inches long × 25 inches deep 210 0 0 A Point d'Argentan flounce, 3 yards 28 inches long × 24 inches deep 310 0 0 A Point d'Argentan flounce, 3 yards 35 inches long × 25 inches deep 431 0 0 A Point d'Argentan flounce, 3 yards 16 inches long × 24-1/2 inches deep 290 0 0 An Italian gold and thread lace flounce, 4 yards long, 29 inches deep 740 0 0 A length of Italian Rose Point, 4 yards 15 inches long, 3 inches deep 70 0 0 An old Italian Rose Point flounce, 3 yards 31 inches long, 17-1/2 inches deep 660 0 0 An old Italian Rose Point square, 31 inches × 34 inches 180 0 0 An old Italian Rose Point flounce, 3 yards 19 inches long, 7-1/2 inches deep 520 0 0 An old Italian Rose Point panel, 34 inches × 9 inches 95 0 0 A Point de Venise lappet à réseau, 46 inches long, 5-1/4 inches wide 22 0 0 Point de Venise trimming, 8 yards long × 4 inches deep 65 0 0 A piece of flat Venetian insertion, 4 yards × 3-3/4 inches deep 92 0 0 A Rose Point flounce, 4 yards long × 5 inches deep 200 0 0 A Rose Point flounce, 3 yards 31 inches long × 22 inches deep 600 0 0 A Rose Point flounce, 4 yards 7 inches long × 24 inches deep 540 0 0 A Rose Point flounce, 3 yards 32 inches long × 15 inches deep 560 0 0 A Rose Point flounce, 4 yards 11 inches long × 18 inches deep, and a pair of sleeves en suite 650 0 0 A Rose Point flounce, 4 yards 3 inches long × 11-1/2 inches deep 510 0 0 A raised Point de Venise square, 1 yard 24 inches long × 1 yard 6 inches wide 450 0 0 An Old Brussels apron, 41 inches wide, 37 inches deep 145 0 0 A specimen piece of early Valenciennes, 2 yards long × 7 inches deep 42 0 0 The following prices have been given by the South Kensington authorities for specimens shown:-- £ s. d. A Venetian Point altar-frontal, 8 × 3 feet 350 0 0 A Venetian chasuble, stole, maniple, and chalice veil 200 0 0 A 2 yards × 5/8 yard Venetian flounce 125 0 0 A Gros Point collar 21 0 0 A Brussels lappet 23 0 0 A drawn-thread jacket 10 10 0 Linen cutwork tunic 20 0 0 [Illustration: EGYPTIAN EMBROIDERY. Found in a tomb at Thebes.] CHATS ON NEEDLEWORK I OLD ENGLISH EMBROIDERY Needlework pioneer art--Neolithic remains--Earliest known English specimens--Bayeux tapestry. While the subject of lace-making has been treated as almost cosmopolitan, that of embroidery, in this volume, must be regarded as purely national! I purposely refrain from introducing the embroideries of other countries, other than mentioning the ancient civilisations which shared the initial attempts to decorate garments, hangings, &c. (of which we really know very little), and shall confine myself to the needlework of this country, more especially as it is the one art and craft of which England may be unfeignedly proud. It is assumed that needlecraft was the pioneer art of the whole world, that the early attempts to decorate textiles by embroideries of coloured silks, and the elaborate use of gold and silver threadwork, first suggested painting, sculpture, and goldsmith's work. Certainly early Egyptian paintings imitated embroideries, and we have good ground for supposing that stained glass was a direct copy of the old ecclesiastical figures or ancient church vestments. The Neolithic remains found in Britain show that at a very early period the art of making linen-cloth was understood. Fragments of cloth, both of linen and wool, have been discovered in a British barrow in Yorkshire, and early bone needles found at different parts of the country are plentiful in our museums. There is no doubt that we owe much of our civilisation to the visit of the Phoenicians, those strange people, who appear to have carried all the arts and crafts of ancient Babylon and Assyria to the wonder isles of the Greek Archipelago, to Egypt, to Southern Spain, and to Cornwall and Devonshire. These people, dwelling on the maritime border of Palestine, were the great traders of their age, and while coming to this country (then in a state of wildest barbarism) for tin left in exchange a knowledge of the arts and appliances of civilisation hitherto not understood. The Roman Invasion (45 B.C.) brought not only knowledge of craftsmanship but also Christianity. St. Augustine, to whom the conversion of the Britains is credited, carried with him a banner embroidered with the image of Christ. After the Romans had left the country, and it had become invaded by the Celts and the Danes, and had again been taken possession of by the Saxons, a period of not only rest but advancement arrived, and we see early in the seventh century the country prosperous and settled. Aldhelm, Bishop of Sherborne, wrote a poem in which he speaks of the tapestry-weaving and the embroidery which the women of England occupied their lives. [Illustration: A LENGTH OF THE FAMOUS BAYEUX TAPESTRY.] The earliest specimen of embroidery known to have been executed in England is that of the stole and maniple of St. Cuthbert, which is now treasured at Durham Cathedral. These were worked by Aelfled, the Queen of Edward the Elder, Alfred the Great's son. She worked them for Bishop Fridhestan in 905 A.D. Her son Athelstan, after her death, visited the shrine of St. Cuthbert, at Chester-le-street, and in an inventory of the rich gifts which he left there, there is recorded "one stole with a maniple," amongst other articles. These very embroideries were removed from the actual body of St. Cuthbert in 1827. They are described by an eyewitness as being "of woven gold, with spaces left vacant for needlework embroideries." Exquisitely embroidered figures are in niches or clouds. The whole effect is described as being that of a fine illuminated MS. of the ninth century, and indescribably beautiful. Another great prelate, St. Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, designed embroideries for the execution of pious ladies of his diocese (924 A.D.). Emma, Queen of Ethelred the Unready, and afterwards of Canute, designed and embroidered many church vestments and altar-cloths, and Editha, wife of Edward the Confessor, embroidered the King's coronation mantle. The great and monumental Bayeux tapestry--which is miscalled, as it is _embroidery_--was the work of Queen Matilda, who, like Penelope, wove the mighty deeds of her husband and king in an immense embroidery. This piece of needlecraft comes upon us as a shock, rather than an admiration, after the exquisite embroideries worked by and for the Church. It is interesting, however, as a valuable historic "document," showing the manners and customs of the time. The canvas is 227 feet long and 20 inches wide, and shows events of English history from the accession of Edward the Confessor to the defeat of Harold, at Hastings. It is extremely crude; no attempt is made at shading, the figures being worked in flat stitch in coloured wools, on linen canvas. Certainly it is one of the quaintest and most primitive attempts of working pictures by needlecraft. The evidence of the costumes, the armour, &c., are supposed to tell us that this tapestry was worked many years after the Conquest, but it can be traced by documentary evidence as having been seen in Bayeux Cathedral as far back as 1476. In the time of Napoleon I. it was removed from the cathedral and was actually used as a covering for a transport waggon. Finally, however, it was exhibited in the Musée Napoleon, in 1803, and was afterwards returned to Bayeux. In 1840 it was restored and relined, and is now in the Hôtel de Ville at Bayeux! [Illustration: KING HAROLD. (_From the Bayeux Tapestry._)] II THE GREAT PERIOD OF EMBROIDERY II THE GREAT PERIOD OF EMBROIDERY "Opus Anglicanum"--The Worcester fragments--St. Benedict--Legend of Pope Innocent--The "Jesse" cope--The "Syon" cope. The great period of English embroidery is supposed to have been from the twelfth to the thirteenth century. Very little remains to show this, except a few fragments of vestments from the tombs of the bishops dating from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and other data obtained from various foreign inventories of later date referring to the use of "Opus Anglicanum." Some portion of the Worcester fragments may be seen in the South Kensington Museum, and can only be described as being so perfect in workmanship, colour, and style as even at this day to be more like a magnificent piece of goldsmith's work than that of needlecraft. The background is apparently one mass of thread of fine gold worked in and out of a silken mesh, the embroidery appearing just as clear and neat in manipulation as an illumination. The coloured photographs, which may be seen in the same room, of the stole and maniple of St. Cuthbert are of precisely the same work. Judging from these, and the embroidered orphrey which the authorities bought from the Hockon Collection for £119 1s. 10d. and which is only 4 feet 8 inches long, there is no doubt that this was, _par excellence_, the finest period. The work can only be described as being like an old Italian painting on a golden ground. We see precisely such design and colouring in ancient paintings for altars as in the old Italian Triptychs. This style was carried out as literally as possible. Even the defects, if so they may be called, are there, and a slight topheaviness of the figures serves but to accentuate the likeness. There is a legend that during the times of the Danish incursions St. Benedict travelled backwards and forwards through France and Italy, and brought with him during his _seven_ journeys artificers in _glass_ and _stone_, besides costly books and copies of the Scriptures. The chief end and aim of monastic life, both of monk and nun, in those early days was to embroider, paint, and illuminate their sacred books, vestments, and edifices with what was to them a newly-inspired faith. Dr. Rock, in his "Church of Our Fathers," says that from the twelfth century to the time of Henry VIII. that only the best materials that could be found in our country or that of other lands were employed, and that the art that was used on them was the best that could be learnt or given. The original fabrics often came from Byzantium or were of Saracenic origin. [Illustration: FROM THE "JESSE" COPE (_South Kensington Museum_). English, early Fourteenth Century.] The story of Pope Innocent III., who, seeing certain vestments and orphreys, and being informed that they were English, said, "Surely England must be a garden of delight!" must be quoted to show how English work was appreciated in those early days. The choicest example in this country of this glorious period of English embroidery is the famous Syon cope, which is supposed to rank as the most magnificent garment belonging to the Church. It may be regarded as a typical example of real English work, the "Opus Anglicanum" or "Anglicum," which, although used for other purposes, such as altar-cloths and altar-frontals, found apparently its fullest scope in these large semicircular mantles. Amongst the many copes treasured at South Kensington there are none, amidst all their splendour, as fine as this, although the fragment of the "Jesse" cope runs it very closely. There are many copes of this period in different parts of the Continent--the Daroca Cope at Madrid, one at Ascagni, another at Bologna, at St. Bertrand-de-Comminges, at "St. John Lateran" at Rome, at Pienza and Toleda, and a fragment of one with the famous altar-frontal at Steeple Aston. These are all assumed to be of "Opus Anglicanum," and they may be described as being technically perfect, the stitches being of fine small tambour stitch, beautifully even, and the draperies exquisitely shaded. The illustration showing the Syon Cope requires some little explanation. It is wrought on linen, embroidered all over with gold and silver thread and coloured silk. It is 9 feet 7 inches long, 4 feet 8 inches wide. The whole of the cope except the border is covered with interlacing quatrefoils outlined in gold. The ground of these quatrefoils is covered with red silk and the spaces between them with green silk. Each quatrefoil is filled with scenes from the life of Christ, the Virgin, and figures of St. Michael and of the Apostles. On the green spaces are worked figures of six-winged angels standing on whorls. The chief place on the quatrefoils is given to the crucifixion, where the body of the Saviour is worked in silver and cloth of gold. The Virgin, arrayed in green tunic and golden mantle, is on one side and St. John, in gold, on the other. Above the quatrefoil is another representing the Redeemer seated on a cushioned throne with the Virgin, and below another representing St. Michael overcoming Satan. Other quatrefoils show "Christ appearing to St. Mary Magdalen," "The Burial of the Virgin," "The Coronation of the Virgin," "The Death of the Virgin with the Apostles surrounding her," "The Incredulity of St. Thomas," "St. Simon," "St. Bartholomew," "St. Peter," "St. Paul," "St. Thomas," "St. Andrew," and "St. James." Portions of four other Apostles may be seen, but at some period the cope has been cut down. In its original state the cope showed the twelve Apostles. The lower portion has been cut away and reshaped, and round this is an edging apparently made out of a stole and maniple which point to a later date, as they are worked chiefly in cross-stitch. On the orphrey are emblazoned the arms of Warwick, Castile and Leon, Ferrars, Geneville Everard, the badge of the Knights Templars, Clifford, Spencer, Lindsay, Le Botelier, Sheldon, Monteney of Essex, Champernoun, Everard, Tyddeswall Grandeson, Fitz Alan, Hampden, Percy, Clanvowe, Ribbesford, Bygod, Roger de Mortimer, Grove, B. Bassingburn, and many others not recognisable. These coats of arms, it is suggested, belonged to the noble dames who worked the border. The angels which fill the intervening spaces are of the six-winged varieties, each standing on whorls or wheels. [Illustration: THE "SYON" COPE. (_S.K.M. Collection._)] The cope is worked in a fine tambour or chain stitch principally. All the faces, bodies, and draperies are composed of this. A specially noticeable point is that the faces are worked spirally, beginning in the centre of the cheek and being worked round and round, conforming with the muscles of the face. The garments are worked according to the hang of the drapery, very fine effects being obtained. After the work has been completed a hot iron something like a little iron rod with a bulbous end has been pressed into the cheeks, under the throat, and in different parts of the nude body. Occasionally, but seldom, the same device may be seen in the drapery. All the work is exquisitely fine and perfectly even. The groundwork of the quatrefoils is of gold-laid or "couch" work, as is also that of the armorial bearings. The name "Syon" is somewhat misleading, as the Cope was not made here, but came into the hands of the Bridgettine nuns in 1414, when Henry V. founded the convent of "Syon" at Isleworth. Its origin and date will ever be a matter of conjecture, but Dr. Rock infers that Coventry may have been the place of its origin. Taking Coventry as a centre with a small radius, several of the great feudal houses the arms of which are on the border of the cope may be found, and Dr. Rock further supposes that Eleanor, widow of Edward the First, may have become a sister of the fraternity unknown, as her arms, Castile and Leon, are on it. "The whole must have taken long in working, and the probability is that it was embroidered by nuns of some convent which stood on or near Coventry." However this may be, it is certain that this splendid piece of English work came into the hands, by some means, of the nuns of Syon, and after remaining with them at Isleworth till Elizabeth's time, it was carried by them through Flanders, France, and Portugal. They remained at the latter place till the same persecution which dispersed the famous Spanish Point lace over the length and breadth of the Continent, and about eighty years ago it was brought back to England, and was given by the remaining members of the Order to the Earl of Shrewsbury. After further vicissitudes of a varied character it was bought by the South Kensington Museum for £110, and now sheds the glory of its golden threads in a dark transept unnoticed except by the student. III ECCLESIASTICAL EMBROIDERIES AND VESTMENTS [Illustration: HALF OF THE STEEPLE ASTON ALTAR FRONTAL. English, Fourteenth Century.] III ECCLESIASTICAL EMBROIDERIES AND VESTMENTS The Pierpont Morgan purchase--The Steeple Aston Altar-frontal--The "Nevil" Altar-frontal at S. K. M.--City palls--Diagram of vestments. Other copes of the same period are in the Madrid Museum, two copes at Bologna, and the "Ascoli" cope recently purchased by Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan and generously returned by him. Some cushions from Catworth Church, Huntingdon, now at the South Kensington Museum, were probably cut from copes, and bought by permission of the Bishop of Ely for £27. A long band of red velvet at South Kensington Museum embroidered with gold and silver and coloured silk has evidently been made from the "Apparels" of an alb. It is in two pieces, each piece depicting five scenes divided by broad arches. The first five are from the life of the Virgin, and are: "The Angel appearing to Anna," "The Meeting of Anna and Joachim," "Birth of the Virgin," "Presentation of the Virgin," "Education of the Virgin." In the second piece are: "The Annunciation," "The Salutation," "The Nativity," "The Angel appearing to the Shepherds," and the "Journey of the Magi." Another piece of similar work is the altar-frontal of Steeple Aston, which was originally a cope, and the cope now at Stonyhurst College, originally belonging to Westminster Cathedral. It is made of one seamless piece of gold tissue. During this great period of English embroidery certain characteristics along with its superb workmanship must be noticed. The earlier the work the finer the modelling of the figures. In the figures of the St. Cuthbert and the Worcester fragments the proportions of the figures are exquisite; at a later date, while the work is just as excellent, the figures become unnatural, the heads being unduly large, the eyes staring, and the perspective entirely out of drawing. Until the fourteenth century this comes so gradually as to be scarcely noted; but after and through the fifteenth century this becomes so marked as to be almost grotesque, and only the genuine religious fervour with which these poor remnants have been worked prevents many of them being ridiculous. The faces gradually show less careful drawing and working, and the figures become squat and topheavy. The emblems of the saints are often omitted. [Illustration: THE "NEVIL" ALTAR FRONTAL. (_S.K.M. Collection._)] This decline in the embroiderer's art is specially noticeable in an extraordinary panel to be seen at South Kensington Museum, where an altar-frontal of stamped crimson velvet is appliqued in groups of figures in gold, silver, and silks. In the middle is the Crucifixion, with the Virgin and St. John standing on a strip covered with flowers. On the left is Ralph Nevil, fourth Earl of Westmoreland, 1523, kneeling, and behind him his seven sons. On the right is Lady Catherine Stafford, his wife, also kneeling, and behind her kneel her thirteen daughters. The frontal cost the museum £50 and is well worth it as an historical document. Other important embroideries of the period to be found in England are at Cirencester Cathedral, Ely Cathedral, Salisbury and Carlisle Cathedrals, Chipping Norton and Little Dean in Gloucestershire, East Langdon in Kent, Buckland and Stourton in Worcester, Littleworth in Leicestershire, Lynn in Norfolk, and the Parish Church at Warrington. Many of the palls belonging to the great city companies belong to this date. The Saddlers' Company's pall is of crimson velvet embroidered with angels surrounding "I.H.S.," and arms of the Company. The Fishmongers' Pall, made at the end of the fifteenth century, has at one end the figure of St. Peter (the patron saint of fishermen) enthroned, and angels on either side, and at the other end St. Peter receiving the keys from our Lord. The Vintners' Pall is made of Italian velvet and cloth of gold and embroidered with St. Martin of Tours. Religious influence characterised the embroideries of England practically from the ninth to the sixteenth centuries. Practically all needlework prior to 1600 is entirely ecclesiastical, and from its limited range in choice of subjects barely does justice to the fine work this period produced. Dr. Rock says that "few persons of the present day have the faintest idea of the labour, the money, the time, often bestowed on old embroideries which had been designed by the hands of men and women each in their own craft the best and ablest of the day." We do not know the length of time these ancient vestments occupied in the making, but twenty-six years is stated to be the period of making the vestments for the Church of San Giovanni, in Florence. This is all worked in close stitches similar to our English work. _Ancient Church Vestments._ The names of the ecclesiastical vestments are somewhat puzzling to those of us who do not belong to the Romish Church, or even to the English High Church. The vestments described are, we believe, in use in the Romish churches now as in the early times when church embroidery was the pleasure and the labour of all classes of English women. The accompanying diagram will better illustrate the use of these vestments than a page of writing. [Illustration: ECCLESIASTICAL VESTMENTS. 1. Amice. 2. Orphreys. 3. Chasuble. 4. Sleeves of Alb. 5 and 9. Apparel of Alb. 6. Maniple. 7. Stole. 8. Alb. _From "A Guide to Ecclesiastical Law," by kind permission of Mr. Henry Miller._] * * * * * The Alb is often trimmed handsomely with lace, the apparels are stitched on to the front. The Stoles ought to have three crosses embroidered on it and be 3 yards long. Over this comes the Chasuble, which is the last garment the priest puts on before celebrating Mass. The Cope is a huge semi-circular 10 ft. wide cape. The Maniple is a strip of embroidery 3 ft. 4 in. long worn over the left wrist of the priest. [Illustration: ECCLESIASTICAL VESTMENTS. English, Fifteenth or early Sixteenth Century. (_S.K.M. Collection._)] IV TUDOR EMBROIDERY IV TUDOR EMBROIDERY The influences of the Reformation--Queen Catherine of Aragon's needlecraft--The gorgeous clothes of Henry VIII.--Field of the Cloth of Gold--Queen Elizabeth's embroideries. After the Reformation and the wholesale destruction of the cathedrals, monasteries, and churches, the gentle dames of England found their occupation gone. The priestly vestments, the sumptuous altar-cloths, and gorgeous hangings were now needless. Those which had been the glory of their owners, and the pictorial representations of Biblical life to the uneducated masses of people, had been ruthlessly torn down and destroyed for the sake of the gold to be found on them. As in the time immediately preceding the French Revolution, costly embroideries were unpicked, and the amount of gold and silver obtained from them became a source of income and profit to their destroyers. Apart from her household, women had no other interests in those days, unless we accept such anomalies as Lady Jane Grey, who was a marvel of learning and wisdom. All their long leisure hours had been spent, not in improving their minds, but in beautifying the churches with specimens of their skill. Catherine of Aragon, one of the unfortunate queens of Henry VIII., was a notable needlewoman, and spent much of her short, unhappy time as Queen of England in embroidery. The lace-making of Northampton is said to have been commenced by her during her period of retirement after her divorce. The "Spanish stitch," which was known and used in embroidery of that period, was introduced by her from her own country, and many examples of her skill in embroidery are to be seen in the British Museum and the various homes belonging to our old nobility. During the reign of Henry VIII. dress became very sumptuous, as the contemporary pictures of the times show. Indeed, all the fervour and feeling which ladies had worked in religious vestments now seemed to find refuge in the over-elaboration of personal wear. Very little lace was used, and that of only a primitive description, so that effect was produced by embroidery in gold and silver threads and the use of pearls and precious stones. The dress of the nobles in the time of Henry VIII. was especially gorgeous, the coats being thickly padded and quilted with gold bullion thread, costly jewels afterwards being sewn in the lozenges. It is related that after his successful divorce King Henry gave a banquet to celebrate his marriage to Anne Boleyn, and wore a coat covered with the jewelled letters "H," and in the height of his satisfaction allowed the ladies to cut or tear away the jewels as souvenirs of his triumph over Wolsey and Catherine. It is said that he was left in his underwear, so great was the competition for these favours! Robes made of gold tissue, then called Cloth of Gold, were used, and in Henry's meeting with Francis I. the English and French armies vied with each other as to which should present a greater magnificence. The name "the Field of the Cloth of Gold" remains as a guarantee of its splendour. Under the more austere and religious rule of Queen Mary we might suppose that ecclesiastical embroidery would have somewhat regained a foothold. But the landmarks had been entirely swept away, and we have little to record of the reign, except that Mary herself was a clever needlewoman and worked much of her heartache, at the neglect of her Spanish husband, into her needlework. Her jealousy of her sister Elizabeth caused the latter to spend her life away from the pomps and ceremonies of the Court, and she has left many records of her handiwork, some well authenticated, as, for example, the two exquisite book-covers in the British Museum. Queen Elizabeth cannot, however, be said to have been in any way a patroness of the art of needlecraft. Her talent seems rather to have been devoted to affairs of State--and her wardrobe! On her death, at seventy years of age, she left over one thousand dresses, most of which must have been a cruel weight, so overburdened were they with stiff bullion and trimmed with large pearls and jewels. Her dresses were literally diapered with gold and silver "gimps" inset with heavier stones, but little real embroidery is shown. Mary Queen of Scots, on the contrary, was a born needlewoman. During her married life in France she learned the gentle arts of embroidery and lace-making, accomplishments which, as in many humbler women's lives, have served their owners in good stead in times of loneliness and trouble. The Duke of Devonshire possesses specimens of Queen Mary's skill, worked during the long, dreary days of her imprisonment at Fotheringay. It is said that Queen Elizabeth was not above helping herself to the wardrobe and laces that the unfortunate Queen of Scotland brought with her from France. Much embroidery must have been worked for the adornment of the house after the Reformation, but beyond an occasional old inventory nothing is left to show it. After the Reformation greater luxury in living obtained, and instead of the clean or rush-strewn floors some kind of floor-covering was used. Furniture became much more ornamental, and the use of hangings for domestic purposes was common. Not a thread of these hand-worked hangings remain, but we have the immense and immediate use of tapestry, which first became a manufacture of England in the reign of Henry VIII. It is easy to conceive that English women would readily seize upon the idea supplied in tapestry and adapt its designs to that of embroidery. It is certain that hangings for the old four-post beds were embroidered, as in the inventory of Wolsey's great palace at Hampton Court there is mention of 230 bed-hangings of English embroidery. Nothing of this remains, so that its style is simply conjectural; and we can only suppose these hangings to have been replicas of the magnificent velvet and satin hangings, covered with laid or couched gold and silver threads, such as Catherine of Aragon would bring with her from Spain. This also would account for their absolute disappearance. The value of the gold and silver in embroidery has always been a fertile source of wealth to the destroyer of ancient fabrics, while many embroideries worked only in silks have escaped this vandalism. V EARLY NEEDLEWORK PICTURES AND ACCESSORIES [Illustration: EARLY "PETIT POINT" PICTURE. Late Sixteenth Century. (_S.K.M. Collection._)] V EARLY NEEDLEWORK PICTURES AND ACCESSORIES "Petit point"--old list of stitches--Stuart bags--Gloves--Shoes--Caps. Towards the end of James I.'s reign it is supposed that the earliest needlework pictures appeared. They were obviously literal copies of the tapestries which had now become of general use in the homes of the wealthy, being worked in what is known as "petit point," or "little stitch." This stitch was worked on canvas of very close quality, with fine silk thread, one stitch only being taken over the junction of the warp and the weft of the canvas instead of the "cross stitch" of later days. Very few of these specimens are left of an early date. A panel, measuring 30 inches by 16 inches, in perfect condition, and dated 1601, was sold at Christie's Rooms this year for £115. The purchaser, Mr. Stoner, of King Street, sold it next day at a very considerable profit. At this period the workers of these pictures did not draw upon Biblical subjects for their inspiration (with great advantage to the picture, it may be stated). The subjects were either fanciful adaptations from real life, with the little people dressed in contemporary costume, or dainty little mythological subjects, such as the "Judgment of Paris," "Corydon wooing Phyllis," with most absurd little castles of Tudor construction in impossible landscapes, where the limpid stream meandered down fairy-like hills into a shining lake, which held dolphins under the water and water-fowl above it. The illustration depicts such a specimen, and shows one of these tiny pictures worked in no less than ten different stitches of lacework, in addition to the usual petit point. The number of these stitches is legion. In the reign of Charles I., John Taylor, the water-poet, wrote in 1640: "For tent worke, raised worke, first worke, laid worke, net worke, Most curious purl, or rare Italian cut worke, Fire, ferne stitch, finny stitch, new stitch, chain stitch, Brave bred stitch, fisher stitch, Irish stitch, and Queen stitch, The Spanish stitch, Rosemary stitch, and mowle stitch, The smarting whip stitch, back stitch, and cross stitch; All these are good, and this we must allow, And they are everywhere in practice now." [Illustration: VERY EARLY "PETIT POINT" PICTURE. (_Author's Collection._)] These are not _all_ the stitches in vogue during the first era of needlework pictures. A single glance at one of the early specimens, though it may not _charm_, fills one with amazement at the amount of toil, ingenuity, patience, and downright _love_ for the work the ancient needlewoman must have possessed. Not only pictures, however, were made in petit point. Many dainty little accessories of the toilet gave scope to the delicate fancy and nimble fingers of the ladies who had found solace from the cessation of their labours for the priesthood in making dainty little handbags and other pretty articles, each a marvel of minute handicraft. One bag in my possession measures only four inches square, and is worked on fine canvas, about forty threads to the square inch, the design being the favourite Tudor rose, each petal worked in lace stitch, and raised from the centre which is made of knots worked with golden hair, flat green leaves exquisitely shaded, and a charming bit of the worker's skill in the shape of a pea's pod, open and raised, showing the tiny little peas in a row. An exquisitely worked butterfly with raised wings in lace stitch is on the other side. The grounding of the whole is run with flat gold thread, making a "cloth of gold" ground, strings made of similarly worked canvas, with gold thread and silk tassels complete a bag fit for the Princess Golden Locks of our fairy tales. This little bag cost the writer 5 guineas, and was cheap at the price. The South Kensington Museum have several specimens, and although many are very exquisite, there is not one quite so perfect in design nor in such condition. Other little trifles made in similar style are the embroidered gauntlets of the buff leather glove worn at the time. These have become rarer than any other embroideries, as they were not merely for ornament but for actual wear. Four or five of these gauntlet gloves are in the South Kensington Collection, but are of a later date than the "petit point" period. The use of gloves in England was not very general, we may infer, in the earlier ages of embroidery. There are certain evidences, however, showing that the glove was part of the priestly outfit, remains of gloves having been found on the bones of Thomas à Becket when they were transferred from the crypt of Canterbury Cathedral to the special shrine prepared for them; and a crimson leather pair, bearing the sacred monogram in embroidered gold, are preserved in the New College, Oxford, belonging to the founder, William of Wykeham, who opened the college in 1386. It was not until the fourteenth century that the wearing of gloves became general, and practically nothing remains to show what manner of hand-covering was worn until the Tudor period. Henry VIII. was exceptionally lavish and extravagant in the use of handsomely embroidered gloves, and few of his portraits show him without a sumptuous glove in one hand. He had gloves for all functions--like a modern fashionable woman. A pair of hawking gloves belonging to him are in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and in South Kensington is one of a pair presented by Henry to his friend and Councillor Sir Anthony Denny. It is of buff, thin leather, with a white satin gauntlet, embroidered with blue and red silk in applique work, decorated with seed-pearls and spangles, and trimmed with gold lace. The Tudor rose, the crown, and the lion are worked amidst a splendour of gold and pearls. [Illustration: A STUART GLOVE. (_S.K.M. Collection._)] Queen Elizabeth must have inherited her love for gorgeous apparel along with her strong personality and masterful spirit, as her expenditure for gloves alone was proverbial. The favourite offering to her was a pair of gloves, but she was not above accepting shoes, handkerchiefs, laces, and even gowns from her faithful and admiring subjects. On her visit to Oxford in 1578 she was presented by the Chancellor of the University with a pair of perfumed gloves, embroidered with gold and set with jewels, which cost the University sixty shillings, an immense sum in those days. Other historic gloves are in the various museums of the country, seldom or never coming into the open market. In the Braikenridge Collection sold at Christie's in February of this year I was able to secure one for £2 12s. 6d., immediately afterwards being offered double the price for it. The gloves belonging to Charles I. and Queen Henrietta Maria were very ornamental, and it is said that even Oliver Cromwell, with all his austerity, was not proof against the fascination of the decorated glove. With Charles II. the embroidered gloves seem to have vanished along with the stumpwork pictures, of which more anon. Dainty shoes were embroidered in those old times. These, being articles of wear, like the gloves, are very rare. The same fine petit point work is seen on them; seed-pearls and in-run gold threads adorn them, and frequently the Tudor rose, in raised work, forms the shoe knot. Two pairs in Lady Wolseley's Collection, sold in 1906, fetched six guineas, and nine and a half guineas. Tiny pocket-books were covered with this pretty work, and charming covers almost as fresh as when they were worked are occasionally unearthed, made to hold the old-fashioned housekeeping and cooking books. One wonders oftentime how many, and yet, alas! how few, specimens of this old petit point work have been preserved. It is only during recent years that the "cult of the antique" has been fashionable, and is also becoming a source of income and profit to the many who indulge in its quest. Only members of learned antiquarian societies or born reliquaries troubled themselves to acquire ancient articles of historic interest because they were _old_, and served to form the sequence in the fairy tales of Time. Anything "old" was ruthlessly destroyed, as being either past wear, shabby, or old-fashioned, and countless treasures, both in ecclesiastical and secular art, have at all periods been recklessly destroyed for the sake of their intrinsic value in gold or jewels. In the early days of my life I was allowed to pick out the corals and seed-pearls from an old Stuart needle picture "for a doll's necklace!" the picture itself probably going into the "rag-bag" of the mid-Victorian good housekeeper. VI STUART CASKETS AND MIRRORS VI STUART CASKETS AND MIRRORS Secret drawers and hidden receptacles--High prices in the Salerooms. Among the many treasures of this exquisite period of needlecraft are the well-known Stuart caskets. Very interesting and valuable are these charming boxes, many of them being in a fine state of preservation, owing to their having been enclosed in either a wooden or leathern box specially made to contain them. These queer little boxes are frequently made in the shape of Noah's ark. The lid being raised, a fitted mirror is disclosed. The mirror slides out, and a secret recess may be discovered to hold letters. The front falls down, disclosing any number of tiny drawers, each drawer being silk-lined and the front of it embroidered. Here, again, we may look for secret drawers. Very seldom does the drawer run to the width of the cabinet, but by removing every drawer and carefully searching for springs or slides many a tiny recess is disclosed, where costly jewels, and perhaps a love-gage, has reposed safely from the sight of unworthy eyes. Every square inch of these caskets is covered with embroidery, sometimes in canvas, worked with the usual scriptural or mythological design, and in others with white satin, exquisitely embroidered with figures and floral subjects. Those in best preservation have been covered with mica, which has preserved both the colour and the fabric. The fittings are generally of silver. On the few occasions when these boxes or caskets come into the market high prices are realised. Messrs. Christie last year obtained £40 for a good specimen. I have never seen one sold under £30, and as much as £100 has been given. Another pretty fancy was to cover small trays, presumably for the work or dressing table, with embroidery. Not many of these remain, the wear of removing them from place to place having been too much for their staying powers. One in my possession is a small hexagonal tray with raised sides, embroidered in coloured silks in floral design, on what was once white satin. It is by no means a thing of beauty now, but as a specimen it is interesting, and "a poor thing, but mine own," which covers a multitude of shortcomings in these old relics, fortunately. [Illustration: "STUART" MIRROR FRAME. (_Lady Wolseley's Collection._)] Far more frequently met with, though quite prohibitive in price, are the Stuart embroidered mirrors, which easily command £80 to £100 in the salerooms. They are generally set in a frame of oak, leaving five or six inches (which would otherwise be covered with carving or veneer) for the embroidery. The mirror itself is comparatively small, being only a secondary consideration, and often little remains of it for its original purpose, as the glass is blurred and the silvering gone. Many of these mirrors have _bevelled_ glass, which, of course, is wrong. The mirror shown in the illustration is one recently belonging to Viscountess Wolseley and sold by her, among other Stuart needlework specimens, at Messrs. Puttick & Simpson's in 1906. This mirror sold for £100. The figures represent Charles I. and Queen Henrietta Maria, one on either side of the mirror. The figure at the top of the frame is difficult to understand; whether she is an angel or a mere Court lady must be left to conjecture. The rolling clouds and the blazing sun are above her head, and a peacock, with tail displayed, is on one side and a happy-looking stag on the other. Two royal residences adorn the topmost panels on either side, with all their bravery of flying flags and smoking chimneys, and the lion and the leopard occupy the lower panels. The latter animal identifies the King and Queen, who might otherwise be Charles II. and his consort, as after Charles I.'s time the leopard gave place to the unicorn for some unexplained reason. Other typical little Stuart animals and birds fill in the extra panels, such as the spotted dog who chases a little hare who is never caught, and the gaily-coloured parroquet and kingfisher, which no respectable Stuart picture would be without. The caterpillar, the ladybird, and the snail are all _en evidence_; and below is a real pond, covered with talc, and containing fish and ducks, the banks being made of tiny branching coral beads and tufted silk and bullion work. About this time, when Venetian lace came into fashionable use as an adjunct to the exquisite Stuart dress, tiny coloured beads were imported from Venice. The embroiderers at once seized upon them as a new and possibly more lasting means of showing their pretty fancies in design. Many delightful specimens of these beadwork pictures are preserved, the colours, of course, being as fresh as yesterday. The ground was always of white satin, now faded and discoloured with age, and often torn with the heaviness of the beadwork design. They are scarcely so charming as the all needlework pictures, but still are delightful and covetable articles. The exigencies of the beadwork, however, lends a certain stiffness and ungainliness to the figures. VII EMBROIDERED BOOKS AND "BLACK WORK" [Illustration: "STUART" BOOK COVER. (_British Museum._)] VII EMBROIDERED BOOKS AND "BLACK WORK" Style and symbolism--Specimen in British Museum and Bodleian Libraries--"Black work" Among the many dainty examples of Tudor and Stuart needlework are to be found the exquisitely embroidered book-covers which date from Queen Elizabeth's girlhood until the time of Charles II. They were always of diminutive size, and many stitches diversify their covering; oftentimes they were liberally embroidered with seed-pearls, and in these instances most frequently this fashion has been their salvation. A book somehow always seems to be a more sacred thing than a picture, and the costly little volumes which remain to show this dainty handicraft have apparently always been used either for Church or private devotional purposes. The designs of the book-covers almost always follow certain styles. These are either heraldic, scriptural, symbolical, floral, or arabesque. The first-named variety usually belonged to royalty or one of the many noble houses whose ladies busied themselves with fair needlework. The shield, containing the coat of arms of the family, occupied the centre of the book-cover, being formed in raised gold and silver guipure or cord, and on the reverse the worker's initials frequently appear, with a pretty border in gold and silver, to outline the edges. The scriptural book-covers are always worked on canvas in fine petit point stitches. One in South Kensington Museum is larger than most of these volumes, and has on one side Solomon in all his glory and on the reverse Jacob and his ladder and King David. These canvas-covered books appear to have suffered most from the wear and tear of time, and very few remain. The symbolical covers are few, and mostly uninteresting. They are worked as a rule on silk and satin in loose satin stitches, which have suffered much from friction. The sacred monogram is often the centre of the device. A favourite design was adorning the back of the books with portraits of the martyred King Charles I., Queen Henrietta Maria, and the popular Duke of Buckingham. [Illustration: POCKET-BOOK OF SATIN, EMBROIDERED WITH COLOURED SILKS AND SILVER-GILT THREAD. Said to have been the property of Queen Elizabeth. (_In Countess Brownlow's Collection._)] The stitches used were generally chain-stitch, split-stitch, petit point, and lace-stitch; and the patterns were most frequently outlined with a gimp made of flattened spiral wire, or _purl_, which was a fine copper wire covered with coloured silks and cut in lengths for use. Very often, also, small silver spangles were employed, either stitched down with a piece of purl or a seed-pearl. Frequently the covers were of velvet with the designs appliquéd down to it, and _laid_ or _couch_ work outlined the designs. Sometimes flat pieces of metal were cut to shape and stitched down, as in one instance where the corners of the books were trimmed with the rays of the sun cut in gold, and stitched over with a gold thread. Many of the charming little bags of which mention has already been made are supposed to have been worked to hold the Prayer Book and Book of Psalms, without which no devout lady deemed herself fully equipped. The most famous book is Queen Elizabeth's Book in the British Museum. The cover is of choice green velvet, the flat of the back has five roses embroidered in lace, raised stitches and gold and pearl. The Royal Arms are on either side of the book in a lozenge of red silk and pearls. The whole design, apart from this, is worked in red and white roses and scrolls of gold and silk. This gorgeous little cover contains "The Mirrour of Glasse of the Synneful Soul," written by Elizabeth herself, and of it she writes that she "translated it out of french ryme into english prose, joyning the sentences together as well as the capacities of my symple witte and small lerning could extende themselves." It is dedicated "To our most noble and virtuous Queen Katherine [Katherine Parr] from Assherige, the last day of the year of our Lord God, 1544." In the Bodleian Library there is another treasured little book, again worked by Queen Elizabeth. It is only 7 inches by 5 inches, and has the same design on both sides. In this the ground is what is known as "tapestry stitch," worked in thick, pale-blue silk, and the design is of interlacing gold and silver threads with a Tudor rose in each corner. "K. P." is marked on the cover, and shows that this also was worked for Queen Katherine Parr. Yet another little book is in the British Museum. It contains a prayer composed by Queen Katherine Parr, and is written on vellum by Queen Elizabeth. The cover illustrated is a typical example of the class of embroidered works of the period. Later the covers showed less intricate work, and finally developed into mere velvet covers embroidered with silver or gold. [Illustration: STUART EMBROIDERED CAP. (_S.K.M. Collection._)] BLACK WORK. A curious phase of Old English embroidery is the well-known "Black Work," which is said to have been introduced by Catherine of Aragon into England, and was also known as "Spanish work." The work itself was a marvel of neatness, precision, and elegant design, but the result cannot be said to have been commensurate with the labour of its production. Most frequently the design was of scroll-work, worked with a fine black silk back-stitching or chain-stitch. Round and round the stitches go, following each other closely. Bunches of grapes are frequently worked solidly, and even the popular peascod is worked in outline stitch, and often the petit point period lace stitches are copied, and roses and birds worked separately and after stitched to the design. There are many examples of this famous "Spanish" work in the South Kensington Museum. Quilts, hangings, coats, caps, jackets, smocks are all to be seen, some with a couched thread of gold and silver following the lines of the scrolls. This is said to be the Spanish stitch referred to in the old list of stitches, and very likely may be so, as the style and manner are certainly not English; and we know that Catherine of Aragon brought wonders of Spanish stitchery with her, and she herself was devoted to the use of the needle. The story of how when called before Cardinal Wolsey and Campeggio, to answer to King Henry's accusations, she had a skein of embroidery silk round her neck is well known. The black silk outline stitchery or linen lasted well through the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Very little of it is seen outside the museums, as, not being strikingly beautiful or attractive, it has been destroyed. Another phase of the same stitchery was working cotton and linen garments, hangings, and quilts in a kind of quilted pattern with yellow silk. Anything more unlike the quilting of fifty years ago cannot be imagined. The finest materials were used, the padding being placed bit by bit in its place--not in the wholesale fashion of later years, when a sheet or two of wadding was placed between the sheets of cotton or linen, and a coarse back-stitching outlined in great scrawling patterns held the whole together. The old "quilting" work was made in tiny panels, illustrating shields and other heraldic devices, and had a surface as fine as carved ivory. When, as in the case of one sample at South Kensington, the quilt is additionally embroidered with beautiful fine floss silk flowers, the effect is very lovely. VIII STUART PICTURES VIII STUART PICTURES "Petit point"--"Stump work"--Royalistic symbols. Though these pictures bear the name of Stuart, many of them are undoubtedly Tudor. The earliest (if the evidence of costume is of any value) must have been worked in Elizabeth's time, but as the authenticated specimens date only from the reign of James I. they are known as Stuart. The only pictures worked in the early days of this art were worked in petit-point, the tiny stitch which imitated tapestry, and very quaint are the specimens left to us. The favourite themes were entirely pagan. Gods and goddesses disported themselves among leafy trees. Cupid lightly shot his arrows, the woods were inhabited by an unknown flora and fauna which seem all its own. The very dogs seem to be a different species, having more likeness to the china dogs of the spotted or liver and white variety which the Staffordshire potters made at the beginning of our own century. Innumerable little castles were perched in perfectly inaccessible positions on towering crags, and the laws of perspective were generally conspicuous by their absence. The sun in those days was a very visible body, and apparently delightful to work, no Stuart picture being without one; the rolling clouds oftentimes are confused with the convoluted body of the caterpillar, little difference being made in the design. The birds were of very brilliant plumage, and the world was evidently a very gay and sportive place when these fair ladies spent their leisure over this embroidery! These early pictures seldom show the religious feeling that afterwards slowly worked its way through the Stuart days (though, perhaps, disguised under royalistic symbolism), until in the reign of Queen Anne it became more or less a fashion, in pictorial needle-craft. It burst out afresh in the early nineteenth century and became an absolute obsession of the early Victorian Berlin-wool workers with most disastrous results to both design and work. Until the end of Charles I.'s reign needlework pictures must have been scarce, as we find one enumerated in the inventory of his "Closet of Rarities." It is possible that the many pictures which represent Charles I. were worked by loyalist ladies, _after his execution_ and _during the Commonwealth_. In many of these pictures his own hair is said to have been used, thereby becoming relics of him who was known as "the Martyred King." On a very finely worked portrait of Charles I., at South Kensington Museum, King Charles's hair is worked amongst the silken threads. [Illustration: KING CHARLES I., WORKED IN FINE SILK EMBROIDERY. (_S.K.M. Collection._)] Throughout this time, no matter what the subjects, most of which were notably striking scenes from Scripture history, such as "Esther and King Ahasuerus," "Solomon and the Queen of Sheba," "The Judgment of Solomon" (a very favourite subject), and other scenes of Old Testament history, all the kings were Charles I. and all the Queens Henrietta Maria. One and all wore early Stuart costumes. Even Pharaoh's daughter wore the handsome dress of the day, with Point lace falling collar and real pearls round her neck. It is a fashion to jeer at this anachronism; but may it not perhaps be that we take these pictures too literally, and deny the workers their feelings of passionate devotion to the lost cause. Doubtless they worked their loyalty to their beloved monarch into these pretty and pleasing fancies, just as it is said that the fashion of "finger-bowls" was introduced later so that the loyal gentlemen of the day might drink to the King "_over the water_." I see no cause to deny intelligence to these dear dead women, who were capable of exquisite needlecraft and fine design, and whose devotion was shown in many instances by giving up jewels, houses, and lands for the King! The fashion of "stump" or stamp work appears to have been derived from Italy. Italian needlework of this time abounds with it, and, it must be admitted, of a superior design, and style to that which was known here as "stump" work. Until the eighteenth century English work was more or less archaic in every branch. Personally, I see no more absurdity in the queer doll-like figures than in contemporary wood-carving. It was a period of tentative effort, and was, of course, beneath criticism. English Art has ever been an effort until its one bright burst of genius in the eighteenth century, while the continental nations appear to have breathed artistic perception with life itself. The prototype of our stump work pictures, the Italian raised work, are gracious, graceful figures perfectly proportioned, and set in lovely elegant arabesques, with no exaggeration of style or period. Some specimens of this work must have been brought from Italy, through France, and the English workers quickly adopted and adapted them to their own heavier intelligence. Some of the little figures are certainly very grotesque. Frequently the tiny little hands are larger than the heads, but the _stitchery_ is exquisite. No time seems to have been too long to have been spent in perfecting the petals of a rose, the loose wing of a butterfly, or to make a realistic curtain in fine Point lace stitches to hang from the King's canopy. Some of the King's dresses are said to have been made of tiny treasured pieces of his garments. There is no doubt that much devoted sentiment was worked into these little figures, and these touches of nature add a pathetic interest to them. [Illustration: SUPERB EXAMPLE OF STUART PICTURE. (_S.K.M. Collection._)] In the illustration of "King Solomon receiving the Queen of Sheba" from the South Kensington Collection Solomon is obviously King Charles I., while the Queen of Sheba is equally recognisable as Queen Henrietta Maria. The picture is perhaps the finest in the Kensington Collection, the colours being fresh and the work intact. The little faces are worked over a padding of soft frayed silk or wool, the features being drawn in fine back-stitch. Natural hair is worked on the King's and Queen's heads, and the crowns are real gold thread set with pearls. The canopy is worked _solidly_ in silk and gold thread, and from it hang loose curtains in old brocade, worked over and over with gold and silken thread. The King's mantle and that of the Lord Chamberlain are worked in Point lace stitches, afterwards applied to the bodies and hanging loosely. The Queen's dress is brocade, worked over with gold and silver, while strings of real pearls decorate the necks and wrists of the ladies, and real white lace of the Venetian variety trims the neck and sleeves of these fairy people. The Stuart castle we see perched up among the trees and touching the sun's beams is more like an English farmhouse than Whitehall. Yet either this or Windsor Castle is always supposed to be represented. The British lion and the leopard, again, make the identity of these little people more certain. The quaint little trees bear most disproportionate fruits, the acorn and pears being about the same size, but all beautifully worked in Point-lace stitches over wooden moulds. The hound and the hare, the butterfly and the grub, and the strange birds make up one of the most typical Stuart pictures. The next illustration shows another development of picture-making. Here the grounding is of white satin, as in the previous illustration, but the figures are worked on canvas separately, in fine petit-point stitch, afterwards being cut away and placed on the white satin ground with a few silk stitches and the whole outlined with a fine black silk cord. The subject is "The Finding of Moses," and is as full of anachronisms as the last, only that here again Pharaoh's daughter is worked in memory of Queen Henrietta Maria, and the tiny boy in the corner is Charles II., and Moses the infant Duke of York. The four-winged cherubs are the guardian angels who are watching over the lost fortunes of the Stuart family, and the rose of England and the lilies of France which form the border are emblematical of the royal lineage of their lost King's family. The hound and hare still chase each other gaily round the border, and in the picture the hare is seen emerging, like the Stuarts, from exile and obscurity. Sufficient has perhaps been said to cause those who possibly may have misunderstood these pictures to give them another glance, and allow imagination to carry them back to the times of the exiled Royal Family and their brave adherents, whose women allowed not their memories to slumber nor their labours to flag. These pictures must have been made during the Commonwealth and the reign of Charles II. In no case, to my knowledge, has King Charles II. been depicted in stitchery, nor yet Catherine of Braganza. James II. is equally ignored, and with him their mission seemed to have been accomplished. Possibly the people had had by this time sufficient of the Stuarts, and the memory of King Charles the martyr had waxed dim. Certain it is that with James II. Stuart needlework pictures suddenly ceased. [Illustration: STUART PICTURE, SHOWING THE FINDING OF MOSES. (_S.K.M. Collection._)] _Stump work Symbols._ The symbolism of the various animals, birds, insects, and flowers which are, apparently without rhyme or reason, placed in one great disarray in the Stuart pictures is said to have been heraldic and symbolic. The sunbeam coming from a cloud, the white falchion, and the chained hart are heraldic devices belonging to Edward III. The buck and the strawberry, which are so often seen, belong to the Frazer Clan of Scotland, and may have been worked by ladies who were kith and kin of this clan. The unicorn was the device of James I. and the siren or mermaid of Lady Frazer, who is said to have worked her own golden hair in the heart of a Tudor rose on a book cover for James I. The hart was also a device of Richard II. and the "broom pod" of the Plantagenets. The caterpillar and butterfly were specially badges of Charles I., while the oak-tree and acorn were invariably worked into every picture in memory of Charles II.'s escape in an oak tree. IX SAMPLERS IX SAMPLERS Real art work--Specimens in South Kensington Museum--High price now obtained. A "sampler" is an example or a sample of the worker's skill and cleverness in design and stitching. When they first appeared, as far as we know about the middle of the seventeenth century, they were merely a collection of embroidery, lace, cut and drawn work stitches, and had little affinity to the samplers of a later date, which seemed especially ordained to show various patterns of cross stitches, the alphabet, and the numerals. The early samplers were real works of art; they were frequently over a yard long, not more than a quarter of a yard wide, and were adorned with as many as thirty different patterns of lace and cut and drawn work. This extreme narrowness was to enable the sampler to be rolled on a little ivory stick, like the Japanese _kakemonas_. The foundation of all the early samplers was a coarse linen, and to this fact we owe the preservation of many of them. Those made two hundred years later, on a coarse, loose canvas, even now show signs of decay, while these ancient ones on linen are as perfect as when made, only being gently mellowed by Time to the colour of old ivory. The earliest sampler known is dated 1643, and was worked by Elizabeth Hinde. It is only 6 inches by 6-1/2 inches, and is entirely lacework, and apparently has been intended for part of a sampler. The worker perhaps changed her mind and considered rightfully that she had accomplished her _chef d'oeuvre_, or as so often explains these unfinished specimens, the Reaper gathered the flower, and only this dainty piece of stitching was left to perpetuate the memory of Elizabeth Hinde. The sampler in question is just one row of cut and drawn work and another of fine Venetian lacework, worked in "punto in aria." A lady in Court dress holds a rose to shield herself from Cupid, a dear little fellow with wings, who is shooting his dart at her heart. Perhaps poor Elizabeth Hinde died of it and this is her "swan song." [Illustration: A SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY "SAMPLER" (ENGLISH), SHOWING CUT AND DRAWN WORK. (_S.K.M. Collection._)] The earliest samplers appeared to have been worked only on white cotton or silk. A favourite design, apart from the lacework samplers, was the "damask pattern" sampler, a specimen of which may be noted, commencing with the fifth row, on the sampler illustrated. Sometimes the sampler was entirely composed of it, and although ineffective, remains as a marvel of skill. It was worked entirely in flat satin stitch and eyelet holes, known as the "bird's eye" pattern. In the illustration four rows of cutwork will be noted, followed by five rows of drawn threadwork, and above are patterns worked in floral and geometric designs in coloured silks. The alphabet and the date 1643 complete this monument of skill, which may be seen in the South Kensington Museum. The succeeding illustration shows a more ambitious attempt, and is considered one of the finest specimens known. It was worked by Elizabeth Mackett, 1696. It is on white linen with ten rows of floral patterns worked with coloured silks in cross, stem, and satin stitches, with some portions worked separately and applied. Five rows of white satin stitch, two rows of alphabet letters in coloured silks, and four rows of exquisite punto in aria lace patterns are followed by the alphabet again in white stitches and the maker's name and date. The sampler is in superb preservation, the colours are particularly rich and well chosen. This sampler is also from the South Kensington Collection. Often the worker's name is followed by a verse or rhyme having a delightfully prosaic tendency. One can imagine the poor girls, in the early days we are writing of, writhing under the infliction of having slowly and painstakingly to work the solemn injunction-- "When this you see remember me And keep me in your mind, And be not like a weathercock That turns at every wind. When I am dead and laid in grave, And all my bones are rotten, By this you may remember me When I should be forgotten." And we can appreciate how little Maggie Tulliver ("The Mill on the Floss") must have girded at the philosophy she was compelled to work into her sampler-- "Look well to what you take in hand, For learning is better than house or land; When land is gone and money is spent Then learning is most excellent." With the eighteenth century the beauty of the Samplers distinctly declined. They became squarer, and were bordered with a running pattern, and the whole canvas became more or less pictorial. Inevitably the end of this art came. Ugly realistic bowpots with stumpy trees decorated the picture in regular order. The alphabet still appeared, and moral reflection seemed to be the aim of the worker rather than to make the Sampler show beauty of stitchery. Quaint little maps of England are often seen, surrounded with floral borders, but it remained to the early nineteenth century to show how the Sampler became reduced to absurdity. One of the quaintest and most amusing Samplers at South Kensington is a 12-inch by 8-inch example in woollen canvas and embroidered with coloured silk. At the lower end is a soldier, a tiny realistic house, a dovecot, any number of flowering plants, a stag and other animals. Above is a band of worked embroidery enclosing the words, "This is my dear Father." The remaining spaces are filled in with angels blowing trumpets, double-headed eagle, peacocks and other birds, and baskets of fruit. In spite of its absurdity, this little piece is far more pleasant than the tombstone inscriptions which abound, and is, after all, delightfully suggestive of home and affection. [Illustration: EARLY ENGLISH "SAMPLER," SHOWING EMBROIDERY IN COLOURED SILK. (_S.K.M. Collection._)] [Illustration: EARLY ENGLISH "SAMPLER," SHOWING BIRD'S-EYE EMBROIDERY AND CUT AND DRAWN WORK. (_S.K.M. Collection._)] Another quaint piece at South Kensington is a sampler worked by poor Harriet Taylor, _aged seven!_ At the top are four flying angels, two in clouds flanking a crown beneath the letters "G. R." In the middle stands a flower-wreathed arch, with columns holding vases of flowering plants; above are the words, "The Temple of Fancy," and within an enclosed space the following homily: "Not Land but Learning Makes a man complete Not Birth but Breeding Makes him truly Great Not Wealth but Wisdom Does adorn the State Virtue not Honor Makes him Fortunate Learning, Breeding, Wisdom Get these three Then Wealth and Honor Will attend on thee." Then follows a house called "The Queen's Palace," standing in an enclosed flower-garden. This masterpiece of moral philosophy from the hands of a child of seven years is dated 1813. An exaggerated conception of the value of old Samplers is very widely spread. Only the seventeenth-century Samplers are really of consequence, and these fetch fancy prices. In the sale-rooms a long narrow Sampler of lace stitches and drawn-thread work would bring as much as a handsome piece of lace. They are practically unattainable, and in this case the law of supply and demand does not obtain. It is beyond the needlewomen of the present day to imitate these old Samplers. Life is too short, and demands upon time are so many and varied, that a lifetime of work would result in making only one. Therefore, the fortunate owners of these seventeenth-century Samplers may cherish their possessions, and those less lucky possess their souls in patience, and hoard their golden guineas in the hope of securing one. Twenty years ago a few pounds would have been ample to secure a fine specimen, but £30 will now secure only a short fragment. During the last three years I have not seen a good Sampler at any London Curio or lace shop, and none appear in the sale-rooms. The eighteenth-century Samplers are comparatively common, the map variety especially so, and can be purchased for a pound or so, but these are not desirable to the collector. X THE WILLIAM AND MARY EMBROIDERIES [Illustration: JACOBEAN WALL-HANGING WORKED IN COLOURED CREWELS ON LINEN GROUND. (_S.K.M. Collection._)] X THE WILLIAM AND MARY EMBROIDERIES Queen Mary "a born needlewoman"--The Hampton Court Embroideries--Revival of petit point--Jacobean hangings. One of the most convincing facts in arguments that there _is_ a revival in the gentle art of needlecraft is that it has become the fashion to drape our windows, cover our furniture, and panel our walls with printed copies of the Old Jacobean needlework. Many people, knowing nothing whatever about the history of needlework, wonder where the designs for the printed linens which line the windows of Messrs. Liberty, Goodall and Burnett's colossal frontages in Regent Street have been found. In time amazement gives way to admiration for these quaint blues and greens, roses and pale yellows, worked in great scrolls with exotic flowers and still more exotic birds, and the funny little hillocks with delightful little pagoda-like cottages nestling amongst them, and many and various little animals which seem to keep perpetual holiday under the everlasting blooms. The designs are taken bodily from the historical hangings of the later seventeenth century. After the abdication and flight of James II. to St. Germains, his daughter Mary came over with her Dutch husband, William the Stadtholder--or, rather, William came over and brought his wife, the daughter of the late king, for William had no intention of assuming the style and life of Prince Consort, but came well to the front, and kept there. It was not "VICTORIA _and Albert_" in those days, but WILLIAM and MARY, who ruled England, and ruled it well. William III. must have been a man of strong personality, and he managed to quell all the rebellions of his reign, and during the time he ruled over us the country settled down to a peaceful state that has remained to the present time. Queen Mary had quite sufficient employment in settling herself and her household, and generally managing the domestic matters pertaining to the new kingdom she had come into. She apparently had a very free hand in rebuilding Hampton Court, which she particularly made her home, absolutely pulling the interior down, and rebuilding and redecorating it according to her own taste, which was not that of the Stuart persuasion with its gorgeous magnificence, but the more homely and solid Dutch. Very little of the original Hampton Court _interior_, built and furnished by Cardinal Wolsey, exists. Just here and there we find delightfully dark little dens with the original linen-fold panellings and ceilings that are a ravishment to look upon; but mostly the rooms are high, plain-panelled, and with the quaint ingle-nook fireplaces, with shelves above, upon which Mary placed her lovely "blue and white" porcelain which had been brought to her by the Dutch merchants who at that time were the great traders of the sea. [Illustration: ENLARGEMENT OF "JACOBEAN" SPRAY. (_S.K.M. Collection._)] Queen Mary ought to be regarded as the patron saint of English needlewomen. She was happiest when employed furnishing every bed-covering, every chair and stool, and supplying the hangings for her favourite home. It is said that she spent her days over her embroidery frame, knowing full well that affairs of State were in the capable hands of her husband. There are few relics left of her handiwork outside Hampton Court. She left no dainty little book-covers, bags, or boxes, as her ideas were fixed on larger pieces of embroidery. Had she lived in the Berlin-wool picture days, she would have filled every nook and cranny with these atrocities, as many humbler devotees to the needle have done to our own knowledge. Needlework can become a _passion_, and certainly Queen Mary must have possessed it. After the complete collapse of the Stuart stump pictures, when every vestige of loyalty seems to have been swept away with the hated James II., the ancient Petit Point pictures came back into fashion. Very clever work was put into them, but, alas! their scope was purely to depict religious scenes of the rigorous kind. No dainty fairy-like little people now ruled in pictured story, but actual representations of Bible history. The illustration of "The Baptism of the Ethiopian Eunuch by St. Philip" is a fair sample of the needlework picture of this time. The picture is a strange mixture of the early Stuart Petit Point, the Jacobean wall-hanging, and the newly revived religious spirit. The duck-pond, the swans and the water-plants might have been copied bodily from James I.'s time. The paroquet and the flying bird, and the immense leaves and blossoms, are direct from the wall-hangings, while the figures only too surely foretell the coming dark days of needlecraft, when a Scripture picture and a coarsely worked sampler were part of every girl's liberal education. The work in this picture is extremely good, and it is excruciatingly funny without intending to be so. The pretty little equipage with its diminutive ponies surely was never intended to carry either St. Philip or the Eunuch! The open book, with Hebraic inscription, is very delightful. It brings to mind the Tables of the Law rather than the light reading that the charming little Cinderella coach should carry. These pictures are not common, and we scarcely know whether to be thankful for them or not. Unlike the early petit point, they were worked in _worsteds_, whereas the early pictures were wrought in silk. The moth has a natural affinity for wool, as we all know, and his tribe has cleared off many hundreds of examples. Why so many of the old Jacobean hangings remain is that they were worked for _use_, and not ornament, and even after they ceased to be fashionable ornaments for sitting and bed rooms, they were either relegated to the servants' quarters, or given to dependants, who used them constantly, shaking and keeping them in repair, as the eighteenth-century housewives liked to keep their homes swept and garnished. [Illustration: NEEDLEWORK PICTURE OF QUEEN ANNE PERIOD. (_S.K.M. Collection._)] It is strange to see these old Jacobean hangings (perhaps the drapery of the now tabooed four-post bedstead), which might some thirty years ago have been carried off for the asking, sell at Christie's for £800, as happened in the dispersal of the Massey-Mainwaring sale last year. Even a panel of no use except to frame as a picture, say 4 feet by 3 feet, will fetch £30 and a full-sized bed-cover can only be bought for over £100. The reason is not far to seek. The colouring and the drawing of this fine old Crewel-work are exquisite (even though the design savours of the grotesque), and Time has dealt very leniently with the dyes. I endeavoured to match some of these old worsteds a little time ago, and though able to find the colours, could not get the tone. After much tribulation I was advised to hang the skeins of worsted on the trees in the garden and _forget all about them_, and certainly wind and weather have softened the somewhat garish worsteds to the soft, _fade_ colours of the old work. The same class of embroidery was executed during the reign of Queen Anne, though she herself did little of it. Costly silks and brocades and Venetian laces were the dress of the day, and no little dainty accessories appear to have been made. XI PICTORIAL NEEDLEWORK OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY [Illustration: A FINE "PAINTED FACE" SILK-EMBROIDERED PICTURE. (_Author's Collection._)] XI PICTORIAL NEEDLEWORK OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY The "painted faces" period--Method of production--Revival of Scriptural "motifs"--Modern fakes--Black silk and hair copies of engravings. An immense number of pictures must have been worked during the eighteenth century. Almost, we might say, no English home is without an example. Much of the work is intensely bad, and only that Time has tenderly softened the colours, and the old-time dresses add an element of quaintness to the pictures, can they be tolerated. Works of art they are not, and, indeed, were never intended to occupy the place their owners now proudly claim for them. Just here and there a picture of the painted face type is a masterpiece of stitchery, as in the example illustrated, where every thread has been worked by an _artiste_. Looking at this little gem across a room, the effect is that of a charming old colour print, so tenderly are the lines of shading depicted. This is the only picture of this class that I have seen for years as an absolutely perfect specimen of the eighteenth-century silk pictures, though doubtless many exist. The discrepancy which is usually found is that, although the design and outline is perfect, the faces and hands exquisitely painted, the needlework part of the picture has been executed in a foolish, inartistic manner, and no method of light and shade has been observed. Some little time ago I published an article in one of the popular monthly Magazines illustrating this same picture, and was afterwards inundated with letters from correspondents from far and near sending their pictures for valuation and--admiration! Not one of these pictures was good, though there were varying degrees of _badness_. But in no instance was the painted face crudely drawn or badly coloured. The explanation is that just as the modern needlewoman goes to a Needlework Depôt and obtains pieces of embroidery already commenced and the design of the whole drawn ready for completion, so these old needle pictures were sold ready for embroidering, the outline of the trees sketched in fine sepia lines, the distant landscape already painted, the faces and hands of the figures charmingly coloured, in many instances by first-class artists. When we remember that the eighteenth century was _par excellence_ the great period of English portrait painting and colour printing, we can understand that possibly really fine artists were willing to paint these exquisite faces on fine silk and satin, just as good artists of the present day often paint "pot-boilers" while waiting for fame. [Illustration: EMBROIDERED SILK PICTURE OF "THE LAST SUPPER." Eighteenth Century. (_S.K.M. Collection._)] Angelica Kauffmann's style was often copied. Is it too much to believe that some of these charming faces may have been from her hands? We know that she painted furniture and china, therefore why not the faces of the needlework pictures so nearly akin to her own work? The eighteenth-century costume was particularly adapted to this pretty work. We cannot imagine the voluminous robes of Queen Mary or Queen Anne in needle-stitchery, but the soft, silky lawns of the Georgian periods, the high-waisted bodices, the _bouffant_ fichus and the flowing head-dresses, all were specially easy and graceful to work. Many of the pretty children Sir Joshua loved to paint were copied. "Innocence" made a charming picture, and several of the less rustic Morland pictures were copied. We would imagine that when the beginnings of the picture were so glorious the needlewoman would have made some endeavour to work up to it. But, alas! it was not so. Though often the stitching is neat and small, not an idea of shading seems to have entered the worker's mind, and whole spaces, nay, a complete garment, are often worked solid in one tone of colour! On the whole there is far more artistic sense and feeling in the Stump pictures it is the fashion to deride. Not always were dainty pastoral and domestic scenes worked. Very ghastly creations are still existent of scriptural subjects. Coarsely worked in wool, instead of silk, or in a mixture of both. The painting is still good, but the work and the subjects are execrable! "Abraham about to sacrifice Isaac," on the pile of faggots already laid, and Isaac bound on it, with a very woolly lamb standing ready as a substitute, was a favourite subject. "Abraham dismissing Hagar and Ishmael," with a malignant-looking Sarah in the distance, vies with the former in popularity. "The Woman of Samaria," and "The Entombment," are another pair of unpleasant pictures which we are often called upon to admire. The best of these pictures were worked in fine floss silk, not quite like the floss silk of to-day, as it had more twist and body in it, with just a little fine chenille, and very tiny bits of silver thread to heighten the effect. The worst were worked in _crewel_ wools of crude colours. Fortunately, the moth has a special predilection for these pictures, and they are slowly being eaten out of existence, in spite of being cherished as heirlooms and works of art. Another pretty style which we seldom meet with was some part of the picture covered with the almost obsolete "ærophane," a kind of chiffon or crape which was much in request even up to fifty years ago. A certain part of the draperies was worked on the silk ground, without any attempt at finish. This was covered with ærophane, and outlined so as to attach it to the figure. This again was worked upon with very happy effects, very fine darning stitches making the requisite depth of shading. The illustration shows the use of this, but this cannot be said to be a very good specimen. [Illustration: "PAINTED FACE" SILK-EMBROIDERED PICTURE. Eighteenth Century. (_Author's Collection._)] These painted face, silk-worked pictures are the only needlework examples the collector _need to beware of_, as they are being reproduced by the score. The method of working in the poorer specimens is very simple, and it pays the "faker" to sell for £2 or £3 what takes, perhaps, only half a day to produce. When a well-executed picture is produced it is worth money, but so far I have seen none, except at the Royal School of Needlework, where the copying of old pictures of the period is exceedingly well done, and not intended to deceive. The prices, however, are almost prohibitive, as no modern needlework picture is worth from £15 to £30. They are, after all, only copies, and in no sense of the word works of art. During the eighteenth century, also, a fashion set in of adorning engravings with pieces of cloth, silk, and tinsel. At best it was a stupid fancy, and was responsible for the destruction of many fine old mezzotints and coloured prints. The hands, face, and background of an engraving were cut out, and pasted on a sheet of cardboard, pieces of some favourite brocaded gown, perhaps, were attached to the neck and shoulders, tiny lace tuckers were inserted, and gorgeous jewellery was simulated by wretched bits of tinsel trimming. The realism of the Stuart stump picture was never so atrocious as this baleful invention, which was as meretricious as a waxwork show. Not so popular, but far better, were the pictures worked on white silk with black silk and hair. There were no artistic aspirations about these--they were copies in black and white of the engravings of the day, just as a pen-and-ink or pencil copy might be made. Very dainty stitchery was put in them, the stronger parts of the lines being in fine black silk, the finer and more distant being worked in human hair of various shades from black to brown. Occasionally golden and even white hair is used, and the effect is often that of a faded engraving. The silk ground on which these little pictures were worked is, however, often cracked with age, and many pretty specimens are ruined. The illustration shows an example of the type of picture, and depicts "Charlotte weeping over the Tomb of Werther." [Illustration: BLACK SILK AND HAIR PICTURE. Imitation of Engraving. Eighteenth Century. (_Author's Collection._)] XII NEEDLEWORK PICTURES OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY XII NEEDLEWORK PICTURES OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Entire decline of needlework as an art--Miss Linwood's invention!--The Berlin-wool pictures--Lack of efficient instruction--Waste of magnificent opportunity at South Kensington Museum. It were kindest to ignore 19th century needlework, but in a book treating of English embroidery something must be said to bridge over the time when Needlecraft as an Art was _dead_. During the earlier part of the century taste was bad, during the middle it was beyond criticism, and from then to the time of the "greenery-yallery" æsthetic revival all and everything made by woman's fingers ought to be buried, burnt, or otherwise destroyed. Indeed, if that drastic process could be carried out from the time good Queen Adelaide reigned to the early "eighties" we might not, now and ever, have to bow our heads in utter abjection. The originator and moving spirit of this bad period was Miss Linwood, who conceived the idea of copying oil paintings in woolwork. She died in 1845. Would that she had never been born! When we think of the many years which English women have spent over those wickedly hideous Berlin-wool pictures, working their bad drawing and vilely crude colours into those awful canvases, and imagining that they were earning undying fame as notable women for all the succeeding ages, death was too good for Miss Linwood. The usual boiling oil would have been a fitter end! Miss Linwood made a great _furore_ at the time of her invention, and held an exhibition in the rooms now occupied by Messrs. Puttick & Simpson, Leicester Square. Can we not imagine the shade of the great Sir Joshua Reynolds, whose home and studio these rooms had been, revisiting the glimpses of the moon, and while wandering up and down that famous old staircase forsaking his home for ever after one horrified glance at Miss Linwood's invention? Not only Miss Linwood, but Mrs. Delany and Miss Knowles made themselves famous for Berlin-wool pictures. The kindest thing to say is that the specimens which are supposed to have been worked by their own hands are considerably better than those of the half-dozen generations of their followers. During the middle and succeeding twenty years of the nineteenth century the notable housewife of every class amused herself, at the expense of her mind, by working cross-stitch pictures with crudely coloured wools (royal blue and rose-pink, magenta, emerald-green, and deep crimson were supposed to represent the actual colours of Nature), on very coarse canvas. Landseer's paintings were favourite studies, "Bolton Abbey in the Olden Times" lending itself to a choice range of violent colours and striking incidents. Nothing was too sacred for the Berlin-wool worker to lay hands upon. "The Crucifixion," "The Nativity," "The Flight into Egypt," "The Holy Family" were not only supposed to show the skill of the worker, but also the proper frame of mind the embroideress possessed. Pleasing little horrors such as the "Head of the Saviour in His Agony," and that of the Virgin with all her tortured mother love in her eyes were considered fit ornaments for drawing-room, which by the way were also adorned with wool and cotton crochet antimacassars, waxwork flowers under glass, and often astonishingly good specimens of fine Chelsea, Worcester, and Oriental china. Never was the questions of how "having eyes and yet seeing not" more fully exemplified. The nation abounded in paintings, prints, fine needlework, and the product of our greatest period of porcelain manufacture. Fine examples were at hand everywhere. Exquisite prints belonging to our only good period, the eighteenth century, were common; yet rather than try their skill in copying these, the needlewomen, who possessed undoubted skill, enthusiasm, and infinite patience, preferred to copy realistic paintings of the Landseer school and the highly coloured prints of the Baxter and Le Blond period. Unfortunately, the craze is by no means buried. Within the last twelve months I was invited to see the "works" of a wonderful needlewoman in a little Middlesex village. The local clergyman and doctor were sufficiently benighted even in these days of universal culture to admire her work, and her fame had spread. Room after room was filled with 10 by 8-feet canvases; every drawer in the house was crammed with the result of this clever woman's work--for clever she undoubtedly was. After exhausting all the known subjects of Landseer and his school, she had struck out a line for herself, and had copied the _Graphic_ and _Illustrated London News_ Supplements of the stirring scenes from the South African War, such as "The Siege of Ladysmith," "The Death of the Prince Imperial" in all its gruesome local colouring, were worked on gigantic canvases. Her great _chef d'oeuvre_ was, however, the memorial statue of Queen Victoria, copied from the _Graphic_ Supplement _in tones of black, white, and grey_, a most clever piece of work; but--well, she was happy and more than delighted with my perfectly honest remark that I had _never seen anything like it_! Ah! if only this dear woman and the many others who are wasting their time and eyesight over fashions which perish could only be reached and aroused by the influence of the lovely old English stitchery of our great period! If only the purblind authorities and custodians of our National collections could awaken to the infinite possibilities which they hold, once again "Opus Anglicum" might rule the world, and the labour of even one woman's life might be of lasting value. It is useless to refer to the many schools of embroidery there are in different parts of the country, where fine work is being done on the best lines. These schools, from the Royal School of Needlework downwards, are "closed corners," and no attempt is made to reach the great public. The Royal School of Needlework is maintained by no subsidy as it ought to be, but by the many ladies of position and taste who liberally support it, both for the instruction and employment of "ladies of reduced circumstances," and for _the disposal of its work at very high prices_. Other schools in town are simply private adventure institutions, run at a considerable profit to the principals. The superb collection at South Kensington might as well be buried in the crypt of Westminster Cathedral for all the value it is to the general public. There is not the slightest attempt to allow these unique pieces of "Opus Anglicum" to point a moral or adorn a tale. The magnificent copes and vestments, of which there are some score, are merely tabulated, paragraphed, and photographed, and there is an end of them. During my constant visits to these treasures of English Art I have not once discovered another interested visitor amongst these beautiful vestments; and the officials, when interviewed, though perfectly courteous, apparently resent inquiries; and woe betide the unfortunate inquirers who _might_ have found the required information from the tiny little printed card hidden either too low or too high in the dark recesses of the corridors, and so spared these _savants_ the trouble of an interview! Why a continuous course of lectures on this and every kindred Art subject is not made compulsory at the Victoria and Albert Museum is one of the burning questions of the hour among the cultured collectors of the day. The custodians are supposed to be men of special insight in the branches over which they preside, yet for all the advantage to the public they might as well be waxwork dummies. What we want as a nation is "culture while we wait," and writ so large that those who run may read, and until this consummation is attained we shall ever remain in the Slough of Despond, and Art for Art's sake will continue dead. XIII EMBROIDERY IN "COSTUME" XIII EMBROIDERY IN "COSTUME" Early Greek garments--Biblical references to embroidery--Ecclesiastical garments--Eighteenth-century dresses, coats, and waistcoats--Muslin embroideries. The subject of Costume has been most admirably treated in another volume of this series, but a reference must be made to it as affecting our topic, English Embroidery, as costume has played no little part in its history. From the earliest ages embroidery has been used to decorate garments. The ancient Greeks embroidered the hems of their graceful draperies in the well-known Greek fret and other designs so invariably seen on the old Greek vases. The legend that Minerva herself taught the Greeks the art of embroidery illustrates how deeply the art was understood; and the pretty story told by an old botanist of how the foxglove came by its name and its curious bell-like flowers is worth repeating. In the old Greek days, when gods and goddesses were regarded as having the attributes of humanity in addition to those of deities, Juno was one day amusing herself with making tapestry, and, after the manner of the people, put a thimble on her finger. Jupiter, "playing the rogue with her," took her thimble and threw it away, and down it dropped to the earth. The goddess was very wroth, and in order to pacify her Jupiter turned the thimble into a flower, which now is known as Digitalis, or finger-stole. This little fairy tale can scarcely be taken as proof conclusive of the existence of either needle tapestry or thimble use, but its telling may amuse the reader. In all ancient histories we find continuous references to the embroidered garment worn by its people. It was well recognised that no material was sufficiently beautiful not to be further embellished with rich embroideries. In the Psalms we find that "Pharaoh's daughter shall be brought to the king in a raiment of needlework," and that "her clothing is of wrought gold." Phrygia was above all the country most noted for embroideries of gold, and for many years the name "Phrygian embroidery" was sufficient to describe any highly decorated specimen. It is said that the name of the vestment or trimming, the "orphry" is derived from the word "Auri-phrygium," meaning "gold of Phrygian embroidery." The Phrygians are credited with having taught the Egyptians the art, while the Hebrews, while sojourning in the land of Egypt, learned the art from their captors, and carried it with them all through their journeys to the Promised Land, and their final settlement in Palestine. The mention of gold and purple embroideries, both as garments and hangings, is conspicuous throughout all Bible history. The Egyptian and Greek arts are in almost all respects concurrent. The Phoenicians carried examples of each country's work from one to another. After the conquest of Greece the Romans absorbed her art, and developed it in their own special style. They in turn carried their arts and crafts to Gaul and Britain, and by degrees needlecraft permeated the whole of Europe. Dealing with the embroidered costumes of our own country, the ancient records, illuminated Missals, and other contemporary data show that very sumptuous were both the ecclesiastical and lay garments. Heavy gold embroideries were worked on the hems of skirts and mantles. The Kings' coronation robes and mantles were beautiful specimens of handicraft, often after a king's death being given to the churches for vestments. From Anglo-Saxon to Norman times extensive use was made of the work of the needle for clothing, but after the Conquest till quite late in the Tudor period little has been found to throw light upon the use of embroidery for the lay dress of the time. All woman's taste and energy seem to have been devoted to make monumental embroideries for church use. It was, indeed, not until the gorgeous period of Henry VIII. that embroidery, as distinct from garment-making, appeared; and then everything became an object worthy of decoration. Much fine stitchery was put into the fine white undergarments of that time, and the overdresses of both men and women became stiff with gold thread and jewels. Much use was made of slashing and quilting, the point of junction being dotted with pearls and precious stones. Noble ladies wore dresses heavily and richly embroidered with gold, and the train was so weighty that train-bearers were pressed into service. In the old paintings the horses belonging to kings and nobles wear trappings of heavily embroidered gold. Even the hounds who are frequently represented with their masters have collars massively decorated with gold bullion. The skirts of the ladies of this time were thickly encrusted with jewels, folds of silk being crossed in a kind of lattice-work, each crossing being fixed with a pearl or jewel, and a similar precious stone being inserted in the square formed by the trellis. The long stomachers were one gleaming mass of jewelled embroidery, the tiny caps or headdresses being likewise heavily studded with gems. During the reign of Charles I. a much daintier style of dress appeared. Velvet and silken suits were worn by the men, handsomely but appropriately trimmed with the fine "punto in aria" or Reticella laces of Venice; and in this and the three succeeding reigns dress was of sumptuous velvets, satins, and heavy silks, unembroidered, but trimmed, and in Charles II.'s time _loaded_ with costly laces. It will be noted that whenever lace is in the ascendant, embroidery suffers, as is quite natural. Lace itself is sufficient adornment for fine raiment. [Illustration: _Photo by E. Gray, Bayswater._ MRS. TICKELL AND HER SISTER, MRS. SHERIDAN, BY GAINSBOROUGH, SHOWING HOW LACE WAS SUPERSEDED BY FILMY MUSLINS. (_Dulwich Gallery._)] As the use of the fine Venetian and Flemish and French laces declined, and tuckers and frillings of Mechlin, Valenciennes, and Point d'Angleterre appeared, the use of embroidery asserted itself, and the pretty satins and daintily coloured silks of William and Mary, Queen Anne, and more specially the earlier Georges, began to be embroidered in a specially delicate fashion. Fine floss silk was used in soft colourings, and whole surfaces were covered with tiny embroidered sprays of natural-coloured flowers. Really exquisite stitchery was put into the graceful honeysuckle, the pansy, carnation, and rose clusters which decorated the dresses. The bodices, sacques, and skirts of the early eighteenth-century ladies were embroidered with real artistic taste and feeling. Some of the old dresses kept at South Kensington show the exquisite specimens of this class of needlework; while the coats and waistcoats of the sterner sex are not a whit behind the feminine garments in beauty. The long waistcoats were most frequently made of cream, pale blue, or white silk or satin, delightfully embroidered with tiny sprays of blossoms, and fastened with fine old paste buttons; while the coat, frequently of brocade, was heavily embroidered down the front with three or four inches of solid embroidery of foliage and flowers, oftentimes mixed with gold and silver threads. The tiny cravat of Mechlin, cuff ruffles, knee breeches, silken hose, and buckled shoes, along with the powdered hair, complete a costume that has never been equalled, either before or afterwards, in beauty, grace, and elegance. During the William IV. and the long Victorian period, with the exception of a very fine embroidery on muslin, in the earlier part of it, nothing but fine stitchery for the use of underwear was made, if we except the hundreds and thousands of yards of cut and buttonholed linen which seemed to have been the solace and delight of our grandmothers when they allowed themselves to be torn away from their beloved Berlin-wool work. To sit on a cushion and sew a fine seam appears to have been the amusement of the properly constituted women of the early and mid-nineteenth century. XIV SALE PRICES XIV SALE PRICES Ancient embroideries so seldom come into the salerooms that it is rarely an opportunity occurs for obtaining market prices, therefore Lady Wolseley's sale on July 12, 1906, must be accepted as a standard. Immense prices are asked at the antique shops, the dealers apparently basing their prices on this sale by auction and _doubling_ them. I have visited every shop in the trade in search of prices for this book before procuring the auctioneer's catalogue, and was aghast at the terrific sums asked for oftentimes indifferent specimens in comparison to what was paid in the auction-room. During the past year anything from £15 15s. to £40 has been paid at Christie's for specimens of varying degrees of perfection of work and condition. The latter state is even of greater importance than the first, as no matter how good the work originally, if discoloured and frayed, prices go down and down. Nearly all the finest specimens of the Stump-work period are marred by the tarnishing of the gold and silver threads. Instead of these being a glory and a great enhancement to the embroidery, they prove a great disfigurement, and thereby cause a considerable reduction in value. The earlier petit point pictures, having little or no bullion in their execution (and when cared for and not exposed to too much sunlight), have kept their condition very well, and now are quite the favourite kind for collection. It speaks much for the quality of the silks used and the dyes of nearly three hundred years ago that the fugitive greens and blues and delicate roses in these little works of art, as in the superb tapestries of the same date, should be as fine as when made, whereas to-day's colours are as fleeting as the glories of the rainbow. * * * * * The following are the principal prices in Lady Wolseley's sale: £ s. d. A small bag, red and gold brocade 2 15 0 A small bag or purse 5 0 0 A fine bead book-cover 6 0 0 Same, trimmed with silver lace (Harris) 6 16 0 A pair of embroidered shoes (Harris) 6 0 0 A small pocket-book, silk embroidery on silver ground 8 17 6 A pair of Stuart shoes 9 19 6 A stumpwork picture, a most curious globe, showing Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, 1648 (S. G. Fenton) 24 0 0 A double book of Psalms, embroidered binding with Tudor rose 23 10 0 A petit point picture, 12-1/2 × 9-1/2 11 11 0 A small picture, partly sketched and partly worked 4 14 6 A Stuart stump picture, 18 × 15-1/2 18 18 0 A Stuart stump picture, King under canopy, 17-1/2 × 14 14 14 6 A Stuart bullion picture, vase, in tortoiseshell frame, 23 × 18 8 8 0 Same, with Herodias's daughter and John the Baptist 5 5 0 A portrait of Henry, Prince of Wales, in flat-stitch on rose satin 21 0 0 Another on satin, "Bathsheba," spangled, 17 × 13 6 16 0 Another on satin, birds on gold and silver, 13 × 13 (Harris) 13 13 6 A bead picture, 15 × 11 11 11 0 A stump and bead picture, 12 × 11 12 1 6 A small book-cover, 14 × 8 13 12 0 A Stuart stump picture, figures and silver fountain, tortoiseshell frame, 22 × 16 15 15 0 A stump picture, lady with coral necklace, 18 × 12 23 10 0 A stump picture, lady under arch with a black swan, 20 × 16 (Stoner) 34 0 0 A stump picture, King Charles as Ahasuerus with Haman and Mordecai, and pearl-embroidered carpet, 23 × 17 28 0 0 A stump picture, lady under a canopy, large pearls, 13 × 19, (Stoner) 34 0 0 A Stuart Petit Point picture, Abraham and Hagar 16 16 0 A Stuart petit point picture, "Judgment of Paris," 24 × 17 25 0 0 A Stuart petit point picture, King Solomon and Queen of Sheba 18 18 0 A beadwork picture, lady and gentleman, lion and unicorn, 21 × 17 12 12 6 An embroidered picture, "Peter denying Christ," 24 × 17 (S. G. Fenton) 9 19 6 A petit point picture, lake with boats and figures, 15 × 12 (Harris) 14 14 6 A large stump picture, with horse and rider and figures of four seasons 30 10 0 A stumpwork picture, four figures, castle and birds and flowers (S. G. Fenton) 33 0 0 A picture sketched on white satin, not worked 4 15 0 A Stuart picture on canvas 9 19 6 A fine Stuart jewel-casket, numerous secret drawers, covered in needlework (S. G. Fenton) 47 5 0 A Stuart box, covered with bullion-work (S. G. Fenton) 12 12 0 A Stuart box, with embroidery and pearls (Spero) 16 16 0 A Stuart box, coloured bullion, 10 × 6 9 9 0 An embroidered box, with portrait on lid (S. G. Fenton) 53 11 0 A Stuart mirror, covered with stump embroidery, representing Charles I. and his Queen (illustrated), (Rosthron) 102 18 0 Another mirror, with painted and embroidered figures (Harris) 34 0 0 A Charles I. mirror in old lace and gold frame, with borders in embroidery, with portrait, castle, and floral decoration 40 0 0 3 yds. 13 inches long, 12 inches deep, Cornice in Petit Point, Christie's, July, 1908 (Harris) 204 15 0 XV CONCLUSION XV CONCLUSION Needlework as a national art is as dead as the proverbial door-nail; whether or not it ever regains its position as a craft is a matter of conjecture. Personally, I incline to the belief that it is absolutely extinct. The death-knell rang for all time when the sewing-machine was invented. The machine has been a very doubtful blessing, as it has allowed even the art of stitchery in ordinary work to slide into the limbo of forgotten things. What woman now knows what it is to "back-stitch" a shirt cuff, for instance, drawing a thread for guidance, and carefully going back two or three threads in order to make a neat, firm line of stitching? The sewing-machine does all this, and _does_ it _well_, a clever machinist turning out more work in a week than a seamstress in a year. If this were all, it would be no matter for regret, but with the necessity for needlework has vanished the desire. The lady quoted in Green's History is now non-existent. "She was a pattern of sobriety unto many, very seldom seen abroad except at church; when others recreated themselves at holidays and other times, she would take her needlework, and say, 'Here is my recreation.'" In spite of the many Schools of Embroidery, with a few notable exceptions, nothing is done to raise the standard of embroidery above making miserable little cushion-covers, table-centres, and suchlike pretty fripperies for the temporary adornment of the house. The women of Germany, Holland, Sweden, Italy, on the contrary, take a great interest in the embroidery of the bed and table linen and the really artistic embroidery of their national costumes. Nothing of this is seen in England. Table linen is bought _ready hemmed_ at the shop. Dainty tea-cloths and serviettes are purchased ready embroidered (by machine) and trimmed with machine-made lace. Even _lingerie_ of all classes is machine-made and bought by the dozen, instead of being made by the daughters of the house. The only hope of a revival lies in the various Art schools in the country where designing for fine embroidery and lace is encouraged. Unfortunately, however, equal facilities are offered for designing of machine-made imitations. The Royal School of Needlework, not being a Government institution, offers no encouragement to outsiders. It is in the hands of a number of ladies, who manage it as they will; and although very fine work is accomplished, they trust too much to modern designers and artists who work out their own pet theories and hobbies. If only they would put aside all theories and new ideas, and _go back_ to the best periods of English art both for their designs and execution, even yet, with the intelligent use of the glorious examples in the adjoining Museum, much might be done to revivify this expiring art. FINIS INDEX INDEX OLD LACE. (_For Needlework see page 384_) A Adelaide, Queen, 116 Age of lace, 108, 191 Alençon lace, 29, 78, 183, 191 Argentan lace, 29, 78, 191 Argentella lace, 29, 81, 192 Anne, Queen, 157 Appliqué, 175 Aylesbury, 158 B Baby lace, 157 Barri, Madame du, 90 Beading, 41 Beads on bobbins, 161 Bed furnishing, 73 Bedfordshire lace, 37, 157 Belgian lace, 37 Black lace, 94 Blonde lace, 94 Bone lace, 41 Bobbins, 41, 158 Bolckow, Mrs., 54 Brides, 38, 127 Brussels lace, 37, 81, 104, 108, 123, 195 Brussels appliqué, 123 Brussels Vrai Reseau, 111 Buckinghamshire lace, 30, 35, 157, 158, 161 Burano, 54, 81 Buttonhole stitch, 195 C Caen lace, 97 Carrick-ma-cross, 175 Catherine de Medici, 73 Chantilly lace, 37, 93 Charles I., 148 Charles II., 104, 148, 151 Charlotte, Queen, 161 Christie's sale-room, 115, 201 Colbert, 29, 73, 77, 102 Collar lace, 61 Collar, Medici, 53 Commonwealth, 148 Cordonnet, 41, 53, 77 Convents, 26 Coptic embroideries, 21 Couronnes, 41 Cravat, 151 Creevy Papers, 115 Cromwell, 151 Crotchet, 175 Cut worke, 73, 187 Cuthbert, St., 22 D Danish lace, 134 Darned netting, 173 Debenham & Storr's sale-room, 54, 200 Dentelé, 41 Devonshire lace, 30, 162 Dorsetshire lace, 161 Drawn work, 21 Duchesse lace, 127 Durham Cathedral, 22 E Ecclesiastical lace, 62 Edgings, 31 Edward IV., 144 Egyptian netting, 22 Elizabeth, Queen of England, 54, 147 Embroidered net, 172 English laces, 157 Empress Eugénie, 97 F Falling collar, 148 Fausse Valenciennes, 89 Fillings, 40, 173 "Figure" motifs, 107 Flanders lace, 29, 103 Flat point (point plat), 50 Flax thread, 61, 107 Florence, 53 Flemish point, 103 Fond, 42 Fontange, 151 Fowler, Mrs., of Honiton, 166 France, point de, 74 French Revolution, 78 G Genoese lace, 29 George I., 115 George II., 115 George III., 115 George IV., 112 German laces, 134 Ghent laces, 124 Gingles, 161 Gold and silver laces, 134 Greek laces, 103, 183 Groppo, Punto a, 62 Gros, Point de Venise, 53 Grounds, 37 Guipure, 42, 61 Gold lace, 22 H Hamilton lace, 171 "Hayward's," 114 Henry VII., 144 Henry VIII., 147 High Wycombe, 158 History of lace, 21 Honiton, 30, 35, 165 Honiton appliqué, 30 Huguenots, 30 I Identification of lace, 183 Irish lace, 30, 172, 176, 192 Italian lace, 45 J James I., 148 James II., 151 Jours, 41, 81 K Kenmare, Lady, 75 King of Rome, 112 L "Lacis," 29, 73 Lappets, 112 Lawn, 93 Lewis Hill, Mrs., 201 Lille, 35, 91 Limerick, 124, 172 L'Onray, 76 Louis XIV., 29, 46, 73, 74 Louis XV., 78 Lyme Regis, 162 M Machine-made ground, 172 Macramé, 37, 64 Malines, 127 Maltese, 137 Mantillas, 97 Marie Antoinette, 78, 123, 129 Massey-Mainwaring, Mrs., 200 Marie de Medici, 53 Marie Stuart, 171 Mary, Queen, 147 Mary II., 151, 152 Mechlin, 37, 127 Medici collar, 53 Mezzo Punto, 62 Milanese lace, 29, 62 Mixed lace, 37, 62, 124 Modern point lace, 124 Montespan, Madame de, 74 N Napoleon I., 78, 112 National Library, S.K.M., 50 Needlepoint lace, 49, 73, 108 Network, ancient, 3 Newport Pagnell, 158 Normandy lace, 97 Norway, 134 Northamptonshire lace, 157 Nuns, 26 O Oeil de perdrix, 83, 192 Origin of lace, 21 P Palliser, Mrs. Bury, 9 Parchment, 25 Parasole, 50 Pearls, 97 Peter the Great, 134 Picots, 42 Pillow lace, 29, 37 Point lace, 25, 37 Point à réseau, 53 Point d'Aiguille (Brussels), 108 Point d'Alençon, 76 Point d'Angleterre, 102, 107, 192 Point appliqué, 123 Point de France, 46, 76, 188 Point de Gaze, 108, 124 Point de Venise, 49 Point de Venise Gros, 50, 53, 54 Point de Neige, 49, 50 Point plat, 50 Punto in aria, 25, 143 Punto a groppo, 37, 62 Punto tagliato a foliami, 53 Q Quillings, 128 Quentin Matys, 103 Queen Anne, 157 Queen Mary II., 117, 127, 151 Queen Charlotte, 117, 128 Queen of Laces, 128 Queen Victoria, 116, 162 R Raised stars, 49 Rose point, 49, 50 Renaissance, 53, 107, 188 Reseau, 36, 39 Reticella, 26, 50, 73, 103, 143, 188 Revolution, French, 78 Rococo, 78 Royal trousseaux, 81 Ruffles, 90 Russian lace, 134 S St. Cuthbert, 22 Sale prices, 199 Samplers, 25, 187 Saxony lace, 134 Scotch lace, 171 Silk lace, 94 Smocks, 25 Spanish point, 133 Steinkirk, 151 Sumptuary law, 112 South Kensington Museum, 187 T Tambour lace, 172 Tape lace, 62 Tatting, 175 Thread, 61 Toilé, 108 Trolly lace, 165 V Valenciennes lace, 37, 89 Vandyke, 61, 148 Venice, 183 Vicellio, 50 Venetian lace, 50 Victoria, Queen, 162, 165 Vinciolo, 29, 50 Vraie Valenciennes, 89, 90 W Westminster effigies, 147, 151, 152 William and Mary, 148, 151 "Wynyards," 115 William III., 115 Wiltshire lace, 115 Willis's Rooms, 201 Y Youghal laces, 176 NEEDLEWORK A Athelstan, 213 Alb, 238 Aldhelm, Bishop of Sherborne, 213 Aelfled, Queen of Edward the Elder, 213 Angelica Kauffmann, 339 Art, the pioneer, 209 Ascagni cope, 223 Ascoli cope, 233 B Bags, Stuart, 261 Bayeux tapestry, 214 Beads, Venetian, 274 Berlin wool pictures, 350 Bishop Fridhestan, 213 Black work, 284 Bologna cope, 223 Book-covers, 279 Bridgettine nuns, 227 C Catworth cushions, 233 Catherine of Aragon, 248, 251, 284 Caskets, 269 Chain stitch, 227 Charles I., 265, 273 Charles II., 265, 273 Chasubles, 241 Christie's sale-rooms, 257, 265, 270, 367 City palls, 237 Church vestments, 238 Coventry, 228 Copes, 241 Crewel work, 329 D Daroca cope at Madrid, 223 Dr. Rock, 227 E Earl of Shrewsbury, 228 Editha, Queen of Edward the Confessor, 213 Egyptian embroidery, 210 Emma, Queen of Ethelred the Unready, 213 Elizabeth's wardrobe, 249 Elizabeth's Book at British Museum, 283 Elizabeth's Book at the Bodleian Library, 283 Elizabeth Hinde's Sampler, 309 Elizabeth Mackett's Sampler, 311 F Field of the Cloth of Gold, 249 G Georgian costumes, 363 Georgian pictures, 335 Gimps, 249 Gloves, 262, 265 Greek garments, 359 H Hampton Court, 250, 322 Hair and silk pictures, 343 Henrietta Maria, Queen, 265 Henry VIII., 247 Höchon collection, 220 I Isleworth, 227 Italian raised work, 295 J James I., 257 Jacobean hangings, 321 "Jesse" Cope, 223 John Taylor's Needlework Rhyme, 258 L Lady Jane Grey, 247 "Laid," or couch work, 227 Linwood, Miss, 350 M Maniple, 241 Mary Queen of Scots, 250 Mary II. embroidery, 325 Minerva, 358 Mirror frames, 273 N Needlework pictures, 291, 335, 349 Neolithic remains, 210 "Nevil" altar-frontal, 234 O Opus Anglicum, or Anglicanum, 219, 223 P "Painted face" picture, 335, 343 Petit point, 257, 325 Phoenicians, 359 Phrygian embroidery, 358 Pierpont Morgan, 233 Pocket books, 281 Pope Innocent III., 223 Q Quilting, 287 R Reformation, 246 Roman Invasion, 210 Royal School of Needlework, 353 Rock's "Church of Our Fathers," 220 S Samplers, 307 St. Augustine, 210 St. Benedict, 220 St. Cuthbert, 213 St. Dunstan, 213 Steeple Aston altar-frontal, 234 Stoles, 238 Stump work, 295 Stump work symbols, 302 "Syon" cope, 223 Subjects of needle pictures, 295 T Tambour stitch, 227 Tudor embroideries, 247 Trays, 270 W Wonderful needlewoman, A, 351 Wolsey, Cardinal, 249, 250 Wolseley's, Lady, collection, 265, 273, 368 Worcester fragments, 219 _Printed in Great Britain by_ UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON * * * * * Transcriber's Note: Obvious punctuation errors have been corrected. Inconsistent hyphenation in the original has been preserved, e.g. cutwork, cut-work; hand-made, handmade; lace-workers, laceworkers; may-flower, mayflower; needle-craft, needlecraft; needle-point, needlepoint; salerooms, sale-rooms; semi-circular, semicircular. Inconsistent use of accents has been preserved, e.g. applique, appliqué; réseau, reseau; toile, toilé. In the Index, Pierpoint was corrected to Pierpont to match the body of the text. The main body of the text refers to the "Hockon collection", which is referred to in the index as the "Höchon collection". It is unclear which of these is correct so they have been preserved as they appear in the original. Page 25: 'survival of the fitting' changed to 'survival of the fittest'. Page 38: 'accompanying diagrams' changed to 'accompanying diagram'. Page 42: 'little loop' changed to 'little loops'. Page 127: '"Duchesse point" of "Bruges,"' changed to '"Duchesse point" or "Bruges,"'. Page 192: 'of same period' changed to 'of the same period'. Page 196: 'other two' changed to 'two other'. Page 300: 'and rose of England' changed to 'and the rose of England'. Page 303: 'and butterfly was' changed to 'and butterfly were'. Page 315: 'a long narrow Samplers' changed to 'a long narrow Sampler'. Page 383: 'Punto à groppo' changed to 'Punto a groppo'. 
33144	----	generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) THE ORIENTAL RUG [Illustration: PLATE I. ANTIQUE LADIK _Prayer Rug_ FROM THE COLLECTION OF MR. GEORGE H. ELLWANGER Size: 3.10 x 6] THE ORIENTAL RUG A MONOGRAPH ON EASTERN RUGS AND CARPETS, SADDLE-BAGS, MATS & PILLOWS. WITH A CONSIDERATION OF KINDS AND CLASSES, TYPES, BORDERS, FIGURES, DYES, SYMBOLS ETC. TOGETHER WITH SOME PRACTICAL ADVICE TO COLLECTORS. BY W. D. ELLWANGER Author of "A Summer Snowflake" NEW YORK: DODD, MEAD & COMPANY. 1909 _Copyright, 1903_ BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY Published September, 1903 PREFACE That Oriental rugs are works of art in the highest sense of the term, and that fine antique specimens, of even modest size, have a financial value of ten, fifteen, or thirty-eight thousand dollars, has been recently determined at public auction. At this auction, several nations had a representative voice in the bidding, and the standard of price was fairly established. The value of rugs may have been imaginary and sentimental heretofore; it is now a definite fact, with figures apparently at the minimum. What the maximum may prove, remains to be seen. Choice old rugs, therefore, to-day come into the same class with genuine paintings of the old Dutch School; with canvases of Teniers, Ruysdael, Cuyp, Ostade, or whatever similar artist's work may have escaped the museums. They vie in prestige with the finest examples of Corot, Diaz, Troyon, or Daubigny; and in monetary supremacy they overtop the rarest and grandest of Chinese porcelains. And yet the Oriental rug, as against such competitors for the wealthy collectors' favour, has hardly a history, and is practically without a name or a pedigree. Experts will tell you at a glance whether or not your Wouverman is genuine, or inform you where every true Corot was owned or whence it was bartered or stolen. In Chinese porcelains, the knowing dealer will easily prove to you not only under what dynasty but in what decade or year a particular piece was produced. The painting has descent, signature, or the brush mark of a school to father it. The Chinese vase, bowl, or jar has its marks, cyphers, stamps and dates, and an undoubted genealogy to vouch for its authenticity. The rug must speak for itself and go upon its intrinsic merits. It is its own guarantee and certificate of artistic and financial value. The study of Oriental rugs, therefore, can never lead to an exact science or approximate dogmatic knowledge. Whoever is interested in them must needs rely upon his personal judgment or the seller's advice. There is practically only one current book authority in the premises. A new volume on the subject would thus seem to be well justified. It is the hope of the author that this book may prove itself sound and practical, and that it may help to make more clear and simple the right appreciation of a valuable rug. W. D. ELLWANGER ROCHESTER, N.Y., 1903 CONTENTS Chapter Page I. THE MYSTERY OF THE RUG 3 II. GENERAL CLASSIFICATION 13 III. OF THE MAKING, AND OF DESIGNS, BORDERS, ETC. 21 IV. OF THE DYEING 35 V. OF PERSIAN RUGS, SPECIFICALLY 43 VI. CAUCASIAN RUGS, DAGHESTAN AND RUSSIAN TYPES 61 VII. OF TURKISH VARIETIES 69 VIII. TURKOMAN OR TURKESTAN RUGS 79 IX. OF ORIENTAL CARPETS, SADDLE-BAGS, PILLOWS, ETC. 93 X. AUCTIONS, AUCTIONEERS, AND DEALERS 107 XI. INSCRIPTIONS AND DATES 121 XII. GENERAL OBSERVATIONS AND PARTICULAR ADVICE 131 LIST OF PLATES PLATE I. LADIK _Frontispiece_ II. KONIAH _Facing page_ 22 III. KAZAK " " 36 IV. SEHNA " " 44 V. CHICHI " " 50 VI. KABISTAN " " 62 VII. GHEORDEZ " " 70 VIII. KOULAH " " 72 IX. MELEZ " " 74 X. BELUCHISTAN " " 80 XI. ANATOLIAN PILLOWS " " 94 XII. BERGAMA " " 124 The Oriental Rug CHAPTER I THE MYSTERY OF THE RUG To judge of an Oriental rug rightly, it must be looked at from several points of view, or, at least, from two aspects; against the light and with the light. From the first standpoint, against the light of knowledge, speaking figuratively, there may be seen only a number of rude and awkward figures in crude colours scattered erratically on a dark or dingy-looking background, a fringe of coarse and ragged strings at either end, and rough frays of yarn at the sides. This is what is accepted by many people as an Oriental rug. And indeed this is what most rugs are. If, on the other hand, we view our rugs with the light of a better wisdom and happier experience, we will see the richest and softest of colours, the most harmonious shadings and blendings, medallions brilliant as jewels, or geometrical designs beautiful as the rose windows of a cathedral; or, again, graceful combinations of charmingly conventionalized flowers and delicate traceries and arabesques,--all these displaying new glories of ever changing and never tiring beauty. Each woven picture, too, is as soft to tread upon as a closely mown lawn, and caresses the feet that sink into its pile. These are Oriental rugs as their admirers know and love them. Perhaps the chief charm of all such beautiful rugs is in their mystery. Their designs are odd and strange and full of hidden meanings, and their effects are often evolved from the crudest and clumsiest figures, hooks and squares and angles; they owe their wealth of colour to simple vegetable dyes from the woods and fields and gardens, and yet the secret of many of these dyes is still a secret, or has long ago been lost. The places whence the rugs come, the people who make them and those who sell them, all are mysterious and hard to know and understand. Moreover, broadly speaking, there are no experts on the subject, no authorities, no literature. He who would know them must learn them by experience. The rug dealers, for the most part, seem to treat their wares merely as so much merchandise, and what knowledge concerning them they are willing to impart is so contradictory as to be almost valueless. Few of them would agree upon the name of an example which might be out of the ordinary, or be able to tell where it was made. Ask of them what a "Mecca" is, and they will stammer in their varying answers. And yet the Armenians who handle most of the rugs in this country are often highly educated, and fully appreciate the beauty of their wares. Their taste, however, is not always our taste, and all the Orientalists seem to retain their barbaric fondness for crude and startling colours. When we would turn to books for information in the matter we find that the authorities are not many. They might be numbered on your fingers and thumbs. These few books, moreover, have been published only in limited editions at high prices, and are not easily obtainable. One of the most important of such works is the sumptuously illustrated, elephantine folio, issued in Vienna in 1892 by the Imperial and Royal Austrian and Commercial Museum. And, elaborate as this authority is, the modest editor, by way of apology, says in the preface that "no pretensions are made toward perfection owing to the little information that we can fall back upon." A recent authority on the subject is John Kimberly Mumford, and his volume on Oriental Rugs, published in 1900, has thrown much light on the subject. Too great praise cannot be given to this work and to his later studies in the same field. Still, no one knows it all, and the mystery of Oriental rugs only deepens as we try to learn. The little that any one may really know of them through experience, through questioning and elusive answers, through conversations with obliging and polite vendors, and through foreign travel even, is, when all is said, only a patchwork of knowledge. Consider how stupendous and hopeless would be the task of one who would dare endeavour to analyze, criticise, classify, and co-ordinate the paintings of the past five centuries, were no names signed to them or no appreciable number of pictures painted by the same known artist. He who would write of rugs has a like condition to face. And alas! also, whoever would write on this subject must now treat of it principally as history. The characteristic rugs, the antique rugs, the rare specimens, are seldom to be bought. They are in museums, or in the hands of collectors who hold them in even a tighter fist. Twenty years ago the warning was given that the choice old rugs were growing scarce; the years following found fewer still upon the market. Two or three years ago one of the largest wholesale houses in New York, carrying a stock of half a million or a million dollars, had no antiques to show. In the autumn of 1902, another large New York importer who had just returned from Persia, Tiflis, and Constantinople admitted that he had not brought back one valuable antique piece. Nevertheless, the true enthusiast need not be discouraged. From wandering dealers, in odd corners, at the unexpected or by chance, one may happen on a choice specimen. The very word "Persian" is a synonym for opulence, splendour, gorgeousness; and "Oriental" means beauty and wonder and the magic of the "Arabian Nights." From the Aladdin's cave of the mystical East, therefore, we may still hope to gather treasure and spoil. CHAPTER II GENERAL CLASSIFICATION Most of the rugs of commerce in this country come from Persia, Turkey, Asia Minor, Turkestan, the southern part of Russia, Afghanistan, and Beluchistan; a few also from India. The rugs are named from the provinces or cities where they are woven, and to the uninitiated, the names seem to have been as fearfully and wonderfully made as the rugs themselves. They are spelled one way on the maps and every other way in catalogues and advertisements. In enumerating the most familiar ones it may be well to write their names as nearly phonetically and conventionally as possible. A few rugs have trade appellations only, without regard to topography; and, often, unknown towns are called into requisition for fanciful titles to please the purchaser. Of course the names of rugs may mean nothing to your man-of-all-work, whose duty it is to chastise them upon the lawn. But there is poetry in the names of the roses, and you cannot half enjoy their beauty unless you know a Mabel Morrison from the Baroness Rothschild; Cécile Brunner from the Earl of Dufferin; or can give the proper rank and title to Captain Christy, General Jacqueminot, and Maréchal Niel. And who would dare to talk of laces that could not give a French or Dutch or Irish name to them? Or, when painted pictures instead of woven ones were under discussion, who would venture to admit that he had heard for the first time the names of some of the Old Masters, or did not know any of the Flemish School, or could not at least touch his hat to a Gainsborough or a Romney? There were "old masters" in wool as well as on canvas, as the Gheordez rugs most particularly prove, and though the artists' signatures are missing or meaningless, their classification is important. Once learned, and then difficult to remember withal, rugs answer to their names like old and familiar friends. If Homer catalogued the ships, surely the masterpieces of the Eastern loom are worthy of brief nomenclature. The Persians come first, and perhaps in the following order of excellence: Kirman, Sehna, Kurdistan, Khorassan, Serabend, Youraghan, Joshghan (Tjoshghan), Feraghan, Shiraz, Gulistan, Mousul, etc. The rug dealers frequently speak of a "Persian Iran," but as Iran is the native expression for Persia, the name is as tautological as are the dealer's laudatory adjectives. So far as the term "Iran" can be differentiated, it is now applied with some propriety to rare old Persian rugs of fine weave only, whose proper name may be in doubt. Among the Turkish rugs, which are mainly those from Asia Minor, the Yourdez (or Gheordez), the Koulahs, Koniahs, and Ladiks are by far the finest, and then come the Bergamas, vying often for like high honour, the Melez, and many others which are vaguely classed as Anatolians. From Turkestan come the numerous Bokharas and the more uncommon Samarkands; from Afghanistan, the Afghans and the Khiva, and Yamoud-Bokharas. But the two rugs last named seem to have a doubtful paternity, and should perhaps be classed with the other Bokharas. Beluchistan sends but one type, which is generally unmistakable, although Afghans, Bokharas, and Beluchistans all have a family likeness. To Caucasia in Russia are credited the Kabistans, Shirvans, Chichis (Tzi-tzis), Darbends, Karabaghs, Kazaks, and Gengias, also the Soumacs, or so-called Cashmeres. The first four of these are somewhat similar in character, and not many years ago were generally sold in this country under the indiscriminate title of Daghestans. We are more specific in our knowledge now, and can classify and differentiate an old Baku rug, or a Kuba, which is a Kubistan, and therefore what we used to call an antique Kabistan. India provides us only with some fine large carpets mostly of modern make, and also with many imitations of Persian rugs, made in part by machinery like the current substitute for a Turkish towel. CHAPTER III OF THE MAKING, & OF DESIGNS, BORDERS, ETC. [Illustration] [Illustration: _"Serabend" Border_] In order to appreciate the beauty of rugs, it is well to remember how they are made, and with what infinite patience the bits of wool are knotted onto the warp one after another, knot upon knot and tie after tie, until the perfect piece is finished. Yet, no! Finished it may be, but never perfect. Deliberately, if necessary, it must show some defect, in proof that Allah alone is perfect. Such at least is the poetical version of a crooked rug as the seller tells it. Yet never was a vendor but will expatiate fluently on the merits of a rug which lies true and straight and flat upon the floor, as a good rug should. It is a common sight nowadays in shop windows to see some wandering artisan plying his trade for the edification of the passer-by. In his own home it is generally a woman who does the weaving, and very commonly the whole family take part in it. More often still the rugs were woven by an Oriental maid for her prospective dowry, and the practice yet obtains. A specimen of her handicraft in textile art was a bride's portion and marriage gift; it was considered as essential to the proceedings as the modern _trousseau_. This offering was a work of love and often a work of years. It is but natural, under such circumstances, with dreams, hopes, and fancies for inspiration, and the stimulus of rivalry, too, that masterpieces should result. These Eastern marriage portions correspond to the "linen chest" of our ancestral Puritan Priscillas; and similar customs now survive in many countries. Except that the "accomplishment" of the Oriental maiden is so much more important, it might also be compared to the beadwork so diligently done by our grandmothers. If the Persian bride gave infinite toil and pains to innumerable knots and ties, our belles of the last century were also unwearying in their tasks, and strung more and smaller beads than any would care to count or finger now. The designs on these bead-bags were mostly crude and "homely," and their art was very simple. But though the handiwork of the Orientals was expended in a better cause with worthier skill, both linen and wool, and even beads, bespoke a labour of love in such employments; which, alas! is out of date to-day. Rugs of this character, gathered from house to house, together with some few stolen from mosque or palace, were the first ripe spoils of twenty years ago. Of course the supply was soon exhausted. It is an interesting question whether it might not be possible, in the East, to revive this high class of work among the girls. Instead of establishing great factories for machine-made products from set designs, could not the most skilful of the girls be induced by good prices to create original pieces and rejuvenate the old art? [Illustration: PLATE II. ANTIQUE KONIAH _Prayer Rug_ FROM THE COLLECTION OF MR. GEORGE H. ELLWANGER Size: 3.5 x 4.7] [Illustration: _Persian, Caucasian_] [Illustration: _Feraghan Leaf Design_] [Illustration: _Rhodian or Lily Border_] The method of weaving is most simple. The warp is stretched on a rude wooden frame, and this warp is either wool, linen, or cotton. The knotting is begun at the bottom and worked from right to left. A bit of woollen yarn about two inches long is deftly twisted between the strands of the warp, then tied in a secure knot, and the ends left as they are. This knot of yarn is then secured in place by one or more twists of the end of the warp, and then another knot of yarn is tied and the process repeated _ad infinitum_ until the bottom row is finished and another row begun. Not till the rug is all made are the ends of the knots cut, according to the length of nap desired. Such, at least, was the original method, although the various knots are all a mystery to any but the initiated, by whom they are generally classified as two only. When one square inch of rug is completed, according to the quality of the rug and the coarseness or fineness of the yarn, there have been thus laboriously tied from one hundred to five hundred knots, not uncommonly a thousand and more in some museum pieces. And all this while the weaver is working with his brains as well as with his fingers and keeping true to the design and colour scheme which he carries only in his head. Except in the few intentioned copies, specially made, they had formerly no patterns to follow. Each particular weaver, however, was wont to keep to the general design and colouring which distinguished his particular locality. [Illustration: _Koniah Field_] [Illustration: _Koulah Border_] Of designs it may be said, generally, that they were originally individual trademarks, and, of themselves, stamped the locality of their weavers. Later, as knowledge and civilization spread and tribe grew to communicate with tribe and nation with nation, local designs came to be used indiscriminately. For example, you will find in the semi-antique Feraghans or Shiraz, or Kiz-Killims as well, the distinctive and unmistakable Sehna models. On the other hand, certain definite, primal, and unchanged designs, both in the field and border, mark some rugs absolutely and exclusively; as the Bokharas and Afghans. In many, their classification is fixed, or at least approximated, rather by their borders than by the figuring of their fields. There are many border designs surely determining their origin and the region to which they properly belong. These borders may have been borrowed or stolen, or may have naturally spread to other regions, even in the old time; and they may be adapted to various other makes to-day. Their evident individuality of design tells its own history just the same. It is not difficult to master the characteristic features of the borders of many types; and, once known, they make a fair foundation of knowledge for the collector. They are often truer and safer guides to classification than are the designs of centre or field. Indeed, the study of borders, inner, middle, and outer borders, and borders characteristic, modified, or exceptional would make a book of wondrous artistic interest and beauty of design. Even the item of selvedge, particularly in the Beluchistans, shows great skill in colouring and pattern. [Illustration: _Turtle Border_] The consideration of characteristic patterns in field and border is so involved with verbal description and specification in the various classes of rugs that an attempt at complete pictorial illustration of such figures in their proper place is practically impossible. A few reproductions are shown in this chapter which may serve as examples. Some of them are more particularly considered elsewhere in the text, as reference may show. [Illustration: _Crab Border_] [Illustration] The Serabend border is referred to on p. 50, and is quite unmistakable; and the Persian border (p. 23) is familiar to every one, and appears frequently on Caucasian rugs of every quality and every age. The Feraghan leaf design is noticed on p. 52, and wherever used in the drawing, determines its class as absolutely as any figure may. The Rhodian border is referred to more particularly on p. 72, and the Koniah design and Koulah border are described in their proper place, p. 72. Other Persian borders are most interesting, although they may not particularize any class or locality. Such are the turtle and crab borders (pp. 28 and 29), and the lobster design, at the head of this page. The origin of these strange forms of ornament as applied to carpet-weaving adds only another mystery to the subject. But dyes were derived not only from leaves and roots, but also from insects, molluscs, and crustaceans. It must be that the origin of the colour originally suggested these symbols of marine or insect life for decorative effect. The more they were used, however, the more conventionalized and meaningless they appear, recent weavers not appreciating what they represented. Old pieces show more clearly the evident model. But old pieces also often show original creations in border and design, far more artistic than the usual types. The Kazak border of the titlepage is an example. The discriminating collector, when a choice offers, will do well to avoid the commonplace. [Illustration] CHAPTER IV OF THE DYEING The dye, the tone, the richness, and colour value of a rug was, and still is, an essential characteristic of the weaving of each class and region; and it was formerly not only essential but exclusive, the dyes being often trade secrets or, more truly said, tribe secrets. Of course every one knows that the colouring of the yarn of the best Oriental rugs is derived only from vegetable or animal dyes, and to this is due their beauty and durability. It may be noted also, in parenthesis, that it is the yarn and not the wool that is dyed. Alas, that modern weavers, Oriental and Occidental, have learned to substitute mineral or aniline dyes! These not only destroy the wool and fade badly, but when the fabric is cleaned or wet by any chance the colours run, and leave their stains and blemishes. Of course, too, they fail to give the richness, depth, and lustre of the good old method. Generally, their manifest crudity bespeaks the poor quality and coarseness of their make. Some vegetable dyes also fade, but they fade only into softer and more pleasing shades, and more delicate and harmonious blendings, as witness, in many antiques, the soft and beautiful tones of pink, salmon, and fawn which come from raw magentas, as the back of the rug will prove. But that magenta dye was of the old school. Modern magentas seem never to fade away gracefully and becomingly. It must be noted, however, while speaking of the dyes used in the fine old rugs and in the best rugs of to-day, that for one or two colours resort was, and is, had to mineral dyes. Many of the best old Turkish specimens have thus suffered in their blacks and browns, and many a museum exhibit is eaten to the warp where these colours occur. It may be well to remember this, as some varieties of Mousul and of Turkish weave, thus worn to the warp in spots, leaving the other figures raised and in relief, are palmed off on the innocent purchaser as rare, "embossed" pieces. Iron pyrites is the mineral from which these black dyes are made, and some Turkish weavers seem to know no vegetable black or brown. In some of the best Persians, Serabends particularly, the green which is used in the borders has the same fault as the Turkish blacks and browns; and if it does not "fade away suddenly like the grass," at least it leaves the nap "cut down, dried up, and withered." [Illustration: PLATE III. ANTIQUE KAZAK FROM THE COLLECTION OF MR. ERICKSON PERKINS Size: 5.9 x 7.2] The subject of the various dyes might be extended to a separate monograph, for really the whole history of rug making depends upon the dyes used. The day that the aniline, petroleum dyes came into use doomed the perfect making of carpet or rug; and not all the strictest laws of the Medes and Persians--which is to say, the Shah of Persia--have availed to prevent the use of the mineral dyes, and the complete demoralization of modern weaving. You may find even in choice, closely woven, artistic Shirvans and Kabistans of fifteen and twenty years ago some few figures in certain colours which are clearly and manifestly aniline. They are the strong reds and especially the bright orange. And in some modern Kurdistans, which should be free from guile, a few figures betray the same telltale glaring _media_. Used with a sparing hand, as they are, they do not ruin a rug, but they are none the less a blotch upon its fair repute. The theory is, so far as concerns the new Kurdistans, for instance, that these few mineral dyes are bought by the weavers from some traveller or agent by chance and inadvertently, and without knowledge of their character. Otherwise they would hardly be used for a few figures in a finely woven piece, where all the other dyes are vegetable. One expert Armenian has a sure test for mineral dyes in his tongue. When in doubt he cuts a bit of wool from the rug, nibbles it a minute or so, and then pronounces his sure verdict. But the test is a delicate one, and the fruit of knowledge is, presumably, bitter. Again, in speaking of colours and shadings, it may be interesting to know why solid colours so often come in streaks, changing abruptly, for instance, from dark blue to light blue, or dark red to light red. You may have any of several explanations: that the weaver, dipping his wool into the dye, stopped, for any trivial word or interruption, and the wool took on a stronger hue; or, that another hand or one of the women or children took up the work; or, again, that the plant, from which he bruised that particular hue, gave out in his back garden. Any of these reasons may be right. But the more credible one is to believe that the artistic weaver knew how effective is this change of colour, and what a pleasing, changing, varying light and shade it gives to his masterpiece. CHAPTER V OF PERSIAN RUGS, SPECIFICALLY To describe in detail the characteristics of all the classes of rugs and carpets that have been mentioned would be hardly possible, even with a hundred object lessons. The peculiar features of some of them, however, may be noted. But first be it observed that the term "antique" as applied to rugs is generally sadly abused. A rug is not beautiful simply because it is old. It must have been fine when new, it must have been carefully preserved, and it must rejoice in a ripe old age. Time must have dealt kindly with it, and only softened and mellowed its original beauties. Let the antiques which are but rags and tatters, however valuable for their design, hang in the museums, where they belong! The only merit of one of these genuine remnants of three or four centuries ago is in their originality of design. They were creations and not imitations, and made by true artists and not merely skilled weavers. Choose you, instead, a more modern rug of fine quality which will improve from year to year as long as you may live to enjoy it. It may also be premised that the sizes of rugs run from about three feet to six feet wide by four to ten feet long. Few rugs approach squareness, and rugs wider than seven or eight feet are classed as carpets. Some of the most beautiful pieces used to come, and still do, in the form of "strips," "hall rugs," or "stair rugs," according to trade parlance. They are worthy of a better name, which is their Persian term, "Kinari." They were made in pairs to complete the carpeting of a Persian room, being placed on either side of a centre rug, with two shorter strips at the top and bottom. More fine specimens of these long strips are now to be found than of smaller sizes, and they should not be neglected by the collector. By artistic arrangement and device they will accommodate themselves to almost any house, somewhere, and few choicer prizes can be bought to-day. [Illustration: PLATE IV. ANTIQUE SEHNA FROM THE COLLECTION OF THE AUTHOR Size: 2.4 x 3.1 This is apparently one side of a pillow. The other side, which is also in the possession of the author, is exactly similar, except that the colours are reversed, the medallion being red and the corners blue. This mat has 33 to 36 knots to the running inch, making over 1,000 to the square inch, or more than a million knots in the small piece.] The Persians are eminently the best rugs to buy. They are usually finer and more closely woven than the others, and more graceful in design, and seem to show a more refined and aristocratic art. The Kirmans would be the first choice, and are to the rug dealer what diamonds are to the jeweller, a staple article which he must keep in stock, and which finds a ready sale. But even were it possible to buy a true diamond Kirman, the very catholicity of taste to which diamonds and Kirmans appeal detract from their merit in the eyes of those who seek for more individuality. For the new Kirmans, fine, soft, and clean as they look, are all very much alike, and mostly copies or variations of a few particular antique forms, with a floriated medallion in the centre, or a full floriated panel, and floriated corners. A familiar design is a vase of flowers in graceful spread, with birds perching on the sprays. Or, again, they show some adaptation of "the tree of life." This symbolical figure appears in many forms, now denuded of its leaves like the "barren fig tree," and covering the whole rug, and now in smaller form as "the cypress tree," or the sacred "cocos," three or more to each rug, in full foliage and looking for all the world like certain wooden fir trees. It needs only the combination of these trees with the stiff wooden animals, far more wonderful than Noah ever knew, and tiny human figures, which might be Shem, Ham, and Japhet, all of which adorn these rugs, to remind one of the Noah's ark of childhood. Representations of birds, men, and animals never appear on Turkish rugs, the explanation being that the Turks, as Sunna Mohammedans, the orthodox sect, are opposed to them on religious grounds; while the Shiites, the prevailing sect in Persia, have no such scruples. But before leaving the subject of the Kirmans, be it well understood, by the wise and prudent, that not one out of a thousand, or indeed ten thousand, of those on the market to-day (and they are as common as door-mats) has any pretence to genuineness. They are faked in every way. They are washed with chemicals to give them their soft colourings, they are made by wholesale and, it is said, in part by machinery, and they are no more an Oriental rug than is a roll of Brussels carpet or an admitted New Jersey product. To the credit of whom it may concern, it must be stated that the dipping, washing, and artificial aging of these commercial pieces is mostly done by cunning adepts in Persia before their works of art are exported. Only an expert's advice should be relied on in buying a Kirman, to-day, and even that should have a good endorser. The distinction between Kirmans and Kirmanshahs was founded in fact and was important. But the latter term as now used in the trade is only poetical. It is the same new Kirman euphemized. No other rugs except silk rugs, which come under the same ban, have proved such a profitable swindle to unscrupulous and ignorant vendors, and have given a bad name to the dealers who try to be honest in their calling. The Sehnas are highly prized by the Orientals and Occidentals. Old examples are uncommon and are very choice. "Their fabric gives to the touch the sense of frosted velvet. They reveal the Meissoniers of Oriental art," says a writer on the subject. Some of these come in very small sizes, like mats, two feet by three. They have a diamond design, the centre being a graceful floriated medallion on a background of cream, yellow, red, or green, with floriation at the corners, making the diamond. They are the most exquisite of Persian gems, and are further considered in another chapter. The Sehnas have the nap cut very close, wellnigh to the warp, and are therefore often too thin for utility. They do not lie well on the floor, and by reason of their short nap look cold and lack richness and lustre. If you can find a choice one, however, and if, happily, as sometimes occurs, it may have a little depth of nap, you will own a pearl of great price. The Khorassans are very soft and thick. They generally show the palm-leaf or loop design in their borders, and are altogether desirable. Their colouring almost always inclines to magenta, but time subdues this to a delicate rose. Time has also subdued most of the specimens offered, to the sad detriment of their edges and ends. The ends are very seldom perfect, and age seems to bite into the borders of the Khorassans with a strange and voracious appetite. It is well to consider these defects in your choosing. The Serabends and their class have one border peculiar to themselves and a centre of double, triple, or multiple diamonds in outline, in which are scattered irregular rows of small figures, generally palm leaves, so called. This peculiar figure has three or four different names, the palm leaf, the pear, the loop, etc. It was originally worked into the fabric of the finest Cashmere shawls, and represents the loop which the river Indus makes on the vast plain in upper Cashmere, as seen from the mosque there, to which thousands made their pilgrimage. It was thus intended as a most sacred symbol and reminder. The Serabends are firm in texture, lie well, and are most satisfactory. Sometimes, however, the green in them shows the faults of an aniline dye. Their designs are peculiar to themselves, but never become monotonous. The palm-leaf pattern is of course common to many kinds of rugs. But the varieties in the form and size of it are infinite. [Illustration: PLATE V. CHICHI _About forty years old_ FROM THE COLLECTION OF THE AUTHOR Size: 3.6 x 5.10] The Shiraz rugs are warm in colour, lustrous, but rather loosely woven. Many of them show the "shawl pattern," small horizontal or diagonal stripes. These striped rugs, however, are always wavering and irregular in design and soon tire the eye. They are well passed by. Reproductions of the old Shiraz designs with the centre field filled with innumerable odd, small figures used to be common a few years ago. They were very rich and handsome. Almost all of them, however, have the great defect of being crooked. They will puff up here or there, and, pat, pull, or pet them as you may, it is hopeless to try to straighten them. They are frequently called Mecca rugs, on the generally accepted statement that these are the rugs usually chosen to make the pilgrimage to that shrine. The Youraghans and Joshghans (Tjoshghans) possess the general excellences of the best Persians, but they are not commonly seen. The Joshghans will show in their field a light lattice-work design with conventionalized roses, or graceful diaperings and patternings, of the four-petalled or six-petalled rose. The Persian rose is single, of course, and appears in many simple forms. The Joshghans might be the prototypes of some of the old Kubas or Kabistans, except that floriation was replaced by tiling and mosaic work in the Daghestan region. The Feraghans are not as finely woven as the Serabends, and on that account, primarily, yield to them in excellence. But old Feraghans often come in smaller sizes than the Serabends and in more desirable proportions. On the other hand, while Feraghans are generally of a firmer quality, there are also antique Serabends heavy and silky. Between the two it would be little more than to choose the better specimen. While the Feraghans have no accepted border to distinguish them, they have a most marked characteristic in the decoration of the field. It is a figure like a crescent, toothed inside; it might be a segment of a melon. But more than likely it was originally a curled-up rose leaf; for the rose, variously conventionalized, is most common to this class. There is generally an indication of a trellis, on which the roses are formally spread. But the curled leaf is almost always in evidence, however varied or angular it may be drawn. The Persian Mousuls are perhaps the best rugs now to be had for moderate prices. The region where they are made, being partly Turkish and partly Persian, gives them some of the characteristics of each nation. But the choice ones are always offered as Persian; and the designs of most of them are distinctively of that country, with frequent use of Serabend borders, Feraghan figures, etc. Their centre field sometimes contains bold medallions, but generally it is filled with palm-leaf or similar small designs, which in themselves are quite monotonous, except as they are diversified and made beautiful by graduated changes of colour in both the figures and background. Sometimes these streaks of varying colour make too strong a contrast, but generally they shade into each other most harmoniously, and, the nap being heavy and the wool fine, these rugs are eminently lustrous and silky. They have no rivals in this regard except among the Beluchistans and treasured Kazaks. As you walk around them they glow in lights and shades like a Cabochon emerald. One of their distinguishing designs is a very conventionalized cluster of four roses, the whole figure being about the bigness of a small hand. There is a rose at top and bottom and one on either side, with conventionalized leaves to give grace. The design is recognizable at a glance, and is wellnigh as old as Persia. For the rose is conceded to be Oriental in origin, and if it is not primarily a Persian flower, it belongs surely to her by virtue of first adoption.[1] The designation of certain rugs as Kurdish or Kurdistan has been used indiscriminately, yet they are by no means the same, and between the two classes is a well-marked distinction which should be recognized. Kurdistan is a large province in northern Persia, with a protectorate government both Turkish and Persian, and with the Turkish inhabitants in the ratio of about two to one, according to the geographers. The Kurds constitute only a small but most important part of the population. They are generally spoken of as "a nomadic tribe," or more frequently as "that band of robbers, the Kurds." Regardless, however, of their morals or habits, by them are made characteristic, coarse, strong, and often superb rugs which are properly called "Kurdish." On the other hand, the Persians in Kurdistan make a finer class of rugs and carpets, which are known as Kurdistans. These latter have been praised by an eminent authority as "the best rugs now made in Persia and perhaps in the East." They are certainly bold and splendid in design, beautiful in colouring, and of great strength and durability. The Gulistans are thick, heavy, and handsome, with striking designs, frequently like the flukes of an anchor, on a light ground. They are not common now even in modern weaving. There are many other Persian rugs which might be further specialized and considered. But such old commercial names as Teheran, Ispahan, etc., can in fact only be differentiated by an expert; and when experts disagree, as will frequently occur, and when they are at a loss to decide whether an important specimen is an Ispahan or a Joshghan, classification becomes obscure to the layman and even to the collector; and he will wisely avoid the complexities of such discussion. So, also, Sarak rugs are rarely seen now save in modern reproductions, and must be passed by with the same criticisms as apply to the new-made Tabriz. CHAPTER VI CAUCASIAN RUGS, DAGHESTAN AND RUSSIAN TYPES The Daghestan rugs of Caucasia are only second in importance to those from Persian looms. An opinion is reserved, nevertheless, regarding antique Turkish weaves, which are hereinafter considered. If history does not satisfactorily prove that the Caucasus was originally the northern part of Persia (as may have been, under Cyrus), Persian dominance and influence may be demonstrated, in textile art, by rug borders, patterns, and designs. The Shirvans, Kabistans, Chichis, Darbends, Karabaghs, all exhibit pronounced Persian characteristics, and show the educational power of the mother country of this handicraft. Fineness of weave, delicacy of hue, and chaste simplicity of design are distinguishing features of this group. But, as contrasted with the Persian patterns, the Persians use for their detail roses, flowers, palm leaves, etc., while the Caucasians gain similar effects from geometrical figures, angles, stars, squares, and hexagons, with small tilings, mosaics, and trellisings. The true and the beautiful was never better demonstrated by Euclid through angle, square, or hypothenuse. An old Chichi rug, like a drawing of Tenniel's, will prove what grace may come without a curve and by angles only. It is unfortunate that the best rugs of the Caucasus come from the large province of Daghestan, and that that general term is applied to them indiscriminately. Twenty or more years ago most of the Oriental rugs which were sold here to an uneducated and unappreciative public came by way of Tiflis, and for lack of knowledge were all branded with the common name of Daghestan. Thousands of beautiful Kabistans, Shirvans, Bakus, etc., were then sold for a song under the one arbitrary title. They would be priceless to-day, and yet the former commercial, vulgar use of the name leaves it in undeserved disrepute. As used in this chapter, it is intended to mark a distinction between certain of the Caucasian types, which it properly represents, and the Russian types from the same region, which are illustrated in the Kazaks and Yourucks. [Illustration: PLATE VI. KABISTAN _Thirty or forty years old_ FROM THE COLLECTION OF THE AUTHOR Size: 4.5 x 5.6] What may have become of all the fine Kabistans, which were forced upon the market years ago, is a question. Are they all worn to rags and lost to the world? Or do they still turn up at chance household auctions? Many fine specimens may be so discovered, dirty, disguised, and disreputable, but easily reclaimable and made anew by washing. There is a theory, also, that many choice pieces came to San Francisco in the 'seventies and 'eighties, and are lost to sight and memory somewhere in California. A collector might well explore this home field. Too great praise cannot be given to the old Shirvans, with their "palace" or "sunburst" pattern; to the Chichis, with their mosaic work, worthy of Saint Mark's Cathedral; to the Karabaghs, with their flaming reds; or to the Kabistans, with their soft, light tones of colour, made softer still in contrast with ivory and creamy white. These are the despised Daghestans which _were_, and for which the collector may now vainly search abroad. It is not always easy to distinguish between an old--or middle-aged, may we say?--Shirvan or Kabistan. Many of their designs are common property, and it is the cleverer weaver who executes them the better. This broad statement may be made by way of a test: the best of the Shirvans are rather loosely woven and thin. The Kabistans are of finer weave, are firmer and heavier, and lie truer on the floor. Two classes of rugs from the Caucasus have been referred to as Russian, the Yourucks and Kazaks. There is no authority for the distinction except in the rugs themselves. They prove their case from their thickness and iron durability, from their sombre or strong red colouring, and from their daring crude and simple designs. In their utility they bespeak an article of warmth and weight, and in their art they represent a barbaric simplicity like a Navajo blanket. Kazak and Cossack are almost synonymous terms; and the Cossacks, the Kurds, and the Indians have something of kinship in weaving, at least. But the Kazak rugs are not all crude, by any manner of means. If strength is their first characteristic and strong primitive pigments in rare greens, reds, and blues; and if their patterns are simple and angular;--none the less, in antique specimens, much originality was shown in the drawing of their borders, and soft browns and yellows with ivory white appeared in their colouring. Of the Shirvans, Chichis, etc., ordinarily offered, there is nothing to be said. They are cheaply and roughly woven, and made only to sell. They are disposed of by the thousands at auctions, and piles and piles of them fill the carpet and department stores. Be it said to their credit that they will outwear any machine-made floor covering; that they are good to hide a hole in an old carpet; that they help to furnish the bedrooms of a summer cottage; that they are most useful in the back hall; and, in fine, that they are better than no rugs at all. Yet, on the other hand, be it well understood that they are not, as frequently advertised, "exquisite examples of textile art," and that fine Oriental rugs are not to be bought at "$6.98" apiece. CHAPTER VII OF TURKISH VARIETIES Babylon or Egypt may have woven the first carpets or floor coverings, and China of course worked early in the same field. But Persia acquired the art quite independent of China, and well in the beginning of the long ago. Indeed, the Chinese industry practically ceased to exist many centuries back, and was transferred to northern Persia, where the history of this handicraft has its true beginning. From Persia all other countries have drawn their knowledge and inspiration, and however much they may have endeavoured to create and to evolve new figures and new designs, even the oldest examples of their art must concede something to Persian influence. The Turks, above all others, have shown themselves the most apt scholars, and indeed in many lines have improved upon their teachers. The choicest specimens of Turkish weave are as rubies to the other precious stones, rarer, more brilliant, and more costly than diamonds. Though not so closely woven as some of the Persians, they are wonderfully beautiful in artistic picturing and in their own Oriental splendour of colour and design. Such in particular are the antique Gheordez, as splendid in rich floods of light as the stained-glass windows of a cathedral. They are the finest woven and have the shortest nap of their class. Here is the description of one taken from a catalogue of twenty-five years ago: "Antique Gheordez Prayer Rug. Mosque design, with columns and pendant floral lamp relieved on solid ground of rare Egyptian red, surmounted by arabesques in white upon dark turquoise, framed in lovely contrasting borders." [Illustration: PLATE VII. ANTIQUE GHEORDEZ _Prayer Rug_ FROM THE COLLECTION OF MR. GEORGE H. ELLWANGER Size: 4.6 x 5.11] Another is pictured as: "A flake of solid sapphire, crested by charming floral designs in ruby on ground of white opal. The mosaics and blossom borders are toned to perfect harmony." These word pictures are in no way exaggerated, and only help to portray the glories of the old Gheordez, with their graceful hanging lamps, as wonderful as Aladdin's, in a vista between pillars of chalcedony or onyx. They came in the form of prayer rugs generally, and a pronounced feature of those more commonly seen is a multiplicity of small dotted borders. The older and finer examples show borderings of far more graceful and artistic drawing. The antique Koulahs and Koniahs, though not so finely woven, have mostly the same superb centres or panels of solid colour as the Gheordez, and vie with the latter in the splendour of their hues, if not in the delicacy and intricacy of their designs outside the central field. The Koulahs may generally be recognized by a narrow border, which is peculiar to themselves and is almost invariably found on them. This consists of a broken line of little tendrils or spirals quite Chinese in character, and looking much like a row of conventionalized chips and shavings. It is so odd and distinctive that once seen it can never be mistaken. The Koniahs also have little figures which are quite their own, and which usually appear somewhere in the central design. They are small flowers each on a single stem, and the flower has commonly three triangular petals, like an oxalis or shamrock leaf. It is quite unlike the blossoms which besprinkle other rugs. With this, often come crude figures of lamps like miniature tea-pots. The Ladiks display all the colours of an October wood, and complete the group of Turkish old masters. Not a few of them have also a unique border in the form of a small lily blossom. Experts speak of it familiarly as the "Rhodian border," but its origin is altogether obscure. [Illustration: PLATE VIII. ANTIQUE KOULAH _Prayer Rug_ FROM THE COLLECTION OF MR. GEORGE H. ELLWANGER Size: 3.11 x 5.6] These words in testimony to the beauties of Turkish rugs may be offered simply by way of guide-posts to lead to some museum. A few battered and torn war-flags of Gheordez or Ladiks are occasionally offered on the market, but the best of them lack all character and colour, and show only the bold design and holes and strings and naked warp. Just which particular Turkish rugs are properly classed as Anatolians it is hard to say, Anatolia being so large a province. The term as commercially used is only as comprehensive and expressive as "Iran" applied to the Persians. It is generally misapplied to an uncertain class of old, worn, and tarnished remnants or new coarse prayer rugs, ruinous of harmony with their magenta discords. Yet many of the "mats" are rightly called Anatolians, and, premising a later chapter, one of the greatest delights of collecting was to look over a pile of them, with the never-failing hope of finding some bright particular gem. And these mats are truly the little gems of Turkish weaving, and in accordance with the Oriental fondness for jewels and precious stones the suggestion that they represent inlaid jewelled work has been well imagined. But here again we cry, "Eheu fugaces!" They have gone. It is idle to look over the pile. There are no good ones for sale. One explanation of their scarcity is in the fact that the Armenian dealers have a weakness for these small pieces themselves, and are wont to indulge their fondness for colour and sheen by keeping the choice ones for their own use. So the mats of commerce are either new, coarse, and crude and offensive with arsenical greens and aniline crimsons and magentas; or they are but soiled patches and bits of old rugs sewn together. _Caveat emptor!_ and let the buyer look at their backs before purchasing. The old Melez rugs, with characteristics peculiar to themselves, are of almost like importance to the Koniahs and Koulahs. Frequently they have a suggestion of the Chinese in their figures and decorations. You will find symbolized dragons pictured on them, also the cypress tree; while in colour they form a class by themselves, and exhibit shades of lavender, heliotrope, and violet such as no other kinds may boast. Whatever this dye may be, and whatever tone of mauve or lilac it may take, you will find it only in the Melez, a few Bergamas, or in some old Irans, whose race is practically extinct. Worthy modern Melez are still to be had, and will improve as they wear; if only they are firm in texture and do not flaunt the battle-flag colours of Solferino and Magenta. [Illustration: PLATE IX. MELEZ _Forty or fifty years old_ FROM THE COLLECTION OF THE AUTHOR Size: 3.10 x 5.3] The Bergamas come mostly in blues and reds, most prominently set out by soft ivory white. One of their recognized patterns is quite individual, and readily marks their class. It is a square of small squares marked off like a big checker-board. Other small pieces are almost square, with the field in mosaic-work or flower blossoms. In the fine old specimens, which used to be, the Bergamas rioted in superb medallions or in a floriated central figure like a grand bouquet. As a class, their merit is softness and richness. Their defect is that of the Shiraz, a proneness to curl and puff themselves with pride. The fault is caused by the fact that their usually artistic selvedge is too tightly drawn. Skilful cutting of the selvedge and new fringing will correct the error. Some old and some excellent new Bergamas have lately been in evidence in the stocks of the Oriental dealers. Howsoever or wheresoever they come, the collector may well take courage from their appearance and apply himself to the chase with renewed zest. CHAPTER VIII TURKOMAN OR TURKESTAN RUGS The geography of the carpets and rugs thus far considered has included a very considerable area. Any traveller or collector who may have journeyed in fact to the regions where they are made may well have stories to tell, for his wanderings will have led him into strange lands and wild places. But the remaining classes of rugs, which we are wont to see lying gracefully in front of our hearths, as tame and peaceful as kittens, have come from still farther and wilder regions of the world; and the wonder is that we see them at all or are permitted the privilege of treading on them. The Turkestan class, so far as our subject is concerned, carries us east from Persia, through Afghanistan and Beluchistan even into China. They are Oriental in very truth, and at first blush, it would seem, should be more crude and barbaric in their art. But as compared with the bold, rough, and rude weaves and patterns of the Russian Caucasians, they are, as a class, most refined and delicate in design and fine in texture. It has been said that "whoever has seen one Bokhara rug has seen them all." Their set designs and staple colouring have been so long familiar that we have lost respect for them. There are the well-known geometric figures for the centre, smaller similar figures for the borders, and a mosaic of diamonds or delicate traceries of branches for the ends. Choice examples, like the stars, differ from one another in glory only. The variations evolved from the one conventional design are almost infinite; and the many shades and tones of red which are used bring to mind the paintings of Vibert and his wonderful palette of scarlets, carmines, crimsons, maroons, and vermilions. [Illustration: PLATE X. ANTIQUE BELUCHISTAN FROM THE COLLECTION OF THE AUTHOR Size: 4.10 x 8.3] Some of the rare old Bokharas come in lovely browns and are almost priceless in value. Sad to say, it remained for an American vandal to discover a process of "dipping" or "washing" an ordinary rug so as to imitate these rare originals, and many dealers unblushingly sell these frauds. To wear imitation jewelry is far less reprehensible. Happily the trickery is generally distinguishable because the "dip" or stain, whatever it may be, is apt to run into the fringe or otherwise betray itself. The wise buyer will reject with scorn any rug, under whatsoever name offered, which shows no other colouring than various shades of chocolate brown. No such uniform brown dyeing ever characterized any class of rugs. Even the brown Bokharas which are in museums show some other tints with their brown tones. Good Bokharas, like good Kirmans, are undeniably beautiful and of great value, but the mere fact that both are considered staples in the rug trade tends to detract from their artistic value; and that they are so generally doctored, disguised, and perverted puts them in bad repute. The Yamoud-Bokharas come in larger sizes than the others of their type; are not so fine in texture, but thicker and firmer. Their designs are larger and bolder, and they show a most becoming bloom. They also display green and even yellow in their colouring, which is not usual in Bokharas. Their selvedge is beautifully characteristic. In Bokharas proper the adornment of the selvedge usually is on the warp; as in the Bergamas and Beluchistans. In Yamouds the selvedge is almost always carried out in wool with like skill as that given to the rest of the piece. The Afghans are a coarser edition of Bokharas, and may be mostly considered for utility. They come in large sizes, and almost square; have bold tile patternings, and in the finer examples are plush-like and silky. These are still to be had, but many modern ones are dyed with mineral dyes, and their bloom is meretricious. The chemist has waved his magic wand over them, not wisely but too well. The Beluchistans are somewhat akin to the Bokharas, and like the latter rejoice in reds and blues in the darker tones, while they display greater variety in their designs. These are ordinarily crude and simple, but in the old exemplars they were of considerable variety, and their wealth of changing colours in sombre shades was rich beyond the dream of avarice. "Lees of wine," "dregs of wine," "plum," "claret," "maroon,"--these are terms which have served to describe their prevailing colours. The adjectives are still applicable and may give some idea of the colourful effects which are obtained from their stains of brown and red and purple. For decorative effect, their deeper tones make most harmonious contrast with the subdued and softened Persians and old Daghestans. In many specimens, new and old, white, both blue white and ivory, is used in startling contrast. It makes or mars the picture, according to the artistic skill of the weaver. The wool used in the good Beluchistans is particularly soft and silky, and lends to them their unique velvety sheen. No other varieties show it so perfectly, although antique Kazaks have their particular plush, and the Mousuls with their depth of pile have a shimmer and shifting light which is their especial artistic feature. The distinction may not easily be formulated; but, nevertheless, the sheen of the Beluchistan is one beauty, while the play of light and shade on a Mousul is another pleasure to the eye. In the Bergama rugs the weaver does not disdain to spend some toil and time upon the selvedge; and this, even in small specimens, is commonly four to six inches long, carefully woven in white and colour and with occasional ornamentation. In this selvedge a small, elongated triangle is frequently embossed in wool, with the commendable purpose of avoiding the "evil eye." But in the Beluchistans the maker "enlarges his phylacteries, and increases the borders of his garments." He goes even to greater pains and trouble in the elaboration and finishing of his selvedge. It is often prolonged to eight or ten inches in moderate-sized rugs, and is woven into most interesting patterns and stripes of colour. It is literally carried to extremes. It may seem an act of vandalism, but the wise and stoical collector will do well to eliminate all but two or three inches of it and have a skilful weaver overcast and fringe the ends. Selvedge, however adorned, is utilitarian only, and, like useless fringe, it must not be allowed to detract from the proportions and beauty of the piece itself. For the comfort of the collector be it known that within the last year or two, many fine Beluchistan mats and small rugs have been secured somehow by the wholesalers and are in evidence in the retailers' stock. Beluchistan, evidently, is one of the remote regions last to be drawn upon, scoured, ravaged, and exhausted. The opportunity should be improved by the provident buyer. The Soumac or Cashmere rug calls for no further description than a Cashmere shawl. With the exception of choice antique specimens which time has chastened and mellowed into pictures in apricot, fawn, robin's-egg, and cream colours, the Cashmeres are rather matters of fact than of art. What are known as Killims, or Kiz-Killims, the better class, are hard fabrics akin to the Soumacs except that they have no nap on either side, and are double faced. They are mostly Caucasian and Kurdish, with the bold designs of those classes, or they come in the beautiful, delicate patterns of the Sehnas. In their crudest and strongest Kazak figures they appear in the most brilliant pigments, with soft reds, rose, lake, and vermilion for contrasting colours, splashed together as on a painter's palette. Of course they lack the sheen of a rug, but their colour effects are marvellous. While generally used for portières and coverings, they are perfect rugs for a summer cottage, being most durable, and are worthy of attention. Moreover, fine antique examples are still to be had. Some collector might be the first to make a specialty of them and garner them before they pass; the end of the Oriental weaver's pageant. The usual warning, however, must be given, that they are often cursed with the barbarous magentas hereinbefore mentioned, a colour which would ruin a rainbow. The products of Samarkand are quite out of the ordinary, and thoroughly Chinese in character. Except by association and classification they have no resemblance to the Turkestan or any other division. They form a class by themselves, the legitimate successors of the old Chinese rugs, long gone by. They are very bold in design, and in colour tend to yellow, orange, and various soft reds. An inferior make of Samarkands often appears under the title of Malgaras. They have neither quality nor colour to commend them. But there are old Chinese rugs also. Most of them are in the conventional blue and white, with simple octagonal medallions, with no border to speak of, and with little strength of character. They are coarsely woven and have been so commonly imitated by machine reproductions in English carpetry that even blue and white originals have small merit to boast of. There were, and doubtless still are, Chinese rugs of far more importance. Many are noted in the catalogue of a sale in New York City no longer ago than 1893. From one item remembered, they showed various beautiful colourings, far beyond the simple white and blue, and in design displayed much of the artistic strength, grace, and beauty of the old Chinese porcelains. It is a mystery where these rugs lie hidden. No one boasts of owning them or claims credit to even a modest $10,000 antique specimen. CHAPTER IX OF ORIENTAL CARPETS, SADDLE-BAGS, PILLOWS, etc. However a man may justify himself for collecting rugs, regardless of his success, of his needs, or of his income, there would seem to be no danger of any one making a specialty of buying carpets. Except to millionaires or for clubs and palaces, space would absolutely prohibit, if the housewife did not. The nearest that the enthusiast might approach to such an ambition would be in the accumulation of hall strips; which has its own temptations, quite within the possible. And yet the term "carpet" is an elastic phrase, and any piece which exceeds six or seven feet in width and of greater length, is entitled by courtesy to be named a carpet. It may be said that a rug, like a baby, ceases to be a rug at an uncertain size, and then becomes a carpet. But carpets in the larger dimensions, ten by twelve feet or more, as ordinarily understood, are only herein considered. They are really articles of utility first and always, and must answer to certain measured requirements. Such is the accepted theory and practice. The buyer is wont to think that the merit or beauty of a carpet is of secondary consideration if only it fit the room. Here is a heresy. It is far better that the room should be made to fit or adapt itself to the perfect carpet. If you would buy one, the best that you can do is to choose wisely. They are all of modern make, with very few exceptions. If you have one that is antique, you yourself have made it so, or you have inherited a ragged and neglected example of bygone years. The modern carpets, nevertheless, those still made to-day, are many of them superb pieces, far outclassing any small rugs of the same weaving. [Illustration: PLATE XI. ANTIQUE ANATOLIAN PILLOWS FROM THE COLLECTION OF THE AUTHOR Sizes: 1.10 x 2.10, and 2.1 x 2.11] The Kirmanshahs would come first, of course; closely woven, beautiful and soft in colour, delicate and artistic in their designs, they are the most perfect floor coverings for the salon, reception or music room. If they were only real! But very, very few of them are. They have all been treated with chemicals, and their beauty of complexion is just as artificial as any rouged and bepowdered courtesan's. Unless you have one out of ten thousand, it has not come from a palace, but from a scientific laboratory. Many of the Tabriz carpets lie under the same suspicion, and those of soft tones, claiming to be antiques, may be wisely questioned. But new ones come in clean, rich colourings, in fine designs, and are textile masterpieces. The Kurdistan carpets of to-day are by far the best of all. They are more loosely woven, but they are so much the heavier, and that is to be desired in a carpet. And they are honest. Their colours are beautiful, varied, strong, and true. It is claimed for the Kurdistans that some of their dyes are still well-guarded secrets; and it is true history of some years ago that many a bloody feud and murder grew out of cherished Kurdistan secrets of dyeing. Their designs are bold and striking, with grand centre medallion and corners, and a field artistically adorned. Money cannot buy anything better than a fine new Kurdistan; and thirty or forty years of wear should leave it better still. Next to be chosen would be the Gorovans. They also show brave figuring with a strong centre medallion, characteristic zigzag corners, and angular ornamentations which are most gracefully carried out. Their colouring is usually in fine blues and reds. Modern Feraghans come in large carpet sizes, and some antique ones are still to be had. But the Kurdistans and Gorovans far surpass them in two important particulars. The Feraghans appear only in their own peculiar, small-figured designs, which are without strength or character on a large floor space. Besides that, being more closely cut than the others, if they do not soon wear out, they soon wear down, and begin to show the suspicion of their warp and their loss of tone and colour. They are beautiful carpets, nevertheless, and will practically last a lifetime. But the heavier they are, the better. There are few other modern Persian carpets in large sizes which come in appreciable numbers for classification. There is a rather indefinite order of Gulistans, under which title many good nondescripts are sold. There are also current Sultanabads, in very large sizes, well woven, on old models, to meet present uses. Most other carpets are of Turkish weaving, whatever their names, and come under the general title of Smyrnas. Smyrna is the centre of distribution for a great variety of cheap and coarsely woven carpets; but poor in quality as these may be, they should not be confused with the American machine product also known as a "Smyrna." In the same class come the Oushaks, Hamadans, etc. There is nothing more to be said for them than to testify that they will wear better than a Brussels carpet, and give some distinction to a modest dining-room. It is a far cry from carpets to saddle-bags, and yet these latter are of greater importance and interest to the collector. More valuable pieces of Oriental weaving are to be found among the diminutives than in the grand _opera_ of textiles. Beginning at the bottom, we find plenty of the little pairs of bags, twelve or eighteen inches square. They are donkey bags, carried back of the saddle, and generally appear in Shirvan make or, most commonly, in Shiraz weaving. The Shiraz often have considerable beauty and sheen and dark rich colouring. But these very small pieces have little real utility or available artistic beauty. They never lie well, and only litter up the floor. They belittle a well-arranged room as would a frail and useless gilt chair. They are recommended for pillows, but we Occidental infidels associate rugs too closely with the foot to find them easy to the head. They are also advised for use as hassocks. But the hassock long ago disappeared, with or under the "what-not," or behind "the horse-hair sofa." Other bags, used on horse and camel, come in more important sizes, as large as two feet by six feet or more. Exquisite specimens of Bokharas are found among these; artistic, antique pieces, woven as fine as needlework. A number of these seem to have come suddenly on the market in some mysterious way; and they are of every size within their small limits; because, as an Oriental has suggested, there are _pony_ camels also. Another mystery about those camel bags would seem to be that some are beautifully straight and therefore most to be desired, while others are so curved as to be impossible of use unless around the foot of a pillar. Here is a case differing from that of the ordinary crooked rug, because these bags were originally made straight and true. Overloading and overpacking have only sagged down the middle. I dare not say that the more the curve, the greater the age and the more the value; but it may be that curved Bokhara saddle-bags, passed by, by the Levite, are prizes to be picked up by the good Samaritan, and may be easily restored to normal rectitude. But the term "saddle-bag," whether for this animal or that, is confusing and altogether too generally used. It must be borne in mind that a bag was and is an article of universal utility to the Oriental. For all purposes of travel, journeying, or visiting, it corresponds to our valise or portmanteau of to-day; or, in aptest comparison, to our "carpet-bag" of fifty years ago. And, according to the taste and means of their owners, these Persian, Armenian, or Turkish carpet-bags varied in size and beauty. A few rare old Caucasian small rugs can only be accounted for as valued personal rug-bags of their period. Among these smaller pieces are alone to be found the most valuable of all the collector's spoil, the small Sehnas. Very rarely they come in pairs, about two feet by three feet, and therefore could not have been used as bags for any purpose. They are pillows; and pillows of course play their important part in the _ménage_ of the East. Besides the exquisite Sehnas, the finest of the Anatolian mats, as they are generally called, were used for pillows and not saddle-bags. The warp generally proves their purpose. When the warp runs vertically to the larger side, and ends in a fringe, that specimen was of course some sort of a saddle-bag. When the selvedge is at the shorter end you have the pillow. Among the other beautiful miniature specimens of textile art, which are still occasionally offered, are saddle-cloths. They appear mostly in beautiful Sehnas, and occasionally in fine old Feraghans and other Persian weaves. They are marred, however, for beautiful floor coverings by the necessary angular cut in them, through which the straps of the saddle passed. This is often skilfully filled in, in the case of choice specimens. But the blot remains. Their irregular shape also condemns them for the most part with the many admirable but irreclaimable crooked rugs. These saddle-bags are frequently used for table coverings or for mural adornment. But in our modern house decoration rarely does a rug look well upon the wall. The Persians hang them instead of pictures, which is well. But they do not mix them with pictures on the wall, which is better, and shows good taste on the part of the Persians. A rug appears best upon the floor. The collector of small pieces to-day will do well to buy every bag or pillow of Bokhara or Beluchistan which may please his fancy. They are to be had now at modest prices, but unless all signs fail, they will soon become as rare as any of the other miniatures. You will look in vain for them with the vanished Anatolians and diamond Sehnas. CHAPTER X AUCTIONS, AUCTIONEERS, AND DEALERS A justification of the method of selling rugs by auction has been offered in many forms and phrases. It is perhaps best expressed somewhat thus: Every number has a certain intrinsic value, and that is a basis price at which it should sell. But beyond that it may have an extra value, which, like beauty in general, is in the eye of the beholder. The beholder, therefore, who sees a rug to covet it should name his own price for it. It may be one of the specimens he lacks in his collection; it may fit this corner or that. Anyway, it is worth more to him than to the lower bidder. Incidentally, the seller and the auctioneer gain the fair profits of competition. Other arguments in favour of the auction have been advanced by the head of a great department store. His opinion is that the auction gives every one a chance to get the rug desired at a fair price. Tastes differ and prices differ, but the average of an auction is fair to both buyer and seller. Regardless of theories, rug auctions, by whomsoever fathered or sponsored, thrive and flourish. If the auction be the collection of such and such an Oriental, whatever his name, there will be a great deal of cheap stuff in his stock, and there will also be many choice pieces which he holds as the apples of his eye. He buys from the wholesaler so many bales at so much per bale of say twenty pieces. In the bales of ordinary qualities the several items will average about the same. But in the more expensive bales there is a good general average, with a few prizes added. They are like the two or three green firecrackers in the packs of our childhood. These special pieces in the high-priced bales give the seller his legitimate opportunity and profit. If these odd firecrackers please your fancy more than mine, and I am contented to choose the conventional red ones, it is for you to fix the value of the greens. At an auction the apparent authority and ruler is the auctioneer, while the owner weeps cheerfully on one side and shrugs his shoulders in half-pathetic resignation at the sacrifice. In reality the auctioneer knows pretty well what he is about, and, if not, is quickly posted by the owner. It is no harm to say that if we cannot believe all that we read in the Bible, no more is it safe to take literally all that the auctioneer asserts. A recent skit in "Life" is pertinent (quoted from memory):-- "_The wife._ Look at this splendid bargain I bought for twenty dollars to-day. It's worth two hundred. "_The husband._ Indeed! How do you know it is worth that much? "_The wife._ Why, the auctioneer told me so." A new plan of auction has been recently tried. You may buy in one or more lots at your own price, and if you do not wish to keep any, they may be returned within a certain number of days. You may bid _ad libitum_, recklessly as you choose; and if your choice be not all that your fancy and electric light have pictured it, you are under no obligation to keep it or pay anything on it; you may elect to change your mind and send it back. How this plan works in practice and finance has yet to be demonstrated. It would seem to be all on the side of the buyer and against the seller, who must lose many a bid from a _bona fide_ purchaser at a lower figure. The matter of human nature doubtless figures in the problem, because there is some little feeling of shame about returning an article bought in under competition, no matter what the guarantee may be. As to the auctioneers, they are always glib of tongue, good-natured, and persuasive. That they are not canonically and absolutely truthful is perhaps not their fault. They certainly cannot know more about rugs than the few authorities who have made a study of the subject; and, as said before, they are generally prompted by the "consignor" of the collection. If only they would not call _every_ rug an "antique and priceless specimen," their individual consciences might be happier, and their audience less bored. However, no matter what the audience, or how small it may be, there are always some there who will appreciate the difference between a four-dollar and a forty-dollar offering, and bid up the former to seven dollars and the latter to thirty dollars. Thus the auctions go merrily on and strike a general average. The skilful auctioneer will feel the pulse of his audience with a quicker touch than the most renowned of doctors; and once assured of their class and position, wealth and condition, and what grade of merchandise they are willing to buy, the game is in his own hands, provided only that his audience is large enough. He should have at least a regulation pack of fifty-two in order to do justice to his own hand and skill, and in order to play off one card of his audience against another. The auction has its own particular fascinations, and its own _habitués_ and devotees in every city. The chronic attendants should be the most careful and conservative of buyers. But the artful auctioneer soon learns to know them, to recognize them among his _clientèle_, and to humour their whims, moods, and fancies. Sooner or later he will wheedle them into a bid against their better judgment, and then make good capital of the fact that such and such a connoisseur had bought so great a bargain. The question might be asked, impersonally and perhaps impertinently, What was the auctioneer's influence at the Marquand sale? Was his the power? Was it due to the catalogue? or was it in the air; and the zeal of an eager audience? The retail trade in rugs throughout this country is largely in the hands of Armenians, both fixed and peripatetic; but of recent years much of their business has been annexed by the department stores. These various Armenian dealers are universally known for their shrewdness and cleverness as well as for other ingenuousness and natural courtesy. Except the heads of the carpet departments in some few large concerns, they know much more about their wares than other salesmen, and their personal, live knowledge gives a fillip of enthusiasm to the purchaser. They would control the retail trade in rugs, were it not that the department store has brought against them its powerful weapon of _per cent_. The store asserts that it wants only its modest _per cent_ on the cost of any article, no matter what its sentimental value may be. This may not be truth in its stark nakedness, but it has availed to draw to them a great deal of the trade in Oriental textiles. The wholesale dealers are the most important factor in the question of distribution, for almost all the rugs sold in the United States must first pass through the hands of one or another of a dozen New York princes of the market. Large or small retailers may import some pieces directly from London, Paris, or Constantinople, but even the most important retailers buy heavily from the great Armenian wholesalers in New York City. It is difficult to estimate and impossible to state absolutely the number or even the value of the Oriental rugs annually imported into the United States. The reason is that in the reports of the U. S. Treasury as to "Imported Merchandise," etc., Oriental carpets and rugs have no separate classification, but are included under the general heading of "Carpets woven whole for rooms, and Oriental, Berlin, Aubusson, Axminster, and other similar rugs." It is quite a mixed company, but Oriental weaves as herein considered are at least distinguished as such, and differentiated from carpeting by the yard. They have also the distinction, with the others of their group, of paying a tax of ninety cents per square yard and forty per cent ad valorem, as against from twenty-two to sixty cents per square yard and the same forty per cent ad valorem for the various Brussels, Wilton, and Axminster floor-coverings coming by the yard, and not in one piece. And the duty on Oriental rugs, be it observed, is measured by the square yard, and therefore no record is kept of the number of pieces, or how many individual items of the four classes have been imported. Nevertheless, the statistics for the year ending June 30, 1902, show this general result: The total value of that year's import of these "whole carpets, Oriental, Berlin," etc., was a trifle below three million dollars. Two and a half millions of this value came to New York with only half a million left to divide between Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, San Francisco, and other ports of entry. The supremacy of New York City as the Oriental rug mart for this country is easily manifest, although it is not so easy to estimate what proportion of the two and a half millions of value was in Oriental rugs and what in modern carpets. One expert figures the value of the Oriental rugs imported that year into New York as more than half the total, or perhaps two millions. It is as fair an estimate as may be had. Considerable as this amount may be, it seems much less than might be expected. It may perhaps indicate the cheap grade and low quality of most of our present acquisitions in this category. The gathering of the rugs by the buyers, in the first instance, involves great hardships, endurance, and even danger; and the deeper their incursions into new and strange territory and unopened and unexplored sources of supply, the more profitable their spoil, but the greater their toil. Beluchistan, as previously suggested, would appear now to be one of the remotest regions yet remaining to yield up a few new treasures to the persevering buyer. These rugs so gathered to the centres of trade in Constantinople, Tiflis, and other distributing points, quickly find their way thence to New York, and help to make the magnitude and seeming wonderful complexity of the large wholesale depots. Whoever is fortunate enough to have the _entrée_ to any of these great New York storehouses will be first among those who understand the importance, value, and appreciation of the Oriental rug. CHAPTER XI INSCRIPTIONS AND DATES In addition to the many patterns, figures, devices and symbols, which are used for ornamentation, rugs and carpets are often embellished with hieroglyphic writing, somewhere in their field, and commonly at top or bottom. Not unfrequently complete borders are thus composed, as is evidenced in old Kirmans. These designs are so graceful in their many angles and occasional curves that they scarcely suggest mere lettering. Such they are, nevertheless; and our English script, with all its loops and turns and recurrent "lines of beauty," would hardly avail for like effective results. It is but another proof of the artistic possibilities of angular lines and geometric figures, so often demonstrated by Oriental weavers. With few exceptions, all of these hieroglyphics are in the Arabic language, and are quotations from the Persian poets, with flowery sentiment, or from the Koran, in proper precept. But, as is more important, there will frequently be found in the corners of a choice piece, or elsewhere unobtrusively woven, the signature or cipher of the maker, with the date of the making. This at once gives distinction and value to such a specimen and exalts it above its fellows. It also calls loudly for an answer to the question of what such name and date may be. Very rarely can the dealer inform you, because he does not know. Here, then, is a great stumbling-block in the path of the collector. It may be worth while to go around it by way of a brief explanation. The Arabic language has been the _lingua franca_ of the East from the time that it succeeded Greek in the seventh century. It still retains its universality wherever Mohammedanism rules. Turkey may be excepted from its sway, but, none the less, it is a most necessary language to-day in Constantinople. Its use by carpet-weavers is by reason of its catholicity; that it may be understood where their varying languages and unknown dialects would tell no story. That Arabic is so generally known throughout the Orient is doubtless no greater marvel than that mere children in Paris speak French. But, however convenient, as an inter-racial and commercial language, Arabic may be to those accustomed to it, or naturally conversant with it, it is most difficult to learn by Western races. With ten years' study one may become a good scholar, and proficiency may follow for the persistent few. This will explain why inscriptions, texts, and verses on rugs and carpets are meaningless, except to the most erudite; and except, also, to those who see in them only another phase of Persian ornament, strange, mysterious, arabesque, and beautiful. Regarding the date, often woven into an example which the artist thought especially worthy, it would seem that some simple formula might be given for its ready translation. This may be approximated, although it is not so easy a matter as might appear, and requires a few words on the subject of Arabian numerical notation. Their general system is similar to ours, and, corresponding to our miscalled "Arabic figures" of: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, their digits are represented by [Arabic] Both are read from left to right. These Arabic digits, however, are not always easily to be deciphered on a rug, on account of the spreading of the wool and consequent irregularity of outline, and also because they generally appear in modest size. The back of the rug will show the figures much more sharply than the face, when there is a doubt. When the Arabic numerals are made clear, it remains to reduce this date to the corresponding one of the Christian era, by means of a complicated table. [Illustration: PLATE XII. BERGAMA _Thirty to forty years old_ FROM THE COLLECTION OF THE AUTHOR Size: 3.1 x 3.5] All Mohammedan dating (with exceptions not to be considered here, however interesting historically) is from the Hegira. The reckoning is not from the time of Mohammed's "flight" from Medina (September, 622), but from a day about two months earlier; namely, the first day of that Arabian year. This beginning of the epoch, according to the best modern authorities, probably corresponds to July 16, 622. Mohammedan chronology, however, is often expressed in other ways than by clear figures, and such florid records are most difficult to interpret. Again, in old manuscripts, on coins and on a few rare antique carpets, the date is written out in full, in so many words; as, for instance, "two-hundred-and-five-and-twenty-after-the-thousand." Intricate dates like these are to be solved only by an expert. But when the year is in question, without regard to month or day, and when the year is written in legible figures, a rough formula for computing the corresponding Christian date is as follows: Subtract from the given Mohammedan year one thirty-third part of itself, and add to the remainder six hundred and twenty-two. Thus: A. H. 1196 = A. D. 1196 - 36 + 622 = A. D. 1782. This is accurate enough for all practical purposes, and involves no difficulty except the deciphering of the Arabic digits. The failure to subtract this essential one thirty-third part explains frequent misreadings by the ignorant dealer or uninitiated amateur. That six hundred and twenty-two must be added to the given Mohammedan date explains itself. But it must be remembered also that the Moslem year is lunar, and thus a little more than eleven days shorter than our solar year. Their reckoning therefore gains one year in every thirty-three of our computation. Modern commercial rugs of ordinary quality are occasionally provided with a date or other calligraphic figure to simulate the real signed and dated masterpieces. This trickery should never deceive even the most unwary, unless the piece is of exceptional merit; and then, there is no deception; or at least there is value received. CHAPTER XII GENERAL OBSERVATIONS AND PARTICULAR ADVICE Many kinds of rugs are made in part of camel's hair, generally undyed and of a soft brown tone. They are praised as particularly desirable and durable, and antique specimens often showed a distinguished beauty. Modern examples are seldom improved by this addition to the wool. Camel's hair, in the muggy days of summer, has the great fault of offending the nose and proclaiming not only that the "Campbells are coming" but that the circus and the whole menagerie is already here. If the camel's hair part of your rug is soft and silky, it has been taken from young camels or from the camel's belly, and the odour is hardly ever noticeable. Of wool in rugs generally it may be said that the best is from the younger sheep, and the silkiness and sheen of the wool give those same characteristics to the rug. Silk rugs, both antique and modern, fairly dazzle the eye with their beauty, but he who may afford one will needs afford also to furnish the surroundings for it in like magnificence. Otherwise all else grows pale and dull and leaden beside their refulgent glory. Place a piece of modern Dresden china side by side with a fine antique specimen of Chinese porcelain, and the garishness of the modern ware will give a pallid tone to the soft whites of the Oriental artist. But the fault is not with the older and perfect art; it is simply the old truth, in a new form, that evil colours corrupt and kill good colours. Be that as it may, old silk rugs are almost priceless, and of value to a millionaire collector for their originality of design and for their soft harmonies of colour which centuries alone can give. Modern silk rugs are mostly machine made, in part at least; are a detriment and a blot on any scheme of household decoration, and are always worth less than the price paid for them. By experience we may best learn how to choose a rug. As, for instance: never buy a rug, least of all at an auction, without thoroughly examining it. See its back as well as its face, and so be sure that it has not been cut, and that there are no serious holes in it. Quite one-third of the good old rugs will show some rents or tears, often made by the grappling-hooks as the bales are shipped and transhipped. If these are no bigger than a silver dollar, a skilful repairer, of whom there are plenty, will readily remedy the defect. Also hold the rug up to the light to know that the moths have not eaten it. Look at the nap and see that it is not worn to the warp. Lay it on a board floor, if possible, and apart from other rugs, and see that it lies flat and straight. None but those that are firm enough to lie well are desirable for use and general comfort. Of course many fine antiques are their own sufficient excuse for exception from this rule. If in doubt as to whether a rug has aniline dyes or been doctored or painted, a handkerchief moistened with the tongue may sometimes discover the truth. Painting a rug is a device not unfrequently practised when the nap is worn down and the warp shows white. Bear in mind that a good example may be so dirty as not to show half its merits. A sharp patting may scatter enough dust to display it in its proper colours, and you may thus, literally, unearth a treasure. Remember, too, that rugs never look so well or show as clear and bright when hanging on the wall as lying on the floor. Therefore, test a rug spread out flat before you in broad daylight. It is a trick of the trade to hold up one end of the piece exhibited and keep it waving to show its sheen. This is often a mere device to conceal its bad shape or other defects. If you are buying a rug for use on the floor, you should see it so displayed. Its sheen should be judged by walking around it and considering it in various lights. Note that with few exceptions the fringe and selvedge on a rug were not made for beauty but for protection. When the fringe is ropy, long, or uneven, or the selvedge eaten into or ragged, do not leave the rug to its unkemptness, but trim it religiously. A man should have his hair cut and put in order at proper times; and the propriety of this observance is commonly preached on very many prayer rugs, where the comb is prominently pictured, to remind the devout that "cleanliness is next to godliness." Indeed, the comb in various forms is so common a feature in the angular arch of most prayer rugs that its suggestiveness almost detracts from their beauty. The counsel is most persistent. Even the clean white fringe of a fine Persian is often so long as to need clipping. Two inches or so is a plenty. If more is left, the strings only curl under and show a ragged and broken line, and the rug never appears trim and orderly. When the selvedge is gone, and the end borders or sides of the _rug itself_ are encroached upon and sawed by the tooth of Time, more than half of the value and beauty of the piece is lost; but to preserve its usefulness it should be overcast and further damage prevented. Never buy a rug as a perfect or even choice specimen if any border at the sides or ends is gone beyond repair. Every border should have its corresponding end, and _vice versa_, or the piece is imperfect. Selvedge is of slight importance, but, like a woman's skirts or a man's trousers, it is unforgivable if worn or frayed. The side edges which are otherwise still perfect are apt to become more or less ragged with wear. That is a detail, if the borders themselves are intact; and the edges only need overcasting before it is too late. When the good housewife has the rugs and carpets beaten, let it be done on the grass, if possible, and not when they are hung on a line and so allowed to break with their own weight. Also let the severity of the beating be tempered with kindness and discretion. In winter, sweeping with snow will clean and brighten them most wonderfully. This whole matter of cleaning is a neglected science and worthy of a thesis all to itself. The face of a rug will stand the slapping which is its usual punishment for being dirty; but do not forget, in the end, to stroke it, with the nap, and so soothe its feelings. Do not beat a rug or carpet on the back. That has no defence of nap, and you are liable to break the warp and loosen the knots. Frequent sweeping is far better than the brutality of constant beating. The wool of a rug is really a sentient thing. However dead it may seem, it has a life and vitality all its own. It can be quickened, rejuvenated, and made alive again by proper washing. Rugs in our modern houses easily accumulate dust and grime and smoke. But it is absurd to think that a rug is antique because it is dirty; or, more foolish still, that because it is dirty it is both antique and beautiful. Wash some of your treasures and you will wonder at their real glory and colour. Generally speaking, every rug should be washed about once a year. It is the Oriental custom; and carpets there are otherwise kept much cleaner than with us, by reason of many usages and observances. That the Orientals wash their rugs in cold water is not so. Wherever and whenever their laundering is done, the water is as warm as can be had, naturally. Milady washes her laces with her own fair hands, and delights in the task. The rug collector will do well, perhaps, to follow her example; except for the tender specimens, which must needs do without it, and the carpets, which are unmanageable. At all events, he will do wisely not to send his valued specimens to the ordinary carpet-cleaner. They may come back expurgated, but some virtue has gone out of them. The wool has lost its oil and life. It is hardly within the province of this volume to prescribe the exact methods of washing. Wool soap will do wonders, it being always remembered to stroke softly with the nap, while the rug is drying. In Kurdistan and neighbouring provinces the rugs are first soaked in milk of some kind and then rinsed, cleaned, and rubbed dry. The milk gives back to the wool its essential oil, and it becomes at once soft, shining, silky, and alive with glowing colour. This process, simple as it is, is kept as a profound secret by the few who know it in this country. Another Eastern method is to rub the rug with a mixture of rice-meal and oil, but the first recipe is by far the better. Rugs must be cared for particularly as to moths. When they are in general use the moth will not corrupt, rust, or break through and steal, as may be paraphrased from the Scriptures. The criminal indictment against the moth in this regard cannot be drawn too strongly. He is the collector's great enemy, because he destroys. Age and even wear only ripen the perfections of fine modern pieces. Carpets and rugs stored, or laid aside, are not mothproof, wherever they may be; unless they are treated as in the great wholesale houses, where they are lifted and moved once a week and protected with the odorous moth-ball. When rugs have to be moved and packed frequently they should be folded differently each time, and not always in the same creases. Otherwise, wear and tear will soon show in the folds. For many obvious reasons they always should be folded away with the nap inside. Experience should teach the collector to appreciate and care for all fine examples which he may already have. There are few others to take their places. "Going! going! going!" has been said of them too often. Time, as auctioneer, now says of them, as of old Chinese porcelains, "Gone!" And that they should be even rarer than old china is quite understandable. The ravages of time deal more gently with porcelains than with rugs. Only breakage, not wear, moth, and abuse affects the former; and it is generally guarded in glass cases and dusted by the mistress herself. Your rugs are neglected, or left to the gardener's heroic care and treatment. Use and abuse encroach upon the ends and edges of a glorious old masterpiece, and ere it is too late, it becomes but "a king of shreds and patches." If there were new rugs to take its place, we might say: "The King is dead. Long live the King!" But there are no new ones worthy of succession. The royal line is virtually extinct. INDEX Index Afghan rugs, 82 " " , modern, mineral dyes in, 83 Anatolian rugs, 73 " , commercial term, 73 " mats, 73, 74 Angles, mystery of, 2 " , use of, 62 Angular ornamentation, 96, 121 Antique carpets, 94 " rugs, not to be had, 6 " " , term abused, 43 " " , tones of imitated, 81 " " , valuable for design, 44 Arabian digits illustrated, 124 "Arabic figures," miscalled, 124 Arabic language, 122 " " , catholicity of, 122, 123 Armenians, appreciation of, 3 " , as dealers, 113 " hoard Anatolian mats, 74 Auction, arguments for, 107, 108 " , caution in buying at, 133 " , fascination of, 112 " , ways of, 109, 110 Auctioneer, 109, 110 " , powers of, 111-113 Authorities, few available, 4 Babylon, first rugs woven at, 69 Bale, rugs by, 108, 109 Bead-bags, 23 Beluchistan rugs, 83 " " , silkiness of, 54 Bergama rugs, 75 " " , defect of, 76 " " , lavender in, 75 Bokhara camel-bags, 99 " rugs, 80 " " , brown, 81 " " , Yamoud, 82 " saddle-bags, crooked, desirable, 100 Border, Caucasian, Persian, 23 " , classifying rugs, 27, 28 " , crab, 29, 30 " , dotted, Gheordez, 71 " , Koulah, 27, 72 " , Ladik, lily, 25, 72 " , must have end to correspond, 136 " , Rhodian or lily, 25, 72 " , Serabend, 29, 50 " " , in Mousuls, 53 Borders in Khorassan rugs, defective, 49 Camel-bags, 99 " " , crooked, desirable, 100 Camel's hair in rugs, 131 Cashmere, _see_ Soumac Carpet, 93 " , room should fit, 94 Carpet-bag, 100, 101 Carpets, modern Persian, 94-98 " " Turkish, 97, 98 Caucasian rugs, characteristics of, 62 " " , Persian influence on, 61 " " , varieties of, 16 Chichi rugs, 61, 62 " " , ordinary specimens of, 66 Chinese figures in Melez rugs, 75 " old, rugs, 88, 89 " weaving transferred to Persia, 69 China, first rugs from, 69 Collector encouraged, 76 Colours, brown, to be rejected, 81 " , chemical in carpets, 95 " , dark, of Beluchistans, 83 " , flaming red, of Karabaghs, 64 " , green and yellow, in Bokharas, 82 " , lavender, heliotrope, &c., 75 " , magenta, to be avoided, 75, 87 " of Beluchistans, 83 " " Bergamas, 75 " " Ladiks, 72 " " Gheordez, 70, 71 " , red, of Bokharas, 80, 81 Comb, as symbol, 135 Cossack, like Kazak, 65 Crooked rugs, poetical version of, 21 Daghestan, confusing term, 61, 62 " rugs, 61 " " , term distinguished, 63 Dates on rugs, 124, 127 " " " , Arabian digits for, 124 " " " , formula for reading, 126 " " " , intricate forms of, 125 Dealers, uncommunicative, 2 " , wholesale, 108 Design, checker-board, 75, 76 " , comb, 135 " , Feraghan, 24, 53 " , four roses, 54, 55 (note) " , Koniah, 26, 72 " , lamp, 72 " , mosque, 70 " , no pattern for, 26 " , "palace pattern," 64 " , "palm-leaf," "pear," loop, 50 " , "shawl pattern," 64 " , "sunburst," 64 Designs, as trademarks, 26 " , animals for, not on Turkish rugs, 46 " , geometric figures for, 80 " , Kazak, in Killims, 86, 87 " , mosaic-work in, 64, 76, 80 " , palm-leaf, in Mousuls, 53, 54 " , tile, 82 "Dipping" rugs to imitate antique, 81 Donkey-bags, 98 Dyes, aniline, mineral, 35, 36, 38, 134 " " " , test for, 39 " , black, 36 " , brown, 37 " " , imitated, 81 " , green, 37, 50 " , magenta, 36, 49, 87 " , secret in Kurdistan carpets, 96 Edges, should be overcast, 137 Ends, importance of perfect, 136 " , in Khorassan rugs, defective, 49 " , should have corresponding borders, 136 Experts, disagreement of, 56 " , no, 3 Feraghan carpets, 96 " " , small figures of, 97 " rugs, 52 " " , characteristic design of, 29, 52 " " , " " " illustrated, 24 Figures, _see_ Design Fringe of rugs, not for beauty, 135 " " " , trimming of, 136 Geography of carpets and rugs, 79, 80 Gheordez rug, 70, 71 Gorovan carpets, 96 Gulistan carpets, 97 " rugs, 56 Hall rugs, desirable, 45, 93 " " , Persian term for, 44 Hamadan carpets, 98 Holes in rugs, cause of, 133 India carpets, 17 Inscriptions on rugs and carpets, 121 "Iran," as descriptive term, distinguished, 15 " , a trade term like "Anatolian," 73 Ispahan rugs, 56 Jewels, mats like, 74 Joshghan rugs, 51, 52 " " , like Ispahans, 57 Kabistan rugs, 63 " " , distinguished from Shirvans, 64 Karabagh rugs, 64 Kazak rugs, 65 " " , plush of, 84 Killims, 86, 87 Khorassan rugs, 49 "Kinari," Persian term for "hall rugs," 44 Kirman rugs, 45-48 Kirmanshah carpets, 95 " rugs, trade name for Kirmans, 48 Kiz-Killims, _see_ Killims Knots, kinds of, 25 " , numbers of, 26 Koniah rugs, 71 " " , characteristic design of described, 72 " " , " " " illustrated, 26 Koulah rugs, 71 " " , characteristic border of described, 72 " " , " " " illustrated, 27 Kurdish rugs distinguished from Kurdistans, 55 Kurdistan carpets, 95, 96 " rugs, 55, 56 Kurds, "a band of robbers," 55 Ladik rugs, 72 " " , characteristic border of described, 72 " " , " " " illustrated, 25 Lamp, Aladdin's, 71 Lamps like tea-pots in Koulahs, 72 Malgara rugs, 88 "Mats," Anatolian, 73, 74 " , Beluchistan, 85 "Mecca" rugs, doubtful term, 3 " " , Shiraz, so called, 51 Melez rugs, 74, 75 Mohammedan dating, 125, 126 Moth holes to be looked for in buying rugs, 133 Moths to be guarded against, 140 Mousul rugs, 53 " " , shimmer of, 84 Museums, best rugs in, 6 " , brown Bokharas only in, 81 " , guide-posts to, 73 Mysterious inscriptions, 123 Mystery of the rug, 2 Names of rugs, 8, 9 " " " , commercial, 56 " " " , importance of, 14 " " " , unknown and fanciful, 14 Oushak carpets, 98 Pattern, _see_ Design Persia, inspiration drawn from, 69 "Persian Iran," ignorant term, 15 Persian, means splendour, 6 Persian rugs, best to buy, 45 " " , order of, 15 Pile, depth of, in Mousuls, 84 Pillow, shown by selvedge, 101 Pillows, Sehna, 101 Prayer rugs, 71 " " , comb in, 135 Rose, conventionalized, 53 " , Oriental origin, 54 " , Persian, 52 Rugs, beating of, 137 " , cheap, uses and value of, 66 " , cleaning of, 137 " , firm, that lie well, desirable, 134 " , folding of, 141 " , holes in, 133 " , hung on wall, criticised, 102, 134 " , moths in, 140 " , much worn, to be avoided, 133 " , neglect of, 141 " , number annually imported, 114, 115, 116 " , painted or doctored, test for, 134 " , retail trade in, 113 " , tricks in selling, 135 " , washing of, 138, 139, 140 " , wholesale dealers in, 114, 117 Russian, types of, in Caucasian rugs, 63, 65 Saddle-bag, 98 " " , shown by selvedge, 101 " " , term confusing, 100 Saddle-cloth, 102 Samarkand rugs, 87 Sarak rugs, 57 Selvedge, cutting of in Beluchistans, 85 " " " " Bergamas, 76 " of Bergamas, 84 " " Beluchistans, 28 " " Bokharas, 82 " " pillows, 101 " " saddle-bags, 101 " " Yamoud Bokharas, 82 " should be trimmed, 135, 136 Sehna rugs, 48, 49 " pillows, 101 Serabend rugs, 50 " " , characteristic border of, 29 " " , " " illustrated, 50 Shiraz donkey-bags, 98 " rugs, 51 " " , defects of, 76 Shirvan donkey-bags, 98 " rugs, 64 " " , distinguished from Kabistan, 64 Silk rugs, antique, 132 " " , modern, to be avoided, 48, 132, 133 Sizes of carpets, 44, 94 " " rugs, 44 " " " , almost square, 82 Smyrna carpets, 97, 98 "Smyrna" carpets, so called, 98 Soumac rugs, 86 "Strips," or "Stair-rugs," proper name of, 44 Sultanabad carpets, 97 Tabriz carpets, 95 " rugs, 57 Teheran rugs, 56 Tjoshghan, _see_ Joshghan Tree, cypress, 75 " of Life, 46 Trellis, rose, 53 Turkestan rugs, 79 " " , varieties of, 16 " " , " " , order of, 16 " weaves, like rubies, 70 Turkoman rugs, 79 Tzi-tzi, _see_ Chichi Washing of rugs, essential, 138 " " " , methods of, 139, 140 Weaving, done by women, 22 " , method of, 24, 25 Wholesale dealers, buyers from, 108 Wool, camels', 131 " from young sheep, desirable, 132 Wool has life, is sentient thing, 138 " , like plush in Kazaks, 84 " , soft and silky, in Beluchistans, 84 Youraghan rugs, 51 Yourdez, _see_ Gheordez Youruck rugs, 65 Footnote: [1] This ancient four-flowered pattern appears in as many forms as the loop or palm-leaf; but whatever bud or blossom may be modelled by the weaver, the design retains its strong distinctive lines. It is shown on the cover of this volume in one phase, and it appears in different form in the plate of the Beluchistan rug. 
36082	----	UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 250 CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY PAPER 62, PAGES 109-120 WHITE HOUSE CHINA OF THE LINCOLN ADMINISTRATION IN THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY _Margaret Brown Klapthor_ SMITHSONIAN PRESS WASHINGTON, D.C. 1967 [Illustration: WHITE HOUSE COLLECTION Figure 1: A TABLE SETTING showing the Lincoln china being used for a luncheon during the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson.] _Margaret Brown Klapthor_ WHITE HOUSE CHINA OF THE LINCOLN ADMINISTRATION _In the Museum of History and Technology_ _This article on the china of the administration of President Abraham Lincoln is intended to be the first of a series of articles on Presidential china based on the collection in the Smithsonian Institution. From contemporary records in National Archives, newspaper articles and family records it is our hope to assemble material which will ultimately present the story of White House and Presidential china of every administration. Myths and facts surrounding this interesting topic will be examined and presented to assist the many collectors of this porcelain as well as others who admire and appreciate its historical interest._ _In this first article, the author describes the efforts of Mrs. Abraham Lincoln to acquire porcelain suitable for official entertaining in the White House._ THE AUTHOR: _Margaret Brown Klapthor is associate curator of political history in the Smithsonian Institution's Museum of History and Technology._ When Mrs. Lincoln arrived at the White House in 1861 she found the pantry sadly deficient in elegant tableware to set a State dinner. The last official State service had been purchased by the White House during the administration of President Franklin Pierce (it is the china known popularly as the "red edge" set), and not enough of that was left to serve a large dinner party. Theodore R. Davis, who designed the State china purchased during the administration of President Rutherford B. Hayes, wrote an article, published in the May 1899 issue of the _Ladies' Home Journal_, on the "Presidential Porcelain of a Century." He records that in 1860 he saw the State Dining Room of the White House set up for the formal dinner given for the visiting Prince of Wales, and that "the dishes were more or less odd, but generally comprised what was known as the 'red edge set'." Chinaware was not the only thing needed in the Executive Mansion in the opinion of Mary Todd Lincoln. Fortunately for her, Congress was accustomed to appropriating $20,000 to refurnish the President's House to the taste of each new First Lady. This money became available to her when the special session was convened in April 1861, and Mrs. Lincoln set out the next month on a shopping trip to New York and Philadelphia. She was accompanied by a favorite cousin, Mrs. Elizabeth Todd Grimsley, who had come to Washington for the inauguration in March and stayed on at the White House with the Lincolns for six months. The ladies' arrival in New York City on May 12, was duly noted in the city newspaper. On May 16, 1861, _The New York Daily Tribune_ records under the heading _Personal_: Mrs. Lincoln employed the greater portion of Wednesday forenoon in making purchases. Among other places she visited the establishments of Lord & Taylor, and Messrs. E. V. Haughwout and Co. At the latter establishment she ordered a splendid dinner service for the White House in "Solferino" and gold with the arms of the United States emblazoned on each piece. The purchases also include some handsome vases and mantle ornaments for the blue and green rooms. The firm of E. V. Haughwout and Co. whose bill head identifies it as "Importers and Decorators of French China" was accustomed to Executive Mansion patronage. Under the name of Haughwout and Dailey they had sold a dinner service to President Pierce in 1853.[1] During Mrs. Lincoln's May visit, Haughwout's must have shown her a handsome specimen plate they had exhibited at the Crystal Palace Exhibition in New York in 1853 which had been made for President Pierce's approval. A picture of the plate in the Haughwout and Dailey display is shown in the catalog of the Exhibition where it is identified as "a specimen plate of a dinner service manufactured for the President of the United States with the American eagle and blue band in Alhambra style."[2] President Pierce evidently did not like the design as the service he subsequently purchased from Haughwout and Dailey had a plain red band and was not the one manufactured for his approval and exhibited in New York. [Illustration: Figure 2.--PLATE ILLUSTRATED in the catalog of the Crystal Palace Exhibition, 1853. (Smithsonian photo 60016.)] Mary Todd Lincoln was delighted with the plate displayed at the Crystal Palace Exhibition and ordered a complete dinner service of that design. Her only change was to have a wide "Solferino" border painted on the service instead of the blue border specified for the 1853 plate. This bright purplish-red color had become extremely fashionable since its discovery in 1859, and it provided another variation of Mrs. Lincoln's favorite color, which she indulged in personal attire as well as in room decor. Mrs. Lincoln probably first saw and gave her approval to the elegant new china when she returned to New York for more shopping in August. The china was delivered on September 2, 1861, with a bill itemized as follows:[3] One fine Porcelain Dining Service of One Hundred, and ninety pieces ... 190 ... decorated Royal purple, and double gilt, with the Arms of the United States, on each piece, for the Presidential Mansion ... namely ... [Illustration: Figure 3.--PLATE, COMPOTE, AND SMALL PLATTER from the purple-bordered State china used during the administration of President Abraham Lincoln, (USNM ace. 221233; Smithsonian photo 48115-A.)] Two Bowls for Salad Four Shells do Pickles Four Meat Platters 9 inch Four do do 10 do Four do do 13 do Two do do 15 do Two do do 18 do Two do do 20 do Four Fish do various sizes, and forms Two Butter Dishes, with drainers, and covers. Six uncovered vegetable dishes or bakers. Ninety-six Dinner Plates 9 inch Forty-eight Soup do 9 do Four Large Water Pitchers. Two Bowls for Ice. Eleven Hundred, and ninety-five dollars. One fine Porcelain Dessert Service, consisting of Two hundred and eight pieces ... 208 ... richly decorated to match Dining Set ... namely. Two Stands for Custard Cups Thirty-six do do Eight High Comportiers for fruit. Two do do large do do Four shell do Two Bowls for Strawberries Two Dessert Sugars Six Round High Baskets for fruit. Two Oval do do do do Sixty Dessert Plates 8 inch Thirty-six after Dinner Coffees. Eight Hundred, and thirty-seven dollars. One fine Breakfast, and Tea Service, containing Two Hundred, and sixty pieces, richly decorated to match Dinner Service ... namely. Forty-eight Tea Plates 6-1/2 inch Thirty-six Preserve do 4-1/2 do Thirty-six Coffees for Breakfast Twenty-four Egg Cups Thirty-six Teas Eight Plates for Cake Seven Hundred, and fifty nine dollars. Four Small Sevres Centre Pieces for Bon Bons, decorated to match Dinner Service @ Twenty-five = One Hundred Two Large Centre Pieces, Sevres, supported by "White Pelicans and decorated to match dinner service @ One Hundred = Two Hundred Two Punch Bowls, decorated to match dinner service @ Fifty = One Hundred Packages Four Dollars Total Amount Three Thousand, one Hundred and Ninety-five dollars. The picture of the design presented for President Pierce's inspection in 1853 which appears in the catalog of the New York Crystal Palace Exhibition[4] is proof of the readiness with which symbolism is read into a design which came into existence long before the symbol is appropriate. Writing in 1895 Edwin Atlee Barber says of the Lincoln China that the design for the decoration, selected after much consultation among officials at Washington, was added in New York by the importer. It consisted of a spirited rendering of the arms of the United States--the American eagle mounted on the national shield and beneath it the motto _E Pluribus Unum_. This design was engraved and then transferred to the china as an outline to be filled in with color. The border of the plate, a gold guilloche, or cable, of two strands entwined and, thus, mutually strengthening each other, was intended to signify the union of the North and South.[5] The same idea was meant to be conveyed in the central design: "Though clouds surround our Country, the sunlight is breaking through." The explanation of the symbolism of the design, while appropriate for the Lincoln Administration, could hardly have been true for the china which was originally designed for Presidential use in 1853. [Illustration: Figure 4.--LETTERHEAD OF E. V. HAUGHWOUT & CO., from whom the purple set was ordered. (Smithsonian photo 60001-A.)] Tradition identifies the blanks on which the design of the Lincoln china was painted as being imported from the Haviland factory in Limoges, France. The original china bears no maker's mark, however, as this was more than ten years before the Haviland factory started to mark their ware.[6] The earliest positive link of the Lincoln china to Haviland and Company seems to be an affidavit which Theodore R. Davis attached to a Lincoln plate in 1881 saying "This plate One of the Lincoln Set made by Haviland & Co. was used by President Garfield when upon his death bed. The plate was broken in bringing it from the President's room and was given by Wm. Crump to Theo. R. Davis Sept. 1881." The plate is now in the collections of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. It is possible that Theodore Davis, a personal friend of Theodore Haviland, had derived directly from Mr. Haviland this manufacturer identification of the china which Haughwout decorated. [Illustration: Figure 5.--LINCOLN PLATE which bears affidavit of Theodore R. Davis. (_Courtesy of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin._)] The official dinner service so delighted Mrs. Lincoln that she ordered a similar set for herself. On the personal service the initials "M. L." were substituted for the arms of the United States as decoration. Mrs. Grimsley says "... this latter, I know, was not paid for by the district commissioner, as was most unkindly charged when it was stored away."[7] It has been suggested that the personal china was paid for by a withdrawal of $1106.73 from the President's account with the bank of Riggs and Co. [Illustration: Figure 6.--CUSTARD CUP From the Purple-Bordered State China used during the administration of President Abraham Lincoln. (USNM acc. 206542; Smithsonian photo 44120-G.)] The personal china was an indiscreet purchase, at best, and Mrs. Lincoln was soon accused of buying the china out of public funds. In the midst of the campaign in which Lincoln ran for re-election in 1864 an opposition newspaper, _The New York World_, published a bitter attack on the President and his wife charging that the bill submitted by Haughwout for the State service had been padded to include the cost of the personal china.[8] According to the paper's editorial, the deceit was discovered when the amount of the bill was questioned by a clerk in the Treasury Department and "Honest Abe," when cornered, made payment out of his own pocket. This story seems to be refuted by the evidence on the Haughwout bill, which was signed by the Comptroller for payment on September 16, 1861, within two weeks after the china was received, and only three after President Lincoln had approved the bill. The extent to which this controversy spoiled Mrs. Lincoln's pleasure in the handsome purple service perhaps can be measured by the fact that after President Lincoln was re-elected, she purchased another large china service for the White House. A bill, recently discovered at the National Archives, documents the new set as being ordered by Mrs. Lincoln from J. K. Kerr of 529 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, whose establishment, known as China Hall, specialized in French and English china and glassware. Dated January 30, 1865, the bill was for:[9] 1 Extra Large French China, Dining, Dessert and Coffee Service, decorated on a White ground, delicate Buff Border with burnished Gold lines consisting of the following pieces. 12 Dozen Dining plates } 6 Dozen Soup plates } 6 Dozen Dessert plates } 6 Dozen Ice Cream, or peaches & cream } plates deep } 1 Large dish for head of table } 1 Foot dish } 2 Second course head & foot dishes } 2 more dishes } 2 more dishes } 2 more dishes } 4 vegetable dishes with covers } 4 more vegetable dishes with covers } 4 Sauce tureens } $1700 4 Sauce Boats } 4 Stands for Sauce Boats } 4 Pickle Shells } 2 Salad Bowls } 2 Custard Stands } 48 Custard Cups with covers } 2 Large rich oval fruit Baskets } 4 Smaller round do } 4 Fruit Comports Shell form for fruit } 4 do do high round } 2 Dessert Sugar bowls with covers } 48 After Dinner Coffee Cups & Saucers } 1 Large Dish for Fish } Records show that the china was brought to Washington by Harnden Express, as there is a voucher "For freight on 5 casks from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Washington, D.C., mkd Mrs. A. Lincoln $28.50. China from J. Kerr Phila. Pa. for dinner." It is signed "J. K. Kerr" "Mrs. Lincoln" and is dated February 13, 1865.[10] Two weeks later, on February 28, Kerr sent a bill for some additions to the service as follows:[11] 2 Dozen Coffee Cups & Saucers Delicate Buff Border & Gilt 20.00 40.00 4 Water pitchers do do 10.00 40.00 4 do smaller do do 8.00 32.00 4 do do do do 6.00 24.00 4 do do do do 5.00 20.00 6 bowls do do 2.50 15.00 Package 2.50 ----- ----- 173.50 Two months later President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. The china so recently ordered could hardly have been used by Mrs. Lincoln, and evidently payment had not been made, for it is recorded that at one of the first conferences which B. B. French, Commissioner of Public Buildings and Grounds, had with President Johnson in April 1865, he sought the President's approval of payment for a purchase of china by Mrs. Lincoln.[12] [Illustration: Figure 7:--COFFEE CUP From the Purple-Bordered State China used by President Abraham Lincoln at dinner at the White House on the night of his assassination. (USNM acc. 219098; Smithsonian photo 45088-D.)] [Illustration: Figure 8.--LETTERHEAD OF J. K. KERR, from whom the buff set was ordered. (Smithsonian photo 60001-B.)] [Illustration: Figure 9.--GRAVY BOAT AND SOUP BOWL from the buff-bordered French porcelain ordered by Mrs. Lincoln for the White House in 1865. (USNM acc. 228204; Smithsonian photo 48115-Y.)] [Illustration: Figure 10.--PIECES FROM THE BUFF-BORDERED SERVICE displayed in the China Room in the White House. (_Photo by Abbie Rowe, courtesy National Park Service._)] [Illustration: Figure 11.--SOUP BOWL FROM THE ROYAL WORCESTER SERVICE used at the summer White House at the Soldiers' Home during the administration of President Abraham Lincoln. (USNM acc. 228204; Smithsonian photo 48115-F.)] Despite Commissioner French's concern, the account was not completely settled until a year after the china had been delivered. The first bill is receipted as paid on August 29, 1865, at which time it was endorsed "Received from B B French C. P. Bgs the above amnt of Two thousand three hundred & thirty two dollars in full of this account." (The difference between this amount and that given above is accounted for by the fact that the original order included 4 dozen goblets and 28 dozen wineglasses of various sizes, costing a total of $632.50.) The second bill was paid on February 10, 1866. The inventory made when Mrs. Lincoln turned over the White House to President Johnson lists under china and glassware "One full set China," which was certainly this buff and gold service, and "3 small remnants of china sets nearly all broken up," which must have included the remaining pieces of the royal-purple service.[13] Evidently, the Johnsons decided to use the purple china, because we find that in less than a year they ordered replacement pieces for it. A bill from E. V. Haughwout, dated January 17, 1866[14] lists-- To the following articles of rich China Ware with Arms & Crests of the U.S. to replace the pieces broken & lost of the Solferino sett viz 1 salad dish, 4 pickles, 36 custard cups, } 24 egg cups, 18 dishes--4/10-, 6/11-, } 6/13-, 1/15-, 1/18-inch } 6 comports 3/high, 2/low, & 1/shell } 2 dessert sugars, 2 round baskets } 2 butter dishes, 31 dinner plates } 57 dessert plates, 48 tea plates } 25 soup " , 26 preserve " } 36 breakfast coffees, 36 black coffees } 36 teas, 1 Cake plate, 4 pitchers } 1 Ice bowl } 2061.25 Even with this second order, which almost equalled the original in size and cost, the purple set did not last; early in the administration of President Grant not enough of it was left to set the table in the State Dining Room satisfactorily. Those who handled the Lincoln set grew weary, it is said, of the constant breakage and became convinced that not careless handling but "bad luck in the china itself" was destroying both the dishes and the patience of those who were responsible for them.[15] The story of the china associated with the Lincoln administration must also include a service used by the Lincolns at the summer White House which they maintained on the grounds of the Soldiers' Home in Washington, D.C. Recently, the Quartermaster Corps of the Army turned over to the White House for the china collection some pieces of Royal Worcester china used in the house at the time of President Lincoln's occupancy. It has a wide border of tiny gray and yellow flowers in a diaper design, with a multicolored floral wreath in the center of the plate. This use of English china and the informal design of the set is noteworthy, as almost every set of official china up to this time had been French, and French china continued to be used at the White House until almost the end of the 19th century. It is appropriate in this discussion of the Lincoln china to mention the number of commemorative reproductions which were made for sale to the general public as souvenirs in the last quarter of the 19th century. The earliest of these reproduction pieces seem to be some which are marked on the back "Fabriqué par Haviland & Co./Pour/J. W. Boteler & Bro./Washington." The firm of J. W. Boteler and Brother is first listed in the Washington City Directory in 1867 and it was in existence until 1881 when the name of the firm was changed to J. W. Boteler & Son. The dates of Boteler & Brother encompasses the period of the celebration of the Centennial of the United States in 1876. This celebration created intense interest in the Presidency and objects which symbolized the office, providing a ready market for copies of the Lincoln china. Indeed several different pieces of White House china have been brought to our attention with family legends that they were purchased at the "World's Fair." In each case it has been clear that the "Fair" meant the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876. Two reproduction plates have been brought to the Smithsonian Institution for examination. On both of these the words "Administration/Abraham Lincoln" were stamped on the back in red. It is well for collectors of White House china to remember that the original pieces of the Lincoln service did not bear any mark on the reverse. [Illustration: Figure 12.--DRAWING OF THE MARK found, in red, on the two plates submitted to the Museum for identification.] [Illustration: Figure 13.--OBVERSE OF LINCOLN PLATE bearing the mark of J. W. Boteler and Bro. (Smithsonian photo 44120.)] The excellent quality of the pieces bearing the Boteler mark may explain a persistent legend that Edward Lycett was associated with the Lincoln service.[16] Mr. Lycett came to this country from England in 1861 and thereafter was identified with the development and expansion of the art of china painting in America until the turn of the century. Many sources credit Mr. Lycett with painting the second order of the Lincoln service on commission of John Vogt & Co. of New York City. As the records establish the fact that the second order for the china was made to E. V. Haughwout & Co., just as was the first, we can only speculate that perhaps Mr. Lycett painted the commemorative china which bears the mark of J. W. Boteler & Brother and of Haviland & Co. which is so beautifully hand painted to match the official White House china. [Illustration: Figure 14.--MARK OF J. W. BOTELER & BRO. used on reverse of Lincoln plate. (Smithsonian photo 44120-L.)] In the collections of the Smithsonian's Museum of History and Technology are the following pieces of the royal-purple set of Lincoln china: Plate and 2-handled custard cup. Gift of Col. Theodore Barnes, (USNM accession 206542, cat. nos. 58566 and 58567). Dinner coffee cup and saucer, gift of Mr. Lincoln Isham (USNM accession 219098, cat. no. 219098.9). This cup and saucer are the ones which were used by President Lincoln at dinner on the night of April 14, 1865, just before he attended the performance at Ford's Theater at which he was assassinated. The following pieces are in the Smithsonian Institution on loan from the White House (accessions 221233 and 228204). From the purple set: small oval platter meat platter 3 compotes oval fruit basket coffee cup and saucer water pitcher fish platter dinner plate shallow bowl soup bowl. From the set with the buff band: soup bowl gravy boat. U.S. Government Printing Office; 1967 For sale by Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Washington, D.C. 20402 Price 35 cents FOOTNOTES: [1] National Archives, Record group 217, Government Accounting Office, miscellaneous Treasury accounts, receipted account 113810, voucher 4. [2] _Official catalog of the New York exhibition of the industry of all nations_, 1853. New York, 1853. [3] National Archives, record group 217, General Accounting Office, miscellaneous Treasury accounts, receipted account 141451. [4] Loc. cit. (footnote 2). [5] EDWIN ATLEE BARBER, "The Pioneer of China Painting in America," _The Ceramic Monthly_ (September 1895), vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 15-20. [6] Letter from Charles Haviland at Limoges, France, to Theodore Haviland in the United States dated March 4, 1869, in the archives of Haviland & Co., Inc.: "It would certainly be a good thing to stamp all our china with our name if: 1st our china was better than any one else or at least as good and 2nd if we made enough for our trade. Without that it would turn against us and learn people that by ordering through Vogt or Nittal they could get Gibus or Julieus china which is better than ours. And if ours was the best but we did not make enough to fill orders there would be a complaint when we gave other manufacturer's china. So our first aim must be to manufacture as well or better than any body else and to make all we sell----_Then & then only_ it will be a capital thing to stamp all our make with our name." Their goal was finally achieved in 1876. [7] ELIZABETH TODD GRIMSLEY, "Six Months in the White House," _Journal, Illinois State Historical Society_, vol. 19, nos. 3-4, pp. 42-73. [8] _The New York World_, September 26, 1864. [9] National Archives, record group 217, General Accounting Office, miscellaneous Treasury accounts, receipted account 157178, voucher 9. [10] Ibid., voucher 26. [11] Ibid., voucher 25. [12] GEORGE FORT MILTON, _The Age of Hate: Andrew Johnson and the Radicals_ (New York: Coward-McCann, Inc., 1930), p. 229. [13] National Archives, records of Commissioner of Public Buildings and Grounds, inventory of the Lincoln Administration, 1865. [14] Op. cit. (footnote 9), voucher 18. [15] THEODORE R. DAVIS, "Presidential Porcelain of a Century," _The Ladies' Home Journal_ (May 1889), p. 4. [16] EDWIN ATLEE BARBER, loc. cit. (footnote 5). 
34772	----	Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 34772-h.htm or 34772-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/34772/34772-h/34772-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/34772/34772-h.zip) STAINED GLASS TOURS IN FRANCE by CHARLES HITCHCOCK SHERRILL New York: John Lane Company, MCMVIII London: John Lane, The Bodley Head Copyright, 1908, by John Lane Company [Illustration: INTERIOR OF SAINTE CHAPELLE, PARIS. _Built by St. Louis (Louis IX) 1248. Window surfaces pleasantly broken up into "medallion" designs. Walls constructed almost entirely of sheets of richly toned glass (see Page 26)._] TO THAT REMORSELESS CRITIC _MY WIFE_ THIS BOOK IS GRATEFULLY DEDICATED CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION 13 THIRTEENTH CENTURY AND EARLIER 25 THIRTEENTH CENTURY TOURS 37 FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES 117 FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURY TOURS 134 SIXTEENTH CENTURY 197 SIXTEENTH CENTURY TOURS 212 ITINERARIES 295 INDEX 297 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS SAINTE CHAPELLE, PARIS _Frontispiece_ PAGE MEDALLION PANEL, LOUVRE 28 MAP, THIRTEENTH CENTURY TOURS 40 MEDALLION LANCET, TOURS 54 CHARTRES TRANSEPTS 72 THIRTEENTH CENTURY ROSE, LAON 104 FIFTEENTH CENTURY "CANOPY," ST. LÔ 120 MAP, FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES TOURS 136 FIFTEENTH CENTURY "CANOPY," RIOM 158 RENAISSANCE "PICTURE," MONTFORT L'AMAURY 200 MAP, SIXTEENTH CENTURY TOURS 214 RENAISSANCE ROSE, SENS 220 CREATION WINDOW, TROYES 228 CONSTABLE OF MONTMORENCY AND HIS SONS 270 TREE OF JESSE, BEAUVAIS 282 DEDICATION OF THE STE. CHAPELLE 292 FOREWORD The purpose of this book is a very simple one. It is to provide an answer to the question, "Where does one find good stained glass in France, and how can it most conveniently be seen?" All the books upon this subject are more or less technical and are intended rather for the student than the sightseer. During the six years that the writer has been studying glass, he has so often been asked the above question, as to finally conclude that an answer in the form of a simple touring handbook might be of service. To that end he has put together notes taken on sundry vacation trips. The reader should be indulgent, for the writer is not an authority on glass--just a lawyer on a holiday. In addition to the purpose already described, it is hoped that this little book may also serve to lure forth into the charming French country some who have hitherto neither heard nor cared much about glass, so that they may see the wonderful beauty that the stained-glass window can alone reveal. CHARLES HITCHCOCK SHERRILL. 20, East 65th Street, New York, Christmas, 1907. INTRODUCTION The reason for the existence of a window is obvious. When the dwelling ceased to be a cave and became a house, the need for a light aperture at once arose. Neither the house nor the window concern us until long after the house had been made thoroughly habitable, and its windows after much evolution are finally filled with a sheet of translucent substance, which, while excluding the weather, would admit the light. Our interest does not begin until the wish to decorate the house naturally brought about a desire to decorate the window. We will pass over the story of the discovery of glass and its gradual improvement; nor will we pause to consider the very earliest examples now extant, nor examine the steps through which it must have passed to reach so advanced a stage as we find in the twelfth century. This is a book to tell where to see windows, and therefore it must not take up stained glass until a period is reached when examples are sufficiently numerous and beautiful to repay a visit to them. At what date then, shall we make our beginning? There is practically nothing until we come to the charming remains of the twelfth century; but because these latter are very few and those few in churches which also contain glass of the next century, we shall commence with the heading of "Thirteenth Century and Earlier." That explains why we have selected this particular epoch as the starting point of our investigations. Our windows will themselves disclose to us that the Golden Age of French stained glass falls of itself into three subdivisions--the first comprising the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the second the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and the third the sixteenth century. Of the second subdivision we shall find but few examples, of the first more, and of the third most. No matter how far back we push our researches, we are sure to be surprised at the advanced state of the art represented by any window which attempts a picture. In fact, we shall happen upon no satisfactory traces of the evolution which must have led up to even the crudest and oldest story-window. We are forced, therefore, to conclude that this evolution must have occurred in another art, and the result there evolved transferred into this one. This conclusion is much strengthened when we read that St. Sophia, built by Justinian during the sixth century in Constantinople, contained not only glass mosaics on the walls, but also in its windows. Here we have the key to the puzzle. The many artists who were then occupied in designing mosaics, worked out their pictures in little pieces of glass on the wall until they had developed along that line as far as possible. Then they doubtless bethought themselves that these glass mosaics would be even more effective if they could devise a means of illuminating their picture by letting the light shine through the colour. To accomplish this they contrived to hold the morsels of glass securely in place, first by wooden or stucco frames, and later by long ribbons of lead having channels on each side to retain the edges of the glass. This form of mosaic so held up to the light became a stained-glass window. Thus we easily understand that when the idea arrived of taking the mosaic picture off the wall and putting it into the embrasure of the window, the art of making that picture out of bits of glass had already been fully developed. We shall avoid the technicalities of glass making, as they do not suit our holiday mood. Nor is there good reason why we should discuss any use of glass save that which is required in the construction of our windows. Let us, however, in passing, refer to the very curious fact that a severe blow was dealt to all other sorts of glassware when the artists turned their attention to the making of windows. Glassware had constantly improved in design and colour up to the time (early in the twelfth century) when the great interest in windows sprang up. This new taste seemed to at once throw all other developments of this material into a comatose condition which lasted on through the five centuries composing the Golden Age of the window. This observation receives a peculiar confirmation when we notice that, at the end of the sixteenth century, stained glass suddenly lost its vogue at the same time that glassware sprang into renewed favour through the artistic skill and inventive genius of the Venetians. Indeed, the decadence of stained glass seemed to be the signal for the revival of hollow glassware. To revert for a moment to the time when window making caused a halt in the improvement of hollowware, it is interesting to note that glass making then left its former haunts and betook itself to the forests, where it lurked until the stained-glass window having shot its bolt, hollowware again engaged the attention of the artists and was once more manufactured nearer to the homes of its purchasers. During this period of partial seclusion the glass produced was of a peculiar quality called in English "forest glass" and in French "verre de fougère" (referring to the wild fern or bracken which was burnt to provide the necessary alkali). The two names combine to explain to us that wood and not coal was used by the glass-blower and also that his alkali had to be gotten in an unusual way. The toughness of this "forest glass" was admirably suited to the requirements of the window-maker. As this book will be confined to an examination of French stained glass, it is appropriate to cite Theophilus, who when in the twelfth century he wrote his celebrated Latin treatise on this general subject, stated that the art was a French one. This makes it all the more important that we trace its beginnings in France, as well as inquire whence came the influence which so strongly marked them. This inquiry will reveal that it was to Byzantium that the early glaziers were indebted for their quaint style of drawing. In early glass we will observe the constrained, ungainly poses of the bodies, arms and legs, as well as the staring-eyed, ill-proportioned heads, not only in the medallion type of windows, but also in the larger figures glaring down from the clerestories. Very interesting conclusions may be reached if we place side by side three figures, one taken from thirteenth century glass, another from a Limoges enamel made any time from the tenth to the thirteenth century, and the third from the famous mosaics of St. Mark's in Venice. We have selected an enamel from Limoges because that was the only locality in which a continued as well as a renowned cult of enamelling existed in France during the centuries named, while the reason for choosing St. Mark's is that it is one of the finest extant examples of Byzantine art. Notice the same constraint in the drawing of all these three figures, the same awkward pulling of garment folds to delineate the form, and the same quaint morsel of conventional architecture about the top (which last, by the way, indicated that the personage below was a high dignitary of either church or state). The resemblance is too striking to be merely a coincidence, especially as each of these figures used in the comparison is typical of hundreds of others. This very resemblance hints at its own explanation. The dates of the figures show the order in which these peculiarities of style must have been transmitted. The Byzantine mosaics of St. Mark's are much the oldest; then came the Limoges enamels, and lastly the stained glass windows. Thus we learn not only where our windows originated in France, but also whence came the designs that the Limoges enamellers taught the glazier. Abbe Texier, in his "Essai Historique et Descriptif sur les Argentiers et les Emailleurs de Limoges" (1841), says that French stained glass began in the neighbourhood of Limoges, whose highly vaunted school of enamellers were strongly influenced by the Byzantine types of the Venetian school and that therefore it was but natural that the glass artist should also have yielded to the Byzantine influence. As showing how this influence reached Limoges, he states that in 979 a Venetian colony settled there for the purpose of trading in spices and other commodities of the East, conveyed from Egypt by way of Marseilles. Winston says that the Venetian Doge Orseolo I came to sojourn in France in 978 and that the erection of the Church of St. Front, Périgueux (near Limoges), is ascribed to him. James Ferguson, in his Illustrated Handbook of Architecture, tells us that the Venetians (as the great carriers and merchants of the Levant) were in constant communication with Byzantium. These facts provide a ready explanation of why these same pronounced Byzantine types can be remarked first in the mosaics of St. Mark's, next in the enamels of Limoges and lastly on the stained glass windows of the thirteenth century. The older the glass, the more closely does the drawing follow these models; the attitudes are more constrained and awkward, and the folds of the garment are more tightly drawn around the figures, nor does the artist allow himself any freedom from the traditions of that school. Later on the drawing becomes more graceful and the lines are freer. Anyone who desires to go thoroughly into the technical side of this art will find a most exhaustive and scholarly book in Lewis F. Day's "Windows of Stained Glass" (1897). The best book in French is Oliver Merson's excellent "Vitraux" (1895). Let us now postpone any further consideration of the general subject until after we, with our own eyes, have seen enough windows to have collected material for discussion. This brings us to the selection of towns, and the consideration of routes. We have referred to how naturally stained glass divides itself into three epochs, viz.: 1. Thirteenth century and earlier. 2. Fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. 3. Sixteenth century. Visits to the glass of these epochs will be, for convenience, subdivided into the following tours: EPOCH I (_a_) Bourges, Poitiers, Tours, Angers, Le Mans, Chartres. (_b_) Auxerre, Sens, Troyes, Chalons, Rheims. (_c_) Soissons, Laon, St. Quentin, Amiens. EPOCH II (_a_) Evreux, Rouen. (_b_) Bourges, Moulins, Riom, Clermont-Ferrand, Eymoutiers, Limoges, Poitiers, Angers, Le Mans (Alençon), Sées, Verneuil, Chartres. Also separate visit to Quimper. EPOCH III (_a_) Vincennes, Sens, Troyes, Chalons. (_b_) Montfort l'Amaury, Conches, Pont-Audemer, Caudebec, Rouen (Grand-Andely, Elbeuf, Pont de l'Arche). (_c_) Ecouen, Montmorency, Chantilly (St. Quentin), Beauvais. Also separate visits to Bourg, Auch and Champigny-sur-Veude. At the back of the book will be found a table showing distances by road, and also the usual index. It must be admitted that even in so delightful a country as France, one's wanderings gain an added zest if guided by a more definite purpose than is the slave of the red-backed Baedeker, intent upon exhausting the sights of every place visited. This admitted, we have then to consider not only the stranger on his first visit to France, but also the experienced traveller who already knows the beauties of its roads and the lazy charm of its historic towns. If our reader is of the latter sort he will especially hail some new quest as a reason for revisiting old scenes in search of charms heretofore unseen or unappreciated. It was especially him that the writer had in mind when putting together the rambling notes covering six years of glass study. He knows what varied forms of beauty await those who are sufficiently energetic to escape from the ultra-modern charms of Paris, that fascinator of foreigners. He knows the quaint villages, the perfect roads, the ancient castles, the magnificent cathedrals that are waiting to be explored. To him we will tell the story of a wonderful beauty where light lies imprisoned in colour--a beauty which can be seen nowhere so well as in France. What if you have already visited every nook and corner of this picturesque land? Come out again with us and add another to the many reasons for your love of France. Take up the modern equivalent of the pilgrim's staff and shell and fare forth, being well assured that your eyes will be opened to the appreciation of something which, to be loved, has only to be wisely seen--the window of stained glass. THIRTEENTH CENTURY AND EARLIER Before spending any time in studying the subject of stained glass windows, let us go and see some good ones. One of the safest ways to learn how to appreciate any art is to look at fine examples of it. Of stained glass this is particularly true, because no method of reproduction, even colour photography, can give any idea of the unique result there obtained by combining light with colour. No flat tints can ever produce the effect of warmth and translucence that is yielded by colour illuminated through and through by the rays of the sun. We will assume that we are in Paris. Fortunately for our purpose there are easily accessible two splendid specimens of early glass, one the glazing of the Ste. Chapelle and the other the rose windows high up in the western façade and in the transept ends of the Cathedral of Notre Dame. The former is the most perfect instance of a thirteenth century chapel preserving intact its original glazing, while the rose in the northern transept of Notre Dame is probably the finest one of its period in the world. Thus we make an excellent beginning and our interest is at once stimulated to see more. Observe the difference in the placing of these windows, as well as in the points from which we view them, as it will prove peculiarly useful in disclosing how they should be set in order to best reveal their beauties. Every tourist that visits Paris goes, as a matter of course, to the Ste. Chapelle, that net of Gothic in which lies enmeshed such treasures of colour and light. This sparkling marvel lies modestly nestled among the law courts, whose plainer modern buildings serve but to accentuate its wonderful beauty. We shall not be long in learning who was its founder, for the golden fleur de lis of France and castles of Castile strewed over its walls of glass mutely remind us that it was built by the good Louis IX and that with him was associated his mother, Queen Blanche of Castile. No king of France so loved and befriended our gentle art as St. Louis. In many another French window this same combination of heraldic emblems will demonstrate how diligently these two royalties (or others in their honour) strove to introduce and spread the luminous beauty of this craft. This fragile chef d'oeuvre was constructed by order of its royal patron to provide a sanctuary worthy to contain the sacred relics acquired by him in the Holy Land. No effort or expense was spared to fit it for its high purpose. By reason of its royal founder as well as of its object, we can be sure that in the Ste. Chapelle we have an example of the best taste of the thirteenth century. St. Louis laid the first stone in 1245, and so expeditiously was the work carried on that it was finished and consecrated April 25, 1248, and we read that all its wealth of glass was installed before the consecration. Although we shall refrain from technical words as much as possible, we can see at a glance why these were called "medallion" windows. Each subject treated is enclosed in a narrow round framing of colour, thus breaking up the entire surface into medallions. It prevented confusion of subjects and at the same time gave a balance to their treatment. It is a good omen for the future of our combined sightseeing and study that we can begin with something so complete and charming as the perfect Ste. Chapelle. And yet, although it is glowingly, mystically lovely with a beauty attributable chiefly to its glass, other thirteenth century churches will teach us to notice that here it is the interior that is benefited and not the windows. So small is the edifice that we cannot stand far enough away from the glass to let it develop the glittering glow that refraction of the rays of light lends to the glazing of the thirteenth century, but which no other period can show us. In order to fully realise what we have lost by being too near the windows, take the short stroll that brings you to the Cathedral of Notre Dame. Enter its great gloom, go forward until you are opposite the rose window in the north transept, and look up. If you have in you any poetry, any sensuous sympathy with colour and light, you will receive an artistic thrill so strong as to at once elevate you to membership in our Brotherhood of Glass Lovers. Our pilgrim staring up at the great rose window will note the splendid purplish glow that comes from it. Now he will realise that he missed this gorgeous jewelled gleam at the Ste. Chapelle, and for the reason that he was too close to the glass. After he has grown accustomed to this new feature, he will begin to notice some of the causes for it. The effect is undoubtedly glowing purple, and yet it is not produced by purple glass. It results from the merging of the reds and blues, rendered possible, nay, assisted by the smallness of the pieces of the glass, and this observation also explains why this same effect was not obtained in later periods when the glass fragments become so large that the colours remain distinct and do not run into each other. Because we are too near the Ste. Chapelle glass we remember it as red and blue, but the memory of the Notre Dame windows, which can be viewed from a proper distance, is a splendid purple. [Illustration: 13TH CENTURY MEDALLION, MUSÉE DU LOUVRE. _Window surface broken up into medallions, each enclosing a little scene. The black outlines of the picture are provided by the leaden strips which hold together the pieces of glass. Paint is used only to mark the features, folds in the garments, etc. Here the lead lines assist the picture--later they mar it._] It is to be hoped that you have had the good fortune to first visit these two buildings on a rainy or grey day. That is the sort of weather for a glass pilgrim to be abroad and stirring, for his windows will be lighted to the same extent all around the church. If it is a sunny day, the windows towards the sun will seem thin in colour, whilst those on the shady side will be thick and flatly toned. He may assure himself that he is mistaken, and that the difference in effect is caused by the strong glare of the sun on the one side, and on the other side the lack of it--we repeat that he may assure himself of this, but he will get the wrong effect, notwithstanding. Make a mental note of this point and when you go glass hunting, join the farmers in praying for rain! We must seek elsewhere than in Paris to find what this mosaic of tiny morsels of different hued glass can accomplish in the small chapels surrounding the choir of a great cathedral. We shall learn what a glorifying curtain of subdued colour it will provide and how when viewed from the nave of the church these chapels become gleaming caverns, forming a semi-circular background for the well-lighted choir in their midst. Even whilst we are drinking in the great beauty of this splendidly impressive half-circle of chapels, we must realise that delightful as is this method of subduing and beautifying the light, it would be most unwise to use this same style of glass in the clerestory above. Not only would the choir be too dark, but, besides, we would lose the contrast of light against gloom that renders it so impressive in its dignity. This observation introduces another type of glazing for which we shall seek in vain after this century. If we demand more light from our clerestory and at the same time insist on coloured glass, then we must use fewer strips of light-obscuring lead, which means fewer and larger pieces of glass. Thus we will obtain more illumination than is yielded by the heavily-leaded windows below. Now we begin to understand that the light of the medallion window is sombre because so much of its surface is occupied by the great quantity of lead required to bind together its small pieces of glass. These numerous lead lines serve a very artistic purpose, for, by breaking the refraction of the rays of light passing through the small bits of glass and diffusing them, they have much to do with blending the colours and producing the delightful jewelled effect that we at once noticed in Notre Dame. We have purposely used the phrase "much to do," because it is only one of several causes. The quality of the glass itself had a great share in that result. It is quite different from that found later on, for it was, as yet, quite imperfect, and no two pieces had the same thickness or were surfaced alike. This very unevenness assisted in breaking up the light rays. Another cause for its brilliancy was that its translucence was not obscured by paint. A piece of glass was yellow or blue because its colour was introduced while it was being made in the pot and therefore was diffused throughout the mass. For this reason it was called "pot metal glass." We shall find that later on they discovered how to tint the surface of glass by the invention first of staining and later by enamelling, both of which had a marked effect and will be spoken of at the proper time. One of the results of colouring glass in the pot was that generally the tone would not be equal throughout; for instance, a piece of blue glass would not be evenly blue in all its parts. This difference in the shading of each piece, as well as the unevenness of its surface, produced a brilliancy which the more perfect methods that came later could never hope to achieve. The freedom from surface paint made possible a limpidity of colour which by contrast makes later painted or enamelled windows seem almost dull. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the only paint used was a brown pigment, which served to delineate features and sometimes to accentuate the folds of garments, etc. We must also remember that as the artist worked with small pieces of glass and therefore used a great many lead lines, all the outlines needed by his picture could be put in with leads, and hence it was only natural that he became very expert in drawing with them. The result of his skill in this particular is surprisingly attractive and we shall sorely miss it later, when less and less attention was paid to the drawing and decorative value of the leads because of the increased desire for large pieces of glass with pictures painted upon them. In fact, so far from early traditions did they of the sixteenth century stray, that we shall see strips of lead running right across an arm or a face! Their value from an artistic standpoint seemed at that time nearly forgotten, and instead of being used to beautify the drawing, they were only tolerated as a part of the machinery necessary to support the glass in its framework. Before leaving the subject of paint upon glass, it is well to remark that although we may admire the brilliancy of these early windows and may rejoice that the artist had not yet learned to obscure his colour, nevertheless, if we were examining windows in Italy, that land of everlasting sunshine, we might find a little painting upon the surface a genuine relief to the eye. There is such a thing as too much sunshine. Geography must be considered in criticising glass. We promised to avoid as much as possible the study of the technical, but it must be admitted that we have drifted into it, and that our attempt to learn why clerestory windows differ from the lower ones, has brought with it an exposition of the technique of the thirteenth century. To briefly recapitulate, it consists of-- (_a_) Small pieces of glass. (_b_) Obviously requiring a great many lead lines to bind them together. (_c_) Glass that is uneven in surface and in the distribution of its colour. (_d_) Glass coloured throughout the mass (pot metal glass). (_e_) Glass that is practically unobscured by paint. But let us get up to our clerestory windows. It has been instructive arriving there, but now let us see what had to be done to admit more light through these upper embrasures. In the first place it was clear that there had to be less leading, which meant larger pieces of glass. For this purpose there was devised a conventional style of decoration giving a most pleasing result. This consisted of a series of large figures of saints, kings, or other great personages. Unfortunately we cannot see this sort of clerestory window in Paris, but a visit to Bourges or Rheims or Chartres will soon convince you how splendidly they serve their purpose. At Notre Dame, in the choir clerestory, one sees only a poor imitation of the destroyed old windows; owing to the paint upon the glass, the yellows are dull and the reds are thick and muddy. When you have seen one of these rows of huge figures, the reason for the device becomes clear. The folds of garments of such size permitted the use of large sheets of glass, and as little lead and no paint were needed, the light was not obscured. The drawing of the folds, etc., was executed by the leads which, in any event, were required for structural reasons. So large are some of these figures that often we shall find that their eyes were not drawn with pigment, but were separately leaded in. This would not have been agreeable in the lower range of windows, but high up in the air, far above the observer's head, it produced the effect desired. Nor was this the only trick indulged in by the artist. Sometimes he permitted himself very odd uses of colour. You will notice that during this century he generally employed brown glass instead of white for flesh tints. Of course he did not have what we call white glass--that was a perfection not yet reached, but he might have used pink. No, he preferred brown; and when you have seen the glorious rows of clerestory figures looking down upon you at Rheims or Chartres, you will know that he was right. His colours were so rich and strong that white glass in the faces would have been too sharp a contrast and would have spoilt the harmony of tones. Nor was this the only strange choice of tints. You will be startled to read that blue is used for the hair of the Christ in a Crucifixion scene, and yet so cleverly was it worked in that many an observer of the splendid east window of Poitiers Cathedral has gone away without noticing that the hair is blue or that the cross is bright red! The effect of the picture was achieved, proof that the artist knew and developed the possibilities existing in his materials. That certainly always has been and always will be one of the great tests of artistic ability. While in Notre Dame notice another method of glazing prevalent in that century and which also had for its raison d'être the need for light in the upper windows. This is what is called "grisaille," a panel of greenish-grey glass, sometimes surrounded by a border of the same tone, sometimes by one of gayer tints, but always, during this period, a broad border. Back in the twelfth century, where we first find these windows, the borders are wider still. Their small pieces of glass are held together by leads arranged in conventional designs, often in what is called strap work, _i.e._, the seeming interlacing of straps in a sort of basket pattern, very simple and agreeable. The light comes through in a cool, silvery tone which blends well with the stone structure about it. In Notre Dame we see examples of these windows, some with grisaille borders, and also a few with coloured ones, but on our travels we shall find much better types at Bourges, at Chalons-sur-Marne, and elsewhere. As a result of our sightseeing we will learn that the best of the early glaziers realised that to compensate for the dim light yielded by the medallion windows below, it was necessary to have better illumination from above. Of course this combination in perfection was not often accomplished, but we generally find that if the artist did not himself take care to admit sufficient light, somebody that came later corrected the error. Often we find that the monks, to obtain more light in the choir, removed the coloured panels and substituted plain glass. In several instances, notably at Amiens, they attempted to sanctify their vandalism by destroying only so much stained glass in a window as to leave a large white cross upon it. When we come to the next century we shall see what this vandalism in favour of better-lighted church interiors is going to produce. For the sake of clearness let us review the steps by which we have reached our conclusions. First we saw that the thirteenth century window has far more charm in its colour than in its drawing, which, although generally true of all glass, is never so emphatically true as during this period. While examining the colour composition, we have learnt how a window is constructed, and that in turn has taught us why it is best to view it from a little distance. The next step was to conclude that therefore this style of glass was not well adapted to domestic architecture or for small buildings. Further, we have remarked the odd style of drawing then in vogue which, traced back, proves but one of the many imprints which Byzantine art left upon those times. More time might at this point be profitably devoted to study, but this little volume is not intended for a text-book. Its chief object is to persuade you to go about France and see for yourself its wonderful windows. It is to be hoped that even this small amount of research will prove useful in increasing your enjoyment of the glass. Let us now consider how many and which towns we will visit, and also how we can most satisfactorily group them together so as to provide convenient trips. THIRTEENTH CENTURY PILGRIMAGES The glass we have seen in Paris gives but a hint of the richness of this period exemplified elsewhere in France. How much or how little we shall see depends upon the reader. If he has time or inclination for but one example, he should visit Chartres. In giving this advice we solemnly warn him that if he has even a faint idea of seeing more than one, then he should defer Chartres until the last. It so far surpasses the others that they must be seen before it or they will suffer by comparison. If the reader can only visit a few towns, then he will doubtless wish to consider what else they contain besides glass, as these other features may influence him in making his selection. For example, if he is interested in tapestry it is clear that he will prefer Rheims and Angers to other churches equally important in their glass, but lacking such additional attractions. Then, too, nearness to Paris may decide him in favour of one cathedral instead of another requiring a longer journey. With each of our towns we will mention any such extra inducement as tapestry, paintings, etc. At the back will be found a table of distances, not only from Paris, but also from each town to the next. If the reader has plenty of time, we suggest three pilgrimages. If his time is in any way limited, he can either take one or more of them, or else make such adjustment of them as best suits his convenience. It must, of course, be understood that there is some thirteenth century glass which will not be visited by us, but any one who has followed these itineraries will have seen all of the best. When we reflect how fragile is a glass window, it is really marvellous that we shall find so much of this easily destroyed beauty after the stress of centuries. Only a few churches can show anything like a complete series of windows, and fewer still a series all glazed during the same period. Chartres, that treasure-house of glass, is the nearest approach to a perfectly complete example. Le Mans, perhaps, is next. Bourges is splendid in its thirteenth century glory, but there the hypercritical may find that the fifteenth century glazing of the nave chapels interferes with the earlier effect. The clerestory of Rheims Cathedral boasts row on row of gorgeous kings and bishops, but there we look in vain for the medallion windows to give us the usual glowing chapels below. These differences are not mentioned to criticise, but to point out that we shall find a variety and not a monotony of beauty. Now for the three itineraries: (_a_) Our first tour is the longest, starts at the point most distant from Paris, and then works back to that city. We begin at Bourges, 4-¼ hours by railway, 227 kilometres by road. From Bourges we go to Poitiers, then to Tours, to Angers, to Le Mans, and end at Chartres. Chartres is only 1-¼ hours from Paris, 88 kilometres by road. (_b_) Before starting on the second tour we must consult time-tables in order to make connections for Auxerre, which is 35 minutes beyond La Roche, a station on the main line to Lyons and the south. If we could take a through train from Paris, the journey would be under three hours. By automobile it is 168 kilometres, leaving Paris by the road to Fontainebleau. From Auxerre we come back to Sens, then to Troyes, to Chalons-sur-Marne, and lastly to Rheims, two hours from Paris (145 kilometres). If the time or inclination of the pilgrim makes it expedient that this trip be shortened, then, if he is a railway traveller, let him begin by Troyes and come around by Chalons and Rheims. If, on the other hand, he is travelling by automobile, he might as well see Sens just before Troyes, because by road Sens is not much off the line from Paris to Troyes and is well worth that small detour. The railway journey, however, between Sens and Troyes is a tedious one of more than two hours, because it is a branch line where there are no expresses. (_c_) The last tour is most convenient to Paris, and although clearly secondary in importance as a glass pilgrimage, the scenery is so very attractive that it will particularly appeal to the automobilist and bicyclist. We begin by visiting Soissons, an hour and a quarter by train (95 kilometres by road), then Laon, next St. Quentin and last Amiens, an hour and a quarter by train (131 kilometres) from Paris. If he is "en automobile," the pilgrim may return to Paris by way of Beauvais, for it is not much out of his way. If, however, he is travelling by railway, then he should omit Beauvais, for he will find only exasperatingly slow trains from Amiens to Beauvais. The thirteenth century glass there is unimportant, and, besides, we shall later visit it for that of the sixteenth century. If the reader intends to take all of these three tours he should begin with (_c_), then take (_b_), and lastly (_a_). If he can take but two, then begin with (_b_) and end with (_a_). If there is time but for one, (_a_) is the best. The automobilist may unfold his maps and prepare a combination trip if he likes, for that is one of the licensed joys of automobiling. The old-fashioned traveller by railway will, however, find the order here set out the most convenient one. There is a splendid series of medallion windows around the choir chapels of the Cathedral of Clermont-Ferrand, but it is too far out of our way to be properly included in any of the above tours. Rouen, too, has fine medallion work of this period in its cathedral, but the later glass there is so much more interesting that we will not include it in these groups. Both these towns will be visited later in their appropriate order, and we shall then have an opportunity to enjoy their delightful thirteenth century windows. [Illustration: 13TH CENTURY TOURS. (_a_) _Bourges_, _Poitiers_, _Tours_,_ Angers_, _Le Mans_, _Chartres_. (_b_) _Auxerre_, _Sens_, _Troyes_, _Chalons_, _Rheims_. (_c_) _Soissons_, _Laon_, _St. Quentin_, _Amiens_. (_For table of distances, see Page 295._)] BOURGES The writer will never forget his first impression of Bourges Cathedral, as, mounted on a bicycle, he approached it over the rolling country that lies to the east towards Nevers. For a long time it seemed a great rock rising from the plain, which steadily grew larger and larger until, all at once, it took on the outlines of a huge cathedral. Fantastic as it may seem in the telling, this vast bulk looming up against the sky exactly symbolised for him the word "Bourges." To fully appreciate this great church one should approach it this way and let it grow before one's eyes. This is true of but few cathedrals, among which there is an easily recalled instance in England. No one ever realises all the soft grey beauty of Ely unless, thanks to his slow progress down the river Ouse, he has seen it gradually arise from the green setting of fen lands. Perhaps one reason why Bourges, when viewed from a distance, does not immediately disclose itself to be a cathedral is because one sees no perpendicular lines. On one side the great tower so tapers as to seem to slant inward, while on the other side the flying buttresses present an even greater divergence from the perpendicular. All this increases the rock-like appearance and defers the realisation that it is architecture and not nature until one is so near as to perceive some of the details. In one respect Bourges is like the town of Amiens, in that nearly all its architectural beauty is centred in the cathedral and seems to have been content to bourgeon and blossom there. Bourges has, however, one advantage in possessing a wonderful "house that Jack built," the fifteenth century palace of Jacques Coeur, a rich merchant and banker whose wealth was the cause of his final overthrow and banishment on a trumped-up charge of debasing the coinage. Even the fact that he had lent money freely to Charles VII did not save him. Later on (page 151) we shall consider the cathedral's fifteenth century glass, and we shall then examine the splendid window given by Jacques Coeur, perhaps the finest that period can show. Chief among the charms of the cathedral's exterior are the splendid five-portalled west front, and the lace-like garment of flying buttresses that gracefully hangs about its sides and east end. The great apse is built upon the remains of the old Roman walls, which so elevates it above the neighbouring houses as to provide a clear view of the flying buttresses. Unfortunately, the west front does not fare so well. There is hardly a cathedral in Europe so shut in on the west by adjoining buildings. They huddle so closely about it that one has no opportunity to stand off and properly observe the elaborate carvings and other architectural features that unite to make the beauty of this famous façade. From the way in which each succeeding story decreases in size, it is easy to see why the big northern tower appeared to slant inward when viewed from a distance. Like one of the cathedral towers at Rouen, it is named the Tour du Beurre because it was built with money received from the sale of indulgences to eat butter during Lent. Most Americans have, during the day-dreams of their childhood, conjured up a mental picture of the vast interior of an ancient cathedral, and of the mysteriously impressive gloom that would some day there meet their eyes. It is doubtful if any other church more completely realises this fancy of our childhood. As one enters the great building he receives an impression never to be forgotten. A feeling of vastness lays hold upon one even more strongly than at Beauvais and Amiens, both of which are actually loftier. Here the seeming height is increased by the five rows of windows, one above the other. This addition to the usual allotment of three tiers (lower arches, triforium and clerestory) gives an unusual number of light apertures. While there are no transepts, their absence leaves unbroken the lines of the side walls and thus increases the apparent size of the interior. And what a wealth of thirteenth century glass! It gleams and glows and glistens on every side, near at hand and far off in the soft richness of the choir chapels. We find it everywhere except in the nave chapels, which were glazed in the fifteenth century. Perhaps if it were not for the increased light which these later panels admit, we might find the church too much darkened by its sombre earlier glass. It is clear, however, that care was taken even from the first to sufficiently illumine the nave, because it possesses a fine series of thirteenth century grisaille windows, enriched and enlivened by broad borders of colour. The noble chapels that encircle the choir show us the effect of mosaic medallions at their best. Above in the clerestory, "like watchmen on a leaguered wall," are stationed a glorious row of large figures which are not to be surpassed anywhere. The richness of their costumes, of the backgrounds, even of the borders, is most sumptuous. We have already noted the absence of the transepts. On our travels we shall notice that the north and south ends of transepts generally contain great rose windows. To compensate the glass artist for their absence here, the architect gave him an opportunity to glaze an elaborate series of forty-five small ones. They extend all around the interior, no two alike, and must be seen for one to appreciate how greatly they add to the interest and charm of the cathedral. It is contended by some that Bourges provides the finest field for the study of thirteenth century glass, but in this opinion we cannot agree, although gladly admitting everything else claimed for it by its staunchest adherents. Our reason for preferring Chartres is that it has more windows, and that they are practically all of the same period, so that the eye does not there find the distraction caused here by the fifteenth century glazing of the nave chapels. We prefer to rank the first four in the following order of excellence: Chartres, Bourges, Rheims, and Le Mans. It will be interesting to learn whether or not the reader agrees with us. At any rate he should see them, and now that we have enticed him so far away from Paris, he will find it as easy to return by the route that includes them as by any other. POITIERS Among the many beauties of France must certainly be accounted its "cities built upon a hill." There are a goodly number of them and their lofty position has tended to preserve them from change more than cities so placed that their expansion into suburbs was easier. Without doubt there is something fascinating, something irresistibly dominating about a town that looks down upon us. Fortunate it is for us lovers of the picturesque, whom, alas, the uses of modern convenience have made "dwellers in the plain," that during mediæval times the vital need of safety forced its citizens to seek the refuge of heights! No one can question the right of quaint old Poitiers to be as haughty as hill towns have always been--nay, haughtier. Think of the days when through the House of Plantagenet she gave rulers to England--when these same kings governed not only England but also the whole western half of France! We do not always remember what a long strip of territory was ruled by the Angevin dynasty, stretching all the way from the Pyrenees across the Channel and up to Scotland. One of the greatest encounters that marked the long and bitter struggle between the English and French was the Battle of Poitiers, when in 1356 the English under the Black Prince defeated and took prisoner John the Good of France and slew 11,000 Frenchmen. It was, indeed, a bloody baptism when our hill town stood sponsor to such a conflict of warring nations. There are few cities in France which more richly repay a visit than this rather out-of-the-way place, and fewer still which have so many varied inducements to offer. The architectural remains are not only interesting but differ materially in character and epoch. The situation of the city is most striking. It is perched on the top of a flat-iron shaped hill upon the point of which the picturesque Jardin de Blossac smiles down upon the winding river Clain. It is not in this book that you should look for a description of the wonderful triple interpenetrated chimney of the Palais de Justice, nor the fourth century church of St. Jean, nor the ivory-like carvings on the façade of Notre Dame de la Garde. Hie thee to a guide-book for these, and the like of them, and let us to our quest! In all glass of this period, nay, of any period or any century, we shall never find a more splendid window than the Crucifixion at the east end of the cathedral. In our introduction we said that glass should not be studied from written description, but that it must be seen. Of this window this observation is even more true than of any other. Its breadth and size indicate that it dates from early in the century. The harmony and the beauty of its colours are beyond words to describe. Indeed, so ingeniously are they combined to produce their effect, that the detail is apt to escape the observer. Even after spending some time before it he may be surprised to learn that the cross is ruby-red and that the hair of the Saviour is blue. If he had read this in a book it would have been impossible to convince him that the result could be one of such great beauty. Unfortunately for the many excellent medallion windows in this cathedral, there are also a great number of uncoloured ones. It does not take us long to decide that a medallion window should never be lighted from within, because that enables one to see the cumbersome machinery used to produce its effect. One should never become aware of the numerous small pieces of unevenly surfaced glass and the vast complexity of leads which in combination produce such glorious results, but only when the light comes from without. Not only do these white panes reveal these ugly details, but by their glare they effectually extinguish the warm glow which we are accustomed to expect from the richly-coloured mosaics of the medallions. Near the west end there is a good deal of fine strapwork grisaille evidently put there to light that end of the church in contrast to the dimmer light which must have prevailed at the east end when all the medallions were still in place. Even if there were not many fine thirteenth century panels in this cathedral, and even if the town itself were not full of many interesting sights, still we would have been amply repaid for our visit by the Crucifixion window, the chef d'oeuvre of its time. Near the cathedral is the church of St. Radegonde. This long narrow edifice has no transepts, nor, indeed, the usual division into choir and nave, and yet it boasts of a rose window, and a fine one, too, over its northern portal. The colour is really delightful and contains much of the brilliant blue for which Poitiers is famous. Its chief interest is that instead of having its figures broken up so as to monotonously radiate from the centre (which is generally true of rose windows) they are, so to speak, right side up, and all participate in forming the picture of the "Last Judgment." There is some thirteenth century glass on the southern side of this church, but not so well preserved or so good. The windows on the northern side between the north portal and the east end are of the next century and will be considered later (page 172). We may say, however, in passing, that they are unique in that they have bright figures distributed upon a grisaille background which is surrounded by a border of rich colour. TOURS Of all the great battles which have marked the world's history there are few, if any, which so distinctly stand out from the centuries as the Battle of Tours. It was this bloody victory which in 732 rolled back the world-conquering Saracens and determined that Europe should be Christian and not Moslem. On that epoch-making day, the bloody axe of Charles Martel graved deep his name on the annals of France. But Tours has many another claim to historic renown. Touraine, the province of which it is the capital, is strewed with magnificent châteaux, whose very elaboration and beauty testify to how greatly French royalty and nobility loved its temperate climate. On our way from Poitiers to Tours, we shall pass through several charming little valleys and find attractive, though quiet, scenery, during most of the journey. The immediate surroundings of Tours are not pleasing. It impresses one as a dull, grey city seated demurely beside the sands that so ungracefully border most of the lower part of the river Loire. There is little to recall the echoes of the great battle and less still to remind one of the delightful mediæval residences which are such an attractive feature throughout the rest of Touraine. Although the cathedral was under construction all the way from the twelfth century to the sixteenth, its various styles are so combined as to make it an interesting building. It does not, however, seem to merit the enthusiastic praise lavished upon it by Henry IV and many another of its admirers. The chief objection to the interior is that it appears oppressively narrow. The explanation of this cramped effect is that the architect did not avail himself of the usual device of slightly increasing its width as the walls rose. This was generally done elsewhere and served to correct the contracted appearance which perspective tends to give as one looks up from the floor. This architectural trick is an old one, for we know that the Greeks used it not only in shaping the sides of their columns, but also to preserve the appearance of straightness in the chief horizontal lines of their buildings. In the absence of this device the walls seem to crowd together above us, thus accentuating the unpleasant narrowness of the nave. The fine rosaces in the ends of the transepts contain fourteenth century glass, and the western rose with its gallery of eight lancets below, excellent Renaissance glazing. The chief glory of the interior, however, is the fine medallion panels all through the choir, not only in the chapels, but also, and most unusually, in the fifteen large lights of the clerestory. These clerestory medallions date from the latter part of the century, and their lateness is evidenced in a number of ways, among others, by the fact that the medallions are oval instead of round and also that they extend to the edge of the embrasure, leaving little or no room for the border. This can also be observed in the easternmost choir windows of Coutances Cathedral. We have noted before that the choir clerestory at this time was generally given over to large figures of kings, bishops, etc., in order to secure more light than medallions would admit. In the Tours clerestory the fifth window on the right and the fifth on the left (just above the great altar) show an attempt to correct the darkening effect of the medallions by alternating with them horizontal stripes of grisaille. Notice that in the easternmost embrasure the three medallions of the second tier, when considered together, form a picture of The Last Supper. This is a more elaborate exposition of the same idea exemplified by the Annunciation at the east end of the Clermont-Ferrand clerestory. A quaint touch is observable in the two medallions which show little figures of donors, each holding up in his two hands a model of his gift window. One of these is in the left-hand lower corner of the window just left of the eastern one, and the other in the right-hand corner of the sixth on the right. Some of the Tours choir chapels are glazed in white, which combined with the pierced triforium, serves to correct the lack of light caused by the unusual treatment of the clerestory. [Illustration: 13TH CENTURY MEDALLION LANCET, TOURS. _The shapes of the medallions vary widely. Difficult to distinguish the little pictures, although we are near the windows; the early glazier valued the colour effect of his window more than the legends. Later his picture becomes larger, and of great importance._] ANGERS A bad name dies hard and often lingers years after it is no longer deserved. A striking example of this is found in the now unjust appellation, "Black Angers." Black it may have been in the days when its streets were dirty and narrow, but black it is no longer. Black it may have seemed to the townspeople when their humble dwellings were frowned down upon by the seventeen gloomy towers of its haughty thirteenth century castle. Now the towers of the castle are razed, the walls that girdled the city are tumbled into the great moat to form broad boulevards, and altogether it is as agreeable a place as was ever vilified by an outgrown name. Its most important edifice, St. Maurice Cathedral, is not only a perfect treasure-house of glass, but is also the depository of a profusion of admirable tapestries. Those interested in the latter will find here (even more than at Rheims) what an added inducement they provide for the sightseer. All around the nave are suspended the series of the Apocalypse (as they are called), while on the walls of the transepts are yet others dating from the fourteenth to the eighteenth centuries. Nor are these all, for packed away in chests are many more, which upon the occasion of certain church festivals are brought out to hang in a row around the outside of the cathedral. In fact, it is only on these festival days that one learns that the interior wall space is insufficient to display half of the church's possessions. Having set out this additional reason for visiting St. Maurice Cathedral, let us now turn to its chief charm, the splendid twelfth and thirteenth century glazing. We shall find the nave windows filled with the largest and best preserved collection of twelfth century glass that exists. They are very wide and high, characteristic of that early period. In the choir there are fourteen excellent examples of the thirteenth century medallion type, and there are others in the transepts. We shall not now speak of the two great fifteenth century rose windows, nor of the very large canopy ones which adorn the transepts, nor of the few sixteenth century panels. It is proper to say here, however, that they are excellent examples of those later periods, thus rendering this cathedral one of the best in which to compare glass styles all the way from the twelfth century to the sixteenth. The chief glory of the edifice, however, consists of those which date from the early mosaic period. So few and so unsatisfactory are the remains elsewhere found of twelfth century glass, and so excellent are they here, that it is to this church that one should come to study it. It is a most fortunate coincidence for the student that the same interior also contains many of the best types of the thirteenth century, because this very contiguity enables him to conveniently contrast them with those of the twelfth. The finer distinctions between their traits are much more noticeable to him where the examples are side by side than they would be if he had to carry the picture in his mind from one place to another. He will at once notice that the earlier borders are much wider than the later ones; some of those in the nave occupy nearly one-fourth of the window space on each side, or in other words, if brought together, the borders would fill nearly half of the entire width of the embrasure. He will also observe that the figures in the earlier ones are made of larger pieces of glass and have the draperies more tightly drawn about them. It is very significant that the pieces of glass are larger in the earlier windows: note this carefully, because in many books we are told that the later artist of the thirteenth century had no choice but to content himself with the small morsels of glass, as he had no others. Thus they would have us believe that his wonderful jewelled glow was merely the lucky result of having nothing but small fragments at his disposal. Even so brief a study of twelfth century glass as to show that the pieces then used were uniformly larger than those of the thirteenth or jewel period, is enough to demonstrate that the later artist deliberately used the smaller bits even with the added trouble of more leading. He did so for the very purpose of obtaining the sparkle and sheen that was never achieved before nor since, and therefore he should receive due credit for his results. A close examination of both the choir and nave windows will yield us many quaint and interesting details. The first on the left contains a large Virgin placed upon a panel occupying all of the window that is not given over to a wide grisaille border. Six small medallions are arranged about this panel, half of each on the panel and half protruding over the border. One of these small medallions is placed at each corner and one in the middle of the two long sides, like the pockets on a pool table. The charming elaboration and colour work of the twelfth century borders throughout the nave cannot fail to be noticed. The set of thirteenth century windows placed about the choir have some gorgeous blues and brilliant rubies. The fifth, counting from the left side, proves to be a Tree of Jesse window, a sort of pictorially genealogical tree which we will frequently encounter on our travels. In this case the treatment is unusual, as the vine, winding up throughout the window from the loins of Jesse in the lowest medallion, not only distributes its historical personages over the central panes, but also up and down the borders as well. The very wide embrasures of this church give us an excellent opportunity of studying the colours of this period. While we are in Angers we must visit the church of St. Serge. As we are now seeking early glass the chief interest of this small interior consists of the five grisaille windows of the twelfth century which, with their graceful design of pale brownish strapwork picked out and accentuated by points of colour, leave little to be desired in their soft beauty. They are to be found in the choir, and are considered by most authorities to be the best type of twelfth century grisaille work that exists. During a later pilgrimage we shall come again to this church to inspect the attractive fifteenth century canopy windows which decorate the nave clerestory (see page 175). LE MANS The great personages in the windows of St. Julien Cathedral looked down upon a portentous spectacle on that day in the year 1133, when Henry I of England stood holding in his arms his little grandson, Henry Plantagenet, to be baptised by the Bishop of Le Mans. The vast throng that gathered for this ceremony, both within and without the newly completed cathedral, little thought that the helpless babe would one day become not only Henry II, King of England, but also the ruler of the mighty Angevin empire, which included all of England and the western half of France. They could not have foreseen that this little one would cause the House of Plantagenet to take its place in history as one of the greatest of royal houses. Strange sights have these splendid old windows gazed down upon, but never have they tempered the glare of the sun for the christening of a babe who so widely outgrew the place of his birth. In one way or another this cathedral has been connected with many a royal family. In its archives we read that when in November, 1217, it was decided to extend the choir over the Gallo-Roman wall, not only was the consent of King Philip Augustus necessary, but also that of Queen Berengaria, the widow of Richard Coeur de Lion. This double approval was needed, since Philip Augustus, although overlord, had given Le Mans to Queen Berengaria in settlement of her claims upon certain Norman towns which he had captured. Perched upon a hill rising from the river Sarthe the cathedral soars into the air from its lofty site as boldly as befits the chief sanctuary of an embattled city boasting of more than twenty sieges. Impressive as it is from the river, it is still more so from the little plain which lies just below it inside the town. There is hardly a cathedral whose east end is so beautifully revealed as is St. Julien's from this viewpoint. We cannot help but be deeply impressed as it swings out clear against the sky, girdled by its thirteen chapels, hung about by its innumerable flying buttresses and to us rendered specially alluring by the great area of window space filled with the many lead lines and heavy iron saddle-bars which we have learnt to know mean glazing of the thirteenth century. The view of the east end of an elaborate Gothic church is always fascinating, but in this instance its height above us, the great number of chapels and the unobstructed view make it unique. The nave was constructed too early to be greatly elaborated, but if compensation is needed, it is fully provided by the thoroughly mediæval feeling which awaits one on entering the little square just before its west entrance. The opposite side of the square is occupied by Le Grabatoire, an ancient dwelling built in the first half of the sixteenth century and in an admirable state of preservation. The traveller in France generally finds that buildings which surround an old cathedral are so much more recent in construction that they provide a jarring contrast. Here at Le Mans, on the contrary, its immediate surroundings thoroughly imbue us with the spirit of the middle ages and we are in a proper frame of mind to enter the portal and appreciate the Old World beauty inside. The interior amply fulfills the promises of the exterior. The luminous glory of the broad surfaces of the glass that seem suspended about the lofty choir is something long to be remembered. This is not the place to speak of the transepts because they were glazed in the fifteenth century; they are very fine, especially the one to the north. Oddly enough, the south end of the south transept has no window at all; its large wall space serves as a back for the organ (see page 178). Let us begin our investigations with the nave. Its triforium is a graceful gallery, but is not pierced, while the clerestory above it contains only modern glass, and therefore they will not long detain us. In the west front is one broad window of the round arched Norman type, obviously of the period which we are now considering. Within a wide border are square panels representing scenes from the life of St. Julien, after whom the edifice is named. Although this window is very broad, even for its early type, it is nevertheless not large enough to appear alone in the great west wall, and as a result, it narrows the appearance of the nave. When we move up into the choir and look back, this effect becomes all the more noticeable, while the nave is even further dwarfed by the fact that the architect, taking advantage of the greater height of the transepts, placed a clerestory window just above the point where the ridge pole of the nave joins the crossing. Thus the lone west window and the clerestory opening just above the nave roof combine to lower and contract that oldest part of the church. But to return to the nave windows; all the lower range are small and all modern except eight, the three western ones on each side and those over the two smaller west entrances. Of these eight all but two are medallions. One of them (the third from the west on the north side) is of interest because it has a border consisting of four little panels on each side enclosing figures. This sort of border is extremely rare, except in Tree of Jesse windows, where the personages are sometimes used in this way to help make up the border. An instance of this may be seen in the central panel of the second triforium window on the south side of the choir and it may also be noticed in the fifth window on the left in the east end of Angers Cathedral. We have just said that all but two of these lower nave lights are filled with medallions--of these two (the second and third on the south side), one might write a book. The writer prefers the second window to any other in France. It was made some time between 1093 and 1120 and represents the "Ascension." As this book is not written to describe glass, but only to persuade the reader to view it, we will content ourselves by saying "go and see." The blue and the ruby backgrounds have a limpidity of colour that cannot be rivaled. Of the third window it is fair to say that some of the panes were brought from other embrasures of this church. The upper panel, enclosing a bust of Christ, with the drapery of blue and a blue halo upon a background of ruby sprinkled with blue stars, is most delightful. These two are indeed treasures and are all that were left by the ravages of the great fire which in 1120 destroyed the earlier church. Passing from the nave to the choir we are at once struck by the grandiose effect there caused by the loftier sweep of its lines. The choir chapels have lost nearly all their original glazing, but fortunately that little gem, the Lady Chapel, still has all its eleven windows filled with medallions. These encircling chapels not only give great width to the choir, but still further width is added by the fact that the ambulatory is double. The first triforium that goes around above us is not pierced, but just above it we find the spacious embrasures of the second triforium. These latter are the largest of their kind the writer has ever seen; in fact, they are large enough to be placed in the clerestory of most cathedrals. Not satisfied with these, the architect has still further increased the lighting of the choir and given greater scope for the glazier by placing above this second triforium the lofty windows of the true clerestory, those toward the west of six lancets each, and those toward the east of two. All the panels of this great curtain of light are glazed in the mosaic style, but the pieces of glass used are noticeably larger than we have been accustomed to find in the medallion treatment. As a result, the amount of leading is reduced and a great deal more colour meets our eye, colour whose individual tones we can recognise, and not the sort, which, conflicting with other colour, produces a confused purple. At St. Julien Cathedral we get a richer tone from the medallions than we find anywhere else, but this gain in richness is partially offset by losing some of the sparkling gleam which would have resulted from smaller bits of glass set in more leads. Perhaps some of our readers will agree with Viollet-le-Duc and other great architects and writers, in regarding this choir a finer monument of the thirteenth century than that of Bourges or Chartres. If the nave of Le Mans Cathedral were as splendidly glazed as the other parts of that edifice, we might have to reconsider our opinion that Chartres affords the best chance for the student of that early period to pursue his researches. CHARTRES Across the rolling grain-covered plain of La Beauce winds a long depression worn by the river Eure. Along the side of this depression we find Chartres, sloping gently up from the little river that bathes its feet and proudly lifting into the air the grey and green bulk of its cathedral, culminating in the two finest spires in France. Its light stone and the softly-shaded tiles of the roof combine to give us a delicious impression of delicate greenish grey. This softness of tone outside gives no hint of the minster gloom within, athwart which shimmer the rich dark rays slanting through the jewelled windows. Nowhere can there be found such a contrast between the exterior and interior of a cathedral. This marked difference serves but to distinguish and accentuate the special charms of each, and together they make our memory of the cathedral a most precious possession of our mental picture gallery. As the pilgrim enters Chartres Cathedral, there is an impressive moment at hand for him, for he is penetrating the Holy of Holies of stained glass. Not only is it the most delightful expression of the thirteenth century, but also of any century, and we speak not only of France, but of all Europe. One is almost staggered by the wealth and profusion of windows--174--and nearly all of the thirteenth century. In the west front the use of slightly larger pieces and the wonderful limpidity confirms the fact that the lovely rose showing the Last Judgment, as well as its three attendant lancets below, are of the twelfth century; the rest of the interior was glazed in the next century. Notwithstanding all that has been written of this wonderful glass, more still remains hidden away in its pregnant mystery, that mystery that lays hold upon all who view it, be he poet, or unromantic follower of one of the homely trades whose guilds have added so generously to the tale of windows. Nor have revelations of this mystery been made alike to all. What one man has spelt out from it may remain incomprehensible to another. The obvious fact to one mind seems to another but a quaint conceit. Lasteyrie, when he told his story in 1841, felt that there was a marvellous symbolism about the change in the strength of the light, brighter as it approached the cross formed by the transepts and then growing darker as one withdrew further from that Christian emblem of spiritual illumination. To him this thought was full of great charm and some of us may agree in his poetic conception. Others may feel that the brilliancy of the remote west windows seems to refute rather than support his theory. It is certain, however, that the revelation of harmony comes to us all alike. It is related that a certain lad thought himself listening to music from the glass itself when the organ commenced playing during the time he was gazing raptly up at one of the great rose windows. This harmony of colours, this melodious flowing of tone into tone, is a glimpse vouchsafed to us all into the solemn mystery that dwells within this enchanted bower of light. James Russell Lowell says: "I gaze round on the windows, pride of France! Each the bright gift of some mechanic guild, Who loved their city and thought gold well spent To make her beautiful with piety." If Rheims is to be known as the cathedral of kings, or Amiens characterised as the Bible in stone, then Chartres must be styled the chief sanctuary of the mediæval guilds. We have spoken of the splendid array of royalties around the clerestory of Rheims, and how they and the many coronations of which they are reminiscent fully justify the proud title of "Royal Rheims." Against this wealth of royal reminiscence Chartres can show but one coronation, that of Henry IV. So far was he from being disgruntled by the long siege necessitated by the stubborn defence of its burghers, that he elected to be crowned in their cathedral, partly, we feel sure, to show the approval of a warrior king for their fighting qualities. No, it is not a long array of kings that are set about to guard its windows and bear witness to their power and beneficence. At Chartres, more than anywhere in France, the Middle Ages seem to have bequeathed to us the great heartbeat of their middle classes. Here we see about us the sturdy workers of the city, the guilds of its industrious burghers. True, the great rose windows of the transepts show us the royalty and chivalry of the kingdom, but somehow they seem decorative and not dominating as they do at Rheims. Nor are our friends of the guilds here present by any man's let or by virtue of kingly condescension. At Laon there are statues of oxen in the cathedral towers, put there in kindly remembrance of their services in dragging up the great stones from the plain far below; but at Chartres it is no kindly remembrance that has disposed about the nave and elsewhere the glass histories of guild upon guild. They are in the place because they are of the place, nor is there any attempt to disguise the homely occupations of the donors. In other towns we occasionally find a panel bearing a statement that it was presented by some company of craftsmen, but the subject is almost always a scriptural one and throws no light upon the work-a-day existence of the members. Here it is very different, for so proud were the honest workmen of the crafts which they plied, that they took infinite pains to have their windows set out scenes descriptive of the work and life of the association which gave it. The history of the Chartres guilds is well worth delving into, and one finds a luminous index provided by the long series of panels around the lower part of the nave. The glass speaks eloquently of how well organised and how rich were the middle classes of Chartres, and nowhere else can anything like so complete or interesting a set be seen. Goldsmiths, cobblers, vintners, tanners, moneychangers--so the list goes on until it swells into a total of nearly forty, and of each there is provided some little group depicting the service performed for the community by that particular trade. Several of the guilds gave more than one window, nor are they confined to the nave aisles, some having strayed so far as the choir clerestory. But for all that the windows here speak more eloquently than elsewhere of the sturdy craftsmen--the bourgeoisie that formed the backbone of old France--we must not forget that they also bear witness to the gallantry and generosity of the knightly and titled classes. To glass lovers this cathedral has a peculiar interest in the fact that St. Louis was baptised within its walls. May we not be permitted the delusion that to the undeveloped faculties of the royal babe the wonderful harmony of these windows came as a lullaby, and that the echo of this lullaby finally grew into the great love for stained glass which he later developed? Of this love we have found many traces, all leading up to its ultimate expression in the Ste. Chapelle of Paris. And where more appropriately could a French king, who loved glass, have been christened? Where else would he have had about him on his beloved windows such an array of his subjects, representing not only the highest, but also those of humbler rank, a bodyguard of four thousand figures of nobles, gentry, burghers and craftsmen? Nor are these figures content but to decorate, for some of them by their grouping serve to narrate for us nearly forty legends. A splendid proof of how much he loved this cathedral, so often revisited by him, is afforded by his splendid gift, the Rose of France, as they call the great window in the north transept. Here are the familiar combination of the French fleur de lis and the castles of Castile showing that Louis and his mother, Blanche of Castile, joined in this royal gift. In splendid reds, lemon-yellows and browns it tells the story of the glorification of the Virgin, thus repeating what we see in the carvings of the northern porch. The gorgeous five tall pointed windows below aid it to produce a glorious ensemble. Nor is it only in this quarter that we see traces of the nobler classes, for was not the south transept end decorated in similar wise with scenes showing the glorification of Christ, the gift of Dreux and Bretagne? Again we find the windows inside repeating what is shown by the carvings in the porch outside. The five tall pointed lancets under this rose are especially noteworthy, for the two which, on either side, flank the middle one containing Christ are each filled with an Evangelist carried on the shoulders of a Prophet, a very physical way of depicting the power of prophecy. [Illustration: CROSSING AND SOUTH TRANSEPT, CHARTRES. (13TH CENTURY.) _No photograph can even hint at the wealth of deep, warm colour that fills these windows. The early date of those in the right foreground indicated by their broad borders. Below the Rose, four of the lancets show Evangelists borne on the shoulders of Prophets._] This is not the place to tell of the wonderful carvings that abound within and without this great temple, and are especially delightful around the stone screen that separates the choir from the ambulatory; nor shall we take upon us to speak in detail of the subterranean chapel to the Virgin who bore a Child, the pagan legends concerning whom "the memory of man runneth not to the contrary." For us they are but accessories to the wonderful whole which provides so magnificent a casket for the preservation and exposition of the most splendid heritage of windows that has come down to us. Although completely outclassed by the cathedral's greater glory, the glazing of the church of St. Pierre is not only pleasing to the eye, but also provides a very complete and well-preserved demonstration of how the transition was effected from the light-obstructing mosaic medallions to the overlighted interiors of the fourteenth century (see page 188). AUXERRE Our memories of architecture are generally those of form and not of colour. To this rule there are, however, a few exceptions, and of these the cathedral of St. Etienne at Auxerre is one of the most noteworthy. One remembers it chiefly for its rich brown colour, partly due to the tint of the stone and partly to the terra-cotta tiles which cover its roof. The deeper hue of the tiles calls out all the warmth in the shading of the stone and they together make a mellow brown picture, especially attractive if seen for the first time in the tones which it takes on towards twilight, when the low rays of the sun perform for it the same service that they do for the interior of the Corpus Christi quadrangle at Oxford. Another cathedral whose colour lingers in our memory is Chartres, where the dull green tiles of the roof tone into the greyish stone of the building, accentuating and enriching it, and leaving with us a distinct impression of a soft-hued grey church. A very picturesque city is Auxerre, sloping up from the river, with its three chief churches rising watchfully above the monotonous level of the house-tops like huge rocks anchoring the city more firmly to its foundations. Not so bulkily impressive but equally noticeable is the quaint old bell tower, which, from its great height, rings out every now and again reminders of the flight of time. The proportions of the cathedral interior are very harmoniously adjusted. The noticeable features are that the ambulatory is lower than the nave, and that the Lady Chapel at the east end is square instead of being rounded. In view of the geographical location of Auxerre one would expect to find glass of the more florid Burgundian type; but instead it is clearly of the Champagne school. There is a quantity of good sixteenth century glazing and we would especially call the visitor's attention to the fine blues, which he should not fail to notice. The windows we have come to see, however, are to be found in the chapels and the upper lights of the choir. Henri Villeneuve in 1220 caused to be placed in the choir clerestory the great row of fifteen, each consisting of two bays surmounted by a small rose. This arrangement is very graceful and gives an agreeable grouping. The colouring and drawing of the large figures with which they are filled testify to the good taste of their donor. Nor are the windows in the clerestory any more worthy of notice than the twenty-nine which we shall find below surrounding the choir and filling the choir chapels--almost all complete and containing fine types of the medallion style. The three nearest the transepts on each side and one or two others are glazed in white, the result of well-meaning sacrilege on the part of the monks seeking to secure more light. Fortunately their hands were stayed, so that enough of the old panels are left to give us the jewelled gleam which we are seeking. There is an unique arrangement in some of the embrasures of Auxerre which we must not fail to note. It provides an early example of the use of grisaille to increase the illumination of the interior. In several instances the coloured figure or panel has two borders, the one next it being of grisaille and the outside one of rich colour. Possibly the contrast will strike us as being too marked. We shall find that in the next century this combination is carried to such an extreme as to become positively disagreeable, but here at Auxerre it is so skillfully employed that it is not at all unpleasant. In any event, it is far better than white panes used for the same purpose. SENS In these days of telephones, telegrams, express trains, automobiles, newspapers and printed books, it is difficult for us to realize that in mediæval times thought traveled but slowly, and that two cities a few leagues apart were much more widely separated than they would now be if divided by the ocean. To-day a piece of news, an invention, some new artistic method, is flashed around the world and at once meets the eye of millions of readers. All this excites no comment. When, however, we notice that in some mediæval period a novelty in one country very shortly thereafter appeared and was used in a neighbouring one, we are forced to conclude that there must have been some very unusual occurrence to have so far set at naught the difficulty of news transmission to which we have just referred. The history of the middle ages does not contain a stranger example of such a rapid spread of something novel than that presented by the story of how and of why William of Sens (who, in building the Cathedral of Sens, constructed the first thoroughly Gothic church) came to have the honour of introducing Gothic architecture into England by a call to rebuild Canterbury Cathedral. It so happened that just as he was completing his great work and disclosing to the world the new beauty of Gothic architecture, Pope Alexander III, exiled from Rome, took up his residence at Sens (September 30, 1163, till April 11, 1165). It is recorded that on the 19th of April, 1164, surrounded by a gorgeous array of cardinals and bishops gathered there in attendance upon the papal residence, he consecrated the altar of the Holy Virgin in the cathedral then rapidly approaching completion. Where the Pope was, there also was the centre of the Christian world, and thither of course repaired the clergy from all parts of Europe. These distinguished pilgrims were witnesses of William's first bold attempt at the pointed arch, the chief characteristic of his great cathedral. To see was to admire. Its beauty was so striking that they could not fail to remember and recount it when they returned to their home towns, thus stimulating other architects to copy this new architecture. Never before nor since had a builder so well timed a gathering of admiring ecclesiastics. Among those who came, and saw, and remembered, was Thomas à Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, himself an exile from his see. He dwelt four years at Sens (1166-70) and what he saw there impelled him to invite William of Sens in preference to all the English architects to rebuild the Cathedral of Canterbury. It would seem strange even now, and a thing worthy of comment, if a French architect were chosen to construct an important English church, but how much more extraordinary was it that Thomas à Becket should have taken this step in 1174, after the disastrous fire which destroyed the earlier church on the site of the present Cathedral of Canterbury. William succeeded in completing the choir as it stands to-day, but it cost him his life, for as he was superintending the finishing touches of his great work, he fell from a high scaffold and received injuries from which he died. Through this introduction of the young French Gothic into England he exercised a noteworthy influence upon the beginnings of ecclesiastical Gothic in that country. We have told this story here because we know the architect and the glazier worked hand in hand. This association grows more interdependent as the Gothic blossoms into decoration and as more wall space is devoted to windows. It is fair to assume that the stained glass style then prevailing in France must have accompanied its sister, Gothic architecture, upon the latter's invasion of England, and an examination of the early medallions at Canterbury tends to confirm this theory. Since à Becket was having the new Gothic of Sens copied, why not also its admirable glazing? In any event we know that French glass was well known and much admired by the English, and later we shall recount several instances of its being brought to glaze English churches, and even requirements made in English contracts that French and not domestic glass should be provided. While it is true that the early glass of Sens Cathedral is not so abundant as that of the sixteenth century, we have come here at this time because nothing finer is known than the few medallion windows which remain to us along the north wall of the choir. They date from the end of the twelfth century and are large, strong in tone, and in excellent preservation. The clerestory lights of the choir are filled with attractive examples of grisaille enlivened by large geometric figures in points of red, blue, etc. These designs are constructed with slender lines and without too much colour, so that plenty of soft silvery light is admitted to illuminate the choir below. So well lighted is it from the clerestory above that we are forced to conclude that all the chapel embrasures below must at one time have been filled with the gloom-producing medallions. It is unfortunate that the original set of medallions below is not complete, because if it were, we would now be able to see, thanks to the charming grisaille in the clerestory, a perfect combination of the well-lighted choir surrounded by the sombre gleam of its protecting chapels. Such a combination is rare. At Tours, at Troyes, even at Bourges, we find ourselves wishing that we had a little more light from above to set off by contrast the dark splendour of the jewelled caverns below. The clerestory at Sens shows us just the luminous effect which we have sought elsewhere, but, alas! our coloured dusk below, which should go hand in hand with it, has been almost entirely dissipated. As a result we are left with an impression of too bright an interior. The minster gloom with all its dignity is gone! We shall return later to Sens to see its splendid glass of the sixteenth century (see page 218). TROYES Of all the French schools of glass which at one time or another gained renown, none ever surpassed that of Champagne. Not only do we know this from the pages of history, but it is easily proved by the innumerable examples found in the many churches of Troyes, the ancient capital of that province. The fame of the glass artists of Champagne not only began early but lasted long. In fact, in its capital, the perfected methods of the sixteenth century became so firmly established that their style and vigour lasted far over into the seventeenth century, which was not generally true elsewhere. Troyes has always enjoyed prominence and that, too, along different lines; "Troy weight" testifies to the wide fame of its jewellers. In our travels we shall observe that most towns have but one or two churches whose windows repay a visit. Troyes and Rouen are the marked exceptions to this rule, for in each we shall find many well worth examining and a great wealth of glass. Then, too, both these cities provide facilities for studying the art from the earliest to the latest period of its golden age. We will postpone consideration of Rouen until we take up the sixteenth century because its thirteenth century glass is unimportant. This is not true of Troyes, for if by some sudden calamity all its splendid Renaissance windows were destroyed, we would still most heartily recommend that our pilgrim visit the city to see the early glass in the cathedral and in the fairy-like church of St. Urbain. These two buildings alone provide the best of reasons for including Troyes in this tour. The story of the foundation of that architectural eggshell, St. Urbain, is very interesting. In 1261 there became Pope a certain Jacques Pantaléon, a native of Troyes. After his elevation to the pontificate he remembered his humble beginnings, and so far from being ashamed that his father had been a small shopkeeper, he bought the ground whereon his father's shop had stood, as well as some of the neighbouring buildings, and erected, about 1263, one of the most delightful and airy examples of fragile grace in all Gothic architecture. The walls seem literally to be constructed of glass, so slender are the stone uprights between the windows, and so wholly is this little church uplifted and upheld by the innumerable flying buttresses that stretch away from its roof and delicate sides like the supporting guy ropes of a tent. At the Ste. Chapelle in Paris we noticed that although medallion panels give a splendid dark warmth, they do not admit light enough for a small structure. Perhaps in St. Urbain we shall feel there is too much light. The medallions of the period are there, but only in small numbers and imbedded in large fields of silvery grisaille. The lower half of the clerestory windows is in grisaille and it is only in the upper half that we find coloured figures. While it is true that we lose the silvery hue that simple grisaille generally yields, still, in exchange, we receive a low-toned glow that is delightful. The proportion of glass surface to wall space is here so great that if the grisaille had not been warmed by touches of colour, there would really have been a glare, though the embrasures contain no white glass. The more we study the subject the clearer it becomes that the glazier thoroughly understood and appreciated the possibilities of the medium in which he worked. As we pass from St. Urbain to the larger and more impressive Cathedral of St. Pierre, we shall notice that although the artist felt the necessity for the lighter treatment in the dainty chapel-like church, he found it more appropriate in the larger edifice to so glaze his windows as to fill the place with the more solemn and dignified light suited to its greater size. The choir of the cathedral provides an unusually complete and satisfying example of this period, not only in its girdle of chapels, but also above in the gorgeous row of thirteen clerestory windows from which ferocious-looking figures stare down upon us from glittering eyes leaded into Byzantine faces. Splendid as they are, we feel that a little more light should have been admitted, and this thought must also have struck the glazier, because he resorted to a trick in the choir chapels to better illumine the eastern part of the structure. If you will step into one of these chapels you will find that in most of them he has substituted grisaille for the medallions in the lancet on either hand nearest the choir. When you stood in the choir ambulatory, this device escaped you because the arch which provides the entrance to the chapel conceals these two nearest lancets. The result of the trick is that two side-lights, properly softened by the grisaille, are thrown into the chapel. If white panes had been used, they would have illuminated the inner side of the medallion panels, thus revealing their ugly machinery of leads, and, worse still, effectually destroying their power to transmit a combination of colour and glow. Ample illumination has been furnished this cathedral by its pierced triforium and the great expanse of its clerestory, but, thanks to the remarkably warm tone of the glass, we do not find it anywhere overlighted. Even the later glass which adorns the nave and transepts and which we will discuss farther on, is so unusually strong in colour that we avoid that sharpness of contrast between thirteenth and fifteenth century work to be seen at Bourges. Decidedly, St. Pierre is one of the most beautiful interiors in France for the glass lover, and he should not fail to see what the best examples of the Champagne school has done for this church, the charm of which lays hold upon him directly he enters it (see page 222). CHALONS-SUR-MARNE Certain travellers and most tourists think they can, from studying maps and reading books, obtain a very fair impression of a town before they visit it, and that the chief result of their visit will be to fill in sundry local details. If people of that ilk desire to remain high in their own estimation, they had best omit Chalons from their travels. Let us assume that one of these aforesaid folk plans a visit to Chalons. He will probably begin by studying the map, which shows a city seemingly drawn out along both sides of a long, straight street. His practised mind will conclude this the proper method to enter the town and that he can easily find his way about. Step number two will be the consultation of histories. Here he will fall upon the account of the great Battle of Chalons, in which Attila, the "Scourge of God," met in 451 his final check, the combined army of Romans, Franks and Visigoths there putting a bloody end to his dream of an anti-Christian empire erected upon the crumbling remains of "the power that once was Rome's." Anyone who has noticed how surprisingly few decisive victories have been followed by widespread or lasting results must have remarked that the Battle of Chalons stands out prominently as an exception to this rule. So much for what the maps and the histories have disclosed to our experienced tourist. He is doomed to a bitter disappointment. To-day in this quiet little city of yellowish-grey houses he will find nothing reminiscent of that old-time victory. Not only will his dip into history thus prove to have been in vain, but what is more, the street plan has given him a very wrong idea of a really very pretty place. The writer himself well remembers how the map misled him. He remarked thereon the long straight street; therefore, on emerging from the railway station, he proceeded up this tiresome thoroughfare, which he found equipped with the usual provincial tram-line, both trying to tie the older part of the town to the distant railway station that bears its name. As a disappointment this first impression of Chalons was a pronounced success! Don't fall into the same error. This was the wrong way to enter the town, but there is also a right way, especially for one who believes in first impressions. If you want to be in a mood to enjoy the glass, branch off to the right when you reach the canal (which is not far from the station), and you will come into a park called the Jard, one of the prettiest combinations of green trees and water to be found in any provincial French city. On a later visit the writer stumbled upon this park, with the result that instead of a mental picture of an ugly town built on both sides of an ugly street, he carried away pleasantly revised memories not only of the charming Jard, but also of several little water-courses meandering through the town, affording lovely vistas every now and again in most unexpected ways. It seems certain that these streams feel equally bitterly about the ugly street, because as soon as they come near it, they promptly hide their heads and pass under it, carefully keeping out of sight in small tunnels. Wait until you see the street, and you won't blame the streams. Now that you have by means of the woody refreshment of the green Jard purified your perceptions from the taint of railway dirt, let us enter the cathedral. We shall find the glass more interesting and instructive than impressive, but to this general observation we must make an exception on behalf of the thirteenth century windows in the clerestory behind and above the altar; they undeniably leave little to be desired. The blue of their backgrounds combines excellently with the tones of the figures. In one of the panels which shows the Crucifixion, we can readily discern that the bars supporting it at the back (called saddle bars) have been moved to one side so as not to interfere with the two figures on either side of the cross. This displacement of the saddle bars to leave undisturbed the drawing of an important personage was quite usual at that time. Later on the glazier seemed to have no objection to the intrusion of the iron bars, just as he grew to disregard the running of his leads across faces, arms, etc. This church also boasts of a fine rose window in the north transept, which is rendered even more effective by the gallery of lancets beneath it. The especial interest of the cathedral to a student of glass is undoubtedly its grisaille windows, some plain and some banded across by highly-coloured panels of the medallion type. This latter arrangement we find along the north wall of the nave, while those containing grisaille alone are in the triforium and clerestory. In the case of the banded ones we shall notice that it is only the middle third of each which has the highly-coloured panels, all the rest being grisaille, doubtless for the purpose of giving plenty of light to the nave. Although a most interesting arrangement, the effect is not that of great beauty. Some of the narrow triforium panels have a border of plain grisaille surrounding the central panel of colour work in which there are no figures; this is quite unusual. A study of the use of colour with grisaille in that century is not complete without a visit to Chalons, but this having been said we must admit that notwithstanding the splendid panels in the choir clerestory and the fine rose window in the north transept, there are several more inspiring places for one wishing to learn how greatly thirteenth century glass can beautify a religious interior. Some of the finest and most valuable twelfth and thirteenth century panels have been removed from the cathedral, and are now the property of the Musée des Arts Decoratifs, in Paris. Unfortunately they are not always on exhibition. On the south side of the nave is a fine series of Renaissance windows, but these, together with the grey and gold figure panels of St. Alpin, and the excellent coloured ones of the fine church of Notre Dame, will be discussed in our sixteenth century pilgrimages (see page 233). RHEIMS Royal Rheims! In this title, "apt alliteration's artful aid" not only appeals to our ear, but is also fully justified by history. In its splendid cathedral were crowned almost all the kings of France, the sacred oil used in the ceremony having been, saith the old legend, brought from heaven by a dove for the baptism in 496 of Clovis, King of the Franks, and thereafter preserved in a sacred vessel locked away in the tomb of St. Remi. Because of this having been for so many years, nay centuries, the place of royal consecration, what more appropriate decoration could have been devised for the great clerestory embrasures than the series of the first thirty-six kings of France, each window containing in its lower half the archbishop that consecrated the king above him! All these seventy-two figures are seated, because convention demanded this if the personage represented was dead. Down upon us from their lofty station about the nave clerestory gleam these long rows of the royalties and ecclesiastical dignitaries of France, a marvellous exemplification of what colour in glass can accomplish. An echoing gleam comes to us from the clerestory of the choir; but there the figures are those of great bishops, not only of Rheims, but also of other cities in its diocese, like Laon, Soissons, etc. At first thought it may seem bad English to speak of a gleam of light as an echo of another gleam, but before you criticise the expression, stand patiently for awhile in this great house of God, looking up at these splendid windows; perhaps there will at last come over you a feeling that in all this noble harmony of colour, this blending of soft tones, there is--there must be--some dim harmony of music. One never receives this peculiar impression except from glass of the thirteenth century; later glass lacks the depth and vibration of tone, even though it gains added brilliancy. Especially splendid is the effect of the kings dominating the nave below. Those near the transepts have a deep blue background, whilst a few close to the west end have behind and around them a soft, rich red. There is no other place where such sombre depth of hue can be seen in a clerestory glazed during the thirteenth century. At Bourges they are magnificent, but their beauty is of a different and brighter sort. Here at Rheims, although raised high in the air, they yield the same dusky glow that elsewhere we usually find in the medallion panels of the choir chapels below. So wonderful are the windows above you that there is a fair chance that you would have left the cathedral without noticing that below there are no medallion windows at all; in fact, that practically none of its lower panes are glazed in colour. This is owing to the almost incredible folly of the monks of Rheims who, in the years 1739-68, removed the coloured glass from the lower embrasures to admit more light. During the two years following October, 1755, they committed the same act of vandalism in the church of St. Remi. The cathedral has three fine rose windows, of which the western one with its bright-hued gallery of kings below it is far the best. The north rose window is good, although we miss the qualities which the north rose of Notre Dame at Paris has taught us to expect. The south rose contains glass of the sixteenth century and therefore seems pale and out of place amidst the older glories. The west rosace should be seen toward sunset so as to get the rays of the sun passing directly through it. Earlier in the day it is almost gloomy in tone. There has been much discussion as to the interpretation of the figures in the gallery of kings below, but now it seems settled that it represents the coronation of the converted pagan Clovis, King of the Franks. The windows of the transepts are glazed with grisaille of a very greenish tone and somewhat darker than that generally found at this time. Among them we observe one of the series of bishops which has apparently crept away from its fellows in the choir and come around the corner into the south transept. Although the bishop series lacks, to some extent, the crude, almost savage glory of the nave's stern array of kings, they are more carefully made. As in the king windows, here also we find an upper and a lower row of personages, but in addition, a feature very much out of the ordinary and which should be remarked. Instead of placing two bishops below to balance the two above, there is but one bishop below in each window, while the space adjoining him is occupied by a fanciful representation of his cathedral. There is no attempt to accurately portray the building, although the glass artist might as well have done so, for he has gone to the pains of making no two of these little cathedral pictures alike. So minutely has he gone into detail that each has a tiny rose window and each rose is markedly different from the others. The idea is a quaint one and shows the artist to have been fertile in ideas. So dark are the faces of the bishops as to make them look in one or two cases as though they were wearing masks. This effect is heightened by the fact that the eyes are glazed in lighter hues. In the midst of all this gorgeous and sparkling colour, what a splendid picture may we not conjure up of the scene on the 17th day of July, 1429, when Charles VII, led in by Joan of Arc, had here the kingly crown placed upon his brow. With what vast satisfaction must the grand old kings have gleamed and glowed in sombre delight that their glorious cathedral was once more French, once more fulfilling its centuries-old duty of consecrating a French king, and especially that all this had been effected by a staunch French maid, than whom patriotism has never had a more worthy exemplar. It was but common justice that during the act of coronation of the king to whom she had restored not only a throne, but also a united people, she stood at the foot of the altar holding aloft her victorious standard. A chronicler of the time truly said that having shared in all the hardships she richly deserved to share in the honours. Not only in the cathedral do we glass hunters find justification for the title "Royal Rheims." Once more we shall see a row of French kings, this time in the small nave clerestory lights of the old church of St. Remi. In manner similar to that employed at the cathedral we also find bishops adorning the choir clerestory. Fine as these two series are, and valuable, too (because they are earlier), we must confess that they do not produce the effect which the wonderful depth of colour gave us at the cathedral. The choir clerestory embrasures are really too small to afford room for the two rows of bishops one above the other. The choir chapel windows are partly modern, and partly old with too much restoration, so that the effect is not coherent. We must, however, remark a fine Crucifixion in the middle of the east end. It is undoubtedly twelfth century and, although technically well worthy of observation, lacks the beauty which we have a right to expect from that period. The glass in the large, round Romanesque embrasures at the west end, although copied on old models, is modern and very thin in colour. A careful look at the nave clerestory will reveal that in order to complete the set of seated kings a novel method was adopted. Many of the original panels were divided in two at the middle, the upper half being used in one embrasure and the lower half in another, the missing half in each case being supplied by modern glass made to imitate the old. This reads as though the effect would be bad, but on the contrary, it is fairly good and, at all events, the designs are in accordance with the original drawings. Besides its glass, Rheims has another great attraction for the traveller in its wealth of tapestry. A magnificent series of ten presented in 1530 by Robert de Lenoncourt hangs in the transepts of St. Remi, whilst in the cathedral we shall find around the nave walls another series of fourteen given in the same year by the same donor. The cathedral is also adorned with other tapestries which, although perhaps not of such engrossing interest as the Lenoncourt series, are nevertheless treasures. As glass viewers it is well to observe that the rich decoration provided by these splendid hangings prevents us from noticing the otherwise obnoxious glare from the uncoloured windows just over them. We mention this here because as between two interesting glass towns some of our readers might incline to one where tapestries can be seen in addition to the glass. The Cathedral of Angers provides also the same double inducement. SOISSONS During the two tours just concluded we have visited all the most important treasure-houses of thirteenth century glass. There is, however, a very agreeable secondary tour. Regarded as a glass pilgrimage, it is not to be compared with the two which we have finished, but this must not be taken to mean that the glass will not be worth inspection. Besides, most of the windows to be seen are of the period, thus making it an essentially thirteenth century pilgrimage. To one in whom the love of glass and devotion to the gentle sport of automobiling is about equal, this trip will be much more attractive than the last two. The scenery through which he will pass and the history that will be recalled will add very much to the charm of this itinerary and it is therefore particularly recommended to the automobilist and especially to the exercise-loving bicyclist. The distances between the towns are not great and the landscape is varied and delightful. Beginning with Soissons, our road lies through the picturesque mediæval stronghold of Coucy-le-Château to the high-perched hill city of Laon, then over the plain at its foot to battleworn St. Quentin, and lastly across the rolling country to the splendid Cathedral of Amiens. Amiens is on the line of the Paris-London expresses, so we have excellent train service back to Paris. We will let the traveller find his way as best he may from Paris to Soissons and will join him there. He will soon observe that there has departed from Soissons the ancient glory which was hers when under Clovis, the great king of the Franks, she became the capital of his strong province of Neustria. To-day we find a quiet provincial city of only about 13,000 inhabitants, where the chief movement and life seems to centre in the barracks. One noticeable feature of the town is the really fine west front, all that remains of the Abbey of St. Jean-des-Vignes, for nine years the home of the exiled Thomas à Becket. Even from its present denuded state of desolate loneliness one realises how splendid the complete building must have been, and the now empty and staring rose window above the central portal makes us sigh for the stained glass that must once have adorned that huge opening. Soissons is one of the towns which benefited by the great love felt by St. Louis and his mother, Blanche of Castile, for stained glass. The northern rose of the cathedral is a proof of their beneficence, and is an excellent example of its type. The central pane is occupied by a figure of the Virgin Mary, and circling round her are the medallion panels which are so much more satisfactory than the spokes-of-a-wheel treatment so popular in the next century. Around the outside of the medallions is a double border of panels containing the arms of the royal benefactress, a field of red bearing the golden castles of Castile. As for the rest of the interior, so much of its original glazing has been destroyed that the effect of glow is entirely dissipated. The nave has lost its coloured panels, and only fragments remain in the western rose. The large lancets about the east end of the choir clerestory are most decorative, and further, they provide an opportunity of testing our ability to judge glass. At first sight we are convinced that they are of true thirteenth century mosaic work, and might continue to think so, if they were not betrayed by the comparison afforded by the two genuine medallion lancets just below them in the Lady Chapel. Even then we may remain undecided, which indecision is justified when we learn their history. They were repaired and restored in 1816, much of the old glass being retained and the old designs carefully followed. This explains not only why they lack the depth of tone seen in the complete medallions below them, but also why they were so deceptive until this touchstone of comparison was applied. Notice the Adam and Eve window to the right, as the design is very unusual. In the six scenes there depicted, one above the other, Adam and Eve are of course nude, and appear always she on the left side and he on the right of each little scene, with some other personage or object between them in the middle. As a result we have a perpendicular column of Eves on one side and of Adams on the other, the light glass used to make the flesh colour forming a secondary border for the window. The southern transept is an architectural freak, because instead of a rose window it has a rounded end like the apse chapel generally found at the eastern extremity of a church. As a novelty it is agreeable, but it deprives the glazier of one of his rose windows. LAON Those proceeding upon this pilgrimage by automobile or bicycle, will find a treat awaiting them between Soissons and Laon. The road lies through Coucy-le-Château, the impressive and well-preserved ruin of a massive mediæval fortress. The huge round towers at its corners, connected by walls thirty-five feet thick, frown down from their rocky perch upon a pleasant valley below. Snuggled up against these protecting walls is the little town, which we enter by a narrow gateway crowded in between two great solemn towers. On we go through the narrow old streets and out another well-defended portal and off on our journey. When first we espy Laon we are far off on the rolling plain which surrounds its base. It looms high in the air, the four towers of its cathedral peering out above the encircling houses, all seeming to keep watch over the tiring zigzags by means of which the road lazily climbs the height. A city built upon a hill always possesses a fascination, more especially when it has a history as long and interesting as this one. The lofty situation makes the town seem to hold itself aloof and lends it a certain proud mystery which impels us to seek to know more of it--to penetrate its reserve. Laon is even more picturesque and striking than most French hill towns, because the height upon which it stands rises abruptly from a great plain. None of the height is lost and thus all the beauty is saved. After observing how remote it is upon its long, narrow hilltop, one can well understand why the later Carlovingian kings selected this stronghold for their capital. In those early times there was no artillery to endanger their loftily secure repose. The cathedral, which is a really fine one, presents us with some of those familiarly quaint touches that prove Gothic architecture to have been so close to the heart of its times. Perched aloft among the open spaces that interpenetrate its light towers, are life-size statues of oxen, in kindly memory of the beasts of burden that hauled up from the plain below the great stones used in the building. Within the cathedral, although there is but little glass, it is all of this period and, besides, is so grouped as to do itself the greatest credit possible. All we shall find is a rose filled with medallions in the north transept and another and far finer one in the square eastern end, below which are ranged three gorgeous lancets of imposing dimensions. The northern rose contains scenes representing the sciences as understood and practised in the thirteenth century. One's memory of this rose is blue with hints of green, while of the eastern series it is reddish purple. The centre of the splendid eastern rose is occupied by a figure of the Virgin Mary between John the Baptist and Isaiah, and around this group are two circles of medallions, the inner one of twelve containing the Apostles, and the outer, of twenty-four, the Elders of the Apocalypse. This concentration of all the old glass in these two quarters has the satisfactory result that anyone standing at the crossing and looking either into the north transept or into the choir, sees nothing but the splendid richness of mosaic medallions, and is not distracted by the sight of any other style of glazing. The placing of this fine glass more than compensates for its limited amount. After this sweeping praise, we may indulge ourselves in one mild criticism: the glass in the east end would seem richer still if it were not so much illuminated from within by the white glazed windows along the sides of the choir. If this were toned down, even by modern glass, it would cause a decided improvement. At St. Quentin, we are more than reconciled to the presence of modern glass in the chapels around the choir, because it so modifies the light as to permit the thirteenth century panels in the choir clerestory to sparkle and gleam as they should. The north rose at Laon is of rare construction; the stone framework is so cumbersome, and the amount of glazed surface so modest, as to almost destroy the appearance of a rosace, and to substitute therefor that of a series of holes let into a wall. Also notice that the east rose is glazed flush with the stonework, thus presenting a level surface on the inside, while just below, in marked contrast, the three lancets are deeply recessed within. This method of constructing a rose is unusual; another example is the west rose at Mantes. The square eastern end, instead of the usual rounded apse, is believed to be one of the many results seen throughout this diocese of the influence exerted by a twelfth century English bishop. Whatever the reason for this square apse, it admirably suits the rest of the edifice. [Illustration: 13TH CENTURY ROSE AND LANCETS, LAON. _Medallions are admirably suited to rounded apertures in Rose, and assist in producing effect of huge blossom; later the lines radiated more from the centre and tended toward a wheel effect._] Before leaving this delightful hilltop, we must not fail to take a stroll around the boulevards which have been constructed upon the overturned walls. The views from this promenade out over the great plain below linger long in one's memory. ST. QUENTIN A few miles from Madrid lies the famous palace of the Escorial, built upon a ground plan following as closely as possible the shape of a gridiron. It was erected by King Philip II in pious memory of his famous victory at St. Quentin on St. Lawrence's Day, 1557. St. Lawrence achieved martyrdom by being roasted alive on a gridiron, hence the selection of that humble utensil as a design for the royal thank-offering. There are few more interesting monuments to commemorate a victory, and one would hardly expect to hear that a battle won in northern France is commemorated by a palace far to the south across the Pyrenees. Many a time in history did St. Quentin make herself famous by her stout defences, but none ever won her so much fame as this defeat which, by delaying the Spanish forces, enabled the French armies to assemble behind her and save Paris. It was a great victory for Philip, but it cost him the possession of the French capital. As we stood upon the lofty heights at Laon, we looked far out over a wide plain, across which, forty-five kilometres to the northwest, lies St. Quentin. The quiet streets of this well-to-do city afford little to remind us of the mediæval strife that so often raged through them. We hear no sounds that recall to us the angry noises of besiegers without, which so often carried dismay to the stout hearts of its burghers. Unlike Laon, its situation and its buildings now present little to recall the picture of the past. The huge barn-like exterior of its great church is quite different from those we have been seeing. Even its triple-tiered flying buttresses have so short a span as to entirely miss the decorating possibilities which we have a right to expect. It lacks the lightness and grace of the true Gothic; in fact, to tell the truth, it looms up big and bulky, more like an Italian church than the beautiful French ones. But when we have once passed inside, we are provided with a most agreeable surprise, for it is much more attractive than many whose external promise has been greater. There are two sets of transepts, one beyond the other, which unusual feature not only enhances the charm of the interior, but also causes its beauty to reveal itself in a more leisurely fashion. But to the glass! In the choir clerestory are seven double windows, of which the lancets each hold two great dignitaries, one above the other. The small rosaces above, which serve to tie together these pairs of lancets, are very pleasing, nor should we fail to note the handsome wide borders of the lancets themselves, plentifully besprinkled with fleur de lis. We must particularly appreciate the service performed by the modern glass around the choir chapels in so subduing the light as to permit these splendid lancets to receive all their illumination from without and therefore to disclose, undiminished in any way, that warm glow that makes them so delightful. The hideous polychrome painting of the interior also assists in this fruitful modification of the light, but this is the only possible apology for its presence! The oldest glass here is that which fills the two side windows of the Lady Chapel. Each has twenty medallions, those on the left showing Old Testament scenes, and those on the right, episodes from the life of the Virgin. One of the large transepts has a moderately-sized rose window which does not as usual contain figures, but, instead, is filled with designs in colour. The absence of the figures does not spoil the effect; in fact, the story depicted in glass of this period is nothing like so important as the colour scheme. The details of the legend are generally elaborately worked out, often in quaint episodes, but upon this the beauty of the window does not depend. Indeed, it is not until we are at such a distance that we can no longer distinguish the little figures that the charm of the glass begins to lay hold upon us. The reason we do not find more thirteenth century panels here is because the older part of the church was reconstructed during the reign of Louis XI. Furthermore, when we consider the many sieges to which the town has been subjected, as well as the great fire of October 14, 1669, it seems strange that even this much of so fragile a treasure has survived. In this connection it is interesting to learn that in 1557, Philip II instructed his artillery to avoid hitting the great church. This very appreciation of art and respect for religion perhaps explains why, as soon as he had captured the city, he so promptly confiscated the church's gorgeous tapestries to be used later in decorating the Escorial! In 1766 an attempt was made to negotiate for them so that they could be restored to their original home, but the Spaniards replied that they could not part with so glorious a trophy. Nor was the ravaging hand of the warrior the only hostile force to which the unfortunate edifice was subjected. January 25, 1572, during a tempest, one of the great choir windows was blown in, and on Easter Day, 1582, the same fate befell the great window of the first northern transept, this time with fatal results, for in falling it killed four priests. The old glass in the nave clerestory was removed by the monks in 1747 to secure more light, which form of vandalism was, unfortunately, only too common. We must not leave without commenting upon what a delightful monument of fifteenth century Gothic is afforded by the south end of the easterly transepts. Below is a chapel shut in by a light stone screen of admirable design; above it the stretch of wall is relieved with gracefully carved patterns, while higher still appear four large lancets surmounted by a rosace, all excellently glazed. The lancets have richly coloured single figures below canopies of such size that their pinnacles occupy more than half the height of the embrasures. The only criticism possible of the otherwise satisfactory adjustment of the various portions of this south wall is that the rose is too high up and too small to balance the splendid lancets below it. Of sixteenth century glass there are two fine examples in the north end of this same pair of transepts, but we will postpone further reference to them until later on (see page 269). Before leaving the town, one should visit the Salle Syndicale in the Hotel de Ville in order to see the fine François Premier fireplace, and the double arched ceiling with its quaint corbels. The windows of this room formerly contained a long series of sixteenth century scenes from the life and labours of Hercules, but a Prussian shell destroyed all but five of them. When he leaves St. Quentin, bound for Amiens, the traveller by railway is quite as well off as the automobilist or the bicyclist. Up to this stage of our journey the two latter have had a decided advantage, but now the country has less attractions to offer and the road is one of those straight Routes Nationales whose only apology for their monotony is that they save distance. AMIENS At Amiens there is not much glass, and yet the student will not have wasted his time, for he will there see one of the finest cathedrals in Europe, and will furthermore be able to note what the lack of coloured glass means, in this way learning to value it even more highly than before. If a visit to this great church renders us no other service than this, we shall all agree that it is no small one. We shall never again question that a magnificent ecclesiastical interior is not only vastly improved, but actually needs its light tempered by stained glass. Our pilgrim has long ere this learnt that he cannot always rely on guide-books to tell him whether or not fine windows are to be found in certain towns, and therefore we may serve a useful purpose and save some reader a disappointing trip by setting out the facts. The cathedral owes its chief beauty to the extraordinary detail and amount of sculpture to be found without and within. So complete are the scriptural events chronicled upon its west front that Ruskin has given it the title of the "Bible in Stone." Nor are the carvings which are to be found inside in any way inferior to those which fascinate us without. The stone screen which runs around the ambulatory would alone repay much study, but the most notable display of the carver's art is the little army of nearly four thousand figures upon the choir stalls. Notwithstanding this wealth of sculpture, we are struck by the bareness of the lofty interior. We long for a touch of mystery and cannot but feel that in the glare of light streaming through the immensely tall uncoloured windows everything is too clearly revealed and there is lacking the softness which would add so much to the beauty of the carvings. What a change there would be for the better if we could wave a wand and by some fairy power will back into the windows their ancient glories. Everything is too stately and cold, too sharply outlined; in fact, far too much denuded of the mysterious charm, the awe-inspiring gloom which lays hold upon us at Chartres or Bourges. Although but little of its glass has survived, it is almost all of the thirteenth century, and some is very good. In one of the choir chapels to the left is an interesting Tree of Jesse in the medallion style. The left window of the easternmost chapel has a charming blue background and a novel use of small white birds in its border. Above us in the easternmost window of the clerestory (the only one in the clerestory that has survived intact) another unique feature catches the eye--its four slender lancets contain some very decorative lettering introduced into the design. This lettering is glazed in white on a blue background and its legend when deciphered sets out that those three windows were given by Bernard d'Abbeville, Bishop of Amiens, in the year 1269. In contrast to these meagre remains of glass, there are also to be seen three fine rose windows which are completely glazed. They all have quaint names, that in the west façade being called the "Rose of the Sea"; that in the north the "Rose of the Winds"; that in the south the "Rose of Heaven." This poetic and quaintly familiar method of naming windows is not unknown elsewhere; it is also found at Chartres. The huge western rose, thirty-eight feet in diameter, although dating from 1241, has lost its original glass and was reglazed in the sixteenth century. There are no figures in the north rose, but instead a mosaic of colour; we have noticed a similar arrangement at St. Quentin. In the south rose, red predominates, but with it there is also considerable green. If the reader decides to visit Amiens, notwithstanding the small amount of glass to be seen there, he will surely conclude that the day has not been wasted, for he will not leave that splendid interior without a truer appreciation of the great service which the glass artist rendered to the architect, as well as a sigh for the fragile beauty which is no longer there. FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES Nowhere in art can there be found so abrupt a change of style as that which marks in stained glass the arrival of the fourteenth century. So noticeable is the difference between the windows of the thirteenth and those of the fourteenth centuries that it can be seen at a glance. Not only were the new styles very distinctive, but they were also very enduring, for even when the fifteenth century arrived it did little but elaborate the ideas introduced by the fourteenth, and for that reason we should consider them together as forming one epoch. The new results which we now find are not only in effect, but also in light and in placing of figures. This transformation took place within a few years and was, therefore, as sudden in point of time as it was in treatment, which latter is so marked that it excites our curiosity as to its causes. It is safe to assume that we have here happened upon not only one novelty but a coincidence of several, as otherwise the change would have been much less abrupt. Most of the new elements which in combination so suddenly produced such a sweeping change can be studied from the glass which has survived to these modern days, but of one we can now only read: this was the demand for domestic glass, and unfortunately but few examples of it are left to us. The old chroniclers tell us of many private houses and buildings devoted to civil uses having their windows glazed in colour, a form of luxury hitherto found only in religious edifices. We know that it then began to be widely used, especially in Paris, but it did not survive the turbulence of those times. The effect of this novel use on glass styles was very marked. Obviously it was not practicable to employ the same sort of glass in the smaller rooms of a dwelling house that we have seen so effective in the larger interiors of religious edifices. We notice that beautiful as is the thirteenth century Ste. Chapelle, its "dim religious light" is unsuited for any building devoted to secular uses. No, the medallion window with its deep-toned panes and profusion of leads would not serve for civil or domestic purposes, nor, on the other hand, could we bring down the big personages from the clerestories of cathedrals; they were most impressive when seen from the distance which their lofty situation necessitated, but they were much too crude and coarse in their workmanship to be lowered to the level of the observer's eye. For this new demand of domestic architecture it was obvious that something must be devised which would give more light. One method of effecting it was using coloured figures on a soft grisaille background, but this has only to be seen to be found unsatisfactory. Some examples of this exist in the north side of Ste. Radegonde at Poitiers. They are interesting, but the figures start out from the light background so violently as to plainly make them unsuitable in small interiors. Plain grisaille was not rich enough to be used in a fine private house. As a compromise between these two methods they arrived at the use of a border of greyish simulated Gothic architecture to frame the central coloured figure of a window. In this way the border admitted the light and the figure gave the richness; these Gothic frames were called "canopies." But why a frame of architecture? The interest in Gothic had by this time spread throughout the fair land of France. Many beautiful examples of it had just come into being before people's eyes--it was the delight of all. It was but natural that this noble style, still young, should be introduced by the glazier, especially as it lent itself to the demand for more light. Besides, in knowledge of Gothic, the glass artist was second only to the architect, as the windows were made to suit the church, not the church the windows. This observation upon the relation of the glazier to the architect brings us to another reason for the abrupt change in stained glass, and of this we can to-day readily find examples. We have said that the artist had to make his glass to suit the window apertures. About that time the architect was changing their shape. Instead of being broad and single windows they were now more numerous but narrower and taller, and were brought together in groups of two or more, separated only by stone mullions. Above this cluster of narrow lancets and in order to taper them off gracefully, were placed smaller openings called tracery lights. Without this tapering at the top, the group below would look unfinished and ill-proportioned. The few, though wide windows used during the thirteenth century were found to give too little light, and, besides, were not as decorative as the Gothic architect demanded for his more elaborate style. This new period in architecture is called "Decorated," which name has also properly been applied to its glass. The architect not only did everything in his power to gain more light by providing many more wall apertures, but doubtless he also insisted that the glazier assist in this endeavour. We have just seen that the latter complied with this request by surrounding his coloured figures with light-admitting architectural frames of greyish-yellow. Nor did he stop there: he helped the architect to bind together more harmoniously his groups of narrow lights into which the whole window was now split up, for he realised that horizontal bands of light colour placed straight across these narrow lights would effect this purpose. The slender stone mullions which divided them showed too many perpendicular lines and tended to make the windows seem spindling, but this was corrected by the broad bands of light afforded by the grey and yellow canopy tops running along over the heads of the saints occupying the tall narrow panes. Perhaps the reader is already asking whence the artist obtained so much grey and yellow, because thirteenth century glass leaves rather a strong purple memory behind it. To answer this question is to bring forward another new thing and one which also had a large share in abruptly changing the styles. About the beginning of the fourteenth century it was discovered that if silver were floated upon the surface of glass and then exposed to the furnace, the result would be a bright yellow stain. The word "stain" is used advisedly, because by this method the surface received a durable colour not removable like paint. We have already seen that pot-metal colour was introduced throughout the mass during the time of the making of the glass and was therefore part of it from the beginning. This new stain was not applied until after the glass was made, and no other tint but yellow could be produced in this way. The discovery of this valuable secret has been variously recounted, but always the credit is given to blind chance, some silver happening to drip upon glass which, when burnt, disclosed to the surprised workman the new and beautiful yellow. Its great value in admitting light as well as in enriching the tones of a window was at once appreciated. No longer was it necessary to laboriously lead in a bit of yellow pot-metal glass where that hue was demanded by the design. Now all that was done was to float a little silver upon a large piece of glass at the point or points required, expose it to the fire, and behold! a tint that made glorious the hair of angels, or the robes of saints and high dignitaries. Touches of this rich colour also made possible architectural frames which would otherwise have seemed dull, flat and opaquely grey. Each little pinnacle could be brightened up, lines of yellow would enliven columns and the canopy window in its light soft beauty was made practicable. [Illustration: 15TH CENTURY "CANOPY" WINDOW, ST. LÔ. _Name given because of Gothic canopy used to frame the coloured figures. The pale grey glass in the canopy portion admitted much more light than the earlier windows richly coloured throughout. Note the modestly drawn donors in the lowest panels._ _14th century canopies seldom filled the whole embrasure, appearing only in bands across a grisaille field; besides, their architecture was much cruder, they lacked pedestals, etc._] It is an unfortunate fact that the best glass of this period is not to be seen in Paris, although we can get a fair idea of its effect from the fifteenth century canopied figures in the clerestory of St. Sévérin. A few of those at the west end of this church are at once seen to differ in their design from the others, although all are of the true canopy type. These few to the west were brought from their original place in the choir of St. Germain des Prés. At St. Sévérin we shall note several points which serve to distinguish the canopies of the fifteenth century from the earlier ones of the fourteenth. The difference is chiefly in the use of more colours in the later figures, as well as more careful architectural detail in their canopies. Further, to make his windows lighter in tone, the French glazier of the fourteenth century generally used bands of canopies only across the middle third of the surface, filling the uppermost and lowest thirds with grisaille. The fifteenth century canopies almost invariably filled the entire embrasure. Frequently during the fourteenth century the artist was not content with the light admitted by his canopies, but added to it by using white for one or more of the saints' robes. This practice so reduced the number of colours in the background and the garments that we seldom find more than two colours within the niches of fourteenth century canopies, while in the fifteenth century we almost always find four. Then, too, there is an added feature of decoration in the later ones which is generally lacking earlier: across the back of the niche a coloured curtain is carried shoulder high behind the figure, and this curtain is almost always damasked. This can be remarked at St. Sévérin, where we shall also see that all the figures stand upon elaborate pedestals, another sign that we are looking at work of the fifteenth century, for in the fourteenth they would have lacked pedestals and be found standing upon grass or some other natural and unarchitectural base. The artist was so careful to cling closely to contemporary conventions that sometimes we happen upon very amusing compromises. For example, here tradition demanded pedestals, so there they are, even though he had to make the rather ridiculous combination of a figure standing upon a half-circle of cloud neatly balanced upon the pedestal's tessellated pavement. The conventions demanded the little pavement, the design required the clouds, so he gave us both! In these days when we are so occupied in copying older art, it is interesting to see traces of a time when they jealously clung to the styles and forms which were then new. A brilliant yellow was the only tint obtainable by the process of staining, but it is also true that other new colours were secured, although by means of an entirely different discovery which, of itself, provided yet another new thing to combine with those already enumerated in changing glass methods. This discovery took place early in the fourteenth century and made it possible to superimpose another colour upon white or coloured glass. The method of producing this effect was very simple: the end of the blowpipe was dipped first into liquid glass of one colour, and then into another, with the result that the bubble when blown was of one colour inside and of another outside. The bubble was then opened out into the flat sheet as usual. This process had always been followed to make red glass, which was really a sheet of white coated with ruby, but now all sorts of combinations were made. Thus a brilliant purple could be obtained by coating a piece of red glass with blue; red on yellow would give a splendid orange; blue on yellow a brilliant green. Although invented early in the fourteenth century, this process did not have all its possibilities developed until during the fifteenth, when the number of layers was gradually increased until we find some specimens showing six different coats. We shall enjoy the results when we visit Quimper or Eymoutiers or Bourges. The French have a very descriptive name for glass treated in this manner: they call it "verre doublé," or "lined glass," referring to the fact that there are two layers. The abrupt change in glass windows which took place at the beginning of the fourteenth century becomes less extraordinary when we recapitulate the various discoveries in the art and realise what an effect must have been caused by such a combination as that of (_a_) the chance-revealed yellow stain; (_b_) domestic use which required glass fit for small, well-lighted interiors; (_c_) the demands of the architect for his narrowed and more numerous window apertures, and lastly (_d_) the enriching of the artist's palette due to the new process of doubling the sheets of glass. The whole trend is now towards much more light, larger pieces of glass, brighter colours and more attention to the design at the expense of the colour effect of the window. We have now not only set forth the great change that was so speedily effected in the style and appearance of stained glass, but further, we have enumerated the various novelties, both in popular requirements and in technique, which brought about the light tones of the fourteenth century. The steps by which was effected this transition from the thirteenth century mosaic type with its rudimentary suggestion of a canopy, to the fourteenth century figure ensconced in his little sentry-box, can be seen on but few existing windows; in fact, so little transition glass is there that the change strikes one all the more forcibly. There are, however, a few available for this purpose, notably the three eastern lancets of the Lady Chapel in the Abbey Church at Fécamp, and a certain window in the north transept of Amiens Cathedral. The Fécamp lancets show us the first step, where, although the glass is still entirely mosaic, the architecture at the top is brought down the sides of the figure so as to complete the sentry-box. Of course this admits no more light than the regular medallion lancets which conveniently assist our comparison by flanking on either side the three easterly ones. We have thus arrived at the enframing canopy, but have not yet conformed to the demand for more light which had now become so insistent. How will this be done? A mosaic medallion could not well be put upon a light surface, as it would look splotchy and unfinished (viz.: first chapel on the left of choir ambulatory in Rouen Cathedral), nor would it do to station unframed, isolated, coloured figures on an uncoloured surface (viz.: Ste. Radegonde at Poitiers). To avoid the unfinished appearance, they hit upon the idea of surrounding the coloured figure with a frame-like architectural border (as just seen at Fécamp), and then put this framed picture in the midst of the plain panes. This step is exemplified by a large double-lanceted window just west of the north transept door in Amiens Cathedral. The entire window is surcharged with a number of these canopy-framed figures arranged in parallel perpendicular lines. We have now gained more light, and it is easy to see what is coming next. Instead of placing the small canopies up and down the window (as at Amiens), it would obviously be more effective to assemble them in bands across it. Both Sées and Evreux serve to illustrate this manner of glazing. There are many examples that mark the slow development from these fourteenth century horizontal rows of canopies across a grisaille or quarry background, to the perfected canopy window of the fifteenth century, where the service of admitting light is entirely transferred from the grisaille or quarry to the canopy itself. This has been rendered possible by greatly increasing the space allotted to the simulated stonework, so as to enable it to let in all the illumination required, and at the same time perform its duty of framing the coloured part of the picture. These windows at Fécamp and Amiens are very instructive as showing us the experimental steps which resulted in the satisfactory combination of picture and illumination, instead of splotches of colour on a light field. It must not be thought that we have dwelt too long on this particular period of transition, for this is the only time during the Golden Age of glass that there took place an abrupt change in styles, and therefore a speedy and marked transition. There was certainly nothing hasty in the way that the broad borders and larger glass pieces of the twelfth century developed into the narrower borders and more minutely mosaic method of the thirteenth. As to the transition from the fourteenth to the fifteenth century, so slowly and so imperceptibly was it effected that we have decided to study those two centuries together as one epoch, the second being but the natural elaboration of the first. Lastly, nothing could be more measured and deliberate than the steps by which the fifteenth century canopy developed into the sixteenth century large picture panel, by first changing the canopy from Gothic to Renaissance, then enlarging the scene within the new canopy until it finally outgrew the need for the frame, and emerged therefrom in its completed state, often covering a whole window. If at this point we turn to our histories, we shall soon encounter reasons which convincingly explain why there remains so little fourteenth-fifteenth century glass for us to see. This was the period of the English occupation of a large portion of France. A peaceful possession of a part of the country might not have interfered with the course of art in other quarters, but the English possession was far from a peaceful one. Fighting, and that of the bitterest kind, went on continually. We have only to mention the "Hundred Years War" with England (1337-1453), marked by the disastrous defeats of Crécy (1346) and of Poitiers (1356), to be reminded of that. It is true that Bertrand du Guesclin won a short-lived success against the English (1364), but 1415 sees them again victorious at Agincourt and their occupation of Paris in 1421. This temporary victory of Du Guesclin proved an evil thing for France, as it prolonged the fighting and increased the frightful carnage which drenched French soil with blood. It is clear that during times like these the nobility was not in a position to interest itself in beautifying châteaux or churches. They were most earnestly concerned in the gentle art of erecting fortifications; safety and strength were of vital importance; beauty had to stand aside and wait. The records show many instances of great architectural enterprises being halted from lack of funds or from other motives, a case in point being Troyes Cathedral, upon which no work was done for a long period of years. The nobility were injured more than the lower classes by these wars, and in the great defeats of Crécy, Poitiers and Agincourt their losses were frightful. Many a titled family lost its estates and many another was exterminated. In battle the middle and lower classes suffered proportionately less, because the French placed most of their reliance upon armoured knights and disdained to avail themselves of the bourgeoisie to the same extent as the English, whose splendid bowmen and yeomanry were so potent a factor in winning those great victories. The fact that the great families of France were so grievously crippled during these wars goes far to explain why glass painting languished for lack of the support which the luxury-loving class of society was not then able to give it. Almost as serious for the nobles as the losses in battle and other ravages of war, was the reign of the subtle Louis XI (1461-81), who devoted his entire life to destroying the strength of the nobility and to building upon its ruins the centralised power of the throne, meanwhile guarding this increase of kingly power by encouraging the growth of the gendarmerie, and generally the military reliability of the bourgeoisie. One incident from his life provides us with a fact of great interest to a glass student. Upon the occasion of the repulse of the Bretons by the inhabitants of the French city of St. Lô, Louis presented to the cathedral of that town, as an expression of his approval of the bravery of its citizens, a fine set of stained glass windows. As an event in political statecraft it is most significant: he did not ennoble or enrich certain leaders, but gave the entire fighting populace a royal gift. To us it has a peculiar interest, because the incident shows that stained glass was held in such high esteem as to be considered a worthy gift from a king to a city. But before turning from a review of the evil days which fell upon France, we must notice that although the nobility suffered more heavily from battle and statecraft than any other class, the times were tragic enough for all Frenchmen, whether noble or peasant, rich or poor. The plague raged throughout the land--not once, but many times--during these two centuries and its fearsome grasp fell upon all alike. Nor was this misery enough; to all these calamities was added that of civil war of the worst type--the war of the masses against the classes. The scorn in which the nobles held the poor man was but the natural outcome of the feudal state. The man in armour despised Jacques Bonhomme, as he called him. When in 1358 the disorders afflicting the body politic caused this contempt and ill-treatment to so increase that it could no longer be endured, the uprising of the oppressed against the oppressor assumed in hideous satire the name of the Jacquerie. Before it could be finally put down, French soil was drenched again and again with blood. Even this short dip into contemporary history has revealed enough to make it passing strange that any glass at all was made in France during those trying times, and stranger still that, if made, it should have survived. We have just seen that during most of these two centuries the French kings were fully occupied at home, first in fighting the English, with France as the battleground, and later in subduing their arrogant nobles and adding Burgundy, Franche Comté, Artois, Provence and Brittany to the French crown. At the end of this period, with their home lands cleared of the English and the centralised power of the throne much strengthened, we shall see how, under Louis XII (1498) and Francis I (1515), war was carried on outside the borders of France. Under the influences of this freedom from the ravages of war, combined with taste for art learnt during the Italian campaigns and brought back to France, there sprang up an aesthetic revival called the French Renaissance. This new development is going to give us a very different style of glass painting, which we will study later under the title of the sixteenth century. Before starting out to visit the glass of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, there are several remarks to be made upon it as a whole. There is not nearly so much left for us to see as there is of the thirteenth century. It is not going to be so easy to reach it and we shall have to take longer trips. We may journey far off to the western corner of Brittany to see the admirable Cathedral of Quimper, or else down south near Angoulême where we find in the small village of Eymoutiers a most charming example. Of sixteenth century glass we shall find much; of thirteenth a great deal; but of fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, only a little. At first one undoubtedly prefers the windows of the thirteenth and the sixteenth centuries, but after one has studied glass for awhile, he will surely come to feel that there is a certain fascination about the silvery glow of a canopy window that is not surpassed by the jewelled glitter of the thirteenth century or the more brilliant colouring and drawing of the sixteenth. During the period now under discussion there was a great deal of good glass made, and from the records we learn of many a fine window now long since destroyed. A fair way to judge the French glass-makers is to learn what their contemporaries across the channel thought of them. For this purpose it is worth citing from the contract for glazing Beauchamp Chapel at Warwick, which contract was made by the Earl of Warwick's executors with a certain John Prudde of Westminster, dated 1447. This contract requires that no English glass be used, but that the windows be glazed "only with best foreign glass procurable and to use as little white, green and black glass as possible." John Prudde got his material from France. We find another apposite statement in Britton's History of Exeter Cathedral. He says that 500 square feet of glass was bought for the cathedral in 1302-4 and that when another large purchase was made in 1317 they sent to Rouen for it. From these citations, selected from many similar ones, we may safely gather that the English considered French glass the best, which is most significant when one reflects that just at that time English glass was at its highest point. FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURY PILGRIMAGES From the standpoint of one who finds himself in Paris, it is not going to be very convenient to visit the glass we are now considering. If he will content himself with a little, he can see that without much difficulty. He has but to visit the two nearby cities of Evreux and Rouen, each of them only an hour and a half by train from Paris and not far removed from each other. The latter is, admittedly, peculiarly a place to study sixteenth century glass--its numerous churches are full of it. While it is better to visit Rouen in connection with the sixteenth century, still we have mentioned it at this time because one of its churches, St. Ouen, affords such a beautifully complete exposition of fourteenth century glazing. Besides, it is near Evreux, and therefore we advise that it be visited now so that the glass at St. Ouen can be seen directly after that in the Cathedral of Evreux. If our reader wishes to thoroughly study the glass of this period, we would advise him to begin with a longer trip, which we will outline, and then conclude with Evreux and Rouen, because he will then be enabled, after seeing the fourteenth century glass of Rouen, to immediately pass on to the study of the sixteenth century windows which are so splendid and abundant in the other churches of that Mecca of the glass student. Now for the longer tour just mentioned. It should begin at Bourges, four hours and a quarter from Paris by train. Thence we go south to Clermont-Ferrand (on our way stopping to visit its little neighbour, Riom), next across the mountains which overshadow these last two towns, to Eymoutiers, which lies close to Limoges, the next city in order. From Limoges we go north to Poitiers, then to Angers, to Le Mans, through Alençon to Sées, to Verneuil, and conclude with Chartres, an hour and a quarter from Paris by express. Although this is a long tour, we can safely promise that it will repay the pilgrim. If the pilgrim has already visited Chartres for its thirteenth century glass, he probably took occasion to see that of the fourteenth century in the church of St. Pierre. In that event he can omit Chartres at this time. If he wishes, he can go on from Verneuil to Evreux (43 kilometres), and thus link this longer trip to the shorter one already described. It is only in the event that he travels by automobile or bicycle that we suggest a stop at Moulins on his way from Bourges to Riom, for his way lies through it; but if he travels by train, then, because of the finer and more plentiful glass he is about to see, Moulins may well be omitted. We would not recommend visiting Limoges if it were not directly upon his road, no matter by what means of transportation he travels. There is hardly a place in France where fifteenth century glass can be seen to greater advantage than in the Cathedral of Quimper, but it is too far from any other glass place to be combined therewith into a tour. It is tucked away in the northwestern part of France, eleven hours from Paris by express, and is only mentioned here so that if the traveller finds himself in its neighbourhood he may not fail to avail himself of the opportunity. The long tour beginning at Bourges and ending at Chartres, will, if supplemented by the short one to Evreux and Rouen, show him most of the best glass of this period which has come down to our time. It is easily distinguishable from that of the century preceding it as well as of the century following, and has a beauty all its own. [Illustration: 14TH and 15TH CENTURIES TOURS. (_a_) _Evreux, Rouen._ (_b_) _Bourges, Moulins, Riom, Clermont-Ferrand, Eymoutiers, Limoges, Poitiers, Angers, Le Mans_, (_Alençon_), _Sées, Verneuil, Chartres._ _Also separate visit to Quimper._ (_For table of distances, see page 295._)] EVREUX In one's mental picture of a town there is almost always a single feature which stands out prominently at the expense of the others. For example, winding crowded streets are apt to rise in one's mind when London is mentioned. The broad straight thoroughfares of St. Petersburg are sure to give roominess and breadth to our memory of the Russian capital. In a similar fashion when the writer thinks of Evreux there always promptly arises a picture of the narrowness which not only characterises the cathedral's nave, but also the little channels into which the river Iton subdivides itself in preparation for its leisurely meandering through the town. Nor must this be taken as a reproach to Evreux. The little branches of the Iton add very materially to the quiet beauty of the place. So, too, beauty is, though indirectly, lent to the cathedral's interior by the very narrowness of its nave. A nave only 21 feet wide made very difficult the problem of later joining to it a roomy choir, but the architect hit upon an ingenious device to secure greater width for the latter without having the difference unpleasant to the eye when viewed from other parts of the church. Just behind the columns at the edge of the transept crossing he deftly swelled out his choir walls at such an angle that from no part of the nave is the curving swelling of these walls visible. The chapels that surround this graceful choir are separated from the ambulatory by light carved wooden screens, very dainty and each one different. The windows all about us reveal this to be a perfect treasure-house of fourteenth century glass, for it has more of this period than any other church in France except, perhaps, St. Ouen, at Rouen. In our preliminary talk about the fourteenth century we referred to the startling abruptness with which taste in glass veered around from the light-obscuring medallions of the preceding century to the light-admitting treatment of the fourteenth. We there stated that the two favourite methods of getting more light were, first, the canopy treatment, and second, but to a less extent, grisaille windows with rich borders which were sometimes, but not always, surcharged with coloured figures or panels. At Evreux we shall not only find many an excellent example of both these new methods, but also interesting proof of how early in the century the new style laid hold upon public taste and that, too, in a very fully developed and completed form. The windows given by Guillaume d'Harcourt, dated 1310, show us the canopy window with a perfection of architectural elaboration that is surprising when we consider its early date. Not only is the canopy well advanced in its detail, but we find that the blue background is damasked, a feature of adornment that elsewhere took some time to develop. The use of grisaille to increase the illumination of the interior is here amply illustrated, as is also a certain variation of it, very much in vogue at that time, partly because it was decorative, and partly, perhaps mostly, because it was so easy to glaze. This is the so-called "quarry window" of white or grisaille glass with its surface composed of either square (_carré_) or diamond-shaped panels. These quarry windows were not only easy to lead, but their formal design broke up the surface of the glass very agreeably, especially when here and there touches of colour were introduced. Nor were these quarries always used without colour decoration, for around the choir triforium we shall see them surcharged with gay heraldic blazons, while above, in the clerestory, they serve to fill out such portions of the embrasures as are not occupied by the bands of canopies. It was some time before the fourteenth century glazier arrived at the point of filling the entire embrasure with his canopy, and therefore this hesitating use of bands of canopies across a light field is often seen. Below in the choir chapels even less of the space is devoted to canopies and more to quarries or grisaille than in the clerestory. Passing to the nave, almost all the window surface of the chapels is given over to grisaille; indeed, it is only across the upper third that one sees the quaint little fourteenth century canopies. So, too, the clerestory is all grisaille except for an occasional panel in colour. The finest work of the period here is around the choir clerestory--the colours are richer and every part of the decoration more carefully studied. Notice that in the fourth on the left, the second lancet contains a kneeling figure holding up in his two hands a model of the window which he is offering; his name appears in large letters below--M. Raoul De Ferrières. The rich red background, surrounded by the golden canopy, makes a very effective combination. This same pleasant conceit is found again in the most westerly lancet of the fourth choir chapel on the right, but here the figure is much smaller and the model of the gift window not so carefully drawn. Almost all these clerestory lights display facts concerning their donors set out in bold lettering that adds materially to the decorative effect. A few of the panels were glazed in the next century; they are readily picked out by the perfected drawing of their canopies, the fact that they completely fill the embrasures, the pedestals beneath them, etc. Of these later ones, the first on the left especially merits our attention: within its elaborate canopy framing are a triple tier of niches. In the middle tier, the second niche contains the Dauphin (later Louis XI) and the fourth, Charles VII, his father. This reference to the fifteenth century brings us to the consideration of its numerous examples found here, for the Lady Chapel, all the north transept and part of the southern are glazed in that later style. In the Lady Chapel the canopies enclose a double tier of niches which contain scenes remarkable for their strong colouring, as well as for the unusual number of individuals in each little group. Under the second canopy on the lower tier of the first window on the left is depicted Christ feeding the multitude, and no less than twenty-five figures can be counted: this is the greatest number the writer has ever observed in a canopy panel. The transepts are most charming. Each is lighted by a large rose, while the east and west walls have each not only two great six-lancet windows, but in addition, the triforium gallery is pierced and is carried around under the rose. Where the triforium passes below the rose we have in each case eight lancets filled with canopies enclosing single figures, and in the clerestory of the north transept the same treatment--elsewhere the lancets contain grisaille or quarries surcharged with coloured bosses or shields--the whole bordered in colour. Throughout all this interior so much grisaille and quarry work was used that one should select a rainy or grey day for one's visit, because on a sunny day the illumination is distinctly garish. Nor is it for the Cathedral alone that we have come here--so fine is the glazing at St. Taurin that we would have included Evreux in our tour even if there had been nothing to enjoy at the Cathedral. The east end of the choir juts out from the body of the church, and is lighted all round by seven lofty windows, each of two lancets except the westerly pair, which have four. The treatment of all these lancets is alike: the enframing canopy encloses three tiers of niches, one above the other, in each of which is a little scene in colour. One pair of these windows, the second from the west, are modern, but so faithfully are they modelled after their neighbours, that they do not mar the effect of the whole. Instead of one lone saint beneath each canopy (then so common as to be almost monotonous) we have here groups, always agreeable and sometimes amusing. For example, the lower left-hand corner of the window just left of the centre shows us St. Taurin rescuing a lady from some very pointed flames, while a red imp, evidently much annoyed at being exorcised, is darting off, much to the pious satisfaction of five smug onlookers. In accordance with the conventions, each niche has at the back a damasked curtain, above which a glimpse is afforded of an interior lighted by three windows, all very delicately portrayed. It seems ridiculously incongruous to find cows and other animals in the foreground of such a niche. Unfortunately, this absurd combination of tradition and realism was not rare during that epoch. The original glazing of the upper part of the southwesterly window has been replaced by a later Ascension scene, running across all four lancets. At the end of the south transept is a broad window, very interesting because of the different types of canopies in its six lancets. The chief charm of the interior is undoubtedly the choir, whose deliciously soft-toned glazing is so complete as to afford the student not only valuable material, but also (and this is much rarer) an excellent impression of the general effect sought for by the fifteenth century glazier. ROUEN In this sketch we will chiefly turn our attention to the church of St. Ouen, although we will also take a peep into the Cathedral and into St. Maclou. We will defer until our sixteenth century tours a fuller comment upon this city (see page 249), because any one who has studied the subject, even in the most cursory way, knows that he must go to Rouen for Renaissance glass. Although the splendid windows of its numerous churches bear witness to what that later period did for our art, it is nevertheless entirely proper that we should come here at this time, if only for a preliminary visit, because the study of fourteenth century glass cannot be satisfactorily concluded without viewing the splendidly complete exhibition of it in the church of St. Ouen. Here we shall see for ourselves why Rouen glass was then so highly esteemed, not only in France, but also across the Channel. We referred before to the fact that after Exeter Cathedral had in 1302-4 purchased glass for its windows and it became necessary in 1317 to procure another large quantity, it was to Rouen that they sent for it, a significant tribute to the skill and repute of the Rouen craftsmen. Ample witness to the causes for the Englishmen's admiration is afforded by the justly famous fourteenth century glazing of St. Ouen. It is best to approach and enter it by the south portal, for, although a very graceful and symmetrical Gothic edifice, the west front is unfortunately of a much later period than the rest of the structure, and is noticeably lacking in lightness and beauty. Notwithstanding nearly all the windows are glazed in colour, the brilliancy of the lighting strikes us as soon as we step inside and is especially noticeable if we have but freshly come from the inspection of interiors whose light has been dimmed by thirteenth century glass. It is evident that the St. Ouen windows were glazed at a moment when the reaction from the sombre beauties of the thirteenth century was at its height. Undoubtedly strict injunctions were laid upon the designer of the glass that he should so complete his task as to leave the church well lighted. In complying with his instructions he not only has used a great deal of white glass, but also has availed himself of the lighter tones of such colours as his pictures required. Nowhere else will we find so complete a series of patriarchs, saints, apostles, bishops and abbots. They are strung out around us on every side and provide a wealth of material for investigation. Perhaps one might wish that they had been depicted in stronger hues, especially as they range about the clerestory on a white background, with white glass in the triforium windows below them. On the other hand there is a possibility that if the colours had been stronger, the contrast between them and the background might have proved disagreeable. In passing it is interesting to note that all the abbots are arrayed in blue robes, but in accordance with the scheme of colour just mentioned, the blue is very light in tint. Below, in the choir, and around the transepts, we find canopy windows, but there, too, their effectiveness is lessened by too many panels of white. In the nave the large figures in the windows of the upper range have much more colour than those in the lower, and the inscription below each is in such bold lettering as to permit of each letter being separately leaded in. The north transept contains a fine rose window, but, unfortunately, in accordance with the conventions of that epoch, the figures radiate from the centre like slices in a pie. The result is a wheel effect and not that of a great blossoming rose. The glass, not only in this rose but also in the one of the south transept, is sixteenth century and will be described later. The regularity and completeness of the architecture of this church is accentuated by the long series of personages that decorate its windows. It is but natural that there results the symmetrical beauty which always follows the consistent carrying into effect of a well-thought-out plan. The desire of the architect for a well-lighted interior has also been everywhere carefully observed. As a whole, the effect of the windows must undoubtedly be admired, but on the other hand, if we were to be denied the warmth that a little additional colour would have given, we ought at least to have found as a compensation that soft silvery light which the best glass of this period affords, but which is here rendered impossible by the excessive use of white panes. The Cathedral's fourteenth century glass, while not presenting the splendid ensemble that one sees at St. Ouen, is nevertheless not only instructive in its variety, but is also so placed as to exhibit itself to the greatest advantage. It is to be found in the Lady Chapel, the choir clerestory, the north transept, and the north nave aisle. The two large windows on each side of the Lady Chapel are so wide as to permit of four lancets in each. The treatment is the same throughout: a broad coloured border encloses a grisaille field, across the middle third of which is a coloured figure under a canopy, which of course has not yet acquired a pedestal. Evidence of careful attention to detail is seen in the borders, which are not only very elaborate, but are also enlivened in one case by a number of little green birds, in another by brown squirrels, and in a third by white angels playing musical instruments. This feature is but rarely met. The modern glass in the three easterly windows is rendered harmless by the height of the altar rising in front of them. Broad coloured borders are also found around the clerestory, but there each enclosed surface of grisaille has to rely for its adornment upon five round blue bosses surcharged with golden sunbursts. The three easternmost panels, however, bear large coloured figures, the central one being Christ on the Cross. The rose in the north transept is of the wheel type, and is too pale, because of the excessive use of colourless glass, especially in the radiating arms. At the end of each arm and also at other points are introduced medallions of mosaic pattern. The light is admitted in accordance with the conventions, but the contrast is too great between the plain and the mosaic panes. This same contrast is even more unpleasant in the chapel just at the junction of this transept and the choir ambulatory where a few mosaic medallions are frankly placed on a light field, without even the plausible excuse therefor which is afforded in the rose above by certain round apertures especially suited for medallions. The artist is evidently still groping for a satisfactory adjustment of his design and colour to the demand for light. This period is also exemplified, although in a different way, in the second, fifth, sixth and eighth windows in the north nave aisle. There, across the lower part of the light quarries in each of the four lancets, is placed a coloured figure behind whom hangs a curtain of contrasting colour, but entirely lacking canopy framing; each lancet is surrounded by a gay border. This treatment is not so pleasing as that just observed in the Lady Chapel, for the nave figures lack the finished appearance there lent by the canopy framing. The small curtain is better than no background at all, but we are still evidently in transition. Of the fifteenth century glass in the cathedral, but little can be said; that in the south transept rose is good, while the chapel leading from that transept to the choir ambulatory contains two lofty-pinnacled canopy windows that would be excellent if they were not marred by their upper panes being filled in with disjointed fragments of thirteenth century medallions. At St. Maclou (see page 251) ten out of the twelve windows in the semi-circle of four chapels at the east end of the choir contain a softly lovely set of fifteenth century canopies whose lofty and intricate pinnacles are delicately outlined against backgrounds of lilac, blue, green, etc., always in the lighter shades. The lower parts of these windows have not fared so well as the upper portions, but they have not been damaged enough to detract from the general effect. So light are most of the tones used, that one fears the ensemble will appear too pale when viewed from the proper distance; but such is not the case, thanks to the admirable harmony between the soft colours and the dainty canopies. An occasional fifteenth century panel is to be met with elsewhere in Rouen (_i.e._, the westernmost in the north wall at St. Vincent), but they are neither sufficiently numerous nor noteworthy to be cited here. We shall carry away as our chief souvenirs of this preliminary visit to Rouen, memories of the complete glazing of St. Ouen, the varied exhibition of contemporary transitional types found at the Cathedral, and St. Maclou's delicately tinted half-circle of eastern chapels. BOURGES When we visited the Cathedral of Bourges to inspect the glass of the thirteenth century (see page 42) we referred to that of the fifteenth which fills the windows of the nave chapels. It is to inspect these that we now make our second visit. It is very usual for chapels to radiate from around the choir of a church, but rarer to find them introduced into the side walls of the nave after the completion of the edifice. Perhaps it would not prove so eminently satisfactory at Bourges if it were not for the fact that the cathedral lacks transepts; but whatever the reason, the result in this instance is admirable. The window apertures of these nave chapels indicate that they were constructed at a later period than the rest of the cathedral, for instead of the single broad windows which we find elsewhere about the interior, the lighting of each chapel is effected by a group of lancets bound together to form one very wide window space, the lancets being separated only by narrow stone mullions. To this architectural indication of date is added that of the glass, which is among the best that is known of the fifteenth century canopy type. The glazing of these chapels varies greatly in excellence, but is always good. In almost every case the windows consist of four lancets. We note here the custom of placing upon the window a small kneeling figure of the donor, and from contemporary paintings we are able to affirm that the glass artist made these portraits as perfect as his skill permitted. In the chapel given by Pierre Trousseau not only do we find the donor but also his sister and his two brothers. This tendency to introduce various members of the family increased steadily in vogue, so much so that in the sixteenth century we shall often find two or three generations kneeling in a row in the lower panels. In the first two chapels on the left the personages hold in their hands long winding scrolls on which there is writing. This form of decoration was also much elaborated in the next century, and very successfully, too. But the greatest of all fifteenth century chapels is the most easterly one on the north, just at the point where the choir chapels succeed to those of the nave. It was given by Jacques Coeur, the merchant prince of Bourges, who became treasurer of France under Charles VII. It is as beautiful in detail and ensemble as a canopy window has ever been made. The mullions separating its four lancets are not allowed to interfere with the one great subject that extends over them all. Across the top of this picture is carried the most elaborate Gothic dome ever attempted in glass painting. The ceiling beneath it is blue sprinkled with golden stars, and the groining of the arches which support it is golden also. The robes of the figures, beautiful in combination of colour, are elaborated to the last degree of decorative detail. Notice along the edge of the kneeling saint's robe a row of simulated embroidery panels gay with colour and gold. It is clear that Jacques Coeur employed upon this window the best glass artist to be found, just as he must have engaged the most skillful architects and builders for his palace, to the glories of which we alluded in our thirteenth century pilgrimage. This window and that dwelling stamp him as one of the most intelligently appreciative patrons of the arts which his time produced. The fact that the cathedral is built upon the edge of the old Roman walls makes possible a well-lighted crypt instead of the gloomy cavern generally found beneath the choirs of most cathedrals. In the embrasures at the eastern end of this lower church or crypt have been placed a set of fifteenth century windows taken from the old Ste. Chapelle of Bourges, each consisting of four canopies. Under the two central ones of each stand the coloured figures in the usual way, but under the two outer canopies the figures are partly concealed behind simulated architectural columns. This unique arrangement serves to render the glass architecture all the more convincing. It would have been well if other towns had followed the example set by Bourges in thus preserving in some store-house like a cathedral the glass of other edifices which had to be destroyed. If we travel by automobile from Bourges to Clermont-Ferrand, we will probably elect to pass through Nevers and Moulins. We have already advised the railway traveller not to alight at Moulins and he will probably not do so at Nevers. About the latter we will say but a word. Although the cathedral has a special interest in that it is one of the two churches in France having an apse at its western as well as its eastern end (the other is at Besançon), it need not detain him, because it has no old glass. If he decides to stop to look at the cathedral, he should not fail to see the old palace of the Dukes of Bourbon, with the story of Lohengrin carved by Jean Goujon on the outside of its graceful spiral staircase. MOULINS If our pilgrim in going south from Bourges to Clermont-Ferrand passed through Nevers, this slight detour has brought Moulins right upon his road. In this event he must avail himself of the opportunity to visit the cathedral, because its glass, although not of sufficient importance to demand breaking a railway journey, is distinctly worth seeing if he is passing the door. Besides, the sacristy of this church contains the splendid fifteenth century triptych, so long attributed to Ghirlandajo, but now conceded to have been the work of an unknown Moulins painter who, for want of more particular information, is called the Master of Moulins. Around the choir ambulatory there are a few canopy windows of the fifteenth century. Most of them are good, but one on the north side is quite remarkable and should be particularly noticed. The scene depicted is the Crucifixion and the background seems to be of a deep ruby. Closer inspection shows it to consist of a multitude of tiny red angels so crowded together as to give the effect, when viewed from a little distance, of a richly damasked surface. The result is as satisfactory as the method of obtaining it is original. There are also some good sixteenth century windows around the choir which are easily distinguishable because the architecture of their canopies is so obviously Renaissance and so far removed from Gothic. As the automobilist or bicyclist passes through this town, he will be struck by the attractive local feature of large diamond-shaped patterns in black or dark bricks on the red brick walls of the houses. The effect is most decorative. RIOM On our trip south from Moulins we come upon Riom, a quiet little place living on its memories of mediæval importance and treasuring within the shady circle of its wall-replacing boulevards many fine houses and other testimonials to its former wealth and importance. In an old-world country like France it is not unusual to find striking contrasts between those parts of a city which have been absolutely modernised and other portions still preserving their ancient appearance. Between neighbouring towns, however, it is not often that we shall notice so startling a difference as is effected by the 14 kilometres separating Riom from Clermont-Ferrand. It seems impossible, while in the quiet streets of this town, to realise that we are so near the busy city of Clermont-Ferrand, active in many modern manufacturing industries, a railway centre, in short, a distinctly twentieth century community. Geographically those few kilometres are only a step, but historically they will transport us four or five centuries. Here we are in an atmosphere not later than the sixteenth century, although for glass lovers the interest of the place goes back still another. The fifteenth century feature which attracts us most in Riom is the Ste. Chapelle, which now serves as the chapel for the Palais de Justice, through which we must pass to reach it. The practical hand of the altering architect has fallen heavily upon this beautiful chapel. In 1822 he took away its lower part in order to gain room for the Court of Appeals which is just below. He graciously allowed the upper half to remain a chapel, but, of course, the introduction of a new floor at half the height of the original building caused the destruction of the lower portions of the seven fine windows. Each has four large lancets and is a remarkable example of the highly-developed canopy type of the middle of the fifteenth century. Upon these are displayed a great company of richly attired personages, affording us a rare opportunity to observe the dress of the upper classes of that day. The jewels, furs and other decorative details are not more minutely studied than are the architectural features of the canopies. Each figure holds in its hands a long paper scroll upon which there is writing. These scrolls form a most effective and agreeable feature, and their use as a form of decoration was frequently seen during that century. It appears at its best in the Tree of Life rose in the south transept at Carcassone. The four central panels at the bottom contain the donors, always an attractive detail if only they are modest in size and placing. We should try to see these windows on a rainy or grey day. It must be remembered that we no longer view them from below as their artist originally intended, because the action of the architect in 1822 has brought us up on a level with them. The chapel is so small and the windows so large that if the day is sunny we are not able to withdraw a sufficient distance to readjust the perspective, and therefore a dull day, by softening the light, greatly increases their charm. [Illustration: 15TH CENTURY "CANOPY" WINDOW, SAINTE CHAPELLE, RIOM. _Gothic details carefully elaborated. Curtains suspended across backs of niches give the artist another colour, while white winding scrolls assist canopy portions in admitting light. Donors are here more important but not yet intrusive, as seen later._] CLERMONT-FERRAND The situation of this city is as beautiful as it is remarkable. Imagine a long, fertile plain from which rises suddenly a great range of hills. The plain is monotonously flat and the hills are abruptly steep, while higher than all their heights towers the round-topped mountain of Puy-de-Dôme, which gives its name to this department of France. Nestling just below the hills, upon the extreme western edge of the level country, lies the vigorous and progressive city of Clermont-Ferrand, whose activities and commerce are fed by roads leading in every direction across the broad expanse of the fertile district of Limagne. From the top of the cathedral tower the view is most striking and delightful. To the east, as far as the eye can reach, stretches out a long vista of cultivated fields, but when we turn to the west the change is positively startling. Hill is piled on hill and mountain on mountain, and all so near at hand as to make us feel that, with the naked eye, we can discern figures moving on the top of the Puy-de-Dôme, whose knob-like crest towers proudly above its surrounding and supporting heights. There are but few views like this in France, for it is rare to find so bold a range of hills rising so sharply from so wide a plain. After descending the many steps which take us back into the cathedral, we shall soon be convinced that if most of the thirteenth century glass towns had not been so accessible to Paris, a visit to this cathedral must have been suggested in order to see the fine set of medallion windows that in the apse chapels form a screen of gleaming sombre colour all around the choir--a screen so complete as to produce that effect of glistening caverns which we have found so beautiful in the glass of that century. Clermont-Ferrand was left off the thirteenth century list partly because of its distance from Paris, and partly because, if that distance had been overcome, there are no other towns in its vicinity noteworthy for their thirteenth century glass. Now that we are considering the glass of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, distance from Paris no longer proves an argument against this visit, because that period cannot be seen unless one is willing to go far afield. Besides, Clermont-Ferrand fits nicely into a series of towns rich in glass of these centuries, so we have every reason for the visit at this juncture. The cathedral is a noble example of Gothic, the spacious nave being separated from the choir by two transepts, each of which possesses a fine rose window of the fourteenth century with a gallery of small lancets below. These rose windows seem thrust too high up against the roof; in fact, if it were not for the row of lancets below, the effect would be unpleasant. This method of placing them in the wall is, however, in accordance with the best traditions of that time. The glass panels which go to make up the rose windows radiate in distinct lines from the centre. The lancets below the south rose are filled with diaper in rich colour, while across them, as if to bind them together, are drawn two bands of white rosettes. The lancets under the north rose have circles and spots of colour on a grisaille ground. Of the glass that once adorned the nave, practically nothing remains but the small roses at the tops of the windows, but these are quite attractive. It is to the choir that we must turn for the greatest charm of the interior. The sober richness of the thirteenth century panels in the chapels below is admirably set off and accompanied by the well-lighted clerestory above. Around this clerestory appears a row of large fifteenth century figures in colour framed in canopies upon a background of grisaille quarries (diamond-shaped panes). Perhaps there is a little too much contrast between the figures and the quarries, but the effect is good and certainly the light is admitted in a more satisfactory way than at Chartres, where the monks, to secure more light, replaced the rich borders of the early choir clerestory windows by white glass. As seen from the nave or from the transepts, the choir is most pleasing, a warm half light below and a brilliant clerestory above. In the two easternmost panels of the latter the artist shows us how it was sometimes possible to make one large picture by the juxtaposition of two or more, which at first glance seem entirely distinct. On the left is the Virgin Mary in what appears to be a large oval frame. On the right, and facing her, is a bust of the Father emerging from clouds. Although at first these two panels seem entirely separate, a comparison of the subject of each indicates that taken together they form a picture of the Annunciation. This method was not uncommon. At Tours, three eastern medallions of the clerestory, although seemingly distinct, really combine to form the Last Supper. We should not fail to notice at Clermont-Ferrand how very harmoniously the styles of different centuries assist each other in producing a well-glazed interior. We do not find the conflict in effect which exists at Bourges. In fact, there are but few places where glass epochs are combined in such an attractively unobtrusive manner. EYMOUTIERS When from the top of Clermont-Ferrand Cathedral we viewed the mountains of the Puy-de-Dôme range, it seemed not only that anyone planning a trip across them would have a difficult climb, but that any idea of going by train was an impossibility. Modern engineering skill, however, overcomes all obstacles, stops at nothing, and the railway awaits our command to take us over the mountains to Eymoutiers and Limoges. The grades are so steep that no expresses are attempted and therefore we have before us a tedious five-hour trip on a way train. The first and the last parts of this journey are very delightful for the automobilist or bicyclist, because of the views revealed from time to time by the windings of the road. More than half the trip, however, is quite uninteresting, as the way lies through clefts in the hills at too great an elevation for much foliage or verdure. When we descend to the village of Eymoutiers on the other side of the mountains, all the difficulties and tedium of our climb will be forgotten. There the traveller will find a charming little inn by the river, where he can have a delicious repast of trout from the neighbouring mountain stream. He will be served on a cosy terrace, which is sheltered from the sun by vines and cooled by a tinkling fountain shooting into the air a slender spray of icy water. As a glass shrine, Eymoutiers is one of the most delightful that our pilgrim will meet on his travels and one to which his memory will often pleasantly revert. He need not look about for a cathedral or for any great religious edifice. Instead, he will find a quaint, oddly-shaped church whose older western half is so dimly lighted by its few deeply-embrasured windows as to provide an excellent foil for the silvery light of the fourteen that illumine the eastern half. We cannot properly call it the choir end, because the church seems to have three choirs placed side by side, opening into each other, the central one extending a little more to the east than its two sisters. At the Ste. Chapelle in Paris we have observed that the deeply-hued medallion windows of the thirteenth century were not suited to a small interior--that their materials and construction required that they be viewed from the greater distance afforded within a cathedral in order to yield to the observer a properly combined glow from their warmth of colour. On the other hand, at Eymoutiers, we shall learn that the canopy window is as beautiful in its soft lighting of a small interior as at Bourges it is appropriate in the lower windows of a great nave, or at Quimper in its delicate illumination of a splendid clerestory. Before we have been long in the little Eymoutiers church we shall begin to notice that the later windows in the central eastern bay have much more colour than the earlier ones in the right and left ones. In these two side bays the figures have only one colour besides white in their costumes, and but one also in the backgrounds; while on the other hand, in the central bay the figures have never less than two colours in their costumes; and further, that besides the one in their backgrounds, an additional colour is there contributed by a curtain stretched across the niches, shoulder-high, behind the figures. Then, too, these later figures in the central bay have coloured halos, and the little ceilings under the canopies beneath which they stand are brightly tinted. The local authorities date the glazing of the central bay from the latter part of the fifteenth century and that of the two side ones from the middle. The difference in the colour schemes of the two sets confirms this dating. This same marked difference in the number of colours exists at Quimper, where the choir windows glazed in the first years of the fifteenth century have but few tints, while, on the other hand, there are many in those of the nave which date from the latter part of that century. As accentuating this enrichment of the artist's palette which the passage of time seemed to effect, it is noticeable that the early tracery lightings of the two side bays are very light in tone, being mostly white or some faint hue or yellow stain, while the later traceries of the central bay contain deep reds and blues, etc. A close examination of these windows repays us by revealing several quaint manifestations of the strict adherence to tradition for which the mediæval glass artists are noted. Contemporary conventions demanded that St. Christopher have a tessellated pavement as the floor of his canopy, but the legend requires that he must stand in water, so we find not only the pavement but also upon it a semi-circular pool of water in which the saint stands. So, too, the Virgin Mary is poised upon a halfmoon-shaped cloud, neatly balanced on the conventional pavement. Though these little touches make us moderns smile, they were doubtless at the time approved as showing that the artist was well schooled. Our reader should make every effort to visit Eymoutiers, for there he will truly feel the delicate charm of the canopy window. The church is glazed throughout in one style and as a type of perfection will linger in his memory in much the same way as Ste. Foy at Conches, which we will visit later for its sixteenth century glass. The canopy window, when properly placed, yields a far softer beauty than any glass can show in the century before or the century that came after, and it is greatly to be regretted that so few of them survived the stress of those battle-troubled days. Before we start on our way over rolling hills to Limoges, we must not fail to observe in Eymoutiers a certain quaint custom of building distinctive of that town. The topmost story of almost all the dwelling-houses is not walled up on the street side. This open top floor is used to store fuel. Under the eaves there is a pulley by which the bundles of wood are pulled up from the street by a block and tackle and swung in under the roof. LIMOGES After a charming ride of fifty kilometres from Eymoutiers, we arrive at Limoges, sloping picturesquely up from the banks of the winding river Vienne. We elsewhere set out our reasons for believing that the Byzantine influence upon the beginnings of French art was first and most potently exercised at Limoges, the cradle of French enamel. After remaining dormant for centuries, the enameller's art has again been quickened into life in its old home. Its younger sister, stained glass, however, never seems to have returned to its birthplace; in fact, if it were not necessary to pass through Limoges on our way north from Eymoutiers, we would not have included it in this trip. While the cathedral contains some fourteenth century glass, it lacks sufficient quantity or quality to repay one coming from a distance to see it. From Eymoutiers our route takes us through Limoges, and what it can show of glass, we, like conscientious pilgrims, must not fail to inspect. Now for the cathedral! Architecturally it is very satisfactory. Just inside the west door of the nave there is a finely-carved stone jubé or arch, in fact so good is it that we shall not see a better except in the little church of La Madeleine at Troyes, or in St. Etienne-du-Mont in Paris. Around the clerestory of the choir are thirteen double lancet windows, presented in the fourteenth century by Bishop Pierre Rodier. Unfortunately, only two of them (those of Ste. Valerie and St. Martial) are preserved intact, but the others have been so judiciously restored that we have a very good idea of how they originally looked. They consist of large coloured figures in canopies, surrounded, however, by too much grisaille. The revulsion from too little light in the preceding century sometimes produced the curse of too much in the fourteenth. This placing of subjects upon a light surface cannot help but cause an unpleasant contrast between its soft tone and the stronger colour of the figures. In the ambulatory chapels on the north side of the choir, there are two complete windows of this period, both of them grisaille with gay heraldic devices and coloured borders. In one the light field is arranged in quarries (diamond-shaped spaces), each quarry having its own little border of colour; this is very unusual. Here the contrast of rich tones and grisaille is not so disagreeable as in the clerestory. In the south transept is a large rose window containing conventional designs in red and blue, but no figures. We find the same objection to the placing of this window and to its construction that we did to the rose windows at Clermont-Ferrand: it is too high up and seems crowded against the roof, while its lines radiate so obviously from the centre as to make it resemble a wheel, whose spokes are too thick. The century before did well to have medallions placed around the central opening of its rose windows, for they gave the effect of a huge blossom and not the stiff look of a wheel. As we leave Limoges on our way to Poitiers we shall find, if we travel by automobile or bicycle, that the road along the Vienne, following the picturesque windings of that charming river, is one of the most delightful in all France. POITIERS Upon one of our thirteenth century pilgrimages the reader has already been taken to Poitiers (see page 47). Not only has he visited the cathedral and seen its glorious Crucifixion window, but he has also entered the smaller church of St. Radegonde to view the thirteenth century glass there. For the purpose of this trip he must again repair to the latter church to see a unique manifestation of the effect produced by the new demand for more light, which is the most marked feature of the taste in glass of the fourteenth century. The windows which we are now seeking are the four in the north wall between the north portal and the choir. They are undoubtedly interesting, but can hardly be called beautiful. In order to admit as much light as possible, the greater part of their surfaces is filled with light greenish-grey grisaille, whose design is that of a number of circles, each circle impinging on the next. Scattered irregularly upon the grisaille are many small-sized personages in deep colour. Around the whole is a brilliant border. The contrast between the gay hues of the figures (and also of the border) and the light tone of the grisaille is not only too sharp to be pleasant, but it also destroys the harmonious ensemble which is the great charm in the early canopy window. It seems logical that the light-admitting canopy should be used as a frame for the richly-coloured figure which it encloses, but there is no artistic excuse for spotting light grisaille with sharply-outlined, strongly-toned figures, and then framing the whole by the harsh lines of a coloured conventional border. At Bourges the beauties of the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries can be seen at the same time, and each enjoyed, although for different reasons. Here at St. Radegonde, however, the charming thirteenth century rose window above the north portal enjoys an easy victory over the glaring contrasts of its fourteenth century neighbours. The latter should be inspected because they are unique in their elaborate method of admitting light, but they point to a road which should not be followed. It is interesting to note that at the time of their construction these windows were very highly considered. There was no reason why they should not have been of the best, because this church has long benefited by the generosity of pilgrims to the tomb of the saint beneath its choir. Among these none was more devoted than Anne of Austria, the queen of Louis XIII. Nor is this shrine the only attraction to the pious which the church can boast, for in the south wall there is a small recess protected by an iron grille enclosing what is represented to be a footprint of Jesus Christ. This is still an object of much veneration. These facts must be taken into consideration, because a church to which crowds of votaries for centuries resorted would surely contain no glass inappropriate to the wealth and high standing of these pilgrims. In fact, a certain hallmark is thus given its windows, which enables us by means of it to judge of the taste of the time. ANGERS There is hardly a religious edifice in existence where so many periods of glass are represented by such uniformly good examples as in St. Maurice Cathedral at Angers. In a former visit (see page 55) we observed that its nave contains the greatest amount of twelfth century work which any French church can show and also that in its choir and transepts there are many fine medallion windows of the thirteenth century. Now we will take up the really gorgeous fifteenth century glass, beginning with the two large west windows of the north transept. So elaborated and full of architectural detail are they that their canopies alone occupy more than half the entire window space. We have generally seen the canopy used only as a frame, but here there is more frame than picture! Each of these two windows contains four niches enclosing brilliantly-hued figures, two in the lower half and two in the upper half of each window. The glass forming the canopy part is much deeper in tone than we have been accustomed to find, having a strong greenish shade similar to that found in many English fourteenth century canopies (as, for example, those in New College Chapel, Oxford). We have noted before that English glass is generally more highly coloured in the fourteenth than in the fifteenth century, but the contrary is true in France, where the fourteenth is much softer in tone than that found in the next century. These windows provide a case in point. It is perhaps well that they are so strongly toned, for even as it is, they seem rather pale in comparison with the early medallion windows all around them. The embrasures which they fill were built in the thirteenth century and are therefore larger than those generally found in the fifteenth; the extremely strong saddle bars necessary to support this great weight of glass are so noticeable to the observer that they seem to isolate the panels containing the figures and thus hurt the frame effect of the canopy. Perhaps the pilgrim will find this comment is hypercritical, for the windows are undoubtedly very effective. They were given by Bishop Jean-Michel about 1440. One is naturally curious to see the work done by an artist in his home town, for if not of his best, it is apt to be typical and show the influence which his natural environment exercised upon him. For this reason we turn with considerable interest to see what was accomplished by André Robin, when called in 1452 to reglaze the rose windows of the transepts. The stone traceries had been constructed in the thirteenth century, and though it is difficult to adapt later glass to earlier framework, the result here has been very successful, much more so than, for example, in the case of the west rose of the Ste. Chapelle in Paris. In the north rose window Robin put the Resurrection. Christ is in the centre and from Him there radiate sixteen elongated panes bearing yellow and blue angels. The resurrected dead are shown in the act of pushing up the covers of their tombs, a conventional method of representing them. Above are little scenes illustrating the occupations of each month of the year. Upon the south rose there appear the signs of the zodiac, and below them the Elders of the Apocalypse. In these Elders we may trace a reference to the splendid set of Apocalypse tapestries which hang around the interior. The most northerly window on the east side of the transept is also by Robin. The subject is the Crucifixion, and it was finished in 1499. In Angers there is yet another set of fifteenth century windows, and to see them we must go to the little church of St. Serge, in whose choir we have already studied the charming twelfth century grisaille. These windows are of the canopy type and are placed in the nave clerestory. There are three on each side, the two westerly ones being of three broad lancets each and the easterly one of two lancets. The colour contrasts are good and the architecture in the canopy framing very convincing, both in size and adjustment. LE MANS During the course of our former visit to Le Mans Cathedral (see page 60) we remarked that the transepts were glazed in the fifteenth century. The glass is good and the north rose is particularly well worth seeing. Of the transepts themselves, it may be said that no others in all France are provided with windows in such a curiously irregular way, no two corresponding portions of wall having the same or even similar ones. There is no window at all in the south transept end, but instead there is a solid wall against which the organ is backed. The west side of this transept has two very large windows with coloured borders framing grisaille, upon which are small circles and squares. On the east side the wall has even fewer openings. Crossing over to the north transept, we find still more irregular arrangement, there being a marked difference in amount of window space, as well as in the shape and adjustment between the east and the west wall. There is, however, a distinct improvement over the south transept in that here there are canopy windows and that, too, of no ordinary type. But it is to the north end of this transept that we must turn to have our admiration as well as our interest thoroughly aroused. The writer believes this to be the finest example of a rose window, blossoming out at the top of a well-adjusted group of lancets, that the fifteenth century can afford. At Clermont-Ferrand and Limoges we have noticed that the tendency at that time was to crowd the rose up too high against the roof and then try to counteract the effect by placing beneath it a row of lancets to bring down the whole group. At Le Mans the adjustment in the wall is perfect. Further, the lower range of windows is treated with the respect it deserves, for not only is the rose beautifully glazed, but the lancets have also received the artist's careful attention: they are graceful, good-sized and filled with a triple tier of excellent canopied figures. The rose is poised above and between the points of two wide lancet windows, each of which is in turn divided perpendicularly by mullions. The subject, The Crowning of the Virgin, is admirably treated, and nothing could be more delightful than the numerous angels singing and playing upon various musical instruments. For the honour of the fifteenth century glazier it is well that we should see this splendid effect, because we might otherwise conclude that, notwithstanding his brilliant success in producing canopy panels, he never grasped the full possibilities of the rose window. SÉES En route from Le Mans to Sées we must pass directly through Alençon, famous for its lace, and especially for the sort known as Point d'Alençon. If en automobile we should stop here long enough to see the Renaissance glass in the church of Notre Dame. Although of a later period than that which we are now considering, we must not be so narrow-minded as to deliberately pass by fine glass, no matter when it was made. The exterior of Notre Dame struck the writer as curiously emblematic of the impression which one receives of the town. The church is squat and ugly, but it is redeemed by the lace-like Gothic of its western porch, which, fearful lest it be not remarked, thrusts itself out into the street. In similar fashion, Alençon as a town has its commonplaceness condoned by reason of the beauty of its lace, a beauty which is constantly thrust upon your attention by its inhabitants. The glass to be noticed is around the nave clerestory. A most charming stone setting is provided for this sixteenth century glazing by the broad and high embrasures of six lancets each. Particularly note how, at the top of each sheaf of lancets, the delicate lines of the traceries flow upward and inward like flames aspiring from a broad-based fire, seeking the outlet above of a narrow chimney. The picture period is here at its best, and the artist, regardless of the upright stone mullions, has spread his subject across all the lancets of each embrasure, and has lavished upon them all the shades of his richly stocked palette. Over the west portal we have the same shape of window, but here it is broader and permits of eight lancets. The subject is the well-worn one of Jesse and his descendants, but the design is distinctly novel, and an unusual amount of green foliage against a blue background lends a pleasant tone to the picture. The descendants are relegated to the upper panes, while the major portion of the great surface is divided equally between Jesse (on the right) and a large panel enclosing the scene of the Saviour's birth (on the left). Of the rest of the glass in this church it is kindly comment to say that it is unsatisfactory. But let us push on to Sées, 20 kilometres further. One reads but little of the cathedral there, and more's the pity, because from any point of view it is not only admirable, but picturesquely delightful. Placed upon a slight eminence in the midst of a wide basin, this elevation suffices to make it visible from a long distance on every side. Its gracefully aspiring twin spires, its mantle of flying buttresses, the charming conformation of its eastern end, all conspire to allure us and fill us with expectations of what a nearer view may reveal. Nor does the interior fail to realise all this distant promise. What a graceful lightness of stonework is everywhere visible, supplemented by the glazier's intelligent delicacy of touch. The nave alone lacks its ancient glass. Nowhere in France or elsewhere can the fourteenth century glass artist be seen to greater advantage than at Sées. Very happy is the way in which his light-admitting grisaille has been enlivened and decorated by coloured borders and bands of richly-toned, canopy-framed figures. At Evreux we will find him more splendid, more varied, but here, around the choir and the transepts, he has worked out more consistently, more coherently, his new idea of combining translucence and colour decoration. Dainty, almost dangerously fragile as is the stonework that supports the upper windows, the glazier's handwork is daintier still--a film of soft grisaille held in a spider's web of lead lines, whilst across the middle third are bands of early canopies. Not only in the clerestory of choir and transepts, but also in the choir chapels below, do we find this treatment uniformly carried out. The completeness of the scheme of decoration, as well as the satisfactory adjustment of colour to grisaille, give an ensemble which we elsewhere seek in vain. Not satisfied with the illumination provided by his airy clerestory, the architect has pierced his triforium gallery throughout. In this lower tier there has been no attempt to introduce figures, the glazier having contented himself with surrounding his grisaille by decorated borders. The only exception to this rule is where the triforium gallery passes below the lovely rosaces that decorate the transept ends--there, in each case, the row of ten lancets is filled, alas! with modern glass whose thin tones betray it at once. Fortunately one is too much absorbed in looking at the great roses above to notice them very intently. So high up are these rosaces in their respective walls that the arching of the ceiling actually passes in front of their upper corners. That in the south transept is a wheel window with medallions in the ends of the spokes, but instead of the rest of the openings being glazed in grisaille (as at Rouen Cathedral), colour is here used throughout. Very different is the north transept rose, from the centre of which six broad arms diverge, separating groups of blossom-like apertures. The colour is good, but would have been better had there been omitted the white borders that make the coloured panels seem about to start from their sockets. The luminous effectiveness of the interior is utilised and accentuated by the placing of the double-faced altar on a raised platform in the middle of the crossing where the transepts can contribute to its glory equally with the choir. The high altar carries off the unusual honour of this central position with great dignity and success. So much are we seized and held by the charm of the general effect that we are not tempted, as is so often the case elsewhere, to solace ourselves with spelling out quaint details in individual windows. Nevertheless, that form of research is here well worth while. Three times on the south side of the choir clerestory and again in the second choir chapel on the left, do we find the donors, ingenuously holding in their uplifted hands small models of their gift windows. Several times we will note two canopy panels whose stories must be read together, as for example in the first choir chapel on the right, where a mounted man in armour is piercing with his spear the side of the crucified Christ in the next panel to the right. Interesting as are these and many other similar details, it is the softly tinted illumination of the whole interior, more than any particular feature, that makes us remember Sées Cathedral as one of the most satisfactory French examples of fourteenth century glazing. VERNEUIL Long before one reaches Verneuil he remarks a great tower looming high above the surrounding house-tops, a tower so commanding as to seem to beckon us from afar, and then later when we have reached its foot, to make us halt awhile in its shadow to enjoy the innumerable delicate details of its architecture, which render a near view as delightful as the distant prospect is imperious. It is not often in France that one sees so striking a landmark, which must have been vastly more significant still in those battleworn years of the middle ages when Verneuil was for so long an important post on the frontier between France and the territory held by the English. There may still be seen one of the massive round towers of the ancient fortifications, its great size bearing witness to the importance attached to the possession and defence of the city. Nor is Verneuil lacking in other and more homely charms, for it preserves many of its old timbered houses, as well as others of stone and brick decorated at one corner by a gracefully carved tourelle. On making our way to the centre of the town we find that the great tower belongs to the church of La Madeleine, which occupies one end of the spacious market-place. No more ill-assorted collection of incongruous elements were ever found in one edifice. The lofty uplift of the choir and transepts rises so much above the low roof-tree of the nave, that viewed from a little distance, there seems no connecting link between the eastern portion of the church and the great tower at the western end. The transepts are so short as to extend but little beyond the sides of the choir, and furthermore there are two sets of transepts, side by side, and opening into each other. It is to the eastern and loftier part of the edifice that we must repair. Here about the choir and the two parallel chapels that adjoin it are a dozen windows containing fifteenth century canopies, mostly arranged in two tiers, one above the other. Note that it is groups rather than single figures that appear within the enframing niches, and that the stories told by these panels are more elaborate, even if less effective than their grander contemporaries in the transepts. These latter are fine tall-pinnacled examples, each canopy enclosing a single figure, and are found in three of the four great embrasures that light the end walls of the transepts. The fourth contains Renaissance canopies. Throughout all this fifteenth century glass the deepness of the tones used in the figures within the niches is most noticeable. There are also several sixteenth century windows, the most noteworthy one being a Tree of Jesse in the east end of the southerly chapel. A large figure of the Virgin holding the Infant Jesus is shown standing on the vine just at the point where the branches separate. Jesse's descendants, drawn to a smaller scale, are emerging from blossoms all about the Virgin, whom they are intently regarding. Although the fifteenth century glass in La Madeleine is not so splendid as some we have seen elsewhere, it is in such quantity and variety as to afford valuable facilities for comparison and study. There is also good glass to be seen in the church of Notre Dame. The picturesque old-world flavour of Verneuil will perhaps make it a greater favourite with us than some towns possessing more important windows. On leaving Verneuil, whether we decide to return to Paris via Chartres, or to link this trip on to the next by passing directly to Evreux and thence to Rouen, we may, by means of a slight detour, go through Nonancourt. If we do, we should delay there long enough to enter the church to see the low fifteenth century windows along the nave aisles, as well as the larger Renaissance ones that stretch in a long row around the whole length of the clerestory. It will be worth the few additional kilometres to the automobilist, although hardly demanding the breaking of a railway journey. CHARTRES Besides its wondrous cathedral, Chartres has another though a more modest sanctuary which also possesses its original glazing almost intact. This is the church of St. Pierre, a unique example of the glazier's attempt to meet the objection of light obstruction charged against the thirteenth century mosaic method. His treatment of the clerestory lights is of peculiar interest. There are no transepts. Around the clerestory each window is divided perpendicularly in half, one side being glazed in colour and the other in soft grisaille. The only difference in the nave clerestory is that there each window is divided perpendicularly into three instead of two, the middle division in each case containing colour work and the two outside ones, grisaille. This method of glazing, plus the fact that the triforium is pierced, produces the desired amount of illumination within, but one can hardly say that it is produced in an altogether satisfactory manner. It is inevitable that this sandwiching of strips of colour between others of grisaille should reduce the value of the tints and dull their glow. The effect is very strange--it is as if tall shutters of dark hue had been prepared for grisaille windows, but that these shutters had only been put up on one side of each. Whether one admires it or not, the method is novel, and worth examining. The new demand for more light has been met, but we have not yet reached the perfection of church illumination. For this we must wait until the fully elaborated canopy panels of the fifteenth century, for in those the glazier hit upon just the right proportion of colour and translucency by means of convincingly complete designs containing no jarring contrasts. It is well if one defers this inspection of St. Pierre, and does not go to it straight from the sombre glories of the cathedral. Such an immediate comparison will render it difficult to realise what an agreeable experience the smaller edifice affords for the student of glass (see page 67). Do not fail to go into the Lady Chapel to see the delightful set of twelve enamels representing the Apostles, by many considered the chef d'oeuvre of the master of that craft, Leonard Limousin. They are remarkable not only for their delicious combination of tones and shades, but also for their unusually large size (two feet high by one foot broad). One is not surprised at the great care everywhere apparent in their workmanship when one learns that they were ordered by Francis I, who, however, did not live to see them finished. His son, Henry II, presented them to Diane de Poitiers for her Château d'Anet. Before leaving St. Pierre, observe how excellently the architect adjusted the relative heights of the bays, triforium and clerestory; so graceful is the result that we depart with the impression of an edifice of unusually agreeable proportions. QUIMPER Far off in the western corner of France dwells that strange race, the Bretons. Leave behind you Paris, the standard-bearer of things modern, and set out for distant Quimper, the westernmost outpost of French glass. You will find yourself in the midst of a curious folk whose origin is unknown, in a bleak country where over a million people speak an uncouth Celtic tongue utterly unlike French; where customs, handed down from father to son, persist for centuries; where modern costume is ignored and the peasant glories in his bright blue and gold jacket adorned with glittering buttons. You have even passed beyond the fabled forest of Broceliande, where Vivien held the great Merlin by her magic spell. Quimper must be visited for its own sake because there are no neighbouring glass towns. Long as is the journey, it is safe to say that you will be repaid for its discomforts. Arrive, if you can, on a Sunday. The roomy interior of the cathedral is quite as attractive as the elaborate Gothic detail outside has promised. Here during service, perhaps more than anywhere else in France, will the middle ages seem to you still to be lingering on. No stiff rows of pews obtrude their modern convenience upon your notice. You will find the great church filled with group upon group of Breton men and women sitting on rude rush-bottomed chairs, the men in their gay attire and the women wearing quaint white caps which vary slightly in each little village or commune. All this serves to take us back into feudal times; we sink into a seat and observe the intense interest with which our neighbours are following the ringing exhortations of the priest, couched in homely phrases, quite like the discourse which his predecessors in the fifteenth century preached from the same pulpit to a very similar audience. Our mood becomes so mediæval as to almost make the ancient stained glass seem contemporary. It is a pleasant thought that the series of canopy windows made for the choir clerestory in 1417 by Jamin Sohier should have been continued and carried along the clerestory of the nave and transepts by his son, also named Jamin Sohier, towards the end of the same century. One of these later ones near the west front bears the date 1496. Some of those in the nave were sadly injured by the stress of time, and a few altogether destroyed; but they have been repaired and replaced most successfully, pious care having been taken to restore them as nearly as possible to their original condition. This was done during the years 1867 to 1874 by M. Luçon at the expense of the State. The nave windows of the younger Sohier are much more brilliant, both in richness and in variety of colours, than the earlier choir windows of his father. The gradual development of the verre doublé (or double sheets of glass) placed a greater variety of tints at the disposal of the artist, and he eagerly took advantage of his enriched palette. By comparing the choir panels with the later ones of the nave, we have here an excellent opportunity to study the development of the canopy window. We cannot help but feel that although the earlier ones lack the brilliancy and glow which characterise those constructed later, this lack is more than balanced by the delicious softness of the light which they transmit. It is interesting to observe how many of them set forth the legend of St. Christopher. Do not fail to notice the skillful contrast of a strong yellow with a rich green of which the east windows of the north transept provide several excellent examples. There is a striking peculiarity in the ground plan of this church. The choir is not upon the same axis as the nave, but inclines at quite an angle to the north. This peculiarity also exists in one or two other French churches, and the local authorities always delight to tell you that it is a form of Gothic symbolism intended to represent the drooping to one side of the Saviour's head on the Cross. When the true explanation is discovered, it generally proves to be of a more practical nature. The same slant to the north is observable in the choir of Saint Jean, at Troyes; there it was caused by the fact that the street line on the south side of the choir had to be pushed northward after the great fire of 1524. At Quimper the explanation is even more interesting. In 1239 Bishop Raynaud wished to add to his cathedral the chapel of Notre Dame (founded in 1028 by the Count of Cornoucilles) which stood a little to the east and was across a small street. He extended his choir so as to take in the chapel; but as it lay a little to the north of the true easterly line, he had to slant his choir to effect his purpose. This explanation may not be poetically symbolical, but it is historically accurate. SIXTEENTH CENTURY We have now reached the perfected period of stained glass, by some called the Renaissance, and by others the Cinque-cento. The latter affords a graceful recognition of Italian inspiration in the revival of French art at the beginning of the sixteenth century. By this time the reader will have appreciated the truth of the statement in our introduction that stained glass saves us the trouble of dividing it into periods, because it falls of itself into divisions whose boundaries, oddly enough, coincide approximately with those of the centuries. This was heretofore illustrated when the canopy window appeared upon the scene and caused the abrupt change from the sombre glittering tones of the thirteenth century to the light-admitting silvery-grey glass of the fourteenth. Now we are about to see how another change came at the end of the fifteenth century, when the Renaissance sprang full-grown, not Minerva-like from the brows of Jove, but from those of Mars, the God of War, for it was the Italian wars of Louis XII and Francis I that brought about this sudden regeneration of all branches of French art. What the French soldiers saw in Italy they remembered and told at home, and, moreover, many of their trophies bore witness to the wonderful development then reached by Italian art. The fact that after several centuries French territory was at last relieved from distress of war naturally resulted in a sudden interest in building of all sorts. Because of this, architecture was among the first of the arts to be affected by the new Italian taste. We have before noticed the inter-relation of the needs and styles of the architect with those of the glass artist, and therefore we are not surprised to find our windows testifying that the latter quickly perceived Gothic architecture was being superseded by the classic style. During the last two centuries he had grown to appreciate more and more the light-admitting advantages of the canopy window, but now he changes the simulated architecture from Gothic to Renaissance. In his designs we notice an even more important change, which results from the fact that he now enjoys a good working knowledge of the laws of perspective and hastens to avail himself of it in order to lend greater depth to his picture. Indeed, in some instances, he carried the use of perspective almost to an abuse. His predecessors in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries knew nothing of these rules, which, indeed, were then unknown in every art. On our way down through the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, because most of the windows are either canopy, or grisaille surcharged with figures, we are by their very nature denied an opportunity to observe the same gradual development of perspective which was contemporaneously taking place in painting. The result is that when in the sixteenth century the glass artist decided to branch out from the conventional canopy style and indulge his taste in the more ambitious effort of the picture window, the sudden change from no perspective to an abundance is all the more noticeable. During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the only hint obtainable of an increasing interest in perspective was when we noticed that fifteenth century canopies were more elaborate than those of the fourteenth, not only because they had much more intricate pinnacles, but also by reason of the curtains hanging in the back of the niches, and other details showing attempts to gain depth in the picture. In his large picture windows the sixteenth century artist also has more chance to show us how greatly the discovery of enamelling on glass has enriched his palette. During the two preceding centuries his development of verre doublé (or glass in double layers) has been yielding a constantly increasing variety of hues in the costumes of his personages, backgrounds, etc.; but now he adds his brilliant enamels and fairly riots in colour. We shall often have occasion to deplore that the glazier of the Renaissance never truly grasped the full artistic possibilities of the black outlines ready to his hand in the leads, and that he failed to realise, as did his predecessors, that the more the drawing was executed by the leads the more attractive and convincing the resulting picture would be. Towards the end of this epoch this disregard for their usefulness in the design was often carried to such an extreme that one concludes the artist must have regarded them as of no service except to hold the glass in position. Some of the men who indulged most in enamel painting became so engrossed in this form of decorating glass as to consider the leads an intrusion, and as tending to reduce the size of the sheets, which they preferred should be of large size in order to facilitate the painting thereon of their pictures. To recapitulate, the most noticeable features of the new régime are then-- (_a_) Renaissance architecture depicted instead of Gothic. (_b_) Larger scenes. (_c_) Use of perspective. (_d_) Greatly increased diversity of colour. (_e_) Use of enamel painting. (_f_) Increasing carelessness in use of leads. [Illustration: "DESCENT OF THE HOLY GHOST," MONTFORT L'AMAURY (16TH CENTURY). _Architecture depicted now entirely Renaissance. Tracery lights above, much simplified, lend artist more room for his picture. Lead lines now mar the picture, instead of only providing the outlines. Drawing greatly perfected; note the excellent grouping, the "Golden Tongues," etc. Kneeling donors are not only too large but intrude upon the subject. (See page 237)._] Not only does Renaissance architecture supersede the older Gothic on our windows, but it very naturally brings with it certain characteristics of the new architect. For example, because he generally placed the date conspicuously upon his edifice, so in Renaissance glass we find the glazier introducing the date upon some panel of the simulated architecture. Before this time, windows were seldom dated; now this custom soon became firmly established and various methods for it were devised. In the parish church at Les Iffs, in Brittany, the west panel of the small chapel on the south side of the choir bears its date upon a gold coin held by one of the figures. The writer remembers this well, because, finding no date, it struck him that it might be on the coin. He piled three chairs, one on top of the other, climbed up, and there it was. Immediately after the discovery, the chairs fell down! Notwithstanding the richness which the artist's palette has attained, we occasionally meet an indication that he has not forgotten the cool silvery-grey formerly yielded by the canopy window. He now sought to obtain the same result in another fashion by occasionally restricting the colour of a picture window to various shades of grey (or very light brown), relieved by flesh tints where needed, and enlivened by touches of yellow stain. We sometimes find a church glazed throughout in this style, as, for example, St. Pantaléon at Troyes. It was, however, chiefly used in smaller edifices and for domestic or civil purposes. This particular manifestation of sixteenth century style outlived most of its contemporaries and is found as late as the end of the next century. By this last observation we are naturally led to comment upon the almost complete collapse of the cult of stained glass that came at the end of this century. People seemed to no longer care for it, although it had for more than four hundred years been so highly esteemed. We read of many instances of artists who had no orders for work and therefore had to turn their talents into other channels. That master of so many arts, Bernard Palissy, writing at the end of the century, tells us that so completely had the sale of glass fallen into disrepute that it was then hawked about from village to village by those who sold old clothes and old iron, and that although the art was a noble one, many of its practitioners found it difficult to get enough to live upon. For this passing of interest there have been many reasons advanced, but perhaps the most convincing is that of surfeit. Certain it is that an enormous quantity of stained glass was produced during the sixteenth century, much of which has survived. Of course, in some quarters the cult lasted longer than in others, but then it is generally traceable to the existence there of a peculiarly gifted group of glass artists. We shall find this true at Troyes, where the skill and fame of Linard Gonthier and his school produced such a demand for their work as to cause the art in that locality to survive far into the seventeenth century. While it is true that during the sixteenth century glass reached its highest perfection, it is but natural that on the way up it should have outgrown many of the indications of craft tradition which we have from time to time noticed. The perfected picture no longer needed certain conventional signs to tell its story. Perspective and improved drawing obviated the need of them. There are, however, several instances which show that even the sixteenth century artist felt the charm of quaintness, though to a lesser degree than his predecessors. For example, a window in Caudebec Cathedral (the Passage of the Red Sea by the Israelites) takes pains to identify the sea by having the waves glazed in red! Though he had discarded most of the conventions, he retained and much beautified a few of them. For example, in Tree of Jesse windows, he far outstripped the older schools in grace and elaboration of treatment. As an indication of the interest felt in allegory by the later men we must invite attention to the so-called "Wine Press" window. Here we have the same branching vine found in the Tree of Jesse, but in this case it springs from the wounded Christ, who is being bruised in the press (or sometimes from His pressed-out blood), and spreads out over the panes, bearing as its blossoms saints, apostles or historical personages. In a few instances it rises from the wine pressed by Christ from the grapes. Windows of this type are to be seen at Conches, at Troyes and many other places, but nowhere is the idea so elaborated as at St. Etienne-du-Mont in Paris. Sometimes the heads displayed on the vines indicate another tendency of this century, which can be particularly noted in the last cited window (by Pinaigrier) and in Engrand Le Prince's Tree of Jesse at St. Etienne (Beauvais). In these two the heads prove to be accurate portraits of contemporary royalties and church dignitaries, a fashion then much affected and highly esteemed. Another evidence of this same tendency to add personal touches is shown in the greatly increased use of armorial bearings, not only serving as the sole decorations of a panel, but also appearing upon picture subjects. These coats of arms are not only agreeable in effect, but also by their heraldry are very useful in fixing dates. Many of these armorial bearings were, however, destroyed after the edict of 1792, forbidding their use. Most sixteenth century windows bear the donor's figure, nor shall we find excessive modesty shown by the man who paid the price. In this connection it is interesting to note that although stained glass has always been very expensive, strangely enough the expense has remained practically constant throughout all its history, providing, of course, one takes into consideration the varying purchasing power of money. In fact, the cost thus corrected varies so little from epoch to epoch as to be positively surprising. When we consider how costly was a gift of this sort, perhaps it is not extraordinary that, during the sixteenth century, we generally find upon it the givers' portraits; the wonder is that the custom was not more widely spread before. Unfortunately, the donor was now more aggressive than his predecessors, for often the figure is not only too large, but actually intrudes upon the subject of the window. Frequently not content to appear alone, he had the portraits of several of his family added as well. Before we make our selection of towns to be visited, let us look about us in Paris, for it has not a little glass to show us. PARIS Before starting on our thirteenth century tours, Paris supplied us with very useful results from our comparison of the glass in the Ste. Chapelle with that of the north rose at Notre Dame. Not so satisfactory was our study of the fifteenth century canopy windows at St. Sévérin in that city. We shall, however, find excellent sixteenth century glass in several of the Paris churches, and will thus be afforded an opportunity to prepare for our excursions by obtaining in advance some idea of the style of that period, and shall also find some examples by its best artists. Let us begin at St. Germain l'Auxerrois, whose charmingly light tower and graceful exterior seem to give the lie to the sinister fact that from this very belfry rang out the signal for the massacre of St. Bartholomew. The west wall of the north transept provides a reason for here beginning our study of sixteenth century glass, because there, side by side, are two very similar windows, harmonising agreeably one with the other, and yet the architecture of the canopies of one is fifteenth century Gothic, and of the other, Renaissance. This very conveniently illustrates for us one of the marked changes which came over our glass. If the canopies were not enough to date them, other details are not lacking to perform that service. The earlier window has all the features of the distant landscape put in with the leads, while in the later one they are delicately painted on greyish blue; especially note this in the well scene. The other windows in this transept are also attractive and the warmth of some of the reds in the bed draperies of the earlier one of the pair just mentioned should be noticed. The adjusting of the figures to their panes in the transept rose windows is adroitly handled, particularly some of the kneeling angels in the south one. In the west wall of the south transept, the problem of placing a central figure when the architect provided only four, instead of five lancets, is gracefully overcome. At St. Gervais we have one of the few opportunities to compare two of the greatest artists produced by the new school--Robert Pinaigrier and Jean Cousin--but that is about all that can be said for this ugly church, where architecture, white windows and modern glass combine to drive away the student. The best window is by Pinaigrier, the Judgment of Solomon (second on the right in the choir chapels); it is dated 1531, and although considered by many his masterpiece, seems to us to have too much marble pavement, etc., for its personages; and further, the little scenes in the tracery lights contrast disagreeably not only with the picture below, but also with its minarets and their sky background which jut up into the space above. We must, however, note how the accurate perspective contributed by the lines of the pavement and the distant architecture facilitates the correct stationing of the figures without confusing them as to position or foreshortening. His, also, are the twelve panels in the Lady Chapel, giving scenes from the life of the Virgin Mary: here the composition is delightful. We may remark in passing that at least one of them displays verses which by reason of their quaint expressions are less suited to our times than to the more unrestrained speech of those earlier days. Jean Cousin's window, the Martyrdom of St. Lawrence (1551), is the first on the right in the choir, and though good in technique, is not attractive. We should reserve judgment upon his work until after we have visited Vincennes. Across the river and at the top of the hill crowned by the Panthéon is to be found an edifice that looks more like an architectural freak than a church--St. Etienne-du-Mont. It seems to realise its own ugliness and tries to conceal itself behind the Panthéon. Once we enter its portal we find a vast improvement over the distressing exterior of this confection of stone. There are plenty of spacious windows and a general airy effect. Swung high in the air across the front of the choir is a graceful stone jubé arch, seemingly fastened to the columns at each end by double loops of delicate spiral stairways. The choir is so lightly constructed, and with so few obstructing columns, that the whole of the ambulatory space becomes a part of it. This arrangement enables us to enjoy the glazing of the ambulatory and the choir chapels from all parts of the building. A little door marked "Sacristie" leads off from the ambulatory through a corridor to the Chapel of the Catechism. Along the west wall of this chapel are ranged a series of twelve panels by Pinaigrier, and because they are on the level of the observer's eye, he is afforded every facility for examining what could be accomplished by a great artist in enamelling colour on glass. In fact, there is no place in France where this can be more conveniently studied. Although all twelve are fine, that devoted to the allegory of the wine press is easily the best. Oddly enough, it was the gift of a rich wine merchant. In it are to be found faithful portraits of Pope Paul II, Emperor Charles V, Francis I, and Henry VIII of England, as well as sundry cardinals and archbishops, all in rich ceremonial costume. Needless to say, those individuals have nothing to do with the subject of the window, but the opportunity to display portraits of them was too good for the artist to waste. This frequently appears on glass of the period and sometimes the result verges on the ludicrous. After visiting these stately temples, the quiet church of St. Merri appears even more modest and retiring than its obscure site just off the busy quarter about the Hotel De Ville really renders it. In fact, so well is it hidden that we would have missed it had we not been seeking very carefully. The windows here are more interesting than beautiful and their effectiveness has been impaired in several ways. We read that during the eighteenth century those in charge of the church, after careful deliberation, replaced a great deal of the coloured by white glass, especially in the nave, where they removed the two central lancets of each group of four, leaving only the upper half of the two outer ones. Of course, the result was not only disastrous to the window's general effect, but entirely extinguishes any warmth of tone in such glass as remains. We cannot but deplore the absence of the abstracted panes, for the remains in the side lancets and tracery lights evidence such skill, as well in combination of tones as in drawing (more particularly in the handling of perspective), that one can readily imagine what harm has been done. Even the few scenes that are left are well worth inspection, and are as interesting as any of this epoch in Paris. Notice in the third window on the right, the way in which the landscape is carried back until it ends in a little red-topped tower, from which peer out two heads. Fortunately, these deliberate and painstaking vandals spared the glass in the three westerly windows on each side of the choir, and also in the eastern walls of the transepts. The panels on the left, showing the history of Joseph, are better than their neighbours across the choir. Of the sixteenth century glass to be seen in Paris, this much can be said: it varies markedly, illustrates most of the types of that time, and is therefore very useful in preparing us for the tours we are about to take. SIXTEENTH CENTURY TOURS We shall have to approach the subject of viewing sixteenth century glass in a very different spirit from that in which we undertook the tours of the preceding centuries. We can no longer set up any claim to thoroughness. If our pilgrim visited all the places recommended in our thirteenth century excursions, as well as those for the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, he can rest with the comfortable assurance that he has seen about all of the really good glass of those periods. Now we have a different problem. There has survived a great deal more glass from the sixteenth century than from all the preceding ones combined. He cannot hope to see it all, and we will have to limit ourselves to sketching out for him three tours covering the best--supplementing these by several detached cities, so that if the glass hunter happens in their neighbourhood he will not overlook them. He will find, however, some compensations for the bewilderment caused by the great quantity of sixteenth century glass, the chief of which is that either Rouen or Troyes provides in its many churches a complete exposition of that period's style. If the pilgrim's time is limited, he can accomplish more during a short stay in those two cities than he could upon any tour which might be outlined. Two other compensations provided by this abundance of material are--first, that there is a great deal of good glass to be seen in Paris, and furthermore, the automobilist especially will delight to learn that there are a half-dozen points in its immediate neighbourhood which offer an excellent excuse for a half-day's outing. For the leisurely traveller who has both time and inclination, we will arrange three tours; but he must understand that although they will provide him with a sight of the best sixteenth century glass, there will still be left a number of towns worth visiting. Each of these trips will begin in Paris. On Tour (_a_) we first stop at Vincennes, just outside the fortifications, then on to Sens, to Troyes, to Chalons-sur-Marne and back to Paris. Tour (_b_) takes us by way of Versailles to Montfort l'Amaury; then to that perfect shrine of Renaissance glass, Conches; next to Pont-Audemer; then across the Seine by boat to Caudebec, and from there upstream, by the interesting old Abbey of St. Wandrille and the stately Jumièges to Rouen. From Rouen we run out to Grand-Andely, Elbeuf or Pont de l'Arche before we push up the river Seine to Paris. Tour (_c_) will particularly recommend itself to the automobilist, and most of the points are quite near Paris. We go out through St. Denis to the town of Montmorency, then through the wood of Montmorency to Ecouen, and next a little further on to Chantilly. From there our route lies across to Beauvais, and back to Paris. As stated before, several of the towns comprised in these three tours are so close to Paris as to enable a glass lover with a half-day on his hands to pleasantly employ it in a short excursion by train or automobile. Of course, if he travels by train he can hardly hope in half a day to see more than one of these. If, however, he is an automobilist and therefore untrammelled by time-tables, he can combine several. For example, a glance at the map will reveal that Ecouen, Montmorency and Chantilly are so close together that an automobilist can fit them into one day. A word of warning is not out of place for one about to visit these nearby towns. He must be careful to ascertain from his Baedeker or from the public prints, upon which days they are open to the public. Montfort l'Amaury and Ecouen can be seen any day; Vincennes and Chantilly, Thursdays and Sundays, etc., but these statistics had better be verified in the manner suggested because the regulations are changed from time to time. There are three very important glass shrines which are, however, so located as to make it impossible to combine them into a tour. These are the Cathedral of Auch (down in the southwest near Toulouse), the chapel of the château of Champigny-sur-Veude in Touraine, and the famous church of Brou at Bourg in Savoy. The pilgrim should make every effort to see them. [Illustration: 16TH CENTURY TOURS. (_a_) _Vincennes, Sens, Troyes, Chalons._ (_b_) _Montfort l'Amaury, Conches, Pont-Audemer, Caudebec, Rouen, (Grand-Andely, Elbeuf, Pont de l'Arche)._ (_c_) _Montmorency, Ecouen, Chantilly (St. Quentin), Beauvais._ _Also separate visits to Bourg, Auch and Champigny-sur-Veude._ (_For table of distances, see page 295._)] VINCENNES Vincennes lies so close to Paris that it can be reached by an electric car which starts from the Louvre. Its sternly forbidding fortress of the most approved feudal type, and the delightful park, have been the scene of many an interesting episode in French history. In the old forest which was the predecessor of the modern park, good Louis IX was wont to seat himself beneath an oak and measure out to all comers that even-handed justice which supplied one of the reasons for his canonisation. Often, on our travels, we have noted how enthusiastically he espoused the cause of stained glass, and, therefore, we of the Brotherhood of Glass Lovers should feel a sympathetic glow of interest whenever we happen upon any scene hallowed by his personality. As for the castle, perhaps the best proof of its great strength is its sinister record of having served during many reigns as a dungeon for prisoners of State. Many are the great names on its roster of prisoners, nor shall we wonder it was chosen for that purpose after climbing to the top of its donjon tower and remarking the vast thickness of its walls surrounded by the deep, yawning moat that isolates it from the smiling countryside. It is with a feeling of relief that we turn from the contemplation of such a subject to the delight which awaits us in the graceful Gothic chapel with its fine vaultings, set off by the superb set of windows from the hand of that great master, Jean Cousin. Poor windows, they have suffered many vicissitudes since their completion in 1558; it was not enough that they should be subjected to the ordinary hazards of time--they were actually taken out of their settings and moved away! After an interval they turned up in 1816 in the collection of Lenoir. Later they were restored to their original embrasures, but some of the heads and limbs having been lost, a bungling repairer replaced them by fragments from other panels. Fortunately for us, the last restoration in 1878 has corrected this and they are now in condition to show us what their artist intended to set forth. Notwithstanding the glaring light from the uncoloured windows to the west, these stained glass pictures are so delightful in tone and drawing as to give us a very high opinion of Jean Cousin. It was but natural that he should, in accordance with the custom of his time, seize this opportunity to recommend himself to royal favour, and, therefore, we must not criticise him for putting Henry II attired as a Knight of St. Michael in one of the eastern windows. We may, however, very properly object to the presence of the royal mistress, Diane de Poitiers, among the Holy Martyrs! Henry II must have lacked a keen sense of humour, or the artist might have run some risks in so placing the fair Diane. The subjects of these windows are taken from the stories of the Apocalypse and allow the artist wide scope for his fancy, of which he avails himself to the fullest extent. He also indulges in several daring combinations of colour, as for example, in depicting the flames in the panel to the right of the central one, where he used lilac, yellow, brown and red, and each colour in several shades. Just below, in his shipwreck picture, he again represents the flames in the same bold way. Then, too, there is a distinctly bluish tone to his enframing stone canopies; all this sounds very raw and harsh, but the general effect is nevertheless excellent. This was the official chapel of the Order of the Saint Esprit, so we are not surprised to find upon some of the windows knights of that order in full regalia. Vincennes is perhaps the best place to study Jean Cousin; certainly far better than his birthplace, Sens, which we next visit. There the cathedral contains but two examples of his skill, but they are veritable masterpieces. SENS Even the most enthusiastic admirer of Sens could not bring himself to describe that city, or the surrounding country, as picturesque. The latter is monotonously flat, relieved only by occasional chalk ridges. The town straggles away from the river Yonne with little to remind us of its former glories except the cathedral and its immediate neighbourhood. As we cross the bridge near the railway station we will remark a very incongruous service which practical science has exacted from a relic of the past. Rising from the parapet at the highest point of the bridge is a crucifix up the back of which runs a wire ending over the head of Christ in an incandescent electric light! When we passed through Sens on our earlier trip (see page 77) we took occasion to relate the fateful coincidence which took place in the twelfth century when representatives from all parts of Christian Europe came there to visit the exiled Pope just in time to see William of Sens completing, in the cathedral, the first great step in Gothic. This coincidence not only caused the rapid spread of the new style of architecture to every part of the Christian world represented by these visiting delegates, but also explains why Thomas à Becket, then sojourning in Sens, selected this architect to rebuild Canterbury Cathedral in far-off England. Now we come to a sixteenth century tale which serves to show that the people of the Middle Ages were likewise keenly interested in art and that an artist's fame travelled perhaps even more widely, all things considered, than it does to-day. The beautifully light and graceful transepts at Sens were built by Martin Cambiche, who was also the architect of Beauvais Cathedral and likewise drew the plans for the west front of St. Pierre at Troyes. First let us look at the cathedral's exterior. When viewing the west front we are struck by the appearance of unusually great breadth, due partly to the construction of the cathedral itself and partly to the placing of the Officialité (a thirteenth century building) which has its greatest length extending to the south level with the cathedral's west front. Note the device of the Officialité's architect to increase the seeming length of his front by gradually diminishing the distances between his buttresses. Within this fine hall St. Louis (Louis IX) was betrothed. This ponderous appearance of breadth resulting from the juxtaposition of these two buildings might have produced too massive an effect if it were not for the almost coquettish fashion in which the tower rises up at the cathedral's southwest corner, giving a decided uplift and point to the entire façade. Although the cathedral has far fewer windows than we shall see at Troyes (because its triforium is not pierced), the lighting here is almost garish, owing to the fact that the clerestory embrasures are glazed only in grisaille. In the charming transepts, however, we obtain what is perhaps the ideal lighting sought for by the glass artist of the sixteenth century. The windows are very numerous and of such general excellence as to render these the best glazed transepts in France. They have not only unusually ample window space in their sides, but have also large low-reaching panels below the big rose windows which, as usual, decorate the upper portion of the end walls. So generous was this architect in the number and size of wall apertures as to prove how greatly he esteemed the assistance of the glazier. The records show that those in charge of the building made most intelligent use of the opportunity provided by the unusual amount of window space. They sent far and wide for the best artists. We read that in 1500 they summoned from Troyes three master glass painters, Lyenin-Varin, Jean Verrat and Balthazar Godon, and turned a large part of the work over to them. These men finished their task in three years, and the result amply justifies their selection. The rose windows are especially pleasing, that to the south showing the Last Judgment with many repetitions of the Angel Gabriel, and that to the north a most charming throng of angels playing upon various musical instruments, the interweaving of the glass tones being as harmonious as befits this heavenly choir. The best known window in this part of the church is a very brilliant Tree of Jesse with a red background bearing on one of its branches the celebrated Grey Jackass (a familiar figure in the old "Fête des Fous"): it is at the north end of the east wall of the south transept. Of the beauty of these transepts, as well as of the way in which their architecture and glass prove mutually helpful, too much cannot be said. The most famous windows in the church are two by Jean Cousin, who, although born in this city in 1501, is only represented in his home cathedral by these examples. His glorious St. Eutropius is in the third chapel on the right of the nave, but even finer still is the Tiburtine Sibyl in the Notre Dame de Lorette chapel on the right side of the choir ambulatory. It is only fair to this second window to say that it was somewhat damaged during the siege of 1814. After inspecting these two products of his genius, it is easy to understand why Jean Cousin enjoyed so wide a fame. We have already referred to the splendid relics of the twelfth century which are found on the other side of the choir ambulatory. The result of this very convenient opportunity to compare the best work of the twelfth and the sixteenth centuries is that we are sure to be startled by the difference not only in results, but also in methods. [Illustration: SOUTH TRANSEPT, SENS (16TH CENTURY). _The Rose is now greatly elaborated, its lines more flowing, and its position in the wall beautified by the graceful adjustment of the lancets below._] TROYES To-day the flat country of the ancient province of Champagne, broken only by occasional ridges of the chalk which underlie the surface to the great advantage of its famous grapes, affords but little of interest to the traveller by automobile, and has only its level going to recommend it to the bicyclist. There is not enough traffic on its roads to enliven the monotony of the journey. How different must it have been when these same highways teemed with interesting groups from every rank of society, all crowding to the famous fair of Troyes, which during the Middle Ages was the bourne of so many traders, knights and other seekers of adventure from all parts of Christendom. In those days no one would have had leisure to notice the monotony of the scenery, so engrossed would he have been in those passing crowds made up of every nationality of Europe, all repairing to this great mart of trade. During those halcyon days of commercial distinction there must have been laid broad foundations of cosmopolitan tastes, and a reflection upon those times makes it easier to understand why so many artists should later have been born citizens of that stout burgh. This also explains why so large a number of Flemish and Italian artists resorted hither, leaving marked traces of their influence. This prosperity was temporarily checked by the edict of Louis X forbidding the Flemish to trade at its fairs, and the absence of these lowlanders was soon followed by that of the Italians. From this cause, combined with others, the fairs lost their importance, and the Hundred Years War coming soon after, put the finishing touches to the city's decadence. The damaging and dreary years of the English occupation were, however, enlivened by the episode of the marriage of Henry V of England to Catherine of France, attended by all the pomp and pageantry that would naturally be attracted thither by so notable an event. Troyes did not, however, recover her old commercial prestige until just before the beginning of the sixteenth century. Then she took such a bound forward as, through the new wealth of her citizens, to make possible that encouragement of art which developed the unrivalled school of glass painters soon to make her famous far and near. In fact, so widely was their fame spread and so firmly were they established, that their school persisted far into the seventeenth century, the vigour of their art long outliving that of most of the other French glass centres. There is no place in France in which one can better see examples of the various ramifications of the sixteenth century style in glass. We have here not only the cathedral, but church after church full of the work of the best masters. We shall see not only the picture window in lively colour, but also that in the subdued style of grey and yellow stain, to which we have alluded before. Furthermore, in the Library there is a series of historical panels which is not excelled anywhere, the secular topics of the scenes giving an excellent opportunity to show costumes and manners of the times. Nor must one confine oneself within the exact limits of the sixteenth century, because we have noted that here the style of that century extended practically unchanged far into the next. We shall begin when the style begins and we shall follow it as long as its healthy life continues. Of the numerous churches in Troyes, those which chiefly interest the glass student are the Cathedral, St. Urbain, St. Jean, St. Nizier, La Madeleine, St. Pantaléon, St. Nicolas, and St. Martin-ès-Vignes. Besides these churches, there is also the Library to be visited for its series of windows devoted to civic subjects. For a description of that Gothic eggshell, St. Urbain, turn back to page 82, where will also be found an account of the splendid thirteenth century glass that makes the choir of the Cathedral so glorious. Let us begin our stroll about the town by a visit to St. Jean. It would be difficult for a church to more completely preserve its mediæval appearance than this one. Besides, the way in which it is tucked in between two crooked, narrow old streets conforms to the most approved rules of stage setting. Its quaint, irregular exterior makes it appear a picturesque medley of three or four churches of varying size, while its ancient belfry perched on one side like a feather in a cap lends the ensemble an almost jaunty air. The altar before which Louis II was crowned and Henry V of England married, has been removed to the east and placed in the more modern Lady Chapel. We get an interesting hint of the great value attached to stained glass when we learn that the original of a window on the right side of the nave clerestory (showing the coronation of Louis II) was demanded as part of the ransom of Francis I when he was captured at the Battle of Pavia. This original window is said to be somewhere in Spain. The axis of the choir slants quite noticeably from that of the nave, and the priests say that this slant is intended to symbolise the inclination of the head of Christ on the Cross after His death. We notice the same difference in axis, as well as the same tradition, at Quimper, but we there learned that the true explanation was not so poetic. Here also we are obliged to reject the quaint legend of the priests; the municipal improvements after the great fire which ravaged the city in 1524, necessitated the rectification of the street line, and the north side of the choir had to be slanted to conform thereto. The glass is in many ways of interest, but has been a good deal mutilated. That in the nave has suffered most, but fortunately much of its beauty remains. Notice the admirable Judgment of Solomon on the south side. In the choir and in its chapels we shall get a real taste of the Troyes glass school, some of the windows being excellent, especially that of the brothers Gonthier, showing the Marriage Feast at Cana, the Manna in the Desert, etc. In many of the churches in this city we shall observe paintings hung upon the walls, and two of those which decorate this sanctuary will serve to remind us that Pierre Mignard, the great painter of Louis XIV, was born here. Another ancient church, and one much richer in glass, is St. Nizier. Its original glazing had remained practically intact until in August, 1901, when a most unusual calamity overcame some of it. An anarchist exploded a bomb in a chapel on the north of the choir. We have observed what our poor friend has had to endure in many places, but to be shattered by an anarchistic explosion seems a most incongruous fate. It is, however, a pleasant surprise to find how little damage was done by this act of vandalism. The finest window is undoubtedly that which adorns the south transept and shows Religion overcoming Heresy. The central one in the choir (the Virgin Mary and the Apostles receiving the Holy Ghost) is by the celebrated Macadré of Troyes, but the writer finds its effect injured by the fact that the artist (probably to indicate that the side panels are to be considered in conjunction with the central one) allows the hands of certain figures at the side to extend over upon the central panel. This century surely went far enough in its disregard for the delimiting duties of the leads, but when we find an artist so careless of the properties of his materials as to put a hand over on the other side of a stone mullion, it would seem that the limit had been exceeded. The most ancient of all the Troyes churches is La Madeleine. It contains a marvellous jubé arch swung in air between the two western columns of the choir. Although of stone, the workmanship is so delicate and lace-like that we are not surprised that the epitaph of its builder buried below used to read that he calmly awaited the Judgment Day with no fear of the stone arch falling upon him. The glass around the choir is excellent, but we must go to the Lady Chapel to see the best. On the right is a Tree of Jesse, remarkable for the number of figures it contains. The east window is the gift of the Jewellers' Guild, which fact is carefully set forth thereon. To the left is a fine example of glass-making, but in addition to that, because of the treatment of its subject, it is as interesting as one will often find. Beginning at the lower left-hand corner and reading to the right, are a series of scenes depicting the creation of the world, Garden of Eden, etc. The imagination of the artist set forth the creation of the world in a manner surprisingly close to the latest theories of modern science. He starts with a round glowing ball of matter which, by means of rotation upon its axis, develops in the succeeding pictures, first, a more symmetrical shape, and then the appearance of land, formation of continents, etc., etc. On the left of each of these scenes stands the figure of Jehovah, in a costume resembling that of a high priest. There is hardly a window in France that tells as much or is more interesting in the telling than this one. [Illustration: "CREATION" WINDOW, LA MADELEINE, TROYES (16TH CENTURY). _Read from left to right, beginning with lowest tier. Earth evolved from chaos, shown by glowing yellow ball revolving on its axis; birth of Eve, etc. Tracery Lights above are becoming simpler in form as elaborate Gothic gives way to Renaissance._] Now we come to a style that is better shown here than anywhere else--the picture window composed of grey and occasionally some flesh tints, with touches of yellow stain to relieve it. Two churches are entirely glazed in this manner--St. Pantaléon and St. Nicolas. The latter, it is true, has one or two of its upper windows in colour, but the general effect is that of a church glazed in grey and stain. Of course, these two interiors, because of this glazing, are very brilliantly lighted, and in the opinion of the writer, much too brilliantly. This method proved very felicitous when devoted to domestic purposes (as found towards the end of this century and during the early part of the next), but for a religious edifice, although interesting, it is doubtful if it is beautiful or suitable. There are some unusual architectural features to be found in both these churches. St. Nicolas has a very graceful stone gallery extending across the western end approached by a gradually bending staircase, the supports of which are of admirable design. St. Pantaléon can hardly be said to be attractive. The interior is too high and too glaringly lighted, but it affords the best opportunity to study this grey and stain style. Notice that freely as is the yellow stain used to enliven the monotony of the greys, it does not succeed in producing the charming silvery tone yielded by the canopy window of the two preceding centuries. Here and there one observes an attempt to modify the ultra-yellowish grey tone by introducing blues into the borders. The falseness of style everywhere noticeable reaches its climax in a gallery on the left near the entrance, containing two stone figures which appear to be looking down from it. Do not fail to visit St. Pantaléon in order to study its unusual glazing, but do so out of curiosity and not expecting beauty, or you will be disappointed. Its lack of charm will, however, prove useful if you go straight on from here to the Cathedral, for by contrast it will intensify your appreciation of the sympathetic assistance which the wealth of colour there lends to the splendid architectural effect of the interior. We have already taken our reader to inspect the thirteenth century glass around the choir, but now we will have him stop in the nave to see the work which the sixteenth century produced. One immediately notices the particularly clear fresh colouring of the glass, and this, combined with its great quantity (for the pierced triforium permits an additional row of windows besides the clerestory above and the aisles below), produces an impression which is so unique, and so distinctive, that it always lingers in the memory. The rather unpleasant contrast noticed at Bourges between the depth and the warmth of the thirteenth century and the lighter tones of the later glass is fortunately absent from Troyes. The reason for this is the unusually rich colour of the later windows. From so many excellent ones it is difficult to select a few to mention, but we particularly commend the fourth on the right (a Tree of Jesse) and the one in the fourth chapel on the left, Linard Gonthier's famous Wine Press. The Tree of Jesse is not only a beautiful example of its type, but is rather out of the ordinary because it has a red instead of a blue background. Upon this window, as well as on most of the others, are to be seen the donors, their coats-of-arms, and other interesting sixteenth century features. Gonthier's Wine Press is so well known as hardly to call for a word of description. Christ is stretched out in the press, His blood running into a chalice, while from His breast springs a vine spreading over the window, bearing as its blossoms the twelve Apostles. Although this window is dated 1625, it is in the best style of the sixteenth century and shows no tendency towards decadence in either drawing or colouring. Before leaving the interior, notice an odd architectural device in the north rose. This window is of the wheel type and has a supporting column running up through it as far as its middle, suggesting a gigantic pinwheel. There is a similar supporting column in the north rose at Tours, but there it runs straight up through the window to the top, and unfortunately is too heavily and solidly built. Nearly all mediæval glass was adorned with religious subjects, and therefore we have an unusual treat when we visit the large hall of the Library and examine the thirty-two panels that fill its eight large windows. They are from the hand of Linard Gonthier, and the scenes are commemorative of the visit to Troyes of Henry IV in 1595. Very charming, indeed, are these pictures of the life and pageants of the time. There are many familiar little touches, such as a small boy being pushed off into the water by the crowd, etc. Some of the panels are also rich in armorial bearings. We have purposely delayed until the last any reference to St. Martin-ès-Vignes because it was entirely glazed at the time when the Troyes sixteenth century school, although still worthy of its traditions, was about reaching its end. This glass is uniformly good and provides a most pleasing interior, obviously relying for its effect upon the glazing. The dating is that of the earlier years of the seventeenth century. If we examine the windows too closely we easily find indications of a decadence of style. For instance, the second on the left gives so much importance to the kneeling donors that, although we cannot deny the excellence of the work, we must strongly criticise the taste which made them so prominent a feature. Regarded as a whole, however, the result in this church is so excellent that it clearly proves what we have before stated, viz.: the virility and strength of the glassmaker's art at Troyes outlasted that of most of the contemporary French schools. CHALONS-SUR-MARNE Before paying our second visit here to examine the sixteenth century windows, let us turn back to page 87 and refresh our memory by glancing through the account of our thirteenth century trip to this city. We shall thus be reminded of the modestly retiring beauty of its small parks, as well as of its cathedral and two fine churches. Every style of sixteenth century glass is to be found in Chalons, but for all that it would hardly be selected as one of the best places in which to compare them. The small church of St. Alpin has in its nave a series of excellent windows of yellow stain and grey such as we noticed in St. Pantaléon and St. Nicolas at Troyes. In those two churches the relatively great window space exposes the weakness of this style by demonstrating that in large interiors it makes the light glaring. By contrast, in St. Alpin, where the nave ceiling is low and the window apertures small, this method of glazing, by admitting a great deal of light, produces a very happy effect. In this St. Alpin glass there are marked traces of Italian taste, more so than in that at Troyes, though the latter is commonly credited with being the most noticeably affected by foreign influence. The first one on the right, showing St. Alpin before Attila, is delightful, every advantage having been taken of the softness of tone which is the chief merit of this particular treatment. Some of the others are also good, but the one just mentioned is the best. Around the choir are interesting coloured panels, but so broken up into small scenes as to be rendered ineffective. The handsome church of Notre Dame does not, in its windows, fulfill the promise of its architecture. A great deal of the glass is new, and much of the old is mutilated, but in the lower row on the left side of the nave there are several brilliant examples of what the sixteenth century Champagne school could accomplish in the picture window. Especially vigorous and striking is the first on the left, showing St. James encouraging the Spaniards to defeat the Moors. It is as good a battle picture in glass as one will find. In the fifth on the left (a Crucifixion scene) we note a trick often observed in this province, for the little golden stars are separately leaded into the blue sky. Passing on to the Cathedral, disappointment awaits us. On our former visit we found it so fruitful and interesting in thirteenth century glass that we had a right to expect more than is yielded by the inspection of the row of sixteenth century windows which extend along the lower right side of the nave. The canopies in the sixth one betray that it is fifteenth century, but all the others are later. The first on the right is the most interesting of this series, although it is the poorest in execution. On eleven of its compartments are represented scenes from the Creation, Garden of Eden, etc., wherein certain quaint conceits are noticeable. Unfortunately its many nudes are very poorly drawn and the glass used is mediocre in quality. We can here clearly see that, although the artist of this period was saved a great deal of lead work by his large pieces of glass, their use required him to select sheets of evener tone and better quality than in the days when his pieces were much smaller. MONTFORT L'AMAURY An agreeable route from Paris to Conches, etc., is by way of Montfort l'Amaury, which lies beyond Versailles, just off the main road to Dreux, and 45 kilometres distant from Paris. If the pilgrim is travelling by train or if he wishes to go straight from Paris to Conches, he should then postpone until another occasion his visit to Montfort l'Amaury, and will thus keep in store for himself a very pleasant half-day automobile excursion. The object of the visit proves to be a small church which has preserved its sixteenth century glazing practically intact. Nothing could be more simple than its ground plan, for there are no transepts, no chapels, simply one long building rounded at the east end, whose shape suggests that of a man's thumb. While we must not expect to find so splendid a glass series as at Conches, neither must we fail to appreciate that here is a church with thirty-three windows, all of the sixteenth century, and in excellent state of preservation. As we enter by the small south portal the effect that meets our eye is most agreeable. Closer inspection of the windows unfortunately reveals that they vary markedly in quality and are evidently the work of different artists. It cannot be denied that many of them are commonplace, although none is really poor. Their dating helps to explain this mediocrity, for they were constructed towards the end of the sixteenth century, at a time when our art was hurrying into decadence. The few earlier ones, and especially that dated 1544, are the best. The latter is the eighth on the left and depicts Jesus being shown to the people. Another, the third on the left, tells the story of Joseph, and is an obvious example of the Italian influence so prevalent during that epoch. The scene in which he is escaping from Potiphar's wife is almost an exact copy from Raphael. We must not fail to remark the third from the eastern end, in which the Holy Ghost is descending upon the assembled disciples in the form of a shower of golden tongues. The grouping of the figures, the play of the colours, and the richness lent by these touches of gold, all combine to make a brilliant picture. The second to the right of this contains the Falling of Manna in the Wilderness, but as the tones used here are much lower, and the manna is depicted as a rain of white spots, the window, as a whole, is much quieter than the one just described. In the church at Montfort l'Amaury an instructive light is thrown upon the obtrusive appearance of donors so frequently found during the sixteenth century. We know that the figures are often so large as to be positively obnoxious, but it is here demonstrated beyond doubt that the artist worked very much more carefully upon these portraits than upon the rest of his window. There are few places where this can be more conveniently studied, and for this reason our visit has been a useful one, even though the glass be of a class a little below the best. CONCHES There are four modest shrines to which every glass lover should contrive to repair, no matter what may be the difficulties in the way nor how much time it may take. Of these four, one at Fairford (near Oxford) is in England, while the other three are in France, and are the Ste. Chapelle in Paris, the village church at Eymoutiers and Ste. Foy at Conches. In each we find the church completely glazed in one period and, furthermore, with the best glass then procurable. The scene that to-day meets our eye in each of these small sanctuaries is practically the same that rewarded the artist the day he completed his work. We have frequently had occasion on our tours to notice how much certain glass would have been improved if contrasting windows could but be removed from the edifice, or the edifice itself in some way changed. There will be no need for any such mental correction of the picture when we visit Conches. Here, after you have closed the door on the twentieth century life outside, you feel that you have turned back the finger of time and are living in the days of that eloquent beauty which speaks out to you from its windows. Perhaps nowhere else will you get the wonderful accord of tone with tone and hue with hue that makes the colour at Conches so radiantly lovely. We find ourselves in a very simple church about twice as long as broad, the only departure from its rectangular plan being a small five-sided chapel which projects from its eastern end. There is nothing to aid the glass in its service of making splendid the interior. In fact, one might add that there is nothing which dares insult it by an offer of so obviously unnecessary assistance. Practically all the windows are of the sixteenth century, and they are so fine that it seems unfair to call particular attention to the elaborate set designed by Aldegrevers, a pupil of Albrecht Dürer. These fill the seven tall windows of two lancets each, which light the eastern chapel and are dated 1520. Of the forty-two subjects upon these windows, those in the upper range show scenes from the life of Christ and those in the lower from that of Ste. Sophia. It is unfair to describe them; they should be seen. At this point we may comment that although it is occasionally possible to convey some idea of an individual panel by technical description, it is useless to attempt, by means of words, to give a reader a just conception of such an interior as the glass produces at Conches. Beside these by Aldegrevers there are eighteen others whose dates, running from 1540 to 1553, show them to be of slightly later construction. In the fourth on the right the allegorical subject contains an unusual detail. A group of figures represent the Liberal Arts, and among them, Music: upon her insignia appears a musical phrase expressed in proper notation. This representation of written music upon glass is extremely rare. We shall see another of the very infrequent instances when we visit Caudebec. Among the finest windows is the fifth on the right, which represents the allegory of the Wine Press. Here the subject is not treated in the usual gruesome fashion. It is not the blood of Christ which serves as the wine but, instead, the juice of grapes which He is crushing in the press. Throughout all these windows the distant landscapes are depicted in much more convincing colouring than is usually found at this time. This seems due to the fact that the light blue glass used for that purpose is left clear of all paint except that needed for delineation. Elsewhere these blue backgrounds often have so much paint upon them as to be rendered partly opaque and therefore incapable of simulating the depth necessary for great distances. In strength as well as in judicious combination of a surprisingly wide range of colours, their century can show few examples to rival these. Not only is their value enhanced by the simplicity of the interior which they decorate, and which, therefore, has nothing to distract our attention from their beauty, but this very beauty is made all the more impressive by the sharp contrast provided by the dullness of the little town outside and the plain exterior of the church which it so glorifies. PONT-AUDEMER The church of St. Ouen at Pont-Audemer will always have for the writer that peculiar charm of almost proprietary right which the discoverer is sure to feel in something upon which he has happened unexpectedly. On his way through the town he saw the church, and having noticed from the outside that the windows contained stained glass, he stopped and went in, undeterred by the positively dishevelled look of the unfinished and dismantled west front. A delightful surprise awaited him. Around the walls of the nave, the space usually occupied by the triforium gallery here becomes a broad frieze so exquisitely carved in Gothic patterns as seemingly to drape the walls with lace. In fact, you hardly notice the unfinished condition of the upper part of the church, so engrossed are you in this very unusual feature, one of which any cathedral in France might be proud. And in the embrasures below, what a gallery of harmonious glass! Not only are the individual windows excellent, but they harmonise so well as to make one feel that each artist must have been at the greatest pains to make his work contribute to and not interfere with the general scheme. It is for the glass hunter a treasure trove to find a church which has preserved a complete glazing of one period, but to have the windows all good, and better still, in such charming accord with each other, makes the occasion of his visit to Pont-Audemer a red-letter day. The ground plan of the church is somewhat broken up, but even that seems but to add to the charm of the interior. The first window to the left in what might be called the choir ambulatory is not only the best but by far the most interesting. Without any definite division of its surface into panels, the whole picture seems to gracefully resolve itself into four contrasting scenes from the Old and the New Testament, entitled "Devant la Loy," "Soubz la Loy," "Devant la Grace," "Soubz la Grace." The effect of clouds in the sky is very elaborately worked out, while here and there between them peep forth the head and wings of little cherubs--it is really very engaging. Possibly the over-captious visitor may consider the combination of small heads and surrounding clouds somewhat reminiscent of the buttons holding down upholstery, but such a carping critic should be packed off about his ill-tempered business! In a window on the right side of the nave the donors are ranged along a little gallery in the lowest panel. This method has in its favour that it does not present them as intruders on the picture, so often the case in this century. We carry away with us a charming impression of the service rendered by the glass in toning the light for the graceful stone carvings on the nave walls. The effect is unique. On the outskirts of the town there is a small church, St. Germain, whose east window is an agreeable example of fifteenth century canopy work. CAUDEBEC-EN-CAUX Our way from Pont-Audemer lies for some little distance through the large Fôret de Brotonne, one of those tidy symmetrical woods produced by the excellent system of French forestry. Its excellence, however, is largely practical, for all the charm of the "forest primeval" is pruned away. On reaching the banks of the Seine we find ourselves in full view of the pretty town of Caudebec, its graceful cathedral spire beckoning us across the water. It is just at this point in the river that there occurs the Mascaret, the local name given to a swift-rushing wave produced by the conflict between the incoming tide and the outgoing current of the river; it takes place only at stated intervals and is then viewed by numerous tourists. Assuming that we have arrived at a time when the Mascaret is not interfering with navigation, we embark upon a flat, open ferry-boat and soon reach the bank on the other side and are off to the cathedral. Few French churches have their Gothic architecture lightened and beautified by more infinite detail of carving than this at Caudebec, while over all rises an airy spire encircled at three different heights by a stone crown--a form of decoration very unusual and quite lovely. Above the west portal is a gallery that attracts our notice because its open-work stone railing is composed of Gothic letters. Once inside the church, we realise that the windows are well worth a visit, particularly to one seeking quaint details in glass, for there are many such here. We have already referred in our introduction to the first window on the right, the Israelites crossing the Red Sea. In order to render the scene as descriptive and realistic as possible, red glass is used to make the sea, thus removing any possible doubt in the observer's mind as to the identity of that body of water. Almost opposite (the second on the left) is a Tree of Jesse, upon which the descendants appear at full length instead of as the usual busts. Much golden brown is used, not only in the intricate convolutions of the vine, but also in the costumes and in the stone terrace supporting the pavilion below which Jesse is seated. Above the small north portal is a pleasing canopy window of the fifteenth century whose unusual feature is that the bottom of it is curved to fit the arched top of the door. Because of this unusual base, the customary pedestals at the foot could not be used, but the irregularly shaped space is tastefully filled with decorations of yellow stain, surcharged with shields whose heraldry catches the eye of the American traveller, because they bear stars on a blue field, as well as red and white stripes. Fifteenth century canopies also fill the first window to the east of this portal and the three to the west, one being dated 1442, and all containing four lancets. A couple of windows across the church are also of this type, while the whole of the side-lights of the clerestory contain contemporary light-admitting panels, whose colour is restricted to a few round bosses bearing golden rays, and to the broad golden borders which here are carried up into and almost fill the tracery panes above. Another very unusual feature (and one which we have just noticed at Conches) is the presence of two pieces of music written out in the form called "full chant" and borne by angels. If one can spare the time, Villequier, four kilometres down the Seine, should be visited. The small church there has seven excellent sixteenth century windows, one of which, that in the centre on the north side, is really famous. The lower half of its three lancets each contains a figure on a white background bearing an etched damasked pattern, bordered richly in gold. Across the entire upper half is spread out a spirited naval battle in which four ships are engaged. The armoured knights are depicted with great vigour, while excellent use is made of the artistic possibilities provided by three great pennants, two of red with white crosses, and one of yellow bearing a black eagle. The route from Caudebec to Rouen is charming, thanks to the ever-changing views provided by the windings of the Seine. If we please, we may stop on the way to view the Abbey of St. Wandrille (recently purchased by Maeterlinck) and also the loftily impressive ruins of the Abbey of Jumièges. Jumièges, in the midst of its beautiful park, is most picturesquely situated within one of those very pronounced loops so common in the lower Seine, which seem to signify the unwillingness of its waters to depart from this delightful corner of France. ROUEN Upon approaching Rouen one is sure to be struck by the insolent daring of its situation. Lying on a sloping plain beside the river, it seems to disdain the well-nigh impregnable site afforded by the steep cliffs which rise just to the northeast. The history of the city bears out the audacity of its location. Through all the centuries its inhabitants concerned themselves so continuously in conquering other peoples that little time was left in which to consider the security of their own homes. The Norman boasted that his strongest defence was a vigorous offence, and he made good his boast. The town of William the Conqueror seems always to have been imbued by the spirit which gave him his name, and the triumphs of the Normans in England, and later in Italy, are but natural expressions of that virility of race which endures to the present day. Upon the arms of the city there appears a lamb with one of its forefeet lifted. Upon this is based the old Norman saying, "L'agneau de la ville a toujours la patte levée," a homely comment upon the restless spirit of its citizens and their disposition to be always up and doing. Perhaps the most characteristic feature of Rouen when viewed from a distance is the great number of its spires that shoot up above the house-tops, earning for it the sobriquet of the City of Churches. This very attractive detail is all the more striking because so rarely seen in French towns, and is particularly reminiscent to one freshly arrived from England, a country whose church towers are such a charming feature of the landscape. Full of significant history is this Rouen--a history branded for all time by the cowardly fire that ended the tortures of Joan of Arc, that strangely potent and beautiful spirit. Fortunately, no trace remains of that dastardly deed. Turning to a less sinister page in the city's history, we see on one side of the market-place, a small pagoda-like structure called the old tower of the Fiérté. Here, on Ascension Day in every year, was freed a prisoner selected by the people, and that this privilege was jealously retained by them is proved by the existence of a complete list of the prisoners so freed from 1210 to 1790. Nor do the records stop there: they also narrate many a fierce encounter resulting from the determination of the burghers to preserve this right. Most of the quaint features of the town have been modernised away--so thriving a commerce as here flourishes could not long tolerate the old narrow crooked streets. Where old features remain they are so obviously protected as to look almost theatrical. Of this the two best examples are the clockbearing archway over the street which bears its name (Grosse Horloge), and the ancient carved wood housefront transported from its original site, affixed to another dwelling and dubbed the House of Diane de Poitiers. Placed just at the point where ships coming in from the sea must transfer their freight to the smaller vessels that go up the Seine, Rouen is so intent upon her commerce, that all the principal hotels are strung along the quays on the riverfront, a very unusual arrangement in a French town. When we visited the church of St. Ouen to see its fifteenth century glass, we mentioned the esteem in which the Rouen glass-makers were held at that time both at home and abroad. From what we are now about to see we can judge for ourselves how much truer it must have been in the sixteenth century. The number of splendidly glazed churches which have been preserved for our inspection almost consoles us for the long list of others swept away by the ruthless vandalism of the Revolution, and, to a less extent, by the peaceful hand of time or the mailed fist of war. The principal ones we should visit (beside St. Ouen already described) are St. Maclou, St. Vincent, St. Patrice, St. Godard, St. Romain and the Cathedral of Notre Dame. Perhaps the least interesting sixteenth century glass is in that gem of Gothic architecture, St. Maclou, whose florid façade has its bizarre charm accentuated by the graceful bowing outwards of the west front. The glass that attracts us most is in the transept rose windows, the lancets below them and in the very brilliant western rose. All these roses are dwarfed by the excessive size of the pendent lancets: it is all the more unfortunate, because considered separately the roses as well as the lancets are excellent. The earlier windows in the choir chapels have been described in our former visit (see page 144). In the south transept a well-composed Crucifixion scene is carried across all the lancets. The north transept contains a Tree of Jesse on a blue background, and oddly enough, the tree has white branches. In leaving St. Maclou, notice the dainty spiral staircase that winds up at the south side of the door; it seems almost too delicate to be made of stone. St. Vincent has its entire lower part lighted by large embrasures completely glazed with glass of this period, producing a singularly brilliant and luminous effect all about us. The columns which separate the ambulatory from the choir are so slender that they do not materially interfere with our view, and thus the whole interior is exposed at once, an enclosure of glorious colour. In fact, it is not too much to say of this church and, to a less extent, of the two which we shall next visit, that they are bowers of iridescent glowing light. There are two Trees of Jesse at St. Vincent, one over the north portal, and another at the east end of the south aisle, but inspection of the latter reveals that the genealogical tree rises not from Jesse but from St. Anne! In the true Jesse tree over the northern door the branches are white, a peculiarity just noticed at St. Maclou. St. Patrice differs from St. Vincent in that, instead of seeming to stand in the midst of a circle of luminous colour, our attention is rather directed towards the splendid bow-window at the east with its Crucifixion scene, to which all the rest of the glass seems decorously subordinated. Although glazed a little later than St. Vincent, it yields the same splendidly luminous effect, the natural result of a series of panels all of this period. The chief boast of this church is the Triumph of the Law of Grace by Jean Cousin in the Lady Chapel. Nor is his the only great name that we shall find frequently upon the glass of Rouen. One window much admired for its felicitous combination of theoretically uncongenial colours is that which sets forth the legend of St. Hubert. Its greens, reds, yellows and blues must be seen before one can believe that it is possible to agreeably unite them. Our next church is St. Godard, whose ancient glories have been so restored and replaced by modern trash that we find it hard to believe that, when it possessed its original glass, no church in all Normandy could vie with it. To-day it is far less attractive than St. Vincent and St. Patrice, the latter of which, by the way, now contains several of the original windows of St. Godard. The second in the chapel named after St. Romain, depicting scenes from his life, is one of the few in the church which is not either restored or renewed. It is so good in every way that one is surprised the other windows do not seem more out of place by contrast. We sigh for the days when there was justified the phrase used by the Norman peasant in describing good wine, "As red as the windows of St. Godard." Near the railway station is St. Romain, which, though less ancient than those which we have just visited, is the fortunate possessor of glass brought from several of the churches swept away by the Revolution. Particularly notice the spirited scene of St. Romain slaying the Gargouille, the fabled dragon of early Rouen. On the left, in what seems to be a transept, is a pretty window at the bottom of which appear such a sensibly modest row of small kneeling donors that we could wish that all sixteenth century glaziers might have seen them, and had been thereby restrained from their customary exaggeration in this particular. Unfortunately, the ancient panels were not large enough to fill the embrasures here provided, so this extra space was filled by wide borders of light modern glass. The result is that these borders admit such a flood of light as to drown the beauties of the older panels. Now we have arrived at the Cathedral. Before we enter, let us feast our eyes upon the delicate Gothic detail which softens and decorates its sturdy west front. At the southwest corner rises the Tour du Beurre, built (as was the same named tower at Bourges) from the moneys received out of the sale of indulgences to eat butter during Lent. The modern iron spire is so well designed as to seem hardly out of place among its older sisters. We should enter by the north portal. Just outside it is an enclosure formerly devoted to exhibiting the wares of booksellers, which is shut off from the street by a light Gothic screen. Viewed through it the wonderful carvings on the north portal become doubly effective. The interior of the cathedral is as full of interest as the best style of Gothic can make it. On the right is a very attractive zigzag stairway which leads up to the library. In the Lady Chapel are two especially fine tombs, one of the Duc de Brézé, husband of the famous Diane de Poitiers, and the other of Louis XII's great Minister, Cardinal d'Amboise. The fourteenth century glass of this chapel has already been described (see page 144). The 130 windows which light the cathedral's interior are mostly glazed in colour, but they are the product of various centuries and are of varying excellence. We find here but eight thirteenth century medallion windows, but they are delightful. Two of them are in the nave, the third and fourth on the left. The others are in the choir ambulatory and are so placed as to be singularly effective. If one stands in either the north or the south aisle of the nave and looks directly east, the only glass which meets his eye is that of windows brilliant with these early medallions, far off at the other end of the great cathedral. Just at this time the western rose window chiefly concerns us because it is of the sixteenth century. Its concentric circles of white angels, red seraphim, green palm branches, etc., provide a strong contrast between the reds and yellows (filling the centre third of it) and the dark greens and dark blues of the outer two-thirds. In the southeasterly corner of the south transept, the window on the east, as well as that on the south, are worthy of our attention. The latter is by Jean Cousin, and its six panels show six virtues, each entitled in Latin. Those of us who are subject to fits of depression should especially observe "Fortitudo," for there the bishop has slain the Blue Devil, and is pursuing its lilac and its green brothers! Although St. Ouen has already been visited for its magnificently complete fourteenth century glazing (see page 144), the rose windows of its transepts are such noteworthy examples of the Renaissance that we must not omit a comment upon them at this point. That in the north transept has its diverging figures arranged like herrings in a barrel, but while those at the sides and around the lower part are light in tone, those in the upper part are red seraphim and blue cherubim: this is very unusual. The south rose is peopled by a multitude of small personages, each occupying a pane by itself. Careful examination reveals that we have here a Tree of Jesse. He is in the middle, but it is only with some difficulty that we distinguish the branches of the vine radiating from him. Before leaving Rouen the traveller should see the interesting carvings on the House of Bourgetheroulde, depicting the Field of the Cloth of Gold, nor will he fail to admire the magnificent apartments which Norman love of equity constructed for it in the Palais de Justice. Besides the towns already visited, there are three others near Rouen which contain interesting glass, Grand-Andely, Elbeuf and Pont de l'Arche, distant, respectively, 33, 20 and 18 kilometres from Rouen. They are worth a visit if one can spare the time, but we risk an anti-climax in recommending our traveller to see them after the glories of the Norman capital. The nearness of these towns and also of Pont-Audemer (48 kilometres), Caudebec (35 kilometres), and Conches (51 kilometres), suggests a way in which one can change the whole itinerary just outlined. This can be done by using Rouen as a centre from which to run out and back, and thus visit all this group of six without cutting oneself off from one's base. To one at all encumbered with luggage, this suggestion will probably appeal. GRAND-ANDELY Of the trio just mentioned, Grand-Andely is much the most interesting, in fact it deserves greater renown for its glass than it at present enjoys. Unfortunately only one side of the church retains its original glazing, but we find ample compensation for this, because the entire southern half is filled with brilliant sixteenth century subjects, not only along the chapels below, but also in the clerestory. After a delightful hour spent here one readily credits the tale that a youth of the neighbourhood, by constantly contemplating their glories, so developed his love of colour that he determined to devote his life to painting. This youth was Nicolas Poussin. The great width of the embrasures, as well as their number (six in the nave and four in the choir, on each side, both above and below), provide ample scope for the display of the glazier's skill. Among so many of such excellence it is difficult to select which to praise the most, but the third on the right in the nave clerestory (dated 1560), because of Abraham's gorgeous yellow robe, as well as the blue canopy with red draperies above the aged Isaac, will linger longest in the writer's memory. Even when viewed on a dull, grey day, one cannot escape from the impression that a bright sun is shining outside, because of the brilliancy of this window's hues. It is one of the few examples of this epoch to possess that peculiarity, which, by the way, is so common among the mosaic type of the thirteenth century. This tendency towards the ornate, everywhere apparent throughout this series, finds its ultimate expression in the sixth nave chapel on the right, where the stonework of the Renaissance canopies is heavily overlaid with golden designs. The choir's four southerly clerestory windows each contains a large figure under a canopy of the time, the treatment varying in each case. Below, in the south wall of the choir, the tracery lights of the two easternmost windows are filled with diminutive angels, eleven praying or playing musical instruments in one of them, and in the other, nine, each carrying a symbol of the Passion. The way in which each angel is adjusted to the small pane it occupies is very graceful. The apse end is square, in the English fashion. Its great east window contains good fourteenth century canopy work, in bands across a grisaille field. The subsequent addition of a Lady Chapel to the east has injured the effect of this glass, not only by an entrance being cut through it below, but also because the second tier of canopies is entirely shut off from the light by the wall of this later chapel built against it outside. There is thus left only the third, or upper tier, for our inspection. If the northern side of this church were as fortunate as the southern in the possession of its original glazing, this would rank among the best French glass shrines, which is high praise. ELBEUF Elbeuf has two churches worthy of our attention, St. Etienne and St. Jean, but the former is very much the better. In St. Jean the first four windows on the right, three of those opposite them, and the first on each side in the Lady Chapel are all of the sixteenth century. There is, however, so much restoration as to greatly diminish our interest, except in the Lady Chapel. There the one to the right displays scenes from the life of the Virgin, with a label below each. The lower right-hand panel, in which appear Joseph and Mary, carries realism to an extraordinary point, while its label prevents any misunderstanding of its meaning. However unsatisfactory St. Jean may prove, we shall be consoled when we enter St. Etienne. There the whole effect leads up to and culminates in the splendid bay that, with its three lofty windows, each containing three lancets in double tiers, forms the eastern end of the choir. There are no transepts, the nave joining directly on to the choir. Although the nave glass is all modern, it does not affront the glories of its older neighbours in the choir, which is, unfortunately, so often the case elsewhere. One is tempted to confine one's comments to the splendid easterly screen of colour, but that would be discriminating unjustly. The famous legend of St. Hubert, dated 1500 (the second from the east in the southerly choir aisle), has been too much restored, but this is the only one that can be thus reproached. In the east end of this aisle we find at the bottom of a window two panels with tapestry-makers at work, showing that it was the gift of that guild. Across, in the north aisle, the easternmost window in the north wall is a Tree of Jesse, dated 1523. Jesse is seated beneath a pavilion; from the tent pole sprouts a vine, out of whose blossoms arise the usual half-length figures. In the topmost pane of the traceries, the Virgin is seen emerging from a great lily. PONT DE L'ARCHE Pont de l'Arche, approached from Rouen, is most picturesque. It lies snuggled down by the river, its bridge flung invitingly towards you across the Seine, while behind it the forest comes down the steep slope almost to the town. The church, perched high upon a corner of the old fortifications, seems to be keeping watch over the homes of its parishioners. Its elaborately carved exterior gives rise to expectations that are not realised, for within we find but little glass to arrest our attention, although what there is dates from the sixteenth century. At the eastern end of the north wall there is a Tree of Jesse, but it is clumsily imagined and coarsely drawn. The flowers upon the vine are too large, and from them protrude great half-length figures, so much out of balance with the rest of the design as to render the ensemble lumbering and ungraceful. The reason for our visit is provided by the second window east from the south portal. The upper part shows Christ walking on the sea. Below, reaching across the entire window, is a scene full of the liveliest local interest. A boat is being drawn under an arch of the bridge over the Seine, and pulling upon the two long tow-ropes are groups of the townspeople, fifteen of them and two teams of horses tugging at one rope, and eighteen and one team at the other. These groups are carefully painted in enamel. A second vessel is being similarly assisted under another arch of the bridge, the tow-rope in this instance being made fast to a rowboat. The details of the bridge, of the fortified island in the right foreground, and of the enamelled figures of the citizens, are all most engaging. In the matter of correct perspective, the artist relies heavily upon the indulgence of the spectator, but otherwise the panel is agreeable, full of quaint interest, and absolutely unique. MONTMORENCY GLASS The tour which we now propose will prove particularly attractive to the automobilist or bicyclist, although we do not by that statement desire to discourage the traveller by train. He will find the same glass and the same towns, but he will miss the opportunity to enjoy, en route, the forests of Montmorency and Chantilly which during the summer are so alluring. During the first part of the journey we will see glass designed for moderate sized interiors and, therefore, adapted for close inspection. On these windows will be found many careful portraits of the donors, some of which in their perfection of treatment have never been surpassed. It would be unfortunate if this itinerary for any reason should be omitted, because without it our study of sixteenth century glass would not be comprehensively complete. We leave Paris by the road going north through St. Denis: our pilgrim will hardly, upon this occasion, stop to visit the Abbey Church, because nearly all of its glass is modern and glaringly poor. What there is of old glass is twelfth century and either fragmentary or much restored and repaired. The celebrated window showing the devout figure of its donor, Abbot Suger, excites our reverence, hardly our admiration. Its chief interest lies in the fact that there has come down to us the good abbot's own account of this among other windows which he presented. The tombs of the French kings are, of course, most impressive, and provide one of the great sights of France to one interested however slightly in its history, but to-day we are in pursuit of stained glass, so the Abbey of St. Denis must wait until another occasion. The road straight on to the north leads to Ecouen, but that visit must be deferred a little, so just outside of St. Denis we turn sharply to the left and after eight kilometres arrive at Montmorency, delightfully perched upon a hill with orchards on every side. From the little platform just outside the west front we get a fine view of the forest of the same name which, fortunately for American eyes, has not been so pruned as to no longer resemble a forest. From Montmorency we take the right hand to Ecouen there to rejoin the straight road running north out of St. Denis. We follow this road to Chantilly, where the Montmorency glass ends, then turn northwest to Beauvais, and after enjoying its splendid cathedral, return to Paris. At this point let us remark that although automobiles and trains undoubtedly add to the comfort of the traveller, it would be better for us on this particular trip if we could substitute for them a mediæval belief in magic. Then our first move would certainly be to seize a fairy wand and summon as our guide that glorious warrior, courtier and patron of the arts, the great constable, Anne de Montmorency. Nothing could be more incongruous than the selection for him of a woman's name, even though borrowed from the Queen of Louis XII. The reason for summoning him is most obvious: it was he who built the castles of Ecouen and Chantilly, while the church at Montmorency, though founded by his father, William, was completed by the son. Who, then, could better tell us their stories or more delightfully revive by familiar anecdote the originals of their glass portraits? Even after our conjuring had secured for us his company, we might find ourselves in trouble, unless we were willing to discard our automobile or train for a stout horse. The arts by which we secured his presence in the flesh might seem to him quite natural, for magic was much more respected in his time than in these more practical days, but it is greatly to be feared that the puffing engine would overcome that stern courage, tested in many a stricken field, and that it would take the utmost vigilance on our part to prevent him from bolting back into the sixteenth century. After accompanying him to Montmorency and Ecouen, and after wandering together through the forest, park and château of Chantilly, we shall bid him farewell, but we must not be surprised if he stoutly objects to our turning off towards Beauvais, demanding that, having recalled him from the spirit world, we hear his story out, and to that end push on to St. Quentin. The lusty old warrior would be quite right, for the chronicle of his career would be incomplete if it omitted the delaying and glorious defeat he there received while commanding the French forces, thereby providing time for Henry II to rally the remaining strength of France and save Paris from the victorious Philip II of Spain. The result of that battle proved highly satisfactory to both victor and vanquished, for while its delay saved Paris, on the other hand Philip's victory so elated him that in memory thereof he erected the famous palace of the Escorial near Madrid. Though most of us will conclude to refuse the Constable's request, some few of our company may desert us and follow him to St. Quentin. Once there, they must not fail to view the two splendid sixteenth century windows in the second northern transept of the church already visited on our thirteenth century tour. They are each two and a half metres wide by nine and a quarter high. One is dedicated to Ste. Barbe and is dated 1533, and the other, dated 1541, to Ste. Catherine, each displaying elaborately gruesome episodes depicting the martyrdom of the heroine. The latter one shows God the Father at the top receiving the saint, who is borne upward by flying angels. In the lowest panel we remark Catherine's headless body sitting bolt upright, while nearby on the floor lies her severed head intently regarding it (see page 107). MONTMORENCY Up a steep road that has more turns and branches than a grape-vine, and suddenly we come out on a little platform before the west front of the diminutive church of St. Martin. Off to the west and around on each side there unfolds a panorama of smiling valleys and green hillocks in most enticing succession. As one enters the western portal, he first observes that the three westerly windows on each side are modern, and of these there can be no higher praise than that they harmonise admirably with their fourteen ancient neighbours to the east of them. These fourteen are chiefly interesting because of the delicacy of their composition, which is really delicious. [Illustration: CONSTABLE OF MONTMORENCY AND HIS FIVE SONS, MONTMORENCY CHURCH (16TH CENTURY). _Here the donors are frankly the important feature. So proud were the Constable and his wife (Madeleine de Savoie) of their five sons and seven daughters that we find four pairs of windows portraying them._] Perhaps the chief interest here is the gallery of family portraits afforded by the donor's figures upon the panes. Among the many admirably drawn faces of distinguished scions of the House of Montmorency, the best is that of the founder of this church, William, the father of our friend the great Constable, which is behind the altar, to the left. It is evidently the work of a great artist. The fourth on the right and the fourth on the left (and, therefore, opposite each other) are two windows containing one, Anne de Montmorency, and the other, his wife, Madeleine de Savoie, each attended by their children. These two were made about 1563, while those to the east of them range from 1523 to 1533. The Constable is supported by his five sons and his wife by her seven daughters. She is looking toward the altar, but he is looking across at her. Each of these domestic groups occupies nearly half of the entire embrasures, but it does so in such a frank manner as to entirely avoid the appearance of intrusion, so generally the result of portraits like these. As we walk around the church we are amazed that so fragile a medium as glass should have preserved through all the centuries these portraits in more perfect condition than many which were consigned to canvas or marble. In fact, one wonders why this was not more often done, and at the same time wishes it had been effected as frankly as in these two just described, and not by the intrusion of donors upon a window devoted to another subject. It is impossible to repress a smile upon noticing that the Crucifixion scene which bears the portrait of its donor, Guy de Laval, shows him kneeling in the central panel, while the crucifix is in a side one! Lest these comments may have seemed severely intended, let us point out a few of the many lovely features. For instance, the second window from the east in the north wall has in its central panel the Virgin holding the Infant Jesus, who reaches out His baby hand to receive a dove. The greensward below is picked out with bright flowers and peopled by small animals, quite as one sees them on the early tapestries. Nothing could be more charming. The tracery lights are excellently treated throughout, sometimes in a most unusual manner. Above the window just described, we find on a lilac field thirteen golden coins, each bearing a different head. This comment upon the higher panes leads us to speak of a most delicate group of four panels perched up above the north portal. Across them extends what appears to be a long cloister having a rich damasked curtain fastened shoulder-high from column to column, above which is afforded a distant prospect of gardens, etc., while in each of the panels there stands a female saint. But little height is needed for this picture, so the traceries above come down low, and are filled by a throng of blue eaglets on a golden ground, the heraldic insignia of the Montmorencys. Before the Battle of Bouvines the shield of this house bore but four eaglets, but on that day Mathieu de Montmorency captured twelve of the enemy's standards with his own hand. In recognition of these deeds of prowess King Philip Augustus added twelve more eaglets to his arms, one for each captured standard, thus raising the total to sixteen. These arms we shall see often repeated in the windows at Montmorency, Ecouen and Chantilly. A visit to this little church is a delightful experience and fills us with eager expectation of what its founder's son, the great Constable, can show us in his two castles of Ecouen and Chantilly. We are tempted to stray off into the charming forest which stretches away more than five miles to the northwest and to revel in the natural beauty of its chestnut trees, but the Constable awaits us, so off we must be to Ecouen. ECOUEN Ecouen is generally visited because of its fine château, built on the crest of a hill and entirely surrounded by a delightful wood except on the side where from a flowered terrace there is disclosed a far-reaching view out over a smiling country. But it is not the château which lures us hither, but the parish church down in the town that nestles at the foot of the castle walls. The château has lost its old glass, the two panels from its chapel showing the children of Anne de Montmorency being now in the chapel at Chantilly, which place also rejoices in the possession of the famous series of forty-four scenes from the adventures of Cupid and Psyche, which originally decorated the now destroyed Salle des Gardes at Ecouen. For us, therefore, the château has lost most of its charm; if you wish to inspect it you must obtain a carte d'entrée from the Chancellerie de la Legion d'Honneur in Paris, for it is now a school for daughters of members of that order, and is not open to the public. For those of us who have come here to see the parish church there will be no bother about permits, for none is needed. This church not only contains excellent Renaissance windows, but upon them we shall find a fine array of Montmorency portraits as well. The upper panels of the lofty lancets that flank the high altar are filled with scriptural scenes, but below they contain, that to the left, Anne de Montmorency with his five sons, and that to the right, his wife attended by five daughters. Although we have here the same family portraits as those seen in Montmorency Church, this pair is much older (1544-5), and not only shows the children as much younger than at Montmorency (1563), but also has but five daughters instead of the seven seen on the later glass. Nor are these the only similar pairs of these windows. The Constable was so proud of his children and of their number that he seemed to never tire of having them portrayed on glass. We have just referred to a third pair (dated 1544) made for the chapel of Ecouen château, but now at Chantilly, and there is still a fourth pair in the nearby church of Mesnil-Aubry which are the latest of all, for the Constable is there shown with a snow-white beard. At Ecouen we observe that the parents occupy each a separate panel from the children, but at Chantilly the parent panels are both missing. The remaining three windows on the south side of the choir bear as donors still other Montmorencys, but the work is later and not nearly so good. The high altar concealed the lower half of the central eastern windows, so they did the next most sensible thing to lowering the altar back--they transferred to a little northern chapel the panels it obscured. The whole northerly side of the choir opens out into a chapel whose northern and eastern ends are lighted by three large embrasures filled with excellent Renaissance glazing, depicting scenes from the life of the Virgin. Especially fine is the second from the east, showing in the lower half, the death of the Virgin, while above are clouds peopled with angels, all leading up to the Father in the top pane of the tracery. The traceries of the three easternmost choir embrasures are filled with blue eaglets on a golden ground, the insignia of the Montmorencys. This same treatment of the traceries may also be remarked in the chapel of the château; in fact, they are all that remains there of the original glazing. We have already admired this same form of decoration over the north portal at the Montmorency Church. It seems a pity that the Ecouen glass now at Chantilly could not be restored to the embrasures for which it was made; it obviously does not belong where it is now found, and, besides, it loses there the historic significance which it would enjoy in its old home at the château of Ecouen. CHANTILLY At one time or another during our glass pilgrimages we have happened upon examples of other mediæval arts and crafts which all combine to make France so absorbingly interesting. It has been reserved for our visit to Chantilly to show us one of the formal gardens of Old France in which nature has been made to yield to the whim and fancy of the landscape artist. Most travellers have seen the famous gardens of Versailles and have heard that they were designed and arranged by Le Notre, but those at Chantilly were designed by this same master before he was called by the King to do his greatest work at Versailles. There are many who prefer his earlier effort, and we must be grateful to our glass for having brought us to this delightful spot. The forest of Chantilly, which covers over six thousand acres, forms an excellent foil for the formal stateliness of the gardens. One is not allowed to visit the château except on Thursdays and Sundays and not then if it happens to be a day when there is racing at the Chantilly track. This regulation is to prevent race crowds from overrunning the château and grounds. The beautiful building with its priceless collections was the private property of the Duc d'Aumale and was by him presented to the Institut de France. In a long low gallery especially constructed for them, and which receives all its light through them, is a much travelled and widely discussed series of forty-four panels narrating episodes from the adventures of Cupid and Psyche. They are of the yellow stain and grey type which we have noticed at Troyes and Chalons, but here the workmanship is far superior. Note that the grey is in places almost brown, and that the yellow is used but sparingly. The high state of perfection to which the design and drawing are carried, combined with the fact that their subjects are non-religious, make them delightfully unique. It is easy to observe the strong influence of Italian art, not only in their general style but also in the very liberal borrowing of designs from well-known Italian paintings. Until recently they were attributed to that versatile master of many arts, Bernard Palissy, but that has been definitely disproved. They are now generally acknowledged to be the work of Cocxyen, a Flemish student of Van Orley (who made the windows of Ste. Gudule in Brussels), and the Italian influence is explained by the fact that he studied in Rome. These panels are dated 1542-4 and were originally made for the windows of the Salle des Gardes at the Château of Ecouen upon the order of Constable Anne de Montmorency. The Revolution dislodged them and they found their way into a museum arranged by Lenoir. This collection was dispersed in 1818. It is narrated that the Prince de Condé, when visiting the museum, admired this set of glass. Hearing someone remark that they had formerly adorned a castle belonging to his family (meaning Ecouen), he had them bundled up and packed off to his château at Chantilly, where they have since remained. This picturesque tale serves to show that stained glass panels were not then regarded as necessarily stationary. We have seen several other instances of this lack of respect for their stout iron bars. They were beautiful and valuable, and therefore, when the occasion arose, they were removed! Excellent as is the work upon these panels and graceful as are the figures, we cannot but notice that our art is taking rapid strides towards its decadence. They are no longer windows where the full value of colour and leading are appreciated and used. In this set they are careful colourless paintings on glass in which the artistic value of the leads is so disregarded that they no longer provide or even assist the drawing--they only mar it as they run across the panes wherever their supporting strength is necessary. We have arrived at a time when the windows are becoming painted pictures done in the manner of paintings on canvas. The artist no longer remembers that stained glass is a separate art and that he has certain advantages in technique over the oil painter, just as the latter has over him. The small ante-chapel has on each side a tall window. In the middle of each is set a large panel of sixteenth century glass, the one on the right showing five Montmorency daughters kneeling in a row, attended by Ste. Agathe, and the one on the left their five brothers, also kneeling, and similarly attended by St. John. The remainder of the embrasure is, in each case, filled with modern glass done in the Renaissance manner and intended to harmonise with the older panel in its midst. The artist devoted more care to the faces of the boys than to those of their sisters, for although the latter are monotonously alike in drawing and posture, the former differ markedly. The face of the smallest boy is most diverting. His hands are clasped in prayer, but unlike his more devout brothers and sisters, his eyes are not turned toward the altar, but he is gazing out into the chapel with childish curiosity. In these two panels the leads are not so cumbrously intrusive, but there is a lesson which every glass artist should learn from an inspection of the carefully painted windows at Ecouen, Montmorency and Chantilly. He cannot fail to notice how the misuse of the leads has been accentuated by the careful painting, and he should carry away with him a firm conviction that the more delicate the design the less it can afford to quarrel with the leading. BEAUVAIS The average tourist looks forwards with keen interest to his first visit to Beauvais. He has, of course, heard of the ancient glories of its tapestry, which industry is still kept up by the French Government. He has also read that the perfect French cathedral would be composed of the choir of Beauvais, the nave of Amiens, the west front of Rheims and the towers of Chartres: so of the choir of Beauvais he expects great things. Nor will he be disappointed, especially if he first views it from the Amiens road. This approach reveals the town to him in the most picturesque way imaginable. On reaching the brow of a short hill he becomes suddenly aware of Beauvais, lying below him in the valley beside a lazy river. One could more properly say that he first saw not the town, but the amazing uplift of the cathedral, and next the town about it. The great height of this edifice is accentuated by the fact that only the choir and the transepts are now standing. Long ago the nave succumbed to the great strain which its unnatural height put upon the materials of which it was constructed, and collapsed. The architect's vaulting ambition o'erleapt itself. In fact it is only by means of constant shoring and repairing that this choir, the loftiest in France, is preserved in a safe and solid condition. When the pilgrim descends into the town he comes upon many interesting timber-framed houses, some of them with second stories projecting over the arcaded footway below and exhibiting quaintly attractive carvings on their heavy beams. We find an intelligent attempt to preserve the best traditions of the older Beauvais tapestry in the modern factory. Just as formerly, it bears floral designs and very rarely personages, being of the sort called "basse lice," and woven on a horizontal frame, thereby differing from the "haute lice" of the Gobelins factory, where the frames are perpendicular. Not only in the Cathedral, but also in the church of St. Etienne, do we find excellent glass of the sixteenth century. The latter's fine Gothic choir, adorned with graceful flying buttresses, provides a strong contrast to its sturdier Romanesque nave. The glass is only to be found around the choir, and is well deserving of its high repute. One should notice the tone of the blues, especially in the background of the church's finest window, a Tree of Jesse, the first on the left from the Lady Chapel. It is the work of Engrand le Prince, and is one of the best known examples of the irrelevant use of portraits of high dignitaries. Their half-length figures appear as blossoms on the vine. Among the fourteen, almost all contemporary likenesses, the most recognisable are Francis I and Henry II. At the back of the choir clerestory there is a fine window, blue with golden rays of the sun spreading out over it. The legend of St. Hubert is very agreeably set out just to the east of the small south portal, the green used therein being seldom surpassed. [Illustration: "TREE OF JESSE" ST. ETIENNE, BEAUVAIS (16TH CENTURY). _Popular subject in stained glass; the vine springing from the loins of Jesse generally bears his descendants as blossoms, and culminates above in a great lily from which emerge the Virgin and Child. Here occurs an interesting 16th century variation--among the descendants of Jesse appear contemporary portraits, Francis I, Henry II, etc._] It is difficult to express in words the effect of extreme loftiness which strikes one as he enters the south door of the Cathedral. It seems almost impossible to shake off this impression; in fact, one is constantly being surprised that he does not grow accustomed to the great sweep of the upward lines. In the two great rose windows which decorate the transept ends, and in the double row of lancets below each, there is excellent glass of this period. The northern rose shows the golden rays of the sun spreading out over a blue background, reminding us of its prototype at St. Etienne. Below, the ten figures of women are attributed to Le Pot. The southern rose contains the history of the Creation with such interesting detail as to well repay the trouble to decipher it caused by its great height above us. Below are two handsome rows of lancets dated 1551, the upper containing prophets, and the lower, saints. The western wall, rising abruptly at the point where the nave should commence, has in its north and south corners two chapels. Each of these chapels has large sixteenth century windows, the northerly one in the west wall, the Descent from the Cross, being very fine; in fact, it is by some considered the best in the cathedral. The choir also has fine Renaissance glass, although in several of the choir chapels (especially in the Lady Chapel) and around the clerestory at the east end, there are some very interesting thirteenth century windows, one, in particular, a Tree of Jesse, rendered attractive by the halo of flying birds about the head of the Saviour. So tall are the clerestory embrasures that generally only the middle portion of them contains personages, the upper and lower parts being filled with grisaille. Most of these upper embrasures were glazed in the fourteenth century, and show to a marked degree the revulsion from the sombre mosaic, and the demand for greater illumination. All this glass would be much more effective if nearer the eye of the observer, the great height at which it is placed not only spoiling the perspective, but resulting in a jumble of colours. The City Hall contains the flag which the gallant townswoman, Jeanne Hachette, captured with her own hands upon the occasion of the attack on the city made by Charles the Bold and his army. Although this gallant deed was performed in 1472, it has never been forgotten by the people of Beauvais, and its anniversary is reverently commemorated upon the 29th of every June. BOURG In addition to the glass seen during these three trips, there are three isolated churches whose windows are so interesting as well as important that one should not be contented to conclude his sixteenth century studies without visiting them. Not only is each one of them distant from other contemporary glass, but it would seem as though the Imp of the Perverse had taken a hand in placing them as far away from each other as possible. Bourg is down south in Savoy; Auch is near Toulouse in the southwest; and Champigny-sur-Veude is off in the western part of Touraine, near the lower reaches of the river Loire. Each of these three not only was completely glazed during this epoch, but has also retained its glass in good condition. In each case the special interest which causes our visit is quite peculiar and very different from that which attracts us to the others. When we concluded our trips of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries we were confronted with the advisability of a separate journey to Quimper, and in like manner we should now decide to visit Bourg, Auch and Champigny-sur-Veude. It must be confessed that it is inconvenient, but it will prove well worth while. First in importance is the church of Brou at Bourg. Although Savoy now forms part of France, we shall, upon this excursion, find proof that it was not always French, and shall furthermore encounter much interesting history wrapped up in the tale of the building and glazing of the church of Brou. Up in the north, at St. Quentin, we found the high-water mark (on French soil) of that splendid empire which the Spaniard, Charles V, agglomerated under his banner and which he resigned to his son, Philip II, the victor of the Battle of St. Quentin. So vast and important was his empire that he lacked only France to have all the continent of Europe beneath his sway. It was the aunt of this Emperor Charles V, Marguerite d'Autriche, who built the exquisite church of Brou in memory of her husband, Philibert le Beau, Duke of Savoy, killed in a hunting accident. After this glance at history, it is not difficult to understand why Marguerite sent to Flanders for her architect and for her glass designers, for as Flanders was part of her nephew's empire, none was more fully advised than she of the high reputation then enjoyed by the artists of the Low Countries. Apropos of the way in which her husband Philibert died, it is related that when his father had been at the point of death from a similar hunting accident, Philibert's mother, Marguerite de Bourbon, had vowed to erect a chapel to St. Hubert, patron saint of huntsmen, if he recovered. Her failure to comply with this vow was by many firmly believed to be the reason why her son Philibert was killed upon the hunting field, and that his untimely end was a solemn warning that a vow to St. Hubert must be strictly kept. In any event, St. Hubert must have been fully satisfied with the manner in which the oath was finally carried out, for the chapel so built has remained to amaze and delight many generations. The wonderful marble tombs, the graceful rood screen, the splendid glass, all go to prove that there was here lavished everything that wealth, power and intelligence could command. It is bewildering to decide with which of the eighteen windows we shall begin our inspection. Because of our interest in the foundress and her husband, let us commence with that in the choir, which is at the left of the most easterly window. Upon this one and its neighbour to the left we shall see spread out much concerning the life, family and habits of Philibert. The first window shows the Duke himself attended by his patron saint, St. Philibert, while in the background there looms up his favourite ducal palace of Pont d'Ain, where he lived and died. As indicating the importance of his duchy there are arranged above him thirteen shields displaying the arms of provinces at one time part of Savoy. The next window to the left bears a splendid array of thirty-five shields whose heraldry serves to complete our information about Duke Philibert by showing the individuals composing his family tree. Those on the right are of the paternal line of Savoy, and on the left we follow his mother's line (the House of Bourbon) as far up as Louis IX, whose arms appear at the very top of the embrasure. It is most fitting that the arms of our old friend, the royal patron of stained glass, should preside over the most brilliant window in this famously glazed sanctuary. It is to be noticed that this church is very rich in heraldic blazons; in fact, upon five of its windows we find seventy-one shields. The Chapelle des Sept Joies contains a gorgeous work, the Crowning of the Virgin, in which every effort of the glassmaker's skill seems to have been exerted. Above the principal subject runs a panel-like frieze showing in allegory the Triumph of Christ. This frieze is done in grey and yellow stain. The whole window would leave nothing to be desired in either technique or colour if it were not made the victim of an exaggerated outbreak of the curse of donors' figures. The foundress and her husband are not only allowed to intrude upon the drawing of the general subject, but each of them is actually larger than the figure of the Virgin. The records show that this church (begun in 1511) had all its glass installed at the time of its completion in 1536, thus showing that the windows were made during the most vigorous part of the century, a fact thoroughly borne out by internal evidence. We may consider ourselves fortunate that the use of this glorious building for a store-house during the Revolution damaged the glass so little. In this connection it is surprising to read that its beauty was so much appreciated that the people voted to preserve it as a public monument, thus staying the hand of the ever-ready vandalism which then raged through so many French churches. A sketch of Bourg would not be complete without a reference to the noble poem of Matthew Arnold. The following lines are particularly appropriate to the moving cause for our visit to this lovely shrine: So sleep, forever sleep, O marble Pair! Or, if ye wake, let it be then, when fair On the carved western front a flood of light Streams from the setting sun, and colours bright Prophets, transfigured Saints, and Martyrs brave, In the vast western window of the nave; And on the pavement round the tomb there glints A chequer-work of glowing sapphire-tints, And amethyst, and ruby--then unclose Your eyelids on the stone where ye repose, And looking down on the warm rosy tints, Which chequer, at your feet, the illumined flints, Say: "What is this? We are in bliss--forgiven-- Behold the pavement of the courts of Heaven!" AUCH Seventy-seven kilometres west of Toulouse there lies the interesting city of Auch, built upon a hillside rising sharply from the river Gers. Here one will happen upon many an ancient architectural bit which will take him back to the days when Henry of Navarre here entertained, much against her will, his mother-in-law, Catherine de Medicis, in this south-western corner of France, far off from her beloved Paris. The very remoteness has preserved many of its old-world features, and this ancient flavour, combined with the picturesque position above the river, renders it distinctly a town to be visited. But something more than the general mediæval air of Auch is the cause for our long jaunt hither. This reason we shall find in the eighteen windows that adorn the choir ambulatory of the cathedral of Ste. Marie. An inscription in the Gascon dialect on the final one of the series tells us that they are by the hand of Arnaud Desmoles and that they were finished June 25, 1513. We have here the work of a Frenchman, a Gascon at that, and there is no trace of Italian, German or any other foreign influence; it is the true flower of the country's genius growing on its native soil. Perhaps the drawing and the colouring are not quite so good as we may see elsewhere, but it is purely French. Any imperfection of detail is hardly noticed, because we are instantly struck by the ensemble of eighteen windows made for the building which they decorate, as well as for each other, and all by the same artist. His scheme of subjects, showing the agreement between the teachings of the Old and those of the New Testament, is fully carried through to its completion. The colours show strength and yet are not too robust. The proportions, too, are very satisfactory, each window being about three times as high as it is broad. Their stories begin with the creation of the world and carry us on, step by step, until they conclude with the appearance of Christ to His disciples. The central part of each embrasure is filled by a large personage, with sundry smaller figures above, and groups below. It is but natural that so complete a series as this should have always enjoyed a wide reputation. Although we may feel, after examining them, that they do not reach the standard of perfection attained by some of their contemporaries elsewhere, still they cannot fail to please us. The charm lent by their logical completeness causes us to prefer them to others where the perfection of drawing and style in the individual window is partly offset by lack of harmony with others near it. CHAMPIGNY-SUR-VEUDE Any mention of Touraine generally calls up before us the picture of a smiling country through which rolls the lazy Loire hemmed in by its sandy banks, with every now and again the vision of a charming château, type of the best mediæval architecture. To the glass lover, however, the chief and almost the only attraction of the province is the cathedral at Tours (see page 51). We say "almost," because although not generally known and but seldom visited by the tourist, Touraine has another glass shrine lying within a few kilometres of the Château de Chinon. The chapel in which we find this glass was formerly part of the Château of Champigny-sur-Veude, but the chapel alone remains. Before we enter, the writer wishes to deliver himself of a partial explanation or apology, and he does so for the following reason: he has all along inveighed bitterly against the curse of donors' figures upon windows, but on this occasion he must frankly admit that he is guilty of taking you to see glass of which a most interesting feature is these very representations of the donors. In fact the chapel has a peculiar value because it contains thirty-six portraits of the Bourbon-Montpensier family. They are to be found along the lowest panels, each one kneeling before a prie-dieu. The chapel is admirably lighted, partly due to the destruction of the old château, but chiefly to the eleven large windows, each seven by three and a half metres. The same scheme of decoration prevails throughout. Lowest down we find the kneeling donors; above them and occupying far more space are historical episodes from the life of Louis IX, of peculiar interest to us, his humble followers in the love of stained glass. Among the most interesting of these glass pictures may be cited one showing a battle with the Saracens in the Holy Land, several portraying ships filled with armoured knights, and particularly the episode of St. Louis dedicating the Ste. Chapelle at Paris. Above these in the roomy oval traceries are scenes from the Passion. Highest of all are small panes containing either a capital L with a crown slipped down around it, or a bird's wing similarly encircled by a crown, referring respectively to King Louis and the Bourbons. The only variation from the regularity of this general scheme is the east window, which shows the creation of the world and has below it Christ between the two thieves. The fact that this chapel is to-day completely glazed in its original glass and that there is a thorough coherence of style throughout, would alone serve to repay us for the long trip from Paris; but when we add the fact that this is a Bourbon portrait gallery, an historical interest is at once added to its other attractions. These arguments in its favour will keep us from observing too keenly how much the crudeness of some of the colours accentuates the dullness of others. It would be better if the greens could be softened and the greys enlivened. Lest we may seem by thus criticising the glass to wish to disparage it, we make haste to urge our reader to visit Champigny. He will find ample compensation for its isolation from other glass of its century by the many châteaux which make a trip through Touraine so enjoyable. [Illustration: DEDICATION OF PARIS STE. CHAPELLE AT CHAMPIGNY-SUR-VEUDE. _Panel containing kneeling donors not shown. 16th century glass picture of a 13th century event. (See page 26)._] ITINERARIES SHOWING DISTANCES IN KILOMETRES THIRTEENTH CENTURY Paris--227--Bourges--190--Poitiers--103--Tours--107--Angers--87--Le Mans--124--Chartres--88--Paris. Paris--168--Auxerre--59--Sens--63--Troyes--79--Chalons--41--Rheims --145--Paris. Paris--95--Soissons--35--Laon--46--St. Quentin--75--Amiens--131--Paris. FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES Paris--94--Evreux--51--Rouen--133--Paris. Paris--227--Bourges--97--Moulins--82--Riom--14--Clermont-Ferrand--148 --Eymoutiers--50--Limoges--120--Poitiers--124--Angers--87--Le Mans--49--Alençon--21--Sées--64--Verneuil--54--Chartres--88--Paris. Paris--555--Quimper. SIXTEENTH CENTURY Paris--5--Vincennes--107--Sens--63--Troyes--79--Chalons--160--Paris. Paris--45--Montfort l'Amaury--72--Conches--56--Pont-Audemer--32-- Caudebec--34--Rouen--133--Paris. (Rouen--33--Grand-Andely, Rouen--20 --Elbeuf, Rouen--18--Pont de l'Arche.) Paris--18--Montmorency--8--Ecouen--27--Chantilly--50--Beauvais--78 --Paris. Paris--466--Bourg. Paris--701--Auch. Paris--279--Champigny-sur-Veude. INDEX KILOMETRES FROM PARIS EPOCHS PAGE 192 Alençon 16th Century 180 131 Amiens 13th " 112 302 Angers 13th " 55 302 Angers 15th " 175 701 Auch 16th " 290 168 Auxerre 13th " 74 78 Beauvais 16th " 281 466 Bourg 16th " 285 227 Bourges 13th " 42 227 Bourges 15th " 151 161 Caudebec 16th " 245 160 Chalons 13th " 87 160 Chalons 16th " 233 279 Champigny-sur-Veude 16th " 292 36 Chantilly 16th " 277 88 Chartres 13th " 67 88 Chartres 14th " 188 383 Clermont-Ferrand 15th " 160 117 Conches 16th " 239 18 Ecouen 16th " 274 124 Elbeuf 16th " 261 94 Evreux 14th " 137 410 Eymoutiers 15th " 164 99 Grand-Andely 16th " 258 129 Laon 13th " 103 393 Limoges 14th " 169 214 Mans (Le) 13th " 60 214 Mans (Le) 15th " 178 45 Montfort l'Amaury 16th " 236 18 Montmorency 16th " 270 289 Moulins 15th " 155 97 Nonancourt 15th " 187 334 Poitiers 13th " 47 334 Poitiers 14th " 172 167 Pont-Audemer 16th " 242 114 Pont de l'Arche 16th " 263 555 Quimper 15th " 191 145 Rheims 13th " 92 368 Riom 15th " 157 133 Rouen 14th " 144 133 Rouen 16th " 249 176 St. Quentin 13th " 107 180 Sées 14th " 180 112 Sens 13th " 77 112 Sens 16th " 218 95 Soissons 13th " 99 233 Tours 13th " 51 156 Troyes 13th " 82 156 Troyes 16th " 222 118 Verneuil 15th " 185 5 Vincennes 16th " 215 * * * * * Transcriber's note: Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters' errors; otherwise, every effort has been made to remain true to the author's words and intent. 
34818	----	STAINED GLASS TOURS IN ENGLAND BY CHARLES HITCHCOCK SHERRILL WITH SIXTEEN ILLUSTRATIONS LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY: MCMX SECOND EDITION Printed by BALLANTYNE &. CO. LIMITED Tavistock Street, Covent Garden, London STAINED GLASS TOURS IN ENGLAND BY THE SAME AUTHOR STAINED GLASS TOURS IN FRANCE. WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS. [Illustration: KING'S COLLEGE CHAPEL, CAMBRIDGE] TO LEWIS F. DAY FROM ONE WHOM HE TAUGHT TO LOVE STAINED GLASS FOREWORD Although the purpose of this book is the quest of windows, it happens that these very windows are so obligingly disposed throughout the length and breadth of England, and light such different sorts of edifices, that in the search of them we shall obtain a very comprehensive idea of English architecture. Not only shall we visit many noble cathedrals (Canterbury, York, Winchester, Wells, &c. &c.), and smaller religious edifices (Fairford, St. Neot, Norbury, &c.), but we shall also see secular buildings of many types. In this latter category will be included both the great universities of Oxford and Cambridge, a civic guildhall (Coventry), an ancient hostel for the aged (Guildford), and one of the finest of the "stately homes of England" (Knole). Thus it will be seen that our tours are more broadly catholic than their title would indicate--indeed, we are tempted to promise that by the time the pilgrim has completed them he will have obtained a well-rounded impression not only of glass, but also of the history as well as the ancient manners and customs of England. Unfortunately, no form of illustration can hope to reproduce the combination of light and colour which makes the beauty of stained glass; those selected for this book are the best obtainable, but are chiefly useful in showing how the windows are set. This is not a technical book, so scale-drawings would be out of place. CHARLES HITCHCOCK SHERRILL. 20 EAST 65TH STREET, NEW YORK CITY. _March 1, 1909._ CONTENTS INTRODUCTION _Page_ 1 TOURS 17 EARLY ENGLISH 21 EARLY ENGLISH TOUR 29 SALISBURY 30 CANTERBURY 36 LINCOLN 51 YORK 57 DECORATED 65 DECORATED TOUR 75 YORK 76 NORBURY 82 SHREWSBURY 85 LUDLOW 92 HEREFORD 96 TEWKESBURY 100 DEERHURST 104 BRISTOL 107 WELLS 114 EXETER 120 DORCHESTER 124 OXFORD 129 PERPENDICULAR 135 PERPENDICULAR TOUR 140 OXFORD 142 FAIRFORD 148 CIRENCESTER 154 GLOUCESTER 158 GREAT MALVERN 166 LITTLE MALVERN 172 ROSS 174 WARWICK 177 COVENTRY 181 YORK 185 SALISBURY 192 WINCHESTER 195 ST. NEOT 203 RENAISSANCE 209 RENAISSANCE TOURS 214 LONDON 216 CAMBRIDGE 223 LICHFIELD 230 GUILDFORD 236 GATTON 239 KNOLE 242 ITINERARIES 251 LIST OF TOWNS 253 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS _To face page_ Cambridge, King's College Chapel _Frontispiece_ General Map 18 Map of Early English Tour 30 Canterbury, "Becket's Crown" 36 Thirteenth century medallions; notice circular and other forms enclosing the figures. The heavy iron bars needed to support the great weight of lead are skilfully adjusted to the design. The world-famous shrine stood in the centre of this space. Tombof Black Prince in foreground, and above it armour he wore at Crécy. Lincoln, Rose Window 56 Tracery unusual in that it does not radiate from centre. Quantity of greenish grisaille used emphasises leaf-like design. Thirteenth century medallions in the tall lancets below. York Minster, "Five Sisters" 62 Softly toned grisaille, with delicate patterns in faint colour. Of its type unsurpassed in the world. Note difference between mellow strength of this glass and thinness of modern glazing in upper tier of lancets. Map of Decorated Tour 76 York Minster, Chapter-House 78 Note the grouping together in each embrasure of five narrow lights below gracefully elaborated tracery openings. Later on, in the Perpendicular period, these traceries lose their individuality, become stiffly regular, and part of the window below. Tewkesbury Abbey, Choir 100 A rare example of rounded apse, generally replaced in England by a square-ended chancel. Chief charm of these windows is their rich colouring. Wells, "Golden Window" 116 Notice graceful setting, permitting a glimpse through into the Lady chapel beyond. The large Tree of Jesse, rising from the loins of the patriarch, is portrayed in colours of almost barbaric richness. Exeter, East Window 122 Perpendicular stone frame, glazed chiefly with very typically decorated figure-and-canopy glass preserved from the earlier and smaller window. Below and beyond appears the Lady chapel. Map of Perpendicular Tour 140 Oxford, New College Antechapel 144 Transition window, presented by William of Wykeham, Founder of the College. Stone frames are already Perpendicular: note the "pepper-box" tracery lights. The glazing, as usual, lags behind the architecture, and, because of its strong colour and flat drawing, is more Decorated than Perpendicular. Gloucester, Choir 162 Great east window commemorative of knights who fought at Crécy. Backgrounds of pink and soft blue. Tracery lights no longer differentiated from window below, as during Decorated period. Note elaborate masking of earlier walls by later Perpendicular work. Coventry, Guildhall 182 Splendid row of ancient English kings, and, below, a great tapestry. In the centre of the window, and again on the tapestry, appears Henry VI., who was a member of the guild. Handsome example of mediæval hall. York Minster, East Window 188 Tremendous sheet of colour, 78 by 32 feet. Lower half of stone frame built in a double plane, and carries a gallery across face of the glass. Winchester, Nave 200 The excellent effect produced by the Fifteenth Century fragments with which this window is glazed proves that colour is more important than design in glass. Note swerving to right and left of two principal mullions, thus relieving a monotony of upright lines. Map of Renaissance Tours 214 London, St. George's, Hanover Square 220 A Renaissance Tree of Jesse from Belgium, readjusted to fit its new embrasures. Figures unusually large for this subject. Fine colours and drawing. Lichfield, Lady Chapel 232 Excellent example of Renaissance colouring, freer from applied paint than then customary. This glass was brought from Belgium. Guildford, Bishop Abbott's Hospital 240 Charming and complete glazing of a small chapel. Renaissance glass coloured by the process of enamelling, often unsatisfactory because bits are apt to peel off. STAINED GLASS TOURS : : IN ENGLAND : : INTRODUCTION The errand of a window seems always to have been that of beauty, although it has more than one way of performing that service. Sometimes it seems to have chosen the inspiring manner of recalling ancient wars, as would appear from the "Dreme" of Chaucer: "And sooth to sayn, my chamber was Full well depainted, and with glass Were all the windows well y-glazed Full clear, and not an hole y-crazed, That to behold it was great joy: For wholly all the story of Troy Was in the glazing y-wrought thus, Of Hector, and of King Priamus; Of Achilles, and of King Laomedon, And eke of Medea, and of Jason; Of Paris, Helen, and of Lavine." Sometimes the errand is that of beauty alone, so "mystic, wonderful," as to make it seem that magic was invoked to yield so fair a result. In his "Earthly Paradise" Morris voices this feeling: "Folk say, a wizard to a northern king At Christmastide such wondrous things did show, That through one window men beheld the spring, And through another saw the summer glow, And through a third the fruited vines a-row, While still, unheard, but in its wonted way, Piped the drear wind of that December day." Again, the errand of the window may have been not so much that of a story-teller, nor of a beautiful object to regale one's eyes withal, but rather to tint and temper the illumination of some holy place like that described in the "Lay of the Last Minstrel" (Canto XI.): "The silver light, so pale and faint, Show'd many a prophet and many a saint, Whose image on the glass was dyed; Full in the midst, his Cross of Red Triumphant Michael brandished, And trampled the Apostate's pride. The moonbeam kissed the holy pane, And threw on the pavement a bloody stain." Beyond the enjoyment and artistic refreshment to be obtained from the contemplation of stained glass, who shall say that we do not receive other benefits, the nature of which are as yet undiscovered? It is only recently that our learned brothers, the scientists, have acquainted us with the helpful qualities of those rays of light which, in the language of the spectrum, are "out beyond the violet." In this connection, it may be edifying to quote from the "Anecdotes and Traditions" of Aubrey: "The curious oriental reds, yellows, blews, and greens in glasse-painting, especially when the sun shines, doe much refresh the spirits. After this manner did Dr. R. revive the spirits of a poor distracted gentleman, for whereas his former physitian shutt up his windows and kept him in utter darknesse, he did open his window lids, and let in the light, and filled his windows with glasses of curious tinctures, which the distempered person would always be looking on, and it did conduce to the quieting of his disturbed spirits." (Aubrey in "Anecdotes and Traditions," edited for the Camden Society by W. J. Thomas, p. 96.) Nor is this the only _terra incognita_ still awaiting exploration. During some recent French experiments wide differences have been observed in the same kind of vegetable when grown under differently coloured glass covers. However, these are matters that will not be "dreamed of in our philosophy"--our investigations will be confined to a geographical search for that with which to delight our eyes. When one pauses to consider how fragile the beauty of a stained glass window, it becomes amazing that even so much as we can now visit has survived. Over every European country there has, at one time or another, swept a wave of destruction engulfing things artistic. The causes for, as well as the agents of, this iconoclasm, differ widely. Sometimes it comes from within, and is the result of civil war or of religious fanaticism--less often it is the result of foreign invasion. English windows had the good fortune to escape the destruction by foreigners which the French had to suffer during those dreadful fourteenth and fifteenth centuries when the Hundred Years' War outlasted its title, and when the hot-headed Plantagenet kings kept France continually plagued with English soldiery. Although we must record this particular immunity, other agencies equally baleful were at work. The Puritans made a practice of smashing stained glass, either because they regarded it as one of the hated insignia of popery (some of their ministers even knocking out the glass in churches under their own charge, like "Blue Dick" Culmer at Canterbury Cathedral), or for reasons of revenge, as in the case of the troops infuriated by the death of their leader in the assault upon Lichfield. Dwellers within the precincts of Lincoln made a common practice of shooting with crossbows at the windows! At Great Malvern the possible excuse of crossbow practice is missing; the villagers quite simply amused themselves by throwing stones at the great east window, just from the sheer joy of destruction. In some instances, even the mitigating circumstances of religious fanaticism, revenge, competitive sport, or even amusement are entirely lacking. Aubrey tells us in his "History of Surrey," that "At a later date, one Blesse was hired for half-a-crown a day to break the painted glass windows of Croydon." Little wonder is it that the citizens of York should have voted Fairfax, the leader of the Roundheads, a tun of wine, &c., in reward for his protecting care of the cathedral after he and his soldiers had captured that city. In an earlier book ("Stained Glass Tours in France") we observed that French windows divided themselves into periods which were practically coterminous with the centuries, thus enabling us to designate the styles by their century number. In England the development of this craft brought about the style-changes at irregular dates; but here also the steps of this development are so marked as to separate it into distinct epochs. English glass follows its architecture so closely that one cannot do better than to accept the period-designation of the latter, and especially is this true during the so-called Decorated and Perpendicular epochs. For our purpose we will therefore use the following sub-divisions: Early English, which will include all the glass prior to 1280; Decorated, 1280 to 1380; Perpendicular, 1380 to 1500; Renaissance (sometimes styled sixteenth century or Cinque Cento), 1500 to 1550. There are extremely few examples of the first and of the last schools, in marked contrast to the great wealth in France of windows contemporary thereto. Edward I. came to the throne in 1272, and it was during his reign that the Decorated period began, running through the reigns of Edward II. (1307), Edward III. (1327), and Richard II. (1377)--all of them Plantagenets. This and the succeeding period produced very little glass anywhere in France, because of the Hundred Years' War, begun 1337, lasting until 1447, and waged throughout the length and breadth of the land. The exact opposite is true in England, where during the Decorated and Perpendicular epochs it reached its greatest importance and beauty. The Perpendicular period begins in 1380, shortly before Richard II., the last of the Plantagenets, was succeeded by the representatives of the rival Houses of Lancaster and York, three Lancastrians, Henry IV., V., and VI. (1399), (1413), (1422), being succeeded by three Yorkists, Edward IV. (1461), Edward V. (1483), and Richard III. (1483). This Perpendicular period came to an end at just about the same time as that tremendous civil struggle, the War of the Roses, was concluded by the accession of the House of Tudor, in the person of Henry VII. (1485). Our Renaissance glass period begins under him and lasts on through practically all the reigns of the House of Tudor--Henry VIII. (1509), Edward VI. (1547), Mary (1553), Elizabeth (1558). At the time that the Tudors were succeeded by the Stuarts (James I., 1603), there was hardly any English glass being manufactured, save a little for domestic use, although many Dutch glaziers were then active in this country, as we shall regretfully observe when we visit Oxford and Cambridge. It is clear from many an entry in ancient English church archives that French glaziers were often in the early days summoned across the Channel, and that it is to them that we owe the beginning of English glass; but we shall see that although it owes its origin to this foreign assistance, it developed along distinctly original lines, and that therefore the English glaziers deserve full credit for the charming traits peculiar to them. Although the period styled Early English has left comparatively few examples north of the Channel, and cannot hope to vie with the many and rich displays of mosaic glass to be seen in France, we shall be greatly consoled by the splendid grisaille (or uncoloured glazing) that fills the "Five Sisters" at York, and by the remains of the great series at Salisbury. We have just referred to the scarcity of French stained glass during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, those sorry days during which the English occupation of a large part of the country, repeated plagues, and uprisings of the lower classes against the nobles (like the Jacquerie), vied with each other in the work of devastation. Indeed, it is not strange that any art so dependent upon the fostering care of a luxury-loving class should have been entirely superseded by the sterner requirements of self-defence, to say nothing of the repairs necessitated by the ravages of war, pestilence, and famine. Those two centuries, so dreadful to France and so discouraging to French glaziers, produced in England the greatest flowers of this craft. It is, therefore, clear that if one wishes to obtain a comprehensively consecutive knowledge of stained glass on both sides of the Channel, he must leave France and cross over to England when the thread of his studies has obtained so far as the Decorated and the Perpendicular. When, however, he reaches the sixteenth century he must return to France, to revel in the wealth of Renaissance glass so wofully lacking in England. After one has observed a sufficient number of windows to provide a basis for comparisons, it becomes easy to tell not only the epoch to which they belong, but also, in most instances, whether they are early or late in that epoch. In England one is assisted by an unusual amount of reliable information from two sources, viz., old records and heraldic indications from the coats of arms which are so often displayed. There is so little sixteenth century glass in this country as to give but small opportunity to observe the characteristic Renaissance custom of placing the dates on the picture itself, which was then common in France. Of earlier windows, however, English records and a knowledge of heraldry give us the dates of many more than are obtainable for their contemporaries in France. By way of example, the original contracts date the glass at Beauchamp Chapel, Warwick, 1447; at King's College, Cambridge, 1527; at York, in the nave, 1338, and in the choir, 1405, &c. A comparative and historical study of their heraldic blazons gives us a date for many of the windows at Bristol and at Wells, and of more still in private houses. The duty of the glazier was to adorn the window embrasures constructed for him by the architect, and thus assist in the decoration of the church. It is obvious that the size and shape of these apertures must necessarily have had considerable, if not controlling, effect upon the styles and methods of the glazier. A glance at the conformation of these openings often tells the sub-divisions in which its glass belongs. During Norman times the window arch was round and the opening wide. In the Early English style the arch at the top becomes pointed and the embrasures narrower. When the Decorated time arrives several narrow lights are grouped together, separated only by slender stone mullions, and culminating under the pointed arch at the top in a group of gracefully adjusted small apertures called tracery lights. The Perpendicular architect did little but straighten out the lines of his predecessors, especially in the traceries, so that they, as well as the mullions, should produce the effect of upright parallels which gave this type its name. In the sixteenth century the Renaissance architect provided large windows, and the glazier filled them with great pictures of splendid colour. In our investigation of English glass of the Early English (or mosaic) period, we shall often find ourselves regretting the almost entire absence of rose windows, so frequent and splendid across the Channel, where those great blossoms of Gothic architecture provided such glorious opportunities for the decorating hand of the glazier. For this lack we shall later on find ample compensation (especially during Decorated and Perpendicular times) in the huge sheet of glass filling the great east window of many English churches. While the southern architect decided in favour of the rounded apse for the east end of his cathedrals, his northern neighbour preferred a square ended one, thus permitting a fine broad embrasure, broken only by narrow mullions, and providing a golden chance for the glazier, which he lost no time in seizing. Therefore, if we miss the innumerable rose windows of France, it is but fair to state that it possesses nothing that can vie with the great expanse of glowing colour found at the east end of York or Gloucester or Malvern. It is clear that the glass artist, whatever his nationality, had at all times to take heed of the architecture which provided the setting for his glass, and which his work was to help decorate. It is but natural, therefore, that his designs should have been influenced by the prevailing architectural style, and this was particularly true in England during the prevalence of both the Decorated and the Perpendicular schools. When the time arrived to change from the mosaic method of constructing stained glass, the whole effort of the Englishman seemed to have been devoted to making his new product conform to the new Decorated style of building. Not so his neighbour across the Channel, for there everything was then being sacrificed to the demand for better lighted interiors, even to the extent of filling much of his embrasures with grisaille, and using deep colour only in the borders or in bands of canopy-framed figures across parts of the windows (Sées, Evreux). The need for more illumination did not exist in England, for in that land of cloudy skies and infrequent sunshine they had already realised how greatly mosaic medallion glass obscured the light, and, therefore, had early struck out for themselves, and developed an admirable use of grisaille, as one may see at York and Salisbury. They had already solved the problem of better illumination, and were that much ahead of their French neighbours. In France, because of light-admitting grisaille then demanded (either alone or in conjunction with the early canopies), the fourteenth century window gives a lighter effect than when later on, in the fifteenth century, the artist dispensed with the grisaille, enlarged his canopy completely to fill its lancet, and, thanks to the development of coated glass--_i.e._, several layers of different colours permitting, in combination, a wide range of hues--introduced more varied and richer colouring in both figures and costumes. In England, however, where light-admitting grisaille had already been freely used during the mosaic period, and the glazier began the fourteenth century untrammelled by any sudden demand for brilliant illumination, we shall easily observe a tendency directly contrary to that just remarked in France. The English Decorated windows are much deeper in tone than the Perpendicular ones which followed them. These latter seemed to have proved a satisfactory solution of the lighting problem for the English climate. Indeed, we shall see some at St. Neot, manufactured as late as 1530, that are copied after others of the preceding century, and yet the later ones are obviously from the hand of an artist so skilful as to have readily worked in the contemporary Renaissance manner, had he not deliberately preferred the earlier one. Those who desire to study this subject seriously should read Lewis F. Day's excellent "Windows of Stained Glass" (1897). EARLY ENGLISH BEFORE 1280 -------------------------------------------------------------- PLANTAGENET { Edward I. 1272 1280-1380 { Edward II. 1307 DECORATED { Edward III. 1327 { (Crécy, 1346) { (Poitiers, 1356) ------------{------------------------------------------------- { Richard II. 1377 1380-1500 PERPENDICULAR LANCASTER { Henry IV. 1399 { Henry V. 1413 { (Agincourt, 1415) { Henry VI. 1422 YORK { Edward IV. 1461 { Edward V. 1483 { Richard III. 1483 TUDOR { Henry VII. 1485 ------------{------------------------------------------------- { Henry VIII. 1509 1500-1550 { Edward VI. 1547 RENAISSANCE { Mary, 1553 { Elizabeth, 1558 STUART { James I. 1603 TOURS Our glass-hunting tours will take us into almost every part of England. We shall go up and down the east coast cathedrals, from York in the north to Canterbury in the south-east. We shall also wander through the entire range of southern counties, and see the whole coast from Winchester, west through Salisbury and Exeter to St. Neot, far off in Cornwall, hard by Land's End. But it will be in that corner of England which lies between Oxford and the Welsh border, that the greatest wealth of windows will be found. We shall arrange the tours so that the order in which the windows are viewed will conform chronologically with the stages of the craft's development. It will, of course, largely depend on whether he elects to travel by rail, by automobile, or by bicycle, just how slavishly the pilgrim follows the order in which the towns have been set out. The trips have been arranged with an eye to geography rather than to railway time-tables--geography is so much more stable than "Bradshaw's General Railway Guide"! The omission from the list of sundry important cathedrals, like Durham, Ely, Peterborough, Worcester, &c., is caused by the deplorable fact that all their ancient stained glass has been destroyed. The order of towns is as follows: Early English Epoch Salisbury, Canterbury, Lincoln, York. Decorated Epoch York, Norbury, Shrewsbury, Ludlow, Hereford, Tewkesbury, Deerhurst, Bristol, Wells, Exeter, Dorchester, Oxford. Perpendicular Epoch Oxford, Fairford, Cirencester, Gloucester, Great Malvern, Little Malvern, Ross, Warwick, Coventry, York. Salisbury. Winchester. St. Neot. Renaissance Epoch London, Cambridge, Lichfield, Shrewsbury. Guildford, Gatton, Knole. In selecting the order of the above itineraries, we have ended the first, or Early English period, at York, because that city is not only rich in early mosaic glass, but also in that of the Decorated period, thus making it most convenient for us there to begin the second or Decorated tour. In the same manner we have concluded the itinerary of the Decorated period at Oxford, for there are found not only Decorated, but also Perpendicular windows, thus permitting us to commence the Perpendicular tour in the same city which ends our Decorated one. York is set down as the last of the Perpendicular trip, but if our pilgrim has already visited that city on either the Early English or the Decorated tour, he will doubtless also have seen all of its Perpendicular glass, which will obviate the necessity for again making the long journey north. In that event, with York left out of the Perpendicular tour, it will prove to be much more condensed, both as to territory and distance, than either of the two earlier ones. The last, or Renaissance epoch, has but few examples in England, and these are so widely separated that it seems best to break them up into two tours. Of the seven places cited (London, Cambridge, Lichfield, Shrewsbury, Guildford, Gatton, and Knole) the best English glass is at London and Cambridge, while that at Lichfield is Flemish, and most of that at Shrewsbury German. For tables of distances, &c., _see_ pp. 251-254. [Illustration: GENERAL MAP] EARLY ENGLISH We shall find it more convenient to group all early glass under the heading of "Early English," although it will be found not only in its own narrow, pointed-arched windows, but also before that, in the round-arched ones of the Norman style. So slow was the development of our craft during all the time covered by those two schools of architecture as to make it hardly proper or necessary that our subject be likewise divided into two epochs. During both of them there is found richly coloured glass of the "mosaic" type, and also uncoloured windows of the sort styled by the French "grisaille." Obviously, uncoloured glass admits much more light than that made up of rich dark hues, and, therefore, it is but natural that the glazier who dwelt in a cloudy northern land should early have realised the need for sufficient light in his churches, a need which did not concern his fellow craftsmen in the sunny lands of the south. Indeed if he had not appreciated this practical side of his craft he would not have been the artist which his windows prove him to have been. The glaziers of sunny Italy were never confronted with this problem of sufficient illumination--if anything, they had too much, no matter how richly they painted the panes. Their fellows in France had less sunlight than they, but more than the English, and therefore occupied an intermediate ground in the matter of church illumination; the result was that the French neglected it so entirely during both the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and so darkened their interiors by heavily leaded mosaic glazing as to bring about, at the opening of the fourteenth century, a sudden revulsion in favour of better lighted interiors, which went so far as to produce the excessive light and glare observable at Sées, St. Ouen (Rouen) and Evreux. This sudden revulsion did not appear in England where, indeed, there were no grounds for it, because, as we have just seen, the glaziers had already thoroughly grasped the need for, as well as the value of, light-admitting grisaille. That they thoroughly mastered the technique of uncoloured glass we will readily conclude from the splendid monuments to their genius in the "Five Sisters" at York, and the grisaille in the south transept at Salisbury, ideal glazing for a land of infrequent sunshine. Turning from these untinted windows to those filled with colour, one notices at once that the early examples of the latter are made up of very small pieces of different hues bound together by winding strips of lead having little sunken channels on both sides to hold the glass in place. So small are these pieces that the windows seem to have been composed much in the same way that the diminutive cubes are assembled to make a mosaic. It is because of this striking similarity of method, that this early glazing, constructed of small fragments, is frequently referred to as "mosaic" glass. Another name which it often receives is also easily explainable. The stories on these early windows are told by groups of very small figures, and to prevent a chaotic multitude of these little persons spread over the glass, each episode or group is separated from the others by a frame of contrasting colour, thus breaking up the whole surface into medallions. For this reason, early mosaic glazing is sometimes spoken of as "medallion glass." Unfortunately for England, it possesses but few remains of this delightful product, and therefore suffers sadly by comparison with the great wealth of it to be seen in France. We shall find enough, however, at Canterbury and Lincoln to kindle our enthusiasm for the splendid jewelled glow which the glazier of that time, and of no other, knew how to make his windows produce. It will not take long for the intelligent observer to notice that this glitter is due partly to the fact that the glass is free from paint (except that used to delineate features, folds of garments, &c.), and partly because its surface is not regular as is ours to-day. Furthermore, the pieces were small, and the constantly recurring leadlines (breaking up and combining the rays of light coming through the little panes) assisted materially to produce the brilliancy and shimmer which so delight the eye. There is no doubt that the glazier thoroughly realised this, and availed himself of this mingling of the coloured rays to suit the purposes of his picture. We frequently see a thirteenth century window that produces a purple effect, and yet a closer inspection will reveal that there is only red and blue glass used in it, but so cunningly have they been intermingled as to produce a much warmer purple than any sheet of purple glass could render. Some writers would have us believe that the glazier had no choice but to use these small bits in building up his picture, and that therefore the rich glowing effect was the result of chance, and not that of intelligent deliberation. Any one who has been fortunate enough to visit St. Maurice's Cathedral at Angers is amply equipped to refute this theory, and will be prepared to give full credit to the glazier of the thirteenth century, for, in that church, the twelfth century mosaic glass of the nave is readily seen to be composed of much larger fragments than were employed in the choir by the thirteenth century man. These latter in the choir glisten and glitter, while the earlier ones in the nave, composed of larger pieces, do not. This indicates that the improvement shown by the thirteenth century windows over those of the twelfth century was caused by artistic intelligence, and at the expense of more labour to the glazier, because in lessening the size of his panes, he greatly increased the work of leading them together. As he purposely used smaller fragments, he should receive full credit for his splendid results. Those who have been so fortunate as to see the French thirteenth century windows will not only regret the fewness of examples of that period in England, but will also remark the dearth there of the great rose windows so frequent in France. Furthermore, he will notice that in the case of English medallion windows, the medallions are smaller than those across the Channel; this is caused by the fact that the lancets of the Early English school were narrower than contemporary French ones, and therefore necessitated a smaller medallion. While it is true that it is only at Lincoln that one finds the splendid rose windows which reach their greatest perfection in France, compensation for their absence is found in the development in their place of a style of window almost unknown in France, _i.e._, the great east window, of which such superb examples will be seen during the next (or Decorated) period at York, Bristol, and many other places. This difference in the development of the largest light aperture of a church is due to the architect; in France he built the eastern end of his churches round, but in England they were square, thereby permitting a large sheet of glazing at the east end, which the French rounded apse could not afford. It is gratifying to note the way in which the genius of the glazier, no matter where he lived, seized upon and developed to the utmost the artistic possibilities of his glass, and, furthermore, how cleverly he adapted them to the structures prepared for him by his architect. We shall see at Canterbury, more clearly even than elsewhere, that in the manufacture of this early mosaic glass the English glaziers followed the French models. In "Stained Glass Tours in France," p. 17, we have made some conjectures as to the beginnings of glass in France and whence it came into that country. Indications appear to be in favour of its first steps being guided by a group of enamellers in Limoges, who were instructed or influenced by a colony of Venetians that settled near by in 979, bringing with them their Byzantine art. Whatever opinion we may hold, there can be no doubt that a striking similarity in drawing, colouring, &c., is to be remarked between stained glass of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Limoges enamels of those two and the two preceding centuries, and the Byzantine mosaics of St. Mark's in Venice, &c. EARLY ENGLISH TOUR Even though we shall encounter but few examples of this period in England, a tour of the towns in which they are to be found will perhaps yield us more interesting glimpses into history than our later tours, far richer though they may be in glass. Starting at ancient Salisbury hard by the site of Druid Stonehenge, we follow the oldest of English national roads, the "Pilgrim's Way," through Winchester (for so long the English capital) on to Canterbury with its dramatic history of the martyred archbishop. Close to Canterbury are Chartham and Willesborough; these may be seen _en route_ from Salisbury. Thence we go north to Lincoln, and, after an interesting visit to its sanctuary-crowned hilltop, we will push on still further north to York, that treasure-house of glass of this as well as of all periods. Although we end our first tour in that city, we shall also be able there to begin our second one, and may also, if we choose, inspect the glass of a still later (the Perpendicular) epoch. [Illustration: MAP OF EARLY ENGLISH TOUR] SALISBURY There is no country in the world whose ancient history is writ so large upon its broad acres as old England. It is full of silent testimonials to past events which render those early days and their happenings more vivid than any printed page can hope to effect. Many of these remains are of such remote antiquity as to long antedate our glass, but nevertheless we must not be so prejudiced as to neglect them when encountered on our travels. Indeed, it may well be that the existence of other attractions of this sort may secure for us the company of certain archæological friends who at first will have but small interest in glass. Nor need we distress ourselves about how small that interest may be; for if they, for any reason, accompany us, our charming windows will surely make converts of them long before the journey is ended. These same archæological folk will tell us that few localities in England can show more extraordinary historical remains than Stonehenge and Old Sarum near Salisbury. The great upright monoliths of Stonehenge, stationed in the form of a horse-shoe within a circle, loom up in such a solitary and impressive way upon the great reaches of Salisbury Plain as to produce a mental picture long to be remembered. Their very isolation makes them much more striking than the voluminous remains of a similar nature erected also by the Druids on the west coast of Brittany. As for Old Sarum, it is now nothing but a lofty fortified camp, but the enclosure within its circle of high walls formerly contained a town which was the predecessor of Salisbury. The shape of this high truncated cone recalls the pictures of the Tower of Babel that used to appear in our child's geographies. Whatever may have been the real cause for the removal of Salisbury to its present site, the one generally alleged was that Sarum lacked water--this certainly cannot be charged against the present city, which is so sorely harassed at certain seasons of the year by local floods, as well to merit the name often given it of the "English Venice." Its vast cathedral is much more regular and balanced in its proportions than are most examples of mediæval church architecture. The two great twin spires are esteemed the most beautiful in England. To one who has become accustomed to the archaic appearance of most European cathedrals, Salisbury will prove quite a surprise; in the words of Emerson, "The cathedral, which was finished six hundred years ago, has even a spruce and modern air." This splendid building, even if it were not so impressive as it is, would have been rendered sufficiently picturesque because of the setting provided by the shaded walks and green swards of its Close. Within the roomy interior are examples not only of thirteenth century medallion glass, but also some of the best types of English grisaille of that period. Because of the belief that the doors, windows and pillars exactly coincide respectively with the number of months, days and hours in the year, Thomas Fuller said, "All Europe affords not such an almanac of architecture." We are concerned only with that portion of the almanac that has to do with the days. An old rhyme says: "As many days as in one year there be So many windows in this church we see." Notwithstanding the great number of light apertures thus provided by the architect, the glazier was not permitted to make excessive use of the light-obscuring coloured mosaic glass, as was then the custom in France. Grisaille was plentifully used, and Salisbury was famous for it. Most of its remains are found in the upper lancets at the south end of the easterly transepts, as well as a little in the west windows of the nave aisles, the east one of the choir aisles, and the lower triplet in the south end of the small transepts. Two of the easterly clerestory lights of the large northern transept also show this early pattern glass. Instead of filling the other embrasures with rudely contrasting modern glazing, a very intelligent effort has been made throughout the choir and transept to model as closely as possible upon these ancient examples. The result is very agreeable--at least it contrives to give us some idea of how the church must have looked with its original windows all complete. Little touches of colour are very judiciously interspersed throughout the strapwork, and serve to correct what otherwise might be dull-toned. Blue is very extensively used here for this purpose, and to a greater extent than is usually found elsewhere. It tones in admirably with the greenish hue of the glass, and enriches it without risking too striking a contrast. The thirteenth century medallion remains have been collected into the three lancets at the western end. Note especially the plentiful and interesting fragments of the Tree of Jesse done in mosaic style which has been introduced in two parallel columns into the central lancet: the borders are contemporary. The side lancets are not so satisfactorily filled, for the combination of strips of later glass separated by equally wide ones of old grisaille, and all surrounded by a rich old border on ruby and blue backgrounds, is not pleasing. The medallions are interesting, but nothing like so fine as we shall see elsewhere. We shall chiefly remember Salisbury Cathedral for the effective glazing of its choir and transepts afforded by thirteenth century grisaille eked out with good modern glass copied after it. One does not have to search far in the records of Salisbury to find why there is so little remaining of its ancient glazing. Time has been materially aided and abetted in its work of destruction by ruthless restorations, of which the worst was Wyatt's in the eighteenth century. We read that "whole cartloads of glass, lead, and other rubbish were removed from the nave and transepts, and shot into the town ditch, then in course of being filled up; whilst a good deal of similar rubbish was used to level the ground near the chapter-house." Nor was destruction the only means used to get rid of the Salisbury windows, as will appear from the following letter written to Mr. Lloyd, of London, in 1788, by John Berry, a glazier of Salisbury: "SIR.--This day I have sent you a Box full of old Stained & Printed glass, as you desired me to due, which I hope will sute your Purpos, it his the best that I can get at Present. But I expect to Beate to Peceais a great deal very sune, as it his of now use to me, and we do it for the lead. If you want more of the same sorts you may have what thear is, if it will pay you for taking out, as it is a Deal of Truble to what Beating it to Peceais his; you will send me a line as soon as Possable, for we are goain to move our glasing shop to a Nother plase and thin we hope to save a great deal more of the like sort, which I ham your most Omble servent--JOHN BERRY." There is also later glass to be seen here. St. Thomas's Church, in the first embrasure from the east of the north aisle, has the remains of a Decorated Tree of Jesse, in which, as well as in other fragments along the traceries, there is a good deal of yellow stain observable. In the vestry, which is off the north aisle, are three small lancets upon which appear figures against quarry backgrounds not as usual ensconced in canopies. The wooden ceilings in the north and south aisles are especially fine. For the Perpendicular glass at Salisbury _see_ p. 192. CANTERBURY Even a careless observer of the life and customs of the Middle Ages will have noticed that one of its most extraordinary features is the extent to which people of every European country went upon pilgrimages. The nature and object of these religious journeys varied widely, running the gamut from the Crusades to the visiting of neighbouring shrines. The history of the Crusades is well known, but perhaps few of us realise the tremendous interest taken in the more domestic and near-by pilgrimages. The English were like all the rest of Christendom in this curious craze, and for several centuries the most revered, as well as the most popular of their many shrines was that of the martyred Thomas à Becket at Canterbury. More highly prized than any other similar trophy was the small leaden flask hung about the neck of one who had taken that journey, and was thus qualified to bear away this pilgrim's token filled with water from the holy well beneath the cathedral. A modern counterpart is afforded by the value Mohammedans set upon the wearing of a green turban, the privilege accorded to one who has visited Mecca. Although Canterbury had always since the earliest days possessed many saintly relics, a marked increase in the number of pilgrims was noted after the martyrdom of à Becket. These pilgrimages steadily grew in vogue until when, in the fifteenth century, they had reached their height, not only did the stream of travellers continue steadily throughout the year, but during the months of December and July (anniversaries of the martyrdom and the transference of the relics) we read that the numbers swelled to such an extent that the housing facilities of the little city were greatly overtaxed. A jubilee was held every fifty years, and on these occasions the crowds grew to enormous size. During the jubilee of 1420 we are told that over 100,000 pilgrims were gathered in the city at the same time. Hay and wood were provided gratuitously for them, a bounty which the cathedral could well afford, because of the great value of the gifts constantly received from these visitors. It is easy to see how important a nationalising influence must have resulted from this meeting together of all classes of society from different parts of the country. How widely these pilgrims varied in station and occupation can be gathered from Chaucer's inimitable "Canterbury Tales." Those amusing chronicles also show that while religion was doubtless a powerful motive in causing these pilgrimages, there was besides a great deal of what is called to-day "the desire for foreign travel." In fact, it is difficult to find much religious flavour in the tales of merriment and adventure which follow each other in this delightful series. Chaucer probably selected a Canterbury pilgrimage as the setting for his poem in order to appeal to a great number of readers, for he well knew the kingdom to be full of people who had taken this journey, and to whom, therefore, his tales would be of peculiar interest. Although Chaucer was the son and grandson of vintners, he won his way into high favour at Court, a hint of which is obtained from the fact that Edward III. paid £16 (then a considerable sum) to ransom him after his capture by the French. [Illustration: _J. G. Charlton, photo._ "BECKET'S CROWN," CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL Thirteenth Century medallions; notice circular and other forms enclosing the figures. The heavy iron bars needed to support the great weight of lead are skilfully adjusted to the design. The world-famous shrine stood in the centre of this space. Tomb of Black Prince in foreground, and above it armour he wore at Crécy] Another group of equally diverting but more whimsical poems are inseparably connected with this neighbourhood. Rev. Richard Barham lived near Canterbury, and many of his engaging Ingoldsby Legends have their scenes laid there, some within the cathedral precincts. The county of Kent, of which Canterbury is the chief city, is peopled by a sturdy folk who have always been jealous of their rights and insistent upon their own interpretation of the law, as, for example, although primogeniture existed almost everywhere else in England, Kent always preferred gavelkind (an equal division of property among the children of the deceased). As illustrating the strength of Kentish traditions, it is amusing to note that one must remember carefully to apply the expression "Kentish man" to a dweller in the western half of the county, and "Man of Kent" to him of the eastern. Confuse these two designations at your peril! There is a bit of local history which has a fine heroic flavour, and which points our moral excellently. After William the Conqueror had won the battle of Hastings, all Kent, headed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, gathered to protect its ancient rights against the invader. They marched forth to meet William at Swanscourt, each man fully armed, and carrying above him a green bough to mask the numbers of their host. William's surprise and perplexity at seeing this perambulating forest approaching him can well be imagined. When he inquired the reason for it, there came the fine reply that Kent demanded its ancient rights, and if granted them would live peaceably under his rule, but if they were to be denied, then there must be instant war! The politic Norman complied with their request, and the Kentish forest marched off. So beautiful are the distant prospects of Canterbury Cathedral that excellent æsthetic reasons may be advanced for the religious custom that required all mounted pilgrims to dismount as soon as they could spy the Angel Steeple, and complete the last stage of the pilgrimage on foot. Proceeding in this more leisurely fashion, the beauties of the picturesque grouping of the buildings about the cathedral developed slowly before their eyes. On descending into the town, many interesting sights meet one's view in the quaint winding streets and narrow lanes. The name of one of these, Watling Street, recalls the fact that through this city ran that great Roman road. Another element of the picturesque is added by the meandering through the town of the river Stour, over whose narrow stream project many of the houses. Finally we arrive at a large gatehouse, whose modest portal affords access to the sacred precincts, and introduces us to a series of most delightful pictures, for there are few cathedrals in the world placed in so charming a setting. An old legend gravely narrates that when the walls of the sanctuary were heightened about the middle of the tenth century, the building was, perforce, roofless for three years, and that during that period no rain fell within this favoured enclosure! We need not stop to consider the different features of the architecture which have delighted so many eyes and are so well known from photographs and other reproductions. We must, however, note in passing that during à Becket's exile he chanced to be in Sens at the very time that the great French architect, William of Sens, was finishing the first attempt in pointed Gothic. This probably explains why, when the choir of Canterbury Cathedral was destroyed by fire, the monks in 1174 summoned William to rebuild it. During the work he fell from the scaffold and received injuries from which he died. The selection of that foreign architect assists in explaining why the mosaic glass at Canterbury so closely resembles the late twelfth century windows at Sens, and permits us to conjecture that with the French architect there came over French glaziers. The French Gothic which was here introduced by William of Sens was, to a certain extent, copied elsewhere. Traces of it at York Cathedral are doubtless due to the fact that the Archbishop of York who caused its introduction had been Archdeacon at Canterbury during the time that William of Sens was working there. We will enter the church and press on to the northern transept, where took place that tragic episode resulting from the constant strife between Henry II. and the proud churchman à Becket. In the dimness of this old-world corner one can almost live over again the scene at twilight, December 29, 1170, when the four knights, taunted into exasperation by à Becket's hot words, cut down the defenceless priest, thinking thus to serve their royal master. Not only did this base act bring upon Henry the open shame of being forced to do most abject penance before the shrine of his sainted victim, but it also produced many extraordinary results of widely differing nature during the centuries to follow. Just after the assassination the monks, upon removing the garments of their murdered chief, found, to their great surprise, that beneath the rich raiment of him whom they had always mistrusted as a brilliant courtier, was worn the haircloth shirt of their monastic order. Their sudden revulsion of feeling, and the religious enthusiasm which overcame them at that sight, seems prophetic of other revulsions that were to take place during the Middle Ages in the attitude of the public mind towards this bloody page of Church history. Just as then their feelings abruptly changed, so after wealth and costly gifts had flowed to this shrine for centuries, and almost every city in Christendom had an altar or a church dedicated to St. Thomas, suddenly men of thought became disgusted by the many reprehensible features connected with this cult, which, perhaps, were only the natural results of the throngs attending the pilgrimages. The pendulum, which had swung too high on one side, swept back to the other extreme; and this brings us to one of the strangest parts of this story, if not, indeed, the weirdest in all the annals of the law. Henry VIII. cast covetous eyes upon the hoard of jewels gathered together in Canterbury Cathedral, so he instituted a legal proceeding to enable him to lay hold upon them. As royal successor to Henry II. he caused the Attorney-General in 1538 to bring suit against à Becket for treason, and had the papers duly served upon the famous shrine! Counsel was appointed to represent the long dead subject, and the case was argued with all the pomp and circumstance of legal warfare. The martyr was found guilty, and all the wealth of his shrine was declared escheated to the Crown. We read that it was necessary to employ twenty-six carts to carry off the booty. Could anything be more strange and fantastic than so material an outcome to the wild deed of the four knights! Of the other tombs here, the most interesting are those of Henry IV. and the Black Prince. Above the latter is suspended the armour worn by him at the battle of Crécy. Before commencing to examine the stained glass, we must warn the reader that it suffered severely at the hands of that arch-ruffian of all glass destroyers, Dick Culmer (or "Blue Dick," as he was called), the minister in charge of the Abbey during the Commonwealth. So violently opposed to his appointment were the townspeople that they locked all the cathedral's doors against him, thus forcing him to effect his first entrance by breaking in one of the windows--an evil omen! No sooner was he installed than he set diligently to work to destroy the stained glass, and, furthermore, openly boasted of his energy in that respect. In his "Cathedral News from Canterbury," he says, "A minister on top of the city ladder, nearly sixty steps high, with a whole pike in his hand, rattling down proud Becket's glassie bones when others present would not venture so high." This glass, so destroyed, was in the north transept. There is but little mosaic medallion thirteenth century glass in England, and therefore what there is of it at Canterbury would for that reason alone have great value, but because the examples there found are among the best of that period now extant, its importance is thereby greatly enhanced. An ancient supplement to the "Canterbury Tales" relates, with amusing conversational detail, how the pilgrims, upon entering the church by the south-western door of the nave, at once fell to admiring the windows and studying out their legends. The ruthless hand of time, assisted by those of Dick Culmer and Co., have made it impossible for us to enjoy that same pleasure, but certain fragments of that glass gathered together into the western window give a hint of what the beauty of the complete series must have been. With this exception there is nothing to detain one long in the nave, so we will pass on to the eastern end of the church to inspect the remaining contemporary windows--they are the finest of their type in England, and will be found in the north choir aisle, the circular apse at the extreme easterly end (known as Becket's Crown) and Trinity Chapel. There has been preserved for us an old Latin list describing and locating all the windows in their original order, and from this we learn that the ancient panels now in the north choir aisle between the easterly transept and the chapel of the Martyrdom (north end of the westerly transepts) were formerly in the embrasures of the latter. Their workmanship is very fine, and they tell their parables with great distinctness. Proceeding eastward to Becket's Crown, we shall be afforded an edifying opportunity to observe how much more brilliant and generally delightful are the old mosaic medallions than even the best modern copies. The oldest window dates from the middle of the thirteenth century, and it takes but a glance to betray those of its companions which are modern. The improvements of centuries in glass manufacture fail utterly to yield us an equivalent for the brilliancy of the crudely constructed panels of that time. The most interesting and, for various reasons, the most valuable medallions are those filling the six windows of Trinity Chapel which retain their original glazing. In those on the north side of where the shrine used to stand, are medallions whose groups display miracles performed by the saint, or episodes illustrative of his healing power. At the top of the second from the east on this side is a medallion of very peculiar interest because it depicts Benedict's vision of the saint emerging from his shrine in full canonicals and moving toward the high altar to say mass. Examine it carefully, for here we have the only representation now existing of that world-renowned shrine, whose lavish decoration of gold and jewels so roused the cupidity of Henry VIII. as to cause its destruction. There is every reason to believe this to be a veracious reproduction, for being installed directly opposite and a few yards from the shrine of which it was the counterfeit presentment, any but a careful copy thereof would have been useless in telling the window's story. More of this splendid glass is found filling the lower embrasures along the north side between the two sets of transepts, and also above in the three upper half-circle windows, both on this and the opposite side of the church ambulatory; note the mellow richness of their reds and blues. The central embrasure of the most easterly or Trinity Chapel retains its early mosaic medallions, easily distinguished from the modern imitations on either side. High up in the north wall of the easterly transepts is a rose window which retains its thirteenth century glazing in the large central circle, but alas! white glass replaces all but the borders of the outer circles, thus drowning the old glass in a glare of light and utterly extinguishing the splendid glow which would otherwise delight our eyes. Although the handsome five-light Decorated window on the south side of St. Anselm's Chapel (lying off the south choir aisle) has lost its original glass, the records of the cost contain features of interest. The contract for its construction is dated 1336, and the items of expense (which total £42 17_s._ 2_d._) indicate that the heavy iron saddle-bars, &c., required to support the great quantity of lead used in joining the glass, cost almost as much as the glazing; £4 4_s._ 0_d._ was paid for twenty hundredweight of iron, £6 13_s._ 4_d._ "for glass and the labour of the glaziers." The chief window of the north-west transept, generally called the chapel of the Martyrdom, was presented by Edward IV., and when complete must have been a fine example of the Perpendicular school. Its seven tall lancets are broken into four tiers, and surmounted by handsome tracery lights. Here formerly appeared "The Seven Glorious Appearances of the Virgin," with à Becket in the centre, but "Blue Dick" Culmer destroyed them all while engaged in his pleasing task of "rattling down proud Becket's glassie bones." Notwithstanding the treatment to which this window was subjected, it still presents a very attractive appearance. The original fragments have been collected within coloured borders and throw into bold relief the richly toned kneeling figures of Edward IV. and his wife, which are placed facing each other. Behind the queen are stationed her five daughters, divided into one group of three and another of two, while behind the king are the two little princes, who were later murdered in the Tower of London. The backgrounds behind the figures are noteworthy because they are composed of repetitions of the badge of each individual; behind the king are the white roses and suns of York; behind the queen, green thistles; feathers behind the Prince of Wales, &c. Above them is a tier of white-robed angels with red wings, against backgrounds of blue or green, supporting heraldic shields. Just below this window and leading off to the east is the Dean's Chapel, lighted on the east by a very pleasant quarry window, upon each of whose panes appears in yellow stain the double knot which indicates the donor to have been Archbishop Bourchier, whom we shall encounter later on at Knole. A relieving note of colour is lent by the shield of arms at the bottom of each lancet. Three of the small windows that light the picturesque little baptistery contain effigies of ecclesiastical dignitaries and saints within richly toned borders, while in the small traceries above them are heraldic blazons. Splendid as this noble cathedral now is, how much more impressive must it have been when all its windows were filled with mosaic medallions through which a warmly tinted illumination tempered the minster gloom. It is difficult to repress the anachronistic wish that the knights who came here seeking to slay à Becket might instead have wreaked their lust for blood upon "Blue Dick" Culmer! * * * * * Near Canterbury there are some Early English fragments at Chartham, four miles west on the road to Maidstone. They are in the tracery lights on the north side of the chancel. In one of these small openings there has been inserted a baptismal scene, but because it is upside down the water seems like a cross between a shower-bath and the sword of Damocles! The chief reason for stopping at this church is the very agreeable lighting of its chancel in the Decorated manner. In the two embrasures on the north side have been collected all that remains of the original pattern glass, but the other lights have been glazed as much like these two as possible. A mellow richness, not often seen, is the chief characteristic of this low-toned grisaille, overrun with graceful coloured designs. In its perfection that style was most attractive. In a south-easterly suburb of Ashford called Willesborough there are in the chancel a couple of very complete and pleasing Decorated windows. They both have quarry backgrounds with coloured borders, but the one to the north is much more attractive. Upon its surface are not only the coloured bosses seen in the one across the chancel, but also some handsome canopy-framed figures. The leaf design on the borders should be noted, and also the labels below the figures. LINCOLN A golden-brown cathedral crowning the summit of a solitary hill rising from a wide plain--so Lincoln lingers in one's memory! Few towns have their situation more clearly described by their names than this one, derived, as it is, from "llin" a mere, and "dun" a hill, a hill above a mere. The plain is now drained of the marshes which formerly overspread it, but the great isolated mount remains always the same, and upon the summit is stationed, like a splendid sentinel, the mighty bulk of the cathedral. Rarely, indeed, does a great church have so dominating and superb a site, nor is it often that so prominent a point is crowned by such a noble structure. Near it is the ancient castle, built first by the Romans and later strengthened by warriors of other races equally quick to appreciate the military strength of its commanding position. From the tower at one corner of its perfectly preserved ramparts is afforded a most inspiring view in every direction. Nor were the great walls of the cathedral less serviceable in affording a strong refuge in war. It needs but a glance at the sturdy west front to show why Stephen in 1141, during the war of the Barons, finding the Earls of Lincoln and Chester in possession of the castle, threw himself into the adjacent cathedral and thus secured as strong a fortress as they. Not only is the western façade very beautiful, but it is also a manifestation, rare in England, of the practice usual in France of making this portion of the exterior the most important of all. Here at Lincoln it is as if a wide mask of stone had been built on to the end of the nave, lending as great an impression of width as one gets of height by a similar trick at Peterborough. These two are almost the only attempts in England to use this façade for other than simply closing the end of the edifice. The result at Lincoln is most imposing, but it produces its best effect when seen from a little distance, because then one gets the great sweep of the lines, relieved by the galleries of statues and warmed by the yellowish brown of the stone. A nearer inspection discloses how the later work has been pieced on to the older, which tends to distract our attention from the front as a whole. Not satisfied with the great strength of the building itself, permission was early obtained from the Crown to surround the Close with walls and gates, of which the picturesque Exchequer gate survives. This enclosure goes by the name of the Minster Yard. When visiting the little hamlet of Dorchester we will remark upon how great was once its glory and how widely the sway of its Bishop then extended. This glory departed when Bishop Remigius (who built the central and oldest part of the Lincoln west front) decided about 1072 to remove his seat to the more lofty and far safer site upon Lincoln Hill. Before concluding the inspection of the cathedral's exterior, it is timely to remark that through all the centuries it has been famous in story and song for its chime of bells. During the period when that delightful industry, the making of ballads, prevailed throughout England, there were many whose scenes were laid at Lincoln, and in almost every one of these some reference is made to "The bells o' merrie Lincoln." Sad havoc has been played with the ancient glass, but here we cannot blame the Puritans alone. To be sure, they exercised their usual zeal in destroying the windows as far up as they could reach, but it must be admitted that they only completed the task earlier begun by the citizens, who were wont to amuse themselves by shooting with arrows and crossbow bolts at the roof and at the windows. This appears in the defence set up by the Dean when, during the time of Henry VIII., charges had been brought against him for permitting the cathedral to fall into such shocking disrepair. Notwithstanding the efforts of the crossbow vandals and their successors, the Puritans, there has been preserved for us a very considerable amount of old glass, and that, too, of the Early English type, a period of which there are so few remains in England. These remnants are so placed as to be seen to great advantage. They fill the east windows of the north and south aisles of the choir, and the large windows in the end of the great northerly transept. The old glazing of the eastern windows of the north and south choir aisles is complete and very interesting. It is not so beautiful as it would have been if the spaces between the brilliant medallions had also been filled with colour instead of the greenish grisaille which the practical Englishman used so as to admit more light than would have been possible through the entirely coloured panes of his more artistic, if less utilitarian, French contemporary. He succeeded in getting his illumination, but he lost the jewelled shimmer that meets one's eyes at Chartres and Reims. Moreover, there is also lacking the richness and solidity of tone which is so enjoyable in France. The French system was followed at Canterbury, and there is a marked difference in the effect of that glass from this at Lincoln. Unfortunately, the great east window between these two excellent aisle ones is filled with modern glass that suffers sadly by comparison with its ancient neighbours. Passing to the transepts we shall encounter the pleasant custom so rare in England (though common in France) of giving a familiar name to a great window. Here the splendid northern rose is called "The Dean's Eye," and its sister to the south "The Bishop's Eye," which names they have borne for more than six hundred years. Many are the reasons that have been advanced for these titles, but probably the practical one is correct, viz., the Dean's Eye faces the Deanery and the Bishop's Eye the Bishop's palace. Among the many fanciful and more poetic explanations there is one which, although it is less reasonable, we must be pardoned for finding more attractive, viz., as the north is the region of the Evil One, it is proper that the Dean's Eye should look into that direction in order to guard against any attempt on his part to invade the sanctuary. The Bishop's Eye is turned toward the sunny south, "The region of the Holy Spirit whose sweet influence alone can overcome the wiles of the wicked one." The older of the pair, the Dean's Eye, was probably glazed about 1220. It is best seen from the gallery or from the triforium which runs along just below it, and is a fine rose of the usual type. Below it there extends a row of five pointed lancets containing very light toned grisaille which almost entirely lacks the usual touches of colour. Below these are two larger lancets flanking the doorway; the one to the east has grisaille quarries as a border and within, geometric designs in colour. The westerly lancet shows a vine in whose branches are angels playing upon musical instruments, the whole surrounded by grisaille touched with colour. Across in the southern end of these transepts is one of the most delightful windows to be seen anywhere, the Bishop's Eye. Not only is this rose window a jewel of the glazier's art, but the mason as well has added a wondrous charm by the lightness of his stone traceries and the curious interpenetrated stone frame which he has placed about it. The architect, too, has joined in beautifying the _ensemble_ by stationing below it four large lancets of such harmonious proportions as admirably to balance and set off their more important neighbour just above them. In these lancets are found some Early English glass--broad borders of grisaille enframing the rich-toned medallions within. The Bishop's Eye was glazed about the middle of the fourteenth century and yields a warm greenish grey light. Instead of having its lines radiate from the centre in the customary manner, its gracefully curved mullions tend to flow up and down and suggest the fibres of five great leaves standing upright side by side. [Illustration: ROSE WINDOW, LINCOLN CATHEDRAL Tracery unusual in that it does not radiate from centre. Quantity of greenish grisaille used emphasises leaf-like design. Thirteenth Century medallions in the tall lancets below] YORK To one approaching York by road, especially if coming by way of Scarcroft Hill, the ancient appearance of the town seems to translate it out of the Middle Ages. The dust-grey line of walls along the grassy banks that slope down to the moat, sweep far around in unbroken majesty, strengthened here and there by bastions or by a sturdy gatehouse. To complete the old-world picture, above the walls peep red-tiled gables, or occasionally the towers and spires of numerous churches, all dominated by the great bulk of the cathedral. Insignificant historically ever since the days when the city of Eboren was the capital of Britain, York is chiefly known for the use of its name in two prolonged struggles (fought out, however, on other fields), the one between the House of York and Lancaster, called "The War of the Roses," and the other the great contest lasting from 601 on till the middle of the fourteenth century to decide whether the Archbishop of York or he of Canterbury should be the Primate of England. York's unimportance in English history may be due partly to its situation too far north to have been in the heart of the constant struggle for power, and partly to the fact that it was so repeatedly ravaged by Danes and other invaders, the worst blow of all being when William the Conqueror gave all that neighbourhood such a dreadful harrowing that the lands from York to Durham laid untilled for nine years, and did not fully recover for centuries. Almost the sole exception to this unimportant _rôle_ was the seven years during which Edward I. moved the law courts to York and made it his royal capital. Fortunately for the city, its connection with the bloody struggle of the rival Roses was almost entirely confined to lending its name to one of the Houses, for this great drama was chiefly enacted to the south of it. Although the other famous contest to which we alluded, and which dragged its weary length through nearly eight centuries, had to do only with ecclesiastical predominance, yet it exercised a potent influence upon the destinies of the generations it concerned. It is impossible to obtain a realising sense of men and events in the Middle Ages unless one takes into account the tremendous force, and that, too, a militant one, exercised by the great ecclesiastics. A striking example is provided by Archbishop Scrope of York, who aspired so high that he rebelled against his king and was only defeated after the strenuous campaign described in Shakespeare's "Henry IV." He was executed at York in 1405. We remarked another example at Canterbury in the bloody ending of à Becket's attempt to brave Henry II. Because he was Archbishop of Canterbury and opposed to the king, it is not surprising to find that the contemporary Archbishop of York, Roger Pont l'Evêque, was a staunch adherent of Henry. It was this very Roger who, in 1176, precipitated one of the many disgraceful rows that besmirched this struggle for the Primacy. The Papal Legate was presiding at the Council of Westminster, and à Becket's successor, Richard of Canterbury, was seated on his right. Roger came in late, and, declining to accept any but the most honoured seat, sat down on Richard's lap, whereupon a brawl ensued, ending in Roger's discomfiture. Pitiable as was this scene, at least it was less disastrous to the people at large than many another episode of this tedious and acrimonious struggle, finally ended by the Bull of Pope Innocent VI., designating the Archbishop of Canterbury as the Primate of all England. York is by all odds the most important of all English glass centres. Although one often finds occasion elsewhere to curse the glass-destroying Puritan, at York it must be admitted that the presence of so many ancient windows is due to the control exercised by Fairfax over his Parliamentary troops after a successful siege of the place. He well deserved the butt of sack and tun of French wine voted him by the Corporation in recognition of his efforts in restraining the misguided enthusiasm of the soldiery. Indeed, his action here almost atones for the devilish tricks at Canterbury of "Blue Dick" Culmer. Even the most casual observer, and one entirely unlearned in our beautiful art, cannot fail to notice how large an amount of wall-space is given over to ancient glass in York Minster. As a matter of fact it covers an area of more than 25,000 square feet, easily double that in any other English cathedral, and challenging comparison with any in the world. Nor are the examples confined to one epoch, for there are fragments of Norman mosaic medallions in the great transepts and the vestibule of the chapter-house, Early English in the "Five Sisters" and along the nave clerestory, Decorated in the nave and chapter-house, and Perpendicular in the choir. Not only are these examples plentiful, but they are of the first order. Entering by the door at the southern end of the great transepts, one is at once confronted by the five tall lancets opposite him in the north wall, filled with the most deliciously soft greyish green grisaille. Of their type there is nothing in the world to approach them for beauty. From where we stand the lead lines used in construction do not exist as lines, but melt away into a dainty film, like dew on the grass at morn. This set of lights is gracefully grouped, and is known by the pleasantly familiar title of the "Five Sisters." Many fanciful tales are told of when and where they were constructed and how they received this name. Dickens in his "Nicholas Nickleby" relates an engaging legend to explain how the design and the name were provided for them. That this legend has no basis in fact should not make us forget that his narrative has doubtless caused many of his readers to visit these windows--a most excellent justification. Dickens tells of five maiden ladies having worked upon a large piece of embroidery and how, years later, when four of them met together in York (the youngest, Alice, having been buried in the minster's nave), "They sent abroad, to artists of great celebrity in those times (Henry IV.), and having obtained the church's sanction to their work of piety, caused to be executed in five large compartments of richly stained glass, a faithful copy of their old embroidery work. These were fitted into a large window until that time bare of ornament; and when the sun shone brightly, as she had so well loved to see it, the familiar patterns were reflected in their original colours, and throwing a stream of brilliant light upon the pavement, fell warmly on the name of Alice." Those of our company who are by nature critical may point out that the windows date from the thirteenth century, not from the reign of Henry IV., and also that they contain grisaille, not colour, and further, that being at the end of the north transept, they could not very well throw a stream of light into the nave! The writer urges leniency of criticism, but nevertheless, one is forced to the melancholy conclusion that the great Dickens could never have delighted his eyes by this splendid glass, else he could not have made the windows coloured, or placed them in the nave! As for the four surviving sisters, they are certainly open to the severest censure in that they sent abroad for stained glass during the reign of Henry IV., because there was then the highest development of the art in England, and its product could not be approached by that of any foreign contemporaries. Close inspection discloses the design of the leads to be that of a graceful adjustment of the foliage of the benet plant. At the bottom of the central light is observable a panel of highly coloured mosaic glass. The glazing of the five small lancets above is modern. We must turn to the nave to see the rest of the Early English glass, of which, however, only fragments remain. They are to be found along the clerestory, in all of its tracery lights on the south side except the third from the west, and also some in its lower panes; on the north side they are in the traceries of the second from the west, the next five east of it, and also in the lower panels of the fifth and seventh. [Illustration: _F. Valentine, photo._ "FIVE SISTERS," YORK MINSTER Softly-toned grisaille with delicate patterns in faint colour. Of its type unsurpassed in the world. Note difference between mellow strength of this glass and thinness of modern glazing in upper tier of lancets] The church of St. Dennis, Walmgate, has attractive panels of early English glass dating from the latter half of the thirteenth century inserted in two Decorated windows on the north side of the church. An account of the Decorated glass at York will be found at p. 76, and of that of the Perpendicular at p. 185. DECORATED Before crossing the threshold into the two next periods (the Decorated and Perpendicular), it is worth pausing to notice that although architecture generally tends to elaborate as time goes on, the opposite was true in England during the two centuries of which we are about to speak. In fact, the work of the earlier of these two epochs obviously deserves the title of "Decorated" and the later does not. Its glass, too, is much more florid than its successor, and is far more ambitiously ornamental. It bears many bits of leafy foliage, twining vine tendrils, &c., all drawn as true to life as possible. Later these bits of flora are rarely used, and then only in a conventional and, therefore, less decorative form. In our introduction we have stated that in England, the arrival of the fourteenth century does not show the abrupt difference found in France between the light-obscuring mosaic glass of the thirteenth century and the fainter tints of the fourteenth, permitting the brighter interior then demanded. The explanation seems to be that the English, having been early forced by cloudy skies to use light-admitting grisaille (either alone, or combined with their early medallions) already enjoyed the proper illumination which, at the beginning of the fourteenth century, was so lacking in France as to bring about a cry for light at any cost. In place of the early fourteenth century glare that strikes one at Sées, Evreux, and in St. Ouen at Rouen, we have rich strong colour in their contemporaries at Tewkesbury, Wells and Bristol. Occasionally grisaille will be found pleasantly combined with small coloured scenes, as at Dorchester and in Merton Chapel, Oxford, but even then it seems much like a local survival of the thirteenth century tradition. So much for the difference between the English Decorated and the French fourteenth century windows. Now let us briefly consider what it was that succeeded to the mosaic medallion style seen at Canterbury, Lincoln, &c., and also what causes must have been at work to produce the change. About the end of the thirteenth century there chanced to be discovered a method of producing yellow which obviated the necessity of cutting out a piece of glass of that tint and laboriously leading it into the picture where needed, as was still obligatory if they wanted blue or red, &c. Some lucky glazier stumbled on the fact that if chloride of silver be put on a sheet of glass it would, when exposed to the fire, produce a handsome golden stain, and that only at the points to which it was applied. Many stories are related to explain this discovery, but as they are all more pleasing than convincing, it seems best to credit Dame Fortune with this valuable assistant to the glazier. It is obvious that this facility in staining a touch of yellow just at the point desired by the artist was eagerly seized upon. He at once made use of it to decorate the robes of great personages, or to brighten the hair of women and angels, as well as to liven any bits of stonework necessary to his drawing. It made possible the development of an unimportant detail in the earlier windows into the perfected result called the "Canopy window," which we shall learn to know as a most useful and satisfactory combination of decoration and serviceability. It will be remembered that from the earliest times there frequently appeared above the heads of saints certain conventional coverings meant to indicate an architectural shelter. Upon the arrival of the Decorated period this detail became more complete, the roof being fully depicted (although as yet in flat drawing, with no attempt at perspective) and columns added at the side to support it, thus completely enclosing the little figures in a niche. Here we have the first, or Decorated canopy, now complete in form although crude. It must be noticed, however, that these canopies, generally drawn to a small scale, do not attempt alone to fill the embrasures, and either are shown in bands across a ground of grisaille or occur alone surrounded by grisaille. Their architectural portion is of a strong brassy yellow, that colour being provided by pot metal glass leaded in. Now comes the next and final development. The discovery of yellow stain did away with the laborious need for leading in the yellow bits to simulate stonework, so the limit as to size of the canopy was removed, and at once they began to increase in dimensions. The obvious result ensued, each canopy was made to fill an entire lancet, its simulated stonework occupying as much surface as the enclosed figure, and we have the logical whole of a decorative colour panel within surrounded by a frame of lighter panes which admit the necessary amount of illumination. So satisfactory did this style of window prove that it persisted longer than almost any other type of glazing, and we must remember it is the discovery of yellow stain that we have to thank for making this result possible. During the period we are now considering, the canopy was, of course, rather crude, in fact it looked more like a sentry-box than anything else. There was as yet no pedestal beneath it, and the pinnacles at the top showed entire ignorance of perspective, as well as of drawing in relief. During the Perpendicular period that followed, they did little but elaborate this canopy idea, combining and softening the colours so as to prevent jarring contrasts, and generally much improving the logical combination of a coloured central portion surrounded by light-admitting canopy framing. Without the use of yellow stain all this would have been difficult, if not impossible, for without the little touches of gold livening the grey stonework these canopies would have been dull and unconvincing. Nor was this the only novelty in the method of imparting colour to glass. They now began to enrich their palettes by coating one colour with another, thus getting a tint not before obtainable. For example, red on blue gave a rich purple, blue on yellow a fine green, &c. This was effected in a very simple manner. Suppose the glass-blower wanted a purple--he dipped his pipe into liquid blue glass, and started to blow his bubble. When it began to take shape he dipped the small bubble into liquid red glass and then finished his blowing. This last dipping of course coated the outside of the blue bubble with red, and when it was completely blown, cut and opened out, it produced a sheet which was red on one side and blue on the other. Held up to the light, the red and blue combined to produce purple. Nor did the glass-blower confine himself to combinations of two colours, for the writer knows of an instance in France showing six superimposed coats. The French call this "verre doublé" (or lined glass), a very descriptive name. In passing we may say that although this manner of colouring glass first reached prominence during the Decorated period, it was but an elaboration of the way the ruby or red glass had always been made, _i.e._, coated on to the colourless glass. We have said that the earlier canopies did not have pedestals below them. This lack was soon noted, and the need was felt for something to complete them below; the first expedient hit upon for this purpose was shields gay with heraldic tinctures. Not only were these decorative, but we shall learn at Tewkesbury and Gloucester how valuable they have proved to be in enabling those learned in heraldry definitely to date windows whose histories have long since been forgotten. It must not be overlooked that the architect had much to do with the development from the mosaic to the canopy style. He decided to change from the wide single windows that one sees at Salisbury, and to substitute for them groups of narrower lights separated only by slender stone mullions and all bound together at the top and tapered off by a pyramid of smaller openings called tracery lights. These latter will be particularly enjoyed by the glass-lover while studying this period, for the Decorated glazier was singularly happy in his treatment of these smaller panes--much more so, in fact, than his successor of the Perpendicular era, who was obliged to conform to the stiff little pill-boxes provided for him by the architect. The use of vines and leaves was of great assistance in this problem of treating small irregular openings; nor were these the only motives--at Wells there is a very happy use of busts filling small trefoils. Besides the canopy treatment, the English glazier of the Decorated period was very fond of the Tree of Jesse theme, and, as is usually the case with congenial tasks, obtained most satisfactory results. He used it to great effect in his broad windows made up of several narrow lights, separated by slender mullions. The very shape of these windows invited this design, because a separate branch of the vine bearing its little personages could be run up each lancet without disturbing the coherence of the picture. The men of that time used the Tree of Jesse nearly as much as did their fellow craftsmen across the Channel during the sixteenth century. In France the descendants of Jesse almost always appear as blossoms on the vine, but their earlier English prototypes usually stand in small cartouches formed by convolutions of the vine. This brings us to yet another reason why the Decorated glazier liked the Tree of Jesse. We have already stated that he was much given to introducing leaves, tendrils, &c., done in the natural manner, which, of course, made him entirely at home in delineating the great vine rising from the loins of the Patriarch. What success he achieved with this style of window we shall judge for ourselves at Ludlow, Bristol, and Wells. A convenient touchstone for deciding whether a window belongs to this or the next period is provided by an examination of the manner in which the artist executed his shading. It was smeared upon Decorated glass, and a close inspection will reveal the streaky lines. During the Perpendicular epoch the shading was stippled on with the end of a brush. To recapitulate, the distinctive features of the Decorated epoch may be enumerated as follows: 1. Windows of several lancets, with tracery lights above them. 2. Decorative treatment of tracery lights. 3. Yellow stain. 4. Coated glass (several layers of different colours). 5. Deep rich colouring. 6. Canopies. 7. Use of leaves, vines, &c., copied closely from nature. 8. Tree of Jesse windows. 9. Shading which was smeared on. DECORATED TOUR Our Decorated tour will lead us far afield through the western part of the beautiful English country. At the end of the Early English tour we found ourselves in the interesting walled city of York. There we shall also begin our study of the succeeding, or Decorated, period. We shall next strike across to Norbury, in Derbyshire, then on to steep-streeted Shrewsbury, and thence down through Ludlow with its church and ancient castle, and stately Hereford beside the Wye to Tewkesbury, and its ancient neighbour Deerhurst. Gloucester will be passed _en route_, and then west to smoky Bristol, where the Severn meets the Bristol Channel. From Bristol it is only a short trip south to Wells, then down to Exeter, followed by a long one northeasterly to Saxon Dorchester, a few miles from Oxford. This tour will end in that famous university town, where, in like manner to the ending of the last tour in York, we shall find ourselves able to begin the inspection of the next, or Perpendicular, glass, without leaving the city. YORK An account of the Early English glass at York will be found on p. 57. The Decorated glass in the cathedral is almost entirely confined to the nave and the chapter-house (with the vestibule leading thereto). Notwithstanding their early date, the nave windows are large and afford more illumination than one would expect at that time. So much wall-space is used for light apertures that of the entire height of ninety-nine feet only thirteen feet of stone intervene between the bottom of the clerestory windows and the top of the main arches. All this portion of the edifice is dominated by the great west window, given by Archbishop Melton in 1338, a splendid sheet (fifty-six feet by twenty-five feet) of highly coloured glass, supported by curvilinear stonework. Its eight lights retain their original glazing almost intact (as does also the head of the door below). It is skilfully fitted to the elaborate pattern of the supporting stone frame. First there is a row of archbishops, then one of saints, and highest of all a line of smaller personages. The [Illustration: MAP OF DECORATED TOUR] windows in the west wall at the end of each aisle are of the same period, and also display excellent workmanship, especially the Crucifixion in the northern one. It should be remarked that all the aisle embrasures but two, and all those of the clerestory but two, retain their original glazing, and if to this we add the windows in the west wall just described, it is clear that Winston was right in stating that this nave contains the most perfect and extensive remains in England of the early part of the fourteenth century. His studious heraldic analysis of the first window from the east in the north aisle yields him the conclusion that it was made in 1306 or 1307. He remarks that the yellow stain there used to tint the hair of one of the personages is the earliest instance he ever found of the use of that new colour. Next this on the west is a very charming window given by Richard Tunnoc, Lord Mayor of York, who died in 1330: above his effigy appears a small reproduction of this gift window. This is perhaps the finest of its type in England. It was in honour of the Bell-Founders' Guild, and is appropriately ornamented by numerous bells in the borders as well as other parts of the design. For the rest of the Decorated glass we must go to the chapter-house and the vestibule which leads thereto. It would be difficult to find a spot in which one becomes so thoroughly imbued with the feeling of Decorated glazing as in this vestibule. Here we have no distracting features from other periods. The tall, slender lancets that light this L-shaped hallway are completely filled with grisaille overrun with archaic figures and crude canopies, here displayed to the greatest advantage. Passing through to the handsome octagonal chapter-house, we are at first disappointed to notice that the window facing us contains modern glass. Although this first glance is unfortunate, one is soon consoled by observing that all the other six have excellent Decorated glazing of the time of Edward II. and III., showing four bands of late medallions in colour drawn across a grisaille background livened with occasional touches of red and blue. The grisaille here leans to grey rather than to the usual greenish hue, and moreover, the quarries are cut into irregular shapes, thus relieving the monotony of the commoner diamond-shaped panes. [Illustration: _F. Valentine, photo._ CHAPTER-HOUSE, YORK MINSTER Note the grouping together, in each embrasure, of five narrow lights below gracefully elaborated tracery openings. Later on, in the Perpendicular period, these traceries lose their individuality, become stiffly regular, and part of the window below] Even if the vast Minster were not one of the world's greatest treasure-houses of glass, the many smaller churches of York would provide ample grounds for its being included in this book of tours. So numerous are these churches that, in several instances, there are found to be more than one dedicated to the same saint, and therefore the pilgrim will do well to note carefully the name of street or gate placed after that of the saint's to indicate which one is intended. The most interesting of these modest shrines is All Saints' (or, as it is sometimes called, All Hallows'), in North Street. It alone is well worth a visit to York. Not only is its Decorated glass in excellent repair and in satisfactory quantity, but it evidences such careful attention to the little touches which make a window successful that one concludes the best artists must have been employed in its manufacture. For example, the canopies in the eastern embrasure of the north aisle have pedestals beneath them, a most unusual feature at that early date. Furthermore, the scenes from the life of the Virgin are depicted in a very careful manner, not only appearing in the three lancets below, but in the three major lights of the traceries above, although not there surrounded by canopies as below. Older than this window, but also typically Decorated, is that at the east end of the south aisle. The brassy tint is more noticeable in the canopies which run in two bands across its three lancets, and the canopies themselves are cruder in drawing than those just described, but are excellently illustrative of their period. These two windows are assisted in their service of beauty by the fact that the embrasures about them are not burdened with modern mistakes, but were glazed during the Perpendicular period. Reference will be made to this later glass further on (_see_ p. 188); although much more famous than its earlier neighbours, it is not a whit more satisfactory. These two sets contrive to set each other off in admirable fashion, and together they effect a delightful illumination for this interesting church. St. Dennis (Walmgate) has already been mentioned for its two Early English panels (p. 63), but its chief interest lies in the really fine Decorated remains. On entering you will not long be detained by the fragments of Perpendicular canopies that are gathered into parts of the central eastern window and two other embrasures, but will pass on to the north aisle. The three most easterly windows in the north wall taken with the eastern one of that aisle provide an excellent exposition of the glazier's art during the epoch we are now considering. The eastern one has a fairly well preserved Tree of Jesse, filling all of its five lancets, except just along the lower sill. Note the green vine and the use of many green leaves. Turning to the three lights in the north wall we find the usual brassy canopies against a quarry background, surrounded by a coloured border. The traceries, too, show the most approved treatment of leaves, green vines, &c., as well as some small heads. The diminutive kneeling donors on the quarry-panes below are very interesting; note the pendent sleeves, and especially the tiny gift window held up by one of these little people. It is upon the central lancet of one of these windows that we find the two Early English panels. St. Martin-cum-Gregory boasts of ten windows of Decorated work, mostly small brassy canopies enclosing coloured figures, all placed upon a background of quarries. The best is that at the east end of the south aisle; across its three lancets is carried a row of canopies larger than then generally drawn--in fact, the space usually occupied by quarries at the upper parts of the lights is here pre-empted by the lofty pinnacles of the canopies; the quarries appear below, as usual, and upon them in the two outer lancets are the small kneeling donors. Under the centre canopy is St. Martin dividing his cloak with a beggar, and above in the flowing tracery lights are kneeling angels. This window is rendered especially brilliant by the generous use of red in the backgrounds. There is also some unimportant Perpendicular glass in this church (_see_ p. 185). NORBURY Tucked away within the Peak of Derbyshire there is a "Happy Valley" wherein, embowered in green woods and pleasant pastures, lie Chatsworth and Haddon Hall, well known to and well beloved of all industrious tourists. Sweeping around this valley as a protecting wall are rolling hills, whose bare summits have their sombre treeless austerity clothed by a mantle of purple heather. Not very far to the south of this protecting girdle lies a little group of houses called Norbury, nestled alongside a leaping stream that comes down from above. In the midst of this hamlet stands a small church which knows not the industrious tourist aforesaid, but to which we counsel the enlightened and eclectic pilgrims of our company to repair. The chancel here is a delicious morsel preserved for us out of the fourteenth century, complete, enchanting. In its midst are stationed two splendid marble tombs, one double, and both of the most exquisite workmanship. Upon them are stretched the life-size effigies of the deceased, while along the sides are sculptured in high relief angels supporting shields. Around the walls runs mellow wood panelling, set off by carved oak stalls of great beauty. To complete the picture the many windows which light the chancel contain some of the finest Decorated pattern glass in England. Nor does the quantity of it yield in any respect to the high quality. There are four three-lanceted windows on each side, while a larger one of five lights completely fills the eastern end. In those few parts of the surface which have lost their original glazing, no attempt at modern restoration has been made, but the space has been quite simply filled with white glass. Across the pattern of the east window have been drawn two bands of very light-hued figures (lacking the usual canopies) and harmonising agreeably with the decorous tints of the background. Labels appear above the heads. The figures in the upper row are slightly larger than those below. Turning to the side windows, nothing of their type could be more attractive than the graceful grisaille patterns pricked out with points of colour and surrounded by broad borders which, in diminished scale, are carried up, into and around the tracery lights. Very satisfactory use of blue is made, and that, too, in an unusually free manner. The heraldic blazons placed upon the panes add materially to the charm of the glazing, and in very decorative fashion preserve the names of the donors. Although a special emphasis has been deservedly laid upon this altogether lovely chancel, the pilgrim must not leave the church without a peep into the diminutive chapel that opens off to the south. Here we shall see a cross-legged Crusader lying in effigy upon his place of last repose. The light that falls upon him streams through two small windows, one on the east and the other on the south, both having three lancets. These lancets each contain a saint framed in a Perpendicular canopy, while below, in the center, an armorial shield separates two kneeling groups of donors. The southerly window shows the father with two sons on one side, and the mother similarly attended by her daughters on the other; while on the easterly lancets the father is accompanied by no less than eight sons and the mother by five daughters--a goodly company, and one which would have alarmed the philosopher Malthus. Note the steeple head-dresses of the women, pendent behind. "Tell it not in Gath" that this charming sanctuary lies hidden away in Derbyshire, come away privately with us and enjoy its beauties undisturbed--"Odi profanum vulgus et arceo." SHREWSBURY _"High the vanes of Shrewsbury gleam Islanded in Severn stream; The bridges from the steepled crest Cross the water east and west._ _The flag of morn in conqueror's state Enters at the English gate; The vanquished eve, as night prevails, Bleeds upon the road to Wales."_ So sang the "Shropshire Lad" (A. E. Housman) concerning that fair city of the Welsh Marches, high-perched Shrewsbury. Most picturesque is the fashion in which the river Severn knots itself about the foot of the high peninsula upon which the town has been built, and to which access is given by the two ancient bridges, named English and Welsh from the direction in which they lead. The Kirkland Bridge is an addition of modern times. Thoroughly mediæval is the impression one receives as he approaches and enters Shrewsbury. In the first place, the passage of a bridge always affords an excellent adjustment of the traveller's mental attitude; it lends a certain aloofness to the town on the other side. It seems to say, "We are letting you across the natural barrier established for us by this river; but remember, it is a privilege, and not a right!" Directly we are arrived on the other side, there commences the ascent of the steep streets, and on the way up there is unfolded before us a series of old white and black half-timbered houses, which will serve to complete the mental picture of those distant days when protecting rivers and steep streets were not eschewed on the grounds of inconveniencing the city's prospective growth. Safety was then vastly more important than commercial convenience. That features hampering to modern commerce were exactly suited to a border stronghold was proved by the way this town withstood shock after shock of warring tribes, or nations, or factions. In his play of _Henry IV._, Shakespeare tells how the Prince of Wales here made his sudden transformation from dissolute youth to resolute manhood by defeating and slaying Harry Hotspur, thus in one day quelling the mutinous combination of the Scotch, the Welsh under Owen Glendower, and the rebellious English Archbishop Scrope of York. Quaint and ancient to the last degree is the flavour of this old city, which has owned, first and last, thirty-one charters. Those interested in half-timbered dwellings will do well to come here and inspect their number, variety, and excellent state of preservation. Perhaps the best are around Wye Cop, passed on the way up the steep streets. The remains of the ancient castle and walls add still other picturesque features to this artistically noteworthy town. An inspection of St. Mary's Church brings home to us the fact that as this was a fortress city, ground could not be spared to provide the usual Close which so pleasantly surrounds most English churches; in fact, this modest sanctuary is so set upon by other buildings that it seems almost to shrink from public gaze. An outpost occupying a strategic position on an embattled frontier required every foot of ground within its walls, and could devote no space to artistic surroundings, even for a church. St. Mary's is very rich in glass, and that, too, of varied epochs and styles. Fortunately alike for that church and for us, the Rev. W. G. Rowlands (Vicar from 1825 to 1850), was a discriminating collector of stained glass. He secured not only the great St. Bernard window (of which we will speak later), but also much of the other glass that decorates the interior. We will begin our examination by inspecting the large east window, which displays a fourteenth century Tree of Jesse in the usual Decorated manner, of which we shall see prototypes at Ludlow, Bristol, and Wells. Jesse is reclining across the bottom of three of the lancets, the convolutions of the vine arising from him forming series of oval enclosures in which appear his descendants. Note the skilful use of the leads in providing the black outlines needed to draw the figure of Jesse. In the row of panels below appear small figures of the donors. The fine reds and blues are hurt by the use of too much green--a common fault at that time. We must look to the nave windows (all of three lancets) for the other glazing of that period. The middle embrasure on the northerly side is beautified by the tasteful use of written scrolls, which wind about the figures and the columns of simulated architecture. Scrolls are also used in the next one to the east, but there they are not so important a part of the decoration. On the southerly side of the nave the embrasures nearest to the west and to the east have single figures in canopy. That to the east displays shields below the figures, a decoration which is absent in the western one. The central window on this side dates from the sixteenth century, and is the best of that period here. It contains three subjects in each side lancet, and two in the central one. Such intelligent use has been made of the leads that one concludes that the men who made the designs, and they who constructed the window, were either identical or else worked side by side. The result forms a pleasing contrast to the usual disregard during the Renaissance for the decorative and useful purposes of the leads. The most interesting and pleasing of all the windows is the large one of three lancets on the north side of the choir showing fourteen scenes from the life of St. Bernard, six in the central lancet, and four in each of the side ones. Four more episodes from the same life are to be seen in the middle one of the south aisle. This glass, originally in the German Abbey of Altenberg, and then for many years in the vaults of St. Severin at Cologne, was finally brought to London, where it was secured for St. Mary's by the Rev. Mr. Rowlands. The designs are attributed to Albrecht Dürer, but this is a common claim for German glass of that time. The perspective throughout is good, and the colouring very satisfactory. An unusual charm is added to the little figures by the use of Latin labels issuing from their mouths. There are also inscriptions below most of them, but these are frequently mutilated and misplaced. If proof were needed that this glass was not specially constructed for its present location, it is provided by the fact that the scenes do not follow in their proper order. A field-glass can be had on application to the clerk, and the use of it reveals many interesting and amusing details. The second window on the east in the chapel, south of the choir, has in its tracery-lights written music carried by angels. The pilgrim will later observe a great deal of this in the Beauchamp Chapel at Warwick. Although rare in England, it is rarer still in France. A fine sixteenth-century Crucifixion scene, covering three lancets, decorates the north window just off the north transept. In the modest-sized east window of this transept are twelve small sixteenth-century enamel panels placed on white, a demonstration of yet another style of that later period. The rest of the glazing in St. Mary's is either modern or so completely repaired with new glass as to have lost all its ancient feeling. An inspection of this church would not be complete without observing the fine wooden ceilings of both the nave and the choir. Devotees of the Ingoldsby Legends will remember that when the Great Dog in the castle of "Bloudie Jacke of Shrewsberrie" was about to seize upon Mary Anne, she vicariously appeased him with: "A Shrewsbury cake, of Pallin's own make, Which she happened to take Ere her run she begun, She'd been used to a luncheon at One." Mindful of this dainty's historic existence, the traveller will doubtless regale himself therewith, that product of the town being as excellent and famous to-day as ever it was of yore. From Shrewsbury our route lies southward over that centuries-old battle-ground, the Welsh Marches. We shall find not only much architectural beauty and fine glass, but also many inspiring memories of the border warfare whose bitterness lasted so many centuries. LUDLOW Perched high in a strong position at a bend in the River Teme rises the noble ruin of what was once the castle of Ludlow, visible from quite a distance, no matter from which direction one approaches it along the winding Shropshire lanes. It still retains enough of its ancient walls and towers to demonstrate what valiant service it must have rendered in keeping the turbulent Welsh back on their own side of the Border. Nor is the note of war the only one that echoes from the early history of this castle, for in its great hall was enacted for the first time Milton's "Comus." After a brief visit to the castle let us wend our way to St. Lawrence's Church in the town, for which an effective and judicious restoration has revived much of its original charm. A diverting legend relates that the arrow at the top of the north transept gable was shot hither by Robin Hood from the Old Field two miles away. Although many of the parishioners devoutly believe this to be true, it strikes the modern traveller that the great outlaw must on that occasion have drawn a very "long bow"! The ancient appearance of the fine hexagonal porch with the room above it makes a most inviting entrance. We shall find our glass in unusual parts of the church, nor is this the only unique feature of the edifice. The Lady chapel is not at the east, but at the south side of the chancel; in it is an interesting Tree of Jesse in the approved Decorated method, very like the one we have just seen at Shrewsbury. Unfortunately, the restorer has here been too thorough, but, nevertheless, the pattern has been preserved, and also many of the figures, for example, those just above the head and feet of Jesse. He lies recumbent along the bottom of three of the five lancets which compose the window, while above, in compartments formed by the convolutions of the vine, are his descendants. In accordance with the common practice, too much green was used. Although the chancel does not as usual afford the greatest attraction in the way of glazing, we must observe an interesting fifteenth century window in the middle of the southerly wall. Its five lancets each contain three tiers of figures in canopy, the details of which are much elaborated, especially in the pedestals. Notice also the jewelled borders to the robes. The red and blue glass is free from obscuring paint. Although our principal object was the Decorated glass, this church would repay a visit because of the Perpendicular glazing of the chapel of St. John which lies north of the chancel, from which it is shut off by a beautiful fifteenth century screen. The two most easterly windows in the north wall are much lower in tone than either the very golden Annunciation which adjoins them on the west, or the red, white and blue legend of Edward the Confessor and the Palmers, which is round the corner in the east wall. This latter dates from about 1430 and has two tiers of canopies across its four lancets. There is here illustrated an absurd contradiction into which this originally graceful style was developed;--within one of its elaborately pinnacled shrines we find a ship! and under another a rural scene with trees! most out-of-place substitutes for the customary and appropriate saint. Let us return to the two low-toned windows in the north wall, of which we have just spoken. The writer does not remember ever having seen any similar to them. Each embrasure has three lancets subdivided horizontally at the middle, making six spaces. The two windows thus afford twelve panels, which are used to display the Twelve Apostles. Local tradition says that there is here represented the Council at which the Apostolic Creed was composed. Each holy man sits on a bench behind a rail, but as they are drawn to a modest scale and occupy each the centre of his panel, they are thereby so far removed one from the other as to destroy utterly any appearance of a Council. There is a great deal of soft-hued architecture throughout, but it is used as background and not as a frame, thus differing radically from typical canopies. A more satisfactory result would have been attained if they had adhered closely to contemporary tradition, for here the figures, low-hued as they are, start out too abruptly from the over-spacious architectural background. The general effect is not that of a series of gracefully framed Apostolic portraits, but of lonely figures seated in empty halls. If for no other reason than that they have provoked this criticism, these windows should be carefully remarked, because they demonstrate how sound was the theory of employing the architectural canopy as a light-admitting frame for the coloured central figure. The east window of the south transept contains fragments of fourteenth and fifteenth century glass from other parts of the church. The wooden ceilings are well worthy of inspection. HEREFORD A very charming feature of English country life is the pleasure one can derive from boating on the small rivers. Our American watercourses are generally too wide or too turbulent to become such a domestic pet as we all know the river Thames to be. To one who has not seen Boulter's Lock on a bright Sunday, or who has never witnessed a Henley Regatta, that most brilliant of all athletic spectacles, it would be difficult to explain how thoroughly the Englishman enjoys and how constantly he uses the opportunity which Father Thames affords for a short outing. Nor is the Thames the only stream thus available. Small watercourses of the same sort are to be found all over the country, and afford delightful trips for those who are willing to travel in so leisurely a fashion. The writer remembers with the keenest pleasure certain canoe trips, one of three days from Bedford to Ely on the Ouse, another on the Stour, from Sudbury to Manningtree, lasting two days, and a third of similar duration from Petworth down the Rother into the Arun at Pullborough and thence to Arundel. All the preparation necessary is to buy your canoe a third-class ticket, put it into the luggage van at the railway station, and set out for the point at which you wish to begin. Jerome K. Jerome has immortalised a similar trip taken down the Thames from Oxford to London. One of the most charming of all English river journeys is that down the Wye. If one wishes to take a long trip, the start can be made at Hay, thirty-four miles above Hereford, or perhaps better at Whitney, twenty-eight miles above. The next stretch is from Hereford to Ross, twenty-seven miles, and, if desired, this can be lengthened by continuing on down to Monmouth, Tintern and Chepstow. The charming bits of scenery that unfold themselves as this little river lazily winds down the Welsh Marches are most varied and delightful. It must, however, be admitted that it is only the middle section of this agreeable trip that properly concerns one engaged in glass-hunting. We should, therefore, content ourselves with the stretch from Hereford to Ross, twenty-seven miles, if, indeed, we have the time to devote to this slow method of travelling. Over by the river end of the peaceful town of Hereford is the lovely green Close which lies about the sturdy reddish brown cathedral. Few churches, even those of great size, give such a square and solid impression as results here from the combination of the ruddy tones of the building material and the early type of its architecture. The defacing effects of an earlier restoration are being rectified by the erection of a new west front, now almost completed. The massive Norman columns that support the nave within, carry out in their grand simplicity the sturdy promise of the exterior. Every division of the church seems spacious, the ample transepts, wide choir aisles, and large Lady chapel, completing the effect begun by the nave and choir. Indeed, so commodious is the Lady chapel, that it is used as a parish church. The cathedral has a number of interesting possessions, chief among which is the large Mappa Mundi made in 1300, and showing the world as then known. It hangs in the south choir aisle. The world is represented as round like a plate, and in addition to the cities and countries marked thereon, there also appear the fabulous animals which were then a part of orthodox geography. It was about this time that there was written the adventures of that famous traveller, Sir John de Maundeville, whose voyages were only exceeded in extent by his imagination. His reports of fabulous beasts, &c., are in excellent accord with the pictures on this map. The ancient glass here is somewhat limited, and is all of the Decorated period. On the south side of the Lady chapel we shall remark two windows, chiefly glazed in greenish grisaille, but each bearing four coloured decorations placed one above the other. In one case these prove to be geometrical designs outlined in colour, while in the other they are small coloured groups, the topmost scene showing Christ, on a red background, pointing upward. Glass even more typically Decorated is to be seen in the eastern wall of the north-east transept, and again in the most easterly embrasure of the south choir ambulatory. These windows each contain four lancets surmounted by tracery lights, and in each lancet is a coloured figure framed in an unusually lofty canopy--in fact the latter is three times as high as the figure it encloses. Note the brassy tone of the early golden stain used in the architecture. Modern grisaille has replaced its ancient prototype, which, in accordance with the conventions, surrounded these early canopies to increase the light-admitting power of the embrasures. This glass was formerly in St. Peter's Church, but about sixty years ago that church disposed of it for £5 to a purchaser who presented it to the cathedral. Limited though it be in amount, it will repay a careful examination. TEWKESBURY As one wanders through the streets of quiet Tewkesbury, the half-timbered houses on every side lend it an Old World flavour that most suitably prepares us for the sturdy Abbey, the dignity of whose recessed west front is all in harmony with the mediæval gravity so characteristic of the place. It is as if that eloquently silent edifice had never been able to shake off the sombre memories of the sanguinary scenes enacted within it May 4, 1471, when, after the defeat of the Lancastrians under the Duke of Somerset by Edward IV. in the "Bloody Meadow" just outside the town, the slaughter of the wearers of the Red Rose was not only carried on through the streets of Tewkesbury, but even into the Abbey itself. An echo of this butchery is heard in Shakespeare's _Richard III._, when the ghost of the murdered Prince Edward (son of Henry VI.) appears to King Richard the night before the fatal battle of Bosworth and cries out: "Let me sit heavy on thy soul to-morrow! Think, how thou stabb'st me in the prime of youth At Tewkesbury." With what reproach must not that splendid row of fourteenth century knights, victors over the French at Crécy, have looked down from the windows of the choir clerestory upon this bloody violation of the rights of sanctuary by those fifteenth century butchers of the House of York. Indeed, these effigies of the earlier warriors were fortunate to have escaped those later desperate struggles. The ravages of war do not seem to have dealt so harshly with stained glass in this country as elsewhere. A learned French contemporary of these tragic events, Philippe de Comines, remarked this fact, and spoke of England as a land where "there are no buildings destroyed or demolished by war, and where the mischief falls on those who make the wars." Although Tewkesbury's fame in history rests largely upon its having been the theatre of this wild closing scene of the War of the Roses, it is not because of any fifteenth century happening that we are moved to come here, but by reason of the seven large windows of the preceding, or Decorated, period which fill the choir clerestory. This is one of the few instances where we shall remark the absence of the square eastern end so usual in England. It is here omitted in favour of the rounded apse then prevalent in France. Advantage has been taken of this unusual shape to throw out a series of chapels around the chancel, which add greatly to the beauty of the Decorated choir, and contrast sharply with the sturdy Norman nave. The seven large embrasures that light the choir clerestory each contain a group of lancets, five in every case, except in the most westerly pair, where there are but four. Although the design is the same throughout (a large figure in colour surrounded by a canopy frame), these frames are differently occupied, those in the westerly pair containing armoured knights, while in all the others are saints. The depth of their colour scheme is due partly to the great quantity of rich greens and reds used, and partly to the opacity of the panes depicting the canopies. The figures generally occupy about one half the window height, the rest being given over to the canopy. Below the feet of the knights are their shields, which serve to provide the artistic balance later obtained from pedestals. The same conventional attitude has been assumed for all these warriors; each stands with his feet well apart, his left hand on the sword by his side, the right hand on the hip, holding up a sceptre. The pinnacles of almost all the canopies are outlined against red backgrounds. Note the little rose windows introduced in the upper part of the canopies. The most easterly window provides a variation in that the enshrined saints are higher up on the panes, thus making room below them for small groups consisting mostly of naked figures, with flesh tints glazed in brown. The right-hand lancet shows six kneeling figures praying, doubtless the donors. The borders are carried up and around all the tracery lights, which are very Decorated in form and do not yet show any hint of the stiffer Perpendicular treatment to follow. Perhaps here more effectively than anywhere in England shall we feel the warm colour-value of Decorated glass, with as yet no tendency toward the paler tints that are to come with the Perpendicular style. A similar warmth of tone is to be remarked in the east windows of Bristol and Wells Cathedrals, and the writer is moved to conjecture that the same glazier had to do with all these three. This conjecture is not only based on the still undiminished strength of colour throughout them all, but also on the marked similarity in the drawing and tinting of a certain white vine decoration upon a red ground, to be remarked in the upper tracery lights of all three, and also in the traceries of certain transept windows at Gloucester. Whoever this workman was, we feel his results so satisfactory to-day that it would be small wonder if contemporary appreciation caused his employment in these different towns. [Illustration: CHOIR, TEWKESBURY ABBEY A rare example of rounded apse, generally replaced in England by a square ended chancel. Chief charm of these windows is their rich colouring] DEERHURST Possibly some of our travellers are proceeding in so leisurely a fashion that they may decide to sojourn a day or two in Tewkesbury. To them we address the suggestion that they visit the adjoining town of Deerhurst and see its venerable church. It is but a two-mile walk across the fields, or a pleasant trip by boat on the Severn. It may, however, by means of a small _détour_, be visited on the way to Gloucester. Although it can boast of but little Decorated glass, that little is lodged in an edifice of great interest, because it is the earliest dated one in England. The obviously Saxon architecture, with its "herring-bone" and "long and short" work, the window-tops composed of two slanting stones, or else of arches cut from one piece--these unmistakable signs would have told us that it antedated the Normans, but of such buildings there are many in this country. Here, however, we have an exact date given us, and, furthermore, the earliest known in all the land. A stone found here (now preserved at Oxford) relates that this chapel was dedicated in 1056, and that Earl Odda caused it to be erected "in honour of the Holy Trinity and for the good of the soul of his brother, Elfric, which at this place quitted the body." It goes on further to say that "Bishop Ealdred dedicated it on 12th April in the 14th year of Edward King of the English." Two other early Saxon edifices of even more modest dimensions lie close at hand. The ancient glass is contained in the four small lancets of the west wall on the right as one enters, and is obviously of the Decorated period. The most attractive bit is the small panel showing St. Catherine framed in a canopy, holding her wheel in one hand, and revolving it with the other. The background is red within the canopy, but green outside, a very frequent adjustment at that time. In both the upper and lower parts of these lancets are groups of three and four kneeling donors, about eight inches high, with labels above them. This glass has not always remained in its original embrasures, but, fortunately, did not stray far. Its travels were cut short by a gentleman who purchased it for £5 from an antiquary's shop in a neighbouring town, and restored it to its early home. More important and more beautiful sanctuaries will be encountered in our travels, but it is well to have halted for even a brief time at this ancient Saxon fane, if only to ponder upon how tenacious must have been the traits of those early ancestors of ours, to have persisted to these modern days with such vigour as to have made the adjective "Anglo-Saxon" so significant. BRISTOL Bristol is connected with London by the Old Bath Road. What memories that name arouses of beaux and belles of stage-coach days, gaily chatting to while away the fifteen-hour trip from London to Bath, or furtively glancing out to see if bold Dick Turpin, or some gentleman of his profession, be not lurking in the shadows of the trees, intent on relieving the tired horses by lightening the passengers' luggage. This stage-coach period is of peculiar interest to visitors from across the seas, because it takes one back to old Colony days, and the War of the Revolution. In England the improved facilities of travel provided by the stage coach had much to do with advancing parliamentary government and doing away with the system of "rotten borough" representation in Parliament. Bustling and hearty days were those of the four Georges, which produced a Prime Minister like William Pitt. In this progressive era of railroad construction and stock manipulation, it is interesting to read how Richard Palmer besought the Government to establish a regular mail-coach service on the Bath Road, alleging the great profits they could thereby secure, but really hoping in this way to increase the profits of his theatre in Bath. After a long struggle he finally got the ear of William Pitt. The service was established, and his subsidy (which was to be regulated by the amount saved in carrying the mails) proved so large that they cut it down to the lump sum of £50,000! The first coach started on August 8, 1784. Nowadays it causes us to smile when we read of the tremendous effect produced throughout the country by the news that this coach left London at eight o'clock in the morning and arrived at Bristol at eleven the same evening! Such unheard-of speed aroused wide interest, and had much to do with the great success of Bath as a fashionable watering-place. Bowling along this historic road we shall only stop long enough at Bath to see the remains of the baths built by the Romans, and the famous Pump Room, the scene of the triumphs of Beau Nash, and many another. We may also take a peep into the small, but fine, church whose great window surface has earned for it the title of the "Lantern of the West." It will not detain us long because its glass is all modern, except in the second embrasure from the west in the north aisle, where seven shields surmounted by elaborately plumed helmets are agreeably disposed across the five lancets. On we go out of Bath and along the narrow valley of the Avon, twelve miles further to smoky Bristol, squatted like a puffing Dutch burgher at the point where the Severn empties into the Bristol Channel. Although the great shipping industry that gave the town its early importance has of late years diminished, it still retains enough to be an active port of trade. To some fanciful folk the pall of smoke that hangs over the town may seem a gloomy retribution for the fact that from the days of the Saxon and the Norman down to the abolition of slavery, Bristol was the greatest port in England for that nefarious traffic. Changing to a brighter subject, this was the harbour from which John Cabot, the Anglicised Venetian, and his son Sebastian (who was born here), sailed upon their voyages of discovery across the little-known Atlantic. The Mayor's Chapel contains some very interesting sixteenth century glass, but as it was bought abroad and fetched here, it has not, for us, the interest which we shall feel in the home-made Decorated windows of the cathedral. Bristol Cathedral lacks the pleasing setting of foliage and green lawns which one finds about almost every English church. Indeed, in this respect, it is more like the famous French ones, which nearly all rely upon architectural charm for their effectiveness. Inside, the chief matters of interest are the great Tree of Jesse which fills the east window, and the two large lights on each side of the chancel. These side windows are glazed in grisaille upon which are figures framed in canopy, two tiers, one above the other. The most westerly embrasure of the southerly pair has in its upper row three canopies which, taken together, show the martyrdom of St. Edmund. He is within the central canopy, while those on each side contain archers drawing their bows to shoot at him. The bent knees, the awkward pose of the heads, &c., show the drawing to be most primitive. The tracery lights are glazed in red, with white winding vines, and are remarkably like the traceries at Tewkesbury. The Berkeleys, who gave this glass, were related to the de Clares of Tewkesbury, so it is more than likely that they employed the same glazier. The great east window is in a very good state owing to its restoration in 1847 and is a graceful work of the Decorated period. The erudite Winston concludes that as it does not bear the arms of Piers Gaveston (murdered in 1312), and does show those of Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford (slain in open rebellion against his sovereign in 1322), the date of the window is probably about 1320, which furthermore is borne out by internal evidence. This great window rises above and behind the altar and has its nine lancets subdivided into three groups of three each by two mullions which, as was usual at that time, curve away from each other when nearing the upper part of the embrasure. Although the subject is a Tree of Jesse, the patriarch himself does not appear. The various branches of the vine rise perpendicularly from the lower sill and are then gracefully intertwined. The treatment of the personages is the same throughout, each being enclosed by a loop of the vine. The 1847 restoration was so well done that except for an occasional harsh note of colour in the robes, it conceals its modern substitutions quite successfully. The lancets each contain two figures, one above the other. It is fair to comment that the encircling vine is rather too light to harmonise well with the figures in the background. After descending the hill, crowned by the cathedral, we cross over into the other part of the town to see the fine church of St. Mary Redcliffe, where, although there is but little glass, that little is arranged in a unique manner. Each of the three easterly windows of the south transept consists of three lancets. For each window there is provided a border consisting of a series of fifteen small four-pointed openings fitted over it in the shape of an inverted U. The glazing of these stars reminds one of the ordinary Decorated treatment of tracery lights. Within a narrow border is a red field upon the centre of which appears a coloured boss from which radiate four leaves. The general effect is a yellowish green. These windows date from about 1360. On the way out let us stop in the north-west corner of the nave and notice in the north wall a window filled with a collection of about eighty-five roundels and heads, all helter-skelter, eked out with fragments from other embrasures. The effect, though motley, is interesting. A window in the westerly wall of this corner also contains _débris_, but here it is of figures and canopies. This church, called by Queen Elizabeth "the fairest, the goodliest, and the most famous parish church in England," is chiefly known for having been the literary browsing-ground of that infant prodigy Thomas Chatterton, who announced that it was an old chest in its muniment-room that yielded what he alleged to be transcriptions from certain ancient Rowley manuscripts. So well were these forgeries contrived that it took Horace Walpole, himself the constructor of an imitation Gothic romance ("The Castle of Otranto"), to discover the fraud. Although but seventeen years old when he committed suicide in 1770, Chatterton had already published a number of writings. No good American should depart without a glance at the monument and armour of Admiral Penn, father of our William Penn. It will be no small relief to emerge from the smoky pall which hangs over this enterprising city and escape again into the clearer atmosphere of the charming English country. WELLS Off in Somerset, snugly tucked away at the foot of the Mendip Hills, lies one of the most charming cathedrals to be seen anywhere, and, in the opinion of Fergusson, certainly the most beautiful in England. The fact that it has grouped about it more perfect ecclesiastical buildings than any other church of its size, and also that the town which grew up around is very interesting, combine to make Wells a peculiarly delightful place. The distant prospects of it are very attractive, whether you stand upon Moulton Hill and look toward its western façade, or view the eastern end with the group of adjoining buildings from the top of Thor Hill. Even when you have come down into the quiet town and the cathedral is near at hand, the approach to it continues to be most picturesque, first through a battlemented gateway in one corner of the market square, and then across a lovely lawn shaded by fine trees. The ample proportions of the rugged west front are saved from the appearance of excessive breadth because of the perpendicular lines lent by the buttresses built against it. A most attractive feature of this great façade is the unusual collection of carved figures beneath canopies with which, at the close of the thirteenth century, it was lavishly adorned. There are over six hundred in all, carved of stone from a local quarry, and originally gilded and coloured. Nearly all are of life-size, and represent not only Biblical characters, but also kings and queens of the Saxon, Norman, and Plantagenet dynasties. Within the building the scene is one of exceptional splendour and beauty. Even what elsewhere might prove ugly is here turned to artistic account, as, for example, when the stability of the great central tower demanded a strengthening arch across the nave at that point, it was rendered a decorative feature by placing above it another arch inverted so that the lines should sweep upward as well as downward. An odd and unusual position was selected for the chapter-house--above and to the north of the chancel--and nothing could be more delightful than the way in which the old stone stairway bends gently up to it. East of the chancel is a fine roomy Lady chapel. The entrance to this chapel is provided by the removal of the lower third of the east wall of the chancel, the middle third being stone wall with empty niches, and the upper third a great arched window of seven lancets containing a Tree of Jesse in the Decorated manner, above which, in the traceries, is shown the Judgment Day. This is known as the "Golden Window," and Canon Church calls it "one of the most remarkable in England for simplicity and harmony and richness of colouring, for the force of character in the faces, and the stately figures in flowing mantles of green and ruby and gold, like Arab chiefs; figures such as some artists in the last Crusading host under Edward might have seen and designed, and so different from the conventional portraiture of Bible characters." Although this window is less lofty than the similar one at Bristol, it does not seem so incomplete and cut off, because we have here the recumbent figure of Jesse across the bottom of the five central lancets, a feature lacking at Bristol. Another point of difference is that the convolutions of the vine do not here enclose the seventeen figures of the descendants, but instead they stand under canopies, of which, however, only the topmost ones have pinnacles. The broad borders have the same design throughout, viz., gold crowns alternated with colour, which changes from red to blue in each successive lancet. The backgrounds within the canopies also alternate red and blue, always contrasting with the colour outside. Almost all the small personages are draped in either green or yellow, and four have undergarments of red. Though their colouring is splendid, the figures are rather too crowded. The two most easterly lights on each side of the chancel are contemporary with the east window--they are each of three lancets and contain single figures, occupying about half the height of the embrasure, and have no pedestals below them. So similar is the treatment here to that at Bristol that it seems safe to assign the same date to both (1320). The tracery lights around the choir ambulatory still retain their Decorated glazing. To the right and left just before we enter the Lady chapel are single windows containing fragments of ancient glass. The Lady chapel itself is finely illuminated by five large windows of five lancets each containing figure and canopy work. One should remark the unique pedestals consisting of golden lions or bears surmounted by the characteristic ball-flower ornament. Very interesting, also, are the tracery lights, which consist of pyramids of small trefoil openings, four at the base, then three, then two, then one. They are reminiscent of the tracery lights of the Lichfield Lady chapel, but here the glazier has been more adroit in the use of his opportunities. Instead of putting a head alone in each opening, he has availed himself of the broader space at the bottom to put in the shoulders as well. These little busts adjust themselves admirably to the trefoils. Although the glass which once filled the octagonal chapter-house is all gone save that up in the traceries, those remnants are of interest because the disposal of the designs against the red backgrounds is reminiscent of the work at Tewkesbury and Gloucester. The great west window of the nave has seventeenth and eighteenth century glass at the sides, and in the centre a fine sixteenth century French panel showing the beheading of St. John. This bears the date 1507 and a Gascon inscription, and was bought by Bishop Creyghton during the time that he was sharing the exile of Charles II. on the Continent. This provokes the comment that not only is there a small amount of sixteenth century glass in England, but curiously enough much of it proves upon inspection to have been made across the Channel. Before leaving this noble interior one should notice a feature of quaint interest. In the south choir aisle stands the monument to Bishop Bytton (1524), long renowned for his cures of toothache. After his canonisation this tomb was resorted to by pilgrims seeking relief from that malady, and so famous were the cures that we find carved upon the capitals of piers on the west side of the south transept, and again in the north transept, little men whose sufferings from toothache are reproduced in the most detailed and dramatic manner. [Illustration: "GOLDEN WINDOW," WELLS CATHEDRAL Notice graceful setting, permitting a glimpse through into the Lady Chapel beyond. The large Tree of Jesse rising from the loins of the Patriarch is portrayed in colours of almost barbaric richness] No matter by which road we leave Wells, one should look back more than once to enjoy the charming views of the cathedral and its Close. EXETER In travelling about England one is struck by how greatly the colour of the building-stone varies. One sees greenish grey around Tavistock in West Devon; golden brown in the country just north of Oxford; silver-grey in many parts of Yorkshire, &c. &c. One might continue to enumerate instances, but in the end the most marked of all would surely be the red seen about Exeter. Not only are many of the edifices built of this ruddy stone, but the earth in any ploughed field thereabouts shows the same unusual colouring. The Normans must have been struck by this fact, for they called the hill on which they built their castle "Rougemont." In view of this marked peculiarity of the Exe Valley, it is noteworthy that the exterior of the rugged cathedral, with its mighty transeptal towers, is blackish grey. Within, it shows the reddish hue which one would expect hereabouts, but outside is similar in tone to Westminster Abbey. If one be so whimsically-minded as to group cathedrals by colour, one must class Exeter with Peterborough as black, while Lincoln will be golden brown, York and Canterbury soft grey, &c. &c. Very fine as well as decorative glass is to be seen in this cathedral. It fills the east window, and another near it in the north choir clerestory, as well as a large window in each of the chapels that close the easterly end of the choir aisles. These charming little chapels are each reached by an entrance from the choir ambulatory, and are only separated from the Lady chapel between them by a light screen. The east window of the northerly chapel has five lancets, although the glass was seemingly made for one of six, the number which still exists in that of the southerly chapel. The treatment in both is the same, a handsome and well-balanced combination of quarry-panes relieved by gaily-tinted heraldic shields, and all surrounded by coloured borders. In the northerly chapel there has been introduced into the central lancet a Decorated panel, showing a kneeling chantry priest within a canopy praying for the donor. This appears to have been removed hither from the chapter-house, where there still remain a couple of similar panels. The two windows just described are excellent examples of one of the glazing methods of the epoch, while of still another style (the figure in canopy), equally good ones are above in the choir clerestory, the fourth from the east on the north side showing in each of its four lancets a figure under a canopy with a shield of arms at the feet. It is practically complete, except that the shields have lost their heraldic bearings. [Illustration: EAST WINDOW, EXETER CATHEDRAL Perpendicular stone frame glazed chiefly with very typically decorated figure-and-canopy glass preserved from the earlier and smaller window. Below and beyond appears the Lady chapel] The archives tell of a large purchase of glass in Rouen in 1301 and again in 1317 for use in this cathedral. Much of these purchases is still to be seen in the large east window. Here we are struck by a strange anomaly of obviously Decorated glass in purely Perpendicular masonry. Nothing could be more distinctive of the later period than the Perpendicular mullions surmounted by stiffly upright tracery lights, and yet the glazing could not be mistaken for anything but Decorated. Evidently old wine has been put into new bottles. Although a great deal of restoration is noticeable in this window, the strongly brassy tone of the canopies in the three outer lancets on each side clearly indicate that they antedate the discovery of yellow stain. An explanation of this anachronistic clash between the glazing and its framing stonework appears upon the rolls of the Chapter. April 21, 1389, one Henry de Blakeborn, then Canon, moved by the fine appearance of the newly constructed west window, offered 100 marks towards properly enlarging the eastern one. This offer was accepted and the work at once put in hand. The glazing of the earlier east window was saved to put into the new and larger embrasure. As yellow stain was not known at the time of glazing the first east window, it is absent from the early glass, although it is plentifully used in the heads, &c., of the additions made necessary in 1389 by the increased size of the window. One must not quarrel with the judicious restoration which has preserved so charming an _ensemble_. But this indulgent mood will be abruptly dismissed when one examines the lights along the north side walls of the choir aisles, for here the colour in the patterns upon the white panes proves to be Decorated glass cut up into bits for this purpose by some modern glazier! Any further comment upon his taste is unnecessary. It is one of the instances which causes one to query if it be always wise to impose a punishment for murder! DORCHESTER Before setting out upon our journeys we stated that although the viewing of stained glass was our main purpose, we intended to be broad-minded and enjoy whatever other interesting sights might be encountered. When we approach the little hamlet that "Dorchester ys ycluped, that bysyde Oxenford ys" those of our company learned in archæology will doubtless point out the Dykes, those two great parallel earthworks twenty feet high, separated by a dry fosse twenty yards wide, which run for a distance of 900 yards round the south side of the town, from the banks of the Thames to those of the little Thame. Our archæological friend will not need to point out how strong a defence was provided for the ancient Briton by these walls and the two rivers, but he will doubtless earnestly set forth many arguments for and against the theory that this fortification was an outpost of the entrenched camp on Sinodun Hill near by. The writer well remembers how strongly these Dykes impressed him when he first saw them years ago. In company with two friends he was rowing down from Oxford to London, and having arrived at Dorchester after sunset, stopped there to spend the night. Early in the morning, on our way down to the boat, we came upon these earthworks overgrown with yellow wheat and red poppies sparkling with dew. Instantly one forgot the dull modern village, and went back in fancy to the days when these great lines of earth were thrown up to protect the early owners of this land, later to be so often harried by conqueror after conqueror. The greatest glory of Dorchester came much later, in fact even after the centuries of Roman occupation had come to an end and the last legions had left England for ever. It was under the rule of the West Saxons that Dorchester became the seat of a Bishop whose See was so important that it included all those now known under the names of Winchester, Salisbury, Exeter, Bath, Wells, Lichfield, Hereford and several others. The exact date of the present long stone church is not known, but it is generally believed to be about 1150. The interior will provide but little of interest that one does not often see in many another old English church, but a glance toward the eastern end reveals that some architect of the Decorated period there added a veritable bower of light. One must search far and wide to find so pleasing a combination of excellent glass, disposed in such light and noteworthy stone traceries. The walls which enclose this chancel on the north, east and south are nearly of equal length, but the architect's treatment of each is quite different. That to the east seems almost entirely of glass, so greatly has the builder subordinated his stone structure to the glazing. In fact, so much is given over to the glazier as to necessitate the erection of a stout buttress which runs up the centre, and without the assistance of which the slender mullions would be unable to support so great a weight of glass. This buttress stops about three-fourths of the way up the window, the explanation of which is that the original roof was lowered to this point, and it was not until 1846 that it was again elevated to its original height, making necessary the modern glass in this restored portion. Very graceful is the adjustment of the cartouches into which the stone mullions divide the entire surface, and also the way in which they tend to become pointed in the upper part of the embrasure. Within each one we find evidence of the beginnings of the canopy style which was destined soon to emerge from the cramped methods of the glazier here visible. Upon the four lancets of the northern window appear large figures displaying much more freedom of drawing. Our first criticism tends to be that they would be more attractive if they had some background or framing and were not stationed alone upon white panes. The reason for this appears from a close inspection of the supporting mullions. Along each of these are little carved figures. The writer believes this window to be unique in the respect that the carvings on the stone and the figures on the panes combine to form a Tree of Jesse. Jesse, as usual, is reclining below; the stone mullions are used to represent the branches of the vine, and at their intersections are disposed the descendants, much as we have often seen them depicted on glass. They hold scrolls on which probably their names were once painted. The figures on the glass (some of them still labelled) supplement those in the carvings. Carved figures are also freely introduced at the intersections of the stone mouldings of the east window, but here they represent New Testament episodes, such as the cutting off of Malchus's ear, the rousing of the sleeping guards, &c. So, too, along the transom that runs across the southern window are carved figures representing a religious procession. Above are coats of arms distributed upon the panes. Below is a handsome Gothic stone seat or sedilia which has for us a great interest in that four little star-shaped lights are let into the back of it, containing late twelfth century medallions. These earliest remains were doubtless preserved from the edifice which preceded the present one. One of them shows a scene in which appears St. Birinus, who converted the great kingdom of Wessex and was the first Bishop of Dorchester (635-49). This little chancel, with its delightful glass gracefully supported by the quaintly carved stone traceries, will remain in one's memory as one of the loveliest nooks in England for the glass-lover. OXFORD Probably there is no city in all England where the average American tourist feels more at home than at Oxford. All of us have read a great deal about this city of colleges, and most American boys have perused "Tom Brown at Oxford" more than once. Besides, we all feel an interest in colleges and college men. While many realise the charms of this ancient city of learning, some of us know them in great detail; we have wandered in the lovely gardens of Magdalen, of New and of Worcester; we have heard the shouting of the multitudes along the banks of the Isis when one eight has succeeded in bumping another just ahead; we have canoed up the silent tree-shaded windings of the Cherwell--in a word, we are familiars of the place. Apart from its life as a university, as a city of students, its chief association in history may be said to be that it was a refuge and stronghold of the ill-fated Charles I., after his defeat at Edgehill. It was admirably suited for this purpose, because rendered well-nigh impregnable by the encircling streams of the Isis and the Cherwell, the surrounding morass of flooded fens, and, last of all, its stout city walls. Right loyally did both townspeople and students rally to the support of the unfortunate monarch. The colleges even melted down their plate to eke out his military chest. Of all the towns of England it can, therefore, best lay claim to having been the most loyal to the fortunes of Charles Stuart at a time when loyalty meant most. But it is not for reminders of that dreadful civil strife, terminated by bloody tragedy, that we are coming to the ancient town built on the river near the "ford of the oxen," no, our researches lie a couple of centuries earlier than those bitter days. First of all we shall enter Merton College to see its windows of the first part of the Decorated period. Then we will repair to New College to view its glass so instructive of the transition from Decorated to Perpendicular. Lastly, All Souls' Chapel must be inspected for its examples of the Perpendicular style. In many another college can be seen later glazing, but none so good or so important as those just cited. The presence here of such fine examples of the two best periods of English glass makes easy an instructive comparison of their methods and results. Furthermore, it justifies the selection of Oxford as the last stage of our second tour, because we have only to step from one college into another to begin our third tour. Not only do the most ancient traditions of all Oxford linger about Merton, but it looks the part--it conveys the impression of its extreme age to any one who enters its gates. Mob Quad is the oldest quadrangle in the whole University. Bishop Walter de Merton, Chancellor of Henry III., devised the idea of segregating the students into colleges, so as to govern them better, and to render more difficult, if not impossible, the general lawlessness and bloody frays between nationalities that used to be so frequent. A visit to the chapel will not only show us glass of the early part of the Decorated period, but in such quantity and so well placed as to give one the best possible impression of it. The large east window is filled with modern glazing, only the upper half of the traceries above retaining the original red and blue diaper work. In addition to this great embrasure, the choir is lighted by seven ample three-lanceted windows on each side. These are filled with grisaille bordered in colour, while across them, about two-thirds of the way up from the bottom, is drawn a band of strongly hued canopied figures. Because of their early manufacture we are not surprised to find the canopies very crude, lacking pedestals, &c. The enclosed backgrounds are generally blue, although a few toward the east are red. In the central lancet of each embrasure the canopy usually contains an upright figure, while in the side lancets they are almost all kneeling. Each personage has a written label which either winds gracefully over his head and down behind his back, or runs along beneath him. The borders are not carried up into the traceries; their design is sometimes a vine, sometimes yellow castles, or fleur-de-lis of white or green. In addition to the band of canopies, the duller grisaille is further enlivened by three coloured bosses in each lancet, mostly containing heads. The western end of the choir opens into the antechapel, which lacks its ancient glazing except for the fragments gathered together into the central western embrasure, whose original tracery glass, however, remains intact. Before leaving Merton mount the stairs to the quaint L-shaped library and inspect its attractive remains of Renaissance glass. Along the lower side of the east wall of the north wing are seven narrow lancets filled with dainty grisaille quarries, bordered in faint colour and bearing a brightly toned boss. Of more importance to us, however, is the pleasing bay window at the east end of the south wing. Here we find quarries of soft grey, each containing a monogram in yellow stain. In the midst of these quarry panes are placed little scenes, circular in form and decorated with enamel paint in grey and stain, each bearing a German inscription. The central embrasure contains six of these, three above and three below, and the two side bays have two each, one above the other. They bear the date 1598. An account of the Perpendicular glass at Oxford will be found at p. 142. PERPENDICULAR Little proof is needed of how greatly the glazier depended upon the architect, or of how necessary and proper it was that his glazing should harmonise with the prevailing architectural style. The period we are about to study affords a striking example of this subserviency of the window to the building it lights. In no country can there be found a school whose glass was so dominated by its architecture as was that of the Perpendicular in England. This Perpendicular style never crossed the Channel, for the French Gothic of that time, instead of becoming stiff and regular, grew more flamboyant and elaborated. Another marked difference is that all the time the English were softening their tints and striving for a silvery sheet of low tones (Great Malvern, &c.), the fifteenth century French were, on the contrary, using stronger and more varied colours than during the century before. To such excellence of delicate drawing and tints did the English attain in their Perpendicular windows that it may safely be said that in those respects they were never surpassed elsewhere. This is particularly noticeable at Ross and Cirencester. An opportunity to compare the French with the English glass of that time is afforded by the fact that the French windows of the Beauchamp Chapel at Warwick will be visited between the distinctively English ones of Great Malvern and York. This Warwick glass was brought from France because the contract exacted "Glasse from beyond the Seas," and we at once notice the strong hues, which differ so markedly from the then prevailing English ones. Nothing could be more convenient than the way in which these particular windows enable us to differentiate between contemporary glass on opposite sides of the Channel. When the Perpendicular architect arrived upon the scene, he found the canopy window already well developed. The shape of the embrasures which he provided were peculiarly suited to this agreeable method of glazing. The straight upward sweep of his mullions made easy an effective adjustment of the narrow canopy-framed niches, and left the artist little to do but elaborate the more modest sentry-box of the Decorated period. This he did in a very artistic and pleasing manner. The signs of development are easily distinguishable, and chief among them are the elaboration of the architectural detail of the canopy (by increasing the number of pinnacles and drawing them in relief instead of flat), and the completing of the frame effect by adding elaborate pedestals below the feet of the figures. We must remember that the earlier glazier either placed nothing below the enframed figure or else, in a few instances, heraldic shields (as at Tewkesbury). In many instances the earlier solitary figures within the canopies now give way to groups, although not so frequently as in France. The glazier did well to abstain from this change as much as possible, for although it is logical to find a saint within a shrine, nothing could be more absurd than to install therein a rural scene or a small battle picture. The Perpendicular architect, unlike his Decorated predecessor, was not content to leave the tracery lights differentiated from the rest of the window below. Instead, he tied the upper and lower lights together by carrying his mullions straight up through them all, and thus deprived the tracery ones of the independence as well as the decorative success they formerly enjoyed. In a few instances (as at Great Malvern), the glazier accentuates the stiff regularity of these upper lights by filling each with a canopy-enclosed figure. Lest the upright parallel lines of the mullions lend too monotonous an appearance, care was generally taken to make two of them (usually thicker than the others) swerve outward when nearing the top of the embrasure, one to the right and the other to the left. These two thicker mullions served the further artistic purpose of breaking the line of tall lights into groups of two or three each. This can be observed in the illustration. The chief features of this school are as follows: (_a_) Increasingly lighter and softer tones; (_b_) Stiff parallel lines of upright mullions; (_c_) Tracery lights lose their independence; (_d_) Greatly elaborated canopies; (_e_) Stipple shading, replacing the earlier smear shading. It can be said with no fear of contradiction that we have now arrived at the finest period of English glazing. PERPENDICULAR TOUR Our Decorated tour was brought to a close by viewing the glass of that period in Merton College at Oxford. Not only shall we be able to begin our new tour in that same city, by inspecting the fully developed Perpendicular windows at All Souls', but we are also afforded an opportunity, thanks to the transition character of the New College windows (1386), to learn the intermediate steps through which the change of style was effected. On leaving Oxford, we will betake ourselves to the famously glazed church at Fairford, and thence journey, _viâ_ Cirencester, to Gloucester. The next point will be Great Malvern and its neighbour Little Malvern, and then over the bold uplift of the Malvern Hills to Ross. A northerly _détour_ will take us first to Warwick and then to Coventry, which will probably conclude this tour, for although York appears as the last of this series, it is so placed for the sake of regularity, and only for those who may not have taken the first or second tours. York was visited on both of those, and occasion was given to inspect the Perpendicular glass which there abounds. [Illustration: MAP OF PERPENDICULAR TOUR] In addition to the places just mentioned there are three so situated as to make it inconvenient to include them in this tour--Salisbury, Winchester, and St. Neot (Cornwall). Salisbury has already been visited on our Early English tour. Winchester lies well to the south near Southampton, while St. Neot is off in the west, a few miles beyond Plymouth. These two towns should, however, be on no account omitted, even though each require a separate trip. OXFORD An account of the Decorated glass at Oxford will be found at p. 129. Having visited Merton, and, by examining its Decorated glass, concluded our second tour, we must address ourselves to the third one, devoted to the Perpendicular period. Nothing could be easier. We have only to walk as far as New College to see how the forces of transition performed their work, and then to All Souls' Chapel to study the fully fledged product of the Perpendicular glazier. New College is picturesquely alluring to all who visit Oxford, thanks to the agreeable manner in which the college buildings are set off by attractive gardens enclosed within remnants of the ancient city walls. This corner of the old ramparts owes its preservation to a covenant for its upkeep between the Founder and the city. We glass-lovers will remark that in similar fashion a very advantageous placing enhances the beauty of the glass which we are about to see. It is contained in the antechapel, which adjoins the chapel proper on the west and opens into it. A dim passage-way leads to the small portal by which one enters, admirably preparing our eyes to appreciate the beauty of the glazing. There is also some later work in the main chapel, but it is fortunately shut off from our observation by a conveniently placed screen, thus enabling us to enjoy the antechapel and its glazing without any distraction. The original glass that once filled the large window in the middle of the antechapel's west wall is now stored in boxes at that other foundation of William of Wykeham, Winchester College, Winchester, having been removed to make room for an ambitious effort by Sir Joshua Reynolds. All the other embrasures retain the original glazing, given about 1386 by the Founder, whose name frequently appears thereon. Let us not be drawn into the violent discussion which has so long raged on the subject of the rival merits of the earlier and later glazing. All glaziers condemn the work of the great Sir Joshua, and even most art critics agree with Horace Walpole that the painting of this large subject is "washy." He has confined himself to the use of browns, greys, and some pink in depicting the Virtues and the other figures assembled in his composition; but, as was to be expected from one who was only a painter, and not also a glazier, he used so much paint as to interfere perceptibly with the translucence of the glass. Nevertheless, the writer, although he vastly prefers the earlier windows, frankly states that he began by liking the west one best. The advantage which stained glass windows have over paintings on canvas is that while the latter have only colour the former have both colour and light. For this reason one should be disposed to admit a great deal on behalf of this picture painted by a great artist on a medium which adds light to his colour. There is no good reason why we should quarrel with a man who begins by preferring Sir Joshua's window, because it may lead him to become interested in stained glass. Almost every one unlearned in our subject admires this west window;--if he will but come with us we will promise sooner or later to open his eyes to far greater beauties, which he will grow to love in the seeing! For those who have learned to enjoy the Wykeham windows more than their showier neighbour, it is suggested that there are two points from which to view them so as to eliminate the contrasting presence of the later one--either stand close to the small entrance door, or else near the chapel screen so that one of the columns comes between you and the west window. Thus one sees only the Wykeham glazing, and that, too, in a frame of mind receptive of the Latin legends which unceasingly beseech us to pray for him. This glass is not only beautiful, but very important, because it clearly illustrates the transition from the Decorated to the Perpendicular. The sixty-four personages ensconced in their canopies, while possessing traits of both schools, demonstrate clearly how naturally one led into the other. The figures are not yet well drawn, are rudely posed, and are still strongly coloured. Although there is a general flatness in the composition, indicative of the earlier school, tapestries are already hung across the backs of the little niches, and handsome ones too, with crowned initials powdered over them. So, too, pedestals appear below the canopies, although, of course, not yet so complete or elaborate as those to be seen presently in All Souls' Chapel. The canopies themselves are more robust and not so finished as will be later encountered. An examination of the method of shading also bears witness to a transition, for there is observable both smear and stipple work. The learned Winston makes a very interesting argument to the effect that the panels have been considerably changed about since their original placing, based on the seemingly disordered arrangement of the six varieties of canopies, the unusual order of displaying the Apostles, &c. For us who are less enlightened, however, the chief interest of this delightful series is in the general harmony of the colour scheme, the judgment shown in adjusting the figures to the canopies, and both to the embrasures, and the graceful use of the written scrolls. [Illustration: _Taunt, photo._ NEW COLLEGE ANTECHAPEL, OXFORD Transition window presented by William of Wykeham, Founder of the College. Stone frames are already Perpendicular: note the "pepper-box" tracery lights. The glazing, as usual, lags behind the architecture, and, because of its strong colour and flat drawing, is more Decorated than Perpendicular] The dining-hall possesses some interesting coats of arms glazed into seven of its large lights. Half of these are contemporaneous with the Founder, among them appearing his arms and those of his See; the other half are of the time of Henry VIII. From "the High" we enter All Souls' College, undaunted by the scathing comment of Humphrey Prideaux in 1674, that "All Souls' is a scandalous place and full of fast gentlemen." Without stopping to remark the beauty of the full-domed Radcliffe Library, rising beyond the graceful stone screen that walls in the westerly side of All Souls' inner quadrangle, we press on to the chapel at the further end. We shall not spend much time over the windows of the chapel proper, for they contain nothing of interest, but for this there is ample compensation in the splendid display all about the antechapel that opens off to the west. It is true that some of the panels have been restored, but this has been done so judiciously and patterned so closely after the originals that it is not only no detriment, but, on the contrary, enables us to enjoy a completed whole. As was to be expected, figures within canopies meet our eyes on all sides. Owing to the date of their manufacture, the depicted architecture of the shrines is very elaborately worked out. Pedestals are provided, and in the westerly embrasures we find small supplemental and supporting canopies on each side of the principal ones, which latter, however, alone contain figures. These western lights show more restoration than the others. There is a great deal of red and blue everywhere, not only in the backgrounds, but even in the pedestals below. The four large windows (each containing a double row of three lancets) in the easterly wall are, perhaps, more interesting than their more elaborate neighbours. Especially note, in the one just north of the choir entrance, the charming group of Salome and two children in the lowest panel on the left. Most pleasing of all is the scene of St. Mary, with two children in her arms and two more at her feet, in the right-hand lowest panel of the most northerly of these east windows. The glass here is so conveniently placed as to afford every facility for studying details, thus preparing us admirably for the highly interesting tour upon which we are about to set out. FAIRFORD Lying in the midst of a pleasing but tame countryside the little village of Fairford has nothing to recommend it to the seeker after the unusual but the windows of its parish church. This glass is not only historically famous, but also very complete and beautiful. On the outer side of the little church door we are still in the midst of the commonplace, nothing rises above the level of the unimportant; once inside that modest portal, what a change do we not experience! Around us on every side and above in the clerestory opens out a complete series of windows--harmonious, excellent, delightful! And to add unneeded supplement to the charm that meets the eye, our ears are regaled with the strange tale of how these lovely panels found themselves here, and why they so perfectly fit the church. This latter query is answered most simply--the church was built to provide embrasures for these treasures. The records state that Richard Tame caused the building to be erected and finished in 1493 expressly for this glass, which had been captured at sea from a Dutch vessel. From the same source we also learn that his son, who died in 1534, completed the building--a rather anomalous statement for, if it was finished in 1493, it would not seem to have needed a further completion by the son. It is to the windows themselves one must turn for some explanation of this seeming contradiction. Although but little comment has hitherto been made upon the subject, the writer was struck by the lack of any similarity between the figure-and-canopy windows in the western half of the church (including the clerestory), and those around the eastern half. The former show a conscientious following of Perpendicular conventions and a careful attention to the proper use of colours, but the latter enjoy an easy victory in style, combination of hues and general artistic appreciation of the possibilities of glass. The sexton relates the usual legend about Albrecht Dürer having designed this latter series, but it is probably no truer here than elsewhere in England, for it is the customary tale one hears about German glass. There is no doubt, however, that in composition and style it differs noticeably from anything made north of the Channel. While the figure-and-canopy work is clearly of the fifteenth century, it must be admitted that if the windows in the eastern part of the church be likewise of that period, then they certainly represent an early manifestation of a style that did not generally prevail until the sixteenth century. May not this very difference help to explain the second "completion" of the church? Suppose we credit Richard Tame with having secured the canopy windows for the edifice he completed in 1493, and leave to his son the honour of having added the series showing later attributes when he finally finished the structure in 1534. The first windows may have been captured in the way reported in the legend, and the later ones secured in some other manner from the Continent, for it is known that most of the sixteenth century glass in England was procured from foreign sources. Let us leave this moot point to be conclusively decided by others, and turn to observing and enjoying the glass. The shape of the church is unusual and requires a brief word of description in order to understand the placing of the windows. The westerly half consists of the regulation nave with a broad aisle on each side. Above the nave runs a glazed clerestory, which, of course, does not extend over the aisles. There are no transepts. At the middle of the church just where the nave ends there rises the tower, of the same width as the nave. The clerestory stops on the nave side of this tower; there is no clerestory above the eastern half of the church. This easterly half is the same width as that to the west, but it is all open and not separated into aisles like the other part. In the southerly wall of the building are six windows and a door, and in the northerly, seven windows. The clerestory has four lights of three lancets on each side. Canopies containing figures standing upon pedestals and with gracefully written scrolls about them are to be found in all the clerestory windows, and also below in the four most westerly aisle windows on each side. The figures on the north of the clerestory represent Roman emperors, and above in the traceries are little devils on a red ground. Opposite them on the south appear Martyrs and Prophets of the Faith, appropriately attended in the traceries above by angels on a blue ground. All the windows thus far described are clearly fifteenth century; the workmanship is good but not of such marked excellence as is shown in the eastern part of the church. These latter evidence remarkably skilful designing, and, furthermore, demonstrate that the artist understood the medium in which he had to work out his cartoons. They lean strongly towards the Renaissance type: the colours used are very good, especially some of the greens. Most of the subjects on the north are taken from the life of the Virgin, while opposite, across the choir, appear scenes from the life of Christ, such as the Last Supper, the Miraculous Draught of Fishes, &c. The sexton delights to tell the visitor that the towers in the background of the last-named scene are faithful counterfeits of the towers of Nuremburg, thus proving conclusively (except to hypercritical cavillers) that Albrecht Dürer designed them. The story is picturesque, but it is fortunate that the good man never saw Nuremburg, or his conscience might force the suppression of this agreeable fiction. It must be admitted, however, that some of this glass is sufficiently excellent to have been designed by that great master. The five-lanceted window that fills the end of the little eastern extension behind the altar has five scenes across its lower half, while above them, occupying the entire width of the embrasure, is a fine Crucifixion. The original background has been replaced by white glass, which enables us to appreciate all the more readily how well the picture is composed. The flowing garments and certain other details are very German in character, while some of the implements displayed are purely Teutonic--_e.g._, the swinging mace, showing the spiked ball hanging from the handle by a chain. The perspective displayed in all these scenes is noticeably good. We must pass to the other end of the church in order to see its most entertaining window, at least to all those not deeply interested in the intricacies of technique. It fills the western end of the nave just above the portal, and is one of the rare sort known as "doom windows." There is here set forth a most edifying demonstration in glowing colours of what will some day happen to those who are not wise enough to be good! Even Foxe's "Book of Martyrs" cannot provide the exhilarating horrors that the numerous ingeniously minded devils here afford. Most delightful is the enthusiasm and earnestness with which they are carrying on their presumably daily toil of keeping Hades up to its unpleasant reputation. CIRENCESTER If the account of this town is not to be read aloud, everything will pass off peacefully, but if sound is going to be given to written words, then our trouble will begin at once, for the methods of pronouncing its name have led to unlimited discussion. All the disputants may be divided into two camps, in one the educated and refined citizens of the town, who pronounce the word as it is spelt, and are aided and abetted therein by all non-residents, while in the other camp we shall find an agreeable company, headed by the late William Shakespeare, and consisting of all the humbler townspeople and the country folk residing near by. This latter group prefer the sound, which, reduced to spelling, approximates "Cisseter." Notwithstanding this centuries-long dispute, the town has declined in importance since the days of the Romans! Then it was the cross-roads of three great highways, and when one reflects that the Roman road was even more potential in its developing effect upon territory than the modern railway, it is easy to see the advantages that Cirencester enjoyed over towns not so favoured. While considering this practical feature there must not be forgotten the romantic glamour lent by the legend that King Arthur was crowned here. The parish church is particularly delightful, not only because of its characteristically Perpendicular Gothic exterior, but also because of the logical way in which that same style has been carried out within, especially in the charming fan tracery of the vaults. The stained glass must be studied in detail in order to yield a full appreciation of its beauty, for we must not expect to find here the splendid _ensemble_ often seen elsewhere. There are few places in the land where Perpendicular glass shows so clearly the delicacy of both design and colour which the art achieved in England during that epoch. This fact is borne home with marked emphasis because we are viewing it immediately after an examination of the much better designed but less delicately painted windows of Fairford. As a result of this careful treatment of tint and drawing there is derived an unexpectedly satisfactory result from the collection of figures in canopies assembled in the five tall lancets of the east window. Seen from the nave this collection is quite cool and silvery, and does not betray its composite nature. Where the ancient heads have been lost or destroyed, their space has been frankly filled with white glass. Toward the bottom are eight small panels containing kneeling donors. The large west window is also a composite one, but here honesty proves to have been the worst possible policy, because the original background having been lost, they filled in between the canopies with splotches of hideous modern blue! Of course this kills any chance for the softly toned effect which we have often observed as the chief charm of the perfected canopy style. In this instance it is peculiarly unfortunate, because the canopies are carefully worked out in detail, showing as many little spires above them as we shall find later at Great Malvern. The figures which they enclose repay study. The centre three in the lower row are almost enveloped by broad written scrolls, which lend a most decorative effect. In the pedestals below the figures are little open galleries containing diminutive kneeling donors, very modestly and appropriately displayed. The colours here are noteworthy, especially the rich deep red in the robe of the cardinal at the top of the second lancet from the north; in the second to the south notice the combination of the mulberry gown, blue cape, and golden halo. The use of the leads to delineate folds in the cloth is as good as the colouring. It is evident that no mean artist produced these satisfactory results, but it is fortunate for him that he cannot see the atrocious blue that now strives to off-set his delightful work. In the chapel to the right of the chancel, the most easterly embrasure on the north has its three lancets filled with agreeably arranged figures and fragments. Being on a level with the eye of the observer, this glazing can be examined closely. Note the careful adjustment of the leads to suit the drawing of the hands in the right-hand lower corner. It is so evident that this glazier thoroughly understood his art that we are not surprised at the richness of the reds and the blues, or the mellow strength of his yellow stain. It is easy to deduce from the Cirencester windows the lesson that design is not so important as colour, and that, while excellent effects can be produced by a collection of well-toned fragments, the best design done in bad colouring is sure to be unsatisfactory. GLOUCESTER In our wanderings to see glass we have observed how many and varied were the reasons for the presentation of those splendid offerings to religious edifices, and also that these reasons are often storied upon the windows themselves. Wide as is the range of such causes it is reserved for Gloucester Cathedral to show us an ancient window erected to commemorate the winning of a great battle. Thanks to the painstaking studies of Charles Winston (1863), backed by his exhaustive knowledge of heraldry, it is now known that the great expanse of coloured glass at the eastern end of the Gloucester chancel is a thank-offering for the epoch-making victory at Crécy of the little army of English over the French hosts. How incongruous it seems that such a feat of arms should be commemorated in this mild manner! The mind wanders off from this glorious wall of colour back to a certain cloudy afternoon in August 1346. Edward III. and his young son the Black Prince, with a force of only eight thousand Englishmen, had swept triumphantly through Normandy up to the very gates of Paris. There the presence of a huge army of French and mercenaries forced them to turn northward toward the Flemish border. Fatigued by their dashing campaign, they were overtaken and brought to bay by the French at Crécy, about fifteen miles east of Abbeville. In the very front of the French hosts was stationed a body of 15,000 Genoese crossbowmen who, by their discharge of arrows, were to disconcert the English, and disorder their ranks preparatory to the onslaught of the French knights. Suddenly a great storm breaks upon the embattled armies, terrifying the Genoese unaccustomed to the thunder, lightning and driving rainbursts of a northern tempest. Nor is this all, for when the storm passes and the sun darts out from behind the clouds, the Genoese, ordered to discharge their crossbows, find to their dismay that the bowstrings are rain-soaked and cannot be drawn. Just at this juncture the English archers, taking their bows from water-tight cases, loose such a pestilential shower of arrows upon the already harassed Genoese that they break and flee, throwing into the wildest confusion the ranks of the Frenchmen behind them. Effective as were the bows of the English archers, the long knives of the Welshmen prove equally so, stabbing the horses of the French and thus placing the riders _hors de combat_. Together these two bands of yeomen reverse the verdict of centuries of warfare;--they show the armoured knight to be an anachronism, and thus in one day feudalism begins to totter to its fall. The moment has come for the charge of the English chivalry. On they dash, led by the sixteen-year-old Black Prince. They fall upon the already panic-stricken French and what has been a battle becomes a rout. The king witnessed the conflict from a windmill on a ridge, being desirous that his son alone might have the glory of the victory. It is doubtful if the annals of chivalry record a finer scene than the meeting of the king and the Black Prince after the battle. In the blaze of the great camp-fires, and before the whole army, the father embraced his son, and would have given him alone the praise, but the Prince "bowed to the ground and gave all the honour to the king his father." Ten years later we find him of the same generous nature, for, in the evening after the great victory at Poitiers, he caused the captured King John of France and his son to be seated, and standing behind, served them himself, modestly refusing to join in their repast. Long since hushed is the din of that ancient strife, unless perhaps an harmonious echo thereof comes to us from the great east window. Along its lower panes are displayed the shields of the Black Prince and the Earls of Warwick and Oxford, who were with him in the 1st Division on that glorious day, and of the Earls of Arundel and Northampton who led the 2nd Division (the 3rd being in command of King Edward III. himself). In this brave array we also find the shields of Thomas Lord de Berkeley, his brother Sir Maurice de Berkeley, Richard Lord Talbot, and Thomas Lord Bradeston, who all served in this expedition. Here, also, are the arms of the Earls of Lancaster and Pembroke, who, although at that time fighting in the south at Aiguillon in Guienne, were included as companions-in-arms of the same war. In this beautiful manner the glory and gallant memory of these knights are preserved within this stately cathedral, far removed from the din and carnage, the hissing flight of arrows, the clang of the forward dash of knights, the clash of steel on steel, the battle-cries, and the mingled roar of retreating hosts hotly pursued by exultant victors. Here they dwell for ever in the midst of a great peace: around the grey walls and sturdy tower are the quiet walks, the green swards, the leafy foliage of a peaceful England--an England preserved inviolate from foreign invasion by the splendid deeds of these gallant warriors, and many another like them. So modestly are their blazons set out along the lower part of the great window that the story of their gift and its giving was forgotten, and lay hidden for centuries until rediscovered by Mr. Winston. Much as our windows have hitherto revealed to us of quaint episode and romantic story, never have we happened upon so portentous a memory, nor one which so richly deserved this magnificent tribute. Its huge expanse of 72 by 38 feet is only rivalled by that of the east window of York (78 by 33 feet). Well did Winston say, "I know of no window so likely as this to improve by a long contemplation the taste of modern glass-painters and their patrons." [Illustration: _J. Valentine, photo._ CHOIR, GLOUCESTER CATHEDRAL Great east window commemorative of knights who fought at Crécy. Backgrounds of pink and soft blue. Tracery lights no longer differentiated from window below, as during decorated period. Note elaborate masking of earlier walls by later Perpendicular work] A great deal of really fine glass is so badly placed as to appeal only to the student, and not to the sightseer, but at Gloucester this masterpiece exhibits itself to the greatest advantage. One should not speak of this vast window as being in the eastern wall, for it is so large that it takes the place of that wall. In fact it is somewhat wider than the interior of the church at that point, which for this reason has had its side walls slightly slanted out to receive the window. How great is this disparity in size may be estimated if one sights along the inside of either side wall, for you will miss entirely the outermost tier of glass panels. The superficial area of the glass is also increased by a slight bowing outward of the window structure. Behind and to the east of this end of the cathedral was later built a Lady chapel which, however, opens through into the older church. Of course the shadow of this later structure could not help but fall upon the east window, and to that extent obscure it, but what might have proved a serious defect was avoided by stationing the chapel somewhat to the east of the older building, and also by not beginning the coloured canopied figures upon the east window until above the line of shadow cast by the Lady chapel. The panes below that line are glazed in white bordered by colour, here and there relieved by the coats of arms already mentioned. Viewed from the crossing this great window is more than delightful. Row upon row of canopy-framed personages on red or blue backgrounds, are stationed one above another in splendid profusion. Many of the books class it with the Decorated period, although always explaining that its looks belie that early dating. Our errand is to see how windows look, and therefore, because its stone framework is so obviously Perpendicular, as is also the delicacy of the tones of its glass (particularly in the canopies), it would be unwise for us to consider it otherwise than as an early manifestation of the later style. It is very Perpendicular in its lines and its colouring, and absolutely unlike the deep rich windows at Tewkesbury, Bristol and Wells, which are so typically Decorated. We must remember that the glazier had to conform to the styles of the architect, and because it was the latter who inaugurated the changes he was, perforce, always in advance of the glazier, which helps to explain why some of the details of the glass design are more archaic than the stone framework. Looking eastward from the crossing, we can see through below this great window and above the altar into the ample Lady chapel beyond. Passing on into that chapel, we at once observe its most prominent feature, the east window, constructed during the latter part of the fifteenth century, a clearly marked example of the Perpendicular. The colouring is here much richer than we are accustomed to find in English work of this time, in fact it reminds one of contemporary French windows. The figures within the canopies are more varied, and occur in groups, thus differing widely from the almost monotonous similarity of the softer toned solitary figures upon the choir window. In the north aisle of the nave the third, fifth and fifteenth embrasures from the west provide us with marked examples of the Perpendicular. Double sets of pinnacles, two-storeyed pedestals, jewels separately leaded into the borders of robes, &c., show a distinct advance upon the earlier and simpler methods of the great wall of glazing in the choir. One should remark the Decorated work on the easterly side of both transepts. The clerestory lights are glazed in quarries with coloured borders, while above them the tracery embrasures are not only like those at Tewkesbury, but are also glazed in the same fashion, white lines wound about on a red ground; we have remarked the same treatment at Bristol and Wells. Even a brief glance about this great sanctuary reveals that huge sums must have been spent not only in veiling the older walls with the later Decorated work, but also in the elaboration which is everywhere noticeable. Nor is it difficult to understand how sufficient funds for this purpose were collected when one considers the vast store of gold, silver, and jewels brought here as offerings by pilgrims to the tomb of the murdered King Edward II. We must not depart without having a walk about the charming cloisters, which are by many considered the most beautiful in England. GREAT MALVERN Great Malvern lies on the easterly slope of the famous Malvern Hills, which run nearly north and south, and form the western barrier of the Severn Valley. Its site provides a pleasant and far-reaching prospect of smiling country, dotted here and there with the towers of Worcester, Gloucester, Tewkesbury and many another town and hamlet. So lofty are these hills that the views from their summits are hardly to be equalled elsewhere in England; indeed, it is reckoned that on a fine day one can look into a dozen counties. The three chief heights have long been known as Worcester Beacon, Hereford Beacon, and Gloucester Beacon, each named after the county in which it stands. Peaceful as is this delightful scene, certain of the memories which it awakens are those of warlike strife, for one can see from this vantage-point six of the great battlefields of England--Edgehill, Worcester, Evesham, Tewkesbury, Shrewsbury, and Mortimer's Cross. Nor are these the only reminders of warlike deeds, for about the top of two of those great eminences run encircling lines of strong earthworks, known to have existed since the time of the early Britons, if, indeed, they do not antedate them--eloquently silent proof of how long men have realised that this fair land is worth fighting for. Wonderful and inspiring is the view that unfolds itself before the eye of the traveller when he has reached the topmost point of the road and pauses before descending to Great Malvern. No wonder that William Langland selects this site for the slumber which yielded him that marvellous dream which he describes in his "Vision of Piers Plowman" (1362). He says: "On a May mornege · on Malverne hulles, I was wery forwandred · and went me to reste Under a brode banke · bi a bornes side, And as I lay and lened · and loked in ye wateres I slombred in a slepyng." Tradition tells us that he learned the profession of clerk in Great Malvern Priory, and there composed his splendid poem. His attempt to correct the abuses of his times accords more readily with the work of one contemporary, John Wyclif (who about 1380 gave the people the Bible in English), than it does with the merry "Canterbury Tales," written in 1387 by that Court favourite Chaucer. We have already encountered that jovial soul during our visit to the early glass of Canterbury. It is significant that in a work which produced such a marked effect upon its time as "Piers Plowman," frequent testimony is given to show the esteem in which stained glass was then held. Whenever church decoration is mentioned by any of his characters, they almost invariably dwell longer on this feature than upon any other. The Franciscan monk speaks of his church: "With gay glitering glas Glowying as the sunne." In similar fashion the Dominican brother is made to say: "Wyde wyndowes y-wrought, y-wryten ful thikke, Shynen with shapen sheldes." A severe rap is given at those who glaze windows in order "Hevene to have," and vain-glorious souls are urged not "To writen in wyndowes Of youre wel dedes." But let us, like Langland, arouse ourselves from the reverie superinduced by this wondrous outlook, and wend our way down the side of the great hill to the Priory Church. Although its more famous windows date from a century later than Langland's day, it may well be that his eye was gladdened by the older glass in the south aisle of the chancel. It is certainly fine enough to have attracted his notice, and one may safely assume that he loved glass, else his lines would not so frequently refer to it. Before observing the Perpendicular glazing in which this building abounds, let us consider that of the Decorated epoch in the three embrasures that light the southerly wall of the aisle chapel south of the choir, and which were there in Langland's time. The most westerly of these three is filled with heads and _débris_, formerly in other parts of the church. We shall have a treat in the two windows adjoining this to the east. Each contains a dozen small scenes from the Old Testament, the four lancets of each window subdividing these scenes into three rows of four each. The backgrounds are diapered red or blue, and a crude border of architecture surrounds each. The drawing is crisp and the colours are strong and good. Note particularly the red in the "Naming of the Fowls"; also observe Noah sending forth the dove, while various sorts of animals crowd about his feet. The rich tones, the crudeness of the canopy work, and sundry other signs unmistakably mark this glazing as Decorated. The corresponding chapel on the north side of the chancel has lost all its ancient glass, except a little in the tracery lights. The chief beauty of the interior is the delightful east window, whose stout central mullion, two-thirds of the way up, divides and inclines outward to right and left until it touches the frame. A charmingly soft colour scheme is here used, quite in the best manner of the Perpendicular epoch. It is difficult to puzzle out the original order of the figures and canopies, for the window was greatly damaged during the prevalence of the playful custom, many years ago, of permitting the village urchins to throw stones at it! Although the design has been injured, nothing could spoil the colour effect. Viewed from a proper distance the whole presents an appearance of tender grey, mellowed by soft blue, with here and there a note of red. The tracery lights escaped practically unscathed, and each contains a complete figure and canopy. This great central embrasure is flanked on both the north and the south by three large clerestory lights, the glazing of the southerly ones being much less complete than that of their neighbours across the chancel, where the figure and canopy work is excellent, and the combination of tints remarkably good. The side columns of the shrines are broader than is customary, while at the top are an unusual number of pinnacles, as many as fifteen being noted in one case. These little spires are shown to advantage against backgrounds of soft blue and pink. At the top of the north-west window is the martyrdom of St. Woerstan, in the background of which appear the Malvern Hills. The next most important glass occupies the large embrasure at the end of the north transept, which, however, is somewhat reduced from its original proportions by having the lower panels in some of the side lancets walled up. The glass here is not so disarranged as in the east window, and we are able to decipher portraits of Henry VII., his queen, and members of his family. Something out of the ordinary is the large blue corona spread over the central part, serving to tie three of the lancets into one picture. Interesting details occur in the "Adoration of the Magi" (third from the right in lower row). In the west wall at the north-west corner of this transept are single figures in canopy, two rows of three each, one above the other. The great west window is filled with fragments brought from the nave clerestory, and is mostly figures and canopies. Taken as a whole, the glass in this church provides a delightful experience. It is very typical of the lighter tones that came in with the Perpendicular style, but its greatest service is in teaching the lesson that, no matter how much a window's design may have suffered, it will carry its message of beauty, if only the original colour scheme be sound. The fine encaustic tiles, not only in the flooring, but also set in the walls, are of local make. Some date from the fourteenth century, and others from the fifteenth, at which latter time Great Malvern enjoyed a wide reputation for their manufacture. Other examples may be seen at Little Malvern and at Tewkesbury. LITTLE MALVERN About three miles from the centre of Great Malvern lies the hamlet of Little Malvern, dominated by its priory, now used as a parish church. Of the original building, built by the Benedictines, little now remains but the chancel and a great perpendicular tower, separated from it by an oakwood screen rich with carved vines. The chief attraction, however, is the east window, which, on the whole, is well preserved. Its story can best be told in the words of that ancient writer Nash: "The windows were curiously painted, rivalling those of Great Mal. In the E. wind. of the choir are 6 large compartments: in the middle one is represented Edward IV. in a robe of ermine with an imperial crown on his head; in the next compartment is his queen with a like diadem; in the pane between them is painted his oldest son, afterwards Edward V., his surcoat azure and his robe gules turned down and lined with ermine; and in the next panel is his brother Richard, Duke of York, his surcoat also gules, and his robe azure turned down one row to the feet, on his head a Duke's coronet." ROSS Twenty-seven miles below Hereford on the Wye (but only fifteen by road), there rises a small but steep bluff overlooking the sinuous windings of the river, and straggling down from its top is built the town of Ross. Pope, in his "Moral Essays," would give the credit for every one of the town's agreeable features to a certain John Kyrle, who died in 1724 at the advanced age of ninety. The elaborately thorough Pope credits him with all the civic virtues, and appends an inventory of benefits, which includes the benches disposed along the hill's brow for those wishing to view the landscape, the causeways, bridges, &c., not omitting minute charities to the villagers. Some members of the legal and medical professions may join the writer in esteeming the poet fortunate in that he did not fall into our clutches after he had penned the following lines: "Is any sick? the Man of Ross relieves, Prescribes, attends, the med'cine makes, and gives. Is there a variance; enter but his door, Balk'd are the Courts, and contest is no more. Despairing Quacks with curses fled the place, And vile Attorneys, now an useless race." This public benefactor lies buried in the northern side of the chancel, and near by there comes through an opening in the wall a large vine, rooted outside but bearing its leaves within the church. The glass here is limited in extent but very delicate and charming. It fills the eastern end of the chancel, which extends a short distance further to the east than do the two ample additions opening out from each side of that central portion of the church. These chancel windows are composed of four lancets each, and the treatment is the same throughout, viz., a single figure within a canopy. The personages are of good size, occupying about half of the entire height of the canopy. Because the windows are near the ground, Ross affords an excellent opportunity to examine the peculiarly delicate drawing on English glass at this time, which far excelled any contemporary French work. The architectural details of the canopies are carefully worked out, and each is surmounted by seven slender pinnacles standing out clearly against their red background. Up the sides and into the cusps of each lancet runs a light border. A very sober use is made of the tints throughout, yielding a harmonious _ensemble_ of colour, well set off by the soft brownish shades used in the depicted architecture. WARWICK Warwick Castle should be visited in order to inspect one of the most perfectly preserved strongholds of the Middle Ages, the many features of interest which it contains and its picturesque situation on the river Avon, rather than for the small amount of domestic stained glass (of the grey and yellow stain type) to be found in the long corridor and large banquet-room. Although worth seeing if one is there, it is not of sufficient importance to cause a special visit. There are also some well-preserved panels showing coats of arms at the Leicester Hospital, but this is a form of glazing frequent in England, and it is no better here than in many other places. There is, however, glass of great value and beauty in the famous Beauchamp Chapel which adjoins, on the south, the chancel of St. Mary's Church. Much interest is added to this glazing, because the contract for it (dated June 23, 1447) is so full of details and specifications as to throw valuable light on the conditions and requirements of the craft at that time. After one's eyes have become accustomed to the soft-hued English Perpendicular glass, then in the height of its favour, it is very difficult to realise that these windows, with their strong colouring, are of the same period as the delicately toned ones which we have seen at Great Malvern and elsewhere. The explanation is provided in the contract. It there appears that the executors of Richard Earl of Warwick were not satisfied with the then prevailing English system of soft tints, and also that they were sufficiently advised of the state of the art on the other side of the Channel to realise that the richer hues which they demanded could be obtained in France, even though it was impossible or difficult in England. We read that they required the glazier, John Prudde of Westminster, to work "with Glasse beyond the Seas, and with no Glasse of England." Again and again they insist on richness of hue; not only must he glaze "in most fine and curious colours," but it is specified just what he shall use, for they provide him with a selection "of the finest colours of blew, yellow, red, purpure, sanguine and violet, and all other colours that shall be most necessary." They require that his designs be made by another artist, and even those must be "in rich colouring." The contract contains another criticism of earlier English methods, for they say "of white Glasse, green Glasse, black Glasse, he shall put in as little as shall be needful." He complied with his requirements pretty strictly, and further, he used a glass so hard and tough that its surface has resisted the disintegration which the weather so frequently caused in English glass of that period. Unfortunately all the ancient panes are not in place. The entire east window is filled with them, although a close scrutiny reveals that several of its panels are brought from side windows. Along the sides of the chapel the original glazing is only to be found in the tracery lights and the upper parts of the embrasures, what little there was left in the lower panes having been used to eke out the east window. The effect of this latter is complete and splendid. The richness of its colours is assisted by the golden rays which are so plentiful in the central part of the picture. The use of the leads is very elaborated and painstaking, many of the folds of the garments being delineated in this laborious manner. Two schemes are used for the backgrounds, one, red with lozenge-shaped squares enclosed by white and gold strapwork, and the other, blue with similarly bordered squares. Note in the traceries the red angels, poised upon golden wheels. The most striking feature of this tracery glazing is the liberal use throughout of written music, generally supported by angels. In some instances psalms are written on the white sheets, but more often it is staves of notes. Above the most easterly pair of windows on each side are groups of angels playing musical instruments and walking about on a blue sky dotted over with white stars, much resembling the apples on the trees of children's storybooks. One should observe what an agreeable use is made of these small angels that people the traceries. The glazier has skilfully avoided the ugly effect which would have been produced had the white sheets of music or psalms been continued in a horizontal line around the chapel, and has so waved this white line up and down that it becomes as decorative as the labels so common in German glazing. This appearance of music on glass is rare in England and rarer still in France. The rich colours demanded by the Earl's executors must have produced a splendid effect in this chapel when all the embrasures were glazed as sumptuously as is the east window. Enough remains, however, to make the Beauchamp Chapel an important station in any stained glass pilgrimage. On the other side of the chancel is the vestry, into whose small east window have been collected six diminutive panels formerly in the chancel's east window. They date from 1370 and contrast markedly with some small enamelled scenes in white and yellow stain (dated 1600) placed in the same embrasure with them. While the contrast is too sharp to be agreeable, we are afforded a comfortable, near-at-hand opportunity to observe the great strides which this craft took during that interval of time. COVENTRY An English friend of a flippant turn of mind once remarked to the writer that the three most famous rides in English history were undoubtedly the Charge of the Light Brigade, John Gilpin's famous infringement of speed regulations, and Lady Godiva's effort on behalf of the citizens of Coventry--and that the last was the most praiseworthy, because it had really accomplished something! Viewed in this light, the episode of Lady Godiva passes from a matter of local interest to the higher plane of national pride;--upon the equity of this promotion it is certain that every citizen of quaint Coventry will agree. If, peradventure, there shall have intruded into our company any who love not glass, let us protest with Falstaff, "I'll not march through Coventry with them, that's flat." The distant prospect of that Warwickshire city is beautified by the three famous spires that proudly thrust their red sandstone peaks high above the huddled housetops. The ancient flavour of the place is preserved for us by the numerous old houses, one of which has in its topmost window a wooden figure, "Peeping Tom," that wicked exception who proved the rule that the worthy citizens could be relied upon to be loyal and true even under the application of that most searching test, curiosity. One of the three great spires rises from St. Michael's Church, a building of very great size, about whose spacious interior are disposed many Perpendicular fragments, some arranged in bands along the clerestory, and others filling two windows (each of four lancets) that face each other in the chancel. These panels afford a useful part of the decoration, even in their present kaleidoscopic condition, and their colours put to shame those of the modern windows near them. [Illustration: GUILDHALL, COVENTRY Splendid row of ancient English Kings, and below, a great tapestry. In the centre of the window and again on the tapestry appears Henry VI, who was a member of the Guild. Handsome example of mediæval hall] Just across the narrow street is one of the finest examples in England of stained glass used to decorate a municipal building devoted to secular purposes. It is to be found at the north end of St. Mary's Hall, and is as admirably placed as it is excellently composed. Across that entire end of the spacious hall is a great window occupying the whole upper half of the wall, and broken up into nine wide lancets surmounted by tracery lights of the usual Perpendicular form. Across the entire lower half of the wall is suspended a long tapestry, which we shall see accords with the subjects appearing in the glass above it. Nowhere can there be found a great window and a large tapestry used with such harmony of purpose and result. History tells us that Henry VI. took so pronounced an interest in the Guild of Coventry that he was regularly inducted into its membership in 1450, and therefore we are not surprised that his effigy occupies the middle lancet of the window. Inspection reveals that he is the central figure of a gallery of kings, for he is flanked on the left by Henry III., Richard Coeur de Lion, William the Conqueror, and King Arthur; and on the right by Edward III., Henry IV., Henry V., and the Emperor Constantine (who was born in Britain). All these royalties are in full armour, except their crowned heads, and they all stand firmly poised with their feet well apart. The backgrounds are unusually interesting, and consist of upright strips of red and blue separated by narrow lines of yellow, the strips being sprinkled over with the letter M, because St. Mary is the patron saint of the hall. These figures all stand beneath canopies, and in the traceries above is still other canopy work, serving as background for gaily tinctured coats of arms. One, displaying a black eagle upon a yellow field, is said to be the blazon of Leofric, Earl of Mercia, Lady Godiva's husband, "that grim Earl who ruled in Coventry." This hall was finished in 1414, and the glazier is said to have been the same Thornton to whom we are indebted for the east window at York Minster. Henry VI. appears again in the tapestry below, this time attended by his wife, Queen Margaret of Anjou, who shared his interest in Coventry. Nor were these the only royalties to feel a kindly interest in this city, for we also read that Henry VII. and Elizabeth of York were enrolled as members of the Guild in 1499. Upon this tapestry there is gathered a numerous company of individuals attending upon Henry VI. and his wife, who are kneeling in their midst, while between them is a female figure labelled "Justitia." Local tradition says this label is a later substitute for a religious name, but whether that be true or not, a tapestry made for a Guild Hall in which justice was administered might well have originally had "Justitia" as its central figure. The harmony between the splendid window and the adjoining tapestry finds an answering note in the ancient wooden ceiling with its quaintly carved bosses, and also in the fine wooden gallery at the south end, against which are arranged many suits of armour. Our visit will not be complete without a peep into the spacious kitchen below, and also into a small muniment-room above, which is proved by a carefully preserved letter, bearing Queen Elizabeth's signature, to have once served as a prison for Mary Queen of Scots. YORK An account of the Early English glass at York will be found at p. 57, and of that of the Decorated period at p. 76. The huge choir of the cathedral abounds in splendid specimens of the glazier's art during the Perpendicular period. Here is collected all that the minster possesses of that epoch except a few fragments in the east and west aisles of the great south transept. So attractive is the manner in which the illumination of the choir is effected, as to inspire many poetic descriptions of its windows. One author says that they "remind one of particles of sunlight on running water"; another speaks of "the glittering screens of colour and soaring shafts of stone." With this latter author we are disposed to take issue upon his use of the word "glittering" in describing glass of this period, for that description more properly belongs to the earlier brightly hued mosaic medallions. In fact, so soft and delicate are the colour and design upon Perpendicular glass that one is apt to neglect the picture which it bears. Indeed, one might say that the service performed at that time by the picture was but to lend coherence to the window, or, perhaps better, to prevent the colours from being unmeaningly kaleidoscopic when viewed from near at hand. Winston says that the earliest windows in the choir date from the close of the fourteenth century, and are the third from the east in the south aisle, the third and fourth from the east in the north clerestory, and the fourth from the east in the south clerestory. Note the early Tree of Jesse of this period in the third embrasure from the west in the south choir aisle. The other windows of these aisles east of the small easterly transepts, as well as the lancets on the east side of the great westerly transepts, are from the time of Henry IV., while all the others date from Henry V. and VI., chiefly from the latter. These small easterly transepts rejoice in the possession of two large windows, one at the north and the other at the south end, the former dedicated to St. William and the latter to St. Cuthbert. In the latter, which is seventy-three feet by sixteen feet, appear members of the House of Lancaster. Beginning at the eastern end of the north aisle, we shall find that the first window possesses a few fragments, but that the next three are among the finest here, their combination of greys, browns and blues being noticeably good. The next three are paler in tone and not satisfactory. The Crucifixion at the end of this aisle in the east wall is excellent. Its companion at the east end of the south aisle is also fine in both colour and design. Observe the drawing of the heads in the second window from the east in this aisle. The last one of all is French of about the end of the sixteenth century, and was brought here from Rouen by Lord Carlisle in 1804. Fine as it undeniably is, its rich Renaissance hues do not harmonise with the lower tints of its earlier English neighbours. The examination of these minor possessions of this part of the edifice now leads us up to its crowning glory, the great east window. The nine lofty lights are subdivided into three groups of three each by two mullions thicker than the others. All these mullions are swerved above and then disposed in accordance with the best Perpendicular traditions. Like the large windows of the east transepts there is here a double plane of stonework reaching half-way up the face of the embrasure. At the point where this double stonework stops there is carried across its top a gallery right against the face of the glass. So vast is this great surface (seventy-eight feet by thirty-two feet) that the gallery would escape notice if it were not pointed out. The two hundred panels of figures which here appear depict in the upper half Old Testament scenes from the creation of the world to the death of Absalom; below are scenes from the Book of Revelations, and lowest of all a series of kings and archbishops. The contract for the glazing is dated 1405 and calls for the completion of the work in three years. Even if the rest of its great wealth of windows be disregarded, York Cathedral, by virtue of this vast screen of colour and of the exquisite group of the "Five Sisters," would rank as one of the most notable points of interest in the world for the lover of stained glass. [Illustration: EAST WINDOW, YORK MINSTER Tremendous sheet of colour, 78 by 32 feet. Lower half of stone frame built in a double plane, and carries a gallery across face of the glass] Several churches of this city also contain Perpendicular windows of great interest. We have already visited most of these to inspect their Decorated remains (_see_ p. 78), and, for the sake of regularity, will now take them up in the same order when viewing their Perpendicular glazing. All Saints' in North Street, tucked snugly away among its surrounding buildings and only accessible by means of a narrow alley, is the most interesting of all the smaller churches. It is, fortunately, in the possession of a rector (Rev. P. J. Shaw) so keenly alive to its store of beauties that he has preserved them in a handsome volume, and thus made their enjoyment possible for those who live far away. Fine as are the Decorated windows already described, the Perpendicular ones are finer still. They fill almost all the embrasures not occupied by the earlier glass. Most of them are in the usual figure-and-canopy style, although here groups generally replace the figures, and the details of the architecture are worked out in a painstaking way. A very fine one is the east window with its three lancets containing respectively St. Christopher carrying Christ, St. Ann instructing the youthful Mary, and John the Baptist, while below and in the side compartments are the donors, and in the central one a composition representing the Trinity. Still more interesting is the embrasure containing the "Six Corporal Acts of Mercy" with its engaging little groups, of which, perhaps, the quaintest is the upper central one, "Giving Drink to the Thirsty." But the most interesting of all, indeed a famous window, is the eastmost in the north aisle. It is of the kind called "Bede" window from its showing a bede or prayer for the donors. The fifteen small scenes under their squatty canopies are a most interesting representation of the last fifteen days of the world as recounted in the "Prick of Conscience" by Richard Rolle, a learned and pious writer who died 1349. The story begins at the lower left-hand corner and goes to the right. Notice the careful realism of the timid worthies in the scene whose label describes it as "ye XI day sal men come owt Of their holes and wende abowt." In St. Dennis (Walmgate) the chief remnants of Perpendicular glass are gathered in the central east window, but they are not to be compared for excellence with their earlier neighbours. So, too, in St. Martin-cum-Gregory the Perpendicular remains cannot vie with the Decorated specimens. There is, however, a fine picture of St. George killing the dragon in the central lancet of the westmost embrasure in the south aisle. Holy Trinity (Goodram Gate) has a large east window dating from about 1470, whose five roomy lancets contain single figures in the upper canopies and groups within the lower ones. Especially note the central lowest panel, for there appear three men intended to represent the Trinity. This is said to be the only instance in English glass where the Trinity is thus symbolised. On either side of this large window are smaller two-lanceted ones containing figures in canopy. All this glass is supposed to date from the reign of Henry VI., as does also that at St. Martin's (Coney Street). St. Martin's is not only valuable as affording an example of the general arrangement of designs throughout an interior, but it specially rejoices in a great west window that is a real delight. Its five lights set forth the life of St. Martin, and from the records we learn that it was erected with funds received from a bequest dated 1447. Three splendid tiers of canopies rise one above the other across the five lights, while below, where the shadow of an adjoining building might have robbed figures of their brilliancy or interest, the space is filled with elaborate quarry work. Along the clerestory are four-lanceted lights with large saintly figures upon white quarries and blazons above them, each lancet bordered in colour. Kneeling donors reveal whose piety contributed to these windows. St. Michael's (Spurrier's Gate) has quite an amount of Perpendicular glass which is in good condition owing to having been recently releaded. The windows along the south aisle beginning at the east are each four-lanceted; in the first appear the nine choirs of angels, and in the next two the genealogy of Christ. In the south-west window are Biblical scenes, while in the north-west one there has been collected heads, armorial bearings and conventional designs. Fragments have also been gathered into the south-east window, including heads of three kings and a bishop. SALISBURY At p. 30 will be found an account of the Early English glass at Salisbury. As one reads history, the kings and nobles are apt to stand out in such sharp relief against the background of less illustrious folk that one often neglects to inquire into the nature of that background, if, indeed, it be not entirely ignored. Nevertheless, the foreign campaigns of the English kings could never have been carried on without the "sinews of war," which brings us abruptly to the unromantic necessity of considering that very large portion of the community who stayed at home and paid the taxes and did other unattractive but necessary background work. Chief among these useful people were the great merchants of England, and of these none were more important than those who dealt in wool. Men of their significance in the financial world naturally lived in fine houses, so we are not surprised to find such edifices as Crosby Hall in London or the hall of John Halle at Salisbury. We read that this Halle and one other "merchant of the staple" bought all the wool that came from Salisbury Plain, which fact helps to explain how he came to be four times chosen Mayor of Salisbury, and also sent to represent the Burgesses when the king had occasion to summon Parliament in London. His handsome hall is lighted by numerous windows, retaining to this day most of their original glazing. Upon them appear sundry heraldic blazons, and also the merchant's mark of John Halle, which is repeated again on the stone transom of the great fireplace. If we are to venture a date for the building, we may select the year 1471, and for the following reasons: the records show that John Halle bought the land in 1467; the window above the fireplace displays that honest worthy in brave attire with motley hose supporting a banner whereon appear the arms of Edward IV., but surcharged with the plain label of three points, indicating that they belong to his son the Prince of Wales (murdered in the Tower); on the other window appear the arms of Warwick, the "kingmaker." Now a glance into history reveals that the Prince was born November 4, 1470, during the time that his mother was obtaining sanctuary in Westminster Abbey, his father having fled the country. Further, we know that his father returned and defeated Warwick at the battle of Barnet, April 12, 1471, which defeat cost the great Earl his life. It is fair to conjecture that the Warwick arms would not have been put upon these windows after his death, nor those of the Prince of Wales before young Edward was born, so there remains to us only the period between his birth and Warwick's death (viz., November 4, 1470 to April 12, 1471) as the probable time of the hall's erection. The embrasures were glazed in uniform manner (except the one over the fireplace already described), and they repay close examination. Within coloured borders are quarry lights across which are drawn bands slanting downward from left to right which bear the word "Drede" often repeated. Up and down the lancets are placed gaily tinted shields of arms. These slanting bands, marked with motto or single words, were not uncommon at that time; interesting examples are to be seen at Ockwell's Manor (Berks), Gatton Chapel (Surrey), and Benedict's Chapel (Peterborough), &c. It has been suggested that the word "Drede" used here is a rebus composed of the initials of the words "dominus rex Edwardus domina Elizabeth," referring to Edward IV. and his Queen. The handsome pointed roof assists the windows and the fireplace in completing a most pleasing interior, giving one a high opinion of the style in which once lived John Halle, the great wool merchant of Salisbury. WINCHESTER The oldest known road in all England is the "Pilgrim's Way" which used to run along the southern coast from the neighbourhood of Salisbury to Canterbury. In very early times it started from Stonehenge, but when that place yielded in importance to the newer settlement of Sarum, and it in turn to Salisbury, the section from Stonehenge to Alton was abandoned because of the new demands of traffic from Salisbury to Alton. Many parts of it are still easily traceable and are worth study by those interested in historic national highways. Maurice Hewlett, in that charming book in the mediæval manner, "New Canterbury Tales," has his pilgrims proceed not from London, as did Chaucer's people, but along this very road from Salisbury to Winchester and thence to Canterbury. Nothing is known of Stonehenge, the earliest starting-point of this road--it lies hidden behind the veil on the hither side of which history begins. Likewise, very ancient are the traditions which we shall find at Winchester. As we wend our way along this time-worn highway toward the latter town, we are (in the words of Le Gallienne) "now entering on a region where the names of Saxon kings are still on the lips of peasants, where the battlefields have been green for a thousand years, and the Norman Conquest is spoken of as elsewhere we speak of the French Revolution--a comparatively recent convulsion of politics." To us, pondering upon these ancient thoughts, there comes forth to meet us from Royal Winchester a strange array of "Visions, like Alcestis, Brought from underlands of memory." We seem to see Alfred the Great and his tutor St. Swithin; King Canute, whose imperious sway stopped only at controlling the tide; William of Wykeham, the great builder of cathedrals, churches and colleges; Jane Austen, friend of us all; the gentle Isaac Walton, and many another. Shades and visions of shades! Nay, even the lovely New Forest through which we are travelling seems peopled with ghosts from homes destroyed to provide space for it by the ruthless Norman conqueror William--ghosts that old legends say winged the arrow that here slew his son William Rufus. And is not Winchester itself the ghost of the kingly capitals it has been--the Saxon capital of Alfred, who here wrote the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle; the Danish capital of Canute, whose sway extended far out over Scandinavia; the Norman capital of William ruling both sides of the Channel? In harmony with this weird ghostliness is a strange story that has to do with the building of the cathedral. William's Bishop, Walkelin, received a grant from his royal master of all the wood that he could cut from the forest of Hannepings during the space of four days. When William rode forth to see how much had been removed for the purposes of the new building, he at first thought magic had been invoked, for lo! the entire forest was gone! The only magic used proved to be the great energy shown by the Bishop in collecting such a horde of workmen as to perform this tremendous feat in so short a time. Stately and impressive as is the long grey cathedral, and pregnant as are its memories, there are others in Winchester equally potent to conjure up the distant past, for in the County Hall we shall see suspended against the wall the Table Round of King Arthur and his knights. Tennyson, in his description of King Arthur's Hall, shows himself a stout advocate of how glorious a part stained glass can play in a scheme of decoration. He says: "And, brother, had you known our hall within, Broader and higher than any in all the lands! Where twelve great windows blazon Arthur's wars And all the light that falls upon the board Streams thro' the twelve great battles of our King. Nay, one there is, and at the eastern end, Wealthy with wandering lines of mount and mere Where Arthur finds the brand Excalibur." The cathedral, although giving the impression of spaciousness, does not receive full credit for its size--as a matter of fact it is the largest in England. According to the delightful English custom, it lies within a charming Close of green lawn and trees, while on one side a narrow passage called the Slype, quaintly inscribed, gives access to the Deanery, Library, &c., close by, which buildings add so much to the picturesque effect of the whole. Within the portal we shall find the remains of many ancient great ones, some in mortuary chests placed high aloft, and others interred in the customary manner beneath slabs of the pavement. Walpole justly says, "How much power and ambition under half a dozen stones!" The remains of old glass in this church are more interesting than numerous. Cromwell's ruffians here outdid themselves. Not content with their usual method of smashing the windows as high up as they could thrust their pikes, they broke open the ancient mortuary chests containing the remains of early kings and ecclesiastics, and hurled through the upper window panes the bones of Canute, William Rufus, and many another long dead ruler--a gruesome destruction indeed! The most important examples of stained glass date from just after the death of William of Wykeham (1404). So interested was this great man in our gentle art that he placed in his will minute instructions covering the glazing of the windows of his beloved cathedral. He ordains that it be commenced in the nave at the first embrasure west of the new work done by him and then proceed "bene et honeste et decenter" easterly along the south aisle and south clerestory, then, provided any money remains unexpended, the north aisle and the north clerestory. There are more remains of his beneficence on the north side than on the south. Four of his canopied figures have been moved to the first embrasure from the east in the choir clerestory. All of this glass is quite similar to that which he installed in the antechapel of New College at Oxford. There are earlier Perpendicular remains in the great west window, in those at the west end of the nave aisles, and in the first of the south aisle. If it were not for the west window with its deliciously mellow effect, Winchester would hardly have been included in this tour, for the remainder of the glass, though of interest, is not important. One should proceed eastward as far as the transept before turning to look at the west window, for thus he will be able to enjoy its effect without having first learned that it is really only a jumble of old glass put together every which way, another example of colour outlasting design. Strangely enough, its soft grey-greenish tones remind one of the Five Sisters at York, earlier by two centuries. A nearer approach not only reveals the disordered array of fragments but also permits one to remark a few of the original figures and canopies in the upper left-hand corner. The nine lofty lights are subdivided into three groups of three each by means of two of the mullions which are thicker than the others; these two swerve off to the left and right when nearing the top in the usual Perpendicular manner. An unusual feature is the fact that the mullions of the window have been carried down over the face of the stone wall below, thus agreeably tying together the wall of glass and the supporting one of stone. In this window there are two circles of geometric patterns, made up of early Decorated fragments. Glass dating from the end of the reign of Henry VI. is to be seen in the three most westerly embrasures of the clerestory on the north, and the two most easterly on the south. These latter are from six to ten inches too short for the embrasures, thus indicating that they have been transferred from elsewhere. [Illustration: NAVE, WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL The excellent effect produced by the Fifteenth Century fragments with which this window is glazed proves that colour is more important than design in glass. Note swerving to right and left of two principal mullions, thus relieving a monotony of upright lines] Our first glance toward the east makes one inclined to quarrel with what seems to be the excessive height of the gracefully carved reredos, which appears to encroach upon the east window and to leave only so much of it visible as to make it too wide for its height. A closer view exculpates the reredos, for it turns out that the window is placed so unusually high in the wall that none of it is concealed by the great altar. Its seven lights separate into a central group of three and two side ones of two each. The original glazing has been replaced by some given about 1525 by Bishop Fox, which, however, is now much restored; there appear upon it his arms and motto, "Est deo Gracia." The top central light has some of the earlier Wykeham glass. The manufacture of glass had much improved by the time of Bishop Fox, but the effect of this window cannot be compared with the larger one to the west. From fragments observable in some side windows, and also in the traceries of both the north and south aisles of the choir, it seems that the Fox glass was also used there. It is to be regretted that there is not on view the contents of two boxes in the cloisters of Winchester School, where are stored the Wykeham panels taken from the west embrasures of New College antechapel to make room for Sir Joshua Reynolds' "Virtues." Before leaving Winchester one should take time to see the ancient church of St. Cross. In 1136 Henry de Blois commanded that every one who demanded a piece of bread and a draught of beer at the gate of this church should receive it, a quaint echo of mediæval hospitality. ST. NEOT The earliest appreciation by the outside world of the great natural wealth of England was evidenced by those perilous voyages out into the unknown sea beyond the Pillars of Hercules, undertaken by the early Phoenicians in order to trade for tin with the inhabitants of what we now call Cornwall. By one of the odd philological quirks of slang, the word "tin" is now endowed with a meaning inclusive of every form of wealth--a strange modern acknowledgment of the earliest form of English value. Many of these ancient mines are still worked, as we shall see for ourselves when we visit St. Neot. This centuries-old continuance of tin-mining is strongly in accord with all things Cornish, for in that westernmost corner of England change does not intrude, and as things have been so they continue to be. We will assume that the pilgrim has reached Plymouth, that western outpost of Devon, seated beside her ample harbour, whose many bays and estuaries running up into the land seem to symbolise Father Neptune laying his mighty hand upon the smiling country. Ferrying across to the Cornish side, we proceed by pleasant woody roads giving glimpses of Plymouth Harbour, and on to solid stone-built Liskeard. Pushing past along the high road that leads to Bodmin and the Land's End, we shall be at some pains to notice a little road that, four miles beyond Liskeard, turns off to the right up a narrow valley. A mile of pretty windings past several ancient but still active tin mines, brings us to St. Neot, snugly stowed away among the hills. Here, in this small community, which shows no trace of ever having been any larger, nor any indication of becoming so in the future, stands one of the most interesting glass shrines in England. The church has the appearance of many another of the Perpendicular school--a type so common throughout the land. One notices that it is lighted by an ample number of large windows, each of four lancets. Once inside the door, however, and the change from the usual to the extraordinary is immediate. The roomy interior is practically unbroken by the usual divisions of chancel, nave, &c., and this very appearance of spaciousness assists admirably in showing off the windows to the greatest advantage. The oldest ones are at diagonally opposite ends of the church from each other, and are found in the north-westerly and south-easterly corners. The many small groups or scenes (each installed in a canopy) into which these are subdivided render their legends all the more attractive, because they depict so many different points in the story's development. The architecture of their canopy frames shows that they date from rather early in the fifteenth century. In addition to this more common style of glazing there is another type, which has a number of examples here--a saint standing upon a bracket and displayed against a quarry background, but lacking a canopy. These date from a little later in the Perpendicular period. This bracket feature is very English, and may also be seen at Nettlestead and West Wickham in Kent. So pleased were the parishioners with these two types that, when some new windows were presented in 1528-29-30 (now seen along the north wall), the glazier did not work in the then prevailing Renaissance method, but designed his story of St. Neot's life after the earlier many-scened type, as well as copying some of them after that of the bracketed saints. One of these sixteenth century windows was presented by the young men of the parish, another by the young women, a third by the married women, and the rest by private individuals or families. Below the two given by the married and the unmarried women are a row of kneeling donors which afford an interesting study of female costume. In the south wall is a window given by the Mutton family. Here the glazier did not copy earlier types, but struck out along a new line, making a very graceful use of winding scrolls. Extremely pleasing as is the effect of all these windows, the result would have been even more gratifying had it not been for a restoration which befell the church in 1820, and which, when it subsided, left behind it not only three unsatisfactory new windows, but also certain misguided retouchings of the old ones. Even this gentle criticism must not be allowed to affect the fact that the _ensemble_ of the interior here is delightful and one of the most complete in England. Nor is this general effect one whit less engaging than the host of quaint details revealed by a close investigation of the glass, especially in the case of the Noah window (most easterly of the south wall), and that devoted to St. Neot (most westerly of the north wall). The mediæval idea of Noah's Ark is very diverting, as is also the artist's idea of how most of his wild animals must have looked. Then, too, the attention paid by good St. Neot to the sacred fish which his over-zealous servant had wickedly roasted and broiled is most entertaining. For beauty, and for interest as well, this noteworthy set of windows in far-off Cornwall amply repay the length of the trip necessary to seek them out. RENAISSANCE In England there is not to be found the same awakening and change in art at the opening of the sixteenth century which is encountered in France, and is known to us as the Renaissance. This revival of art reached the English at second hand, having been transmitted to them through the French. The soldiers of Louis XII. and Francis I., who fought in Italy at the close of the fifteenth century, could not help but see and feel the new movement in matters artistic then bursting into bloom, and they carried home with them not only memories of what they had seen, but also many fine examples in their spoils of war. The tales and trophies of these soldiers proved a great force in starting the French Renaissance. One of its first fruits was the change from the then flamboyant Gothic to the classical style in architecture. In glass it was first evidenced by substituting canopies of classic form for the Gothic ones which had been so much in vogue. The pictures they enclosed were gradually widened until it soon became necessary to discard altogether the canopy frame, which, on the passing of the narrow Gothic embrasures, was seen to have outlived its usefulness. While this awakening in art ultimately reached England, it came slowly and never gained the influence it attained in France. The English ear and eye were not surprised and delighted as were the French by the return of soldiery laden with artistic spoils and enthusiastic over the new beauties which they had seen in Italy. Art in England developed quietly, steadily, as was but natural, lacking, as it did, this sudden impetus from the outside. There is another, and for us, a far more regrettable difference between those two countries during the sixteenth century, in that very little good glass was then made in England, while France was constantly adding to her wealth of windows during all of this, her great period of artistic revival. Just as the golden age of glass seemed to die in France at the end of the sixteenth century, so, in England, it perished at the end of the fifteenth, a whole century earlier. There are, however, some fine examples of the sixteenth century in England even though much of it (as at Lichfield) will prove to have come from abroad. What we shall find at Cambridge is delightful, in fact so fine is it that one must deeply regret that there are so few towns on the roster of this epoch. A modest amount of glass was made in England during the seventeenth century (as, for example, the work of the Crabeth Brothers and Von Linge in certain Oxford colleges), but as this is only fairly good and was, moreover, made by foreigners, we will not take our pilgrim to see it because its lesser interest might detract from his delightful memories of the glorious Decorated and Perpendicular windows. In English sixteenth century glass it is not easy to trace the transition from the Perpendicular canopies to the large brilliant pictures, which can be so readily studied in France. The English glazier would almost seem to have realised abruptly the beauty of the large picture windows, and to have transferred his allegiance suddenly to this new method. Delightful examples are to be seen at Shrewsbury, but most satisfying of all is the very complete series around the chapel of King's College, Cambridge, that gem of English architecture. Lichfield must also be visited to view its Flemish windows about the Lady chapel, and St. Margaret's Church (close to Westminster Abbey) for its east window of the same provenance. Concerning English glass of this period it may be said that it possesses all the rich colour treatment of its French contemporaries, and, moreover, that it has the added advantage of a more careful use of the leads in providing outlines for the designs. Almost insignificant as are these sixteenth century remains when compared with the innumerable ones across the Channel, their great beauty goes far towards compensating us for their lack of numbers. RENAISSANCE TOURS The seven towns containing noteworthy Renaissance glass fall naturally into two groups, one to the north and the other to the south. Supposing we begin with the one of greater distances, the first stage, after viewing the London windows, will be Cambridge. Thence we go north-westerly to Lichfield, and, lastly, due west to Shrewsbury. If the pilgrim has not already visited Shrewsbury on our Decorated tour, he will find an account of its sixteenth century glazing at p. 85. The second tour is to the south, and not only are all the points near London, but close to each other as well. The first will be Guildford, which lies in Surrey, as does also Gatton Park, the next in order. Twenty miles to the east, over the Kentish border, is Knole, which concludes the tour. [Illustration: MAP OF RENAISSANCE TOUR] If a stay of any length is made in Cambridge, occasion may be taken to use it as a centre for side-trips to Margaretting, Levrington and Lowick. So, too, proximity may serve as an excuse for seeing Nettlestead and West Wickham on our way back to London from Knole. LONDON London, that capital of the world, contains no examples of early glass _in situ_, and it is not until we have arrived at the study of Renaissance windows that she provides something to engage our attention. It must not be overlooked that there is an excellent collection of early glass at the Victoria and Albert Museum which, by the way, is most advantageously displayed, thanks to the manner in which all light is cut off save that coming through the coloured panes: it is unfortunate that the same good taste and judgment is not in evidence at the Louvre and other great museums. Some of the original mosaic medallions from the Sainte Chapelle, Paris, are here preserved. After all, though this South Kensington exhibit is undeniably good, glass appeals to one less in a museum than when seen in its natural home, a church. Two London churches have interesting examples of Renaissance glass, which, however, came from abroad, the east window in St. Margaret's, Westminster, and three in the east wall of St. George's, Hanover Square. Westminster Abbey is generally entered by the north transept door, and almost every one of its visitors overlooks the modest little parish church of St. Margaret, standing only a few paces off, so completely dwarfed and rendered almost insignificant is it by the imposing proportions of its impressive neighbour. Nevertheless, small as is this interior, it possesses a window which the Abbey would be proud to have, one of such pre-eminent excellence as to draw from Winston the statement that "the harmonious arrangement of the colouring is worthy of attention. It is the most beautiful work in this respect that I am acquainted with." It completely fills the large eastern embrasure, and one needs but a glance to recognise it as a Renaissance work of an excellent type. The three central lancets show Christ between the thieves, and below, the Holy Women, and soldiers. The drops of blood from His wounded side fall into chalices held by three angels. The repentant thief has his soul carried away by an angel to heaven, while a devil is mocking the other one. On the north side is St. George, and below him a kneeling figure which provides the only authentic portrait of Arthur Prince of Wales. On the left is Katharine of Aragon, the _fiancée_ of Prince Arthur, and later the first wife of Henry VIII. Above her head appears her badge, the pomegranate. As no stranger tale could be related of the vicissitudes to which a glass window could be subjected than the adventures of this window during the 300 years that elapsed between its making and its installation at St. Margaret's, the writer is moved to set it out in full in the words of the historian of that church, Mrs. J. E. Sinclair: "The window was ordered in 1499, and took five years to be executed at Dordrecht (or, as some authorities state, at Gouda) in Holland. It was intended as a gift from King Ferdinand the Catholic and his wife, Queen Isabella, to Henry VII. to commemorate the marriage of their children, and was originally purposed to be erected in the Lady chapel of Westminster Abbey, then in course of construction by Henry VII., and now generally designated by his name. As Prince Arthur died in 1502, before the arrival of the window in England, and as it was the policy of Henry VII. to avoid the repayment of the widow's dowry by her marriage to his younger son, for obvious reasons, the window was never erected in the Lady chapel of the Abbey of St. Peter. After the vicissitudes of three centuries, it has been eventually put up in St. Margaret's Church, within a very short distance of its original destination. Henry VIII., after marrying his brother's widow, naturally disliked the window, and presented it to the Abbey of Waltham, where it remained till the Dissolution of Religious Houses in 1540. Then the Abbot, with a view to its preservation, transferred it to his private chapel at New Hall in Essex. This property, strange to relate, fell at the Reformation into the hands of Sir Thomas Boleyn, Earl of Wiltshire, father of Queen Katharine's rival, Anne Boleyn. On the death of Sir Thomas without a male heir, Henry VIII. seized New Hall with the rest of the Boleyn patrimony, in right of his murdered wife, on behalf of her daughter Elizabeth. He then wished to alter the name of New Hall into Beaulieu, but the old nomenclature survived. Queen Elizabeth bestowed the estate on Ratcliffe, Earl of Essex, who sold it to Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. His son, in turn, sold it to General Monk, Duke of Albemarle, who caused the window to be taken down and buried in chests, thus preserving it from the iconoclastic zeal of the Puritans during the Civil War. The next owner of New Hall, John Olmius, offered the window, in a letter dated July 30, 1738, preserved in the British Museum, to the authorities of Wadham College, Oxford, for their chapel; he terms it 'one of the finest large windows of painted glass in England.' The negotiation apparently fell through, for it was bought from him by Mr. John Conyers of Copt Hall, Essex, for fifty guineas. The son of this gentleman, on February 8, 1759, sold the 'window with its stone frame, ironwork, and other appurtenances' to the Churchwardens of St. Margaret's, Westminster, for £420. This sum formed part of the Parliamentary Grant of £4500 then voted for the repair of the Parish Church of the House of Commons." The parishioners of that small sanctuary possess in this much-travelled window as inspiring and beautiful a treasure as any of those which attract so great an attendance to its mighty neighbour Westminster Abbey. [Illustration: ST. GEORGE'S, HANOVER SQUARE, LONDON A Renaissance Tree of Jesse from Belgium, readjusted to fit its new embrasures. Figures unusually large for this subject. Fine colours and drawing] Certainly one would not visit the Abbey because of its stained glass, but equally certain is it that no one who happens into its neighbourhood can resist its spell and must enter the portal, if only for a moment of old-world inspiration. Let us yield gracefully, and when we have entered look about us for what little ancient glazing remains after the visit of the Roundhead despoilers. There are fragments in the two small windows of the nave's west end, but the most important remains are those in the east window above the altar. Here are assembled pieces dating from the thirteenth to the eighteenth centuries, which serve as a background for Edward the Confessor and his patron saint--these figures are of the fifteenth century. Passing on to the east through the maze of kingly remains, a few steps lead us up into the magnificent Henry VII. Chapel, whose noble proportions seem to mock the modesty of its name. The ancient glory of its glass has departed, but those who interest themselves in the light which heraldry throws upon history should repair to the easternmost chapel and examine the coats of arms set out upon its panes. Here are blazoned all the Tudor badges, picturing the claims upon which that new house based its right to occupy the throne of England. The red rose of Lancaster and the white one of York are there alone and in combination. The portcullis of the Beauforts, the family of Henry VII.'s mother; the Countess of Richmond's root of daisies; the English lions; the fleur-de-lis of France; the Cadwalader dragon, a reminder of Henry's descent from the last of the British kings; the greyhound of the Nevilles, from whom Elizabeth of York descended through her grandmother, and also the badge of her father, Edward IV.--a falcon within the open fetterlock; and last, but most significant of all, the green bush with its golden crown, emblematic of Henry's hasty coronation on Bosworth Field with the diadem of Richard III. picked from off a hawthorn bush. In those strenuous days the proof of a legal title was not infrequently deferred until after the mailed fist had laid hold upon its prey! St. George's, Hanover Square, has long been famed far and wide for the great number of weddings there solemnised. It is perhaps not inappropriate that the old glass to be seen here once constituted a Tree of Jesse. The spacious window at the back of the chancel, and also those which flank it on either side, are filled with it. So large are the figures (the largest the writer has ever seen in this favourite glass design) that two of them suffice to fill each of these side windows, although their embrasures are by no means small. The glass was originally made for a church at Mechlin, Belgium, and though its figures have been necessarily readjusted to suit their new home, there remain so many sections of the vine as well as of the familiar name-labels as to make it obvious that the panels as originally combined made up a Tree of Jesse. The glazing as a whole is rich in tone, unmistakably Renaissance, and, best of all, so agreeably disposed in its present abiding-place as to make it seem as if it had always belonged there. CAMBRIDGE In the mind of most Americans the names of Oxford and Cambridge are firmly locked together--a sort of Siamese twins of University education. As a matter of fact, they are strangely different--very much more so, indeed, than any two American universities. While Oxford has her charming quadrangles with their delightful gardens, Cambridge not only has them also, but further rejoices in a very special beauty, her "Backs," those admirable contrivances for preventing overstudy on the part of too zealous students. A "Back" is that portion of a college's territory through which meanders the narrow Cam, the scenic opportunities of that slender stream being developed to the uttermost with green banks, graceful bridges, and shaded walks. The writer never pursued a course of study at Cambridge, and, therefore, is not competent to judge of the charms of her undergraduate life, but he has spent sundry happy hours canoeing on the gentle Cam, which same hours have yielded him the impression that, fascinating as the undergraduates doubtless find the lecture halls, there is much to be said in favour of idling along the delightful "Backs." Hints of the joys of Cambridge college life pervade the clever verses of Calverley, and also those of his lineal successor, the unfortunate J. K. Stephen. Chief among the many victories of the wearers of the "light blue" are those won by the oarsmen, and these victories become doubly praiseworthy when we visit the miserable little stream on which the crews have to train. That a long line of successes have been achieved in the face of such disheartening obstacles adds all the more to the credit and glory of men like the brothers Close, the giant Muttlebury, Dudley Ward, and many another. Most of the colleges follow the quadrangle system like their Oxford cousins, but there is an exception in the case of King's College. Here a handsome openwork screen of stone shuts off the street, but not the view. Through it we are able to see, standing haughtily apart from the neighbouring buildings, the beautiful chapel of the college, one of the few perfect buildings in existence. Goldwin Smith says, "Cambridge, in the Chapel of King's College, has a single glory which Oxford cannot match." It is a long, tall edifice, of the same width throughout, lighted by high windows of even size, and ceiled by graceful groups of fan vaultings of the most exquisite type. The only division of the interior is that effected by a wooden screen which runs across the middle, but, fortunately, stops before reaching a height which would interfere with an uninterrupted view of the sweep of the fan vaultings above. A full two-thirds of the wall-height is given over to lighting apertures. The records show that the two contracts for glazing the windows were dated 1527 and 1528. They require that the "wyndows be well, suerly, workmanly, substantyally, curyously, and sufficiently glase and sette up." It is said that Holbein drew the cartoons from which they were made. The excellence and charm of this complete series makes one regret that there are so few examples of their epoch in this country; this strikes with peculiar force one coming from France, so prodigally rich in sixteenth century windows. At King's College the large picture treatment is seen at its best. Not only is the composition of the groups of figures carefully studied, but so also is the adroit opposing of one colour by another. Particularly daring is the use of large masses of the same tint. So little was the artist willing to be hampered in the development of his colour scheme that he even made his foliage red when he happened to need that hue in a certain part of his design. Although the pictures here display careful drawing and elaborate composition, the excellence of the general result is certainly due to the fact that the artist thought fully as much of colour values as he did of his designs, something his contemporaries were prone to forget. These windows come as a delightful relief to one accustomed to the ill-considered use of Renaissance architecture that so overloads and encumbers the sixteenth century stained glass pictures on the Continent. An exquisite sense of balance seems to prevail throughout the interior, and in no feature of the decoration is it so noticeable as in the windows. The large expanse of each is broken into two parts by a horizontal transom, and both the upper and lower divisions are again subdivided, since the central lancet of each contains a figure in Renaissance canopy over a similar figure below in the pedestal. This leaves a space two lancets wide on either side both above and below, and each of these spaces contains a large subject. This method of avoiding the monotony which would have been caused by the singlet-lancet treatment is carried out along both of the long sides. The nine lancets in the large east window permit the introduction of three pictures above, each spreading over three lancets, and the same number below. The three in the upper row set forth the Crucifixion, the central one displaying the usual subject of Christ crucified between the two thieves, while to the left is the preparation of the crosses, and to the right the taking down from the cross. The blues in these pictures are particularly fine. Above in the traceries are red Lancastrian roses, as well as some Tudor ones of red and white combined. These roses are frequently repeated in the carvings of both stone and wood, as is also the portcullis badge of the Tudors. The beautifully carved wooden panelling about the walls of the choir is rivalled by the rich stone screens that shut off the lateral chapels from the nave. There is some seventeenth century glass in the chapel of Peterhouse College which should be seen, if only to learn how windows should not be coloured, for the thick application of blues and other tints have rendered the glass here and there almost opaque. There was in England about that time a good deal of thickly coloured, and therefore unsatisfactory, glass. One does not have to see many examples of it before the conclusion becomes inevitable that the English glaziers would better have followed the example of the Frenchmen, who, when their art became moribund at the end of the sixteenth century, let it die and gave it decent burial! * * * * * Most visitors find it difficult to escape speedily from the fascinations of Cambridge, and if some of our pilgrims be minded to make a short stay in these erudite surroundings, we will remind them that there are, not far away, three pleasing bits of glass, and all of them Trees of Jesse--one of the Perpendicular period at Margaretting, about fifty miles south-east in Essex, another one of the same period at Levrington, thirty-three miles north in Cambridgeshire, and a Decorated example of the same subject at Lowick, thirty-six miles west in Cambridgeshire. The Margaretting window is of three lancets and displays twenty-two figures, each with its own label, and together affording a peculiarly interesting study of costume. Don't fail to notice how deftly the glazier has concealed the fact that the same cartoon is made to serve for several figures by facing them about, or varying the colour in the costumes. The handling of the whitish vine and the use of leaves is very artistic. The Levrington window has five lancets, and its Tree of Jesse is larger and has more figures than the one at Margaretting; it shows the marks of careful restoration. Including the figures in the tracery lights, there are sixty in all--an unusually large number. Each figure is placed within a loop of the deep orange-coloured vine, these enclosures being about 12 by 8 inches. This great company of personages, and the agreeable harmony of colour, make this window well worth a visit. Lowick Church does not have to rely alone upon its stained glass, but has many other attractions, such as its fine tombs, elaborately carved pew-heads, wooden ceiling, and last, but not least pleasing, the venerable prayer-books, dated 1724 and still in their original bindings, ornamented by coloured coats of arms on the covers. There are some heraldic panes along the south side of the chancel, but the chief interest for us is in the very fine series of sixteen personages originally forming a Decorated Tree of Jesse, but now stationed along the upper lights on the north side of the nave. The drawing is good and the colouring strong, with as yet no trace of stain, the frequent touches of yellow being of pot-metal glass. The four most westerly figures are kings, and the eastmost is a knight in full armour, his head, arms and legs being covered with chain-mail. In his hands he holds a model of the church, upon which can be distinctly seen these windows, thus clearly indicating that he was the donor. LICHFIELD There are few cathedrals in the world which, as one approaches, reveal themselves more charmingly than does Lichfield; here one feels an almost studied coquetry, disclosing new beauties at each stage of our advance. When viewed from a distance the three graceful spires, "The Ladies of the Vale," seem to beckon one on to a nearer view of the sanctuary over which they preside. On entering the town it is temporarily lost from view, only promptly to appear again, this time across the little pools which lie along the south side of the Close and which, aided by the green of the trees, provide so lovely a foreground and setting for the full-length picture of the great edifice. Again we lose it, and then the last revelation of all comes when one rounds the corner into the green Close and there bursts upon you the final and complete aspect of the glorious west front, brilliant in its red sandstone, adorned by its army of over 150 stone figures of prophets, saints, and English kings, a splendid façade, impressively culminated by the towering spires that first signalled to us where we should find this lovely picture. Unfortunately for the cathedral, Bishop de Langdon, Treasurer of England under Edward I., by surrounding the Close with a wall and a fosse, made of it a stout fortress. Centuries after this very feature resulted most disastrously, for, during the Civil Wars, the military strength of its position caused it to sustain three successive sieges. Of these the first was the most disastrous, for, when the Roundheads broke in after a three days' assault, they revenged the death of their leader, Lord Brooke, first upon the Royalist defenders, and next upon the cathedral itself, wrecking and destroying ancient tombs, stalls, &c., and, of course, the old glass. In addition to their work of destruction they carried off all that had been left by Henry VIII.'s Commissioners of the rich offerings brought by devout pilgrims to the shrine of St. Chad. To this same Lord Brooke Sir Walter Scott pays his respects in the lines telling how Lord Marmion's body was brought "To moated Lichfield's lofty pile; And there, beneath the southern aisle, A tomb, with Gothic sculpture fair, Did long Lord Marmion's image bear, (Now vainly for its sight you look; 'Twas levelled when fanatic Brook The fair cathedral stormed and took; But thanks to Heaven and good St. Chad, A guerdon meet the spoilers had!)" The interior is of modest dimensions, and is elaborately decorated, the richly carved capitals, &c., giving us indications of how gorgeous it must all have been before it was looted. An interesting feature is the slight inclination of the choir northward from the axis of the nave, which is said to be symbolic of the inclination of Christ's head on the cross after death. At Troyes and at Quimper in France there is the same deviation in orientation and the same poetic explanation, but investigation reveals that it was caused by a change in the street line in the first instance, and in the other by the annexation of an existing chapel standing slightly north of the true axis. [Illustration: LADY CHAPEL, LICHFIELD CATHEDRAL Excellent example of Renaissance colouring, freer from applied paint than then customary. This glass was brought from Belgium] Practically all of the ancient glass which originally adorned the embrasures has been destroyed; the north window of the north transept has some Early English work much restored, and on the east of the south portal of the south transept is a short lower window, in the central lancet of which is a richly dressed female figure with arms thrown about a cross. Just before entering the Lady chapel we remark two small three-lanceted windows, one on each hand, the one to the left having donors on each side, and in the middle St. Christopher carrying the infant Jesus. But it is to the seven most easterly windows of the Lady chapel that we must repair to see the famous Flemish glass, brought here in 1803, which is the cause of our visit. The dates which appear upon them run from 1534 to 1539, and they were originally made for the Abbey of Herckenrode, near Liége, Belgium, by Lambert Lombard--the earliest and best of those glaziers of the Low Countries who show the Italian influence. All are of three lancets, except the most westerly pair, which have six. The traceries above them are grouped in pyramids of trefoil openings, similar to some in the Lady chapel at Wells. The scenes are taken from the life of Christ, and there are as well portraits of certain benefactors of the Abbey. The composition as well as the grouping of the figures is not so crowded as in the slightly earlier (1527) glazing of King's College Chapel, Cambridge, or St. Margaret's, Westminster. The artist drew his personages on such a large scale that it is evident his work was planned for a more spacious interior--this chapel is so narrow that one cannot stand far enough away to get the full effect of the pictures. Although now in the fully developed picture epoch and passed beyond the conventional trammels of the canopy with its imitation stonework, the glazier is not forgetful of what his craft had learned during that period, for he has made agreeable use of architecture, notably as the background for the Last Supper in the east window. Even if the dates were not displayed in the usual sixteenth century continental fashion, we would have no difficulty in fixing them, not only because of the obviously Renaissance style of the architecture depicted, but also by reason of the general breadth and style of the treatment. Nor is it difficult to note the effect upon the artist of the Italian influence, coming as it did from a land where abundant sunshine makes it desirable that the illumination of the windows be somewhat reduced by the use of paint. Still, it is only fair to say that these particular windows contain much more than was then customary of glass coloured during the making and not painted afterwards. An excellent impression of the colour effect as a whole can be got if we retire to the central aisle of the nave and look east. Now the sides of the choir become a graceful frame for the three easterly windows. The upper part and the centre show an almost solid expanse of blue, while all the rest of the glass yields a golden grey, forming an excellent _ensemble_. Before leaving the town, admirers of English literature will do well to visit the house in which Dr. Samuel Johnson was born. It now appropriately serves as a museum wherein are exposed a number of manuscripts, pictures, and familiar objects in some way related to that great scholar. Although the worthy Doctor said that his fellow townsmen were "more orthodox in their religion, purer in their language, and politer in their manners than any other town in the Kingdom," one must be pardoned for taking _his_ opinion upon manners with a pinch of salt! GUILDFORD In England one is constantly coming upon manifestations only to be observed in a land whose civilisation and habits of life were long ago settled and have continued stable. One of the most interesting of these is the different methods adopted for perpetuating one's memory by a benevolent act toward the public--making it worth the public's while to act as trustee for the preservation of the said memory, so to speak! A very charming instance thereof is afforded by the buildings erected in Guildford by Archbishop Abbott in 1619 as a permanent home for ten elderly men and eight elderly women, all presided over by a Master: according to the fashion of the times it was styled Bishop Abbott's Hospital. Built on North Street in the quadrangular form so reminiscent of an Oxford or Cambridge college, the rich plum-colour which age has lent to the brick needs only the primly demure assistance of the formal flower beds to make the altogether charming enclosure which we see to-day. Entering this tranquil and ancient quadrangle one seems suddenly whisked by some magic wand far from the twentieth century world outside. The elderly resident of the establishment who escorts one about the premises descants upon each admirable detail in measured phrase that is pleasantly appropriate to the ancient flavour of the scene. One is shown the old dining-room below and the library above, both of which retain their Elizabethan panelling on the walls and the carved overmantels, together with much of the original furniture. The large table in the library is an interesting piece, the lumpy adornment of its legs reminding one of the puffed sleeves and trunk hose then affected by gentlemen, while the rail running along the floor and connecting the legs prevents us from forgetting that rushes then strewed the floor, and that these rails were used to provide a convenient place to put the feet. The most interesting part of the building is the small square chapel which forms the north-east corner of the quadrangle. It is lighted by two large windows dating from the end of the Renaissance period (1621) and contemporary with the chapel they adorn. They are unusually agreeable examples of the day when colour was applied to glass by enamelled painting. The serious technical defect of that method (the tendency of the enamel to peel off) is here noticeable in several spots, but not to such an extent as to impair seriously their decorative value. Of these two ample embrasures, the easterly one is the larger, having five lancets surmounted by elaborate tracery lights, while its neighbour in the north wall has but four lancets with traceries of more modest design. All these lancets contain scenes taken from the life of Jacob, the four to the north show Rachel's subterfuge to obtain for Jacob the parental blessing that should have been Esau's, while the five easterly ones set forth Jacob's dream, and the trick played upon him by Laban in substituting Leah for Rebecca, together with Jacob's retaliation by marking the cattle. Remark Esau shaking his fist at Jacob for stealing his blessing; the solidity of the stairway in Jacob's dream; the unusual number of animals shown in all the scenes. There should also be observed the very elaborate treatment of the eastern traceries. An examination of the outside of these windows indicates that they were probably brought from some other edifice, for the wall seems to have been cut away to provide sufficient room for them. [Illustration: BISHOP ABBOTT'S HOSPITAL, GUILDFORD Charming and complete glazing of a small chapel. Renaissance glass coloured by the process of enamelling, often unsatisfactory because bits are apt to peel off] GATTON It is not uncommon in England to find the chapel attached to the manor house of an estate used as a parish church for the neighbourhood. This is true of the family chapel at Gatton Park, Surrey, just north of Redhill, off the road leading to London. This chapel stands close to the mansion, and is connected with it by a passage. Finer carved wood than the wainscotting of this small interior is far to seek. The wooden pulpit, too, is of skilful workmanship, and together with the panelling, is said to have come from Germany, and to be the work of Albrecht Dürer; its beauty is certainly due to some great craftsman, if not to this very man. The principal illumination of the narrow edifice is derived from two large windows, one over the altar at the east end and the other of similar size in the south wall; there is none in the north one. Both these embrasures are glazed with Renaissance work of considerable excellence; the one to the east dates from about 1500, and the southerly one from about eighty years later. This latter, as is to be expected, shows a liberal use of enamel painting, something entirely absent in the earlier one, and each of its three lancets contains a different subject, against elaborate landscape backgrounds. The delicately outlined trees in the extreme distance are drawn upon a white field instead of upon the light blue then used in France. Such architecture as appears in the design is, of course, Renaissance. Across the whole of the easterly window is stretched one large picture, the "Eating of the Passover," which is pleasantly brightened by the golden staves held by the figures who, with their raiment girded up and their feet shod by sandals, carry out to the full the Mosaic law, "And thus shall ye eat it; with your loins girded, with shoes on your feet and your staff in your hand; and ye shall eat it in haste; it is the Lord's Passover" (Exodus xii. 2). When about to leave this beautifully panelled charmingly glazed interior, note the small window in the west wall of the entrance vestibule. It is of a domestic type familiar during the Perpendicular epoch. In the centre are the arms of Henry VII. between two supporters. Across the quarry background are bands slanting from the left down to the right bearing the motto, "Honi soit qui mal y pense." Some of the quarries show small leaves, and others an H surmounted by a crown. This window is similar in style to those already remarked at Salisbury, in John Halle's hall, and others maybe seen in many private houses dating from that time. Although of modest size and possessing but two windows, Gatton Chapel is as delightful a bit of complete Renaissance glazing as one will see in England. KNOLE East and west across almost the whole width of Kent run three parallel lines of low hills affording many charming views which, however, are only part of the many beauties of that picturesque county. Upon the easterly end of one of these ridges lies Sevenoaks. Although the present town is by no means an ancient one, it possesses great interest in that just below its edge lies the large estate of Knole Park which, if we may play upon words, is a series of knolls that together with their intersecting glades are shaded by groves of great beeches whose soft green foliage has for many a long day sheltered the herds of deer wandering to and fro beneath them. Upon an eminence of greater size than its fellows stands the ancient dwelling known as "Knole," a great series of courts and quadrangles combined into an abode of such size that it is said to contain, in addition to its superb state apartments, no fewer than 365 bedrooms. Enclosed within a wide sweeping battlemented wall are charming old-world gardens that nestle about the ancient grey mansion, and soften by their dainty setting of variegated flowers, green lawns and trees, the fortress-like appearance of its towers and long stretches of stone enclosure. Thanks to a fine combination of patriotism and hospitality so often seen in England, a large portion of this house is (upon payment of a trifling fee) thrown open to the study and appreciation of the public on the afternoons of Thursday and Saturday (2-5), as well as all day Friday (10-5). It is because it can be so conveniently seen by our glass-hunting pilgrim (owing to the generosity of the owners and the fact that it is under an hour by train from Charing Cross, London) that Knole has been selected to illustrate in how decorative a fashion the sixteenth century glazier could spread the gay tints of heraldic story upon his windows. Here can also be remarked one or two other minor manifestations of stained glass at that time. One of these is to be seen in the first stairway up which visitors are conducted. Upon some of its diminutive diamond-shaped panes are enamelled armorial crests, much in vogue at the end of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the following one. On one of these little panes in the chapel of Lullingstone Castle near here appears the date 1612: these on the Knole staircase are of about the same date. This house was long the property of the See of Canterbury; perhaps the pilgrim may have one of the rare opportunities to visit the bedroom so long occupied by Archbishop Cranmer and observe in the upper lights of the bay window the six large ovals containing coats of arms in enamel, bits of which have peeled off, as is so often the case with this method of applying colour. How mystified that worthy ecclesiastic would be to see the modern bathroom which now opens into his old bedroom! While speaking of Canterbury, it is of interest that we are enabled to date one of the Knole towers by the fact that a morsel of glazing high up in the traceries of one window (all that is left of the original equipment) bears a double knot, the insignia of Archbishop Bourchier, thus proving that it is at least as old as his tenancy here (1456-86). But let us come to the main reason for our visit--the Cartoon Gallery. Named after the set of Raphael's cartoons especially copied for Charles I., and by him presented to the Earl of Dorset to decorate these walls, this long room is brilliantly lighted by a series of windows giving off upon the delightful gardens. This is no place to dwell upon the sumptuous silver furnishings of King James' bedroom that opens out to the south, nor of the treasures of English portraiture in the rooms through which we have come to this gallery. We are here to enjoy the work of the glazier who set upon the windows the arms of the great houses allied to this one by marriage. One after another they unfold themselves all along the upper lights of this series of embrasures, and tell their story in a far more brilliant manner than can ever be attained by any musty tome on genealogy. This estate was more than once the property of the Crown, and an evidence of one of these periods is provided by the appearance on some of the westerly windows of the arms of certain Law Officers of the Crown, such as the Lord Chief Justice, Attorney-General, Chief Baron of the Exchequer, Master of the Requests, Judge of Admiralty, &c. These are somewhat earlier than those first mentioned and are freer from the unfortunate enamel painting. Taking into consideration the dimensions of this superb apartment, and the paintings and glass that adorn it, together with the pleasing outlook upon the gardens below, it is doubtful if a more impressive gallery is to be found in any of the stately homes of England. The chapel, which was built by Archbishop Cranmer, has an unpleasantly smeared east window, but upon its surface high up are a series of Apostles done in grey and stain which, if brought down to the level for which they were originally intended, would show themselves to be very attractive. At the south end of the little gallery used as the "Family Pew" are a group of about a dozen scenes in grey and stain of excellent execution, and so placed as to permit of a satisfactory examination of this agreeable form of Renaissance glass-painting. * * * * * If one be travelling by bicycle or automobile, a pleasant addition to this trip may be made, on the way back to London, by taking one small _détour_ of about ten miles to visit Nettlestead, and another of about three to West Wickham Church. The glass at both these places is Perpendicular, but not of sufficient importance to have made them stations on that tour. However, they can be so conveniently seen at this stage of our rambles that they are here duly mentioned. It is only recently that, thanks to the skilful heraldic researches of W. E. Ball, LL.D., the date of the Nettlestead windows has been discovered, as well as the significance of the many coats of arms scattered over them. Recent restoration has made complete the glazing of the entire north side and also of the east window. Note the narrow one at the north of the small chancel--quarry background with a large figure standing on a bracket, very reminiscent of sundry prototypes at St. Neot in Cornwall. The other windows on this side (except the westmost) are rich, almost florid examples of the elaborated canopy style. Indeed, so deep are the tones that one is tempted to suspect that some Frenchman had a hand in their manufacture. The smaller chancel light just noted is much lower in colour and therefore more typical of the then prevailing English taste. This is also true of the westmost or "Becket window," as it is called, because it shows scenes from that martyr's life. The south windows retain their original glass only in the tracery lights, but it is planned to reglaze them as nearly as possible like those on the north side. Nettlestead Church is not easily noticed from the road because of some farm buildings and an orchard which mask it. If, when we resume our journey Londonward, it be decided to take a peep at the West Wickham glass, one should be careful not to overshoot the church, for it lies at least a half-mile nearer the London road than does the village whose name it bears. The embrasures on the north and east of a chapel opening off the chancel contain examples of a saint standing on a bracket against a quarry background, which we have just observed in the Nettlestead chancel light and also on a former tour at St. Neot. The quarries here each bear the monogram "I.H.S." in stain. The supports below the brackets are shorter than is customary. What painstaking care was used in the manufacture of these windows is revealed by an examination of the central one on the north side, bearing the familiar figure of St. Christopher carrying the infant Jesus. Notice that the little pool of water in which he stands contains small golden fishes; also remark the careful leading of the three tiny red trees in the background. This very attention to detail noticeable in all the panels has much to do with the satisfactory effect of these windows. ITINERARIES SHOWING DISTANCES IN MILES EARLY ENGLISH (84 miles from London) Salisbury--125--Canterbury--180--Lincoln--135 --York (197 miles to London) DECORATED (197 miles from London) York--84--Norbury--62--Shrewsbury--29--Ludlow --24--Hereford--28--Tewkesbury--4--Deerhurst--42--Bristol--20--Wells --63--Exeter--130--Dorchester--12--Oxford (54 miles to London) PERPENDICULAR (54 miles from London) Oxford--27--Fairford--8--Cirencester--17-- Gloucester--27--Great Malvern--2--Little Malvern--20--Ross--60-- Warwick--10--Coventry--128--York (197 miles to London) Salisbury (84 miles from London) Winchester (68 miles from London) St. Neot (257 miles from London) RENAISSANCE London--53--Cambridge--103--Lichfield--41--Shrewsbury (154 miles to London) (28 miles from London) Guildford--23--Gatton--20--Knole (24 miles to London) LIST OF TOWNS SHOWING DISTANCES FROM LONDON MILES FROM LONDON PAGE 119 Bristol Decorated 107 53 Cambridge Renaissance 223 56 Canterbury Early English 36 52 Chartham Decorated 49 90 Cirencester Perpendicular 154 91 Coventry Perpendicular 181 100 Deerhurst Decorated 104 42 Dorchester Decorated 124 169 Exeter Decorated 120 83 Fairford {Perpendicular 148 {Renaissance 148 18 Gatton Renaissance 239 102 Gloucester Perpendicular 158 117 Great Malvern {Perpendicular 166 {Decorated 166 28 Guildford Renaissance 236 131 Hereford Decorated 96 24 Knole Renaissance 242 91 Levrington Perpendicular 228 117 Lichfield Renaissance 230 135 Lincoln Early English 51 120 Little Malvern Perpendicular 172 -- London Renaissance 216 75 Lowick Decorated 228 150 Ludlow {Decorated 92 {Perpendicular 92 30 Margaretting Perpendicular 228 32 Nettlestead Perpendicular 246 136 Norbury Decorated 82 54 Oxford Decorated 129 54 Oxford Perpendicular 142 118 Ross Perpendicular 174 257 St. Neot Perpendicular 203 84 Salisbury Early English 30 84 Salisbury Perpendicular 192 {Decorated 85 154 Shrewsbury {Perpendicular 85 {Renaissance 85 103 Tewkesbury Decorated 100 92 Warwick Perpendicular 177 121 Wells Decorated 114 17 West Wickham Perpendicular 247 32 Willesborough Decorated 49 68 Winchester Perpendicular 195 197 York Early English 57 197 York Decorated 76 197 York Perpendicular 58 STAINED GLASS TOURS IN ENGLAND _With 16 Full-page Illustrations_ BY C. H. SHERRILL Demy 8vo. (9 × 5-3/4 ins.) Price 7s. 6d. net. Postage 6d. extra _Spectator_: "Mr. Sherrill has written a book which not only proves him to be a true lover of mediæval glass, but proves also his enlightened comprehension of its evolution and its changing style.... A pleasant and entertaining instructor." _Sunday Times_: "The illustrations are delightful, and successfully capture the blended notes of opulence and beauty which the mediæval designers threw into their work." _Daily Telegraph_: "Mr. Sherrill leads his fellow-travellers by delightful paths.... He is a model guide, and all his illustrations are to the point. It is difficult to imagine how any instructor could pack more fruitful information into a smaller or more attractive parcel." _Morning Post_: "Is well written, and in a style which shows that the author really feels the attraction of the art he describes." _Daily Chronicle_: "A distinct triumph to write a book of 250 pages on a restricted though very beautiful subject, and never become monotonous; this is the triumph Mr. Sherrill has achieved. A really delightful volume." _Literary World_: "All who care for beautiful handiwork, and all interested visitors to our old cathedrals, colleges, and churches, should possess themselves of this charming book.... The illustrations are extremely good." _Western Morning News_: "The author describes the beauties he has seen in a most interesting style, and with exceedingly good taste. This volume deserves unstinted praise." JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD, VIGO STREET, LONDON, W. STAINED GLASS TOURS IN FRANCE _With Illustrations_ BY C. H. SHERRILL Crown 8vo. 6s. net _The Builder_: "A very well-written book, with a very good æsthetic perception as to what is best and most to be admired in ancient stained glass." _The Antiquary_: "A well-qualified guide for all who can appreciate the loveliness of the old glass in which France is still so rich." ROGER FRY in _The Burlington Magazine_: "He has really looked, and looked lovingly, at the windows he describes. His knowledge is evidently adequate, and he rearranges it in a form which he who automobiles may read." _Westminster Gazette_: "Useful and interesting. Mr. Sherrill gives just enough information to enable the lay reader to understand the difficulties with which the artist in coloured glass had to contend. Moreover, he has the eloquence of a true enthusiast, and is able to communicate to others his own delight." _Pall Mall Gazette_: "Exceedingly useful. A work showing much industry, enthusiasm, and good taste, it is a really valuable supplementary volume to one's Murray or Baedeker. The author has excellent taste." _Morning Post_: "Mr. Sherrill does feel very sincerely the beauty of stained glass, and is able to communicate his feeling in writing. Mr. Sherrill pilots us on a pleasant cruise among some of the greatest of the French examples of the style." _British Architect_: "The writer manages to say a good many interesting things. Mr. Sherrill's book is written in a most interesting style." _Architectural Review_: "A useful book. Mr. Sherrill has an acute appreciation of the important relationship between the glass and the surrounding architecture, and he has brought the fresh mind of the amateur to his subject." JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD, VIGO STREET, LONDON, W. TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters' errors; otherwise, every effort has been made to remain true to the author's words and intent. 
34877	----	CHATS ON OLD FURNITURE [Illustration: _Jacobean Chair._] CHATS ON OLD FURNITURE _Press Notices, First Edition._ "Mr. Hayden knows his subject intimately."--_Pall Mall Gazette._ "The hints to collectors are the best and clearest we have seen; so that altogether this is a model book of its kind."--_Athenæum._ "A useful and instructive volume."--_Spectator._ "An abundance of illustrations completes a well-written and well-constructed history."--_Daily News._ "Mr. Hayden's taste is sound and his knowledge thorough."--_Scotsman._ "A book of more than usual comprehensiveness and more than usual merit."--_Vanity Fair._ "Mr. Hayden has worked at his subject on systematic lines, and has made his book what it purports to be--a practical guide for the collector."--_Saturday Review._ CHATS ON OLD CHINA BY THE SAME AUTHOR. _Second Edition._ _Price_ 5s. _net._ _With Coloured Frontispiece and Reproductions of 156 Marks and 89 Specimens of China._ A List of SALE PRICES and a full INDEX increase the usefulness of the Volume. This is a handy book of reference to enable Amateur Collectors to distinguish between the productions of the various factories. _Press Notices, First Edition._ "A handsome handbook that the amateur in doubt will find useful, and the china-lover will enjoy for its illustrations, and for the author's obvious love and understanding of his subject."--_St. James's Gazette._ "All lovers of china will find much entertainment in this volume."--_Daily News._ "It gives in a few pithy chapters just what the beginner wants to know about the principal varieties of English ware. We can warmly commend the book to the china collector."--_Pall Mall Gazette._ "One of the best points about the book is the clear way in which the characteristics of each factory are noted down separately, so that the veriest tyro ought to be able to judge for himself if he has a piece or pieces which would come under this heading, and the marks are very accurately given."--_Queen._ IN PREPARATION. CHATS ON OLD PRINTS _Price_ 5s. _net._ _Illustrated with Coloured Frontispiece and 70 Full-page Reproductions from Engravings._ With GLOSSARY of Technical Terms, BIBLIOGRAPHY, full INDEX and TABLE of more than 350 of the principal English and Continental Engravers from the XVIth to the XIXth centuries, together with copious notes as to PRICES and values of old prints. LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN, ADELPHI TERRACE. [Illustration] Chats on Old Furniture A Practical Guide for Collectors By Arthur Hayden Author of "Chats on English China" LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN 1 ADELPHI TERRACE. MCMVI * * * * * _First Edition, 1905._ _Second " 1906._ _All rights reserved._ [Illustration: _Portion of Carved Walnut Virginal._] PREFACE This volume has been written to enable those who have a taste for the furniture of a bygone day to arrive at some conclusion as to the essential points of the various styles made in England. An attempt has been made to give some lucid historical account of the progress and development in the art of making domestic furniture, with especial reference to its evolution in this country. Inasmuch as many of the finest specimens of old English woodwork and furniture have left the country of their origin and crossed the Atlantic, it is time that the public should awaken to the fact that the heritages of their forefathers are objects of envy to all lovers of art. It is a painful reflection to know that the temptation of money will shortly denude the old farmhouses and manor houses of England of their unappreciated treasures. Before the hand of the despoiler shall have snatched everything within reach, it is the hope of the writer that this little volume may not fall on stony ground, and that the possessors of fine old English furniture may realise their responsibilities. It has been thought advisable to touch upon French furniture as exemplified in the national collections of such importance as the Jones Bequest at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Wallace Collection, to show the influence of foreign art upon our own designers. Similarly, Italian, Spanish, and Dutch furniture, of which many remarkable examples are in private collections in this country, has been dealt with in passing, to enable the reader to estimate the relation of English art to contemporary foreign schools of decoration and design. The authorities of the Victoria and Albert Museum have willingly extended their assistance in regard to photographs, and by the special permission of the Board of Education the frontispiece and other representative examples in the national collection appear as illustrations to this volume. I have to acknowledge generous assistance and courteous permission from owners of fine specimens in allowing me facilities for reproducing illustrations of them in this volume. I am especially indebted to the Right Honourable Sir Spencer Ponsonby-Fane, G.C.B., I.S.O., and to the Rev. Canon Haig Brown, Master of the Charterhouse, for the inclusion of illustrations of furniture of exceptional interest. The proprietors of the _Connoisseur_ have generously furnished me with lists of prices obtained at auction from their useful monthly publication, _Auction Sale Prices_, and have allowed the reproduction of illustrations which have appeared in the pages of the _Connoisseur_. My thanks are due to Messrs. Hampton, of Pall Mall, for their kind permission to include as illustrations several fine pieces from their collection of antique furniture. I am under a similar obligation to Messrs. Waring, who have kindly allowed me to select some of their typical examples. To my other friends, without whose kind advice and valuable aid this volume could never have appeared, I tender a grateful and appreciative acknowledgment of my indebtedness. ARTHUR HAYDEN. [Illustration: _Italian Chair about 1620_] [Illustration: _Spanish Chest._] CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE 7 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 13 BIBLIOGRAPHY 19 GLOSSARY OF TERMS USED 23 CHAPTER I. THE RENAISSANCE ON THE CONTINENT 31 II. THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE 57 III. STUART OR JACOBEAN (SEVENTEENTH CENTURY) 79 IV. STUART OR JACOBEAN (LATE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY) 109 V. QUEEN ANNE STYLE 133 VI. FRENCH FURNITURE. THE PERIOD OF LOUIS XIV. 155 VII. FRENCH FURNITURE. THE PERIOD OF LOUIS XV. 169 VIII. FRENCH FURNITURE. THE PERIOD OF LOUIS XVI. 189 IX. FRENCH FURNITURE. THE FIRST EMPIRE STYLE 201 X. CHIPPENDALE AND HIS STYLE 211 XI. SHERATON, ADAM, AND HEPPELWHITE STYLES 239 XII. HINTS TO COLLECTORS 257 INDEX 275 [Illustration: _Chippendale Bureau Bookcase._] LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS JACOBEAN OAK CABINET; decorated with mother-of-pearl, ebony, and ivory. Dated 1653. (By permission of the Board of Education) _Frontispiece_ CARVED WOOD FRAME; decorated with gold stucco. Sixteenth Century. Italian _Title page_ PAGE CHAPTER I.--THE RENAISSANCE ON THE CONTINENT. PORTION OF CARVED CORNICE, Italian, Sixteenth Century 33 FRAME OF WOOD, with female terminal figures, Italian, late Sixteenth Century 35 FRONT OF COFFER, Italian, late Fifteenth Century 38 BRIDAL CHEST, Gothic design, middle of Fifteenth Century 39 FRONT OF OAK CHEST, French, Fifteenth Century 44 WALNUT SIDEBOARD, French, middle of Sixteenth Century 45 CABINET, FRENCH (LYONS), second half of Sixteenth Century 48 EBONY AND IVORY MARQUETRY CABINET, French, middle of Sixteenth Century 50 SPANISH CABINET AND STAND, carved chestnut, first half of Sixteenth Century 51 SPANISH CHEST, carved walnut, Sixteenth Century 52 CHAPTER II.--THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE. CARVED OAK CHEST, English, Sixteenth Century 59 BENCH OF OAK, French, about 1500 60 PORTION OF CARVED WALNUT VIRGINAL, Flemish, Sixteenth Century 61 CARVED OAK COFFER, French, showing interlaced ribbon-work 61 FIREPLACE AND OAK PANELLING, "Old Palace," Bromley-by-Bow. Built in 1606 64 ELIZABETHAN BEDSTEAD, dated 1593 66 PANEL OF CARVED OAK, English, early Sixteenth Century 68 MIRROR, in oak frame, English, dated 1603 71 COURT CUPBOARD, carved oak, English, dated 1603 73 " " carved oak, early Seventeenth Century 74 " " about 1580 75 ELIZABETHAN OAK TABLE 78 CHAPTER III.--STUART OR JACOBEAN. SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. GATE-LEG TABLE 81 OAK CHAIR, made from Sir Francis Drake's ship, the _Golden Hind_ 83 OAK TABLE, dated 1616, bearing arms of Thomas Sutton 85 CHAIR USED BY JAMES I. 87 JACOBEAN CHAIR, at Knole 89 JACOBEAN STOOL, at Knole 90 CARVED WALNUT DOOR (UPPER HALF), French, showing ribbon-work 91 OAK CHAIR, with arms of first Earl of Strafford 93 ITALIAN CHAIR, about 1620 94 HIGH-BACK OAK CHAIR, Early Jacobean, formerly in possession of Charles I. 95 JACOBEAN CHAIRS, various types 97 EBONY CABINET, formerly the property of Oliver Cromwell 99 JACOBEAN CARVED OAK CHAIRS, Yorkshire and Derbyshire types 101 JACOBEAN OAK CUPBOARD, about 1620 101 JACOBEAN OAK CHAIRS 105 CARVED OAK CRADLE, time of Charles I., dated 1641 107 CHAPTER IV.--STUART OR JACOBEAN. LATE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. INTERIOR OF DUTCH HOUSE, latter half of Seventeenth Century 111 CABINET OF TIME OF CHARLES II., showing exterior 112 " " " showing interior 113 PORTUGUESE HIGH-BACK CHAIR 115 OAK CHEST OF DRAWERS, late Jacobean 117 " " panelled front, late Jacobean 119 CHARLES II. OAK CHAIR 120 CHARLES II. OPEN HIGH-BACK OAK CHAIR 121 CHARLES II. CHAIR, cane back and seat 122 JAMES II. CHAIR, cane back and seat 123 WILLIAM AND MARY CHAIR 125 PORTUGUESE CHAIR-BACK (UPPER PORTION), cut leather work 128 CHAPTER V.--QUEEN ANNE STYLE. QUEEN ANNE OAK SETTLE 135 QUEEN ANNE MIRROR FRAME, carved walnut, gilded 137 OAK DESK, dated 1696 139 OAK CUPBOARD 140 QUEEN ANNE CABINET, burr-walnut panel 141 QUEEN ANNE CHAIRS, various types 143 DUTCH MARQUETRY CABINET 147 QUEEN ANNE CLOCK 148 QUEEN ANNE SETTLE, oak, dated 1705 149 OLD LAC CABINET 150 LAC CABINET, middle of Eighteenth Century 151 " " showing doors closed 152 " " chased brass escutcheon 154 CHAPTER VI.--FRENCH FURNITURE. THE PERIOD OF LOUIS XIV. CASSETTE, French, Seventeenth Century 157 CHAIR OF PERIOD OF LOUIS XIII. 159 PEDESTALS, showing boule and counter-boule work 163 BOULE CABINET, OR ARMOIRE 165 CHAPTER VII.--FRENCH FURNITURE. LOUIS XV. COMMODE, by Cressent 171 COMMODE, formerly in the Hamilton Collection 173 COMMODE, by Caffieri 175 ESCRITOIRE À TOILETTE, formerly in possession of Marie Antoinette 179 SECRÉTAIRE, by Riesener 181 "BUREAU DU ROI," the masterpiece of Riesener 183 CHAPTER VIII.--FRENCH FURNITURE. LOUIS XVI. JEWEL CABINET, "J. H. Riesener," Mounts by Gouthière 193 COMMODE, by Riesener 197 CHAPTER IX.--FRENCH FURNITURE. THE FIRST EMPIRE STYLE. PORTRAIT OF MADAME RÉCAMIER, after David 203 DETAIL OF TRIPOD TABLE found at Pompeii 205 SERVANTE, French, late Eighteenth Century 206 JEWEL CABINET OF THE EMPRESS MARIE LOUISE 207 ARMCHAIR, rosewood, showing Empire influence 210 CHAPTER X.--CHIPPENDALE AND HIS STYLE. TABLE MADE BY CHIPPENDALE 213 OLIVER GOLDSMITH'S CHAIR 215 CHIPPENDALE SETTEE, walnut, about 1740 217 " " oak, about 1740 219 CHIPPENDALE CHAIR-BACK, ribbon pattern 222 RIBBON-BACKED CHIPPENDALE CHAIR, formerly at Blenheim 223 CHIPPENDALE CORNER CHAIR, about 1780 224 GOTHIC CHIPPENDALE CHAIR-BACK 225 MAHOGANY CHIPPENDALE CHAIR, about 1740 226 " " " about 1770 227 CHIPPENDALE MIRROR 229 CHIPPENDALE BUREAU BOOKCASE 231 MAHOGANY CHAIR, Chippendale Style 232 COTTAGE CHAIRS, beechwood, Chippendale style 233 INTERIOR OF ROOM OF ABOUT 1782, after Stothard 235 CHAPTER XI.--SHERATON, ADAM, AND HEPPELWHITE STYLES. HEPPELWHITE SETTEE, mahogany 241 SHERATON, Adam, and Heppelwhite Chairs 243 OLD ENGLISH SECRÉTAIRE 250 SHIELD-BACK CHAIR, late Eighteenth Century 251 CHAPTER XII.--HINTS TO COLLECTORS. DESIGN FOR SPURIOUS MARQUETRY WORK 259 "MADE-UP" BUFFET 261 CABINET OF OLD OAK, "made-up" 267 DESIGN FOR SPURIOUS MARQUETRY WORK 273 PIECE OF SPANISH CHESTNUT, showing ravages of worms 274 BIBLIOGRAPHY GENERAL. Ancient Furniture, Specimens of. H. Shaw. Quaritch. 1836. £10 10s., now worth £3 3s. Ancient and Modern Furniture. B. J. Talbert. Batsford. 1876. 32s. Antique Furniture, Sketches of. W. S. Ogden. Batsford. 1889. 12s. 6d. Carved Furniture and Woodwork. M. Marshall. W. H. Allen. 1888. £3. Carved Oak in Woodwork and Furniture from Ancient Houses. W. B. Sanders. 1883. 31s. 6d. Decorative Furniture, English and French, of the Sixteenth, Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. W. H. Hackett. 7s. 6d. Ecclesiastical Woodwork, Remains of. T. T. Bury. Lockwood. 1847. 21s. French and English Furniture. E. Singleton. Hodder. 1904. Furniture, Ancient and Modern. J. W. Small. Batsford. 1883. 21s. Furniture and Decoration. J. A. Heaton. 1890-92. Furniture and Woodwork, Ancient and Modern. J. H. Pollen. Chapman. 1874-5. 21s. and 2s. 6d. Furniture and Woodwork. J. H. Pollen. Stanford. 1876. 3s. 6d. Furniture of the Olden Time. F. C. Morse. Macmillan. 12s. 6d. Gothic Furniture, _Connoisseur_. May, 1903. History of Furniture Illustrated. F. Litchfield. Truslove. 25s. Marquetry, Parquetry, Boulle and other Inlay Work. W. Bemrose. 1872 and 1882. Old Furniture, English and Foreign. A. E. Chancellor. Batsford. £1 5s. Old Furniture from Twelfth to Eighteenth Century. Wyman. 1883. 10s. 6d. Style in Furniture and Woodwork. R. Brook. Privately printed. 1889. 21s. PARTICULAR. ENGLISH.--Adam R. & J., The Architecture, Decoration an Furniture of R. & J. Adam, selected from works published 1778-1822. London. 1880. Adam, The Brothers. _Connoisseur._ May, June and August, 1904. Ancient Wood and Iron Work in Cambridge. W. B. Redfern. Spalding. 1887. 31s. 6d. Chippendale, T. Cabinet Makers' Directory. Published in 1754, 1755 and 1762. (The best edition is the last as it contains 200 plates as against 161 in the earlier editions. Its value is about £12.) Chippendale and His Work. _Connoisseur_, January, July, August, September, October, November, December, 1903, January, 1904. Chippendale, Sheraton and Heppelwhite, The Designs of. Arranged by J. M. Bell. 1900. Worth £2 2s. Chippendale's Contemporaries. _Connoisseur_, March, 1904. Chippendale and Sheraton. _Connoisseur_, May, 1902. Coffers and Cupboards, Ancient. Fred Roe. Methuen & Co. 1903. £3 3s. English Furniture, History of. Percy Macquoid. Published by Lawrence & Bullen in 7s. 6d. parts, the first of which appeared in November, 1904. English Furniture and Woodwork during the Eighteenth Century. T. A. Strange. 12s. 6d. Furniture of our Forefathers. E. Singleton. Batsford. £3 15s. Hatfield House, History of. Q. F. Robinson. 1883. Hardwicke Hall, History of. Q. F. Robinson. 1835. Heppelwhite, A., Cabinet Maker. Published 1788, 1789, and 1794, and contains about 130 plates. Value £8 to £12. Reprint issued in 1897. Worth £2 10s. Ince and Mayhew. Household Furniture. N.d. (1770). Worth £20. Jacobean Furniture. _Connoisseur_, September, 1902. Knole House, Its State Rooms, &c. (Elizabethan and other Furniture.) S. J. Mackie. 1858. Manwaring, R., Cabinet and Chairmaker's Real Friend. London. 1765. Mansions of England in the Olden Time. J. Nash. 1839-49. Old English Houses and Furniture. M. B. Adam. Batsford. 1889. 25s. Old English Oak Furniture. J. W. Hurrell. Batsford. £2 2s. Old English Furniture. Frederick Fenn and B. Wyllie. Newnes. 7s. 6d. net. Old Oak, The Art of Collecting. _Connoisseur_, September, 1901. Sheraton, T. Cabinet Maker's Drawing Book. 1791-3 edition contains 111 plates. Value £13. 1794 edition contains 119 plates. Value £10. Sheraton T. Cabinet Directory. 1803. Staircases and Handrails of the Age of Elizabeth. J. Weale. 1860. Upholsterer's Repository. Ackermann. N.d. Worth £5. FRENCH.--_Dictionnaire de l'Ameublement._ H. Havard. Paris. N.d. Worth £5. _Dictionnaire Raisonné._ M. Viollet-le-Duc. 1858-75. 6 vols. Worth £10. French Furniture. Lady Dilke. Bell. 1901. French Eighteenth Century Furniture, Handbook to the. Jones Collection Catalogue. 1881. French Eighteenth Century Furniture, Handbook to the. Wallace Collection Catalogue. 1904. History of Furniture. A. Jacquemart. Chapman. 1878. 31s. 6d. Issued in Paris in 1876, under the title _Histoire du Mobilier_. _Le Meuble en France au XVI Siècle._ E. Bonnaffe. Paris. 1887. Worth 10s. JAPANESE.--Lacquer Industry of Japan. Report of Her Majesty's Acting-Consul at Hakodate. J. J. Quin. Parliamentary Paper. 8vo. London. 1882. SCOTTISH.--Scottish Woodwork of Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. J. W. Small. Waterston. 1878. £4 4s. SPANISH.--Spanish and Portuguese. Catalogue of Special Loan Exhibition of Spanish and Portuguese Ornamental Art. 1881. GLOSSARY OF TERMS USED _Armoire._--A large cupboard of French design of the dimensions of the modern wardrobe. In the days of Louis XIV. these pieces were made in magnificent style. The Jones Collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum has several fine examples. (See illustration, p. 165.) _Baroque._--Used in connection with over ornate and incongruous decoration as in _rococo_ style. _Bombé._--A term applied to pieces of furniture which swell out at the sides. _Boule._--A special form of marquetry of brass and tortoiseshell perfected by André Charles Boule in the reign of Louis XIV. (See Chapter VI., where specimens of this kind of work are illustrated.) The name has been corrupted into a trade term _Buhl_, to denote this style of marquetry. Boule or _Première partie_ is a metal inlay, usually brass, applied to a tortoiseshell background. See also _Counter-boule_. _Bureau._--A cabinet with drawers, and having a drop-down front for use as a writing-table. Bureaux are of many forms. (See illustration, p. 231.) _Cabriole._--Used in connection with the legs of tables and chairs which are curved in form, having a sudden arch outwards from the seat. (See illustration, p. 143.) _Caryatides._--Carved female figures applied to columns in Greek architecture, as at the Erectheum at Athens. They were employed by woodcarvers, and largely introduced into Renaissance furniture of an architectural character. Elizabethan craftsmen were especially fond of their use as terminals, and in the florid decoration of elaborate furniture. _Cassone._--An Italian marriage coffer. In Chapter I. will be found a full description of these _cassoni_. _Commode._--A chest of drawers of French style. In the chapters dealing with the styles of Louis XIV., Louis XV., and Louis XVI., these are fully described and illustrations are given. _Counter-Boule._ _Contre partie._--See Chapter VI., where specimens of this work are illustrated. It consists of a brass groundwork with tortoiseshell inlay. _French Polish._--A cheap and nasty method used since 1851 to varnish poor-looking wood to disguise its inferiority. It is quicker than the old method of rubbing in oil and turpentine and beeswax. It is composed of shellac dissolved in methylated spirits with colouring matter added. _Gate-leg table._--This term is self-explanatory. The legs of this class of table open like a gate. They belong to Jacobean days, and are sometimes spoken of as Cromwellian tables. An illustration of one appears on the cover. _Gothic._--This term was originally applied to the mediæval styles of architecture. It was used as a term of reproach and contempt at a time when it was the fashion to write Latin and to expect it to become the universal language. In woodcarving the Gothic style followed the architecture. A fine example of the transition between Gothic and the oncoming Renaissance is given (p. 44). _Inlay._--A term used for the practice of decorating surfaces and panels of furniture with wood of various colours, mother-of-pearl, or ivory. The inlay is let into the wood of which the piece inlaid is composed. _Jacobean._--Strictly speaking, only furniture of the days of James I. should be termed Jacobean. But by some collectors the period is held to extend to James II.--that is from 1603 to 1688. Other collectors prefer the term Carolean for a portion of the above period, which is equally misleading. Jacobean is only a rough generalisation of seventeenth-century furniture. _Lacquer._ _Lac._--A transparent varnish used in its perfection by the Chinese and Japanese. (See "Consular Report on Japanese Lacquered Work," in Bibliography.) Introduced into Holland and France, it was imitated with great success. Under Louis XV. Vernis-Martin became the rage (_q.v._). _Linen Pattern._--A form of carving panels to represent a folded napkin. This particular design was largely used in France and Germany prior to its adoption here. (See illustration, p. 60.) _Marquetry._--Inlays of coloured woods, arranged with some design, geometric, floral, or otherwise, are classed under this style. (See also _Parquetry_.) _Mortise._--A term in carpentry used to denote the hole made in a piece of wood to receive the end of another piece to be joined to it. The portion which fits into the mortise is called the tenon. _Oil Polish._--Old furniture, before the introduction of varnishes and French polish and other inartistic effects, was polished by rubbing the surface with a stone, if it was a large area as in the case of a table, and then applying linseed oil and polishing with beeswax and turpentine. The fine tone after centuries of this treatment is evident in old pieces which have a metallic lustre that cannot be imitated. _Parquetry._--Inlays of woods of the same colour are termed parquetry work in contradistinction to marquetry, which is in different colour. Geometric designs are mainly used as in parquetry floors. _Reeded._--This term is applied to the style of decoration by which thin narrow strips of wood are placed side by side on the surface of furniture. _Renaissance._--The style which was originated in Italy in the fifteenth century, supplanting the Mediæval styles which embraced Byzantine and Gothic art; the new-birth was in origin a literary movement, but quickly affected art, and grew with surprising rapidity, and affected every country in Europe. It is based on Classic types, and its influence on furniture and woodwork followed its adoption in architecture. _Restored._--This word is the fly in the pot of ointment to all who possess antiquarian tastes. It ought to mean, in furniture, that only the most necessary repairs have been made in order to preserve the object. It more often means that a considerable amount of misapplied ingenuity has gone to the remaking of a badly-preserved specimen. Restorations are only permissible at the hands of most conscientious craftsmen. _Rococo._--A style which was most markedly offensive in the time of Louis XV. Meaningless elaborations of scroll and shell work, with rocky backgrounds and incongruous ornamentations, are its chief features. _Baroque_ is another term applied to this overloaded style. _Settee._--An upholstered form of the settle. _Settle._--A wooden seat with back and arms, capable of seating three or four persons side by side. _Splat._--The wooden portion in the back of a chair connecting the top rail with the seat. _Strapwork._--This is applied to the form of decoration employed by the Elizabethan woodcarvers in imitation of Flemish originals. (See p. 68.) _Stretcher._--The rail which connects the legs of a chair or a table with one another. In earlier forms it was used as a footrest to keep the feet from the damp or draughty rush floor. _Tenon._--"Mortise and Tenon joint." (See _Mortise_.) _Turned Work._--The spiral rails and uprights of chairs were turned with the lathe in Jacobean days. Prior to the introduction of the lathe all work was carved without the use of this tool. Pieces of furniture have been found where the maker has carved the turned work in all its details of form, either from caprice or from ignorance of the existence of the quicker method. _Veneer._--A method of using thin layers of wood and laying them on a piece of furniture, either as marquetry in different colours, or in one wood only. It was an invention in order to employ finer specimens of wood carefully selected in the parts of a piece of furniture most noticeable. It has been since used to hide inferior wood. _Vernis-Martin_ (Martin's Varnish).--The lacquered work of a French carriage-painter named Martin, who claimed to have discovered the secret of the Japanese lac, and who, in 1774, was granted a monopoly for its use. He applied it successfully to all kinds of furniture, and to fan-guards and sticks. In the days of Madame du Pompadour Vernis-Martin had a great vogue, and panels prepared by Martin were elaborately painted upon by Lancret and Boucher. To this day his varnish retains its lustre undimmed, and specimens command high prices. Woods used in Furniture. _High-class Work._--Brazil wood, Coromandel, Mahogany, Maple, Oak (various kinds), Olive, Rosewood, Satinwood, Sandalwood, Sweet Cedar, Sweet Chestnut, Teak, Walnut. _Commoner Work._--Ash, Beech, Birch, Cedars (various), Deals, Mahogany (various kinds), Pine, Walnut. _Marquetry and Veneers._--Selected specimens for fine figuring are used as veneers, and for marquetry of various colours the following are used as being more easily stained: Holly, Horsechestnut, Sycamore, Pear, Plum Tree. _Woods with Fancy Names._ King Wood, Partridge Wood, Pheasant Wood, Purple Wood, Snakewood, Tulip Wood. These are more rare and finely-marked foreign woods used sparingly in the most expensive furniture. To arrive at the botanical names of these is not an easy matter. To those interested a list of woods used by cabinet-makers with their botanical names is given in Mr. J. Hungerford Pollen's "Introduction to the South Kensington Collection of Furniture." At the Museum at Kew Gardens and in the Imperial Institute are collections of rare woods worth examination. I THE RENAISSANCE ON THE CONTINENT [Illustration: Portion of carved cornice of pinewood, from the Palazzo Bensi Ceccini, Venice. Italian; middle of sixteenth century. (_Victoria and Albert Museum._)] CHATS ON OLD FURNITURE I THE RENAISSANCE ON THE CONTINENT ITALY. Flight of Greek scholars to Italy upon capture of Constantinople by the Turks--1453. Rediscovery of Greek art. Florence the centre of the Renaissance. Leo X., Pope (1475-1521). Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1520). Raphael (1483-1520). Michael Angelo (1474-1564). FRANCE. Francis I. (1515-1547). Henry IV. (1589-1610). SPAIN. The crown united under Ferdinand and Isabella (1452-1516). Granada taken from the Moors--1492. Charles V. (1519-1555). Philip II. (1555-1598). GERMANY. Maximilian I., Emperor of Germany (1459-1519). Holbein (1498-1543). In attempting to deal with the subject of old furniture in a manner not too technical, certain broad divisions have to be made for convenience in classification. The general reader does not want information concerning the iron bed of Og, King of Bashan, nor of Cicero's table of citrus-wood, which cost £9,000; nor are details of the chair of Dagobert and of the jewel-chest of Richard of Cornwall of much worth to the modern collector. It will be found convenient to eliminate much extraneous matter, such as the early origins of furniture and its development in the Middle Ages, and to commence in this country with the Tudor period. Broadly speaking, English furniture falls under three heads--the Oak Period, embracing the furniture of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries; the Walnut Period, including the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries; the Mahogany Period, beginning with the reign of George III. It may be observed that the names of kings and of queens have been applied to various styles of furniture as belonging to their reign. Early Victorian is certainly a more expressive term than early nineteenth century. Cromwellian tables, Queen Anne chairs, or Louis Seize commodes all have an especial meaning as referring to styles more or less prevalent when those personages lived. As there is no record of the makers of most of the old English furniture, and as a piece of furniture cannot be judged as can a picture, the date of manufacture cannot be precisely laid down, hence the vagueness of much of the classification of old furniture. Roughly it may in England be dealt with under the Tudor, the Stuart, and the Georgian ages. These three divisions do not coincide exactly with the periods of oak, of walnut, and of mahogany, inasmuch as the oak furniture extended well into the Stuart days, and walnut was prevalent in the reigns of George I. and George II. In any case, these broad divisions are further divided into sub-heads embracing styles which arose out of the natural development in taste, or which came and went at the caprice of fashion. [Illustration: Frame of wood, carved with floral scrollwork, with female terminal figures. Italian; late sixteenth century. (_Victoria and Albert Museum._)] The formation of a definite English character in the furniture of the three periods must be examined in conjunction with the prevailing styles in foreign furniture showing what influences were at work. Many conditions governed the introduction of foreign furniture into England. Renaissance art made a change in architecture, and a corresponding change took place in furniture. Ecclesiastical buildings followed the continental architecture in form and design, and foreign workmen were employed by the Church and by the nobility in decorating and embellishing cathedrals and abbeys and feudal castles. The early Tudor days under Henry VII. saw the dawn of the Renaissance in England. Jean de Mabuse and Torrigiano were invited over the sea by Henry VII., and under the sturdy impulse of Henry VIII. classical learning and love of the fine arts were encouraged. His palaces were furnished with splendour. He wished to emulate the château of Francis at Fontainebleau. He tried to entice the French king's artists with more tempting terms. Holbein, the great master of the German school, came to England, and his influence over Tudor art was very pronounced. The florid manner of the Renaissance was tempered with the broader treatment of the northern school. The art, too, of the Flemish woodcarvers found sympathetic reception in this country, and the harmonious blending of the designs of the Renaissance craftsmen of the Italian with those of the Flemish school resulted in the growth in England of the beautiful and characteristic style known as Tudor. [Illustration: FRONT OF COFFER. CHESTNUT WOOD. ITALIAN; LATE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. With shield of arms supported by two male demi figures terminating in floral scrollwork. (_Victoria and Albert Museum._)] The term Renaissance is used in regard to that period in the history of art which marked the return to the classic forms employed by the Greeks and Romans. The change from the Gothic or Mediæval work to the classic feeling had its origin in Italy, and spread, at first gradually but later with amazing rapidity and growing strength, into Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, France, and finally to England. [Illustration: _By permission of the proprietors of the "Connoisseur."_ BRIDAL CHEST. GOTHIC DESIGN. MIDDLE OF FIFTEENTH CENTURY. (_Munich National Museum._)] The Renaissance was in origin a literary movement, and its influence in art came through literature. The enthusiasm of the new learning acting on craftsmen already trained to the highest degree of technical skill produced work of great brilliance. Never did the fine arts rise to such transcendent heights as in Italy from the fourteenth to the middle of the seventeenth centuries. The late John Addington Symonds, in his work on "The Renaissance in Italy," deals in a comprehensive manner with this memorable period, during which every city in Italy, great or small, was producing wonderful works of art, in painting, in sculpture, in goldsmiths' work, in woodcarving, in furniture, of which now every civilised country struggles to obtain for its art collections the scattered fragments of these great days. "During that period of prodigious activity," he says, "the entire nation seemed to be endowed with an instinct for the beautiful and with the capacity for producing it in every conceivable form." In the middle of the fourteenth century the Renaissance style in woodwork was at first more evident in the churches and in the palaces of the nobility in the Italian states. Some of the most magnificent examples of carved woodwork are preserved in the choir-stalls, doorways and panelling of the churches and cathedrals of Italy. The great artists of the day gave their talents to the production of woodwork and furniture in various materials. Wood was chiefly employed in making furniture, usually oak, cypress, ebony, walnut, or chestnut, which last wood is very similar in appearance to oak. These were decorated with gilding and paintings, and were inlaid with other woods, or agate, lapis-lazuli, and marbles of various tints, with ivory, tortoiseshell, mother-of-pearl, or with ornaments of hammered silver. The Victoria and Albert Museum contains some splendid examples of fourteenth and fifteenth century Italian Renaissance furniture, which illustrate well the magnificence and virility of the great art movement which influenced the remainder of Europe. In particular, carved and gilded frames, and marriage coffers (_cassoni_) given to brides as part of their dowry to hold the bridal trousseau, are richly and effectively decorated. The frame of carved wood (illustrated p. 35), with fine scroll work and female terminal figures, is enriched with painting and gilding. The frame on the title-page of this volume is of carved wood, decorated with gold stucco. Both these are sixteenth-century Italian work. In fact, the study of the various types and the different kinds of ornamentation given to these _cassoni_ would be an interesting subject for the student, who would find enough material in the collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum to enable him to follow the Renaissance movement from its early days down to the time when crowded design, over-elaboration, and inharmonious details grew apace like so many weeds to choke the ideals of the master spirits of the Renaissance. The front of the late fifteenth-century coffer (illustrated p. 38) is of chestnut wood, carved with a shield of arms supported by two male demi-figures, terminating in floral scroll work. There are still traces of gilding on the wood. At first the lines followed architecture in character. Cabinets had pilasters, columns, and arches resembling the old Roman temples. The illustration of a portion of a cornice of carved pinewood appearing as the headpiece to this chapter shows this tendency. The marriage coffers had classic heads upon them, but gradually this chaste style gave place to rich ornamentation with designs of griffins and grotesque masks. The chairs, too, were at first very severe in outline, usually with a high back and fitted with a stretcher between the legs, which was carved, as was also the back of the chair. In the middle of the fifteenth century Gothic art had attained its high-water mark in Germany before the new art from Italy had crossed the Alps. We reproduce a bridal chest, of the middle of the fifteenth century, from the collection in the Munich National Museum, which shows the basis of Gothic art in England prior to the revival and before further foreign influences were brought to bear on English art (p. 39). The influence of Italian art upon France soon made itself felt. Italian architects and craftsmen were invited by Francis I. and by the Princesses of the House of Medici, of which Pope Leo X. was the illustrious head, to build palaces and châteaux in the Renaissance style. The Tuileries, Fontainebleau, and the Louvre were the result of this importation. Primaticcio and Cellini founded a school of sculptors and wood-carvers in France, of which Jean Goujon stands pre-eminent. The furniture began gradually to depart from the old Gothic traditions, as is shown in the design of the oak chest of the late fifteenth century preserved in the Dublin Museum, which we illustrate, and commenced to emulate the gorgeousness of Italy. This is a particularly instructive example, showing the transition between the Gothic and the Renaissance styles. [Illustration: FRONT OF OAK CHEST. FRENCH; FIFTEENTH CENTURY. (_Dublin Museum._)] The French Renaissance sideboard in the illustration (p. 45) is a fine example of the middle of the sixteenth century. It is carved in walnut. The moulded top is supported in front by an arcading decorated with two male and two female terminal figures, which are enriched with masks and floral ornament. Behind the arcading is a table supporting a cupboard and resting in front on four turned columns; it is fitted with three drawers, the fronts of which, as well as that of the cupboard, are decorated with monsters, grotesque masks, and scroll work. [Illustration: _By permission of T. Foster Shattock, Esq._ WALNUT SIDEBOARD. FRENCH; MIDDLE OF SIXTEENTH CENTURY.] The impulse given by Francis I. was responsible for much decorative work in the early period of the French Renaissance, and many beautiful examples exist in the churches and châteaux of France to which his name has been given. It is noticeable that the chief difference between the Italian and the French Renaissance lies in the foundation of Gothic influence underlying the newer Renaissance ornament in French work of the period. Flamboyant arches and Gothic canopies were frequently retained and mingled with classic decoration. The French clung to their older characteristics with more tenacity, inasmuch as the Renaissance was a sudden importation rather than a natural development of slower growth. The French Renaissance cabinet of walnut illustrated (p. 48) is from Lyons, and is of the later part of the sixteenth century. It is finely carved with terminal figures, masks, trophies of ornaments, and other ornament. In comparison with the sixteenth-century ebony cabinet of the period of Henry IV., finely inlaid with ivory in most refined style, it is obvious that a great variety of sumptuous furniture was being made by the production of such diverse types as these, and that the craftsmen were possessed of a wealth of invention. The range of English craftsmen's designs during the Renaissance in this country was never so extensive, as can be seen on a detailed examination of English work. [Illustration: CABINET OF WALNUT FRENCH (LYONS); SECOND HALF OF SIXTEENTH CENTURY. Carved with terminal figures, masks, and trophies of arms. (_Victoria and Albert Museum._)] In Spain the Italian feeling became acclimatised more readily than in France. In the sixteenth century the wood carving of Spain is of exceeding beauty. The decoration of the choir of the cathedral at Toledo is held to be one of the finest examples of the Spanish Renaissance. In furniture the cabinets and buffets of the Spanish craftsmen are of perfect grace and of characteristic design. The older Spanish cabinets are decorated externally with delicate ironwork and with columns of ivory or bone painted and richly gilded, exhibiting Moorish influence in their character. Many of the more magnificent specimens are richly inlaid with silver, and are the work of the artists of Seville, of Toledo, or of Valladolid. The first illustration of a cabinet and stand is a typically Spanish design, and the second illustration of the carved walnut chest in the National Archælogical Museum at Madrid is of the sixteenth century, when the Spanish wood-carvers had developed the Renaissance spirit and reached a very high level in their art. Simultaneously with the Italianising of French art a similar wave of novelty was spreading over the Netherlands and Germany. The Flemish Renaissance approaches more nearly to the English in the adaptation of the Italian style, or it would be more accurate to say that the English is more closely allied to the art of the Netherlands, as it drew much of its inspiration from the Flemish wood-carvers. The spiral turned legs and columns, the strap frets cut out and applied to various parts, the squares between turnings often left blank to admit of a little ebony diamond, are all of the same family as the English styles. Ebony inlay was frequently used, but the Flemish work of this period was nearly all in oak. Marqueterie of rich design was made, the inlay being of various coloured woods and shaded. Mother-of-pearl and ivory were also employed to heighten the effect. [Illustration: FRENCH CABINET. Ebony and ivory marquetry work. MIDDLE OF SIXTEENTH CENTURY. (_From the collection of M. Emile Peyre._)] [Illustration: SPANISH CABINET AND STAND. CARVED CHESTNUT; FIRST HALF OF SIXTEENTH CENTURY. Width of cabinet, 3 ft. 2 in.; depth, 1 ft. 4 in.; height, 4 ft. 10 in. (_Victoria and Albert Museum._)] The Italian Renaissance laid a light hand upon the Flemish artists, who, while unavoidably coming under its influence, at first copied its ornateness but subsequently proceeded on their own lines. Much quaint figure work, in which they greatly excelled, was used by the Flemish wood-carvers in their joinery. It is grotesque in character, and, like all their work, boldly executed. The influx of foreign influences upon the Netherlands was in the main as successfully resisted as is the encroachment of the sea across their land-locked dykes. The growth of the Spanish power made Charles V. the most powerful prince in Europe. Ferdinand of Spain held the whole Spanish peninsula except Portugal, with Sardinia and the island of Sicily, and he won the kingdom of Naples. His daughter Joanna married Philip, the son of Maximilian of Austria, and of Mary the daughter of Charles the Bold. Their son Charles thus inherited kingdoms and duchies from each of his parents and grandparents, and besides the dominions of Ferdinand and Isabella, he held Burgundy and the Netherlands. In 1519 he was chosen Emperor as Charles V. Flooded with Italian artists and Austrian and Spanish rulers, it is interesting to note how the national spirit in art was kept alive, and was of such strong growth that it influenced in marked manner the English furniture of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century, as will be shown in a subsequent chapter. [Illustration: SPANISH CHEST; CARVED WALNUT. SIXTEENTH CENTURY. (_In the National Museum, Madrid._)] RECENT SALE PRICES.[1] £ s. d. Chest, Gothic, carved with parchemin panels, with a wrought-iron lock, from Nuremburg Castle, German, about 1500. Christie, January 29, 1904 31 10 0 Cabinet, walnut wood, of architectural design, with folding doors above and below and small drawers, carved with arabesque foliage and scrolls in relief, and with columns at the angles, 69 in. high, 38 in. wide, French, middle of the sixteenth century. Christie, April 12, 1904 21 0 0 Coffer, oak, the front divided by six buttresses, the steel lock pierced with tracery, 65 in. long, 46 in. high, French, late fifteenth century. Christie, May 6, 1904 126 0 0 Coffer, large walnut wood, the whole of the front and sides carved in low relief, the lock is rectangular, and pierced with flamboyant tracery, French (provincial), early part of the fifteenth century, 84 in. wide, 36 in. high. Christie, May 6, 1904 50 8 0 Coffer, walnut wood, the front and sides divided into arch-shaped panels containing Gothic tracery, 86 in. wide, 32 in. high, French, fifteenth century. Christie, May 6, 1904 52 10 0 Chair, walnut wood, with semicircular seat, the back composed of six upright rectangular panels, each containing various forms of Gothic tracery; below is a longitudinal panel of tracery, 27 in. wide, 29 in. high, French or Flemish, fifteenth century. Christie, May 6, 1904 91 7 0 Credence, oak, with folding doors and drawers above and shelf beneath, the corners are returned, the various door panels, &c., carved in low relief; at the back below is linen fold panelling, 54 in. wide, 62 in. high, probably French, early sixteenth century. Christie, May 6, 1904 336 0 0 Cabinet, walnut-wood, in two parts, of rectangular form, with folding doors above and below, and two drawers in the centre, carved with grotesque terminal figure and gadrooned mouldings, strapwork and duplicated rosettes, French work, early seventeenth century, 78 in. high, 48 in. wide. Christie, May 6, 1904 110 5 0 Cabinet, walnut-wood, in two parts, of rectangular form, with folding doors below and door above; at the sides are terminal male and female figures, the centres of the doors carved, 92 in. high, 49 in. wide, French work (Lyons School), second quarter of sixteenth century. Christie, May 6, 1904 99 15 0 [1] By the kindness of the proprietors of the _Connoisseur_ these items are given from their useful monthly publication, _Auction Sale Prices_. II THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE [Illustration: _By permission of Messrs. Hampton & Sons._ CARVED OAK CHEST. ENGLISH; SIXTEENTH CENTURY. Panels finely carved with Gothic tracery.] II THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE Henry VIII. 1509-1547. Edward VI. 1547-1553. Mary 1553-1558. Elizabeth 1558-1603. 1525. Hampton Court built. 1566. Increased commercial prosperity. Foundation of Royal Exchange by Sir Thomas Gresham. 1580. Drake comes home from the New World with plunder worth half a million. 1585. Antwerp captured by the Duke of Parma; flight of merchants to London. Transfer of commercial supremacy from Antwerp to London. Beginning of carrying trade, especially with Flanders. [Illustration: BENCH OF OAK. FRENCH; ABOUT 1500. With panels of linen ornament. Seat arranged as a coffer. (Formerly in the collection of M. Emile Peyre.) (_Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh._)] The opening years of the sixteenth century saw the beginnings of the Renaissance movement in England. The oak chest had become a settle with high back and arms. The fine example of an early sixteenth-century oak chest illustrated (p. 59) shows how the Gothic style had impressed itself on articles of domestic furniture. The credence, or tasting buffet, had developed into the Tudor sideboard, where a cloth was spread and candles placed. With more peaceful times a growth of domestic refinement required comfortable and even luxurious surroundings. The royal palaces at Richmond and Windsor were filled with costly foreign furniture. The mansions which were taking the place of the old feudal castles found employment for foreign artists and craftsmen who taught the English woodcarver. In the early days of Henry VIII. the classical style supplanted the Gothic, or was in great measure mingled with it. Many fine structures exist which belong to this transition period, during which the mixed style was predominant. The woodwork of King's College Chapel at Cambridge is held to be an especially notable example. [Illustration: PORTION OF CARVED WALNUT VIRGINAL. FLEMISH; SIXTEENTH CENTURY. (_Victoria and Albert Museum._)] [Illustration: FRENCH CARVED OAK COFFER. Showing interlaced ribbon work. SECOND HALF OF SIXTEENTH CENTURY. (Height, 2 ft. 1 in.; width, 3 ft. 1 in.) (_Victoria and Albert Museum._)] The Great Hall at Hampton Court dates from 1531, or five years after Cardinal Wolsey had given up his palace to Henry VIII. Its grand proportions, its high-pitched roof and pendants, display the art of the woodcarver in great excellence. This hall, like others of the same period, had an open hearth in the centre, on which logs of wood were placed, and the smoke found its way out through a cupola, or louvre, in the roof. The roofs of the Early Tudor mansions were magnificent specimens of woodwork. But the old style of king-post, queen-post, or hammer-beam roof was prevalent. The panelling, too, of halls and rooms retained the formal character in its mouldings, and various "linen" patterns were used, so called from their resemblance to a folded napkin, an ornamentation largely used towards the end of the Perpendicular style, which was characteristic of English domestic architecture in the fifteenth century. To this period belongs the superb woodcarving of the renowned choir stalls of Henry VII.'s Chapel in Westminster Abbey. The bench of oak illustrated (p. 60) shows a common form of panel with linen ornament, and is French, of about the year 1500. The seat, as will be seen, is arranged as a locked coffer. [Illustration: FIREPLACE AND OAK PANELLING FROM THE "OLD PALACE" AT BROMLEY-BY-BOW. BUILT IN 1606. (_Victoria and Albert Museum._)] The Elizabethan woodcarver revelled in grotesque figure work, in intricate interlacings of strapwork, borrowed from the Flemish, and ribbon ornamentation, adapted from the French. He delighted in massive embellishment of magnificent proportions. Among Tudor woodwork the carved oak screen of the Middle Temple Hall is a noteworthy example of the sumptuousness and splendour of interior decoration of the English Renaissance. These screens supporting the minstrels' gallery in old halls are usually exceptionally rich in detail. Gray's Inn (dated 1560) and the Charterhouse (dated 1571) are other examples of the best period of sixteenth-century woodwork in England. Christ Church at Oxford, Grimsthorp in Lincolnshire, Kenninghall in Norfolk, Layer Marney Towers in Essex, and Sutton Place at Guildford, are all representative structures typical of the halls and manor houses being built at the time of the English Renaissance. In the Victoria and Albert Museum has been re-erected a room having the oak panelling from the "Old Palace" at Bromley-by-Bow, which was built in 1606. The massive fireplace with the royal coat of arms above, with the niches in which stand carved figures of two saints, together with the contemporary iron fire-dogs standing in the hearth, give a picture of what an old Elizabethan hall was like. [Illustration: ELIZABETHAN BEDSTEAD. DATED 1593. Carved oak, ornamented in marquetry. (Height, 7 ft. 4 in.; length, 7 ft. 11 in.; width, 5 ft. 8 in.) (_Victoria and Albert Museum._)] Under Queen Elizabeth new impulses stirred the nation, and a sumptuous Court set the fashion in greater luxury of living. Gloriana, with her merchant-princes, her fleet of adventurers on the high seas, and the pomp and circumstance of her troop of foreign lovers, brought foreign fashions and foreign art into commoner usage. The growth of luxurious habits in the people was eyed askance by her statesmen; "England spendeth more in wines in one year," complained Cecil, "than it did in ancient times in four years." The chimney-corner took the place of the open hearth; chimneys were for the first time familiar features in middle-class houses. The insanitary rush-floor was superseded by wood, and carpets came into general use. Even pillows, deemed by the hardy yeomanry as only fit "for women in child-bed," found a place in the massive and elaborately carved Elizabethan bedstead. The illustration of the fine Elizabethan bedstead (on p. 66) gives a very good idea of what the domestic furniture was like in the days immediately succeeding the Spanish Armada. It is carved in oak; with columns, tester, and headboard showing the classic influence. It is ornamented in marquetry, and bears the date 1593. All over England were springing up town halls and fine houses of the trading-classes, and manor houses and palaces of the nobility worthy of the people about to establish a formidable position in European politics. Hatfield House, Hardwick Hall, Audley End, Burleigh, Knole, and Longleat, all testify to the Renaissance which swept over England at this time. Stately terraces with Italian gardens, long galleries hung with tapestries, and lined with carved oak chairs and elaborate cabinets were marked features in the days of the new splendour. Men's minds, led by Raleigh, the Prince of Company Promoters, and fired by Drake's buccaneering exploits, turned to the New World, hitherto under the heel of Spain. Dreams of galleons laden with gold and jewels stimulated the ambition of adventurous gallants, and quickened the nation's pulse. The love of travel became a portion of the Englishman's heritage. The Italian spirit had reached England in full force. The poetry and romances of Italy affected all the Elizabethan men of letters. Shakespeare, in his "Merchant of Venice" and his other plays, plainly shows the Italian influence. In costume, in speech, and in furniture, it became the fashion to follow Italy. To Ascham it seemed like "the enchantment of Circe brought out of Italy to mar men's manners in England." [Illustration: PANEL OF CARVED OAK. ENGLISH; EARLY SIXTEENTH CENTURY. Showing interlaced strapwork. (_Victoria and Albert Museum._)] The result of this wave of fashion on the domestic furniture of England was to impart to it the elegance of Italian art combined with a national sturdiness of character seemingly inseparable from English art at all periods. As the reign of Queen Elizabeth extended from the year 1558 to the year 1603, it is usual to speak of architecture and furniture of the latter half of the sixteenth century as Elizabethan. A favourite design in Elizabethan woodwork is the interlaced strapwork (see illustration p. 68), which was derived from similar designs employed by the contemporary stonecarver, and is found on Flemish woodwork of the same period. The panel of a sixteenth-century Flemish virginal, carved in walnut, illustrated, shows this form of decoration. Grotesque terminal figures, half-human, half-monster, supported the front of the buffets, or were the supporting terminals of cornices. This feature is an adaptation from the Caryatides, the supporting figures used instead of columns in architecture, which in Renaissance days extended to woodwork. Table-legs and bed-posts swelled into heavy, acorn-shaped supports of massive dimensions. Cabinets were sometimes inlaid, as was also the room panelling, but it cannot be said that at this period the art of marquetry had arrived at a great state of perfection in this country. It is noticeable that in the rare pieces that are inlaid in the Late Tudor and Early Jacobean period the inlay itself is a sixteenth of an inch thick, whereas in later inlays of more modern days the inlay is thinner and flimsier. In the Flemish examples ivory was often used, and holly and sycamore and box seem to have been the favourite woods selected for inlay. Take, for example, the mirror with the frame of carved oak, with scroll outline and narrow bands inlaid with small squares of wood, alternately light and dark. This inlay is very coarsely done, and unworthy to compare with Italian marquetry of contemporary date, or of an earlier period. The uprights and feet of the frame, it will be noticed, are baluster-shaped. The glass mirror is of nineteenth-century manufacture. The date carved upon the frame is 1603, the first year of the reign of James I., and it is stated to have come from Derby Old Hall. The Court cupboard, also of the same date, begins to show the coming style of Jacobean ornamentation in the turning in the upright pillars and supports and the square baluster termination. The massive carving and elaborate richness of the early Elizabethan period have given place to a more restrained decoration. Between the drawers is the design of a tulip in marquetry, and narrow bands of inlay are used to decorate the piece. In place of the chimerical monsters we have a portrait in wood of a lady, for which Arabella Stuart might have sat as model. The days were approaching when furniture was designed for use, and ornament was put aside if it interfered with the structural utility of the piece. The wrought-iron handle to the drawer should be noted, and in connection with the observation brought to bear by the beginner on genuine specimens in the Victoria and Albert Museum and other collections, it is well not to let any detail escape minute attention. Hinges and lock escutcheons and handles to drawers must not be neglected in order to acquire a sound working knowledge of the peculiarities of the different periods. [Illustration: MIRROR. Glass in oak frame with carved scroll outline and narrow bands inlaid with small squares of wood. The glass nineteenth century. ENGLISH. DATED 1603. (_Victoria and Albert Museum._)] [Illustration: COURT CUPBOARD, CARVED OAK. ENGLISH. DATED 1603. Decorated with narrow bands inlaid, and having inlaid tulip between drawers. (_Victoria and Albert Museum._)] In contrast with this specimen, the elaborately carved Court cupboard of a slightly earlier period should be examined. It bears carving on every available surface. It has been "restored," and restored pieces have an unpleasant fashion of suggesting that sundry improvements have been carried out in the process. At any rate, as it stands it is over-laboured, and entirely lacking in reticence. The elaboration of enrichment, while executed in a perfectly harmonious manner, should convey a lesson to the student of furniture. There is an absence of contrast; had portions of it been left uncarved how much more effective would have been the result! As it is it stands, wonderful as is the technique, somewhat of a warning to the designer to cultivate a studied simplicity rather than to run riot in a profusion of detail. [Illustration: COURT CUPBOARD, CARVED OAK. ABOUT 1580. (RESTORED.) (_Victoria and Albert Museum._)] Another interesting Court cupboard, of the early seventeenth century, shows the more restrained style that was rapidly succeeding the earlier work. This piece is essentially English in spirit, and is untouched save the legs, which have been restored. [Illustration: _By kind permission of T. E. Price Stretche, Esq._ COURT CUPBOARD, EARLY SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. With secret hiding-place at top.] The table which is illustrated (p. 78) is a typical example of the table in ordinary use in Elizabethan days. This table replaced a stone altar in a church in Shropshire at the time of the Reformation. It was late in the reign of Queen Elizabeth that upholstered chairs became more general. Sir John Harrington, writing in 1597, gives evidence of this in the assertion that "the fashion of cushioned chayrs is taken up in every merchant's house." Wooden seats had hitherto not been thought too hard, and chairs imported from Spain had leather seats and backs of fine tooled work richly gilded and decorated. In the latter days of Elizabeth loose cushions were used for chairs and for window seats, and were elaborately wrought in velvet, or were of satin embroidered in colours, with pearls as ornamentation, and edged with gold or silver lace. The upholstered chair belongs more properly to the Jacobean period, and in the next chapter will be shown several specimens of those used by James I. In Elizabethan panelling to rooms, in chimneypieces, doorways, screens such as those built across the end of a hall and supporting the minstrels' gallery, the wood used was nearly always English oak, and most of the thinner parts, such as that designed for panels and smaller surfaces, was obtained by splitting the timber, thus exhibiting the beautiful figure of the wood so noticeable in old examples. RECENT SALE PRICES.[1] £ s. d. Chest, oak, with inlaid panels under arches, with caryatid figures carved in box-wood, English, temp. Elizabeth. Christie, January 29, 1904. 40 9 0 Tudor mantelpiece, with elaborately carved jambs, panels, } brackets, sides, and cornice, 6 ft. by 7 ft. 3 in. high.} Herbert Wright, Ipswich, February 19, 1904 } } 155 0 0 Old oak panelling, in all about 60 ft. run and 6 ft. 6 in. } high, with 17 carved panels and 3 fluted pilasters } fitted in same, part being surmounted by a cornice. } Herbert Wright, Ipswich, February 19, 1904 } Credence, walnut-wood, with a cupboard and drawer above and shelf beneath, the corners are returned, the central panel has carved upon it, in low relief, circular medallions, pierced steel hinges and lock, 36 in. wide, 50 in. high, early sixteenth century. Christie, May 6, 1904 346 0 0 Bedstead, Elizabethan, with panelled and carved canopy top, supported by fluted and carved pillars, inlaid and panelled back, with raised figures and flowers in relief, also having a carved panelled footboard. C. W. Provis & Son, Manchester, May 9, 1904 22 10 0 Bedstead, oak Elizabethan, with carved back, dated 1560, and small cupboard fitted with secret sliding panel, and further having carved and inlaid panelled top with inlaid panels, the whole surmounted with heavy cornice. C. W. Provis & Son, Manchester, May 9, 1904 33 0 0 Sideboard, Elizabethan old oak, 6 ft. 2 in. wide by 7 ft. 6 in. high, with carved canopy top; also fitted with gallery shelf, supported by lions rampant. C. W. Provis & Son, Manchester. May 9, 1904 60 0 0 [1] By the kindness of the proprietors of the _Connoisseur_ these items are given from their useful monthly publication, _Auction Sale Prices_. [Illustration: _By kindness of T. E. Price Stretche, Esq._ ELIZABETHAN OAK TABLE.] III STUART OR JACOBEAN. SEVENTEENTH CENTURY [Illustration: _By permission of Messrs. Waring._ GATE-LEG TABLE.] III STUART OR JACOBEAN. SEVENTEENTH CENTURY James I. 1603-1625. Charles I. 1625-1649. The Commonwealth 1649-1660. 1619. Tapestry factory established at Mortlake, under Sir Francis Crane. ---- Banqueting Hall added to Whitehall by Inigo Jones. 1632. Vandyck settled in London on invitation of Charles I. 1651. Navigation Act passed; aimed blow (1572-1652) at Dutch carrying trade. All goods to be imported in English ships or in ships of country producing goods. With the advent of the House of Stuart the England under James I. saw new fashions introduced in furniture. It has already been mentioned that the greater number of old houses which are now termed Tudor or Elizabethan were erected in the days of James I. At the beginning of a new monarchy fashion in art rarely changes suddenly, so that the early pieces of Jacobean furniture differ very little from Elizabethan in character. Consequently the Court cupboard, dated 1603, and mirror of the same year (illustrated on p. 70), though bearing the date of the first year of the reign of James, more properly belong to Tudor days. In the Bodleian Library at Oxford there is preserved a chair of fine workmanship and of historic memory. It was made from the oak timbers of the _Golden Hind_, the ship in which Sir Francis Drake made his adventurous voyage of discovery round the world. In spite of many secret enemies "deaming him the master thiefe of the unknowne world," Queen Elizabeth came to Deptford and came aboard the _Golden Hind_ and "there she did make Captain Drake knight, in the same ship, for reward of his services; his armes were given him, a ship on the world, which ship, by Her Majestie's commandment, is lodged in a dock at Deptford, for a monument to all posterity." [Illustration: _By permission of the proprietors of the "Connoisseur."_ OAK CHAIR MADE FROM THE TIMBER OF THE _GOLDEN HIND_. COMMONLY CALLED "SIR FRANCIS DRAKE'S CHAIR." (_At the Bodleian Library._)] It remained for many years at Deptford dockyard, and became the resort of holiday folk, who made merry in the cabin, which was converted into a miniature banqueting hall; but when it was too far decayed to be repaired it was broken up, and a sufficient quantity of sound wood was selected from it and made into a chair, which was presented to the University of Oxford. This was in the time of Charles II., and the poet Cowley has written some lines on it, in which he says that Drake and his _Golden Hind_ could not have wished a more blessed fate, since to "this Pythagorean ship" "... a seat of endless rest is given To her in Oxford, and to him in heaven--" which, though quite unintentional on the part of the poet, is curiously satiric. [Illustration: _By permission of the Master of the Charterhouse._ OAK TABLE, DATED 1616, BEARING ARMS OF THOMAS SUTTON, FOUNDER OF THE CHARTERHOUSE HOSPITAL.] The piece is highly instructive as showing the prevailing design for a sumptuous chair in the late seventeenth century. The middle arch in the back of the chair is disfigured by a tablet with an inscription, which has been placed there. Of the early days of James I. is a finely carved oak table, dated 1616. This table is heavily moulded and carved with garlands between cherubs' heads, and shields bearing the arms of Thomas Sutton, the founder of the Charterhouse Hospital. The upper part of the table is supported on thirteen columns, with quasi-Corinthian columns and enriched shafts, standing on a moulded H-shaped base. It will be seen that the designers had not yet thrown off the trammels of architecture which dominated much of the Renaissance woodwork. The garlands are not the garlands of Grinling Gibbons, and although falling within the Jacobean period, it lacks the charm which belong to typical Jacobean pieces. At Knole, in the possession of Lord Sackville, there are some fine specimens of early Jacobean furniture, illustrations of which are included in this volume. The chair used by King James I. when sitting to the painter Mytens is of peculiar interest. The cushion, worn and threadbare with age, is in all probability the same cushion used by James. The upper part of the chair is trimmed with a band of gold thread. The upholstering is red velvet, and the frame, which is of oak, bears traces of gilding upon it, and is studded with copper nails. The chair in design, with the half circular supports, follows old Venetian patterns. The smaller chair is of the same date, and equally interesting as a fine specimen; the old embroidery, discoloured and worn though it be, is of striking design and must have been brilliant and distinctive three hundred years ago. The date of these pieces is about 1620, the year when the "Pilgrim Fathers" landed in America. [Illustration: _By permission of the proprietors of the "Connoisseur."_ CHAIR USED BY JAMES I. In the possession of Lord Sackville.] From the wealth of Jacobean furniture at Knole it is difficult to make a representative selection, but the stool we reproduce (p. 90) is interesting, inasmuch as it was a piece of furniture in common use. The chairs evidently were State chairs, but the footstool was used in all likelihood by those who sat below the salt, and were of less significance. The stuffed settee which finds a place in the billiard-room at Knole and the sumptuous sofa in the Long Gallery, with its mechanical arrangement for altering the angle at the head, are objects of furniture difficult to equal. The silk and gold thread coverings are faded, and the knotted fringe and gold braid have tarnished under the hand of Time, but their structural design is so effective that the modern craftsman has made luxurious furniture after these models. [Illustration: _By permission of the proprietors of the "Connoisseur."_ JACOBEAN CHAIR AT KNOLE. In the possession of Lord Sackville.] [Illustration: _By permission of the proprietors of the "Connoisseur."_ JACOBEAN STOOL AT KNOLE. In the possession of Lord Sackville.] [Illustration: UPPER HALF OF CARVED WALNUT DOOR. Showing ribbon work. FRENCH; LATTER PART OF SIXTEENTH CENTURY. (Height of door, 4 ft. 7 in.; width, 1 ft. 11 in.) (_Victoria and Albert Museum._)] Carved oak chests were not largely made in Jacobean days--not, at any rate, for the same purpose as they were in Tudor or earlier times. As church coffers they doubtless continued to be required, but for articles of domestic furniture other than as linen chests their multifarious uses had vanished. Early Jacobean coffers clearly show the departure from Elizabethan models. They become more distinctly English in feeling, though the interlaced ribbon decoration, so frequently used, is an adaptation from French work, which pattern was now becoming acclimatised. The French carved oak coffer of the second half of the sixteenth century (illustrated p. 61) shows from what source some of the English designs were derived. In the portion of the French door which we give as an illustration (on p. 91), it will be seen with what grace and artistic excellence of design and with what restraint the French woodcarvers utilised the running ribbon. The ribbon pattern has been variously used by designers of furniture; it appears in Chippendale's chair-backs, where it almost exceeds the limitations of the technique of woodcarving. Art in the early days of Charles I. was undimmed. The tapestry factory at Mortlake, established by James I., was further encouraged by the "White King." He took a great and a personal interest in all matters relating to art. Under his auspices the cartoons of Raphael were brought to England to foster the manufacture of tapestry. He gave his patronage to foreign artists and to foreign craftsmen, and in every way attempted to bring English art workers into line with their contemporaries on the Continent. Vandyck came over to become "Principal painter of Their Majesties at St. James's," keeping open table at Blackfriars and living in almost regal style. His grace and distinction and the happy circumstance of his particular style being coincident with the most picturesque period in English costume, have won him a place among the world's great painters. Fine portraits, at Windsor and at Madrid, at Dresden and at the Pitti Palace, at the Louvre and in the Hermitage at Petersburg, testify to the European fame of the painter's brilliant gallery representing the finest flower of the English aristocracy, prelates, statesmen, courtiers and beautiful women that were gathered together at the Court of Charles I. and his Queen Henrietta Maria. [Illustration: OAK CHAIR. CHARLES I. PERIOD. With arms of Thomas Wentworth, first Earl of Strafford (1593-1641). (_Victoria and Albert Museum._)] In Early Stuart days the influence of Inigo Jones, the Surveyor of Works to Charles I., made itself felt in woodwork and interior decorations. He was possessed with a great love and reverence for the classicism of Italy, and introduced into his banqueting hall at Whitehall (now the United Service Museum), and St. Paul's, Covent Garden, a chaster style, which was taken up by the designers of furniture, who began to abandon the misguided use of ornament of later Elizabethan days. In the Victoria and Albert Museum is an oak chair with the arms of Thomas Wentworth, first Earl of Strafford, which, in addition to its historic interest, is a fine example of the chair of the period of Charles I. (illustrated p. 93). [Illustration: ITALIAN CHAIR, ABOUT 1620. Thence introduced into England. (_Victoria and Albert Museum._)] It is certain that the best specimens of Jacobean furniture of this period, with their refined lines and well-balanced proportions, are suggestive of the stately diction of Clarendon or the well-turned lyrics of Herrick. [Illustration: _By permission of Messrs. Hampton & Son_ HIGH-BACK OAK CHAIR. EARLY JACOBEAN. Elaborately carved with shell and scroll foliage. (Formerly in the Stuart MacDonald family, and originally in the possession of King Charles I.)] In the illustration of a sixteenth-century chair in common use in Italy, it will be seen to what source the Jacobean woodworkers looked for inspiration. The fine, high-backed oak Stuart chair, elaborately carved with bold shell and scroll foliage, having carved supports, stuffed upholstered seats, and loose cushion covered in old Spanish silk damask, is a highly interesting example. It was long in the possession of the Stuart MacDonald family, and is believed to have belonged to Charles I. The gate-leg table, sometimes spoken of as Cromwellian, belongs to this Middle Jacobean style. It cannot be said with any degree of accuracy that in the Commonwealth days a special style of furniture was developed. From all evidence it would seem that the manufacture of domestic furniture went on in much the same manner under Cromwell as under Charles. Iconoclasts as were the Puritans, it is doubtful whether they extended their work of destruction to articles in general use. The bigot had "no starch in his linen, no gay furniture in his house." Obviously the Civil War very largely interfered with the encouragement and growth of the fine arts, but when furniture had to be made there is no doubt the Roundhead cabinetmaker and the Anabaptist carpenter produced as good joinery and turning as they did before Charles made his historic descent upon the House in his attempt to arrest the five members. There is a style of chair, probably imported from Holland, with leather back and leather seat which is termed "Cromwellian," probably on account of its severe lines, but there is no direct evidence that this style was peculiarly of Commonwealth usage. The illustration (p. 97) gives the type of chair, but the covering is modern. That Cromwell himself had no dislike for the fine arts is proved by his care of the Raphael cartoons, and we are enabled to reproduce an illustration of a fine old ebony cabinet with moulded front, fitted with numerous drawers, which was formerly the property of Oliver Cromwell. It was at Olivers Stanway, once the residence of the Eldred family. The stand is carved with shells and scrolls, and the scroll-shaped legs are enriched with carved female figures, the entire stand being gilded. This piece is most probably of Italian workmanship, and was of course made long before the Protector's day, showing marked characteristics of Renaissance style. [Illustration: JACOBEAN CHAIR, CANE BACK CROMWELLIAN CHAIR. ARMCHAIR. DATED 1623. ARMCHAIR. WITH INLAID BACK. JACOBEAN CHAIRS. (_By permission of T. E. Price Stretche, Esq._)] The carved oak cradle (p. 107), with the letters "G. B. M. B." on one side, and "October, 14 dai," on the other, and bearing the date 1641, shows the type of piece in common use. It is interesting to the collector to make a note of the turned knob of wood so often found on doors and as drawer handles on untouched old specimens of this period, but very frequently removed by dealers and replaced by metal handles of varying styles, all of which may be procured by the dozen in Tottenham Court Road, coarse replicas of old designs. Another point worthy of attention is the wooden peg in the joinery, securing the tenon into the mortice, which is visible in old pieces. It will be noticed in several places in this cradle. In modern imitations, unless very thoughtfully reproduced, these oaken pegs are not visible. [Illustration: _By permission of Messrs. Hampton & Sons._ EBONY CABINET. On stand gilded and richly carved. FORMERLY THE PROPERTY OF OLIVER CROMWELL. (From Olivers Stanway, at one time the seat of the Eldred family.)] In the page of Jacobean chairs showing the various styles, the more severe piece, dated 1623, is Early Jacobean, and the fine unrestored armchair of slightly later date shows in the stretcher the wear given by the feet of the sitters. It is an interesting piece; the stiles in the back are inlaid with pearwood and ebony. The other armchair with its cane panels in back is of later Stuart days. It shows the transitional stage between the scrolled-arm type of chair, wholly of wood, and the more elaborate type (illustrated p. 123) of the James II. period. [Illustration: JACOBEAN CARVED OAK CHAIRS. Yorkshire, about 1640. Derbyshire; early seventeenth century. (_Victoria and Albert Museum._)] [Illustration: _By permission of the Rt. Hon. Sir Spencer Ponsonby-Fane, G.C.B, I.S.O._ JACOBEAN OAK CUPBOARD. ABOUT 1620.] In addition to the finer pieces of seventeenth-century furniture to be found in the seats of the nobility, such as at Penshurst, or in the manor houses and homes of the squires and smaller landowners, there was much furniture of a particularly good design in use at farmsteads from one end of the country to the other, in days when a prosperous class of yeoman followed the tastes of their richer neighbours. This farmhouse furniture is nowadays much sought after. It was of local manufacture, and is distinctly English in its character. Oak dressers either plain or carved, were made not only in Wales--"Welsh Dressers" having become almost a trade term--but in various parts of England, in Yorkshire, in Derbyshire, in Sussex, and in Suffolk. They are usually fitted with two or three open shelves, and sometimes with cupboards on each side. The better preserved specimens have still their old drop-handles and hinges of brass. It is not easy to procure fine examples nowadays, as it became fashionable two or three years ago to collect these, and in addition to oak dressers from the farmhouses of Normandy, equally old and quaint, which were imported to supply a popular demand, a great number of modern imitations were made up from old wood--church pews largely forming the framework of the dressers, which were not difficult to imitate successfully. The particular form of chair known as the "Yorkshire chair" is of the same period. Certain localities seem to have produced peculiar types of chairs which local makers made in great numbers. It will be noticed that even in these conditions, with a continuous manufacture going on, the patterns were not exact duplicates of each other, as are the machine-made chairs turned out of a modern factory, where the maker has no opportunity to introduce any personal touches, but has to obey the iron law of his machine. As a passing hint to collectors of old oak furniture, it may be observed that it very rarely happens that two chairs can be found together of the same design. There may be a great similarity of ornament and a particularly striking resemblance, but the chair with its twin companion beside it suggests that one, if not both, are spurious. The same peculiarity is exhibited in old brass candlesticks, and especially the old Dutch brass with circular platform in middle of candlestick. One may handle fifty without finding two that are turned with precisely the same form of ornament. The usual feature of the chair which is termed "Yorkshire" is that it has an open back in the form of an arcade, or a back formed with two crescent-shaped cross-rails, the decorations of the back usually bearing acorn-shaped knobs either at the top of the rail or as pendants. This type is not confined to Yorkshire, as they have frequently been found in Derbyshire, in Oxfordshire, and in Worcestershire, and a similar variety may be found in old farmhouses in East Anglia. In the illustration of the two oak chairs (p. 105), the one with arms is of the Charles I. period, the other is later and belongs to the latter half of the seventeenth century. The Jacobean oak cupboard (illustrated p. 101) is in date about 1620. At the side there are perforations to admit air, which shows that it was used as a butter cupboard. The doors have an incised decoration of conventional design. The lower part is carved in style unmistakably Jacobean in nature. The pattern on the two uprights at the top is repeatedly found in pieces evidently designed locally for use in farmhouses. It is not too much to hope that enough has been said concerning Jacobean furniture of the early and middle seventeenth century to show that it possesses a peculiar charm and simplicity in the lines of its construction, which make it a very pleasing study to the earnest collector who wishes to procure a few genuine specimens of old furniture, which, while being excellent in artistic feeling, are not unprocurable by reason of their rarity and excessive cost. It should be within the power of the careful collector, after following the hints in this volume, and after examining well-selected examples in such a collection as that at the Victoria and Albert Museum, to obtain, without unreasonable expenditure, after patient search, one or two Jacobean pieces of undoubted authenticity. [Illustration: _By permission of Messrs. Fenton & Sons._ JACOBEAN OAK CHAIRS. Armchair, time of Charles I. Yorkshire chair. Late seventeenth century.] RECENT SALE PRICES.[1] £ s. d. Cabinet, Jacobean oak, with two drawers, and folding doors below enclosing drawers, decorated with rectangular panels in relief, inlaid in ebony and ivory, and with baluster columns at the side--48 in. high, 46 in. wide. Christie, November 27, 1903 44 2 0 Cabinet, Jacobean black oak, 5 ft. wide by 6 ft. 2 in. high, fitted with cupboards above and below, with sunk panelled folding doors, carved with busts of warriors in high relief, the pilasters carved with mask heads and caryatid figures, the whole carved with floral scrolls and other devices. Capes, Dunn & Pilcher, Manchester, December 9, 1903 57 0 0 Chairs, set of three Jacobean oak, with canework seats, and panels in the backs, the borders carved with scrolls, and on scroll legs with stretchers. Christie, January 29, 1904 52 10 0 Table, Cromwell, oak, on spiral legs. Dowell, Edinburgh, March 12, 1904 11 0 6 Elbow-chair, oak, Scotch, back having carved wheel, "A. R., 1663." Dowell, Edinburgh, March 12, 1904 60 18 0 Cabinet, Jacobean oak, with drawer and folding doors below, with moulded rectangular panels and balusters in relief, 50 in. high, 46 in. wide. Christie, July 1, 1904 35 14 0 [1] By the kindness of the proprietors of the _Connoisseur_ these items are given from their useful monthly publication, _Auction Sale Prices_. [Illustration: CRADLE, TIME OF CHARLES I. CARVED OAK; WITH LETTERS G. B. M. B. DATED 1641. (_Victoria and Albert Museum._)] IV STUART OR JACOBEAN. LATE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY [Illustration: (_After picture by Caspar Netscher_) INTERIOR OF DUTCH HOUSE. LATTER HALF OF SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.] IV STUART OR JACOBEAN. LATE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY Charles II. 1660-1685. James II. 1685-1688. William and Mary. 1689-1694. William 1694-1702. Sir Christopher Wren (1632-1723). Grinling Gibbons (1648-1726). 1660. Bombay became a British possession. Importation of Indo-Portuguese furniture. 1666. Great Fire in London. Much valuable furniture destroyed. 1675-1710. St. Paul's Cathedral built under Wren's direction. 1685. Edict of Nantes revoked. Spitalfields' silk industry founded by French refugees. [Illustration: _By permission of the proprietors of the "Connoisseur."_ CABINET OF THE TIME OF CHARLES II. With exterior finely decorated with needlework.] After the Civil War, when Charles II. came into his own again, the furniture of the Restoration period most certainly took its colour from the gay Court with which the Merry Monarch surrounded himself. The cabinet which we reproduce has the royal arms embroidered on the cover, and is a beautiful example of intricate cabinetmaking. The surface of the piece is entirely covered with needlework. On the front stand a cavalier and lady, hand-in-hand. On the side panel a cavalier is leading a lady on horseback. On the back a man drives a laden camel, and on another panel is shown the traveller being received by an old man in the grounds of the same castle which appears all through the scenes. This suggests the love-story of some cavalier and his lady. The casket is worthy to have held the love-letters of the Chevalier Grammont to La Belle Hamilton. [Illustration: _By permission of the proprietors of the "Connoisseur."_ CABINET OF THE TIME OF CHARLES II. Showing interior and nest of drawers.] As is usual in pieces of this nature, the cabinet contains many artfully devised hiding places. A tiny spring behind the lock reveals one secret drawer, and another is hidden beneath the inkwell. There are in all five of such secret compartments--or rather five of them have been at present discovered--there may be more. The illustration of the cabinet open shows what a nest of drawers it holds. In the days of plots, when Titus Oates set half the nation by the ears, when James solemnly warned the merry Charles of plots against his life, provoking the cynical retort, "They will never kill me, James, to make you king," secret drawers were no doubt a necessity to a fashionable cabinet. Catherine of Braganza, his queen, brought with her from Portugal many sumptuous fashions in furniture, notably cabinets and chairs of Spanish and Portuguese workmanship. The cavaliers scattered by the Civil War returned, and as in their enforced exile on the Continent they had cultivated foreign tastes, it was only natural that Dutch, French, and Italian work found its way to this country and effected the character of the early furniture of the Charles II. period. From Portugal came the high-backed chair, having the back and the seat of leather cut with fine design, and coloured or gilded. This leather work is of exquisite character, and we reproduce a portion of a Portuguese chair-back of this period to show the artistic excellence of the design. With Catherine of Braganza came the marriage dower of Bombay, and from India, where the settlement of Goa had been Portuguese for centuries, were sent to Europe the carved chairs in ebony, inlaid in ivory, made by the native workmen from Portuguese and Italian models, but enriched with pierced carving and intricate inlay of ivory in a manner which only an Oriental craftsman can produce. Having become fashionable in Portugal, they made their appearance in England, and rapidly became popular. At Penshurst Place there are several fine specimens of this Indo-Portuguese work, with the spindles of the chair-backs of carved ivory; and in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford there is the well-known chair which was presented by Charles II. to Elias Ashmole. [Illustration: _By permission of Messrs. Hampton & Sons._ PORTUGUESE HIGH-BACK CHAIR. Seat and back formed of two panels of old stamped leather, studded with brass bosses.] Both in this later Stuart period and in the days of the first Charles inlay was considerably used to heighten the carved designs on oak tables, chairs, and cabinets. The growth of commerce was responsible for the introduction of many varieties of foreign woods, which were used to produce finer effects in marquetry than the rude inlay of Elizabethan days. The Frontispiece to this volume represents a very handsome cabinet of English workmanship, inlaid with ivory and mother-of-pearl. It is an unusually fine example of the middle seventeenth century, and bears the date 1653, the year when Cromwell forcibly dissolved the Rump Parliament and was declared "Lord Protector of the Commonwealth." Up till now oak--the hard, tough, English variety, and not the more modern Baltic oak or American varieties now used--was the material for the tool of the carver to work upon. With the introduction of more flowing lines and curves, a wealth of detail, it is not unnatural to find that softer woods began to find favour as more suitable to the new decorations. The age of walnut was approaching when, under William the Dutchman, and in the days of Queen Anne, a newer style of furniture was to arise, made by craftsmen trained in the precepts of Grinling Gibbons and following the conceptions of Sir Christopher Wren. It must be borne in mind that in Italy the softer woods, such as lime, willow, sycamore, chestnut, walnut, and cypress, had long been used for the delicate carving during the height of the Renaissance and succeeding period, and in France and Spain chestnut and walnut were favourite woods. In the central panel of the Restoration chair-back, canework began to be used instead of the Early Jacobean carving. Cane seats were frequent, and loose cushions, attached by means of strings, covered these cane panels and seats. The illustration (p. 122) shows a Jacobean chair of this period. [Illustration: _By permission of Messrs. Waring_ OAK CHEST OF DRAWERS. LATE JACOBEAN. (Height, 3 ft. 3 in.; width, 3 ft.; depth, 1 ft. 10 in.)] Belonging to these later Jacobean days are chests of drawers of oak with finely panelled fronts. We illustrate two specimens, showing the old brass metal work and the drop-handles. They are usually in two parts, and are very deep from back to front. These are two typical examples of this kind of furniture, which was in general use up to the days of Queen Anne, when pieces are frequently found supported on a stand. In the picture by Caspar Netscher, showing a Dutch lady at her toilet, a good idea is conveyed of the kind of chair in use in Holland in the latter half of the seventeenth century, upholstered in brocade, and the rich tapestry tablecloth is a noticeable feature. Before entering upon the last phase of Stuart furniture, and leaving the days of Jacobean oak with its fine carving and handsome appearance--the careful result of selecting the timber and splitting it to show the fine figure of the wood--the attention of the reader should be drawn to the fact that the appearance of the surface of furniture made subsequent to this period begins to approach the results of the modern cabinetmaker with his polishes and spirit varnishes and highly glazed panels and table tops. The lover of old oak abominates varnish. The Elizabethan and Jacobean carved oak furniture received only a preliminary coat of dark varnish in its early days, mixed with oil and not spirit, which sank into the wood and was not a surface polish, and was probably used to preserve the wood. These old pieces, which have received centuries of rubbing with beeswax and oil, have resulted in producing a rich, warm tone which it is impossible to copy by any of the subtle arts known to the modern forger. The collector should make himself thoroughly familiar with the appearance of this old oak by a careful examination of museum pieces, which, when once seen, cannot easily be forgotten. [Illustration: _By permission of Messrs. Waring._ CHEST OF DRAWERS. PANELLED FRONT; LATE JACOBEAN. (Height, 3 ft. 4 in.; width, 3 ft. 10 in.; depth, 1 ft. 10 in.)] The Italian Renaissance furniture probably received an oil varnish, the composition of which, like the varnish employed for old violins, has been lost, but after centuries of careful usage and polishing, the result, as seen in the fine specimens in the Victoria and Albert Museum, is to give to them the appearance of bronze. [Illustration: _By permission of Messrs. Hampton & Sons._ CHARLES II. OAK CHAIR. Open back carved with shell and scrolled foliage. Stuffed seat covered with old damask.] There is little doubt that the Great Fire, which did such immense destruction in London in 1666, in which some eighty-nine churches and thirteen thousand houses were demolished, gave a considerable impetus to the manufacture of furniture in the new style. It is not a pleasing reflection to think how many fine pieces of Elizabethan and early Jacobean furniture were consumed in the flames, including much of Inigo Jones's work. Under the genius of Sir Christopher Wren many of the city churches were rebuilt, including St. Paul's Cathedral; and Greenwich Hospital and Hampton Court were enlarged according to Wren's designs, with the co-operation of the master woodcarver, Grinling Gibbons. In later Jacobean days a splendour of style and an excellence of workmanship were the outcome of the fine achievements in interior woodwork by Grinling Gibbons and the school he founded. The work of Grinling Gibbons consisted of most natural chains of flowers and foliage, fruit, or birds or cherubs' heads, all faithfully reproduced untrammelled by convention. St. Paul's Cathedral, Hampton Court, Chatsworth, and Petworth House all contain work by him of singular beauty. He trained many assistants to help him to carry on his work, and one of them, Selden, lost his life in endeavouring to save the carved room at Petworth from a destructive fire. The soft wood of the lime was his favourite for detailed carving; for church panelling or choir stalls, such as at St. Pauls, he employed oak; in his medallion portraits or figure work he preferred pear or close-grained boxwood. [Illustration: _By permission of Messrs. Hampton & Sons._ CHARLES II. OPEN HIGH-BACK OAK CHAIR. Finely carved legs and stretcher. Stuffed seat covered in old Spanish silk damask.] The gradual development of the chair in the later Stuart days in the direction of upholstered seat will be noticed in the specimens which are given as illustrations. The revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 by Louis XIV. drove some thousands of French workmen--weavers, glass-workers, and cabinetmakers--to this country. The silk-weaving industry established by them at Spitalfields was one of the results, and silk stuffs and brocades were used for covering the seats and backs of furniture. At Hampton Court the crystal glass chandeliers were made by French workmen, whom Wren was glad to employ to assist him to make that palace a worthy rival to Versailles. [Illustration: _By permission of Messrs. Harold G. Lancaster & Co._ CHARLES II. CHAIR. Cane back and seat, finely carved legs and stretcher.] [Illustration: _By permission of Messrs. Fenton & Sons._ JAMES II. CHAIR. With cane back and seat, and finely turned legs and stretcher.] The chair here illustrated shows the commencement of the use of cane work in place of wood for the panel in back and for the seat. The James II. chair illustrated shows the later development of the cane-back. The William and Mary chair (illustrated p. 125) shows how the cane-back was retained later than the cane-seat, and how rich damask was employed for the upholstered seat. It is interesting to see how the stretcher, which in earlier days was of use to keep the feet raised from a wet or draughty floor, has now become capable of elaborate ornamentation. Genuine examples of chairs of Elizabethan and Early Stuart days show the wear of the feet of the sitters. The same wear is observable in the lower rail of old tables. In later Stuart days the stretcher has left its place at the bottom, between the two front legs. Since its use as a foot-rest, owing to carpeted floors, is gone, it is found either joining the legs diagonally, or higher up as an ornament with carved front. In the eighteenth century it has almost disappeared altogether. [Illustration: _By permission of Messrs. Harold G. Lancaster & Co._ WILLIAM AND MARY CHAIR. Cane back. Seat upholstered in damask. Finely carved legs and stretcher.] Mirrors began to take a prominent place in interior decoration. The house of Nell Gwynne in St. James's Square had one room entirely lined with glass mirrors. Hampton Court is full of mirrors, and they are arranged with considerable skill. By an artful arrangement the mirror in the King's Writing Closet is placed at such an angle that the reflection of the whole suite of rooms may be seen in it. The looking glasses made in this country in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries were the work of Venetian and French workmen. The plates had a bevel of an inch in width, and these bevels followed the shape of the frame, whether square or oval. A factory was established near Battersea which produced some fine work of this nature. It will be noticed by the collector who is observant that the bevels differ considerably from modern bevels. The angle is not such an acute one, and sometimes the edges are double bevelled. Many of the mirrors of the time of William and Mary had an ornamented border of blue glass. Sometimes the mirror was painted with festoons of flowers and with birds in French manner. In imitation of Italian style the back of the mirror, in examples a little later, was worked upon in the style of intaglio, or gem cutting, this presenting a dull silver surface when seen from the front. In picture frames, in chimneypieces, or in mirror frames the school of Grinling Gibbons was still pre-eminent in carving. Now and again are found traces of Italian or Louis XIV. influence, but as a whole the English carver held his own, and the traditions of Grinling Gibbons were maintained, and he did not easily allow himself to be carried away by foreign elaborations. When William of Orange came over in 1688 he brought with him many of his own countrymen as military and civil advisers, and in their train came artists and craftsmen, who introduced Dutch art into England, and prepared the way for the more homely style of Queen Anne. Walnut cabinets inlaid with various woods, and with ivory squares representing miniature Dutch courtyards in the recesses of cabinets, had found their way into England. With the period of William and Mary the cabriole leg in chairs and in tables became popular--at first an English adaptation of Dutch models--but later to develop into the glorious creations of the age of walnut. Blue delft jars and bowls, some especially made for William and Mary and bearing the Royal arms and the cypher "W. M. R." and the Nassau motto, "_Je main tien-dray_," still to be seen in the Queen's Gallery at Hampton Court, were introduced, and it became fashionable to collect china. Consequently the furniture in rooms had to be adapted for the arrangement of this new class of ornament, and cabinets were largely made with accommodation to receive vases and beakers and blue bowls on their shelves. The earlier form have straight sides; but later, especially in the next reign, they follow French designs, and are swollen or _bombé_ at the sides. [Illustration: UPPER PORTION OF CHAIR BACK OF CUT LEATHER. PORTUGUESE. LATTER PART OF SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. (_Victoria and Albert Museum._)] With William, too, came over the plain walnut card-table. Clock cases of the style termed "Grandfather" were of Dutch origin. The seats of chairs were shaped and removable. The Dutch trade with the East Indies had brought Oriental china and lac cabinets into Holland, and these, with the coming of William, found their way into this country. Bureaux with a number of secret recesses were introduced, and another Dutch importation from the East was the now celebrated chair or table leg with claw and ball foot. This came directly from China, and as in the case of delft, which is the earthenware replica by the Dutch potter of fine blue porcelain vases, from Nankin and Canton, where the Oriental perspective and design have been slavishly copied, so with the furniture, the old Chinese symbol of a dragon's foot holding a pearl, was repeated in the furniture by Dutch cabinetmakers. Dutch marquetry made an early appearance with simple ornamentation, sometimes enriched by ivory or mother-of-pearl inlay, but later it developed into flowing floral designs with figures, vases, fruit, butterflies, and elaborate scrolls in various coloured woods, of which yellow was the predominant colour. RECENT SALE PRICES.[1] £ s. d. Armchair, Charles II., oak, carved with cherubs supporting crowns, and with turned column supports. Christie, November 20, 1903 15 4 6 Chairs, pair, Charles II., oak, with cane seats and oval cane panels in the backs, spirally turned legs, stretchers and rails at the back. Christie, March 4, 1904 63 0 0 Armchair, Charles II., oak, with high back carved with arabesque foliage, with lions' masks and claw legs. Christie, March 29, 1904 63 0 0 Chairs, pair, nearly similar, carved with foliage. Christie, March 29, 1904 39 18 0 Armchair, Charles II., walnut-wood, of Italian design, carved with masks, cane seat and panel in back; and cushion, covered with old Flemish tapestry. Christie, March 4, 1904 77 14 0 Chairs, three, Charles II., oak, with oval panels of canework in the backs, the borders carved with foliage, flowers, and Amorini, and surmounted by busts. Christie, April 12, 1904 42 0 0 Chairs, set of twelve, Charles II., of chestnut-wood, with high backs carved with rosette ornaments, scroll foliage, and formal blossoms, on cabriole legs carved with flowers and shaped stretchers. Christie, July 1, 1904 462 0 0 Chairs, pair of chestnut-wood, with high backs slightly curved, pierced and carved at the top, and each inlaid with two cane panels, on carved cabriole legs and shaped stretchers, _temp._ James II. Christie, June 2, 1904 36 15 0 Cabinet, English marquetry, with folding doors, enclosing twelve drawers and small cupboard, and with four drawers below, the whole elaborately inlaid with vases of tulips, roses, and other flowers, small figures, birds, and insects, on a walnut-wood ground, 69 in. high, 47 in. wide, _temp._ William III. Christie, February 12, 1904 105 0 0 Mirror, in case of old English marquetry, inlaid with large flowers and foliage in coloured woods and ivory on walnut-wood ground, 32 in. by 28 in., _temp._ William III. Christie, February 19, 1904 43 3 0 Chairs, set of six, walnut-wood, with high, open backs, carved with foliage, the centre inlaid in marquetry, on carved cabriole legs and eagles' claw-and-ball feet, _temp._ William and Mary. Christie, June 2, 1904 315 0 0 Chairs, set of four, of similar form, open backs, carved with shell, and gadroon ornament, and on carved cabriole legs with hoof feet, the stretcher carved with a shell, _temp._ William and Mary. Christie, June 2, 1904 105 0 0 Cabinet, William and Mary, marquetry, veneered with walnut-wood, decorated with oval and shaped panels, inlaid, upon ebony field, 42 in. wide. Christie, March 18, 1904 65 2 0 Cabinet on stand, ebony, Dutch, seventeenth century, supported by six beaded columns with stage under and mirror panels at back, the upper part composed of doors carved in medallions; the centre doors enclose an architectural hall, inlaid in ivory, &c., with gilt columns and mirror panels, and fitted with secret drawers, 5 ft. 3 in. wide, 6 ft. 6 in. high and 22 in. deep. Jenner & Dell, Brighton, May 3, 1904 100 0 0 Corner cupboard, Dutch marquetry, 8 ft. high, having carved crown-shaped cornice, with centre vase, four doors, with bow fronts, inlaid with flowers and carved raised beadings, the interior fitted. C. W. Provis & Son, Manchester, May 9, 1904 32 0 0 Table, Dutch marquetry, with shaped front and two drawers inlaid with sprays of flowers in coloured woods and ivory, on cabriole legs, 32 in. wide. Christie, March 4, 1904 37 16 0 [1] By the kindness of the proprietors of the _Connoisseur_ these items are given from their useful monthly publication, _Auction Sale Prices_. V QUEEN ANNE STYLE [Illustration: _By permission of Messrs. Hampton & Sons_ QUEEN ANNE OAK SETTLE. Scrolled arms, panelled back and loose cushioned seat. Width 6 feet.] V QUEEN ANNE STYLE Anne 1702-1714. 1707. Act of Union between England and Scotland. First United Parliament of Great Britain met. 1713. The National Debt had risen to £38,000,000. With the age of Queen Anne domestic furniture departed from the ornate characteristics which had marked previous epochs. The tendency in English furniture seems to have made towards comfort and homeliness. The English home may not have contained so many articles of luxury then as does the modern house with its artistic embellishments, and a popular taste rapidly ripening into a genuine love of the fine arts. "A modern shopkeeper's house," says Lord Macaulay, "is as well furnished as the house of a considerable merchant in Anne's reign." It is very doubtful whether this statement holds good with regard to the days of Elizabeth or the days of the early Stuarts, but there certainly seems to have been in the dawn of the walnut period a curtailment of luxurious effects that might well tempt a casual observer to generalise in the belief that the days of Anne spelt dulness in art. The settle, the illustration of which is given (p. 149), bearing the date 1705, the year after Blenheim, shows that Jacobean models of early days were not forgotten. The inlaid borders are very effective, and there is nothing vulgar or offensive in the carving. It is simple in style and the joinery is good. A walnut mirror, carved and gilded (illustrated p. 137), exhibits the same solidity. There is nothing to show that the glorious age of Louis XIV. had produced the most sumptuous and richly decorated furniture the modern world had seen. The simplicity of this carved mirror frame is as though art had begun and ended in England, and probably it is this insularity of the furniture of this period, and the almost stubborn neglect of the important movements going on in France that makes the Queen Anne style of peculiar interest. [Illustration: _By permission of Messrs. Harold G. Lancaster & Co._ QUEEN ANNE MIRROR FRAME. WALNUT, CARVED AND GILDED.] The oak desk illustrated (p. 139), dated 1696, is similar to the one at Abbotsford, in which Sir Walter Scott mislaid his manuscript of "Waverley," where it lay among his fishing-tackle for eleven years. Another piece of the same period is the cupboard with carved doors and drawers beneath (illustrated p. 140). [Illustration: OAK DESK. WITH INITIALS "L. G." AND DATED 1696. (_From the collection of T. E. Price Stretche, Esq._)] Some pretty effects were now obtained by veneering, which was largely coming into practice. The pieces with the burr-walnut panels, marked in a series of knot-like rings, are especially sought after. This pattern was obtained from the gnarled roots of the walnut-tree, and applied in a decorative manner with excellent result. [Illustration: _By permission of T. E. Price Stretche, Esq._ OAK CUPBOARD. SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. Metal handles of drawers, eighteenth century. (Height 6 ft. 7 in.; width, 4 ft. 6 in.)] [Illustration: _By permission of Messrs. Brown & Bool._ Cabinet closed; showing fine mottled figure of burr walnut. Cabinet open; showing drop-down front and nest of drawers. QUEEN ANNE WALNUT CABINET.] [Illustration: DUTCH MARQUETRY CHAIR. QUEEN ANNE CHAIR. _By permission of Messrs. Hampton & Sons._] [Illustration: QUEEN ANNE WALNUT ARMCHAIR. BLACK AND GOLD LAC CHAIR. _By permission of Messrs. Waring._] In the fine cabinet, the illustration of which is given (p. 141), the style is typical of this period. The panels of the doors are of exquisite finish, and show a beautiful walnut grain of peculiarly-pleasing mottled appearance, and the mellow effect which time has given to this specimen cannot be imitated with any degree of success in modern replicas. In the illustration showing this piece when open, the rich effect of the walnut in the middle panel may be noticed; the contemporary brass handles to the nest of drawers are typical of this style. In chairs and in tables the elegant cabriole and colt's-foot legs were now commonly adopted, and apparently, simple as is the construction, it is only when Queen Anne pieces come to be repaired that it is found how expensive an undertaking it is, owing to their ingenious construction and the patient labour that was expended upon them, to produce unpretentious and harmonious effects. The assertively English spirit which was the dominant note of the furniture of the early eighteenth century continued up till the early years of the reign of George II. During this period, which covers half a century, walnut was the wood mostly used in the manufacture of furniture, and this walnut period shows a quiet dignity of style and a simple proportion, reticently elegant and inornate without being severe. The Queen Anne oak settle, with shaped panelled back and scroll arms, which appears as the headpiece to this chapter, is especially representative of the kind of piece in common use at the time; oak was still employed in furniture of this nature. The legs show the newer design, which was already departing from the elegant turning of earlier Jacobean days. In the Queen Anne chair which is illustrated in the group of chairs of this period (p. 143), with open back and carved scroll foliage, the cabriole legs are finely carved with lion masks and acanthus leaf ornament, on lion's claw-and-ball feet. The seat is removable, and is stuffed. Queen Anne chairs had high carved or plain splat backs. The armchair in the same group shows this type of back. The Dutch shell-pattern often appears either on back or at the juncture of the leg with the seat. Chairs decorated in marquetry, in Dutch fashion, were in use at this period. The one illustrated with the two above-mentioned chairs is inlaid with birds and flowers, and the legs are cabriole. The seat follows the growing usage of being loose and stuffed. Dutch marquetry cabinets on stands, with straight uprights, were imported and became a feature in the early eighteenth century drawing-room (see illustration, p. 147). The earlier forms had straight sides, but later, as the fashion grew, bureaux and large cabinets, with the dimensions of a modern wardrobe, had taken their place, with _bombé_ or swelled sides, and profusely decorated in marquetry, with vases and tulips and unnamed flowers of the cabinetmaker's invention, birds, butterflies, and elaborate scrollwork, in which ivory and mother-of-pearl were often employed as an inlay. The stands on which the smaller cabinets stood were turned with the spiral leg of Jacobean days, and later they have the cabriole leg, with ball-and-claw or club feet. Cabinets and stands are frequently found together, in which the one is much earlier than the other. [Illustration: _By permission of Messrs. Hampton & Sons._ DUTCH MARQUETRY CABINET. Fitted with shelves. Door richly inlaid with flowers and scrolled foliage. On stand with turned legs and stretcher.] Rich damask began to be used in the furnishing of hangings, and in some of the palatial furniture of the period the looms of Spitalfields produced the coverings. In Queen Anne's bedroom the hangings were of rich silk velvet. Clocks of the variety termed "Grandfather," either with fine walnut cases or inlaid with marquetry, came into more general use in the days of Queen Anne. An elaboration of carving on grandfather clock cases as a rule is to be regarded with suspicion. Plain panels are not so saleable as carved ones; the want is supplied, and many fine old clock cases are spoiled by having the touch of a modern hand. The clock illustrated is an untouched specimen. The walnut case is a fine example of Queen Anne marquetry work. The works are by Sam Barrow, Hermitage Bridge, London. The steel dial is richly mounted with cupids, masks, and scrolls in chased brass. [Illustration: _By permission of Messrs. Hampton & Sons._ QUEEN ANNE CLOCK. Walnut case with marquetry work.] Towards the middle of the eighteenth century and later, cabinets of Dutch importation, and Japanese or Chinese in origin, were extensively in use. In smaller numbers they had, without doubt, in the days of William and Mary, been introduced, but it was not until the commerce with the East had been well established that they became popular. In the cabinet illustrated (p. 150) the cabinet-work is English, the drawers are all dovetailed in the English manner, but the lacquered doors come from the East. It is an especially interesting example, as the pagoda-like superstructure is not often found complete. [Illustration: _By permission of Messrs. Waring._ QUEEN ANNE OAK SETTLE. DATED 1705. With borders in marquetry. (Width, 5 ft.)] [Illustration: _By permission of Messrs. Brown & Bool._ OLD LAC CABINET. ENGLISH; EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.] Lacquered boxes had been sent home from the East by English, French, and Dutch merchants, for many years, and with characteristic ingenuity the French cabinetmakers had employed these as panels for their furniture, but the supply not being sufficient they had attempted a lacquer of their own, which is dealt with in a subsequent chapter on Louis XIV. furniture. Dutch lacquer-work was a similar attempt on the part of the craftsman of Holland to equal the Oriental originals. [Illustration: LAC CABINET. MIDDLE OF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. (Height, 2 ft. 5 in.; width, 2 ft. 8-1/2 in.; depth, 1 ft. 6-1/2 in.; height of stand, 2 ft. 9 in.) (_From the collection of W. G. Honey, Esq., Cork._)] [Illustration: _W. G. Honey, Esq., Cork._ FRONT OF LAC CABINET (ILLUSTRATED), WITH DOORS CLOSED.] In the early eighteenth century the English craftsman tried his skill at lacquered furniture, it is true not with very successful results, but it is interesting to see what he has left as attempts. The illustration (p. 143) of a chair in black and gold lac is of English manufacture. The splat back and the cabriole leg give the date, and the specimen is a noteworthy example. Another piece of the first half of the eighteenth century period is the lac cabinet illustrated (p. 151). The metal hinges and corners of this are of chased brass and of English or Dutch workmanship. The shape and design of the drawer handles are frequently found in nests of drawers of this period, and there was a singular fondness shown at this time for numbers of small drawers and pigeon-holes in furniture. The now familiar bureau with bookcase above, and drop-down, sloping front covering drawers and recesses, dates from this time. The escutcheon of the lac cabinet is illustrated in detail as a tailpiece to this chapter to show the particular style of work found on the locks and hinges and drawer-handles of pieces of this nature. As has been said before, it is especially useful to the collector to make himself thoroughly familiar with these details of the various periods. It may be readily imagined that at a time when cards were the passion of everybody in society, the card-table became a necessary piece of furniture in eighteenth-century days, just before the dawn of the great age of mahogany, when Chippendale, and the school that followed him, eagerly worked in the wood which Raleigh discovered. They produced countless forms, both original and adapted from the French, which have enriched the _répertoire_ of the cabinetmaker and which have brought fame to the man whose designs added lustre to the reputation of English furniture. RECENT SALE PRICES.[1] £ s. d. Chairs, six, mahogany, single, and one armchair to match, with shaped legs and openwork backs (early eighteenth century). F. W. Kidd, & Neale & Son, Nottingham, November 11, 1903 25 4 0 Chairs, eight Queen Anne, walnut-wood, with high backs, on slightly cabriole legs, with stretchers. Christie, December 11, 1903 33 12 0 Armchair, Queen Anne, large walnut-wood, carved with foliage, the arms terminating in masks, on carved cabriole legs and lion's-claw feet. Christie, March 29, 1904 50 8 0 Cabinet, Queen Anne, the lower part fitted with escritoire, the upper part with numerous drawers, shaped cornice above, 3 ft. 6 in. by 7 ft. 6 in. Puttick & Simpson, April 12, 1904 34 0 0 Chairs, four Queen Anne, walnut-wood, with interlaced backs carved with rosettes and a shell at the top, on cabriole legs carved with shells and foliage; and a pair of chairs made to match. Christie, July 8, 1904 44 2 0 [1] By the kindness of the proprietors of the _Connoisseur_, these items are given from their useful monthly publication, _Auction Sale Prices_. [Illustration: _W. G. Honey Esq., Cork._ CHASED BRASS ESCUTCHEON OF LAC CABINET (ILLUSTRATED). (Width, 10-1/2 in.)] VI FRENCH FURNITURE. THE PERIOD OF LOUIS XIV [Illustration: _By kind permission, from the collection of Dr. Sigerson, Dublin._ CASSETTE. FRENCH; SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. Containing many secret drawers.] VI FRENCH FURNITURE. THE PERIOD OF LOUIS XIV LOUIS XIV. (1643-1715), covering English periods of Civil War, Commonwealth, Charles II., James II., William and Mary, and Anne. 1619-1683. Colbert, Minister of Finance and patron of the arts. 1661-1687. Versailles built. 1662. Gobelins Tapestry Works started by Colbert; Le Brun first director (1662-1690). 1664. Royal Academy of Painting, Architecture, and Sculpture founded by Colbert, to which designs of furniture were admitted. In order to arrive at a sense of proportion as to the value of English furniture and its relation to contemporary art in Europe, it is necessary to pass under hasty examination the movements that were taking place in France in the creation of a new style in furniture under the impulses of the epoch of the _Grande Monarque_. To estimate more correctly the styles of the Early Jacobean and of the later English furniture extending to the days of Chippendale and Sheraton, it must be borne in mind that England was not always so insular in art as the days of Queen Anne would seem to indicate. It is impossible for the cabinetmakers and the craftsmen to have utterly ignored the splendours of France. Louis XIV. had a long and eventful reign, which extended from the days when Charles I. was marshalling his forces to engage in civil war with the Parliament down to the closing years of Queen Anne. During his minority it cannot be said that Louis XIV. influenced art in furniture, but from 1661, contemporary with Charles II., when he assumed the despotic power that he exercised for half a century, his love of sumptuousness, and his personal supervision of the etiquette of a formal Court, in which no detail was omitted to surround royalty with magnificence, made him the patron of the fine arts, and gave his Court the most splendid prestige in Europe. As a headpiece to this chapter we give a very fine example of a _cassette_, or strong box, of the time of Louis XIV. It is securely bound with metal bands of exquisite design. The interior is fitted with a number of secret drawers. In the illustration (p. 159) it will be seen that the chair of the period of Louis Treize differed in no great respects from the furniture under the early Stuarts in this country. This design is by the celebrated Crispin de Passe, and the date is when Charles I. raised his standard at Nottingham, a year prior to the birth of Louis XIV. [Illustration: CHAIR OF PERIOD OF LOUIS XIII. DESIGNED BY CRISPIN DE PASSE, 1642.] During the reign of Louis XIV., tables, armoires, and cabinets were designed on architectural principles. Under the guiding influence of Colbert, Minister of Finance, architects and cabinetmakers were selected to design furniture for the Tuileries, the Louvre, and Fontainebleau. In the early years of the reign furniture was made with severe lines, but gradually it became the practice to fashion larger pieces. Immense tables with sumptuous decoration, on gilded claw-feet, and having tops inlaid with _pietra-dura_ intended to carry bronze groups and porphyry vases, were made at the Gobelins factory, under the direction of the celebrated Le Brun. This artist loved grandeur and gorgeousness in decoration, and in accord with the personal ideas of Louis XIV., who had an inordinate love for perfect symmetry, huge pieces of furniture were built in magnificent manner to please the taste of the _Grande Monarque_. Men of genius were employed in the manufacture of tapestries, of furniture, and of metal mountings, and the interior decorations of the palaces were designed in harmony with the furniture intended for use therein. The most illustrious among the cabinetmakers was André Charles Boule, who was made, in 1673, by letters patent, _Premier ébéniste de la maison royale_. The work of this artist in wood has attained a worldwide celebrity, and his name even has been corrupted into "buhl" to denote a particular class of work which he perfected. His most notable productions are the finely chased ormolu, in which he was an accomplished worker, and the inlay of tortoiseshell and brass, sometimes varied with ebony or silver, which have remained the wonder of succeeding generations. Boule was born in 1642, and lived till 1732. The first Boule, termed "_Le Père_," he was succeeded by no less than four sons and nephews of the same name, in addition to his pupils who carried on his traditions at the Boule _atelier_, and a crowd of later imitators, even up to the present day, have followed his style in lavish decoration without being possessed of his skill. In Italy and in France marquetry of considerable delicacy and of fine effect had been produced long before the epoch of Louis XIV., but it was Boule who introduced a novelty into marquetry by his veneered work, which rapidly grew into favour till it developed into cruder colouring in inlays and unbridled licence in ornamentation, to which its originator would never have given countenance. The pieces of furniture usually associated with him are massive structures of ebony with their surfaces covered with tortoiseshell, in which are inlaid arabesques, scrolls, and foliage in thin brass or other metal. Upon the surface of this metal inlay further ornamentation was chased with the burin. This alternation of tortoiseshell and brass forms a brilliant marquetry. Into the chased designs on the metal a black enamel was introduced to heighten the effect, which was further increased by portions of the wood beneath the semi-transparent tortoiseshell being coloured black or brown or red; sometimes a bluish-green was used. Later imitators, not content with the beautiful effect of tortoiseshell, used horn in parts, which is more transparent, and they did not fear the garish effect of blue or vermilion underneath. Boule's creations, set in massive mounts and adornments of masks and bas-reliefs, cast in gilt-bronze and chased, were pieces of furniture of unsurpassed magnificence, and especially designed for the mirrored splendours of the _salons_ of Versailles. In boule-work all parts of the marquetry are held down by glue to the bed, usually of oak, the metal being occasionally fastened down by small brass pins, which are hammered flat and chased over so as to be imperceptible. In order to economise the material, Boule, when his marquetry became in demand, employed a process which led to the use of the technical terms, _boule_ and _counter-boule_. The brass and the tortoiseshell were cut into thin sheets. A number of sheets of brass were clamped together with the same number of sheets of tortoiseshell. The design was then cut out, the result being that each sheet of tortoiseshell had a design cut out of it, into which the same design from one of the sheets of brass would exactly fit. Similarly each sheet of brass had a design cut out of it into which a corresponding piece of tortoiseshell would fit. That in which the ground is of tortoiseshell and the inlaid portion is brass, is considered the better, and is called _boule_, or the _première partie_. That in which the groundwork is brass and the design inlaid is of tortoiseshell, is called _counter-boule_ or _contre-partie_. This latter is used for side panels. An examination of the specimens preserved in the Louvre, at the Jones Bequest at the Victoria and Albert Museum, or in the Wallace Collection will enable the student to see more readily how this practice works out in the finished result. In the illustration (p. 163) of the two pedestals the effect of the employment of _boule_ and _counter-boule_ is shown. [Illustration: (_a._) (_b._) PEDESTALS SHOWING BOULE AND COUNTER-BOULE WORK. (_Wallace Collection._) (_a_) Boule or _première partie_. (_b_) Counter-boule or _contre-partie_.] Associated with Boule is Jean Bérain, who had a fondness for the Italian style; his designs are more symmetrically correct, both in ornamental detail and in architectural proportion. His conceptions are remarkable for their fanciful elaboration, and their wealth of profuse scrollwork. In the French national collections at the Louvre, at Versailles, and elsewhere there are many beautiful examples of his chandeliers of magnificent carved and gilded work. The freedom of the spiral arms and complex coils he introduced into his candelabra have never been equalled as harmonious portions of a grandly conceived scheme of magnificent interior decoration, to which, in the days of Louis XIV., so much artistic talent was devoted. [Illustration: BOULE CABINET, OR ARMOIRE. Valued at nearly £15,000. _Jones Bequest._ (_Victoria and Albert Museum._)] With regard to the value of some of the specimens in the national collections, it is difficult to form an estimate. The Boule cabinet, probably designed by Bérain, executed by Boule for Louis XIV. (illustrated p. 165) would, if put up for sale at Christie's, probably fetch £15,000. This piece is held to be grander in style than any in the galleries in France. At the Wallace Collection there are examples which would bring fabulous sums if sold. A cabinet by Boule, in the Jones Bequest, purchased by Mr. Jones for £3,000 in 1881, is now worth three times that sum. Upon the building, decorating, and furnishing of Versailles Louis XIV. spent over five hundred million francs, in addition to which there was the army of workmen liable to statute labour. Some twenty thousand men and six thousand horses were employed in 1684 at the different parts of the château and park. In May, 1685, there were no less than thirty-six thousand employed. The illustrious craftsmen who were employed upon the magnificent artistic interior decorations have transmitted their names to posterity. Bérain, Lepautre, Henri de Gissey, are the best known of the designers. Among the painters are the names of Audran, Baptiste, Jouvenet, Mignard, and the best known of the sculptors are Coustou and Van Clève. Of the woodcarvers, metal-chasers, locksmiths, and gilders Pierre Taupin, Ambroise Duval, Delobel, and Goy are names of specialists in their own craft who transformed Versailles from a royal hunting-box into one of the most splendid palaces in Europe. RECENT SALE PRICES.[1] £ s. d. Commode, Louis XIV., of inlaid king-wood, with two drawers, mounted with handles and masks at the corners of chased ormolu, and surmounted by a fleur violette marble slab, 52 in. wide. Christie, January 22, 1904 31 10 0 Show-cabinet, of Louis XIV. design, inlaid king-wood, with glazed folding doors, ormolu mounts, chased and surmounted by vases, 73 in. high, 46 in. wide. Christie, April 12, 1904 30 9 0 Casket, Louis XIV., black Boule, inlaid with Cupids, vases of flowers and scrolls, and fitted with four tortoiseshell and gold picqué shell-shaped snuff boxes. Christie, April 19, 1904 73 10 0 Commode, Louis XIV., Boule, of sarcophagus form, containing two drawers, at either corners are detached cabriole legs, the various panels are inlaid with brass and tortoiseshell, the whole is mounted with ormolu, surmounted by a slab of veined marble, 49 in. wide. Christie, May 27, 1904 57 15 0 [1] By the kindness of the proprietors of the _Connoisseur_, these items are reproduced from their useful monthly publication, _Auction Sale Prices_. VII FRENCH FURNITURE. THE PERIOD OF LOUIS XV [Illustration: _By permission of Messrs. Foley & Eassie._ COMMODE, BY CRESSENT. (From a drawing by Walter Eassie.) (_Wallace Collection._)] VII FRENCH FURNITURE. THE PERIOD OF LOUIS XV Louis XV. 1715-1774 Petit Trianon built at Versailles. Meissonier, Director of Royal Factories (1723-1774). Watteau (1684-1721). Pater (1695-1736). Lancret (1690-1743). Boucher (1704-1770). 1751. The leading ébénistes compelled to stamp their work with their names. Louis XIV. died in the year following the death of Queen Anne, so that it will be readily seen that English art was uninfluenced by France in the days of William and Mary, and how insular it had become under Anne. The English craftsman was not fired by new impulses from France during such an outburst of decorative splendour. The reign of Louis XV. extends from George I. down to the eleventh year of the reign of George III., which year saw the cargoes of tea flung into Boston harbour and the beginning of the war with America. In glancing at the Louis Quinze style it will be observed how readily it departed from the studied magnificence of Louis XIV. In attempting elegance of construction and the elimination of much that was massive and cumbersome in the former style, it developed in its later days into meaningless ornament and trivial construction. At first it possessed considerable grace, but towards the end of the reign the designs ran riot in rococo details, displaying incongruous decoration. It was the age of the elegant boudoir, and the bedroom became a place for more intimate guests than those received in the large reception-room. In the days of Louis XIV. the bed was a massive structure, but in the succeeding reign it became an elegant appendage to a room. At Versailles the splendid galleries of magnificent proportion were transformed by the Duke of Orleans, Regent of France (1715-1723) during the king's minority, into smaller _salons_ covered in wainscoting, painted white and ornamented with gilded statues. In like manner the Louis Quinze decorations were ruthlessly destroyed by Louis-Philippe. [Illustration: _By permission of Messrs. Waring._ LOUIS XV. PARQUETERY COMMODE. With chased and bronze-gilt mounts. (_Formerly in the Hamilton Palace Collection._)] [Illustration: LOUIS XV. COMMODE. BY CAFFIERI.] The commode in the Wallace Collection (illustrated p. 171) is of the time when Louis XV. was in his minority, and of the days of the Regency. It is by Charles Cressent (1685-1768), who was cabinetmaker to Philippe d'Orleans, Regent of France. This is an especially typical specimen of the class to which it belongs as showing the transition style between Louis XIV. and the succeeding reign. To establish Louis the Fifteenth's _petits appartements_ the gallery painted by Mignard was demolished, and later, in 1752, the Ambassadors' Staircase was destroyed, the masterpiece of the architects Levau and Dorbay, and the marvel of Louis the Fourteenth's Versailles. It is necessary to bear these facts in mind in order to see how a new French monarch set ruthlessly new fashions in furniture and created a taste for his personal style in art. In the first part of the Louis Quinze period the metal mountings by Caffieri and Cressent are of exquisite style; they are always of excellent workmanship, but later they betrayed the tendency of the time for fantastic curves, which had affected the furniture to such an extent that no straight lines were employed, and the sides of commodes and other pieces were swelled into unwieldy proportions, and instead of symmetrical and harmonious results the florid style, known as the "rococo," choked all that was beautiful in design. Meissonier, Director of the Royal Factories (1723-1774), was mainly responsible for this unnatural development. He revelled in elaborate combinations of shellwork and impossible foliage. In the Louis XV. commodes illustrated (pp. 173, 175) it will be seen how far superior is the design and treatment of the one which was formerly in the celebrated Hamilton Collection. Its chased and gilt mounts are harmoniously arranged, and though the ornamentation is superbly rich, it breaks no canons of art by overloaded detail or coarse profusion. Not so much can be said for the other commode of the rococo style, even though the mounts be by Caffieri and executed in masterly manner. There is a wanton abandonment and an offensive tone in the florid treatment which point clearly to the decline of taste in art. The highest art of concealment was not a prominent feature in a Court which adopted its style from the caprices of Madame du Pompadour or the whims of Madame du Barry. But among the finest productions are the splendid pieces of reticent cabinetmaking by the celebrated Jean François Oeben, who came from Holland. His preference was for geometrical patterns, varied only with the sparing use of flowers, in producing his most delicate marquetry. In the pieces by Boule and others, not in tortoiseshell but in wood inlay, the wood was so displayed as to exhibit in the panels the grain radiating from the centre. Oeben did not forget this principle, and placed his bouquets of flowers, when, on occasion, he used them, in the centre of his panels, and filled up the panel with geometric design. [Illustration: LOUIS XV. _ESCRITOIRE À TOILETTE_. Of tulip-wood and sycamore, inlaid with landscapes in coloured woods. Formerly in the possession of Queen Marie Antoinette. (_Jones Bequest: Victoria and Albert Museum._)] The well-known maker, Charles Cressent (1685-1768), used rosewood, violet, and amaranth woods in his marquetry, and at this time many new foreign woods were employed by the cabinetmakers in France and Italy. In addition to woods of a natural colour, it was the practice artificially to colour light woods, and inlay work was attempted in which trophies of war, musical instruments, or the shepherd's crook hung with ribbon, were all worked out in marquetry. Pictures, in coloured woods, in imitation of oil paintings on canvas, were foolishly attempted, and altogether the art of inlay, ingenious and wonderful in its construction, began to affect trivialities and surprising effects most unsuited to the range of its technique. In the toilet-table illustrated (p. 179), this misapplication of inlay to reproduce pictures is seen on the three front panels and on the middle panel above. The chief woods employed are tulip and sycamore, inlaid with tinted lime, holly, and cherry-woods. The mountings of the table are chased ormolu. The cylindrical front encloses drawers with inlaid fronts. Beneath this is a sliding shelf, under which is a drawer with three compartments, fitted with toilet requisites and having inlaid lids. This specimen of Louis Quinze work is in the Jones Collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum. It was formerly in the possession of Queen Marie Antoinette. It is attributed to Oeben, though from comparison with some of the chaster work known to have come from his hand it would seem to be of too fanciful marquetry for his restrained and sober style. It is especially true of the furniture of this great French period that it requires harmonious surroundings. The slightest false touch throws everything out of balance at once. Of this fact the inventors were well aware. If Dutch furniture requires the quiet, restful art of Cuyp or Van der Neer, or Metzu or Jan Steen on the surrounding walls, the interiors of Louis Quinze demand the works of contemporary French genre-painters. [Illustration: LOUIS XV. SECRÉTAIRE. By Riesener, in his earlier manner. IN TRANSITIONAL STYLE, APPROACHING LOUIS SEIZE PERIOD. (_Wallace Collection._)] All things worked together to produce a harmonious _ensemble_ in this brilliant period. The royal tapestry and Sèvres porcelain factories turned out their most beautiful productions to decorate rooms, furniture, and for the table. Tapestries from Beauvais, Gobelins, and Aubusson, rich silks from the looms of Lyons, or from Lucca, Genoa, or Venice were made for wall-hangings, for chair-backs, for seats, and for sofas. Fragonard, Natoire, and Boucher painted lunettes over chimney-fronts, or panels of ceilings. Of great cabinetmakers, Riesener and David Roentgen, princes among _ébénistes_, worked in wonderful manner in tulip-wood, in holly, in rosewood, purple wood, and laburnum to produce marquetry, the like of which has never been seen before nor since. Associated with the period of Louis XV. is the love for the lacquered panel. Huygens, a Dutchman, had achieved good results in imitations of Oriental lacquer, which in France, under the hand of Martin, a carriage-painter, born about 1706, rivalled the importations from Japan. It is stated that the secret of the fine, transparent lac polish that he used was obtained from the missionaries who resided in Japan before the date of the massacres and foreign expulsion of all except the Dutch traders. Vernis-Martin, as his varnish was termed, became in general request. From 1744 for twenty years, Sieur Simon Etienne Martin was granted a monopoly to manufacture this lacquered work in the Oriental style. Although he declared that his secret would die with him, other members of his family continued the style, which was taken up by many imitators in the next reign. His varnish had a peculiar limpid transparency, and he obtained the wavy network of gold groundwork so successfully produced by Japanese and Chinese craftsmen. On this were delicately painted, by Boucher and other artists, Arcadian subjects, framed in rocaille style with gold thickly laid on, and so pure that in the bronze gilding and in the woodwork it maintains its fine lustre to the present day. [Illustration: _By permission of Messrs. Foley & Eassie._ THE "BUREAU DU ROI." THE MASTERPIECE OF RIESENER. (From a drawing by Walter Eassie.) (_Wallace Collection._)] Towards the close of the reign of Louis XV. a new style set in, which reverted to simpler tastes, to which the name "_À la reine_" was given, in deference to the taste which is supposed to have emanated from Marie Leczinska, the queen, but is said to have been due to Madame du Pompadour. At the Wallace Collection is a fine secrétaire, with the mounts and ornaments of gilt bronze cast and chased, which is illustrated (p. 181). The central panel of marquetry shows, in life size, a cock, with the caduceus, a snake, a banner, and symbolical instruments. It is by Jean François Riesener, and in his earliest manner, made in the later years of Louis Quinze in the Transitional style approaching the Louis Seize period. Among the wonderful creations of Riesener, probably his masterpiece is the celebrated "Bureau du Roi," begun in 1760 by Oeben, and completed in 1769 by Riesener--who married the widow of Oeben, by the way. Its bronzes are by Duplesis, Winant, and Hervieux. The design and details show the transition between the Louis Quinze and the Louis Seize styles. The original, which is at the Louvre, is in marquetry of various coloured woods and adorned by plaques of gilt bronze, cast and chased. The copy from which our illustration is taken (p. 183) is in the Wallace Collection, and is by Dasson, and follows the original in proportions, design, and technique. RECENT SALE PRICES.[1] £ s. d. Table, Louis XV., oblong, the legs are cabriole, it contains one drawer and a writing-slide; around the sides are inlaid panels of old Japanese lacquer, each panel bordered by elaborate scrollwork of chased ormolu, signed with "B. V. R. B.," surmounted by a slab of white marble, 39 in. wide. Christie, December 18, 1903 1900 0 0 Writing-table, Louis XV., marquetry, with sliding top and drawer, fitted with movable writing slab, compartment for ink-vases, &c., signed "L. Doudin," Louis XV. form, with cabriole legs, the top decorated with scrolls forming panels, the centre one containing a Teniers figure subject, parquetry and inlays of flowers round the sides, corner mounts, &c., of ormolu, cast and chased, 30 in. wide. Christie, March 18, 1904 630 0 0 Cartonnière, Louis XV., of inlaid tulip-wood, containing a clock by Palanson, à Paris, mounted with Chinese figures, masks, foliage and scrolls of chased ormolu, 48 in. high, 36 in. wide. Christie, April 22, 1904 409 10 0 Secrétaires, pair, Louis XV., small marquetry, with fall-down front, drawer above and door below, inlaid with branches of flowers, and mounted with chased ormolu, surmounted by white marble slabs, 46 in. high, 22 in. wide. Christie, April 29, 1904 46 4 0 Cabinet, Louis XV., parquetry, with folding doors enclosing drawers, mounted with ormolu, surmounted by a Brescia marble slab, 30 in. high, 44 in. wide. Christie, April 29, 1904 31 10 0 Bergères, pair of Louis XV., corner-shaped, the frames of carved and gilt wood, the seats and backs covered with old Beauvais tapestry. Christie, May 18, 1904 420 0 0 Settee, Louis XV., oblong, of carved and gilt-wood, covered with panels of old Beauvais tapestry, 3 ft. 8 in. wide. Christie, May 18, 1904 231 0 0 Canapé, Louis XV., of carved and gilt wood, the borders carved with acanthus scrolls, the seat and back covered with old Beauvais silk tapestry, decorated, 4 ft. 6 in. wide. Christie, May 18, 1904 420 0 0 [1] By the kindness of the proprietors of the _Connoisseur_ these items are given from their useful monthly publication, _Auction Sale Prices_. VIII FRENCH FURNITURE. THE PERIOD OF LOUIS XVI VIII FRENCH FURNITURE. THE PERIOD OF LOUIS XVI Louis XVI. 1774-1793. 1730-1806. Riesener, _ébéniste_ to Marie Antoinette (born near Cologne). 1789. Commencement of the French Revolution. The so-called Louis Seize period embraces much that is good from the later days of the previous reign. The same designers were employed with the addition of a few younger men. Caffieri and Riesener were producing excellent work, and above all was Gouthière, whose renown as a founder and chaser of gilded bronze ornaments is unrivalled. Elegance and simplicity are again the prevailing notes. Straight lines took the place of the twisted contortions of the rococo style. Thin scrolls, garlands, ribbons and knots, classical cameo-shaped panels, and Sèvres plaques form the characteristic ornamentation. The acanthus-leaf, distorted into unnatural proportions in the middle Louis Quinze period, returned to its normal shape, the egg-and-tongue moulding came into use, and the delicacy of the laurel-leaf was employed in design in Louis Seize decorations. In the jewel cabinet illustrated (p. 193), the new style is shown at its best. The cabinet is inlaid in rosewood and sycamore, and bears the name of "J. H. Riesener" stamped on it. The chased ormolu mounts are by Gouthière. The geometrical inlay is a tradition which Oeben left to his successors. The upper portion has a rising lid with internal trays. In the lower part is a drawer and a shelf. This piece is at the Victoria and Albert Museum in the Jones Bequest, and it is well worth detailed examination as being a representative specimen of the most artistic work produced at this period. Pierre Gouthière had a complete mastery over his technique. The estimation with which his work is regarded has made furniture which he mounted bring extraordinary prices. In 1882, at the dispersal of the celebrated Hamilton Palace Collection, three specimens with his workmanship realised £30,000. The Vernis-Martin panels were decorated by Watteau and Pater. The age of artificialities with its _fêtes-galantes_ in the royal gardens of the Luxembourg and in the pleasure parks of the Court, with the ill-starred Marie Antoinette playing at shepherds and shepherdesses, had its influence upon art. Watteau employed his brush to daintily paint the attitudes of _Le Lorgneur_ upon a fan-mount, or to depict elegantly dressed noblemen and ladies of the Court dancing elaborate minuets in satin shoes, or feasting from exquisite Sèvres porcelain dishes in the damp corner of some park or old château. [Illustration: LOUIS XVI. JEWEL CABINET. Inlaid in rose and sycamore woods. Stamped "J. H. Riesener." Chased Ormolu mountings by Gouthière. (_Jones Bequest. Victoria and Albert Museum._)] The artificial pretence at Arcadian simplicity adopted by the Queen, in the intervals between her attendance at public _bals-masqué_, when she almost wantonly outraged the susceptibilities of the French people by her frivolities, found a more permanent form in interior decorations. Riesener and David designed a great deal of furniture for her. Dainty work-tables and writing-tables and other furniture of an elegant description are preserved in the national collection in the Louvre and at Fontainebleau, in the Victoria and Albert Museum in the Jones Bequest, and in the Wallace Collection. Tables of this nature are most eagerly sought after. A small table with plaques of porcelain in the side panels, which is said to have belonged to Marie Antoinette, was sold at Christie's for £6,000 (Hamilton Collection). There is a similar writing-table in the Jones Collection, given by Marie Antoinette to Mrs. Eden, afterwards Lady Auckland. During the period under Louis Seize, when Fragonard and Natoire deftly painted the panels of rooms and filled ceilings with flying cupids and chains of roses, when Boucher was Director of the Academy, the interior of rooms assumed a boudoir-like appearance. The walls were decorated in a scheme of colour. Handsome fluted pillars with fine classic feeling were the framework of panelling painted in delicate and subdued tones. Oval mirrors, avoiding all massive construction, lightened the effect, and mantelpieces of white marble, and furniture evidently designed for use, completed the interiors of the homes of the _grands seigneurs_. Sometimes the walls were painted, giving a lustrous appearance resembling silk, and this style is the forerunner of the modern abomination known as wall-paper. Before leaving this period of French furniture, when so much marquetry work was done of unsurpassed beauty and of unrivalled technique, a word may be said as to the number of woods used. Oeben and Riesener and their contemporaries used many foreign woods, of which the names are unfamiliar. Mr. Pollen, in his "South Kensington Museum Handbook to Furniture and Woodwork," has given the names of some of them, which are interesting as showing the number of woods especially selected for this artistic cabinetmaking. Tulip-wood is the variety known as _Liriodendron tulipifera_. Rosewood was extensively used, and holly (_ilex aquifolium_), maple (_acer campestre_), laburnum (_cytisus Alpinus_), and purple wood (_copaifera pubiflora_). Snake-wood was frequently used, and other kinds of light-brown wood in which the natural grain is waved or curled, presenting a pleasant appearance, and obviating the use of marquetry (_see_ "Woods used," p. 29). In the great collections to which reference has been made, in well-known pieces made by Riesener his name is found stamped on the panel itself, or sometimes on the oak lining. The large bureau in the Wallace Collection (Gallery xvi., No. 66) is both signed and dated "20th February, 1769." This piece, it is said, was ordered by Stanislas Leczinski, King of Poland, and was once one of the possessions of the Crown of France. [Illustration: _By permission of Messrs. Waring._ LOUIS XVI. RIESENER COMMODE.] With regard to the cost of pieces of furniture by the great master _ébénistes_, it is on record that a secrétaire which was exhibited at Gore House in 1853, and made originally for Beaumarchais by Riesener, cost 85,000 francs, a sum not much less than £4,000. Celebrated copies have been made from these old models. The famous cabinet with mounts by Gouthière, now in the possession of the King, was copied about twenty-five years ago for the Marquis of Hertford, by permission of Queen Victoria. The piece took years to complete, and it is interesting to have the evidence of its copyists that the most difficult parts to imitate were the metal mounts. This replica cost some £3,000, and is now in the Wallace Collection. The copy of the famous bureau or escritoire in the Louvre, known as the "Bureau de St. Cloud," was made by permission of the Emperor Napoleon III., and cost £2,000. Another copy of the same piece exhibited at the French International Exhibition was sold for £3,500 to an English peeress. Many fine copies of Riesener's work exist, and in the illustration (p. 197) a copy is given of a handsome commode, which exhibits his best style under the influence of his master, Oeben. RECENT SALE PRICES.[1] £ s. d. Cabinets, pair of Louis XVI., dwarf ebony, the panels inlaid with black and gold lacquer, decorated with birds and trees in the Chinese taste, mounted with foliage borders of chased ormolu, and surmounted by veined black marble slabs, 45 in. high, 35 in. wide. Christie, November 20, 1903 39 18 0 Suite of Louis XVI. furniture, with fluted borders and legs, painted white and pale green, the seats, backs, and arms covered with old Beauvais tapestry, with vases and festoons of flowers and conventional arabesques in poly-chrome, on white ground in pale green borders, consisting of an oblong settee, 72 in. wide, eight fauteuils. Christie, December 18, 1903 1470 0 0 Secrétaire, Louis XVI., upright marquetry, with fall-down } front, drawer above, and folding doors below, inlaid } with hunting trophies on trellis-pattern ground, mounted} with foliage, friezes, and corner mounts of chased } ormolu, and surmounted by a Breccia marble slab, stamped} "J. Stumpff. 315 0 0 Me.," 56 in. high, 40 in. wide. } Christie, February 12, 1904 Commode, _en suite_, with } five drawers, 58 in. wide. Christie, February 12, 1904 } } 714 0 0 Work-table, Louis XVI., oval, in two tiers, upon a tripod } stand, with double candle branches above; the top tier } is composed of a Sèvres plaque, painted with sprays of } roses; around this is a gallery of chased ormolu; the } second tier is of parquetry, this has also a balcony; } the tripod base is of mahogany, with mounts of ormolu, } cast and chased; the nozzles for the two candles above } are similar in material and decoration, width of top } tier, 13 in. Christie, March 18, 1904 Table, Louis XVI., marquetry, signed "N. Petit," top inlaid with musical trophy, &c., mounts, &c., of ormolu, cast and chased, 30 in. wide. Christie, March 18, 1904 99 15 0 Fauteuils, pair, Louis XVI. (stamped "J. Leglartier"), tapered oblong backs and curved arms, turned legs, white and gilt, covered with Beauvais tapestry, with subjects from "Fables de la Fontaine," and other designs. Flashman & Co., Dover, April 26, 1904 75 0 0 Console-table, Louis XVI., carved and painted wood, with fluted legs and stretchers, and open frieze in front, surmounted by a slab of white marble, 5 ft. 4 in. wide. Christie, May 6, 1904 46 0 0 Commode, Louis XVI., containing three drawers, in front it is divided into three rectangular sunk panels of parquetry, each bordered with mahogany, with ormolu mounts, surmounted by a slab of fleur-de-pêche marble, 57 in. wide. Christie, May 27, 1904 357 0 0 Commode, Louis XVI., stamped with the name of "J. H. Reisener," with tambour panels in front and drawers at the top; it is chiefly composed of mahogany, the central panel inlaid in a coloured marquetry; on either side, and at the ends, are panels of tulip-wood parquetery, the whole is mounted with ormolu, surmounted by a slab of veined marble, 34 in. wide. Christie, May 27, 1904 3150 0 0 [1] By the kindness of the proprietors of the _Connoisseur_ these items are given from their useful monthly publication, _Auction Sale Prices_. IX FRENCH FURNITURE. THE FIRST EMPIRE STYLE [Illustration: PORTRAIT OF MADAME RÉCAMIER. (After David.) Showing Empire settee and footstool. (_In the Louvre._)] IX FRENCH FURNITURE--THE FIRST EMPIRE STYLE 1789. Commencement of French Revolution. 1798. Napoleon's campaign in Egypt. 1805. Napoleon prepares to invade England; Battle of Trafalgar; French naval power destroyed. 1806. Napoleon issued Berlin Decree to destroy trade of England. 1812. Napoleon invaded Russia, with disastrous retreat from Moscow. 1814. Napoleon abdicated. 1815. Wellington defeated Napoleon at Waterloo. When Louis XVI. called together the States-General in 1789, which had not met since 1614, the first stone was laid of the French Republic. After the king was beheaded in 1793, the Reign of Terror followed, during which the wildest licence prevailed. Under the Directory, for four years from 1795, the country settled down until the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte, who took the government in his own hands with the title of Consul, and in 1804 called himself Emperor of the French. During the Reign of Terror the ruthless fury of a nation under mob-law did not spare the most beautiful objects of art which were associated with a hated aristocracy. Furniture especially suffered, and it is a matter for wonderment that so much escaped destruction. Most of the furniture of the royal palaces was consigned to the spoliation of "the Black Committee," who trafficked in works of great price, and sold to foreign dealers the gems of French art for less than a quarter of their real value. So wanton had become the destruction of magnificent furniture that the Convention, with an eye on the possibilities of raising money in the future, ordered the furniture to be safely stored in the museums of Paris. After so great a social upheaval, art in her turn was subjected to revolutionary notions. Men cast about to find something new. Art, more than ever, attempted to absorb the old classic spirit. The Revolution was the deathblow to Rococo ornament. With the classic influences came ideas from Egypt, and the excavations at Herculaneum and Pompeii provided a further source of design. A detail of a portion of a tripod table found at Pompeii shows the nature of the beautiful furniture discovered. As early as 1763, Grimm wrote: "For some years past we are beginning to inquire for antique ornaments and forms. The interior and exterior decorations of houses, furniture, materials of dress, work of the goldsmiths, all bear alike the stamp of the Greeks. The fashion passes from architecture to millinery; our ladies have their hair dressed _à la Grecque_." A French translation of Winckelmann appeared in 1765, and Diderot lent his powerful aid in heralding the dawn of the revival of the antique long before the curtain went up on the events of 1789. Paris in Revolution days assumed the atmosphere of ancient Rome. Children were given Greek and Roman names. Classical things got rather mixed. People called themselves "Romans." Others had Athenian notions. Madame Vigée-Lebrun gave _soupers à la Grecque_. Madame Lebrun was Aspasia, and M. l'Abbé Barthélemy, in a Greek dress with a laurel wreath on his head, recited a Greek poem. [Illustration: DETAIL OF TRIPOD TABLE FOUND AT POMPEII. (_At Naples Museum._)] These, among a thousand other signs of the extraordinary spirit of classicism which possessed France, show how deep rooted had become the idea of a modern Republic that should emulate the fame of Athens and of Rome. The First Consul favoured these ideas, and his portraits represent him with a laurel wreath around his head posing as a Cæsar. [Illustration: _By kind permission from the collection of Dr. Sigerson, Dublin._ SERVANTE. Marble top; supported on two ormolu legs elaborately chased with figures of Isis. Panelled at back with glass mirror. FRENCH; LATE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.] In transition days before the style known as Empire had become fixed there is exhibited in art a feeling which suggests the deliberate search after new forms and new ideas. To this period belongs the _servante_, which, by the kindness of Dr. Sigerson, of Dublin, is reproduced from his collection. The claw-foot, the ram's head, the bay-leaf, and a frequent use of caryatides and animal forms, is a common ornamentation in furniture of the Empire period. In this specimen the two legs of ormolu have these characteristics, and it is noticeable that the shape of the leg and its details of ornament bear a striking resemblance to the leg of the Pompeiian table illustrated (p. 205). But the deities of Egypt have contributed a new feature in the seated figure of the goddess Isis. [Illustration: JEWEL CABINET OF THE EMPRESS MARIE LOUISE. Made on the occasion of her marriage with the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, in 1810. (_At Fontainebleau._)] Napoleon himself encouraged the classic spirit which killed all memories of an _ancien régime_. He would have been pleased to see all the relics of the former glories of France demolished. He had at one time a project to rebuild Versailles as a classic temple. At the height of his splendour he became the patron of the fine arts, and attempted to leave his impression upon art as he did upon everything else. New furniture was designed for the Imperial palaces. Riesener was alive, but it does not appear that he took any part in the new creations. David, the great French painter, an ardent Republican, was won over to become a Court painter. At Malmaison and at Fontainebleau there are many fine examples of the First Empire period which, however, cannot be regarded as the most artistic in French furniture. Preserved at Fontainebleau is the jewel cabinet, made by Thomire and Odiot, at the Emperor's orders as a wedding gift, in 1810, to the Empress Marie Louise, in emulation of the celebrated Riesener cabinet at the Trianon. The wood used for this, and for most of the Empire cabinets, is rich mahogany, which affords a splendid ground for the bronze gilt mounts (_see_ p. 207). The portrait of Madame Récamier, by David, which is in the Louvre, given as headpiece to this chapter, shows the severe style of furniture in use at the zenith of the Empire period. The couch follows classic models, and the tall candelabrum is a suggestion from Herculaneum models. The influence that this classic revival had upon furniture in this country is told in a subsequent chapter. In regard to costume, the gowns of the First Empire period have become quite fashionable in recent years. Although this style of furniture degenerated into commonplace designs with affectedly hard outlines, it had a considerable vogue. In addition to the influence it had upon the brothers Adam and upon Sheraton, it left its trace on English furniture up till the first quarter of the nineteenth century. The chair illustrated (p. 210) is about the year 1800 in date. There is presumptive evidence that this chair was made in Bombay after European design. It is of rosewood, carved in relief with honeysuckle and floral design. The scrolled ends of the top rail show at once its French derivation. In the national collections in this country there are very few specimens of Empire furniture. The Duke of Wellington has some fine examples at Apsley House, treasured relics of its historic associations with the victor of Waterloo. The demand in France, for furniture of the First Empire style has in all probability denuded the open market of many fine specimens. Owing to the fact that this country was at war with France when the style was at its height, the number of Empire pieces imported was very limited, nor does First Empire furniture seem to have greatly captivated the taste of English collectors, as among the records of sales of furniture by public auction very little has come under the hammer. [Illustration: _By kind permission of the Rev. H. V. Le Bas._ ARMCHAIR, ROSEWOOD. Carved in relief with honeysuckle pattern Formerly in possession of the Duke of Newcastle. ENGLISH; LATE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.] X CHIPPENDALE AND HIS STYLE [Illustration: _By permission of the proprietors of the "Connoisseur."_ TABLE MADE BY CHIPPENDALE. (Height, 29-3/8 in.; width, 32-3/8 in.; depth, 21-5/8 in.)] X CHIPPENDALE AND HIS STYLE George I. 1714-1727. George II. 1727-1760. George III. 1760-1820. Horace Walpole built Strawberry Hill (1750) Sir William Chambers (1726-1796) built Pagoda at Kew about 1760. Chippendale's _Director_ published (1754). Thomas Chippendale, the master cabinetmaker of St. Martin's Lane, has left a name which, like that of Boule, has become a trade term to mark a certain style in furniture. With the dawn of the age of mahogany, Chippendale produced designs that were especially adapted to the new wood; he relied solely upon the delicate carving for ornament, and rejected all inlay. Discovered by Sir Walter Raleigh, who brought specimens home with him, mahogany did not come into general use till about 1720. The material then used by Chippendale and his school was the splendid mahogany from the great untouched forests, producing at that time timber the like of which, in dimension and in quality, is now unprocurable. The cheaper "Honduras stuff" was then unknown, and English crews landed and cut timber from the Spanish possessions in spite of the protests of the owners. Many a stiff fight occurred, and many lives were lost in shipping this stolen mahogany to England to supply the demand for furniture. These nefarious proceedings more than once threatened to bring about war between England and Spain. The furniture of France, during the four great periods treated in the previous chapters, was designed for the use of the nobility. One wonders what furniture was in common use by the peasantry in France. In England, too, much of the furniture left for the examination of posterity was made for the use of the wealthy classes. In Jacobean days, settles and chairs, especially the Yorkshire and Derbyshire types, were in more common use, and the homely pieces of Queen Anne suggest less luxurious surroundings, but it was left for Chippendale to impress his taste upon all classes. In the title-page of his great work, the _Director_, published in 1754, he says that his designs are "calculated to improve and refine the present taste, and suited to the fancy and circumstances of persons in all degrees of life." [Illustration: OLIVER GOLDSMITH'S CHAIR. Wood, painted green, with circular seat, carved arms, and high back. Bequeathed by Oliver Goldsmith in 1774 to his friend, Dr. Hawes. (_Bethnal Green Museum._)] His book of designs, as may naturally be supposed, was not greatly bought by the working classes, but fifteen copies of the _Director_ went to Yorkshire, and many other copies were subscribed for in other parts of the country, so that local cabinetmakers began at once to fashion their furniture after his styles. The common form of chair at the time was similar to the specimen illustrated (p. 215), which formerly belonged to Oliver Goldsmith, and was bequeathed by him to his friend, Dr. Hawes. This is of soft wood, probably beech, painted green, with circular seat, curved arms, and high back. Chippendale revolutionised this inartistic style, and for the first time in the history of the manufacture of furniture in England, continental makers turned their eyes to this country in admiration of the style in vogue here, and in search of new designs. It might appear, on a hasty glance at some of Chippendale's work, that originality was not his strong point. His claw-and-ball feet were not his own, and he borrowed them and the wide, spacious seats of his chairs from the Dutch, or from earlier English furniture under Dutch influence. [Illustration: _By permission of the proprietors of the "Connoisseur."_ CHIPPENDALE SETTEE; WALNUT. ABOUT 1740. (_From the collection of Sir W. E. Welby-Gregory, Bart._)] Sir William Chambers, the architect of Somerset House, whose fondness for Chinese ornament produced quite a craze, and who built the Pagoda in Kew Gardens, gave Chippendale another source of inspiration. In his later days he came under the influence of the Gothic revival and was tempted to misuse Gothic ornament. [Illustration: _By permission of the proprietors of the "Connoisseur."_ CHIPPENDALE SETTEE, OAK. ABOUT 1740. (_By courtesy of V. J. Robinson, Esq., C.I.E._)] His second style shows the Louis XIV. French decoration in subjection. In his ribbon-back chairs he employed the Louis XVI. ornamentation. But Chippendale was the most masterly adapter that England has ever produced. His adaptions became original under his hand, and his creations are sturdy and robust, tempered by French subtleties, and having, here and there, as in the fretwork in the chair-legs and angles, a suggestion of the East. He is the prince of chair-makers. His chairs are never unsymmetrical. He knew the exact proportion of ornament that the structure would gracefully bear. The splats in the chairs he made himself are of such accurate dimensions in relation to the open spaces on each side that this touch alone betrays the hand of the master, which is absent in the imitations of his followers. The illustration given of the Chippendale table in Chinese style (p. 213), is a beautiful and perfect piece of a type rarely met with. It was made by Chippendale for the great-grandmother of the present owner. A similar table was in the possession of the Princess Josephine. In chairs, the back was sometimes of fret-cut work, as was also the design of the legs, with fretwork in the angles, which betray his fondness for the Chinese models. The Gothic style influenced Chippendale only to a slight degree. Horace Walpole at Strawberry Hill set the fashion in England, which fortunately was short-lived. Collectors divide Chippendale's work into three periods. To the first they assign the more solid chairs or settees with cabriole legs and Louis XIV. ornament, harmoniously blended with Queen Anne style. These chairs and settees are often found with claw-and-ball feet, and are frequently of walnut. Two fine examples of settees, the one of oak, the other of walnut, are illustrated. [Illustration: RIBBON PATTERN. CHIPPENDALE CHAIR-BACK. (_From the "Director."_)] The second period embraces the fine creations which have the celebrated Louis XVI. ribbon ornamentation in the backs. From one of the designs in Chippendale's book, here illustrated, the elegance of the style is shown. It is exuberant enough, but the author complains in his volume that "In executing many of these drawings, my pencil has but faintly carved out those images my fancy suggested; but in this failure I console myself by reflecting that the greatest masters of every art have laboured under the same difficulties." The ribbon-backed chair illustrated (p. 223) is one of the two given to an ancestor of the present owner by the fourth Duke of Marlborough in 1790. They were formerly at Blenheim, and there is an added interest in them owing to the fact that the seats were worked by Sarah, the great Duchess of Marlborough. [Illustration: _By permission of the proprietors of the "Connoisseur."_ RIBBON-BACKED CHIPPENDALE CHAIR, FORMERLY AT BLENHEIM, THE SEAT WORKED BY SARAH, DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH.] The latest style of Chippendale's work is the Gothic. There are many pieces in existence which he probably had to produce to satisfy the taste of his fashionable clients, but the style is atrocious, and the less said about them the better. The illustration (p. 225) of a chair-back from his design-book shows how offensive it could be. [Illustration: _By permission of the proprietors of the "Connoisseur."_ CHIPPENDALE CORNER CHAIR, ABOUT 1780. (_Reproduced by kindness of the Hon. Sir Spencer Ponsonby-Fane, G.C.B., I.S.O._)] The fine corner-chair, here illustrated, exhibits the strength and solidity he could impart to his work. His chairs were meant to sit upon, and are of excellent carpentry. The square, straight legs are a feature of much of his work. The examples belonging to the India Office and the Governors of the Charterhouse illustrated (pp. 226, 227) show the type that he made his own and with which his name has been associated. [Illustration: GOTHIC CHIPPENDALE CHAIR-BACK. (_From the "Director."_)] Although his chairs are sought after as especially beautiful in design (his father was a maker of chairs before him) he made many other objects of furniture. The mirrors he designed are exquisite examples of fine woodcarving. The one illustrated (p. 229) shows the mastery he had over graceful outline. Bureau bookcases with drop-down fronts have been successfully produced since his day after his models. The one illustrated (p. 231) shows a secret drawer, which is reached by removing the left-hand panel. Card-tables, settees, knife-boxes, tea-caddies, sideboards, and overmantles were made by him, which show by their diversity of technique that there was more than one pair of hands at work in carrying out his designs. [Illustration: _By permission of the proprietors of the "Connoisseur."_ MAHOGANY CHIPPENDALE CHAIR. ABOUT 1740. (_Property of the India Office._)] The collecting of Chippendale furniture has become so fashionable of late years that genuine old pieces are difficult to procure. It is true that two old chairs were discovered in a workhouse last year, but when specimens come into the market they usually bring large prices. Two elbow state-chairs, with openwork backs, were sold a little while ago for seven hundred and eighty guineas, and a set of six small chairs brought ninety-three guineas about the same time. But even this is not the top price reached, for two chairs at Christie's realised eleven hundred pounds! [Illustration: _By permission of the proprietors of the "Connoisseur."_ MAHOGANY CHIPPENDALE CHAIR. 1770. (_By permission of the Master of the Charterhouse._)] Chippendale, the shopkeeper, of St Martin's Lane, who took orders for furniture, which he or his sons, or workmen under their direct supervision, executed, was one person, and Chippendale, who had quarrelled with the Society of Upholsterers, and published a book of designs on his own account, which quickly ran through three editions, was another person. In the one case he was a furniture maker whose pieces bring enormous prices. In the other he was the pioneer of popular taste and high-priest to the cabinetmakers scattered up and down England, who quickly realised the possibilities of his style, and rapidly produced good work on his lines. These pieces are by unknown men, and no doubt much of their work has been accredited to Chippendale himself. The illustration (p. 232) shows a mahogany chair well constructed, of a time contemporary with Chippendale and made by some smaller maker. This type of chair has been copied over and over again till it has become a recognised pattern. It finds its counterpart in china in the old willow-pattern, which originated at Coalport and has been adopted as a stock design. [Illustration: _By permission of the proprietors of the "Connoisseur."_ CHIPPENDALE MIRROR.] Furniture is not like silver, where the mark of the maker was almost as obligatory as the hall mark. Artists, both great and small, have signed their pictures, and in the glorious days of the great French _ébénistes_ and metal-chasers, signed work is frequently found. But in England, at a time when furniture of excellent design, of original conception, and of thoroughly good workmanship was produced in great quantities, the only surviving names are those of designers or cabinetmakers who have published books. [Illustration: _By permission of Messrs. Harold G. Lancaster & Co._ CHIPPENDALE BUREAU BOOKCASE. With drop-down front, showing secret drawer.] So great was the influence of the style of Chippendale that it permeated all classes of society. An interesting engraving by Stothard (p. 235) shows the interior of a room, and is dated 1782, the year that Rodney gained a splendid victory over the French fleet in the West Indies, and the year that saw the independence of the United States recognised. [Illustration: _By permission of Messrs. Harold G. Lancaster & Co._ MAHOGANY CHAIR. IN THE CHIPPENDALE STYLE. LATE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.] [Illustration: COTTAGE CHAIRS, BEECHWOOD. LATE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, IN STYLE OF CHIPPENDALE.] Kitchen furniture or cottage furniture was made on the same lines by makers all over the country. The wood used was not mahogany; it was most frequently beech. Chairs of this make are not museum examples, but they are not devoid of a strong artistic feeling, and are especially English in character. More often than not the soft wood of this class of chair is found to be badly worm-eaten. Two chairs of this type, of beech, are illustrated (p. 233), and it is interesting to note that, as in the instance of the Yorkshire and Derbyshire chairs of Jacobean days made by local makers, it is not common to find many of exactly the same design. The craftsman gave a personal character to his handiwork, which makes such pieces of original and artistic interest, and cabinetmaking and joinery was not then so machine-made as it is now. [Illustration: INTERIOR OF ROOM, ABOUT 1782. (_From engraving after Stothard._)] It may be here remarked that the earlier pieces of the eighteenth century were polished much in the same manner as was old oak previously described. Highly polished surfaces and veneers, and that abomination "French polish," which is a cheap and nasty method of disguising poor wood, bring furniture within the early nineteenth-century days, when a wave of Philistine banalities swept over Europe. RECENT SALE PRICES.[1] £ s. d. Side table, Chippendale, with gadrooned border, the front boldly carved with a grotesque mask, festoons of flowers and foliage, on carved legs with claw feet, 64 in. long. Christie, February 14, 1902 126 0 0 Tea-caddy, Chippendale mahogany, square, with four divisions, the borders carved with rosettes and interlaced riband ornament, the sides inlaid with four old Worcester oblong plaques painted with exotic birds, insects, fruit, flowers, and festoons in colours on white ground, 10 in. square. Christie, February 6, 1903 52 10 0 Fire-screen, Chippendale mahogany, containing a panel of old English petit-point needlework, worked with a basket of flowers in coloured silks, on pillar and tripod carved with foliage and ball-and-claw feet. Christie, December 4, 1903 17 17 0 Armchairs, pair large Chippendale mahogany, with interlaced backs carved with foliage, the arms terminating in carved and gilt eagles' heads. Christie, January 22, 1904 88 4 0 Cabinet, Chippendale mahogany, with glazed folding doors enclosing shelves, and with cupboards and eight small drawers below, the borders fluted, 8 ft. high, 8 ft. wide. Christie, January 22, 1904 67 4 0 Chairs, set of six Chippendale mahogany, with open interlaced backs, with scroll tops, carved with foliage and shell ornament, on carved cabriole legs and ball-and-claw feet. Christie, January 22, 1904 102 18 0 Table, Chippendale, oblong, cabriole legs, carved with shells, &c., on claw feet, surmounted by a veined white marble slab, 53 in. wide. Christie, March 4, 1904 73 0 0 Settee, Chippendale mahogany, with double back with scroll top, carved with arabesque foliage, the arms terminating in masks, on legs carved with lions' masks and claw feet, 54 in. wide. Christie, April 12, 1904 278 5 0 Mirror, Chippendale, carved with gilt, 88 in. high, 50 in. wide. Christie, May 18, 1904 94 10 0 [1] By the kindness of the proprietors of the _Connoisseur_ these items are given from their useful monthly publication _Auction Sale Prices_. XI SHERATON, ADAM, AND HEPPELWHITE STYLES [Illustration: _By permission of Messrs. Harold G. Lancaster & Co._ HEPPELWHITE SETTEE, MAHOGANY.] XI SHERATON, ADAM, AND HEPPELWHITE STYLES Robert Adam 1728-1792. Thomas Sheraton 1751-1806. 1752. Loch and Copeland's designs published. 1765. Manwaring's designs published. 1770. Ince and Mayhew's designs published. 1788. Heppelwhite's designs published. In the popular conception of the furniture of the three Georges the honours are divided between Chippendale and Sheraton. Up till recently all that was not Chippendale was Sheraton, and all that was not Sheraton must be Chippendale. The one is represented by the straight-legged mahogany chairs or cabriole legs with claw-and-ball feet and the backs elaborately carved; the other with finely tapered legs, built on elegant lines, and of satinwood, having marquetry decoration or painted panels. This is the rough generalisation that obtained in the earlier days of the craze for collecting eighteenth-century furniture. Heppelwhite and Adam (more often than not alluded to as Adams), are now added to the list, and auction catalogues attempt to differentiate accordingly. But these four names do not represent a quarter of the well-known makers who were producing good furniture in the days between the South Sea Bubble in 1720 and the battle of Waterloo in 1815. In this chapter it will be impossible to give more than a passing allusion to the less-known makers of the eighteenth century, but to those who wish to pursue the matter in more detailed manner the Bibliography annexed (p. 19) gives ample material for a closer study of the period. The four brothers Adam, sons of a well-known Scottish architect, were exponents of the classic style. Robert Adam was the architect of the fine houses in the Adelphi, and he designed the screen and gateway at the entrance to the Admiralty in 1758. James is credited with the designing of interior decorations and furniture. Carriages, sedan-chairs, and even plate were amongst the artistic objects to which these brothers gave their stamp. The classical capitals, mouldings and niches, the shell flutings and the light garlands in the Adam style, are welcome sights in many otherwise dreary streets in London. Robert, the eldest brother, lived from 1728 to 1792, and during that time exercised a great influence on English art. [Illustration: SHERATON ARMCHAIR; MAHOGANY, ABOUT 1780. ADAM ARMCHAIR; MAHOGANY, ABOUT 1790. ARMCHAIR OF WALNUT, SHIELD-BACK CARVED WITH THREE OSTRICH FEATHERS. IN HEPPELWHITE STYLE. LATE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. CHAIR OF WALNUT, SHIELD-BACK; IN THE STYLE OF HEPPELWHITE. LATE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. (_Victoria and Albert Museum._)] In 1790, a set of designs of English furniture were published by A. Heppelwhite. In these chairs with pierced backs, bookcases with fancifully framed glass doors, and mahogany bureaux, the influence of Chippendale is evident, but the robustness of the master and the individuality of his style become transformed into a lighter and more elegant fashion, to which French _finesse_ and the Adam spirit have contributed their influence. In the illustration (p. 243) various types of chairs of the period are given. A chair termed the "ladder-back" was in use in France at the same time. In Chardin's celebrated picture of "_Le jeu de l'oye_," showing the interior of a parlour of the middle eighteenth century, a chair of this type is shown. The Heppelwhite settee illustrated as the headpiece to this chapter shows the delicate fluting in the woodwork, and the elaborated turned legs which were beginning to be fashionable at the close of the eighteenth century. The two chairs by Heppelwhite & Co., illustrated (p. 243), are typical examples of the elegance of the style which has an individuality of its own--a fact that collectors are beginning to recognise. The shield-back chair with wheat-ear and openwork decoration, and legs in which the lathe has been freely used, are characteristic types. The elegance of the legs in Heppelwhite chairs is especially noticeable. The designers departed from Chippendale with results exquisitely symmetrical, and of most graceful ornamentation. Hogarth, in his biting satires on the absurdities of Kent, the architect, painter, sculptor, and ornamental gardener, whose claims to be any one of the four rest on slender foundations, did not prevent fashionable ladies consulting him for designs for furniture, picture frames, chairs, tables, for cradles, for silver plate, and even for the construction of a barge. It is recorded by Walpole that two great ladies who implored him to design birthday gowns for them were decked out in incongruous devices: "the one he dressed in a petticoat decorated in columns of the five orders, and the other like a bronze, in a copper-coloured satin, with ornaments of gold." Heppelwhite learned the lesson of Hogarth, that "the line of beauty is a curve," and straight lines were studiously avoided in his designs. Of the varieties of chairs that he made, many have the Prince of Wales's feathers either carved upon them in the centre of the open-work back or japanned upon the splat, a method of decoration largely employed in France, which has not always stood the test of time, for when examples are found they often want restoration. Of satin-wood, with paintings upon the panels, Heppelwhite produced some good examples, and when he attempted greater elaboration his style in pieces of involved design and intricacy of detail became less original, and came into contact with Sheraton. His painted furniture commands high prices, and the name of Heppelwhite will stand as high as Chippendale or Sheraton for graceful interpretations of the spirit which invested the late eighteenth century. Before dealing with Sheraton in detail, the names of some lesser known makers contemporary with him may be mentioned. Matthias Lock, together with a cabinetmaker named Copeland, published in 1752 designs of furniture which derived their inspiration from the brothers Adam, which classic feeling later, in conjunction with the Egyptian and Pompeian spirit, dominated the style of the First Empire. Josiah Wedgewood, with his Etruscan vases, and Flaxman, his designer, filled with the new classic spirit, are examples in the world of pottery of the influences which were transmitted through the French Revolution to all forms of art when men cast about in every direction to find new ideas for design. Ince and Mayhew, two other furniture designers, published a book in 1770, and Johnson outdid Chippendale's florid styles in a series of designs he brought out, which, with their twisted abortions, look almost like a parody of Thomas Chippendale's worst features. There is a "Chairmaker's Guide," by Manwaring and others in 1766, which contains designs mainly adapted from all that was being produced at the time. It is not easy to tell the difference between chairs made by Manwaring and those made by Chippendale, as he certainly stands next to the great master in producing types which have outlived ephemeral tastes, and taken their stand as fine artistic creations. Among other names are those of Shearer, Darly, and Gillow, all of whom were notable designers and makers of furniture in the period immediately preceding the nineteenth century. Thomas Sheraton, contemporary with William Blake the dreamer, shares with him the unfortunate posthumous honour of reaching sensational prices in auction rooms. There is much in common between the two men. Sheraton was born in 1751 at Stockton-on-Tees, and came to London to starve. Baptist preacher, cabinetmaker, author, teacher of drawing, he passed his life in poverty, and died in distressed circumstances. He was, before he brought out his book of designs, the author of several religious works. Often without capital to pursue his cabinetmaking he fell back on his aptitude for drawing, and gave lessons in design. He paid young Black, who afterwards became Lord Provost of Edinburgh, half a guinea a week as workman in his cabinetmaker's shop in Soho. In a pathetic picture of those days the Lord Provost, in his _Memoirs_, tells how Sheraton and his wife and child had only two cups and saucers and the child had a mug, and when the writer took tea with them the wife's cup and saucer were given up to the guest, and she drank her tea from a common mug. This reads like Blake's struggles when he had not money enough to procure copper-plates on which to engrave his wonderful visions. That the styles of Chippendale and Sheraton represent two distinct schools is borne out by what Sheraton himself thought of his great predecessor. Speaking in his own book of Chippendale's previous work he says: "As for the designs themselves they are wholly antiquated, and laid aside, though possessed of great merit according to the times in which they were executed." From this it would appear that the Chippendale style, at the time of Sheraton's "Cabinetmaker's and Upholsterer's Drawing Book," published in 1793, had gone out of fashion. The woods mostly employed by Sheraton were satinwood, tulip-wood, rosewood, and apple-wood, and occasionally mahogany. In place of carved scrollwork he used marquetry, and on the cabinets and larger pieces panels were painted by Cipriani and Angelica Kauffman. There is a fine example of the latter's work in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Sheraton borrowed largely from the French style under Louis XVI., when the lines had become severer; he came, too, under the influence of the Adam designs. He commonly used turned legs, and often turned backs, in his chairs. His later examples had a hollowed or spoon back to fit the body of the sitter. When he used mahogany he realised the beauty of effect the dark wood would give to inlay of lighter coloured woods, or even of brass. The splats and balusters, and even the legs of some of his chairs, are inlaid with delicate marquetry work. Ornament for its own sake was scrupulously eschewed by Sheraton. The essential supports and uprights and stretcher-rails and other component parts of a piece of furniture were only decorated as portions of a preconceived whole. The legs were tapered, the plain surfaces were inlaid with marquetry, but nothing meaningless was added. In France Sheraton's style was termed "_Louis Seize à l'Anglaise_." [Illustration: _By permission of Messrs. Hampton &. Sons._ OLD ENGLISH SECRÉTAIRE. Rosewood and satinwood. Drop-down front.] It was the firm of Heppelwhite that first introduced the painted furniture into England, and under Sheraton it developed into an emulation of the fine work done by Watteau and Greuze in the days of Marie Antoinette. Among the varied pieces that Sheraton produced are a number of ingenious inventions in furniture, such as the library-steps he made for George III. to rise perpendicularly from the top of a table frame, and when folded up to be concealed within it. His bureau-bookcases and writing-cabinets have sliding flaps and secret drawers and devices intended to make them serve a number of purposes. [Illustration: _By permission of Messrs. Harold G. Lancaster & Co._ SHIELD-BACK CHAIR. MAHOGANY. LATE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.] On the front of his chairs is frequently found the inverted bell flower, and another of his favourite forms of decoration is the acanthus ornament, which he puts to graceful use. The influence of his work, and of that of Heppelwhite & Co., was lasting, and much of the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century cabinetmaking owes its origin to their designs. The old English secrétaire illustrated (p. 250), of rose and satinwood, with drawer above and fall-down front, having cupboard beneath with doors finely inlaid with plaques of old lac, is of the date when Heppelwhite was successfully introducing this class of French work into England. It is especially interesting to note that the drawer-handles are mounted with old Battersea enamel. The difficulty of definitely pronouncing as to the maker of many of the pieces of furniture of the late eighteenth century is recognised by experts. The chair illustrated (p. 251) cannot be assigned to any particular designer, though its genuine old feeling is indisputable. In the fine collection of old furniture of this period at the Victoria and Albert Museum will be found many examples of chairs with no other title assigned to them than "late eighteenth century." This fact speaks for itself. A great and growing school had followed the precepts of Chippendale and Heppelwhite and Sheraton. This glorious period of little more than half a century might have been developed into a new Renaissance in furniture. Unfortunately, the early days of the nineteenth century and the dreary Early Victorian period, both before and after the great Exhibition of 1851, display the most tasteless ineptitude in nearly every branch of art. From the days of Elizabeth down to the last of the Georges, English craftsmen, under various influences, have produced domestic furniture of great beauty. It is impossible to feel any interest in the Windsor chair, the saddle-bag couch, or the red mahogany cheffonière. The specimens of misapplied work shown at the Bethnal Green Museum, relics of the English exhibits at the first Exhibition, are unworthy of great traditions. The awakened interest shown by all classes in old furniture will do much to carry the designers back to the best periods in order to study the inheritance the masters have left, and it is to be hoped that the message of the old craftsmen dead and gone will not fall on deaf ears. RECENT SALE PRICES.[1] £ s. d. Chairs, wheel back, set of seven (including armchair), Adam, carved, mahogany. Good condition. Brady & Sons, Perth, September 1, 1902 27 2 6 Mirror, Adam, in gilt frame, Corinthian pillar sides, ornamental glass panel at top, surmounted by a carved wood eagle figure. Gudgeon & Sons, Winchester, November 11, 1903 7 10 0 Mantelpiece, Adam, carved wood, with Corinthian column supports, carved and figures and festoons. France & Sons, December 16, 1903 20 0 0 Mirrors, pair, oval, Adam, carved and gilt wood frame. Christie, March 18, 1904 46 4 0 Cabinet or enclosed buffet, Adam, on Empire lines, veneered on oak with grained Spanish mahogany, in the frieze is a long drawer, and below a cupboard, the whole on square feet, doors inlaid, handles, &c., of ormolu, 3 ft. 9 in. wide. Flashman & Co., Dover, April 26, 1904 15 0 0 Side-tables, pair hare-wood, by Adam, with rounded corners, on square-shaped tapering legs, the sides and borders inlaid with marquetry, in coloured woods, 53 in. wide. Christie, June 2, 1904 105 0 0 Bookcase, 4 ft. 8 in., mahogany, Heppelwhite, inlaid tulip-wood with box and ebony lines, fitted shelves and drawers, enclosed by doors. Phillips, Son and Neale, November 17, 1903 44 0 0 Settee, Heppelwhite, square-shaped, 6 ft., and three elbow chairs. Gudgeon & Sons, Winchester, March 9, 1904 38 0 0 Console-table, Heppelwhite satinwood, the top shaped as a broken ellipse, and of hare-wood with inlays of husks and flowers round a fan-pattern centre with borderings in ebony and other woods on a filling of satinwood; the edge is bound with ormolu, reeded and cross banded, below is the frieze of satin-wood inlaid with honeysuckle, pateræ, and other ornament in holly, &c., and supported on a pair of carved square tapered legs painted and gilt, and with pendants of husks and acanthus capitals, 4 ft. 3 in. wide. Flashman & Co., Dover, April 26, 1904 40 0 0 Suite of Heppelwhite mahogany furniture, with open shield backs, with vase-shaped centres carved, the back, arms and legs widely fluted, consisting of a settee, 74 in. wide, and ten armchairs. Christie, June 2, 1904 325 10 0 Knife-box, oblong, Sheraton mahogany, with revolving front, inlaid with Prince-of-Wales's feathers and borders in satinwood, 19-1/2 in. wide. Christie, November 21, 1902 7 17 6 Sideboard, Sheraton, mahogany, satinwood inlaid, fitted with brass rails. Dowell, Edinburgh, November 14, 1903 30 9 0 Wardrobe, Sheraton mahogany, banded with satinwood, with folding doors above and below, and five drawers in the centre, 7 ft. high, 8 ft. wide. Christie, January 22, 1904 60 18 0 Chairs, set of eighteen Sheraton, with oval backs with rail centres, fluted and slightly carved with foliage and beading, the seats covered with flowered crimson damask; and a pair of settees, _en suite_, 6 ft. wide. Christie, February 26, 1904 126 0 0 Armchairs, pair, Sheraton, with shield-shaped backs, painted with Prince of Wales feathers, and pearl ornament on black ground. Christie, March 28, 1904 28 7 0 Cabinet, Sheraton satinwood, with glazed folding doors enclosing shelves, drawer in the centre forming secretary, and folding-doors below, painted with baskets of flowers, &c., 7 ft. 9 in. high, 41 in. wide. Christie, March 28, 1904 189 0 0 Secrétaire, Sheraton small satinwood, with revolving tambour front, drawer and folding doors below, inlaid with arabesque foliage, 23 in. wide. Christie, April 29, 1904 47 5 0 [1] By the kindness of the proprietors of the _Connoisseur_ these items are given from their useful monthly publication, _Auction Sale Prices_. XII HINTS TO COLLECTORS [Illustration: DESIGN FOR SPURIOUS MARQUETRY WORK.] XII HINTS TO COLLECTORS The demand for old furniture has become so great that there is an increasing difficulty in supplying it. In order to satisfy the collector many artifices have been practised which in varying degree are difficult to detect, according to the skill and ingenuity of the present-day manufacturer of "antique" furniture. Replicas of old pieces are frequently made, and the workmanship is so excellent, and the copy of the old craftsman's style so perfect, that it only requires a century or two of wear to give to the specimen the necessary tone which genuine old furniture has naturally acquired. In particular, French ornate furniture from the days of Boule to the Empire period has received the flattering attention of the fabricator by being imitated in all its details. These high-class French pieces are fine examples of cabinetmaking, and it is not easy for anybody who has not a special expert knowledge to pronounce definitely upon their authenticity. Doubts have even been expressed regarding certain pieces in the great national collections; in fact the art of the forger in regard to old French furniture, of which specimens change hands at anything from £1,000 to £10,000, has reached a very high level of excellence, having almost been elevated to one of the fine arts. If a clever workman possessed of great artistic feeling turns his attention to forging works of art, it is obvious that his triumph is complete over amateurs possessed of less artistic taste and knowledge than himself. Many secret processes are employed to impart an appearance of age to the wood and to the metal mountings. The cruder methods are to eat off the sharper edges of the metal mountings by means of acid, and to discolour the newer surfaces by the aid of tobacco juice, both of which are not difficult to detect. The steady manufacture of these finer pieces goes on in France, and it has been found that the foggy atmosphere of London is especially useful in producing the effect of age upon the finer work, consequently many forged pieces are shipped to London to be stored in order to ripen until considered fit for the American market, where so many forgeries have been planted. The reward is great, and even considering the amount of trouble bestowed upon such pieces and the excellence of the artistic work where the highest skilled labour is employed, the profit is enormous. The parvenu buys his Louis XIV. or Louis XV. suite, and pays an immense sum for pieces which are stated to have come from some French nobleman's château, whose name must not be divulged, and so the interesting deal is brought to a successful termination. [Illustration: "MADE-UP" BUFFET. The middle portion, consisting of the two drawers and three panelled cupboards above, is genuine old carved oak. The stand, with the finely turned legs and rails, and the whole of the upper portion, is modern.] As an object-lesson as to the truth of the above remarks, the Wallace Collection contains a modern French copy in facsimile, by Dasson, of the celebrated "Bureau du Roi" of the Louis XV. period, the original being in the Louvre. The original is fully described in the chapter on Louis XV. style, and it is not too much to assert that ninety-nine per cent. of the visitors to the Collection could not say that this copy was not an old French specimen of over a century and a quarter ago, and the remaining one, unless he happened to be an expert, would not question its genuineness. Old oak has always been a favourite with the public, and from the modern Flemish monstrosities, carved in evil manner and displaying proportions in the worst possible taste, to the equally vulgar home production in buffet or sideboard, and stocked by many dealers in so-called "antique" furniture, the number of grotesque styles foisted upon the public within the last fifteen years has been remarkable. One wonders what has become of the high-backed oak chairs, nearly black with repeated applications of permanganate of potash, having flaming red-leather seats. They seem to have mysteriously disappeared from up-to-date "antique" stores of late. The public has taken to inquiring into art matters a little more closely. Nowadays the latest thing is "fumed" oak, which is modern oak discoloured by means of ammonia, which darkens the surface of the wood to a depth of a sixteenth of an inch. It is not infrequent to find an attempt made to represent this as old oak after an elaborate treatment with linseed oil, turpentine, and beeswax, though an examination of the interior edges of the wood will discover its modernity at once. Of course, such tricks as these are not practised by any firm of standing, who cannot afford to damage their reputation by any misrepresentation. As a general rule a dealer will readily point out the details of workmanship and offer technical information of much value to a beginner, if he discovers that his customer is a collector desirous of acquiring only fine specimens. It is more often than not the folly of the public, and not the dishonesty of the dealer, which results in trade frauds being committed in the attempt to execute some impossible and imperative order, which the moneyed collector has given. The difference between the genuine and the replica is most clearly made by old-fashioned firms of high standing. It is only when the collector enters into the arena and endeavours to set forth in quest of bargains, where he pits his skill against that of the dealer in the hope of outwitting the latter, that he is obviously on dangerous ground. In the one case he pays a higher price and obtains the benefit of the experience of a firm with expert knowledge, in the other he relies on his own judgment in picking up a bargain from some one whom he believes to be possessed of less knowledge than himself. If he is successful he is not slow to brag about his cleverness; but if he is worsted in the encounter, and pays, let us say, five pounds for an object which he fondly believed was worth fifty, if genuine, and which he subsequently discovers is worth less than he gave, there is nothing too bad to say concerning his antagonist. It is chiefly by the character of carved work that old pieces can be recognised. There are three classes of pitfalls to avoid. 1. Fraudulent pieces throughout, of modern wood and of modern carving. 2. "Made-up" pieces which often consist of genuine old pieces of carved wood pieced together ingeniously from fragments of carvings, with modern additions. 3. "Restored" pieces which are mainly old and should have received, if admitted to a collection, only the necessary repairs to make them serviceable. With regard to the first class, fraudulent throughout, it is the hope of the writer that enough has already been written in this volume to point the way to the reader and to assist him to follow his natural inclinations in developing the necessary critical taste to readily detect pieces wholly false in character and feeling. "Made-up" pieces present a greater difficulty. Considerable skill has been exercised in combining certain parts of old furniture into a whole which is, however, mostly inharmonious. In pieces of this nature there is an absence of feeling in style and carving. It is difficult to define the exact meaning of the word "feeling" as applied to art objects, it is a subtle expression of skill and poetry which communicates itself to the lover of art. It is so subtle and elusive that experts will tell one that such and such a piece requires to be "lived with" to test its authenticity. Mr. Frederick Roe, whose volume on "Ancient Coffers and Cupboards" displays a profound knowledge of his subject, writes, "it occasionally happens that pieces are so artfully made up that only living with them will enable the collector to detect the truth. In dealing with pieces of this suspicious kind one often has to fall back on a sort of instinct. With critical collectors of every sort this innate sense plays a very important part." Two specimens of "made-up" furniture are reproduced, which will bear close study in order to appreciate the difficulty of collecting old oak. The illustration of the buffet (p. 261) has many points of interest. The general appearance of the piece is not inharmonious. It has been carefully thought out and no less carefully put into effect. The middle portion, consisting of the three drawers and the three cupboards above, up to and including the shelf partition at the top, is the only old part. The handles, locks, and escutcheons of the two drawers are old, but the hinges above are modern copies of old designs, and the handles of the cupboards are modern replicas. [Illustration: CABINET OF OLD OAK. MADE UP FROM SEVERAL PIECES OF GENUINE OLD CARVED OAK.] The massive stand with artistically turned rails in Jacobean style, is soft wood artfully fumed and generously beeswaxed. The whole of the top portion has been added and is soft wood very well carved. The carving of the panels is also well executed, and is evidently a copy of some old design. The older portion is a fine piece of early Jacobean work, and it is not difficult to distinguish between the feeling of this and the expression conveyed by the modern woodwork. The patina of the wood after two centuries of exposure and polishing has that peculiarly pleasing appearance which accompanies genuine old woodwork. The edges of the carving have lost their sharp angles, and the mellowness of the middle panels are in strong contrast to the harsher tone of those of the upper portion. Such a piece as this would not deceive an expert, nor, perhaps, is it intended to, or greater care would have been bestowed upon it, but it is sufficiently harmonious in composition not to offend in a glaring manner, and might easily deceive a tyro. The next piece illustrated (p. 267) is interesting from another point of view. It is a more elaborate attempt to produce a piece of old furniture in which the details themselves have all the mellowness of fine old oak. In fact, with the exception of one portion, some eight inches by three, to which allusion will be made later, the whole of it is genuine old oak. The three panels at the top are finely carved and are Jacobean work. The two outside panels at the bottom, though of a later period, are good work. The middle panel at the bottom is evidently a portion of a larger piece of carving, because the pattern abruptly breaks off, and it was most certainly not designed by the old carver to lie on its side in this fashion. The two heads at the top corners have been cut from some old specimen, and artfully laid on. The carving on both sides, running below each head from top to bottom, is of two distinct designs joined in each case in a line level with the upper line of the lower panels. The two uprights on each side of the middle lower panel are exquisite pieces of carved work, but certainly never intended to be upright. They are evidently portions of a long, flowing ornament, as their cut-off appearance too plainly shows. The top panels have done duty elsewhere, as part of the ornamental carving at the top and bottom of each lozenge is lost. The long line of scrolled carving above them is distinctly of interest. On the left hand, from the head to the middle of the panel, a piece of newer carving has been inserted, some eight inches long. The wood, at one time darkened to correspond with the adjacent carving, has become lighter, which is always the case when wood is stained to match other portions. The carving in this new portion follows in every detail the lines of the older design, and is a very pretty piece of "faking." The cross-piece running from left to right, dividing the lower panels from the upper, is in three parts. An examination of the design shows that the last three circles on the right, and the last four on the left, are of smaller size than the others. The design evidently belonged to some other piece of furniture, and has been removed to do service in this "made-up" production. In all probability the two uprights enclosing the top middle panel, and the two uprights on the outside at the bottom were once portions of a carved bedstead, as they are all of the same size and design. It is a notorious trick to slice an old carved bedpost into four pieces, skilfully fitting the pieces into "made-up" furniture. There is a prevalent idea that worm-holes are actually produced in furniture, in order to give a new piece a more realistic appearance. There are traditions of duck-shot having been used, and there is little doubt that holes were drilled by makers who knew their public. But it is improbable that such artifices would be of much use for deceptive purposes nowadays. As a matter of fact, worm-holes are avoided by any one who gives a moment's thought to the matter. To get rid of worm in furniture is no easy task, and they eventually ruin any pieces they tenant. The illustration (p. 274) shows a piece of Spanish chestnut badly honeycombed by furniture worms. In chairs, especially, their havoc is almost irreparable, and in the softer woods the legs become too rotten to be repaired or even strengthened. Metal plates are often screwed on the sides to prevent the chairs falling to pieces, but they become useless to sit upon without fear of disaster. The insect is really the boring wood-beetle, which is armed with formidable forceps, to enable it to burrow through the wood. The worm, the larva of this beetle, is also provided with boring apparatus, and this insect, whether as beetle or as worm, is a deadly enemy to all furniture. The "death-watch" is also accused of being a depredator of books and of furniture of soft wood. To remove worms from furniture is a costly undertaking, requiring the greatest skill. Large pieces of furniture have actually to be taken to pieces and the whole of the damaged parts removed with a chisel. In cases where the legs, or slender supports, have been attacked, the difficulty is one requiring the specialist's most delicate attention. Various applications are recommended, but cannot be stated to be reliable. Injecting paraffin is said to be the best remedy, and putting the pieces in a chamber where all the openings have been sealed, and lighting pans of sulphur underneath the furniture, allowing the specimens to remain in this fumigating bath for some days is another method resorted to. With regard to Chippendale furniture, a word of caution is necessary. It is as impossible for Chippendale and his workmen to have produced all the furniture attributed to them as it is for the small factory at Lowestoft to have made all the china with which it is credited. As has been shown in the chapter on Thomas Chippendale, his styles were most extensively copied by his contemporaries all over the country and by many makers after him, and modern makers produce a great quantity of "Chippendale" every year. Only a careful examination of museum pieces will train the eye of the collector. The fine sense of proportion, at once noticeable in the genuine Chippendale chair, is absent in the modern copy, and, above all, the carving in the latter is thin and poor. In the old days the wastage of wood was not a thing which the master had in his mind. In modern copies the curl of the arm, or the swell at the top of the back, shows a regard for economy. There is a thin, flat look about the result, which ought not to be mistaken. Scrolls and ribbon-work are often added to later pieces made in the style of Chippendale, which have enough wood in their surfaces to bear carving away. An ingenious device is adopted in cases of inlaid pieces of a small nature, such as imitation Sheraton clock-cases and knife-boxes and the frames of mirrors. Old engravings are procured of scrollwork, usually from the end of some book. The illustration (p. 259) shows the class of engravings selected. These engravings are coated with a very thin layer of vellum, which is boiled down to a liquid, and carefully spread over them. After this treatment they are ready to be glued on to the panels to be "faked," and, when coated over with transparent varnish, they present the appearance of an ivory and ebony inlay. [Illustration: DESIGN FOR SPURIOUS MARQUETRY WORK.] The frauds practised in satinwood and painted pieces are many and are exceedingly difficult to detect. Much of Sheraton's furniture was veneered with finely selected specimens of West India satinwood. These carefully chosen panels were painted by Cipriani and others. The modern "faker" has not the material to select from, as the satinwood imported is not so beautiful nor so richly varied in grain as in the old days. He removes a side panel from an old piece, and substitutes another where its obnoxious presence is not so noticeable. To this old panel he affixes a modern coloured print after one of Sheraton's artists, which, when carefully varnished over and skilfully treated so as to represent the cracks in the supposed old painting, is ready for insertion in the "made-up" sideboard, to catch the fancy of the unwary collector. FINIS. [Illustration: PIECE OF SPANISH CHESTNUT SHOWING RAVAGES OF WORMS.] INDEX A Adam, the brothers, and their style, 209, 241-256 Adam armchair (illustrated), 243 Admiralty, screen and gateway, designed by Robert Adam, 242 Anne, Queen, furniture of, prices realised at auction, 153 ---- insularity of furniture in reign of, 136 ---- well-constructed furniture of period of, 145 Apsley House, collection of furniture at, 209 Armoire, _see_ GLOSSARY, 23 Ascham, quotation from, 68 Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, chair at, 115 B Baroque, _see_ GLOSSARY, 23 Barrow, Sam, name of maker, on Queen Anne clock, 148 Battersea enamel, its use on furniture, 252 Bérain, Jean, 162 Blenheim, chair from, 222 Bodleian Library, Oxford, illustration of chair at, 82 _Bombé_, _see_ GLOSSARY, 23 Bookcase by Chippendale, 225, 231 Boucher, 182, 195 Boule, André Charles, and his marquetry, 160-162 ---- cabinet (illustrated), 165 ---- _see_ GLOSSARY, 23 ---- and counter-boule (illustrated), showing difference between, 163 Bridal chest (German), 43 Bromley-by-Bow, "Old Palace," oak panelling from, 65 Brown and Bool, Messrs., specimens from collection of, 141, 150 Buhl work, 160 Bureau, _see_ GLOSSARY, 24 Burr-walnut panels, 139 Butter-cupboard, 104 C Cabinet, ebony, formerly property of Oliver Cromwell, 99 Cabriole, _see_ GLOSSARY, 24 Cabriole-leg, introduction of into England, 127 Caffieri, 177, 191 Cambridge, King's College Chapel, woodwork of, 63 Cane seats and backs of chairs, adoption of, 117 ---- work in chairs, later development of, 122 Carolean, _see_ GLOSSARY, 25 Carving supplanted by cane-work panels, 117 Caryatides, _see_ GLOSSARY, 24 _Cassette_, (strong box) of period of Louis XIV., 158 _Cassone_, _see_ GLOSSARY, 24 ---- (marriage coffer), the Italian, 42 Catherine of Braganza, fashions introduced by, 114 Cecil, Lord Burleigh, quotation from, 66 Chair, Charles I., 93, 95 ---- Chippendale, 223, 224, 226, 227, 232, 233 ---- "Cromwellian," 96 ---- high-backed, Portuguese, 114 ---- Italian (1620), 94 ---- Jacobean, made from timber of Drake's _Golden Hind_, 83 ---- James I., 87, 89 ---- James II., 123 ---- Louis XIII. period, 159 ---- ribbon-back, 222, 223 ---- Oliver Goldsmith's, 215 ---- with arms of first Earl of Strafford, 93 Chairs, test as to age of, 100 ---- types of Jacobean (illustrated), 97, 100, 105, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124 ---- types of Queen Anne period (illustrated), 143 ---- upholstered, adopted in late Elizabethan days, 75 Chambers, Sir William, 216 Chardin, picture by, showing ladder-back chair, 245 Charles I. furniture, prices realised at auction, 106 ---- II. furniture, prices realised at auction, 129 ---- II., repartee of, 114 Charterhouse, specimen at, illustration of, 227 Chatsworth, work of Grinling Gibbons at, 121 Chests of drawers, Jacobean, 117 China collecting, influence of, on furniture, 127 Chinese and Japanese cabinets, 148 "Chinese" Chippendale, 213, 221 Chippendale, Thomas, and his style, 213-238; his _Director_, 215 ---- bureau-bookcase, 225, 231 ---- furniture, tricks concerning, 272; prices of, 227, 236 Cipriani, 249 Classic models paramount, 205 Claw-and-ball feet adopted by Chippendale, 216 ---- feet (prior to Chippendale), 146 ---- foot, introduction of, 127 Clock, "Grandfather," introduction of, 127 Clocks, "Grandfather," 147 Colbert, the guiding spirit of art under Louis XIV., 159 Collectors, hints to, 259-274 Commode, _see_ GLOSSARY, 24 Commodes (illustrated), Cressent, 171; Louis XIV., 173; Caffieri, 175; Riesener, 197 _Contre partie_, _see_ GLOSSARY, 24 Copeland, designs of, 247 Copies of old furniture, 259, 263 ---- of fine French pieces, 185, 197 Cottage furniture (Chippendale style), 232 Counter-boule, _see_ GLOSSARY, 24 -----boule, 161 Court cupboard, 70 Cowley, quotation from, 85 Cradle, with initials and date, 96 Cressent, Charles, 177, 178 Crispin de Passe, chair designed by, 159 Cromwellian chair, 96 Cromwell's ebony cabinet, 96 Cushions for chairs when adopted, 75 D Darly, 248 Dated pieces-- 1593, Elizabethan bedstead, 66 1603, Mirror, carved oak frame, 71 1603, Court cupboard, 73 1616, Oak table, 85 1623, Chair, 97 1641, Cradle, 96 1642, Chair, 159 1653, Cabinet, _frontispiece_ 1760-69, "Bureau du roi," 185 1769, Bureau, 196 1810, Jewel cabinet, 207 David, 195, 208, 209 Derbyshire chairs, 103 Diderot, 205 _Director_, designs of chair-backs from, 222, 225 Drake, Sir Francis, chair made from timber of _Golden Hind_, 82 Drawers, chests of, Jacobean, 117 Dressers, Normandy, 103 ---- "Welsh," 100 Dublin Museum, illustration of oak chest at, 44 Dutch art, introduction of, by William of Orange, 124 ---- house, interior of (illustrated), 111 ---- lacquer work, 151 ---- marquetry, 128, 146 ---- marquetry chair, illustrated, 143 ---- marquetry, prices realised at auction, 132 E Eassie, Walter, illustrations from drawings by, 171, 183 Egyptian design, influence of, 247 Eighteenth century, early, well-constructed furniture of, 145 ---- interior of room (illustrated), 235 Elizabethan mansions, some noteworthy, 67 Elizabethan woodwork, fine example of, 65 Empire style furniture, 202-210 ---- its influence on English makers, 209 England, Renaissance in, 37, 59-78 F Farmhouse furniture, 100 Figure in wood, how obtained, 76, 118 Fire of London, destruction of furniture by, 120 First Empire style, 203-210 Flemish wood-carving, its influence on English craftsmen, 49 Fontainebleau, illustration of jewel cabinet at, 207 Foreign workmen employed in England, 37 Fragonard, 182, 195 France, Renaissance in, 43 Francis I., patron of the new art, 47 Frauds perpetrated on collectors, 259-274 French polish, _see_ GLOSSARY, 24, 236 French Revolution, vandalism during, 204 G Gate-leg table, _see_ GLOSSARY, 24 ---- table, 95 Gibbons, Grinling, work of, 121 Gillow, 248 _Golden Hind_, chair made from timbers of, 82 Goldsmith, Oliver, chair of, 215, 216 Gothic, _see_ GLOSSARY, 25 ---- revival, its influence on Chippendale, 221 Gouthière, Pierre, 191, 192, 197 Grandfather clock, 147 ---- clock, introduction of, 127 Great Hall at Hampton Court, 63 Grimm, quotation from, 205 Grotesque design prevalent in Elizabethan furniture, 69 H Hall, Hampton Court, the Great, 63 ---- Middle Temple, carved screen at, 65 Hampton Court, the Great Hall at, 63 ---- Court, work of Grinling Gibbons at, 121 Hampton & Sons, Messrs., pieces from collection of, 59, 95, 99, 115, 120, 121, 135, 143, 147, 148, 250 Harrington, Sir John, quotation from, 75 Henry VII.'s chapel, Westminster Abbey, 63 ---- VIII., patron of the new art, 37 Heppelwhite, the style of, 241-256 ---- chairs (illustrated), 243 Herculaneum and Pompeii, influence of excavations at, 204, 209 Hints to Collectors, 259-274 Hogarth, William, 246 Holbein in England, 37 Honey, W. G., Esq., specimen from collection of, 151 Huygens, Dutch lacquer of, 182 I Ince & Mayhew's designs, 247 India office, specimen at, illustration of, 226 Ingenious contrivances of Sheraton's furniture, 251 Inlay, _see_ GLOSSARY, 25 ---- in Elizabethan pieces, 69 Italian art dominates Elizabethan fashion, 68 Italy, Renaissance in, 41 J Jacobean, _see_ GLOSSARY, 25 ---- furniture, its fine simplicity, 104 Jacobean furniture, prices realised at auction, 106, 129 James I., chair at Knole House, 86 ---- II. furniture, prices realised at auction, 130 Japanese and Chinese cabinets, 148 Japanese lac imitated, 182 Jones Bequest, illustrations of specimens in, 165, 179, 193 ---- Inigo, his influence, 93 K Kauffman, Angelica, 249 Kent, eighteenth-century designer, 246 Kew Gardens, pagoda at, 216 King's College Chapel, Cambridge, woodwork of, 63 Kitchen furniture (Chippendale style), 232 Knole House, James I. furniture at, 86 L Lac, _see_ GLOSSARY, 26 ---- Japanese and Chinese imitated, 182 Lacquer, _see_ GLOSSARY, 26 Lancaster & Co., Messrs. Harold G., specimens from collection of, 122, 123, 137, 231, 232, 241, 251 Leather work, cut design, Portuguese chair-back, 128 Le Bas, Rev. H. V., illustration of specimen in possession of, 210 Lebrun, Madame, 205 Leczinski, Stanislas, King of Poland, 196 Linen pattern, _see_ GLOSSARY, 26 Lock, Matthias, designs of, 247 Louis XIII., chair of period of, 159 ---- XIV., period of, 157-167 ---- XV., period of, 171-187 ---- XVI., period of, 191-200 Louvre, copy of picture in, 203 ---- illustration of portrait in, 209 M Macaulay, Lord, quotation from, 96, 136 "Made-up" pieces, 265 Madrid National Museum, illustration of specimen at, 52 Mahogany period, 34 ---- how procured by British captains, 214 ---- Sir Walter Raleigh's discovery of, 214 Mansions built in Elizabethan days, 67 Manwaring, designs of, 247 Marie Antoinette, furniture belonging to, 179, 180, 195 Marie Louise, jewel cabinet of, 208 Marquetry, _see_ GLOSSARY, 26 ---- Dutch, 128 ---- Dutch, 146 ---- elaborate, 180, 182 ---- in Elizabethan pieces, 69 ---- work, spurious, 273 Martin, Sieur Simon Etienne (_Vernis-Martin_), 182 Martin's varnish (_Vernis-Martin_), _see_ GLOSSARY, 28 Meissonier, inspirer of rococo style, 177 Middle Temple Hall, carved oak screen at, 65 Mirrors, arrangement in Hampton Court galleries, 123 ---- at Nell Gwynne's house, 123 ---- Chippendale, 229 ---- made by French and Italian workmen, 124 ---- Queen Anne, 136 ---- various forms of, 124 Mortise, _see_ GLOSSARY, 26 Mother-of-pearl inlay, seventeenth century, 116 Munich National Museum, illustration of specimen at, 39 N Naples Museum, illustration of table at, 205 Napoleon, his influence on art, 208 Natoire, 182, 195 Needlework decorated cabinet, Charles II. period, 112 Netherlands, Renaissance in, 49 Netscher, Caspar, illustration after picture by, 111 Normandy dressers, 103 Notable examples of sixteenth, century English woodwork, 65 O Oak, collectors of, hints to, 103, 118 ---- furniture, the collector's polish for, 118 ---- period, 34 ---- polish, _see_ GLOSSARY, 26 Oeben, Jean François, 178 Old oak, polish for, 118 P Parquetry, _see_ GLOSSARY, 26 Passe Crispin de, chair designed by, 159 Pater, 192 Penshurst Place, Indo-Portuguese furniture at, 115 Petworth House, work of Grinling Gibbons at, 121 _Polish_, French, 24; ---- oil, 26 Pollen, J., Hungerford, quotation from, 196 Pompeii, influence of excavations at, 204, 208, 247 Ponsonby-Fane, Right Hon. Sir Spencer, specimens in collection of, 101, 224 Portuguese furniture, late seventeenth century, in England, 114 Q Queen Anne cabinet (illustrated), 141 ---- chairs (illustrated), 143 ---- furniture, prices realised at auction, 153 ---- mirror frame (illustrated), 137 ---- settle (illustrated), 149, 155 R Raleigh, Sir Walter, mahogany first brought home by, 214 Récamier, portrait of, by David, 209 Reeded, _see_ GLOSSARY, 27 Renaissance, _see_ GLOSSARY, 27 ---- in England, 37, 59-78 ---- in France, 43 ---- in Italy, 41 ---- in the Netherlands, 49 ---- in Spain, 48 ---- on the Continent, 33-55 ---- origin of, 38, 41 Restored, _see_ GLOSSARY, 27 ---- cupboard showing over-elaboration, 73 "Restored" pieces, 265 Revolution in France, vandalism during, 204 Ribbon-back chair (illustrated), 222 ---- ornamentation adapted from France, 64; (illustrated) 60 ---- pattern, early use of, by French woodcarvers, 92 Riesener, Jean François, 185, 191, 192, 195, 197, 208 Robinson, V. J., Esq., C.I.E., furniture belonging to, 219 Rococo, _see_ GLOSSARY, 27 Roe, Mr. Frederick, quotation from, 266 Roentgen, David, 182 S Sackville, Lord, early Jacobean furniture in collection of, 86 St. Paul's Cathedral, work of Grinling Gibbons at, 121 Secret drawers, 114 ---- drawers, pieces with, 113, 157, 231 ---- drawers, Sheraton's love of, 251 ---- processes to impart age to spurious pieces, 260 Settee, _see_ GLOSSARY, 27 ---- upholstered, early Jacobean, at Knole, 90 Settle, _see_ GLOSSARY, 28, 60 ---- Queen Anne style, 145, 149 Sèvres porcelain as decoration to furniture, 191 ---- porcelain in harmony with furniture, 181 Shattock, Esq., T. Foster, specimens from collection of, 45 Shearer, 248 Sheraton, Thomas, and his style, 209, 241-256 ---- chair (illustrated), 243 ---- mechanical contrivances of his furniture, 251 ---- poverty of, 248; his opinion of Chippendale, 248 Sigerson, Dr., Dublin, specimens from collection of, 157, 206 Sixteenth-century woodwork, fine example of, 65 Spain, Renaissance in, 48 Spanish furniture (illustrated), cabinet, 51; chest, 52 Spitalfields' velvet for furniture, 147 ---- weaving founded by aliens, 122 Splat, _see_ GLOSSARY, 28 Stothard, copy of engraving by, 231, 235 Strafford, first Earl of, chair with arms of, 94 Strapwork, _see_ GLOSSARY, 28 ---- borrowed from Flemish designers, 64; illustrated, 61, 68 ---- Elizabethan, 69 Stretche, Esq., T. E. Price, specimens from collection of, 75, 78, 97, 139, 140 Stretcher, _see_ GLOSSARY, 28 ---- in chairs, evolution of the, 122 ---- wear given to, by feet of sitters, 100 Sutton, Thomas, founder of Charterhouse Hospital, 86 Symonds, John Addington, "The Renaissance in Italy," quoted, 41 T Table, gate-leg, _see_ GLOSSARY, 24 Tapestry factory established at Mortlake, 92 ---- in harmony with furniture, 181 Tenon, _see_ GLOSSARY, 28 Terror, Reign of, vandalism during, 204 Timber split to give figure in surface, 76, 118 Transition between Gothic and Renaissance, 44, 47, 63 Turned work, _see_ GLOSSARY, 28 U Upholstered chairs adopted in late Elizabethan days, 75 ---- seat (William and Mary), 122 V Vandyck at the Court of Charles I., 92 Varnish, oil, composition of, not now known, 119 ---- spirit, a modern invention, 118 ---- _Vernis-Martin_, _see_ GLOSSARY, 28 Veneer, _see_ GLOSSARY, 28 Veneered work, its adoption, 139 Veneers, woods used as, _see_ GLOSSARY, 29 _Vernis-Martin_ (Martin's varnish), _see_ GLOSSARY, 28, 182 Versailles, sums spent upon building, 166; vandalism at, 172, 177 W Wallace Collection, illustrations of specimens, at, 163, 171, 181, 183 Walnut period, 34 Walnut veneer, Queen Anne period, 139 Walpole, Horace, 221 Waring, Messrs., specimens from collection of, 81, 117, 119, 143, 149, 197 Watteau, 192 Wedgwood, Josiah, 247 Wellington, Duke of, collection in possession of, 209 Welsh dresser, 100 Westminster Abbey, Henry VII.'s chapel, 63 William and Mary furniture, prices realised at auction, 130 Winckelmann, 205 Woods preferred by Grinling Gibbons, 121 ---- used for delicate carving by foreign schools, 116 ---- used in furniture, _see_ GLOSSARY, 29 ---- with fancy names, 29; botanical names of, 196 Woodwork, sixteenth century, fine examples of, 65 Worms, ravages of furniture, 234, 271, 274 Wren, Sir Christopher, 120 Y Yorkshire chairs, 103 THE GRESHAM PRESS, UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, WOKING AND LONDON. 
31415	----	Transcribers Note: The italic text is denoted as _italic_. "_. . . And remembering these, trust Pindar for the truth of his saying, that to the cunning workman--(and let me solemnly enforce the words by adding, that to him only)--knowledge comes undeceitful._" --RUSKIN ("Aratra Pentelici"). "_'Very cool of Tom,' as East thought but didn't say, 'seeing as how he only came out of Egypt himself last night at bed-time.'_" --("Tom Brown's Schooldays"). THE ARTISTIC CRAFTS SERIES OF TECHNICAL HANDBOOKS EDITED BY W. R. LETHABY STAINED GLASS WORK [Illustration: CUTTING AND GLAZING _Frontispiece_ (_See p. 137_)] STAINED GLASS WORK A TEXT-BOOK FOR STUDENTS AND WORKERS IN GLASS. BY C. W. WHALL. WITH DIAGRAMS BY TWO OF HIS APPRENTICES AND OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS NEW YORK D. APPLETON AND COMPANY MCMXIV Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. at the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh _To his Pupils and Assistants, who, if they have learned as much from him as he has from them, have spent their time profitably; and who, if they have enjoyed learning as much as he has teaching, have spent it happily; this little book is Dedicated by their Affectionate Master and Servant,_ _THE AUTHOR._ EDITOR'S PREFACE In issuing these volumes of a series of Handbooks on the Artistic Crafts, it will be well to state what are our general aims. In the first place, we wish to provide trustworthy text-books of workshop practice, from the points of view of experts who have critically examined the methods current in the shops, and putting aside vain survivals, are prepared to say what is good workmanship, and to set up a standard of quality in the crafts which are more especially associated with design. Secondly, in doing this, we hope to treat design itself as an essential part of good workmanship. During the last century most of the arts, save painting and sculpture of an academic kind, were little considered, and there was a tendency to look on "design" as a mere matter of _appearance_. Such "ornamentation" as there was was usually obtained by following in a mechanical way a drawing provided by an artist who often knew little of the technical processes involved in production. With the critical attention given to the crafts by Ruskin and Morris, it came to be seen that it was impossible to detach design from craft in this way, and that, in the widest sense, true design is an inseparable element of good quality, involving as it does the selection of good and suitable material, contrivance for special purpose, expert workmanship, proper finish, and so on, far more than mere ornament, and indeed, that ornamentation itself was rather an exuberance of fine workmanship than a matter of merely abstract lines. Workmanship when separated by too wide a gulf from fresh thought--that is, from design--inevitably decays, and, on the other hand, ornamentation, divorced from workmanship, is necessarily unreal, and quickly falls into affectation. Proper ornamentation may be defined as a language addressed to the eye; it is pleasant thought expressed in the speech of the tool. In the third place, we would have this series put artistic craftsmanship before people as furnishing reasonable occupations for those who would gain a livelihood. Although within the bounds of academic art, the competition, of its kind, is so acute that only a very few per cent. can fairly hope to succeed as painters and sculptors; yet, as artistic craftsmen, there is every probability that nearly every one who would pass through a sufficient period of apprenticeship to workmanship and design would reach a measure of success. In the blending of handwork and thought in such arts as we propose to deal with, happy careers may be found as far removed from the dreary routine of hack labour as from the terrible uncertainty of academic art. It is desirable in every way that men of good education should be brought back into the productive crafts: there are more than enough of us "in the city," and it is probable that more consideration will be given in this century than in the last to Design and Workmanship. * * * * * Our last volume dealt with one of the branches of sculpture, the present treats of one of the chief forms of painting. Glass-painting has been, and is capable of again becoming, one of the most noble forms of Art. Because of its subjection to strict conditions, and its special glory of illuminated colour, it holds a supreme position in its association with architecture, a position higher than any other art, except, perhaps, mosaic and sculpture. The conditions and aptitudes of the Art are most suggestively discussed in the present volume by one who is not only an artist, but also a master craftsman. The great question of colour has been here opened up for the first time in our series, and it is well that it should be so, in connection with this, the pre-eminent colour-art. Windows of coloured glass were used by the Romans. The thick lattices found in Arab art, in which brightly-coloured morsels of glass are set, and upon which the idea of the jewelled windows in the story of Aladdin is doubtless based, are Eastern off-shoots from this root. Painting in line and shade on glass was probably invented in the West not later than the year 1100, and there are in France many examples, at Chartres, Le Mans, and other places, which date back to the middle of the twelfth century. Theophilus, the twelfth-century writer on Art, tells us that the French glass was the most famous. In England the first notice of stained glass is in connection with Bishop Hugh's work at Durham, of which we are told that around the altar he placed several glazed windows remarkable for the beauty of the figures which they contained; this was about 1175. In the Fabric Accounts of our national monuments many interesting facts as to mediæval stained glass are preserved. The accounts of the building of St. Stephen's Chapel, in the middle of the fourteenth century, make known to us the procedure of the mediæval craftsmen. We find in these first a workman preparing white boards, and then the master glazier drawing the cartoons on the whitened boards, and many other details as to customs, prices, and wages. There is not much old glass to be studied in London, but in the museum at South Kensington there are specimens of some of the principal varieties. These are to be found in the Furniture corridor and the corridor which leads from it. Close by a fine series of English coats of arms of the fourteenth century, which are excellent examples of Heraldry, is placed a fragment of a broad border probably of late twelfth-century work. The thirteenth century is represented by a remarkable collection, mostly from the Ste. Chapelle in Paris and executed about 1248. The most striking of these remnants show a series of Kings seated amidst bold scrolls of foliage, being parts of a Jesse Tree, the narrower strips, in which are Prophets, were placed to the right and left of the Kings, and all three made up the width of one light in the original window. The deep brilliant colour, the small pieces of glass used, and the rich backgrounds are all characteristic of mid-thirteenth-century glazing. Of early fifteenth-century workmanship are the large single figures standing under canopies, and these are good examples of English glass of this time. They were removed from Winchester College Chapel about 1825 by the process known as restoration. W. R. LETHABY. _January 1905._ AUTHOR'S PREFACE The author must be permitted to explain that he undertook his task with some reluctance, and to say a word by way of explaining his position. I have always held that no art can be taught by books, and that an artist's best way of teaching is directly and personally to his own pupils, and maintained these things stubbornly and for long to those who wished this book written. But I have such respect for the good judgment of those who have, during the last eight years, worked in the teaching side of the art and craft movement, and, in furtherance of its objects, have commenced this series of handbooks, and such a belief in the movement, of which these persons and circumstances form a part, that I felt bound to yield on the condition of saying just what I liked in my own way, and addressing myself only to students, speaking as I would speak to a class or at the bench, careless of the general reader. You will find yourself, therefore, reader, addressed as "Dear Student." (I know the term occurs further on.) But because this book is written for students, it does not therefore mean that it must all be brought within the comprehension of the youngest apprentice. For it is becoming the fashion, in our days, for artists of merit--painters, perhaps, even of distinction--to take up the practice of one or other of the crafts. All would be well, for such new workers are needed, if it was indeed the _practice_ of the craft that they set themselves to. But too often it is what is called the _designing_ for it only in which they engage, and it is the duty of every one speaking or writing about the matter to point out how fatal is that error. One must provide a word, then, for such as these also here if one can. Indeed, to reckon up all the classes to whom such a book as this should be addressed, we should have, I think, to name:-- (1) The worker in the ordinary "shop," who is learning there at present, to our regret, only a portion of his craft, and who should be given an insight into the whole, and into the fairyland of design. (2) The magnificent and superior artist, mature in imagination and composition, fully equipped as a painter of pictures, perhaps even of academical distinction, who turns his attention to the craft, and without any adequate practical training in it, which alone could teach its right principles, makes, and in the nature of things is bound to make, great mistakes--mistakes easily avoidable. No such thing can possibly be right. Raphael himself designed for tapestry, and the cartoons are priceless, but the tapestry a ghastly failure. It could not have been otherwise under the conditions. Executant separated from designer by all the leagues that lie between Arras and Rome. (3) The patron, who should know something of the craft, that he may not, mistrusting, as so often at present, his own taste, be compelled to trust to some one else's Name, and of course looks out for a big one. (4) The architect and church dignitary who, having such grave responsibilities in their hands towards the buildings of which they are the guardians, wish, naturally, to understand the details which form a part of their charge. And lastly, a new and important class that has lately sprung into existence, the well-equipped, picked student--brilliant and be-medalled, able draughtsman, able painter; young, thoughtful, ambitious, and educated, who, instead of drifting, as till recently, into the overcrowded ranks of picture-making, has now the opportunity of choosing other weapons in the armoury of the arts. To all these classes apply those golden words from Ruskin's "Aratra Pentelici" which are quoted on the fly-leaf of the present volume, while the spirit in which I myself would write in amplifying them is implied by my adopting the comment and warning expressed in the other sentence there quoted. The face of the arts is in a state of change. The words "craft" and "craftsmanship," unheard a decade or two ago, now fill the air; we are none of us inheritors of any worthy tradition, and those who have chanced to grope about for themselves, and seem to have found some safe footing, have very little, it seems to me, to plume or pride themselves upon, but only something to be thankful for in their good luck. But "to have learnt faithfully" one of the "ingenuous arts" (or crafts) _is_ good luck and _is_ firm footing; we may not doubt it who feel it strong beneath our feet, and it must be proper to us to help towards it the doubtless quite as worthy or worthier, but less fortunate, who may yet be in some of the quicksands around. It also happens that the art of stained glass, though reaching to very high and great things, is in its methods and processes a simple, or at least a very limited, one. There are but few things to do, while at the same time the principles of it touch the whole field of art, and it is impossible to treat of it without discussing these great matters and the laws which guide decorative art generally. It happens conveniently, therefore, as the technical part requires less space, that these things should be treated of in this particular book, and it becomes the author's delicate and difficult task to do so. He, therefore, wishes to make clear at starting the spirit in which the task is undertaken. It remains only to express his thanks to Mr. Drury and Mr. Noel Heaton for help respectively, with the technical and scientific detail; to Mr. St. John Hope for permission to use his reproductions from the Windsor stall-plates, and to Mr. Selwyn Image for his great kindness in revising the proofs. C. W. WHALL. _January 1905._ CONTENTS PAGE EDITOR'S PREFACE xi AUTHOR'S PREFACE xvii PART I CHAPTER I Introductory, and Concerning the Raw Material 29 CHAPTER II Cutting (elementary)--The Diamond--The Wheel--Sharpening--How to Cut--Amount of Force--The Beginner's Mistake--Tapping--Possible and Impossible Cuts--"Grozeing"--Defects of the Wheel--The Actual Nature of a "Cut" in Glass 33 CHAPTER III Painting (elementary)--Pigments--Mixing--How to Fill the Brush--Outline--Examples--Industry--The Needle and Stick--Completing the Outline 56 CHAPTER IV Matting--Badgering--How to preserve Correctness of Outline--Difficulty of Large Work--Ill-ground Pigment--The Muller--Overground Pigment--Taking out Lights--"Scrubs"--The Need of a Master 72 CHAPTER V Cutting (advanced)--The Ideal Cartoon--The Cut-line--Setting the Cartoon--Transferring the Cut-line to the Glass--Another Way--Some Principles of Taste--Countercharging 83 CHAPTER VI Painting (advanced)--Waxing-up--Cleanliness--Further Methods of Painting--Stipple--Dry Stipple--Film--Effects of Distance--Danger of Over-Painting--Frying 94 CHAPTER VII Firing--Three Kinds of Kiln--Advantages and Disadvantages--The Gas-Kiln--Quick Firing--Danger--Sufficient Firing--Soft Pigments--Difference in Glasses--"Stale" Work--The Scientific Facts--How to Judge of Firing--Drawing the Kiln 105 CHAPTER VIII The Second Painting--Disappointment with Fired Work--A False Remedy--A Useful Tool--The Needle--A Resource of Desperation--The Middle Course--Use of the Finger--The Second Painting--Procedure 118 CHAPTER IX Of Staining and Aciding--Yellow Stain--Aciding--Caution required in Use--Remedy for Burning--Uses of Aciding--Other Resources of Stained Glass Work 129 CHAPTER X Leading-Up and Fixing--Setting out the Bench--Relation of Leading to mode of Fixing in the Stone--Process of Fixing--Leading-Up Resumed--Straightening the Lead--The "Lathykin"--The Cutting-Knife--The Nails--The Stopping-Knife--Knocking Up 133 CHAPTER XI Soldering--Handling the Leaded Panel--Cementing--Recipe for Cement--The Brush--Division of Long Lights into Sections--How Joined when Fixed--Banding--Fixing--Chipping out the Old Glazing--Inserting the New and Cementing 144 PART II CHAPTER XII Introductory--The Great Questions--Colour--Light--Architectural Fitness--Limitations--Thought--Imagination--Allegory 154 CHAPTER XIII Of Economy--The Englishman's Wastefulness--Its Good Side--Its Excess--Difficulties--A Calculation--Remedies 156 CHAPTER XIV Of Perfection--In Little Things--Cleanliness--Alertness--But not Hurry--Realising your Conditions--False Lead-Lines--Shutting out Light--Bars--Their Number--Their Importance--Precedence--Observing your Limitations--A Result of Complete Training--The Special Limitations of Stained Glass--Disguising the Lead-Line--No full Realism--No violent Action--Self-Effacement--No Craft-Jugglery--Architectural Fitness founded on Architectural Knowledge--Seeing Work _in Situ_--Sketching in Glass--The Artistic Use of the Lead--Stepping Back--Accepting Bars and Leads--Loving Care--White Spaces to be Interesting--Bringing out the "Quality" of the Glass--Spotting and Dappling--"Builders-Glazing" _versus_ Modern Restoring 163 CHAPTER XV A Few Little Dodges--A Clumsy Tool--A Substitute--A Glass Rack--An Inconvenient Easel--A Convenient Easel--A Waxing-up Tool--An Easel with Movable Plates--Making the most of a Room--Handling Cartoons--Cleanliness--Dust--The Selvage Edge--Drying a "Badger"--A Comment 182 CHAPTER XVI Of Colour 198 CHAPTER XVII Of Architectural Fitness 234 CHAPTER XVIII Of Thought, Imagination, and Allegory 248 CHAPTER XIX Of General Conduct and Procedure--Amount of Legitimate Assistance--The Ordinary Practice--The Great Rule--The Second Great Rule--Four Things to Observe--Art _v._ Routine--The Truth of the Case--The Penalty of Virtue in the Matter--The Compensating Privilege--Practical Applications--An Economy of Time in the Studio--Industry--Work "To Order"--Clients and Patrons--And Requests Reasonable and Unreasonable--The Chief Difficulty the Chief Opportunity--But ascertain all Conditions before starting Work--Business Habits--Order--Accuracy--Setting out Cartoon Forms--An Artist must Dream--But Wake--Three Plain Rules 264 CHAPTER XX A String of Beads 290 APPENDIX I Some Suggestions as to the Study of Old Glass 308 APPENDIX II On the Restoring of Ancient Windows 315 APPENDIX III PAGE Hints for the Curriculum of a Technical School for Stained Glass--Examples for Painting--Examples of Drapery--Drawing from Nature--Ornamental Design 321 NOTES ON THE COLLOTYPE PLATES 327 THE COLLOTYPE PLATES 337 GLOSSARY 369 INDEX 373 PART I CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY, AND CONCERNING THE RAW MATERIAL You are to know that stained glass means pieces of coloured glasses put together with strips of lead into the form of windows; not a picture painted on glass with coloured paints. You know that a beer bottle is blackish, a hock bottle orange-brown, a soda-water bottle greenish-white--these are the colours of the whole substance of which they are respectively made. Break such a bottle, each little bit is still a bit of coloured glass. So, also, blue is used for poison bottles, deep green and deep red for certain wine glasses, and, indeed, almost all colours for one purpose or another. Now these are the same glass, and coloured in the same way as that used for church windows. Such coloured glasses are cut into the shapes of faces, or figures, or robes, or canopies, or whatever you want and whatever the subject demands; then features are painted on the faces, folds on the robes, and so forth--not with colour, merely with brown shading; then, when this shading has been burnt into the glass in a kiln, the pieces are put together into a picture by means of grooved strips of lead, into which they fit. This book, it is hoped, will set forth plainly how these things are done, for the benefit of those who do not know; and, for the benefit of those who do know, it will examine and discuss the right principles on which windows should be made, and the rules of good taste and of imagination, which make such a difference between beautiful and vulgar art; for you may know intimately all the processes I have spoken of, and be skilful in them, and yet misapply them, so that your window had better never have been made. Skill is good if you use it wisely and for good end; but craft of hand employed foolishly is no more use to you than swiftness of foot would be upon the broad road leading downwards--the cripple is happier. A clear and calculating brain may be used for statesmanship or science, or merely for gambling. You, we will say, have a true eye and a cunning hand; will you use them on the passing fashion of the hour--the morbid, the trivial, the insincere--or in illustrating the eternal truths and dignities, the heroisms and sanctities of life, and its innocencies and gaieties? This book, then, is divided into two parts, of which the intention of one is to promote and produce skilfulness of hand, and of the other to direct it to worthy ends. The making of glass itself--of the raw material--the coloured glasses used in stained-glass windows, cannot be treated of here. What are called "Antiques" are chiefly used, and there are also special glasses representing the ideals and experiments of enthusiasts--Prior's "Early English" glass, and the somewhat similar "Norman" glass. These glasses, however, are for craftsmen of experience to use: they require mature skill and judgment in the using; to the beginner, "Antiques" are enough for many a day to come. _How to know the Right and Wrong Sides of a Piece of "Antique" Glass._--Take up a sheet of one of these and look at it. You will notice that the two sides look different; one side has certain little depressions as if it had been pricked with a pin, sometimes also some wavy streaks. Turn it round, and, looking at the other side, you still see these things, but blurred, as if seen through water, while the surface itself on this side looks smooth; what inequalities there are being projections rather than depressions. Now the side you first looked at is the side to cut on, and the side to paint on, and it is the side placed inwards when the window is put up. The reason is this. Glass is made into sheets by being blown into bubbles, just as a child blows soap-bubbles. If you blow a soap-bubble you will see streaks playing about in it, just like the wavy streaks you notice in the glass. The bubble is blown, opened at the ends, and manipulated with tools while hot, until it is the shape of a drain-pipe; then cut down one side and opened out upon a flattening-stone until the round pipe is a flat sheet; and it is this stone which gives the glass the different texture, the dimpled surface which you notice. Some glasses are "flashed"; that is to say, a bubble is blown which is mainly composed of white glass; but, before blowing, it is also dipped into another coloured glass--red, perhaps, or blue--and the two are then blown together, so that the red or blue glass spreads out into a thin film closely united to, in fact fused on to, and completely one with, the white glass which forms the base; most "Ruby" glasses are made in this way. CHAPTER II Cutting (elementary)--The Diamond--The Wheel--Sharpening--How to Cut--Amount of Force--- The Beginner's Mistake--Tapping--Possible and Impossible Cuts--"Grozeing"--Defects of the Wheel--The Actual Nature of a "Cut" in Glass. No written directions can teach the use of the diamond; it is as sensitive to the hand as the string of a violin, and a good workman feels with a most delicate touch exactly where the cutting edge is, and uses his tool accordingly. Every apprentice counts on spoiling a guinea diamond in the learning, which will take him from one to two years. Most cutters now use the wheel, of which illustrations are given (figs. 1 and 2). [Illustration: FIGS. 1 AND 2.] The wheels themselves are good things, and cut as well as the diamond, in some respects almost better; but many of the handles are very unsatisfactory. From some of them indeed one might suppose, if such a thing were conceivable, that the maker knew nothing of the use of the tool. For it is held thus (fig. 5), the pressure of the _forefinger_ both guiding the cut and supplying force for it: and they give you an _edge_ to press on (fig. 1) instead of a surface! In some other patterns, indeed, they do give you the desired surface, but the tool is so thin that there is nothing to grip. What ought to be done is to reproduce the shape of the old wooden handle of the diamond proper (figs. 3 and 4). [Illustration: FIGS. 3 AND 4.] The foregoing passage must, however, be amplified and modified, but this I will do further on, for you will understand the reasons better if I insert it after what I had written further with regard to the cutting of glass. _How to Sharpen the Wheel Cutter._--The right way to do this is difficult to describe in writing. You must, first of all, grind down the "shoulders" of the tool, through which the pivot of the wheel goes, for they are made so large that the wheel cannot reach the stone (fig. 6), and must be reduced (fig. 7). Then, after first oiling the pivot so that the wheel may run easily, you must hold the tool as shown in fig. 8, and rub it swiftly up and down the stone. The angle at which the wheel should rest on the stone is shown in fig. 9. You will see that the angle at which the wheel meets the stone is a little _blunter_ than the angle of the side of the wheel itself. You do not want to make the tool _too sharp_, otherwise you will risk breaking down the edge, when the wheel will cease to be truly circular, and when that occurs it is absolutely useless. The same thing will happen if the wheel is _checked_ in its revolution while sharpening, and therefore the pivot must be kept oiled both for cutting and sharpening. [Illustration: FIG. 5.] [Illustration: FIGS. 6 and 7.] It is a curious fact to notice that the tool, be it wheel or diamond, that is _too sharp_ is not, in practice, found to make so good a cut as one that is less sharp; it scratches the glass and throws up a line of splinters. _How to Cut Glass._--Hold the cutter as shown in the illustration (fig. 5), a little sloping towards you, but perfectly upright laterally; draw it towards you, hard enough to make it just _bite_ the glass. If it leaves a mark you can hardly see it is a good cut (fig. 10B), but if it scratches a white line, throwing up glass-dust as it goes, either the tool is faulty, or you are pressing too hard, or you are applying the pressure to the wheel unevenly and at an angle to the direction of the cut (fig. 10A). Not that you can make the wheel _move_ sideways in the cut actually; it will keep itself straight as a ploughshare keeps in its furrow, but it will press sideways, and so break down the edges of the furrow, while if you exaggerate this enough it will actually leave the furrow, and, ceasing to cut, will "skid" aside over the glass. As to pressure, all cutters begin by pressing much too hard; the tool having started biting, it should be kept only _just biting_ while drawn along. The cut should be almost _noiseless_. You think you're not cutting because you don't hear it grate, but hold the glass sideways to the light and you will see the silver line quite continuous. Having made your cut, take the glass up; hold it as in fig. 11, press downward with the thumbs and upward with the fingers, and the glass will come apart. [Illustration: FIG. 8.] [Illustration: FIG. 9.] [Illustration: FIG. 10, A and B] [Illustration: FIG. 11.] But you want to cut shaped pieces as well as straight. You cannot break these directly the cut is made, but, holding the glass as in fig. 12, and pressing it firmly with the left thumb, jerk the tool up by little, sharp jerks of the fingers _only_, so as to tap along the underside of your cut. You will see a little silver line spring along the cut, showing that the glass is dividing; and when that silver line has sprung from end to end, a gentle pressure will bring the glass apart. [Illustration: FIG. 12.] This upward jerk must be sharp and swift, but must be calculated so as only just to _reach_ the glass, being checked just at the right point, as one hammers a _nail_ when one does not want to stir the work into which the nail is driven. A _pushing_ stroke, a blow that would go much further if the glass were not there, is no use; and for this reason neither the elbow nor the hand must move; the knuckles are the hinge upon which the stroke revolves. [Illustration: FIG. 13.] [Illustration: FIG. 14.] But you can only cut certain shapes--for instance, you cannot cut a wedge-shaped gap out of a piece of glass (fig. 13); however tenderly you handle it, it will split at point A. The nearest you can go to it is a curve; and the deeper the curve the more difficult it is to get the piece out. In fig. 14 A is an average easy curve, B a difficult one, C impossible, except by "groseing" or "grozeing" as cutters call it; that is, after the cut is made, setting to work to patiently bite the piece out with pliers (fig. 15). [Illustration: FIG. 15.] Now, further, you must understand that you must not cut round all the sides of a shaped piece of glass at once; indeed, you must only cut one side at a time, and draw your cut right up to the edge of the glass, and break away the whole piece which _contains_ the side you are cutting before you go on to another. Thus, in fig. 16, suppose the shaded portion to be the shape that you wish to cut out of the piece of glass, A, B, C, D. You must lay your gauge _anglewise_ down upon the piece. Do not try to get the sides parallel to the shapes of your gauge, for that makes it much more difficult; angular pieces break off the easiest. [Illustration: FIG. 16.] Now, then, _cut the most difficult piece first_. That marked 1. Perhaps you will not cut it quite true; but, if not, then shift the gauge slightly on to another part of the curve, and very likely it may fit that better and so _come_ true. Then follow with one of those marked 2 or 3. Probably it would be safest to cut the larger and more difficult piece first, and get _both_ the curved cuts right by your gauge; then you can be quite sure of getting the very easy small bit off quite truly, to fit into its place with both of them. Go on with 4, and then with one of those marked 5 or 6. Probably it would still be best to cut the curved piece first, unless you think that shortening it by cutting off the small corner-piece first will make the curved cut easier by making it shorter. In any case you must only cut one side at a time, and break it away before you make the cut for another side. Take care that you do not go back in your cut. You must try and make it quite continuous onwards; for if you go back in the cut, where your tool has already thrown up splinters, it will spoil your tool and spoil your cut also. Difficult curves, that it is only just possible to get out by groseing, ought never to be resorted to, except for some very sufficient reason. A cartoonist who knows the craft will avoid setting such tasks to the cutter; but, unfortunately, many cartoonists do _not_ know the craft. If people were taught the complete craft as they should be, this book would not have been written. Here let me say that we cannot possibly within the narrow limits of it go thoroughly into all the very wide range of subjects connected with glass--the chemistry, the permanence, the purity of materials. With the exception of the practice of the craft, probably we shall not be able to go thoroughly into any one of them; but I shall endeavour to _mention_ them all, and to do so sufficiently to indicate the directions in which work and research and experiment may be made, for they are all three much needed in several directions. It becomes, for instance, now my task, in modifying the passage some pages back as I promised, to go into one of these subjects in the light of inquiries made since the passage in question was written; and I let it for the time being stand just as it was, without the additional information, because it gives a picture of how such things crop up and of the way in which such investigations may be made, and of how useful and pleasant they may be. Here then let us have-- A LITTLE DISSERTATION UPON CUTTING. Through the agent for the wheel-cutter in England I communicated with the maker and inventor in America, and told him of our difficulties and perplexities over here, and chiefly with regard to two points. First, the awkwardness of the handle, which causes the glaziers here to use the tool bound round with wadding, or enclosed in a bit of india-rubber pipe; and, secondly, the bluntness of the "jaws" which hold the wheel, and which must be ground down (and are in universal practice ground down), before the tool can be sharpened. His reply called attention to a number of different patterns of handle, the existence of which, I think, is not generally known, in England at any rate, and some of which seem to more or less meet the difficulties we experience, most of them also being made with malleable iron handles, so that fresh cutting-wheels can be inserted in the same handle. His letter also entered into the question of the actual dynamics of "cutting," maintaining, I think rightly, that a "cut" is made by the edge of the wheel (this not being very sharp) forcing the particles of the glass down into the mass of it by pressure. With regard to the old-fashioned pattern of tool which we chiefly use in this country, the very sufficient explanation is that they continue to make it because we continue to demand it, a circumstance which, as he declares, is a mystery to the inventor himself! Nevertheless, as we do so, and, in spite of the variety of newer tools on the market, still go on grinding down the jaws of our favourite, and wrapping round the handle with cotton-wool, let us try and put this matter straight, and compare our requirements with the advantages offered us. There are three chief points to be cleared up. (1) The actual nature of a "cut" in glass; (2) the question of sharpening the tool and grinding down of the jaws to do so; and (3) the "mystery" of our preference for a particular tool, although we all confess its awkwardness by the means we take to modify it. (1) With regard, then, to the nature of a "cut" in glass I am disposed entirely to agree with the theory put forward by the inventor of the wheel, which an examination of the cuts under the microscope, or even a 6 diameter lens, certainly also tends to confirm. What happens appears to my non-scientific eyes to be this. Glass is one of the most fissile or "splittable" of all materials; but it is so just in the same way that ice is, and just in the opposite way to that in which slate or talc is. Slate or talc splits easily into thin layers or laminæ, _because it already lies in such layers_, and these will come apart when the force is applied between them: but _it will only split into the laminæ of which it already is composed, and along the line of the fissures which already exist between them_. Glass, on the contrary (and the same is true of ice, or for that matter of currant-jelly and such like things), appears to be a substance which is the same in all directions, or nearly so, and therefore as liable to split in one direction as in another, and is so loosely held together that, once a splitting force is applied, the crack spreads very rapidly and easily, and therefore smoothly and in straight lines and in even planes. The diamond, or the wheel-cutter, is such a force. Being pressed on to the surface, it forces down the particles, and these start a series of small vertical splits, sometimes nearly through the whole thickness of the glass, though invisibly so until the glass is separated. And mark, that it is the _starting_ of the splits that is the important thing; there is no object in making them _deep_, it is only wasted force; they will continue to split of themselves if encouraged in the proper way (see Plates IX. and X.). Try this as follows. Take a bit of glass, say 3 inches by 2, and make the very smallest dint you can in it, in the middle of the narrowest dimension. You cannot make one so small that the glass will hold together if you try to break it across. It will break across in a straight line, springing from each end of the tiny cut. The cut may be only 1/8 of an inch long; less--it may be only 1/16, 1/32--as small as you will, the glass will break across just the same. Why? Because the cut has _started_ it splitting at each end; and the material being the same all through, the split will go straight on in the direction in which it has started; there is nothing to turn it aside. So also the pressure of the wheel starts a continuous split, or series of splits, _downwards_, into the thickness of the glass. No matter how small a distance these go in, the glass will come asunder directly pressure is applied. Now, if you press too hard in cutting, another thing takes place. Imagine a quantity of roofing-slates piled flat one on top of another, all the piles being of equal height and arranged in two rows, side by side, so close that the edges of the slates in one row touch the edges of those in the other row, along a central line. Wheel a wheelbarrow along that line over the edges of both. What would happen? The top layer of slates would all come cocking their outer edges up as the barrow passed over their inner ones, would they not? Now, just so, if you press hard on your glass-cutting wheel, it will press down the edges of the groove, and though there are no layers _already made_ in the glass, the pressure will _split off_ a thin layer from the top surface of the glass on each side in flakes as it goes along (Plate X., D, E). This is what gives the _noise_ of the cut, c-r-r-r-r-r-; and as the thing is no use the noise is no use; like a good many other things in life, the less noise the better work, much cry generally meaning little wool, as the man found out who shaved the pig. But the wheel or the diamond is not quite the same as the wheel of the wheelbarrow, for it has a _wedge-shaped_ edge. Imagine a barrow with such a wheel; what _then_ would happen to your slates? besides being cocked up by the wheel, they would also be _pushed out_, surely? This happens in glass. You must not imagine that glass is a rigid thing; it is very elastic, and the wedge-like pressure of the wheel pushes it out just as the keel of a boat pushes the water aside in ripples (Plate X., D, E). All these observations seem to me to bear out the theory of the inventor, and perhaps to some extent to explain it. I am much tempted to carry them further, and ask the questions, why a penknife as well as a wheel will not make a cut in glass, but will make a perfectly definite scratch on it if the glass is placed under water? and why this line so made will yet not serve for separating the glass? and why a piece of glass can be cut in two (roughly, to be sure, but still cut in two) with a pair of scissors under water, a thing otherwise quite impossible? But I do not think that the knowledge of these questions will help the reader to do better stained-glass windows, and therefore I will not pursue them. (2) The question of sharpening the tool is soon disposed of. If the tool is to be sharpened, the jaws must be ground down, whether the maker grinds them down originally or whether we do it. Is sharpening worth while, since the tool only costs a few pence? Well, it's a question each must decide for himself; but I will just answer two small difficulties which affect the matter. If grinding the jaws loosens the pivot, it can be hammered tight again with a punch. If sharpening wears out the oil-stone (as it undoubtedly does, and oil-stones are expensive things), a piece of fine polished Westmoreland slate will do as well, and there is no need to be chary of it. Even a piece of ground-glass with oil will do. (3) But now as to the handle. I am first to explain the amusing "mystery" why the old pattern shown in fig. 1 still sells. It is because the British working-man _is convinced that the wheels in this handle are better quality than any others_. Is he right, or is it only an instance of his love for and faith in the thing he has got used to? Or can it be that all workmen do not know of the existence of the other types of handle? In case this is so, I figure some (fig. 17). Or is it that the wheel for some reason runs less truly in the malleable iron than in the cast iron? [Illustration: FIG. 17.] Certain it is that the whole trade here prefers these wheels, and I am bound to say that as far as my experience goes they seem to me to work better than those in other handles. But as to all the handles themselves, I must now voice our general complaint. (1) They are too light. For tapping our heavy antique and slab-glasses we wish we had a heavier tool. (2) They are too thin in the handle for comfort, at least it seems so to me. (3) The three gashes cut out of the head of the tool decrease the weight, and if these were omitted the tool would gain. Their only use that I can conceive of is that of a very poor substitute for pliers as a "groseing" tool, if one has forgotten one's pliers. But (as Serjeant Buzfuz might say) "who _does_ forget his pliers?" The whole question of the handle is complicated by the fact that some cutters rest the tool on the forefinger and some on the middle finger in tapping, and that a handle the sections of which are calculated for the one will not do equally well for the other. But the whole thing resolves itself into this, that if we could get a tool, the handle of which corresponded in all its curves, dimensions, and sections with the old-established diamond, I think we should all be glad; and if the head, wheel, and pivot were all made of the quality and material of which fig. 1 is now made, but with the handle as I describe, many of us, I think, would be still more glad; and if these remarks lead in any degree to such results, they at least of all the book will have been worth the writing, and will probably be its best claim to a white stone in Israel, as removing one more solecism from "this so-called twentieth century." I shall now leave this subject of cutting for the present, and describe, up to about the same point, the processes of painting, taking both on to a higher stage later--as if, in fact, I were teaching a pupil; for as soon as you can cut glass well enough to cut a piece to paint on, you should learn to paint on it, and carry the two things on step by step, side by side. CHAPTER III Painting (elementary)--Pigments--Mixing--How to Fill the Brush--Outline--Examples--Industry--The Needle and Stick--Completing the Outline. The pigments for painting on glass are powders, being the oxides of various minerals, chiefly iron. There are others; but take it thus--that the iron oxide is a red pigment, and the others are introduced, mainly, to modify this. The red pigment is the best to use, and goes off less in the firing; but, alas! it is a detestably ugly _colour_, like red lead; and, do what you will, you cannot use it on white glass. Against clear sky it looks pretty well in some lights, but get it in a sidelight, or at an angle, and the whole window looks like red brick; while, seen against any background except clear sky, it always looks so from all points of view. There are various makers of these pigments. Some glass-painters make their own, and a beginner with any knowledge of chemistry would be wise to work in that direction. I need not discuss the various kinds of pigment; what follows is a description of my own practice in the matter. _To Mix the Pigment for Painting._--Take a teaspoonful of red tracing-colour, and a rather smaller spoonful of intense black, put them on a slab of thick ground-glass about 9 inches square, and drop clean water upon them till you can work them up into a paste with the palette-knife (fig. 18); work them up for a minute or so, till the paste is smooth and the lumps broken up, and then add about three drops of strong gum made from the purest white gum-arabic dissolved in cold water. Any good chemist will sell this, but its purity is a matter of great importance, for you want the maximum of adhesiveness with the minimum of the material. Mix the colour well up with the knife; then take one of those long-haired sable brushes, which are called "riggers" (fig. 19), and which all artists'-colourmen sell, and fill it with the colour, diluting it with enough water to make it quite thin. Do not dilute all the pigment; keep most of it in a tidy lump, merely moist, as you ground it and not further wetted, at the corner of your slab; but always keep a portion diluted in a small "pond" in the middle of your palette. [Illustration: Fig. 18.] _How to Fill the Brush with Pigment._--Now you must note that this is a heavy powder floating free in water, therefore it quickly sinks to the bottom of your little "pond." _Each time you fill your_ _brush you must "stir up the mud_," for the "mud" is what you want to get in your brush, and not only so, but you want to get your brush _evenly full_ of it from tip to base, therefore you must splay out the hairs flat against the glass, till all are wet, and then in taking it off the palette, "twiddle" it to a point quickly. This takes long to describe, but it does not take a couple of seconds to do. You must have the patience to spend so much pains on it, and even to fill the brush very often, nearly for each touch; then you will get a clear, smooth, manageable stroke for your outline, and save time in the end. [Illustration: FIG. 19.] _How to Paint in Outline._--Make some strokes (fig. 20) on a piece of glass and let them dry; some people like them to stick very tight to the glass, some so that a touch of the finger removes them; you must find which suits you by-and-by, and vary the amount of gum accordingly; but to begin, I would advise that they should be just removable by a moderately hard rub with the finger, rather less hard a rub than you close a gummed envelope with. Practise now for a time the making of strokes, large and small, dark and light, broad and fine; and when you have got command of your tools, set yourself the task of doing the same thing, _copying an example placed underneath your bit of glass_. You will find a hand-rest (fig. 21) an assistance in this. [Illustration: FIG. 20.] It is difficult to give any list of examples suitable for this stage of glass, but the kind of line employed on the best _heraldry_ is always good for the purpose. The splendid illustrations of this in Mr. St. John-Hope's book of the stall-plates of the Knights of the Garter at Windsor, examples of which by the author's courtesy I am allowed to reproduce (figs. 22-22A), are ideal for bold outline-work, and fascinatingly interesting for their own sake. In most of these there is not only excellent practice in _outline_, and a great deal of it, but, mixed with it, practice also in flat washes, which it is a good thing to be learning side by side with the other. [Illustration: FIG. 21.] And here let me note that there are throughout the practice of glass-painting _many_ methods in use at every stage. Each person, each firm of glass-stainers, has his own methods and traditions. I shall not trouble to notice all these as we come to them, but describe what seems to me to be the best practice in each case; but I shall here and there give a word about others. For instance: if you use sugar or treacle instead of gum, you get a rather smoother-working pigment, and after it is dry you can moisten it as often as you will for further work by merely breathing on the surface; and perhaps if your aim is _outline only_, it may be well to try it; but if you wish to pass shading-colour over it you must use gum, for you cannot do so over treacle colour; nor do I think treacle serves so well for the next process I am to describe, which here follows. [Illustration: FIG. 22.] [Illustration: FIG. 22A.] _How to complete the Outline better than you possibly can by One Tracing._--When you take up a bit of glass from the table, after having done all you can to make a correct tracing, you will be disappointed with the result. It will have looked pretty well on the table with the copy showing behind it and hiding its defects, but it is a different thing when held up to the searching daylight. This must not, however, discourage you. No one, not the most skilful, could expect to make a perfect copy of an original (if that original had any fineness of line or sensitiveness of touch about it) by merely tracing it downwards on the bench. You must put it upright against the daylight, and mend your drawing, freehand, faithfully by the copy. These remarks do not, in a great degree, apply to the case of hard outlines specially prepared for literal translation. I am speaking of those where the outline is, in the artistic sense, sensitive and refined, as in a Botticelli painting or a Holbein drawing, and to copy these well you want an easel. For this small work any kind of frame with a sheet of glass in it, and a ledge to rest your bit of glass on and a leg to stand out behind, will do, and by all means get it made (fig. 23); but do not spend too much on it, for later on you will want a bigger and more complicated thing, which will be described in its proper place--that is to say, when we come to it; and we shall come to it when we come to deal with work made up of a number of pieces of glass, as all windows must be. [Illustration: FIG. 23.] This that you have now, not being a window but a bit of glass to practise on, what I have described above will do for it. _A note to be always industrious and to work with all your might._--I advise you to put this work on an easel; but this is not the way such work is usually done;--where the work is done as a task (alas, that it could ever be so!) it is held listlessly in the left hand while touched with the right; but no artist can afford to be at this disadvantage, or at any disadvantage. Fancy a surgeon having to hold the limb with one hand while he uses the lancet with the other, or an astronomer, while he makes his measurement, bunglingly moving his telescope by hand while he pursues his star, instead of having it driven by the clock! You cannot afford to be less keen or less in earnest, and you want both hands free--ay! more than this--your whole body free: you must not be lazy and sit glued to your stool; you must get up and walk backwards and forwards to look at your work. Do you think art is so easy that you can afford to saunter over it? Do, I beg you, dear reader, pay attention to these words; for it is true (though strange) that the hardest thing I have found in teaching has been to get the pupil to take the most reasonable care not to hamper and handicap himself by omitting to have his work comfortably and conveniently placed and his tools and materials in good order. You shall find a man going on painting all day, working in a messing, muddling way--wasting time and money--because his pigment has not been covered up when he left off work yesterday, and has got dusty and full of "hairs"; another will waste hour after hour, cricking his neck and squinting at his work from a corner, when thirty seconds and a little wit would move his work where he would get a good light and be comfortable; or he will work with bad tools and grumble, when five minutes would mend his tools and make him happy. An artist's work--any artist's, but especially a glass-painter's--should be just as finished, precise, clean, and alert as a surgeon's or a dentist's. Have you not in the case of these (when the affair has not been too serious) admired the way in which the cool, white hands move about, the precision with which the finger-tips take up this or that, and when taken up use it "just _so_," neither more nor less: the spotlessness and order and perfect finish of every tool and material, from those fearsome things which (though you prefer not to dwell on their uses) you cannot help admiring, down to the snowy cotton-wool daintily poked ready through the holes in a little silver beehive? Just such skill, handling, and precision, and just such perfection of instruments, I urge as proper to painting. _What Tools are wanted to complete the Outline._--I will now describe those tools which you want at this stage, that is, _to mend your outline with_. [Illustration: FIG. 24.] You want the brush which you used in the first instance to paint it with, and that has already been described; but you also want points of various fineness to etch it away with where it is too thick; these are the needle and the stick (fig. 24); any needle set in a handle will do, but if you want it for fine work, take care that it be sharp. "How foolish," you say; "as if you need tell us that." On the contrary,--nine people out of ten need telling, because they go upon the assumption that a needle _must_ be sharp, "as sharp as a needle," and cannot need sharpening,--and they will go on for 365 days in a year wondering why a needle (which _must_ be sharp) should take out so much coarser a light than they want. Now as to "sticks"; if you make a point of soft wood it lasts for three or four touches and then gets "furred" at the point, and if of very hard wood it slips on the glass. Bamboo is good; but the best of all--that is to say for broad stick-lights--is an old, sable oil-colour brush, clogged with oil and varnish till it is as hard as horn and then cut to a point; this "clings" a little as it goes over the glass, and is most comfortable to use. I have no doubt that other materials may be equally good, celluloid or horn, for example; the student must use his own ingenuity on such a simple matter. _How to Complete the Outline._--With the tools above described complete the outline--by adding colour with the brush where the lines are too fine, and by taking it away with needle or stick where they are too coarse; make it by these means exactly like the copy, and this is all you need do. But as an example of the degree of correctness attainable (and therefore to be demanded) are here inserted two illustrations (figs. 25 and 26), one of the example used, and the other of a copy made from it by a young apprentice. [Illustration: FIG. 25.] [Illustration: FIG. 26.] CHAPTER IV Matting--Badgering--How to preserve Correctness of Outline--Difficulty of Large Work--Ill-ground Pigment--The Muller--Overground Pigment--Taking out Lights--"Scrubs"--The Need of a Master. Take your camel hair matting-brush (fig. 27 or 28); fill it with the pigment, try it on the slab of the easel till it seems just so full that the wash you put on will not run down till you have plenty of time to brush it flat with the badger (fig. 29). Have your badger ready at hand and _very clean_, for if there is any pigment on it from former using, that will spoil the very delicate operation you are now to perform. Now rapidly, but with a very light hand, lay an even wash over the whole piece of glass on which the outline is painted; use vertical strokes, and try to get the touches to just meet each other without overlapping; but there is a very important thing to observe in holding the brush. If you hold it so (fig. 30) you cannot properly regulate the pressure, and also the pigment runs away downwards, and the brush gets dry at the point; you must hold it so (fig. 31), then the curve of the hair makes the brush go lightly over the surface, while also, the body of the brush being pointed downwards, the point you are using is always being refilled. [Illustration: FIG. 27.] [Illustration: FIG. 28.] [Illustration: FIG. 29.] It takes a very skilful workman indeed to put the strokes so evenly side by side that the result looks flat and not stripy; indeed you can hardly hope to do so, but you can get rid of what "stripes" there are by taking your badger and "stabbing" the surface of the painting with it very rapidly, moving it from side to side so as never to stab twice in the same spot; this by degrees makes the colour even, by taking a little off the dark part and putting it on the light; but the result will look mottled, not flat and smooth. Sometimes this may be agreeable, it depends on what you are painting; but if you wish it to be smooth, just give a last stroke or two over the whole glass sideways, that is to say, holding the badger so that it stands quite perpendicular to the glass, move it, _always still perpendicular_, across the whole surface. You must not sway it from side to side, or kick it up at the end of each stroke like a man white-washing; it must move along so that the points of the hairs are all just lightly touching the glass all the time. [Illustration: FIG. 30.] _How to Ensure the Drawing of a Face being kept Correct while Painting._--If you adopt the plan of doing the first painting over an unfired outline, you must be very careful that the outline is not brushed out of drawing in the process. If you have sufficient skill it need not be so, for it is quite possible--if all the conditions as to adhesiveness are right--and if you are light-handed enough--to so lay and badger the "matt" that the outline beneath shall only be gently softened, and not blurred or moved from its place. But in any case the best plan is at the same time that you trace the outline of a head on to the glass to trace it also with equal care on to a piece of tracing paper, and arrange three or four well-marked points, such as the corner of the mouth, the pupil of the eye, and some point on the back of the head or neck, so that these cannot possibly shift, and that you may be able at any time to get the tracing back into its proper place, both on the cartoon and on the piece of glass on which you are to paint the head. On which piece of glass also your first care should be that these three or four points should be clearly marked and unmovable; then during the whole progress of the painting you will always be able to verify the correctness of the drawing by placing your piece of tracing paper over the glass, and so seeing that nothing has shifted its place. [Illustration: FIG. 31.] It requires a good deal of patience and practice to lay matt successfully over unfired outline. It is a question of the amount and quality of the gum, the condition of your brush, even the dryness or dampness of the air. You must try what degree of gum suits you best, both in the outline and in the matt which you are to pass over it. Try it a good many times on a slab of plain glass or on the plate of your easel first, before you try on your painting. Of course it's a much easier thing to matt successfully over a small piece than over a large. A head as big as the palm of your hand is not a very severe test of your powers; but in one as large as the _whole_ of your hand, say a head seven inches from crown to chin, the problem is increased quite immeasurably in difficulty. The real test is being able to produce in glass a real facsimile of a head by Botticelli or Holbein, and when you can do that satisfactorily you can do anything in glass-painting. Do not aim to get _too much_ in the first painting, at any rate not till you have had long practice. Be content if you get enough modelling on a head to turn the outline into a more sensitive and artistic drawing than it could be if planted down, raw and hard, upon the bare, cold glass. After all it is a common practice to fire the outline separately, and anything beyond this that you get upon the glass for first fire is so much to the good. But besides the quality of the _gum_ you will find sometimes differences in the quality or condition of the _pigment_. It may be insufficiently ground; in which case the matt, in passing over, will rasp away every vestige of the outline, so delicate a matter it is. You can tell when colour is not ground sufficiently by the way it acts when laid as a vertical wash. Lay a wash, moist enough to "run," on a bit of your easel-slab; it will run down, making a sort of seaweed-looking pattern--clear lanes of light on the glass with a black grain at the lower end. Those are the bits of unground material: under a 100-diameter microscope they look like chunks of ironstone or road metal, or of rusty iron, and you'll soon understand why they have scratched away your tender outline. You must grind such colour till it is smooth, and an old-fashioned _granite_ muller is the thing, not a glass one. Now, after all this, how am I to excuse the paradox that it is possible to have the colour ground _too_ fine! All one can say is that you "find it so." It can be so fine that it seems to slip about in a thin, oily kind of way. It's all as you find it; the differences of a craft are endless; there is no forecasting of everything, and you must buy your experience, like everybody else, and find what suits you, learning your skill and your materials side by side. Now these are the chief processes of painting, as far as laying on colour goes; but you still have much of your work before you, for the way in which light and shade is got on glass is almost more in "taking off" than in "putting on." You have laid your dark "matt" all over the glass evenly; now the next thing is to remove it wherever you want light or half-tone. [Illustration: FIG. 32.] _How to Finish a Shaded Painting out of the Even Matt._--This is done in many ways, but chiefly with those tools which painters call "scrubs," which are oil-colour hog-hair brushes, either worn down by use, or rubbed down on fine sandpaper till they are as stiff as you like them to be. You want them different in this: some harder, some softer; some round, some square, and of various sizes (figs. 32 and 33), and with these you brush the matt away gently and by degrees, and so make a light and shade drawing of it. It is exactly like the process of mezzotint, where, after a surface like that of a file has been laboriously produced over the whole copper-plate, the engraver removes it in various degrees, leaving the original to stand entirely only for the darkest of all shadows, and removing it all entirely only in the highest lights. [Illustration: FIG. 33.] There is nothing for this but practice; there is nothing more to _tell_ about it; as the conjurers say, "That's how it's done." You will find difficulties, and as these occur you will think this a most defective book. "Why on earth," you will say, "didn't he tell us about this, about that, about the other?" Ah, yes! it is a most defective book; if it were not, I would have taken good care not to write it. For the worst thing that could happen to you would be to suppose that any book can possibly teach you any craft, and take the place of a master on the one hand, and of years of practice on the other. This book is not intended to do so; it is written to give as much information and to arouse as much interest as a book can; with the hope that if any are in a position to wish to learn this craft, and have not been brought up to it, they may learn, in general, what its conditions are, and then be able to decide whether to carry it further by seeking good teaching, and by laying themselves out for a patient course of study and practice and many failures and experiments. While, with regard to those already engaged in glass-painting, it is of course intended to arouse their interest in, and to give them information upon, those other branches of their craft which are not generally taught to those brought up as glass-painters. CHAPTER V Cutting (advanced)--The Ideal Cartoon--The Cut-line--Setting the Cartoon--Transferring the Cut-line to the Glass--Another Way--Some Principles of Taste--Countercharging. We have only as yet spoken of the processes of cutting and painting in themselves, and as they can be practised on a single bit of glass; but now we must consider them as applied to a subject in glass where many pieces must be used. This is a different matter indeed, and brings in all the questions of taste and judgment which make the difference between a good window and an inferior one. Now, first, you must know that every differently coloured piece must be cut out by itself, and therefore must have a strip of lead round it to join it to the others. Draw a cartoon of a figure, _bearing this well in mind_: you must draw it in such a simple and severe way that you do not set impossible or needlessly difficult tasks to the cutter. Look now, for example, at the picture in Plate V. by Mr. Selwyn Image--how simple the cutting! You think it, perhaps, too "severe"? You do not like to see the leads so plainly. You would like better something more after the "Munich" school, where the lead line is disguised or circumvented. If so, my lesson has gone wrong; but we must try and get it right. You would like it better because it is "more of a picture"; exactly, but you ought to like the other better because it is "more of a window." Yes, even if all else were equal, you ought to like it better, _because_ the lead lines cut it up. Keep your pictures for the walls and your windows for the holes in them. But all else is _not_ equal: and, supposing you now standing before a window of the kind I speak of, I will tell you what has been sacrificed to get this "picture-window" "like a picture." _Stained-glass_ has been sacrificed; for this is _not_ stained-glass, it is painted glass--that is to say, it is coloured glass ground up into powders and painted on to white sheets of glass: a poor, miserable substitute for the glorious colour of the deep amethyst and ruby-coloured glasses which it pretends to ape. You will not be in much danger of using it when you have handled your stained glass samples for a while and learned to love them. You will love them so much that you will even get to like the severe lead line which announces them for what they are. But you must get to reasonably love it as a craft limitation, a necessity, a thing which places bounds and limits to what you can do in this art, and prevents tempting and specious tricks. _How to Make a "Cut-line."_--But now, all this being granted, how are we to set about getting the pieces cut? First of all, I would say that it is always well to draw most, if not all, of the necessary lead lines on the cartoon itself. By the necessary lead lines I mean those which separate different colours; for you know that there _must_ be a lead line between these. Then, when these are drawn, it is a question of convenience whether to draw in also the more or less optional lead lines which break up each space of uniform colour into convenient-sized pieces. If you do not want your cartoon afterwards for any other purpose you may as well do so: that is, first "set" the cartoon if it is in charcoal or chalk, and then try the places for these lead lines lightly in charcoal over the drawing: working thus, you can dust them away time after time till they seem right to you, and then either set them also or not as you choose. A good, useful setting-mixture for large quantities is composed by mixing equal parts of "white polish" and methylated spirit; allowing it to settle for a week, and pouring off all that is clear. It is used in the ordinary way with a spray diffuser, and will keep for any length of time. The next step is to make what is called the cut-line. To do this, pin a piece of tracing-cloth over the whole cartoon; this can be got from any artist's-colourman or large stationer. Pin it over the cartoon with the dull surface outwards, and with a soft piece of charcoal draw lines 1/16 to 1/8 of an inch wide down the centre of all the lead lines: remove the cloth from the cartoon, and if any of the lines look awkward or ugly, now that you see them by themselves undisguised by the drawing below, alter them, and then, finally, with a long, thin brush paint them in, over the charcoal, with water-colour lamp-black, this time a true sixteenth of an inch wide. Don't dust the charcoal off first, it makes the paint cling much better to the shiny cloth. When this is done, there is a choice of three ways for cutting the glass. One is to make shaped pieces of cartridge-paper as patterns to cut each bit of glass by; another is to place the bits of glass, one by one, over the cut-line and cut freehand by the line you see through the glass. This latter process needs no description, but you cannot employ it for dark glasses because you cannot see the line through: for this you must employ one of the other methods. _How to Transfer the Cutting-line on to the Glass._--Take a bit of glass large enough to cut the piece you want; place it, face upwards, on the table; place the cut-line over it in its proper place, and then slip between them, without moving either, a piece of black "transfer paper": then, with a style or hard pencil, trace the cutting-line down on to the glass. This will not make a black mark visible on the glass, it will only make a _grease_ mark, and that hardly visible, not enough to cut by; but take a soft dabber--a lump of cotton-wool tied up in a bit of old handkerchief--and with this, dipped in dry whitening or powdered white chalk, dab the glass all over; then blow the surface and you will see a clear white line where the whitening has stuck to the greasy line made by the transfer paper; and by this you can cut very comfortably. But a third way is to cut the shape of each piece of glass out in cartridge-paper; and to do this you put the cut-line down over a sheet of "continuous-cartridge" or "cartoon" paper, as it is called, and press along all the lines with a style or hard pencil, so as to make a furrow on the paper beneath; then, after removing the cut-line, you place a sheet of ordinary window-glass below the paper and cut out each piece, between the "furrows" leaving a _full_ 1/16 of an inch. This sixteenth of an inch represents the "heart" or core of the future _lead_; it is the distance which the actual bits of glass lie one from the other in the window. You must use a very sharp penknife, and you will find that, cutting against _glass_, each shape will have quite a smooth edge; and round this you can cut with your diamond. This method, which is far the most accurate and craftsmanly way of cutting glass, is best used with the actual diamond: in that case you feel the edge of the paper all the time with the diamond-spark; but in cutting with the wheel you must not rest against the edge of the paper; otherwise you will be sure to cut into it. Now, whichever of all these processes you employ, remember that there must be a _full_ 1/16 of an inch left between each piece of glass and all its neighbours. The reason why you leave this space between the pieces is that the core of the lead is about that or a little less in thickness: the closer the glass fits to this the better, but no part of the glass must go _nearer_ to its neighbour than this, otherwise the work will be pressed outwards, and you will not be able to get the whole of the panel within its proper limits. [Illustration: FIG. 34] Fig. 34 is an illustration of various kinds and sizes of lead; showing some with the glass inserted in its place. By all means make your leads yourself, for many of those ready made are not lead at all, or not pure lead. Get the parings of sheet lead from a source you can trust, and cast them roughly in moulds as at fig. 35. Fig. 36 is the shears by which the strips may be cut; fig. 37 is the lead-mill or "vice" by which they are milled and run into their final shape; fig. 38 the "cheeks" or blocks through which the lead passes. The working of such an instrument is a thing that is understood in a few minutes with the instrument itself at hand, but it is cumbrous to explain in writing, and not worth while; since if you purchase such a thing, obviously the seller will be there to explain its use. Briefly,--the handle turns two wheels with milled edges 1/16 of an inch apart; which, at one motion, draw the lead between them, mill it, and force it between the two "cheeks" (fig. 38), which mould the outside of the lead in its passage. These combined movements, by a continuous pressure, squeeze out the strip of lead into about twice its length; correspondingly decreasing its thickness and finishing it as it goes. [Illustration: FIG. 35.] [Illustration: FIG. 36.] [Illustration: FIG. 37.] _Some principles of good taste and common sense with regard to the cutting up of a Window; according to which the Cartoon and Design must be modified._--Never disguise the lead line. Cut the necessary parts first, as I said before; cut the optional parts _simply_; thinking most of craft-convenience, and not much of realism. [Illustration: FIG. 38.] Do not, however, go to the extent of making two lead lines cross each other. Fig. 39 shows the two kinds of joint, A being the wrong one (as I hold), and B the right one; but, after all, this is partly a question of taste. Do not cut borders and other minor details into measured spaces; cut them hap-hazard. [Illustration: FIG. 39.] Do not cut leafage too much by the outlines of the groups of leaves--or wings by the outlines of the groups of feathers. Do not outline with lead lines any forms of minor importance. Do not allow the whole of any figure to cut out dark against light, or light against dark; but if the figure is ever so bright, let an inch or two of its outline tell out as a dark against a spot of still brighter light; and if it is ever so dark, be it red or blue as strong as may be, let an inch or two of its outline tell out against a still stronger dark in the background, if you have to paint it pitch-black to do so. By this "countercharging" (as heralds say), your composition will melt together with a pleasing mystery; for you must always remember that a window is, after all, only a window, it is not the church, and nothing in it should stare out at you so that you cannot get away from it; windows should "dream," and should be so treated as to look like what they are, the apertures to admit the light; subjects painted on a thin and brittle film, hung in mid-air between the light and the dark. CHAPTER VI Painting (advanced)--Waxing-up--Cleanliness--Further Methods of Painting--Stipple--Dry Stipple--Film--Effects of Distance--Danger of Over-Painting--Frying. I have mentioned all these points of judgment and good taste we have just finished speaking of, because they are matters that must necessarily come before you at the time you are making the cartoon, the preliminary drawing of the window, and before you come to handle the glass at all. But it is now necessary to tell you how the whole of the glass, when it is cut, must be fixed together, so that you can both see it and paint upon it as a whole picture. This is done as follows:-- First place the cut-line (for the making of which you have already had instructions) face upwards on the bench, and over it place a sheet of glass, as large at least as the piece you mean to paint. Thick window-glass, what glass-makers call "thirty-two ounce sheet"--that is, glass that weighs about thirty-two ounces to the square foot--will do well enough for very small subjects, but for anything over a few square feet, it is better to use thin plate-glass. This is expensive, but you do not want the best; what is called "patent plate" does quite well, and cheap plate-glass can often be got to suit you at the salvage stores, whither it is brought from fires. Having laid your sheet of glass down upon the cut-line, place upon it all the bits of glass in their proper places; then take beeswax (and by all means let it be the best and purest you can get; get it at a chemist's, not at the oil-shop), and heat a few ounces of it in a saucepan, and _when all of it is melted_--not before, and as little after as may be--take any convenient tool, a penknife or a strip of glass, and, dipping it rapidly into the melted wax, convey it in little drops to the points where the various bits of glass meet each other, dropping a single drop of wax at each joint. It is no advantage to have any extra drops along the _sides_ of the bits; if each _corner_ is properly secured, that is all that is needed (fig. 40). Some people use a little resin or tar with the wax to make it more brittle, so that when the painting is finished and the work is to be taken down again off the plate, the spots of wax will chip off more easily. I do not advise it. Boys in the shop who are just entering their apprenticeship get very skilful, and quite properly so, in doing this work; waxing up yard after yard of glass, and never dropping a spot of wax on the surface. It is much to be commended: all things done in the arts should be done as well as they can be done, if only for the sake of character and training; but in this case it is a positive advantage that the work should be done thus cleanly, because if a spot of wax is dropped on the surface of the glass that is to be painted on, the spot must be carefully scraped off and every vestige of it removed with a wet duster dipped in a little grit of some kind--pigment does well--otherwise the glass is greasy and the painting will not adhere. [Illustration: FIG. 40.] For the same reason the wax-saucepan should be kept very clean, and the wax frequently poured off, and all sediment thrown away. A bit of cotton-fluff off the duster is enough to drag a "lump" out on the end of the waxing-tool, which, before you have time to notice it, will be dribbling over the glass and perhaps spoiling it; for you must note that sometimes it is necessary to re-wax down _unfired_ work, which a drop of wax the size of a pinhole, flirted off from the end of the tool, will utterly ruin. How important, then, to be cleanly. And in this matter of removing such spots from _fired_ work, do please note that you should _use the knife and the duster alternately_ for _each spot_. Do not scrape a batch of the spots off first and then go over the ground again with the duster--this can only save a second or two of time, and the merest fraction of trouble; and these are ill saved indeed at the cost of doing the work ill. And you are sure to do it so, for when the spot is scraped off it is very difficult to see where it was; you are sure to miss some, in going over the glass with a duster, and you will discover them again, to your cost and annoyance, when you matt over them for the second painting: and, just when you cannot afford to spare a single moment--in some critical process--they will come out like round o's in the middle of your shading, compelling you to break off your work and do now what should have been done before you began to paint. But the best plan of all is to avoid the whole thing by doing the work cleanly from the first. And it is quite easy; for all you have to do is to carry the tool horizontally till it is over the spot where you want the wax, and then, by a tilt of the hand, slide the drop into its place. _Further Methods of Painting._--There are two chief methods of treating the matt--one is the "stipple," and the other the "film" or badgered matt. _The Stipple._--When you have put on your matt with the camel-hair brush, take a stippling brush (fig. 41) and stab the matt all over with it while it is wet. A great variety of texture can be got in this way, for you may leave off the process at any moment; if you leave it off soon, the work will be soft and blurred, for, not being dry, the pigment will spread again as soon as you leave off: but, if you choose, you can go on stippling till the whole is dry, when the pigment will gather up into little sharp spots like pepper, and the glass between them will be almost clear. You must bear in mind that you cannot use scrubs over work like the last described, and cannot use them to much advantage over stipple at all. You can draw a needle through; but as a rule you do not want to take lights out of stipple, since you can complete the shading in the single process by stippling more or less according to the light and shade you want. [Illustration: FIG. 41.] A very coarse form of the process is "dry" stippling, where you stipple straight on to the surface of the clear glass, with pigment taken up off the palette by the stippling brush itself: for coarse distant work this may be sometimes useful. Now as to film. We have spoken of laying on an even matt and badgering it smooth; and you can use this with a certain amount of stipple also with very good effect; but you are to notice one great rule about these two processes, namely, that the same amount of pigment _obscures much more light used in film than used in stipple_. Light _spreads_ as it comes through openings; and a very little light let, in pinholes, through a very dark matt, will, at a distance, so assert itself as to prevail over the darkness of the matt. It is really very little use going on to describe the way the colour acts in these various processes; for its behaviour varies with every degree of all of them. One may gradually acquire the skill to combine all the processes, in all their degrees, upon a single painting; and the only way in which you can test their relative value, either as texture or as light and shade, is to constantly practise each process in all its degrees, and see what results each has, both when seen near at hand and also when seen from a distance. It is useless to try and learn these things from written directions; you must make them your own, as precious secrets, by much practice and much experiment, though it will save you years of both to learn under a good master. But this question of distance is a most important thing, and we must enlarge upon it a little and try to make it quite clear. Glass-painting is not like any other painting in this respect. Let us say that you see an oil-painting--a portrait--at the end of the large room in some big Exhibition. You stand near it and say, "Yes, that is the King" (or the Commander-in-Chief), "a good likeness; however do they do those patent-leather boots?" But after you have been down one side of the room and turn round at the other end to yawn, you catch sight of it again; and still you say, "Yes, it's a good likeness," and "really those boots are very clever!" But if it had been your own painting on _glass_, and sitting at your easel you had at last said, "Yes,--_now_ it's like the drawing--_that's_ the expression," you could by no means safely count on being able to say the same at all distances. You may say it at ten feet off, at twenty, and yet at thirty the shades may all gather together into black patches; the drawing of the eyelids and eyes may vanish in one general black blot, the half-tones on the cheeks may all go to nothing. These actual things, for instance, _will_ be the result if the cheeks are stippled or scrubbed, and the shade round the eyes left as a _film_--ever so slight a film will do it. Seen near, you _see the drawing through the film_; but as you go away the light will come pouring stronger and stronger through the brush or stipple marks on the cheeks, until all films will cut out against it like black spots, altering the whole expression past recognition. Try this on simple terms:-- Do a face on white glass in strong outline only: step back, and the face goes to nothing; strengthen the outline till the forms are quite monstrous--the outline of the nose as broad as the bridge of it--still, at a given distance, it goes to nothing; the expression varies every step back you take. But now, take a matting brush, with a film so thin that it is hardly more than dirty water; put it on the back of the glass (so as not to wash up your outline); badger it flat, so as just to dim the glass less than "ground glass" is dimmed;--and you will find your outline look almost the same at each distance. It is the pure light that plays tricks, and it will play them through a pinhole. And now, finally, let us say that you may do anything you _can_ do in the painting of glass, so long as you do not lay the colour on too thick. The outline-touches should be flat upon the glass, and above all things should not be laid on so wet, or laid on so thick, that the pigment forms into a "drop" at the end of the touch; for this drop, and all pigment that is thick upon the glass like that, will "fry" when it is put into the kiln: that is to say, being so thick, and standing so far from the surface of the glass, it will fire separately from the glass itself and stand as a separate crust above it, and this will perish. Plate IX. shows the appearance of the bubbles or blisters in a bit of work that has fried, as seen under a microscope of 20 diameters; and if you are inclined to disregard the danger of this defect as seen of its natural size, when it is a mere roughness on the glass, what do you think of it _now_? You can remove it at once by scraping it with a knife; and indeed, if through accident a touch here and there does fry, it is your only plan to so remove it. All you can scrape off should be scraped off and repainted every time the glass comes from the kiln; and that brings us to the important question of _firing_. CHAPTER VII Firing--Three Kinds of Kiln--Advantages and Disadvantages--The Gas-Kiln--Quick Firing--Danger--Sufficient Firing--Soft Pigments--Difference in Glasses--"Stale" Work--The Scientific Facts--How to Judge of Firing--Drawing the Kiln. The way in which the painting is attached to the glass and made permanent is by firing it in a kiln at great heat, and thus fusing the two together. Simple enough to say, but who is to describe in writing this process in all its forms? For there is, perhaps, nothing in the art of stained-glass on which there is greater diversity of opinion and diversity of practice than this matter of firing. But let us make a beginning by saying that there are, it may be said, three chief modifications of the process. First, the use of the old, closed, coke or turf kiln. Second, of the closed gas-kiln. And third, of the open gas-kiln. The first consists of a chamber of brick or terra-cotta, in which the glass is placed on a bed of powdered whitening, on iron plates, one above another like shelves, and the whole enclosed in a chamber where the heat is raised by a fire of coke or peat. This, be it understood, is a slow method. The heat increases gradually, and applies to the glass what the kiln-man calls a "good, soaking heat." The meaning of this expression, of course, is that the gradual heat gives time for the glass and the pigment to fuse together in a natural way, more likely to be good and permanent in its results than a process which takes a twentieth part of the time and which therefore (it is assumed) must wrench the materials more harshly from their nature and state. There are, it must be admitted, one or two things to be said for this view which require answering. First, that this form of kiln has the virtue of being old; for in such a thing as this, beyond all manner of doubt, was fired all the splendid stained-glass of the Middle Ages. Second, that by its use one is entirely preserved from the dangers attached to the _misuse_ of the gas-kiln. But the answers to these two things are-- First, that the method employed in the Middle Ages did not invariably ensure permanence. Any one who has studied stained-glass must be familiar with cases in which ancient work has faded or perished. The second claim is answered by the fact, I think beyond dispute, that all objections to the use of the gas-kiln would be removed if it were used properly; it is not the use of it as a process which is in itself dangerous, but merely the misuse of it. People must be content with what is reasonable in the matter; and, knowing that the gas-kiln is spoken of as the "quick-firing" kiln, they must not insist on trying to fire _too_ quick. Now I have the highest authority (that of the makers of both kiln and pigment) to support my own conviction, founded on my own experience, in what I am here going to say. Observe, then, that up to the point at which actual fusion commences--that is, when pigment and glass begin to get soft--there is no advantage in slowness, and therefore none in the use of fuel as against gas--no possible _disadvantage_ as far as the work goes: only it is time wasted. But where people go wrong is in not observing the vital importance of proceeding gently when fusion _does_ commence. For in the actual process of firing, when fusion is about to commence, it is indeed all-important to proceed gently; otherwise the work will "fry," and, in fact, it is in danger from a variety of causes. Make it, then, your practice to aim at twenty to twenty-five minutes, instead of ten or twelve, as the period during which the pigment is to be fired, and regulate the amount of heat you apply by that standard. The longer period of moderate heat means safety. The shorter period of great heat means danger, and rather more than danger. Fig. 42 is the closed gas-kiln, where the glass is placed in an enclosed chamber; fig. 43 is the open gas-kiln, where the gas plays on the roof of the chamber in which the glass lies; fig. 44 shows this latter. But no written description or picture is really sufficient to make it safe for you to use these gas-kilns. You would be sure to have some serious accident, probably an explosion; and as it is absolutely necessary for you to have instruction, either from the maker or the experienced user of them, it is useless for me to tell lamely what they could show thoroughly. I shall therefore leave this essentially technical part of the subject, and, omitting these details, speak of the few _principles_ which regulate the firing of glass. [Illustration: FIG. 42.] [Illustration: FIG. 43.] [Illustration: FIG. 44.] And the first is to _fire it enough_. Whatever pigment you use, and with whatever flux, none will be permanent if the work is under-fired; indeed I believe that under-firing is far more the cause of stained-glass perishing than the use of untrustworthy pigment or flux; although it must always be borne in mind that the use of a soft pigment, which will "fire beautifully" at a low heat, with a fine gloss on the surface, is always to be avoided. The pigment is fused, no doubt; but is it united to the glass? What one would like to have would be a pigment whose own fusing-point was the same, or about the same, as that of the glass itself, so that the surface, at least, of the piece of glass softens to receive it and lets it right down into itself. You should never be satisfied with the firing of your glass unless it presents two qualifications: first, that the surface of the glass has melted and begun to run together; and second, that the fused pigment is quite glossy and shiny, not the least dull or rusty looking, when the glass is cool. "What one would like to have." And can you not get it? Well, yes! but you want experience and constant watchfulness--in short, "rule of thumb." For every different glass differs in hardness, and you never know, except by memory and constant handling of the stuff, exactly what your materials are going to do in the kiln; for as to standardising, so as to get the glass into any known relation with the pigment in the matter of fusing, the thing has never, as far as I know, been attempted. It probably could not be done with regard to all, or even many, glasses--nor need it; though perhaps it might be well if a nearer approach to it could be achieved with regard to the manufacture of the lighter tinted glasses, the "whites" especially, on which the heads and hands are painted, and where consequently it is of such vital importance that the painting should have careful justice done to it, and not lose in the firing through uncertainty with regard to conditions. Nevertheless, if you observe the rule to fire sufficiently, the worst that can happen is a disappointment to yourself from the painting having to an unnecessary extent "fired away" in the kiln. You must be patient, and give it a second painting; and as to the "rule of thumb," it is surprising how one gets to know, by constant handling the stuff, how the various glasses are going to behave in the fire. It was the method of the Middle Ages which we are so apt to praise, and there is much to be said for practical, craftsmanly experience, especially in the arts, as against a system of formulas based on scientific knowledge. It would be a pity indeed to get rid of the accidental and all the delight which it brings, and we must take it with its good and bad. The second rule with regard to the question of firing is to take care that the work is not "stale" when it goes into the kiln. Every one will tell you a different tale about many points connected with glass, just as doctors disagree in every affair of life. In talking over this matter of keeping the colour fresh--even talking it over with one's practical and experienced friends generally--one will sometimes hear the remark that "they don't see that delay can do it much harm;" and when one asks, "Can it do it any good?" the reply will be, "Well, probably it would be as well to fire it soon;" or in the case of mixing, "To use it fresh." Now, if it would be "as well"--which really means "on the safe side"--then that seems a sufficient reason for any reasonable man. But indeed I have always found it one of the chiefest difficulties with pupils to get them to take the most reasonable precautions to _make quite sure_ of _anything_. It is just the same with matters of measurement, although upon these such vital issues depend. How weary one gets of the phrase "it's not far out"--the obvious comment of a reasonable man upon such a remark, of course, being that if it is out _at all_ it's, at any rate, _too_ far out. A French assistant that I had once used always to complain of my demanding (as he expressed it) such "rigorous accuracy." But there are only two ways--to be accurate or inaccurate; and if the former is possible, there is no excuse for the latter. But as to this question of freshness of colour, which is of such paramount importance, I may quote the same authority I used before--that of the _maker of the colour_--to back my own experience and previous conviction on the point, which certainly is that fresh colour, used the same day it is ground and fired the same day it is used, fires better and fires away less than any other. The facts of the case, scientifically, I am assured, are as follows. The pigment contains a large amount of soft glass in a very fine state of division, and the carbonic acid, which all air contains (especially that of workshops), will immediately begin to enter into combination with the alkalis of the glass, throw out the silica, and thus disintegrate what was brought together in the first instance when the glass was made. The result of this is that this intruder (the carbonic acid) has to be driven out again by the heat of the kiln, and is quite likely to disturb the pigment in every possible way in the process of its escape. I have myself sometimes noticed, when some painted work has been laid aside unusually long before firing, some white efflorescence or crystallisation taking place and coming out as a white dust on the painted surface. Now it is not necessary to know here, in a scientific or chemical sense, what has actually taken place. Two things are evident to common sense. One, that the change is organic, and the other that it is unpremeditated; and therefore, on both grounds, it is a thing to avoid, which indeed my friend's scientific explanation sufficiently confirms. It is well, therefore, on all accounts to paint swiftly and continuously, and to fire as soon as you can; and above all things not to let the colour lie about getting stale on the palette. Mix no more for the day than you mean to use; clean your palette every day or nearly so; work up all the colour each time you set your palette, and do not give way to that slovenly and idle practice that is sometimes seen, of leaving a crust of dry colour to collect, perhaps for days or weeks, round the edge of the mass on your palette, and then some day, when the spirit moves you, working this in with the rest, to imperil the safety of your painting. _How to Know when the Glass is Fired Sufficiently._--This is told by the colour as it lies in the kiln--that is, in such a kiln that you can see the glass; but who can describe a colour? You have nothing for this but to buy your experience. But in kilns that are constructed with a peephole, you can also tell by putting in a bright iron rod or other shining object and holding it over the glass so as to see if the glass reflects it. If the pigment is raw it will (if there is enough of it on the glass to cover the surface) prevent the piece of glass from reflecting the rod; but directly it is fired the pigment itself becomes glossy, and then the surface will reflect. This is all a matter of practice; nothing can describe the "look" of a piece of glass that is fired. You must either watch batch after batch for yourself and learn by experience, or get a good kiln-man to point out fired and unfired, and call your attention to the slight shades of colour and glow which distinguish one from the other. _On Taking the Glass out of the Fire._--And so you take the glass out of the fire. In the old kilns you take the fire away from the glass, and leave the glass to cool all night or so; in the new, you remove it and leave it in moderate heat at the side of the kiln till it is cool enough to handle, or nearly cold. And then you hold it up and look at it. CHAPTER VIII The Second Painting--Disappointment with Fired Work--A False Remedy--A Useful Tool--The Needle--A Resource of Desperation--The Middle Course--Use of the Finger--The Second Painting--Procedure. And when you have looked at it, as I said just now you should do, your first thought will be a wish that you had never been born. For no one, I suppose, ever took his first batch of painted glass out of the kiln without disappointment and without wondering what use there is in such an art. For the painting when it went in was grey, and silvery, and sharp, and crisp, and firm, and brilliant. Now all is altered; all the relations of light and shade are altered; the sharpness of every brush-mark is gone, and everything is not only "washed out" to half its depth, but blurred at that. Even if you could get it, by a second painting, to look exactly as it was at first, you think: "What a waste of life! I thought I had done! It was _right_ as it was; I was pleased so far; but now I am tired of the thing; I don't want to be doing it all over again." Well, my dear reader, I cannot tell you a remedy for this state of things--it is one of the conditions of the craft; you must find by experience what pigment, and what glass, and what style of using them, and what amount of fire give the least of these disappointing results, and then make the best of it; and make up your mind to do without certain effects in glass, which you find are unattainable. There is, however, one remedy which I suppose all glass-painters try, but eventually discard. I suppose we have all passed through the stage of working very dark, to allow for the firing-off; and I want to say a word of warning which may prevent many heartaches in this matter. I having passed through them all, there is no reason why others should. Now mark very carefully what follows, for it is difficult to explain, and you cannot afford to let the sense slip by you. I told you that a film left untouched would always come out as a black patch against work that was pierced with the scrub, however slightly. Now, herein lies the difficulty of working with a very thick matt; for if it is thick enough on the cheek and brow of a face to give strong modelling when fired, _then whenever it has passed over the previous outline-painting, for example, in the eyes, mouth, nostrils, &c., you will find that the two together have become too thick for the scrub to move._ Now you do not need, as an artist, to be told that it is fatal to allow _any_ part of your painting to be thus beyond your control; to be obliged to say, "It's too dark, but unfortunately I have no tools that will lighten it--it will not yield to the scrub." However, a certain amount can be done in this direction by using, on the shadows that are _just_ too strong for the scrub, a tool made by grinding down on sandpaper a large hog-hair brush, and, of these, what are called stencil-brushes are as good as any (fig. 45). You do not use this by dragging it over the glass as you drag a scrub, but by _pricking_ the whole of the surface which you wish to lighten. This will make little pinholes all over it, which will be sufficient to let the patch of shadow gently down to the level of the surrounding lighter modelling, and will prevent your dark shadows looking like actual "patches," as we described them doing a little way back. [Illustration: FIG. 45.] Further than this you cannot go: for I cannot at all see how the next process I am to describe can be a good one, though I once thought, as I suppose most do, that it would really solve the difficulty. What I allude to is the use of the needle. _Of Work Etched out with a Needle._--The needle is a very good and useful tool for stained glass, in certain operations, but I am now to speak of it as being used over whole areas _as a substitute for the scrub, in order to deal with a matt too dense for the scrub to penetrate._ The needle will, to be sure, remove such a matt; that is to say, will remove lines out of it, quite clear and sharp, and this, too, out of a matt so dense, that what remains does not fire away much in the kiln. Here is a tempting thing then! to have one's work unchanged by the fire! And if you could achieve this without changing the character of the work for the worse, no doubt this method would be a very fine thing. But let me trace it step by step and try to describe what happens. You have painted your outline and you put a very heavy matt over it. Peril No. 1.--If your matt is so dense that it will not _fire off_, it must very nearly approach the point of density at which it will _fry_. How then about the portions of it which have been painted on, as I have said, over _another_ layer of pigment in the shape of the _outline_? Here is a _danger_. But even supposing that all is safe, and that you have just stopped short of the danger point. You have now your dense, rich, brown matt, with the outline just showing through it. Proceed to model it with the needle. The first stroke will really frighten you; for a flash of silver light will spring along after the point of the needle, so dazzling in contrast to the extreme dark of the matt that it looks as if the plate had been cut in two, while the matt beside it becomes pitch-black by contrast. Well, you go on, and by putting more strokes, and reducing the surrounding darkness generally, you get the drawing to look grey--but you get it to look like a grey _pen-drawing_ or _etching_, not like a painting at all. We will suppose that this seems to you no disadvantage (though I must say, at once, that I think it a very great one); but now you come to the deep shadows; and these, I need hardly say, cut themselves out, more than ever, like dark patches or blots, in the manner already spoken of. You try pricking it with the brush I have described for that operation, and it will not do it; then you resort to the needle itself, and you are startled at the little, hard, glittering specks that come jumping out of the black shadow at each touch. You get a finer needle, and then you sharpen even that on the hone; and perhaps then, by pricking gingerly round the edges of the shadows, you may get the drawing and modelling to melt together fairly well. But beware! for if there is one dot of light too many, the expression of the head goes to the winds. Let us say that such a thing occurs; you have pricked one pinhole too many round the corner of the mouth. What can you do? You take your tracing-brush and try to mend it with a touch of pigment; and so on, and so on; till you timidly say (feeling as if you had been walking among egg-shells for the last hour), "Well, I _think_ it will _do_, and I daren't touch it any more." And supposing by these means you get a head that looks really what you wanted; the work is all what glass-painters call "rotten"; liable to flake off at the least touch; isolated bits of thick crust, cut sheer out from each other, with clear glass between. In short, the thing is a niggling and botching sort of process to my mind, and I hope that the above description is sufficiently life-like to show that I have really given it a good trial myself--with, as a result, the conclusion certainly strongly borne home to me, that the delight of having one's work unchanged by the fire is too dearly purchased at the cost of it. _How to get the greatest degree of Strength into your Painting without Danger._--Short of using a needle then, and a matt that will only yield to that instrument, I would advise, if you want the work strong, that you should paint the matt so that it will just yield, and only just, and that with difficulty, to the scrub; and, before you use this tool, just pass the finger, lightly, backwards and forwards over the matted surface. This will take out a shimmer of light here and there, according to the inequalities of the texture in the glass itself; the first touches of the scrub will not then look so startling and hard as if taken out of the dead, even matt; and also this rubbing of the finger across the surface seems to make the matt yield more easily to the tool. The dust remaining on the surface perhaps helps this; anyhow, this is as far as you can go on the side of strength in the work. You can of course "back" the work, that is, paint on the back as well as the front--a mere film at the back; but this is a method of a rather doubtful nature. The pigment on the back does not fire equally well with that on the front, and when the window is in its place, that side will be, you must bear in mind, exposed to the weather. I have spoken incidentally of rubbing the glass with the finger as a part of painting; but the practice can be carried further and used more generally than I have yet said: the little "pits" and markings on the surface of the glass, which I mentioned when I spoke of the "right and wrong sides" of the material, can be drawn into the service of the window sometimes with very happy effect. Being treated with matt and then rubbed with the finger, they often produce very charming varieties of texture on the glass, which the painter will find many ways of making useful. _Of the Second Painting of Glass after it has been Fired._--So far we have only spoken of the appearance of work after its first fire, and its influence upon choice of method for _first painting_; but there is of course the resource which is the proper subject of this chapter, namely, the second painting. Very small work can be done with one fire; but only very skilful painters can get work, on any large scale, strong enough for one fire to serve, and that only with the use of backing. Of course if very faint tones of shadow satisfy you, the work can be done with one fire; but if it is well fired it must almost of necessity be pale. Some people like it so--it is a matter of taste, and there can be no pronouncement made about it; but if you wish your work to look strong in light and shade--stronger than one painting will make it--I advise you, when the work comes back from the fire and is waxed up for the second time (which, in any case, it assuredly should be, if only for your judgment upon it), to proceed as follows. First, with a tracing-brush, go over all the lines and outlined shadows that seem too weak, and then, when these touches are quite dry, pass a thin matt over the whole, and with stippling-brushes of various sizes, stipple it nearly all away while wet. You will only have about five minutes in which to deal with any one piece of glass in this way, and in the case of a head, for example, it needs a skilful hand to complete it in that short space of time. The best plan is to make several "shots" at it; if you do not hit the mark the first time, you may the second or the third. I said "stipple it nearly all away"; but the amount left must be a matter of taste; nevertheless, you must note that if you do not remove enough to make the work look "silvery," it is in danger of looking "muddy." All the ordinary resources of the painter's art may be brought in here: retouching into the half-dry second matt, dabbing with the finger--in short, all that might be done if the thing were a water-colour or an oil-painting; but it is quite useless to attempt to describe these deftnesses of hand in words: you may use any and every method of modifying the light and shade that occurs to you. CHAPTER IX Of Staining and Aciding--Yellow Stain--Aciding--Caution required in Use--Remedy for Burning--Uses of Aciding--Other Resources of Stained-Glass Work. Yellow stain, or silver stain as some call it, is made in various ways from silver--chloride, sulphate, and nitrate, I understand, are all used. The stain is laid on exactly like the pigment, but at the back of the glass. It does not work very smoothly, and some painters like to mix it with Venice turpentine instead of water to get rid of this defect; whichever you use, keep a separate set of tools and a separate palette for it, and always keep them clean and the stain fresh mixed. Also you should not fire it with so strong a heat, and therefore, of course, you should never fire pigment and stain in the same batch in the kiln; otherwise the stain will probably go much hotter in colour than you wish, or will get muddy, or will "metal" as painters call it--that is, get a horny, burnt-sienna look instead of a clear yellow. _How to Etch the Flash off a Flashed Glass with Acid._--There is only one more process, having to do with painting, which I shall describe, and that is "aciding." By this process you can etch the flash off the flashed glasses where you like. The process is the same as etching--you "stop-out" the parts that you wish to remain, just as in etching; but instead of putting the stopping material over the whole bit of glass and then scratching it off, as you do in copper-plate etching, it is better for the most part to paint the stopping on where you want it, and this is conveniently done with Brunswick black, thinned down with turpentine; if you add a little red lead to it, it does no harm. You then treat it to a bath of fluoric acid diluted with water and placed in a leaden pan; or, if it is only a touch you want, you can get it off with a mop of cotton-wool on a stick, dipped in the undiluted acid; but be careful of the fumes, for they are very acrid and disagreeable to the eyes and nose; take care also not to get the acid on your finger-ends or nails, especially into cuts or sore places. For protection, india-rubber finger-stalls for finger and thumb are very good, and you can get these at any shop where photographic materials are sold. If you do get any of the acid on to your hands or into a cut, wash them with diluted carbonate of soda or diluted ammonia. The acid must be kept in a gutta-percha bottle. When the aciding is done, as far as you want it, the glass must be thoroughly rinsed in several waters; do not leave any acid remaining, or it will continue to act upon the glass. You must also be careful not to use this process in the neighbourhood of any painted work, or, in short, in the neighbourhood of any glass that is of consequence, the fumes from the acid acting very strongly and very rapidly. This process, of course, may be used in many ways: you can, by it, acid out a diaper pattern, red upon white, white upon red; and blue may be treated in the same fashion; the white lights upon steel armour, for instance, may be obtained in this way with very telling effect, getting indeed the beautiful combination of steely blue with warm brown which we admire so in Burne-Jones cartoons; for the brown of the pigment will not show warm on the blue, but will do so directly it passes on to the white of the acided parts. This is the last process I need describe; the many little special refinements to be got by playing games with the lead lines; by thickening and thinning them; by _doubling_ glass, to get depth and intensity, or to blend new tints;--these and such like are the things that any artist _who does his own work and practises his own craft_ can find out, and ought to find out, and is bound to find out, for himself--they are the legitimate reward of the hand and heart labour spent, as a craftsman spends them, upon the material. Suffice it to say that in spite of the great skill which has been employed upon stained-glass, ancient and modern, and employed in enormous amount; and in spite of the great and beautiful results achieved; we may yet look upon stained-glass as an art in which there are still new provinces to explore--walking upon the old paths, guided by the old landmarks, but gathering new flowers by the way. We must now, then, turn our attention to the mechanical processes by which the stained-glass window is finished off. CHAPTER X Leading-Up and Fixing--Setting out the Bench--Relation of Leading to mode of Fixing in the Stone--Process of Fixing--Leading-Up Resumed--Straightening the Lead--The "Lathykin"--The Cutting-Knife--The Nails--The Stopping-Knife--Knocking Up. You first place your cut-line, face upward, upon the bench, and pin it down there. You next cut two "straight-edges" of wood, one to go along the base line of the section you mean to lead up, and the other along the side that lies next to you on the bench as you stand at work; for you always work _from one side_, as you will soon see. And it is important that you should get these straight-edges at a true right angle, testing them carefully with the set-square. Fig. 46 represents a bench set out for leading-up. You must now build the glass together, as a child puts together his puzzle-map, one bit at a time, working from the base corner that is opposite your left hand. But first of all you must place a strip of extra wide and flat lead close against each of your straight-edges, so that the core of the lead corresponds with the outside line of your work. [Illustration: FIG. 46.] It will be right here to explain what relation the extreme outside measurement of your work should bear to the daylight sizes of the openings that it has to fill. I think we may say that, whatever the "mouldings" may be on the stone, there is always a flat piece at exact right angles to the face of the wall in which the window stands, and it is in this flat piece that the groove is cut to receive the glass (fig. 47). [Illustration: FIG. 47.] Now, as the glazed light has to _fill_ the daylight opening, there must obviously be a piece beyond the "daylight" size to go into the stone. By slipping the glazed light in _sideways_, and even, in large lights, by _bending_ it slightly into a bow, you can just get into the stone a light an inch, or nearly so, wider than the opening; but the best way is to use an extra wide lead on the outside of your light, and bend back the outside leaf of it both front and back so that they stand at right angles to the surface of the glass (fig. 48). By this means you can reduce the size of the panel by almost 1/4 of an inch on each side; you can push the panel then, without either bending or slanting it much, up to its groove; and, putting one side as far as it will go _into_ the groove, you can bend back again into their former place the two leaves of the lead on the opposite side; and when you have done that slide _them_ as far as they will go into _their_ groove, and do the same by the opposite pair. You will then have the panel in its groove, with about 1/4 of an inch to hold by and 1/4 of an inch of lead showing. Some people fancy an objection to this; perhaps in very small windows it might look better to have the glass "flush" with the stone; but for myself I like to see a little _showing_ of that outside lead, on to which so many of the leads that cross the glass are fastened. Anyway you must bear the circumstance in mind in fixing down your straight-edges to start glazing the work; and that is why I have made this digression by mentioning now something that properly belongs to fixing. [Illustration: FIG. 48.] Now before beginning to glaze you must stretch and straighten the lead; and this is done as follows (fig. 49--_Frontispiece_). Hold the "calm" of lead in your left hand, and run the finger and thumb of your right hand down the lead so as to get the core all one way and not at all twisted: then, holding one end firmly under your right foot, take tight hold of the other end with your pliers, and pull with nearly all your force in the direction of your right shoulder. Take care not to pull in the direction of your face; for if you do, and the lead breaks, you will break some of your features also. It is very important to be careful that the lead is truly straight and not askew, otherwise, when you use it in leading, the glass will never keep flat. The next operation is to open the lead with a piece of hard wood, such as boxwood or _lignum-vitæ_ (fig. 50), made to your fancy for the purpose, but something like the diagram, which glaziers call a "lathykin" (as I understand it). For cutting the lead you must have a thin knife of good steel. Some use an old dinner-knife, some a palette-knife cut down--either square across the blade or at an angle--it is a matter of taste (fig. 51). [Illustration: FIG. 50.] [Illustration: FIG. 51.] Having laid down your leads A and B (fig. 52), put in the corner piece of glass (No. 1); two of its sides will then be covered, leaving one uncovered. Take a strip of lead and bend it round the uncovered edge, and cut it off at D, so that the end fits close and true against the _core_ of lead A. And you must take notice to cut with a perfectly _vertical_ cut, otherwise one side will fit close and the other will leave a gap. [Illustration: FIG. 52.] In fig. 53 A represents a good joint, B a bad one. Bend it round and cut it off similarly at E. Common sense will tell you that you must get the angle correct by marking it with a slight incision of the knife in its place before you take it on to the bench for the final cut. Slip it in, and push it in nice and tight, and put in piece No. 2. [Illustration: FIG. 53] But now look at your cut-line. Do you see that the inner edges of pieces 2, 3, and 4 all run in a fairly smooth curve, along which a _continuous_ piece of lead will bend quite easily? Leave, then, that edge, and put in, first, the leads which divide No. 2 from No. 3, and No. 3 from No. 4. Now don't forget! the long lead has to come along the inside edges of all three; so the leaf of it will overlap those three edges nearly 1/8 of an inch (supposing you are using lead of 1/4 inch dimension). You must therefore cut the two little bits we are now busy upon _1/8 of an inch short of the top edge of the glass_ (fig. 54), for the inside leads only _meet_ each other; it is only the _outside_ lead that overlaps. [Illustration: FIG. 54.] _How the Loose Glass is held in its place while Leading._--This is done with nails driven into the glazing table, close up against the edge of the lead; and the best of all for the purpose are bootmakers' "lasting nails"; therefore no more need be said about the matter; "use no other" (fig. 55). [Illustration: FIG. 55.] And you tap them in with two or three sharp taps; not of a hammer, for you do not want to waste time taking up a fresh tool, but with the end of your leading-knife which is called a "stopping-knife" (fig. 56), and which lead workers generally make for themselves out of an oyster-knife, by bending the blade to a convenient working angle for manipulating the lead, and graving out lines in the lower part of the handle, into which they run solder, terminating it in a solid lump at the butt-end which forms an excellent substitute for a hammer. [Illustration: FIG. 56.] Now as soon as you have got the bits 1, 2, 3, 4 in their places, with the leads F, G and H, I between them, you can take out the nails along the line K, F, H, M, one by one as you come to them, starting from K; and put along that line one lead enclosing the whole lot, replacing the nails outside it to keep all firm as you work; and you must note that you should look out for opportunities to do this always, whenever there is a long line of the cut-line without any abrupt corners in it. You will thus save yourself the cutting (and afterwards the soldering) of unnecessary joints; for it is always good to save labour where you can without harm to the work; and in this case the work is all the better for it. Now, when you have thus continued the leading all the way across the panel, put on the other outside lead, and so work on to a finish. When the opposite, outside lead is put on, remove the nails and take another straight-edge and put it against the lead, and "knock it up" by hitting the straight-edge until you get it to the exact size; at the same time taking your set-square and testing the corners to see that all is at right angles. Leave now the panel in its place, with the straight-edges still enclosing it, and solder off the joints. CHAPTER XI Soldering--Handling the Leaded Panel--Cementing--Recipe for Cement--The Brush--Division of Long Lights into Sections--How Joined when Fixed--Banding--Fixing--Chipping out the Old Glazing--Inserting the New and Cementing. If the leads have got _tarnished_ you may brush them over with the wire brush (fig. 57), which glaziers call a "scratch-card"; but this is a wretched business and need never be resorted to if you work with good lead and work "fresh and fresh," and finish as you go, not letting the work lie about and get stale. Take an old-fashioned tallow "dip" candle, and put a little patch of the grease over each joint, either by rubbing the candle itself on it, or by melting some of it in a saucepan and applying it with a brush. Then take your soldering-iron (fig. 58) and get it to the proper heat, which you must learn by practice, and proceed to "tin" it by rubbing it on a sheet of tin with a little solder on it, and also some resin and a little glass-dust, until the "bit" (which is of copper) has a bright tin face. Then, holding the stick of solder in the left hand, put the end of it down close to the joint you wish to solder, and put the end of the iron against it, "biting off" as it were, but really _melting_ off, a little bit, which will form a liquid drop upon the joint. Spread this drop so as to seal up the joint nice and smooth and even, and the thing is done. Repeat with all the joints; then turn the panel over and do the opposite side. [Illustration: FIG. 57.] [Illustration: FIG. 58.] _How to Handle Leaded Lights._--I said "turn the panel over." But that brings to mind a caution that you need about the handling of leaded lights. You must not--as I once saw a man do--start to hold them as a waiter does a tray. You must note that thin glass in the sheet and also leaded lights, especially before cementing, are not rigid, and cannot be handled as if they were panels of wood; you must take care, when carrying them, or when they lean against the wall, to keep them as nearly upright as they will safely stand, and the inside one leaning against a board, and not bearing its own weight. And in laying them on the bench or in lifting them off it, you must first place them so that the middle line of them corresponds with the edge of the bench, or table, and then turn them on that as an axis, quickly, so that they do not bear their own weight longer than necessary (figs. 59 and 60). _How to Cement a Leaded Light._--The next process is the cementing of the light so as to fill up the grooves of the lead and make all weather-proof. This is done with a mixture composed as follows:-- Whitening, 2/3 to plaster of Paris 1/3; add a mixture of equal quantities of boiled linseed-oil and spirit of turpentine to make a paste about as thick as treacle. Add a little red lead to help to harden it, some patent dryer to cause it to dry, and lamp-black to colour. This must be put in plenty on to the surface of the panel and well scrubbed into the joints with a hard fibre brush; an ordinary coarse "grass brush" or "bass brush," with wooden back, as sold for scrubbing brushes at the oil shops, used in all directions so as to rub the stuff into every joint. But you must note that if you have "plated" (_i.e._ doubled) any of the glass you must, before cementing, _putty_ those places. Otherwise the cement may probably run in between the two, producing blotches which you have no means of reaching in order to remove them. [Illustration: FIG. 59.] You can, if you like, clean away all the cement along the edges of the leads; but it is quite easy to be too precise and neat in the matter and make the work look hard. If you do it, a blunted awl will serve your turn. [Illustration: FIG. 60.] One had better mention everything, and therefore I will here say that, of course, a large light must be made in sections; and these should not exceed four feet in height, and less is better. In fixing these in their place when the window is put up (an extra wide flat lead being used at the top and bottom of each section), they are made to overlap; and if you wish the whole drainage of the window to pass into the building, of course you will put your section thus--(fig. 61 A); while if you wish the work to be weather-tight you will place it thus--(fig. 61 B). It is just as well to make every question clear if one can, and therefore I mention this. Most people like their windows weather-tight, and, of course, will make the overlapping lead the top one; but it's a free country, and I don't pretend to dictate, content if I make the situation clear to you, leaving you to deal with it according to your own fancy. All is now done except the banding. [Illustration: FIG. 61 A.] [Illustration: FIG. 61 B.] _How to Band a Leaded Light._--Banding means the putting on of the little ties of copper wire by which the window has to be held to the iron crossbars that keep it in its place. These ties are simply short lengths of copper wire, generally about four inches long, but varying, of course, with the size of the bar that you mean to use; and these are to be soldered vertically (fig. 62) on to the face of the light at any convenient places along the line where the bar will cross. In fixing the window, these wires are to be pulled tight round the bar and twisted up with pliers, and the twisted end knocked down flat and neat against the bar. And this is the very last operation in the making of a stained-glass window. It now only remains to instruct you as to what relates to the fixing of it in its place. _How to Fix a Window in its Place._--There is, almost always, a groove in the stonework to receive the glass; and, except in the case of an unfinished building, this is, of course, occupied by some form of plain glazing. You must remove this by chipping out with a small mason's chisel the cement with which it is fixed in the groove, and common sense will tell you to begin at the bottom and work upwards. This done, untwist the copper bands from the bars and put your own glass in its place, re-fixing the bars (or new ones) in the places you have determined on to suit your design and to support the glass, and fixing your glass to them in the way described, and pointing the whole with good cement. The method of inserting the new glass is described at p. 135. [Illustration: FIG. 62.] But that it is good for a man to feel the satisfaction of knowing his craft thoroughly there would be no need to go into this, which, after all, is partly masons' work. But I, for my part, cannot understand the spirit of an artist who applies his art to a craft purpose and has not, at least, a strong _wish_ to know all that pertains to it. PART II CHAPTER XII Introductory--The Great Questions--Colour--Light--Architectural Fitness--Limitations--Thought--Imagination--Allegory. The foregoing has been written as a handbook to use at the bench, and therefore I have tried to keep myself strictly to describing the actual processes and the ordinary practice and routine of stained-glass work. But can we leave the subject here? If we were speaking of even the smallest of the minor arts and crafts, we should wish to say something of why they are practised and how they should be practised, of the principles that guide them, of the spirit in which they should be undertaken, of the place they occupy in human affairs and in our life on earth. How much more then in an Art like this, which soars to the highest themes, which dares to treat, which is required to treat, of things Heavenly and Earthly, of the laws of God, and of the nature, duty, and destinies of man; and not only so, but must treat of these things in connection with, and in subservience to, the great and dominant Art of Architecture? We must not shrink, then, from saying all that is in our mind: we must ask ourselves the great questions of all art. We must investigate the How of them, and even face the Why. Therefore here (however hard it be to do it) something must be said of such great general principles as those of colour, of light, of architectural fitness, of limitations, of thought and imagination and allegory; for all these things belong to stained-glass work, and it is the right or wrong use of these high things that makes windows to be good or to be bad. Let us, dear student, take the simplest things first, not because they are the easiest (though they perhaps are so), but because they will gradually, I hope, warm up our wits to the point of considering these matters, and so prepare the way for what is hardest of all. And I think a good subject to begin with is that of Economy generally, taking into consideration both time and materials. CHAPTER XIII Of Economy--The Englishman's Wastefulness--Its Good Side--Its Excess--Difficulties--A Calculation--Remedies. Those who know work in various countries must surely have arrived at the conclusion that the Englishman is the most wasteful being on the face of the globe! He only thinks of getting through the work, or whatever it may be, that he has purposed to himself, attaining the end immediately in view in the speediest manner possible without regard to anything else, lavish of himself and of the stuff he works with. The picture drawn by Robert Louis Stevenson in "Treasure Island" of John Silver and his pirates, when about to start on their expedition, throwing the remainder of their breakfast on the bivouac fire, careless whence fresh supplies might come, is "English all over." This is the character of the race. It has its good side, this grand disdain--it wins Battles, Victoria Crosses, Humane Society's medals, and other things well worth the winning; brings into port many a ship that would else be lost or abandoned, and, year in, year out, sends to sea the lifeboats on our restless line of coast. It would be something precious indeed that would be worth the loss of it; but there is a medium in all things, and when a master sees--as one now at rest once told me he often had seen--a cutter draw his diamond down a bit of the margin out of which he had just cut his piece, in order to make it small enough to throw away, without being ashamed, under the bench, he must sometimes, I should think, wish the man were employed on some warlike or adventurous trade, and that he had a Hollander or Italian in his place, who would make a whole window out of what the other casts away. At the same time, it must be confessed that this is a very difficult matter to arrange; and it is only fair to the workman to admit that under existing conditions of work and demand, and even in many cases of the buildings in which the work is done, the way does not seem clear to have the whole of what might be wished in this matter. I will point out the difficulties against it. First, unless some system could be invented by which the amount of glass issued to any workman could be compared easily and simply with the area of glazed work cut from it, the workman has no inducement to economise; for, no record being kept of the glass saved, he knows that he will get no credit by saving, while the extra time that he spends on economy will make him seem a slower workman, and so he would be blamed. Then, again, it is impossible to see the colour of glass as it lies on the bench; he has little choice but to cut each piece out of the large sheet; for if he got a clutter of small bits round him till he happened to want a small bit, he would never be able to get on. There is no use, observe, in niggling and cheese-paring. There should be a just balance made between the respective values of the man's time and the material on which it is spent; and to this end I now give some calculations to show these--calculations rather startling, considered in the light of what one knows of the ordinary practices and methods. The antique glasses used in stained-glass work vary in price from 1s. a foot to 5s., the weight per foot being about 32 oz. The wage of the workmen who have to deal with this costly material varies from 8d. to 1s. per hour. The price of the same glass thrown under the bench, and known as "cullet," is £1 per TON. Let us now do a little simple arithmetic, which, besides its lesson to the workers, may, I think, come as a revelation even to some employers who, content with getting work done quickly, may have hardly realised the price paid for that privilege. 1 ton = 20 cwt. x 4 -- 80 qrs. x 28 --- 640 32 oz. = 2 lb., 160 ----- therefore ÷ 2) 2240 lbs. ----- 1120 = number of square feet in a ton. The worth of this at 1s. a foot (whites) is:-- ÷ 20) 1120 ( £56 PER TON. 100 ---- 120 120 At 2s. 6d. per foot (the best of pot-metal blues, and rubies generally):-- 56 56 28 --- 2-1/2 times 56 = 140 £140 PER TON. At 5s. a foot (gold-pink, and pale pink, venetian, and choice glasses generally):-- 56 x 5 --- £280 PER TON. Therefore these glasses are worth respectively--56 times, 140 times, and 280 times as much upon the bench as they are when thrown below it! And yet I ask you--employer or employed--is it not the case that, often--shall we not say "generally"?--in any given job as much goes below as remains above if the work is in fairly small pieces? Is not the accompanying diagram a fair illustration (fig. 63) of about the average relation of the shape cut to its margin of waste? [Illustration: FIG. 63.] Employers estimate this waste variously. I have heard it placed as high as two-thirds; that is to say, that the glass, when leaded up, only measured one-third of the material used, or, in other words, that the workman had wasted twice as much as he used. This, I admit, was told me in my character as _customer_, and by way of explaining what I considered a high charge for work; but I suppose that no one with experience of stained-glass work would be disposed to place the amount of waste lower than one-half. Now a good cutter will take between two and three hours to cut a square foot of average stained-glass work, fairly simple and large in scale; that is to say, supposing his pay one shilling an hour--which is about the top price--the material he deals with is about the same value as his time if he is using the cheapest glasses only. If this then is the case when the highest-priced labour is dealing only with the lowest-priced material, we may assume it as the general rule for stained-glass cutting, _on the average_, that "_labour is less costly than the material on which it is spent_," and I would even say much less costly. But it is not to be supposed that the little more care in avoiding waste which I am advocating would reduce his speed of work more than would be represented by two pence or three pence an hour. But I fear that all suggestions as to mitigating this state of things are of little use. The remedy is to play into each other's hands by becoming, all of us, complete, all-round craftsmen; breaking down all the unnatural and harmful barriers that exist between "artists" and "workmen," and so fitting ourselves to take an intelligent interest in both the artistic and economic side of our work. The possibility of this all depends on the personal relations and personal influence in any particular shop--and employers and employed must worry the question out between them. I am content with pointing out the facts. CHAPTER XIV Of Perfection--In Little Things--Cleanliness--Alertness--But not Hurry--Realising your Conditions--False Lead-Lines--Shutting out Light--Bars--Their Number--Their Importance--Precedence--Observing your Limitations--A Result of Complete Training--The Special Limitations of Stained-Glass--Disguising the Lead-Line--No full Realism--No violent Action--Self-Effacement--No Craft-Jugglery--Architectural Fitness founded on Architectural Knowledge--Seeing Work _in Situ_--Sketching in Glass--The Artistic Use of the Lead--Stepping Back--Accepting Bars and Leads--Loving Care--White Spaces to be Interesting--Bringing out the "Quality" of the Glass--Spotting and Dappling--"Builders-Glazing" _versus_ Modern Restoring. The second question of principle that I would dwell upon is that of _perfection_. Every operation in the arts should be perfect. It has to be so in most arts, from violin-playing to circus-riding, before the artist dare make his bow to the public. Placing on one side the question of the higher grades of art which depend upon special talent or genius--the great qualities of imagination, composition, form and colour, which belong to mastership--I would now, in this book, intended for students, dwell upon those minor things, the doing of which well or ill depends only upon good-will, patience, and industry. Anyone can wash a brush clean; any one can keep the colour on his palette neat; can grind it all up each time it is used; can cover it over with a basin or saucer when his work is over; and yet these things are often neglected, though so easy to do. The painter will _neglect_ to wash out his brush; and it will be clogged with pigment and gum, get dry, and stick to the palette, and the points of the hair will tear and break when it is removed again by the same careless hand that left it there. Another will leave portions of his colour, caked and dry, at the edges of his palette for weeks, till all is stale; and then, when the spirit moves him, will some day work this in, full of dirt and dust, with the fresher colour. Everything, everything should be done well! From the highest forms of painting to tying up a parcel or washing out a brush;--all tools should be clean at all times, the handles as well as the hair--there is _no excuse_ for the reverse; and if your tools are dirty, it is by the same defect of your character that will make you slovenly in your work. Painting does not demand the same actual _swiftness_ as some other arts; nevertheless each touch that you place upon the glass, though it may be deliberate, should be deft, athletic, perfect in itself; the nerves braced, the attention keen, and the powers of soul and body as much on the alert as they would need to be in violin-playing, fencing, or dissecting. This is not to advocate _hurry_. That is another matter altogether, for which also there is no excuse. Never hurry, or ask an assistant to hurry. Windows are delayed, even promises broken (though that can scarce be defended), there may be "ire in celestial minds"; but that is all forgotten when we are dead; and we soon shall be, but not the window. Another thing to note, which applies generally throughout all practice, is the wisdom, of getting as near as you can to your conditions. For instance, the bits of glass in a window are separated by lead lines; pitch-black, therefore, against the light of day outside. Now, when waxed up on the plate in the shop for painting, these will be separated by thin cracks of light, and in this condition they are usually painted. Can't you do better than that? Don't you think it's worth while spending half-an-hour to paint false lead lines on the back of the plate? A ha'p'orth of lamp-black from the oil-shop, with a little water and treacle and a long-haired brush, like a coach-painter's, will do it for you (see Plate XIII.). Another thing: when the window is in its place, each _light_ will be surrounded with stone or brick, which, although not so black as the lead lines, will tell as a strong dark against the glass. See therefore that while you are painting, your glass is surrounded by dark, or at any rate not by clear, glittering light. Strips of brown paper, pinned down the sides of the light you are painting, will get the thing quite near to its future conditions. As you have been told, the work is fixed in its place by bars of iron, and these ought by no means to be despised or ignored or disguised, as if they were a troublesome necessity: you must accept fully and willingly the conditions of your craft; you must pride yourself upon so accepting them, knowing that they are the wholesome checks upon your liberty and the proper boundaries of the field in which you have your appointed work. There should, in any light more than a foot wide, be bars at every foot throughout the length of the light; and these bars should be 1/2 inch, 3/4 inch, or 1 inch in section, according to the weight of the work. The question then arises: Should the bars be set out in their places on the paper, before you begin to draw the cartoon, or should you be perfectly free and unfettered in the drawing and then _make_ the bars fit in afterwards, by moving them up and down as may be needed to avoid cutting across the faces, hands, &c. I find more difficulty in answering this than any other _technical_ question in this book. I do not think it can be answered with a hard and fast "Yes" or "No." It depends on the circumstances of the case. But I incline towards the side of making it the rule to put the bars in first, and adapt the composition to them. You may think this a surprising view for an artist to take. "Surely," you will say, "that is putting the cart before the horse, and making the more important thing give way to the less!" But my feeling is that reasonable limitations of any kind ought never to be considered as hindrances in a work of art. They are part of the problem, and it is only a spirit of dangerous license which will consider them as bonds, or will find them irksome, or wish to break them through. Stained-glass is not an independent art. It is an accessory to architecture, and any limitations imposed by structure and architectural propriety or necessity are most gravely to be considered and not lightly laid on one side. And in this connection it must be remembered that the bars cannot be made to go _anywhere_ to fit a freely designed composition: they must be approximately at certain distances on account of use; and they must be arranged with regard to each other in the whole of the window on account of appearance. You might indeed find that, in any single light, it is quite easy to arrange them at proper and serviceable distances, without cutting across the heads or hands of the figures; but it is ten chances to one that you can get them to do so, and still be level with each other, throughout a number of lights side by side. The best plan, I think, is to set them out on the side of the cartoon-paper before you begin, but not so as to notice them; then first roughly strike out the position your most important groups or figures are to occupy, and, before you go on with the serious work of drawing, see if the bars cut awkwardly, and, if they do, whether a slight shifting of them will clear all the important parts; it often will, and then all is well; but I do not shrink from slightly altering even the position of a head or hand, rather than give a laboured look to what ought to be simple and straightforward by "coaxing" the bars up and down all over the window to fit in with the numerous heads and hands. If, by the way, I see fit in any case to adopt the other plan, and make my composition first, placing the bars afterwards to suit it, I never allow myself to shift them from the level that is convenient and reasonable for anything _except_ a head; I prefer even that they should cut across a hand, for instance, rather than that they should be placed at inconvenient intervals to avoid it. The principle of observing your limitations is, I do not hesitate to say, the most important, and far the most important, of all principles guiding the worker in the right practising of any craft. The next in importance to it is the right exercise of all legitimate freedom _within_ those limitations. I place them in this order, because it is better to stop short, by nine-tenths, of right liberty, than to take one-tenth of wrong license. But by rights the two things should go together, and, with the requisite skill and training to use them, constitute indeed the whole of the practice of a craft. Modern division of labour is much against both of these things, the observance of which charms us so in the ancient Gothic Art of the Middle Ages. For, since those days, the craft has never been taught as a whole. Reader! this book cannot teach it you--no book, can; but it can make you--and it was written with the sole object of making you--_wish_ to be taught it, and determine to be taught it, if you intend to practise stained-glass work at all. Modern stained-glass work is done by numerous hands, each trained in a special skill--to design, or to paint, or to cut, or to glaze, or to fire, or to cement--but none are taught to do all; very few are taught to do more than one or two. How, then, can any either use rightful liberty or observe rightful limitations? They do not know their craft, upon which these things depend. And observe how completely also these two things depend upon each other. You may be rightly free, _because_ you have rightly learnt obedience; you know your limitations, and, _therefore_, you may be trusted to think, and feel, and act for yourself. This is what makes old glass, and indeed all old art, so full of life, so full of interest, so full of enjoyment--in places, and right places, so full even of "fun." Do you think the charming grotesques that fill up every nook and corner sometimes in the minor detail of mediæval glass or carving could ever be done by the method of a "superior person" making a drawing of them, and an inferior person laboriously translating them in _facsimile_ into the material? They are what they are because they were the spontaneous and allowed license and play of a craftsman who knew his craft, and could be trusted to use it wisely, at any rate in all minor matters. THE LIMITATIONS OF STAINED-GLASS. The limitations of stained-glass can only be learnt at the bench, and by years of patient practice and docile service; but it may be well to mention some of them. _You must not disguise your lead line._ You must accept it willingly, as a limitation of your craft, and make it contribute to the beauty of the whole. "But I have a light to do of the 'Good Shepherd,' and I want a landscape and sky, and how ugly lead lines look in a pale-blue sky! I get them like shapes of cloud, and still it cuts the sky up till it looks like 'random-rubble' masonry." Therefore large spaces of pale sky are "taboo," they will not do for glass, and you must modify your whole outlook, your whole composition, to suit what _will_ do. If you must have sky, it must be like a Titian sky--deep blue, with well-defined masses of cloud--and you must throw to the winds resolutely all idea of attempting to imitate the softness of an English sky; and even then it must not be in a large mass: you can always break it up with branched-work of trees, or with buildings. _There should be no full realism of any kind._ _No violent action must assert itself in a window._ I do not say that there must not, in any circumstances, be any violent action--the subject may demand it; but, if so, it must be so disguised by the craftsmanship of the work, or treated so decoratively, or so mixed up with the background or surroundings, that you do not see a figure in violent action starting prominently out from the window as you stand in the church. But, after all, this is a thing of artistic sense and discretion, and no rules can be formulated. The Parthenon frieze is of figures in rapid movement. Yet what repose! And in stained-glass you must aim at repose. Remember,--it is an accessory to architecture; and who is there that does not want repose in architecture? Name me a great building which does not possess it? How the architects must turn in their graves, or, if living, shake in their shoes, when they see the stained-glass man turned into their buildings, to display himself and spread himself abroad and blow his trumpet! Efface yourself, my friend; sink yourself; illustrate the building; consider its lines and lights and shades; enrich it, complete it, make people happier to be in it. _There must be no craft-jugglery in stained-glass._ The art must set the craft simple problems; it must not set tasks that can only be accomplished by trickery or by great effort, disproportioned to the importance of the result. But, indeed, you will naturally get the habit of working according to this rule, and other reasonable rules, if you yourself work at the bench--all lies in that. _There must be nothing out of harmony with the architecture._ And, therefore, you must know something of architecture, not in order to imitate the work of the past and try to get your own mistaken for it, but to learn the love and reverence and joy of heart of the old builders, so that your spirit may harmonise with theirs. _Do not shrink from the trouble and expense of seeing the work_ in situ, _and then, if necessary, removing it for correction and amendment._ If you have a large window, or a series of windows, to do, it is often not a very great matter to take a portion of one light at least down and try it in its place. I have done it very often, and I can assure you it is well worth while. OF MAKING A SKETCH IN GLASS. But there is another thing that may help you in this matter, and that is to sketch out the colour of your window in small pieces of glass--in fact, to make a scale-sketch of it in glass. A scale of one inch to a foot will do generally, but all difficult or doubtful combinations of colour should be sketched larger--full size even--before you venture to cut. _Work should be kept flat by leading._ One of the main _artistic_ uses of the leadwork in a window is that, if properly used, it keeps the work flat and in one plane, and allows far more freedom in the conduct of your picture, permitting you to use a degree of realism and fulness of treatment greater than you could do without it. Work may be done, where this limitation is properly accepted and used, which would look vulgar without it; and on the other hand, the most Byzantine rigidity may be made to look vulgar if the lead line is misused. I have seen glass of this kind where the work was all on one plane, and where the artist had so far grasped proper principles as to use thick leads, but had _curved these leads in and out across the folds of the drapery as if they followed its ridges and hollows_--the thing becoming, with all its good-will to accept limitations, almost more vulgar than the discredited "Munich-glass" of a few years ago, which hated and disguised the lead lines. _You must step back to look at your work as often and as far as you can._ _Respect your bars and lead lines, and let them be strong and many._ _Every bit of glass in a window should look "cared for."_ If there is a lot of blank space that you "don't know how to fill," be sure your design has been too narrowly and frugally conceived. I do not mean to say that there may not be spaces, and even large spaces, of plain quarry-glazing, upon which your subject with its surrounding ornament may be planted down, as a rich thing upon a plain thing. I am thinking rather of a case where you meet with some sudden lapse or gap in the subject itself or in its ornamental surroundings. This is apt specially to occur where it is one which leads rather to pictorial treatment, and where, unless you have "canopy" or "tabernacle" work, as it is called, surrounding and framing everything, you find yourself at a loss how to fill the space above or below. Very little can be said by way of general rule about this; each case must be decided on its merits, and we cannot speak without knowing them. But two things may be said: First, that it is well to be perfectly bold (as long as you are perfectly sincere), and not be afraid, merely because they are unusual, of things that you really would like to do if the window were for yourself. There are no hard and fast rules as to what may or may not be done, and if you are a craftsman and designer also--as the whole purpose of this book is to tell you you must be--many methods will suggest themselves of making your glass look interesting. The golden rule is to handle every bit of it yourself, and then you will _be_ interested in the ingenuity of its arrangement; the cutting of it into little and big bits; the lacework of the leads; thickening and thinning these also to get bold contrasts of strong and slender, of plain and intricate; catching your pearly glass like fish, in a net of larger or smaller mesh; for, bear in mind always that this question relates almost entirely to the _whiter_ glasses. Colour has its own reason for being there, and carries its own interest; but the most valuable piece of advice that I can think of in regard to stained-glass _treatment_ (apart from the question of subject and meaning) is to _make your white spaces interesting_. The old painters felt this when they diapered their quarry-glazing and did such grisaille work as the "Five Sisters" window at York. Every bit of this last must have been put together and painted by a real craftsman delighting in his work. The drawing is free and beautiful; the whole work is like jewellery, the colour scheme delightfully varied and irregular. The work was loved: each bit of glass was treated on its merits as it passed through hand. Working in this way all things are lawful; you may even put a thin film of "matt" over any piece to lower it in tone and give it richness, or to bring out with emphasis some quality of its texture. Some bits will have lovely streaks and swirling lines and bands in them--"reamy," as glass-cutters call it--or groups of bubbles and spots, making the glass like agate or pebble; and a gentle hand will rub a little matt or film over these, and then finger it partly away to bring out its quality, just as a jeweller foils a stone. This is quite a different thing from smearing a window all over with dirt to make it a sham-antique; and where it is desirable to lower the tone of any white for the sake of the window, and where no special beauties of texture exist, it is better, I think, to matt it and then take out simple _patterns_ from the matt: not _outlined_ at all, but spotted and streaked in the matt itself, chequered and petalled and thumb-marked, just as nature spots and stripes and dapples, scatters daisies on the grass and snowflakes in the air, and powders over with chessboard chequers and lacings and "oes and eyes of light," the wings of butterflies and birds. So man has always loved to work when he has been let to choose, and when nature has had her way. Such is the delightful art of the basket and grass-cloth weaver of the Southern seas; of the ancient Cyprian potter, the Scandinavian and the Celt. It never dies; and in some quiet, merciful time of academical neglect it crops up again. Such is the, often delightful, "builders-glazing" of the "carpenters-Gothic" period, or earlier, when the south transept window at Canterbury, and the east and west windows at Cirencester, and many such like, were rearranged with old materials and new by rule of thumb and just as the glazier "thought he would." Heaven send us nothing worse done through too much learning! I daresay he shouldn't have done it; but as it came to him to do, as, probably, he was ordered to do it, we may be glad he did it just so. In the Canterbury window, for instance, no doubt much of the old glass never belonged to that particular window; it may have been, sinfully, brought there from windows where it did belong. At Cirencester there are numbers of bits of canopy and so forth, delightful fifteenth-century work, exquisitely beautiful, put in as best they could be; no doubt from some mutilated window where the figures had been destroyed--for, if my memory serves me, most of them have no figures beneath--and surrounded by little chequered work, and stripes and banding of the glaziers' own fancy. A modern restorer would have delighted to supply sham-antique saints for them, imitating fifteenth-century work (and deceiving nobody), and to complete the mutilated canopies by careful matching, making the window entirely correct and uninteresting and lifeless and accomplished and forbidding. The very blue-bottles would be afraid to buzz against it; whereas here, in the old church, with the flavour of sincerity and simplicity around them, at one with the old carving and the spirit of the old time, they glitter with fresh feeling, and hang there, new and old together, breaking sunlight; irresponsible, absurd, and delightful. CHAPTER XV A Few Little Dodges--A Clumsy Tool--A Substitute--A Glass Rack--An Inconvenient Easel--A Convenient Easel--A Waxing-up Tool--An Easel with Movable Plates--Making the most of a Room--Handling Cartoons--Cleanliness--Dust--The Selvage Edge--Drying a "Badger"--A Comment. Here, now, follow some little practical hints upon work in general; mere receipts; description of time-saving methods and apparatus which I have separated from the former part of the book; partly because they are mostly exceptions to the ordinary practice, and partly because they are of general application, the common-sense of procedure, and will, I hope, after you have learnt from the former parts of the book the individual processes and operations, help you to marshal these, in order and proportion, so as to use them to the greatest advantage and with the best results. And truly our stained-glass methods are most wasteful and bungling. The ancient Egyptians, they say, made glass, and I am sure some of our present tools and apparatus date from the time of the Pyramids. A CLUMSY KILN-FEEDER. What shall we say, for instance, of this instrument (fig. 64), used for loading some forms of kiln? [Illustration: FIG. 64.] The workman takes the ring-handle in his right hand, rests the shaft in the crook of his left elbow, puts the fork under an iron plate loaded with glass and weighing about forty pounds, and then, with tug and strain, lifts it, ready to slip off and smash at any moment, and, grunting, transfers it to the kiln. A little mechanical appliance would save nine-tenths of the labour, a stage on wheels raised or lowered at will (a thing which surely should not be hard to invent) would bring it from the bench to the kiln, and _then_, if needs be, and no better method could be found, the fork might be used to put it in. Meanwhile, as a temporary step in the right direction, I illustrate a little apparatus invented by Mr. Heaton, which, with the tray made of some lighter substance than iron, of which he has the secret, decreases the labour by certainly one-third, and I think a half (fig. 65). [Illustration: FIG. 65.] It is indeed only a sort of half-way house to the right thing, but, tested one against the other with equal batches of plates, its use is certainly less laborious than that of the fork. And that is a great gain; for the consequence of these rough ways is that the kiln-man, whom we want to be a quiet, observant man, with plenty of leisure and with all his strength and attention free to watch the progress of a process or experiment, like a chemist in his laboratory, has often two-thirds of it distracted by the stress of needless work which is only fit for a navvy, and the only tendency of which can be towards turning him into one. [Illustration: FIG. 66.] A GLASS-RACK FOR WASTE PIECES. Then the cutter, who throws away half the stuff under his bench! How easy it would be, if things were thought of from the beginning and the place built for the work, to have such width of bench and space of window that, along the latter, easily and comfortably within reach, should run stages, tier above tier, of strong sheet or thin plate glass, sloping at such an angle that the cuttings might lie along them against the light, with a fillet to stop them from falling off. Then it would be a pleasure, as all handy things are, for the workman to put his bits of glass there, and when he wanted a piece of similar colour, to raise his head and choose one, instead of wastefully cutting a fresh piece out of the unbroken sheet, or wasting his time rummaging amongst the bits on the bench. A stage on the same principle for _choosing_ glass is illustrated in fig. 67. But it is in easels that improvement seems most wanted and would be most easy, and here I really must tell you a story. AN INCONVENIENT EASEL. Having once some very large lights to paint, against time, the friends in whose shop I was to work (wishing to give me every advantage and to _save time_), had had special easels made to take in the main part of each light at once. But an "Easel," in stained-glass work, meaning always the single slab of plate-glass in a wooden frame, these were of that type. I forget their exact size and could hazard no guess at their weight, but it took four men to get one from the ground on to the bench. Why, I wanted it done a dozen times an hour! and should have wished to be able to do it at any moment. Instead of that it was, "Now then, Bill; ease her over!" "Steady!" "Now lift!" "All together, boys!" and so forth. I wonder there wasn't a strike! But did no one, then, ever see in a club or hotel a plate-glass window about as big as a billiard-table, and a slim waiter come up to it, and, with a polite "Would you like the window open, sir?" quietly lift it with one hand? [Illustration: FIG. 67.] A CONVENIENT EASEL. Fig. 68 is a diagram of the kind of easel I would suggest. It can either stand on the bench or on the floor, and with the touch of a hand can be lifted, weighing often well over a hundredweight, to any height the painter pleases, till it touches the roof, enabling him to see at any moment the whole of his work at a distance and against the sky, which one would rather call an absolute necessity than a mere convenience or advantage. Some of these things were thought out roughly by myself, and have been added to and improved from time to time by my painters and apprentices, a matter which I shall say a word on by-and-by, when we consider the relations which should exist between these and the master. AN IMPROVED TOOL FOR WAXING-UP. Meanwhile here is another little tool (fig. 69), the invention of one of my youngest "hands" (and heads), and really a praiseworthy invention, though indeed a simple and self-evident matter enough. The usual tool for waxing-up is (1) a strip of glass, (2) a penknife, (3) a stick of wood. The thing most to be wished for in whatever is used being, of course, that it _should retain the heat_. This youth argued: "If they use copper for soldering-bits because it retains heat so well, why not use copper for the waxing-up tool? besides, it can be made into a pen which will hold more wax." [Illustration: FIG. 68.] [Illustration: FIG. 69.] So said, so done; nothing indeed to make a fuss about, but part of a very wholesome spirit of wishing to work with handy tools economically, instead of blundering and wasting. AN EASEL WITH MOVABLE PLATES. But to return for a moment to the easel. I find it very convenient not to have it made all of one plate of glass, but to divide it so that about four plates make the whole easel of five feet high. These plates slip in grooves, and can be let in either at the top or bottom, the latter being then stopped by a batten and thumbscrews. By this means a light of any length can be painted in sections without a break. For supposing you work from below upwards, and have done the first five feet of the window, take out all the glass except the top plate, _shift this down to the bottom_, and place three empty plates above it, and you can join the upper work to the lower by the sample of the latter left in its place to start you. HOW TO MAKE THE MOST OF A ROOM. The great point is to be able to get away as far as you can from your work. And I advise you, if your room is small, to have a fair-sized mirror (a cheval-glass) and place it at the far end of your room opposite the easel where you are painting, and then, standing close by the side of your easel, look at your work in the mirror. This will double the distance at which you see it, and at the same time present it to you reversed; which is no disadvantage, for you then see everything under a fresh aspect and so with a fresh eye. Of course, by the use of two mirrors, if they be large enough, you can put your work away to any distance. You must have seen this in a restaurant where there were mirrors, and where you have had presented to you an endless procession of your own head, first front then back, going away into the far distance. HOW TO HANDLE CARTOONS. Well, it's really like insulting your intelligence! And if I hadn't seen fellows down on their hands and knees rolling and unrolling cartoons along the dirty floor, and sprawling all over the studio so that everybody had to get out of the way into corners, I wouldn't spend paper and ink to tell you that by standing the roll _upright_ and spinning it gently round with your hands, freeing first one edge and then another, you can easily and quietly unroll and sort out a bundle of a dozen cartoons, each twenty feet long, on the space of a small hearth-rug; but so it is (fig. 70), and in just the same way you can roll them up again. NEATNESS AND CLEANLINESS. You should have drawers in the tables, and put the palettes away in these with the colour neatly covered over with a basin when you leave work. Dust is a great enemy in a stained-glass shop, and it must be kept at arm's length. YOU MUST TEAR OFF THE SELVAGE EDGE OF YOUR TRACING CLOTH, otherwise the tracing cloth being all cockled at the edge, which, however, is not very noticeable, will not lie flat, and you will be puzzled to know why it is that you cannot get your cut-line straight; tear off the edge, and it lies perfectly flat, without a wrinkle. HOW TO DRY A BIG BRUSH OR BADGER AFTER IT IS WASHED. I expect you'd try to dry it in front of the fire, and there'd be a pretty eight-shilling frizzle! But the way is this: First sweep the wet brush downwards with all your force, just as you shake the worst of the wet off a dripping umbrella, then take the handle of the brush _between the palms of your hands_, with the hair pointing downwards, and rub your hands smartly together, with the handle between them, just as an Italian waiter whisks up the chocolate. This sends the hair all out like a Catherine-wheel, and dries the brush with quite astonishing rapidity. Come now! you'd never have thought of that? [Illustration: FIG. 70.] * * * * * And why have I reserved these hints till now? surely these are things of the work-bench, practical matters, and would have come more conveniently in their own place? Why have I--do you ask--after arousing your attention to the "great principles of art," gone back again all at once to these little matters? Dear reader, I have done so deliberately to emphasise the _First_ of principles, that the right learning of any craft is the learning it under a master, and that all else is makeshift; to drive home the lesson insisted on in the former volumes of this series of handbooks, and gathered into the sentence quoted as a motto on the fly-leaf of one of them, that "An art can only be learned in the workshop of those who are winning their bread by it." These little things we have just been speaking of occurred to me after the practical part was all written; and I determined, since it happened so, to put them by themselves, to point this very lesson. They are just typical instances of hundreds of little matters which belong to the bench and the workshop, and which cannot all be told in any book; and even if told can never be so fully grasped as they would be if shown by master to pupil. Years--centuries of practice have made them the commonplaces of the shops; things told in a word and learnt in an instant, yet which one might go on for a whole lifetime without thinking of, and for lack of which our lifetime's work would suffer. Man's work upon earth is all like that. The things are there under his very nose, but he never discovers them till some accident shows them; how many centuries of sailing, think you, passed by before men knew that the tides went with the moon? Why then write a book at all, since it is not the best way? Speaking for myself only, the reasons appear to be: First, because none of these crafts is at present taught in its fulness in any ordinary shop, and I would wish to give you at least a longing to learn yours in that fulness; and, second, because it seems also very advisable to interest the general reader in this question of the complete teaching of the crafts to apprentices. To insist on the value and necessity of the daily and hourly lessons that come from the constant presence, handling, and use of all the tools and materials, all the apparatus and all the conditions of the craft, and from the interchange of ideas amongst those who are working, side by side, making fresh discoveries day by day as to what materials will do under the changes that occur in conditions that are ever changing. However, one must not linger further over these little matters, and it now becomes my task to return to the great leading principles and try to deal with them, and the first cardinal principle of stained-glass work surely is that of COLOUR. CHAPTER XVI OF COLOUR But how hopeless to deal with it by way of words in a book where actual colour cannot be shown! Nevertheless, let us try. * * * * * ... One thinks of morning and evening; ... of clouds passing over the sun; of the dappled glow and glitter, and of faint flushes cast from the windows on the cathedral pavement; of pearly white, like the lining of a shell; of purple bloom and azure haze, and grass-green and golden spots, like the budding of the spring; of all the gaiety, the sparkle, and the charm. And then, as if the evening were drawing on, comes over the memory the picture of those graver harmonies, in the full glow of red and blue, which go with the deep notes of the great organ, playing requiem or evening hymn. Of what use is it to speak of these things? The words fall upon the ear, but the eye is not filled. All stained-glass gathers itself up into this one subject; the glory of the heavens is in it and the fulness of the earth, and we know that the showing forth of it cannot be in words. Is it any use, for instance, to speak of these primroses along the railway bank, and those silver buds of the alder in the hollow of the copse? One thinks of a hint here and a hint there; the very sentences come in fragments. Yet one thing we may say securely: that the practice of stained-glass is a very good way to _learn_ colour, or as much of it as can come by learning. For, consider:-- A painter has his colour-box and palette; And if he has a good master he may learn by degrees how to mix his colour into harmonies; Doing a little first, cautiously; Trying the problem in one or two simple tints; learning the combinations of these in their various degrees of lighter or darker: Exhausting, as much as he can, the possibilities of one or two pigments, and then adding another and another; But always with a very limited number of actual separate ones to draw upon; All the infinity of the whole world of colour being in his own hands, and the difficulty of dealing with it laid as a burden upon his own shoulders, as he combines, modifies, mixes, and dilutes them. He perhaps has eight or ten spots of pure colour, ranged round his palette; and all the rest depends upon himself. This gives him, indeed, one side of the practice of his art; and if he walks warily, yet daringly, step by step, learning day by day something more of the powers that lie in each single kind of paint, and as he learns it applying his knowledge, bravely and industriously, to add strength to strength, brightness to brightness, richness to richness, depth to depth, in ever clearer, fuller, and more gorgeous harmony, he may indeed become a great painter. But a more timid or indolent man gets tired or afraid of putting the clear, sharp tints side by side to make new combinations of pure and vivid colour. And even a man industrious, alert, and determined may lose his way and get confused amongst the infinity of choice, through being badly taught, and especially through being allowed at first too great a range, too wide a choice, too lavish riches. A man so trained, so situated, so tempted, stands in danger of being contented to repeat old receipts and formulas over and over, as soon as he has acquired the knowledge of a few. Or, bewildered with the lavishness of his means and confused in his choice, tends to fall into indecision, and to smear and dilute and weaken. I cannot help thinking that it is to this want of a system of gradual teaching of the elementary stages of colour in painting that we owe, on the one side, the fashion of calling irresolute and undecided tints "art" colours; and, on the other hand, the garishness of our modern exhibitions compared with galleries of old paintings. For Titian's burning scarlet and crimson and palpitating blue; and Veronese's gold and green and white and rose are certainly not "art colours"; and I think we must feel the justice and truth of Ruskin's words spoken regarding a picture of Linnell's:-- "And what a relief it is for any wholesome human sight, after sickening itself among the blank horror of dirt, ditchwater, and malaria, which the imitators of the French schools have begrimed our various Exhibition walls with, to find once more a bit of blue in the sky and a glow of brown in the coppice, and to see that Hoppers in Kent can enjoy their scarlet and purple--like Empresses and Emperors." (Ruskin, "Royal Academy Notes," 1875.) From this irresolution and indecision and the dull-colour school begotten of it on the one hand, and from garishness on the other, stained-glass is a great means of salvation; for in practising this art the absolute judgment must, day by day, be exercised between this and that colour, there present before it; and the will is braced by the necessity of constant choice and decision. In short, by many of the modern, academical methods of teaching painting, and especially by the unfortunate arrangement, where it exists, of a pupil passing under a succession of different masters, I fear the colour-sense is perplexed and blunted; while by stained-glass, taught, as all art should be, from master to apprentice, while both make their bread by it, the colour-sense would be gradually and steadily cultivated and would have time to grow. This at least seems certain: that all painters who have also done stained-glass, or indeed any other decorative work in colour, get stronger and braver in painting from its practice. So worked Titian, Giorgione, Veronese; and so in our days worked Burne-Jones, Rossetti, Madox-Brown, Morris; and if I were to advise and prate about what is, perhaps, not my proper business, I would say, even to the student of oil-painting, "Begin with burnt-umber, trying it in every degree with white; transparent over opaque and opaque over transparent; trying how near you can get to purple and orange by contrast (and you will get nearer than you think); then add sienna at one end and black at the other to enlarge the range;--and then get a set of glass samples." I have said that stained-glass is "a great means of salvation," from irresolution and indecision on the one hand and from garishness on the other; but it is only a means--the fact of salvation lies always in one's own hands--for we must, I fear, admit that "garishness" and "irresolution" are not unknown in stained-glass itself, in spite of the resources and safeguardings we have attributed to the material. Speaking, therefore, now to stained-glass painters themselves, we might say that these faults in their own art, as too often practised in our days, arise, strange as it may seem, from ignorance of their own material, that very material the _knowledge_ of which we have just been recommending as a safeguard against these very faults to the students of another art. And this brings us back to our subject. For the foregoing discussion of painters' methods has all been written to draw a comparison and emphasise a contrast. A contrast from which you, student of stained-glass, I hope may learn much. For as we have tried to describe the methods of the painter in oil or water colours, and so point out his advantages and disadvantages, so we would now draw a picture of the glass-painter at work; if he works as he should do. For the painter of pictures (we said) has his colour-box of a few pigments, from which all his harmonies must come by mixing them and diluting them in various proportions, dealing with infinity out of a very limited range of materials, and required to supply all the rest by his own skill and memory. Coming each day to his work with his palette clean and his colours in their tubes; Beginning, as it were, all over again each time; and perhaps with his heart cold and his memory dull. But the glass-painter has his specimens of glass round him; some hundreds, perhaps, of all possible tints. He has, with these, to compose a subject in colour; There is no getting out of it or shirking it; He places the bits side by side, with no possibility (which the palette gives) of slurring or diluting or dulling them; he must choose from the clear hard tints; And he has the whole problem before him; He removes one and substitutes another; "This looks better;" "That is a pleasant harmony;" "Ah! but this makes it sing!" He gets them into groups, and combines them into harmonies, tint with tint, group with group: If he is wise he has them always by him; Always ready to arrange in a movable frame against the window; He cuts little bits of each; he waxes them, or gums them, into groups on sheets of glass; He tries all his effects in the glass itself; he sketches in glass. If he is wise he does this side by side with his water-colour sketch, making each help the other, and thinking in glass; even perhaps making his water-colour sketch afterwards from the glass. Is it not reasonable? Is it not far more easy, less dangerous? He has not to rake in his cold and meagre memory to fish out some poor handful of all the possible harmonies; To repeat himself over and over again. He has all the colours burning round him; singing to him to use them; sounding all their chords. Is it not the way? Is it not common sense? Tints! pure tints! What great things they are. I remember an old joke of the pleasant Du Maurier, a drawing representing two fashionable ladies discussing the afternoon's occupation. One says: "It's quite too dull to see colours at Madame St. Aldegonde's; suppose we go to the Old Masters' Exhibition!" Rather too bad! but the ladies were not so altogether frivolous as might at first appear. I am afraid _Punch_ meant that they were triflers who looked upon colour in dress as important, and colour in pictures as a thing which would do for a dull day. But they were not quite so far astray as this! There are other things in pictures besides colour which can be seen with indifferent light. But to match clear tint against clear tint, and put together harmonies, there is no getting away from the problem! It is all sheer, hard exercise; you want all your light for it; there is no slurring or diluting, no "glazing" or "scumbling," and it should form a part of the teaching, and yet it never does so, in our academies and schools of art. A curious matter this is, that a painter's training leaves this great resource of knowledge neglected, leaves the whole thing to memory. Out of all the infinite possible harmonies only getting what rise in the mind at the moment from the unseen. While ladies who want to dress beautifully look at the things themselves, and compare one with another. And how nicely they dress. If only painters painted half as well. If the pictures in our galleries only looked half as harmonious as the crowd of spectators below them! I would have it part of every painter's training to practise some craft, or at least that branch of some craft, which compels the choosing and arranging, in due proportions for harmony, of clear, sharp glowing colours in some definite material, from a full and lavish range of existing samples. It is true that here and there a painter will arise who has by nature that kind of instinct or memory, or whatever it is, that seems to feel harmonies beforehand, note by note, and add them to one another with infallible accuracy; but very few possess this, and for those who lack I am urging this training. For it is a case of "the little more and how much it is, And the little less and what worlds away." Millais hung a daring crimson sash over the creamy-white bed-quilt, in the glow of the subdued night-lamp, in his picture of "Asleep," and we all thought what a fine thing it was. But we have not thought it so fine for the whole art world to burst into the subsequent imitative paroxysm of crashing discords in chalk, lip-salve, and skim-milk, which has lasted almost to this day. At any rate, I throw out this hint for pupils and students, that if they will get a set of glass samples and try combinations of colour in them, they will have a bracing and guiding influence, the strength of which they little dream of, regarding one of the hardest problems of their art. This for the student of painting in general: but for the glass-painter it is absolutely essential--the central point, the breath-of-life of his art. To live in it daily and all day. To be ever dealing with it thus. To handle with the hands constantly. To try this piece, and that piece, the little more and the little less. This is the be-all and end-all, the beginning and the end of the whole matter, and here therefore follow a few hints with regard to it. And there is one rule of such dominating importance that all other hints group themselves round it; and yet, strangely enough, I cannot remember seeing it anywhere written down. Take three tints of glass--a purple, let us say, a crimson, and a green. Let it be supposed that, for some reason, you desire that this should form a scheme of colour for a window, or part of a window, with, of course, in addition, pure white, and probably some tints more neutral, greenish-whites and olives or greys, for background. You choose your purple (and, by-the-bye, almost the only way to get a satisfactory one, except by a happy accident now and then, is to double gold-pink with blue; this is the only way to get a purple that will vibrate, palpitating against the eye like the petal of a pansy in the sun). Well, you get your purple, and you get your green--not a sage-green, or an "art-green," but a cold, sharp green, like a leaf of parsley, an aquamarine, the tree in the "Eve" window at Fairford, grass in an orchard about sunset, or a railway-signal lamp at night. Your crimson like a peony, your white like white silk; and now you are started. You put slabs of these--equal-sized samples, we will suppose--side by side, and see "if they will do." And they don't "do" at all. Take away the red. The green and the purple do well enough, and the white. But you _want_ the red, you say. Well, _put back a tenth part of it_. And how now? Add a still smaller bit of pale pink. And how now? Do you see what it all means? It means the rule we spoke of, and which we may as well, therefore, now announce: "HARMONY IN COLOUR DEPENDS NOT ONLY UPON THE ARRANGING OF RIGHT COLOURS TOGETHER, BUT THE ARRANGING OF THE RIGHT QUANTITIES AND THE RIGHT DEGREES OF THEM TOGETHER." To which may be added another, _à propos_ of our bit of "pale pink." THE HARSHEST CONTRASTS, EVEN DISCORDS, MAY OFTEN BE BROUGHT INTO HARMONY BY ADDED NOTES. I believe that these are the two, and I would even almost say the only two, great leading principles of the science of colour, as used in the service of Art; and we might learn them, in all their fulness, in a country walk, if we were simple enough to like things because we like them, and let the kind nurse, Nature, take us by the hand. This very problem, to wit: Did you never see a purple anemone? against its green leaves? with a white centre? and with a thin ring of crimson shaded off into pink? And did you never wonder at its beauty, and wonder how so simple a thing could strike you almost breathless with pure physical delight and pleasure? No doubt you did; but you probably may not have asked yourself whether you would have been equally pleased if the purple, green, and red had all been equal in quantity, and the pale pink omitted. I remember especially in one particular window where this colour scheme was adopted--an "Anemone-coloured" window--the modification of the one splash of red by the introduction of a lighter pink which suggested itself in the course of work as it went along, and was the pet fancy of an assistant--readily accepted. The window in question is small and in nowise remarkable, but it was in the course of a ride taken to see it in its place, on one of those glorious mornings when Spring puts on all the pageantry of Summer, that the thoughts with which we are now dealing, and especially the thoughts of the infinite suggestion which Nature gives in untouched country and of the need we have to drink often at that fountain, were borne in upon the writer with more than usual force. To take in fully and often the glowing life and strength and renewal direct from Nature is part of every man's proper manhood, still more then of every artist's artistry and student's studentship. And truly 'tis no great hardship to go out to meet the salutary discipline when the country is beautiful in mid-April, and the road good and the sun pleasant. The Spring air sets the blood racing as you ride, and when you stop and stand for a moment to enjoy these things, ankle-deep in roadside grass, you can seem to hear the healthy pulses beating and see the wavy line of hills beating with them, as you look at the sun-warmed world. It is good sometimes to think where we are in the scheme of things, to realise that we are under the bell-glass of this balmy air, which shuts us in, safe from the pitch-dark spaces of infinite cold, through which the world is sweeping at eighteen miles a second; while we, with all our little problems to solve and work to do, are riding warm by this fireside, and the orange-tip butterflies with that curious pertinacity of flight which is speed without haste are keeping up their incessant, rippling patrol, to and fro along the length of every sunny lane, above the ditch-side border of white-blossomed keck! What has all this to do with stained-glass? Everything, my boy! Be a human! For you have got to choose your place in things, and to choose on which side you will work. A choice which, in these days, more than ever perhaps before, is one between such things as these and the money-getting which cares so little for them. I have tried to show you one side by speaking of a little part of what may be seen and felt on a spring morning, along a ridge of untouched hills in "pleasant Hertfordshire:"[1] if you want to see the other side of things ride across to Buntingford, and take the train back up the Lea Valley. Look at Stratford (and smell it) and imagine it spreading, as no doubt it will, where its outposts of oil-mill and factory have already led the way, and think of the valley full up with slums, from Lea Bridge to Ponders End! For the present writer can remember--and that not half a lifetime back--Edmonton and Tottenham, Brondesbury and Upton Park, sweet country villages where quiet people lived and farmed and gardened amidst the orchards, fields, and hawthorn lanes. Here now live, in mile after mile of jerry-building, the "hands" who, never taught any craft or work worthy of a man, spend their lives in some little single operation that, as it happens, no machine has yet been invented to perform; month after month, year after year, painting, let us say, endless repeats of one pattern to use as they are required for the borders of pious windows in the churches of this land. This is the "other side of things," much commended by what is looked on as "robust common sense"; and with this you have--nothing to do. Your place is elsewhere, and if it needs be that it seems an isolated one, you must bear it and accept it. Nature and your craft will solve all; live in them, bathe in them to the lips; and let nothing tempt you away from them to measure things by the standard of the mart. Let us go back to our sunny hillside. "It is good for us to be here," for this also is Holy Ground; and you must indeed be much amongst such things if you would do stained-glass, for you will never learn all the joy of it in a dusty shop. "So hard to get out of London?" But get a bicycle then;--only sit upright on it and go slow--and get away from these bricks and mortar, to where we can see things like these! those dandelions and daisies against the deep, green grass; the blazing candles of the sycamore buds against the purple haze of the oak copse; and those willows like puffs of grey smoke where the stream winds. Did you ever? No, you never! Well--do it then! But indeed, having stated our _principles_ of colour, the practice of those principles and the influence of nature and of nature's hints upon that practice are infinite, both in number and variety. The flowers of the field and garden; butterflies, birds, and shells; the pebbles of the shore; above all, the dry seaweeds, lying there, with the evening sun slanting through them. These last are exceedingly like both in colour and texture, or rather in colour and the amount of translucency, to fine old stained-glass; so also are dead leaves. But, in short, the thing is endless. The "wine when it is red" (or amber, as the case may be), even the whisky and water, and whisky _without_ water, side by side, make just those straw and ripe-corn coloured golden-yellows that are so hard to attain in stained-glass (impossible indeed by means of yellow-stain), and yet so much to be desired and sought after. Will you have more hints still? Well, there are many tropical butterflies, chiefly among the _Pierinf_, with broad spaces of yellow dashed with one small spot or flush of vivid orange or red. Now you know how terrible yellow and red may be made to look in a window; for you have seen "ruby" robes in conjunction with "yellow-stain," or the still more horrible combination where ruby has been acided off from a yellow base. But it is a question of the actual quality of the two tints and also of their quantity. What I have spoken of looks horrible because the yellow is of a brassy tone, as stain so often is, especially on green-white glasses, and the red inclining to puce--jam-colour. It is no use talking, therefore, of "red and yellow"--we must say _what_ red and _what_ yellow, and how much of each. A magenta-coloured dahlia and a lemon put together would set, I should think, any teeth on edge; yet ripe corn goes well with poppies, but not too many poppies--while if one wing of our butterfly were of its present yellow and the other wing of the same scarlet as the spot, it would be an ugly object instead of one of the delights of God. It is interesting, it is fascinating to take the hint from such things--to splash the golden wings of your Resurrection Angel as he rolls away the stone with scarlet beads of sunrise, not seen but _felt_ from where you stand on the pavement below. I want the reader to fully grasp this question of _quantity_, so I will instance the flower of the mullein which contains almost the very tints of the "lemon," and the "dahlia" I quoted, and yet is beautiful by virtue of its _quantities_: which may be said to be of a "lemon" yellow and yet can bear (ay! can it _not_?) the little crimson stamens in the heart of it and its sage-green leaves around. And there is even something besides "tint" and "quantity." The way you _distribute_ your colour matters very much. Some in washes, some in splashes, some in spots, some in stripes. What will "not do" in one way will often be just right in the other: yes, and the very way you treat your glass when all is chosen and placed together--matt in one place, film in another, chequering, cross-hatching, clothing the raw glass with texture and bringing out its nature and its life. Do not be afraid; for the things that yet remain to do are numberless. Do you like the look of deep vivid vermilion-red, upon dark cold green? Look at the hip-loaded rose-briar burning in the last rays of a red October sunset! You get physical pleasure from the sight; the eye seems to vibrate to the harmony as the ear enjoys a chord struck upon the strings. Therefore do not fear. But mind, it must be in nature's actual colour, not merely "green" and "red": for I once saw the head of a celebrated tragic actress painted by a Dutch artist who, to make it as deathly as he could, had placed the ashen face upon a background of emerald-green with spots of actual red sealing-wax. The eye was so affected that the colours swung to and fro, producing in a short time a nausea like sea-sickness. That is not pleasure. The training of the colour-sense, like all else, should be gradual; springing as it were from small seed. Be reticent, try small things first. You are not likely to be asked to do a great window all at once, even if you have the misfortune to be an independent artist approaching this new art without a gradual training under the service of others. Try some simple scheme from the things of Nature. Hyacinths look well with their leaves: therefore _that_ green and _that_ blue, with the white of April clouds and the black of the tree-stems in the wood are colours that can be used together. You must be prepared to find almost a sort of penalty in this habit of looking at everything with the eye of a stained-glass artist. One seems after a time to see natural objects with numbers attached to them corresponding with the numbers of one's glasses in the racks: butterflies flying about labelled "No. 50, deep," or "75_a_, pale," or a bit of "123, special streaky" in the sunset. But if one does not obtrude this so as to bore one's friends, the little personal discomfort, if it exists, is a very small price to pay for the delight of living in this glorious fairyland of colour. Do not think it beneath your dignity or as if you were shirking some vital artistic obligation, to take hints from these natural objects, or from ancient or modern glass, in a perfectly frank and simple manner; nay, even to match your whole colour scheme, tint for tint, by them if it seems well to you. You may get help anywhere and from anything, and as much as you like; it will only be so much more chance for you; so much richer a store to choose from, so much stronger resource to guide to good end; for after all, with all the helps you can get, much lies in the doing. Do what you like then--as a child: but be sure you _do_ like it: and if the window wants a bit of any particular tint, put it there, meaning or no meaning. If there is no robe or other feature to excuse and account for it in the spot which seems to crave for it,--put the colour in, anywhere and anyhow--in the background if need be--a sudden orange or ruby "quarry" or bit of a quarry, as if the thing were done in purest waywardness. "You would like a bit there if there were an excuse for it?" Then there _is_ an excuse--the best of all--that the eye demands it. Do it fearlessly. But to work in this way (it hardly need be said) you must watch and work at your glass yourself; for these hints come late on in the work, when colour, light and shade, and design are all fusing together into a harmony. You can no more forecast these final accidents, which are the flower and crown and finish of the whole, than you could forecast the lost "Chord";-- "Which came from the soul of the organ, And entered into mine." It "comes from the soul" of the window. We all know the feeling--the climaxes, exceptions, surprises, suspensions, in which harmony delights; the change from the last bar of the overture to the first of the opening recitative in the "Messiah," the chord upon which the victor is crowned in "The Meistersingers," the 59th and 60th bars in Handel's "Every Valley." (I hope some of us are "old-fashioned" enough to be unashamed of still believing in Handel!) Or if it may be said that these are hardly examples of the kind of accidental things I have spoken of, being rather, indeed, the deliberately arranged climax to which the whole construction has been leading, I would instance the 12th (complete) bar in the overture to "Tannhduser," the 20th and 22nd bar in Chopin's Funeral March, the change from the minor to major in Schubert's Romance from "Rosamunde," and the 24th bar in his Serenade (_Ständchen_), the 13th and following bars of the Crescendo in the Largo Appassionato of Beethoven's Op. 2. Or if you wish to have an example where _all_ is exception, like one of the south nave windows in York Minster, the opening of the "Sonata Appassionata," Op. 57. Now how can you forecast such things as these! Let me draw another instance from actual practice. I was once painting a figure of a bishop in what I meant to be a dark green robe, the kind of black, and yet vivid, green of the summer leafage of the oak; for it was St. Boniface who cut down the heathen oak of Frisia. But the orphreys of his cope were to be embroidered in gold upon this green, and therefore the pattern had first to be added out in white upon a blue-flashed glass, which yellow stain over all would afterwards turn into green and gold. And when all was prepared and the staining should have followed, my head man sent for me to come to the shop, and there hung the figure with its dark green robe with orphreys of _deep blue_ and _silver_. "I thought you'd like to look at it before we stained it," said he. "STAIN IT!" I said. "I wouldn't touch it; not for sixpence three-farthings!" There was a sigh of relief all round the shop, and the reply was, "Well, so we all thought!" Just so; therefore the figure remained, and so was erected in its place. Now suppose I had had men who did what they were told, instead of being encouraged to think and feel and suggest? A serious word to you about this question of staining. It is a resource very easily open to abuse--to excess. Be careful of the danger, and never stain without first trying the effect on the back of the easel-plate with pure gamboge, and if you wish for a very clear orange-stain, mix with the gamboge a little ordinary red ink. It is too much the custom to "pick out" every bit of silver "canopy" work with dottings and stripings of yellow. A _little_ sometimes warms up pleasantly what would be too cold--and the old men used it with effect: but the modern tendency, as is the case in all things merely imitative, is to overdo it. For the old men used it very differently from those who copy them in the way I am speaking of, and, to begin with, used it chiefly on _pure white glass_. Much modern canopy work is done on greenish-white, upon which the stain immediately becomes that greenish-yellow that I have called "brassy." A little of this can be borne, when side by side with it is placed stain upon pure white. The reader will easily find, if he looks for them, plenty of examples in old glass, where the stain upon the white glass has taken even a _rosy_ tinge exactly like that of a yellow crocus seen through its white sheath. It is perhaps owing partly to patina on the old glass, which "scumbles" it; but I have myself sometimes succeeded in getting the same effect by using yellow-stain on pure white glass. A whole window, where the highest light is a greenish white, is to me very unpleasant, and when in addition yellow-stain is used, unbearable. This became a fashion in stained-glass when red-lead-coloured pigments, started by Barff's formula, came into general use. They could not be used on pure white glass, and therefore pure white glass was discarded and greenish-white used instead. I can only say that if the practice of stained-glass were presented to me with this condition--of abstaining from the use of pure white--I would try to learn some useful trade. There is another question of ideals in the treatment of colour in stained-glass about which a word must be said. Those who are enthusiastic about the material of stained-glass and its improvement are apt to condemn the degree of heaviness with which windows are ordinarily painted, and this to some extent is a just criticism. But I cannot go the length of thinking that all matt-painting should be avoided, and outline only used; or that stained-glass material can, except under very unusual conditions and in exceptional situations, be independent of this resource. As to the slab-glasses--"Early-English," "Norman," or "stamped-circles"--which are chiefly affected by this question, the texture and surface upon which their special character depends is sometimes a very useful resource in work seen against, or partly against, background of trees or buildings; while against an entirely "borrowed" light perhaps, sometimes, it can almost dispense with any painting. The grey shadows that come from the background play about in the glass and modify its tones, doing the work of painting, and doing it much more beautifully. But this advantage cannot always be had, for it vanishes against clear sky. It is all, therefore, a question of situation and of aspect, and I believe the right rule to be to do in all cases what seems best for every individual bit of glass--that each piece should be "cared for" on its merits and "nursed," so to speak, and its qualities brought out and its beauty heightened by any and every means, just as if it were a jewel to be cut (or left uncut) or foiled (or left unfoiled)--as Benvenuto Cellini would treat, as he tells you he _did_ treat, precious stones. There is a fashion now of thinking that gems should be uncut. Well, gems are hardly a fair comparison in discussing stained-glass; for in glass what we aim at is the effect of a composition and combination of a multitude of things, while gems are individual things, for the most part, to be looked at separately. But I would not lay down a rule even about gems. Certainly the universal, awkward, faceting of all precious stones--which is a relic of the mid-Victorian period--is a vulgarity that one is glad to be rid of; but if one _wants_ for any reason the special sparkle, here or there, which comes from it, why not use it? I would use it in _stained-glass_--have done so. If I have got my window already brilliant and the whites pure white, and still want, over and above all this, my "Star of the Nativity," let us say, to sparkle out with a light that cannot be its own, shall I not use a faceted "jewel" of glass, forty feet from the eye, where none can see what it is but only what it does, just because it would be a gross vulgarity to use it where it would pretend to be a diamond? The safe guide (as far as there can be a _guide_ where I have maintained that there should not be a _rule_) is, surely, to generally get the depth of colour that you want by the glass itself, _if you can_, and therefore with that aim to deal with rich, full-coloured glass and to promote its manufacture. But this being once done and the resource carried to its full limit, there is no reason why you should deny yourself the further resource of touching it with pigment to any extent that may seem fit to you as an artist, and necessary to get the effect of colour and texture that you are aiming at, in the thing seen as a whole. As to the exaggeration of making accidental streaks in the glass do duty for folds of drapery, and manufacturing glass (as has been done) to meet this purpose, I hold the thing to be a gross degradation and an entire misconception of the relation of materials to art. You may also lay this to mind, as a thing worthy of consideration, that all old glass was painted, and that no school of stained-glass has ever existed which made a principle of refusing this aid. I would never argue from this that such cannot exist, but it is a thing to be thought on. Throw your net, then, into every sea, and catch what you can. Learn what purple is, in the north ambulatory at York; what green is, in the east window of the same, in the ante-chapel of New College, Oxford, and in the "Adam and Eve" window in the north aisle at Fairford; what blue and red are, in the glorious east window of the nave at Gloucester, and in the glow and gloom of Chartres and Canterbury and King's College, Cambridge. And when you have got all these things in your mind, and gathered lavishly in the field of Nature also, face your problem with a heart heated through with the memory of them all, and with a will braced as to a great and arduous task, but one of rich reward. For remember this (and so let us draw to an end), that in any large window the spaces are so great and the problems so numerous that a _few_ colours and groupings of colour, however well chosen, will not suffice. Set out the main scheme of colours first: those that shall lead and preponderate and convey your meaning to the mind and your intended impression to the eye. But if you stop here, the effect will be hard and coarse and cold-hearted in its harmonies, a lot of banging notes like a band all brass, not out of tune perhaps, but craving for the infinite embroidery of the strings and wood. When, therefore, the main relations of colour have been all set out and decided for your window, turn your attention to _small_ differences, to harmonies _round_ the harmonies. Make each note into a chord, each tint into a group of tints, not only the strong and bold, but also the subtle and tender; do not miss the value of small modifications of tint that soften brilliance into glow. Study how Nature does it on the petals of the pansy or sweet-pea. You think a pansy is purple, and there an end? but cut out the pale yellow band, the orange central spot, the faint lilacs and whites in between, and where is your pansy gone? * * * * * And here I must now leave it to you. But one last little hint, and do not smile at its simplicity. For the problem, after all, when you have gathered all the hints you can from nature or the past, and collected your resources from however varied fields, resolves itself at last into one question--"_How shall I do it in glass?_" And the practical solving of this problem is in the handling of the actual bits of coloured glass which are the tools of your craft. And for manipulating these I have found nothing so good as that old-fashioned toy--still my own delight when a sick-bed enforces idleness--the kaleidoscope. A sixpenny one, pulled to pieces, will give you the knowledge of how to make it; and you will find a "Bath-Oliver" biscuit-tin, or a large-sized millboard "postal-roll" will make an excellent instrument. But the former is best, because you also then have the lid and the end. If you cut away all the end of the lid except a rim of one-eighth of an inch, and insert in its place with cement a piece of ground-glass, and then, inside this, have another lid of clear glass cemented on to a rim of wood or millboard, you can, in the space between the two, place chips of the glasses you think of using; and, replacing the whole on the instrument, a few minutes of turning with the hand will give you, not hundreds, but thousand of changes, both of the arrangement, and, what is far more important, of the _proportions_ of the various colours. You can thus in a few moments watch them pass through an almost infinite succession of changes in their relation to each other, and form your judgment on those changes, choosing finally that which seems best. And I really think that the fact of these combinations being presented to us, as they are by the action of the instrument, arranged in ordered shapes, is a help to the judgment in deciding on the harmonies of colour. It is natural that it should be so. "Order is Heaven's first law." And it is right that we should rejoice in things ordered and arranged, as the savage in his string of beads, and reasonable that we should find it easier to judge them in order rather than confused. Each in his place. How good a thing it is! how much to be desired! how well if we ourselves could be so, and know of the pattern that we make! For our lives are like the broken bits of glass, sadly or brightly coloured, jostled about and shaken hither and thither, in a seeming confusion, which yet we hope is somewhere held up to a light in which each one meets with his own, and holds his place; and, to the Eye that watches, plays his part in a universal harmony by us, as yet, unseen. [1] West of the road between Welwyn and Hitchin. CHAPTER XVII OF ARCHITECTURAL FITNESS Come, in thought, reader, and stand in quiet village churches, nestling amongst trees where rooks are building; or in gaps of the chalk downs, where the village shelters from the wind; or in stately cathedrals, where the aisles echo to the footstep and the sound of the chimes comes down, with the memory of the centuries which have lived and died. Here the old artists set their handmark to live now they are gone, and we who see it today see, if our eye be single, with what sincerity they built, carved, or painted their heart and life into these stones. In such a spirit and for such a memorial you too must do your work, to be weighed by the judgment of the coming ages, when you in turn are gone, in the same balance as theirs--perhaps even side by side with it. And will you dare to venture? Have no fear if you also bring your best. But if we enter on work like this as to a mere market for our wares, and with no other thought than to make a brisk business with those that buy and sell; we well may pray that some merciful scourge of small cords drive us also hence to dig or beg (which is more honourable), lest worse befall us! And I do not say these things because this or that place is "God's house." All places are so, and the first that was called so was the bare hillside; but because you are a man and have indeed here arrived, as there the lonely traveller did, at the arena of your wrestling. But, granted that you mean to hold your own and put your strength into it, I have brought you to these grave walls to consult with them as to the limits they impose upon your working. And perhaps the most important of all is already observed by your _being_ here, for it is important that you should visit, whenever possible, the place where you are to do work; if you are not able to do this, get all the particulars you can as to aspect and surroundings. And yet a reservation must be made, even upon all this; for everything depends upon the way we use it, and if you only have an eye to the showing off of your work to advantage, treating the church as a mere frame for your picture, it would be better that your window should misfit and have to be cut down and altered, or anything else happen to it that would help to put it back and make it take second place. It is so hard to explain these things so that they cannot be misconstrued; but you remember I quoted the windows at St. Philip's, Birmingham, as an example of noble thought and work carried to the pitch of perfection and design. But that was in a classic building, with large, plain, single openings without tracery. Do you think the artist would have let himself go, in that full and ample way, in a beautiful Gothic building full of lovely architectural detail? Not so: rather would he have made his pictures hang lightly and daintily in the air amongst the slender shafts, as in St. Martin's Church in the same town, at Jesus College and at All Saints' Church, Cambridge, at Tamworth; and in Lyndhurst, and many another church where the architecture, to say truth, had but slender claims to such respect. * * * * * In short, you must think of the building first, and make your windows help it. You must observe its scale and the spacing and proportions of its style, and place your own work, with whatever new feeling and new detail may be natural to you, well within those circumscribing bounds. But here we find ourselves suddenly brought sharp up, face to face with a most difficult and thorny subject, upon which we have rushed without knowing it. "Must we observe then" (you say) "the style of the building into which we put our work, and not have a style of our own that is native to us?" "This is contrary to all you have been preaching! The old men did not so. Did they not add the fancies of their own time to the old work, and fill with their dainty, branching tracery the severe, round-headed, Norman openings of Peterborough and Gloucester? Did fifteenth-century men do thirteenth-century glass when they had to refill a window of that date?" No. Nor must you. Never imitate, but graft your own work on to the old, reverently, and only changing from it so far forth as you, like itself, have also a living tradition, springing from mastery of craft--naturally, spontaneously, and inevitably. Whether we shall ever again have such a tradition running throughout all the arts is a thing that cannot possibly be foretold. But three things we may be quite sure of. First, that if it comes it will not be by way of any imitative revival of a past style; Second, that it will be in harmony with the principles of Nature; and Third, that it will be founded upon the crafts, and brought about by craftsmen working in it with their own hands, on the materials of architecture, designing only what they themselves can execute, and giving employment to others only in what they themselves can do. A word about each of these three conditions. In the course of the various attempted revivals in architecture that have taken place during the past sixty years, it has been frequently urged both by writers and architects that we should agree to revive some _one_ style of ancient art that might again become a national style of architecture. It would, indeed, no doubt be better, if we must speak in a dead language, to agree to use only one, instead of our present confusion of tongues: but what, after all, is the adopting of this principle at all but to engage once again in the replanting of a full-grown tree--the mistake of the Renaissance and the Gothic revival repeated? Such things never take firm root or establish healthy growth which lives and goes on of its own vitality. They never succeed in obtaining a natural, national sympathy and acceptance. The movement is a scholarly and academic one, and the art so remains. The reaction against it is always a return to materials, and almost always the first result of this is a revival of simplicity. People get tired of being surrounded with elaborate mouldings and traceries and other architectural features, which are not the natural growth of their own day but of another day long since dead, which had other thoughts and moods, feelings and aspirations. "Let us have straightforward masonry and simple openings, and ornament them with something from Nature." So in the very midst of the pampered and enervated over-refinement of Roman decay, Constantine did something more than merely turn the conquering eagle back, against the course of the heavens, for which Dante seems to blame him,[2] when he established his capital at Byzantium; for there at once upon the new soil, and in less than a single century, sprang to life again all the natural modes of building and decoration that, despised as barbaric, had been ignored and forgotten amid the Roman luxury and sham. It is a curious feature of these latest days of ours that this searching after sincerity should seem to be leading us towards a similar revival; taking even very much the same forms. We went back, at the time of the Gothic revival, to the forgotten Gothic art of stained-glass; now tired, as it would seem, of the insincerity and mere spirit of imitation with which it and similar arts have been practised, a number of us appear to be ready to throw it aside, along with scholarly mouldings and traceries, and build our arts afresh out of the ground, as was done by the Byzantines, with plain brickwork, mosaic, and matched slabs of marble. Definite examples in recent architecture will occur to the reader. But I am thinking less of these--which for the most part are deliberate and scholastic revivals of a particular style, founded on the study of previous examples and executed on rigid academic methods--than of what appears to be a widespread awakening to principles of simplicity, sincerity, and common sense in the arts of building generally. Signs are not wanting of a revived interest in building--a revived interest in materials for their own sake, and a revived practice of personally working in them and experimenting with them. One calls to mind examples of these things, growing in number daily--plain and strong furniture made with the designer's own hands and without machinery, and enjoyed in the making--made for actual places and personal needs and tastes; houses built in the same spirit by architects who condescend to be masons also; an effort here and an effort there to revive the common ways of building that used to prevail--and not so long ago--for the ordinary housing and uses of country-folk and country-life, and which gave us cottages, barns, and sheds throughout the length and breadth of the land; simple things for simple needs, built by simple men, without self-consciousness, for actual use and pleasant dwelling; traditional construction and the habits of making belonging to the country-side. These still linger in the time-honoured ways of making the waggon and the cart and the plough; but they have vanished from architecture and building except in so far as they are being now, as I have said, consciously and deliberately revived by men who are going back from academic methods, to found their arts once more upon the actual making of things with their own hand and as their hand and materials will guide them. This was what happened in the time to which I have referred: in the dawn of the Christian era and of a new civilisation; and it has special interest for us of today, because it was not a case of an infant or savage race, beginning all things from seed; but the revival, as in Sparta, centuries before it, of simplicity and sincerity of life, in the midst of enervation, luxury, and decay. This seems our hope for the future. There has already gathered together in the great field of the arts of today a little Byzantium of the crafts setting itself to learn from the beginning how things are actually made, how built, hammered, painted, cut, stitched; casting aside theories and academical thought, and founding itself upon simplicity, and sincerity, and materials. And the architect who condescends, or, as we should rather say, aspires, to be a builder and a master-mason, true director of his craft, will, if things go on as they seem now going, find in the near future a band around him of other workers so minded, and will have these bright tools of the accessory crafts ready to his hand. This it is, if anything, that will solve all the vexed questions of "style," and lead, if anything will, to the art of the times to be. For the reason why the nineteenth century complained so constantly that it had "no style of architecture" was surely because it had _every_ style of architecture, and a race of architects who could design in every style because they could build in no style; knew by practical handling and tooling nothing of the real natures and capacities of stone or brick or wood or glass; received no criticism from their materials; whereas these should have daily and hourly moulded their work and formed the very breath of its life, warning and forbidding on the one hand, suggesting on the other, and so directing over all. I have thought fit, dear student, to touch on these great questions in passing, that you may know where you stand; but our real business is with ourselves: to make ourselves so secure upon firm standing ground, in our own particular province, that when the hour arrives, it may find in us the man. Let us therefore return again from these bright hopes to consider those particular details of architectural fitness which are our proper business as workers in glass. What, then, in detail, are the rules that must guide us in placing windows in ancient buildings? But first--_may_ we place windows in ancient buildings at all? "No," say some; "because we have no right to touch the past; it is 'restoration,' a word that has covered, in the past," they say (and we must agree with them), "a mass of artistic crime never to be expiated, and of loss never to be repaired." "Yes," say others, "because new churches will be older in half-an-hour-- half-an-hour older; for the world has moved, and where will you draw the line? Also, glass has _to be renewed_, you must put in something, or some one must." Let each decide the question for himself; but, supposing you admit that it is permissible, what are the proper restrictions and conditions? You must not tell a lie, or "match" old work, joining your own on to it as if itself were old. Shall we work in the style of the "New art," then--"_l'art Nouveau_"? the style of the last new poster? the art-tree, the art-bird, the art-squirm, and the ace of spades form of ornament? Heaven in mercy defend us and forbid it! Canopies are venerable; thirteenth-century panels and borders are venerable, the great traditional vestments are so, and liturgy, and symbolism, and ceremony. These are not things of one age alone, but belong to all time. Get, wherever possible, authority on all these points. Must we work in a "style," then--a "Gothic" style? No. What rule, then? It is hard to formulate so as to cover all questions, but something thus:-- Take forms, and proportions, and scale from the style of the church you are to work in. Add your own feeling to it from-- (1) The feeling of the day, but the best and most reverent feeling. (2) From Nature. (3) From (and the whole conditioned by) materials and the knowledge of craft. Finally, let us say that you must consider each case on its merits, and be ready even sometimes perhaps to admit that the old white glass may be better for a certain position than your new glass could be, while old _stained-glass_, of course, should always be sacred to you, a thing to be left untouched. Even where new work seems justifiable and to be demanded, proceed as if treading on holy ground. Do not try crude experiments on venerable and beautiful buildings, but be modest and reticent; know the styles of the past thoroughly and add your own fresh feeling to them reverently. And in thought do not think it necessary to be novel in order to be original. There is quite enough originality in making a noble figure of a saint, or treating with reverent and dignified art some actual theme of Scripture or tradition, and working into its detail the sweetness of nature and the skill of your hands, without going into eccentricity for the sake of novelty, and into weak allegory to show your originality and independence, tired with the world-old truths and laws of holy life and noble character. And this leads us to the point where we must speak of these deep things in the great province of thought. [2] Paradise, canto vi. 1. CHAPTER XVIII OF THOUGHT, IMAGINATION, AND ALLEGORY "_The first thing one should demand of a man who calls himself an artist is that he has something to say, some truth to teach, some lesson to enforce. Don't you think so?_" Thus once said to me an artist of respectable attainment. "_I don't care a hang for subject; give me good colour, composition, fine effects of light, skill in technique, that's all one wants. Don't you think so?_" Thus once said to me a member of a window-committee, himself also an artist. To both I answered, and would answer with all the emphasis possible--No! The _first_ duty of an artist, as of every other kind of worker, is to know his business; and, unless he knows it, all the "truths" he wishes to "teach," and the lessons he wishes to enforce, are but degraded and discredited in the eyes of men by his bungling advocacy. On the other hand, the artist who has trained himself to speak with the tongues of angels and after all has nothing to say, is also, to me, an imperfect being. What follows is written, as the whole book is written, for the young student, just beginning his career and feeling the pressure and conflict of these questions. For such I must venture to discuss points which the wise and the experienced may pass by. The present day is deluged with allegory; and the first thing three students out of four wish to attempt when they arrive at the stage of original art is the presentation, by figures and emblems, of some deep abstract truth, some problem of the great battle of life, some force of the universe that they begin to feel around them, pressing upon their being. Forty years ago such a thing was hardly heard of. In the sketching-clubs at the Academies of that day, the historical, the concrete, or the respectably pious were all that one ever saw. We can hardly realise it, the art of the late sixties. The pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, as such, a thing of the past, and seemingly leaving few imitators. Burne-Jones just heard of as a strange, unknown artist, who wouldn't exhibit his pictures, but who had done some queer new kind of stained-glass windows at Lyndhurst, which one might perhaps be curious to see when we went (as of course we must) to worship "Leighton's great altar-piece." Nay, ten years later, at the opening of the Grosvenor Gallery, the new, imaginative, and allegorical art could be met with a large measure of derision, and _Punch_ could write, regarding it, an audacious and contemptuous parody of the "Palace of Art"; while, abroad, Botticelli's _Primavera_ hung over a door, and the attendants at the _Uffizii_ were puzzled by requests, granted grudgingly (_if_ granted), to have his other pictures placed for copying and study! Times have altogether changed, and we now see in every school competition--often set as the subject of such--abstract and allegorical themes, demanding for their adequate expression the highest and deepest thought and the noblest mood of mind and views of life. It is impossible to lay down any hard and fast rule about these things, for each case must differ. There is such a thing as _genius_, and where that is there is but small question of rules or even of youth or age, maturity or immaturity. And even apart from the question of genius the mind of childhood is a very precious thing, and "the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." Nay, the mere _fact_ of youth with its trials, is a great thing; we shall never again have such a chance, such fresh, responsive hearts, such capacity for feeling--for suffering--that school of wisdom and source of inspiration! It is well to record its lessons while they are fresh, to jot down for ourselves, if we can, something of the passing hours; to store up their thoughts and feelings for future expression perhaps, when our powers of expression have grown more worthy of them; but it is not well to try to make universal lessons out of, or universal applications of, what we haven't ourselves learned. Our own proper lesson at this time is to learn our trade; to strengthen our weak hands and train the ignorance of our mind to knowledge day by day, strenuously, and only _spurred on by_ the deep stirrings of thought and life within us, which generally ought to remain for the present _unspoken_. A great point of happiness in this dangerous and critical time is to have a definite trade; learnt in its completeness and practised day by day, step by step, upwards from its elements, in constant subservience to wise and kind mastership. This indeed is a golden lot, and one rare in these days; and perhaps we must not look to be so shielded. This was the sober and happy craftsmanship of the Middle Ages, and produced for us all that imagery and ornature, instinct with gaiety and simplicity of heart, which decorates, where the hand of the ruthless restorer has spared it, the churches and cathedrals of Europe. But in these changeful days it would be rash indeed to forecast where lies the sphere of duty for any individual life. It may lie in the reconstruction by solitary, personal experiment, of some forgotten art or system, the quiet laying of foundation for the future rather than building the monument of today. Or perhaps the self-devoted life of the seer may be the Age's chief need, and it is not a Giotto that is wanted for the twentieth century but a Dante or a Blake, with the accompanying destiny of having to prove as they did-- "si come sa di sale Lo pane altrui, e com'h duro calle Lo scendere e'l salir per l'altrui scale."[3] But, however these things be, whether working happily in harmony with the scheme of things around us, and only concerned to give it full expression, or not; whether we are the fortunate apprentices of a well-taught trade, gaining secure and advancing knowledge day by day, or whether we are lonely experimentalists, wringing the secret from reluctant Nature and Art upon some untrodden path; there is one last great principle that covers all conditions, solves all questions, and is an abiding rock which remains, unfailing foundation on which all may build; and that is the constant measuring of our smallness against the greatness of things, a thing which, done in the right spirit, does not daunt, but inspires. For the greatness of all things is ours for the winning, almost for the asking. The great imaginative poets and thinkers and artists of the mid-nineteenth century have drawn aside for us the curtain of the world behind the veil, and he would be an ambitious man who would expect to set the mark higher, in type of beauty or depth of feeling, than they have placed it for us; but all must hope to do so, even if they do not expect it; for the great themes are not exhausted or ever to be exhausted; and the storehouse of the great thought and action of the past is ever open to us to clothe our nakedness and enrich our poverty; we need only ask to have. "Ah!" said Coningsby, "I should like to be a great man." The stranger threw at him a scrutinising glance. His countenance was serious. He said in a voice of almost solemn melody-- "Nurture your mind with great thoughts. To believe in the heroic makes heroes."[4] All the great thoughts of the world are stored up in books, and all the great books of the world, or nearly all, have been translated into English. You should make it a systematic part of your life to search these things out and, if only by a page or two, try how far they fit your need. We do not enough realise how wide a field this is, how great an undertaking, how completely unattainable except by carefully husbanding our time from the start, how impossible it is in the span of a human life to read the great books unless we strictly save the time which so many spend on the little books. Ruskin's words on this subject, almost harsh in their blunt common sense, bring the matter home so well that I cannot refrain from quoting them.[5] "Do you know, if you read this, that you cannot read that--that what you lose today you cannot gain to-morrow? Will you go and gossip with your housemaid, or your stable-boy, when you may talk with queens and kings; or flatter yourselves that it is with any worthy consciousness of your own claims to respect that you jostle with the common crowd for entrie here, and audience there, when all the while this eternal court is open to you, with its society wide as the world, multitudinous as its days, the chosen, and the mighty, of every place and time? Into that you may enter always; in that you may take fellowship and rank according to your wish; from that, once entered into it, you can never be outcast but by your own fault; by your aristocracy of companionship there, your own inherent aristocracy will be assuredly tested, and the motives with which you strive to take high place in the society of the living, measured, as to all the truth and sincerity that are in them, by the place you desire to take in this company of the Dead." This is the great world of BOOKS that is open to you; and how shall you find your way in it, in these days, amongst the plethora of the second and third and fourth rate, shouting out at you and besieging your attention on every stall? It is no more possible to give you entire guidance towards this than to give complete advice on any other problem of life; your own nature must be your guide, choosing the good and refusing the evil in the degree in which itself is good or evil. But one may name some landmarks, set up some guide-posts, and the best of all guidance surely is not that of a guide-post, but that of a guide, a kindly hand of one who knows the way, to take your hand. Do you ask for such a guide? A man of our own day, in full view of all its questions from the loftiest to the least, and heart and soul engaged in them, with deep and sympathetic wisdom born of his own companionship with all the great thoughts of the ages? One surely need not hesitate a moment in naming as the one for our special needs the writer we have just quoted. Scattered up and down the whole of his works is constant reference to and commentary upon the great themes of all ages, the great creeds of all peoples. "Queen of the Air," "Aratra Pentelici," "Ariadne Florentina," "The Mornings in Florence," "St. Mark's Rest," "The Oxford Inaugural Lectures," "The Bible of Amiens," "Fors Clavigera." With these as portals you can enter by easy steps into the whole universe of great things: the divine myth and symbolism of the old pagan world (as we call it) and of more recent Christendom; all the makers of ancient Greece and Italy and of our own England; worship and kingship and leadership, and the high thought and noble deed of all times. And clustering in groups round these centres is the world of books. All Theology, Philosophy, Poetry, Sacred History; Homer, Plato, Virgil, the Bible, and the Breviary. The great doctors and saints, kings and heroes, poets and painters, Gerome and Dominic and Francis; St. Louis and Coeur-de-Lion; Dante, St. Jerome, Chaucer, and Froissart; Botticelli, Giotto, Angelico; the "Golden Legend"; and many another ancient or modern legend and story or passage from the history of some great and splendid life, or illuminating hint upon the beauties of liturgy and symbolism. They, and a hundred other things, are all gathered up and introduced to us in Ruskin's books; and we are shown them from the exact standpoint from which they are most likely to appeal to us, and be of use. There never was a great world made so easy and pleasant of entrance for the adventuring traveller; you have only to enter and take possession. Do you incline towards myth and symbolism and allegory--the expression of abstract thought by beautiful figures? Read the myths of Greece expounded to you in their exquisite spirituality in the "Queen of the Air." Or is your bent devotion and the devout life, expressed in thrilling story and gorgeous colour? Read, say, the life of St. Catherine or of St. George in the "Golden Legend." Or are you in love, and would express its spring-time beauty? Translate into your own native language of form and colour "The Romaunt of the Rose." For the great safeguard and guide in the perilous forest of fancy is to find enough interest in the actual facts of some history or the qualities of some heroic character, whether real or fabled, round which at first you may group your thought and allegory. Listen to _them_, and try to formulate and illustrate _their_ meaning, not to announce your own. Do not set puzzles, or set things that will be puzzling, without the highest and deepest reasons and the apostleship urgently laid upon you so to do--but let your allegory surround some definite subject, so that men in general can see it and say, "Yes, that is so and so," and go away satisfied rather than puzzled and affronted; leaving the inner few for whom you really speak, the hearts that, you hope, are waiting for your message, to find it out (and you need have no fear that they will do so), and to say, "Yes, that _means_ so and so, and it is a good thought." For, remember always that, even if you conceive that you have a mission laid upon you to declare Truth, it is most sternly conditioned by an obligation, as binding as itself and of as high authority, to set forth Beauty: the holiness of beauty equally with the beauty of holiness. No amount of good intent can make up for lack of skill; it is your business to know your business. Youth always would begin with allegory, but the ambition of the good intention is generally in exactly the reverse proportion to the ability to carry it out in expression. But the true allegory that appeals to all is the presentment of noble natures and of noble deeds. Where, for most people at any rate, is the "allegory" in the Theseus or the Venus of Milo? Yet is not the whole race of man the better for them? Work, therefore, quietly and continually at the great themes ready set for you in the story of the past and "understanded of the people," while you are patiently strengthening and maturing your powers of art in safety, sheltered from yourself, and sheltered from the condemnation due to the too presumptuous assumption of apostleship. For it is one thing to stand forth and say, "_I_ have a message to deliver to the world," and quite another to say, "_There is_ such a message, and it has fallen to me to be its mouthpiece; woe is me, because I am a man of unclean lips." It is needless, therefore--nay, it is harmful--to be always breaking your heart against tasks beyond your strength. Work in some little province; get foothold and grow outwards from it; go on from weakness to strength, and then from strength to the stronger, doing the things you _can_ do while you practise towards the things you hope to do, and illustrating impersonal themes until the time comes for you to try your own individual battle in the great world of thought and feeling; till, mature in strength equal to the portrayal of great natures, the Angels of God as shown forth by you may be recognised as indeed Spirit, and His Ministers as flaming Fire. There is even yet one last word, and that is, in all the _minor_ symbolism surrounding your subjects, to observe a due proportion. For you may easily be tempted to allow some beautiful little fancy, not essential to the subject, to find expression in a form or symbol that will thrust itself unduly on the attention, and will only puzzle and distract. Never let little things come first, and never let them be allowed at all to the damage, or impairing, or obscuring of the simplicity and dignity of the great things; remembering always that the first function of a window is to have stately and seemly figures in beautiful glass, and not to arrest or distract the attention of the spectator with puzzles. Given the great themes adequately expressed, the little fancies may then cluster round them and will be carried lightly, as the victor wears his wreath; while, on the other hand, if these be lacking no amount of symbolism or attribute will supply their place. "_Cucullus non facit monachum_," as the old proverb says--"It is not the hood that makes the monk," but the ascetic face you depict within it. Indeed, rather beware of trusting even to the ordinary, well-recognised symbols in common use, and being misled by them to think you have done something you have not done; and rather withhold these until the other be made sure. Get your figures dignified and your faces beautiful; show the majesty or the sanctity that you are aiming at in these alone, and your saint will be recognised as saintly without his halo of glory, and your angel as angelic without his tongue of flame. * * * * * In my own practice, when drawing from the life, I make a great point of keeping back all these ornaments and symbols of attribute, until I feel that my figure alone expresses itself fully, as far as my powers go, without them. No ornament upon the robe, or the crosier, or the sword; above all, no circle round the head, until--the figure standing out at last and seeming to represent, as near as may be, the true pastor or warrior it claims to represent--the moment arrives when I say, "Yes, I have done all I can,--_now_ he may have his nimbus!" [3] "how tastes of salt The bread of others, and how is hard the passage To go down and to go up by other's stairs." --_Paradise,_ xvii. 58. [4] Coningsby, Book iii. ch. i. [5] "Sesame and Lilies," Lecture 1. CHAPTER XIX Of General Conduct and Procedure--Amount of Legitimate Assistance--The Ordinary Practice--The Great Rule--The Second Great Rule--Four Things to Observe--Art _v._ Routine--The Truth of the Case--The Penalty of Virtue in the Matter--The Compensating Privilege--Practical Applications--An Economy of Time in the Studio--Industry--Work "To Order"--Clients and Patrons--And Requests Reasonable and Unreasonable--The Chief Difficulty the Chief Opportunity--But ascertain all Conditions before starting Work--Business Habits--Order--Accuracy--Setting out Cartoon Forms--An Artist must Dream--But Wake--Three Plain Rules. Having now described, as well as I can, the whole of your equipment--of hand, and head, and heart--your mental and technical weapons for the practice of stained-glass, there now follow a few simple hints to guide you in the use of them; how best to dispose your forces, and on what to employ them. This must be a very broken and fragmentary chapter, full of little everyday matters, very different to the high themes we have just been trying to discuss--and relating chiefly to your conduct of the thing as a business, and your relationships with the interests that surround you; modes of procedure, business hints, practical matters. I am sorry, just as you were beginning (I hope) to be warmed to the subject, and fired with the high ambitions that it suggests, to take and toss you into the cold world of matter-of-fact things; but that is life, and we have to face it. Open the door into the cold air and let us bang at it straight away! Now there is one great and plain question that contains all the rest; you do not see it now, but you will find it facing you before you have gone very far. The great question, "Must I do it all myself, or may I train pupils and assistants?" Let us first amplify the question and get it fairly and fully stated. Then we shall have a better chance of being able to answer it wisely. I have described or implied elsewhere the usual practice in the matter amongst those who produce stained-glass on a large scale. In great establishments the work is divided up into branches: designers, cartoonists, painters, cutters, lead workers, kiln-men: none of whom, as a rule, know any branch of the work except their own. Obviously one of the principal contentions of this book is against the idea that such division, as practised, is an ideal method. On the other hand, you will gather that the writer himself uses the service of assistants. While in the plates at the end are examples of glass where everything has been done by the artists themselves (Plates I., II., III., IV., VII.). I must freely confess that when I first saw in the work of these men the beauty resulting from the personal touch of the artist on the whole of the cutting and leading, a qualm of doubt arose whether the practice of admitting _any_ other hand to my assistance was not a compromise to some extent with absolute ideal; whether it were not the only right plan, after all, to do the whole oneself; to sit down to the bench with one's drawing, and pick out the glass, piece by piece, on its merits, carefully considering each bit as it passed through hand; cutting it and trimming it affectionately to preserve its beauties, and, later, leading it into its place with thicker or thinner lead, in the same careful spirit. But I do not think so. I fancy the truth to be that the _whole_ business should be opened up to all, and afterwards each should gravitate to his place by natural fitness. For the cartoonist _once having the whole craft_ requires more constant practice in drawing to keep himself a good cartoonist than he would get if he also did all the other work of each window; quantity being in this matter even essential to quality. I think we must look for more monumental figures, achieved by the delegation of minor craft matters, in short, by co-operation. Nevertheless, I have never felt less certainty in pronouncing on any question of my craft than in this particular matter; whether, to get the best attainable results, one should do the whole of the work oneself. On the other hand, I never felt _more_ certainty in pronouncing on any question of the craft, than now in laying down as an absolute rule and condition of doing good work at all: that one should be _able_ to do the whole of the work oneself. _That_ is the key to the whole situation, but it is not the whole key; for following close upon it comes the rule that springs naturally out of it; that, being a master oneself, one must make it one's object to train all assistants towards mastership also: to give them the whole ladder to climb. This at least has been the case with the work of my own which is shown in the other collotypes. There has been assistance, but every one of those assisting has had the opportunity to learn to make, and according to the degree of his talent is actually able to make, the whole of a stained-glass window himself. There is not a touch of painting on any of the panels shown which is not by a hand that can also cut and lead and design and draw, and perform all the other offices pertaining to stained-glass noted in the foregoing pages. Speaking generally, I care not whether a man calls himself Brown, or Brown and Co., or, co-operating with others, works under the style of Brown, Jones and Robinson, so long as he observe four things. (1) Not to direct what he cannot practise; (2) To make masters of apprentices, or aim at making them; (3) To keep his hand of mastery over the whole work personally at all stages; and (4) To be prepared sometimes to make sacrifices of profit for the sake of the Art, should the interests of the two clash. Such an one we must call an artist, a master, and a worthy craftsman. It is almost impossible to describe the deadening influence which a routine embodying the reverse of these four things has upon the mind of those who should be artists. Under this influence not only is the subdivision of labour which places each successive operation in separate hands accepted as a matter of course, but into each operation itself this separation imports a spirit of lassitude and dulness and compliance with false conditions and limited aims which would seem almost incredible in those practising what should be an inspiring art. To men so trained, so employed, all counsels of perfection are foolishness; all idea of tentative work, experiment, modification while in progress, is looked upon as mere delusion. To them work consists of a series of never-varied formulas, all fitting into each other and combined to aim at producing a definite result, the like of which they have produced a thousand times before and will produce a thousand times again. "With us," once said, to a friend of the writer, a man so trained, "it's a matter of judgment and experience. It's all nonsense this talk about seeing work at a distance and against the sky, and so forth, while as to the ever taking it down again for retouching after once erecting it, that could only be done by an amateur. We paint a good deal of the work on the bench, and never see it as a whole until it's leaded up; but then we know what we want and get it." "We know what we want!" To what a pass have we come that such a thing could be spoken by any one engaged in the arts! Were it wholly and universally true, nothing more would be needed in condemnation of wide fields of modern practice in the architectural and applied arts, for, most assuredly it is a sentence that could never be spoken of any one worthy of the name of artist that ever lived. Whence would you like instances quoted? Literature? Painting? Sculpture? Music? Their name is legion in the history of all these arts, and in the lives of the great men who wrought in them. For a taste-- Did Michael Angelo "know what he wanted" when, half-way through his figure, he found the block not large enough, and had to make the limb too short? Did Beethoven know, when he evolved a movement in one of his concerted pieces out of a quarrel with his landlady? and another, "from singing or rather roaring up and down the scale," until at last he said, "I think I have found a motive"--as one of his biographers relates? Tennyson, when he corrected and re-corrected his poems from youth to his death? Dürer, the precise, the perfect, able to say, "It cannot be better done," yet re-engraving a portion of his best-known plate, and frankly leaving the rejected portion half erased?[6] Titian, whose custom it was to lay aside his pictures for long periods and then criticise them, imagining that he was looking at them "with the eyes of his worst enemy"? There is not, I suppose, in the English language a more "perfect" poem than "Lycidas." It purports to have been written in a single day, and its wholeness and unity and crystalline completeness give good colour to the thought that it probably was so. "Thus sang the uncouth swain to the oaks and rills, While the still morn went out with sandals gray; He touched the tender stops of various quills, With eager thought warbling his Doric lay: And now the sun had stretched out all the hills, And now was dropt into the western bay: At last he rose, and twitched his mantle blue; To-morrow, to fresh woods and pastures new." Yet, regarding it, the delightful Charles Lamb writes:[7]-- "I had thought of the _Lycidas_ as of a full-grown beauty,--as springing with all its parts absolute,--till, in evil hour, I was shown the original copy of it, together with the other minor poems of its author, in the library of Trinity, kept like something to be proud of. I wish they had thrown them in the Cam, or sent them, after the later cantos of Spenser, into the Irish Channel. How it staggered me to see the fine things in their ore!--interlined, corrected, as if their words were mortal, alterable, displaceable at pleasure; as if they might have been otherwise, and just as good; as if inspiration were made up of parts, and those fluctuating, successive, indifferent! I will never go into the workshop of any great artist again, nor desire a sight of his picture, till it is fairly off the easel; no, not if Raphael were to be alive again, and painting another Galatea." But the real truth of the case is that whatever "inspiration" may be, and whether or not "made up of parts," it, or man's spirit and will in all works of art, has to _deal with_ things so made up; and not only so, but also as described by the other words here chosen: _fluctuating_, _successive_, and _indifferent_. You have to deal with the whole sum of things all at once; the possible material crowds around the artist's will, shifting, changing, presenting at all stages and in all details of a work of art, infinite and continual choice. "Nothing," we are told, "is single," but all things have relations with each other. How much more, then, is it true that every bit of glass in a window is the centre of such relations with its brother and sister pieces, and that nothing is final until all is finished? A work of art is like a battle; conflict after conflict, manoeuvre after manoeuvre, combination after combination. The general does not pin himself down from the outset to one plan of tactics, but watches the field and moulds its issues to his will, according to the yielding or the resistance of the opposing forces, keeping all things solvent until the combinations of the strife have woven together into a soluble problem, upon which he can launch the final charge that shall bring him back with victory. So also is all art, and you must hold all things in suspense. Aye! the last touch more or less of light or shade or colour upon the smallest piece, keeping all open and solvent to the last, until the whole thing rushes together and fuses into a harmony. It is not to be done by "judgment and experience," for all things are new, and there are no two tasks the same; and it is impossible for you from the outset to "know what you want," or to know it at any stage until you can say that the whole work is finished. "But if we work on these methods we shall only get such a small quantity of work done, and it will be so costly done on a system like that you speak of! Make my assistants masters, and so rivals! put a window in, and take it out again, forsooth!" What remedy or answer for this? Well--setting aside the question of the more or less genius--there are only two solutions that I can see:--an increase in industry or a possible decrease in profit, though much may be accomplished in mitigation of these hard conditions, if they prove _too_ hard, by a good and economical system of work, and by time-saving appliances and methods. But, after all, you were not looking out for an easy task, were you, in this world of stress and strain to have the privileges of an artist's life without its penalties? Why, look you, you must remember that besides the business of "saving your soul," which you may share in common with every one else, _you_ have the special privilege of _enjoying for its own sake your personal work in the world_. And you must expect to pay for that privilege at some corresponding personal cost; all the more so in these days when your lot is so exceptional a fortune, and when to enjoy daily work falls to so few. Nevertheless, when I say "enjoy" I do not mean that art is easy or pleasant in the way that ease is pleasant; there is nothing harder; and the better the artist, probably the harder it is. But you enjoy it because of its privileges; because beauty is delightful; because you know that good art does high and unquestioned service to man, and is even one of the ways for the advancing of the kingdom of God. That should be pleasure enough for any one, and compensation for any pains. You must learn the secret of human suffering--and you can only learn it by tasting it--because it is yours to point its meaning to others and to give the message of hope. In this spirit, then, and within these limitations, must you guide your own work and claim the co-operation of others, and arrange your relationships with them, and the limits of their assistance and your whole personal conduct and course of procedure:-- To be yourself a master. To train others up to mastery. To keep your hand over the whole. To work in a spirit of sacrifice. These things once firmly established, questions of procedure become simple. But a few detached hints may be given. I shall string them together just as they come. _An Economy of Time in the Studio._--Have a portion of your studio or work-room wall lined with thin boarding--"picture-backing" of 1/8 inch thick is enough, and this is to _pin things on to_. The cartoon is what you are busy upon, but you must "think in glass" all the time you are drawing it. Have therefore, pinned up, a number of slips of paper--a foolscap half-sheet divided _vertically_ into two long strips I find best. On these write down every direction to the cutter, or the painter, or the designer of minor ornament, _the moment it comes into your mind_, as you work at the charcoal drawing. If you once let the moment pass you will never remember these things again, but you will have them constantly forced back upon your memory, by the mistranslations of your intention which will face you when you first see your work in the glass. This practice is a huge saving of time--and of disappointment. But you also want this convenient wall space for a dozen other needs; for tracings and shiftings of parts, and all sorts of essays and suggestions for alteration. _That we should work always._--I hope it is not necessary to urge the importance of _work_. It is not of much use to work only when we _feel inclined_; many people very seldom do feel naturally inclined. Perhaps there are few things so sweet as the triumph of working _through_ disinclination till it is leavened through with the will and becomes enjoyment by becoming conquest. To work through the dead three o'clock period on a July afternoon with an ache in the small of one's back and one's limbs all a-jerk with nervousness, drooping eyelids, and a general inclination to scream. At such a time, I fear, one sometimes falls back on rather low and sordid motives to act as a spur to the lethargic will. I think of the shortness of the time, the greatness of the task, but also of all those hosts of others who, if I lag, must pass me in the race. Not of actual rivals--or good nature and sense of comradeship would always break the vision--but of possible and unknown ones whom it is my habit to club all together and typify under the style and title of "that fellow Jones." And at such a time it is my habit to say or think, "Aha! I bet Jones is on his back under a plane tree!"--or thoughts to that effect--and grasp the charcoal firmer. It is habits and dodges and ways of thinking such as these that will gradually cultivate in you the ability to "stand and deliver," as they say in the decorative arts. For, speaking now to the amateur (if any such, picture-painter or student, are hesitating on the brink of an art new to them), you must know that these arts are not like picture-painting, where you can choose your own times and seasons: they are always done to definite order and expected in a definite time; and that brings me to speak of the very important subject of "Clients." _Of Clients and Patrons._--It must, of course, be left to each one to establish his own relations with those who ask work of him; but a few hints may be given. You will get many requests that will seem to you unreasonable and impossible of carrying out--some no doubt will really be so; but at least _consider them_. Remember what we said a little way back--not to be set on your own allegory, but to accept your subject from outside and add your poetic thought to it. And also what in another place we said about keeping all "solvent"--so do with actual suggestion of subject and with the wishes of your client: treat the whole thing as "raw material," and all surrounding questions as factors in one general problem. Here also Ruskin has a pregnant word of advice--as indeed where has he not?--"A great painter's business is to do what the public ask of him, in the way that shall be helpful and instructive to them."[8] You cannot always do what people ask, but you can do it more often than a headstrong man would at first think. I was once doing a series of small square panels, set at intervals in the height of some large, tall windows, and containing Scripture subjects, the intermediate spaces being filled with "grisaille" work. The subjects, of course, had to be approximately on one scale, and several of them became very tough problems on account of this restriction. However, all managed to slip through somehow till we came to "Jacob's Ladder," and there I stood firm, or perhaps I ought rather to say _stuck fast_. "How is it possible," I said to my client, "that you can have a picture of the 'Fall' in one panel with Eve's figure taking up almost the whole height of it, and have a similar panel with 'Angels Ascending and Descending' up and down a ladder? There are only two ways of doing it--to put the ladder far off in a landscape, which would reduce it to insignificance, and besides be unsuitable in glass; or to make the angels the size of dolls. Don't you see that it's impossible?" No, he didn't see that it was impossible. What he wanted was "Jacob's Ladder"; the possibility or otherwise was nothing to him. He said (what you'll often hear said, reader, if you do stained-glass), "I don't, of course, know anything about art, and I can't say how this could be done; that is the artist's province." It was in my younger days, and I'm afraid I must have replied to the effect that it was not a question of art but of common reason, and that the artist's province did not extend to making bricks without straw or making two and two into five; and the work fell through. But had I the same thing to deal with now I should waste no words on it, but run the "ladder" right up out of the panel into the grisaille above; an opportunity for one of those delightful naïve _exceptions_ of which old art is so full--like, for instance, the west door of St. Maclou at Rouen, where the crowd of falling angels burst out of the tympanum, bang through the lintel, defying architecture as they defied the first great Architect, and continue their fall amongst the columns below. "Angels Descending," by-the-bye, with a vengeance! And if the bad ones, why not the good? I might just as well have done it, and probably it would have been the very thing out of the whole commission which would have prevented the series from being the tame things that such sometimes are. Anyway, remember this--for I have invariably found it true--that _the chief difficulty of a work of art is always its chief opportunity_. A thing can be looked at in a thousand and one ways, and something dauntingly impossible will often be the very thing that will shake your jogtrot cart out of its rut, make you whip up your horses, and get you right home. BUT Observe this--that all these wishes of the client should be most strictly ascertained _beforehand_; all possibility of midway criticism and alteration prevented. Thresh the thing well out in the preliminary stages and start clear; as long as it _is_ raw material, all in solution, all hanging in the balance--you can do anything. It is like "clay in the hands of the potter," and you can make the vessel as you please: "Out of the same lump making one vessel to honour and another to dishonour." But when the work is _half-done_, when colour is calling out to colour, and shape to shape, and thought to thought, throughout the length and breadth of the work; when the ideas and the clothing of them are all fusing together into one harmony; when, in short, the thing is becoming that indestructible, unalterable unity which we call a Work of Art:--then, indeed, to be required to change or to reconsider is a real agony of impossibility; tearing the glowing web of thought, and form, and fancy into a destruction never to be reconstructed, and which no piecing or patching will mend. There are many minor points, but they are really so entirely matters of experience, that it hardly seems worth while to dwell upon them. Start with recognising the fact that you must try to add business habits and sensible and economical ways to your genius as an artist; in short, another whole side to your character; and keep that ever in view, and the details will fall into their places. _Have Everything in Order._--Every letter relating to a current job should be findable at a moment's notice in an office "letter basket," rather wider than a sheet of foolscap paper, and with sides high enough to allow of the papers standing upright in unfolded sheets, each group of them behind a card taller than the tallest kind of ordinary document, and bearing along the top edge in large red letters--Roman capitals for choice--the name of the work: and it need hardly be said that these should be arranged in alphabetical order. For minor matters too small for such classification it is well to have, in the _front_ place in the basket, cards dividing the alphabet itself into about four parts, so that unarranged small matters can be still kept roughly alphabetical. When the work is done, transfer all documents to separate labelled portfolios--a folded sheet of the thickest brown paper, such as they put under carpets, is very good--and store them away for reference. Larger portfolios for all _templates_, tracings, or architects' details or drawings relating to the work. If you have not a good system with regard to the ordering of these things, believe me the mere _administration_ of a very moderate amount of work will take you _all your day_. So also with _measurement_. ON ACCURACY IN MEASUREMENT. In one of Turgenieff's novels a Russian country proverb is quoted--"Measure thrice, cut once." It is a golden rule, and should be inscribed in the heart of every worker, and I will add one that springs out of it--"Never trust a measurement unless it has been made by yourself, or for yourself--to your order." The measurements on architects' designs, or even working drawings, can never be trusted for the dimensions of the built work. Even the builders' templates, by which the work was built, cannot be, for the masons knock these quite enough out, in actual building, to make your work done by these guides a misfit. Have your own measurements taken again. Above all, beware of trusting to the supposed verticals or horizontals in built work, especially in tracery. A thing may be theoretically and intentionally at a certain angle, but actually at quite a different one. If level is important, take it yourself with spirit-level and plumb-line. With regard to accuracy of work _in the shop_, where it depends on yourself and the system you observe, I cannot do better than write out for you here the written notice by which the matter is regulated in my own practice with regard to cartoons. _"Rules to be Observed in Setting out Forms for Cartoons._ "In every case of setting out any form, or batch of forms, for new windows the truth of the first long line ruled must be _tested_ by stretching a thread. If the lath is proved to be out, it must at once be sent to a joiner to be accurately 'shot,' and the accuracy of _both_ its edges must then be tested with a thread. The first right angle made (for the corner of the form) must also be tested by raising a perpendicular, with a radius of the compasses not less than 6 inches and with a needle-pointed pencil, and by the subjoined formula and no other. From a given point in a given straight line to raise a perpendicular. Let A B be the given straight line (this must be the _long_ side of the form, and the point B must be one corner of the base-line): it is required to raise from the point B a line perpendicular to the line A B. [Illustration: FIG. 71.] (1) Prolong the line A B at least 6 inches beyond B (if there is not room on the paper, it must be pinned on to a smooth board, and a piece of paper pinned on, so as to meet the edge of it, and continue it to the required distance). (2) With the centre B (the compass leg being in all cases placed with absolute accuracy, using a lens if necessary to place it) describe the circle C D E. (3) With the centres C and E, and with a radius of not less than 9 inches, describe arcs intersecting at F and G. (4) Join F G. Then, if the work has been correctly done, the line F G will _pass through the point_ B, and be perpendicular to the line A B. If it does not do so, the work is incorrect, and must be repeated. When the base and the springing-line are drawn on the form, the form must be accurately measured from the bottom upwards, and _every foot marked on both sides_. Such markings to be in fine pencil-line, and to be drawn from the sides of the form to the extreme margin of the paper, and you are not to trust your eye by laying the lath flat down and ticking off opposite the inch-marks, but you are to stand the lath on its edge, so that the inch-marks actually meet the paper, and then tick opposite to them. Also if there are any bars in the window to be observed, the places of these must be marked, and it must be made quite clear whether the mark is the middle of the bar or its edge; and all this marking must be done lightly, but very carefully, with a needle-pointed pencil. In every case where the forms are set out from templates, the accuracy of the templates must be verified, and in the event of the base not being at right angles with the side, a true horizontal must be made from the corner which is higher than the other (the one therefore which has the obtuse angle) and marked within the untrue line; and all measurements, whether of feet, bars, or squaring-out lines, or levels for canopies, bases, or any other divisions of the light, must be made upwards FROM THIS TRUE LEVEL LINE." These rules, I suppose, have saved me on an average an hour a day since they were drawn up; and, mark you, an hour of _waste_ and an hour of _worry_ a day--which is as good as saving a day's work at the least. An artist must dream; you will not charge me with undervaluing that; but a decorator must also wake, and have his wits about him! Start, therefore, in all the outward ordering of your career with the three plain rules:-- (1) To have everything orderly; (2) To have everything accurate; (3) To bring everything and every question to a point, _at the time_, and clinch it. [6] "Ariadne Florentina," p. 31. [7] "A Saturday's Dinner." [8] "Aratra Pentelici," p. 253. CHAPTER XX A STRING OF BEADS Is there anything more to say? A whole world-full, of course; for every single thing is a part of all things. But I have said most of my say; and I could now wish that you were here that you might ask me aught else you want. A few threads remain that might be gathered up--parting words, hints that cannot be classified. I must string them together like a row of beads; big and little mixed; we will try to get the big ones more or less in the middle if we can. Grow everything from seed. All seeds that are living (and therefore worth growing) have the power in them to grow. But so many people miss the fact that, on the other hand, _nothing else_ will grow; and that it is useless in art to transplant full-grown trees. This is the key to great and little miseries, great and little mistakes. Were you sorry to be on the lowest step of the ladder? Be glad; for all your hopes of climbing are in that. And this applies in all things, from conditions of success and methods of "getting work" up to the highest questions of art and the "steps to Parnassus," by which are reached the very loftiest of ideals. I must not linger over the former of these two things or do more than sum it up in the advice, to take anything you can get, and to be glad, not sorry, if it is small and comes to you but slowly. Simple things, and little things, and many things, are more needed in the arts today than complex things and great and isolated achievements. If you have nothing to do for others, do some little thing for yourself: it is a seed, presently it will send out a shoot of your first "commission," and that will probably lead to two others, or to a larger one; but pray to be led by small steps; and make sure of firm footing as you go, for there is such a thing as trying to take a _leap_ on the ladder, and leaping off it. So much for the seed of success. The seed of craftsmanship I have tried to describe in this book. The seed of ornament and design, it is impossible to treat of here; it would require as large a book as this to itself: but I will hazard the devotion of a page each to the A and the B of my own A B C of the subject as I try to teach it to my pupils, and put them before you without comment, hoping they may be of some slight use. (See figs. 72 and 73.) But though I said that nothing will grow but seed, it does not, of course, follow that every seed will grow, or, if it does, that you yourself will reap the exact harvest you expect, or even recognise it in its fruitage as the growth of what you have sown. Expect to give much for little, to lose sight of the bread cast on the waters, not even sure that you will know it again even if you find it after many days. You never know, and therefore do not count your scalps too carefully or try to number your Israel and Judah. Neither, on the other hand, allow your seed to be forced by the hothouse of advertising or business pushing, or anything which will distract or distort that quiet gaze upon the work by which you love it for its own sake, and judge it on its merits; all such sidelights are misleading, since you do not know whether it is intended that this or that shall prosper or both be alike good. How many a man one sees, earnest and sincere at starting, led aside off the track by the false lights of publicity and a first success. Art is peace. Do things because you love them. If purple is your favourite colour, put purple in your window; if green, green; if yellow, yellow. Flowers and leaves and buds because you love them. Glass because you love it. It is not that you are to despise either fame or wealth. Honestly acquired both are good. But you must bear in mind that the pursuit of these separately by any other means than perfecting your work is a thing requiring great outlay of TIME, and you cannot afford to withdraw any time from your work in order to acquire them. [Illustration: FIG. 72. Design consists of arrangement. Let us practise arrangement separately, and on its simplest terms. Take the simplest possible arranged form, and make all ornament spring from this, without, for a considerable time changing its character, or making any additions of a different character to it. If we are not then to do this what resource have we? we may change its direction. Proceed then to do so, observing a few very simple rules. 1. Do the work in single "stitches" 2. & to each arm of the cross in turn. 3 keep a record of each step; that is, as soon as you have got any definite developement from your original form, put that down on paper and leave it, drawing it over again and developing from the second drawing. The fourth rule is the most important of all: 4. Keep "on the spot" as much as possible, i.e. take a number of single steps from the point you have arrived at, not a number of consecutive steps leading farther from it. For example: "b" here is a single step from "a", you do one thing. I do not want you to go on developing from it [fig. "b"] as "c", "d" & "e" until you have gone back to fig. "a" and made all the immediately possible steps to be taken from it, one of wh. is shown, fig "f." [Illustration: a] [Illustration: b] [Illustration: c] [Illustration: c] [Illustration: d] [Illustration: e] [Illustration: f]] [Illustration: FIG. 73. Seed of design as applied to Craft & Material. Suppose you have three simple openings. (fig. 'a'.) garret windows, or passage windows, we will suppose, each with a central horizontal bar: and suppose you have a number of pieces of glass to use up already cut to one gauge, and that six of these fill a window, can you get any little variety by arrangement on the following terms. 1. Treating both upper and lower ranges alike 2. Allowing yourself to halve them, vertically only. 3. Not wasting any glass. 4. Not halving more than two in each light. How is this, fig. b? you despise it? so absurdly simple? It is the key to all simple ornament in leaded glass. Exhaust all the possible varieties, there are at least nine. Do them. That's all. [Illustration: A] [Illustration: B] [Illustration] [Illustration] ] In these days and in our huge cities there are so many avenues open to celebrity, through Society, the Press, Exhibition, and so forth, that a man once led to spend time on them is in danger of finding half his working life run away with by them before he is aware, while even if they are successful the success won by them is a poor thing compared to that which might have been earned by the work which was sacrificed for them. It becomes almost a profession in itself to keep oneself notorious. To spend large slices out of one's time in the mere putting forward of one's work, _showing_ it apart from _doing_ it, necessary as this sometimes is, is a thing to be done grudgingly; still more so should one grudge to be called from one's work here, there, and everywhere by the social claims which crowd round the position of a public man. * * * * * There are strenuous things enough for you in the work itself without wasting your strength on these. We will speak of them presently; but a word first upon originality. Don't _strive_ to be original; no one ever got Heaven's gift of invention by saying, "I must have it, and since I don't feel it I must assume it and pretend it;" follow rather your master patiently and lovingly for a long time; give and take, echo his habits as Botticelli echoed Filippo Lippi's, but improve upon them; add something to them if you can, as he also did, and pass then on, as he also did, to the _little_ Filippo--Filippino--making him a truer and sweeter heart than his father, out of the well of truth and sweetness with which Botticelli's own heart was brimming. Do this, but at the same time expect with happy patience, as a boy longs for his manhood, yet does not try to hasten it and does not pretend to forestall it, the time when some fresh idea in imagination, some fresh method in design, some fresh process in craftsmanship, will come to you as a reward of patient working--and come by accident, as all such things do, lest you should think it your own and miss the joy of knowing that it is not yours but Heaven's. And when this comes, guard it and mature it carefully. Do not throw it out too lavishly broadcast with the ostentation of a generous genius having gifts to spare. Share it with proved and worthy friends, when they notice it and ask you about it, but in the meanwhile develop and cultivate it as a gardener does a tree. And this leads me to the most important point of all--namely, the value, the all-sufficing value, of _one_ new step on the road of Beauty. If such is really granted you, consider it as enough for your lifetime. One such thing in the history of the arts has generally been enough for a century; how much more, then, for a generation. For indeed there is only one rule for fine work in art, that you should put your whole strength, all the powers of mind and body into every touch. Nothing less will do than that. You must face it in drawing from the life. Try it in its acutest form, not from the posed, professional model, who will sit like a stone; try it with children, two years old or so; the despair of it, the exhaustion: and then, in a flash, when you thought you had really done somewhat, a still more captivating, fascinating gesture, which makes all you have done look like lead. Can you screw your exhaustion up _again,_ sacrifice all you have done, and face the labour of wrestling with the new idea? And if you do? You are sick with doubt between the new and the old. You ask your friends; you probably choose wrong; your judgment is clouded by the fatigue of your previous toil. But you have gained strength. That is the real point of the thing. It is not what you have done in this instance, but what you have become in doing it. Next time, fresh and strong, you will dash the beautiful sudden thought upon the paper and leave it, happy to make others happy, but only through the pains you took before, which are a small price to pay for the joy of the strength you have gained. This is the rule of great work. Puzzle and hesitation and compromise can only occur because you have left some factor of the problem out of count, and this should never be. Your business is to take all into account and to sacrifice everything, however fascinating and tempting it may be in itself, if it does not fit in as part of an harmonious _whole_. Remember in this case, when loth to make such sacrifice, the old saying that "there's as good fish in the sea as ever came out." Brace yourself to try for something still better. Recast your composition. If it is defective, the defect all comes from some want of strenuousness as you went along. It is like getting a bit of your figure out of drawing because your eye only measured some portion of it with one or two portions of the rest and not with the whole figure and attitude. Every student knows the feeling. So in your composition: you may get impossible levels, impossible relations between the subject and the surrounding canopy: perhaps one coming in front of the other at one point and the reverse at another point. You drew the thing dreamily: you were not alert enough. And now you must waste what you had got to love, because though it's so pretty it is not fitting. But sometimes it will happen that some line of your composition is thus hacked off by no fault of yours, by some mismeasurement of a bar by your builder, or some change of mind or whim of your client, who "likes it all but"---- (some vital feature). As we have said, this is not quite a fair demand to be made upon the artist, but it will sometimes occur, whatever we do. Pull yourself together, and, before you stand out about it and refuse to change, consider. Try the modification, and try it in such an aroused and angry spirit as shall flame out against the difficulty with force and heat. Let the whole thing be as fuel of fire, and the reward will be given. The chief difficulty may become--it is more than an even chance that it does become--the chief glory, and that the composition will be like the new-born Phoenix, sprung from the ashes of the old and thrice as fair. Then also strike while the iron is hot, and work while you're warm to it. When you have done the main figure-study and slain its difficulty you feel braced up, your mind clear, and you see your way to link it in with the surroundings. Will you let it all get cold because it is toward evening and you are physically tired, when another hour would set the whole problem right for next day's work; now, while you are warm, while the beauty of the model you have drawn from is still glowing in you with a thousand suggestions and possibilities? You will do in another hour now what would take you days to do when the fire has died down--if you ever do it at all. It is after a day's work such as this that one feels the true delight of the balm of Nature. For conquered difficulty brings new insight through the feeling of new power; and new beauties are seen because they are felt to be attainable, and by virtue of the assurance that one has got distinctly a step nearer to the veil that hides the inner heart of things which is our destined home. It is after work like this, feeling the stirrings of some real strength within you, promising power to deal with nature's secrets by-and-by, that you see as never before the beauty of things. The keen eyes that have been so busy turn gratefully to the silver of the sky with the grey, quiet trees against it and the watery gleam of sunset like pale gold, low down behind the boughs, where the robin, half seen, is flitting from place to place, choosing his rest and twittering his good-night; and you think with good hope of your life that is coming, and of all your aspirations and your dreams. And in the stillness and the coolness and the peace you can dwell with confidence upon the thought of all the Unknown that is moving onward towards you, as the glow which is fading renews itself day by day in the East, bringing the daily task with it. You feel that you are able to meet it, and that all is well; that there are quiet and good things in store, and that this constant renewal of the glories of day and night, this constant procession of morning and evening as the world rolls round, has become almost a special possession to you, to which only those who pay the price have entrance, an inheritance of your own as a reward of your endeavour and acquired power, and leading to some purposed end that will be peace. * * * * * Stained-glass, stained-glass, stained-glass! At night in the lofty church windows the bits glow and gloom and talk to one another in their places; and the pictured angels and saints look down, peopling the empty aisles and companioning the lamp of the sanctuary. * * * * * The beads worth threading seem about all threaded now, and the book appears to be done. Thus we have gone on then, making it as it came to hand, blundering, as it seems to me, on the borders of half a dozen literary or illiterate styles, the pen not being the tool of our proper craft; but on the whole saying somehow what we meant to say: laughing when we felt amused, and being serious when the subject seemed so, our object being indeed to make workers in stained-glass and not a book about it. Is it worth while to try and put a little clasp to our string of beads and tie all together? There was a little boy (was he six or seven or eight?), and his seat on Sunday was opposite the door in the fourteenth-century chancel of the little Norman country church. There the great, tall windows hung in the air around him, and he used to stare up at them with goggle-eyes in the way that used to earn him household names, wondering which he liked best. And for months one would be the favourite, and for months another would supplant it; his fancy would change, and now he liked this--now that. Only the stone tracery-bars, for there was no stained-glass to spoil them. The broad, plain flagstones of the floor spread round him in cool, white spaces, in loved unevenness, honoured by the foot-tracks which had worn the stone into little valleys from the door and through the narrow, Norman chancel-arch up towards the altar rails, telling of generations of feet, long since at rest, that had carried simple lives to seek the place as the place of their help or peace. Plain rush-plaited hassocks and little brass sconces where, on lenten nights, in the unwarmed church, glimmered the few candles that lit the devotion of the strong, rough sons of the glebe, hedgers and ditchers, who came there after daily labour to spell out simple prayer and praise. But it was best on the summer Sunday mornings, when the great spaces of blue, and the towering white clouds looked down through the diamond panes; and the iron-studded door, with the wonderful big key, which his hands were not yet strong enough to turn, stood wide open; and outside, amongst the deep grass that grew upon the graves, he could see the tortoise-shell butterflies sunning themselves upon the dandelions. Then it was that he used to think the outside the best, and fancy (with perfect truth, as I believe) that angels must be looking in, just as much as he was looking out, and gazing down, grave-eyed, upon the little people inside, as he himself used to watch the red ants busy in their tiny mounds upon the grass plot or the gravel path; and he wondered sometimes whether the outside or the inside was "God's House" most: the place where he was sitting, with rough, simple things about him that the village carpenter or mason or blacksmith had made, or the beautiful glowing world outside. And as he thought, with the grave mind of a child, about these things, he came to fancy that the eyes that looked out through the silver diamond-panes which kept out the wind and rain, mattered less than the eyes that looked in from the other side where basked the butterflies and flowers and all the living things he so loved; awful eyes that were at home where hung the sun himself in his distances and the stars in the great star-spaces; where Orion and the Pleiades glittered in the winter nights, where "Mazzaroth was brought forth in his season," and where through the purple skies of summer evening was laid out overhead the assigned path along which moved Arcturus with his sons. APPENDIX I SOME SUGGESTIONS AS TO THE STUDY OF OLD GLASS Every one who wants to study glass should go to York Minster. Go to the extreme west end, the first two windows are of plain quarries most prettily leaded, and showing how pleasant "plain-glazing" may be, with silvery glass and a child-like enjoyment of simple patterning, unconscious of "high art." But look at the second window on the north side. What do you see? You see a yellow shield? Exactly. Every one who looks at that window as he passes at a quick walk must come away remembering that he had seen a yellow shield. But stop and look at it. Don't you _like_ it--_I_ do! Why?--well, because it happens to be by good luck just _right_, and it is a very good lesson of the degree in which beauty in glass depends on juxtaposition. I had thought of it as a particularly beautiful bit of glass in quality and colour--but not at all! it is textureless and rather crude. I had thought of it as old--not at all: it is probably eighteenth-century. But look what it happens to be set in--the mixture of agate, silver, greenish and black quarries. Imagine it by itself without the dull citron crocketting and pale yellow-stain "sun" and "shafting" of the panel below--without the black and yellow escutcheon in the light to its right hand--even without the cutting up and breaking with black lead lines of its own upper half. In short, you could have it so placed that you would like it no better, that it would _be_ no better, than the bit of "builder's glazing" in the top quatrefoil of the next window, which looks like, and I fancy is, of almost the very same glass, but clumsily mixed, and, fortunately, _dated_ for our instruction, 1779. I do not know any place where you can get more study of certain properties of glass than in the city of York. The cathedral alone is a mine of wealth. The nave windows are near enough to see all necessary detail. There is something of every period. And with regard to the nave and clerestory windows, they have been so mauled and re-leaded that you need not be in the least afraid of admiring the wrong thing or passing by the right. You can be quite frank and simple about it all. For instance, my own favourite window is the fifth from the west on the south side. The old restorer has coolly slipped down one whole panel below its proper level in a shower of rose-leaves (which were really, I believe, originally a pavement), and, frankly, I don't know (and don't care) whether they are part of his work in the late eighteenth century or the original glass of the late fourteenth. I rather incline to think that they came out of some other window and are bits of fifteenth-century glass. The same with the chequered shield of Vernon in the other light. I daresay it is a bit of builder's glazing--but isn't it jolly? And what do you think of the colour of the little central circle half-way up the middle light? Isn't it a flower? And look at the petal that's dropped from it on to the bar below! or the _whole_ of the left-hand light; well, or the middle light, or the right-hand light? If that's not colour I don't know what is. I doubt if it was any more beautiful when it was new, perhaps not so beautiful. Compare it, for example, with the window in the same wall (I think next to it on the west, which has been "restored"). The window exactly opposite seems one of the least retouched, and the least interesting; if you think the yellow canopies disagreeable in colour don't be ashamed to say so: they are not unbeautiful exactly, I think, but, personally, I could do with less of them. Yet I should not be surprised to be assured that they are all genuine fourteenth-century. In the north transept is the celebrated "Five Sisters," the most beautiful bit of thirteenth-century "grisaille" perhaps in existence. That is where we get our patterns for "kamptulicon" from; but we don't make kamptulicon quite like it. If you want a sample of "nineteenth-century thirteenth-century" work you have only to look over your left shoulder. A similar glance to the right will show you "nineteenth-century fifteenth-century" work--and show it you in a curious and instructive transition stage--portions of the two right-hand windows of the five being old glass worked in with new, while the right-hand one of all is a little abbot who is nearly all old and has shrunk behind a tomb, wondering, as it seems to me, "how those fellows got in," and making up his mind whether he's going to stand being bullied by the new St. Peter. In the south transept opposite, all the five eastern windows are fifteenth-century, and some of them very well preserved, while those in the southern wall are modern. The great east window has a history of its own quite easily ascertainable on the spot and worthy of research and study. Then go into the north ambulatory, look at the third of the big windows. Well, the right-hand light; look at the bishop at the top in a dark red chasuble, note the bits of dull rose colour in the lower dress, the bit of blackish grey touching the pastoral staff just below the edge of the chasuble, look at the bits of sharp strong blue in the background. Now I believe these are all accidents--bits put in in releading; but when the choir is singing and you can pick out every separate note of the harmony as it comes down to you from each curve of the fretted roof, if you don't think this window goes with it and is music also, you must be wrong, I think, in eye or ear. But indeed this part of the church and all round the choir aisles on both sides is a perfect treasure-house of glass. If you want an instance of what I said (p. 212) as to "added notes turning discord into harmony," look at the _patched_ east window of the south choir aisle. Mere jumble--probably no selection--yet how beautiful! like beds of flowers. Did you ever see a bed of flowers that was _not_ beautiful?--often and often, when the gardener had carefully selected the plants of his ribbon-bordering; but I would have you think of an old-fashioned cottage garden, with its roses and lilies and larkspur and snapdragon and marigolds--those are what windows should be like. In addition to the minster, almost every church in the city has some interesting glass; several of them a great quantity, and some finer than any in the cathedral itself. And here I would give a hint. _Never pass a church or chapel of any sort or kind_, _old or new, without looking in._ You cannot tell what you may find. And a second hint. Do not make written pencil notes regarding colour, either from glass or nature, for you'll never trouble to puzzle them out afterwards. Take your colour-box with you. The merest dot of tint on the paper will bring everything back to mind. Space prevents our making here anything like a complete itinerary setting forth where glass may be studied; it must suffice to name a few centres, noting a few places in the same district which may be visited from them easily. I name only those I know myself, and of course the list is very slight. YORK. And all churches in the city. GLOUCESTER. Tewkesbury, Cirencester. BIRMINGHAM. (For Burne-Jones glass.) Shrewsbury, Warwick, Tamworth, Malvern. WELLS. OXFORD. Much glass in the city, old and new. Fairford. CAMBRIDGE. Much glass in the city, old and new. CANTERBURY. CHARTRES. (If there is still any left unrestored.) St. Pierre in the same town. SENS. TROYES. AUXERRE. Of the last two I have only seen some copies. For glass by Rossetti, Burne-Jones, and Madox-Brown, consult their lives. There are many well-known books on the subject of ancient glass, Winston, Westlake, &c., which give fuller details on this matter. APPENDIX II ON THE RESTORING OF ANCIENT WINDOWS Let us realise what _is_ done. And let us consider what _ought to be done_. A window of ancient glass needs releading. The lead has decayed and the whole is loose and shaky. The ancient glass has worn very thin, pitted almost through like a worn-out thimble with little holes where the alkalis have worked their way out. It is as fragile and tender as an old oil-painting that needs to be taken off a rotten canvas and re-lined. If you examine a piece of old glass whose lead has had time to decay, you will find that the glass itself is often in an equally tender state. The painting would remain for years, probably for centuries yet, if untouched, just as dust, without any attachment at all, will hang on a vertical looking-glass. But if you scrape it, even only with the finger-nail, you will generally find that that is sufficient to bring much--perhaps most--of the painting off, while both sides of the glass are covered with a "patina" of age which is its chief glory in quality and colour, and which, or most of which, a wet handkerchief dipped in a little dust and rubbed smartly will remove. In short, here is a work of art as beautiful and precious as a picture by Titian or Holbein, and probably, as being the chief glory of some stately cathedral, still more precious, which ought only to be trusted to the gentle hands of a cultivated and scientific artist, connoisseur, and expert. The glass should all be handled as if it were old filigree silver. If the lead is so perished that it is absolutely impossible to avoid taking the glass down, it should be received on the scaffold itself, straight from its place in the stone, between packing-boards lined with sheets of wadding--"cotton-wool"--attached to the boards with size or paste, and with, of course, the "fluffy" side outwards. These boards, section by section, should be finally corded or clamped ready for travelling _before being lowered from the scaffold_; if any pieces of the glass get detached they should be carefully packed in separate boxes, each labelled with a letter corresponding to one placed on the section as packed, so that there may be no chance of their place ever being lost, and when all is done the whole window will be ready to be gently lowered, securely "packed for removal," to the pavement below. The ideal thing now would be to hire a room and do the work on the spot; but if this is impossible on account of expense and the thing has to bear a journey, the sections, packed as above described, should be themselves packed, two or three together, as may be convenient, in an outer packing-case for travelling. It should be insured, for then a representative of the railway must attend to certify the packing, and also extra care will be taken in transit. Arrived at the shop, the window should be laid out carefully on the bench and each bit re-leaded into its place, the very fragile pieces between two bits of thin sheet-glass. Unless this last practice is adopted _throughout_, the ordinary process of cementing must be omitted and careful puttying substituted for it. While if it _is_ adopted the whole must be puttied _before_ cementing, otherwise the cement will run in between the various thicknesses of glass. It would be an expensive and tedious and rather thankless process, for the repairer's whole aim would be to hide from the spectator the fact that anything whatever had been done. What does happen at present is this. A country clergyman, or, in the case of a cathedral, an architectural surveyor, neither of whom know by actual practice anything technically of stained-glass, hand the job over to some one representing a stained-glass establishment. This gentleman has studied stained-glass on paper, and knows as much about cutting or leading technically and by personal practice, as an architect does of masonry, or stone-carving--neither more nor less. That is to say, he has made sketch-books full of water-colour or pencil studies, and endless notes from old examples, and has never cut a bit of glass in his life, or leaded it. Well, he assumes the responsibility, and the client reposes in the blissful confidence that all is well. Is all well? The work is placed in the charge of the manager, and through him it filters down as part of the ordinary, natural course of events into the glazing-shop. Here this precious and fragile work of art we have described is handed over to a number of ordinary working men to treat by the ordinary methods of their trade. They know perfectly well that nobody above them knows as much as they, or, indeed, anything at all of their craft. Division of labour has made them "glaziers," as it has made the gentlemen above stairs, who do the cartoons or the painting, "artists." These last know nothing of glazing, why should glaziers know anything of art? It is perfectly just reasoning; they do their very best, and what they do is this. They take out the old, tender glass, with the colour hardly clinging to it, and they put it into fresh leads, and then they solder up the joints. And, by way of a triumphant wind-up to a good, solid, English, common-sense job, with no art-nonsense or fads about it, they proceed to scrub the whole on both sides with stiff grass-brushes (ordinarily sold at the oil-shops for keeping back-kitchen sinks clean), using with them a composition mainly consisting of exactly the same materials with which a housemaid polishes the fender and fire-irons. That is a plain, simple, unvarnished statement of facts. You may find it difficult of belief, but this is what actually happens. This is what you are having done everywhere, guardians of our ancient buildings. You'll soon have all your old windows "quite as good as new." It's a merry world, isn't it? APPENDIX III Hints for the Curriculum of a Technical School for Stained-Glass--Examples for Painting--Examples of Drapery--Drawing from Nature--Ornamental Design. _Examples for Painting._--I have already recommended for outline work the splendid reproductions of the Garter Plates at Windsor. It is more difficult to find equally good examples for _painting_; for if one had what one wished it would be photographed from ideal painted-glass or else from cartoons wisely prepared for glass-work. But, in the first case, if the photographs were from the best ancient glass--even supposing one could get them--they would be unsatisfactory for two reasons. First, because ancient glass, however well preserved, has lost or gained something by age which no skill can reproduce; and secondly, because however beautiful it is, all but the very latest (and therefore not the best) is immature in drawing. It is not wise to reproduce those errors. The things themselves look beautiful and sincere because the old worker drew as well as he could; but if we, to imitate them, draw less well than we can, we are imitating the _accidents_ of his production, and not the _method_ and _principle_ of it: the principle was to draw as well as he could, and we, if we wish to emulate old glass, must draw as well as _we_ can. For examples of Heads nothing can be better than photographs from Botticelli and other early Tuscan, and from the early Siennese painters. Also from Holbein, and chiefly from his drawings. There is a flatness and firmness of treatment in all these which is eminently suited to stained-glass work. Hands also may be studied from the same sources, for though Botticelli does not always draw hands with perfect mastery, yet he very often does, and the expression of them, as of his heads, is always dignified and full of sweetness and gentleness of feeling; and as soon as we have learnt our craft so as to copy these properly, the best thing is to draw hands and heads for ourselves. _Examples of Drapery._--To me there is no drapery so beautiful and appropriate for stained-glass work in the whole world of art, ancient or modern, as that of Burne-Jones, and especially in his studies and drawings and cartoons for glass; and if these are not accessible, at least we may pose drapery as like it as we can, and draw it ourselves and copy it. But I would, at any rate, earnestly warn the student against the "crinkly-crankly" drapery imitated from Dürer and his school, which fills up the whole panel with wrinkles and "turnovers" (the linings of a robe which give an opportunity for changing the colour), and spreads out right and left and up and down till the poor bishop himself (and in nine cases out of ten it _is_ a bishop, so that he may be mitred and crosiered and pearl-bordered) becomes a mere peg to hang vestments on, and is made short and dumpy for that end. There is a great temptation and a great danger here. This kind of work, where every inch of space is filled with ornament and glitter, and change and variety and richness, is indeed in many ways right and good for stained-glass; which is a broken-up thing; where large blank spaces are to be avoided, and where each little bit of glass should look "cared for" and thought of, as a piece of fine jewellery is put together in its setting; and if craftsmanship were everything, much might be said for these methods. There is indeed plenty of stained-glass of the kind more beautiful as _craftsmanship_ than anything since the Middle Ages, much more beautiful and cunning in workmanship than Burne-Jones, and yet which is little else but vestments and curtains and diaper--where there is no lesson taught, no subject dwelt on, no character studied or portrayed. If we wish it to be so--if we have nothing to teach or learn, if we wish to be let alone, to be soothed and lulled by mere sacred _trappings_, by pleasant colours and fine and delicate sheen and the glitter of silk and jewels--well and good, these things will serve; but if they fail to satisfy, go to St. Philip's, Birmingham, and see the solemnities and tragedies of Life and Death and Judgment, and all this will dwindle down into the mere upholstery and millinery that it is. _Drawing from Nature._--There is a side of drawing practice almost wholly neglected in schools, which consists, not in training the eye and hand to correctly measure and outline spaces and forms, but in training the finger-ends with an H.B. pencil point at the end of them to illustrate texture and minute detail. It is necessary to look at things in a large way, but it is equally necessary to look at them in a small way; to be able to count the ribs on a blade of grass or a tiny cockle-shell, and to give them in pencil, each with its own light and shade. I find the whole key to this teaching to lie in one golden rule--_not to frighten or daunt the student with big tasks at first_. A single grain of wheat, not a whole ear of corn; some tiny seed, tiny shell; but whatever _is_ chosen, to be pursued with a needle-pointed pencil to the very verge of lens-work. I must yet again quote Ruskin. "You have noticed," he says,[9] "that all great sculptors, and most of the great painters of Florence, began by being goldsmiths. Why do you think the goldsmith's apprenticeship is so fruitful? Primarily, because it forces the boy to do small work and mind what he is about. Do you suppose Michael Angelo learned his business by dashing or hitting at it?" _Ornamental Design._--It is impossible here to enter into a description of any system of teaching ornament. At p. 294 I have given just as much as two pages can give of the seed from which such a thing may spring. In some of the collotypes from the finished glass the patterns on quarry or robe which spring from this seed may be traced--very imperfectly, but as well as the scale and the difficulties of photography and the absence of colour will allow. What I find best, in commencing with any student, is to start four practices together, and keep them going together step by step, side by side, through the course, one evening for each, or some like division. _Technical Work._--Cutting, glazing, &c. _Painting Work._--By graduated examples, from simple outline up to a head of Botticelli. _Ornament_, as described; and _Drawing from Nature_, in the spirit and methods we have spoken of. Moulding the whole into a system of composition and execution, tempered and governed as it goes along by judiciously chosen reading and reference to examples, ancient or modern. [9] "Ariadne Florentina," p. 108. NOTES ON THE COLLOTYPE PLATES It is obvious that stained-glass cannot be adequately shown in book-illustration. For instance, we cannot have either the scale of it or the colour--two rather vital exceptions. These collotypes are, therefore, put forth as mere diagrams for the use of students, to call their attention to certain definite points and questions of treatment, and no more pretending than if they were black-board drawings to give adequate pictures of what glass can be or should be. This is one reason, too, for the omission of all attempt to reproduce ancient glass. It was felt that it should not be subjected to the indignity of such very imperfect representation, and especially as so many much larger books on the subject exist, where at least the _scale_ is not so ill-treated. But, besides, if one once began illustrating old glass, one would immediately seem to be setting standards for present-day guidance, and this could only be done (_if done_) with many annotations and exceptions and with a much larger range of examples than is possible here. The following illustrations, therefore, show the attempts of a group of workers who have endeavoured to carry into practice the principles set forth in this book. It has not been found possible in all cases to get photographs from the actual glass--always a very difficult thing to do. The illustrations can be seen much better by the aid of a moderately strong reading-lens. PLATE I.--_Part of East Window, St. Anselm's, Woodridings, Pinner, by Louis Davis._ The design, cartoons, and cut-line made, all the glass chosen and painted, and the leading superintended by the artist. [Illustration: I.--Part of Window. St. Anselm's, Woodridings, Pinner.] PLATE II.--_Another portion of the same window, by the same. Scenes from the Life of St. Anselm._ Executed under the same conditions as the above. The freehand drawing and the varying thickness of the leads in the quarry work should be noted. [Illustration: II.--Part of Window. St. Anselm's, Woodridings, Pinner.] PLATE III.--_Window in St. Peter's Church, Clapham Road--"Blessed are_ _they that Mourn," by Reginald Hallward._ The _whole_ of the work in this instance, including cutting, leading, &c., is done by the artist himself. As an instance of how little photography can do, it is worth while to describe such a small item as the _scroll_ above the figure. This is of glass most carefully selected (or most skilfully treated with acid), so that the ground work varies from silvery-white to almost a pansy-purple, and on this the verse is illuminated in tones varying from pale primrose to the ruddiest gold--the whole forming a passage of lovely colour impossible to achieve by any system of "copying." It is work like this and the preceding that is referred to on p. 266. [Illustration: III.--Window. St. Peter's Church, Clapham.] PLATE IV.--_Central part of Window in Cobham Church, Kent, by Reginald Hallward._ Executed under the same conditions as the preceding. [Illustration: IV.--Part of Window. Cobham Church, Kent.] PLATE V.--_Part of Window in Ardrahan Church, Galway--"St. Robert" by Selwyn Image._ From the cartoon. See p. 83. [Illustration: V.--Part of Window. Ardrahan, Galway.] PLATE VI.--_Two Designs for Domestic Glass, by Miss M. J. Newill._ From the cartoons. [Illustration: VI.--From Cartoons for Domestic Glass.] PLATE VII.--_"The Dream of St. Kenelm," by H. A. Payne._ The author had the pleasure of watching this work daily while in progress. It was done entirely by the artist's own hand, by way of a specimen "masterpiece" of craftsmanship, and the aim was to use to the full extent every resource of the material. [Illustration: VII.--Window. "The Dream of St. Kenelm."] PLATE VIII.--_Six "Quarries"--"Day and Night," "The Spirit on the Face of the Waters," "Creation of Birds and Fishes," "Eden," and "The Parable of the Good Seed," by Pupils of H. A. Payne, Birmingham School of Art._ These lose very much by reduction, and should be seen with a lens magnifying 2-1/2 diameters. They are the designs of the pupils themselves (boys in their teens), and are examples of bold outline _untouched after tracing_. They are more elaborate than would be desirable for _ordinary_ quarry glazing; being intended for interior work on a screen, to be seen close at hand with borrowed light. [Illustration: VIII.--Quarries. (Size of originals, 4-1/2 by 4 ins.)] PLATE IX.--_Micro-photographs_. 1. _A piece of outline that has "fried" in the kiln._ Magnified 20 diameters. See p. 104. 2. _A small Diamond seen from above._ Magnified 10-1/2 diameters. The white horizontal line is the cutting edge. 3. _A larger Diamond that has been "re__set_." That is to say, _re-ground_: the diagonal marks like a St. Andrew's Cross show the grinding down of the old facets by which the new cutting edge has been produced. Magnified 10-1/2 diameters. 4. No. 2 _seen from the side_. Magnified 10-1/2 diameters; the cutting edge faces towards the left. [Illustration: IX.--Micro-photographs from details connected with Glass Work.] PLATE X.--_Micro-photographs of Glass-cutting_ Very difficult to explain. "A" is a sheet of glass seen _in section_ multiplied 15-1/2 diameters. The black marks along the _top edge_ are diamond-cuts, good and bad, coming _straight towards the spectator_. The two outside ones are very _bad_ cuts, far too violent, and have split off the surface of the glass. Of the two inner ones the left-hand one is an ideally good cut, no disturbance of the surface having occurred; the right-hand a fairly good one, but a little unnecessarily hard. Passing over B for the present--C is a similar piece of glass also magnified 15-1/2 diameters, with _wheel-cuts_ seen endwise (coming towards the spectator). The one on the left is a very bad cut, the surface of the glass having actually split off in flakes, the next to it is a perfect cut where the surface is intact, and note that though not a quarter so much pressure has been employed, the split downward into the glass is deeper and sharper than in the violent cut to the left, as is also the case with the two other moderately good cuts to the right. D, E--_Wheel-cuts._ In these we are looking down upon the surface of the glass. They are bad cuts, multiplied 20 diameters; the direction of the cut is from left to right. In the upper figure the flake of glass is split completely off but is still lying in its place. In the lower one the left-hand half is split, and the right-hand only partially so, remaining so closely attached to the body of the glass as to show (and in an especially beautiful and perfect manner) the rainbow-tinted "Newton's rings" which accompany the phenomenon of "Interference," for an explanation of which I must refer the reader to an encyclopædia or some work on optics. _Good_ cuts seen from above are simply lines like a hair upon the glass, but the diamond-cut is a coarser hair than the wheel-cut. If you now hold the illustration _upside down_, what then becomes the top edge of section C shows a wheel-cut seen sideways along the section of the glass which it has divided, the direction of this cut being from left to right. In the same way section "A" seen upside down gives the appearance of a _diamond_-cut, also from left to right, and multiplied 15-1/2 diameters, while "B" held in the same position gives the same cut multiplied 78 diameters. The nature of these things is discussed at p. 48. In their natural colour, and under strong light, they are very beautiful objects under the microscope. Even a 10-diameter "Steinheil lens," or still better its English equivalent, a Nelson lens, will show them fairly, and some such instrument, opening out a new world of beauty beyond the power of ordinary vision, ought, one would think, to be one of the possessions of every artist and lover of Nature. The illustrations that follow are from the work of the author and his pupils conjointly. Those in which no _design_ has been added are for clearness' sake described as "by the author"; but it is to be understood that in all instances the transcribing of the work _in the glass_ has been the work of pupils under his supervision. All design of diaper, canopy, lettering, and quarries is so, in all the examples selected. [Illustration: X.--Micro-photographs. Diamond and Wheel Cuts seen in Section and Plan.] PLATE XI.--_From Gloucester Cathedral--"St. Boniface" by the author and his pupils._ [Illustration: XI.--Part of Window. Gloucester Cathedral.] PLATE XII.--_From the same--"The Stork of Iona" and "The Infant Church," by the same._ Canopies from Oak and Ivy. [Illustration: XII.--Part of Window. Gloucester Cathedral.] PLATE XIII.--_Portion of a Window in progress (destined for Ashbourne Church), by the author._ This has been specially photographed _on the easel_, to show how near, by the use of false leadlines, &c., the work can be got, during its progress, to approach to its actual conditions when finished. [Illustration: XIII.--Portion of Unfinished Window, photographed from Work on the Easel.] PLATE XIV.--_Drawings from Nature, by the author's pupils._ Pieced together from various drawings by three different hands; made in preparation for design of Oak "canopy." See p. 324 and Plate XI. [Illustration: XIV.--Drawings from Nature, in Preparation for Design.] PLATE XV.--_Part of East Window of School Chapel, Tonbridge, by the author._ From the cartoon: the figure playing the dulcimer is underneath the manger, above which is seated the Virgin and Child. [Illustration: XV.--Part of Window. Tonbridge School Chapel, photographed from the Cartoon.] PLATE XVI.--_Figure of one of the Choir of "Dominations." From Gloucester, by the author and his pupils._ [Illustration: XVI.--Part of Window. Gloucester Cathedral.] The names of the pupils whose work appears in Plate VIII. are J. H. Saunders and R. J. Stubington. In Plate XIV. A. E. Child, K. Parsons, and J. H. Stanley; and in the Plates XI. to XVI. J. Brett, L. Brett, A. E. Child, P. R. Edwards, M. Hutchinson, K. Parsons, J. H. Stanley, J. E. Tarbox, and E. A. Woore. The cuts in the text are by K. Parsons and E. A. Woore. GLOSSARY _Antiques_, coloured glasses made in imitation of the qualities of ancient glass. _Banding_, putting on the copper "ties" by which the glazed light is attached to the supporting bars. _Base_, (1) the light-tinted glass, white, greenish or yellow, on which the thin film of ruby or blue is imposed in "flashed" glasses; (2) the support of the niche on which the figure stands in "canopy work." _Borrowed light_, a light not coming direct from daylight, but from the interior light of a building as in the case of a _screen_ of glass. (The result is similar when a window is seen against near background of trees or buildings.) _Calm_ (of lead), the strip of lead, 3 to 4 feet long, as used for leading up the glass. _Canopy_ or "tabernacle work," the architectural framing in imitation of a carved niche in which the figure is placed. The vertical supports (sometimes used alone to frame in the whole light) are called "shafting." _Cartoon_, the design of the window, full size, on paper. _Chasuble_, the outermost sacrificial vestment of a bishop or priest. _Cope_, the outermost ceremonial and processional vestment of a bishop or priest. _Core_ (of lead), the crossbar of the "H" section as shown in fig. 34. _Crocketting_, the ornamenting of any architectural member at intervals with sculptured bosses or crockets. _Cullet_, the waste cuttings of glass. Generally used over again in greater or less quantity as an ingredient in the making of new glass. _Cut-line_, the tracing (containing the lead lines only) by which the work is cut and glazed. _Flux_, the solvent which assists the melting of the metallic pigments in the kiln. Various materials are used, _e.g._ silica and lead, but unfortunately borax also is used, and I would warn the student to buy no pigment without a guarantee from the manufacturer that it does not contain this tempting but very dangerous and unstable ingredient. (See p. 112). _Form_, the sheet of "continuous cartridge" or cartoon paper on which the dimensions, &c., are marked out for drawing the cartoon. _Gauge_, (1) the shaped piece of paper by which the diamond is guided in cutting; (2) the standard of size and shape in any piece of repeated work (as quarry-glazing). _Grisaille_ (from Fr. _gris_, grey), work where a pattern, generally geometrical, in narrow coloured bands, is superimposed on a background of whitish, grey, or greenish glass diapered with painted work in outline or slight shading. _Groseing_, the biting away the edge of the glass with pliers to make it fit. With regard to this word and to the term "calm," I have never found any one who could give a reason for the name or an authority as to its spelling, the various spellings suggested for the _latter_ word including Karm, Calm, Carm, Kaim, and even Qualm! But while writing this book I in lucky hour consulted the treatise of Theophilus, and was delighted to find both words. The term he applies to the leads is "Calamus" (a reed), while his term for what we should call pliers is "Grosarium ferrum" (groseing iron). So that this question is set at rest for ever. Glaziers must henceforth accept the classic spellings "Calm" and "Groseing," and one may suppose they will be proud to learn that these everyday terms of their craft have been in use for 900 years, and are older than Westminster Abbey. _Lath_, the ruler, 3 to 8 feet long, and marked with inches, &c., used in setting out the "forms." _Lathykin_, doubtless old English "a little lath," described p. 137. _Lasting-nails_, described p. 141. _Leaf_ (of lead), the two uprights of the "H" section (fig. 34). _Muller_, a piece of granite or glass, flat at the base, for grinding pigment, &c. _Obtuse_, an angle having a wider opening than a right-angle or "perpendicular." _Orphreys_ (_aurifrigia_, from Lat. _aurum_, gold), the bands of ornament on ecclesiastical vestments. _Patina_, the film produced on various substances by chemical action (oxidation, sulphurisation, &c.), either artificially, as in bronze sculpture, or by age, as in glass. _Plating_, the doubling of one glass with another in the same lead. _Quarries_, the diamond, square, or other shaped panes used in plain-glazing. _Reamy_, wavy or streaky glass. (See p. 179.) _Scratch-card_, a wire brush to remove tarnish from lead before soldering (p. 144). _Setting_, fixing a charcoal or chalk drawing on the paper by means of a spray of fixative. _Shafting_, see "Canopy." _Shooting_ (in carpentry), the planing down of an edge to get it truly straight. _Squaring-out_, enlarging (or reducing) any design by drawing from point to point across proportional squares. _Stippling_, described p. 100. _Stopping-knife_, the knife by which the glass and lead are manipulated in leading-up. _Tabernacle work_, see "Canopy." _Template_, the form in paper, card, wood, or zinc, of _shaped_ openings, by which the correct figure is set out on the cartoon-form. INDEX Accidental qualities in glass, value of, 114 Accuracy in setting out forms, 286 Accuracy of measurement, 115, 285 Accuracy of work in the shop, rules for, formula for right angles, 286 Aciding, 130 Action, violent, to be avoided, 173 Advertising, 293 Allegory, 248 Allegory, true allegory the presentment of noble natures, 260 Ancient buildings, sacredness of, 245 Ancient glass, 171, 314, 321, 328 "Antique" glasses, 31 Architectural fitness, 234 Architecture, harmony with, 174 Architecture, stained-glass accessory to, 168 Architecture, subservient to, 155, 236 Armour, by use of aciding in flashed blue glass, 131 Art colours, 201 Artist, right claim to the title, 269 "Asleep," Millais' picture of, 209 Assistants, to be trained to mastership, 268 Auxerre, centre for study of glass, 315 Backing, 126 Badger, 72, 74 Badger, how to dry, 193 Banding, 151 Barff's formula for pigment, 226 Bars, 151, 159, 167 Bars and lead lines, 166, 176 "Beads," a string of, 190 Beethoven, colour, 224, 271 Bicycle, use of, 216 Birds, 217 Birmingham, Burne-Jones windows, 236, 324 Boniface, St., a question of staining, 224 Books, 255, 257 Borax, untrustworthy as flux, 370 Borrowed light, 227 (and Glossary) Botticelli, 64, 78, 250, 297, 322 Brown, Madox, 203 Brush, how to fill, 58 Builders' glazing, 180 Buntingford, ride from, 216 Burne-Jones, 131, 203, 236, 250, 324 Burning, 129 Burnt umber, 203 Butterfly, 217 "Byzantium of the crafts," 243 Byzantine revival, 241 "Calm" of lead, 137 (and Glossary) Cambridge, Burne-Jones windows, 237 Cambridge, centre for study of glass, 314 Cambridge, King's College, for blue and red, 230 Canopies, 245 Canopy, 177, 300 Canterbury, centre for study of glass, 314 Canterbury, for blue and red, 230 Cartoons, 83, 192 Cathedrals, 178, 180, 215, 230, 234, 238, 246, 282, 314 Cellini, 228 Cement and cementing, 147 Centres for study of glass, 314, 315 Chartres, centre for study of glass, 230, 314 Chartres, for blue and red, 230 Chief difficulty (in art) the chief opportunity, 301 Chopin, 223 Cirencester windows, 180 Cleanliness, 67, 164, 193 Clients, 279 Collotypes, notes on, 327-336 Colour, 198-231 Comfort in work, 67 Commission, one's first, 292 Conditions, importance of ascertaining at commencement, 283 Conduct, general, 264 Constantine and Byzantium, 240 Co-operation, 163, 265, 268, 274-6 Corn-colour, 217-218 Countercharging, 94 Covering up the pigment, 164 Craft, complete teaching of, 174, 197 Craftsman, right claims to the title, 269 Craftsmanship, revival of, 243 Middle Ages, 252 Cullet, value of, 159 Curriculum, 321-326 Cut-in glass, 49 Cut-line, 85, 89 Cutter and cartoonist, 44 Cutting, 37, 42, 47, 87, 162 Cutting, advanced, 83 Cutting-knife, 138 Cutting-wheel (_see_ Wheel-cutter) Dahlia, colour of, 218 Dante or Blake, perhaps needed today, 253 Dante on Constantine, 240 Dappling, 163 Dentist, precision of a, 67 Design, 167, 175, 325 Diamond, 33, 88, 331 Difficulty conquered brings new insight and new power, 302 Difficulty, the chief opportunity in a work of art, 282 Directing assistants, clearness in, promptness in, 277 Discords harmonised by added notes, 212 Distance, effect of, 102, 192 Division of labour, 170, 269 Docketing of papers, system of, 284 Dodges, a few little, 182 Doubling glass, 132 Drapery, 230, 322 Drawing from Nature, 324 Drawing, Ruskin's advice on fineness in work, 325 Du Maurier, 207 Dürer, revision of his work, 271 Dutch artist's portrait of actress, 220 "Early English" glass, 31, 227 Easels, 186, 191 Eccentricity to be avoided, 247 Economy, 156, 158 Egyptians, 182 English wastefulness, 156 Etching (_see_ Aciding) Examples for painting, 321 Examples for stained-glass work, Holbein, 322 Expression, influence of distance on, 102 Faceting of stones and glass, 228, 332 Fairford, green in Eve window, 211, 230 Fairford, old glass in, 314 False lead lines, 166 Fame and wealth good, but not at expense of work, 296 Fancy, safe guide in, 259 Film, 94, 101 Fine work in art, 298-303 Finish in work, precision and cleanliness, 67 Firing, 105-119 First duty of an artist, 248 Five Sisters window, 178, 311 Fixing, 135, 151 "Flashed" glass, 33 Flatness, desirable, obtained by leading, 176 Flowers, 217 Flux, 370 Forms, accuracy of, 286-289 Fresh methods and ideas come accidentally, 298 Freshness of work, advantage of, 116 Fried work, how to remove, 104 Frying, 104 Garish colour, 202 Garter plates, 61, 62, 70, 71 Gas-kiln, 108-10 Gauge for cutting, how to make, 88 General conduct, 264 Giotto, 252 Giorgione, 203 Glass, ancient, 328 Glass, how made, 32 Glass, how to wax up on plate, 95 Glass in relation to stonework, 134 Glass, Munich, 84, 176 Glass, Norman, 227 Glass, old, 308, 315 Glass, painted, 84 Glass-painter's methods described, 205 Glass-painting compared with mezzotint, 81 Glass-painting compared with oil-painting, 200 Glass, Prior's, 31 Glass, value of accidental qualities in, 114 Glasses, "antique," 31 Glazing, 151, 180 Glossary, 369 Gloucester for blue and red, 230 Gloucester, centre for study of glass, 314 "God's house," 235 Gold pink, value of, 160 Good Shepherd, 172 Gothic revival, the, 239 Groseing, 43 (and Glossary) Groseing tool, substitute for, 55 "Grozeing" (_see_ Groseing) Gum-arabic, 58 Gum, quality and quantity of, 77 Handel, 223 Handling leaded lights, 146 Hand-rest, 61 Harmony in colour, the great rule of, 211 Harmony, universal, 234 Harmony with architecture, 174 Heaton's kiln-feeder, 184 Hertfordshire, ride through, 215 Holbein, 64, 78, 316, 322 Hollander, thrift of, 157 Hurry to be avoided, 165 Hyacinths and leaves, colour of, 221 Image, Selwyn, 83 Imagination, 248, 259 Industry, 65, 278 _In situ_, to try work, 175 Inspiration, nature of, discussed, 273 Italian, thrift of, 157 "Jacob's ladder," difficulty, 280 Joints, good and bad, 140 Jugglery, craft, to be avoided, 174 Kaleidoscope, 232 Kiln-feeder, a clumsy, 183 Kilns, 105 King, portrait of, 102 Knives, cutting and stopping, 138, 142 "Knocking up," 144 Labour and material, cost of, 162 Lamb, Charles, on Milton's _Lycidas_, 272 Large work, difficulty of, 77 _L'Art Nouveau_, 245 Lasting nails, 141 Lathykin, 137 (and Glossary) Lea Valley, description of, 215 Lead, 89 Lead, "calm" of, 137 (and Glossary) Lead, 90, 132, 137 Lead-line, 84, 172 Lead-lines, false, 166 Lead-mill, 91 Lead, purity of, 90 Lead, outer lead showing, 136 Leaded lights, how to handle, 146 Leading, 133 Leadwork, artistic use of, 176 Leadworkers, wage of, 159 Light, 227 (and Glossary) Lights, 72, 146, 151 Limitations, 154, 170 Linnell's colour, 202 _Lycidas_, perfection of, 271 Lyndhurst, windows at, 237, 250 Maclou, St., at Rouen, 282 Man's work, nature of, 196 Master, book no substitute for, 82 Master, need of, 82, 195 Material and labour, cost of, 162 Matting, 72 Matting-brush, 73, 75 Matting over unfired outline, 76 "Measure thrice, cut once," 285 Measurement, accuracy of, 115, 285 Measurement, relation of glass to the stonework, 134 Meistersingers, the, 223 Mezzotint compared with glass-painting, 81 Michael Angelo, 271 Middle Ages, craftsmanship of, 252 Millais' picture of "Asleep," 209 "Millinery and upholstery" in glass, to avoid, 324 Morris, 203 Muller, 79 Munich glass, 84, 176 Music, illustration derived from, 223 Nails, 141 Nativity, star of, 229 Nature, 213, 217, 302, 324, 335 Neatness, 96 Needle, 68, 123 New College, 230 Niggling, no use in, 158 "Nimbus," withheld till the figure is finished, 263 "Norman" glass, 227 Novelty not essential to originality, 247 Numbers attached to natural objects, 221 Oil-painting and glass-painting compared, 198 Oil stone, substitutes for, 53 Old glass, 171, 308, 314, 321 Orange-tip butterfly, 214 Order, "Heaven's first law," 233 Orderliness, 284 Originality not to be striven after, 297 Ornament, system of teaching, 325 Outline, 59-82 Overpainting, danger of, 120 Oxford, centre for study of glass, 314 Oxford, New College, for green, 230 Oxide (_see_ Pigment) Painted glass, 84 Painter and glass-painter contrasted, 199 Painting, 56, 94, 118, 321 Painting, heaviness of, objected to by some, 227 Painting, rule regarding amount of, 229 Pansy, colour of, 232 Patrons, 264 Parthenon frieze, repose of, 173 Perfection, 163 Perpendicular, rules for raising a, 286 Peterborough, Gothic tracery in Norman openings, 238 Pictures, criticism on, 208 Pigment, 164, 226 Pigment, mixture of, 57 Pigment, oxide of iron, 57 Pigment, soft, danger of, 112 Pigment, unpleasant red, 57 Plain glazing, removing, 151 Plating, 147 Pliers, 43 Poppies, 218 Prices of stained glasses, 159 Principles of old work to be imitated, not accidents, 322 Prior's glass, 31 Publicity, danger of wasting time on pursuit of, 296 _Punch_, parody of the "Palace of Art," 250 Pupils' work, 335 Putty, substitute for cement in plated work, 318 Putty, to be used when glass is doubled, 147 Quarries, 331 Quarry glazing, with subject, 177 Rack for glass samples, 186 Realism to be avoided, 173 Recasting of composition, 301 Removing the plain glazing, 151 Repose in architectural art, 174 Rest for hand, 61 Restoration, 181, 245, 315 Resurrection, sunrise in, 219 Revivals, architectural, 239 Rich and plain work, 177 Right angles, formula for, 286 Roman decadence, 240 Room, to make the most of, 192 Rose-briar, colour of, in sunset, 220 Rossetti, 203 Ruby glass, 33 Ruby glass, value of, 160 "Rule of thumb," 113 Rules for work, 264, 286 Ruskin, 202, 255, 325 Sacredness of ancient buildings, 245 Schubert, 223 "Scratch-card," 144 Scrubs, 81 Sea-weeds, 217 Second painting, 118, 126, 127 Sections, how to join together in fixing, 150 Sections, large work made in, 150 "Seed," everything grown from, 291 Seed of ornament, 294 Selvage edge, to tear off, 193 Sens, centre for study of glass, 315 Setting mixture, 86 Sharpening diamonds, 33 Siennese painters, good work to copy in glass, 322 Single fire, 127 Sketching in glass, 175 Soldering, 144 Sparta, revival of simplicity in, 243 Special glasses, 227 Spotting, 163 Spring morning, ride on a, 214 Squaring outlines, 286 Stain, 129 "Stain it!", 225 Stain overfiring, result of, 129 Stained-glass, accessory to architecture, 168 Stained-glass, ancient, to be held sacred, 245 Stained-glass, definition and description of, 29 Stained-glass, diapering, spotting, and streaking, 179 Stained-glass, joys of, 303 Stained-glass, loving and careful treatment of, 177 Stained-glass, new developments of, 132 Stained-glass, prices of material, 159 Stained-glass, subservient to architecture, 155, 236 Stained-glass _versus_ painted glass, 84 Staining, 225 Stale colour, danger of, 165 Stale work, disadvantage of, 114 Standardising, 113 Stencil brush, 121 Stepping back to inspect work, 176 Stevenson, R. L., 156 Stick, 68 Stipple, 99, 101 Stippling brush, 100 Stonework, relation of glass to, 134 Stopping-knife, 142 Streaky glass, imitating drapery, 230 Strength in painting, limits of, 125 Stretching the lead, 137 Style, 237, 246 Subject, right limits to importance of, 248 Sufficient firing, test of, 117 Sugar or treacle as substitute for gum, 62 Surgeon, precision of a, 67 Symbolism, proportion in, 262 Tabernacle (_see_ Canopy) Tamworth, 237 Tapping, 41 Taste, some principles of, 92 Technical school, curriculum of, 321 Templates to be verified, 289 Tennyson, his constant revision, 271 Texture of glass, use of, 126 Theseus, 260 Thought, imagination, allegory, 248 Ties for banding, 151 Thrift, 157 Time saved by accuracy and method, 290 Time-saving appliances, 277 Tinning the soldering iron, 145 Tints, method of choosing, 210 Titian, 173, 203, 271, 316 Tradition, 238, 242 Troyes, centre for study of glass, 315 Trying work _in situ_, 175 Turgenieff, proverb on accuracy, 285 Turpentine (Venice), 129 Tuscan painters, good work to copy in glass, 322 "Upholstery and millinery" in glass, to avoid, 324 Venus of Milo, 260 Veronese, 203 Village church, untouched, picture of, 305 Violent action to be avoided, 173 Wage of lead workers, 159 Waste, proportion of, to finished work, 162 Wastefulness, English, 156 Wax, best, 95 Wax, removing spots of, 98 Waxing-up, 95 Waxing-up, tool for, 188 Wells, centre for study of glass, 314 Wheel-barrow, comparison with wheel-cutter, 51 Wheel-cutters, 34, 35, 47, 53, 54, 56 White, pure, value of, 227 White spaces to be interesting, 178 Work in the shop, rules for, 286 Yellow and red together, 218 Yellow, certain tints hard to obtain, 217 Yellow stain, 129 York, centre for study of glass, 314 York Minster, glass in, 230, 308, 313 THE END Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. Edinburgh & London 
36092	----	North Devon Pottery and its Export to America in the 17th Century _by C. Malcolm Watkins_ Paper 13, pages 17-59, from CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM Bulletin 225 SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION · WASHINGTON, D.C., 1960 CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY: PAPER 13 NORTH DEVON POTTERY AND ITS EXPORT TO AMERICA IN THE 17TH CENTURY _C. Malcolm Watkins_ [Illustration: FIGURE 1.--North Devon sgraffito cup, deep dish, and jug restored from fragments excavated from fill under brick drain at May-Hartwell site, Jamestown, Virginia. The drain was laid between 1689 and 1695. Colonial National Historical Park.] By C. Malcolm Watkins NORTH DEVON POTTERY AND ITS EXPORT TO AMERICA IN THE 17th CENTURY _Recent excavations of ceramics at historic sites such as Jamestown and Plymouth indicate that the seaboard colonists of the 17th century enjoyed a higher degree of comfort and more esthetic furnishings than heretofore believed. In addition, these findings have given us much new information about the interplay of trade and culture between the colonists and their mother country._ _This article represents the first work in the author's long-range study of ceramics used by the English colonists in America._ THE AUTHOR: _C. Malcolm Watkins is curator of cultural history, United States National Museum, Smithsonian Institution._ Pottery sherds found archeologically in colonial sites serve a multiple purpose. They help to date the sites; they reflect cultural and economic levels in the areas of their use; and they throw light on manufacture, trade, and distribution. Satisfying instances of these uses were revealed with the discovery in 1935 of two distinct but unidentified pottery types in the excavations conducted by the National Park Service at Jamestown, Virginia, and later elsewhere along the eastern seaboard. One type was an elaborate and striking yellow sgraffito ware, the other a coarse utilitarian kitchen ware whose red paste was heavily tempered with a gross water-worn gravel or "grit." Included in the latter class were the components of large earthen baking ovens. Among the literally hundreds of thousands of sherds uncovered at Jamestown between 1935 and 1956, these types occurred with relatively high incidence. For a long time no relationship between them was noted, yet their histories have proved to be of one fabric, reflecting the activities of a 17th-century English potterymaking center of unsuspected magnitude. The sgraffito pottery is a red earthenware, coated with a white slip through which designs have been incised. An amber lead glaze imparts a golden yellow to the slip-covered portions and a brownish amber to the exposed red paste. The gravel-tempered ware is made of a similar red-burning clay and is remarkable for its lack of refinement, for the pebbly texture caused by protruding bits of gravel, and for the crude and careless manner in which the heavy amber glaze was applied to interior surfaces. Once seen, it is instantly recognizable and entirely distinct from other known types of English or continental pottery. A complete oven (fig. 10), now restored at Jamestown, is of similar paste and quality of temper. It has a roughly oval beehive shape with a trapezoidal framed opening in which a pottery door fits snugly. [Illustration: FIGURE 2.--Sketch of sherd of sgraffito-ware dish, dating about 1670, that was found during excavations of C. H. Brannam's pottery in Barnstaple. (_Sketch by Mrs. Constance Christian, from photo._)] Following the initial discoveries at Jamestown there was considerable speculation about these two types. Worth Bailey, then museum technician at Jamestown, was the first to recognize the source of the sgraffito ware as "Devonshire."[1] Henry Chandlee Forman, asserting that such ware was "undoubtedly made in England," felt that it "derives its inspiration from Majolica ware ... especially that of the early Renaissance period from Faenza."[2] Bailey also noted that the oven and the gravel-tempered utensils were made of identical clay and temper. However, in an attempt to prove that earthenware was produced locally, he assumed, perhaps because of their crudeness, that the utensils were made at Jamestown. This led him to conjecture that the oven, having similar ceramic qualities, was also a local product. He felt in support of this that it was doubtful "so fragile an object could have survived a perilous sea voyage."[3] Since these opinions were expressed, much further archeological work in colonial sites has revealed widespread distribution of the two types. Bailey himself noted that a pottery oven is intact and in place in the John Bowne House in Flushing, Long Island. A fragment of another pottery oven recently has been identified among the artifacts excavated by Sidney Strickland from the site of the John Howland House, near Plymouth, Massachusetts; and gravel-tempered utensil sherds have occurred in many sites. The sgraffito ware has been unearthed in Virginia, Maryland, and Massachusetts. Such a wide distribution of either type implies a productive European source for each, rather than a local American kiln in a struggling colonial settlement like Jamestown. Bailey's attribution of the sgraffito ware to Devonshire was confirmed in 1950 when J. C. Harrington, archeologist of the National Park Service, came upon certain evidence at Barnstaple in North Devon, England. This evidence was found in the form of sherds exhibited in a display window of C. H. Brannam's Barnstaple Pottery that were uncovered during excavation work on the premises. These are unmistakably related in technique and design to the American examples. A label under a fragment of a large deep dish (fig. 2) in the display is inscribed: "Piece of dish found in site of pottery. In sgraffiato. About 1670." This clue opened the way to the investigation pursued here, the results of which relate the sgraffito ware, the gravel-tempered ware, and the ovens to the North Devon towns and to a busy commerce in earthenware between Barnstaple, Bideford, and the New World. This study, conducted at first hand only on the American side of the Atlantic, is admittedly incomplete. Later, it is planned to consider sherd collections in England, comparative types of sgraffito wares, and possible influences and sources of techniques and designs. For the present, it is felt the immediate evidence is sufficient to warrant the conclusions drawn here. [Illustration: FIGURE 3.--Map of the area around Bideford and Barnstaple. Reproduced from J. B. Gribble, _Memorials of Barnstaple_, 1830.] The author is under special obligation to J. C. Harrington, chief of interpretation, Region I, National Park Service, who discovered the North Devon wares and whose warm encouragement led to this paper. Also, the author is greatly indebted to the following for their help and cooperation: E. Stanley Abbott, superintendent, J. Paul Hudson, curator, and Charles Hatch, chief of interpretation, Colonial National Historical Park; Worth Bailey, Historic American Buildings Survey; Robert A. Elder, Jr., assistant curator, division of ethnology, U.S. National Museum; Miss Margaret Franklin of London; Henry Hornblower II and Charles Strickland of Plimoth Plantation, Inc.; Ivor Noel Hume, chief archeologist, Colonial Williamsburg, Inc.; Miss Mildred E. Jenkinson, librarian and curator, Borough of Bideford Library and Museum; Frederick H. Norton, professor of ceramics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Mrs. Edwin M. Snell of Washington. Historical Background Barnstaple and its neighbor Bideford are today quiet market centers and summer resorts. In the 17th and early 18th centuries, by contrast, they were deeply involved in trade with America and with the whole West of England interest in colonial settlement. Bideford was the home of Sir Richard Grenville, who, with Sir Walter Raleigh, was one of the first explorers of Virginia. As the leading citizen of Bideford, Grenville obtained from Queen Elizabeth a modern charter of incorporation for the town. Consequently, according to the town's 18th-century chronicler, "Bideford rose so rapidly as to become a port of importance at the latter end of Queen Elizabeth's reign ... when the trade began to open between England and America in the reign of King James the First, Bideford early took a part in it."[4] Its orientation for a lengthy period was towards America, and the welfare of its inhabitants was therefore largely dependent upon commerce with the colonies. In common with other West of England ports, Barnstaple and Bideford engaged heavily in the Newfoundland fishing trade. However, "the principal part of foreign commerce that Bideford was ever engaged in, was to Maryland and Virginia for tobacco.... Its connections with New England were also very considerable."[5] During the first half of the 18th century Bideford's imports of tobacco were second only to London's, but the wars with France caused a decline about the year 1760.[6] Barnstaple, situated farther up the River Taw, followed the pattern of Bideford in the rise and decline as well as the nature of its trade. Although rivals, both towns functioned in effect as a single port; Barnstaple and Bideford ships sailed from each other's wharves and occasionally the two ports were listed together in the Port Books. As early as 1620 seven ships, some of Bideford and some of Barnstaple registry, sailed from Barnstaple for America,[7] but the height of trade between North Devon and the colonies occurred after the Restoration and lasted until the early part of the 18th century. In 1666, for example, the _Samuel_ of Bideford and the _Philip_ of Barnstaple sailed for Virginia, despite the dangers of Dutch warfare.[8] The following year, on August 13, 1667, it was reported that 20 ships of the Virginia fleet, "bound to Bideford, Barnstaple, and Bristol have passed into the Severn in order to escape Dutch men-of-war."[9] Later, in 1705, we find that the _Susanna_ of Barnstaple, as well as the _Victory_, _Zunt_, _Devonshire_, _Laurell_, _Blackstone_, and _Mary and Hannah_, all of Bideford, were anchored in Hampton Roads off Kecoughtan. They comprised one-ninth of a fleet of 63 ships from various English ports.[10] [Illustration: FIGURE 4.--Old pottery in Torrington Lane (formerly Potter's Lane), East-the-Water section of Bideford. The photo was taken in 1920, just before the buildings were razed. (_Courtesy of Miss M. E. Jenkinson._)] Aside from such indications of a well-established mercantile trade, the entrenchment of North Devon interests in the colonies is repeatedly shown in other ways. Before 1645, Thomas Fowle, a Boston merchant, was doing business with his brother-in-law, Vincent Potter, who lived in Barnstaple.[11] In 1669, John Selden, a Barnstaple merchant, died after consigning a shipment of goods to William Burke, a merchant of Chuckatuck, Virginia. John's widow and administratrix, Sisely Selden, brought suit to recover these goods, which were "left to the sd. W{m} Burke, &c, for the use of my late husband."[12] Burke was evidently an agent, or factor, who acted in Virginia on Selden's behalf. In Northampton County, alone, there resided six Bideford factors, remarkable when one considers the isolated location of this Virginia Eastern Shore county and the sparseness of its population in the 17th century.[13] John Watkins, the Bideford historian, adds further evidence of mercantile involvement with the colonies, stating of Bideford that "some of its chief merchants had very extensive possessions in Virginia and Maryland."[14] Both in New England and the southern colonies, local merchants acted as resident agents for merchants based in the mother country. Often tied to the latter by bonds of family relationship, the factors arranged the exchange of American raw materials for the manufactured goods in which their English counterparts specialized. That there was a large and important commerce in North Devon earthenware to account for many of the relationships between Bideford, Barnstaple, and the colonies seems to have remained unnoticed. Indeed, the fact that the two towns comprised an important center of earthenware manufacture and export in the 17th century has hitherto received little attention from ceramic historians, and then merely as sources of picturesque folk pottery. Yet in the excavations of colonial sites and in the British Public Records Office are indications that the North Devon potters, for a time at least, rivaled those of Staffordshire. The earliest record of North Devon pottery reaching America occurs in the Port Book entry for Barnstaple in 1635, when the _Truelove_, Vivian Limbry, master, sailed on March 4 for New England with "40 doz. earthenware," consigned to John Boole, merchant.[15] The following year the same ship sailed for New England with a similar amount. After the Stuart restoration larger shipments of earthenware are recorded, as illustrated by sample listings (below) chosen from Port Books in the British Public Records Office. TYPICAL SHIPMENTS OF EARTHENWARE FROM NORTH DEVON (Sample entries from Port Books, verbatim) BARNSTAPLE 1665[16] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Date Ship Master For In Cargo Subsidy --------------------------------------------------------------------- s d 26 Aug Exchange of W{m} Titherly New England 150 doz. of 7-6 1665 Biddeford Earthenware 4 Sept Philipp of Edmond Virginia 30 doz. of 1-6 1665 Biddeford Prickard Earthenware 28 Nov Providence Nicholas Virginia 20 doz. of 1-0 1665 of Taylor Earthenware Barnstaple --------------------------------------------------------------------- BARNSTAPLE AND BIDEFORD, 1680[17] --------------------------------------------------------------------- Date Ship Master Shipment --------------------------------------------------------------------- Aug 6{th} Forester of Christopher Browning Twenty dozen of 1680 Barnstaple, Earthenware for Maryland Subsidy 1/ Sept 6 Loyalty of Philip Greenslade 30 dozen Earthenware Barnstaple Andrew Hopkins, merchant Subsidy 1/6 --------------------------------------------------------------------- BARNSTAPLE, 1681[18] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date Ship Master To Goods & Merchants ----------------------------------------------------------------------- May 30 Seafare of Bartholomew New Forty-two hundred [weight] 1681 Bideford Shapton England parcells of Earthenware Subsidy 7/ 28 June Hopewell of Peter Prust Virginia 30 cwt. parcells of Bideford Earthenware Peter Luxeron Merchant Subsidy 5/ Aug. 12 Beginning John Limbry Virginia 15 cwt. parcells of of Bideford Earthenware Subsidy 2/6 Richard Corkhill Merchant[19] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- BIDEFORD, 1681[20] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date Ship Master To Goods ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 21 June Beginning Thomas Virginia Thirty hundred of Bideford Phillips pclls of Earthenware Joseph Conor merchant Subsidy 5/ 19 July John & Mary Thomas Maryland 750 parcells of of Bideford Courtis Earthenware John Barnes, Merchant Subsidy 1/3 14 Aug Exchange of George Maryland 40 dozen earthenware Bideford Ewings William Titherly Merchant Subsidy 2/ Aug. 22 Merchants William Virginia 1500 parcells Delight of Britten Earthenware Bideford Henry Guiness Merchant Subsidy 2/6 Aug. 23 Hart of Henry Virginia 1500 parcells of Bideford Penryn Earthenware John Lord Merch{t} Subsidy 2/6 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1682--BARNSTAPLE[21] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Date Ship Master To Cargo, etc. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Michaelmas Robert & John Esh Maryland 30 dozen Earthenware Quarter William of Subsidy 1/6 North{am} William Bishop merchant ----------------------------------------------------------------------- BIDEFORD 1682--OUTWARDS[22] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date Ship Master To Cargo, etc. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ May 15 Seafare of John Titherley New 42 cwt. parcells of Bideford England Earthenware Barth. Shapton Merchant Subsidy 7/ July 9 John & Mary Thomas Courtis Maryland 9 cwt parcells of of Bideford Earthenware John Barnes Merchant Subsidy 1/6 July 20 Merchant's William Maryland 6 cwt parcells of Delight of Bruston Earthenware Bideford Samuel Donnerd merchant Sept. 11 Exchange of Mark Chappell Maryland 30 cwt. parcells of Bideford earthenware Subsidy 5/ William Titherly Merchant ------------------------------------------------------------------------ BARNSTAPLE/BIDEFORD OUTWARDS 1690[23] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date Ship Master To Cargo, etc. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Aug. 23 Yarmouth Roger Jones Maryland 300 parcells of of Bideford Earthenware Subsidy 6{d} Sept. 11 Expedition Humphrey Maryland 1,200 parcells of of Bideford Bryant Earthenware Subsidy 2/ Sept. 23 Integrity John Tucker Maryland 300 parcells of of Bideford Earthenware Subsidy 6{d} Sept. 23 Happy Return John Rock Maryland 750 parcells of of Bideford Earthenware Subsidy 1/3 Sept. 23 Sea Faire Tym. Brutton Maryland 1800 parcells of of Bideford Earthenware Subsidy 3/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ BARNSTAPLE & BIDEFORD 1694[24] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date Ship Master To Cargo, etc. Subsidy ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dec. 6 Happy Returne John Hartwell Maryland 450 parcels of 9d Earthen ware ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Another source shows that the _Eagle_ of Bideford arrived at Boston from her home port on October 11, 1688, with a cargo consisting entirely of 9,000 parcels of earthenware, while on July 28, 1689, the _Freindship_ (sic) of Bideford landed 7,200 parcels of earthenware and one hogshead of malt. On August 24 of the same year the _Delight_ brought a cargo of "9,000 parcels of earthenware and 2 fardells of dry goods" from Bideford.[25] It will be noted that there was a close relationship between vessel, shipmaster, and factor, suggesting that there may have been an equally close connection between all of them and the owners of the potteries. The _Exchange_, for instance, seems to have been regularly employed in the transport of earthenware. In 1665, according to the listings, she sailed to New England under command of William Titherly. By 1681 Titherly had become a Maryland factor to whom the Exchange's earthenware was consigned then and in 1682. In the same way Bartholomew Shapton in 1681 sailed as master on the _Sea Faire_ with earthenware to New England, becoming in the following year the factor for earthenware sent on the same ship under command of John Titherly. The proportion of earthenware cargo to the carrying capacity of the usual 17th-century ocean-going ship, which ranged from about 30 to 50 tons, is difficult to estimate. A ton and a half of milk pans nested in stacks would be compact and would occupy only a small amount of space. A similar weight of ovens might require a much larger space. When earthenware shipments are recorded in terms of parcels, we are again left in doubt, since the sizes of the parcels are not indicated. We know, however, that the _Eagle_, which was a 50-ton ship, carried 9,000 parcels of earthenware as her sole cargo in 1688, in contrast to the much smaller amounts shown in the sample listings where the parcel standard is used. Yet even a typical shipment of 1,500 parcels, with each parcel containing an indeterminate number of pots, must have filled the needs of many kitchens when delivered in Virginia in 1681. Certainly a shipment such as this suggests a vigorous rate of production and an active trade. The export of earthenware from North Devon was not solely to America. As early as 1601 there were shipped from Barnstaple to "Dublyn--100 dozen Earthen Pottes of all sorts." In later years, selected at random, we find the following shipments to Ireland from Barnstaple listed in the Public Record Office Port Books: 1617, 290 dozen; 1618, 320 dozen; 1619, 322 dozen; 1620, 508 dozen; 1632, 260 dozen; 1635, 300 dozen; 1636, 480 dozen; 1639, 660 dozen. Typical of the destinations were Kinsale, Youghal, Limerick, Cork, Galway, Coleraine, and Waterford. As the century advanced, this trade increased enormously. In 1694, 17 separate earthenware shipments totaling 50,400 parcels were made from Barnstaple and Bideford to Dublin, Wexford, and Waterford.[26] It is possible that some of these cargoes were shipped to America, since it was necessary to list only the first port of entry. However, the rapid turnaround of many of the ships shows this was not usually the case. Besides Ireland, Bristol and Exeter were destinations in a busy coastwise trade. In 1681, for example, large quantities of earthenware, tobacco pipes, and pipe clay were sent to these places.[27] Bristol merchants probably re-exported some of the earthenware to America. [Illustration: FIGURE 5.--Map of Barnstaple. Reproduced from J. B. Gribble, _Memorials of Barnstaple_, 1830.] The coastwise trade appears to have diminished very little as time passed. In 1755, _The Gentlemen's Magazine_ carried an account of Bideford, stating:[28] Great quantities of potters ware are made, and exported to Wales, Ireland, and Bristol.... In the parish of Fremington are great quantities of reddish potters' clay, which are brought and manufactured at Biddeford, whence the ware is sent to different places by sea. John Watkins, in 1792, wrote:[29] The potters here, for making coarse brown earthenware, are pretty considerable, and the demand for the articles of their manufacture in various parts of the kingdom, is constantly great ... The profits to the manufacturers of this article are very great, which is evidenced by several persons having risen within a few years, from a state of the greatest obscurity and poverty, to wealth and consequence of no small extent. [Illustration: FIGURE 6.--Gravel-tempered oven of the 17th or early 18th century, acquired in Bideford. (_USNM 394505._)] [Illustration: FIGURE 7.--Gravel-tempered oven from 17th-century house on Bideford Quay. Borough of Bideford Public Library and Museum. (_Photo by A. C. Littlejohns._)] Not only was coastwise trade in earthenware maintained throughout the 18th century but it was continued, in fact, until the final decline of the potteries at the turn of the present century. Although great antiquity attaches to the origins of North Devon pottery manufacture--Barnstaple has had its Crock Street for 450 years[30]--the principal evidence of early manufacture falls into the second half of the 17th century. We have seen that a growing America provided an increasing market for North Devon's ceramic wares. In 1668 Crocker's pottery was established at Bideford, and it is in the period following that Bideford's importance as a pottery center becomes noticeable. Crocker's was operated until 1896, its dated 17th-century kilns then still intact after producing wares that varied little during all of the pottery's 228 years of existence.[31] In Barnstaple the oldest pottery to survive until modern times was situated in the North Walk. When it was dismantled in 1900, sherds dating from the second half of the 17th century were found in the surroundings, as was a potter's guild sign, dated 1675, which now hangs in Brannam's pottery in Litchdon Street, Barnstaple. A pair of fire dogs, dated 1655 and shaped by molds similar to one from the North Walk site, was excavated near the North Walk pottery. Both Bideford and Barnstaple had numerous potteries in addition to Crocker's and Brannam's. One, in Potter's Lane in the East-the-Water section of Bideford, was still making "coarse plain ware" in 1906;[32] its buildings were still standing in 1920. We have already observed that the Litchdon Street works of C. H. Brannam, Ltd., remains in operation in a modern building on the site of its 17th-century forerunner. Outside the limits of the two large towns there were "a number of small pot works in remote districts," including the parish of Fremington, where Fishley's pottery, established in the 18th century, flourished until 1912.[33] Jewitt states that the remains of five old potteries were found in the location of Fishley's.[34] [Illustration: FIGURE 8.--Views of opening of oven in figure 7, photographed before its removal from house. This illustrates how oven was built into corner of fireplace and concealed from view. At right, the oven door is in place. (_Photos by A. C. Littlejohns._)] The clay with which all the potters worked came from three similar deep clay deposits in a valley running parallel with the River Taw in the parishes of Tawstock and Fremington between Bideford and Barnstaple. A geologist in 1864 wrote that the clay is "perfectly homogeneous ... exceedingly tough, free from slightest grit and soft as butter."[35] When fired at too high a temperature, he wrote, the clay would become so vesicular that it would float on water. The kilns were bottle-shaped and, according to tradition, originally were open at the top, like lime kilns; the contents were roofed over with old crocks.[36] Apparently all the potteries made the same types of wares, "coarse" or common earthenware having comprised the bulk of their product. The utilitarian red-ware was indeed coarse, since it was liberally tempered with Bideford gravel in order to insure hardness and to offset the purity and softness of the Fremington clay. An anonymous historian wrote in 1755:[37] Just above the bridge [over the River Torridge] is a little ridge of gravel of a peculiar quality, without which the potters could not make their ware. There are many other ridges of gravel within the bar, but this only is proper for their use. John Watkins wrote that Bideford earthenware "is generally supposed to be superiour to any other of the kind, and this is accounted for, from the peculiar excellence of the gravel which this river affords, in binding the clay." His claim that "this is the true reason, seems clear, from the fact that though the potteries at Barnstaple make use of the same sort of clay, yet their earthenware is not held in such esteem at Bristol, &c. as that of Bideford"[38] is scarcely supportable, since the Barnstaple potters also used the same Bideford gravel. The fire dogs found in Barnstaple with the date 1655, referred to above, were tempered with this gravel, as were "ovens, tiles, pipkins, etc.," in order "to harden the ware," according to Charbonnier, who also observed that "The ware generally was very badly fired.... From the fragments it can be seen that the firing was most unequal, parts of the body being grey in colour instead of a rich red, as the well-fired portions are." He noted that the potters applied "the galena native sulphide of lead for the glaze, no doubt originally dusted on to the ware, as with the older potters elsewhere."[39] A sherd of gravel-tempered ware is displayed in the window of Brannam's Barnstaple pottery, while a small pan from Bideford, probably of 19th-century origin, is in the Smithsonian collections (USNM 394440). [Illustration: FIGURE 9.--Gravel-tempered oven made at Crocker pottery, Bideford, in the 19th century. Borough of Bideford Public Library and Museum. (_Photo by A. C. Littlejohns._)] [Illustration: FIGURE 10.--Restored gravel-tempered oven from Jamestown. Colonial National Historical Park. (_National Park Service photo._)] The most remarkable form utilizing gravel-tempered clay is found in the baking ovens which remained a North Devon specialty for over two centuries. These ovens vary somewhat in shape, and were made in graduated sizes. Most commonly they are rectangular with domed superstructures, having been molded or "draped" in sections, with their parts joined together, leaving seams with either tooled or thumb-impressed reenforcements. An oven obtained in Bideford has a flat top, without visible seams (USNM 394505; fig. 6). An early example occurs in Barnstaple, where, in a recently restored inn, an oven was found installed at the side of a fireplace which is "late sixteenth century in character." Pipes and a pair of woman's shoes, all dating from the first half of the 18th century, were found in the fireplace after it had been exposed, thus indicating the period of its most recent use.[40] An oven discovered intact behind a wall during alteration of a Bideford house is believed to date from between 1650 and 1675.[41] That oven (figs. 7, 8) is now exhibited in the Bideford Museum. At the other extreme, C. H. Brannam of Barnstaple in 1890 was still making ovens in the ancient North Walk pottery.[42] The following year H. W. Strong wrote of Fishley's Fremington pottery that "shiploads of the big clay ovens in which the Cornishman bakes his bread ... meet with a ready sale in the fishing towns on the rugged coast of North Cornwall."[43] Fremington ovens also were shipped to Wales,[44] and, according to Jewitt, those made in the Crocker pottery in Bideford "are, and for generations have been, in much repute in Devonshire and Cornwall, and in the Welsh districts, and the bread baked in them is said to have a sweeter and more wholesome flavour than when baked in ordinary ovens."[45] [Illustration: FIGURE 11.--Sgraffito-ware platters from Jamestown. The platter shown above has a diameter of 15 inches; the others, 12 inches. Colonial National Historical Park.] Of ovens made at Barnstaple there is much the same kind of evidence. In 1851, Thomas Brannam exhibited an oven at the Crystal Palace, where it was described as "generally used in Devonshire for baking bread and meat."[46] In 1786, "Barnstaple ovens" were advertised for sale in Bristol at M. Ewers' "Staffordshire, Broseley, and Glass Warehouse."[47] Thirty-six years earlier, in 1750, Dr. Pococke, who indefatigably entered every sort of observation in his journal, noted that in Devonshire and Cornwall "they make great use here of Cloume ovens,[48] which are of earthen ware of several sizes, like an oven, and being heated they stop 'em up and cover 'em over with embers to keep in the heat."[49] Pococke visited Calstock, "where they have a manufacture of coarse earthenware, and particularly of earthenware ovens."[50] We have encountered only one other instance of ovens having been made at any place other than the North Devon communities around the Fremington clay beds. Calstock lies some 35 miles below Bideford in the southeast corner of Cornwall, just over the Devonshire boundary. As for evidence concerning the manner in which these ovens were used in England, we have already seen that they were built into houses. Jewitt wrote that they "are simply enclosed in raised brickwork, leaving the mouth open to the front." They were heated until red hot by sticks or logs, which were then raked out with long iron tongs.[51] A bundle of gorse, or wood, according to Jewitt,[52] was sufficient to "thoroughly bake three pecks of dough." Pococke's remarks to the effect that the ovens were covered over with embers to keep in the heat suggests that they were sometimes freestanding. However, this could also have been the practice when ovens were built into fireplaces. From an esthetic point of view, the crowning achievement of the North Devon potters was their sgraffito ware, examples of which in Brannam's window display have already been noted. Further evidence in the form of 17th-century sherds was found by Charbonnier around the site of the North Walk pottery in Barnstaple. These consisted of "plates and dishes of various size and section.... Extensive as the demand for these dishes must have been, judging from the heap of fragments, not a single piece has to my knowledge been found above ground."[53] The apparently complete disappearance of the sgraffito table wares suggests that they ceased to be made about 1700. They were apparently forced from the market by the refinement of taste that developed in the 18th century and by the delftware of Bristol and London and Liverpool that was so much more in keeping with that taste. However, certain kinds of sgraffito ware continued to be made without apparent interruption until early in the present century. Instead of useful tableware, decorated with symbols and motifs characteristic of 17th-century English folk ornament, we find after 1700 only presentation pieces, particularly in the form of large harvest jugs. The harvest jugs were made for annual harvest celebrations, when they were passed around by the farmers among their field hands in a folk ritual observed at the end of harvest.[54] Unlike the sgraffito tablewares, where style and taste were deciding factors in their survival, these special jugs were intended to be used only in annual ceremonies. Thus they were carefully preserved and passed on from generation to generation, with a higher chance for survival than that which the sgraffito tablewares enjoyed. The style of the harvest jugs is in sharp contrast to that of the tablewares, the jugs having been decorated in a pagan profusion of fertility and prosperity symbols, mixed sometimes with pictorial and inscriptive allusions to the sea, particularly on jugs ascribed to Bideford. The oldest dated examples embody characteristics of design and techniques that relate them unmistakably to the tablewares, while later specimens made throughout the 18th and 19th centuries show an increasing divergence from the 17th-century style. An especially elaborate piece was made for display at the Great Exhibition of 1851 in the Crystal Palace.[55] Less complicated pieces, with a minimum of incising, were made for ordinary use, as were plain pieces whose surfaces were covered with slip without decoration. The trailing and splashing of slip designs on the body of the ware, practiced in Staffordshire and many of our colonial potteries, apparently was not followed in North Devon.[56] Sites Yielding North Devon Types Excepting the Bowne House oven and a 1698 jug (see p. 45), no example of North Devon pottery used in America is known to have survived above ground. Archeological evidence, however, provides a sufficient record of North Devon wares and the tastes and customs they reflected. Following are descriptions of the principal sites in which these wares were found. JAMESTOWN, VIRGINIA: MAY-HARTWELL SITE. The site of Jamestown, first permanent English settlement in North America, has been excavated at intervals by the National Park Service. The early excavations were under the supervision of several archeological technicians directing Civilian Conservation Corps crews. In September 1936, J. C. Harrington became supervising archeologist of the project, and until World War II he continued the work as funds permitted. Except for the privately sponsored excavation of the Jamestown glasshouse site by Harrington in 1947, no extensive archeological work was thereafter undertaken until 1954, when John L. Cotter was appointed chief archeologist. Thorough exploration of Jamestown was his responsibility until 1956.[57] One of the most interesting subsites in the Jamestown complex was the two and one-half acres of lots which belonged successively to William May, Nicholas Merriweather, William White, and Henry Hartwell. The site was first explored in 1935. On this occasion there was disclosed a meandering brick drain that had been built on top of a fill of artifactual refuse, mostly pottery sherds. The richness of this yield was unparalleled elsewhere at Jamestown; from it comes our principal evidence about the North Devon types sent to America. [Illustration: FIGURE 12.--Sgraffito-ware cup and plate from Jamestown. The cup is 4 inches high; the plate is 7 inches in diameter. Colonial National Historical Park.] The May-Hartwell site was explored further and in far greater detail in 1938 and 1939 by Harrington, whose unpublished typescript report is on file with the National Park Service.[58] Harrington's excavation, in the light of historical documentation, led to the conclusion that the brick drain had been laid during Henry Hartwell's occupancy of the site between 1689 and 1695. This was supported by the inclusion in the fill of many bottle seals bearing Hartwell's initials, "H. H." Hartwell married the widow of William White, who had purchased the property from Nicholas Merriweather in 1677. That was the year following Bacon's Rebellion, when Merriweather's house presumably was destroyed. [Illustration: FIGURE 13.--Sgraffito-ware jugs, about 8 inches high, from Jamestown. Colonial National Historical Park.] There were many hundreds of sherds in the fill under and around the brick drain, as well as in other ditches in the site. The North Devon types were found here in association with numerous classes of pottery. The most readily identifiable were sherds of English delftware of many forms and styles of decoration related to the second half of the 17th century. There were occasional earlier 17th-century examples, also, as might be expected. No 18th-century intrusions were noted in the brick drain area, and only a scattering in other portions; none was found in association with the North Devon sherds. JAMESTOWN, VIRGINIA: OTHER SITES. North Devon wares occur in the majority of sites at Jamestown, but it is not always possible to date them from contextual evidence because precise archeological records were not always kept in the early phases of the excavations. Nevertheless, narrow dating is easily possible in enough sites to suggest date horizons for the wares. The earliest evidence occurs in material from a well (W-21)--excavated in 1956[59]--that contained an atypical sgraffito sherd described below (p. 43). The sherd lay beneath a foot-deep deposit that included Dutch majolica, Italian sgraffito ware, and tobacco pipes, all dating in form or decoration prior to 1650. This sherd is unique among all those found at Jamestown, but it is essentially characteristic of North Devon work. Presumably it is a forerunner of the typical varieties found in the May-Hartwell site and elsewhere. No gravel-tempered sherds occur in contexts that can positively be dated prior to 1675. A sizable deposit of gravel-tempered sherds was found between the depth of one foot and the level of the cellar floor of the mansion house site (Structure 112) located near the pitch-and-tar swamp. This house was built before 1650, but burned, probably during Bacon's Rebellion in 1676.[60] The sherds were doubtless part of the household equipment of the time. All other ceramic fragments, with one exception, were associated with objects dating earlier than 1660. [Illustration: FIGURE 14.--Sgraffito-ware jug and cups from Jamestown. Colonial National Historical Park.] In sites dating from before about 1670, no North Devon wares are found, excepting the early sgraffito sherd mentioned above. Such was the case with a brick kiln (Structure 127) of early 17th-century date and two sites (Structure 110 and Kiln C) in the vicinity of the pottery kiln. In Structure 110 all the ceramics date from before 1650.[61] The latest occurrence of gravel-tempered wares is in contexts of the early and middle 18th century. A pit near the Ambler property (Refuse Pit 2)[62] yielded a typical early 18th-century deposit with flat-rimmed gravel-tempered pans of characteristic type. Associated with these were pieces of blue delft (before 1725), Staffordshire "combed" ware (made throughout the 18th century, but mostly about 1730-1760), Nottingham stoneware (throughout the 18th century), gray-white Höhr stoneware (last quarter, 17th century), Buckley black-glazed ware (mostly 1720-1770), and Staffordshire white salt-glazed ware (1740-1770). HAMPTON, VIRGINIA: KECOUGHTAN SITE. In 1941, Joseph B. and Alvin W. Brittingham, amateur archeologists of Hampton, Virginia, excavated several refuse pits on the site of what they believed to be an early 17th-century trading post located at the original site of Kecoughtan, an Indian village and colonial outpost settlement which later became Elizabeth City, Virginia. Rich artifactual evidence, reflecting on a small scale what was found at Jamestown, indicates a continuous occupancy from the beginning of settlement in 1610 to about 1760.[63] The collection was given to the Smithsonian Institution in 1950. [Illustration: FIGURE 15.--This sgraffito-ware chamber pot, from Jamestown, has incised on the rim _WR 16 .._, probably in reference to the king. Height, 5-1/2 inches. Colonial National Historical Park.] [Illustration: FIGURE 16.--Sgraffito-ware harvest jug made in Bideford, with the date "1795" inscribed. Borough of Bideford Public Library and Museum. (_Photo by A. C. Littlejohns._)] JAMES CITY COUNTY, VIRGINIA: GREEN SPRING PLANTATION. In 1642 Sir William Berkeley arrived in Virginia to be its governor. Seven years later he built Green Spring, about five miles north of Jamestown. The house remained standing until after 1800. Its site was excavated in 1954 by the National Park Service under supervision of Louis R. Caywood, Park Service archeologist.[64] The project, supported jointly by the Jamestown-Williamsburg-Yorktown Celebration Commission and the Virginia 350th Anniversary Commission, was executed under supervision of Colonial National Historical Park at Yorktown, Virginia. WILLIAMSBURG, VIRGINIA: EARLY 18TH-CENTURY DEPOSITS. A small amount of North Devon gravel-tempered ware was found in sites excavated in Williamsburg by Colonial Williamsburg, Inc. These excavations have been carried out as adjuncts to the Williamsburg restoration program over a 30-year period. Few of the North Devon sherds found can be closely dated, having occurred primarily in undocumented ditches, pits, and similar deposits. However, it is unlikely that any of the material dates earlier than the beginning of the 18th century, since Williamsburg was not authorized as a town until 1699. It is significant, in the light of this, that North Devon pan sherds in the Williamsburg collection have characteristics like those of specimens from other 18th-century sites. Also significant is the fact that no sgraffito ware occurs here. A gravel-tempered pan (fig. 23) from the Coke-Garrett House site was found in a context that can be dated about 1740-1760. [Illustration: FIGURE 17.--Views of North Devon harvest jug used in Sussex County, Delaware. This jug, 11 inches high and dated 1698, is in the collection of Charles G. Dorman. The inscription reads: "Kind S{r}: i com to Gratifiey youre Kindness Love and Courtisy and Sarve youre table with Strong beare for this intent i was sent heare: or if you pleas i will supply youre workmen when in harvist dry when they doe labour hard and swear{e} good drinke is better far then Meat"] WESTMORELAND COUNTY, VIRGINIA: SITE OF JOHN WASHINGTON HOUSE. In 1930 the National Park Service became custodians for "Wakefield," the George Washington birthplace site on Pope's Creek in Westmoreland County. About a mile to the west of "Wakefield" itself, but within the Park area, is the site of Bridges Creek Plantation, purchased in 1664 by John Washington, the earliest member of the family in America. It was occupied by John at least until his death in 1677, and probably by Lawrence Washington until a few years later. Much artifactual material was dug from the plantation house site, including the largest deposits of North Devon types found outside of Jamestown.[65] STAFFORD COUNTY, VIRGINIA: MARLBOROUGH SITE. A short-lived town was built in 1691 at the confluence of Potomac Creek and the Potomac River on Potomac Neck. The town was abandoned by 1720, but six years later became the abode of John Mercer, who developed a plantation there. The site of his house was excavated by the Smithsonian Institution in 1956. Two small sherds of North Devon gravel-tempered ware were found there in a predominantly mid-18th-century deposit. [Illustration: FIGURE 18.--Gravel-tempered pan (top) and cooking pot with cover, all from Jamestown. The pan has a height of 4-1/2 inches and a diameter of 15 inches. The pot is 6 inches high and 9-1/2 inches in diameter; the diameter of its cover is 10 inches. Colonial National Historical Park.] CALVERT COUNTY, MARYLAND: ANGELICA KNOLL SITE. Since 1954 Robert A. Elder, Jr., assistant curator of ethnology at the United States National Museum, has been investigating the site on the Chesapeake Bay of a plantation or small settlement known as Angelica Knoll. This investigation has revealed a generous variety of gravel-tempered utensil forms, including both 17th and 18th century styles. The range of associated artifacts points to a site dating from the late 17th century to about 1765. KENT ISLAND, QUEEN ANNE COUNTY, MARYLAND. A small collection of late 17th-century and early 18th-century material--gathered by Richard H. Stearns near the shore of Kent Island, a quarter-mile south of Kent Island Landing--includes both North Devon types. The collection was given to the United States National Museum. LEWES, SUSSEX COUNTY, DELAWARE: TOWNSEND SITE. The Townsend site was excavated by members of the Sussex County Archeological Society in 1947. This was primarily an Indian site, but a pit or well contained European artifacts, including a North Devon gravel-tempered jar (fig. 25). The village of Lewes, originally the Dutch settlement of Zwaanandael, was destroyed by the British, who occupied the area in 1664.[66] The European materials from the Townsend site were given to the United States National Museum. PLYMOUTH, PLYMOUTH COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS: "R.M." SITE. A site of a house believed to have been Robert Morton's, located south of the town of Plymouth, was excavated by Henry Hornblower II. It contained North Devon gravel-tempered sherds. The collection is now in the archeological laboratory of Plimoth Plantation, Inc., in Plymouth. ROCKY NOOK, KINGSTON, PLYMOUTH COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS: SITES OF JOHN HOWLAND HOUSE AND JOSEPH HOWLAND HOUSE. The John Howland house was built between 1628 and 1630; it burned about 1675. The site was excavated between September 1937 and July 1938 under supervision of the late Sidney T. Strickland.[67] Several gravel-tempered utensil sherds were found here, as well as a piece of an oven (see fig. 26). Artifacts from this and the following site are at the Plimoth Plantation laboratory. The foundations of the Joseph Howland house, adjacent to the John Howland house site, were excavated in 1959 by James Deetz, archeologist at Plimoth Plantation. This is the only New England site of which we are aware that has yielded North Devon sgraffito ware. Two successive houses apparently stood on the site. Statistical evidence of pipe-stem-bore measurements points to 1680-1710 as the first principal period of occupancy.[68] MARSHFIELD, PLYMOUTH COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS: WINSLOW SITE. This site, excavated by Henry Hornblower II and tentatively dated 1635-1699, yielded considerable quantities of gravel-tempered ware. Cultural material is predominantly from about 1675. FLUSHING, LONG ISLAND, NEW YORK: THE JOHN BOWNE HOUSE. The John Bowne House is a historic house museum at Bowne Street and Fox Lane, Flushing, Long Island, maintained by the Bowne House Historical Society. Bowne was a Quaker from Derbyshire, who built his house in 1661. A North Devon oven is still in place, with its opening at the back of the fireplace. YORKTOWN, VIRGINIA. The National Park Service has excavated at various locations in Yorktown, both in the neighboring battlefield sites and the town itself. Yorktown, like Marlborough, was established by the Act for Ports in 1691. In several of the areas excavated, occasional sherds of North Devon gravel-tempered ware were found. In refuse behind the site of the Swan Tavern, opened as an inn in 1722 but probably occupied earlier, a single large fragment of a 15-inch sgraffito platter was discovered. No other pieces of this type were found, associated artifacts having been predominantly from the 18th century. [Illustration: FIGURE 19.--Gravel-tempered bowl (top) and pipkins from Jamestown. Colonial National Historical Park.] Descriptions of Types NORTH DEVON SGRAFFITO WARE Sites: Jamestown, Kecoughtan, Green Spring, John Washington House, Kent Island, Yorktown, Joseph Howland House. PASTE Manufacture: Wheel-turned, with templates used to shape collars of jugs and to shape edges and sometimes ridges where plate rims join bezels. Temper: Fine, almost microscopic, water-worn sand particles. Texture: Fine, smooth, well-mixed, sharp, regular cleavage. Color: Dull pinkish red, with gray core usual. Firing: Two firings, one before glazing and one after. Usually incomplete oxidation, shown by gray core. A few specimens have surface breaks or flakings incurred in the firing and most show warping (suggesting that "rejects," unsalable in England, were sent to the colonists, who had no recourse but to accept them). SURFACES Treatment: Inner surfaces of plates and bowls and outer surfaces of jugs, cups, mugs, chamber pots, and other utensils viewed on the exteriors are coated with white kaolin slip. Designs are scratched through the slip while wet and into the surface of the paste, exposing the latter. Undersides of plates and chargers are often scraped to make irregular flat areas of surface. Slip-covered portions are coated with amber glaze by sifting on powdered galena (lead sulphide). Containers which are slipped externally are glazed externally and internally. Slip and glaze do not cover lower portions of jugs, but run down unevenly. [Illustration: FIGURE 20.--Gravel-tempered chafing dish from Jamestown. Colonial National Historical Park. (_Smithsonian photo 43104._)] Color: Slipped surfaces are white where exposed without glaze. Unglazed surfaces are a dull terra cotta. The glaze varies in tone from honey color to a dark greenish amber. When applied over the slip, the glaze ranges from lemon to a toneless brown-yellow, or, at best, a sparkling butter color. When applied directly over the paste and over the incised and abraided designs, the glaze appears as a rich mahogany brown or dark amber. FORMS Plates, platters, and chargers: (a) Diameter 7"-7-1/2". Upper surface slipped, decorated, and glazed. (Fig. 12.) (b) Diameter 12"; depth 2"-3". Upper surface slipped, decorated, and glazed. (Fig. 11.) (c) Diameter 14-1/2"-15"; depth 2"-3". Upper surface slipped, decorated, and glazed. (Fig. 11.) All have wide rims, but of varying widths, raised bezels, and heavy, raised, curved edges. Baluster wine cups: Height 3-3/4"-4". Slipped and decorated externally; glazed internally and externally. (Figs. 12, 14.) Concave-sided mugs: Height about 4". Slipped and decorated externally; glazed internally and externally. (Only complete specimen, at Jamestown, had incised band around rim.) (Fig. 14.) Jugs: Height 6-1/2" and 8"-8-1/2". Globose bodies, vertical or slightly everted collars tooled in a series of ridged bands, with tooled rims at top. Some have pitcher lips, some do not. Slipped, decorated, and glazed externally above an incised line encircling the waist; glazed internally. (Figs. 13, 14.) Eating bowls: Diameter, including handle, 9"-10"; depth 3-1/4"-4". Straight, everted sides, flat rims, with slightly raised edges, one small flat loop handle secured to rim. Slipped, decorated, and glazed internally and on rim. [Illustration: FIGURE 21.--Gravel-tempered baking pan from Jamestown. Length, 15 inches; width, about 12 inches. Colonial National Historical Park.] Chamber pots: Height 5-1/2". Curving sides, terminating at heavy, raised, rounded band surmounted by concave, everted rim. Rim 1" wide and flat. Slipped, decorated, and glazed externally and internally. (Fig. 15.) Candlestick: Unique specimen. Height 6". Bell-shaped base with flange and shaft above with socket at top. Handle from bottom of socket to bottom of shaft. Upper portion slipped, decorated, and glazed. Ripple-edged, shallow dish: Unique specimen. Diameter 9-1/4". Concave, rimless dish or plate with edge crimped as for a pie or tart plate. Upper surface slipped, decorated, and glazed. DECORATION Technique: (1) Incising through wet slip into paste with pointed tool for linear effects. (2) Excising of small areas to reveal paste and to strengthen tonal qualities of designs. (3) Incising with multiple-pointed tools having three to five points, to draw multiple-lined stripes. (4) Stippling with same tools. Motifs: The motifs are varied and never occur in any one combination more than once. There are two general categories of design, geometric and floral, although in some cases these are joined in the same specimen. In the geometric category, the majority of plate rims are decorated with hastily drawn spirals and _guilloches_. The centers may have circles within squares, circles enclosing compass-drawn petals, circles within a series of swags embellished with lines. Triple-lined chevrons decorate the border of one plate. A chamber pot is decorated with diagonal stripes of multiple lines, between which wavy lines are punctuated by small excised rectangles. Some cups, jugs, and the candlestick are simply decorated with vertical stripes, between which are wavy lines, stippling, and excised blocks. The floral category includes elaborate and intricate stylized floral and vine motifs: tulips, sunflowers, leaves, tendrils, hearts, four-petaled flowers. One plate (fig. 11) combines the geometric feeling of the first category with the floral qualities of the second in its swag-and-tassel rim and swagged band, which encloses a sunflower springing from a stalk between two leaves. The design motifs are unique in comparison with those found on other English pottery of the 17th century. The geometrical patterns and spiral ornaments, which also occur in Hispanic majolica, have a Moorish flavor. Christian symbols--especially tulips, sunflowers, and hearts--are recurrent, as they are on contemporary West-of-England furniture, pewter, and embroidery and on the carved chests, and crewel work of Puritan New England. There is considerable reason to believe that there was a connection between North Devon sgraffito-ware manufacture and design on the one hand and the influx of Huguenot and Netherlands Protestant artisans into southern and southwestern England on the other. Low Country immigrant potters were responsible for two other ceramic innovations elsewhere in England--stoneware and majolica. [Illustration: FIGURE 22.--Slip-coated porringers and drinking bowl (center). Colonial National Historical Park.] [Illustration: FIGURE 23.--North Devon gravel-tempered pan with typical terra cotta paste and characteristic 18th-century flattened rim, slightly undercut on the interior. This pan, measuring 13-1/4 inches in diameter and 4-3/8 inches high, was found at the Coke-Garrett house site in Williamsburg, Virginia, in a context attributed to the period about 1740-1760. Colonial Williamsburg, Inc. (_Colonial Williamsburg photo 59-DW-703-44._)] ATYPICAL SPECIMEN Already mentioned is a large fragment of a dish found in a context not later than 1640 and cruder and simpler in treatment than the remainder of North Devon sgraffito ware thus far seen. It nevertheless belongs to the same class. Its paste has the same characteristics of color and fracture, while the firing has left the same tell-tale gray core found in a large proportion of North Devon sherds. Surface treatment techniques match those reflected in the typical dish sherds--glazed slip over the red paste on the interior; unglazed, scraped, and abraided surfaces on the underside. The yellow color is paler and the glazed surface is duller. The rim has a smaller edge and omits the heavy raised bezel usually occurring on the typical plates and chargers. The design motifs--crude and primitive in comparison with those described above--consist of a series of stripes on the rim, drawn at right angles to the edge with a four-pointed tool, and crude hook-like ornaments traced with the same tool in the bowl of the plate. This may be regarded as a forerunner of the developed sgraffito ware made in the second half of the 17th century. [Illustration: FIGURE 24.--Gravel-tempered pan sherds from Kecoughtan site, Hampton, Virginia. United States National Museum.] UNIQUE FEATURE The flat rim of a chamber pot from Jamestown (fig. 15) has "WR 16 .." scratched through the slip. It is probable that the initials indicate "William Rex," for William III, who became king in 1688. Why the king should be memorialized in such an undignified fashion could be explained by the fact that Barnstaple and Bideford were strongly Puritan and also Huguenot centers. Although William was a popular monarch, he was, nevertheless, head of the Church of England, and an anti-royalist, Calvinist potter might well have expressed an earthy contempt in this way. Later, in the 18th century, George III appears to have been treated with similar disrespect by Staffordshire potters, who made saltglazed chamber pots in the style of Rhenish Westerwald drinking jugs, flaunting "GR" emblems on the sides. Owners' initials or names do not occur on any of the North Devon wares found in American sites, nor do the initials of the potters. Otherwise, it would seem unlikely that the only exception would appear on the rim of a chamber pot. COMPARATIVE EVIDENCE Sherds owned by C. H. Brannam, Ltd., and excavated at the site of the Litchdon Street pottery in Barnstaple.--The largest of these is part of a deep dish (fig. 2). Its border design seems to be a degenerate form of a beetle-like device found on Portuguese majolica of the period. From a crude oval with a stippled line running the length of it, extends a spiral scroll, terminating in a heavy dot, reminiscent of the tendrils found on the Portuguese examples. From incised lines near the rim and on the edge of the bezel are small linear "hooks." The interior has sunflower petals flanking a short, stylized palmette, with another stalk and pair of leaves above, reaching up to what may have been an elaborate floral center, now missing. This decoration resembles closely the interiors of the floral-type plates and chargers found at Jamestown. A section of plate rim is similar to typical rims found in American sites. The surface color is the butter yellow found on the best Jamestown pieces. Paste color also matches. Sherds from the North Walk pottery in Barnstaple, described by Charbonnier.--These were found near the site, on the banks of the Yeo and in a pasture. They include plates and dishes, some finished and others thrown out in the biscuit state. Charbonnier illustrates a plate with a zig-zag or chevron border and an incised bird in the center. The chevron appears on Jamestown specimens but the bird does not. Harvest jugs.--18th-century North Devon harvest jugs examined by the writer display the same characteristics of paste, slip, and glaze as the Jamestown sherds. However, the jugs differ stylistically to a marked degree, suggesting that later potters were not affected by the influences that appear in the earlier work (fig. 16). The earliest harvest jug of which we are aware is a hitherto unrecorded example, dated 1698, that is in the collection of Charles G. Dorman. This is the only harvest jug yet encountered with a history of use in America and the only North Devon sgraffito piece known to have survived above ground on this continent. It is a remarkably vigorous pot, having a great rotund body, a high flaring collar, and a lengthy inscription (see fig. 17). A female figure under a wreath of pomegranates forms the central motif. The head is turned in left profile, with hair cascading to the shoulders. The bust is highly stylized in an oval shape, within which are intersecting curved lines forming areas decorated with diagonal incising or with rows of short dashes. The design here is strongly reminiscent of the geometrical decoration on Jamestown plates and deep dishes. A pair of unicorns flanks the central figure, and behind each unicorn are a dove and swan, at left and right respectively. Under these are sunflowers and tulips, while a tulip stands above rows of leaves on a stem below the handle. Feather-like leaves flank the lower attachment of the handle. At the junction of the shoulder and collar is a narrow band of incised tulips. Above this is a heavy ridge from which springs the flaring collar. Under the spout is a male head, wearing a wig which is depicted in the same manner as the pomegranates on the wreath, and a stylized hat and stock-like collar. One suspects that the man is a clergyman, although his eyes are cast down in a most worldly manner upon the lady below. He is flanked by a pair of doves; behind each dove is a vertical tulip with stem and leaves. [Illustration: FIGURE 25.--Gravel-tempered food-storage jar from Townsend site, Lewes, Delaware. Height, 12 inches; diameter at base, 9 inches. (_USNM 60.1188; Smithsonian photo 38821._)] [Illustration: FIGURE 26.--Gravel-tempered sherds from Plymouth, Massachusetts: fragment of oven (left) and rim sherd (upper right), from John Howland house site; and pan-rim sherd from "R. M." site. Plimoth Plantation, Inc., Plymouth. (_Smithsonian photo 45008-B._)] Some of the shading is applied with a four-pointed tool, as in many of the Jamestown pieces, although the tool was smaller. The handle bears the same characteristics as those on jugs found at Jamestown--the same carelessly formed ridge, the same spreading, up-thrust reinforcement at the base of the handle. Unlike the Jamestown jugs, this one is covered completely on the exterior with slip and glaze. However, since this was a presentation piece, we could expect more careful treatment than was usual on pots made for commercial sale. The jug descended in a Sussex County, Delaware, family--on the distaff side, curiously. Family recollection traces its ownership back to the early 19th century, with an unsubstantiated legend that it was used by British soldiers during the Revolutionary War. We may conclude at least that the jug is not a recent import and surmise that it was probably brought to America as an heirloom by an emigrating Devon family, perhaps before the Revolution. Sussex County has a stable population, mostly of old-stock English descent. It was settled during the second half of the 17th and first half of the 18th centuries. There is a strong possibility, therefore, that the jug was introduced into Delaware at a comparatively early date. Many other harvest jugs have been similarly cherished in England. An almost exact counterpart of the Delaware jug, and obviously by the same potter, is in the Glaisher collection in Cambridge. This jug, dated "1703/4,"[69] displays such variations as absence of the male head and a different inscription. Another jug, with a hunting scene but with a similar neck and collar treatment, seems again to be by the same hand; it is dated "1703."[70] [Illustration: FIGURE 27.--Gravel-tempered sherds from Angelica Knoll site, Calvert County, Maryland. United States National Museum. (_Smithsonian photo 45008-A._)] From the standpoint of identifying and dating the archeologically recovered sgraffito ware, these jugs are important in showing certain traits similar to those found in the sherds, while displaying other characteristics that are distinctly different. They support the archeological evidence that the Jamestown pieces are earlier than the jugs and that new design concepts were appearing by the turn of the century in a novel type of presentation piece. NORTH DEVON PLAIN SLIP-COATED WARE This is a plain variant of the sgraffito ware, differing only in the absence of decoration and in some of the forms. Site: Jamestown. FORMS Plates: Diameter 7"-11-1/2". Profiles as in sgraffito plates. Upper surface slipped and glazed. Eating bowls: Diameter 9"; height 3-1/2". Profile and handle same as in sgraffito bowls. Slipped and glazed on interior and over rim. Porringers: Diameter 5-1/2"; height 2-3/4". Ogee profiles. Horizontal loop handle applied 3/4" below rim on each. Slipped and glazed on interiors. (Fig. 22.) Drinking bowls: Diameter of rim, including handle, 5"; height 2-3/4"-3"; diameter of base 2". In shape of mazer bowl, these have narrow bases and straight sides terminating in raised tooled bands at the junctions with vertical or slightly inverted rims 1" in height. Each has a horizontal looped handle attached at bottom of rim. Slipped and glazed on interiors. (Fig. 22.) Wavy-edge pans: Diameter 9"-10"; height 2". Flat round pans with vertical rims distorted in wide scallops or waves. Purpose not known. Slipped and glazed on interiors. NORTH DEVON GRAVEL-TEMPERED WARE Sites: Jamestown, Kecoughtan, Green Spring, Williamsburg, Marlborough, John Washington House, Kent Island, Angelica Knoll, Townsend, John Bowne House, "R. M.," Winslow, John Howland House. PASTE Manufacture: Wheel-turned, except ovens and rectangular pans, which are "draped" over molds. (See "Forms," below.) Temper: Very coarse water-worn quartz and feldsparthic gravel up to one-half inch in length; also occasional sherds. Proportion of temper 15-25 percent, except in ovens, which were about 30 percent. Texture: Poorly kneaded, bubbly, and porous, with temper poorly mixed. Temper particles easily rubbed out of matrix. Very irregular and angular cleavage because of coarse temper. Hard and resistant to blows, but crumbles at fracture when broken. Color: Dull pinkish red to deep orange-red. Almost invariably gray at core, except in ovens. Firing: Carelessly fired, with incomplete oxidation of paste. SURFACE Treatment: Glazed with powdered galena on interiors of containers, never externally. Glaze very carelessly applied, with much evidence of dripping, running, and unintentional spilling. Texture: Very coarse and irregular, with gravel temper protruding. Color: Unglazed surfaces range from bright terra cotta to reddish buff. Glazed surfaces on well-fired pieces are transparent yellow-green with frequent orange splotches. Overtired pieces become dark olive-amber, sometimes approaching black. Rare specimens have slipped interiors subsequently glazed, with similar butter-yellow color effect as in sgraffito and plain slip-coated types. FORMS All forms are not completely indicated, there being many rims not represented by complete or reconstructed pieces. The following are established forms. Round, flat-bottomed pans: Diameter 16", height 4"; diameter 16", height 5"; diameter 18", height 4"; diameter 15", height 4-1/2"; diameter 13-1/4", height 4-3/8". Heavy rounded rims. Glazed internally below rims. These were probably milk pans, but may also have served for cooking and washing. Those lined with slip may have functioned as wash basins. (Figs. 18, 23.) Round, flat-bottomed pans: Diameter approximately 19", height unknown. (No complete specimen.) Heavy rims, reinforced with applied strips of clay beneath external projection of rim. Reinforcement strips are secured with thumb impressions or square impressions made by end of flat tool. (Figs. 28, 29.) Cooking pots: Diameter 12", height 6"; diameter 8", height 5". Curving sides, terminating at tooled concave band with flattened, slightly curving rim above. Glazed inside. Bowls: Diameter 8", height 5". Sides curved, with flattened-curve rims, tooled bands below rims. Glazed internally. (Fig. 19.) [Illustration: FIGURE 28.--Exteriors (left) and interiors of gravel-tempered sherds. Top to bottom: bowl; pan; heavy pan with reinforced rim; and pan with 18th-century-type rim. Colonial National Historical Park. (_From Smithsonian photos 43039-A, 43041-A._)] Cooking pots: Diameter (including handles) 9-1/2", height 6". Profile a segmented curve, with rim the same diameter as base. Exterior flange to receive cover. Small horizontal loop handles. Band of three incised lines around waist. (Fig. 18.) Cooking pot covers: Diameters 7", 10", 10-1/2", 11". Flat covers, with downward-turned rims. Off-center loop handles, probably designed to facilitate examination of contents of pot by permitting one to lift up one edge of cover. Covers are sometimes numbered with incised numerals. Unglazed. (Fig. 18.) [Illustration: FIGURE 29.--Exteriors (left) and interiors of gravel-tempered sherds. Pan (top) with 18th-century-type rim, and handle of heavy pan with reinforced rim. Colonial National Historical Park. (_From Smithsonian photos 43039-C, 43039-D._)] Pipkins: Diameter 7", height 3"; diameter 8-1/2", height 3-1/2"; diameter 8-1/4", height 4"; diameter 8", height 5". Curving sides, terminating at tooled concave band with flattened, slightly curved rim above. Three stubby legs. Stub handle crudely shaped and casually applied at an upward angle. Glazed inside. Used as a saucepan to stand in the coals. (Fig. 19.) Rectangular basting or baking pans: Length 15", width 11-3/4" (dimensions of single restored specimen at Jamestown; many fragments in addition at Jamestown and Plymouth). Drape-molded. Reinforced scalloped rim. Heavy horizontal loop handles are sometimes on sides, sometimes on ends. Glazed inside. (Fig. 21.) Storage jars: Various sizes. The one wholly restored specimen (Lewes, Delaware) has a rim diameter of 8" and a height of 12-1/2". Rims of largest examples (diameters 7", 10", 12") have reinforcement strips applied below external projection. Heavy vertical loop handles, with tops attached to rims. Most have interior flanges to receive covers. Glazed inside. Such jars were essential for preserving and pickling foods and for brewing beer. (Fig. 25.) Plate warmer or chafing dish: Unique specimen. Diameter (including handle) 11", height 7". Heavy, flaring pedestal foot supports wide bowl, glazed inside. Flat rim with slight elevation on outer edge. Protruding vertically from rim are three lugs or supports for holding plates. Vertical loop handles extend from rim to lower sides of bowl. "Spirits of wine" were probably burned in the bowl to heat the plate above. (Fig. 20.) Fragmentary pedestals, similar in profile to the one here (but smaller, having step turnings around base) may have been parts of smaller chafing dishes. (Fig. 31.) [Illustration: FIGURE 30.--Exteriors (left) and interiors of gravel-tempered sherds. Top to bottom: rim of small bowl; rim of small jar with internal flange to receive cover; and pipkin handle. Colonial National Historical Park. (_From Smithsonian photos 43039-C, 43039-D._)] Ovens: (1) One wholly reconstructed oven at Jamestown. Made in sections on drape molds: base, two sides, two halves of top, opening frame, and door. Side and top sections are joined with seams, reinforced by finger impressions, meeting at top of trapezoidal opening. The opening was molded separately and joined with thumb-impressed reinforcements. A flat door with heavy vertical handle, round in section, fits snugly into opening. Thickness varies from 3/4" to 1-1/2". Unglazed, although smears of glaze dripped during the firing indicate that the oven was fired with glazed utensils stacked above it. (Fig. 10.) (2) Oven in place in Bowne House, Flushing, Long Island. Similar in shape to Jamestown oven. Opening is arched. (3) Body sherd and handle sherds at Jamestown, from additional oven or ovens. (4) Body sherd from dome-top oven similar to those at Jamestown and Flushing. John Howland House site, Rocky Nook, Kingston, Plymouth County, Massachusetts. (Fig. 26.) COMPARATIVE EVIDENCE Paste color, temper, and texture are consistent when examined microscopically. Resemblance is very close between oven sherds from the Jamestown and Howland house sites, and between these and a large chip obtained from the Smithsonian's oven purchased in Bideford. Except for a somewhat lower proportion of temper, utensil sherds from various sites are consistent with the oven fragments. The Smithsonian's 19th-century Bideford pan also closely resembles these, except for the proportion of temper, which is somewhat less. Further close resemblance of form exists between the Jamestown and Flushing ovens and those in the Bideford Museum. (Figs. 7, 9.) In 1954 comparative tests were made by Frederick H. Norton, professor of ceramics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Jamestown clay was used for a control. Thin sections, made of sherds found at Jamestown, were fired at several temperatures and the results recorded in photomicrographs. Of the gravel-tempered sherd submitted in these tests, Professor Norton commented, "The clay mass looks quite dissimilar from the Jamestown clay." No other identifiable English ware of this period compares with the gravel-tempered pottery, the use of gravel for temper apparently being restricted to North Devon. Gravel is found in red earthenware sherds from Spanish colonial sites and in olive oil jars of Hispanic origin, but both the quality and proportion of temper differs, as do the paste characteristics, so that no possibility exists for confusion between them and the North Devon ware. The North Devon potteries produced gravel-tempered ovens that probably were unique in England. Ceramic ovens were made elsewhere, to be sure; Jewitt describes and illustrates an oven made in Yearsley by the Yorkshire Wedgwoods in 1712, but it is in no way related to the North Devon form. We have mentioned Dr. Pococke's allusion to "earthenware ovens" made in the mid-18th century at Calstock on the Cornish side of the Devonshire border, about 35 miles from Bideford; however, one may suppose that these were the products of diffusion from the North Devon center, if, indeed, they even resembled the North Devon ovens. The closest comparisons with the North Devon ovens are to be found in Continental sources. A woodcut in Ulrich von Richental's _Concilium zu Constancz_ (fig. 35), printed at Augsburg in 1483, shows an oven whose shape is similar to that of the Jamestown specimen. The oven in the woodcut is mounted on a two-wheeled cart drawn by two men. A woman is removing a tart from the flame-licked opening while a couple sits nearby at a table in front of a shop. Le Moyne, a century later, depicted the Huguenot Fort Caroline in Florida.[71] Just outside the stockade, on a raised platform under a thatched lean-to appears an oven whose form is similar to that of typical North Devon examples (fig. 36). It is a safe assumption that the ovens in both Richental's and Le Moyne's scenes were ceramic ovens, for both were used outdoors in a portable or temporary manner. No other material would have been suitable for such use. This portable usage gives support to Bailey's conjecture that the Jamestown oven may have been used indoors in the winter and outdoors in the summer. He noted that carbon had been ground into the base, as though the oven had lain on a fireplace hearth.[72] Sidney Strickland, writing about his excavation of the John Howland House site, noted that the stone fireplace foundation there had no provision for a built-in brick oven of conventional type.[73] Not having recognized the earthen oven sherd, he assumed that bread was baked on the stone hearth. The pottery oven may well have been placed on the hearth or have been set up in an outbuilding. That ovens of some sort, whether ceramic or brick, were used away from houses is borne out by occasional documentary evidence. In 1662 John Andrews of Ipswich, Massachusetts, bequeathed a "bake house" worth 2 pounds, 10 shillings. In 1673, Henry Short of Newbury provided in his will that his widow should have "free egress and regress into the Bakehouse for bakeing & washing." In 1679 the inventory of Lt. George Gardner's estate in Salem listed his "dwelling house, bake house & out housing."[74] Bailey quotes the records of Henrico County, Virginia, to show a similar usage in the South.[75] [Illustration: FIGURE 31.--Pedestal bases of small chafing dishes or standing salts. Top, exterior and interior of one sherd; bottom, exterior and top view of another sherd. Colonial National Historical Park. (_From Smithsonian photos 43039-C, 43030-D._)] The only unquestionable evidence of how these ovens were used remains in the Bowne House, where the oven is built into the fireplace back. Originally, the oven protruded outdoors from the back of the chimney.[76] Conclusions Archeological, documentary, and literary evidences indicate that yellow sgraffito ware, gravel-tempered earthenware utensils, and gravel-tempered pottery ovens were made in several potteries in and around Barnstaple and Bideford in North Devon. Clay from the Fremington clay beds was used. The North Devon potteries manufactured for export, sending their wares to Ireland as early as 1600 and to America by 1635. The trade was particularly heavy in the years following the Stuart Restoration and was tied to the influential 17th-century West-of-England commerce with America. New England, Maryland, and Virginia received many shipments of North Devon pottery, an entire cargo of it having been delivered in Boston in 1688. Sgraffito ware found in colonial sites in Virginia and Maryland is from a common source. The style of decoration is unique to English pottery and reflects Continental elements of design. It is reminiscent of decoration found on English and colonial New England furniture and embroideries. The only counterparts of this ware--matching it in style, paste color, and technique--are found among 17th-century sherds excavated from the sites of two potteries in Barnstaple. The 18th-century and 19th-century North Devon sgraffito ware surviving above ground differs considerably in style and form but in other respects it is the same as the ware found archeologically in Virginia and Maryland. The stylistic differences, noticeable on a piece in the Glaisher collection dated as early as 1704 (in which traces of the earlier style remain), were introduced by the turn of the century, thus strengthening the conclusion that the sgraffito tablewares found archeologically in this country must date from before 1700. [Illustration: FIGURE 32.--Photomicrographs of gravel-tempered sherds enlarged twice natural size, showing cross-sectional fractures. Top left, pan sherd from Jamestown (Colonial National Historical Park); top right, pan sherd from Angelica Knoll site, Calvert County, Maryland (United States National Museum); and oven sherd from Bideford (United States National Museum).] [Illustration: FIGURE 33.--Photomicrographs of gravel-tempered sherds enlarged three times natural size, showing cross-sectional fractures. Top, pan sherd from "R. M." site, Plymouth, Massachusetts (Plimoth Plantation, Inc.); lower left, oven sherd from Jamestown (Colonial National Historical Park); and oven sherd from John Howland house site, Rocky Nook, Plymouth, Massachusetts (Plimoth Plantation, Inc.).] [Illustration: FIGURE 34.--Rim profiles of North Devon gravel-tempered earthenware pans. All are from the fill around and beneath the May-Hartwell site drain at Jamestown (constructed between 1689 and 1695) except those marked, as follows: _A_, from Angelica Knoll site, Calvert County, Maryland, late 17th century to about 1765; _B_, from John Washington House site, Westmoreland County, Virginia, the period from about 1664 to about 1680; _C_, from "R. M." site, Plymouth, Massachusetts, about 1670; _D_, from site of George Washington's birthplace, near the John Washington house site; _E_, from Winslow site, Marshfield, Massachusetts, which was occupied from about 1635 to about 1699.] For kitchen utensils, tiles, and other objects subject to heat or breakage, the same Fremington clay received an admixture of fine pebbles, or gravel, secured at a special place in the bed of the River Torridge in Bideford. The use of gravel was described by 18th-century writers as well as by later historians. As found in America, the gravel-tempered ware apparently is unique among the products of either English or colonial American potters. A specialty of the North Devon potteries was the manufacture of ovens made of the same gravel-tempered clay as the kitchen utensils. The appearance of these ovens and the method of making them remained virtually the same from the 17th through the 19th centuries. At Jamestown, a wholly reconstructed oven reveals typical North Devon traits throughout, while a fragment of an oven from the John Howland House site near Plymouth displays, under a microscope, the same qualities of paste and temper as in a fragment of an oven obtained in Bideford by the Smithsonian Institution. Sherds of gravel-tempered utensils from several American sites also match the oven fragments. Paste characteristics, exclusive of the temper, are the same in the sgraffito ware, the gravel-tempered ware, and the ovens. Furthermore, the gravel-tempered ware occasionally is found with a plain coating of slip, which, under the glaze, has the same yellow color as the sgraffito ware, while an undecorated variant of the sgraffito ware also occurs with a similar plain slip. [Illustration: FIGURE 35.--Baker's portable oven in a woodcut from Ulrich von Richenthal's _Concilium zu Constancz_, printed at Augsburg, Germany, in 1483. Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection, Library of Congress.] [Illustration: FIGURE 36.--Detail from De Bry's engraving of Le Moyne's painting of Fort Caroline, depicting an oven on a raised platform under a crude shed. Fort Caroline was a French Hugenot settlement established in Florida in 1564. Rare Book Room, Library of Congress.] All these wares, including the ovens, are interrelated--the specimens found in America having been shipped in a busy North Devon-North American trade. The North Devon towns, moreover, were an important pottery-making center for export markets in the West of England, Ireland, and North America. Thousands of parcels of earthenware were shipped to the American colonies from Bideford and Barnstaple during the 17th century. Any doubts that ovens were among these overseas shipments are dispelled by the knowledge that they continually were being shipped in the English coastwise trade, and also by intrinsic and comparative evidence that oven sherds found on American sites are of North Devon origin. The only known counterparts of the North Devon ovens are Continental. A 15th-century example appears in an Augsburg woodcut, and a 16th-century specimen is depicted in De Bry's engraving after Le Moyne's painting of Fort Caroline, the Huguenot settlement in Florida. There are many suggestions of Huguenot and Low Country influences on North Devon pottery. Bideford and Barnstaple both were Puritan strongholds in the 17th century, and both became French Huguenot centers, especially after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. The style of sgraffito decoration changed radically after about 1700. After that date, decoration was confined mainly to harvest jugs and presentation pieces. Gravel-tempered utensils and ovens continued to be made, but the North Devon trade with America ceased by 1760. Archeological evidence indicates that gravel-tempered ware was used in America between about 1675 and about 1760. An isolated example of sgraffito pottery, distinguished by crude design and glaze, dates from before 1640. The typical sgraffito ware is illustrated by specimens found in the fill under and around the brick drain in the May-Hartwell site at Jamestown. This ware dates between 1677 and 1695. No other sites provide a more certain dating than this. Sgraffito ware found at Bridge's Creek, Virginia (John Washington house site), may date as early as 1664, but may be as late as 1677 or a few years thereafter. The May-Hartwell oven was also found in the drain fill, so presumably it also was used before 1695. The oven fragment from the site of the John Howland house dates between about 1630 and about 1675, the lifetime of the house. The oven in the Bowne House is no earlier than 1664, the date of construction. Typical sgraffito ware, therefore, dates from 1664 to 1695, plus or minus a few years. Gravel-tempered ware predominates in the same period, but extends well into the 18th century, probably to about 1760. Ovens date from between 1664 and 1695. The concentrations of wares within the limits of the May-Hartwell drain site correspond roughly with records of heavy shipments of the wares between 1681 and 1690. The earliest shipment recorded was to New England in 1635. The sgraffito ware probably served as much for decoration as for practical use. Each piece was decorated differently, with elaborate designs, and in such a manner that it could provide a colorful effect on a court cupboard or a dresser, matching in style the carved woodwork or crewel embroidery of late 17th-century furnishings. Although sgraffito ware represented a degree of richness and dramatic color, it did not match the elegance of contemporary majolica, decorated after the manner of Chinese porcelain. Heavy and coarse, the sgraffito ware essentially was a variant of English folk pottery, reflecting the less sophisticated tastes of rural West of England. It did not occur in the colonies after 1700, by which time it was supplanted in public taste by the more refined majolica. Gravel-tempered ware apparently was esteemed as a kitchen ware, much as is the modern "ovenware" or Pyrex in the contemporary home. Since gravel-tempered ovens were widely used in the West of England, they were accepted by settlers in America, especially where built-in brick ovens were lacking. Unlike those of Staffordshire or Bristol, the North Devon potteries failed to develop new techniques or to change with shifts in taste. The delftware of London and Bristol and the yellow wares of Bristol and Staffordshire became preferable to the soft and imperfect sgraffito ware. In the same way, the kitchen ware of Staffordshire and the adequate red-wares of American potters made obsolete the heavy, ugly, and incomparably crude gravel-tempered ware, while American bricklayers, having adopted the custom of building brick ovens into fireplaces, outmoded the portable ovens from North Devon after 1700. Any chance of a renaissance of North Devon's potteries was killed by the blockading of its ports in the mid-18th century. From then on the potteries continued traditionally, their markets gradually shrinking at home in the face of modern production elsewhere. Today, only Brannan's Litchdon Street Pottery in Barnstaple has survived. OTHER REFERENCES CONSULTED BEMROSE, GEOFFREY, _Nineteenth-Century English Pottery and Porcelain_, New York, n.d. (about 1952). BLACKER, J. F., _Nineteenth-Century English Ceramic Art_, London, 1911. CHAFFERS, WILLIAM, _Marks and Monograms on Pottery and Porcelain_, 14th issue, London, 1932. GRIBBLE, JOSEPH B., _Memorials of Barnstaple_, Barnstaple, 1830. HAGGAR, REGINALD, _English Country Pottery_, London, 1950. HONEY, W. B., _European Ceramic Art from the end of the Middle Ages to about 1815_, London, n.d. (about 1952). MANKOWITZ, WOLF, AND HAGGAR, REGINALD G., _The Concise Encyclopedia of English Pottery and Porcelain_, London, 1957. METEYARD, ELIZA, _The Life of Josiah Wedgwood_, London, 1865. U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1960 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington 25, D.C. Price 35 cents. FOOTNOTES: [1] Worth Bailey, "Concerning Jamestown Pottery--Its Past and Present," _Ceramic Age_, October 1939, pp. 101-104. [2] H. C. Forman, _Jamestown and Saint Mary's_, Baltimore, 1938, p. 133. [3] Worth Bailey, "A Jamestown Baking Oven of the Seventeenth Century," _William and Mary College Quarterly Historical Magazine_, 1937, ser. 2, vol. 17, no. 4, pp. 496-500. [4] John Watkins, _An Essay Towards a History of Bideford in the County of Devon_, Exeter, 1792, p. 56. [5] _Ibid._, pp. 65, 67-68. [6] _Ibid._, p. 70. [7] Port Book, Barnstaple, 1620, Public Record Office, London (hereinafter referred to as _Port Book_), E 190/947. [8] _Virginia Magazine of History and Biography_, 1911, vol. 19, p. 31. [9] _Ibid._, quoting Sainsbury Abstracts, p. 184. [10] _Virginia Magazine of History and Biography_, 1901, vol. 9, pp. 257-258. [11] Bernard Bailyn, _The New England Merchants in the Seventeenth Century_, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1955, p. 87. [12] Isle of Wight County (Virginia) records, quoted in _William and Mary College Quarterly Historical Magazine_, 1899, ser. 1, vol. 7, p. 228. [13] P. A. Bruce, _Economic History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century_, New York, 1895, vol. 2, p. 334. [14] Watkins, _op. cit._ (footnote 4), p. 65. [15] _Port Book_, E 190/959/6. [16] _Ibid._, E 190/954/6. [17] _Ibid._, E 190/959/6. [18] _Ibid._, E 190/960/10. [19] Richard Corkhill was one of the six Bideford factors residing in Northampton County. Bruce, _op. cit._ (see footnote 13). [20] _Port Book_, E 190/959/6. [21] _Ibid._, E 190/960/8. [22] _Ibid._, E 190/960/3. [23] _Ibid._, E 190/966/10. [24] _Ibid._, E 190/968/10. [25] Colonial office shipping records relating to Massachusetts ports, typescript in Essex Institute, Salem, Massachusetts, 1931, vol. 1, p. 78. [26] _Port Book_, E 190/939/14; 942/13; 944/8; 951. [27] _Ibid._, E 190/959/5. [28] "Some Account of Biddeford, in Answer to the Queries Relative to a Natural History of England," _The Gentlemen's Magazine_, 1755, vol. 25, p. 445. [29] Watkins, _op. cit._ (footnote 4), pp. 74-75. [30] T. M. Hall, "On Barum Tobacco-Pipes and North Devon Clays," _Report and Transactions of the Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Science, Literature, and Art_, Devon, 1890, vol. 22, pp. 317-323. [31] T. Charbonnier, "Notes on North Devon Pottery of the Seventeenth, Eighteenth, and Nineteenth Centuries," _Report and Transactions of the Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Science, Literature, and Art_, Devon, 1906, vol. 38, p. 255. [32] _Ibid._, p. 256. [33] Bernard Rackham, _Catalogue of the Glaisher Collection of Pottery and Porcelain in the Fitzwilliam Museum_, Cambridge, 1950, ed. 2, vol. 1, pp. 10-11. [34] Llewellyn Jewitt, _The Ceramic Art of Great Britain_, London, 1883, ed. 2, pp. 206-207. [35] George Maw, "On a Supposed Deposit of Boulder-Clay in North Devon," _Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London_, 1864, vol. 20, pp. 445-451. [36] Charbonnier, _op. cit._ (footnote 31), pp. 255, 259. [37] "Supplement to the Account of Biddeford," _The Gentlemen's Magazine_, 1755, vol. 25, p. 564. [38] Watkins, _op. cit._ (footnote 4), p. 74. However, the "byelaws" of Barnstaple for 1689 indicate that tempering materials were also obtained locally: "Every one that fetcheth sand from the sand ridge, shall pay for each horse yearly 1{d}, and for every boat of Crock Sand 1{d}., according to the antient custome." (Joseph B. Gribble, _Memorials of Barnstaple_, Barnstaple, 1830, p. 360.) [39] Charbonnier, _op. cit._ (footnote 31), p. 258. [40] B. W. Oliver, "The Three Tuns, Barnstaple," _Report and Transactions of the Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Science, Literature, and Art_, Torquay, Devon, 1948, vol. 80, pp. 151-152. [41] Mildred E. Jenkinson in personal correspondence from Bideford, April 20, 1955. [42] Hall, _op. cit._ (footnote 30), p. 319. [43] H. W. Strong, "The Potteries of North Devon," _Report and Transactions of the Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Science, Literature, and Art_, Devon, 1891, vol. 23, p. 393. [44] Charbonnier, _op. cit._ (footnote 31), p. 257. [45] Jewitt, _op. cit._ (footnote 34), vol. 1, pp. 205-206. [46] _Great Exhibition 1851. Official, Descriptive, and Illustrated Catalogue_, London, 1851, p. 776, no. 131. [47] W. J. Pountney, _Old Bristol Potteries_, Bristol, n.d., pp. 153-154. [48] Cloume = cloam: "In O. E. Mud, clay. Hence, in mod. dial. use: Earthenware, clay ... b. _attr._ or _adj._" (J. A. H. Murray, ed., _A New English Dictionary on Historic Principles_, Oxford, 1893, vol. 2, p. 509.) [49] J. J. Cartwright, ed., _The Travels through England of Dr. Richard Pococke_, Camden Society Publications, 1888, new ser., no. 42, vol. 1, p. 135. [50] _Ibid._, vol. 1, p. 131. [51] Jenkinson correspondence (see footnote 41). [52] Jewitt, _op. cit._ (footnote 34), pp. 206-207. [53] Charbonnier, _op. cit._ (footnote 31), p. 258. [54] Jenkinson correspondence (footnote 41). [55] _Made in Devon. An Exhibition of Beautiful Objects Past and Present_, Dartington Hall, 1950, p. 9. [56] Charbonnier, _op. cit._ (footnote 31), p. 258. [57] John L. Cotter, _Archeological Excavations at Jamestown, Virginia_. Archeological Research Series, no. 4, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, Washington, 1958. [58] J. C. Harrington, _Archeological Report, May-Hartwell Site, Jamestown: Excavations at the May-Hartwell site in 1935, 1938, and 1939 and Ditch Explorations East of the May-Hartwell Site in 1935 and 1938_. [59] Cotter, _op. cit._ (footnote 57), p. 158. [60] _Ibid._, pp. 112-119. [61] _Ibid._, pp. 102-112. [62] _Ibid._, pp. 151-152. [63] Joseph B. Brittingham and Alvin W. Brittingham, Sr., _The First Trading Post at Kicotan (Kecoughtan), Hampton, Virginia_, Hampton, 1947. [64] Louis R. Caywood, _Excavations at Green Spring Plantation_, Yorktown, 1955. [65] J. Paul Hudson, "George Washington Birthplace National Monument, Virginia," National Park Service Historical Handbook Series, no. 26, Washington, 1956. [66] Virginia Cullen, _History of Lewes, Delaware_, Lewes, 1956; C. A. Bonine, "Archeological Investigation of the Dutch 'Swanendael' Settlement under de Vries, 1631-1632," _The Archeolog. News Letter of the Sussex Archeological Association_, Lewes, December 1956, vol. 8, no. 3. [67] S. T. Strickland, _Excavation of Ancient Pilgrim Home Discloses Nature of Pottery and Other Details of Everyday Life_, typescript, n.d. [68] James Deetz, _Excavations at the Joseph Howland Site (C5), Rocky Nook, Kingston, Massachusetts, 1959: A Preliminary Report_. Supplement, _The Howland Quarterly, 1960_, vol. 24, nos. 2, 3. The Pilgrim John Howland Society, Inc. [69] Rackham, _op. cit._ (footnote 33), vol. 2, p. 11, fig. 8 D, no. 58. [70] John Eliot Hodgkin and Edith Hodgkin, _Examples of Early English Pottery, Named, Dated, and Inscribed_. London, 1891, p. 59. [71] J. Le Moyne, _Brevis Narratio corum quae in Florida ..._, Frankfort, 1591, pl. 10. [72] Bailey, _op. cit._ (footnote 3), pp. 497-498. [73] Strickland, _op. cit._ (footnote 67). [74] The probate records of Essex County, Massachusetts, Salem, Massachusetts, 1916, vol. 1, p. 378; vol. 2, p. 346; vol. 3, p. 328. [75] Bailey, _op. cit._ (footnote 3), p. 498. [76] _Bowne House; A Shrine to Religious Freedom_, Flushing, New York. Pamphlet of The Bowne House Historical Society, Flushing, N.Y., n.d. Transcriber's Notes: Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_. Superscripted characters are indicated by {superscript}. 
37103	----	[ Transcriber's Note: Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as possible, including inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation. No changes have been made to the printed text. ] OF THE JUST SHAPING OF LETTERS BY ALBRECHT DÜRER TRANSLATED BY R. T. NICHOL FROM THE LATIN TEXT OF THE EDITION OF MDXXXV OF THE JUST SHAPING OF LETTERS FROM THE APPLIED GEOMETRY OF ALBRECHT DÜRER BOOK JJJ DOVER PUBLICATIONS, INC. NEW YORK ALBRECHT DÜRER TO WILIBALD PIRCKHEIMER HIS PATRON AND VERY GOOD FRIEND GREETING: [Illustration] In our Germany, most excellent Wilibald, are to be found at the present day many young men of a happy talent for the Art Pictorial, who without any artistic training whatever, but taught only by their daily exercise of it, have run riot like an unpruned tree, so that unhesitatingly and without compunction they turn out their works, purely according to their own judgment. But when great and ingenious artists behold their so inept performances, not undeservedly do they ridicule the blindness of such men; since sane judgment abhors nothing so much as a picture perpetrated with no technical knowledge, although with plenty of care and diligence. Now the sole reason why painters of this sort are not aware of their own error is that they have not learnt Geometry, without which no one can either be or become an absolute artist; but the blame for this should be laid upon their masters, who themselves are ignorant of this art. Since this is in very truth the foundation of the whole graphic art, it seems to me a good thing to set down for studious beginners a few rudiments, in which I might, as it were, furnish them with a handle for using the compass and the rule, and thence, by seeing Truth itself before their eyes, they might become not only zealous of the arts, but even arrive at a great and true understanding of them. Now, although in our own time, and amongst ourselves, the Art Pictorial is in ill repute with some, as being held to minister incitement to idolatry, yet a Christian man is no more enticed to superstition by pictures or images, than is an honest man girt with a sword to highway robbery. Certes he would be a witless creature who would willingly adore either pictures or images of wood or stone. On the contrary, a picture is the rather edifying and agreeable to Christian religion and duty, if only it be fairly, artificially, and correctly painted. In what honour and dignity this art was anciently held amongst the Greeks and Romans, the old authors sufficiently testify; though afterwards all but lost, while it lay hid for more than a thousand years. It has now at length, only within the last two hundred years, by some Italians been brought again to light. For it is the easiest thing in the world for the Arts to be lost and perish; but only with difficulty, and after long time & pains are they resuscitated. Wherefore I hope that no wise man will defame this laborious task of mine, since with good intent & in behoof of all who love the Liberal Arts have I undertaken it: nor for painters alone, but for goldsmiths too, & for sculptors, and stonecutters, and woodcarvers, and for all, in short, who use compass, and rule, and measuring line--that it may serve to their utility. Nor is anyone compelled whether or no to spend gainful hours on these exercises of mine; although I am not ignorant that whoever is well exercised in them will thence acquire not only the principles of his own art, but by daily practice, an exactitude of judgment, with which he will proceed to higher investigations & discover many more things than I have here pointed out. But since, illustrious Sir, it is clearer than light that you are yourself, so to speak, an asylum of all the noble Arts, it has been my pleasure, out of a singular love I bear towards you, to dedicate to you this book; not because I desire to appear therein as rendering you any great service, but because thereby you may understand how engaged my mind is to you; and since by my work I can confer on you but little favour, at least by the exhibition of a ready mind I may repay the benefits you shower upon me. Farewell. [Illustration] OF THE JUST SHAPING OF LETTERS FROM THE APPLIED GEOMETRY OF ALBRECHT DÜRER BOOK III. Now, since architects, painters & others at times are wont to set an inscription on lofty walls, it will make for the merit of the work that they form the letters correctly. Accordingly I am minded here to treat briefly of this. And first I will give rules for a Latin Alphabet, and then for one of our common Text: since it is of these two sorts of letters we customarily make use in such work; and first, for the Roman letters: Draw for each a square of uniform size, in which the letter is to be contained. But when you draw in it the heavier limb of the letter, make this of the width of a tenth part of the square, and the lighter a third as wide as the heavier: and follow this rule for all letters of the Alphabet. First, make an A after this fashion: Indicate the angles of the square by the letters a. b. c. d. (and so do for all the rest of the letters): then divide the square by two lines bisecting one another at right angles--the vertical e. f. the horizontal g. h.: then, in the lower line, take two points, i. and k., distant respectively one-tenth of the space c. d. from the points c. and d.: then, from the point i. draw upwards to the top of the square the lighter limb; & thence downwards the heavier limb, so that the outer edges of both may touch, respectively, the points i. and k.: then let a triangle be left between the limbs, and a point e. be fixed at top in the middle of the letter, and next join both limbs beneath the horizontal line, and let this limb be a third as broad as the heavier limb. Now let the arc of a circle, applied to the top of the outside edge of the heavier limb, project beyond the square. Then cut off the top of the letter with a serpentine or curving line, so that the concavity decline towards the lighter limb, and prolong acutely either limb of the letter at the bottom to either side, so as to meet the angles of the square at c. and d.: this you shall make with the arc of a circle, whose semi-diameter is one-seventh of the side of the square; but the two lower curves, mutually opposite, permit to extend so that each is a third of the heavier limb, and this you shall obtain by the arc of a circle whose diameter is equal to the breadth of the heavier limb. Moreover, this same letter A you may cut off at top with the side of the square, and then produce to a fine point in either direction, as you did the feet below, yet so that the longer production shall be to the fore-side (namely, the left); but in this case it will be necessary to draw in the limb k. a little closer. Likewise the same A you may draw in yet another manner--that is, pointed at top. In that case let the limbs slope towards one another yet more closely; then lower the transverse a little and double its width. You may also cut off the limb at top bluntly, or sharpen it on the fore-side. You ought to make yourself familiar with these three forms, or whichever of them pleases you best. And note likewise that in exactly the same fashion in which this letter is acutely prolonged at top & bottom, are the other letters to be so prolonged which are drawn with oblique lines, as V, X, Y, although a few changes may be necessary, as you shall hear below. I have here subjoined an engraving of this letter. [Illustration: A] OF THE LETTER B. And now you shall draw B in its square thus: First divide the square horizontally by the line e. f.; then bisect the lines a. e. and b. f. by the line g. h. Next, you must first set properly the broad vertical limb of the letter, distant its own breadth from the side a. c. of the square a. b. c. d. Then erect the line i. k. on the inner side of the limb already drawn, and distant from it one-tenth of a side of the square, and let it cut the line g. h. in the point l. Next, draw strips narrower and horizontal (to be produced hereafter into the convex limbs) from the vertical band to meet the vertical line i. k.--namely, at top, below the line a. b.; next, above the line e. f.; and at bottom, above the line c. d. Now set a leg of the compass on the point l. and describe a semicircle to the right of the transverse strips, so that the extremities of the circumference, in the vertical line i. k., below the side a. b., and above the line e. f. may coincide with those short transverse lines. Then bisect the narrow transverse strip which is above the line e. f. in the line i. k. by the point m.; and indicate the breadth of the letter, to the right of the semicircle, by the point n. in the line g. h.; and afterwards draw from the point m. above the line e. f. in the direction of f. a short horizontal line as great as need be: then describe a semicircle which shall include this line, and the point n., and, at the top, the side a. b.; and through n. let pass a vertical line. These all combine to form, below, the concave of the curved limb, and above, its convex. Next, produce the transverse strip above c. d., in the direction of d., as far as required, and mark this q. Then bisect the line m. q. by the line o. p., cutting the line n. in the point r.; and next describe a semicircle touching the horizontal line e. f., the point r., and the position q. Then indicate the breadth of this limb of the letter by the point s. to the right of the point r. in the line o. p. and describe a semicircle, touching the line m., the point s., and the side of the square c. d. There will then remain in the letter three right angles to be eliminated: the interior and lower one may be shaped into a curve by a circle whose semi-diameter is two-thirds of the breadth of the broad limb of the letter, and the exterior ones you shall fine to a point by circular lines whose semi-diameter is equal to the breadth of that limb. Another method. Or you may make your B in this fashion: Let the side a. c. of the square be divided into nine equal parts, and cut off the four superior parts by the horizontal line e. f. Then erect your vertical limb as described above; and the superior curved limb you shall make between a. b. and e. f.; the inferior between e. f. and c. d. Now divide a. b. into nine equal parts, and cut off four parts towards b. in the point g.; then divide c. d. into five equal parts, and the last, towards d. mark off in the point h. and join g. and h. by the line g. h. which should touch on their exterior edges the superior and inferior limbs of the letter. Now these limbs must be drawn of a particular form; and the compass, in drawing the circular lines, must be moved up and down their diagonals: and these two diagonals you shall determine in this wise. Divide a. e. into four parts; the lowest, above e., call i. e.; the lowest of the five remaining, above c., call c. k. Then join the points i. and b. and k. and f. respectively, by the lines i. b. and k. f. Upon these lines move and turn your compass, & in this way you shall describe both curved limbs: and they must both be broader towards the top than towards the bottom, as follows naturally with the stroke of a pen, and, moreover, while approximately round, they are not to be circular; therefore you will have to move your compass at need along the diagonals, and withal to assist it also with the hand, as I have done in the picture on the following page. [Illustration: B] OF THE LETTER C. Next you shall make the letter C in its own square thus: Bisect the square a. b. c. d. by the horizontal line e. f. and in it let i. be the middle point. From this point as the centre, & i. f. or i. e. as the radius, describe a circle touching interiorly all four sides of the square. Now move the leg of the compass, but without varying its span, to a point k. a little to the right of i. in the line e. f., letting the space i. k. denote the greatest breadth of the letter you desire; & from the centre k. describe another circle which shall cut twice the line b. d., and whose circumference to the left will mark the required breadth of the letter. Next, draw the vertical line g. h., parallel to b. d., distant from b. a tenth part of the line a. b. This will cut off for you at top and bottom the letter C as the ancients were accustomed to use it. But I would have you cut off the lower limb in the middle point between g. h. and b. d.: then make the limbs somewhat finer and rounder on the inside towards top and bottom from the point where the circles intersect; and for its greater perfection round out the letter, above and below, to touch the sides of the square a. b. and c. d. Next, low down, where the letter with one foot crosses the line g. h., there, under the circular line make the form a little more incurved, yet so that with the tip of its end it shall again touch the circular line. Similarly, but higher up, make the foot more hollow on the inside than the circle left it: and thus two circular lines will give you very nearly the whole form of the letter. Another method. Or, secondly, you may make the letter C thus: Draw in the square a diagonal c. b.; set the leg of your compass on its middle point i. and with the other leg describe the exterior circle as before, terminating it above at the diagonal c. b.; but below, make your circle pass a little beyond the former sweep. Then set the leg of your compass, but without changing its gauge, as far above i. in the diagonal as the letter's greatest width, and describe your inner circle; and, as though made with a pen, let the descending stroke be heavier than the ascending. The rest you may elaborate with your hand; & let the trimming of the ends of the letter, above, slope upwards, & below, downwards, exactly as I have here drawn the shapes. [Illustration: C] THE LETTER D. The letter D you shall make thus: Divide its square by the perpendicular or vertical line g. h. and by the horizontal line e. f. into four small squares, and call their point of intersection i.: then draw the broader limb of the letter from the side a. b. downwards, to meet the side c. d. and at the distance of its own width from a. c.; and produce the limb at top and bottom to a sharp point at the angles a. and c. as was shown above in B; using the same method in all straight limbs in the remaining letters. Next you are to produce from this limb two narrower tracts horizontally, and from these are to be described the circular arcs of the letter between the line a. b. at top and the line c. d. at bottom, and extending as far as the perpendicular g. h.; next, with your compass join g. f. h. Then, in the line e. f. lay off a portion equal in breadth to the widest limb of the letter, at the point k.; next, set one foot of your compass on k. and let the other cut the said line e. f. in l.; let this be the immovable leg of your compass, and with the other, beginning from k., describe internally, to the narrower transverse limbs, an arc which shall touch both, completing your acute angle above, but rounding out the lower one by a circular arc of the same diameter as the one by which you sharpened your exterior subtending angle. Another method. You may make the round limb of the same D in another fashion; namely, as a pen naturally would, broader above than below. For this, draw the diagonal c. b. and describe your exterior arc as before; but to describe the interior, in the line c. b. take a point m. lower down than i. and distant from it the width of the broader limb, and without altering your compass describe an interior line; but where the limb must needs be narrower, there you are to accommodate it with your hand, both below and above, as in the following cut. [Illustration: D] THE LETTER E. The letter E you shall form in its square thus: Draw a transverse line e. f. bisecting a. b. and c. d. in e. and f.; then draw the great vertical limb of the letter, to the left, as you did for D. Next draw also an upper transverse limb of narrower dimensions, parallel to a. b. and in length six-tenths minus one-third of one-tenth of the length of a. b.; and the end of this bend downwards one-tenth of the length of a. b. and use this as the diameter of the circle with which you round out the inner angle of this extremity: then draw your narrow middle limb parallel to the median line e. f. and above it, so that it may be shorter than the upper limb by one-tenth of the length of a. b., but at its terminus double as wide; & you are to round it out (in either direction) by the arc of a circle whose diameter is one-sixth the length of e. f. Now construct your lowest limb upon the line c. d., so that at its ultimate angle it may exceed in length the upper limb by one-tenth of c. d.; the cusp, however, you are to prolong beyond this part by two-thirds of one-tenth part, and erect above it to one-sixth of the length of c. d., and round out the same by a circle whose semi-diameter is also a sixth of c. d. In like manner the final angle of the letter you shall round out by an arc of the same circle by which you rounded out the middle transverse limb: the other angles you are to leave acute, as in the following cut. [Illustration: E] THE LETTER F. The letter F you are to form in the same manner as E; except that you shall omit the lower limb altogether, and, in its place, round out the letter on both sides below, as you did E on one side only, as I have shown you below. [Illustration: F] THE LETTER G. Likewise the letter G you are to make as you did C, before described; this, however, excepted: that in front (that is, to the left) of the line g. h. is to be erected the broad limb of the letter, upwards from the curve to the line e. f., and above it is to be rounded to a point, on either side, as before was said; but below, both angles are to remain. Or, you shall form G in the following fashion in the said square, divided as before: Draw the diagonal c. b. and set your compass with one leg on the point i. and with the other describe an arc from e. to the middle point c. d. and mark this point l.; in like manner also, describe an arc upwards to the line a. b. so as to meet the perpendicular line g. h. & mark that point z. Then, in the line g. h., take a point m. so that the part m. h. shall be one-tenth of the line g. h.; then, with a sweep of your hand join l. & m. with the curved line l. m. Next, you are to draw from z. a line upwards, as broad as the standard of the letter, but oblique and in direction midway between your circular line & the perpendicular g. h. and from the extremity of this line you must draw a curved line to meet a. b. at the point where your circular line touches it. Next, cut off from the bottom of g. h. a part one-third of its length, & indicate this by the point n., & to this height, from the level of m. upwards, produce the broad limb of the letter, and let its extremities above be finished in either direction, of the same size. After this set the leg of your compass on the diagonal c. b. the breadth of the standard of the letter above i. & at the distance e. i. describe an arc, which above shall touch the exterior boundary a. b. but below shall stop short above l.; & from this point you must with your hand draw a line to the vertical limb at the height of m. And the same you shall do above in drawing the narrower limb of the letter, as seen in the following diagram. [Illustration: G] THE LETTER H. The letter H is to be formed of two broad, great, & vertical limbs of the height of the square, in such fashion that their extremities, being produced exteriorly, shall touch the four angles of the square, a. c. and b. d. respectively. Now in what fashion the projections of the broader limbs of letters are to be rounded out at top and bottom and on either side, you have been instructed; for in any letter you please, any broad and vertical limb is to be depicted at top and bottom thrice as broad as at its middle: provided always it is not joined to a narrower limb. So when this has been accomplished, then draw your narrower transverse limb upon the line e. f. as is shown below. [Illustration: H] THE LETTER I. The letter I you are to make of a single broad vertical tract in the midst of its square, touching the latter top and bottom; and of this, at both ends, and on either side, you are to round out the productions or projections as below is shown. [Illustration: I] THE LETTER K. Now for K: You are to make the first tract vertical, in the same manner as you formerly did for H; then draw another narrower limb from the broader and erect one, so that it may, at its lower end, impinge obliquely on the transverse line e. f. and above may ascend to the right till it meet the line a. b., taking care to make it parallel to the diagonal c. b.; and this, at the top, you are to produce in both directions so that each production may represent a tenth part of the line a. b. The hitherward projection you are to round out with a circle of which the diameter must not exceed the breadth of the lesser limb; but of the other arc, by means of which you round out the farther projection, you shall make the diameter double as great as the diameter of the arcs by which you have customarily hollowed out the preceding extensions of the broad and vertical limbs. Next, from the narrow limb so constructed draw in a downward direction another broad limb, so that it too may be parallel to a diagonal of the square; & of this the beginning is to be taken from the acute angle which the narrower limb makes with the broad vertical limb, and let it be drawn with its projection to the angle d., yet in this fashion: take two points this side of d. after this manner, so that the first point may be distant from d. the tenth part of the line c. d. & the second as far again from the first; then let the said tract be drawn within the space which is between the two points, but in blind and invisible lines. Afterwards you shall add the extension, which you shall make this way: take before f. in the line e. f., a point g. no farther distant from f. than the breadth of the narrower limb; on this point set one leg of your compass, & let the other be extended to the angle d., from which let it be guided back along the broad but invisible blind limb: thence will result the lower convexity of the tail you seek; but its upper concavity look for in this way: divide f. d. in its middle point h.; on this set one leg of your compass, and with the other describe an arc passing through d. to meet the broad limb. Or you may make K in this manner: First, let your broader vertical limb, and your upper narrow one remain as they have been described, except that the interior angle which the narrower limb forms with a. b. shall remain acute, but the exterior one shall be rounded out, as has been said. Then let there be drawn the lower broad limb, obliquely from the angle which is included between e. f. and the vertical limb, and let it descend to meet the side c. d. so that between d. and the limb the width of the limb be left vacant; and the hither angle is to be left, but the farther, towards d., shall be rounded out a little, as shown below. [Illustration: K] THE LETTER L. As for the letter L, you shall make it by a combination of parts of two of the preceding letters: namely, you shall make the first vertical broad limb, as you did a while back in I; and to this join a foot as you did at the bottom of E, when you made it. Such is L depicted below. [Illustration: L] THE LETTER M. The letter M you shall form in two ways within its square. In the first, draw the narrower limb of the letter vertical, to the right of a. c., distant from a. one-tenth of the distance a. b.: draw the other, & broader limb, on the near side of b. d., also a tenth part of the whole distant from b. & in such fashion that both limbs touch the square at top and bottom; then, between the two, bisect the line c. d. in the point e. and draw a broad limb from the inner angle of the narrow limb, downwards to the point e., & next a narrow one upwards from e. to the inner angle of the broader vertical limb; and the inner angles at top you must not round out, but leave acute; the exterior angles, however, at the top, and both exterior and interior at bottom of both vertical limbs, you are to adorn with the customary projections, as you have done in the preceding letters. You are to know, too, that when these letters are drawn with a pen, they are to be described with a single stroke. But for your guidance is this letter, in the manner in which I have instructed you, depicted below. Another method. Another way is thus: Divide the side a. b. of the square into six equal parts & mark off the two extreme parts, one at either end, by the points f. and g.; then draw the inner and broader limb, with its point at e. as above; and to this, in an upward direction, a narrower one, so that between f. g. be left a vacant space, and so more readily the letter slope forward. Then you are to draw the two lateral and vertical limbs--the near and slender, and the farther broad one--at the top, indeed, as in the first sketch, but at the bottom produce them to the two angles c. and d. and finally add projecting cusps, as you were instructed in the first M; but the projection below will pass beyond the square at the points c. and d. Or you shall make M at top with acute angles, in which case the lateral limbs will slope the more; or shear them off obtusely, and in this fashion (whichever pleases you best) make them as you see them depicted in the following diagrams. [Illustration: M] THE LETTER N. Likewise the letter N you shall make in its square thus: First you are to draw two standards vertical and slender, so that at top & bottom they may touch the square, & that being produced, the nigh one at the bottom, and the farther at the top, they may touch the angles at c. and b. Now join these two by a broad oblique limb, running from the angle a. to the point e., by which is denoted the remote side of the farther limb, where you shall allow the acute angle to remain; but at the top, this limb, produced beyond the angle a., you are to round out to a fifth part of the length of a. b. This prolongation should incurve below, a fifteenth part of the distance a. b. projected on two arcs, the upper one the greater, the lower the less. For the lesser arc, therefore, you shall take as diameter of its circle, a line the fifth part of the distance a. b. and its centre is to be taken outside the square, so that the foot of the compass may touch the tip of the extension and the angle a.; then extend a little the feet of the compass, and shift its centre until the arc touch both the tip of the part produced, & the broad oblique limb, in the middle point between the side a. c. & the nearer of the two slender vertical limbs. Or you may make the letter N in such fashion that its upper nigh extension shall remain within the square; or you may make from it an acute angle as shown overleaf. [Illustration: N] THE LETTER O. Now O you shall make this way in its square. Set in the square the diameter c. b. and bisect it in the point e., so that e. may form a middle point between the two points f. and g. which are to be your two centres; and from each let a circle be described touching two sides of the square; & where the circles cut one another, there with your hand you must shape the slender outline of the letter to a juster proportion, as below is shown. [Illustration: O] THE LETTER P. P you shall make in its square in this wise. Divide the square a. b. c. d. by the median horizontal line e. f.; then divide a. e. & b. f. equally by the line g. h. Next draw, first the broad vertical limb for this letter P, as you did a short while ago for K, and afterwards erect the line i. k. the distance of its own breadth to the right of your vertical limb; (here you must ever observe that in a lettered square we speak of the angle a. as the "hither" angle, that is, to the left; & the angle b. as the "farther" angle, that is, to the right). Then where the line i. k. cuts g. h. call the point l., and next draw two slender horizontal limbs, the upper below a. b., the lower above e. f., from the broad vertical limb as far as the line i. k. Set one leg of the compass on the point l., extending the other to the lower side of the lower horizontal limb near k.; then describe an arc through the line g. h. as far as the other slender horizontal limb of this same P, & where it cuts the line g. h. set the point m. Next, on the far side of m. measure the width of the large limb of the letter, along the line g. h. to the point n. and let your compass be stretched so that with one foot it may touch the line a. b. and with the other the point n.; then set one foot of the compass on n. & the other on the line g. h. to the right, in the point o., in which this foot is to be left standing immovable, and with the other is to be described an arc, passing through the point n. and touching the lines a. b. and e. f. Or you may form the loop of this letter in the following manner. Set a leg of the compass under the transverse g. h. in the line i. k., in a place median between the line e. f. & the lower part of the upper transverse of the slender limb, in the point p. and describe an arc as before, passing through m. so that the loop will be acute at the bottom, and its tip will end in the middle space between the line i. k. and the broad vertical limb of the letter. Or make this same P with a circular sweep, by shifting the compass upon the diameter, so that that sweep may be broader at the top (as though made with a pen) as will be shown in the diagram on the following page. [Illustration: P] THE LETTER Q. Make your Q in its square in the self-same manner as was prescribed for O; but add to it its tail thus: Draw a diameter of the square, the line a. d., about which, starting from the curved outline, begin to draw a long tail, producing it through the angle d. in such fashion that d. may be in the middle of the thickest part of the tail; but where the tail begins let it be a little narrower than in the angle d., where it should attain its real thickness. Then let it be drawn out, beyond the angle d. to the length of the entire diameter, and in a downward direction, yet so that it curves while it slopes, & that its tip shall not fall lower than a third of the side below the lowest side of the square, and shall tend, as it nears the point, to grow sharper little by little, and at length end in a very fine point indeed. Or you shall give Q a shorter tail in this fashion, to wit: set your compasses to the length of the side c. d. and draw a tail from the bulge of the same letter, describing through the point d. its inner arc of the same length as c. d., taking care that the tail bend upwards until it again reach c. d. produced, in the point h.; then shift your compasses, & with the other leg again describe from the bulge of the letter an arc below d. & continue it until again it reach h., but in such fashion that the tail shall find its greatest thickness at the start, as in the following figure is doubly depicted. [Illustration: Q] THE LETTER R. Moreover R you must make in its square just as was directed for P; but then erect a right line q. r. through the middle point of the square, & let it cut the exterior arc of the rounded limb in s., from which point, downwards towards the angle d., let there be drawn a broad tract, almost equal to that which you made above for the letter K., but this is to be somewhat bent in, and so shaped by your hand that its tip, well formed, may arrive directly on the angle d. Or make R in such fashion that its rounded sweep, as though made with a pen, shall be above broader, & narrower below. To accomplish this, you must shift your compasses on the diameter q. e. & not allow the rounded limb to touch the vertical one, as was described in P. Besides, the oblique limb is to be deduced from the rounded one with a little more of a curve; just as I have drawn overleaf. [Illustration: R] THE LETTER S. Next, the letter S you shall make as follows in its square, a. b. c. d. First draw the horizontal line e. f. and the median & vertical one g. h. and let them bisect one another in the point m. Then choose the main thickness of the letter, and set it in the line g. h. so that the point m. may divide it, having one-third of the thickness below it; next, set the lesser thickness, at the top beneath g., indicating it by the point i., and at bottom, above h. in the point k.; and the thickness of the letter indicate above by n. and below by l. Next, set a leg of your compasses on the line g. h. in the mid-point between i. and n., and with the other describe a circle passing through i. and n.; in like manner, upon the line g. h. set your compasses upon the mid-point of g. l. and describe a circle passing through g. & l. Then once more set your compass on the same line g. h. in the mid-point of n. h. and describe a circle through n. & h.; and lastly, in the mid-point of l. k. you must set one leg, & with the other is a circle to be described through these same points l. & k.; afterwards cut off by vertical section the upper portion of this letter, so that the part thus cut off may contain in its extremity the maximum thickness of the letter and a third part besides, & also that its tip may project downwards so far as to stand midway between the centre of the circle i. n. and the side b. d.; in other words, let the tip be distant on the right, from the circle i. n. the first third of the interval between the greater and lesser circles. Next cut the lower limb of the letter to the left, by a vertical line through the mid-point between the two circles, & in such fashion that the part so cut off may be a fourth part wider & higher than the upper, and that its tip may rise to the height of the centre of the circle n. h. Another method. Yet another way may you make the letter S. In the square a. b. c. d. bisect the horizontal line e. f. in the point m.; then set one leg of your compass upon the mid-point between g. and m. & with the other describe a segment of a circle in the direction of a. e. passing through the points m. and g.; next, set your compass upon the mid-point between m. and h. and describe a segment of a circle through m. and h. in the direction of f. d. The two arcs will touch above, in front, and below, in the rear, the exterior curvatures of this same letter S. Next, draw through m. the diameter c. b. and at its middle indicate the maximum thickness of the letter by the two points p. and q. from which let there be drawn two right lines, one up, & one down, to those two arcs; & next, from the two points p. & q. draw two curved parallels to the same arcs, regulating the distance between them, their elevation & depression from the centres of the same circles. Next, indicate below g. and above h. the minimum thickness of the letter; and from these points you will with your hand fashion the inner shape of the letter, both above and below, & produce the limb of S, above towards b. Cut it off so that its lower tip may touch the segment, & that the part cut off upwards may contain a tenth part of a. b. and that the segment may still exceed the part cut off. Then construct a vertical line r. s. to the right of e. c. and distant from it a fifth part of c. d.; let it cut the diagonal c. b. in t. and to the angle just formed produce the extremity of the letter, making the part so cut off a third broader than the upper portion. Lastly, you will have to produce the tip ever so little beyond t.; as I have briefly indicated. [Illustration: S] THE LETTER T. Set the broad limb of T in the midst of its square erect, produced & drawn to a point on either side below, just as you did before in the letter I; then take two points e. and f., distant respectively one-tenth of the whole space from a. and b., and let the transverse limb of the letter be drawn below e. f. and of an equal length with it; but the projecting extremities of this line are to be cut obliquely, and the tips of these projections shall so far extend above the line a. b. to the right as below they depend to the left. The oblique lines of these projections are to be each a fifth part of the length of a. b.; & the angles of these projections you shall round out by means of circles of diverse radius--namely, for the lesser angle you are to use a diameter only two-thirds of the width of the broader limb; but for the greater angle you shall take a diameter equal to the side of a square contained between the broad and vertical limb and the intercepted portion of the line a. b. Another method. Or you make T thus in its square: Take your point e. as before, to the right of a., and cut your transverse limb diagonally, as before, yet so that the projection be dimidiated to the right, and at top the angle remain as it falls; and so at the other extremity, only the point f. must be moved as near again to b., the cutting line to be a little more erect, & the projection formed a trifle broader than at the hither end; otherwise shall everything remain as before; as I have delineated for you on the opposite page. [Illustration: T] THE LETTER V. V you shall thus make in its square: Bisect c. d. in the point e.; then set the point f. one-tenth of the whole line a. b. beyond a., and in like fashion g. to the hither side of b. Then draw the broad limb of your letter downwards from f. to e. and sharpen it; & thence draw upwards your slender limb to g.; and at the top produce it in either direction, as you did before at the bottom of A; just as you see it shown below. [Illustration: V] THE LETTER X. X you shall form thus: Draw two vertical lines e. f. and g. h. distant respectively one-tenth part of the line a. b. from the sides a. c. and b. d. Then draw the two limbs intersecting one another in the form of a cross--the broad one so that at top, & with its hither side it shall touch e., & at the bottom, and with its farther side h.; but the narrow limb so that at top, and with its farther side it may touch g., & at bottom, with its hither side f. Then add its projections, touching, at top and bottom, the four angles a. b. c. d., & choose a semi-diameter of the larger circle of the length of a fifth part of a. b.; & with that you shall round out the four greater angles; but for the lesser circle you shall take a diameter as long as two-thirds the width of the broader limb. Or you may vary X thus: Let everything be left as before except the narrower limb, which at top you shall make more erect by one-half the breadth of the wider limb; and so the upper part of the letter shall be less and narrower than the lower, and shall have a different aspect, as is shown below. [Illustration: X] THE LETTER Y. Y you shall achieve in the midst of its square, as far as its lower half is concerned, after the instructions before given for I; but its upper part you shall divide so that its hither limb shall contain two-thirds, and its farther one-third of the broad standard; and let them slope to either side so that produced they may touch the two angles a. and b.; and the greater circles, by which you are to round out their obtuse or greater angles, make of a diameter as great as a containing side of the square enclosed between the standard and the sides of the great square, as in T was shown; but the diameters of the circles which you apply to the lesser angles, make double the width of the broad standard, as below. [Illustration: Y] THE LETTER Z. Z you shall make thus: Set upon either side, both beneath & beyond the angle a., two points e. & f., each at a distance of the tenth part of a. b.; so also, set two other points g. and h. both before and above the angle d. and with right lines join e. f. and g. h.; then draw your narrower transverse limb, beneath a. b. backwards as far as the angle b.; from thence draw your broad limb diagonally to c.; and then again a narrower one from c. to g.; and with your hand round out the two tips e. and h. Or make Z thus: Divide the square a. b. c. d. by the vertical line e. f. and in this reduced space construct the letter as before; but so that the two transverse limbs be cut short, above on the nigh side, and below on the far, by the vertical lines a. c. and e. f. respectively as below. [Illustration: Z] So likewise, in other fashion, can we make all the letters already drawn, on a scale of ninths, just as we have now drawn them on a scale of tenths; in just the same manner, according to the due proportion of each, in its own square, a. b. c. d., dividing them into nine, as just now into ten parts; & that this may be the better understood, I have chosen to append here letters of such fashion. Also these letters are to be made five parts high when written small & rapidly, by hand. In such writing the versals are made of the same proportion and form, but one-third larger than the ordinary letters of the writing. [Illustration: A A A A B B B B C C C C D D D D] [Illustration: E E F F G G G H H I I K K K L L] [Illustration: M M M M N N N N O O P P P P] [Illustration: Q Q Q R R R S S S T T T V V] [Illustration: X X X Y Y Z Z Z] DIRECTIONS FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE TEXT OR QUADRATE LETTERS The letters which are usually called "text," or quadrate, it was formerly customary so to write, although they are now imitated by the new art, as presently I shall show below. Although the alphabet begins with the writing of A, yet shall I (not needlessly) in the first place undertake to draw an I; because almost all the other letters are formed after this letter, although always something has to be added to it or taken away. First make your I of equal squares, of which three are properly set one over the other; and the top of the top one, and the bottom of the bottom one, divide in two points, that is to say, into three equal parts: then set a square equal to the others in an oblique manner, so that its diagonal be vertical, and its angle on the first point of the top square. In this way, this oblique square shall extend with its angles more to the left than the right. Then produce upwards on either side, after the width of the superposed squares, right lines to meet the sides of the oblique set square. Next do below precisely as you did above, except that you must set the angle of the oblique square on the second point, that is, the one farthest to the right in the bottom of the lowest square; and let fall your lines on either side upon the transposed square: so will I be perfect; only above it draw with a fine pen a tiny in-crescent. So shall you make N from two standards of this same I, set so that their angles at top and bottom touch; and in this manner the space between the two shall be narrower than the breadth of either: also, you shall no longer put little crescents above them; you must make of the same length all the short letters throughout the alphabet. In like manner make M of three standards, just as you made N of two. R make as I, except only that at top you must set an equal square diagonally, to the right, so that angle touch angle. R you may make also in this fashion: below leave its foot as before, but above add two diagonal squares, which shall touch each other with their angles in the middle point of the vertical limb, and then produce upwards both sides of the latter to meet the diagonal square. V is made in three ways. First let it be made simply, as N; only that in the farther limb, you shall omit at the top the diagonal square; and instead shall draw an oblique line, so that it may make two angles in this limb (produced) of which the farther shall be of the same height as that of the topmost angle of the diagonal square, & the higher angle of the same height as the angle nearest to it in the said square. The second V, which we use at the beginning of a sentence, make thus: Draw the first limb as before for I; only, at the bottom, push the diagonal square a little further to the right, so that its hither angle does not project beyond the side of the vertical limb, but falls in the line of its descent. Then set the second limb to the right of this, and cut it off below by an oblique line, drawn from the lowest angle upwards to the right, as far as the middle point of the lowest of the three superposed squares. Next make W (i. e., double V) just as you made V-simplex; only you shall set before it the standard limb of I. B make as the second V-simplex; but in the first upright omit the diagonal square at the top, and set upon the three original squares three others similar, but the seventh one you shall cut off diagonally from its lower hither angle. Likewise when your B so made is turned upside down, then it will be a Q. X you shall construct from I. Append from top angle to the right a diagonally set square, as you did before in R; and at the bottom draw an acute tail to the left from the diagonal, and at the middle of the vertical limb describe a transverse, in such way that the former is cut before and aft by the latter's diagonal; let the hither and lower angle be terminated as far in front of the upright as would measure one-half of the cutting diagonal, which at top shall just touch the upright; but to the right let the transverse at top project to a point just below the angle of the oblique square; from thence downwards let it be cut off by an oblique line parallel to the anterior diagonal. C you shall construct from I after this fashion: Remove the top diagonal square, & let lines be produced on either side to the proper height of the letter, and cut off the hither angle by a diagonal; then draw at top a broad transverse, projecting beyond the vertical to the right the width of the latter, and cut this off by a diagonal in such a way that it project below only half as far as above. The vertical standard of E you shall make as for C; but from above let there descend to the right a broad limb from the diagonal bisecting the right angles of one square, and one-third again as long as broad; and let there be drawn from its lower angle a small diagonal line to the vertical limb. T shall be made like C, except that at top something is added to its diagonal, so that its tip converges to a fine point, and the like to the left on the hither side of the broad standard, just as at the top: and because of this is T at top more elegant than C, and has not the same incurved appearance. L you are to make below like I; only six squares are to be set on end; then cut off the hither side of the seventh by a diagonal, and so the apex of the letter shall remain to the right. The letter S you shall make as L; except that at top to the right must be drawn a broad limb of the length of the diagonal, which afterwards you are to cut off by a line parallel to the diagonal. F you shall make as S, just adding to it a transverse limb at the height of the shorter letters and double as long as broad, so that the point on the hither side & below shall project as far as half the limb's breadth, so that the two diagonal abscissions may be equidistant from one another. The near limb of the letter H make like L, and to it join by its top, in the proper place, the farther made like I; but below, for the diagonal square, substitute a fourth square in line with the others, and the fifth and lowest cut off on the far side by its diagonal. Of K make the near limb like L; and to the right of it append a diagonal square, from the lowest angle of which let a line be obliquely produced to meet the said vertical limb; and next from this line let a broad limb be obliquely drawn, and this, at the bottom, you are to cut off by a diagonal, in such fashion that the space below, between the two tips shall not be more than the diagonal of a single square. D in its lower half make like B; but at top let the anterior limb ascend upwards to the maximum height of the letters, and then cut off the hither angle by its diagonal; next superpose to the same height half a square upon the other three squares of the farther limb, & once more do here as you did below, and let this broken limb rest on the angle of the near limb, and let it extend beyond it as far as the end of the upright near limb; and so will it all but contain three conjunct squares; for when it meets the near vertical limb, that fraction is to be cut off at right angles. O you are to make below as D, and also the same at the top as the bottom, only, as it were, turning it upside down. The anterior limb of P make like L inverted; but the posterior like the standard of I: at bottom, however, you are not to add an oblique square, but amputate the limb diagonally, & draw at the bottom a broad transverse limb, which likewise is to be cut off diagonally, so that the lower point shall project to the left, a distance of half the breadth of the limb. Likewise A in the lower half you are to make like N; but of its anterior vertical limb, you are to cut off the hither angle of the middle square by its diagonal; of the posterior, however, allow three squares to remain superposed, and incline the top part (the fourth square) rather to the left, so that if at this side is joined to it the half of a square, then it shall attain the height of the letter; and cut off the square obliquely, yet so that the lower point shall project farther than the upper; then describe to the left a circle, sweeping downwards, so that its contents shall embrace the farthest limit of the anterior limb. Z is made in threefold fashion. First set a diagonal square which shall touch the height of the letter; then add another like it, on the right, joining their sides, & let these form a quadrangle sloping downwards on the right: next set a diagonal square in straight line under the top square, and distant from the lower one the length of its diameter: then draw a diagonal line between the near angles of these two squares, or make a rounded limb to reach the lower square; but from the said lowest square of all you shall draw downwards and to the right, by the aid of divers circles, a round extension, whose bottom shall mark the length of the letter; and let its tip, sharp and tenuous, verge to the left. Or construct Z of three oblique limbs, one above the other, & to connect them draw the diagonal, which shall slope upwards to the right. Another Z you may make in this way: Let three diagonal squares be set atop of one another; and let the lowest have a rounded extension, as in the first Z. The first limb of G make below like I, and add at the bottom another diagonal square, joining the two by their angles; but at top produce the farther tip of this limb upwards to the height of the letter, & from this point draw a diagonal downward to the left, as far as the hither angle of the first right square of the three set one on other. Next draw the farther vertical standard entire, of the same length as the hither standard, and at the bottom draw a diagonal from the angle of the lowest oblique square to touch the tip of the angle of the farther limb, & on the inner side produce downwards the side of the limb, to meet the tip of the said diagonal; to this also, by one line, join the lowest of the hither squares. Now draw at top a transverse limb of the customary breadth, from the back of the nearer vertical limb, passing through the farther one, and reaching as far beyond this as its breadth; & this limb, finally, you shall cut off by an oblique line parallel to that of the near limb. Y you shall make as N, only at bottom must be omitted the farther diagonal square, & in its place is to be set a right square under the other three superposed squares; then split the fifth square by a diagonal, so that the tip shall be in front; from which let there be produced a diagonal line, equal in length to a single side of the square. Curved, or short S, you shall make on this wise. At the middle height of the letter, let there be set, close to one another, their angles touching, two oblique squares; from the near square draw a broad vertical limb to the height of the letter; and in the same fashion, from the farther square let one fall downwards--just as you constructed I top & bottom. Next cut off both these limbs, one at top and one at bottom, by diagonals, in such fashion that the sharp tips of both may be on the side near the middle. Then let there be drawn two broad limbs--namely, from the upper, to the right, and downwards; and in like manner, from the lower, upwards, and to the left; of the breadth of the limb, above and below, but let them be produced no further than the breadth of the distance between the limbs: then draw a diagonal downwards, from right to left, which shall cut off both oblique limbs. To it also you must produce the sides of the squares set in the midst. So, accordingly, have I set them down--in skeleton in rotation, and in proper order in black. This (as I said above) is the antique form of the letters; but in these days there is used a more elegant text, and a diagonal square is substituted in the middle place for a right square, so that the lines of the letters are not so much curved; and there are made certain limbs adjoined and cleft; and there are set one on another three squares & a half; and spaces are left between two limbs as great as their width. Letters of this sort also have I set forth on the third page following; as also capital letters, which are called "versals," because they are customarily set at the beginning of a verse; and these ought to be made one-third higher than the remaining shorter letters in writing. [Illustration: i n m r r u v w b q x c e t l s f h k d o p a z z z g y s] [Illustration: a b c d e f g h i k l m n o p q r r s s t u v w x y z z z] [Illustration: A B C D E F G H I K L M N O P R S T V X Y Z Q * a b c d e f g h i k l m n o p q r s s t u v w x y z] Here ends this little Book. 
39398	----	A SYSTEM OF EASY LETTERING. BY J. HOWARD CROMWELL, PH.B., Fourth Thousand. [Illustration] SPON & CHAMBERLAIN, 12 CORTLANDT STREET, NEW YORK. 1897. COPYRIGHT, 1887, BY WM. CHAMBERLAIN. PREFACE. The formality of a preface may seem scarcely necessary for the supplementing of a system as simple and comprehensible as the one herewith presented. We have but to divide any surface we may wish to letter into squares (or parallelograms as the case may be), in pencil lines; form the required letters, in ink or paint, and according to the style chosen; erase the pencil lines, and the lettering is complete. J. H. C. [Illustration: 1] [Illustration: 2] [Illustration: 3] [Illustration: 4] [Illustration: 5] [Illustration: 6] [Illustration: 7] [Illustration: 8] [Illustration: 9] [Illustration: 10] [Illustration: 11] [Illustration: 12] [Illustration: 13] [Illustration: 14] [Illustration: 15] [Illustration: 16] [Illustration: 17] [Illustration: 18] [Illustration: 19] [Illustration: 20] [Illustration: 21] [Illustration: 22] [Illustration: 23] [Illustration: 24] [Illustration: 25] [Illustration: 26] * * * * * The ORNAMENTAL PENMAN'S ENGRAVERS · SIGN · WRITERS AND STONECUTTERS POCKET BOOK OF ALPHABETS INCLUDING CHURCH TEXT, EGYPTIAN, EGYPTIAN PERSPECTIVE, FRENCH, FRENCH ANTIQUE, FRENCH RENAISSANCE, GERMAN TEXT, _ITALIC_, _ITALIAN SHADED_, _ITALIAN HAIRLINE_, Monograms, Old English, Old Roman, Open Roman, Open Stone, Ornamental, ROMAN, LATIN, RUSTIC, TUSCAN, &c. SPON & CHAMBERLAIN, _Publishers_, 12 CORTLANDT STREET, NEW YORK. THE BEST AND CHEAPEST IN THE MARKET. ALGEBRA SELF-TAUGHT. BY W. 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Printed on one side, in blue ink, all the lines being of equal thickness. Size of sheet, 8 × 10 inches. In lots of 100 sheets, price, 75c. THE HANDY SKETCHING PAD. Made from this paper, with useful tables. Size 8 × 10 inches. Price, 25c. each. Per dozen pads, $2.50. THE HANDY SKETCHING BOOK. Made from this paper but printed on both sides. Size of book 5 × 8 inches, stiff board covers. Price, 25c each; per dozen books, $2.50. =Or Books and Pads Assorted, per dozen, $2.50.= Scale EIGHT to ONE Inch. A large sheet with heavy inch lines and half inch lines, printed in orange ink. Size of sheet, 17 × 22 inches. Per quire (24 sheets), 75c. Scale TEN to ONE Inch. Size 17 × 22 inches, printed in blue ink, with heavy inch lines and half inch lines. Per quire (24 sheets), 75c. =The Electrician's Sketching Book.= Made from this paper. Scale 10 to 1 inch. Size of book 5 × 8 inches, with stiff board covers. Price, 25c. each; per dozen, $2.50. ANY QUANTITY MAILED TO ANY PART OF THE WORLD ON RECEIPT OF PRICE. _Pads of any size and thickness, in quantities, made to order._ This paper is _not ruled_. Try it and you will find it GOOD, ACCURATE AND CHEAP. =SPON & CHAMBERLAIN,= =12 CORTLANDT STREET, NEW YORK.= =TRY THIS PAPER FOR EASY LETTERING.= THIRD THOUSAND. =New Edition (Oblong 8 × 11 inches), boards 32 pages text, 44 illustrations, and 9 full-page plates=, Price $1.00 LETTERING FOR DRAFTSMEN ENGINEERS AND STUDENTS. _A Practical System of Freehand Lettering for Working Drawings_ BY CHARLES W. REINHARDT, _Chief Draftsman for "Engineering News."_ What this work actually intends to show is a "Practical System of Freehand Lettering for Working Drawings"--one that by the method outlined, is easily acquired and rapidly executed. 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36250	----	ARTS AND CRAFTS ESSAYS _Arts and Crafts Essays_ By Members of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society _With a Preface_ By William Morris London RIVINGTON, PERCIVAL, & CO. 1893 PREFACE The papers that follow this need no explanation, since they are directed towards special sides of the Arts and Crafts. Mr. Crane has put forward the aims of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society _as_ an Exhibition Society, therefore I need not enlarge upon that phase of this book. But I will write a few words on the way in which it seems to me we ought to face the present position of that revival in decorative art of which our Society is one of the tokens. And, in the first place, the very fact that there is a "revival" shows that the arts aforesaid have been sick unto death. In all such changes the first of the new does not appear till there is little or no life left in the old, and yet the old, even when it is all but dead, goes on living in corruption, and refuses to get itself put quietly out of the way and decently buried. So that while the revival advances and does some good work, the period of corruption goes on from worse to worse, till it arrives at the point when it can no longer be borne, and disappears. To give a concrete example: in these last days there are many buildings erected which (in spite of our eclecticism, our lack of a traditional style) are at least well designed and give pleasure to the eye; nevertheless, so hopelessly hideous and vulgar is general building that persons of taste find themselves regretting the brown brick box with its feeble and trumpery attempts at ornament, which characterises the style of building current at the end of the last and beginning of this century, because there is some style about it, and even some merit of design, if only negative. The position which we have to face then is this: the lack of beauty in modern life (of decoration in the best sense of the word), which in the earlier part of the century was unnoticed, is now recognised by a part of the public as an evil to be remedied if possible; but by far the larger part of civilised mankind does not feel that lack in the least, so that no general sense of beauty is extant which would _force_ us into the creation of a feeling for art which in its turn would _force_ us into taking up the dropped links of tradition, and once more producing genuine organic art. Such art as we have is not the work of the mass of craftsmen unconscious of any definite style, but producing beauty instinctively; conscious rather of the desire to turn out a creditable piece of work than of any aim towards positive beauty. That is the essential motive power towards art in past ages; but our art is the work of a small minority composed of educated persons, fully conscious of their aim of producing beauty, and distinguished from the great body of workmen by the possession of that aim. I do not, indeed, ignore the fact that there is a school of artists belonging to this decade who set forth that beauty is not an essential part of art; which they consider rather as an instrument for the statement of fact, or an exhibition of the artist's intellectual observation and skill of hand. Such a school would seem at first sight to have an interest of its own as a genuine traditional development of the art of the eighteenth century, which, like all intellectual movements in that century, was negative and destructive; and this all the more as the above-mentioned school is connected with science rather than art. But on looking closer into the matter it will be seen that this school cannot claim any special interest on the score of tradition. For the eighteenth century art was quite unconscious of its tendency towards ugliness and nullity, whereas the modern "Impressionists" loudly proclaim their enmity to beauty, and are no more unconscious of their aim than the artists of the revival are of their longing to link themselves to the traditional art of the past. Here we have then, on the one hand, a school which is pushing rather than drifting into the domain of the empirical science of to-day, and another which can only work through its observation of an art which was once organic, but which died centuries ago, leaving us what by this time has become but the wreckage of its brilliant and eager life, while at the same time the great mass of civilisation lives on content to forgo art almost altogether. Nevertheless the artists of both the schools spoken of are undoubtedly honest and eager in pursuit of art under the conditions of modern civilisation; that is to say, that they have this much in common with the schools of tradition, that they do what they are impelled to do, and that the public would be quite wrong in supposing them to be swayed by mere affectation. Now it seems to me that this impulse in men of certain minds and moods towards certain forms of art, this genuine eclecticism, is all that we can expect under modern civilisation; that we can expect no _general_ impulse towards the fine arts till civilisation has been transformed into some other condition of life, the details of which we cannot foresee. Let us then make the best of it, and admit that those who practise art must nowadays be conscious of that practice; conscious I mean that they are either adding a certain amount of artistic beauty and interest to a piece of goods which would, if produced in the ordinary way, have no beauty or artistic interest, or to produce works of art, to supply the lack of tradition by diligently cultivating in ourselves the sense of beauty (_pace_ the Impressionists), skill of hand, and niceness of observation, without which only a _makeshift_ of art can be got; and also, so far as we can, to call the attention of the public to the fact that there are a few persons who are doing this, and even earning a livelihood by so doing, and that therefore, in spite of the destructive tradition of our immediate past, in spite of the great revolution in the production of wares, which this century only has seen on the road to completion, and which on the face of it, and perhaps essentially, is hostile to art, in spite of all difficulties which the evolution of the later days of society has thrown in the way of that side of human pleasure which is called art, there is still a minority with a good deal of life in it which is not content with what is called utilitarianism, which, being interpreted, means the reckless waste of life in the pursuit of the means of life. It is this conscious cultivation of art and the attempt to interest the public in it which the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society has set itself to help, by calling special attention to that really most important side of art, the decoration of utilities by furnishing them with genuine artistic finish in place of trade finish. WILLIAM MORRIS. _July 1893._ CONTENTS PAGE OF THE REVIVAL OF DESIGN AND HANDICRAFT: with Notes on the Work of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society. Walter Crane 1 TEXTILES. William Morris 22 OF DECORATIVE PAINTING AND DESIGN. Walter Crane 39 OF WALL PAPERS. Walter Crane 52 FICTILES. G. T. Robinson 62 METAL WORK. W. A. S. Benson 68 STONE AND WOOD CARVING. Somers Clarke 81 FURNITURE. Stephen Webb 89 STAINED GLASS. Somers Clarke 98 TABLE GLASS. Somers Clarke 106 PRINTING. William Morris and Emery Walker 111 BOOKBINDING. T. J. Cobden-Sanderson 134 OF MURAL PAINTING. F. Madox Brown 149 OF SGRAFFITO WORK. Heywood Sumner 161 OF STUCCO AND GESSO. G. T. Robinson 172 OF CAST IRON. W. R. Lethaby 184 OF DYEING AS AN ART. William Morris 196 OF EMBROIDERY. May Morris 212 OF LACE. Alan S. Cole 224 OF BOOK ILLUSTRATION AND BOOK DECORATION. Reginald Blomfield 237 OF DESIGNS AND WORKING DRAWINGS. Lewis F. Day 249 FURNITURE AND THE ROOM. Edward S. Prior 261 OF THE ROOM AND FURNITURE. Halsey Ricardo 274 THE ENGLISH TRADITION. Reginald Blomfield 289 CARPENTERS' FURNITURE. W. R. Lethaby 302 OF DECORATED FURNITURE. J. H. Pollen 310 OF CARVING. Stephen Webb 322 INTARSIA AND INLAID WOOD-WORK. T. G. Jackson 330 WOODS AND OTHER MATERIALS. Stephen Webb 345 OF MODERN EMBROIDERY. Mary E. Turner 355 OF MATERIALS. May Morris 365 COLOUR. May Morris 376 STITCHES AND MECHANISM. Alan S. Cole 387 DESIGN. John D. Sedding 405 ON DESIGNING FOR THE ART OF EMBROIDERY. Selwyn Image 414 OF THE REVIVAL OF DESIGN AND HANDICRAFT: WITH NOTES ON THE WORK OF THE ARTS AND CRAFTS EXHIBITION SOCIETY The decorative artist and the handicraftsman have hitherto had but little opportunity of displaying their work in the public eye, or rather of appealing to it upon strictly artistic grounds in the same sense as the pictorial artist; and it is a somewhat singular state of things that at a time when the Arts are perhaps more looked after, and certainly more talked about, than they have ever been before, and the beautifying of houses, to those to whom it is possible, has become in some cases almost a religion, so little is known of the actual designer and maker (as distinct from the proprietary manufacturer or middleman) of those familiar things which contribute so much to the comfort and refinement of life--of our chairs and cabinets, our chintzes and wall-papers, our lamps and pitchers--the Lares and Penates of our households, which with the touch of time and association often come to be regarded with so peculiar an affection. Nor is this condition of affairs in regard to applied Art without an explanation, since it is undeniable that under the modern industrial system that personal element, which is so important in all forms of Art, has been thrust farther and farther into the background, until the production of what are called ornamental objects, and the supply of ornamental additions generally, instead of growing out of organic necessities, have become, under a misapplication of machinery, driven by the keen competition of trade, purely commercial affairs--questions of the supply and demand of the market artificially stimulated and controlled by the arts of the advertiser and the salesman bidding against each other for the favour of a capricious and passing fashion, which too often takes the place of a real love of Art in our days. Of late years, however, a kind of revival has been going on, as a protest against the conviction that, with all our modern mechanical achievements, comforts, and luxuries, life is growing "uglier every day," as Mr. Morris puts it. Even our painters are driven to rely rather on the accidental beauty which, like a struggling ray through a London fog, sometimes illumes and transfigures the sordid commonplace of everyday life. We cannot, however, live on sensational effects without impairing our sense of form and balance--of beauty, in short. We cannot concentrate our attention on pictorial and graphic art, and come to regard it as the one form worth pursuing, without losing our sense of construction and power of adaptation in design to all kinds of very different materials and purposes--that sense of relation--that architectonic sense which built up the great monuments of the past. The true root and basis of all Art lies in the handicrafts. If there is no room or chance of recognition for really artistic power and feeling in design and craftsmanship--if Art is not recognised in the humblest object and material, and felt to be as valuable in its own way as the more highly rewarded pictorial skill--the arts cannot be in a sound condition; and if artists cease to be found among the crafts there is great danger that they will vanish from the arts also, and become manufacturers and salesmen instead. It was with the object of giving some visible expression to these views that the Exhibitions of the Arts and Crafts Society were organised. As was to be expected, many difficulties had to be encountered. In the endeavour to assign due credit to the responsible designer and workman, it was found sometimes difficult to do so amid the very numerous artificers (in some cases) who under our industrial conditions contribute to the production of a work. It will readily be understood that the organisation of exhibitions of this character, and with such objects as have been stated, is a far less simple matter than an ordinary picture exhibition. Instead of having an array of artists whose names and addresses are in every catalogue, our constituency, as it were, outside the personal knowledge of the Committee, had to be discovered. Under the designation of So-and-so and Co. many a skilful designer and craftsman may be concealed; and individual and independent artists in design and handicraft are as yet few and far between. However, in the belief, as elsewhere expressed, that it is little good nourishing the tree at the head if it is dying at the root, and that, living or dying, the desirability of an accurate diagnosis while there is any doubt of our artistic health will at once be admitted, the Society determined to try the experiment and so opened their first Exhibition. The reception given to it having so far justified our plea for the due recognition of the arts and crafts of design, and our belief in their fundamental importance--the amount of public interest and support accorded to the Exhibition having, in fact, far exceeded our anticipations, it was determined to hold a second on the same lines, and to endeavour to carry out, with more completeness than was at first found possible, those principles of work, ideas, and aims in art for which we contended, and to make the Exhibition a rallying point, as it were, for all sympathetic workers. Regarding design as a species of language capable of very varied expression through the medium of different methods and materials, it naturally follows that there is all the difference in the world between one treatment and another, both of design and material; and, moreover, every material has its own proper capacity and appropriate range of expression, so that it becomes the business of the sympathetic workman to discover this and give it due expansion. For the absence of this discriminating sense no amount of mechanical smoothness or imitative skill can compensate; and it is obvious that any attempt to imitate or render the qualities peculiar to one material in another leads the workman on a false track. Now, we have only to consider how much of the work commonly produced, which comes under the head of what is called "industrial art," depends upon this very false quality of imitation (whether as to design or material) to show how far we have departed in the ordinary processes of manufacture and standards of trade from primitive and true artistic instincts. The demand, artificially stimulated, is less for thought or beauty than for novelty, and all sorts of mechanical invention are applied, chiefly with the view of increasing the rate of production and diminishing its cost, regardless of the fact that anything in the nature of bad or false art is dear at any price. Plain materials and surfaces are infinitely preferable to inorganic and inappropriate ornament; yet there is not the simplest article of common use made by the hand of man that is not capable of receiving some touch of art--whether it lies in the planning and proportions, or in the final decorative adornment; whether in the work of the smith, the carpenter, the carver, the weaver, or the potter, and the other indispensable crafts. With the organisation of industry on the grand scale, and the enormous application of machinery in the interests of competitive production for profit, when both art and industry are forced to make their appeal to the unreal and impersonal _average_, rather than to the real and personal _you_ and _me_, it is not wonderful that beauty should have become divorced from use, and that attempts to concede its demands, and the desire for it, should too often mean the ill-considered bedizenment of meaningless and unrelated ornament. The very producer, the designer, and craftsman, too, has been lost sight of, and his personality submerged in that of a business firm, so that we have reached the _reductio ad absurdum_ of an impersonal artist or craftsman trying to produce things of beauty for an impersonal and unknown public--a purely conjectural matter from first to last. Under such conditions it is hardly surprising that the arts of design should have declined, and that the idea of art should have become limited to pictorial work (where, at least, the artist may be known, in some relation to his public, and comparatively free). Partly as a protest against this state of things, and partly to concentrate the awakened feeling for beauty in the accessories of life, the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society commenced their work. The movement, however, towards a revival of design and handicraft, the effort to unite--or rather to re-unite--the artist and the craftsman, so sundered by the industrial conditions of our century, has been growing and gathering force for some time past. It reflects in art the intellectual movement of inquiry into fundamental principles and necessities, and is a practical expression of the philosophy of the conditioned. It is true it has many different sides and manifestations, and is under many different influences and impelled by different aims. With some the question is closely connected with the commercial prosperity of England, and her prowess in the competitive race for wealth; with others it is enough if the social well-being and happiness of her people is advanced, and that the touch of art should lighten the toil of joyless lives. The movement, indeed, represents in some sense a revolt against the hard mechanical conventional life and its insensibility to beauty (quite another thing to ornament). It is a protest against that so-called industrial progress which produces shoddy wares, the cheapness of which is paid for by the lives of their producers and the degradation of their users. It is a protest against the turning of men into machines, against artificial distinctions in art, and against making the immediate market value, or possibility of profit, the chief test of artistic merit. It also advances the claim of all and each to the common possession of beauty in things common and familiar, and would awaken the sense of this beauty, deadened and depressed as it now too often is, either on the one hand by luxurious superfluities, or on the other by the absence of the commonest necessities and the gnawing anxiety for the means of livelihood; not to speak of the everyday uglinesses to which we have accustomed our eyes, confused by the flood of false taste, or darkened by the hurried life of modern towns in which huge aggregations of humanity exist, equally removed from both art and nature and their kindly and refining influences. It asserts, moreover, the value of the practice of handicraft as a good training for the faculties, and as a most valuable counteraction to that overstraining of purely mental effort under the fierce competitive conditions of the day; apart from the very wholesome and real pleasure in the fashioning of a thing with claims to art and beauty, the struggle with and triumph over the stubborn technical necessities which refuse to be gainsaid. And, finally, thus claiming for man this primitive and common delight in common things made beautiful, it makes, through art, the great socialiser for a common and kindred life, for sympathetic and helpful fellowship, and demands conditions under which your artist and craftsman shall be free. "See how great a matter a little fire kindleth." Some may think this is an extensive programme--a remote ideal for a purely artistic movement to touch. Yet if the revival of art and handicraft is not a mere theatric and imitative impulse; if it is not merely to gratify a passing whim of fashion, or demand of commerce; if it has reality and roots of its own; if it is not merely a delicate luxury--a little glow of colour at the end of a sombre day--it can hardly mean less than what I have written. It must mean either the sunset or the dawn. The success which had hitherto attended the efforts of our Society, the sympathy and response elicited by the claims which had been advanced by us on behalf of the Arts and Crafts of Design, and (despite difficulties and imperfections) I think it may be said the character of our exhibitions, and last, but not least, the public interest and support, manifested in various ways, and from different parts of the country, went far to prove both their necessity and importance. We were therefore encouraged to open a third Exhibition in the autumn of 1890. In this last it was the Society's object to make in it leading features of two crafts in which good design and handicraft are of the utmost importance, namely, Furniture and Embroidery; and endeavours were made to get together good examples of each. It may be noted that while some well-known firms, who had hitherto held aloof, now exhibited with us, the old difficulty about the names of the responsible executants continued; but while some evaded the question, others were models of exactitude in this respect, proving that in this as in other questions where there is a will there is a way. The Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, while at first, of necessity, depending on the work of a comparatively limited circle, had no wish to be narrower than the recognition of certain fundamental principles in design will allow, and, indeed, desired but to receive and to show the _best_ after its kind in contemporary design and handicraft. Judgment is not always infallible, and the best is not always forthcoming, and in a mixed exhibition it is difficult to maintain an unvarying standard. At present, indeed, an exhibition may be said to be but a necessary evil; but it is the only means of obtaining a standard, and giving publicity to the works of Designer and Craftsman; but it must be more or less of a compromise, and of course no more can be done than to make an exhibition of contemporary work representative of current ideas and skill, since it is impossible to get outside our own time. In some quarters it appears to have been supposed that our Exhibitions are intended to appeal, by the exhibition of cheap and saleable articles, to what are rudely termed "the masses"; we appeal to _all_ certainly, but it should be remembered that cheapness in art and handicraft is well-nigh impossible, save in some forms of more or less mechanical reproduction. In fact, cheapness as a rule, in the sense of low-priced production, can only be obtained at the cost of cheapness--that is, the cheapening of human life and labour; surely, in reality, a most wasteful and extravagant cheapness! It is difficult to see how, under present economic conditions, it can be otherwise. Art is, in its true sense, after all, the crown and flowering of life and labour, and we cannot reasonably expect to gain that crown except at the true value of the human life and labour of which it is the result. Of course there is the difference of cost between materials to be taken into account: a table may be of oak or of deal; a cloth may be of silk or of linen; but the labour, skill, taste, intelligence, thought, and fancy, which give the sense of art to the work, are much the same, and, being bound up with human lives, need the means of life in its completion for their proper sustenance. At all events, I think it may be said that the principle of the essential unity and interdependence of the arts has been again asserted--the brotherhood of designer and craftsman; that goes for something, with whatever imperfections or disadvantages its acknowledgment may have been obscured. In putting this principle before the public, the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society has availed itself from the first of both lecture and essay, as well as the display of examples. Lectures and demonstrations were given during the progress of the Exhibitions, and essays written by well-known workers in the crafts of which they treated have accompanied the catalogues. These papers have now been collected together, and revised by their authors, and appear in book form under the editorship of Mr. William Morris, whose name has been practically associated with the revival of beauty in the arts and crafts of design in many ways before our Society came into existence, and who with his co-workers may be said to have been the pioneer of our English Renascence, which it is our earnest desire to foster and perpetuate. Every movement which has any substance and vitality must expect to encounter misrepresentation, and even abuse, as well as sympathy and support. In its work, so far, the Society to which I have the honour to belong has had its share of both, perhaps. Those pledged to the support of existing conditions, whether in art or social life, are always sensitive to attacks upon their weak points, and it is not possible to avoid touching them to any man who ventures to look an inch or two beyond the immediate present. But the hostility of some is as much a mark of vitality and progress as the sympathy of others. The sun strikes hottest as the traveller climbs the hill; and we must be content to leave the value of our work to the unfailing test of time. WALTER CRANE. TEXTILES There are several ways of ornamenting a woven cloth: (1) real tapestry, (2) carpet-weaving, (3) mechanical weaving, (4) printing or painting, and (5) embroidery. There has been no improvement (indeed, as to the main processes, no change) in the manufacture of the wares in all these branches since the fourteenth century, as far as the wares themselves are concerned; whatever improvements have been introduced have been purely commercial, and have had to do merely with reducing the cost of production; nay, more, the commercial improvements have on the whole been decidedly injurious to the quality of the wares themselves. The noblest of the weaving arts is Tapestry, in which there is nothing mechanical: it may be looked upon as a mosaic of pieces of colour made up of dyed threads, and is capable of producing wall ornament of any degree of elaboration within the proper limits of duly considered decorative work. As in all wall-decoration, the first thing to be considered in the designing of Tapestry is the force, purity, and elegance of the _silhouette_ of the objects represented, and nothing vague or indeterminate is admissible. But special excellences can be expected from it. Depth of tone, richness of colour, and exquisite gradation of tints are easily to be obtained in Tapestry; and it also demands that crispness and abundance of beautiful detail which was the especial characteristic of fully developed Mediæval Art. The style of even the best period of the Renaissance is wholly unfit for Tapestry: accordingly we find that Tapestry retained its Gothic character longer than any other of the pictorial arts. A comparison of the wall-hangings in the Great Hall at Hampton Court with those in the Solar or Drawing-room, will make this superiority of the earlier design for its purpose clear to any one not lacking in artistic perception: and the comparison is all the fairer, as both the Gothic tapestries of the Solar and the post-Gothic hangings of the Hall are pre-eminently good of their kinds. Not to go into a description of the process of weaving tapestry, which would be futile without illustrations, I may say that in contradistinction to mechanical weaving, the warp is quite hidden, with the result that the colours are as solid as they can be made in painting. Carpet-weaving is somewhat of the nature of Tapestry: it also is wholly unmechanical, but its use as a floor-cloth somewhat degrades it, especially in our northern or western countries, where people come out of the muddy streets into rooms without taking off their shoes. Carpet-weaving undoubtedly arose among peoples living a tent life, and for such a dwelling as a tent, carpets are the best possible ornaments. Carpets form a mosaic of small squares of worsted, or hair, or silk threads, tied into a coarse canvas, which is made as the work progresses. Owing to the comparative coarseness of the work, the designs should always be very elementary in form, and _suggestive_ merely of forms of leafage, flowers, beasts and birds, etc. The soft gradations of tint to which Tapestry lends itself are unfit for Carpet-weaving; beauty and variety of colour must be attained by harmonious juxtaposition of tints, bounded by judiciously chosen outlines; and the pattern should lie absolutely flat upon the ground. On the whole, in designing carpets the method of _contrast_ is the best one to employ, and blue and red, quite frankly used, with white or very light outlines on a dark ground, and black or some very dark colour on a light ground, are the main colours on which the designer should depend. In making the above remarks I have been thinking only of the genuine or hand-made carpets. The mechanically-made carpets of to-day must be looked upon as makeshifts for cheapness' sake. Of these, the velvet pile and Brussels are simply coarse worsted velvets woven over wires like other velvet, and cut, in the case of the velvet pile; and Kidderminster carpets are stout cloths, in which abundance of warp (a warp to each weft) is used for the sake of wear and tear. The velvet carpets need the same kind of design as to colour and quality as the real carpets; only, as the colours are necessarily limited in number, and the pattern must repeat at certain distances, the design should be simpler and smaller than in a real carpet. A Kidderminster carpet calls for a small design in which the different planes, or plies, as they are called, are well interlocked. Mechanical weaving has to repeat the pattern on the cloth within comparatively narrow limits; the number of colours also is limited in most cases to four or five. In most cloths so woven, therefore, the best plan seems to be to choose a pleasant ground colour and to superimpose a pattern mainly composed of either a lighter shade of that colour, or a colour in no very strong contrast to the ground; and then, if you are using several colours, to light up this general arrangement either with a more forcible outline, or by spots of stronger colour carefully disposed. Often the lighter shade on the darker suffices, and hardly calls for anything else: some very beautiful cloths are merely damasks, in which the warp and weft are of the same colour, but a different tone is obtained by the figure and the ground being woven with a longer or shorter twill: the _tabby_ being tied by the warp very often, the _satin_ much more rarely. In any case, the patterned webs produced by mechanical weaving, if the ornament is to be effective and worth the doing, require that same Gothic crispness and clearness of detail which has been spoken of before: the geometrical structure of the pattern, which is a necessity in all recurring patterns, should be boldly insisted upon, so as to draw the eye from accidental figures, which the recurrence of the pattern is apt to produce. The meaningless stripes and spots and other tormentings of the simple twill of the web, which are so common in the woven ornament of the eighteenth century and in our own times, should be carefully avoided: all these things are the last resource of a jaded invention and a contempt of the simple and fresh beauty that comes of a sympathetic _suggestion_ of natural forms: if the pattern be vigorously and firmly drawn with a true feeling for the beauty of line and _silhouette_, the play of light and shade on the material of the simple twill will give all the necessary variety. I invite my readers to make another comparison: to go to the South Kensington Museum and study the invaluable fragments of the stuffs of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries of Syrian and Sicilian manufacture, or the almost equally beautiful webs of Persian design, which are later in date, but instinct with the purest and best Eastern feeling; they may also note the splendid stuffs produced mostly in Italy in the later Middle Ages, which are unsurpassed for richness and _effect_ of design, and when they have impressed their minds with the productions of this great historic school, let them contrast with them the work of the vile Pompadour period, passing by the early seventeenth century as a period of transition into corruption. They will then (if, once more, they have real artistic perception) see at once the difference between the results of irrepressible imagination and love of beauty, on the one hand, and, on the other, of restless and weary vacuity of mind, forced by the exigencies of fashion to do something or other to the innocent surface of the cloth in order to distinguish it in the market from other cloths; between the handiwork of the free craftsman doing as he _pleased_ with his work, and the drudgery of the "operative" set to his task by the tradesman competing for the custom of a frivolous public, which had forgotten that there was such a thing as art. The next method of ornamenting cloth is by painting it or printing on it with dyes. As to the painting of cloths with dyes by hand, which is no doubt a very old and widely practised art, it has now quite disappeared (modern society not being rich enough to pay the necessary price for such work), and its place has now been taken by printing by block or cylinder-machine. The remarks made on the design for mechanically woven cloths apply pretty much to these printed stuffs: only, in the first place, more play of delicate and pretty colour is possible, and more variety of colour also; and in the second, much more use can be made of hatching and dotting, which are obviously suitable to the method of block-printing. In the many-coloured printed cloths, frank red and blue are again the mainstays of the colour arrangement; these colours, softened by the paler shades of red, outlined with black and made more tender by the addition of yellow in small quantities, mostly forming part of brightish greens, make up the colouring of the old Persian prints, which carry the art as far as it can be carried. It must be added that no textile ornament has suffered so much as cloth-printing from those above-mentioned commercial inventions. A hundred years ago the processes for printing on cloth differed little from those used by the Indians and Persians; and even up to within forty years ago they produced colours that were in themselves good enough, however inartistically they might be used. Then came one of the most wonderful and most useless of the inventions of modern Chemistry, that of the dyes made from coal-tar, producing a series of hideous colours, crude, livid--and cheap,--which every person of taste loathes, but which nevertheless we can by no means get rid of until we are able to struggle successfully against the doom of cheap and nasty which has overtaken us. Last of the methods of ornamenting cloth comes Embroidery: of the design for which it must be said that one of its aims should be the exhibition of beautiful material. Furthermore, it is not worth doing unless it is either very copious and rich, or very delicate--or both. For such an art nothing patchy or scrappy, or half-starved, should be done: there is no excuse for doing anything which is not strikingly beautiful; and that more especially as the exuberance of beauty of the work of the East and of Mediæval Europe, and even of the time of the Renaissance, is at hand to reproach us. It may be well here to warn those occupied in Embroidery against the feeble imitations of Japanese art which are so disastrously common amongst us. The Japanese are admirable naturalists, wonderfully skilful draughtsmen, deft beyond all others in mere execution of whatever they take in hand; and also great masters of style within certain narrow limitations. But with all this, a Japanese design is absolutely worthless unless it is executed with Japanese skill. In truth, with all their brilliant qualities as handicraftsmen, which have so dazzled us, the Japanese have no architectural, and therefore no decorative, instinct. Their works of art are isolated and blankly individualistic, and in consequence, unless where they rise, as they sometimes do, to the dignity of a suggestion for a picture (always devoid of human interest), they remain mere wonderful toys, things quite outside the pale of the evolution of art, which, I repeat, cannot be carried on without the architectural sense that connects it with the history of mankind. To conclude with some general remarks about designing for textiles: the aim should be to combine clearness of form and firmness of structure with the mystery which comes of abundance and richness of detail; and this is easier of attainment in woven goods than in flat painted decoration and paper-hangings; because in the former the stuffs usually hang in folds and the pattern is broken more or less, while in the latter it is spread out flat against the wall. Do not introduce any lines or objects which cannot be explained by the structure of the pattern; it is just this logical sequence of form, this growth which looks as if, under the circumstances, it could not have been otherwise, which prevents the eye wearying of the repetition of the pattern. Never introduce any shading for the purpose of making an object look round; whatever shading you use should be used for explanation only, to show what you mean by such and such a piece of drawing; and even that you had better be sparing of. Do not be afraid of large patterns; if properly designed they are more restful to the eye than small ones: on the whole, a pattern where the structure is large and the details much broken up is the most useful. Large patterns are not necessarily startling; this comes more of violent relief of the figure from the ground, or inharmonious colouring: beautiful and logical form relieved from the ground by well-managed contrast or gradation, and lying flat on the ground, will never weary the eye. Very small rooms, as well as very large ones, look best ornamented with large patterns, whatever you do with the middling-sized ones. As final maxims: never forget the material you are working with, and try always to use it for doing what it can do best: if you feel yourself hampered by the material in which you are working, instead of being helped by it, you have so far not learned your business, any more than a would-be poet has, who complains of the hardship of writing in measure and rhyme. The special limitations of the material should be a pleasure to you, not a hindrance: a designer, therefore, should always thoroughly understand the processes of the special manufacture he is dealing with, or the result will be a mere _tour de force_. On the other hand, it is the pleasure in understanding the capabilities of a special material, and using them for suggesting (not imitating) natural beauty and incident, that gives the _raison d'être_ of decorative art. WILLIAM MORRIS. OF DECORATIVE PAINTING AND DESIGN The term Decorative painting implies the existence of painting which is not decorative: a strange state of things for an art which primarily and pre-eminently appeals to the eye. If we look back to the times when the arts and crafts were in their most flourishing and vigorous condition, and dwelt together, like brethren, in unity--say to the fifteenth century--such a distinction did not exist. Painting only differed in its application, and in degree, not in kind. In the painting of a MS., of the panels of a coffer, of a ceiling, a wall, or an altar-piece, the painter was alike--however different his theme and conception--possessed with a paramount impulse to decorate, to make the space or surface he dealt with as lovely to the eye in design and colour as he had skill to do. The art of painting has, however, become considerably differentiated since those days. We are here in the nineteenth century encumbered with many distinctions in the art. There is obviously much painting which is not decorative, or ornamental in any sense, which has indeed quite other objects. It may be the presentment of the more superficial natural facts, phases, or accidents of light; the pictorial dramatising of life or past history; the pointing of a moral; or the embodiment of romance and poetic thought or symbol. Not but what it is quite possible for a painter to deal with such things and yet to produce a work that shall be decorative. A picture, of course, may be a piece of decorative art of the most beautiful kind; but to begin with, if it is an easel picture, it is not necessarily related to anything but itself: its painter is not bound to consider anything outside its own dimensions; and, indeed, the practice of holding large and mixed picture-shows has taught him the uselessness of so doing. Then, too, the demand for literal presentment of the superficial facts or phases of nature often removes the painter and his picture still farther from the architectural, decorative, and constructive artist and the handicraftsman, who are bound to think of plan, and design, and materials--of the adaptation of their work, in short--while the painter seeks only to be an unbiassed recorder of all accidents and sensational conditions of nature and life,--and so we get our illustrated newspapers on a grand scale. An illustrated newspaper, however, in spite of the skill and enterprise it may absorb, is not somehow a joy for ever; and, after all, if literalism and instantaneous appearances are the only things worth striving for in painting, the photograph beats any painter at that. If truth is the object of the modern painter of pictures--truth as distinct from or opposed to beauty--beauty is certainly the object of the decorative painter, but beauty not necessarily severed from truth. Without beauty, however, decoration has no reason for existence; indeed it can hardly be said to exist. Next to beauty, the first essential of a decoration is that it shall be related to its environment, that it shall express or acknowledge the conditions under which it exists. If a fresco on a wall, for instance, it adorns the wall without attempting to look like a hole cut in it through which something is accidentally seen; if a painting on a vase, it acknowledges the convexity of the shape, and helps to express instead of contradicting it; if on a panel in a cabinet or door, it spreads itself in an appropriate filling on an organic plan to cover it; being, in short, ornamental by its very nature, its first business is to ornament. There exist, therefore, certain definite tests for the work of the decorative artist. Does the design fit its place and material? Is it in scale with its surroundings and in harmony with itself? Is it fair and lovely in colour? Has it beauty and invention? Has it thought and poetic feeling? These are the demands a decorator has to answer, and by his answer he must stand or fall; but such questions show that the scope of decoration is no mean one. It must be acknowledged that a mixed exhibition does not easily afford the fairest or completest tests of such qualities. An exhibition is at best a compromise, a convenience, a means of comparison, and to enable work to be shown to the public; but of course is, after all, only really and properly exhibited when it is in the place and position and light for which it was destined. The tests by which to judge a designer's work are only complete then. As the stem and branches to the leaves, flowers, and fruit of a tree, so is design to painting. In decoration one cannot exist without the other, as the beauty of a figure depends upon the well-built and well-proportioned skeleton and its mechanism. You cannot separate a house from its plan and foundations. So it is in decoration; often thought of lightly as something trivial and superficial, a merely aimless combination of curves and colours, or a mere _réchauffé_ of the dead languages of art, but really demanding the best thought and capacity of a man; and in the range of its application it is not less comprehensive. The mural painter is not only a painter, but a poet, historian, dramatist, philosopher. What should we know, how much should we realise, of the ancient world and its life without him, and his brother the architectural sculptor? How would ancient Egypt live without her wall paintings--or Rome, or Pompeii, or Mediæval Italy? How much of beauty as well as of history is contained in the illuminated pages of the books of the Middle Ages! Some modern essays in mural painting show that the habit of mind and method of work fostered by the production of trifles for the picture market is not favourable to monumental painting. Neither the mood nor the skill, indeed, can be grown like a mushroom; such works as the Sistine Chapel, the Stanzi of Raphael, or the Apartimenti Borgia, are the result of long practice through many centuries, and intimate relationship and harmony in the arts, as well as a certain unity of public sentiment. The true soil for the growth of the painter in this higher sense is a rich and varied external life: familiarity from early youth with the uses of materials and methods, and the hand facility which comes of close and constant acquaintanceship with the tools of the artist, who sums up and includes in himself other crafts, such as modelling, carving, and the hammering of metal, architectural design, and a knowledge of all the ways man has used to beautify and deck the surroundings and accessories of life to satisfy his delight in beauty. We know that painting was strictly an applied art in its earlier history, and all through the Middle Ages painters were in close alliance with the other crafts of design, and their work in one craft no doubt reacted on and influenced that in another, while each was kept distinct. At all events, painters like Albert Dürer and Holbein were also masters of design in all ways. Through the various arts and crafts of the Greek, Mediæval, or Early Renaissance periods, there is evident, from the examples which have come down to us, a certain unity and common character in design, asserting itself through all diverse individualities: each art is kept distinct, with a complete recognition of the capacity and advantages of its own particular method and purpose. In our age, for various reasons (social, commercial, economic), the specialised and purely pictorial painter is dominant. His aims and methods influence other arts and crafts, but by no means advantageously as a rule; since, unchecked by judicious ideas of design, attempts are made in unsuitable materials to produce so-called realistic force, and superficial and accidental appearances dependent on peculiar qualities of lighting and atmosphere, quite out of place in any other method than painting, or in any place but an easel picture. From such tendencies, such influences as these, in the matter of applied art and design, we are striving to recover. One of the first results is, perhaps, this apparently artificial distinction between decorative and other painting. But along with this we have painters whose easel pictures are in feeling and treatment quite adaptable as wall and panel decorations, and they are painters who, as a rule, have studied other methods in art, and drawn their inspiration from the mode of Mediæval or Early Renaissance times. Much might be said of different methods and materials of work in decorative painting, but I have hardly space here. The decorative painter prefers a certain flatness of effect, and therefore such methods as fresco, in which the colours are laid on while the plaster ground is wet, and tempera naturally appeal to him. In the latter the colours ground in water and used with size, or white and yolk of egg, or prepared with starch, worked on a dry ground, drying lighter than when they are put on, have a peculiar luminous quality, while the surface is free from any gloss. Both these methods need direct painting and finishing as the work proceeds. By a method of working in ordinary oil colours on a ground of fibrous plaster, using rectified spirit of turpentine or benzine as a medium, much of the quality of fresco or tempera may be obtained, with the advantage that the plaster ground may be a movable panel. There are, however, other fields for the decorative painter than wall painting; as, for instance, domestic furniture, which may vary in degree of elaboration from the highly ornate cassone or marriage coffer of Mediæval Italy to the wreaths and sprays which decked chairs and bed-posts even within our century. There has been of late some revival of painting as applied chiefly to the panels of cabinets, or the decoration of piano fronts and cases. The same causes produce the same results. With the search after, and desire for, beauty in life, we are again driven to study the laws of beauty in design and painting; and in so doing painters will find again the lost thread, the golden link of connection and intimate association with the sister arts and handicrafts, whereof none is before or after another, none is greater or less than the other. WALTER CRANE. OF WALL PAPERS While the tradition and practice of mural painting as applied to interior walls and ceilings of houses still linger in Italy, in the form of often skilful if not always tasteful tempera work, in more western countries, like England, France, and America, under the economic conditions and customs of commercial civilisation, with its smoky cities, and its houses built by the hundred to one pattern, perhaps, and let on short terms, as regards domestic decoration--except in the case of a few wealthy freeholders--mural painting has ceased to exist. Its place has been taken by what after all is but a substitute for it, namely, wall paper. I am not aware that any specimen of wall paper has been discovered that has claims to any higher antiquity than the sixteenth century, and it only came much into use in the last, increasing in the present, until it has become well-nigh a universal covering for domestic walls, and at the same time has shown a remarkable development in design, varying from very unpretending patterns and printings in one colour to elaborate block-printed designs in many colours, besides cheap machine-printed papers, where all the tints are printed from the design on a roller at once. Since Mr. William Morris has shown what beauty and character in pattern, and good and delicate choice of tint can do for us, giving in short a new impulse in design, a great amount of ingenuity and enterprise has been spent on wall papers in England, and in the better kinds a very distinct advance has been made upon the patterns of inconceivable hideousness, often of French origin, of the period of the Second Empire--a period which perhaps represents the most degraded level of taste in decoration generally. The designer of patterns for wall papers heretofore has been content to imitate other materials, and adapt the characteristics of the patterns found, say, in silk damask hangings or tapestry, or even imitate the veining of wood, or marble, or tiles; but since the revival of interest in art, the study of its history, and knowledge of style, a new impulse has been given, and patterns are constructed with more direct reference to their beauty, and interest as such, while strictly adapted to the methods of manufacture. Great pains are often taken by our principal makers to secure good designs and harmonious colourings, and though a manufacturer and director of works is always more or less controlled by the exigencies of the market and the demands of the tentative salesman--considerations which have no natural connection with art, though highly important as economic conditions affecting its welfare--very remarkable results have been produced, and a special development of applied design may almost be said to have come into existence with the modern use of wall papers. The manufacture suffers like most others from the keenness and unscrupulousness of commercial competition, which leads to the production of specious imitations of _bonâ fide_ designs, and unauthorised use of designs originally intended for other purposes, and this of course presses unfairly upon the more conscientious maker, so long as the public do not decline to be deceived. English wall papers are made in lengths 21 inches wide. French wall papers are 18 inches wide. This has probably been found most convenient in working in block-printing: it is obvious to any one who has seen the printers at work that a wider block than 21 inches would be unwieldy, since the block is printed by hand, being suspended from above by a cord, and guided by the workman's hand from the well of colour, into which it is dipped, to the paper flat on a table before him. The designer must work to the given width, and though his design may vary in depth, must never exceed 21 inches square, except where double blocks are used. His main business is to devise his pattern so that it will repeat satisfactorily over an indefinite wall space without running into awkward holes or lines. It may be easy enough to draw a spray or two of leaves or flowers which will stand by themselves, but to combine them in an organic pattern which shall repeat pleasantly over a wall surface requires much ingenuity and a knowledge of the conditions of the manufacture, apart from play of fancy and artistic skill. One way of concealing the joints of the repeat of the pattern is by contriving what is called a drop-repeat, so that, in hanging, the paper-hanger, instead of placing each repeat of pattern side by side, is enabled to join the pattern at a point its own depth below, which varies the effect, and arranges the chief features or masses on an alternating plan. The modern habit of regarding the walls of a room chiefly as a background to pictures, furniture, or people, and perhaps the smallness of the average room, has brought rather small, thickly dispersed, leafy patterns into vogue, retiring in colour for the most part. While, however, we used to see rotund and accidental bunches of roses (the pictorial or sketchy treatment of which contrasted awkwardly with their formal repetition), we now get a certain sense of adaptation, and the necessity of a certain flatness of treatment; and most of us who have given much thought to the subject feel that when natural forms are dealt with, under such conditions, suggestion is better than any attempt at realisation, or naturalistic or pictorial treatment, and that a design must be constructed upon some systematic plan, if not absolutely controlled by a geometric basis. Wall papers are printed from blocks prepared from designs, the outlines of which are reproduced by means of flat brass wire driven edgeways into the wood block. One block for each tint is used. First one colour is printed on a length of paper, a piece of 12 yards long and 21 inches wide, which is passed over sticks suspended across the workshop. When the first colour is dry the next is printed, and so on; the colours being mixed with size and put in shallow trays or wells, into which the blocks are dipped. A cheaper kind is printed by steam power from rollers on which the design has been reproduced in the same way by brass wire, which holds the colour; but in the case of machine-printed papers all the tints are printed at once. Thus the pattern is often imperfect and blurred. A more elaborate and costly kind of wall paper is that which is stamped and gilded, in emulation of stamped and gilded leather, which it resembles in effect and quality of surface. For this method the design is reproduced in relief as a _repoussée_ brass plate, and from this a mould or matrix is made, and the paper being damped is stamped in a press into the matrix, and so takes the pattern in relief, which is generally covered with white metal and lacquered to a gold hue, and this again may be rubbed in with black, which by filling the interstices gives emphasis to the design and darkens the gold to bronze; or the gilded surface may be treated in any variety of colour by means of painting or lacquer, or simply relieved by colouring the ground. But few of us own our own walls, or the ground they stand upon: but few of us can afford to employ ourselves or skilled artists and craftsmen in painting our rooms with beautiful fancies: but if we can get well-designed repeating patterns by the yard, in agreeable tints, with a pleasant flavour perchance of nature or antiquity, for a few shillings or pounds, ought we not to be happy? At all events, wall-paper makers should naturally think so. WALTER CRANE. FICTILES Earliest amongst the inventions of man and his endeavour to unite Art with Craft is the Fictile Art. His first needs in domestic life, his first utensils, his first efforts at civilisation, came from the Mother Earth, whose son he believed himself to be, and his ashes or his bones returned to Earth enshrined in the fictile vases he created from their common clay. And these Fictiles tell the story of his first Art-instincts, and of his yearnings to unite beauty with use. They tell, too, more of his history than is enshrined and preserved by any other art; for almost all we know of many a people and many a tongue is learned from the fictile record, the sole relic of past civilisations which the Destroyer Time has left us. Begun in the simplest fashion, fashioned by the simplest means, created from the commonest materials, Fictile Art grew with man's intellectual growth, and Fictile Craft grew with his knowledge; the latter conquering, in this our day, when the craftsman strangles the artist alike in this as in all other arts. To truly foster and forward the art, the craftsman and the artist should, where possible, be united, or at least should work in common, as was the case when, in each civilisation, the Potter's Art flourished most, and when the scientific base was of less account than was the art employed upon it. In its earliest stages the local clay sufficed for the formative portion of the work, and the faiences of most European countries offer more artistic results to us than do the more scientifically compounded porcelains. In the former case the native clay seemed more easily to ally itself with native art, to record more of current history, to create artistic genius rather than to be content with attempting to copy misunderstood efforts of other peoples and other times. But when science ransacked the earth for foreign bodies and ingredients, foreign decorative ideas came with them and Fictile Art was no more a vernacular one. It attempted to disguise itself, to show the craftsman superior to the artist; and then came the Manufacturer and the reign of quantity over quality, the casting in moulds by the gross and the printing by the thousands. Be it understood these remarks only apply to the introduction of porcelain into Europe. In the East where the clay is native, the art is native; the potter's hand and the wheel yet maintain the power of giving the potter his individuality as the creator and the artist, and save him from being but the servant and the slave of a machine. Between faience and porcelain comes, midway, Stoneware, in which many wonderfully, and some fearfully, made things have been done of late, but which possesses the combined qualities of faience and porcelain--the ease of manipulation of the former, and the hardness and durability of the latter; but the tendency to over-elaborate the detail of its decoration, and rely less on the beauty of its semi-glossy surface than on meretricious ornament, has rather spoiled a very hopeful movement in Ceramic Art. Probably the wisest course to pursue at the present would be to pay more attention to faiences decorated with simple glazes or with "slip" decoration, and this especially in modelled work. A continuation of the artistic career of the Della Robbia family is yet an unfulfilled desideratum, notwithstanding that glazed faiences have never since their time ceased to be made, and that glazed figure work of large scale prevailed in the eighteenth century. Unglazed terra cotta, an artistic product eminently suited to our climate and to our urban architecture, has but partially developed itself, and this more in the direction of moulded and cast work than that of really plastic art; and albeit that from its dawn to this present the Fictile Art has been exercised abundantly, its rôle is by no means exhausted. The artist and the craftsman have yet a wide field before them, but it would be well that the former should, for some while to come, take the lead. Science has too long reigned supreme in a domain wherein she should have been not more than equal sovereign. She has had her triumphs, great triumphs too, triumphs which have been fraught with good in an utilitarian sense, but she has tyrannised too rigidly over the realm of Art. Let us now try to equalise the dual rule. G. T. ROBINSON. METAL WORK In discussing the artistic aspect of metal work, we have to take into account the physical properties and appropriate treatment of the following metals: the precious metals, gold and silver; copper, both pure and alloyed with other metals, especially tin and zinc in various proportions to form the many kinds of brass and bronze; lead, with a group of alloys of which pewter is typical; and iron, in the three forms of cast iron, wrought iron, and steel. All these have been made to serve the purpose of the artist, and the manipulation of them, while presenting many differences in detail, presents certain broad characteristics in common which distinguish them from the raw material of other crafts. Whether they are found native in the metallic state as is usual in the case of gold, or combined with many other minerals in the form of ore as is more common with other metals, fire is the primal agency by which they are made available for our needs. The first stage in their manipulation is to melt and cast them into ingots of a size convenient to the purpose intended. Secondly, all these metals when pure, and many alloys, are in varying degree malleable and ductile, are, in fact, if sufficient force be applied, plastic. Hence arises the first broad division in the treatment of metals. The fluid metal may, by the use of suitable moulds, be cast at once to the shape required, or the casting may be treated merely as the starting-point for a whole series of operations--forging, rolling, chipping, chasing, wire-drawing, and many more. Another property of the metals which must be noticed is, that not only can separate masses of metals be melted down and fused into one, but it is possible, under various conditions, of which the one invariably necessary is perfectly clean surfaces of contact, to unite separate portions of the same or different metals without fusion of the mass. For our present purpose the most important instance of this is the process of soldering, by which two surfaces are united by the application of sufficient heat to melt more fusible metal which is introduced between them, and which combines with both so as firmly to unite them on solidifying. Closely allied to this are the processes by which one metal is, for purposes of adornment or preservation from corrosion, coated with a thin film or deposit of another, usually more costly, metal. Though hereafter electro-metallurgy may assert its claim to artistic originality as a third division, for the present all metal work, so far as its artistic aspect depends upon process, falls naturally into one of the two broad divisions of cast metal and wrought metal. Both have been employed from a time long anterior to written history; ornaments of beaten gold, and tools of cast bronze, are alike found among the relics of very early stages of civilisation, and in early stages both alike are artistic. The choice between the two processes is determined by such considerations as convenience of manufacture and the physical properties of the metals, and the different purposes in view. When a thick and comparatively massive shape is required, it is often easier to cast it at once. For thinner and lighter forms it is usually more convenient to treat the ingot or crude product of the furnace as mere raw material for a long series of workings under the hammer, or its patent mechanical equivalents, the rolling and pressing mills of modern mechanics. The choice is further influenced by the toughness generally characteristic of wrought metal, whereas the alloys which yield the cleanest castings are by no means universally the best in other respects. Iron is the extreme instance of this: ordinary cast iron being an impure form of the metal, which is too brittle to be worked under the hammer, but is readily cast into moulds, being fluid at a temperature which, though high, is easily obtained in a blast furnace. Wrought iron, however, which is usually obtained from cast iron by a process called puddling, whereby the impurities are burnt out, does not become fluid enough to pour into moulds; but on the other hand, pieces at a white heat can be united into a solid mass by skilful hammering, a process which is called welding, and, together with the fact that from its great hardness it is usually worked hot, is specially distinctive of the blacksmith's craft. In no other metal is the separation between the two branches so wide as in iron. The misdirected skill of some modern iron-founders has caused the name of cast iron to be regarded as the very negative of art, and has even thrown suspicion on the process of casting itself as one of questionable honesty. Nevertheless, as a craft capable of giving final shape to metal, it has manifestly an artistic aspect, and, in fact, bronze statuary, a fine art pure and simple, is reproduced from the clay model merely by moulding and casting. We must therefore look for the artistic conditions in the preparation of the model or pattern, the impress of which in sand or loam forms the mould; the pattern may be carved in wood or modelled in clay, but the handling of the wood or clay is modified by the conditions under which the form is reproduced. And lastly, the finished object may either retain the surface formed as the metal solidifies, as in the case of the bronzes cast by the wax process, or the skin may be removed by the use of cutting tools, chisels and files and gravers, so that, as in the case of many of the better French bronzes, the finished work is strictly carved work. On the contrary, much silversmith's work, as well as such simple objects as Chinese gongs and Indian "lotahs," after being cast approximately to shape are finished by hammer work, that is, treated as plastic material with tools that force the material into shape instead of cutting the shape out of the mass by removing exterior portions of material. Attempts to imitate both processes by casting only, thus dispensing with the cost of finishing, are common, but as they dispense likewise with all beauty in the product, even if they do not substitute varnished and tinted zinc for better metal, their success is commercial only. We have thus three characteristic kinds of surface resulting from the conditions of treatment, marking out three natural divisions of the art: and be it noted that questions of surface or texture are all-important in the arts; beauty is skin deep. First, the natural skin of the metal solidified in contact with the mould, and more or less closely imitative of the surface of the original model, usually for our purposes a plastic surface; secondly, there is carved, technically called chased, work; and thirdly, beaten or wrought work, which in ornament is termed embossing. Superimposed on these we have the cross divisions of the crafts according to the special metal operated on, and in the existing industrial organisation the groups thus obtained have to be further divided into many sub-heads, according to the articles produced; and finally, another commercial distinction has to be drawn which greatly affects the present condition of handicraft, that is, the division of the several trades into craftsmen and salesmen. There can be no doubt that the extent of the existing dissociation of the producing craftsman from the consumer is an evil for the arts, and that the growing preponderance of great stores is inimical to excellence of workmanship. It is, perhaps, an advantage for the workman to be relieved from the office of salesman; the position of the village smith plying his calling in face of his customers might not suit every craft, but the services of the middleman are dearly bought at the price of artistic freedom. It is too often in the power of the middleman to dictate the quality of workmanship, too often his seeming interest to ordain that it shall be bad. The choice of a metal for any particular purpose is determined by physical properties combined with considerations of cost. Iron, if only for its cheapness, is the material for the largest works of metal; while in the form of steel it is the best available material for many very small works, watch-springs for instance: it has the defect of liability to rust; the surfaces of other metals may tarnish, but iron rusts through. For the present only one application of cast iron concerns us--its use for grates and stoves. The point to remember is, that as the material has but little beauty, its employment should be restricted to the quantity prescribed by the demands of utility. Wrought iron, on the contrary, gives very great scope to the artist, and it offers this peculiar advantage, that the necessity of striking while the iron is hot enforces such free dexterity of handling in the ordinary smith, that he has comparatively little to learn if set to produce ornamental work, and thus renewed interest in the art has found craftsmen enough who could readily respond to the demand made upon them. Copper, distinguished among metals by its glowing red tint, has as a material for artistic work been overshadowed by its alloys, brass and bronze; partly because they make sounder castings, partly it is to be feared from the approach of their colour to gold. Holding an intermediate position between iron and the precious metals, they are the material of innumerable household utensils and smaller architectural fittings. Lead, tin, and zinc scarcely concern the artist to-day, though neither plumber nor pewterer has always been restricted to plain utilitarianism. Gold and silver have been distinguished in all ages as the precious metals, both for their comparative rarity and their freedom from corrosion, and their extreme beauty. They are both extremely malleable and very readily worked. Unhappily there is little original English work being done in these metals. The more ordinary wares have all life and feeling taken out of them by mechanical finish, an abrasive process being employed to remove every sign of tool-marks. The all-important surface is thus obliterated. As to design, fashion oscillates between copies of one past period and another. A comparison of one of these copies with an original will make the distinction between the work of a man paid to do his quickest and one paid to do his best clearer than volumes of description. Indeed, when all is said, a writer can but indicate the logic that underlies the craft, or hint at the relation which subsists between the process, the material, and the finished ware: the distinction between good and bad in art eludes definition; it is not an affair of reason, but of perception. W. A. S. BENSON. STONE AND WOOD CARVING The crafts of the stone and wood carver may fairly be taken in review at the same time, although they differ in themselves. It is a misfortune that there should be so great a gulf as there is between the craftsman who is called, and considers himself to be properly called, "a sculptor" and his fellow-craftsman who is called "a carver." In these days the "sculptor" is but too often a man who would think it a condescension to execute what, for want of a better name, we must call decorative work. In truth, the sculptor is the outcome of that entire separation which has come about between the love of beauty, once common in everyday life, and art, as it is now called--a thing degraded to the purposes of a toy, a mere ornament for the rich. The sculptor is trained to make these ornaments, things which have no relation to their surroundings, but which may be placed now in a drawing-room, now in a conservatory or a public square, alone and unsheltered. He is a child of the studio. The result of this training is, he has lost all knowledge how to produce work of a decorative character. He understands nothing of design in a wide sense, but being able to model a figure with tolerable success he rests therewith content. Being designed, as it is, in the studio, his work is wanting in sympathy with its surroundings; it does not fall into its place, it is not a part of a complete conception. Things were not so when sculpture and what, for want of a better term, we have called "stone and wood carving" were at their prime. The Greek craftsman could produce both the great figure of the god, which stood alone as the central object in the temple, and (working in thorough sympathy with the architect) the decorative sculpture of less importance which was attached to the building round about, and without which the beauty of the fabric was incomplete. So also the great Florentine sculptors spent themselves with equal zeal on a door, the enclosure of a choir, a pulpit, or a tomb, which in those days meant not merely the effigy of the departed, but a complete design of many parts all full of beauty and skill. In the great days of Mediæval Art sculpture played a part of the highest importance. The works then produced are not only excellent in themselves, but are so designed as to form a part of the building they adorn. How thoroughly unfinished would be the west front of the Cathedral at Wells, or the portals of Amiens or Reims, without their sculpture. How rarely can we feel this sense of satisfaction, of unity of result, between the work of the sculptor and the architect in our buildings of to-day. The figures are "stood about" like ornaments on the mantelpiece. The architect seems as unable to prepare for them as the sculptor to make them. We seldom see congruity even between the figure and the pedestal on which it stands. The want of this extended sympathy leads to another ill result. Wood, stone, and metal, different as they are, are treated by the artist in much the same fashion. The original model in clay seems to stand behind everything. The "artist" makes the clay model; his subordinates work it out in one or another material. The result can only be unsatisfactory because the natural limitations fixed by the qualities of the different materials have been neglected, whereas they should stand forth prominently in the mind of the artist from the moment he first conceives his design. Marble, stones--some hard, some soft,--terra cotta, metals, or wood, each demand a difference of treatment. For example, the fibrous nature of wood enables the craftsman to produce work which would fall to pieces at the first blow if executed in stone. The polished and varied surface of marble demands a treatment of surface and section of mouldings which in stone would seem tame and poor. Again, it must not be forgotten that most works in stone or marble are built up. They are composed of many blocks standing one on the other. With wood it is quite different. Used in thick pieces it splits; good wood-work is therefore framed together, the framing and intermediate panelling lending itself to the richest decoration; but anything in the design which suggests stone construction is obviously wrong. In short, wood must be treated as a material that is fibrous and tenacious, and in planks or slabs; stone or marble as of close, even texture, brittle and in blocks. Consequent on these differences of texture, we find that the tools and method of handling them used by the wood-carver differ in many respects from those used by the worker in stone or marble. One material is scooped and cut out, the other is attacked by a constant repetition of blows. In the history of Mediæval Art we find that the craft of the stone-carver was perfectly understood long before that of his brother craftsman in wood. Whilst the first had all through Europe attained great perfection in the thirteenth century, the second did not reach the same standard till the fifteenth, and with the classic revival it died out. Nothing displays more fully the adaptation of design and decoration to the material than much of the fifteenth-century stall-work in our English cathedrals. These could only be executed in wood; the design is suited to that material only; but when the Italian influence creeps in, the designs adopted are in fact suited to fine stone, marble, or alabaster, and not to wood. Until the craftsman in stone and wood is more of an architect, and the architect more of a craftsman, we cannot hope for improvement. SOMERS CLARKE. FURNITURE The institution of schools of art and design, and the efforts of serials and magazines devoted to artistic matters, have had their proper effect in the creation of a pretty general distaste for the clumsy and inartistic forms which characterised cabinets and furniture generally some years back. Unfortunately for the movement, some manufacturers saw their opportunity in the demand thus created for better and more artistic shapes to produce bad and ill-made copies of good designs, which undermined the self-respect of the unfortunate man (frequently a good and sufficient craftsman) whose ill hap it was to be obliged to make them, and vexed the soul of the equally unfortunate purchaser. The introduction of machinery for moulding, which left only the fitting and polishing to be done by the craftsman, and which enabled manufacturers to produce two or three cabinets in the time formerly occupied in the making of one, was all against the quality and stability of the work. No good work was ever done in a hurry: the craftsman may be rapid, but his rapidity is the result of very deliberate thought, and not of hurry. Good furniture, however, cannot be made rapidly. All wood, no matter how long it is kept, nor how dry it may be superficially, will always shrink again when cut into. It follows that the longer the interval between the cutting up of the wood, and its fitting together, the better for the work. In the old times the parts of a cabinet lay about in the workman's benchway for weeks, and even months, and were continually turned over and handled by him while he was engaged on the mouldings and other details. The wood thus became really dry, and no further shrinkage could take place after it was put together. A word here about the designing of cabinets. Modern furniture designers are far too much influenced by considerations of style, and sacrifice a good deal that is valuable in order to conform to certain rules which, though sound enough in their relation to architecture, do not really apply to furniture at all. Much more pleasing, and not necessarily less artistic work would be produced, were designers, and handicraftsmen too, encouraged to allow their imagination more scope, and to get more of their own individuality into their work, instead of being the slaves of styles invented by people who lived under quite different conditions from those now prevailing. Mouldings as applied to cabinets are nearly always too coarse, and project too much. This applies equally to the carvings, which should always be quite subordinate to the general design and mouldings, and (in its application to surfaces) should be in low relief. This is quite compatible with all necessary vigour as well as refinement. The idea that boldness--viz. high projection of parts in carving--has anything to do with vigour is a common one, but is quite erroneous. All the power and vigour which he is capable of putting into anything, the clever carver can put into a piece of ornament which shall not project more than a quarter of an inch from the ground in any part. Indeed, I have known good carvers who did their best work within those limits. Knowledge of line, of the management of planes, with dexterity in the handling of surfaces, is all he requires. Another common mistake is to suppose that smoothness of surface has anything to do with finish properly so called. If only half the time which is commonly spent in smoothing and polishing carved surfaces was devoted to the more thorough study and development of the various parts of the design, and the correction of the outlines, the surface might very well be left to take care of itself, and the work would be the better for it. There is not space in this paper to do more than glance at a few other methods in ordinary use for cabinet decoration. Marquetry, inlays of ivory, and various other materials have always been extensively used, and sometimes with excellent effect. In many old examples the surface of the solid wood was cut away to the pattern, and various other kinds of wood pressed into the lines so sunk. The method more generally adopted now is to insert the pattern into veneer which has been prepared to receive it, and mount the whole on a solid panel or shape with glue. The besetting sin of the modern designer or maker of marquetry is a tendency to "loud" colour and violent contrasts of both colour and grain. It is common to see as many as a dozen different kinds of wood used in the decoration of a modern cabinet--some of them stained woods, and the colours of no two of them in harmony. The best work in this kind depends for its effect on a rich, though it may be low tone of colour. It is seldom that more than two or three different kinds of wood are used, but each kind is so carefully selected for the purpose of the design, and is used in so many different ways, that, while the all-important "tone" is kept throughout, the variety of surface is almost infinite. For this reason, though it is not necessary that the designer should actually cut the work himself, it is most essential that he should always be within call of the cutter, and should himself select every piece of wood which is introduced into the design. This kind of work is sometimes shaded with hot sand; at other times a darker wood is introduced into the pattern for the shadows. The latter is the better way; the former is the cheaper. The polishing of cabinet work. I have so strong an objection in this connection to the French polisher and all his works and ways, that, notwithstanding the popular prejudice in favour of brilliant surfaces, I would have none of him. Formerly the cabinetmaker was accustomed to polish his own work, sometimes by exposing the finished surfaces to the light for a few weeks in order to darken them, and then applying beeswax with plentiful rubbing. This was the earliest and the best method, but in later times a polish composed of naphtha and shellac was used. The latter polish, though open to many of the objections which may be urged against that now in use, was at least hard and lasting, which can hardly be said of its modern substitute. The action of the more reputable cabinetmaking firms has been, of late, almost wholly in the direction of better design and construction; but a still better guarantee of progress in the future of the craft is found in the fact that the craftsman who takes an artistic and intelligent, and not a merely mechanical interest in his work, is now often to be met. To such men greater individual freedom is alone wanting. STEPHEN WEBB. STAINED GLASS In these days there is a tendency to judge the merits of stained glass from the standpoint of the archæologist. It is good or bad in so far as it is directly imitative of work of the fourteenth or fifteenth century. The art had reached to a surprising degree of beauty and perfection in the fifteenth century, and although under the influence of the Renaissance some good work was done, it rapidly declined only to lift its head once more with the revived study of the architecture of the Middle Ages. The burning energy of Pugin, which nothing could escape, was directed towards this end, but the attainment of a mere archæological correctness was the chief aim in view. The crude draughtsmanship of the ancient craftsman was diligently imitated, but the spirit and charm of the original was lost, as, in a mere imitation, it must be. In the revival of the art, whilst there was an attempt to imitate the drawing, there was no attempt to reproduce the quality of the ancient glass. Thus, brilliant, transparent, and unbroken tints were used, lacking all the richness and splendour of colour so characteristic of the originals. Under these conditions of blind imitation the modern worker in stained glass produced things probably more hideous than the world ever saw before. Departing altogether from the traditions of the mediæval schools, whether ancient or modern, there has arisen another school which has found its chief exponents at Munich. The object of these people has been, ignoring the condition under which they must necessarily work, to produce an ordinary picture in enamelled colours upon sheets of glass. The result has been the production of mere transparencies no better than painted blinds. What then, it may be asked, are the limiting conditions, imposed upon him by the nature of the materials, within which the craftsman must work to produce a satisfactory result? In the first place, a stained glass window is not an easel picture. It does not stand within a frame, as does the easel picture, in isolation from the objects surrounding it; it is not even an object to be looked at by itself; its duty is, not only to be beautiful, but to play its part in the adornment of the building in which it is placed, being subordinated to the effect the interior is intended to produce as a whole. It is, in fact, but one of many parts that go to _produce a complete result_. A visit to one of our mediæval churches, such as York Minster, Gloucester Cathedral, or Malvern Priory, church buildings, which still retain much of their ancient glass, and a comparison of the unity of effect there experienced with the internecine struggle exhibited in most buildings furnished by the glass painters of to-day, will surely convince the most indifferent that there is yet much to be learned. Secondly, the great difference between coloured glass and painted glass must be kept in view. A coloured glass window is in the nature of a mosaic. Not only are no large pieces of glass used, but each piece is separated from and at the same time joined to its neighbour by a thin grooved strip of lead which holds the two. "_Coloured glass_ is obtained by a mixture of metallic oxides whilst in a state of fusion. This colouring pervades the substance of the glass and becomes incorporated with it."[1] It is termed "pot-metal." An examination of such a piece of glass will show it to be full of varieties of a given colour, uneven in thickness, full of little air-bubbles and other accidents which cause the rays of light to play in and through it with endless variety of effect. It is the exact opposite to the clear sheet of ordinary window-glass. To build up a decorative work (and such a form of expression may be found very appropriate in this craft) in coloured glass, the pieces must be carefully selected, the gradations of tint in a given piece being made use of to gain the result aimed at. The leaded "canes" by which the whole is held together are made use of to aid the effect. Fine lines and hatchings are painted as with "silver stain," and in this respect only is there any approach to enamelling in the making of a coloured glass window. The glass mosaic as above described is held in its place in the window by horizontal iron bars, and the position of these is a matter of some importance, and is by no means overlooked by the artist in considering the effect of his finished work. A well-designed coloured glass window is, in fact, like nothing else in the world but itself. It is not only a mosaic; it is not merely a picture. It is the honest outcome of the use of glass for making a beautiful window which shall transmit light and not look like anything but what it is. The effect of the work is obtained by the contrast of the rich colours of the pot-metal with the pearly tones of the clear glass. We must now describe a _painted_ window, so that the distinction between a coloured and a painted window may be clearly made out. Quoting from the same book as before--"To paint glass the artist uses a plate of translucent glass, and applies the design and colouring with vitrifiable colours. These colours, true enamels, are the product of metallic oxides combined with vitreous compounds called fluxes. Through the medium of these, assisted by a strong heat, the colouring matters are fixed upon the plate of glass." In the painted window we are invited to forget that glass is being used. Shadows are obtained by loading the surface with enamel colours; the fullest rotundity of modelling is aimed at; the lead and iron so essentially necessary to the construction and safety of the window are concealed with extraordinary skill and ingenuity. The spectator perceives a hole in the wall with a very indifferent picture in it--overdone in the high lights, smoky and unpleasant in the shadows, in no sense decorative. We need concern ourselves no more with painted windows; they are thoroughly false and unworthy of consideration. Of coloured or stained windows, as they are more commonly called, many are made, mostly bad, but there are amongst us a few who know how to make them well, and these are better than any made elsewhere in Europe at this time. SOMERS CLARKE. FOOTNOTES: [1] _Industrial Arts_, "Historical Sketches," p. 195, published for the Committee of Council on Education. Chapman and Hall. TABLE GLASS Few materials lend themselves more readily to the skill of the craftsman than glass. The fluid or viscous condition of the "metal" as it comes from the "pot," the way in which it is shaped by the breath of the craftsman, and by his skill in making use of centrifugal force, these and many other things too numerous to mention are all manifested in the triumphs of the Venetian glass-blower. At the first glance we see that the vessel he has made is of a material once liquid. He takes the fullest advantage of the conditions under which he works, and the result is a beautiful thing which can be produced in but one way. For many centuries the old methods were followed, but with the power to produce the "metal," or glass of extreme purity and transparency, came the desire to leave the old paths, and produce work in imitation of crystal. The wheel came into play, and cut and engraved glass became general. At first there was nothing but a genuine advance or variation on the old modes. The specimens of clear glass made at the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth centuries are well designed to suit the capabilities of the material. The form given to the liquid metal by the craftsman's skill is still manifest, its delicate transparency accentuated here and there by cutting the surface into small facets, or engraving upon it graceful designs; but as skill increased so taste degraded. The graceful outlines and natural curves of the old workers gave place to distortions of line but too common in all decorative works of the period. A little later and the material was produced in mere lumps, cut and tormented into a thousand surfaces, suggesting that the work was made from the solid, as, in part, it was. This miserable stuff reached its climax in the early years of the present reign. Since then a great reaction has taken place. For example, the old decanter, a massive lump of misshapen material better suited to the purpose of braining a burglar than decorating a table, has given place to a light and gracefully formed vessel, covered in many cases with well-designed surface engraving, and thoroughly suited both to the uses it is intended to fulfil and the material of which it is made. And not only so, but a distinct variation and development upon the old types has been made. The works produced have not been merely copies, but they have their own character. It is not necessary to describe the craft of the glass-blower. It is sufficient to say that he deals with a material which, when it comes to his hands, is a liquid, solidifying rapidly on exposure to the air; that there is hardly a limit to the delicacy of the film that can be made; and, in addition to using a material of one colour, different colours can be laid one over the other, the outer ones being afterwards cut through by the wheel, leaving a pattern in one colour on a ground of another. There has developed itself of late an unfortunate tendency to stray from the path of improvement,[1] but a due consideration on the part both of the purchaser and of the craftsman of how the material should be used will result, it may be hoped, in farther advances on the right road. SOMERS CLARKE. FOOTNOTES: [1] Novelty rather than improvement is the rock on which our craftsmen are but too often wrecked. PRINTING Printing, in the only sense with which we are at present concerned, differs from most if not from all the arts and crafts represented in the Exhibition in being comparatively modern. For although the Chinese took impressions from wood blocks engraved in relief for centuries before the wood-cutters of the Netherlands, by a similar process, produced the block books, which were the immediate predecessors of the true printed book, the invention of movable metal letters in the middle of the fifteenth century may justly be considered as the invention of the art of printing. And it is worth mention in passing that, as an example of fine typography, the earliest book printed with movable types, the Gutenberg, or "forty-two line Bible" of about 1455, has never been surpassed. Printing, then, for our purpose, may be considered as the art of making books by means of movable types. Now, as all books not primarily intended as picture-books consist principally of types composed to form letterpress, it is of the first importance that the letter used should be fine in form; especially as no more time is occupied, or cost incurred, in casting, setting, or printing beautiful letters than in the same operations with ugly ones. And it was a matter of course that in the Middle Ages, when the craftsmen took care that beautiful form should always be a part of their productions whatever they were, the forms of printed letters should be beautiful, and that their arrangement on the page should be reasonable and a help to the shapeliness of the letters themselves. The Middle Ages brought caligraphy to perfection, and it was natural therefore that the forms of printed letters should follow more or less closely those of the written character, and they followed them very closely. The first books were printed in black letter, _i.e._ the letter which was a Gothic development of the ancient Roman character, and which developed more completely and satisfactorily on the side of the "lower-case" than the capital letters; the "lower-case" being in fact invented in the _early_ Middle Ages. The earliest book printed with movable type, the aforesaid Gutenberg Bible, is printed in letters which are an exact imitation of the more formal ecclesiastical writing which obtained at that time; this has since been called "missal type," and was in fact the kind of letter used in the many splendid missals, psalters, etc., produced by printing in the fifteenth century. But the first Bible actually dated (which also was printed at Maintz by Peter Schoeffer in the year 1462) imitates a much freer hand, simpler, rounder, and less _spiky_, and therefore far pleasanter and easier to read. On the whole the type of this book may be considered the _ne-plus-ultra_ of Gothic type, especially as regards the lower-case letters; and type very similar was used during the next fifteen or twenty years not only by Schoeffer, but by printers in Strasburg, Basle, Paris, Lubeck, and other cities. But though on the whole, except in Italy, Gothic letter was most often used, a very few years saw the birth of Roman character not only in Italy, but in Germany and France. In 1465 Sweynheim and Pannartz began printing in the monastery of Subiaco near Rome, and used an exceedingly beautiful type, which is indeed to look at a transition between Gothic and Roman, but which must certainly have come from the study of the twelfth or even the eleventh century MSS. They printed very few books in this type, three only; but in their very first books in Rome, beginning with the year 1468, they discarded this for a more completely Roman and far less beautiful letter. But about the same year Mentelin at Strasburg began to print in a type which is distinctly Roman; and the next year Gunther Zeiner at Augsburg followed suit; while in 1470 at Paris Udalric Gering and his associates turned out the first books printed in France, also in Roman character. The Roman type of all these printers is similar in character, and is very simple and legible, and unaffectedly designed for _use_; but it is by no means without beauty. It must be said that it is in no way like the transition type of Subiaco, and though more Roman than that, yet scarcely more like the complete Roman type of the earliest printers of Rome. A further development of the Roman letter took place at Venice. John of Spires and his brother Vindelin, followed by Nicholas Jenson, began to print in that city, 1469, 1470; their type is on the lines of the German and French rather than of the Roman printers. Of Jenson it must be said that he carried the development of Roman type as far as it can go: his letter is admirably clear and regular, but at least as beautiful as any other Roman type. After his death in the "fourteen eighties," or at least by 1490, printing in Venice had declined very much; and though the famous family of Aldus restored its technical excellence, rejecting battered letters, and paying great attention to the "press work" or actual process of _printing_, yet their type is artistically on a much lower level than Jenson's, and in fact they must be considered to have ended the age of fine printing in Italy. Jenson, however, had many contemporaries who used beautiful type, some of which--as, _e.g._, that of Jacobus Rubeus or Jacques le Rouge--is scarcely distinguishable from his. It was these great Venetian printers, together with their brethren of Rome, Milan, Parma, and one or two other cities, who produced the splendid editions of the Classics, which are one of the great glories of the printer's art, and are worthy representatives of the eager enthusiasm for the revived learning of that epoch. By far the greater part of these _Italian_ printers, it should be mentioned, were Germans or Frenchmen, working under the influence of Italian opinion and aims. It must be understood that through the whole of the fifteenth and the first quarter of the sixteenth centuries the Roman letter was used side by side with the Gothic. Even in Italy most of the theological and law books were printed in Gothic letter, which was generally more formally Gothic than the printing of the German workmen, many of whose types, indeed, like that of the Subiaco works, are of a transitional character. This was notably the case with the early works printed at Ulm, and in a somewhat lesser degree at Augsburg. In fact Gunther Zeiner's first type (afterwards used by Schussler) is remarkably like the type of the before-mentioned Subiaco books. In the Low Countries and Cologne, which were very fertile of printed books, Gothic was the favourite. The characteristic Dutch type, as represented by the excellent printer Gerard Leew, is very pronounced and uncompromising Gothic. This type was introduced into England by Wynkyn de Worde, Caxton's successor, and was used there with very little variation all through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and indeed into the eighteenth. Most of Caxton's own types are of an earlier character, though they also much resemble Flemish or Cologne letter. After the end of the fifteenth century the degradation of printing, especially in Germany and Italy, went on apace; and by the end of the sixteenth century there was no really beautiful printing done: the best, mostly French or Low-Country, was neat and clear, but without any _distinction_; the worst, which perhaps was the English, was a terrible falling-off from the work of the earlier presses; and things got worse and worse through the whole of the seventeenth century, so that in the eighteenth printing was very miserably performed. In England about this time, an attempt was made (notably by Caslon, who started business in London as a type-founder in 1720) to improve the letter in form. Caslon's type is clear and neat, and fairly well designed; he seems to have taken the letter of the Elzevirs of the seventeenth century for his model: type cast from his matrices is still in everyday use. In spite, however, of his praiseworthy efforts, printing had still one last degradation to undergo. The seventeenth century founts were bad rather negatively than positively. But for the beauty of the earlier work they might have seemed tolerable. It was reserved for the founders of the later eighteenth century to produce letters which are _positively_ ugly, and which, it may be added, are dazzling and unpleasant to the eye owing to the clumsy thickening and vulgar thinning of the lines: for the seventeenth-century letters are at least pure and simple in line. The Italian, Bodoni, and the Frenchman, Didot, were the leaders in this luckless change, though our own Baskerville, who was at work some years before them, went much on the same lines; but his letters, though uninteresting and poor, are not nearly so gross and vulgar as those of either the Italian or the Frenchman. With this change the art of printing touched bottom, so far as fine printing is concerned, though paper did not get to its worst till about 1840. The Chiswick press in 1844 revived Caslon's founts, printing for Messrs. Longman the Diary of Lady Willoughby. This experiment was so far successful that about 1850 Messrs. Miller and Richard of Edinburgh were induced to cut punches for a series of "old style" letters. These and similar founts, cast by the above firm and others, have now come into general use and are obviously a great improvement on the ordinary "modern style" in use in England, which is in fact the Bodoni type a little reduced in ugliness. The design of the letters of this modern "old style" leaves a good deal to be desired, and the whole effect is a little too gray, owing to the thinness of the letters. It must be remembered, however, that most modern printing is done by machinery on soft paper, and not by the hand press, and these somewhat wiry letters are suitable for the machine process, which would not do justice to letters of more generous design. It is discouraging to note that the improvement of the last fifty years is almost wholly confined to Great Britain. Here and there a book is printed in France or Germany with some pretension to good taste, but the general revival of the old forms has made no way in those countries. Italy is contentedly stagnant. America has produced a good many showy books, the typography, paper, and illustrations of which are, however, all wrong, oddity rather than rational beauty and meaning being apparently the thing sought for both in the letters and the illustrations. To say a few words on the principles of design in typography: it is obvious that legibility is the first thing to be aimed at in the forms of the letters; this is best furthered by the avoidance of irrational swellings and spiky projections, and by the using of careful purity of line. Even the Caslon type when enlarged shows great shortcomings in this respect: the ends of many of the letters such as the t and e are hooked up in a vulgar and meaningless way, instead of ending in the sharp and clear stroke of Jenson's letters; there is a grossness in the upper finishings of letters like the c, the a, and so on, an ugly pear-shaped swelling defacing the form of the letter: in short, it happens to this craft, as to others, that the utilitarian practice, though it professes to avoid ornament, still clings to a foolish, because misunderstood conventionality, deduced from what was once ornament, and is by no means _useful_; which title can only be claimed by _artistic_ practice, whether the art in it be conscious or unconscious. In no characters is the contrast between the ugly and vulgar illegibility of the modern type and the elegance and legibility of the ancient more striking than in the Arabic numerals. In the old print each figure has its definite individuality, and one cannot be mistaken for the other; in reading the modern figures the eyes must be strained before the reader can have any reasonable assurance that he has a 5, an 8, or a 3 before him, unless the press work is of the best: this is awkward if you have to read Bradshaw's Guide in a hurry. One of the differences between the fine type and the utilitarian must probably be put down to a misapprehension of a commercial necessity: this is the narrowing of the modern letters. Most of Jenson's letters are designed within a square, the modern letters are narrowed by a third or thereabout; but while this gain of space very much hampers the possibility of beauty of design, it is not a real gain, for the modern printer throws the gain away by putting inordinately wide spaces between his lines, which, probably, the lateral compression of his letters renders necessary. Commercialism again compels the use of type too small in size to be comfortable reading: the size known as "Long primer" ought to be the smallest size used in a book meant to be read. Here, again, if the practice of "leading" were retrenched larger type could be used without enhancing the price of a book. One very important matter in "setting up" for fine printing is the "spacing," that is, the lateral distance of words from one another. In good printing the spaces between the words should be as near as possible equal (it is impossible that they should be quite equal except in lines of poetry); modern printers understand this, but it is only practised in the very best establishments. But another point which they should attend to they almost always disregard; this is the tendency to the formation of ugly meandering white lines or "rivers" in the page, a blemish which can be nearly, though not wholly, avoided by care and forethought, the desirable thing being "the breaking of the line" as in bonding masonry or brickwork, thus: ==== ==== ==== ==== The general _solidity_ of a page is much to be sought for: modern printers generally overdo the "whites" in the spacing, a defect probably forced on them by the characterless quality of the letters. For where these are boldly and carefully designed, and each letter is thoroughly individual in form, the words may be set much closer together, without loss of clearness. No definite rules, however, except the avoidance of "rivers" and excess of white, can be given for the spacing, which requires the constant exercise of judgment and taste on the part of the printer. The position of the page on the paper should be considered if the book is to have a satisfactory look. Here once more the almost invariable modern practice is in opposition to a natural sense of proportion. From the time when books first took their present shape till the end of the sixteenth century, or indeed later, the page so lay on the paper that there was more space allowed to the bottom and fore margin than to the top and back of the paper, thus: +---------+---------+ | xxxxx | xxxxx | | xxxxx | xxxxx | | xxxxx | xxxxx | | xxxxx | xxxxx | | xxxxx | xxxxx | | xxxxx | xxxxx | | | | +---------+---------+ the unit of the book being looked on as the two pages forming an opening. The modern printer, in the teeth of the evidence given by his own eyes, considers the single page as the unit, and prints the page in the middle of his paper--only nominally so, however, in many cases, since when he uses a headline he counts that in, the result as measured by the eye being that the lower margin is less than the top one, and that the whole opening has an upside-down look vertically, and that laterally the page looks as if it were being driven off the paper. The paper on which the printing is to be done is a necessary part of our subject: of this it may be said that though there is some good paper made now, it is never used except for very expensive books, although it would not materially increase the cost in all but the very cheapest. The paper that is used for ordinary books is exceedingly bad even in this country, but is beaten in the race for vileness by that made in America, which is the worst conceivable. There seems to be no reason why ordinary paper should not be better made, even allowing the necessity for a very low price; but any improvement must be based on showing openly that the cheap article _is_ cheap, _e.g._ the cheap paper should not sacrifice toughness and durability to a smooth and white surface, which should be indications of a delicacy of material and manufacture which would of necessity increase its cost. One fruitful source of badness in paper is the habit that publishers have of eking out a thin volume by printing it on thick paper almost of the substance of cardboard, a device which deceives nobody, and makes a book very unpleasant to read. On the whole, a small book should be printed on paper which is as thin as may be without being transparent. The paper used for printing the small highly ornamented French service-books about the beginning of the sixteenth century is a model in this respect, being thin, tough, and opaque. However, the fact must not be blinked that machine-made paper cannot in the nature of things be made of so good a texture as that made by hand. The ornamentation of printed books is too wide a subject to be dealt with fully here; but one thing must be said on it. The essential point to be remembered is that the ornament, whatever it is, whether picture or pattern-work, should form _part of the page_, should be a part of the whole scheme of the book. Simple as this proposition is, it is necessary to be stated, because the modern practice is to disregard the relation between the printing and the ornament altogether, so that if the two are helpful to one another it is a mere matter of accident. The due relation of letter to pictures and other ornament was thoroughly understood by the old printers; so that even when the woodcuts are very rude indeed, the proportions of the page still give pleasure by the sense of richness that the cuts and letter together convey. When, as is most often the case, there is actual beauty in the cuts, the books so ornamented are amongst the most delightful works of art that have ever been produced. Therefore, granted well-designed type, due spacing of the lines and words, and proper position of the page on the paper, all books might be at least comely and well-looking: and if to these good qualities were added really beautiful ornament and pictures, printed books might once again illustrate to the full the position of our Society that a work of utility might be also a work of art, if we cared to make it so. WILLIAM MORRIS. EMERY WALKER. BOOKBINDING Modern bookbinding dates from the application of printing to literature, and in essentials has remained unchanged to the present day, though in those outward characteristics, which appeal to the touch and to the eye, and constitute binding in an artistic sense, it has gone through many changes for better and for worse, which, in the opinion of the writer, have resulted, in the main, in the exaggeration of technical skill and in the death of artistic fancy. * * * * * The first operation of the modern binder is to fold or refold the printed sheet into a section, and to gather the sections, numbered or lettered at the foot, in their proper order into a volume. The sections are then taken, one by one, placed face downwards in a frame, and sewn through the back by a continuous thread running backwards and forwards along the backs of the sections to upright strings fastened at regular intervals in the sewing frame. This process unites the sections to one another in series one after the other, and permits the perusal of the book by the simple turning of leaf after leaf upon the hinge formed by the thread and the back of the section. A volume, or series of sections, so treated, the ends of the string being properly secured, is essentially "bound"; all that is subsequently done is done for the protection or for the decoration of the volume or of its cover. The sides of a volume are protected by millboards, called shortly "boards." The boards themselves and the back are protected by a cover of leather, vellum, silk, linen, or paper, wholly or in part. The edges of the volume are protected by the projection of the boards beyond them at top, bottom, and fore-edge, and usually by being cut smooth and gilt. A volume so bound and protected may be decorated by tooling or otherwise upon all the exposed surfaces (upon the edges, the sides, and the back) and may be designated by lettering upon the back or the sides. The degree in which a bound book is protected and decorated will determine the class to which the binding will belong. (1) In _cloth binding_, the cover, called a "case," is made apart from the book, and is attached as a whole after the book is sewn. (2) In _half binding_, the cover is built up for and on each individual book, but the boards of which it is composed are only partly covered with the leather or other material which covers the back. (3) In _whole binding_, the boards are wholly covered with leather or other durable material, which in half binding covers only a portion of them. (4) In _extra binding_, whole binding is advanced a stage higher by decoration. Of course in the various stages the details vary commensurately with the stage itself, being more or less elaborate as the stage is higher or lower in the scale. The process of _extra binding_ set out in more detail is as follows:-- (1) First the sections are folded or refolded. (2) Then "end-papers"--sections of plain paper added at the beginning and end of the volume to protect the first and last, the most exposed, sections of printed matter constituting the volume proper--having been prepared and added, the sections are beaten, or rolled, or pressed, to make them "solid." The end-papers are usually added at a later stage, and are pasted on, and not sewn, but, in the opinion of the writer, it is better to add them at this stage, and to sew them and not to paste them. (3) Then the sections are sewn as already described. (4) When sewn the volume passes into the hands of the "forwarder," who (5) "Makes" the back, beating it round, if the back is to be round, and "backing" it, or making it fan out from the centre to right and left and project at the edges, to form a kind of ridge to receive and to protect the edges of the boards which form the sides of the cover. (6) The back having been made, the "boards" (made of millboard, and originally of wood) for the protection of the sides are made and cut to shape, and attached by lacing into them the ends of the strings upon which the book has been sewn. (7) The boards having been attached, the edges of the book are now cut smooth and even at the top, bottom, and fore-edge, the edges of the boards being used as guides for the purpose. In some cases the order is reversed, and the edges are first cut and then the boards. (8) The edges may now be coloured and gilt, and if it is proposed to "gauffer" or to decorate them with tooling, they are so treated at this stage. (9) The head-band is next worked on at head and tail, and the back lined with paper or leather or other material to keep the head-band in its place and to strengthen the back itself. The book is now ready to be covered. (10) If the book is covered with leather, the leather is carefully pared all round the edges and along the line of the back, to make the edges sharp and the joints free. (11) The book having been covered, the depression on the inside of the boards caused by the overlap of the leather is filled in with paper, so that the entire inner surface may be smooth and even, and ready to receive the first and last leaves of the end-papers, which finally are cut to shape and pasted down, leaving the borders only uncovered. Sometimes, however, the first and last leaves of the "end-papers" are of silk, and the "joint" of leather, in which case, of course, the end-papers are not pasted down, but the insides of the boards are independently treated, and are covered, sometimes with leather, sometimes with silk or other material. The book is now "forwarded," and passes into the hands of the "finisher" to be tooled or decorated, or "finished" as it is called. The decoration in gold on the surface of leather is wrought out, bit by bit, by means of small brass stamps called "tools." The steps of the process are shortly as follows:-- (12) The pattern having been settled and worked out on paper, it is "transferred" to, or marked out on, the various surfaces to which it is to be applied. Each surface is then prepared in succession, and, if large, bit by bit, to receive the gold. (13) First the leather is washed with water or with vinegar. (14) Then the pattern is pencilled over with "glaire" (white of egg beaten up and drained off), or the surface is wholly washed with it. (15) Next it is smeared lightly with grease or oil. (16) And, finally, the gold (gold leaf) is applied by a pad of cotton wool, or a flat thin brush called a "tip." (17) The pattern, visible through the gold, is now reimpressed or worked with the tools heated to about the temperature of boiling water, and the unimpressed or waste gold is removed by an oiled rag, leaving the pattern in gold and the rest of the leather clear. * * * * * These several operations are, in England, usually distributed among five classes of persons. (1) The _superintendent_ or person responsible for the whole work. (2) The _sewer_, usually a woman, who folds, sews, and makes the head-bands. (3) The _book-edge gilder_, who gilds the edges. Usually a craft apart. (4) The _forwarder_, who performs all the other operations leading up to the finishing. (5) The _finisher_, who decorates and letters the volume after it is forwarded. In Paris the work is still further distributed, a special workman (_couvreur_) being employed to prepare the leather for covering and to cover. In the opinion of the writer, the work, as a craft of beauty, suffers, as do the workmen, from the allocation of different operations to different workmen. The work should be conceived of as one, and be wholly executed by one person, or at most by two, and especially should there be no distinction between "finisher" and "forwarder," between "executant" and "artist." * * * * * The following technical names may serve to call attention to the principal features of a bound book. (1) The _back_, the posterior edge of the volume upon which at the present time the title is usually placed. Formerly it was placed on the fore-edge or side. The back may be (a) convex or concave or flat; (b) marked horizontally with bands, or smooth from head to tail; (c) tight, the leather or other covering adhering to the back itself, or hollow, the leather or other covering not so adhering; and (d) stiff or flexible. (2) _Edges_, the three other edges of the book,--the top, the bottom, and the fore-edge. (3) _Bands_, the cords upon which the book is sewn, and which, if not "let in" or embedded in the back, appear on it as parallel ridges. The ridges are, however, usually artificial, the real bands being "let in" to facilitate the sewing, and their places supplied by thin slips of leather cut to resemble them and glued on the back. This process also enables the forwarder to give great sharpness and finish to this part of his work, if he think it worth while. (4) _Between-bands_, the space between the bands. (5) _Head_ and _tail_, the top and bottom of the back. (6) The _head-band_ and _head-cap_, the fillet of silk worked in buttonhole stitch at the head and tail, and the cap or cover of leather over it. The head-band had its origin probably in the desire to strengthen the back and to resist the strain when a book is pulled by head or tail from the shelf. (7) _Boards_, the sides of the cover, stiff or limp, thick or thin, in all degrees. (8) _Squares_, the projection of the boards beyond the edges of the book. These may be shallow or deep in all degrees, limited only by the purpose they have to fulfil and the danger they will themselves be exposed to if too deep. (9) _Borders_, the overlaps of leather on the insides of the boards. (10) _Proof_, the rough edges of leaves left uncut in cutting the edges to show where the original margin was, and to prove that the cutting has not been too severe. The life of bookbinding is in the dainty mutation of its mutable elements--back, bands, boards, squares, decoration. These elements admit of almost endless variation, singly and in combination, in kind and in degree. In fact, however, they are now almost always uniformly treated or worked up to one type or set of types. This is the death of bookbinding as a craft of beauty. The finish, moreover, or execution, has outrun invention, and is the great characteristic of modern bookbinding. This again, the inversion of the due order, is, in the opinion of the writer, but as the carving on the tomb of a dead art, and itself dead. A well-bound beautiful book is neither of one type, nor finished so that its highest praise is that "had it been made by a machine it could not have been made better." It is individual; it is instinct with the hand of him who made it; it is pleasant to feel, to handle, and to see; it is the original work of an original mind working in freedom simultaneously with hand and heart and brain to produce a thing of use, which all time shall agree ever more and more also to call "a thing of beauty." T. J. COBDEN-SANDERSON. OF MURAL PAINTING There seems no precise reason why the subject of this note should differ much from that of Mr. Crane's article on "Decorative Painting" (pp. 39-51). "Mural Painting" need not, as such, consist of any one sort of painting more than another. "Decorative Painting" does seem, on the other hand, to indicate a certain desire or undertaking to render the object painted more pleasant to the beholder's eye. From long habit, however, chiefly induced by the constant practice of the Italians of modern times, "Mural Painting" has come to be looked upon as figure painting (in fact, the human figure exclusively) on walls--and no other sort of objects can sufficiently impart that dignity to a building which it seems to crave for. I can think of no valid reason why a set of rooms, or walls, should not be decorated with animals in lieu of "humans," as the late Mr. Trelawney used to call us: one wall to be devoted to monkeys, a second to be filled in with tigers, a third to be given up to horses, etc. etc. I know men in England, and, I believe, some artists, who would be delighted with the substitution. But I hope the general sense of the public would be set against such subjects, and the lowering effects of them on every one, and the kind of humiliation we should feel at knowing them to exist. I have been informed that in Berlin the walls of the rooms where the antique statues are kept have been painted with mixed subjects representing antique buildings with antique Greek views and landscapes, to back up, as it were, the statues. I must own it, that without having seen the decoration in question, I feel filled with extreme aversion for the plan. The more so when one considers the extreme unlikelihood of the same being made tolerable in colour at Berlin. I have also been told that some painters in the North of England, bitten with a desire to decorate buildings, have painted one set of rooms with landscapes. This, without the least knowledge of the works in question, as landscapes, I must allow I regret. There is, it seems to me, an unbridgeable chasm, not to be passed, between landscape art and the decoration of walls; for the very essence of the landscape art is distance, whereas the very essence of the wall-picture is its solidity, or, at least, its not appearing to be a hole in the wall. On the matter of subjects fit for painting on walls I may have a few words to say farther on in this paper, but first I had better set down what little I have to advise with regard to the material and mode of executing. The old-fashioned Italian or "Buon Fresco" I look upon as practically given up in this country, and every other European country that has not a climate to equal Italy. If the climate of Paris will not admit of this process, how much less is our damp, foggy, changeable atmosphere likely to put up with it for many years! It is true that the frescoes of William Dyce have lasted for some thirty years without apparent damage; but also it is the case that the Queen's Robing Rooms in the House of Lords have been specially guarded against atmospheric changes of temperature. Next to real fresco, there has been in repute for a time the waterglass process, in which Daniel Maclise's great paintings have been executed. I see no precise reason why these noble works should not last, and defy climate for many, many long years yet; though from want of experience he very much endangered this durability through the too lavish application of the medium. But in Germany, the country of waterglass, the process is already in bad repute. The third alternative, "spirit fresco," or what we in England claim as the Gambier-Parry process, has, I understand, superseded it. I have myself painted in this system seven works on the walls of the Manchester Town Hall, and have had no reason to complain of their behaviour. Since beginning the series, however, a fresh change has come over the fortunes of mural art in the fact that, in France (what most strongly recommends itself to common sense), the mural painters have now taken to painting on canvas, which is afterwards cemented, or what the French call "maronflée," on to the wall. White-lead and oil, with a very small admixture of rosin melted in oil, are the ingredients used. It is laid on cold and plentifully on the wall and on the back of the picture, and the painting pressed down with a cloth or handkerchief: nothing further being required, saving to guard the edges of the canvas from curling up before the white-lead has had time to harden. The advantage of this process of cementing lies in the fact that with each succeeding year it must become harder and more like stone in its consistency. The canvases may be prepared as if for oil painting, and painted with common oil-colours flatted (or matted) afterwards by gum-elemi and spike-oil. Or the canvas may be prepared with the Gambier-Parry colour and painted in that very _mat_ medium. The canvases should if possible be fine in texture, as better adapted for adhering to the wall. The advantage of this process is that, should at any time, through neglect, damp invade the wall, and the canvas show a tendency to get loose, it would be easy to replace it; or the canvas might be altogether detached from the wall and strained as a picture. I must now return to the choice of subject, a matter of much importance, but on which it is difficult to give advice. One thing, however, may be urged as a rule, and that is, that very dark or Rembrandtesque subjects are particularly unsuited for mural paintings. I cannot go into the reasons for this, but a slight experiment ought to satisfy the painter, having once heard the principle enunciated: that is, if he belong to the class likely to succeed at such work. Another _sine qua non_ as to subject is that the painter himself must be allowed to select it. It is true that certain limitations may be accorded--for instance, the artist may be required to select a subject with certain tendencies in it--but the actual invention of the subject and working out of it must be his. In fact, the painter himself is the only judge of what he is likely to carry out well and of the subjects that are paintable. Then much depends on whom the works are for; if for the general public, and carried out with their money, care (it seems to me but fair) should be taken that the subjects are such as they can understand and take interest in. If, on the contrary, you are painting for highly-cultured people with a turn for Greek myths, it is quite another thing; then, such a subject as "Eros reproaching his brother Anteros for his coldness" might be one offering opportunities for shades of sentiment suited to the givers of the commissions concerned. But for such as have not been trained to entertain these refinements, downright facts, either in history or in sociology, are calculated most to excite the imagination. It is not always necessary for the spectator to be exact in his conclusions. I remember once at Manchester, the members of a Young Men's Christian Association had come to a meeting in the great hall. Some of them were there too soon, and so were looking round the room. One observed: "What's this about?" His friend answered: "Fallen off a ladder, the police are running him in!" Well, this was not quite correct. A wounded young Danish chieftain was being hurried out of Manchester on his comrade's shoulders, with a view to save his life. The Phrygian helmets of the Danes indicated neither firemen nor policemen; but the idea was one of misfortune, and care bestowed on it--and did as well, and showed sympathy in a somewhat uncultivated, though well-intentioned, class of Lancastrians. On the other hand, I have noticed that subjects that interest infallibly all classes, educated or illiterate, are religious subjects. It is not a question of piety--but comes from the simple breadth of poetry and humanity usually involved in this class of subject. That the amount of religiosity in either spectator or producer has nothing to do with the feeling is clear if we consider. The Spaniards are one of the most religious peoples ever known, and yet their art is singularly deficient in this quality. Were there ever two great painters as wanting in the sacred feeling as Velasquez and Murillo? and yet, in all probability, they were more religious than ourselves. It only remains for me to point to the fact that mural painting, when it has been practised jointly by those who were at the same time easel-painters, has invariably raised those painters to far higher flights and instances of style than they seem capable of in the smaller path. Take the examples left us, say by Raphael and Michel Angelo, or some of the earlier masters, such as the "Fulminati" of Signorelli, compared with his specimens in our National Gallery; or the works left on walls by even less favoured artists, such as Domenichino and Andrea del Sarto, or the French de la Roche's "Hémicycle," or our own great painters Dyce and Maclise's frescoes; the same rise in style, the same improvement, is everywhere to be noticed, both in drawing, in colour, and in flesh-painting. F. MADOX BROWN. OF SGRAFFITO WORK The Italian words Graffiato, Sgraffiato, or Sgraffito, mean "Scratched," and scratched work is the oldest form of graphic expression and surface decoration used by man. The term Sgraffito is, however, specially used to denote decoration scratched or incised upon plaster or potter's clay while still soft, and for beauty of effect depends either solely upon lines thus incised according to design, with the resulting contrast of surfaces, or partly upon such lines and contrast, and partly upon an under-coat of colour revealed by the incisions; while, again, the means at disposal may be increased by varying the colours of the under-coat in accordance with the design. Of the potter's sgraffito I have no experience, but it is my present purpose briefly and practically to examine the method, special aptitudes, and limitations of polychrome sgraffito as applied to the plasterer's craft. First, then, as to method. Given the wall intended to be treated: granted the completion of the scheme of decoration, the cartoons having been executed in several colours and the outlines firmly pricked, and further, all things being ready for beginning work. Hack off any existing plaster from the wall: when bare, rake and sweep out the joints thoroughly: when clean, give the wall as much water as it will drink: lay the coarse coat, leaving the face rough in order to make a good key for the next coat: when sufficiently set, fix your cartoon in its destined position with slate nails: pounce through the pricked outlines: remove the cartoon: replace the nails in the register holes: mark in with a brush in white oil paint the spaces for the different colours as shown in the cartoon, and pounced in outline on the coarse coat, placing the letters B, R, Y, etc., as the case may be, in order to show the plasterer where to lay the different colours--Black, Red, Yellow, etc.: give the wall as much water as it will drink: lay the colour coat in accordance with the lettered spaces on the coarse coat, taking care not to displace the register nails, and leaving plenty of key for the final surface coat. In laying the colour coat, calculate how much of the colour surface it may be advisable to get on the wall, as the same duration of time should be maintained throughout the work between the laying of the colour coat and the following on with the final surface coat--for this reason, if the colour coat sets hard before the final coat is laid, it will not be possible to scrape up the colour to its full strength wherever it may be revealed by incision of the design. When sufficiently set, _i.e._ in about 24 hours, follow on with the final surface coat, only laying as much as can be cut and cleaned up in a day: when this is sufficiently steady, fix up the cartoon in its registered position: pounce through the pricked outlines: remove the cartoon and cut the design in the surface coat before it sets: then, if your register is correct, you will cut through to different colours according to the design, and in the course of a few days the work should set as hard and homogeneous as stone, and as damp-proof as the nature of things permits. The three coats above referred to may be gauged as follows:-- _Coarse Coat._--2 or 3 of sharp clean sand to 1 of Portland, to be laid about 3/4 inch in thickness. This coat is to promote an even suction and to keep back damp. _Colour Coat._--1 of colour to 1-1/2 of old Portland, to be laid about 1/8 inch in thickness. Specially prepared distemper colours should be used, and amongst such may be mentioned golden ochre, Turkey red, Indian red, manganese black, lime blue, and umber. _Final Surface Coat._--Aberthaw lime and selenitic cement, both sifted through a fine sieve--the proportions of the gauge depend upon the heat of the lime: or, Parian cement sifted as above--air-slaked for 24 hours, and gauged with water coloured with ochre, so as to give a creamy tone when the plaster dries out: or, 3 of selenitic cement to 2 of silver sand, both sifted as above--this may be used for out-door work. Individual taste and experience must decide as to the thickness of the final coat, but if laid between 1/8 and 1/12 inch, and the lines cut with slanting edges, a side light gives emphasis to the finished result, making the outlines tell alternately as they take the light or cast a shadow. Plasterers' small tools of various kinds and knife-blades fixed in tool handles will be found suited to the simple craft of cutting and clearing off the final surface coat; but as to this a craftsman finds his own tools by experience, and indeed by the same acquired perception must be interpreted all the foregoing directions, and specially that ambiguous word, dear to the writers of recipes,--_Sufficient_. Thus far method. Now, as to special aptitudes and limitations. Sgraffito work may claim a special aptitude for design whose centre of aim is line. It has no beauty of material like glass, no mystery of surface like mosaic, no pre-eminence of subtly-woven tone and colour like tapestry; yet it gives freer play to line than any of these mentioned fields of design, and a cartoon for sgraffito can be executed in facsimile, undeviated by warp and woof, and unchecked by angular tesseræ or lead lines. True, hardness of design may easily result from this aptitude, indeed is to a certain extent inherent to the method under examination, but in overcoming this danger and in making the most of this aptitude is the artist discovered. Sgraffito from its very nature "asserts the wall"; that is, preserves the solid appearance of the building which it is intended to decorate. The decoration is in the wall rather than on the wall. It seems to be organic. The inner surface of the actual wall changes colour in puzzling but orderly sequence, as the upper surface passes into expressive lines and spaces, delivers its simple message, and then relapses into silence; but whether incised with intricate design, or left in plain relieving spaces, the wall receives no further treatment, the marks of float, trowel, and scraper remain, and combine to make a natural surface. It compels the work to be executed _in situ_. The studio must be exchanged for the scaffold, and the result should justify the inconvenience. However carefully the scheme of decoration may be designed, slight yet important modifications and readjustments will probably be found necessary in the transfer from cartoon to wall; and though the ascent of the scaffold may seem an indignity to those who prefer to suffer vicariously in the execution of their works, and though we of the nineteenth know, as Cennini of the fifteenth century knew, "that painting pictures is the proper employment of a gentleman, and with velvet on his back he may paint what he pleases," still the fact remains, that if decoration is to attain that inevitable fitness for its place which is the fulfilment of design, this "proper employment of a gentleman" must be postponed, and velvet exchanged for blouse. It compels a quick, sure manner of work; and this quickness of execution, due to the setting nature of the final coat, and to the consequent necessity of working against time, gives an appearance of strenuous ease to the firm incisions and spaces by which the design is expressed, and a living energy of line to the whole. Again, the setting nature of the colour coat suggests, and naturally lends itself to, an occasional addition in the shape of mosaic to the means at disposal, and a little glitter here and there will be found to go a long way in giving points of emphasis and play to large surfaces. It compels the artist to adopt a limited colour scheme--a limitation, and yet one which may almost be welcomed as an aptitude, for of colours in decorative work multiplication may be said to be a vexation. Finally, the limitations of sgraffito as a method of expression are the same as those of all incised or line work. By it you can express ideas and suggest life, but you cannot realise,--cannot imitate the natural objects on which your graphic language is founded. The means at disposal are too scanty. Item: white lines and spaces relieved against and slightly raised on a coloured ground; coloured lines and spaces slightly sunk on a white surface; intricacy relieved by simplicity of line, and again either relieved by plain spaces of coloured ground or white surface. Indeed they are simple means. Yet line still remains the readiest manner of graphic expression; and if in the strength of limitation our past masters of the arts and crafts have had power to "free, arouse, dilate" by their simple record of hand and soul, we also should be able to bring forth new achievement from old method, and to suggest the life and express the ideas which sway the latter years of our own century. HEYWOOD SUMNER. OF STUCCO AND GESSO Few things are more disheartening to the pursuer of plastic art than finding that, when he has carried his own labour to a certain point, he has to entrust it to another in order to render it permanent and useful. If he models in clay and wishes it burnt into terra cotta, the shrinkage and risk in firing, and the danger in transport to the kiln, are a nightmare to him. If he wishes it cast in plaster, the distortion by waste-moulding, or the cost of piece-moulding, are serious grievances to him, considering that after all he has but a friable result; and though this latter objection is minimised by Mrs. Laxton Clark's ingenious process of indurating plaster, yet I am persuaded that most modellers would prefer to complete their work in some permanent form with their own hands. Having this desirable end in view, I wish to draw their attention to some disused processes which once largely prevailed, by which the artist is enabled to finish, and render durable and vendible, his work, without having to part with it or pay for another's aid. These old processes are modelling in Stucco-duro and Gesso. Stucco-duro, although of very ancient practice, is now practically a lost art. The materials required are simply well-burnt and slacked lime, a little fine sand, and some finely-ground unburnt lime-stone or white marble dust. These are well tempered together with water and beaten up with sticks until a good workable paste results. In fact, the preparation of the materials is exactly the same as that described by Vitruvius, who recommends that the fragments of marble be sifted into three degrees of fineness, using the coarser for the rough bossage, the medium for the general modelling, and the finest for the surface finish, after which it can be polished with chalk and powdered lime if necessary. Indeed, to so fine a surface can this material be brought, and so highly can it be polished, that he mentions its use for mirrors. The only caution that it is needful to give is to avoid working too quickly; for, as Sir Henry Wooton, King James's ambassador at Venice, who greatly advocated the use of stucco-duro, observed, the stucco worker "makes his figures by addition and the carver by subtraction," and to avoid too great risk of the work cracking in drying, these additions must be made slowly where the relief is great. If the relief is very great, or if a figure of large dimensions is essayed, it may be needful even to delay the drying of the stucco, and the addition of a little stiff paste will insure this, so that the work may be consecutively worked upon for many days. From the remains of the stucco work of classic times left us, we can realise how perfectly workable this material was; and if you examine the plaster casts taken from some most delicate low-relief plaques in stucco exhumed some ten years ago near the Villa Farnesina at Rome, or the rougher and readier fragments of stucco-duro itself from some Italo-Greek tombs, both of which are to be seen in the South Kensington Museum, you will at once be convinced of the great applicability of the process. With the decadence of classic art some portion of the process seems to have been lost, and the use of pounded travertine was substituted for white marble; but, as the _bassi-relievi_ of the early Renaissance were mostly decorated with colour, this was not important. The ground colours seem generally to have been laid on whilst the stucco was wet, as in fresco, and the details heightened with tempera or encaustic colours, sometimes with accessories enriched in gilt "gesso" (of which hereafter). Many remains of these exist, and in the Nineteenth Winter Exhibition of the Royal Academy there were no less than twelve very interesting examples of it exhibited, and in the South Kensington Museum are some few moderately good illustrations of it. It was not, however, until the sixteenth century that the old means of producing the highly-finished white stucchi were rediscovered, and this revival of the art as an architectonic accessory is due to the exhumation of the baths of Titus under Leo X. Raphael and Giovanni da Udine were then so struck with the beauty of the stucco work thus exposed to view that its re-use was at once determined upon, and the Loggia of the Vatican was the first result of many experiments, though the re-invented process seems to have been precisely that described by Vitruvius. Naturally, the art of modelling in stucco at once became popular: the patronage of it by the Pope, and the practice of it by the artists who worked for him, gave it the highest sanction, and hardly a building of any architectural importance was erected in Italy during the sixteenth century that did not bear evidence of the artistic craft of the stuccatori. There has just (Autumn, 1889) arrived at the South Kensington Museum a model of the central hall of the Villa Madama in Rome, thus decorated by Giulio Romano and Giovanni da Udine, which exemplifies the adaptability of the process; and in this model Cav. Mariani has employed stucco-duro for its execution, showing to how high a pitch of finish this material is capable of being carried. Indeed, it was used by goldsmiths for the models for their craft, as being less liable to injury than wax, yet capable of receiving equally delicate treatment; and Benvenuto Cellini modelled the celebrated "button," with "that magnificent big diamond" in the middle, for the cope of Pope Clement, with all its intricate detail, in this material. How minute this work of some six inches diameter was may be inferred from Cellini's own description of it. Above the diamond, in the centre of the piece, was shown God the Father seated, in the act of giving the benediction; below were three children, who, with their arms upraised, were supporting the jewel. One of them, in the middle, was in full relief, the other two in half-relief. "All round I set a crowd of cherubs in divers attitudes. A mantle undulated to the wind around the figure of the Father, from the folds of which cherubs peeped out; and there were many other ornaments besides, which," adds he, and for once we may believe him, "made a very beautiful effect." At the same time, figures larger than life, indeed colossal figures, were executed in it, and in our own country the Italian artists brought over by our Henry VIII. worked in that style for his vanished palace of Nonsuch. Gradually, stucco-duro fell into disuse, and coarse pargetry and modelled plaster ceilings became in later years its sole and degenerate descendants. Gesso is really a painter's art rather than a sculptor's, and consists in impasto painting with a mixture of plaster of Paris or whiting in glue (the composition with which the ground of his pictures is laid) after roughly modelling the higher forms with tow or some fibrous material incorporated with the gesso; but it is questionable if gesso is the best vehicle for any but the lowest relief. By it the most subtle and delicate variation of surface can be obtained, and the finest lines pencilled, analogous, in fact, to the fine _pâte sur pâte_ work in porcelain. Its chief use in early times was in the accessories of painting, as the nimbi, attributes, and jewellery of the personage represented, and it was almost entirely used as a ground-work for gilding upon. Abundant illustration of this usage will be found in the pictures by the early Italian masters in the National Gallery. The retables of altars were largely decorated in this material, a notable example being that still existing in Westminster Abbey. Many of the gorgeous accessories to the panoply of war in mediæval times, such as decorative shields and the lighter military accoutrements, were thus ornamented in low relief, and on the high-cruppered and high-peaked saddles it was abundantly displayed. In the sixteenth-century work of Germany it seems to have received an admixture of finely-pounded lithographic stone, or hone stone, by which it became of such hardness as to be taken for sculpture in these materials. Its chief use, however, was for the decoration of the caskets and ornamental objects which make up the refinement of domestic life, and the base representative of it which figures on our picture-frames claims a noble ancestry. Its tenacity, when well prepared, is exceedingly great, and I have used it on glass, on polished marble, on porcelain, and such like non-absorbent surfaces, from which it can scarcely be separated without destruction of its base. Indeed, for miniature art, gesso possesses innumerable advantages not presented by any other medium, but it is hardly available for larger works. Time and space will not permit my entering more fully into these two forms of plastic art; but seeing that we are annually receiving such large accessions to the numbers of our modellers, and as, of course, it is not possible for all these to achieve success in, or find a means of living by, the art of sculpture in marble, I have sought to indicate a home-art means by which, at very moderate cost, they can bring their labours in useful form before the world, and at the same time learn and live. G. T. ROBINSON. OF CAST IRON Cast iron is nearly our humblest material, and with associations less than all artistic, for it has been almost hopelessly vulgarised in the present century, so much so that Mr. Ruskin, with his fearless use of paradox to shock one into thought, has laid it down that cast iron is an artistic solecism, impossible for architectural service now, or at any time. And yet, although we can never claim for iron the beauty of bronze, it is in some degree a parallel material, and has been used with appreciation in many ways up to the beginning of this century. Iron was already known in Sussex at the coming of the Romans. Throughout this county and Kent, in out-of-the-way farm-houses, iron fire-backs to open hearths, fine specimens of the founder's art, are still in daily use as they have been for three hundred years or more. Some have Gothic diapers and meanders of vine with heraldic badges and initials, and are evidently cast from models made in the fifteenth century, patterns that remained in stock and were cast from again and again. Others, of the following centuries, have coat-arms and supporters, salamanders in the flames, figures, a triton or centaur, or even a scene, the Judgment of Solomon, or Marriage of Alexander, or, more appropriately, mere pattern-work, vases of flowers and the like. However crude they may be, and some are absurdly inadequate as sculpture, the sense of treatment and relief suitable to the material never fails to give them a fit interest. With these backs cast-iron fire-dogs are often found, of which some Gothic examples also remain, simple in form with soft dull modelling; later, these were often a mere obelisk on a base surmounted by a ball or a bird, or rude terminal figures; sometimes a more delicate full figure, the limbs well together, so that nothing projects from the general post-like form; and within their limitations they are not without grace and character. In Frant church, near Tunbridge, are several cast-iron grave slabs about six feet long by half that width, perfectly flat, one with a single shield of arms and some letters, others with several; they are quite successful, natural, and not in the least vulgar. Iron railings are the most usual form of cast iron as an accessory to architecture; the earlier examples of these in London are thoroughly fit for their purpose and their material; sturdily simple forms of gently swelling curves, or with slightly rounded reliefs. The original railing at St. Paul's, of Lamberhurst iron, is the finest of these, a large portion of which around the west front was removed in 1873. Another example encloses the portico of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. The railing of the central area of Berkeley Square is beautifully designed, and there are instances here, as in Grosvenor Square, where cast iron is used together with wrought, a difficult combination. Balcony railings and staircase balustrades are quite general to houses of the late eighteenth century. Refined and thoroughly good of their kind, they never fail to please, and never, of course, imitate wrought iron. The design is always direct, unpretentious and effortless, in a manner that became at this time quite a tradition. The verandahs also, of which there are so many in Piccadilly or Mayfair, with posts reeded and of delicate profiles, are of the same kind, confessedly cast iron, and never without the characterising dulness of the forms, so that they have no jutting members to be broken off, to expose a repulsive jagged fracture. The opposite of all these qualities may be found in the "expensive"-looking railing on the Embankment enclosing the gardens, whose tiny fretted and fretful forms invite an experiment often successful. It must be understood that cast iron should be merely a flat lattice-like design, obviously cast _in panels_, or plain post and rail construction with cast uprights and terminal knops tenoned into rails, so that there is no doubt of straightforward unaffected fitting. The British Museum screen may be taken to instance how ample ability will not redeem false principles of design: the construction is not clear, nor are the forms sufficiently simple, the result being only a high order of commonplace grandeur. Even the lamp-posts set up in the beginning of the century for oil lights, a few of which have not yet been improved away from back streets, show the same care for appropriate form. Some of the Pall Mall Clubs, again, have well-designed candelabra of a more pretentious kind; also London and Waterloo Bridges. The fire-grates, both with hobs and close fronts, that came into use about the middle of the last century, are decorated all over the field with tiny flutings, beads, and leaf mouldings, sometimes even with little figure medallions, and carry delicacy to its limit. The better examples are entirely successful, both in form and in the ornamentation, which, adapted to this new purpose, does no more than gracefully acknowledge its debt to the past, just as the best ornament at all times is neither original nor copied: it must recognise tradition, and add something which shall be the tradition of the future. The method followed is to keep the general form quite simple and the areas flat, while the decoration, just an embroidery of the surface, is of one substance and in the slightest possible relief. Other larger grates there were with plain surfaces simply framed with mouldings. Even the sculptor has not refused iron. Pliny says there were two statues in Rhodes, one of iron and copper, and the other, a Hercules, entirely of iron. In the palace at Prague there is a St. George horsed and armed, the work of the fourteenth century. The qualities natural to iron which it has to offer for sculpture may best be appreciated by seeing the examples at the Museum of Geology, in Jermyn Street. On the staircase there are two large dogs, two ornamental candelabra, and two figures; the dogs, although not fine as sculpture, are well treated, in mass and surface, for the metal. In the same museum there is a smaller statue still better for surface and finish, a French work signed and dated 1841, and, therefore, half an antique. But for ordinary foundry-work without surface finish--probably the most appropriate, certainly the most available, method--the little lions on the outer rail at the British Museum are proof of how sufficient feeling for design will dignify any material for any object; they are by the late Alfred Stevens, and are thoroughly iron beasts, so slightly modelled that they would be only blocked out for bronze. In the Geological Museum are also specimens of Berlin and Ilsenburg manufacture; they serve to point the moral that ingenuity is not art, nor tenuity refinement. The question of rust is a difficult one, the oxide not being an added beauty like the patina acquired by bronze, yet the decay of cast iron is much less than is generally thought, especially on large smooth surfaces, if the casting has been once treated by an oil bath or a coating of hot tar: the celebrated iron pillar of Delhi, some twenty feet high, has stood for fourteen centuries, and shows, it is said, little evidence of decay. It would be interesting to see how cast spheres of good iron would be affected in our climate, if occasionally coated with a lacquer. In painting, the range of tints best approved is black through gray to white: the simple negative gray gives a pleasant unobtrusiveness to the well-designed iron-work of the Northern Station in Paris, whereas our almost universal Indian red is a very bad choice--a hot coarse colour, you must see it, and be irritated, and it is surely the only colour that gets worse as it bleaches in the sun. Gilding is suitable to a certain extent; but for internal work the homely black-leading cannot be bettered. To put together the results obtained in our examination of examples. (1) The metal must be both good and carefully manipulated. (2) The design must be thought out through the material and its traditional methods. (3) The pattern must have the ornament modelled, not carved, as is almost universally the case now, carving in wood being entirely unfit to give the soft suggestive relief required both by the nature of the sand-mould into which it is impressed, and the crystalline structure of the metal when cast. (4) Flat surfaces like grate fronts may be decorated with some intricacy if the relief is delicate. But the relief must be less than the basis of attachment, so that the moulding may be easily practicable, and no portions invite one to test how easily they might be detached. (5) Objects in the round must have a simple and substantial bounding form with but little ornament, and that only suggested. This applies equally to figures. In them homogeneous structure is of the first importance. (6) When possible, the surface should be finished and left as a metal casting. It may, however, be entirely gilt. If painted, the colour must be neutral and gray. Casting in iron has been so abased and abused that it is almost difficult to believe that the metal has anything to offer to the arts. At no other time and in no other country would a national staple commodity have been so degraded. Yet in its strength under pressure, but fragility to a blow, in certain qualities of texture and of required manipulation, it invites a specially characterised treatment in the design, and it offers one of the few materials naturally black available in the colour arrangement of interiors. W. R. LETHABY. OF DYEING AS AN ART Dyeing is a very ancient art; from the earliest times of the ancient civilisations till within about forty years ago there had been no essential change in it, and not much change of any kind. Up to the time of the discovery of the process of Prussian-blue dyeing in about 1810 (it was known as a pigment thirty or forty years earlier), the only changes in the art were the result of the introduction of the American insect dye (cochineal), which gradually superseded the European one (kermes), and the American wood-dyes now known as logwood and Brazil-wood: the latter differs little from the Asiatic and African Red Saunders, and other red dye-woods; the former has cheapened and worsened black-dyeing, in so far as it has taken the place of the indigo-vat as a basis. The American quercitron bark gives us also a useful additional yellow dye. These changes, and one or two others, however, did little towards revolutionising the art; that revolution was left for our own days, and resulted from the discovery of what are known as the Aniline dyes, deduced by a long process from the plants of the coal-measures. Of these dyes it must be enough to say that their discovery, while conferring the greatest honour on the abstract science of chemistry, and while doing great service to capitalists in their hunt after profits, has terribly injured the art of dyeing, and for the general public has nearly destroyed it as an art. Henceforward there is an absolute divorce between the _commercial process_ and the _art_ of dyeing. Anyone wanting to produce dyed textiles with any artistic quality in them must entirely forgo the modern and commercial methods in favour of those which are at least as old as Pliny, who speaks of them as being old in his time. Now, in order to dye textiles in patterns or otherwise, we need four colours to start with--to wit, blue, red, yellow, and brown; green, purple, black, and all intermediate shades can be made from a mixture of these colours. Blue is given us by indigo and woad, which do not differ in colour in the least, their chemical product being the same. Woad may be called northern indigo; and indigo tropical or sub-tropical woad. Note that until the introduction of Prussian blue about 1810 there was _no_ other blue dye except this indigotine that could be called a dye; the other blue dyes were mere stains which would not bear the sun for more than a few days. Red is yielded by the insect dyes kermes, lac-dye, and cochineal, and by the vegetable dye madder. Of these, kermes is the king; brighter than madder and at once more permanent and more beautiful than cochineal: the latter on an aluminous basis gives a rather cold crimson, and on a tin basis a rather hot scarlet (_e.g._ the dress-coat of a line officer). Madder yields on wool a deep-toned blood-red, somewhat bricky and tending to scarlet. On cotton and linen, all imaginable shades of red according to the process. It is not of much use in dyeing silk, which it is apt to "blind"; _i.e._ it takes off the gloss. Lac-dye gives a hot and not pleasant scarlet, as may be noted in a private militiaman's coat. The French liners' trousers, by the way, are, or were, dyed with madder, so that their countrymen sometimes call them the "Madder-wearers"; but their cloth is somewhat too cheaply dyed to do credit to the drysaltery. Besides these permanent red dyes there are others produced from woods, called in the Middle Ages by the general name of "Brazil"; whence the name of the American country, because the conquerors found so much dyeing-wood growing there. Some of these wood-dyes are very beautiful in colour; but unluckily they are none of them permanent, as you may see by examining the beautiful stuffs of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries at the South Kensington Museum, in which you will scarcely find any red, but plenty of fawn-colour, which is in fact the wood-red of 500 years ago thus faded. If you turn from them to the Gothic tapestries, and note the reds in them, you will have the measure of the relative permanence of kermes and "Brazil," the tapestry reds being all dyed with kermes, and still retaining the greater part of their colour. The mediæval dyers must be partly excused, however, because "Brazil" is especially a silk dye, kermes sharing somewhat in the ill qualities of madder for silk; though I have dyed silk in kermes and got very beautiful and powerful colours by means of it. Yellow dyes are chiefly given us by weld (sometimes called wild mignonette), quercitron bark (above mentioned), and old fustic, an American dye-wood. Of these weld is much the prettiest, and is the yellow silk dye _par excellence_, though it dyes wool well enough. But yellow dyes are the commonest to be met with in nature, and our fields and hedgerows bear plenty of greening-weeds, as our forefathers called them, since they used them chiefly for greening blue woollen cloth; for, as you may well believe, they, being good colourists, had no great taste for yellow woollen stuff. Dyers'-broom, saw-wort, the twigs of the poplar, the osier, and the birch, heather, broom, flowers and twigs, will all of them give yellows of more or less permanence. Of these I have tried poplar and osier twigs, which both gave a strong yellow, but the former not a very permanent one. Speaking generally, yellow dyes are the least permanent of all, as once more you may see by looking at an old tapestry, in which the greens have always faded more than the reds or blues; the best yellow dyes, however, lose only their brighter shade, the "lemon" colour, and leave a residuum of brownish yellow, which still makes a kind of a green over the blue. Brown is best got from the roots of the walnut tree, or in their default from the green husks of the nuts. This material is especially best for "saddening," as the old dyers used to call it. The best and most enduring blacks also were done with this simple dye-stuff, the goods being first dyed in the indigo or woad-vat till they were a very dark blue and then browned into black by means of the walnut-root. Catechu, the inspissated juice of a plant or plants, which comes to us from India, also gives rich and useful permanent browns of various shades. Green is obtained by dyeing a blue of the required shade in the indigo-vat, and then greening it with a good yellow dye, adding what else may be necessary (as, _e.g._, madder) to modify the colour according to taste. Purple is got by blueing in the indigo-vat, and afterwards by a bath of cochineal, or kermes, or madder; all intermediate shades of claret and murrey and russet can be got by these drugs helped out by "saddening." Black, as aforesaid, is best made by dyeing dark blue wool with brown; and walnut is better than iron for the brown part, because the iron-brown is apt to rot the fibre; as once more you will see in some pieces of old tapestry or old Persian carpets, where the black is quite perished, or at least in the case of the carpet gone down to the knots. All intermediate shades can, as aforesaid, be got by the blending of these prime colours, or by using weak baths of them. For instance, all shades of flesh colour can be got by means of weak baths of madder and walnut "saddening"; madder or cochineal mixed with weld gives us orange, and with saddening all imaginable shades between yellow and red, including the ambers, maize-colour, etc. The crimsons in Gothic tapestries must have been got by dyeing kermes over pale shades of blue, since the crimson red-dye, cochineal, had not yet come to Europe. A word or two (entirely unscientific) about the processes of this old-fashioned or artistic dyeing. In the first place, all _dyes_ must be soluble colours, differing in this respect from _pigments_; most of which are insoluble, and are only very finely divided, as, _e.g._, ultramarine, umber, terre-verte. Next, dyes may be divided into those which need a mordant and those which do not; or, as the old chemist Bancroft very conveniently expresses it, into _adjective_ and _substantive_ dyes. Indigo is the great substantive dye: the indigo has to be de-oxidised and thereby made soluble, in which state it loses its blue colour in proportion as the solution is complete; the goods are plunged into this solution and worked in it "between two waters," as the phrase goes, and when exposed to the air the indigo they have got on them is swiftly oxidised, and once more becomes insoluble. This process is repeated till the required shade is got. All shades of blue can be got by this means, from the pale "watchet," as our forefathers called it, up to the blue which the eighteenth-century French dyers called "Bleu d'enfer." Navy Blue is the politer name for it to-day in England. I must add that, though this seems an easy process, the setting of the blue-vat is a ticklish job, and requires, I should say, more experience than any other dyeing process. The brown dyes, walnut and catechu, need no mordant, and are substantive dyes; some of the yellows also can be dyed without mordant, but are much improved by it. The red dyes, kermes and madder, and the yellow dye weld, are especially mordant or adjective dyes: they are all dyed on an aluminous basis. To put the matter plainly, the goods are worked in a solution of alum (usually with a little acid added), and after an interval of a day or two (ageing) are dyed in a bath of the dissolved dye-stuff. A lake is thus formed on the fibre which is in most cases very durable. The effect of this "mordanting" of the fibre is clearest seen in the maddering of printed cotton goods, which are first printed with aluminous mordants of various degrees of strength (or with iron if black is needed, or a mixture of iron with alumina for purple), and then dyed wholesale in the madder-beck: the result being that the parts which have been mordanted come out various shades of red, etc., according to the strength or composition of the mordant, while the unmordanted parts remain a dirty pink, which has to be "cleared" into white by soaping and exposure to the sun and air; which process both brightens and fixes the dyed parts. Pliny saw this going on in Egypt, and it puzzled him very much, that a cloth dyed in one colour should come out coloured diversely. That reminds me to say a word on the fish-dye of the ancients: it was a substantive dye and behaved somewhat as indigo. It was very permanent. The colour was a real purple in the modern sense of the word, _i.e._ a colour or shades of a colour between red and blue. The real Byzantine books which are written on purple vellum give you some, at least, of its shades. The ancients, you must remember, used words for colours in a way that seems vague to us, because they were generally thinking of the tone rather than the _tint_. When they wanted to _specify_ a red dye they would not use the word purpureus, but coccineus, _i.e._ scarlet of kermes. The art of dyeing, I am bound to say, is a difficult one, needing for its practice a good craftsman, with plenty of experience. Matching a colour by means of it is an agreeable but somewhat anxious game to play. As to the artistic value of these dye-stuffs, most of which, together with the necessary mordant alumina, the world discovered in early times (I mean early _historical_ times), I must tell you that they all make in their simplest forms beautiful colours; they need no muddling into artistic usefulness, when you need your colours bright (as I hope you usually do), and they can be modified and toned without dirtying, as the foul blotches of the capitalist dyer cannot be. Like all dyes, they are not eternal; the sun in lighting them and beautifying them consumes them; yet gradually, and for the most part kindly, as (to use my example for the last time in this paper) you will see if you look at the Gothic tapestries in the drawing-room at Hampton Court. These colours in fading still remain beautiful, and never, even after long wear, pass into nothingness, through that stage of livid ugliness which distinguishes the commercial dyes as nuisances, even more than their short and by no means merry life. I may also note that no textiles dyed blue or green, otherwise than by indigo, keep an agreeable colour by candle-light: many quite bright greens turning into sheer drab. A fashionable blue which simulates indigo turns into a slaty purple by candle-light; and Prussian blues are also much damaged by it. I except from this condemnation a commercial green known as gas-green, which is as abominable as its name, both by daylight and gaslight, and indeed one would almost expect it to make unlighted midnight hideous. WILLIAM MORRIS. OF EMBROIDERY The technicalities of Embroidery are very simple and its tools few--practically consisting of a needle, and nothing else. The work can be wrought loose in the hand, or stretched in a frame, which latter mode is often advisable, always when smooth and minute work is aimed at. There are no mysteries of method beyond a few elementary rules that can be quickly learnt; no way to perfection except that of care and patience and love of the work itself. This being so, the more is demanded from design and execution: we look for complete triumph over the limitations of process and material, and, what is equally important, a certain judgment and self-restraint; and, in short, those mental qualities that distinguish mechanical from intelligent work. The latitude allowed to the worker; the lavishness and ingenuity displayed in the stitches employed; in short, the vivid expression of the worker's individuality, form a great part of the success of needlework. The varieties of stitch are too many to be closely described without diagrams, but the chief are as follows:-- Chain-stitch consists of loops simulating the links of a simple chain. Some of the most famous work of the Middle Ages was worked in this stitch, which is enduring, and of its nature necessitates careful execution. We are more familiar with it in the dainty work of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in the airy brightness and simplicity of which lies a peculiar charm, contrasted with the more pompous and pretentious work of the same period. This stitch is also wrought with a hook on any loose material stretched in a tambour frame. Tapestry-stitch consists of a building-up of stitches laid one beside another, and gives a surface slightly resembling that of tapestry. I give the name as it is so often used, but it is vague, and leads to the confusion that exists in people's minds between loom-tapestry and embroidery. The stitch is worked in a frame, and is particularly suitable for the drapery of figures and anything that requires skilful blending of several colours, or a certain amount of shading. This facility of "painting" with the needle is in itself a danger, for it tempts some people to produce a highly shaded imitation of a picture, an attempt which must be a failure both as a decorative and as a pictorial achievement. It cannot be said too often that the essential qualities of all good needlework are a broad surface, bold lines and pure, brilliant and, as a rule, simple colouring; all of which being qualities attainable through, and prescribed by, the limitations of this art. Appliqué has been, and is still, a favourite method of work, which Vasari tells us Botticelli praised as being very suitable to processional banners and hangings used in the open air, as it is solid and enduring, also bold and effective in style. It is more accurately described as a _method_ of work in which various stitches are made use of, for it consists of designs embroidered on a stout ground and then cut out and laid on silk or velvet, and edged round with lines of gold or silk, and sometimes with pearls. It requires considerable deftness and judgment in applying, as the work could well be spoilt by clumsy and heavy finishing. It is now looked upon as solely ecclesiastical, I believe, and is associated in our minds with garish red, gold and white, and with dull geometric ornament, though there is absolutely no reason why church embroidery of to-day should be limited to ungraceful forms and staring colours. A certain period of work, thick and solid, but not very interesting, either as to method or design, has been stereotyped into what is known as Ecclesiastical Embroidery, the mechanical characteristics of the style being, of course, emphasised and exaggerated in the process. Church work will never be of the finest while these characteristics are insisted on; the more pity, as it is seemly that the richest and noblest work should be devoted to churches, and to all buildings that belong to and are an expression of the communal life of the people. Another and simpler form of applied work is to cut out the desired forms in one material and lay upon another, securing the appliqué with stitches round the outline, which are hidden by an edging cord. The work may be further enriched by light ornament of lines and flourishes laid directly on the ground material. Couching is an effective method of work, in which broad masses of silk or gold thread are laid down and secured by a network or diaper of crossing threads, through which the under surface shines very prettily. It is often used in conjunction with appliqué. There are as many varieties of couching stitches as the worker has invention for; in some the threads are laid simply and flatly on the form to be covered, while in others a slight relief is obtained by layers of soft linen thread which form a kind of moulding or stuffing, and which are covered by the silk threads or whatever is to be the final decorative surface. The ingenious patchwork coverlets of our grandmothers, formed of scraps of old gowns pieced together in certain symmetrical forms, constitute the romance of family history, but this method has an older origin than would be imagined. Queen Isis-em-Kheb's embalmed body went down the Nile to its burial-place under a canopy that was lately discovered, and is preserved in the Boulak Museum. It consists of many squares of gazelle-hide of different colours sewn together and ornamented with various devices. Under the name of patchwork, or mosaic-like piecing together of different coloured stuffs, comes also the Persian work made at Resht. Bits of fine cloth are cut out for leaves, flowers, and so forth, and neatly stitched together with great accuracy. This done, the work is further carried out and enriched by chain and other stitches. The result is perfectly smooth flat work, no easy feat when done on a large scale, as it often is. Darning and running need little explanation. The former stitch is familiar to us in the well-known Cretan and Turkish cloths: the stitch here is used mechanically in parallel lines, and simulates weaving, so that these handsome borders in a deep rich red might as well have come from the loom as from the needle. Another method of darning is looser and coarser, and suitable only for cloths and hangings not subject to much wear and rubbing; the stitches follow the curves of the design, which the needle paints, as it were, shading and blending the colours. It is necessary to use this facility for shading temperately, however, or the flatness essential to decorative work is lost. The foregoing is a rough list of stitches which could be copiously supplemented, but that I am obliged to pass on to another important point, that of design. If needlework is to be looked upon seriously, it is necessary to secure appropriate and practicable designs. Where the worker does not invent for herself, she should at least interpret her designer, just as the designer interprets and does not attempt to imitate nature. It follows from this, that it is better to avoid using designs of artists who know nothing of the capacities of needlework, and design beautiful and intricate forms without reference to the execution, the result being unsatisfactory and incomplete. Regarding the design itself, broad bold lines should be chosen, and broad harmonious colour (which should be roughly planned before setting to work), with as much minute work, and stitches introducing play of colour, as befits the purpose of the work and humour of the worker; there should be no scratching, no indefiniteness of form or colour, no vagueness that allows the eye to puzzle over the design--beyond that indefinable sense of mystery which arrests the attention and withholds the full charm of the work for a moment, to unfold it to those who stop to give it more than a glance. But there are so many different stitches and so many different modes of setting to work, that it will soon be seen that these few hints do not apply to all of them. One method, for instance, consists of trusting entirely to design, and leaves colour out of account: white work on white linen, white on dark ground, or black or dark blue upon white. Again, some work depends more on magnificence of colour than on form, as, for example, the handsome Italian hangings of the seventeenth century, worked in floss-silk, on linen sometimes, and sometimes on a dusky open canvas which makes the silks gleam and glow like precious stones. In thus slightly describing the methods chiefly used in embroidery, I do so principally from old examples, as modern embroidery, being a dilettante pastime, has little distinct character, and is, in its best points, usually imitative. Eastern work still retains the old professional skill, but beauty of colour is rapidly disappearing, and little attention is paid to durability of the dyes used. In speaking rather slightingly of modern needlework, I must add that its non-success is often due more to the use of poor materials than to want of skill in working. It is surely folly to waste time over work that looks shabby in a month. The worker should use judgment and thought to procure materials, not necessarily rich, but each good and genuine of its kind. Lastly, she should not be sparing of her own handiwork, for, while a slightly executed piece of work depends wholly on design, in one where the actual stitchery is more elaborate, but the design less masterly, the patience and thought lavished on it render it in a different way equally pleasing, and bring it more within the scope of the amateur. MAY MORRIS. OF LACE Lace is a term freely used at the present time to describe various sorts of open ornament in thread work, the successful effect of which depends very much upon the contrasting of more or less closely-textured forms with grounds or intervening spaces filled in with meshes of equal size or with cross-ties, bars, etc. Whence it has come to pass that fabrics having an appearance of this description, such as embroideries upon nets, cut linen works, drawn thread works, and machine-woven counterfeits of lace-like fabrics, are frequently called laces. But they differ in make from those productions of certain specialised handicrafts to which from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries lace owes its fame. These specialised handicrafts are divisible into two branches. The one branch involves the employment of a needle to loop a continuous thread into varieties of shapes and devices; the other is in the nature of making corresponding or similar ornament by twisting and plaiting together a number of separate threads, the loose ends of which have to be fastened in a row on a cushion or pillow, the supply of the threads being wound around the heads of lengthened bobbins, so shaped for convenience in handling. The first-named branch is needlepoint lace-making; the second, bobbin or pillow lace-making. Needlepoint lace-making may be regarded as a species of embroidery, whilst bobbin or pillow lace-making is closely allied to the twisting and knotting together of threads for fringes. Embroidery, however, postulates a foundation of material to be enriched with needlework, whereas needlepoint and pillow lace are wrought independently of any corresponding foundation of material. The production of slender needles and small metal pins is an important incident in the history of lace-making by hand. Broadly speaking, the manufacture for a widespread consumption of such metal pins and needles does not date earlier than the fourteenth century. Without small implements of this character delicate lace-making is not possible. It is therefore fair to assume that although historic nations like the Egyptian, Assyrian, Hebrew, Greek, and Roman, made use of fringes and knotted cords upon their hangings, cloaks, and tunics, lace was unknown to them. Their bone, wooden, or metal pins and needles were suited to certain classes of embroidery and to the making of nets, looped cords, etc., but not to such lace-making as we know it from the early days of the sixteenth century. About the end of the fifteenth century, with the development in Europe of fine linen for underclothing, collars and cuffs just visible beyond the outer garments came into vogue, and a taste was speedily manifested for trimming linen undershirts, collars and cuffs, with insertions and borders of kindred material. This taste seems to have been first displayed in a marked manner by Venetian and Flemish women; for the earliest known books of engraved patterns for linen ornamental borders and insertions are those which were published during the commencement of the sixteenth century at Venice and Antwerp. But such patterns were designed in the first place for various sorts of embroidery upon a material, such as darning upon canvas (_punto fa su la rete a maglia quadra_), drawn thread work of reticulated patterns (_punto tirato_ or _punto a reticella_), and cut work (_punto tagliato_). Patterns for quite other sorts of work, such as point in the air (_punto in aere_) and thread work twisted and plaited by means of little leaden weights or bobbins (_merletti a piombini_), were about thirty years later in publication. These two last-named classes of work are respectively identifiable (_punto in aere_) with needlepoint and (_merletti a piombini_) with bobbin lace-making; and they seem to date from about 1540. The sixteenth-century and earliest known needlepoint laces (_punto in aere_) are of narrow lengths or bands, the patterns of which are composed principally of repeated open squares filled in with circular, star, and other geometric shapes, set upon diagonal and cross lines which radiate from the centre of each square to its corners and sides. When the bands were to serve as borders they would have a dentated edging added to them; this edging might be made of either needlepoint or bobbin lace. As time went on the dimensions of both lace bands and lace vandykes increased so that, whilst these served as trimmings to linen, lace of considerable width and various shapes came to be made, and ruffs, collars, and cuffs were wholly made of it. Such lace was thin and wiry in appearance. The leading lines of the patterns formed squares and geometrical figures, amongst which were disposed small wheel and seed forms, little triangles, and such like. A few years later the details of these geometrically planned patterns became more varied, tiny human figures, fruits, vases and flowers, being used as ornamental details. But a more distinct change in character of pattern was effected when flowing scrolls with leaf and blossom devices, held together by means of little ties or bars, were adopted. Different portions of the scrolls and blossoms with their connecting links or bars would often be enriched with little loops or _picots_, with stitched reliefs, and varieties of close and open work. Then came a taste for arranging the bars or ties into trellis grounds, or grounds of hexagons, over which small ornamental devices would be scattered in balanced groups. At the same time, the bobbin or pillow lace-workers produced grounds of small equal-size meshes in plaited threads. This inventiveness on the part of the bobbin or pillow workers reacted upon the needlepoint workers, who in their turn produced still more delicate grounds with meshes of single and double twisted threads. Lace, passing from stage to stage, thus became a filmy tissue or fabric, and its original use as a somewhat stiff, wiry-looking trimming to linen consequently changed. Larger articles than borders, collars, and cuffs were made of the new filmy material, and lace flounces, veils, loose sleeves, curtains, and bed-covers were produced. This transition may be traced through the first hundred and twenty years of lace-making. It culminated during the succeeding ninety years in a development of fanciful pattern-making, in which realistic representation of flowers, trees, cupids, warriors, sportsmen, animals of the chase, emblems of all sorts, rococo and architectural ornament, is typical. Whilst the eighteenth century may perhaps be regarded as a period of questionable propriety in the employment of ornament hardly appropriate to the twisting, plaiting, and looping together of threads, it is nevertheless notable for _tours de force_ in lace-making achieved without regard to cost or trouble. From this stage, the climax of which may be placed about 1760, the designing of lace patterns declined; and from the end of the eighteenth to the first twenty years or so of the nineteenth centuries, laces, although still made with the needle and bobbins, became little more than finely-meshed nets powdered over with dots or leaves, or single blossoms, or tiny sprays. Within the limits of a brief note like the present, it is not possible to discuss local peculiarities in methods of work and styles of design which established the characters of the various Venetian and other Italian points, of the French points of Alençon and Argentan, of the cloudy Valenciennes, Mechlin, and Brussels laces. Neither can one touch upon the nurturing of the industry by nuns in convents, by workers subsidised by State grants, and so forth. It would require more space than is available to fairly discuss what styles of ornament are least or most suited to lace-making; or whether lace is less rightly employed as a tissue for the making of entire articles of costume or of household use, than as an ornamental accessory or trimming to costume. Whilst very much lace is a fantastic adjunct to costume, serving a purpose sometimes like that of _appoggiature_ and _fioriture_ in music, other lace, such as the carved-ivory-looking scrolls of Venetian raised points, which are principally associated with the _jabots_ and ruffles of kings, ministers, and marshals, and with the ornamentation of priests' vestments, is certainly more dignified in character. The loops, twists, and plaits of threads are more noticeable in laces of comparatively small dimensions than they are in laces of great size. Size rather tempts the lace-worker to strive for ready effect, and to sacrifice the minuteness and finish of hand work, which give quality of preciousness to lace. The _via media_ to this quality lies between two extremes; namely, applying dainty threads to the interpretation of badly shaped and ill-grouped forms on the one hand, and on the other hand adopting a style of ornament which depends upon largeness of detail and massiveness in grouping, and is therefore unsuited to lace. Without finish of handicraft, producing beautiful ornament suited to the material in which it is expressed, lace worthy the name cannot be made. The industry is still pursued in France, Belgium, Venice, Austria, Bohemia, and Ireland. Honiton has acquired a notoriety for its pillow laces, many of which some hundred years ago were as varied and well executed as Brussels pillow laces. Other English towns in the Midland counties followed the lead chiefly of Mechlin, Valenciennes, Lille, and Arras, but were rarely as successful as their leaders. Saxony, Russia, and the Auvergne produce quantities of pillow laces, having little pretence to design, though capable of pretty effects when artistically worn. There is no question that the want of a sustained intelligence in appreciating ingenious hand-made laces has told severely upon the industry; and as with other artistic handicrafts, so with lace-making, machinery has very considerably supplanted the hand. There is at present a limited revival in the demand for hand-made laces, and efforts are made at certain centres to give new life to the industry by infusing into it artistic feeling derived from a study of work done during the periods when the art flourished. ALAN S. COLE. OF BOOK ILLUSTRATION AND BOOK DECORATION Book illustration is supposed to have made a great advance in the last few years. No doubt it has, but this advance has not been made on any definite principle, but, as it were, in and out of a network of cross-purposes. No attempt has been made to classify illustration in relation to the purpose it has to fulfil. Broadly speaking, this purpose is threefold. It is either utilitarian, or partly utilitarian partly artistic, or purely artistic. The first may be dismissed at once. Such drawings as technical diagrams must be clear and accurate, but by their very nature they are non-artistic, and in regard to art it is a case of "hands off" to the draughtsman. Illustration as an art, that is, book decoration, begins with the second class. From this standpoint an illustration involves something more than mere drawing. In the first place, the drawing must illustrate the subject, but as the drawing will not be set in a plain mount, but surrounded or bordered by printed type, there is the further problem of the relation of the drawing to the printed type. The relative importance attached to the printed type or the drawing is the crucial point for the illustrator. If all his thoughts are concentrated on his own drawing, one line to him will be much as another; but if he considers his illustration as going with the type to form one homogeneous design, each line becomes a matter of deliberate intention. Now, in the early days of printing, when both type and illustration were printed off a single block, the latter standpoint was adopted as a matter of course, and as the art developed and men of genuine ability applied themselves to design, this intimate relation between printer and designer produced results of inimitable beauty. Each page of a fine Aldine is a work of art in itself. The eye can run over page after page for the simple pleasure of its decoration. No black blots in a sea of ignoble type break the quiet dignity of the page; each part of it works together with the rest for one premeditated harmony. But gradually, with the severance of the arts, the printer lost sight of the artist, and the latter cared only for himself; and there came the inevitable result which has followed this selfishness in all the other arts of design. Printing ceased to be an art at all, and the art of book decoration died of neglect; the illustrator made his drawing without thought of the type, and left it to the printer to pitch it into the text, and reproduce it as best he could. The low-water mark in artistic illustration was reached perhaps in the early part of this century, and the greatest offender was Turner himself. The illustrations which Turner made for Rogers's Poems show no sort of modification of his habitual practice in painting. They may have been beautiful in themselves, but it evidently never entered into Turner's head that the method, which was admirable in a picture aided by all the resources of colour, was beside the mark when applied to the printed page with all the limitations of black and white and the simple line. One looks in vain in Turner's illustrations for any evidence that he was conscious of the existence of the rest of the page at all. Something more than a landscape painter's knowledge of drawing is necessary. The custom of getting illustrations from painters who have little knowledge of decorative design has led to the invention of all sorts of mechanical processes in order to transfer easel-work direct to the printed page. The effect of this upon book decoration has been deadly. Process-work of this sort has gone far to kill wood-engraving; and as to its result, instead of a uniform texture of line woven as it were over the entire page, the eye is arrested by harsh patches of black or gray which show a disregard of the printed type which is little less than brutal. Leaving recent work out of account, one exception only can be made, and that is in the case of William Blake. The inherent conditions of book decoration point to the line drawn by hand, and reproduced, either by wood-engraving or by direct facsimile process, as its proper method. Indeed, the ideal of paginal beauty would be reached by leaving both the text and the illustrative design to hand, if not to one hand. This, however, is out of the question; the cost alone is prohibitive. The point for the book-decorator to consider is, what sort of line will range best with the type. In the case of the second division of our classification, which, in default of a better name, may be called "record work," it is impossible to apply to the line the amount of abstraction and selection which would be necessary in pure design. To do so, for instance, in the case of an architectural illustration, would destroy the "vraisemblance" which is of the essence of such a drawing. Even in this case, however, the line ought to be very carefully considered. It is important to recollect that the type establishes a sort of scale of its own, and, taking ordinary lettering, this would exclude very minute work where the lines are close together and there is much cross-hatching; and also simple outline work such as Retsch used to labour at, for the latter errs on the side of tenuity and meagreness as much as process-reproduction of brush-work sins in the opposite extreme. The line used in architectural illustration should be free, accurate, and unfaltering, drawn with sufficient technical knowledge of architecture to enable the draughtsman to know where he can stop without injury to his subject. The line should not be obstinate, but so light and subtle as to reflect without effort each thought that flits across the artist's mind. Vierge has shown how much can be done in this way. With a few free lines and the contrast of some dark piece of shading in exactly the right place, he will often tell you more of a subject than will the most elaborately finished picture. This is the method to aim at in architectural illustration. The poetry of architecture and its highest qualities of dignity of mass and outline are smothered by that laborious accuracy which covers every part of the drawing with a vain repetition of unfeeling lines. Where, however, the illustration is purely imaginative, the decorative standpoint should be kept steadily in view, and the process of selection and abstraction carried very much farther. Here, at length, the illustrator can so order his design that the drawing and the printed type form a single piece of decoration, not disregarding the type, but using it as in itself a means of obtaining texture and scale and distributed effect. The type is, as it were, the technical datum of the design, which determines the scale of the line to be used with it. With a wiry type no doubt a wiry drawing is desirable, but the types of the great periods of printing are firm in outline and large and ample in distribution. Assuming, then, that one of these types can be used, the line of the accompanying design should be strongly drawn, and designed from end to end with full allowance for the white paper. No better model can be followed than Dürer's woodcuts. The amount of work which Dürer would get out of a single line is something extraordinary, and perhaps to us impossible; for in view of our complex modern ideas and total absence of tradition, probably no modern designer can hope to attain to the great German's magnificent directness and tremendous intensity of expression. Deliberate selection, both in subject and treatment, becomes therefore a matter of the first importance. The designer should reject subjects which do not admit of a decorative treatment. His business is not with science, or morals, but with art for its own sake; he should, therefore, select his subject with a single eye to its artistic possibilities. As to the line itself, it is impossible to offer any suggestion, for the line used is as much a part of the designer's idea as the words of a poem are of a poet's poetry; and the invention of these must come of itself. But once in consciousness, the line must be put under rigid control as simply a means of expression. There is an insidious danger in the line. Designers sometimes seem to be inebriated with their own cunning; they go on drawing line after line, apparently for the simple pleasure of deftly placing them side by side, or at best to produce some spurious imitation of texture. As soon as the line is made an end in itself, it becomes a wearisome thing. The use of the line and the imitation of texture should be absolutely subordinated to the decorative purposes of the design, and the neglect of this rule is as bad art as if a musician, from perverse delight in the intricacies of a fugue, were to lose his theme in a chaos of counterpoint. If, then, to conclude, we are to return to the best traditions of book decoration, the artist must abandon the selfish isolation in which he has hitherto worked. He must regard the printed type not as a necessary evil, but as a valuable material for the decoration of the page, and the type and the illustration should be considered in strict relation to each other. This will involve a self-restraint far more rigid than any required in etching, because the point to be aimed at is not so much the direct suggestion of nature, as the best decorative treatment of the line in relation to the entire page. Thus, to the skill of the draughtsman must be added the far-seeing imagination of the designer, which, instead of being content with a hole-and-corner success, involving disgrace to the rest of the page, embraces in its consciousness all the materials available for the beautification of the page as a whole. It is only by this severe intellectual effort, by this self-abnegation, by this ready acceptance of the union of the arts, that the art of book illustration can again attain to a permanent value. REGINALD BLOMFIELD. OF DESIGNS AND WORKING DRAWINGS The drawings which most deeply interest the workman are working drawings--just the last to be appreciated by the public, because they are the last to be understood. The most admired of show drawings are to us craftsmen comparatively without interest. We recognise the "competition" drawing at once; we see how it was made in order to secure the commission, not with a view to its effect in execution (which is the true and only end of a design), and we do not wonder at the failure of competitions in general. For the man who cares least, if even he knows at all, how a design will appear in execution is the most likely to perpetrate a prettiness which may gain the favour of the inexpert, with whom the selection is likely to rest. The general public, and all in fact who are technically ignorant on the subject, need to be warned that the most attractive and what are called "taking" drawings are just those which are least likely to be designs--still less _bonâ fide_ working drawings. The real workman has not the time, even if he had the inclination, to "finish up" his drawings to the point that is generally considered pleasing; the inventive spirit has not the patience. We have each of us the failings complementary to our faculties, and _vice versâ_; and you will usually find--certainly it is my experience--that the makers of very elaborately finished drawings seldom do anything but what we have often seen before; and that men of any individuality, actual designers that is to say, have a way of considering a drawing finished as soon as ever it expresses what they mean. You may take it, then, as a general rule that highly finished and elaborate drawings are got up for show, "finished for exhibition" as they say (in compliance with the supposed requirements of an exhibition rather than with a view to practical purposes), and that drawings completed only so far as is necessary, precise in their details, disfigured by notes in writing, sections, and so on, are at least genuine workaday designs. If you ask what a design should be like--well, like a design. It is altogether a different thing from a picture; it is almost the reverse of it. Practically no man has, as I said, the leisure, even if he had the ability, to make an effective finished picture of a thing yet to be carried out--perhaps _not_ to be carried out. This last is a most serious consideration for him, and may have a sad effect upon his work. The artist who could afford thus to give himself away gratis would certainly not do so; the man who might be willing to do it could not; for if he has "got no work to do"--that is at least presumptive evidence that he is not precisely a master of his craft. The design that looks like a picture is likely to be at best a reminiscence of something done before; and the more often it has been done the more likely it is to be pictorially successful--and by so much the less is it, strictly speaking, a design. This applies especially to designs on a small scale, such as are usually submitted to catch the rare commission. To imitate in a full-sized cartoon the texture of material, the casualty of reflected light, and other such accidents of effect, is sheer nonsense, and no practical workman would think of such a thing. A painter put to the uncongenial task of decorative design might be excused for attempting to make his productions pass muster by workmanship excellent in itself, although not in the least to the point: one does what one can, or what one must; and if a man has a faculty he needs must show it. Only, the perfection of painting will not, for all that, make design. In the first small sketch-design, everything need not of course be expressed; but it should be indicated--for the purpose is simply to explain the scheme proposed: so much of pictorial representation as may be necessary to that is desirable, and no more. It should be in the nature of a diagram, specific enough to illustrate the idea and how it is to be worked out. It ought by strict rights to commit one definitely to a certain method of execution, as a written specification would; and may often with advantage be helped out by written notes, which explain more definitely than any pictorial rendering just how this is to be wrought, that cast, the other chased, and so on, as the case may be. Whatever the method of expression the artist may adopt, he should be perfectly clear in his own mind how his design is to be worked out; and he ought to make it clear also to any one with sufficient technical knowledge to understand a drawing. In the first sketch for a window, for example, he need not show every lead and every piece of glass; but there should be no possible mistake as to how it is to be glazed, or which is "painted" glass and which is "mosaic." To omit the necessary bars in a sketch for glass seems to me a weak concession to the prejudice of the public. One _may_ have to concede such points sometimes; but the concession is due less to necessity than to the--what shall we call it?--not perhaps exactly the cowardice, but at all events the timidity, of the artist. In a full-sized working drawing or cartoon everything material to the design should be expressed, and that as definitely as possible. In a cartoon for glass (to take again the same example) every lead-line should be shown, as well as the saddle bars; to omit them is about as excusable as it would be to leave out the sections from a design for cabinet work. It is contended sometimes that such details are not necessary, that the artist can bear all that in mind. Doubtless he can, more or less; but I am inclined to believe more strongly in the _less_. At any rate he will much more certainly have them in view whilst he keeps them visibly before his eyes. One thing that deters him is the fear of offending the client, who will not believe, when he sees leads and bars in a drawing, how little they are likely to assert themselves in the glass. Very much the same thing applies to designs and working drawings generally. A thorough craftsman never suggests a form or colour without realising in his own mind how he will be able to get such form or colour in the actual work; and in his working drawing he explains that fully, making allowance even for some not impossible dulness of apprehension on the part of the executant. Thus, if a pattern is to be woven he indicates the cards to be employed, he arranges what parts are "single," what "double," as the weavers call it, what changes in the shuttle are proposed, and by the crossing of which threads certain intermediate tints are to be obtained. Or again, if the design is for wall-paper printing, he arranges not only for the blocks, but the order in which they shall be printed; and provides for possible printing in "flock," or for the printing of one transparent colour over another, so as to get more colours than there are blocks used, and so on. In either case, too, he shows quite plainly the limits of each colour, not so much seeking the softness of effect which is his ultimate aim, as the precision which will enable the block or card cutter to see at a glance what he means,--even at the risk of a certain hardness in his drawing; for the drawing is in itself of no account; it is only the means to an end; and his end is the stuff, the paper, or whatever it may be, in execution. A workman intent on his design will sacrifice his drawing to it--harden it, as I said, for the sake of emphasis, annotate it, patch it, cut it up into pieces to prove it, if need be do anything to make his meaning clear to the workman who comes after him. It is as a rule only the dilettante who is dainty about preserving his drawings. To an artist very much in repute there may be some temptation to be careful of his designs, and to elaborate them (himself, or by the hands of his assistants), because, so finished, they have a commercial value as drawings--but this is at best pot-boiling; and the only men who are subject to this temptation are just those who might be proof against it. Men of such rank that even their working drawings are in demand have no very urgent need to work for the pot; and the working drawings of men to whom pounds and shillings must needs be a real consideration are not sought after. In the case of very smart and highly finished drawings by comparatively unknown designers--of ninety-nine out of a hundred, that is to say, or nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand perhaps--elaboration implies either that, having little to say, a man fills up his time in saying it at unnecessary length, or that he is working for exhibition. And why not work for exhibition? it may be asked. There is a simple answer to that: The exhibition pitch is in much too high a key, and in the long run it will ruin the faculty of the workman who adopts it. It is only fair to admit that an exhibition of fragmentary and unfinished drawings, soiled, tattered, and torn, as they almost invariably come from the workshop or factory, would make a very poor show--which may be an argument against exhibiting them at all. Certainly it is a reason for mending, cleaning, and mounting them, and putting them in some sort of frame (for what is not worth the pains of making presentable is not worth showing), but that is a very different thing from working designs up to picture pitch. When all is said, designs, if exhibited, appeal primarily to designers. _We_ all want to see each other's work, and especially each other's way of working; but it should not be altogether uninteresting to the intelligent amateur to see what working drawings are, and to compare them with the kind of specious competition drawings by which he is so apt to be misled. LEWIS F. DAY. FURNITURE AND THE ROOM The art of furnishing runs on two wheels--the room and the furniture. As in the bicycle, the inordinate development of one wheel at the expense of its colleague has been not without some great feats, yet too often has provoked catastrophe; so furnishing makes safest progression when, with a juster proportion, its two wheels are kept to moderate and uniform diameters. The room should be for the furniture just as much as the furniture for the room. Of late it has not been so; we have been indulging in the "disproportionately wheeled" type, and the result has been to crowd our rooms, and reduce them to insignificance. Even locomotion in them is often embarrassing, especially when the upholsterer has been allowed _carte blanche_. But, apart from this, there is a sense of repletion in these masses of chattel--miscellanies brought together with no subordination to each other, or to the effect of the room as a whole. Taken in the single piece, our furniture is sometimes not without its merit, but it is rarely exempt from self-assertion, or, to use a slang term, "fussiness." And an aggregation of "fussinesses" becomes fatiguing. One is betrayed into uncivilised longings for the workhouse, or even the convict's cell, the simplicity of bare boards and tables! But we must not use our dictum for aggressive purposes merely, faulty as modern systems may be. In the distinction of the two sides of the problem of furnishing--the room for the furniture, and the furniture for the room--there is some historical significance. Under these titles might be written respectively the first and last chapters in the history of this art--its rise and its decadence. Furniture in the embryonic state of chests, which held the possessions of early times, and served, as they moved from place to place, for tables, chairs, and wardrobes, may have been in existence while the tents and sheds which accommodated them were of less value. But furnishing began with settled architecture, when the room grew first into importance, and overshadowed its contents. The art of the builder had soared far beyond the ambitions of the furnisher. Later, the two constituents of our art came to be produced simultaneously, and under one impulse of design. The room, whether church or hall, had now its specific furniture. In the former this was adapted for ritual, in the latter for feasting; but in both the contents formed in idea an integral part of the interior in which they stood. And while these conditions endured, the art was in its palmy state. Later, furniture came to be considered apart from its position. It grew fanciful and fortuitous. The problem of fitting it to the room was no problem at all while both sprang from a common conception: it became so when its independent design, at first a foible of luxury, grew to be a necessity of production. As long, however, as architecture remained dominant, and painting and sculpture were its acknowledged vassals, furniture retained its legitimate position and shared in their triumphs. But when these the elder sisters shook off their allegiance, furniture followed suit. It developed the self-assertion of which we have spoken, and, in the belief that it could stand alone, divorced itself from that support which was the final cause of its existence. There have been doubtless many slackenings and tightenings of the chain which links the arts of design together; but it is to be noted how with each slackening furniture grew gorgeous and artificial, failed to sympathise with common needs, and sank slowly but surely into feebleness and insipidity. We had passed through some such cycle by the middle of this century. With the dissolution of old ties the majority of the decorative arts had perished. Painting remained to us, arrogating to herself the rôle which hitherto the whole company had combined to make successful. In her struggle to fill the giant's robe, she has run unresistingly in the ruts of the age. She has crowded her portable canvases, side by side, into exhibitions and galleries, and claimed the title of art for literary rather than æsthetic suggestions. The minor coquetries of craftsmanship, from which once was nourished the burly strength of art, have felt out of place in such illustrious company. So we have the forced art of public display, but it has ceased to be the habit in which our common rooms and homely walls could be dressed. The attendant symptom has been the loss from our houses of all that architectural amalgam, which in former times blended the structure with its contents, the screens and panellings, which, half room, half furniture, cemented the one to the other. The eighteenth century carried on the tradition to a great extent with plinth and dado, cornice and encrusted ceiling; but by the middle of the nineteenth we had our interiors handed over to us by the architect almost completely void of architectural feature. We are asked to take as a substitute, what is naïvely called "decoration," two coats of paint, and a veneer of machine-printed wall-papers. In this progress of obliteration an important factor has been the increasing brevity of our tenures. Three or four times in twenty years the outgoing tenant will make good his dilapidations, and the house-agent will put the premises into tenantable repair--as these things are settled for us by lawyers and surveyors. After a series of such processes, what can remain of internal architecture? Can there be left even a room worth furnishing, in the true sense of the term? The first step to render it so must usually be the obliteration of as much as possible of the maimed and distorted construction, which our leasehold house offers. What wonder, then, if furniture, beginning again to account herself an art, should have transgressed her limits and invaded the room? Ceilings, walls and floors, chimneypieces, grates, doors and windows, all nowadays come into the hands of the artistic furnisher, and are at the mercy of upholsterers and cabinetmakers to begin with, and of the antiquity-collector to follow. Then we bring in our gardens, and finish off our drawing-room as a mixture of a conservatory and a bric-à-brac shop. The fashion for archæological mimicry has been another pitfall. The attempt to bring back art by complete reproductions of old-day furnishings has been much the vogue abroad. The Parisians distinguish many styles and affect to carry them out in every detail. The Americans have copied Paris, and we have done a little ourselves. But the weak element in all this is, that the occupier of these mediæval or classic apartments remains still the nineteenth-century embodiment, which we meet in railway carriage and omnibus. We cannot be cultured Epicureans in a drawing-room of the Roman Empire, and by the opening of a door walk as Flemish Burgomasters into our libraries. The heart of the age will mould its productions irrespective of fashion or archæology, and such miserable shams fail to reach it. If we, who live in this century, can at all ourselves appraise the position, its most essential characteristic in its bearing upon art has been the commercial tendency. Thereby an indelible stamp is set upon our furniture. The making of it under the supreme condition of profitable sale has affected it in both its functions. On the side of utility our furniture has been shaped to the uses of the million, not of the individual. Hence its monotonously average character, its failure to become part of ourselves, its lack of personal and local charm. How should a "stock" article possess either? But the blight has fallen more cruelly on that other function, which is a necessity of human craftsmanship--the effort to express itself and please the eye by the expression. Art being the monopoly of "painting," and having nothing to do with such vulgar matters as furniture, commercialism has been able to advance a standard of beauty of its own, with one canon, that of speedy profits. Furniture has become a mere ware in the market of fashion. Bought to-day as the rage, it is discarded to-morrow, and some new fancy purchased. The tradesman has a new margin of profit, but the customer is just where he was. It may be granted that a genuine necessity of sale is the stimulus to which all serious effort in the arts must look for progress, and without which they would become faddism and conceit. But it is a different thing altogether when this passes from stimulus into motive--the exclusive motive of profit to the producer. The worth of the article is impaired as much as the well-being of the craftsman, and furniture is degraded to the position of a pawn in the game of the sweater. We must, I fear, be content at present to put up with exhibitions and unarchitectural rooms. But while making the best of these conditions, we need not acquiesce in them or maintain their permanence. At any rate we may fight a good fight with commercialism. The evils of heartless and unloving production, under the grind of an unnecessary greed, are patent enough to lead us to reflect that we have after all in these matters a choice. We need not spend our money on that which is not bread. We can go for our furniture to the individual craftsman and not the commercial firm. The penalty for so doing is no longer prohibitive. In closing our remarks we cannot do better than repeat our initial axiom--the art of furnishing lies with the room as much as with the furniture. The old ways are still the only ways. When we care for art sufficiently to summon her from her state prison-house of exhibitions and galleries, to live again a free life among us in our homes, she will appear as a controlling force, using not only painting and sculpture, but all the decorative arts to shape room and furniture under one purpose of design. Whether we shall then give her the time-honoured title of architecture, or call her by another name, is of no moment. EDWARD S. PRIOR. OF THE ROOM AND FURNITURE The transient tenure that most of us have in our dwellings, and the absorbing nature of the struggle that most of us have to make to win the necessary provisions of life, prevent our encouraging the manufacture of well-wrought furniture. We mean to outgrow our houses--our lease expires after so many years and then we shall want an entirely different class of furniture; consequently we purchase articles that have only sufficient life in them to last the brief period of our occupation, and are content to abide by the want of appropriateness or beauty, in the clear intention of some day surrounding ourselves with objects that shall be joys to us for the remainder of our life. Another deterrent condition to making a serious outlay in furniture is the instability of fashion: each decade sees a new style, and the furniture that we have acquired in the exercise of our experienced taste will in all probability be discarded by the impetuous purism of the succeeding generation. At present we are suffering from such a catholicity of taste as sees good in everything, and has an indifferent and tepid appreciation of all and sundry, especially if consecrated by age. This is mainly a reaction against the austerity of those moralists who preached the logic of construction, and who required outward proof of the principles on which and by which each piece was designed. Another cause prejudicial to the growth of modern furniture is the canonisation of old. That tables and chairs should have lasted one hundred years is indeed proof that they were originally well made: that the conditions of the moment of their make were better than they are now is possible, and such aureole as is their due let us hasten to offer. But, to take advantage of their survival and to increase their number by facsimile reproduction is to paralyse all healthy growth of manufacture. As an answer to the needs and habits of our ancestors of one hundred years ago--both in construction and design--let them serve us as models showing the attitude of mind in which we should meet the problems of our day--and so far as the needs and habits of the present time are unchanged, as models of form, not to be incorporated with our vernacular, but which we should recognise as successful form, and discover the plastic secrets of its shape. With this possession we may borrow what forms we will--shapes of the Ind and far Cathay--the whole wide world is open to us--of past imaginations and of the dreams of our own. But without this master-key the copying is slavish, and the bondage of the task is both cruel and destructive. Cruel, because mindless, work can be reproduced more rapidly than thoughtful work can be invented, and the rate of production affects the price of other articles of similar kind, so that the one dictates what the other shall receive; and destructive, because it treats the craftsman as a mere machine, whose only standard can be mechanical excellence. Now, all furniture that has any permanent value has been designed and wrought to meet the ends it had to serve, and the careful elaboration of it gave its maker scope for his pleasure and occasion for his pride. If a man really likes what he has got to do, he will make great shifts to express and realise his pleasure; he will choose carefully his materials, and either in playfulness of fancy, or in grave renunciation of the garniture of his art, will put the stamp of his individuality on his work. An example of living art in modern furniture is a costermonger's barrow. Affectionately put together, carved and painted, it expresses almost in words the pride and taste of its owner. As long as we are incapable of recognising and sympathising with the delight of the workman in the realisation of his art, our admiration of his work is a pretence, and our encouragement of it blind--and this blindness makes us insensitive as to whether the delight is really there or no; consequently our patronage will most often be disastrous rather than helpful. The value of furniture depends on the directness of its response to the requirements that called it into being, and to the nature of the conditions that evoked it. To obtain good furniture we must contrive that the conditions of its service are worthy conditions, and not merely the dictates of our fancy or our sloth. At the present moment modern furniture may be roughly divided into two classes: furniture for service, and furniture for display. Most of us, however, have to confine ourselves to the possession of serviceable furniture only; and a more frank recognition of this limitation would assist us greatly in our selection. If only we kept our real needs steadily before us, how much more beauty we could import into our homes! Owing to lack of observation, and of experienced canons of taste, our fancies are caught by some chance object that pleases--one of that huge collection of ephemeral articles which "have been created to supply a want" that hitherto has never been felt--and as the cost of these fictions is (by the nature of the case) so low as to be of no great moment to us, the thing is purchased and helps henceforth to swell the museum of incongruous accumulation that goes by the name of a "furnished drawing-room." A fancy, so caught, is soon outworn, but the precept of economy forbids the discharge of the superfluous purchase, and so it adds its unit to the sum of daily labour spent on its preservation and its appearance. This burden of unnecessary toil is the index of the needlessness and cruelty with which we spend the labour of those whom need has put under our service. And the sum of money spent on these ill-considered acquisitions which have gone to swell the general total of distress, an ever-widening ring of bitter ripple, might, concentrated, have purchased some one thing, both beautiful and useful, whose fashioning had been a pleasure to the artificer, and whose presence was an increasing delight to the owner and an added unit to this world's real wealth. Such indiscriminate collection defeats its own aim. Compare the way Giovanni Bellini fits up St. Jerome's study for him in the National Gallery. There is no stint of money evidently; the Saint gets all that he can properly want, and he gets over and above--the addition born of his denial--the look of peace and calm in his room, that can so seldom be found with us. Another reason why our rooms are so glaringly over-furnished is, that many of us aim at a standard of profusion, in forgetfulness of the circumstances which created that standard. Families, whose descent has been historic, and whose home has been their pride, accumulate, in the lapse of time, heirlooms of many kinds--pictures, furniture, trinkets, etc.--and as these increase in numbers, the rooms in which they are contained become filled and crowded beyond what beauty or comfort permits, and such sacrifice is justly made for the demands of filial pride. This emotion is so conspicuously an honourable one that we are all eager to possess and give scope to our own, and so long as the scope is honest there is nothing more laudable. But the temptation is to add to our uninherited display in this particular by substitutes, and to surround ourselves with immemorable articles, the justification of whose presence really should be that they form part of the history of our lives in more important respects than the mere occasions of their purchase. It is this unreasoning ambition that leads to the rivalling of princely houses by the acquisition of "family portraits purchased in Wardour Street"--the rivalling of historic libraries by the purchase of thousands of books to form our yesterday's libraries of undisturbed volumes--the rivalling of memorable chairs and tables, by recently bought articles of our own, crowded in imitation of our model with innumerable trifles, to the infinite tax of our space, our patience, and our purse. Our want of care and restraint in the selection of our furniture affects both its design and manufacture. Constantly articles are bought for temporary use--we postponing the responsibility of wise purchase until we have more time, or else we buy what is not precisely what we want but which must do, since we cannot wait to have the exact things made, and have not the time to search elsewhere for them. Furniture, in response to this demand, must be made either so striking as to arrest the eye, or so variedly serviceable as to meet some considerable proportion of the conflicting requirements made on it by the chance intending purchaser, or else it must fall back on the impregnable basis of antiquity and silence all argument with the canon that what the late Mr. Chippendale did was bound to be "good taste." "There should be a place for everything, and everything in its place." Very true. But in the exercise of our orderliness we require the hearty co-operation of the "place" itself. 'Tis a wonderful aid when the place fits the object it is intended to contain. Take the common male chest of drawers as a case in point. Its function is to hold a man's shirts and his clothes, articles of a known and constant size. Why are the drawers not made proportionate for their duty? Why are they so few and so deep that when filled--as they needs must be--they are uneasy to draw out, and to obtain the particular article of which we are in quest, and which of course is at the bottom, we must burrow into the heavy super-incumbent mass of clothes in our search, and--that successful--spend a weary while in contriving to repack the ill-disposed space. It can hardly be economy of labour and material that dictates this, for--if so--why is the usual hanging wardrobe made so preposterously too tall? Does the idiot maker suppose that a woman's dress is hung all in one piece, body and skirt, from the nape of the neck, to trail its extremest length? The art of buying furniture, or having it made for us, is to be acquired only by study and pains, and we must either pursue the necessary education, or depute the furnishing of our rooms to competent hands: and the responsibility does not end here, for there is the duty of discovering who are competent, and this must be done indirectly since direct inquiry only elicits the one criterion, omnipotent, omnipresent, of cost. The object to be gained in furnishing a room is to supply the just requirements of the occupants, to accentuate or further the character of the room, and to indicate the individual habits and tastes of the owner. Each piece should be beautiful in itself, and, still more important, should minister to and increase the beauty of the others. Collective beauty is to be aimed at; not so much individual. Proportion is another essential. Not that the proportions of furniture should vary with the size of the rooms: the dimensions of chairs, height of tables, sizes of doors, have long been all fixed and, having direct reference to the human body, are immutable. Substantially, the size of man's body is the same and has been the same from the dawn of history until now, and will be the same whether in a cottage parlour or the Albert Hall. But there is a proportion in the relations of the spaces of a room to its furniture which must be secured. If this is not done, no individual beauty of the objects in the room will repair the lost harmony or be compensation for the picture that might have been. A museum of beautiful objects has its educational value, but no one pretends that it claims to be more than a storehouse of beauty. The painter who crowds his canvas with the innumerable spots of colour that can be squeezed out of every tube of beautiful paint that the colourman sells, is no nearer his goal than he who fills his rooms with a heterogeneous miscellany of articles swept together from every clime and of every age. HALSEY RICARDO. THE ENGLISH TRADITION The sense of a consecutive tradition has so completely faded out of English art that it has become difficult to realise the meaning of tradition, or the possibility of its ever again reviving; and this state of things is not improved by the fact that it is due to uncertainty of purpose, and not to any burning fever of individualism. Tradition in art is a matter of environment, of intellectual atmosphere. As the result of many generations of work along one continuous line, there has accumulated a certain amount of ability in design and manual dexterity, certain ideas are in the air, certain ways of doing things come to be recognised as the right ways. To all this endowment an artist born in any of the living ages of art succeeded as a matter of course, and it is the absence of this inherited knowledge that places the modern craftsman under exceptional disabilities. There is evidence to prove the existence in England of hereditary crafts in which the son succeeded the father for generations, and to show that the guilds were rather the guardians of high traditional skill than mere trades unions; but there is surer proof of a common thread of tradition in certain qualities all along the line, which gave to English work a character peculiar to itself. Instances of genuine Gothic furniture are rare; in England at any rate it was usually simple and solid, sufficient to answer the needs of an age without any highly developed sense of the luxuries of life. It is not till the Renaissance that much material can be found for a history of English furniture. Much of the _motif_ of this work came from Italy and the Netherlands; indeed cabinet work was imported largely from the latter country. It was just here, however, that tradition stepped in, and gave to our sixteenth and seventeenth century furniture a distinctly national character. The delicate mouldings, the skilful turnings, the quiet inlays of ebony, ivory, cherry wood, and walnut, above all the breadth and sobriety of its design, point to a tradition of craftsmanship strong enough to assimilate all the ideas which it borrowed from other ages and other countries. Contrast, for instance, a piece of Tottenham Court Road marquetry with the mother-of-pearl and ebony inlay on an English cabinet at South Kensington. So far as mere skill in cutting goes there may be no great difference between the two, but the latter is charming, and the former tedious in the last degree; and the reason is that in the seventeenth century the craftsman loved his work, and was master of it. He started with an idea in his head, and used his material with meaning, and so his inlay is as fanciful as the seaweed, and yet entirely subordinated to the harmony of the whole design. Perhaps some of the best furniture work ever done in England was done between 1600 and 1660. I refer, of course, to the good examples, to work which depended for its effect on refined design and delicate detail, not to the bulbous legs and coarse carving of ordinary Elizabethan, though even this had a _naïveté_ and spontaneity entirely lacking in modern reproductions. After the Restoration, signs of French influence appear in English furniture, but the tradition of structural fitness and dignity of design was preserved through the great architectural age of Wren and Gibbs, and lasted till the latter half of the eighteenth century. If that century was not particularly inspired, it at least understood consummate workmanship. The average of technical skill in the handicrafts was far in advance of the ordinary trade work of the present day. Some curious evidences of the activity prevailing in what are called the minor arts may be found in _The Laboratory and School of Arts_, a small octavo volume published in 1738. The work of this period furnishes a standing instance of the value of tradition. By the beginning of the eighteenth century a school of carvers had grown up in England who could carve, with absolute precision and without mechanical aids, all such ornament as egg and tongue work, or the acanthus, and other conventional foliage used for the decoration of the mouldings of doors, mantelpieces, and the like. Grinling Gibbons is usually named as the founder of this school, but Gibbons was himself trained by such men as Wren and Gibbs, and for the source from which this work derives the real stamp of style one must go back to the austere genius of Inigo Jones. The importance of the architect, in influencing craftsmen in all such matters as this, cannot be overrated. He has, or ought to have, sufficient knowledge of the crafts to settle for the craftsman the all-important points of scale and proportion to the rest of the design; and this is just one of those points in which contemporary architecture, both as regards the education of the architect and current practice, is exceedingly apt to fail. Sir William Chambers and the brothers Adam were the last of the architects before the cataclysm of the nineteenth century who made designs for furniture with any degree of skill. In the latter half of the eighteenth century occur the familiar names of Chippendale, Heppelwhite, and Sheraton, and if these excellent cabinetmakers did a tenth of the work with which the dealers credit them, they must each have had the hundred hands of Gyas. The rosewood furniture inlaid with arabesques in thin flat brass, and made by Gillow at the end of the last century, is perhaps the last genuine effort in English furniture, though the tradition of good work and simple design died very hard in old-fashioned country places. The mischief began with the ridiculous mediævalism of Horace Walpole, which substituted amateur fancy for craftsmanship, and led in the following century to the complete extinction of any tradition whatever. The heavy attempts at furniture in the Greek style which accompanied the architecture of Wilkins and Soane were as artificial as this literary Gothic, and the two resulted in the chaos of art which found its expression in the great Exhibition of 1851. Three great qualities stamped the English tradition in furniture so long as it was a living force--steadfastness of purpose, reserve in design, and thorough workmanship. Take any good period of English furniture, and one finds certain well-recognised types consistently adhered to throughout the country. There is no difficulty in grasping their general characteristics, whereas the very genius of classification could furnish no clue to the labyrinth of nineteenth-century design. The men of these earlier times made no laborious search for quaintness, no disordered attempt to combine the peculiarities of a dozen different ages. One general type was adhered to because it was the legacy of generations, and there was no reason for departing from such an excellent model. The designers and the workmen had only to perfect what was already good; they made no experiments in ornament, but used it with nice judgment, and full knowledge of its effect. The result was that, instead of being forced and unreasonable, their work was thoroughly happy; one cannot think of it as better done than it is. The quality of reserve and sobriety is even more important. As compared with the later developments of the Renaissance on the Continent, English furniture was always distinguished by its simplicity and self-restraint. Yet it is this very quality which is most conspicuously absent from modern work. As a people we rather pride ourselves on the resolute suppression of any florid display of feeling, but art in this country is so completely divorced from everyday existence, that it never seems to occur to an Englishman to import some of this fine insular quality into his daily surroundings. It has been reserved for this generation to part company with the tradition of finished workmanship. Good work of course can be done, but it is exceedingly difficult to find the workman, and the average is bad. We have nothing to take the place of the admirable craftsmanship of the last century, which included not only great manual skill, but also an assured knowledge of the purpose of any given piece of furniture, of the form best suited for it, and the exact strength of material necessary, a knowledge which came of long familiarity with the difficulties of design and execution, which never hesitated in its technique, which attained a rightness of method so complete as to seem inevitable. Craftsmanship of this order hardly exists nowadays. It is the result of tradition, of the labour of many generations of cunning workmen. Lastly, as the complement of these lapses on the part of the craftsman, there has been a gradual decadence in the taste of the public. Science and mechanical ingenuity have gone far to destroy the art of the handicrafts. Art is a matter of the imagination, and of the skill of one's hands--but the pace nowadays is too much for it. Certainly from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century a well-educated English gentleman had some knowledge of the arts, and especially of architecture; the Earl of Burlington even designed important buildings, though not with remarkable success; but at any rate educated people had some insight into the arts, whether inherited or acquired. Nowadays good education and breeding are no guarantee for anything of the sort, unless it is some miscellaneous knowledge of pictures. Few people, outside the artists, and not too many of them, give any serious attention to architecture and sculpture, and consequently an art such as furniture, which is based almost entirely upon these, is hardly recognised by the public as an art at all. How much the artist and his public react upon each other is shown by the plain fact that up to the last few years they have steadily marched down hill together, and it is not very certain that they have yet begun to turn the corner. That our English tradition was once a living thing is shown by the beautiful furniture, purely English in design and execution, still to be seen in great houses and museums, but it is not likely that such a tradition will spring up again till the artists try to make the unity of the arts a real thing, and the craftsman grows callous to fashion and archæology, and the public resolutely turns its back on what is tawdry and silly. REGINALD BLOMFIELD. CARPENTERS' FURNITURE It requires a far search to gather up examples of furniture really representative in this kind, and thus to gain a point of view for a prospect into the more ideal where furniture no longer is bought to look expensively useless in a boudoir, but serves everyday and commonplace need, such as must always be the wont, where most men work, and exchange in some sort life for life. The best present-day example is the deal table in those last places to be vulgarised, farm-house or cottage kitchen. But in the Middle Ages things as simply made as a kitchen table, mere carpenters' framings, were decorated to the utmost stretch of the imagination by means simple and rude as their construction. Design, indeed, really fresh and penetrating, co-exists it seems only with simplest conditions. Simple, serviceable movables fall into few kinds: the box, cupboard, and table, the stool, bench, and chair. The box was once the most frequent, useful, and beautiful of all these; now it is never made as furniture. Often it was seat, coffer, and table in one, with chequers inlaid on the top for chess. There are a great number of chests in England as early as the thirteenth century. One type of construction, perhaps the earliest, is to clamp the wood-work together and beautifully decorate it by branching scrolls of iron-work. Another kind was ornamented by a sort of butter-print patterning, cut into the wood in ingenious fillings to squares and circles, which you can imitate by drawing the intersecting lines the compasses seem to make of their own will in a circle, and cutting down each space to a shallow V. This simple carpenter's decoration is especially identified with chests. The same kind of work is still done in Iceland and Norway, the separate compartments often brightly painted into a mosaic of colour; or patterns of simple scroll-work are made out in incised line and space. In Italy this charming art of incising was carried much farther in the _cassoni_, the fronts of which, broad planks of cypress wood, are often romantic with quite a tapestry of kings and ladies, beasts, birds, and foliage, cut in outline with a knife and punched with dots, the cavities being filled with a coloured mastic like sealing-wax. Panelling, rough inlaying in the solid, carving and painting, and casing with repoussé or pierced metal, or covering with leather incised into designs, and making out patterns with nail-heads, were all methods of decoration used by the maker of boxes: other examples, and those not the least stately, had no other ornament than the purfling at the edges formed by ingeniously elaborate dovetails fitting together like a puzzle and showing a pattern like an inlay. When people work naturally, it is as wearisome and unnecessary often to repeat the same design as to continually paint the same picture. Design comes by designing. On the one hand tradition carefully and continuously shapes the object to fill its use, on the other spontaneous and eager excursions are made into the limitless fields of beautiful device. Where construction and form are thus the result of a long tradition undisturbed by fashion, they are always absolutely right as to use and distinctive as to beauty, the construction being not only visible, but one with the decoration. Take a present-day survival, the large country cart, the body shaped like the waist of a sailing ship, and every rail and upright unalterably logical, and then decorated by quaint chamferings, the facets of which are made out in brightest paint. Or look at an old table, always with stretching rails at the bottom and framed together with strong tenons and cross pins into turned posts, but so thoughtfully done that every one is original and all beautiful. Turning, a delightful old art, half for convenience, half for beauty, itself comes down to us from long before the Conquest. The great charm in furniture of the simplest structure may best be seen in old illuminated manuscripts, where a chest, a bench, and against the wall a cupboard, the top rising in steps where are set out tall "Venice glasses," or a "garnish" of plate under a tester of some bright stuff, make up a whole of fairy beauty in the frank simplicity of the forms and the innocent gaiety of bright colour. Take the St. Jerome in his study of Dürer or Bellini, and compare the dignity of serene and satisfying order with the most beautifully furnished room you know: how vulgar our _good taste_ appears and how foreign to the end of culture--Peace. From records, and what remains to us, we know that the room, the hangings, and the furniture were patterned all over with scattered flowers and inscriptions--violets and the words "_bonne pensée_"; or vases of lilies and "pax," angels and incense pots, ciphers and initials, badges and devices, or whatever there be of suggestion and mystery. The panelling and furniture were "green like a curtain," as the old accounts have it; or vermilion and white, like some painted chairs at Knole; or even decorated with paintings and gilt gesso patterns like the Norfolk screens. Fancy a bed with the underside of the canopy having an Annunciation or spreading trellis of roses, and the chamber carved like one in thirteenth-century romance:-- "N'a el monde beste n'oisel Qui n'i soit ovré à cisel." If we would know how far we are from the soul of art, we have but to remember that all this, the romance element in design, the joy in life, nature, and colour, which in one past development we call Gothic, and which is ever the well of beauty undefiled, is not now so much impossible of attainment as entirely out of range with our spirit and life, a felt anachronism and affectation. All art is sentiment embodied in form. To find beauty we must consider what really gives us pleasure--pleasure, not pride--and show our unashamed delight in it; "and so, when we have leisure to be happy and strength to be simple we shall find Art again"--the art of the workman. W. R. LETHABY. OF DECORATED FURNITURE Decorated or "sumptuous" furniture is not merely furniture that is expensive to buy, but that which has been elaborated with much thought, knowledge, and skill. Such furniture cannot be cheap, certainly, but the real cost of it is sometimes borne by the artist who produces rather than by the man who may happen to buy it. Furniture on which valuable labour is bestowed may consist of--1. Large standing objects which, though actually movable, are practically fixtures, such as cabinets, presses, sideboards of various kinds; monumental objects. 2. Chairs, tables of convenient shapes, stands for lights and other purposes, coffers, caskets, mirror and picture frames. 3. Numberless small convenient utensils. Here we can but notice class 1, the large standing objects which most absorb the energies of artists of every degree and order in their construction or decoration. Cabinets seem to have been so named as being little strongholds--"offices" of men of business for stowing papers and documents in orderly receptacles. They are secured with the best locks procurable. They often contain secret drawers and cavities, hidden from all eyes but those of the owner. Nor are instances wanting of owners leaving no information on these matters to their heirs, so that casual buyers sometimes come in for a windfall, or such a catastrophe as befell the owner of Richard the Third's bed. It is not to be expected that elaborate systems of secret drawers and hiding-places should be contrived in cabinets of our time. Money and jewels are considered safer when deposited in banks. But, ingenuity of construction in a complicated piece of furniture must certainly be counted as one of its perfections. Sound and accurate joinery with well-seasoned woods, properly understood as to shrinkage and as to the relations between one kind of timber and another in these respects, is no small merit. Some old English cabinets are to be met with in the construction of which wood only is used, the morticing admirable, the boards, used to hold ends and divisions together from end to end, strained and secured by wedges that turn on pivots, etc. Furniture of this kind can be taken to pieces and set up, resuming proper rigidity _toties quoties_. To look at the subject historically, it seems that the cabinet, dresser, or sideboard is a chest set on legs, and that the "press," or cupboard (closet, not proper _cup_-board), takes the place of the panelled recess closed by doors, generally contrived, and sometimes ingeniously hidden, in the construction of a panelled room. The front of the elevated chest is hinged, and flaps down, while the lid is a fixture; the interior is more complicated than that of the chest, as its subdivisions are more conveniently reached. Before leaving this part of the subject, it is worth notice that the architectural, or rather architectonic, character seems to have deeply impressed the makers of cabinets when the chest-type had gradually been lost. Italian, German, English, and other cabinets are often found representing a church front or a house front, with columns, doors, sometimes ebony and ivory pavements, etc. Next as to methods of decorating cabinets, etc. The kind which deserves our first attention is that of sculpture. Here, undoubtedly, we must look to the Italians as our masters, and to that admirable school of wood-carving which maintained itself so long in Flanders, with an Italian grace grafted on the ingenuity, vigour, and playfulness of a northern race. Our English carvers, admirable craftsmen during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, seem to have been closely allied with the contemporary Flemings. Fronts of cabinets, dressers, chimneypieces, etc., were imported from Belgium and were made up by English joiners with panelling, supplemented with carving where required, for our great houses. But the best Italian carving remains on chests and chest fronts which were made in great numbers in the sixteenth century. Some of these chests are toilet chests; some have formed wall-seats, laid along the sides of halls and galleries to hold hangings, etc., when the house was empty, and have served as seats or as "monumental" pieces when company was received. As the chest grew into the cabinet, or bureau, or dresser, great attention was paid to the supports. It need hardly be pointed out that, for the support of seats, tables, etc., animals, typical of strength or other qualities--the lion or the sphinx, the horse, sometimes the slave--have been employed by long traditional usage. And carvers of wood have not failed to give full attention to the use and decoration of conventional supports to the furniture now under discussion. They are made to unite the central mass to a shallow base, leaving the remaining space open. Next to sculptured decoration comes incrusted. The most costly kinds of material, precious stones, such as lapis lazuli, agate, rare marbles, etc., have been employed on furniture surfaces. But such work is rather that of the lapidary than of the cabinetmaker. It is very costly, and seems to have been confined, in fact, to the factories kept up in Italy, Russia, and other states, at government expense. We do not produce them in this country; and the number of such objects is probably limited wherever we look for them. Incrustation of precious woods is a more natural system of wood-decoration. Veneered wood, which is laid on a roughened surface with thin glue at immense pressure, if well made, is very long-lived. The woods used give a coloured surface, and are polished so as to bring the colour fully out, _and_ to protect the material from damp. In fine examples the veneers form little pictures, or patterns, either by the arrangement of the grain of the pieces used, so as to make pictorial lines by means of the grain itself, or by using woods of various colours. A very fine surface decoration was invented, or carried to perfection, by André Charles Boule, for Louis XIV. It is a veneer of tortoise-shell and brass, with occasional white metal. An important element in Boule decoration is noticeable in the chiselled angle mounts, lines of moulding, claws, feet, etc., all of which are imposed, though they have the general character of metal angle supports. In fact, the tortoise-shell is held by glue, and the metal by fine nails of the same material, the heads of which are filed down. Incrustation, or _marquetry_, of this kind is costly, and most of it is due to the labours of artists and craftsmen employed by the kings of France at the expense of the Government. A considerable quantity of it is still made in that country. Now as to the way in which sculptors, or incrusters, should dispose of their decoration, and the fidelity to nature which is to be expected of them, whether in sculpture or wood mosaic, _i.e._ wood painting. First, we may suppose they will concentrate their more important details in recognisable divisions of their pieces, or in such ways that a proportion and rhythm shall be expressed by their dispositions of masses and fine details; placing their figures in central panels, on angles, or on dividing members; leaving some plain surface to set off their decorative detail; and taking care that the contours of running mouldings shall not be lost sight of by the carver. But how far is absolute natural truth, even absolute obedience to the laws of his art in every particular of his details, to be expected from the artist? We cannot doubt that such absolute obedience is sometimes departed from intentionally and with success. All Greek sculpture is not always absolutely true to nature nor as beautiful as the sculptor, if free, could have made it. Statues are conventionalised, decorative scrolls exaggerated, figures turned into columns for good reasons, and in the result successfully. In furniture, as in architecture, carved work or incrustation is not _free_, but is in _service_; and compromises with verisimilitude to nature, even violence, may sometimes be required on details in the interests of the entire structure. Next let a word or two be reserved for Painted Furniture. Painting has been employed on furniture of all kinds at many periods. The ancients made theirs of bronze, or of ivory, carved or inlaid. In the Middle Ages wood-carving and many kinds of furniture were painted. The coronation chair at Westminster was so decorated. The chest fronts of Delli and other painters are often pictures of great intrinsic merit, and very generally these family chest fronts are valuable records of costumes and fashions of their day. In this country the practice of painting pianoforte cases, chair-backs, table-tops, panels of all sorts, has been much resorted to. Distinguished painters, Angelica Kauffmann and her contemporaries, and a whole race of coach-painters have left monuments of their skill in this line. It must suffice here to recall certain modern examples, _e.g._ a small dresser, now in the national collections, with doors painted by Mr. Poynter, with spirited figures representing the _Beers_ and the _Wines_; the fine piano case painted by Mr. Burne-Jones; another by Mr. Alma Tadema; lastly, a tall clock-case by Mr. Stanhope, which, as well as other promising examples, have been exhibited by the Arts and Crafts Society. J. H. POLLEN. OF CARVING It is not uncommon to see an elaborate piece of furniture, in decorating which it is evident that the carver has had opportunity for the exercise of all his skill, and which, indeed, bears evidence of the most skilful woodcutting on almost every square inch of its surface, from the contemplation of which neither an artist nor an educated craftsman can derive any pleasure or satisfaction. This would seem to point to the designer of the ornament as the cause of failure, and the writer of this believes that in such cases it will generally be found that the designer, though he may know everything that he ought to know about the production of designs which shall look well on paper or on a flat surface, has had no experience, by actually working at the material, of its difficulties, special capabilities, or limitations. If at the same time he has had but a limited experience of the difference in treatment necessary for carving which is to be seen at various altitudes, his failure may be taken as sufficiently accounted for. An idea now prevalent that it is not advisable to make models for wood-carving is not by any means borne out by the experience of the writer of this paper. Models are certainly not necessary for ordinary work, such as mouldings, or even for work in panels when the surfaces are intended to be almost wholly on one plane, but the carved decoration of a panel, which pretends to be in any degree a work of art, often depends for its effect quite as much on the masterly treatment of surface planes, and the relative projection from the surface of the more prominent parts, as upon the outline. Now, there are many men who, though able to carve wood exquisitely, have never given themselves the trouble, or perhaps have scarcely had the opportunity, to learn how to read an ordinary drawing. The practice obtains in many carving shops for one or two leading men to rough out (_viz._ shape out roughly) all the work so far as that is practicable, and the others take it up after them and finish it. The followers are not necessarily less skilful carvers or cutters than the leaders, but have, presumably, less knowledge of form. If, then, one wishes to avail oneself of the skill of these men for carrying out really important work, it is much the simpler way to make a model (however rough) which shall accurately express everything one wishes to see in the finished work; and, assuming the designer to be fairly dexterous in the use of clay or other plastic material, a sketch model will not occupy any more of his time than a drawing would. To put it plainly, no designer can ever know what he ought to expect from a worker in any material if he has not worked in that material himself. If he has carved marble, for instance, he knows the extreme care required in under-cutting the projecting parts of the design, and the cost entailed by the processes necessary to be employed for that purpose. He therefore so arranges the various parts of his design that wherever it is possible these projecting portions shall be supported by other forms, so avoiding the labour and cost of relieving (or under-cutting) them; and if he be skilful his skill will appear in the fact that his motive in this will be apparent only to experts, while to others the whole will appear to grow naturally out of the design. Moreover, he knows that he must depend for the success of this thing on an effect of breadth and dignity. He is not afraid of a somewhat elaborate surface treatment, being aware that nearly any variety of surface which he can readily produce in clay may be rendered in marble with a reasonable amount of trouble. In designing for the wood-carver he is on altogether different ground. He may safely lay aside some portion of his late dignity, and depend almost entirely on vigour of line; the ease with which under-cutting is done in this material enabling him to obtain contrast by the use of delicately relieved forms. Here, however, he must not allow the effect in his model to depend in any degree on surface treatment. Care in that respect will prevent disappointment in the finished work. The most noticeable feature in modern carved surface decoration is the almost universal tendency to overcrowding. It appears seldom to have occurred to the craftsman or designer that decorating a panel, for instance, is not at all the same thing as covering it with decoration. Still less does he seem to have felt that occasionally some portions of the ground are much more valuable in the design than anything which he can put on them. Indeed, the thoughtful designer who understands its use and appreciates its value, frequently has more trouble with his ground than with anything else in the panel. Also, if he have the true decorative spirit, his mind is constantly on the general scheme surrounding his work, and he is always ready to subordinate himself and his work in order that it may enhance and not disturb this general scheme. We will suppose, for example, that he has to decorate a column with raised ornament. He feels at once that the outlines of that column are of infinitely more importance than anything which he can put on it, however ingenious or beautiful his design may be. He therefore keeps his necessary projecting parts as small and low as possible, leaving as much of the column as he can showing between the lines of his pattern. By this means the idea of strength and support is not interfered with, and the _tout ensemble_ is not destroyed. This may seem somewhat elementary to many who will read it. My excuse must be that one sees many columns in which every vestige of the outline is so covered by the carving which has been built round them, that the idea of their supporting anything other than their ornament appears preposterous. There has been no opportunity to do more than glance at such a subject as this in a space so limited; but the purposes of this paper will have been served if it has supplied a useful hint to any craftsman, or if by its means any designer shall have been induced to make a more thorough study of the materials within his reach. STEPHEN WEBB. INTARSIA AND INLAID WOOD-WORK Although decoration by inlaying woods of different colours must naturally have suggested itself in very early times, as soon indeed as there were workmen of skill sufficient for it, the history of this branch of art practically begins in the fifteenth century. It is eminently an Italian art, which according to Vasari had its origin in the days of Brunelleschi and Paolo Uccello; and it had its birth in a land which has a greater variety of mild close-grained woods with a greater variety of colour than Northern Europe. By the Italians it was regarded as a lower form of painting. Like all mosaic, of which art it is properly a branch, it has its limitations; and it is only so long as it confines itself to these that it is a legitimate form of decoration. Tarsia is at the best one of the minor decorative arts, but when well employed it is one that gives an immense deal of pleasure, and one to which it cannot be denied that the buildings of Italy owe much of their splendour. Their polished and inlaid furniture harmonises with the rare delicacy of their marble and mosaic, and goes far towards producing that air of rich refinement and elaborate culture which is to the severer styles and simpler materials of the North what the velvet-robed Senator of St. Mark was to the mail-clad feudal chief from beyond the Alps. As to its durability, the experience of four centuries since Vasari's time has proved that with ordinary care, or perhaps with nothing worse than mere neglect, Intarsia will last as long as painting. Its only real enemy is damp, as will be readily understood from the nature of the materials and the mode of putting them together. For though in a few instances, when the art was in its infancy, the inlaid pattern may have been cut of a substantial thickness and sunk into a solid ground ploughed out to receive it, this method was obviously very laborious, and admitted only of very simple design, for it is very difficult in this way to keep the lines of the drawing accurately. The recognised way of making Intarsia was, and is, to form both pattern and ground in thin veneers about 1/16 of an inch thick, which are glued down upon a solid panel. At first sight this method may appear too slight and unsubstantial for work intended to last for centuries, but it has, in fact, stood the test of time extremely well, when the work has been kept in the dry even temperature of churches and great houses, where there is neither damp to melt the glue and swell the veneer, nor excessive heat to make the wood shrink and start asunder. When these conditions were not observed, of course the work was soon ruined, and Vasari tells an amusing story of the humiliation which befell Benedetto da Majano, who began his career as an _Intarsiatore_, in the matter of two splendid chests which he had made for Matthias Corvinus, from which the veneers, loosened by the damp of a sea voyage, fell off in the royal presence. The veneers being so thin, it is of course easy to cut through several layers of them at once, and this suggested, or at all events lent itself admirably to the design of the earlier examples, which are generally arabesques symmetrically disposed right and left of a central line. If two dark and two light veneers are put together, the whole of one panel, both ground and pattern, can be cut at one operation with a thin fret saw; the ornamental pattern drops into the space cut out of the ground, which it, of course, fits exactly except for the thickness of the saw-cut, and the two half-patterns thus filled in are "handed" right and left, and so complete the symmetrical design. The line given by the thickness of the saw is then filled in with glue and black colour so as to define the outline, and additional saw-cuts are made or lines are engraved, and in either case filled in with the same stopping, wherever additional lines are wanted for the design. It only remains to glue the whole down to a solid panel, and to polish and varnish the surface, and it is then ready to be framed into its place as the back of a church stall, or the lining of a courtly hall, library, or cabinet. It was thus that the simpler Italian Intarsia was done, such as that in the dado surrounding Perugino's Sala del Cambio in his native city, where the design consists of light arabesques in box or some similar wood on a walnut ground, defined by black lines just as I have described. But like all true artists the Intarsiatore did not stand still. Having successfully accomplished simple outline and accurate drawing, he was dissatisfied until he could carry his art farther by introducing the refinement of shading. This was done at different times and by different artists in a variety of ways; either by inlaying the shadow in different kinds of woods, by scorching it with fire, or by staining it with chemical solutions. In the book desks of the choir at the Certosa or Charterhouse of Pavia, the effect of shading is got in a direct but somewhat imperfect way by laying strips of different coloured woods side by side. Each flower or leaf was probably built up of tolerably thick pieces of wood glued together in position, so that they could be sliced off in veneers and yield several flowers or leaves from the same block, much in the way of Tunbridge Wells ware, though the Italian specimens are, I believe, always cut _with_ the grain and not across it. The designs thus produced are very effective at a short distance, but the method is, of course, suitable only to bold and simple conventional patterns. The panels of the high screen or back to the stalls at the same church afford an instance of a more elaborate method. These splendid panels, which go all round the choir, contain each a three-quarter-length figure of a saint. Lanzi deservedly praises them as the largest and most perfect figures of _tarsia_ which he had seen. They date from 1486, and were executed by an Istrian artist, Bartolommeo da Pola, perhaps from the designs of Borgognone. The method by which their highly pictorial effect is produced is a mixed one, the shading being partly inlaid with woods of different colours, and partly obtained by scorching the wood with fire or hot sand in the manner generally in use for marqueterie at the present day. The inexhaustible patience as well as the fertility of resource displayed by Messer Bartolommeo is astonishing. Where the saw-cut did not give him a strong enough line he has inlaid a firm line of black wood, the high lights of the draperies are inlaid in white, the folds shaded by burning, and the flowing lines of the curling hair are all inlaid, each several tress being shaded by three narrow strips of gradated colour following the curved lines of the lock to which they belong. When it is remembered that there are some forty or more of these panels, each differing from the rest, the splendour as well as the laborious nature of the decoration of this unrivalled choir will be better understood. Of all the examples of pictorial Intarsia the most elaborate are perhaps those in the choir stalls of Sta. Maria Maggiore in Bergamo. They are attributed to Gianfrancesco Capo di Ferro, who worked from the designs of Lotto, and was either a rival or pupil of Fra Damiano di Bergamo, a famous master of the art. They consist of figure subjects and landscapes on a small scale, shaded with all the delicacy and roundness attainable in a tinted drawing, and certainly show how near Intarsia can approach to painting. Their drawing is excellent and their execution marvellous; but at the same time one feels that, however one may admire them as a _tour de force_, the limitations of good sense and proper use of the material have been reached and overstepped. When the delicacy of the work is so great that it requires to be covered up or kept under glass, it obviously quits the province of decorative art; furniture is meant to be used, and when it is too precious to be usable on account of the over-delicate ornament bestowed upon it, it must be admitted that the ornament is out of place, and, therefore, bad art. The later Italian Intarsia was betrayed into extravagance by the dexterity of the craftsman. The temptation before which he fell was that of rivalling the painter, and as he advanced in facility of technique, and found wider resources at his command, he threw aside not only those restraints which necessity had hitherto imposed, but also those which good taste and judgment still called him to obey. In the plain unshaded arabesques of the Sala del Cambio, and even in the figure panels of the Certosa, the treatment is purely decorative; the idea of a plane surface is rightly observed, and there is no attempt to represent distance or to produce illusory effects of relief. Above all, the work is solid and simple enough to bear handling; the stalls may be sat in, the desks may be used for books, the doors may be opened and shut, without fear of injury to their decoration. Working within these limits, the art was safe; but they came in time to be disregarded, and in this, as in other branches of art, the style was ruined by the over-ingenuity of the artists. Conscious of their own dexterity, they attempted things never done before, with means quite unsuited to the purpose, and with the sole result that they did imperfectly and laboriously with their wooden veneers, their glue-pot, and their chemicals, what the painter did with crayon and brush perfectly and easily. Their greatest triumphs after they began to run riot in this way, however interesting as miracles of dexterity, have no value as works of art in the eyes of those who know the true principles of decorative design; while nothing can be much duller than the elaborate playfulness of the Intarsiatore who loved to cover his panelling with sham book-cases, birds in cages, guitars, and military instruments in elaborate perspective. It would take too long to say much about the art in its application to furniture, such as tables, chairs, cabinets, and other movables, which are decorated with inlay that generally goes by the French name of marqueterie. Marqueterie and Intarsia are the same thing, though from habit the French title is generally used when speaking of work on a smaller scale. And as the methods and materials are the same, whether used on a grand or a small scale, so the same rules and restraints apply to both classes of design, and can no more be infringed with impunity on the door of a tall clock-case than on the doors of a palatial hall of audience. Nothing can be a prettier or more practical and durable mode of decorating furniture than marqueterie in simple brown, black, yellow, and white; and when used with judgment there is nothing to forbid the employment of dyed woods; while the smallness of the scale puts at our disposal ivory, mother-of-pearl, and tortoise-shell, materials which in larger works are naturally out of the question. Nothing, on the other hand, is more offensive to good taste than some of the overdone marqueterie of the French school of the last century, with its picture panels, and naturalesque figures, flowers, and foliage, straggling all over the surface, as if the article of furniture were merely a vehicle for the cleverness of the marqueterie cutter. Still worse is the modern work of the kind, whether English or foreign, of which so much that is hopelessly pretentious and vulgar is turned out nowadays, in which the aim of the designer seems to have been to cover the surface as thickly as he could with flowers and festoons of all conceivable colours, without any regard for the form of the thing he was decorating, the nature of the material he was using, or the graceful disposition and economy of the ornament he was contriving. T. G. JACKSON. WOODS AND OTHER MATERIALS The woods in ordinary use by cabinetmakers may be divided broadly into two classes, viz. those which by their strength, toughness, and other qualities are suitable for construction, and those which by reason of the beauty of their texture or grain, their rarity, or their costliness, have come to be used chiefly for decorative purposes--veneering or inlaying. There are certainly several woods which combine the qualities necessary for either purpose, as will be noticed later on. At present the above classification is sufficiently accurate for the purposes of this paper. The woods chiefly used in the construction of cabinet work and furniture are oak, walnut, mahogany, rosewood, satin-wood, cedar, plane, sycamore. The oak has been made the standard by which to measure all other woods for the qualities of strength, toughness, and durability. There are said to be nearly fifty species of oak known, but the common English oak possesses these qualities in a far greater degree than any other wood. It is, however, very cross-grained and difficult to manage where delicate details are required, and its qualities recommend it to the carpenter rather than to the furniture-maker, who prefers the softer and straight-grained oak from Turkey or wainscot from Holland, which, in addition to being more easily worked and taking a higher finish, is not so liable to warp or split. There is also a species called white oak, which is imported into this country from America, and is largely used for interior fittings and cabinet-making. It is not equal to the British oak in strength or durability, and it is inferior to the wainscot in the beauty of its markings. The better the quality of this oak, the more it shrinks in drying. Walnut is a favourite wood with the furniture-maker, as well as the carver, on account of its even texture and straight grain. The English variety is of a light grayish-brown colour, which colour improves much by age under polish. That from Italy has more gray in it, and though it looks extremely well when carved is less liked by carvers on account of its brittleness. It is but little liable to the attacks of worms. In the English kind, the older (and therefore, generally speaking, the better) wood may be recognised by its darker colour. Of mahogany there are two kinds, viz. those which are grown in the islands of Cuba and Jamaica, and in Honduras. The Cuba or Spanish mahogany is much the harder and more durable, and is, in the opinion of the writer, the very best wood for all the purposes of the cabinet or furniture maker known to us. It is beautifully figured, takes a fine polish, is not difficult to work, when its extreme hardness is taken into account, and is less subject to twisting and warping than any other kind of wood. It has become so costly of late years, however, that it is mostly cut into veneers, and used for the decoration of furniture surfaces. Honduras mahogany, or, as cabinetmakers call it, "Bay Wood," is that which is now in most frequent demand for the construction of the best kinds of furniture and cabinet work. It is fairly strong (though it cannot compare in that respect with Cuba or rosewood), works easily, does not shrink, resists changes of temperature without alteration, and holds glue well, all of which qualities specially recommend it for the purposes of construction where veneers are to be used. Many cabinetmakers prefer to use this wood for drawers, even in an oak job. Rosewood is one of those woods used indifferently for construction or for the decoration of other woods. Though beautiful specimens of grain and figure are often seen, its colour does not compare with good specimens of Cuba veneer. Its purple tone (whatever stains are used) is not so agreeable as the rich, deep, mellow browns of the mahogany; nor does it harmonise so readily with its surroundings in an ordinary room. It has great strength and durability, and is not difficult to work. Probably the best way to use it constructively is in the making of small cabinets, chairs, etc.--that is, if one wishes for an appearance of lightness with real strength. The writer does not here offer any opinion as to whether a piece of furniture, or indeed anything else, should or should not look strong when it really is so. Satin-wood, most of which comes from the West India islands, is well known for its fine lustre and grain, as also for its warm colour, which is usually deepened by yellow stain. It is much used for painted furniture, and the plain variety is liked by the carver. Cedar is too well known to need any description here. It is commonly believed that no worm will touch it, and it is therefore greatly in demand for the interior fitting of cabinets, drawers, etc. It is a straight-grained wood and fairly easy to work, though liable to split. It is impossible in a short paper like the present to do more than glance at a few of the numerous other woods in common use. Ebony has always been greatly liked for small or elaborate caskets or cabinets, its extreme closeness of grain and hardness enabling the carver to bring up the smallest details with all the sharpness of metal work. Sycamore, beech, and holly are frequently stained to imitate walnut, rosewood, or other materials; of these the first two are used constructively, but the latter, which takes the stain best, is nearly all cut into veneer, and, in addition to its use for covering large surfaces, forms an important element in the modern marquetry decorations. Bass wood, on account of its softness and the facility with which it can be stained to any requisite shade, is extensively used to imitate other woods in modern furniture of the cheaper sort. It should, however, never be used for furniture at all, as it has (as a cabinetmaker would say) no "nature" in it, and in the result there is no wear in it. Other woods, coming under the second category, as amboyna, coromandel, snake-wood, orange-wood, thuyer, are all woods of a beautiful figure, which may be varied indefinitely by cutting the veneers at different angles to the grain of the wood, and the tone may also be varied by the introduction of colour into the polish which is used on them. Coromandel wood is one of the most beautiful of these, but it is not so available as it would otherwise be on account of its resistance to glue. Orange-wood, when not stained, is very wasteful in use, as the natural colour is confined to the heart of the tree. Silver, white metal, brass, etc., are cut into a veneer of tortoise-shell or mother-of-pearl, producing a decorative effect which, in the opinion of the writer, is more accurately described as "gorgeous" than "beautiful." There are many processes and materials used to alter or modify the colour of woods and to "convert" one wood into another. Oak is made dark by being subjected to the fumes of liquid ammonia, which penetrate it to almost any depth. Ordinary oak is made into brown oak by being treated with a solution of chromate of potash (which is also used to convert various light woods into mahogany, etc.). Pearlash is used for the same purpose, though not commonly. For converting pear-tree, sycamore, etc., into ebony, two or more applications of logwood chips, with an after application of vinegar and steel filings, are used. A good deal of bedroom and other furniture is enamelled, and here the ground is prepared with size and whiting, and this is worked over with flake white, transparent polish, and bismuth. But by far the most beautiful surface treatment in this kind are the lacquers, composed of spirit and various gums, or of shellac and spirit into which colour is introduced. STEPHEN WEBB. OF MODERN EMBROIDERY If we wish to arrive at a true estimate of the value of modern embroidery, we must examine the work being sold in the fancy-work shops, illustrated in ladies' newspapers or embroidered in the drawing-rooms of to-day, and consider in what respect it differs from the old work such as that exhibited in the South Kensington Museum. The old embroidery and the modern differ widely--in design, in colour, and in material; nor would any one deny that a very large proportion of modern work is greatly inferior to that of past times. What, then, are the special characteristics of the design of the present day? Modern design is frequently very naturalistic, and seems rather to seek after a life-like rendering of the object to be embroidered than the decoration of the material to be ornamented. Then again it may be noted that modern designs are often ill adapted to the requirements of embroidery. This is probably because many of the people who design for embroidery do not understand it. Very often a design that has been made for this purpose would have been better suited to a wall paper, a panel of tiles, or a woven pattern. The designer should either be also an embroiderer or have studied the subject so thoroughly as to be able to direct the worker, for the design should be drawn in relation to the colours and stitches in which it is to be carried out. The more, indeed, people will study the fine designs of the past, and compare with them the designs of the art-needlework of the present, the more they will realise that, where the former is rich, dignified, and restrained, obedient to law in every curve and line, the latter is florid, careless, weak, and ignores law. And how finished that old embroidery was, and how full! No grudging of the time or the labour spent either on design or needlework; no scamping; no mere outlining. Border within border we often see, and all the space within covered up to the edges and into the corners. Contrast with this very much of our modern work. Let us take as an example one piece that was on view this summer at a well-known place in London where embroidery is sold. It is merely a type of many others in many other places. This was a threefold screen made of dark red-brown velveteen. All over it ran diagonal crossing lines coarsely worked in light silk, to imitate a wire trellis, with occasional upright supports worked in brown wool, imitating knotty sticks. Up one side of this trellis climbed a scrambling mass of white clematis; one spray wandering along the top fell a little way down the other side. Thus a good part of the screen was bare of embroidery, except for the trellis. Naturalism could not go much farther, design is almost absent, and the result is feeble and devoid of beauty. If we turn now to material, we shall find that embroidery, like some other arts, depends much for its excellence on the minor crafts which provide it with material; and these crafts supplied it with better material in former times than they do now. A stuff to be used as a ground for embroidery should have endless capacities for wear. This was a quality eminently possessed by hand-spun and hand-woven linen, which, with its rounded and separate thread, and the creamy tint of its partial bleaching, made an ideal ground for embroidery. Or if silk were preferred, the silks of past centuries were at once thick, firm, soft and pure, quite free from the dress or artificial thickening, by whose aid a silk nowadays tries to look rich when it is not. The oatmeal cloth, diagonal cloth, cotton-backed satin, velveteen and plush, so much used now, are very inferior materials as grounds for needlework to the hand-loom linens and silks on which so large a part of the old embroidery remaining to us was worked. And so very much of the beauty of the embroidery depends on the appropriateness of the material.[1] Cloth, serge, and plush are not appropriate; embroidery never looks half so well on them as on silk and linen. It is equally important that the thread, whether of silk, wool, flax, or metal, should be pure and as well made as it can be, and, if dyed, dyed with colours that will stand light and washing. Most of the silk, wool, and flax thread sold for embroidery is not as good as it should be. The filoselles and crewels very soon get worn away from the surface of the material they are worked on. The crewels are made of too soft a wool, and are not twisted tight enough, and the filoselles, not being made of pure silk, should never be used at all, pretty and soft though their effect undoubtedly is while fresh. Though every imaginable shade of colour can be produced by modern dyers, the craft seems to have been better understood by the dyers of times not very long past, who, though they may not have been able to produce so many shades, could dye colours which would wash and did not quickly fade, or when they faded merely lost some colour, instead of changing colour, as so many modern dyes do. The old embroidery is worked with purer and fewer colours; now all kinds of dull intermediate tints are used of gold, brown, olive, and the like, which generally fade rapidly and will not wash. Many people, admiring old embroidery and desiring to make their new work look like it at least in colour, will use tints as faint and delicate as the faded old colours, forgetting that in a few years their work will be almost colourless. It is wiser to use strong good colours, for a little fading does not spoil but really improves them. So we see that many things combine to render embroidery as fine as that of the past difficult of production, and there is nothing more against it than machinery, which floods the market with its cheap imitations, so that an embroidered dress is no longer the choice and rare production it once was; the machine-made imitation is so common and so cheap that a refined taste, sick of the vulgarity of the imitation, cares little even for the reality, and seeks refuge in an unornamented plainness. The hand-worked embroidery glorified and gave value to the material it was worked on. The machine-work cannot lift it above the commonplace. When will people understand that the more ornament is slow and difficult of production, the more we appreciate it when we have got it; that it is because we know that the thought of a human brain and the skill of a human hand went into every stroke of a chisel, every touch of a brush, or every stitch placed by the needle, that we admire, enjoy, and wonder at the statue, the picture, or the needlework that is the result of that patience and that skill; and that we do not care about the ornament at all, and that it becomes lifeless always, and often vulgar, when it has been made at little or no cost by a machine which is ready at any moment to produce any quantity more of the same thing? All ornament and pattern was once produced by hand only, therefore it was always rare and costly and was valued accordingly. Fashions did not change quickly. It was worth while to embroider a garment beautifully, for it would be worn for years, for a lifetime perhaps; and the elaborately worked counterpane would cover the bed in the guest-chamber for more than one generation. These remarks must be understood to apply to the ordinary fancy-work and so-called "art-needlework" of the present day. Twenty years ago there would have been no ray of light in the depths to which the art of embroidery had fallen. Now for some years steady and successful efforts have been made by a few people to produce once more works worthy of the past glories of the art. They have proved to us that designers can design and that women can execute fine embroidery, but their productions are but as a drop in the ocean of inferior and valueless work. MARY E. TURNER. FOOTNOTES: [1] But cf. "Of Materials," p. 365. OF MATERIALS Almost every fabric that is good of its kind is suitable for a ground for needlework, and any thread of silk, linen, cotton, or wool, is suitable for laying on a web, with the purpose of decorating it. Yet these materials should not be wedded indiscriminately, every surface requiring its peculiar treatment; a loose woollen fabric, for example, being best covered with wool-work rather than with silk. Not that it is necessary to work in linen thread on linen ground, in silk on silk ground, and so forth; silk upon linen, silk on canvas, wool on linen, are legitimate, because suitable combinations; it being scarcely necessary to note that linen or wool threads should not be used on silk surface, as to place the poorer on the richer material would be an error in taste. Gold thread and precious stones will of course be reserved for the richer grounds, and the more elaborate kinds of work. A plain or a figured (damask) silk can be employed as a ground for needlework, the broken surface of a good damask sometimes enriching and helping out the design. If work is to be laid directly on silk ground, it should be rather open and light in character; if closer stitches are wanted, the principal forms are usually done on a canvas or linen backing, which is then cut out and "applied" to the final silk ground, the design being carried on and completed by lighter work of lines and curves, and by the enrichment of gold thread, and sometimes even precious stones. These two methods are a serious and dignified form of embroidery, and were often used by the great mediæval embroiderers on a rich figured or damask silk, and sometimes on plain silk, and sometimes on a silky velvet. It is not easy to procure absolutely pure "undressed" silk now, and pliable silk velvet of a suitable nature is still more difficult to obtain. Satin is, to my thinking, almost too shiny a surface for a ground, but it may, occasionally, be useful for small work. A sort of imitation called "Roman satin" is sometimes employed on account of its cheapness and effectiveness, I suppose, as it cannot be for its beauty; the texture, when much handled, being woolly and unpleasant. No one taking trouble to procure choice materials will think of making use of it. Floss silk lends itself particularly to the kind of needlework we are speaking of; there is no twist on it, the silk is pure and untouched, if properly dyed has a soft gloss, and a yielding surface that renders it quite the foremost of embroidery silks, though its delicate texture requires skilful handling. But avoid silks that profess to be floss with the difficulty in handling removed. If the old workers could use a pure untwisted floss, surely we can take the trouble to conquer this difficulty and do the same. Twisted silk, if used on a silk ground, should, I think, be rather fine; if thick and much twisted, it stands out in relief against the ground and gives a hard and ropy appearance. I am, in fact, assuming that work on so costly a material as pure thick silk is to be rather fine than coarse. Gold and silver thread is much used with silk, but it is almost impossible to keep the silver from tarnishing. Ordinary "gold passing," which consists of a gilt silver thread wound round silk, is also apt to tarnish, and should always be lacquered before using--a rather troublesome process to do at home, as the gold has to be unwound and brushed over with the lacquer, and should be dried in a warm room free from damp, or on a hot sunny day. Japanese paper-gold is useful, for the reason that it does not tarnish, though in some ways it is more troublesome to manage than the gold that can be threaded in a needle and passed through the material. It consists, like much of the ancient gold thread, of a gilded strip of paper wound round silk, the old gold being gilded vellum, when not the flat gold beaten out thin (as, by the bye, in many of the Eastern towels made to-day where the flat tinsel is very cleverly used). For needlework for more ordinary uses, linen is by far the most pleasing and enduring web. Unlike silk on the one side, and wool on the other, it has scarcely any limitations in treatment, or in material suitable to be used on it. For hangings it can be chosen of a loose large texture, and covered with bold work executed in silk, linen thread, or wool, or it can be chosen of the finest thread, and covered with minute delicate stitches; it can be worked equally well in the hand, or in a frame, and usually the more it is handled the better it looks. A thick twisted silk is excellent for big and coarse work on linen, the stitches used being on the same scale, big and bold, and finer silk used sparingly if needed. White linen thread is often the material employed for linen altar cloths, coverlets, etc., and some extremely choice examples of such work are to be seen in our museums, some worked roughly with a large linen thread and big stitches, some with patient minuteness. It is hardly necessary to say how important the design of such work is. Different qualities of this material will be suggested to the embroideress by her needs; but, before passing to other things, I should not omit mention of the charming linen woven at Langdale. For some purposes it is very useful, as good linen for embroidering on is not easy to obtain. We have, however, yet to find a web which will resemble the rougher and coarser linens used for old embroideries, rather loosely woven, with a thick glossy thread, and of a heavy yet yielding substance, quite unlike the hard paper-like surfaces of machine-made linens. The Langdale linen is, of course, hand-spun and hand-made, and the flat silky thread gives a very pleasant surface; but, owing to its price and fine texture, it is not always suitable for the purposes of large hangings. Many fine examples of Persian work, such as quilts and so forth, are executed on a white cotton ground, neither very fine nor very coarse, entirely in floss silk, a variety of stitches being used, and the brightest possible colours chosen. The cool silky surface of linen, however, commends itself more to us than cotton, each country rightly choosing the materials nearest to hand, in this as in other decorative arts. Both linen and cotton are good grounds for wool-work, of which the most satisfactory kind is that done on a large scale, with a variety of close and curious stitches within bold curves and outlines. Canvas and net are open textures of linen or cotton, and can be used either as a ground-work covered entirely with some stitch like the old-fashioned cross-stitch or tent-stitch, or some kindred mechanical stitch, or it can stand as the ground, to be decorated with bright silks. The texture of canvas being coarse, the design for it should be chosen on a large scale, and thick silk used; floss preferably as the glossiest, but a thick twisted silk is almost equally effective, and rather easier to handle. This canvas is used frequently in seventeenth-century Italian room-hangings, either in the natural brownish colour, or dyed blue or green, the dye on it giving a dusky neutral colour which well shows up the richness of the silk. Of woollen materials, cloth is the king; though as a ground for needle-decoration it has its limitations. It forms a good basis for appliqué, the groups of ornament being worked separately, and laid on the cloth with threads and cords of silk, gold, or wool, according to the treatment decided on. Rough serge gives a good surface for large open wool-work. Such work is quickly done, and could be made a very pleasing decoration for walls. See the delightful inventories of the worldly goods of Sir John Fastolf in the notes to the Paston Letters, where the description of green and blue worsted hangings, and "bankers" worked over with roses and boughs, and hunting scenes, make one long to emulate the rich fancies of forgotten arts, and try to plan out similar work, much of which was quite unambitious and simple, both in design and execution. "Slack," a slightly twisted wool, worsted and crewel are usually the forms of work used; of these slack wool is the pleasantest for large work, worsted being too harsh; crewel is very fine and much twisted,[1] often met with in old work of a fine kind. The advantage of wool over silk in cost is obvious, and renders it suitable for the commoner uses of life, where lavishness would be out of place. MAY MORRIS. FOOTNOTES: [1] Crewel, crull, curly:-- "His locks were crull as they were laid in press," says Chaucer of the Squire in _The Canterbury Tales_. COLOUR It is not unusual to hear said of textiles and embroideries, "I like soft quiet colouring; such and such is too bright." This assertion is both right and wrong; it shows an instinctive pleasure in harmony combined with ignorance of technique. To begin with, colour cannot be too bright in itself; if it appears so, it is the skill of the craftsman that is at fault. It will be noted in a fine piece of work that far from blazing with colour in a way to disturb the eye, its general effect is that of a subdued glow; and yet, on considering the different shades of the colours used, they are found to be in themselves of the brightest the dyer can produce. Thus I have seen in an old Persian rug light and dark blue flowers and orange leaves outlined with turquoise blue on a strong red ground, a combination that sounds daring, and yet nothing could be more peaceful in tone than the beautiful and complicated groups of colours here displayed. Harmony, then, produces this repose, which is demanded instinctively, purity and crispness being further obtained by the quality of the colours used. Thus in blues, use the shades that are only obtained satisfactorily by indigo dye, with such modifications as slightly "greening" with yellow when a green-blue is wanted, and so forth. The pure blue of indigo,[1] neither slaty nor too hot and red on the one hand, nor tending to a coarse "peacock" green-blue on the other, is perfect in all its tones, and of all colours the safest to use in masses. Its modifications to purple on one side and green-blue on the other are also useful, though to be employed with moderation. There are endless varieties of useful reds, from pink, salmon, orange, and scarlet, to blood-red and deep purple-red, obtained by different dyes and by different processes of dyeing. Kermes, an insect dye, gives a very beautiful and permanent colour, rather scarlet. Cochineal, also an insect dye, gives a red, rather inferior, but useful for mixed shades, and much used on silk, of which madder and kermes are apt to destroy the gloss, the former a good deal, the latter slightly. Madder, a vegetable dye, "yields on wool a deep-toned blood-red, somewhat bricky and tending to scarlet. On cotton and linen all imaginable shades of red, according to the process."[2] Of the shades into which red enters, avoid over-abundant use of warm orange or scarlet, which are the more valuable (especially the latter) the more sparingly used; there is a dusky orange and a faint clear bricky scarlet, sometimes met with in old work, that do not need this reservation, being quiet colours of impure yet beautiful tone. Clear, full yellow, fine in itself, also loses its value if too plentifully used, or lacking due relief by other colours. The pure colour is neither reddish and hot in tone, nor greenish and sickly. It is very abundant, for example, in Persian silk embroidery, also in Chinese, and again in Spanish and Italian work of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The best and most permanent yellow dye, especially valuable on silk, is weld or "wild mignonette." Next to blue, green seems the most natural colour to live with, and the most restful to the eye and brain; yet it is curious to those not familiar with the ins and outs of dyeing that it should be so difficult to obtain through ordinary commercial channels a full, rich, permanent green, neither muddy yellow nor coarse bluish. A dyer who employed old-fashioned dye-stuffs and methods would, however, tell us that the greens of commerce are obtained by _messes_, and not by dyes, the only method for obtaining good shades being that of dyeing a blue of the depth required in the indigo-vat, and afterwards "greening" it with yellow, with whatever modifications are needed. Three sets of greens will be found useful for needlework, full yellow-greens of two or three shades, grayish-greens, and blue-greens. Of these, the shades tending to grayish-green are the most manageable in large masses. There is also an olive-green that is good, if not too dark and brown, when it becomes a nondescript, and as such to be condemned. Walnut (the roots or the husks or the nut) and catechu (the juice of a plant) are the most reliable brown dye-stuffs, giving good rich colour. The best black, by the bye, formerly used, consisted of the darkest indigo shade the material would take, dipped afterwards in the walnut root dye. This hasty enumeration of dye-stuffs gives an idea of those principally used until this century, but now very rarely, since the reign of Aniline. Yet they give the only really pure and permanent colours known, not losing their value by artificial light, and very little and gradually fading through centuries of exposure to sunlight. It would be pleasant if in purchasing silk or cloth one had not to pause and consider "will it fade?" meaning not "will it fade in a hundred, or ten, or three years?" but "will it fade and be an unsightly rag this time next month?" I cannot see that Aniline has done more for us than this. Colour can be treated in several different ways: by distinctly light shades, whether few or many, on a dark ground, which treatment lends itself to great variety and effect; or by dark on a light ground, not so rich or satisfying in effect; or again, by colour placed on colour of equal tone, as it were a mosaic or piecing together of colours united, or "jointed," by outlining round the various members of the design. Black on white, or white on white, a mere drawing of a design on the material, scarcely comes under the head of Colour, though, as aforesaid, some very beautiful work has been done in this way. As regards method of colouring, it is not very possible to give much indication of what to use and what to avoid, it being greatly a matter of practice, and somewhat of instinct, how to unite colour into beautiful and complex groups. A few hints for and against certain combinations may perhaps be given: for instance, avoid placing a blue immediately against a green of nearly the same tone; an outline of a different colour disposes of this difficulty, but even so, blue and green for equally leading colours should be avoided. Again, red and yellow, if both of a vivid tone, will need a softening outline; also, I think, red and green if at all strong; avoid cold green in contact with misty blue-green, which in itself is rather a pretty colour: the warning seems futile, but I have seen these colours used persistently together, and do not like the resulting undecided gray tone. A cold strong green renders service sometimes, notably for placing against a clear brilliant yellow, which is apt to deaden certain softer greens. Brown, when used, should be chosen carefully, warm in tint, but not _hot_; avoid the mixture of brown and yellow, often seen in "Art Depôts," but not in nature, an unfortunate groping after the picturesque, as brown wants cooling down, and to marry it to a flaming yellow is not the way to do it. Black should be used very sparingly indeed, though by no means banished from the palette. Blue and pink, blue and red, with a little tender green for relief, are perfectly safe combinations for the leading colours in a piece of work; again, yellow and green, or yellow, pink, and green, make a delightfully fresh and joyous show. There is a large coverlet to be seen at the South Kensington Museum (in the Persian gallery) which is worked in these colours, all very much the same bright tone, the centre being green and yellow and pink, and the several borders the same, with the order and proportion altered to make a variety. In recalling bright colouring like this, one is reminded of Chaucer and his unfailing delight in gay colours, which he constantly brings before us in describing garden, woodland, or beflowered gown. As-- "Everich tree well from his fellow grewe With branches broad laden with leaves newe That sprongen out against the sonne sheene Some golden red and some a glad bright grene." Or, again, the Squire's dress in the Prologue to _The Canterbury Tales_-- "Embrouded was he, as it were a mede Alle ful of freshe floures, white and rede." MAY MORRIS. FOOTNOTES: [1] For notes on the dyer's art and the nature of dye stuffs, see William Morris's essay on "Dyeing as an Art," p. 196. [2] William Morris, "Dyeing as an Art." STITCHES AND MECHANISM As a guiding classification of methods of embroidery considered from the technical point of view, I have set down the following heads:-- (a) Embroidery of materials in frames. (b) Embroidery of materials held in the hand. (c) Positions of the needle in making stitches. (d) Varieties of stitches. (e) Effects of stitches in relation to materials into which they are worked. (f) Methods of stitching different materials together. (g) Embroidery in relief. (h) Embroidery on open grounds like net, etc. (i) Drawn thread work; needlepoint lace. (j) Embroidery allied to tapestry weaving. In the first place, I define embroidery as the ornamental enrichment by needlework of a given material. Such material is usually a closely-woven stuff; but skins of animals, leather, etc., also serve as foundations for embroidery, and so do nets. (a) Materials to be embroidered may be either stretched out in a frame, or held loosely (b) in the hand. Experience decides when either way is the better. For embroidery upon nets, frames are indispensable. The use of frames is also necessary when a particular aim of the embroiderer is to secure an even tension of stitch throughout his work. There are various frames, some large and standing on trestles; in these many feet of material can be stretched out. Then there are small handy frames in which a square foot or two of material is stretched; and again there are smaller frames, usually circular, in which a few inches of materials of delicate texture, like muslin and cambric, may be stretched. Oriental embroiderers, like those of China, Japan, Persia, and India, are great users of frames for their work. (c) Stitches having peculiar or individual characteristics are comparatively few. Almost all are in use for plain needlework. It is through the employment of them to render or express ornament or pattern that they become embroidery stitches. Some embroiderers and some schools of embroidery contend that the number of embroidery stitches is almost infinite. This, however, is probably one of the myths of the craft. To begin with, there are barely more than two different positions in which the needle is held for making a stitch--one when the needle is passed more or less horizontally through the material, the other when the needle is worked more or less vertically. In respect of the first-named way, the point of the needle enters the material usually in two places, and one pull takes the embroidery thread into the material more or less horizontally, or along or behind its surface (Fig. 1). In the second, the needle is passed upwards from beneath the material, pulled right through it, and then returned downwards, so that there are two pulls instead of one to complete a single stitch. [Illustration: Fig. 1.--Stem Stitch--a peculiar use of short stitches.] A hooked or crochet needle with a handle is held more or less vertically for working a chain stitch upon the surface of a material stretched in a frame, but this is a method of embroidery involving the use of an implement distinct from that done with the ordinary and freely-plied needle. Still, including this last-named method, which comes into the class of embroidery done with the needle in a more or less vertical position, we do not get more than two distinctive positions for holding the embroidery needle. [Illustration: Fig. 2.--Chain Stitch.] (d) Varieties of stitches may be classified under two sections: one of stitches in which the thread is looped, as in chain stitch, knotted stitches, and button-hole stitch; the other of stitches in which the thread is not looped, but lies flatly, as in short and long stitches--crewel or feather stitches as they are sometimes called,--darning stitches, tent and cross stitches, and satin stitch. [Illustration: Fig. 3.--Satin Stitch.] Almost all of these stitches produce different sorts of surface or texture in the embroidery done with them. Chain stitches, for instance, give a broken or granular-looking surface (Fig. 2). This effect in surface is more strongly marked when knotted stitches are used. Satin stitches give a flat surface (Fig. 3), and are generally used for embroidery or details which are to be of an even tint of colour. Crewel or long and short stitches combined (Fig. 4) give a slightly less even texture than satin stitches. Crewel stitch is specially adapted to the rendering of coloured surfaces of work in which different tints are to modulate into one another. [Illustration: Fig. 4.--Feather or Crewel Stitch--a mixture of long and short stitches.] (e) The effects of stitches in relation to the materials into which they are worked can be considered under two broadly-marked divisions. The one is in regard to embroidery which is to produce an effect on one side only of a material; the other to embroidery which shall produce similar effects equally on both the back and front of the material. A darning and a satin stitch may be worked so that the embroidery has almost the same effect on both sides of the material. Chain stitch and crewel stitch can only be used with regard to effect on one side of a material. (f) But these suggestions for a simple classification of embroidery do not by any means apply to many methods of so-called embroidery, the effects of which depend upon something more than stitches. In these other methods cutting materials into shapes, stitching materials together, or on to one another, and drawing certain threads out of a woven material and then working over the undrawn threads, are involved. Applied or appliqué work is generally used in connection with ornament of bold forms. The larger and principal forms are cut out of one material and then stitched down to another--the junctures of the edges of the cut-out forms being usually concealed and the shapes of the forms emphasised by cord stitched along them. Patchwork depends for successful effect upon skill in cutting out the several pieces which are to be stitched together. Patchwork is a sort of mosaic work in textile materials; and, far beyond the homely patchwork quilt of country cottages, patchwork lends itself to the production of ingenious counterchanges of form and colour in complex patterns. These methods of appliqué and patchwork are peculiarly adapted to ornamental needlework which is to lie, or hang, stretched out flatly, and are not suited therefore to work in which is involved a calculated beauty of effect from folds. (g) There are two or three classes of embroidery in relief which are not well adapted to embroideries on lissome materials in which folds are to be considered. Quilting is one of these classes. It may be artistically employed for rendering low-relief ornament, by means of a stout cord or padding placed between two bits of stuff, which are then ornamentally stitched together so that the cord or padding may fill out and give slight relief to the ornamental portions defined by and enclosed between the lines of stitching. There is also padded embroidery or work consisting of a number of details separately wrought in relief over padding of hanks of thread, wadding, and such like. Effects of high relief are obtainable by this method. Another class, but of lower relief embroidery, is couching (Fig. 5), in which cords and gimps are laid side by side, in groups, upon the face of a material, and then stitched down to it. Various effects can be obtained in this method. The colour of the thread used to stitch the cords or gimp down may be different from that of the cords or gimp, and the stitches may of course be so taken as to produce small powdered or diaper patterns over the face of the groups of cords or gimp. Gold cords are often used in this class of work, which is peculiarly identified with ecclesiastical embroideries of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, as also with Japanese work of later date. [Illustration: Fig. 5.--A form of Embroidery in relief, called "Couching."] (h) The embroidery and work hitherto alluded to has been such as requires a foundation of a closely woven nature, like linen, cloth, silk, and velvet. But there are varieties of embroidery done upon netted or meshed grounds. And on to these open grounds, embroidery in darning and chain stitches can be wrought. For the most part the embroideries upon open or meshed grounds have a lace-like appearance. In lace, the contrast between close work and open, or partially open, spaces about it plays an important part. The methods of making lace by the needle, or by bobbins on a cushion, are totally distinct from the methods of making lace-like embroideries upon net. (i) Akin to lace and embroideries upon net is embroidery in which much of its special effect is obtained by the withdrawal of threads from the material, and then either whipping or overcasting in button-hole stitches the undrawn threads. The Persians and embroiderers in the Grecian Archipelago have excelled in such work, producing wondrously delicate textile grills of ingenious geometric patterns. In this drawn thread work, as it is called, we often meet with the employment of button-hole stitching, which is an important stitch in making needlepoint lace (Fig. 6). [Illustration: Fig. 6.--Button-hole Stitching, as used in needlepoint lace.] (j) We also meet with the use of a weaving stitch resembling in effect, on a small scale, willow weaving for hurdles. This weaving stitch, and the method of compacting together the threads made with it, are closely allied to that special method of weaving known as tapestry weaving. Some of the earliest specimens of tapestry weaving consist of ornamental borders, bands, and panels, which were inwoven into tunics and cloaks worn by Greeks and Romans from the fourth century before Christ, up to the eighth or ninth after Christ. The scale of the work in these is so small, as compared with that of large tapestry wall-hangings of the fifteenth century, that the method may be regarded as being related more to drawn thread embroidery than to weaving into an extensive field of warp threads. A sketch of the different employments of the foregoing methods of embroidery is not to be included in this paper. The universality of embroidery from the earliest of historic times is attested by evidences of its practice amongst primitive tribes throughout the world. Fragments of stitched materials or undoubted indications of them have been found in the remains of early American Indians, and in the cave dwellings of men who lived thousands of years before the period of historic Egyptians and Assyrians. Of Greek short and long stitch, and chain stitch and appliqué embroidery, there are specimens of the third or fourth century B.C. preserved in the Hermitage at St. Petersburg. Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans were skilful in the use of tapestry weaving stitches. Dainty embroidery, with delicate silken threads, was practised by the Chinese long before similar work was done in the countries west of Persia, or in countries which came within the Byzantine Empire. In the early days of that Empire, the Emperor Theodosius I. framed rules respecting the importation of silk, and made regulations for the labour employed in the _gynæcea_, the public weaving and embroidering rooms of that period, the development and organisation of which are traceable to the apartments allotted in private houses to the sempstresses and embroideresses who formed part of the well-to-do households of early classic times. ALAN S. COLE. DESIGN "_Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well._"--SOLOMON. "_Produce; produce; be it but the infinitesimallest product, produce._"--CARLYLE. For the last sixty years, ever since the Gothic Revival set in, we have done our best to resuscitate the art of embroidery. First the Church and then the world took up the task, and much admirable work has been done by the "Schools," the shops, and at home. And yet the verdict still must be "the old is better." Considering all things, this lack of absolute success is perplexing and needs to be explained. For we have realised our ideals. Never was a time when the art and science of needlework were so thoroughly understood as in England at the present moment. Our designers can design in any style. Every old method is at our fingers' ends. Every ingenious stitch of old humanity has been mastered, and a descriptive name given to it of our own devising. Every traditional pattern--wave, lotus, daisy, convolvulus, honeysuckle, "Sacred Horn" or tree of life; every animal form, or bird, fish or reptile, has been traced to its source, and its symbolism laid bare. Every phase of the world's primal schools of design--Egyptian, Babylonian, Indian, Chinese, Greek, Byzantine, European--has been illustrated and made easy of imitation. We are archæologists: we are critics: we are artists. We are lovers of old work: we are learned in historical and æsthetic questions, in technical rules and principles of design. We are colourists, and can play with colour as musicians play with notes. What is more, we are in terrible earnestness about the whole business. The honour of the British nation, the credit of Royalty, are, in a manner, staked upon the success of our "Schools of Needlework." And yet, in spite of all these favouring circumstances, we get no nearer to the old work that first mocked us to emulation in regard to power of initiative and human interest. Truth and gallantry prompt me to add, it is not in stitchery but in design that we lag behind the old. Fair English hands can copy every trick of ancient artistry: finger-skill was never defter, will was never more ardent to do fine things, than now. Yet our work hangs fire. It fails in design. Why? Now, Emerson has well said that all the arts have their origin in some enthusiasm. Mark this, however: that whereas the design of old needlework is based upon enthusiasm for birds, flowers, and animal life,[1] the design of modern needlework has its origin in enthusiasm for antique art. Nature is, of course, the groundwork of all art, even of ours; but it is not to Nature at first-hand that we go. The flowers we embroider were not plucked from field and garden, but from the camphor-scented preserves at Kensington. Our needlework conveys no pretty message of "The life that breathes, the life that lives," it savours only of the now stiff and stark device of dead hands. Our art holds no mirror up to Nature as we see her, it only reflects the reflection of dead periods. Nay, not content with merely rifling the _motifs_ of moth-fretted rags, we must needs turn for novelty to an old Persian tile which, well magnified, makes a capital design for a quilt that one might perchance sleep under in spite of what is outside! Or we are not ashamed to ask our best embroideresses to copy the barbaric wriggles and childlike crudities of a seventh-century "Book of Kells," a task which cramps her style and robs Celtic art of all its wonder. We have, I said, realised our ideals. We can do splendidly what we set ourselves to do--namely, to mimic old masterpieces. The question is, What next? Shall we continue to hunt old trails, and die, not leaving the world richer than we found it? Or shall we for art and honour's sake boldly adventure something--drop this wearisome translation of old styles and translate Nature instead? Think of the gain to the "Schools," and to the designers themselves, if we elect to take another starting-point! No more museum-inspired work! No more scruples about styles! No more dry-as-dust stock patterns! No more loathly Persian-tile quilts! No more awful "Zoomorphic" table-cloths! No more cast-iron-looking altar cloths, or Syon Cope angels, or stumpy Norfolk-screen saints! No more Tudor roses and pumped-out Christian imagery suggesting that Christianity is dead and buried! But, instead, we shall have design _by_ living men _for_ living men--something that expresses fresh realisations of sacred facts, personal broodings, skill, joy in Nature--in grace of form and gladness of colour; design that shall recall Shakespeare's maid who "... with her neeld composes Nature's own shape, of bud, bird, branch, or berry, That even Art sisters the natural roses." For, after all, modern design should be as the old--living thought, artfully expressed: fancy that has taken fair shapes. And needlework is still a pictorial art that requires a real artist to direct the design, a real artist to ply the needle. Given these, and our needlework can be as full of story as the Bayeux tapestry, as full of imagery as the Syon Cope, and better drawn. The charm of old embroidery lies in this, that it clothes current thought in current shapes. It meant something to the workers, and to the man in the street for whom it was done. And for our work to gain the same sensibility, the same range of appeal, the same human interest, we must employ the same means. We must clothe modern ideas in modern dress; adorn our design with living fancy, and rise to the height of our knowledge and capacities. Doubtless there is danger to the untrained designer in direct resort to Nature. For the tendency in his or her case is to copy outright, to give us pure crude fact and not to _design_ at all. Still there is hope in honest error: none in the icy perfections of the mere stylist. For the unskilled designer there is no training like drawing from an old herbal; for in all old drawing of Nature there is a large element of design. Besides which, the very limitations of the materials used in realising a design in needlework, be it ever so naturally coloured, hinders a too definite presentation of the real. For the professional stylist, the confirmed conventionalist, an hour in his garden, a stroll in the embroidered meadows, a dip into an old herbal, a few carefully-drawn cribs from Curtis's _Botanical Magazine_, or even--for lack of something better--Sutton's last Illustrated Catalogue, is wholesome exercise, and will do more to revive the original instincts of a true designer than a month of sixpenny days at a stuffy museum. The old masters are dead, but "the flowers," as Victor Hugo says, "the flowers last always." JOHN D. SEDDING. FOOTNOTES: [1] A strip of sixteenth-century needlework in my possession (6 ft. by 2 ft. 6 in.) figures thirty different specimens of plants, six animals, and four birds, besides ornamental sprays of foliage. ON DESIGNING FOR THE ART OF EMBROIDERY In every form of art the thing which is of primary importance is the question of Design. By Design I understand the inventive arrangement of lines and masses, for their own sake, in such a relation to one another, that they form a fine, harmonious whole: a whole, that is, towards which each part contributes, and is in such a combination with every other part that the result is a unity of effect, so completely satisfying us that we have no sense of demanding in it more or less. After this statement and definition let me proceed to touch briefly upon four points in relation to the matter, as it concerns itself with the art of Embroidery; and the first of these four points shall be this. Before you commence your design, consider carefully the conditions under which the finished work is to be seen. There is a tendency in embroidery to be too uniformly delicate and minute. To be too delicate, or even minute, in something which is always to be seen close under one's eyes is, it may be, impossible; but in an altar-cloth, a banner, a wall-hanging, this delicacy and minuteness are not merely thrown away, but they tend to make the thing ineffective. For such objects as these I have mentioned, the main lines and masses of the design should, it would seem in the nature of the case, be well emphasised; if they are well emphasised, and of course fine in their character and arrangement, there is produced a sense of largeness and dignity which is of the highest value, and for the absence of which no amount of curious workmanship will atone. In making your design, let these main lines and masses be the first things you attend to, and secure. Stand away at a distance, and see if they tell out satisfactorily, before you go on to put in a single touch of detail. For the second point: remember that embroidery deals with its objects as if they were all on the same plane. It has been sometimes described as the art of painting with the needle; but it necessarily and essentially differs from the art of painting in this, that it, properly, represents all things as being equally near to you, as laid out before you on the same plane. It would seem, therefore, to be a sound rule to fill the spaces, left for you by the arrangement of your main lines and masses, with such forms as shall occupy these spaces, one by one, completely; with such patterns, I mean, as shall appear to have their natural and full development within the limits of each space: avoid the appearance of one thing being behind the other, with portions of it cut off and obscured by what comes in front of it. But in this, as in so much else, an immense deal must be left to the instinct of the artist. Thirdly: aim at simplicity in the elements or motives of your design; do not crowd it with a score of different elements, which produce a sense of confusion and irritation, and, in reality, prove only a poverty of invention. A real richness of invention, as well as a richness of effect, lies in using one or two, perhaps at most three, elements, with variety in the treatment of them. Make yourself thoroughly master of the essential points, in whatever elements you choose as the basis of your design, before you set pencil to paper; and you will find in almost any natural form you fix upon more than enough to give you all the variety and richness you require, if you have sufficient natural fancy to play with it. Lastly: return again and again, and for evermore, to Nature. The value of studying specimens of old embroidery is immense; it makes you familiar with the principles and methods, which experience has found to be true and useful; it puts you into possession of the traditions of the art. He that has no reverence for the traditions of his art seals his own doom; he that is careless about them, or treats them with superciliousness, or will not give the time and pains necessary to understand them, but thinks to start off afresh along clean new lines of his own, stamps himself as an upstart--makes himself perhaps, if he is clever, a nine days' curiosity--but loses himself, by and by, in extravagances, and brings no fruit to perfection. The study of old work, then, is of the highest importance, is essential; the patient and humble study of it. But for what end? To learn principles and methods, to secure a sound foundation for oneself; not to slavishly imitate results, and live on bound hand and foot in the swaddling clothes of precedent. Learn your business in the schools, but go out to Nature for your inspirations. See Nature through your own eyes, and be a persistent and curious observer of her infinite wonders. Yet to see Nature in herself is not everything, it is but half the matter; the other half is to know how to use her for the purposes of fine art, to know how to translate her into the language of art. And this knowledge we acquire by a sound acquaintance with the essential conditions of whatever art we practise, a frank acceptance of these conditions, and a reverential appreciation of the teaching and examples of past workmen. Timidity and impudence are both alike fatal to an artist: timidity, which makes it impossible for him to see with his own eyes, and find his own methods; and impudence, which makes him imagine that his own eyes, and his own methods, are the best that ever were. SELWYN IMAGE. * * * * * _Printed by R. & R. CLARK, Edinburgh_ * * * * * A SELECTION FROM THE Recent Publications OF MESSRS. 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40023	----	MONOGRAMS AND CIPHERS [Illustration: ROYAL CIPHER] MONOGRAMS & CIPHERS DESIGNED AND DRAWN BY A. A. TURBAYNE AND OTHER MEMBERS OF THE CARLTON STUDIO [Illustration] LONDON T. C. & E. C. JACK & EDINBURGH INTRODUCTORY NOTE In laying out this book I have put into it the experience of many years of actual work in the designing of Monograms, Ciphers, Trade-Marks, and other letter devices. I have given the work much careful thought in order to present the most useful material, to give that material on a good workable scale, and in such a way that any design can be quickly found. By the arrangement of the designs the plates form their own index. On Plate II will be found combinations of AA, AB, AC; on Plate III combinations of AC, AD; on Plate IV, AE, AF, AG, etc. A device of MB would be looked for under the letter of the alphabet first in order, B; it will thus be found in the BM combinations on Plate XVI. Now the letters AA have only one reading; two different letters, AB, can be read in two ways; while AAB can be read in three ways; and ABC, or any three different letters, can be placed to read in six ways. A complete series of designs, AA, AB, BA, AC, CA, to ZZ, would run to 676 devices; add to this a series with a repeated letter, which would be the next in order, giving one reading only, AAB, BBA, etc., of which there are 650, and we get 1326 combinations. This would require, if carried out with nine designs on a plate, 147 plates. Our book was not to exceed 135 plates, and in addition to as complete a series as possible of two-letter designs, there were to be included some plates of sacred devices, designs of three different letters, and other matter which would make a work of practical use. By limiting the number of combinations containing the I and J, and the O and Q, which can easily be made interchangeable in the working, and giving but a single reading of most of the devices containing the letters X, Y, Z, which will be the least used, I have been able to present a good working selection of two letters and a repeated letter in 113 plates. Three different letters, as I have stated, can be read in six ways. Take, for instance, the first three letters of the alphabet, and we have-- ABC BAC CAB ACB BCA CBA Add a fourth letter to the three, and we have four times six, or twenty-four readings, as follows:-- ABCD BACD CABD DABC ABDC BADC CADB DACB ACBD BCAD CBAD DBAC ACDB BCDA CBDA DBCA ADBC BDAC CDAB DCAB ADCB BDCA CDBA DCBA It will thus be seen that books advertised as made up of three-and four-letter combinations must be very fragmentary, as anything like a complete work of these units would run to an enormous length. Now let us see what a work of three-letter designs would mean. ABC, ABD, etc., giving an alphabet of one reading only, would run to 2600 designs. A book of this sort would be of little use, as the design looked for would probably not be there, for every one of these 2600 groups can be placed to read six different ways; and to make a complete work of three-letter designs, with no repeat letters even, would require a showing of 15,600 Monograms or Ciphers. But what about the three letters, one of which is a repeat? A glance through any list of persons will show that these have a right to be included, though they do not occur as frequently as three different letters. Add these to the list for a complete three-letter book--there are 1976 of them, including 26 combinations where the three letters are the same, AAA, etc.--and we have 17,576 designs to be shown. Following the plan of nine designs on a plate, we would require 1953 plates, making a work of fourteen volumes the size of the present book. A bulky work of this sort would not only be unpractical, but the cost of production and the price at which such a work could be sold, would place it beyond the reach of most of those workers to whom we hope to appeal. In the plan I have adopted the book is practically a complete work of two-letter combinations in a single volume. A device of any two letters will always be readily found, which should be sufficient to furnish the designer or artisan with a base upon which to build a design of three or more letters. There is to-day a growing taste for severe chaste forms in printing types and lettering; the same influence is also directing a change of style in the more decorative Monogram and Cipher. The florid combinations of the last two centuries are gradually falling into disuse, and are giving place to the very simplest forms. The aim of the present work is towards simplicity, but in order that the book may appeal to various tastes, and thus be of greater value, examples of many styles are included. Each of these styles, while based on some familiar form which has long been in use, has had its pruning, and as much of the superfluous flourish not necessary to letter or design has been discarded. The styles included may be classed under five principal heads--Roman, Gothic, Sans Serif, Cursive or Running, and what I might call Rustic. These styles are treated in various ways, and in light and heavy letters. Here and there throughout the work a design will be found that may suggest a treatment for some particular device. These are odd pieces that have occurred to me as the plates were in progress, the execution of most of which would probably be more satisfactory in embroidery than any other medium. There are three principal forms of treating a device; I will call them the Imposed, Extended, and the Continuous forms. By the Imposed form I mean a design where the letters are written or interlaced directly over one another. In the Extended form the letters are interlaced or written side by side. In the Continuous form the device runs from beginning to end without a break. In the Imposed form the principal letter, whether it is first or final, should be accentuated, either by making it slightly larger, heavier, or in some other way best suited to the material in which it is being produced, it may be colour or texture. For the Extended form, if the letters are to be read in the order in which they follow one another, all may be treated alike. In this form, however, it is often advisable, for design and balance, especially when filling a circular space, to place the principal letter in the centre; in that case it may be drawn larger, and in some other way made more important. The Continuous form should read as the letters would be written, and care must betaken to place them so that they will not appear to read in some other way. It is intended that the Monograms and Ciphers shown in the following plates be considered as outlines only, as models or working drawings. The solid or tint grounds need not be taken as part of the design; they are intended to show which are planned in a round, and which in a square panel. There are but a few cases in which any detail is given that would apply to a particular craft, or suggest the material in which they are to be worked. Each artist or craftsman can use the forms, supplying his own detail to suit the technique of the work in hand. By this means the book should be equally useful to any craft. With this broad rendering it will be noticed that some of the designs do not appear to read in the order described; in such cases the important letter requires that detail which I have suggested in some instances with a tint or black. The order of description is followed throughout the book for the sake of easy reference; it is only departed from in a few places where one reading only is intended, as in the LRR on Plate LXXXIV, the continuous Monogram NMN on Plate LXXXVII, and the continuous Cipher WTW on Plate CX. Before proceeding further I should state the difference between a Monogram and a Cipher. This is necessary, as the two devices are constantly being miscalled; some authorities too, while correctly describing a Monogram, give a Cipher for illustration. A Monogram is a combination of two or more letters, in which one letter forms part of another and cannot be separated from the whole. A Cipher is merely an interlacing or placing together of two or more letters, being in no way dependent for their parts on other of the letters. Of the two classes Monograms are the more interesting, probably on account of their being more difficult to plan, though I think they are rarely as pleasing to the eye as the Cipher, except in the very severest forms. Compare the whole plate of Ciphers, CXIV, with the next plate, CXV, composed entirely of Monograms. The difficulty in designing Monograms does not so often lie in being able to plan the Monogram, as in being able to produce one that will be read by others, and where all the letters will read, and those only that are intended. When we begin to put two or three letters together that are made up of one another into a single unit, other letters are suggested or occur in the device not intended; or again, two or three of the letters will be so apparent that the third or fourth will only be known to the designer or owner. Take, for instance, the PQR on Plate CXV; the small device is the better one of the two, but few will read it other than PQ, QR, or PR. Personally I prefer a design that is a little obscure, if the lines are good, if it is a fine piece of ornament. A Monogram or Cipher is in all cases intended for ornament, whether used as a mark of ownership by private individuals, or for a company, or a trade-mark. For purposes of commerce it is of course important that the device should be distinct and easily read. The same might apply also to the design for a club or society mark. For private use, however, where the device is to enrich a piece of jewellery, plate, the binding of a book, a piece of furniture, or part of the decoration of a house, it should in the first place be a good design. If the conceit is legible to the owner, and is of such fine proportion as to be thoroughly satisfying to the eye, why should it read like an advertisement, or be like 'Everything in the shop marked in plain figures'? Some of the most beautiful Ciphers I have seen are to be found on old French bindings, many of which would be unintelligible if we did not know for whom the books were bound. These Ciphers form in many instances the sole decoration of the binding, sometimes but a single impression appearing on each side, yet the book satisfies one as being perfectly decorated. This is so often the case with the Monogram and Cipher--it may be the only ornament that is to enrich a fine piece of workmanship--that in such places it should be a piece of choice design. This brings us to that disputed point in this branch of art, the reversing of letters. For my own part I have no hesitation whatever in reversing a letter, or turning it upside down, or any other way, if it will produce a good piece of ornament. It is just as easy to fill a space, and fill it with good balance, with the letters facing as we are accustomed to see them, but this method will rarely produce that grace, beauty of line, and easy balance that letters of similar form turned toward one another will give. As an instance of this I would go no further than a single illustration which must be familiar to all--the Monogram HDD of Henry II and Diana of Poitiers--Henri Deux, Diane. It matters not where we find this, in the decoration of a ceiling, in enamel or painted ornament, or as a tooled book-binding, it has a dignity and feeling of easy repose that is never tiring. It would have been just as simple for the designer to have made a Monogram of these letters without reversing one of the D's, but no other possible arrangement would give the grace of line we find in this device. Another excuse for the reversing or turning upside down of a letter is, that when the letters A, B, C, D, E, K, M, N, S, V, W, and Y occur repeated, you often get by turning a letter over or upside down a design that will read the same from all points of view. This advantage must be apparent to all, where the Monogram or Cipher is to be seen from different positions, as it will be, for instance, in the top of an inlaid table, a ceiling, a tiled or inlaid floor, or in the decoration of some small object like a finely bound book that will lie on a table, and on many a piece of the goldsmith's and silversmith's work. The H, I, N, O, S, X, and Z can be drawn in Roman so as to appear the same upside down, and do not require to be turned over or stood on their heads; but with the letters A, M, V, W, and Y, though they will not require reversing where two occur in a combination, one will have to be turned upside down to make the design read the same from all points of view. If there are only the two letters, this will be simple, but if three or four letters are to be put together, it will depend on what the third or fourth letter is whether this is possible or not. I do not hold with doubling one of the letters in a device simply to turn over and make symmetry. If there is not a repeat letter, or a letter of similar form in the combination of letters to be put together, all letters should be doubled if symmetry, or reading from various points of view, must be had. On Plate LXXXV will be found a Cipher LT, planned without reversing to read the same upside down; a third letter, H, N, O, S, X, or Z, could be introduced without altering the LT, so that the combination of three letters would read in the same way, whether looked at from the top or the bottom. There are but few letters that will plan in this way. When it is required of a design that it will read from all points of view, Roman letters will usually be found to give the most satisfactory result. Intermixture of styles should always be avoided. If the Roman and Gothic are found too severe to suit a given subject, the Cursive and Rustic letters with their easy flowing lines can be made to fill almost any space one will be called upon to fill with either Monogram or Cipher. A device besides being of one style of letter should also be pure as a whole; plan either a Monogram or a Cipher, but don't combine the two. The only excuse that might be advanced for the mongrel form, would be where a combination of three or more letters contained conjoined or hyphened words, represented by, say, AB-B or BC-D. Here the B-B and the C-D would form Monograms, the A and the B separate letters interlaced into them. I have given illustrations of this mixed device on Plate II, BBA; and on Plate XLII, EEO. For this last device there is no excuse, except as a trade-mark to be written quickly; a circle with three horizontal strokes, an upright stroke connecting the three in the centre, forming a solid device, EEO, on the lines of the Cipher FFO on Plate XLIX. When planning a device avoid, if it is at all possible to do so, having three lines crossing at the same point, making three planes. There is always a confusion in the interlacing if there are more than two planes, which produces a clumsy appearance in the design. There are cases when slanting or curved lines come across a straight line, where three crossings could only be avoided by contorting one of the letters; in such a place it will be better to allow the three planes. Examples of Ciphers having three crossings at one point will be found on Plate XL, KE, Plate LXXXIX, MMT, and on Plate XCI, YM. Ciphers not interwoven, but placed side by side forming decorative lines, will be found on Plates XXIII, XXXIX, XLVII, and LX. One with the letters written one within another, a useful form for trademarks, is the CCG on Plate XXII. A number of the plates have the nine designs carried out in one style. These should be useful as examples of the different characters of letters, as specimen pages for styles. I have grouped them under four heads as follows:-- =ROMAN.= Plate LXXXI, light. Plate LXXXII, light, with cord and tassel. Plate LXXXVII, uniform stroke, small serifs. Plate XCVII, sans serif, with cord and tassel. =GOTHIC.= Plate XII, heavy. Plate LXXXVIII, light, pointed. Plate XCII, heavy, ending in leaf-forms. Plate XCIII, heavy, suggesting low relief, for stone-or wood-carving. Plate C, black-letter. =CURSIVE.= Plates XIII and XV, foliated, embroidery. Plate LXXXIII, continuous. Plate LXXXIV, half-cursive, upright. Plate LXXXV, slanting. Plate LXXXVI, upright, uniform stroke. Plate XC, cursive-Roman, thin, uniform stroke. Plate XCIX, light, upright, flourish. =RUSTIC.= Plate XI, jewellery. Plate XX, two-colour. Plate XXXV, flourish. Plates XCI, XCIV, XCV, and XCVI, upright. Plate XCVIII, quill-rustic. * * * * * Monograms and Ciphers of three different letters will be found on Plates CXIV, CXV, and CXVI. On Plates CXVII to CXXI are firm-marks of two letters joined with the Ampersand, &. Plates CXXII to CXXVII show an alphabet with the '& Co.,' examples being given in round and square form. The last one of these plates contains also five examples of Numerals in Cipher, 1905, 1906, 1907, 1908, and 1909. Sacred Devices and Names fill Plates CXXVIII to CXXXII. Plates CXXXIII and CXXXIV are made up of Labels and three-letter Monograms. The letters for the Monograms are taken at random from a list of authors. The last plate, CXXXV, is a suggestion for the decorative treatment of Sacred Inscriptions in Monogram and Cipher, following the style of the Italian Renaissance. One plate has been added to the work, engraved by Mr. Thomas Moring, which shows some few ways in which these designs can be intelligently interpreted for a particular craft. It also shows how the character of a design may be preserved while a change is made in the letters or in their position. Plate L of the work was taken as the model. The PPF has been altered to EPF; the FQ transposed and made to read QF; FR to read FE; and RF to read RS. In the FFR the R has been made into a P, an R substituted for the reversed F, and with a slightly different treatment of the second F, the whole made to read RFP. In the sixth design the reversed R has been turned back, a very slight difference of treatment in all the letters being necessary to plan this well. The last three designs continue in the same way. A comparison of the engraved plate with Plate L will show with what little alteration a different character or reading can be introduced into a design. I trust there will be found something in this book to please all tastes, if only a single device. For any errors there may be in the work I am alone responsible. In the drawing of the plates I have been ably assisted by different members of the studio. I am also indebted for the whole of Plate X. One error has passed me unnoticed till the part was published. What should have been DP, on Plate XXXIV, I have drawn OP; this, though a correct Cipher, is out of place on this plate. A. A. TURBAYNE. CARLTON STUDIO, LONDON, _March 1906_. MONOGRAMS AND CIPHERS [Illustration: SUGGESTIONS AS TO VARYING TREATMENT BY THE ENGRAVER OF THE DESIGNS IN THIS WORK] [Illustration: VARIOUS TREATMENTS OF THE SAME DESIGN PLATE I--AA] [Illustration: PLATE II--AA, AB, AC] [Illustration: PLATE III--AC, AD] [Illustration: PLATE IV--AE, AF, AG] [Illustration: PLATE V--AG, AH, AI] [Illustration: PLATE VI--AI, AJ, AK] [Illustration: PLATE VII--AL, AM, AN] [Illustration: PLATE VIII--AN, AO, AP] [Illustration: PLATE IX--AP, AQ, AR, AS] [Illustration: PLATE X--AS, AT, AU] [Illustration: PLATE XI--AV, AW, AX, AY, AZ] [Illustration: PLATE XII--BB, BC, BD] [Illustration: PLATE XIII--BE, BF, BG] [Illustration: PLATE XIV--BG, BH, BI] [Illustration: PLATE XV--BI, BJ, BK, BL] [Illustration: PLATE XVI--BL, BM, BN] [Illustration: PLATE XVII--BN, BO, BP] [Illustration: PLATE XVIII--BQ, BR, BS] [Illustration: PLATE XIX--BT, BU, BV] [Illustration: PLATE XX--BV, BW, BX, BY, BZ] [Illustration: PLATE XXI--CC, CD, CE] [Illustration: PLATE XXII--CF, CG, CH] [Illustration: PLATE XXIII--CH, CI, CJ] [Illustration: PLATE XXIV--CJ, CK, CL] [Illustration: PLATE XXV--CL, CM, CN] [Illustration: PLATE XXVI--CO, CP, CQ] [Illustration: PLATE XXVII--CR, CS, CT] [Illustration: PLATE XXVIII--CT, CU, CV] [Illustration: PLATE XXIX--CV, CW, CX, CY, CZ] [Illustration: PLATE XXX--DD, DE, DF] [Illustration: PLATE XXXI--DG, DH, DI] [Illustration: PLATE XXXII--DI, DJ, DK] [Illustration: PLATE XXXIII--DK, DL, DM] [Illustration: PLATE XXXIV--DN, DO, DP] [Illustration: PLATE XXXV--DP, DQ, DR, DS] [Illustration: PLATE XXXVI--DS, DT, DU] [Illustration: PLATE XXXVII--DU, DV, DW, DX] [Illustration: PLATE XXXVIII--DY, DZ, EE, EF, EG] [Illustration: PLATE XXXIX--EG, EH, EI] [Illustration: PLATE XL--EJ, EK, EL] [Illustration: PLATE XLI--EL, EM, EN] [Illustration: PLATE XLII--EN, EO, EP, EQ] [Illustration: PLATE XLIII--EQ, ER, ES] [Illustration: PLATE XLIV--ES, ET, EU] [Illustration: PLATE XLV--EV, EW, EX, EY, EZ, FF] [Illustration: PLATE XLVI--FG, FH, FI] [Illustration: PLATE XLVII--FI, FJ, FK, FL] [Illustration: PLATE XLVIII--FL, FM, FN] [Illustration: PLATE XLIX--FN, FO, FP] [Illustration: PLATE L--FP, FQ, FR, FS] [Illustration: PLATE LI--FS, FT, FU] [Illustration: PLATE LII--FV, FW, FX, FY, FZ] [Illustration: PLATE LIII--GG, GH, GI, GJ] [Illustration: PLATE LIV--GJ, GK, GL] [Illustration: PLATE LV--GL, GM, GN] [Illustration: PLATE LVI--GO, GP, GQ] [Illustration: PLATE LVII--GQ, GR, GS] [Illustration: PLATE LVIII--GT, GU, GV] [Illustration: PLATE LIX--GV, GW, GX, GY, GZ, HH] [Illustration: PLATE LX--HI, HJ, HK] [Illustration: PLATE LXI--HK, HL, HM] [Illustration: PLATE LXII--HN, HO, HP] [Illustration: PLATE LXIII--HP, HQ, HR, HS] [Illustration: PLATE LXIV--HS, HT, HU] [Illustration: PLATE LXV--HU, HV, HW, HX, HY] [Illustration: PLATE LXVI--HZ, II, IJ, IK] [Illustration: PLATE LXVII--IL, IM, IN] [Illustration: PLATE LXVIII--IO, IP, IQ, IR] [Illustration: PLATE LXIX--IR, IS, IT, IU] [Illustration: PLATE LXX--IU, IV, IW, IX, IY, IZ] [Illustration: PLATE LXXI--JJ, JK, JL, JM] [Illustration: PLATE LXXII--JM, JN, JO] [Illustration: PLATE LXXIII--JO, JP, JQ, JR] [Illustration: PLATE LXXIV--JR, JS, JT] [Illustration: PLATE LXXV--JT, JU, JV, JW] [Illustration: PLATE LXXVI--JW, JX, JY, JZ, KK, KL] [Illustration: PLATE LXXVII--KM, KN, KO] [Illustration: PLATE LXXVIII--KO, KP, KQ] [Illustration: PLATE LXXIX--KR, KS, KT] [Illustration: PLATE LXXX--KT, KU, KV] [Illustration: PLATE LXXXI--KV, KW, KX, KY, KZ] [Illustration: PLATE LXXXII--LL, LM, LN] [Illustration: PLATE LXXXIII--LO, LP, LQ] [Illustration: PLATE LXXXIV--LQ, LR, LS] [Illustration: PLATE LXXXV--LT, LU, LV] [Illustration: PLATE LXXXVI--LV, LW, LX, LY, LZ] [Illustration: PLATE LXXXVII--MM, MN, MO] [Illustration: PLATE LXXXVIII--MP, MQ, MR] [Illustration: PLATE LXXXIX--MR, MS, MT] [Illustration: PLATE XC--MU, MV, MW] [Illustration: PLATE XCI--MW, MX, MY, MZ, NN, NO] [Illustration: PLATE XCII--NO, NP, NQ, NR] [Illustration: PLATE XCIII--NR, NS, NT] [Illustration: PLATE XCIV--NT, NU, NV, NW] [Illustration: PLATE XCV--NW, NX, NY, NZ, OO, OP] [Illustration: PLATE XCVI--OP, OQ, OR, OS] [Illustration: PLATE XCVII--OS, OT, OU, OV] [Illustration: PLATE XCVIII--OV, OW, OX, OY, OZ] [Illustration: PLATE XCIX--PP, PQ, PR, PS] [Illustration: PLATE C--PS, PT, PU] [Illustration: PLATE CI--PU, PV, PW, PX] [Illustration: PLATE CII--PY, PZ, QQ, QR, QS, QT] [Illustration: PLATE CIII--QT, QU, QW, QX, QY, QZ] [Illustration: PLATE CIV--RR, RS, RT] [Illustration: PLATE CV--RU, RV, RW] [Illustration: PLATE CVI--RW, RX, RY, RZ, SS, ST] [Illustration: PLATE CVII--ST, SU, SV, SW] [Illustration: PLATE CVIII--SW, SX, SY, SZ, TT, TU] [Illustration: PLATE CIX--TU, TV, TW] [Illustration: PLATE CX--TW, TX, TY, TZ, UU, UV] [Illustration: PLATE CXI--UW, UX, UY, UZ, VV] [Illustration: PLATE CXII--VW, VX, VY, VZ, WW, WX] [Illustration: PLATE CXIII--WY, WZ, XX, XY, XZ, YY, YZ, ZZ] [Illustration: PLATE CXIV--THREE-LETTER CIPHERS] [Illustration: PLATE CXV--THREE-LETTER MONOGRAMS] [Illustration: PLATE CXVI--THREE-LETTER CIPHERS AND MONOGRAM] [Illustration: PLATE CXVII--TWO LETTERS WITH THE &] [Illustration: PLATE CXVIII--TWO LETTERS WITH THE &] [Illustration: PLATE CXIX--TWO LETTERS WITH THE &] [Illustration: PLATE CXX--TWO LETTERS WITH THE &] [Illustration: PLATE CXXI--TWO LETTERS WITH THE &] [Illustration: PLATE CXXII--COMPANY CIPHERS] [Illustration: PLATE CXXIII--COMPANY CIPHERS] [Illustration: PLATE CXXIV--COMPANY CIPHERS] [Illustration: PLATE CXXV--COMPANY CIPHERS] [Illustration: PLATE CXXVI--COMPANY CIPHERS] [Illustration: PLATE CXXVII--COMPANY CIPHERS, YEARS] [Illustration: PLATE CXXVIII--SACRED DEVICES] [Illustration: PLATE CXXIX--SACRED DEVICES] [Illustration: PLATE CXXX--SACRED DEVICES] [Illustration: PLATE CXXXI--SACRED DEVICES] [Illustration: PLATE CXXXII--SACRED DEVICES] [Illustration: PLATE CXXXIII--LABELS AND MONOGRAMS] [Illustration: PLATE CXXXIV--LABELS AND MONOGRAMS] [Illustration: PLATE CXXXV--SACRED DEVICES] EDINBURGH T. and A. CONSTABLE Printers to His Majesty 
40311	----	produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive.) CHINA AND POTTERY MARKS GILMAN COLLAMORE & CO. INC. 15 EAST 56th STREET NEW YORK _Traditions and Old China_ _Copyright, 1920, Gilman Collamore & Company, Inc._ _Traditions and Old China_ From early days when the ancients showed their appreciation of fine pottery and old glassware by burying "these most esteemed possessions" with the dead, fine china has been synonymous with culture and breeding. With our ancestors for generations we share the tradition that, just as first editions give prestige to one's book shelves, old china or the finest work of the modern kilns express readily that good taste and discrimination that is characteristic of our old families. A wealth of association and historic data is to be acquired from the study of the "fabrique marks" and periods of the master craftsmen. If in America there was a general tendency toward acquiring, even a smattering, of this knowledge, there would be less of these drawing-room atrocities which Arthur Hayden in his "Chats on English Earthenware" points out, "To have a modern set of vases adorning a Georgian cabinet is like putting new wine in old bottles." For the convenience of the seasoned collector, as well as the beginner, in this book is a representative list of better known marks by which china can be identified. While it is not possible to include a complete list, particularly those of extremely rare specimens, those compiled have particular reference to the marks of English china which is greatly in demand by collectors. These will suffice to enable the reader to identify pieces whenever encountered. The signatures or mark which the master craftsmen in earth or clay signed their products, just as a painter signs his work, were often specially designed devices of various kinds, often a combination of initials and dates. Each "fabrique mark" stands for a certain potter's art just as the modern trade-mark. Beginning more than a half century ago in the old La Farge House in lower Broadway (where John La Farge was born) the house of Gilman Collamore and Company has done much to develop an appreciation of fine china in America. It was one of the first houses to bring over from England and France china, both modern and old, for its American clients. At this time many fine specimens of old china are on view as well as complete stocks from the modern English and Continental manufacture. GILMAN COLLAMORE & COMPANY, INC. 15 EAST 56TH STREET NEW YORK Germany and Austria [Illustration] DRESDEN MEISSEN. Established in 1709. Mark used to 1712, in blue. Hard paste. [Illustration] DRESDEN Mark used from 1712 to 1720, in blue. Hard paste. [Illustration] DRESDEN About 1720, mark in blue. Hard paste. [Illustration] DRESDEN 1730, mark in blue. Hard paste. [Illustration] DRESDEN 1796. MARCOLINI (Director) PERIOD. Mark in blue. Hard paste. [Illustration] DRESDEN Royal pieces only. Mark in blue. Hard paste. [Illustration] DRESDEN Present mark. This mark with two scratches across it shows imperfect pieces which may or may not have been decorated in the factory. Hard paste. [Illustration] VIENNA Established in 1718. This mark first used in 1744. Hard paste. Royal factory discontinued in 1864. [Illustration] BERLIN Established in 1751. Wegeleys' mark. Hard paste. [Illustration] BERLIN In 1763 became a royal establishment. Mark in blue. Sometimes an eagle added. [Illustration] BERLIN Different kind of sceptre. In blue. Hard paste. [Illustration] BERLIN An extra mark used in 1830 with the sceptre, which is the present mark. This mark complete is never used except with perfect pieces decorated in the factory. Decorated pieces bearing the blue sceptre mark only are decorated outside of the factory. [Illustration] HOCHST, near MAYENCE Founded in 1720. This mark, used about 1740, in gold, red, or blue. Hard paste. [Illustration] HOCHST, near MAYENCE Hard paste. [Illustration] FRANKENTHAL 1755 to 1761. First period. Hard paste. [Illustration] FRANKENTHAL 1799, second period. Carl Theodore. Hard paste. [Illustration] FRANKENTHAL Phillipp Hanong (Director). Hard paste. [Illustration] FRANKENTHAL Joseph Adam Hanong (Director). Hard paste. [Illustration] FRANKENTHAL John Hanong (Director). Hard paste. [Illustration] FRANKENTHAL 1800. Franz Bartolo (Director). Hard paste. [Illustration] NYMPHENBURG Established in 1747. Hard paste. [Illustration] NYMPHENBURG Hard paste. [Illustration] NYMPHENBURG An early mark in blue. Hard paste. [Illustration] FURSTENBURG Established in 1750. Hard paste. [Illustration] FURSTENBURG 1758. Hard paste. [Illustration] LUDWIGSBURG or KRONENBURG Established in 1758 to 1806. Hard paste. [Illustration] LUDWIGSBURG First period. Hard paste. [Illustration] LUDWIGSBURG Second period. Hard paste. [Illustration] LUDWIGSBURG Hard paste. Mark in blue. [Illustration] FULDA Established in 1763 to 1780. Hard paste. [Illustration] FULDA Hard paste. The arms of Fulda. [Illustration] RUDOLSTADT Established in 1758. Mark in blue. Hard paste. [Illustration] RAUENSTEIN Established in 1760. Hard paste. [Illustration] LIMBACH Established about 1761. Hard paste. [Illustration] LIMBACH Another mark. Hard paste. [Illustration] LIMBACH Another mark. Hard paste. [Illustration] GROSBREITENBACH Established about 1770. Hard paste. [Illustration] GROSBREITENBACH Hard paste. [Illustration] VOLKSTEDT Established 1762. C. V. sometimes added with the arms. Hard paste. [Illustration] VOLKSTEDT Another mark. Hard paste. [Illustration] VOLKSTEDT Another mark. Hard paste. [Illustration] ANSPACH Established about 1718. Hard paste. [Illustration] ANSPACH Generally accompanied by letter A. Hard paste. [Illustration] ANSPACH Hard paste. [Illustration] ANSPACH Hard paste. [Illustration] GOTHA Founded in 1780. Hard paste. Various marks. [Illustration] GERA Established about 1780. Marks in blue. Hard paste. [Illustration] ALT HALDENSTEBEN The factory of M. Nathusins. Hard paste. [Illustration] CHARLOTTENBURG Established in 1790. Hard paste. [Illustration] BADEN-BADEN Established in 1753 to 1788. The edge of the ax in gold. Hard paste. [Illustration] COLOGNE Factory of M. L. Cremer. Enameled Fayence. [Illustration] POPPLESDORF, near BONN Fayence and porcelain. [Illustration] STRASBOURG Established about 1752. Hard paste. [Illustration] NIDERVILLER Established in 1768. Hard paste. [Illustration] ELBOGEN in BOHEMIA Established in 1815. Hard paste. [Illustration] SCHLAKENWALD Established about 1800. Hard paste. [Illustration] LEHAMMER or PIRKENHAMMER, near CARLSBAD Founded in 1802. Hard paste. [Illustration] HEREND Established 1839. [Illustration] HEREND Another mark. Russia and Poland [Illustration] KORZEC Established about 1803. Hard paste. [Illustration] Moscow Established in 1787. Hard paste. [Illustration] ST. PETERSBURG Mark in blue. Hard paste. [Illustration] ST. PETERSBURG Mark of Empress Catherine II. 1762 to 1796. Mark in blue. Hard paste. [Illustration] ST. PETERSBURG Monogram of Nicholas I. 1825 to 1855. [Illustration] ST. PETERSBURG Established 1744. Mark in blue. Denmark [Illustration] COPENHAGEN Established in 1772. Mark in blue. Hard paste. Holland and Belgium [Illustration] AMSTERDAM Established in 1782. Mark in blue. Hard paste. [Illustration] AMSTERDAM Mark in blue. Hard paste. [Illustration] AMSTERDAM Mark in blue. Hard paste. [Illustration] TOURNEY Mark in gold represents a potter's kiln. Established in 1750. Soft paste. [Illustration] TOURNEY Mark in gold used after 1755. Soft paste. [Illustration] TOURNEY Used about 1755. Soft paste. [Illustration] HAGUE Factory established about 1775; ceased in 1785. Mark in gray. Hard paste. [Illustration] DELFT Joost Thooft and Labouchere. Present mark Fayence. Switzerland [Illustration] NYON Established in 1790. Hard paste. [Illustration] ZURICH Established about 1759. Mark in blue. Hard paste. Italy and Spain [Illustration] NOVE 1752. Mark in blue or red. Soft paste. [Illustration] VENICE Mark in red. Majolica. [Illustration] VENICE Soft paste. [Illustration] VENICE 1720 to 1740. Soft paste. Mark in red. [Illustration] VENICE Soft paste. Mark in red. [Illustration] TURIN Vineuf. Established about 1770. Dr. Gioanetti (Director). Soft paste. [Illustration] TURIN Vineuf. Another mark. Soft paste. [Illustration] DOCCIA Founded in 1735. Hard and soft paste. [Illustration] DOCCIA Hard and soft paste. Another mark. [Illustration] DOCCIA Hard and soft paste. Another mark. [Illustration] CAPO DI MONTE Founded in 1736. This mark used from 1759. Factory abandoned in 1821. Soft paste. [Illustration] CAPO DI MONTE Mark used from 1759. Soft paste. [Illustration] CAPO DI MONTE Soft paste. Other marks. [Illustration] MILAN Mark in blue. Fayence. [Illustration] MADRID BUEN RETIRO. Monogram of Charles III. Established in 1759 to 1812. Soft paste. [Illustration] MADRID Soft paste. Another mark. [Illustration] MADRID Mark in blue. First quality. Soft paste. [Illustration] MADRID Mark in blue. Soft paste. [Illustration] MADRID Mark in blue. Mark under crown is another form of the monogram of Charles III., the founder. [Illustration] OPORTO Established about 1790. Hard paste. Mark in gold or colors. England [Illustration] STAFFORDSHIRE Established in 1769. This mark both stamped and printed. [Illustration] STAFFORDSHIRE WEDGWOOD, present mark on decorated china. [Illustration] STAFFORDSHIRE Established about 1756. [Illustration] STAFFORDSHIRE Established about 1780. [Illustration] STAFFORDSHIRE Imitations of WEDGWOOD. [Illustration] STAFFORDSHIRE Established in 1730. [Illustration] STAFFORDSHIRE Established 1790. [Illustration] STAFFORDSHIRE Established in 1793 by Mr. John Davenport. [Illustration] STAFFORDSHIRE [Illustration] STAFFORDSHIRE [Illustration] STAFFORDSHIRE [Illustration] STAFFORDSHIRE Established about 1770, by Josiah Spode. [Illustration] STAFFORDSHIRE Copeland successor of Spode in 1833. [Illustration] LIVERPOOL Established in 1750. [Illustration] LIVERPOOL Established in 1756. [Illustration] LIVERPOOL Established in 1790. [Illustration] LIVERPOOL This mark was used from 1822 to 1833. [Illustration] PLYMOUTH Established 1760. William Cookworthy. [Illustration] YARMOUTH Absolon, only a decorator. [Illustration] SWANSEA Established 1790. This mark used about 1815. [Illustration] SWANSEA Mark in red. [Illustration] WALES Established about 1813. Mark in red. [Illustration] LEEDS Hartley Greens & Co. Established about 1770. [Illustration] BRISTOL Established about 1770, by Richard Champion. [Illustration] BRISTOL [Illustration] BRISTOL Ceased in 1777. [Illustration] BOW Established about 1730. Ceased in 1775. [Illustration] BOW [Illustration] BOW [Illustration] CHELSEA The oldest mark. About 1747. [Illustration] CHELSEA Mark in red. [Illustration] CHELSEA First quality mark in gold. [Illustration] DERBY Established 1751. This mark used before 1769. [Illustration] DERBY-CHELSEA This mark in gold 1773. [Illustration] CROWN DERBY Mark in blue used about 1780. [Illustration] DERBY Mark used in 1830. Bloor (Director). [Illustration] DERBY Mark used in 1830. Bloor (Director). [Illustration] DERBY Mark used in 1860. [Illustration] ROYAL CROWN DERBY Present mark. [Illustration] WORCESTER Established 1751. Oldest mark. [Illustration] WORCESTER Mark imitation of Dresden. [Illustration] WORCESTER Generally on Chinese patterns. [Illustration] WORCESTER About 1751. [Illustration] WORCESTER Used 1783 to 1788. [Illustration] WORCESTER Used 1807 to 1813. [Illustration] WORCESTER Used 1857 to 1862. [Illustration] WORCESTER Present mark. [Illustration] CAUGHLEY. SHROPSHIRE Established about 1751. [Illustration] CAUGHLEY. SHROPSHIRE An early mark in blue. [Illustration] COALPORT Established between 1780 and 1790. [Illustration] COALPORT [Illustration] COALPORT Present mark. [Illustration] STAFFORDSHIRE Established in 1791 by Mr. Thomas Minton. [Illustration] STAFFORDSHIRE Present mark. [Illustration] LAMBETH and BURSLEM Doulton & Co. [Illustration] STAFFORDSHIRE Brown-Westhead, Moore & Co. France [Illustration] ST. CLOUD Established about 1695. Factory destroyed by fire in 1773; not rebuilt. Soft paste. [Illustration] ST. CLOUD This mark used from 1730 to 1762. Either in blue or graved in ware. The letter T stands for Tron, the name of the director. Soft paste. [Illustration] CHANTILLY Established in 1735. Mark in blue or red. Soft paste. [Illustration] ARRAS Established in 1782. Mark in blue. Factory ceased in 1786. Soft paste. [Illustration] MENECY Established in 1735. This mark is usually impressed; sometimes traced in blue. Soft paste. [Illustration] ETIOLLES, near CORBEIL Established in 1768. Monnier, manufacturer. Soft paste. [Illustration] BOURG LA REINE Established in 1773. Jacques & Jullien. Soft paste. [Illustration] SCEAUX-PENTHIEVRE, near PARIS Established in 1750 by Jacques Capelle. These letters are engraved on the soft clay. [Illustration] SCEAUX-PENTHIEVRE, near PARIS The latter mark in blue. This mark occurs more frequently on Fayence. [Illustration] CLINGNANCOURT Established in 1775 by Pierre Deruelle. Mark in blue. Soft and hard paste. [Illustration] CLINGNANCOURT Used on pieces of Chinese style. Mark in red. Hard paste. [Illustration] CLINGNANCOURT Mark of Monsieur Comte de Provence. [Illustration] ORLEANS Established in 1753 by M. Gerré. Hard and soft paste. [Illustration] ORLEANS This mark used from 1808 to 1871, in blue or gold. [Illustration] SARREGUEMINES Soft paste. [Illustration] SARREGUEMINES Soft paste and Fayence. [Illustration] VINCENNES Soft paste. Established in 1786. [Illustration] VINCENNES Soft paste. Another mark. [Illustration] PARIS. RUE FONTAINE AU ROY Established in 1773 by Jean Baptiste Locré. Mark in blue. Hard paste. [Illustration] PARIS. FAUBOURG ST. LAZARE Founded in 1773. Hard paste. [Illustration] PARIS. FAUBOURG ST. ANTOINE Established in 1773. Morelle, manufacturer. Hard paste. [Illustration] PARIS. RUE DE LA ROQUETTE Established in 1773. Souroux, manufacturer. Hard paste. [Illustration] PARIS. GROS CAILLON Established in 1773 by Advenir Lamarre. Hard paste. [Illustration] PARIS. RUE DE CLICHY Mark in blue. Hard paste. [Illustration] FRANCE A mark found on biscuit groups. Factory unknown. [Illustration] PARIS. RUE THIROUX Established in 1778. André Marie Lebeuf, manufacturer. Under the protection of Marie Antoinette. Mark in red. Hard paste. [Illustration] PARIS. RUE DE BONDY Established in 1780. Dihl and Guerhard, manufacturers. Under the patronage of Duc d'Angoulême. Hard paste. [Illustration] PARIS. RUE DE BONDY Another mark. Hard paste. [Illustration] PARIS. RUE DU FAUBOURG ST. DENIS Established in 1769. Under the protection of Charles Philippe Comte d'Artois, afterward Charles X. Factory discontinued in 1810. [Illustration] BELLEVILLE Established in 1790 by Jacob Petit. Mark in blue. Hard paste. [Illustration] PARIS. RUE DE BONDY Hard paste. Mark in blue. [Illustration] ROUEN Under the reign of Louis XV. Fayence. [Illustration] LILLE Established in 1784 by Leperre Durot. Mark in red. Hard paste. [Illustration] PARIS M. Nast, manufacturer. Mark in red. Hard paste. [Illustration] PARIS Halley, manufacturer. First Empire mark in gold. Hard paste. [Illustration] NANCY Emile Gallé, manufacturer. Fayence and glass. Sevres Established at Vincennes in 1740. Removed from there to Sevres in 1756. King Louis XV. became sole proprietor in 1760. Soft paste was made until 1805. Since then only hard paste. The Sevres Marks FIRST ROYAL EPOCH 1745 to 1792 [Illustration] [Illustration] [Illustration: VINCENNES. The letter A denotes the year 1753, continued to 1777. (Louis XV.)] [Illustration: SEVRES. Ornamented LL's. Date 1764.] [Illustration: SEVRES. Date 1778. (Louis XVI). Double letters continued to 1793.] FIRST REPUBLICAN EPOCH 1792 to 1804 [Illustration] [Illustration] [Illustration] [Illustration] [Illustration: 1792 to 1799.] [Illustration: 1801 to 1804.] FIRST IMPERIAL EPOCH. 1804 TO 1814. [Illustration: NAPOLEON. 1804 to 1809.] [Illustration: NAPOLEON. 1809 to 1814.] SECOND ROYAL EPOCH. 1814 TO 1848. [Illustration: Louis XVIII 1814 to 1823.] [Illustration: Charles X. 1824 to 1829.] [Illustration: Charles X. 1829 and 1830.] [Illustration: Charles X. 1830.] [Illustration] [Illustration: Louis Philippe. 1831 to 1834.] [Illustration: Louis Philippe. 1834-1835.] [Illustration: On services for the Palaces.] [Illustration: Louis Philippe. 1845-1848.] [Illustration: After 1848, this mark in green was used for white porcelain.] SECOND REPUBLICAN EPOCH 1848 TO 1851. [Illustration: The S stands for Sèvres, and 51 for 1851.] SECOND IMPERIAL EPOCH. 1852 TO 1872. [Illustration] [Illustration: Napoleon III. From 1852.] [Illustration: This mark used for white pieces; when scratched it denotes issue undecorated.] [Illustration: The marks used at the present time.] Unknown Marks [Illustration] Chronological Table Used in the Manufactory of Sevres A (Vincennes) 1753 B (ditto) 1754 C (ditto) 1755 D 1756 E 1757 F 1758 G 1759 H 1760 I 1761 J 1762 K 1763 L 1764 M 1765 N 1766 O 1767 P 1768 Q [1]1769 R 1770 S 1771 T 1772 U 1773 V 1774 X 1775 Y 1776 Z 1777 AA 1778 BB 1779 CC 1780 DD 1781 EE 1782 FF 1783 GG 1784 HH 1785 II 1786 JJ 1787 KK 1788 LL 1789 MM 1790 NN 1791 OO 1792 PP 1793 QQ 1794 RR 1795 [1] This comet was sometimes substituted for the ordinary mark of the letter Q. [Illustration] Year IX 1801 T9 " X 1802 X " XI 1803 11 " XII 1804 [Illustration] " XIII 1805 [Illustration] " XIV 1806 [Illustration] 1807 7 1808 8 1809 9 1810 10 1811 (onze) o.z. 1812 (douze) d.z. 1813 (treize) t.z. 1814 (quatorze) q.z. 1815 (quinze) q.n. 1816 (seize) s.z. 1817 (dix sept) d.s. From this date the year is expressed by the last two figures only.--thus, 18 for 1818, etc.,--up to the present time. 
39749	----	Transcriber's note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). Text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=). [Illustration: Decorative Design] PRINCIPLES OF Decorative Design. by CHRISTOPHER DRESSER, PH.D., F.L.S., F.E.B.S., ETC.; Author of "The Art of Decorative Design," "Unity in Variety," etc. FOURTH EDITION. Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co.: London, Paris & New York. PREFACE. My object in writing this work has been that of aiding in the art-education of those who seek a knowledge of ornament as applied to our industrial manufactures. I have not attempted the production of a pretty book, but have aimed at giving what knowledge I possess upon the subjects treated of, in a simple and intelligible manner. I have attempted simply to instruct. The substance of the present work was first published as a series of lessons in the _Technical Educator_. These lessons are now collected into a work, and have been carefully revised; a few new illustrations have been inserted, and a final chapter added. As the substance of this work was written as a series of lessons for the _Technical Educator_, I need not say that the book is addressed to working men, for the whole of the lessons in that publication have been prepared especially for those noble fellows who, through want of early opportunity, have been without the advantages of education, but who have the praiseworthy courage to educate themselves in later life, when the value of knowledge has become apparent to them. That the lessons as given in the _Technical Educator_ have not been written wholly in vain I already know, for shortly before I had completed this revision of them, I had the opportunity of visiting a provincial town hall which I had heard was being decorated, and was pleasingly surprised to see decoration of considerable merit, and evidences that much of what I saw had resulted from a consideration of my articles in the _Technical Educator_. The artist engaged upon the work, although having suffered the disadvantage of apprenticeship to a butcher, has established himself as a decorator while still a young man; and from the manifestation of ability which he has already given, I hope for a brighter future for one who, as a working man, must have studied hard. If these lessons as now collected into a work should lead to the development of the art-germs which doubtless lie dormant in other working men, the object which I have sought to attain in writing and collecting these together will have been accomplished. TOWER CRESSY, NOTTING HILL, LONDON, W. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE INTRODUCTORY DIVISION I. ART-KNOWLEDGE; HISTORIC STYLES " II. TRUTH, BEAUTY, POWER, ETC. " III. HUMOUR IN ORNAMENT CHAPTER II. COLOUR CHAPTER III. FURNITURE CHAPTER IV. DECORATION OF BUILDINGS DIVISION I. GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS--CEILINGS " II. DECORATIONS OF WALLS CHAPTER V. CARPETS CHAPTER VI. CURTAIN MATERIALS, HANGINGS, AND WOVEN FABRICS GENERALLY CHAPTER VII. HOLLOW VESSELS DIVISION I. POTTERY " II. GLASS VESSELS " III. METAL-WORK CHAPTER VIII. HARDWARE CHAPTER IX. STAINED GLASS CHAPTER X. CONCLUSION PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN. CHAPTER I. DIVISION I. There are many handicrafts in which a knowledge of the true principles of ornamentation is almost essential to success, and there are few in which a knowledge of decorative laws cannot be utilised. The man who can form a bowl or a vase well is an artist, and so is the man who can make a beautiful chair or table. These are truths; but the converse of these facts is also true; for if a man be not an artist he cannot form an elegant bowl, nor make a beautiful chair. At the very outset we must recognise the fact that the beautiful has a commercial or money value. We may even say that art can lend to an object a value greater than that of the material of which it consists, even when the object be formed of precious matter, as of rare marbles, scarce woods, or silver or gold. This being the case, it follows that the workman who can endow his productions with those qualities or beauties which give value to his works, must be more useful to his employer than the man who produces objects devoid of such beauty, and his time must be of higher value than that of his less skilful companion. If a man, who has been born and brought up as a "son of toil," has that laudable ambition which causes him to seek to rise above his fellows by fairly becoming their superior, I would say to him that I know of no means of his so readily doing so, as by his acquainting himself with the laws of beauty, and studying till he learns to perceive the difference between the beautiful and the ugly, the graceful and the deformed, the refined and the coarse. To perceive delicate beauties is not by any means an easy task to those who have not devoted themselves to the consideration of the beautiful for a long period of time, and of this be assured, that what now appears to you to be beautiful, you may shortly regard as less so, and what now fails to attract you, may ultimately become charming to your eye. In your study of the beautiful, do not be led away by the false judgment of ignorant persons who may suppose themselves possessed of good taste. It is common to assume that women have better taste than men, and some women seem to consider themselves the possessors of even authoritative taste from which there can be no appeal. They may be right, only we must be pardoned for not accepting such authority, for should there be any over-estimation of the accuracy of this good taste, serious loss of progress in art-judgment might result. It may be taken as an invariable truth that knowledge, and knowledge alone, can enable us to form an accurate judgment respecting the beauty or want of beauty of an object, and he who has the greater knowledge of art can judge best of the ornamental qualities of an object. He who would judge rightly of art-works must have knowledge. Let him who would judge of beauty apply himself, then, to earnest study, for thereby he shall have wisdom, and by his wise reasonings he will be led to perceive beauty, and thus have opened to him a new source of pleasure. Art-knowledge is of value to the individual and to the country at large. To the individual it is riches and wealth, and to the nation it saves impoverishment. Take, for example, clay as a natural material: in the hands of one man this material becomes flower-pots, worth eighteen-pence a "cast" (a number varying from sixty to twelve according to size); in the hands of another it becomes a tazza, or a vase, worth five pounds, or perhaps fifty. It is the art which gives the value, and not the material. To the nation it saves impoverishment. A wise policy induces a country to draw to itself all the wealth that it can, without parting with more of its natural material than is absolutely necessary. If for every pound of clay that a nation parts with, it can draw to itself that amount of gold which we value at five pounds sterling, it is obviously better thus to part with but little material and yet secure wealth, than it is to part with the material at a low rate either in its native condition, or worked into coarse vessels, thereby rendering a great impoverishment of the native resources of the country necessary in order to its wealth. Men of the lowest degree of intelligence can dig clay, iron, or copper, or quarry stone; but these materials, if bearing the impress of mind, are ennobled and rendered valuable, and the more strongly the material is marked with this ennobling impress the more valuable it becomes. I must qualify my last statement, for there are possible cases in which the impress of mind may degrade rather than exalt, and take from rather than enhance, the value of a material. To ennoble, the mind must be noble; if debased, it can only debase. Let the mind be refined and pure, and the more fully it impresses itself upon a material, the more lovely does the material become, for thereby it has received the impress of refinement and purity; but if the mind be debased and impure, the more does the matter to which its nature is transmitted become degraded. Let me have a simple mass of clay as a candle-holder rather than the earthen candlestick which only presents such a form as is the natural outgoing of a degraded mind. There is another reason why the material of which beautiful objects are formed should be of little intrinsic value besides that arising out of a consideration of the exhaustion of the country, and this will lead us to see that it is desirable in all cases to form beautiful objects as far as possible of an inexpensive material. Clay, wood, iron, stone, are materials which may be fashioned into beautiful forms, but beware of silver, and of gold, and of precious stones. The most fragile material often endures for a long period of time, while the almost incorrosible silver and gold rarely escape the ruthless hand of the destroyer. "Beautiful though gold and silver are, and worthy, even though they were the commonest of things, to be fashioned into the most exquisite devices, their money value makes them a perilous material for works of art. How many of the choicest relics of antiquity are lost to us, because they tempted the thief to steal them, and then to hide his theft by melting them! How many unique designs in gold and silver have the vicissitudes of war reduced in fierce haste into money-changers' nuggets! Where are Benvenuto Cellini's vases, Lorenzo Ghiberti's cups, or the silver lamps of Ghirlandajo? Gone almost as completely as Aaron's golden pot of manna, of which, for another reason than that which kept St. Paul silent, 'we cannot now speak particularly.' Nor is it only because this is a world 'where thieves break through and steal' that the fine gold becomes dim and the silver perishes. This, too, is a world where 'love is strong as death;' and what has not love--love of family, love of brother, love of child, love of lover--prompted man and woman to do with the costliest things, when they could be exchanged as mere bullion for the lives of those who were beloved?"[1] Workmen! it is fortunate for us that the best vehicles for art are the least costly materials. [1] From a lecture by the late Professor George Wilson, of Edinburgh. * * * * * Having made these general remarks, I may explain to my readers what I am about to attempt in the little work which I have now commenced. My primary aim will be to bring about refinement of mind in all who may accompany me through my studies, so that they may individually be enabled to judge correctly of the nature of any decorated object, and enjoy its beauties--should it present any--and detect its faults, if such be present. This refinement I shall attempt to bring about by presenting to the mind considerations which it must digest and assimilate, so that its new formations, if I may thus speak, may be of knowledge. We shall carefully consider certain general principles, which are either common to all fine arts or govern the production or arrangement of ornamental forms: then we shall notice the laws which regulate the combination of colours, and the application of colours to objects; after which we shall review our various art-manufactures, and consider art as associated with the manufacturing industries. We shall thus be led to consider furniture, earthenware, table and window glass, wall decorations, carpets, floor cloths, window-hangings, dress fabrics, works in silver and gold, hardware, and whatever is a combination of art and manufacture. I shall address myself, then, to the carpenter, the cabinet-maker, potter, glass-blower, paper-stainer, weaver and dyer, silversmith, blacksmith, gas-finisher, designer, and all who are in any way engaged in the production of art-objects. But before we commence our regular work, let me say that without laborious study no satisfactory progress can be made. Labour is the means whereby we raise ourselves above our fellows; labour is the means by which we arrive at affluence. Think not that there is a royal road to success--the road is through toil. Deceive not yourself with the idea that you were born a genius--that you were born an artist. If you are endowed with a love for art, remember that it is by labour alone that you can get such knowledge as will enable you to present your art-ideas in a manner acceptable to refined and educated people. Be content, then, to labour. In the case of an individual, success appears to me to depend upon the time which he devotes to the study of that which he desires to master. One man works six hours a day; another works eighteen. One has three days in one; and what is the natural result? Simply this--that the one who works the eighteen hours progresses with three times the rapidity of the one who only works six hours. It is true that individuals differ in mental capacity, but my experience has led me to believe that those who work the hardest almost invariably succeed the best. While I write, I have in my mind's eye one or two on whom Nature appeared to have lavishly bestowed art-gifts; yet these have made but little progress in life. I see, as it were, before me others who were less gifted by Nature, but who industriously persevered in their studies, and were content to labour for success; and these have achieved positions which the natural genius has failed even to approach. Workmen! I am a worker, and a believer in the efficacy of work. * * * * * We will commence our systematic course by observing that good ornament--good decorations of any character, have qualities which appeal to the educated, but are silent to the ignorant, and that these qualities make utterance of interesting facts; but before we can rightly understand what I may term the hidden utterance of ornament, we must inquire into the general revelation which the ornament of any particular people, or of any historic age, makes to us, and also the utterances of individual forms. As an illustration of my meaning, let us take the ornament produced by the Egyptians. In order to see this it may be necessary that we visit a museum--say the British Museum--where we search out the mummy-cases; but as most provincial museums boast one or more mummy-cases, we are almost certain to find in the leading country towns illustrations that will serve our present purpose. On a mummy-case you may find a singular ornament, which is a conventional drawing of the Egyptian lotus, or blue water-lily[2] (see Figs. 1, 2, 3), and in all probability you will find this ornamental device repeated over and over again on the one mummy-case. Notice this peculiarity of the drawing of the lotus--a peculiarity common to Egyptian ornaments--that there is a severity, a rigidity of line, a sort of sternness about it. This rigidity or severity of drawing is a great peculiarity or characteristic of Egyptian drawing. But mark! with this severity there is always coupled an amount of dignity, and in some cases this dignity is very apparent. Length of line, firmness of drawing, severity of form, and subtlety of curve are the great characteristics of Egyptian ornamentation. [2] This can be seen growing in the water-tanks in the Kew Gardens conservatories, and in the Crystal Palace at Sydenham. [Illustration: Fig. 1.] [Illustration: Fig. 2.] [Illustration: Fig. 3.] What does all this express? It expresses the character of the people who created the ornaments. The ornaments of the ancient Egyptians were all ordered by the priesthood, amongst whom the learning of this people was stored. The priests were the dictators to the people not only of religion, but of the forms which their ornaments were to assume. Mark, then, the expression of the severity of character and dignified bearing of the priesthood: in the very drawing of a simple flower we have presented to us the character of the men who brought about its production. But this is only what we are in the constant habit of witnessing. A man of knowledge writes with power and force; while the man of wavering opinions writes timidly and with feebleness. The force of the one character (which character has been made forcible by knowledge) and the weakness of the other is manifested by his written words. So it is with ornaments: power or feebleness of character is manifest by the forms produced. The Egyptians were a severe people; they were hard task-masters. When a great work had to be performed, a number of slaves were selected for the work, and a portion of food allotted to each, which was to last till the work was completed; and if the work was not finished when the food was consumed, the slaves perished. We do not wonder at the severity of Egyptian drawing. But the Egyptians were a noble people--noble in knowledge of the arts, noble in the erection of vast and massive buildings, noble in the greatness of their power. Hence we have nobility of drawing--power and dignity mingled with severity in every ornamental form which they produced. We have thus noticed the general utterance or expression of Egyptian drawing; but what specific communication does this particular lotus make? Most of the ornaments of the Egyptians--whether the adornments of sarcophagi, of water-vessels, or mere charms to be worn pendent from the neck--were symbols of some truth or dogma inculcated by the priests. Hence Egyptian ornament is said to be symbolic. The fertility of the Nile valley was chiefly due to the river annually overflowing its banks. In spreading over the land, the water carried with it a quantity of rich alluvial earth, which gave fecundity to the country on which it was deposited. When the water which had overspread the surrounding land had nearly subsided, the corn which was to produce the harvest was set by being cast upon the retiring water, through which it sank into the rich alluvial earth. The water being now well-nigh within the river-banks, the first flower that sprang up was the lotus. This flower was to the Egyptians the harbinger of coming plenty, for it symbolised the springing forth of the wheat. It was the first flower of spring, or their primrose (first rose). The priesthood, perceiving the interest with which this flower was viewed, and the watchfulness manifested for its appearance, taught that in it abode a god, and that it must be worshipped. The acknowledgment of this flower as a fit and primary object of worship caused it to be delineated on the mummy-cases, and sarcophagi, and on all sacred edifices. We shall have frequent occasion, while considering decorative art, to notice symbolic forms; but we must not forget the fact that all good ornaments make utterance. Let us in all cases, when beholding them, give ear to their teachings! Egyptian ornament is so full of forms which have interesting significance that I cannot forbear giving one other illustration; and of this I am sure, that not only does a knowledge of the intention of each form employed in a decorative scheme cause the beholder to receive a special amount of pleasure when viewing it, but also that without such knowledge no one can rightly judge of the nature of any ornamental work. There is a device in Egyptian ornament which the most casual observer cannot have failed to notice; it is what is termed the "winged globe," and consists of a small ball or globe, immediately at the sides of which are two asps, and from which extend two wings, each wing being in length about five to eight times that of the diameter of the ball (Fig. 4). The drawing of this device is very grand. The force with which the wings are delineated well represents the powerful character of the protection which the kingdom of Egypt afforded, and which was symbolised by the extended and overshadowing pinions. [Illustration: Fig. 4.] I know of few instances where forms of an ornamental character have been combined in a manner either more quaint or more interesting than in the example before us. The composition presents a charm that few ornaments do, and is worthy of careful consideration. But this ornament derives a very special and unusual interest when we consider its purpose, the blow which was once aimed at it, and the shock which its producers must have received, upon finding it powerless to act as they had taught, if not believed, it would. The priesthood instructed the people that this was the symbol of protection, and that it so effectually appealed to the preserving spirits that no evil could enter where it was portrayed. With the view of giving a secure protection to the inmates of Egyptian dwellings, this device, or symbol of protection, was ordered to be placed on the lintel (the post over the door) of every building of the Egyptians, whether residence or temple. It was to nullify this symbol, and to show the vain character of the Egyptian gods, that Moses was commanded to have the blood of the lamb slain at the passover placed upon the lintel, in the very position of this winged globe. It was also enjoined as a further duty that the blood be sprinkled on the door-post; but this was merely a new duty, tending further to show that even in position, as well as in nature, this winged globe was powerless to secure protection. This device, then, is of special interest, both as a symbolic ornament and as throwing light on Scripture history. Besides the two ornamental forms mentioned--_i.e._, the lotus and the winged globe--we might notice many others also of great interest, but our space will not enable us to do so; further information may, however, be got from the South Kensington Museum library,[3] where several interesting works on Egyptian ornament may be seen;--from the "Grammar of Ornament" by Mr. Owen Jones,--the works on Egypt by Sir Gardiner Wilkinson; and, especially,--by a visit to the Egyptian Court of the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, and by a careful perusal of the hand-book to that court.[4] Much might also be said respecting Egyptian architecture, but on this we can say little here; yet, as the columns of the temples are of a very ornamental character, we may notice that in most cases they were formed of a bundle of papyrus[5] stems bound together by thongs or straps--the heads of the plant forming the capital of the column, and the stems the shaft (Fig. 5). In some cases the lotus was substituted for the papyrus; and in other instances the palm-leaf was used in a similar way; these modifications can be seen in the Egyptian Court at Sydenham with great advantage, and many varieties of form resulting from the use of the one plant, as of the papyrus, may also there be observed. [3] Any person can have admission to the South Kensington Museum Art library and its Educational library, for a week, by payment of sixpence. [4] A hand-book to each of the historic courts erected in the Sydenham Palace was prepared at the time the courts were built. These are still to be got in the Literary department, in the north-east gallery of the building. They are all worthy of careful study. [5] The papyrus was the plant from which Egyptian paper was made. It was also the bulrush of the Scriptures, in which the infant Moses was found. [Illustration: Fig. 5.] We have here an opportunity of noticing how the mode of building, however simple or primitive in character, first employed by a nation may become embodied in its ultimate architecture; for, undoubtedly, the rude houses first erected in Egypt were formed largely of bundles of the papyrus, which were gathered from the river-side--for wood was rare in Egypt--and, ultimately, when buildings were formed of stone, an attempt was made at imitating in the new material the form which the old reeds presented. But mark, the imitation was no gross copy of the original work, but a well-considered and perfectly idealised work, substituting for the bundle of reeds a work having the true architectural qualities of a noble-looking and useful column. We must now pass from the ornament of the Egyptians to that of the Greeks, and here we meet with decorative forms having a different object and different aim from those already considered. Egyptian ornament was symbolical in character. Its individual forms had specific meanings--the purport of each shape being taught by the priests--but we find no such thing as symbolism in Greek decoration. The Greeks were a refined people, who sought not to express their power by their art-works so much as their refinement. Before the mental eye they always had a perfect ideal, and their most earnest efforts were made at the realisation of the perfections of the mental conception of absolute refinement. In one respect the Greeks resembled the Egyptians, for they rarely created new forms. When once a form became sacred to the Egyptians, it could not be altered; but with the Greeks, while bound by no such law, the love of old forms was great; yet the Greeks did not seek simply to reproduce what they had before created, but laboured hard to improve and refine what they had before done; and even through succeeding centuries they worked at the refinement of simple forms and ornamental compositions, which have become characteristic of them as a people. The general expression of Greek art is that of refinement, and the manner in which the delicately cultivated taste of some of the Greeks is expressed by their ornaments is astonishing. One decorative device, which we term the Greek Anthemion, may be regarded as their principal ornament--(the original ornamental composition by one of my pupils, Fig. 6, consists primarily of three anthemions)--and the variety of refined forms in which it appears is most interesting. But it must not be thought that the Greek ornaments and architectural forms present nothing but refinement made manifest in form, for this is not the case. Great as is the refinement of some of these forms, we yet notice that they speak of more than the perfected taste of their producers, for they reveal to us this fact--that their creators had great knowledge of natural forces and the laws by which natural forces are governed. This becomes apparent in a marked degree when we inquire into the manner in which they arranged the proportion of the various parts of their works to the whole, and especially by a consideration of the subtle nature of the curves which they employed both in architectural members and in decorative forms; but into this we must not now inquire. Yet, by way of throwing some faint light upon the manner in which knowledge is embodied in Greek forms, I may refer to the Doric column, such as was employed in the Parthenon at Athens[6] (Fig. 7). The idea presented by this column is that of energetic upward growth which has come in contact with some superposed mass, the weight of which presses upon the column from above, while the energy of the upward growth causes the column to appear fully equal to the task of supporting the superincumbent structure. Mark this--that by pressure from above, or weight, the shaft of the column is distended, or bent out, about one-third of the distance from its base to its apex (just where this distension would occur, were the column formed of a slightly plastic material), and yet this distension of the shaft is not such as to give any idea of weakness, for the column appears to rise with the energy of such vigorous life as to be more than able to bear the weight which it has to sustain. [6] A capital, and portion of the shaft, of one of these columns are to be seen in the British Museum Sculpture room, and a cast of the same at the Crystal Palace, Sydenham. This Doric column is employed in the Greek Court of the Crystal Palace. [Illustration: Fig. 6.] [Illustration: Fig. 7.] Mark also the singularly delicate curve of the capital of the column, which appears as a slightly plastic cushion intervening between the shaft and the superincumbent mass which it has to support. The delicacy and refinement of form presented by this capital is perhaps greater than that of any other with which we are acquainted. The same principle of life and energy coming in contact with resistance or pressure from above is constantly met with in the enrichments of Greek cornices and mouldings; but having called attention to the fact, I must leave the student to observe, and think upon, these interesting subjects for himself. Let me, however, say that there are few classic buildings in England which will aid the learner in his researches; there is but little poetry in our architectural buildings, and but little refinement in the forms of the parts, especially in our classic buildings; and, added to this, Greek art without Greek colouring is dead, being almost as the marble statue to the living form. For the purposes of my readers, the Greek Court at the Crystal Palace will be the best example for study. I might now review Roman ornament, and show that in the hour of pride the materials of which the Roman works were formed were considered, rather than the shapes which they assumed; and how we thus get little worthy of praise from the all-conquering Romans--how the sunny climate and religious superstitions of the East called forth the gorgeous and beautiful developments of art which have existed, or still exist, with the Persians, Indians, Turks, Moors, Chinese, and Japanese; but I have not space to do so; yet all the forms of ornament which these people have created are worthy of the most careful and exhaustive consideration, as they present art-qualities of the highest kind. I know of no ornament more intricately beautiful and mingled than the Persian--no geometrical strapwork, or systems of interlacing lines, so rich as those of the Moors (the Alhambraic)--no fabrics so gorgeous as those of India--none so quaintly harmonious as those of China; and Japan can supply the world with the most beautiful domestic articles that we can anywhere procure. We must pass on, however, to what we may term Christian art, or that development of ornament which had its rise with the Christian religion, and has associated itself in a special manner with Christianity. Neither the Egyptians nor early Greeks appear to have used the arch structurally in their buildings; the Romans, however, had the round arch as a primary structural element. This round arch was also used by the Byzantines, and amongst their ornaments we find those combinations of circles, or parts of circles, which so constantly recur in later times in Gothic architecture and Gothic ornament. Norman buildings, again, show us the round arch, and present us with such intersected arcs as would naturally suggest the pointed arch of later times, with which came the full development of Gothic or Christian architecture and ornamentation. There was a very fine and marvellously clever development of decorative art, enthusiastically worked at by the Christian monks of the seventh and eighth centuries, called Celtic, of which we have many beautiful examples in Professor Westwood's great work on early illuminated manuscripts; but what is generally understood by Christian or Gothic art had its finest development about the thirteenth century. Gothic ornament, like the Egyptian, is essentially symbolic. Its forms have in many instances specific significance. Thus the common equilateral triangle is in some cases used to symbolise the Holy Trinity; so are the two entwined triangles. But there are many other symbols employed in Gothic ornament which set forth the mystery of the Unity of the Trinity. Thus in Fig. 8 we have three interlaced circles, which beautifully express the eternal Unity of the Holy Trinity, for the circle alone symbolises eternity, being without beginning and without end, and the three parts point to the Three Persons of the Godhead. A very curious and clever symbol of the Trinity is portrayed in Fig. 9, where three faces are so combined as to form an ornamental figure. [Illustration: Fig. 8.] [Illustration: Fig. 9.] [Illustration: Fig. 10.] Baptism under the immediate sanction of the Divine Trinity was represented by three fishes placed together in the manner of a triangle (Fig. 10); but so numerous were Christian symbols after the ninth century, that to enumerate them merely would occupy much space. Every trefoil symbolised the Holy Trinity, every quatrefoil the four evangelists, every cross the Crucifixion, or the martyrdom of some saint. And into Gothic ornamentation the chalice, the crown of thorns, the dice, the sop, the hammer and nails, the flagellum, and other symbols of our Lord's passion have entered. But, besides these, we have more purely architectural forms making gentle utterance: the church spire points heavenwards, and the long lines of the clustered columns of the cathedral direct the thoughts upwards to heaven and to God. Gothic ornament, having passed from its purity towards undue elaboration, began to lose its hold on the people for whom it was created, and the form of religion with which it had long been associated had become old, when the great overthrow of old traditions and usages occurred, commonly called the Reformation. With the reformation of religion came a revival of classic learning, and a general diffusion of knowledge, and thus the immediate necessity for art-symbols was passing away, it being especially to an unlettered people that an extended system of symbolism appeals. With this revival of classic learning came the investigation of classic remains--the exploration of Greek and Roman ruins; and while this was going on, a dislike to whatever had been associated with the old form of religion had sprung up, which dislike turned to hate as the struggle advanced, till the feeling against Gothic architecture and ornament became so strong that anything was preferred to it. Now arose Renaissance architecture and ornament (revival work), which was based on the Roman remains, but was yet remoulded, or formed anew; so that the ornament of the Renaissance is not Roman ornament, but a new decorative scheme, of the same genus as that of the Roman. Here, however, all my sympathies end. I confess that all Renaissance ornament, whether developed under the soft sky of Italy (Italian ornament), in more northerly France (French Renaissance), or on our own soil (Elizabethan, or English Renaissance), fails to awaken any feeling of sympathy in my breast; and that it, on the contrary, chills and repels me. I enjoy the power and vigour of Egyptian ornament, the refinement of the Greek, the gorgeousness of the Alhambraic, the richness of the Persian and Indian, the quaintness of the Chinese and Japanese, the simple honesty and boldness of the Gothic; but with the coarse Assyrian, the haughty Roman, and the cold Renaissance, I have no kindred feeling--no sympathy. They strike notes which have no chords in my nature: hence from them I instinctively fly. I must be pardoned for this my feeling by those who differ from me in judgment, but my continued studies of these styles only separate me further from them in feeling. It will be said that in my writings I mingle together ornament and architecture, and that my sphere is ornament, and not building. I cannot separate the two. The material at command, the religion of the people, and the climate have, to a great extent, determined the character of the architecture of all ages and nations; but they have, to the same extent, determined the nature of the ornamentation of the edifices raised. Ornament always has arisen out of architecture, or been a mere reflex of the art-principles of the building decorated. We cannot rightly consider ornament without architecture; but I will promise to take no further notice of architecture than is absolutely necessary to the proper understanding of our subject. DIVISION II. In my previous remarks I have attempted to set forth some of the first principles of ornament, and to call attention to the purport or intention of certain of the leading historic styles, and the manner in which they make utterance to us of the faith or sentiments of their producers. [Illustration: Fig. 11.] But there are other utterances of ornament, and other general expressions which decorative forms convey to the mind. Thus sharp, angular, or spiny forms are more or less exciting (Fig. 11); while bold and broad forms are soothing, or tend to give repose. Sharp or angular forms, where combined in ornament, act upon the senses much as racy and pointed sayings do. Thus "cut" or angular glass, spinose metal-work, as the pointed foliage of some wrought-iron gates, and other works in which there is a prevalence of angles and points, so act upon the mind as to stimulate it, and thus produce an effect opposite to repose; while "breadth" of form and "largeness" of treatment induce tranquillity and meditation. Nothing can be more important to the ornamentist than the scientific study of art. The metaphysical inquiry into cause and effect, as relating to decorative ideas, is very important--indeed, all-important--to the true decorator. He must constantly ask himself what effect such and such forms have upon the mind--which effects are soothing, which cheerful, which melancholy, which rich, which ethereal, which gorgeous, which solid, which graceful, which lovable, and so on; and in order to do this he must separate the various elements of ornamental composition, and consider these apart, so as to be sure that he is not mistaken as to what affects the mind in any particular manner, and he must then combine these elements in various proportions, and consider the effects of the various combinations on his own mind and that of others, and thus he will discover what will enable him to so act on the senses as to induce effects such as he may desire to produce. Are we to decorate a dining-room, let the decoration give the sense of richness; a drawing-room, let it give cheerfulness; a library, let it give worth; a bed-room, repose; but glitter must never occur in large quantities, for that which excites can only be sparingly indulged in--if too freely employed, it gives the sense of vulgarity. In this chapter I have to speak primarily of _Truth_, _Beauty_, and _Power_. Long since I was so fully impressed with the idea that true art-principles are so perfectly manifested by these three words, that I embodied them in an ornamental device which I painted on my study door, so that all who entered might learn the principles which I sought to manifest in my works. There can be morality or immorality in art, the utterance of truth or of falsehood; and by his art the ornamentist may exalt or debase a nation. _Truth._--How noble, how beautiful; how righteous to utter it; and how debasing is falsehood; yet we see falsehood preferred to truth--that which debases to that which exalts, in art as well as morals; and I fear that there is almost as much that is false, degrading, and untrue in my beautiful art as there is of the noble, righteous, and exalting, although art should only be practised by ennobling hands. It is this grovelling art, this so-called ornamentation, which tends to debase rather than exalt, to degrade rather than make noble, to foster a lie rather than utter truth, which brings about the abasement of our calling, and causes our art to fail in many instances in laying hold of, and clinging to, the affections of the noble and the great. Ornamentation is in the highest sense of the word a Fine Art; there is no art more noble, none more exalted. It can cheer the sorrowing; it can soothe the troubled; it can enhance the joys of those who make merry; it can inculcate the doctrine of truth; it can refine, elevate, purify, and point onward and upward to heaven and to God. It is a fine art, for it embodies and expresses the feelings of the soul of man--that inward spirit which was breathed by the Creator into the lifeless clay as the image of his life--however noble, pure, or holy. This being the case, those who ignore decoration cast aside a source of refinement, and deprive themselves of what may induce their elevation in virtue and morals. Such a neglect on the part of those who can afford luxuries would be highly censurable, were it not that the professors of the art are for the most part false pretenders, knowing not what they practise, and men ignorant of the power which they hold in their hands. The true artist is a rare creature; he is often unknown, frequently misunderstood, or not understood at all, and is not unfrequently lost to a people that prefer shallowness to deep meaning, falsehood to truth, and glitter to repose. We now see the utter folly of appealing simply to what is called "taste" in matters of art, and the uselessness of yielding to the caprice (falsely called taste) of the uneducated in such matters, especially as this so-called taste is often of the most vulgar and debased order. We also see the absurdity of persons who employ a true artist interfering with his judgment and ideas. The true artist is a noble teacher; shall he be told, then, what morals he shall inculcate, and what lofty truths he shall embody in his works, or omit from them? Do we tell the preacher what he shall say, and ask him to withhold whatever is refining and elevating? We do not, and in art we must leave the professors free to teach, and hold them responsible for their teachings. If I thought that I had now convinced my reader that decorative art does not consist merely in the placing together of forms, however beautiful they may be individually or collectively; nor in rendering objects simply what is called pretty; but that it is a power for good or evil; that it is what will elevate or debase--that which cannot be neutral in its tendency--I would advance to consider its principles; but I cannot teach, nor can I be understood, unless the reader _feels_ that he who practises art wields a vast power, for the rightful use of which he must be held responsible. All graining of wood is false, inasmuch as it attempts to deceive; the effort being made at causing one material to look like another which it is not. All "marbling" is false also: a floor-cloth made in imitation of carpet or matting is false; a Brussels carpet that imitates a Turkey carpet is false; so is a jug that imitates wicker-work, a printed fabric that imitates one which is woven, a gas-lamp that imitates an oil-lamp. These are all untruths in expression, and are, besides, vulgar absurdities which are the more lamentable, as the imitation is always less beautiful than the thing imitated; and as each material has the power of expressing beauty truthfully, thus the want of truth brings its own punishment. A deal door is beautiful, but it will not keep clean; let it then be varnished. It is now preserved, and its own characteristic features are enhanced by the varnish, so that its individuality is emphasised, and no untruth told. A floor-cloth can present a pattern with true and beautiful curves--how absurd, then, to try and imitate the dotty effect of a carpet; and the Brussels carpet can express truer curves than the Turkey carpet, then why imitate the latter in the finer material? But perhaps the most senseless of all these absurdities is the making an earthen jug in imitation of wicker-work when if so formed it would be useless as a water-vessel. I can imagine a fool in his simplicity priding himself on such a bright thought as the production of a vessel of this kind, but I cannot imagine any rightly constituted mind producing or commending such an idea. Let the expression of our art ever be truthful. _Beauty._--I will say little on this head, for decorative forms must be beautiful. Shapes which are not beautiful are rarely decorative. I will not now attempt to express what character forms should have in order that they be considered beautiful, but will content myself by saying that they must be truthful in expression, and graceful, delicate, and refined in contour, manifesting no coarseness, vulgarity, or obtrusiveness. My views of the beautiful must be gathered from the series of chapters which will follow, but this I may here say, that the beautiful manifests no want, no shortcoming. A composition that is beautiful must have no parts which could be taken from it and yet leave the remainder equally good or better. The perfectly beautiful is that which admits of no improvement. The beautiful is lovable, and, as that which is lovable, takes hold of the affections and clings to them, binding itself firmer and firmer to them as time rolls on. If an object is really beautiful we do not tire of it; fashion does not induce us to change it; the merely new does not displace it. It becomes as an old friend, more loved as its good qualities are better understood. _Power._--We now come to consider an art-element or principle of great importance, for if absent from any composition, feebleness or weakness is the result, the manifestation of which is not pleasant. With what power do the plants burst from the earth in spring! With what power do the buds develop into branches! The powerful orator is a man to be admired, the powerful thinker a man we esteem. Even the simple power, or brute force, of animals we involuntarily approve--the powerful tiger and the powerful horse call forth our commendation, for power is antagonistic to weakness. Power also manifests earnestness; power means energy; power implies a conqueror. Our compositions, then, must be powerful. But besides all this, we, the professors of decorative art, must manifest power in our works, for we are teachers sent forth to instruct, and ennoble, and elevate our fellow-creatures. We shall not be believed if we do not utter our truths with power; let truth, then, be uttered with power, and in the form of beauty.[7] [7] I have given in this chapter an original sketch (Fig. 12), in which I have sought to embody chiefly the one idea of power, energy, force, or vigour; and in order to do this, I have employed such lines as we see in the bursting buds of spring, when the energy of growth is at its maximum, and especially such as are to be seen in the spring growth of a luxuriant tropical vegetation; I have also availed myself of those forms to be seen in certain bones of birds which are associated with the organs of flight, and which give us an impression of great strength, as well as those observable in the powerful propelling fins of certain species of fish. * * * * * There are other principles governing the production and application of ornament which we must now notice, the first of which is _utility_, for the first aim of the designer of any article must be to render the object which he produces useful. I may go further, and say that an article must be made not only useful, but as perfectly suited to the purpose for which it is intended as it can be. It matters not how beautiful the object is intended to be, it must first be formed as though it were a mere work of utility, and after it has been carefully created with this end in view it may then be rendered as beautiful as you please. There are special reasons why our works should be useful as well as beautiful, for if an object, however beautiful it may be in shape, however richly covered with beautiful ornaments, or however harmoniously coloured, be unpleasant to use, it will ultimately be set aside, and that which is more convenient for use will replace it, even if the latter be without beauty. As an illustration of this fact, let us suppose the balustrade railings of a staircase very beautiful, and yet furnished with such projections as render it almost impossible that we walk up or down the stairs without tearing the dress, or injuring the person, and how soon will our admiration of the beautiful railing disappear, and even be replaced by hate! In like manner let the handle of a door, or the head of a poker, be so formed as to hurt the hand, and the simple round knob, or round head, will be preferred to it, however ornamentally or beautifully formed. [Illustration: Fig. 12.] In relation to this subject, Professor George Wilson has said: "The conviction seems ineradicable from some minds, that a beautiful thing cannot be a useful thing, and that the more you increase the beauty of the necessary furniture or the implements of every-day life the more you lessen their utility. Make the Queen's sceptre as beautiful as you please, but don't try to beautify a poker, especially in cold weather. My lady's vinaigrette carve and gild as you will, but leave untouched my pewter ink-bottle. Put fine furniture, if you choose, into my drawing-room; but I am a plain man, and like useful things in my parlour, and so on. Good folks of this sort seem to labour under the impression that the secret desire of art is to rob them of all comfort. Its unconfessed but actual aim, they believe, is to realise the faith of their childhood, when it was understood that a monarch always wore his crown, held an orb in one hand and a sceptre in the other, and a literal interpretation was put upon Shakespeare's words, 'Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.' Were art to prosper, farewell to fire-proof, shapeless slippers, which bask like salamanders unharmed in the hottest blaze. An æsthetic pair, modelled upon Cinderella's foot, and covered with snow-white embroidery, must take their place, and dispense chilblains and frost-bite to miserable toes. Farewell to shooting-coats out a little at the elbows, to patched dressing-gowns, and hair-cloth sofas. Nothing but full-dress, varnished boots, spider-legged chairs, white satin chair-covers, alabaster ink-bottles, velvet door-mats, and scrapers of silver or gold. It is astonishing how many people think that a thing cannot be comfortable if it is beautiful. . . . If there be one truth which the Author of all has taught us in his works more clearly than another, it is the perfect compatibility of the highest utility with the greatest beauty. I offer you one example. All are familiar with the beautiful shell of the nautilus. Give the nautilus itself to a mathematician, and he will show you that one secret of its gracefulness lies in its following in its volute or whorl a particular geometrical curve with rigid precision. Pass it from the mathematician to the natural philosopher, and he will show you how the simple superposition of a great number of very thin transparent plates, and the close approximation of a multitude of very fine engraved lines, are the cause of its exquisite pearly lustre. Pass it from the natural philosopher to the engineer, and he will show you that this fairy shell is a most perfect practical machine, at once a sailing vessel and a diving-bell, in which its living possessor had, centuries before Archimedes, applied to utilitarian ends the law of specific gravity, and centuries before Halley had dived in his bell to the bottom of the sea. Pass it from the engineer to the anatomist, and he will show you how, without marring its beauty, it is occupied during its lifetime with a most orderly system of rowing and sailing tackle, chambers for food, pumps to keep blood circulating, ventilating apparatus, and hands to control all, so that it is a model ship with a model mariner on board. Pass it lastly from the anatomist to the chemist, and he will show you that every part of the shell and the creature is compounded of elements, the relative weights of which follow in each individual nautilus the same numerically identical ratio. "Such is the nautilus, a thing so graceful, that when we look at it we are content to say with Keats-- 'A thing of beauty is a joy for ever;' and yet a thing so thoroughly utilitarian, and fulfilling with the utmost perfection the purely practical aim of its construction, that our shipbuilders would be only too thankful if, though sacrificing all beauty, they could make their vessels fulfil their business ends half so well." Viewing our subject in another light, and with special reference to architecture, we notice that unless a building is fitted for the purpose intended, or, in other words, answers utilitarian ends, it cannot be esteemed as it otherwise might be, even though it be of great æsthetic beauty. In respect to this subject, Mr. Owen Jones has said: "The nave and aisles of a Gothic church become absurd when filled with pews for Protestant worship, where all are required to see and hear. The columns of the nave which impede sight and sound, the aisles for processions which no longer exist, rood screens, and deep chancels for the concealment of mysteries, now no longer such, are all so many useless reproductions which must be thrown aside." Further, "As architecture, so all works of the decorative arts, _should possess fitness_, proportion, harmony; the result of all which is repose." Sir M. Digby Wyatt has said: "Infinite variety and unerring fitness govern all forms in Nature." Vitruvius, that "The perfection of all works depends on their fitness to answer the end proposed, and on principles resulting from a consideration of Nature itself." Sir Charles L. Eastlake, that "In every case in Nature where fitness or utility can be traced, the characteristic quality, or _relative_ beauty, is found to be identical with that of fitness." A. W. Pugin (the father): "How many objects of ordinary use are rendered monstrous and ridiculous simply because the artist, instead of seeking the most convenient form, and then decorating it, has embodied some extravagance to conceal the real purpose for which the article has been made." And with the view of pointing out how fitness for, or adaptation to, the end proposed is manifested in the structure and disposition upon the earth of plants, I have written in a little work now out of print: "The trees which grow highest upon the mountains, and the plants which grow upon the unsheltered plain, have usually long, narrow, and rigid leaves, which, owing to their form, are enabled to bear the fury of the tempest, to which they are exposed, without injury. This is seen in the ease of the species of fir which grow at great altitudes, where the leaves are more like needles than leaves such as commonly occur; and also in the species of heath which grow upon exposed moors: in both cases the plants are, owing to the form of the leaf, enabled to defy the blast, while those with broad leaves would be shattered and destroyed. "Not only is the form of leaf such as fits these plants to dwell in such inhospitable regions, but other circumstances also tend to this result. The stems are in both cases woody and flexible, so that while they bend to the wind they resist its destroying influence by their strength and elasticity. In relation to the stem of the papyrus," which is a plant constantly met with in Egyptian ornaments, "the late Sir W. J. Hooker mentions an interesting fact which manifests adaptation to its position. This plant grows in water, and attaches itself to the margins of rivers and streams, by sending forth roots and evolving long underground stems in the alluvium of the sides of the waters. Owing to its position it is exposed to the influences of the current, which it has to withstand, and this it does, not only by having its stems of a triangular form--a shape well adapted for withstanding pressure--but also by having them so placed in relation to the direction of the stream, that one angle always meets the current, and thus separates the waters as does the bow of a modern steam-ship." I might multiply illustrations of this principle of _fitness_, or _adaptation to purpose_, as manifested in plants, to an almost indefinite extent; but when all had been said we should yet have but the simple truth before us, that the chief end which we should have in creating any object, is that of rendering it perfectly fitted to answer the proposed end. If those works which are beautiful were but invariably useful, as they should be; if those objects which are most beautiful were also the most convenient--and there is no reason why they should not be so--how the beautiful would become loved and sought after! Cost would be of little moment, the price would not be complained of, if beautiful objects were works of perfect utility. But, alas! it is far otherwise: that which is useful is often ugly, and that which is beautiful is often inconvenient to use. This very fact has given rise to the highly absurd fashion of having a second poker in a drawing-room set of fire-irons. The one poker is ornamental, possibly, but it is to be looked at; the other is for use, and as it is not to be looked at, it is hidden away in some corner, or close within the fender. I do not wonder at the second poker being required; for nineteen out of every twenty pokers of an ornamental (?) character which I have seen during the last few years would hurt the hand so insufferably if they were used to break a lump of coal with, that it would be almost impossible to employ them constantly for such a purpose. But why not abolish the detestable thing altogether? If the poker is to be retained as an ornament, place it on the table or chimney-piece of your drawing-room, and not down on the hearth, where it is at such a distance from the eye that its beauties cannot be discovered. It is no use saying it would be out of place in such a position. If to poke the fire with, its place is within the fender; if it is an ornament, it should be placed where it can be best seen--in a glass case, if worthy of protection. I hope that sufficient has now been said upon this all-important necessity, that, if an object is to be beautiful it should also be useful, to cause us to consider it as a primary principle of design that all objects which we create _must_ be useful. To this as a first law we shall constantly have to refer. When we construct a chair we shall ask, is it useful? is it strong? is it properly put together? could it be stronger without using more, or another, material? and then we should consider whether it is beautiful. When we design a bottle we shall inquire, is it useful? is it all that a bottle should be? could it be more useful? and then, is it beautiful? When we create a gas-branch we shall ask, does it fulfil all requirements, and perfectly answer the end for which it is intended? and then, is it beautiful? And in relation to patterns merely we shall also have to make similar inquiries. Thus, if drawing a carpet design, we shall inquire, is this form of ornament suitable to a woven fabric? is it suitable to the particular fabric for which it is intended? is the particular treatment of the ornament which we have adopted the best possible when we bear in mind that the carpet has to be walked over, as it is to act in relation to our furniture as a background does to a picture, and is to be viewed at some distance from the eye? and then, is it beautiful? Such inquiries we shall put respecting any object the formation of which we may suggest: hence, in all our inquiries, I shall, as I love art, consider utility before beauty, in order that my art may be fostered and not despised. There are many subjects yet not named in these pages which we ought to consider, but I must content myself by merely mentioning them, and you must be willing to think of them, and consider them with such care as their importance may demand. Some of them, however, we shall refer to when considering the various manufactures. A principle of great importance in respect to design is, that _the material of which an object is formed should be used in a manner consistent with its own nature, and in that particular way in which it can be most easily "worked."_ Another principle of equal importance with that just set forth, is this: that _when an object is about to be formed, that material (or those materials) which is (or are) most appropriate to its formation should be sought and employed_. These two propositions are of very great importance, and the principles which they set forth should never be lost sight of by the designer. They involve the first principles of successful designing, for if ignored the work produced cannot be satisfactory. _Curves will be found to be beautiful just as they are subtle in character; those which are most subtle in character being most beautiful._ The arc is the least beautiful of curves (I do not here speak of a circle, but of the line, as a line, which bounds the circle); being struck from one centre its origin is instantly detected, while the mind requires that a line, the contemplation of which shall be pleasurable, must be in advance of its knowledge, and call into activity its powers of inquiry. The elliptic curve, or curve bounding the ellipse, is more beautiful than the arc, for its origin is not so strikingly apparent, being formed from two centres. The curve of the egg is more beautiful still, being formed from three centres.[8] As the number of centres necessary to the formation of a curve increases, the difficulty of detecting its origin also becomes greater, and the variety which the curve presents is also proportionally great; the variety being obviously greater as the number of the centres from which it is struck is increased. [8] The ellipse and egg-shape here spoken of are not those which are struck by compasses in any way, for the curves of such figures are merely combined arcs, but such as are struck with string, or a "tramel." _Proportion, like the curve, must be of a subtle nature._ A surface must never be divided for the purpose of decoration into halves. The proportion of 1 to 1 is bad. As proportion increases in subtlety it also increases in beauty. The proportion of 2 to 1 is little better; the proportion of 3 to 8, or of 5 to 8, or of 5 to 13, is, however, good, the last named being the best of those which I have adduced; for the pleasure derived from the contemplation of proportion increases with the difficulty of detecting it. This principle is true in relation to the division of a mass into primary segments, and of primary segments into secondary forms, as well as in relation to the grouping together of parts of various sizes; hence it is worthy of special note. _A principle of order must prevail in every ornamental composition._ Confusion is the result of accident, while order results from thought and care. The operation of mind cannot well be set forth in the absence of this principle; at least, the presence of a principle of order renders the operation of mind at once manifest. _The orderly repetition of parts frequently aids in the production of ornamental effects._ The kaleidoscope affords a wonderful example of what repetition will do. The mere fragments of glass which we view in this instrument would altogether fail to please were they not repeated with regularity. Of themselves repetition and order can do much. (Figs. 13 and 14.) _Alternation is a principle of primary importance in certain ornamental compositions._ In the case of a flower (as the buttercup, or chickweed, for example) the coloured leaves do not fall over the green leaves (the petals do not fall over the sepals), but between them--they alternate with them. This principle is not only manifested in plants, but also in many ornaments produced in the best periods of art (Fig. 15). [Illustration: Fig. 13.] [Illustration: Fig. 14.] [Illustration: Fig. 15.] [Illustration: Fig. 16.] _If plants are employed as ornaments they must not be treated imitatively, but must be conventionally treated, or rendered into ornaments_ (Fig. 16). A monkey can imitate, man can create. These are the chief principles which we shall have to notice, as involved in the production of ornamental designs. DIVISION III. Some other principles of a less noble character than those which we have already noticed as entering into ornament yet remain to be mentioned. Man will be amused as well as instructed; he must be pleased as well as ennobled by what he sees. I hold it as a first principle that ornamentation, as a true fine art, can administer to man in all his varying moods, and under all phases of feeling. Decoration, if properly understood, would at once be seen to be a high art in the truest sense of the word, as it can teach, elevate, refine, induce lofty aspirations, and allay sorrows; but we have now to notice it as a fine art, administering to man in his various moods, rather than as the handmaid to religion or morals. Humour seems to be as much an attribute of our nature as love, and, like it, varies in intensity with different individuals. There are few in whom there is not a certain amount of humour, and in some this one quality predominates over all others. It not unfrequently happens that men who are great thinkers are also great humorists--great talent and great humour being often combined in the one individual. The feeling for humour is ministered to in ornament by the grotesque, and the grotesque occurs in the works of almost all ages and all peoples. The ancient Egyptians employed it, so did the Assyrians, the Greeks, and the Romans; but none of these nations used it to the extent of the artists of the Celtic, Byzantine, and "Gothic" periods. Hideous "evil spirits" were portrayed on the outside of almost every Christian edifice at one time, and much of the Celtic ornament produced by the early monks consisted of an anastomosis, or network, of grotesque creatures. The old Irish crosses were enriched with this kind of ornamentation,[9] and some of the decorative embellishments of these works are of extraordinary interest; but those who have access to the beautiful work of Professor Westwood on Celtic manuscripts will there see this grotesque form of ornament to perfection. As regards the Eastern nations, while nearly all have employed the grotesque as an element of decorative art, the Chinese and Japanese have employed it most largely, and for it they manifest a most decided partiality. The drawings of dragons, celestial lions (always spotted), mythical birds, beasts, fishes, insects, and other supposed inhabitants of the Elysian plains, which these people produce, are most interesting and extraordinary. [9] Casts of one or two of these can be seen in the central transept of the Crystal Palace at Sydenham. Without in any way going into a history of the grotesque, let us look at the characteristic forms which it has assumed, and what is necessary to its successful production. We have said that the grotesque in ornament is the analogue of humour in literature. This is the case; but the grotesque may represent the truly horrible or repellent, and be simply repulsive. This form is so seldom required in ornamentation that I shall not dwell upon it, and when required it should always be associated with power; for if the horrible is feeble it cannot be corrective, but only revolting, like a miserable deformed animal. I think it may be taken as a principle, that the further the grotesque is removed from an imitation of a natural object the better it is, provided that it be energetic and vigorous--lifelike. Nothing is worse than a feeble joke, unless it be a feeble grotesque. The amusing must appear to be earnest. [Illustration: Fig. 17.] [Illustration: Fig. 18.] In connection with this subject I give here a series of grotesques, with the view of illustrating my meaning, and I would fain give more, but space will not permit me to do so. The initial letter S, formed of a bird, is a characteristic Celtic grotesque (Fig. 17). It is quaint and interesting, and is sufficiently unlike a living creature to avoid giving any sense of pain to the beholder, while it is yet in a most unnatural position. It is, in truth, rather an ornament than a copy of a living creature, yet it is so suggestive as to call forth the thought of a bird. It should be noticed, in connection with this figure, that the interstices between certain portions of the creature are filled by a knot. This is well--the whole thing; being an ornament, and not a naturalistic representation. Fig. 18 is a Siamese grotesque head, and a fine sample it is of the curious form of ornament which it represents. Mark, it is in no way a copy of a human head, but is a true ornament, with its parts so arranged as to call up the idea of a face, and nothing more. Notice the volutes forming the chin; the grotesque, yet highly ornamental, lines forming the mouth and the upper boundary of the forehead, and the flambeauant ears; the whole thing is worthy of the most careful study. [Illustration: Fig. 19.] Fig. 19 is a Gothic foliated face; but here we have features which are much too naturalistic. We have, indeed, only a hideous human face with a marginal excrescence of leafage. This is a type to be avoided; it is not droll, nor quaint; but is simply unpleasant to look upon. [Illustration: Fig. 20.] Fig. 20 is a fish, with the feeling of the grotesques of the Middle Ages. It is a good type, being truly ornamental, and yet sufficiently suggestive. In order that I convey to the reader a fuller idea of my views respecting the grotesque than I otherwise could, I have sketched one or two original illustrations--Fig. 21 being suggestive of a face, Fig. 22 of a skeleton (old bogey), and Fig. 23 of an impossible animal. They are intentionally far from imitative. If naturalistic some would awaken a sense of pain, as they are contorted into curious positions, whereas that which induces no thought of feeling induces no sense of pain. [Illustration: Fig. 21.] [Illustration: Fig. 22.] Of all grotesques with which I am acquainted, the dragons of the Chinese and Japanese are those which represent a combination of power, vigour, energy, and passion most fully. This is to be accounted for by the fact that these peoples are believers in dragons. When the sun or moon is eclipsed they believe that the luminous orb has been swallowed by some fierce monster, which they give form to in the dragon, and upon the occurrence of such a phenomenon they, with cans and kettles, make rough music, and thus cause the monster to disgorge the luminary, the brilliancy of which it would otherwise have for ever extinguished. I can understand a believer in dragons drawing these monsters with the power and spirit that the Chinese and Japanese do; but I can scarcely imagine that a disbeliever could do so--a man's very nature must be saturated with a belief in their existence and mischievous power, in order that he embody in his delineation such expression of the assumed character of this imaginary creature as do the Chinese and Japanese. Although I am not now considering the structure of objects, I may say that the grotesque should frequently be used where we meet with naturalistic imitations. We not unfrequently see a figure, naturally imitated, placed as a support to a superincumbent weight--a female figure as an architectural pillar bearing the weight of the entablature above, men crouched in the most painful positions supporting the bowl of some colossal fountain. Naturalistic figures in such positions are simply revolting, however perfect as works of sculpture. If weight has to be supported by that which has a resemblance to a living creature of any kind, the semblance should only be suggested; and the more unreal and woodeny (if I may make such a word) the support, if possessing the quaintness and humour of a true grotesque, the better. [Illustration: Fig. 23.] It is not the business of the ornamentist to produce that which shall induce the feeling of continued pain, unless there is some exceptional reason for his so doing, and such a reason is of rare occurrence. CHAPTER II. COLOUR. Having considered some of the chief principles involved in the production of decorative design so far as "expression" goes, we come to notice that constant adjunct of form which has ever played an important part in all decorative schemes--namely, colour. Form can exist independently of colour, but it never has had any important development without the chromatic adjunct. From a consideration of history, we should be led to conclude that form alone is incapable of yielding such enrichments as satisfy; for no national system of decoration has ever existed in the absence of colour. Mere outline-form may be good, but it is not satisfying; mere light and shade may be pleasing, but it is not all that we require. With form our very nature seems to demand colour; and it is only when we get well-proportioned forms which are graceful, or noble, or vigorous, in combination with colours harmoniously arranged, that we are satisfied. Possibly this feeling results from our contact with nature. The flowers appear in a thousand hues, and the hills are of ever-varying tints. What a barren world ours would appear, were the ground, the hills, the trees and the flowers, the sky and the waters all of one colour! Form we should have, and that in its richest variety; light and shade we should have, with ever-varying intensity and change; but colour would be gone. There would be no green to cheer, no blue to soothe, no red to excite; and, indeed, there would be a deadness, although the world be full of life, so appalling that we can scarcely conceive of it, and cannot _feel_ it. Colour alone seems to have greater charms than form alone. A sunset is entrancing when the sky glows with radiant hues; the blue is almost lost in red, the yellow is as a sea of transparent gold, and the whole presents a variety and blending of tints which charm, and soothe, and lull to reverie; and yet all form is indistinct and obscure. If so charming when separate from form, what is colour when properly combined with beautiful shapes? It is difficult, indeed, for many of those for whom I write to answer this question, even by a mental conception, save by reference to nature; for I could scarcely point to a single building in England which would be in any way a satisfactory illustration of what may be done by the combination of forms and colours. There is a beauty in Art which we in England do not even know of: it does not exist around us, it is little talked of, rarely thought about, and never seen. A decorator is called in to beautify a house, and yet not one in fifty of the so-called decorators know even the first principles of their art, and would not believe were they told of the power of the art which they employ. They place on the walls a few sickly tints--so pale that their want of harmony is not very apparent. The colours of the wall become the colours of the cornice and of the doors, because they know not how to produce a harmony of hues; and the result is a house which may be clean, but which is in every other respect an offence against good taste. I do not wonder that persons here in England do not care to have their houses "decorated," nor do I wonder at their not appreciating the "decorations" when they are done. Colour, lovely colour, of itself would make our rooms charming. There are few objects to which colour may not be applied, and many articles which are now colourless might be coloured with advantage. Our reasons for applying colour to objects are twofold, and here, in fact, we see its true use. 1st. Colour lends to objects a new charm--a charm which they would not possess if without it; and, 2nd, Colour assists in the separation of objects and parts of objects, and thus gives assistance to form. These, then, are the two objects of colour. Mark, first, it is to bestow on objects a charm, such as they could not have in its absence. In the hands of the man of knowledge it will do so--it will make an object lovely or lovable, but the mere application of colour will not do this. Colour may be so applied to objects as to render them infinitely more ugly than they were without it. I have seen many a bowl so coloured at our potteries as to be much less satisfactory when coloured than when white--the colouring having marred, rather than improved, its general effect. Here, again, it is knowledge that we want. Knowledge will enable us to transmute base materials into works of marvellous beauty, worth their weight in gold. Knowledge, then, is the true philosopher's stone; for, we may almost say, if possessed by the artist it does enable him to transmute the baser metals into gold. But a little knowledge will not do this. In order that we produce true beauty, we require much knowledge, and this can only be got by constant and diligent labour, as I have before said; but the end to be gained is worth the plodding toil. Believe me, there is a pleasure in seeing your works develop as things of beauty, delighting all who see them--not the illiterate only, but also the educated thinker--such as words fail to express. Although there is no royal road to art-power, and although the road is long, and lies through much toil and many difficulties, yet as you proceed there is pleasure in feeling that one obstacle after another is cleared from your path, and at the end there is inexpressible satisfaction. The second object of colour is that of assisting in the separation of form. If objects are placed near to one another, and these objects are all of the same colour, the beholder will have much more difficulty in seeing the boundaries or terminations of each than he would were they variously coloured; he would have to come nearer to them in order to see the limits of each, were all coloured in the same manner, than he would were they variously coloured; thus colour assists in the separation of form. This quality which colour has of separating forms is often lost sight of, and much confusion thereby results. If it is worth while to produce a decorative form, it is worth while to render it visible; and yet, how much ornament, and even good ornament, is lost to the eye through not being rendered manifest by colour! Colour is the means by which we render form apparent. Colours, when placed together, can only please and satisfy the educated when combined harmoniously, or according to the laws of harmony. What, then, are the laws which govern the arrangement of colours? and how are they to be applied? We shall endeavour to answer these questions by making a series of statements in axiomatic form, and then we shall enlarge upon these propositions. GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 1. Regarded from an art point of view, there are but three colours--_i.e._, blue, red, and yellow. 2. Blue, red, and yellow have been termed _primary_ colours; they cannot be formed by the admixture of any other colours. 3. All colours, other than blue, red, and yellow, result from the admixture of the primary colours. 4. By the admixture of blue and red, purple is formed; by the admixture of red and yellow, orange is formed; and by the admixture of yellow and blue, green is formed. 5. Colours resulting from the admixture of two primary colours are termed _secondary_: hence purple, orange, and green are secondary colours. 6. By the admixture of two secondary colours a _tertiary_ colour is formed: thus, purple and orange produce russet (the red tertiary); orange and green produce citrine (the yellow tertiary); and green and purple, olive (the blue tertiary); russet, citrine, and olive are the three tertiary colours. CONTRAST. 7. When a light colour is juxtaposed to a dark colour, the light colour appears lighter than it is, and the dark colour darker.[10] [10] If a dark grey tint be mixed upon a white slab it will appear dark in contrast with the white, but if a small portion of this same grey is applied to black paper it will appear almost white. 8. When colours are juxtaposed, they become influenced as to their hue. Thus, when red and green are placed side by side, the red appears redder than it actually is, and the green greener; and when blue and black are juxtaposed, the blue manifests but little alteration, while the black assumes an orange tint or becomes "rusty." 9. No one colour can be viewed by the eye without another being created. Thus, if red is viewed, the eye creates for itself green, and this green is cast upon whatever is near. If it views green, red is in like manner created and cast upon adjacent objects; thus, if red and green are juxtaposed, each creates the other in the eye, and the red created by the green is cast upon the red, and the green created by the red is cast upon the green; and the red and the green become improved by being juxtaposed. The eye also demands the presence of the three primary colours, either in their purity or in combination and if these are not present, whatever is deficient will be created in the eye, and this induced colour will be cast upon whatever is near. Thus, when we view blue, orange, which is a mixture of red and yellow, is created in the eye, and this colour is cast upon whatever is near; if black is in juxtaposition with the blue, this orange is cast upon it, and gives to it an orange tint, thus causing it to look "rusty." 10. In like manner, if we look upon red, green is formed in the eye, and is cast upon adjacent colours; or, if we look upon yellow, purple is formed. HARMONY. 11. Harmony results from an agreeable contrast. 12. Colours which perfectly harmonise improve one another to the utmost. 13. In order to perfect harmony, the three colours are necessary, either in their purity or in combination. 14. Red and green combine to yield a harmony. Red is a primary colour, and green, which is a secondary colour, consists of blue and yellow--the other two primary colours. Blue and orange also produce a harmony, and yellow and purple, for in each ease the three primary colours are present. 15. It has been found that the primary colours in perfect purity produce exact harmonies in the proportions of eight parts of blue, 5 of red, and 3 of yellow; that the secondary colours harmonise in the proportions of 13 of purple, 11 of green, and 8 of orange; and that the tertiary colours harmonise in the proportions of olive 24, russet 21, and citrine 19. 16. There are, however, subtleties of harmony which it is difficult to understand. 17. The rarest harmonies frequently lie close on the verge of discord. 18. Harmony of colour is, in many respects, analogous to harmony of musical sounds. QUALITIES OF COLOURS. 19. Blue is a cold colour, and appears to recede from the eye. 20. Red is a warm colour, and is exciting; it remains stationary as to distance. 21. Yellow is the colour most nearly allied to light; it appears to advance towards the spectator. 22. At twilight blue appears much lighter than it is, red much darker, and yellow slightly darker. By ordinary gaslight blue becomes darker, red brighter, and yellow lighter. By this artificial light a pure yellow appears lighter than white itself, when viewed in contrast with certain other colours. 23. By certain combinations colour may make glad or depress, convey the idea of purity, richness, or poverty, or may affect the mind in any desired manner, as does music. TEACHINGS OF EXPERIENCE. 24. When a colour is placed on a gold ground, it should be outlined with a darker shade of its own colour. 25. When a gold ornament falls on a coloured ground, it should be outlined with black. 26. When an ornament falls on a ground which is in direct harmony with it, it must be outlined with a lighter tint of its own colour. Thus, when a red ornament falls on a green ground, the ornament must be outlined with a lighter red. 27. When the ornament and the ground are in two tints of the same colour, if the ornament is darker than the ground, it will require outlining with a still darker tint of the same colour; but if lighter than the ground no outline will be required. ANALYTICAL TABLES OF COLOUR. When commencing my studies both in science and art, I found great advantage from reducing all facts to a tabular form so far as possible, and this mode of study I would recommend to others. To me this method appears to have great advantages, for by it we see at a glance what otherwise is difficult to understand; if carefully done, it becomes an analysis of work; and by preparing these tabular arrangements of facts the subject becomes impressed on the mind, and the relation of one fact to another, or of one part of a scheme to another, is seen. The following analytical tables will illustrate many of the facts stated in our propositions. The figures which follow the colours represent the proportions in which they harmonise:-- _Primary Colours._ _Secondary Colours._ _Tertiary Colours._ Blue 8 Purple 13 Olive 24 Red 5 Green 11 Russet 21 Yellow 3 Orange 8 Citrine 19 _Primary Colours._ _Secondary Colours._ _Tertiary Colours._ Red 5 } } Orange 8 } Yellow 3 } } } Citrine, or Yellow Tertiary 19 Blue 8 } } } Green 11 } Yellow 3 } Blue 8 } } Purple 13 } Red 5 } } } Russet, or Red Tertiary 21 Red 5 } } } Orange 8 } Yellow 3 } Blue 8 } } Green 11 } Yellow 3 } } } Olive, or Blue Tertiary 24 Blue 8 } } } Purple 13 } Red 5 } This latter table shows at a glance how each of the secondary and tertiary colours is formed, and the proportions in which they harmonise. It also shows why the three tertiary colours are called respectively the yellow tertiary, the red tertiary, and the blue tertiary, for into each tertiary two equivalents[11] of one primary enter, and one equivalent of each of the other primaries. Thus, in citrine we find two equivalents of yellow, and one each of red and blue; hence it is the yellow tertiary. In russet we find two equivalents of red, and one each of blue and of yellow; and in olive two of blue, and one each of red and yellow. Hence they are respectively the red and blue tertiaries. [11] An equivalent of blue is 8, of red 5, of yellow 3. [Illustration: Fig. 24.] [Illustration: Fig. 25.] Figs 24 and 25 are diagrams of harmony. I have connected in the centre, by three similar lines, the colours which form a harmony; thus, blue, red, and yellow harmonise when placed together. Purple, green, and orange also harmonise (I have connected them by dotted lines in the first of the two diagrams). But when two colours are to produce a harmony, the one will be a primary colour, and the other a secondary formed of the other two primary colours (for the presence of the three primary colours is necessary to a harmony), or the one will be a secondary, and the other a tertiary colour formed of the two remaining secondary colours. Such harmonies I have placed opposite to each other; thus blue, a primary, harmonises with orange, a secondary; yellow with purple; and red with green; and the secondary colour is placed between the two primary colours of which it is formed; thus, orange is formed of red and yellow, between which it stands; green, of blue and yellow; and purple, of blue and red. In the second of the two diagrams we see that purple, green, and orange produce a harmony, so do olive, russet, and citrine. We also see that purple and citrine harmonise, and green and russet, and orange and olive. Continuing this diagrammatic form of illustration, we may set forth the quantities in which the various colours harmonise: thus:-- _Blue._ _Red._ _Yellow._ O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O _Blue._ _Orange._ O O O O harmonises with O O O O O O O O O O O O _Red._ _Green._ O O O O harmonises with O O O O O O O O O O O O _Yellow._ _Purple._ O O O harmonises with O O O O O O O O O O O O O _Purple._ _Citrine._ O O O O harmonises with O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O _Green._ _Russet._ O O O O harmonises with O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O _Orange._ _Olive._ O O O O harmonises with O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O To those who are about to practise ornamentation, it is very important that they have in the mind's eye a tolerably accurate idea of the relative quantities of the various colours necessary to harmony, even where the colours are considered as existing in a state of absolute purity. We have rarely, however, to use the brightest blues, reds, and yellows which pigments furnish, and even these are but poor representatives of the potent colours of light as seen in the rainbow, and with the agency of the prism; nevertheless, a knowledge of the quantities in which these pure colours harmonise is very desirable. The proportions in which we have stated that colours perfectly harmonise, and in which the primary colours combine to form the secondaries, and the secondaries the tertiaries, are given in respect to the colours of light, and not of pigments or paints, which, as we have just said, are more or less base representatives of the pure colours of light. Yet certain pigments may, for our purpose, be regarded as representing pure colours. Thus, the purest real ultramarine we will regard as blue (cobalt is rather green, that is, it has a little yellow in it, and the French and German ultramarines are generally rather purple, or have a little red in them, yet the best of these latter is a tolerably pure colour), the purest French carmine as red (common carmine is frequently rather crimson, that is, has blue in it; vermilion is much too yellow), and lemon-chrome as yellow (the chrome selected must be without any green shade, and without any orange shade, however slight); and these pigments will be found to represent the colours of the prism as nearly as any that can be found. I would recommend the learner to get a small quantity of these colours in their powder form, substituting the best pale German ultramarine for real ultramarine, as the latter is of high price,[12] and to fill the various circles of our diagrams, which represent the primary colours, with these pigments, mixing them with a little dissolved gum arabic and water--just ufficient to prevent the colours from rubbing off the paper. The secondary colours will be fairly represented by pale-green lake, often called drop-green, by orange-chrome--that of about the colour of a ripe, rather deep-coloured, orange-rind--and the purple by the admixture of pale German ultramarine and crimson-lake, in about equal proportions, with a little white to bring it to the same depth as the green. I cannot name any pigments which would well represent the tertiary colours. Citrine is about the colour of candied _lemon_-peel; olive about the colour of candied citron-peel, and russet is often seen on the skin of certain apples called "russet apples," in the form of a slight roughness; but this russet is in many cases not quite sufficiently red to represent the colour bearing the same name. Iron rust is rather too yellow. This colour should bear the same relation to red that the candied lemon-peel does to yellow. [12] Real ultramarine is sold at £8 per ounce. The best imitation, or German ultramarine, is procurable at any oil-shop at about 3s. to 4s. per pound. The best carmine should be procurable at 6s. per ounce, but artists' colourmen often charge £1 1s., owing to the small demand for this pigment. The best chrome yellow (chrome yellow is kept in many shades) is about 1s. 6d. per pound. If the student will try carefully to realise these colours, and will fill up the circles in our diagrams with them, he will thereby be much assisted in his studies; but it will be still better if he prepare fresh diagrams on a larger scale, and use squares instead of circles. I should recommend, and that I do strongly, that the student work out all the diagrams which I have suggested on a tolerably large scale, using the colours where I have used words. I should also advise him to do an ornament, say in red on a gold ground, and outline this red ornament with a deeper red; to do a gold ornament on a coloured ground, and outline it with black; and indeed to carefully work out an ornamental illustration of our propositions, Nos. 24, 25, 26, and 27, and to keep these before him till he is so impressed by them as to _feel_ the principle which they set forth. This should be done on a large scale in all our designing-rooms and art-workshops. As we shall have to refer to colours by naming pigments, and as I am constantly asked what pigments I employ, I shall enumerate the paints in my colour-box; but I shall place a dagger against those which I have in my private box, and which I do not supply in my offices; but these I seldom use. Of yellows I have [14]king's yellow (not a permanent colour), [14]very pale chrome, lemon-chrome (about the colour of a ripe lemon), middle-chrome (half-way between the lemon and orange-chrome), orange-chrome (about the colour of the rind of a ripe orange), [14]yellow-lake, [14]Indian yellow. Of reds--vermilion, carmine, crimson-lake. Of blues--[14]cobalt, German ultramarine, both deep and pale, Antwerp blue, indigo. Of greens--emerald, green-lake, pale and deep. Of browns--raw Turkey umber, vandyke, Venetian red, purple-brown, brown-lake. Besides these I have what is called celestial blue, which is a very pure and intense turquoise, vegetable black, flake white, and gold bronze.[13] [13] Some of these colours are not of a permanent character and could not be used in work intended to be lasting. I use them for patterns for our manufactures, where when the drawing is once copied in a fabric it is destroyed. Some of the brightest colours are unfortunately the most fleeting. There are certain facts connected with the mixing of colours which must never be lost sight of; thus, while the colours of light co-mingle without any deterioration, or loss of brilliancy, pigments or paints will not do so, but by admixture tend to destroy one another. This takes place only to a small extent when but two primary colours are combined; but if any of the third primary enters into the composition of a tint, a decided deterioration, or loss of intensity, occurs. For this reason we employ many pigments, so as to avoid as far as possible the mixing of colours. But there is another reason why the great admixture of colours is undesirable. Colours are chemical agents, and in some cases the various pigments act chemically on one another. Of all colours yellows suffer most by admixture with other colours: but this is accounted for by their delicacy and purity. For this reason I use a greater variety of yellow pigments than of red or blue.[14] [14] Of all mediums in which colours can be mixed, paraffine is the safest; it is without chemical affinities, and is therefore well calculated to preserve pigments in their original condition. Were it possible to procure three pigments devoid of chemical affinities, and each of the same physical constitution, as of equal degrees of transparency or opacity, one truly representing the blue of light, another the red, and another the yellow, we should need no others, for of these we could form all other colours; but as no pigments come even near to the fulfilment of these conditions, we have to employ roundabout and clumsy methods of arriving at desired results. There is one statement which I have made that, perhaps, needs a little elucidation, although the careful student may have seen the reason of my assertion. I said that purple harmonised with citrine, green with russet, and orange with olive. I might have expressed it (and many would have done so) thus:--The complement of citrine is purple, the complement of russet is green, and the complement of olive is orange. A colour which is complementary to any other is that which, with it, completes the presence of the three primary colours: thus green is the complement of red, and red of green, for each, together with the colour to which it is the complement, completes the presence of the three colours. But in order to a harmony, the complement must be made up in certain proportions. Let us now refer to our second diagrammatic table, and we there see that citrine is formed of two equivalents of yellow and only one equivalent of red and of blue. Now, in order to a harmony, each primary should be present in two equivalents, as one is present in this quantity--_i.e._, the yellow. One equivalent of blue and one of red (both of which are wanting in the citrine) form purple; hence purple is the complement of citrine, or the colour that with it produces a harmony. In russet one equivalent of blue and one of yellow are wanting, and these in combination are green--green, then, is the complement of russet. And in olive one equivalent of red and one of yellow are wanting--red and yellow form orange, hence orange is the complement of olive. I have spoken of all colours as of full intensity and purity, but we have to deal also with other conditions. All colours may be darkened by black, when _shades_ are produced; or reduced by white, when _tints_ are produced. Besides these alterations in intensity, a portion of one colour may be added to another. Thus, if a small portion of blue be mingled with red, the red becomes a crimson or blue-red; or if a small portion of yellow be added to the red, the latter becomes a scarlet or yellow-red. In like manner, when yellow is in excess in a green, we have a yellow-green; or when blue is in excess, a blue-green; and so with the other colours. Such alterations produce _hues_ of colour. We now come to the subtleties of harmony. Thus, if we have a yellow-red or scarlet--a red with yellow in it--the green that will harmonise with it will be a blue-green; or if we have a blue-red or crimson--a red with blue in it--the green that will harmonise with it will be a yellow-green. This is obvious, for the following reasons:--Let us suppose a red represented by the equivalent number, five, with one part of blue added to it, thus causing it to be a blue-red or crimson. Were the red pure, there should be eleven parts of green as a complement to the five of red, of which green eight parts would be blue and three yellow; but the blue-red occurs in six parts, one of which is blue--there are, then, but seven parts of blue remaining in the equivalent quantity to combine with the three of yellow, one being already used; hence the green formed is a yellow-green, one of the equivalents of blue necessary to the formation of a true green being already in combination with the red, and thus absent from the green. The same reasoning will apply to the scarlet-red and blue-green, and, indeed, to all similar cases; but to take the case of the crimson-red and yellow-green, as just given, and carry it a stage further, we might add two parts (out of the eight) of blue to the red, and make it more blue, and then form the complementary green of six parts of blue and three of yellow, and thus make it more yellow. Or we may go further still, and add to the red six of the eight parts of blue, when the admixture would appear as a red-purple rather than as a blue-red, in which case the complementary green--or, rather, green-yellow--would consist of two parts of blue and three of yellow. These facts are diagrammatically expressed in the following:-- Red O O O O O } Yellow { O O O Yellow } Crimson harmonises with { Blue O } Green { O O O O O O O Blue Or, Red O O O O O } Blue Very { O O O Yellow } harmonises with Yellow { Blue O O } Crimson Green { O O O O O O Blue Or, Red. O O O O O } Red Green { O O O Yellow } harmonises with { Blue. O O O O O O } Purple Yellow { O O Blue In all these cases it will be seen that we have eight parts of blue, five of red, and three of yellow, only the mode of combination varies. This variation may occur to any extent, provided the totals of each be always the equivalent proportions. These remarks will apply equally to hues of colour, shades, and tints, and to shades and tints of hues. Care, and a little practice, will enable the learner to arrange colours into a number of degrees of depth, or shades, as they are generally called. (We do not here use the term as signifying pure colours darkened with black.) Ten shades of each colour differing obviously in degree of depth can readily be arranged by the experienced, the ten shades being equidistant from each other as regards depth--that is, shade 3 will be as much darker than shade 2 as shade 2 is darker than shade 1, and so on throughout the whole. Purple is a colour intermediate between blue and red. Imagine ten hues between the purple and the red, and ten more between the purple and the blue: thus we should have purple, then a slightly red purple, then a rather redder purple, then a purple still redder, and so on till we get purple-reds, and finally the pure red; and the same variations of hue at the blue side also. Imagine, further, the green having ten hues extending towards the blue, and ten more stretching towards the yellow; and the orange having ten hues towards the red, and ten towards the yellow--in all cases I count the colour from which we start as one of the ten, thus:-- Blue Purple Red 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 --and we shall have 54 colours and hues of colour. Of each of these 54 colours and hues imagine 10 degrees of depth, and we get 540 colours, hues, tints, and shades, all differing from one another to an obvious degree. Mark this fact, that any colour, tint, hue, or shade of such a diagram has its complement in one other of the colours, tints, hues, or shades of the diagram, and that only two of this series of 540 are complementary to each other; thus, if you fix on any one colour of the 540, there is but one colour in the whole that is complementary to it, and it is complementary to but this one other colour. The student will do well to try and make a colour-diagram of this kind, of a simple character, say such as the following, only using pigments for my numbers; but in doing so he must exercise the utmost care, in order that he secure some degree of accuracy of tint or shade, and if he can call to his aid an experienced colourist it will be of great assistance to him. [Illustration] This table is highly valuable, as it gives ninety harmonies, if carefully prepared in colour; and the preparation of such a table is the very best practice that a student can possibly have. Let us for a moment consider this table, and suppose that we want to find the complement to some particular colour, as the third shade of red. We find the complement of this in the third shade of green opposite. If we want the complement of the second shade of orange-yellow, we find it in the second shade of blue-purple opposite, and so on. Thus we have a means of at once judging of the harmony of colours. It must ever be borne in mind that pigments mixed in the proportions given will not yield results such as would occur when the coloured rays of light are combined; thus three parts, either by weight or measure, of chrome yellow when combined with eight parts of ultramarine would not form a colour representing the secondary green, nor would the result be more satisfactory were other pigments combined in the proportions given. What we have said in respect to the proportions in which colours combine to form new colours applies only to the coloured rays of light. It must now be noticed that while colours harmonise in the proportions stated, the areas occupied by the different colours may vary if there be a corresponding alteration in intensity. Thus eight of blue and eight of orange form a perfect harmony when both colours are of prismatic intensity; but we shall still have a perfect harmony if the orange is diluted to one-half its strength with white, and thus formed into a tint, provided there be sixteen parts of this orange of half strength to the eight parts of blue of full strength. The orange might be further diluted to one-third of its full power, but then twenty-four parts would be necessary to a perfect harmony with eight parts of prismatic blue; or to one-fourth of its strength, when thirty-two parts would be necessary to the harmony. It is not desirable that I occupy space with diagrams of these quantities, but the industrious student will prepare them for himself, and will strive to realise a true half-tint, quarter-tint, etc., which is not a very easy thing to do. By practice, however, it will readily be accomplished, and anything achieved is a new power gained. What I have said respecting the harmony of blue with tints of orange will apply in all similar cases. Thus red will harmonise with tints of green, provided the area of the tint be increased as the intensity is decreased; and so will yellow harmonise with tints of purple under similar conditions. But we may reverse the conditions, and lower the primary to a tint retaining the secondary in its intensity. Thus blue, if reduced to a half-tint, will harmonise with orange of prismatic intensity in the proportion of sixteen of blue to eight of orange; or, if reduced to a quarter-tint, in the proportion o£ thirty-two of blue to eight of orange. Red, if reduced to a half-tint, will harmonise in the proportion of ten red to eleven of green; and yellow as a half-tint in the proportion of six yellow to thirteen of purple. The same remarks might be made respecting the harmony of shades of colour with colours of prismatic intensity. Thus, if orange is diluted to a shade of half intensity with black, it will harmonise with pure blue in the proportion of sixteen of orange to eight of blue, and so on, just as in the case of tints; and this principle applies to the harmony of all hues of colour also. To go one step further: we scarcely ever deal with pure colours or their shades or tints, or even come as near them as we can. With great intensity of colour we seem to require an ethereal character, such as we have in those of light; but our pigments are coarse and earthy--they are too real-looking, and are not ethereal--they may be said to be corporeal rather than spiritual in character. For this reason we have to avoid the use of our purest pigments in such quantities as render their poverty of nature manifest, and to use for large surfaces such tints as, through their subtlety of composition, interest and please. A tint the composition of which is not apparent is always preferable to one of more obvious formation. Thus we are led to use tints which are subtly formed, and such as please by their newness and bewilder by the intricacy of formation. To do what I here mean it is not necessary that many pigments be mixed together in order to the formation of a tint. The effect of which I speak can frequently be got by two well-chosen pigments. Thus a fine series of low-toned shades can be produced by mixing together middle-chrome and brown-lake in various proportions, and in all of the shades thus formed the three primary colours will be represented, but in some yellow will predominate, and in others red; while in many it will not be easy to discover to what proportionate extent the three primary colours are present. Let us suppose that we make a tint by adding white to cobalt blue. This blue contains a small amount of yellow, and is a slightly green blue. But to this tint we add a small amount of raw umber with the view of imparting a greyness[15] or atmospheric character. Raw umber is a neutral colour, leaning slightly to yellow--that is, it consists of red, blue, and yellow, with a slight excess of the latter. In order that an orange harmonise with this grey-blue of a slightly yellow tone, the orange must be slightly inclined to red, so as to form the complement of the little green formed by the yellow in the blue. It may harmonise with the grey-blue as a pure tint if the area of the diluted and neutralised primary is sufficiently extended, or may itself be likewise reduced to a tint of the same depth, when both tints would have the same area. [15] Cobalt, raw umber, and white make a magnificent grey, both in oil-colours, in tempera (powder-colours mixed with gum-water), and in distemper (powder-colours mixed with size). I might go on multiplying cases of this character to almost any extent, but these I leave the student to work out for himself, and pass to notice that while it is desirable to use subtle tints (often called "broken tints") it is rarely expedient to make up the full harmony by a large area of a tertiary tone and a single positive colour. Thus, we might have a shade or a tint of citrine spreading over a large surface as a ground on which we wished to place a figure. This figure would harmonise in pure purple were it of a certain size, and yet if thus coloured it would give a somewhat common-place effect when finished, for the harmony would be too simple and obvious. It would be much better to have the nineteen parts of citrine reduced, say, to half intensity, when the area would be increased to thirty-eight, with the figure of eight parts of blue and five of red, than of thirteen parts of purple. But it would be better still if there were the thirty-eight parts of reduced citrine, three parts of pure yellow, thirteen of purple, five of red, and eight of blue, together with white, black, or gold, or all three (these may be added without altering the conditions, as all act as neutrals), for here the harmony is of a more subtle character. If we count up the equivalents of the colours employed in this scheme of harmony, we shall see that we have, in the citrine-- Yellow 6 (two equivalents). Blue 8 (one equivalent). Red 5 (one equivalent). In the purple-- Blue 8 (one equivalent). Red 5 (one equivalent). Of the pure colours-- Yellow 3 (one equivalent). Red 5 (one equivalent). Blue 8 (one equivalent). Thus we have three equivalents of each primary, which give a perfect harmony. I must not say more respecting the laws of harmony, for in the space of a small work it is impossible to do so, but proceed to notice certain effects or properties of colours, which I have as yet only alluded to, or have passed altogether unnoticed. I have said that black, white, and gold are neutral as regards colour. This is the case, although many would suppose that gold was a yellow. Gold will act as a yellow, but it is generally employed as a neutral in decorative work, and it is more of a neutral than a yellow, for both red and blue exist largely in it. The pictorial artist frames his picture with gold because it, being a neutral, does not interfere with the tints of his work. It has the further advantage of being rich and costly in appearance, and thus of giving an impression of worth where it exists. Black, white, and gold, being neutral, may be advantageously employed to separate colours where separation is necessary or desirable. Yellow and purple harmonise, but yellow is a light colour and purple is dark. These colours not only harmonise, but also contrast as to depth, the one being light and the other dark. The limit of each colour, wherever these are used in juxtaposition, is therefore obvious. It is not so with red and green, for these harmonise when of the same depth. This being the case, and red being a glowing colour, if a red object is placed on a green ground, or a green object on a red ground, the "figure" and ground will appear to "swim" together, and will produce a dazzling effect. Colour must assist form, and not confuse it. It will do this in the instance just named if the figure is outlined with black, white, or gold, and there will be no loss of harmony. But experience has shown that this effect can also be averted by outlining the figure with a lighter tint of its own colour. Thus, if the figure is red and the ground green, an outline of lighter red (pink) may be employed. (See Proposition 26, page 34.) A blue figure on a red ground (as ultramarine on carmine), or a red figure on a blue ground, will also produce this swimming and unsatisfactory effect, but this is again obviated by an outline of black, white, or gold. Employing the outline thus must not be regarded as a means of merely rendering what was actually unpleasant endurable, for it does much more--it affords one of the richest means of effect. A carmine ground well covered with bold green ornament having a gold outline is, if well managed, truly gorgeous; and were the figure blue on the red ground, the lavish use of gold would render the employment of yellow unnecessary as the yellow formed in the eye and cast upon the gold would satisfy all requirements. It is a curious fact that the eye will create any colour of which there is a deficiency. This it will do, but the colour so created is of little use to the composition unless white or gold is present; if, however, there be white or gold in the composition, the colour which is absent, or is insufficiently represented, will be formed in the eye and cast upon these neutrals, and the white or the gold, as the case may be, will assume the tint of the deficient or absent colour. (See Propositions 8 and 9, page 32.) While this occurs (and sometimes it occurs to a marked degree, as can be shown by experiment), it must not be supposed that a composition in which any element is wanting is as perfect as one which reveals no want. It is far otherwise; only Nature here comes to our assistance, and is content to help herself rather than endure our short-comings; but in the one case we give Nature the labour of completing the harmony; while in the other, all being prepared, we receive a sense of satisfaction and repose. In Proposition 8 we showed that when blue and black are juxtaposed, the black becomes "rusty," or assumes an orange tint; and in Proposition 9 we gave the cause of this effect. Let a blue spot be placed on a black silk necktie, and however black the silk, it will yet appear rusty. This is a fact; but we sometimes desire to employ blue on black, and wish the black to look black, and not an orange-black. How can we do this? Obviously by substituting for the black a very dark blue, as indigo. The bright blue spot induces orange (the complement of blue) in the eye. This orange, when cast upon black, causes the latter to look "rusty;" but if we place in the black an amount of blue sufficient to neutralise the orange cast upon it, the effect will be that of a jet-black. We have now considered those qualities of colour, and those laws of contrast and harmony, which may be said to be of the grosser sort; but we have scarcely touched on those considerations which pertain to special refinement or tenderness of effect. But let me close the part of my subject of which I have treated, by repeating a statement already made--a statement, let me say, which first led me to perceive really harmony of colour--that _those colours, and those particular hues of colour, which improve each other to the utmost, are those which perfectly harmonise_. (Consider this statement in connection with Propositions 8, 9, 10, and 14, pages 32 and 33.) * * * * * We come now to consider delicacies and refinements in colour effects, which, although dependent upon the skilful exercise of the laws enunciated, are yet of a character, the power to produce which only results from the consideration of the works of the masters of great art-nations; but of these effects I can say little beyond pointing out what should be studied. This principle however I cannot pass without notice--namely, that the finest colour effects are those of a rich, mingled, bloomy character. Imagine a luxuriant garden, the beds in which are filled with a thousand flowers, having all the colours of the rainbow, and imagine these arranged as closely together as will permit of their growth. When viewed from a distance the effect is soft and rich, and full and varied, and is all that is pleasant. This is Nature's colouring. It is our work humbly to strive at producing like beauty with her. This leads me to notice that primary colours (and secondary colours, also, when of great intensity) should be used chiefly in small masses, together with gold, white, or black. Visit the Indian Museum at Whitehall,[16] and consider the beautiful Indian shawls and scarves and table-covers; or, if unable to do so, look in the windows of our large drapers in the chief towns, and see the true Indian fabrics,[17] and observe the manner in which small portions of intense reds, blues, yellows, greens, and a score of tertiary tints, are combined with white and black and gold to produce a very miracle of bloom. I know of nothing in the way of colour combination so rich, so beautiful, so gorgeous, and yet so soft, as some of these Indian shawls. [16] This museum is open free to the public. [17] These will only be seen in very first-class shops. It is curious that we never find a purely Indian work otherwise than in good taste as regards colour harmony. Indian works, in this respect--whether carpets, or shawls, or dress materials, or lacquered boxes, or enamelled weapons--are almost perfect--perfect in harmony, perfect in richness, perfect in the softness of their general effect. How strangely these works contrast with ours, where an harmonious work in colours is scarcely ever seen. By the co-mingling (not co-mixing) of colours in the manner just described, a rich and bloomy effect can be got, having the general tone of a tertiary colour of any desired hue. Thus, if a wall be covered with little ornamental flowerets, by colouring all alike, and letting each contain two parts of yellow and one part of blue and one of red, as separate and pure colours, the distant hue will be that of citrine: the same effect will result if the flowers are coloured variously, while the same proportions of the primaries are preserved throughout. I can conceive of no decorative effects more subtle, rich, and lovely than those of which I now speak. Imagine three rooms, all connected by open archways, and all decorated with a thousand flower-like ornaments, and these so coloured, in this mingled manner, that in one room blue predominates, in another red, and in another yellow; we should then have a beautiful tertiary bloom in each--a subtle mingling of colour, an exquisite delicacy and refinement of treatment, a fulness such as always results from a rich mingling of hues, and an amount of detail which would interest when closely inspected; besides which, we should have the harmony of the general effect of the three rooms, the one appearing as olive, another as citrine, and the other as russet. This mode of decoration has this advantage, that it not only gives richness and beauty, but it also gives purity. If pigments are mixed together they are thereby reduced in intensity, as we have already seen; but if placed side by side, when viewed from a distance the eye will mix them, but they will suffer no diminution of brilliancy. With the view of cultivating the eye, Eastern works cannot be too carefully studied. The Indian Museum should be the home of all who can avail themselves of the opportunity of study which it affords; and the small Indian department of the South Kensington Museum should not be neglected, small though it is.[18] Chinese works must also be considered, for they likewise supply most valuable examples of colour harmony; and although they do not present such a perfect colour bloom as do the works of India, yet they are never inharmonious, and give clearness and sharpness, together with great brilliancy, in a manner not attempted by the Indians. [18] It may not be generally known, but nearly all our large manufacturing towns have, in connection with the Chamber of Commerce, a collection of Indian fabrics, filling several large volumes, which were prepared, at the expense of Government, under the superintendence of Dr. Forbes Watson, and which were given to the various towns on the condition that they be accessible to all persons who are trustworthy. Although these collections do not embrace the costly decorated fabrics, yet much can be learned from them, and the combinations of colour are always harmonious. A much larger collection is now in course of formation. The best works of Chinese embroidery are rarely seen in this country; but these are unsurpassed by the productions of any other people. For richness, splendour, and purity of colour, together with a delicious coolness, I know of nothing to equal them. The works of the Japanese are not to be overlooked, for in certain branches of art they are inimitable, and as colourists they are almost perfect. On the commonest of their lacquer trays we generally have a bit of good colouring, and their coloured pictures are sometimes marvels of harmony. As to the styles of colouring adopted by the nations referred to, I should say that the Indians produce rich, mingled, bloomy, _warm_ effects--that is, effects in which red and yellow prevail; that the Chinese achieve clearness, repose, and _coolness_--a form of colouring in which blue and white prevail; and that the Japanese effects are _warm_, simple, and quiet. Besides studying the works of India, China, and Japan, study those also of Turkey and Morocco, and even those of Algeria, for here the colouring is much better than with us, although not so good as in the countries first named. No aid to progress must be neglected, and no help must be despised.[19] [19] The South Kensington Museum has a very interesting collection of art-works from China and Japan; but the latter are chiefly lent. It is a strange thing that the perfect works of the East are so poorly illustrated in this national collection, while costly, yea, very costly works of inferior character, illustrative of Renaissance art, swarm as thickly as flies in August. This can only be accounted for by the fact that the heads of the institution have a feeling for pictorial rather than decorative art, and the Renaissance ornament is that which has most of the pictorial element. To me, the style appears to owe its very weakness to this fact, for decorative art should be wholly ideal. Pictorial art is of necessity more or less imitative. With the view of refining the judgment further in respect to colour, get a good colour-top,[20] and study its beautiful effects. See also the "gas tubes" illuminated by electricity, as sold by opticians, and let the prism yield you daily instruction. Soap-bubbles may also be blown, and the beautiful colours seen in them carefully noted. These and any other available means of cultivating the eye should constantly be resorted to, as by such means only can we become great colourists. [20] Not the so-called colour or "chameleon" top sold in the toy-shops, but the more scientific toy procurable of opticians, together with the perforated discs of Mr. John Graham, M.R.C.S., of Tunbridge, Kent. As to works on colour, we have the writings of Field, to whom we are indebted for valuable discoveries; of Hay, the decorator, and friend of the late David Roberts, but some of his ideas are wild and Utopian; of Chevreul, whose work will be most useful to the student; and the small catechism of colour by Mr. Redgrave, of the South Kensington Museum, which is excellent. The student will also do well to carefully study the excellent manual of "Colour" by Professor Church, of Cirencester College. CHAPTER III. FURNITURE. Having considered those principles which are of primary importance to the ornamentist, we may commence our notice of the various manufactures, and try to discover what particular form of art should be applied to each, and the special manner in which decorative principles should be considered as applicable to various materials and modes of working. We shall first consider furniture, or cabinet-work, because articles of furniture occupy a place of greater importance in a room than carpets, wall-papers, or, perhaps, any other decorative works; and, also, because we shall learn from a consideration of furniture those structural principles which will be of value to us in considering the manner in which all art-objects should be formed if they have solid, and not simply superficial, dimensions. In the present chapter, I shall strive to impress the fact that design and ornamentation may be essentially different things, and that in considering the formation of works of furniture these should be regarded as separate and distinct. "Design," says Redgrave, "has reference to the construction of any work both for use and beauty, and therefore includes its ornamentation also. Ornament is merely the decoration of a thing constructed." The construction of furniture will form the chief theme of this chapter, for unless such works are properly constructed they cannot possibly be useful, and if not useful they would fail to answer the end for which they were contrived. But before commencing a consideration of the principles involved in the construction of works of furniture, let me summarise what is required in such works if they are to assume the character of art-objects. 1. The general form, or mass form, of all constructed works must be carefully considered. The aspect of the "sky-blotch" of an architectural edifice is very important, for as the day wanes the detail fades and parts become blended, till the members compose but one whole, which, when seen from the east, appears as a solid mass drawn in darkness on the glowing sky; this is the sky-blotch. If the edifice _en masse_ is pleasing, a great point is gained. Indeed, the general contour should have primary consideration. In like manner, the general form of all works of furniture should first be cared for, and every effort should be made at securing to the general mass beauty of shape. 2. After having cared for the general form, the manner in which the work shall be divided into primary and secondary parts must be considered with reference to the laws of proportion, as stated in a former chapter. 3. Detail and enrichment may now be considered; but while these cannot be too excellent, they must still be subordinate in obtrusiveness to the general mass, or to the aspect of the work as a whole. 4. The material of which the object is formed must always be worked in the most natural and appropriate manner. 5. The most convenient or appropriate form for an object should always be chosen, for unless this has been done, no reasonable hope can be entertained that the work will be satisfactory; for the consideration of utility must in all cases precede the consideration of beauty, as we saw in our first chapter. Having made these few general remarks, we must consider the structure of works of furniture. The material of which we form our furniture is wood. Wood has a "grain," and the strength of any particular piece largely depends upon the direction of its grain. It may be strong if its grain runs parallel with its length, or weak if the grain crosses diagonally, or very weak if the grain crosses transversely. However strong the wood, it becomes comparatively much weaker if the grain crosses the piece; and however weak the wood, it becomes yet weaker if the grain is transverse or diagonal. These considerations lead us to see that _the grain of the wood must always be parallel with its length whenever strength is required_. For our guidance in the formation of works of furniture, I give the following short table of woods arranged as to their strength:-- _Iron-wood_, from Jamaica--very strong, bearing great lateral pressure. _Box_ of Illawarry, New South Wales--very strong, but not so strong as iron-wood. _Mountain ash_, New South Wales--about two-thirds the strength of iron-wood. _Beech_--nearly as strong as mountain ash. _Mahogany_, from New South Wales--not quite so strong as last. _Black dog-wood_ of Jamaica--three-fourths as strong as the mahogany just named. _Box-wood_, Jamaica--not half as strong as the box of New South Wales. _Cedar_ of Jamaica--half as strong as the mahogany of New South Wales.[21] [21] For full particulars on this subject see "Catalogue of the Collection illustrating Construction and Building Material," in the South Kensington Museum, and the manual of "Technical Drawing for Cabinetmakers," by E. A. Davidson. Wood can be got of sufficient length to meet all the requirements of furniture-making, yet we not unfrequently find the arch structurally introduced into furniture, while it is absurd to employ it in wooden construction of any kind. The arch is a most ingenious invention, as it affords a means of spanning a large space with small portions of material, as with small stones, and at the same time gives great strength. It is, therefore, of the utmost utility in constructing stone buildings; but in works of furniture, where we have no large spaces to span, and where wood is of the utmost length required, and is stronger than our requirements demand, the use of the arch becomes structurally foolish and absurd. The folly of this mode of structure becomes more apparent when we notice that a wooden arch is always formed of one or two pieces, and not of very small portions, and when we further consider that, in order to the formation of an arch, the wood must be cut across its grain throughout the greater portion of its length, whereby its strength is materially decreased; while if the arch were formed of small pieces of stone great strength would be secured. Nothing can be more absurd than the practice of imitating in one material a mode of construction which is only legitimate in the case of another, and of failing to avail ourselves of the particular mode of utilising a material which secures a maximum of desirable results. While I protest against the arch when structurally used in furniture, I see no objection to it if used only as a source of beauty, and when so situated as to be free from strain or pressure. One of the objects which we are frequently called upon to construct is a chair. The chair is, throughout Europe and America, considered as a necessity of every house. So largely used are chairs, that one firm at High Wycombe employs 5,000 hands in making common cane-bottomed chairs alone; and yet we see but few chairs in the market which are well constructed. All chairs having curved frames--whether the curve is in the wood of the back, in the sides of the seat, or in the legs--are constructed on false principles. They are of necessity weak, and being weak are not useful. As they are formed by using wood in a manner which fails to utilise its qualities of strength, these chairs are offensive and absurd. It is true that, through being surrounded by such ill-formed objects from our earliest infancy, the eye often fails to be offended with such works as would offend it were they new to it; but this does not show that they are the less offensive, nor that they are not constructively wrong. Besides, whenever wood is cut across the grain, in order that we get anything approaching the requisite strength, it has to be much thicker and more bulky than would be required were the wood cut with the grain; hence such furniture is unnecessarily heavy and clumsy. Fig. 26 represents a chair which I have taken the liberty of borrowing from Mr. Eastlake's work on household art.[22] This chair Mr. Eastlake gives as an illustration of good taste in the construction of furniture; but I give it as an illustration of that which is essentially bad and wrong. The legs are weak, being cross-grained throughout, and the mode of uniting the upper and lower portions of the legs (the two semicircles) by a circular boss is defective in the highest degree. Were I sitting in such a chair, I should be afraid to lean to the right or the left, for fear of the chair giving way. Give me a Yorkshire rocking-chair, in preference to one of these, where I know of my insecurity, much as I hate such. [22] The title of the work is "Hints on Household Taste." It is well worth reading, as much may be learned from it. I think Mr. Eastlake right in many views, yet wrong in others, but I cannot help regarding him somewhat as an apostle of ugliness, as he appears to me to despise finish and refinement. A chair is a stool with a back-rest, and a stool is a board elevated from the ground or floor by supports, the degree of elevation being determined by the length of the legs of the person for whom the seat is made, or by the degree of obliquity which the body and legs are desired to take when the seat is in use. If the seat is to support the body when in an erect sitting posture, about seventeen to eighteen inches will be found a convenient height for the average of persons; but if the legs of the sitter are to take an oblique forward direction, then the seat may be lower. [Illustration: Fig. 26.] [Illustration: Fig. 27.] A stool may consist of a thick piece of wood and of three legs inserted into holes bored in this thick top. If these legs pass to the upper surface of the seat, and are properly wedged in, a useful yet clumsy seat results. In order that the top of the stool be thin and light, it will be necessary that the legs be connected by frames, and it will be well that they be connected twice, once at the top of each leg, so that the seat may rest upon this frame, and once at least two-thirds of the distance from the top. The frame would now stand alone, and although the seat is formed of thin wood it will not crack, as it is supported all round on the upper frame. [Illustration: Fig. 28.] A chair, I have said, is a stool with a back. There is not one chair out of fifty that we find with the back so attached to the seat as to give a maximum of strength. It is usual to make a back leg and one side of the chair-back out of one piece of wood--that is, to continue the back legs up above the seat, and cause them to become the sides of the chair-back. When this is done the wood is almost invariably curved so that the back legs and the chair-back both incline outwards from the seat. There is no objection whatever to the sides of the back and the legs being formed of the one piece, but there is a great objection to either the supports of the back or the legs being formed of cross-grained wood, as much of their strength is thereby sacrificed. Our illustrations (Figs. 27 to 32) will give several modes of constructing chairs such as I think legitimate; but I will ask the reader to think for himself upon the construction of a chair, and especially upon the proper means of giving due support to the back. I have given, in an axiomatic form, those principles which should guide us in the construction of works of furniture, and endeavoured to impress the necessity of using wood in that manner which is most natural--that is, "working" it with the grain (the manner in which we can most easily work it), and in that way which shall secure the greatest amount of strength with the least expenditure of material. I wish to impress my readers with the importance of these considerations, for they lie at the very root of the successful construction of furniture. If the legs of chairs, or their seat-frames, or the ends or backs of couches, are formed of wood cut across the grain, they must either be thick and clumsy, or weak; but, besides this, the rightly constituted mind can only receive pleasure from the contemplation of works which are wisely formed. Daily contact, as we have before said, with ill-shaped objects may have more or less deadened our senses, so that we are not so readily offended by deformity and error as we might be; yet, happily for us, directly we seek to separate truth from error, the beautiful from the deformed, reason assists the judgment, and we learn to feel when we are in the presence of the beautiful or in contact with the degraded. My illustrations will show how I think chairs should be constructed. Fig. 26 is essentially bad, although it has traditional sanction, hence I pass it over without further comment. Fig. 27 is in the manner of an Egyptian chair. It serves to show the careful way in which the Egyptians constructed their works. The curved rails against which the back would rest are the only parts which are not thoroughly correct and satisfactory in a wood structure. Were the curved back members metal, the curvature would be desirable and legitimate. The back of this chair, if the side members were connected by a straight rail, would have immense strength (the backs of some of _our_ chairs are of the very weakest), and if well made it is a seat which would endure for centuries. Fig. 28 is a chair of my own designing, in which I have sought to give strength to the back by connecting its upper portion with a strong cross-rail of the frame. [Illustration: Fig. 29.] [Illustration: Fig. 30.] Fig. 29 is a chair slightly altered from one in Mr. Eastlake's work on "Household Taste;" as shown in our illustration, it is a correctly formed work. Fig. 30 is an arm-chair in the Greek style, which I have designed. Fig. 31 is a Lady's chair in the Gothic style; Fig. 32, a lady's chair in early Greek. These I have prepared to show different modes of structure; if the legs are fitted to a frame (the seat-frame), as in the early Greek chair just alluded to, they should be very short, as in this instance, or they must be connected by a frame below the seat, as in Figs. 33 and 34. The best general structure is that in which the front legs pass to the level of the upper surface of the seat. [Illustration: Fig. 31.] [Illustration: Fig. 32.] Fig. 33 is a copy of a chair shown by Messrs. Gillow and Co., of Oxford Street, in the last Paris International Exhibition. In many respects it is admirably constructed. The skeleton brackets holding the back to the seat are very desirable adjuncts to light chairs; so are the brackets connecting the legs with the seat-frame, as these strengthen the entire chair. The manner in which the upper rail of the back passes through the side uprights and is "pinned" is good. The chief, and only important, fault in this chair is the bending of the back legs, involving their being cut against the grain of the wood. Fig. 31 is a chair from Mr. Talbert's very excellent work on "Gothic Furniture." It shows an admirable method of supporting the back. Fig. 35 I have designed as a high-backed lounging chair. With the view of giving strength to the back, I have extended the seat, and arranged a support from this extension to the upper back-rail, and this extension of the seat I have supported by a fifth leg. There is no reason whatever why a chair should have four legs. If three would be better, or five, or any other number, let us use what would be best.[23] [23] In my drawing, the stuffing of the back has been accidentally shown too much rounded. I have now given several illustrations of modes of forming chairs. I might have given many more, but it is not my duty to try and exhaust a subject. What I have to do is simply point out principles, and call attention to facts. It is the reader who must think for himself--first, of the principles and facts which I adduce; secondly, of the illustrations which I give; thirdly, of other works which he may meet with; and fourthly, of further means of producing desirable and satisfactory results than those set forth in my illustrations. [Illustration: Fig. 33.] [Illustration: Fig. 34.] As it cannot be doubted that a well-constructed work, however plain or simple it may be, gives satisfaction to those who behold it--while a work of the most elaborate character fails to satisfy if badly constructed--we shall give a few further illustrations of structure for other articles of furniture, besides chairs, which have become necessary to our mode of life. Fig. 36 is one of my sketches for Greek furniture, designed for a wealthy client. It was formed of black wood. Here the frame of the seat is first formed, and the legs are inserted beneath it, and let into it, while the wood-work of the end of the couch stands upon it, being inserted into it. This appears to have been the general method with the Greeks of forming their furniture, yet it is not so correct structurally as Fig. 37, another of my sketches, where the end and the leg are formed of one piece of wood. The first formation (that of Fig. 36) would bear any amount of pressure from above, but it is not well calculated for resisting lateral pressure; while the latter would resist this lateral pressure, but would not bear quite the same amount of pressure from above. The latter, however, could bear more weight than would ever be required of it, and would be the more durable piece of furniture. [Illustration: Fig. 35.] Fig. 38 gives a legitimate formation for a settee; the cutting-out, or hollowing, of the sides of the legs is not carried to an extreme, but leaves a sufficiency of strong wood with an upright grain to resist all the pressure that would be placed on the seat, and the lower and upper thickened portions of the legs act as the brackets beneath the seat in Fig. 33. The arch here introduced is not used structurally, but for the sake of a curved line, and acts simply as a pair of brackets. This illustration is also from Mr. Talbert's work. Fig. 39 is a table such as we occasionally meet with. I see no objection to the legs leaning inwards at the top; indeed, we have here a picturesque and useful table of legitimate formation. Fig. 40 is the end elevation of a sideboard from Mr. Talbert's work. Mark the simplicity of the structure. The leading or structural lines are straight and obvious. Although Mr. Talbert is not always right, yet his book is well worthy of the most careful consideration and study; and this I can truly say, that it compares favourably with all other works on furniture with which I am acquainted. The general want which we perceive in modern furniture is simplicity of structure and truthfulness of construction. If persons would but think out the easiest mode of constructing a work before they commence to design it, and would be content with this simplicity of structure, we should have very different furniture from what we have. Think first of what is wanted, then of the material at command. I fear that I have very feebly enforced and very inefficiently illustrated the true principles on which works of furniture should be constructed; and yet I feel that the structure of such works is of importance beyond all other considerations. Space is limited, however, and I must pass on; hence I only hope that I have induced the reader to think for himself, and if I have done so I shall have fulfilled my desire, for his progress will then be sure. [Illustration: Fig. 36.] [Illustration: Fig. 37.] Respecting structure I have but a few general remarks further to make, and all these are fairly embraced in the one expression, "Be truthful." An obvious and true structure is always pleasant. Let, then, the "tenon" and the "mortise" pass through the various members, and let the parts be "pinned" together by obvious wooden pins. Thus, if the frame of a chair-seat is tenoned into the legs, let the tenon pass through the leg and be visible on the outer side, and let it be held in its place by glue and wooden pins--the pins being visible. Yet they need not protrude beyond the surface; but why hide them? In this way that old furniture was made which has endured while piece after piece of modern furniture, made with invisible joints and concealed nails and screws, has perished. This is a true structural treatment, and is honest in expression also. [Illustration: Fig. 38.] I do not give this as a principle applicable to one class of furniture only, but to all. When we have "pinned" furniture with an open structure (see the back of chair, Fig. 33), the mode of putting together must of necessity be manifest; but in all other cases the tenons should also go through, and the pins by which they are held in their place be driven from one surface to the other side right through the member. In the commencement of this chapter on furniture, I said that after the most convenient form has been chosen for an object, and after it has been arranged that the material of which it is to be formed shall be worked in the most natural or befitting way, that then the block-form must be looked to, after which comes the division of the mass into primary parts, and lastly, the consideration of detail. [Illustration: Fig. 39.] As to the block-form, let it be simple, and have the appearance of appropriateness and consistency. Its character must be regulated, to an extent, by the nature of the house for which the furniture is intended, and by the character of the room in which it is to be placed. All I can say to the student on this part of the subject is this: Carefully consider good works of furniture whenever opportunity occurs, and note their general conformation. A fine work will never have strong architectural qualities--that is, it will not look like part of a building formed of wood instead of stone. There is but small danger of committing any great error in the block-form, if it be kept simple, and to look like a work in wood, provided that the proportions of height to width and of width and height to thickness are duly cared for (see page 23). After the general form has been considered, the mass may be broken into primary and secondary parts. Thus, if we have to construct a cabinet, the upper part of which consists of a cupboard, and the lower portion of drawers, we should have to determine the proportion which the one part should bear to the other. This is an invariable rule--that the work must not consist of equal parts; thus, if the whole cabinet be six feet in height, the cupboards could not be three feet while the drawers occupied three feet also. The division would have to be of a subtle character--of a character which could not be readily detected. Thus the cupboard might be three feet five inches, and the drawers collectively two feet seven inches. If the drawers are not all to be of the same depth, then the relation of one drawer, as regards its size, to that of another must be considered, and of each to the cupboard above. In like manner the proportion of the panels of the doors to the styles must be thought out; and until all this has been done no work should ever be constructed. [Illustration: Fig. 40.] Next comes the enrichment of parts. Carving should be sparingly used, and is best confined to mouldings, or projecting or terminal ends. If employed in mouldings, those members should be enriched which are more or less completely guarded from dust and injury by some overhanging member. If more carving is used, it should certainly be a mere enrichment of necessary structure--as we see on the legs and other uprights of Mr. Crace's sideboard, by Pugin (Fig. 41). I am not fond of carved panels, but should these be employed the carving should never project beyond the styles surrounding them, and in all cases of carving no pointed members must protrude so as to injure the person or destroy the dress of those who use the piece of furniture. If carving is used sparingly, it gives us the impression that it is valuable; if it is lavishly employed, it appears to be comparatively worthless. The aim of art is the production of repose. A large work of furniture which is carved all over cannot produce the necessary sense of repose, and is therefore objectionable. [Illustration: Fig. 41.] There may be an excess of finish in works of carving connected with cabinet-work; for if the finish is too delicate there is a lack of effect in the result. A piece of furniture is not a miniature work, which is to be investigated in every detail. It is an object of utility, which is to appear beautiful in a room, and is not to command undivided attention; it is a work which is to combine with other works in rendering an apartment beautiful. The South Kensington Museum purchased in the last Paris International Exhibition, at great cost, a cabinet from Fourdonois; but it is a very unsatisfactory specimen, as it is too delicate, too tender, and too fine for a work of utility--it is an example of what should be avoided rather than of what should be followed. The delicately carved and beautiful panels of the doors, if cut in marble and used as mere pieces of sculpture, would have been worthy of the highest commendation; but works of this kind wrought in a material that has a "grain," however little the grain may show, are absurd. Besides, the subjects are of too pictorial a character for "applied work"--that is, they are treated in too pictorial or naturalistic a manner. A broad, simple, idealised treatment of the figure is that which is alone legitimate in cabinet work. Supports or columns carved into the form of human figures are always objectionable. Besides carving, as a means of enrichment, we have inlaying, painting, and the applying of plaques of stone or earthenware, and of brass or ormolu enrichments, and we have the inserting of brass into the material when buhl-work is formed. Inlaying is a very natural and beautiful means of enriching works of furniture, for it leaves the flatness of the surface undisturbed. A great deal may be done in this way by the employment of simple means. A mere row of circular dots of black wood inlaid in oak will often give a remarkably good effect; and the dots can be "worked" with the utmost ease. Three dots form a trefoil, four dots a quatrefoil, six dots a hexafoil, and so on, and desirable effects can often be produced by such simple inlays. Panels of cabinets may be painted, and enriched with ornament or flatly-treated figure subjects. This is a beautiful mode of decoration very much neglected. The couch (Fig. 37) I intended for enrichment of this kind. If this form is employed, care should be exercised in order that the painted work be in all cases so situated that it cannot be rubbed. It should fill sunk panels and hollows and never appear on advancing members. I am not fond of the application of plaques of stone or earthenware to works of furniture. Anything that is brittle is not suitable as an enrichment of wood-work, unless it can be so placed as to be out of danger. Ormolu ornaments, when applied to cabinets and other works in wood, are also never satisfactory. They look too separate from the wood of which the work is formed--too obviously applied; and whatever is obviously _applied_ to the work, and is not a portion of its general fabric, whether a mass of flowers even if carved in wood or an ormolu ornament, is not pleasant. Buhl-work is often very clever in character and skilfully wrought, but I do not care for it. It is of too laborious a nature, and thus intrudes upon us the sense of labour as well as that of skill. As a means of enrichment, I approve of carving, sparingly used, of inlays, and of painted ornament in certain cases; and by the just employment of these means the utmost beauty in cabinet-work can be achieved. Ebony inlaid with ivory is very beautiful. In order to illustrate my remarks respecting cabinets, sideboards, and similar pieces of furniture, I give an engraving of a sideboard executed by Mr. Crace, from the design of Mr. A. Welby Pugin (the father), to which I have before alluded (Fig. 41), and a painted cabinet by Mr. Burgess (Fig. 42), the well-known Gothic architect, whose architecture must be admired. Both of these works are worthy of study of a very careful kind. [Illustration: Fig. 42.] In the sideboard, notice first the general structure or construction of the work, then the manner in which it is broken into parts, and lastly, that it is the structural members which are carved. If this work has faults, they are these: first, the carving is in excess--thus, the panels would have been better plain; and, second, in some parts there is a slight indication of a stone structure, as in the buttress character of the ends of the sideboard. To the cabinet much more serious objections may be taken. 1st. A roof is a means whereby the weather is kept out of a dwelling, and tiles afford a means whereby small pieces of material enable us to form a perfect covering to our houses of a weather-proof character. It is very absurd, then, to treat the roof of a cabinet, which is to stand in a room, as if it were an entire house, or an object which were to stand in a garden. 2nd. The windows in the roof, which in the case of a house let light into those rooms which are placed in this part of the building, and are formed in a particular manner so as the more perfectly to exclude rain, become simply stupid when placed in the roof of a cabinet. These, together with the imitation tiled roof, degrade the work to a mere doll's house in appearance. 3rd. A panelled structure, which is the strongest and best structure, is ignored; hence strong metal bindings are necessary. The painting of the work is highly interesting, and had it been more flatly treated, would then have been truthful, and would yet have lent the same interest to the cabinet that it now does, even if we consider the matter from a purely pictorial point of view. Before we pass from a consideration of furniture and cabinet-work generally, we must notice a few points to which we have as yet merely referred, or which we have left altogether unnoticed. Thus we have to consider upholstery as applied to works of furniture, the materials employed as coverings for seats, and the nature of picture-frames and curtain-poles; we must also notice general errors in furniture, strictly so called. When examining certain wardrobes and cabinets in the International Exhibition of 1862, I was forcibly impressed with the structural truth of one or two of these works. One especially commended itself to me as a fine structural work of classic character. Just as I was expressing my admiration, the exhibitor threw open the doors of this well-formed wardrobe to show me its internal fittings, when, fancy my feelings at beholding the first door bearing with it, as it opened, the two pilasters that I conceived to be the supports of the somewhat heavy cornice above, and the other door bearing away the third support, and thus leaving the superincumbent mass resting on the thin sides of the structure only, while they appeared altogether unable to perform the duty imposed upon them. "Horrible! horrible!" was all I could exclaim. Some of the most costly works of furniture shown by the French in the last Paris International Exhibition were not free from this defect; and this is strange, for to the rightly constituted mind this one defect is of such a grave character as to neutralise whatever pleasure might otherwise be derived from contemplating the work. We see a man, a genius perhaps--a man having qualities that all must admire; but he has one great vice--one sin which easily besets him. While the man has excellent and estimable qualities, we yet avoid him, for we see not the excellences but the vice. It is so with such works of furniture as those of which we have been speaking, for their defects are such as impress us more powerfully than their excellences. Respecting these works of furniture, this should be said: they are more or less imitative of works of a debased art-period--of a period in which structural truth was utterly disregarded--yet this is no reason why we should copy the defects of our ancestors. Infinitely worse than the works just spoken of, is falsely constructed Gothic furniture, where the very truthfulness of structure is openly set before us. Not long since I was staying with a client whose house is of Gothic style. Being about to furnish drawings for the decorations of this mansion, I was carefully noting the character of the architecture and of the furniture, which latter had been designed and manufactured expressly for the house by a large Yorkshire firm of cabinet-makers. The structure of the furniture appeared just, the proportions tolerably good, the wood honest, and the inlays judicious; but, can it be imagined, the whole was a mere series of frauds and shams--the cross-grain ends of what should be supports were attached to the fronts of drawers, pillars came away, and such falsity became apparent as I never before saw. How any person could possibly produce such furniture, be he ever so degraded, I cannot think. I have seen works that are bad, I have seen falsities in art, but I never before saw such falsity of structure and such uncalled-for deception as these works presented. The untrue is always offensive; but when a special effort is made at causing a lie to appear as truth, a double sense of disappointment is experienced when the untruthfulness is discovered. In his work on "Household Taste," to which I have before alluded, Mr. Eastlake objects, and I think very justly, to the character of an ordinary telescopic dining-table. He says: "Among the dining-room appointments, the table is an article of furniture which stands greatly in need of reform. It is generally made of planks of polished oak or mahogany laid upon an insecure framework of the same material, and supported by four gouty legs, ornamented by the turner with mouldings which look like inverted cups and saucers piled upon an attic baluster. I call the framework insecure, because I am describing what is commonly called a 'telescope' table, or one which can be pulled out to twice its usual length, and, by the addition of extra leaves in its middle, accommodate twice the usual number of diners. Such a table cannot be soundly made in the same sense that ordinary furniture is sound; it must depend for its support on some contrivance which is not consistent with the material of which it is made. Few people would like to sit on a chair the legs of which slid in and out, and were fastened at the required height by a pin; there would be a sense of insecurity in the notion eminently unpleasant. You might put up with such an invention in camp, or on a sketching expedition, but to have it and use it under your own roof, instead of a strong and serviceable chair, would be absurd. Yet this is very much what we do in the case of the modern dining-room table. When it is extended it looks weak and untidy at the sides; when it is reduced to its shortest length the legs appear heavy and ill-proportioned. It is always liable to get out of order, and from the very nature of its construction must be an inartistic object. Why should such a table be made at all? A dining-room is a room to dine in. Whether there are few or many people seated for that purpose, the table might well be kept of a uniform length, and if space is an object it is always possible to use in its stead two small tables, each on four legs. These might be placed end to end when dinner parties are given, and one of them would suffice for family use. A table of this kind might be solidly and stoutly framed, so as to last for ages, and become, as all furniture ought to become, an heirloom in the family. When a man builds himself a house on freehold land, he does not intend that it shall only last his lifetime; he bequeaths it in sound condition to posterity. We ought to be ashamed of furniture which is continually being replaced; at all events, we cannot possibly take any interest in such furniture. In former days, when the principles of good joinery were really understood, the legs of such a large table as that of the dining-room would have been made of a very different form from the lumpy, pear-shaped things of modern use." In nearly all these remarks I agree with Mr. Eastlake, and especially in his remark that, owing to the very nature of its construction, a modern dining-table must be an inartistic object. No work can be satisfactory in which any portions of the true supporting structure or frame are drawn apart; and this occurs to a marked degree in this table, as is shown in Mr. Eastlake's illustration, which we here copy (Fig. 43). [Illustration: Fig. 43.] Falsities of structure, although not so glaring as that of the telescopic dining-table, are everywhere met with in our shops, and, curious as it may appear, the great majority of the works offered to the public are not only false in structure, but are utterly offensive to good taste in every way, and are formed almost exclusively of wood cut across the grain, which secures to the article the maximum amount of weakness. Figs. 44, 45, 46, and 47 are examples of utterly bad furniture. [Illustration: Fig. 44.] [Illustration: Fig. 45.] [Illustration: Fig. 46.] [Illustration: Fig. 47.] Another falsity in furniture is veneering--a practice which should be wholly abandoned. Simple honesty is preferable to false show in all cases; truthfulness in utterance is always to be desired. It was customary at one time to veneer almost every work of furniture, and even to place the grain of the veneer in a manner totally at variance with the true structure of the framework which it covered. This was a method of making works, which might in their unfinished state be satisfactory, appear when finished as most unsatisfactory objects. Since this time much progress has been made in a knowledge of truthful structure and of truthful expression, yet this method of giving a false surface by means of veneer is not wholly abandoned as despicable and false. A few months back I had occasion to visit a cabinet warehouse in Lancashire, and the owner called my attention to the fine grain of some old English oak, and remarked that certain pieces of furniture were of solid wood. Upon investigation, however, I discovered that while the furniture in question was made throughout of oak, the bulk of the structure was of common wainscoting, and the surface was veneered with English oak. I confess that I would much rather have had the furniture without its false exterior, and daily my love for fine grain in wood gets less. I think that this arises from the fact that strong grain in wood takes from the "unity" of the work into which it is formed, and tends to break it up into parts, by rendering every member conspicuous. What is wanted in a work of furniture, before all other considerations, is a fine general form--a harmony of all parts--so that no one member usurps a primary place--and this it is almost impossible to achieve if a wood is employed having a strongly marked grain. With us a room is considered as almost unfurnished if the windows are not hung with some kind of drapery. The original object of this drapery was that of keeping out a draught of air, which found its way through the imperfectly fitting windows; and the antitype of our window-hangings was a simple curtain, formed of a material suitable to achieve the purpose sought. Such a curtain was legitimate and desirable, and would contrast strangely with the elaborate festooning and quadrupled curtains of our present windows. We daily see yards of valuable material, arranged in massive and absurd folds, shutting out that light which is necessary to our health and well-being; a pair of heavy stuff curtains and a pair of lace curtains being hung at each window, each curtain consisting of a sufficient amount of material to more than cover the window of itself. An excess of drapery is always vulgar, while a little drapery usefully and judiciously employed is pleasant. Many windows that are well made, and thus keep out all currents of air, need no curtains. If the window mouldings are of an architectural character, and are coloured much darker than the wall, so as to become an obvious frame to the window, and thus do for the window what a picture-frame does for a picture, no curtains will be required. I have recently had a wonderfully striking illustration of this. Two adjoining rooms are alike in their architecture; one is decorated, and has the window casement of such colours as strongly contrast, while they are yet harmonious, with the wall. Before the room was decorated, and the windows were thus treated, a general light colour prevailed, both on the wood-work and on the walls of the room, and curtains were hung at the windows in the usual way. With the altered decorations, the windows became so effective that I at once saw the undesirability of re-hanging the curtains, and yet not one of all my friends has observed that there are no curtains to the windows; while if the curtains are removed from the adjoining room, where the window-frames are as light as the walls, the first question asked is, "Where are your curtains?" [Illustration: Fig. 48.] [Illustration: Fig. 49.] Curtains should be hung on a simple and obvious pole (Fig. 48). All means of hiding this pole are foolish and useless. This pole need not be very thick, and is better formed of wood than of metal, for then the rings to which the curtains are attached pass along almost noiselessly. The ends of the pole may be of metal, but I prefer simple balls of wood. The pole may be grooved, and any little enrichments may be introduced into these grooves, providing the carving does not come to the surface, and thus touch the rings, which by their motion would injure it. Whatever is used in the way of enrichment should be of simple character, for the height at which the curtain pole is placed would render fine work altogether ineffective. As to upholstery, I would say, never indulge in an excess. A wood frame should appear in every work of furniture, as in the examples we have given. Sofas are now made as though they were feather beds; they are so soft that you sink into them, and become uncomfortably warm by merely resting upon them, and their gouty forms are relieved only by a few inches of wood, which appear as legs. Stuffing should be employed only as a means of rendering a properly constructed seat comfortably soft. If it goes beyond this it is vulgar and objectionable. Spring stuffing is not to be altogether commended; a good old-fashioned hair-stuffed seat is more desirable, as it will endure when springs have perished. As to the materials with which seats may be covered I can say little, for they are many. Hair cloth, although very durable, is altogether inartistic in its effect. Nothing is better than leather for dining-room chairs; Utrecht velvet, either plain or embossed, looks well on library chairs; silk and satin damasks, rep, plain cloth, and many other fabrics are appropriate to drawing-room furniture. Chintz I am not fond of as a chair covering, and in a bed-room I would rather have chairs with plain wooden seats than with cushions covered with this glazed material. [Illustration: Fig. 50.] With a mere remark upon picture-frames I will finish this chapter. Picture-frames are generally elaborately carved mouldings, or are simple mouldings covered with ornaments, which, whether carved or formed of putty, are overlaid with gold leaf; they are, indeed, highly ornamented gilt mouldings. I much prefer a well-formed, yet somewhat simple, black polished moulding, on the interior of which runs a gold bead (Fig. 49). A fanciful yet good picture-frame was figured in the _Building News_ of September 7th, 1866, which we now repeat (Fig. 50). CHAPTER IV. DECORATION OF BUILDINGS. DIVISION I.--GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS--CEILINGS. Having considered furniture, the formation of which requires a knowledge of construction, or of what we may term structural art, we pass on to notice principles involved in the decoration of surfaces, or in "surface decoration," as it is usually called. We commence by considering how rooms should be decorated; yet, in so doing, we are met at the very outset with a great difficulty, as the nature of the decoration of a room should be determined by the character of its architecture. My difficulty rests here. How am I to tell you what is the just decoration for a room, when the suitability of the decoration is often dependent upon even structural and ornamental details; and when, in all cases, the character of the decoration should be in harmony with the character of the architecture? Broadly, if a building is in the Gothic style, all that it contains in the way of decoration, and of furniture also, should be Gothic. If the building is Greek, the decorations and furniture should be Greek. If the building is Italian, all its decorations and furniture should be Italian, and so on. But there are further requirements. Each term that I have now employed, as expressive of a style of architecture, is more or less generic in character, and is therefore too broad for general use. What is usually termed Gothic architecture, is a group of styles having common origin and resemblances, known to the architect as the Semi-Norman or Transition style, which occurred in the twelfth century under Henry II. (it was at this time that the pointed arch was first employed). The Early English, which was developed in the end of the twelfth and early part of the thirteenth century, under Richard I., John, and Henry III.; the Decorated, which occurred at the end of the thirteenth, and early portion of the fourteenth century, under Edward I., Edward II., and Edward III.; the Perpendicular, which occurred at the latter part of the fourteenth, and through the greater portion of the fifteenth century, under Richard II., Henry IV., V., and VI., Edward IV. and V., and Richard III.; and, lastly, the Tudor, which occurred at the end of the fifteenth, and the beginning of the sixteenth century, under Henry VII. and Henry VIII. All these styles are popularly spoken of as one, and are expressed by the one term--Gothic. It is so also, to an extent, with the Greek, Roman, and Italian styles, for each of these appears in various modifications of character, but into such details we will not enter: it must suffice to notice that the character of the decoration must be not only broadly in the style of the architecture of the building which it is intended to beautify, but it must be similar in nature to the ornament produced at precisely the same date as the architecture which has been employed for the building. It must not be supposed that I am an advocate of reproducing works, or even styles of architecture, such as were created in times gone by, for I am not. The peoples of past ages carefully sought to ascertain their wants--the wants resulting from climate--the wants resulting from the nature of their religion--the wants resulting from social arrangements--the wants imposed by the building material at command. We, on the contrary, look at a hundred old buildings, and without considering our wants, as differing from those of our forefathers, take a bit from one and a bit from another, or we reproduce one almost as it stands, and thus we bungle on, instead of seeking to raise such buildings as are in all respects suited to our modern requirements. Things are, however, much better in this respect than they were. Bold men are dealing with the Gothic style in its various forms. Scott, Burgess, Street, and many others are venturing to alter it; and thus, while it is losing old characteristics, and is acquiring new elements, it is already assuming a character which has nobility of expression, truthfulness of structure, and suitability to our special requirements. In time to come, further changes will doubtless be made; and thus the style which arose as an imitation of the past will have become new, through constantly departing from the original type, and as constantly adopting new elements. I have said that the decoration of a building should be brought about by the employment of such ornament as was, in time past, associated with the particular form of architecture employed in the building to be decorated, if a precisely similar form of architecture previously existed. Let not the ornament, however, be a mere servile imitation of what has gone before, but let the designer study the ornament of bygone ages till he understands and _feels_ its spirit, and then let him strive to produce new forms and new combinations in the spirit of the ornament of the past. This must also be carefully noted--that the ornament of a particular period does not consist merely of the forms employed in the architecture, drawn in colour on the wall, or the ceiling, as the case may be. The particular form of ornament used in association with some forms of Gothic architecture was very different in character from what we might expect from the nature of the architecture itself, and did not to any extent consist of flatly-treated crockets, gable ends, trefoils, cinque-foils, etc. The ornament of the past must be studied in its purity, and not from those wretched attempts at the production of Gothic decoration which we often see. In what we may call the typical English house of the present day there is really no architecture, and if such a building is to be decorated it is almost legitimate to employ any style of ornamentation. In such a case I should choose a style which has no very marked features--which is not strongly Greek, or strongly Gothic, or strongly Italian; and if there is the necessary ability, I should say try and produce ornaments having novelty of character, and yet showing your knowledge of the good qualities of all styles that are past. If this is attempted, care must be exercised in order to avoid getting a mere combination of elements from various styles as one ornament. Nothing can be worse than to see a bit of Greek, a fragment of Egyptian, an Alhambraic scroll, a Gothic flower, and an Italian husk associated together as one ornament; unless this were done advisedly and in order to meet a very special want, such an ornamental composition would be detestable. What I recommend is the production of new forms; but the new composition may have the vigour of the best Gothic ornament, the severity of Egyptian, the intricacy of the Persian, the gorgeousness of the Alhambra, and so on, only it must not imitate in detail the various styles of the past. Now as to the decoration of a room. If one part only can be decorated, let that one part be the ceiling. Nothing appears to me more strange than that our ceilings, which can be properly seen, are usually white in middle-class houses, while the walls, which are always in part hidden, and even the floor, on which we tread, should have colour and pattern applied to them; and of this I am certain, that, considered from a decorative point of view, our ordinary treatment is wrong. We glory in a clear blue sky overhead, and we speak of the sky as increasing in beauty as it becomes deeper and deeper in tint. Thus the depth of the tint of the Italian sky is familiar to us all. Why, then, make our ceilings white? I often ask this question, and am told that the whiteness renders the ceiling almost invisible; hence it is preferred. This idea is very absurd; first, because blue is the most ethereal and most distant of all colours (see Chap. II., page 33); and, second, do we not build a house with the view of procuring shelter? hence why do we seek to realise the feeling that we are without a covering over our heads? We only like a white ceiling because we have been accustomed to such from infancy, and because we have been taught to regard a clean white ceiling as all that is to be desired. I knew a Yorkshire lady who, upon being asked by her husband whether she would like the drawing-room ceiling decorated, replied that she thought not, as she could not then have it re-whitewashed every year. The idea was clean certainly. Blue, I have said, is ethereal in character; it is so, and may become exceedingly so if of medium depth and of a grey hue; hence, if a mere atmospheric effect was sought, it would be desirable that this colour be used on the ceiling rather than white. But, as we have just said, invisibility of the ceiling is absurd, as it is our protection from the weather. Further, the ceiling may become an object of great beauty, and it can be seen as a whole. Why then neglect the opportunity of arranging a beautiful object when there is no reason to the contrary? We like a beautiful coloured vase, or, if we do not, we can have it whitewashed, or even dispense with it altogether. We like beautiful walls, or we would have them whitewashed also; indeed, we like our surroundings generally beautiful. Why not, then, have beautiful ceilings, especially as they can be seen complete, while the wall is in part hidden by furniture and pictures? [Illustration: Fig. 51.] I will suppose that we have an ordinary room to deal with. First, take away the wretched plaster ornament in the centre of the ceiling, for it is sure to be bad. There is not one such ornament out of a thousand that can be so treated as to make the ceiling look as well as it would do without it. Now place all over the ceiling a flat painted or stencilled pattern, a pattern which repeats equally in all directions (as Fig. 51), and let this pattern be in blue (of any depth) and white, or in blue (of any depth) and cream-colour, and it is sure to look well (the blue being the ground, and the cream-colour or white the ornament). Simple patterns in cream-colour on blue ground, but having a black outline, also look well (Fig. 52); and these might be prepared in paper, and hung on the ceiling as common paper-hangings, if cheapness is essential. Gold ornaments on a deep blue ground, with black outline, also look rich and effective. These are all, however, simple treatments, for any amount of colour may be used on a ceiling, provided the colours are employed in very small masses, and perfectly mingled, so that the effect produced is that of a rich coloured bloom (see Chap. II., page 46). A ceiling should be beautiful, and should also be manifest; but if it must be somewhat indistinct, in order that the caprices of the ignorant be humoured, let the pattern be in middle-tint or pale blue and white only. [Illustration: Fig. 52.] I like to see the ceiling of a room covered all over with a suitable pattern, but I do not at all object to a large central ornament only, or to a centre ornament and corners; especially if the cornice is heavy, so as to give compensating weight to the margin. I have recently designed and seen carried out one or two centre ornaments for drawing-rooms, which ornaments were twenty-one feet in diameter. A centre ornament, if properly treated, may be very large without looking heavy; it may, indeed, extend at least two-thirds of the way from the centre to the margin of the ceiling. I do not speak of plaster ornaments, but of flat decorations. If the ceiling is flat all ornament placed upon it must not only be flat also, but must not fictitiously represent relief, for no shaded ornament can be pleasant when placed as the decoration of a flat architectural surface. I have already noticed that the decoration of a room should be in character with its architecture, but that while this should be so, the ornament applied by way of enrichment should not be a servile copy of the decorative forms employed in ages gone by, but should be such as is new in character, while yet of the spirit of the past. [Illustration: Fig. 53.] Many circumstances tend to determine the nature of the decoration which should be applied to a ceiling: thus, if a ceiling is structurally divided into square panels, the character of the ornament is thereby restricted, and should these panels be large it will probably be desirable that each be fitted with the same ornament; while if they are small three or four different patterns may be employed, if arranged in some orderly or methodical manner. [Illustration: Fig. 54.] A ceiling may also have the joists or beams visible upon it: in this case the decoration would have to be of a very special character. The bottoms of the joists might have a string pattern upon them (a running pattern), as the "Greek key," or guilloche; whilst the sides might have either a running pattern, or a pattern with an upward tendency, as the "Greek honeysuckle;" and the ceiling intervening between the joists might have a running pattern, or better, a star, or diaper pattern, or it might have bands running in the opposite direction to the joists, so as, with them, to form squares, which squares might be filled with ornament. [Illustration: Fig. 55.] If, however, the ceiling is flat, and is not divided into sections structurally, almost any "setting out" of the surface may be employed, as Fig. 53; or a large centre ornament, as Figs. 54 and 55; or a rosette distributed over the entire surface, as Fig. 56. In any case it is not necessary or even desirable that the ornament be in relief upon the ceiling. Flatly treated ornaments may be employed with advantage, and all fictitious appearance of relief, as we have already said, must be avoided. There are so many different ways of setting out ceilings, that I cannot attempt even to make any suggestions. I would simply say, however, Avoid an architectural setting out, if there are no structural members; for ornament which is flat may spread in any manner over a surface without even appearing to need structural supports. As to the colour of a ceiling if there is to be no ornament upon it, let it be a cream-colour (formed of white with a little middle-chrome) rather than white. Cream-colour always looks well upon a ceiling, and gives the idea of purity. A grey-blue is also a very desirable colour for a ceiling, such as is formed of pale ultramarine, white, and a little raw umber, just sufficient to make the blue slightly grey (or atmospheric). In depth this blue should be about half-way between the ultramarine and white. Another effect which I like is produced by the full colour of pure (or almost pure) ultramarine. In this case the cornice should be carefully coloured, and pale blue and white should prevail in it, but a little pure red must be present. [Illustration: Fig. 56.] A further and very desirable effect is produced by placing pale cream-coloured stars irregularly over the pale blue, or even the deep blue ceiling, or by placing pale blue stars upon the cream-coloured ceiling. The stars should vary for an ordinary room ceiling (say a room sixteen feet square by ten feet high) from about three inches from point to point down to one inch; the larger stars having six points; others being smaller and with five points; and the small ones having, some four points, and some three. If such stars are irregularly (without order) intermixed over the ceiling, and yet are somewhat equally dispersed, a very pleasing and interesting effect will thereby be produced. This effect is in much favour with the Japanese. The stars, however, should be smaller if placed on a deep, than on a pale, blue ground. Another good effect is produced by giving the ceiling the colour of Bath, or Portland, stone, and starring it with a deeper tint of the same colour. This effect is improved by each star having a very fine outline of a yet darker tint of the same colour. I should recommend those interested in the decoration of ceilings to study carefully the Egyptian, Alhambra, and Greek Courts at the Crystal Palace, Sydenham, especially the two last named; also to notice the ceiling in St. James's Great Hall, Piccadilly, London, and the ceiling of Ushaw College chapel near Durham. The ceilings in the Oriental Courts, by Mr. Owen Jones, at the South Kensington Museum are worthy of careful notice; but the Renaissance ceilings in other parts of the Museum are both wrong in principle and are bad examples of their style. The structurally formed glass ceiling of the Crystal Palace Bazaar in Oxford Street, London, and still better, the ceiling of Mr. Osler's glass warehouse in Oxford Street, are well worthy of note. On the Continent we very frequently meet with ceilings on which large pictures have been painted, as in the Louvre and the Luxembourg in Paris; and the authorities of the South Kensington Museum are making efforts to introduce this style into England, but such pictorial ceilings are in every way wrong. 1st. A ceiling is a flat surface, hence all decoration placed upon it should be flat also. 2nd. A picture can only be correctly seen from one point, whereas the decoration of a ceiling should be of such a character that it can be properly seen from any part of the room. 3rd. Pictures have almost invariably a right and wrong way upwards. A picture placed on a ceiling is thus wrong way upwards to almost all the guests in the room. 4th. In order to the proper understanding of a picture, you must see the whole of its surface at one time; this is very difficult to do without almost breaking your neck, or being on your back on the floor, if the picture is on the ceiling; whereas an ornament which consists of repeated parts may render a ceiling beautiful without requiring that the whole ceiling be seen at the one glance. Most of the French pictorial ceilings are so painted that they are properly seen when the spectator stands with his back close to the fire. This is very awkward, as the rules of society do not allow us to stand in this position before company. Pictorial works are altogether out of place on a ceiling; they ought to be framed and hung right way upwards upon walls where they can be seen. We have a well-known painted ceiling at the Greenwich Hospital. Arabesque ceilings, such as that of the Roman Court at the Crystal Palace, are also very objectionable. What can be worse than festoons of leafage, like so many sausages, painted upon a ceiling, with griffins, small framed pictures, impossible flowers, and feeble ornament, all with fictitious light and shade? But not content with such absurdities and incongruities, the festoons often hang upwards on vaulted or domed ceilings, rather than downwards. Such ornaments arose when Rome, intoxicated with its conquests, yielded itself up to luxury and vice rather than to a consideration of beauty and truth. Decorations like these were to an extent again revived by the great painter Raphael; but it must ever be remembered that Raphael, while one of the greatest of painters, was no ornamentist. It requires all the energy of a life to become a great painter; and it requires all the energy of a life to become a great ornamentist; hence it is not expected that the one man should be great at the two arts. In all ages when decorative art has flourished, ceilings have been decorated. The Egyptians decorated their ceilings, so did the Greeks, the Byzantines, the Moors, and the people of our Middle Ages, and a light ceiling appears not to have been esteemed as essential, or as in many cases desirable. It is strange that so few of our houses and public buildings contain rooms with decorated ceilings; but the want is already felt, the fashion has set in, and many are at this present moment being prepared. We must get simple modes of enrichment for general rooms--modes of treatment which shall be effective, and yet not expensive--and then we may hope that they will become general. DIVISION II.--DECORATIONS OF WALLS. We must now devote ourselves to the consideration of wall decoration, or to the manner in which ornament should be applied to walls with the view of rendering them decorative. It will appear absurd to say that all ornament that is applied to a wall should be such as will render the wall more beautiful than it would be without it; but this statement is needed, for I have seen many walls ornamented in such a manner, that they would have looked much better if they had been perfectly plain, and simply washed over with a tint of colour. To ornament is to beautify. To decorate is to ornament. But a surface cannot be beautified unless the forms which are drawn upon it are graceful, or bold, or vigorous, or true, and unless the colours applied to it are harmonious. Yet how many walls do we meet with even in good houses--walls of corridors, walls of staircases, walls of dining-rooms, walls of libraries, and, indeed, walls of every kind of room--which are rendered offensive, rather than pleasing, by the decorations they bear. A wall may look well without decoration strictly so called, and this statement leads me to notice the various ways in which walls may be treated with the view of rendering them beautiful. A wall may be simply tinted either with "distemper" colour, or oil colour "flatted." Distemper colour gives the best effect, and is much the cheapest, but it is not durable, and cannot be washed. Oil colour when flatted makes a nice wall, whether "stippled" or plain, and is both durable and washable. An entire wall should never be varnished. I say that a wall can look well even if not decorated. Let me give one or two instances; but, perhaps, I had better give treatments for the entire room, including the ceiling, and not for the wall simply. [Illustration: Fig. 57.] [Illustration: Fig. 58.] [Illustration: Fig. 59.] A good effect of a very plain and inexpensive character would be produced by having a black skirting, a cream-colour wall (this colour to be made of the colour called middle-chrome and white, and to resemble in depth the best pure cream), a cornice coloured with pale blue of greyish tint, with deep blue, white, and a slight line of red, and a ceiling of blue of almost any depth. The ceiling colour to be pure French ultramarine, or this ultramarine mixed with white and a touch of raw umber (the cornice blues to be made in the same way). The red in the cornice to be deep vermilion if very narrow (one-sixteenth of an inch), or carmine if broad.[24] [24] In some parts of the country it is customary to wash the cornice over with quick-lime. If this has been done the lime must be carefully removed, for lime will turn carmine black. [Illustration: DECORATIVE DESIGN. _Illustrating Cornice, Ceiling & Wall Colouring._] A room of a slightly more decorative character would be produced by making the lower three feet of the wall of a different colour (by forming a dado) from the upper part of the wall: thus, if the other parts of the room were coloured as in the example just given, the lower three feet might be red (vermilion toned to a rich Indian red with ultramarine blue) or chocolate (purple-brown and white, with a little orange-chrome); this lower portion of the wall being separated from the upper cream-coloured portion by a line of black an inch broad, or better by a double line, the upper line being an inch broad, and the lower line three-eighths of an inch, the lines being separated from each other by five-eighths of the red or chocolate. I like the formation of a dado, for it affords an opportunity of giving apparent stability to the wall by making its lower portion dark; and furniture is invariably much improved by being seen against a dark background. The occupants of a room always look better when viewed in conjunction with a dark background, and ladies' dresses certainly do. The dark dado gives the desired background without rendering it necessary that the entire wall be dark. If the furniture be mahogany, it will be wonderfully improved by being placed against a chocolate wall. [Illustration: Fig. 60.] The dado of a room need not be plain; indeed, it may be enriched to any extent. It may be plain with a bordering separating it from the wall, such as Figs. 57, 58, and 59, or the coloured border on Plate I. (frontispiece); or it may have a simple flower regularly dispersed over it; or it may be covered with a geometrical repeating pattern, in either of which cases it would have a border; or it may be enriched with a specially designed piece of ornament, as Fig. 60. This particular pattern should not, however, be enlarged to a height of more than twenty to twenty-four inches; but if of this width, and above a skirting of twelve or fifteen inches, it would look well. I have designed two or three narrow dado papers for Messrs. Wylie and Lockhead, of Glasgow, which are about eighteen inches broad, and are printed in the direction of the length of the paper, so as to save unnecessary joins; and Messrs. Jeffrey and Co., of Essex Road, Islington, are issuing a complete series of my decorations for walls, dados, and ceilings. If the dado is enriched with ornament, and the cornice is coloured, and a pattern spreads all over the ceiling, the walls can well be plain, but they may be covered with a simple "powdering" as the patterns in Fig. 6l, if these are in soft colours, or with patterns such as those set forth in colours on Plate I.; but these, especially that on the blue ground, would only be used where a very rich effect is desired. [Illustration: Fig. 61.] A good room would be produced by pattern Fig. 52 being on the ceiling in dark blue and cream-colour, by the cornice being coloured with a prevalence of dark blue, the walls being cream-colour down to the dado; the border separating the dado from the wall being black ornament on a dull orange-colour; and by the dado being chocolate with a black rosette upon it; the skirting boards being bright black. The dado may or may not be varnished; the upper part of the wall can only be "dead" (not varnished--dull). If the room is high a bordering may run round the upper portion of the wall, about three to four inches below the cornice; such a border as Fig. 62 may he employed in dull orange and chocolate. A citrine wall comes well with a deep blue, or blue and white ceiling, if blue prevails in the cornice, and this wall may have a dark blue (ultramarine and black with a little white) dado, or a rich maroon dado (brown-lake). If the blue dado is employed the skirting should be indigo, which, when varnished and seen in conjunction with the blue, will appear as black as jet. (See the coloured examples on Plate II., and remarks on colour on pages 45 and 46.) Walls are usually papered in middle-class houses. I must not object to this universal custom; but I do say, try to avoid showing the joinings of the various strips. In all cases where possible cut the paper to the pattern, and not in straight lines, for straight joinings are very objectionable. If you use paper for walls, use it artistically, and not as so much paper. Let a dado be formed of one paper, the dado bordering (dado rail) of a suitable paper bordering; the upper part of the wall being covered by another paper of simple and just design, and of such colour as shall harmonise with the dado. Proceed as an artist, and not as a mere workman. Think out an ornamental scheme, and then try to realise the desired effect. Avoid all papers in which huge bunches of flowers and animals or the human figure are depicted. The best for all purposes are those of a simple geometrical character, or in which designs similar to those in Fig. 6l are "powdered" or placed at regular intervals over a plain ground. [Illustration: Fig. 62.] Just as the ceiling ornament must accord in character with the architecture of the room in which it is placed, so must the wall decoration be of the same style as the architecture of the room. Indeed, whatever we have said respecting the harmony of the ceiling decoration with the architecture of the building, applies equally to the ornamentation of the wall. It has been customary to arrange walls into panels when decorating them, and of this mode of treatment we give one illustration (Fig. 63); yet nothing can be more absurd than such a treatment, unless the wall is architecturally (structurally) arched. A wall may be so formed that some parts are thick, so as to give the required strength, while other portions are thin. In such a case the wall would be formed of arched recesses and thickened piers alternately. This being the case, the decoration should be so applied as to emphasise, or render apparent, this arched structure; but if the wall is of one thickness throughout, its division into arches is absurd and foolish. [Illustration: Fig. 63.] We sometimes see great follies, and even gross untruths, perpetrated with the view of bringing about the so-called decoration of a room. Thus it is not unfrequently that we meet with imitation pillars, recesses, and arches as the so-called ornamentation of a room. In low music halls we are not surprised by such decorations, for we do not look for truth or any manifestation of delicacy of feeling in such places. Falsity and the untrue appear in natural juxtaposition with the debased and the vulgar. Sham marble pillars, a fictitious and merely imitative architecture, an assumed and unreal, yet coarse and vulgar, gorgeousness, are the natural adjuncts of immorality and vice; but such falsities cannot be tolerated in the abodes of those who pretend to purity and truth, nor in the buildings which they frequent; yet even the new Albert Hall has sham marble pillars (I say this to our shame), and but recently I visited a church near Edgware, in which there is a display of false decoration such as I never before saw. Here we find sham pillars, giving a false architecture; sham niches, containing sham statues; sham clouds, forming an absurd ceiling; and almost every falsity which a falsely constituted mind could perpetrate. How strange it is that in a church, where purity and truth are taught, the whole of the decorations should be a sham! It is said that if you want to hear a fierce quarrel, and to see true hatred, you must seek it in religious sects and among theological discussionists. On the same principle, I suppose, we must prepare ourselves for a display of the worst art-falsity in the sacred edifice. Perhaps the idea is that of contrast. As the teetotal lecturer had a drunken man by him as a frightful example of what was to be avoided, so the decorations of this church may be intended as a warning, rather than as an example of what should be followed. Happily such churches as this are rare, and it can be truly said that ecclesiastical architecture and decoration has made great strides with us in recent years, and that in very many instances it is rigidly truthful as well as beautiful. Before leaving the consideration of wall decorations, I must object to all imitations, as sham marbles, granites, etc., for no wall can be satisfactory which is to any extent a display of false grandeur; and this is curious, that in many cases it costs more to produce an imitation marble staircase than it would to line the same walls with the marbles imitated. I have known a case in which the imitation has cost double what the genuine stone would have cost, and such a case is not exceptional, for hand-polished work is always expensive. To imitations of marbles and granites, as I have already said, I strongly object, and of the genuine stone I am not fond, unless sparingly and judiciously used. My objections to its free use are these:--1st. Harmony of colour depends upon great exactness of tint. This exactness is rarely attainable in the case of two marbles. One stone may, however, be brought into direct and perfect harmony with a coloured wall, by the tint of the wall being carefully suited to the marble. 2nd. The true artist thinks less of the costliness of the material of which he forms his works than of the art-effect produced. Thus the old Greeks, who were full of art-feeling and refinement, coloured the buildings which they constructed of white marble, and they certainly thereby improved them; for colour, if harmoniously employed, lends to objects a new charm--a charm which they would not without it possess. I must further say, before leaving our present subject, that all walls, however decorated, should serve as a background to whatever stands in front of them. Thus they must retire even behind the furniture by their unobtrusiveness. The order of arrangement in furnishing must be this. The living beings in a room should be most attractive and conspicuous, and the dress of man should be of such a character as to secure this. Ladies can now employ any amount of colour in their attire; but poor man, however noble, cannot by his dress be distinguished from his butler; and, worst of all, both are dressed in an unbecoming and inartistic manner. Next come the furniture and draperies--the one or the other having prominence according to circumstances; then come the wall and floor, both of which are to serve as backgrounds to all that stands in front of them. In decorating walls, or in judging of the merit or suitability of wall decorations, this must always be taken into consideration, that they are but enriched backgrounds; and it should also be remembered that the nature of the enrichment applied is determined, to a great extent, by the character of the architecture of the building of which the wall forms a part. We come now to consider wall-papers, which are hangings prepared with the view of enabling us to decorate our walls at comparatively small cost. I may confess that I am not very fond of wall-papers under any circumstances. I prefer a tinted or painted wall. Yet they are largely used, and will be for a long time to come. I have already said that if wall-papers are used they should not be joined together with straight lines, and that we ought to consider them as so much art-material which should be used artistically. As to the nature of the pattern which a wall-paper should have, it is almost impossible to speak, as there are endless varieties; but as a rule it may be said that those consisting of small, simple, repeated parts, which are low-toned or neutral in colour, are the best. Most wall-paper patterns are larger than is desirable. The pattern can scarcely be too simple, and it should in all cases consist of flat ornament. If the ornament is very good, and the pattern is the work of a true artist, it may be larger, for then the parts will be balanced and harmonised in a manner that could not be expected from a less skilful hand; but even if by the most talented designer, it must ever be remembered that he has designed it at random, and not as a suitable decoration for any particular room. The man who selects the pattern for a particular wall must choose that which is suitable to the special case. The effect of a wall-paper is materially affected by many circumstances. Thus, by the quantity of light admitted to the room--whether the room is dark or light; by the aspect, whether it receives the sun's rays direct or does not; by the character of the light, as whether direct from the sky, or reflected from a green lawn, or red-brick wall. All these things must be considered, and what looks well in the pattern-book may look bad on a wall. [Illustration: Fig. 64.] [Illustration: Fig. 65.] [Illustration: Fig. 66.] [Illustration: Fig. 67.] As to colour, the best wall-paper patterns are those which consist of somewhat strong colours in very small masses--masses so small that the general effect of the paper is rich, low-toned, and neutral, and yet has a glowing colour-bloom; but these are rarely to be met with. It was a fashion some time since to make wall-papers in imitation of woven fabrics, and this fashion has not wholly disappeared yet, absurd though it be. It arose through the accident of a designer of wall-paper patterns having been a shawl pattern designer, and having a number of small shawl patterns on hand, which he disposed of as wall-paper patterns. A pattern which is suitable for a woven fabric is rarely suitable to a printed fabric, and especially when the one pattern is to be seen in folds on a moving object, and the other flat on a fixed surface. And at all times imitation by one material of another is untruthful, and it becomes specially absurd when we think that almost every material is capable of producing some good art-effect which no other material can. We should always seek to make each material as distinctive in its art-character as we can, and to cause each to appear as beautiful as possible in that particular manner in which it can most naturally be worked. [Illustration: Fig. 68.] A word should be said about the particular character which a wall-paper pattern should have, but the remarks which I am now about to make will apply equally to all patterns employed as wall decorations. If we view trees or plants, as we see them against the sky as a background, they are objects which point upwards and have a bilateral symmetry--their halves are alike (Figs. 64 and 65)--or are more or less irregular in form, and when seen in this view we may regard them as natural wall decorations. Our wall patterns, then, may point upwards, as in Fig. 61, and be bilateral or otherwise; but it must be remembered that when the flowers of a primrose protrude from a bank they are regular radiating, or star, ornaments. I think that it is legitimate for us to use on a wall star, or regular radiating ornaments, as well as those having an upward tendency. [Illustration: Fig. 69.] I have said that when seen from the side plants are bilateral, or are more or less irregular. As I have referred to plants as furnishing us with types of ornament, I should not be doing rightly were I to leave this statement in its present form; for the tendency of the vital force of all plants is to produce structures of rigidly symmetrical character; but insects, which eat buds and leaves, and blights, winds, and frosts, so act upon plants as to destroy their normal symmetry, hence we find an apparent want of symmetry in the arrangement of the parts of plants. Respecting the colouring of cornices, a few words should be said. 1st. Bright colours may here be employed. 2nd. As a rule, get red in shadow or in shade, blue on flat or hollow surfaces, especially those that recede from the eye, and yellow on rounded advancing members. 3rd. Use for red either vermilion or carmine; for blue, ultramarine either pure or with white; for yellow, middle chrome much diluted with white. 4th. Use red very sparingly, blue abundantly, the pale yellow in medium quantity. Besides primary colours, none others need be used on the cornice. It is a mistake to use many, or dull, colours, here, but gold may be used instead of yellow. With the view of explaining the principles which we have just enunciated by diagrams, we give four illustrations (Figs. 66, 67, 68, 69), which I advise the student to try and colour in accordance with the principles just set forth. CHAPTER V. CARPETS. It is not my intention in this chapter to consider in detail the various kinds of carpet which are common in our market, nor even to review the history of their manufacture, interesting as it would be to do so; for we must confine ourselves more particularly to an examination of the art-qualities which they present, and to the particular form of pattern which may be applied to them with advantage. Although we cannot here enter into a consideration of the manufacture of carpets, I cannot too strongly recommend all who intend preparing designs for them to consider minutely the powers of the carpet loom; for the nature of the effect produced will depend to a large extent upon the knowledge which the designer possesses of the capabilities of the manufacture for which he designs patterns. In the case of any manufacture it is highly desirable, if not absolutely essential, that the designer of the patterns to be wrought should be acquainted with the process by which his design is to be converted into the particular material for which the pattern has been prepared; for this knowledge, even when not absolutely essential, gives an amount of freedom and power which nothing else can supply. The carpets most extensively in use are "Brussels;" but there are many other kinds both of better and inferior qualities. "Kidderminster carpet" (a carpet not now made by even one Kidderminster manufacturer) is a common fabric suited to the bedrooms of middle-class houses; but the art-capabilities of this material are very small, as it can only have two colours in any line running throughout its length. This carpet consists of two thicknesses, which are imperfectly united, and is not durable. "Brussels carpeting," now made chiefly in Great Britain, is a good carpet for general purposes. Its surface consists of loops, and it may have five, or, if made of extra quality, six colours in any line running throughout its length. If with five colours in the same line the carpet will, in a sense, consist of five thicknesses of worsted; yet these are united into one fabric. In some cases a "Brussels carpet" is woven of very close texture, with the loops cut through; thus we have a "velvet pile" or "Wilton carpet"--a fabric which is very rich-looking, and durable. Those called real "Axminster" carpets are, perhaps, the best made. They are formed by the knotting together of threads by hand, consequently any number of colours may be used in their formation; but such are necessarily most costly. A "patent Axminster" carpet is made by a double process of hand-weaving, by which fine results are achieved, and any number of colours used. In the first weaving a rough "cloth" is formed, which is cut into strips called "chenille threads," and these are again woven into the carpet. This process is most ingenious, and the carpets produced by it are very good; but they are costly. Some few years since a most ingenious process of manufacturing what are known as "tapestry" carpets was patented--a process resembling in its nature that of the patent Axminster manufacture, but differing in this particular, that the "warp" threads are coloured by printing, and thus the first process of weaving is dispensed with. These carpets are, like Brussels, made with a looped surface, and also with a pile. They cannot be said to compare in any way with the patent Axminster carpets, which are of a pretentious and costly character, nor even with a good "Brussels;" but they are low in price, and meet a want, as is proved by their enormous sale. Besides these varieties of carpet there are a number of kinds of foreign production, most of which are hand-made, and are very beautiful. By far the greater number of these have a "pile," although this is sometimes rough and uneven, yet rarely, if ever, inartistic; but a few are without pile; still these are not without that indescribable something which renders them estimable in the eye of an artist. Having hastily noticed the chief kinds of carpet in use in this country, and we might say in almost all countries, we come to the question--what form of pattern, or what character of ornament, should form the "enrichment" of such a fabric? When speaking in a previous chapter (see page 92) of wall decorations, we noticed that a wall-paper pattern, or, indeed, a wall pattern of any kind, might desirably have an upward direction and a bilateral symmetry. This can never be the case, however, with a carpet pattern, which must be equally extended all over the surface, or have a simple radiating symmetry, as Fig. 56; and this rule will apply whether the pattern be simple or complicated. It is not wrong, as we have said before, to have a radiating pattern on a wall, but it is wrong to have a bilateral pattern on a floor. The reason of this is obvious. If such an object as we have indicated is placed on a wall, from whatever point the occupants of the room may view it, it is yet right way upwards to them; but if such an object were placed on a floor it would be wrong way upwards, or sideways, or oblique to most of those who viewed it; and to employ a pattern of this character in such a position is highly absurd, when a pattern can as readily be formed which will avoid this unpleasantness. What would we think were we asked to view a picture, or even to visit an apartment containing such, were this work of art presented to our view in an inverted manner? We should feel astonished at the absurdity; yet this would be no worse than expecting us to view a carpet while the pattern is to us in an inverted position. And the principle which we have just set forth is one taught by a consideration of plants. If we wander over the moor, where we tread on Nature's carpet, we find that all the little plants which nestle in the short mossy grass are "radiating ornaments"--that is, they are pretty objects which consist of parts spreading regularly from a centre. [Illustration: Fig. 70.] [Illustration: Fig. 71.] [Illustration: Fig. 72.] [Illustration: Fig. 73.] I cannot too strongly advise the young ornamentist to study the principles on which Nature works. Knowledge of the laws which govern the development of plant-growth is very desirable; but it is not our place to _imitate_ even the most beautiful of plant-forms--this being the work of the pictorial artists. Yet it is ours to study Nature's laws, and to observe all her beauty, even to her most subtle effects, and then we may safely pillage from her all that we can _consistently_ adapt to our own purposes. But in order that we produce ornament, we must infuse mind or soul into whatever we borrow from her. (See page 2.) With the view of more fully impressing the manner in which Nature teaches us principles which we may apply in art, and of aiding the student in his inquiries, we will give one or two illustrations. Thus Fig. 64 is a drawing of a spray of the guelder rose (_Viburnum opulus_) when seen from the side, or, as I might express it, when viewed as a wall decoration; and Fig. 70 is the same spray as seen from above, or, to use the same manner of expression, when seen as a floor pattern. Further, Fig. 71 represents a young plant of a species of speedwell (_Veronica_) as a wall ornament, and Fig. 72, the same plant when seen as a floor ornament; and Figs. 65 and 73 represent a portion of the goosegrass (_Galium Aparine_) as seen in the same two views. [Illustration: Fig. 74.] [Illustration: Fig. 75.] [Illustration: Fig. 76.] From these illustrations we see that plants furnish us with types of two essentially different ornaments, which are adapted to the decoration of the two positions of wall and floor, and may be introduced with truthful expression and effect into wall-paper or carpet. [Illustration: Fig. 77.] [Illustration: Fig. 78.] [Illustration: Fig. 79.] Even when the leaves appear somewhat dispersed upon the stem, a principle of order can yet be distinctly traced in the manner of their arrangement, as is diagrammatically expressed in Figs. 74, 75, 76; and here, also, the top view gives us a regular radiating ornament.[25] [25] The spray here represented is that of the oak, and the diagram (Fig. 74) shows the orderly spiral manner in which the leaves spring from the stem. The same law prevails in the flower that we have traced as existing in the arrangement of leaves upon the stem: thus Fig. 77, which represents the London pride (_Saxifraga umbrosa_), affords an example of a regular radiating flower, which we find so placed, in different examples, as to appear as a floor or wall ornament; and Figs. 78 and 79, the former being the flower of the speedwell (Veronica), and the latter that of the common pansy (_Viola tricolor_), furnish us with illustrations of bilateral flowers intended only as wall ornaments. In order to secure our seeing the pansy only laterally, it is furnished with a bent stalk; hence it never rests horizontally upon the summit of its stem, but always hangs so that it is perfectly seen only from the side. There are cases, however, in which bilateral flowers are placed horizontally; but it is very interesting to notice that when this occurs the disposition or arrangement of the flowers is such as to restore the radiating symmetry. Thus, if we take the candytuft (_Iberis_) or the common hemlock (_Conium_), we find that while each flower is bilateral in character, the flowers are yet arranged around a centre in such a manner that the smaller portion of each flower points to the centre of the flower-head, while the larger parts point outwards from the centre of the group. These, then, are the teachings of plants, to which we are called upon to hearken. The above illustrations are not only useful examples of the suggestions of plant-forms to the ornamentist, but form excellent material to the art-student for the conventional treatment of leaves and sprays, buds and blossoms. They will also serve to indicate the kind of plant-forms that should be chosen for decorative purposes. Students of this branch of art would find it a useful practice to make a collection of flowers and plants or parts of plants that appear to offer features similar to those of which we have been writing, and test their capabilities for decorative purposes, by endeavouring to arrange them for the ornamentation of wall and floor, as we have treated the plant-forms indicated in this chapter. We have now seen the principle on which all carpet patterns should be constructed as distinctive from wall patterns, and in order to impress the necessity of giving a radiating basis to the ornaments placed upon carpets, and not a bilateral structure, we have referred to the principle of plant growth, where we noticed that all plants, when viewed as floor ornaments (when viewed from above), are of a radiating character; whereas if they are seen as wall or vertical ornaments, they are either radiating or bilateral. This is a necessity of a carpet pattern, that it have a radiating structure, or, in other words, that it point in more than two directions. Man naturally accustomed to tread on grass, when brought into a state of civilisation, seeks some covering for his floor which shall be softer to the tread and richer in colour than stone or brick. And in our northern climate he seeks also warmth; hence he chooses not a mere matting, or lattice of reeds, but a covering such as shall satisfy his requirements. In early times our floors appear to have been strewn with sand--a custom still lingering in some country districts; then came the habit of strewing reeds over the floor, and on the part of the opulent, sweet-scented reeds (_Acorus calamus_). And it is curious to notice, in connection with this subject, that one of the charges brought by Henry VIII. against Cardinal Wolsey was that of extravagance in the use of sweet reeds. This use of reeds was succeeded by the employment of mats of simple appearance, formed of a kind of grass, and these by the introduction of wool mats, which, at first, were chiefly imported, but afterwards manufactured in our own country. The wool mats were in their turn replaced by carpets, which gradually increased in size till their proportions became such as to cover the entire floor on which they were placed. This brief history brings us to notice what is required of a carpet:--it should be soft in texture, rich in appearance, and of "bloomy" effect. We may add to these requirements by saying that a carpet should also be a suitable background to all works of furniture or other objects placed upon it, and that in character it should accord with the objects with which it is associated in any particular apartment. Considering more fully these requirements, we notice that a carpet should be soft. This is very desirable, for softness gives a sense of comfort, and with softness is generally combined durability of the fabric; but softness can scarcely be regarded as an art-quality. Yet as the art which an object bears is more leniently viewed when the fitness of the object to the purpose for which it is intended is apparent, we may safely regard softness as a very desirable quality of a carpet. The Eastern carpets are pre-eminent in this quality of softness, and of English-made carpets "Brussels" and tapestry are the least satisfactory in this way; as usually made, they have a hard "backing." A kind of Brussels carpeting with a soft back has recently been brought out, but at present it is not general in the trade. If the carpet employed in any apartment as a floor covering is harsh in character, it is desirable to place soft felt under it (felt for this purpose can be got at carpet warehouses), or evenly spread soft hay, for by so doing the wear of the fabric will be greatly increased, and the pleasure of walking on it will also be correspondingly greater. The next quality of a carpet is richness. No carpet is satisfactory which is "washy" or faded in appearance. There must be "depth" of effect, a "fulness" of art-quality. Hangings may be delicate, wall-decorations soft in tint, but a carpet must be rich and "full" in effect, yet a general softness of tone is desirable. But this richness must be of singular character, for the most desirable effect which a carpet can present is that of a glowing neutral bloom. I hope that my language does not appear mystical to the general reader or young student. To the ornamentist I think it will be intelligible. What I wish to say is that the effect should be glowing, or radiant, or bright, as opposed to dull, quiet, or heavy; that it should be such as results from the use of a predominance of bright and warm colours, rather than of cold and neutral hues; that it should be neutral, inasmuch as it should not present large masses of positive colour, hut should have an equality of rich harmonious colours throughout; that it should be "bloomy," or have the effect of a garden full of flowers, or better, of the slope of a Swiss alp, where the flowers combine to form one vast harmonious "glow" of colour. This is the effect which a carpet should present, yet it should never present flowers, imitatively rendered, as its ornamentation. Such imitative renderings are not to be produced by the ornamentist; they must come from the pictorial artist, for they are pictures. They cannot form suitable backgrounds to furniture and living objects, for they are positive, and not neutral, in their general effect. A picture, also, will not bear repetition: whoever heard of one person having two copies of the same picture in one room? Yet a pictorial group of flowers may be seen repeated many times over a floor, which is very objectionable. The effect to be produced is that of a rich "colour-bloom;" but the skilled ornamentist will achieve this without violating any laws of fitness, and will gently and delicately hint at the beauty of a profusion of blossom through his tenderly formed pattern. [Illustration: Fig. 80.] Yet a carpet must be neutral in its general effect, as it is the background on which objects rest. Neutrality of effect is of two kinds. Large masses of tertiary or neutral colours will achieve its production, so also will the juxtaposition of the primary colours in small quantities, either alone or with the secondary colours, and black or white; but there will be this difference between the two effects--that produced by low-toned colours will be simply neutral, while that produced by the primary colours will be "bloomy" as well as neutral, and if yellows and reds slightly predominate in the intermingling of colours, the effect will be glowing or radiant. The radiant, or glowing, bloomy neutrality of effect is that which it is most desirable that a carpet should present. [Illustration: Fig. 81.] This effect is rarely produced in English carpets, owing either to the want of skill on the part of the ornamentist, who is unable to produce such works; the want of judgment on the part of the manufacturer, whereby he fails to produce such patterns; or the want of taste on the part of the consumer, owing to which he buys works of a more vulgar character. I have designed carpets in which I have sought to realise as much of this effect as I could with six colours--the number to which I have been limited by the conditions of manufacture, and fortunately these appear to be commanding a large sale, and to be setting a fashion in carpets; but those who wish to study these bloomy effects in their more perfect forms, must do so in the carpets of India, Persia, Smyrna, and Morocco, but especially in the Indian rugs. Some of the carpets from India are perfect marvels of colour-harmony, and of radiant bloom. They appear to glow as a bed of flowers in the sunshine, and yet they are neutral in their general effect, and when placed in an apartment do not usurp a primary place, as does any pictorially treated pattern. This "bloom" was seen to perfection in one or two silk rugs which were shown at the International Exhibition of 1862 in London, and it was not much less apparent in some of the carpets from India shown in the Paris Exhibition of 1867. Most Indian carpets have this colour-bloom to some extent, and few are unworthy of careful study. Persian carpets (Fig. 80) are also models of what carpets should be; they are less radiant than many of the Indian works, but are almost more mingled in colour-effect. In pattern many of the Indian and Persian carpets are identical, being traditional, yet in colour they differ, and both are worthy of much consideration. The Morocco carpets (Fig. 81) differ again from both those of India and Persia, and even to a greater degree than the Persian carpet differs from the Indian. In these there is often a prevalence of soft yellows and juicy yellow-greens, intermingled with reds, blues, and grey-whites, in such a manner as to produce a most harmonious and artistic effect. To the young student, and to any who may desire to cultivate his taste in respect to such matters, I say, Study the carpets of the East most carefully, especially those of India, Persia, and Morocco. [Illustration: Fig. 82.] Indian carpets, such as we have just referred to, may be seen at the museum in the building of the new India Office at Whitehall, which museum is open free to the public (for examples, see Figs. 82, 83, 84). As to the nature of the pattern which may be applied to a carpet, we have "all-over" patterns, or patterns spreading regularly all over the surface; "geometrical" patterns, or those which have an apparent regularity of structure; and panel patterns, or those in which particular parts are, as it were, framed off from other parts. First, as to "all-over" patterns. These are what we almost always find in both Indian and Persian carpets, and are, undoubtedly, the true form of decoration for a woven floor covering. What is desirable is an evenly spread pattern, such as will give richness without destroying the unity of the entire effect. The pattern may have parts slightly accentuated or emphasised beyond other parts, but not strongly so, and this emphasising of parts must be arranged with the view of securing to the pattern special interest. Thus, if a carpet is viewed at a distance it should not appear as devoid of all pattern, but through the slight predominance of certain leading features (in Indian carpets, generally of ornamental flowers) the plan of the design should be indicated. More detail should be apparent when the work is seen from a nearer point of view, and still more upon close inspection; but in no case should any parts appear strongly pronounced, or otherwise than refined and beautiful, and in no case should there be a want of interest manifested by the pattern. [Illustration: Fig. 83.] Carpet patterns are generally better if founded on a geometrical plan. In this way most of the Indian and Persian patterns are constructed. A geometrical plan secures to the design a manifestation of order and thought in its formation. Panel patterns, unless very carefully managed, become coarse. In some Indian carpets we find a sort of panel in which the colour of the ground is changed from that of the general ground of the carpet, but here the panel has usually a truly ornamental form, and is, indeed, rather a large ornament than a sort of frame enclosing a distinct space. Whenever a panel occurs in an Indian, Persian, or Moorish carpet, it is so managed, and its surroundings are such, as to cause it to appear as a part natural to the general design; but it is far otherwise with the panel patterns which we occasionally see in our shop-windows as the produce of native industry, and it is far otherwise with those which are used in vast quantities by the Americans. Judging from the carpets which they order, I imagine that nowhere on earth is taste in matters of decorative art so depraved as it is in America. It is true that the great floral patterns have ceased to be demanded by them, but they are only replaced by coarse, raw-looking panel patterns, coloured in the most vulgar manner, and without even a hint at refinement or harmony of colour. Let the pattern be "loud" and inharmoniously coloured, and the chances of its sale in the American market are great. [Illustration: Fig. 84.] But we must not forget that even in our own country bad patterns sell equally as well as good, inartistic patterns as well as those which are of a more refined character, and that even here in Great Britain more of the indifferent, if not of the very bad, sells than of the good. Let us cast the beam, then, from our own eye, before we try to extract it from that of another. The ground colour of a carpet may vary much, as we all know; it may be black, blue, red, green, or white, or any other colour. If the ground of a carpet is pure white, it is almost impossible that it look well. When I make this assertion I am often told that some of the Indian carpets which I so much admire have white grounds. This is a mistake. Some of them have light grounds, but not pure white. They have light cream-grey, or green-white grounds, but not pure white, and this variety of tone altogether alters the case. Yet even with a light-toned ground it is not an easy matter to make a carpet which shall appear as a suitable background to the furniture of a room; it can be done, but it is a thing difficult to achieve. The safest and best ground for a carpet is black or indigo blue. If on this a closely fitting, well-studied pattern be arranged, drawn in small masses of bright colour, a beautiful bloomy effect may be achieved, and a glance at our best shop-windows will show that the most satisfactory carpets are coloured in this way. As to the size of the pattern we can say but little, as this will be determined by the coarseness or fineness of the fabric. In a Brussels carpet each stitch is about the one-tenth of an inch square. In some Turkey carpets each stitch is a quarter of an inch square. It is obvious that a much smaller and finer pattern can be produced in Brussels than in Turkey carpet. A carpet pattern is best small, or at least small in detail if not in the extent of the design. A pattern may repeat three or four times in the width of the fabric (twenty-seven inches if Brussels), or but one figure may be shown, yet in this latter case the detail of the pattern may be as great as in the former. That degree of smallness which is compatible with tolerable distinctness of detail is desirable. For this reason Turkey carpets are not altogether satisfactory; no fine pattern can be worked in them, and besides this they have no colour-bloom and little colour-harmony. In some respects they are good, but altogether they are not satisfying. Before I close these remarks upon carpets, let me say that, as designers, manufacturers, and consumers, we are one and all timid of new things. We want daring--the energy to produce new things, to manufacture them, to use them. What if the pattern is "extreme," if it is better than others? what if Mrs. Grundy should think us eccentric?--better be eccentric than ever harping on one monotony. If we could but bear calmly the derisive smiles of the ignorant, art-progress would be easy. With us carpets cover the entire floor. In London these carpets are nailed to the boards, and but seldom taken up. In some parts of England we find rings sewn around the under edge of the carpet, which rings are looped to the heads of nails. Carpets so furnished can be more readily removed for cleaning than those which are nailed to the floor. Square carpets, such as the Turkey, Indian, and Persian, are spread loosely on the boards, and can be taken up and shaken without difficulty. This is unquestionably the most healthy plan of using a carpet, and it is also an artistic plan. If the outer portion of the room floor is formed of inlaid wood of simple and suitable pattern, and a loose square carpet is spread in the centre, we have an artistic effect, and the desirable knowledge that cleanliness is also attainable with a reasonable expenditure of labour. Before we leave the consideration of carpets we will state in axiomatic form the conditions which govern the application of ornament to them, as reference can more easily be made to short concise sentences than to more extended remarks. 1st. Carpet patterns may with advantage have a geometrical formation, for this gives to the mind an idea of order or arrangement. 2nd. When the pattern has not a geometrical basis, a general evenness of surface should be preserved. 3rd. Carpets are better not formed into "panels," as though they were works of wood or stone; on the contrary, they should have a general "all-over" effect without any great accentuation of particular parts. The Indian and Persian carpets meet this requirement. 4th. While a carpet should present a general appearance of evenness, parts may yet be slightly "pronounced" or emphasised, so as to give to the mind the idea of centres from which the pattern radiates. 5th. A carpet should, in some respects, resemble a bank richly covered with flowers; thus, when seen from a distance the effect should be that of a general "bloom" of colour; when viewed from a nearer point it should present certain features of somewhat special interest; and when looked at closely new beauties should make their appearance. 6th. As a floor is a flat surface, no ornamental covering placed on it should make it appear otherwise. 7th. A carpet, having to serve as a background to furniture, should be of a somewhat neutral character. 8th. Every carpet, however small, should have a border, which is as necessary to it as a frame is to a picture. Having thus summarised the principles that govern the application of ornament to carpets, we may proceed to notice the conditions governing the decoration of other woven fabrics. CHAPTER VI. CURTAIN MATERIALS, HANGINGS, AND WOVEN FABRICS GENERALLY. In the consideration of hangings of various kinds, we have first to notice the nature of the cloth on which the pattern is to be worked--whether it is of open or close texture. Fabrics of an open character should bear upon them a larger pattern than those which are thicker or closer. The openness or closeness of the fabric will thus determine, to an extent, the nature of the ornament which is to be placed upon it. Muslins, being open in character, should have larger patterns than calicoes, which are closer in texture, or the pattern will be indistinct in the one case or coarse in the other. But not only does texture influence the pattern when considered as to coarseness or fineness, but also the nature of the cloth as regards material. Thus silk will bear greater fulness of colour than muslins or calico-prints, owing to the fact that the lustre of the material, by reflecting light to the eye of the observer, destroys a certain portion of the intensity of the effect of colour which a less reflective material would exhibit. Silk, as a material, also conveys to the mind an idea of costliness or worth, and wherever the material does so the pattern may be richer in colour than it should be in cheaper and commoner fabrics. If a pattern is in two tints of the same colour only, as in the case of those woven silks where the pattern is formed by the contrast of "tabby" and satin, it may be considerably larger than in those cases where it is rendered conspicuous by colours. This latter remark will apply also to damask table-linen, and to all similar materials, as well as to dress fabrics, and draperies such as window hangings; but of these we shall say a word shortly. The closeness or openness of a fabric should, then, be considered when we design patterns for its enrichment, and so should the nature of the material, as this will influence its deadness or lustre. But there are also other considerations which must not be lost sight of. If the pattern is to be wrought by printing, then one class of conditions must be complied with; if by weaving, then another class of requirements call for consideration. The requirements of manufacture are much more numerous than might be supposed, and are in some cases very restrictive. The size of the repeat, the manner in which colour can be applied, the character of surface attainable, and many other considerations have to be carefully complied with before a pattern can appear as a manufactured article. The chief fault of patterns, as applied to fabrics generally, is their want of simplicity--want of simple structure, want of simple treatment, want of simplicity of effect; and together with this we generally find largeness and coarseness of parts. These errors arise chiefly out of a want of consideration of the capabilities of the material. What can be done with this or that particular fabric, is a question that we should carefully ask ourselves before we think of preparing a design. Have we colour at our disposal, or texture merely? and if colour, can it be employed freely or only sparingly? and can any desired colours be placed in juxtaposition or only certain tints? These are questions of great importance, and they should be asked and carefully considered before the first step is taken towards the formation of a pattern. Having ascertained what can be done with the material at command, let us ever remember that we should always endeavour to so employ the capabilities of a material as to conceal its weakness and emphasise its more desirable effects. If this consideration were always given by designers to the power which the material has of yielding effects, we should see, in very many instances, effects strangely different from those which we often encounter; and this remark applies to no class of fabrics more fully than to damask table-linen and coloured damask window hangings. No satisfactory effect can be got in light and shade upon any woven or printed fabric; besides, to attempt such a mode of treatment is absurd. Light and shade belong only to pictorial art. The ornamentist when enriching a fabric deals only with a surface, and has no thought of placing pictures thereon; he has simply to enrich or beautify that which without his art would be plain and unornamental. A picture will never bear repetition. Who ever heard of a man having two copies of one picture in a room? Yet how much more absurd is it to repeat a little picture--perhaps a pictorially rendered flower--a hundred times over one surface! Besides this, a surface must always be treated, for decorative purposes, as a surface, and not in a manner calculated to deceive by giving apparent relief, or thickness, to that which is essentially without thickness. Take a common damask table-cover. This is by custom almost always white, although it would be better if of a deep cream-colour, or soft buff; and the pattern which it bears results from a change of surface only (why a margin of "ingrain" colour is not added, I could never see); yet in nine cases out of ten the pattern which is presented by such a fabric is a miserable shaded attempt at a pictorial treatment, and is also a thorough failure. Simplicity of pattern naturally accords with a simple mode of production, and the means of producing pattern in damasks is certainly most simple. That there is a natural harmony between simplicity of pattern and simple means of producing an art-effect is obvious, for of all patterns that I have ever seen upon damask table-linen the simple spot, or dot, is the most satisfactory. If, combined with this spot, we have a border formed of a simple Greek "key-pattern," or of mere lines (a very usual border to good cloths), the effect is perfectly satisfying, and, as far as it goes, is highly to be commended. It is curious that this spot is only sold in the better quality of table-linen (at least so they tell me in the City), and this shows that the wealthy, or, in other words, the educated, buy such patterns, as they prefer the true to the meretricious, while the false and showy devices which we see on the common cloths please only the common people of vulgar taste. I am not sure, however, that many persons, whose means are limited, would not buy spots and other simple, but correctly treated, patterns, if such were to be got in common qualities of damask; but when the pocket must govern the purchase, it is hard to say that the false is preferred to the true, if the true is not procurable with the means at command. While I cannot withhold praise from this little spot, it must not be thought that I thereby give to it a high place as an art-work. Little is here attempted, and that little is done well. But let us analyse this pattern. First, the spots are of one tint throughout, if I may thus express myself--a tint, shall we say, which is the reverse of that of the ground. It is not shaded so that it may appear as a ball or globe, and is not graduated in "colour" in any way (were it graduated or shaded, feebleness of effect must inevitably accrue), but is a simple, honest spot, treated as a surface ornament. Secondly, this spot is geometrically arranged, or, in other words, has an orderly arrangement. If an attempt is made at rendering a pictorial, or light-and-shade effect, in damask, an absurd failure can alone result, for depth of shade is not obtainable in the material; and, besides this, what appears as shade, when the cloth is seen from one point of view, appears as light if seen from another point of view. Nothing could be more absurd, then, than seeking to produce shaded effects with such means as are here at our disposal. But were the fabric capable of rendering such effects, it would still be wrong to employ them, as we deal only with the surface, and are seeking to enhance the value of, or beautify, a fabric, and not to cover it with pictures. In our simple spot we have those elements which may be extended into the richest and most artistic damask patterns. We have order--as indicated by the geometrical plan of the pattern--and an honest and simple expression, or application, of the capabilities of the material. All table-covers should certainly have a border. Any object which is to be used as a whole looks unsatisfactory if it appears as though it were part of a whole. If a cloth is without border it is impossible to avoid the impression that it is a part of a larger cloth, and in every respect the general effect is decidedly unsatisfactory. It is perhaps well that we notice one peculiarity of a table-cover before we dismiss the consideration of such fabrics, which is this, that while the central portion is seen flat, the border portion is viewed in folds; and here we come to one of the great peculiarities of most draperies, that of their being viewed not as flat surfaces, but in waves or folds. One portion of a table-cloth is, however, seen flat, but this is almost an exception in the case of draperies. Another exception to this rule of hangings appearing in folds, and that of a very complete character, occurs in silk damasks which are used as a rich lining to the walls of palaces and some mansions; but of table-cloths we will speak for the present. [Illustration: Fig. 85.] [Illustration: Fig. 86.] [Illustration: Fig. 87.] [Illustration: Fig. 88.] [Illustration: Fig. 89.] [Illustration: Fig. 90.] The central part of a table-cloth, that portion which is always to be viewed as a flat surface, may be enriched with any diaper pattern that is simply treated, and this diaper pattern may be full of design, provided the parts are not too large or too small. It may also be formed of gracefully curved parts, or of straight lines or circles, or of any combination of these elements; but, preferably, not wholly of straight lines. Were it not for the fact that much of this central portion of the cloth is to be covered by articles of the dinner-table, it might well be furnished with a central ornament, repeating only in quarters; but as such an ornament, in order that it be satisfying, requires to be seen as a whole, it is not desirable that such be here employed. A diaper pattern that repeats many times in the centre is preferable, as the pattern can then be seen in a satisfactory manner. [Illustration: Fig. 91.] The border of a table-cloth, like all fabrics that are to be seen in folds, requires special treatment, for what looks well when seen as a flat surface may not look well when seen on a waved surface. Tender and graceful curves are lost when viewed upon folds, for they here appear as mere wormy lines. On the contrary, right lines, whether horizontal or diagonal, and circles, all look well when seen upon waved grounds. These lines become, owing to the folds of the fabric, curves of a subtle character. The manner in which lines become influenced by falling on a curved surface can be readily illustrated by forming semicircles of paper, and folding them into cones, after having drawn upon them a series of circles (Fig. 85) or straight lines (Fig. 86). If these cones (Figs. 87 and 88) are now viewed from above, or in such a manner that the eye rests over the apices, it will be seen that the circles have now become richly varied curves, each having somewhat the form of a blunt heart or cardioid (Fig. 89), and that the straight lines become horse-shoe-shaped (Fig. 90). These illustrations will be sufficient to show that what is plain when seen upon a flat surface may be delicate and satisfying if seen upon a curved surface; and will also lead us to understand that what may be delicate and refined when seen upon a flat surface may become feeble and unsatisfactory if falling upon a waved ground. I have said that stripes or straight lines, if _crossing_ a folded fabric, are satisfactory. This is so in almost all cases, the only exception being in ladies' dresses. Here lines crossing the fabric are not satisfactory, as they become rings around the body, which appear to divide it into hoop-like strata. The patterns of dresses _may_ consist of narrow, vertical stripes, as these are collected together at the waist of the figure, and fall into graceful curves with any motion of the body, but the very opposite is the case with window-hangings. All vertical stripes are here highly offensive, while horizontal stripes are thoroughly satisfactory. A consideration of the window-hanging materials made in Spain, Algeria, and on the Morocco coast, will show us the beauty of horizontal stripes; and in some of the little Algerian warehouses, such as we have in Regent Street, London, and in the Rue de Rivoli in Paris, we see some of these fabrics of a most interesting character. [Illustration: Fig. 92.] To state in a concise form the laws which should govern the application of ornament to certain fabrics which are to be seen in folds, I should say-- 1st. Great simplicity of pattern is necessary. 2nd. Circles, straight lines crossing the fabric, and diagonal lines are all correct in such a case, and are improved by the folds, which form them into subtle and beautiful curves (Fig. 91). 3rd. If curves are tender and graceful, they become commonplace on a waved or folded ground. 4th. The size of the pattern should be considered in relation to the size of the folds of the material. [Illustration: Fig. 93.] In Germany a kind of ornament is applied to rich stiff fabrics which is almost peculiar to the country. This ornament is rich, bold, hard or stiff in its lines, and in every way adapted for the decoration of a costly fabric which falls in large folds, the folds changing the hard and stiff lines into graceful curves. This should also be noted respecting these curious yet beautiful patterns, that they are always simple in plan, however rich in detail, and are invariably founded on a geometrical basis. "German Gothic" is a name by which such ornament may be distinguished (flat Gothic ornament has always been quite distinct from the stone and metal ornaments of Gothic buildings, which have solid and not merely superficial form), see Figs. 92 and 93. This particular class of ornament forms the background to many old pictures, a most interesting collection of which exists in the museum of Cologne, and is certainly worthy of the most careful study. As to flat silk wall-damasks, which are used in some of the upper-class houses as wall-papers are used in the middle-class houses, all that need be said is that they should be treated as wall decorations, and not as fabrics which are to be seen folded. Were I asked whether I approve of these damasks as wall coverings, I should say, "Certainly not." A wall is better treated as a wall, and not so covered with drapery as to leave space for vermin between the wall and its enrichment. There is also the further objection that the lines where the fabric is joined are visible, and these are most certainly objectionable. [Illustration: Fig. 94.] Besides the illustrations of German ornament just given, we figure also a specimen of Indian embroidery on cotton (Fig. 94). I cannot too strongly recommend the designer of patterns for woven goods to study the native fabrics of India, exhibited at the Indian Museum, Whitehall. [Illustration: Fig. 95.] [Illustration: Fig. 96.] Besides the collection here brought together, there is also in most of our manufacturing towns a large series of specimens of these cloths deposited with the Chamber of Commerce, and these can be consulted by all respectable members of the community. Speaking of these Indian fabrics, Mr. Redgrave says, in his Report on Design prepared for the Commissioners of the International Exhibition of 1851:--"These are almost wholly designed on the principles here presumed to be just ones--the ornament is always flat, and without shadow; natural flowers are never used imitatively or perspectively, but are conventionalised by being displayed flat and according to a symmetrical arrangement; and all other objects, even animals and birds, when used as ornament, are reduced to their simplest flat form. When colour is added, it is usually rendered by the simplest local hue, often bordered with a darker shade of the colour, to give it a clearer expression; but the shades of the flowers are rarely introduced. The cloth of gold figured in the loom (Fig. 95), and part of an Indian scarf (Fig. 96), illustrate fully these remarks. The ornament is geometrically and symmetrically arranged, flat, in simple tints, and bordered, as above described, with darker shades of the local colour. The principle of colour adopted is a balance of the complementaries red and green, in both cases with white introduced to give points of expression, and to lead the eye to the symmetrical arrangement of the ornament. In Fig. 95 purple is introduced to harmonise with the gold ground, a harmony very frequently used in the rich tissues of India. In Fig. 96 variety has been obtained by introducing two reds, giving an interchange of a lighter tint in every other flower in the border. The borders of these scarves are beautifully illustrative of the simple and graceful flowing lines which characterise Indian ornament; and in Fig. 96 we can observe the difference between the Eastern and the mediæval patterns--while the same principles are acknowledged in both, the latter are often stiffer and more angular than the graceful sprigs of this border. Both these works show how much beauty may be obtained by simple means, when regulated by just principles, and how perfectly unnecessary are the multiplied tints by which modern designers think to give value to their works, but which increase the difficulties of production out of all proportion to any effect resulting from them--nay, often even to the absolute disadvantage of the fabric. If we look at the details of the Indian patterns, we shall be surprised at their extreme simplicity, and be led to wonder at their rich and satisfactory effect; it will soon be evident, however, that their beauty results entirely from adherence to the principles above described. The parts themselves are often poor, ill-drawn, and common-place; yet, from the knowledge of the designer, due attention to the just ornamentation of the fabric, and the refined delicacy evident in the selection of _quantity_ and the choice of tints, both for the ground, where gold is not used as a ground, and for the ornamental forms, the fabrics, individually and as a whole, are a lesson to our designers and manufacturers, given by those from whom we least expected it." Much that Mr. Redgrave here says is worthy of careful consideration, and I can do no more than recommend the student to study these beautiful Indian fabrics, and consider them in conjunction with the remarks which we have made respecting them and fabrics in general. CHAPTER VII. DIVISION I. In this chapter I have to commence our consideration of pottery, and of hollow vessels especially; and this I do with considerable pleasure, as works in pottery enjoy a longer existence, though through the character of the material of which they are made they are more fragile, than those formed of almost any other substance. Many works of Greek pottery are known to us, and not a few such works by the ancient Egyptians, and these are preserved not as fragments merely, but as works in their entirety, and with the same beauty that they possessed when first they left the hands of the workman. Clay is a most desirable material with which to form works of utility and of beauty, and this for many reasons. First, it is so inexpensive as to be almost valueless; secondly, it is easily formed into vessels of almost any required shape; thirdly, it is capable of being "worked" into shapes of great beauty by a momentary exercise of skill; fourthly, clay is naturally of many beautiful colours; fifthly, it is capable of receiving by application to its surface any amount of colour, and of preserving such colours as are applied to it in an unimpaired state for ages; and sixthly, it is susceptible of the highest art-finish, or the bold sketchy touch of the modeller's hand. I say that clay is a very desirable material for formation into vessels of various kinds, because of its inexpensive character. This quality of cheapness gives to the material an advantage over many other substances of a much more costly character, such as should not be overlooked, for the long existence which so many works of earthenware have had is mainly due to the worthlessness of the material of which they are composed. In my first chapter I gave an extract from the writings of Professor George Wilson, showing that gold and silver, while beautiful in themselves, and worthy to be fashioned into exquisite devices, are yet too tempting to the thief, and to all who are pressed for means, to remain long in the form of art-works. Families who have been reduced in circumstances, and have thereby been constrained to part with their old plate, have melted it, so as to hide their shame. To illustrate this, let me quote from the "Handbook of the Arts of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, as applied to the Decoration of Furniture, Arms, Jewels, etc., translated from the French of M. Jules Labarte, 1856." After giving the names of many workers in the precious metals, the author says:--"We may form some idea of what artists these Italian goldsmiths were of the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, and what admirable works they must have produced. But, alas! these noble works have almost all perished; their artistic worth proving no safeguard against cupidity or necessity, the fear of pillage, or the love of change. But a very few names even of those skilled artists have descended to us, and in making known those preserved to us in the writings of Vasari, Benvenuto, Cellini, and others, we can rarely point out any of their works as being still in existence. "Cellini tells us that while Pope Clement VII. was besieged in the castle of St. Angelo, he received orders to unset all the precious stones that were upon the tiaras, the sacred vessels, and the jewels of the sovereign pontiff; and to melt down the gold, of which he obtained 200 pounds. How many artistic treasures must have perished in the crucible of Cellini." We now see clearly that while clay is a much more fragile material than either silver or gold, its very worthlessness, despite its fragility, gives to it length of years. We have said that clay is easily formed into vessels of almost any required shape. This is so within certain limits. Throughout these chapters I have lost no opportunity of insisting upon the importance of working every material in a befitting manner, and in the most simple and easy way in which the material can be wrought. Almost every material can be simply "worked" in some way, or while in some particular condition. Glass has a molten state in which it can be "blown" into the most beautiful of shapes, and this process of blowing is the work of but a few seconds. Glass has also a solid condition, yet as it can be formed into works of great beauty by the exercise of momentary skill, it would be extremely foolish to take a mass of the solid glass, and by laborious grinding form it into a bottle or a bowl. It fortunately happens that if a material is worked in its most simple and befitting manner, the results obtained are more beautiful and satisfying than those which are arrived at by any roundabout method of production. Glass should be formed into hollow vessels only when in its plastic condition, for it cannot be shaped into the form of such vessels as we require when in its solid state without the expenditure of much unnecessary, therefore wasteful, labour. But if a mass of crystal or marble is required to assume the form of a bowl or font, then the laborious process of grinding must be resorted to, for these substances have no plastic state. The potter's wheel has been known from the earliest historic time, and this has at all times been the instrument with which the best earthen vessels have been formed. A mass of clay of suitable size is placed on a horizontal disc of wood, to which a rotary motion is imparted. The operator presses his thumbs into the centre of the clay, and then, by causing his fingers to approach his thumbs, manipulates the clay into a cup, a bowl, a vase, an earthen bottle, or whatever form he may please; and if skilful, the operator can form objects of marvellous beauty with a rapidity that astonishes all who see for the first time his mode of working. If potters would but content themselves, in order to the production of such articles as we require in common life, with the "potter's wheel," we should be almost sure of a certain amount of beauty in domestic earthenware, but such is not the case. They make fancy moulds of plaster of Paris and of wire gauze, and roll out clay as the pastrycook does dough, and manipulate it as so much pie-crust, instead of applying to it simple skill. Neither a bowl nor a plate need have a scalloped edge, indeed they are much better without it; and if unnecessary, and even undesirable, absurdities were avoided, and a simple and natural method of working each material alone employed, a great improvement in art would speedily take place. It is strange but true, that the worker in one material seems rarely to be satisfied with making his works look as well and as consistent as possible; he desires rather to form poor imitations of something else. We have all seen earthen jugs made in imitation of wicker-work, although to do so is obviously foolish, as no wicker vessel could hold water, and the thing imitated is much less beautiful than a thousand forms which clay is capable of assuming. Men's heads without brains are, or were at least, favourite jugs. Well, that there are many models for this idea in Nature, I doubt not; yet why we should copy them by making a jug in the form of a hollow head, I know not. I have in my possession a milk-jug, such as is common in the district of Swansea in South Wales, in the likeness of a cow. The tail is twisted into a handle; by a hole in the back the milk is admitted, and through the mouth it is ejected. A more wretched and coarse idea it is scarcely possible to conceive of, yet the vulgar admire this jug. Let us work the material in a simple and befitting manner, and satisfactory results are almost sure to accrue. I have said that clay, as such, has many beautiful colours. Naturally clay is black, grey-white, red, brown, and yellow, and it is capable of assuming many desirable tints by the agency of chemical means. We do not use coloured clays as we should do. We want so much white--everything to look so clean. All ornamental ware, at least, should be artistic, and the art-effect should supersede that cold whiteness which the Dutch and the English mistake for cleanliness. A clay of good natural colour is not a thing to be hidden, or ashamed of. Clay is capable, when glazed, of receiving any amount of colour, and of preserving these colours in their beauty for almost any length of time. These qualities are invaluable to the ornamentist. Colour is not always at his disposal. The goldsmith has difficulty in getting it, but to the potter it is very accessible. Colour is capable of giving to objects a charm which they could not possibly have without it. Let us use the power thus placed at our disposal rightly and well, and then the enduring character of the colour-harmonies which we produce may gladden posterity in ages yet to come. Clay is susceptible of the highest art-finish, or of a bold sketchy treatment. Finish is very desirable in some cases. The cup which my lady uses in her boudoir should be delicate and fine, for what is worthy to approach the sacred lips of the occupant of a fair apartment but such a work as is tender and refined? As a rule, however, we over-estimate the value of finish, and under-value bold art-effects. Excessive finish often (but by no means always) destroys art-effect. I have before me some specimens of Japanese earthenware, which are formed of a coarse dark brown clay, and are to a great extent without that finish which most Europeans appear so much to value, yet these are artistic and beautiful. In the case of cheap goods we spend time in getting smoothness of surface, while the Japanese devote it to the production of an art-effect. We get finish without art, they prefer art without finish. [Illustration: Fig. 97.] [Illustration: Fig. 98.] [Illustration: Fig. 99.] [Illustration: Fig. 100.] We must now devote ourselves to a special consideration of the shapes of earthen vessels, and to the manner in which ornament should be applied to them. In his primitive condition man appears to have used the shells of certain fruits as drinking vessels and bottles; and to this day we find many tribes of uncivilised or half-civilised men using the same class of vessels. "Monkey-pots" (the hard shells of the _Lecythis allaria_), the coverings of the Brazil nut (_Bertholetia excelsa_), and especially the rinds of the calabash and many species of gourd (Figs. 97 and 98), have been used in this way.[26] The first efforts made at the production of earthen vessels were mere attempts at copying in clay the forms of the fruit-shells which were in use as drinking vessels. After a power of forming earthen vessels, having a certain amount of perfection of manufacture, was gained, we still find the origin of the potter's art manifested by certain works. Thus in China, where the potter's art has so long been understood, we still find vessels made in the form of the bottle-gourd, just as was their custom in the days of their first manufacturing efforts (Fig. 99). Before considering the shapes of vessels from a utilitarian point of view, I should tell the student that certain shapes are characteristic of different nations and of different periods of time. [26] All who are interested in this subject are referred to a paper published in the "Transactions of the Edinburgh Botanical Society," for 1859, by Professor George Wilson, on the "Fruits of the Cucurbitaceæ." The Greek shapes, as we may call them--that is, the forms of those vessels which the Greeks produced--are of a particular class, and the vessels produced by the Egyptians are of a different type; while those of the Chinese, Indians, Japanese, and Mexicans again differ from each other, and from those of both the Greeks and the Egyptians. For grace of form the vessels of the old Greeks stand pre-eminent (Figs. 101 and 102); for simple dignified severity, those of the Egyptians (Fig. 100); for quaintness, those of the Mexicans (Fig. 103); for a combination of grace with dignity, those of the Chinese (Figs. 104 and 105); and for a combination of beauty with quaintness, those of the Japanese (Fig. 106); while in many respects the Indian shapes (Figs. 107 and 108) resemble those of the Japanese. Fig. 109 is a water vessel from Ha, and Figs. 110 and 111 are jugs from Morocco. I cannot enter into any details respecting the characteristic forms of vessels produced by these various nations, but must content myself by giving a few illustrations of the various shapes, and leaving the matter with the learner for study. The British Museum, the South Kensington Museum, and the Indian Museum will aid him in his researches. It has been said that the character of a people can be told by their water-vessels. As the consideration of this statement will lead us to see how perfectly a domestic utensil may answer the end which it should serve, I will extract from my "Art of Decorative Design" a few remarks on this subject. This statement can well "be illustrated by the Egyptian and Greek water-vessels, the former of which has sides tapering to the top and slanting inwards, a small orifice, and a rounded base, and the mouth of the vessel bridged by an arched handle, the whole being constructed of bronze (Fig. 112); the latter consists of an egg-shaped body (the broad end being above) resting upon a secure foot, which is surmounted by a large, divergent, funnel-shaped member (Fig. 113). It has no handle over the orifice, but has one at either side. "Not only do these vessels differ in form, but associated circumstances differ also; and it is this variation in circumstances which brought about the difference in form of the two water-vessels. "The peculiarities of the Egyptian water-vessel are its formation of bronze, the roundness of its base, which renders it unfitted for standing, the narrowness of its mouth, and the handle arching the orifice; and of the Greek, its being wrought in clay, the secure base, the wide mouth, the contraction in the centre, and the handle at either side. We should judge from these vessels that the Egyptians drew water from a river, or some position which required that the vessel be attached to a cord and cast into the source of supply, for the roundness of the base at once points to this, it being a provision for enabling the vessel to fill by turning upon its side (were its base flat it would float on the water); it is also formed out of metal so as to facilitate this end. The arched handle not only points to the attachment of the vessel to a string in order that it be cast into the water, but also to the carrying the vessel pendent from the hand in the manner that pails are at present carried, and the contracted mouth restrains the splashing over of the water: and what this simple water-vessel points to we find to have been the case, for the Egyptians derived water from the Nile in the very manner that the vessel would indicate; but with the Greeks circumstances were different, and the shape of the vessel varies accordingly. The base is here flat, in order that the vessel may stand; the mouth is large, in order to collect the water which fell from above,--from the dripping-rocks and water-spouts. This being the manner in which water was gathered, a vessel formed of heavy metal was unnecessary; the contraction prevented the water from splashing over when carried, and up to this point the vessel was filled, and no higher; and the handles at the side show that it was carried on the head. But, in conjunction with this mode of carrying, there is another consideration of interest, which is, the centre of gravity is high. If we attempt to balance a stick, having one enlarged end, on the finger, it will be found necessary that the weight be at the top; and in balancing anything, it will be found that the object, in order that it ride steadily, have its point of greatest weight considerably elevated above its base. In the Greek water-vessel, which was carried balanced on the head, we find this condition fully complied with, the centre of gravity occupying a high position, while in the Egyptian vessel the centre of gravity was low; but where the vessel is to be carried underhand, it is as great an advantage to have the centre of gravity low as it is in the case of a coach, where security is thus gained just as the centre of gravity is lowered. The Greek water-vessel, then, consists of a cavity for holding water, a funnel to collect and guide the water, a base for the vessel to rest upon, and handles to enable it to be raised to the head, and the centre of gravity is high in order that it be readily balanced; and we should judge from this vessel that the Greeks procured water from dripping-rocks and water-spouts, and this is exactly what did occur. These are the direct teachings of the Egyptian and Greek water-vessels; yet how many circumstances and incidents of common life can be conceived as associated with these different forms of vessel. There is the gossip round the well, and the lingering by the river-side where the image of the date-palm is mirrored by the glassy surface of the waters. The effect of the noise of the splashing water upon the mind in the one case, combined with the comparatively loud and energetic speaking which would be necessary in order that the voice be not drowned by the noise, and of the calm tranquillity of the river-bank in the other, where the limpid water is ever flowing on in silent majesty, must be considerable. Then we have the potter's art essential to the production of the vessel in the one case, and the metal-worker's in the other--the digging of clay, the mining of metal, the kilns and smelting furnaces. We will not continue this portion of the subject further, and have brought forward this illustration in order to show how well-considered objects reveal to us the habits and customs of the peoples and nations in which they originated." [Illustration: Fig. 101.] [Illustration: Fig. 102.] [Illustration: Fig. 103.] [Illustration: Fig. 104.] [Illustration: Fig. 105.] [Illustration: Fig. 106.] [Illustration: Fig. 107.] [Illustration: Fig. 108.] [Illustration: Fig. 109.] [Illustration: Fig. 110.] [Illustration: Fig. 111.] [Illustration: Fig. 112.] [Illustration: Fig. 113.] It will now be apparent that even a common object may result from such careful consideration that its form will at once suggest its use; but the object will only reveal the purpose for which it was created with definiteness of expression when it perfectly answers the end proposed by its formation. The advice which I must give to every designer is to study carefully exactly what is required, before he proceeds to form his ideas of what the object proposed to be created should be like, and then to diligently strive to arrange such a form for it as shall cause it to be perfectly suited to the want which it is intended to meet. More will be said upon the subject of form when speaking of glass vessels and of silversmiths' work; and when considering these subjects we shall also give the law which governs the application of handles and spouts to vessels; and it is of the utmost importance that they be correctly placed in order that the vessel may be used with convenience (see page 140). A word must now be said respecting the decoration of earthen vessels, but on this subject our remarks must be brief. [Illustration: Fig. 114.] [Illustration: Fig. 115.] [Illustration: Fig. 116.] [Illustration: Fig. 117.] The object to which the decoration is applied must determine the nature of the ornament to be employed. In the case of a vessel which is to be in part hidden when in use, great simplicity of treatment should be adopted, and the ornament may with advantage consist of repeated parts. In the case of a plate, little or no ornament should be placed in the centre; but if there is a central ornament it should be a small, regular, radiating figure, consisting of like parts (Figs. 114 and 115). The border should also consist of simple members repeated, for it will then look well if portions are covered; and these remarks will apply equally to all kinds of plates, whether intended for use at dinner or dessert. No plate should have a landscape painted upon it, nor a figure, nor a group of flowers. Whatever has a right and wrong way upwards is inappropriate in such a position, as whatever ornament a plate bears should be in all positions as fully right way upwards to the beholder as it can be. Besides, landscapes, groups of flowers, and figures are spoiled if in part hidden, provided they are satisfactory when the whole is seen. [Illustration: Fig. 118.] Plates may have a white ground, for it is desirable that those articles on which food is presented should manifest the utmost cleanliness, yet to a cream tint there can be no objection. I should, however, prefer white plates, with a rather deep blue, Indian red, maroon, or brown pattern upon them, and a pale buff table-cloth for them to rest upon. In the case of cups and saucers the treatment should be similar to that of the plate. The saucer may have a simple border ornament, consisting of parts repeated, and little or no ornament in the central portion on which the cup rests. The cup may have an external border ornament, and a double narrow line of colour around the upper portion of the interior, but no other ornament is here required. Whatever ornament is placed around a cup, or vase, or any tall object must be such as will not suffer by perspective, for there is scarcely any portion of the ornament that can be seen otherwise than foreshortened (Figs. 103 and 111). Let simplicity be the ruling principle in the decoration of all rounded objects, and ever remember that a line which is straight on a flat surface becomes a curve on a round surface (see page 110). I have given what is a correct decoration for a plate and cup and saucer, but there are other methods of treatment than those just named. The Japanese are very fond of placing little circular groups of flowers on plates, saucers, and bowls (Figs. 116 and 117). The Greeks had various methods of enriching their tazzas and vases with ornament, and the Egyptians were partial to the plan of rendering a cup as a lotus-flower (Fig. 100). But when they formed a cup thus, they were careful to draw the flower conventionally and ornamentally, and never produced an imitative work (see page 24). The Chinese treat the flower of the sacred bean in the same way (Fig. 118). What I have said has been addressed to the student. The remarks, however, made respecting the form chosen being that which is most suitable to the end proposed, and the conditions to which I shall make reference as governing the application of handle and spout to any object, are binding upon all who would produce satisfactory works; but to the genius who has power to produce beautiful and vigorous ornament, and whose taste has, by years of study and cultivation, become refined and judicious, I can give no rules, his own taste being his best guide. DIVISION II. When speaking of earthenware, I insisted upon the desirability of using every material in the easiest and most natural manner, and I illustrated my meaning by saying that glass has a molten condition as well as a solid state, and that while in the molten condition it can be "blown" into forms of exquisite beauty. Glass-blowing is an operation of skill, and an operation in which natural laws come to our aid, and I cannot too strongly repeat my statement that every material should be "worked" in the most simple and befitting manner; and I think that our consideration of the formation of glass vessels will render the reasonableness of my demand apparent. Let a portion of molten glass be gathered upon the end of a metal pipe, and blown into a bubble while the pipe drops vertically from the mouth of the operator, and a flask is formed such as is used for the conveyance of olive oil (Fig. 119); and what vessel could be more beautiful than such a flask? Its grace of form is obvious; the delicate curvature of its sides, the gentle swelling of the bulb, and the exquisitely rounded base, all manifest beauty. Here we get a vessel formed for us almost wholly by Nature. It is the attraction of gravitation which converts what would be a mere bubble, or hollow sphere of glass, into a gracefully elongated and delicately-shaped flask. This may be taken as a principle, that whenever a material is capable of being "worked" in a manner which will so secure the operation of natural laws as to modify the shapes of the objects into which it is formed, it is very desirable that we avail ourselves of such a means of formation, for the operation of gravitation and similar forces upon plastic matter is calculated to give beauty of form. When clay is worked upon the potter's wheel, it is shaped by the operator's skill, and is sufficiently stiff to retain the shape given to it to a very considerable extent; yet the operation of gravitation upon it, so long as it has any plasticity whatever, is calculated to secure delicacy of form. This rule should ever be remembered by the art-student--that a curve is beautiful just as its origin is difficult to detect (see Chap. I., page 23). In the formation of vases, bottles, etc., knowledge of this law is very important, and the operation of gravity upon hollow plastic vessels is calculated to give to their curves subtlety (intricate beauty) of character. Having arranged that the material shall be worked in the manner most befitting its nature, we must next consider what purpose the object to be formed is intended to serve. Take a common hock-bottle (Fig. 120) and consider it. What is wanted is a vessel such as will stand, in which wine can be stored. It must have a strong neck, so that a cork may be driven in without splitting it, and must be formed of a material that is not absorbent. Glass, as a material, admirably answers the want, and this bottle is capable of storing wine; it will stand, and has a rim around the neck such as gives to it strength. But, besides serving the requirements named, it is both easily formed and is beautiful. The designer must be a utilitarian, but he must be an artist also. We must have useful vessels, but the objects with which we are to surround ourselves must likewise be beautiful; and unless they are beautiful, our delicacy of feeling and power to appreciate Nature, which is full of beauties, will be impaired. A hock-bottle is a mere elongated bubble, with the bottom portion pressed in so that it may stand, and the neck thickened by a rim of glass being placed around it. [Illustration: Fig. 119.] [Illustration: Fig. 120.] Here we have a bottle shaped by natural agency; it is formed of heavy glass, and the bubble was thick at its lower part, hence its elongated form; but if length is required in any bubble, and the glass is even light, it can always be given by swinging the bubble round from the centre, so that centrifugal force may be brought into play in the direction of its length; or if it has to be widened, this can as easily be done by giving to it a rotatory motion, whereby the centrifugal force is caused to act from the axis of the vessel outwards, and not from the apex to the base, as in the former instance. In either case a certain amount of beauty would appear in the shape produced, for Nature here works for us. (Compare the short, dumpy, yet beautiful bottle, in which we receive curaçao, with the hock-bottle, when the two natural modes of forming bottles will be illustrated.) Our wine-bottles are moulded, hence their ugliness. We work without Nature's assistance, and we reap ugliness as the reward. Let us now consider what a decanter should be. In many respects, the wants which a decanter is intended to meet are similar to those which are met by the bottle, as just enumerated, but here is a great difference--a bottle is only _intended_ to be filled once, whereas a decanter will have to be filled many times; and a bottle is made so that it can travel, while a decanter is not meant to be the subject of long journeys. It is true that a bottle may be refilled many times, but it is not intended that it should, as the fact that we use a funnel when we wish to fill it clearly shows, and without a funnel the vessel is not complete. All objects which are meant to be refilled many times should have a funnel-shaped mouth (see my remarks on the Greek water-vessel, page 121), but if a bottle had a distended orifice it would not be well adapted for transport. A decanter should have capacity for containing liquid; it should stand securely, and have a double funnel--a funnel to collect the fluid and conduct it into the bottle, and a funnel to collect it and conduct it out of the bottle. It must also be convenient to use and hold, and the upper funnel should be of such a character that it will guide the liquid in a proper direction when poured from the decanter. [Illustration: Fig. 121.] [Illustration: Fig. 122.] [Illustration: Fig. 123.] If we take a flask and flatten its base, and extend the upper portion of the neck slightly into the form of a funnel, we have all that is required of a decanter, with the exception of a permanent cork, which is a stopper (Fig. 121). But as most decanters are intended to hold wine, the brilliancy of which is not readily apparent when that portion of the vessel which contains the liquid rests immediately upon the table, it is desirable to give to the vessel a foot, or, in other words, raise the body of the decanter so that light may surround it as fully as possible (Figs. 122 and 123). In Figs. 124 to 135 I give a number of shapes of decanters and jugs, such as may be seen in our best shop-windows, and such as I consider desirable forms for such vessels; and in considering-the shape of such vessels, the character of the upper portion of the neck (the lip) must be regarded, as well as that of the body and base. Notice also whether the centre of gravity is high or low, and the position and character of the handle; but respecting the application of handles to vessels I will speak when considering silversmiths' work (see page 140). [Illustration: Fig. 124.] [Illustration: Fig. 125.] [Illustration: Fig. 126.] [Illustration: Fig. 127.] [Illustration: Fig. 128.] [Illustration: Fig. 129.] [Illustration: Fig. 130.] [Illustration: Fig. 131.] [Illustration: Fig. 132.] [Illustration: Fig. 133.] [Illustration: Fig. 134.] [Illustration: Fig. 135.] Besides decanters and bottles, glass is formed into tumblers, wine-glasses, flower-holders, and many other things; but the principles which we have already laid down will apply equally to all, for if the objects formed result from the easiest mode of working the material, and are such as perfectly answer the end proposed by their formation, and are beautiful, nothing more can be expected of them. Many objects of fancy shape have been produced as mere feats of glass-blowing, and with some of these efforts I sympathise. Wherever the work produced is truly adapted to use, or where an artistic effect is achieved, the glass-blower has my warm sympathy; but if the effort is made at the production of novelty merely, the result gained is sure to be unsatisfactory. Much of the Venetian glass will illustrate these last remarks. Fig. 136 is a very excellent and picturesque spirit-bottle; it is easy to hold, and quaint in appearance.[27] Figs. 137, 138, and 139 are Venetian glass vessels, wrought entirely at the furnace-mouth, and neither cut nor engraved--they are artistic, and of interesting appearance; while Fig. 140 is a work of Roman glass, in which the upper distension is useful if the liquid contains a sediment which it is not desirable to pour out with the liquid. [27] In order that the nature of this bottle be better understood, I give a section of it at A as seen when cut through the central part. [Illustration: Fig. 136.] [Illustration: Section of Fig. 136 at A.] [Illustration: Fig. 137.] [Illustration: Fig. 138.] [Illustration: Fig. 139.] [Illustration: Fig. 140.] There is one thing pertaining to table-glass that we do not now sufficiently consider, which is its capacity for colour. Our one idea in the formation of glass vessels is the imitation of crystal, unless we happen to produce a vessel of the strongest tint. With the exception of hock-glasses, which are generally either ruby-colour, dark green, or intense yellow-green, we rarely employ tinted glass on our tables. These three colours, which we usually employ in hock-glasses, are all too strong in tint for ordinary purposes, and they are coarse and vulgar. It is curious that we should confine ourselves to these colours when glass is capable of assuming the most delicate of shades, of appearing as a soft, subtle, golden hue of the most beautiful light tertiary green, lilac, and blue, and, indeed, of almost any colour. Why, then, should we employ only two or three colours, and those of the most crude character? If the Roman and Greek glass of the British Museum be inspected, it will be seen that the Romans employed various soft and delicate tints, and why we should not do so I cannot see. For many reasons the colours of our hock-glasses are highly objectionable, but especially for two. First, as already stated, the colour is so strong that they appear as mere dark spots on the cloth, and altogether fail in imparting to the table a pleasant colour-effect; and, secondly, they utterly destroy the beauty of appearance which the wine would otherwise present. [Illustration: Fig. 141.] [Illustration: Fig. 142.] No glass which is to contain a liquid of pleasant colour should be so strong in tint as to mar the beauty of the contained fluid, and especially is this true when the colour of the glass is of an opposite character to that of the liquid: thus a red liquid placed in a strongly-coloured green glass becomes highly offensive in appearance, and yet we often see claret served in green hock-glasses. A dinner-table requires colour. Let the cloth be pale buff, or cream-colour, instead of white; and the glass water-vessels of very pale, but refined and various, tints; and the salt-cellars, if of glass, also coloured, in a tender and befitting manner, and a most harmonious effect will be produced. The flowers with which the table is adorned would then harmonise with the other things, and much beauty might be produced. Respecting the ornamentation of glass, two methods of treatment are resorted to, which are "cutting" and "engraving." Both modes deal with glass as a hard, crystal-like substance; and consist in grinding the surface, and either leaving it "dead" or repolishing it. In the case of "cutting" a considerable portion of the substance of the glass is generally removed, and the surface is repolished; but in the case of "engraving" little more than the surface is generally acted upon, and the engraved portion remains dead. Cutting may be employed in bringing about ornamental effects in glass, but it is rarely to be commended when so lavishly used as to be the chief means of giving form to the vessel; indeed, cutting should be sparingly and judiciously used. A vessel formed of glass should never be wholly shaped by cutting, as though it were a work of stone. If the neck of a decanter can be made more convenient by being slightly cut--if it can be so treated that it can be held more securely--then let it be cut; but in all cases avoid falling into the error of too much cutting which causes the work to appear laboured, for any work which presents the appearance of having been the result of much labour is as unpleasant to look upon as that work is pleasing which results from the exercise of momentary skill. There is a great art-principle manifested in the expression "Let there be light, and there was light." [Illustration: Fig. 143.] [Illustration: Fig. 144.] Engraving is also laborious, and while it is capable of yielding most delicate and beautiful effects, it should yet be somewhat sparingly used, for extravagance in labour is never desirable, and there is such a thing as extravagance of beauty. However delicate ornament may be, and however well composed, yet if it covers the whole of the walls of an apartment and of the objects which it contains, it fails to please. There must be the contrast of plain surfaces with ornamented--plain for the eye to rest upon, ornament for the mind to enjoy. In the enrichment of glass these remarks fully apply. Let there be plain surfaces as well as ornamented parts, and the effect will be more satisfying than if all be covered with ornament. All that I said respecting the decoration of damask table-linen will apply equally to glass, considering only the different way in which the effect is produced (see Chap. VI., page 108). Thus we have ornament produced only by a variation of surface. Such simple means of producing an art-effect are capable of rendering in a satisfactory manner simple treatments only, but simple patterns are capable of yielding the highest pleasure, and such patterns can be almost perfectly rendered by engraving, as shown in Figs. 141, 142, 143.[28] [28] Fig. 143 represents a decanter made for the Prince of Wales by Messrs. Pellatt and Co., which is in good taste. Fig. 141 is a goblet from Austria: it was shown in the International Exhibition of Paris in 1867. Somewhat elaborate effects can be rendered in glass by very laborious engraving, whereby different depths of cutting are attained; but such work is the result of great labour, and rarely produces an effect proportionate to the toil expended upon it; and if a bottle so engraved is filled with a coloured wine, the entire beauty of its engraving is destroyed. Fig. 144 is a drawing of a most elaborately engraved bottle, which was shown in the Exhibition of 1862. It represents, to a great extent, wasted labour. [Illustration: Fig. 145.] It must be borne in mind that any ornament placed on a decanter, wine-glass, or tumbler, is to be seen almost wholly in perspective; and the remarks made respecting the effects of folded or waved surfaces on ornament (Chap. VI., page 110), and those made in reference to the application of ornament to earthen vases (Chap. VII., page 126), apply equally here. It is not my province to enter into the various methods of manipulating glass, nor into all the classes of art-effect which glass is capable of yielding: I can only call attention to general principles, and leave the art-student to think for himself what should be the treatment of any particular object. There is a sort of crackle glass which has come into use during the last few years, and is an imitation of old Venetian work; this is in some respects pleasant in appearance, but it is somewhat uncomfortable to handle, and difficult to keep clean; its use must therefore be limited. The Romans were in the habit of forming glass which was opaque, dark, and of many colours. Fig. 145 is an illustration of this kind of glass, the pattern being formed by portions of various coloured glass being imbedded in the substance of the vessel. In another chapter I shall have a few remarks to make upon stained glass; but as our present remarks pertain to hollow vessels chiefly, and as general principles regulate the formation of all such, whether they are formed of earthenware, glass, or metal, I think it better to proceed to the consideration of silversmiths' ware, and thus continue a notice of hollow vessels, than to pass to glass windows, although they are formed of the material now under review. What we are specially considering at present are vessels of capacity, or hollow wares. [Illustration: Fig. 146.] [Illustration: Fig. 147.] DIVISION III. Continuing our remarks upon hollow vessels, we have now to notice silversmiths' work, and here we may observe that while the material with which we have now to deal differs in character widely from that of which those vessels already noticed have been formed, yet that many principles which have been enunciated are equally applicable to the objects now under consideration. Silver objects, like those formed of clay or glass, should perfectly serve the end for which they have been formed; also, the fact that ornament applied to rounded surfaces should be adapted for being viewed in perspective remains as binding on us as before; but herein the works of the silversmith differ from those already discussed--they are formed of a material of intrinsic value, which is not the case with articles of earthenware or glass. Silver and gold being materials of considerable worth, it is necessary that the utmost economy be observed in using them, and in order to effect this a special mode of construction must be resorted to. If we propose to ourselves the formation of a sugar-basin of semi-circular shape, of what thickness must the metal be in order that it may not bend when lifted? It is obvious that the vessel must not yield its shape to ordinary pressure, nor be subject to alterations of form when in ordinary use; but if it is to be formed throughout of metal of such thickness as will secure its retaining its shape, it will be costly and heavy, and an amount of metal will be used in its formation sufficient for the manufacture of two or three such articles. Instead of forming the vessel throughout of thick metal, we may construct it from a thin sheet of silver; but in order that it possess sufficient strength we must indent one or more beads in its side (see Fig. 146); or we can form an angle by having a rim projecting into the basin (Fig. 147), or extending from it, and thus give strength; but the two beads are the more desirable, as the one gives strength at the top and the other at a lower portion of the vessel. Modes of economising material, when we are forming vessels of costly substances, are of the utmost importance, and should be carefully thought out. If the designer forms works which are expensive, he places them beyond the reach of those who might otherwise enjoy them, and if heavy they appear clumsy in the hands of those accustomed to delicate and light objects. Besides this, works in silver and in gold are always in danger of being destroyed, owing to the intrinsic value of these metals; for if stolen, the theft is promptly hidden in the melting-pot. Now if we form the vessels of thin metal, we render the money value of the material less, and thus our works are to a smaller degree tempting to the avaricious, and their chance of long existence is greater. The precious metals are at all times perilous materials for the formation of works of art; but while we use them, let us take care so to employ them as to give to our works every possible opportunity for long existence. If a work is to be so formed that it may exist for many years, it becomes of the highest importance that those objects which we create be well considered as to their utility, and at the same time be beautiful in form. Long existence is an evil in the case of an ugly object, or an ill-considered vessel; that which is not refining in its influence is better blotted out. Let that man who will not seek to embody beauty in his works make them heavy with metal, so that they may tempt the thief, and thus sooner blot out his works from existence, as they tend only to debase and degrade; but he who loves refinement, and seeks to give chasteness of character to the objects which he creates, may well strive to secure to them length of duration. There are various modes of working metal. It may be cast, hammered, cut, engraved, and manipulated in various ways. Little that is satisfactory can result from casting. Casting is a rough means of producing a result, and at best achieves the formation of a mass which may be less troublesome to cut into shape than a more solid piece of metal; but casting without the application of other means of working-metal achieves little of an art nature. Some of the fine iron castings of Berlin are wonderfully good in their way, and are to an extent artistic; and certainly they contrast strangely with the cast handles and knobs which we often see applied to vegetable-dishes, and similar silver objects here in England; yet even these will not compare with works wrought by the hammer and the chisel. Thin metal hammered into form, and touched where necessary with the chisel, the graver, and the chasing-tool, is capable of the very finest effects which can be achieved in metal-work. Let the reader consider the beautiful vessels with which Arabian metal-work presents us: these are all formed by the hammer and chisel, with the assistance of the graver and chasing-tool, and how marvellously delicate and beautiful are the results! We have in these vessels beauty and dignity of form, richness of design, great intricacy and delicacy of detail, and altogether a refinement of effect which may long be considered and repeatedly enjoyed (Fig. 148). [Illustration: Fig. 148.] Several, I may almost say many, of these beautiful objects are to be found in the South Kensington Museum, and it should be generally known that fac-similes of these lovely works, in the form of electrotype copies, have been prepared by Messrs. Elkington and Co., under the sanction of the authorities of the Department of Science and Art, and that these are procurable at small cost. For purposes of study these copies are of almost equal value with the originals, and for the adornment of a sideboard they are hardly inferior. I strongly advise those who can afford to purchase these beautiful copies to garnish their sideboards with plate of this description, rather than with the meretricious electro-plate which we often see in our shop-windows. Having determined on the best mode of working the material, consider carefully the requirements which the work to be produced is intended to meet, and then strive to form the object so that it may perfectly answer the end proposed by its creation. Let us take a sugar-basin. What form should it have? After much consideration, I have arrived at the conclusion that the two shapes engraved in Figs. 149 and 150 are those which best fulfil the requirements of such a vessel, for in them the sugar is always collected together, and the dust sugar separates itself from the lumps. The handles of a sugar-basin are often so small as to be partially or wholly useless. It not unfrequently happens that only one or two fingers can rest on the handle, owing to its smallness, while the thumb has to be placed within the orifice of the basin when it is desired to move it. This should not be so; if a handle is to exist at all, it should be so formed as to be useful, and afford a means of moving the object with ease and comfort. To form a handle as a mere ornament is an absurdity, for the handle is part of the vessel structurally, while the ornamentation is an after and separate consideration. In order to its existence a vessel must be constructed, but when formed it need not of necessity be ornamented; ornamentation must ever be regarded as separate from construction. Such a sugar-basin as I have suggested would not stand without legs: it must therefore have them; but I see no reason why the legs and handles should not be combined; hence I propose three feet so formed as to serve as handles throughout their upper parts (Figs. 149, 150), they being convenient to hold. Modern European silversmiths have fallen into the error (an error now prevailing wherever art can be applied to any object) of making their works of a pictorial, rather than an ornamental, character--an error which the Arabians, Indians, and Japanese never perpetrate, whose works in metal are unsurpassed by any, and equalled by indeed few. It is a mistake to cover an entire vase with figures in high relief; but wherever anything of the kind is attempted, care must be exercised in causing the groups to follow the line of the vase, and not to appear as irregular projections from it. As to the modes of decorating works in silver and in gold, they are many; of ornamentation by _repoussé_ work we have already spoken, and of chasing and engraving. But besides these there are other methods, and some of great interest, for there is damascene work, or inlaying; and applying colour, or enamelling; and niello work; jewels may also be added. Damascene work is of great interest. Metal of one colour is inlaid into metal of another colour. India produces, perhaps, the rarest examples of this kind of work, the Indians being experts at this manufacture; but the Indian work consists chiefly of silver inlaid in iron. This mode of work seems to be capable of producing many beautiful effects, as all who have examined the large inlaid hookahs of India will admit. Having chosen a form for a vessel, the next question with which we have to deal is, will it require a handle and spout? It is curious that while the position of a spout and handle in relation to a vessel is governed by a simple natural law, we yet rarely find them placed as they should be. This is the more curious, as a vessel may become practically of great weight, owing to the handle being misplaced. [Illustration: Fig. 149.] [Illustration: Fig. 150.] A pound weight is easily lifted, but when applied to the shorter end of the steel-yard it will balance a hundredweight. If this principle is applied to a tea-pot which actually weighs but little, it may yet be very heavy to lift. In nineteen cases out of twenty, handles are so placed on tea-pots and similar vessels that they are in use lifted only by a force capable of raising two or three such vessels, if the principle of the steel-yard was not acting against the person who uses the vessel. Take our ordinary forms of tea-pot, and see how far the centre of the weight (the centre of gravity) is from the handle in a horizontal direction, and you will be able to judge of the leverage acting disadvantageously to the person who may pour tea from such pots. Now if the part which is grasped is to the right or left of a right line passing through the centre of gravity of any vessel, there is leverage acting to the disadvantage of the person desiring to pour from that vessel, and this leverage increases just as the point held is removed from the central line spoken of. Fig. 151 would pour when in the position shown in Fig. 152, but see how far the hand that holds it would be to the right of the centre of gravity (_a_), which distance is of great disadvantage, as it causes the vessel to appear much heavier than it actually is, and requires a much greater expenditure of force in order that the tea-pot be put to its use than is necessary were it properly formed. [Illustration: Fig. 151.] [Illustration: Fig. 152.] [Illustration: Fig. 153.] [Illustration: Fig. 154.] [Illustration: Fig. 155.] The law governing the application of handle and spout to vessels is this, and the same principle applies whether the vessel be formed of metal, glass, or earthenware:--Find the centre of gravity of the vessel, which can easily be done by letting a vertical line drop over it when placed in two different positions, as in Figs. 153, 154, and where the two vertical lines intersect, as in _a_ in Fig. 155, is the centre of gravity. The position of the handle being fixed on, draw a line through the centre of the handle, and continue it through the centre of gravity of the vessel. The spout must now be at right angles to this line. If this be the case the vessel will pour freely while the handle is just hung upon the thumb or finger of the person desiring to pour from it, as may be seen from Figs. 156, 157, in which the straight line A, passing through the centre of gravity _a_, is at right angles, as it should be, with the straight line passing through the spout. This law, if obeyed, will always enable liquid to be poured from a vessel without its appearing heavier than it actually is, but it will be seen that the shape of the vessel must be considered so that the spout and handle can bear this relation to each other, as in Figs. 156, 157, 158, 159, and 160. Some shapes will not admit of it, so they must be avoided, as may be seen by examining Figs. 151 and 152, which show a tea-pot of faulty shape in this respect. [Illustration: Fig. 156.] [Illustration: Fig. 157.] [Illustration: Fig. 158.] [Illustration: Fig. 159.] A consideration of this law shows that the handles of jugs--those formed of silver, of glass, and of earthenware alike--are usually placed too high; but in this respect things are much better than they were a few years back. Now we somewhat frequently see a jug with the handle in the right place, while some years back we never did. Silver jugs are now the most generally faulty in this respect, and such mistakes as the wrong placing of the handle or spout of a vessel result only from ignorance, for no man knowing the law would violate it. Fig. 161 shows a common form of jug with its handle, but the handle is too high; the position which it should occupy is shown by the dotted line. A very excellent handle is applied to many of the French water-pots, as shown in Fig. 162. It is unnecessary that I say more respecting the shape and general construction of silver and gold vessels, except to remark that if figures or other ornaments are beaten up on their surfaces, they must not destroy or mar their general contour. Iron is not used with us as it should be. Not only is the effect produced when it is inlaid with silver and other metals excellent, but by this mode of work our art-creations are greatly preserved, for the iron is valueless, and the labour of removing the small quantity of precious metal inlaid would be so great as to render the gain inadequate remuneration for the time consumed in collecting it. [Illustration: Fig. 160.] [Illustration: Fig. 161.] [Illustration: Fig. 162.] M. Christophle, of Paris, and also M. Barbedien in a lesser degree, have commenced to inlay copper vessels with silver, and some of their works are very beautiful. The Japanese have from an early time inlaid silver in bronze. This inlaying of silver into copper is a step in the right direction, and should be encouraged by all lovers of art. The Indians not only inlay silver in iron, but also gold in silver and in iron; and the Italians and other peoples have inlaid metals in a similar way; and the firmness and intricacy of some specimens of this inlaying are truly marvellous. By the process of enamelling, colour can be applied to metal, and of all arts this art of enamelling produces works which are most lovely; at least, if the best works of enamel do not surpass those produced by any other manufacture, they are equal in beauty to the works of the highest excellence. Transparent enamels are in some cases very beautiful, but they do not generally compare with the opaque enamels, such as were largely used by the Chinese about a hundred and fifty years back, and by the Japanese, or those now so skilfully produced by Barbedien, the Algerian Onyx Company, and Christophle, all of Paris. Chinese _cloisonné_ enamel vases may be seen at the South Kensington Museum, and here you may also find one or two small pieces of Japanese enamel, as well as one or two grand specimens by Barbedien, of Paris. The Chinese enamels have most frequently a light blue (sort of turquoise) ground, but they occur with both red, white, green, and yellow grounds; while the ornament is of mixed colours, but generally with light yellow-green, deeper blue-green, or dark blue prevailing in it. The Japanese enamels have a lower tone of colour-effect than the Chinese, and the work is finer and the colours more mingled, while the modern French enamels are full in colour, and are yet rich and subdued in general effect--some of them, indeed, are most beautiful works. The Elkingtons, of Birmingham and London, have also produced some beautiful things in this way, but not in the quantities that Barbedien has. I most strongly advise the art-student to study these works in enamel. Niello-work is a form of enrichment applied to metal, but is not in general use; it is a difficult process. Silver snuff-boxes and pendants for watch-chains with a niello pattern upon them are not uncommon, however, in Belgium and Russia, the niello pattern appearing as dark lead-pencil work upon the silver. Some niello-work is very quiet and beautiful, but much need not be said respecting it. Jewels may be inserted in metal, but if this is done they should be somewhat sparingly used, even in the most costly of works, for if they are abundant they produce mere glitter, and the aim of the ornamentist must in all cases be the production of repose. CHAPTER VIII. HARDWARE. Having considered metal-work in its more costly branches, we come to the consideration of hardware, and I am glad that we have now to deal with such metal-work as results from the use of inexpensive materials, for it is such that must be generally employed, while works formed of the precious metals can be used only by comparatively few persons. The object of art is the giving of pleasure; the mission of the artist is that of giving ennobling pleasure. If as an artist I give pleasure, I to an extent fulfil my mission; but I do so, perfectly, only when I give the greatest amount of the most refined pleasure by my art that it is possible for me to give. If by producing works which can be procured by many I give pleasure, it is well that I do so; but if the many fail to derive pleasure from my works, then I must address myself to the few, and be content with my lesser mission. Education appears to be necessary to the appreciation of all art; the artist, then, is a man who appeals to the educated. If some persons, by their superior education, are enabled to appreciate art more fully than those who are ignorant, and can consequently derive more pleasure from it than the less cultured person, it might then be desirable that the artist should address himself, through costly materials, to the few, for thereby he might be giving the greatest amount of pleasure. I always, however, like to produce works in cheap materials, for then I know that I form what is capable of giving pleasure to the poor man--if appreciative--who may possess it, as well as the rich. In hardware we find two classes of work in the market which appear to have little in common--the one class being characterised by a preponderance of excellence, and the other by the dominance of what is coarse and inartistic. The first class of work is that which is produced by what are termed ecclesiastical metal-workers; the second consists of what is generally known as Birmingham ware. It is an error to suppose that these so-called ecclesiastical--or mediæval, as they are sometimes called--metal-workers produce only ecclesiastical and mediæval work. On the contrary, some of these men--and they are now many in number--devote themselves almost exclusively to domestic work, and most of them fabricate articles in all styles of art. If I wanted an artistic set of fire-irons, I should go to one of the ecclesiastical warehouses, for there I have seen many sets that my reason commends and my judgment approves; but I never saw a set produced for the general market that I liked; and the most artistic fenders, grates, and gas-fittings, in almost any style, are to be got at these shops. I do not mean to convey the impression that all things made at these ecclesiastical warehouses are good, and that all things of Birmingham (or Sheffield) manufacture are bad, for I have seen indifferent works in these mediæval shops, and I have seen excellent things from Birmingham--especially I might mention as good certain gaseliers produced by two of the smaller Birmingham houses--but as a rule the works found in the mediæval warehouses are good, and as a rule the works in hardware produced by Birmingham and Sheffield are bad, in point of art. [Illustration: Fig. 163.] [Illustration: Fig. 164.] It will appear a mere repetition if I insist that the materials of which works of hardware are formed be used in the easiest manner in which they can be worked, and that every article be so formed as perfectly to answer the end of its formation. Yet I must do so. Let us look for a common set of fire-irons, and we shall find that nine pokers out of ten have a handle terminating in a pointed knob. Now, as the object of this knob is that of enabling us to exercise force wherewith to break large pieces of coal, the folly of terminating this knob with a point is obvious. A poker is, essentially, an object of utility; it should therefore be useful. It is ridiculous to talk of a poker as an ornament; yet we find it fashionable now to have a bright poker as an ornament, which is obtrusively displayed to the visitor, and a little black poker, which is carefully concealed from view, reserved for use. I cannot imagine what people will not do for show and fashion, but to the thinking mind such littleness as that which induces women to keep a poker as an ornament must be distressing; and until persons who desire to be regarded as educated learn to discriminate between an ornament and an article of utility, little progress in art can be made. If a poker is simply a thing to be looked at, then it may be as inconvenient as you please, for if it has no purpose to fulfil by its creation it cannot be unfitted to its purpose. The same remarks will apply to shovel and tongs. If they are intended as works of utility, then their form must be carefully considered; but if they are to be mere ornaments I have nothing to say respecting them. [Illustration: Fig. 165.] [Illustration: Fig. 166.] Utility and beauty are not inseparable; but if an article of any kind is intended to answer any particular end, it should be fitted to answer the end proposed by its formation; but after it is created as a work of utility, care must be exercised in order that it be also a work of beauty. With due consideration, almost every work may be rendered both useful and beautiful, and it must ever be the aim of the intelligent ornamentist to render them so. [Illustration: Fig. 167.] [Illustration: Fig. 168.] Iron is capable of being wrought in various ways; it maybe cast, or hammered, or cut, or filed. Casting is the least artistic mode of treating iron; but if iron is to be cast, the patterns formed should be so fully adapted to this method of manufacture that the mode of working may be readily apparent. It is foolish to seek to make cast-iron appear as wrought-iron: cast-iron should appear as cast-iron, and wrought-iron as wrought-iron. Cast-iron is brittle, and must not be relied upon as of great strength; while wrought-iron is tough, and will bend under great pressure rather than break. Wrought-iron can be readily bent into scrolls, or the end of a rod of metal can be hammered flat and shaped into the form of a leaf, and parts can either be welded together or fastened by small collars, pins, or screws. One or two illustrations of good wrought-iron work by Skidmore, Benham, and Hart, are given in the engravings. As an illustration of a simple railing, is figured one shown in the International Exhibition of 1862 (Fig. 163), which is in every respect excellent. Its strength is very great, yet it is quaint and beautiful. As it was shown it was coloured, and the colours were so applied as to increase its effect and beauty. If the student will carefully devote himself to the consideration of excellent works in metal, he will learn more than by much reading. Let him procure, if possible, the illustrated catalogues of such men as Hart of London, Hardman of Birmingham, and Dovey of Manchester, and study the sketches which he will there see, and he will certainly discover the principles of a true art, such as he must seek to apply in a manner concordant with his own original feelings. [Illustration: Fig. 169.] Of our illustrations, the example by Skidmore (Fig. 161) furnishes us with an excellent mode of treatment. Iron bands are readily bent into volutes, or curves of various descriptions, and the parts so formed can be united by welding, screws, or bolts. Hardman's gate (Fig. 165) is in every respect excellent; it is quaint, vigorous, and illustrative of a true mode of working metal. The two foliated railings (Figs. 166, 167) are also very meritorious. They are simple in design, and their parts are well fastened together. I advise very strongly that the student carefully consider the illustrations which accompany this chapter. In iron-work the manifestation of a true constructive principle is beyond all things desirable. Iron, being a strong material, should not be formed into heavy masses unless immense weight has to be sustained, or very great strength is required. If we form lamps, candelabra, and such works of iron, it is obvious that the portions of metal employed in their construction may be thin, as the material is of great strength. Were we to form such works of wood, then a greatly increased thickness of material would be necessary, in order that the same strength be secured, as wood is not nearly so strong as iron. My remarks will have special reference to wrought-iron, as cast-iron cannot so fully be said to have a constructive character. The small railing (Fig. 163) is an admirable illustration of a true constructive formation, as the parts are all held together, and strengthened to a wonderful degree, by the introduction of a horseshoe-shaped member. This railing is worthy of the most careful study, for its strength is great. Besides strength we have also beauty. The horseshoe form, especially when judiciously applied, is far from being offensive. Utility must come first, and then beauty, and so it does in this particular railing; but here we have great simplicity, and a correct structural character has been arrived at in its production rather than any elaboration of the principles of beauty. From the catalogue of J. W. Dovey, of Manchester, I select an illustration of structure in the form of a candelabrum which is highly satisfactory in character as a simple work (Fig. 168). There is a solidly-formed heavy base, an upright stem terminating in a candle-holder. There is an arrangement for catching waste grease, and extra strength is given to the stem by four slender buttress-like brackets, which are securely and well attached to the base and to the stem above; and these are strengthened by two hoops, which prevent their bending under pressure. [Illustration: Fig. 170.] Figs. 169 and 170, the former being a ridge or wall cresting, and the latter a stair railing, are each illustrations of a correct treatment, inasmuch as strength (a structural quality) and beauty (an art quality) are secured at the same time. Fig. 169 is admirably constructed, only it is a little slender above the middle horizontal line. These two illustrations are also from Mr. Dovey's catalogue. In the catalogue just named, and in those previously named also, many good examples may be found illustrative of the successful combination of true structural qualities with a considerable amount of beauty, and also acknowledging the strength of the material by the lightness of the parts. [Illustration: Fig. 171.] Those who reside in, or visit, London, will do well to go to the South Kensington Museum, and study a large and splendid, candelabrum of Messrs. Hurt, Son, and Peard, which is well worthy of consideration. It is rather heavy, and is of enormous strength, but in most other respects it is highly commendable. It, is beautiful, well proportioned, and illustrative of a correct treatment of metal. Besides this, it exemplifies the manner in which stones or jewels may be applied to works in hardware with advantage. As a further illustration of a correct and very beautiful treatment of metal, we give one segment of the Hereford Cathedral Screen (Fig. 171), the work of that most intelligent of metal-workers, Mr. Skidmore of Coventry. This screen was shown in the International Exhibition of 1862, in London, and was from there removed to its place in the cathedral. All who can will do well to view this beautiful work, which is one of the finest examples of artistic metal-work with which we are acquainted. Notice the ease with which iron may be treated if a correct mode of working be employed. Let a bar of iron be taken which is about half an inch in thickness, by 1¼ broad. This can be rolled into a volute (the filigree mode of treatment), or its end can be hammered out into stems and leaves, and to it can be attached other leaves by rivets, screws, or ties, or it can be bent into any structural form. To the student I say, study the shapes into which simple bars of iron can be beaten, both mentally and by observing well-formed works. [Illustration: Fig. 172.] Brass, copper, and other metals may be associated with iron in the formation of any works. If well managed, brass and other bright metals may act as gems--that is, they may give bright spots; but where the bright metals are used with this view, care must be exercised in order that the bright spots be formed by beautiful parts, and that their distribution be just, for that which is bright will attract first attention. Before leaving this part of our subject, I must call attention to a hinge by Hardman, of Birmingham, which was shown in the International Exhibition of 1862, as it is both quaint and beautiful (Fig. 172). The door to which this hinge was applied opened twice; the first half opened and folded back on the second half, and then the two halves opened as one door, as will be seen from the illustration. It is very desirable that we have a little novelty of arrangement in our works. We are too apt to repeat ourselves, hence it is a sort of relief to meet with a new idea. It is impossible that I take up each article of hardware and consider it separately. All I can do is to point out principles, and leave the learner to consider and apply them for himself--principles which, once understood, may result in the construction of many excellent works, and may lead to the formation of a correct judgment respecting such objects as may be brought forward for criticism. I will, however, just call attention to gas-branches, as they are often wrongly constructed. A gas-branch is a duct through which gas is to be conveyed. It must be strong if it is to be exposed to pressure, or if it runs the chance of coming in collision with the person, as do standard lights in public buildings. The main part of a gas-branch is the tube or pipe which is to convey the gas, but this may be supported in many ways, as by such buttress-like brackets as in the candelabrum shown in Fig. 168; and if there are branch tubes for several lights, these may well be connected with the central tube, not only by their own attachment, but by brackets of some sort, or with one another by some connecting parts. Whether the gas-branch be pendent or standard, this mode of strengthening the tube-work should be employed, for the tubes themselves are but slightly held together, and by pressure being brought to bear upon them, a dangerous and expensive escape of gas may result. In the manufacture of gaseliers one or two of the smaller Birmingham houses have certainly distinguished themselves by the production of works both beautiful and true; and these lead me to think that a better day is dawning for Birmingham, in which its art shall be exalted rather than degraded, and shall be such as will win to it the esteem of the world rather than call forth the execrations of art-loving people. As to the colouring of iron I can say little. In my judgment the best modes of colouring metals were originated by Mr. Skidmore of Coventry, of whom I have before spoken. His theory is this, that metals are best coloured by the tints of their oxides. When a metal, especially brass, is seen in a furnace in a molten condition, the flames, where the oxygen of the atmosphere is uniting with the vapour of the metal, present the most resplendent tints. The same thing in a lesser degree occurs in the case of iron, but here the colours are less brilliant, and are more tertiary in character. Mr. Skidmore applies to a metal the colours seen in the flames of the furnace where it melts. Without attempting to limit the colourist to any theory whereby his ideas might be restricted, I must say that Skidmore's colouring of the metals is very good. CHAPTER IX. STAINED GLASS. From early times it has been customary to colour glass. To the ancient Egyptians a method of forming glass of various tints was known, and by producing a mass of glass consisting of variously coloured pieces vitreously united, and cutting this into slices, they, in a costly and laborious manner, produced a sort of stained glass which might have been employed for the sides of lanterns or other purposes. The Greeks were acquainted with a similar process, and bowls formed in this manner by them are common in our museums. Soon after the re-discovery of glass in our own country, methods of colouring it were sought, and cathedral windows were formed, which were of such beauty, and were so thoroughly fitted to answer the end of their creation, that little or no improvement upon these early works has even yet been made, and much of the decorative glass which we now produce is far inferior to them as regards design, colour, and mode of treatment. A window must fulfil two purposes--it must keep out rain, wind, and cold, and must admit light; having fulfilled these ends, it may be beautiful. If a window commands a lovely view let it, if possible, be formed of but few sheets (if not very large, of one sheet) of plate-glass; for the works of God are more worthy of contemplation, with their ever-changing beauty, than the works of man; but if the window commands only a mass of bricks and mortar inartistically arranged, let it, if possible, be formed of coloured glass having beauty of design manifested by the arrangement of its parts. A window should never appear as a picture with parts treated in light and shade. The foreshortening of the parts, and all perspective treatments, are best avoided, as far as possible. I do not say that the human figure, the lower animals, and plants must not be delineated upon window glass, for, on the contrary, they may be so treated as not only to be beautiful, but also to be a consistent decoration of glass; but this I do say, that many stained windows are utterly spoiled through the window being treated as a picture, and not as a protection from the weather and as a source of light. If pictorially treated subjects are employed upon window glass, they should be treated very simply, and drawn in bold outline without shading, and the parts should be separated from each other by varying their colours. Thus, the flesh of a figure may be formed of glass having a pink tone; the robe of the figure of glass which is green, purple, or any other colour; a flower may be formed of white glass, or of glass of any colour; the leaves of green glass; and the sky background of blue glass. All the parts will thus be distinguished from each other by colour, and the distinction of part from part will be further enhanced by the strong black outline which bounds the parts and furnishes the drawing of the picture. [Illustration: Fig. 173.] [Illustration: Fig. 174.] Strong colours should rarely be used in windows, as they retard the admission of light. Light is essential to our well-being; our health of body depends in a large measure upon the amount of light which falls upon the skin. Those wonderful chemical changes, in the absence of which there can be no life, in part, at least, depend upon the exposure of our bodies to light; let our windows, then, admit these life-giving rays. It must also be remembered that if light is not freely admitted to an apartment the colours of all the objects which it contains, and of its own decorations if it has any, are sacrificed, for in the absence of light there is no colour. [Illustration: Fig. 175.] [Illustration: Fig. 176.] [Illustration: Fig. 177.] [Illustration: Fig. 178.] [Illustration: Fig. 179.] [Illustration: Fig. 180.] It is not necessary, in order to the production of a beautiful window, that much strong colour be used; tints of creamy yellow, pale amber, light tints of tertiary blue, blue-grey, olive, russet, and other sombre or delicate hues, if enlivened with small portions of ruby or other full colours, produce the most charming effects, and by their use we have consistent windows. A good domestic window is often produced by armorial bearings in colour being placed on geometrically arranged tesseræ of slightly tinted glass. In some cases such an arrangement as this is highly desirable, for the room may thus get the benefit which a bit of colour will sometimes afford, and at the same time a pleasant view may be had through the uncoloured portion of the window. As an illustration of this class of window, we extract one from the catalogue of those excellent artists in stained glass, Messrs. Heaton, Butler, and Bayne, of Garrick Street (Fig. 173). A good window may also be formed by bordering a plain window with colour, (Fig. 174), or in place of the plain centre squares of glass may be used, each bearing a diaper pattern, as Figs. 175 to 182. [Illustration: Fig. 181.] [Illustration: Fig. 182.] No architectural constructive feature should be introduced into a window--thus, an elaborate architectural canopy overshadowing a figure is not at all desirable. If a figure is formed of a perishable material, and stands on the outside of a building, it is well that it be protected from the rain by a canopy; but such a contrivance when introduced over a figure drawn on a flat window is absurd, being useless. Let us always consider what we have to do before we commence the formation of any ornamental article, and then seek to do it in the most simple, consistent, and beautiful manner. Figs. 183 and 184 represent my views of what stained glass may advantageously be. [Illustration: Fig. 183.] More than once in the course of these chapters I have protested in strong terms against pretence in art and art-decoration--the desire to make things appear to be made of better material or more costly substances than what they have in reality been wrought from--that leads men to paint and varnish a plain freestone mantelpiece in imitation of some expensive marble, or to make doors and window-shutters, skirting and panelling that the carpenter has fashioned out of red or yellow deal, assume the appearance of oak, or maple, or satinwood, by the deceptive skill of the grainer. In no case can the imitation ever approach a fair resemblance to the reality it is proposed to imitate. The coarse, rough grain of the soft freestone, which is incapable of receiving a polish, or rather of being polished until it becomes as smooth, and even, and lustrous as good glass, can never be made by successive coatings of paint and varnish to afford a satisfactory resemblance to the marble that it is supposed to represent, however carefully the cunning hand of the painter may have imitated the veins, and spots, and curious diversities of colour with which Nature has variegated the surface of the substance that he is endeavouring to copy. Nor, again, can a coarse-grained, soft wood, however skilled may be the hand that manipulates it, be treated so as to resemble the texture and smoothness of hard, close-grained wood, which from its very nature is capable of receiving the high polish that the softer material can never take if treated by the same process--that is, unless the expense of producing the imitation greatly exceeds the cost of the thing imitated. And what is applicable to the treatment of wood and stone is applicable also to the treatment of glass: for as a freestone mantelpiece, or deal door, however suitable and pleasing to the eye either may be when simply painted in the one case and varnished in the other to preserve the surface from the deteriorating influences of dirt of any kind, can never be made by the exercise of reasonable time and skill to present the appearance of marble or oak; so glass, by the application of colour rendered transparent by varnish, can never be brought to resemble glass stained or painted by the legitimate method, either in delicacy of tint, or depth, and richness, and brilliancy of colour. The greater part of the imitative stained glass, or "diaphanie" as it is styled, fails not only in colour, but in design; and in this indeed it may perhaps be said to be especially faulty. The designs, which are printed on paper, with the view of imitating glass patterns, err principally in being too elaborate, and in representing figures and scenery which are not in character or keeping with the designs that are usually represented in painted glass. If confined to simple diaper work, or borderings and heraldic emblems, as shown in Figs. 173 and 174, or patterns similar to that shown in Fig. 183, the artistic effect produced would be more satisfactory, although it can never equal genuine stained glass in depth of colour or purity of tone. [Illustration: Fig. 184.] CHAPTER X. CONCLUSION. I have now treated of art as applied to our industrial manufactures, and have pointed out principles which must be recognisable in all art-works which pretend to merit. We have seen that material must in all cases be used in the simplest and most natural manner; that, wherever possible, we must avail ourselves of the friendly aid of natural forces;[29] that the most convenient shape must always be selected for a vessel or art-object of any kind; and that beauty must then be added to that which is useful. All art-objects must be useful and then beautiful; they must be utilitarian, and yet so graceful, so comely, that they shall be loved for their beauty as well as valued for their usefulness. While I have set forth those principles which must ever govern the application of ornament to useful articles, I cannot show the student any royal road to the attainment of art-knowledge. There is something in a true art-work which is too subtle for expression by words; there is a "quality" about an art-work, or the expression of an amount of "feeling," which cannot be described, yet which is so obvious as to be at once apparent to the trained eye. [29] See chapters on glass and earthenware. The only way in which the power of appreciating art-qualities can be gained, especially if these qualities are of a subtle nature, is by the careful study of works of known excellence. Could the student visit our museums in company with a trained ornamentist, who would point out what was good and what was bad in art, he would soon learn, by studying the beautiful works, to perceive art-qualities; but as this is not possible to most, the learner must be content to consider each art-work with which he comes in contact in conjunction with the principles I have set forward. Let him take a work--say a tea-pot. He will now ask himself--has the material of which it is formed been judiciously and simply used?--is the shape convenient?--is the handle properly applied, and does the spout bear a proper relation to the handle?--is the form graceful or vigorous?--is the curve which bounds the form of a subtle nature?--is the engraving applied in judicious quantities and in just proportions?--are the engraved forms beautiful, and such as do not suffer by being seen in perspective on a rounded surface? By such questions the student will inquire into the nature of whatever is presented to his consideration, and only by constantly making such inquiries, and seeking to answer them correctly, can he gain the knowledge which will enable him rightly to judge of the nature of art-works. Some of these inquiries the young student will readily answer, with others he will have difficulty; for, his taste being yet uncultivated, he will not know whether a form is beautiful or not. Nevertheless, I say to the learner, try to answer these various inquiries as well as you can, and then note the shape of the object in a memorandum-book, and write your opinion respecting it in brief terms, and your reasons for your opinion. By thus noting your studies you gain many advantages; thus, you must frame your ideas with some degree of exactness when you have to put them into words, and exactness of idea is essential to your success. You can also refer to previous thoughts, and thus impress them upon the memory; and you can observe your progress, which is important, and should be encouraging. In order that you acquire the power of perceiving art-merit as quickly as possible, you must study those works in which examples of bad taste are rarely met with, you must at first consider art-objects from India, Persia, China, and Japan, as well as examples of ancient art from Egypt and Greece. But in selecting modern works from the East, choose those which are not altogether new if possible. During the last ten years the art-works of Japan have deteriorated to a lamentable extent. Contact with Europeans unfortunately brings about the deterioration of Eastern art: in order that the European demand be met, quantity is produced and quality disregarded, for we cavil respecting price, and yet by thus creating a demand for inferior work we raise the price even of that which is comparatively bad, and soon have to pay for the coarser wares a price for which superior articles could at first be procured. But this should be noted: that the commonest wares which we receive from Japan and India are never utterly bad in art. Inharmonious colouring does not appear to be produced by these nations, and the same may be said of Persia and China, and, to an extent, of Morocco and Algeria, the only exceptions being where European influence has been long continued. In selecting examples for study you may almost rely upon the beauty of all works from China, Japan, Persia, and India, which have not been produced under European influence. A notable example of the deteriorating influence of European taste (perhaps chiefly English taste) upon Eastern art is apparent if we examine old carved sandalwood boxes from India, and those which are now sent to us from the same country; the quiet, unobtrusive consistency of the ornament by which it was sought only to enrich a properly constructed box was not sufficiently attractive to suit European (or English?) taste. The ornament must be more pronounced and in higher relief, and the entire work must be more attractive--more vulgarly attractive I might say, and thus the exquisite refinement of the older works is sacrificed to the wants of a rich but vulgar people, whose taste for art is infinitely below that of their conquered brethren, from whom they learn the principles of a beautiful art but slowly, while they do much to destroy the refinement of art-taste which the workmen of our Eastern empire appear to inherit. Study the works of the Eastern nations in conjunction with the remarks which I made in my first chapter (see pages 6, 9, and 48), and then consider the numerous objects left to us by the early Egyptians and Greeks, and bear in mind while viewing them what we have said on Egyptian and Greek art (see pages 6, 8, and 10), and after having learned to understand the merits of Persian, Japanese, Indian, and Chinese art, and of that of the ancient Egyptians and Greeks, you may commence to consider other styles, taking up the study of Italian and Renaissance art in its various forms last of all; for in these styles, or dialects of a style if I may thus speak, there is so much that is false in structure, false in representation, untruthful in expression, and pictorial rather than ornamental in effect, that a very complete acquaintance with ornamental art is necessary in order that all the defects of these styles be apparent, and in order that the student avoid falling into the error of regarding a pictorial effect as the result of a true style of ornamental art. Study, when accompanied by individual thought, is the means whereby art-knowledge will be gained. No mere looking at works which are beautiful and true will make a great ornamentist. He who would attain to great knowledge must _study_ whatever commends itself to him as worthy of his attention, and, above all, must think much upon the works which he contemplates; it is the evidence of mind--not of degraded but of noble mind, of refined mind, of cultivated mind, of well-informed mind, of mind which has knowledge, of mind which has vigour, of mind which is fresh and new--that we find impressed upon a work and giving to it value. While we, as art-students, have, above all things, to attain to cultivation of the mind, we cannot give expression to refined feelings manifested in form unless we can draw, and draw almost faultlessly; and the ability to draw with accuracy, power, and feeling can only result from much practice. Let every spare moment, then, find the sketch-book in your hand, and be constantly trying to draw both carefully, neatly, and with exactness and finish, such objects as you see around you, even if examples of good art-works are not at hand; for by constant and careful practice you can alone acquire the necessary power of expressing refined thought in refined form. Avoid making hasty sketches. When a finished artist, you can afford to make sketch memoranda; but till you can draw with great power, energy, truthfulness, and refinement, let your every drawing be as careful and as finished in character, however simple the object portrayed, as though your welfare in life depended upon its character, for upon every sketch your future position does, to a great extent, depend. The habit of careful painstaking should sedulously be cultivated; and with every drawing thus made an amount of power is gained which the making of a hundred careless sketches would not afford. Let painstaking, then, be characteristic of your working. Ornament of some kind is applied to almost every article that we see around us. The papers on our walls, the carpets on our floors, the hangings at our windows, the plates from which we eat, are all covered by patterns of some kind; yet it is rare, even now when ornamentation has become general, to find anything original in ornament; and if we do meet with something new in kind it is often feeble or timid-looking, if it does not altogether fail to impress us with the idea that the producer was a man of knowledge. Let the reader be assured that if the designer is a man of knowledge, his ornamental compositions will never fail to reveal his learning; that if he is a man of power, his works will reveal his strength of character; if he is a man of refined feelings, that his designs will manifest his tenderness of perception. In like manner, if a man is ignorant he cannot withhold from his patterns the manifestation of his ignorance. Did not the Egyptians express their power of character in their ornaments? did not the Greeks manifest their refinement in the forms which they drew? do we not even find an expression of religious feeling strongly, yea, impressively, set forth by some art-works, as by the illuminated manuscripts of the early Middle Ages? and do we not every day see the impress of the ignorant upon certain wall-papers, carpets, and other things? It is a fact, and it is necessary that we fully recognise it, that the knowledge of the producer is manifested by his works; and that the ignorance of the ignorant is also manifested in his works. If ornament is produced having new characters, it is often feeble, and is generally without grace; while power is the expression of manliness, and grace of refinement. Without claiming to have made a successful effort, I put forth, in the frontispiece to this volume (Plate I.), four of my studies in original ornament, all of which are to me more or less satisfactory as studies in composition. I have endeavoured to secure in each an amount of energy, vigour--the power of life, yet at the same time to avoid coarseness, or any glaring want of refinement. I have sought to combine right lines, which are expressive of power, with such curved shapes as shall, with them, produce a pleasing contrast of form, and express a certain amount of grace. In the light ornament on the citrine ground (that at the lower left-hand corner of our plate) I have endeavoured especially to secure an expression of grace in combination with that amount of energy which avoids any expression of feebleness. In the border ornament I have introduced the arch form, as it hints at a structural "setting out" which is pleasant; and I have endeavoured to cause the composition to appear as though it rested on the lower dotted band, as this gives a feeling of security. I do not say that it is necessary that this be so: all I assert is that in some cases it gives a feeling of satisfaction. So far as I know, the colouring is also original. The colours employed are chiefly of a tertiary character, but small masses of primary or secondary colours are employed in order to impart "life" to the composition. I do not set these studies before my readers with the idea of showing them what original ornament should be: I only set them forth as examples of new compositions, and must leave each to clothe his own thoughts with a befitting expression of his individual original ideas. As I am writing for the working man, as well as for others, will he pardon me reminding him that we are called to exercise an art, yet at the same time our art is associated with the scientific professions--a knowledge of natural sciences, of botany, zoology, natural philosophy, and chemistry can be very fully utilised in our art--and that we should, therefore, act as professional men and as artists of the highest rank; for thereby only can we hope to place our calling in that position of esteem in which it should be held, and must be held, by the people at large, if we are to administer to their pleasure as we ought. In taking leave of my reader, let me say that if I personally can aid him in any way, I shall be glad to do so. If any who really seek knowledge of decorative design, and are hard workers, choose to send me designs for criticism or comment, or desire any other aid that I can give them, I shall be happy to do what little I can for them. My address will be found at the end of the Preface. INDEX. Alternation in Ornament, 24. America, Depraved Artistic Taste in, 104. Anthemion; a Greek Decorative Device, 9. Arabian Metal-work, 137. Arch used in Furniture, 51, 52. Art may be Degrading, 2; aims at producing Repose, 63; the Object of, 144. Art-knowledge, The Value of, 2. Baptism, Symbol of, in Gothic Art, 12. Beauty in Decoration, 16, 17. Bed-room, Decoration for a, 15. Birmingham Ware, 144, 145, 152. Black, a Neutral in Decorative Work, 45. Buhl-work, 64. Buildings, Decoration of, 73, _et seq._ Byzantine Ornament, 11. Cabinet, Construction of a, 61. Calico, Patterns on, 107. Carpets, Art-qualities and Patterns of, 94, _et seq._; Different Sorts of, 94, 95; Foreign-made, 102, 103; how they should be laid down, 105; the Conditions which Govern the Application of Ornament to, 106. Carving, when to be used, 61, 62. Casting in Metal, 136. Casting, the least Artistic Mode of Treating Iron, 147. Ceilings, Decoration of, 75, _et seq._; Various, worthy of Study, 82; with Painted Pictures Objectionable, 82. Celtic Ornament, 25. Chair-coverings, 72. Chairs, Construction of, 52-57. Character of the Designer shown by his Work, 163. Chinese Enamels, 143. Chinese Harmony of Colour, 48. Chinese Ornament, 11. Christian Art, 11, 12. Clay as a Material for Art-purposes, 117, _et seq._ Colour--in Decoration, 30, _et seq._; Contrast in, 32, 33; Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary, 32; Harmony in, 33, 39, _et seq._; Qualities of, 33, 34; Analytical Tables of, 34; Teachings of Experience in regard to, 34, 45; Proportions in which Colours Harmonise, 34, 35, 36; Pure, and Pigments, 37, 38; Permanence of, 38, _note_; Shades, Tints, and Hues, 39; Works on, referred to, 49; for Stained Windows, 154, _et seq._ Colouring Metals. _See_ Skidmore, Mr. Colour-top, the, 48, and _note_. Copper Vessels Inlaid with Silver, 142. Cornices, Colouring of, 93. Couches, 57, _et seq._ Curtain Materials, 107, _et seq._ Curves, most Beautiful when most Subtle, 23. Damascene Work, 139. Damask Table-linen, Patterns on, 107, 108, 109. Damask Wall-coverings. _See_ Silk Wall Damasks. Decanters, what they should be, 129. Decoration should be in keeping with Architecture, 73, 74, 75. Design and Ornament, Redgrave on, 50. Dining-room, Decoration for a, 14. Dining-tables, Mr. Eastlake on Telescopic, 66, 67. Distemper Colours for Wall Decoration, 83. Doric Column, The, 9. Drawing-room, Decoration for a, 15. Dress, Ladies' and Gentlemen's, 90. Patterns for Ladies', 112. Earthen Vessels, Decoration of, 125, 126, 127. Eastlake, Mr., on Household Art, referred to, 52, and _note_. Ecclesiastical Metal-workers, 144, 145. Egyptian Architecture, 8. Egyptian Coloured Glass, 153. Egyptian Drawing, Peculiarity of, 5. Egyptian Ornament, 4-8. Embroidery on Cotton, Indian, 114. Enamelling in Metal-work, 143. England, Architectural Buildings in, 11; House Decoration in, 30, 31. European Influence Injurious to Eastern Art, 161. Excess in Upholstery, 70. Fabrics, Patterns Suitable for Woven, 107, _et seq._ Finish, its Value Over-estimated, 120. Folds, Ornamentation of Fabrics to be seen in, 112, _et seq._ French Errors of Taste in Furniture, 65. Furniture, Decorative Principles applied to, 50, _et seq._; What is Required to make it an Object of Art, 50; Material used for, 51; Truthful Construction of, 59, 65, _et seq._; Proportion and Enrichment of, 61, 63. Glass, as a Material for Art-purposes, 118, 127, _et seq._; Vessels, Various, 130, _et seq._; Vessels, Coloured, 131, 132; Cutting of, 132; Engraving of, 133; Ornamentation of, 133; Stained, 153, _et seq._ Gold, a Neutral in Decorative Work, 44, 45. Gold and Silver, Works in, 136. Gothic Architecture, Modern, 74. Gothic Furniture, Falsely Constructed, 66. Gothic Ornament, 12. Granite Imitated, Objected to, 89. Greek Coloured Glass, 153. Greek Ornament, 9, 10, 11. Greek Vessels, 121. Grotesque. _See_ Humour. Handles of Vessels, 138, 139, 140. Hardware, Art in Connection with, 144, _et seq._ Harmony of Colour. _See_ Colour. Historical Inquiry Necessary to the Understanding of Decoration, 4, Humour in Ornament, 24-29; Chinese and Japanese, 25, 27, 28. Imitations of Marbles and Granites, 89. Indian Art Injured by European Influence, 161. Indian Fabrics, 48, _note_. Indian Fabrics, Mr. Redgrave on, 115, 116. Indian Metal-work, 142. Indian Work in regard to Colouring, 47. Inlaying as a means of Enriching Works of Furniture, 63. Irish Crosses, Numerous Ornaments on, 25. Iron, as an Art-material, 142. Iron, how Wrought, 147. Iron, Metals that may be Associated with, 151. Iron-castings of Berlin, 136. Iron-work, Ornamental, 147, _et seq._; must Manifest a True Constructive Principle, 148; Colouring of, 152. Italian Metal-work, 142. Japan, Deterioration in the Art-works of, 161. Japanese Art, 11. Japanese Colouring, 48. Japanese Earthenware, 120. Japanese Enamels, 142, 143. Japanese Metal-work, 142. Jewels in Metal-work, 143. Joists in Ceilings, how they should be Treated, 79. Labour Necessary to Success in Art, 4, 31. Library, Decoration for a, 15. Lotus in Egyptian Design, 5, 6. Marble Imitated, Objected to, 89. Mediæval Metal-workers, 144, 145. Mental Effects produced by Decorative Forms, 14. Moorish Ornament, 11. Muslin, Patterns on, 107. Natural Forms in Carpet Patterns, 96, 97, 98. Niello-work applied to Metals, 143. Norman Architecture, 11. Novelty Wanted in Carpet Patterns, 105. Oil-colour "Flatted" for Wall Decoration, 83. Order, a Principle in Ornament, 23. Ormolu Ornaments, 64. Ornament and Architecture Inseparable, 13. Papered Walls. _See_ Wall Papers. Papyrus in Egyptian Architecture, 8. Persian Ornament, 11. Picture Frames, 72. Pigments. _See_ Colour. Plants as Ornaments, How to Treat, 24. Plaques of Stone or Earthenware applied to Works of Furniture, 63, 64. Pottery, Art in, 117, _et seq._ Power an Art-principle, 17. Precious Materials in the Form of Art-works, 117, 118. Preface, v., vi. Pretence in Art-decoration, 157-159. Proportion must be Subtle, 23. Purpose, Adaptation to, Taught by Plants, 21. Renaissance Ornament, 13. Repetition of Parts in Ornament, 23. Roman Ornament, 11. Shams in Decoration, 89. Silk, Patterns on, 107. Silk Wall Damasks, 114. Silversmiths' Work, 135, _et seq._ Skidmore, Mr., and his Theory of Colouring Metals, 152. Sofa-coverings, 70, 72. South Kensington Museum, 48, _note_. Spouts of Vessels, 139, _et seq._ Stools, 53. Study of Art-decoration, how it should be carried on, 14, 160, 161, 162. Styles of Architecture, 73. Sugar-basin, its Form, 138. Surface Decoration, 73, _et seq._ Symbols in Christian Art, 12. Table-covers, The Borders of, 109, 111. Taste of the Uneducated, 15. Trinity, Symbols of the, in Gothic Art, 12. Truth an Art-principle, 15, 16, 89, 158, 159. Utility must Govern the Production and Application of Ornament, 17-22, 145. Utility in Architecture, 20. Utility Professor George Wilson on, 19, 20. Utility Various Writers on, 20. Vehicles for Art, The Best, the least Costly, 3. Veneering, 69. Venetian Glass, 130, 131. Vessels, Primitive, 120. Wall Decorations, 83, _et seq._ Wall Papers, 87, 90, _et seq._ Walls should be Unobtrusive, 90. Water-vessels, Egyptian and Greek, 121-124. White a Neutral in Decorative Work, 45. Window-hangings, 69, 70, 108. Windows, 69, 70; the Object of, 153; how they should be Treated, 153. Wine-bottles, Forms of, 128. "Winged Globe," in Egyptian Design, 7. Woods and their Relative Strength, 51. Workmen; their Study of Decorative Laws, 1. " Advice to, 164. Wrought-iron, its Qualities, 147, 148. CASSELL, PETTER, & GALPIN, BELLE SAUVAGE WORKS, LONDON, E.C. * * * * * MANUALS OF TECHNOLOGY. EDITED BY PROFESSOR AYRTON, F.R.S. 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CASSELL, PETTER, GALPIN & CO.'S COMPLETE CATALOGUE, containing a List of SEVERAL HUNDRED VOLUMES, including _Bibles_ and _Religious Works_, _Fine-Art Volumes_, _Children's Books_, _Dictionaries_, _Educational Works_, _History_, _Natural History_, _Household_ and _Domestic Treatises_, _Handbooks_ and _Guides_, _Science_, _Travels_, &c. &c., together with a Synopsis of their numerous Illustrated Serial Publications, sent post free on application to CASSELL, PETTER, GALPIN & CO., Ludgate Hill, London. _CASSELL, PETTER, GALPIN & CO.: LONDON, PARIS & NEW YORK._ * * * * * Transcriber's note: Archaic syntax and punctuation and inconsistent spelling were retained. Footnote [7]: "in order to this" modified to "in order to do this" to fit context. 
41664	----	+-----------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's Note: | | | | Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original | | document have been adjusted. | | | | Italics is displayed as _PLATE XXIV_. | | Small caps have been replaced with all caps. | | | | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. For | | a complete list, please see the end of this file. | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------+ OLD TIME WALL PAPERS WE HAVE PRINTED 75 SIGNED AND NUMBERED COPIES OF THIS BOOK ON FRENCH JAPAN PAPER, AND 975 NUMBERED COPIES ON AMERICAN PLATE PAPER. THE TYPE HAS BEEN DISTRIBUTED. NUMBER. [Illustration] OLD TIME WALL PAPERS AN ACCOUNT OF THE PICTORIAL PAPERS ON OUR FOREFATHERS' WALLS WITH A STUDY OF THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF WALL PAPER MAKING AND DECORATION BY KATE SANBORN [Illustration] GREENWICH CONNECTICUT THE LITERARY COLLECTOR PRESS NEW YORK 1905 CLIFFORD & LAWTON 19 UNION SQUARE WEST, NEW YORK CITY _SOLE AGENTS_ Copyright, 1905 BY KATE SANBORN TO A. S. C. THE CHATELAINE OF ELM BANK [Illustration] INTRODUCTORY NOTE If a book has ever been written on this subject it has been impossible to discover; and to get reliable facts for a history of the origin and development of the art of making wall-papers has been a serious task, although the result seems scanty and superficial. Some friends may wonder at the lack of fascinating bits of gossip, stories of rosy romance and somber tragedy in connection with these papers. But those who chatted, danced, flirted, wept or plotted in the old rooms are long since dust, and although the "very walls have ears" they have not the gift of speech. But my collection of photographs is something entirely unique and will increase in value every year. The numerous photographers, to whom I have never appealed in vain, are regarded by me as not only a skillful but a saintly class of men. I am greatly indebted to Miss Mary M. Brooks of Salem and Miss Mary H. Buckingham of Boston for professional assistance. Many others have most kindly helped me by offers of photographs and interesting facts concerning the papers and their histories. But I am especially indebted to Mrs. Frederick C. Bursch, who has given much of her time to patient research, to the verification or correction of doubtful statements, and has accomplished a difficult task in arranging and describing the photographs. Without her enthusiastic and skillful assistance, my collection and text would have lacked method and finish. To the many, both acquaintances and strangers, who have volunteered assistance and have encouraged when discouragement was imminent, sending bracing letters and new-old pictures, I can only quote with heartfelt thanks the closing lines of the verse written by Foote, the English actor, to be posted conspicuously to attract an audience to his benefit-- Like a grate full of coals I'll glow A great full house to see; And if I am not grateful, too, A great fool I shall be. [Illustration] [Illustration] CONTENTS I Page FROM MUD WALLS AND CANVAS TENTS TO DECORATIVE PAPERS 1 II PROGRESS AND IMPROVEMENT IN THE ART 23 III EARLIEST WALL PAPERS IN AMERICA 41 IV WALL PAPERS IN HISTORIC HOMES 61 V NOTES FROM HERE AND THERE 85 VI REVIVAL AND RESTORATION OF OLD WALL PAPERS 103 [Illustration] [Illustration] LIST OF PLATES AND ILLUSTRATIONS PLATES Old English Figure paper--in Colors. Plate I Rural Scenes--Detail in Colors. II French paper, Watteau Style--Detail in Colors. III Adventures of a Gallant--Reduction. IV Adventures of a Gallant--Detail in Colors. V Racing paper--Timothy Dexter House. VI The Bayeux Tapestry--Burial of Edward. VII The Bayeux Tapestry--Harold hearing News. VIII Oldest English paper--Borden Hall, "A." IX Borden Hall paper, Design "B." X Early English Pictorial paper--Chester, Eng. XI Old Chinese paper, Cultivation of Tea--Dedham, Mass. XII-XIV Early American fresco--Westwood, Mass. XV-XVIII Early Stencilled paper--Nantucket, Mass. XIX A Peep at the Moon--Nantucket, Mass. XX Hand-colored Figures, repeated--Claremont, N. H. XXI Nature Scenes, repeated--Salem, Mass. XXII The Alhambra, repeated--Leicester, Mass. XXIII Cathedral Views, repeated--Ware, Mass. XXIV Cathedral Views, repeated on architectural background--Waltham, Mass. XXV Pictured Ruins, Hall and Stairway--Salem, Mass. XXVI Birds of Paradise and Peacocks--Waltham, Mass. XXVII Sacred to Washington--Mourning paper. XXVIII Dorothy Quincy Wedding paper--Quincy, Mass. XXIX The Pantheon--King's Tavern, Vernon, Conn. XXX Canterbury Bells--Wayside Inn, Sudbury, Mass. XXXI The First Railway Locomotive--Salem, Mass. XXXII Rural Scene from same room. XXXIII Pizarro in Peru--Duxbury, Mass. XXXIV-V Tropical Scenes--Peabody, Mass. XXXVI-VII On the Bosporus--Montpelier, Vt. XXXVIII-IX Oriental Scenes--Stockport, N. Y. XL-XLIII Early Nineteenth Century Scenic paper--Deerfield, Mass. XLIV-V Same Scenic paper, other examples--Warner, N. H., and Windsor, Vt. XLVI-VII Harbor Scene--Waterford, Vt., Gilmanton, N. H., and Rockville, Mass. XLVIII The Spanish Fandango--same paper. XLIX Strolling Players--same paper. L Rural Scenes--Ashland, Mass., and Marblehead. LI, LII French Boulevard Scenes--Salem, Mass., and Nantucket, Mass. LIII, LIV Gateway and Fountain, with Promenaders. LV Scenes from Paris--Salem, Mass., etc. LVI, LVII Bay of Naples--Hanover, N. H., etc. LVIII-LXII Cupid and Psyche--panelled paper. LXIII, LXIV The Adventures of Telemachus--Taunton, Mass., etc. LXV-IX Scottish Scenes--same paper. LXX The Olympic Games--Boston, Mass. LXXI A tribute to Homer--same paper. LXXII The shrine of Vesta--same paper. LXXIII Worship of Athene--same paper. LXXIV Oblation to Bacchus--same paper. LXXV Oblation to Bacchus and Procession before Pantheon--Keene, N. H. LXXVI The Lady of the Lake--Greenbush, Mass., and Portsmouth, N. H. LXXVII-LXXX The Seasons--Hanover, N. H. LXXXI-III ILLUSTRATIONS. Devil paper, Gore Mansion, Waltham, Mass. See end papers. Devil paper, details, Pages viii, 19, 61 Mill and Boat Landing--Fairbanks House, Dedham, Mass. vii Gallipoli Scenes--Knox Mansion, Thomaston, Me. ix, 23, 103 Adventures of Cupid--Beverly, Mass. xi, 116 Fisher Maidens--Draper House, N. H. x Peasant Scene. xi Hunters and Dog. xiv The Gypsies--Stevens House, Methuen, Mass. 1 Bandbox (Stage-coach) and Cover--Spencer, Mass. 20 The Grape Harvest. 37 Torches and Censers--Thomaston, Me. 38 Bandbox, Volunteer Fire Brigade--Norwich, Conn. 58 Chariot Race--Detail of Olympic Games paper. 85 Horse Race--Newburyport, Mass. 100 [Illustration] I FROM MUD WALLS AND CANVAS TENTS TO DECORATIVE PAPERS [Illustration] I FROM MUD WALLS AND CANVAS TENTS TO DECORATIVE PAPERS "How very interesting! Most attractive and quite unique! I supposed all such old papers had gone long ago. How did you happen to think of such an odd subject, and how ever could you find so many fine old specimens? Do you know where the very first wall-paper was made?" These are faint echoes of the questions suggested by my collection of photographs of wall-papers of the past. The last inquiry, which I was unable to answer, stimulated me to study, that I might learn something definite as to the origin and development of the art of making such papers. Before this, when fancying I had found a really new theme, I was surprised to discover that every one, from Plato and Socrates to Emerson, Ruskin and Spencer, had carefully gleaned over the same ground, until the amount of material became immense and unmanageable. Not so now. I appealed in vain to several public libraries; they had nothing at all on the subject. Poole's Index--that precious store-house of information--was consulted, but not one magazine article on my theme could be found. I then sent to France, England and Italy, and employed professional lookers-up of difficult topics; but little could be secured. The few who had studied paper hangings were very seldom confident as to positive dates and facts. One would seem safe in starting with China, as paper was certainly invented there, and many of the earliest designs were of Chinese scenes; but the honor is also claimed for Japan and Persia and Egypt. It is difficult to decide in view of the varying testimony. I was assured by a Japanese expert, who consulted a friend for the facts, that neither the Chinese nor the Japanese have ever used paper to cover their walls. At the present day, the inner walls of their houses are plastered white, and usually have a strip of white paper running around the bottom, about a foot and a half high. On the other hand, Clarence Cook, in his book, _What Shall We Do With Our Walls?_, published in 1880, says as to the origin of wall-paper: "It may have been one of the many inventions borrowed from the East, and might be traced, like the introduction of porcelain, to the Dutch trade with China and Japan." And he finds that the Japanese made great use of paper, their walls being lined with this material, and the divisions between the rooms made largely, if not entirely, by means of screens covered with paper or silk. Japanese wall-paper does not come in rolls like ours, but in pieces, a little longer than broad, and of different sizes. He adds: _PLATE II._ One of the cruder papers popular a hundred years ago; containing three groups of figures engaged in rural occupations. Beside the gray ground this paper contains eleven shades of color, roughly applied, with little attention paid to register. [Illustration] "What makes it more probable that our first European notion of wall-papers came from Japan, is the fact that the first papers made in Holland and then introduced into England and France, were printed in these small sizes [about three feet long by fifteen inches wide]. Nor was it until some time in the eighteenth century that the present mode of making long rolls was adopted. These early wall-papers were printed from blocks, and were only one of many modifications and adaptations of the block printing which gave us our first books and our first wood-cuts. "The printing of papers for covering walls is said to have been introduced into Spain and Holland about the middle of the sixteenth century. And I have read, somewhere, that this mode of printing the patterns on small pieces of paper was an imitation of the Spanish squares of stamped and painted leather with which the grandees of Spain covered their walls, a fashion that spread all over Europe. "We are told that wall-paper was first used in Europe as a substitute for the tapestry so commonly employed in the middle ages, partly as a protection against the cold and damp of the stone walls of the houses, partly, no doubt, as an ornament." But here is something delightfully positive from A. Blanchet's _Essai sur L'Histoire du Papier et de sa Fabrication_, Exposition retrospective de la Papetier, Exposition Universelle, Paris, 1900. Blanchet says that paper was invented in China by Tsai Loon, for purposes of writing. He used fibres of bark, hemp, rags, etc. In 105 A. D. he reported to the government on his process, which was highly approved. He was given the honorary title of Marquis and other honors. The first paper book was brought to Japan from Corea, then a part of China, in 285. The conquest of Turkestan by the Arabs, through which they learned the manufacture of paper, came in the battle fought on the banks of the River Tharaz, in July, 751. Chinese captives brought the art to Samarcand, from which place it spread rapidly to other parts of the Arabian Empire. Damascus was one of the first places to receive it. In Egypt, paper began to take the place of papyrus in the ninth century, and papyrus ceased to be used in the tenth. The Arabian paper was made of rags, chiefly linen, and sized with wheat starch. European paper of the thirteenth century shows, under the microscope, fibres of flax and hemp, with traces of cotton. About 1400, animal glue was first used for sizing. The common belief that Arabian and early European paper was made of cotton is a mistake. There has never been any paper made of raw cotton, and cotton paper anywhere is exceptional. In 1145, when the troops of Abd el Mounin were about to attack the capital of Fez, the inhabitants covered the vault of the mihrab of the mosque with paper, and put upon this a coating of plaster, in order to preserve from destruction the fine carvings which are still the admiration of visitors. The mihrab of an Arabic mosque is a vaulted niche or alcove, in which the altar stands and towards which the worshippers look while they pray. This is probably the earliest approach to the use of wall-paper and shows the excellent quality of the paper. Herbert Spencer states that "Dolls, blue-books, paper-hangings are lineally descended from the rude sculpture paintings in which the Egyptians represented the triumphs and worship of their god-kings." No doubt this is true, but the beginning of paper, and probably of wall-paper, was in China. Paper made of cotton and other vegetable fibres by the Chinese was obtained by the Arabs in trade, through Samarcand. When they captured that city, in 704 A.D. they learned the process from Chinese captives there, and soon spread it over their empire. It was known as "Charta Damascena" in the Middle Ages, and was extensively made also in Northern Africa. The first paper made in Europe was manufactured by the Moors in Spain, at Valencia, Toledo, and Xativa. At the decline of Moorish power, the Christians took it up, but their work was not so good. It was introduced into Italy through the Arabs in Sicily; and the Laws of Alphonso, 1263, refer to it as "cloth parchment." The earliest documents on this thick "cotton" paper date from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, as a deed of King Roger of Sicily, dated 1102, shows. When made further north, other materials, such as rags and flax, were used. The first mention of rag paper, in a tract of Peter, Abbott of Cluny from 1122 to 1150, probably means woolen. Linen paper was not made until in the fourteenth century. The Oriental papers had no water mark,--which is really a wire mark. Water-mark paper originated in the early fourteenth century, when paper-making became an European industry; and a considerable international trade can be traced by means of the water marks. The French Encyclopædia corroborates Blanchet's statement that the common notion that the Arabic and early European papers were made of cotton is a mistake; the microscope shows rag and flax fibres in the earliest. Frederic Aumonier says: "From the earliest times man has longed to conceal the baldness of mud walls, canvas tents or more substantial dwellings, by something of a decorative character. Skins of animals, the trophies of the chase, were probably used by our remote ancestors for ages before wall-paintings and sculptures were thought of. The extreme antiquity of both of these latter methods of wall decoration has recently received abundant confirmation from the valuable work done by the Egyptian Research Department, at Hierakonopolis, where wall-paintings have been discovered in an ancient tomb, the date of which has not yet been determined, but which is probably less than seven thousand years old; and by the discovery of ancient buildings under the scorching sand dunes of the great Sahara, far away from the present boundary line of habitable and cultivated land. The painted decorations on the walls of some of the rooms in these old-world dwellings have been preserved by the dry sand, and remain almost as fresh as they were on the day they left the hand of the artist, whose bones have long since been resolved into their native dust." From the Encyclopædia Britannica I condense the long article on "Mural Decoration": There is scarcely one of the numerous branches of decorative art which has not at some time or other been applied to the ornamentation of wall-surfaces. I. Reliefs sculptured in marble or stone; the oldest method of wall decoration. II. Marble veneer; the application of thin marble linings to wall surfaces, these linings often being highly variegated. III. Wall linings of glazed bricks or tiles. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the Moslems of Persia brought their art to great perfection and used it on a large scale, chiefly for interiors. In the most beautiful specimens, the natural growth of trees and flowers is imitated. About 1600 A. D., this art was brought to highest perfection. IV. Wall coverings of hard stucco, frequently enriched with relief and further decorated with delicate paintings in gold and colors, as at the Alhambra at Granada and the Alcazar at Seville. V. Sgraffito; a variety of stucco work used chiefly in Italy, from the sixteenth century down. A coat of stucco is made black by admixture of charcoal. Over this a second very thin coat of white stucco is laid. The drawing is made to appear in black on a white ground, by cutting away the white skin enough to show the black undercoat. VI. Stamped leather; magnificent and expensive, used during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in Italy, Spain, France, and later in England. VII. Painted cloth. In _King Henry IV._, Falstaff says his soldiers are "slaves, as ragged as Lazarus in the painted cloth." Canvas, painted to imitate tapestry, was used both for ecclesiastical and domestic hangings. English mediæval inventories contain such items as "stayned cloth for hangings"; "paynted cloth with stories and batailes"; and "paynted cloths of beyond-sea-work." The most important existing example is the series of paintings of the Triumph of Julius Caesar, now in Hampton Court. These designs were not meant to be executed in tapestry, but were complete as wall-hangings. Godon, in _Peinture sur Toile_, says: "The painted canvasses kept at the Hôtel Dieu at Rheims were done in the fifteenth century, probably as models for woven tapestries. They have great artistic merit. The subjects are religious." Painted cloths were sometimes dyed in a manner similar to those Indian stuffs which were afterwards printed and are now called chintzes. It is recorded somewhere, that the weaving industry was established at Mulhouse (Rixheim) by workers who left Rheims at a time when laws were passed there to restrict the manufacture of painted cloths, because there was such a rage for it that agriculture and other necessary arts were neglected. VIII. Printed hangings and wall-papers. The printing of various textiles with dye-colors and mordaunts is probably one of the most ancient of the arts. Pliny describes a dyeing process employed by the ancient Egyptians, in which the pattern was probably formed by printing from blocks. The use of printed stuffs is of great antiquity among the Hindus and Chinese, and was practised in Western Europe in the thirteenth century, and perhaps earlier. The South Kensington Museum has thirteenth-century specimens of block-printed linen made in Sicily, with beautiful designs. Later, toward the end of the fourteenth century, a great deal of block-printed linen was made in Flanders and was imported largely into England. Tapestries as wall-hangings were used in the earliest times, and, as tiles and papers were copied from them, they must be spoken of here. One remarkable example of tapestry from a tomb in the Crimea is supposed by Stephani to date from the fourth century before Christ. Homer frequently describes tapestry hangings, as when he alludes to the cloth of purple wool with a hunting scene in gold thread, woven by Penelope for Ulysses. Plutarch, in his Life of Themistocles, says, "Speech is like cloth of Arras, opened and put abroad, whereby the imagery doth appear in figure; whereas in thoughts they lie but as in packs." The oldest tapestry now in existence is the set of pieces known as the Bayeux Tapestry, preserved in the library at Bayeux, near Caen, in France, and said to be the work of Matilda, Queen of William the Conqueror. These pieces measure two hundred and thirty-one feet long and twenty inches wide. It is generally believed, and stated as a fact in the various guide-books, that the Bayeux Tapestry was the work of Queen Matilda, the consort of the Conqueror, assisted by her ladies. At that time, English ladies were renowned for their taste and skill in embroidery. Their work was known throughout Europe as English work. The Conquest having brought the people of Normandy and England into close intercourse, it is pointed out that on William's return to France, he must have taken with him many Saxons, with their wives and daughters, in honorable attendance upon him; and that these ladies might have helped Matilda and her companions in making this historical piece of needlework. Many historians, however, incline to the opinion that Matilda and her ladies had nothing to do with the tapestry, although it was done during her lifetime. It is amusing to note how Miss Strickland, in her _Lives of the Queens of England_, takes up the cudgels in a very vigorous manner on behalf of Matilda's claim: "The archæologists and antiquaries would do well to direct their intellectual powers to more masculine objects of enquiry, and leave the question of the Bayeux Tapestry (with all other matters allied to needle-craft) to the decision of the ladies, to whose province it belongs. It is a matter of doubt whether one out of the many gentlemen who have disputed Matilda's claim to that work, if called upon to execute a copy of either of the figures on canvas, would know how to put in the first stitch." But Dr. Daniel Rock, in his exhaustive work on Tapestries, casts the gravest doubts upon the tradition that this needlework owed its origin to Matilda and her ladies: "Had such a piece anywise or ever belonged to William's wife, we must think that, instead of being let stray away to Bayeux, toward which place she bore no particular affection, she would have bequeathed it, like other things, to her beloved church at Caen." The author points out that there is no mention of the tapestry in the Queen's will, while two specimens of English needlework, a chasuble and a vestment, are left to the Church of the Trinity at Caen, the beautiful edifice founded by her at the time when her husband founded the companion church of St. Etienne in the same city. In fact, Dr. Rock thinks the tapestry was made in London, to the order of three men quite unknown to fame, whose names appear more than once on the tapestry itself. Coming over with the Conqueror, they obtained wide possessions in England, as appears from the Doomsday Book, and would naturally have wished to make a joint offering to the cathedral of their native city. In support of this view, it is shown that the long strip of needlework exactly fits both sides of the nave of the cathedral at Bayeux, where until recent times it has hung. The tapestry has undergone so many vicissitudes that it is a matter for wonder that it has been preserved in such good condition for eight hundred years. At one time it was exhibited at the Hôtel de Ville, at Bayeux, fixed panorama-fashion on two rollers, so that it was at the disposal of the fingers as well as the eyes of the curious. When Napoleon was thinking of invading this country, he had the tapestry carried to the various towns of France and publicly exhibited, so as to arouse popular enthusiasm on behalf of his designs. In 1871, when the Prussians were thought to be in dangerous proximity to Bayeux, the tapestry was taken down, enclosed in a metal cylinder, and buried in a secret place until the close of the war. Now it is kept in the Public Library in an upright glass case, which forms the sides of a hollow parallelogram, the tapestry being carried first round the outside and then round the inside space, so that every part of it is open to inspection, while it cannot be touched or mutilated. This valuable information is given by Mr. T. C. Hepworth. In the Old Testament we find records of "hangings of fine twined linen" and "hangings of white cloth, of green, of blue, fastened with cords of fine linen and purple." Shakespeare has several allusions to tapestry: as, "fly-bitten tapestry"; "worm-eaten tapestry"; "covered o'er with Turkish tapestry"; "the tapestry of my dining chambers"; "it was hanged with tapestry of silk"; "in cypress chests my arras"; "hangings all of Tyrian tapestry." Cardinal Wolsey's private accounts and inventories, still preserved, state that in 1552 he bought one hundred and thirty-two large pieces of Brussels tapestry, woven with Scriptural subjects and mostly made to order, so as to fit exactly the various wall spaces. Among the wall-pieces, "in addition to the numerous sacred subjects are mentioned mythological scenes, romances, historical pieces and hangings of verdure," the last being decorative work, in which trees and foliage formed the main design, with accessory figures engaged in hunting, hawking and the like. We read in Gibbon's Rome that Charles the Sixth despatched, by way of Hungary, Arras tapestry representing the battles of the great Alexander. And Macaulay inquires, "Where were now the brave old hangings of Arras which had adorned the walls of lordly mansions in the days of Elizabeth?" According to Shakespeare, the arras was found convenient to conceal eaves-droppers, those planning a frolic or plotting mischief; or for a hasty lunch, as in _The Woman Hater_, by Beaumont and Fletcher: I have of yore made many a scrambling meal, In corners, behind arrases, on stairs. Arras was used precisely the same as a curtain; it hung on tenters or lines from the rafters or from some temporary stay, and was opened, held up, or drawn aside, as occasion required. The writers of the day frequently mentioned these wall-hangings. Evelyn, in his diary, 1641, says, "We were conducted to the lodgings, tapestry'd with incomparable arras." Scott, in _The Lady of the Lake_, has this couplet: In vain on gilded roof they fall, And lighten up a tapestried wall. And in _Waverley_ he speaks of "remnants of tapestried hangings, window curtains and shreds of pictures with which he had bedizened his tatters." After the seventeenth century, these tapestries were used for covering furniture, as the seats and backs of sofas and arm chairs, desks and screens; and fire-screens covered with tapestry as beautiful as a painting were in vogue. In the _Comedy of Errors_ we recall this passage: In the desk That's covered o'er with Turkish tapestry There is a purse of ducats. Clarence Cook says: "There was a kind of tapestry made in Europe in the fifteenth century--in Flanders, probably--in which there were represented gentlemen and ladies, the chatelaine and her suite walking in the park of the chateau. The figures, the size of life, seem to be following the course of a slender stream. The park in which these noble folk are stiffly disporting is represented by a wide expanse of meadow, guiltless of perspective, stretching up to the top of the piece of stuff itself, a meadow composed of leaves and flowers--bluebells, daisies, and flowers without a name--giving the effect of a close mosaic of green, mottled with colored spots. On the meadow are scattered various figures of animals and birds--the lion, the unicorn, the stag, and the rabbit. Here, too, are hawks and parrots; in the upper part is a heron, which has been brought down by a hawk and is struggling with the victor, some highly ornamental drops of blood on the heron's breast showing that he is done for. And to return to the brook which winds along the bottom of the tapestry, it is curious to note that this part of the work is more real and directly natural in its treatment than the rest. The water is blue, and is varied by shading and by lines that show the movement of the stream; the plants and bushes growing along its borders are drawn with at least a conventional look of life, some violets and fleur-de-lis being particularly well done; and in the stream itself are sailing several ducks, some pushing straight ahead, others nibbling the grass along the bank, and one, at least, diving to the bottom, with tail and feet in the air." The best authority on tapestries in many lands is the exhaustive work by Muntz, published in Paris, 1878-1884, by the Société anonyme de Publication Périodique--three luxuriously bound and generously illustrated volumes, entitled _Histoire Générale de la Tapisserie en Italie, en Allemagne, en Angleterre, en Espagne_. We learn here that in 1630 Le François, of Rouen, incited by the Chinese colored papers imported by the missionaries, tried to imitate the silk tapestries of the wealthy in a cheaper substance. He spread powdered wool of different colors on a drawing covered with a sticky substance on the proper parts. This _papier velouté_, called _tontisse_ by Le François, was exported to England, where it became known as "flock paper." The English claim a previous invention by Jeremy Lanyer, who, in 1634, had used Chinese and Japanese processes. At any rate, the manufacture of flock papers spread in England and was given up in France. Only toward the middle of the eighteenth century was the making of real colored papers (_papier peints_) begun in France and England. The first factory was set up in 1746, but the work was not extended further until 1780, when it was taken up by the brothers George and Frederic Echardt. Chinese picture papers were imported into France by Dutch traders and used to decorate screens, desks, chimney-pieces, etc., as early as the end of the seventeenth century. By the middle of the eighteenth, they were an important ornament of elegant interiors. In the list of the furniture given to Mlle. Desmares by Mlle. Damours, September 25, 1746, is a fire-screen of China paper, mounted on wood, very simple. On July 25, 1755, Lazare Duvaux delivered to Mme. de Brancas, to be sent to the Dauphiness, a sheet of China paper with very beautiful vases and flowers, for making which he charged thirty livres. April 6, 1756, he sold to the Countess of Valentinois, for one hundred and forty-four livres, six sheets of China paper, painted on gauze with landscapes and figures. May 8, 1770, M. Marin advertised for sale in a Paris newspaper twenty-four sheets of China paper, with figures and gilt ornaments, ten feet high and three and one-half feet wide, at twenty-four livres a sheet; to be sold all together, or in lots of eight sheets each. By this time whole rooms were papered. July 15, 1779, an apartment in Paris was advertised to let, having a pretty boudoir with China paper in small figures representing arts and crafts, thirteen sheets, with a length of thirty-seven feet (horizontally) and height of eight feet ten inches, with gilt beaded moulding. Dec. 31, 1781, "For sale, at M. Nicholas's, China wall-paper, glazed, blue ground, made for a room eighteen feet square, with gilt moulding." Mr. Aumonier says: "Notwithstanding the Chinese reputation for printing from wooden blocks from time immemorial, no specimens of their work produced by that process have ever come under the notice of the author, in public museums or elsewhere, and it is far more probable that early Chinese works imported into Europe were painted by hand, in imitation of the wondrous needlework, for which, through unknown ages, the Eastern peoples have been famous. A most perfect and beautiful example of this work, of Japanese origin, may be seen in the "Queen's palace at the Hague," called the _Huis-ten-Bosch_--the House-in-the-Wood. This is a magnificent composition of foliage and flowers, birds and butterflies, perfect in form and beauty of tint, worked in silks on a ground of _écru_ satin. It is composed of many breadths forming one picture, starting from the ground with rock-work, and finishing at the top of the wall with light sprays of flowers, birds, butterflies and sky; the colouring of the whole so judiciously harmonized as to be an object lesson of great value to any decorator, and worth traveling many miles to study." I think that we may now safely say that China holds the honors in this matter. And as most of us grow a bit weary of continuous citations from cyclopedias, which are quoted because there is nothing less didactic to quote, and there must be a historical basis to stand on and start from, let us wander a little from heavy tomes and see some of the difficulties encountered in looking up old wall-papers to be photographed. An American artist, who has made his home in Paris for years, looked over the photographs already collected, grew enthusiastic on the subject, and was certain he could assist me, for, at the Retrospective Exhibition held in that city in 1900, he remembered having seen a complete exhibition of wall-papers and designs from the beginning. Of course the dailies and magazines of that season would have full reports. "Just send over to Jack Cauldwell--you know him. He is now occupying my studio, and he will gladly look it up." I wrote, and waited, but never received any response; heard later that he was painting in Algiers and apparently all the hoped-for reports had vanished with him. My famously successful searcher after the elusive and recondite gave up this fruitless hunt in despair. Other friends in Paris were appealed to, but could find nothing. Then many told me, with confidence, that there must be still some handsome old papers in the mansions of the South. And I did my best to secure at least some bits of paper, to show what had been, but I believe nearly all are gone "down the back entry of time." One lady, belonging to one of the best old families of Virginia, writes me, "My brother has asked me to write to you about wall-papers. I can only recall one instance of very old or peculiar papering in the South, and my young cousin, who is a senior in the Columbia School of Architecture and very keen on 'Colonial' details, tells me that he only knows of one. He has just been through tide-water Virginia, or rather, up the James and Rappahannock rivers, and he says those houses are all without paper at all, as far as he knows. "At Charlestown, West Virginia, there is a room done in tapestry paper in classic style, the same pattern being repeated, but this is not old, being subsequent to 1840. The room that I have seen is wainscoted, as is the one at Charlestown, and has above the wainscoting a tapestry paper also in shades of brown on a white ground. "The principal wall has a large classical design, with columns, ships and figures, not unlike the Turner picture of Carthage, as I remember it. This picture is not repeated, but runs into others. Whether each is a panel, or they are merged into one another by foliage, I am unable to recall. I know that there is a stag hunt and some sylvan scenes. It seemed as if the paper must have been made with just such a room in mind, as the patterns seemed to fit the spaces. As the room was the usual corner parlor common to Southern mansions, it was probably made for the type. I was told by a boarder in this house that the paper was old and there were similar papers in Augusta County. I do not know whether these are choice and rare instances, or whether they are numerous and plentiful in other sections." All my responses from the South have been cordial and gracious and interesting, but depressing. I hear, in a vague way, of papers that I really should have--in Albany and Baltimore. We all know of the papers in the Livingston and Jumel mansions; the former are copied for fashionable residences. I heard of some most interesting and unusual papers in an old house in Massachusetts, and after struggling along with what seemed almost insurmountable hindrances, was at last permitted to secure copies. The owner of the house died; the place was to be closed for six months; then it was to be turned over to the church, for a parsonage, and I agonised lest one paper might be removed at once as a scandalous presentment of an unholy theme. I was assured that in it the Devil himself was caught at last, by three revengeful women, who, in a genuine tug-of-war scrimmage, had torn away all of his tail but a stub end. Finally I gained a rather grudging permit for my photographer to copy the papers--"if you will give positive assurance that neither house nor walls shall be injured in the slightest degree." _PLATE III._ In abrupt contrast with the preceding specimen, this old French paper is printed with great care and shows high artistic taste. The eight well-composed groups of figures that form the complete design are after the manner of Watteau; the coloring is rich but quiet. Seventeen shades and colors were imposed on a brown ground, and the black mesh-work added over all. [Illustration] As the artist is a quiet gentleman--also an absolute abstainer--so that I could not anticipate any damage from a rough riot or a Bacchanalian revel, I allowed him to cross the impressive threshold of the former home of a Massachusetts governor, and the result was a brilliant achievement, as may be seen in the end papers of this book. Sometimes when elated by a promise that a certain paper, eagerly desired, could be copied, I sent my man only to have the door held just a bit open, while he heard the depressing statement that madam had "changed her mind and didn't want the paper to be taken." All this is just a reminder that it is not entirely easy to get at what is sure so soon to disappear. And I mourn that I did not think years ago of securing photographs of quaint and antique papers. Man has been defined as "an animal who collects." There is no hobby more delightful, and in this hunt I feel that I am doing a real service to many who have not time to devote to the rather difficult pursuit of what will soon be only a remembrance of primitive days. [Illustration] [Illustration] II PROGRESS AND IMPROVEMENT IN THE ART [Illustration] II PROGRESS AND IMPROVEMENT IN THE ART If we go far enough back in trying to decide the origin of almost any important discovery, we are sure to find many claimants for the honor. It is said, on good authority, that "paper-hangings for the walls of rooms were originally introduced in China." This may safely be accepted as correct. The Chinese certainly discovered how to make paper, then a better sort for wall hangings, and by Chinese prisoners it was carried to Arabia. Travellers taking the news of the art to their homes in various countries, it soon became a subject of general interest, and variations and inventions in paper manufacture were numerous. We are apt to forget how much we owe to the Chinese nation--the mariners' compass, gun-powder, paper, printing by moveable types (a daily paper has been published in Pekin for twelve hundred years, printed, too, on silk). They had what we call The Golden Rule five hundred years before Christ was born. With six times the population of the United States, they are the only people in the world who have maintained a government for three thousand years. The earliest papers we hear of anywhere were imported from China, and had Chinese or Indian patterns; coming first in small sheets, then in rolls. Some of the more elaborate kinds were printed by hand; others were printed from blocks. These papers, used for walls, for hangings, and for screens, were called "pagoda papers," and were decorated with flowers, symbolic animals and human figures. The Dutch were among the most enterprising, importing painted hangings from China and the East about the middle of the sixteenth century. Perhaps these originated in Persia; the word "chintz" is of Persian origin, and the French name for its imitations was "perses." From the Dutch, these imported hangings were soon carried to England, France, Germany and other Continental nations. Each nation was deadly jealous in regard to paper-making, even resorting, in Germany in 1390, to solemn vows of secrecy from the workman and threats of imprisonment for betrayal of methods. Two or three centuries later, the Dutch prohibited the exportation of moulds under no less a penalty than death. The oldest allusion to printed wall-papers that I have found is in an account of the trial, in 1568, of a Dutch printer, Herman Schinkel of Delft, on the charge of printing books inimical to the Catholic faith. The examination showed that Schinkel took ballad paper and printed roses and stripes on the back of it, to be used as a covering for attic walls. In the Library of the British Museum may be seen a book, printed in Low Dutch, made of sixty specimens of paper, each of a different material. The animal and vegetable products of which the workmen of various countries tried to manufacture paper would make a surprising list. In England, a paper-mill was set up probably a century before Shakespeare's time. In the second part of _Henry the Sixth_ is a reference to a paper-mill. About 1745, the Campagnie des Indes began to import these papers directly. They were then also called "Indian" papers. August 21, 1784, we find an advertisement: "For sale--20 sheets of India paper, representing the cultivation of tea." Such a paper, with this same theme, was brought to America one hundred and fifty years ago--a hand-painted Chinese wall-paper, which has been on a house in Dedham ever since, and is to-day in a very good state of preservation. Of this paper I give three reproductions from different walls of the room. In _Le Mercure_, June, 1753, M. Prudomme advertised an assortment of China paper of different sizes; and again, in May, 1758, that he had received many very beautiful India papers, painted, in various sizes and grounds, suitable for many uses, and including every kind that could be desired. This was the same thing that was called "China" paper five years before. The great development of the home manufacture of wall-papers, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, put an end to the importation from China. The English were probably the first importers of these highly decorative Chinese papers, and quickly imitated them by printing the papers. These "_papiers Anglais_" soon became known on the Continent, and the French were also at work as rivals in their manufacture and use. Of a book published in 1847, called _The Laws of Harmonious Colouring_, the author, one David R. Hay, was house painter and decorator to the Queen. I find that he was employed as a decorator and paper-hanger by Sir Walter Scott, and he says that Sir Walter directed everything personally. Mr. Hay speaks of a certain Indian paper, of crimson color, with a small gilded pattern upon it. "This paper Sir Walter did not quite approve of for a dining-room, but as he got it as a present, expressly for that purpose, and as he believed it to be rare, he would have it put up in that room rather than hurt the feelings of the donor. I observed to Sir Walter that there would be scarcely enough to cover the wall; he replied in that case I might paint the recess for the side-board in imitation of oak." Mr. Hay found afterwards that there was quite enough paper, but Sir Walter, when he saw the paper on the recess, heartily wished that the paper had fallen short, as he liked the recess much better unpapered. So in the night Mr. Hay took off the paper and painted the recess to look like paneled oak. This was in 1822. Sir Walter, in a letter to a friend, speaks of "the most splendid Chinese paper, twelve feet high by four wide; enough to finish the drawing-room and two bed-rooms, the color being green, with rich Chinese figures." Scott's own poem, _The Lady of the Lake_, has been a favorite theme for wall-paper. Professor W. E. D. Scott, the Curator of Ornithology at Princeton College, in his recent book, _The Story of a Bird Lover_, alludes, in a chapter about his childhood, to the papers on the walls of his grandfather's home: "As a boy, the halls interested me enormously; they have been papered with such wall-paper as I have never seen elsewhere. The entrance hall portrayed a vista of Paris, apparently arranged along the Seine, with ladies and gentlemen promenading the banks, and all the notable buildings, the Pantheon, Notre Dame, and many more distributed in the scene, the river running in front. "But it was when I reached the second story that my childish imagination was exercised. Here the panorama was of a different kind; it represented scenes in India--the pursuit of deer and various kinds of smaller game, the hunting of the lion and the tiger by the the natives, perched on great elephants with magnificent trappings. These views are not duplicated in the wall-paper; the scene is continuous, passing from one end of the hall to the other, a panorama rich in color and incident. I had thus in my mind a picture of India, I knew what kind of trees grew there, I knew the clothes people wore and the arms they used while hunting. To-day the same paper hangs in the halls of the old house." There are several papers of this sort, distinctly Chinese, still on walls in this country. A house near Portsmouth, which once belonged to Governor Wentworth, has one room of such paper, put on about 1750. In Boston, in a Beacon Street house, there is a room adorned with a paper made to order in China, with a pattern of birds and flowers, in which there is no repetition; and this is not an uncommon find. A brilliant example of this style may be seen in Salem, Mass. Chinese papers, which were made for lining screens and covering boxes, were used in England and this country for wall-papers, and imitated both there and here. One expert tells me that the early English papers were often designed after India cottons, in large bold patterns. The first use in France of wall-papers of French manufacture was in the sixth century. Vachon tells about Jehan Boudichon and his fifty rolls of paper for the King's bed-chamber in 1481, lettered and painted blue; but it is evident from the context that they were not fastened on the walls, but held as scrolls by figures of angels. Colored papers were used for temporary decorations at this time, as at the entrance of Louis XIII. into Lyons, on July 17, 1507. There is nothing to show that the "_deux grans pans de papier paincts_," containing the history of the Passion, and of the destruction of Jerusalem from the effects of the cannon of St. Peter, were permanently applied to a wall. So with another painted paper, containing the genealogy of the Kings of France, among the effects of Jean Nagerel, archdeacon at Rouen in 1750. These pictured papers, hung up on the walls as a movable decoration, form one step in the development of applied wall-papers. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the commonest patterns for unpictorial wall decoration were taken from the damasks and cut-velvets of Sicily, Florence, Genoa, and other places in Italy. Some form of the pine-apple or artichoke pattern was the favorite, a design developed partly from Oriental sources and coming to perfection at the end of the fifteenth century, copied and reproduced in textiles, printed stuffs, and wall-papers, with but little change, down to the nineteenth century. From the Encyclopædia Britannica, Vol. XVII, I quote again: "Wall-papers did not come into common use in Europe until the eighteenth century, though they appear to have been used much earlier by the Chinese. A few rare examples exist in England, which may be as early as the eighteenth century; these are imitations, generally in flock, of the fine old Florentine and Genoese cut-velvets, and hence the style of the design in no way shows the date of the paper, the same traditional patterns being reproduced for many years, with little or no change. Machinery enabling paper to be made in long strips was not invented till the end of the eighteenth century, and up to that time wall-paper was painted on small squares of hand-made paper, difficult to hang, disfigured by joints, and consequently costly; on this account wall-papers were slow in superseding the older modes of mural decoration, such as wood panelling, painting, tapestry, stamped leather, and printed cloth. A little work by Jackson, of Battersea, printed in London in 1744, gives some light on papers used at that time. He gives reduced copies of his designs, mostly taken from Italian pictures or antique sculpture during his residence in Venice. Instead of flowering patterns covering the walls, his designs are all pictures--landscapes, architectural scenes, or statues--treated as panels, with plain paper or painting between. They are all printed in oil, with wooden blocks worked with a rolling press, apparently an invention of his own. They are all in the worst possible taste, and yet are offered as an improvement on the Chinese papers then in vogue." In 1586 there was in Paris a corporation called _dominotiers_, domino makers, which had the exclusive right to manufacture colored papers; and they were evidently not a new body. "Domino" was an Italian word, used in Italy as early as the fifteenth century for marbled paper. French gentlemen, returning from Milan and Naples, brought back boxes or caskets lined with these papers, which were imitated in France and soon became an important article of trade. The foreign name was kept because of the prejudice in favor of foreign articles. But French taste introduced a change in the character of the ornament, preferring symmetrical designs to the hap-hazard effect of the marbling. They began then to print with blocks various arabesques, and to fill in the outlines with the brush. In Furetiere's Dictionary, of the last quarter of the seventeenth century, _dominotier_ is defined, "workman who makes marbled paper and other papers of all colors and printed with various figures, which the people used to call 'dominos'." On March 15, 1787, a decree of the French King's Council of State declared that the art of painting and printing paper to be used in furnishings was a dependence of the governing board of the "_Marchands-Papetiers-Dominotiere-Feuilletinere_." This domino-work was for a long time principally used by country folk and the humbler citizens of Paris to cover parts of their rooms and shops; but near the end of the seventeenth century there was hardly a house in Paris, however magnificent, that did not have some place adorned with some of this domino-work, with flowers, fruits, animals and small human figures. These pictures were often arranged in compartments. The dominotiers made paper tapestries also, and had the right to represent portraits, mythological scenes and Old and New Testament stories. At first they introduced written explanations, but the letter printers thought this an infringement of their rights; therefore it was omitted. We are told by Aumonier that little precise information is to be found concerning the domino papers. "Some were made from blocks of pear-tree wood, with the parts to be printed left in relief, like type. The designs were small pictures and in separate sheets, each subject complete to itself. They were executed in printing-ink by means of the ordinary printing-press. Some were afterwards finished by hand in distemper colors; others were printed in oil, gold-sized and dusted over with powdered colors, which gave them some resemblance to flock papers." Much is said about flock paper, and many were the methods of preparing it. Here is one: "Flock paper, commonly called cloth paper, is made by printing the figures with an adhesive liquid, commonly linseed oil, boiled, or litharge. The surface is then covered with the flock, or woolen dust, which is produced in manufactories by the shearing of woolen cloths, and which is dyed of the requisite colors. After being agitated in contact with the paper, the flocks are shaken off, leaving a coating resembling cloth upon the adhesive surface of the figures." The manufacture of this paper was practised, both in England and France, early in the seventeenth century. I find in the Oxford Dictionary the following examples of the early mention of flock cloth, which was the thing that suggested to Le François his invention of flock paper: Act I of Richard III., C. 8, preamble: "The Sellers of such course Clothes, being bare of Threde, usen for to powder the cast Flokkys of fynner Cloth upon the same." Again in 1541, Act of Henry VIII., C. 18: "Thei--shall (not) make or stoppe any maner Kerseies with flocks." "Flock, which is one of the most valuable materials used in paper staining, not only from its cost, but from its great usefulness in producing rich and velvety effects, is wool cut to a fine powder. The wool can be used in natural color or dyed to any tint. The waste from cloth manufactures furnished the chief supply, the white uniforms of the Austrian soldiery supplying a considerable portion." Other substances have been tried, as ground cork, flock made from kids' and goats' hair, the cuttings of furs and feathers, wood, sawdust, and, lately, a very beautiful flock made of silk, which gives a magnificent effect, but is so expensive that it can only be used for "_Tentures de luxe_." Mr. Aumonier says: "Until quite recently there were on the walls of some of the public rooms in Hampton Court Palace several old flock papers, which had been hung so long ago that there is now no official record of when they were supplied. They were of fine, bold design, giving dignity to the apartments, and it is greatly to be regretted that some of them have been lately replaced by a comparatively insignificant design in bronze, which already shows signs of tarnishing, and which will eventually become of an unsightly, dirty black. All decorators who love their art will regret the loss of these fine old papers, and will join with the writer in the hope that the responsible authorities will not disturb those that still remain, so long as they can be kept on the walls; and when that is no longer possible, that they will have the designs reproduced in fac-simile, which could be done at a comparatively small cost. "Mr. Crace, in his _History of Paperhangings_, says that by the combination of flock and metal, 'very splendid hangings' are produced; an opinion to which he gave practical expression some years afterwards when he was engaged in decorating the new House of Parliament, using for many of the rooms rich and sumptuous hangings of this character, especially designed by the elder Pugin, and manufactured for Mr. Crace from his own blocks." In England, in the time of Queen Anne, paper staining had become an industry of some importance, since it was taxed with others for raising supplies "to carry on the present war"--Marlborough's campaign in the low countries against France. Clarence Cook, whom I am so frequently quoting because he wrote so much worth quoting, says: "One of the pleasant features of the Queen Anne style is its freedom from pedantry, its willingness to admit into its scheme of ornamentation almost anything that is intrinsically pretty or graceful. We can, if we choose, paint the papers and stuffs with which we cover our walls with wreaths of flowers and festoons of fruits; with groups of figures from poetry or history; with grotesques and arabesques, from Rome and Pompeii, passed through the brains of Louis XIV's Frenchmen or of Anne's Englishmen; with landscapes, even, pretty pastorals set in framework of wreaths or ribbon, or more simply arranged like regular spots in rows of alternate subjects." It may be interesting to remember that the pretty wall-papers of the days of Queen Anne and early Georges were designed by nobody in particular, at a time when there were no art schools anywhere; and one can easily see that the wall-papers, the stuff-patterns and the furniture of that time are in harmony, showing that they came out of the same creative mould, and were the product of a sort of spirit-of-the-age. Mica, powdered glass, glittering metallic dust or sand, silver dross, and even gold foil, were later used, and a silver-colored glimmer called cat-silver, all to produce a brilliant effect. This art was known long ago in China, and I am told of a Chinese paper, seen in St. Petersburg, which had all over it a silver-colored lustre. Block printing and stencilling naturally belong to this subject, but, as my theme is "Old Time Wall Papers," and my book is not intended to be technical, or a book of reference as regards their manufacture, I shall not dwell on them. Nor would it be wise to detail all the rival claimants for the honor of inventing a way of making wall-paper in rolls instead of small sheets; nor to give the names even of all the famous paper-makers. One, immortalized by Carlyle in his _French Revolution_, must be mentioned--Revillon, whose papers in water colors and in flock were so perfect and so extremely beautiful that Madame de Genlis said they cost as much as fine Gobelin tapestry. Revillon had a large factory in the Rue du Faubourg St. Antoine, Paris, and in 1788 was employing three hundred hands. He was urged to incite his workmen to head the Faubourg in open rebellion, but refused to listen; and angry at his inability to coerce this honorable man the envoy caused a false report to be spread about, that he intended to cut his wages one-half. _PLATE IV._ Scenes from the life of an eighteenth century gallant form this unusual old French paper--a gaming quarrel, a duel, an elopement and other edifying episodes, framed in rococo scrolls. [Illustration] This roused a furious mob, and everything was ruined, and he never recovered from the undeserved disaster. Carlyle closes his description of the fatal riot with these words: "What a sight! A street choked up with lumber, tumult and endless press of men. A Paper-Warehouse eviscerated by axe and fire; mad din of revolt; musket volleys responded to by yells, by miscellaneous missiles, by tiles raining from roof and window, tiles, execrations and slain men!--There is an encumbered street, four or five hundred dead men; unfortunate Revillon has found shelter in the Bastille." England advanced in the art of paper-making during the time the French were planning the Revolution, and English velvet papers became the fashion. In 1754 Mme. de Pompadour had her wardrobe and the passage that led to her apartments hung with English paper. In 1758 she had the bath-room of the Chateau de Champs papered with it, and others followed her example. But in 1765 the importation of English papers--engraved, figured, printed, painted to imitate damasks, chintzes, tapestries, and so on--was checked by a heavy tax. So at this time papers were a precious and costly possession. They were sold when the owner was leaving a room, as the following advertisements will show: Dec. 17, 1782. "To-let; large room, with mirror over the fire-place and paper which the owner is willing to sell." Feb. 5, 1784. "To-let; Main body of a house, on the front, with two apartments, one having mirrors, woodwork and papers, which will be sold." When the owner of the paper did not succeed in selling it, he took it away, as it was stretched on cloth or mounted on frames. These papers were then often offered for sale in the Parisian papers; we find advertised in 1764, "The paperhangers for a room, painted green and white"; November 26, 1766, "A hanging of paper lined with muslin, valued at 12 Livres"; February 13, 1777, "For sale; by M. Hubert, a hanging of crimson velvet paper, pasted on cloth, with gilt mouldings"; April 17, 1783, "38 yards of apple-green paper imitating damask, 24 livres, cost 38." By 1782, the use of wall-papers became so general that, from that time on, the phrase "decorated with wall-paper" frequently occurs in advertisements of luxurious apartments to let. Before this time, mention had commonly been made, in the same manner, of the woodwork and mirrors. October 12, 1782, the _Journal general de France_ advertised: "To let; two houses, decorated with mirrors and papers, one with stable for five horses, 2 carriage-houses, large garden and well, the other with three master's apartments, stable for 12 horses, 4 carriage-houses, etc." Oct. 28, 1782, "To let; pretty apartment of five rooms, second floor front, with mirrors, papers, etc." Feb. 24, 1783, "To let; rue Montmartre, first floor apartment, with antechamber; drawing-room, papered in crimson, with mouldings; and two bed-rooms, one papered to match, with two cellars." Mme. du Bocage, in her _Letters on England, Holland, and Italy_, (1750) gives an account of Mrs. Montague's breakfast parties: "In the morning, breakfasts agreeably bring together the people of the country and strangers, in a closet lined with painted paper of Pekin, and furnished with the choicest movables of China. "Mrs. Montague added, to her already large house, 'the room of the Cupidons', which was painted with roses and jasmine, intertwined with Cupids, and the 'feather room,' which was enriched with hangings made from the plumage of almost every bird." [Illustration] [Illustration] III EARLIEST WALL PAPERS IN AMERICA [Illustration] III EARLIEST WALL PAPERS IN AMERICA Wall-papers of expensive styles and artistic variety were brought to America as early as 1735. Before that time, and after, clay paint was used by thrifty housewives to freshen and clean the sooty walls and ceilings, soon blackened by the big open fires. This was prepared simply by mixing with water the yellow-gray clay from the nearest claybank. In Philadelphia, walls were whitewashed until about 1745, when we find one Charles Hargrave advertising wall-paper, and a little later Peter Fleeson manufacturing paper-hangings and papir-maché mouldings at the corner of Fourth and Chestnut Streets. Those who could not afford to import papers painted their walls, either in one color or stencilled in a simple pattern, or panelled, in imitation of French papers; each panel with its own picture, large or small. These attempts at decoration ranged with the taste and skill of the artist, from fruit and floral designs and patterns copied from India prints and imported china, to more elaborate and often horrible presentments of landscapes and "waterscapes." The chimney breast, or projecting wall forming the chimney, received especial attention. In my own farm-house, which was built in Colonial style in 1801 (with, as tradition says, forty pumpkin pies and two barrels of hard cider to cheer on the assisting neighbors), one of my first tasks was to have five or six layers of cheap papers dampened and scraped off. And, to my surprise, we found hand-painted flowers, true to nature and still extremely pretty, though of course scratched and faded after such heroic treatment--fuchsias in one room, carnation pinks in another, and in the front hall honeysuckle blossoms, so defaced that they suggested some of the animal tracks that Mr. Thompson-Seton copies in his books. What an amount of painstaking and skilled work all that implied! That was a general fashion at the time the house was built, and many such hand-paintings have been reported to me. Mrs. Alice Morse Earle mentions one tavern parlor which she has seen where the walls were painted with scenes from a tropical forest. On either side of the fire-place sprang a tall palm tree. Coiled serpents, crouching tigers, monkeys, a white elephant, and every form of vivid-colored bird and insect crowded each other on the walls. And she speaks of a wall-paper on the parlor of the Washington Tavern at Westfield, Massachusetts, which gives the lively scenes of a fox chase. Near Conway, New Hampshire, there is a cottage where a room can still be seen that has been most elaborately adorned by a local artist. The mountains are evenly scalloped and uniformly green, the sky evenly blue all the way round. The trees resemble those to be found in a Noah's Ark, and the birds on them are certainly one-fourth as large as the trees. The painted landscapes are almost impossible to find, but I hear of one room, the walls of which are painted with small landscapes, water scenes, various animals, and trees. A sympathetic explorer has discovered another in similar style at Westwood, Massachusetts, near Dedham. In the old "Johnson House," Charlestown, New Hampshire, the door remains on the premises, with hatchet marks still visible, through which the Indians, "horribly fixed for war," dashed in pursuit of their trembling victims. The hinges of hoop iron and latch with stringhole beneath are intact. A portion of its surface is still covered with the paint of the early settlers, made of red earth mixed with skimmed milk. A friend wrote me that her grandmother said that "before wall-paper became generally used, many well-to-do persons had the walls of the parlor--or keeping room as it was sometimes called--and spare room tinted a soft Colonial yellow, with triangles, wheels or stars in dull green and black for a frieze; and above the chair-rail a narrower frieze, same pattern or similar, done in stencilling, often by home talent. "My great aunt used to tell me that when company was expected, the edge of the floor in the 'keeping room' was first sanded, then the most artistic one of the family spread it evenly with a birch broom, and with sticks made these same wheels and scallops around the edge of the room, and the never-missing pitcher of asparagus completed the adornment." On the panels of a mantel, she remembers, an artist came from New Boston and painted a landscape, while in the sitting-room, across the hall, a huge vase of gayly tinted flowers was painted over the mantel. On the mantel of another house was painted the Boston massacre. This was in existence only a few years ago. Later came the black and white imitation of marble for the halls and stairs, and yellow floors with the stencil border in black. This was an imitation of the French. In Balzac's _Pierrette_ is described a pretentious provincial house, of which the stairway was "painted throughout in imitation of yellow-veined black marble." Madeleine Gale Wynne, in _The House Beautiful_, wrote most delightfully about "Clay, Paint and other Wall Furnishings," and I quote her vivid descriptions of the wall paintings she saw in Deerfield and Bernardston, Massachusetts. "These wall paintings, like the embroideries, were derived from the India prints or the Chinese and other crockery. Whether the dweller in this far-off New England atmosphere was conscious of it or not, he was indebted to many ancient peoples for the way in which he intertwined his spray, or translated his flower and bud into a decorative whole. "Odd and amusing are many of the efforts, and they have often taken on a certain individuality that makes a curious combination with the Eastern strain. "An old house in Deerfield has the remains of an interesting wall, and a partition of another done in blue, with an oval picture painted over the mantel-tree. The picture was of a blue ship in full sail on a blue ocean. "The other wall was in a small entry-way, and had an abundance of semi-conventionalized flowers done in red, black, and browns. The design was evidently painted by hand, and evolved as the painter worked. A border ran round each doorway, while the wall spaces were treated separately and with individual care; the effect was pleasing, though crude. Tulips and roses were the theme. "This house had at one time been used as a tavern, and there is a tradition that this was one of several public houses that were decorated by a man who wandered through the Connecticut Valley during Revolutionary times, paying his way by these flights of genius done in oil. Tradition also has it that this man had a past; whether he was a spy or a deserter from the British lines, or some other fly-from-justice body, was a matter of speculation never determined. He disappeared as he came, but behind him he left many walls decorated with fruit and flowers, less perishable than himself. "We find his handiwork not only in Deerfield, but in Bernardston. There are rumors that there was also a wall of his painting in a tavern which stood on the border line between Massachusetts and Vermont. In Connecticut, too, there are houses that have traces of his work. In Bernardston, Massachusetts, there is still to be seen a room containing a very perfect specimen of wall painting which is attributed to him. This work may be of later date, but no one knows its origin. "This design is very pleasing, not only because of its antiquity and associations, but because in its own way it is a beautiful and fitting decoration. The color tones are full, the figures quaintly systematic and showing much invention. "The body of the wall is of a deep cream, divided into diamond spaces by a stencilled design, consisting of four members in diamond shape; the next diamond is made up of a different set of diamonds, there being four sets in all; these are repeated symmetrically, so that a larger diamond is produced. Strawberries, tulips, and two other flowers of less pronounced individuality are used, and the colors are deliciously harmonized in spite of their being in natural tints, and bright at that. Now, this might have been very ugly--most unpleasing; on the contrary, it is really beautiful. "There is both dado and frieze, the latter being an elaborate festoon, the former less good, made up of straggling palms and other ill considered and constructed growths. One suspects the dado to be an out-and-out steal from some chintz, while the tulips and strawberries bear the stamp of personal intimacy. "The culminating act of imagination and art was arrived at on the chimney-breast decoration; there indeed do we strike the high-water mark of the decorator; he was not hampered either by perspective or probability. "We surmise that Boston and its harbor is the subject; here are ships, horses and coaches, trees and road-ways, running like garlands which subdivide the spaces, many houses in a row, and finally a row of docile sheep that for a century have fed in unfading serenity at their cribs in inexplicable proximity to the base of the dwellings. All is fair in love, war, and decoration. "The trees are green, the houses red, the sheep white, and the water blue; all is in good tone, and I wish that it had been on my mantel space that this renegade painter had put his spirited effort." A friend told me of her vivid recollection of some frescoed portraits on the walls of the former home of a prominent Quaker in Minneapolis. Her letter to a cousin who attends the Friends' Meeting there brought this answer: "I had quite a talk with Uncle Junius at Meeting about his old house. Unfortunately, the walls were ruined in a fire a few years ago and no photograph had ever been taken of them. The portraits thee asked about were in a bed-room. William Penn, with a roll in his hand (the treaty, I suppose) was on one side of a window and Elizabeth Fry on the other. These two were life size. "Then, (tell it not in Gath!) there was a billiard room. Here Mercury, Terpsichore and other gay creatures tripped around the frieze, and there was also a picture of the temple in Pompeii and Minerva with her owl. In the sitting room on one side of the bay window was a fisher-woman mending her net, with a lot of fish about her. On the other side of the window another woman was feeding a deer. "On the dining-room walls a number of rabbits were playing under a big fern and there was a whole family of prairie chickens, and ducks were flying about the ceiling. Uncle Junius said, 'It cost me a thousand dollars to have those things frescoed on, and they looked nice, too!' I suppose when the Quaker preachers came to visit he locked up the billiard room and put them in the room with William Penn and Elizabeth Fry. He seemed rather mortified about the other and said it would not do to go into a Quaker book, at all!" This house was built about the middle of the nineteenth century, when Minneapolis was a new town; but it undoubtedly shows the influence of the old New England which was the genial Friend's boyhood home. The scores of Quaker preachers and other visiting Friends who accepted the overflowing hospitality of this cheerfully frescoed house seem to have had none of the scruples of Massachusetts Friends of an earlier date. A lady sent me a strip of hideously ugly paper in squares, the colors dark brown and old gold. She wrote me that this paper was on the walls of the parlor of their house in Hampton, Massachusetts. The family were Friends; and once, when the Quarterly Meeting was held there, some of the Friends refused to enter their house, as the paper was too gay and worldly. And it actually had to be taken off! After the clay paint and the hand painting came the small sheets or squares of paper, and again I was fortunate in finding in my adopted farm-house, in the "best room" upstairs, a snuff-brown paper of the "wine-glass" pattern that was made before paper was imported in rolls, and was pasted on the walls in small squares. The border looks as much like a row of brown cats sitting down as anything else. You know the family used to be called together to help cut out a border when a room was to be papered; but very few of these home-made borders are now to be found. I was told of a lady in Philadelphia who grew weary of an old and sentimental pattern in her chamber, put on in small pieces and in poor condition, and begged her husband to let her take it off. But he was attached to the room, paper and all, and begged on his part that it might remain. She next visited queer old stores where papers were kept, and in one of them, in a loft, found enough of this very pattern, with Cupids and doves and roses, to re-paper almost the entire room. And it was decidedly difficult so to match the two sides of the face of the little God of Love as to preserve his natural expression of roguishness and merry consciousness of his power. It may interest some to learn just what drew my attention to the subject of old-time wall-papers. One, and an especially fine specimen, is associated with my earliest memories, and will be remembered to my latest day. For, although a native of New Hampshire, I was born at the foot of Mount Vesuvius, and there was a merry dance to the music of mandolin and tambourine round the tomb of Virgil on my natal morn. Some men were fishing, others bringing in the catch; farther on was a picnic party, sentimental youths and maidens eating comfits and dainties to the tender notes of a flute. And old Vesuvius was smoking violently. All this because the room in which I made my début was adorned with a landscape or scenic paper. Fortunately, this still remains on the walls, little altered or defaced by the wear of years. When admiring it lately, the suggestion came to me to have this paper photographed at once, and also that of the Seasons in the next house; these were certainly too rare and interesting to be lost. It is singular that the only papers of this sort I had ever seen were in neighboring homes of two professors at Dartmouth College, and remarkable that neither has been removed: now I find many duplicates of these papers. What a keen delight it was to me as a child to be allowed to go to Professor Young's, to admire his white hair, which I called "pitty white fedders," and to gaze at the imposing sleighing party just above the mantel, and at the hunters or the haymakers in the fields! A good collection is always interesting, from choice old copies of first editions to lanterns, cow-bells, scissors, cup-plates, fans or buttons; and I mourn that I did not think of securing photographs of quaint and antique papers years ago, for most of them have now disappeared. Showing the beginnings of my collection to an amateur photographer, he was intensely interested, and said: "Why, I can get you a set as good as these! The house has been owned by one family for eighty-five years, and the paper was put on as long ago as that." And certainly his addition is most interesting. The scenes in one are French. You see a little play going on, such as we have been told in a recent magazine article they still have in France--a street show in which a whole family often take part. They appear as accompaniment to a fair or festival. The hole for the stove-pipe, penetrating the foliage, has a ludicrous effect, contrasting in abrupt fashion--the old and the new, the imposing and the practical. This enthusiastic friend next visited Medfield, Massachusetts, where he heard there were several such papers, only to be told that they had just been scraped off and the rooms modernized. Hearing of a fine example of scenic paper in the old Perry House at Keene, New Hampshire, I wrote immediately, lest that, too, should be removed, and through the kindness of absolute strangers can show an excellent representation of the Olympic games, dances, Greeks placing wreaths upon altars, and other scenes from Grecian life, well executed. These are grand conceptions; I hope they may never be vandalized by chisel and paste, but be allowed to remain as long as that historic house stands. They are beautifully preserved. _PLATE V._ A detail of the preceding paper. Though well designed, this is not a beautifully colored or very well printed paper; the color scheme is carried out in fourteen printings. [Illustration] A brief magazine article on my new enthusiasm, illustrated with photographs of papers I knew about, was received with surprising interest. My mail-bag came crowded, and I was well-nigh "snowed in," as De Quincy put it, by fascinating letters from men and women who rejoiced in owning papers like those of my illustrations, or had heard of others equally fine and equally venerable, and with cordial invitations to journey here and there to visit unknown friends and study their wall-papers, the coloring good as new after a hundred years or more. It was in this unexpected and most agreeable way that I heard of treasures at Windsor, Vermont; Claremont, New Hampshire; Taunton, Massachusetts, and quaint old Nantucket, and was informed that my special paper, with the scenes from the Bay of Naples (represented so faithfully that one familiar with the Italian reality could easily recognize every one) was a most popular subject with the early purchaser and was still on the walls of a dozen or more sitting-rooms. The Reverend Wallace Nutting, of Providence, whose fame as an artistic photographer is widespread, sent me a picture of a parlor in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, where he found this paper. Three women dressed in old-fashioned style, even to the arrangement of their hair, are seated at table, enjoying a cup of tea. An old tabby is napping cosily in a soft-cushioned chair. And above, on the right, Vesuvius is pouring forth the usual volumes of smoke. A fine old mahogany side-board, at the foot of the volcano, decorated with decanters and glasses large and small, presents an inviting picture. The house at Hillsboro Bridge, New Hampshire, where Ex-Governor Benjamin Pierce lived for years, and where his son, Franklin Pierce, passed a happy boyhood, has this paper, and several similar letters show how generally it was admired. Mrs. Lawrence, of Boston, wrote: "I send by this mail a package of pictures, taken by my daughter, of the Italian wall-paper on her grandfather's old home in Exeter, N. H. The house is now owned by the Academy and used as a dormitory. The views which I enclose have never been published. We have two or three remarkable specimens of wall-paper made in India a hundred and fifty years ago; the strips are hanging on the wall, nailed up." The Italian paper proved to be my old friend Vesuvius and his bay. An Exeter professor also wrote describing the same paper and adding translations of the Greek inscriptions on the monuments. Friends would often write of such a wonderful specimen at some town or village. I would write to the address given and be told of this Bay of Naples paper again. They were all brought over and put on at about the same time. One of the oldest houses in Windsor, Vermont, still has a charming parlor paper, with landscape and water, boats, castles, ruins and picturesque figures, which was imported and hung about 1810. This house was built by the Honorable Edward R. Campbell, a prominent Vermonter in his day, and here were entertained President Monroe and other notable visitors. Later the Campbell house was occupied for some years by Salmon P. Chase. It is now the home of the Sabin family. A Boston antique dealer wrote me: "In an article of yours in _The House Beautiful_, you have a photograph of the paper of the old Perry House, Keene, N. H. We want to say that we have in our possession here at this store, strung up temporarily, a paper with the same subject. It forms a complete scene, there being thirty pieces in attractive old shades of brown. We bought this from a family in Boston some little time ago, and it is said to have been made in France for a planter in New Orleans in or before 1800. We feel we would be excused in saying that this is the most interesting lot of any such thing in existence. It has been handed down from family to family, and they, apparently, have shown it, because the bottom ends of some of the sheets are considerably worn from handling. You understand this paper was never hung on the wall and it is just as it was originally made." He fairly raves over the beautiful rich browns and cream and "O! such trees!" To my inquiry whether his price for this paper was really two thousand dollars, as I had heard, he replied, "We would be very sorry to sell the paper for two thousand dollars, for it is worth five thousand." An artist who called to examine the paper is equally enthusiastic. He writes: "I was greatly impressed by the remarkably fine execution of the entire work. Doubtless it was printed by hand with engraved blocks. A large per cent of the shading, especially the faces of the charming figures, was surely done by hand, and all is the production of a superior artist. There are several sections, each perhaps three feet square, of such fine design, grouping, finish and execution of light and shade, as to make them easily samples of such exquisite nicety and comprehensive artistic work as to warrant their being framed. "The facial expression of each of the many figures is so true that it indicates the feelings and almost the thoughts of the person represented; there is remarkable individuality and surprising animation. I was forcibly struck with the inimitable perspective of the buildings and the entire landscape with which they are associated. Practically speaking, the buildings are of very perfect Roman architecture; there is, however, a pleasing venture manifested, where the artist has presented a little of the Greek work with here and there a trace of Egyptian, and perhaps of the Byzantine. These make a pleasing anachronism, such as Shakespeare at times introduced into his plays: a venture defended by Dr. Samuel Johnson, as well as other distinguished critics. The trees are done with an almost photographic truth and exactness. After a somewhat extended and critical examination of things of this kind in various parts of Europe, I do not hesitate to say that I have seen nothing of the kind that excels the work you have. What is quite remarkable about it, and more than all exhibits its truth to nature, it seems to challenge decision whether it shows to best advantage in strong daylight or twilight, by artificial light or that of the sun; an effect always present in nature, but not often well produced on paper or canvas. The successful venture to use so light a groundwork was much like that of Rubens, where he used a white sheet in his great painting, 'The Descent from the Cross.'" Since the above description was written, this incomparable paper has passed into the hands of Mrs. Franklin R. Webber, 2nd, of Boston, who will either frame it, or in some other way preserve it as perfectly as possible. The remarkable paper shown in Plate XLI and the three following plates were sent me by Miss Janet A. Lathrop of Stockport-on-Hudson, New York. It is certainly one of the finest of the scenic papers still in existence. The scene is oriental, the costumes seeming both Turkish and Chinese. Temples and pagodas, a procession, a barge on the river and a gathering in a tea-house follow in succession about the room. All are printed by hand on rice paper, in gray tones. The paper is browned with age, but was cleaned and restored about a year ago and is exceedingly well preserved. The house in which this paper is hung was built by Captain Seth Macy, a retired sea-captain, in 1815. The paper was put on in 1820. Captain Seth seems to have used up all his fortune in building his house, and in a few years he was forced to sell it. The name of "Seth's Folly" still clings to the place. In 1853 Miss Lathrop's father bought the house, and it has ever since been occupied by his family. By a singular coincidence, Mrs. Lathrop recognized the paper as the same as some on the old house at Albany in which she was born. Repeated inquiries have failed to locate any other example in America, and photographs have been submitted without avail to both domestic and foreign experts for identification. In the early seventies Miss Lathrop chanced to visit a hunting-lodge belonging to the King of Saxony at Moritzburg, near Dresden, and in the "Chinese room" she found a tapestry or paper exactly similar, from which the paper on her own walls may have been copied. The two papers just described would seem to be the finest examples of continuous scenic papers still extant. I learn as this book goes to press that Mrs. Jack Gardner, of Boston, has a remarkable old geographical paper, in which the three old-world continents are represented. I have been fortunate enough to secure, through the courtesy of Mrs. Russell Jarvis, a picture of the paper in her parlor at Claremont, New Hampshire. The Jarvis family have occupied the house since 1797. This is not a landscape, but consists of small pastoral scenes, placed at intervals and repeated regularly. The design is brown on a cream ground. It has a dado and a frieze in dark blue. It is hand made and all printed by hand, in squares of about eighteen inches, matched carefully. Mrs. Jarvis writes: "I had no idea that the photographer would take in so much each side of the corner, or I should have arranged the furniture differently. The picture I did not suppose was to appear is one of great interest and value. It is supposed to be a Rubens, and has hung there for over a hundred years. It was bought in 1791 in Boston, of a French gentleman from San Domingo, who, on the night of the insurrection there, escaped, saving but little else of his vast possessions. It had evidently been hastily cut from the frame. It represents the presentation of the head of the younger Cyrus to Tomyris, Queen of the Scythians. The coloring is fine, the figures very beautiful, and the satin and ermine of the Queen's dress extremely rich. If you look closely, you will see a sword lying on the piano. This is the one Sir William Pepperell was knighted with by King George the Second, in 1745, because of the Battle of Louisburg, and was given my husband's father by Sir William's grand-daughter, I believe." You see how one photograph brings to you many valuable bits of information apart from the paper sought. This letter, for example, with its accompanying photograph (see Plate XXII) leads one to the study of history, art, and literature. The subject of the picture, aside from its supposed origin, is of interest. The Scythians were Aryans much mixed with Mongol blood; they disappear from history about 100 B. C. Cyrus the younger, after subduing the eastern parts of Asia, was defeated by Tomyris, Queen of the Massagetae in Scythia. Tomyris cut off his head and threw it into a vessel filled with human blood, saying, as she did so, "There, drink thy fill." Dante refers to this incident in his _Purgatory_, xii; and Sackville, in his _Mirrour for Magistrates_, 1587, says: Consyder Cyrus-- He whose huge power no man might overthrowe, Tomyris Queen, with great despite hath slowe, His head dismembered from his mangled corpse Herself she cast into a vessel fraught With clotted blood of them that felt her force, And with these words a just reward she taught: "Drynke now thy fyll of thy desired draught." Here seems to be the place to speak more fully of the small scenes placed regularly at intervals. There is a great variety of pretty medallion pictures of this sort, as, alternating figures of a shepherdess with her crook reclining on a bank near a flock of sheep, and a boy studying at a desk, with a teacher standing near by. Mr. Frank B. Sanborn writes: "The oldest paper I ever saw was in the parlor of President Weare, of Hampton Falls--a simple hunting scene, with three compartments; a deer above, a dog below, and a hunter with his horn below that. It was put on in 1737, when the house was built, and, I think, is there still. Colonel Whiting's house had a more elaborate and extensive scene--what the French called 'Montagnes Russe'--artificial hills in a park, for sliding down, toboggan fashion, and a score of people enjoying them or looking on." A good authority asserts that rolls of paper did not appear in this country until 1790, so that all these now mentioned must have been imported in square sheets. Notice the step forward--from white walls, through a clay wash, to hand painting, stencilling, small imported sheets, and, at last, to rolls of paper. [Illustration] _PLATE VI._ Fragment of the famous old racing paper from the Timothy Dexter house. This is too broken and stained to admit of the reproduction of its original colors--blue sky, gray clouds, green turf, brown horses and black, and jockeys in various colors. The scene here given fills the width of the paper, about eighteen inches. [Illustration] IV WALL PAPERS IN HISTORIC HOMES [Illustration] IV WALL PAPERS IN HISTORIC HOMES Esther Singleton, in her valuable and charming book on _French and English Furniture_, tells us that in the early Georgian period, from 1714 to 1754, the art of the Regency was on the decline, and "the fashionable taste of the day was for Gothic, Chinese and French decorations; and the expensive French wall-painting and silken hangings were imitated in wall-paper and the taste even spread to America." In 1737, the famous Hancock House was being built and, until it was demolished a few years ago (1863), it was the last of the great mansions standing that could show what the stately homes of old Boston were like. This house was built by Thomas Hancock, son of the Rev. John Hancock, the kitchen of whose house is now owned by the Lexington Historical Society. On January 23, 1737-8, we find him writing from Boston to Mr. John Rowe, Stationer, London, as follows: "Sir, Inclosed you have the Dimensions of a Room for a Shaded Hanging to be done after the Same Pattern I have sent per Captain Tanner, who will deliver it to you. It's for my own House and Intreat the favour of you to Get it Done for me to Come Early in the Spring, or as Soon as the nature of the Thing will admitt. "The pattern is all was Left of a Room Lately Come over here, and it takes much in ye Town and will be the only paper-hanging for Sale here wh. am of opinion may Answer well. Therefore desire you by all means to get mine well Done and as Cheap as Possible and if they can make it more beautifull by adding more Birds flying here and there, with Some Landskips at the Bottom, Should like it well. Let the Ground be the Same Colour of the Pattern. At the Top and Bottom was a narrow Border of about 2 Inches wide wh. would have to mine. About three or four years ago my friend Francis Wilks, Esq., had a hanging Done in the Same manner but much handsomer Sent over here from Mr. Sam Waldon of this place, made by one Dunbar in Aldermanbury, where no doubt he, or some of his successors may be found. In the other part of these Hangings are Great Variety of Different Sorts of Birds, Peacocks, Macoys, Squirril, Monkys, Fruit and Flowers etc. "But a greater Variety in the above mentioned of Mr. Waldon's and Should be fond of having mine done by the Same hand if to be mett with. I design if this pleases me to have two Rooms more done for myself. I Think they are handsomer and Better than Painted hangings Done in Oyle, so I Beg your particular Care in procuring this for me and that the patterns may be Taken Care of and Return'd with my goods." John Adams writes in his Diary (1772): "Spent this evening with Mr. Samuel Adams at his house. Adams was more cool, genteel, and agreeable than common; concealed and retained his passions, etc. He affects to despise riches, and not to dread poverty; but no man is more ambitious of entertaining his friends handsomely, or of making a decent, an elegant appearance than he. "He has newly covered and glazed his house, and painted it very neatly, and has new papered, painted and furnished his rooms; so that you visit at a very genteel house and are very politely received and entertained." Paper is the only material with which a man of but little means can surround himself with a decorative motive and can enjoy good copies of the expensive tapestries and various hangings which, until recently, have been within the reach of the wealthy only. The paper-hanger was not so much a necessity in the old days as now. The family often joined in the task of making the paste, cutting the paper and placing it on the walls. This was not beneath the dignity of George Washington, who, with the assistance of Lafayette, hung on the walls at Mount Vernon paper which he had purchased abroad. The story goes that the good Martha lamented in the presence of Lafayette that she should be unable to get the new paper hung in the banquet room in time for the morrow's ball in honor of the young Marquis. There were no men to be found for such work. Lafayette at once pointed out to Mistress Washington that she had three able-bodied men at her service--General Washington, Lafayette himself and his aide-de-camp. Whereupon the company fell merrily to work, and the paper was hung in time for the ball. Not only did the Father of our Country fight our battles for us, but there is evidence that he gracefully descended to a more peaceful level and gave us hints as to that valuable combination known to the world as flour paste. There is in existence a memorandum in Washington's hand, which reads as follows: "Upholsterer's directions: "If the walls have been whitewashed over with glew water. If not--Simple and common paste is sufficient without any other mixture but, in either case, the Paste must be made of the finest and best flour, and free from lumps. The Paste is to be made thick and may be thinned by putting water to it. "The Paste is to be put upon the paper and suffered to remain about five minutes to soak in before it is put up, then with a cloth press it against the wall, until all parts stick. If there be rinkles anywhere, put a large piece of paper thereon and then rub them out with cloth as before mentioned." During the period when Mount Vernon was in private hands, the papers of Washington's day were removed. There is now on the upper hall a medallion paper which is reproduced from that which hung there at the time of the Revolution. Benjamin Franklin was another of our great men who interested themselves in domestic details. In 1765 he was in London, when he received from his wife a letter describing the way in which she had re-decorated and furnished their home. Furniture, carpets and pictures were mentioned, and wall coverings as well. "The little south room I have papered, as the walls were much soiled. In this room is a carpet I bought cheap for its goodness, and nearly new.... The Blue room has the harmonica and the harpsichord, the gilt sconce, a card table, a set of tea china, the worked chairs and screen--a very handsome stand for the tea kettle to stand on, and the ornamental china. The paper of the room has lost much of its bloom by pasting up." This blue room must have been the subject of further correspondence. Nearly two years later Franklin wrote to his wife: "I suppose the room is too blue, the wood being of the same colour with the paper, and so looks too dark. I would have you finish it as soon as you can, thus: paint the wainscot a dead white; paper the walls blue, and tack the gilt border round the cornice. If the paper is not equally coloured when pasted on, let it be brushed over again with the same colour, and let the _papier maché_ musical figures be tacked to the middle of the ceiling. When this is done, I think it will look very well." There are many old houses in New England and the Middle States which are of historic interest, and in some of these the original paper is still on the walls and in good preservation, as in the Dorothy Quincy house at Quincy, Massachusetts. The Dorothy Quincy house is now owned by the Colonial Dames of Massachusetts, who have filled it with beautiful colonial furniture and other relics of Dorothy Q's day. The papers on all the walls are old, but none so early as that on the large north parlor (Plate XXIX), which was imported from Paris to adorn the room in which Dorothy Quincy and John Hancock were to have been married in 1775. Figures of Venus and Cupid made the paper appropriate to the occasion. "But the fortunes of war," says Katharine M. Abbott in her _Old Paths and Legends of New England_, "upset the best of plans, and her wedding came about very quietly at the Thaddeus Burr house in Fairfield. Owing to the prescription on Hancock's head, they were forced to spend their honeymoon in hiding, as the red-coats had marked for capture this elegant, cocked-hat 'rebel' diplomatist of the blue and bluff. Dorothy Quincy Hancock, the niece of Holmes's 'Dorothy Q.,' is a fascinating figure in history. Lafayette paid her a visit of ceremony and pleasure at the Hancock house on his triumphal tour, and no doubt the once youthful chevalier and reigning belle flung many a quip and sally over the teacups of their eventful past." The Hancock-Clarke house, in Lexington, Massachusetts, is a treasure house of important relics, besides files of pamphlets, manuscripts and printed documents, portraits, photographs, furniture, lanterns, canteens, pine-tree paper currency, autographs, fancy-work--in fact almost everything that could be dug up. There is also a piece of the original paper on the room occupied by Hancock and Adams on April 18, 1775. But the bit of paper and the reproduction are copyrighted, and there is no more left of it. It is a design of pomegranate leaves, buds, flowers and fruits--nothing remarkable or attractive about it. I have a small photograph of it, which must be studied through a glass. In the sitting-room the paper is a series of arches, evidently Roman, a foot wide and three feet high. The pillars supporting the arches are decorated with trophies--shields, with javelins, battle-axes and trumpets massed behind. The design is a mechanical arrangement of urn and pedestal; there are two figures leaning against the marble, and two reclining on the slab above the urn. One of these holds a trumpet, and all the persons are wearing togas. The groundwork of color in each panel is Roman red; all the rest is a study in black and white lines. Garlands droop at regular intervals across the panels. The paper in the Lafayette room at the Wayside Inn, South Sudbury, Massachusetts, is precious only from association. The inn was built about 1683, and was first opened by David Howe, who kept it until 1746. It was then kept by his three sons in succession, one son, Lyman Howe, being the landlord when Longfellow visited there and told the tale of Paul Revere's ride. It was renovated under the management of Colonel Ezekiel Howe, 1746-1796, and during that time the paper was put on the Lafayette room. Several important personages are known to have occupied this room, among them General Lafayette, Judge Sewall, Luigi Monti, Doctor Parsons, General Artemus Ward. The house was first known as Howe's in Sudbury, or Horse Tavern, then as the Red Horse Tavern; and in 1860 was immortalized by Longfellow as The Wayside Inn. "The landlord of Longfellow's famous Tales was the dignified Squire Lyman Howe, a justice of the peace and school committee-man, who lived a bachelor, and died at the inn in 1860--the last of his line to keep the famous hostelry. Besides Squire Howe, the only other real characters in the Tales who were ever actually at the inn were Thomas W. Parsons, the poet; Luigi Monti, the Sicilian, and Professor Daniel Treadwell, of Harvard, the theologian, all three of whom were in the habit of spending the summer months there. Of the other characters, the musician was Ole Bull, the student was Henry Ware Wales, and the Spanish Jew was Israel Edrehi. Near the room in which Longfellow stayed is the ball-room with the dais at one end for the fiddlers. But the polished floor no longer feels the pressure of dainty feet in high-heeled slippers gliding over it to the strains of contra-dance, cotillion, or minuet, although the merry voices of summer visitors and jingling bells of winter sleighing parties at times still break the quiet of the ancient inn." Judge Sewall, in his famous diary, notes that he spent the night at Howe's in Sudbury--there being also a Howe's Tavern in Marlboro. Lafayette, in 1824, spent the night there and, as Washington passed over this road when he took command of the army at Cambridge, it is more than likely that he also stopped there, as Colonel Howe's importance in this neighborhood would almost demand it. Washington passed over this road again when on his tour of New England, and then Colonel Howe was the landlord and squire, as well as colonel of a regiment. Burgoyne stopped there, a captive, on his way from Ticonderoga to Boston; and, as this was the most popular stage route to New York city, Springfield and Albany, those famous men of New England--Otis, Adams, Hancock, and many others--were frequent guests. A company of horse patrolled the road, and tripped into the old bar for their rum and home-brewed ale. It is worth recording that Agassiz, in his visits to the house, examined the ancient oaks near the inn, and pronounced one of them over a thousand years old. Edna Dean Proctor refers to them in her poem: Oaks that the Indian's bow and wigwam knew, And by whose branches still the sky is barred. I have a photograph of the famous King's Tavern, where Lafayette was entertained, and a small piece of the paper of the dining-room. This tavern was at Vernon, Connecticut, (now known as Rockville,) on the great Mail Stage route from New York to Boston. It was noted for its waffles, served night and morning, and the travellers sometimes called it "Waffle Tavern." It was erected by Lemuel King, in 1820. Now it is used as the Rockville town farm. The noted French wall-paper on the dining-room, where Lafayette was entertained, represented mythological scenes. There was Atlas, King of the remote West and master of the trees that bore the golden apples; and Prometheus, chained to the rock, with the water about him. The paper was imported in small squares, which had to be most carefully pasted together. This treasured paper, with its rather solemn colors of grey and black, and its amazing number of mythological characters, was stripped from the walls and consumed in a bonfire by an unappreciative and ignorant person who had control of the place. A lady rescued a few pieces and pasted them on a board. She has generously sent me a photograph of one of the panels. She writes me pathetically of the woodsy scenes, water views, mountains, cascades, and castles, with classic figures artistically arranged among them. There seems to have been a greater variety than is usual, from a spirited horse, standing on his hind legs on a cliff, to a charming nymph seated on a rock and playing on a lyre. Below all these scenes there was a dado of black and grey, with scrolls and names of the beings depicted--such names as Atlas, Atlantis, Ariadne, Arethusa, Adonis, Apollo, Andromache, Bacchus, Cassandra, Cadmus, Diana, Endymion, Juno, Jupiter, Iris, Laocoön, Medusa, Minerva, Neptune, Pandora, Penelope, Romulus, Sirius, Thalia, Theseus, Venus, Vulcan, and many others were "among those present." Below these names came a dado of grassy green, with marine views at intervals. Whether Lafayette noticed and appreciated all this, history telleth not. After his sumptuous repast a new coach was provided to convey him from King's Tavern to Hartford, and it was drawn by four white horses. On a boulder in Lafayette Park, near by, is this inscription: "In grateful memory of General Lafayette, whose love of liberty brought him to our shores, to dedicate his life and fortune to the cause of the Colonies. "The Sabra Trumbull Chapter, D. A. R., erected this monument near the Old King's Tavern, where he was entertained in 1824." The General Knox mansion, called "Montpelier," at Thomaston, Maine, is full of interest to all who care for old-time luxury as seen in the homes of the wealthy. General Knox was Washington's first Secretary of War. Samples of paper have been sent me from there. One had a background of sky-blue, on which were wreaths, with torches, censers with flames above, and two loving birds, one on the nest and the mate proudly guarding her--all in light brown and gray, with some sparkling mineral or tiniest particles of glass apparently sprinkled over, which produced a fascinating glitter, and a raised, applique effect I have never observed before. This was on the dining-room of the mansion. In the "gold room" was a yellow paper--as yellow as buttercups. Still another, more unusual, was a representation of a sea-port town, Gallipoli, of European Turkey; armed men are marching; you see the water and picturesque harbor, and Turkish soldiers in boats. The red of the uniforms brightens the pictures; the background is gray, and the views are enclosed in harmonious browns, suggesting trees and rocks. This paper came in small pieces, before rolls were made. Think of the labor of matching all those figures! "Gallipoli" is printed at the bottom. I am assured by a truthful woman from Maine that the halls of this house were adorned with yellow paper with hunting scenes "life-size," and I don't dare doubt or even discuss this, for what a woman from that state _knows_ is not to be questioned. It can't be childish imagination. Moreover, I have corroborative evidence from another veracious woman in the South, who, in her childhood, saw human figures of "life size" on a paper long since removed. I freely confess that I had never heard of this distinguished General Knox and his palatial residence; but a composition from a little girl was shown me, which gives a good idea of the house: THE KNOX MANSION. "In the year 1793, General Knox sent a party of workmen from Boston to build a summer residence on the bank of the Georges River. The mansion was much like a French chateau, and was often so called by visitors. "The front entrance faced the river. The first story was of brick, and contained the servants' hall, etc. The second floor had nine rooms, the principal of which was the oval room, into which the main entrance opened. There were two large windows on either side of the door, and on opposite sides were two immense fire-places. This room was used as a picture gallery, and contained many ancient portraits. It had also a remarkable clock. It was high, and the case was of solid mahogany. The top rose in three points and each point had a brass ball on the top. The face, instead of the usual Roman numbers, had the Arabic 1, 2, 3, etc. There were two small dials. On each side of the case were little windows, showing the machinery. Between the two windows on one side of the room was a magnificent mahogany book-case, elaborately trimmed with solid silver, which had belonged to Louis XIV. and was twelve feet long. "The mansion measured ninety feet across, and had on either side of the oval room two large drawing-rooms, each thirty feet long. There were twenty-eight fire-places in the house. Back of the western drawing-room was a library. This was furnished with beautiful books of every description, a large number being French. On the other side was a large china closet. One set of china was presented to General Knox by the Cincinnati Society. The ceiling was so high that it was necessary to use a step-ladder to reach the china from the higher shelves. Back of the oval room was a passage with a flight of stairs on each side, which met at the top. Above, the oval room was divided into two dressing-rooms. The bedsteads were all solid mahogany, with silk and damask hangings. One room was called the 'gold room,' and everything in it, even the counterpane, was of gold color. The doors were mahogany, and had large brass knobs and brass pieces extending nearly to the centre. The carpets were all woven whole. "The house outside was painted white, with green blinds, though every room was furnished with shutters inside. A little in the rear of the mansion extended a number of out-buildings, in the form of a crescent, beginning with the stable on one side, and ending with the cook house on the other. General Knox kept twenty saddle horses and a number of pairs of carriage horses. Once there was a gateway, surmounted by the American Eagle, leading into what is now Knox Street. 'Montpelier,' as it was called, had many distinguished visitors every summer." I noticed in a recent paper the report of an old-time game supper, participated in by ninety prominent sportsmen at Thomaston, Maine, following the custom inaugurated by General Knox for the entertainment of French guests. It was through hearing of the Knox house that I learned of a "death room." There was one over the eastern dining-room. These depressing rooms had but one window, and the paper was dark and gloomy--white, with black figures, and a deep mourning frieze. Benches were ranged stiffly around the sides, and there were drawers filled with the necessities for preparing a body for burial. Linen and a bottle of "camphire" were never forgotten. There the dead lay till the funeral. I can shiver over the intense gruesomeness of it. How Poe or Hawthorne could have let his inspired imagination work up the possibilities of such a room! A skeleton at the feast is a slight deterrent from undue gaiety, compared with this ever-ready, sunless apartment. This reminds me that I read the other day of a "deadly-lively" old lady, who, having taken a flat in the suburban depths of Hammersmith, England, stipulated before signing her lease that the landlord should put black wall-paper on the walls of every room except the kitchen. Possibly she had a secret sorrow which she wished to express in this melodramatic fashion. But why except the culinary department? We have been hearing a good deal lately about the effect of color on the nerves and temperament generally. A grim, undertaker-like tone of this kind would no doubt induce a desired melancholy, and if extended to the region of the kitchen range, might have furthered the general effect by ruining the digestion. A writer in a recent number of the _Decorator's and Painter's Magazine_, London, says: "An interview has just taken place with a 'a well-known wall-paper manufacturer,' who, in the course of his remarks, informed the representative of the _Morning Comet_ that black wall-papers were now all the rage. 'You would be surprised,' he said, 'how little these papers really detract from the lightness of a room, the glossiness of their surface compensating almost for the darkness of their shade;' and upon this score there would seem to be no reason why a good pitch paper should not serve as an artistic decorative covering for the walls of a drawing-room or a 'dainty' boudoir. "It has been generally accepted that highly-glazed surfaces render wall-papers objectionable to the eye, and that they are therefore only fit for hanging in sculleries, bath-rooms and the like, where sanitary reasons outweigh decorative advantages. Very probably the gentleman who recommends black papers for walls would also recommend their use for ceilings, so that all might be _en suite_, and the effect would undoubtedly be added to, were the paintwork also of a deep, lustrous black, whilst--it may be stretching a point, but there is nothing like being consistent and thorough--the windows might at the same time be 'hung' in harmony with walls and ceilings. Coffin trestles with elm boards would make an excellent table, and what better cabinets for bric-a-brac (miniature skeletons, petrified death's-head moths, model tombstones and railed vaults, and so on) than shelved coffins set on end? Plumes might adorn the mantel-shelf, and weeds and weepers festooned around skulls and crossbones would sufficiently ornament the walls without the aid of pictures, whilst the fragments from some dis-used charnel-house might be deposited in heaps in the corners of the apartment." The old governors often indulged in expensive and unusual wall-papers. The Governor Gore house at Waltham, Massachusetts, had three, all of which I had photographed. The Gore house, until recently the home of Miss Walker, is one of the most beautiful in Massachusetts, and was an inheritance from her uncle, who came into possession of the property in 1856. Before Miss Walker's death, she suggested that the estate be given to the Episcopal Church in Waltham for a cathedral or a residence for the bishop. The place is known as the Governor Gore estate, and is named for Christopher Gore, who was governor of Massachusetts in 1799. It covers nearly one hundred and fifty acres of gardens, woodlands and fields. The present mansion was erected in 1802 and replaces the one destroyed by fire. The mansion is a distinct pattern of the English country house, such as was built by Sir Christopher Wren, the great eighteenth century architect. It is of brick construction. In the interior many of the original features have been retained, such as the remarkable "Bird of Paradise" paper in the drawing-room. All the apartments are very high ceiled, spacious and richly furnished. Some of Governor Gore's old pieces of furniture, silver and china are still in use. The Badger homestead, in Old Gilmanton, was the home of Colonel William Badger, Governor of New Hampshire in 1834 and 1835, and descended from a long line of soldierly, patriotic and popular men. Fred Myron Colby sketched the home of the Badgers in the _Granite Monthly_ for December, 1882: "Gov. Badger was a tall, stately man, strong, six feet in height, and at some periods of his life weighed nearly three hundred pounds. He was active and stirring his whole life. Though a man of few words, he was remarkably genial. He had a strong will, but his large good sense prevented him from being obstinate. He was generous and hospitable, a friend to the poor, a kind neighbor, and a high-souled, honorable Christian gentleman. The grand old mansion that he built and lived in has been a goodly residence in its day. Despite its somewhat faded majesty, there is an air of dignity about the ancestral abode that is not without its influence upon the visitor. It is a house that accords well with the style of its former lords; you see that it is worthy of the Badgers. The grounds about its solitary stateliness are like those of the 'old English gentlemen.' The mansion stands well in from the road; an avenue fourteen rods long and excellently shaded leads to the entrance gate. There is an extensive lawn in front of the house, and a row of ancient elms rise to guard, as it were, the tall building with its hospitable portal in the middle, its large windows, and old, moss-covered roof. The house faces the southwest, is two and a half stories high, and forty-four by thirty-six feet on the ground. "As the door swings open we enter the hall, which is ten by sixteen feet. On the left is the governor's sitting-room, which occupied the southeast corner of the house, showing that Gov. Badger did not, like Hamlet, dread to be too much 'i' the sun.' It is not a large room, only twenty by sixteen feet, yet it looks stately. In this room the governor passed many hours reading and entertaining his guests. In it is the antique rocking-chair that was used by the governor on all occasions. A large fire-place, with brass andirons and fender, is on one side, big enough to take in half a cord of wood at a time. Near by it stood a frame on which were heaped sticks of wood, awaiting, I suppose, the first chilly evening. It must be a splendid sight to see those logs blazing, and the firelight dancing on the old pictures and the mirror and the weapons on the walls. "The most noticeable thing in the room is the paper upon the walls. It was bought by the governor purposely for this room, and cost one hundred dollars in gold. It is very thick, almost like strawboard, and is fancifully illustrated with all sorts of pictures--landscapes, marine views, court scenes, and other pageants. It will afford one infinite amusement to study the various figures. On one side is a nautical scene. An old-fashioned galleon, such a one as Kidd the pirate would have liked to run afoul of, is being unloaded by a group of negroes. Swarthy mariners, clad in the Spanish costume of the seventeenth century,--long, sausage-shaped hose, with breeches pinned up like pudding bags and fringed at the bottom, boots with wide, voluminous tops, buff coats with sleeves slashed in front, and broad-brimmed Flemish beaver hats, with rich hat-bands and plumes of feathers--are watching the unlading, and an old Turk stands near by, complaisant and serene, smoking his pipe. On the opposite wall there is a grand old castle, with towers and spires and battlements. In the foreground is a fountain, and a group of gallants and ladies are promenading the lawn. One lady, lovely and coquettish, leans on the arm of a cavalier, and is seemingly engrossed by his conversation, and yet she slyly holds forth behind her a folded letter in her fair white hand which is being eagerly grasped by another gallant--like a scene from the _Decameron_. In the corner a comely maiden in a trim bodice, succinct petticoat and plaided hose, stands below a tall tree, and a young lad among the branches is letting fall a nest of young birds into her extended apron. The expression on the boy's face in the tree and the spirited protest of the mother bird are very graphically portrayed. "The loveliest scene of all is that of a bay sweeping far into the land; boats and ships are upon the tide; on the shore, rising from the very water's edge, is a fairy-like, palatial structure, with machicolated battlements, that reminds one of the enchanted castle of Armida. Under the castle walls is assembled a gay company. A cavalier, after the Vandyke style, is playing with might and main upon a guitar, and a graceful, full-bosomed, lithe-limbed Dulcinea is dancing to the music in company with a gaily dressed gallant. It is the Spanish fandango. Another scene is a charming land and water view with no prominent figures in it. "Upon the mantel are several curiosities, notably a fragment of the rock on which Rev. Samuel Hidden was ordained at Tamworth, September 12, 1792, several silhouettes of the various members of the Badger family, and the silver candlesticks, tray and snuffers used by Mrs. Governor Badger. Suspended above, upon the wall, are a pair of horse pistols, a dress sword and a pair of spurs. These were the Governor's, which were used by him in the war of 1812, and also when he was sheriff of the county. The sword has quite a romantic history. It was formerly General Joseph Badger's, who obtained it in the following manner: When a lieutenant in the army, near Crown Point and Lake Champlain, just after the retreat from Canada, in 1777, Badger undertook, at the desire of General Gates, to obtain a British prisoner. With three picked men he started for the British camp at St. John's. Arriving in the neighborhood, he found a large number of the officers enjoying themselves at a ball given by the villagers. One of the Britons, in full ball dress, they were fortunate enough to secure, and took him to their boat. Badger then changed clothes with the officer, returned to the ball, danced with the ladies, hobnobbed with the officers, and gained much valuable information as to the movements of the British army. Before morning light he returned in safety with his prisoner to Crown Point, where he received the commendations of the commanding general for his bravery. The officer's sword he always kept, and is the same weapon that now hangs on the wall." Mrs. Joseph Badger, whose husband was the oldest son of Governor William Badger (both, alas! now dead), wrote most kindly to me about the wall-paper, and sent me a picture of it. And she said: "The homestead was built in 1825 by Ex-Gov. William Badger, and the paper you inquire about was hung that year. He was at Portsmouth, N. H., attending court, and seeing this paper in a store, liked it very much, and ordered enough to paper the sitting-room, costing fifty dollars. He did not have enough money with him to pay for it, but they allowed him to take it home, and he sent the money back by the stage driver, who laid it down on the seat where he drove, and the wind blew it away, never to be found, so he had to pay fifty dollars more; at least, so says tradition. The paper is quite a dark brown, and is in a good state of preservation and looks as though it might last one hundred years longer." In a valuable book, entitled _Some Colonial Mansions and Those Who Lived in Them_, edited by Thomas Allen Glennand, and published in 1898, is a picture of the wall-paper at the Manor House, on page 157 of Volume I, in the chapter which relates to the Patroonship of the Van Rensselaers and the magnificent mansion. This was built in 1765, commenced and finished (except the modern wings) by Stephen Van Rensselaer, whose wife was the daughter of Philip Livingston, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. "Seldom has a house a more splendid history, or romantic origin, than this relic of feudal splendor and colonial hospitality. The house is approached from the lodge-gate through an avenue shaded by rows of ancient trees. The entrance hall is thirty-three feet wide, and is decorated with the identical paper brought from Holland at the time the house was built, having the appearance of old fresco-painting." The picture which follows this description is too small to be satisfactorily studied without a magnifying glass, but the paper must be impressive as a whole. Imposing pillars on the left, perhaps all that remains of a grand castle; in front of them large blocks of stone with sculptured men and horses; at the right of these a pensive, elegant creature of the sterner sex gazing at a mammoth lion couchant on a square pedestal. Beyond the lion, a picturesque pagoda on a high rock, and five more human figures, evidently put in to add to the interest of the foreground. This square is surrounded with a pretty wreath, bedecked with flowers, birds and shells. On either side of the hall were apartments some thirty feet wide; the great drawing-rooms, the state bed-room and the spacious library, in which the bookcases of highly polished wood occupied at least seventy feet of wall-space. All of the ceilings are lofty, and fine old wood carvings abounded on every side. Mr. William Bayard Van Rensselaer of Albany still possesses the handsome paper taken from one of these rooms, with four large scenes representing the seasons. The house was demolished only a few years ago. I notice that almost all these mansions had walls of wood, either plain or paneled in broad or narrow panels, and simply painted with oil-paint of pure white or a cream yellow; and a Southern gentleman, whose ancestors lived in one of these historic homes, tells me that the Southern matrons were great housekeepers, and these white wood walls were thoroughly scrubbed at least three times yearly, from top to bottom. In Part II of the history of the Carters of Virginia, we read that the duties of Robert Carter as councillor brought him to Williamsburg for a part of the year, and in 1761 he moved, with his family, from "Nomini Hall" to the little Virginia capital, where he lived for eleven years. We know, from the invoices sent to London, how the Councillor's home in the city was furnished. The first parlor was bright with crimson-colored paper; the second had hangings ornamented by large green leaves on a white ground; and the third, the best parlor, was decorated with a finer grade of paper, the ground blue, with large yellow flowers. A mirror was to be four feet by six and a half, "the glass to be in many pieces, agreeable to the present fashion," and there were marble hearth-slabs, wrought-brass sconces and glass globes for candles, Wilton carpets and other luxuries. The mantels and wainscoting were especially fine. The paper on the hall of Martin Van Buren's home at Kinderhook, New York, is said to have been interesting; but the present owners have destroyed it, being much annoyed by sightseers. In the reception room of the Manor House of Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, Maryland, and in the state chamber, where Washington slept (a frequent and welcome guest at Doughoregan Manor) were papers, both with small floral patterns. In New York and Albany paper-hanging was an important business by 1750 and the walls of the better houses were papered before the middle of the century. But in the average house the walls were not papered in 1748. A Swedish visitor says of the New York houses at that time, "The walls were whitewashed within, and I did not anywhere see hangings, with which the people in this country seem in general to be little acquainted. The walls were quite covered with all sorts of drawings and pictures in small frames." V NOTES FROM HERE AND THERE [Illustration] V NOTES FROM HERE AND THERE The wall-papers of a century ago did have distinct ideas and earnest meaning; a decided theme, perhaps taken from mythology, as the story of Cupid and Psyche, on one of the most artistic of the early panelled papers, to print which we read that fifteen hundred blocks were used. There were twelve panels, each one showing a scene from the experiences of the "Soul Maiden." You remember that Venus, in a fit of jealousy, ordered Cupid to inspire Psyche with a love for the most contemptible of all men, but Cupid was so stricken with her beauty that he himself fell in love with her. He accordingly conveyed her to a charming spot and gave her a beautiful palace where, unseen and unknown, he visited her every night, leaving her as soon as the day began to dawn. Curiosity destroyed her happiness, for her envious sisters made her believe that in the darkness of night she was embracing some hideous monster. So once, when Cupid was asleep, she drew near to him with a lamp and, to her amazement, beheld the most handsome of the gods. In her excitement of joy and fear, a drop of hot oil fell from her lamp upon his shoulder. This awoke Cupid, who censured her for her distrust and escaped. Then came long tribulations and abuse from Venus, until at last she became immortal, and was united to her lover forever. As you know, Psyche represents the human soul, purified by passions and misfortunes and thus prepared for the enjoyment of true and pure happiness. From this accident, Ella Fuller Maitland has drawn for us-- A SPECIAL PLEADER "How I hate lamps," Bethia frowning cried, (Our poverty electric light denied.) And when to ask her reason I went on, Promptly she answered thus my question: "By lamplight was it that poor Psyche gazed Upon her lover, and with joy amazed Dropped from the horrid thing a little oil-- Costing herself, so, years of pain and toil: Had she electric light within her room, She might have seen Love, yet escaped her doom." Another mythologic story is grandly depicted in a paper in the residence of Dr. John Lovett Morse, at Taunton, Mass. (Plates LXV to LXX.) This paper was described to me as illustrating the fifth book of Virgil's _�neid_. When the handsome photographs came, we tried to verify them. But a reading of the entire _�neid_ failed to identify any of them, except that the one shown in Plate LXIX might be intended to represent the Trojan women burning the ships of �neas. Who were the two personages leaping from the cliff? Virgil did not mention them. A paper in _Country Life in America_ for April, 1905, describing the "Hermitage," Andrew Jackson's home near Nashville, Tennessee, spoke of the "unique" paper on the lower hall, depicting the adventures of Ulysses on the Island of Calypso. The illustration showed the same scenes that we had been hunting for in Virgil. The caption stated that it "was imported from Paris by Jackson. It pictures the story of Ulysses at the Island of Calypso. There are four scenes, and in the last Calypso's maidens burn the boat of Ulysses." So we turned to the _Odyssey_. There again we were disappointed. Nobody jumps off cliffs in the _Odyssey_, Ulysses' boat is not burned, neither does Cupid, who appeared in every photograph, figure in the scenes between Ulysses and Calypso. Next we took to the mythologies; and in one we found a reference to Fenelon's _Adventures of Telemachus_, which sends Telemachus and Mentor to Calypso's island in search of Ulysses, and describes their escape from the goddess's isles and wiles by leaping into the sea and swimming to a vessel anchored near. Here at last were our two cliff jumpers! And in long-forgotten _Telemachus_ was found every scene depicted on the walls. It is a strange commentary on the intellectual indolence of the average human mind, that these two remarkable sets of paper should so completely have lost their identity, and that the misnomers given them by some forgetful inhabitant should in each case have been accepted without question by those who came after him. Other owners of this paper have known what the scenes really were; for I have had "Telemachus paper" reported, from Kennebunk, Maine, and from the home of Mr. Henry DeWitt Freeland at Sutton, Massachusetts. The paper is evidently of French origin, and is mentioned as a Parisian novelty by one of Balzac's characters in _The Celibates_, the scene of which was laid about 1820. In the Freeland house at Sutton, there are also some scenes from Napoleon's campaign in Egypt. An inscription reads, "Le 20 mars, 1800, 100,000 Francais commandu par le brave Kleber ont vancu 200,000 Turcs, dans le plaines de l'Heliopili." Among the historical papers, we have "Mourning at the Tomb of Washington," and Lord Cornwallis presenting his sword to Washington. The former was a melancholy repetition of columns and arches, each framing a monument labelled "Sacred to Washington," surmounted by an urn and disconsolate eagle, and supported on either side by Liberty and Justice mourning. Crossed arms and flags in the foreground, and a circular iron fence about the monument completed the picture, which was repeated in straight rows, making with its somber gray and black the most funereal hall and stairway imaginable. Papers representing places with truthful details were numerous and popular, as "The Bay of Naples," "The Alhambra," "Gallipoli," "On the Bosporus." A striking paper represents the River Seine at Paris. This paper has a brilliant coloring and the scenes are carried entirely round the room; nearly all the principal buildings in Paris are seen. On one side of the room you will notice the Column Vendôme, which shows that the paper was made after 1806. The horses in the arch of the Carousel are still in place. As these were sent back to Venice in 1814, the paper must have been made between these dates. On the walls of a house in Federal Street, which was once occupied by H. K. Oliver, who wrote the hymn called "Federal Street," is the River Seine paper with important public buildings of Paris along its bank; several other houses have this same paper, and half a dozen duplicates have been sent me from various parts of New England. I have heard of a paper at Sag Harbor, Long Island, in which old New York scenes were pictured, but of this I have not been fortunate enough to secure photographs. Certain towns and their neighborhoods are particularly rich in interesting old papers, and Salem, Massachusetts, certainly deserves honorable mention at the head of the list. That place can show more than a score of very old papers in perfect condition to-day, and several houses have modern paper on the walls that was copied from the original paper. One old house there was formerly owned by a retired merchant, and he had the entire ceiling of the large cupola painted to show his wharves and his ships that sailed from this port for foreign lands. Another fine house has a water color painting on the walls, done to look like paper; this is one hundred and seventy-five years old. A curious paper is supposed to be an attempt to honor the first railroad. This is in bright colors, with lower panels in common gray tints. The friend who obtained this for me suggests that the artist did not know how to draw a train of cars, and so filled up the space ingeniously with a big bowlder. This is on the walls of a modest little house, and one wonders that an expensive landscape paper should be on the room. But the owner of the house was an expressman and was long employed by Salemites to carry valuable bundles back and forth from Boston. A wealthy man who resided in Chestnut Street was having his house papered during the rage for landscape papers, and this person carried the papers down from Boston so carefully that the gentleman presented him with a landscape paper of his own, as a reward for his interest. Now the mansion has long since parted with its foreign landscapes, but such care was taken of the humble parlor that its paper is still intact and handsome; it is more than seventy-five years old. A fine French paper shows a fruit garden, probably the Tuileries, in grays and blues. The frieze at the top is of white flowers in arches with blue sky between the arches. This room was papered for Mrs. Story, the mother of Judge Story, in 1818. In the Osgood house in Essex Street there is a most beautiful paper, imported from Antwerp in the early part of the nineteenth century, depicting a hunting scene. The hunt is centered about the hall and the game is run down and slain in the last sheet. A balustrade is at the foot of the picture. The color is brown sepia shades. One neat little house, in an out-of-the-way corner in Marblehead, has a French paper in gray, white and black, which was brought from France by a Marblehead man who was captured by a French privateer and lived in France many years. When he returned, he brought this with him. It shows scenes in the life of the French soldiers. They are drinking at inns, flirting with pretty girls, but never fighting. Another paper has tropical plants, elephants, natives adorned with little else but feathers and beads. The careful mother will not allow any of the children to go alone into this room for fear they may injure it. In a Chinese paper, one piece represents a funeral, and the horse with its trappings is being led along without a rider; women and children are gazing at the procession from pagodas. On the walls of the Johnson house in North Andover is a Marie Antoinette paper, imported from England. I have heard of only this one example of this subject. A number of homes had painted walls, with pictures that imitated the imported landscapes. At the Art Museum, Boston, one may see many specimens of old paper brought to this country before 1820, and up to 1860. A spirited scene is deer stalking in the Scotch Highlands; the deer is seen in the distance, one sportsman on his knees taking aim, another holding back an excited dog. In another hunting paper, the riders are leaping fences. A pretty Italian paper has peasants dancing and gathering grapes; vines are trained over a pergola, and a border of purple grapes and green leaves surrounds each section of the paper. A curious one is "Little Inns," with signs over the doors, as "Good Ale sold here," or "Traveler's Rest"; all are dancing or drinking, the colors are gay. There are also specimens of fireboards, for which special patterns were made, usually quite ornate and striking. When a daughter of Sir William Pepperell married Nathaniel Sparhawk, he had a paper specially made, with the fair lady and her happy lover as the principal figures, and a hawk sitting on a spar. This paper is still to be seen in the Sparhawk house at Kittery Point, Maine. Portsmouth is rich in treasures, but a member of one of the best families there tells me it is very hard to get access to these mansions. Curiosity seekers have committed so many atrocities, in the way of stealing souvenirs, that visitors are looked upon with suspicion. A house built in 1812 at Sackett's Harbor, New York, has a contemporary paper with scenes which are Chinese in character, but the buildings have tall flag staffs which seem to be East Indian. Near Hoosic Falls, New York, there used to be a house whose paper showed Captain Cook's adventures. The scenes were in oval medallions, surrounded and connected by foliage. Different events of the Captain's life were pictured, including the cannibals' feast, of which he was the involuntary central figure. This paper has been destroyed, and I have sought in vain for photographs of it. But I have seen some chintz of the same pattern, in the possession of Miss Edith Morgan of Aurora, New York, which was saved from her grandfather's house at Albany when it was burned in 1790. So the paper is undoubtedly of the eighteenth century. Think of a nervous invalid being obliged to gaze, day after day, upon the savages gnawing human joints and gluttonizing over a fat sirloin! The adventures of Robinson Crusoe were depicted on several houses, and even Mother Goose was immortalized in the same way. The managers of a "Retreat" for the harmlessly insane were obliged first to veil with lace a figure paper, and finally to remove it from the walls, it was so exciting and annoying to the occupants of the room. This recalls the weird and distressing story by Elia W. Peattie, _The Yellow Wall-Paper_. Its fantastic designs drove a poor wife to suicide. Ugh! I can see her now, crawling around the room which was her prison. I advise any one, who is blessed or cursed with a lively imagination, to study a paper closely several times before purchasing, lest some demon with a malignant grin, or a black cat, or some equally exasperating face or design escape notice until too late. I once had a new paper removed because the innocent looking pattern, in time of sleepless anxiety, developed a savage's face with staring eyes, a flat nose, the grossest lips half open, the tongue protruding, and large round ear-rings in ears that looked like horns! This, repeated all round my sick room, was unendurable. But the old time papers are almost uniformly inspiring or amusing. What I most enjoy are my two papers which used to cover the huge band-boxes of two ancient dames, in which they kept their Leghorn pokes, calashes, and quilted "Pumpkin" hoods. One has a ground of Colonial yellow, on which is a stage-coach drawn by prancing steeds, driver on the top, whip in hand, and two passengers seen at the windows. A tavern with a rude swinging sign is in the background. The cover has a tropical scene--two Arabs with a giraffe. The other band-box has a fire engine and members of the "hose company," or whatever they called themselves, fighting a fire. Papers with Biblical themes were quite common. In the fascinating biography of Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, I find a detailed account of one. She says: "When we reached Schenectady, the first city we children had ever seen, we stopped to dine at the old 'Given's Hotel,' where we broke loose from all the moorings of propriety on beholding the paper on the dining-room wall illustrating, in brilliant colors, some of the great events in sacred history. There were the patriarchs with flowing beards and in gorgeous attire; Abraham, offering up Isaac; Joseph, with his coat of many colors, thrown into a pit by his brethren; Noah's Ark on an ocean of waters; Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea; Rebecca at the well; and Moses in the bulrushes. "All these distinguished personages were familiar to us, and to see them here for the first time in living colors made silence and eating impossible. We dashed around the room, calling to each other: 'O, Kate, look here!' 'O, Madge, look there!' 'See little Moses!' 'See the angels on Jacob's ladder!' "Our exclamations could not be kept within bounds. The guests were amused beyond description, while my mother and elder sisters were equally mortified; but Mr. Bayard, who appreciated our childish surprise and delight, smiled and said: 'I'll take them around and show them the pictures, and then they will be able to dine,' which we finally did." Inns often indulge in striking papers. A famous series of hunting scenes, called "The Eldorado," is now seen in several large hotels; it has recently been put on in the Parker House, Boston. It was the joint work of two Alsatian artists, Ehrmann and Zipelius, and was printed from about two thousand blocks. The Zuber family in Alsace has manufactured this spirited panel paper for over fifty years; it has proved as profitable as a gold mine and is constantly called for; I was shown a photograph of the descendants of the owner and a large crowd of workmen gathered to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the firm, which was established in 1797. An old inn at Groton, Massachusetts, was mentioned as having curious papers, but they proved to be modern. The walls, I hear, were originally painted with landscapes. This was an earlier style than scenic papers--akin to frescoing. A friend writes me: "The odd papers now on the walls of Groton Inn have the appearance of being ancient, although the oldest is but thirty years old. Two of them are not even reproductions, as the one in the hall depicts the Paris Exposition of 1876, and that in the office gives scenes from the life of Buffalo Bill. "The Exposition has the principal buildings in the background, with a fountain, and a long flight of steps in front leading to a street that curves round until it meets the same scene again. Persons of many nations, in characteristic dress, promenade the street. Pagodas and other unique buildings are dotted here and there. The entire scene is surrounded with a kind of frame of grasses and leaves, in somewhat of a Louis Quinze shape. Each one of these scenes has 'Paris Exposition, 1876,' printed on it, like a quack advertisement on a rock. "The Wild West scenes include the log cabin, the stage coach held up, the wild riding, and the throwing of the lasso. "The paper on the dining-room may be a reproduction. It looks like Holland, although there are no windmills. But the canal is there with boats and horses, other horses drinking, and men fishing; also a Dutchy house with a bench outside the door. This paper looks as if it had been put on the walls a hundred years ago, but in reality it is the most recent of the three. The date of the beginning of the Inn itself is lost in the dim past, but we know it is more than two hundred years old. Tradition has it that there were originally but two rooms which were occupied by the minister." When some one writes on our early inns, as has been done so charmingly for those of England, I prophecy that the queer papers of the long ago will receive enthusiastic attention. Towns near a port, or an island like Nantucket, are sure to have fine old papers to show. A Nantucket woman, visiting the Art Museum in Boston some dozen years since, noticed an old paper there which was highly valued. Remembering that she had a roll of the very same style in her attic, she went home delighted, and proudly exhibited her specimen, which was, I believe, the motive power which started the Nantucket Historical Society. I was presented with a piece of the paper--a hand-painted design with two alternating pictures; an imposing castle embowered in greenery, its towers and spires stretching far into the sky, and below, an ornate bridge, with a score of steps at the left, and below that the pale blue water. Engrossed lovers and flirtatious couples are not absent. "A Peep at the Moon" comes from Nantucket. It reveals fully as much as our life-long students of that dead planet have been able to show us, and the inhabitants are as probable as any described as existing on Mars. At Duxbury, Massachusetts, there are still two much-talked-of papers, in what is called the "Weston House"--now occupied by the Powder Point School. Mrs. Ezra Weston was a Bradford, and the story is that this paper was brought from Paris by her brother, Captain Gershom Bradford. There is a continuous scene around the room, apparently from the environs of Paris. Upstairs, a small room is papered with the remains of the "Pizarro" paper, which was formerly in the sitting-room opposite the parlor. This has tropical settings and shows the same characters in more or less distinct scenes about the wall. The paper was so strong that it was taken off the sitting-room in complete strips and is now on a small upper chamber. A stranger, who had heard of my collection, sent a beautiful photograph with this glowing description: "This wall-paper looks Oriental; it is gilt. Arabs are leading camels, while horses are prancing proudly with their masters in the saddle as the crescent moon is fast sinking to rest in a cloudless sky. Fountains are playing outside of the portal entrance to a building of Saracenic architecture, a quiet, restful scene, decidedly rich and impressive." Thomas Bailey Aldrich, in his _Story of a Bad Boy_, describes his grandfather's old home--the Nutter House at Rivermouth, he calls it, but he doubtless has in mind some house at Portsmouth, his birthplace. "On each side of the hall are doors (whose knobs, it must be confessed, do not turn very easily), opening into large rooms wainscoted and rich in wood-carvings about the mantel-pieces and cornices. The walls are covered with pictured paper, representing landscapes and sea-views. In the parlor, for example, this enlivening group is repeated all over the room:--A group of English peasants, wearing Italian hats, are dancing on a lawn that abruptly resolves itself into a sea-beach, upon which stands a flabby fisherman (nationality unknown), quietly hauling in what appears to be a small whale, and totally regardless of the dreadful naval combat going on just beyond the end of his fishing-rod. On the other side of the ships is the main-land again, with the same peasants dancing. Our ancestors were very worthy people, but their wall-papers were abominable." With the paper on the little hall chamber which was the Bad Boy's own, he was quite satisfied, as any healthy-minded boy should have been: "I had never had a chamber all to myself before, and this one, about twice the size of our state-room on board the Typhoon, was a marvel of neatness and comfort. Pretty chintz curtains hung at the window, and a patch quilt of more colors than were in Joseph's coat covered the little truckle-bed. The pattern of the wall-paper left nothing to be desired in that line. On a gray background were small bunches of leaves, unlike any that ever grew in this world; and on every other bunch perched a yellow-bird, pitted with crimson spots, as if it had just recovered from a severe attack of the small-pox. That no such bird ever existed did not detract from my admiration of each one. There were two hundred and sixty-eight of these birds in all, not counting those split in two where the paper was badly joined. I counted them once when I was laid up with a fine black eye, and falling asleep immediately dreamed that the whole flock suddenly took wing and flew out of the window. From that time I was never able to regard them as merely inanimate objects." One of the most spirited papers I have seen is a series of horse-racing scenes which once adorned the walls of the eccentric Timothy Dexter. Fragments of this paper are still preserved, framed, by Mr. T. E. Proctor of Topsfield, Mass. The drawing makes up in spirit what it lacks in accuracy, and the coloring leaves nothing to the imagination. The grass and sky are as green and blue as grass and sky can be, and the jockeys' colors could be distinguished from the most distant grand-stand. This paper is a memento of the remarkable house of a remarkable man--Timothy Dexter, an eighteenth century leather merchant of Massachusetts, whose earnings, invested through advice conveyed to him in dreams, brought him a fortune. With this he was able to gratify his unique tastes in material luxuries. His house at Newburyport was filled with preposterous French furniture and second-rate paintings. On the roof were minarets decorated with a profusion of gold balls. In front of the house he placed rows of columns, some fifteen feet in height, surmounted by heroic wooden figures of famous men. As his taste in great men changed he would have the attire and features of some statue modified, so that General Morgan might one day find himself posing as Bonaparte. On a Roman circle before the entrance stood his permanent hero, Washington, supported on the left by Jefferson, on the right by Adams, who was obliged to stand uncovered in all weathers, to suit Timothy's ideas of the respect due to General Washington. Four roaring wooden lions guarded this Pantheon, and the figures were still standing when the great gale of 1815 visited Newburyport. Then the majority fell. The rest were sold for a song, and were scattered, serving as weather vanes and tavern signs. Timothy Dexter wrote one book, which is now deservedly rare. This was _A Pickle for the Knowing Ones_, of which he published at least two editions. In this book he spoke his mind on all subjects; his biographer, Samuel L. Knapp, calls it "a Galamathus of all the saws, shreds, and patches that ever entered the head of a motley fool, with items of his own history and family difficulties." His vanity, literary style and orthography may be seen in his assertion: "Ime the first Lord in the Younited States of Amercary, now of Newburyport. It is the voice of the peopel and I cant Help it." To the second edition of his _Pickle_ he appended this paragraph: "Mister Printer the knowing ones complane of my book the first edition had no stops I put in A Nuf here and they may peper and solt it as they plese." A collection of quotation marks, or "stops" followed. "Lord Dexter," as he called himself and was called by one Jonathan Plummer, a parasitic versifier who chanted doggerel in his praise, was a picturesque character enough, and we are glad to have his memory kept green by these few remaining bits of paper from his walls. [Illustration] VI REVIVAL AND RESTORATION OF OLD PAPERS [Illustration] VI REVIVAL AND RESTORATION OF OLD PAPERS It was in 1880 that Clarence Cook said: "One can hardly estimate the courage it would take to own that one liked an old-fashioned paper." How strange that sounds now, in 1905, when all the best manufacturers and sellers of wall-papers are reproducing the very old designs, for which they find a ready sale among the most fastidious searchers for the beautiful. One noted importer writes me: "Yes, old time wall-papers are being revived, and no concern is taking more interest in the matter than ourselves. Many old designs, which had not been printed for thirty or forty years, have been taken up by us and done in colors to suit the taste of the period, and we find that few of the new drawings excel or even approach the old ones in interest. "The glazed chintzes of the present day are all done over old blocks which had remained unused for half a century, and those very interesting fabrics are in the original colorings, it having been found that any new schemes of color do not seem to work so well." Sending recently to a leading Boston paper store for samples for my dining-room, and expressing no desire for old patterns, I received a reproduction of the paper on the hall of the old Longfellow house at Portland, Maine, and a design of small medallions of the real antique kind,--a shepherdess with her sheep and, at a little distance, a stiff looking cottage, presumably her abode, set on a shiny white ground marked with tiny tiles. In fact, there is a general revival of these old designs, the original blocks often being used for re-printing. Go to any large store in any city to-day, where wall-papers are sold, and chintzes and cretonnes for the finest effects in upholstery. You will be shown, first, old-fashioned landscape papers; botanically impossible, but cheerful baskets of fruits and flowers; or panels, with a pretty rococo effect of fairy-like garlands of roses swung back and forth across the openwork of the frame at each side, and suspended in garlands at top and bottom after French modes of the Louis XIV., XV. or XVI. periods. They are even reproducing the hand woven tapestries of Gobelin of Paris, during the latter part of the reign of Louis XIV., when French art was at its height. In London _Tit-Bits_, I recently found something apropos: "'Here,' said a wall-paper manufacturer, 'are examples of what we call tapestry papers. They are copied exactly from the finest Smyrna and Turkish rugs, the colors and designs being reproduced with startling fidelity. We have men ransacking all Europe, copying paintings and mural decorations of past centuries. Here is the pattern of a very beautiful design of the time of Louis XVI., which we obtained in rather a curious way. One of our customers happened to be in Paris last summer, and being fond of inspecting old mansions, he one day entered a tumble-down chateau, which once belonged to a now dead and long forgotten Marquise. The rooms were absolutely in a decaying condition, but in the salon the wall-paper still hung, though in ribbons. The pattern was so exquisite in design, and the coloring, vivid still in many places, so harmonious, that he collected as many portions as he could and sent them to us to reproduce as perfectly as possible. "We succeeded beyond his best hopes, and the actual paper is now hanging on the walls of a West End mansion. We only manufactured sufficient to cover the ball-room, and it cost him two pounds a yard, but he never grumbled, and it was not dear, considering the difficulty we had." An article in the _Artist_ of London, September, 1898, by Lindsay P. Butterfield, describes a wonderful find of old paper and its restoration: "Painted decoration, whether by hand or stencil, was, no doubt, the immediate forerunner of paper hangings. The earliest reference to paper hangings in this country is to be found in the inventory taken at 'the monasterye of S. Syxborough in the Ile of Shepey, in the Countie of Kent, by Syr Thomas Cheney, Syr William Hawle, Knyghts and Antony Slewtheger, Esquyer, the XXVII day of Marche, in XXVII the yeare of our Soveraigne Lorde, Kyng Henrye the VIII, of the goods and catall belongyng to sayde Monastery.' "In this very interesting document, a minutely descriptive list of the ornaments, furniture and fittings of the nuns' chambers is given. We find from this that, in place of the 'paynted clothes for the hangings of the chamber,' mentioned in most of the entries, under the heading of Dame Margaret Somebody's chamber is set down 'the chamber hangings of painted papers.' "Wall-papers of Charles II.'s reign, and later, are still in existence; those at Ightham Mote, Kent, are well known instances. "But so far as the writer is aware, the accompanying reproductions represent the oldest wall-papers now existing in England. They were found during the restoration of a fifteenth century timber-built house, known as 'Borden Hall' or the 'Parsonage Farm,' in the village of Borden, near Sittingbourne, Kent. "The design marked 'A' was discovered in small fragments when the Georgian battening and wainscoats were removed in the first floor bed-room of the east front, in the oldest part of the house. These fragments showed that the tough paper had been originally nailed with flat-headed nails to the dried clay 'daubing' or plaster, with which the spaces between the timber uprights of the walls were filled in; the timbers themselves were painted a dark blue-grey, and a border of the same framed the strips of wall-paper. Owing to the walls having been battened out nearly two centuries ago, these fragments of a really striking design have been preserved to us. "The design of 'B' was also found on the first floor, in the rear portion of the house. It had been pasted, in the modern manner, onto a large plaster surface. The walls on which it was found had been re-plastered over the original plastering and paper and thus the latter was preserved in perfect condition. The design and quality of the paper, and the mode of its attachment, point to a date of about 1650. 'A' is probably of an earlier date (say 1550-1600) and is very thick and tough. The ornament is painted in black on a rich vermilion ground, and the flower forms are picked out in a bright turquoise blue. 'B' is much more modern looking, both in texture and design, and in both is very inferior to 'A.' "Its coloring is meagre compared with the other, the ornament being printed in black on white paper, and the flower forms roughly dabbed with vermilion. The character of the design in both cases seems referable to Indian influence; possibly they were the work of an Indian artist, and were cut as blocks for cotton printing, an impression being taken off on paper and hung on the walls. The house is in course of restoration under the superintendence of Mr. Philip M. Johnston, architect, to whom I am indebted for some of the particulars above given. To the owner of Borden Hall, Lewis Levy, Esq., I am also indebted for permission to publish the designs which I have reproduced in fac-simile from the original fragments. It is hoped shortly to hang the walls in the old manner with the reproduced papers." I have copied from an 1859 edition of _Rambles about Portsmouth_, a strange story of the restoration of frescoes in the old Warner house at Portsmouth, New Hampshire: "At the head of the stairs, on the broad space each side of the hall windows, there are pictures of two Indians, life size, highly decorated and executed by a skillful artist. These pictures have always been on view there, and are supposed to represent some Indian with whom the original owner traded in furs, in which business he was engaged. In the lower hall of the house are still displayed the enormous antlers of an elk, a gift from these red men. "Not long since, the spacious front entry underwent repairs; there had accumulated four coatings of paper. In one place, on removing the under coating, the picture of a horse was discovered by a little girl. This led to further investigation; the horse of life size was developed; a little further work exhumed Governor Phipps on his charger. The process of clearing the walls was now entered upon in earnest, as if delving in the ruins of Pompeii. "The next discovery was that of a lady at a spinning wheel (ladies span in those days!) who seems interrupted in her work by a hawk lighting among the chickens. "Then came a Scripture scene; Abraham offering up Isaac; the angel, the ram, and so on. There is a distant city scene, and other sketches on the walls, covering perhaps four or five hundred square feet. The walls have been carefully cleaned, and the whole paintings, evidently the work of some clever artist, are now presented in their original beauty. "No person living had any knowledge of the hidden paintings; they were as novel to an old lady of eighty, who had been familiar with the house from her childhood, as to her grand-daughter who discovered the horse's foot. The rooms are furnished with panelled walls and the old Dutch tiles still decorate the fire-place." It is gratifying to note that as these old frescoes and wall-papers are ruthlessly destroyed by those unaware of their value (which will constantly increase), there are those who insist on their preservation and reproduction. President Tucker of Dartmouth College, for instance, has forbidden the removal of the Bay of Naples landscape from the walls of what was formerly the library of Professor Sanborn at Hanover, New Hampshire. The house is now used as a dormitory, but that paper is treated with decided reverence. Reproduction of a fine paper worn, soiled and torn is an expensive matter, but those who realize their beauty order them if the price per roll is six or ten dollars. One of the most delightful papers of the present season is one copied from a French paper originally on the walls of a Salem house and known to have been there for over one hundred years. It is charming in design, with landscapes and flowers, twenty-eight different colors in all, and that means much when it is understood that every color must be printed from a different block when the paper is made. The paper is brilliant in effect, with many bright colored flowers, pink hollyhocks in a warm rose shade, purple morning glories, some blue blossoms and two different water scenes set deep into the mass of flowers, the scenes themselves of delicate tones and wonderful perspective. The original paper was in pieces twenty inches wide by twenty-eight long, which shows it to be very old. This reproduction will be seen on the walls in houses of Colonial style in Newport this summer. Yes, summer tourists are looking up old walls to gaze at with admiration. Many have found a Mecca in the Cleasby Place at Waterford, Vermont. Hardly a summer Sunday passes without a wagon load of persons going from Littleton towards the Connecticut River on a pilgrimage to Waterford and the Cleasby House. This house is said to be one of only three in New England which possess a certain wonderful old paper of strange design. The paper, a combination of brown and cream, bears scenes that evidently found their origin in foreign countries, but there are diverse opinions as to the nation whose characteristics are thereon depicted so realistically. An old house at Rockville, Massachusetts, still boasts this same paper, while the third example is on the walls of the Badger homestead, described on page 77. Plates XLVIII to L give scenes from these papers. The Cleasby house was regarded, in the olden times, as the great mansion in this locality. There was nothing finer than the residence in any of the surrounding towns. The structure was erected by Henry Oakes, an old-time settler in Northern Vermont, whose relatives still reside near by. The paper was put on at the time the house was built and cost one hundred dollars. A paper-hanger came up from Boston to put it on properly, and this cost the owner an extra forty dollar check. In those days, the coming of a paper-hanger from Boston was regarded quite in the light of an event, and a hundred dollars expended for wall-paper stamped a man as a capitalist. The house is still well preserved and shows no suggestion of being a ruin, although approaching the century mark. The present owner has been offered a large sum for this beautiful old paper, but wisely prefers to hold her treasure. Paper-hangers to-day are returning, in some cases, to the hand-printing of fine papers, because they insist that there are some advantages in the old method to compensate for the extra work. To go back a bit, the earliest method of coloring paper hangings was by stencilling. A piece of pasteboard, with the pattern cut out on it, was laid on the paper, and water colors were freely applied with a brush to the back of the pasteboard, so that the colors came through the openings and formed the pattern on the paper. This process was repeated several times for the different colors and involved a great expenditure of labor. It was replaced by the method of calico-printing, which is now generally used in the manufacture of wall-paper, that is, by blocks and later by rollers. And why, you naturally ask, this return to the slow and laborious way? Mr. Rottman, of the London firm of Alexander Rottman & Co., a high authority on this theme, in an able lecture given at his studio in London, explains the reasons in a way so clear that any one can understand. He says: "In an age where needles are threaded by machinery at the rate of nearly one per second; where embroideries are produced by a machine process which reverses the old method in moving the cloth up to fixed needles; where Sunlight Soap is shaped, cut, boxed, packed into cases, nailed up, labelled, and even sent to the lighters by machinery, so that hand labour is almost entirely superseded; it seems odd and, in fact, quite out of date and uncommercial to print wall-papers entirely by hand process. "The up-to-date wall-paper machine turns out most wonderful productions. It is able to imitate almost any fabric; tapestries, Gobelins, laces, and even tries to copy artistic stencilling in gradated tints. It manages to deceive the inartistic buyer to a large extent, in fact, there is hardly any fabric that the modern demand for 'sham' does not expect the wall-paper machine to imitate. "However, in spite of all these so-called achievements, the modest hand-printing table that existed at the time of wigs and snuff-boxes is still surviving more or less in its old-fashioned simple construction. And why is this so?" He then explains why a hand-printed paper is always preferred to a machine paper by the person of taste, whose purse is not too slender. Seven reasons are given for their artistic superiority. "1. Machine papers can be printed in thin colours only, which means a thin, loose colour effect. "2. In machine papers the whole of the various colours are printed at one operation, one on the top of another. In hand-printed papers, no colours touch each other until dry, and so each colour remains pure. "3. Large surfaces, such as big leaves, large flat flowers, broad stripes that have to be printed in one colour, are never successful in machines, wanting solidity of colour. Hand-printed papers run no such risk. "4. The machine limits the variety of papers to the flat kind; to flat surfaces supplied by the paper mills in reels. "5. Flaws, irregularities, and so on, when occurring in machine goods, run through many yards, owing to the necessary rapidity of printing, and the difficulty of stopping the machine; whilst every block repeat of pattern in the hand-printed goods is at once visible to the printer, who rectifies any defect before printing another impression, and so controls every yard. "6. The hand-printed papers, being printed from wood blocks (only dots and thin lines subject to injury being inserted in brass) show more softness in the printing than papers printed from machine rollers that have to be made in brass. "7. The preparation of getting the machine colours in position, and setting the machine ready for printing, necessitates the turning out of at least a ream, or a half ream (five hundred or two hundred and fifty rolls) at once; whilst the equivalent in hand-printing is fifty to sixty rolls. It often happens that the design of a machine paper is approved of, whilst the colourings it is printed in are unsuited to the scheme. By the hand process, room quantities of even ten to fifteen pieces can be printed specially at from 15 per cent. to 20 per cent. advance in price, while the increase in cost for such a small quantity in machine paper would send up the price to ridiculous proportions." The use of brass pins in the wood blocks is also a revival of the old method, as you will see from this interesting paragraph from a recent volume--Lewis F. Day's _Ornament and Its Application_: "Full and crowded pattern has its uses. The comparatively fussy detail, which demeans a fine material, helps to redeem a mean one. "Printed wall-paper, for example, or common calico, wants detail to give it a richness which, in itself, it has not. In printed cotton, flat colours look dead and lifeless. The old cotton printers had what they called a 'pruning roller,' a wooden roller (for hand-printing) into which brass pins or wires were driven. The dots printed from this roller relieved the flatness of the printed colours, and gave 'texture' to it. William Morris adopted this idea of dotting in his cretonne and wall-paper design with admirable effect. It became, in his hands, an admirable convention, in place of natural shading. The interest of a pattern is enhanced by the occurrence at intervals of appropriate figures; but with every recurrence of the same figure, human or animal, its charm is lessened until, at last, the obvious iteration becomes, in most cases, exasperating. "And yet, in the face of old Byzantine, Sicilian, and other early woven patterns with their recurring animals, and of Mr. Crane's consummately ornamental patterns, it cannot be said that repeated animal (and even human) forms do not make satisfactory pattern. "For an illustration of this, look at the wall-paper design by Crane: 'This is the House that Jack built.' It seems, at first glance, to be a complicated ornamental design; after long searching, you at last see plainly every one of the characters in that jingle that children so love." William Morris, and his interest in wall-paper hanging, must be spoken of, "For it was Morris who made this a truly valuable branch of domestic ornamentation. If, in some other instances, he was rather the restorer and infuser of fresh life into arts fallen into degeneracy, he was nothing short of a creator in the case of wall-paper design, which, as a serious decorative art, owes its existence to him before anyone else." In his lecture on _The Lesser Arts of Life_, he insisted on the importance of paying due regard to the artistic treatment of our wall spaces. "Whatever you have in your rooms, think first of the walls, for they are that which makes your house and home; and, if you don't make some sacrifice in their favor, you will find your chambers have a sort of makeshift, lodging-house look about them, however rich and handsome your movables may be." A collector is always under a spell; hypnotized, bewitched, possibly absurdly engrossed and unduly partial to his own special hobby, and to uninterested spectators, no doubt seems a trifle unbalanced, whether his specialty be the fossilized skeleton of an antediluvian mammoth or a tiny moth in a South American jungle. I am not laboring under the exhilarating but erroneous impression that there is any widespread and absorbing interest in this theme. As the distinguished jurist, Mr. Adrian H. Joline, says, "Few there are who cling with affection to the memory of the old fashioned. Most of us prefer to spin with the world down the ringing grooves of change, to borrow the shadow of a phrase which has of itself become old-fashioned." Yet, as Mr. Webster said of Dartmouth, when he was hard pressed: "It is a little college, but there are those who love it." Besides, everything--Literature, Art and even fashions in dress and decorations,--while seeming to progress really go in waves. We are now wearing the bonnets, gowns and mantles of the 1830 style and much earlier. Fabulous and fancy prices are gladly given for antique furniture; high boys, low boys, hundred-legged tables, massive four-post bedsteads, banjo clocks, and crystal chandeliers. Those able to do it are setting tapestries into their stately walls, hangings of rich brocades and silk are again in vogue and the old designs for wall-paper are being hunted up all through Europe and this country. Some also adopt a colored wash for their bed-room walls, and cover their halls with burlap or canvas, while the skins of wild animals adorn city dens as well as the mountain lodge or the seaside bungalow. So we have completed the circle. The unco rich of to-day give fabulous sums for crystal candelabra, or museum specimens of drawing room furniture; and collectors, whether experts or amateurs, and beginners just infected with the microbe are searching for hidden treasures of china, silver and glass. Why should the Old Time Wall-Papers alone be left unchronicled and forgotten? In them the educated in such matters read the progress of the Art; some of them are more beautiful than many modern paintings; the same patterns are being admired and brought out; the papers themselves will soon all be removed. Hawthorne believed that the furniture of a room was magnetized by those who occupied it; a modern psychologist declares that even a rag doll dearly loved by a child becomes something more than a purely inanimate object. We should certainly honor the wall-papers brought over the seas from various countries at great expense to beautify the Homes of our Ancestors. [Illustration] PUBLISHER'S NOTE. _The wall-papers reproduced in the following plates were in many cases faded, water-stained and torn, when photographed. Many of the photographs are amateur work; some are badly focused and composed, some taken in small rooms and under unfavorable conditions of light. The reader will bear this in mind in judging the papers themselves and the present reproductions._ _PLATE VII_ _PLATE VIII_ PLATE VII. The Bayeux Tapestry. The oldest tapestry now in existence, dating from the time of William the Conqueror, and apparently of English workmanship. The set of pieces fits the nave of the Cathedral of Bayeux, measuring 231 feet long and 20 inches wide. Now preserved in the Bayeux Library. The subjects are drawn from English history; Plate VII represents the burial of Edward the Confessor in the Church of St. Peter, Westminster Abbey. PLATE VIII. The Bayeux Tapestry. King Harold listening to news of the preparations of William of Orange for the invasion of Britain. [Illustration] [Illustration] _PLATE IX_ _PLATE X_ PLATE IX. Borden Hall Paper. The oldest wall-paper known in England; found in restoring a fifteenth-century timber-built house known as "Borden Hall," in Borden village, Kent, near Sittingbourne. Design "A" was found in the oldest part of the house, and probably dates from the second half of the sixteenth century. The paper is thick and tough, and was nailed to the plaster between uprights. The walls were afterward battened over the paper, and the recovered fragments are in perfect condition. Ground color rich vermillion, with flowers in bright turquoise blue, the design in black. PLATE X. Borden Hall Paper. Old English paper, design "B"; found in rear part of house and dates from about 1650. It was pasted to the plaster in the modern manner. Printed in black on a white ground, flowers roughly colored vermillion. Inferior to "A" in design, coloring, and quality of paper. [Illustration] [Illustration] _PLATE XI_ PLATE XI. Early English Pictorial Paper Late eighteenth century hunting scene paper from an old Manor House near Chester, England. Reproduced from a fragment in the collection of Mr. Edward T. Cockcroft of New York City. The pattern is evidently repeated at intervals. [Illustration] _PLATE XII_ PLATE XII. The Cultivation of Tea. Hand-painted Chinese paper, imported about 1750 and still in good state of preservation; the property of Mr. Theodore P. Burgess of Dedham, Mass. The subject is perhaps the oldest theme used in wall-paper decoration in China. [Illustration] _PLATE XIII_ _PLATE XIV_ PLATE XIII. The Cultivation of Tea. Paper on another side of room shown in Plate XII. PLATE XIV. The Cultivation of Tea. Third side of same room. The scene continues round the room without repetition. [Illustration] [Illustration] _PLATE XV_ _PLATE XVI_ PLATE XV. Early American Fresco. Painted river scenes on the best chamber walls of the house of Mrs. William Allen at Westwood, Mass. The elm and locust trees and architectural style are plainly American, but the geographical location is uncertain. The colors are very brilliant--red, blue, green, etc. PLATE XVI. Early American Fresco. Another side of same room, showing conventionalized water fall and bend in the river. [Illustration] [Illustration] _PLATE XVII_ _PLATE XVIII_ PLATE XVII. Early American Fresco. Another view of the painted walls at Westwood, Mass. The object depicted is neither a whale nor a torpedo-boat, but an island. PLATE XVIII. Early American Fresco. Painted hall and stairway in an old house in High Street, Salem, Mass., attached to the very old bake-shop of Pease and Price. The frescoes were executed by a Frenchman. Colors are still quite bright, but a good photograph could not be secured in the small and dimly-lighted hall. [Illustration] [Illustration] _PLATE XIX_ _PLATE XX_ PLATE XIX. Early Stencilled Paper. Fragments of very old paper from Nantucket, R. I. PLATE XX. A Peep at the Moon. Another quaint stencilled paper found at Nantucket, R. I. [Illustration] [Illustration: A PEEP AT THE MOON] _PLATE XXI_ PLATE XXI. Pictured Ruins and Decorative Designs. Hall of a homestead at Salem, Massachusetts, old when gas lights were introduced in Salem. The paper was undoubtedly made to fit the stairway and hall. The large picture in the lower hall is repeated at the landing. [Illustration] _PLATE XXII_ PLATE XXII. Hand Colored Paper with Repeated Pattern. Parlor in the home of Mrs. Russell Jarvis at Claremont, New Hampshire. The paper is hand-printed on cream ground in snuff-brown color, and is made up of pieces eighteen inches square, showing three alternating pastoral scenes. In the frieze and dado the prevailing color is dark blue. (p.56) [Illustration] _PLATE XXIII_ _PLATE XXIV_ PLATE XXIII. Scenes from Nature in Repeated Design. Parlor of the Lindell house at Salem, Massachusetts. White wainscoting and mantel surmounted by paper in squares, showing four outdoor scenes. The fire-board concealing the unused fire-place is covered with paper and border specially adapted to that purpose. PLATE XXIV. The Alhambra. Two scenes from the Alhambra Palace, repeated in somewhat monotonous rows. Still in a good state of preservation on the upper hall of a house at Leicester, Massachusetts,--one of the sea-port towns rich in foreign novelties brought home by sea captains. [Illustration] [Illustration] _PLATE XXV_ _PLATE XXVI_ PLATE XXV. Cathedral Porch and Shrine in Repeated Design. Effectively colored paper still on the walls at Ware, Massachusetts, showing a shrine in the porch of a cathedral; the repeated design being connected with columns, winding stairs and ruins. The blue sky seen through the marble arches contrasts finely with the green foliage. PLATE XXVI. Cathedral Porch and Shrine, Architectural Background. Paper on a chamber in the mansion of Governor Gore of Massachusetts, at Waltham, Massachusetts, erected and decorated in 1802. Medallion pictures in neutral colors, of a cathedral porch, shrine and mountain view, alternating on a stone-wall ground. [Illustration] [Illustration] _PLATE XXVII_ PLATE XXVII. Birds of Paradise and Peacocks. The drawing-room of the Governor Gore Mansion at Waltham, Massachusetts, bequeathed by its owner, Miss Walker, to the Episcopal Church for the Bishop's residence. The paper is still in beautiful condition, printed on brownish cream ground in the natural colors of birds and foliage. (p. 75) [Illustration] _PLATE XXVIII_ PLATE XXVIII. Sacred to Washington. Memorial paper in black and gray placed on many walls soon after the death of Washington. The example photographed was on a hall and stairway. (p. 88) [Illustration] _PLATE XXIX_ PLATE XXIX. Dorothy Quincy Wedding Paper. On the Dorothy Quincy house on Hancock Street, at Quincy, Mass., now the headquarters of the Colonial Dames of Massachusetts. It was imported from Paris in honor of the marriage of Dorothy Quincy and John Hancock in 1775, and still hangs on the walls of the large north parlor. Venus and Cupid are printed in blue, the floral decorations in red. The colors are still unfaded. (p. 65) [Illustration] _PLATE XXX_ _PLATE XXXI_ PLATE XXX. The Pantheon. Mounted fragments rescued from the destruction of the dining-room paper which was on the walls of the King's Tavern or "Waffle Tavern" at Vernon (now Rockville), Connecticut, when Lafayette was entertained there in 1825. All the characters of Roman mythology were pictured in woodland scenes printed in gray and black, on small squares of paper carefully matched. Below these ran a band bearing the names of the characters represented; and below this, a grassy green dado dotted with marine pictures. (p. 69) PLATE XXXI. Canterbury Bells. Paper from Howe's Tavern, at Sudbury, Massachusetts,--the "Wayside Inn" of Longfellow's Tales. The fragment is in poor condition but possesses historic interest, having decorated the room in which Lafayette passed the night on his trip through America. (p. 67) [Illustration] [Illustration] _PLATE XXXII_ _PLATE XXXIII_ PLATE XXXII. The First Railroad Locomotive. Paper on an old house in High Street, Salem, supposed to represent the first railroad. The first trial of locomotives for any purpose other than hauling coal from the mines, took place near Rainhill, England, in 1829. The paper may celebrate this contest, at which of three engines was successful. (p. 89-90) PLATE XXXIII. High Street House Paper. Scene on opposite side of same room. The subject and figures seem English. The scenes are in colors, the dado in black and grey on white ground. [Illustration] [Illustration] _PLATE XXXIV_ _PLATE XXXV_ PLATE XXXIV. Pizarro in Peru. Remains of Pizarro paper in the Ezra Weston house now used for the famous Powder Point School for Boys, at Duxbury, Massachusetts. Formerly on sitting-room but now preserved in a small upper room; stained and dim. It was brought from Paris by Captain Gershom Bradford, and is supposed to depict scenes in Pizarro's invasion of Peru in 1531. The same figures are shown in successive scenes, more or less distinct though running into each other. (p. 97) PLATE XXXV. Pizarro in Peru. Another corner of same room. Both the paper and photograph are difficult to reproduce. [Illustration] [Illustration] _PLATE XXXVI_ _PLATE XXXVII_ PLATE XXXVI. Tropical Scenes. Paper from the Ham House at Peabody, Massachusetts, now occupied by Dr. Worcester. These scenes are quite similar to those of the Pizarro paper, and may have been the work of the same designer. PLATE XXXVII. Tropical Scenes. Ham house paper. Another side of room. [Illustration] [Illustration] _PLATE XXXVIII_ _PLATE XXXIX_ PLATE XXXVIII. On the Bosporus. From a house at Montpelier, Vermont, in which it was hung in 1825, in honor of Lafayette who was entertained there. The Mosque of Santa Sophia and other buildings of Constantinople are seen in the background. PLATE XXXIX. On the Bosporus. Opposite side of same room. Fishing from caiques on the Golden Horn before Stamboul. [Illustration] [Illustration] _PLATE XL_ PLATE XL. Oriental Scenes. Paper still on the walls of the home of Miss Janet A. Lathrop, at Stockport, New York. It was put on the walls in 1820 by the sea captain who built the house, and in 1904 was cleaned and restored by the present owner. No other example of this paper in America has been heard of, except in an old house at Albany in which the mother of Miss Lathrop was born. In the "Chinese room" of a hunting lodge belonging to the King of Saxony, at Moritzburg, near Dresden, is a similar paper or tapestry from which this may have been copied. It is printed in grays which have become brown with age, from engraved blocks, and finished by hand. This is a rare example of the use of rice paper for a wall covering. (p. 55) [Illustration] _PLATE XLI_ PLATE XLI. Oriental Scenes. Continuation of same paper; apparently a religious procession. [Illustration] _PLATE XLII_ PLATE XLII. Oriental Scenes. Another section of the Lathrop house paper. [Illustration] _PLATE XLIII_ PLATE XLIII. Oriental Scenes. End of room containing three preceding scenes. [Illustration] _PLATE XLIV_ PLATE XLIV. Early Nineteenth Century Scenic Paper. Side wall of parlor of Mrs. E. C. Cowles at Deerfield, Massachusetts. The house was built in 1738 by Ebenezer Hinsdale, and was re-modelled and re-decorated about the beginning of the nineteenth century. Still in good state of preservation. The colors are neutral. [Illustration] _PLATE XLV_ PLATE XLV. Parlor of Mrs. Cowles' house, end of room. [Illustration] _PLATE XLVI_ _PLATE XLVII_ PLATE XLVI. Another example of the same paper as that on the Cowles house (Plates XLIV and XLV). This paper was imported from England and hung in 1805, in a modest house at Warner, New Hampshire,--such a house as seldom indulged in such expensive papers. It is still on the walls, though faded. PLATE XLVII. At Windsor, Vermont, two more examples of this paper are still to be seen. One is on the house now occupied by the Sabin family. This was built about 1810 by the Honorable Edward R. Campbell, and the paper was hung when the house was new. (p. 52) [Illustration] [Illustration] _PLATE XLVIII_ _PLATE XLIX_ PLATE XLVIII. Harbor Scene. Paper found in three houses in New England--the home of Mr. Wilfred Cleasby at Waterford, Vermont; the Governor Badger homestead at Gilmanton, New Hampshire, built in 1825; and an old house in Rockville, Massachusetts, built about ninety years ago. The scene fits the four walls of the room without repetition. The design is printed in browns on a cream ground, with a charming effect. The geographical identity of the scenes has never been established. (p. 109) PLATE XLIX. The Spanish Fandango. Continuation of same paper; another side of room. [Illustration] [Illustration] _PLATE L_ PLATE L. Strolling Players. Same paper, third view. The set of paper on the Cleasby house is said by descendants of the builder, Henry Oakes, to have cost $100, and $40 for its hanging. The similar set on the Badger homestead should have cost $50, had not the messenger lost the first payment sent, so that that sum had to be duplicated. This is on a smaller room than at the Cleasby house, requiring less paper. (p. 76-80) [Illustration] _PLATE LI_ _PLATE LII_ PLATE LI. Rural Scene. Paper on the parlor of Mr. Josiah Cloye at Ashland, Massachusetts, and found also in several other places; colors neutral. PLATE LII. Rural Scene. From another example of the same set found at Marblehead, Massachusetts. [Illustration] [Illustration] _PLATE LIII_ _PLATE LIV_ PLATE LIII. French Boulevard Scene. Paper from the Forrester house at Salem, Massachusetts, now used as a sanitarium for the insane. Since the photographs were taken the paper has been removed as it unduly excited the patients. PLATE LIV. French Boulevard Scene. Same as above. Found also in a house at the sea-port town of Nantucket. [Illustration] [Illustration] _PLATE LV_ PLATE LV. Gateway and Fountain. French paper, imported before 1800, but never hung. A few rolls still survive, in the possession of Mr. George M. Whipple of Salem, Massachusetts. [Illustration] _PLATE LVI_ PLATE LVI. Scenes from Paris. A very popular paper found in Federal Street, Salem, on the parlor of Mrs. Charles Sadler, daughter of Henry K. Oliver; in the Ezra Weston house at Duxbury, Massachusetts, built in 1808; the Walker house at Rockville, Massachusetts, and several other New England towns. The principal buildings of Paris are represented as lining the shore of the Seine. The inclusion of the Colonne Vendôme shows it to have been designed since 1806; and as the horses on the Carousel arch were returned to Venice in 1814, the paper probably dates between those years. (p. 88) [Illustration] _PLATE LVII_ PLATE LVII. Scenes from Paris. Another side of room shown in Plate LVI. The paper is in pieces 16 by 21 inches. The colors are soft, with green, gray and brown predominating, but with some black, yellow, red, etc. The drawing is good. [Illustration] _PLATE LVIII_ PLATE LVIII. Bay of Naples. This seems to have been the most popular paper of the early nineteenth century. It decorated the room in which the author was born--the library of Professor E. D. Sanborn of Dartmouth College, at Hanover, New Hampshire,--and is still in place. The house is now used as a Dartmouth dormitory. The same scenes are found in the Lawrence house, at Exeter, New Hampshire, now used as a dormitory--Dunbay Hall--of the Phillips Exeter Academy; on the house of Mrs. E. B. McGinley at Dudley, Massachusetts, and on another at St. Johnsbury, Vermont, now owned by Mrs. Emma Taylor. (p. 49, 108) [Illustration] _PLATE LIX_ PLATE LIX. Bay of Naples. Continuation of same scene. This paper is in neutral colors, and made in small pieces. It was imported about 1820. [Illustration] _PLATE LX_ PLATE LX. Bay of Naples. Detail. The monument has a Greek inscription which Professor Kittredge of Harvard University translates literally: "Emperor Cæsar, me divine Hadrian. Column of the Emperor Antoninus Pius"--who was the son of Hadrian. The pillar of Antonine still stands at Rome. The statue of Antoninus which formerly surmounted it was removed by Pope Sextus, who substituted a figure of Paul. [Illustration] _PLATE LXI_ _PLATE LXII_ PLATE LXI. Bay of Naples. Another side of room. PLATE LXII. Bay of Naples. Detail: Galleon at anchor. [Illustration] [Illustration] _PLATE LXIII_ PLATE LXIII. Cupid and Psyche. Panelled paper in colors, designed by Lafitte and executed by Dufour in 1814. It consists of twenty-six breadths, each five feet seven inches long by twenty inches wide. It is said that fifteen hundred engraved blocks were used in printing. The design is divided into twelve panels, depicting the marriage of Cupid and Psyche, Psyche's lack of faith and its sad consequences. The scene reproduced shows the visit of the newly-wedded Psyche's jealous sisters to her palace, where they persuade her that her unseen husband is no god, but a monster whom she must kill. [Illustration] _PLATE LXIV_ PLATE LXIV. Cupid and Psyche. While Cupid lies sleeping in the darkness, Psyche takes her dagger, lights her lamp, and bends over the unconscious god: * * * There before her lay The very Love brighter than dawn of day; * * * * * O then, indeed, her faint heart swelled for love, And she began to sob, and tears fell fast Upon the bed.--But as she turned at last To quench the lamp, there happed a little thing, That quenched her new delight, for flickering The treacherous flame cast on his shoulder fair A burning drop; he woke, and seeing her there, The meaning of that sad sight knew too well, Nor was there need the piteous tale to tell. WILLIAM MORRIS: _The Earthly Paradise._ [Illustration] _PLATE LXV_ PLATE LXV. The Adventures of Telemachus. Paper from the home of Dr. John Lovett Morse at Taunton, Massachusetts, illustrating the sixth book of Fenelon's _Adventures of Telemachus_. Found also in the home of Mr. Henry De Witt Freeland at Sutton, Massachusetts; on the hall of "The Hermitage," Andrew Jackson's home near Nashville, Tennessee; and in an ancient house at Kennebunk, Maine. (p. 86-88) Telemachus, son of Ulysses, and Mentor, who is Minerva in disguise, while searching through two worlds for the lost Ulysses, arrive at the island of the goddess Calypso and her nymphs. Telemachus recites the tale of their adventures, and Calypso (who is unfortunately divided by the window into two equal parts) becomes as deeply enamored of Telemachus as she had formerly been of his father. [Illustration] _PLATE LXVI_ PLATE LXVI. The Adventures of Telemachus. Venus, who is bent on detaining Telemachus on the island and delaying his filial search for Ulysses, brings her son Cupid from Olympus, and leaves him with Calypso, that he may inflame the young hero's heart with love for the goddess. [Illustration] _PLATE LXVII_ PLATE LXVII. The Adventures of Telemachus. Cupid stirs up all the inflammable hearts within his reach somewhat indiscriminately; and Telemachus finds himself in love with the nymph Eucharis. Calypso becomes exceedingly jealous. At a hunting-contest in honor of Telemachus, Eucharis appears in the costume of Diana to attract him, while the jealous Calypso rages alone in her grotto. Venus arrives in her dove-drawn car and takes a hand in the game of hearts. [Illustration] _PLATE LXVIII_ PLATE LXVIII. Adventures of Telemachus. Calypso, in her rage against Eucharis and Telemachus, urges Mentor to build a boat and take Telemachus from her island. Mentor, himself disapproving of the youth's infatuation, builds the boat; then finds Telemachus and persuades him to leave Eucharis and embark with him. As they depart toward the shore, Eucharis returns to her companions, while Telemachus looks behind him at every step for a last glimpse of the nymph. [Illustration] _PLATE LXIX_ PLATE LXIX. Adventures of Telemachus. Cupid meantime has dissuaded Calypso from her wrath and incited the nymphs to burn the boat that is waiting to bear the visitors away. Mentor, perceiving that Telemachus is secretly glad of this, and fearing the effect of his passion for Eucharis, throws the youth from the cliff into the water, leaps in after him, and swims with him to a ship that lies at anchor beyond the treacherous shoals. [Illustration] _PLATE LXX_ PLATE LXX. Scottish Scenes. The room on which the Adventures of Telemachus are pictured having proved too large for the set of scenes, the remaining corner is filled out with what appear to be Scottish scenes, possibly illustrations for Scott. Harmony in coloring was apparently of more importance than harmony in subject. [Illustration] _PLATE LXXI_ _PLATE LXXII_ PLATE LXXI. The Olympic Games. This famous paper, now owned by Mrs. Franklin R. Webber 2d of Boston, was made in France and imported in 1800 or earlier, but never hung. Each roll is made up of squares invisibly joined, and the thirty pieces combine to form a continuous panorama. The coloring is brown. The paper was probably printed by hand from engraved blocks, and the shading of faces, etc., added by hand. The most artistic pictorial paper known. (p. 52-54) PLATE LXXII. The Olympic Games. A tribute to Homer. [Illustration] [Illustration] _PLATE LXXIII_ _PLATE LXXIV_ PLATE LXXIII. The Olympic Games. The shrine of Vesta. PLATE LXXIV. The Olympic Games. Worshipping Athene in the Court of the Erechtheum. [Illustration] [Illustration] _PLATE LXXV_ _PLATE LXXVI_ PLATE LXXV. The Olympic Games. Oblation to Bacchus. PLATE LXXVI. The Olympic Games. Oblation to Bacchus, and procession before the Parthenon. From the Perry house at Keene, N. H., on whose parlor walls is preserved the only other known example of the paper just described. (p. 50) [Illustration] [Illustration] _PLATE LXXVII_ PLATE LXXVII. The Lady of the Lake. This series of scenes in neutral colors is photographed from the parlor of the Rev. Pelham Williams, at Greenbush, Mass., whose house is one of three on which it still hangs in good condition. The other examples are the Hayward house at Wayland, Mass., and the Alexander Ladd house, now owned by Mrs. Charles Wentworth, at Portsmouth, N. H. CANTO I. THE CHASE. III. Yelled on the view the opening pack-- Rock, glen, and cavern paid them back; To many a mingled sound at once The awakened mountain gave response. An hundred dogs bayed deep and strong, Clattered a hundred steeds along, Their peal the merry horns rang out, An hundred voices joined the shout; With bark, and whoop, and wild halloo, No rest Benvoirlich's echoes knew. [Illustration] _PLATE LXXVIII_ PLATE LXXVIII. The Lady of the Lake. CANTO III. THE GATHERING. VIII. 'Twas all prepared--and from the rock, A goat, the patriarch of the flock, Before the kindling pile was laid, And pierced by Roderick's ready blade. * * * * * The grisly priest with murmuring prayer, A slender crosslet framed with care. * * * * * The cross, thus formed, he held on high, With wasted hand and haggard eye, And strange and mingled feelings woke, While his anathema he spoke. IX. * * * * * He paused--the word the vassals took, With forward step and fiery look, On high their naked brands they shook, Their clattering targets wildly strook; And first, in murmur low, Then, like the billow in his course, That far to seaward finds his source, And flings to shore his mustered force, Burst with loud roar, their answer hoarse, "Woe to the traitor, woe!" [Illustration] _PLATE LXXIX_ PLATE LXXIX. The Lady of the Lake. CANTO IV. THE PROPHECY. XXI. [Blanche of Devan and Fitz-James] Now wound the path its dizzy ledge Around a precipice's edge, When lo! a wasted female form, Blighted by wrath of sun and storm, In tattered weeds and wild array, Stood on a cliff beside the way, And glancing round her restless eye Upon the wood, the rock, the sky, Seemed nought to mark, yet all to spy. Her brow was wreathed with gaudy broom; With gesture wild she waved a plume Of feathers, which the eagles fling To crag and cliff from dusky wing; * * * * * And loud she laughed when near they drew, For then the lowland garb she knew: And then her hands she wildly wrung, And then she wept, and then she sung. [Illustration] _PLATE LXXX_ PLATE LXXX. This scene fills the fourth side of the room on which _The Lady of the Lake_ is pictured, but does not illustrate any scene in the poem. [Illustration] _PLATE LXXXI_ PLATE LXXXI. The Seasons. Pastoral paper in neutral colors on the library of Prof. Ira Young of Dartmouth, at Hanover, N. H. The four seasons are represented on different sides of the room, blending into each other--sowing, haying, harvesting and sleighing. Still on the walls in good state of preservation. (p. 49) [Illustration] _PLATE LXXXII_ PLATE LXXXII. The Seasons. Another view of Professor Young's library. The colors in this paper are neutral. [Illustration] _PLATE LXXXIII_ PLATE LXXXIII. The Seasons. Third view from Professor Young's library. [Illustration] -------------------------------------------------------------- Transcriber's note: P.16. 'Huis-en-ten-Bosch' corrected to 'Huis-ten-Bosch', changed. P.17. 'asked me ot', 'ot' corrected to 'to', changed. P.36. 'country and and', taken out the extra 'and'. P.89. 'Carousal' is 'Carousel', changed. The Carousel is not a drinking party. P.92. 'treaures' typo for 'treasures', changed. P.103. 'are in the the original', taken out the extra 'the'. P.115. 'when she' changed 'she' to 'he'. Plate LVI, 'Carousal' is meant 'Carousel', changed. Plate LXVI, 'Olympos' typo for 'Olympus', changed. Fixed various commas and full stops. -------------------------------------------------------------- 
41922	----	THE BED-ROOM AND BOUDOIR. [Illustration] THE BED-ROOM AND BOUDOIR. BY LADY BARKER. [Illustration] LONDON: MACMILLAN AND CO. 1878. [_The Right of Translation and Reproduction is Reserved._] _FIFTH THOUSAND._ LONDON: R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS. PREFACE. Too much attention can scarcely be expended on our sleeping rooms in order that we may have them wholesome, convenient and cheerful. It is impossible to over-estimate the value of refreshing sleep to busy people, particularly to those who are obliged to do much brainwork. In the following pages will, we hope, be found many hints with regard to the sanitary as well as the ornamental treatment of the bed-room. W. J. LOFTIE. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I.--AN IDEAL BED-ROOM--ITS WALLS 1 II.--CARPETS AND DRAPERIES 15 III.--BEDS AND BEDDING 26 IV.--WARDROBES AND CUPBOARDS 44 V.--FIRE AND WATER 57 VI.--THE TOILET 70 VII.--ODDS AND ENDS OF DECORATION 80 VIII.--THE SICK ROOM 94 IX.--THE SPARE ROOM 110 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE A CORNER WARDROBE _Frontispiece_ DUTCH BEDSTEAD 27 BEDSTEAD AND TOILET STAND 30 OAK BEDSTEAD 32 CHILDREN'S BEDSTEADS 37 AN INDIAN SCREEN 41 WARDROBE 45 ANTIQUE LOCK-UP 48 BUREAU 49 TRAVELLING CHEST OF DRAWERS 51 CHINESE CABINET 55 FIRE-PLACE 58 CHAIR AND TABLE 59 BEDSIDE TABLE 62 FIRE-PLACE 63 CANDLESTICK 65 FRENCH WASHING-STAND 66 CHINESE WASHING-STAND 67 CORNER-STAND 68 SHRINE "À LA DUCHESSE" 71 ANTIQUE TOILET TABLE 72 CHEST OF DRAWERS 73 A SIMPLE TOILET TABLE 76 CANE ARM-CHAIR 81 CANE SOFA 82 OAK SETTLE 83 LARGE ARM-CHAIR 84 CORNER FOR PIANO 85 PRINT-STAND 88 SOUTH AMERICAN PITCHER 91 INVALID TABLE 107 DESK 112 THE BED-ROOM AND BOUDOIR. CHAPTER I. AN IDEAL BED-ROOM.--ITS WALLS. It is only too easy to shock some people, and at the risk of shocking many of my readers at the outset, I must declare that very few bed-rooms are so built and furnished as to remain thoroughly _sweet_, fresh, and airy all through the night. This is not going so far as others however. Emerson repeats an assertion he once heard made by Thoreau, the American so-called "Stoic,"--whose senses by the way seem to have been preternaturally acute--that "by night every dwelling-house gives out a bad air, like a slaughter-house." As this need not be a necessary consequence of sleeping in a room, it remains to be discovered why one's first impulse on entering a bed-room in the morning should either be to open the windows, or to wish the windows were open. Every one knows how often this is the case, not only in small, low, ill-contrived houses in a town, but even in very spacious dwellings, standing too amid all the fragrant possibilities of the open country. It is a very easy solution of the difficulty to say that we ought always to sleep with our windows wide open. The fact remains that many people cannot do so; it is a risk--nay, a certainty--of illness to some very young children, to many old people, and to nearly all invalids. In a large room the risk is diminished, because there would be a greater distance between the bed and window, or a space for a sheltering screen. Now, in a small room, where fresh air is still more essential and precious, the chances are that the window might open directly on the bed, which would probably stand in a draught between door and fireplace as well. I take it for granted that every one understands the enormous importance of having a fireplace in each sleeping-room in an English house, for the sake of the ventilation afforded by the chimney. And even then a sharp watch must be kept on the house-maid, who out of pure "cussedness" (there is no other word for it) generally makes it the serious business of her life to keep the iron flap of the register stove shut down, and so to do away entirely with one of the uses of the chimney. If it be impossible to have a fireplace in the sleeping-room, then a ventilator of some sort should be introduced. There is, I believe, a system in use in some of the wards of St. George's Hospital and in the schools under the control of the London School Board, known as Tobin's Patent. Ventilation is here secured by means of a tube or pipe communicating directly with the outer air, which can thus be brought from that side of the building on which the atmosphere is freshest. If report can be trusted, this system certainly appears to come nearer to what is wanted than any with which we are yet acquainted, for it introduces fresh air without producing a draught, and the supply of air can be regulated by a lid at the mouth of the pipe. A sort of double-star is often introduced in a pane of glass in the window, but this is somewhat costly, and it would not be difficult to find other simpler and more primitive methods, from a tin shaft or loosened brick in a wall, down to half a dozen large holes bored by an auger in the panel of the door, six or eight inches away from the top, though this is only advisable if the door opens upon a tolerably airy landing or passage. If it does not, then resort to some contrivance, as cheap as you please, in the outer wall leading directly into the fresh air. In most private houses it is generally possible to arrange for those to whom an open window at night is a forbidden luxury, that they should sleep with their door open. A curtain, or screen, or even the open door itself will ensure the privacy in which we all like to do our sleeping, but there should then be some window open on an upper landing, day and night, in all weathers. Believe me, there are few nights, even in our rigorous climate, where this would be an impossibility. Of course common sense must be the guide in laying down such rules. No one would willingly admit a fog or storm of driving wind and rain into their house, but of a night when the atmosphere is so exceptionally disturbed it is sure to force its way in at every cranny, and keep the rooms fresh and sweet without the necessity of admitting a large body of air by an open window. Supposing then that the laws of ventilation are understood and acted upon, and that certain other sanitary rules are carried out which need not be insisted upon here,--such as that no soiled clothes shall ever, upon any pretence, be kept in a bed-room,--then we come to the next cause of want of freshness in a sleeping-room:--Old walls. People do not half enough realise, though it must be admitted they understand a great deal more than they once did, how the emanations from the human body are attracted to the sides of the room and stick there. It is not a pretty or poetical idea, but it is unhappily a fact. So the only thing to be done is to provide ourselves with walls which will either wash or clean in some way, or are made originally of some material which neither attracts nor retains these minute particles. Nothing can be at once cleaner or more wholesome than the beautiful wainscotted walls we sometimes see in the fine old country houses built in Queen Anne's reign. A bed-room of that date, if we except the bed itself, and the probable absence of all bathing conveniences, presented a nearly perfect combination of fresh air, spotless cleanliness, and stately and harmonious beauty to the eyes of an artist or the nose of a sanitary inspector. The lofty walls of panelled oak, dark and lustrous from age and the rubbing of many generations of strong-armed old-fashioned house-maids, were walls which could neither attract nor retain objectionable atoms, and ventilation was unconsciously secured by means of high narrow windows, three in a row, looking probably due south, and an open chimney-place, innocent of "register stoves" or any other contrivance for blocking up its wide throat. Such a room rises up clearly before the eyes of my mind, and I feel certain that I shall never forget the deliciously quaint and hideous Dutch tiles in the fireplace, nor the expressive tip of Ahasuerus' nose in the tile representing his final interview with Haman. How specially beautiful was the narrow carved ledge, far above one's head, which served as a mantelpiece, over which simpered a faded lady with low, square-cut boddice, her fat chin held well into the throat, and a rose in her pale, wan little hand. A dado ran round this room about five feet from the floor, and I used to be mean enough, constantly, to try if it was a dust-trap, but I never could find a speck. That was because the house-maid had been taught how to wipe dust off and carry it bodily away, not merely, as Miss Nightingale complains, to disturb it from the place where it had comfortably settled itself, and disperse it about the room. But what I remember more vividly in this room than even its old-time beauty, was the thorough _conscientiousness_ of every detail. The cornice might fairly claim to rank as a work of art, not only from its elaboration, but from its finish. The little square carved panels on each side of the chimney, serving as supports to the mantelpiece, held but one leaf or arabesque flourish apiece, yet each corner was as sharply cut, each curve as smoothly rounded, as though it had been intended for closest scrutiny. The wood of neither walls nor floors had warped nor shrunk in all these years, and the low solid doors hung as true, the windows opened as easily, as if it had all been built yesterday. What do I say? built yesterday? Let any of us begin to declare his experience of a new, modern house, and he will find many to join in a doleful chorus of complaints about unseasoned wood, ill-fitting joists, and hurried contrivances to meet domestic ills, to say nothing of the uncomfortable effects of "scamped" work generally. In spite of our improved tools, and our greater facilities for studying and copying good designs, I am convinced that one reason why we are going back in decorative taste to the days of our great grandmothers is, that we are worn out and wearied with the evanescent nature of modern carpenter's and joiner's work--to say nothing of our aroused perceptions of its glaring faults of taste and tone. Unhappily we cannot go back to those dear, clean, old oaken walls. They would be quite out of the reach of the majority of purses, and would be sure to be imitated by some wretched sham planking which might afford a shelter and breeding-place for all kinds of creeping things. No; let those who are fortunate enough to possess or acquire these fine old walls treasure them and keep them bright as their grandmothers did; not _whitewash_ them, as actually has been done more than once by way of "lightening" the room. And who shall say, after that, that the Goths have ever been successfully driven back? I dwell on the walls of the bed-room because I believe them to be the most important from a sanitary as well as from a decorative point of view, and because there is really no excuse for not being able to make them extremely pretty. You may tint them in distemper of some delicate colour, with harmoniously contrasting lines at the ceiling, and so be able to afford to have them fresh and clean as often as you choose, or you may paint them in oils and have them washed constantly. But there is a general feeling against this cold treatment of a room which, above all others, should, in our capricious climate, be essentially warm and comfortable. The tinted walls are pretty when the curtains to go with them are made of patternless cretonne of precisely the same shade, manufactured on purpose, with exactly the same lines of colour for bordering. I am not sure, however, that the walls I individually prefer for a bed-room are not papered. There are papers made expressly, which do not attract dirt, and which can be found of lovely design. A bed-room paper ought never to have a distinct, spotted pattern on it, lest, if you are ill, it should incite you to count the designs or should "make faces at you." Rather let it be all of one soft tint, a pearly gray, a tender sea-shell pink, or a green which has no arsenic in it; but on this point great care is requisite. You should also make it your business to see, with your own eyes, that your new paper, whatever its pattern or price, is not hung _over_ the old one, and that the walls have been thoroughly stripped, and washed, and dried again before it is put on. Bed-room walls, covered with chintz, stretched tightly in panels, are exceedingly clean and pretty, but they must be arranged so as to allow of being easily taken down and cleaned. The prettiest walls I ever saw thus covered, were made of chintz, with a creamy background and tendrils of ivy of half a dozen shades of green and brown artfully blended, streaming down in graceful garlands and sprays towards a dado about four feet from the ground. It was a lofty room, and the curtains, screens, &c., were made to match, of chintz, with sprays of ivy, and a similar border. I know other bed-room walls where fluted white muslin is stretched over pink or blue silk (prettiest of all over an apple-green _batiste_). I dislike tapestry extremely for bed-room walls; the designs are generally of a grim and ghostly nature, and even if they represent simpering shepherds and shepherdesses, they are equally tiresome. There is a Japanese paper, sometimes used for curtains, which really looks more suitable and pretty when serving as wall-hangings in the bed-rooms of a country house. I know a whole wing of "bachelors' quarters" papered by fluted Japanese curtains, and they are exceedingly pretty. The curtains of these rooms are of workhouse sheeting lined and bordered with Turkey red, and leave nothing to be desired for quaint simplicity and brightness. I must ease my mind by declaring here that I have a strong prejudice against Japanese paper except when used in this way for wall-decoration. The curtains made of it are not only a sham, pretending to be something which they are not--a heinous crime in my eyes--but they are generally of very ugly patterns, and hang in stiff, ungraceful folds, crackling and rustling with every breath of air, besides being exceedingly inflammable. Of course the first rule in bed-room decoration, as in all other, is that it should be suitable to the style of the house, and even to the situation in which the house finds itself. The great point in the wall-decoration of a town bed-room is that you should be able to replace it easily when it gets dirty, as it is sure to do very soon if your windows are kept sufficiently open. I _have_ known people who kept the windows of both bed and sitting-rooms always shut for fear of soiling the walls. I prefer walls, under such conditions, which can be cheaply made clean again perpetually. There are wall-papers by the score, artistically simple enough to please a correct taste, and sufficiently cheap not to perceptibly shrink the shallowest purse. But in the country it is every one's own fault if they have not a lovely bed-room. If it be low, then let the paper be suitable--something which will not dwarf the room. I know a rural bed-room with a paper representing a trellis and Noisette roses climbing over it; the carpet is shades of green without any pattern, and has only a narrow border of Noisette roses; the bouquets, powdered on the chintzes, match, and outside the window a spreading bush of the same dear old-fashioned rose blooms three parts of the year. That is a bower indeed, as well as a bed-room. Noisette roses and rosebuds half smothered in leaves have been painted by the skilful fingers of the owner of this room on the door-handles and the tiles of the fireplace as well as embroidered on the white quilt and the green cover of the writing-table. But then I acknowledge it is an exceptionally pretty room to begin with, for the dressing-table stands in a deep bay window, to which you ascend by a couple of steps. Belinda herself could not have desired a fairer shrine whereat to worship her own beauty. The memory of other walls rises up before me; even of one with plain white satiny paper bordered by shaded pink ribbon, not merely the stiff paper-hanger's design, but cut out and fixed in its place by a pair of clever hands. This border of course looked different to anything else of the kind I had ever seen; but according to strict rules of modern taste it was not "correct." Yet a great deal depends on the way a thing is done. I see the Misses Garrett frowning as I go on to say that here and there a deep shadow was painted under it, and its bows and ends drooped down at the corners of the room, whilst over the fireplace they made the bright, circling border for a chalk drawing of a rosy child's head. But it _was_ a pretty room, notwithstanding its original faulty design, and I describe it more as an illustration of the supremacy of a real genius for decoration over any hard and fast rule than as an example to be copied. Rules are made for people who cannot design for themselves, and original designs may be above rules, though they should never be above taste. I might go on for ever describing bed-room walls instead of only insisting on their possessing the cardinal virtues of cleanliness and appropriateness. Whether of satin or silk, of muslin or chintz, or of cheapest paper, nothing can be really pretty and tasteful in wall-decoration which is not scrupulously clean, without being cold and glaring, and it should be in harmony with even the view from the windows. Every room should possess an air of individuality--some distinctive features in decoration which would afford a clue to the designer's and owner's special tastes and fancies. How easy it is to people old rooms with the imaged likeness of those who have dwelt in them, and how difficult it would be to do as much for a modern bower! If I had my own way, I would accustom boys as well as girls to take a pride in making and keeping their bed-rooms as pretty and original as possible. Boys might be encouraged to so arrange their collections of eggs, butterflies, beetles, and miscellaneous rubbish, as to combine some sort of decorative principle with this sort of portable property. And I would always take care that a boy's room was so furnished and fitted that he might feel free, there at least, from the trammels of good furniture. He should have bare boards with only a rug to stand on at the bed-side and fireplace, but he should be encouraged to make with his own hands picture-frames, bookcases, brackets, anything he liked, to adorn his room, and this room should be kept sacred to his sole use wherever and whenever it was possible to do so. Girls might also be helped to make and collect tasteful little odds and ends of ornamental work for their own rooms, and shown the difference between what is and is not artistically and intrinsically valuable, either for form or colour. It is also an excellent rule to establish that girls should keep their rooms neat and clean, dust their little treasures themselves, and tidy up their rooms before leaving them of a morning, so that the servant need only do the rougher work. Such habits are valuable in any condition of life. An eye so trained that disorder or dirt is hideous to it, and a pair of hands capable of making such conditions an impossibility in their immediate neighbourhood, need be no unworthy addition to the dowry of a princess. CHAPTER II. CARPETS AND DRAPERIES. In the very old-fashioned, stately rooms of Queen Anne's reign the carpeting was doled out in small proportions, and a somewhat comfortless air must have prevailed where an expanse of floor was covered here and there by what we should now characterise as a shabby bit of carpeting. In fact a suitable floor-covering or appropriate draperies for these old rooms is rather a difficult point. Modern tastes demand comfort and brightness, and yet there is always the dread of too glaring contrasts, and an inharmonious groundwork. Quite lately I saw a fine old-time wainscotted room, whose walls and floor had taken a rich dark gloss from age, brightened immensely and harmoniously by four or five of those large Indian cotton rugs in dark blue and white, to be bought now-a-days cheaply enough in Regent Street. The china in this room was of Delft ware, also blue and white, and it had _short_ full curtains of a bright French stuff, wherein blue lines alternated with a rich red, hanging in the deep windows, whilst colour was given in a dusky corner by a silken screen of embroidered peonies. A Turkish carpet is of course inadmissible in a bed-room, and the modern Persian rugs are too gaudy to harmonise well with the sober tone of a wainscotted bed-room, but it is quite possible to find delicious rugs and strips of carpeting in greenish blue copied from Eastern designs. The difficulty is perhaps most simply met by a carpet of a very dark red, with the smallest possible wave or suggestion of black in it, either in strips or in a square, stopping short within two feet or so of the walls. I know a suite of old-fashioned bed-rooms where the floor is covered with quite an ecclesiastical-looking carpet, and it looks very suitable, warm and bright, and thoroughly in keeping. In a house of moderate size there is nothing I like so much as the whole of a bed-room floor being carpeted in the same way--landings, passages, dressing-rooms, and all--and on the whole, taking our dingy climate into consideration, a well-toned red carpet or nondescript blue will generally be found the most suitable. [Illustration] Strange to say, next to red carpets white ones wear the best, but they make such a false and glaring effect, that they cannot be considered appropriate even for a pretty bowery bed-room, half dressing-room, half boudoir. With ordinarily fair wear white carpets only take a creamy tint as they get older, and then their bouquets and borders, have a chance of fading into better harmony. But most of the designs of these carpets are so radically wrong, so utterly objectionable from the beginning, that the best which can be hoped from time is that it will obliterate them altogether. It is true we flatter ourselves that we have grown beyond the days of enormous boughs and branches of exaggerated leaves and blossoms daubed on a crude ground, but _have_ we escaped from the dominion of patterns, more minute it is true, but quite as much outside the pale of good taste? What is to be said in defence of a design which, when its colours are fresh, is so shaded as to represent some billowy and uneven surface, fastened at intervals by yellow nails? or spots of white flowers or stars on a grass-green ground? The only carpet of that sort of white and green which I ever liked had tiny sprays of white heather on a soft green ground, in the miniature drawing-room of a Scotch shooting-box. _There_, it was so appropriate, so thoroughly in keeping with even the view out of the windows, with the heathery chintz, the roe-deer's heads on the panels of the wall, that it looked better on the floor than anything else could possibly have done. Morris has Kidderminster carpets for bed-rooms, in pale pink, buff, and blue, &c., which are simply perfect in harmony of colour and design. People who consider themselves good managers are very apt to turn the half worn-out drawing-room carpet into one of the bed-rooms, but this is not a good plan, for it seldom matches the draperies, and is also apt to become frowsy and fusty. I am not so extravagant as to recommend that a good carpet with plenty of possibilities of wear yet in it should be thrown away because it is not suitable for a bed-room. There are many ways and means of disposing of such things, and even the threadbare remains of an originally good and costly carpet can find a market of its own. What I should like to see, especially in all London bed-rooms, is a fresh, inexpensive carpet of unobtrusive colours, which can be constantly taken away and cleaned or renewed, rather than a more costly, rich-looking floor-covering, which will surely in time become and remain more or less dirty. But light carpets are seldom soft in tone, and I should be inclined to suggest felt as a groundwork, if the bare boards are inadmissible, with large rugs thrown down before the fireplace, dressing and writing-tables, &c. These should of course contrast harmoniously with the walls. If you have a room of which the style is a little too sombre, then lighten it and brighten it by all the means in your power. If it be inclined to be garish and glaring, then subdue it. People cannot always create, as it were, the place in which they are obliged to live. One may find oneself placed in a habitation perfectly contrary to every principle of correct taste as well as opposed to one's individual preferences. But that is such an opportunity! out of unpromising materials and surroundings you have to make a room, whether bed-room or boudoir, which will take the impression of your own state. As long as a woman possesses a pair of hands and her work-basket, a little hammer and a few tin-tacks, it is hard if she need live in a room which is actually ugly. I don't suppose any human being except a gipsy has ever dwelt in so many widely-apart lands as I have. Some of these homes have been in the infancy of civilisation, and yet I have never found it necessary to endure, for more than the first few days of my sojourn, anything in the least ugly or uncomfortable. Especially pretty has my sleeping-room always been, though it has sometimes looked out over the snowy peaks of the Himalayas, at others, up a lovely New Zealand valley, or, in still earlier days, over a waving West Indian "grass-piece." But I may as well get out the map of the world at once, and try to remember the various places to which my wandering destiny has led me. All the moral I want to draw from this geographical digression is that I can assert from my own experience--which after all is the only true standpoint of assertion--that it is possible to have really pretty, as well as thoroughly comfortable dwelling-places even though they may lie thousands of miles away from the heart of civilisation, and hundreds of leagues distant from a shop or store of any kind. I mean this as an encouragement--not a boast. Chintz is what naturally suggests itself to the inquirer's mind as most suitable for the drapery of a bed-room, and there is a great deal to be said in its favour. First of all, its comparative cheapness and the immense variety of its designs. Cretonnes are comely too, if care be taken to avoid the very gaudy ones. If there is no objection on the score of difficulty of keeping clean, I am fond, in a modern bed-room, of curtains all of one colour, some soft, delicate tint of blue or rose, with a great deal of patternless white muslin either over it or beneath it as drapery to the window. This leaves you more free for bright, effective bits of colour for sofa, table-cover, &c., and the feeling of the window curtains can be carried out again in the screen. A bed-room, to be really comfortable, should always have one or even two screens, if it be large enough. They give a great air of comfort to a room, and are exceedingly convenient as well as pretty. The fashion of draped toilet-tables is passing away so rapidly that they cannot be depended upon for colour in a room, though we get the advantage in other ways. So we must fall back upon the old idea of embroidered quilts once more to help with colour and tone in our bed-rooms. They are made in a hundred different and almost equally pretty designs. Essentially modern quilts for summer can be made of lace or muslin over pink or blue batiste or silk to match the tints of the room; quilts of linen embroidered with deliciously artistic bunches of fruit or flowers at the edge and corners; quilts of eider-down covered with silk, for preference, or if our means will not permit so costly a material, then of _one_ colour, such as Turkey red, in twilled cotton. I have never liked those gay imitation Indian quilts. They generally "swear" at everything else in the room. But there are still more beautiful quilts of an older style and date. I have seen some made of coarse linen, with a pattern running in parallel strips four or six inches wide, formed by pulling out the threads to make the groundwork of an insertion. The same idea looks well also when carried out in squares or a diamond-shaped pattern. Then there are lovely quilts of muslin embroidered in delicate neutral tints, which look as if they came straight from Cairo or Bagdad, but which have never been out of England, and owe their lightness and beauty to the looms of Manchester. One of the prettiest and simplest bed-rooms I know had its walls covered with lining paper of the very tenderest tint of green, on which were hung some pretty pastel sketches, all in the same style. The chintzes, or rather cretonnes, were of a creamy white ground with bunches of lilacs powdered on them, and the carpet, of a soft green, had also a narrow border with bouquets of lilacs at each corner. The screens were of muslin over lilac batiste, and the quilt of the simple bedstead had been worked by the owner's own fingers, of linen drawn out in threads. The very tiles of the fireplace--for this pretty room had an open hearth with a sort of basket for a coal fire in the middle--and the china of the basin-stand as well as the door-handles and plates, were all decorated with the same flower, and although essentially a modern room in a modern house, it was exquisitely fresh and uncommon. This was partly owing to the liberal use of the leaves of the lilac, which are in form so exceedingly pretty. In an old-fashioned house if I wanted the draperies and quilt of my bed-room to be thoroughly harmonious I should certainly go to the Royal School of Art Needlework in the Exhibition Road for designs, as they possess extraordinary facilities for getting at specimens of the best early English and French needlework, and they can imitate even the materials to perfection. I saw some curtains the other day in a modern boudoir from this Royal School of Art Needlework. They were of a delicate greenish blue silk-rep, which hung in delicious round folds and had a bold and simple design of conventionalised lilies in a material like Tussore silk _appliqué_-d with a needlework edge. Of course they were intended for a purely modern room, but there were also some copies of draperies which went beautifully with Chippendale chairs and lovely old straight up and down cupboards and settees. There is rather a tendency in the present day to make both bed-rooms and boudoirs gloomy; a horrible vision of a room with walls the colour of a robin's egg (dots and all) and _black_ furniture, rises up before me, and the owner of this apartment could not be induced to brighten up her gloom by so much as a gay pincushion. Now our grandmothers understood much better, though probably no one ever said a word to them about it, how necessary it was to light up dark recesses by contrasts. You would generally have found an exquisite old blue and white Delft jar full of scented rose-leaves, a gay beau-pot full of poppies, or even a spinning-wheel with its creamy bundle of flax or wool bound by a scarlet ribbon, in the unregarded corner of a dingy passage, and I think we do not bear in mind enough how bright and gay the costumes of those days used to be. To a new house, furnished according to the present rage for old-fashioned decoration, our modern sombre apparel is no help. We do not lighten up our rooms a bit now by our dress, except perhaps in summer, but generally we sit, clad in dingiest tints of woollen material, or in very inartistic black silk, amid furniture which was originally designed as a sort of background to much gay and gallant clothing, to flowered sacques and powdered heads, to bright steel buttons and buckles and a thousand points of colour and light. Let us follow their old good example thoroughly, if we do it at all, and do our best to brighten the dull nooks and corners which will creep into all dwellings, by our attire, as well as in all other ways. CHAPTER III. BEDS AND BEDDING. When we discuss a bed-room, the bed ought certainly to be the first thing considered. Here at least, is a great improvement within even the last forty or fifty years. Where are now those awful four-posters, so often surmounted by huge wooden knobs or plumes of feathers, or which even offered hideously carved griffin's heads to superintend your slumbers? Gone, "quite gone," as children say. At first we ran as usual into the opposite extreme, and bestowed ourselves at night in frightful and vulgar frames of cast iron, ornamented with tawdry gilt or bronze scroll-work, but such things are seldom seen now, and even the cheap common iron or brass bedstead of the present day has at least the merit of simplicity. Its plain rails at foot and head are a vast improvement on the fantastic patterns of even twenty years ago, and the bedsteads of the present day will long continue in general use in modern houses. Their extreme cheapness and cleanliness are great points in their favour, and when they are made low, and have a spring frame with one rather thick mattress at the top, they are perfectly comfortable to sleep in besides being harmless to look at. [Illustration: FIG. 1.] But in many rooms where the style of both decoration and furniture has been carried back for a century and a half, and all the severe and artistic lines of the tastes of those days must needs be preserved, then indeed an ordinary iron or brass bedstead, of ever so unobtrusive a pattern would be ludicrously out of place. Still, if our minds revolt from anything like a return to the old nightmare-haunted huge Beds of Ware, we can find something to sleep on which will be in harmony with the rest of the surroundings, and yet combine the modern needs of air and light with the old-fashioned strictness of form and beauty of detail. Here is a drawing (Fig. 1) made from an old Dutch bedstead by Mr. Lathrop. The sides are of beautifully and conscientiously inlaid work, whilst the slight outward slope of both the head and foot-board insures the perfection of comfort. To avoid a too great austerity of form, the upper cap of the foot-board has been cut in curves, and the solidity of the legs modified ever so slightly. The bedding of this bedstead must by no means project beyond its sides, but must fit into the box-like cavity intended to receive it. In this bedstead (Fig. 2), which was made from a design by Mr. Sandier, more latitude is allowed in this respect, and its perfect simplicity can only be equalled by its beauty. [Illustration: FIG. 2.] The form of wooden bedstead (Fig. 3), which could easily be copied at all events in its general idea, by any village carpenter, would be exceedingly pretty and original for a young girl's bed-room. It is intended to be of oak with side rails which are to pass through carved posts, and be held by wooden pins, as are also the end rails. For durability as well as simplicity this design leaves nothing to be desired, and it can be made in almost any hard wood, whilst every year would only add to its intrinsic worth. How many of us mothers have taken special delight in preparing a room for our daughters when they return from school "for good"--when they leave off learning lessons out of books, and try, with varied success, to learn and apply those harder lessons, which have to be learned without either books or teachers. What sumptuous room in after years ever affords the deep delight of the sense of ownership which attends the first awakening of a girl in a room of her very own? and it is a vivid recollection of this pure delight of one's own bygone girl-days which prompts us to do our best to furbish up ever so homely a room for our eldest daughter. If a pretty, fresh carpet is unattainable, then let us have bare boards, with rugs, or skins, or whatever is available. Necessity developes ingenuity, and ingenuity goes a long way. I never learned the meaning of either word until I found myself very far removed from shops, and forced to invent or substitute the materials wherewith to carry out my own little decorative ideas. [Illustration: FIG. 3.] Some very lofty rooms seem to require a more furnished style of bed, and for these stately sleeping-places it may be well to have sweeping curtains of silk or satin gathered up quite or almost at the ceiling, and falling in ample straight folds on either side of a wide, low bedstead. They would naturally be kept out of the way by slender arms or brackets some six or eight feet from the floor, which would prevent the curtains from clinging too closely round the bed, and give the right lines to the draperies. But, speaking individually, it is never to such solemn sleeping-places as these, that my fancy reverts when, weary and travel-stained, and in view of some homely wayside room, one thinks by way of contrast, of other and prettier bed-rooms. No, it is rather to simple, lovely little nests of chintz and muslin, with roses inside and outside the wall, with low chairs and writing-table, sofa and toilet all in the same room--a bed-room and bower in one. Edgar Allan Poe declares that to "slumber aright You must sleep in just such a bed." But he only says it of the last bed of all. Without going so far as that, I can declare that I have slumbered "aright" in extraordinary beds, in extraordinary places, on tables, and under them (that was to be out of the way of being walked upon), on mats, on trunks, on all sorts of wonderful contrivances. I slept once very soundly on a piece of sacking stretched between two bullock trunks, though my last waking thought was an uneasy misgiving as to the durability of the frail-looking iron pins at each end of this yard of canvas, which fitted into corresponding eyelet holes in the trunks. I know the uneasiness of mattresses stuffed with chopped grass, and the lumpiness of those filled by amateur hands with wool--_au naturel_. Odours also are familiar unto me, the most objectionable being, perhaps, that arising from a feather bed in a Scotch inn, and from a seaweed mattress in an Irish hotel, in which I should imagine many curious specimens of marine zoology had been entombed by mistake. But there is one thing I want to say most emphatically, and that is that I have met with greater dirt and discomfort, worse furniture, more comfortless beds (I will say nothing of the vileness of the food!), and a more general air of primitive barbarism in inns and lodgings in out-of-the-way places in Great Britain and Ireland, than I have ever come across in any colony. I know half-a-dozen places visited by heaps of tourists every year, within half-a-dozen hours' journey of London, which are _far_ behind, in general comfort and convenience, most of the roadside inns either in New Zealand or Natal. It is very inexplicable why it should be so, but it is a fact. It is marvellous that there should often be such dirt and discomfort and general shabbiness and dinginess under circumstances which, compared with colonial difficulties, including want of money, would seem all that could be desired. However, to return to the subject in hand. We will take it for granted that a point of equal importance with the form of the bedstead is its comfort but this must always be left to the decision of its occupant. Some people prefer beds and pillows of an adamantine hardness, others of a luxurious softness. Either extreme is bad, in my opinion. As a rule, however, I should have the mattresses for children's use _rather_ hard--a firm horsehair on the top of a wool mattress, and children's pillows should _always_ be low. Some people heap bed-clothes over their sleeping children, but I am sure this is a bad plan. I would always take care that a child was quite warm enough, especially when it gets into bed of a winter's night, but after a good temperature has been established I would remove the extra wraps and accustom the child to sleep with light covering. A little flannel jacket for a young child who throws its arms outside the bed-clothes is a good plan, and saves them from many a cough or cold. In the case of a delicate, chilly child, I would even recommend a flannel bed-gown or dressing-gown to sleep in in the depth of winter, for it saves a weight of clothes over them. I never use a quilt at night for children; it keeps in the heat too much, but blankets of the best possible quality are a great advantage. The cheap ones are heavy and not nearly so warm, whereas a good, expensive blanket not only wears twice as long, but is much more light and wholesome as a covering. Nor would I permit soft pillows; of course there is a medium between a fluff of down and a stone, and it is just a medium pillow I should recommend for young children and growing girls and boys. The fondest and fussiest parents do not always understand that, on the most careful attention to some such simple rules depend the straightness of their children's spines, the strength of their young elastic limbs, their freedom from colds and coughs, and in fact their general health. Often the daylight hours are weighted by a heavy mass of rules and regulations, but few consider that half of a young child's life should be spent in its bed. So that unless the atmosphere of the room they sleep in, the quality of the bed they lie on, and the texture of the clothes which cover them, are taken into consideration, it is only half their existence which is being cared for. [Illustration: FIG 4.] All bedsteads are healthier for being as low as possible; thus insuring a better circulation of air above the sleeper's face, and doing away with the untidy possibility of keeping boxes or carpet-bags under the bedstead. There should be no valance to any bedstead. In the daytime an ample quilt thrown over the bedding will be quite drapery enough, and at night it is just as well to have a current of air beneath the frame of the bed. The new spring mattresses are very nearly perfect as regards the elasticity which is so necessary in a couch, and they can be suited to all tastes by having either soft or hard horsehair or finely picked wool mattresses on the top of them. Whenever it is possible, I would have children put to sleep in separate bedsteads, even if they like to have them close together as in Fig. 4. There are many varieties of elastic mattresses, though I prefer the more clumsy one of spiral springs inclosed in a sort of frame. For transport this is, however, very cumbrous, and in such a case it would be well to seek other and lighter kinds. It must be also remembered that these spring mattresses are only suitable for modern beds in modern rooms; the old carven beds of a "Queen Anne" bed-room must needs be made comfortable by hair and wool mattresses only. In many cases, however, where economy of space and weight has to be considered, I would recommend a new sort of elastic mattress which can easily be affixed to any bedstead. It resembles a coat of mail more than anything else and possesses the triple merit in these travelling days of being cool, clean, and portable. The frowsy old feather bed of one's infancy has so completely gone out of favour that it is hardly necessary to place one more stone on the cairn of abuse already raised over it by doctors' and nurses' hands. A couple of thick mattresses, one of horsehair and one of wool, will make as soft and comfortable a bed as anyone need wish for. [Illustration: FIG. 5.] Instead of curtains, which the modern form of bedstead renders incongruous and impossible, screens on either side of the bed are a much prettier and more healthy substitute. I like screens immensely; they insure privacy, they keep out the light if necessary, and are a great improvement to the look of any room. It is hardly necessary to say they should suit the style of its decoration. If you are arranging a lofty old-fashioned room, then let your screens be of old Dutch leather--of which beautiful fragments are to be found--with a groundwork which can only be described by paradoxes, for it is at once solid and light, sombre and gay. Any one who has seen those old stamped leather screens of a peculiar sea-green blue, with a raised dull gold arabesque design on them, will know what I mean. There are also beautiful old Indian or Japan lacquered screens, light, and with very little pattern on them; even imitation ones of Indian pattern paper are admissible to narrow purses, but anything real is always much more satisfactory. If again your bower is a modern Frenchified concern, then screen off its angles by _écrans_ of gay tapestry or embroidered folding leaves, or paper-covered screens of delicate tints with sprays of trailing blossom, and here and there a bright-winged bird or butterfly. Designs for all these varieties of screens can be obtained in great perfection at the Royal School of Art Needlework. But for a simple modern English bed-room, snug as a bird's nest, and bright and fresh as a summer morning I should choose screens of slender wooden rails with fluted curtains of muslin and lace cunningly hung thereon. Only it must be remembered that these entail constant change, and require to be always exquisitely fresh and clean. It often happens that another spare bed is wanted on an emergency, and it is a great point in designing couches for a nondescript room, a room which is some one person's peculiar private property, whether called a den or a study, a smoking-room or a boudoir, that the said couch should be able "a double debt to pay" on a pinch. I have lately seen two such resting-places which were both convenient and comfortable. The first was a long, low settee of cane, with a thin mattress over its seat, and a thicker one, doubled in two, forming a luxurious back against the wall by day. At night, this mattress could be laid flat out on the top of the other, which gave increased width as well as softness to the extempore bed. The other, of modern carved oak, had been copied from the pattern of an old settle. It was low and wide, with only one deep well-stuffed mattress, round which an Algerine striped blue and white cotton cloth had been wrapped. Of course this could be removed at night, and the bed made up in the usual way. It struck me, with its low, strong railing round three sides, as peculiarly suitable for a change of couch for a sick child, though it could hardly be used by a full-grown person as a bed. So now all has been said that need be on the point of a sleeping place. It is too essentially a matter of choice to allow of more than suggestion; and at least my readers will admit that I am only arbitrary on the points of fresh air and cleanliness. CHAPTER IV. WARDROBES AND CUPBOARDS. Sometimes a room has to play the part of both bed-room and boudoir, and then it is of importance what form the "_garde-robes_" shall assume. Fortunately there are few articles of furniture on which more lavish pains have been bestowed, and in which it is possible to find scope for a wider range of taste and choice. Recesses may be fitted up, if the room be a large one, and have deep depressions here and there in the masonry with doors to match the rest of the woodwork, panelled, grained, and painted exactly alike, and very commodious hanging cupboards may thus be formed. But however useful these may be to the lady's maid, they are scarcely æsthetic enough to be entitled to notice among descriptions of art furniture. Rather let us turn to this little wardrobe (Fig. 6), too narrow, perhaps, for aught but a single gown of the present day to hang in, yet exquisitely artistic and pleasant to look upon. Its corner columns are mounted with brass, and every detail of its construction is finished as though by the hand of a jeweller. The lower drawers are probably intended for lace or fur, or some other necessary of a fine lady's toilette. It is very evident from the accommodation provided in the distant days when such wardrobes were designed, that "little and good" used to be the advice given to our grandmothers with their pin-money, and that even in their wildest dreams they never beheld the countless array of skirts and polonaises and mantles and Heaven knows what beside, that furnish forth a modern belle's equipment. Yet these moderate-minded dames and damsels must have loved the garments they did possess very dearly, for the heroine of every poem or romance of the last century is represented as depending quite as much on her clothes in the battle of life as any knight on his suit of Milan mail. Clarissa Harlowe mingles tragic accounts of Lovelace's villanies with her grievances about mismatched ruffles and tuckers, and even the excellent Miss Byron has by no means a soul above court suits or French heels. Still these lovely ladies had not much space assigned to them wherein to bestow their finery when it was not on their backs, and we must expect to find all the wardrobe designs of former times of somewhat skimpy proportions. Here is an antique lock-up (Fig. 7) of French make (most of the best designs for furniture came from France in those days) of a very practical and good form to copy in a humbler material. This is made of a costly wood, probably rosewood, with beautifully engraved brass fittings all over it. The door of the upper half seems rather cumbrous, being only a flap which opens out all in one piece, but a modern and less expensive copy might be improved by dividing this large lid into a couple of doors to open in the middle in the usual way, without at all departing from the original lines. [Illustration: FIG. 6.] Fig. 8, again, is more of a bureau, and affords but scanty room for the ample stores of a lady's _lingerie_. It is, however, of a very good design in its way, its chief value being the workmanship of its fine brass ornaments. The handles of the drawers are peculiarly beautiful, and represent the necks and heads of swans issuing from a wreath of leaves. It would look particularly well in a bed-room in a large old-fashioned country house, where the rest of the furniture is perhaps rather cumbrous as well as convenient, and the glitter of the metal mounting would help to brighten a dingy corner. It cannot, however, be depended upon to hold much, and is chiefly valuable in a decorative sense, or as a stand for a toilette glass. [Illustration: FIG. 7.] In strong contrast to these two designs is Fig. 9 of modern Japanese manufacture. It is easy to see that the original idea must have been taken from a common portable chest of drawers, such as officers use. The slight alteration in its arrangement is owing to Japanese common sense and observation, for it would have required more strength of character than a cockney upholsterer possesses, to divide one of the parts so unequally as in this illustration. But the male heart will be sure to delight specially in that one deep drawer for shirts, and the shallow one at the top for collars, pockethandkerchiefs, neckties, and so forth. The lower drawers would hold a moderate supply of clothes, and the little closet contains three small drawers, besides a secret place for money and valuables. When the two boxes, for they are really little else, are placed side by side they measure only three feet one inch long, three feet four high, and one foot five deep. They hardly appear, from the prominence of the sliding handles, intended to be packed in outer wooden cases as portable chests of drawers usually are; but it must be remembered that in Japan they would be carried from place to place slung on poles carried on men's shoulders. There is a good deal of iron used in the construction, which must be intended to give strength, but it does not add to the weight in any excessive degree, for it is very thin. The wood is soft and light, and rather over-polished, but the Japanese artist would have delighted in varnishing it still more, and covering it with grotesque gilt designs in lacquer, if he had been allowed. On page 55 will be found a roomy Chinese cupboard with drawers and nicely-carved panels. [Illustration: FIG. 8.] Many of our most beautiful old Indian chests of drawers and cabinets have this black ground with quaintest bronze or brazen clamps and hinges, locks and handles, to give relief to the sombre groundwork. Except that the drawers seldom open well, and are nearly always inconveniently small, they are the most beautiful things in the world for keeping clothes in, but it would certainly be as well to have, out of the room in a passage, some more commodious and commonplace receptacles. I have seen a corridor leading to bed-rooms, lined on each side with wardrobes, about six or seven feet high, consisting merely of a plain deal top with divisions at intervals of some five feet from top to bottom. A series of hanging cupboards was thus formed, which had been lined with stretched brown holland, furnished with innumerable pegs, and closed in by doors of a neat framework of varnished deal with panels of fluted chintz. Besides these doors to each compartment, an ample curtain hung within, of brown holland, suspended by rings on a slender iron rod; and this curtain effectually kept out all dust and dirt, and preserved intact the delicate fabrics within. Such an arrangement must have been, I fear, far more satisfactory to the soul of the lady's maid than the most beautiful old Indian or French chest of drawers. [Illustration: FIG. 9.] For rooms which are not old-fashioned in style, and in which it is yet not possible to indulge in French _consoles_ or Indian cabinets as places to keep clothes in, then I would recommend the essentially modern simple style of wardrobe and chest of drawers. I would eschew "gothic," or "mediæval," or any other style, and I would avoid painted lines as I would the plague. But there are perfectly simple, inoffensive wardrobes to be procured of varnished pine or even deal (and the former wears the best) which, if it can only be kept free from scratches, is at least in good taste and harmony in a modern, commonplace bed-room. It is quite possible, however by the exercise of a little ingenuity to dispense with modern, bought wardrobes, and to invent something which will hold clothes, and yet be out of the beaten track. I happened only the other day, to come across so good an example of what I mean,[1] that I feel it ought to be described. First of all, it must be understood that the bed-room in question was a small one, in a London house recently decorated and fitted up in the style which prevailed in Queen Anne's reign, and to which there is now such a decided return of the public taste. The other portions of the furniture were in accordance with the original intention of the room and consisted of a very beautiful, though simple, carved oaken bedstead, and a plain spindle-legged toilette table and washstand, also old in design. The chairs were especially fine, having been bought in a cottage in Suffolk, and yet they matched the bedstead perfectly. They had substantial rush-bottomed seats, but the frame was of fine dark oak, and the front feet spread out in a firm, satisfactory fashion giving an idea of solidity and strength. The fireplace was tiled after the old style, and the mantelpiece consisted of a couple of narrow oak shelves, about a dozen inches apart, connected by small pillars. These ledges afforded a stand for a few curious little odds and ends, and on the top shelf stood some specimens of old china. But the difficulty remained about the wardrobe, for the room was too small to admit old _bureaus_ which would only hold half a dozen articles of clothing. [Footnote 1: See Frontispiece.] [Illustration: FIG. 10.] So the ingenious owner devised a sort of corner cupboard to fit into an angle of the room, and to match the rest of the woodwork in colour and style, having old brass handles and plates like those on the doors. It is a sort of double cupboard; that is to say, whilst the left-hand side is a hanging wardrobe which only projects away from the wall sufficiently to allow the dresses to be hung up properly, the right-hand division is a chest of drawers. Not a row of commonplace drawers, however. No; the front surface is broken by the introduction of little square doors and other arrangements, for bonnets, &c. We must bear in mind these drawers extend much higher than usual, and the cornice being nearly on a level with that of the wardrobe, there can be no possibility of putting boxes and so forth on the top; but then, on the other hand, a goodly range of drawers of differing depth is provided. It certainly seemed to me an excellent way of meeting the difficulty; and I also noticed in other bed-rooms in the same house how odd nooks and uneven recesses were filled in by a judicious blending of cupboard and wardrobe which is evidently convenient in practice as well as exceedingly quaint yet correct in theory. CHAPTER V. FIRE AND WATER. Perhaps the part of any room which is most often taken out of, or put beyond the decorative hands of its owner, is the fireplace. And yet, though it is one of the most salient features in any English dwelling, it is, nine cases out of ten, the most repulsively ugly. When one thinks either of the imitation marble mantelpiece, or its cotton velvet and of false-lace-bedizened shelves, the artistic soul cannot refrain from a shudder. The best which can be hoped from an ordinary modern builder is that he will put in harmless grates and mantelpieces, and abstain from showy designs. The fireplace in either bed-room or boudoir should not be too large, nor yet small enough to give an air of stinginess, out of proportion to everything else. Here are two (Figs. 11 and 14). The design of each is as simple as possible, of plainest lines, but with no pretence of elaborate sham splendour. Fig. 11 is of course only suitable for a small unassuming room, but if the tiles were old Dutch ones and the rest of the bed-room ware quaint blue and white Delft, an effect of individuality and suitability would be at once attained. Such a fireplace would look best in a room with wall-paper of warm neutral tints of rather an old-fashioned design, and I should like a nice straight brass fender in front of it almost as flat as a kitchen fender with delightful possibilities of sociable toe-toasting about it. Such a one I came across lately that had been "picked up" in the far east of London. It was about eighteen inches high, of a most beautiful simple, flat, form with a handsome twist or scroll dividing the design into two parts. Although blackened to disguise by age and neglect at the time of its purchase, it shone when I saw it, with that peculiar brilliant and yet softened sheen which you never get except in real old brass; a hue seldom if ever attained in modern brazen work however beautiful the design may be. This fender stood firmly--a great and especial merit in fenders--on two large, somewhat projecting, feet, and its cheerful reflections gave an air of brightness to the room at once. [Illustration: FIG. 11.] There must always be plenty of room for the fire, and the actual grate should of course be so set as to throw all the warmth into the room. Then, though it is rather a digression,--only I want to finish off the picture which rises up before me,--I would have a couple of chairs something like this (Fig. 12), and just such a table for a book or one's hair-brushes a little in front of these two chairs. And then what a gossip must needs ensue! Of course I would have a trivet on the fire, or before it. No bed-room can look really comfortable without a trivet and a kettle; a brass kettle for preference, as squat and fat and shining as it is possible to procure. There are charming kettles to be found, copied from Dutch designs. [Illustration: FIG. 12.] Instead of the ordinary wide low mantelpiece one sees in bed-rooms, I am very fond of two narrower shelves over such a fireplace as this. They are perhaps best plain oak, divided and supported by little turned pillars, and if the top shelf has a ledge half-way a few nice plates look especially well. But there are such pretty designs for mantelpieces now to be procured, that it would be a waste of time to describe any particular style, and most fireplaces are made on scientific principles of ventilation. Nor is it, I hope, necessary to reiterate the injunction about every part of the decoration and detail of a room, whether fixture or moveable, matching or suiting all the rest. In some instances contrast is the most harmonious arrangement one can arrive at, but this should not be a matter lightly taken in hand. A strong feeling is growing up in favour of the old-fashioned open fireplaces lined with tiles, and adapted to modern habits by a sort of iron basket on low feet in the centre, for coals. Excellent fires are made in this way, and I know many instances where the prettiest possible effect has been attained. In a country where wood is cheap and plentiful, the basket for coals may be done away with and the fuel kept in its place by sturdy "dogs," for which many charming hints have been handed down to us by our grandfathers. Over the modern fireplace, even in a bed-room, a mirror is generally placed, but I would not advise it unless the room chanced to be so dingy that every speck of light must be procured by any means. Still less would I have recourse to the usual stereotyped gilt-framed bit of looking glass. In such a private den as we are talking about, all sorts of little eccentricities might be permitted to the decorator. I have seen a looking-glass with a flat, narrow frame, beyond which projected a sort of outer frame also flat, wherein were mounted a series of pretty little water-colour sketches, and another done in the same way with photographs--only these were much more difficult to manage artistically, and needed to be mounted with a background of greyish paper. For a thoroughly modern room, small oval mirrors are pretty, mounted on a wide margin of velvet with sundry diminutive brackets and knobs and hooks for the safe bestowal of pet little odds and ends of china and glass, with here and there a quaint old miniature or brooch among them. In old, _real_ old rooms anything of this sort would, however, be an impossibility, for the mantelshelf would probably be carried up far over the owner's head who might think herself lucky if she could ever reach, by standing on tip-toe, a candlestick off its narrow ledge. Our grandmothers seemed to make it their practice to hang their less choice portraits in the space above the mantelpiece, and to this spot seem generally to have been relegated the likenesses of disagreeable or disreputable, or, to say the least, uninteresting members of the family; the successful belles and heroes occupying a more prominent place downstairs. Fig. 14 shows a pretty arrangement of picture, mirror and shelves for china. [Illustration: FIG. 13.] Before the subject of fire is laid aside, we must just touch upon candles and lamps. Fig. 13 is a simple and ordinary form of candlestick, which would be safe enough from risk of fire if these sheltering shades were made, as they often are, of tin, painted green, and then there would be no danger if it stood on a steady table, by the side of even the sleepiest student. But perhaps this design (Fig. 15) is the most uncommon, though it would not be safe to put so unprotected a light except in a perfectly safe draughtless place. However, there is also in this branch of decorative art a great variety of beautiful models to choose from. Antique lamps, copied from those exquisite shapes which seem to have been preserved for us in lava and ashes during all these centuries, with their scissors and pin and extinguisher, dangling from slender chains, lamps where modern invention for oil and wick meet and blend with chaste forms and lines borrowed from the old designers, and where the good of the eyesight is as much considered as the pleasure to the eye itself. [Illustration: FIG. 14.] Of washing arrangements, it is not possible to speak in any arbitrary fashion. Here is a modern French washing-stand (Fig. 16) made, however, to close up, which is always an objectionable thing, in my opinion, though it may often be a convenient one. Let your basin invariably be as large as possible and your jug of a convenient form, to hold and pour from. Every basin-stand should be provided with a smaller basin and jug, and allow at the same time, plenty of space and accommodation for sponges and soap. If, from dearth of attendance, it is necessary to have a receptacle in the room, into which the basin may be emptied occasionally during the day, I would entreat that it should be also of china, for the tin ones soon acquire an unpleasant smell even from soapsuds. But I detest such contrivances, and they are absolutely inadmissible on any other score except economy of service. All bathing arrangements would be better in a separate room, but if this should be impossible, then they should be behind a screen. But indeed I prefer, wherever it is feasible, to contrive a small closet for all the washing apparatus, and to keep basin-stand, towel-horse, and bath in it. [Illustration: FIG. 15.] It is sometimes difficult to hit exactly upon a plan for a washing-stand for a very small room or corner, and a copy of this Chinese stand (Fig. 17) for a basin and washing appliances, would look very quaint and appropriate in such a situation. Only real, coarse, old Indian, or Japanese china, would go well with it, however, or it might be fitted with one of those wooden lacquered bowls from Siam, and a water-jar from South America of fine red clay, and of a most artistic and delightful form. There are hundreds of such jars to be bought at Madeira for a shilling or two, and they keep water deliciously cool and fresh. If a demand arose for them they would probably be imported in large quantities. All washing-stands are the better for a piece of Indian matting hung at the back, for much necessary flirting and flipping of water goes on at such places, which stains and discolours the wall; but then this matting must constantly be renewed, for nothing can be more forlorn to the eye or unpleasing to the sense of smell, than damp straw is capable of becoming in course of time. [Illustration: FIG. 16.] For the corner of a boy's bed-room, or for the washing apparatus of that very convenient little cupboard or closet or corner which I always struggle to institute _down_-stairs, close to where the gentlemen of the family hang their hats and coats, this (Fig. 18) is a very good design. It is simple in form and steady in build, and a long towel over a roller just behind it will be found useful. The towel need not be so coarse as the kitchen "round" one, from which it is copied; and above all things do not have it _hard_. It is a needless addition to the unavoidable miseries of life to be obliged to dry your hands in a hurry on a new huckaback towel. [Illustration: FIG. 17.] Many charming basin-stands have I seen extemporised out of even a shelf in a corner; but such contrivances are perhaps too much of make-shifts to entitle them to mention here, only one hint would I give. Take care that your washing-stand is sufficiently low to enable you to use it with comfort. I once knew a very splendid and elaborate basin-stand, extending over the whole side of a dressing-room, which could only be approached by mounting three long low steps. I always felt thankful when my ablutions had ended and left my neck still unbroken. [Illustration: FIG. 18.] CHAPTER VI. THE TOILET. There is no prettier object in either bed-room or boudoir than the spot where "the toilet stands displayed." Whether it be a shrine _à la Duchesse_ (Fig. 19) or the simplest form of support for a mirror, it will probably be the most interesting spot in the room to its fair owner. Consequently there is nothing upon which the old love of decoration has more expended itself even from its earliest days, or which modern upholstery makes more its special study than this truly feminine shrine. I will say nothing of mirrors with three sides which represent you as a female "Cerberus, three ladies in one," or indeed of mirrors of any sort or kind, as our business lies at this moment more with the tables on which they should stand. These can be found or invented of every imaginable form, and contain every conceivable convenience for receiving and hiding away the weapons which beauty (or rather would-be-beauty, which is not at all the same thing) requires. [Illustration: FIG. 19.] Here (Fig. 20) is a sort of old-fashioned _tiroir_ of an exquisite simplicity, and with but little space outside for the "paraphernalia" of odds and ends which the law generously recognises as the sole and individual property of even a married woman. Such articles would need to be stowed away in one of its many drawers. Instead of the frivolous drapery which would naturally cover a deal toilet-table, the only fitting drapery for this beautiful old piece of furniture (of French design evidently) would be an embroidered and fringed strip of fine linen which should hang low down on either side. In a darksome room, imagine how the subdued brightness of its metal mountings would afford coigns of vantage to every stray sunbeam or flickering ray from taper or fire! And in its deep, commodious drawers too, might be neatly stowed away every detail of toilet necessaries. On it should stand a mirror which must imperatively be required to harmonise, set in a plain but agreeable frame without anything to mar the severe simplicity of the whole. There are several pieces of old furniture, however, which are better adapted to be used as toilet-tables than the subject of the illustration. Such a piece of furniture is more suitable when it is divided, as is often the case, into three compartments, the centre one being considerably further back than the side-pieces. In this way a place is secured for the knees, when seated at it, and this central cupboard, when filled with shelves, makes an excellent receptacle for brushes and combs, and so forth. [Illustration: FIG. 20.] The defect of these old _tiroirs_ is that they are rather small and low, and consequently look best in a small room, but they offer great variety of decorative embellishment (Fig. 21), and are very satisfactory, as stands for a small oval toilet-glass in an old frame to match. The designs too of the brass mountings for door and drawer are nearly always exceedingly beautiful, and vary from the simplest shining ring to a small miracle of artistic brazen work. These shining handles take away a good deal from the severity of decorative treatment which would naturally exist in the rest of the room, and it is under such conditions, where form takes precedence of colour, that we learn the full value of these little traps to attract and keep a warm glitter of light. Here is a simpler design for a toilet-table (Fig. 22) which would look very well standing between the windows of a lofty room. If it was found that a good light for the looking-glass had been sacrificed to the general harmony of the room, then a smaller glass might be placed _in_ a window, just for occasional use. [Illustration: FIG. 21.] Some of the old-fashioned "toilet-equipages" are very beautiful just as they have come down to us. They are occasionally made in silver, and comprise many articles which cannot by any possibility be brought within the faith or practice of a modern belle. Still they offer charming forms for imitation, especially in the frames of the old hand-mirrors, whose elaborate simplicity (if one may use such a paradox) puts to shame the more ornate taste of their modern substitutes. Next to silver or tortoise-shell, I like ivory, as the material for a really beautiful and artistic set of toilet appendages, its delicious creamy tint going especially well with all shades of blue in a room. But I prefer the surface of the ivory kept plain and not grotesquely carved as you get it in China or Japan, for dust and dirt always take possession of the interstices, and lead to the things being consigned to a drawer. Now I cannot endure to possess any thing of any kind which had better be kept out of sight wrapped carefully away under lock and key. My idea of enjoying ownership is for my possession to be of such a nature that I can see it or use it every day--and all day long if I choose--so I shall not be found recommending anything which is "too bright and good for human nature's daily food." I have seen toilet-tables under difficulties, that is on board of real sea-going yachts, where it has been necessary to sink a little well into which each brush, box or tray securely fitted; and I have seen toilet-tables in Kafir-Land covered with common sixpenny cups and saucers, and shown as presenting a happy combination of use and ornament, strictly in conformity with "Engleez fasson." [Illustration: FIG. 22.] But perhaps our business does not lie so much with these as with the ordinary dressing-table which is now more used in the modern shape of a convenient table with a scoop out of the middle, beneath which the knees can fit when you are seated at it, and with a couple of drawers on each side. This too is covered by a white _serviette_ of some sort, and supports a large toilet-glass of equally uncompromising utility and convenience. But however readily these good qualities may be conceded to the modern toilet-table it is but an uninteresting feature in an ideal bower. If the room be an essentially modern one, and especially if it be in the country, nothing affords a prettier spot of colour in it, than the old-fashioned toilet-table of deal covered with muslin draperies over soft-hued muslin or batiste. Of course the caricature of such an arrangement may be seen any day in the fearful and detestable toilet-table with a skimpy and coarse muslin flounce over a tight-fitting skirt of glaring pink calico, but this is a parody on the ample, convenient stand for toilet necessaries, the draperies of which should be in harmony with the other colours of the room. It would need however to possess many changes of raiment, in order that it may always be kept up to the mark of spotless freshness. These draperies are prettier of plain soft white muslin without spot or figure of any kind, and may consist of two or three layers, draped with all the artistic skill the constructor thereof possesses. It is also an improvement, if instead of only a hideous crackle of calico beneath, there be a full flounce or petticoat of batiste which would give colour and graceful folds together. This is a very humble arrangement I know, but it can be made as effective as if it cost pounds instead of pence. And this is one of the strong points in all hints on decoration, that they should be of so elastic a nature as to be capable of expansion under favourable circumstances, though not beyond the reach of extremely slender resources. I do not recommend draped mirrors for modern toilet-tables on account of the danger from fire, and I like the style and frame of the looking-glass on the table to harmonise thoroughly with the rest of the furniture. CHAPTER VII. ODDS AND ENDS OF DECORATION. It seems a pity that sofas and chairs made of straw or bamboo should not be more used than they are. I mean, used as they come from the maker's hands, _not_ painted or gilded, and becushioned and bedizened into hopeless vulgarity. They are only admissible _au naturel_, and should stand upon their own merits. Those we have as yet attempted to make in England are exceedingly weak and ugly compared with the same sort of thing from other countries. In Madeira, for instance, the chairs, baskets, and even tables, are very superior in strength and durability, as well as in correctness of outline, to those made in England; and when we go further off, to the East, we find a still greater improvement in furniture made of bamboo. Here is a chair (Fig. 23), of a pattern familiar to all travellers on the P. and O. boats, and whose acquaintance I first made in Ceylon. It is essentially a gentleman's chair, however, and as such is sinking into an honoured and happy old age in the dingy recesses of a London smoking-room. Without the side-wings, which serve equally for a table or leg-rest, and with the seat elongated and slightly depressed, such a chair makes a delicious, cool lounge for a lady's use in a verandah. [Illustration: FIG. 23.] Then here (Fig. 24) is a Chinese sofa made of bamboo which, in its own country, would probably not be encumbered with cushions, for they can be removed at pleasure. Where, however, there is no particular inducement to use cane or bamboo, then it would be better to have made by the village carpenter a settee--or settle, which is the real word--something like this. The form is, at all events correct; and in a private sitting-room, furnished and fitted to match, the effect would be a thousand times better than the modern couches, which are so often padded and stuffed into deformity. [Illustration: FIG. 24.] Nothing can be simpler than the lines of the design, as is seen in this drawing (Fig 25B), without the cushions; and it would come within the scope of the most modest upholstering genius. In one's own little den--which, by the way, I should _never_ myself dignify by the name of boudoir, a word signifying a place to idle and sulk in, instead of a retreat in which to be busy and comfortable--such odds and ends of furniture, so long as there be one distinct feeling running through it all, are far more characteristic than commonplace sofas and chairs. If one _must_ have large armchairs in a boudoir, or in a bed-room, here is one (Fig. 26) which is big enough in all conscience, and yet would go more harmoniously with an old-fashioned room than any fat and dumpy modern chair. If, on the other hand, the house in general, and this particular room, chances to be essentially in the style of the present day, then you would naturally choose some of the comfortable modern easy-chairs, taking care to avoid the shapes which are a mass of padded and cushioned excrescences. But modern armchairs can be very pretty, and I know several which are low and long, and straight and unassuming, and which yet preserve quite a good distinct outline. Such chairs as these are a sort of half-way house between bed and board, between absolute rest and uncomplaining unrest; famous places for thinking, for watching, for chatting, and, above all, for dozing. [Illustration: FIG. 25A.] [Illustration: FIG. 25B.] The bed-rooms I am thinking of and writing about have, we must bear in mind, a certain element of the bower or boudoir or private sitting-room in them, and so I must stand excused for a suggestion about a place for books or music. Here is a delightful corner for a piano (Fig. 27), but sometimes such a thing is out of the question, and it is only possible to find space for a few shelves. These can always be made suitable and pretty either of a simple old form in plainest oak to match the severe lines of an old-fashioned room, or of deal painted black, varnished, with a gilt line grooved in front, and a bit of bright leather to go with a more modern room. To my mind books are always the best ornaments in any room, and I never feel at home in any place until my beloved and often shabby old friends are unpacked and ranged in their recess. I once extemporised a capital book case out of a blocked-up window, and with, a tiny scrap of looking-glass let in where the arch of the window began its spring, and filled by some old bowls of coarse but capital old china, whose gaudy colours could only be looked at safely from a distance. [Illustration: FIG. 26.] As time goes on, one is sure, in such a beloved little den, to accumulate a great deal of rubbish dear, perhaps, only to the owner for the sake of association. Which of us has not, at some tender time of our lives, regarded a withered flower, or valueless pebble, as our great earthly treasure? So, in later days, a plate, a cup, a pipe will be precious, perhaps, to one as mementoes of the place and companions where and with whom it was bought. But if such trifles, though too dear to be laid aside, are yet not intrinsically good enough to form part of a collection, and to take a prominent share in decoration, then I would either stand them aside on a little _étagère_ like that to be found on page 79, or else get the carpenter to put up graduated shelves, which may be quite pure and simple in taste and yet suit the rest of the room. This (Fig. 28) is a capital valuable hint to keep photographs or prints at hand, and yet in safety. Take my advice, and don't have fringe or mock lace, or gilt nails at the edges by way of decoration. Have a nice piece of wood, walnut, oak, even varnished pine, if you choose, neatly finished off at the edge, or, if it suits the rest of the room, black, with a little narrow gilt line in a depression. I think something ingenious might be done with Japanese tea-trays, taking care to choose good designs. [Illustration: FIG. 27.] The worst of such a dear delightful den as I am imagining, or rather describing, is the tendency of the most incongruous possessions to accumulate themselves in it as time goes on. What do you think of a pitcher like this (Fig. 29) standing in one corner, just because, though of common ware, and rather coarsely modelled, the colour of the earthen-ware is delicious in tone, and the design bold and free? It was brought from South America, and cost only six shillings, or thereabouts, but if it had cost as many pounds it could not have been more thoroughly in harmony with the surroundings of its new home. [Illustration: FIG. 28.] One hint may not be out of place here, and that is with respect to table-covers. Many people are fond of covering up writing-tables, and every occasional table, with a cloth; and these draped tables are generally great eyesores in an ill-arranged room. The covers seldom harmonise, and now-a-days many hideous pieces of work are accomplished in the name of the School of Art which are far removed from the artistic and beautiful designs which alone proceed from the School itself. There indeed you may find patterns which would go beautifully with any old-time furniture, and which might be worked on deliciously neutral tints of cloth or serge. But beware of staring, gaudy table-covers, of shabby material, of which the best that can be hoped is that they may speedily fade into better harmony. The Queen Anne tables were never intended by their designer to be covered up by drapery. They are generally inlaid in delicate designs, which it would be a sin to conceal; nor could we afford to lose the slender grace of the legs. The clumsy, ill-finished cheap table of the present day is all the better for a cover, and wonders may be done in improving a bare, cold, unhappy-looking room, by a good table-cover here and there, or a nicely embroidered sofa-pillow of cloth or satin, or, better still, one of those lovely new low screens, with the tall tufts of grass or lilies which we owe to Walter Crane's skilful pencil. [Illustration: FIG. 29.] I confess I like a room to look as if it were inhabited, and that is the only drawback that the rooms furnished in the seventeenth century style have in my eyes. You scarcely ever feel as if any one lived in them--there are seldom any signs of occupation, especially feminine occupation, lying about, no "litter," in fact; litter being a powerful weapon in the hands of a person who knows how to make a room look comfortable. Then I am told that litter is incongruous in a Queen Anne room, for that the women of those days had not the same modes of employment as ourselves. The greatest ladies, if they were blessed with an energetic temperament, only gave it free scope with their medicine chest or in their still-room or linen closet; while the lazy ones were obliged to dawdle away a good deal of their time in bed or at their elaborate toilettes. But still I am always longing to overlay a little of the modish primness of the distant days we are now copying, with something of this busy nineteenth century's tokens of a love of art or literature. And in a room with any claim to a distinct individuality of its own, this would always be the case. CHAPTER VIII. THE SICK-ROOM. However skilfully designed the arrangements of a house may appear to be, however sumptuously decorated and furnished its rooms, it is impossible to know whether a great law of common sense and practical usefulness has guided such arrangements, until there has been an illness in the house. Then will it be discovered--too late alas!--whether doors and windows open conveniently, whether fireplaces give out proper warmth, how the apparatus for ventilation works, and whether the staircases, landings, cupboards, and a thousand unconsidered items of the architect's labours have been planned in the best possible way, or in the stupidest. For the comfort and convenience of the patient at such times, it is by no means necessary that much money should have been spent on the construction of the house that chances to shelter him in his hour of suffering, nor that its furnitures or decorations should be of a costly character. Fortunately such things need not aim at anything higher than cleanliness and convenience, and we only require to exert our own recollections in support of this assertion. As far as my individual experience goes, I have seen an old woman, who had been bed-ridden for years, more comfortably housed and tended beneath a cottage roof, and her room kept more exquisitely clean and sweet than that of many wealthy patients in splendid houses. Of course everything depends on the capacity for organisation and arrangement in the person who has charge of the invalid, but the nurse's task may be made much easier by having to perform it in a bed-room and under conditions which are in accordance with the exigencies of such a time. Many smart and pretty-looking bed-rooms are discovered by their sick owner to be very different abodes to what they seemed to him in health. Awkwardly-placed doors and windows produce unsuspected draughts; the too close proximity of an ill-arranged staircase or housemaid's closet becomes a serious trouble, and a low pitched ceiling prevents proper ventilation. It is more difficult than one imagines to find in a badly proportioned room a single convenient place for the patient's bed. It must be either close to the door, or touching the fireplace, or under a window or in some situation where it distinctly ought _not_ to be. I have known such faults--faults which occasioned discomfort every moment, and had to be remedied by a thousand make-shift contrivances, occur in splendid rooms in magnificent houses; and I have known poor little modern dwellings in a colony to be perfectly free from them. When I am told, "such or such a room or house is a very comfortable one _to be ill in_" then I know that the construction and arrangement of that abode, however simple it may appear, must needs be up to a very high mark indeed. Of course a great deal can be done to modify existing evils, by a judicious arrangement of screens and curtains, by taking out useless furniture, by substituting a comfortable low bed, easy to get at, for a cumbrous couch where the unhappy patient's nose seems as if it was intended to rub against the ceiling, and various other improvements. But what can remedy a smoky chimney, or a grate where all the heat goes up the chimney, or windows that rattle, and doors that open in every direction except the right one? How can an outside landing or lobby be created at a moment's notice, or a staircase moved a yard further off? Of course if an illness gave notice before it seized its victim, if people ever realised that a house should be so constructed as to reduce the chances of illness to a minimum, and raise its possible comforts to a maximum if it did come, then everything would go on quite smoothly and we should certainly live, and probably die, happy. But this is exactly what we do not do, and this chapter would never have been written if I had not seen with my own eyes innumerable instances where neither want of money, nor space, nor opportunity for improvement were the causes of a wretchedly uncomfortable sick-room. I have known bed-rooms which looked nests of rosy, luxurious comfort until their owner fell ill, and then turned suddenly, as it seemed, into miserable comfortless abodes of frippery and useless, tasteless finery--where a candle could scarcely be placed anywhere without risk of fire, and where the patient has deeply complained of the way the decorations of the room "worried" her. As a rule, in a severe illness, sick people detest anything like a confusion or profusion of ornaments or furniture. If I am in authority in such a case, I turn all gimcracks bodily out, substituting the plainest articles of furniture to be found in the house. Very few ornaments are allowable in a sick-room, and I only encourage those which are of a simple, correct form. I have known the greatest relief expressed by a patient, who seemed too ill to notice any such change, at the substitution of one single, simple classical vase for a whole shelf-full of tawdry French china ornaments, and I date the recovery of another from the moment of the removal out of his sight of an exceedingly smart modern dressing-table, with many bows of ribbon and flounces of lace and muslin. I do not mean to say that the furniture of a sick-room need be ugly--only that it should be simple and not too much of it. Nothing confuses and worries a person who is ill like seeing his attendants threading their way through mazes of chairs and sofas and tables; but he will gladly look and find relief and even a weary kind of pleasure in gazing at a table of a beautiful, simple form, placed where it is no fatigue for him to look at it, with a glass of flowers, a terra-cotta vase, a casket, anything which is so intrinsically beautiful in form as to afford repose to the eye. I have often observed that when people begin to take pleasure in _colour_, it is a sure sign of convalescence--for in severe illness, unless indeed it be of such a nature as to preclude all power of observation, form is of more importance to the patient than colour. One learns a great deal from what people tell one _after_ they are well enough to talk of such things as past, distempered fancies. For instance, I was once nursing a typhoid fever patient, who lay for some days in an agony of weakness. He had been deaf as well as speechless, and all his senses appeared to have faded away to the very brink of extinction. Yet afterwards when he became able to talk of his sensations at different stages of his illness, he mentioned that particular time, and I found he had been keenly conscious of the _forms_ of the objects around. He spoke of the pleasure which the folds of a curtain had afforded him, of the "comfort" of the shape of the old-fashioned arm-chair in which I used to sit, and of how grateful he had felt when he observed that divers gimcracks had been removed from his sight. Later, as he grew better, and the weary eyes craved for colour, I found it necessary to pretend to be busy dressing dolls or making pincushions, to afford myself an excuse for a little heap of brightest coloured silks and fragments of ribbon placed where he could see them, and the daily fresh bunches of flowers were a perpetual delight to his eyes. An ideal sick-room then should first of all possess walls which will not weary or worry the sick person, and no _good_ pattern will do this. The low bed should be so placed that whilst it would be sheltered from draught (the aid of one or two screens will be useful here) the light would not fall disagreeably on the patient's eyes. No rule can be given about light. In some cases the sick person loves to look out of the window all day, whilst in others a ray of light _on_ the face is agony. In such circumstances the bed should, if possible, be so arranged as to allow the light to come from behind, for it is only in rare and exceptional cases that sunshine as well as outer air may not be admitted daily into a sick-room. We are fast getting beyond the ignorance of a north aspect for a bed-room, and most of us know that sunshine is quite as necessary to a bed-room as to a garden. No children will ever thrive unless they have plenty of sunshine, as well as air in the rooms in which they sleep, and a sick-room should also have both in abundance. If the weather be hot, it is easy, in England, to modify the temperature by means of outer blinds, _persiennes_, open doors, and other means. Few people understand what I have learnt in tropical countries, and that is, how to exclude the outer air during the hot hours of the day. The windows of the nursery or sick-room (for we all need to be treated like children when we are ill) should be opened wide during the early cool, morning-tide, and the room flooded with sun and outer air. Then, by nine or ten o'clock, shut up rigorously every window, darkening those on which the sun would beat, _out-side_ the glass--by means of blinds or outer shutters--until the evening, when they may all be set wide open again. All woollen draperies, curtains and valences should be done away with in a sick-room. If the windows are unsightly without curtains, and the illness is likely to be a long one, then substitute soft, patternless muslin or chintz, or, prettiest of all, white dimity with a gay border, but let there be no places of concealment in a sick-room. Every thing unsightly or inodorous should be kept out of it, and herein is found the convenience of a well-planned and well-arranged house, where clothes-baskets, and things of that sort, can be so bestowed as to be at the same time handy and yet out of the way. If it were not for the unconceivable untidiness and want of observation which exists in the human race, such cautions as not to leave about the room the clothes the sick person has last worn, hanging up or huddled on a chair in a corner, would seem superfluous. But I have actually seen a girl stricken down by a sudden fever, lying at death's door, on her little white bed, whilst the wreath she wore at the ball where she took the fatal chill, still hung on her toilette glass, and her poor little satin shoes were scattered about the room. She had been ill for days; there were two ladies'-maids in the house, besides anxious sisters, parents, and nurses, and yet no one had thought of putting these things out of sight. The first rule, therefore, to be observed in nursing even bad colds, where the sufferer may have to stay in bed a few days, is to send all the linen he has been wearing to the wash _at once_, and to put away everything else in its proper place. Boots should never be allowed in a sick-room, for the leather and blacking is apt to smell disagreeably and they ought immediately to be removed to another place. Then there should be if possible _outside_ the door of the sick-room, either on a landing or in another room, a convenient table, covered with a clean, white cloth, on which should be ranged spare spoons, tumblers, glasses, and so forth, and whatever cooling drinks are wanted, all so managed that dust shall be an impossibility. Inside the room, on another small table, or shelf, or top of chest of drawers, according to circumstances, should be kept also on a snowy cloth, just whatever is actually needed at a moment's notice--medicines and their proper glasses, &c., and a spoon or two, but the instant anything is used, it should be an established rule that the nurse puts the spoon or glass _outside_, and supplies its place with a clean one. In most cases, a servant need only renew the supply outside twice a day. As for keeping trays with nourishment in the room, it is a sign of such careless nursing that I should hardly dare to mention it, if I had not more than once gone to relieve guard in a friend's splendid sick-room at daylight, and seen the nurse's supper-tray of the night before _on the floor_ whilst the room, in spite of all its beautiful decorations, smelt sickly and disgusting with the odour of stale beer and pickles. It is incredible that such things should happen, but in the confusion caused by a sudden and severe illness, untidy and careless habits are apt to come to the surface, and loom largely as aggressive faults. Sickness is not only a great test of the sufferer's own character and disposition, but of those of the people around him, and as a general rule, I have discovered more beautiful qualities in sick people, and those about them, who dwell in cottages or even hovels, than in more splendid homes. Everyone knows how really kind poor people are to each other, and never more so than when the angel of disease or death is hovering over the humble roof-tree. Food, or nourishment as it is called in sick-room phraseology, would not so often be refused by the patient if it were properly managed. Who does not know the wearisomeness of being asked, probably in the morning, when the very thought of food is an untold aggravation to one's sufferings what one could "fancy"? And this is probably followed by a discussion on the merits or possibilities of divers condiments, to each of which as it is canvassed before him the wretched patient is sure to declare a deep-rooted repugnance. A sick person, until he reaches that happy stage of convalescence when it is an amusement to him, should never be allowed to hear the slightest discussion on the subject of his nourishment. Whatever the doctor orders should be prepared with as wide a range of variety as can be managed, and offered to him in the smallest permissible quantities, exactly cold or hot enough to take, and served as prettily and daintily as possible, at exactly the right moment. The chances are a hundred to one that, if it is within the range of possibilities that he can swallow at all, he will take it. If he does not, there should be no argument, no attempt at forcing it on him; it should at once be taken quite away and something different brought as soon afterwards as is prudent. Few people realise how extraordinarily keen the sense of smell becomes in illness, and how the faint ghost of a possible appetite may be turned into absolute loathing by the smell of a cup of beef-tea, cooling by the bed-side for ten minutes before it is offered. I am always guided in a great degree about nourishment by the instincts of my patient, and I never force stimulants, or anything equally distasteful on a sick person who is at all reasonable upon such matters. I once had a patient to nurse, whose desperate illness had brought him very near the shadowy land. It had left him, and the doctors assured me that his life depended on how much brandy I could get down his throat during the night. I told him this, for he was quite sensible, when he refused the first teaspoonful, and he whispered in gasps, "I'll take as much milk as you like; that stuff kills me." So I gave him teaspoonfuls of pure milk all through the night every five minutes, and not a drop of brandy. The doctor's first reproachful glance in the morning was at the untouched brandy bottle, and he shook his head, but when he had felt the sick man's pulse his countenance brightened, and he graciously gave me permission to go on with the milk. Of course there are cases when the patient never expresses an opinion one way or other, and then the only safe rule is to obey the doctor's orders, but I never fly in the face of any strong instinct of a sick person rationally expressed. So now I hope we have some glimmering idea of what a sick-room should be: cool in summer, warm in winter, but deliciously sweet and fresh and fragrant always. Simple in its furniture, but the few needful articles, of as agreeable shapes and as convenient as possible--a room which can be looked back upon with a sort of affection as a place of calm, of discipline, and of organization, as well as of the mere kindness and willingness to help, which is seldom, if ever, absent from a sick-room, but which is not the beginning and end of what is necessary within its walls. There are bed-rests and bed-tables to be hired for a sick person's use in almost any town in England; or, if it is preferred, any village carpenter could make a table with legs six or eight inches high, and a top of a couple of smooth light planks, about two feet six long, scooped out in the middle. This is very convenient when the patient is well enough to sit up in bed and employ himself. The bed-rests are equally simple, the upper half of a chair, padded, and made to lower at convenience, while a loose jacket or wrapper, easy to slip on, of flannel, should also be provided to throw over the patient's shoulders when he uses chair and table. When the patient can sit up and occupy himself this sort of table will be found a great comfort. It might just as well be used when lying on a sofa. [Illustration: FIG. 30.] One word more, like a postscript, for it has no real business to intrude itself here. It is only an entreaty to all nurses or those in authority in a sick-room, to wear the prettiest clothes they possess. Not the smartest, far from it; the simplest cottons, cambrics, what you will, but nice and fresh and pleasant to look at. If it is only a dressing-gown it may be a charming one. No hanging sleeves, or dangling chains, or streaming ribbons, but sufficient colour for weary eyes to rest on with pleasure. An ideal toilette for sick-room nursing would be a plain holland or cambric gown, made with absolute simplicity--long enough to be graceful without possessing a useless train--rather tight sleeves, and no frills or furbelows; a knot of colour at the throat and in the hair, or on the cap--only let your ribbons be exquisitely fresh and clean--and a nice large apron, or rather bib, with one big pocket in front. This apron may be tied back--not too tightly, please--with the same coloured ribbons, and a little change of hue now and then is a great rest and refreshment in a sick room. There are charming linen aprons now embroidered in School of Art designs of the shape I allude to, but they can be made equally well in print, or plain holland, or linen. No garment that rustles or creaks, or makes its presence audible should ever cross the threshold, but the toilette of the nurse should always be exquisitely clean and neat, and yet as bright and pretty as possible. No sitting up at night, no anxiety or unhappiness should be an excuse for a dirty, dishevelled attendant in a sick-room. It is _always_ possible to steal half an hour morning and evening to wash and change, and do one's hair neatly, and the gain and comfort to the patient as well as to the nurse, is incalculable. This also would not be touched upon if my own recollections did not supply me with so many instances, where all this sort of care was considered to be absolutely worthless, and yet sick people have remarked afterwards how perfectly conscious they had been of all such shortcomings, and how such and such a tumbled cap, or shawl pinned on awry had been like a nightmare to them. Beauty itself is never more valuable than in a sick-room, and if laws could be passed on the subject, I should like to oblige all the pretty girls of my acquaintance to take it in turn to do a little nursing. I venture to say that no ball-room triumphs would ever compare with the delight their possession of God's greatest and best gift would afford to His sick and suffering creatures. But a nurse may always make herself look pleasant and agreeable, and if she have the true nursing instinct, the ready tact and sympathy which a sick-bed needs, she may come to be regarded as "better than pretty" by her grateful patient. CHAPTER IX. THE SPARE ROOM. Perhaps the kindliest and wisest advice with regard to a spare room, would be the same as _Punch's_ famous counsel to young people about to marry--a short and emphatic "Don't." In a large country house, perhaps even in a small country house, the case is different, for the spare room too often represents all the social variety which the owners can hope for, from year's end to year's end--and the only change from town life possible to half the bees in the great hive. It is scarcely possible to imagine an English country house, be it ever so humble, without its spare room, or the warm cordial welcome which would be sure to greet its succeeding inhabitants. How fresh and sweet and dainty do its simple appointments look to jaded eyes! how grateful its deep stillness to world-deafened ears! How impossible, in a brief summer week, to believe that life can ever be found dull or monotonous amid such delicious calm! A walk in the gloaming in a country lane,--always supposing it is not too muddy--a cup of milk fresh from the cow, a crust off the home-baked loaf, are all treats of the first order to the tired cockney. I have often noticed the sort of half-pitying, half-contemptuous amazement with which my country hostess has beheld my delight at being installed in her spare room, my rapture at the sight of meadows and trees, or the sound of cawing rooks and the whirr of mowing machines. And how fresh and clean ought this country spare room to look! How inexcusable would be stain or spot, or evil odour amid such fragrant surroundings! Why should not the sheets _always_ smell of lavender (as a matter of fact, they do not, I regret to state)? why should not there be _always_ a jar of dried rose-leaves somewhere "around," as our dear, epigrammatic, Yankee cousins say? [Illustration: FIG. 31.] I do not think I really like silks and satins anywhere; I acknowledge that they fill me with a respectful admiration and awe for a short space, but that soon wears off, and my accidental splendour bores me all the rest of the time I have to dwell with it. No, the sort of guest-chamber which I love to occupy in the country is as simple as simple can be, and not so crowded with furniture, but that a little space is left here and there where a box can be placed without its intruding itself as a nuisance for which one feels constantly impelled to apologise. If I am so fortunate as to find in a corner of my room a little frame, about two feet high made by the village carpenter, or the big boys of the household, for this box to stand on, then, indeed, I know what luxury means. You have your box so much more under your control if it is raised a little from the floor, and it is ever so much easier to pack and unpack. The taste and characteristics of the owners of the house, which you may be sure is to be found in all their surroundings, is never more apparent than in the spare room. Sometimes your hostess tries to make you happy with looking-glasses, and I have shudderingly dwelt in a room with five large mirrors and sundry smaller ones; or else you are abashed to find how many gowns there is space for, and how few you have brought. But this extreme is better than the other: I have had to keep my draperies on all the available chairs in the room because I was afraid to open and shut the diminutive drawers of an exquisite, aged coffre which was provided for their reception. Beautiful as was this article of furniture, I would gladly have changed it for the commonest deal chest of drawers, long before the week was out. In spare rooms, as in all other rooms, money is not everything. It will not always buy taste, nor even comfort. Doubtless many of my readers who may happen to have led as varied a life as mine has been, will agree with me in the assertion, that as far as actual _comfort_ goes, they have often possessed it in a greater degree under a very humble roof-tree, than beneath many a more splendid shelter. Everybody has their "little ways" (some of them very tiresome and odd, I admit), and there are splendid spare rooms in which apparently no margin has been left, no indulgence shown, for any little individualities. I should not be an Englishwoman writing to other Englishwomen if I did not take it for granted that we all desire most ardently that our guests should be thoroughly comfortable in their own rooms as well as happy in our society, and so I venture to suggest that visitors should not be fettered by too many rules, that, however homely the plenishing of the guest-chamber must needs be, it should never lack a few fresh flowers, a place to write (Fig. 31), pen and ink, a tiny table which can be moved about at pleasure, a dark blind for the window, and such trifles which often make the difference between comfort and discomfort, between a homelike feeling directly one arrives, and the incessant consciousness of being "on a visit." But with regard to spare rooms in a town house, what advice can be given beyond and except that horrid "don't"? Especially true is this in London. No one has the least idea how many affectionate relations he possesses until he has an empty bed-room in a London house. It would almost appear as if such things as hotels and lodgings had ceased to exist, so incessant, so importunate are the entreaties to be "put up" for a couple of nights. And let me say here that visitors will prove much more of a tax in London than they ever are in the country. For rural visitors scarcely ever seem to realise or comprehend how methodically mapped out is the life of a professional man living in London, how precious are to him the quiet early hours which they insist upon leaving behind them in the solitude of the country. Speaking as a London hostess, I may conscientiously assert that the guests who have kept me up latest at night, who have voted breakfast at 9.30 unreasonably early (without considering it was a whole hour later than our usual time) have been those people who ordinarily led the quietest and most clock-work existence in their country home. I will say nothing here of the impossibility of inducing them to regard distance or cab-hire as presenting any objection worth consideration in their incessant hunt after the bargains erroneously supposed by them to be obtainable in every shop. I have been scolded roundly by country visitors for keeping early hours and leading a quiet life in London, and I have never succeeded in impressing on them that in order to get through a great deal of hard work, both my husband and I found it necessary to do both. To a professional man, with a small income, the institution of a spare room may be regarded as an income tax of several shillings in the pound. It is even worse than that; it means being forced to take in a succession of lodgers who don't pay, who are generally amazingly inconsiderate and _exigeante_, and who expect to be amused and advised, chaperoned and married, and even nursed and buried. It is inconceivable upon what slender grounds, or for what far-fetched reasons, your distant acquaintance, or your--compared to yourself--rich relation, will unhesitatingly demand your hospitality. And oh, my unknown friends, how often are we tempted to say yes to the well-to-do relation who asks the question of us, and to find an excuse to shut out the poor one who really needs it? Ah how often? It is really a trial to be unable to receive one's nearest kith and kin, one's sailor brother or sister home from India, because "we have no spare room," yet that very beginning, natural and delightful as it is, cheerfully and laughingly borne as the little privations it entails may be, is often the beginning of a stream of self-invited guests who literally worry us, if they don't exactly "eat us," out of house and home. THE END. LONDON: R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, BREAD STREET HILL. [Illustration: DESIGNER IN PORCELAIN & GLASS JOHN MORTLOCK ESTAB^D. 1746 POTTERY GALLERIES 203 & 204 OXFORD STREET. 31 ORCHARD STREET. LONDON, W.] THE OLD POTTERY GALLERIES. BY SPECIAL APPOINTMENT TO HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN AND Their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Wales. MINTON'S CHINA. JOHN MORTLOCK BEGS TO CALL ATTENTION TO HIS Specialties in Art Pottery. BREAKFAST, DINNER, DESSERT, TEA, AND TOILET SERVICES, In Porcelain and Earthenware. SERVICES OF CUT, ENGRAVED, OR PLAIN GLASS. _The Pottery Studio, where Ladies can learn to decorate their own rooms, is conducted by Young Ladies from South Kensington._ All Goods marked in plain figures, with a Liberal Discount for Cash. 202, 203, & 204, OXFORD STREET, AND 30, 31, & 32, ORCHARD STREET, PORTMAN SQUARE, LONDON, W. * * * * * ART AT HOME SERIES. "In these decorative days the volumes bring calm counsel and kindly suggestions, with information for the ignorant and aid for the advancing, that ought to help many a feeble, if well-meaning pilgrim along the weary road, at the end whereof, far off, lies the House Beautiful.... If the whole series but continue as it has begun--if the volumes yet to be rival the two initial ones, it will be beyond praise as a library of household art."--_Examiner._ _The following are now ready_:-- A PLEA FOR ART IN THE HOUSE. With Special Reference to the Economy of Collecting Works of Art and the importance of Taste in Education and Morals. By W. J. LOFTIE, F.S.A. With Illustrations. Fifth Thousand. Crown 8vo. 2_s._ 6_d._ SUGGESTIONS FOR HOUSE DECORATION IN PAINTING, WOODWORK, AND FURNITURE. By RHODA and AGNES GARRETT. With Illustrations. Sixth Thousand. Crown 8vo. 2_s._ 6_d._ MUSIC IN THE HOUSE. By JOHN HULLAH. With Illustrations. Fourth Thousand. Crown 8vo. 2_s._ 6_d._ THE DRAWING-ROOM: ITS DECORATIONS AND FURNITURE. By MRS. ORRINSMITH. With numerous Illustrations. Fourth Thousand. Crown 8vo. 2_s._ 6_d._ THE DINING-ROOM. By MRS. LOFTIE. With numerous Illustrations. Fourth Thousand. Crown 8vo. 2_s._ 6_d._ THE bed-room AND BOUDOIR. By LADY BARKER. With numerous Illustrations. Fourth Thousand. Crown 8vo. 2_s._ 6_d._ _In Preparation_:-- DRESS. By MRS. OLIPHANT. DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE. By J. J. STEVENSON. DRAWING AND PAINTING. By H. STACEY MARKS. _Others to follow._ MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON. * * * * * HOWARD'S PATENT CARPET PARQUET. SANITARY, BEAUTIFUL, AND DURABLE. PRICE from 1/- PER FOOT. Recommended by =Dr. Richardson, F.R.S.=, in his lecture on "HYGEIA" for its _Sanitary Advantages_; and also by =Mrs. Orrinsmith in "The Drawing Room,"= page 55 ("=Art at Home Series=") for its _Sanitary Advantages_ and _Artistic Effect_. It is made as borders to room floors, or to entirely cover the same, and can be laid either in a portable form, or be permanently fixed. For bed-rooms, it is specially recommended for cleanliness, and it also facilitates the lifting of the Carpet, as the heavy furniture stands on the Parquet clear of the Carpet. _Illustrated Catalogues priced, free on application, and patterns also sent when required._ HOWARD AND SONS, Upholsterers and Decorators, MANUFACTURERS, BY STEAM POWER, OF ARTISTIC FURNITURE, PANELLING AND PARQUETERIE. 25, 26, & 27, BERNERS STREET, LONDON, W. FACTORY: CLEVELAND WORKS, W. * * * * * THE FINE ART SOCIETY'S SPECIALITIES FOR DECORATION. WATER-COLOUR DRAWINGS. The best Examples only of the English & Continental Schools. ENGRAVINGS. _The recently published Works of SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS._ ENGRAVED BY S. COUSINS, R.A. THE COUNTESS SPENCER AND LORD ALTHORPE. THE DUCHESS OF RUTLAND (in progress). THE HON. ANN BINGHAM. THE STRAWBERRY GIRL. AND OTHERS. _ETCHINGS_ BY WHISTLER.--SEYMOUR HADEN, &c. PHOTOGRAPHS OF SEA AND SKY. BY COL. STUART-WORTLEY. _EITHER ON PAPER, OPAL GLASS, OR IN A DECORATIVE FORM FOR WINDOW TRANSPARENCIES--IN ALL SIZES._ CHINA. OLD BLUE-ORIENTAL CLOISONNÉ, &c., &c. AT THE FINE ART SOCIETY'S GALLERIES, 148, NEW BOND STREET, LONDON. * * * * * TRANSCRIBER NOTES: Missing punctuation has been added and obvious punctuation errors have been corrected. Archaic words, mis-spellings and printer errors have been retained. Footnote has been moved closer to its reference point. Illustrations have been moved to accommodate the flow of text. 
41717	----	Transcriber's Notes: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). Superscripted characters are enclosed by curly brackets (example: March 27{th}). The original text includes a diamond symbol that is represented as [Diamond] in this text version. SAMPLERS AND TAPESTRY EMBROIDERIES _Tho our Countrie everywhere is fil'd With ladies and with gentlewomen skil'd In this rare art, yet here they may discerne Some things to teach them if they list to learne And as this booke some cunning workes doth teach Too high for meane capacities to reache So for weake learners other workes here be As plaine and easie as an A B C._ --THE NEEDLE'S EXCELLENCY. [Illustration: PLATE I.--TAPESTRY EMBROIDERY. HENRY VIII., EDWARD VI., MARY, AND ELIZABETH. _The Corporation of Maidstone._ (FRONTISPIECE.) The very unusual piece of Embroidery reproduced as our Frontispiece may date from the Accession of Queen Elizabeth, in which case it is the earliest specimen of an embroidery picture that we have seen. It would appear to be the creation of some exultant Protestant rejoicing at the restoration of his religion, which to him is "Good tidings of great joy"; for his Queen holds the Bible open at this verse, and is ready to defend it with her sword. Edward VI. also upholds the Bible in his upraised hand, whilst Henry VIII. has one foot on the downtrodden Pope, and the other on his crown, which he has kicked from his head. Popery is portrayed in Mary with her Rosary and Papal-crowned Dragon. The presence of the Thistle raises a doubt as to its being of the Elizabethan age, but although this flower consorts with the Rose it also does so with a pansy, which deprives it of its value as an emblem of Scotland. The piece belongs to the Corporation of Maidstone.] SAMPLERS & TAPESTRY EMBROIDERIES by MARCUS B. HUISH, LL.B. Author of "Japan and its Art," "Greek Terra Cotta Statuettes" "The American Pilgrim's Way," &c. SECOND EDITION With 24 Coloured Plates and 77 Illustrations in the Text Longmans, Green, and Co. 39 Paternoster Row, London New York, Bombay, and Calcutta 1913 All rights reserved Preface to the Second Edition _I have explained, in the chapter upon English Needlework with which this volume opens, the reasons which prompted me to take up the subject of Samplers and Tapestry Embroideries, and I have here only to thank the many who, since its first issue, have expressed their acknowledgment of the pleasure they have derived from it, and to record my gratification that it has induced some of them to start the study and collection of these interesting objects._ _In the present edition several American Samplers of considerable interest, kindly furnished by correspondents in that country, are noted and illustrated._ _I am indebted to the publishers for putting the present volume on the market at a more popular price than the expense of the first edition permitted._ Contents PAGES ENGLISH NEEDLEWORK.--ITS PRACTICE IN PAST TIMES.--ITS PLACE AMONGST THE MINOR ARTS.--MR RUSKIN'S VIEWS AS TO NEEDLEWORK IN A MUSEUM.--LACK OF A HISTORY.--EXHIBITION OF SAMPLERS.-- RANGE OF THIS VOLUME 1-5 PART I.--SAMPLERS.--THE NEED OF.--THE AGE OF.--INSCRIPTIONS ON.--ALPHABETS AND NUMERALS ON.--SIGNATURES ON.--INSCRIPTIONS ON.--DESIGN, ORNAMENT, AND COLOURING OF, INCLUDING: THE HUMAN FIGURE; ANIMALS; FLOWERS.--FURTHER INSCRIPTIONS ON.--VERSES WHICH COMMEMORATE RELIGIOUS FESTIVALS; WHICH TAKE THE FORM OF PRAYERS AND DEDICATIONS; WHICH REFER TO LIFE AND DEATH; WHICH INCULCATE DUTIES TO PARENTS AND PRECEPTORS; WHICH HAVE REFERENCE TO VIRTUE OR VICE, WEALTH OR POVERTY.--QUAINT INSCRIPTIONS; CROWNS; CORONETS; HEARTS; BORDERS.--MISCELLANEA RESPECTING SAMPLERS, NAMELY:--THE AGE AND SEX OF THE WORKERS; THE PLACE OF ORIGIN OF SAMPLERS; SAMPLERS AS RECORDS OF NATIONAL EVENTS; MAP SAMPLERS; AMERICAN SAMPLERS; FOREIGN SAMPLERS; SAMPLER LITERATURE; THE LAST OF THE SAMPLERS 7-122 PART II.--EMBROIDERIES IN THE MANNER OF TAPESTRY PICTURES.-- LARGE NUMBERS EXHIBITED AT FINE ART SOCIETY'S.--OPPORTUNITY FOR THEIR EXAMINATION, AND FOR MAKING RECORD OF THEIR HISTORY.--DIFFICULTIES SURROUNDING INVESTIGATION OF ORIGIN OF INDUSTRY.--NO APPARENT INFANCY.--NO SPECIMENS DISCOVERABLE EARLIER THAN ELIZABETHAN ERA.--THEORY AS TO FASHION ORIGINATING WITH INTRODUCTION OF TAPESTRY MANUFACTURE TO ENGLAND.--PARTICULARS OF THAT MANUFACTURE.--THREE-FOLD INTEREST OF PICTURE EMBROIDERIES: (1) SUBJECTS DEPICTED THEREON; (2) HISTORICAL MATERIAL AS TO FASHIONS; (3) AS SPECIMENS OF NEEDLEWORK.--PARTICULARS RESPECTING SUBJECTS, FASHIONS OF DRESS, HORTICULTURE, ETC. 123-141 PART III.--(1) STITCHERY OF EMBROIDERIES IN IMITATION OF TAPESTRY AND THE LIKE.--BACKGROUND STITCHES.--FIGURES IN RAISED NEEDLEWORK.--KNOT STITCHES.--PLUSH STITCH.--EMBROIDERY IN PURL AND METALLIC THREADS.--BEAD EMBROIDERY.--FIRST STAGE OF EMBROIDERED PICTURE 143-160 (2) THE STITCHERY OF SAMPLERS, WITH A NOTE ON THEIR MATERIALS.--CUT AND DRAWN WORK.--BACK STITCH.--ALPHABET STITCHES.--DARNING STITCHES.--TENT AND CROSS STITCHES.-- VARIOUS STITCHES.--MATERIALS 161-171 INDEX 173 List of Colour Plates PLATE _To face page_ I. TAPESTRY EMBROIDERY. HENRY VIII., EDWARD VI., MARY, AND ELIZABETH _Frontispiece_ II. SAMPLER, BY M. C. 16TH-17TH CENTURY 9 III. PORTION OF LONG SAMPLER, BY A. S. DATED 1648 16 IV. SAMPLER, BY ELIZABETH CALTHORPE. DATED 1656 20 V. PORTION OF SAMPLER, BY MARY HALL. DATED 1662 24 VI. PORTION OF SAMPLER, BY ELIZABETH CREASEY. DATED 1686 36 VII. SAMPLER, BY HANNAH DAWE. 17TH CENTURY 42 VIII. SAMPLER, BY MARY POSTLE. DATED 1747 48 IX. SAMPLER, BY E. PHILIPS. DATED 1761 56 X. SAMPLER, BY CATHERINE TWEEDALL. DATED 1775 66 XI. SAMPLER, BY ANN CHAPMAN. DATED 1779 78 XII. SAMPLER, BY ANN MARIA WIGGINS. 19TH CENTURY 90 XIII. AMERICAN SAMPLER, BY MARTHA C. BARTON. DATED 1825 100 XIV. TAPESTRY EMBROIDERY: CHRIST IN THE TEMPLE, STONING OF MARTYRS, ETC. ABOUT 1625 123 XV. TAPESTRY EMBROIDERY. THE STORY OF HAGAR AND ISHMAEL. ABOUT 1630 124 XVI. TAPESTRY EMBROIDERY. CHARLES I. AND HIS QUEEN. ABOUT 1630 126 XVII. LID OF A CASKET. THE JUDGMENT OF PARIS. ABOUT 1630 130 XVIII. TAPESTRY EMBROIDERY. THE STORY OF QUEEN ESTHER. ABOUT 1630 132 XIX. LID OF A CASKET. ABOUT 1660 143 XX. BACK OF CASKET IN TAPESTRY EMBROIDERY. SIGNED A. K., 1657 144 XXI. BEADWORK EMBROIDERY. CHARLES II. AND HIS QUEEN, ETC. 150 XXII. TAPESTRY EMBROIDERY. DATED 1735 158 XXIII. PURL EMBROIDERY. 16TH AND 17TH CENTURY 161 XXIV. DARNING SAMPLER. DATED 1788 164 Illustrations in Text FIG. PAGE 1. THE VISIT TO THE BOARDING SCHOOL, BY GEORGE MORLAND xiv 2. BOTTOM OF SAMPLER, IN KNOTTED YELLOW SILK, BY MARY CANEY, 1710 1 3. UPPER PORTION OF SAMPLER, BY PUPIL IN ORPHAN SCHOOL, CALCUTTA, 1797 9 4. SAMPLER OF CUT AND EMBROIDERED WORK. EARLY 17TH CENTURY 16 5. PORTION OF SAMPLER. 17TH CENTURY 17 6. PORTION OF SAMPLER OF CUT AND EMBROIDERED WORK. 17TH CENTURY 18 7. SAMPLERS IN THE VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM. DATED 1643, 1667, 1696 19 8. LONG SAMPLER, SIGNED ANN TURNER. 1686 24 9. SAMPLER, BY ELIZABETH BAKER. 1739 25 10. SAMPLER, BY CHARLOTTE BRONTË. 1829 29 11. SAMPLER, BY EMILY JANE BRONTË. 1829 31 12. SAMPLER, BY ANNE BRONTË. 1830 33 13. EASTER SAMPLER, BY KITTY HARISON. 1770 37 14. SAMPLER, BY ELIZABETH STOCKWELL. 1832 43 15. SAMPLER, BY SARAH YOUNG. _c._ 1750 53 16. DRAWN-WORK SAMPLER, BY S. I. D. 1649 59 17. SAMPLER, BY JEAN PORTER. 1709-10 61 18. SAMPLER. NAME ILLEGIBLE. DATE, 1742 63 19. SAMPLER, BY MARY ANDERSON. 1831 67 20. SAMPLER (? SCOTTISH). 18TH CENTURY 69 21. SMALL SCOTTISH SAMPLER, BY J. H. [JANE HEATH]. 1728 71 22. SAMPLER, BY MARY BYWATER. 1751 72 23. HEART-SHAPED SAMPLER, BY MARY IVES. 1796 73 24. DRAWN-WORK SAMPLER, BY S. W. 1700 76 25. BORDER OF MARY LOUNDS'S SAMPLER. 1726 77 26. BORDER OF MARY HEAVISIDE'S SAMPLER. 1735 77 27. BORDER OF ELIZABETH GREENSMITH'S SAMPLER. 1737 77 28. BORDER OF MARGARET KNOWLES'S SAMPLER. 1738 78 29. BORDER TO SAMPLER, BY ELIZABETH TURNER. 1771 78 30. BORDER TO SAMPLER, BY SARAH CARR. 1809 79 31. BORDER TO SAMPLER, BY SUSANNA HAYES. 1813 79 32. SMALL SAMPLER, BY MARTHA HAYNES. 1704 81 33. SAMPLER, BY SARAH PELHAM, AGED 6 83 34. SCOTTISH SAMPLER, BY ROBERT HENDERSON. 1762 85 35. TWO SMALL SAMPLERS, BY MAY JOHNSON. 1785-6 87 36. TWO SMALL SAMPLERS, BY LYDIA JOHNSON. 1784 87 37. SCOTTISH SAMPLER, BY MARY BAYLAND. 1779 89 38. SAMPLER, BY MARY MINSHULL. 1694 90 39. MAP OF NORTH AMERICA, BY M. A. K. 1788 93 40. MAP OF ENGLAND AND WALES, BY ANN BROWN 94 41. MAP OF AFRICA. 1784 95 42. SAMPLER, BY ANNE GOWER 98 43. SAMPLER, BY LOARA STANDISH 99 44. SAMPLER, BY MILES AND ABIGAIL FLEETWOOD 99 45. SAMPLER, BY ABIGAIL RIDGWAY. 1795 100 46. SAMPLER, BY ELIZABETH EASTON. 1795 101 47. SAMPLER, BY MARIA E. SPALDING. 1815 102 48. SAMPLER, BY MARTHA C. HOOTON. 1827 103 49. SAMPLER, BY THE LAMBORN FAMILY. 1822 105 50. SAMPLER, BY ELIZABETH M. FORD 106 51. SAMPLER, BY LYDIA J. COTTON. 1819 107 52. SAMPLER, BY HELEN PRICE 114 53. BEADWORK SAMPLER, BY JANE MILLS 119 54. SAMPLER, BY ELIZABETH CLARKSON. 1881 121 55. EMBROIDERED GLOVE. EARLY 17TH CENTURY 123 56. THE JUDGMENT OF PARIS. ABOUT 1630 129 57. TAPESTRY EMBROIDERY: THE FINDING OF MOSES. ABOUT 1640 134 58. PORTION OF A BOOK COVER. 16TH CENTURY 136 59. PURL AND APPLIED EMBROIDERY. ABOUT 1630 137 60. EMBROIDERY PICTURE. CHARLES II. AND HIS QUEEN. 1663 141 61. HOLLIE POINT LACE, FROM TOP OF CHRISTENING CAP. 1774 143 62. CUSHION-STITCH BACKGROUND: EMBROIDERED BOOK COVER, DATED 1703 145 63. EYELET-HOLE-STITCH: FROM A SAMPLER DATED 1811 146 64. TAPESTRY EMBROIDERY. ABOUT 1640 147 65. FACE WORKED IN SPLIT-STITCH: ENLARGED FROM EMBROIDERY REPRODUCED IN FIG. 63 150 66. FACE WORKED IN SPLIT-STITCH: ENLARGED FROM LOWER PORTION OF FIG. 63 (NOT REPRODUCED) 151 67. KNOTTED-STITCH: ENLARGED FROM EMBROIDERY REPRODUCED IN FIG. 63 152 68. EMBROIDERY PICTURE: A SQUIRE AND HIS LADY. DATED 1657 155 69. HAIR OF UNRAVELLED SILK: ENLARGEMENT OF PORTION OF EMBROIDERY REPRODUCED IN PLATE 157 70. GROUNDWORK TRACING FOR EMBROIDERED PICTURE. 17TH CENTURY 159 71. MOULDS FOR KNOTTED, OR LACE-WORK, WITH SILK SPOOLS AND CASE 160 72. DRAWN-WORK SAMPLER. 17TH CENTURY 162 73. CUT AND DRAWN-WORK: ENLARGEMENT FROM 17TH CENTURY SAMPLER 163 74. SATIN-STITCH AND COMBINATION OF TYPES OF OPEN-WORK: ENLARGED FROM THE SAMPLER REPRODUCED IN FIG. 4. 17TH CENTURY 164 75. BACK-STITCH: ENLARGEMENT OF PORTION OF SAMPLER IN FIG. 5. 17TH CENTURY. TWICE ACTUAL SIZE 165 76. DARNING SAMPLER. SIGNED M. M., T. B., J. J. 1802 167 77. ENLARGED PORTION OF A DARNING SAMPLER. DATED 1785 169 [Illustration: FIG. 1.--THE VISIT TO THE BOARDING SCHOOL. BY GEORGE MORLAND. _Wallace Collection._] [Illustration: FIG. 2.--BOTTOM OF SAMPLER, IN KNITTED YELLOW SILK, BY MARY CANEY, 1710. _Mrs C. J. Longman._] English Needlework Amongst all the Minor Arts practised by our ancestresses, there was certainly no one which was so much the fashion, or in which a higher grade of proficiency was attained, as that of needlework. It was in vogue in the castle and the cottage, in the ladies' seminary and the dame's school, and a girl's education began and ended with endeavours to attain perfection in it. Amongst the earliest objects to be shown to a mother visiting her daughter at school was, as is seen in the charming picture by Morland in the Wallace Collection (Fig. 1), the sampler which the young pupil had worked.[1] These early tasks were, very certainly in the majority of instances, little cared for by the schoolgirls who produced them, but being cherished by fond parents they came in after years to be looked upon with an affectionate eye by those who had made them, and to be preserved and even handed down as heirlooms in the family. For some reason, not readily apparent, no authority on needlework has considered this by-product of the Art to be worthy of notice. In the many volumes which have been penned the writers have almost exclusively confined their attention to the more ambitious and, perhaps, more artistic performances of foreign nations. To such an extent has this omission extended that in a leading treatise on "Needlework as Art," samplers are dismissed in a single line, and in a more recent volume they are not even mentioned. It follows that the illustrations for such books are almost without exception culled from foreign sources, to the entire exclusion of British specimens. It may be contended that the phase of needlework to which special attention is drawn in this volume cannot be classed amongst even the Minor Arts, and therefore is not worthy of the notoriety which such a work as this gives to it. Such a contention can fortunately be met by the authority of one whose word can hardly be challenged on such a question, namely, Mr Ruskin. Some years ago, upon a controversy arising in the press as to what objects should, and what should not, find a place in a museum, the author, in his capacity of editor of _The Art Journal_, induced Mr Ruskin to furnish that magazine with a series of letters containing his views on the matter. In these, after dealing with the planning of the building and its fitting up with the specialties which the industry of each particular district called for, he set aside six chambers for the due exposition of the six queenly and music-taught Arts of _Needlework_, Writing, Pottery, Sculpture, Architecture, and Painting, and in these the absolute best in each Art, so far as attainable by the municipal pocket, was to be exhibited, the rise and fall (if fallen) of each Art being duly and properly set forth. Mr Ruskin did not, however, content himself with claiming for needlework a prominent position. Had he only done this, his dictum might have availed us but little as regards admission of the branch of it to which we shall devote most of this volume. With the thoroughness which was so characteristic of him, he gave chapter and verse for the faith that was in him, clenching it with one of his usual felicitous instances, which, in this case, took as its text the indifferent stitching of the gloves which he used when engaged in forestry. Proceeding to show what the needlework chamber should contain, he designated first the structure of wool and cotton, hemp, flax, and silk, then the phases of its dyeing and spinning, and the mystery of weaving. "Finally the accomplished phase of needlework, all the acicular Art of Nations--savage and civilised--from Lapland boot, letting in no snow water, to Turkey cushion bossed with pearl; to valance of Venice gold in needlework; to the counterpanes and _Samplers_ of our own lovely ancestresses." It might appear to be by an accident that he specifically included the "Samplers of our own lovely ancestresses," but this was not so. Fine needlework was an accomplishment which was carried to an exceptional pitch of excellence by his mother, and her son was proud of her achievements, for this proficiency had descended from his grandmother, whose sampler (reproduced on Plate IX.) was probably present to Mr Ruskin's mind when he penned the sentence to which we have given prominence. Having, then, such an authority for assigning to English needlework a foremost place in any well organised museum, it may reasonably be claimed that our literature should contain some record of the sampler's evolution and history, and that our museums should arrange any materials they may possess in an order which will enable a would-be student, or any one interested, to gain information concerning the rise and fall (for such it has been) of the industry. It may be said that such information is not called for, but this can hardly be asserted in face of the fact that the first edition of this work, published at the considerable price of two guineas, was quickly exhausted, and demands have for some time been made for its reissue. The publication in question was the outcome of an exhibition held at The Fine Art Society, London, in 1900, at which some three hundred and fifty samplers, covering every decade since 1640, were shown. The interest taken in the display was remarkable, the reason probably being that almost every visitor possessed some specimen of the craft, but few had any idea that his or her possession was the descendant of such an ancestry, or had any claim to recognition beyond a purely personal one. Everyone then garnered information with little trouble and with unmistakable pleasure from the surprising and unexpected array, and the many requests that the collection should not be dispersed without an endeavour being made to perpetuate the information derived from an assemblage of so many selected examples led to the compilation of the present work. When The Fine Art Society's Exhibition was first planned the intention was to confine it to samplers, which, in themselves, formed a class sufficiently large to occupy all the space which experience showed should be allotted to them in any display with which it was not desired to weary the visitor. But it was speedily found that their evolution and _raison d'être_ could not be satisfactorily nor interestingly illustrated without recourse being had to the embroidered pictures alongside of which they originated, and which they subsequently supplanted, and to other articles for the decoration or identification of which samplers came into being. Consequently the collection was enlarged so as to include three sections: first the embroidered pieces which range themselves under the heading of "Pictures in imitation of Tapestry"; then samplers; and lastly the miscellaneous articles, such as books, dresses, coats, waistcoats, gloves, shoes, caskets, cases, purses, etc., which were broidered by those who had learned the art from sampler making, or from the use of samplers as guides. It would, without doubt, have added interest and variety to this volume could all these classes have been considered in it, but to include the last-named would have necessitated enlarging its bulk beyond practicable limits, and, besides, it would then have covered ground, much of which has already been very satisfactorily and completely dealt with. The work has consequently followed the lines of the Exhibition in so far as it includes "Samplers" and "Embroideries in the manner of Tapestry," which are dealt with in successive sections, and are followed by one upon the "stitchery" employed, written by Mrs Head, who has unfortunately died since the publication of the first edition. The author much regrets having given currency on page 5 to the report of Mrs. Head's death, which he is glad to learn is incorrect. PART I Samplers [Illustration: PLATE II.--SAMPLER BY M. C. 16TH-17TH CENTURY. _This early pattern Sampler is described at p. 16._] [Illustration: FIG. 3.--UPPER PORTION OF SAMPLER BY PUPIL IN ORPHAN SCHOOL, CALCUTTA, 1797. _Author's Collection._] PART I Samplers The sampler as a pattern, or example, from which to learn varieties of needlework, whether of design or stitches, must have existed almost as long as the Art of Embroidery, which we know dates back into as distant a past as any of the Arts. But when we set about the investigation of its evolution, we did not propose to trouble our readers with the history of an infancy which would have been invested with little interest and less Art; we did, however, hope to be able to extend our illustrated record backwards to a date which would be limited only by the ravages which time had worked upon the material of which the sampler was composed--a date which would probably take us back to an epoch when the Art displayed upon it was of an unformed but still of an interesting character. We must at the outset admit that we have been altogether disappointed in our quest. For some two hundred and fifty years, which most will admit to be a fair stretch of time, we can easily compile a record of genuinely dated and well-preserved specimens, filling not only every decade, but almost every year. The Art displayed, whether it be in design or dexterity with the needle, improves as we proceed backwards, until, in the exact centre of the seventeenth century, we arrive at a moment when little is left to be desired. We then have before us a series of samplers wherein the design is admirable, the stitches are of great variety, and the materials of which they are composed are, in an astonishing number of instances, as fresh and well preserved as those of to-day. But at that moment, to our astonishment, the stream is arrested, and the supply fails, for no, at present, discoverable reason. This sudden arrest can in no way be explained. It would appear as if, with the downfall of the monarchy under Charles I., with which it almost exactly corresponds, a holocaust had been made of every sampler that existed. It is most exasperating, for it is as if one had studied the life of a notable character backwards through its senility, old age, and manhood, to lose all trace of its youth and infancy. Nor is there any apparent reason for this failure of the output. As we shall show later on, needlework for a century previously was in the heyday of its fashion. Every article of dress and furniture was decked out with it. As an instance, the small branch of needlework which we discuss in our second part was mainly in vogue in the first half of the seventeenth century, when we are searching in vain for specimens of samplers. Samplers, too, for generations previously are recorded in the literature of the time as common objects of household furniture. The specimens even of our earliest recorded decade cover no less than five years, 1651 (three), 1649, 1648 (three), 1644, 1643, and yet beyond the last-named date we encounter an entire blank. This cannot be the limit of dated specimens. Earlier ones must exist, but the publicity of a very well advertised exhibition, which brought notifications of samplers by the thousand, did not produce them. Neither have the public museums, nor indefatigable collectors of many years' standing, been able to obtain them, save two of the earliest years, 1643 and 1644, which have been acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum, and of which that of 1643 is reproduced in Fig. 7. Our study of the sampler must therefore be based upon the materials at our disposal, and from these we shall analyse it with reference to its _raison d'être_, age, decorative qualities, characteristics, and the persons by whom it was worked. The Need of Samplers In these days of sober personal attire, in which the adornment of our houses is almost entirely confined to the products of the loom, the absorbing interest which needlework possessed, and the almost entire possession which, in the Middle Ages, it took of the manual efforts of womankind, is apt to be lost sight of. In 1583, Stubbes, in his "Anatomy of Abuses," wrote that the men were "decked out in fineries even to their shirts, which are wrought throughout with needlework of silke, curiously stitched with open seams and many other knacks besides," and that it was impossible to tell who was a gentleman "because all persons dress indiscriminately in silks, velvets, satins, damasks, taffeties, and such like." So, too, as regards the fair sex it was the same, from the Queen, who had no less than 2,000 dresses in her wardrobe, downwards. In France, almost at the same moment (in 1586), a petition was presented to Catherine de Medicis on "The Extreme Dearness of Living," setting forth that "mills, lands, pastures, woods, and all the revenues are wasted on embroideries, insertions, trimmings, tassels, fringes, hangings, gimps, needleworks, small chain stitchings, quiltings, back stitchings, etc., new diversities of which are invented daily." Everyone worked with the needle. We read that the lady just named gathered round her her daughters, their cousins, and sometimes the exiled Marie Stuart, and passed a great portion of the time after dinner in needlework. A little later Madame de Maintenon worked at embroidery, not only in her apartments, but even when riding or driving she was "hardly fairly ensconced in her carriage than she pulled her needlework out of the bag she carried with her." The use of embroidery was not confined to personal adornment, but was employed in the decoration of the various objects which then went to make up the furniture of a house, such as curtains, bed-hangings, tablecloths, chair coverings, cushions, caskets, books, purses, and even pictures. The luxury of the dwelling and the household had also of late increased to an extent that called for the possession of numbers of each article, whether it were clothing, table, or bed napery. Identification by marking and numbering became necessary, and as, probably, the very limited library of the house seldom contained books of ornamental lettering and numerals, samplers were made to furnish them. The evolution of the sampler is thus easily traceable. First of all consisting of decorative patterns thrown here and there without care upon the surface of a piece of canvas (see Plate II.); then of designs placed in more orderly rows, and making in themselves a harmonious whole; then added thereto alphabets and figures for the use of those who marked the linen, and as an off-shoot imitation of tapestry pictures by the additions of figures, houses, etc. Finally it was adopted as an educational task in the schools, as a specimen of phenomenal achievement at an early age, and as a means whereby moral precept might be prominently advertised. As we have said, the samplers which have come down to us, and the age of which is certified by their bearing a date, do not extend beyond two hundred and seventy years, but those even of that age are writ all over with evidence that the sampler was then a fully developed growth, and must have been the descendant of a long line of progenitors. That they were in vogue long before this is proved by the references to them in literature as articles the use of which was a common one. Before proceeding further it may be well to cite some of these. The earliest record which we have met with is one by the poet Skelton (1469-1529), who speaks of "the sampler to sowe on, the laces to embroide." The next is an inventory of Edward VI. (1552), which notes a parchment book containing-- "_Item_: Sampler or set of patterns worked on Normandy canvas, with green and black silks." To Shakespeare we naturally turn, and are not disappointed, for we find that in his "Midsummer Night's Dream," Act iii. scene 2, Helena addresses Hermia as follows:-- "O, is all forgot? All schooldays' friendship, childhood innocence? We, Hermia, like two artificial gods, Have with our needles created both one flower, Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion, Both working of one song, both in one key, As if our hands, our sides, voices, and minds Had been incorporate." And in "Titus Andronicus," Act ii. scene 4, Marcus speaks of Philomel as follows:-- "Fair Philomel, she but lost her tongue, And in a tedious sampler sewed her mind." Sir Philip Sidney (1554-86), in his "Arcadia," introduces a sampler as follows:-- "And then, O Love, why dost thou in thy beautiful sampler set such a work for my desire to take out?" And Milton in "Comus" (1634):-- "And checks of sorry grain will serve to ply The sampler, and to tear the housewife's wool." In "The Crown Garland of Golden Roses," 1612, is "A short and sweet sonnet made by one of the Maides of Honor upon the death of Queene Elizabeth, which she sowed upon a sampler, in red silk, to a new tune of 'Phillida Flouts Me'"; beginning "Gone is Elizabeth whom we have lov'd so dear." In the sixteenth century samplers were deemed worthy of mention as bequests; thus Margaret Tomson, of Freston in Holland, Lincolnshire, by her will proved at Boston, 25th May 1546, gave to "Alys Pynchbeck, my systers doughter, my sampler with semes." In Lady Marian Cust's work on embroidery, mention is made of a sampler of the reign of Henry VIII., and a rough illustration is given of it; we have endeavoured to trace this piece, but have been unable to find it either in the possession of Viscount Middleton or of Lord Midleton, although both of them are the owners of other remarkable specimens of needlework. It is evident from these extracts that samplers were common objects at least as early as the sixteenth century. * * * * * The sampler in its latest fashion differed very materially both in form and design from its progenitors. Consisting originally of odds and ends of decorative designs, both for embroidery and lacework, scattered without any order over the surface of a coarse piece of canvas, its first completed form was one of considerable length and narrow breadth, the length being often as much as a yard, and the breadth not more than a quarter. The reason for this may well have been the necessity of using a breadth of material which the looms then produced, for the canvas is utilised to its full extent, and is seldom cut or hemmed at the sides. Be that as it may, the shape was not an inconvenient one, for whilst its width was sufficient to display the design, its height enabled a quantity of patterns to follow one another from top to bottom. These consisted at first of designs only, in embroidery and lace, to which were subsequently added numerals and alphabets. Later followed texts, and then verses, which, with the commencement of the eighteenth century, practically supplanted ornaments. The sampler thereupon ceased to be a text-book for the latter, and became only a chart on which are set out varieties of lettering and alphabets. Still later it was transformed into a medium for the display of the author's ability in stitching, the alphabet even disappearing, and the ornament (if such it can be called) being merely a border in which to frame a pretty verse, and a means whereby empty spaces could be filled, Art at that epoch not having learnt that an empty space could be of any value to a composition. How these changes came about, with their approximate dates, may now be considered. The Age of a Sampler The approximate date of any sampler, which is not more than two hundred and fifty years old, should, from the illustrations given in this volume, be capable of being arrived at without much difficulty, and it is, therefore, only those undated specimens which, from their appearance, may be older than that period that call for consideration here. They are but few in number, and a comparison of one or two of them may be of service as indicating the kind of examination to which old specimens should be subjected. [Illustration: FIG. 4.--SAMPLER OF CUT AND EMBROIDERED WORK. EARLY 17TH CENTURY. _The late Canon Bliss._] [Illustration: PLATE III.--PORTION OF LONG SAMPLER BY A. S. DATED 1648. _Author's Collection._ Owing to its great length this Sampler is not shown in its entirety. A portion of the upper part, which consists of various unconnected designs, and figures of birds, beetles, flies, and crayfish, has been omitted. In the portion illustrated is a man with a staff followed by a stag bearing a leaf in its mouth, a unicorn and lion, and the initials "A.S.," with date 1648. The bands of ornaments which follow are in several instances those which find a place nearly two centuries later as the borders of Samplers still. The lower portion is interesting for the changes which are rung upon the oak leaf and acorn. The silks of which it is made are in three colours only--blue, pink, and a yellowish green--which are worked upon a coarsish linen. Size, 34-3/4 × 8-1/2. It is in the author's collection. A somewhat similar Sampler, dated 1666, is in the Victoria and Albert Museum.] The earliest samplers present but little of the regularity of design which marks the dated ones. They were made for use and not for ornament, a combination which was probably always aimed at in those where regularity and order marked the whole. They would resemble that illustrated in Plate II., which bears evidence that it was nothing more or less than an example, whence a variety of patterns could be worked, for in almost every instance the design is shown in both an early and complete condition. It is somewhat difficult to assign a date to it, but the employment of silver and gold wirework to a greater or lesser extent in almost every part,[2] the coarse canvas upon which it is worked, and the colours, point to its being of the Elizabethan or early Jacobean period, the linked S's in Fig. 5 perhaps denoting the Stuart period. One of the two specimens of 1648 (Plate III.) continues in its upper portion this dropping of the decoration in a haphazard way on the canvas, although the greater part of it is strictly confined to rows of regular form. At first sight Fig. 4 should for the same reason be assigned to an earlier date than 1648, for the greater, and not the lesser, portion of it is embroidered without any apparent design. But more careful consideration discloses the fact that the sampler was evidently begun at the top with thorough regularity, and it was only at a later stage that the worker probably tired, and decided to amuse herself with more variety and less formality. Nor can an earlier date be assigned to Fig. 5 on account of the irregularity and incompleteness of the lines, which have evidently been carried out no further than to show the pattern.[3] [Illustration: FIG. 5.--PORTION OF SAMPLER. 17TH CENTURY.] [Illustration: FIG. 6.--PORTION OF SAMPLER OF CUT AND EMBROIDERED WORK. 17TH CENTURY. _The late Mrs Head._] The forms which the lettering takes will probably be found to be one of the best guides to the age of the early samplers, and on this ground Fig. 6, with its peculiar G and its reversed P for a Q, may be earlier than 1650, although the stags and the pear-shaped ornament beneath them are closely allied to those in Plate III., dated 1648. [Illustration: FIG. 7.--SAMPLERS IN THE VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM. DATED 1643, 1667, AND 1696.] [Illustration: PLATE IV.--SAMPLER BY ELIZABETH CALTHORPE. DATED 1656. _Mrs Charles Longman._ This small Sampler (it measures only 17 × 7) is a remarkable testimony to the goodness of the materials used by our ancestors, and the care that has been taken in certain instances to preserve these early documents of family history. For it is over two hundred and sixty years since Elizabeth Calthorpe's very deft fingers produced what even now appears to be a very skilled performance, and every thread of silk and of the canvas groundwork is as fresh as the day that it emerged from the dyer's hands. The design is one of the unusual pictorial and ornamental combinations, the pictorial representing the Sacrifice of Isaac in two scenes.] Texts and mottoes also furnish a clue to age, for they extend backwards beyond 1686 on but one known sampler, namely that of Martha Salter in the Victoria and Albert Museum, dated 1651, which has the maxim, "The feare of God is an excellent gift," although on such articles as purses and the like they are to be found much earlier, and the "Sonnet to Queen Elizabeth," to which we have referred, shows that they were in vogue in 1612. Age may also be approximated by the ornament and by the material of which the sampler is made, which differs as time goes on. The following table has been formed from many specimens that have come under my inspection; it shows the earliest date at which various forms of ornament appear on dated samplers so far as I have been able to trace them. Adam and Eve, figure of 1709 Alphabet 1643 Border enclosing sampler 1726 Border of flowing naturalistic flowers 1730 Boxers (and until 1758) 1648 Crown 1691 Eyelet form of lettering (? Anne Gover's, _circ._ 1610) 1672 _Fleur-de-Lys_ (see, however, Plate III.) 1742 Flower in vase 1742 Heart 1751 House 1765 Inscription 1662 Motto or text 1651 Mustard-coloured canvas 1728 Name of maker (? Anne Gover's, _circ._ 1610) 1648 Numerals 1655 Rows of ornament (latest 1741) 1648 Stag (but only common between 1758 and 1826) 1648 The Spies to Canaan 1804 Verse (? Lora Standish, _circ._ 1635) 1696 Lettering on Samplers It is from this, rather than from any other feature, that we trace the evolution of the sampler. Originally a pattern sheet of devices and ornaments, there were added to it in time alphabets and numerals of various kinds, which the increased luxury of the house called for as aids to the marking of the linen and clothes. Later on the monotony of alphabets and numerals was varied by the addition of the maker's name, the year, an old saw or two, and ultimately flights into moral or religious verse. Alphabets and Numerals Although a sampler without either alphabets or numerals would seem to be lacking in the very essence of its being, it is almost certain that the earliest forms did not contain either, but (like that in Plate II.) were merely sheets of decorative designs. For the need of pattern-books of designs would as certainly precede that of copy-books of alphabets and numerals, as the pleasure of embroidering designs upon garments preceded that of marking their ownership by names, and their quantity by figures. A sampler would seldom, if ever, be used as a text-book for children to learn letters or figures from, except with the needle, and the need for lettering and figuring upon them would, therefore, as we have said, only arise when garments or napery became sufficiently common and numerous to need marking. This period had clearly been reached when our earliest dated samplers were made, for, out of dated specimens of the seventeenth century that I have examined, two-thirds carry the alphabet upon them, and the majority have the numerals. It is rare to find later samplers without them, those of the eighteenth century containing assortments of every variety of lettering, Scottish ones especially laying themselves out for elaborately designed and florid alphabets. With the advent of the nineteenth century, however, the sampler began to lose its _raison d'être_, and quite one-half of those then made omit either the alphabet, or numerals, or both. Signatures Initials, which are followed by signatures, occur upon samplers of the earliest date. It is true that one or two of the undated samplers, which probably are earlier than any of the dated ones, carry neither, but as a rule initials, or names, are found upon all the early specimens. Thus the early one in Plate II. has the initials "M. C.," and the two dated in 1648 are marked respectively "A. S." and "Rebekah Fisher," and that of 1649, "S. I. D." In later times unsigned samplers are the exception. Inscriptions The earliest inscriptions are practically only signatures, thus: "Mary Hall is my name and when I was thirteen years of age I ended this in 1662"; or, somewhat amplified: "Ann Wattel is my name with my needle and thred I ded this sam and if it hath en beter I wold----" (Remainder illegible.)[4] The earliest inscriptions, other than a signature such as the foregoing, that I have met with are Lora Standish's (Fig. 43) and Miles Fletwood's referred to under "American Samplers," dated 1654 (Fig. 44), and which has the rhyme, "In prosperity friends will be plenty but in adversity not one in twenty." The next, dated 1686, has a saw which is singularly appropriate to a piece of needlework: "Apparell thy self with ivstice and cloth thy self with chastitie so shall thov bee happi and thy works prosper. Ann Tvrner" (Fig. 8). It is dated 1686. [Illustration: FIG. 8.--LONG SAMPLER, SIGNED ANN TURNER, 1686. _The late Mr A. Tuer._] In Plate VI., on a sampler of the same year, we have wording which is not infrequently met with in the cycles which follow, as, for instance, in Mrs Longman's sampler, dated 1696, and in one of 1701. It runs thus:-- "Look well to that thoo takest in Hand Its better worth then house or Land. When Land is gone and Money is spent Then learning is most Excelent Let vertue be Thy guide and it will keep the out of pride Elizabeth Creasey Her Work done in the year 1686." Dated in 1693-94 are the set of samplers recording national events, to which reference will be made elsewhere. In the last-named year (1694) a sampler bears the verse: "Love thou thee Lord and he will be a tender father unto thee." And one of 1698, "Be not wise in thy own eyes."--_Sarah Chamberlain._ [Illustration: PLATE V.--PORTION OF SAMPLER BY MARY HALL. DATED 1662. This plate only shows the upper half of a remarkably preserved Sampler. Like its fellow (_Plate VI._) it is distinguished by its admirable decorative qualities of colour and design. The lower portion, not reproduced, consists of three rows of designs in white thread, and four rows of drawn work. The inscription, which is in the centre, and is reproduced in part, runs thus: "MaRy HaLL IS My NaMe AnD WHen I WaS THIRTeen yeaRS OF AGE I ENDED THIS In 1662." Size, 34 x 8-1/2.] [Illustration: FIG. 9.--SAMPLER BY ELIZ. BAKER. DATED 1739.] A preference for saws rather than rhymes continues until the eighteenth century is well advanced. The following are instances:-- "If you know Christ you need know little more if not Alls lost that you have LaRnt before."--_Elisabeth Bayles_, 1703. "The Life of Truth buteafieth Youth and maketh it lovely to behold Blessed are they that maketh it there staey and pryes it more than gold it shall be to them a ryoul diadem transending all earthly joy."--_Elisabeth Chester_, 1712. "Keep a strict guard over thy tongue, thine ear and thine eye, lest they betray thee to talk things vain and unlawful. Be sparing of thy words, and talk not impertinently or in passion. Keep the parts of thy body in a just decorum, and avoid immoderate laughter and levity of behaviour."--_Sarah Grimes_, 1730. "Favour is deceitful And beauty is vain But a woman that feareth the Lord She shall be praised."--_Mary Gardner, aged 9_, 1740. Another undated one of the period is:-- "Awake, arise behold thou Hast thy Life ALIFe ThY Breath ABLASt at night LY Down Prepare to have thy Sleep thy Death thy Bed Thy Grave." One with leisure might search out the authors of the doggerel religious and moral verses which adorned samplers. The majority are probably due to the advent of Methodism, for we only find them occurring in any numbers in the years which followed that event. It may be noted that "Divine and Moral Songs for Children," by Isaac Watts, was first published in 1720, that Wesley's Hymns appeared in 1736, and Dr Doddridge's in 1738. We may here draw attention to the eighteenth-century fashion of setting out the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments (Fig. 9), and other lengthy manuscripts from the Old Testament in tablets similar to those painted and hung in the churches of the time. The tablets in the samplers are flanked on either side by full length figures of Christ and Moses, or supported by the chubby winged cherubs of the period which are the common adornments of the Georgian gravestones. In the exhibition at The Fine Art Society's were specimens dated 1715, 1735, 1740, 1757, and 1762, the Belief taking, in three instances, the place of the Commandments. On occasions the pupil showed her proficiency in modern languages as well as with the needle, by setting out the Lord's Prayer in French, or even in Hebrew. Contemporaneously with such lengthy tasks in lettering as the Tables of the Law, came other feats of compassing within the confines of a sampler whole chapters of the Bible, such as the 37th Chapter of Ezekiel, worked by Margaret Knowles in 1738; the 134th Psalm (a favourite one), by Elizabeth Greensmith in 1737, and of later dates the three by members of the Brontë family. The last-named samplers (Figs. 10, 11, and 12) by three sisters of the Brontë family which, through the kindness of their owner, Mr Clement Shorter, I am able to include here, have, it will be seen, little except a personal interest attaching to them. In comparison with those which accompany them they show a strange lack of ornament, and a monotony of colour (they are worked in black silk on rough canvas) which deprive them of all attractiveness in themselves. But when it is remembered who made them, and their surroundings, these appear singularly befitting and characteristic. For, as the dates upon them show, they were produced in the interval which was passed by the sisters at home between leaving one ill-fated school, which caused the deaths of two sisters, and their passing to another. It was a mournful, straitened home in which they lived, one in which it needed the ardent Protestantism that is breathed in the texts broidered on the samplers to uphold them from a despair that can almost be read between the lines. It was also, for one at least of them, a time of ceaseless activity of mind and body, and we can well understand that the child Charlotte, who penned, between the April in which her sampler was completed and the following August, the manuscript of twenty-two volumes, each sixty closely written pages, of a catalogue, did not take long to work the sampler which bears her name. The ages of the three girls when they completed these samplers were: Charlotte, 13; Emily Jane, 11; and Anne, 10. [Illustration: FIG. 10.--SAMPLER BY CHARLOTTE BRONTË. DATED 1829. _Mr Clement Shorter._] [Illustration: FIG. 11.--SAMPLER BY EMILY JANE BRONTË. DATED 1829. _Mr Clement Shorter._] [Illustration: FIG. 12.--SAMPLER BY ANNE BRONTË. DATED 1830. _Mr Clement Shorter._] But the lengthiest task of all was set to six poor little mortals in the Orphans' School, near Calcutta, in Bengal, East Indies. These wrought six samplers "by the direction of Mistress Parker," dividing between them the longest chapter in the Bible, namely, the 119th Psalm. It was evidently a race against time, for on each is recorded the date of its commencement and finish, being accomplished by them between the 14th of February and the 23rd of June 1797. At the top of each is a view of a different portion of the school; one of these is reproduced in Fig. 3. Returning to the chronological aspect of sampler inscriptions. As the eighteenth century advances we find verses coming more and more into fashion, although at first they are hardly distinguishable from prose, as, for instance, in the following of 1718:-- "You ask me why I love, go ask the glorius son, why it throw the world doth run, ask time and fat [fate?] the reason why it flow, ask dammask rosees why so full they blow, and all things elce suckets fesh which forceeth me to love. By this you see what car my parents toock of me. Elizabeth Matrom is my name, and with my nedell I rought the same, and if my judgment had beene better, I would have mended every letter. And she that is wise, her time will pris (e), she that will eat her breakfast in her bed, and spend all the morning in dressing of her head, and sat at deaner like a maiden bride, God in His mercy may do much to save her, but what a cas is he in that must have her. Elizabeth Matrom. The sun sets, the shadows fleys, the good consume, and the man he deis." More than one proposal has been made, in all seriousness, during the compilation of this volume, that it would add enormously to its interest and value if every inscription that could be found upon samplers were herein set out at length. It is needless to say that it has been altogether impossible to entertain such a task. It is true that the feature of samplers which, perhaps, interests and amuses persons most is the quaint and incongruous legends that so many of them bear, but I shall, I believe, have quite sufficiently illustrated this aspect of the subject if I divide it into various groups, and give a few appropriate examples of each. These may be classified under various headings. Verses commemorating Religious Festivals These are, perhaps, more frequent than any others. Especially is this the case with those referring to Easter, which is again and again the subject of one or other of the following verses:-- "The holy feast of Easter was injoined To bring Christ's Resurrection to our Mind, Rise then from Sin as he did from the Grave, That by his Merits he your Souls may save. "White robes were worn in ancient Times they say, And gave Denomination to this Day But inward Purity is required most To make fit Temples for the Holy Ghost." _Mary Wilmot_, 1761. Or the following:-- "See how the lilies flourish wite and faire, See how the ravens fed from heaven are; Never distrust thy God for cloth and bread While lilies flourish and the Raven's fed." _Mary Heaviside_, 1735. Or the variation set out on Fig. 19. [Illustration: PLATE VI.--PORTION OF SAMPLER BY ELIZABETH CREASEY. DATED 1686. _The Late Mr A. Tuer._ This Sampler, of which only the upper half is reproduced, is remarkable not only for the decorative qualities of its design but for its perfect state of preservation. It consists, besides the four rows which are seen, of one other in which the drawn work is subservient in quantity to the embroidery, and of seven rows in which the reverse is the case. The inscription, which is set out below, alternates in rows with those of the design. The butter colour of the linen ground is well reproduced in the plate. The original measures 32×8. INSCRIPTION. "Look Well to that thou takest in Hand Its Better Worth Then house Or Land When Land is gone and Money is spent Then learn ing is most Excelent Let vertue Be Thy guide and it will kee p the out of pride Elizabeth Creasey Her work Done in the year 1686."] As also in that by Kitty Harison, in our illustration, Fig. 13. [Illustration: FIG. 13.--EASTER SAMPLER BY KITTY HARISON. DATED 1770.] The Christmas verse is usually:-- "Glory to God in the Highest"; but an unusual one is that in Margaret Fiddes's sampler, 1773:-- "The Night soon past, it ran so fast. The Day Came on Amain. Our Sorrows Ceast Our Hopes Encreast once more to Meet again A Star appears Expells all Fears Angels give Kings to Know A Babe was sent With that intent to Conquer Death below." Ascension Day is marked by:-- "The heavens do now retain our Lord Until he come again, And for the safety of our souls He there doth still remain. And quickly shall our King appear And take us by the hand And lead us fully to enjoy The promised Holy Land." _Sarah Smith_, 1794. Whilst Passion Week is recognisable in:-- "Behold the patient Lamb, before his shearer stands," etc. The Crucifixion itself, although it is portrayed frequently in German samplers (examples in The Fine Art Society's Exhibition were dated 1674, 1724, and 1776), is seldom, if ever, found in English ones, but for Good Friday we have the lines:-- "Alas and did my Saviour bleed For such a worm as I?" Verses taking the Form of Prayers, Dedications, Etc. Amongst all the verses that adorn samplers there were none which apparently commended themselves so much as those that dedicated the work to Christ. The lines usually employed are so familiar as hardly to need setting out, but they have frequent varieties. The most usual is:-- "Jesus permit thy gracious name to stand As the first Effort of young Phoebe's hand And while her fingers on this canvas move Engage her tender Heart to seek thy Love With thy dear Children let her Share a Part And write thy name thyself upon her Heart." _Harriot Phoebe Burch, aged 7 years_, 1822. A variation of this appears in the much earlier piece of Lora Standish (Fig. 43). Another, less common, but which again links the sampler with a religious aspiration, runs:-- "Better by Far for Me Than all the Simpsters Art That God's commandments be Embroider'd on my Heart." _Mary Cole_, 1759. Verses to be used upon rising in the morning or at bedtime are not unfrequent; the following is the modest prayer of Jane Grace Marks (1807). "If I am right, oh teach my heart Still in the right to stay, If I am wrong, thy grace impart To find that better way." But one in my possession loses, by its ludicrousness, all the impressiveness which was intended:-- "Oh may thy powerful word Inspire a breathing worm To rush into thy kingdom Lord To take it as by storm. Oh may we all improve Thy grace already given To seize the crown of love And scale the mount of heaven." _Sarah Beckett_, 1798. Lastly, a prayer for the teacher:-- "Oh smile on those whose liberal care Provides for our instruction here; And let our conduct ever prove We're grateful for their generous love." _Emma Day_, 1837. Verses Referring to Life and Death The fact that "Religion never was designed to make our pleasures less" appears seldom or never to have entered into the minds of those who set the verses for young sampler workers. From the earliest days when they plied their needle their thoughts were directed to the shortness of life and the length of eternity, and many a healthy and sweet disposition must have run much chance of being soured by the morbid view which it was forced to take of the pleasures of life. For instance, a child of seven had the task of broidering the following lines:-- "And now my soul another year Of thy short life is past I cannot long continue here And this may be my last." And one, no older, is made to declare that:-- "Thus sinners trifle, young and old, Until their dying day, Then would they give a world of gold To have an hour to pray." Or:-- "Our father ate forbidden Fruit, And from his glory fell; And we his children thus were brought To death, and near to hell." Or again:-- "There's not a sin that we commit Nor wicked word we say But in thy dreadful book is writ Against the judgment day." A child was not even allowed to wish for length of days. Poor little Elizabeth Raymond, who finished her sampler in 1789, in her eighth year, had to ask:-- "Lord give me wisdom to direct my ways I beg not riches nor yet length of days My life is a flower, the time it hath to last Is mixed with frost and shook with every blast." A similar idea runs through the following:-- "Gay dainty flowers go simply to decay, Poor wretched life's short portion flies away; We eat, we drink, we sleep, but lo anon Old age steals on us never thought upon." Not less lugubrious is Esther Tabor's sampler, who, in 1771, amidst charming surroundings of pots of roses and carnations, intersperses the lines:-- "Our days, alas, our mortal days Are short and wretched too Evil and few the patriarch says And well the patriarch knew." A very common verse, breathing the same strain, is:-- "Fragrant the rose, but it fades in time The violet sweet, but quickly past the Prime White lilies hang their head and soon decay And whiter snow in minutes melts away Such and so with'ring are our early joys Which time or sickness speedily destroys." And the melancholy which pervades the verse on the sampler of Elizabeth Stockwell (Fig. 14) is hardly atoned for by the brilliant hues in which the house is portrayed. [Illustration: PLATE VII.--SAMPLER BY HANNAH DAWE. 17TH CENTURY. _Formerly in the Author's Collection._ This is a much smaller specimen than we are wont to find in "long" Samplers, for it measures only 18 × 7-1/4. It differs also from its fellows in that the petals of the roses in the second and third of the important bands are in relief and superimposed. The rest of the decoration, on the other hand, partakes much more of an outline character than is usual. As a specimen of a seventeenth-century Sampler it leaves little to be desired. It is signed Hannah Dawe.] [Illustration: FIG. 14.--SAMPLER BY ELIZABETH STOCKWELL. 1832. _The late Mr A. Tuer._] The gruesomeness of the grave is forcibly brought to notice in a sampler dated 1736:-- "When this you see, remember me, And keep me in your mind; And be not like the weathercock That turn att every wind. When I am dead, and laid in grave, And all my bones are rotten, By this may I remembered be When I should be forgotten." Ann French put the same sentiment more tersely in the lines:-- "This handy work my friends may have When I am dead and laid in grav." 1766. It is a relief to turn to the quainter and more genuine style of Marg't Burnell's verse taken from Quarles's "Emblems," and dated 1720:-- "Our life is nothing but a winters day, Some only breake their fast, & so away, Others stay dinner, & depart full fed, The deeper age but sups and goes to bed. Hee's most in debt, that lingers out the day, Who dyes betimes, has lesse and lesse to pay." This verse has crossed the Atlantic, and figures on American samplers. But the height of despair was not reached until the early years of the nineteenth century, when "Odes to Passing Bells," and such like, brought death and the grave into constant view before the young and hardened sinner thus:-- ODE TO A PASSING BELL "Hark my gay friend that solemn toll Speaks the departure of a soul 'Tis gone, that's all we know not where, Or how the embody'd soul may fare Only this frail & fleeting breath Preserves me from the jaws of death Soon as it fails at once I'm gone And plung'd into a world not known." _Ann Gould Seller, Hawkchurch_, 1821. Samplers oftentimes fulfilled the rôle of funeral cards, as, for instance, this worked in black:-- "In memory of my beloved Father John Twaites who died April 11 1829. Life how short--Eternity how long. Also of James Twaites My grandfather who died Dec. 31, 1814. How loved, how valu'd once, avails thee not To whom related, or by whom begot, A heap of dust alone remains of thee, 'Tis all thou art, and all the proud shall be." Curiously enough, whilst compiling this chapter the writer came across an artillery non-commissioned officer in the Okehampton Camp who, in the intervals of attending to the telephone, worked upon an elaborate Berlin woolwork sampler, ornamented with urns, and dedicated "To the Memory of my dear father," etc. Duties to Parents and Preceptors That the young person who wrought the sampler had very much choice in the selection of the saws and rhymes which inculcate obedience to parents and teachers is hardly probable, and it is not difficult to picture the households or schools where such doctrines as the following were set out for infant hands to copy:-- "All youth set right at first, with Ease go on, And each new Task is with new Pleasure done, But if neglected till they grow in years And each fond Mother her dear Darling spares, Error becomes habitual and you'll find 'Tis then hard labour to reform the Mind." The foregoing is taken from the otherwise delightful sampler worked by a child with the euphonious name of Ann Maria Wiggins, in her seventh year, that is reproduced in Plate XII. Preceptors also appear to have thought it well to early impress upon pliable minds the dangers which beset a child inclined to thoughts of love:-- "Oh Mighty God that knows how inclinations lead Keep mine from straying lest my Heart should bleed. Grant that I honour and succour my parents dear Lest I should offend him who can be most severe. I implore ore me you'd have a watchful eye That I may share with you those blessings on high. And if I should by a young youth be Tempted, Grant I his schemes defy and all He has invented." _Elizabeth Bock_, 1764. Samplers were so seldom worked by grown-up folk that one can hardly believe that the following verse records an actual catastrophe to the peace of mind of Eleanor Knot:-- ON DISINGENUITY "With soothing wiles he won my easy heart He sigh'd and vow'd, but oh he feigned the smart; Sure of all friends the blackest we can find Are those ingrates who stab our peace of mind." A not uncommon and much more agreeable verse sets forth the duties of man towards woman in so far as matrimony is concerned:-- "Adam alone in Paradise did grieve And thought Eden a desert without Eve, Until God pitying his lonesome state Crown'd all his wishes with a lovely mate. Then why should men think mean, or slight her, That could not live in Paradise without her." Samplers bearing the foregoing verse are usually decorated with a picture of our first parents and the Tree of Knowledge, supported by a demon and angel. The parent or teacher sometimes spoke through the sampler, as thus, in Lucia York's, dated 1725:-- "Oh child most dear Incline thy ear And hearken to God's voice." Or again:-- "Return the kindness that you do receive As far as your ability gives leave." _Mary Lounds._ "Humility I'd recommend Good nature, too, with ease, Be generous, good, and kind to all, You'll never fail to please." _Susanna Hayes._ Samplers Expatiating upon Virtue or Vice, Wealth or Poverty, Happiness or Misery Amongst these may be noted:-- "Happy is he, the only man, Who out of choice does all he can Who business loves and others better makes By prudent industry and pains he takes. God's blessing here he'll have and man's esteem, And when he dies his works will follow him." Of those dealing with wealth or poverty none, perhaps, is more incisive than this:-- "The world's a city full of crooked streets, And Death's the market-place where all men meet; If life was merchandise that men could buy The rich would always live, the poor alone would die." An American sampler has the following from Burns's "Grace before Meat":-- "Some men have meat who cannot eat And some have none who need it. But we have meat and we can eat, And so the Lord be thanked." [Illustration: PLATE VIII.--SAMPLER BY MARY POSTLE. DATED 1747. _Mrs C. J. Longman._ An early specimen of a bordered Sampler, dated 1747, the rows being relegated to a small space in the centre, where they are altogether an insignificant feature in comparison with the border. Some of the ornament to which we have been accustomed in the rows survives, as for instance the pinks, but a new one is introduced, namely, the strawberry. Here are also the Noah's Ark animals, trees, etc., which henceforward become common objects and soon transform the face of the Sampler. The border itself is in evident imitation of the worsted flower work with which curtains, quilts, and other articles were freely adorned in the early eighteenth century.] Inscriptions having an Interest owing to their Quaintness The following dates from 1740, and has as appendix the line, "God prosper the war":-- "The sick man fasts because he cannot eat The poor man fasts because he hath no meat The miser fasts to increase his store The glutton fasts because he can eat no more The hypocrite fasts because he'd be condemned The just man fasts cause he hath offended." An American version of this ends with:-- "Praise God from whom all blessings flow We have meat enow." That self-conceit was not always considered a failing, is evident from the following verses:-- "This needlework of mine may tell That when a child I learned well And by my elders I was taught Not to spend my time for nought," which is concentrated and intensified in one of Frances Johnson, worked in 1797:-- "In reading this if any faults you see Mend them yourself and find no fault in me." In a much humbler strain is this from an old sampler in Mrs Longman's collection:-- "When I was young I little thought That wit must be so dearly bought But now experience tells me how If I must thrive, then I must bowe And bend unto another will, That I might learn both arte & skill." Owing to the portrayal of an insect, which was not infrequently met with in days gone by, upon the face of the sampler which bears the following lines, it has been suggested that they were presumably written by that creature:-- "Dear Debby I love you sincerely My heart retains a grateful sense of your past kindness When will the hours of our Separation be at an end? Preserve in your bosom the remembrance of your affectionate Deborah Jane Berkin." The following, coming about the date when the abolition of the slave trade was imminent, may have reference to it:-- "THERE'S mercy in each ray of light, that mortal eye e'er saw, There's mercy in each breath of air, that mortal lips can draw, There's mercy both for bird, and beast, in God's indulgent plan, There's mercy for each creeping thing--But man has none for man." _Elizabeth Jane Gates Aged 12 years_, 1829. Riddle samplers, such as that of Ann Witty, do not often occur:-- "I had both | | and a | | by both I set great store I lent my | Money | to my | Friend | and took his word therefor I asked my | | of my | | and nought but words I got I lost my | | and my | | for sue him, I would not." Here, too, is an "Acrostick," the first letters of whose lines spell the name of the young lady who "ended" it "Anno Dom. 1749." "A virgin that's Industrious Merits Praise, Nature she Imitates in Various Ways, Now forms the Pink, now gives the Rose its blaze. Young Buds, she folds, in tender Leaves of green, Omits no shade to beautify her Scene, Upon the Canvas, see, the Letters rise, Neatly they shine with intermingled dies, Glide into Words, and strike us with Surprize." _E. W._ As illustrations of tales the sampler of Sarah Young (Fig. 15) is an unusual example. It deals with Sir Richard Steele's story of the loves of Inkle and Yarico. Inkle, represented as a strapping big sailor, was cast away in the Spanish Main, where he met and loved Yarico, an Indian girl, but showed his baseness by selling her for a slave when he reached Barbadoes in a vessel which rescued him. The story evidently had a considerable, if fleeting, popularity, for it was dramatised. The Design, Ornament and Colouring of Samplers Whilst important clues to the age of a sampler may be gathered from its form and legend, its design and colouring are factors from which almost as much may be learnt. Design can be more easily learned from considering in detail the illustrations, which have been mainly chosen for their typifying one or other form of it, but certain general features are so usually present that they may be summarised here. No one with any knowledge of design can look through the specimens of samplers selected for this volume without noting, first, that it is, in the earlier specimens, appropriate to the subject, decorative in treatment, and lends itself to a variety of treatment with the needle. Secondly, that the decoration is not English in origin, but is usually derived from foreign sources. Indeed, if we are to believe an old writer of the Jacobean time, the designs were "Collected with much praise and industrie, From scorching Spaine and freezing Muscovie, From fertile France and pleasant Italie, From Poland, Sweden, Denmarke, Germanie, And some of these rare patternes have been set Beyond the boundes of faithlesse Mahomet, From spacious China and those Kingdomes East And from great Mexico, the Indies West. Thus are these workes farre fetch't and dearly bought, And consequently good for ladyes thought." Thirdly, that after maintaining a remarkable uniformity until the end of the seventeenth century, design falls away, and with rare exceptions continuously declines until it reaches a mediocrity to which the term can hardly be applied. [Illustration: FIG. 15.--SAMPLER BY SARAH YOUNG. ABOUT 1750. _Mrs Head._] The same features are noticeable in the colouring. The samplers of the Caroline period are in the main marked by a softness and delicacy, with a preference for tender and harmonious shades of pinks, greens, and blues, but these quickly pass out of the schemes of colouring until their revival a few years ago through the influence of Japan and the perspicuity, of Sir Lazenby Liberty. This delicacy is not, as some suppose, due to time having softened the colours, for examination shows that fading has seldom taken place, in fact one of the most remarkable traits of the earlier samplers is the wonderful condition of their colouring (see Mrs Longman's sampler of 1656, Plate IV., as an example). Towards the end of the seventeenth century the adoption of a groundwork of roughish close-textured canvas of a canary hue also militated against this ensemble of the colour scheme, which is now and again too vivid, especially in the reds, a fact which may, in part, be due to their retaining their original tint with a persistency that has not endured with the other dyes. During the early Georgian era sampler workers seem to have passed through a stage of affection for deep reds, blues, and greens, with which they worked almost all their lettering. The same colours are met with in the large embroidered curtains of the time; it is probably due to the influence of the tapestries and the Chinese embroideries then so much in vogue. In the opening years of the eighteenth century a pride in lettering gave rise to a series of samplers of little interest or artistic value, consisting, as they did, of nothing else than long sentences, not readily readable, and worked in silks in colours of every imaginable hue used indiscriminately, even in a single word, without any thought bestowed on harmony or effect of colouring. Later on, towards the middle of the century, more sober schemes of colour set in, consisting in the abandonment of reds and the employment of little else than blues, greens, yellows, and blacks (see Plate IX.), which are attractive through their quietness and unity. Subsequently but little praise can be bestowed upon samplers so far as their design is concerned. Occasionally, as in that of Mr Ruskin's ancestress (Plate X.), a result which is satisfactory, both in colour and design, is arrived at, but this is generally due to individual taste rather than to tuition or example. In this respect samplers only follow in the wake of all the other arts--furniture and silversmiths' work, perhaps, excepted, as regards both of which the taste displayed was also individual rather than national. An evil which cankered later sampler ornamentation was a desire for novelty and variety. The earliest samplers exhibit few signs of attempts at invention in design. A comparison of any number of them shows ideas repeated again and again with the slightest variation. The same floral motives are adapted in almost every instance, and one and all may well have been employed since the days when they arrived from the Far East, brought, it may be, by the Crusaders. But it is in no derogatory spirit that I call attention to this lack of originality. A craftsman is doing a worthier thing in assimilating designs which have shown their fitness by centuries of use, patterns which are examples of fine decorative ornament that really beautifies the object to which it is applied, than in inventing weak and imperfect originals. No architect is accused of plagiarism if he introduces the pointed arch, and the great designs of the past are free and out of copyright. The Greek fret, or the Persian rose, is as much the property of anyone as the daisy or the snowdrop, and it was far better to make sound decorative pieces of embroidery on the lines of these than to attempt, as was done later on, feeble originals, which have nothing ornamental or decorative in their composition. The workers of the East, when perfection was arrived at in a design, did not hesitate to reproduce it again and again for centuries. [Illustration: PLATE IX.--SAMPLER BY E. PHILIPS. DATED 1761. _Author's Collection._ Were it not that this Sampler was produced by little Miss Philips at the tender age of seven, there would be a probability that it was unique through its containing a portrait of the producer. For in no other example have we so many evidences pointing to its being a record of actual facts. For instance, there is clearly shown a gentleman pointing to his wife (in a hooped costume), and having round him his five girls of various ages, the youngest in the care of a nurse. In the upper left corner is his son in charge of a tutor, whilst on the right are two maid-servants, one being a woman of colour. This fashion for black servants is further emphasised by the negro boy with the dog. That these should be present in this family is not remarkable, for by the lower illustration it is evident that Mr Philips was a traveller who had crossed the seas in his ship to where alligators, black swans and other rare birds abounded. The work was executed in 1761, the second year of George the Third, whose monogram and crown are supported by two soldiers in the costume of the period. It has been most dexterously carried out by the young lady, and it is conceived in a delicate harmony of greens and blues which was not uncommon at that time. Size, 19 × 12-1/2. An adaptation of this Sampler has been utilised as the drop scene to the play of "Peter Pan."] But the mistress of a ladies' improving school would hardly like her pupils to copy time after time the same designs--designs which perhaps resembled those of a rival establishment. Such a one would be oblivious to the fact that an ornamentalist is born not made, that the best design is traditional, and that pupils would be far more worthily employed in perpetuating ornamentation which had been invented by races intuitively gifted for such a purpose, than in attempting feeble products of her own brain. So, too, results show that she was, as a rule, unaware that good design is better displayed in simplicity than in pretentiousness. As that authority on design, the late Lewis Day, wrote in his volume on Embroidery, "The combination of a good designer and worker in the same person is an ideal very occasionally to be met with, and any attempt to realise it generally fails." Samplers show in increasing numbers as the end approaches that their designers were ignorant of most of the elementary rules of ornamentation in needlework, such, for instance, as that the pictorial is not a suitable subject for reproduction, nor the delineation of the human figure, nor that the floral and vegetable kingdom, whilst lending itself better than aught else, should be treated from the decorative, and not the realistic point of view. We will now pass on to consider generally the forms of decoration most usually met with. Sampler Design: the Human Figure Whilst embroideries in imitation of tapestries deal almost entirely with the portrayal of the human figure, samplers of the same period, and that the best, for the most part avoid it. This is somewhat remarkable, for the design of the Renaissance, which was universally practised at the time upon which we are dwelling, was almost entirely given up to weaving it into other forms, and the volumes which treat of embroidery show how frequently it occurs in foreign pieces of needlework. The omission is a curious one, but the reason for it is, apparently, not far to seek. If we examine the earlier pieces we shall see that practically one type of figure only presents itself. Save in exceptional pieces, such as Mrs Longman's early piece (Plate IV.), where the figures are clearly copied from one of the small tapestry pieces so in vogue at that date (1656), or Mrs Millett's piece (Fig. 16), the figures which appear upon samplers are all cast in one mould, and in no way improve but rather mar the composition. This last-named drawn-work sampler is a specimen altogether apart for beauty of design and workmanship. Doubts have been expressed as to its English origin, but portions of the ornament, such as the acorn, and the Stuart S in the lowest row, are thoroughly English; besides, as we have seen, design in almost every one of the seventeenth-century samplers is infected with foreign motives. The uppermost panel is supposed to represent Abraham, Sarah, and the Angel. To the left is the tent, with the folds worked in relief, in a stitch so fine as to defy ordinary eyesight. Sarah, who holds up a hand in astonishment at the angel's announcement, has her head-dress, collar, and skirt in relief, the latter being sewn with microscopic fleurs-de-lis. The winged angel to the left of Abraham has a skirt composed of tiny scallops, which may represent feathers. A rabbit browses in front of the tent. The centre of the second row is occupied by a veiled mermaid, her tail covered with scalloped scale in relief. She holds in either hand a cup and a mask. The lettering in the two flanking panels is "S.I.D. 1649 A.I." The decorative motive of the outer panels is peapods in relief, some open and disclosing peas. Roses and tulips fill the larger square below, and these are followed by a row (reversed) of tulips and acorns. Four other rows complete the sampler, which only measures 18-1/2 × 6-3/4. In order to give it a larger size the lowest row is not reproduced. I have seen another drawn-work sampler which antedates that just described by a year. It is of somewhat coarse texture but is good in design, and bears in a panel at the side initials and the date. The Victoria and Albert Museum has also two somewhat similar drawn-work samplers--one by Elizabeth Wood, dated 1666, which contains the Stuart S's; the other (undated) has the arms of James I. [Illustration: FIG. 16.--DRAWN-WORK SAMPLER BY S. I. D. DATED 1649. _Mrs C. F. Millett._] [Illustration: FIG. 17.--SAMPLER BY JEAN PORTER. 1709-10.] A type of figure prevalent in early samplers has puzzled collectors who possess specimens containing it. It wears a close-fitting costume and has arms extended, and has received the name of a "Boxer," presumably from its attitude and costume. It and a companion are continuously depicted for nearly a century, finally disappearing about 1742, but maintaining their attitude with less variation than any other form of ornament, the only alteration being in the form of the trophy which they hold in one hand. It is this trophy, if we may use such a term, that negatives the idea of their being combatant figures, and it almost with certainty places them in the category of the Greek Erotes, the Roman Amores, or the Cupids of the Renaissance. It is difficult to give a name to the trophy in most of the samplers, and the worker was clearly often in doubt as to its structure. In some it resembles a small vase with a lid, in others a spray with branches or leaves on either side. In one of 1673 it takes the form of a four-petalled flower, and in one of 1679 that of an acorn, which is repeated in samplers of 1684, 1693, and 1694, this repetition being probably due to the acorn being a very favourite subject for design under the Stuarts. In a sampler of 1693 acorns are held in either hand. In one of 1742 (Fig. 18), the object held is a kind of candelabra. The little figures themselves preserve a singular uniformity of costume, which again points to their being the nude Erotes, clothed, to suit the times, in a tight-fitting jerkin and drawers. These are always of gayest colours. On occasions (as in a sampler dated 1693) they don a coat, and have long wigs, bringing them into line with the prevailing fashion. When these figures disappear their place is taken by those of our first parents in the Garden of Eden, the incongruity of which is well depicted in the sampler illustrated in Fig. 17. This piece of work, which took nearly a year to complete--it was begun on 14th May 1709, and finished on 6th April 1710--is unlike any other that I have seen of that period, for it antedates, by nearly half a century, the scenes from real life which afterwards became part and parcel of every sampler. Adam and Eve became quite common objects on samplers after 1760.[5] Mention need only be made here of the dressed figures which occur in samplers dated during the reign of George the Third. They are sometimes quaint (as in Plates IX. and XI.), but they hardly come into any scheme of decoration. The squareness of the stitch used in later samplers renders any imitation of painting such as was attempted altogether a failure. [Illustration: FIG. 18.--SAMPLER. NAME ILLEGIBLE. DATE 1742. _Formerly in the Author's Collection._] Sampler Design: Animals Animals in any true decorative sense hardly came into sampler ornament. Whilst the tapestry pictures teem with them, so that one wanting in a lion or stag is a rarity, in samplers, probably, the difficulty of obtaining rounded forms with the stitch used in the large grained canvas was a deterrent. The lion only being found on the Fletwood sampler of 1654 (Fig. 44) and the stag, which in tapestry pictures usurps the place of the unicorn, appears but rarely on samplers before the middle of the eighteenth century, when it came into fashion, and afterwards occurs with uninterrupted regularity so long as samplers were made. This neglect of animals is hardly to be deplored, for when they do occur they are little else than caricatures (see, for instance, those in Plate III.). Birds, which lend themselves to needlework, appear in the later samplers (Plate XI. and Fig. 18), but hardly as part of any decorative scheme. Sampler Design: Flowers With the practically insignificant exceptions which we have just noticed, the ornamentation of the sampler was confined to floral and geometrical motives, and whilst the latter were for the most part used in drawn-work samplers, the former constituted the stock whence the greater part of the decoration employed in the older examples was derived. Amongst the floral and vegetable kingdom the selection was a wide one, but a few favourites came in for recognition in almost every sampler, partly because of their decorative qualities, and partly from their being national badges. With few exceptions they were those which were to be met with in English seventeenth-century gardens, and undoubtedly, in some instances, may have been adapted by the makers from living specimens. Chief among the flowers was the rose, white and red, single and double, the emblem for centuries previously of two great parties in the State, a badge of the Tudor kings, a part of the insignia of the realm, and occupying a foremost place upon its coinage. In sampler ornamentation it is seldom used either in profile or in bud, but generally full face, and more often as a single than as a double flower. As a form of decoration it may have been derived from foreign sources, but it clearly owed its popularity to the national significance that attached to it. The decorative value of the pink or carnation has been recognised from the earliest times, and a piece of Persian ornament is hardly complete without it. It is not surprising, therefore, that the old sampler workers utilised it to the full, and in fact it appears oftener than the rose in seventeenth-century specimens. Ten of the thirteen exhibits of that century at The Fine Art Society's Exhibition in 1900 contained it as against seven where the rose was figured. It maintains this position throughout, and the most successful of the borders of bordered samplers are those where it is utilised. Specimens will be found in Plates III., IV., and VI. The decorative value of the honeysuckle was hardly appreciated, and it only appeared on samplers of the date of 1648 (Plate III.), 1662 (Plate V.), 1668, 1701, and 1711, in the Exhibition, and the undated one reproduced in Fig. 4. [Illustration: PLATE X.--SAMPLER BY CATHERINE TWEEDALL. DATED 1775. _Mrs Arthur Severn._ The Sampler is noteworthy not only on account of its harmonious colour scheme, its symmetry of parts, and the excellence of its needlework, but as having been wrought by a young lady who afterwards became Mrs Ruskin, and the grandmother of John Ruskin. Her name, Cathrine Tweedall, is worked in the lower circle, and is illegible in the otherwise admirable reproduction, owing to its being in a faded shade of the fairest pink. The verse was probably often read by her renowned grandson, and may perchance have spurred his determination to strive in the race in which he won so "high a reward." Mrs Arthur Severn, to whom the Sampler belongs, notes that the Jean Ross whose name also appears upon it was the sister of the great Arctic explorer. The date of the Sampler is 1775.] Sampler workers were very faithful to the strawberry, which, after appearing in almost every one of the seventeenth-century long samplers, was a favourite object for the later borders, and it may be seen almost unaltered in specimens separated in date by a century at least. We give in Fig. 31 a very usual version of it. (See also Plate XIII.) [Illustration: FIG. 19.--SAMPLER BY MARY ANDERSON. 1831. _Lady Sherborne._] Other fruits and flowers which now and again find a place are the fig, which will be seen in Plate III.; the pineapple, the thistle (Fig. 21), and the tulip in samplers dated 1662, 1694, 1760, and 1825 (Plate XIII.). Although the oak tree acquired political significance after the flight of Charles II., that fact can in no way account for such prominence being attached to its fruit and its foliage as, for instance, is the case in samplers dated 1644 and 1648 (Plate III.), where varieties of these are utilised in a most decorative fashion in several of the rows of ornament, or in another of the following years (Fig. 16). But, curiously enough, after appearing in almost every seventeenth-century sampler, it disappeared entirely at the commencement of the eighteenth century. Sampler Design: Crowns, Coronets, Etc. The crown seems to have been suddenly seized upon by sampler makers as a form of decoration, and for half a century it was used with a tiresome reiteration. It had, of course, been largely used in Tudor decoration, and on the restoration of the monarchy it would be given prominence. But it probably was also in vogue because it lent itself to filling up spaces caused by alphabets not completing a line, and also because it allowed of variation through the coronets used by different ranks of nobility. We have seen in the sampler, Fig. 20, that the coronet of each order was used with a letter beneath, indicating duke, earl, etc. On occasions crowns were also used with some effect as a border. It is possible that the fashion for coronets was derived from foreign samplers, where this form of decoration was frequently used about the end of the seventeenth century, doubtless owing to the abundance of ennobled personages; they may well have come over with many other fancies which followed in the train of the House of Hanover. The earliest sampler in the Exhibition before referred to which bore a crown was one of 1693; but the coronet was there placed in conjunction with the initials M. D., and might be that of a titled lady who worked it. After that it appeared in one dated 1705 (where it was clearly a royal one connected with "Her Majesti Queen Anne"), and in samplers dated 1718, 1726, 1728 (1740, in which there were at least fifty varieties), and so on almost yearly up to 1767, after which it gradually disappeared, two only out of seventy subsequent samplers containing it. These were dated 1798 and 1804. In countries where almost every family bore a rank which warranted the use of a coronet, there would be a reason for their appearance as part of what would have to be embroidered on table linen, etc. [Illustration: FIG. 20.--SAMPLER. SCOTTISH (?). 18TH CENTURY. _Formerly in the Author's Collection._ NOTE.--The bright colouring, coarse canvas, and ornate lettering of this piece suggest a Scottish origin. It dates from about 1730, and is one of the earliest of the bordered samplers, the border being at present an altogether insignificant addition. It is also one of the first specimens of decoration with crowns and coronets, the initials underneath standing for king, duke, marquis, earl, viscount, lord, count, and baron.] [Illustration: FIG. 21.--SAMPLER BY J. H. [JANE HEATH]. A.D. 1725. _Mr Ashby Sterry._] The tiny sampler with crown illustrated in Fig. 21 was one of four contributed to the Exhibition by Mr Ashby Sterry, each of them representing a generation in his family. It is unfinished, the background only having been completed in the lower half; its crown and thistle denote its Scottish origin. [Illustration: FIG. 22.--SAMPLER BY MARY BYWATER. 1751. _Formerly in the Author's Collection._] [Illustration: FIG. 23.--HEART-SHAPED SAMPLER BY MARY IVES. DATED 1796. _Miss Haldane._ NOTE.--This delightful little sampler is reproduced in its full size, and is most delicately adorned with a pink frilled ribbon edging. We do not know which of the three ladies whose names it bears worked it, or to which of them the lines, "Be unto me kind and true as I be unto you," were addressed. The date, it will be seen, is 1796, and it shows that at the end of the century there was still an affection for the little flying Cupids so usual upon eighteenth-century gravestones. We have remarked upon the absence of the cross in samplers: even here we do not find it, although we have the heart and anchor.] Sampler Design: Hearts This emblem, which one would have imagined to be a much more favourite device with impressionable little ladies than the crown, is more seldom met with. In fact, it only figured on four of the hundreds of samplers which composed the Exhibition, and in three of these cases it was in conjunction with a crown. When it is remembered how common the heart used to be as an ornament to be worn, and how it is associated with the crown in foreign religious Art, its infrequency is remarkable. The unusually designed small sampler (the reproduction being almost the size of the original), Fig. 22, dated 1751, simply worked in pale blue silk, on a fine khaki-coloured ground, has a device of crowns within a large heart. Fig. 23 shows a sampler in the form of a heart, and has, in conjunction with this symbol, anchors. It is dated 1796. The Borders to Samplers The sampler with a border was the direct and natural outcome of the sampler in "rows." A case, for instance, probably occurred, as in Fig. 24,[6] where a piece of decoration had a vacant space at its sides, and resort was at once had to a portion of a row, in this case actually the top one. From this it would follow as a matter of course that the advantage, from a decorative point of view, of an ornamental framework was seen and promptly followed. The earliest border I have seen is that reproduced in Fig. 25, from a sampler dated 1726, but it is certain that many must exist between that date and 1700, the date upon the sampler in Fig. 24 just referred to. The 1726 border consists of a pattern of trefoils, worked in alternating red and yellow silks, connected by a running stem of a stiff angular character; the device being somewhat akin to the earlier semi-border in Fig. 24. [Illustration: FIG. 24.--DRAWN-WORK SAMPLER BY S. W. A.D. 1700. _Mrs C. J. Longman._] It is astonishing with what persistency the samplerists followed the designs which they had had handed to them in the "row" samplers, confining their attentions to a few favourites, and repeating them again and again for a hundred and fifty years, and losing, naturally, with each repetition somewhat of the feeling of the original. We give a few examples which show this persistency of certain ideas. [Illustration: FIG. 25.--BORDER OF MARY LOUNDS'S SAMPLER. A.D. 1726.] [Illustration: FIG. 26.--BORDER OF MARY HEAVISIDE'S SAMPLER. A.D. 1735.] [Illustration: FIG. 27.--BORDER OF ELIZABETH GREENSMITH'S SAMPLER. AGED 10. JULY YE 26, 1737.] The border in Fig. 26 is dated 1735, and presents but little advance from a decorative point of view. It is the production of Mary Heaviside, and is upon an Easter sampler, which bears, besides the verse to the Holy Feast of Easter, the Lord's Prayer and the Belief. The border may possibly typify the Cross and the Tree of Life. Elizabeth Greensmith's sampler (Fig. 27), worked two years later, in 1737, is more pretentious in form, the body of the work being taken up with a spreading tree, beneath which repose a lion and a leopard. The border consists of an ill-composed and ill-drawn design of yellow tulips, blue-bells, and red roses. The stem, which runs through this and almost every subsequent design, is here very feebly arranged; it is, however, only fair to say that the work is that of a girl in her tenth year. [Illustration: FIG. 28.--BORDER OF MARGARET KNOWLES'S SAMPLER. AGED 9. A.D. 1738.] Margaret Knowles's sampler (Fig. 28), made in the next year--A.D. 1738--is the earliest example I know of the use on a border of that universal favourite the pink, which is oftentimes hardly distinguishable from the corn blue-bottle. In the present instance it is, however, flattened almost out of recognition, whilst the design is spoilt by the colossal proportions of the connecting stem. In the second row of the sampler, Fig. 24, it is seen in a much simpler form, and it will also be found in Plate VI. [Illustration: FIG. 29.--BORDER TO SAMPLER BY ELIZABETH TURNER. A.D. 1771.] [Illustration: PLATE XI.--SAMPLER BY ANN CHAPMAN. DATED 1779. _Mrs C. J. Longman._ Incongruity between the ornament and the lettering of a Sampler could hardly be carried to a more ludicrous extreme than in Ann Chapman's, which is here reproduced in colour. The two points of Agur's prayer, which fills the panel, are that before he dies vanity shall be removed far from him, and that he shall have neither poverty nor riches. Yet as surroundings and supporters to this appeal we have two figures posing as mock shepherd and shepherdess, and decked out in all the vanities of the time. Agur's prayer was apparently often selected, for we see it again in the Sampler of Emily Jane Brontë (Fig. 10), but there it has the quietest of ornament to surround it, and it is worked in black silk; whereas in the present case there is no Sampler in the collection where the whole sheaf of colours has been more drawn upon.] The remaining illustrations of borders are selected as being those where the design is well carried out, and as showing how the types continue. The first (Fig. 29), worked by Elizabeth Turner in 1771, represents a conventional rose in two aspects; the second, by Sarah Carr (Fig. 30), in 1809, is founded on the honeysuckle; whilst the third (Fig. 31) is a delightfully simple one of wild strawberries that is frequently found in samplers from the earliest (in Plate II.) onwards. In that from which this example is taken, worked by Susanna Hayes in 1813, it is most effective with its pink fruit and green stalks and band. It will be noticed that it even crossed the Atlantic, for it reappears in Mr Pennell's American sampler, Plate XIII. [Illustration: FIG. 30.--BORDER TO SAMPLER BY SARAH CARR. A.D. 1809.] [Illustration: FIG. 31.--BORDER TO SAMPLER BY SUSANNA HAYES. A.D. 1813.] How even the border degenerated as the nineteenth century advanced may be seen in the monotonous Greek fret used in the three samplers of the Brontës (Figs. 10, 11, 12), and in that of Mary Anderson (Fig. 19). Miscellanea respecting Samplers Under this heading we group what remains to be said concerning samplers, namely:-- The Age and Sex of Sampler Workers In modern times samplers have been almost universally the product of children's hands; but the earliest ones exhibit so much more proficiency that it would seem to have been hardly possible that they could have been worked by those who were not yet in their teens. This supposition is in a way supported by an examination of samplers. Of those prior to the year 1700, I have seen but one in which the age of the maker is mentioned. It reads thus, "Mary Hall is my name and when I was thirteen years of age I ended this in 1662." On the other hand, the rhyme which we quoted at page 50, attached to one in Mrs Longman's possession, which, although undated, is certainly of the seventeenth century, points to it being the work of a grown-up and possibly a married lady. It is not until we reach the year 1704 that I have found a sampler (Fig. 32) which was the product of a child under ten, namely, that bearing the inscription "Martha Haynes ended her sampler in the 9th year of her age, 1704." This is quickly followed by one by "Anne Michel, the daughter of John and Sarah Michel ended Nov. the 21 being 11 years of age and in the 3 year of Her Majesti Queen Anne and in the year of ovr Lord 1705." 1740 is the next date upon one worked by Mary Gardner, aged 9 (page 27). [Illustration: FIG. 32.--SMALL SAMPLER BY MARTHA HAYNES. DATED 1704. _Late in the Author's Collection._] From 1750 onwards the majority of samplers are endorsed with the age of the child, and the main interest in the endorsements lies in the remarkable proficiency which many of them exhibit, considering the youth of the worker, and in the tender age at which they were wrought. Almost one half of the tiny workers have not reached the space when their years are marked with two figures, and we even have one mite of six producing the piece of needlework reproduced in Fig. 33, and talking of herself as in her prime in the verse set out upon it. [Illustration: FIG. 33.--SAMPLER BY SARAH PELHAM, AGED 6.] But perhaps the most remarkable achievement is the "goldfinch" sampler illustrated in Plate XII., which was worked by Ann Maria Wiggins at the age of seven. It is not unreasonable to suppose that samplers were on occasions worked by children of both sexes. One's own recollection carries back to canvas and Berlin wool-work having been one way of passing the tedious hours of a wet day. But specimens where the Christian name of a male appears are few and far between, and more often than not they are worked in conjunction with others, which would seem to indicate that they are only there as part and parcel of a list (which is not unusual) of the family. In the sampler illustrated in Fig. 34 the boy's name, Robert Henderson, is in black silk, differing from any of the rest of the lettering, which is perhaps testimony to his having produced it. This sampler shows the perpetuation until 1762 of the form in which rows are the predominant feature. A sampler, formerly in the author's collection, was more clearly that of a boy, being signed Lindsay Duncan, Cuper [_sic_], 1788. Another Scottish one bears the name or names Alex. Peter Isobel Dunbar, whilst a third of the same kind is signed "Mathew was born on April 16, 1764, and sewed this in August, 1774." The Size of Samplers The ravages of time and the little value attached to them have probably reduced to very small numbers the tiny samplers such as those which are seen in Figs. 35 and 36, and which must have usually been very infantine efforts. Those illustrated, however, show the progress made by two sisters, Mary and Lydia Johnson, in two years. Presumably Lydia was the elder, and worked the sampler which bears her name and the date 1784. This was copied by her sister Mary in the following year, but in a manner which showed her to be but a tyro with the needle; nor much advanced in stitchery in the following year, in which she attempted the larger sampler which bears her name. Lydia, on the other hand, in the undated sampler, but which was probably made in the year 1786, showed progress in everything except the power of adapting the well-known design of a pink to the small sampler on which she was engaged, as to which she clearly could not manage the joining of the pattern at the corners. The originals of these samplers measure from four to six inches in their largest dimensions. [Illustration: FIG. 34.--SCOTTISH SAMPLER BY ROBERT HENDERSON. DATED 1762.] [Illustration: FIG. 35.--SMALL SAMPLERS BY MARY JOHNSON. 1785-6. _Author's Collection._] [Illustration: FIG. 36.--SMALL SAMPLERS BY LYDIA JOHNSON. 1784. _Author's Collection._] The Place of Origin of Samplers Collectors, in discussing samplers among themselves, have wondered whether it would be possible to assign differences in construction and material to their having been produced in localities where the characteristic forms and patterns had not permeated. But those specimens which the author has examined, and which by a superscription gave a clue as to their place of origin, certainly afford insufficient foundation for such assumptions. In the first place, samplers so marked are certainly not sufficiently numerous to warrant any opinion being formed on the subject, and, as to those not so marked, the places where they have been found cannot be taken into account as being their birthplaces, as families to whom they have for long belonged may naturally have removed from quite different parts of the kingdom since the samplers were made. It is surprising how seldom the workers of samplers deemed it necessary to place upon them the name of the district which they inhabited. There are few who followed the example of the girl who describes herself on a sampler dated 1766, thus:-- "Ann Stanfer is my name And England is my nation Blackwall is my dwelling place And Christ is my salvation." [Illustration: FIG. 37.--SCOTTISH SAMPLER BY MARY BAYLAND. 1779.] The only names of places in England recorded on samplers in The Fine Art Society's Exhibition were Chipping Norton, Sudbury, Hawkchurch, and Tottenham, and certain orphan schools or hospitals, such as Cheltenham and Ashby. Curiously enough, the Scottish lassies were more particular in adding their dwelling-place, thus, in the sampler reproduced in Fig. 37, and which is interesting as a survival as late as 1779 of a long sampler, Mary Bayland gives her residence as Perth, and others have been noted at Cupar, Dunbar, and elsewhere in Scotland. It might be expected that these Scottish ones would differ materially from those made far away in the southern parts of the kingdom, but whilst those in Figs. 32 and 34 have a certain resemblance and difference from others in the decoration of their lettering, that in Fig. 36 might well have been worked in England, showing that there were no local peculiarities such as we might expect. It will be seen that two of the American samplers figured here have their localities indicated, namely Miss Damon's school at Boston (Fig. 50) and Brooklyn (Fig. 47). Samplers as Records of National Events [Illustration: FIG. 38.--SAMPLER BY MARY MINSHULL. DATED JUNE 29, 1694.] A largely added interest might have been given to samplers had a fashion arisen of lettering them with some historical occurrence which was then stirring the locality, but unfortunately their makers very rarely rose to so much originality. Three rare instances were to be seen in The Fine Art Society's Exhibition. These, curiously enough, came together from different parts of the country--one from Nottingham, a second from Hockwold, Norfolk, and the third from the author's collection in London--but they were worked by two persons only, one by Mary Minshull, and two by Martha Wright. They are all unusual in their form of decoration (as will be seen by that illustrated in Fig. 38), and were practically similar in design, colour, and execution, each having a set of single pinks worked in high relief in the centre of the sampler. Their presence together was certainly a testimony to the all-embracing character of the Exhibition. The inscriptions upon them were as follows:-- (1) "The Prince of Orang landed in the West of England on the 5th of November 1688, and on the 11th April 1689 was crowned King of England, and in the year 1692 the French came to invade England, and a fleet of ships sent by King William drove them from the English seas, and took, sunk, and burned twenty-one of their ships."--Signed "_Martha Wright, March 26th, 1693_." (2) "There was an earthquake on the 8th September 1692 in the City of London, but no hurt tho it caused most part of England to tremble."--Signed "_Mary Minshull_." [Illustration: PLATE XII.--SAMPLER BY ANN MARIA WIGGINS. 19TH CENTURY. _Mrs C. J. Longman._ This "Goldfinch" Sampler was one of the most elaborate Samplers in the Bond Street Exhibition, and is really a wonderful production for a child of seven years of age. It was probably made early in the nineteenth century.] The third was a combination of the two inscriptions. Nothing of a similar character in work of the eighteenth century has come under my notice, but the Peace of 1802 produced the following lines on a sampler:-- "Past is the storm and o'er the azure sky serenely shines the sun With every breeze the waving branches nod their kind assent." ON PEACE "Hail England's favor'd Monarch: round thy head Shall Freedom's hand Perennial laurels spread. Fenc'd by whose sacred leaves the royal brow Mock'd the vain lightnings aim'd by Gallic foe Alike in arts and arms illustrious found Proudly Britannia sits with laurel crown'd Invasion haunts her rescued Plains no more And hostile inroads flies her dangerous shore Where'er her armies march her ensigns Play Fame points the course and glory leads the way. * * * * * O Britain with the gifts of Peace thou'rt blest May thou hereafter have Perpetual rest And may the blessing still with you remain Nor cruel war disturb our land again. "The Definitive Treaty of Peace was signed March 27{th} 1802 proclaimed in London April the 29{th} 1802--Thanksgiving June the 1st 1802. _Mary Ann Crouzet Dec{br} 17 1802._" Later samplers gave expression to the universal sympathy elicited by the death of Queen Charlotte. Map Samplers Needlework maps may very properly be classed under the head of samplers, for they originated in exactly the same way, namely, as specimens of schoolgirl proficiency, which when taken home were very lasting memorials of the excellence of that teaching termed "the use of the globes." Maps were only the product of the latter half of the eighteenth century; at least, none that I have seen go back beyond that time, the earliest being dated 1777. Their interest for the most part is no more than that of a map of a contemporary date; for instance, the North America reproduced in Fig. 39 has nothing whatever in the way of needlework to recommend it, but it shows what any map would, namely, how little was known at that date of the Western States or Canada. A map of Europe in the Exhibition, dated 1809, was a marvellous specimen of patient proficiency in lettering, every place of note being wonderfully and minutely sewn in silk. The executant was Fanny le Gay, of Rouen. [Illustration: FIG. 39.--MAP OF NORTH AMERICA BY M.A.K. 1738.] [Illustration: FIG. 40.--MAP OF ENGLAND AND WALES BY ANN BROWN.] A map printed on satin or other material was sometimes worked over, not always as regards all the lettering, but as to the markings of the degrees of latitude and longitude,[7] and some of the principal names. These have naturally less interest and value as specimens of needlework than those which are entirely hand worked, although for the purposes of geographical reference they were at all events reliable, which is more than can be said for some of the original efforts; as, for instance, that of little Ann Brown, whose map of England and Wales is reproduced (Fig. 40). Starting bravely, her delineation of Northumberland takes her well down the canvas, so that by the time she has reached Newcastle she has carried it abreast of Dumfries in Scotland, and Cork in Ireland! Yorkshire is so expansive that it grows downward beyond Exeter and Lundy Island, which last-named places have, however, by some mishap, crept up to the northward of Manchester and Leeds. It is a puzzle to think where the little lassie lived who could consort London with Wainfleet, the River Thames with the Isle of Wight, Lichfield with Portland, or join France to England. Although one would imagine that the dwelling-place of the sempstress would usually be made notable in the map either by large lettering or by more florid colouring, we have not found this to be the case. [Illustration: FIG. 41.--MAP OF AFRICA. DATED 1784.] The map of Africa (Fig 41), which is surrounded by a delightful border of spangles, and which seems to have been used as a fire-screen, is interesting now that so much more is known of the continent, for many of the descriptions have undergone considerable change, such as the Grain Coast, Tooth Coast, and Slave Coast, which border on the Gulf of Guinea. The sampler is also noteworthy as having been done at Mrs Arnold's, which was presumably a school in Fetherstone Buildings, High Holborn, hardly the place where one would expect to find a ladies' seminary nowadays. American Samplers Tapestry pictures have such a Royalist air about them that it is hardly probable that they found favour with the Puritan damsels of the Stuart reigns, and, consequently, it may be doubted whether the fashion for making them crossed the Atlantic to the New World with the Pilgrim Fathers, or those who followed in their train. Samplers, on the other hand, with their moralities and their seriousness, would seem to be quite akin to the old-fashioned homes of the New Englanders, and doubtless there must be many specimens hanging in the houses of New England and elsewhere which were produced from designs brought from the Old Country, but over which a breath of native art has passed which imparts to them a distinctive interest and value. Three notable ones, we know, crossed the Atlantic with the early settlers. One, that of Anne Gower (spelled Gover on the sampler), first wife of Governor Endicott (Fig. 42), is now a cherished possession of the Essex Institute, Salem, Massachusetts. As Governor Endicott's wife arrived at Salem in 1628, and died the following year, we have in her sampler the earliest authentic one on record. The inscription of very well-designed and elaborately-worked letters, difficult to distinguish in the photograph, is:-- ANNE [Diamond] GOVER S T V W X Y Z J K L M N O P Q R A a B C d E F G H [Illustration: FIG. 42.--DRAWN-WORK SAMPLER BY ANNE GOVER, FIRST WIFE OF GOVR. J. ENDICOTT.] [Illustration: FIG. 43.--SAMPLER OF LOARA STANDISH, DAUGHTER OF THE PILGRIM FATHER, MILES STANDISH, NOW IN PILGRIM HALL, PLYMOUTH, U.S.A.] [Illustration: FIG. 44.--SAMPLER BEARING NAMES OF MILES AND ABIGAIL FLEETWOOD. DATED 1654. _Property of Mrs Frank Boxer._] [Illustration: FIG. 45.--SAMPLER BY ABIGAIL RIDGWAY. 1795. _Mr A. D. Drake's Collection._] [Illustration: PLATE XIII.--AMERICAN SAMPLER BY MARTHA C. BARTON. DATED 1825. _Mr Joseph Pennell._ Mr Joseph Pennell's Sampler, which finds a place here as a specimen of American work, has little to distinguish it from its fellows that were produced in England in the reign of George IV. The border, it is true, only preserves its uniformity on two of the four sides, but where it does it is designed on an old English pattern, that of the wild strawberry. So, too, we find the ubiquitous stag and coach dogs, Noahs, ash trees, birds, and flower baskets.] The sampler itself is a beautiful specimen of drawn work, and the lettering is the same colour as the linen. If, as must probably be the case, it was worked by her as a child, it was made in England, and its date may be the end of the first decade of the seventeenth century. The second, by Lora Standish, is now in the Pilgrim Hall, Plymouth (Fig. 43). Lora was the daughter of Miles Standish, the Pilgrim Father, who went to Boston in February 1621, and it bears the inscription:-- "Loara Standish is My Name Lord Guide My Heart that I may do Thy Will And fill my hands with such convenient Skill As will conduce to Virtue void of Shame And I will give the Glory to Thy Name." [Illustration: FIG. 46.--SAMPLER BY ELIZABETH EASTON. 1795. _Mr A. W. Drake's Collection._] The earliest dated sampler in America of which I have cognisance, and one which may have been worked in that country, is that bearing the names of Miles and Abigail Fletwood (Fleetwood?) (Fig. 44). It is dated 1654, and has been owned by the descendants of Mrs Henry Quincy since 1750, and is now in the possession of Mrs Frank Boxer of Cambridge, Massachusetts, who has kindly furnished me with particulars concerning it. It bears the following inscription:-- "In prosperity friends will be plenty, But in adversity not one in twenty," which, it is thought, may possibly have reference to the reverses of Miles Fletwood and his relationship to Cromwell. It is somewhat remarkable for a sampler to bear the names of husband and wife for it necessarily presupposes its having been worked after marriage. [Illustration: FIG. 47.--SAMPLER BY MARIA E. SPALDING. 1815. _Dr J. W. Walker's Collection._] [Illustration: FIG. 48.--SAMPLER BY MARTHA C. HOOTON. 1827. _Mr A. W. Drake's Collection._] If one may judge from the photographs which collectors in America have sent me, and for which I have to thank Dr James W. Walker of Chicago and Mr A. W. Drake of New York, and those noted in an article on the subject in the _Century Magazine_,[8] specimens between the period just named, that is the middle of the seventeenth century and the end of the eighteenth century, are rare. We have but two such figured, each dated 1795, and, as will be seen by the illustrations (Figs. 45 and 46), they are entirely British in character. I am glad, however, to add several interesting specimens of later date from the collections of these gentlemen. Unfortunately, not having the originals, I can only give them in monochrome. Plate XIII., however, represents in colour an American sampler. It belongs to Mr Pennell, the well-known artist and author, and was worked by an ancestress, Martha C. Barton, in 1825. From Mrs Longman's collection I also give (Fig. 51) one, worked in silk on a curious loose canvas, which was obtained by her in Massachusetts, and has the following inscription:-- "Persevere. Be not weary in well doing. Youth in society are like flowers Blown in their native bed, 'tis there alone Their faculties expand in full bloom Shine out, there only reach their proper use. "Wrought by Lydia J. Cotton. Aged 9 years. August 27. 1819. Love learning and improve." Foreign Samplers It has been my endeavour in this volume to confine the survey of samplers and embroideries entirely to the production of the English-speaking race, in part because other authors have drawn almost all their material from foreign sources, and the subject is sufficiently ample and interesting without having recourse to them, and also because the collections containing foreign samplers or embroideries are very few, and although they, perhaps, surpass the efforts of our own countrywomen in the variety of their stitches and the proficiency with which they are executed, they take a less important place where interest of subject is the main recommendation. [Illustration: FIG.--49. AMERICAN SAMPLER OF THE LAMBORN FAMILY. 1827. _Mr A. W. Drake's Collection._] [Illustration: FIG. 50.--AMERICAN SAMPLER BY ELIZABETH M. FORD. _Dr Jas. W. Walker's Collection._] [Illustration: FIG. 51.--AMERICAN SAMPLER BY LYDIA J. COTTON. DATED 1819. _Mrs C. J. Longman._] Nevertheless as the acquisition of them may add an interest to those who never fail on their travels to inspect the contents of every curiosity shop they come across, the following description of them which Mrs C. J. Longman, who possesses a most important collection, has been good enough to furnish, may not be out of place. "My collection of foreign samplers includes specimens from the following countries: Germany, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, France, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, and Portugal, but by far the largest number of my foreign samplers come from Germany, and, next to English ones, the German seem more easy to obtain than those of any other country. In Spain and Portugal there are also a fair number in the market. "The dated samplers abroad seem to begin at about the same period as in England, namely, the middle of the seventeenth century. The earliest specimens that I possess from these several countries are as follows: Germany, 1674; Switzerland, 1675; Italy, seventeenth century (undated); Spain, early eighteenth century (undated); Belgium, 1724; Holland, 1726; Denmark, 1742; France, 1745; Portugal, early nineteenth century (undated). "There are a few marked characteristics which seem to belong to the different countries, which it is interesting to note. "In the German samplers, the initials of the worker and the date are almost always given, enclosed together, in a little garland or frame; but I have never seen the name signed in full. I have only once seen a German sampler with an inscription on it; in that case 'Fur uns geoffert' is worked above a representation of the Crucifixion. "The seventeenth-century German samplers are rather small, and much squarer in shape than English ones of the same date. With the eighteenth century long, narrow ones came in, a quite common size being 44 in. long, by about 10 in. broad, the usual width of the linen; the selvage is left at the top and bottom. "There is seldom much arrangement in the earlier German samplers. They usually have one alphabet, and various conventional flowers, birds, and other designs scattered over them. "With the long shape of sampler a more methodical arrangement came in. A typical one is as follows: Lines of alphabets and numerals across the top, some large subjects in the centre, and designs for borders arranged in lines across the bottom. "The central subjects very often include a representation of the Crucifixion and emblems of the Passion, namely, the crown of thorns, scourge, ladder, nails, hammer, tweezers, sponge, hour-glass, dice, cock. Adam and Eve under the Tree of Knowledge is another favourite subject, and animals such as lions, deer, or parrots frequently occur. One does not often find houses or domestic scenes. One sampler, dated 1771, has a christening depicted on it, which I imagine to be very unusual. "The borders are very various. In them trefoils, grapes, conventional pinks, roses, pears, and lilies and occasionally deer and birds are worked in; but I have never seen the 'Boxers' or other figures that one finds in the English borders, and I have only one specimen with acorns. "The earliest German samplers seem to be worked entirely in cross-stitch, beautifully fine, and the same on both sides of the material; the back-stitching so often found on early English ones I have never seen. In the eighteenth century other stitches were sometimes used, and I have one German sampler, dated 1719, which is almost entirely worked in knots. On others some elaborate stitches are shown, which are mostly worked in square patches, and are not made use of for improving the design of the samplers. "The earliest examples of darned samplers that I have seen come from Germany, and I think that one may give the Germans the credit of inventing them; for, whereas, in England they do not appear much before the end of the eighteenth century, I have a German one dated 1725, and several others from the middle of the same century. The darns on these samplers show every kind of ordinary and damask darning, the material being usually cut away from underneath and the hole entirely filled in. I have never seen German darning worked into designs of flowers, birds and so on, as we see on English darned samplers. "As in all countries, the colours of the earlier German samplers are the best, but they are in no case striking. "Dutch samplers seem quite distinct in character from German ones. All those that I have seen are broader than they are long, and they are worked across the material, the selvage coming at the sides, instead of at the top and bottom. They are usually dated, and signed with initials. One of their main characteristics is to have elaborate alphabets worked in two or more colours. The second colour is very often worked round an ordinary letter as a sort of frame or outer edge, and gives it a clumsy, rather grotesque appearance. The Dutch samplers might, as a rule, be described as patchy. Without any obvious arrangement they have houses, ships, people, animals, etc., scattered over them. The stitch used is mainly cross-stitch; but back-stitch, an open kind of satin-stitch, and bird's-eye-stitch are also often seen. "Belgian samplers, as far as I have seen, approach more nearly to the German in style. I have one, however, dated 1798, which is quite distinct in character. It is 64 in. in length, with a large, bold alphabet of letters over 2 in. long worked on it, such as might be used for marking blankets. "I have only three specimens of Danish samplers, but they are all remarkable for the great variety of stitches introduced. I have a Danish sampler, and also a Swedish one of about 1800 worked on fine white muslin, both giving patterns of stitches for the 'Töndu' muslin drawn work. These patterns imitate both needlepoint and pillow laces, threads are drawn out one way of the material, the remaining ones being drawn together with a great variety of stitches, so as to follow the intricacies of lace patterns. This work was much used for adorning elbow ruffles, fichues, etc., and it is very like some Indian muslin work, though the stitches are slightly different. "French samplers, as far as I have seen, are also remarkable for the fineness of the stitches. They are usually dated and signed in full, and often have inscriptions worked on them. One large French map of Europe in my collection has 414 names worked on it in fine cross-stitch, many of them being worked on a single thread of material, which is a fine muslin. "Swiss samplers show fine work, but a great lack of effect. One dated 1675 has several borders on it, worked in the back-stitch so much used in England at that date. "From Italy I have no important coloured samplers, but several point-coupé ones. They are undated but belong to the seventeenth century. These samplers show a beauty of design which is rather in contrast to that of English ones of the same kind and date, there being a grace and meaning about the Italian patterns that one seldom finds in English specimens of drawn work, fine as these are. A typical coloured Italian sampler of about 1800 is as follows: The sampler is nearly square, and is divided into three parts. In the upper division a Latin cross is worked at the side, and the rest of the space is filled with two alphabets, numerals, and the name of the worker, but no date. In the second division a cross is worked, and fourteen emblems of the Passion. In the third division are various trees, figures, animals, etc., some local colour being given by an orange and a lemon tree in pots. "Spain is well represented in my collection. For beauty of colouring and designs I think that it stands far ahead of any other country. Spanish samplers are generally large; they are sometimes square, sometimes long in shape. They are as a rule entirely covered with border patterns, which in the square shape are worked along the four sides parallel to the edge; and which in the long shape runs in lines across the sampler, with a break in the middle, where the border changes to another pattern, thus giving the impression that the sampler is joined up the centre. The patterns of the borders vary a great deal; I have counted thirty different ones on one sampler. They are mostly geometric, and not based on any natural objects, but the designs are so skilfully handled and elaborately worked out as to take away any appearance of stiffness; and in them the prim acorn, bird, or trefoil of the English and German border patterns are never seen. I have one Spanish sampler, dated 1738, of a quite different type to all my others. It is divided into three panels. The top panel is filled with floral designs, the centre with a gorgeous coat of arms, and the lower panel contains a representation of St George and the Dragon. "The colours used in Spanish samplers are very striking, and their blending in the different borders is very happy and effective. Most of the early specimens are worked almost entirely in satin-stitch, although cross-stitch and back-stitch are also sometimes introduced. The samplers are usually hem-stitched round the edge, and occasionally contain some drawn work. I have one early specimen in which the drawn part is worked over in coloured silks. "The Spanish samplers that I have seen seldom have the alphabet worked on them, and are rarely dated. On the other hand, they often have the name of the worker signed in full. "Portugal is only represented in my collection by samplers worked in the nineteenth century; it is therefore hardly fair to compare these specimens with the earlier ones of other countries, for everywhere samplers began to deteriorate in that century. The Portuguese samplers that I possess are eminently commonplace and can well be described as 'Early Victorian.' "It must be remembered that my remarks on foreign samplers are based on specimens belonging to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. With few exceptions I have not tried to collect modern ones, which approximate much more to each other in the different countries. "Looking back over this brief survey, and comparing foreign samplers with English, one or two differences at once stand out. The foreign samplers are seldom worked in a pictorial form. They hardly ever, except in France, have verses or texts worked on them. The age of the worker is never given. This is much to be regretted, as in these three things lies much of the personal interest of the English sampler. "On the other hand, from a practical point of view, if one goes to one's samplers as to pattern-books for good stitches, designs and effects of colour, England no longer takes the first place, and one would turn for these to the samplers of Germany, Scandinavia, Spain, and Italy." Indian Samplers Many of the Anglo-Indian mothers who reared and brought up families in the East Indies in the days when the young ones had to pass all their youth in that country, regardless of climatic stress, must have trained their girls in the cult of sampler-making, and the same schooling went on in the seminaries at Calcutta and elsewhere, as we have seen in the specimen illustrated in Fig. 2. I am able to give another illustration (Fig. 52), which is not otherwise remarkable except for the fact that it was worked by a child at Kirkee, and shows how insensibly the European ornament becomes orientalised as it passes under Eastern influence. It is the only sampler in which there is any use made of plain spaces, and even here it is probably only accidental. [Illustration: FIG. 52.--SAMPLER BY HELEN PRICE. MADE AT KIRKEE, EAST INDIES. DATED 18--. _Late in the Author's Collection._] Sampler Literature Although, undoubtedly, much of the ornament upon samplers consists of designs that have been handed down from generation to generation by means of the articles themselves, pattern-books have not been altogether lacking even from early days. They have not, however, rivalled either in quantity or quality those which treat of the sister Art of lace-making, for, so far as is known, early English treatises on the subject are limited to some half a dozen, and these occupy themselves as much with lacework as with embroidery. The first English book that is known is in reality a foreign one; it is entitled, "New and Singular Patternes and Workes of Linnen Serving for Patternes to make all sorts of Lace Edginges and Cut Workes. Newly invented for the profite and contentment of Ladies, Gentilwomen and others that are desireous of this Art. By Vincentio. Printed by John Wolfe 1591." We have not been able to find a copy, and therefore can do no more than chronicle its existence. A volume upon which needleworkers of the seventeenth century must have relied much more largely for their ideas was published in its early years under the title of "The Needle's Excellency. A New Booke wherein are divers admirable workes wrought with the needle. Newly invented and cut in copper for the pleasure and profit of the industrious. Printed for James Boler, and are to be sold at the Syne of the Marigold in Paules Churchyard." This treatise went to twelve editions at least, but, nevertheless, is very rare. The twelfth, "enlarged with divers newe workes, needleworkes, purles, and others never before printed. 1640," is to be found in the British Museum Library, but even that copy has suffered considerably from usage, for many plates are missing, and few are in consecutive order. The title-page consists of an elaborate copper plate, in which are to be seen Wisdom, Industrie, and Follie; Industrie, seated in the middle under a tree with a formal garden behind her, is showing Follie, who is decked out in gorgeous Elizabethan costume, her work, and Follie is lifting her hands in astonishment at it. Following the title-page comes a lengthy poem by Taylor, the Water Poet, upon the subject of needlework. So far as one can judge from the samplers of the period, the designs for needlework in the book, which consist of formal borders, have been very seldom copied, but some for drawn work undoubtedly have a close resemblance to those which we see in existing pieces. Another book, which I have been unable to find in the Museum, is described as "Patternes of Cut Workes newly invented and never published before: Also Sundry Sorts of Spots, as Flowers, Birdes, and Fishes, etc., which will fitly serve to be wrought, some with gould, some with silke, and some with creuell in coullers; or otherwise, at your pleasure." From "The Needle's Excellency" we have many clues as to needlework in the early seventeenth century. First of all, as to the articles for which samplers would be required, the following are mentioned: "handkerchiefs, table cloathes for parloures or for halls, sheetes, towels, napkins, pillow beares." Then as to the objects which were delineated on embroideries, it states that:-- "In clothes of Arras I have often seene Men's figured counterfeits so like have beene That if the parties selfe had been in place Yet Art would vie with nature for the grace." Again, "Flowers, Plants and Fishes, Beasts, Birds, Flyes and Bees, Hills, Dales, Plains, Pastures, Skies, Seas, Rivers, Trees, There's nothing ne'er at hand or farthest sought But with the needle may be shap'd and wrought." It would seem from the foregoing that the volumes would be of more profit to the worker of embroidered pictures than to sampler-makers, and this was no doubt the case; for when the former went out of fashion, the books dealing with the subject disappeared too, and nothing further of any note was published, except in the beginning of the last century, when the National Schools were furnished with manuals which dealt more with plain sewing than with decorative needlework. The Last of the Samplers I can hardly close my remarks upon the entertaining subject, the elucidation of and material for which has filled many spare hours, without a word of regret at having to pen the elegy of the sampler. It may be said that even so long ago as the era of the _Spectator_ there were those who sounded its death knell, and who considered that the days when a lady crowded a thousand graces on to the surface of a garter were gone for ever. For did it not go to the heart of one of Mr Spectator's correspondents to see a couple of idle flirts sipping their tea for a whole afternoon, in a room hung round with the industry of their great-grandmothers, and did he not implore that potentate to take the laudable mystery of embroidery into his serious consideration? But even then there were matrons who upheld the craft, and of whom an epitaph could be written that "she wrought the whole Bible in tapestry, and died in a good old age after having covered three hundred yards of wall in the Mansion House." Besides, the samplers themselves show that the industry, if not the Art, continued all through that century and for at least half of the nineteenth. The decadence of the sampler has never been more tenderly or pathetically dealt with than in the description given of the dame's school in the sketch entitled "Lucy," in Miss Mitford's "Our Village."[9] ... There are seven girls now in the school working samplers to be framed. "Such a waste of silk, and time, and trouble!" I said to Mrs Smith, and Mrs Smith said to me. Then she recounted the whole battle of the samplers, and her defeat; and then she sent for one which, in spite of her declaration that her girls never finished anything, was quite completed (probably with a good deal of her assistance), and of which, notwithstanding her rational objection to its uselessness, Lucy was not a little proud. She held it up with great delight, pointed out all the beauties, selected her own favourite parts, especially a certain square rosebud, and the landscape at the bottom; and finally pinned it against the wall, to show the effect that it would have when framed. Really, that sampler was a superb thing in its way. First came a plain pink border; then a green border, zig-zag; then a crimson, wavy; then a brown, of a different and more complicated zig-zag; then the alphabet, great and small, in every colour of the rainbow, followed by a row of figures, flanked on one side by a flower, name unknown, tulip, poppy, lily--something orange or scarlet, or orange-scarlet; on the other by the famous rosebud, then divers sentences, religious and moral;--Lucy was quite provoked with me for not being able to read them; I daresay she thought in her heart that I was as stupid as any of her scholars; but never was MS. so illegible, not even my own, as the print-work of that sampler;--then last and finest, the landscape, in all its glory. It occupied the whole narrow line at the bottom, and was composed with great regularity. In the centre was a house of a bright scarlet, with yellow windows, a green door, and a blue roof: on one side, a man with a dog; on the other, a woman with a cat--this is Lucy's information; I should never have guessed that there was any difference, except in colour, between the man and the woman, the dog and the cat; they were in form, height, and size, alike to a thread, the man grey, the woman pink, his attendant white, and hers black. Next to these figures, on either side, rose two fir-trees from two red flower-pots, nice little round bushes of a bright green or intermixed with brown stitches, which Lucy explained, not to me--"Don't you see the fir-cones, sir? Don't you remember how fond she used to be of picking them up in her little basket at the dear old place? Poor thing, I thought of her all the time that I was working them! Don't you like the fir-cones?"--After this, I looked at the landscape almost as lovingly as Lucy herself. [Illustration: FIG. 53.--BEADWORK SAMPLER BY JANE MILLS. 19TH CENTURY. _Late in the Author's Collection._ NOTE.--The only modern sampler in The Fine Art Society's Exhibition in which beadwork was employed. This is the more remarkable as it apparently dates from about the period when beadwork was so much in fashion for purses, etc. As we shall see in our illustrations of pictures in imitation of tapestry (Plate XXI.), beadwork was very common in the seventeenth century, but we have not seen a single specimen of this material dated in the eighteenth century, unless it be this one, which we place at the end of the eighteenth or the beginning of the nineteenth century.] It has been prophesied that:-- "Untill the world be quite dissolv'd and past So long at least the needles use shall last." I trow not, if for "use" the word "Art" may be substituted. It is true that recent International Exhibitions have included some marvellous specimens of adroitness in needlework, such, for instance, as the wonders from Japan; but these _tours de force_, and even the skilled productions from English schools, as, for instance, "The Royal School of Art Needlework," and which endeavour fitfully to stir up the dying embers of what was once so congenial an employment to womankind, are no indications of any possibility of needlework regaining its hold on either the classes or the masses. Samplers can never again be a necessity whereby to teach the young idea, and every year that passes will relegate them more and more into the category of interesting examples of a bygone and forgotten industry. [Illustration: FIG. 54.--SAMPLER BY ELIZABETH CLARKSON. 1881. _Author's Collection._] One sampler dated within the last half century finds a place in this book, but it is indeed a degraded object, and is included here to show to what the fashion had come in the Victorian era, an era notable for huge sums being expended on Art schools, and over a million children receiving Art instruction at the nation's expense. The sampler is dated 1881, and was the work of a lady of seventeen years of age. The groundwork is a common handkerchief, the young needlewoman evidently considering that its puce-coloured printed border was a better design than any she could invent. It was produced at a school, for there are broidered upon it the names of thirty-five other girls, besides seven bearing her own patronymic. As will be seen by the reproduction (Fig. 54), it is adorned with no less than nine alphabets, not one of which contains an artistic form of lettering. As to the ornament, the cross and anchor hustle the pawnbroker's golden balls, and formless leaves surround the single word "Love," all that the maker's invention could supply of sentimentality. This is apparently the best that the deft fingers of Art-taught girlhood could then produce. The flash in the pan that, round about the date of its creation, was leading to the production of the "chairback" in crewels, collapsed before machine-made imitations, and well it might when even a knowledge of how to stitch an initial is unnecessary, as we can obtain by return of post from Coventry, at the price of a shilling or so a hundred, a roll of our names in red, machine-worked, lettering. Truly it seems as if any use for needlework in the future will be relegated to an occasional spasmodic effort, such as when war confronts us and our soldiers are supposed to be in need of a hundred thousand nightcaps or mufflers. The decay of needlework amongst the children of the middle classes may perhaps be counterbalanced by other useful employments, but undoubtedly with those of a lower stratum of society the lack of it has simply resulted in their filling the blank with the perusal of a cheap literature, productive of nothing that is beneficial either to mind or body. [Illustration: PLATE XIV.--EMBROIDERED PICTURE: CHRIST IN THE TEMPLE, STONING OF MARTYRS, ETC. ABOUT 1625. _Formerly in the Author's Collection._ One of the quaintest of the Embroidery pictures. Differing as it does from the majority of its fellows in the costume of its figures, and valuable as it is as a record of the dress of the first years of the seventeenth century, the piquancy and variety of the subjects depicted combine with these to give it an unusual interest. As regards the dress, it denotes a period towards the close of the reign of James I. The ruff is still worn by the doctors, but the boots of the gentleman who walks with a lady are very close to the fashion of Charles I. The subjects combine religious and mundane. The former comprise Christ in the Temple instructing the doctors, Susannah and the Elders, and a remarkable scene of Martyrs at the stake, one of the latter being in the uncomfortable position of having a stone protruding from his forehead. The latter show the squire and his lady beside their residence, young ladies out for an airing, and others about to enter a Pergola. Its maker has not only been happy through the vitality imparted to the human puppets, but has succeeded equally well with animal life; witness the rabbit and squirrel beneath the apple tree and the greyhound and hare in the lower corner. The water in which Susannah laves her legs is worked in imitation of ripples, and looks fresher than the rest owing to the recent removal of the talc with which it was covered. The clouds in the upper part of the moss, etc., in the lower portion come dark in the reproduction as they are made of purl, which has tarnished. It will be noted that those of the pictures in which the surface is not entirely covered with embroidery are usually worked upon white satin. This was a fashion of the time, and supplanted velvet, the material hitherto used, owing, it is assumed, to its being an easier material to work upon, but also probably to its beautiful surface resembling a background of parchment, and to the magnificent quality which was then made.] [Illustration: FIG. 55.--EMBROIDERED GLOVE. EARLY 17TH CENTURY. _Formerly in the Author's Collection._] PART II Embroideries in the Manner of Tapestry Pictures The Exhibition at The Fine Art Society's included, besides samplers, a gallery containing embroideries, the like of which had not previously been seen together, and as to the history of which text-books were altogether silent. Exhibited collectively, they not only formed a most interesting and unusual whole, but they were clearly the result of a widespread fashion. Specimens were forthcoming in considerable numbers, and were regarded by their owners with a proper appreciation of their archæological value, but with a diffidence as to their history and origin which was not surprising. Under these circumstances it seemed that the occasion of their being brought together should not be lost, and that some illustration of representative specimens, some setting down of any deductions which might be arrived at from their examination and comparison, and some collation of the information which was supplied by their owners should be taken in hand. It was, however, at the outset a matter of no little trouble to find a title which, while it identified and included them, yet excluded those that it was felt necessary to omit. Had a shortened phrase, such as "Embroidered Pictures," been selected, readers would reasonably have expected to find a survey of that large class of embroideries, now somewhat in vogue, which imitate the coloured engravings of the late eighteenth century, and, perhaps, even of the Berlin wool-work travesties of Landseer and his contemporaries. "Stuart Embroidered Pictures," or "Seventeenth-Century Embroidered Pictures," would have better served the purpose were it not that some of the examples precede, and some follow, the period covered by either. Besides, some pieces are not pictures, whilst others, though pictorial in subject, are covers to caskets, etc. The majority, however, have this in common, that they represent a phase of embroidery which, curiously enough, originated contemporaneously with the introduction of the manufacture of tapestry into this country, became popular concurrently with it, and passed out of favour when the production of that textile ceased in England for lack of support. It was this relationship, which I shall shortly proceed to establish, that decided the title which is found at the heading of this part. In endeavouring to trace the origin of these embroideries I have been, curiously enough, confronted with exactly the same difficulties that I encountered in dealing with samplers, namely:-- 1. The industry has no apparent infancy, all the pieces having the same matured appearance. 2. No specimen earlier than the reign of Elizabeth has come under my notice. This does not arise from the decay inseparable from the life of a fairly perishable article, for amongst the earliest specimens may be counted the best preserved; besides, similar work, as, for instance, the embroidery of book covers which was subjected to harder usage, extends for centuries further back. [Illustration: PLATE XV.--TAPESTRY EMBROIDERY. THE STORY OF HAGAR AND ISHMAEL. ABOUT 1630. The common subject amongst Tapestry workers of Hagar and Ishmael is told somewhat fully here in three scenes. In the first we have Sarah and Isaac at the tent door, in the second Abraham dismissing Hagar, and in the third the angel visiting Ishmael in the desert. The embroidery is one of those where flat and raised work are conjoined. The sky might be woven, so fine are the stitches, the landscape is made up of a variety of open stitches which are used in lace, but in this instance have been worked on the canvas, the faces are modelled in cotton wool and covered with silk, and the animals (lion and stag) are similarly modelled. The piece is the property of Miss Taintor, of Hartford, U.S.A. Size, 14-1/2 × 19-1/2.] It is for these reasons that I am disposed to attach importance to the theory that the fashion originated with the introduction into England of tapestry, that, like tapestry, it quickly sprang into vogue, and like that article as quickly died out, having for some half a century been an agreeable occupation for deft hands to busy themselves about. If we glance for a moment at the history of tapestry in this country, it will be seen how entirely it mirrors that of the embroideries under notice. Tapestry, as an English manufacture, and tapestry of sufficient amount to afford opportunities to any but a few to imitate it, can hardly be said to have existed in this country prior to the seventeenth century. In the king's palaces, and in those of his wealthy ministers and nobles, this form of decoration was undoubtedly in use in remote times, perhaps as early as in those of other nations, but small interest was taken in its production in comparison with that by foreign countries, even those so contiguous as France and the Netherlands. In fact, until the close of the sixteenth century, but one manufactory is known to have existed in England, namely, that of Burcheston, founded towards the end of the reign of Henry VIII. by William Sheldon, styled "The only author and beginner of tapestry, within this realm." It was not until the year 1620 that James I., stimulated by the example of Henri IV., enlisted in his service a number of Flemish workmen and established at Mortlake the factory which quickly attained to a success which was only rivalled by that of the Gobelins. The industry on the banks of the Thames developed rapidly, and secured European recognition, thanks to the extreme interest taken in it by James I., and still more so by Charles I., aided, as he was, by the invaluable co-operation of Rubens and Vandyck. Tapestry made under royal patronage quickly became the fashion and hobby, and although under the Commonwealth its continuance was threatened, it received fresh favours and subventions under Charles II., at the end of whose reign, however, it not only declined, but practically ceased to exist. It can readily be understood that the prevalence of such a fashion, coinciding with a period when every lady in the land was an adept with her needle, would stimulate many to imitate on a smaller scale the famed productions of the loom, for nothing would better accord with the tapestry-covered walls, than cushions for the oaken chairs, or pictures or mirrors for panelled walls, worked in the same materials. Hence it is probable that all the earlier embroideries were in imitation of tapestry, and worked only in stitches which resembled those of the loom, and that the pieces where we find varieties of stitches introduced, as well as figures, dresses, and animals in relief, are subsequent variations and fancied improvements on the original idea.[10] This is borne out by an examination of dated pieces, none of those bearing these additions being contemporaneous with the introduction of the tapestry industry, whilst only those having a plain surface are found amongst the earliest specimens.[11] [Illustration: Plate XVI.--Tapestry Embroidery. Charles I. and his Queen. About 1630. None of the Embroideries reproduced in this volume approach this in their imitation of Tapestry, it being a facsimile on a small scale in needlework of a large panel. Its resemblance is increased by the border, which adds considerably to its interest and value. Both Sovereigns are crowned, the King wearing a cloak, a vest and breeches which would appear to be all in one (the latter garnished at the knees with many points), boots with huge tops, and big spurs. On either side of the royal pair stand a chamberlain and a lady of honour. The house in the background points to the Tapestry having been designed by a Netherlander.] Embroidery probably reached the zenith of its popularity in the late sixteenth century. It was then of so much importance that Queen Elizabeth granted a charter of incorporation to an Embroiderers' Company who had a hall in Gutter Lane. In order to encourage the pursuit foreign embroideries were in this and the following reigns considered to be contraband, but this protection, instead of improving, practically rang the death knell of the Art. It will be seen from the foregoing that these little embroideries have an abiding interest of a threefold nature. First that arising out of the subjects that are depicted thereon, and which, though limited in range, present considerable differences when compared one with another, quite sufficient to make them individual in character. Next they afford, upon examination, a large amount of historical material, some of it of a valuable kind, concerning the fashions and cranks of the time, material which has not hitherto met with recognition such as it deserves. Lastly, they are admirable specimens of needlework, and in this are quite as noteworthy as samplers, a single piece often containing as many varieties of clever stitches as may be found in a dozen samplers. All that concerns them on this last-named account will be found in the section devoted to "Stitchery." I will, therefore, proceed to examine them collectively from the two first points of view, leaving any remarks which they may separately call for to the notes which accompany the reproductions. The Subjects of Tapestry Embroideries These are, as we have noted, somewhat limited as regards range, and somewhat limited within that range. This is, perhaps, even more so than in the case of the parent tapestries, for whilst they frequently travel into the realms of mythology, the reverse is the case with the embroidered pictures. In the royal palaces of Henry VIII. we find the Tales of Thebes and Troy, the Life and Adventures of Hercules, and of Jupiter and Juno, depicted in tapestry more often, perhaps, than sacred subjects, but this is not so with our little pictures. For instance, there were but two profane subjects in the Embroidery Exhibition, "Orpheus charming the animals with his lute," and the "Judgment of Paris" (Fig. 56); whereas there were at least half a dozen of "Esther and Ahasuerus," and more than one "Susannah and the Elders," "Adam and Eve," "Abraham and Hagar," "Joseph and Potiphar," "David and Abigail," "Queen of Sheba," and "Jehu and Jezebel." Our first parents naturally afforded one of the earliest Biblical subjects for tapestry. Thus a description of a manor house in King John's time states that in the corner of a certain apartment stood a bed, the tapestry of which was enwrought with gaudy colours representing Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and we read in a fifteenth-century poem by H. Bradshaw, concerning the tapestry in the Abbey of Ely, that:-- "The storye of Adam there was goodly wrought And of his wyfe Eve, bytwene them the serpente." In embroidered pictures the working of the nude figures on a necessarily much smaller scale would appear to have been a difficulty it was hard to contend with, and we consequently find the subject treated for the most part rather from the point of view of the animals to be introduced than from that of our first parents. Curiously enough, Adam and Eve came to the front again as a most popular subject in samplers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, at a time when a knowledge of the draughtsmanship of the human figure appeared to be even slighter than heretofore. Consequently, they were usually of the most primitive character, standing on either side of a Tree of Knowledge, from which depends the serpent. [Illustration: FIG. 56.--THE JUDGMENT OF PARIS. ABOUT 1630. _Late in the Author's Collection._] Passing onwards in Bible history we find in tapestry embroideries several incidents in the life of Abraham. First the entertainment of the angels and the promise made to him; next the casting forth of Hagar and Ishmael (Plate XV.), oft repeated, perhaps, because of the many incidents in the story capable of illustration; then the offering up of Isaac, as illustrated in Plate IV. "Moses in the Bullrushes" (Fig. 57) completes the illustrations from the Pentateuch. Few other subjects are met with until we reach the life of David as pictured in "David and Goliath" and "David and Abigail." To these follow the visit of the Queen of Sheba to Solomon, and the judgment of that ruler. But the most popular subject of all would seem to be the episode of Queen Esther and King Ahasuerus (Plate XVIII.), from which Mordecai sitting in the King's Gate, Esther adventuring on the King's favour, the banquet to Haman, and his end on the gallows, furnished delightfully sensational episodes, although the main reason for its frequency doubtless depended upon its offering an opportunity of honouring the reigning kings and queens by figuring them as the great monarch Ahasuerus and his beautiful consort, a reason also for the frequent selection of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. The only incident subsequent to this is one hardly to be expected, namely, "Susannah and the Elders," from the Apocrypha (Plate XIV.). The New Testament, curiously enough, seems to have received but scant attention, even the birth of Christ being but seldom illustrated. If space permitted it would be a matter of interest to trace the reasons for this unexpectedness of subject. It may have arisen from the fact that the English at this time were "the people of one book, and that book the Bible." It is, however, more readily conceivable that the selection was a survival of the times when the mainstay of all the Arts was the Church, and the majority of the work, all the world over, was produced in its service, and therefore naturally was imbued with a religious flavouring. Again, the pieces being in imitation of tapestries, the subjects would naturally follow those figured thereon. Now we find, curiously enough, in the "Story of Tapestrys in the Royal Palaces of Henry VIII.," that whilst there were a few such subjects as "Jupiter and Juno," and "Thebes and Troy," the majority were the following: In the Tower of London, "Esther and Ahasuerus"; in Durham Palace, "Esther" and "Susannah"; in Cardinal Wolsey's Palace, the "Petition of Esther," the "Honouring of Mordecai," and the "History of Susannah and the Elders," bordered with the Cardinal's arms, subjects identical with those represented in our little embroidered pictures. [Illustration: PLATE XVII.--LID OF A CASKET. THE JUDGMENT OF PARIS. ABOUT 1630. _Formerly in the Author's Collection._ Reproduces the gay and well-preserved top of a writing box. The figures which stand under a festooned bower may represent Paris handing the apple to Venus. The dress of the female is of the time of Charles I., which is the date of the casket, the interior of which is lined in part with that beautiful shade of red so popular at this time, and in part with mirrors which reflect a Flemish engraving which lines the bottom. An upper tray is a mass of ill-concealed secret drawers. Size, 12 × 11 inches.] It has been claimed for many of these pieces that they are the product of those prolific workers the nuns of Little Gidding, but the assertion rests on as little basis as does that which ascribes all the embroidered book covers to the same origin. The subjects, although sacred in character, are too mundane in habit to render it at all probable that they were worked in the seclusion of a country nunnery. The foreign origin of the tapestries (even those which were manufactured in England being made and designed by foreigners) accounts for the foreign flavour which pervades their backgrounds and accessories. It has, consequently, been asserted that the inspiration of these embroidery pictures is also foreign, the assertion being based on the fact that the buildings are for the most part of Teutonic design. This is not my opinion. The buildings, it is true, for the most part assume a Flemish or German air, but this is probably due to the reason given at the commencement of this paragraph. It might, with equal force, be held that the pieces are Italian in their origin, as their foregrounds, as we shall presently show, largely affect that style. That either of these suppositions is correct is negatived by the thoroughly English contemporary costume that apparels the principal figures, which also proves that the majority of the pieces were in the main original conceptions, the designers following in the footsteps of their forerunners from the times of Greece downwards, and clothing their puppets, no matter to what age they appertained, in the contemporary dress of their own country. This brings us to the most interesting feature of these little pictures, namely, their value as mirrors of fashion. Tapestry Embroideries as Mirrors of Fashion In this respect they are hardly inferior, as illustrations, to the pictures of Vandyck or the engravings of Hollar; whilst, as sidelights to horticultural pursuits under the Stuart kings, and of the flowers which were then affected, they are perhaps more reliable authorities than the Herbals from whence it has been erroneously asserted that they derived their information. In these respects their value has been entirely overlooked. Authorities on dress go to obscure engravings, or to the brasses or sculptural effigies in our churches, for examples, which have, in every instance, been designed by a man unversed in the intricacies of dressmaking. They have failed to recognise the fact that these embroideries are the product of hands which very certainly knew the cut of every garment, and the intricacy of every bow, knot, and point, and which would take a pride in rendering them not only with accuracy, but in the latest mode. It was probably due to this desire to make their work complete mirrors of fashion, that the embroideresses gave up illustrating the figure in the flat, and stuffed it out like a puppet, upon which each portion of the dress might be superimposed. An illustration of this may be seen in the reproduction on a large scale, in the text of Part III., of some of the figures from the piece of embroidery illustrated in Plate XXIII.[12] As Sir James Linton, an eminent authority upon the dress of the period under review, has pointed out, these embroideries bear upon their face an impress of truth, for they usually, in the same picture, illustrate fashions extending over a considerable period of time. This, instead of being an inaccuracy, is unimpeachable evidence as to their correctness, for the fact is usually overlooked that in those times a man (and a woman also) almost invariably wore, throughout life, the costume of his early manhood, and that in such a piece as that illustrated in Plate XIV. it is quite accurate to represent the old men in the costume of the reign of James I., and the young women in that of Charles I. [Illustration: PLATE XVIII.--TAPESTRY EMBROIDERY. THE STORY OF QUEEN ESTHER. ABOUT 1630. This remarkably well-preserved piece of Embroidery represents various incidents in the life of Queen Esther. In the centre the King stretches forth his sceptre to the Queen; in the various corners are portrayed the banquet, the hanging of Haman, and Mordecai and the King. It will be noticed that the King and Queen are likenesses of Charles I. and Henrietta Maria, and the costume is that in vogue towards the end of his reign, when the big boots worn by the men came in for much ridicule, the tops of the King's being "very large and turned down, and the feet two inches too long." The needlework is of the transition period, when a better effect was sought for by appliquéing the faces in satin, outlining the features in silk, and making the hair of the same material. The collars and bows are also added, and the Queen's crown is of pearls, the dais on which the King sits being also sown with them. Size, 16-1/2 × 20-1/2.] The repetition, amounting almost to monotony, in the subjects of these tapestry pieces has been urged against them, but the force of this depreciation is considerably lessened if this question of costume and accessories is taken into account, for a comparison even of the few pieces which are illustrated here will show how much variety is afforded in matters of dress, even if that of a single individual, such as Charles I., is selected for study, although in the case of a royal personage, such as the king, it would only be natural if there was a sameness of costume. He may probably never have been seen by the embroiderer, who would consequently dress him from some picture or engraving. But even here the differences are many and interesting.[13] [Illustration: FIG. 57.--TAPESTRY EMBROIDERY. THE FINDING OF MOSES. ABOUT 1640. _Lady Middleton._] They may therefore be deemed worthy of further examination than is usually given them, and this we have accorded in the description attached to each. We embody, however, an instance here as it is not only an apt illustration of the use of these little pictures as illustrations of dress, but of how their age may be thereby ascertained. The work in question belongs to Lady Middleton, is illustrated in Fig. 57, and its frame bears an inscription that it dates from the sixteenth century. The condition of the needlework, and the stitches employed, might well lead to this supposition, but the dress of the attendant to the left of the picture almost exactly corresponds with that on the effigy of one Dorothy Strutt, whose monument is dated 1641. The hair flows freely on the shoulders, but is combed back from the forehead; it is bunched behind, and from this descends a long coverchief which falls like a mantle; the sleeves are wide at the top, but confined at the wrist; a kerchief covers the bust, whilst the gown pulled in at the waist sets fully all round. It will be noted that the chimneys of the house in the background emit volumes of black smoke, a tribute to the Wallsend coal which came only into general use in the early seventeenth century. The greater part of the strong darks in this picture are due to the silk having been painted with a kind of bitumen, which has eaten away the groundwork wherever it has come into contact with it. The frequent selection of royal personages for illustration is one of the features of the industry, and is probably accounted for by the majority of the workers being persons in the higher walks of life, to whom the divine right of kings and devotion to the Crown were very present matters in those troublous times. It will be further noted that the only pre-Stuart embroideries which are reproduced here (_Frontispiece_, and the covering for a book [Fig. 58]) deal with them. As I have stated, yet another value attaches to these tapestry embroideries, namely, as illustrations of the fashions in horticulture under the Stuarts. Those who take an interest in gardening will not be slow to recognise this, and they may even carry that interest beyond this Stuart work to the samplers, whereon instances are not wanting of the formal gardening which came over from Holland with King William, and continued under the House of Hanover. [Illustration: FIG. 58.--PORTION OF A BOOK COVER. 16TH CENTURY. _Author's Collection._] [Illustration: FIG. 59.--PURL AND APPLIED EMBROIDERY. LADY WITH A RABBIT. ABOUT 1630. _Formerly in the Author's Collection._ An illustration of purl work, the whole of the smaller decorations being in tarnished silver thread sewn upon the original satin. The figure in the centre with a rabbit on her knees, as well as the other flowers and birds, are appliquéd, and are in very fine coloured silks. The date of the piece is, judging from the costume, the early part of the reign of Charles I.] In the embroideries we see repeated again and again the hold that Italian gardening had obtained in this country at the time when they were produced, owing to the grafting of ideas carried from the age of mediæval Art. Note, for instance, the importance attached to the fountain, which Hertzner, a German, who travelled through England at the end of the sixteenth century, remarked upon as being such a feature in gardens. The many columns and pyramids of marble and fountains of springing water to which he alludes are repeated again and again in tapestry pictures. The pools of fish which are also found in embroideries of the time were a common feature of the gardens. We read that "A fayre garden always contained a poole of fysshe if the poole be clene kept." (Plate XVIII., Fig. 64, and Fig. 68.) The garden also had green galleries or pergolas formed of light poles overgrown with roses red and white. These are illustrated in Plate XIV. The little Noah's Ark trees did not originate in the brain of the sampler designer, but were actualities which he saw in the garden of the time, being as old as the Romans, who employed a topiarius or pleacher, whose sole business was the cutting of trees into fantastic shapes. This practice was in full swing in Italy in the fifteenth century, and was familiarised in England by the "Hyperotomachia Poliphili," published in 1592, although this book did not introduce it, for Bacon in his essay on "Gardens" says that the art of pleaching was already well known and practised in England. They are quite common objects on the samplers of the eighteenth century, when the cult was increasingly fostered, William and Mary having brought over the Dutch fashion of cutting everything into queer little trifles. An illustration in Worlidge's "Art of Gardening" might almost be a reproduction of the sampler of 1760 (Plate IX.) with its trees all set in absolutely similar order and size. This style, it may be remembered, was doomed upon the advent of Capability Brown with his attempts at chastening and polishing, but not reforming, the living landscape. The embroidered pictures are also interesting as showing the flowers which found a place in the parterres of English gardens. A nosegay garden at the beginning of the seventeenth century consisted, we read, of "gillyflowers, marigolds, lilies, and daffodils, with such strange flowers as hyacinths, narcissus, also the red, damaske, velvet, and double province rose, double and single white rose, the fair and sweet scenting woodbind, double and single, the violet nothing behind the rose for smelling sweetly." Figs. 59 and 60 show many of these flowers naturally disposed, as an examination of the samplers of the period displays almost all of them in a decorative form. A curious feature of these little pictures is the fondness of their makers for introducing grubs of all kinds. This was not altogether fortuitous, or done simply to fill a void, for some of them were certainly as much emblems as the lion and unicorn. The caterpillar, for instance, was a badge of Charles I. It speaks somewhat for the difficulty of imitating these little pictures, that although their price has increased since this book was first published, from a moderate to a high figure, there are as yet few spurious or much restored pieces on the market, and the same remark may apply to samplers. [Illustration: FIG. 60.--EMBROIDERY PICTURE. CHARLES I. AND HIS QUEEN. DATED 1663. _Lord Montagu._ This picture is signed "K.B.," and bears the date 1663, and is, through its composition and subject, of much interest. The king and queen stand under an elaborate tent, on the canopy of which is emblazoned the Royal Arms, the rose and the thistle, in heavy gold and silver bullion. The robes of both their majesties are ornamented with coloured flowers in a heavy silver tissue. The king is crowned and has an ermine cloak, and his spurred white boots have pink heels.] [Illustration: PLATE XIX.--LID OF A CASKET. ABOUT 1660. We have here the top of the lid of the best preserved casket it has been our fortune to encounter, the reproduction in no way exaggerating the brilliancy or freshness of its colouring. The whole of the embroidery is in high relief, and as the shadows show, much of it is detached from the ground, as for instance the strawberries, the apples on the tree on which the parroquet with his ruffled feathers is seated, and the pink and tulip. For some reason not apparent, the gentleman has two left arms and hands, in each of which he holds a hat. It is possible that the figures may be intended for Abraham and Sarah, the latter with her flock at the well.] [Illustration: FIG. 61.--HOLLIE POINT LACE FROM TOP OF CHRISTENING CAP. 1774. _Formerly in the Author's Collection._] PART III I.--Stitchery of Pictures in Imitation of Tapestry and the Like "Tent-worke, Rais'd-worke, Laid-worke, Froste-worke, Net-worke, Most curious Purles or rare Italian Cut-worke, Pine Ferne-stitch, Finny-stitch, New-stitch, and Chain-stitch, Brave Bred-stitch, Fisher-stitch, Irish-stitch, and Queen-stitch, The Spanish-stitch, Rosemary-stitch, and Morose-stitch, The Smarting Whip-stitch, Back-stitch, and the Cross-stitch. All these are good, and these we must allow, And these are everywhere in practise now." _The Needles Excellency._--JOHN TAYLOR. A Writer on the interesting subject of the stitchery of embroidered pictures and their allies, is confronted at the outset with a serious difficulty in the almost hopeless confusion which exists as to the proper nomenclature of stitches. It is hardly too much to say that nearly every stitch has something like half a dozen different names, the result of re-invention or revival by succeeding generations, while to add to the trouble some authorities have assigned ancient names to certain stitches on what appears to be wholly insufficient evidence of identity. That stitches known as _opus Anglicanum_, _opus plumarium_, _opus peclinum_, and so on, were used in embroidery as far back as the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, is proved by ancient deeds and inventories, but what these stitches actually were we have no means of deciding with any degree of certainty. We shall, therefore, in these notes describe the stitches under the names by which they are most commonly known, or which seem to describe them most clearly. Background-Stitches When the backgrounds of pictures in raised or stump embroidery are not of silk or satin left more or less visible, they are usually worked in one or other of the innumerable varieties of cushion-stitch, so-called, it is said, because it was first introduced in the embroidering of church kneeling-cushions. Foremost among these ground-stitches comes tent-stitch, in which the flat embroidered pictures of a slightly earlier period are entirely executed. Tent-stitch is the first half of the familiar cross-stitch, but is taken over a single thread only, all the rows of stitches sloping the same way as a rule, although occasionally certain desired effects of light and shade are produced by reversing the direction of the stitches in portions of the work. An admirable example of evenly worked tent-stitch is shown in Plate XV., although here, of course, it is not a purely background-stitch, as it is adopted for the whole of the work. [Illustration: PLATE XX.--BACK OF CASKET IN TAPESTRY EMBROIDERY. SIGNED A. K., 1657. _Mrs Percy Macquoid._ We have here the true imitation of Tapestry as regards stitch, but not so as regards composition, for it is seldom that in Tapestry we find such a lack of proportion as exists in this case between figures and accessories, tulips and carnations standing breast-high, and butterflies larger than human heads. The harpy, which appears on the lower portion of the lid, is an exceptional form of decoration. The backs of caskets are always the least faded portions, as they have been less exposed to the sun and light; such is the case here, although the whole is in a fine state of preservation. It is one of the few dated pieces in existence, being signed "A. K.," 1657.] Another commonly used grounding-stitch is that known in modern times as tapestry or Gobelin-stitch. This is not infrequently confused with tent-stitch, which it much resembles, save that it is two threads in height, but one only in breadth. [Illustration: FIG. 62.--CUSHION-STITCH BACKGROUND; EMBROIDERED BOOK COVER, DATED 1703.] Next in order of importance to these two stitches come the perfectly upright ones, which, arranged in a score of different ways, have been christened by an equal number of names. An effective kind, used for the background of many Stuart pictures, consists of a series of the short perpendicular stitches, arranged in a zig-zag or chevron pattern, each row fitting into that above it. This particular stitch, or rather group of stitches, has been named _opus pulvinarium_, but its claim to the title does not seem very well supported. Other and more modern names are Florentine and Hungary stitch. A neat and pretty cushion-stitch is shown in the background of Fig. 62 on an enlarged scale. This is taken from a quaint little needle-book dated 1703; the design itself being worked in tent-stitch. Among other stitches used for grounds are the long flat satin-stitch familiar in Japanese embroideries of all periods, and laid-stitches, _i.e._, those formed of long threads "laid" on the satin or silk foundation, and held down by short "couching" stitches placed at intervals. Laid-stitch grounds, however, are oftener seen in foreign embroideries, especially Italian and Spanish, than in English examples. [Illustration: FIG. 63.--EYELET-HOLE-STITCH: FROM A SAMPLER DATED 1811.] [Illustration: FIG. 64.--TAPESTRY EMBROIDERY (UPPER PORTION). ABOUT 1640. _Formerly in the Author's possession._] Although tapestry embroidery backgrounds are in most cases worked "solid," that is, entirely covered with close-set stitches forming an even surface, they are occasionally found to be filled in with some variety of open-stitch, as exemplified by Plate XV. Sometimes the lace-like effect is produced by covering the foundation material with a surface stitch; the first row being a buttonhole-stitch, worked into the stuff so as to form the basis of the succeeding rows of simple lace or knotting stitches. The last row is again worked into the foundation. When, however, a linen canvas of rather open mesh was the material of the picture or panel, it was not unusual to whip or buttonhole over the threads with fine silk, a process resulting in a honeycomb-like series of small eyelet holes, as shown in the enlargement, Fig. 63. This is taken from an early nineteenth-century sampler, but the stitch is precisely similar to that seen in embroideries of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Figures in Raised Needlework The high relief portions of the embroidery known as "stump" or "stamp" work, which is popularly supposed to have been invented by the nuns of Little Gidding, appear to have been almost invariably worked separately on stout linen stretched in a frame, and applied when completed. The design was sketched, or transferred, by means of something equivalent to our carbonised paper, on the linen, padded with hair or wool kept in position by a lattice-work of crossing threads, and the raised foundation, or "stump," thus formed covered with close lace-stitches, or with satin or silk, which, in its turn, was partly or entirely covered with embroidery, generally in long-and-short stitch. When the figures were finished a paper was pasted at the back to obviate any risk of frayed or loosened stitches, and they were cut out and fastened into their proper places in the design which had been drawn on or transferred to the silk, satin, or canvas foundation of the actual picture. The lines of attachment are adroitly concealed by couchings of fine cord or gimp. In some pieces of stump embroidery the heads and hands of the figures are of carved wood covered in most instances with a close network of lace-stitch, or with satin or silk, on which the eyes and mouth are either painted or embroidered. In the more elaborate specimens, however, the satin is merely a foundation for embroidery in long-and-short or split stitch, the latter being a variety of the ordinary stem-stitch, in which the needle is brought out through, instead of at the side of, the preceding stitch. The features of faces worked in either of these stitches are generally indicated by carefully directed lines of stem or chain stitching worked over the ground-stitch. This latter when well worked forms a surface scarcely distinguishable from satin in its smoothness. The Figs. 65 and 66, which are enlargements of portions of the embroidery illustrated in Fig. 64, show examples of this mode of working faces. [Illustration: FIG. 65.--FACE WORKED IN SPLIT-STITCH: ENLARGED FROM EMBROIDERY REPRODUCED IN FIG. 64.] [Illustration: PLATE XXI.--BEADWORK EMBROIDERY. CHARLES II. AND HIS QUEEN, ETC. The bright colouring of this picture is due to the greater portion of it having been worked in beads, in which those of strong blue and green predominate, only the hair and hands being worked in needlework, the former in knotted stitches. Beadwork seems to have been extensively utilised in seventeenth-century pictures, but it does not figure in Samplers until a late date, and then only to a minor extent. It is illustrated in Fig. 52, and is about a century old, having been included in the Fine Art Society's Exhibition. The central figures in this piece represent Charles II. and his Queen, Catherine of Braganza, who is represented with that curious lock of hair on her forehead to which the King took so much objection when he saw it for the first time upon her arrival at Southampton. The portraits within the four circles have not at present been recognised. The late owner of this piece purchased it in Hammersmith, and from the fact that Queen Catherine had a house there it is possible that it may have once been a royal possession. Size, 13-1/2 × 17-1/2.] Knot-Stitches [Illustration: FIG. 66.--FACE WORKED IN SPLIT-STITCH: ENLARGED FROM LOWER PORTION (NOT REPRODUCED) OF FIG. 64.] Knot-stitches--these, by the way, have no connection with the knotting-work popular at the end of the seventeenth century--are introduced freely into the stump-work pictures to represent the hair of the human figures, together with the woolly coats of sheep and the sundry and divers unclassified animals invariably found in this type of embroidered picture. These knots or knotted stitches range from the small, tightly-worked French knots which, when closely massed, produce a sufficiently realistic imitation of a fleece, to the long bullion knots formed by twisting the silk thread ten or twelve times round the needle before drawing the latter through the loops. The sheep (enlarged from Fig. 64) in Fig. 67 shows very clearly the effect of the massed French knots. The longer knot-stitches are found to be arranged in even loops sewn closely together, or are worked loosely and placed irregularly to meet the requirements of the design. Knot-stitches of all kinds are seen, too, in the foliage, grass, and mossy banks, although for these couchings of loops of fine cord, untwisted silk and gimp, as well as of purl, seem to have been equally popular. At a later period, that is, towards the middle of the eighteenth century, chenille replaced knot-stitches, couched loops, and purl for the purpose, but it proved much less satisfactory both as regards appearance and durability. [Illustration: FIG. 67.--KNOTTED-STITCH: ENLARGED FROM EMBROIDERY REPRODUCED IN FIG. 64.] Looped-stitches are also used to indicate flowing ringlets, for which the bullion knots would be too formal, as may be seen in Figs. 65 and 66. The loops in these examples are of partly untwisted gimp. In flat embroidery, it may be mentioned, the hair is frequently worked in long-and-short or split stitch, or in short, flat satin-stitches, the lines whereof are cleverly arranged to follow the twists of the curls. In this way the hair of the lady, shown on an enlarged scale in Fig. 66, is worked. Plush-Stitch This is a modern name for the stitch used in the Stuart period embroideries for fur robes and the coats of certain beasts. It is also known as velvet, rug, and raised stitch. To carry it out a series of loops is worked over a small mesh or a knitting pin, each loop being secured to the foundation stuff by a tent or cross-stitch, and when the necessary number of rows is completed, the loops are cut as in the raised Berlin wool-work of early Victorian days. In this stitch the ermine of the king's robe in Plate XVIII. is worked, the black stitches meant to represent the little tails having been put in after the completion of the white silk ground. Embroidery in Purl and Metallic Threads Purl, both that of uncovered metal and that variety wherein the corkscrew-like tube is cased with silk, was generally cut into pieces of the desired length, which were threaded on the needle and sewn down either flat or in loops, according to the design. The greater part of the beautiful piece of embroidery illustrated in Plate XXIII. is carried out in coloured purl, applied in pieces sufficiently long to follow the curves of the pattern. A small example of looped purl-work is shown in the left-hand upper corner of Fig. 66. Purl embroidery, when at all on an elaborate scale, was worked in a frame and "applied," although the slighter portions of a design were often executed on the picture itself. The system of working all the heavier parts of such embroideries separately and adding them piece by piece, as it were, until the whole was complete, accounts, of course, for the extreme rarity of a "drawn" or puckered ground in old needlework pictures and panels. Besides purl, gold and silver "passing" often appears in certain sections of the work. "Passing" is wire sufficiently thin and flexible to be passed through instead of couched down on the foundation material, and with it such devices as rayed suns and moons are often embroidered in long-and-short stitch. A thicker kind of metallic thread was employed for couching, this being made in the same manner as the Japanese thread so largely used in modern work, save that a thin ribbon of real gold took the place of the strip of gilt paper as a casing for the silk thread. Water is sometimes represented by lengths of silver purl stretched tightly across a flat surface of satin or laid-stitches, but not infrequently, instead of the purl, sheets of talc are laid over the silken stitchery. The water in Susannah's bath (Plate XIV.) is covered with talc, hence it appears light coloured in the reproduction. When a metallic lustre was needed, the plumules of peacocks' feathers were occasionally employed, especially in the bodies of butterflies and caterpillars, but these unfortunately have almost invariably suffered from the depredations of a small insect, and it is seldom that more remains of them in old embroideries than a few dilapidated and minute fragments, often barely recognisable for what they are. Lace-Stitches The needle-point lace-stitches, so profusely used in the dresses and decorative accessories of the figures in Stuart embroideries, are, as a rule, of a close and rather heavy type. Sometimes they are found to be worked directly on the picture or panel as surface stitches, in the manner already described as adopted for backgrounds; but it was undoubtedly more usual to work the ruffles, sleeves, flower-petals, butterfly-wings, etc., separately, fastening them into their proper places when finished. Stiffenings of fine wire were generally sewn round the extreme edge of any part intended to stand away from the background. A most interesting variety of lace-stitches may be seen in the costume of the boy shown in the enlargement (Fig. 69), taken from the panel reproduced in Fig. 64. The small illustration (Fig. 61) heading this chapter illustrates quite a different kind of lace-stitch, to wit, the hollie-point, which, originally confined to church embroidery, was during the seventeenth century used to ornament under-garments and babies' christening-robes. [Illustration: FIG. 68.--EMBROIDERY PICTURE. A SQUIRE AND HIS LADY. SIGNED M. C. DATED 1657. _Mr Minet._ This embroidery, which bears the initials "M. C." and the date 1657 in pearls, is notable for the variety of stitches which find a place upon it. The central figures are dressed in elaborate costumes, the lady's robe of yellow satin being embroidered with coloured flowers and decked with pearls, laces, and flowers, an attire altogether inconsistent with the Puritanical times in which she lived.] [Illustration: FIG. 69.--HAIR OF UNRAVELLED SILK: ENLARGEMENT OF PORTION OF EMBROIDERY REPRODUCED IN FIG. 64.] Bead Embroidery The actual stitchery in the old embroideries that are worked entirely, or almost entirely, in beads, is of an extremely simple description. In the majority of pieces the work is applied as in the case of the stump embroideries, the beads being threaded and sewn down on the framed linen, either flatly or over padding. In the less elaborate class of embroideries, however, the beads are sewn directly on the satin ground; but when this plan has been adopted the design is rarely padded at all, although small portions of it, such as cravats, girdle-tassels, and garter-knots, are found to be detached from the rest of the work. This is for the most part executed with long strings of threaded beads couched down in close-set rows. Plate XXI. represents an excellent specimen of flat and raised bead-work combined with purl embroidery. See also Fig. 52. Groundwork Tracings The first stage of an embroidered picture is well illustrated in Fig. 70, which is worthy of careful study. The original is a piece of satin measuring 9-1/2 × 8 in., and on this the design has been traced by a pointed stylus, the deep incised lines made in the thick material having been coloured black, probably by a transferring medium similar to carbonised paper. The shadows have been added with a brush, evidently wielded by an experienced hand, for not only are they gradated in the original, but there are no signs of any difficulty in dealing with the flow of colour on the absorbent textile. The subject of the picture is said to be the Princess Mary and the Prince William of Orange. [Illustration: PLATE XXII.--TAPESTRY EMBROIDERY. DATED 1735. In no Embroidery in the whole of this volume has a more determined endeavour been made to imitate Tapestry than in the little piece here illustrated. So deftly has this been carried out that experts have declined to believe that it is needlework, or that the gradation of blues in the background have been obtained except through stain or dye. The workmanship of that portion of the sky over which the bird flies appeared also too fine for manual execution. An examination of the back has disproved both suppositions. The piece is noteworthy for the border at the top, which is a link connecting it with the Sampler. A date, 1735, can be distinguished through the stain in the upper right corner.] Implements Used [Illustration: FIG. 70.--GROUNDWORK TRACING FOR EMBROIDERED PICTURE. 17TH CENTURY. _Mr E. Hennell._] It is probable that some details in the picture--acorns, fruit, and the like--were worked with the aid of the curious little implements shown in Fig. 71. These are thimble-shaped moulds of thin, hard wood, which have two rows of holes pierced round their base. Through these holes are passed the threads which form the foundation of the rows of lace or knotting-stitches that are worked with the needle round and round the mould until it is completely covered. The knotted purses of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were possibly made on moulds of this kind. The plate shows two of these queer little objects, as well as a long spool or bobbin with ancient silks of various colours still wound on it, the spool-case belonging to it, and two pieces of knotted-work in different stages of development. [Illustration: FIG. 71.--MOULDS FOR KNOTTED OR LACE WORK, WITH SILK SPOOLS AND CASE.] [Illustration: PLATE XXIII.--SPECIMEN OF PURL EMBROIDERY. 16TH-17TH CENTURY. _Formerly in the Author's Collection._ A specimen of stitchery of various kinds, much of it in high relief, and of purl work. The reproduction, whilst translating very faithfully the colours, gives but little idea of the relief. Size, 12 × 16-1/2.] II.--The Stitchery of Samplers, with a Note on their Materials "Sad sewers make sad samplers. We'll be sorry Down to our fingers'-ends and 'broider emblems Native to desolation--cypress sprays, Yew-tufts and hectic leaves of various autumn And bitter tawny rue, and bent blackthorns." _The Soldier of Fortune._--LORD DE TABLEY. Cut and Drawn-Work The open-work stitchery, which is so important and pleasing a feature of the seventeenth-century sampler, is of two kinds; that is, _double_ cut-work--the Italian _punto tagliato_--in which both warp and woof threads are removed, save for a few necessary connecting bars, and _single_ cut-work--_punto tirato_--wherein but one set of threads is withdrawn. The first type (which is probably the "rare Italian cut-work" mentioned in "The Needle's Excellency") is the immediate ancestor of needle-point lace, and is the kind that is oftenest met with in the oldest and finest samplers; the second approaches more nearly to the drawn-thread embroidery worked both abroad and at home at the present day. In executing real double cut-work, after the surplus material has been cut away, the supporting or connecting threads are overcast, the edges of the cut linen buttonholed, and the spaces within this framework filled in with lace-stitches, simple or elaborate. In the best specimens of samplers the effect is sometimes enhanced by portions of the pattern being detached from the ground, as in the upper part of the beautiful sampler illustrated in Fig. 72.[14] These loose pieces usually have as basis a row of buttonhole-stitches worked into the linen, but in some examples the lace has been worked quite separately and sewn on. The mode of working both double and single cut-work is shown plainly in the two enlargements (Figs. 73 and 74), which are of parts of samplers probably worked about 1660. [Illustration: FIG. 72--DRAWN-WORK SAMPLER. 17TH CENTURY.] There is a third and much simpler type of open-work occasionally found on seventeenth-century samplers, which is carried out by piercing the linen with a stiletto and overcasting the resulting holes so as to produce a series of bird's-eye or eyelet stitches. All three varieties of open-stitch are frequently seen in combination with that short, flat satin-stitch, which, when worked in a diaper pattern with white thread or silk on a white ground, is sometimes called damask-stitch. This pretty combination of stitches appears in Plate VI., and also in the enlargement (Fig. 74) already referred to. [Illustration: FIG. 73.--CUT AND DRAWN-WORK: ENLARGEMENT FROM 17TH-CENTURY SAMPLER.] Back-Stitch This stitch was largely used in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries for the adornment of articles of personal clothing, as well as of quilts and hangings, hence it is natural that it is prominent in the samplers of the period. In the older specimens the bands of back-stitch patterns are worked with exquisite neatness, both sides being precisely alike; but in those of later date signs of carelessness are apparent, and the reverse side is somewhat untidy. In no sampler examined by the writer, however, has the back-stitch been produced by working a chain-stitch on the wrong side of the linen, as is the case in some of the embroidered garments of the period. The samplers illustrated in Plates III. and VII. are noticeable for their good bands of back-stitching. A small section of Fig. 5 is shown on an enlarged scale in Fig. 75. In some modern text-books of embroidery, it may be added, the old reversible or two-sided back-stitch is distinguished as Holbein-stitch. [Illustration: FIG. 74.--SATIN-STITCH AND COMBINATION OF TYPES OF OPEN-WORK: ENLARGED FROM THE SAMPLER REPRODUCED IN FIG. 4. 17TH CENTURY.] Alphabet-Stitches The stitches used for the lettering on samplers are three in number, to wit, cross-stitch, bird's-eye-stitch and satin-stitch. Of the first there are two varieties, the ordinary cross-stitch, known in later years as sampler-stitch, and the much neater kind, in which the crossed stitches form a perfect little square on the wrong side. This daintiest of marking stitches is rarely seen on samplers later than the eighteenth century. The satin-stitch alphabets are worked in short flat stitches, not over padding, according to the modern method of initial embroidering, and the letters are generally square rather than curved in outline. The bird's-eye-stitch, when used for alphabets, varies greatly in degree of fineness. In some instances the holes are very closely overcast with short, even stitches, but in others the latter are alternately long and short, so that each "eyelet" or "bird's-eye" is the centre, as it were, of a star of ray-like stitches. [Illustration: PLATE XXIV.--DARNING SAMPLER. 1788. Darning Samplers of unpretentious form date back a long way, but those where they were conjoined to decoration, as in the specimens reproduced here, appeared to cluster round the end of the eighteenth century. Not only are a variety of stitches of a most intricate kind set out on them, but they are done in gay colours, and any monotony is averted by delicately conceived borderings. Whilst "Darning Samplers" cannot be considered as rare, they certainly are not often met with in fine condition. They are a standing testimony to the assiduity and dexterity of our grandparents in the reparation of their household napery.] Darning-Stitches The stitches exemplifying the mode of darning damask, cambric, or linen had usually a sampler entirely devoted to them, and at one period--the end of the eighteenth century--it seems to have been a fairly general custom that a girl should work one as a companion to the ordinary sampler of lettering and patterns. The specimen darns on such a sampler are, as a rule, arranged in squares or crosses round some centre device, a bouquet or basket of flowers for instance, or it may be merely the initials of the worker in a shield. The two samplers (Fig. 76 and Plate XXIV.) are typical examples of their kind, although perhaps the ornamental parts of the designs are a little more fanciful than in the majority of those met with. [Illustration: FIG. 75.--BACK-STITCH: ENLARGEMENT OF PORTION OF SAMPLER IN FIG. 5. 17TH CENTURY. TWICE ACTUAL SIZE.] The best worked--not necessarily the most elaborately embellished--of this particular class of sampler has small pieces of the material actually cut out and the holes filled up with darning, but in inferior ones the stuff is left untouched, and the darn is simply worked on the linen, tammy cloth, or tiffany itself. This is a very much easier method and the appearance is better; but the darns so made are, after all, but imitations of the real thing. For the damask darns fine silk of two colours is invariably used, and in the properly worked examples both sides are alike, save, of course, for the reversal of the damask effect, as in woven damask. The centre designs in the two samplers illustrated are worked in fine darning-stitches of divers kinds, outlined with chain and stem stitches. Here and there a few other stitches are introduced, as in the stem of the rose in Fig. 76, where French knots are used to produce the mossy appearance. The centre basket in this sampler is worked in lines of chain-stitching crossing each other lattice fashion. Both the samplers have the initials of their workers, and in that shown in Fig. 76 the date (1802) also, neatly darned into one of the crosses formed by the damask patterns. Darning-samplers are usually square, or nearly square, in shape, and are simply finished with a single line of hem-stitching at the edge, but some of the older ones are ornamented with a broader band of drawn-work as border; while a few have examples of drawn-work, alternating with squares and crosses of darning, in the body of the sampler. A small section of such a sampler, dated 1785, is illustrated on an enlarged scale in Fig. 77. It has a series of small conventional leaf patterns worked in single drawn-work, and edged with a scalloping worked in chain-stitch with green silk. The ground of this particular sampler is thin linen, but the muslin-like stuff known as tiffany is that used for the foundation of nine darning-samplers out of ten. Tent and Cross Stitches Neither tent-stitch nor tapestry-stitch appears to have been largely introduced in sampler-embroidery at any period; still, portions of a few specimens worked during the early and middle years of the eighteenth century are executed in one or other of these stitches. Tent-stitch, for instance, plays an important part in the wreath border of Fig. 8. The beautifully shaded leaves are all worked in this way, as are many of the flowers, other varieties of grounding or cushion-stitches being used for the rest of the border. The Commandments, which the wreath enframes, are worked in cross-stitch. This last-named stitch in its earliest form is worked over a single thread, and produces a close and solid effect when closely massed, or, as may be seen in many sampler maps, very fine lines when worked in single rows. Ordinary cross-stitch taken over two threads is, of course, the familiar stitch in which nineteenth-century samplers are entirely worked, whence arises its second name of sampler-stitch. [Illustration: FIG. 76.--DARNING SAMPLER. SIGNED M. M., T. B., J. F. DATED 1802. _The late Mrs Head._] [Illustration: FIG. 77.--ENLARGED PORTION OF A DARNING SAMPLER. DATED 1785.] A pretty and--in sampler embroidery--uncommon stitch is that in which the crowned lions in the samplers of Mary and Lydia Johnson (Figs. 35 and 36) are worked. This stitch is formed of two cross-stitches superimposed diagonally, and since its revival in the Berlin wool era has been known by the names of star-stitch and leviathan-stitch. Various Stitches Besides the stitches already enumerated and described, sundry and divers others are found on samplers of various periods. Satin-stitch, for instance, is used for borders and other parts of designs, as well as for alphabets. Long-and-short stitch, frequently very irregularly executed, seems to have been popular for the embroidery of the wreaths and garlands that make gay many of the later eighteenth-century samplers. Stem-stitch, save for such minor details as flower-stalks and tendrils, is not often seen; but the wreath-borders of a limited number of eighteenth-century samplers are done entirely in this stitch, worked in lines round and round, or up and down, each leaf and petal until the whole is filled in. Stem-stitch, it should be explained, is, to all intents and purposes, the same as "outline" or "crewel" stitch. The latter name, however, is likewise applied to long-and-short or plumage stitch by some writers on embroidery. Laid-stitches may also be included in the list of stitches occurring occasionally in samplers, although it is rarely met with in its more elaborate forms. A sampler dated 1808 has two baskets (of flowers) worked in long laid-stitches of brown silk couched with yellow silk, the effect of wicker-work being produced with some success by this plan, and similar unambitious examples appear in some samplers of rather earlier date. The portion of a sampler shown in Fig. 2 is interesting by reason of the fact that it is worked in knots, a form of stitchery comparatively rare, save in those unclassifiable pieces of embroidery which are neither pictures nor samplers, but possess some of the features of both. Materials Linen, bleached or unbleached, but, of course, always hand-woven, is the foundation material of the early samplers. It varies greatly in texture, from a coarse, canvas-like kind to a fine and closely woven sort of about the same stoutness as good modern pillow-case linen. The stitchery of these oldest samplers is executed in linen thread or a somewhat loosely twisted silk, often scarcely coarser than our nineteenth-century "machine silk," although, on the other hand, a very thick and irregularly spun type is occasionally seen. About 1725 linen of a peculiar yellow colour and rather harsh texture came into vogue; but this went out of fashion in a few years, and towards the end of the eighteenth century the strong and durable linen was almost entirely superseded by an ugly and moth-attracting stuff called indifferently tammy, tammy cloth, bolting cloth, and, when woven in a specially narrow width, sampler canvas. The stitchery on samplers of this date is almost invariably executed with silk, although in a few of the coarser ones fine untwisted crewel is substituted. Tiffany, the thin, muslin-like material mentioned in connection with darning-samplers, was at this period used also for small delicately wrought samplers of the ordinary type. Early in the nineteenth century very coarsely woven linen and linen canvas came into fashion again, and for some time were nearly as popular as the woollen tammy; while, about 1820, twisted crewels of the crudest dyes replaced in a great measure the soft toned silks. Next followed the introduction of cotton canvas and Berlin wool, and with them vanished the last remaining vestige of the exquisite stitchery and well-balanced designs of earlier generations, and the sampler, save in a most degraded form, ceased to exist. Index Abraham on sampler, 58. Fig. 16 Acorn, 58, 68, 109. Plate III. Fig. 16 Adam and Eve on samplers, 21, 62, 109; on embroideries, 128 Africa, map of, 97. Fig 41 Age of sampler, how to estimate, 15 Age of sampler workers, 80 Agur's prayer. Plate XI. Alphabets on samplers, 19, 22, 84; stitches, 164 America, samplers from, 24, 97 (Plate XIII., Figs. 42-51); map of, 92. Fig. 39 Anchors, Fig. 23 Animals on samplers, 65 Ascension Day samplers, 38 Background-stitches, 144 Back-stitches, 109, 163. Plates III. and VII. Fig. 75 Bead embroidery, 158 (Plate XXII.); sampler, Fig. 53 Belief, the, 28 Belgian samplers, 110 Biblical subjects in tapestry embroideries, 128 Bird's-eye-stitch, 164 Borders to samplers, 75 Boston, U.S.A., samplers from, 89. Fig. 50 Boxers, 61. Plate III. Fig. 18 Boys, samplers by, 84. Fig 34 Brontës, samplers by, 28. Figs. 10, 11, 12 Brooklyn, U.S.A., sampler from, 89. Fig. 47 Buttonhole-stitch, 146 Calcutta, samplers from, 35. Fig. 3 Carnation, see "Pink" Caterpillar, 140 Charles I., Plates XVI. and XVIII. Charles II., Plate XXI. Children, samplers by, 80 Christening samplers, 109 Christmas samplers, 38 Colouring of samplers, 52 Commandments, the, 27. Fig. 9 Corn blue-bottle, 78 Coronet, see "Crowns" Costume on tapestry embroideries, 132 Crewel-stitch, 170 Cross-stitch, 109, 166 Crowns on samplers, 68. Figs. 20-22 Crucifixion on samplers, 108, 109 Cupids on samplers, Fig. 23 Cushion-stitch, 144. Fig. 62 Cut and drawn work stitches, 161. Figs. 4, 7, 16, 24, 42, 72, 73 Darned samplers, Fig. 76. Plate XXIV. Darning-stitches, 110, 165. Plate XXIV. Figs. 76, 77 David and Abigail, 128, 130; and Goliath, 130 Deer, see "Stags" Design on samplers, 51 Dogs on samplers, Fig. 17. Plate III. Drawn-work, 58, 135. Fig. 16 Dress, value of tapestry embroideries as patterns of, 132 Dutch samplers, 110 Earliest samplers, 10, 13, 16 Easter samplers, 36 Embroiderers' Company, 127 Embroideries in the manner of tapestry pictures, 123; subjects of, 127; as mirrors of fashion, 132 England, maps of, 94. Fig. 40. Esther and Ahasuerus, 128, 130. Plate XVIII. Evolution of samplers, 12, 15 Eyelet-stitch, 146. Fig. 63 Fig on samplers, 68. Plate III. Fine Art Society's Exhibition of samplers, 4, 28, 66, 89, 119; of embroideries, 123 Fleur de Lys on samplers, 21 Florentine-stitch, 145 Flowers on samplers, 65; on tapestry embroideries, 139 Foreign flavour in embroideries, 131 Foreign samplers, 104 Fountains on tapestry embroideries, 136 French knot-stitches, 151. Figs. 21 and 67 French samplers, 111 Gardening, illustrations of, on tapestry embroideries, 135 German samplers, 108 Glove, embroidered. Fig. 55 Gobelin-stitch, 145 Gold and silver passing, 154 Grubs on tapestry embroideries, 140 Hagar and Ishmael, 129. Plate XV. Hearts on samplers, 75. Figs. 21-23 Hollie point lace cap, Fig. 61; stitch, 157 Honeysuckle on samplers, 66, 79. Fig. 30 Horticulture, see "Gardening" House on samplers, 118 (Figs. 14, 46, 48); on tapestry embroidery, 135. Fig. 56 Human figure, 57 Hungary-stitch, 145 Implements used in stitchery, 159. Fig. 71 Indian samplers, 113. Figs. 3 and 52 Inscriptions on samplers, 23, 91 Italian samplers, 111 Judgment of Paris, 128. Fig. 56 Knot-stitches, 109, 151. Figs. 21 and 67 Lace-stitches, 154. Figs. 61, 68-70 Laid-stitch, 146 Last of the samplers, 117 Lettering on samplers, 22 Leviathan-stitch, 169 Life and death, inscriptions referring to, 41 Lion on sampler, 65. Fig. 44 Literature sampler, 115 Little Gidding, nuns, 131, 149 Long-and-short-stitch, 170 Looped-stitches, 152 Lord's Prayer, the, 27 Maidstone Museum, tapestry picture. Plate I. Map samplers, 92. Figs. 39-41 Materials on which samplers were worked, 171 Mermaid on sampler, Fig. 16 Metal thread, 153 Milton, mention of sampler by, 14 Mitford, Miss, on samplers, 118 Mortlake tapestries, 100 Moses in the bullrushes, 129 Mustard or canary-coloured canvas, 55 National events, samplers as records of, 90 Need of samplers, 11 Needle's excellency, the, 115, 116, 143 Numerals on samplers, 22 Oak, see "Acorn" Origin of samplers, place of, 88 Ornament, sampler, 51 Ornamentation, earliest date of various forms of, 21 Orpheus, 128 Parents and preceptors, duties to, 46 Passing, 154 Passion Week samplers, 38 Patternes of cut workes, 115 Peacocks' feathers, use of, 154 Pearls, seed, on tapestry embroideries, 133--_note_ Pears, 109 Pineapple on samplers, 68 Pink on samplers, 66, 78, 109. Plates III., IV., VI. Fig. 28 Place of origin of samplers, 88 Plush-stitch, 153. Plate XVIII. Portuguese samplers, 112 Poverty, inscriptions concerning, 48 Prayers on samplers, 39 Preceptors, duties to, 46 Purl, 153. Plate XXIII. Quaint inscriptions, 49 Religious festivals, verses commemorating, 36 Rhymes on samplers, see "Verses" Royal personages on tapestry embroideries, 133 Royal school of art needlework, 120 Rose on samplers, 58, 66, 109 (Figs. 7, 16, Plate VI.); on tapestry embroideries, 113 Ruskin, John, on needlework in museums, 2; on samplers, 3; sampler by grandmother of, 3, and Plate X. Samplers. Parts I. and III. (Sec. II.) Satin-stitch, 122, 141, 146 Scottish samplers, 71, 84, 89. Figs. 21, 34 Sex of sampler workers, 80 Shakespeare, mention of sampler by, 13 Sidney, Sir P., mention of sampler by, 14 Signatures on samplers, 23 Size of samplers, 84 Smoke (chimney) on embroideries, 135. Fig. 57 Spanish samplers, 112 _Spectator_ on decay of needlework, 117 Spies to Canaan, 21 Split-stitch, 150. Figs. 65, 66 Stag on samplers, 21, 65, 80. Figs. 6, 17. Plates III., VIII. Star-stitch, 169. Figs. 35, 36 Stem-stitch, 150 Stitchery of tapestry pictures, 143; of samplers, 161 Stitches, background, 144; cushion, 144; tent, 144; Gobelin, 145; upright, 145; Florentine, 145; Hungary, 145; satin, 146; open, 146; buttonhole, 146; eyelet, 149 (Fig. 63); split, 152 (Figs. 65, 66); stem, 150; knot, 151; looped, 152; plush, 153; purl, 153; passing, 154; lace, sampler stitches, 154; hollie point, 157 (Fig. 61); cut and drawn-work, 161; back-stitch, 163 (Fig. 75); alphabet-stitch, 164; darning-stitch, 165 (Plate XXIV. and Figs. 8, 76); tent and cross-stitch, 166; various, 170 Strawberry on samplers, 66. Fig. 31. Plate XIII. Stump embroidery, 149 Susannah and the elders, 128, 130, 131. Plate XIV. Swiss samplers, 111 Talc, 154. Plate XIV. Tammy cloth, 171 Tapestry, history of, 125; stitch, 145 Tapestry pictures--see embroideries in the manner of Tent-stitch, 166 Thistle on sampler, 71. Fig. 21 Tracing, groundwork, 158. Fig. 70 Tree of knowledge on samplers, 18_n_, 62_n_, 109. Figs. 17, 18 Tulip on samplers, 78. Figs. 27, 59 Upright-stitch, 145 Verses on samplers, 27, 36-51 Vice, inscription concerning, 48 Victoria and Albert Museum, samplers in, 11, 21, 58. Fig. 7 Virtue, inscription concerning, 48 Wealth, inscription concerning, 48 _Printed at_ THE DARIEN PRESS, _Edinburgh_ FOOTNOTES: [1] The picture also shows that the principal decorations of the walls of the schoolroom were framed examples of attainments with the needle. [2] In the original all the small pieces of work in the upper corner near the initials are varieties of gold thread design, and almost all the grey colour throughout, in the reproduction, is silver thread. [3] It was claimed by its late owner, Mrs Egerton Baines, that almost every line of this sampler contains Royalist emblems. For instance, the angel in the upper part is supposed to be Margaret of Scotland wearing the Yorkist badge as a part of her chatelaine; beside her is the Tree of Life, on either side of which are Lancastrian S's, the whole row being symbolical of the descent of the Stuarts from Margaret of Scotland, daughter of Henry VII. The next row of ornament is also the Tree of Life, represented by a vine springing from an acorn, by tradition a symbolical badge of Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I. The next two rows are made up of roses, acorns, and Stuart S's, which S's again appear in the line beneath, linked with the Tree of Life. We refer elsewhere (p. 62) to the figures in the bottom row (the whole of the sampler is not shown here), and these are supposed to be Oliver Cromwell as a tailed devil. The sampler is neither signed nor dated, but it clearly belongs to the first half of the seventeenth century. The silks employed are almost exclusively pink, green, and blue, and the work is of the open character found in that illustrated in Plate III. [4] In one by Hannah Lanting, dated 1691, the orthography is "with my nedel I rout the same," and it adds, "and Juda Hayle is my Dame." [5] The lower portion of Fig. 18 opposite introduces us to an early and crude representation of Adam and Eve and the serpent, and to the bird and fountain, and flower in vase, forms of decoration which became at a later date so very common. The name of the maker has been obliterated owing to dirt getting through a broken glass, but the date is 1742. [6] This sampler is interesting owing to its drawn-work figures, which are directly copied from two effigies of the reign of James I., and may stand for that Monarch and his Queen. This portion of the sampler might readily be mistaken for that date were it not that it bears on the bar which divides the figures the letters S.W., 1700. The border at the side of the figures is in red silk, that at the top and the alphabet are in the motley array of colours to which we are accustomed in specimens of this date. [7] A map of Europe, formerly in the author's possession, had the degrees marked as so many minutes or hours east or west of Clapton! [8] "Samplers," by Alice Morse Earle. [9] It first appeared in the _Lady's Magazine_, 1819, and in the first collected edition, 1824, Vol. I. pp. 67, 68; also in Bohn's Classics, 1852, pp. 138, 139. [10] These latter, with their figures standing out in relief, could never have been used for cushions, and can only have been employed as pictures. [11] The difficulty of assigning a close date to tapestry embroideries is a considerable one, for dress is practically the only guide, and this is by no means a reliable one, for a design may well have been taken from a piece dated half a century previously, as, for instance, when the marriage of Charles I. is portrayed on an embroidery bearing date 1649, the year of his death. Those, therefore, which have a genuine date have this value, that they can only represent a phase of art or a subject coeval with, or precedent to, that date. Hence the importance of the pieces illustrated in Fig. 60 and in Fig. 68, dated six years later. [12] Mr Davenport considers that this rounded, padded work is a caricature of the raised embroidery of the _opus Anglicanum_, and that the earliest specimens of it are to be found at Coire, Zurich, and Munich. [13] The fondness for decking the dress with pearls is quaintly portrayed in these pictures, where they are imitated by seed pearls. As to these there is an interesting extract extant, from the inventory of St James's House, nigh Westminster, in 1549, wherein among the items is one of "a table [or picture] whereon is a man holding a sword in one hand and a sceptre in the other, of needlework, prettily garnished with seed pearls." [14] A very good example of a sampler in drawn-work, in which the floral form of decoration is entirely absent, save in the sixth row (the pinks), which is in green silk, the rest being in white. That the sampler was intended as a pattern is evident from some of the rows being unfinished. 
43805	----	[Illustration: FRONT COVER] LITTLE BOOKS ABOUT OLD FURNITURE II. QUEEN ANNE LITTLE BOOKS ABOUT OLD FURNITURE Uniformly bound, Crown 8vo Price 2s 6d net each I. TUDOR TO STUART II. QUEEN ANNE III. CHIPPENDALE AND HIS SCHOOL IV. THE SHERATON PERIOD LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN 21 Bedford Street, W.C. [Illustration: QUEEN ANNE WALNUT TALLBOY AND STOOL (EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.)] LITTLE BOOKS ABOUT OLD FURNITURE ENGLISH FURNITURE: BY J. P. BLAKE & A. E. REVEIRS-HOPKINS. VOLUME II THE PERIOD OF QUEEN ANNE [Illustration: WILLIAM HEINEMANN LOGO] NEW EDITION ILLUSTRATED LONDON MCMXIV WILLIAM HEINEMANN _First published October 1911_ _New Edition January 1913_ _Second Impression June 1914_ _Copyright London 1911 by William Heinemann_ INTRODUCTION The sovereigns of England, unlike those of France, have seldom taken to themselves the task of acting as patrons of the fine arts. Therefore when we write of the "Queen Anne period" we do not refer to the influence of the undistinguished lady who for twelve years occupied the throne of England. The term is merely convenient for the purpose of classification, embracing, as it does, the period from William and Mary to George I. during which the furniture had a strong family likeness and shows a development very much on the same line. The change, at the last quarter of the seventeenth century, from the Jacobean models to the Dutch, was probably the most important change that has come over English furniture. It was a change which strongly influenced Chippendale and his school, and remains with us to this day. The period from William and Mary to George I. covered nearly forty years, during which the fashionable furniture was generally made from walnut-wood. No doubt walnut was used before the time of William and Mary, notably in the making of the well-known Stuart chairs with their caned backs and seats, but it did not come into general use until the time of William. It continued in fashion until the discovery of its liability to the attacks of the worm, combined with the advent of mahogany, removed it from public favour. Walnut nevertheless remains a beautiful and interesting wood, and in the old examples the colour effects are probably unsurpassed in English furniture. Its liability to "worming" is probably exaggerated, and in the event of an attack generally yields to a treatment with paraffin. Certainly the furniture of what is termed the "Queen Anne period" is in great request at the present day, and as the period was so short during which it was made, the supply is necessarily limited. We referred in the introduction to the first volume to the fact that the present series does not in any sense pretend to exhaust what is practically an inexhaustible subject. The series is merely intended to act as an introduction to the study of old English furniture, and to provide handbooks for collectors of moderate means. The many admirable books which have been already written on this subject seem to appeal mostly to persons who start collecting with that useful but not indispensable asset--a large income. In the present volume, although rare and expensive pieces are shown for historical reasons and to suggest standards of taste, a large number of interesting examples are also shown and described which are within the reach of persons of moderate incomes, and frequently an approximate price at which they should be acquired is indicated. In collecting the photographs necessary for this volume we are indebted to the Director and Secretary of the Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington, London, for placing the various exhibits at our disposal and particularly for causing a number of new exhibits to be specially photographed. However good a photograph may be, it can only be a ghost of the original, which should always, if possible, be examined. We would therefore strongly recommend readers when possible to examine the museum objects for themselves. The South Kensington collection, admirable as it is, is still far from complete, and increased public interest should contribute to its improvement. For the further loan of photographs we are also indebted to Mr. F. W. Phillips, of the Manor House, Hitchin, Herts; to Mr. J. H. Springett, High Street, Rochester, and others to whom we acknowledge our indebtedness in the text. J. P. Blake A. E. Reveirs-Hopkins 21 Bedford Street, W.C. CHAPTERS PAGE I. THE QUEEN ANNE PERIOD 1 II. SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN AND GRINLING GIBBON 18 III. MIRRORS, STOOLS, AND SOME NOTES ON A QUEEN ANNE BEDROOM 34 IV. CHAIRS AND TABLES 47 V. CHESTS OF DRAWERS, TALLBOYS, CABINETS AND CHINA CABINETS 65 VI. SECRETAIRES, BUREAUX, AND WRITING-TABLES 76 VII. CLOCKS AND CLOCK-CASES 82 VIII. LACQUERED FURNITURE 95 BIBLIOGRAPHY It is with pleasure we acknowledge our obligations to the following authorities: Percy Macquoid: "The Age of Walnut." (The standard work on the furniture of this period.) J. H. Pollen: "Ancient and Modern Furniture and Woodwork." An admirable little handbook and guide to the furniture and woodwork collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington. F. J. Britten: "Old Clocks and Watches and their Makers." (Exhaustive in its treatment, and fully illustrated. The standard book. A new edition has recently been published.) John Stalker: "Japanning and Varnishing." (The earliest English book on this subject. Published in 1688 during the craze for japanned furniture.) Law: "History of Hampton Court," vol. iii. Ashton: "Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne." Evelyn: "Diary." Macaulay: "History of England." CHAPTER I: THE QUEEN ANNE PERIOD WILLIAM AND MARY, 1689-1702 ANNE, 1702-1714 GEORGE I., 1714-1727 William the Third was a Dutchman and, although he was for thirteen years King of England, he remained a Dutchman until his death. His English was bad, his accent was rough, and his vocabulary limited. He had a Dutch guard, the friends whom he trusted were Dutch, and they were always about him, filling many of the offices of the Royal Household. He came to England as a foreigner and it remained to him a foreign country. His advent to the throne brought about certain changes in the style of furniture which are generally described as "the Dutch influence," which, however, had its origin at least as far back as the reign of Charles II. Both William and Mary were greatly interested in furnishing and furniture. They took up their residence at Hampton Court Palace soon after their coronation, and the place suited William so well and pleased him so much that it was very difficult to get him away from it. William was a great soldier and a great statesman, but he was more at his pleasure in the business of a country house than in the festivities and scandals of a court life, both of which he perhaps equally disliked. The Queen also cordially liked country life, and no less cordially disliked scandal. Mr. Law, in his interesting book on Hampton Court, mentions the story that Mary would check any person attempting to retail scandal by asking whether they had read her favourite sermon--Archbishop Tillotson on Evil Speaking. With the assistance of Sir Christopher Wren as Architect and Grinling Gibbon as Master Sculptor, great changes were made in the Palace at Hampton Court. The fogs and street smells of Whitehall drove William to the pure air of the country, and there was the additional attraction that the country around the palace reminded him in its flatness of his beloved Holland. When one of his Ministers ventured to remonstrate with him on his prolonged absences from London, he answered: "Do you wish to see me dead?" William, perhaps naturally, cared nothing for English tradition: he destroyed the state rooms of Henry VIII. and entrusted to Wren the task of rebuilding the Palace. The architect appears to have had a difficult task, as the King constantly altered the plans as they proceeded, and, it is said, did a good deal towards spoiling the great architect's scheme. In William's favour it must be admitted that he took the blame for the deficiencies and gave Wren the credit for the successes of the building. The result--the attachment of a Renaissance building to a Tudor palace--is more successful than might have been expected. The King's relations with Wren seem to have been of a very friendly sort. Mr. Law mentions the fact that Wren was at this time Grand Master of Freemasons; that he initiated the King into the mysteries of the craft; and that William himself reached the chair and presided over a lodge at Hampton Court Palace whilst it was being completed, which is, in the circumstances, an interesting example of the working rather than the speculative masonry. Mary was herself a model housewife, and filled her Court with wonder that she should labour so many hours each day at her needlework as if for her living. She covered the backs of chairs and couches with her work, which was described as "extremely neat and very well shadowed," although all trace of it has long since disappeared. It is appropriate to observe, as being related to decorative schemes and furnishing, that the taste for Chinese porcelain, which is so general at this day, was first introduced into England by Mary. Evelyn mentions in his diary (June 13, 1693) that he "saw the Queen's rare cabinets and collection of china which was wonderfully rich and plentiful." Macaulay expresses his opinion with his usual frankness. He writes: "Mary had acquired at The Hague a taste for the porcelain of China, and amused herself by forming at Hampton a vast collection of hideous images, and vases upon which houses, trees, bridges, and mandarins were depicted in outrageous defiance of all the laws of perspective. The fashion--a frivolous and inelegant fashion, it must be owned--which was thus set by the amiable Queen spread fast and wide. In a few years almost every great house in the kingdom contained a museum of these grotesque baubles. Even statesmen and generals were not ashamed to be renowned as judges of teapots and dragons; and satirists long continued to repeat that a fine lady valued her mottled green pottery quite as much as she valued her monkey and much more than she valued her husband." It is strange to consider in these days how greatly Macaulay, in this opinion, was out of his reckoning. There is, perhaps, no example of art or handicraft upon which the opinion of cultured taste in all countries is so unanimous as in its admiration for good Chinese porcelain, amongst which the Queen's collection (judging from the pieces still remaining at Hampton) must be classed. Mary was probably the first English queen to intimately concern herself with furniture. We have it on the authority of the Duchess of Marlborough that on the Queen's first visit to the palace she engaged herself "looking into every closet and conveniency, and turning up the quilts upon the beds, as people do when they come into an inn, and with no other concern in her appearance but such as they express." We find in this period lavishly painted ceilings, woodwork carved by Grinling Gibbon and his school, fine needlework, upholstered bedsteads, and marble mantelpieces with diminishing shelves for the display of Delft and Chinese ware. The standard of domestic convenience, in one respect, could not, however, have been very high, if one may judge from the Queen's bathing-closet of this period at Hampton Court Palace. The bath is of marble and recessed into the wall, but it is more like a fountain than a bath, and its use in the latter connection must have been attended by inconveniences which modern women of much humbler station would decline to face.[1] [1] The bathroom is, however, not in itself so modern in England as might be supposed. Wheatley mentions that as early as the fourteenth century a bathroom was attached to the bedchamber in the houses of the great nobles, but more often a big tub with a covering like a tent was used. Good specimens of the wood-carving of Grinling Gibbon (born 1648, died 1721) are to be seen at Hampton Court, to which Palace William III. appointed the artist Master Carver. He generally worked in soft woods, such as lime, pear and pine, but sometimes in oak. His subjects were very varied--fruit and foliage, wheat-ears and flowers, cupids and dead game, and even musical instruments--and were fashioned with amazing skill, resource, and ingenuity. He invented that school of English carving which is associated with his name. His fancy is lavish and his finish in this particular work has never been surpassed in this country; but it is doubtful whether his work is not overdone, and as such may not appeal to the purer taste. Often his masses of flowers and foliage too much suggest the unpleasant term which is usually applied to them, viz. "swags." Frequently nothing is left to the imagination in the boldness of his realism. Fig. 1 shows a very happy example of his work over a mantelpiece in one of the smaller rooms in Hampton Court Palace, which is reproduced by the courtesy of the Lord Chamberlain, the copyright being the property of H.M. the King. Upon the shelf are pieces of china belonging to Queen Mary, but the portrait inset is of Queen Caroline, consort of George IV. In the grate is an antique fire-back, and on either side of the fire is a chair of the period of William and Mary. The Court bedsteads (and probably on a smaller scale the bedsteads of the upper classes generally) continued to be at once elaborate and unhygienic, and were fitted with canopies and hangings of velvet and other rich stuffs. King William's bedstead was a great four-poster, hung with crimson velvet and surmounted at each corner with an enormous plume, which was much the same fashion of bedstead as at the beginning of the century. Fig. 2 is an interesting photograph (reproduced by permission of the Lord Chamberlain) of three Royal bedsteads at Hampton Court, viz. those of William, Mary, and George II. The chairs and stools in front are of the period of William and Mary. The table is of later date. Most of the old furniture at Hampton Court, however, has been dispersed amongst the other Royal palaces. An excellent idea of the appearance of a London dwelling-room of this period is shown in Fig. 3. It was removed from No. 3 Clifford's Inn, and is now to be seen at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The owner, John Penhallow, must have been well-to-do, as the fine carving about the mantelpiece and doors was expensive even in those days. The festoons of fruit and flowers of the school of Grinling Gibbon around the mantelpiece, in the centre of which are the arms of the owner, and the broken pediments over the doors surmounting the cherubs' heads, are characteristic of the time. The table with the marquetry top and "tied" stretcher is of the period. The chairs retained for a time that rigid resistance to the lines of the human form which marks the Stuart chairs; but very soon adapted themselves in a physiological sense. What is termed the Queen Anne period of furniture may be said to date from the reigns of William and Mary (1689-1702), and Queen Anne (1702-1714), to that of George I. (1714-1727). The Dutch influence of William and Mary became Anglicised during the reign of Anne and the first George, and the influence remains to this day. Mahogany was introduced about 1720, and thenceforward the influence of Chippendale and his school came into force. The Queen Anne style has probably been over-praised, a little misunderstood, and possibly a trifle harshly treated. Mr. Ernest Law, whose studies of this period we have already mentioned, describes it as "nothing better than an imitation of the bastard classic of Louis XIV., as distinguished from the so-called 'Queen Anne style' which never had any existence at all except in the brains of modern æsthetes and china maniacs," and as a case in point refers to Queen Anne's drawing-room at Hampton Court Palace. This verdict is no doubt a true one as regards the schemes of interior decoration, with their sprawling deities and the gaudy and discordant groupings of classical figures of Verrio and his school, to be seen at Hampton Court and other great houses. Verrio, as Macaulay wrote, "covered ceilings and staircases with Gorgons and Muses, Nymphs and Satyrs, Virtues and Vices, Gods quaffing nectar, and laurelled princes riding in triumph"--a decorative scheme which certainly does not err on the side of parsimony. The taste of a Court, however, is by no means a criterion of taste in domestic furniture. There can be no doubt that to this period we are indebted for the introduction of various articles of furniture of great utility and unquestionable taste. The chairs and tables in particular, depending as they do for charm upon simple lines and the transverse grain of the wood, for neatness of design and good workmanship are unsurpassed. Amongst other pieces the bureaux and long-cased clocks made their appearance; also double chests of drawers or tallboys, mirrors for toilet-tables and wall decoration; and washstands came into general use, as well as articles like card-tables, powdering-tables, &c. The houses of the wealthy were furnished with great magnificence and luxuriousness in a gaudy and ultra-decorative fashion. Restraint is the last quality to be found. Judging however from the many simple and charming specimens of walnut furniture surviving, the standard of comfort and good taste amongst the middle classes was high. Table glass was now manufactured in England; carpets were made at Kidderminster; chairs grew to be comfortably shaped; domestic conveniences in the way of chests of drawers, writing bureaux, and mirrors were all in general use in many middle-class houses. Mr. Pollen, whose handbook on the Victoria and Albert collection is so much appreciated, writes of the Queen Anne furniture as being of a "genuine English style marked by great purity and beauty." Anne, the second daughter of James II., was the last of the Stuarts, with whom, however, she had little in common, and indeed it is with something of an effort that we think of her as a Stuart at all. Personally she had no more influence upon the period which bears her name than the Goths had upon Gothic architecture. The term "Queen Anne" has grown to be a conveniently descriptive term for anything quaint and pretty. We are all familiar with the Queen Anne house of the modern architect, with its gables and sharply pitched roof. This, however, is probably suggested by various rambles in picturesque country districts in England and Holland; but it has nothing in common with the actual houses of the period under review. The bulk of the genuine furniture which has come down to us was probably from the houses of the merchant classes, the period being one of great commercial activity. The condition of the poor, however, was such that they could not concern themselves with furniture. Mr. Justin McCarthy, in his book on these times, estimates that one-fifth of the population were paupers. A few rude tables and chairs, a chest, truckle-beds, and possibly a settle, would have made up the possessions of the working-class house; and it is probable that not until the nineteenth century was there any material improvement in their household surroundings. It was a time in which the coffee-and chocolate-houses flourished; when Covent Garden and Leicester Square were fashionable neighbourhoods; when the Sedan chair was the fashionable means of transit; when the police were old men with rattles who, sheltered in boxes guarded the City; and when duels were fought, in Lincoln's Inn Fields. The coffee-house was a lively factor in the life of the times: although wines were also sold, coffee was the popular drink. The price for a dish of coffee and a seat by a good fire was commonly one penny, or perhaps three-halfpence, although to these humble prices there were aristocratic exceptions. Anderton's Hotel in Fleet Street, "The Bay Tree" in St. Swithin's Lane, and the now famous "Lloyd's" are interesting developments of the Queen Anne coffee-houses. Coffee itself was retailed at about seven shillings per pound. Chocolate-houses were small in number, but included names so well known at the present time as "White's" and the "Cocoa Tree." Chocolate was commonly twopence the dish. "Fancy the beaux," Thackeray writes, "thronging the chocolate-houses, tapping their snuff-boxes as they issue thence, their periwigs appearing over the red curtains." Tea-drinking was a social function and mainly a domestic operation, and to its popularity we owe the number of small light tables of this period. Snuff, or the fan supply each pause of chat, With singing, laughing, ogling, and all that. The price of tea fluctuated very much--some years it was much cheaper than others, varying from 10s. to 30s. per lb., although it is said that in the cheaper sorts old infused leaves were dried and mixed with new ones. As regards pottery and porcelain, the Chinese was in great request, following, no doubt, on the fashion set by Queen Mary. The English factories--Worcester, Derby, Chelsea, Bow, Wedgwood, and Minton--only started in the last half of the eighteenth century. Mr. Ashton, in his interesting book on "Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne," quotes the following advertisement, which points to the continued popularity of decorative china: "Whereas the New East India Company did lately sell all their China Ware, These are to advertise that a very large parcel thereof (as Broken and Damaged) is now to be sold by wholesale and Retail, extremely cheap at a Warehouse in Dyer's Yard. Note.--It is very fit to furnish Escrutores, Cabinets, Corner Cupboards or Spriggs, where it usually stands for ornament only." This fashion first brought into use the various forms of cabinets used for the display of china. The earliest pieces would therefore date from the end of the seventeenth, or the beginning of the eighteenth century. In the first volume of this series we referred to a characteristic of Elizabethan woodwork, viz. inlaying--the laying-in of small pieces of one or several kinds of wood in places cut out of the surface of another kind. In the period under review two further practices are deserving of special notice. The first is veneering, which consists of wholly covering one sort of wood (frequently a common wood, such as deal or pine, but also oak) with a thin layer of choice wood--walnut, mahogany, &c. The object of veneering was not for purposes of deception, as it was not intended to produce the effect that the whole substance was of the finer sort of wood; but by means of applying these thin overlays a greater choice of wood was possible, and a more beautiful effect was produced by the juxtaposition of the various grains. Although at the present time the term veneer is frequently used as one of approbrium, the principle it stands for is a perfectly honest one. It is very much the same as the application of the thin strips of marble to the pillars and walls of St. Mark's at Venice, which is called incrustation, and of which Ruskin writes in the "Stones of Venice." The basis of St. Mark's is brick, which is covered by an incrustation or veneer of costly and beautiful marbles, by which rich and varied colour effects are produced which would have been impossible in solid marble. The same principle applies to veneers of wood, in which there is likewise no intention to deceive but rather a desire to make the most of the materials on hand. It would have been impossible to construct a great many cabinets of solid walnut-wood, nor would the effect have been so satisfactory, because, as already pointed out, the fact of veneers being laid in thin strips immensely increases the choice of woods and facilitates the composition of pleasing effects. There is, moreover, often a greater nicety of workmanship in the making of veneered furniture than in the solid article, and it is indeed often a complaint that the doing up of old veneered furniture is so expensive and troublesome. In old days veneers were cut by hand--sometimes one-eighth of an inch thick--but the modern veneer is, of course, cut by machinery, and is often a mere shaving. In the period under discussion walnut-veneering reached great perfection, beautiful effects being produced by cross-banding various strips and varying the course of the grains and the shades. Oak was first used as a base, but later commoner woods such as deal. It is a mistake to condemn an article because the basis is not of oak. As a matter of fact, after a time oak went out of use as a basis for the reason that it was unsatisfactory, the veneer having a tendency to come away from it. We frequently find the front of a drawer is built of pine, to take the veneer, whilst the sides and bottom of the drawer are of oak. Marquetry, which is also a feature in furniture of this period, is a combination of inlaying and veneering. A surface is covered with a veneer and the desired design is cut out and filled in with other wood. Its later developments are of French origin, and it was first introduced into England from Holland towards the end of the seventeenth century, after James II. (who had been a wanderer in Holland) came to the throne. Most arts date back to ancient times; and the arts of woodcraft are no exceptions. Inlaying, veneering, and wood-carving reach back to the temple of Solomon; and the Egyptians also practised them. Ancient inlay, moreover, was not confined to woods--ivory, pearls, marbles, metals, precious stones all being requisitioned. During the reigns of William and Mary, Anne, and George the First, events of great importance transpired. St. Paul's, that great monument to Wren and Renaissance architecture, was opened; the Marlborough wars were fought; the South Sea Bubble was blown and burst; Sir Christopher Wren and Grinling Gibbon completed their work; Marlborough House and Blenheim were built; Addison, Pope, and Daniel Defoe were at work; Gibraltar was taken; England and Scotland were united; the Bank of England was incorporated; and last, but not least, the National Debt started. CHAPTER II: SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN AND GRINLING GIBBON The temper of a nation is reflected in its architecture and, in a lesser degree, in its furniture. When we look at the furniture of the last of the Stuarts, Mary II. and her sister Anne, we see written all over it in large letters one great virtue--sobriety. In the oak furniture of the last of the Tudors and the first of the Stuarts (Elizabeth and James I.) we find the same sober note; but in the main it is more essentially English. In the Augustan era of Elizabeth we certainly see in the more pretentious examples of Court-cupboards and cabinets the influence of the Renaissance; but the furniture made by the people for the people is simply English in form and decoration. During the troublous times of the two Charles and to the end of the revolution which placed William and Mary on the throne, the country was alternately in the throes of gaiety and Puritanism; and a dispassionate view leads one to suppose that "Merrie England" had the greater leaning towards merriment. The people of England knew well enough that sobriety was good for them, and Cromwell gave it in an unpalatable form. The remedy was less to the country's liking than the disease, and with the Restoration in 1660 the passions of the nation ran riot in the opposite extreme. The final lesson came with the twenty-nine years of misrule under Charles II. and James II. Having drained the cup of degradation to the dregs, the country set about her real reformation by the aid of Dutch William, himself the grandson of a Stuart, and his cousin-consort Anne, the daughter of the self-deposed James. James II. had learnt his lesson from the errors of his brother Charles, but was not wise enough to fully profit by it. He realised that misrule had stretched his subjects' patience to the breaking-point, and during his short reign there was a certain amount of surface calm. But beneath was the continual struggle for absolutism on the part of the monarch and emancipation on the part of the people. The subject is familiar to students of history. With the advent of the Orange _régime_ we find a distinct revolution in English furniture. There is no evidence of a sudden change. We find comparatively severe examples during James II.'s reign and flamboyant patterns dating from the days of William. The transitional period was shorter than usual, and once the tide had gathered strength in its flow there was very little ebb. The Civil troubles in the country had given a severe check to the arts: the influence of the Renaissance upon furniture was upon the wane, and the ground was lying fallow and hungry for the new styles which may be said to have landed with William of Orange in Torbay in 1688. The main influence in the furniture was Dutch, and the Dutch had been to a large extent influenced by a wave of Orientalism. Twenty-five years before this, England's most renowned, if not greatest, architect had designed his first ecclesiastical building--the Chapel of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge--in the classical style which he made famous in England. Christopher Wren was born in 1631 or 1632. He was son of Dr. Christopher Wren, Dean of Windsor, and nephew of Matthew Wren, Bishop of Ely, who, to celebrate his release from the Tower, built Pembroke Hall Chapel in 1663, employing his nephew as architect. In 1664, when Christopher Wren was about thirty-two years of age, he came in contact with John Evelyn, the diarist, who in his journal, under date July 13, writes of him as that "miracle of a youth." The acquaintanceship ripened into a friendship, only broken by Evelyn's death in 1706. From Evelyn's diary we are able to glean many things concerning the then rising young architect. The idea of the Royal Society was the outcome of a meeting in 1660 of several scientists in Wren's room after one of the lectures at Gresham College. On being approached on the desirability of forming the Society, Charles II. gave his assent and encouragement to the project, and we learn that one of the first transactions of the Society was an account of Wren's pendulum experiment. The Society was incorporated by Royal Charter in 1663. It would appear that Wren had no world-wide reputation as an architect at the time, but, probably through the instrumentality of his friend Evelyn, he was appointed by the King as assistant to Sir John Denham, the Surveyor-General of Works, and in the opinion of one of his biographers, Lucy Phillimore, "the practical experience learned in the details of the assistant-surveyor's work was afterwards very serviceable to him." We find him occupied in 1664 in plans for repairing old St. Paul's and in building the Sheldonian Theatre at Oxford, which was finished in 1669. During the plague of 1665 Wren made a tour of the Continent, and there absorbed ideas which fructified in the new style of classical architecture which has made his name famous. During further discussions concerning the much-needed repairs to St. Paul's came the fire of London in 1666. This solved the difficulty, for St. Paul's was left a gaunt skeleton in the City of Desolation. Wren's plans for the rebuilding of the City were accepted by the King, but were never carried out in anything like their entirety. All attempts to patch up the cathedral were abandoned in 1673, and the ground was cleared for the new foundations. The architect and his master mason laid the first stone on June 21, 1675. The cathedral and the story of its building is familiar to us all. The great architect, having drawn the circle for the dome, called to a workman to bring him a piece of stone to mark the centre. The man brought a fragment of an old tombstone on which was the single word "Resurgam." All present took it as a good omen. We all know how the last stone of the lantern was laid thirty-five years afterwards by the architect's own son in the presence of his father. During those thirty-five years the great freemason's hands had been full, and in the City which rose from the ashes of the fire of 1666 no less than fifty-four churches were either built or restored by him. In addition, we find that the rebuilding or restoration of thirty-six halls of the City guilds, as well as upwards of fifty notable buildings--hospitals, colleges, palaces, cathedrals and churches--in London and the provinces, is laid to his credit. St. Paul's Cathedral, Wren's City churches, and the Monument, would in themselves make London famous amongst the cities of the world. The Monument was erected to commemorate the rebuilding of the City. The inscription thereon absurdly attributes the origin of the fire to the Papists. Pope satirises it in his "Moral Essays": London's Column pointing to the skies Like a tall bully lifts the head and lies. Chief, for beauty, amongst the churches is St. Stephen's, Walbrook. Canova, the great sculptor, after paying a visit to England for the purpose of seeing the Elgin marbles, was asked if he would like to return to the country. "Yes," he replied, "that I might again see St. Paul's Cathedral, Somerset House, and St. Stephen's, Walbrook." A dozen or more of Wren's churches have been swept off the map of London, in many cases with a wantonness amounting to sacrilege; but we can still rejoice in the possession of such gems as St. Stephen's, Walbrook; St. Nicholas, Cole Abbey; and St. Mary Abchurch, with its flat roof and cupola supported on eight arches. St. Dunstan's in the East, near the Custom House, still stands testifying to the fact that Wren could restore a church without spoiling it. St. Dunstan's, built in the latest style of perpendicular Gothic, was left a mere shell after the fire. Wren added the fine tower, and capped it with the curious and graceful spire supported on flying buttresses. It is said that the architect stood on London Bridge with a telescope anxiously watching the removal of the scaffolding from the spire. It is scarcely credible, however, that such a man should doubt his own powers of building. This legend recalls the story of the building of the Town Hall at Windsor in 1686. The spacious chamber on the street level is used as a corn exchange and above is the great hall. The anxious town councillors declared that the great room above would collapse. Wren knew exactly how much his four walls and great beams could bear, but, to appease the burghers, he promised to place four columns at the intersections of the beams. He purposely built them about two inches short, and, to this day, after the lapse of two hundred and twenty-five years, there is still a two-inch space between the top of each column and the ceiling it is supposed to support. On the exterior of the building are two statues given by Wren in 1707: one of Queen Anne and the other of her Danish consort, Prince George. Our good Christopher could flatter on occasion. The inscription to Prince George in his Roman costume reads, _inter alia_: Heroi omni saeculo venerando. Underneath the figure of Queen Anne is the legend: Arte tua sculptor non est imitabilis Anna Annae vis similem sculpere sculpe Deam. The local rhyming and free translation runs: Artist, thy skill is vain! Thou can'st not trace The semblance of the matchless Anna's face! Thou might'st as well to high Olympus fly And carve the model of some Deity! We admit this is a very free and extended translation, but it passes current locally. To say the least, it is high praise; but Wren had a staunch friend in Queen Anne, and every eye makes its own beauty. The exigencies of the time called for a great architect, and he appeared in the person of Christopher Wren: they called for a great artist to adorn the master's buildings, and he appeared in the guise of Grinling Gibbon. The discovery of Gibbon in an obscure house at Deptford goes to the credit of gossipy John Evelyn, who on January 18, 1671, writes: "This day, I first acquainted his Majesty (Charles II.) with that incomparable young man Gibbon, whom I had lately met with in an obscure place by mere accident, in a field in our parish, near Sayes Court. I found him shut in; but looking in at the window, I perceived him carving that large cartoon or crucifix of Tintoretto, a copy of which I had brought myself from Venice, where the original painting remains. I asked if I might enter; he opened the door civilly to me, and I saw him about such a work as for the curiosity of handling, drawing and studious exactness, I never had before seen in all my travels. I questioned why he worked in such an obscure and lonesome place; it was that he might apply himself to his profession without interruption, and wondered not a little how I found him out. I asked him if he were unwilling to be known to some great man, for that I believed it might turn to his profit, he answered, he was yet but a beginner, but would not be sorry to sell off that piece; on demanding the price he said £100. In good earnest, the very frame was worth the money, there being nothing in nature so tender and delicate as the flowers and festoons about it, and yet the work was very strong; in the piece was more than one hundred figures of men, &c.... Of this young artist, together with my manner of finding him out, I acquainted the King, and begged that he would give me leave to bring him and his work to Whitehall, for that I would venture my reputation with his Majesty that he had never seen anything approach it, and that he would be exceedingly pleased, and employ him. The King said he would himself go see him. This was the first notice his Majesty ever had of Mr. Gibbon." The King evidently did not "go see him," for under date March 1 we read: "I caused Mr. Gibbon to bring to Whitehall his excellent piece of carving, where being come, I advertised his Majesty.... No sooner was he entered and cast his eye on the work, but he was astonished at the curiosity of it, and having considered it a long time and discoursed with Mr. Gibbon whom I brought to kiss his hand, he commanded it should be immediately carried to the Queen's side to show her. It was carried up into her bedchamber, where she and the King looked on and admired it again; the King being called away, left us with the Queen, believing she would have bought it, it being a crucifix; but when his Majesty was gone, a French peddling woman, one Madame de Boord, who used to bring petticoats and fans and baubles, out of France to the ladies, began to find fault with several things in the work, which she understood no more than an ass, or a monkey, so as in a kind of indignation, I caused the person who brought it to carry it back to the Chamber, finding the Queen so much governed by an ignorant French woman, and this incomparable artist had his labour only for his pains, which not a little displeased me; he not long after sold it for £80, though well worth £100, without the frame, to Sir George Viner. His Majesty's Surveyor, Mr. Wren, faithfully promised to employ him. I having also bespoke his Majesty for his work at Windsor, which my friend Mr. May, the architect there, was going to alter and repair universally." Grinling Gibbon was born in 1648, and so the "incomparable young man" would have been about twenty-three years of age when he sailed into Royal favour. We do not know the whereabouts of the carved cartoon after Tintoretto; but we shall find at the Victoria and Albert Museum a carving by Gibbon, measuring 6 ft. in height by 4 ft. 4 in. in width, of the "Stoning of St. Stephen." It is executed in limewood and lance-wood. Walpole, in his "Catalogue of Painters," writes of the "Stoning of St. Stephen," which was purchased and placed by the Duke of Chandos at Canons,[2] as the carving which had "struck so good a judge" as Evelyn. It is palpably not identical with the Tintoret subject which Evelyn describes as "being a crucifix." Fig. 10 in Chapter III. is a remarkable example of Gibbon's carving of fruits, flowers, and foliage. [2] James Brydges, Duke of Chandos, who as Paymaster of the Forces during the wars in the reign of Queen Anne amassed a large fortune, built Canons, near Edgware, in 1715. The building and furnishing is said to have cost between £200,000 and £250,000. It was in the classical or Palladian style of architecture, and was adorned with costly pillars and statuary. The great _salon_ was painted by the Paolucci and the ceiling of the staircase by Thornhill. Although the building was designed to stand for ages, under the second Duke the estate became so encumbered that it was put up to auction, and as no buyer could be found the house was pulled down in 1747. The materials of "Princely Canons" realised only £11,000. The marble staircase and pillars were bought by Lord Chesterfield for his house in Mayfair. The witty Earl used to speak of the columns as "the Canonical pillars of his house." The Grinling Gibbon carving of the "Stoning of St. Stephen" was transferred to Bush Hill Park, near Enfield, and finally acquired in 1898 by the Victoria and Albert Museum at a cost of £300. Readers who are familiar with the Belgian churches will remember the wonderful carvings at Brussels and Mecklin by Drevot and Laurens, who were pupils of Gibbon. They out-Gibbon Gibbon in their realism. In Fig. 4, photographed for this book by the South Kensington authorities, we give an illustration of a carving in pinewood of a pendant of flowers attributed to Gibbon. It originally decorated the Church of St. Mary Somerset, Thames Street, E.C., built 1695--one of Wren's City churches so wantonly destroyed. To see Gibbon's wood carving at its best we must go to St. Paul's Cathedral, Windsor Castle, and Hampton Court Palace. At Windsor we shall also see carved marble panels of trophies, emblems and realistic fruits, flowers and shell-fish on the pedestal of the statue of Charles II. At Charing Cross we have another example of his stone carving on the pedestal of the statue of Charles the Martyr. We have already referred to the Church of St. Mary Abchurch in Abchurch Lane, between King William Street and Cannon Street, City. It was built in 1686, eleven years after the first stone of St. Paul's was laid. It also serves for the parish of St. Laurence Pountney. It lies in a quiet backwater off the busy stream, and the flagged courtyard is still surrounded by a few contemporary houses. Externally it is not beautiful, but Wren and Gibbon expended loving care on the really beautiful interior. The soft light from the quaint circular and round-headed windows casts a gentle radiance over the carved festoons of fruit, palm-leaves and the "pelican in her piety." Just across, on the other side of Cannon Street, is another backwater, Laurence Pountney Hill. Two of the old Queen Anne houses remain, No. 1 and No. 2, with beautiful old hooded doorways dated 1703. The circular hoods are supported by carved lion-headed brackets. The jambs are ornamented with delicate interlaced carving. No. 2 has been mutilated as to its windows, and a modern excrescence has been built on to the ground floor; but No. 1 appears to be much as it left the builders' hands in 1703, and still possesses the old wide staircase with twisted "barley-sugar" balusters and carved rose newel pendants. These houses may or may not have been designed by Wren. They seem to bear the impress of his genius, and in any case they give us a glimpse--and such glimpses are all too rare--of the homes of the City fathers, just as the little church across Cannon Street brings us in touch with their religious life in the early days of Queen Anne. Fig. 5 represents an interesting series of turned balusters taken from old houses of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. They are executed in oak, lime, ash and pinewood--mostly the latter; and many of the details will be found repeated in the furniture legs of the Queen Anne period. The photograph was specially taken for this volume by the courtesy of the Director and Secretary of the Victoria and Albert Museum. Fig. 6 represents a contemporary doorway of a room formerly at No. 3 Clifford's Inn. It is of oak, with applied carvings in cedar of acanthus-leaf work, enclosing a cherub's head and a broken pediment terminating in volutes. We shall find members of the same cherub family on the exterior of St. Mary Abchurch. Fig. 7 is the overmantel of the same room with a marble mantelpiece of somewhat later date. This room, now at the Victoria and Albert Museum, was erected in 1686 by John Penhallow, who resided there till 1716. Fig. 8 is a beautiful doorway carved in yellow pine, with Corinthian columns and pediment. We shall find similar pediments in the tower of Wren's church, St. Andrew's, Holborn. This doorway with the carved mantelpiece (Fig. 9) came from an old house in Carey Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields. These belong to the early part of the eighteenth century. These are but a few isolated examples of beautiful settings to the furniture of the period of the revival of classical architecture in England. Such things are not for the modest collector, who will content himself with the chairs, tables, and bureaux of the period--articles, in the main, of severe outline devoid of carving, and relying for effect much upon the rich tones of the wood employed, but withal eminently beautiful, inasmuch as they were and are eminently useful. CHAPTER III: MIRRORS, STOOLS, AND SOME NOTES ON A QUEEN ANNE BEDROOM The mirror, at the present time, is so generally an accepted necessary of life, and so indispensable in many of its situations, that it may seem remarkable that not until the sixteenth century was it in anything like general use in England. The pleasure and interest of reflection must have been felt from the time when "the reindeer roared where Paris roars to-night." Still water must have been the first mirror of the first man and woman in which they discovered their astonished faces, and where it is possible that, like Narcissus, they fell in love with their own reflections. Thus we find Eve saying in "Paradise Lost": I thither went And with unexperienced thought, and laid me down On the green bank; to look into the clear Smooth lake, that to me seem'd a second sky. As I bent down to look, just opposite, A shape within the wat'ry gleam appear'd, Bending to look on me. No doubt a reflecting surface was one of the first things that human ingenuity concerned itself about. Brass mirrors were used by the Hebrews, and mirrors of bronze by the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans; surviving specimens may be seen in the museums. Silver mirrors were also used in very early times. Glass mirrors are also of ancient origin. Sauzay, in his work on "Glass-making," quotes from Aristotle as follows: "If metals and stones are to be polished to serve as mirrors, glass and crystal have to be lined with a sheet of metal to give back the image presented to them." And here we have the foreshadowing of the mercury-backed sheet of glass of modern times. In England mirrors of polished metal were well known in Anglo-Saxon times, and from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries the ladies carried mirrors at their girdles or in their pockets. Venice has always been the home of glass-work, and it was there, in the early fourteenth century, that the immediate prototypes of our modern glass mirrors were made. For something like a century and a half the Venetians had the monopoly of the making of the best mirrors. Their secrets were carefully guarded, and any workman emigrating had his nearest relative imprisoned. It is interesting to note in passing that in Jan van Eyck's picture in the National Gallery, London, painted in 1434, there is a framed convex wall mirror which has an astonishingly modern look. It is difficult to say whether or not this is made of glass, but it shows, of course, that mirrors were used for wall decoration at that time. This picture, by the way, is very interesting, as providing undeniable evidence as to the nature of the Dutch furniture of the early fifteenth century. As regards the early history of the mirror in Britain, there is a glass mirror in Holyrood Palace in the apartments used by Queen Mary the First and said to have belonged to her. At Hampton Court there are mirrors belonging to the period of William III. and later, some of which have bevelled edges and borders of blue glass in the form of rosettes. Glass mirrors were made in England by Italian workmen early in the seventeenth century, but not extensively until about 1670, when the Duke of Buckingham established works in Lambeth, where mirrors were made. The edges were bevelled in Venetian fashion. We find Evelyn writing in his diary under date of September 19, 1676: "To Lambeth to that rare magazine of marble, to take order for chimney pieces, &c, for Mr. Godolphin's house. The owner of the workes had built for himselfe a pretty dwelling house; this Dutchman had contracted with the Genoese for all their marble. We also saw the Duke of Buckingham's Glass Worke, where they made high vases of metal as cleare, ponderous and thick as chrystal; also looking-glasses far larger and better than any that come from Venice." As will be seen at Hampton Court, the glass in each of the large mirrors of this time is in two pieces, for the reason that, by the methods then in use, it was not possible to make larger sheets. This method of making mirrors in two pieces is followed even in the present day in modern copies of old mirrors. It was, no doubt, a cause of regret to the old makers that they could not turn out a large glass in one sheet, and they would no doubt have been astonished to think that succeeding ages would deliberately copy their defect. A collector will not, probably, come across a mirror earlier than William and Mary, and he should have little difficulty in finding genuine mirrors of the next reign--Queen Anne--which are at once interesting and inexpensive. Mr. Clouston thinks that "the wall mirrors of the Queen Anne period may very well rank with the best furniture of their time. They are simple yet satisfying, and rich without extravagance." A mirror is not a mere looking-glass, although in this connection it has always been greatly appreciated. Mirrors bring a sense of space to a small room, and make a larger room appear more spacious. In the King's writing-closet at Hampton Court there is a mirror over the chimney-piece which provides a vista of all the rooms on the south side of the state apartments. Great furniture-designers from the time of Grinling Gibbon to that of Chippendale have appreciated the opportunities offered by mirrors for the purposes of decoration. Fig. 10 is a mirror-frame of carved limewood by Grinling Gibbon to be seen in the Victoria and Albert Museum. It is a rich and wonderful example of chisel play, but, like his work in general, does not satisfy a taste which inclines to less resplendent decoration. Such a mirror is probably not within the reach of any collector, great or small; and it is even probable--at least as regards the small collector--that, if by a stroke of fortune such a piece descended to him, he would find that it would scarcely harmonise with any ordinary scheme of decoration. Its presence would be as embarrassing as the entertainment of Royalty in a suburban home. The ordinary types--and they are many--of Queen Anne mirrors can with perfect propriety find places in almost any room in any house of taste, and on the walls of hall or staircase they are at once interesting and decorative. Particularly are they in harmony with the surroundings of a "Queen Anne" bedroom. In this connection, however, a word of warning is in place regarding the old glass. This is very well on the wall mirrors, but in the mirror for the toilet-table it should be replaced by new glass. Nothing lasts for ever, and it is rare that the old glasses fully retain their reflecting powers. Old mirrors are bad to shave by, and are, moreover, extremely unpopular with ladies. The art of furnishing consists of a tactful combination of whatever is best in the old and the new. Figs. 11 and 12 are simple mirrors of the Queen Anne period. Fig. 11 is a wall glass with a pleasing scroll outline, and Fig. 12 is a toilet-table glass characteristic of the period, the gilt inner moulding or "embroidery" being an interesting feature. We find similar decorative devices to the above on many of the mirrors of this time, and such examples should be purchasable at about two guineas each. Figs. 13 and 14 are more elaborate and expensive mirrors, the broken pediments in each case suggesting the influence of Sir Christopher Wren. Although the architectural inspiration, which was absolute in the Gothic periods and strong in the Elizabethan, was very much less marked in the time of Queen Anne, still the classical influence of Wren's Renaissance style is shown in many ways, and particularly in the many varieties of the broken pediment which are favourite forms of decoration for the tops of mirror frames. Fig. 13, in addition to the broken pediment, is decorated on the frame with egg-and-tongue mouldings, and on the base with a bust of a cherub in high relief. Fig. 14 is surmounted by a boldly carved figure of an eagle enclosed by the broken pediment. On either side are carved festoons of fruit and flowers, possibly suggested by the work of Grinling Gibbon. These important mirrors, interesting and effective as they are, require large rooms to set them off. Simple mirrors, as in Figs. 11 and 12, present no difficulties regarding their disposal. The more elaborate ones, however, apart from their expensiveness, should not be purchased unless there is a suitable place in which to hang them. This suggests a maxim which applies to the collection of any sort of furniture, viz. not to purchase any piece until you have decided what to do with it. Adherence to this rule may involve the occasional loss of a bargain, but it avoids confusion and possible domestic complications. We knew an enthusiastic collector who resisted the purchase of old examples with the greatest difficulty. His wife, on the other hand, whilst appreciating possibly as keenly as her husband the attractions of the antique, was also fastidious regarding the prompt settlement of tradesmen's bills. The climax was reached one day when the husband, instead of settling certain pressing accounts, attended a sale and purchased an enormous Dutch wardrobe which was found to be at least eighteen inches too tall for any room in the house. Another form of decoration applied to mirror-frames of the Queen Anne period was that known as "Gesso" work, whereby a design was built into relief with layers of size and plaster applied with a brush. It gives scope for delicate line work, and is often softer than carving. Figs. 15 and 16 are mirrors decorated with Gesso ornament, to which, however, little justice can be done in a photograph. Fig. 17 is a fine mirror of pinewood with Gesso ornamentation, in which the broken pediment form has taken a somewhat fanciful shape. In Fig. 18 the broken pediment appears in a more strictly architectural form. This mirror, which is of painted pine, was formerly in the "Flask" Tavern, Ebury Square, Pimlico. Although its date would be about 1700, it is clearly in its mouldings reminiscent of the Jacobean period, which style no doubt continued in popularity amongst the poorer classes. This mirror is an interesting instance of the merging of the two styles. Marquetry was also used on the mirror-frames of this period, an example in a broad frame inlaid with a floral pattern being shown in Fig. 19. This mirror was sold for seventeen guineas. Fig. 20 is an example of a toilet mirror of the Queen Anne period, the front of which lets down with a flap, after the manner of a bureau, revealing a nest of drawers. This form of mirror is not often met with, and an opportunity of acquiring one at a reasonable price should not be neglected. Fig. 21 is of similar construction mounted on a stand, an architectural touch being given by the pilasters on either side of the mirror. This pattern is singularly simple and charming. * * * * * Stools of the period under review are generally difficult and somewhat expensive to acquire, but these are not reasons for giving up hope. A type of the William and Mary stool is shown in Fig. 22. The scrolled feet and X-shaped stretcher are characteristic. Stools were very popular articles of furniture at this time. We find them in numbers in contemporary prints, and they continued to be used as seats at meal-times, as no doubt (providing the table were low enough) they were more comfortable than the stiff-backed chairs of the time. In the face of decided evidence of their prevalence in the Queen Anne period, their scarcity to-day is somewhat remarkable. In the coloured frontispiece is shown a simple stool of the time of the early Queen Anne period covered with Petit-point needlework, with which the ladies of that period delighted to occupy themselves. This needlework--which, in addition to being used as a covering for furniture, was also framed to hang on the walls--is often patterned with quaint trees, people, goats, dogs, and a sprinkling of lovers and birds. A stool such as is shown in the frontispiece makes an admirable seat for a knee-hole writing-table. Fig. 23 is a large stool of the Queen Anne period with escallop-shell decoration, cabriole legs and an early form of the claw-and-ball feet. It is covered with contemporary needlework. * * * * * A Queen Anne bedroom conjures up the possibility of composing a charming scheme of interior decoration. First it is necessary to face the inevitable and accept the position that a modern bedstead is essential. This should be made of walnut-wood, and the ends shaped after the manner of the solid splats in the simple chairs of the period. Such bedsteads are made by several of the good modern furniture firms. They are not, of course, literal reproductions of the bedsteads of the period, which were of the four-poster order, but they will be found to be in good taste. Upon this bed should lie a reproduction of the bed-covers of the period in a pattern boldly coloured and Oriental in design. The floor should be covered by antique Persian rugs (or modern reproductions). A walnut toilet-table should stand in the window (_see_ Fig. 64). Upon it should rest a toilet-glass (_see_ Fig. 12), and in front of it, if possible, a stool covered with the needlework of the period (_see_ Frontispiece). This stool will, however, be difficult to obtain, and its place could be taken by a simple chair of the period (_see_ Figs. 32 and 34). Two other simple chairs should find places around the room, upon one side of which should be placed a walnut tallboy (_see_ Fig. 56) surmounted by a piece of Chinese blue-and-white. We cannot too strongly emphasise the desirability of associating old Chinese blue-and-white pottery with eighteenth-century furniture. The washstand of the period (too small to be efficient) should be replaced by an unobtrusive wooden table painted white, the top of which should be covered with tiles in a shade which does not disagree with a reproduction of an old "Spode" or "Mason's Ironstone" toilet set. Toilet sets, as we understand the term to-day, were unknown in the days of Queen Anne. Common earthenware pitchers and basins, or at best English and Dutch Delft, did duty until the rise of the great Staffordshire factories late in the eighteenth century. Orignal "Spode" or "Mason" ware would not be of earlier dates than 1770 and 1804 respectively, and so quite out of the Queen Anne period. We merely mention these two styles of so-called "Indian" decorations as being most suitable for the purpose in hand. We might, indeed, happen upon an eighteenth-century blue-and-white service; but all these early ewers and basins, like the early washstands, are altogether too diminutive for modern requirements. The reproductions, whilst retaining the old decoration, are built in more generous proportions. For wall covering a plain white-or champagne-coloured paper might be adopted, and for wall decoration one or two old mirrors (_see_ Figs. 11 and 15) and some reproductions of Dutch interiors by the old masters, framed in broad black frames, would be in harmony with the surroundings. A difficulty in composing a Queen Anne bedroom is to find a suitable hanging wardrobe. The marquetry hanging-press or wardrobe of the period, with its bombé-shaped lower section, is somewhat heavy in appearance, except in a large room, and is, moreover, expensive to acquire. Failing a hanging cupboard in the wall, a simple plain cupboard should be built and painted white. Such a cupboard at least strikes no false note, and is greatly to be preferred to a modern wardrobe or one of another period. In this connection a schedule of the cost to the authors of furnishing a similar bedroom may be of interest. £ s. d. Walnut tallboy 10 10 0 3 simple Queen Anne chairs 9 0 0 1 " " toilet-table 5 0 0 1 " " toilet mirror 2 2 0 1 " " wall mirror 2 2 0 ------------- £28 14 0 The cost of such details as carpets, curtains, bed-covering, china, &c, is not included. To this, therefore, must be added the various modern reproductions, including the bedstead: the total cost of the room would be about fifty pounds. The result is, of course, a combination of the old and the new--the best points of each being preserved--and the effect will be found harmonious. CHAPTER IV: CHAIRS AND TABLES In volume one we left the chair at the time of King James II. when it was composed of tall and straight lines, generally cane-backed and cane-seated, with a carved stretcher fixed rather higher than midway between the two front legs. Such pieces would not, of course, have been found in the homes of the poor. Historical books, for the most part, concern themselves very much with the affairs of courts and the practice of battles, but very little with the habits and surroundings of the bulk of the people. We know that the amount of poverty and crime at the beginning of the eighteenth century was enormous, and the social condition of the people being such, it is unlikely that their homes could have been either comfortable or decently furnished. Very little of the wealth of the country percolated through the middle class to the poor; but there is no doubt that as regards the middle-class homes, they had by the beginning of the eighteenth century reached a very tolerable standard of social comfort and convenience. It is probable that a good deal of this standard of comfort was attributable to Dutch influence. The sense of home comfort seems to have been developed in Holland in early times. In the picture of John Arnolfini and his wife in the National Gallery, London, painted by Jan van Eyck, who lived between 1390 and 1440, there is a vivid and interesting glimpse of the furniture of this period. This picture should be studied by all interested in furniture. In the bedroom shown in the picture we find, in addition to the bed with its heavy red stuff hangings, a coffer, probably for clothes; a tall chair with a Gothic traceried top and a red cushion; a smaller chair with a red cushion; a carpet of Persian pattern; a brass chandelier; and a mirror reflecting the room and its two occupants. The mirror is in a round wooden frame decorated with small medallion panels, with paintings illustrative of the Passion of our Lord. The room is lighted by casement windows, and the whole effect suggests a degree of comfort creditable to the taste of the fifteenth century. A very notable feature in the male costume of the time of William and Mary was the enormous periwig, which was considered a sign of social importance. A man would not wear his hat (a _chapeau-bras_), but in order that his wig might not be disarranged would carry his hat under his arm. It is rather strange that a hard-headed business man like William should have countenanced such a fashion by wearing a great periwig himself. It appears to have been a custom to comb these wigs in the coffee-houses, for which purpose each gallant carried an elegant comb. The men's hats were adorned with feathers, and they also wore full-skirted coats decorated with lace and embroidery, stockings, breeches, buckled shoes, and huge cuffs garnished with lace. The ladies also wore a heavy head-gear, the hair being brushed away from the forehead and surmounted by ribbons and rows of lace, over which was thrown a lace scarf which hung nearly to the waist, giving the general impression of a great mob-cap. "Stiff stays," writes Mr. Dillon, "tightly laced over the stomacher and very long in the waist, became fashionable; and to so great an extent was this pernicious fashion carried that a lady's body from the shoulders to the hip looked like the letter V." There was another fashion among the ladies of building several tiers of lace to a great height upon the hair. These structures, in the prints of the period, have the appearance of enormous combs. As regards the dress of this period, "the general tendency," Mr. Calthrop writes, "was to look Dutch, stiff, prim, but very prosperous." Costume and furniture have always had a close relationship, and we find Mr. Percy Macquoid writing in his "Age of Walnut": "The settles and chairs of the latter part of the seventeenth century were evidently constructed with a view of forming backgrounds to the prevailing fashions in costume; the strongest characteristic at this time being an extremely high-backed seat to suit the voluminous periwigs and tall head-dresses of the women." It will also be noticed that the arms of the chairs were set back from the front of the seat to allow room for the ample skirts of the women. Figs. 24, 25, and 26 are three chairs of carved walnut with seats covered with figured red velvet. These chairs, from the Old Palace, Richmond, at first glance appear to be of the same pattern, but a closer examination will show that no two are quite alike. Two of them certainly have similar backs, but a difference appears in the legs. In shape there is little difference between these chairs and those of the preceding reign except that the stretcher is lower. The backs, however, differ considerably from the Stuart chairs, the cane having disappeared and its place being taken by pierced and elaborate carvings. Fig. 27 is another and probably a later specimen of a fine William and Mary chair. Although the back is less elaborate, the legs have now assumed the cabriole form and the feet are extremely realistic. The stretcher in the front has, it will be noted, disappeared. These chairs were, of course, made for the wealthy classes, and were comparatively few in number as the fashion was a brief one; but they show the prevailing ideas which in turn expressed themselves on the simpler chairs. An example of the latter is shown in Fig. 28, which, purely as a matter of taste, is possibly as pleasing as some of the more elaborate chairs of this period. This example cost five pounds. Figs. 29 and 31 are rush-seated chairs of the Queen Anne period and are made of oak, probably in a country place where the prevailing walnut fashion had not reached. They are exceedingly simple and pleasing in shape and were sold at one pound each. The centre chair (Fig. 30) is a child's chair of the same period--a type which, in our experience, is not often met with. There is no example in the Victoria and Albert Museum, a fact we mention in case any reader would like to offer such a specimen. Here the splat is slightly different from those of its companions. The present piece lacks a front rail to prevent the child from falling. Queen Anne chairs of simple character should not be very difficult to obtain, nor should they make extravagant incursions upon the purse. To purchase a number of chairs of identical form sufficient to compose a set is a far more expensive method than to collect more or less odd chairs, singly or in pairs, and to make up a set for oneself. Each may not be exactly similar to the other, but the family likeness is amply sufficient to satisfy any reasonable taste. Indeed such little differences as are expressed, say, in the splats and the legs may be said to break the line of uniformity and to produce an effect which is permanently pleasing and interesting. Such a set of chairs would be admirable in a dining-room; and single chairs of this period and type would be scarcely out of place in any room in the house. Elaborately carved and marquetried chairs of this time are expensive, but it is a question whether the plain chairs are not as pleasing. At present the taste for old furniture runs to pieces which are highly carved and decorated, but this is often for the simple reason that such pieces are more uncommon, and therefore more expensive, than the plain ones. It is possible, however, that in a succeeding age, when all old furniture, both carved and plain, will be rare, that the latter may be as highly favoured as the former. In many of the plain old chairs the lines are charming and the woods rich and interesting, and possessing these, we need scarcely envy those whose means enable them to prefer the richer sorts. We now approach a departure in the designs of furniture which had a far-reaching and lasting effect upon style in England. We refer to the cabriole leg and the shaped foot, which ultimately developed into the claw-and-ball. The first movement appears to have occurred when the straight lines of the Stuart furniture were superseded by the curved lines of the Dutch style; and occasionally we find the cabriole leg on a William and Mary chair, as in Fig. 27. The cabriole leg has been traced back to China and Egypt, but was introduced into England through Holland and France. It may be called the leading characteristic of the domestic woodwork of the Queen Anne period. It made its appearance on chairs, tables, sofas, and chests--in fact, upon every form of furniture which is lifted from the ground. The word is adopted from the French _cabriole_, a goat-leap, although it must be admitted that this is scarcely a literal description of the form the carving takes. At first the shaping was of the simplest description and showed but the faintest resemblance to the leaping leg of an animal, but later forms took a more realistic turn. The term cabriole has become generic, and is now applied to almost any furniture leg built with a knee. Fig. 32 is a simple type of Queen Anne chair with cabriole legs, carved with an escallop-shell, a form of decoration which finds its way upon very many forms of furniture of this time, and is as popular as the crown and cherub decoration of the departed Stuarts. The claw-and-ball foot, which, like the cabriole leg, is traceable to the East, we find on the more elaborate chairs of the Queen Anne period, and is generally accepted to represent the three-toed claw of the Chinese dragon holding the mystic Buddhistic jewel. The development of the claw-and-ball is traceable through the feet of the furniture of this period, and commenced by the base of the chair legs being slightly shaped into a foot, which will be remarked in Figs. 29 and 31. Such form is generally known as the club foot. Then the toe assumed the shape of an animal's foot, out of which a claw was evolved, and, having to clutch something to make a base, a ball was added, and we have the familiar claw-and-ball foot which has remained a favourite decoration to the present time. The good examples are full of spirit and significance, entirely different from the machine-made inanimate examples on modern furniture. Figs. 33, 34, 35 are simple examples of Queen Anne chairs. Those with arms should be purchasable for about five guineas and the single chairs for about three guineas. Fig. 36 is an example of an inlaid chair[3] of this period, the tall graceful back being particularly pleasing. The earlier chairs of this period (Figs. 33 and 35) were provided with strengthening rails between the legs, but later the knee was made stronger and the cross rails dispensed with (Fig. 34), which had the effect of lightening the appearance of the chair but not of increasing its durability. The disappearance of these leg rails marks the later Queen Anne chairs, so that it is a fair guide as to date of production. Thus disappears the last link with the good old times, when the floors were so dirty that rests were provided for the feet. Fig. 37, in addition to its cabriole legs and embryo claw-and-ball feet, is especially interesting as foreshadowing the familiar ladder-backed chairs of the Chippendale school. In this chair the rail connecting the back legs has been retained. [3] The splat of the original is nicely inlaid, but it is impossible to adequately reproduce this in a photograph. In this period the "knee" was either plain or ornamented with an escallop-shell; it rarely had any other form of decoration: but it developed many forms under the influence of Chippendale and his school. It is well to remember, however, that in England the cabriole leg in its original and simpler form belongs to the reign of Queen Anne. An essential and highly important development is at this period particularly noticeable in the chair, which is now adapted to the human frame instead of, as heretofore, the human frame having to adapt itself to the chair. It is probable that the greater pliability of walnut over oak made this departure feasible, but one has only to sit in the tall straight-backed Stuart chair and the shaped chairs of the Queen Anne reign to see in which direction the advantage in comfort lies. It will be found that in the latter the top of the back is curved so as to fit the nape of the sitter's neck, and that the splat is shaped to suit itself to the back and shoulders. Examples of this shaping are shewn in the chairs, Figs. 32 and 36, which also have the simple cabriole legs. Figs. 38 and 39 are arm-chairs of this period. Fig. 38 has a central vase-shaped panel with a volute and leaves on either side. The arms have flattened elbow-rests. Fig. 39 has curiously twisted arms. It has suffered in the splat very much from the worms. In this chair it will be noticed the side rail connecting the legs is missing. The seat is stuffed and covered with canvas, which is decorated with needlework ("petit-point") in coloured wools and silks. These are arm-chairs for respectable people, but there were also broad-seated arm-chairs at this time known as "drunkards' chairs." The width of the seat in front was nearly three feet, which gave ample room for a man to comfortably collapse. Figs. 40 and 41 are two fine chairs of the late Queen Anne period, showing finely developed cabriole legs and claw-and-ball feet. In both specimens the connecting leg-rails have disappeared and the back feet are shaped. Fig. 40 is covered with gilt and embossed leather over a stuffed back and seat. In Fig. 41 the back has almost lost its Queen Anne character and is merging into what we know as the Chippendale style. The seat of this chair is covered with silk. The Huguenot refugee silk-workers had settled in Spitalfields, and in the reigns of William and Mary and Anne large quantities of silks and velvets were produced, which were frequently used to cover the chairs of the bedroom furniture of the time. Stuffed and upholstered arm-chairs were also favoured at this period, which was distinctly one for the appreciation of comfort. Fig. 42 is a partly veneered corner or round-about chair of this time; a type of chair largely made in mahogany during the Chippendale period. The double chair, or settee, remains to be noticed. This, by a process of refinement and elimination, had no doubt been evolved from the old-time settle. It was also called a love-seat, and was constructed in such form as to allow for the pose of social gallantry, simpering, and the plying of the snuff-box and fan, inseparable from the manners of the period. These double seats were usually found in the drawing-rooms of the rich, and simple ones are not as a rule met with. Fig. 43 is a settee of the type of William and Mary; the tied stretchers beneath and the inverted bowl turnery on the legs are characteristic features. Fig. 44 is a fine late Queen Anne specimen with a marquetried back, claw-and-ball feet, and an insistent decoration of the escallop-shell. Fig. 45 is another fine settee of the same period with a full back and claw-and-ball feet. Both these specimens have beautifully shaped arms and feet, and the back feet being also slightly shaped at the base, suggest the latter part of the period. In the beginning of the eighteenth century, tapestries, as forms of wall decoration, had been replaced either by wainscoting or, more generally, by wall-papers. Needlework was a popular occupation amongst the women, who made hangings for their bedsteads and windows and covers for their chairs, stools and couches. Mary, the Queen of William III., set an example as an industrious needlewoman. It was at this time that the gay chintzes and printed cottons, of which so many admirable and inexpensive reproductions can be purchased at the present day, came into vogue. Like so many of the decorative ideas of the time, they were introduced into England by the Dutch, who in their turn borrowed them from the East. They were extremely Oriental in design, depicting trees, birds and flowers, all more or less related to nature. This was, of course, the period when everything Oriental was the fashion,[4] when Chinese porcelain and red and black lacquer were desired by many and acquired by some; and the gay Oriental chintzes contributed fittingly to the scheme of decoration, as well as affording a protection for the cherished needlework coverings of the furniture. The modern reproductions are no less indispensable in any house in which the old furniture of this period has a place. Some firms print them by hand from the old blocks, and from such firms they should be purchased. Chintzes appear to have been first produced in England by a foreign settlement in Richmond, Surrey, early in the eighteenth century. The English workmen afterwards greatly simplified the designs, and in Queen Anne's time they were largely the fashion. [4] Addison wrote that "an old lady of fourscore shall be so busy in cleaning an Indian mandarin as her great-granddaughter is in dressing her baby." The Queen Anne home of the middle class would not have startled a visitor from the present century who had elected to inspect it by means of Mr. Wells's Time Machine. Its exterior was square, unpretentious and a trifle heavy, and the interior comfortable and efficiently furnished. In fact, it is at this period that we find the first tangible approach to our own idea of a home. The bathroom was still a luxury even in the great houses, but in most other respects the standard of comfort approached the modern idea. * * * * * The first tables made of walnut-wood seem to have followed very much the designs of the Jacobean oaken tables, and have the square sturdy look which we associate with oak furniture. One of the first changes to be noticed is in the appearance, on the legs, of an inverted bowl decoration as in Fig. 46. Then we find a change in the stretchers or bars connecting the legs; these instead of being straight rails between the four corners, now assume the X or tied-stretcher pattern as shown in Fig. 47. This table is inlaid with cedar and boxwood, and is valued at twelve guineas. Fig. 48 is a Museum piece of the same period, the marquetry work on which is very fine--the top being most elaborately inlaid. The inlaid work of this period reached great perfection, blossoms and birds, as well as geometrical designs, being worked out in various woods with great taste and dexterity. It will be noticed that there is a strong family likeness between the two tables, although the latter is a much finer one.[5] Chinese pottery was (as has been pointed out) the rage at this time, and the flat space in the centre of the tied stretcher was very likely intended to hold a Chinese bowl. [5] Fine tables of this type are very expensive. One such was sold at Christie's in June 1911 for fifty-eight guineas. It was thus described: "A William and Mary walnut-wood table, with one drawer, the top inlaid with a chariot, flowers and birds, in marqueterie of various woods, on turned legs with X-shaped stretcher--38 in. wide." William and Mary tables have turned legs, which were so popular on the furniture of the preceding period but which were soon to disappear in favour of the cabriole leg. In fact, the tables in a few years underwent a great transformation, as will be seen in the next example, Fig. 49. The Queen Anne period was a drinking, gambling, duelling, dice-throwing age. In fact, it is said that loaded dice could be purchased at the toy shops in Fleet Street. The spirit of speculation was about. The nation had accumulated wealth a trifle too quickly, and trustee securities, as we now understand them, had small attraction for any one. Every one wanted to grow rich at once. The wildest schemes were launched. These culminated in 1720 in the South Sea Bubble. Companies, as is well known, were formed with the most extraordinary objects, such as "for the invention of melting down sawdust and chips and casting them into clean deal boards without cracks or flaws"; "for the importing of a number of large jackasses from Spain"; and "for an undertaking which shall in due time be revealed." All classes were affected; and the Prince of Wales became governor of a copper company which had an unfortunate end. The gambling spirit was continued in private, and to this fact we probably owe the existence of the many interesting card-tables of the late Queen Anne period. These were, of course, only found in the houses of the richer classes, and are often beautiful pieces of furniture. Table legs developed similarly to chair legs. The ubiquitous cabriole, which has already been dealt with at length, was applied generally to tables, with, later, the escallop-shell decoration and the claw-and-ball foot. The fine example, Fig. 49, possesses all these decorations, together with a pendant under the shell. This specimen was purchased by the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1904 for the sum of twelve pounds, which figure has, of course, little relation to its present value. These tables are generally built with a flap and covered with cloth, except at the four corners, where round or square places are left to take candlesticks or glasses; cups are also shaped in the tables to hold money, and they are sometimes provided with secret drawers. We have read extraordinary stories of great sums being discovered in these drawers--the proceeds of a night when "the old home was gambled away"; but personally we have not chanced on such a find. Tables with two flaps were also used as breakfast-and small dining-tables. They were generally oval, but sometimes round, and occasionally square. These types were repeated later in mahogany with added decorative details, and later still Sheraton adopted the folding-table, converting it to his own style. Tables in great variety were made in this period, but the heavy type of table of the previous century went out with the banqueting-hall and has never returned. The gate-leg table, which originated in the oaken period, is dealt with in Volume I.; and no doubt in many parts of the country it continued to be made in oak, but it does not appear ever to have become popular in walnut, which, after all, was never a wood in general use in country districts. Fashion has a strong controlling influence over furniture, as it has over so many other matters of taste. The table with cabriole legs came into fashion, and immediately cabriole legs in some form or other became _de rigueur_. The slender-legged gate-leg table did not offer sufficient opportunity to the wood-carver, and was also rather unsuitable for card-playing. Its perfect plainness, moreover, was not to the taste of an age which inclined towards richness and colour in its household surroundings. CHAPTER V: CHESTS OF DRAWERS, TALLBOYS, CABINETS AND CHINA CABINETS In Volume I., dealing with the oak period, we traced the evolution of the chest of drawers from the simple chest or coffer, first by the addition of an under-drawer to the coffer; then, the main body of the chest being subdivided into convenient drawers (with the consequent disappearance of the lid), we had the primitive form of the chest of drawers, the term "chest" still clinging--apparently for all time--to the structure. The earlier chests of drawers, dating from about the middle of the seventeenth century, were comparatively small, usually with raised panels or mouldings; occasionally we find them with decorations of simple carved scroll-work and guilloche banding. The prolongation of the stiles to form feet, as in the simple chest, had disappeared in favour of bracketed corners or ball feet, as in Figs. 50 and 51. Fig. 50 represents an interesting chest of drawers, simple in outline but elaborately decorated. The top is inlaid _en parterre_ with four corner scroll designs and a centre design of birds, flowers, and fruit, in ebony and laburnum wood on a ground of holly. A delicately cut laurel-leaf band of inlay (shaded with hot sand) frames the top, sides, and drawer fronts. It belongs approximately to about 1680. The dimensions are fairly typical for the period, being 36 in. high, 39 in. wide, and 23 in. deep. Fig. 51 is of rather unusual form, having three large drawers in the upper portion and one long drawer under, which is capped by a bold moulding. The oblong panel decorations consist of marquetry designs of conventional flowers in ebony, holly, rose, and laburnum woods. This also belongs to the year 1680; 41 in. high, 40 in. wide, and 23 in. deep. It has a value of about eighteen guineas. Marquetry began to come into favour in this country about 1675-1680. We quote Mr. Pollen, who says: "At first the chief motives in design appear to have been acanthus leaves, figures, and arabesques, under Italian and French influence: a little later, designs of flowers and birds, treated in a more realistic fashion, were introduced by the Dutch. Finally, about 1700, these two styles passed into an English style of very delicate leaf-work of conventional form, often intricately mingled with scrolls and strap-work; and geometrical designs were used." Mr. Macquoid remarks that "investigation proves that, compared with the English manufacture, Dutch marquetrie is always duller in colour and more disconnected in design." Late in the seventeenth and early in the eighteenth centuries we find the chests of drawers raised on twisted or turned legs, which are fixed to a shallow plinth or joined near the ground by shaped stretchers. For the first-named type we refer readers to Fig. 52, a specimen at the Victoria and Albert Museum. It is built of pinewood overlaid with lignum vitæ, sycamore and walnut, in small roundish pieces cut across the grain. The top is further decorated with sycamore bands arranged in two concentric circles in the centre, surrounded by intersecting segments. In the corners are quadrants. Each side has a large circle of similar materials. The structure is 3 ft. 8 in. high and 3 ft. 4 in. wide. It cost the museum £10 in 1898. Fig. 53, another dwarf chest of drawers of the same period, also at the museum, is of oak and pine veneered with various woods. This is an excellent example illustrating the amount of labour expended by the craftsmen of the day on the early examples of veneering. On the face of the top drawer alone there are no less than twenty large and thirty-three small pieces of veneer, exclusive of the bordering. The feet are very unusual, having a curiously booted appearance, with the soles clearly indicated. This and the previous example bear the brass drop handles and fretted escutcheons of the period. Great variety is displayed in these brass fitments. The handles more often are of elongated pear shape, but occasionally resemble a flattened flower-bud. The ring handles appeared somewhat later. As types of the chests of drawers on legs we give two illustrations. Fig. 54, from a photograph supplied by Messrs. Hampton and Sons Ltd., Pall Mall, represents a fine specimen of veneered work of the William and Mary period. The figuring in the walnut veneer is very good and finely matched. The stand is tall, with but one long shallow drawer. The turned legs are particularly graceful in outline. It will be noticed that the inverted cup detail is repeated in the china cabinet (Fig. 69), amongst the illustrations of lacquered furniture. Fig. 55 possesses twisted legs, a survival of the Stuart period proper. During the reign of William and Mary and that of Anne, we are, strictly, still in the Stuart period--the two queens being wholly and William half Stuart. With the abdication of James II. there was a change in the temper of the people and a comparatively abrupt change in the furniture. In the chest under discussion the upper portion is severely plain, whilst the lower half or stand is of particularly graceful outline. We see how the stand is gradually being brought into requisition, not only as a stand, but to hold extra drawers--quite small drawers at first. The lifting of the central arch and consequent shallowing of the corresponding small drawer give a pleasing diversity of line. This structure is scarcely a "tallboy," being rather a chest of drawers on a stand; and the stand, more than anything (as in the previous illustration), points to the reign of William and Mary. This piece is in the possession of Mr. F. W. Phillips, of the Manor House, Hitchin. The owner values it at ten guineas. Something more nearly approaching the genuine "tallboy" is shown in the coloured frontispiece. Here we have the stand growing deeper and containing five small drawers. The angular-kneed cabriole legs denote the period--about 1710, the middle of Queen Anne's reign. The veneer is of richly figured walnut banded with herring-bone inlay. It is furnished with brass handles and engraved escutcheons. We begin to see how increasing wealth in clothes called for more commodious furniture. This piece has six drawers in the upper carcase in addition to the five small ones in the stand: altogether a very considerable storage capacity as compared with the dumpy chests of drawers of earlier make. By easy stages we arrive at the tallboy pure and simple, sometimes called "double chest" or "chest on chest." The term "tall" is obvious, but "boy" is not so clear. The tallboy was purely the outcome of a demand for something more commodious than the early form. It was made in two sections, mainly for convenience in moving, and partly, by breaking up the lines, to lighten the appearance of what would otherwise be a somewhat ungainly structure. There is scarcely room for much variation in form, and the tallboys of the Queen Anne and early Georgian period are very much of one family. Fig. 56 is of walnut-wood bordered with a herring-bone banding of yew-wood. A lightness is given to the upper portion by the corners being canted and fluted. The oval ring plates are a pleasing feature. This double chest of nine drawers stands 69 in. high. A well-preserved specimen of this calibre would have a value of from ten to fifteen guineas. Fig. 57 is a less pretentious tallboy chest of six drawers, valued at ten guineas, in the possession of Mr. J. H. Springett, of High Street, Rochester. Like the majority of these old veneered walnut chests, the drawer fronts and sides of the main structure are veneered on pine, whilst the bodies of the drawers are of oak. The fretted escutcheons and cusped handles (unfortunately not quite uniform) are exceptionally good. There is interesting documentary evidence connected with this old piece of furniture. Pasted on the back of the bottom drawer is the maker's label, yellow with age. At the top of the label are engraved designs of an elaborate cabinet and four coffins; underneath is printed the following legend: "John Knowles Cabinet Maker and Sworn Appraiser, at the Cabinet and four Coffins in Tooley Street Southwark maketh and selleth all sorts of Cabinets and joiners goods, Viz Cabinets scruetores, desk and book cases, bewrowes, chests of draws and all sorts of tables as wallnut tree mehogny, wainscot and Japan'd. All sorts of corner Cubbords looking glasses and sconces and all other joiner's goods made and sold both wholesale and retail at reasonable rates. Likewise funerals decently furnished." We have not been able to unearth any other record of John Knowles. His name does not appear in the first edition of the London Directory, a very small volume published in 1731, nor in any subsequent edition up to 1771. The style of printing and archaic spelling, however, would point to a date fairly early in the eighteenth century, probably during the reign of George I. The mention of "mehogny" practically precludes an earlier date than 1715-20. In the earlier days--away back in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries--the wardrobe was a special room, fitted with closets set apart for the storage of clothes. All through Tudor times the coffer was in use, and was all-sufficient to hold the clothes and household linen. We find in Jacobean times the coffer growing into the chest of drawers, and, in addition, tall hanging-cupboards were coming into use. But it is not till the reign of Queen Anne--the walnut period--that we find the prototype of the present-day wardrobe, with its roomy drawers, hanging-cupboards, and numerous shelves. The inspiration of this eminently useful article came from Holland. It is made usually of oak and pine veneered with walnut and, as often as not, inlaid with marquetry. The upper storey consists of small drawers and shelves enclosed by two doors and surmounted by a curved cornice, the lower portion being a chest of three or four long drawers. Even the admittedly English-made specimens are so extremely Dutch in appearance, that it is probable the majority were designed and made by the Dutchmen who came over in the train of William III. We give an example in Fig. 58 of an inlaid hanging-press or wardrobe, showing decidedly Dutch influence in the lower portion, particularly noticeable in the protruding knees set at an angle of forty-five degrees. The marquetry designs of vases and flowers are also of Dutch type. It is of average size, being 91 in. high, 66 in. wide, and 22 in. deep. As with the other furniture of the walnut period, the early wardrobes were extremely solid and dignified in appearance. The modern maker has made improvements as to interior fittings, but on general principles the old pieces leave little or nothing to be desired. The old-time craftsman was conscientious in his work. We do not find the doors flying open unasked; the drawers have no nasty habits of refusing to open or close. The Queen Anne or early Georgian wardrobe, which is sound to-day, bids fair to outlive our great-grandchildren, and should be cheap at its average selling-price--say, twenty to thirty pounds. The china cabinet came in with the craze for Oriental porcelain. We shall have more to say upon this subject in the chapter on lacquer. Fulham stoneware, Bristol and Lambeth "Delft" and other early English "Clome" had no claim on cabinet space. The more pretentious pieces, when not in actual use, adorned the court cupboard and sideboard cheek by jowl with the family silver or pewter. In the main, all pottery was for use rather than ornament until the blue-and-white and _famille verte_ arrived from China, and we shall scarcely find a glazed china cabinet earlier than the Orange accession. Many of the William and Anne bureaux were surmounted by cabinets, the doors glazed with panes of glass set in designs consisting of small squares or oblongs with larger sexagonals or octagonals. This form was used either as a bookcase or a china cabinet. Unglazed corner cupboards, often bow-fronted and lacquered, made to hang in the angle of the wall, were for storage, rather than display, of china. Another variety of corner cupboard made to stand on the floor has a glazed upper storey. These belong to the varieties of furniture used by the middle classes, whilst the cabinet of the china collector would be an imposing structure of more elegant design surmounted on legs joined by shaped stretchers. We give an example in the chapter on lacquer. Fig. 59 is an example of a china cabinet in marquetry work, with scrolled cornice, two glazed doors, two cupboards, bracketed base, and shaped under-framing. This piece has a value of about £30. The walnut period is rich in cabinets, which were used for the storage of papers and valuables--structures quite distinct from the writing-desks of the period. Some types will be found in the illustrations to the chapter on lacquered furniture. It must be borne in mind that the lacquering was often but an afterthought decoration. Scrape away the pseudo-Chinese decoration and we shall probably find the beautiful old walnut veneer. CHAPTER VI: SECRETAIRES, BUREAUX, AND WRITING-TABLES One would naturally suppose that the writing-desk is as old as the art of writing. So far as this country is concerned, the writing-desk of a sort was known in very early times. In the art library of the Victoria and Albert Museum are illuminated MSS. of about 1440-1450 showing scribes working at sloping desks of simple construction. Coming to Elizabethan and early Jacobean times, we find desks of small dimensions mounted on table-stands, but it is fairly certain that the ordinary tables of the house were more often used for writing purposes. The composite article--secretaire, escritoire, or bureau (interchangeable terms)--for writing and storage of writing materials is the product of the end of the seventeenth century. The connection between the writer or secretary (_secretus_, early Latin; _secretarius_, late Latin) and his desk, the secretaire, is obvious. Escritoire is but another form of the word; sometimes scrutoire or scruetoire in corrupt English. Bureau in the French was originally a russet cloth which covered the desk (from the Latin _burrus_, red), but came to mean the desk itself, and also the office in which the business was transacted. We look back upon the Elizabethan times as the Renaissance period of English literature, but even then the lettered were in the minority. By the end of the seventeenth century literature had spread to the middle classes, and we find the Press pouring out countless ponderous volumes on every imaginable subject. It is the age of the diarists, conspicuous amongst whom were Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn, whose gossipy daily journals bring us so intimately in touch with the political and social life of the times. It is the age of the pamphleteers and essayists whose effusions led up to the semi-satirical periodicals of the early eighteenth century--chief amongst them being the _Spectator_, started by Joseph Addison and Richard Steele in 1710. This vast outpouring of literature called for more commodious writing-desks, and the escritoire or bureau is the natural result. Like the other furniture of the period, the desks were solid and dignified. In the main they were severe in outline, but generally reflected the prevailing architecture of the period, which was derived from the Italian Renaissance. We find the desks often surmounted by finely moulded, boldly carved cornices and broken pediments. As the Dutch influence grew we find the lower portions, containing commodious long drawers, with rounded or _bombé_ fronts. The principal wood used was walnut, sometimes solid and sometimes veneered on oak and pine. We also find the same schemes in marquetry work, as in the chests of drawers, cabinets, and clock-cases showing Continental influences. Fig. 60 represents a William and Mary period bureau of simple outline surmounted by a panelled cupboard with bookshelves. The raised panels are of the late Jacobean type. It is built of solid walnut, oak and limewood. Behind the visible stationery cases are concealed a number of secret recesses; the two pillars flanking the small central cupboard are the fronts of two narrow upright sliding receptacles; on removing these, springs are released which secure inner secret drawers. This bureau, valued at sixteen guineas, is in the possession of Mr. J. H. Springett, of Rochester. Fig. 61, dating from early eighteenth century, is a bureau with four serpentine drawers below decorated with sprigs of flowers. It stands on depressed ball feet much like "China oranges." The knees set at an angle denote the Dutch influence, if it were not actually made in Holland. The piece, standing 43 in. high and 40 in. wide, is valued at eighteen guineas. Fig. 62, a walnut-wood small bureau with sloping lid and knee-hole recess, belongs to Queen Anne's reign. Beneath the lid are numerous useful small drawers and stationery cases. It bears the charming original brass drop handles in form of flattened flower-buds. This type was very popular all through the eighteenth century. In general outline it is of the pattern adopted by modern makers of small bureaux. Fig. 63 represents a charming type of Queen Anne period pedestal writing-table with knee-hole recess. It is a beautiful example of figured walnut veneered on oak; all the drawers are oak-lined. It was recently purchased in London for ten pounds. The knee-hole writing table--of which the present is an example--is a type of Queen Anne furniture of the greatest utility. It has many drawers as well as a cupboard underneath, and, for its size, may be said to represent the maximum of usefulness. Whilst seated at it you may be said to have the whole of its resources to your hand, which can scarcely be said of the bureau, as, when the writing-flap falls, it is difficult to get to the drawers beneath. The Queen Anne knee-hole table is becoming rarer, and the writers would certainly recommend its purchase should opportunity arise. Its pleasing lines and frequently beautiful arrangement of veneers make it a desirable addition to almost any room. Its dimensions are slender, usually measuring at the top about 30 by 21 ins. Fig. 64 represents a still simpler form of Queen Anne writing-table on solid walnut cabriole legs. The drawer fronts and top are veneered and inlaid with simple bands. This specimen has a value of about £5. The photograph was supplied by Mr. Springett, of Rochester. This form of table and the one previously illustrated are sometimes described as dressing-tables. They were probably used for both purposes, and they certainly lend themselves to either use. One of the most useful forms of the escritoire, or bureau, is of the type given in Figs. 65 and 66. It was bought recently in Mid-Somerset at a cost of thirty pounds. This type is made in two sections, sometimes with bracketed feet and sometimes with ball feet. The bureau under consideration is of an average size, being 5 ft. 3 in. high, 3 ft. 7 in. wide, and 19 in. deep. It is of rectangular form and the falling front, which serves as a writing-table, is supported by jointed steel rods. The opened front discloses an assemblage of drawers and pigeon-holes. The pigeon-holes at the top pull out in four sections, and behind are hidden numerous small drawers. Other secret drawers are so ingeniously contrived that they can only be discovered on pulling out the visible drawers and the dividing pieces on which the drawers run. The middle member of the cornice details forms the front of a shallow drawer running the whole length and depth of the bureau top. This bureau, which contains in all about thirty drawers and recesses, is built of red deal overlaid with thick veneers of walnut and fine knotted pollard oak of dark hue, with cross-banded edges of walnut in various shades. The visible drawers are of oak throughout, whilst the hidden ones are oak-bodied with red deal fronts to match the lining of the main structure--thus ingeniously disguising their presence. We have seen specimens of the same type entirely veneered with walnut and others inlaid with marquetry. These bureaux, dating from about 1690 well into Queen Anne's reign, have selling values of from £25 to £35. There must be an added sentimental pleasure in sitting at an escritoire which was possibly the treasured possession of a pamphleteer or diarist of the last years of the rebellion: an æsthetic joy in rummaging amongst the secret drawers which contained the journals in cypher of the wire-pullers of the new monarchy. CHAPTER VII: CLOCKS AND CLOCK-CASES A learned dissertation on clocks and the theory of time would be out of place in a volume of this description, and anything we have to say concerning the clocks of the "walnut period" will, of necessity, be of a popular nature. In England the chamber clocks, as distinguished from the costly and elaborate timepieces which adorned public buildings, appear to have been introduced about the year 1600.[6] The type is fairly familiar, and is known as the "lantern," "bird-cage," or "bedpost." Amongst dealers such clocks are usually styled "lantern" or "Cromwell." They usually stood on a wall-bracket, but sometimes were suspended from a nail. The clocks are built of brass surmounted by a bell, sometimes used for striking the hours and sometimes only for an alarm. The clocks were often housed in hooded oak cases, which protected them from the dust. [6] Strictly speaking, De Vyck's clock, invented about 1370, is the earliest known type of the domestic clock. Made for the wealthy few in days when the generality of people did not look upon clocks as necessities, they only exist to-day as rare museum specimens. These original cases are sometimes met with and are interesting in themselves, but the brass clocks are more ornamental when minus the cases. These clocks were made to run for thirty hours, the motive power being a heavy weight with a cord or chain. At first the vertical verge movement was used, but about 1658 the pendulum was introduced. The alternate bobbing in and out of the short pendulum through slits in either side of the clock accounts for the term "bob" pendulum. It has been noticed that the doors of these early clocks were often constructed from old sundial plates, the engraved figures of the sundial still showing on the insides. Doubtless the sundial makers, finding their trade falling off, used the materials in hand for the new-fangled clocks. The dial-plate of the early lantern clock is circular, with a band of metal (sometimes silvered) for the numerals, which at first were rather short. About 1640 the hour-hands were made wider and the numerals longer. After about 1660, we find the circular dial growing larger in relation to the body of the clock and protruding slightly on either side. During the latter years of Queen Anne's reign the dial-plates often protruded as much as two or three inches on either side. This did not improve the general appearance. Clocks of this pattern are known as the "sheep's head." With such slight variations the lantern clock was made from Elizabeth's to George III.'s reigns. The late ones, probably made by provincial clock-makers, have square dials with arched tops. The tops of the square cases of the lantern clocks are often surrounded by fretted galleries. As a rule the four fretted pieces are all of one pattern, but generally the front one only is engraved. A favourite form of fret is that in which the crossed dolphins appear; this pattern came in between 1660 and 1670. These lantern clocks with ornamental galleries are furnished with bells as wide as the clock-case suspended from two intersecting arched bands stretching from corner to corner. They are finished off by the addition of a turned pinnacle at each corner and a fifth one on the apex of the bell. Such clocks were apparently not intended to be covered by an outer wooden case. They would not be greatly harmed by dust, as they contain no delicate mechanism. These old-world lantern clocks were practically indestructible, and until a few years ago they could be found in plenty in the old farm-houses, and would fetch but a pound or two at auction. Of recent years, with the growth of the collecting habit, the dealers have found a ready market, and to-day a well-made lantern clock in original condition has an appreciable value of from five to ten pounds. They have but a single hand, like the old clock on Westminster Abbey, and consequently to tell the exact time of day is a matter of guess-work, as only the quarters are marked. To tell the time within a quarter of an hour would have been sufficient for the original owners, who had no trains to catch. The usual process to-day is to substitute a modern eight-day "fuzee" movement for the old thirty-hour "verge." Thus, by eliminating the chain and weight, the clock is adapted for a place on the mantelshelf. From a decorative point of view it is difficult to conceive anything more charming as a finish to a "walnut period" room. Fig. 67 is a "bird-cage" clock at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The dial, which is very nicely engraved with a flower design, is signed "Andrew Prime Londini Fecit." It has dolphin-pattern frets on three sides. The side frets are engraved to match the front one. This clock cost the museum £4 4s. in 1892. Andrew Prime was admitted to the Clockmakers' Company in 1647, and we shall be within the mark in assuming that the clock was made some time between that date and 1680. The dolphin decoration would, indeed, point to a date not earlier than 1660, and, furthermore, the length of the pendulum would suggest not earlier than 1675. In Fig. 68 we give an illustration of a small lantern clock by Anthony Marsh, of London, with its original hooded oak case. Fig. 69 is the same clock shown without the hood. This subject was kindly lent for illustration by Mr. Whittaker, of 46 Wilton Road, London, S.W., one of the comparatively few remaining clock-makers following the old-time traditions. A talk with Mr. Whittaker in his workshop takes us back to the old days of individual work at the lathe and bench, when each clock-maker was an artist with ideas of his own--a clock-maker in every sense of the word, making his own parts by hand instead of, as in these days, buying them by the gross from the factory. Anthony Marsh, the maker of the clock illustrated, was a member of the Clockmakers' Company in 1724, and worked "at ye dial opposite Bank of England." Marsh is a well-known name amongst the clock-making fraternity, no less than fifteen of the name following the trade between 1691 and 1842. Contemporary with the lantern clocks of the middle period (about 1660) we find the "bracket" or "pedestal" clocks enclosed by wooden cases, as distinguished from the brass-cased chamber clocks. The earlier patterns had flat tops with brass handles for carrying. Sometimes they were surmounted by perforated metal domes, resembling inverted baskets, to which the handles were fixed. As time went on the tops of the clock-cases were made more dome-shaped and the baskets and handles were elaborately chased. The cases, often of exquisite workmanship, were generally constructed of oak or ebony, and as timepieces these clocks, by skilled makers, were far superior to the generality of lantern clocks of the country-side. We associate these bracket-clocks with such names as Tompion, Graham, and Quare. Thomas Tompion, "the father of English watchmaking," was born at Northill, in Bedfordshire, in 1638, and died in London in 1713. He was the leading watchmaker at the Court of Charles II. George Graham, Tompion's favourite pupil, was born in Cumberland in 1673, and died in London in 1751. He was known as "Honest George Graham," and was probably the most accomplished British horologist of his own or any age. He was admitted a freeman of the Clockmakers' Company on completion of his apprenticeship in 1695, when he entered the service of Tompion. A lifelong friendship was only severed by the death of Tompion in 1713. Graham was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1720, and made a member of the Society's council in 1732. Even to-day Graham's "dead-beat escapement" is used in most pendulum clocks constructed for really accurate time-keeping. The site of Graham's shop in Fleet Street is now occupied by the offices of _The Sporting Life_. Tompion and Graham lie in one grave in the nave of Westminster Abbey, near the grave of David Livingstone. Daniel Quare, a contemporary maker of first rank, was born in 1648 and died in 1734. He was Clockmaker to William III. There is a fine example of a tall clock by Quare at Hampton Court Palace. Quare was the inventor of the repeating watch. Fig. 70 is a bracket clock in marquetry case made by John Martin, of London, in the seventeenth century. It is fitted with "rack striking work" invented by Edward Barlow (born 1636, died 1716). It will be noticed that the corners of the dial-plate are ornamented with the winged cherubs' heads which we find so often in the scheme of decoration of Sir Christopher Wren's churches. This clock, lent by Lieut.-Col. G. B. C. Lyons, may be seen at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The "bracket" clocks were the favourite household timepieces before the introduction of the long-cased or grandfather clocks, which came in some time between 1660 and 1670. The earliest long-cased clocks were furnished with the "bob" pendulum. The long or "royal" pendulum was introduced about 1676. The "bob" pendulum clock-cases were very narrow--just wide enough to comfortably accommodate the chain and weights, the primal idea of the case being merely to hide the chains and weights. The wide swing of the long pendulum necessitated more room in the case, and examples are found with added wings, showing that long pendulums have been added to the old movements. As with the lantern clocks, the early long clocks had thirty-hour movements; but the great makers, such as Tompion, Graham, and Quare, constructed clocks to run for eight days, a month, three months, and even a year. The introduction of the eight-day movement appears to have been coincident with the long pendulum. The cases of the grandfather clocks, in the main, harmonised with the other furniture of the period. The majority of them were built of oak, and those of country make were generally plain. Many were veneered with walnut, and others (more rarely) with ebony. With the advent of William III. came the taste for marquetry work, and the long-cased clocks received their due share of this form of ornamentation. The fronts were often pierced with an oval or circular hole filled with greenish bull's-eye glass, through which the swinging pendulum bob could be seen. About 1710 the taste for marquetry began to wane. The lacquering craze was at its height. Clock-cases were sent out to China to receive treatment at the hands of the Chinese lacquerers. It was a lengthy and expensive process: it probably would take a year or so with the slow travelling and slow drying of the various coats of lacquer. We show, in the chapter on lacquered furniture, how the growing demand was met by the English and Dutch lacquerers, who adopted less expensive and more expeditious, if less satisfactory, methods. It is in the nature of things that the old long-cased clocks were gently treated, and, consequently, genuine old specimens are still fairly plentiful. Old thirty-hour clocks in plain oak cases with painted dials may still be bought for four or five pounds apiece, whilst reliable eight-day clocks of fair make will fetch anything from five to ten pounds. We cannot expect to get a Tompion or Graham clock for anything like these prices. We had the opportunity five years ago of buying a magnificent Graham clock in a mahogany case of fine proportions for £20. It was the chance of a lifetime, and--the chance was missed. The three illustrations we give (Figs. 71, 72, and 73) represent fine examples of marquetry-decorated clocks at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The simple naturalesque style of marquetry, showing direct Dutch influence, is shown in Fig. 71. The carnations are exceedingly lifelike. The dial-plate of this clock, which is still in good going order, bears the inscription "Mansell Bennett at Charing Cross." It was probably made about 1690. Figs. 72 and 73 represent the more typically English style of delicate geometrical marquetry work, dating from about 1700. In both of these clocks the fretted bands of wood beneath the cornices, as well as the nature of the marquetry, would point to a later period than that of the Mansell Bennett clock. They belong to the Queen Anne period. Fig. 72 was made by Henry Poisson, who worked in London from 1695 to 1720. Fig. 73, unfortunately a clock-case only, has the original green bull's-eye glass in the door. A word of warning may be in place in regard to grandfather clocks with carved oak cases. Such things purporting to be "200 years old" are often advertised for sale, but are scarcely likely to be genuine. Speaking for ourselves, we have never seen one which bore the impress of genuineness. We must bear in mind that at the date of the introduction of the long case--say 1660-1670--the practice of carving furniture was rapidly on the wane, and by the end of the century had practically ceased. In this connection we quote that great authority on old clocks, Mr. F. J. Britten, who says: "Dark oak cases carved in high relief do not seem to have been the fashion of any particular period, but the result rather of occasional efforts by enthusiastic artists in wood, and then in most instances they appear to have been made to enclose existing clocks in substitution of inferior or worn-out coverings." In regard to the wonderful time-keeping qualities of old grandfather clocks, Mr. H. H. Cunyngham, in his useful little book, "Time and Clocks," expresses the opinion that the secret lies in the length of the pendulum. "This," he writes, "renders it possible to have but a small arc of oscillation, and therefore the motion is kept very nearly harmonious. For practical purposes nothing will even now beat these old clocks, of which one should be in every house. At present the tendency is to abolish them and substitute American clocks with very short pendulums, which never can keep good time. They are made of stamped metal and, when they get out of order, no one thinks of having them mended. They are thrown into the ashpit and a new one bought. In reality this is not economy." Mr. Cunyngham's remarks point the moral as to the economy of the long clock. But we should say, more strictly speaking, that German and Austrian wall and bracket clocks have to a large extent taken the place of the old English long-cased clocks. The shortness of the pendulum is not of necessity the weak point. The bracket clocks of the best English makers since the seventeenth century, with short pendulums, have been noted for their reliability as timekeepers. Efficiency from a badly constructed clock, be it American, German or English, can scarcely be expected. As we have already suggested, fine clocks by the great masters are now beyond the means of the modest collector; but serviceable and decorative grandfather clocks of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries are still obtainable at moderate prices. In many cases the dials show great taste in the art of engraving. We must bear in mind that the majority of these clocks--particularly those with the painted dials and plain oak cases--were the joint productions of the country clock-maker and the country joiner, and numbers of them have the very smallest pretentions to correctness of design. We find clock-cases which have the appearance of being "all plinth"; others are too long or too short or too wide in the body; others are overweighted in the head; and, again, others are too shallow and have an unhappy appearance of being flattened out against the wall. The old oak clock-case of perfect proportions is comparatively rare. The collector must studiously avoid any clock-case which is "obviously out of drawing," and in the main his eye will guide him in the selection. We are indebted to Mr. Stuart Parker, an experienced amateur collector of clocks, for a carefully thought-out opinion as to the ideal dimensions of a clock-case. Supposing a full-sized clock-case 7 ft. 6 in. high: the three main sections should measure as follows: The plinth: 2 ft. high and 1 ft. 10 in. wide. The body: 3 ft. high and 1 ft. 4½ in. wide. The head: 2 ft. 6 in. high and 1 ft. 10 in. wide. The width is taken at the middle of each of the three sections. The base of the plinth and the cornices of the head section should each measure 2 ft. 1 in. in width. CHAPTER VIII: LACQUERED FURNITURE English lacquered furniture "in the Oriental taste" belongs to the last quarter of the seventeenth and the first half of the eighteenth centuries. It is not surprising that when the rage for everything Chinese and Japanese--at the time indiscriminately called "Indian"--was prevalent, a school of Anglo-Oriental craftsmen should have sprung up. The taste was at its height about 1710, and continued for many years. The art of lacquering is said by the Japanese themselves to have been practised in Japan as early as the third century, when the Empress Jingo conquered Corea. In the ninth century the Kioto artists inlaid their lacquer with mother-of-pearl. In the fifteenth century landscape decorations were used, and by the end of the seventeenth century the art had reached its zenith. The material used in Japan is resin-lac, an exudation from the lacquer-tree (_Rhus vernicifera_). Without going into the details of the art, it is well to bear in mind that the brilliant surface of Japanese lacquer is not obtained by varnishing, but by the actual polishing of the lacquer itself. It is treated as a solid body, built up stage by stage and polished at every stage. For an exposition of the art one cannot do better than read Mr. Marcus B. Huish's chapter on lacquer in "Japan and Its Art." It was probably not till late Tudor times that any specimens of Japanese or Chinese lacquer found their way to this country, and then principally in the shape of small cups, bowls, and trays. "Indian Cabinets" are mentioned occasionally in inventories at the end of Elizabeth's reign, and in the household accounts of Charles II. there is an item of £100 for "two Jappan Cabinets." The English and Portuguese traded with Japan in Elizabeth's reign, but were expelled in 1637. The Dutch were more tenacious, and from the commencement of their trading operations with Japan, in 1600, managed, at intervals, to keep in touch with their new market. Even the Dutch were regarded unfavourably by the Japanese authorities, and traded under considerable disabilities. The majority of the lacquered ware which came to England filtered through Holland. It was brought to Europe round the Cape in the armed Dutch merchantmen which, at the same time, were bringing home the beautiful old Imari vases and dishes with _kinrande_ (brocade) decorations, which served later on as the models for the early Crown Derby "Old Japan" wares and the simple Kakiyemon specimens copied at Chelsea, Bow, and Dresden. One of these old ships, the _Middleburg_, trading from the China Seas, homeward bound and laden with bullion and curios, went down in Soldanha Bay, off the South African coast, on October 18, 1714. In August 1907 the divers salvaged some of the cargo. Needless to say, the "Jappan Cabinets" had long since perished, but the little Chinese blue-and-white cups and saucers came to the surface none the worse for nearly two hundred years' immersion in salt water. We are fortunate in still possessing at Hampton Court Palace a goodly number of Kakiyemon hexagonal covered jars and bottle-shaped vases, and tall cylindrical Chinese blue-and-white vases of the Khang Hi reign, placed there by William and Mary; but the scarcity of contemporary English furniture there is deplorable. The real beauty of old Oriental porcelain is never so apparent as when displayed on the old "Jappan Cabinets" or the sombre furniture of the Orange-Nassau dynasty. It was fashionable to decry the craze for things Chinese, and early eighteenth-century literature teems with gibes at the china maniacs of the day. We have referred in the first chapter of the volume to Macaulay's small opinion of the merits of old Chinese porcelain. The _Spectator_ for February 12, 1712, contains a letter from an imaginary Jack Anvil who had made a fortune, married a lady of quality, and grown into Sir John Enville. He tells how my Lady Mary Enville "next set herself to reform every room in my house, having glazed all my chimney-pieces with looking glasses, and planted every corner with such heaps of China, that I am obliged to move about my own house with the greatest caution and circumspection for fear of hurting some of our brittle furniture." Daniel Defoe, in his "Tour of Great Britain," says: "The Queen (Mary) brought in the custom or humour, as I may call it, of furnishing houses with China ware which increased to a strange degree afterwards, piling their China upon the tops of Cabinets, scrutores and every Chymney Piece to the top of the ceilings and even setting up shelves for their China ware where they wanted such places, till it became a grivance in the expence of it and even injurious to their Families and Estates." At Hampton Court to-day we can see the chimney-pieces in the corners of the smaller closets with the tiers of diminishing shelves reaching almost to the ceilings, and displayed thereon are the "flymy little bits of Blue" which Mr. Henley laughs at in his _Villanelle_. Perhaps some day our National Museum will overflow and refurnish Hampton Court Palace, which to-day in its furnishing, apart from the pictures and tapestries, is but a shadow of its old self. Although germane to the matter, the foregoing is somewhat in the nature of a digression from the subject of the "japanned" furniture, which took such a hold of the popular fancy that the making of such things was practised as a hobby by the amateurs of the period. "A Treatise on Japanning and Varnishing" was issued by John Stalker in 1688, and, just as "painting and the use of the backboard" were essentials in the curriculum of the early Victorian seminary, so were the young ladies of the reign of William III. taught the gentle art of "Japanning." In the Verney Memoirs we find Edmund Verney, son of Sir John Verney, the Squire of East Claydon, writing to his little daughter Molly (aged about eight years) in 1682 or 1683, at Mrs. Priest's school at Great Chelsey: "I find you have a desire to learn to Jappan, as you call it, and I approve of it, and so I shall of anything that is Good and Virtuous, Therefore learn in God's name all Good Things, and I will willingly be at the Charge so farr as I am able--tho' They come from Japan and from never so farr and Look of an Indian Hue and Odour, for I admire all accomplishments that will render you considerable and Lovely in the sight of God and Man.... To learn this art costs a Guiney entrance and some 40's more to buy materials to work upon." John Stalker's treatise is probably the earliest printed work in connection with furniture-making. We never hear of any individual name connected with the manufacture of furniture during the oak period, although there had been a guild of cofferers. The names of the makers of the superb Charles chairs are lost in oblivion, and we have to wait till the eighteenth century before any artist-craftsman or designer gives his name to a style. Stalker's treatise is contained in a folio volume of eighty-four pages of letterpress and twenty-four pages of copper-plate engravings. The title-page reads: "A Treatise of Japanning and Varnishing, Being a compleat discovery of those Arts. With the best way of making all sorts of Varnish for Japan, Woods, Prints, Plate or Pictures. The method of Guilding, Burnishing and Lackering with the art of Guilding, Separateing and Refining metals, and the most curios ways of painting on Glass or otherwise. Also rules for counterfeiting Tortoise Shell, and Marble and for staining or Dying Wood, Ivory, etc. Together with above an hundred distinct patterns of Japan Work, for Tables, Stands, Frames, Cabinets, Boxes &c. Curiously engraven on 24 large Copper Plates. By John Stalker September the 7th 1688. Licenced R. Midgley and entered according to order. Oxford Printed for and sold by the Author, living at the Golden Ball in St. James Market London in the year MDCLXXXVIII." This comprehensive work is "Dedicated to the RIGHT Honourable The Countess of Darby a lady no less eminent for her quality, Beauty and Vertue, then for her incomparable Skill and Experience in the Arts that those Experiments belong to, as well as in several others." In a page and a half of the preface the author takes us through the history of painting from early Grecian times, particularly pointing out that the art of portrait-painting alone can keep our memories green. He goes on to say: "Well then as painting has made an honourable provision for our bodies so Japanning has taught us a method, no way inferior to it, for the splendour and preservation of our Furniture and Houses. These Buildings, like our bodies, continually tending to ruin and dissolution are still in want of fresh supplies and reparations. On the one hand they are assaulted with unexpected mischances, on the other with the injuries of time and weather; but the art of Japanning has made them almost impregnable against both; no damp air, no mouldring worm, or corroding time, can possibly deface it; and, which is more wonderful, although its ingredients the Gums, which are in their own nature inflamable yet this most vigorously resists the fire, and is itself found to be incombustible. True, genuine Japan, like the Salamander, lives in the flames, and stands unalterable, when the wood which was imprison'd in it, is utterly consumed.... What can be more surprising then to have our chambers overlaid with varnish more glassy and reflecting than polisht Marble? No Amorous Nymph need entertain a Dialogue with her Glass, or Narcissus retire to a Fountain, to survey his charming countenance, when the house is one entire speculum. To this we subjoin the Golden Draught, with which Japan is so exquisitively adorned, than which nothing can be more beautiful, more rich or majestick." In John Stalker's opinion Europe, both Ancient and Modern, must in the adornments of cities give pride of place to Japan, for "surely this Province was Nature's Darling and the Favourite of the Gods, for Jupiter has vouchsaft it a visit as formally to Danae in a Golden shower." In an epistle to "the Reader and Practitioner" he severely censures inferior artificers who "without modesty or blush impose upon the gentry such Stuff and Trash, for Japan work, that whether it is a greater scandal to the name or artifice, I cannot determine. Might we advise such foolish pretenders, their time would be better imployed in drawing Whistles and Puppets for the Toyshops to please Children, than contriving ornaments for a room of State." He cautions the reader against the common error of mistaking Bantam work for real Japan. "This must be alledged for the Bantam work that it is very pretty," &c. &c.; but the Japan is "more grave and majestick ... the Japan artist works most of all in Gold and other metals, and Bantam for the generality in colours with a small sprinkling of Gold here and there, like the patches on a Ladie's countenance." He professes, in the "Cutts or Patterns," to have exactly imitated the towers, steeples, figures and rocks of Japan according to designs of such found on imported specimens. "Perhaps we have helped them a little in their proportions where they were lame or defective, and made them more pleasant, yet altogether as Antick. Had we industriously contrived the prospective, or shadowed them otherwise than they are: we should have wandered from the Design, which is only to imitate the true genuine Indian work, and perhaps in a great measure might puzzle and confound the unexperienced Practitioner." It may interest readers to know the market prices of some of the materials used in 1688. Seed-lac, 14s. to 18s. per lb.; gum sandrack, 1s. to 1s. 2d. per lb.; gum animæ, 3s. to 5s. per lb.; Venice turpentine, 1s. 6d. to 1s. 8d. per lb.; white rosin, 4d. to 6d. per lb.; shell-lac, 1s. 6d. to 2s. per lb.; gum arabic, 1s. per lb.; gum copall, 1s. to 1s. 6d. per lb.; gum elemni, 4d. to 5d. per oz.; benjamin or benzoine, 4d. to 8d. per oz.; dragon's blood, 8d. to 1s. per oz. "Brass dust," Stalker says, cannot be made in England, though it has often been tried. The best, we learn, comes from Germany! He goes on to describe various metal-dusts, such as "Silver dust," "Green Gold," "Dirty Gold," "Powder tinn," and "Copper." Of the makers of "speckles" of divers sorts--gold, silver, copper--"I shall only mention two, viz. a Goldbeater, at the hand and hammer in Long Acre; and another of the same trade over against Mercers Chappel in Cheapside." The twenty-four pages of "Cutts" include designs for "Powder Boxes," "Looking glass frames," "For Drauers for Cabbinets to be placed according to your fancy," and "For a Standish for Pen Inke and paper which may also serve for a comb box." The drawings include "An Embassy," "A Pagod Worshipp in ye Indies," and another sketch in which the central figure would appear to be a hybrid Red Indian before whom several devotees are grovelling. We have quoted John Stalker at some length as giving interesting sidelights on an industry occupying the attentions of a numerous class in his own day. For the actual carrying out of the methods employed we must refer the reader to the book itself--a book which is invaluable to any one who has a piece of Old English lac in want of repair. There is an old-world charm about the work of the Stalker and contemporary schools, but in point of real beauty it is as far removed from the Japanese lacquer as the "Oriental" porcelain of the eighteenth-century European factories is from its Chinese or Japanese prototype. The complaint has often been made of the lack of perspective in the Oriental decorations. This may be said, to use a hackneyed phrase, to be the defect of its qualities. We have by this time come to see things to a certain extent through Japanese eyes, and have learnt to love the defect. The artist of Old Japan--be he painter, potter, metal-worker, or lacquerer--was an artist to his finger-tips, and his work was full of a symbolism utterly incomprehensible to the Western mind. Those in Japan who know will tell you that a master lacquerer of the seventeenth century would spend many years on the decoration of a simple, small box. In the initial stage--the preparation of the background--it has been calculated that 530 hours are required in the aggregate for drying the various layers; but the young ladies at Mrs. Priest's school at Great Chelsey in the seventeenth century expect, by the aid of Stalker's instructions, to learn the art in twelve lessons! Honest John Stalker thinks he can improve upon his Japanese models, with the result that, whilst we may have a little less of the "defect," we have scarcely any of the "qualities." It is ever thus when West attempts to copy East. We may mention in passing that the French furniture-makers of the eighteenth century utilised, in the production of some of their finest commodes, drawer-fronts and panels of genuine Japanese lacquer which must have been manufactured specially for the French market, exhibiting, as they do, shapes quite foreign to anything in use in Japan. It is highly probable that these serpentine and bow-shaped drawer-fronts were sent out to Japan to receive their decoration. In the "Jones Bequest" at the Victoria and Albert Museum, we can see superb examples of such belonging to the period of Louis XV. It is said that Madame Pompadour expended 110,000 livres on Japanese lacquer. Marie Antoinette's collection in the Louvre is considerable; but it is quite certain that the finest examples of the art never left Japan. Mr. Huish, to whose book we have above referred, gives some interesting statistics pointing to the scarcity of fine old lacquer in this country during the early days of trade with the East. In one year during the eighteenth century eleven ships sailed, and, whilst carrying 16,580 pieces of porcelain, they brought only twelve pieces of lac. To-day Old English lacquered furniture is much sought after, and prices are advancing rapidly. The coloured varieties include red, blue, green, violet, and occasionally buff. The red in particular is highly prized. Black lac, which was made in great quantities in every shape of furniture, is still comparatively plentiful. An early eighteenth-century grandfather's clock, which might fetch anything from five to ten pounds if the case were of plain oak, would have a selling value of from ten to twenty pounds if lacquered. Evidence points to the fact that, in the majority of cases, the lacquer was an afterthought. The furniture of the day was turned out, in the ordinary course of trade, quite innocent of lacquer, and afterwards treated by professional japanners--sometimes maltreated by amateurs. Not long since, in our own day, there was a similar craze for covering furniture with enamel paints. Fig. 74 is an interesting china cabinet in black lacquer of William and Mary period, 7 ft. 5 in. high and 5 ft. wide, priced at £30. A first-class modern mahogany or walnut-wood cabinet of the size could scarcely be made for the money, whilst the old lac, apart from its intrinsic charm, has an additional sentimental value as marking a phase in the history of furniture--a phase in decoration. In this cabinet we have also a development in form; it is palpably the product of a period when the rage for collecting porcelain was prevalent, and in the same connection it is no less useful to-day. The modern designer scarcely invents anything more appropriate. It is interesting to note this cabinet as an example of the afterthought in decoration. The owners--Messrs. Story and Triggs Ltd., of Queen Victoria Street, London--have discovered that the lacquer is superimposed on walnut veneer! It tells its own tale. Fig. 75 is an early example of red lacquer, a cabinet with boldly arched cornice; the repetition of the arch at either end gives a fine architectural finish to the top. The upper part encloses shelves, and there are four drawers in the base. The decoration consists of various Chinese views of ladies in a garden, a temple with a man and children, trees, rocks and lakes. It was probably made about 1690; 75 in. high, 31 in. wide, and 23 in. deep. Fig. 76 is somewhat later--about 1710--with typical Queen Anne period cabriole legs and claw-and-ball feet. The doors, which enclose five drawers, are decorated with figures, buildings, birds and flowers, and are furnished with finely chased ormolu lock-plates and hinges. It is of black lacquer with red and gold reliefs, measures 67 in. by 39 in. by 19 in, and is valued at about £45. Fig. 77 is still later--about 1730--a cabinet surmounted on plain cabriole legs. On the front is a view of a lake with Oriental figures, cocks, and vegetation. Inside the doors are studies of the lotus-flower in vases. The hinges and lock-plates are fine examples of English metal-work in the Chinese taste. This piece is 56 in. high and 36 in. wide, and is valued at £35. For comparison we give an example (Fig. 78) of a piece of lacquered furniture made in China about 1740. This dressing-table, built of camphor-wood, and still exhaling a delicate fragrance, was evidently made for England and copied, as to shape, from an English table. It is inlaid with mother-of-pearl designs of landscape, birds, and flowers; and the interior is fitted with a mirror, writing-desk, and numerous boxes. During the English "japanning" period, every imaginable shape of furniture received this Oriental treatment. Besides the various forms of cabinet, we find lacquered mirror-frames, dressing-tables, corner cupboards, hanging cupboards, chests and chests of drawers, chairs, work-boxes, writing-desks, coffee-tables, card-tables, pole-screens, trays, barometer-cases, and even bellows-cases. We give an example of a simple mirror in red lacquered frame with arched top (Fig. 79). It measures 39 in. by 19 in. This and the three preceding examples are the property of Mr. F. W. Phillips, of The Manor House, Hitchin. Fig. 80 is a barometer in lacquered case of about 1700. Fig. 81, at the Victoria and Albert Museum, is of Dutch make of the early eighteenth century--a dressing-glass suspended between two uprights, which are supported on a cabinet with sloping front. Inside the cabinet is a compartment with a hinged door, flanked on either side by an open compartment, one long and two short drawers. The lower part has seventeen compartments fitted with boxes, brushes, and various toilet requisites. The lacquer is raised and gilt on a red ground, showing groups of figures in Chinese costumes, buildings, landscapes and floral designs with birds. Fig. 82 is a somewhat similar glass but of English make. The woods composing it are poplar, pine and oak, and it is decorated with blue and gold lacquer, the effect of which is the reverse of pleasing. We have said that the European lacquer will not bear close comparison with the Old Japanese. The methods of the Chinese were simpler, and the English "japanner" (it is, of course, a misleading term) was more successful in his attempts to copy the Chinese cabinets. His best examples, if indeed they fell far short in technique, did in method to a large-extent approximate to the work of the Celestial. English lacquer as a mere investment is worth buying at reasonable prices, and in choosing pieces the collector will do well to look, as much as possible, for the real Oriental feeling. [Illustration: FIG. 1. MANTELPIECE IN HAMPTON COURT PALACE] [Illustration: FIG. 2. BEDSTEADS AT HAMPTON COURT PALACE] [Illustration: FIG. 3. ROOM IN CLIFFORD'S INN (PERIOD WILLIAM AND MARY)] [Illustration: FIG. 4. CARVING IN PINEWOOD ATTRIBUTED TO GRINLING GIBBON] [Illustration: FIG. 5. TURNED BALUSTERS (LATE SEVENTEENTH AND EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES)] [Illustration: FIG. 6. DOORWAY (LATE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY)] [Illustration: FIG. 7. OVERMANTEL (LATE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY)] [Illustration: FIG. 8. DOORWAY (EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURY)] [Illustration: FIG. 9. MANTELPIECE (EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURY)] [Illustration: FIG. 10. MIRROR FRAME ATTRIBUTED TO GRINLING GIBBON] [Illustration: FIG. 11. SIMPLE WALL MIRROR (QUEEN ANNE PERIOD) (The property of Mr. F. W. Phillips, The Manor House, Hitchin)] [Illustration: FIG. 12. SIMPLE TOILET MIRROR (QUEEN ANNE PERIOD) (The property of Mr. F. W. Phillips, The Manor House, Hitchin)] [Illustration: FIG. 13. WALL MIRROR (QUEEN ANNE PERIOD)] [Illustration: FIG. 14. WALL MIRROR (QUEEN ANNE PERIOD)] [Illustration: FIG. 15. "GESSO" MIRROR (QUEEN ANNE PERIOD)] [Illustration: FIG. 16. "GESSO" MIRROR (QUEEN ANNE PERIOD)] [Illustration: FIG. 17. FINE "GESSO" MIRROR (QUEEN ANNE PERIOD)] [Illustration: FIG. 18. MIRROR FROM "FLASK" TAVERN PIMLICO, DATE ABOUT 1700] [Illustration: FIG. 19. MARQUETRY MIRROR (EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURY)] [Illustration: FIG. 20. TOILET MIRROR WITH DRAWERS (QUEEN ANNE PERIOD)] [Illustration: FIG. 21. TOILET MIRROR ON STAND (QUEEN ANNE PERIOD)] [Illustration: FIG. 22. STOOL (PERIOD OF WILLIAM AND MARY)] [Illustration: FIG. 23. FINE STOOL (PERIOD QUEEN ANNE)] [Illustration: FIG. 24 FIG. 25 FIG. 26 FINE CHAIRS (PERIOD WILLIAM AND MARY)] [Illustration: FIG. 27. FINE CHAIR (PERIOD WILLIAM AND MARY)] [Illustration: FIG. 28. SIMPLE CHAIR (PERIOD WILLIAM AND MARY) (The property of F. W. Phillips, The Manor House, Hitchin, Herts)] [Illustration: FIG. 29 FIG. 30 FIG. 31 SIMPLE CHAIRS (PERIOD QUEEN ANNE) (The property of Mr. J. H. Springett, High Street, Rochester)] [Illustration: FIG. 32 SIMPLE CHAIR WITH CABRIOLE LEGS (QUEEN ANNE PERIOD)] [Illustration: FIG. 33 FIG. 34 FIG. 35 SIMPLE CHAIRS WITH CABRIOLE LEGS (QUEEN ANNE PERIOD) (The property of Mr. J. H. Springett, High Street, Rochester)] [Illustration: FIG. 36. QUEEN ANNE CHAIR WITH INLAID SPLAT] [Illustration: FIG. 37. LATE QUEEN ANNE CHAIR] [Illustration: FIG. 38. FINE ARM CHAIR (QUEEN ANNE PERIOD)] [Illustration: FIG. 39. ARM CHAIR (QUEEN ANNE PERIOD) COVERED WITH "PETIT POINT" NEEDLEWORK] [Illustration: FIG. 40 FINE CHAIR (LATE QUEEN ANNE PERIOD)] [Illustration: FIG. 41 FINE CHAIR (LATE QUEEN ANNE PERIOD)] [Illustration: FIG. 42 CORNER OR ROUNDABOUT CHAIR (LATE QUEEN ANNE PERIOD)] [Illustration: FIG. 43. SETTEE (WILLIAM AND MARY PERIOD)] [Illustration: FIG. 44. FINE SETTEE (LATE QUEEN ANNE PERIOD)] [Illustration: FIG. 45. FINE SETTEE (LATE QUEEN ANNE PERIOD)] [Illustration: FIG. 46 TABLE (PERIOD WILLIAM AND MARY) (The property of Mr. F. W. Phillips, The Manor House, Hitchin)] [Illustration: FIG. 47 TABLE (PERIOD WILLIAM AND MARY)] [Illustration: FIG. 48. TABLE (WILLIAM AND MARY PERIOD)] [Illustration: FIG. 49. TABLE (LATE QUEEN ANNE PERIOD)] [Illustration: FIG. 50. CHEST OF DRAWERS (WILLIAM AND MARY PERIOD)] [Illustration: FIG. 51. CHEST OF DRAWERS (WILLIAM AND MARY PERIOD)] [Illustration: FIG. 52 CHEST OF DRAWERS ON TWISTED LEGS (WILLIAM AND MARY PERIOD)] [Illustration: FIG. 53. DWARF CHEST OF DRAWERS ON FEET (WILLIAM AND MARY PERIOD)] [Illustration: FIG. 54 FINE CHEST ON STAND (WILLIAM AND MARY PERIOD)] [Illustration: FIG. 55 SIMPLE CHEST ON STAND (WILLIAM AND MARY PERIOD)] [Illustration: FIG. 56. TALLBOY (QUEEN ANNE PERIOD)] [Illustration: FIG. 57. TALLBOY (QUEEN ANNE PERIOD)] [Illustration: FIG. 58. WARDROBE IN MARQUETRY (The property of Mr. F. W. Phillips, The Manor House, Hitchin, Herts)] [Illustration: FIG. 59. CHINA CABINET IN MARQUETRY] [Illustration: FIG. 60. SIMPLE BUREAU (WILLIAM AND MARY PERIOD)] [Illustration: FIG. 61. BUREAU (WILLIAM AND MARY PERIOD)] [Illustration: FIG. 62. BUREAU (QUEEN ANNE PERIOD)] [Illustration: FIG. 63. WRITING TABLE (QUEEN ANNE PERIOD)] [Illustration: FIG. 64 WRITING OR DRESSING TABLE (QUEEN ANNE PERIOD)] [Illustration: FIG. 65. FIG. 66 ESCRITOIRE (QUEEN ANNE PERIOD)] [Illustration: FIG. 67. "BIRDCAGE" CLOCK (SECOND HALF SEVENTEENTH CENTURY)] [Illustration: FIG. 68 LANTERN CLOCK IN HOODED CASE (FIRST HALF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY)] [Illustration: FIG. 69 LANTERN CLOCK WITHOUT CASE (FIRST HALF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY)] [Illustration: FIG. 70. BRACKET CLOCK (SEVENTEENTH CENTURY)] [Illustration: FIG. 73 FIG. 72 FIG. 71 MARQUETRY CLOCKS AND CLOCK CASES] [Illustration: FIG. 74. LACQUERED CHINA CABINET] [Illustration: FIG. 75. LACQUERED CABINET WITH DRAWERS] [Illustration: FIG. 76. LACQUERED CABINET] [Illustration: FIG. 77. LACQUERED CABINET] [Illustration: FIG. 78. LACQUERED DRESSING-TABLE] [Illustration: FIG. 79 LACQUERED MIRROR] [Illustration: FIG. 80 BAROMETER IN LACQUERED CASE] [Illustration: FIG. 81 LACQUERED TOILET MIRROR] [Illustration: FIG. 82 LACQUERED TOILET MIRROR] INDEX Architectural inspiration less marked, 39 Ashton on Queen Anne period, 13 Balusters, examples of, 31 Baths at Hampton Court, 5 in early times, 5 Bedroom, Queen Anne, 43-46 Bedsteads at Court, 7 modern Queen Anne, 43-44 Buckingham's, Duke of, glass works, 37 Bureaux, Queen Anne period, 79 William and Mary period, 78 with secret drawers, 80-81 Cabriole legs, 53 Chairs (_see_ Chapter IV.) claw-and-ball decoration, 54 double, 58 drunkards', 57 fine, 57 ladder-backed, 55 period of James II., 47 Queen Anne, 51-57 shaped, 56 William and Mary, 50-51 with cabriole legs, 53-54 with rigid lines, 8, 50 Chests of drawers (_see_ Chapter V.) history of, 65 the tallboy, 70-71 veneered, 67-68 with cabriole legs, 69 with marquetry, 66 with turned legs, 67-69 China cabinets first introduced, 13 varieties of, 74-75 Chinese porcelain, Defoe on, 98 Evelyn on, 4 first introduced into England, 3 Chinese porcelain, Macaulay on, 4 popularity of, 13 _Spectator_ on, 59, 98 Chintzes, 59-60 Coffee-houses, 11, 12 Claw and ball, 54 Clocks (_see_ Chapter VII.) "Bob" pendulum, 83 bracket or pedestal, 86-89 Cromwell or lantern, 82-86 Cunyngham on, 92-93 Daniel Quare, 88 George Graham, 87 grandfather, 89-94 in lacquer, 90 in marquetry, 88, 91 "sheep's head," 83 Thomas Tompion, 87 Clouston on Queen Anne mirrors, 37 Cunyngham on clocks, 92-93 Defoe, Daniel, on Chinese porcelain, 98 Doorways, carved, 32 Dutch influence, 1, 20, 47, 96 Dwelling-room, Clifford's Inn, 7 Escallop-shell decoration, 54 Evelyn on Sir Christopher Wren, 21 Evelyn's Dairy, 4, 36 "Gesso" work, 41 Gibbon, Grinling, and Charles II., 26-27 examples at Hampton Court, 6 his life and work, 25-30 mirror frame, 38 Graham, George (clock-maker), 87 Hampton Court Palace (_see_ Chapter I.), 97, 98-99 Homes of the poor, 11, 47 Houses of the wealthy, 10 Huguenot silk-workers, 57 Huish, M. B., on "Japan and its Art," 96, 107 Inlay, 14 Japanning or varnishing by John Stalker, 99-105 Lacquer (_see_ Chapter VIII.) cabinets, 109 China cabinet, 108 clock, 108 dressing-glasses, 111 dressing-table, 110 French, 106-107 history of, 95-97 Japanese, 106 mirror, 110 Law, Ernest, on Queen Anne period, 2, 3, 8 Macaulay, on Verrio, 9 views on collecting porcelain, 4 Macquoid, Percy, "Age of Walnut," 50 on marquetry, 67 Mahogany introduced, 8, 72 Marquetry defined, 16 Macquoid on, 67 Pollen on, 66 used on clock, 88 mirror frames, 42 tables, 61 wardrobes, 73 Marsh, Anthony (clock-maker), 86 Martin, John (clock-maker), 88 McCarthy, Justin, on Queen Anne period, 11 Mirrors (_see_ Chapter III.) by Grinling Gibbon, 38 Clouston on, 37 early examples, 35 "Gesso" work, 41 in Hampton Court, 36-37 in Holyrood Palace, 36 Mirrors, in marquetry, 42 in Van Eyck's picture in National Gallery, 35 influence of Wren, 40 mentioned in Evelyn's Diary, 36 mentioned in "Paradise Lost," 34 notes on purchasing, 40 simple, 38-39 toilet, 42 Needlework, "petit point," 57 popular with women, 59 Queen Mary's, 3 Pollen, J. H., on marquetry, 66 on Queen Anne period, 10 Quare, Daniel (clock-maker), 88 Queen Anne period, a gambling age, 62 Anne's influence, 10 Ashton quoted, 12 bedroom, 43-46 chairs and tables, &c. (_see_ Chapter IV.) definition, 8-9 houses of middle class, 60 Justin McCarthy on, 11 old city houses, 31 ordinary types of mirrors, 38, 39 simple furniture, 9, 10 Thackeray on, 12 writing-table, 79 Queen Mary, her needlework, 3 Settee, 58 Stalker, John, on japanning and varnishing, 99-105 Stools, William and Mary, 42 Queen Anne, 43 Tables (_see_ Chapter IV.) card, 62-63 gate leg, 64 Tables, inverted bowl decoration, 60 William and Mary, 61 with cabriole legs, 63 with claw-and-ball feet, 63 with escallop-shell decoration, 63 with flaps, 63 with marquetry work, 61 with tied stretchers, 61 Tallboys, 70-71 Tea-drinking, 12 Thackeray on Queen Anne period, 12 Toilet sets, 45 Tompion, Thomas (clock-maker), 87 Van Eyck, picture by, 48 Veneering, 14-15 Verney Memoirs, 99 Verrio, his work at Hampton Court, 9 Wardrobe (or hanging cupboard) in early days, 72 in marquetry, 73 of Dutch origin, 72 William and Mary at Hampton Court, 1 costume, 48-49 Woodcraft, ancient, 16 Wren, Sir Christopher, 2-3 builds St. Paul's Cathedral, 22 Evelyn on, 21 his life and work, 20-25 Writing-desks, history of, 76-78 Queen Anne knee-hole, 79-80 Transcriber's Note: The italics markup surrounding currency has been removed. The hyphenation of some words has been standardised. 
40367	----	Transcriber's Note: Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. Italic text is denoted by _underscores_. THE DECORATION OF HOUSES Charles Scribner's Sons New York 1914 The Decoration of Houses By Edith Wharton and Ogden Codman Jr. Copyright, 1897, by CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS "_Une forme doit être belle en elle-même et on ne doit jamais compter sur le décor appliqué pour en sauver les imperfections._" HENRI MAYEUX: _La Composition Décorative_. TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION xix I THE HISTORICAL TRADITION 1 II ROOMS IN GENERAL 17 III WALLS 31 IV DOORS 48 V WINDOWS 64 VI FIREPLACES 74 VII CEILINGS AND FLOORS 89 VIII ENTRANCE AND VESTIBULE 103 IX HALL AND STAIRS 106 X THE DRAWING-ROOM, BOUDOIR, AND MORNING-ROOM 122 XI GALA ROOMS: BALL-ROOM, SALOON, MUSIC-ROOM, GALLERY 134 XII THE LIBRARY, SMOKING-ROOM, AND "DEN" 145 XIII THE DINING-ROOM 155 XIV BEDROOMS 162 XV THE SCHOOL-ROOM AND NURSERIES 173 XVI BRIC-À-BRAC 184 CONCLUSION 196 INDEX 199 LIST OF PLATES FACING PAGE I ITALIAN GOTHIC CHEST 1 II FRENCH ARM-CHAIRS, XV AND XVI CENTURIES 6 III FRENCH _Armoire_, XVI CENTURY 10 IV FRENCH SOFA AND ARM-CHAIR, LOUIS XIV PERIOD 12 V ROOM IN THE GRAND TRIANON, VERSAILLES 14 VI FRENCH ARM-CHAIR, LOUIS XV PERIOD 16 VII FRENCH _Bergère_, LOUIS XVI PERIOD 20 VIII FRENCH _Bergère_, LOUIS XVI PERIOD 24 IX FRENCH SOFA, LOUIS XV PERIOD 28 X FRENCH MARQUETRY TABLE, LOUIS XVI PERIOD 30 XI DRAWING-ROOM, HOUSE IN BERKELEY SQUARE, LONDON 34 XII ROOM IN THE VILLA VERTEMATI 38 XIII DRAWING-ROOM AT EASTON NESTON HALL 42 XIV DOORWAY, DUCAL PALACE, MANTUA 48 XV SALA DEI CAVALLI, PALAZZO DEL T 54 XVI DOOR IN THE SALA DELLO ZODIACO, DUCAL PALACE, MANTUA 58 XVII EXAMPLES OF MODERN FRENCH LOCKSMITHS' WORK 60 XVIII CARVED DOOR, PALACE OF VERSAILLES 62 XIX SALON DES MALACHITES, GRAND TRIANON, VERSAILLES 68 XX MANTELPIECE, DUCAL PALACE, URBINO 74 XXI MANTELPIECE, VILLA GIACOMELLI 78 XXII FRENCH FIRE-SCREEN, LOUIS XIV PERIOD 86 XXIII CARVED WOODEN CEILING, VILLA VERTEMATI 90 XXIV CEILING IN PALAIS DE JUSTICE, RENNES 92 XXV CEILING OF THE SALA DEGLI SPOSI, DUCAL PALACE, MANTUA 96 XXVI CEILING IN THE STYLE OF BÉRAIN 100 XXVII CEILING IN THE CHÂTEAU OF CHANTILLY 102 XXVIII ANTECHAMBER, VILLA CAMBIASO, GENOA 104 XXIX ANTECHAMBER, DURAZZO PALACE, GENOA 106 XXX STAIRCASE, PARODI PALACE, GENOA 108 XXXI STAIRCASE, HÔTEL DE VILLE, NANCY 112 XXXII STAIRCASE, PALACE OF FONTAINEBLEAU 116 XXXIII FRENCH _Armoire_, LOUIS XIV PERIOD 120 XXXIV SALA DELLA MADDALENA, ROYAL PALACE, GENOA 122 XXXV CONSOLE IN PETIT TRIANON, VERSAILLES 124 XXXVI SALON, PALACE OF FONTAINEBLEAU 126 XXXVII ROOM IN THE PALACE OF FONTAINEBLEAU 128 XXXVIII _Lit de Repos_, EARLY LOUIS XV PERIOD 130 XXXIX _Lit de Repos_, LOUIS XV PERIOD 130 XL PAINTED WALL-PANEL AND DOOR, CHANTILLY 132 XLI FRENCH BOUDOIR, LOUIS XVI PERIOD 132 XLII _Salon à l'italienne_ 136 XLIII BALL-ROOM, ROYAL PALACE, GENOA 138 XLIV SALOON, VILLA VERTEMATI 140 XLV SALA DELLO ZODIACO, DUCAL PALACE, MANTUA 140 XLVI FRENCH TABLE, TRANSITION BETWEEN LOUIS XIV AND LOUIS XV PERIODS 142 XLVII LIBRARY OF LOUIS XVI, PALACE OF VERSAILLES 144 XLVIII SMALL LIBRARY, AUDLEY END 146 XLIX FRENCH WRITING-CHAIR, LOUIS XV PERIOD 150 L DINING-ROOM, PALACE OF COMPIÈGNE 154 LI DINING-ROOM FOUNTAIN, PALACE OF FONTAINEBLEAU 156 LII FRENCH DINING-CHAIR, LOUIS XIV PERIOD 158 LIII FRENCH DINING-CHAIR, LOUIS XVI PERIOD 158 LIV BEDROOM, PALACE OF FONTAINEBLEAU 162 LV BATH-ROOM, PITTI PALACE, FLORENCE 168 LVI BRONZE ANDIRON, XVI CENTURY 184 BOOKS CONSULTED FRENCH ANDROUET DU CERCEAU, JACQUES. Les Plus Excellents Bâtiments de France. _Paris, 1607._ LE MUET, PIERRE. Manière de Bien Bâtir pour toutes sortes de Personnes. OPPENORD, GILLES MARIE. Oeuvres. _1750._ MARIETTE, PIERRE JEAN. L'Architecture Françoise. _1727._ BRISEUX, CHARLES ÉTIENNE. L'Art de Bâtir les Maisons de Campagne. _Paris, 1743._ LALONDE, FRANÇOIS RICHARD DE. Recueil de ses Oeuvres. AVILER, C. A. D'. Cours d'Architecture. _1760._ BLONDEL, JACQUES FRANÇOIS. Architecture Françoise. _Paris, 1752._ Cours d'Architecture. _Paris, 1771-77._ De la Distribution des Maisons de Plaisance et de la Décoration des Édifices. _Paris, 1737._ ROUBO, A. J., FILS. L'Art du Menuisier. HÉRÉ DE CORNY, EMMANUEL. Recueil des Plans, Élévations et Coupes des Châteaux, Jardins et Dépendances que le Roi de Pologne occupe en Lorraine. _Paris, n. d._ PERCIER ET FONTAINE. Choix des plus Célèbres Maisons de Plaisance de Rome et de ses Environs. _Paris, 1809._ Palais, Maisons, et autres Édifices Modernes dessinés à Rome. _Paris, 1798._ Résidences des Souverains. _Paris, 1833._ KRAFFT ET RANSONNETTE. Plans, Coupes, et Élévations des plus belles Maisons et Hôtels construits à Paris et dans les Environs. _Paris, 1801._ DURAND, JEAN NICOLAS LOUIS. Recueil et Parallèle des Édifices de tout Genre. _Paris, 1800._ Précis des Leçons d'Architecture données à l'École Royale Polytechnique. _Paris, 1823._ QUATREMÈRE DE QUINCY, A. C. Histoire de la Vie et des Ouvrages des plus Célèbres Architectes du XIe siècle jusqu'à la fin du XVIII siècle. _Paris, 1830._ PELLASSY DE L'OUSLE. Histoire du Palais de Compiègne. _Paris, n. d._ LETAROUILLY, PAUL MARIE. Édifices de Rome Moderne. _Paris, 1825-57._ RAMÉE, DANIEL. Histoire Générale de l'Architecture. _Paris, 1862._ Meubles Religieux et Civils Conservés dans les principaux Monuments et Musées de l'Europe. VIOLLET LE DUC, EUGÈNE EMMANUEL. Dictionnaire Raisonné de l'Architecture Française du XIe au XVIe siècle. _Paris, 1868._ SAUVAGEOT, CLAUDE. Palais, Châteaux, Hôtels et Maisons de France du XVe au XVIIIe siècle. DALY, CÉSAR. Motifs Historiques d'Architecture et de Sculpture d'Ornement. ROUYER ET DARCEL. L'Art Architectural en France depuis François Ier jusqu'à Louis XIV. HAVARD, HENRY. Dictionnaire de l'Ameublement et de la Décoration depuis le XIIIe siècle jusqu'à nos Jours. _Paris, n. d._ Les Arts de l'Ameublement. GUILMARD, D. Les Maîtres Ornemanistes. _Paris, 1880._ BAUCHAL, CHARLES. Dictionnaire des Architectes Français. _Paris, 1887._ ROUAIX, PAUL. Les Styles. _Paris, n. d._ BIBLIOTHÈQUE DE L'ENSEIGNEMENT DES BEAUX ARTS. Maison Quantin, _Paris_. ENGLISH WARE, ISAAC. A Complete Body of Architecture. _London, 1756._ BRETTINGHAM, MATTHEW. Plans, Elevations and Sections of Holkham in Norfolk, the Seat of the late Earl of Leicester. _London, 1761._ CAMPBELL, COLEN. Vitruvius Britannicus; or, The British Architect. _London, 1771._ ADAM, ROBERT AND JAMES. The Works in Architecture. _London, 1773-1822._ HEPPLEWHITE, A. The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Guide. SHERATON, THOMAS. The Cabinet-Maker's Dictionary. _London, 1803._ PAIN, WILLIAM. The British Palladio; or The Builder's General Assistant. _London, 1797._ SOANE, SIR JOHN. Sketches in Architecture. _London, 1793._ HAKEWILL, ARTHUR WILLIAM. General Plan and External Details, with Picturesque Illustrations, of Thorpe Hall, Peterborough. LEWIS, JAMES. Original Designs in Architecture. PYNE, WILLIAM HENRY. History of the Royal Residences of Windsor Castle, St. James's Palace, Carlton House, Kensington Palace, Hampton Court, Buckingham Palace, and Frogmore. _London, 1819._ GWILT, JOSEPH. Encyclopedia of Architecture. New edition. _Longman's, 1895._ FERGUSSON, JAMES. History of Architecture. _London, 1874._ History of the Modern Styles of Architecture. Third edition, revised by Robert Kerr. _London, 1891._ GOTCH, JOHN ALFRED. Architecture of the Renaissance in England. HEATON, JOHN ALDAM. Furniture and Decoration in England in the Eighteenth Century. ROSENGARTEN. Handbook of Architectural Styles. _New York, 1876._ HORNE, H. P. The Binding of Books. _London, 1894._ LOFTIE, W. J. Inigo Jones and Christopher Wren. _London, 1893._ KERR, ROBERT. The English Gentleman's House. _London, 1865._ STEVENSON, J. J. House Architecture. _London, 1880._ GERMAN AND ITALIAN BURCKHARDT, JACOB. Architektur der Renaissance in Italien. _Stuttgart, 1891._ REINHARDT. Palast Architektur von Ober Italien und Toskana. GURLITT, CORNELIUS. Geschichte des Barockstiles in Italien. _Stuttgart, 1887._ EBE, GUSTAV. Die Spät-Renaissance. _Berlin, 1886._ LA VILLA BORGHESE, FUORI DI PORTA PINCIANA, CON L'ORNAMENTI CHE SI OSSERVANO NEL DI LEI PALAZZO. _Roma, 1700._ INTRA, G. B. Mantova nei suoi Monumenti. LUZIO E RENIER. Mantova e Urbino. _Torino-Roma, 1893._ MOLMENTI, POMPEO. La Storia di Venezia nella Vita Privata. _Torino, 1885._ MALAMANI, VITTORIO. Il Settecento a Venezia. _Milano, 1895._ LA VITA ITALIANA NEL SEICENTO. CONFERENZE TENUTE A FIRENZE NEL 1890. INTRODUCTION Rooms may be decorated in two ways: by a superficial application of ornament totally independent of structure, or by means of those architectural features which are part of the organism of every house, inside as well as out. In the middle ages, when warfare and brigandage shaped the conditions of life, and men camped in their castles much as they did in their tents, it was natural that decorations should be portable, and that the naked walls of the mediæval chamber should be hung with arras, while a _ciel_, or ceiling, of cloth stretched across the open timbers of its roof. When life became more secure, and when the Italian conquests of the Valois had acquainted men north of the Alps with the spirit of classic tradition, proportion and the relation of voids to masses gradually came to be regarded as the chief decorative values of the interior. Portable hangings were in consequence replaced by architectural ornament: in other words, the architecture of the room became its decoration. This architectural treatment held its own through every change of taste until the second quarter of the present century; but since then various influences have combined to sever the natural connection between the outside of the modern house and its interior. In the average house the architect's task seems virtually confined to the elevations and floor-plan. The designing of what are to-day regarded as insignificant details, such as mouldings, architraves, and cornices, has become a perfunctory work, hurried over and unregarded; and when this work is done, the upholsterer is called in to "decorate" and furnish the rooms. As the result of this division of labor, house-decoration has ceased to be a branch of architecture. The upholsterer cannot be expected to have the preliminary training necessary for architectural work, and it is inevitable that in his hands form should be sacrificed to color and composition to detail. In his ignorance of the legitimate means of producing certain effects, he is driven to all manner of expedients, the result of which is a piling up of heterogeneous ornament, a multiplication of incongruous effects; and lacking, as he does, a definite first conception, his work becomes so involved that it seems impossible for him to make an end. The confusion resulting from these unscientific methods has reflected itself in the lay mind, and house-decoration has come to be regarded as a black art by those who have seen their rooms subjected to the manipulations of the modern upholsterer. Now, in the hands of decorators who understand the fundamental principles of their art, the surest effects are produced, not at the expense of simplicity and common sense, but by observing the requirements of both. These requirements are identical with those regulating domestic architecture, the chief end in both cases being the suitable accommodation of the inmates of the house. The fact that this end has in a measure been lost sight of is perhaps sufficient warrant for the publication of this elementary sketch. No study of _house-decoration as a branch of architecture_ has for at least fifty years been published in England or America; and though France is always producing admirable monographs on isolated branches of this subject, there is no modern French work corresponding with such comprehensive manuals as d'Aviler's _Cours d'Architecture_ or Isaac Ware's _Complete Body of Architecture_. The attempt to remedy this deficiency in some slight degree has made it necessary to dwell at length upon the strictly architectural principles which controlled the work of the old decorators. The effects that they aimed at having been based mainly on the due adjustment of parts, it has been impossible to explain their methods without assuming their standpoint--that of _architectural proportion_--in contradistinction to the modern view of house-decoration as _superficial application of ornament_. When house-decoration was a part of architecture all its values were founded on structural modifications; consequently it may seem that ideas to be derived from a study of such methods suggest changes too radical for those who are not building, but are merely decorating. Such changes, in fact, lie rather in the direction of alteration than of adornment; but it must be remembered that the results attained will be of greater decorative value than were an equal expenditure devoted to surface-ornament. Moreover, the great decorators, if scrupulous in the observance of architectural principles, were ever governed, in the use of ornamental detail, by the [Greek: sôphrosynê], the "wise moderation," of the Greeks; and the rooms of the past were both simpler in treatment and freer from mere embellishments than those of to-day. Besides, if it be granted for the sake of argument that a reform in house-decoration, if not necessary, is at least desirable, it must be admitted that such reform can originate only with those whose means permit of any experiments which their taste may suggest. When the rich man demands good architecture his neighbors will get it too. The vulgarity of current decoration has its source in the indifference of the wealthy to architectural fitness. Every good moulding, every carefully studied detail, exacted by those who can afford to indulge their taste, will in time find its way to the carpenter-built cottage. Once the right precedent is established, it costs less to follow than to oppose it. In conclusion, it may be well to explain the seeming lack of accord between the arguments used in this book and the illustrations chosen to interpret them. While much is said of simplicity, the illustrations used are chiefly taken from houses of some importance. This has been done in order that only such apartments as are accessible to the traveller might be given as examples. Unprofessional readers will probably be more interested in studying rooms that they have seen, or at least heard of, than those in the ordinary private dwelling; and the arguments advanced are indirectly sustained by the most ornate rooms here shown, since their effect is based on such harmony of line that their superficial ornament might be removed without loss to the composition. Moreover, as some of the illustrations prove, the most magnificent palaces of Europe contain rooms as simple as those in any private house; and to point out that simplicity is at home even in palaces is perhaps not the least service that may be rendered to the modern decorator. [Illustration: _PLATE I._ ITALIAN GOTHIC CHEST. MUSEUM OF THE BARGELLO, FLORENCE.] I THE HISTORICAL TRADITION The last ten years have been marked by a notable development in architecture and decoration, and while France will long retain her present superiority in these arts, our own advance is perhaps more significant than that of any other country. When we measure the work recently done in the United States by the accepted architectural standards of ten years ago, the change is certainly striking, especially in view of the fact that our local architects and decorators are without the countless advantages in the way of schools, museums and libraries which are at the command of their European colleagues. In Paris, for instance, it is impossible to take even a short walk without finding inspiration in those admirable buildings, public and private, religious and secular, that bear the stamp of the most refined taste the world has known since the decline of the arts in Italy; and probably all American architects will acknowledge that no amount of travel abroad and study at home can compensate for the lack of daily familiarity with such monuments. It is therefore all the more encouraging to note the steady advance in taste and knowledge to which the most recent architecture in America bears witness. This advance is chiefly due to the fact that American architects are beginning to perceive two things that their French colleagues, among all the modern vagaries of taste, have never quite lost sight of: first that architecture and decoration, having wandered since 1800 in a labyrinth of dubious eclecticism, can be set right only by a close study of the best models; and secondly that, given the requirements of modern life, these models are chiefly to be found in buildings erected in Italy after the beginning of the sixteenth century, and in other European countries after the full assimilation of the Italian influence. As the latter of these propositions may perhaps be questioned by those who, in admiring the earlier styles, sometimes lose sight of their relative unfitness for modern use, it must be understood at the outset that it implies no disregard for the inherent beauties of these styles. It would be difficult, assuredly, to find buildings better suited to their original purpose than some of the great feudal castles, such as Warwick in England, or Langeais in France; and as much might be said of the grim machicolated palaces of republican Florence or Siena; but our whole mode of life has so entirely changed since the days in which these buildings were erected that they no longer answer to our needs. It is only necessary to picture the lives led in those days to see how far removed from them our present social conditions are. Inside and outside the house, all told of the unsettled condition of country or town, the danger of armed attack, the clumsy means of defence, the insecurity of property, the few opportunities of social intercourse as we understand it. A man's house was in very truth his castle in the middle ages, and in France and England especially it remained so until the end of the sixteenth century. Thus it was that many needs arose: the tall keep of masonry where the inmates, pent up against attack, awaited the signal of the watchman who, from his platform or _échauguette_, gave warning of assault; the ponderous doors, oak-ribbed and metal-studded, with doorways often narrowed to prevent entrance of two abreast, and so low that the incomer had to bend his head; the windows that were mere openings or slits, narrow and high, far out of the assailants' reach, and piercing the walls without regard to symmetry--not, as Ruskin would have us believe, because irregularity was thought artistic, but because the mediæval architect, trained to the uses of necessity, knew that he must design openings that should afford no passage to the besiegers' arrows, no clue to what was going on inside the keep. But to the reader familiar with Viollet-le-Duc, or with any of the many excellent works on English domestic architecture, further details will seem superfluous. It is necessary, however, to point out that long after the conditions of life in Europe had changed, houses retained many features of the feudal period. The survival of obsolete customs which makes the study of sociology so interesting, has its parallel in the history of architecture. In the feudal countries especially, where the conflict between the great nobles and the king was of such long duration that civilization spread very slowly, architecture was proportionately slow to give up many of its feudal characteristics. In Italy, on the contrary, where one city after another succumbed to some accomplished condottiere who between his campaigns read Virgil and collected antique marbles, the rugged little republics were soon converted into brilliant courts where, life being relatively secure, social intercourse rapidly developed. This change of conditions brought with it the paved street and square, the large-windowed palaces with their great court-yards and stately open staircases, and the market-place with its loggia adorned with statues and marble seats. Italy, in short, returned instinctively to the Roman ideal of civic life: the life of the street, the forum and the baths. These very conditions, though approaching so much nearer than feudalism to our modern civilization, in some respects make the Italian architecture of the Renaissance less serviceable as a model than the French and English styles later developed from it. The very dangers and barbarities of feudalism had fostered and preserved the idea of home as of something private, shut off from intrusion; and while the Roman ideal flowered in the great palace with its galleries, loggias and saloons, itself a kind of roofed-in forum, the French or English feudal keep became, by the same process of growth, the modern private house. The domestic architecture of the Renaissance in Italy offers but two distinctively characteristic styles of building: the palace and the villa or hunting-lodge.[1] There is nothing corresponding in interior arrangements with the French or English town house, or the _manoir_ where the provincial nobles lived all the year round. The villa was a mere perch used for a few weeks of gaiety in spring or autumn; it was never a home as the French or English country-house was. There were, of course, private houses in Renaissance Italy, but these were occupied rather by shopkeepers, craftsmen, and the _bourgeoisie_ than by the class which in France and England lived in country houses or small private hôtels. The elevations of these small Italian houses are often admirable examples of domestic architecture, but their planning is rudimentary, and it may be said that the characteristic tendencies of modern house-planning were developed rather in the mezzanin or low-studded intermediate story of the Italian Renaissance palace than in the small house of the same period. It is a fact recognized by political economists that changes in manners and customs, no matter under what form of government, usually originate with the wealthy or aristocratic minority, and are thence transmitted to the other classes. Thus the _bourgeois_ of one generation lives more like the aristocrat of a previous generation than like his own predecessors. This rule naturally holds good of house-planning, and it is for this reason that the origin of modern house-planning should be sought rather in the prince's mezzanin than in the small middle-class dwelling. The Italian mezzanin probably originated in the habit of building certain very high-studded saloons and of lowering the ceiling of the adjoining rooms. This created an intermediate story, or rather scattered intermediate rooms, which Bramante was among the first to use in the planning of his palaces; but Bramante did not reveal the existence of the mezzanin in his façades, and it was not until the time of Peruzzi and his contemporaries that it became, both in plan and elevation, an accepted part of the Italian palace. It is for this reason that the year 1500 is a convenient point from which to date the beginning of modern house-planning; but it must be borne in mind that this date is purely arbitrary, and represents merely an imaginary line drawn between mediæval and modern ways of living and house-planning, as exemplified respectively, for instance, in the ducal palace of Urbino, built by Luciano da Laurano about 1468, and the palace of the Massimi alle Colonne in Rome, built by Baldassare Peruzzi during the first half of the sixteenth century. The lives of the great Italian nobles were essentially open-air lives: all was organized with a view to public pageants, ceremonies and entertainments. Domestic life was subordinated to this spectacular existence, and instead of building private houses in our sense, they built palaces, of which they set aside a portion for the use of the family. Every Italian palace has its mezzanin or private apartment; but this part of the building is now seldom seen by travellers in Italy. Not only is it usually inhabited by the owners of the palace but, its decorations being simpler than those of the _piano nobile_, or principal story, it is not thought worthy of inspection. As a matter of fact, the treatment of the mezzanin was generally most beautiful, because most suitable; and while the Italian Renaissance palace can seldom serve as a model for a modern private house, the decoration of the mezzanin rooms is full of appropriate suggestion. In France and England, on the other hand, private life was gradually, though slowly, developing along the lines it still follows in the present day. It is necessary to bear in mind that what we call modern civilization was a later growth in these two countries than in Italy. If this fact is insisted upon, it is only because it explains the relative unsuitability of French Renaissance or Tudor and Elizabethan architecture to modern life. In France, for instance, it was not until the Fronde was subdued and Louis XIV firmly established on the throne, that the elements which compose what we call modern life really began to combine. In fact, it might be said that the feudalism of which the Fronde was the lingering expression had its counterpart in the architecture of the period. While long familiarity with Italy was beginning to tell upon the practical side of house-planning, many obsolete details were still preserved. Even the most enthusiastic admirer of the French Renaissance would hardly maintain that the houses of that period are what we should call in the modern sense "convenient." It would be impossible for a modern family to occupy with any degree of comfort the Hôtel Voguë at Dijon, one of the best examples (as originally planned) of sixteenth-century domestic architecture in France.[2] The same objection applies to the furniture of the period. This arose from the fact that, owing to the unsettled state of the country, the landed proprietor always carried his furniture with him when he travelled from one estate to another. Furniture, in the vocabulary of the middle ages, meant something which may be transported: "Meubles sont apelez qu'on peut transporter";--hence the lack of variety in furniture before the seventeenth century, and also its unsuitableness to modern life. Chairs and cabinets that had to be carried about on mule-back were necessarily somewhat stiff and angular in design. It is perhaps not too much to say that a comfortable chair, in our self-indulgent modern sense, did not exist before the Louis XIV arm-chair (see Plate IV); and the cushioned _bergère_, the ancestor of our upholstered easy-chair, cannot be traced back further than the Regency. Prior to the time of Louis XIV, the most luxurious people had to content themselves with hard straight-backed seats. The necessities of transportation permitted little variety of design, and every piece of furniture was constructed with the double purpose of being easily carried about and of being used as a trunk (see Plate I). As Havard says, "Tout meuble se traduisait par un coffre." The unvarying design of the cabinets is explained by the fact that they were made to form two trunks,[3] and even the chairs and settles had hollow seats which could be packed with the owners' wardrobe (see Plate II). The king himself, when he went from one château to another, carried all his furniture with him, and it is thus not surprising that lesser people contented themselves with a few substantial chairs and cabinets, and enough arras or cloth of Douai to cover the draughty walls of their country-houses. One of Madame de Sévigné's letters gives an amusing instance of the scarceness of furniture even in the time of Louis XIV. In describing a fire in a house near her own hôtel in Paris, she says that one or two of the persons from the burning house were brought to her for shelter, because it was known in the neighborhood (at that time a rich and fashionable one) that she had _an extra bed_ in the house! [Illustration: _PLATE II._ FRENCH CHAIRS, XV AND XVI CENTURIES. FROM THE GAVET COLLECTION.] It was not until the social influences of the reign of Louis XIV were fully established that modern domestic life really began. Tradition ascribes to Madame de Rambouillet a leading share in the advance in practical house-planning; but probably what she did is merely typical of the modifications which the new social conditions were everywhere producing. It is certain that at this time houses and rooms first began to be comfortable. The immense cavernous fireplaces originally meant for the roasting of beeves and the warming of a flock of frozen retainers,--"les grandes antiquailles de cheminées," as Madame de Sévigné called them,--were replaced by the compact chimney-piece of modern times. Cushioned _bergères_ took the place of the throne-like seats of Louis XIII, screens kept off unwelcome draughts, Savonnerie or moquette carpets covered the stone or marble floors, and grandeur gave way to luxury.[4] English architecture having followed a line of development so similar that it need not here be traced, it remains only to examine in detail the opening proposition, namely, that modern architecture and decoration, having in many ways deviated from the paths which the experience of the past had marked out for them, can be reclaimed only by a study of the best models. It might of course be said that to attain this end originality is more necessary than imitativeness. To this it may be replied that no lost art can be re-acquired without at least for a time going back to the methods and manner of those who formerly practised it; or the objection may be met by the question, What is originality in art? Perhaps it is easier to define what it is _not_; and this may be done by saying that it is never a wilful rejection of what have been accepted as the necessary laws of the various forms of art. Thus, in reasoning, originality lies not in discarding the necessary laws of thought, but in using them to express new intellectual conceptions; in poetry, originality consists not in discarding the necessary laws of rhythm, but in finding new rhythms within the limits of those laws. Most of the features of architecture that have persisted through various fluctuations of taste owe their preservation to the fact that they have been proved by experience to be necessary; and it will be found that none of them precludes the exercise of individual taste, any more than the acceptance of the syllogism or of the laws of rhythm prevents new thinkers and new poets from saying what has never been said before. Once this is clearly understood, it will be seen that the supposed conflict between originality and tradition is no conflict at all.[5] In citing logic and poetry, those arts have been purposely chosen of which the laws will perhaps best help to explain and illustrate the character of architectural limitations. A building, for whatever purpose erected, must be built in strict accordance with the requirements of that purpose; in other words, it must have a reason for being as it is and must be as it is for that reason. Its decoration must harmonize with the structural limitations (which is by no means the same thing as saying that all decoration must be structural), and from this harmony of the general scheme of decoration with the building, and of the details of the decoration with each other, springs the rhythm that distinguishes architecture from mere construction. Thus all good architecture and good decoration (which, it must never be forgotten, _is only interior architecture_) must be based on rhythm and logic. A house, or room, must be planned as it is because it could not, in reason, be otherwise; must be decorated as it is because no other decoration would harmonize as well with the plan. [Illustration: _PLATE III._ FRENCH ARMOIRE, XVI CENTURY.] Many of the most popular features in modern house-planning and decoration will not be found to stand this double test. Often (as will be shown further on) they are merely survivals of earlier social conditions, and have been preserved in obedience to that instinct that makes people cling to so many customs the meaning of which is lost. In other cases they have been revived by the archæologizing spirit which is so characteristic of the present time, and which so often leads its possessors to think that a thing must be beautiful because it is old and appropriate because it is beautiful. But since the beauty of all such features depends on their appropriateness, they may in every case be replaced by a more suitable form of treatment without loss to the general effect of house or room. It is this which makes it important that each room (or, better still, all the rooms) in a house should receive the same style of decoration. To some people this may seem as meaningless a piece of archaism as the habit of using obsolete fragments of planning or decoration; but such is not the case. It must not be forgotten, in discussing the question of reproducing certain styles, that the essence of a style lies not in its use of ornament, but in its handling of proportion. Structure conditions ornament, not ornament structure. That is, a room with unsuitably proportioned openings, wall-spaces and cornice might receive a surface application of Louis XV or Louis XVI ornament and not represent either of those styles of decoration; whereas a room constructed according to the laws of proportion accepted in one or the other of those periods, in spite of a surface application of decorative detail widely different in character,--say Romanesque or Gothic,--would yet maintain its distinctive style, because the detail, in conforming with the laws of proportion governing the structure of the room, must necessarily conform with its style. In other words, decoration is always subservient to proportion; and a room, whatever its decoration may be, must represent the style to which its proportions belong. The less cannot include the greater. Unfortunately it is usually by ornamental details, rather than by proportion, that people distinguish one style from another. To many persons, garlands, bow-knots, quivers, and a great deal of gilding represent the Louis XVI style; if they object to these, they condemn the style. To an architect familiar with the subject the same style means something absolutely different. He knows that a Louis XVI room may exist without any of these or similar characteristics; and he often deprecates their use as representing the cheaper and more trivial effects of the period, and those that have most helped to vulgarize it. In fact, in nine cases out of ten his use of them is a concession to the client who, having asked for a Louis XVI room, would not know he had got it were these details left out.[6] Another thing which has perhaps contributed to make people distrustful of "styles" is the garbled form in which they are presented by some architects. After a period of eclecticism that has lasted long enough to make architects and decorators lose their traditional habits of design, there has arisen a sudden demand for "style." It necessarily follows that only the most competent are ready to respond to this unexpected summons. Much has to be relearned, still more to be unlearned. The essence of the great styles lay in proportion and the science of proportion is not to be acquired in a day. In fact, in such matters the cultivated layman, whether or not he has any special familiarity with the different schools of architecture, is often a better judge than the half-educated architect. It is no wonder that people of taste are disconcerted by the so-called "colonial" houses where stair-rails are used as roof-balustrades and mantel-friezes as exterior entablatures, or by Louis XV rooms where the wavy movement which, in the best rococo, was always an ornamental incident and never broke up the main lines of the design, is suffered to run riot through the whole treatment of the walls, so that the bewildered eye seeks in vain for a straight line amid the whirl of incoherent curves. [Illustration: _PLATE IV._ FRENCH SOFA AND ARMCHAIR, LOUIS XIV PERIOD. FROM THE CHÂTEAU DE BERCY.] To conform to a style, then, is to accept those rules of proportion which the artistic experience of centuries has established as the best, while within those limits allowing free scope to the individual requirements which must inevitably modify every house or room adapted to the use and convenience of its occupants. There is one thing more to be said in defence of conformity to style; and that is, the difficulty of getting rid of style. Strive as we may for originality, we are hampered at every turn by an artistic tradition of over two thousand years. Does any but the most inexperienced architect really think that he can ever rid himself of such an inheritance? He may mutilate or misapply the component parts of his design, but he cannot originate a whole new architectural alphabet. The chances are that he will not find it easy to invent one wholly new moulding. The styles especially suited to modern life have already been roughly indicated as those prevailing in Italy since 1500, in France from the time of Louis XIV, and in England since the introduction of the Italian manner by Inigo Jones; and as the French and English styles are perhaps more familiar to the general reader, the examples given will usually be drawn from these. Supposing the argument in favor of these styles to have been accepted, at least as a working hypothesis, it must be explained why, in each room, the decoration and furniture should harmonize. Most people will admit the necessity of harmonizing the colors in a room, because a feeling for color is more general than a feeling for form; but in reality the latter is the more important in decoration, and it is the feeling for form, and not any archæological affectation, which makes the best decorators insist upon the necessity of keeping to the same style of furniture and decoration. Thus the massive dimensions and heavy panelling of a seventeenth-century room would dwarf a set of eighteenth-century furniture; and the wavy, capricious movement of Louis XV decoration would make the austere yet delicate lines of Adam furniture look stiff and mean. Many persons object not only to any attempt at uniformity of style, but to the use of any recognized style in the decoration of a room. They characterize it, according to their individual views, as "servile," "formal," or "pretentious." It has already been suggested that to conform within rational limits to a given style is no more servile than to pay one's taxes or to write according to the rules of grammar. As to the accusations of formality and pretentiousness (which are more often made in America than elsewhere), they may probably be explained by the fact that most Americans necessarily form their idea of the great European styles from public buildings and palaces. Certainly, if an architect were to propose to his client to decorate a room in a moderate-sized house in the Louis XIV style, and if the client had formed his idea of that style from the state apartments in the palace at Versailles, he would be justified in rejecting the proposed treatment as absolutely unsuitable to modern private life; whereas the architect who had gone somewhat more deeply into the subject might have singled out the style as eminently suitable, having in mind one of the simple panelled rooms, with tall windows, a dignified fireplace, large tables and comfortable arm-chairs, which were to be found in the private houses of the same period (see Plate V). It is the old story of the two knights fighting about the color of the shield. Both architect and client would be right, but they would be looking at the different sides of the question. As a matter of fact, the bed-rooms, sitting-rooms, libraries and other private apartments in the smaller dwelling-houses built in Europe between 1650 and 1800 were far simpler, less pretentious and more practical in treatment than those in the average modern house. [Illustration: _PLATE V._ ROOM IN THE GRAND TRIANON, VERSAILLES. (EXAMPLE OF SIMPLE LOUIS XIV DECORATION.)] It is therefore hoped that the antagonists of "style," when they are shown that to follow a certain style is not to sacrifice either convenience or imagination, but to give more latitude to both, will withdraw an opposition which seems to be based on a misapprehension of facts. Hitherto architecture and decoration have been spoken of as one, as in any well-designed house they ought to be. Indeed, it is one of the numerous disadvantages of the present use of styles, that unless the architect who has built the house also decorates it, the most hopeless discord is apt to result. This was otherwise before our present desire for variety had thrown architects, decorators, and workmen out of the regular routine of their business. Before 1800 the decorator called upon to treat the interior of a house invariably found a suitable background prepared for his work, while much in the way of detail was intrusted to the workmen, who were trained in certain traditions instead of being called upon to carry out in each new house the vagaries of a different designer. But it is with the decorator's work alone that these pages are concerned, and the above digression is intended to explain why his task is now so difficult, and why his results are so often unsatisfactory to himself as well as to his clients. The decorator of the present day may be compared to a person who is called upon to write a letter in the English language, but is ordered, in so doing, to conform to the Chinese or Egyptian rules of grammar, or possibly to both together. By the use of a little common sense and a reasonable conformity to those traditions of design which have been tested by generations of architects, it is possible to produce great variety in the decoration of rooms without losing sight of the purpose for which they are intended. Indeed, the more closely this purpose is kept in view, and the more clearly it is expressed in all the details of each room, the more pleasing that room will be, so that it is easy to make a room with tinted walls, deal furniture and dimity curtains more beautiful, because more logical and more harmonious, than a ball-room lined with gold and marbles, in which the laws of rhythm and logic have been ignored. [Illustration: _PLATE VI._ FRENCH ARMCHAIR, LOUIS XV PERIOD.] FOOTNOTES: [1] Charming as the Italian villa is, it can hardly be used in our Northern States without certain modifications, unless it is merely occupied for a few weeks in mid-summer; whereas the average French or English country house built after 1600 is perfectly suited to our climate and habits. The chief features of the Italian villa are the open central _cortile_ and the large saloon two stories high. An adaptation of these better suited to a cold climate is to be found in the English country houses built in the Palladian manner after its introduction by Inigo Jones. See Campbell's _Vitruvius Britannicus_ for numerous examples. [2] The plan of the Hôtel Voguë has been greatly modified. [3] Cabinets retained this shape after the transporting of furniture had ceased to be a necessity (see Plate III). [4] It must be remembered that in describing the decoration of any given period, we refer to the private houses, not the royal palaces, of that period. Versailles was more splendid than any previous palace; but private houses at that date were less splendid, though far more luxurious, than during the Renaissance. [5] "Si l'on dispose un édifice d'une manière convenable à l'usage auquel on le destine, ne différera-t-il pas sensiblement d'un autre édifice destiné à un autre usage? N'aura-t-il pas naturellement un caractère, et, qui plus est, son caractère propre?" J. L. N. Durand. _Précis des Leçons d'Architecture données à l'École Royale Polytechnique._ Paris, 1823. [6] It must not be forgotten that the so-called "styles" of Louis XIV, Louis XV and Louis XVI were, in fact, only the gradual development of one organic style, and hence differed only in the superficial use of ornament. II ROOMS IN GENERAL Before beginning to decorate a room it is essential to consider for what purpose the room is to be used. It is not enough to ticket it with some such general designation as "library," "drawing-room," or "den." The individual tastes and habits of the people who are to occupy it must be taken into account; it must be not "a library," or "a drawing-room," but the library or the drawing-room best suited to the master or mistress of the house which is being decorated. Individuality in house-furnishing has seldom been more harped upon than at the present time. That cheap originality which finds expression in putting things to uses for which they were not intended is often confounded with individuality; whereas the latter consists not in an attempt to be different from other people at the cost of comfort, but in the desire to be comfortable in one's own way, even though it be the way of a monotonously large majority. It seems easier to most people to arrange a room like some one else's than to analyze and express their own needs. Men, in these matters, are less exacting than women, because their demands, besides being simpler, are uncomplicated by the feminine tendency to want things because other people have them, rather than to have things because they are wanted. But it must never be forgotten that every one is unconsciously tyrannized over by the wants of others,--the wants of dead and gone predecessors, who have an inconvenient way of thrusting their different habits and tastes across the current of later existences. The unsatisfactory relations of some people with their rooms are often to be explained in this way. They have still in their blood the traditional uses to which these rooms were put in times quite different from the present. It is only an unconscious extension of the conscious habit which old-fashioned people have of clinging to their parents' way of living. The difficulty of reconciling these instincts with our own comfort and convenience, and the various compromises to which they lead in the arrangement of our rooms, will be more fully dealt with in the following chapters. To go to the opposite extreme and discard things because they are old-fashioned is equally unreasonable. The golden mean lies in trying to arrange our houses with a view to our own comfort and convenience; and it will be found that the more closely we follow this rule the easier our rooms will be to furnish and the pleasanter to live in. People whose attention has never been specially called to the _raison d'être_ of house-furnishing sometimes conclude that because a thing is unusual it is artistic, or rather that through some occult process the most ordinary things become artistic by being used in an unusual manner; while others, warned by the visible results of this theory of furnishing, infer that everything artistic is unpractical. In the Anglo-Saxon mind beauty is not spontaneously born of material wants, as it is with the Latin races. We have to _make_ things beautiful; they do not grow so of themselves. The necessity of making this effort has caused many people to put aside the whole problem of beauty and fitness in household decoration as something mysterious and incomprehensible to the uninitiated. The architect and decorator are often aware that they are regarded by their clients as the possessors of some strange craft like black magic or astrology. This fatalistic attitude has complicated the simple and intelligible process of house-furnishing, and has produced much of the discomfort which causes so many rooms to be shunned by everybody in the house, in spite (or rather because) of all the money and ingenuity expended on their arrangement. Yet to penetrate the mystery of house-furnishing it is only necessary to analyze one satisfactory room and to notice wherein its charm lies. To the fastidious eye it will, of course, be found in fitness of proportion, in the proper use of each moulding and in the harmony of all the decorative processes; and even to those who think themselves indifferent to such detail, much of the sense of restfulness and comfort produced by certain rooms depends on the due adjustment of their fundamental parts. Different rooms minister to different wants and while a room may be made very livable without satisfying any but the material requirements of its inmates it is evident that the perfect room should combine these qualities with what corresponds to them in a higher order of needs. At present, however, the subject deals only with the material livableness of a room, and this will generally be found to consist in the position of the doors and fireplace, the accessibility of the windows, the arrangement of the furniture, the privacy of the room and the absence of the superfluous. The position of doors and fireplace, though the subject comes properly under the head of house-planning, may be included in this summary, because in rearranging a room it is often possible to change its openings, or at any rate, in the case of doors, to modify their dimensions. The fireplace must be the focus of every rational scheme of arrangement. Nothing is so dreary, so hopeless to deal with, as a room in which the fireplace occupies a narrow space between two doors, so that it is impossible to sit about the hearth.[7] Next in importance come the windows. In town houses especially, where there is so little light that every ray is precious to the reader or worker, window-space is invaluable. Yet in few rooms are the windows easy of approach, free from useless draperies and provided with easy-chairs so placed that the light falls properly on the occupant's work. It is no exaggeration to say that many houses are deserted by the men of the family for lack of those simple comforts which they find at their clubs: windows unobscured by layers of muslin, a fireplace surrounded by easy-chairs and protected from draughts, well-appointed writing-tables and files of papers and magazines. Who cannot call to mind the dreary drawing-room, in small town houses the only possible point of reunion for the family, but too often, in consequence of its exquisite discomfort, of no more use as a meeting-place than the vestibule or the cellar? The windows in this kind of room are invariably supplied with two sets of muslin curtains, one hanging against the panes, the other fulfilling the supererogatory duty of hanging against the former; then come the heavy stuff curtains, so draped as to cut off the upper light of the windows by day, while it is impossible to drop them at night: curtains that have thus ceased to serve the purpose for which they exist. Close to the curtains stands the inevitable lamp or jardinière, and the wall-space between the two windows, where a writing-table might be put, is generally taken up by a cabinet or console, surmounted by a picture made invisible by the dark shadow of the hangings. The writing-table might find place against the side-wall near either window; but these spaces are usually sacred to the piano and to that modern futility, the silver-table. Thus of necessity the writing-table is either banished or put in some dark corner, where it is little wonder that the ink dries unused and a vase of flowers grows in the middle of the blotting-pad. [Illustration: _PLATE VII._ FRENCH BERGÈRE, LOUIS XVI PERIOD.] The hearth should be the place about which people gather; but the mantelpiece in the average American house, being ugly, is usually covered with inflammable draperies; the fire is, in consequence, rarely lit, and no one cares to sit about a fireless hearth. Besides, on the opposite side of the room is a gap in the wall eight or ten feet wide, opening directly upon the hall, and exposing what should be the most private part of the room to the scrutiny of messengers, servants and visitors. This opening is sometimes provided with doors; but these, as a rule, are either slid into the wall or are unhung and replaced by a curtain through which every word spoken in the room must necessarily pass. In such a room it matters very little how the rest of the furniture is arranged, since it is certain that no one will ever sit in it except the luckless visitor who has no other refuge. Even the visitor might be thought entitled to the solace of a few books; but as all the tables in the room are littered with knick-knacks, it is difficult for the most philanthropic hostess to provide even this slight alleviation. When the town-house is built on the basement plan, and the drawing-room or parlor is up-stairs, the family, to escape from its discomforts, habitually take refuge in the small room opening off the hall on the ground floor; so that instead of sitting in a room twenty or twenty-five feet wide, they are packed into one less than half that size and exposed to the frequent intrusions from which, in basement houses, the drawing-room is free. But too often even the "little room down-stairs" is arranged less like a sitting-room in a private house than a waiting-room at a fashionable doctor's or dentist's. It has the inevitable yawning gap in the wall, giving on the hall close to the front door, and is either the refuge of the ugliest and most uncomfortable furniture in the house, or, even if furnished with taste, is arranged with so little regard to comfort that one might as well make it part of the hall, as is often done in rearranging old houses. This habit of sacrificing a useful room to the useless widening of the hall is indeed the natural outcome of furnishing rooms of this kind in so unpractical a way that their real usefulness has ceased to be apparent. The science of restoring wasted rooms to their proper uses is one of the most important and least understood branches of house-furnishing. Privacy would seem to be one of the first requisites of civilized life, yet it is only necessary to observe the planning and arrangement of the average house to see how little this need is recognized. Each room in a house has its individual uses: some are made to sleep in, others are for dressing, eating, study, or conversation; but whatever the uses of a room, they are seriously interfered with if it be not preserved as a small world by itself. If the drawing-room be a part of the hall and the library a part of the drawing-room, all three will be equally unfitted to serve their special purpose. The indifference to privacy which has sprung up in modern times, and which in France, for instance, has given rise to the grotesque conceit of putting sheets of plate-glass between two rooms, and of replacing doorways by openings fifteen feet wide, is of complex origin. It is probably due in part to the fact that many houses are built and decorated by people unfamiliar with the habits of those for whom they are building. It may be that architect and decorator live in a simpler manner than their clients, and are therefore ready to sacrifice a kind of comfort of which they do not feel the need to the "effects" obtainable by vast openings and extended "vistas." To the untrained observer size often appeals more than proportion and costliness than suitability. In a handsome house such an observer is attracted rather by the ornamental detail than by the underlying purpose of planning and decoration. He sees the beauty of the detail, but not its relation to the whole. He therefore regards it as elegant but useless; and his next step is to infer that there is an inherent elegance in what is useless. Before beginning to decorate a house it is necessary to make a prolonged and careful study of its plan and elevations, both as a whole and in detail. The component parts of an undecorated room are its floor, ceiling, wall-spaces and openings. The openings consist of the doors, windows and fireplace; and of these, as has already been pointed out, the fireplace is the most important in the general scheme of decoration. No room can be satisfactory unless its openings are properly placed and proportioned, and the decorator's task is much easier if he has also been the architect of the house he is employed to decorate; but as this seldom happens his ingenuity is frequently taxed to produce a good design upon the background of a faulty and illogical structure. Much may be done to overcome this difficulty by making slight changes in the proportions of the openings; and the skilful decorator, before applying his scheme of decoration, will do all that he can to correct the fundamental lines of the room. But the result is seldom so successful as if he had built the room, and those who employ different people to build and decorate their houses should at least try to select an architect and a decorator trained in the same school of composition, so that they may come to some understanding with regard to the general harmony of their work. In deciding upon a scheme of decoration, it is necessary to keep in mind the relation of furniture to ornament, and of the room as a whole to other rooms in the house. As in a small house a very large room dwarfs all the others, so a room decorated in a very rich manner will make the simplicity of those about it look mean. Every house should be decorated according to a carefully graduated scale of ornamentation culminating in the most important room of the house; but this plan must be carried out with such due sense of the relation of the rooms to each other that there shall be no violent break in the continuity of treatment. If a white-and-gold drawing-room opens on a hall with a Brussels carpet and papered walls, the drawing-room will look too fine and the hall mean. In the furnishing of each room the same rule should be as carefully observed. The simplest and most cheaply furnished room (provided the furniture be good of its kind, and the walls and carpet unobjectionable in color) will be more pleasing to the fastidious eye than one in which gilded consoles and cabinets of buhl stand side by side with cheap machine-made furniture, and delicate old marquetry tables are covered with trashy china ornaments. [Illustration: _PLATE VIII._ FRENCH BERGÈRE, LOUIS XVI PERIOD.] It is, of course, not always possible to refurnish a room when it is redecorated. Many people must content themselves with using their old furniture, no matter how ugly and ill-assorted it may be; and it is the decorator's business to see that his background helps the furniture to look its best. It is a mistake to think that because the furniture of a room is inappropriate or ugly a good background will bring out these defects. It will, on the contrary, be a relief to the eye to escape from the bad lines of the furniture to the good lines of the walls; and should the opportunity to purchase new furniture ever come, there will be a suitable background ready to show it to the best advantage. Most rooms contain a mixture of good, bad, and indifferent furniture. It is best to adapt the decorative treatment to the best pieces and to discard those which are in bad taste, replacing them, if necessary, by willow chairs and stained deal tables until it is possible to buy something better. When the room is to be refurnished as well as redecorated the client often makes his purchases without regard to the decoration. Besides being an injustice to the decorator, inasmuch as it makes it impossible for him to harmonize his decoration with the furniture, this generally produces a result unsatisfactory to the owner of the house. Neither decoration nor furniture, however good of its kind, can look its best unless each is chosen with reference to the other. It is therefore necessary that the decorator, before planning his treatment of a room, should be told what it is to contain. If a gilt set is put in a room the walls of which are treated in low relief and painted white, the high lights of the gilding will destroy the delicate values of the mouldings, and the walls, at a little distance, will look like flat expanses of whitewashed plaster. When a room is to be furnished and decorated at the smallest possible cost, it must be remembered that the comfort of its occupants depends more on the nature of the furniture than of the wall-decorations or carpet. In a living-room of this kind it is best to tint the walls and put a cheerful drugget on the floor, keeping as much money as possible for the purchase of comfortable chairs and sofas and substantial tables. If little can be spent in buying furniture, willow arm-chairs[8] with denim cushions and solid tables with stained legs and covers of denim or corduroy will be more satisfactory than the "parlor suit" turned out in thousands by the manufacturer of cheap furniture, or the pseudo-Georgian or pseudo-Empire of the dealer in "high-grade goods." Plain bookcases may be made of deal, painted or stained; and a room treated in this way, with a uniform color on the wall, and plenty of lamps and books, is sure to be comfortable and can never be vulgar. It is to be regretted that, in this country and in England, it should be almost impossible to buy plain but well-designed and substantial furniture. Nothing can exceed the ugliness of the current designs: the bedsteads with towering head-boards fretted by the versatile jig-saw; the "bedroom suits" of "mahoganized" cherry, bird's-eye maple, or some other crude-colored wood; the tables with meaninglessly turned legs; the "Empire" chairs and consoles stuck over with ornaments of cast bronze washed in liquid gilding; and, worst of all, the supposed "Colonial" furniture, that unworthy travesty of a plain and dignified style. All this showy stuff has been produced in answer to the increasing demand for cheap "effects" in place of unobtrusive merit in material and design; but now that an appreciation of better things in architecture is becoming more general, it is to be hoped that the "artistic" furniture disfiguring so many of our shop-windows will no longer find a market. There is no lack of models for manufacturers to copy, if their customers will but demand what is good. France and England, in the eighteenth century, excelled in the making of plain, inexpensive furniture of walnut, mahogany, or painted beechwood (see Plates VII-X). Simple in shape and substantial in construction, this kind of furniture was never tricked out with moulded bronzes and machine-made carving, or covered with liquid gilding, but depended for its effect upon the solid qualities of good material, good design and good workmanship. The eighteenth-century cabinet-maker did not attempt cheap copies of costly furniture; the common sense of his patrons would have resented such a perversion of taste. Were the modern public as fastidious, it would soon be easy to buy good furniture for a moderate price; but until people recognize the essential vulgarity of the pinchbeck article flooding our shops and overflowing upon our sidewalks, manufacturers will continue to offer such wares in preference to better but less showy designs. The worst defects of the furniture now made in America are due to an Athenian thirst for novelty, not always regulated by an Athenian sense of fitness. No sooner is it known that beautiful furniture was made in the time of Marie-Antoinette than an epidemic of supposed "Marie-Antoinette" rooms breaks out over the whole country. Neither purchaser nor manufacturer has stopped to inquire wherein the essentials of the style consist. They know that the rooms of the period were usually painted in light colors, and that the furniture (in palaces) was often gilt and covered with brocade; and it is taken for granted that plenty of white paint, a pale wall-paper with bow-knots, and fragile chairs dipped in liquid gilding and covered with a flowered silk-and-cotton material, must inevitably produce a "Marie-Antoinette" room. According to the creed of the modern manufacturer, you have only to combine certain "goods" to obtain a certain style. This quest of artistic novelties would be encouraging were it based on the desire for something better, rather than for something merely different. The tendency to dash from one style to another, without stopping to analyze the intrinsic qualities of any, has defeated the efforts of those who have tried to teach the true principles of furniture-designing by a return to the best models. If people will buy the stuff now offered them as Empire, Sheraton or Louis XVI, the manufacturer is not to blame for making it. It is not the maker but the purchaser who sets the standard; and there will never be any general supply of better furniture until people take time to study the subject, and find out wherein lies the radical unfitness of what now contents them. Until this golden age arrives the householder who cannot afford to buy old pieces, or to have old models copied by a skilled cabinet-maker, had better restrict himself to the plainest of furniture, relying for the embellishment of his room upon good bookbindings and one or two old porcelain vases for his lamps. Concerning the difficult question of color, it is safe to say that the fewer the colors used in a room, the more pleasing and restful the result will be. A multiplicity of colors produces the same effect as a number of voices talking at the same time. The voices may not be discordant, but continuous chatter is fatiguing in the long run. Each room should speak with but one voice: it should contain one color, which at once and unmistakably asserts its predominance, in obedience to the rule that where there is a division of parts one part shall visibly prevail over all the others. [Illustration: _PLATE IX._ FRENCH SOFA, LOUIS XV PERIOD. TAPESTRY DESIGNED BY BOUCHER.] To attain this result, it is best to use the same color and, if possible, the same material, for curtains and chair-coverings. This produces an impression of unity and gives an air of spaciousness to the room. When the walls are simply panelled in oak or walnut, or are painted in some neutral tones, such as gray and white, the carpet may contrast in color with the curtains and chair-coverings. For instance, in an oak-panelled room crimson curtains and chair-coverings may be used with a dull green carpet, or with one of dark blue patterned in subdued tints; or the color-scheme may be reversed, and green hangings and chair-coverings combined with a plain crimson carpet. Where the walls are covered with tapestry, or hung with a large number of pictures, or, in short, are so treated that they present a variety of colors, it is best that curtains, chair-coverings and carpet should all be of one color and without pattern. Graduated shades of the same color should almost always be avoided; theoretically they seem harmonious, but in reality the light shades look faded in proximity with the darker ones. Though it is well, as a rule, that carpet and hangings should match, exception must always be made in favor of a really fine old Eastern rug. The tints of such rugs are too subdued, too subtly harmonized by time, to clash with any colors the room may contain; but those who cannot cover their floors in this way will do well to use carpets of uniform tint, rather than the gaudy rugs now made in the East. The modern red and green Smyrna or Turkey carpet is an exception. Where the furniture is dark and substantial, and the predominating color is a strong green or crimson, such a carpet is always suitable. These Smyrna carpets are usually well designed; and if their colors be restricted to red and green, with small admixture of dark blue, they harmonize with almost any style of decoration. It is well, as a rule, to shun the decorative schemes concocted by the writers who supply our newspapers with hints for "artistic interiors." The use of such poetic adjectives as jonquil-yellow, willow-green, shell-pink, or ashes-of-roses, gives to these descriptions of the "unique boudoir" or "ideal summer room" a charm which the reality would probably not possess. The arrangements suggested are usually cheap devices based upon the mistaken idea that defects in structure or design may be remedied by an overlaying of color or ornament. This theory often leads to the spending of much more money than would have been required to make one or two changes in the plan of the room, and the result is never satisfactory to the fastidious. There are but two ways of dealing with a room which is fundamentally ugly: one is to accept it, and the other is courageously to correct its ugliness. Half-way remedies are a waste of money and serve rather to call attention to the defects of the room than to conceal them. [Illustration: _PLATE X._ FRENCH MARQUETRY TABLE, LOUIS XVI PERIOD.] FOOTNOTES: [7] There is no objection to putting a fireplace between two doors, provided both doors be at least six feet from the chimney. [8] Not rattan, as the models are too bad. III WALLS Proportion is the good breeding of architecture. It is that something, indefinable to the unprofessional eye, which gives repose and distinction to a room: in its origin a matter of nice mathematical calculation, of scientific adjustment of voids and masses, but in its effects as intangible as that all-pervading essence which the ancients called the soul. It is not proposed to enter here into a technical discussion of the delicate problem of proportion. The decorator, with whom this book is chiefly concerned, is generally not consulted until the house that he is to decorate has been built--and built, in all probability, quite without reference to the interior treatment it is destined to receive. All he can hope to do is, by slight modifications here and there in the dimensions or position of the openings, to re-establish that harmony of parts so frequently disregarded in modern house-planning. It often happens, however, that the decorator's desire to make these slight changes, upon which the success of his whole scheme depends, is a source of perplexity and distress to his bewildered client, who sees in it merely the inclination to find fault with another's work. Nothing can be more natural than this attitude on the part of the client. How is he to decide between the architect, who has possibly disregarded in some measure the claims of symmetry and proportion in planning the interior of the house, and the decorator who insists upon those claims without being able to justify his demands by any explanation comprehensible to the unprofessional? It is inevitable that the decorator, who comes last, should fare worse, especially as he makes his appearance at a time when contractors' bills are pouring in, and the proposition to move a mantelpiece or change the dimensions of a door opens fresh vistas of expense to the client's terrified imagination. Undoubtedly these difficulties have diminished in the last few years. Architects are turning anew to the lost tradition of symmetry and to a scientific study of the relation between voids and masses, and the decorator's task has become correspondingly easier. Still, there are many cases where his work is complicated by some trifling obstacle, the removal of which the client opposes only because he cannot in imagination foresee the improvement which would follow. If the client permits the change to be made, he has no difficulty in appreciating the result: he cannot see it in advance. A few words from Isaac Ware's admirable chapter on "The Origin of Proportions in the Orders"[9] may serve to show the importance of proportion in all schemes of decoration, and the necessity of conforming to certain rules that may at first appear both arbitrary and incomprehensible. "An architect of genius," Ware writes (alluding to the latitude which the ancients allowed themselves in using the orders), "will think himself happy, in designing a building that is to be enriched with the Doric order, that he has all the latitude between two and a half and seventeen for the projecture of its capital; that he can proportion this projecture to the general idea of his building anywhere between these extremes and show his authority. This is an happiness to the person of real genius;... but as all architects are not, nor can be expected to be, of this stamp, it is needful some standard should be established, founded upon what a good taste shall most admire in the antique, and fixed as a model from which to work, or as a test to which we may have recourse in disputes and controversies." If to these words be added his happy definition of the sense of proportion as "fancy under the restraint and conduct of judgment," and his closing caution that "it is mean in the undertaker of a great work to copy strictly, and it is dangerous to give a loose to fancy _without a perfect knowledge how far a variation may be justified_," the unprofessional reader may form some idea of the importance of proportion and of the necessity for observing its rules. If proportion is the good breeding of architecture, symmetry, or the answering of one part to another, may be defined as the sanity of decoration. The desire for symmetry, for balance, for rhythm in form as well as in sound, is one of the most inveterate of human instincts. Yet for years Anglo-Saxons have been taught that to pay any regard to symmetry in architecture or decoration is to truckle to one of the meanest forms of artistic hypocrisy. The master who has taught this strange creed, in words magical enough to win acceptance for any doctrine, has also revealed to his generation so many of the forgotten beauties of early art that it is hard to dispute his principles of æsthetics. As a guide through the byways of art, Mr. Ruskin is entitled to the reverence and gratitude of all; but as a logical exponent of the causes and effects of the beauty he discovers, his authority is certainly open to question. For years he has spent the full force of his unmatched prose in denouncing the enormity of putting a door or a window in a certain place in order that it may correspond to another; nor has he scrupled to declare to the victims of this practice that it leads to abysses of moral as well as of artistic degradation. Time has taken the terror from these threats and architects are beginning to see that a regard for external symmetry, far from interfering with the requirements of house-planning, tends to produce a better, because a more carefully studied, plan, as well as a more convenient distribution of wall-space; but in the lay mind there still lingers not only a vague association between outward symmetry and interior discomfort, between a well-balanced facade and badly distributed rooms, but a still vaguer notion that regard for symmetry indicates poverty of invention, lack of ingenuity and weak subservience to a meaningless form. What the instinct for symmetry means, philosophers may be left to explain; but that it does exist, that it means something, and that it is most strongly developed in those races which have reached the highest artistic civilization, must be acknowledged by all students of sociology. It is, therefore, not superfluous to point out that, in interior decoration as well as in architecture, a regard for symmetry, besides satisfying a legitimate artistic requirement, tends to make the average room not only easier to furnish, but more comfortable to live in. [Illustration _PLATE XI._ DRAWING-ROOM IN BERKELEY SQUARE, LONDON. XVIII CENTURY.] As the effect produced by a room depends chiefly upon the distribution of its openings, it will be well to begin by considering the treatment of the walls. It has already been said that the decorator can often improve a room, not only from the artistic point of view, but as regards the comfort of its inmates, by making some slight change in the position of its openings. Take, for instance, a library in which it is necessary to put the two principal bookcases one on each side of a door or fireplace. If this opening is in the _centre_ of one side of the room, the wall-decorations may be made to balance, and the bookcases may be of the same width,--an arrangement which will give to the room an air of spaciousness and repose. Should the wall-spaces on either side of the opening be of unequal extent, both decorations and bookcases must be modified in size and design; and not only does the problem become more difficult, but the result, because necessarily less simple, is certain to be less satisfactory. Sometimes, on the other hand, convenience is sacrificed to symmetry; and in such cases it is the decorator's business to remedy this defect, while preserving to the eye the aspect of symmetry. A long narrow room may be taken as an example. If the fireplace is in the centre of one of the long sides of the room, with a door directly opposite, the hearth will be without privacy and the room virtually divided into two parts, since, in a narrow room, no one cares to sit in a line with the doorway. This division of the room makes it more difficult to furnish and less comfortable to live in, besides wasting all the floor-space between the chimney and the door. One way of overcoming the difficulty is to move the door some distance down the long side of the room, so that the space about the fireplace is no longer a thoroughfare, and the privacy of the greater part of the room is preserved, even if the door be left open. The removal of the door from the centre of one side of the room having disturbed the equilibrium of the openings, this equilibrium may be restored by placing in a line with the door, at the other end of the same side-wall, a piece of furniture corresponding as nearly as possible in height and width to the door. This will satisfy the eye, which in matters of symmetry demands, not absolute similarity of detail, but merely correspondence of outline and dimensions. It is idle to multiply examples of the various ways in which such readjustments of the openings may increase the comfort and beauty of a room. Every problem in house decoration demands a slightly different application of the same general principles, and the foregoing instances are intended only to show how much depends upon the placing of openings and how reasonable is the decorator's claim to have a share in planning the background upon which his effects are to be produced. It may surprise those whose attention has not been turned to such matters to be told that in all but the most cheaply constructed houses the interior walls are invariably treated as an order. In all houses, even of the poorest kind, the walls of the rooms are finished by a plain projecting board adjoining the floor, surmounted by one or more mouldings. This base, as it is called, is nothing more nor less than the part of an order between shaft and floor, or shaft and pedestal, as the case may be. If it be next remarked that the upper part of the wall, adjoining the ceiling, is invariably finished by a moulded projection corresponding with the crowning member of an order, it will be clear that the shaft, with its capital, has simply been omitted, or that the uniform wall-space between the base and cornice has been regarded as replacing it. In rooms of a certain height and importance the column or pilaster is frequently restored to its proper place between base and cornice; but where such treatment is too monumental for the dimensions of the room, the main lines of the wall-space should none the less be regarded as distinctly architectural, and the decoration applied should be subordinate to the implied existence of an order. (For the application of an order to walls, see Plates XLII and L.) Where the shafts are omitted, the eye undoubtedly feels a lack of continuity in the treatment: the cornice seems to hang in air and the effect produced is unsatisfactory. This is obviated by the use of panelling, the vertical lines carried up at intervals from base to cornice satisfying the need for some visible connection between the upper and lower members of the order. Moreover, if the lines of the openings are carried up to the cornice (as they are in all well-designed schemes of decoration), the openings may be considered as intercolumniations and the intermediate wall-spaces as the shafts or piers supporting the cornice. In well-finished rooms the order is usually imagined as resting, not on the floor, but on pedestals, or rather on a continuous pedestal. This continuous pedestal, or "dado" as it is usually called, is represented by a plinth surmounted by mouldings, by an intermediate member often decorated with tablets or sunk panels with moulded margins, and by a cornice. The use of the dado raises the chief wall-decoration of the room to a level with the eye and prevents its being interrupted or concealed by the furniture which may be placed against the walls. This fact makes it clear that in all well-designed rooms there should be a dado about two and a half feet high. If lower than this, it does not serve its purpose of raising the wall-decoration to a line above the furniture; while the high dado often seen in modern American rooms throws all the rest of the panelling out of scale and loses its own significance as the pedestal supporting an order. In rooms of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when little furniture was used, the dado was often richly ornamented, being sometimes painted with delicate arabesques corresponding with those on the doors and inside shutters. As rooms grew smaller and the quantity of furniture increased so much that the dado was almost concealed, the treatment of the latter was wisely simplified, being reduced, as a rule, to sunk panels and a few strongly marked mouldings. The decorator cannot do better than plan the ornamentation of his dado according to the amount of furniture to be placed against the walls. In corridor or antechamber, or in a ball-room, the dado may receive a more elaborate treatment than is necessary in a library or drawing-room, where probably much less of it will be seen. It was not unusual, in the decoration of lobbies and corridors in old French and Italian houses, to omit the dado entirely if an order was used, thus bringing the wall-decoration down to the base-board; but this was done only in rooms or passage-ways not meant to contain any furniture. The three noblest forms of wall-decoration are fresco-painting, panelling, and tapestry hangings. In the best period of decoration all three were regarded as subordinate to the architectural lines of the room. The Italian fresco-painters, from Giotto to Tiepolo, never lost sight of the interrelation between painting and architecture. It matters not if the connection between base and cornice be maintained by actual pilasters or mouldings, or by their painted or woven imitations. The line, and not the substance, is what the eye demands. It is a curious perversion of artistic laws that has led certain critics to denounce painted architecture or woven mouldings. As in imaginative literature the author may present to his reader as possible anything that he has the talent to make the reader accept, so in decorative art the artist is justified in presenting to the eye whatever his skill can devise to satisfy its requirements; nor is there any insincerity in this proceeding. Decorative art is not an exact science. The decorator is not a chemist or a physiologist; it is part of his mission, not to explain illusions, but to produce them. Subject only to laws established by the limitations of the eye, he is master of the domain of fancy, of that _pays bleu_ of the impossible that it is his privilege to throw open to the charmed imagination. [Illustration: _PLATE XII._ ROOM IN THE VILLA VERTEMATI, NEAR CHIAVENNA. XVI OR EARLY XVII CENTURY. (EXAMPLE OF FRESCOED CEILING.)] Of the means of wall-decoration already named, fresco-painting and stucco-panelling were generally preferred by Italian decorators, and wood-panelling and tapestries by those of northern Europe. The use of arras naturally commended itself to the northern noble, shivering in his draughty castles and obliged to carry from one to another the furniture and hangings that the unsettled state of the country made it impossible to leave behind him. Italy, however, long supplied the finest designs to the tapestry-looms of northern Europe, as the Italian painters provided ready-made backgrounds of peaked hills, winding torrents and pinnacled cities to the German engravers and the Flemish painters of their day. Tapestry, in the best periods of house-decoration, was always subordinated to the architectural lines of the room (see Plate XI). Where it was not specially woven for the panels it was intended to fill, the subdivisions of the wall-spaces were adapted to its dimensions. It was carefully fitted into the panelling of the room, and never made to turn an angle, as wall-paper does in modern rooms, nor combined with other odds and ends of decoration. If a room was tapestried, it was tapestried, not decorated in some other way, with bits of tapestry hung here and there at random over the fundamental lines of the decoration. Nothing can be more beautiful than tapestry properly used; but hung up without regard to the composition of the room, here turning an angle, there covering a part of the dado or overlapping a pilaster, it not only loses its own value, but destroys the whole scheme of decoration with which it is thus unmeaningly combined. Italian panelling was of stone, marble or stucco, while in northern Europe it was so generally of wood that (in England especially) the term _panelling_ has become almost synonymous with _wood-panelling_, and in some minds there is a curious impression that any panelling not of wood is a sham. As a matter of fact, wood-panelling was used in northern Europe simply because it kept the cold out more successfully than a _revêtement_ of stone or plaster; while south of the Alps its use was avoided for the equally good reason that in hot climates it attracts vermin. If priority of use be held as establishing a standard in decoration, wood-panelling should be regarded as a sham and plaster-panelling as its lawful prototype; for the use of stucco in the panelling of walls and ceilings is highly characteristic of Roman interior decoration, and wood-panelling as at present used is certainly of later origin. But nothing can be more idle than such comparisons, nor more misleading than the idea that stucco is a sham because it seeks to imitate wood. It does not seek to imitate wood. It is a recognized substance, of incalculable value for decorative effect, and no more owes its place in decoration to a fancied resemblance to some other material than the nave of a cathedral owes its place in architecture to the fancied resemblance to a ship. In the hands of a great race of artistic _virtuosi_ like the Italians, stucco has produced effects of beauty which in any other substance would have lost something of their freshness, their plastic spontaneity. From the delicate traceries of the Roman baths and the loveliness of Agostino da Duccio's chapel-front at Perugia, to the improvised bravura treatment of the Farnese theatre at Parma, it has served, through every phase of Italian art, to embody the most refined and studied, as well as the most audacious and ephemeral, of decorative conceptions. It must not be supposed that because painting, panelling and tapestry are the noblest forms of wall-decoration, they are necessarily the most unattainable. Good tapestry is, of course, very expensive, and even that which is only mediocre is beyond the reach of the average purchaser; while stuff hangings and wall-papers, its modern successors, have less to recommend them than other forms of wall-decoration. With painting and panelling the case is different. When painted walls were in fashion, there existed, below the great creative artists, schools of decorative designers skilled in the art of fresco-decoration, from the simplest kind to the most ornate. The demand for such decoration would now call forth the same order of talent, and many artists who are wasting their energies on the production of indifferent landscapes and unsuccessful portraits might, in the quite different field of decorative painting, find the true expression of their talent. To many minds the mention of a frescoed room suggests the image of a grandiose saloon, with gods and goddesses of heroic size crowding the domed ceiling and lofty walls; but the heroic style of fresco-painting is only one of its many phases. To see how well this form of decoration may be adapted to small modern rooms and to our present way of living, it is only necessary to study the walls of the little Pompeian houses, with their delicate arabesques and slender, fanciful figures, or to note the manner in which the Italian painters treated the small rooms of the casino or garden-pavilion which formed part of every Italian country-seat. Examples of this light style of decoration may be found in the Casino del grotto in the grounds of the Palazzo del T at Mantua, in some of the smaller rooms of the hunting-lodge of Stupinigi near Turin, and in the casino of the Villa Valmarana near Vicenza, where the frescoes are by Tiepolo; while in France a pleasing instance of the same style of treatment is seen in the small octagonal pavilion called the Belvédère, frescoed by Le Riche, in the gardens of the Petit Trianon at Versailles. As regards panelling, it has already been said that if the effect produced be satisfactory to the eye, the substance used is a matter of indifference. Stone-panelling has the merit of solidity, and the outlines of massive stone mouldings are strong and dignified; but the same effect may be produced in stucco, a material as well suited to the purpose as stone, save for its greater fragility. Wood-panelling is adapted to the most delicate carving, greater sharpness of edge and clearness of undercutting being obtainable than in stucco: though this qualification applies only to the moulded stucco ornaments used from economy, not to those modelled by hand. Used in the latter way, stucco may be made to produce the same effects as carved wood, and for delicacy of modelling in low relief it is superior to any other material. There is, in short, little to choose between the different substances, except in so far as one or the other may commend itself to the artist as more peculiarly suited to the special requirements of his design, or to the practical conditions regulating his work. [Illustration: _PLATE XIII._ DRAWING-ROOM AT EASTON NESTON HALL, ENGLAND. BUILT BY NICHOLAS HAWKESMOOR, 1702. (EXAMPLE OF STUCCO DECORATION.)] It is to this regard for practical conditions, and not to any fancied superiority over other materials, that the use of wood-panelling in northern Europe may most reasonably be attributed. Not only was wood easy to obtain, but it had the additional merit of keeping out the cold: two qualities sufficient to recommend it to the common sense of French and English architects. From the decorative point of view it has, when unpainted, one undeniable advantage over stucco--that is, beauty of color and veining. As a background for the dull gilding of old picture-frames, or as a setting for tapestry, nothing can surpass the soft rich tones of oak or walnut panelling, undefaced by the application of a shiny varnish. With the introduction of the orders into domestic architecture and the treatment of interior walls with dado and cornice, the panelling of the wall-space between those two members began to assume definite proportions. In England and France, before that time, wall-panels were often divided into small equal-sized rectangles which, from lack of any central motive, produced a most inadequate impression. Frequently, too, in the houses of the Renaissance the panelling, instead of being carried up to the ceiling, was terminated two or three feet below it a form of treatment that reduced the height of the room and broke the connection between walls and ceiling. This awkward device of stunted panelling, or, as it might be called, of an unduly heightened dado, has been revived by modern decorators; and it is not unusual to see the walls of a room treated, as regards their base-board and cornice, as part of an order, and then panelled up to within a foot or two of the cornice, without apparent regard to the true _raison d'être_ of the dado (see Plate XII). If, then, the design of the wall-panelling is good, it matters little whether stone, stucco, or wood be used. In all three it is possible to obtain effects ranging from the grandeur of the great loggia of the Villa Madama to the simplicity of any wood-panelled parlor in a New England country-house, and from the greatest costliness to an outlay little larger than that required for the purchase of a good wall-paper. It was well for the future of house-decoration when medical science declared itself against the use of wall-papers. These hangings have, in fact, little to recommend them. Besides being objectionable on sanitary grounds, they are inferior as a wall-decoration to any form of treatment, however simple, that maintains, instead of effacing, the architectural lines of a room. It was the use of wall-paper that led to the obliteration of the over-door and over-mantel, and to the gradual submerging under a flood of pattern of all the main lines of the wall-spaces. Its merits are that it is cheap, easy to put on and easy to remove. On the other hand, it is readily damaged, soon fades, and cannot be cleaned; while from the decorative point of view there can be no comparison between the flat meanderings of wall-paper pattern and the strong architectural lines of any scheme of panelling, however simple. Sometimes, of course, the use of wall-paper is a matter of convenience, since it saves both time and trouble; but a papered room can never, decoratively or otherwise, be as satisfactory as one in which the walls are treated in some other manner. The hanging of walls with chintz or any other material is even more objectionable than the use of wall-paper, since it has not the saving merit of cheapness. The custom is probably a survival of the time when wall-decorations had to be made in movable shape; and this facility of removal points to the one good reason for using stuff hangings. In a hired house, if the wall-decorations are ugly, and it is necessary to hide them, the rooms may be hung with stuff which the departing tenant can take away. In other words, stuff hangings are serviceable if used as a tent; as a permanent mode of decoration they are both unhealthy and inappropriate. There is something unpleasant in the idea of a dust-collecting fabric fixed to the wall, so that it cannot be shaken out at will like a curtain. Textile fabrics are meant to be moved, folded, shaken: they have none of the qualities of permanence and solidity which we associate with the walls of a room. The much-derided marble curtains of the Jesuit church in Venice are no more illogical than stuff wall-hangings. In decorating the walls of a room, the first point to be considered is whether they are to form a background for its contents, or to be in themselves its chief decoration. In many cases the disappointing effects of wall-decoration are due to the fact that this important distinction has been overlooked. In rooms that are to be hung with prints or pictures, the panelling or other treatment of the walls should be carefully designed with a view to the size and number of the pictures. Pictures should never be hung against a background of pattern. Nothing is more distressing than the sight of a large oil-painting in a ponderous frame seemingly suspended from a spray of wild roses or any of the other naturalistic vegetation of the modern wall-paper. The overlaying of pattern is always a mistake. It produces a confusion of line in which the finest forms lose their individuality and significance. It is also important to avoid hanging pictures or prints too close to each other. Not only do the colors clash, but the different designs of the frames, some of which may be heavy, with deeply recessed mouldings, while others are flat and carved in low relief, produce an equally discordant impression. Every one recognizes the necessity of selecting the mouldings and other ornamental details of a room with a view to their position in the scheme of decoration; but few stop to consider that in a room hung with pictures, the frames take the place of wall-mouldings, and consequently must be chosen and placed as though they were part of a definite decorative composition. Pictures and prints should be fastened to the wall, not hung by a cord or wire, nor allowed to tilt forward at an angle. The latter arrangement is specially disturbing since it throws the picture-frames out of the line of the wall. It must never be forgotten that pictures on a wall, whether set in panels or merely framed and hung, inevitably become a part of the wall-decoration. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in rooms of any importance, pictures were always treated as a part of the decoration, and frequently as panels sunk in the wall in a setting of carved wood or stucco mouldings (see paintings in Plates V and XIX). Even when not set in panels, they were always fixed to the wall, and their frames, whether of wood or stucco, were made to correspond with the ornamental detail of the rest of the room. Beautiful examples of this mode of treatment are seen in many English interiors of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,[10] and some of the finest carvings of Grinling Gibbons were designed for this purpose. Even where the walls are not to be hung with pictures, it is necessary to consider what kind of background the furniture and objects of art require. If the room is to be crowded with cabinets, bookcases and other tall pieces, and these, as well as the tables and mantel-shelf, are to be covered with porcelain vases, bronze statuettes, ivories, Chinese monsters and Chelsea groups, a plain background should be provided for this many-colored medley. Should the room contain only a few important pieces of furniture, and one or two vases or busts, the walls against which these strongly marked objects are to be placed may receive a more decorative treatment. It is only in rooms used for entertaining, dining, or some special purpose for which little furniture is required, that the walls should receive a more elaborate scheme of decoration. Where the walls are treated in an architectural manner, with a well-designed dado and cornice, and an over-mantel and over-doors connecting the openings with the cornice, it will be found that in a room of average size the intervening wall-spaces may be tinted in a uniform color and left unornamented. If the fundamental lines are right, very little decorative detail is needed to complete the effect; whereas, when the lines are wrong, no overlaying of ornamental odds and ends, in the way of pictures, bric-à-brac and other improvised expedients, will conceal the structural deficiencies. FOOTNOTES: [9] _A Complete Body of Architecture_, Book II, chap. iii. [10] See the saloon at Easton Neston, built by Nicholas Hawkesmoor (Plate XIII), and various examples given in Pyne's _Royal Residences_. IV DOORS The fate of the door in America has been a curious one, and had the other chief features of the house--such as windows, fireplaces, and stairs--been pursued with the same relentless animosity by architects and decorators, we should no longer be living in houses at all. First, the door was slid into the wall; then even its concealed presence was resented, and it was unhung and replaced by a portière; while of late it has actually ceased to form a part of house-building, and many recently built houses contain doorways _without doors_. Even the front door, which might seem to have too valid a reason for existence to be disturbed by the variations of fashion, has lately had to yield its place, in the more pretentious kind of house, to a wrought-iron gateway lined with plate-glass, against which, as a climax of inconsequence, a thick curtain is usually hung. It is not difficult to explain such architectural vagaries. In general, their origin is to be found in the misapplication of some serviceable feature and its consequent rejection by those who did not understand that it had ceased to be useful only because it was not properly used. [Illustration: _PLATE XIV._ DOORWAY WITH MARBLE ARCHITRAVE, DUCAL PALACE, MANTUA. XVI CENTURY.] In the matter of doors, such an explanation at once presents itself. During the latter half of the eighteenth century it occurred to some ingenious person that when two adjoining rooms were used for entertaining, and it was necessary to open the doors between them, these doors might be in the way; and to avoid this possibility, a recess was formed in the thickness of the wall, and the door was made to slide into it. This idea apparently originated in England, for sliding doors, even in the present day, are virtually unknown on the continent; and Isaac Ware, in the book already quoted, speaks of the sliding door as having been used "at the house, late Mr. de Pestre's, near Hanover Square," and adds that "the manner of it there may serve as an example to other builders," showing it to have been a novelty which he thought worthy of imitation. English taste has never been so sure as that of the Latin races; and it has, moreover, been perpetually modified by a passion for contriving all kinds of supposed "conveniences," which instead of simplifying life not unfrequently tend to complicate it. Americans have inherited this trait, and in both countries the architect or upholsterer who can present a new and more intricate way of planning a house or of making a piece of furniture, is more sure of a hearing than he who follows the accepted lines. It is doubtful if the devices to which so much is sacrificed in English and American house-planning always offer the practical advantages attributed to them. In the case of the sliding door these advantages are certainly open to question, since there is no reason why a door should not open into a room. Under ordinary circumstances, doors should always be kept shut; it is only, as Ware points out, when two adjoining rooms are used for entertaining that it is necessary to leave the door between them open. Now, between two rooms destined for entertaining, a double door (_à deux battants_) is always preferable to a single one; and as an opening four feet six inches wide is sufficient in such cases, each of the doors will be only two feet three inches wide, and therefore cannot encroach to any serious extent on the floor-space of the room. On the other hand, much has been sacrificed to the supposed "convenience" of the sliding door: first, the decorative effect of a well-panelled door, with hinges, box-locks and handle of finely chiselled bronze; secondly, the privacy of both rooms, since the difficulty of closing a heavy sliding door always leads to its being left open, with the result that two rooms are necessarily used as one. In fact, the absence of privacy in modern houses is doubtless in part due to the difficulty of closing the doors between the rooms. The sliding door has led to another abuse in house-planning: the exaggerated widening of the doorway. While doors were hung on hinges, doorways were of necessity restricted to their proper dimensions; but with the introduction of the sliding door, openings eight or ten feet wide became possible. The planning of a house is often modified by a vague idea on the part of its owners that they may wish to give entertainments on a large scale. As a matter of fact, general entertainments are seldom given in a house of average size; and those who plan their houses with a view to such possibilities sacrifice their daily comfort to an event occurring perhaps once a year. But even where many entertainments are to be given large doorways are of little use. Any architect of experience knows that ease of circulation depends far more on the planning of the house and on the position of the openings than on the actual dimensions of the latter. Indeed, two moderate-sized doorways leading from one room to another are of much more use in facilitating the movements of a crowd than one opening ten feet wide. Sliding doors have been recommended on the ground that their use preserves a greater amount of wall-space; but two doorways of moderate dimensions, properly placed, will preserve as much wall-space as one very large opening and will probably permit a better distribution of panelling and furniture. There was far more wall-space in seventeenth and eighteenth-century rooms than there is in rooms of the same dimensions in the average modern American house; and even where this space was not greater in actual measurement, more furniture could be used, since the openings were always placed with a view to the proper arrangement of what the room was to contain. According to the best authorities, the height of a well-proportioned doorway should be twice its width; and as the height is necessarily regulated by the stud of the room, it follows that the width varies; but it is obvious that no doorway should be less than six feet high nor less than three feet wide. When a doorway is over three feet six inches wide, a pair of doors should always be used; while a single door is preferable in a narrow opening. In rooms twelve feet or less in height, doorways should not be more than nine feet high. The width of openings in such rooms is therefore restricted to four feet six inches; indeed, it is permissible to make the opening lower and thus reduce its width to four feet; six inches of additional wall-space are not to be despised in a room of average dimensions. The treatment of the door forms one of the most interesting chapters in the history of house-decoration. In feudal castles the interior doorway, for purposes of defense, was made so small and narrow that only one person could pass through at a time, and was set in a plain lintel or architrave of stone, the door itself being fortified by bands of steel or iron, and by heavy bolts and bars. Even at this early period it seems probable that in the chief apartments the lines of the doorway were carried up to the ceiling by means of an over-door of carved wood, or of some painted decorative composition.[11] This connection between the doorway and the ceiling, maintained through all the subsequent phases of house-decoration, was in fact never disregarded until the beginning of the present century. It was in Italy that the door, in common with the other features of private dwellings, first received a distinctly architectural treatment. In Italian palaces of the fifteenth century the doorways were usually framed by architraves of marble, enriched with arabesques, medallions and processional friezes in low relief, combined with disks of colored marble. Interesting examples of this treatment are seen in the apartments of Isabella of Este in the ducal palace at Mantua (see Plate XIV), in the ducal palace at Urbino, and in the Certosa of Pavia--some of the smaller doorways in this monastery being decorated with medallion portraits of the Sforzas, and with other low reliefs of extraordinary beauty. The doors in Italian palaces were usually of inlaid wood, elaborate in composition and affording in many cases beautiful instances of that sense of material limitation that preserves one art from infringing upon another. The intarsia doors of the palace at Urbino are among the most famous examples of this form of decoration. It should be noted that many of the woods used in Italian marquetry were of a light shade, so that the blending of colors in Renaissance doors produces a sunny golden-brown tint in perfect harmony with the marble architrave of the doorway. The Italian decorator would never have permitted so harsh a contrast as that between the white trim and the mahogany doors of English eighteenth-century houses. This juxtaposition of colors was disapproved by French decorators also, and was seldom seen except in England and in the American houses built under English influence. It should be observed, too, that the polish given to hard-grained wood in England, and imitated in the wood-varnish of the present day, was never in favor in Italy and France. Shiny surfaces were always disliked by the best decorators. The classic revival in Italy necessarily modified the treatment of the doorway. Flat arabesques and delicately chiselled medallions gave way to a plain architrave, frequently masked by an order; while the over-door took the form of a pediment, or, in the absence of shafts, of a cornice or entablature resting on brackets. The use of a pediment over interior doorways was characteristic of Italian decoration. In studying Italian interiors of this period from photographs or modern prints, or even in visiting the partly dilapidated palaces themselves, it may at first appear that the lines of the doorway were not always carried up to the cornice. Several causes have combined to produce this impression. In the first place, the architectural treatment of the over-door was frequently painted on the wall, and has consequently disappeared with the rest of the wall-decoration (see Plate XV). Then, again, Italian rooms were often painted with landscapes and out-of-door architectural effects, and when this was done the doorways were combined with these architectural compositions, and were not treated as part of the room, but as part of what the room _pretended to be_. In the suppressed Scuola della Carità (now the Academy of Fine Arts) at Venice, one may see a famous example of this treatment in the doorway under the stairs leading up to the temple, in Titian's great painting of the "Presentation of the Virgin."[12] Again, in the high-studded Italian saloons containing a musician's gallery, or a clerestory, a cornice was frequently carried around the walls at suitable height above the lower range of openings, and the decorative treatment above the doors, windows and fireplace extended only to this cornice, not to the actual ceiling of the room. Thus it will be seen that the relation between the openings and cornice in Italian decoration was in reality always maintained except where the decorator chose to regard them as forming a part, not of the room, but of some other architectural composition. In the sixteenth century the excessive use of marquetry was abandoned, doors being panelled, and either left undecorated or painted with those light animated combinations of figure and arabesque which Raphael borrowed from the Roman fresco-painters, and which since his day have been peculiarly characteristic of Italian decorative painting.[13] Wood-carving in Italy was little used in house-decoration, and, as a rule, the panelling of doors was severely architectural in character, with little of the delicate ornamentation marking the French work of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.[14] [Illustration: _PLATE XV._ SALA DEI CAVALLI, PALAZZO DEL T, MANTUA. XVI CENTURY. (EXAMPLE OF PAINTED ARCHITECTURAL DECORATION.)] In France the application of the orders to interior doorways was never very popular, though it figures in French architectural works of the eighteenth century. The architrave, except in houses of great magnificence, was usually of wood, sometimes very richly carved. It was often surmounted by an entablature with a cornice resting on carved brackets; while the panel between this and the ceiling-cornice was occupied by an over-door consisting either of a painting, of a carved panel or of a stucco or marble bas-relief. These over-doors usually corresponded with the design of the over-mantel. Great taste and skill were displayed in the decoration of door-panels and embrasure. In the earlier part of the seventeenth century, doors and embrasures were usually painted, and nothing in the way of decorative painting can exceed in beauty and fitness the French compositions of this period.[15] During the reign of Louis XIV, doors were either carved or painted, and their treatment ranged from the most elaborate decoration to the simplest panelling set in a plain wooden architrave. In some French doors of this period painting and carving were admirably combined; and they were further ornamented by the chiselled locks and hinges for which French locksmiths were famous. So important a part did these locks and hinges play in French decoration that Lebrun himself is said to have designed those in the Galerie d'Apollon, in the Louvre, when he composed the decoration of the room. Even in the simplest private houses, where chiselled bronze was too expensive a luxury, and wrought-iron locks and hinges, with plain knobs of brass or iron, were used instead, such attention was paid to both design and execution that it is almost impossible to find in France an old lock or hinge, however plain, that is not well designed and well made (see Plate XVII). The miserable commercial article that disgraces our modern doors would not have been tolerated in the most unpretentious dwelling. The mortise-lock now in use in England and America first made its appearance toward the end of the eighteenth century in England, where it displaced the brass or iron box-lock; but on the Continent it has never been adopted. It is a poor substitute for the box-lock, since it not only weakens but disfigures the door, while a well-designed box-lock is both substantial and ornamental (see Plate XVII). In many minds the Louis XV period is associated with a general waviness of line and excess of carving. It has already been pointed out that even when the rocaille manner was at its height the main lines of a room were seldom allowed to follow the capricious movement of the ornamental accessories. Openings being the leading features of a room, their main lines were almost invariably respected; and while considerable play of movement was allowed in some of the accessory mouldings of the over-doors and over-mantels, the plan of the panel, in general symmetrical, was in many cases a plain rectangle.[16] During the Louis XV period the panelling of doors was frequently enriched with elaborate carving; but such doors are to be found only in palaces, or in princely houses like the Hôtels de Soubise, de Rohan, or de Toulouse (see Plate XVIII). In the most magnificent apartments, moreover, plain panelled doors were as common as those adorned with carving; while in the average private hôtel, even where much ornament was lavished on the panelling of the walls, the doors were left plain. Towards the close of this reign, when the influence of Gabriel began to simplify and restrain the ornamental details of house-decoration, the panelled door was often made without carving and was sometimes painted with attenuated arabesques and grisaille medallions, relieved against a gold ground. Gabriel gave the key-note of what is known as Louis XVI decoration, and the treatment of the door in France followed the same general lines until the end of the eighteenth century. As the classic influence became more marked, paintings in the over-door and over-mantel were replaced by low or high reliefs in stucco: and towards the end of the Louis XVI period a processional frieze in the classic manner often filled the entablature above the architrave of the door (see Plate XVI). Doors opening upon a terrace, or leading from an antechamber into a summer-parlor, or _salon frais_, were frequently made of glass; while in gala rooms, doors so situated as to correspond with the windows of the room were sometimes made of looking-glass. In both these instances the glass was divided into small panes, with such strongly marked mouldings that there could not be a moment's doubt of the apparent, as well as the actual, solidity of the door. In good decorative art first impressions are always taken into account, and the immediate satisfaction of the eye is provided for. In England the treatment of doorway and door followed in a general way the Italian precedent. The architrave, as a rule, was severely architectural, and in the eighteenth century the application of an order was regarded as almost essential in rooms of a certain importance. The door itself was sometimes inlaid,[17] but oftener simply panelled (see Plate XI). In the panelling of doors, English taste, except when it closely followed Italian precedents, was not always good. The use of a pair of doors in one opening was confined to grand houses, and in the average dwelling single doors were almost invariably used, even in openings over three feet wide. The great width of some of these single doors led to a curious treatment of the panels, the door being divided by a central stile, which was sometimes beaded, as though, instead of a single door, it were really a pair held together by some invisible agency. This central stile is almost invariably seen in the doors of modern American houses. Towards the middle of the eighteenth century the use of highly polished mahogany doors became general in England. It has already been pointed out that the juxtaposition of a dark-colored door and a white architrave was not approved by French and Italian architects. Blondel, in fact, expressly states that such contrasts are to be avoided, and that where walls are pale in tint the door should never be dark: thus in vestibules and antechambers panelled with Caen stone he recommends painting the doors a pale shade of gray. In Italy, when doors were left unpainted they were usually made of walnut, a wood of which the soft, dull tone harmonizes well with almost any color, whether light or dark; while in France it would not be easy to find an unpainted door, except in rooms where the wall-panelling is also of natural wood. [Illustration: _PLATE XVI._ DOOR IN THE SALA DELLO ZODIACO, DUCAL PALACE, MANTUA. XVIII CENTURY.] In the better type of house lately built in America there is seen a tendency to return to the use of doors hung on hinges. These, however, have been so long out of favor that the rules regulating their dimensions have been lost sight of, and the modern door and architrave are seldom satisfactory in these respects. The principles of proportion have been further disturbed by a return to the confused and hesitating system of panelling prevalent in England during the Tudor and Elizabethan periods. The old French and Italian architects never failed to respect that rule of decorative composition which prescribes that where there is any division of parts, one part shall unmistakably predominate. In conformity with this rule, the principal panel in doors of French or Italian design is so much higher than the others that these are at once seen to be merely accessory; whereas many of our modern doors are cut up into so many small panels, and the central one so little exceeds the others in height, that they do not "compose." The architrave of the modern door has been neglected for the same reasons as the window-architrave. The use of the heavy sliding door, which could not be opened or shut without an effort, led to the adoption of the portière; and the architrave, being thus concealed, was no longer regarded as a feature of any importance in the decoration of the room. The portière has always been used, as old prints and pictures show; but, like the curtain, in earlier days it was simply intended to keep out currents of air, and was consequently seldom seen in well-built houses, where double sets of doors served far better to protect the room from draughts. In less luxurious rooms, where there were no double doors, and portières had to be used, these were made as scant and unobtrusive as possible. The device of draping stuffs about the doorway, thus substituting a textile architrave for one of wood or stone, originated with the modern upholsterer; and it is now not unusual to see a wide opening with no door in it, enclosed in yards and yards of draperies which cannot even be lowered at will. The portière, besides causing a break in architectural lines, has become one of the chief expenses in the decoration of the modern room; indeed, the amount spent in buying yards of plush or damask, with the addition of silk cord, tassels, gimp and fringe, often makes it necessary to slight the essential features of the room; so that an ugly mantelpiece or ceiling is preserved because the money required to replace it has been used in the purchase of portières. These superfluous draperies are, in fact, more expensive than a well-made door with hinges and box-lock of chiselled bronze. The general use of the portière has also caused the disappearance of the over-door. The lines of the opening being hidden under a mass of drapery, the need of connecting them with the cornice was no longer felt, and one more feature of the room passed out of the architect's hands into those of the upholsterer, or, as he might more fitly be called, the house-dressmaker. The return to better principles of design will do more than anything else to restore the architectural lines of the room. Those who use portières generally do so from an instinctive feeling that a door is an ugly thing that ought to be hidden, and modern doors are in fact ugly; but when architects give to the treatment of openings the same attention they formerly received, it will soon be seen that this ugliness is not a necessity, and portières will disappear with the return of well-designed doors. Some general hints concerning the distribution of openings have been given in the chapter on walls. It may be noted in addition that while all doorways in a room should, as a rule, be of one height, there are cases where certain clearly subordinate openings may be lower than those which contain doors _à deux battants_. In such cases the panelling of the door must be carefully modified in accordance with the dimensions of the opening, and the treatment of the over-doors in their relation to each other must be studied with equal attention. Examples of such adaptations are to be found in many old French and Italian rooms.[18] [Illustration: _PLATE XVII._ EXAMPLES OF MODERN FRENCH LOCKSMITHS' WORK.] Doors should always swing _into_ a room. This facilitates entrance and gives the hospitable impression that everything is made easy to those who are coming in. Doors should furthermore be so hung that they screen that part of the room in which the occupants usually sit. In small rooms, especially those in town houses, this detail cannot be too carefully considered. The fact that so many doors open in the wrong way is another excuse for the existence of portières. A word must also be said concerning the actual making of the door. There is a general impression that veneered doors or furniture are cheap substitutes for articles made of solid blocks of wood. As a matter of fact, owing to the high temperature of American houses, all well-made wood-work used in this country is of necessity composed of at least three, and often of five, layers of wood. This method of veneering, in which the layers are so placed that the grain runs in different directions, is the only way of counteracting the shrinking and swelling of the wood under artificial heat. To some minds the concealed door represents one of those architectural deceptions which no necessity can excuse. It is certain that the concealed door is an expedient, and that in a well-planned house there should be no need for expedients, unless the architect is hampered by limitations of space, as is the case in designing the average American town house. Architects all know how many principles of beauty and fitness must be sacrificed to the restrictions of a plot of ground twenty-five feet wide by seventy-five or a hundred in length. Under such conditions, every device is permissible that helps to produce an effect of spaciousness and symmetry without interfering with convenience: chief among these contrivances being the concealed door. Such doors are often useful in altering or adding to a badly planned house. It is sometimes desirable to give increased facilities of communication without adding to the visible number of openings in any one room; while in other cases the limited amount of wall-space may make it difficult to find place for a doorway corresponding in dimensions with the others; or, again, where it is necessary to make a closet under the stairs, the architrave of a visible door may clash awkwardly with the stringboard. Under such conditions the concealed door naturally suggests itself. To those who regard its use as an offense against artistic integrity, it must once more be pointed out that architecture addresses itself not to the moral sense, but to the eye. The existing confusion on this point is partly due to the strange analogy drawn by modern critics between artistic sincerity and moral law. Analogies are the most dangerous form of reasoning: they connect resemblances, but disguise facts; and in this instance nothing can be more fallacious than to measure the architect's action by an ethical standard. [Illustration: _PLATE XVIII._ CARVED DOOR, PALACE OF VERSAILLES. LOUIS XV PERIOD. (SHOWING PAINTED OVER-DOOR.)] "Sincerity," in many minds, is chiefly associated with speaking the truth; but architectural sincerity is simply obedience to certain visual requirements, one of which demands that what are at once seen to be the main lines of a room or house shall be acknowledged as such in the application of ornament. The same architectural principles demand that the main lines of a room shall not be unnecessarily interrupted; and in certain cases it would be bad taste to disturb the equilibrium of wall-spaces and decoration by introducing a visible door leading to some unimportant closet or passageway, of which the existence need not be known to any but the inmates of the house. It is in such cases that the concealed door is a useful expedient. It can hardly be necessary to point out that it would be a great mistake to place a concealed door in a main opening. These openings should always be recognized as one of the chief features of the room, and so treated by the decorator; but this point has already been so strongly insisted upon that it is reverted to here only in order to show how different are the requirements which justify concealment. The concealed door has until recently been used so little by American architects that its construction is not well understood, and it is often hung on ordinary visible hinges, instead of being swung on a pivot. There is no reason why, with proper care, a door of this kind should not be so nicely adjusted to the wall-panelling as to be practically invisible; and to fulfil this condition is the first necessity of its construction (see concealed door in Plate XLV). FOOTNOTES: [11] See Viollet-le-Duc, _Dictionnaire raisonné de l'Architecture française_, under _Porte_. [12] This painting has now been restored to its proper position in the Scuola della Carità, and the door which had been _painted in_ under the stairs has been removed to make way for the actual doorway around which the picture was originally painted. [13] See the doors of the Sala dello Zodiaco in the ducal palace at Mantua (Plate XVI). [14] Some rooms of the rocaille period, however, contain doors as elaborately carved as those seen in France (see the doors in the royal palace at Genoa, Plate XXXIV). [15] See the doors at Vaux-le-Vicomte and in the Palais de Justice at Rennes. [16] Only in the most exaggerated German baroque were the vertical lines of the door-panels sometimes irregular. [17] The inlaid doors of Houghton Hall, the seat of Sir Robert Walpole, were noted for their beauty and costliness. The price of each was £200. [18] See a room in the Ministère de la Marine at Paris, where a subordinate door is cleverly treated in connection with one of more importance. V WINDOWS In the decorative treatment of a room the importance of openings can hardly be overestimated. Not only do they represent the three chief essentials of its comfort,--light, heat and means of access,--but they are the leading features in that combination of voids and masses that forms the basis of architectural harmony. In fact, it is chiefly because the decorative value of openings has ceased to be recognized that modern rooms so seldom produce a satisfactory and harmonious impression. It used to be thought that the effect of a room depended on the treatment of its wall-spaces and openings; now it is supposed to depend on its curtains and furniture. Accessory details have crowded out the main decorative features; and, as invariably happens when the relation of parts is disturbed, everything in the modern room has been thrown out of balance by this confusion between the essential and the incidental in decoration.[19] The return to a more architectural treatment of rooms and to a recognition of the decorative value of openings, besides producing much better results, would undoubtedly reduce the expense of house-decoration. A small quantity of ornament, properly applied, will produce far more effect than ten times its amount used in the wrong way; and it will be found that when decorators rely for their effects on the treatment of openings, the rest of the room will require little ornamentation. The crowding of rooms with furniture and bric-à-brac is doubtless partly due to an unconscious desire to fill up the blanks caused by the lack of architectural composition in the treatment of the walls. The importance of connecting the main lines of the openings with the cornice having been explained in the previous chapter, it is now necessary to study the different openings in turn, and to see in how many ways they serve to increase the dignity and beauty of their surroundings. As light-giving is the main purpose for which windows are made, the top of the window should be as near the ceiling as the cornice will allow. Ventilation, the secondary purpose of the window, is also better served by its being so placed, since an opening a foot wide near the ceiling will do more towards airing a room than a space twice as large near the floor. In our northern States, where the dark winter days and the need of artificial heat make light and ventilation so necessary, these considerations are especially important. In Italian palaces the windows are generally lower than in more northern countries, since the greater intensity of the sunshine makes a much smaller opening sufficient; moreover, in Italy, during the summer, houses are not kept cool by letting in the air, but by shutting it out. Windows should not exceed five feet in width, while in small rooms openings three feet wide will be found sufficient. There are practical as well as artistic reasons for observing this rule, since a sash-window containing a sheet of glass more than five feet wide cannot be so hung that it may be raised without effort; while a casement, or French window, though it may be made somewhat wider, is not easy to open if its width exceeds six feet. The next point to consider is the distance between the bottom of the window and the floor. This must be decided by circumstances, such as the nature of the view, the existence of a balcony or veranda, or the wish to have a window-seat. The outlook must also be considered, and the window treated in one way if it looks upon the street, and in another if it gives on the garden or informal side of the house. In the country nothing is more charming than the French window opening to the floor. On the more public side of the house, unless the latter gives on an enclosed court, it is best that the windows should be placed about three feet from the floor, so that persons approaching the house may not be able to look in. Windows placed at this height should be provided with a fixed seat, or with one of the little settees with arms, but without a back, formerly used for this purpose. Although for practical reasons it may be necessary that the same room should contain some windows opening to the floor and others raised several feet above it, the tops of all the windows should be on a level. To place them at different heights serves no useful end, and interferes with any general scheme of decoration and more specially with the arrangement of curtains. Mullions dividing a window in the centre should be avoided whenever possible, since they are an unnecessary obstruction to the view. The chief drawback to a casement window is that its sashes join in the middle; but as this is a structural necessity, it is less objectionable. If mullions are required, they should be so placed as to divide the window into three parts, thus preserving an unobstructed central pane. The window called Palladian illustrates this point. Now that large plate-glass windows have ceased to be a novelty, it will perhaps be recognized that the old window with subdivided panes had certain artistic and practical merits that have of late been disregarded. Where there is a fine prospect, windows made of a single plate of glass are often preferred; but it must be remembered that the subdivisions of a sash, while obstructing the view, serve to establish a relation between the inside of the house and the landscape, making the latter what, _as seen from a room_, it logically ought to be: a part of the wall-decoration, in the sense of being subordinated to the same general lines. A large unbroken sheet of plate-glass interrupts the decorative scheme of the room, just as in verse, if the distances between the rhymes are so great that the ear cannot connect them, the continuity of sound is interrupted. Decoration must rhyme to the eye, and to do so must be subject to the limitations of the eye, as verse is subject to the limitations of the ear. Success in any art depends on a due regard for the limitations of the sense to which it appeals. The effect of a perpetually open window, produced by a large sheet of plate-glass, while it gives a sense of coolness and the impression of being out of doors, becomes for these very reasons a disadvantage in cold weather. It is sometimes said that the architects of the eighteenth century would have used large plates of glass in their windows had they been able to obtain them; but as such plates were frequently used for mirrors, it is evident that they were not difficult to get, and that there must have been other reasons for not employing them in windows; while the additional expense could hardly have been an obstacle in an age when princes and nobles built with such royal disregard of cost. The French, always logical in such matters, having tried the effect of plate-glass, are now returning to the old fashion of smaller panes; and in many of the new houses in Paris, where the windows at first contained large plates of glass, the latter have since been subdivided by a network of narrow mouldings applied to the glass. As to the comparative merits of French, or casement, and sash windows, both arrangements have certain advantages. In houses built in the French or Italian style, casement windows are best adapted to the general treatment; while the sash-window is more in keeping in English houses. Perhaps the best way of deciding the question is to remember that "les fenêtres sont intimement liées aux grandes lignes de l'architecture," and to conform to the rule suggested by this axiom. The two common objections to French windows--that they are less convenient for ventilation, and that they cannot be opened without letting in cold air near the floor--are both unfounded. All properly made French windows have at the top an impost or stationary part containing small panes, one of which is made to open, thus affording perfect ventilation without draught. Another expedient, seen in one of the rooms of Mesdames de France at Versailles, is a small pane in the main part of the window, opening on hinges of its own. (For examples of well-designed French windows, see Plates XXX and XXXI.) [Illustration: _PLATE XIX._ SALON DES MALACHITES, GRAND TRIANON, VERSAILLES. LOUIS XIV PERIOD. (SHOWING WELL-DESIGNED WINDOW WITH SOLID INSIDE SHUTTER, AND PICTURES FORMING PART OF WALL-DECORATION.)] Sash-windows have the disadvantage of not opening more than half-way, a serious drawback in our hot summer climate. It is often said that French windows cannot be opened wide without interfering with the curtains; but this difficulty is easily met by the use of curtains made with cords and pulleys, in the sensible old-fashioned manner. The real purpose of the window-curtain is to regulate the amount of light admitted to the room, and a curtain so arranged that it cannot be drawn backward and forward at will is but a meaningless accessory. It was not until the beginning of the present century that curtains were used without regard to their practical purpose. The window-hangings of the middle ages and of the Renaissance were simply straight pieces of cloth or tapestry hung across the window without any attempt at drapery, and regarded not as part of the decoration of the room, but as a necessary protection against draughts. It is probably for this reason that in old prints and pictures representing the rooms of wealthy people, curtains are so seldom seen. The better the house, the less need there was for curtains. In the engravings of Abraham Bosse, which so faithfully represent the interior decoration of every class of French house during the reign of Louis XIII, it will be noticed that in the richest apartments there are no window-curtains. In all the finest rooms of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the inside shutters and embrasures of the windows were decorated with a care which proves that they were not meant to be concealed by curtains (see the painted embrasures of the saloon in the Villa Vertemati, Plate XLIV). The shutters in the state apartments of Fouquet's château of Vaux-le-Vicomte, near Melun, are painted on both sides with exquisite arabesques; while those in the apartments of Mesdames de France, on the ground floor of the palace of Versailles, are examples of the most beautiful carving. In fact, it would be more difficult to cite a room of any importance in which the windows were not so treated, than to go on enumerating examples of what was really a universal custom until the beginning of the present century. It is known, of course, that curtains were used in former times: prints, pictures and inventories alike prove this fact; but the care expended on the decorative treatment of windows makes it plain that the curtain, like the portière, was regarded as a necessary evil rather than as part of the general scheme of decoration. The meagreness and simplicity of the curtains in old pictures prove that they were used merely as window shades or sun-blinds. The scant straight folds pushed back from the tall windows of the Prince de Conti's salon, in Olivier's charming picture of "Le Thé à l'Anglaise chez le Prince de Conti," are as obviously utilitarian as the strip of green woollen stuff hanging against the leaded casement of the mediæval bed-chamber in Carpaccio's "Dream of St. Ursula." Another way of hanging window-curtains in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was to place them inside the architrave, so that they did not conceal it. The architectural treatment of the trim, and the practice prevalent at that period of carrying the windows up to the cornice, made this a satisfactory way of arranging the curtain; but in the modern American house, where the trim is usually bad, and where there is often a dreary waste of wall-paper between the window and the ceiling, it is better to hang the curtains close under the cornice. It was not until the eighteenth century that the window-curtain was divided in the middle; and this change was intended only to facilitate the drawing of the hangings, which, owing to the increased size of the windows, were necessarily wider and heavier. The curtain continued to hang down in straight folds, pulled back at will to permit the opening of the window, and drawn at night. Fixed window-draperies, with festoons and folds so arranged that they cannot be lowered or raised, are an invention of the modern upholsterer. Not only have these fixed draperies done away with the true purpose of the curtain, but they have made architects and decorators careless in their treatment of openings. The architrave and embrasure of a window are now regarded as of no more importance in the decorative treatment of a room than the inside of the chimney. The modern use of the lambrequin as an ornamental finish to window-curtains is another instance of misapplied decoration. Its history is easy to trace. The mediæval bed was always enclosed in curtains hanging from a wooden framework, and the lambrequin was used as a kind of cornice to conceal it. When the use of gathered window-shades became general in Italy, the lambrequin was transferred from the bed to the window, in order to hide the clumsy bunches of folds formed by these shades when drawn up. In old prints, lambrequins over windows are almost always seen in connection with Italian shades, and this is the only logical way of using them; though they are often of service in concealing the defects of badly-shaped windows and unarchitectural trim. Those who criticize the architects and decorators of the past are sometimes disposed to think that they worked in a certain way because they were too ignorant to devise a better method; whereas they were usually controlled by practical and artistic considerations which their critics are prone to disregard, not only in judging the work of the past, but in the attempt to make good its deficiencies. Thus the cabinet-makers of the Renaissance did not make straight-backed wooden chairs because they were incapable of imagining anything more comfortable, but because the former were better adapted than cushioned arm-chairs to the _déplacements_ so frequent at that period. In like manner, the decorator who regarded curtains as a necessity rather than as part of the decoration of the room knew (what the modern upholsterer fails to understand) that, the beauty of a room depending chiefly on its openings, to conceal these under draperies is to hide the key of the whole decorative scheme. The muslin window-curtain is a recent innovation. Its only purpose is to protect the interior of the room from public view: a need not felt before the use of large sheets of glass, since it is difficult to look through a subdivided sash from the outside. Under such circumstances muslin curtains are, of course, useful; but where they may be dispensed with, owing to the situation of the room or the subdivision of panes, they are no loss. Lingerie effects do not combine well with architecture, and the more architecturally a window is treated, the less it need be dressed up in ruffles. To put such curtains in a window, and then loop them back so that they form a mere frame to the pane, is to do away with their real purpose, and to substitute a textile for an architectural effect. Where muslin curtains are necessary, they should be a mere transparent screen hung against the glass. In town houses especially all outward show of richness should be avoided; the use of elaborate lace-figured curtains, besides obstructing the view, seems an attempt to protrude the luxury of the interior upon the street. It is needless to point out the futility of the second layer of muslin which, in some houses, hangs inside the sash-curtains. The solid inside shutter, now so generally discarded, save in France, formerly served the purposes for which curtains and shades are used, and, combined with outside blinds, afforded all the protection that a window really requires (see Plate XIX). These shutters should be made with solid panels, not with slats, their purpose being to darken the room and keep out the cold, while the light is regulated by the outside blinds. The best of these is the old-fashioned hand-made blind, with wide fixed slats, still to be seen on old New England houses and always used in France and Italy: the frail machine-made substitute now in general use has nothing to recommend it. FOOTNOTE: [19] As an example of the extent to which openings have come to be ignored as factors in the decorative composition of a room, it is curious to note that in Eastlake's well-known _Hints on Household Taste_ no mention is made of doors, windows or fireplaces. Compare this point of view with that of the earlier decorators, from Vignola to Roubo and Ware. VI FIREPLACES The fireplace was formerly always regarded as the chief feature of the room, and so treated in every well-thought-out scheme of decoration. The practical reasons which make it important that the windows in a room should be carried up to the cornice have already been given, and it has been shown that the lines of the other openings should be extended to the same height. This applies to fireplaces as well as to doors, and, indeed, as an architectural principle concerning all kinds of openings, it has never been questioned until the present day. The hood of the vast Gothic fireplace always descended from the springing of the vaulted roof, and the monumental chimney-pieces of the Renaissance followed the same lines (see Plate XX). The importance of giving an architectural character to the chimney-piece is insisted on by Blondel, whose remark, "Je voudrais n'appliquer à une cheminée que des ornements convenables à l'architecture," is a valuable axiom for the decorator. It is a mistake to think that this treatment necessitates a large mantel-piece and a monumental style of panelling. The smallest mantel, surmounted by a picture or a mirror set in simple mouldings, may be as architectural as the great chimney-pieces at Urbino or Cheverny: all depends on the spirit of the treatment and on the proper relation of the different members used. Pajou's monument to Madame du Barry's canary-bird is far more architectural than the Albert Memorial. [Illustration: _PLATE XX._ MANTELPIECE IN DUCAL PALACE, URBINO. XV CENTURY. (TRANSITION BETWEEN GOTHIC AND RENAISSANCE.)] When, in the middle ages, the hearth in the centre of the room was replaced by the wall-chimney, the fireplace was invariably constructed with a projecting hood of brick or stone, generally semicircular in shape, designed to carry off the smoke which in earlier times had escaped through a hole in the roof. The opening of the fireplace, at first of moderate dimensions, was gradually enlarged to an enormous size, from the erroneous idea that the larger the fire the greater would be the warmth of the room. By degrees it was discovered that the effect of the volume of heat projected into the room was counteracted by the strong draught and by the mass of cold air admitted through the huge chimney; and to obviate this difficulty iron doors were placed in the opening and kept closed when the fire was not burning (see Plate XXI). But this was only a partial remedy, and in time it was found expedient to reduce the size of both chimney and fireplace. In Italy the strong feeling for architectural lines and the invariable exercise of common sense in construction soon caused the fireplace to be sunk into the wall, thus ridding the room of the Gothic hood, while the wall-space above the opening received a treatment of panelling, sometimes enclosed in pilasters, and usually crowned by an entablature and pediment. When the chimney was not sunk in the wall, the latter was brought forward around the opening, thus forming a flat chimney-breast to which the same style of decoration could be applied. This projection was seldom permitted in Italy, where the thickness of the walls made it easy to sink the fireplace, while an unerring feeling for form rejected the advancing chimney-breast as a needless break in the wall-surface of the room. In France, where Gothic methods of construction persisted so long after the introduction of classic ornament, the habit of building out the chimney-breast continued until the seventeenth century, and even a hundred years later French decorators described the plan of sinking the fireplace into the thickness of the wall as the "Italian manner." The thinness of modern walls has made the projecting chimney-breast a structural necessity; but the composition of the room is improved by "furring out" the wall on each side of the fireplace in such a way as to conceal the projection and obviate a break in the wall-space. Where the room is so small that every foot of space is valuable, a niche may be formed in either angle of the chimney-breast, thus preserving the floor-space which would be sacrificed by advancing the wall, and yet avoiding the necessity of a break in the cornice. The Italian plan of panelling the space between mantel and cornice continued in favor, with various modifications, until the beginning of the present century. In early Italian Renaissance over-mantels the central panel was usually filled by a bas-relief; but in the sixteenth century this was frequently replaced by a picture, not hung on the panelling, but forming a part of it.[20] In France the sculptured over-mantel followed the same general lines of development, though the treatment, until the time of Louis XIII, showed traces of the Gothic tendency to overload with ornament without regard to unity of design, so that the main lines of the composition were often lost under a mass of ill-combined detail. In Italy the early Renaissance mantels were usually of marble. French mantels of the same period were of stone; but this material was so unsuited to the elaborate sculpture then in fashion that wood was sometimes used instead. For a season richly carved wooden chimney-pieces, covered with paint and gilding, were in favor; but when the first marble mantels were brought from Italy, that sense of fitness in the use of material for which the French have always been distinguished, led them to recognize the superiority of marble, and the wooden mantel-piece was discarded: nor has it since been used in France. With the seventeenth century, French mantel-pieces became more architectural in design and less florid in ornament, and the ponderous hood laden with pinnacles, escutcheons, fortified castles and statues of saints and warriors, was replaced by a more severe decoration. Thackeray's gibe at Louis XIV and his age has so long been accepted by the English-speaking races as a serious estimate of the period, that few now appreciate the artistic preponderance of France in the seventeenth century. As a matter of fact, it is to the schools of art founded by Louis XIV and to his magnificent patronage of the architects and decorators trained in these schools that we owe the preservation, in northern Europe, of that sense of form and spirit of moderation which mark the great classic tradition. To disparage the work of men like Levau, Mansart, de Cotte and Lebrun, shows an insufficient understanding, not only of what they did, but of the inheritance of confused and turgid ornament from which they freed French art.[21] Whether our individual tastes incline us to the Gothic or to the classic style, it is easy to see that a school which tried to combine the structure of the one with the ornament of the other was likely to fall into incoherent modes of expression; and this was precisely what happened to French domestic architecture at the end of the Renaissance period. It has been the fashion to describe the art of the Louis XIV period as florid and bombastic; but a comparison of the designs of Philibert de Lorme and Androuet Ducerceau with those of such men as Levau and Robert de Cotte will show that what the latter did was not to introduce a florid and bombastic manner, but to discard it for what Viollet-le-Duc, who will certainly not be suspected of undue partiality for this school of architects, calls "une grandeur solide, sans faux ornements." No better illustration of this can be obtained than by comparing the mantel-pieces of the respective periods.[22] The Louis XIV mantel-pieces are much simpler and more coherent in design. The caryatides supporting the entablature above the opening of the earlier mantels, and the full-length statues flanking the central panel of the over-mantel, are replaced by massive and severe mouldings of the kind which the French call _mâle_ (see mantels in Plates V and XXXVI). Above the entablature there is usually a kind of attic or high concave member of marble, often fluted, and forming a ledge or shelf just wide enough to carry the row of porcelain vases with which it had become the fashion to adorn the mantel. These vases, and the bas-relief or picture occupying the central panel above, form the chief ornament of the chimney-piece, though occasionally the crowning member of the over-mantel is treated with a decoration of garlands, masks, trophies or other strictly architectural ornament, while in Italy and England the broken pediment is frequently employed. The use of a mirror over the fireplace is said to have originated with Mansart; but according to Blondel it was Robert de Cotte who brought about this innovation, thus producing an immediate change in the general scheme of composition. The French were far too logical not to see the absurdity of placing a mirror too high to be looked into; and the concave Louis XIV member, which had raised the mantel-shelf six feet from the floor, was removed[23] and the shelf placed directly over the entablature. [Illustration: _PLATE XXI._ MANTELPIECE IN THE VILLA GIACOMELLI, AT MASER, NEAR TREVISO. XVI CENTURY. (SHOWING IRON DOORS IN OPENING.)] Somewhat later the introduction of clocks and candelabra as mantel ornaments made it necessary to widen the shelf, and this further modified the general design; while the suites of small rooms which had come into favor under the Regent led to a reduction in the size of mantel-pieces, and to the use of less massive and perhaps less architectural ornament. In the eighteenth century, mantel-pieces in Italy and France were almost always composed of a marble or stone architrave surmounted by a shelf of the same material, while the over-mantel consisted of a mirror, framed in mouldings varying in design from the simplest style to the most ornate. This over-mantel, which was either of the exact width of the mantel-shelf or some few inches narrower, ended under the cornice, and its upper part was usually decorated in the same way as the over-doors in the room. If these contained paintings, a picture carrying out the same scheme of decoration was often placed in the upper part of the over-mantel; or the ornaments of carved wood or stucco filling the panels over the doors were repeated in the upper part of the mirror-frame. In France, mirrors had by this time replaced pictures in the central panel of the over-mantel; but in Italian decoration of the same period oval pictures were often applied to the centre of the mirror, with delicate lines of ornament connecting the picture and mirror frames.[24] The earliest fireplaces were lined with stone or brick, but in the sixteenth century the more practical custom of using iron fire-backs was introduced. At first this fire-back consisted of a small plaque of iron, shaped like a headstone, and fixed at the back of the fireplace, where the brick or stone was most likely to be calcined by the fire. When chimney-building became more scientific, the size of the fireplace was reduced, and the sides of the opening were brought much nearer the flame, thus making it necessary to extend the fire-back into a lining for the whole fireplace. It was soon seen that besides resisting the heat better than any other substance, the iron lining served to radiate it into the room. The iron back consequently held its own through every subsequent change in the treatment of the fireplace; and the recent return, in England and America, to brick or stone is probably due to the fact that the modern iron lining is seldom well designed. Iron backs were adopted because they served their purpose better than any others; and as no new substance offering greater advantages has since been discovered, there is no reason for discarding them, especially as they are not only more practical but more decorative than any other lining. The old fire-backs (of which reproductions are readily obtained) were decorated with charming bas-reliefs, and their dark bosses, in the play of the firelight, form a more expressive background than the dead and unresponsive surface of brick or stone. It was not uncommon in England to treat the mantel as an order crowned by its entablature. Where this was done, an intermediate space was left between mantel and over-mantel, an arrangement which somewhat weakened the architectural effect. A better plan was that of surmounting the entablature with an attic, and making the over-mantel spring directly from the latter. Fine examples of this are seen at Holkham, built by Brettingham for the Earl of Leicester about the middle of the eighteenth century. The English fireplace was modified at the end of the seventeenth century, when coal began to replace wood. Chippendale gives many designs for beautiful basket-grates, such as were set in the large fireplaces originally intended for wood; for it was not until later that chimneys with smaller openings were specially constructed to receive the fixed grate and the hob-grate. It was in England that the architectural treatment of the over-mantel was first abandoned. The use of a mirror framed in a panel over the fireplace had never become general in England, and toward the end of the eighteenth century the mantel-piece was frequently surmounted by a blank wall-space, on which a picture or a small round mirror was hung high above the shelf (see Plate XLVII). Examples are seen in Moreland's pictures, and in prints of simple eighteenth-century English interiors; but this treatment is seldom found in rooms of any architectural pretensions. The early American fireplace was merely a cheap provincial copy of English models of the same period. The application of the word "Colonial" to pre-Revolutionary architecture and decoration has created a vague impression that there existed at that time an American architectural style. As a matter of fact, "Colonial" architecture is simply a modest copy of Georgian models; and "Colonial" mantel-pieces were either imported from England by those who could afford it, or were reproduced in wood from current English designs. Wooden mantels were, indeed, not unknown in England, where the use of a wooden architrave led to the practice of facing the fireplace with Dutch tiles; but wood was used, both in England and America, only from motives of cheapness, and the architrave was set back from the opening only because it was unsafe to put an inflammable material so near the fire. After 1800 all the best American houses contained imported marble mantel-pieces. These usually consisted of an entablature resting on columns or caryatides, with a frieze in low relief representing some classic episode, or simply ornamented with bucranes and garlands. In the general decline of taste which marked the middle of the present century, these dignified and well-designed mantel-pieces were replaced by marble arches containing a fixed grate. The hideousness of this arched opening soon produced a distaste for marble mantels in the minds of a generation unacquainted with the early designs. This distaste led to a reaction in favor of wood, resulting in the displacement of the architrave and the facing of the space between architrave and opening with tiles, iron or marble. People are beginning to see that the ugliness of the marble mantel-pieces of 1840-60 does not prove that wood is the more suitable material to employ. There is indeed something of unfitness in the use of an inflammable material surrounding a fireplace. Everything about the hearth should not only be, but _look_, fire-proof. The chief objection to wood is that its use necessitates the displacement of the architrave, thus leaving a flat intermediate space to be faced with some fire-proof material. This is an architectural fault. A door of which the architrave should be set back eighteen inches or more to admit of a facing of tiles or marble would be pronounced unarchitectural; and it is usually admitted that all classes of openings should be subject to the same general treatment. Where the mantel-piece is of wood, the setting back of the architrave is a necessity; but, curiously enough, the practice has become so common in England and America that even where the mantel is made of marble or stone it is set back in the same way; so that it is unusual to see a modern fireplace in which the architrave defines the opening. In France, also, the use of an inner facing (called a _retrécissement_) has become common, probably because such a device makes it possible to use less fuel, while not disturbing the proportions of the mantel as related to the room. The reaction from the bare stiff rooms of the first quarter of the present century--the era of mahogany and horsehair--resulted, some twenty years since, in a general craving for knick-knacks; and the latter soon spread from the tables to the mantel, especially in England and America, where the absence of the architectural over-mantel left a bare expanse of wall above the chimney-piece. The use of the mantel as a bric-à-brac shelf led in time to the lengthening and widening of this shelf, and in consequence to the enlargement of the whole chimney-piece. Mantels which in the eighteenth century would have been thought in scale with rooms of certain dimensions would now be considered too small and insignificant. The use of large mantel-pieces, besides throwing everything in the room out of scale, is a structural mistake, since the excessive projection of the mantel has a tendency to make the fire smoke; indeed, the proportions of the old mantels, far from being arbitrary, were based as much on practical as on artistic considerations. Moreover, the use of long, wide shelves has brought about the accumulation of superfluous knick-knacks, whereas a smaller mantel, if architecturally designed, would demand only its conventional _garniture_ of clock and candlesticks. The device of concealing an ugly mantel-piece by folds of drapery brings an inflammable substance so close to the fire that there is a suggestion of danger even where there is no actual risk. The lines of a mantel, however bad, represent some kind of solid architrave,--a more suitable setting for an architectural opening than flimsy festoons of brocade or plush. Any one who can afford to replace an ugly chimney-piece by one of good design will find that this change does more than any other to improve the appearance of a room. Where a badly designed mantel cannot be removed, the best plan is to leave it unfurbelowed, simply placing above it a mirror or panel to connect the lines of the opening with the cornice. The effect of a fireplace depends much upon the good taste and appropriateness of its accessories. Little attention is paid at present to the design and workmanship of these and like necessary appliances; yet if good of their kind they add more to the adornment of a room than a multiplicity of useless knick-knacks. Andirons should be of wrought-iron, bronze or ormolu. Substances which require constant polishing, such as steel or brass, are unfitted to a fireplace. It is no longer easy to buy the old bronze andirons of French or Italian design, with pedestals surmounted by statuettes of nymph or faun, to which time has given the iridescence that modern bronze-workers vainly try to reproduce with varnish. These bronzes, and the old ormolu andirons, are now almost _introuvables_; but the French artisan still copies the old models with fair success (see Plates V and XXXVI). Andirons should not only harmonize with the design of the mantel but also be in scale with its dimensions. In the fireplace of a large drawing-room, boudoir andirons would look insignificant; while the monumental Renaissance fire-dogs would dwarf a small mantel and make its ornamentation trivial. If andirons are gilt, they should be of ormolu. The cheaper kinds of gilding are neither durable nor good in tone, and plain iron is preferable to anything but bronze or fire-gilding. The design of shovel and tongs should accord with that of the andirons: in France such details are never disregarded. The shovel and tongs should be placed upright against the mantel-piece, or rest upon hooks inserted in the architrave: the brass or gilt stands now in use are seldom well designed. Fenders, being merely meant to protect the floor from sparks, should be as light and easy to handle as possible: the folding fender of wire-netting is for this reason preferable to any other, since it may be shut and put away when not in use. The low guards of solid brass in favor in England and America not only fail to protect the floor, but form a permanent barrier between the fire and those who wish to approach it; and the latter objection applies also to the massive folding fender that is too heavy to be removed. Coal-scuttles, like andirons, should be made of bronze, ormolu or iron. The unnecessary use of substances which require constant polishing is one of the mysteries of English and American housekeeping: it is difficult to see why a housemaid should spend hours in polishing brass or steel fenders, andirons, coal-scuttles and door-knobs, when all these articles might be made of some substance that does not need daily cleaning. Where wood is burned, no better wood-box can be found than an old carved chest, either one of the Italian _cassoni_, with their painted panels and gilded volutes, or a plain box of oak or walnut with well-designed panels and old iron hasps. The best substitute for such a chest is a plain wicker basket, without ornamentation, enamel paint or gilding. If an article of this kind is not really beautiful, it had better be as obviously utilitarian as possible in design and construction. A separate chapter might be devoted to the fire-screen, with its carved frame and its panel of tapestry, needlework, or painted arabesques. Of all the furniture of the hearth, it is that upon which most taste and variety of invention have been spent; and any of the numerous French works on furniture and house-decoration will supply designs which the modern decorator might successfully reproduce (see Plate XXII). So large is the field from which he may select his models, that it is perhaps more to the purpose to touch upon the styles of fire-screens to be avoided: such as the colossal brass or ormolu fan, the stained-glass screen, the embroidered or painted banner suspended on a gilt rod, or the stuffed bird spread out in a broiled attitude against a plush background. [Illustration: _PLATE XXII._ FRENCH FIRE-SCREEN, LOUIS XIV PERIOD. FROM THE CHÂTEAU OF ANET.] In connection with the movable fire-screen, a word may be said of the fire-boards which, until thirty or forty years ago, were used to close the opening of the fireplace in summer. These fire-boards are now associated with old-fashioned boarding-house parlors, where they are still sometimes seen, covered with a paper like that on the walls, and looking ugly enough to justify their disuse. The old fire-boards were very different: in rooms of any importance they were beautifully decorated, and in Italian interiors, where the dado was often painted, the same decoration was continued on the fire-boards. Sometimes the latter were papered; but the paper used was designed expressly for the purpose, with a decorative composition of flowers, landscapes, or the ever-amusing _chinoiseries_ on which the eighteenth-century designer played such endless variations. Whether the fireplace in summer should be closed by a board, or left open, with the logs laid on the irons, is a question for individual taste; but it is certain that if the painted fire-board were revived, it might form a very pleasing feature in the decoration of modern rooms. The only possible objection to its use is that it interferes with ventilation by closing the chimney-opening; but as fire-boards are used only at a season when all the windows are open, this drawback is hardly worth considering. In spite of the fancied advancement in refinement and luxury of living, the development of the modern heating apparatus seems likely, especially in America, to do away with the open fire. The temperature maintained in most American houses by means of hot-air or hot-water pipes is so high that even the slight additional warmth of a wood fire would be unendurable. Still there are a few exceptions to this rule, and in some houses the healthy glow of open fires is preferred to the parching atmosphere of steam. Indeed, it might almost be said that the good taste and _savoir-vivre_ of the inmates of a house may be guessed from the means used for heating it. Old pictures, old furniture and fine bindings cannot live in a furnace-baked atmosphere; and those who possess such treasures and know their value have an additional motive for keeping their houses cool and well ventilated. No house can be properly aired in winter without the draughts produced by open fires. Fortunately, doctors are beginning to call attention to this neglected detail of sanitation; and as dry artificial heat is the main source of throat and lung diseases, it is to be hoped that the growing taste for open-air life and out-door sports will bring about a desire for better ventilation, and a dislike for air-tight stoves, gas-fires and steam-heat. Aside from the question of health and personal comfort, nothing can be more cheerless and depressing than a room without fire on a winter day. The more torrid the room, the more abnormal is the contrast between the cold hearth and the incandescent temperature. Without a fire, the best-appointed drawing-room is as comfortless as the shut-up "best parlor" of a New England farm-house. The empty fireplace shows that the room is not really lived in and that its appearance of luxury and comfort is but a costly sham prepared for the edification of visitors. FOOTNOTES: [20] In Italy, where the walls were frescoed, the architectural composition over the mantel was also frequently painted. Examples of this are to be seen at the Villa Vertemati, near Chiavenna, and at the Villa Giacomelli, at Maser, near Treviso. This practice accounts for the fact that in many old architectural drawings of Italian interiors a blank wall-space is seen over the mantel. [21] It is to be hoped that the recently published English translation of M. Émile Bourgeois's book on Louis XIV will do much to remove this prejudice. [22] It is curious that those who criticize the ornateness of the Louis XIV style are often the warmest admirers of the French Renaissance, the style of all others most remarkable for its excessive use of ornament, exquisite in itself, but quite unrelated to structure and independent of general design. [23] It is said to have been put at this height in order that the porcelain vases should be out of reach. See Daviler, "Cours d'Architecture." [24] Examples are to be seen in several rooms of the hunting-lodge of the kings of Savoy, at Stupinigi, near Turin. VII CEILINGS AND FLOORS To attempt even an outline of the history of ceilings in domestic architecture would exceed the scope of this book; nor would it serve any practical purpose to trace the early forms of vaulting and timbering which preceded the general adoption of the modern plastered ceiling. To understand the development of the modern ceiling, however, one must trace the two very different influences by which it has been shaped: that of the timber roof of the North and that of the brick or stone vault of the Latin builders. This twofold tradition has curiously affected the details of the modern ceiling. During the Renaissance, flat plaster ceilings were not infrequently coffered with stucco panels exactly reproducing the lines of timber framing; and in the Villa Vertemati, near Chiavenna, there is a curious and interesting ceiling of carved wood made in imitation of stucco (see Plate XXIII); while one of the rooms in the Palais de Justice at Rennes contains an elaborate vaulted ceiling constructed entirely of wood, with mouldings nailed on (see Plate XXIV). In northern countries, where the ceiling was simply the under side of the wooden floor,[25] it was natural that its decoration should follow the rectangular subdivisions formed by open timber-framing. In the South, however, where the floors were generally of stone, resting on stone vaults, the structural conditions were so different that although the use of caissons based on the divisions of timber-framing was popular both in the Roman and Renaissance periods, the architect always felt himself free to treat the ceiling as a flat, undivided surface prepared for the application of ornament. The idea that there is anything unarchitectural in this method comes from an imperfect understanding of the construction of Roman ceilings. The vault was the typical Roman ceiling, and the vault presents a smooth surface, without any structural projections to modify the ornament applied to it. The panelling of a vaulted or flat ceiling was as likely to be agreeable to the eye as a similar treatment of the walls; but the Roman coffered ceiling and its Renaissance successors were the result of a strong sense of decorative fitness rather than of any desire to adhere to structural limitations. Examples of the timbered ceiling are, indeed, to be found in Italy as well as in France and England; and in Venice the flat wooden ceiling, panelled upon structural lines, persisted throughout the Renaissance period; but in Rome, where the classic influences were always much stronger, and where the discovery of the stucco ceilings of ancient baths and palaces produced such lasting effects upon the architecture of the early Renaissance, the decorative treatment of the stone vault was transferred to the flat or coved Renaissance ceiling without a thought of its being inapplicable or "insincere." The fear of insincerity, in the sense of concealing the anatomy of any part of a building, troubled the Renaissance architect no more than it did his Gothic predecessor, who had never hesitated to stretch a "ciel" of cloth or tapestry over the naked timbers of the mediæval ceiling. The duty of exposing structural forms--an obligation that weighs so heavily upon the conscience of the modern architect--is of very recent origin. Mediæval as well as Renaissance architects thought first of adapting their buildings to the uses for which they were intended and then of decorating them in such a way as to give pleasure to the eye; and the maintenance of that relation which the eye exacts between main structural lines and their ornamentation was the only form of sincerity which they knew or cared about. [Illustration: _PLATE XXIII._ CARVED WOODEN CEILING, VILLA VERTEMATI. XVI CENTURY. (SHOWING INFLUENCE OF STUCCO DECORATION.)] If a flat ceiling rested on a well-designed cornice, or if a vaulted or coved ceiling sprang obviously from walls capable of supporting it, the Italian architect did not allow himself to be hampered by any pedantic conformity to structural details. The eye once satisfied that the ceiling had adequate support, the fit proportioning of its decoration was considered far more important than mere technical fidelity to the outline of floor-beams and joists. If the Italian decorator wished to adorn a ceiling with carved or painted panels he used the lines of the timbering to frame his panels, because they naturally accorded with his decorative scheme; while, were a large central painting to be employed, or the ceiling to be covered with reliefs in stucco, he felt no more hesitation in deviating from the lines of the timbering than he would have felt in planning the pattern of a mosaic or a marble floor without reference to the floor-beams beneath it. In France and England it was natural that timber-construction should long continue to regulate the design of the ceiling. The Roman vault lined with stone caissons, or with a delicate tracery of stucco-work, was not an ever-present precedent in northern Europe. Tradition pointed to the open-timbered roof; and as Italy furnished numerous and brilliant examples of decorative treatment adapted to this form of ceiling, it was to be expected that both in France and England the national form should be preserved long after Italian influences had established themselves in both countries. In fact, it is interesting to note that in France, where the artistic feeling was much finer, and the sense of fitness and power of adaptation were more fully developed, than in England, the lines of the timbered ceiling persisted throughout the Renaissance and Louis XIII periods; whereas in England the Elizabethan architects, lost in the mazes of Italian detail, without a guiding perception of its proper application, abandoned the timbered ceiling, with its eminently architectural subdivisions, for a flat plaster surface over which geometrical flowers in stucco meandered in endless sinuosities, unbroken by a single moulding, and repeating themselves with the maddening persistency of wall-paper pattern. This style of ornamentation was done away with by Inigo Jones and his successors, who restored the architectural character of the ceiling, whether flat or vaulted; and thereafter panelling persisted in England until the French Revolution brought about the general downfall of taste.[26] In France, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, the liking for _petits appartements_ led to greater lightness in all kinds of decorative treatment; and the ceilings of the Louis XV period, while pleasing in detail, are open to the criticism of being somewhat weak in form. Still, they are always _compositions_, and their light traceries, though perhaps too dainty and fragile in themselves, are so disposed as to form a clearly marked design, instead of being allowed to wander in a monotonous network over the whole surface of the ceiling, like the ubiquitous Tudor rose. Isaac Ware, trained in the principles of form which the teachings of Inigo Jones had so deeply impressed upon English architects, ridicules the "petty wildnesses" of the French style; but if the Louis XV ceiling lost for a time its architectural character, this was soon to be restored by Gabriel and his followers, while at the same period in England the forcible mouldings of Inigo Jones's school were fading into the ineffectual grace of Adam's laurel-wreaths and velaria. [Illustration: _PLATE XXIV._ CEILING IN THE PALAIS DE JUSTICE, RENNES. LOUIS XIV PERIOD. (WOODEN CEILING IMITATING MASONRY VAULTING AND STUCCO ORNAMENTATION.)] In the general effect of the room, the form of the ceiling is of more importance than its decoration. In rooms of a certain size and height, a flat surface overhead looks monotonous, and the ceiling should be vaulted or coved.[27] Endless modifications of this form of treatment are to be found in the architectural treatises of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as well as in the buildings of that period. A coved ceiling greatly increases the apparent height of a low-studded room; but rooms of this kind should not be treated with an order, since the projection of the cornice below the springing of the cove will lower the walls so much as to defeat the purpose for which the cove has been used. In such rooms the cove should rise directly from the walls; and this treatment suggests the important rule that where the cove is not supported by a cornice the ceiling decoration should be of very light character. A heavy panelled ceiling should not rest on the walls without the intervention of a strongly profiled cornice. The French Louis XV decoration, with its fanciful embroidery of stucco ornament, is well suited to coved ceilings springing directly from the walls in a room of low stud; while a ceiling divided into panels with heavy architectural mouldings, whether it be flat or vaulted, looks best when the walls are treated with a complete order. Durand, in his lectures on architecture, in speaking of cornices lays down the following excellent rules: "Interior cornices must necessarily differ more or less from those belonging to the orders as used externally, though in rooms of reasonable height these differences need be but slight; but if the stud be low, as sometimes is inevitable, the cornice must be correspondingly narrowed, and given an excessive projection, in order to increase the apparent height of the room. Moreover, as in the interior of the house the light is much less bright than outside, the cornice should be so profiled that the juncture of the mouldings shall form not right angles, but acute angles, with spaces between the mouldings serving to detach the latter still more clearly from each other." The choice of the substance out of which a ceiling is to be made depends somewhat upon the dimensions of the room, the height of the stud and the decoration of the walls. A heavily panelled wooden ceiling resting upon walls either frescoed or hung with stuff is likely to seem oppressive; but, as in all other kinds of decoration, the effect produced depends far more upon the form and the choice of ornamental detail than upon the material used. Wooden ceilings, however, both from the nature of the construction and the kind of ornament which may most suitably be applied to them, are of necessity rather heavy in appearance, and should therefore be used only in large and high-studded rooms the walls of which are panelled in wood.[28] Stucco and fresco-painting are adapted to every variety of decoration, from the light traceries of a boudoir ceiling to the dome of the _salon à l'Italienne_; but the design must be chosen with strict regard to the size and height of the room and to the proposed treatment of its walls. The cornice forms the connecting link between walls and ceiling and it is essential to the harmony of any scheme of decoration that this important member should be carefully designed. It is useless to lavish money on the adornment of walls and ceiling connected by an ugly cornice. The same objections extend to the clumsy plaster mouldings which in many houses disfigure the ceiling. To paint or gild a ceiling of this kind only attracts attention to its ugliness. When the expense of removing the mouldings and filling up the holes in the plaster is considered too great, it is better to cover the bulbous rosettes and pendentives with kalsomine than to attempt their embellishment by means of any polychrome decoration. The cost of removing plaster ornaments is not great, however, and a small outlay will replace an ugly cornice by one of architectural design; so that a little economy in buying window-hangings or chair-coverings often makes up for the additional expense of these changes. One need only look at the ceilings in the average modern house to see what a thing of horror plaster may become in the hands of an untrained "designer." The same general principles of composition suggested for the treatment of walls may be applied to ceiling-decoration. Thus it is essential that where there is a division of parts, one part shall perceptibly predominate; and this, in a ceiling, should be the central division. The chief defect of the coffered Renaissance ceiling is the lack of this predominating part. Great as may have been the decorative skill expended on the treatment of beams and panels, the coffered ceiling of equal-sized divisions seems to press down upon the spectator's head; whereas the large central panel gives an idea of height that the great ceiling-painters were quick to enhance by glimpses of cloud and sky, or some aerial effect, as in Mantegna's incomparable ceiling of the Sala degli Sposi in the ducal palace of Mantua. [Illustration: _PLATE XXV._ CEILING OF THE SALA DEGLI SPOSI, DUCAL PALACE, MANTUA. BY ANDREA MANTEGNA, 1474.] Ceiling-decoration should never be a literal reproduction of wall-decoration. The different angle and greater distance at which ceilings are viewed demand a quite different treatment and it is to the disregard of this fact that most badly designed ceilings owe their origin. Even in the high days of art there was a tendency on the part of some decorators to confound the two plane surfaces of wall and ceiling, and one might cite many wall-designs which have been transferred to the ceiling without being rearranged to fit their new position. Instances of this kind have never been so general as in the present day. The reaction from the badly designed mouldings and fungoid growths that characterized the ceilings of forty years ago has led to the use of attenuated laurel-wreaths combined with other puny attributes taken from Sheraton cabinets and Adam mantel-pieces. These so-called ornaments, always somewhat lacking in character, become absolutely futile when viewed from below. This pressed-flower ornamentation is a direct precedent to the modern ceiling covered with wall-paper. One would think that the inappropriateness of this treatment was obvious; but since it has become popular enough to warrant the manufacture of specially designed ceiling-papers, some protest should be made. The necessity for hiding cracks in the plaster is the reason most often given for papering ceilings; but the cost of mending cracks is small and a plaster ceiling lasts much longer than is generally thought. It need never be taken down unless it is actually falling; and as well-made repairs strengthen and improve the entire surface, a much-mended ceiling is stronger than one that is just beginning to crack. If the cost of repairing must be avoided, a smooth white lining-paper should be chosen in place of one of the showy and vulgar papers which serve only to attract attention. Of all forms of ceiling adornment painting is the most beautiful. Italy, which contains the three perfect ceilings of the world--those of Mantegna in the ducal palace of Mantua (see Plate XXV), of Perugino in the Sala del Cambio at Perugia and of Araldi in the Convent of St. Paul at Parma--is the best field for the study of this branch of art. From the semi-classical vaults of the fifteenth century, with their Roman arabesques and fruit-garlands framing human figures detached as mere ornament against a background of solid color, to the massive goddesses and broad Virgilian landscapes of the Carracci and to the piled-up perspectives of Giordano's school of prestidigitators, culminating in the great Tiepolo, Italian art affords examples of every temperament applied to the solution of one of the most interesting problems in decoration. Such ceilings as those on which Raphael and Giovanni da Udine worked together, combining painted arabesques and medallions with stucco reliefs, are admirably suited to small low-studded rooms and might well be imitated by painters incapable of higher things. There is but one danger in adapting this decoration to modern use--that is, the temptation to sacrifice scale and general composition to the search after refinement of detail. It cannot be denied that some of the decorations of the school of Giovanni da Udine are open to this criticism. The ornamentation of the great loggia of the Villa Madama is unquestionably out of scale with the dimensions of the structure. Much exquisite detail is lost in looking up past the great piers and the springing of the massive arches to the lace-work that adorns the vaulting. In this case the composition is less at fault than the scale: the decorations of the semi-domes at the Villa Madama, if transferred to a small mezzanin room, would be found to "compose" perfectly. Charming examples of the use of this style in small apartments may be studied in the rooms of the Casino del Grotto, near Mantua. The tendency of many modern decorators to sacrifice composition to detail, and to neglect the observance of proportion between ornament and structure, makes the adaptation of Renaissance stucco designs a somewhat hazardous undertaking; but the very care required to preserve the scale and to accentuate the general lines of the design affords good training in the true principles of composition. Equally well suited to modern use are the designs in arabesque with which, in France, Bérain and his followers painted the ceilings of small rooms during the Louis XIV period (see Plate XXVI). With the opening of the eighteenth century the Bérain arabesques, animated by the touch of Watteau, Huet and J.-B. Leprince, blossomed into trellis-like designs alive with birds and monkeys, Chinese mandarins balancing umbrellas, and nymphs and shepherdesses under slender classical ruins. Side by side with the monumental work of such artists as Lebrun and Lesueur, Coypel, Vouet and Natoire, this light style of composition was always in favor for the decoration of _petits appartements_: the most famous painters of the day did not think it beneath them to furnish designs for such purposes (see Plate XXVII). In moderate-sized rooms which are to be decorated in a simple and inexpensive manner, a plain plaster ceiling with well-designed cornice is preferable to any device for producing showy effects at small cost. It may be laid down as a general rule in house-decoration that what must be done cheaply should be done simply. It is better to pay for the best plastering than to use a cheaper quality and then to cover the cracks with lincrusta or ceiling-paper. This is true of all such expedients: let the fundamental work be good in design and quality and the want of ornament will not be felt. In America the return to a more substantial way of building and the tendency to discard wood for brick or stone whenever possible will doubtless lead in time to the use of brick, stone or marble floors. These floors, associated in the minds of most Americans with shivering expeditions through damp Italian palaces, are in reality perfectly suited to the dry American climate, and even the most anæmic person could hardly object to brick or marble covered by heavy rugs. The inlaid marble floors of the Italian palaces, whether composed of square or diamond-shaped blocks, or decorated with a large design in different colors, are unsurpassed in beauty; while in high-studded rooms where there is little pattern on the walls and a small amount of furniture, elaborately designed mosaic floors with sweeping arabesques and geometrical figures are of great decorative value. Floors of these substances have the merit of being not only more architectural in character, more solid and durable, but also easier to keep clean. This should especially commend them to the hygienically-minded American housekeeper, since floors that may be washed are better suited to our climate than those which must be covered with a nailed-down carpet. Next in merit to brick or marble comes the parquet of oak or other hard wood; but even this looks inadequate in rooms of great architectural importance. In ball-rooms a hard-wood floor is generally regarded as a necessity; but in vestibule, staircase, dining-room or saloon, marble is superior to anything else. The design of the parquet floor should be simple and unobtrusive. The French, who brought this branch of floor-laying to perfection, would never have tolerated the crudely contrasted woods that make the modern parquet so aggressive. Like the walls of a room, the floor is a background: it should not furnish pattern, but set off whatever is placed upon it. The perspective effects dear to the modern floor-designer are the climax of extravagance. A floor should not only be, but appear to be, a perfectly level surface, without simulated bosses or concavities. In choosing rugs and carpets the subject of design should be carefully studied. The Oriental carpet-designers have always surpassed their European rivals. The patterns of Eastern rugs are invariably well composed, with skilfully conventionalized figures in flat unshaded colors. Even the Oriental rug of the present day is well drawn; but the colors used by Eastern manufacturers since the introduction of aniline dyes are so discordant that these rugs are inferior to most modern European carpets. [Illustration: _PLATE XXVI._ CEILING IN THE STYLE OF BÉRAIN. LOUIS XIV PERIOD.] In houses with deal floors, nailed-down carpets are usually considered a necessity, and the designing of such carpets has improved so much in the last ten or fifteen years that a sufficient choice of unobtrusive geometrical patterns may now be found. The composition of European carpets woven in one piece, like rugs, has never been satisfactory. Even the splendid _tapis de Savonnerie_ made in France at the royal manufactory during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were not so true to the best principles of design as the old Oriental rugs. In Europe there was always a tendency to transfer wall or ceiling-decoration to floor-coverings. Such incongruities as architectural mouldings, highly modelled trophies and human masks appear in most of the European carpets from the time of Louis XIV to the present day; and except when copying Eastern models the European designers were subject to strange lapses from taste. There is no reason why a painter should not simulate loggia and sky on a flat plaster ceiling, since no one will try to use this sham opening as a means of exit; but the carpet-designer who puts picture-frames and human faces under foot, though he does not actually deceive, produces on the eye a momentary startling sense of obstruction. Any _trompe-l'oeil_ is permissible in decorative art if it gives an impression of pleasure; but the inherent sense of fitness is shocked by the act of walking upon upturned faces. Recent carpet-designs, though usually free from such obvious incongruities, have seldom more than a negative merit. The unconventionalized flower still shows itself, and even when banished from the centre of the carpet lingers in the border which accompanies it. The vulgarity of these borders is the chief objection to using carpets of European manufacture as rugs, instead of nailing them to the floor. It is difficult to find a border that is not too wide, and of which the design is a simple conventional figure in flat unshaded colors. If used at all, a carpet with a border should always be in the form of a rug, laid in the middle of the room, and not cut to follow all the ins and outs of the floor, as such adaptation not only narrows the room but emphasizes any irregularity in its plan. In houses with deal floors, where nailed-down carpets are used in all the rooms, a restful effect is produced by covering the whole of each story with the same carpet, the door-sills being removed so that the carpet may extend from one room to another. In small town houses, especially, this will be found much less fatiguing to the eye than the usual manner of covering the floor of each room with carpets differing in color and design. Where several rooms are carpeted alike, the floor-covering chosen should be quite plain, or patterned with some small geometrical figure in a darker shade of the foundation color; and green, dark blue or red will be found most easy to combine with the different color-schemes of the rooms. Pale tints should be avoided in the selection of carpets. It is better that the color-scale should ascend gradually from the dark tone of floor or carpet to the faint half-tints of the ceiling. The opposite combination--that of a pale carpet with a dark ceiling--lowers the stud and produces an impression of top-heaviness and gloom; indeed, in a room where the ceiling is overladen, a dark rich-toned carpet will do much to lighten it, whereas a pale floor-covering will bring it down, as it were, on the inmates' heads. Stair-carpets should be of a strong full color and, if possible, without pattern. It is fatiguing to see a design meant for a horizontal surface constrained to follow the ins and outs of a flight of steps; and the use of pattern where not needed is always meaningless, and interferes with a decided color-effect where the latter might have been of special advantage to the general scheme of decoration. [Illustration: _PLATE XXVII._ CEILING IN THE CHÂTEAU OF CHANTILLY. LOUIS XV PERIOD. (EXAMPLE OF CHINOISERIE DECORATION.)] FOOTNOTES: [25] In France, until the sixteenth century, the same word--_plancher_--was used to designate both floor and ceiling. [26] For a fine example of an English stucco ceiling, see Plate XIII. [27] The flat Venetian ceilings, such as those in the ducal palace, with their richly carved wood-work and glorious paintings, beautiful as they have been made by art, are not so fine architecturally as a domed or coved ceiling. [28] For an example of a wooden ceiling which is too heavy for the wall-decoration below it, see Plate XLIV. VIII ENTRANCE AND VESTIBULE The decoration of the entrance necessarily depends on the nature of the house and its situation. A country house, where visitors are few and life is simple, demands a less formal treatment than a house in a city or town; while a villa in a watering-place where there is much in common with town life has necessarily many points of resemblance to a town house. It should be borne in mind of entrances in general that, while the main purpose of a door is to admit, its secondary purpose is to exclude. The outer door, which separates the hall or vestibule from the street, should clearly proclaim itself an effectual barrier. It should look strong enough to give a sense of security, and be so plain in design as to offer no chance of injury by weather and give no suggestion of interior decoration. The best ornamentation for an entrance-door is simple panelling, with bold architectural mouldings and as little decorative detail as possible. The necessary ornament should be contributed by the design of locks, hinges and handles. These, like the door itself, should be strong and serviceable, with nothing finikin in their treatment, and made of a substance which does not require cleaning. For the latter reason, bronze and iron are more fitting than brass or steel. In treating the vestibule, careful study is required to establish a harmony between the decorative elements inside and outside the house. The vestibule should form a natural and easy transition from the plain architecture of the street to the privacy of the interior (see Plate XXVIII). No portion of the inside of the house being more exposed to the weather, great pains should be taken to avoid using in its decoration materials easily damaged by rain or dust, such as carpets or wall-paper. The decoration should at once produce the impression of being weather-proof. Marble, stone, scagliola, or painted stucco are for this reason the best materials. If wood is used, it should be painted, as dust and dirt soon soil it, and unless its finish be water-proof it will require continual varnishing. The decorations of the vestibule should be as permanent as possible in character, in order to avoid incessant small repairs. The floor should be of stone, marble, or tiles; even a linoleum or oil-cloth of sober pattern is preferable to a hard-wood floor in so exposed a situation. For the same reason, it is best to treat the walls with a decoration of stone or marble. In simpler houses the same effect may be produced at much less cost by dividing the wall-spaces into panels, with wooden mouldings applied directly to the plaster, the whole being painted in oil, either in one uniform tint or in varying shades of some cold sober color. This subdued color-scheme will produce an agreeable contrast with the hall or staircase, which, being a degree nearer the centre of the house, should receive a gayer and more informal treatment than the vestibule. [Illustration: _PLATE XXVIII._ ANTECHAMBER IN THE VILLA CAMBIASO, GENOA. BUILT BY ALESSI, XVI CENTURY.] The vestibule usually has two doors: an outer one opening toward the street and an inner one giving into the hall; but when the outer is entirely of wood, without glass, and must therefore be left open during the day, the vestibule is usually subdivided by an inner glass door placed a few feet from the entrance. This arrangement has the merit of keeping the house warm and of affording a shelter to the servants who, during an entertainment, are usually compelled to wait outside. The French architect always provides an antechamber for this purpose. No furniture which is easily soiled or damaged, or difficult to keep clean, is appropriate in a vestibule. In large and imposing houses marble or stone benches and tables should be used, and the ornamentation may consist of statues, vases, or busts on pedestals (see Plate XXIX). When the decoration is simpler and wooden benches are used, they should resemble those made for French gardens, with seats of one piece of wood, or of broad thick slats; while in small vestibules, benches and chairs with cane seats are appropriate. The excellent reproductions of Robbia ware made by Cantagalli of Florence look well against painted walls; while plaster or terra-cotta bas-reliefs are less expensive and equally decorative, especially against a pale-blue or green background. The lantern, the traditional form of fixture for lighting vestibules, is certainly the best in so exposed a situation; and though where electric light is used draughts need not be considered, the sense of fitness requires that a light in such a position should always have the semblance of being protected. IX HALL AND STAIRS What is technically known as the staircase (in German the _Treppenhaus_) has, in our lax modern speech, come to be designated as the hall. In Gwilt's _Encyclopedia of Architecture_ the staircase is defined as "that part or subdivision of a building containing the stairs which enable people to ascend or descend from one floor to another"; while the hall is described as follows: "The first large apartment on entering a house.... In magnificent edifices, where the hall is larger and loftier than usual, and is placed in the middle of the house, it is called a saloon; and a royal apartment consists of a hall, or chamber of guards, etc." It is clear that, in the technical acceptance of the term, a hall is something quite different from a staircase; yet the two words were used interchangeably by so early a writer as Isaac Ware, who, in his _Complete Body of Architecture_, published in 1756, continually speaks of the staircase as the hall. This confusion of terms is difficult to explain, for in early times the staircase was as distinct from the hall as it continued to be in France and Italy, and, with rare exceptions, in England also, until the present century. [Illustration: _PLATE XXIX._ ANTECHAMBER IN THE DURAZZO PALACE, GENOA. DECORATED BY TORRIGIANI. LATE XVIII CENTURY.] In glancing over the plans of the feudal dwellings of northern Europe it will be seen that, far from being based on any definite conception, they were made up of successive accretions about the nobleman's keep. The first room to attach itself to the keep was the "hall," a kind of microcosm in which sleeping, eating, entertaining guests and administering justice succeeded each other or went on simultaneously. In the course of time various rooms, such as the parlor, the kitchen, the offices, the muniment-room and the lady's bower, were added to the primitive hall; but these were rather incidental necessities than parts of an organized scheme of planning.[29] In this agglomeration of apartments the stairs found a place where they could. Space being valuable, they were generally carried up spirally in the thickness of the wall, or in an angle-turret. Owing to enforced irregularity of plan, and perhaps to the desire to provide numerous separate means of access to the different parts of the dwelling, each castle usually contained several staircases, no one of which was more important than the others. It was in Italy that stairs first received attention as a feature in the general composition of the house. There, from the outset, all the conditions had been different. The domestic life of the upper classes having developed from the eleventh century onward in the comparative security of the walled town, it was natural that house-planning should be less irregular,[30] and that more regard should be given to considerations of comfort and dignity. In early Italian palaces the stairs either ascended through the open central _cortile_ to an arcaded gallery on the first floor, as in the Gondi palace and the Bargello at Florence, or were carried up in straight flights between walls.[31] This was, in fact, the usual way of building stairs in Italy until the end of the fifteenth century. These enclosed stairs usually started near the vaulted entranceway leading from the street to the _cortile_. Gradually the space at the foot of the stairs, which at first was small, increased in size and in importance of decorative treatment; while the upper landing opened into an antechamber which became the centre of the principal suite of apartments. With the development of the Palladian style, the whole staircase (provided the state apartments were not situated on the ground floor) assumed more imposing dimensions; though it was not until a much later date that the monumental staircase so often regarded as one of the chief features of the Italian Renaissance began to be built. Indeed, a detailed examination of the Italian palaces shows that even in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries such staircases as were built by Fontana in the royal palace at Naples, by Juvara in the Palazzo Madama at Turin and by Vanvitelli at Caserta, were seen only in royal palaces. Even Morelli's staircase in the Braschi palace in Rome, magnificent as it is, hardly reaches the popular conception of the Italian state staircase--a conception probably based rather upon the great open stairs of the Genoese _cortili_ than upon any actually existing staircases. It is certain that until late in the seventeenth century (as Bernini's Vatican staircase shows) inter-mural stairs were thought grand enough for the most splendid palaces of Italy (see Plate XXX). [Illustration: _PLATE XXX._ STAIRCASE IN THE PARODI PALACE, GENOA. XVI CENTURY. (SHOWING INTER-MURAL STAIRS AND MARBLE FLOOR.)] The spiral staircase, soon discarded by Italian architects save as a means of secret communication or for the use of servants, held its own in France throughout the Renaissance. Its structural difficulties afforded scope for the exercise of that marvellous, if sometimes superfluous, ingenuity which distinguished the Gothic builders. The spiral staircase in the court-yard at Blois is an example of this kind of skilful engineering and of the somewhat fatiguing use of ornament not infrequently accompanying it; while such anomalies as the elaborate out-of-door spiral staircase enclosed within the building at Chambord are still more in the nature of a _tour de force_,--something perfect in itself, but not essential to the organism of the whole. Viollet-le-Duc, in his dictionary of architecture, under the heading _Château_, has given a sympathetic and ingenious explanation of the tenacity with which the French aristocracy clung to the obsolete complications of Gothic house-planning and structure long after frequent expeditions across the Alps had made them familiar with the simpler and more rational method of the Italian architects. It may be, as he suggests, that centuries of feudal life, with its surface of savagery and violence and its undercurrent treachery, had fostered in the nobles of northern Europe a desire for security and isolation that found expression in the intricate planning of their castles long after the advance of civilization had made these precautions unnecessary. It seems more probable, however, that the French architects of the Renaissance made the mistake of thinking that the essence of the classic styles lay in the choice and application of ornamental details. This exaggerated estimate of the importance of detail is very characteristic of an imperfect culture; and the French architects who in the fifteenth century were eagerly taking their first lessons from their contemporaries south of the Alps, had behind them nothing like the great synthetic tradition of the Italian masters. Certainly it was not until the Northern builders learned that the beauty of the old buildings was, above all, a matter of proportion, that their own style, freed from its earlier incoherencies, set out on the line of unbroken national development which it followed with such harmonious results until the end of the eighteenth century. In Italy the staircase often gave directly upon the entranceway; in France it was always preceded by a vestibule, and the upper landing invariably led into an antechamber. In England the relation between vestibule, hall and staircase was never so clearly established as on the Continent. The old English hall, so long the centre of feudal life, preserved its somewhat composite character after the _grand'salle_ of France and Italy had been broken up into the vestibule, the guard-room and the saloon. In the grandest Tudor houses the entrance-door usually opened directly into this hall. To obtain in some measure the privacy which a vestibule would have given, the end of the hall nearest the entrance-door was often cut off by a screen that supported the musicians' gallery. The corridor formed by this screen led to the staircase, usually placed behind the hall, and the gallery opened on the first landing of the stairs. This use of the screen at one end of the hall had so strong a hold upon English habits that it was never quite abandoned. Even after French architecture and house-planning had come into fashion in the eighteenth century, a house with a vestibule remained the rarest of exceptions in England; and the relative privacy afforded by the Gothic screen was then lost by substituting for the latter an open arcade, of great decorative effect, but ineffectual in shutting off the hall from the front door. The introduction of the Palladian style by Inigo Jones transformed the long and often narrow Tudor hall into the many-storied central saloon of the Italian villa, with galleries reached by concealed staircases, and lofty domed ceiling; but it was still called the hall, it still served as a vestibule, or means of access to the rest of the house, and, curiously enough, it usually adjoined another apartment, often of the same dimensions, called a saloon. Perhaps the best way of defining the English hall of this period is to say that it was really an Italian saloon, but that it was used as a vestibule and called a hall. Through all these changes the staircase remained shut off from the hall, upon which it usually opened. It was very unusual, except in small middle-class houses or suburban villas, to put the stairs in the hall, or, more correctly speaking, to make the front door open into the staircase. There are, however, several larger houses in which the stairs are built in the hall. Inigo Jones, in remodelling Castle Ashby for the Earl of Northampton, followed this plan; though this is perhaps not a good instance to cite, as it may have been difficult to find place for a separate staircase. At Chevening, in Kent, built by Inigo Jones for the Earl of Sussex, the stairs are also in the hall; and the same arrangement is seen at Shobden Court, at West Wycombe, built by J. Donowell for Lord le Despencer (where the stairs are shut off by a screen) and at Hurlingham, built late in the eighteenth century by G. Byfield. This digression has been made in order to show the origin of the modern English and American practice of placing the stairs in the hall and doing away with the vestibule. The vestibule never formed part of the English house, but the stairs were usually divided from the hall in houses of any importance; and it is difficult to see whence the modern architect has derived his idea of the combined hall and staircase. The tendency to merge into one any two apartments designed for different uses shows a retrogression in house-planning; and while it is fitting that the vestibule or hall should adjoin the staircase, there is no good reason for uniting them and there are many for keeping them apart. The staircase in a private house is for the use of those who inhabit it; the vestibule or hall is necessarily used by persons in no way concerned with the private life of the inmates. If the stairs, the main artery of the house, be carried up through the vestibule, there is no security from intrusion. Even the plan of making the vestibule precede the staircase, though better, is not the best. In a properly planned house the vestibule should open on a hall or antechamber of moderate size, giving access to the rooms on the ground floor, and this antechamber should lead into the staircase. It is only in houses where all the living-rooms are up-stairs that the vestibule may open directly into the staircase without lessening the privacy of the house. In Italy, where wood was little employed in domestic architecture, stairs were usually of stone. Marble came into general use in the grander houses when, in the seventeenth century, the stairs, instead of being carried up between walls, were often placed in an open staircase. The balustrade was usually of stone or marble, iron being much less used than in France. [Illustration: _PLATE XXXI._ STAIRCASE OF THE HÔTEL DE VILLE, NANCY. LOUIS XV PERIOD. BUILT BY HÉRÉ DE CORNY; STAIR-RAIL BY JEAN LAMOUR.] In the latter country the mediæval stairs, especially in the houses of the middle class, were often built of wood; but this material was soon abandoned, and from the time of Louis XIV stairs of stone with wrought-iron rails are a distinctive feature of French domestic architecture. The use of wrought-iron in French decoration received a strong impulse from the genius of Jean Lamour, who, when King Stanislas of Poland remodelled the town of Nancy early in the reign of Louis XV, adorned its streets and public buildings with specimens of iron-work unmatched in any other part of the world. Since then French decorators have expended infinite talent in devising the beautiful stair-rails and balconies which are the chief ornament of innumerable houses throughout France (see Plates XXXI and XXXII). Stair-rails of course followed the various modifications of taste which marked the architecture of the day. In the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries they were noted for severe richness of design. With the development of the rocaille manner their lines grew lighter and more fanciful, while the influence of Gabriel, which, toward the end of the reign of Louis XV, brought about a return to classic models, manifested itself in a simplified mode of treatment. At this period the outline of a classic baluster formed a favorite motive for the iron rail. Toward the close of the eighteenth century the designs for these rails grew thin and poor, with a predominance of upright iron bars divided at long intervals by some meagre medallion or geometrical figure. The exuberant sprays and volutes of the rococo period and the architectural lines of the Louis XVI style were alike absent from these later designs, which are chiefly marked by the negative merit of inoffensiveness. In the old French stair-rails steel was sometimes combined with gilded iron. The famous stair-rail of the Palais Royal, designed by Coutant d'Ivry, is made of steel and iron, and the Duc d'Aumale copied this combination in the stair-rail at Chantilly. There is little to recommend the substitution of steel for iron in such cases. It is impossible to keep a steel stair-rail clean and free from rust, except by painting it; and since it must be painted, iron is the more suitable material. In France the iron rail is usually painted black, though a very dark blue is sometimes preferred. Black is the better color, as it forms a stronger contrast with the staircase walls, which are presumably neutral in tint and severe in treatment. Besides, as iron is painted, not to improve its appearance, but to prevent its rusting, the color which most resembles its own is more appropriate. In French houses of a certain importance the iron stair-rail often had a few touches of gilding, but these were sparingly applied. In England wooden stair-rails were in great favor during the Tudor and Elizabethan period. These rails were marked rather by fanciful elaboration of detail than by intrinsic merit of design, and are doubtless more beautiful now that time has given them its patina, than they were when first made. With the Palladian style came the classic balustrade of stone or marble, or sometimes, in simpler houses, of wood. Iron rails were seldom used in England, and those to be found in some of the great London houses (as in Carlton House, Chesterfield House and Norfolk House) were probably due to the French influence which made itself felt in English domestic architecture during the eighteenth century. This influence, however, was never more than sporadic; and until the decline of decorative art at the close of the eighteenth century, Italian rather than French taste gave the note to English decoration. The interrelation of vestibule, hall and staircase having been explained, the subject of decorative detail must next be considered; but before turning to this, it should be mentioned that hereafter the space at the foot of the stairs, though properly a part of the staircase, will for the sake of convenience be called _the hall_, since in the present day it goes by that name in England and America. In contrasting the vestibule with the hall, it was pointed out that the latter might be treated in a gayer and more informal manner than the former. It must be remembered, however, that as the vestibule is the introduction to the hall, so the hall is the introduction to the living-rooms of the house; and it follows that the hall must be as much more formal than the living-rooms as the vestibule is more formal than the hall. It is necessary to emphasize this because the tendency of recent English and American decoration has been to treat the hall, not as a hall, but as a living-room. Whatever superficial attractions this treatment may possess, its inappropriateness will be seen when the purpose of the hall is considered. The hall is a means of access to all the rooms on each floor; on the ground floor it usually leads to the chief living-rooms of the house as well as to the vestibule and street; in addition to this, in modern houses even of some importance it generally contains the principal stairs of the house, so that it is the centre upon which every part of the house directly or indirectly opens. This publicity is increased by the fact that the hall must be crossed by the servant who opens the front door, and by any one admitted to the house. It follows that the hall, in relation to the rooms of the house, is like a public square in relation to the private houses around it. For some reason this obvious fact has been ignored by many recent decorators, who have chosen to treat halls like rooms of the most informal character, with open fireplaces, easy-chairs for lounging and reading, tables with lamps, books and magazines, and all the appointments of a library. This disregard of the purpose of the hall, like most mistakes in household decoration, has a very natural origin. When, in the first reaction from the discomfort and formality of sixty years ago, people began, especially in England, to study the arrangement of the old Tudor and Elizabethan houses, many of these were found to contain large panelled halls opening directly upon the porch or the terrace. The mellow tones of the wood-work; the bold treatment of the stairs, shut off as they were merely by a screen; the heraldic imagery of the hooded stone chimney-piece and of the carved or stuccoed ceiling, made these halls the chief feature of the house; while the rooms opening from them were so often insufficient for the requirements of modern existence, that the life of the inmates necessarily centred in the hall. Visitors to such houses saw only the picturesqueness of the arrangement--the huge logs glowing on the hearth, the books and flowers on the old carved tables, the family portraits on the walls; and, charmed with the impression received, they ordered their architects to reproduce for them a hall which, even in the original Tudor houses, was a survival of older social conditions. One might think that the recent return to classic forms of architecture would have done away with the Tudor hall; but, except in a few instances, this has not been the case. In fact, in the greater number of large houses, and especially of country houses, built in America since the revival of Renaissance and Palladian architecture, a large many-storied hall communicating directly with the vestibule, and containing the principal stairs of the house, has been the distinctive feature. If there were any practical advantages in this overgrown hall, it might be regarded as one of those rational modifications in plan which mark the difference between an unreasoning imitation of a past style and the intelligent application of its principles; but the Tudor hall, in its composite character as vestibule, parlor and dining-room, is only another instance of the sacrifice of convenience to archaism. [Illustration: _PLATE XXXII._ STAIRCASE IN THE PALACE OF FONTAINEBLEAU. LOUIS XV PERIOD.] The abnormal development of the modern staircase-hall cannot be defended on the plea sometimes advanced that it is a roofed-in adaptation of the great open _cortile_ of the Genoese palace, since there is no reason for adapting a plan so useless and so unsuited to our climate and way of living. The beautiful central _cortile_ of the Italian palace, with its monumental open stairs, was in no sense part of a "private house" in our interpretation of the term. It was rather a thoroughfare like a public street, since the various stories of the Italian palace were used as separate houses by different branches of the family. In most modern houses the hall, in spite of its studied resemblance to a living-room, soon reverts to its original use as a passageway; and this fact should indicate the treatment best suited to it. In rooms where people sit, and where they are consequently at leisure to look about them, delicacy of treatment and refinement of detail are suitable; but in an anteroom or a staircase only the first impression counts, and forcible simple lines, with a vigorous massing of light and shade, are essential. These conditions point to the use of severe strongly-marked panelling, niches for vases or statues, and a stair-rail detaching itself from the background in vigorous decisive lines.[32] The furniture of the hall should consist of benches or straight-backed chairs, and marble-topped tables and consoles. If a press is used, it should be architectural in design, like the old French and Italian _armoires_ painted with arabesques and architectural motives, or the English seventeenth-century presses made of some warm-toned wood like walnut and surmounted by a broken pediment with a vase or bust in the centre (see Plate XXXIII). The walls of the staircase in large houses should be of panelled stone or marble, as in the examples given in the plates accompanying this chapter. In small houses, where an expensive decoration is out of the question, a somewhat similar architectural effect may be obtained by the use of a few plain mouldings fixed to the plaster, the whole being painted in one uniform tint, or in two contrasting colors, such as white for the mouldings, and buff, gray, or pale green for the wall. To this scheme may be added plaster medallions, as suggested for the vestibule, or garlands and other architectural motives made of staff, in imitation of the stucco ornaments of the old French and Italian decorators. When such ornaments are used, they should invariably be simple and strong in design. The modern decorator is too often tempted by mere prettiness of detail to forget the general effect of his composition. In a staircase, where only the general effect is seized, prettiness does not count, and the effect produced should be strong, clear and telling. For the same reason, a stair-carpet, if used, should be of one color, without pattern. Masses of plain color are one of the chief means of producing effect in any scheme of decoration. When the floor of the hall is of marble or mosaic,--as, if possible, it should be,--the design, like that of the walls, should be clear and decided in outline (see Plate XXX). On the other hand, if the hall is used as an antechamber and carpeted, the carpet should be of one color, matching that on the stairs. In many large houses the stairs are now built of stone or marble, while the floor of the landings is laid in wood, apparently owing to the idea that stone or marble floors are cold. In the tropically-heated American house not even the most sensitive person could be chilled by passing contact with a stone floor; but if it is thought to "look cold," it is better to lay a rug or a strip of carpet on the landing than to permit the proximity of two such different substances as wood and stone. Unless the stairs are of wood, that material should never be used for the rail; nor should wooden stairs be put in a staircase of which the walls are of stone, marble, or scagliola. If the stairs are of wood, it is better to treat the walls with wood or plaster panelling. In simple staircases the best wall-decoration is a wooden dado-moulding nailed on the plaster, the dado thus formed being painted white, and the wall above it in any uniform color. Continuous pattern, such as that on paper or stuff hangings, is specially objectionable on the walls of a staircase, since it disturbs the simplicity of composition best fitted to this part of the house. For the lighting of the hall there should be a lantern like that in the vestibule, but more elaborate in design. This mode of lighting harmonizes with the severe treatment of the walls and indicates at once that the hall is not a living-room, but a thoroughfare.[33] If lights be required on the stairs, they should take the form of fire-gilt bronze sconces, as architectural as possible in design, without any finikin prettiness of detail. (For good examples, see the _appliques_ in Plates V and XXXIV). It is almost impossible to obtain well-designed _appliques_ of this kind in America; but the increasing interest shown in house-decoration will in time doubtless cause a demand for a better type of gas and electric fixtures. Meantime, unless imported sconces can be obtained, the plainest brass fixtures should be chosen in preference to the more elaborate models now to be found here. Where the walls of a hall are hung with pictures, these should be few in number, and decorative in composition and coloring. No subject requiring thought and study is suitable in such a position. The mythological or architectural compositions of the Italian and French schools of the last two centuries, with their superficial graces of color and design, are for this reason well suited to the walls of halls and antechambers. The same may be said of prints. These should not be used in a large high-studded hall; but they look well in a small entranceway, if hung on plain-tinted walls. Here again such architectural compositions as Piranesi's, with their bold contrasts of light and shade, Marc Antonio's classic designs, or some frieze-like procession, such as Mantegna's "Triumph of Julius Caesar," are especially appropriate; whereas the subtle detail of the German Little Masters, the symbolism of Dürer's etchings and the graces of Marillier or Moreau le Jeune would be wasted in a situation where there is small opportunity for more than a passing glance. In most American houses, the warming of hall and stairs is so amply provided for that where there is a hall fireplace it is seldom used. In country houses, where it is sometimes necessary to have special means for heating the hall, the open fireplace is of more service; but it is not really suited to such a situation. The hearth suggests an idea of intimacy and repose that has no place in a thoroughfare like the hall; and, aside from this question of fitness, there is a practical objection to placing an open chimney-piece in a position where it is exposed to continual draughts from the front door and from the rooms giving upon the hall. The best way of heating a hall is by means of a faience stove--not the oblong block composed of shiny white or brown tiles seen in Swiss and German _pensions_, but one of the fine old stoves of architectural design still used on the Continent for heating the vestibule and dining-room. In Europe, increased attention has of late been given to the design and coloring of these stoves; and if better known here, they would form an important feature in the decoration of our halls. Admirable models may be studied in many old French and German houses and on the borders of Switzerland and Italy; while the museum at Parma contains several fine examples of the rocaille period. [Illustration: _PLATE XXXIII._ FRENCH ARMOIRE, LOUIS XIV PERIOD. MUSEUM OF DECORATIVE ARTS, PARIS.] FOOTNOTES: [29] Burckhardt, in his _Geschichte der Renaissance in Italien_, justly points out that the seeming inconsequence of mediæval house-planning in northern Europe was probably due in part to the fact that the feudal castle, for purposes of defence, was generally built on an irregular site. See also Viollet-le-Duc. [30] "Der gothische Profanbau in Italien ... steht im vollen Gegensatz zum Norden durch die rationelle Anlage." Burckhardt, _Geschichte der Renaissance in Italien_, p. 28. [31] See the stairs of the Riccardi palace in Florence, of the Piccolomini palace at Pienza and of the ducal palace at Urbino. [32] For a fine example of a hall-niche containing a statue, see Plate XXX. [33] In large halls the tall _torchère_ of marble or bronze may be used for additional lights (see Plate XXXII). X THE DRAWING-ROOM, BOUDOIR, AND MORNING-ROOM The "with-drawing-room" of mediæval England, to which the lady and her maidens retired from the boisterous festivities of the hall, seems at first to have been merely a part of the bedchamber in which the lord and lady slept. In time it came to be screened off from the sleeping-room; then, in the king's palaces, it became a separate room for the use of the queen and her damsels; and so, in due course, reached the nobleman's castle, and established itself as a permanent part of English house-planning. In France the evolution of the _salon_ seems to have proceeded on somewhat different lines. During the middle ages and the early Renaissance period, the more public part of the nobleman's life was enacted in the hall, or _grand'salle_, while the social and domestic side of existence was transferred to the bedroom. This was soon divided into two rooms, as in England. In France, however, both these rooms contained beds; the inner being the real sleeping-chamber, while in the outer room, which was used not only for administering justice and receiving visits of state, but for informal entertainments and the social side of family life, the bedstead represented the lord's _lit de parade_, traditionally associated with state ceremonial and feudal privileges. [Illustration: _PLATE XXXIV._ SALA DELLA MADDALENA, ROYAL PALACE, GENOA. XVIII CENTURY. (ITALIAN DRAWING-ROOM IN ROCAILLE STYLE.)] The custom of having a state bedroom in which no one slept (_chambre de parade_, as it was called) was so firmly established that even in the engravings of Abraham Bosse, representing French life in the reign of Louis XIII, the fashionable apartments in which card-parties, suppers, and other entertainments are taking place, invariably contain a bed. In large establishments the _chambre de parade_ was never used as a sleeping-chamber except by visitors of distinction; but in small houses the lady slept in the room which served as her boudoir and drawing-room. The Renaissance, it is true, had introduced from Italy the _cabinet_ opening off the lady's chamber, as in the palaces of Urbino and Mantua; but these rooms were at first seen only in kings' palaces, and were, moreover, too small to serve any social purpose. The _cabinet_ of Catherine de' Medici at Blois is a characteristic example. Meanwhile, the gallery had relieved the _grand'salle_ of some of its numerous uses; and these two apartments seem to have satisfied all the requirements of society during the Renaissance in France. In the seventeenth century the introduction of the two-storied Italian saloon produced a state apartment called a _salon_; and this, towards the beginning of the eighteenth century, was divided into two smaller rooms: one, the _salon de compagnie_, remaining a part of the gala suite used exclusively for entertaining (see Plate XXXIV), while the other--the _salon de famille_--became a family apartment like the English drawing-room. The distinction between the _salon de compagnie_ and the _salon de famille_ had by this time also established itself in England, where the state drawing-room retained its Italian name of _salone_, or saloon, while the living-apartment preserved, in abbreviated form, the mediæval designation of the lady's with-drawing-room. Pains have been taken to trace as clearly as possible the mixed ancestry of the modern drawing-room, in order to show that it is the result of two distinct influences--that of the gala apartment and that of the family sitting-room. This twofold origin has curiously affected the development of the drawing-room. In houses of average size, where there are but two living-rooms--the master's library, or "den," and the lady's drawing-room,--it is obvious that the latter ought to be used as a _salon de famille_, or meeting-place for the whole family; and it is usually regarded as such in England, where common sense generally prevails in matters of material comfort and convenience, and where the drawing-room is often furnished with a simplicity which would astonish those who associate the name with white-and-gold walls and uncomfortable furniture. In modern American houses both traditional influences are seen. Sometimes, as in England, the drawing-room is treated as a family apartment, and provided with books, lamps, easy-chairs and writing-tables. In other houses it is still considered sacred to gilding and discomfort, the best room in the house, and the convenience of all its inmates, being sacrificed to a vague feeling that no drawing-room is worthy of the name unless it is uninhabitable. This is an instance of the _salon de compagnie_ having usurped the rightful place of the _salon de famille_; or rather, if the bourgeois descent of the American house be considered, it may be more truly defined as a remnant of the "best parlor" superstition. Whatever the genealogy of the American drawing-room, it must be owned that it too often fails to fulfil its purpose as a family apartment. It is curious to note the amount of thought and money frequently spent on the one room in the house used by no one, or occupied at most for an hour after a "company" dinner. [Illustration: _PLATE XXXV._ CONSOLE IN THE PETIT TRIANON, VERSAILLES. LATE LOUIS XV STYLE. BUST OF LOUIS XVI, BY PAJOU.] To this drawing-room, from which the inmates of the house instinctively flee as soon as their social duties are discharged, many necessities are often sacrificed. The library, or den, where the members of the family sit, may be furnished with shabby odds and ends; but the drawing-room must have its gilt chairs covered with brocade, its _vitrines_ full of modern Saxe, its guipure curtains and velvet carpet. The _salon de compagnie_ is out of place in the average house. Such a room is needed only where the dinners or other entertainments given are so large as to make it impossible to use the ordinary living-rooms of the house. In the grandest houses of Europe the gala-rooms are never thrown open except for general entertainments, or to receive guests of exalted rank, and the spectacle of a dozen people languishing after dinner in the gilded wilderness of a state saloon is practically unknown. The purpose for which the _salon de compagnie_ is used necessitates its being furnished in the same formal manner as other gala apartments. Circulation must not be impeded by a multiplicity of small pieces of furniture holding lamps or other fragile objects, while at least half of the chairs should be so light and easily moved that groups may be formed and broken up at will. The walls should be brilliantly decorated, without needless elaboration of detail, since it is unlikely that the temporary occupants of such a room will have time or inclination to study its treatment closely. The chief requisite is a gay first impression. To produce this, the wall-decoration should be light in color, and the furniture should consist of a few strongly marked pieces, such as handsome cabinets and consoles, bronze or marble statues, and vases and candelabra of imposing proportions. Almost all modern furniture is too weak in design and too finikin in detail to look well in a gala drawing-room.[34] (For examples of drawing-room furniture, see Plates VI, IX, XXXIV, and XXXV.) Beautiful pictures or rare prints produce little effect on the walls of a gala room, just as an accumulation of small objects of art, such as enamels, ivories and miniatures, are wasted upon its tables and cabinets. Such treasures are for rooms in which people spend their days, not for those in which they assemble for an hour's entertainment. But the _salon de compagnie_, being merely a modified form of the great Italian saloon, is a part of the gala suite, and any detailed discussion of the decorative treatment most suitable to it would result in a repetition of what is said in the chapter on Gala Rooms. The lighting of the company drawing-room--to borrow its French designation--should be evenly diffused, without the separate centres of illumination needful in a family living-room. The proper light is that of wax candles. Nothing has done more to vulgarize interior decoration than the general use of gas and of electricity in the living-rooms of modern houses. Electric light especially, with its harsh white glare, which no expedients have as yet overcome, has taken from our drawing-rooms all air of privacy and distinction. In passageways and offices, electricity is of great service; but were it not that all "modern improvements" are thought equally applicable to every condition of life, it would be difficult to account for the adoption of a mode of lighting which makes the _salon_ look like a railway-station, the dining-room like a restaurant. That such light is not needful in a drawing-room is shown by the fact that electric bulbs are usually covered by shades of some deep color, in order that the glare may be made as inoffensive as possible. [Illustration: _PLATE XXXVI._ SALON, PALACE OF FONTAINEBLEAU.] The light in a gala apartment should be neither vivid nor concentrated: the soft, evenly diffused brightness of wax candles is best fitted to bring out those subtle modellings of light and shade to which old furniture and objects of art owe half their expressiveness. The treatment of the _salon de compagnie_ naturally differs from that of the family drawing-room: the latter is essentially a room in which people should be made comfortable. There must be a well-appointed writing-table; the chairs must be conveniently grouped about various tables, each with its lamp;--in short, the furniture should be so disposed that people are not forced to take refuge in their bedrooms for lack of fitting arrangements in the drawing-room. The old French cabinet-makers excelled in the designing and making of furniture for the _salon de famille_. The term "French furniture" suggests to the Anglo-Saxon mind the stiff appointments of the gala room--heavy gilt consoles, straight-backed arm-chairs covered with tapestry, and monumental marble-topped tables. Admirable furniture of this kind was made in France; but in the grand style the Italian cabinet-makers competed successfully with the French; whereas the latter stood alone in the production of the simpler and more comfortable furniture adapted to the family living-room. Among those who have not studied the subject there is a general impression that eighteenth-century furniture, however beautiful in design and execution, was not comfortable in the modern sense. This is owing to the fact that the popular idea of "old furniture" is based on the appointments of gala rooms in palaces: visitors to Versailles or Fontainebleau are more likely to notice the massive gilt consoles and benches in the state saloons than the simple easy-chairs and work-tables of the _petits appartements_. A visit to the Garde Meuble or to the Musée des Arts Décoratifs of Paris, or the inspection of any collection of French eighteenth-century furniture, will show the versatility and common sense of the old French cabinet-makers. They produced an infinite variety of small _meubles_, in which beauty of design and workmanship were joined to simplicity and convenience. The old arm-chair, or _bergère_, is a good example of this combination. The modern upholsterer pads and puffs his seats as though they were to form the furniture of a lunatic's cell; and then, having expanded them to such dimensions that they cannot be moved without effort, perches their dropsical bodies on four little casters. Any one who compares such an arm-chair to the eighteenth-century _bergère_, with its strong tapering legs, its snugly-fitting back and cushioned seat, must admit that the latter is more convenient and more beautiful (see Plates VIII and XXXVII). The same may be said of the old French tables--from desks, card and work-tables, to the small _guéridon_ just large enough to hold a book and candlestick. All these tables were simple and practical in design: even in the Louis XV period, when more variety of outline and ornament was permitted, the strong structural lines were carefully maintained, and it is unusual to see an old table that does not stand firmly on its legs and appear capable of supporting as much weight as its size will permit (see Louis XV writing-table in Plate XLVI). The French tables, cabinets and commodes used in the family apartments were usually of inlaid wood, with little ornamentation save the design of the marquetry--elaborate mounts of chiselled bronze being reserved for the furniture of gala rooms (see Plate X). Old French marquetry was exquisitely delicate in color and design, while Italian inlaying of the same period, though coarser, was admirable in composition. Old Italian furniture of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was always either inlaid or carved and painted in gay colors: chiselled mounts are virtually unknown in Italy. [Illustration: _PLATE XXXVII._ ROOM IN THE PALACE OF FONTAINEBLEAU. LOUIS XV PANELLING, LOUIS XVI FURNITURE.] The furniture of the eighteenth century in England, while not comparable in design to the best French models, was well made and dignified; and its angularity of outline is not out of place against the somewhat cold and formal background of an Adam room. English marquetry suffered from the poverty of ornament marking the wall-decoration of the period. There was a certain timidity about the decorative compositions of the school of Adam and Sheraton, and in their scanty repertoire the laurel-wreath, the velarium and the cornucopia reappear with tiresome frequency. The use to which the family drawing-room is put should indicate the character of its decoration. Since it is a room in which many hours of the day are spent, and in which people are at leisure, it should contain what is best worth looking at in the way of pictures, prints, and other objects of art; while there should be nothing about its decoration so striking or eccentric as to become tiresome when continually seen. A fanciful style may be pleasing in apartments used only for stated purposes, such as the saloon or gallery; but in a living-room, decoration should be subordinate to the individual, forming merely a harmonious but unobtrusive background (see Plates XXXVI and XXXVII). Such a setting also brings out the full decorative value of all the drawing-room accessories--screens, andirons, _appliques_, and door and window-fastenings. A study of any old French interior will show how much these details contributed to the general effect of the room. Those who really care for books are seldom content to restrict them to the library, for nothing adds more to the charm of a drawing-room than a well-designed bookcase: an expanse of beautiful bindings is as decorative as a fine tapestry. The boudoir is, properly speaking, a part of the bedroom suite, and as such is described in the chapter on the Bedroom. Sometimes, however, a small sitting-room adjoins the family drawing-room, and this, if given up to the mistress of the house, is virtually the boudoir. The modern boudoir is a very different apartment from its eighteenth-century prototype. Though it may preserve the delicate decorations and furniture suggested by its name, such a room is now generally used for the prosaic purpose of interviewing servants, going over accounts and similar occupations. The appointments should therefore comprise a writing-desk, with pigeon-holes, drawers, and cupboards, and a comfortable lounge, or _lit de repos_, for resting and reading. [Illustration: _PLATE XXXVIII._ LIT DE REPOS, EARLY LOUIS XV PERIOD.] The _lit de repos_, which, except in France, has been replaced by the clumsy upholstered lounge, was one of the most useful pieces of eighteenth-century furniture (see Plate XXXVIII). As its name implies, it is shaped somewhat like a bed, or rather like a cradle that stands on four legs instead of swinging. It is made of carved wood, sometimes upholstered, but often seated with cane (see Plate XXXIX). In the latter case it is fitted with a mattress and with a pillow-like cushion covered with some material in keeping with the hangings of the room. Sometimes the _duchesse_, or upholstered _bergère_ with removable foot-rest in the shape of a square bench, is preferred to the _lit de repos_; but the latter is the more elegant and graceful, and it is strange that it should have been discarded in favor of the modern lounge, which is not only ugly, but far less comfortable. [Illustration: _PLATE XXXIX._ LIT DE REPOS, LOUIS XV PERIOD.] As the boudoir is generally a small room, it is peculiarly suited to the more delicate styles of painting or stucco ornamentation described in the third chapter. A study of boudoir-decoration in the last century, especially in France, will show the admirable sense of proportion regulating the treatment of these little rooms (see Plate XL). Their adornment was naturally studied with special care by the painters and decorators of an age in which women played so important a part. It is sometimes thought that the eighteenth-century boudoir was always decorated and furnished in a very elaborate manner. This idea originates in the fact, already pointed out, that the rooms usually seen by tourists are those in royal palaces, or in such princely houses as are thrown open to the public on account of their exceptional magnificence. The same type of boudoir is continually reproduced in books on architecture and decoration; and what is really a small private sitting-room for the lady of the house, corresponding with her husband's "den," has thus come to be regarded as one of the luxuries of a great establishment. The prints of Eisen, Marillier, Moreau le Jeune, and other book-illustrators of the eighteenth century, show that the boudoir in the average private house was, in fact, a simple room, gay and graceful in decoration, but as a rule neither rich nor elaborate (see Plate XLI). As it usually adjoined the bedroom, it was decorated in the same manner, and even when its appointments were expensive all appearance of costliness was avoided.[35] The boudoir is the room in which small objects of art--prints, mezzotints and _gouaches_--show to the best advantage. No detail is wasted, and all manner of delicate effects in wood-carving, marquetry, and other ornamentation, such as would be lost upon the walls and furniture of a larger room, here acquire their full value. One or two well-chosen prints hung on a background of plain color will give more pleasure than a medley of photographs, colored photogravures, and other decorations of the cotillon-favor type. Not only do mediocre ornaments become tiresome when seen day after day, but the mere crowding of furniture and gimcracks into a small room intended for work and repose will soon be found fatiguing. Many English houses, especially in the country, contain a useful room called the "morning-room," which is well defined by Robert Kerr, in _The English Gentleman's House_, as "the drawing-room in ordinary." It is, in fact, a kind of undress drawing-room, where the family may gather informally at all hours of the day. The out-of-door life led in England makes it specially necessary to provide a sitting-room which people are not afraid to enter in muddy boots and wet clothes. Even if the drawing-room be not, as Mr. Kerr quaintly puts it, "preserved"--that is, used exclusively for company--it is still likely to contain the best furniture in the house; and though that "best" is not too fine for every-day use, yet in a large family an informal, wet-weather room of this kind is almost indispensable. [Illustration: _PLATE XL._ PAINTED WALL-PANEL AND DOOR, CHÂTEAU OF CHANTILLY. LOUIS XV. (EXAMPLE OF CHINOISERIE DECORATION.)] No matter how elaborately the rest of the house is furnished, the appointments of the morning-room should be plain, comfortable, and capable of resisting hard usage. It is a good plan to cover the floor with a straw matting, and common sense at once suggests the furniture best suited to such a room: two or three good-sized tables with lamps, a comfortable sofa, and chairs covered with chintz, leather, or one of the bright-colored horsehairs now manufactured in France. [Illustration: _PLATE XLI._ Sa triste amante abandonnee Pleure ses maux et ses plaisirs. FRENCH BOUDOIR, LOUIS XVI PERIOD. (FROM A PRINT BY LE BOUTEUX.)] FOOTNOTES: [34] Much of the old furniture which appears to us unnecessarily stiff and monumental was expressly designed to be placed against the walls in rooms used for general entertainments, where smaller and more delicately made pieces would have been easily damaged, and would, moreover, have produced no effect. [35] The ornate boudoir seen in many XVIIIth-century prints is that of the _femme galante_. XI GALA ROOMS: BALL-ROOM, SALOON, MUSIC-ROOM, GALLERY European architects have always considered it essential that those rooms which are used exclusively for entertaining--gala rooms, as they are called--should be quite separate from the family apartments,--either occupying an entire floor (the Italian _piano nobile_) or being so situated that it is not necessary to open them except for general entertainments. In many large houses lately built in America, with ball and music rooms and a hall simulating the two-storied Italian saloon, this distinction has been disregarded, and living and gala rooms have been confounded in an agglomeration of apartments where the family, for lack of a smaller suite, sit under gilded ceilings and cut-glass chandeliers, in about as much comfort and privacy as are afforded by the public "parlors" of one of our new twenty-story hotels. This confusion of two essentially different types of room, designed for essentially different phases of life, has been caused by the fact that the architect, when called upon to build a grand house, has simply enlarged, instead of altering, the _maison bourgeoise_ that has hitherto been the accepted model of the American gentleman's house; for it must not be forgotten that the modern American dwelling descends from the English middle-class house, not from the aristocratic country-seat or town residence. The English nobleman's town house was like the French _hôtel_, with gates, porter's lodge, and court-yard surrounded by stables and offices; and the planning of the country-seat was even more elaborate. A glance at any collection of old English house-plans, such as Campbell's _Vitruvius Britannicus_, will show the purely middle-class ancestry of the American house, and the consequent futility of attempting, by the mere enlargement of each room, to turn it into a gentleman's seat or town residence. The kind of life which makes gala rooms necessary exacts a different method of planning; and until this is more generally understood the treatment of such rooms in American houses will never be altogether satisfactory. Gala rooms are meant for general entertainments, never for any assemblage small or informal enough to be conveniently accommodated in the ordinary living-rooms of the house; therefore to fulfil their purpose they must be large, very high-studded, and not overcrowded with furniture, while the walls and ceiling--the only parts of a crowded room that can be seen--must be decorated with greater elaboration than would be pleasing or appropriate in other rooms. All these conditions unfit the gala room for any use save that for which it is designed. Nothing can be more cheerless than the state of a handful of people sitting after dinner in an immense ball-room with gilded ceiling, bare floors, and a few pieces of monumental furniture ranged round the walls; yet in any house which is simply an enlargement of the ordinary private dwelling the hostess is often compelled to use the ball-room or saloon as a drawing-room. A gala room is never meant to be seen except when crowded: the crowd takes the place of furniture. Occupied by a small number of people, such a room looks out of proportion, stiff and empty. The hostess feels this, and tries, by setting chairs and tables askew, and introducing palms, screens and knick-knacks, to produce an effect of informality. As a result the room dwarfs the furniture, loses the air of state, and gains little in real comfort; while it becomes necessary, when a party is given, to remove the furniture and disarrange the house, thus undoing the chief _raison d'être_ of such apartments. The Italians, inheriting the grandiose traditions of the Augustan age, have always excelled in the treatment of rooms demanding the "grand manner." Their unfailing sense that house-decoration is interior architecture, and must clearly proclaim its architectural affiliations, has been of special service in this respect. It is rare in Italy to see a large room inadequately treated. Sometimes the "grand manner"--the mimic _terribilità_--may be carried too far to suit Anglo-Saxon taste--it is hard to say for what form of entertainment such a room as Giulio Romano's Sala dei Giganti in the Palazzo del T would form a pleasing or appropriate background--but apart from such occasional aberrations, the Italian decorators showed a wonderful sense of fitness in the treatment of state apartments. To small dribbles of ornament they preferred bold forcible mouldings, coarse but clear-cut free-hand ornamentation in stucco, and either a classic severity of treatment or the turbulent bravura style of the saloon of the Villa Rotonda and of Tiepolo's Cleopatra frescoes in the Palazzo Labia at Venice. [Illustration: _PLATE XLII._ SALON À L'ITALIENNE. (FROM A PICTURE BY COYPEL.)] The saloon and gallery are the two gala rooms borrowed from Italy by northern Europe. The saloon has already been described in the chapter on Hall and Stairs. It was a two-storied apartment, usually with clerestory, domed ceiling, and a gallery to which access was obtained by concealed staircases (see Plates XLII and XLIII). This gallery was often treated as an arcade or loggia, and in many old Italian prints and pictures there are representations of these saloons, with groups of gaily dressed people looking down from the gallery upon the throngs crowding the floor. The saloon was used in Italy as a ball-room or gambling-room--gaming being the chief social amusement of the eighteenth century. In England and France the saloon was rarely two stories high, though there are some exceptions, as for example the saloon at Vaux-le-Vicomte. The cooler climate rendered a clerestory less necessary, and there was never the same passion for grandiose effects as in Italy. The saloon in northern Europe was always a stately and high-studded room, generally vaulted or domed, and often circular in plan; but it seldom reached such imposing dimensions as its Italian prototype, and when more than one story high was known by the distinctive designation of _un salon à l'italienne_. The gallery was probably the first feature in domestic house-planning to be borrowed from Italy by northern Europe. It is seen in almost all the early Renaissance châteaux of France; and as soon as the influence of such men as John of Padua and John Shute asserted itself in England, the gallery became one of the principal apartments of the Elizabethan mansion. There are several reasons for the popularity of the gallery. In the cold rainy autumns and winters north of the Alps it was invaluable as a sheltered place for exercise and games; it was well adapted to display the pictures, statuary and bric-à-brac which, in emulation of Italian collectors, the Northern nobles were beginning to acquire; and it showed off to advantage the long line of ancestral portraits and the tapestries representing a succession of episodes from the _Æneid_, the _Orlando Innamorato_, or some of the interminable epics that formed the light reading of the sixteenth century. Then, too, the gallery served for the processions which were a part of the social ceremonial in great houses: the march to the chapel or banquet-hall, the escorting of a royal guest to the state bedroom, and other like pageants. In France and England the gallery seems for a long time to have been used as a saloon and ball-room, whereas in Italy it was, as a rule, reserved for the display of the art-treasures of the house, no Italian palace worthy of the name being without its gallery of antiquities or of marbles. In modern houses the ball-room and music-room are the two principal gala apartments. A music-room need not be a gala room in the sense of being used only for large entertainments; but since it is outside the circle of every-day use, and more or less associated with entertaining, it seems best to include it in this chapter. Many houses of average size have a room large enough for informal entertainments. Such a room, especially in country houses, should be decorated in a gay simple manner in harmony with the rest of the house and with the uses to which the room is to be put. Rooms of this kind may be treated with a white dado, surmounted by walls painted in a pale tint, with boldly modelled garlands and attributes in stucco, also painted white (see Plate XIII). If these stucco decorations are used to frame a series of pictures, such as fruit and flower-pieces or decorative subjects, the effect is especially attractive. Large painted panels with eighteenth-century _genre_ subjects or pastoral scenes, set in simple white panelling, are also very decorative. A coved ceiling is best suited to rooms of this comparatively simple character, while in state ball-rooms the dome increases the general appearance of splendor. [Illustration: _PLATE XLIII._ BALL-ROOM, ROYAL PALACE, GENOA. LATE XVIII CENTURY. (EXAMPLE OF STUCCO DECORATION.)] A panelling of mirrors forms a brilliant ball-room decoration, and charming effects are produced by painting these mirrors with birds, butterflies, and garlands of flowers, in the manner of the famous Italian mirror-painter, Mario dei Fiori--"Mario of the Flowers"--as he was called in recognition of his special gift. There is a beautiful room by this artist in the Borghese Palace in Rome, and many Italian palaces contain examples of this peculiarly brilliant style of decoration, which might be revived to advantage by modern painters. In ball-rooms of great size and importance, where the walls demand a more architectural treatment, the use of an order naturally suggests itself. Pilasters of marble, separated by marble niches containing statues, form a severe but splendid decoration; and if white and colored marbles are combined, and the whole is surmounted by a domed ceiling frescoed in bright colors, the effect is extremely brilliant. In Italy the architectural decoration of large rooms was often entirely painted (see Plate XLIV), the plaster walls being covered with a fanciful piling-up of statues, porticoes and balustrades, while figures in Oriental costume, or in the masks and parti-colored dress of the _Comédie Italienne_, leaned from simulated loggias or wandered through marble colonnades. The Italian decorator held any audacity permissible in a room used only by a throng of people, whose mood and dress made them ready to accept the fairy-tales on the walls as a fitting background to their own masquerading. Modern travellers, walking through these old Italian saloons in the harsh light of day, while cobwebs hang from the audacious architecture, and the cracks in the plaster look like wounds in the cheeks of simpering nymphs and shepherdesses, should remember that such apartments were meant to be seen by the soft light of wax candles in crystal chandeliers, with fantastically dressed dancers thronging the marble floor. Such a ball-room, if reproduced in the present day, would be far more effective than the conventional white-and-gold room, which, though unobjectionable when well decorated, lacks the imaginative charm, the personal note, given by the painter's touch. Under Louis XIV many French apartments of state were panelled with colored marbles, with an application of attributes or trophies, and other ornamental motives in fire-gilt bronze: a sumptuous mode of treatment according well with a domed and frescoed ceiling. Tapestry was also much used, and forms an admirable decoration, provided the color-scheme is light and the design animated. Seventeenth and eighteenth-century tapestries are the most suitable, as the scale of color is brighter and the compositions are gayer than in the earlier hangings. Modern dancers prefer a polished wooden floor, and it is perhaps smoother and more elastic than any other surface; but in beauty and decorative value it cannot be compared with a floor of inlaid marble, and as all the dancing in Italian palaces is still done on such floors, the preference for wood is probably the result of habit. In a ball-room of any importance, especially where marble is used on the walls, the floor should always be of the same substance (see floors in Plates XXIX, XXX, and LV). [Illustration: _PLATE XLIV._ SALOON IN THE VILLA VERTEMATI. XVI CENTURY. (EXAMPLE OF FRESCOED WALLS AND CARVED WOODEN CEILING.)] Gala apartments, as distinguished from living-rooms, should be lit from the ceiling, never from the walls. No ball-room or saloon is complete without its chandeliers: they are one of the characteristic features of a gala room (see Plates V, XIX, XXXIV, XLIII, XLV, L). For a ball-room, where all should be light and brilliant, rock-crystal or cut-glass chandeliers are most suitable: reflected in a long line of mirrors, they are an invaluable factor in any scheme of gala decoration. [Illustration: _PLATE XLV._ SALA DELLO ZODIACO, ROYAL PALACE, MANTUA. XVIII CENTURY. (EXAMPLE OF STUCCO DECORATION.)] The old French decorators relied upon the reflection of mirrors for producing an effect of distance in the treatment of gala rooms. Above the mantel, there was always a mirror with another of the same shape and size directly opposite; and the glittering perspective thus produced gave to the scene an air of fantastic unreality. The gala suite being so planned that all the rooms adjoined each other, the effect of distance was further enhanced by placing the openings in line, so that on entering the suite it was possible to look down its whole length. The importance of preserving this long vista, or _enfilade_, as the French call it, is dwelt on by all old writers on house-decoration. If a ball-room be properly lit and decorated, it is never necessary to dress it up with any sort of temporary ornamentation: the true mark of the well-decorated ball-room is to look always ready for a ball. The only chair seen in most modern ball-rooms is the folding camp-seat hired by the hundred when entertainments are given; but there is no reason why a ball-room should be even temporarily disfigured by these makeshifts, which look their worst when an effort is made to conceal their cheap construction under a little gilding and satin. In all old ball-rooms, benches and _tabourets_ (small seats without backs) were ranged in a continuous line along the walls. These seats, handsomely designed, and covered with tapestry, velvet, or embroidered silk slips, were a part of the permanent decoration of the room. On ordinary occasions they would be sufficient for a modern ball-room; and when larger entertainments made it needful to provide additional seats, these might be copied from the seventeenth-century _perroquets_, examples of which may be found in the various French works on the history of furniture. These _perroquets_, or folding chairs without arms, made of natural walnut or gilded, with seats of tapestry, velvet or decorated leather, would form an excellent substitute for the modern cotillon seat. The first rule to be observed in the decoration of the music-room is the avoidance of all stuff hangings, draperies, and substances likely to deaden sound. The treatment chosen for the room must of course depend on its size and its relation to the other rooms in the house. While a music-room should be more subdued in color than a ball-room, sombre tints and heavy ornament are obviously inappropriate: the effect aimed at should be one of lightness and serenity in form and color. However small and simple the music-room may be, it should always appear as though there were space overhead for the notes to escape; and some form of vaulting or doming is therefore more suitable than a flat ceiling. While plain panelling, if well designed, is never out of keeping, the walls of a music-room are specially suited to a somewhat fanciful style of decoration. In a ball-room, splendor and brilliancy of effect are more needful than a studied delicacy; but where people are seated, and everything in the room is consequently subjected to close and prolonged scrutiny, sprightliness of composition should be combined with variety of detail, the decoration being neither so confused and intricate as to distract attention, nor so conventional as to be dismissed with a glance on entering the room. [Illustration: _PLATE XLVI._ FRENCH TABLE. (TRANSITION BETWEEN LOUIS XIV AND LOUIS XV PERIODS.)] The early Renaissance compositions in which stucco low-reliefs blossom into painted arabesques and tendrils, are peculiarly adapted to a small music-room; while those who prefer a more architectural treatment may find admirable examples in some of the Italian eighteenth-century rooms decorated with free-hand stucco ornament, or in the sculptured wood-panelling of the same period in France. At Remiremont in the Vosges, formerly the residence of a noble order of canonesses, the abbess's _hôtel_ contains an octagonal music-room of exceptional beauty, the panelled walls being carved with skilfully combined musical instruments and flower-garlands. In larger apartments a fanciful style of fresco-painting might be employed, as in the rooms painted by Tiepolo in the Villa Valmarana, near Vicenza, or in the staircase of the Palazzo Sina, at Venice, decorated by Longhi with the episodes of an eighteenth-century carnival. Whatever the design chosen, it should never resemble the formal treatment suited to ball-room and saloon: the decoration should sound a note distinctly suggestive of the purpose for which the music-room is used. It is difficult to understand why modern music-rooms have so long been disfigured by the clumsy lines of grand and upright pianos, since the cases of both might be modified without affecting the construction of the instrument. Of the two, the grand piano would be the easier to remodel: if its elephantine supports were replaced by slender fluted legs, and its case and sounding-board were painted, or inlaid with marquetry, it would resemble the charming old clavecin which preceded the pianoforte. Fewer changes are possible in the "upright"; but a marked improvement could be produced by straightening its legs and substituting right angles for the weak curves of the lid. The case itself might be made of plainly panelled mahogany, with a few good ormolu ornaments; or of inlaid wood, with a design of musical instruments and similar "attributes"; or it might be decorated with flower-garlands and arabesques painted either on the natural wood or on a gilt or colored background. Designers should also study the lines of those two long-neglected pieces of furniture, the music-stool and music-stand. The latter should be designed to match the piano, and painted or inlaid like its case. The revolving mushroom that now serves as a music-stool is a modern invention: the old stools were substantial circular seats resting on four fluted legs. The manuals of the eighteenth-century cabinet-makers contain countless models of these piano-seats, which might well be reproduced by modern designers: there seems no practical reason why the accessories of the piano should be less decorative than those of the harpsichord. [Illustration: _PLATE XLVII._ LIBRARY OF LOUIS XVI, PALACE OF VERSAILLES. (LOUIS XV WRITING-TABLE WITH BUST.)] XII THE LIBRARY, SMOKING-ROOM, AND "DEN" In the days when furniture was defined as "that which may be carried about," the natural bookcase was a chest with a strong lock. These chests, packed with precious manuscripts, followed the prince or noble from one castle to another, and were even carried after him into camp. Before the invention of printing, when twenty or thirty books formed an exceptionally large library, and many great personages were content with the possession of one volume, such ambulant bookcases were sufficient for the requirements of the most eager bibliophile. Occasionally the volumes were kept in a small press or cupboard, and placed in a chest only when their owner travelled; but the bookcase, as now known, did not take shape until much later, for when books multiplied with the introduction of printing, it became customary to fit up for their reception little rooms called _cabinets_. In the famous _cabinet_ of Catherine de Medici at Blois the walls are lined with book-shelves concealed behind sliding panels--a contrivance rendered doubly necessary by the general insecurity of property, and by the fact that the books of that period, whether in manuscript or printed, were made sumptuous as church jewelry by the art of painter and goldsmith. Long after the establishment of the printing-press, books, except in the hands of the scholar, continued to be a kind of curiosity, like other objects of art: less an intellectual need than a treasure upon which rich men prided themselves. It was not until the middle of the seventeenth century that the taste for books became a taste for reading. France led the way in this new fashion, which was assiduously cultivated in those Parisian _salons_ of which Madame de Rambouillet's is the recognized type. The possession of a library, hitherto the privilege of kings, of wealthy monasteries, or of some distinguished patron of letters like Grolier, Maioli, or de Thou, now came to be regarded as a necessity of every gentleman's establishment. Beautiful bindings were still highly valued, and some of the most wonderful work produced in France belongs to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; but as people began to buy books for the sake of what they contained, less exaggerated importance was attached to their exterior, so that bindings, though perfect as taste and skill could make them, were seldom as extravagantly enriched as in the two preceding centuries. Up to a certain point this change was not to be regretted: the mediæval book, with its gold or ivory bas-reliefs bordered with precious stones, and its massive jewelled clasps, was more like a monstrance or reliquary than anything meant for less ceremonious use. It remained for the Italian printers and binders of the sixteenth century, and for their French imitators, to adapt the form of the book to its purpose, changing, as it were, a jewelled idol to a human companion. [Illustration: _PLATE XLVIII._ SMALL LIBRARY AT AUDLEY END, ENGLAND. XVIII CENTURY.] The substitution of the octavo for the folio, and certain modifications in binding which made it possible to stand books upright instead of laying one above the other with edges outward, gradually gave to the library a more modern aspect. In France, by the middle of the seventeenth century, the library had come to be a recognized feature in private houses. The Renaissance _cabinet_ continued to be the common receptacle for books; but as the shelves were no longer concealed, bindings now contributed to the decoration of the room. Movable bookcases were not unknown, but these seem to have been merely presses in which wooden door-panels were replaced by glass or by a lattice-work of brass wire. The typical French bookcase _à deux corps_--that is, made in two separate parts, the lower a cupboard to contain prints and folios, the upper with shelves and glazed or latticed doors--was introduced later, and is still the best model for a movable bookcase. In rooms of any importance, however, the French architect always preferred to build his book-shelves into niches formed in the thickness of the wall, thus utilizing the books as part of his scheme of decoration. There is no doubt that this is not only the most practical, but the most decorative, way of housing any collection of books large enough to be so employed. To adorn the walls of a library, and then conceal their ornamentation by expensive bookcases, is a waste, or rather a misapplication, of effects--always a sin against æsthetic principles. The importance of bookbindings as an element in house-decoration has already been touched upon; but since a taste for good bindings has come to be regarded as a collector's fad, like accumulating snuff-boxes or _baisers-de-paix_, it seems needful to point out how obvious and valuable a means of decoration is lost by disregarding the outward appearance of books. To be decorative, a bookcase need not contain the productions of the master-binders,--old volumes by Eve and Derôme, or the work of Roger Payne and Sanderson,--unsurpassed as they are in color-value. Ordinary bindings of half morocco or vellum form an expanse of warm lustrous color; such bindings are comparatively inexpensive; yet people will often hesitate to pay for a good edition bound in plain levant half the amount they are ready to throw away upon a piece of modern Saxe or a silver photograph-frame. The question of binding leads incidentally to that of editions, though the latter is hardly within the scope of this book. People who have begun to notice the outside of their books naturally come to appreciate paper and type; and thus learn that the modern book is too often merely the cheapest possible vehicle for putting words into print. The last few years have brought about some improvement; and it is now not unusual for a publisher, in bringing out a book at the ordinary rates, to produce also a small edition in large-paper copies. These large-paper books, though as yet far from perfect in type and make-up, are superior to the average "commercial article"; and, apart from their artistic merit, are in themselves a good investment, since the value of such editions increases steadily year by year. Those who cannot afford both edition and binding will do better to buy large-paper books or current first editions in boards, than "handsomely bound" volumes unworthy in type and paper. The plain paper or buckram covers of a good publisher are, in fact, more decorative, because more artistic, than showy tree-calf or "antique morocco." The same principle applies to the library itself: plain shelves filled with good editions in good bindings are more truly decorative than ornate bookcases lined with tawdry books. It has already been pointed out that the plan of building book-shelves into the walls is the most decorative and the most practical (see Plate XLVIII). The best examples of this treatment are found in France. The walls of the rooms thus decorated were usually of panelled wood, either in natural oak or walnut, as in the beautiful library of the old university at Nancy, or else painted in two contrasting colors, such as gray and white. When not set in recesses, the shelves formed a sort of continuous lining around the walls, as in the library of Louis XVI in the palace at Versailles (see Plate XLVII), or in that of the Duc de Choiseul at Chanteloup, now set up in one of the rooms of the public library at Tours. In either case, instead of being detached pieces of furniture, the bookcases formed an organic part of the wall-decoration. Any study of old French works on house-decoration and furniture will show how seldom the detached bookcase was used in French libraries: but few models are to be found, and these were probably designed for use in the boudoir or study, rather than in the library proper (see bookcase in Plate V). In England, where private libraries were fewer and less extensive, the movable bookcase was much used, and examples of built-in shelves are proportionately rarer. The hand-books of the old English cabinet-makers contain innumerable models of handsome bookcases, with glazed doors set with diamond-shaped panes in wooden mouldings, and the familiar broken pediment surmounted by a bust or an urn. It was natural that where books were few, small bookcases should be preferred to a room lined with shelves; and in the seventeenth century, according to John Evelyn, the "three nations of Great Britain" contained fewer books than Paris. Almost all the old bookcases had one feature in common: that is, the lower cupboard with solid doors. The bookcase proper rested upon this projecting cupboard, thus raising the books above the level of the furniture. The prevalent fashion of low book-shelves, starting from the floor, and not extending much higher than the dado-moulding, has probably been brought about by the other recent fashion of low-studded rooms. Architects are beginning to rediscover the forgotten fact that the stud of a room should be regulated by the dimensions of its floor-space; so that in the newer houses the dwarf bookcase is no longer a necessity. It is certainly less convenient than the tall old-fashioned press; for not only must one kneel to reach the lower shelves, but the books are hidden, and access to them is obstructed, by their being on a level with the furniture. The general decoration of the library should be of such character as to form a background or setting to the books, rather than to distract attention from them. The richly adorned room in which books are but a minor incident is, in fact, no library at all. There is no reason why the decorations of a library should not be splendid; but in that case the books must be splendid too, and sufficient in number to dominate all the accessory decorations of the room. When there are books enough, it is best to use them as part of the decorative treatment of the walls, panelling any intervening spaces in a severe and dignified style; otherwise movable bookcases may be placed against the more important wall-spaces, the walls being decorated with wooden panelling or with mouldings and stucco ornaments; but in this case composition and color-scheme must be so subdued as to throw the bookcases and their contents into marked relief. It does not follow that because books are the chief feature of the library, other ornaments should be excluded; but they should be used with discrimination, and so chosen as to harmonize with the spirit of the room. Nowhere is the modern litter of knick-knacks and photographs more inappropriate than in the library. The tables should be large, substantial, and clear of everything but lamps, books and papers--one table at least being given over to the filing of books and newspapers. The library writing-table is seldom large enough, or sufficiently free from odds and ends in the shape of photograph-frames, silver boxes, and flower-vases, to give free play to the elbows. A large solid table of the kind called _bureau-ministre_ (see the table in Plate XLVII) is well adapted to the library; and in front of it should stand a comfortable writing-chair such as that represented in Plate XLIX. [Illustration: _PLATE XLIX._ WRITING-CHAIR, LOUIS XV PERIOD.] The housing of a great private library is one of the most interesting problems of interior architecture. Such a room, combining monumental dimensions with the rich color-values and impressive effect produced by tiers of fine bindings, affords unequalled opportunity for the exercise of the architect's skill. The two-storied room with gallery and stairs and domed or vaulted ceiling is the finest setting for a great collection. Space may of course be gained by means of a series of bookcases projecting into the room and forming deep bays along each of the walls; but this arrangement is seldom necessary save in a public library, and however skilfully handled must necessarily diminish the architectural effect of the room. In America the great private library is still so much a thing of the future that its treatment need not be discussed in detail. Few of the large houses lately built in the United States contain a library in the serious meaning of the term; but it is to be hoped that the next generation of architects will have wider opportunities in this direction. The smoking-room proper, with its _mise en scène_ of Turkish divans, narghilehs, brass coffee-trays, and other Oriental properties, is no longer considered a necessity in the modern house; and the room which would formerly have been used for this special purpose now comes rather under the head of the master's lounging-room, or "den"--since the latter word seems to have attained the dignity of a technical term. Whatever extravagances the upholsterer may have committed in other parts of the house, it is usually conceded that common sense should regulate the furnishing of the den. Fragile chairs, lace-petticoat lamp-shades and irrelevant bric-à-brac are consequently excluded; and the master's sense of comfort often expresses itself in a set of "office" furniture--a roller-top desk, a revolving chair, and others of the puffy type already described as the accepted model of a luxurious seat. Thus freed from the superfluous, the den is likely to be the most comfortable room in the house; and the natural inference is that a room, in order to be comfortable, must be ugly. One can picture the derision of the man who is told that he might, without the smallest sacrifice of comfort or convenience, transact his business at a Louis XVI writing-table, seated in a Louis XVI chair!--yet the handsomest desks of the last century--the fine old _bureaux à la Kaunitz_ or _à cylindre_--were the prototypes of the modern "roller-top"; and the cane or leather-seated writing-chair, with rounded back and five slim strong legs, was far more comfortable than the amorphous revolving seat. Convenience was not sacrificed to beauty in either desk or chair; but both the old pieces, being designed by skilled cabinet-makers, were as decorative as they were useful. There seems, in fact, no reason why the modern den should not resemble the financiers' _bureaux_ seen in so many old prints: rooms of dignified plainness, but where each line of wall-panelling and furniture was as carefully studied and intelligently adapted to its ends as though intended for a drawing-room or boudoir. Reference has been made to the way in which, even in small houses, a room may be sacrificed to a supposed "effect," or to some inherited tradition as to its former use. Thus the family drawing-room is too often made uninhabitable from some vague feeling that a "drawing-room" is not worthy of its name unless too fine to sit in; while the small front room on the ground floor--in the average American house the only corner given over to the master--is thrown into the hall, either that the house may appear larger and handsomer, or from sheer inability to make so small a room habitable. There is no reason why even a ten-by-twelve or an eight-by-fourteen foot room should not be made comfortable; and the following suggestions are intended to indicate the lines on which an appropriate scheme of decoration might be carried out. In most town houses the small room down-stairs is built with an opening in the longitudinal wall, close to the front door, while there is usually another entrance at the back of the room, facing the window; one at least of these openings being, as a rule, of exaggerated width. In such cases the door in the side of the room should be walled up: this gives privacy and provides enough additional wall-space for a good-sized piece of furniture. The best way of obtaining an effect of size is to panel the walls by means of clear-cut architectural mouldings: a few strong vertical lines will give dignity to the room and height to the ceiling. The walls should be free from pattern and light in color, since dark walls necessitate much artificial light, and have the disadvantage of making a room look small. The ceiling, if not plain, must be ornamented with the lightest tracery, and supported by a cornice correspondingly simple in design. Heavy ceiling-mouldings are obviously out of place in a small room, and a plain expanse of plaster is always preferable to misapplied ornament. A single curtain made of some flexible material, such as corduroy or thin unlined damask, and so hung that it may be readily drawn back during the day, is sufficient for the window; while in a corner near this window may be placed an easy-chair and a small solidly made table, large enough to hold a lamp and a book or two. These rooms, in some recently built town houses, contain chimneys set in an angle of the wall: a misplaced attempt at quaintness, making it inconvenient to sit near the hearth, and seriously interfering with the general arrangement of the room. When the chimney occupies the centre of the longitudinal wall there is space, even in a very narrow room, for a group of chairs about the fireplace--provided, as we are now supposing, the opening in the parallel wall has been closed. A bookcase or some other high piece of furniture may be placed on each side of the mantel, and there will be space opposite for a sofa and a good-sized writing-table. If the pieces of furniture chosen are in scale with the dimensions of the room, and are placed against the wall, instead of being set sideways, with the usual easel or palm-tree behind them, it is surprising to see how much a small room may contain without appearing to be overcrowded. [Illustration: _PLATE L._ DINING-ROOM, PALACE OF COMPIÈGNE. LOUIS XVI PERIOD. (OVER-DOORS AND OVER-MANTEL PAINTED IN GRISAILLE, BY SAUVAGE.)] XIII THE DINING-ROOM The dining-room, as we know it, is a comparatively recent innovation in house-planning. In the early middle ages the noble and his retainers ate in the hall; then the _grand'salle_, built for ceremonial uses, began to serve as a banqueting-room, while the meals eaten in private were served in the lord's chamber. As house-planning adapted itself to the growing complexity of life, the mediæval bedroom developed into a private suite of living-rooms, preceded by an antechamber; and this antechamber, or one of the small adjoining cabinets, was used as the family dining-room, the banqueting-hall being still reserved for state entertainments. The plan of dining at haphazard in any of the family living-rooms persisted on the Continent until the beginning of the eighteenth century: even then it was comparatively rare, in France, to see a room set apart for the purpose of dining. In small _hôtels_ and apartments, people continued to dine in the antechamber; where there were two antechambers, the inner was used for that purpose; and it was only in grand houses, or in the luxurious establishments of the _femmes galantes_, that dining-rooms were to be found. Even in such cases the room described as a _salle à manger_ was often only a central antechamber or saloon into which the living-rooms opened; indeed, Madame du Barry's sumptuous dining-room at Luciennes was a vestibule giving directly upon the peristyle of the villa. In England the act of dining seems to have been taken more seriously, while the rambling outgrowths of the Elizabethan residence included a greater variety of rooms than could be contained in any but the largest houses built on more symmetrical lines. Accordingly, in old English house-plans we find rooms designated as "dining-parlors"; many houses, in fact, contained two or three, each with a different exposure, so that they might be used at different seasons. These rooms can hardly be said to represent our modern dining-room, since they were not planned in connection with kitchen and offices, and were probably used as living-rooms when not needed for dining. Still, it was from the Elizabethan dining-parlor that the modern dining-room really developed; and so recently has it been specialized into a room used only for eating, that a generation ago old-fashioned people in England and America habitually used their dining-rooms to sit in. On the Continent the incongruous uses of the rooms in which people dined made it necessary that the furniture should be easily removed. In the middle ages, people dined at long tables composed of boards resting on trestles, while the seats were narrow wooden benches or stools, so constructed that they could easily be carried away when the meal was over. With the sixteenth century, the _table-à-tréteaux_ gave way to various folding tables with legs, and the wooden stools were later replaced by folding seats without arms called _perroquets_. In the middle ages, when banquets were given in the _grand'salle_, the plate was displayed on movable shelves covered with a velvet slip, or on elaborately carved dressers; but on ordinary occasions little silver was set out in French dining-rooms, and the great English sideboard, with its array of urns, trays and wine-coolers, was unknown in France. In the common antechamber dining-room, whatever was needed for the table was kept in a press or cupboard with solid wooden doors; changes of service being carried on by means of serving-tables, or _servantes_--narrow marble-topped consoles ranged against the walls of the room. [Illustration: _PLATE LI._ DINING-ROOM FOUNTAIN, PALACE OF FONTAINEBLEAU. LOUIS XV PERIOD.] For examples of dining-rooms, as we understand the term, one must look to the grand French houses of the eighteenth century (see Plate L) and to the same class of dwellings in England. In France such dining-rooms were usually intended for gala entertainments, the family being still served in antechamber or cabinet; but English houses of the same period generally contain a family dining-room and another intended for state. The dining-room of Madame du Barry at Luciennes, already referred to, was a magnificent example of the great dining-saloon. The ceiling was a painted Olympus; the white marble walls were subdivided by Corinthian pilasters with plinths and capitals of gilt bronze, surmounted by a frieze of bas-reliefs framed in gold; four marble niches contained statues by Pajou, Lecomte, and Moineau; and the general brilliancy of effect was increased by crystal chandeliers, hung in the intercolumniations against a background of looking-glass. Such a room, the banqueting-hall of the official mistress, represents the _courtisane's_ ideal of magnificence: decorations as splendid, but more sober and less theatrical, marked the dining-rooms of the aristocracy, as at Choisy, Gaillon and Rambouillet. The state dining-rooms of the eighteenth century were often treated with an order, niches with statues being placed between the pilasters. Sometimes one of these niches contained a fountain serving as a wine-cooler--a survival of the stone or metal wall-fountains in which dishes were washed in the mediæval dining-room. Many of these earlier fountains had been merely fixed to the wall; but those of the eighteenth century, though varying greatly in design, were almost always an organic part of the wall-decoration (see Plate LI). Sometimes, in apartments of importance, they formed the pedestal of a life-size group or statue, as in the dining-room of Madame de Pompadour; while in smaller rooms they consisted of a semicircular basin of marble projecting from the wall and surmounted by groups of cupids, dolphins or classic attributes. The banqueting-gallery of Trianon-sous-Bois contains in one of its longitudinal walls two wide niches with long marble basins; and Mariette's edition of d'Aviler's _Cours d'Architecture_ gives the elevation of a recessed buffet flanked by small niches containing fountains. The following description, accompanying d'Aviler's plate, is quoted here as an instance of the manner in which elaborate compositions were worked out by the old decorators: "The second antechamber, being sometimes used as a dining-room, is a suitable place for the buffet represented. This buffet, which may be incrusted with marble or stone, or panelled with wood-work, consists in a recess occupying one of the side walls of the room. The recess contains a shelf of marble or stone, supported on brackets and surmounting a small stone basin which serves as a wine-cooler. Above the shelf is an attic flanked by volutes, and over this attic may be placed a picture, generally a flower or fruit-piece, or the representation of a concert, or some such agreeable scene; while in the accompanying plate the attic is crowned by a bust of Comus, wreathed with vines by two little satyrs--the group detaching itself against a trellised background enlivened with birds. The composition is completed by two lateral niches for fountains, adorned with masks, tritons and dolphins of gilded lead." [Illustration: _PLATE LII._ DINING-CHAIR, LOUIS XIV PERIOD.] These built-in sideboards and fountains were practically the only feature distinguishing the old dining-rooms from other gala apartments. At a period when all rooms were painted, panelled, or hung with tapestry, no special style of decoration was thought needful for the dining-room; though tapestry was seldom used, for the practical reason that stuff hangings are always objectionable in a room intended for eating. [Illustration: _PLATE LIII._ DINING-CHAIR, LOUIS XVI PERIOD.] Towards the end of the seventeenth century, when comfortable seats began to be made, an admirably designed dining-room chair replaced the earlier benches and _perroquets_. The eighteenth century dining-chair is now often confounded with the light _chaise volante_ used in drawing-rooms, and cabinet-makers frequently sell the latter as copies of old dining-chairs. These were in fact much heavier and more comfortable, and whether cane-seated or upholstered, were invariably made with wide deep seats, so that the long banquets of the day might be endured without constraint or fatigue; while the backs were low and narrow, in order not to interfere with the service of the table. (See Plates LII and LIII. Plates XLVI and L also contain good examples of dining-chairs.) In England the state dining-room was decorated much as it was in France: the family dining-room was simply a plain parlor, with wide mahogany sideboards or tall glazed cupboards for the display of plate and china. The solid English dining-chairs of mahogany, if less graceful than those used on the Continent, are equally well adapted to their purpose. The foregoing indications may serve to suggest the lines upon which dining-room decoration might be carried out in the present day. The avoidance of all stuff hangings and heavy curtains is of great importance: it will be observed that even window-curtains were seldom used in old dining-rooms, such care being given to the decorative detail of window and embrasure that they needed no additional ornament in the way of drapery. A bare floor of stone or marble is best suited to the dining-room; but where the floor is covered, it should be with a rug, not with a nailed-down carpet. The dining-room should be lit by wax candles in side _appliques_ or in a chandelier; and since anything tending to produce heat and to exhaust air is especially objectionable in a room used for eating, the walls should be sufficiently light in color to make little artificial light necessary. In the dining-rooms of the last century, in England as well as on the Continent, the color-scheme was usually regulated by this principle: the dark dining-room panelled with mahogany or hung with sombre leather is an invention of our own times. It has already been said that the old family dining-room was merely a panelled parlor. Sometimes the panels were of light unvarnished oak, but oftener they were painted in white or in some pale tint easily lit by wax candles. The walls were often hung with fruit or flower-pieces, or with pictures of fish and game: a somewhat obvious form of adornment which it has long been the fashion to ridicule, but which was not without decorative value and appropriateness. Pictures representing life and action often grow tiresome when looked at over and over again, day after day: a fact which the old decorators probably had in mind when they hung what the French call _natures mortes_ in the dining-room. Concerning the state dining-room that forms a part of many modern houses little remains to be said beyond the descriptions already given of the various gala apartments. It is obvious that the banqueting-hall should be less brilliant than a ball-room and less fanciful in decoration than a music-room: a severer and more restful treatment naturally suggests itself, but beyond this no special indications are required. The old dining-rooms were usually heated by porcelain stoves. Such a stove, of fine architectural design, set in a niche corresponding with that which contains the fountain, is of great decorative value in the composition of the room; and as it has the advantage of giving out less concentrated heat than an open fire, it is specially well suited to a small or narrow dining-room, where some of the guests must necessarily sit close to the hearth. Most houses which have banquet-halls contain also a smaller apartment called a breakfast-room; but as this generally corresponds in size and usage with the ordinary family dining-room, the same style of decoration is applicable to both. However ornate the banquet-hall may be, the breakfast-room must of course be simple and free from gilding: the more elaborate the decorations of the larger room, the more restful such a contrast will be found. Of the dinner-table, as we now know it, little need be said. The ingenious but ugly extension-table with a central support, now used all over the world, is an English invention. There seems no reason why the general design should not be improved without interfering with the mechanism of this table; but of course it can never be so satisfactory to the eye as one of the old round or square tables, with four or six tapering legs, such as were used in eighteenth-century dining-rooms before the introduction of the "extension." XIV BEDROOMS The history of the bedroom has been incidentally touched upon in tracing the development of the drawing-room from the mediæval hall. It was shown that early in the middle ages the sleeping-chamber, which had been one of the first outgrowths of the hall, was divided into the _chambre de parade_, or incipient drawing-room, and the _chambre au giste_, or actual sleeping-room. The increasing development of social life in the sixteenth century brought about a further change; the state bedroom being set aside for entertainments of ceremony, while the sleeping-chamber was used as the family living-room and as the scene of suppers, card-parties, and informal receptions--or sometimes actually as the kitchen. Indeed, so varied were the uses to which the _chambre au giste_ was put, that in France especially it can hardly be said to have offered a refuge from the promiscuity of the hall. [Illustration: _PLATE LIV._ BEDROOM. PALACE OF FONTAINEBLEAU. LOUIS XIV PERIOD. (LOUIS XVI BED AND CHAIR, MODERN SOFA.)] As a rule, the bedrooms of the Renaissance and of the seventeenth century were very richly furnished. The fashion of raising the bed on a dais separated from the rest of the room by columns and a balustrade was introduced in France in the time of Louis XIV. This innovation gave rise to the habit of dividing the decoration of the room into two parts; the walls being usually panelled or painted, while the "alcove," as it was called, was hung in tapestry, velvet, or some rich stuff in keeping with the heavy curtains that completely enveloped the bedstead. This use of stuff hangings about the bed, so contrary to our ideas of bedroom hygiene, was due to the difficulty of heating the large high-studded rooms of the period, and also, it must be owned, to the prevalent dread of fresh air as of something essentially unwholesome and pernicious. In the early middle ages people usually slept on the floor; though it would seem that occasionally, to avoid cold or dampness, the mattress was laid on cords stretched upon a low wooden framework. In the fourteenth century the use of such frameworks became more general, and the bed was often enclosed in curtains hung from a tester resting on four posts. Bed-hangings and coverlet were often magnificently embroidered; but in order that it might not be necessary to transport from place to place the unwieldy bedstead and tester, these were made in the rudest manner, without attempt at carving or adornment. In course of time this primitive framework developed into the sumptuous four-post bedstead of the Renaissance, with elaborately carved cornice and _colonnes torses_ enriched with gilding. Thenceforward more wealth and skill were expended upon the bedstead than upon any other article of furniture. Gilding, carving, and inlaying of silver, ivory or mother-of-pearl, combined to adorn the framework, and embroidery made the coverlet and hangings resplendent as church vestments. This magnificence is explained by the fact that it was customary for the lady of the house to lie in bed while receiving company. In many old prints representing suppers, card-parties, or afternoon visits, the hostess is thus seen, with elaborately dressed head and stiff brocade gown, while her friends are grouped about the bedside in equally rich attire. This curious custom persisted until late in the eighteenth century; and under such conditions it was natural that the old cabinet-makers should vie with each other in producing a variety of ornate and fanciful bedsteads. It would be useless to enumerate here the modifications in design marking the different periods of decoration: those who are interested in the subject will find it treated in detail in the various French works on furniture. It was natural that while the bedroom was used as a _salon_ it should be decorated with more elaboration than would otherwise have been fitting; but two causes combined to simplify its treatment in the eighteenth century. One of these was the new fashion of _petits appartements_. With artists so keenly alive to proportion as the old French designers, it was inevitable that such a change in dimensions should bring about a corresponding change in decoration. The bedrooms of the eighteenth century, though sometimes elaborate in detail, had none of the pompous richness of the great Renaissance or Louis XIV room (see Plate LIV). The pretentious dais with its screen of columns was replaced by a niche containing the bed; plain wood-panelling succeeded to tapestry and embroidered hangings; and the heavy carved ceiling with its mythological centre-picture made way for light traceries on plaster. The other change in the decoration of French bedrooms was due to the substitution of linen or cotton bed and window-hangings for the sumptuous velvets and brocades of the seventeenth century. This change has usually been ascribed to the importation of linens and cottons from the East; and no doubt the novelty of these gay _indiennes_ stimulated the taste for simple hangings. The old inventories, however, show that, in addition to the imported India hangings, plain white linen curtains with a colored border were much used; and it is probably the change in the size of rooms that first led to the adoption of thin washable hangings. The curtains and bed-draperies of damask or brocatelle, so well suited to the high-studded rooms of the seventeenth century, would have been out of place in the small apartments of the Regency. In studying the history of decoration, it will generally be found that the supposed vagaries of house-furnishing were actually based on some practical requirement; and in this instance the old decorators were doubtless guided rather by common sense than by caprice. The adoption of these washable materials certainly introduced a style of bedroom-furnishing answering to all the requirements of recent hygiene; for not only were windows and bedsteads hung with unlined cotton or linen, but chairs and sofas were covered with removable _housses_, or slip-covers; while the painted wall-panelling and bare brick or parquet floors came far nearer to the modern sanitary ideal than do the papered walls and nailed-down carpets still seen in many bedrooms. This simple form of decoration had the additional charm of variety; for it was not unusual to have several complete sets of curtains and slip-covers, embroidered to match, and changed with the seasons. The hangings and covers of the queen's bedroom at Versailles were changed four times a year. Although bedrooms are still "done" in chintz, and though of late especially there has been a reaction from the satin-damask bedroom with its dust-collecting upholstery and knick-knacks, the modern habit of lining chintz curtains and of tufting chairs has done away with the chief advantages of the simpler style of treatment. There is something illogical in using washable stuffs in such a way that they cannot be washed, especially in view of the fact that the heavily lined curtains, which might be useful to exclude light and cold, are in nine cases out of ten so hung by the upholsterer that they cannot possibly be drawn at night. Besides, the patterns of modern chintzes have so little in common with the _toiles imprimées_ of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that they scarcely serve the same decorative purpose; and it is therefore needful to give some account of the old French bedroom hangings, as well as of the manner in which they were employed. The liking for _cotonnades_ showed itself in France early in the seventeenth century. Before this, cotton materials had been imported from the East; but in the seventeenth century a manufactory was established in France, and until about 1800 cotton and linen curtains and furniture-coverings remained in fashion. This taste was encouraged by the importation of the _toiles des Indes_, printed cottons of gay color and fanciful design, much sought after in France, especially after the government, in order to protect native industry, had restricted the privilege of importing them to the _Compagnie des Indes_. It was not until Oberkampf established his manufactory at Jouy in 1760 that the French _toiles_ began to replace those of foreign manufacture. Hitherto the cottons made in France had been stamped merely in outline, the colors being filled in by hand; but Oberkampf invented a method of printing in colors, thereby making France the leading market for such stuffs. The earliest printed cottons having been imported from India and China, it was natural that the style of the Oriental designers should influence their European imitators. Europe had, in fact, been prompt to recognize the singular beauty of Chinese art, and in France the passion for _chinoiseries_, first aroused by Mazarin's collection of Oriental objects of art, continued unabated until the general decline of taste at the end of the eighteenth century. Nowhere, perhaps, was the influence of Chinese art more beneficial to European designers than in the composition of stuff-patterns. The fantastic gaiety and variety of Chinese designs, in which the human figure so largely predominates, gave fresh animation to European compositions, while the absence of perspective and modelling preserved that conventionalism so essential in pattern-designing. The voluminous acanthus-leaves, the fleur-de-lys, arabesques and massive scroll-work so suitable to the Genoese velvets and Lyons silks of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, would have been far too magnificent for the cotton stuffs that were beginning to replace those splendid tissues. On a thin material a heavy architectural pattern was obviously inappropriate; besides, it would have been out of scale with the smaller rooms and lighter style of decoration then coming into fashion. The French designer, while influenced by Chinese compositions, was too artistic to be satisfied with literal reproductions of his Oriental models. Absorbing the spirit of the Chinese designs, he either blent mandarins and pagodas with Italian grottoes, French landscapes, and classical masks and trophies, in one of those delightful inventions which are the fairy-tales of decorative art, or applied the principles of Oriental design to purely European subjects. In comparing the printed cottons of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries with modern chintzes, it will be seen that the latter are either covered with monotonous repetitions of a geometrical figure, or with realistic reproductions of some natural object. Many wall-papers and chintzes of the present day represent loose branches of flowers scattered on a plain surface, with no more relation to each other or to their background than so many real flowers fixed at random against the wall. This literal rendering of natural objects with deceptive accuracy, always condemned by the best artists, is especially inappropriate when brought in close contact with the highly conventionalized forms of architectural composition. In this respect, the endlessly repeated geometrical figure is obviously less objectionable; yet the geometrical design, as produced to-day, has one defect in common with the other--that is, lack of imagination. Modern draughtsmen, in eliminating from their work that fanciful element (always strictly subordinated to some general scheme of composition) which marked the designs of the last two centuries, have deprived themselves of the individuality and freshness that might have saved their patterns from monotony. This rejection of the fanciful in composition is probably due to the excessive use of pattern in modern decoration. Where much pattern is used, it must be as monotonous as possible, or it will become unbearable. The old decorators used few lines, and permitted themselves more freedom in design; or rather they remembered, what is now too often forgotten, that in the decoration of a room furniture and objects of art help to make design, and in consequence they were chiefly concerned with providing plain spaces of background to throw into relief the contents of the room. Of late there has been so marked a return to plain panelled or painted walls that the pattern-designer will soon be encouraged to give freer rein to his fancy. In a room where walls and floor are of uniform tint, there is no reason why the design of curtains and chair-coverings should consist of long straight rows of buttercups or crocuses, endlessly repeated. [Illustration: _PLATE LV._ BATH-ROOM, PITTI PALACE, FLORENCE. LATE XVIII CENTURY. DECORATED BY CACIALLI.] It must not be thought that the old designs were unconventional. Nature, in passing through the medium of the imagination, is necessarily transposed and in a manner conventionalized; and it is this transposition, this deliberate selection of certain characteristics to the exclusion of others, that distinguishes the work of art from a cast or a photograph. But the reduction of natural objects to geometrical forms is only one of the results of artistic selection. The Italian fresco-painters--the recognized masters of wall-decoration in the flat--always used the naturalistic method, but subject to certain restrictions in composition or color. This applies also to the Chinese designers, and to the humbler European pattern-makers who on more modest lines followed the same sound artistic traditions. In studying the _toiles peintes_ manufactured in Europe previous to the present century, it will be seen that where the design included the human figure or landscape naturalistically treated (as in the fables of Æsop and La Fontaine, or the history of Don Quixote), the pattern was either printed entirely in one color, or so fantastically colored that by no possibility could it pass for an attempt at a literal rendering of nature. Besides, in all such compositions (and here the Chinese influence is seen) perspective was studiously avoided, and the little superimposed groups or scenes were either connected by some decorative arabesque, or so designed that by their outline they formed a recurring pattern. On the other hand, when the design was obviously conventional a variety of colors was freely used. The introduction of the human figure, animals, architecture and landscape into stuff-patterns undoubtedly gave to the old designs an animation lacking in those of the present day; and a return to the _pays bleu_ of the Chinese artist would be a gain to modern decoration. Of the various ways in which a bedroom may be planned, none is so luxurious and practical as the French method of subdividing it into a suite composed of two or more small rooms. Where space is not restricted there should in fact be four rooms, preceded by an antechamber separating the suite from the main corridor of the house. The small sitting-room or boudoir opens into this antechamber; and next comes the bedroom, beyond which are the dressing and bath rooms. In French suites of this kind there are usually but two means of entrance from the main corridor: one for the use of the occupant, leading into the antechamber, the other opening into the bath-room, to give access to the servants. This arrangement, besides giving greater privacy, preserves much valuable wall-space, which would be sacrificed in America to the supposed necessity of making every room in a house open upon one of the main passageways. The plan of the bedroom suite can of course be carried out only in large houses; but even where there is no lack of space, such an arrangement is seldom adopted by American architects, and most of the more important houses recently built contain immense bedrooms, instead of a series of suites. To enumerate the practical advantages of the suite over the single large room hardly comes within the scope of this book; but as the uses to which a bedroom is put fall into certain natural subdivisions, it will be more convenient to consider it as a suite. Since bedrooms are no longer used as _salons_, there is no reason for decorating them in an elaborate manner; and, however magnificent the other apartments, it is evident that in this part of the house simplicity is most fitting. Now that people have been taught the unhealthiness of sleeping in a room with stuff hangings, heavy window-draperies and tufted furniture, the old fashion of painted walls and bare floors naturally commends itself; and as the bedroom suite is but the subdivision of one large room, it is obviously better that the same style of decoration should be used throughout. For this reason, plain panelled walls and chintz or cotton hangings are more appropriate to the boudoir than silk and gilding. If the walls are without pattern, a figured chintz may be chosen for curtains and furniture; while those who prefer plain tints should use unbleached cotton, trimmed with bands of color, or some colored linen with applications of gimp or embroidery. It is a good plan to cover all the chairs and sofas in the bedroom suite with slips matching the window-curtains; but where this is done, the furniture should, if possible, be designed for the purpose, since the lines of modern upholstered chairs are not suited to slips. The habit of designing furniture for slip-covers originated in the middle ages. At a time when the necessity of transporting furniture was added to the other difficulties of travel, it was usual to have common carpenter-built benches and tables, that might be left behind without risk, and to cover these with richly embroidered slips. The custom persisted long after furniture had ceased to be a part of luggage, and the benches and _tabourets_ now seen in many European palaces are covered merely with embroidered slips. Even when a set of furniture was upholstered with silk, it was usual, in the eighteenth century, to provide embroidered cotton covers for use in summer, while curtains of the same stuff were substituted for the heavier hangings used in winter. Old inventories frequently mention these _tentures d'été_, which are well adapted to our hot summer climate. The boudoir should contain a writing-table, a lounge or _lit de repos_, and one or two comfortable arm-chairs, while in a bedroom forming part of a suite only the bedstead and its accessories should be placed. The pieces of furniture needed in a well-appointed dressing-room are the toilet-table, wash-stand, clothes-press and cheval-glass, with the addition, if space permits, of one or two commodes or chiffonniers. The designing of modern furniture of this kind is seldom satisfactory; yet many who are careful to choose simple, substantial pieces for the other rooms of the house, submit to the pretentious "bedroom suit" of bird's-eye maple or mahogany, with its wearisome irrelevance of line and its excess of cheap ornament. Any study of old bedroom furniture will make clear the inferiority of the modern manufacturer's designs. Nowhere is the old sense of proportion and fitness seen to better advantage than in the simple, admirably composed commodes and clothes-presses of the eighteenth-century bedroom. The bath-room walls and floor should, of course, be water-proof. In the average bath-room, a tiled floor and a high wainscoting of tiles are now usually seen; and the detached enamel or porcelain bath has in most cases replaced the built-in metal tub. The bath-rooms in the larger houses recently built are, in general, lined with marble; but though the use of this substance gives opportunity for fine architectural effects, few modern bath-rooms can in this respect be compared with those seen in the great houses of Europe. The chief fault of the American bath-room is that, however splendid the materials used, the treatment is seldom architectural. A glance at the beautiful bath-room in the Pitti Palace at Florence (see Plate LV) will show how much effect may be produced in a small space by carefully studied composition. A mere closet is here transformed into a stately room, by that regard for harmony of parts which distinguishes interior architecture from mere decoration. A bath-room lined with precious marbles, with bath and wash-stand ranged along the wall, regardless of their relation to the composition of the whole, is no better architecturally than the tiled bath-room seen in ordinary houses: design, not substance, is needed to make the one superior to the other. XV THE SCHOOL-ROOM AND NURSERIES One of the most important and interesting problems in the planning and decoration of a house is that which has to do with the arrangement of the children's rooms. There is, of course, little opportunity for actual decoration in school-room or nursery; and it is only by stretching a point that a book dealing merely with the practical application of æsthetics may be made to include a chapter bordering on pedagogy. It must be remembered, however, that any application of principles presupposes some acquaintance with the principles themselves; and from this standpoint there is a certain relevance in studying the means by which the child's surroundings may be made to develop his sense of beauty. The room where the child's lessons are studied is, in more senses than one, that in which he receives his education. His whole view of what he is set to learn, and of the necessity and advantage of learning anything at all, is tinged, more often than people think, by the appearance of the room in which his studying is done. The æsthetic sensibilities wake early in some children, and these, if able to analyze their emotions, could testify to what suffering they have been subjected by the habit of sending to school-room and nurseries whatever furniture is too ugly or threadbare to be used in any other part of the house. In the minds of such children, curious and lasting associations are early established between the appearance of certain rooms and the daily occupations connected with them; and the aspect of the school-room too often aggravates instead of mitigating the weariness of lesson-learning. There are, of course, many children not naturally sensitive to artistic influences, and the parents of such children often think that no special care need be spent on their surroundings--a curious misconception of the purpose of all æsthetic training. To teach a child to appreciate any form of beauty is to develop his intelligence, and thereby to enlarge his capacity for wholesome enjoyment. It is, therefore, never idle to cultivate a child's taste; and those who have no pronounced natural bent toward the beautiful in any form need more guidance and encouragement than the child born with a sense of beauty. The latter will at most be momentarily offended by the sight of ugly objects; while they may forever blunt the taste and narrow the views of the child whose sluggish imagination needs the constant stimulus of beautiful surroundings. If art is really a factor in civilization, it seems obvious that the feeling for beauty needs as careful cultivation as the other civic virtues. To teach a child to distinguish between a good and a bad painting, a well or an ill-modelled statue, need not hinder his growth in other directions, and will at least develop those habits of observation and comparison that are the base of all sound judgments. It is in this sense that the study of art is of service to those who have no special aptitude for any of its forms: its indirect action in shaping æsthetic criteria constitutes its chief value as an element of culture. The habit of regarding "art" as a thing apart from life is fatal to the development of taste. Parents may conscientiously send their children to galleries and museums, but unless the child can find some point of contact between its own surroundings and the contents of the galleries, the interest excited by the pictures and statues will be short-lived and ineffectual. Children are not reached by abstract ideas, and a picture hanging on a museum wall is little better than an abstraction to the child's vivid but restricted imagination. Besides, if the home surroundings are tasteless, the unawakened sense of form will not be roused by a hurried walk through a museum. The child's mind must be prepared by daily lessons in beauty to understand the masterpieces of art. A child brought up on foolish story-books could hardly be expected to enjoy _The Knight's Tale_ or the _Morte d'Arthur_ without some slight initiation into the nature and meaning of good literature; and to pass from a house full of ugly furniture, badly designed wall-papers and worthless knick-knacks to a hurried contemplation of the Venus of Milo or of a model of the Parthenon is not likely to produce the desired results. The daily intercourse with poor pictures, trashy "ornaments," and badly designed furniture may, indeed, be fittingly compared with a mental diet of silly and ungrammatical story-books. Most parents nowadays recognize the harmfulness of such a _régime_, and are careful to feed their children on more stimulating fare. Skilful compilers have placed Mallory and Chaucer, Cervantes and Froissart, within reach of the childish understanding, thus laying the foundations for a lasting appreciation of good literature. No greater service can be rendered to children than in teaching them to know the best and to want it; but while this is now generally conceded with regard to books, the child's eager eyes are left to fare as best they may on chromos from the illustrated papers and on carefully hoarded rubbish from the Christmas tree. The mention of the Christmas tree suggests another obstacle to the early development of taste. Many children, besides being surrounded by ugly furniture and bad pictures, are overwhelmed at Christmas, and on every other anniversary, by presents not always selected with a view to the formation of taste. The question of presents is one of the most embarrassing problems in the artistic education of children. As long as they are in the toy age no great harm is done: it is when they are considered old enough to appreciate "something pretty for their rooms" that the season of danger begins. Parents themselves are often the worst offenders in this respect, and the sooner they begin to give their children presents which, if not beautiful, are at least useful, the sooner will the example be followed by relatives and friends. The selection of such presents, while it might necessitate a little more trouble, need not lead to greater expense. Good things do not always cost more than bad. A good print may often be bought for the same price as a poor one, and the money spent on a china "ornament," in the shape of a yellow Leghorn hat with a kitten climbing out of it, would probably purchase a good reproduction of one of the Tanagra statuettes, a plaster cast of some French or Italian bust, or one of Cantagalli's copies of the Robbia bas-reliefs--any of which would reveal a world of unsuspected beauty to many a child imprisoned in a circle of _articles de Paris_. The children of the rich are usually the worst sufferers in such cases, since the presents received by those whose parents and relations are not "well off" have the saving merit of usefulness. It is the superfluous gimcrack--the "ornament"--which is most objectionable, and the more expensive such articles are the more likely are they to do harm. Rich children suffer from the quantity as well as the quality of the presents they receive. Appetite is surfeited, curiosity blunted, by the mass of offerings poured in with every anniversary. It would be better if, in such cases, friends and family could unite in giving to each child one thing worth having--a good edition, a first-state etching or engraving, or some like object fitted to give pleasure at the time and lasting enjoyment through life. Parents often make the mistake of thinking that such presents are too "serious"--that children do not care for good bindings, fine engravings, or reproductions of sculpture. As a matter of fact, children are quick to appreciate beauty when pointed out and explained to them, and an intelligent child feels peculiar pride in being the owner of some object which grown-up people would be glad to possess. If the selection of such presents is made with a reasonable regard for the child's tastes and understanding--if the book chosen is a good edition, well bound, of the _Morte d'Arthur_ or of _Chaucer_--if the print represents some Tuscan Nativity, with a joyous dance of angels on the thatched roof, or a group of splendid horsemen and strange animals from the wondrous fairy-tale of the Riccardi chapel--the present will give as much immediate pleasure as a "juvenile" book or picture, while its intrinsic beauty and significance may become important factors in the child's æsthetic development. The possession of something valuable, that may not be knocked about, but must be handled with care and restored to its place after being looked at, will also cultivate in the child that habit of carefulness and order which may be defined as good manners toward inanimate objects. Children suffer not only from the number of presents they receive, but from that over-crowding of modern rooms that so often makes it necessary to use the school-room and nurseries as an outlet for the overflow of the house. To the children's quarters come one by one the countless objects "too good to throw away" but too ugly to be tolerated by grown-up eyes--the bead-work cushions that have "associations," the mildewed Landseer prints of foaming, dying animals, the sheep-faced Madonna and Apostles in bituminous draperies, commemorating a paternal visit to Rome in the days when people bought copies of the "Old Masters." Those who wish to train their children's taste must resolutely clear the school-room of all such stumbling-blocks. Ugly furniture cannot always be replaced; but it is at least possible to remove unsuitable pictures and knick-knacks. It is essential that the school-room should be cheerful. Dark colors, besides necessitating the use of much artificial light, are depressing to children and consequently out of place in the school-room: white woodwork, and walls tinted in some bright color, form the best background for both work and play. Perhaps the most interesting way of decorating the school-room is that which might be described as the rotation system. To carry out this plan--which requires the coöperation of the children's teacher--the walls must be tinted in some light color, such as turquoise-blue or pale green, and cleared of all miscellaneous adornments. These should then be replaced by a few carefully-chosen prints, photographs and plaster casts, representing objects connected with the children's studies. Let it, for instance, be supposed that the studies in hand include natural history, botany, and the history of France and England during the sixteenth century. These subjects might be respectively illustrated by some of the clever Japanese outline drawings of plants and animals, by Holbein's portrait of Henry VIII, Clouet's of Charles IX and of Elizabeth of Austria, Dürer's etchings of Luther and Erasmus, and views of some of the principal buildings erected in France and England during the sixteenth century. The prints and casts shown at one time should be sufficiently inexpensive and few in number to be changed as the child's lessons proceed, thus forming a kind of continuous commentary upon the various branches of study. This plan of course necessitates more trouble and expense than the ordinary one of giving to the walls of the school-room a permanent decoration: an arrangement which may also be made interesting and suggestive, if the child's requirements are considered. When casts and pictures are intended to remain in place, it is a good idea to choose them at the outset with a view to the course of studies likely to be followed. In this way, each object may serve in turn to illustrate some phase of history or art: even this plan will be found to have a vivifying effect upon the dry bones of "lessons." In a room decorated in this fashion, the prints or photographs selected might represent the foremost examples of Greek, Gothic, Renaissance and eighteenth-century architecture, together with several famous paintings of different periods and schools; sculpture being illustrated by casts of the Disk-thrower, of one of Robbia's friezes of child-musicians, of Donatello's Saint George, and Pigalle's "Child with the Bird." Parents who do not care to plan the adornment of the school-room on such definite lines should at least be careful to choose appropriate casts and pictures. It is generally conceded that nothing painful should be put before a child's eyes; but the deleterious effects of namby-pamby prettiness are too often disregarded. Anything "sweet" is considered appropriate for the school-room or nursery; whereas it is essential to the child's artistic training that only the sweetness which proceeds _de forte_ should be held up for admiration. It is easy to find among the world's masterpieces many pictures interesting to children. Vandyck's "Children of Charles I"; Bronzino's solemn portraits of Medici babies; Drouais' picture of the Comte d'Artois holding his little sister on the back of a goat; the wan little princes of Velasquez; the ruddy beggar-boys of Murillo--these are but a few of the subjects that at once suggest themselves. Then, again, there are the wonder-books of those greatest of all story-tellers, the Italian fresco-painters--Benozzo Gozzoli, Pinturicchio, Carpaccio--incorrigible gossips every one, lingering over the minor episodes and trivial details of their stories with the desultory slowness dear to childish listeners. In sculpture, the range of choice is no less extended. The choristers of Robbia, the lean little St. Johns of Donatello and his school--Verrocchio's fierce young David, and the Capitol "Boy with the Goose"--these may alternate with fragments of the Parthenon frieze, busts of great men, and studies of animals, from the Assyrian lions to those of Canova and Barye. Above all, the walls should not be overcrowded. The importance of preserving in the school-room bare wall-spaces of uniform tint has hitherto been little considered; but teachers are beginning to understand the value of these spaces in communicating to the child's brain a sense of repose which diminishes mental and physical restlessness. The furniture of the school-room should of course be plain and substantial. Well-designed furniture of this kind is seldom made by modern manufacturers, and those who can afford the slight extra expense should commission a good cabinet-maker to reproduce some of the simple models which may be found in the manuals of old French and English designers. It is of special importance to provide a large, solid writing-table: children are too often subjected to the needless constraint and fatigue of writing at narrow unsteady desks, too small to hold even the books in use during the lesson. A well-designed bookcase with glass doors is a valuable factor in the training of children. It teaches a respect for books by showing that they are thought worthy of care; and a child is less likely to knock about and damage a book which must be taken from and restored to such a bookcase, than one which, after being used, is thrust back on an open shelf. Children's books, if they have any literary value, should be bound in some bright-colored morocco: dingy backs of calf or black cloth are not likely to attract the youthful eye, and the better a book is bound the more carefully it will be handled. Even lesson-books, when they become shabby, should have a covering of some bright-colored cloth stitched over the boards. The general rules laid down for the decoration of the school-room may, with some obvious modifications, be applied to the treatment of nursery and of children's rooms. These, like the school-room, should have painted walls and a floor of hard wood with a removable rug or a square of matting. In a house containing both school-room and nursery, the decoration of the latter room will of course be adapted to the tastes of the younger children. Mothers often say, in answer to suggestions as to the decoration of the nursery, that little children "like something bright"--as though this precluded every form of art above the newspaper chromo and the Christmas card! It is easy to produce an effect of brightness by means of white wood-work and walls hung with good colored prints, with large photographs of old Flemish or Italian pictures,--say, for example, Bellini's baby-angels playing on musical instruments,--and with a few of the Japanese plant and animal drawings already referred to. All these subjects would interest and amuse even very young children; and there is no reason why a gay Japanese screen, with boldly drawn birds and flowers, should not afford as much entertainment as one composed of a heterogeneous collection of Christmas cards, chromos, and story-book pictures, put together without any attempt at color-harmony or composition. Children's rooms should be as free as possible from all superfluous draperies. The windows may be hung with either shades or curtains: it is needless to have both. If curtains are preferred, they should be of chintz, or of some washable cotton or linen. The reproductions of the old _toiles de Jouy_, with pictures from Æsop and La Fontaine, or from some familiar myth or story, are specially suited to children's rooms; while another source of interest and amusement may be provided by facing the fireplace with blue and white Dutch tiles representing the finding of Moses, the story of David and Goliath, or some such familiar episode. As children grow older, and are allotted separate bedrooms, these should be furnished and decorated on the same principles and with the same care as the school-room. Pieces of furniture for these bedrooms would make far more suitable and interesting presents than the costly odds and ends so often given without definite intention. In the arrangement of the child's own room the expression of individual taste should be encouraged and the child allowed to choose the pictures and casts with which the walls are hung. The responsibility of such selection will do much to develop the incipient faculties of observation and comparison. To sum up, then: the child's visible surroundings form the basis of the best, because of the most unconscious, cultivation: and not of æsthetic cultivation only, since, as has been pointed out, the development of any artistic taste, if the child's general training is of the right sort, indirectly broadens the whole view of life. XVI BRIC-À-BRAC It is perhaps not uninstructive to note that we have no English word to describe the class of household ornaments which French speech has provided with at least three designations, each indicating a delicate and almost imperceptible gradation of quality. In place of bric-à-brac, bibelots, _objets d'art_, we have only knick-knacks--defined by Stormonth as "articles of small value." This definition of the knick-knack fairly indicates the general level of our artistic competence. It has already been said that cheapness is not necessarily synonymous with trashiness; but hitherto this assertion has been made with regard to furniture and to the other necessary appointments of the house. With knick-knacks the case is different. An artistic age will of course produce any number of inexpensive trifles fit to become, like the Tanagra figurines, the museum treasures of later centuries; but it is hardly necessary to point out that modern shop-windows are not overflowing with such immortal toys. The few objects of art produced in the present day are the work of distinguished artists. Even allowing for what Symonds calls the "vicissitudes of taste," it seems improbable that our commercial knick-knack will ever be classed as a work of art. [Illustration: _PLATE LVI._ BRONZE ANDIRON. VENETIAN SCHOOL. XVI CENTURY.] It is clear that the weary man must have a chair to sit on, the hungry man a table to dine at; nor would the most sensitive judgment condemn him for buying ugly ones, were no others to be had; but objects of art are a counsel of perfection. It is quite possible to go without them; and the proof is that many do go without them who honestly think to possess them in abundance. This is said, not with any intention of turning to ridicule the natural desire to "make a room look pretty," but merely with the purpose of inquiring whether such an object is ever furthered by the indiscriminate amassing of "ornaments." Decorators know how much the simplicity and dignity of a good room are diminished by crowding it with useless trifles. Their absence improves even bad rooms, or makes them at least less multitudinously bad. It is surprising to note how the removal of an accumulation of knick-knacks will free the architectural lines and restore the furniture to its rightful relation with the walls. Though a room must depend for its main beauty on design and furniture, it is obvious that there are many details of luxurious living not included in these essentials. In what, then, shall the ornamentation of rooms consist? Supposing walls and furniture to be satisfactory, how put the minor touches that give to a room the charm of completeness? To arrive at an answer, one must first consider the different kinds of minor embellishment. These may be divided into two classes: the object of art _per se_, such as the bust, the picture, or the vase; and, on the other hand, those articles, useful in themselves,--lamps, clocks, fire-screens, bookbindings, candelabra,--which art has only to touch to make them the best ornaments any room can contain. In past times such articles took the place of bibelots. Few purely ornamental objects were to be seen, save in the cabinets of collectors; but when Botticelli decorated the panels of linen chests, and Cellini chiselled book-clasps and drinking-cups, there could be no thought of the vicious distinction between the useful and the beautiful. One of the first obligations of art is to make all useful things beautiful: were this neglected principle applied to the manufacture of household accessories, the modern room would have no need of knick-knacks. Before proceeding further, it is necessary to know what constitutes an object of art. It was said at the outset that, though cheapness and trashiness are not always synonymous, they are apt to be so in the case of the modern knick-knack. To buy, and even to make, it may cost a great deal of money; but artistically it is cheap, if not worthless; and too often its artistic value is in inverse ratio to its price. The one-dollar china pug is less harmful than an expensive onyx lamp-stand with moulded bronze mountings dipped in liquid gilding. It is one of the misfortunes of the present time that the most preposterously bad things often possess the powerful allurement of being expensive. One might think it an advantage that they are not within every one's reach; but, as a matter of fact, it is their very unattainableness which, by making them more desirable, leads to the production of that worst curse of modern civilization--cheap copies of costly horrors. An ornament is of course not an object of art because it is expensive--though it must be owned that objects of art are seldom cheap. Good workmanship, as distinct from designing, almost always commands a higher price than bad; and good artistic workmanship having become so rare that there is practically no increase in the existing quantity of objects of art, it is evident that these are more likely to grow than to diminish in value. Still, as has been said, costliness is no test of merit in an age when large prices are paid for bad things. Perhaps the most convenient way of defining the real object of art is to describe it as _any ornamental object which adequately expresses an artistic conception_. This definition at least clears the ground of the mass of showy rubbish forming the stock-in-trade of the average "antiquity" dealer. Good objects of art give to a room its crowning touch of distinction. Their intrinsic beauty is hardly more valuable than their suggestion of a mellower civilization--of days when rich men were patrons of "the arts of elegance," and when collecting beautiful objects was one of the obligations of a noble leisure. The qualities implied in the ownership of such bibelots are the mark of their unattainableness. The man who wishes to possess objects of art must have not only the means to acquire them, but the skill to choose them--a skill made up of cultivation and judgment, combined with that feeling for beauty that no amount of study can give, but that study alone can quicken and render profitable. Only time and experience can acquaint one with those minor peculiarities marking the successive "manners" of a master, or even with the technical _nuances_ which at once enable the collector to affix a date to his Sèvres or to his maiolica. Such knowledge is acquired at the cost of great pains and of frequent mistakes; but no one should venture to buy works of art who cannot at least draw such obvious distinctions as those between old and new Saxe, between an old Italian and a modern French bronze, or between Chinese peach-bloom porcelain of the Khang-hi period and the Japanese imitations to be found in every "Oriental emporium." Supposing the amateur to have acquired this proficiency, he is still apt to buy too many things, or things out of proportion with the rooms for which they are intended. The scoffers at style--those who assume that to conform to any known laws of decoration is to sink one's individuality--often justify their view by the assertion that it is ridiculous to be tied down, in the choice of bibelots, to any given period or manner--as though Mazarin's great collection had comprised only seventeenth-century works of art, or the Colonnas, the Gonzagas, and the Malatestas had drawn all their treasures from contemporary sources! As a matter of fact, the great amateurs of the past were never fettered by such absurd restrictions. All famous patrons of art have encouraged the talent of their day; but the passion for collecting antiquities is at least as old as the Roman Empire, and Græco-Roman sculptors had to make archaistic statues to please the popular fancy, just as our artists paint pre-Raphaelite pictures to attract the disciples of Ruskin and William Morris. Since the Roman Empire, there has probably been no period when a taste for the best of all ages did not exist.[36] Julius II, while Michel Angelo and Raphael worked under his orders, was gathering antiques for the Belvedere _cortile_; under Louis XIV, Greek marbles, Roman bronzes, cabinets of Chinese lacquer and tables of Florentine mosaic were mingled without thought of discord against Lebrun's tapestries or Bérain's arabesques; and Marie-Antoinette's collection united Oriental porcelains with goldsmiths' work of the Italian Renaissance. Taste attaches but two conditions to the use of objects of art: that they shall be in scale with the room, and that the room shall not be overcrowded with them. There are two ways of being in scale: there is the scale of proportion, and what might be called the scale of appropriateness. The former is a matter of actual measurement, while the latter is regulated solely by the nicer standard of good taste. Even in the matter of actual measurement, the niceties of proportion are not always clear to an unpractised eye. It is easy to see that the Ludovisi Juno would be out of scale in a boudoir, but the discrepancy, in diminishing, naturally becomes less obvious. Again, a vase or a bust may not be out of scale with the wall-space behind it, but may appear to crush the furniture upon which it stands; and since everything a room contains should be regarded as a factor in its general composition, the relation of bric-à-brac to furniture is no less to be studied than the relation of bric-à-brac to wall-spaces. Much of course depends upon the effect intended; and this can be greatly modified by careful adjustment of the contents of the room. A ceiling may be made to look less high by the use of wide, low pieces of furniture, with massive busts and vases; while a low-studded room may be heightened by tall, narrow commodes and cabinets, with objects of art upon the same general lines. It is of no less importance to observe the scale of appropriateness. A bronze Pallas Athene or a cowled mediæval _pleureur_ would be obviously out of harmony with the spirit of a boudoir; while the delicate graces of old Saxe or Chelsea would become futile in library or study. Another kind of appropriateness must be considered in the relation of objects of art to each other: not only must they be in scale as regards character and dimensions, but also--and this, though more important, is perhaps less often considered--as regards quality. The habit of mixing good, bad, and indifferent in furniture is often excused by necessity: people must use what they have. But there is no necessity for having bad bric-à-brac. Trashy "ornaments" do not make a room more comfortable; as a general rule, they distinctly diminish its comfort; and they have the further disadvantage of destroying the effect of any good piece of work. Vulgarity is always noisier than good breeding, and it is instructive to note how a modern commercial bronze will "talk down" a delicate Renaissance statuette or bust, and a piece of Deck or Minton china efface the color-values of blue-and-white or the soft tints of old Sèvres. Even those who set down a preference for old furniture as an affectation will hardly maintain that new knick-knacks are as good as old bibelots; but only those who have some slight acquaintance with the subject know how wide is the distance, in conception and execution, between the old object of art and its unworthy successor. Yet the explanation is simple. In former times, as the greatest painters occupied themselves with wall-decoration, so the greatest sculptors and modellers produced the delicate statuettes and the incomparable bronze mountings for vases and furniture adorning the apartments of their day. A glance into the window of the average furniture-shop probably convinces the most unobservant that modern bronze mountings are not usually designed by great artists; and there is the same change in the methods of execution. The bronze formerly chiselled is now moulded; the iron once wrought is cast; the patina given to bronze by a chemical process making it a part of the texture of the metal is now simply applied as a surface wash; and this deterioration in processes has done more than anything else to vulgarize modern ornament. It may be argued that even in the golden age of art few could have walls decorated by great painters, or furniture-mountings modelled by great sculptors; but it is here that the superiority of the old method is shown. Below the great painter and sculptor came the trained designer who, formed in the same school as his superiors, did not attempt a poor copy of their masterpieces, but did the same kind of work on simpler lines; just as below the skilled artificer stood the plain artisan whose work was executed more rudely, but by the same genuine processes. This explains the supposed affectation of those who "like things just because they are old." Old bric-à-brac and furniture are, indeed, almost always worthy of liking, since they are made on good lines by a good process. Two causes connected with the change in processes have contributed to the debasement of bibelots: the substitution of machine for hand-work has made possible the unlimited reproduction of works of art; and the resulting demand for cheap knick-knacks has given employment to a multitude of untrained designers having nothing in common with the _virtuoso_ of former times. It is an open question how much the mere possibility of unlimited reproduction detracts from the intrinsic value of an object of art. To the art-lover, as distinguished from the collector, uniqueness _per se_ can give no value to an inartistic object; but the distinction, the personal quality, of a beautiful object is certainly enhanced when it is known to be alone of its kind--as in the case of the old bronzes made _à cire perdue_. It must, however, be noted that in some cases--as in that of bronze-casting--the method which permits reproduction is distinctly inferior to that used when but one object is to be produced. In writing on objects of art, it is difficult to escape the charge of saying on one page that reproductions are objectionable, and on the next that they are better than poor "originals." The United States customs laws have drawn a rough distinction between an original work and its reproductions, defining the former as a work of art and the latter as articles of commerce; but it does not follow that an article of commerce may not be an adequate representation of a work of art. The technical differences incidental to the various forms of reproduction make any general conclusion impossible. In the case of bronzes, for instance, it has been pointed out that the _cire perdue_ process is superior to that by means of which reproductions may be made; nor is this the only cause of inferiority in bronze reproductions. The nature of bronze-casting makes it needful that the final touches should be given to bust or statue after it emerges from the mould. Upon these touches, given by the master's chisel, the expressiveness and significance of the work chiefly depend; and multiplied reproductions, in lacking this individual stamp, must lack precisely that which distinguishes the work of art from the commercial article. Perhaps the safest general rule is to say that the less the reproduction suggests an attempt at artistic interpretation,--the more literal and mechanical is its rendering of the original,--the better it fulfils its purpose. Thus, plaster-casts of sculpture are more satisfactory than bronze or marble copies; and a good photograph of a painting is superior to the average reproduction in oils or water-color. The deterioration in gilding is one of the most striking examples of the modern disregard of quality and execution. In former times gilding was regarded as one of the crowning touches of magnificence in decoration, was little used except where great splendor of effect was desired, and was then applied by means of a difficult and costly process. To-day, after a period of reaction during which all gilding was avoided, it is again unsparingly used, under the mistaken impression that it is one of the chief characteristics of the French styles now once more in demand. The result is a plague of liquid gilding. Even in France, where good gilding is still done, the great demand for cheap gilt furniture and ornaments has led to the general use of the inferior process. The prevalence of liquid gilding, and the application of gold to furniture and decoration not adapted to such treatment, doubtless explain the aversion of many persons to any use of gilding in decoration. In former times the expense of good gilding was no obstacle to its use, since it was employed only in gala rooms, where the whole treatment was on the same scale of costliness: it would never have occurred to the owner of an average-sized house to drench his walls and furniture in gilding, since the excessive use of gold in decoration was held to be quite unsuited to such a purpose. Nothing more surely preserves any form of ornament from vulgarization than a general sense of fitness. Much of the beauty and propriety of old decoration was due to the fact that the merit of a work of art was held to consist, not in substance, but in design and execution. It was never thought that a badly designed bust or vase could be saved from mediocrity by being made of an expensive material. Suitability of substance always enhances a work of art; mere costliness never. The chryselephantine Zeus of Olympia was doubtless admirably suited to the splendor of its surroundings; but in a different setting it would have been as beautiful in marble. In plastic art everything depends on form and execution, and the skilful handling of a substance deliberately chosen for its resistance (where another might have been used with equal fitness) is rather a _tour de force_ than an artistic achievement. These last generalizations are intended to show, not only that there is an intrinsic value in almost all old bibelots, but also that the general excellence of design and execution in past times has handed down to us many unimportant trifles in the way of furniture and household appliances worthy of being regarded as minor objects of art. In Italy especially, where every artisan seems to have had the gift of the _plasticatore_ in his finger-tips, and no substance was thought too poor to express a good design, there are still to be found many bits of old workmanship--clocks, _appliques_, terra-cottas, and carved picture-frames with touches of gilding--that may be characterized in the terms applied by the builder of Buckingham House to his collection of pictures:--"Some good, _none disagreeable_." Still, no accumulation of such trifles, even where none is disagreeable, will give to a room the same distinction as the presence of a few really fine works of art. Any one who has the patience to put up with that look of bareness so displeasing to some will do better to buy each year one superior piece rather than a dozen of middling quality. Even the buyer who need consult only his own pleasure must remember that his very freedom from the ordinary restrictions lays him open to temptation. It is no longer likely that any collector will be embarrassed by a superfluity of treasures; but he may put too many things into one room, and no amount of individual merit in the objects themselves will, from the decorator's standpoint, quite warrant this mistake. Any work of art, regardless of its intrinsic merit, must justify its presence in a room by being _more valuable than the space it occupies_--more valuable, that is, to the general scheme of decoration. Those who call this view arbitrary or pedantic should consider, first, the importance of plain surfaces in decoration, and secondly the tendency of overcrowding to minimize the effect of each separate object, however striking in itself. Eye and mind are limited in their receptivity to a certain number of simultaneous impressions, and the Oriental habit of displaying only one or two objects of art at a time shows a more delicate sense of these limitations than the Western passion for multiplying effects. To sum up, then, a room should depend for its adornment on general harmony of parts, and on the artistic quality of such necessities as lamps, screens, bindings, and furniture. Whoever goes beyond these essentials should limit himself in the choice of ornaments to the "labors of the master-artist's hand." FOOTNOTE: [36] "A little study would probably show that the Ptolemaic era in Egypt was a renaissance of the Theban age, in architecture as in other respects, while the golden period of Augustus in Rome was largely a Greek revival. Perhaps it would even be discovered that all ages of healthy human prosperity are more or less revivals, and have been marked by a retrospective tendency." _The Architecture of the Renaissance in Italy_, by W. J. Anderson. London, Batsford, 1896. CONCLUSION In the preceding pages an attempt has been made to show that in the treatment of rooms we have passed from the golden age of architecture to the gilded age of decoration. Any argument in support of a special claim necessitates certain apparent injustices, sets up certain provisional limitations, and can therefore be judged with fairness only by those who make due allowance for these conditions. In the discussion of æsthetics such impartiality can seldom be expected. Not unnaturally, people resent any attempt to dogmatize on matters so generally thought to lie within the domain of individual judgment. Many hold that in questions of taste _Gefühl ist alles_; while those who believe that beyond the oscillations of fashion certain fixed laws may be discerned have as yet agreed upon no formula defining their belief. In short, our civilization has not yet developed any artistic creed so generally recognized that it may be invoked on both sides of an argument without risk of misunderstanding. This is true at least of those forms of art that minister only to the æsthetic sense. With architecture and its allied branches the case is different. Here beauty depends on fitness, and the practical requirements of life are the ultimate test of fitness. If, therefore, it can be proved that the old practice was based upon a clearer perception of these requirements than is shown by modern decorators, it may be claimed not unreasonably that the old methods are better than the new. It seems, however, that the distinction between the various offices of art is no longer clearly recognized. The merit of house-decoration is now seldom measured by the standard of practical fitness; and those who would set up such a standard are suspected of proclaiming individual preferences under the guise of general principles. In this book, an endeavor has been made to draw no conclusion unwarranted by the premises; but whatever may be thought of the soundness of some of the deductions, they must be regarded, not as a criticism of individual work, but simply of certain tendencies in modern architecture. It must be remembered, too, that the book is merely a sketch, intended to indicate the lines along which further study may profitably advance. It may seem inconsequent that an elementary work should include much apparently unimportant detail. To pass in a single chapter from a discussion of abstract architectural laws to the combination of colors in a bedroom carpet seems to show lack of plan; yet the transition is logically justified. In the composition of a whole there is no negligible quantity: if the decoration of a room is planned on certain definite principles, whatever contributes line or color becomes a factor in the composition. The relation of proportion to decoration is like that of anatomy to sculpture: underneath are the everlasting laws. It was the recognition of this principle that kept the work of the old architect-decorators (for the two were one) free from the superfluous, free from the intemperate accumulation that marks so many modern rooms. Where each detail had its determinate part, no superficial accessories were needed to make up a whole: a great draughtsman represents with a few strokes what lesser artists can express only by a multiplicity of lines. The supreme excellence is simplicity. Moderation, fitness, relevance--these are the qualities that give permanence to the work of the great architects. _Tout ce qui n'est pas nécessaire est nuisible._ There is a sense in which works of art may be said to endure by virtue of that which is left out of them, and it is this "tact of omission" that characterizes the master-hand. Modern civilization has been called a varnished barbarism: a definition that might well be applied to the superficial graces of much modern decoration. Only a return to architectural principles can raise the decoration of houses to the level of the past. Vasari said of the Farnesina palace that it was not built, but really born--_non murato ma veramente nato_; and this phrase is but the expression of an ever-present sense--the sense of interrelation of parts, of unity of the whole. There is no absolute perfection, there is no communicable ideal; but much that is empiric, much that is confused and extravagant, will give way before the application of principles based on common sense and regulated by the laws of harmony and proportion. INDEX Adam, ceiling ornaments of, 93 Andirons, 84 _Appliques_, in hall and staircase, 119 Araldi's ceiling in the convent of St. Paul, Parma, 97 Architrave of door, see Doorway; of mantel-piece, 82 Arm-chair, modern, 128 _Armoires_, old French and Italian, 117 Ashby, Castle, Inigo Jones's stairs in, 111 Aviler, d', his description of dining-room fountain, 158 Ball-room, 137; in Italy, 138; Louis XIV, 139; lighting of, 140; chairs, 140 Barry, Madame du, dining-room of, 156 Bath-room, 172; in Pitti Palace, 172 Bedroom, development of, 162; Renaissance, 162; Louis XIV, 162; XVIII-century, 163; cotton hangings in, 164; suite, plan of, 169; children's, 182 Bedstead, history of, 163 Belvédère, at Versailles, frescoes in, 42 Bérain, ceiling arabesques of, 98 _Bergère_, origin of, 7; design of, 128 Bernini, his staircase in the Vatican, 108 Bindings, decorative value of, 146 Blinds, 73 Blois, spiral stairs in court-yard of château, 109; _cabinet_ of Catherine de' Medici, 123 Blondel, on doors, 58; on fireplaces, 74 Book-cases, medieval, 145; in Catherine de' Medici's _cabinet_, 145; in France in the XVII century, 146; built into the wall, 147; in England, 149; modern, 148 Books in the middle ages, 145; in the Renaissance, 146 Bosse, Abraham, engravings of Louis XIII interiors, 69; examples of state bedrooms, 123 Boudoir, 130; modern decoration of, 170 Bramante, his use of the mezzanin floor, 5 Breakfast-room, 160 Bric-à-brac, definition of, 184; knowledge of, 187; superiority of old over new, 190 Burckhardt, on medieval house-planning, 107, note Byfield, G., his stairs at Hurlingham, 111 _Cabinet_, Italian origin of, 123; used in French Renaissance houses, 123; of Catherine de' Medici, book-cases in, 145 Campbell's _Vitruvius Britannicus_, example of Palladian manner, 4; of English house-planning, 135 Carpets, in general color-scheme, 29; choice of, 100; _Savonnerie_, 100; designs of, 101; stair-carpets, 102, 118; hall-carpets, 118 Caserta, staircase in royal palace, 108 Casino del Grotto, near Mantua, frescoes in, 42; ceilings in, 98 Casts in vestibule, 105; in hall, 118; in school-room, 178 Ceilings, 89; timbered, 90; in France and England, 91; Elizabethan, 92; Louis XIII, 92; Louis XV, 92; Louis XVI, 93; Adam, 93, 96; objections to wooden, 94; modern treatment of, 95; frescoed, 97 Chambord, staircase at, 109 _Chambre de parade_, 123 Chandeliers, 140, 159 Chanteloup, library of, 149 Chantilly, stair-rail at, 113 Chevening, Inigo Jones's stairs at, 111 Cheverny, fireplace at, 74 Chinese art, influence of, on stuff patterns, 166 Chippendale's designs for grates, 81 "Colonial" style, the, 81 Color, use of, in decoration, 28; predominance of one color in each room, 28; color-schemes, 29 Cornices, interior, Durand on, 94 Cortile, Italian, modern adaptation of, 117 Coutant d'Ivry's stair-rail in the Palais Royal, 113 Curtains, mediæval and Renaissance, 69; in XVII and XVIII centuries, 70; muslin, 72 Dado, the, 37; sometimes omitted in lobbies and corridors, 38 Decoration and furniture, harmony between, 13; individuality in decoration, 17; graduated scheme of, 24 "Den," furniture of, 152; decoration of, 153 Dining-chairs, mediæval, 156; XVII century, 159; XVIII century, 159 Dining-room, origin of, 155; in France, 154; in England, 155; furniture of, 156; French, XVIII century, 157; fountains in, 158; decoration of modern, 160; lighting of, 160; state, 160; heating of, 161 Dining-table, mediæval, 156; modern, 161 Donowell, J., his stairs at West Wycombe, 111 Doors, 48; sliding, origin of, 49; double, 49; mediæval, 51; in palace of Urbino, 52; in Italy, 52-54; locks and hinges, 55; in the Hôtels de Rohan, de Soubise, and de Toulouse, 56; glass doors, 57; treatment in England, 57; mahogany, 58; panelling, principles of, 59; veneering, 61; concealed doors, 61; entrance-door, 103 Doorway, proper dimensions of, 51, 60; treatment of, in Italy, 52; in France, 55; in England, 57 Drawing-room, in modern town houses, 20; evolution of, in England, 122; in France, 122; origin of modern, 124; treatment of, in England and America, 124; furniture of, 127 Dressing-room, 171 _Duchesse_, 130 Durand, J. L. N., on originality in architecture, 10; on interior cornices, 94 Easton Neston, use of panel-pictures at, 46 Entrance, treatment of, 103; entrance-door, 103 Fenders, 85 Fire-backs, 80 Fire-boards, 86 Fireplaces, 74; mediæval, construction of, 75; in Italy, 75; in France, 76; lining of, 80; American, 81; accessories of, 84 Fire-screens, 86 Floors, 89; of brick or stone, 99; marble and mosaic, in Italy, 99; parquet, 99; of vestibule, 104; of ball-room, 140 Fontana, his staircase in the royal palace, Naples, 108 Fountains in dining-rooms, 158 Fresco-painting, in wall-decoration, 41; examples of, in Italy and France, 42; in ceiling-decoration, 97; in Italy, 97; in France, 98; in Italian gala rooms, 139 Furniture, in the middle ages, 7; furniture and decoration, harmony between, 25; modern English and American, 26; XVIII century, in France and England, 27; in vestibule, 105; in hall, 117; in _salon de compagnie_, 125; in drawing-room, 127, 128; English, XVIII century, 129; in dining-room, 156; in bedroom, 171; in school-room, 180 Gabriel, influence of, on ornamental detail, 56; on ceilings, 93; on stair-rails, 114 Gala rooms, 134; uses of, 135; in Italy, 136 Gallery, 137 Genoa, royal palace, doors in, 54 Gibbons, Grinling, carvings for panel-pictures, 46 Gilding, deterioration of, 192 Giulio Romano's frescoes in the Palazzo del T, 136 _Grand'salle_, mediæval, 110 Grates, 81 Gwilt, his definition of _staircase_, 106 Hall, 106; old English, 110; uses of, 115; modern treatment of, 115; decoration of, 117; furniture, 117; floor of, 118; lighting of, 119; prints and pictures in, 119 Holkham, over-mantels at, 81 Hôtel de Rohan, doors in, 56 de Soubise, doors in, 56 de Toulouse, doors in, 56 Houghton Hall, doors in, 57, note House, Carlton, stair-rail in, 114 Devonshire, stair-rail in, 114 Norfolk, stair-rail in, 114 Individuality in decoration, 17 Isabella of Este's apartment at Mantua, doorways in, 52 Jones, Inigo, his introduction of Palladian manner in England, 4, note; influence on ceiling-decoration, 92; on plan of English hall, 110; his stairs at Castle Ashby, 111; at Chevening, 111 Juvara, his staircase in the Palazzo Madama, Turin, 108 Lambrequin, origin of, 71 Lamour, Jean, his wrought-iron work at Nancy, 112 Lantern in vestibule, 105 Laurano, Luciano da, palace of Urbino built by, 6 Lebrun, door-locks in _Galerie d'Apollon_ designed by, 55 Le Riche, frescoes of, in Belvédère, Versailles, 42 Library, 145; in the university at Nancy, 149; of Louis XVI, at Versailles, 149; of Chanteloup, 149; modern, decoration of, 150 _Lit de parade_, 122 _Lit de repos_, 130 Longhi, frescoes of, in Palazzo Sina, Venice, 143 Louis XIII, windows, 69; ceilings, 92 Louis XIV, modern house-furnishing dates from his reign, 8; style, characteristics of, 14; window-shutters, 69; influence on French, 77; mantels, 78; ceilings, 98; stair-rails, 112; ball-rooms, 140 Louis XV style, characteristics of, 13; doors, 56; ceilings, 92; wrought-iron work, 112; stair-rails, 113 Louis XVI style, characteristics of, 12; Gabriel's influence on, 56, 93; doors, 57; ceilings, 93; stair-rails, 114 Luciennes, Madame du Barry's dining-room at, 157 Mantegna's ceiling, palace of Mantua, 97 Mantel-pieces, Italian Renaissance, 77; French Renaissance, 77; Louis XIV, 78; XVIII century, 79; American, 82; facing of, 83 Mantua, doorways in palace, 52, 54; Mantegna's ceiling in, 97; _cabinet_ of Isabella of Este, 123 Mario dei Fiori, 139 Massimi alle Colonne, palace of, in Rome, 6 Mezzanin, origin of, 5; treatment of, 6 Ministère de la Marine, Paris, door in, 61 Mirrors, use of, in over-mantel, 79; painted, in Borghese Palace, Rome, 139; in ball-rooms, 141 Morelli's staircase in Palazzo Braschi, Rome, 108 Morning-room, 132 Mullions, use of, 66 Music-room, 142; at Remiremont, 143 Music-stand, 144 Music-stool, 144 Nancy, wrought-iron work at, 112; library in the university, 149 Naples, staircase in royal palace, 108 Niches, in hall and staircase, 117 Nursery, 181 Oberkampf, inventor of color-printing on cotton, 166 Object of art, definition of, 187; reproductions of, 191 Openings, placing and proportion of, 23; lines of, carried up to ceiling, 37, 52, 65, 74; treatment of, in rocaille style, 56 Orders, use of, in wall-decoration, 36; application to doorways in Italy, 53; in France, 54; in England, 57; in ball-rooms, 139 Originality in art, 9; J. L. N. Durand on, 10 Over-doors, mediæval treatment of, 52; in Italy, 53; in France, 55; Louis XVI, 57 Over-mantels, Renaissance, 76; use of mirror in, 79; XVIII-century treatment, 79; in England, 81 Palais Royal, stair-rail in, 113 Palazzo Borghese, Rome, painted mirrors in, 139 Braschi, Rome, staircase in, 108 Gondi, Florence, stairs in, 108 Labia, Venice, frescoes in, 136 Madama, Turin, staircase in, 108 Massimi alle Colonne, Rome, date of, 6 Piccolomini, at Pienza, staircase in, 108, note Pitti, Florence, bath-room in, 172 Reale, Caserta, staircase in, 108 Reale, Naples, staircase in, 108 Riccardi, staircase in, 108, note Sina, Venice, frescoes in, 143 del T, Mantua, frescoes in, 136 Palladian window, 67 Panelling, in Italy and north of the Alps, 40; wood, stone and stucco, 40, 42; subdivisions of, 43 Parma, Araldi's ceiling in convent of St. Paul, 97; rocaille stoves in museum, 121 Pavia, Certosa of, doorways in, 52 _Perroquets_, 141 Perugia, ceiling in the Sala del Cambio, 97 Perugino's ceiling in the Sala del Cambio, Perugia, 97 Peruzzi, Baldassare, his use of the mezzanin, 5 Piano, design of, 143 Pictures, proper background for, 45; mode of hanging, 46; in hall, 119; in dining-room, 160; in school-room, 180 Picture-frames, selection of, 45 Plan of house in relation to decoration, 23 Plate-glass in windows, 67 Pompadour, Madame de, dining-room fountain of, 158 Pompeii, wall-frescoes of, 41 Portière, use of, 59 Presses, old English, 117 Prints in hall, 120; in school-room, 180 Privacy, modern indifference to, 22 Proportion, definition of, 31; Isaac Ware on, 32 Pyne's _Royal Residences_, examples of pictures set in panels, 46 Rambouillet, Madame de, her influence on house-planning, 8 Raphael, ceilings of, 97 Remiremont, music-room at, 143 Renaissance, characteristics of domestic architecture, 4; doors, 52; window-curtains, 69; mantels, 76, 77; ceilings, 90-92; French architects of, 109 Rennes, Palais de Justice, carved wooden ceilings, 89 Rugs, Oriental, 29, 100; modern European, 101 _Salon à l'Italienne_, see Saloon _Salon de compagnie_, origin and use of, 123, 125; decoration and furniture of, 125; lighting of, 126 _Salon de famille_, origin and use of, 123 Saloon, adaptation of, in England by Inigo Jones, 111; introduction in France, 123; uses in Italy, 136; at Vaux-le-Vicomte, 137 School-room, 172; decoration of, 178 Screen in Tudor halls, 110 Shobden Court, stairs in, 111 Shutters, interior decoration of, 69; at Vaux-le-Vicomte, 69; in rooms of Mesdames de France, Versailles, 69; purpose of, 72 Sideboard, mediæval, 156; in France, 157 Smoking-room, 151 Stairs, 106; development of, in Italy, 107; in the Palladian period, 108; in the XVII and XVIII centuries, 108; spiral, 109; in hall, in England, 111; construction of, in Italy, 112; in France, 112 Stair-carpets, 118 Staircase, meaning of term, 106; walls of, 117; in simple houses, 119; lighting of, 119 Stair-rails, in Italy and France, 112; Louis XIV and XV, 113; Louis XVI and Empire, 113; Tudor and Elizabethan, 114; Palladian, in England, 114 Stoves, use of, in hall, 120; examples of old stoves, 121; in dining-room, 161 Stucco, use of, in decoration, 40; panelling, in Italy, 40; in ceilings, 90; in Elizabethan ceilings, 92; combined with painting, 97 Stuff hangings, 44 Stupinigi, frescoes at, 42; over-mantels at, 80 Styles, essence of, 11; conformity to, 13 Symmetry, definition of, 33; advantages of, 34 Tapestry, use of, in northern Europe, 39; its subordination to architectural lines of room, 39 Tiepolo, frescoes of, in the Villa Valmarana, 42; in the Palazzo Labia, 136 Titian's "Presentation of the Virgin," doorway in, 53 _Toiles de Jouy_, 166 Trianon-sous-Bois, fountains in banqueting-gallery, 158 Udine, Giovanni da, ceilings of, in collaboration with Raphael, 97 Urbino, ducal palace of, 6; doors in, 52; fireplace in, 74; _cabinet_ of Isabella of Este, 123 Vanvitelli's staircase at Caserta, 108 Vatican, Bernini's staircase in, 108 Vault, the Roman, influence of, on ceilings, 191 Vaux-le-Vicomte, interior shutters at, 69; saloon at, 137 Versailles, frescoes in Belvédère, 42; windows in rooms of Mesdames de France, 68; shutters in same, 69; library of Louis XVI, 148 Vestibule, 104; furniture of, 105; lighting of, 105; absence of, in English house-planning, 110 Villa, Italian, chief features of, 4, note Villa Giacomelli, at Maser, over-mantel in, 76 Madama, in Rome, ceiling of loggia, 97 Rotonda, near Vicenza, saloon in, 136 Valmarana, near Vicenza, frescoes in, 42 Vertemati, near Chiavenna, over-mantel in, 76; carved wooden ceiling in, 89 Viollet-le-Duc, on doorways, 52, note; on mediæval house-planning, 109 Voguë, Hôtel, at Dijon, 7 Wall-decoration, 38 Wall-papers, 44 Walls, 31 Ware, Isaac, on proportion, 32; on sliding doors, 49; his definition of staircase, 106 West Wycombe, Donowell's stairs at, 111 Windows, decorative value of, 64; dimensions of, 65; plate-glass in, 67; French or casement, 68; sash, 68; curtains, 69, 70; shutters, 69, 72; lambrequin, 71; muslin curtains, 72; blinds, 73 Wood-box, 86 
44014	----	ANTIQUE WORKS OF ART FROM BENIN, Collected by LIEUTENANT-GENERAL PITT RIVERS, D.C.L., F.R.S., F.S.A. Inspector of Ancient Monuments in Great Britain, &c. Printed Privately. 1900. London: Harrison and Sons, Printers in Ordinary to her Majesty, St. Martin's Lane, W.C. WORKS OF ART FROM BENIN, WEST AFRICA. OBTAINED BY THE PUNITIVE EXPEDITION IN 1897, AND NOW IN GENERAL PITT RIVERS'S MUSEUM AT FARNHAM, DORSET. Benin is situated on the Guinea Coast, near the mouth of the Niger, in latitude 6·12 north, and longitude 5 to 6 east. It was discovered by the Portuguese at the end of the fourteenth or commencement of the fifteenth centuries. The Portuguese were followed by the Dutch and Swedes, and in 1553 the first English expedition arrived on the coast, and established a trade with the king, who received them willingly. Benin at that time appears by a Dutch narrative to have been quite a large city, surrounded by a high wall, and having a broad street through the centre. The people were comparatively civilized. The king possessed a number of horses which have long since disappeared and become unknown. Faulkner, in 1825, saw three solitary horses belonging to the king, which he says no one was bold enough to ride. In 1702 a Dutchman, named Nyendaeel, describes the city, and speaks of the human sacrifices there. He says that the people were great makers of ornamental brass work in his day, which they seem to have learnt from the Portuguese. It was visited by Sir Richard Burton, who went there to try to put a stop to human sacrifices, at the time he was consul at Fernando Po. In 1892 it was visited by Captain H. L. Galloway, who speaks of the city as possessing only the ruins of its former greatness; the abolition of the slave trade had put a stop to the prosperity of the place, and the king had prohibited any intercourse with Europeans. The town had been reduced to a collection of huts, and its trade had dwindled down to almost nil. The houses have a sort of impluvium in the centre of the rooms, which has led some to suppose that their style of architecture may have been derived from the Roman colonies of North Africa. In 1896 an expedition, consisting of some 250 men, with presents and merchandise, left the British settlements on the coast, and endeavoured to advance towards Benin city. The expedition was conducted with courage and perseverance, but with the utmost rashness. Almost unarmed, neglecting all ordinary precautions, contrary to the advice of the neighbouring chiefs, and with the express prohibition of the King of Benin to advance, they marched straight into an ambuscade which had been prepared for them in the forest on each side of the road, and as their revolvers were locked up in their boxes at the time, they were massacred to a man with the exception of two, Captain Boisragon and Mr. Locke, who, after suffering the utmost hardships, escaped to the British settlements on the coast to tell the tale. Within five weeks after the occurrence, a punitive expedition entered Benin, on 18th January, 1897, and took the town. The king fled, but was afterwards brought back and made to humiliate himself before his conquerers, and his territory annexed to the British crown. The city was found in a terrible state of bloodshed and disorder, saturated with the blood of human sacrifices offered up to their Juju, or religious rites and customs, for which the place had long been recognised as the "city of blood." What may be hereafter the advantages to trade resulting from this expedition it is difficult to say, but the point of chief interest in connection with the subject of this paper was the discovery, mostly in the king's compound and the Juju houses, of numerous works of art in brass, bronze, and ivory, which, as before stated, were mentioned by the Dutchman, Van Nyendaeel, as having been constructed by the people of Benin in 1700. These antiquities were brought away by the members of the punitive expedition and sold in London and elsewhere. Little or no account of them could be given by the natives, and as the expedition was as usual unaccompanied by any scientific explorer charged with the duty of making inquiries upon matters of historic and antiquarian interest, no reliable information about them could be obtained. They were found buried and covered with blood, some of them having been used amongst the apparatus of their Juju sacrifices. A good collection of these antiquities, through the agency of Mr. Charles Read, F.S.A., has found its way into the British Museum; others no doubt have fallen into the hands of persons whose chief interest in them has been as relics of a sensational and bloody episode, but their real value consists in their representing a phase of art--and rather an advanced stage--of which there is no actual record, although no doubt we cannot be far wrong in attributing it to European influence, probably that of the Portuguese some time in the sixteenth century. A. P. R. RUSHMORE, SALISBURY, _April, 1900_. DESCRIPTION OF PLATE I. Fig. 1.--Bronze plaque, representing two warriors with broad leaf-shaped swords in their right hands. Coral or agate head-dress. Coral chokers, badge of rank. Leopards' teeth necklace. Coral scarf across shoulder. Leopards' heads hanging on left sides. Skirts each ornamented with a human head. Armlets, anklets, etc. Ground ornamented with the usual foil ornament incised. Fig. 2.--Bronze plaque, representing two figures holding plaques or books in front. Coral chokers, badge of rank. Reticulated head-dresses of coral or agate, similar to that represented in Plate XXI, Fig. 121. Barbed objects of unknown use behind left shoulders, ornamented with straight line diaper pattern. Ground ornamented with foil ornaments incised. Guilloche on sides of plaque. Fig. 3.--Bronze plaque, representing three warriors, two with feathers in head-dress and trefoil leaves at top; one with pot helmet, button on top. The latter has a coral choker, badge of rank, and all have leopards' teeth necklaces. The central figure has a cylindrical case on shoulder. Two have hands on their sword-hilts. All three have leopards' heads on breast, and quadrangular bells hanging from neck. Leopards' skins and other objects hang on left sides. Ground ornamented with foil ornaments incised. Fig. 4.--Bronze plaque, figure of warrior with spear in right hand, shield on left shoulder. Head-dress of coral or agate, similar to that represented in Plate XXI, Fig. 121. Quadrangular bell hanging from neck. Chain-like anklets. Coral choker, badge of rank, and leopards' teeth necklace. A nude attendant on right upholds a large broad leaf-shaped sword, with a ring attached to pommel. Another holds two sistri or bells fastened together by a chain. Small figure on left is blowing an elephant's tusk trumpet. Figures above in profile are holding up tablets or books. The dress of one of them is fastened with tags or loops of unusual form. These figures have Roman noses, and are evidently not negro. Ground ornamented with the usual foil ornament incised. DESCRIPTION OF PLATE II. Figs. 5 and 6.--Bronze plaque, representing a warrior in centre, turned to his left. He has a beard and a necklace of leopards' teeth, but no coral choker. He has a high helmet, somewhat in the form of a grenadier cap. Quadrangular bell on neck. Dagger in sheath on right side, and various appurtenances hanging from his dress. He holds a narrow leaf-shaped sword in his right hand over an enemy who has fallen, and who has already a leaf-shaped sword thrust through his body. The victim has a sword-sheath on left side, with broad end, and a peculiar head-dress. His horse is represented below with an attendant holding it by a chain and carrying barbed darts in his left hand. On the right of the conqueror is a small figure blowing a tusk trumpet, and on his right a larger figure carrying a shield in his left hand and a cluster of weapons. He has a high helmet, ornamented with representations of cowrie shells of nearly the same form as that of the central figure. Above are two figures, one blowing what appears to be a musical instrument and the other carrying a barbed pointed implement, and armed with a sword in sheath similar to that of the fallen warrior. The plaque appears to represent a victory of some kind, and all the conquerors have the same high helmet. The ground is ornamented with the usual foil ornament incised. Figs. 7 and 8.--Bronze plaque, representing a king or noble on horseback sitting sideways, his hands upheld by attendants, one of whom has a long thin sword in his hand in sheath. Two attendants, with helmets or hair represented by ribs, are holding up shields to shelter the king from the sun. The king or noble has a coral choker, badge of rank, with a coral necklace hanging on breast. Horse's head-collar hung with crotals. A small attendant carries a "manilla" in his hand. The two figures above are armed with bows and arrows. Ground ornamented with foil ornaments incised. De Bry, "India Orientalis," says that in the sixteenth century both the king and chiefs were wont to ride side-saddle upon led horses. They were supported by retainers, who held over their heads either shields or umbrellas, and accompanied by a band of musicians playing on ivory horns, gong-gongs, drums, harps, and a kind of rattle. DESCRIPTION OF PLATE III. Fig. 9.--Bronze plaque, naked figure of boy; hair in conventional bands; three tribal marks over each eye and band on forehead. Coral choker, badge of rank. Armlets and anklets. Four rosettes on ground and usual foil ornaments. De Bry says that all young people went naked until marriage. Fig. 10.--Bronze plaque, figure of warrior with helmet or hair represented by ribs. Leaf-shaped sword upheld in right hand. A bundle of objects on head upheld by left hand. Object resembling a despatch case on left side, fastened by a belt over right shoulder. Human mask on left side. Four fishes on ground, and the usual foil ornaments incised. Figs. 11 and 12.--Bronze plaque, representing a figure holding a ball, perhaps a cannon ball, in front. Coral choker, badge of rank. Three tribal marks over each eye. Crest on head-dress, feather in cap. Skirt wound up behind left shoulder. Skirt ornamented with a head and hands. Four rosettes on ground, and usual foil ornaments incised. Guilloche on sides of plaque. DESCRIPTION OF PLATE IV. Fig. 13.--Bronze plaque, figure of warrior, feather in cap; broad leaf-shaped sword in right hand. Coral choker, badge of rank. Leopards' teeth necklace. Coral sash; ground ornamented with leaf-shaped foil, ornaments incised. Figs. 14 and 15.--Bronze ægis or plaque, with representations of two figures with staves in their right hands. Coral chokers, badge of rank. On the breasts are two Maltese crosses hanging from the necks, which appear to be European Orders. The objects held in left hands have been broken off. The hats are similar to that on the head of the figure, Fig. 91, Plate XV. Ground ornamented with the usual foil ornaments incised. Fig. 16.--Bronze plaque, figure of warrior with pot helmet, button on top. Coral choker, badge of rank, on neck. Leopards' teeth necklace. Quadrangular bell on breast. Armlets, anklets, &c. Four rosettes on ground, and the usual foil ornaments incised. Fig. 17.--Bronze plaque, figure of warrior with spear in right hand, shield in left hand; pot helmet, button on top. Quadrangular bell hanging from neck. Coral choker, badge of rank. Leopards' teeth necklace. Leopard's skin dress with head to front. On the ground are two horses' heads below and two rosettes above. Ground ornamented with the usual foil ornaments incised. Fig. 18.--Bronze plaque, figure of warrior. Peculiarly ornamented head-dress. Coral choker, badge of rank. Leopards' teeth necklace. Broad leaf-shaped sword in right hand. Coral sash on breast. Leopard's mask hanging on left side. Armlets, anklets, &c. Small figure of boy, naked, to right, holding a metal dish with lid in form of an ox's head. A similar object may be seen amongst the Benin objects in the British Museum. DESCRIPTION OF PLATE V. Figs. 19, 20 and 21.--Stained ivory carving of figure on horse. Coral choker; spear in right hand, the shaft broken. Tribal marks on forehead incised. Chain-bridle or head-collar. Degenerate guilloche pattern on base. Straight line diaper pattern represented in various parts. The stand formed as a socket for a pole. Figs. 22, 23 and 24.--Ivory carving of figure on horse, with spear in right hand and bell on neck, and long hair. The bridle formed as a head-collar. Degenerate guilloche pattern on base. The stand formed as a socket for a pole ornamented with bands of interlaced pattern and the head of an animal. DESCRIPTION OF PLATE VI. Figs. 25 and 26.--Ivory carving of a human face. Eyes and bands on forehead inlaid. Straight line diaper pattern on head-dress, above which are conventionalised mud-fish. Four bands of coral across forehead. Ears long and narrow. Found hidden in an oaken chest inside the sleeping apartment of King Duboar. Fig. 27.--Carved wooden panel, consisting of a chief in the centre; broad leaf-shaped sword, with ring attached to pommel, upheld in right hand, studded with copper nails, and ornamented with representations of itself. In left hand a fan-shaped figure terminating in two hands. Coral choker, badge of rank. Bell on neck and cross-belts. Skirt ornamented with three heads and a guilloche pattern of three bands with pellets. Anklets. Attendant on left holding umbrella over chief's head. Serpent with human arm and hand in its mouth, head upwards; eyes of inlaid glass; body studded with copper nails. Leopard, drawn head upwards. On right, figure with jug in left hand and cup in right hand, standing in a trough or open vessel. Small attendant with paddle in right hand. At top a bottle bound with grass, and figure of some object, perhaps a stone celt bound with grass. Brass and iron screws are used for ornamentation in this carving. Guilloche pattern of two bands without pellets around the edge of the panel. Figs. 28, 29 and 30.--Ivory carved tusk, 4 feet 1 inch long from bottom to point; traversed by five bands of interlaced strap-work. The other ornamentation consists of:--Human figures with hands crossed on breast; bird standing on pedestal; human figures with hands holding sashes; trees growing downwards; a rosette; mudfish; crocodiles with heads upwards; a serpent with sinuous body, head downwards; two cups; a serpent, head upwards; detached human heads. Some of the representations are so rude that it requires experience to understand their meaning. On this tusk the interlaced pattern is the prevailing ornament, and it passes into the guilloche pattern. This tusk is more tastefully decorated than the other tusk, Figs. 167 and 168, Plate XXVI, but with less variety in the carving. These carved tusks are said to represent gods in the Ju-ju houses. DESCRIPTION OF PLATE VII. Figs. 31 and 32.--Ivory carving of female. The design as rude as found in any part of Africa. Necklet and armlets the same as on the bronze figures. Fig. 33.--Ivory cup, stained brown. Fig. 34.--Bronze drinking cup, the same as represented in wood-carving, Fig. 27, Plate VI. Figs. 35 and 36.--Lion in bronze. The back is cut in a curved line, as if adapting it as a foot to some object. Fig. 37.--Bracelet of brass, somewhat twisted. Fig. 38.--Bracelet of brass, with five projections set with agate. Figs. 39 and 40.--Brass bracelet, with negro heads of copper inlaid. Mud-fish springing from nose on each side and turned up. Coral chokers, badges of rank. The ring is decorated with incised floral ornaments. DESCRIPTION OF PLATE VIII. Figs. 41 and 42.--Figure of a warrior in bronze, with leopard's skin dress; javelins in one hand and shield in the other. Head-dress of peculiar form, with feathers. Leopards' teeth necklace. Quadrangular bell on breast. Figs. 43 and 44.--Female figure in bronze, holding up a tablet in right hand. Head-dress, necklace, &c., of coral or agate. Three tribal marks over each eye. Figs. 45 and 46.--Bronze vessel, somewhat in the form of a coffee-pot. Handle at back, consisting of a snake with a sinuous body, head downwards, holding a full-length human figure in its mouth. The spout consists of a human figure, seated, with two tails; and the spout springs out of the mouth between the teeth of the figure. Round the swell of the vessel are four figures resembling frogs, the bodies ornamented as human heads; nearly similar ornaments are seen on Mexican stone carvings in this collection. The four feet resemble human feet with anklets, all pointing to the front. The lid is ornamented with a human figure seated and four masks, and is fastened to the pot by a hinge. Figs. 47 and 48.--Bracelet of bronze, ornamented with two rudely formed human heads; some of the yellow earth of the mould appears to be adhering to the interstices. DESCRIPTION OF PLATE IX. Figs. 49 and 50.--Narrow armlet of brass, with a succession of animals (? Lizards) in relief on the edge. Figs. 51 and 52.--Bronze pointed dish on stand, with ribbed cover, rabbetted. Use unknown; perhaps an European ecclesiastical utensil. Figs. 53 to 55.--Head of a mace, ornamented with leopard and keepers and heads in bas-relief; decorated with interlaced strap-work, with brass inlaid in copper. The human heads are partly negro, whilst others from their straight hair appear to be white men, perhaps Arabs or cross-breds. The mud-fish is represented one on each side. Described by Mr. H. Ling Roth in "The Reliquary," Vol. IV, 1898, p. 162. Figs. 56 and 57.--Bronze bottle or power flask, representing a female with barbed arrow-points extending from both sides of the mouth; perhaps symbolical; and holding a four-pronged instrument in the right hand. Three tribal marks over each eye; coral necklace. DESCRIPTION OF PLATE X. Figs. 58 and 59.--Leopard's mask head of brass, the pupils of the eyes represented by a copper band. A band of copper inlaid along the nose and forehead. A barbed figure on each cheek. Figs. 60 and 61.--Leopard's mask head of brass, the pupils of the eyes represented by bands. A barbed figure on each cheek. Eyelets along the edges, perhaps to receive crotals as in Figs. 58 and 59. Figs. 62 and 63.--Leopard's head in brass, the spots and pupils of eyes in copper. This appears to have been attached with a leather thong to the dress. Figs. 64 and 65.--Bronze vase. The design appears to be purely native. It is ornamented with four human masks, two of which are ribbed. There are two elephants' heads with tusks, but no trunks over each ribbed head. Four bands of plain guilloche pattern arranged vertically between the heads. Concentric circles. Thickness of metal on unornamented parts, 2 mm. DESCRIPTION OF PLATE XI. Figs. 66 to 72.--The historic mace of office of Duboar, late King of Benin; 5 feet 4 inches long, and made of brass. This was found by an officer of the expedition in the state apartment of the palaver house, and was evidently left behind by the king's people on account of its heavy weight, in their hurried exodus from Benin city; the king is said to have since recognized this staff, and stated that it had been handed down for many hundreds of years from king to king. It has the representation of "Overami," or reigning monarch, on the summit, dressed in the usual manner of Benin warriors. He is standing on an elephant which has a proboscis terminating in a human hand. This peculiarity is represented very often in the bronze antiquities of the Benin country, and especially on the carved tusk, Figs. 167 and 168, Plate XXVI, and must probably represent some great fetish; the present race, on enquiries being made, could not elucidate this matter, so its history must date back many ages. This elephant is in turn supported by the usual two royal leopards. The monarch holds in his right hand his chief ju-ju, which never leaves him night or day; in his left hand he holds a neolithic or stone axe head, edge upwards, which are looked up to by the natives even now with great awe and superstition. The interior of the upper part of the mace is hollow, having a piece of metal inside, formed like a long crotal, and was used as a bell to keep order. The broad leaf-shaped swords and the execution swords are depicted in several places over the mace. It is ornamented with guilloche pattern of two and three bands with intervening pellets. Part of the mace is ornamented in imitation of twine binding. Near the foot of the staff is the figure of another elephant with proboscis terminating in a human hand, holding a plant like a prickly-pear. Beneath the elephant are two human figures, with Maltese crosses on breasts, axes in left hands, and sticks in right. Below this are two axes hafted in serpents' heads, which have human hands in their mouths and sinuous bodies. Crocodile, head downwards, and two interlaced mud-fish. DESCRIPTION OF PLATE XII. Figs. 73 to 75.--Three triangular brass bells. Fig. 73 has a negro head in relief on the front and fish-scale pattern. Fig. 74 has the eyes, nose and mouth of a human face only. Fig. 75 has a spiral in place of a face. Figs. 76 to 78.--Sistrum in brass, representing two cups, the lower one ornamented with a figure holding a ball. The upper figures on each side represent a king with the arms upheld by attendants on both sides; on one side the attendants are kneeling. A hand holding a plaque or book is represented on each side. Crotals are attached to the sistrum on both sides. A stand in form of a socket to fit a pole and a band ornamented with interlaced strap-work. This object appears certainly to be a sistrum, as human figures are shown in some of the plaques holding them in their hands and striking them with a rod to produce a sound. A similar instrument in iron, modern, is figured by Mr. Ling Roth, in "The Reliquary," Vol. IV, 1898, p. 165, from the Yoruba country. DESCRIPTION OF PLATE XIII. Figs. 79 to 81.--Figure of a warrior on horseback. Spear in right hand, the blade having an ogee corrugated section, similar to those used in all parts of Africa where metal blades are used. The edges of the blade are bent over by rough usage, which makes it look like a spoon. The duct for the metal runs from the head of the horse. Darts in left hand. The ends of the spear and darts are bent inwards, as if by rough usage. The chain halter is similar to those seen on other horses and is used as a bridle, held by the little finger of the left hand. A circular shield, similar to the one in this collection (Plate XVIII, Fig. 102), though differently decorated, is slung on the left side over the thigh. The spurs attached to the legs have four points arranged horizontally. The figure has a leopard's skin on front and back, ornamented with representations of cowrie shells. The coat and collar bordered with interlaced strap-work. Dagger on right side. Crown, apparently of feathers, on head. Base ornamented with interlaced strap-work or guilloche pattern. The horse is fairly well formed. The hair conventionalized in straight lines. The face is that of a negro. DESCRIPTION OF PLATE XIV. Figs. 82 and 83.--Well-formed bronze head of a negress. Reticulated head-dress of agate or coral. Coral necklace. Pendant of agate on centre of forehead. The pupils of the eyes inlaid apparently with iron. The upper lip has been inlaid probably with brass. Eleven bands of coral or agate hang from the head-dress on each side. Well-formed ears. This and Figs. 88 and 89, Plate XV, and Figs. 98 and 99, Plate XVII, are the best formed heads in the collection. Figs. 84 and 85.--Bronze figure firing a gun, probably representing an European, with beard, presenting a flint-lock gun. The barrel of the gun is broken off at the left hand. European morion of the sixteenth century on head, ornamented with interlaced strap-work. Sword or cutlass with European guard and a flint-lock pistol slung on left side. On the right side, a dagger. Armour ornamented with strap-work or interlaced work. On the pedestal are represented two flint-lock pistols, a cross-bow, a three-pronged spear, two figures holding guns and interlaced strap-work. DESCRIPTION OF PLATE XV. Figs. 86 and 87.--Brass head inlaid with a copper band along the nose. The pupils of the eyes inlaid with iron. Reticulated head-dress of coral or agate. Three tribal marks over each eye. Conventionalized mud-fish in a frill around neck. Figs. 88 and 89.--Well-formed head in bronze, the forehead decorated with two inlaid bands and four raised tribal marks over each eye. The pupils of the eyes inlaid apparently with iron. Coral necklace. The hair in conventional bands of ridges; the ears unusually well formed. Figs. 90 and 91.--Human figure standing in bronze. Negro features. Three tribal marks over each eye. Curved lines of circles and hatchings above and below the eyes. Three radiating lines branching from the corners of the mouth. Pot helmet, with brim and reticulated ornamentation. The ears are very rudely formed. An object somewhat resembling a key or axe in the left hand. There appears to have been a staff or pole in the right hand. A cross with equal arms hangs on the breast by a chain, apparently resembling a religious order. The skirt only slightly tucked up on left side, ornamented with a guilloche pattern of two bands. A rough cast. This figure is very similar to Figs. 293 and 294, Plate XXXVIII. Figs. 92 and 93.--Female, in bronze, with staff in left hand. Skirt ornamented with three bands of guilloche pattern. Head-dress of coral or agate. Coral choker, and tribal marks. DESCRIPTION OF PLATE XVI. Figs. 94 and 95.--Bronze cast of human head. Negro features. Three tribal marks over each eye. Pupils of eyes inlaid with iron. Reticulated head-dress and rosettes of coral or agate, similar to that represented in Plate XXI, Fig. 121. Coral choker, badge of rank. Twelve bands of coral and a band apparently of plaited hair hanging from head-dress on each side. Figs. 96 and 97.--Human head in brass. Marked negro features, tattoed with dots and hatchings above and below the eyes. Branch-like figures, perhaps coral, growing out of the eyes. Three tribal marks over each eye. Pupils of eyes inlaid with iron. Reticulated head-dress and rosettes, of coral or agate, similar to those represented in Plate XXI, Fig. 121. Peculiar figures on each side of the head-dress, perhaps representing feathers. Coral choker, badge of rank. Bands of coral or agate hang down from the head-dress at the sides and back of the head. On the projecting base are represented two leopards, an ox's head, and other animals, four arms and hands, and a neolithic celt in front. DESCRIPTION OF PLATE XVII. Figs. 98 and 99.--Well-formed head in bronze, the forehead decorated with two inlaid bands and four raised cicatrices (tribal marks) over each eye. The pupils of the eyes inlaid apparently with iron, coral necklace, a badge of rank. The metal is very thin, being only 1 mm. in thickness. The hair in conventional bands of ridges; the ears unusually well formed. Figs. 100 and 101.--Bronze cast of human head. Marked negro features, rudely formed. Three tribal marks over each eye. Peculiar pointed reticulated head-dress of coral or agate. Curious lines of incised circles above and below the eyes. Coral choker, badge of rank. Bands of coral or agate hanging down on both sides and at the back. Ears badly formed. The projecting base ornamented with a guilloche pattern of two bands with pellets. DESCRIPTION OF PLATE XVIII. Fig. 102.--Brass shield, 2 feet in diameter and ·08 inch in thickness, ornamented with three concentric rings. The outer one represents a row of leopards, with human heads and head-dresses alternating. A broad leaf-shaped sword, similar to Fig. 106, and two execution swords, similar to Fig. 110, are also represented on this ring. The middle ring is ornamented with a serpent with sinuous body, having its tail in its mouth. The inner ring is filled with foil ornaments, and small circles cover both this and the outer ring. There is a square hole in the centre for the attachment of the handle. The shield resembles that slung on the left hip of the mounted warrior, Figs. 79 to 81, Plate XIII, but with different ornamentation. Fig. 103.--Iron dart, or spear, 5 feet 1 inch long, with wooden shaft. The blade is leaf-shaped with socket, and is rudely forged. Fig. 104.--Iron dart, 3 feet 7-1/4 inches long, with barbed head and iron shaft. Fig. 105.--Iron dagger, or short sword, length 16-1/4 inches; the incised ornamentation is on alternate sides, like those of the Gaboon and other parts of Africa. There are also sinuous lines engraved on alternate sides. It is rudely forged, and the handle is very small and bound with strips of copper. Fig. 106.--Iron leaf-shaped sword, length 19-1/4 inches, similar in form to those frequently represented in the hands of warriors on the plaques. It is rudely forged. The wooden handle is inlaid with copper. Fig. 107.--Iron leaf-shaped sword, length 19-1/2 inches, with alternating ornamentation on the opposite sides of the blade, similar to that prevailing in the Gaboon and other parts of Africa. The handle is very small, and is bound with strips of iron. Figs. 108 and 109.--Brass implement, resembling a bill-hook. The edge is on the convex side and the concave side is blunt. It is pierced with five holes and engraved with hatchings in Benin style, in which are included two stars, a cross, and three crocodiles. Fig. 110.--Iron execution sword, 3 feet 1 inch long, hilt and pommel of brass, with copper inlaid ornamentation. The grip bound with brass wire. It is single-edged, the edge being on the convex side. It resembles the swords engraved on the circular shield, Fig. 102, one on each side of the broad leaf-shaped sword. This kind of sword is held in the hands of warriors on two plaques in this collection, Fig. 254, Plate XXXIII, and Fig. 291, Plate XXXVIII. It is also seen on the carved cocoa-nut, Fig. 220, Plate XXX, and elsewhere. It is rudely forged. DESCRIPTION OF PLATE XIX. Fig. 111.--Bronze ægis, representing a chief standing with attendants holding up his hands in a manner similar to Figs. 76-78, Plate XII, and Figs. 167 and 168, Plate XXVIII. Frogs between the feet. Cylindrical spikes on head-dresses. Fig. 112.--Bronze ægis, representing man on horseback to left, wearing single-edged sword with guard. A ranseur of the sixteenth or seventeenth century in right hand, point down. The hair is straight and combed out, and may probably represent a white man. The chain bridle is held up in left hand. Small crotals with chains hang from the eyelets on the edge of the ægis. Pattern of fish-scales on ground similar to that on the brass bell, Fig. 73, Plate XII, and elsewhere. Figs. 113 and 114.--Bronze plaque, representing a figure standing; long spear, multibarbed, with ogee-sectioned blade in right hand, pointing downwards, knob at butt end. There are twelve ducts running from the ground of the plaque to the shaft of the spear. In left hand a broad leaf-shaped sword, with a ring attached to pommel, like Figs. 4, 13, 114, 131, 254, 255, &c. Dress like a nightshirt, and composed apparently of strings of coral, with bare arms. Dagger or short sword on left side. Quadrangular bell on neck; teeth necklace; coral choker, badge of rank. Head-dress of metal, in form somewhat resembling a grenadier cap. Six rosettes on ground, and quatrefoil leaves incised. DESCRIPTION OF PLATE XX. Fig. 115.--Brass key, a good deal filed and tooled all over. Handle ornamented with twisted rope pattern. The form of this key cannot be identified as Roman, and is probably European. Fig. 116.--Bronze stand for the game of mancala, with ten holes and two irregular-shaped cavities in the centre. It is the same game as Figs. 184 and 185, Plate XXVIII, but with fewer holes. The sides are ornamented with interlaced strap-work, and the stem and the edge of the base with varieties of guilloche pattern. This game is distributed nearly all over Africa, and is said to be found wherever Arab influence is seen. It is also found in Palestine, Syria, Arabia, Maldive Islands, India, Ceylon, Malay Peninsula, Java, and the Philippine Islands. Fig. 117.--Brass bell, with reticulated pierced work. Negro head on front. This bell is interesting as being a survival of the bells so often seen hanging from the necks of the figures on the plaques. It is evident that it never could have emitted any sound. Fig. 118.--Entire tortoise shell, upper and under sides, in brass; ornamented on the upper side with geometrical pattern; each figure inlaid with a copper bolt or stud in the centre. Figs. 119 and 120.--Bronze human head for holding carved elephants' tusks. The head-dress, pointed and reticulated, representing coral or agate. Four tribal marks over each eye. Six vertical bands of inlaid iron-work over the nose. The pupils of the eyes are of iron. The head-dress resembles Figs. 100 and 101, Plate XVII. Coral choker. Guilloche pattern on projecting base. DESCRIPTION OF PLATE XXI. Fig. 121.--Head-dress composed entirely of agate. It serves to explain the construction of the head-dresses on the bronze plaques and figures, showing how the reticulated effect on the plaques is formed by beads of agate strung together in a kind of network. The rosettes of agate, and the tags and pendants are also explained by this figure. See Figs. 2, 4, 43, 44, 82, 83, 86, 87, 94, 95, 96, 97, 100, 101, 119, 120, 124, 125, 126, 127, 232-234, 277, 278, &c. Figs. 122 and 123.--Circular brass box, ornamented on the top with a central figure in repoussé work, holding two crocodiles upright in each hand. The legs terminate in a band turned up on each side as shown in other designs in Benin art. There are also circular heads having tribal marks over the eyes. Rosettes, guilloche and fish-scale patterns are also represented in repoussé. The pieces of the box are rivetted together with bands of copper. This appears to be the kind of box represented in the hands of one of the smaller figures in the plaque, Fig. 179, Plate XXVII. The latter, however, is taller. These objects have been described by Mr. C. Read as drums in his paper in the "Journ. Anthrop. Inst.," Vol. XXVII, Plate XVIII, Fig. 4. Viewed as a drum, the projecting flanges at top and bottom are not explained. Figs. 124 and 125.--Human mask of brass; the pupils of the eyes inlaid with iron. Reticulated head-dress, with rosettes probably of agate. Three tribal marks over each eye. Rows of semi-circles filled with semi-circles round neck. The features are rounded, and, although a good deal tooled, are less flattened by filing than some of these masks. This is a good specimen of Benin art. Figs. 126 and 127.--Human mask of brass; the pupils of the eyes inlaid with iron. Reticulated head-dress, with rosettes probably of agate. Coral band above the forehead. Three tribal marks over each eye. Ears badly formed. Coral choker, badge of rank. Guilloche pattern, with pellets round neck. The face is very much tooled and filed, and the lips and nose flattened by filing. Crotals have probably been suspended from the eyelets below, as indicated by the eight links of chains left remaining (see Plate XIX, Fig. 112). DESCRIPTION OF PLATE XXII. Fig. 128.--Armlet entirely of brass, without other metal. Ornamented with four upright figures and four horizontal heads. The upright figures have their forearms elevated. The legs are very attenuated and the skirt of the dress very pronounced. Eyebrows extremely prominent, and the head-dress of peculiar form and conical. The armlet is surmounted by raised bands, which pass over the figures, and are separated by pierced work. Broad rims are shown at top and bottom, and are edged with herring-bone pattern. Fig. 129.--Bronze plaque, representing human figure with beard, riding to right; a ranseur of the sixteenth or seventeenth century in right hand, point downwards. Hair combed out straight. No tribal marks. Bodice fastened with buttons. Pleated kilt like Figs. 235 and 236, Plate XXXI, and Fig. 247, Plate XXXII. Twisted or plaited bridle of some limp substance in left hand. Bell and crotals on horse's neck. Leopards in relief behind figure of horse. Ground ornamented with trefoil leaves and punch-marks. This figure does not appear to be negro. The horse appears to be galloping, which is not the usual Benin method of locomotion. Fig. 130.--Bronze plaque, representing two warriors with long, narrow, leaf-shaped swords upheld in right hands. Peculiar head-dress, a broad band on the frontal. Hair parted in the middle and hanging down behind. One figure has a beard. Both have objects resembling bows slung upon left arm. Leopards' teeth necklaces and quadrangular bells hanging from necks. Ground ornamented with leaf-shaped foil ornaments incised. Fig. 131.--Bronze plaque, representing five figures; central figure holding a staff of unusual form in right hand; coral choker; oval head-dress; small bells attached to straps hanging down from girdle; anklets and armlets, the former adorned with crotals; left hand on handle of sword in scabbard on left side. Small figures on each side with javelins, the points in a sheath. The larger attendants on each side holding shields over the central figure, as described by De Bry in the seventeenth century. All the attendants have a bag on right side, strapped over shoulder. One of the smaller attendants has a broad leaf-shaped sword upheld in right hand, holding it by the ring attached to the pommel. DESCRIPTION OF PLATE XXIII. Figs. 132 and 133.--Small head of boy, in bronze, with three raised tribal marks over each eye, and two vertical marks on forehead. Head-dress with crest. Fig. 134.--Figures in bronze, representing two rude human figures, male and female, attending an animal, probably a bear. A plate, or board, of three rows of circles with ten circles in each row, is laid out before the figures, and is perhaps a game of mancala, of which examples are seen in Plate XX, Fig. 116, and Plate XXVIII, Figs. 184 and 185. The female figure has very large anklets, and her hands are spread upon her stomach. The hair is plaited and ornamented with knobs, resembling a Mexican pottery figure in this collection. The hair of the male figure is plaited and turned over on the left side, and he is sitting cross-legged. His left arm and hand are spread upon the bear, and he has a rod in the right hand. A burnt core of sand is seen under the thin metal pedestal. Fig. 135.--Brass bottle, hung by chain, and ornamented with representation of twisted twine, and a guilloche pattern without pellets round the swell. The rings for hanging it are similar to those on the powder flask, Figs. 56 and 57, Plate IX. A similar brass bottle, but smaller, is represented in Plate XXXV, Fig. 267. Figs. 137 and 138.--A very rude head of bronze; probably used as the stand for a carved tusk. Four tribal marks over each eye; the eyes projecting like those of Figs. 265-6, Plate 35. This is the rudest head in the collection. Fig. 139.--A cylindrical stand of bronze, for carved tusks, representing on the outside four female figures standing, with bands of upright interlaced strap-work between. All the figures are holding objects in their hands. One holds a bird, another a sistrum, which is being beaten with a stick; the rest are broken. Two of the bands of interlaced strap-work are of thin repoussé work, and nailed on with bronze nails. The base and top are ornamented with looped straps, similar to No. 140. All the figures have three incised tribal marks over the eyes, and crested head-gear. A vertical hole for the carved tusk runs down the centre, like those in all the human heads. Fig. 140.--Armlet of brass, pierced work, ornamented with bands of looped straps, similar to Fig. 139, and two bands of concentric semicircles alternating with Maltese crosses. Around the centre is a band of broken guilloche pattern, forming a transitional link between the guilloche, and a peculiar floral ornament common to Benin art. The representation of European screw-heads forms part of the ornamentation, and raised eyelets alternate with the screw-head ornaments. Fig. 141.--Armlet of copper, ornamented with horizontal human heads of brass. The head-dresses are ornamented with fish-scale pattern, and the hair is combed out straight. The heads alternate with double-coiled mud-fish, resembling Fig. 276, Plate XXXVI. It is not quite easy to understand how this work was done. Both the copper and the brass appear to have been formed by casting. DESCRIPTION OF PLATE XXIV. Fig. 142.--Bronze open-mouthed vessel, with six projecting eyelets round the neck, and a handle. Figs. 143 and 144.--Bronze or brass figure of cock, 22 inches high, including pedestal. The feathers are represented in straight and curved lines of hatchings. The pupils of the eyes are inlaid copper, of lozenge-shaped form. The tarsus is unnaturally broad. On the top of the pedestal in front is a Maltese cross, with a band of interlaced strap-work. The sides of the base are ornamented with interlaced strap-work, and representations of three ox's heads are on the front. A fine specimen of barbaric art. Figs. 145 and 146.--Human naked figure of bronze. A large thick plaster covers the whole of the back, and is fastened on with cords round the arms and legs. Mr. H. Ling Roth believes this to represent a cure for cretinism, and says that two larger figures like it have been seen in Benin city. ("Reliquary," Vol. IV, 1898, p. 173.) Figs. 147 and 148.--Two bronze female figures back to back, with one hat, being the handle of one of the swords or wands (see Figs. 202 to 211, Plate XXIX), used by virgins in their dances. There is a large iron pin right through the casting. Figs. 149 and 150.--Bronze head of girl. Three tribal marks incised over each eye; pupils of eyes of iron, inlaid; necklace of agate or coral. Figs. 151 and 152.--Brass vessel, resembling a coffee pot. A human figure sitting in front, out of the mouth of which the spout emerges. The handle at back represents a sinuous snake with the head downwards, like that of Fig. 46, Plate VIII. Bands of fish-scale pattern surround the vessel. DESCRIPTION OF PLATE XXV. Figs. 153 and 154.--Carved ivory head of leopard, the spots of lead, inlaid. This resembles in form the bronze ones, Figs. 58-63, Plate X. It is apparently very old. Figs. 155 to 157.--Ivory carved sistrum, with a large and a small bell, similar to the brass one, Figs. 76-78, Plate XII. On the side of the large bell is a chief standing with his hands upheld by attendants in the usual manner; a snake-headed sash hangs from waist. On the top two carved figures, one of which has been broken off. At the back of the small bell is a band of straight line diaper pattern, and on the top a crocodile's head holding a closed human hand. It is much broken. This object is of interest as showing it to be a survival derived from a metal sistrum. Mr. H. Ling Roth has described this object at some length in "The Studio," December, 1898. Fig. 158.--Necklace of bronze, ornamented with human heads in relief, and birds with long beaks, perhaps meant for vultures, but too long-necked for that bird, picking at the figures of extended skeletons. In the intervals between the other figures are oval holes with raised edges, probably a degenerate representation of the coiled mud-fish so frequently shown in other Benin antiquities. The fastening end of the necklace is broken, disclosing the fact that the core of the object is of some lighter material encased in copper or bronze. It has a hinge on one side, probably to facilitate the opening of it. Figs. 159 and 160.--Brass handle of iron sword, with fragment of the iron sword in it. It has two human faces back to back, covered by one hat, as in Figs. 147 and 148, Plate XXIV, and representations of European screw-heads used as ornaments, as in Fig. 140, Plate XXIII. Figs. 161 to 163.--Bronze staff of office, 4 feet 11 inches in length, weighing 14 lbs.; it has two elongated crotals in the upper end, with long slits for the emission of the sound, enclosing loose rods of iron. Between the slits are vertical bands of guilloche pattern with raised edges, similar to those represented on the stem and top of the mancala board, Fig. 116, Plate XX, and a horizontal band of guilloche pattern with pellets in relief. On the top is an upright human hand, holding a curled mud-fish. The middle of the staff is ornamented by curious nondescript figures alternating with balls, and the lower end has an oblong butt ornamented on the four sides with guilloche pattern, like that of the crotals on the upper end. The staff has been broken in the middle and mended by recasting in a clumsy way, the metal of the part introduced being thicker than the staff itself. DESCRIPTION OF PLATE XXVI. Figs. 164 and 165.--Carved ivory figure of a woman (?) standing, the arms deficient; They were fitted into square sockets on each side, and were fastened by large bronze nails, one of which remains. A row of five leopards' heads hanging from the waist-belt, edged with rows of pellets, or perhaps eyelets, but much defaced. The lips are very thick and the nose broad. The pupils of the eyes are represented by deep circular cavities. No tribal marks apparent, the breasts are not large, but pendant. The whole of the ivory is very much weathered and pitted, especially the legs and base. The figure was accompanied by another of the same size exactly like it and without arms, which was not purchased. Fig. 166.--Coral whip or whisk, probably a badge of office. Four tags, two of which are ornamented with crocodiles embroidered with metal. Figs. 167 and 168.--Ivory carved tusk, 3 feet 6 inches long from bottom to point. Band at bottom with reticulated or square-shaped ornament, probably derived from interlacing bands. Commencing from the bottom, the ornamentation consists of:--A coiled serpent, tail in mouth. Leopard's head and human head. Human figures standing, one having a cross on breast, and a key or axe-shaped object in left hand similar to the bronze figure, Figs. 90 and 91, Plate XV; staff in right hand. Figure holding sash round waist. Elephant's head with tusks, proboscis terminating in a human hand. Human figure with spear in left hand, shield in right hand. Bird standing on pedestal. Human figure upholding broad leaf-shaped sword in right hand; bell on neck; pedestal on top of head; feather in cap. Human figure. Fig. 169.--Ivory ring, carved, with 3 birds. Fig. 170.--Ivory bracelet, rudely carved, with representations of leopards' and elephants' heads and perhaps the vestiges of the mud-fish. Fig. 171.--Carved ivory bracelet, representing a snake, the eyes inlaid. Figs. 172 and 173.--Ivory bell, or rattle. With clapper of ivory, consisting of an elephant's tusk point, with human head carved; tribal marks over eyes. Figs. 174 and 175.--Dagger, the handle ornamented with lines of dots and circles. The blade has an ogee section, similar to that which prevails in the Gaboon and nearly all parts of Africa. Figs. 176 and 177.--Wooden head-dress. The horizontal bar appears to represent a shark with mouth and tail, ornamented with carved representations of animals and masks. Said to be from Benin, West Africa. The masks are quite characteristic of Benin art. The eyes of the large mask are formed of the metal bases of cartridges, which proves it to be quite modern. It is similar in character to Fig. 183, Plate XXVII. It is perhaps Jekri, see a paper by Messrs. Granville and Ling Roth in the "Journ. Anthrop. Inst.," Vol. I, New Series, Plate VIII, Fig. 3. DESCRIPTION OF PLATE XXVII. Fig. 178.--Ivory trumpet, made of the point of an elephant's tusk. Mouth-hole on the convex side. The butt end is ornamented with two snakes in two bands, tails in mouths. Fig. 179.--Bronze plaque, with five figures; the central figure with coral choker, badge of rank, coral or agate head-dress with feather, and sash. Broad leaf-shaped sword upheld in right hand; spear, point down, in left. Two boys, one with ivory trumpet, the other holding a brass box nearly similar to Figs. 122 and 123, Plate XXI. These objects have been described by Messrs. Read and Dalton as drums in their paper in the "Journ. Anthrop. Inst.," Vol. XXVII, Plate XVIII, Fig. 4. Viewed as a drum, the projecting flanges at top and bottom are not explained. Leopard's head on girdle. Attendants carrying shields; quadrangular bells on necks. The left attendant is holding the same spear as the central figure, point down, as in Fig. 17, Plate IV. Head-dresses of attendants with ornaments of cowrie shells. Ground ornamented with leaf-shaped foil ornaments incised. Fig. 180.--Bronze plaque, representing the figure of a warrior, with unusually formed helmet, apparently of metal. Quadrangular bell on neck and teeth necklace. Shield on right arm, and spear with square cap at butt end, point downwards, in left hand. The ground is ornamented with two half-moons and the usual leaf-shaped foil ornaments incised. Fig. 181.--Bronze plaque, representing three figures, the central one beating a drum with his fingers, and no drum-sticks. The drum has pegs with knobs to fasten down the skin, like Fig. 248, Plate XXXII, and similar to the Jekri drum figured in the "Journ. Anthrop. Inst.," Vol. I, New Series, Plate VIII, Fig. 5. Quadrangular bell on chest. Both the side figures hold sistri with two bells, like Figs. 76 to 78, Plate XII, upheld in their left hands, which they are beating with sticks in their right hands. This plaque gives a fair idea of the kind of music used in Benin. Fig. 182.--Brass oblong box, lid deficient. Lock of European form and ornamentation. Faces and sides of box ornamented with raised rosettes and incised floral designs resembling that on Figs. 76 to 78, Plate XII, Fig. 225, Plate XXX, Fig. 282, Plate XXXVII, and Fig. 306, Plate XL. It has four legs, and is European in appearance. Fig. 183.--Wooden head-dress, with carved representations of animals on top. Said to be from Benin, West Africa. It was brought over from West Africa with things from Benin. It is similar in character to Figs. 176 and 177, Plate XXVI. It is perhaps Jekri, see a paper by Messrs. Granville and Ling Roth in the "Journ. Anthrop. Inst." Vol. I, New Series, Plate VIII, Fig. 3. DESCRIPTION OF PLATE XXVIII. Figs. 184 and 185.--Large mancala board of bronze. It has 352 holes; another in this collection, Fig. 116, Plate XX, has only ten circular holes. The sides are ornamented with rectangular forms linked together. This game is distributed all over Africa, especially where Arab influence is seen. It is also found in Palestine, Syria, Arabia, Maldive Islands, India, Ceylon, Malay Peninsula, Java and the Philippine Islands. Figs. 186 and 187.--Curved iron knife, with handle carved as a human figure. The edge is on the convex side. Figs. 188 and 189.--Dagger in leather sheath. Blade with a quadrilateral section. Brass handle with forked pommel. Figs. 190 and 191.--A dagger or prod of ivory. Negro head on the upper part, below which is a human female figure reversed and crouched; the hands holding the breasts; the legs crouched up. Stained yellow; blunt pointed. Figs. 192 and 193.--Point of elephant's tusk, carved with a representation of a human figure kneeling. At point, a skeleton of a crocodile, and a human head at base, the mouth of which is peculiar. It appears to be a whistle or musical instrument. Figs. 194 and 195.--Knife with ivory handle. The brass sheath ornamented with human figures, a floral ornament, and a man on a horse. Figs. 196 and 197.--Pointed rod of bronze, ornamented with two heads. Head-dress of upper head ornamented with bands of straight line diaper pattern. Crocodile head holding lower part of the rod in mouth. Figs. 198 and 199.--Broad knife-shaped sword of iron; the wooden handle bound with brass and iron bands alternating. On one side the blade is engraved with a human figure and an execution sword traced in lines of dots and incised lines, as is frequently the case in Australian representations of figures on wood. The other side of the blade has an ornamentation in leaves on a sinuous stem, and a square pattern of interlaced bands. Fig. 200.--Brass bracelet, having amongst other ornaments a band of straight line diaper pattern. Fig. 201.--Bronze link or buckle, or portion of one, with incised floral guilloche ornament, similar to that on the brass wand, Fig. 211, Plate XXIX, and the armlets, Fig. 140, Plate XXIII, and Fig. 238, Plate XXXII. DESCRIPTION OF PLATE XXIX. Figs. 202 and 203.--Brass dancing sword or wand, said to be used by virgins in their dances. The handle is ornamented with two figures, which appear to be holding some objects. The blade is engraved with guilloche pattern on both sides. Figs. 204 to 209.--Three brass dancing swords or wands, said to be used by virgins in their dances. Each handle is ornamented by four rudely cast figures back to back, carrying objects in their hands, two of which can be identified as birds, and two or three have leaf-shaped swords with ring on pommel. One has bands of straight line diaper pattern. The blades are ornamented with guilloche patterns and floral ornaments incised. Figs. 210 and 211.--Brass dancing sword or wand, said to be used by virgins in their dances. The handle is ornamented with four figures, which are in pairs back to back. They appear to be holding swords and other objects. The blade is ornamented on one side with bands of strap-work, and on the other with a sinuous line of branching leaves (floral guilloche). Straight line diaper pattern and lines of half-circles are on the square stem of the handle. Figs. 212 and 213.--Iron wedge-shaped sword, single-edged, enlarging to a broad end. Ivory handle; the grip carved in pointed leaves and studded with lead; pommel in form of a leopard's head; the eyes inlaid with lead; a band carved as two scaly snakes at bottom. The scabbard worked in green plush and red cloth, with human figures and tortoises alternating. This is probably the kind of work represented in metal on some of the dresses on the plaques. The sword belts terminate in tassels of worsted or some other limp material. Fig. 214.--Iron spear-head, modern, with ogee section, similar to those of Benin. Iron and brass bound shaft. Figs. 215 and 216.--Iron spear, length 4 feet 11 inches, the head having an ogee section, similar to those used at the present time on the Gaboon and elsewhere in West Africa. Below the spear-head the shaft is ornamented with bronze figures of leopards in two places and two degenerate elephants' heads and eyes, the proboscis terminating in a human hand holding a leaf, as so frequently shown elsewhere. The butt end is cased and bound with brass. The shaft is of iron, with a brass band on the upper parts. DESCRIPTION OF PLATE XXX. Figs. 217 and 218.--Carved cocoa-nut, with carving representing a European in boat with spear in right hand and apparently a paddle in the left hand. Figure armed with hoe, and another cutting a palm-tree, with a kind of chisel in the right hand and a bill-hook in the left. One of the figures has distinct buttons on the coat. Figs. 219 to 221.--Carved cocoa-nut, representing a native on a horse to left, holding up chain-bridle in left hand; spear in right hand, point down. Horse very ill-formed and indistinct. Another carving represents a figure, apparently in boat, holding spears point down. One of the figures is beating a pressure drum, which Mr. Ling Roth describes as being similar to those of the modern Yorubas. The drum-sticks used by two of the figures have curved heads and flat ends. A band of chevrons within chevrons are on the trousers of two figures. The marks on the faces consist of three lines radiating from the corners of the mouth, as in Figs. 90 and 91, Plate XV, and crosses on the cheeks. Tribal marks on faces. A native execution sword, similar to Fig. 110, Plate XVIII, and a flint-lock gun are represented separately between the other figures. The cocoa-nut is hung by a chain of European manufacture. The stopper represents a human face on two supports. Mr. H. Ling Roth, in whose possession this object formerly was, gives a more detailed account of it in "The Studio," December, 1898. Fig. 222.--Small brass crotals with semicircular ornaments. Figs. 223 and 224.--Brass bracelet, ornamented with brass representations of rows of cowrie shells, in groups of nine. Figs. 225 and 226.--Brass object of unknown use, ornamented on the outside with three half-moons and a floral pattern in incised lines, similar to that on the brass sistrum, Figs. 76 to 78, Plate XII; the brass box, Fig. 182, Plate XXVII, and the large quadrangular bell, Figs. 281 and 282, Plate XXXVII. The half-moons are inlaid or plated in copper on the brass. The edges of the object are ornamented with a band of plain guilloche pattern incised. It is possible that this might be a degenerate representation of a double-coiled mud-fish, as shown on the bronze ægis, Fig. 276, Plate XXXVI, and on the bronze necklet, Fig. 158, Plate XXV. Fig. 227.--Necklet of agate and coral beads. Said to have belonged to the King of Benin. Fig. 228.--Armlet of coral beads. Fig. 229.--Necklace of agate cylindrical beads. DESCRIPTION OF PLATE XXXI. Fig. 230.--Eight shells of bronze gilt, forming part of a necklace. Fig. 231.--Ten gold shells, which formed part of the King of Benin's necklace. The shells appear to be "cerithidæ." They are cast hollow. The weight of the ten is 8-3/4 ounces. Figs. 232 to 234.--Bronze statuette, representing a figure standing; with broad leaf-shaped sword, similar to Figs. 326, 327, 328 and 329, having a twisted ring pommel in right hand, and a sistrum in left hand. Coral choker, badge of rank. Three tribal marks over each eye. Agate head-dress, similar to Fig. 121, Plate XXI, and curved agate pendants on each side. A large twisted ring rises out of the head-dress, which looks as if intended to enclose some thick band of cloth or other substance to suspend it. The crown of the head-dress terminates in a thick cylindrical spike with a flat top, like Fig. 111, Plate XIX, Fig. 155, Plate XXV, and Figs. 167 and 168, Plate XXVI. The sistrum is ornamented with a full-length human figure, holding a staff in right hand and the so-called key or axe in left hand. Beneath the bowl of the sistrum are three projecting cruciform bars, and the upper edge of the bowl is ornamented on each side with two heads very rudely cast. Dr. Felix Roth, in the "Halifax Naturalist," June, 1898, p. 33, speaks of these projecting prongs as being used for killing victims for sacrificial purposes, but the fact of their being sistri is shown in connection with Fig. 181, Plate XXVII. Sinuous serpents cover the shaft and bowl of the sistrum. The leaf-shaped sword is ornamented, front and back, with small imitations of itself. The figure has bands, probably of coral, crossing on the breast. The skirt is ornamented with conventionalized human heads with long hair and rows of guilloche pattern. Ankles have coral anklets. The skirt is bound up in the usual manner in a band behind the left shoulder. There is a band of small bells round the hips, and a human head and a bunch of bells on the left side. This figure was obtained from the Liverpool Museum, in the report of which it is elaborately described and figured with three others like it. "Bulletin of the Liverpool Museums," Vol. I, No. 2, p. 59. There is a figure like this in the British Museum. It is of considerable weight, being cast solid. Figs. 235 and 236.--Bronze figure of a native, holding what appears to be a flint-lock gun, but the hammer of the lock is broken off. The stock is ornamented with a debased human head. The figure has a leopard's skin on front and back, tail and hind legs of which are shown behind; the tail terminates in a square bell. Sword in sheath on right side and a dagger under the arm on left side, with small bags on both sides. There is a row of eighteen cartridges in the waist-belt in front. The cartridges appear to be stuck upright into sockets in the belt. A curved horn powder-flask is on the belt on the left side. Pleated kilt below waist-belt. On the ground, touching the feet, is a decapitated head and nine large pellets, perhaps cannon balls. The pedestal ornamented with interlaced strap-work, alternating with oval figures, in character resembling the ornament on the stock of the gun. It stands on a framework of curved bars, now broken. The breeches are ornamented with vertical rows of circles. Although this figure holds a flint-lock gun, it is undoubtedly a native, as three tribal marks are shown above each eye. The face is also prognathic. The head-dress seems to be of a woven material. DESCRIPTION OF PLATE XXXII. Figs. 237 and 238.--Armlet of ivory, ornamented with representations of human heads, birds and animals, carved on the surface, and also of degenerate elephants' heads, the proboscis, in each case, terminating in a human hand holding a palm branch; horses' heads; tortoises; leopards, &c.; all of the most conventionalized forms. Bands of crotals are carved at each end of the armlet. The armlet consists of two halves connected by a thin brass plate and copper rivets on one side and on the other by copper fastenings. The plate is ornamented by a floral guilloche pattern, similar to that on the central band of Fig. 140, on the wands, Figs. 209 and 211, and elsewhere. This pattern is figured by Messrs. Read and Dalton in the "Journ. Anthrop. Inst.," Vol. XXVII, Plate XXII. The carved figures represented on this ivory armlet are of much greater rudeness than those on the bronze objects generally. Much weathered and probably very old. Fig. 239.--Quadrangular brass bell, with a degenerate face on one side; the eyes of the face are converted into loops. Fig. 240.--Quadrangular brass bell. The loops on one side are evidently derived from the degenerate face on Fig. 239. Fig. 241.--Brass bracelet, consisting of human heads linked together. One of the heads has projections ornamented with concentric circles. Fig. 242.--Necklet of cylindrical coral beads, four of which are ornamented with straight line diaper pattern. One of the beads is ornamented with a guilloche pattern, with pellets inlaid with lead. Fig. 243.--Brass bracelet, of peculiar form, ornamented with small circular punch-marks. Fig. 244.--Brass bracelet, with clusters of rows of circular knobs or shells. Fig. 245.--Brass bracelet, with six quadrangular knobs having red agate inlaid; similar to Fig. 38, Plate VII. Fig. 246.--Ægis of bronze, representing a horse's head; edged with eyelets probably for suspending crotals, similar to Fig. 112, Plate XIX, and Figs. 126 and 127, Plate XXI. Engraved on one side of the back is a broad leaf-shaped sword with ring pommel, similar to that on the Ægis, Fig. 276, Plate XXXVI. These engravings are peculiar, and seem to denote a badge or mark, perhaps of ownership of some kind. [Illustration: BACK VIEW.] Fig. 247.--Bronze plaque, representing figure standing; weapon or implement resembling a ranseur of the sixteenth or seventeenth century in right hand, point upwards. Hair combed straight out. Pot helmet. Bodice fastened with three buttons and tags, perhaps armour. Left hand on left side. Band with clasp round waist. Pleated kilt like Fig. 129, Plate XXII; Figs. 235 and 236, Plate XXXI; Figs. 324 and 325, Plate XLII, and Figs. 360 and 361, Plate XLVI. This figure has very thick lips, but might not be negro. Ground ornamented with leaves in twos and threes, incised, and dotted punch-marks. The figure somewhat resembles in character the mounted figure, Fig. 129, Plate XXII. Fig. 248.--Bronze plaque, representing a figure playing a drum with sticks; quadrangular bell on neck, ornamented with a sinuous snake, head downwards. Head-dress with two feathers. Hair combed straight and coiled in plaits. A peculiar kind of straight line diaper pattern on drum. This drum has pegs with nobs to fasten down the skin, similar to that represented on the plaque, Fig. 181, Plate XXVII, and to the Jekri drum figured in "Journ. Anthrop. Inst.," Vol. I, New Series, Plate VIII, Fig. 5. Ground ornamented with incised leaf-shaped foil ornaments and punch-marks. DESCRIPTION OF PLATE XXXIII. Figs. 249 and 250.--Large bronze cover, use unknown; the ribs ornamented in the usual incised style of Benin work. Figs. 251 and 252.--Top of a bronze mace, with slits resembling a crotal and a figure with an object, probably a neolithic celt, in the right hand. The figure appears to be bent forward. Fig. 253.--Bronze round bell, similar to those attached to the dresses on the plaques, Fig. 254, Plate XXXIII, and Fig. 264, Plate XXXIV. Fig. 254.--Bronze plaque, representing a warrior, execution sword upheld in right hand; broad leaf-shaped sword in left, with a twisted ring or pommel. Quadrangular bell on neck, ornamented with a sinuous snake. Round bell on side; peculiar head-dress; armlets; object like a book under left arm; teeth necklace. Fig. 255.--Bronze plaque, representing two figures, the right one having a broad leaf-shaped sword upheld in right hand, with a large ring extending from pommel; teeth necklace, but no coral choker; no bell on neck; cylindro-oval head-dress with feather on left side. Both figures hold the same spear, point downwards. Left figure with shield on left arm, quadrangular bell, and leopard's skin dress. Head-dress of the same form as the other, ornamented with cowrie shells. Skirts of both figures ornamented with human heads. Fig. 256.--Carved wooden Jekri paddle, neighbourhood of Benin. Modern. Chain link shaft. Face on handle end. Pierced work blade. Fig. 257.--Carved wooden Jekri paddle, neighbourhood of Benin. Modern. Chain link shaft. Full length human figure on handle end. Pierced work blade, with human figures, crocodiles, etc. DESCRIPTION OF PLATE XXXIV. Figs. 258 to 260.--Round execution block, with marks on the top for the thumbs and forehead of the victim; elaborately ornamented all over. On the projection on which the forehead is intended to rest is a double row of cowrie shells, bound round. A band of guilloche pattern, incised, runs round the circle, and the projections for the thumbs of the victim are ornamented with herring-bone pattern. On the sides of the block are three human figures in relief holding hands; shields, a leaf-shaped sword, and a trident points down. The shields are ornamented with straight line diaper pattern, and a band of the same runs round the top of the edge of the block. Two human arms and hands are on the side, and two boxes or stools are between the human figures. The bottom of the sides is ornamented with a band of guilloche pattern in relief. The figures are clothed with jackets and skirts. The whole is much worn, as if by constant use. Fig. 261.--Ivory horn, mouth-piece on convex side. Ornamented with bands of broken guilloche pattern. Figs. 262 and 263.--Bronze plaque. A figure holding a so-called key in right hand. Coral choker, badge of rank. Head-dress, probably of agate or coral. No cross on dress. Fig. 264.--Bronze plaque, representing a figure standing holding in both hands a leaf-shaped sword of the kind shown in No. 130. The sword is narrower, and the swell of the blade nearer the point than in the majority of specimens. A round bell is attached to the left side. The hair appears to be dishevelled and partly plaited. Three tribal marks over eyes. DESCRIPTION OF PLATE XXXV. Figs. 265 and 266.--Bronze grotesque mask, intended probably as a stand for the carved ivory tusks in the Ju-Ju houses. The eyeballs project like those of the head, No. 137. Three tribal marks over each eye, and four over the nose. The forehead is very projecting; the nose aquiline and very broad. Tags, apparently of coral, are on the sides. The ears are very large. Fig. 267.--Brass bottle and chain, rudely cast. Figs. 268 to 270.--Long oval wooden bowl carved out of the solid. On one side (Fig. 269) is a row of five human figures in relief; the central figure has his hands upheld by attendants, who hold in their other hands shields having barbed javelins, points upward behind them. The shields are ornamented with straight line diaper pattern. Another figure holds an object under the arm, perhaps a drum or a food vessel. At both ends there is a representation of a degenerate elephant's head, the proboscis terminating in a human hand holding a branch, similar to Figs. 72, 167, and 316. At one end is a rude representation of a degenerate mud-fish. The other side of the bowl (Fig. 268) is ornamented with a broad guilloche pattern and a square interlaced figure. The interior of the bowl is very rudely chiselled out, showing marks of the tool all over. The carving is very rough and much in the style of the execution block, Figs. 259 and 260, Plate XXXIV. Fig. 271.--Small bronze bird, with something in the mouth; very rude. DESCRIPTION OF PLATE XXXVI. Figs. 272 to 274.--Wooden comb, the handle carved as links of a chain, with a figure at top. Fig. 275.--Small iron knife or bill-hook; the edge on the convex side; with brass handle terminating in a pommel representing a human hand. Fig. 276.--Bronze ægis. Two interlaced mud-fish. This perhaps shows the origin of the oval hole sometimes found on some of the objects, see Fig. 141, Plate XXIII, and Fig. 158, Plate XXV. This ægis has a broad leaf-shaped sword incised on the back of it, as shown in the annexed woodcut. These engravings are peculiar, and seem to denote a badge or mark, perhaps of ownership of some kind. The ægis is edged with eyelets, probably for suspending crotals, similar to Fig. 112, Plate XIX, and Figs. 126 and 127, Plate XXI. [Illustration: BACK VIEW.] Figs. 277 and 278.--Head carved in hard wood. The coral choker, the band round the head-dress, the feather on left side and the base are entirely covered with thin brass or bronze. Apparently intended to represent a cast metal head. Whether this is the case, or whether it is earlier than the introduction of metal casting, it is difficult to say. The face only and the top of the head-dress are left uncovered with metal. The top of the head-dress represents a reticulated head-dress of agate, like No. 121. The pupils of the eyes and the three tribal marks over each eye are of darker wood let in. There is a bronze band of metal along the forehead and nose. A ring of bronze-headed nails surrounds each eye. There is a broad hanging band on each side of the face, covered with thin metal and surmounted by a conical ornament. The metal is fastened on to the wood with oblong rivets. The face is extremely rudely carved. Round the base is a band of peculiar ornament in repoussé work, which is either intended for a floral ornament or a broken guilloche pattern, like that on the blades of the wands and elsewhere. There is a vertical hole through the back of the head, which is not large enough to contain a tusk. Figs. 279 and 280.--Bronze rod, pointed below; perhaps the head of a staff intended to fit on to a wooden stem. Ornamented with a human figure sitting at top, with a human-headed staff in right hand, and a neolithic celt, edge up, in left hand. Coral choker and head-dress with serpents hanging head downwards, and a band of straight line diaper pattern. Three tribal marks over each eye. Band of guilloche pattern on skirt-rings for pendants (? crotals). Below, in a separate division, is a nude human figure kneeling and holding something in front in both hands. At sides sinuous serpents with the heads down, and crocodiles or lizards. Below again a sinuous serpent, head upwards. The whole very rudely cast. DESCRIPTION OF PLATE XXXVII. Figs. 281 and 282.--Bronze square bell, the ornamentation tastefully designed, with a human head, crocodiles, and floral ornaments. The clapper is in the form of a sinuous snake, head downwards. Fig. 283.--Ivory armlet, very rudely carved in human figures, crocodiles, serpents, &c. Figs. 284 and 285.--Brass or bronze sword, the pommel in the form of a twisted ring, as so frequently shown on the plaques, see Figs. 4, 113, 179, 255, etc. The blade is of unusual form, very broad, and rounded at the end. Figs. 286 to 288.--Bronze plaque, representing a figure standing and holding in his left hand a staff with an eagle on the top. A staff with a bird on the top is represented in one of the figures of No. 139. DESCRIPTION OF PLATE XXXVIII. Fig. 289.--Bronze plaque, representing a human head with straight combed hair. Aquiline nose, moustache and beard; not of negro type. The ground ornamented with the usual leaf ornament. Fig. 290.--Bronze plaque, with pendant fruit ribbed. Raised rosettes and the usual leaf ornament on field incised. Fig. 291.--Bronze or brass plaque. Figure, full length; an unknown implement upheld in right hand, and an execution sword held horizontally in left hand. Three tribal marks over each eye. The dress ornamented with human heads, half-moons, and floral ornaments incised. Ground ornamented with the usual leaf-shaped ornament. Fig. 292.--Bronze ægis. A female with pointed head-dress, and coral choker, badge of rank; striking a sistrum with a rod. It is repaired with lead. Figs. 293 and 294.--Bronze statuette, representing a negro figure holding a so-called key in the left hand. The figure has three tribal marks over each eye, and three radiating lines branching from the corners of the mouth. The pupils of the eyes are inlaid with iron. A cross on the breast hanging from the neck by a cord. No coral choker, but a necklace perhaps of coral or agate. A pot hat with a narrow straight brim. This figure exactly resembles No. 90. The ears are very rudely formed. No hair is shown. The face is very prognathous and the nose broad and flat, not aquiline. The skirt is only slightly hooked up. DESCRIPTION OF PLATE XXXIX. Fig. 295.--Bronze plaque, head of horse, very much elongated. For the elongation of a horse's head, see the figure of horse and rider in Figs. 299 and 300. Figs. 296 and 297.--Bronze plaque, representing a cow's head, of natural form and proportions, with a rope bound round the horns. Fig. 298.--Bronze plaque. A sinuous serpent, head downwards. Ground ornamented with the usual foil ornament incised. Figs. 299 and 300.--Bronze man on horseback, holding a shield, with barbed javelins, points downwards, on right arm. A band of crotals hung over right shoulder. Sword on right side with European scabbard. The dress is peculiar and formed with lappets on front and back. The horse and rider are very attenuated and rudely executed. The horse tucked up like a greyhound, with head very long, like Fig. 295. Band with crotals round the horse's neck. Large flaws in the casting of both horse and rider. DESCRIPTION OF PLATE XL. Fig. 301.--Bronze cock, the feathers represented by herring-bone pattern. Figs. 302 and 303.--Elephant's tusk formed as a trumpet. The mouthpiece on the convex side; with rattle. The loose pieces of the rattle carved out of the solid, through the oblong apertures. Ornamented with three bands of guilloche pattern; straight line diaper pattern, and degenerate mud-fish interlaced, in two places. Figs. 304 and 305.--Portion of an iron staff, ornamented with bands of bronze, on which are figured human faces, leopards' heads and bands of looped strands, similar to those on Figs. 139 and 140, Plate XXIII. Fig. 306.--Thin brass head ornament for horse, and a broad band to go along the top of the head and mane. The figure on the lower part represents a crocodile, head downwards, ornamented with rows of copper rivets. The band for the head is ornamented with a floral ornament (floral guilloche) consisting of a sinuous stem with a leaf branching out of each curve, similar to that shown on Figs. 209, 238 and 278. The whole of the ornamentation is in repoussé work, and is probably intended to be attached to leather. Figs. 307 and 308.--Lower portion of an iron staff, surrounded by bands of brass, ornamented with leopards' heads, frogs, looped strands and guilloche pattern. Fig. 309.--Square brass lamp, with four receptacles for wicks, one at each corner. Ornamented with dots of repoussé work, and suspended by an iron chain with long links and a hook. Figs. 310 to 313.--Bronze lamp, apparently with gold in its composition. The basin patched and riveted with copper. The bands for suspension ornamented with straight line diaper pattern (Fig. 312) and broken guilloche pattern (Fig. 313), united at top in a human figure (Fig. 311), having the private parts strongly pronounced. There are only one or two objects in this collection in which this peculiarity occurs, which is so prevalent in the art of most savages. DESCRIPTION OF PLATE XLI. Figs. 314 to 316.--Wooden stool, the top slightly basin-shaped; the stem carved to represent two interlaced serpents, but the interlacing is not continuous, being broken by a square hole pierced through the centre of the shaft. The heads of the serpents are conventional and they bend towards the top and bottom on alternate sides. The tails of the serpents terminate in the mouths of two frogs carved on the base and underside of the top of the seat. A human figure is in the mouth of the serpent resting on the base, holding a bill-hook in his left hand, similar to Figs. 108 and 109, Plate XVIII. On the underside of the seat, the serpent holds a leopard in its mouth; leopard holding a palm branch in its mouth. The other figures carved on the base and underside of the top are two degenerate mud-fish and two degenerate elephants' heads, the proboscis terminating in a human hand, like Figs. 72 and 167. The seat is ornamented with an interlaced guilloche pattern surrounding the top edge of the seat. Fig. 317.--Wooden plaque, ornamented in the centre by a coil of interlaced strap-work, bounded by two lines of zigzag pattern. On one side a broad leaf-shaped sword with a ring pommel, similar to Figs. 326 and 327, Plate XLII, and Figs. 328 and 329, Plate XLIII. The handle is ornamented with a straight line diaper pattern. On the other side is represented an execution sword, similar to Fig. 110, Plate XVIII. Figs. 318 and 319.--Wooden seat, of oblong form, supported by four legs, with cross-braces. All the ornamental portions are plated with thin brass, beaten on and riveted. The top of the seat is ornamented in the centre and ends by bands of single and double guilloche pattern, and in the centre of the squares by a square pattern of interlaced strands riveted on, similar to that represented on the blade of the sword, Fig. 199, Plate XXVIII. The legs and sides of the seat are ornamented by wheel-shaped forms, in eight places, and half-moons, similar to those on the ground-work of the plaque, Fig. 180, Plate XXVII. The stool in various parts is ornamented by brass-headed nails, which might perhaps be European. DESCRIPTION OF PLATE XLII. Figs. 320 and 321.--Wooden bird resembling a turkey. The inlaying of the eyes has disappeared; the feathers are conventionally represented by carved squares and lines of herring-bone pattern. On the top is a rudely-cut vertical projection 5 inches high and 2-1/2 inches broad, the meaning of which is unknown; and from it hangs on each side of the bird, a broad band 3-1/2 inches broad, carved with four rows of herring-bone pattern, the meaning of which is also unknown. The front of the base is ornamented with a guilloche pattern of four strands. Fig. 322.--Circular brass fan, thickness of metal, .02 inch; ornamented with bands of guilloche pattern, herring-bone, and straight line diaper patterns. The handle is riveted to the fan. Fig. 323.--Fan of hide. The sewing of leather resembles that of the brass fan, Fig. 322, Plate XLII. Figs. 324 and 325.--Bronze group of three human figures, the front figure kneeling, the hands in an attitude of prayer. The upper part naked, the lower part covered by a pleated kilt or skirt, similar to Figs. 129, 235, 236, and 247. The corners of the eyes ornamented with a raised barbed figure. A belt of two ropes round the waist with two loops behind, in one of which hang two links of a chain. This figure is attended behind by two short figures standing and armed with swords in sheaths. Coral necklaces and anklets. Three tribal marks incised over each eye. On the ground are three decapitated human heads, face upwards, and a dog. The base is ornamented with coiled figures. Figs. 326 and 327.--Broad leaf-shaped iron sword, similar to Figs. 328 and 329, Plate XLIII. The handle enclosed in a large ring of metal, 7 inches in diameter. The blade, which is .08 inch in thickness, is perforated by a pattern of holes. DESCRIPTION OF PLATE XLIII. Figs. 328 and 329.--Broad leaf-shaped iron sword, similar to Figs. 326 and 327, Plate XLII. The handle enclosed in a large ring of metal, 8 inches by 5-1/2 inches interior measurement, twisted in two places. It has probably had a grip of wood, which has disappeared. The blade, which is only ·06 inch in thickness, is ornamented with a pattern of perforated holes. The use of this instrument is unknown; it may have been an execution sword, but, if so, the ring-guard appears superfluous. Fig. 330.--Iron staff, similar to the bronze one, Figs. 354 and 355, Plate XLV. In the cluster at the top is the figure of a bird surmounting an animal, probably a chameleon, similar to the one half-way down the stem, and surrounded by a cluster of various implements and weapons, points upwards, amongst which may be distinguished a fork with diamond-shaped heads, a curved bill-hook, a chisel, a spud and a reaping-hook. Below this are two clusters each of six hanging bells; two sinuous snakes, heads upwards, are crawling up the stem. Figs. 331 and 332.--Carved wooden board, 10-1/2 feet in length and 1 foot 11 inches broad; from a house in Benin city. It is ornamented with five panels in relief. Each panel has a circle with radiating lines, bounded by lines of guilloche pattern. The several panels are separated by broad bands of interlaced strap-work, deeply carved. The interlaced strap-work varies in design, some being simply plaited, and in others it is further complicated with twists and returns. Some have two interlaced bands, others four. The carving is irregular and traced by the eye without measure or T-square. Long sinuous snakes with heads are represented in the smaller lines dividing the panels and give the effect of a meander. The whole of the carving has originally been covered with thin plates of brass or bronze beaten on, traces of which are seen here and there fastened on with oblong rivets of metal. Figs. 333 to 335.--Round execution block and stand of wood, elaborately carved with figures of men and animals. On the top is a pointed spike of wood, 5 inches in height, on which the head of the victim appears to have rested, and below this on the surface at the top of the block are two receptacles for the thumbs of the victim, in the form of coiled mud-fish. The ornamentation on the top consists of squares and triangles filled with parallel straight lines alternating in direction, and edged with a circle of broken guilloche pattern. On the sides are three human figures, two of which are holding hands upwards, weapons and shields, and one a curved sword of European form, point downwards. Between these figures are two boxes or stools; there are also two human hands and other objects on the other side. The bottom of the block is surrounded by a broad guilloche pattern of four or five strands. The stand on which the block stands is of semicircular form. The top is ornamented with two animals, resembling crocodiles, conforming to the outline of the curve, and other animals and objects. On the front of this stand is a row of objects, consisting, in the centre, of a human figure holding something on the abdomen, human hands, animals' heads, and other objects. A very similar execution block, but without stand, is shown in Figs. 258 to 260, Plate XXXIV. The barbarous carving and ornamentation of such gruesome objects is quite characteristic of Benin art. DESCRIPTION OF PLATE XLIV. Fig. 336.--Wooden casket in the form of an ox's head, coated with thin brass riveted on. From the forehead two human hands rise up holding the horns. Along the forehead and along the sides are three lines of single guilloche pattern in repoussé work. The pupils of the eyes are inlaid with a dark substance. It appears to be a box or casket of some kind. A similar box is shown in the hands of the small figure in plaque No. 18, Plate IV. A precisely similar object from Benin is figured by Mr. Ling Roth in "The Studio," December, 1898, Fig. 18; and there is also another similar in the British Museum, figured in "Antiquities from Benin in the British Museum," Plate XI, Fig. 9. Fig. 337.--Half of a bronze circlet or necklet, similar to Fig. 158, Plate XXV; ornamented with two human forms with attenuated bodies and conventional heads, consisting of circles with five circular punch-marks to represent the features, and two other similar heads without bodies. The arms of these two figures are bound together at the wrists. At the feet of these two extended figures are two human heads of negro type, very well executed, and a leopard's head. It is ornamented in other places by a broad leaf-shaped sword and spirals. This remarkable work of savage art is shown in greater detail in the annexed woodcut. Fig. 338.--Bronze sword, perhaps an execution sword, but rather too small for that purpose; with wooden grip and pommel. The blade is ornamented on both sides with incised semicircles and curved lines. The cutting edge is on the convex side. Fig. 339.--Bronze sword, perhaps an execution sword, but rather too small for that purpose; ornamented with incised semicircles, like Fig. 338, and chevrons filled with parallel incised lines. The grip ornamented with parallel incised bands in imitation of binding. The blade is also ornamented with peculiar incised scrolls and circular punch-marks, and diamond forms. Fig. 340.--Bronze pin, ornamented with four conventionalized birds. Inlaid in various places with red agate, and ornamented with circular punch-marks. Fig. 341.--Bronze bell or sistrum, with small bell attached; both ornamented with an incised lozenge-shaped pattern. A similar double bell, from Yoruba, is figured by Mr. Ling Roth in "The Reliquary," 1898, p. 165. Fig. 342.--Bronze figure of boy, with the palms of the hands erect and open, as if denying having stolen anything. Serpent, head downwards, on forehead. Three incised tribal marks over each eye. Coral necklace. Figs. 343 and 344.--Human mask, of bronze. The pupils of the eyes inlaid with iron. Fig. 345.--Bronze leopard, tail deficient; total height, 15-1/4 inches. One of the hind legs broken off and repaired by natives with a piece of ivory. The leopard is covered with incised spots and small punch-marks all over. The pupils of the eyes are inlaid with iron. DESCRIPTION OF PLATE XLV. Fig. 346.--Quadrangular bronze bell, ornamented with mud-fish and a human head in relief. It is reticulated on all sides and could have emitted no sound. Fig. 347.--Quadrangular bronze bell, ornamented on one side by a degenerate human face in relief. The ornamentation tastefully designed. Fig. 348.--Bronze cock, somewhat similar to Fig. 301, Plate XL. Fig. 349.--Brass armlet, made from one piece of thin metal, joined by copper rivets. Ornamented by three naked human figures in relief, and bands of interlaced rings. Figs. 350 and 351.--Bronze trumpet, slightly curved, the mouth-hole on the convex side, similar in form to the ivory trumpets, Figs. 178, 192 and 193. Projecting blades, like celts, on the large end, as in the sistrum in Figs. 232 to 234, Plate XXXI. A somewhat similar instrument is figured by Mr. Ling Roth in the "Halifax Naturalist," June, 1898, p. 32. Above these blades is a human head in relief, surmounted by a circular ring held in the mouth of a crocodile, head downwards. Other parts are ornamented by sinuous snakes in relief. It appears to have been used both as trumpet and axe. Figs. 352 and 353.--Bronze staff, probably intended to be held in the middle. Ornamented at both ends with human figures back to back. The stem ornamented with loops as in Figs. 208 and 209, Plate XXIX. Figs. 354 and 355.--Bronze staff, 4 feet 10-1/2 inches in length; ornamented at top with the figure of a bird with a small ball in its mouth, and apparently surmounting a leopard. Around it are ten leaf-shaped flanges ornamented with sinuous serpents, holding birds and crocodiles in their mouths. Below this is a human figure standing with very large hands, apparently clasped, and thumbs projecting upwards, out of all proportion to the size of the body; on the shoulders of this figure are two sinuous snakes. Below this are figures representing a monkey and a bull. The central figure is nude and kneeling with a cock in its hands, resting on a cluster of hanging bells. The lower part, which is broken and detached from the upper part, represents a human figure; in his left hand a large neolithic celt, and in his right hand a human-headed staff, similar in design to Figs. 279 and 280, Plate XXXVI. Below and in front of this figure are smaller figures, representing a human figure with a neolithic celt in the right hand and a spotted leopard, with tail curled over head, on the left. Rising from the head of the larger figure is an antelope, with two snakes springing out of its mouth, surrounded by representations of various weapons, points upwards. The whole appears to be constructed of bronze, surrounding an iron stem. DESCRIPTION OF PLATE XLVI. Figs. 356 and 357.--Bronze staff, surmounted by a vulture holding something in its beak, as in Figs. 286 to 288, Plate XXXVII; Fig. 271, Plate XXXV, and Figs. 354 and 355, Plate XLV. In Fig. 139, Plate XXIII, and in "Antiquities from Benin in the British Museum," Plate XXIX, Fig. 3, figures are shown holding these staves and striking them with rods. Figs. 358 and 359.--Bronze seated figure, apparently of an European. The dress has large buttons on one side. The hat, with brim, is ornamented with chevrons filled with parallel straight lines; the moustache very long; the nose aquiline and very large; the shoulders guarded by "wings." Left hand and forearm broken. Fig. 360.--Bronze or brass plaque, representing a figure standing to front, holding a piece of ring-money (Manilla) in right hand, similar to Plate XXI, Fig. 6, "Antiquities from Benin in the British Museum," where their use and form are discussed (p. 27). The dress has a single row of buttons, somewhat similar to Fig. 247, Plate XXXII, where however the coat is fastened with tags; the left hand is similarly spread upon the chest. The face is prognathous, but with hooked nose. The hat appears to be an European chimney-pot hat. Other cases of a pleated kilt occur in Figs. 129, 235, 236, 247, 324, 325, and 361. Fig. 361.--Bronze plaque, representing a figure, seated, holding apparently a hand-cannon in both hands, the butt of which is curved down. The dress has buttons on one side, as in the previous figure, and is surmounted by a vandyke ornamented collar of European type. Belt and pleated kilt. Face, apparently European, aquiline nose. European helmet. European sword with guard on right side. Fig. 362.--Iron axe, in carved wooden handle and shaft; with six wooden human faces, the pupils of the eyes inlaid with lead. Figs. 363 and 364.--Iron hammer. Figs. 365 and 366.--Small human head in earthenware, being the only one of that material in this collection. The pupils of the eyes are inlaid with iron; two iron bands on the forehead, of which the traces have nearly disappeared. Hole in top of head like those of bronze. Coral choker. The features are well formed. Figs. 367 and 368.--Antelope's head, in bronze, with horns and ears. DESCRIPTION OF PLATE XLVII. Figs. 369 to 371.--Bronze plaque, representing a sacrificial scene; it contains eight human figures, and a bullock just in the act of being slaughtered. All the figures except one have native features, dress, etc., and wear the insignia of executioners. The remaining figure is evidently intended to represent a European. Figs. 372 and 373.--A carved ivory box in the form of a mud or cat fish. The eyes are inlaid with lead. DESCRIPTION OF PLATE XLVIII. Figs. 374 and 375.--Bronze statuette of a musician in the act of playing a wind instrument. He wears a pot hat, a collar, and loose necklet hanging down over the chest, also armlets and wristlets. He wears a decorated loin cloth, with a border representing a row of feathers, and in the centre of the garment is a conventional leopard's face. Height of statuette is 24-1/2 inches. Figs. 376 and 377.--Modern Benin sword; the blade is iron and decorated with incised birds and a nondescript animal. There are seven brass rivets hammered into the blade. The handle is covered with leather. Length of blade, 17-3/4 inches. Figs. 378 and 379.--Is a copper weapon which has had a wooden shaft. This weapon is of too soft a metal to be of much use. Figs. 380 and 381.--An iron weapon of an old make. The blade is decorated with an incised figure of a snake. Length of blade, 21-1/8 inches. DESCRIPTION OF PLATE XLIX. Figs. 382 and 383.--Cubical metal lamp, with handle, chain and hook for suspension. The hook is ornamented at its lower half with raised transverse incised lines and lozenge-shaped incisions. It is attached to a chain of three links, the upper and lower ones being oval; the middle one is 8-shaped. The other end of the chain is attached to a loop which projects from the head of a nude human figure (length of figure is 2-1/2 inches), the feet of which are fixed by a loop of copper wire to the handle of the bar; the handle has a zigzag guilloche pattern on the upper side. There is a human face in relief on the sides of the body of the lamp, with fish-scale pattern on the groundwork. The borders of the lamp are raised rope pattern, and have a double loop knot at each corner. The lamp has four legs, and from the centre of the bottom is a small round piece projecting, and not so long as the legs. It is capped with a circular bottom, which is decorated with incised concentric circles. Height from top of hook when suspended is 26 inches. Fig. 384.--Metal armlet, ornamented with five rows of inlaid copper conventionalized cat-fishes and human faces; the latter have long hair, long whiskers, and long noses. Height, 5-7/8 inches. Fig. 385.--Metal box, cylindrical in form, ornamented with three longitudinal rows of ox skulls in relief, and incised human faces. Height, 7 inches. Fig. 386.--Wooden comb, with carved design. Fig. 387.--Cast metal bowl. The small opening at the top is situated in the centre of an incised rosette; this, together with four similar but smaller rosettes, are coated with a copper wash. On the base is a rosette within a circle. Fig. 388.--Cast metal bowl. Distributed over the body of the bowl are eleven finely executed Maltese crosses. Fig. 389.--Quadrangular bronze bell, ornamented on three sides with open reticulated work, framed in by a border of the guilloche pattern. A conventional face, with long hair and beard, is on one of the reticulated sides. Near the base of the ornamented side is a small roughly circular hole. Height, 6 inches. DESCRIPTION OF PLATE L. Figs. 390 and 391.--Large metal bell. On one side is a human face in relief, with snakes issuing from the nostrils. Each of the two snakes grasps a mud or cat fish in its jaws. The ears project from the sides of the head-dress, and the neck has a frill consisting of a double row of perforated circles. The handle has an incised herring-bone ornamentation. Projecting from the sides of the bell are eight knobs. The base and crown of the bell have a border of strap-work pattern. Height of bell, 10 inches. Figs. 392 and 393.--Carved wooden head, which may have been a mask. Represents the head of a negro; it is hollow, and may have been intended for a mask, as there are open slits underneath each eye. The hair is represented by incised reticulated lines. The three black lines over the eyes represent cicatrices. The lower part of the face is rounded, and the chin not marked. Height, 13 inches. * * * * * Transcriber's note: There is no figure 136 in the printed book, and the "annexed woodcut" referred to in the description of fig. 337 was not included. The figures in "Figs. 265,6, Plate 35" on p. 46 were hand-written. The following apparent errors have been corrected: p. 56 "Figs 192 and 193." changed to "Figs 192 and 193." p. 65 "Fig. 181 Plate XXVII" changed to "Fig. 181, Plate XXVII" p. 65 "Vol I" changed to "Vol. I" p. 70 "elephants's" changed to "elephant's" p. 74 "Fig. 282." changed to "Figs. 281 and 282." p. 94 "Figs 372 and 373" changed to "Figs. 372 and 373" p. 98 "Fig 385." changed to "Fig. 385." The following possible errors have not been changed: p. iv conquerers p. 32 tattoed p. 42 rivetted The following are used inconsistently in the text: a European and an European cat fish and cat-fish ground-work and groundwork Juju and Ju-ju mouthpiece and mouth-piece mudfish and mud-fish semicircles and semi-circles 
18971	----	Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 18971-h.htm or 18971-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/8/9/7/18971/18971-h/18971-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/8/9/7/18971/18971-h.zip) JACOBEAN EMBROIDERY Its Forms and Fillings Including Late Tudor by ADA WENTWORTH FITZWILLIAM and A. F. MORRIS HANDS Publishers' Note. Plates 1, l0a, 11, 12 (part of), 20 and 23 have already been published in "Needlecraft Monthly Magazine" and are included in this collection by permission of the Editor. London Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner and Co. Ltd. Broadway House, Carter Lane, E.C. 1912 CONTENTS Introductory History by A. F. Morris Hands. Op. I Tudor Work. Op. II Early 17th Century. Op. III Details of Blue Crewel Work (the late Lady Maria Ponsonby's). Op. IV The uses of Stem Stitch and other characteristics. Op. V Bed Hangings at Hardwicke Hall. Op. Va Groups of Fillings in which darning plays important part. Op. VI Bed Hanging from Powis Castle. Op. VII Characteristic Foliations and Late 17th Century Fillings. Op. VIII Solid Crewel Work 18th Century including the _Terra Firma_ and different birds and beasts. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Plate 1 Strip of Tudor Work. 2 Group of leaves on cushions at Knole Park. 2a Group of light details in early examples. 3 Details from old example, carried out in dark blues, belonged to the late Lady Maria Ponsonby. 4 Ditto. 5 Ditto. 6 Ditto. 7 Detail of Foxglove design. 8 Colour plate--Detail from old Bed Hangings, dated 1696. 9 Detail from old Bed Hangings, dated 1696. 10 Large heavy leaf in work dated 1696. 10a Leaf showing seven different stitches. 11 Bed Hanging at Hardwicke. 12 Set of details (in colour) of Hardwicke design. 13 Set of details of Hardwicke design. 14 Group of Fillings. 15 Design of Bed Hangings at Powis Castle. 16 Characteristic leaf of best period. 17 Ditto. 18 Late 17th Century Fillings. 19 Fillings from Georgian copy of old example. 20 Stem of leaf in Solid work (colour plate). 21 Examples of different leaves. 22 Ditto. 23 Colour plate--_Terra Firma_. 24 Birds and Beasts characteristic of Jacobean design. 25 Ditto. 26 Ditto. 27 Ditto. INTRODUCTION To redeem the monotony of plain surfaces has ever been the aim of all the arts, but especially that of the needle, which being the oldest expression of decorative intention, has, from the earliest time, been very dependent on its groundwork for its ultimate results. This is particularly the case in embroideries of the type of what is commonly known as Jacobean, where the ground fabric is extensively visible, as it is also in that wondrous achievement, the Bayeux tapestry worked in coarse wools upon homespun linen and therefore quite miscalled "tapestry." Inaccuracy in nomenclature is one of the stumbling blocks the student encounters, and the tendency of the day to classify "styles" by the restricted formula of monarchical periods is likewise misleading. No style is ever solely distinctive of one reign, or even one century, the law of evolution rules the arts as it does nature, there is always a correlation between styles in art and circumstances of existence that is productive of gradual changes of taste, therefore, pronounced evidences in design are, actually, the culminating point in a course of combined influences which have reached the period of individual expression. Crewel work of the type of Jacobean, was the outcome of that earlier wool embroidery that even in the zenith of fame of the Ecclesiastical broderers still quietly went on its way. In the middle ages, furnishing of rooms was scanty, and embroidered hangings, cushion and stool covers provided the necessary notes of colour and comfort; the wall hangings of the 13th century were of coarse canvas decorated with a design executed in wools. It is curious how in English embroideries there has always been a predilection on the part of the designers for interlacing stems, and for the inconsequent introduction of birds and beasts. Mons de Farcy, author of _La Broderie du Onzième siècle jusqu'à nos jours_, remarks that "it seems that the position of England, surrounded by the sea on all sides, has provoked in its inhabitants the passion of travelling over the sea, and they came to know, before continental nations, of the parrots and other birds of brilliant plumage so often reproduced in their needlework."[1] Mrs. Christie, an English authority on Embroidery, admirably sums up the evolution of designs when she writes "Examination of old Embroideries gathered from all parts of the world shows that each individual specimen, every flower and bud, is a development of some existing form, and is not an original creation, invented, as some appear to think all designs are, upon the spur of the moment." In the creation of a design it is a case of assimilation of the fittest and the elimination of the unsuitable from existing examples, thus the interlacing stems of the work of the 14th century became grafted on to the version of the Tree of Life idea in the Oriental designs that came to England in the 16th, through the intercourse opened up by the formation of the East India Company, at the end of Elizabeth's reign. To deem, as do some writers, the bold, rather ponderous crewel work of the 17th century, sole outcome of the importation of the Palampores of Musulipatan, is to ignore all the tendencies manifested in the embroideries of previous centuries; in the same way, to repudiate the emblematical significance of special features markedly introduced into old designs, is to betray a complete lack of knowledge of the mind and manners of the people of superstitious days. Knowledge was not rapidly acquired, and even as late as the 17th century was largely disseminated through the country by allegorical narratives, while emblematical lore reflected the history of the immediate moment. There was in the poetry and in the embroidery of Elizabeth's day, a sportive quality which was not likely to be checked under the Stuarts, _doubles entendres_ were not confined to jests! and the political and religious differences of opinion, rampant throughout the period, found expression in the most fantastic ways. The Stump Embroidery, in vogue at the same time as the crewel hangings specially treated in this volume, was full of symbolism, and naturally the same inspiration directed the worker in crewels. Curiously enough, both these very different types of needlework, crystalised into individuality concurrently, yet one is usually designated Jacobean, the other referred to as Stuart. In this connection it is well also to remember, that the Stuart era extended, historically, from 1603 to 1714, _viz._, from the reign of James I (Jacobus) to that of Queen Anne, daughter of James II. Queen Anne is so often relegated, in the public mind, to an isolated position, genealogically, and the pronounced developments in the changes of taste that took place at the commencement of the of the 18th century, left such a very definite impression, that she is rarely remembered as a Stuart; it was in her reign, however, that the vogue for the old crewel embroideries revived, and though differences of treatment crept in, the designs, were, in the main, purely Jacobean, being copies or adaptations of patterns popular in the middle of the 17th century. It is these copies that exist mostly to-day, few, indeed, are those hangings which pertain to the earlier date, but a study of those few, taken in conjunction with the still fewer that remain of the 16th century, prove the _gradual_ growth of the designs that have the tree motif which makes them all kin. Lady Brougham and Vaux had a most wonderful collection, from which interesting comparisons could be made. One pair of bed hangings, of coarse linen of the 16th century, show the trees with a meandering growth entirely characteristic of those of heavier kind which appear in later embroideries, these trees also are undoubtedly intended to represent the Tree of Life, for round one is coiled a serpent, while beneath the scanty but large leaved boughs, incidents in the story of the expulsion from Paradise are to be descried, as also the procession into the ark. The work is without doubt early, for there is a primitive character in the arrangement of the inconsequent groups of figures, Adam and Eve stand nude either side the tree, couples in weird though contemporaneous costume to the work are dotted over the surface quite at haphazard. The similarity between the tree on these curtains and on one of the 18th century once in the same collection is very striking. Added grace of design has beautified the later work, but the same forms can be traced and the same parrots and squirrels are introduced, the Biblical story at the foot of the 16th century curtain has been replaced by a portion of the legend of the human soul. Another very interesting example I have seen, attributed to the years of James I's reign, seems to suggest that the worker had realised the "waves" in an Eastern pattern and made growths of coral at the base of the tree, but had then converted a line or two of waves into _terra firma_, for at one end reposes a lion, towards which a stag is bounding with head turned back as if in fear of pursuers. The birds in this example are very tropical, a miniature peacock on the lower branches spreads its tail stiffly, parrots like the one illustrated in our collection of details, birds of paradise, and squirrels, are all to be noted among foliations that are the most superb, taken individually, it is possible to imagine, most are worked fairly solid, such light fillings as there are, being small sprays of leaves like those in our plate No. 17. Carnations, harebells, canterbury bells, roses, marigolds, grapes, are included in the composition; block shading, chain stitch, stem stitch are all employed in the working, and a very interesting example of the Opus Plumarian is given in the tail feathers of the tiny peacock. The dissection of detail in early English crewel embroidery is a very fascinating occupation and well repays the expenditure of time. So little has been written about this particular phase of the embroiderer's art, that it is by old records and examples one becomes best informed and in a great measure enabled to trace the growth of the style that culminated in the massive designs that derived their name from the epoch in which they were in favour. Tudor crewel work, was chiefly done in broad outline of a more or less fanciful nature as regards the stitching, witness the sections of that Tudor piece which is shewn in our first illustration. Forms were large but gradually became reduced as they were worked more solidly. The beautiful foxglove pattern in "Bess of Hardwicke's" curtains at Hardwicke, shews a very slight feeling of transition but it may safely be assumed that one of the influences bearing on the execution of the crewel work, was the portentous character of much of the contemporary canvas hand-worked tapestry such as the famous set of panels unearthed in Hatton Gardens. The architectural basis is a link between the Ecclesiastical and Secular embroideries of the past centuries, and anyone interested in the evolution of design would be struck with the similitude of the large leaves and flowers in these panels to those of the crewel designs of the same date; it is also noteworthy that the symbolic significance in the details of the panels is ecclesiastic, whereas in the crewel work it is always based on the legend of the Tree of Life, or secularly emblematic. Colourings were often in both styles, blues, greens, bright yellows and browns predominated, carnation reds figuring in some examples, used for the flower of that name and for the pomegranate, which, with its seeds visible, signifies future life and immortality. The carnation and the caterpillar were both Stuart emblems, and occur in nearly all kinds of work executed during their reigns; the rose, of course, has its national as well as its religious significance, likewise the oak (after the restoration). The potato flower seen in both Jacobean and Portuguese embroideries is an example of the habit of recording the latest novelty, the strawberry was also popular on this account, and is frequently introduced in those hillocky foregrounds, which, to me, appear one of the most interesting evidences of combined influences. Once again, another Oriental idea was evidently assimilated, for in numberless Chinese patterns one sees the main motive springing out of a base of waves formed exactly like the hillocks which became such a distinctive feature in these large branching designs. In the earliest examples the hillocks were much broken up, and smaller (more like the mounds in the painted Palampores) than in the later work, from which we may presume the spread of the Oriental influence had done its work, the "terra firma" being carried out with a similitude to the eastern version of waves that includes the actual stitchery; grafted on to this was the legend of the pursuit of the human soul (typified by a hart) by evil, personified by the huntsman, the hounds and various uncanny beasts, two bearing unflattering resemblance to the heraldic lion and leopard; while rabbits, snails, grubs of all kind hinder the hart's progress, these are relics of the days when The Bestiarta (symbolism of beasts) was carefully studied. The riotous re-action from the Puritan rule was reflected in the embroideries of the restoration, as in everything else, and patterns became exuberant, colouring more brilliant, the exquisite stitchery gradually gave place to the easier achievement of solid fillings, and the requisite relief was secured by light sprays filling up the ground between the larger leaves, jasmine, cherries, harebells, potato flowers, honeysuckle, shamrock or trefoil and acorns took the lead. It is an almost impossible task to describe the large leaves, since they bear no resemblance to anything natural, they are, however, rarely angular in outline, rejoicing rather in sweeping curves, and drooping points, curled over to display the under side of the leaf, a device that gave opening for much ingenuity in the arrangement of the stitches. The variety in these was so great that on reading the enumeration made by Taylor, the Water Poet, one becomes quite breathless. The predominating ones, however, are--_Outline or Stem Stitch_, used for all but the largest stems, and veining and outlining leaves and flowers. _Shading Stitch_, sometimes called long and short, used for large branches and leaves, _Basket_ and _Double Back Stitch_ are also used for these stems. _Satin Stitch_, for all kinds of flowers and small foliage, or for the definite flat shading, that is like block shading without the ridge caused by the carrying back of the wool into the past row of stitches. _Buttonhole_, also much used for leaves, especially those having light fillings and broad outlines. _Rope Stitch_, _Coral_, _Cable_ and _Chain_, also for outlines, the last named being also used for fillings. The fancy fillings such as darning, French knots, etc., are demonstrated and described in the following pages, and the colour plates endeavour to give the idea of the correct colourings. In this connection, a few observations, based on the study of genuine originals, may not be amiss. As I have before mentioned, a certain brilliancy characterised the work at one period, but this cannot be regarded as the best type to imitate. The most harmonious were carried out in two schemes. One had all the leaves worked in Mandarin blues, shading from darkest indigo to softest blue-grey. These were placed in juxtaposition, with tender mignonette and silvery greens, a strong accent being _occasionally_ introduced by a flower or filling carried out in true rose leaf shade or by veinings of bronze greens and browns. The other scheme, and this is more rarely met with, was in bronze greens throughout, intermixed with yellow and about three shades of the dull blues. Black sometimes is to be noticed in both these colour schemes, also bright and buff yellows and chestnut browns, and the colours were mostly confined to the blue scheme first named, but there are examples extant of an entire design carried out in shades of red, as in the Tudor and early 16th century hangings one finds blues responsible for the whole colouring. These vary in tone, and in the late copies of the designs the blue has a very green tinge about it.[2] In the reign of Queen Anne taste reverted to the older lighter designs, grotesques were eliminated, massiveness gave place to grace, and brightness of colour to a soft modified brilliancy that was very engaging. In the Georgian copies heaviness again obtained favour, and gradually the designs deteriorated, and were eventually temporarily lost in "the limbo of the past." The vogue for lace work in the reign of William and Mary influenced the stitches in the crewel embroidery, and in Queen Anne's day the variety of stitches was reminiscent of the earlier period, some of the fillings being beautiful. The material used was through all the phases the same, viz., a twill fabric, of which the warp was of linen, the weft of cotton; the wools varied somewhat in the twist, but were always worsted, the word crewel being a diminutive of clew, "a ball of thread," and probably came into vogue with the importation of wools from Germany, the corresponding word in that language being _Knäuel_. A. F. MORRIS HANDS [1] Opus Anglicum by M. Louis de Farcy in "Embroidery." [2] See example in South Kensington carried out in very hard twisted blue wools. The curtain belonging to Mr. Hearn, and now at South Kensington, is a beautiful specimen of the full colouring of the late 17th century. Op. I [Illustration] PLATE 1 This plate was sketched from a very old strip of Tudor work, measuring about 5ft. 8in. in length and 1ft. 8in. in width. Each leaf was about 22in. long and 19in. across. The strip had evidently been part of a bed valance, and, as far as one could tell--for it was much faded--had been worked in two shades of wool only--dark indigo blue and bright green; the latter had faded, almost everywhere, to a soft mignonette colour. Op. II PLATE 2 A group of blue leaves, etc., taken from some old cushions at Knole Park, Sevenoaks. No. 1. Stem stitch contour: Maidenhair in buttonhole stitch. Star in buttonhole stitch on background of small crosses. No. 2. Stem stitch. No. 3. Stem stitch contours. Centre in loop stitch. No. 4. Stem stitch contours. Centre loop stitch and maidenhair in buttonhole stitch. No. 5. Stem stitch. [Illustration: PLATE 2] PLATE 2a Group of the lighter details that break up the heavy masses in the earliest and latest examples. The medlar-like fruit is worked in Crewel stitch in bands of brown, stem lighter in shade. The leaves, Example I & II, satin stitch with stem stitch outline both sides, centre veinings in stem stitch, turnover in leaf, II, in block stitch. III Buttonhole edging with darned centre, centre filled with strands of wool caught down at intervals with double back stitch. IV Flowers in soft blues in satin stitch, acorns have their cups worked in French knots. [Illustration: PLATE 2a] Op. III The following plates were sketched from an old strip of work done in deep indigo worsted wool, with a rather lighter wool, both in colour and make, used in the fine buttonhole work and darning, of which there is much throughout the work. The design was a branching one, the flowers and leaves--most of which appear in the following plates--are hanging from stems about a quarter of an inch thick done in herring-bone stitch, with the exception of the violas (plate 5) which have a thicker stem of their own in herring-bone, stem stitch and loops. The thistles (plate 3, No. 1) reproduced the same size as in the work, were scattered about in groups of three, making a very pleasing contrast to the hanging roses (plate 6), whilst the irises reared their heads all along the bottom of the strip, but owing to the work having been cut, it was impossible to see how they joined their straight stalks to the branching ones above. PLATE 3 No. 1. Stem stitch contour: diaper work done in coral stitch, with a French knot filling in each alternate square. Four rows of buttonhole stitch at top of flower. No. 2. Stem-stitch, coral stitch and darning. No. 3. Buttonhole stitch, French knot and stem stitch. No. 4. Stem stitch and buttonhole stitch. No. 5. Coral stitch. (These tendrils occurred all over the work and were very effective.) No. 6. Buttonhole stitch: centre and stalk in stem stitch. No. 7. Stem stitch and loops. [Illustration: PLATE 3] PLATE 4 The iris shown here was worked as follows: The contours in stem stitch throughout. The centre and two side petals have stem stitch veins, edged buttonhole stitch and were filled in with big knots. The smaller petals were partially filled in with buttonhole stitch and darning. The dark petal on left was done in Cretan[3] stitch edged stem stitch. [3] A variation of herring bone stitch. [Illustration: PLATE 4] PLATE 5 No. 1. Contour in stem stitch, filled in lightly with buttonhole stitch, and darning and long-and-short stitch. No. 2. Ditto, with the addition of herring-bone stitch on two upper petals. No. 3. (Stalk) herring-bone stem stitch with loops between. [Illustration: PLATE 5] PLATE 6 No. 1. Stem-stitch, buttonhole stitch and darning. No. 2. Ditto. No. 3. Stem stitch, buttonhole stitch, French knots and darning. No. 4. Stem stitch, buttonhole stitch and darning. All have herring-bone stitch stalks. Sketched from a piece of work in blue crewels on white linen, belonged to the late Lady Maria Ponsonby. [Illustration: PLATE 6] PLATE 7 Most of the stitchery shown here is similar to that on the preceding plates, but has the addition of the plait stitch[4] edged with buttonhole stitch in the veins of the big leaf, and the close knots on the sheaf of the foxgloves, while the sheaf of the convolvulus has veins of stem stitch and small French knots. In all this piece of work there is to be noted a great deal of buttonholing and darning. [4] A variation of herring-bone stitch. [Illustration: PLATE 7] Op. IV PLATE 8 Shows many uses to which stem stitch can be put, which is the only stitch employed in the work illustrated here, if we except the little arrow-heads used to edge the vine leaf. [Illustration: PLATE 8] The following sketches were taken from a most beautiful and elaborate strip of work, forming part of some bed-hangings, dated A.D. 1696, worked in hard twisted crewels in blue, mignonette, and green colourings only. PLATE 9 treats of button-holeing stitch done in a variety of ways. No. 1 has groups of three button-hole stitches and crosses in centre, and is edged by chain stitch and arrow-heads. No. 2. Button-hole stitch centre and edge. No. 3. Button-hole stitch with stalks in stem stitch. [Illustration: PLATE 9] PLATE 10 In this sketch are three principal stitches, viz.: Chain stitch filling in spaces Nos. 1-2 (on left of sketch) and forming the contour of the whole leaf; button-hole stitch filling spaces Nos. 3-4; and a lace stitch filling spaces Nos. 5-6-7. The other two spaces are filled by brick stitch, and darning with little veins of coral stitch and herring bone. There are loop stitches in the centre of the veining in spaces 6-7, and these are also worked round the outside of the leaf. [Illustration: PLATE 10] PLATE 10a This leaf, having a contour of chain stitch, is filled in at the top with a brown and blue branch in stem stitch, edged with short-and-long stitch. The green turnover is in chain stitch with blue chain stitch veins, and the blue turnovers at base of leaf are done in a lace surface stitch, while the rest is filled in with small darning stitches, coral stitches and a little bit of button-hole stitching. The three central leaves crossing stem are in red and green, and blue and green; the brown stalks are worked in stem stitch. Loops are worked round the outside of the leaf here as in all the bigger leaves on this work. The spike on the left of the sketch is in herring bone stitch edged with arrow heads. [Illustration: PLATE 10a] Op. V The following three plates are sketches from the bed hangings in the "Chapel" room at Hardwicke Hall, Derbyshire--the property of the Duke of Devonshire. PLATE 11 Shows the full design, which is a repeating one, of the hangings. The details of the stitchery will be found on the following plates. [Illustration: PLATE 11] PLATE 12 No. 1. One of the many conventional foliations in this design, carried out in stem stitch, buttonhole and darning. No. 2. Close chain stitch for the circles with herring bone for the stalk running through them. No. 3. The same stem as in foxgloves but with darning introduced up the centre. No. 4. The sheafs of the foxgloves are worked in crochet stitch edged stem stitch. The contours of flowers in back stitch, filled in short-and-long stitches and darning. [Illustration: PLATE 12] PLATE 13 No. 1. Contour in chain stitch. Vein stem stitch edged two rows short-and-long stitches and darning. No. 2. Contour in _double_ chain stitch. Veins in knot stitch edged darning. Loops in middle of centre vein. No. 3. Contour in stem stitch; vein ditto, edged with two rows of short-and-long stitches and darning. No. 4. Contour in chain stitch, edged darning. Centre vein chain stitch. Branching veins knot stitch outlined with darning stitches. No. 5. Contour buttonhole stitch and darning. Veins knot stitch and darning. [Illustration: PLATE 13] Op. Va PLATE 14 A group of fillings in which darning plays an important part, the backgrounds of two of the leaves were carried out in indigo, the veinings were worked in solid rows of outline stitch in brown shading to a lighter bronze green, the central vein in the upper leaf was in chain-stitch in dark blue and the outline of leaf was carried out in two rows of chain stitching in darkest indigo. The shamrock leaf has a darned contour of double threads, the filling was in stem stitch, solid, with bars of a darker colour worked across it. The little band at the bottom of the group was a mixture of satin, chain, stem and French knots. [Illustration: PLATE 14] Op. VI The following sketch was done from bed hangings, the property of the Earl of Powis, at Powis Castle. PLATE 15 The design is a bold one of big leaves worked on the usual thick white hand-made linen. Undoubtedly the wools used were green at the time of working, but have now changed to beautiful shades of blue to indigo. Each leaf throughout the work has a thick contour in rope stitch of the four shades of the wool used, and the stem is most effective, done in squares of Cretan stitch in the same four shades. [Illustration: PLATE 15] Op. VII PLATE 16 This bold leaf is mainly carried out in block shading, but the colours are unusual. Indigo for the outside edge, soft brown the central block, and light green for the inner; in the second leaf the green is employed only for the line of veining; the two leaves or sections on the right-hand side are treated as follows--The upper one has outlines of brown, between which blocks of "buttonhole" in indigo are worked, the intervening spaces being simply decorated by a loop stitch in green wool. The sprays are in satin stitch, which is one of the best for small sprays to be worked solid. [Illustration: PLATE 16] PLATE 17 A very handsome leaf, in the working of which many stitches are employed. The curved scroll at the top is carried out in block shading in blue to pale green; the curved section on the right is marked out in squares filled alternately with satin stitches, with a simple French knot in each square, and by a square trellis secured in the centre by a cross stitch; the scroll below this is outlined in crewel stitch, and filled with laid work or strands of wool thrown across from edge to edge and couched by back stitches at the points of intersection. The three leaves at the root of the stem are carried out in block shading in shades of grey green, the leaf above is outlined in crewel stitch and filled with fancy devices worked in buttonhole stitch with darning background; the centre motive is a solid mass of French knots, well raised and blue in colour. I have seen this same motive carried out in three shades, the lightest group at the point, the darkest at the back. [Illustration: PLATE 17] PLATE 18 More fillings taken from a piece of work executed in the late 17th century. I Is one of the diverse methods of treating the large tree stems in a design. Within the fan-like outlines traced down on the linen is a solid filling of satin stitches, varying row by row from pale fawn at the foot to dark chestnut brown round the top, the direction of the stitches is shewn in the drawing. II Here we have a fancy lattice of three strands of laid wool couched with small French knots at the intersecting points, the outline is in stem stitch and fanciful back stitches are used as fillings. III Has first rows of long single threads thrown across, caught down with stars and groups of satin stitching crossed. IV A light treatment for stems, the filling, shells in buttonhole stitches, with second outline in darning. V One of the examples of the introduction of lace stitches that is to be noted in work of the late 17th century, the alternate blocks are in basket stitch, the others in double cross stitch in contrasting colours. VI Quaint example of couched work. [Illustration: PLATE 18] PLATE 19 A collection of particularly beautiful fillings seen in a Georgian copy of a very old example. I Has double rows of outline stitch, framing spaces filled with stars in back stitch, the centre being solid in shading stitch. II Outline of rope stitch and cross trellis of the same. Stars of back stitch couched down with contrasting wools. III Part of a beautiful stem, outline of chain bars of button stitch in double wool and spots in loop stitch. IV The two small petals filled solid with stem stitch, three rows of which are used for outlining the long petal, the centre being filled with rings in buttonhole stitch and darned background. V Is carried out in satin and stem stitch, with back stitch bars couched with contrasting wool. [Illustration: PLATE 19] Op. VIII PLATE 20 These two sketches were taken from an 18th century (?) curtain done in solid crewel work, in somewhat bright colouring. The brown veining which occurs in I and in nearly all the leaves was most effective; in this plate is also shown a good example of basket stitch stem work. The acorn cup was worked in close French knots. II The large leaf is a good example of solid work. The contour was in stem stitch, the serrated edges turned over on to the brown surface were in shading stitch, the red veinings in satin stitch. [Illustration: PLATE 20] PLATE 21 These two leaves are of a bold, simple character that is easy to suggest, and proves a great relief in a design that is somewhat over-detailed. The large one is carried out in browns and greens. The turned over serrated edge is in satin stitch of graduating shade. The heavy veining is somewhat unusual in that it is carried out in laid stitch, dark green in the centre and light green outside. The stars are worked in dark green. The outline to the lower leaf is in two shades of green, the palest continuing to outline the remainder of the large leaf. The small leaf is worked solid in shading stitch in blue with brown satin stitch edge, the veining is brown as is also the contour of the upper point. [Illustration: PLATE 21] PLATE 22 We have here a large leaf very characteristic of the complicated detail introduced by the conventional treatment of foliage in early English work. The curved point of the leaf is outlined in rope stitch in a dark shade of soft bronze green, the heavy double cross lines are in crewel stitch and of a lighter shade of bronze in which the square lattice is also carried out, the French knots in the centres are of a dark olive green. The round medallion is outlined similarly to the above but in darker shade, the centre being worked solid in slanting satin stitches set in rows, each row taken at the opposite angle to its neighbour; the next leaf is outlined inside, in two rows of chain, the turnover of the leaf being solid satin stitch in three shades of green. The stem is double back stitch, and the other leaves are worked solid in shading stitch in graduated shades of green. The two small leaves, I & II example: 1st, rope stitch with alternate fillings of darning and outline stitch, and 2nd, rows of outline stitch for one-half the back leaves and one-half grey knot stitch and blue snail trail in alternative, the end leaf being in rows of outline of brown colour. [Illustration: PLATE 22] PLATE 23 A portion of the terra firma of the curtain. The strawberries and clear parts of the ground are worked in French knots. The plants are very useful in breaking up the solid masses of dark colour, and the stag serves to introduce into the base of the work the colouring of the acorns above (on plates 1 and 2). As a rule this base of a design repeats all the colourings used throughout. [Illustration: PLATE 23] PLATE 24 Example of a bird introduced into the late 17th century work. It is executed in simple feather stitch for the tail feathers and satin stitch very evenly shaded. The dark centres of the short feathers are in crimson, the rest in shades of buff, the breast feathers also worked in satin stitch are in putty colour, legs and beak are brown and the crest in crimson. [Illustration: PLATE 24] PLATE 25 Quaint early example of a parrot, head in knot stitch, breast feathers block stitch, and wings in shaded single feather stitching. The butterfly and grub are found in all early examples. [Illustration: PLATE 25] PLATE 26 Group of animals usually disporting on the terra-firma at base of large designs. Worked always in long and short stitch. [Illustration: PLATE 26] PLATE 27 Squirrel in rich brown colour, with cream chest worked in shading stitch, tail in overcasting for the centre and furry part in single feather stitch with stem stitch outline. [Illustration: PLATE 27] PRINTED BY W. W. CURTIS LTD., CHEYLESMORE PRESS, COVENTRY A COMPANION VOLUME TO "JACOBEAN EMBROIDERY" ENGLISH SECULAR EMBROIDERY By M. Jourdain. With Fifty-seven Illustrations and a Frontispiece in colour. Cloth, foolscap 4to, 10s. 6d. net. "A really charming book."--_Pall Mall Gazette._ "A godsend to collectors of antique needlework."--Sir James Yoxall, M.P., in _London Opinion_. "The author treats the subject in a fresh and stimulating manner, making the whole book thoroughly enjoyable and instructive reading, and consequently this book, coming as it does at an opportune moment, when art needlework shows such healthy signs of revival, should prove of great interest to collectors and needleworkers. The book is replete with a splendid selection of plates from original pieces in the possession of many eminent collectors."--_Art Chronicle._ "A delightful book on a delightful theme, valuable alike to the collector, the artist-craftsman (or woman), and the womanly woman in the new or old-fashioned sense of the term."--_Sunday Chronicle._ "To the lay reader who has never handled needle or bobbin; to the general reader who reads for enjoyment and has in consequence some nodding acquaintance with Queens like Elizabeth, Mary, known as bloody, and the other Mary who is not known at all; to this general reader such a work as Miss Jourdain's may afford a good deal of the leisurely enjoyment that is sought in books. He will make the acquaintance of Queen Elizabeth's petticoat, of the bed hangings that concealed or decorated the slumbers of the one Mary or the other."--Miss Violet Hunt in the _Daily Chronicle_. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., Limited 
44603	----	Transcriber's note: Minor spelling and punctuation inconsistencies have been harmonized. Italic text has been marked with _underscores_. Obvious typos have been corrected. COMPANION VOLUME BY THE SAME AUTHOR CHATS ON OLD FURNITURE _Illustrated by 72 Full-page Plates._ CONTENTS CHAPTER I. THE RENAISSANCE ON THE CONTINENT II. THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE III. STUART OR JACOBEAN (Early Seventeenth Century) IV. STUART OR JACOBEAN (Late Seventeenth Century) V. QUEEN ANNE AND EARLY GEORGIAN STYLES VI. FRENCH FURNITURE: THE PERIOD OF LOUIS XIV. VII. FRENCH FURNITURE: THE PERIOD OF LOUIS XV. VIII. FRENCH FURNITURE: THE PERIOD OF LOUIS XVI. IX. FRENCH FURNITURE: THE FIRST EMPIRE STYLE X. CHIPPENDALE AND HIS STYLE XI. ADAM, HEPPLEWHITE, AND SHERATON STYLES XII. HINTS TO COLLECTORS CHATS ON COTTAGE AND FARMHOUSE FURNITURE BOOKS FOR COLLECTORS _With Coloured Frontispieces and many Illustrations._ _Large Crown 8vo, cloth._ CHATS ON ENGLISH CHINA. By ARTHUR HAYDEN. CHATS ON OLD FURNITURE. By ARTHUR HAYDEN. CHATS ON OLD PRINTS. By ARTHUR HAYDEN. CHATS ON COSTUME. By G. WOOLLISCROFT RHEAD. CHATS ON OLD LACE AND NEEDLEWORK. By E. L. LOWES. CHATS ON ORIENTAL CHINA. By J. F. BLACKER. CHATS ON MINIATURES. By J. J. FOSTER. CHATS ON ENGLISH EARTHENWARE. By ARTHUR HAYDEN. (Companion Volume to "Chats on English China.") CHATS ON AUTOGRAPHS. By A. M. BROADLEY. CHATS ON OLD PEWTER. By H. J. L. J. MASSÉ, M.A. CHATS ON POSTAGE STAMPS. By FRED J. MELVILLE. CHATS ON OLD JEWELLERY AND TRINKETS. By MACIVER PERCIVAL. CHATS ON COTTAGE AND FARMHOUSE FURNITURE. By ARTHUR HAYDEN. (Companion Volume to "Chats on Old Furniture.") LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN. NEW YORK: F. A. STOKES COMPANY. [Illustration: SIDEBOARD OF CARVED OAK. ENGLISH, SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. (_In the Victoria and Albert Museum._) _Frontispiece._] CHATS ON COTTAGE AND FARMHOUSE FURNITURE BY ARTHUR HAYDEN AUTHOR OF "CHATS ON OLD FURNITURE," ETC. WITH A CHAPTER ON OLD ENGLISH CHINTZES BY HUGH PHILLIPS AND SEVENTY-THREE FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS NEW YORK FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY PUBLISHERS (_All rights reserved._) TO MY OLD FRIEND FREDERIC ARUP I DEDICATE THIS VOLUME IN MEMORY OF A HAPPY LABOUR OF LOVE COMPLETED PREFACE The number of works dealing with old English furniture has grown rapidly during the last ten years. Not only has the subject been broadly treated from the historic or from the collector's point of view, but latterly everything has been scientifically reduced into departments of knowledge, and individual periods have received detailed treatment at the hands of specialists. Museums and well-known collections, noblemen's seats and country houses have furnished photographs of the finest examples, and these, now well-known, pieces have appeared again and again as illustrations to volumes by various hands. It is obviously essential in the study of the history and evolution of furniture-making in this country that superlative specimens be selected as ideal types for the student of design or for the collector, but such pieces must always be beyond the means of the average collector. The present volume has been written for that large class of collectors, who, while appreciating the beauty and the subtlety of great masterpieces of English furniture, have not long enough purses to pay the prices such examples bring after fierce competition in the auction-room. The field of minor work affords peculiar pleasure and demands especial study. The character of the cottage and farmhouse furniture is as sturdy and independent as that of the persons for whom it was made. For three centuries unknown cabinet-makers in towns and in villages produced work unaffected by any foreign influences. Linen-chests, bacon-cupboards, Bible-boxes, gate tables, and other tables, dressers, and chairs possess particular styles of treatment in different districts. The eighteenth-century cabinet-makers scattered up and down the three kingdoms and in America found in Chippendale's "Director" a design-book which stimulated them to produce furniture of compelling interest to the collector. The examples of such work illustrated in this volume have been taken from a wide area and are such as may come under the hand of the diligent collector in various parts of the country. In view of the increased love of collecting homely furniture suitable for modern use, it is my hope that this book may find a ready welcome, especially nowadays, when so many of the picturesque architectural details of old homesteads are being reproduced in the garden suburbs of great cities. It is possible that the authorities of local museums may find in this class of furniture a field for special research, as undoubtedly specimens of local work should be secured for permanent exhibition before they are dispersed far and wide and their identity with particular districts lost for ever. In regard to the scientific study of farmhouse and cottage furniture, the ideal arrangement is that followed at Skansen, Stockholm, and at Lyngby, near Copenhagen. In the former a series of buildings have been erected in the open air, in connection with the Northern Museum, gathered from every part of Sweden, retaining their exterior character and fitted with the furniture of their former occupants. It was the desire of the founder, Dr. Hazelius, to present an epitome of the national life. Similarly at Lyngby, an adjunct of the _Dansk Folkemuseum_ at Copenhagen, the life-work of Hr. Olsen has been given to gathering together and re-erecting a large number of old cottages and farmhouses from various districts in Denmark, from Iceland, the Faroe Islands, and from Norway and Sweden. These have their obsolete agricultural implements, and old methods of fencing and quaint styles of storage. The furniture stands in these specimen homes exactly as if they were occupied. It is a remarkable open-air museum, and the idea is worthy of serious consideration in this country. Old cottages and farmhouses are fast disappearing, and the preservation of these beauties of village and country life should appeal to all lovers of national monuments.[1] [1] Those interested in the method pursued in Sweden and Denmark and the grave necessity for speedy measures to preserve our national cottages and farmhouses from effacement will find illuminating articles on the subject from the pen of "Home Counties" in the _World's Work_, August, October, and November, 1910, and in the American _Educational Review_, February, 1911, in an article by Lucy M. Salmon. "Old West Surrey," by Gertrude Jekyll (Longmans & Co.), 1904, contains a wealth of suggestive material relating to cottage furniture and articles of daily use of old-style country life now passing away. In connexion with farmhouse furniture, old chintzes is a subject never before written upon. A chapter in this volume is contributed by Mr. Hugh Phillips, whose special studies concerning this little known field enable him to present much valuable information which has never before been in print, together with illustrations of chintzes actually taken from authentic examples of old furniture. A brief survey is made of miscellaneous articles associated with cottage and farmhouse furniture. Some specimens of Sussex firebacks are illustrated, together with fenders, firedogs, pot-hooks, candle-holders, and brass and copper candlesticks. The illustrations have been selected in order to convey a broad outline of the subject. My especial thanks are due to Messrs. Phillips, of the Manor House, Hitchin, for placing at my disposal the practical experience of many years' collecting in various parts of the country, and by enriching the volume with illustrations of many fine examples of great importance and rarity never before photographed. To Messrs. A. B. Daniell & Sons I am indebted for photographs of specimens in their galleries. In presenting this volume it is my intention that it should be a companion volume to my "Chats on Old Furniture," which records the history and evolution of the finer styles of English furniture, showing the various foreign influences on English craftsmen who made furniture for the wealthy classes. ARTHUR HAYDEN. CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE INTRODUCTORY NOTE 25 The minor collector--The originality of the village cabinet-maker--His freedom from foreign influences--The traditional character of his work--Difficult to establish dates to cottage and farmhouse furniture--Oak the chief wood employed--Beech, elm, and ash used in lieu of mahogany and satinwood--Village craftsmanship not debased by early-Victorian art--Its obliteration in the age of factory-made furniture--The conservation of old farmhouses with their furniture in Sweden and in Denmark--The need for the preservation and exhibition of old cottages and farmhouses in Great Britain. CHAPTER II SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY STYLES 43 Typical Jacobean furniture--Solidity of English joiners' work--Oak general in its use--The oak forests of England--Sturdy independence of country furniture--Chests of drawers--The slow assimilation of foreign styles--The changing habits of the people. CHAPTER III THE GATE-LEG TABLE 83 Its early form--Transitional and experimental stages--Its establishment as a permanent popular type--The gate-leg table in the Jacobean period--Walnut and mahogany varieties--Its utility and beauty contribute to its long survival--Its adoption in modern days. CHAPTER IV THE FARMHOUSE DRESSER 113 The days of the late Stuarts--Its early table form with drawers--The decorated type with shelves--William and Mary style with double cupboards--The Queen Anne cabriole leg--Mid-eighteenth-century types. CHAPTER V THE BIBLE-BOX, THE CRADLE, THE SPINNING-WHEEL, AND THE BACON-CUPBOARD 137 The Puritan days of the seventeenth century--The Protestant Bible in every home--The variety of carving found in Bible-boxes--The Jacobean cradle and its forms--The spinning-wheel--The bacon-cupboard. CHAPTER VI EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY STYLES 155 The advent of the cabriole leg--The so-called Queen Anne style--The survival of oak in the provinces--The influence of walnut on cabinet-making--The early-Georgian types--Chippendale and his contemporaries. CHAPTER VII THE EVOLUTION OF THE CHAIR 189 Early days--The typical Jacobean oak chair--The evolution of the stretcher--The chair-back and its development--Transition between Jacobean and William and Mary forms--Farmhouse styles contemporary with the cane-back chair--The Queen Anne splat--Country Chippendale, Hepplewhite, and Sheraton--The grandfather chair--Ladder-back types--The spindle-back chair--Corner chairs. CHAPTER VIII THE WINDSOR CHAIR 243 Early types--The stick legs without stretcher--The tavern chair--Eighteenth-century pleasure gardens--The rail-back variety--Chippendale style Windsor chairs--The survival of the Windsor chair. CHAPTER IX LOCAL TYPES 265 Welsh carving--Scottish types--Lancashire dressers, wardrobes, and chairs--Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Cambridge, and Essex tables--Isle of Man tables. CHAPTER X MISCELLANEOUS IRONWORK, ETC. 285 The rushlight-holder--The dipper--The chimney crane--The Scottish crusie--Firedogs--The warming-pan--Sussex firebacks--Grandfather clocks. CHAPTER XI OLD ENGLISH CHINTZES. (By Hugh Phillips) 315 The charm of old English chintz--Huguenot cloth-printers settle in England--Jacob Stampe at the sign of the Calico Printer--The Queen Anne period--The Chippendale period--The age of machinery. INDEX 343 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS SIDEBOARD OF CARVED OAK (ENGLISH, SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY) _Frontispiece_ CHAPTER I--INTRODUCTORY NOTE PAGE CHESTS (SIXTEENTH CENTURY) 29 ELIZABETHAN CHAIR 35 CHEST (SEVENTEENTH CENTURY) 35 INTERIOR OF FARMHOUSE PARLOUR 39 INTERIOR OF COTTAGE 39 CHAPTER II MONK'S BENCH 53 OAK CHEST WITH DRAWERS UNDERNEATH 53 JOINT STOOLS 57 OAK TABLE 57 CHEST (RESTORATION PERIOD) 63 EARLY OAK TABLE (MIDDLE SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY) 63 SMALL OAK TABLE (_c._ 1680) 65 JACOBEAN CHEST OF DRAWERS (_c._ 1660) 65 CHESTS OF DRAWERS 69 CHEST OF DRAWERS (CABRIOLE FEET) 73 WILLIAM AND MARY TABLE (_c._ 1670) 73 CHILDREN'S STOOLS 77 RARE BEDSTEAD (_c._ 1700) 77 CHAPTER III TRIANGULAR GATE TABLE 87 OAK SIDE-TABLE 87 SMALL GATE TABLE (VERY EARLY TYPE) 91 GATE TABLE (MIDDLE SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY) 91 RARE TABLE WITH DOUBLE GATES 93 RARE TABLE WITH DOUBLE GATES AND ONLY ONE FLAP 93 GATE-LEG TABLE (RESTORATION PERIOD) 97 GATE-LEG TABLE (YORKSHIRE TYPE) 97 GATE-LEG TABLE WITH SIX LEGS ("BARLEY-SUGAR" TURNING) 99 GATE-LEG TABLE (BALL TURNING) 99 COLLAPSIBLE TABLE WITH RARE =X= STRETCHER 101 PRIMITIVE GATE-LEG TABLE 101 WILLIAM AND MARY GATE-LEG TABLE 105 SQUARE-TOP GATE-LEG TABLES 105 MAHOGANY GATE-LEG TABLES 109 CHAPTER IV OAK DRESSER (ABOUT 1680) 117 OAK DRESSER (PERIOD OF JAMES II.) 117 OAK DRESSER (EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURY) 119 OAK DRESSER, URN-SHAPED LEGS (RESTORATION PERIOD) 119 MIDDLE-JACOBEAN DRESSER 123 WILLIAM AND MARY OAK DRESSER 127 OAK DRESSER. SQUARE-LEG TYPE 127 UNIQUE DRESSER AND CLOCK COMBINED 131 OAK DRESSER. QUEEN ANNE CABRIOLE LEGS 135 LANCASHIRE OAK DRESSER 135 CHAPTER V BIBLE-BOXES. EARLY EXAMPLES 143 BIBLE-BOXES (MIDDLE SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY AND ORDINARY TYPE) 145 OAK CRADLES 149 YARN-WINDER AND SPINNING-WHEEL 151 BUCKINGHAMSHIRE BOBBINS 151 CHAPTER VI LANCASHIRE OAK SETTLES 159 CUPBOARD WITH DRAWERS 163 QUEEN ANNE BUREAU BOOKCASE 163 OAK TABLES (EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURY) 165 QUEEN ANNE GLASS- OR CHINA-CUPBOARD 171 GEORGIAN CORNER-CUPBOARD 171 OAK TABLES 173 OAK TABLES, WITH TYPICAL COUNTRY CABRIOLE LEGS 177 QUEEN ANNE TEA-TABLE 181 OAK REVOLVING BOOK-STAND 181 COUNTRY CHIPPENDALE TABLE 181 SQUARE MAHOGANY FLAP-TABLE 183 TRIPOD TABLE (_c._ 1760) 183 COUNTRY CHIPPENDALE AND COUNTRY ADAM TABLES 187 CHAPTER VII OAK ARM-CHAIRS (ONE DATED 1650) 191 CHESTNUT ARM-CHAIR AND OAK ARM-CHAIR (_c._ 1690) 191 YORKSHIRE CHAIR (RESTORATION PERIOD) 197 CROMWELLIAN CHAIRS 197 OAK SETTLE (_c._ 1675) 201 OAK ARM-CHAIRS (ONE DATED 1777) 201 OAK CHAIRS (_c._ 1680) IN WALNUT STYLES 205 OAK CHAIRS, SHOWING VARIOUS TRANSITIONAL STAGES 209 CHAIRS IN QUEEN ANNE STYLE 213 COUNTRY CHIPPENDALE AND HEPPLEWHITE CHAIRS 215 OAK SETTEES IN CHIPPENDALE STYLE 219 COUNTRY CHAIRS IN CHIPPENDALE AND SHERATON STYLES 225 GRANDFATHER CHAIR 231 ARM-CHAIR AND BACON-CUPBOARD 231 SPINDLE-BACK AND LADDER-BACK CHAIRS 235 CORNER CHAIRS 237 CHAPTER VIII CHAIRS OF EARLIEST FORM WITH STICK LEGS 247 OLIVER GOLDSMITH'S CHAIR 251 CHAIRS WITH FIDDLE-SPLAT AND CABRIOLE LEGS 255 CHIPPENDALE AND HEPPLEWHITE WINDSOR CHAIRS 257 SHERATON STYLE WINDSOR CHAIRS 261 CHAPTER IX CHEST, DATED 1636 (WELSH) 269 CUPBOARD, DATED 1710 (WELSH) 269 ELM WARDROBE (WELSH). OAK DRESSER (LANCASHIRE) 273 FLAP-TOP TABLE (HERTFORDSHIRE TYPE) 275 SPINDLE-BACK CHAIRS (LANCASHIRE) 275 OAK CHEST OF DRAWERS (YORKSHIRE TYPE) 279 LANCASHIRE OAK SETTLE (_c._ 1660) 279 THREE-LEGGED TABLE (ISLE OF MAN) 281 CRICKET TABLES (HERTFORDSHIRE, SOUTH BEDS, CAMBRIDGE, AND ESSEX) 281 CHAPTER X RUSHLIGHT-HOLDERS, SCOTCH CRUSIE, CANDLE-DIPPER, PIPE CLEANER, ETC. 289 QUEEN ANNE POT-HANGER, WITH ORIGINAL GRATE 291 KETTLE TRIVET 291 COUNTRY FIREDOGS AND FIRE-GRATE (EIGHTEENTH CENTURY) 297 SUSSEX IRON FIREBACKS 301 SUSSEX IRON FIREBACKS AND ORIGINAL WOOD PATTERN 303 GRANDFATHER CLOCK AND WARMING-PANS 307 BRASS DIAL OF THIRTY-HOUR CLOCK 309 CHAPTER XI--OLD ENGLISH CHINTZES OLD TRADE CARD SHOWING CALICO PRINTERS AT WORK 319 HUGUENOT PRINTED CHINTZ WITH PORTRAITS 319 HAND-PRINTED CHINTZES. QUEEN ANNE PERIOD AND CHINESE STYLE 323 EXOTIC BIRD AND GOTHIC STYLES (EIGHTEENTH CENTURY) 327 HAND-PRINTED CHINTZ BY R. JONES (OLD FORD) 331 HEPPLEWHITE PERIOD AND VICTORIAN PERIOD DESIGNS 335 VICTORIAN CHINTZ (IN THE COLLECTION OF MRS. COBDEN UNWIN) 339 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY NOTE CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY NOTE The minor collector--The originality of the village cabinet-maker--His freedom from foreign influences--The traditional character of his work--Difficulty to establish dates to cottage and farmhouse furniture--Oak the chief wood employed--Beech, elm, and ash used in lieu of mahogany and satinwood--Village craftsmanship not debased by early Victorian art--Its obliteration in the age of factory-made furniture--The conservation of old farmhouses with their furniture in Sweden and in Denmark--The need for the preservation and exhibition of old cottages and farmhouses in Great Britain. In regard to launching another volume on the market dealing with old furniture, a word of explanation is desirable, for nowadays of making books there is no end, and much study is a weariness to the collector. In the present volume attention has been especially given to that class of furniture known as Cottage or Farmhouse. There is no volume dealing with this phase of collecting. Prices for old furniture of the finest quality have gone up by leaps and bounds, and for those not possessed of ample means the collection of superlative styles is at an end. Singularly enough, the most native furniture and that most typically racy of the soil has not hitherto attracted the attention of wealthy collectors. The plutocrats who buy only the finest creations of Chippendale, who have immediate private information when an exquisitely designed Sheraton piece is found, who amass a mighty hoard of gilt Stuart furniture, or who boast of an unrivalled collection of Elizabethan oak, do not touch the minor furniture made during a period of three hundred years for the common people. The finest classes of English furniture made by skilful craftsmen for wealthy patrons must always be beyond the range of the minor collector. Every year brings keener zest among those interested in furniture of a bygone day, and it is therefore increasingly difficult for persons of taste and judgment who cannot afford high prices to satisfy their longings. It is obvious that specimens of massive appearance finely carved in oak of the Tudor age, or of elegantly turned work in walnut of Jacobean days, must be readily recognised as valuable. Sumptuous furniture tells its own story. It is unlikely nowadays that such wonderful "finds," concerning which imaginative writers are always telling us, will occur again--except on paper. Popular enthusiasm has been awakened, and more often than not the possessor of some mediocre piece of furniture or china attaches a value to it which is absurd. The publication of prices realised at auction has whetted the cupidity of would-be sellers who convert early nineteenth-century chairs by a nod of the head into "Queen Anne," and who aver with equal veracity that ordinary blue transfer printed ware has "been in the family a hundred years." [Illustration: CHEST. MIDDLE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. Gothic carving. Solid wood ends, forming feet. Made from six boards; with hand-forged nails and large lock, characteristic of Gothic chests.] [Illustration: CHEST. SIXTEENTH CENTURY. Lozenge panels, disc turning, and Gothic brackets (rare). (_By the courtesy of Mr. F. W. Phillips, Hitchin._)] Cottage and farmhouse furniture may be said to be in somewhat parallel case to English earthenware. A quarter of a century ago, or even ten years ago, collectors in general confined their attention mainly to porcelain. The rage was for Worcester, Chelsea, Derby, or Bow. With the exception of Wedgwood and Turner, the Staffordshire potters had not found favour with the fashionable collector. Nowadays Toft dishes, Staffordshire figures by Enoch Wood, vases by Neale and Palmer, and the entire school of lustre ware, have received attention from the specialist, and scientific classification has brought prices within measurable distance of those paid for porcelain. What earthenware is to porcelain, so cottage and farmhouse furniture are to the elaborate styles made for the use of the richer classes. The French insipidities and rococo ornament of Chelsea and Derby and the oriental echoes of Worcester and of Bow are as little typical of national eighteenth-century sentiment as the ribbon-back chair and the Chinese fretwork of Chippendale or the satinwood elegances of Sheraton. To Staffordshire and to local potteries scattered all over the country from Sunderland to Bristol, from Lambeth to Nottingham, from Liverpool to Rye, one instinctively turns for real individuality and native tradition. Similarly farmhouse furniture exhibits the work of the local cabinet-maker in various districts, strongly marked by an adherence to traditional forms and intensely insular in its disregard of prevailing fashions. It is as English as the leather black-jack and the home-brewed ale. Contemporaneous with the great cabinet-makers who drew their inspiration from foreign sources--from Italy, from France, from Holland, and from Spain--small jobbing cabinet-makers in every village and town had their patrons, and when not making wagons or farm implements, produced furniture for everyday use. As may readily be supposed, there is in these results a blind naïveté which characterises a design handed down from generation to generation. This is one of the surprising features of the village cabinet-maker's work--its curious anachronism. The sublime indifference to passing fashions is astonishingly delightful to the student and to the collector. There is nothing more uncertain than to attempt with exactitude to place a date upon cottage or farmhouse furniture. The bacon-cupboard, the linen-chest, the gate-table, the ladder-back chair and the windsor chair, were made through successive generations down to fifty years ago without departing from the original pattern of the Charles I. or the Queen Anne period. Oak chests are found carved with the Gothic linen-fold pattern. They might be of the sixteenth century except for the fact that dates of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century are carved upon them. Whole districts have retained similar styles for centuries, and the fondness for clearly defined types is almost as pronounced as that of the Asiatic rug-weaver, who makes the same patterns as his remote ancestors sold to the ancient Greeks. The village cabinet-maker's work knows no sequence of ages of oak, walnut, mahogany, and satinwood. His wood is from his native trees. His chairs come straight from the hedgerows. His history can be spanned in one long age of oak, intermingled here and there with elm and yew-tree and beech. The early days of primitive work go back to the marked class distinction between gentles and simples, and the end came only in the last decades of the nineteenth century, when the village craftsman was obliterated by the rapid advance of factory and machine made furniture. It may at first be assumed by the beginner that cottage and farmhouse furniture is throughout a weak and feeble imitation of finer pieces. But this is not so. The craftsmen who made this class of furniture formed for themselves special types which were never made by the London cabinet-makers. For instance, the Jacobean gate-table, the Lancashire wardrobe, the dresser, and the windsor chair, have styles peculiarly their own. In many of the specimens found it will be seen that the village cabinet-maker displayed very fine workmanship, and there are clever touches and delightful mannerisms which make such pieces of interest to the collector. In early days of the villeins, furniture was limited to a stool, a table, and perhaps a chest. Nor was the use of much furniture at the farm or in the cottage a feature in Tudor and early Stuart days. Gorgeously carved oak and richly turned walnut filled the mansions of the wealthy, but one does not find its simpler counterpart made for cottages till nearly 1660. The few pieces essential to every dwelling-house may be placed not earlier than the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century--the chest, the table, the form, and the Protestant Bible-box. Chests with scratched Gothic mouldings, tables of the trestle type as used to-day, forms of the most simple construction, exist, and may be said to belong to the sixteenth century. Bible-boxes became common during the early seventeenth century, and without change in their style were made till the late eighteenth century. In mid-seventeenth-century days the well-known gate-table was introduced. Of early pieces we illustrate a few examples, though in connection with farmhouse and cottage, the early days afford a poor field, as the furniture of those days now remaining was mostly made for great families. The two sixteenth-century chests illustrated (p. 29) are interesting as showing the early styles. The upper photograph is of a middle sixteenth-century chest, with Gothic carving and solid wood ends forming feet. This type of chest is made from six boards. The hand-forged nails show the rough joinery, and the large lock is characteristic of such Gothic chests. The lower chest is also of the sixteenth century. It has lozenge panels, and is further ornamented by disc turning. The Gothic brackets at the base are rare, and it is an interesting example. [Illustration: ELIZABETHAN CHAIR. This is of Scandinavian origin, and was known in England before the Roman Conquest, being shown in mediæval MSS. Such designs survived the Gothic styles. (_By the courtesy of Messrs. Phillips, Hitchin._)] [Illustration: CHEST. SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. Panels with early scratched mouldings (_i.e._, not mitred). Mitreing came into general use about 1600.] That the chest remained in somewhat primitive form is shown by the illustration of a seventeenth-century specimen (p. 35). It will be observed that the panels have early scratched mouldings, that is to say they are not mitred. The fashion of mitreing in cabinet-work came into general use about the year 1600, but minor examples of country furniture often possess scratched moulding at a much later date. On the same page is an Elizabethan chair. This type is of exceptional interest. It has a long and proud history. They are, according to Mr. Percy Macquoid, "of Byzantine origin; their pattern was introduced by the Varangian Guard into Scandinavia, and from there doubtless brought to England by the Normans. They continued to be made until the end of the sixteenth century." These turned chairs are interesting as having spindles, which came into use at a much later period in the spindle-back chair. With the growth of prosperity and the increased use of domestic comforts, cottage furniture becomes a wider subject. Carved oak bedsteads, simple four-posters, bacon-cupboards, linen-chests became more common. In eighteenth-century days there was quite an outburst of enthusiasm, and the small cabinet-maker gained knowledge of his craft and became ambitious. On the promulgation of Chippendale's designs he made copies in elm and oak and beech for village patrons and essayed to follow Hepplewhite and even Sheraton. But this wave of success was followed by the competitive inroad made by factory-made cabinet-work, and during these last days the local cabinet-maker adhered closer than ever to the early oak examples of his forefathers. The village craft practically came to an end in the fifties, but it was a glorious end, and it is happy that it did not survive to produce bad work of atrocious design. The passing of cottage and farmhouse furniture may be said to be like the disappearance of dialect. The modern spirit has entered into village life, the town newspaper has permeated the country-side and disturbed the old-world repose. The lover of English folk-ways and the simplicity of rural life may echo the line of Wordsworth, "The things that I have seen I now can see no more." In the illustrations of two interiors shown on p. 39 it will be seen how happily placed the furniture becomes when in its old home. The atmosphere of these rural homesteads is at once soothing and restful, and the pieces of furniture had an added dignity. It seems almost sacrilege to tear such relics of bygone days from their ancient resting-place. But the collector is abroad, and few sanctuaries have escaped his assiduous attention. The lower illustration shows the interior of a cottage with its original panelled walls. This cottage actually has Tudor frescoes. [Illustration: INTERIOR OF FARMHOUSE PARLOUR.] [Illustration: INTERIOR OF COTTAGE. With original panelled walls. This cottage has Tudor frescoes.] The study of old farmhouse and cottage furniture has not been pursued in this country in so scientific a manner as in Sweden and in Denmark. The conservation of national heirlooms is a matter which must be speedily dealt with before they become scattered. It is a point which cannot be repeated too often. At Skansen, Stockholm, old buildings have, under State supervision, been re-erected, and with their furniture they afford a practical illustration of the particular type of life of the district of their origin. At Lyngby, near Copenhagen, a series of farmhouses similarly illustrate old types of homesteads from various localities in Denmark, and from Iceland and the Faroe Islands. By such a systematic and permanent record of farm and cottage life and the everyday art of the people it is possible to impart vitality to the study of the subject. The English method of museum arrangement in dry-as-dust manner, with rows of furniture and cases of china, is a valley of dry bones compared with such a fresh and vigorous handling and method of exposition as is followed in Scandinavia. If old English furniture is worth the preservation for the benefit of students of craftsmanship or as a relic of bygone customs, there is undoubted room for due consideration of the best means of exhibiting it. A series of representative farmhouses could be re-erected at some convenient spot. There are many parks around London and other great cities which would be benefited by such picturesque buildings. Before it is too late, and many of these beautiful structures have been destroyed to make room for modern improvements, and village life has become absorbed by the growing towns, it should be possible to step in and preserve some of the most typical examples for the enjoyment of the nation. The real interest shown by the public in out-of-door object-lessons of this nature is indicated by the great crowds at Exhibitions at Earl's Court and the like, which flocked to Tudor houses replete with old furniture, and villages transplanted in lath and plaster to simulate the real thing, which seemingly has been neglected from an educational point of view. The mountain farms and the homesteads of the men of the dales, fen farms, and stone cottages from the Cotswolds, half-timbered farms from Surrey, from Cheshire, and from Hampshire, dating back to early Stuart days--are not these worthy of preservation? In the Welsh hills, and nestling in the dips of the Grampians and the Cheviots, from Wessex to Northumbria, from the Border country to the extremity of Cornwall, from East Anglia to the Lakes, are treasures upon which the ruthless hand of destruction must shortly fall. Or far afield in Harris and in Skye, or remote Connemara, there are types which should find a permanent abiding place as national records of the homes of the men of the island kingdom. This should not be an impossible nor unthinkable problem to solve before such are allowed to pass away. The intense value of such a faithful record is worthy of careful consideration by the authorities, either as a national undertaking or under the auspices of one of the learned societies, such as the Society of Antiquaries, or the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings and Monuments, interested in the safeguarding of the national heritage bequeathed us by our forefathers. CHAPTER II SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY STYLES CHRONOLOGY JAMES I. (1603-25) =1606= Second colonisation of Virginia begun; Raleigh's first colony in Virginia was founded in 1585. =1611= The colonisation of Ulster begun. Publication of the _Authorised version_ of the _Bible_. =1620= The sailing of the _Mayflower_ and the foundation of New England by the Puritans. CHARLES I. (1625-49) =1630= John Winthrop and a number of Puritans settle in Massachusetts. =1633= Reclamation of forest lands. =1634= Wentworth introduces flax cultivation into Ireland. =1635= Taxes for Ship Money levied on inland counties. =1637= John Hampden, a country gentleman, refuses to pay Ship Money. CIVIL WAR (1642-49) =1642= Battle of Edgehill. Formation of Eastern Association. Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Cambridge, and Hertford unite for purpose of defence against the Royalists. =1643= Battles of Reading, Grantham, Stratton, Chalgrove Field, Adwalton Moor (near Bradford), Lansdown, Roundway Down, Bristol, Gloucester, Newbury, Winceby, Hull. =1644= Battles of Nantwich, Copredy Bridge, Marston Moor, Tippermuir, Lostwithiel, Newbury. =1645= Battles of Inverlochy, Naseby, Langport, Kilsyth, Bristol, Philiphaugh, Rowton Heath. =1648= Battles of Maidstone, Pembroke, Preston, Colchester. THE COMMONWEALTH (1642-58) =1649= Battle of Rathmines. Storming of Drogheda and Wexford by Cromwell. =1650= Montrose defeated at Corbiesdale and executed. Battle of Dunbar. =1651= Battle of Worcester. =1652= War with Holland. =1656= War with Spain. =1657= Destruction of Spanish fleet by Blake. =1658= Battle of the Dunes. Victory of English and French fleet over Spain. INTERREGNUM (1658-60) =1659= Rising in Cheshire for Charles. CHARLES II. (1660-85) =1672= _The stop of the Exchequer._ Charles refuses to repay the principal of the sums he had borrowed and reduces interest from 12 per cent. to 6 per cent. This resulted in great distress, felt in various parts of the country. JAMES II. (1685-88) =1685= Insurrection of Argyll in Scotland. Monmouth rising in West of England. Revocation of Edict of Nantes. The expulsion of a large number of French Protestant artisans. Settlement of skilled silk-weavers and others in England. WILLIAM III. AND MARY (1689-94) WILLIAM III. (1689-1702) =1689= Siege of Londonderry. =1690= Battle of the Boyne. William defeats James, who flees to France. =1691= Capitulation of Limerick; 10,000 Irish soldiers and officers joined the service of the French King. =1692= Battle of La Hogue, French fleet destroyed. CHAPTER II SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY STYLES Typical Jacobean furniture--Solidity of English joiners' work--Oak general in its use--The oak forests of England--Sturdy independence of country furniture--Chests of drawers--The slow assimilation of foreign styles--The changing habits of the people. To the lover of old oak, varied in character and essentially English in its practical realisation of the exact needs of its users, the seventeenth century provides an exceptionally fine field. The chairs, the tables, the dower-chests and the four-post bedsteads of the farmhouse were sturdy reflections of sumptuous furniture made for the nobility and gentry in Jacobean and Elizabethan times. The designs may have been suggested by finer and early models, but the balance, the sense of proportion, and the carving, were the result of the village carpenter's own individual ideas as to the requirements of the furniture for use in the farmhouse. Obviously strength and stability were important factors, and ornament, as such, took a subsidiary place in his scheme. But, although coarse and possessing a leaning towards the unwieldy, and often massive without the accompanying grandeur of the highly-trained craftsman's work, there is a breadth of treatment in such pieces which is at once recognisable. They were made for use and no little thought was bestowed on their lines, and, rightly appreciated, they possess a considerable beauty. There is nothing finicking about this seventeenth-century farmhouse furniture. There is no meaningless ornament. Produced in conditions suitable for quiet and restrained craftsmanship, contemplative cabinet-makers began to evolve styles that are far removed from the average design of furniture made to-day under more pretentious surroundings. The gate table, with its long history and its amplification of structure and ornament, to which a separate chapter is devoted (Chapter III), is a case in point. It was extensively used in inns and in farmhouses and found itself in set definite types spread over a wide area from one end of the country to the other. Its practicability caught the taste of lovers of utility. Its added gracefulness of form, in combination with its adaptability to modern needs, has recaptured the fancy of housewives to-day. It is the happy survival of a beautiful and useful piece of ingenious cabinet-work. To-day one finds unexpectedly a London fashion lingering in the provinces years afterwards. A stray air from a light opera or some catch-phrase of town slang is gaily bandied about as current coin in bucolic jest long after its circulation in the metropolis has ceased. The fashions in provincial furniture moved as slowly. Half a century after certain styles were the vogue they crept imperceptibly into country use. In speech and song the transplantation is more rapid, but in craftsmanship, the studied work of men's hands, the use of novelty is against the grain of the conservative mind of the country cabinet-maker. Therefore throughout the entire field of this minor furniture it must be borne in mind that it is quite usual to find examples of one century reflecting the glories of the period long since gone. =Solidity of English Joiners' Work.=--The love of old country furniture of the seventeenth century is hardly an acquired taste. Old oak is at once a jarring note in a Sheraton drawing-room with delicate colour scheme of dainty wallpaper and satin coverings. But as a general rule, when it is first seen in its proper environment, in an old-world farmhouse with panelled walls, and mullioned windows, set squarely on an oak floor and beneath blackened oak beams ripe with age, it wins immediate recognition as representative of a fine period of furniture. It is admitted by experts, and it is the proud boast of possessors of old oak, that the joiner's work of this style--the seventeenth century at its best--stands unequalled for its solidity and sound practical adhesion to fixed principles governing sturdy furniture fashioned for hard and continued usage. Of course, there were no screws used in those days, and little glue. The joints dovetailed into each other with great exactness and were fastened by the wooden pins so often visible in old examples. The modern copyist has a fine regard for these wooden pegs. He knows that his clients set store by them, and he accordingly sees to it that they are well in evidence in his replicas. But there is yet a distinction which may be noticed between his pegs and the originals. His are accurately round, turned by machinery to fit an equally circular machine-turned hole. They tell their own story instantly to a trained eye, to say nothing of the piece of furniture as a whole, which always has little conflicting touches to denote its modernity. As an instance of the form of the sixteenth century continuing in use until mid-seventeenth-century days the illustration of an oak table (p. 63) brings out this point. The heavy baluster-like legs, only just removed from the earlier bulbous types, and the massive treatment belong to the days of James I., and yet such pieces really were made in Cromwellian days. The rude simplicity of much of the farmhouse furniture is indicated by the Monk's Bench illustrated (p. 53). The back is convertible into a table top. The early plainness of style for so late a piece as 1650 is particularly noteworthy. This specimen is interesting by reason of its exceptionally large back. On the same page is illustrated a chest with two drawers underneath. This form is termed a "Mule Chest," and is the earliest form of the chest of drawers. These Cromwellian chests with drawers continued to be made in the country for a hundred years, but in more fashionable circles they soon developed into the well-known Jacobean chest of drawers, the prototype of the form in use to-day. As an instance of this lingering of fashion the chest illustrated is dated 1701, quite fifty years after its first appearance as a new style. [Illustration: MONK'S BENCH. _C._ 1650. With back convertible into table top. Exceptionally large back. (Note early plainness of style.) (_By courtesy of Messrs. A. B. Daniell & Sons._)] [Illustration: OAK CHEST WITH DRAWERS UNDERNEATH. Termed a "Mule Chest." The earliest form of chest of drawers. This piece in style is Middle Seventeenth Century, but is dated 1701.] =Oak General in its Use.=--The oak as a wood was in general use both in the furniture of the richer classes and in the farmhouse furniture of seventeenth-century days and earlier. Inlaid work is unknown in furniture of this type. It was sparingly used in pieces of more important origin. The room shown at the Victoria and Albert Museum from Sizergh Castle has inlays of holly and bog oak. And the suite of furniture at Hardwicke Hall made for Bess of Hardwicke was made by English workmen who had been in Italy, the same persons who produced similar work at Longleat. Small panels with rough inlaid work are not uncommon in the seventeenth century in chests, bedsteads, and drawers. But the prevailing types of oak without the added inlays of other woods were rigidly adhered to in cabinet-makers' work for the farmhouse. The great oak forests, such as Sherwood, furnished an abundance of timber for all domestic purposes, and up to the seventeenth century little other wood was used for any structural or artistic purpose. Practically oak may be considered as the national wood. From the _Harry Grâce à Dieu_ of Henry VIII. and the _Golden Hind_ of Drake to the _Victory_ of Nelson, the great ships were of English oak. The magnificent hammer-beam roof of Westminster Hall is of the same wonderful wood. All over the country are scattered buildings timbered with oak beams, from cathedrals and ancient churches to farmhouses and mills. The oak piles of old London Bridge were taken up after six centuries and a half and found to be still sound at the heart. The mass of furniture of nearly three centuries ago has survived owing to the durability of its wood. To this day English oak commands great esteem, although foreign oak has taken its place in the general timber trade, yet there is none which possesses such strong and lasting qualities. It will stand a strain of 1,900 lbs. per square inch transversely to its fibres. =Sturdy Independence of Country Furniture.=--The hardness of the oak as a wood is one of the factors which determined the styles of decoration of the furniture into which it was fashioned. It was not easily capable of intricate carved work, even in the hands of accomplished craftsmen. The fantastic flower and fruit pieces of Grinling Gibbons and other carvers were in lime or chestnut, and the age of walnut, a more pliant and softer wood to work in than oak, was yet to come. The country maker, little versed in the subtleties of cabinet-work, contented himself with a narrow range of types, which lasted over a considerable period. This is especially noticeable in his chairs, and specimens are found of the same form as the middle seventeenth century belonging to the last decade of the eighteenth century. [Illustration: EARLY OAK TABLE. _C._ 1640. Retaining Elizabethan bulbous form of leg and having Cromwellian style feet. Brass handles added later.] [Illustration: JOINT STOOLS. Height, 1 ft. 10-1/2 ins. Height, 1 ft. 8-1/2 ins. Height, 1 ft. 5 ins. (About 1640.) (About 1660.)] The typical sideboard of the seventeenth century only varies slightly in form according to the part of the country from which it comes. The general design is always permanent. A large cupboard below, two smaller ones above, set somewhat back from the front of the lower one, the sides of the upper ones sometimes canted off, leaving two triangular spaces of flat top at the ends of the bottom one. The whole is surmounted by a top shelf, supported by the upper cupboards and two boldly turned pillars. This is usually the design. The decoration is of the simplest, and presents nothing beyond the powers of the village carpenter. The mouldings are simple; there is slight conventional carving, frequently consisting of hollow flutings, and the pillars, boldly turned, are very rarely enriched by any ornament. A careful examination of such pieces is always interesting from a technical point of view. The framing of the panels is seen to be worked out by the plane, but the panels themselves more often than not have been reduced to approximate flatness with an adze. If viewed in a side light the surface is thus slightly varied, showing the differences in the planes of the various facets produced by the adze and giving an effect entirely different from the mechanical smoothing of a surface by the use of a plane. The framing of the front and ends of these sideboards is in detail exactly like the ordinary Jacobean wall panelling or wainscot. The mouldings are all worked on the rails or styles, not mitred and glued on, no mitred mouldings being used except occasionally in the centre panel between the doors. The framing is mortised together and pinned with oak pins. The doors are usually hung on iron strap hinges, and the handles of the doors are of wrought iron. Frequently the doors of the upper cupboards are hung on pivots, not hinges. Such a sideboard belongs to the middle period of the seventeenth century, and is representative of a wide class used in farmhouses. It is easier to follow the various movements in the design of the seventeenth-century table than a century later, when more complex circumstances governed its use. The illustrations on p. 57 give early forms, with some suggestion as to the progression in design. The early oak Table is a curious compound of design. It has retained the Elizabethan bulbous form of leg and has the Cromwellian foot. In date the piece is about 1640. The brass handle has been added later. The Joint Stools on the lower half of the page afford a picture of slowly advancing invention in turned work. The one on the left of the group is the earliest, and is about 1640 in date. Its legs are seen to be of coarser work, roughly turned, but typically early Jacobean in breadth of treatment. The two on the right are about 1660 in date. The left-hand one shows the urn-shaped leg of the strong, broad treatment (as in the Table illustrated p. 63), brought into subjection and exhibiting a gracefulness of form and balance that make furniture of this type so lovable. The smaller stool shows the ball-carving associated with the Restoration period, and found in gate tables. A combination of these styles of turning is shown in the graceful oak Table illustrated p. 65, in date about 1680. =Chests of Drawers.=--The conservative spirit of the minor craftsmen is especially noticeable in the articles of everyday use. The merchant's account ledger with its green back and cross-stitched pattern in vellum strips, still in use, is to be found in the same style in Holbein pictures of the days of the Hanseatic League. Brass and copper candlesticks have a long lineage, and their form is only a slight variant from very early examples. The evolution of ornament is especially interesting; the old stoneware Bellarmine form still remains in the bearded mask at the lip of china jugs at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The two buttons at the back of the coattails continue long after their primary use to loop up the sword-belt has vanished. In America the early carved chests of the Puritan colonists were followed by similar designs contemporary with our own Jacobean style for a period well towards the end of the seventeenth century. The panels on chairs and chests have the same arcaded designs as found in Elizabethan bedsteads and fireplaces. These become gradually crystallised in conventional form, and Lockwood, the American writer on old colonial furniture, has reduced the types coincident with our own Jacobean styles into ten distinct patterns, until the advent of the well-known chests of drawers with geometric raised ornament laid on, which pieces of furniture in Restoration days were set upon a stand. We have shown in the illustration (p. 53) the earliest form of the chest with drawers underneath. The stage transitional between this and the multifarious designs with bevelled panels in geometric design is exemplified by the chest, in date about 1660, illustrated (p. 63), having two drawers and a centre bevelled panel, and with two arcaded panels on each side of this and also arcaded panels at the ends of the chest. This form was rapidly succeeded by the well-known chests of drawers on ball feet or on stand so much appreciated by collectors. We illustrate a sufficient number of pieces to cover the usual styles and to assist the beginner to identify examples coming under his observation. Although it should be noted that as these chests of drawers are so much sought after they are manufactured nowadays by the hundred and out of old wood, so that great care should be exercised in paying big prices for them unless under expert guidance. The specimen appearing on p. 65 is a fine example, in date 1660, and when the ball feet are original, as in this example, the genuineness of the chest of drawers is undoubted. Too often stands or feet are added, and it is exceedingly rare to find that the brass handles are original. Quite an industry is carried on in reproducing old brass escutcheons and handles from rare designs and carefully imparting to them signs of age, so that they may be used in made-up chests of drawers and tables. Of types of stands, the two chests of drawers illustrated p. 69 are fair examples. The upper chest is a curious Jacobean type with sunk panels and having an unusually high stand. There is a suggestion that this has been added later, as the foot is eighteenth-century in character. The lower chest is of the Charles II. type with sunk panels and having the arcaded foot of that period. It will be observed that in addition to the four drawers it has a drawer at the bottom. [Illustration: OAK TABLE. _C._ 1650.] [Illustration: CHEST. ABOUT 1660. With bevelled panels and drawers and arcaded panels and ends. (_By the courtesy of Messrs. Phillips, Hitchin._)] [Illustration: SMALL OAK TABLE. _C._ 1680. Showing two forms of mouldings in legs and stretcher. (_By courtesy of Messrs. A. B. Daniell & Sons._)] [Illustration: JACOBEAN CHEST OF DRAWERS. _C._ 1660. Height, 2 ft. 11-3/4 ins.; depth, 1 ft. 11 ins.; width, 3 ft. 3-1/2 ins. The ball foot, not always present, indicates genuine example.] The treatment of the stand or legs of these chests exercised the ingenuity of various generations of cabinet-makers. In the specimen illustrated p. 69, the eighteenth century is reached. The transition from passing Jacobean styles into those of Queen Anne is clearly seen. The bevelled panels still remain, with added geometric intricacies of design, and a new feature appears in the fluted sides. But the most interesting feature is the cabriole leg, so definitely indicative of the eighteenth century. =The Slow Assimilation of Foreign Styles in Furniture.=--Farmhouse furniture almost eschewed fashion. In seventeenth-century days it pursued the even tenor of its way untrammelled by town influences. England in those days was not traversed by roads that lent themselves to neighbourly communication. A hundred years later Wedgwood found the wretched roads in Staffordshire, where waggons sunk axle-deep in ruts and pits, a hindrance to his business, and William Cobbett in his _Rural Rides_ leaves a record of Surrey woefully primitive at Hindhead, with dangerous hills and bogs, where the "horses took the lead and crept down, partly upon their feet and partly upon their hocks." From the days of James I. to those of James II., from the first Stuart Sovereign to the last of that ill-starred house, the country passed through rapid stages of volcanic history. The opening years of the century saw the colonisation of Ulster by the Scots and the English settlers, and the sailing of the _Mayflower_ and the foundation of New England by the Puritans, nine years after the publication of the Authorised version of the Bible. Under Charles I. came the struggle between the despotic power of the Crown and the newly awakened will of the people. Parliamentary right came into conflict with royal prerogative. The smouldering fire burst into flame when John Hampden, a country gentleman, refused to pay Ship Money, which was levied on the inland counties in 1637, and the arrest of five members of Parliament in 1642--Hampden, Pym, Holles, Haselrig, and Strode--precipitated the country into civil war. For seven years a continual series of battles were waged by the contending forces. The Eastern Counties formed themselves into a martial association, and the King set up his standard at Nottingham. From Bristol to Hull and from Nantwich to Newbury fierce engagements tore the country asunder. An Irish army was raised for the King, and the Scots under Leslie crossed the border in the Parliamentarian cause. With the execution of Charles I. came other dangers; the sword was not sheathed, nor had revolution left a contented country-side. Cromwell divided the kingdom into eleven military districts, and under his rule England took her place at the head of the Protestant States in Europe. [Illustration: OAK CHEST OF DRAWERS. Curious Jacobean type, with sunk panels and unusually high stand. This stand is the well-known eighteenth-century foot.] [Illustration: OAK CHEST OF DRAWERS. Charles II. type, with sunk panels and arcaded stand and feet typical of the period.] With the death of the Protector and the restoration of the Stuarts, when Charles II. returned home, came an influx of foreign customs and foreign arts learned by expelled royalists in their enforced sojourn on the Continent. London and the Court instantly became the centre of voluptuous fashion. The pages of Pepys's _Diary_ afford instructive pictures of the last quarter of the century at Whitehall with the Merry Monarch exhibited in vivid colours, and more intimate still are the word-portraits cleverly etched by the Count de Grammont in his _Memoirs_ of the gay circle at Court. And after Charles came his brother James, nor were civil strife and Court intrigue memories of the past. Restlessness still characterises the closing years of the century. The insurrection of Monmouth in the West of England was followed by the Bloody Assize of Judge Jeffreys. The air is filled with trouble, and blundering statecraft brings fresh disaster, culminating in the ignominious flight of the King. Nor does this complete the changing scenes of the seventeenth century. A new era under William the Dutchman brought new and permanent influences, and religious toleration and constitutional government became firmly rooted as the heritage of the people of this country. It is essential that a rough idea of the period be gained in order to appreciate the kaleidoscopic character of the events that rapidly succeeded each other. The paralysis of the arts during the civil war had not a little influence on the furniture of the period belonging to the class of which we treat in this volume. The wealth of noble and patrician families had been scattered, estates had been confiscated, and sumptuous furniture and appointments pillaged and destroyed, especially when it offended the narrow tastes of the Puritan soldiery. Some of the minor pieces no doubt found their way into humbler homes and served as models for simpler folk. With a dearth of aristocratic patrons there were no new art impulses to stir craftsmen to their highest moods, but in spite of war and disturbances affecting all classes, furniture for common use had to be made, and the ready-found types exercised a continued influence on all the earlier work. In regard to farmhouse furniture the following types represent in the main the seventeenth-century styles: the bedstead, the sideboard or dresser, the table and the chair in its various forms, the Bible-box and the cradle. The Jacobean chest of drawers, a development of the dower-chest, came in mid-seventeenth-century days, and prior to the William and Mary styles. The sideboard, a development of the bacon-cupboard, came into fashion in the middle of the century. It was a reflex of the grander furniture of the manor house and the nobleman's mansion. It is difficult to fix exact dates to Jacobean furniture of this character. As a general rule it is safer to place it at a later date than is the usual custom. [Illustration: OAK CHEST OF DRAWERS. Showing transition to Queen Anne type. Cabriole feet, bevelled panels, and fluted sides.] [Illustration: WILLIAM AND MARY TABLE. _C._ 1670. With finely turned legs and stretcher and scalloped underwork. (_By the courtesy of Messrs. Phillips, Hitchin._)] =The Changing Habits of the People.=--The shifting phases of the restless seventeenth century make it exceedingly difficult, in spite of experts, to decide definitely as to the exact date of furniture. The country being in such an unsettled state obviously influenced the manufacture of domestic furniture. Its natural evolution was broken and the restraint of the Jacobean forms was in the main due to the conditions prevailing in regard to their manufacture. The long list of battles given in the chronological table at the commencement of this chapter is advisedly recorded to show the intense upheaval which was caused by the civil wars which raged from north to south, from east to west, and convulsed any artistic impulses which may have been in process of materialisation. It is obvious the class of Table of the William and Mary period, in date about 1670, illustrated (p. 73), with finely turned legs and stretcher and scalloped underwork, belongs to a period far more advanced in comfort than the days when such a table as that illustrated p. 63 was the ordinary type. By the end of the century the growth of sea power and the astonishing development of trade brought corresponding domestic luxuries. The two children's stools illustrated (p. 77) must have come from a country squire's or wealthy provincial merchant's house. Their upholstered seats emulate the grandeur of finer types. The rare form of oak bedstead illustrated on the same page is a survival of the early type. In date this is about 1700; not too often are such examples found, for enterprising restorers and makers have seized these old Jacobean bedsteads and converted them into so-called Jacobean "sideboards," wherein nothing is old except the wood. It requires some little imagination to conjure up what the daily meals were in the days of the early Stuarts. There was the leather jack, the horn mug, and the long table in the hall where the farmer and his servants ate together. An old black-letter song, entitled "When this old cap was new," in date 1666, in the Roxburgh "Songs and Ballads," has two verses which paint a lively picture:-- "Black-jacks to every man Were fill'd with wine and beer; No pewter pot nor can In those days did appear; Good cheer in a nobleman's house Was counted a seemly show; We wanted not brawn nor souse When this old cap was new. We took not such delight In cups of silver fine; None under the degree of knight In plate drank beer or wine; Now each mechanical man Hath a cupboard of plate for show, Which was a rare thing then When this old cap was new." The "mechanical man" is a delightful touch of the old song-writer. We fear he would have been shocked at the degeneracy of a later day, when in place of the mug that was handed round came the effeminate teacups. The change from ale, at breakfast and dinner and supper, to tea the beverage of the poor, would be a sad awakening from the ideals set up by the rollicking song-writer of Restoration days. But such innovations must needs be closely regarded by the student of furniture. We wish sometimes that historians had spared a few pages from military evolutions and Court intrigues to let us know what the parlours and bedrooms of our ancestors looked like. A rough résumé from Macaulay's "State of England in 1685," wherein he quotes authority by authority, holds a mirror to seventeenth-century life. [Illustration: CHILDREN'S STOOLS, _C._ 1690.] [Illustration: RARE BEDSTEAD. _C._ 1700. Survival of early type.] At Enfield, hardly out of sight of the smoke of the capital, was a region of five-and-twenty miles in circumference, which contained only three houses and scarcely any enclosed fields, where deer wandered free in thousands. Red deer were as common in Gloucestershire and Hampshire as they are now in the Grampians. Queen Anne, travelling to Portsmouth, on one occasion, saw a herd of no less than five hundred. Agriculture was not a greatly known science. The rotation of crops was imperfectly understood. The turnip had just been introduced to this country, but it was not the practice to feed sheep and oxen with this in the winter. They were killed and salted at the beginning of the cold weather, and during several months even the gentry tasted little fresh animal food except game and river fish. In the days of Charles II. it was at the beginning of November that families laid in their stock of salt provisions, then called Martinmas beef. The state of the roads in those days was somewhat barbarous. Ruts were deep, descents precipitous, and the way often difficult to distinguish in the dusk from the unenclosed fen and heath on each side. Pepys and his wife, travelling in their own coach, lost their way between Newbury and Reading.[2] In some parts of Kent and Sussex none but the strongest horses could, in winter, get through the bog in which they sank deep at every step. The coaches were often pulled by oxen.[3] When Prince George of Denmark visited the mansion of Petworth he was six hours travelling nine miles. Throughout the country north of York and west of Exeter goods were carried by long trains of packhorses. [2] _Pepys's Diary_, June 12, 16 8. [3] Postlethwaite's "Dictionary of Roads." The capital was a place far removed from the country. It was seldom that the country squire paid a visit thither. "Towards London and Londoners he felt an aversion that more than once produced important political effects" (Macaulay). Apart from the country gentlemen were the petty proprietors who cultivated their own fields with their own hands and enjoyed a modest competence without affecting to have scutcheons and crests. This great class of yeomanry formed a much more important part of the nation than now. According to the most reliable statistics of the seventeenth century, there were no less than a hundred and sixty thousand proprietors, who with their families made a seventh of the population of those days, and these derived their livelihood from small freehold estates. Such, then, were the chief differences dividing the life of the country from the life of the town. The London merchants had town mansions hardly less inferior to the nobility. Chelsea was a quiet village with a thousand inhabitants, and sportsmen with dog and gun wandered over Marylebone. General Oglethorpe, who died in 1785, used to boast that he had shot a woodcock in what is now Regent Street, in Queen Anne's reign. The days of the Stuarts were not so rosy as writers of romance have chosen to have us believe. At Norwich, the centre of the cloth industry, children of the tender age of six were engaged in labour. At Bristol a labyrinth of narrow lanes, too narrow for cart traffic, was built over vaults. Goods were conveyed across the city in trucks drawn by dogs. Meat was so dear that King, in his "Natural and Political Conclusions," estimates that half the population of the country only ate animal food twice a week, and the other half only once a week or not at all. "Bread such as is now given to the inmates of a workhouse was then seldom seen even on the trencher of a yeoman or a shopkeeper. The majority of the nation lived almost entirely on rye, barley, and oats." The change from these conditions to those we associate with the eighteenth century was not a sudden but a slow one. With the increase of average prosperity came the additional requirements in household furniture. It is impossible now to state accurately what the exact furniture was of the various classes of the community. Many of the seventeenth-century pieces now remaining have been treasured in great houses and belong to a variety which in those days was regarded as sumptuous. Now and again we catch glimpses of the former life of the men and women of those days. Little pieces of conclusive evidence are brought to light which enable safe conclusions to be drawn. But the everyday normal character has too often gone unrecorded. We are left with Court memoirs, diaries of the great, literary proofs of the more scholarly, but the simple annals of the poor are, in the main, unrecorded. In view of this series of queer and remarkable facts strung together to afford the reader a rough and ready picture of those dim days, one comes to believe that much of the ordinary seventeenth-century furniture must be regarded as having belonged to the great yeoman class of the community. With this belief the collector very rightly regards it of sterling worth, as reminiscent of the men from whose sturdy stock has sprung a great race. CHAPTER III THE GATE-LEG TABLE CHAPTER III THE GATE-LEG TABLE Its early form--Transitional and experimental stages--Its establishment as a permanent popular type--The gate-leg table in the Jacobean period--Walnut and mahogany varieties--Its utility and beauty contribute to its long survival--Its adoption in modern days. The gate-leg table is always regarded with veneration by collectors. It has a charm of style and beauty of construction which afford never-ending delight to possessors of old examples. It is an inspired piece of cabinet-work which belongs to the middle of the seventeenth century, and exhibits the supreme effort of the early Jacobean craftsmen to break away from the square massive tables, the lineal descendants of the great bulbous-legged table of the Elizabethan hall. Dining-tables with the device of slides to draw out when occasion required, even in early days became a necessity. It is a note indicating the changing habits of the people. A table was no longer used for one purpose. The large table required a permanent place in a large room. But smaller houses fitted with minor furniture had their limitations of space, and so the ingenuity of a table that would close together and stand against a wall, or could be used as a round table for dining, was a welcome innovation. =Its Early Form.=--The series of illustrations in this chapter afford a fairly comprehensive survey of the progress and differing character of the gate-leg table during the hundred years that it held a place in domestic furniture. It is difficult to say with exactitude which are the earliest forms, or whether the round table without the moving gates was a sort of transitional form prior to the use of the movable legs. It is quite possible that in his attempt to invent something more convenient than the heavy square dining-table the progressive cabinet-maker of the middle seventeenth century did strike the half-way form. But on the other hand it must be admitted that there is the possibility that the gate-leg table came first, and that the types with three legs and half circular tops stand by themselves as later types. On the whole, one is inclined to the belief, especially as it prettily illustrates forms of natural evolution, that the three-legged table with fixed legs and half round top came first. [Illustration: OAK SIDE TABLE. _C._ 1660. Plain style. The precursor of the gate-leg table.] [Illustration: TRIANGULAR GATE-LEG TABLE. _C._ 1640. Fine example. With arcaded spandrils and gate. This is the next stage of development to above table. (_By the courtesy of Messrs. Phillips, Hitchin._)] The two tables illustrated on p. 87 belong to this three-legged type. The upper one is half circular at the top and the three legs are stationary. This particular table is in date about 1660, and although in this instance it is obviously later than other forms we illustrate having gate-legs, yet by the theory we have advanced above, it belongs to a type prior to the use of a gate. The lower one is a fine example, in date about 1640, of a triangular gate-leg table. The top is round, and the illustration shows the gate open at right angles to the stretcher. The arcaded spandrils are an interesting and rare feature. =Transitional Types.=--Not only is the feeling towards the gradual establishment of this new form of table shown in its construction, first with four legs until it developed into a table with twelve legs and double gates, but the styles of ornament used in the turning differ greatly in character. The leg is capable of wide and differing treatment. There is the urn leg, a rare and early type, the ball turned leg, egg-and-reel turned leg, and the straight leg. In regard to the stretcher similar varieties occur. Sometimes it is entirely plain, and when it is decoratively turned it varies from the early survival of the Gothic trestle to the rare cross stretcher of the late collapsible table. In some types of Yorkshire tables the stretchers are splat-form, like a ladder-back chair. The feet differ in no less degree from the usual Jacobean type to the scroll or Spanish foot at a later date. In the early eighteenth century there is the interesting series of Queen Anne flap tables which have gate-legs. Some have the bottom stretcher to the gate-leg. These belong to the walnut period, when a greater vivacity became noticeable in English cabinet work. It is this picturesque and endless stream of designs which appeals to the collector. It is quite worthy of study to follow the difference in the cabinet-work of these gate tables. The long line of craftsmen who fashioned them added here and there not only touches of ornament that were personal, but invented details of construction as improvements to existing forms. A very early type with urn legs and having plain gates is that illustrated p. 91. It is small in size and belongs to the first half of the seventeenth century. The survival of the Gothic trestle feet of an earlier type is noteworthy. The table on the same page has the trestle ends still retained. There is still the single leg at each end, as in the example above. The gates are square and plain and the legs are ball turned, a combination representing an early type. The size of this piece is small and its date is about 1650 or somewhat later. =Its Establishment as a Popular Type.=--The varied improvements and the slightly differing characteristics make it perfectly clear, when examined in detail, that the gate table in various parts of the country had firmly established itself and had won popular approval as a permanent type. In the search for tables of this form, however wide the net is spread by those indefatigable seekers in out-of-the-way places, and by the small army of trade collectors who scour the country for the purpose of unearthing something rare and unique, the story is always the same. In the most remote districts such tables are still found: the growth of the use of this gate-leg form permeated every part of the country. It was copied and recopied, native touches were added, and the old leading lines followed by generation after generation of craftsmen. It had as great a vogue during the long period of its history as the styles of Chippendale chairs had at a later date, when every country cabinet-maker was seized with the desire to produce minor Chippendale in oak or beech or elm. [Illustration: SMALL GATE TABLE. VERY EARLY TYPE. Length, 3 ft.; breadth, 2 ft. 4 ins.; height, 2 ft. 3 ins. Urn legs with plain gates with survival of Gothic trestle feet.] [Illustration: GATE TABLE. MIDDLE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. Early example. Height, 2 ft.; top, 2 ft. 9 ins. × 2 ft. 3 ins. Square gates and turned leg indicate early type. Trestle ends still retained. (_By the courtesy of Messrs. Phillips, Hitchin._)] [Illustration: RARE TABLE. With double gates. Egg and reel turning. Turned stretchers. (Examples such as this are worth £18 to £35 owing to rare form.)] [Illustration: RARE GATE TABLE. With double gates with only one flap and having turned stretchers. Tables with one flap are rare and usually have two gates. {_By the courtesy of Messrs. Phillips, Hitchin._)] =The Jacobean Period.=--Essentially the flower of the popular creations of the Jacobean furniture-designer, the gate table must always stand as reminiscent of the days of Charles I. and Charles II. No picture of this period is considered artistically complete unless there be a gate-leg table with its picturesque lines adding a technical touch of correctness to interiors. The portrait of Herrick, the parson-poet of Devon, imaginative though it be, whenever it appears on canvas or illustrating his lyrics, shows the poet beside a fine gate-leg table. Stage tradition is equally sure on the same point. A company of swaggering cavaliers at an inn is not complete without a group arranged at one of these tables quaffing wine from flagons. Without doubt the finest examples are to be found from the year 1660 to the end of the reign of Charles II. A new impetus had been given to furniture-making in Restoration days. The country had settled down in tranquillity and the domestic arts began again to thrive in natural manner following the earlier motives of the days of Charles I. The recent civil wars had arrested their development, and now they burst forth again with renewed youth. Ripe examples of the best period may be assigned to the last three or four decades of the seventeenth century. These, it should be explained, are in oak. We illustrate (p. 93) a particularly pleasing specimen with double gates which belongs to this finest period. There are, it will be observed, twelve legs, and the stretchers are finely turned with what is known as the egg-and-reel pattern. As a matter of fact pieces such as this, on account of the rare form, bring from £15 to £35, and they are rapidly being gathered into the folds of collectors. Another rare form is shown on the same page. This, too, has double gates, and the stretchers are similarly turned. There is only one flap to this table, and it will be observed that it makes another variation from accepted styles in having a rectangular instead of a circular top. Tables with one flap are always rare, and when found they usually have two gates. It will be seen that there are pleasant surprises in following changing forms all through the period. On p. 97 a table is illustrated with two gates on one stretcher. This in date is about 1660. The table below, on the same page, exhibits florid turning in the legs. The stretchers across the two legs are half way up and are the Yorkshire form of splat stretcher. This type is found as early as 1660 and as late as 1750. The difference in structure is noticeable in two tables shown on p. 99. The one has six legs and the other eight legs. The first has finely turned legs and stretchers in what is familiarly known as the "barley-sugar" pattern. Among its exceptional features are the legs being only six in number, the gates being hinged to stretcher, two legs thus being dispensed with, and the additional bar across the two central stretchers. This is a rare piece and in date is about 1670. The Gate Table on the same page with eight legs is a good example of ball turning. This is a type which survived well into the eighteenth century. [Illustration: GATE TABLE. _C._ 1660. Rare form. Two gates on one stretcher. Length, 3 ft. 10 ins.; width, 3 ft.] [Illustration: GATE TABLE. Exhibiting florid turning and Yorkshire type of splat stretchers. Examples are found as early as 1660 and as late as 1750. Length, 4 ft. 7-1/2 ins.; width, 3 ft. 3-1/2 ins. (_By the courtesy of Messrs. Phillips, Hitchin._)] [Illustration: GATE TABLE. Fine "barley sugar" turned legs and stretchers. Exceptional features: Only six legs (gates hinged to stretcher, two legs thus dispensed with). Additional bar across two central stretchers. Rare example. Date 1670.] [Illustration: GATE TABLE. Good example of ball turning. A type which survived well into the eighteenth century. (_By the courtesy of Messrs. Phillips, Hitchin._)] [Illustration: COLLAPSIBLE TABLE WITH RARE X STRETCHER. _C._ 1660. The top folds over. Fine example. (_In the collection of Lady Mary Holland._)] [Illustration: PRIMITIVE GATE-LEG TABLE. SEVENTEENTH OR EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. Gates at one end. Made by a local carpenter or wheelwright not conversant with turning.] As exhibiting two types as wide asunder as the poles, and yet not far removed in point of time, the two tables illustrated, p. 101, make a curious contrast. The upper one, in date about 1660, is a slender, graceful example, with the unusual =X=-shaped stretcher. It will be seen from the illustration that the two stretchers when closed fit flat with the legs and the top flaps over, thus making the table practically collapsible. The lower Table, of late seventeenth or early eighteenth century, is a somewhat primitive form, with the gates at one end. This has obviously been made by a local carpenter or wheelwright not conversant with turning, as the shaping of the legs is strongly suggestive of the rude fashioning of the shafts of a farm wagon. =Walnut and Mahogany Varieties.=--As the mid-Jacobean period is left behind, and walnut is the chief wood used in ornamental turned work, so the character of the gate table begins to incline towards the technique more suitable to walnut than to oak. The turning, more easily done in the former wood, becomes more intricate. Hence some examples appear which are practically types of the walnut age. But, in general, the old gate-leg table is a survival throughout the William and Mary and Queen Anne periods, wherein country makers clung to the oak form and employed oak still in its manufacture. The William and Mary Gate Table illustrated (p. 105) is constructed with one gate. It is small in size, practically being an ornamental or occasional table. It has a fine character, and the "barley sugar" pattern is deeply turned. Side by side with this is a small square-topped Gate Table with the pillar-leg, denoting a reversion to early type. The stretcher is of the old trestle form. Both these pieces, on account of their small size and well-balanced construction, show that considerable attention was being paid to symmetry. Such specimens can readily be transplanted to more modern surroundings, and yet in some subtle manner harmonise with later furniture. They share this peculiarity with objects of Oriental art of the highest type. Old blue Nankin and old lac cabinets, although anachronisms amid furniture of a later date, possess the property of being in sympathy with their new environment, much in the same manner as an old Persian rug becomes a restful acquisition in a luxurious Western home. Some of the forms are so rare as to be almost unique. It is seldom that so interesting a piece is found as the Table illustrated (p. 105) with the scroll feet in Spanish style. It has only one gate, and the top of the table lifts up, forming a box. The lock is shown at the front in the photograph. The adjacent table has a corrupted form of the Spanish foot, doubled under in cramped fashion like the flapper of a seal. This also has one gate; in date this piece is about 1680. [Illustration: EARLY GATE TABLE. With square top and pillar leg. Stretcher: Old trestle form. Top, 2 ft. 4 ins. × 1 ft. 10 ins. WILLIAM AND MARY GATE TABLE. Fine character deep-turning "barley sugar" pattern with only one gate. Top, 2 ft. 6 ins. × 2 ft. (_By the courtesy of Messrs. A. B. Daniell & Sons._)] [Illustration: GATE TABLE WITH SQUARE TOP. _C._ 1680 Having one gate and corrupted form of carved Spanish foot.] [Illustration: GATE-LEG TABLE. _C._ 1660. With one gate. Top lifts up to form box. The feet are in Spanish style.] The days of mahogany, with Chippendale in his prime and Hepplewhite, Ince and Mayhew, Robert Manwaring, Matthias Lock, William Shearer, and a crowd of others, brought intricate carving in mahogany into intense prominence. This was the golden age of furniture design. An outburst of enthusiasm, following the architectural triumphs of the Brothers Adam, wherein they raised interior decoration to a level as high as that in France, had swept over the country. In spite of the rich profusion of new design being poured out in illustrated volumes and in executed furniture, the old gate-leg table still survived. In form it was the same, but the richness of the new wood was too enticing for the cabinet-maker not to employ. Accordingly we find examples in mahogany. In the Chippendale period =X=-shaped, cluster-leg, gate tables are found, and turning was used in this cluster-leg form. The ripe inventiveness of such a design as the gate-leg table was too evident to escape the adoption by famous makers. When ingenuity of construction was at its zenith the gate-leg was not likely to be discarded in fashionable furniture. On p. 109 two specimens of this period are shown. The upper one is of somewhat unusual type, having a Cupid's bow underframing. It is seen that the Spanish foot has still survived into the eighteenth century. The lower table is again a rare form. It is probably early in date for mahogany, being about 1740. The Spanish foot is employed, but in a coarsened form, unusually inelegant, and suggestive of a golf club. =Its Utility and Beauty.=--It is a natural question that one may ask as to the reason that the gate table had such a prolonged life. It passed through several strong periods of fashionable styles that were overthrown in turn by newer designs. The reason is not far to seek. It survived because the public could not do without it. There must have been a continuous demand, unchecked by the excitements of contemporary substitutes. But apparently there was nothing to take its place, or which could permanently supplant it. Its utility is undoubtedly one of its most marked features. This alone affected its stability as a possession with which the farmer's wife and the cottager would not part. Customs long established in the country were not easily discontinued. Mother, daughter, and granddaughter clung to the old and practical form of table. Nowadays there are families in the shires whom nothing would induce to sell their old gate tables. Partly this is for love of the old home, but mainly is it the common-sense attitude which rebels against the sale of any piece of furniture which is in constant use. Many objects long gone into disuse, but really valuable from an artistic point of view, are readily dispensed with. The cottager imagines that if he disposes of a mere ornament for a sum of money with which he can buy something useful he has effected a good "deal." [Illustration: MAHOGANY GATE TABLE. Unusual type. With "Cupid's bow" underframing. Spanish foot surviving into eighteenth century. Height, 2 ft. 5 ins.: diameter of top, 3 ft. 6 ins.; width, 4 ft.] [Illustration: MAHOGANY GATE TABLE. Rare form. Probably made of the new fashionable wood about 1740. Use of Spanish foot dying out. Diameter of top, 4 ft. 5-1/2 ins. × 4 ft. 4 ins. (_By the courtesy of Messrs. Phillips, Hitchin._)] So much for its utility. Its beauty is a quality which has appealed to persons of higher artistic instincts. It is not the quaintness, because there are scores of other objects equally quaint, nor is it altogether the antiquity, though, of course, nowadays that is a determining factor, but it is the actual symmetry of form and ingenious form of construction, enhanced by the wide range of decorative treatment, which irresistibly appeal to the lover of the beautiful. These manifold reasons, therefore, endowed the gate-leg table with great vitality. Its hold of the people was not relaxed till the age of the factory-made furniture. The banalities of the early-Victorian period, which destroyed taste in persons of finer susceptibilities than the common folk, supplanted the old historic form, and it was made no more. =Its Adoption in Modern Days.=--After William Morris and his school had preached the revival of taste and the return to the simple and the beautiful, and Ruskin with flowing rhetoric had instilled a love for homespun into men's minds, there came newer ideals which, with gradual dissemination, have grown into a great modern movement which has become so overwhelmingly popular that the pendulum has almost swung the other way. It has now become almost a truism that the person of taste to-day sees nothing good in anything that is not old. With this in view, artists and persons of advanced notions, if they could not procure the old, had copies made for them of some of the most beautiful styles suitable for modern requirements. In this there was always the great Morrisian principle in view that the highest art must show a full utilitarian purpose; so it came about that the gate table was revived and came gloriously into its own again. To-day, as in the seventeenth century, there is no more popular form of table, and the modern cabinet-maker is manufacturing hundreds of these tables. The life-history of the gate-leg table is, therefore, shown to be an interesting one. It is one of our oldest forms, and its construction nowadays, save that it is now produced in a factory, is singularly similar to that in the days when Oliver Cromwell was establishing our power as a voice in Europe, when James II. had an eye towards the supremacy of our navy, and when later our troops fought in Flanders. CHAPTER IV THE FARMHOUSE DRESSER CHAPTER IV THE FARMHOUSE DRESSER The days of the late Stuarts--Its early table form with drawers--The decorated type with shelves--William and Mary style with double cupboards--The Queen Anne cabriole leg--Mid-eighteenth-century types. The various types of dresser associated with farmhouse use are interesting as being apart from the sideboard, a later fashion belonging to furniture of a higher type. It was not until the late days of Chippendale, and after, that the Side Table began to be designated a Sideboard, which later became a receptacle for wine, with a cellaret, and had a drawer for table-linen. The sideboard is not a modern term, for the word is found in Dryden and in Milton. In the late eighteenth-century days the sideboard had a brass rail at the back, and was ornamented by two mahogany urns of massive proportions. Usually these were used for iced water and for hot water, the latter for washing the knives and forks. The Adam sideboard with its severe classical lines, and Sheraton's elegant bow fronts and satinwood panels decorated with painting, belong to the later developments of the sideboard as now known. The dresser is something more homely. It is indissolubly connected with homeliness and with the farmhouse and the country-side. In its various forms it has appealed to lovers of simple furniture, and farmhouse examples have found their way into surroundings more or less incongruous. The dresser in its more primitive form requires the necessary environment. It loses its charm when placed in proximity to pieces of more pretentious character. The cupboard dresser, or the type with open shelves, is less decorative than some of the forms without the back. That is to say, it requires the exactly suitable accompaniment to prevent its simple lines from being eclipsed by furniture of a higher grade. The dresser is, therefore, especially desirable to the collector furnishing a country cottage in harmonious character; but its inclusion in the modern drawing-room is an incongruity and its presence in the dining-room is more often than not an unwarrantable intrusion. =The Days of the Late Stuarts.=--It will be seen that the early types have fronts finely decorated with geometric designs panelled in the same fashion as the Jacobean chests of drawers, such as that illustrated p. 69. The split baluster ornament is a noticeable feature in this style, and the fine graceful balance of the panels with the drawers with drop brass handles is an attractive feature beloved by connoisseurs of the late Stuart period. The decoration in the fronts of these early dressers is as diverse in character as the fronts of the contemporary chests of drawers. This variety is indicative of the personal character imparted to the work of the old designers. It is rare to find two examples exactly alike. They differ in details, much in the same manner as the brass candlesticks of the same period, which possess the same charm of individuality. [Illustration: OAK DRESSER. ABOUT 1680. With finely decorated front. (_By the courtesy of Messrs. A. B. Daniell & Sons._)] [Illustration: OAK DRESSER. Fine example of the period of James II.] [Illustration: OAK DRESSER OF UNUSUAL TYPE. EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. With arched formation below and serpentine outline at sides. Height, 6 ft. 8-1/2 ins.; depth, 1 ft. 6 ins.; width, 6 ft. 2 ins.] [Illustration: EARLY OAK DRESSER. ABOUT 1660. With urn-shaped legs. (_By the courtesy of Messrs. Phillips, Hitchin._)] Of this particular type of oak Dresser the two examples illustrated (p. 117) have characteristics which are common to the class. The geometric front panels, the laid-on moulding, and the Jacobean leg--in most cases the back legs of these side dressers are square--should be intently noticed. In regard to the number of the legs, this is governed by the length of the dresser. In the lower example it will be seen that there are six legs and that the stretcher is continued round three sides. In this example the legs begin to show indications of the late-Jacobean style of more delicate turning. In the upper example the legs are bolder. These are oak specimens; the walnut varieties of similar design offer more sumptuous decoration and belong to furniture more suitable for the manor house than for the farm or cottage. An earlier type, in date about 1660, illustrated p. 119, exhibits a less ornate appearance and has the split urn-shaped legs in front and flat legs at the back. The split legs are found sometimes in gate tables, but when such is the case it may safely be conjectured that these tables are not of English origin, as the split leg did not find great favour with the English cabinet-makers. Before passing to later examples it should be observed that this particular form of dresser is most frequently found without a top with shelves. Examples there are which, as we shall show, have the original top, but as a rule it is advisable to note this feature in examining these Jacobean dressers, for there are a great number in the market to which later tops have been added, as suitable to more modern requirements, or as likely to prove more attractive to those collectors not familiar with the dresser in its earlier form. Originally in early dressers with shelves there is no back, that is to say, the shelves showed the wall behind them. This deficiency has been obligingly supplied by later hands. The dresser, as it found itself after certain transitional stages had been passed through, is shown in the early eighteenth-century piece illustrated (p. 119). This is of the early days of the eighteenth century, that is to say, in the reign of Queen Anne. It is here seen that the dresser is a set piece of furniture possessing attributes instantly marking it as having been carefully designed with a due observance as to the purpose to which it was to be put. The shelf at the bottom was evidently intended for use; the arched formation below the drawers has been planned in that manner to admit of utensils placed there being taken out and replaced with ease. One can only conjecture what may have stood there, maybe a barrel of cider, or perhaps only a breadpan. =The Decorated Type with Shelves.=--The back with shelves was a useful addition, which, as will be seen in the earlier examples leading up to this later development, had borne several experiments in the way of cupboards. In this particular specimen the broken or serpentine outline at sides of shelves is a noticeable feature, and always adds a grace and charm to the dresser when employed by the cabinet-maker. Another example in which this is effectively used is illustrated on p. 123. [Illustration: DRESSER. EARLY JACOBEAN. Length, 6 ft. 5 ins.; height, 7 ft. 3 ins.; depth, 1 ft. 8-1/2 ins. DRESSER. EARLIEST DECORATED TYPE. Date about 1670. (_By the courtesy of Messrs. Phillips, Hitchin._)] To return to the early-Jacobean types: two interesting pieces are illustrated together (p. 123). That on the left, with four legs and stretcher, has three drawers, and the upper portion or back is ornamented by a primitive scalloped design suggestive of the country hand. The other, on the right, has six legs and four drawers, and the upper portion is beginning to receive detailed treatment in regard to spacing of the shelves, and a small cupboard on each side fills the growing need of cupboards and drawers, a rapidly growing taste in English furniture for domestic use as the home-life began to be more complex. About this time nests of boxes and drawers in lac work from the East began to be imported into this country in the better houses, first as articles of great luxury and beauty, on account of their colour and fine gold work, and later as being something new and essentially utilitarian in regard to the accommodation they afforded for the treasures the housewife wished to put away from the prying eyes of her curious neighbours. As time went on, the art of the cabinet-maker became more intricate. It is not the place here to enter into the minutiæ of the development of drawers and bureaus and cabinets, but the late eighteenth century brought such furniture, apart from points in relation to beauty of design, to great constructive skill. The age was one of hidden contrivances and intricately cunning mechanism concealing secret drawers or receptacles. Such pieces were never made for farmhouse use; but the germ of the idea is ever present in all furniture with indications of locked drawers and cupboards. This is the note of intense civilisation as against the simpler modes of primitive folk who have no bolt to their door and no lock to guard their possessions. =William and Mary Style with Double Cupboards.=--The variety with double cupboards are interesting as giving a date to the dressers in which they are found. It is usually accurate to place such pieces in the William and Mary period, that is to say from the year 1689 to the end of the seventeenth century. The tendency in this class of furniture is to cling tenaciously to older forms, especially in certain portions of the cabinet-work which presented difficulties to the local cabinet-maker. The legs retained their early-Jacobean character even when associated with much later styles. This is noticeable in the William and Mary example illustrated (p. 127). The arcaded doors are inlaid, the canopy is decorated, the underwork beneath the drawers belongs essentially to the "Orange" period of design in its feeling. That the dresser could be made an ornamental piece of furniture and found its place as an important possession in the farmhouse, bright with an array of china, or pewter, or even silver, is amply shown by the two examples illustrated together of which the foregoing is one. The other oak dresser has at the top, where the mugs are hanging, the original mug-hooks. It is of the square-leg type and the arcaded work below the drawers gives distinction to its lines; it possesses also the broken or serpentine ends to the shelves. These curves and simple touches of ornament all contribute to make such dressers pleasing in character and representative of native work attempting with strong endeavour to produce artistic results suitable to their environment. [Illustration: WILLIAM AND MARY OAK DRESSER. DATE _C._ 1689. Decorated canopy, arcaded doors, inlaid and turned legs. Height, 6 ft. 8-1/2 ins.; length, 6 ft. 4 ins.; depth, 1 ft. 8 ins.] [Illustration: OAK DRESSER. Square leg type; with original mug hooks. Height, 6 ft.; length, 4 ft. 3 ins.; depth, 1 ft. 5 ins.] =The Queen Anne Cabriole Leg.=--It is not to be expected that the long-continued triumph of the cabriole leg of the eighteenth century would leave the dresser without making its mark thereon. The exact curve of the cabriole leg is dangerous in the hands of a novice, who rarely if ever gets the correct balance in conjunction with the rest of the construction. Accordingly, in farmhouse pieces this tells its own story. It is as though the cabriole leg were a sudden afterthought. This touch of representative want of repose is shown in the specimen illustrated (p. 135). In date this is about 1740, and is a somewhat rare form, having double cupboards. A unique Dresser and Clock combined is illustrated (p. 131). The form of the dresser, it will be seen, is quite different from other specimens. The back is only sufficiently high to carry a row of small drawers. The legs are circular and tapered, terminating in circular feet. In the centre of the dresser is a clock of the familiar grandfather form in miniature. This clock is not an addition to the dresser, but is a portion of the dresser and was made with it. The illustration shows the size of the door of the clock-case, with its hinges not cut down or in any way interfered with, and the lock on the other side is in the centre of the panel. It is obvious that no later hand has tampered with this fine example, and it stands as a remarkable dresser and unique in form in its construction with this clock. =Mid-eighteenth-century Types.=--In the Lancashire Dresser illustrated (p. 135) the top is reminiscent of early types. The cupboard has removed its position to the middle, a departure from all earlier forms. This is a very characteristic example, and the ample drawer accommodation shows the speedy transition from the old form of dresser through its varied stages to the later modern variety of the kitchen dresser, devoid of poetry and lacking interest to the collector, and yet to the student having traces of its ancient lineage. The eighteenth-century farmhouse varieties offer no great departure. They aim at being capacious and massive. They make no pretensions to approach the niceties of the sideboard in use in the better houses. They supply an undoubted want in the farmhouse for storage. There were cordials and home-made wines and much prized linen and a bright array of silver and Sheffield plate and pewter, and no doubt tea services or porcelain from the new English factories of Worcester, Derby, Bow, or maybe Plymouth or Bristol, to be shielded from breakage. The farmer's wife and the farmer's daughters were less than human if they did not follow the new fashions in some degree, more or less, in tea-drinking and in becoming the proud possessors of tea services and dinner services somewhat more delicate than the old delft and coarse Staffordshire ware. The cupboards had ample accommodation for these more valuable accessories of the farmhouse parlour. The cabinet-maker therefore developed on lines exactly suitable for the country clients whom he served. [Illustration: UNIQUE DRESSER AND CLOCK COMBINED. The clock is not an addition, but is a portion of the dresser, and was made for it. (_In the collection of D. A. Bevan, Esq._)] The late forms show this marked tendency to provide innumerable drawers and cupboards, in the farmhouse dressers contemporary with Chippendale. Many examples are found which are practically elongated chests of drawers; the old characteristics of the dresser are absent, the back has disappeared altogether. There is no top with shelves. Eight large drawers and two capacious cupboards give great storage room in a piece often 9 feet in length. There is nothing finicking in this type of furniture. It stands for homely comfort and love of domestic order. We may be sure that the good dame who used this lower piece, with its eight solid drawers with sound locks, was a person of frugal habits and love of the old farmstead. We may safely assume that she had a well-filled stocking hidden away somewhere in this old-fashioned repository, put by for the rainy day. In conclusion it may be said that a good deal has been talked about Welsh dressers, as though they were a type absolutely apart from any other. The differences are not great, as the carving, in which the Welsh craftsman offers characteristics of his own, is absent in pieces of furniture such as the dresser. Then there is the Normandy dresser, a much-abused term: a considerable number of these, and others, too, from Brittany, have been imported and the terms have become trade descriptions. But in the main the English dresser has passed through the phases we have described, and the outlines herein suggested may be filled in by the painstaking collector. In the chapter dealing with local types there is an illustration of a Lancashire dresser (p. 273) which adds one more example to the gallery of dressers we give as types in this chapter. [Illustration: OAK DRESSER. DATE ABOUT 1740. With early double cupboards. Legs in Queen Anne style. Height, 6 ft. 7 ins.; width, 9 ft. 5-1/2 ins.; depth, 2 ft. 2-1/2 ins.] [Illustration: LANCASHIRE DRESSER. MIDDLE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. Top reminiscent of early types. Ample drawer accommodation. Transition to modern dresser. Deeply cut panels. Cupboard in middle as distinct from earlier forms at sides. Height, 7 ft. 2 ins.; width, 6 ft. 7 ins.; depth, 2 ft.] CHAPTER V THE BIBLE-BOX, THE CRADLE, THE SPINNING-WHEEL, AND THE BACON-CUPBOARD CHAPTER V THE BIBLE-BOX, THE CRADLE, THE SPINNING-WHEEL, AND THE BACON-CUPBOARD The Puritan days of the seventeenth century--The Protestant Bible in every home--The variety of carving found in Bible-boxes--The Jacobean cradle and its forms--The spinning-wheel--The bacon-cupboard. The Authorised version of the Holy Bible, "translated out of the original tongues and with the former translations diligently compared and revised," by His Majesty's command, found a place in every household in Stuart days. The letter of the learned translators "To the most High and Mighty Prince James, by the Grace of God, King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith," &c., retains its place in modern editions. It is an historic document worthy of preservation, and perhaps those who have forgotten its terms may be glad to have their memory refreshed. It is of surpassing moment to all who recognise the Protestant derivation of the Bible as we now know it, and the sectarian feelings which inspired the translators under King James in their fulsome dedication to the Modern Solomon. "Great and manifold were the blessings, most dread Sovereign, which Almighty God the Father of all mercies bestowed upon us the people of England, when first he sent your Majesty's Royal Person to rule and reign over us. For whereas it was the expectation of many, who wished not well unto our _Sion_, that upon the setting of that bright Occidental Star, Queen Elizabeth, of most happy memory, some thick and palpable clouds of darkness would so have overshadowed this land, that men should have been in doubt which way they were to walk; and that it should hardly be known who was to direct the unsettled State; the appearance of your Majesty, as the Sun in its strength, instantly dispelled those supposed and surmised mists, and gave unto all that were well affected exceeding cause of comfort; especially when we beheld the Government established in Your Highness and your hopeful seed, by an undoubted title, and this also accompanied by peace and tranquillity at home and abroad." It is, as we affirm, an interesting document as showing the Puritan tendencies at a time when much was in the melting-pot and the first of the Stuarts, with his broad Scots accent and his ungainly ways, came down to St. James's from the North. Compare the above literary dedication to James the First with the word-portrait painted by Green the historian, and one may draw one's own inferences. "His big head, his slobbering tongue, his quilted clothes, his rickety legs, stood out in as grotesque a contrast with all that men recalled of Henry or of Elizabeth as his gabble and rodomontade, his want of personal dignity, his buffoonery, his coarseness of speech, his pedantry, his contemptible cowardice. Under this ridiculous exterior, however, lay a man of much natural ability, a ripe scholar with a considerable fund of shrewdness, of mother-wit, and ready repartee." =The Protestant Bible in every Home.=--Himself a theologian, James influenced his contemporaries. "Theology rules there," said Grotius of England only two years after Elizabeth's death. There was an indifference to pure letters and persons were counted fine scholars who were diligent in the study of the Bible. The language of the people became enriched with this study, which extended to all classes. John Bunyan, the son of a tinker at Elstow, learned his intense prose from the Bible. The peasant absorbed the Bible till its words became his own. With the Puritan movement came the production of men of serious type, and with it too came the disappearance of the richer and brighter life and humour of Elizabethan days. It was a literary movement and a religious movement which penetrated to the lower classes and often left the upper classes and gentry unmoved. In dealing with this and its reflex upon the domestic habits of the people, the visible effects in regard to furniture are strikingly evident in the plethora of Bible-boxes belonging to those in this period of Biblical study, to whom Shakespeare and Ben Jonson were unknown and Spenser's _Faerie Queene_ and Milton's _Comus_ were sealed books. It would almost seem that in many cases the Bible was the only book which was read and treasured. It was incorporated in the home life. It served as a register to record the names and dates of birth and death or marriage of members of the family. Some of these family registers have been most valuable in tracing details in biography where parish registers have failed to supply the necessary information. =The Variety of Carving found in Bible-boxes.=--We give a series of illustrations indicating some of the interesting details of carving to be found on such boxes, where, as in work intended for a treasure-chest to preserve a sacred book, considerable zeal has gone to the elaboration of ornament. These seventeenth-century relics of a wave of religious enthusiasm are the crude Puritan likenesses, belonging to a less innately artistic race, of the tabernacles and ivory carved Madonnas and saints of the Italian renaissance. They both, though poles asunder in realisation, represent the instinctive love of man for ornament in connection with his religious emotions. Savage races with another ritual produce religious and ceremonial woodcarving representative of their best. Here, then, is the Puritan craftsmanship, mainly of provincial origin and found scattered over various parts of the country, following _motifs_ executed by the same hands as Jacobean chairs and dressers, but bearing rich touches of ornament, betraying much originality, within the limited scope of Jacobean design. The carving has nothing of the humour or strong bold relief of the miserere seats of the palmy days of the woodcarver in the fifteenth and early sixteenth century in details that might well have been applied to the Bible-box. The ambition of the Puritan woodcarver never reached figure-work, or he might have represented Biblical scenes if his abhorrence of graven images had not demoralised his fancy. Some of the early boxes have bold carving. We illustrate a fine example (p. 143) of the time of James I., about 1600. The design is floral, which embodies the well-known conventional rose. Illustrated on the same page is another carved box of unusual pattern with floriated design. It was a frequent practice to treat the front of the box as though it were continuous and the pattern leaves off at the ends much in the same manner as modern wallpaper. In the box above it will be seen that the front is panelled and the design is confined to the circumscribed area. [Illustration: CARVED OAK BIBLE-BOX. FINE EXAMPLE. TIME OF JAMES I. ABOUT 1600. Length, 2 ft. 4 ins.; width, 1 ft. 4 ins.; height, 11-1/2 ins.] [Illustration: CARVED BIBLE-BOX OF UNUSUAL PATTERN. (_By the courtesy of Messrs. Phillips, Hitchin._)] [Illustration: BIBLE-BOX OF VERY RARE PATTERN. ABOUT 1650. This type always had the same kind of clasp.] [Illustration: BIBLE-BOX OF USUAL PATTERN COMMONLY FOUND.] Another piece with very rare pattern, in date about 1650, has a bold type of carving in the two semicircles stretched across the front. This use of semicircles occurs in types usually found. The example illustrated (p. 145) has incised carving or "scratch." It will be seen that there is never an attempt at inlay or any of the delicacies of the refined craftsman. Among the various types of "scratch" boxes the use of circles and heart-shaped ornament is constant. The locks found on this type of box are always of the class as shown in the illustration, and the clasp is well known. In the collection of Bible-boxes the novice must carefully learn the exact limitations of the school of woodworkers in this minor field. The touch of the foreign craftsman should be easily recognisable, with its piquancy and real artistic feeling. These Puritan Bible-boxes have flat lids, and in order to give some touch of romance to them or whet the appetite of the collector they are frequently described as "lace-boxes," though it is very doubtful if such boxes were ever used for storing lace. Sometimes similar boxes with sloping lids were used as early forms of writing-desks. =The Jacobean Cradle.=--The specimens of this type of furniture always exhibit, in the oak variety associated with farmhouse use, a plainness as a noticeable factor. They are usually panelled, but the panel has received no carved ornament and is especially simple. Of course they always have rockers. In the examples illustrated the slight variation in these rockers will be observed. Sometimes they are plain and sometimes they have slight ornamental curves. The only other ornament may be found in the turned knobs at the foot and sometimes at the head. Sometimes there are fine knobs on the hood. The hood is sometimes shaped and exhibits a naïve attempt at symmetrical design. These cradles have long been familiar objects in cottagers' homes, but are now being displaced by modern wicker cradles. The picture _A Flood_ (1870), by Sir John E. Millais, shows one of these cradles floating in a flooded meadow. The baby is crowing with delight, and a black cat sits at the foot of the cradle. The holes in the example illustrated (p. 149) are intended to receive a cord stretched across the cradle to protect the occupant. [Illustration: OAK CRADLE. With shaped hood and turned knobs at head and foot.] [Illustration: OAK CRADLE. With shaped hood with turned ball ornaments. Holes on each side to fasten rope to protect occupant.] [Illustration: YARN-WINDER AND SPINNING-WHEEL.] [Illustration: BUCKINGHAMSHIRE BOBBIN'S. Turned wood bobbins with coloured beads to identify the bobbins from each other. (_In the collection of the author._)] =The Spinning-wheel.=--To this day the spinning-wheel is used in Scotland, in the Highlands. The wool or yarn winders are usually in windlass form with six spokes. The turning upon these winders and spinning wheels resembles the spindles on the spindle-back chairs. There is in Buckinghamshire bobbins a similar turning, individual in character and exhibiting considerable artistic beauty. In spinning-wheels there is considerable scope for the use of fine touches of ornament, in such practical objects dear to the housewife. Bone sometimes was used in the turned knobs. The making of these spinning-wheels was undertaken by persons desirous of winning the esteem of those who used them. Many of them have come down as heirlooms in families and have not been held as objects of art, to be regarded as curiosities, but as articles of everyday use. The use of the spinning-wheel was not confined exclusively to the farmer's wife. In early days great ladies were adepts at spinning. By the time of George III. it was employed by the ladies of titled families. Mrs. Delany, when staying with the Duchess of Portland at Bulstrode, writes: "The Queen came about twelve o'clock, and caught me at my spinning-wheel, and made me spin on and give her a lesson afterwards; and I must say she did it tolerably for a queen." This letter, dated 1781, goes to prove two things, that spinning was a real task still undertaken by great ladies, and not a fashionable amusement. Had it been the latter Mrs. Delany would not have used the expression "caught me at my spinning-wheel," wherein she indicates that the occupation was somewhat of a menial one. In regard to the Buckinghamshire bobbins, sometimes finely carved in bone, those illustrated (p 151.) indicate the character of the cottagers' treasures in the pillow-lace-making districts. The patterns of these bobbins are not repeated. Individual touches are given to these bobbins by the village turners which are not duplicated. In use, the bobbin has to be identified by some mark, and beads of different colours are employed, which are affixed by means of a wire to the bobbin, as is shown in the illustration. =The Bacon-cupboard.=--Another class which it is convenient to place among miscellaneous objects is the bacon-cupboard. The illustration (p. 231) shows the type of bacon-cupboard with seat and arms and drawers beneath. The position held by the bacon-cupboard in the farmhouse is shown by the growing dignity in the character of these cupboards. The gradual growth and development are shown in many specimens of the Queen Anne period, frequently of Lancashire origin. Such pieces, with classic pilasters, broken cornice, and bevelled panels and drawers beneath, are typified in wardrobes and dressers belonging to eighteenth-century farmhouse furniture. The development of capacious cupboards for various domestic uses is noticeable in this class of furniture up to early nineteenth-century days. CHAPTER VI EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY STYLES CHAPTER VI EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY STYLES The advent of the cabriole leg--The so-called Queen Anne style--The survival of oak in the provinces--The influence of walnut on cabinet-making--The early-Georgian types--Chippendale and his contemporaries. The dawn of the eighteenth century practically commenced with the reign of Queen Anne. The times were troublous. As princess, in the days of William the Dutchman and her sister Mary, she was forbidden the Court as John Churchill, then Earl of Marlborough, designed to overthrow William and place Anne on the throne. "Were I and my Lord Marlborough private persons," William exclaimed, "the sword would have to settle between us." At the death of Mary the Princess Anne, together with the Marlboroughs, was recalled to St. James's. At the death of William, in 1702, Anne came to the throne. Only just in her thirty-seventh year, she was so corpulent and gouty that she could not walk from Westminster Hall to the Abbey, and was carried in an open chair. During the Coronation ceremony she was too infirm to support herself in a standing position without assistance. The age of Anne is remarkable for its restless intrigues. Court plots were rife when Queen Anne "Mrs. Morley" in her private letters to the Duchess of Marlborough, who was "Mrs. Freeman," finally broke with the overbearing Duchess and made Abigail Hill, one of the Marlborough creatures, her chief confidant. The Protestant Whig party favoured the long war in the Low Countries and in Spain, although conducted by a Tory general, Marlborough, who, by the way, did not take the field in Flanders till he was fifty-two, a remarkable achievement for so great a military career, wherein he never fought a battle in which he was not victorious. The greatness of Marlborough is indisputable. His fond love for his wife runs like a gold thread through the dark web of his life. His wife had, during a large part of Anne's reign, despotic empire over Anne's feeble mind. "History exhibits to us few spectacles more remarkable," says Lord Macaulay, "than that of a great and wise man who, when he had contrived vast and profound schemes of policy, could carry them into effect only by inducing one foolish woman, who was often unmanageable, to manage another woman who was more foolish still." [Illustration: LANCASHIRE OAK SETTLE. _C._ 1760. Length, 6 ft.; depth, 2 ft. 1 in.] [Illustration: LANCASHIRE QUEEN ANNE SETTLE. Showing transition into later type of modern settee. (_By the courtesy of Messrs. Phillips, Hitchin._)] To us now, with the secret springs of history laid bare, there is much to marvel at, much to deplore as trivial. In regard to matters of high state and the suppleness of time-servers, memoirs and private journals have exposed many a skeleton carefully hidden from public gaze. But of the life of the people, especially the life in the country districts, the picture is somewhat blurred. Men of letters flocked to the town--the town was London. Provincial life lies behind a curtain. There were Spanish doubloons coming up from Bristol and prize-money from the wars was scattered inland from the ports. Scotland was united to England by the Act of Union. "I desire," said the Queen, "and expect from my subjects of both nations that from henceforth they act with all possible respect and kindness to one another, and so that it may appear to all the world they have hearts disposed to become one people." This wish has been amply fulfilled and the union has become something more than a name. Never have two peoples different in thought, in tradition, and in established law become so completely welded together. But the war of the Spanish Succession must have drained English blood as it taxed English pockets. "Six millions of supplies and almost fifty millions of debt," wrote Swift bitterly. The tide of Marlborough's success was undoubtedly secured by the outpouring of English lives. Stalwart levies of men from the shires went to join the strange medley of the forces of the Allies commanded by Marlborough. Dutchmen, Danes, Hanoverians, Würtembergers, and Austrians jostled shoulders with each other in his troops. He launched them with calm imperturbability against his opponents at Malplaquet, for example, where with a Pyrrhic triumph he lost twenty-four thousand men against half that number of the French behind their entrenchments. It is little wonder that the war was unpopular in the country, where the Spanish Succession and the "balance of power" were only symbols for so much pressure on the needs of the labouring classes. Bonfires might be lit for Blenheim, but many a village mourned those who would never return. In spite of this intermingling of England with European politics, the general life of the people remained untouched from outside influence in regard to arts and manufacture. Cut off from intercourse with France, the grandeur of the art of Louis Quatorze was as far removed from early eighteenth-century England as though Boulle and Jean Bérain and Lepaute were in another continent and the château of Versailles in the fastnesses of the Urals. It is true that Louis XIV. presented two wonderful cabinets to the Duke of Monmouth, exquisite examples of metal inlay and coloured marquetry, but such pieces were beyond the capabilities of any English craftsman to emulate. The chief innovations of the early eighteenth century followed the Dutch lines familiarised in the preceding days of William and Mary. Oak remained in farmhouse and country furniture, but in the fashionable world walnut was extensively used, and occasionally mahogany. Corner cupboards were introduced early in the reign of Anne, and hooped chairs, familiar in engravings of Flemish interiors, came into general use. Fiddle-splat chairs were also common in the first half of the eighteenth century. In regard to feet, the ball-and-claw, and club foot were introduced. Caning of chairs went out of fashion till the end of the century. Shell and pendant ornament on knees of chair-legs became marked features, and, above all, the cabriole leg to chairs and tables is associated with the early years of the reign, and the term "Queen Anne" is always applied to such pieces. [Illustration: CUPBOARD WITH DRAWERS. _C._ 1700. With "swan head" pediment. Pedestal at top for delft or china. Round beadings to drawers.] [Illustration: QUEEN ANNE BUREAU BOOKCASE. Farmhouse oak variety. Emulating a finer walnut or mahogany piece.] [Illustration: FINE EXAMPLE OAK TABLE. _C._ 1720. Well-proportioned legs, club feet, original undercutting. Exemplary of professional country cabinet-maker's highest work.] [Illustration: OAK TABLE. _C._ 1720. With hoof feet and knee, possibly copied from a fine Queen Anne piece, exemplifying the best work of country cabinet-maker. Height, 2 ft. 7 ins.; top, 1 ft. 7-1/2 ins. × 2 ft. 3 ins. (_By the courtesy of Messrs. Phillips, Hitchin._)] =The Cabriole Leg.=--This form of leg, swelling into massive proportions where it joins the seat, and curving outwards and tapering to a ball-and-claw foot or a club foot, lasted till end of Chippendale period, roughly, for nearly half a century. It assumed various forms until it was supplanted by the straight leg, and the stretcher, which had disappeared with the use of the cabriole leg, again came into use. Examples of the cabriole leg appear as illustrations to various types of furniture in this chapter. At first its use did not interfere with the employment of the stretcher, but about 1710 the stretcher disappeared. The Lancashire Queen Anne settle illustrated (p. 159) shows the stretcher joining the front leg to the back. In the settle illustrated above, in date 1760, it will be seen the stretchers have vanished. =The So-called Queen Anne Style.=--Fashions slowly adopted in cabinet design do not readily arrange themselves in exact periods coinciding with the reigns of individual sovereigns. But it is convenient to affix a label to certain marked changes and attribute their general use to a particular reign. The innovation of the square panel with broken corners and ornamental curves at top is found in Queen Anne settles. The departure from the square panel and line of the curved and broken top is exhibited in the second Great Seal of Anne, commemorating the Union with Scotland. It is reminiscent of the Dutch influence, and is found in Sussex firebacks of an earlier period. The straight lines of early-Jacobean cabinet-work were rapidly undergoing a change; the square wooden back of the chair was shortly to be replaced by fiddle splats, which in their turn, in late-Georgian days, became pierced and fretted and carved under the genius of Chippendale's hand. The two settles illustrated (p. 159) show several interesting points. The panels are typical of the love of the curved line, which Hogarth defined as the line of beauty. In the upper one the arms still retain the old Jacobean form in this farmhouse example. The ball foot still clings to the earlier form. The seat is sunk to receive a long cushion. In the adjacent specimen the seat with its cushion and the curved =S= arms upholstered show the transition into the later type of modern settee. The curved outline finds similar expression in the hood of grandfather clock-cases and in the shape of metal dials. A cupboard with drawers illustrated (p. 163) has what is known as a "swan head." The panels to the doors have similarly novel features in their structure. It will be observed that there is a square pedestal at the top of this piece, which was intended as a stand for a delft or Chinese jar. The drawers of this cupboard have round beadings. The typical instance of curved design with not a single straight line, not even the back legs, which are bowed, is the grandfather chair with the high back, upholstered all over. The cabriole legs with ball-and claw-feet, the =C=-shaped arms, the scroll upholstered wings, and the oval back, depart from the rectilinear; even the underframing of the seat is bow-shaped. Similarly, the walnut arm-chairs of the period from 1690 to 1715 had bold curves. The arms always possessed a curious scroll, the backs had broad splats with curling shoulders, and often a broad bold ribbon pattern making two loops to fill up the top of the hoop at the back, with a carved shell at the point of intersection. Big pieces of furniture, such as bureaus, had the broken arch pediment, and smaller objects, such as mirrors, had the arched or broken top; and when these dressing mirrors had small drawers, these disdained the straight front and became convex. Under the Dutch influence, in the first period of English veneer work, from about 1675 to 1715, very fine cabinets and bureaus and chests of drawers were made. Walnut was the wood employed, with the panels inlaid with pollard elm, boxwood, ebony, mahogany, sycamore, and other coloured woods. Figured walnut was beloved by the cabinet-maker beginning to feel his way in colour schemes of decoration. Bandings of herring-bone inlay and rounded mouldings to drawers are very characteristic. Bureaus and important pieces had birds and flowers and trees or feather marquetry after fine Dutch models. Picked walnut, especially exhibiting a fine feathered figure, was used as veneer, and with these and other glorious creations of the walnut school of cabinet-workers the age of walnut may be said to have been in full swing. =The Survival of Oak in the Provinces.=--The foregoing descriptions apply to fashionable folks' furniture. Such fashions did not come into usage in the farmhouses and in the cottages. Oak was still employed without being displaced by the walnut of the town maker. Oak was in the main more suitable for the particular class of furniture which was likely to receive less delicate care than the writing-cabinets and bureaus and the china-cupboards of more fastidious people. Tea-drinking had become the luxury of the great world of society, and had hardly come into general use in the country till late in the reign of Anne, though by 1690 it had gained considerable favour in London. Coffee was introduced slightly earlier, and many invectives in broadsides and in poetical satires appear in the late seventeenth century against coffee and coffee-houses. In 1674 the "Women's Petition against Coffee" complained that "it made men as unfruitful as the deserts whence that unhappy berry is said to be brought; that the offspring of our mighty ancestors would dwindle into a succession of apes and pigmies, and on a domestic message a husband would stop by the way to drink a couple of cups of coffee." The prejudice against coffee, and especially against coffee-houses, was lasting, and coffee failed to establish itself as a national beverage. The labouring classes declined to be weaned from their ale and other stronger drinks. The Spaniards brought chocolate from Mexico; Roger North, Attorney-General to James II., uttered a violent polemic against chocolate houses, perhaps more on account of the political clubs gathered there than against the beverage itself. "The use of coffee-houses," says he, "seems much improved by a new invention called chocolate-houses, for the benefit of rooks and cullies of quality, where gaming is added to the rest, as if the Devil had erected a new university, and those were the colleges of its professors." [Illustration: QUEEN ANNE GLASS- OR CHINA-CUPBOARD. Spun glass doors. Heavy bars mark early type prior to tracery. GEORGIAN CORNER CUPBOARD. LATE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. Broken architraves and cushion top. Having original hinges. (_By the courtesy of Messrs. Phillips, Hitchin._)] [Illustration: SMALL OAK TABLE. 1700-1720. Height, 2 ft. 4-3/4 ins.; width, 2 ft. 3 ins.; depth, 1 ft. 9-3/4 ins. Graceful proportion with cabriole leg.] [Illustration: OAK TABLE. Showing at a later period the last traces of the cabriole leg.] The varying phases of town life, of which the above quotations give a passing glimpse, found little reflex in the sturdy unchanging life of the provinces. Generation after generation, men farmed the same lands and their dependents lived in cottages adjacent; tillers of the ground, herdsmen, toilers in the fields, living by the sweat of their brow. They were content with simpler pleasures, which centred round the alehouse and the village green, or maybe the village church, if the hunting rector and the studious vicar were not too heedless of the fate of their flock. But other influences were soon to be at work to break the lethargy of those of the clergy who slumbered. Wesley founded the Methodist movement. Whitefield began his sermons in the fields and looked down from a green slope on several thousand colliers grimy from the coalpits near Bristol to see, as he preached, tears "making white channels down their blackened cheeks." Later again, Hannah More drew sympathy to the poverty and crime of the agricultural classes. =The Influence of Walnut on Cabinet-making.=--If oak was the wood which the country joiner loved best, he was not without some sympathetic leaning towards the effects which could be produced in the softer walnut. Such styles accordingly began slowly to have a marked influence upon the farmhouse furniture in early-Georgian days. It was not easy to produce curved lines in the refractory oak, tough and brittle, but the village craftsman essayed his best to please his patrons whose taste had been caught by the newer fashions observed in the squire's parlour when paying rare visits. In the two examples illustrated of farmhouse cupboard and bureau bookcase (p. 163) it will be seen that here is the country maker definitely trying his skill in his native wood to emulate the finer walnut examples of town cabinet-makers. This is even more noticeable in regard to some of the tables actually found in farmhouses belonging to as early as the first quarter of the eighteenth century. The two specimens illustrated (p. 165) exemplify this tendency to imitate the designs of trained workers. The country touch always betrays itself in the cabriole leg, whether in chair or in table. The upper table has less _naïveté_ than most examples found. There is a balance in its construction rarely found in provincial work. The legs, always the stumbling-block to the less experienced artificer, are here of exceptionally fine proportions, terminating in club feet. The lower table shows a less capable treatment of the cabriole leg. The hoof foot and the carved knee have obviously been copied from a fine Queen Anne model. In the underframing of both tables there is an experiment in ornament and form rarely attempted except in the highest flights of the country maker, and as such these two fine examples must be regarded. [Illustration: OAK TABLE. Showing clumsy corners and indicating the _naïveté_ of the country cabinet-maker.] [Illustration: OAK TABLE. Showing transition from cabriole leg to straight leg of 1760.] =The Early Georgian Types.=--Treating of the early-Hanoverian period from the death of Queen Anne in 1714, and including the reigns of George I. from 1714 to 1727 and George II. from 1727 to 1760, furniture of all types begins to assume a complexity of construction. At the final outburst the fine masterpieces of creation of the great schools of design during the last half of the eighteenth century, embodied the life-work of Chippendale, the brothers Adam, Hepplewhite, Sheraton, and many others. This period from 1750 to 1800 was the golden age of design in England. It has had a far-reaching effect, and still casts its glory upon the present-day schools of designers, whose adaptations and lines of progress are based upon the finest flower of the eighteenth-century styles. The massive walnut chairs with deep underframing and broad hoop backs departed from the solid splats of the Anne style and endeavoured to become less squat by the employment of banded ribbon-work, coarse, heavy, and ponderous in style. Settees, arm-chairs and single chairs in this style came as the final efforts of the walnut school. The graceful ribbon designs interlacing each other in knots, and the flowing carving in mahogany of Chippendale, put a period to all dullness and heavy design. With the new style and the new wood a splendid field was opened to cabinet-makers, and the quick appreciation of these opportunities signalised their work as of permanent artistic value. Among more important pieces, though still falling under the category of farmhouse styles, may be mentioned the Queen Anne glass or china cupboard, and the Georgian corner cupboard, illustrated p. 171. The former has heavy bars, which mark the early type prior to tracery, and it has spun-glass doors. Porcelain factories at Bow, Worcester, and Derby brought such cupboards into more general use after the middle of the century. Staffordshire earthenware tea and coffee services were found in great numbers in farmhouses and cottages. After the days of delft and stoneware came the prized china services of the housewife. Pewter was largely used, but the number of ale-jugs of Toby form, or cider-mugs with rural subjects to suit the tastes of the users, indicate that more modern ideas and taste, once exclusive to the world of fashion, had penetrated the country districts. The Georgian corner cupboard shows the broken architraves and cushion top. The hinges should be noticed as being original. =Chippendale and his Contemporaries.=--At first using the cabriole leg with ball-and-claw foot, not quite as he found it, but reduced to slightly more slender proportions to be in symmetry with his less massive backs to chairs, Chippendale came to the straight line. He employed it in the legs of tables and in the seats of chairs, in the bracket supports, and in the top rail of his chairs. Chippendale in his day, made the first straight top rail to the chair. It is interesting to note the phases of changing design in country-made furniture prior to his time, and the sudden mastery of form which became the common inheritance of all after his and other contemporary design-books were promulgated broadcast. [Illustration: QUEEN ANNE TEA TABLE. _C._ 1710. With scalloped edge for cups. Height, 2 ft. 4 ins.; depth, 1 ft. 9 ins.; length, 2 ft. 8 ins.] [Illustration: OAK REVOLVING BOOK-STAND. _C._ 1720. Rare form. Diameter of top, 2 ft.; height, 2 ft. 8 ins. (_In the collection of Miss Holland._)] [Illustration: COUNTRY CHIPPENDALE TABLE. Leg with exaggerated knee, claw, and ball foot. Accuracy in straight joinery. Failure in curved work. Top, 2 ft. 7 ins. × 1 ft. 3 ins.; height, 2 ft. 4 ins.] [Illustration: SQUARE MAHOGANY FLAP TABLE. _C._ 1730. Height, 2 ft. 4 ins.; length, 3 ft. 10-1/2 ins.; width, 2 ft. 1 in. Round cross stretcher. Rare form.] [Illustration: TRIPOD TABLE. _C._ 1760. Chippendale style, probably unique. Elaborate rococo work. (_In the collection of Harold Bendixon, Esq._)] In the table the cabriole leg showed early signs of passing away. The two examples illustrated (p. 173) clearly indicate this. The upper one, of the time of Queen Anne, shows the cabriole leg in fine proportion under due subjection, and is a delicate example of fine cabinet-work. The lower one sees the leg losing its cabriole curve, but still rounded and still possessing the club foot. Even more interesting are the two tables illustrated (p. 177). The country maker was slow to adopt the cabriole leg when it was fashionable, but when it became unfashionable he was equally loth to depart from his accustomed style. These clearly point to the transition between the cabriole leg and the straight leg of Chippendale, and are about 1760 in date. The forms of design of tables of eighteenth-century date are extremely varied in character, denoting the rapidly changing habits of the people. The Queen Anne tea-table, with scalloped edges for cups, marks the note of preciosity creeping into country life. A revolving bookstand in table form, of about 1720 in date, is another rare piece. The adjacent table (p. 181) is country Chippendale. The exaggerated knee and the feeble ball-and-claw foot mark the failure of the provincial hand at curved work, accurate though he might be in straight joinery. The "Cupid's bow" underframing is interesting in combination with the rest of the design. The tripod table offered difficulties of construction and is not often found. The example illustrated is probably unique in form. In date it is about 1760, and is remarkable for the attempt at elaborate rococo work. Sometimes, though not often, mahogany was used in farmhouse examples. The table illustrated (p. 183) is an instance of the use of this wood instead of oak. It is about 1730 in date, and exhibits an unusual form in the round cross stretcher, a touch of originality by the maker. It is, as will be seen, a square-topped table with flaps. Elaboration of a high order was happily not often attempted by the country workman, or the results with his limited experience would have been disastrous. Instead of a fine series of really good, solid, and well-constructed furniture made for practical use we should have had a wilderness of failures at attempting the impossible. A copy of a fine Chippendale side-table illustrated (p. 187) is a case in point. There is the usual want of balance in the poise of the leg, but the carving is of exceptional character. The table beneath, with its long and tapering legs, has all the characteristics of the Adam style. The beaded decoration on the legs, the classic fluting and the carved rosette claim distant relationship with the classic inventions of Robert Adam. The wood is pinewood, and as an example it is of singular interest. The rapid survey of eighteenth-century influences bearing on the class of furniture of which this volume treats will perhaps induce the collector to scrutinise more carefully all pieces coming under his notice, with a view to arriving at their salient features in connection with the native design of more or less untutored craftsmen. [Illustration: ELABORATE TABLE. Country attempt to imitate fine Chippendale side table. Note the want of balance in leg.] [Illustration: PINEWOOD COUNTRY-MADE ADAM TABLE. Note the unusually long leg.] CHAPTER VII THE EVOLUTION OF THE CHAIR [Illustration: OAK ARM-CHAIR. DATE _C._ 1675. With elaborate scroll back.] [Illustration: OAK ARM-CHAIR. DATE 1650. With scratched lozenge.] [Illustration: CHESTNUT ARM-CHAIR. DATE 1690.] [Illustration: OAK ARM-CHAIR. DATE 1690.] (_By the courtesy of Messrs. Phillips, Hitchin._) CHAPTER VII THE EVOLUTION OF THE CHAIR Early days--The typical Jacobean oak chair--The evolution of the stretcher--The chair-back and its development--Transition between Jacobean and William and Mary forms--Farmhouse styles contemporary with the cane-back chair--The Queen Anne splat--Country Chippendale, Hepplewhite, and Sheraton--The grandfather chair--Ladder-back types--The spindle-back chair--Corner chairs. In order to deal exhaustively with the evolution of the chair from its earliest forms to the latest developments in sumptuous upholstery, it would be necessary to make an extended survey of furniture, dating back to early classic days. To enumerate the manifold varieties belonging to various countries and to trace the gradual progress in form, which kept pace with the advance in civilisation, would be of sufficient interest to occupy a whole volume. Man, as a sitting or lounging animal, has grown to require more elaborate forms of chair, or settee, or sofa, and the modern tendency has been towards comfort and luxury. In regard to English furniture the intense contrast between the days of Elizabeth and those of Victoria is at once noticeable. According to Lord Macaulay in his comparison between the manners of his day and those of the past, the furniture of a middle-class dwelling-house of the nineteenth century was equal to that of a rich merchant in the time of Elizabeth. In general this may be true, though not as regards the spacious structure and the massive grandeur of the Tudor house. In many details the differences are most noteworthy. The wide gulf dividing the modern world from the days of the Armada may be realised by reflecting on such an astounding fact that Queen Elizabeth possessed at one time the only pair of silk stockings in her realm, which were presented to her by Mistress Montague, "which pleased her so well that she would never wear any cloth hose afterwards." The sturdy character of the yeomen of the days of the Tudors is exhibited in their furniture. The illustrations of this chapter in regard to the chair and its structural development indicate the slowly acquired tastes, running some decades behind the fashionable furniture, strong with foreign influences, which had come into more or less general use. "England no longer sent her fleeces to be woven in Flanders and to be dyed in Florence. The spinning of yarn, the weaving, fulling, and dyeing of cloth, was spreading rapidly from the towns to the country-side. The worsted trade, of which Norwich was the centre, extended over the whole of the Eastern Counties. Farmers' wives everywhere began to spin their wool from their own sheep's backs into a coarse homespun." The rough and wattled farmhouses were being replaced by dwellings of brick and stone. The disuse of salt fish and the greater consumption of meat marked the improvement which was taking place among the countryfolk. The wooden trenchers in the farmhouses were supplanted by pewter, and there were yeomen who could boast of their silver. Carpets in richer dwelling-houses superseded the wretched flooring of rushes. Even pillows, now in common usage, were articles of luxury in the sixteenth century. The farmer and the trader deemed them as only fit "for women in child-bed." The chimney-corner came into usage in Elizabethan days with the general use of chimneys. The mediæval fortress had given place to the grandeur of the Elizabethan hall in the houses of the wealthy merchants. The rise of the middle classes brought with it in its wake the corresponding advance of the yeomen and their dependents. Visions of the New World "threw a haze of prodigality and profusion over the imagination of the meanest seaman." =Early Days.=--Of farmhouse types that can authoritatively be attributed to Tudor days there are few, but the succeeding age of the Stuarts is rich with examples of undoubted authenticity. Many of them are dated, and they all bear a strong family resemblance to each other, owing to the narrow range of _motifs_ in the carved panels. There is a fixed insularity in these early examples, and the same traditional patterns in scrollwork or in conventional lozenge design retained their hold for many generations. The oak arm-chair of a farmhouse kitchen made in the days of Charles I. was still followed in close detail in the days of George III., as dated examples testify, and it would puzzle an expert, without the date to guide him, to say whether the piece was eighteenth or seventeenth century work. It may be added that as a general rule there is a marked leaning towards generosity in imparting age to old furniture. It is now very generally recognised that, like wine, it gains prestige with length of years. It therefore grows in antiquity according to the fancy of the owner or the imagination of the collector. Among the early forms of chairs falling under the category of farmhouse furniture may be noticed examples of rough and massive build, eminently fit to serve the purpose for which they were designed. Ornament is reduced to a minimum, and they stand as rude monuments to the cabinet-maker's craft in fashioning them and following tradition to suit his client's tastes. In regard to the sixteenth century there cannot be said to be any type falling under the heading of cottage or farmhouse chairs. We have already illustrated (p. 35) an early form of Elizabethan days, but such examples are rare. Practically cottagers had only stools in common use. It was not until about 1650 that a simplified form of the well-known variety of the chairs of the Jacobean oak period came into general use. [Illustration: YORKSHIRE CHAIR. DATE 1660. Late example, with ball turning in stretcher.] [Illustration: CROMWELLIAN CHAIRS. DATE 1660. With indication of transition to Charles II. period. (_By the courtesy of Messrs. Phillips, Hitchin._)] =The Typical Jacobean Oak Chair.=--The seventeenth century offers a wide field of selection, and many examples exist which undoubtedly were in use in farmhouses at that period. The arm-chair illustrated p. 191, with the initials "W.I A.", is evidently made for the farmhouse. It is noticeable for its complete absence of ornamental carving except a thinly scratched lozenge. In date this is from 1650 to 1700, and if made for a wealthier person at that date it would be richly carved. The adjacent chair shows the next advance in type. It is a superior farmhouse chair of the period. It has a carved top with scroll cresting. The holes in the seat, it should be observed, originally held ropes, upon which a cushion was supported. The wooden seat is an addition made in the eighteenth century. The two other chairs illustrated on the same page are later examples, in date about 1690. One of these is fashioned of chestnut. The form of these backs is related to the contemporary high-back cane chairs of the time of Charles II. and James II. But these fashions influenced the proportions only of farmhouse chairs. In arriving at the date of such specimens as these the bevelled panel is an important factor in determining the late period. Cushions had no place in the effects of the farmhouse in early days, although ropes were sometimes used to support cushions, as we have shown. But as a general rule the wooden seats show tangible signs of rough usage of centuries, and the stretcher has its worn surface marked by generations of owners who found it protective against the cold flagged or rush-strewn floor and the draughts in days prior to carpets and rugs. =The Evolution of the Stretcher.=--In making a study of the evolution of the chair the stretcher is an important factor. For obvious reasons, as explained above, no early chairs were made without the stretcher across the front, a good sound serviceable piece of British oak to stand rough wear and tear. Gradually, keeping time with the march of comfort, the front stretcher begins to leave its old position near the floor, and in later examples it is half-way up the front legs. It still had a use, and a very important one: it added considerable strength and solidity to the chair, and is nearly always found in chairs intended for use. In the series illustrated herein there are only few examples without the front stretcher. Later it took another form, as the illustrated specimens in this chapter show: it united the two side stretchers, and crossed the chair underneath in the centre at right angles to the side stretchers. Its purpose in adding stability to this class of furniture was evidently never lost sight of. At first strictly utilitarian, the stretcher was a solid foot-rest; later, when partly utilitarian in adding to the strength, it became suitable for ornamentation, Although in the class of furniture here under review such ornament never took an elaborate form, there are examples slightly differing in character from chairs intended for the use of the wealthier classes, and these are evidently a local effort to keep in touch with prevailing taste. [Illustration: OAK SETTLE. With back panel under seat made from older Oak Chest. Date 1675.] [Illustration: OAK ARM CHAIR. DATE 1675. With Bevelled Panels.] [Illustration: OAK ARM CHAIR. DATE 1777. With initials A.S. C.B.] Finely turned stretchers, such as are found in gate tables, are a feature of a certain class of local chairs, such as those illustrated on p. 197. This kind of chair without arms is rather more decorated and conforms more to the styles of furniture made for higher spheres than the farmhouse. The upper chair with its light open back and ornate decoration is a Yorkshire type, and the ball turning in the stretcher shows the transition period to Charles II. The other two are Cromwellian chairs, but showing indications of the next period. In date they are all three about 1660. =The Chair-back and its Development.=--Another point in connection with the ordered progress of the chair-maker is the gradual development of the back of the chair. At first it was straight upright, and no attempt was made to impart an angle to rest the back of the sitter. Types such as the arm-chair with square panel (p. 191) and the upright settle with the five panels illustrated on p. 201 indicate this feature of discomfort. The next stage is a slight inclination in the back, still possessing a flat panel. This angle, while not conforming to modern notions of ease, was an attempt to offer greater comfort than before. This style, in a hundred forms, with the minimum of inclination in the back, continued for a very considerable period. It is found in the nearly straight-backed chairs of Derbyshire and Yorkshire origin, with the turned stretchers, and it actually in later days became almost upright in the series of chairs following the later Stuart types with cane back and cane seat, noticeable for their tall narrow backs with a resemblance to the _prie-dieu_ chair of continental usage. The settle illustrated is a plainer variety of the settle made for use by fashionable folk with delicately panelled back. Very often, in cottage furniture, chests and other pieces are broken up to make into smaller furniture or to be incorporated into furniture of a later design. Often it is found that the underframing of an old gate table made in the seventeenth or eighteenth century is from an earlier chest. In the present instance it will be seen that the back panels of the settle have been made from an older chest, which bears the inscribed initials, still visible, "I.E." In date this settle is about 1675, and is contemporary with the square-backed chair illustrated on the same page. Here the panel in back projects, that is, it is slightly bevelled forward. The bevelling of the panel is always a sign that a chair is later in date than the year 1670. Illustrated on the same page is a remarkable chair having the initials "A.S.C.B." and the date 1777 carved on it. It is a striking instance of the adherence to old time-honoured form by the local cabinet-maker, with touches that, even although the date were not present, would tell their own story. This dull wood proclaims a message in accents no less sure than the sturdy yeoman's to Lady Clara Vere de Vere, and as a chair in date _anno Domini_ 1777 may afford to "smile at the claims of long descent" of more pretentious and fashionable furniture. It is like a rich vein of dialect running in some old country song ripe with phrase of Saxon days. It seems incredible that this survival of early-Jacobean days should have been put together by a village craftsman true to convention and exact in seat and arms and stretcher. But it was not done unthinkingly. Here is a chair, astounding to note, made when Sheraton was creating his new styles to supplant Chippendale, and when Hepplewhite stood between the two masters as a _via media_. And the back of this village chair has two distinct features translated from Hepplewhite's school--the wheatear crest and the panel with its broken corner! [Illustration: OAK CHAIRS. DATE ABOUT 1680. Showing the inclination of the craftsmen to assimilate designs then being fashioned in walnut. (_By the courtesy of Messrs. Phillips, Hitchin._)] =Transition between Jacobean and William and Mary Forms.=--The rapid growth of the finer specimens of furniture made in walnut brought a new note into the farmhouse variety. The elegance and grace of the newer styles were at once evident. In the same manner as the grandiose splendour of Elizabethan woodcarving was succeeded by a less massive style in oak, degenerating into a rude simplicity in farmhouse examples, so in turn Jacobean lost favour. Walnut lent itself to more intricate turning, and lightness and greater delicacy claimed the popular favour of fashionable folk. The cane seat and the cane back at once indicate this new taste. The use of cushions became general and the sunk seat for the squab cushion is a feature in the later years of the seventeenth century. Oak still remained the favourite wood of the country craftsman, in spite of its more refractory qualities. But when the walnut styles became so firmly established that clients demanded furniture in this fashion, elm and beech and yew were found pliable enough to conform to the more slender touches and the finer turning considered desirable. Walnut was in its turn supplanted by mahogany, and it will be shown later how farmhouse furniture followed the dictates of fashion in days when the outburst of splendid design by Chippendale, Hepplewhite, and Sheraton, together with a crowd of lesser known men, spread far and wide new principles in the art of furniture-making and brought country furniture another stage in its evolution. Farmhouse furniture slowly assimilated the technique and design of the walnut age. The love for the native oak was so pronounced that country makers did not desert this wood and essayed to produce effects by its employment that were exceedingly difficult and oftentimes unsuccessful. The three chairs illustrated p. 205 show this transition style, about the year 1680, struggling with technical difficulties and affording a fine series of points in the evolution of design. =Farmhouse Styles contemporary with the Cane-back Chair.=--Farmhouse furniture rarely, if ever, had cane-work in the back or in the seat. But the craftsman, while appreciating the delicacy of the cane back in adding lightness to the chair, circumvented his inability to work in cane by substituting thin vertical splats to give the necessary effect of transparency. The three chairs illustrated show each in varying degree the quaint compromise made between the technique of oak and the technique of walnut, and the attempt to reproduce the walnut designs. The arm-chair exhibits strong relationship with the older Jacobean chair in its turned legs and uprights, but these have assumed a more slender proportion. The front stretcher is in the newer manner. The sunk seat is intended to receive a cushion. There should be no difficulty for the amateur correctly to assign a date to such a piece. The process of reasoning would be somewhat as follows:--The lower half of the chair is Jacobean, but the front stretcher suggests the Charles II. period, borne out by the open back, which removes it from the Cromwellian period, and the details of the top rail with its curved top indicate that the country maker had seen the tall straight-back chairs of the William and Mary period with the cane-work panel. [Illustration: OAK CHAIRS. With cresting rail, of Charles II. period, retained and perforated arch centre peculiar to walnut designs. With elaboration in turned legs, and uprights, of William and Mary period retained, and having Queen Anne splat of 1710. With sunk seat for squab cushion, turned uprights and legs and curious back, showing transition from lath back to splat back.] The middle chair more closely approaches the upright chair of the Charles II. period. There is a straight top-rail, supplemented by a lunette, giving the top a character of its own. This specimen is exceptionally interesting. The right-hand chair in its seat and legs is pronouncedly Jacobean. But the back with the three splats and the coarsely carved top-rail betray the hand of the country craftsman following in oak the more graceful curves of the worker in walnut of the days of Charles II. It will be seen that these three chairs, each in varying manner, evade the difficulties of the light cane-back by the substitution of thin rails, and, as will be seen from the illustration of three other chairs (p. 209), the next stage of walnut design with fiddle-shaped splat offered equal problems to the makers of cottage furniture. Sometimes they eliminated the splat altogether, while adopting other points of design found in chairs with the Queen Anne splat of 1710. In every case the fondness for old established styles is exhibited in the fact that the country cabinet-maker clings doggedly to these and appears too conservative or too timid to break wholly away from tradition. In consequence, his work, with patches of newer design welded on to the old, is quaintly incongruous. There is thus an absence of "thinking out" the design as a whole. The minor maker thought out the parts as he went along. Some of his results are extraordinary in their characteristics: they resemble that freak of fashion termed "harlequin" tea services, where the cups are of one pattern and the saucers of another. Bearing in mind these unfailing proclivities of the maker of cottage and farmhouse furniture, the collector should not find it difficult to recognise the country hand at once. Now and again one is struck with the extraordinary ingenuity of some of the work, or one is charmed with the faithfulness with which designs have been translated from the golden bowl to the silver, or, to be literal, from walnut and mahogany to oak and elm and beech. But one is never amazed at the delicacy of proportion, the balanced symmetry, or the fertility of invention--these attributes belong to cabinet-makers on a higher plane. Of three chairs illustrated on p. 209, that on the left in the legs and seat shows the moribund Jacobean style. The stretcher indicates the oncoming of the newer styles, and the back with its cresting rail is of the Charles II. period. Its retention is curious, and the perforated arched centre is peculiar to designs found in walnut; its use in oak by the maker of this chair was a blunder, as oak is too hard a wood to employ for such a design. [Illustration: QUEEN ANNE CHAIR. Entirely oak form except back and splat.] [Illustration: QUEEN ANNE CHAIR. In oak, with strong inclinations towards walnut styles.] Illustration: QUEEN ANNE CHAIR. Walnut design made in oak for farmhouse use.] [Illustration: QUEEN ANNE ARM-CHAIR. With shaped front, walnut design executed in oak. (_By the courtesy of Messrs. Phillips, Hitchin._)] [Illustration: COUNTRY CHIPPENDALE CHAIR, STYLE MERGING INTO HEPPLEWHITE. Less pronounced Cupid's bow top.] [Illustration: TWO CHAIRS COUNTRY HEPPLEWHITE STYLE MADE ENTIRELY IN OAK. Left-hand chair with Prince of Wales's feathers.] [Illustration: TYPES OF COTTAGE CHAIRS IN OAK. Having features of the three styles--Queen Anne, Chippendale, and Sheraton. Two chairs Queen Anne style. Chair Country Chippendale style.] The middle chair shows an equal admixture of styles. The elaboration in the turned legs and uprights belongs to the William and Mary period and the splat is the Queen Anne fiddle pattern of 1710. The seat begins to show another form in having the middle sunk for the use of a squab cushion. The right-hand chair parts with the underframing below the seat, which gives a touch of lightness to the construction. The turned legs and uprights have departed from the coarse early-Jacobean style and perceptibly depend on walnut prototypes for their character. The back shows the transition from the lath back (such as in the chairs simulating the cane-work) to the splat back. It is an interesting and rare example, marking the slow assimilation of new forms by isolated makers. This specimen came from Ireland and evidently possesses native touches of originality which defy the connoisseur to determine its exact date. =The Queen Anne Splat.=--The fiddle-shaped splat of 1710 marks a turning-point in the construction of the chair. The walnut chairs with caned backs of the time of James II. and the early days of William III. were carved richly, and sometimes there was a splat dividing the caning at the back, which later, also in caned-back examples, is curved and plain. The general tendency in the reigns of William and Mary, especially towards the close of the period, was one of economy, and elaborate carving began to disappear. The Queen Anne smooth splat of fiddle form rapidly became popular. This Anglo-Dutch style became acclimatised here, and is characteristic of the homely examples of the Queen Anne period. In walnut it was comparatively easy to carry out carving. In oak such elaboration was well-nigh impossible. It was therefore natural that in the farmhouse examples the plain Dutch splat would readily find favour as more easily executed. By the time that the fiddle splat had become popular the stretcher joining the cabriole legs commenced to disappear. The splat plays an important part as indicating sharp variations in design--walnut with open carving, intricate and floriated; walnut with the plain fiddle splat, with its corresponding minor form in oak; mahogany, with the advent of Chippendale, with the splat again open, carved with graceful ribbon-work. The arm-chair illustrated p. 213 is a remarkable instance of intermingling of styles. The front legs are in Jacobean style, and are continued in the same manner as the usual type of oak chair as supports for the arms, but an original touch and naïve departure is in the curve given to this upright from the seat upwards. The seat is shaped like that of the Windsor chair. The arms are somewhat stiff for the back with its Cupid's-bow design, which has a sprightliness and grace making it a thing apart. The whole is not unpleasing. It is a remarkable instance of the attempted assimilation of several diverse styles by an undeveloped cabinet-maker with strong ideas of his own. The oak form is rigidly retained in all except the back and splat of Queen Anne days. [Illustration: COUNTRY-MADE OAK SETTEE WITH DOUBLE BACK IN CHIPPENDALE STYLE. The shaped underframing is a feature only found in farmhouse varieties.] [Illustration: COUNTRY-MADE OAK SETTEE IN CHINESE CHIPPENDALE STYLE. (_By the courtesy of Messrs. Phillips, Hitchin._)] The adjacent chair, with its tall back with curved splat and its cabriole legs, marks the transition between William and Mary and Queen Anne. The top rail indicates by its clumsy joinery the touch of the immature country cabinet-maker. It is an attempt to approach a fine model with insufficiency of skill by the maker. The use of the cabriole leg either in chairs or in dressers in homely furniture has always proved a stumbling-block to the minor craftsman. The delicacy of balance required in order to preserve the harmony of the whole has proved too subtle a problem for him to handle, and to the practised eye these farmhouse pieces at once proclaim their origin. The broad splat and the straight square front and the bold cabriole leg of the Queen Anne type in walnut were often copied in oak. The example of the chair with the later tapestry covering, illustrated p. 213, is a case where the local cabinet-maker has faithfully copied detail for detail from some fine original in walnut. His is in oak for more strenuous usage. The adjacent arm-chair is of the Queen Anne style, with a shaped front that is very rarely found in such pieces. The maker here has not been so successful in catching the bold lines of his original. There is a sense of something lacking in the curves of the back. The touches of his own that he has added in the arms, reverting to an earlier Jacobean type, reveal the unpractised hand. =Country Chippendale, Hepplewhite, and Sheraton.=--A word in passing may be said in regard to the unique character of furniture of these types. It is obvious that factory-made furniture turned out by the hundred pieces can offer nothing personal, whatever its merits or demerits of design or workmanship. It is this personal note, the love of a craftsman in his creation, that appeals to the collector, whether it be of Persian rugs or of old brass candlesticks. It is absent in art produced in a wholesale manner. Blunderingly as the village craftsmen went to work, they often stumbled into great things, and they always produced original results. Prior to the publication of the design-books of the great eighteenth-century masters of cabinet-making, the furniture of certain localities began to assume a character of its own, the result of long tradition, and designs such as the dragon found in Welsh carving became established. The term "unique" is peculiarly appropriate to furniture of this calibre, for rarely are two pieces found to be exactly alike. Not only did different makers add novel features, but the same craftsman apparently did not repeat himself. The permutations of form governing furniture are illimitable, associated as they are with so many details of construction. To take the chair--the leg, its shape, and the design of its turning; the style and character of the work on the stretcher; the form of the seat; the decoration and formation of the front; the back, its length, and the variety of splats and panels; and the top rail with its variations--these are only the salient features in which differences appear. Such modifications of design and piquant touches of personal character appeal to the collector, who loves the foibles and fanciful moods of the native craftsman, be he ever so humble. Chippendale published his "Director" in 1754, and it became a working guide to all ambitious craftsmen. Ince and Mayhew, cabinet-makers of Broad Street, Golden Square, had issued "Household Furniture" in 1748, and Hepplewhite & Co. followed later with the "Cabinet Maker and Upholsterer's Guide" in 1788, where the delicacies of ornament were related to the chaster classic models, and in 1794 came Sheraton with his "Drawing Book," rich with subtle suggestiveness. A rough generalisation shows the Chippendale school holding sway from 1730 to 1780, the Hepplewhite school from 1775 to 1795, and the Sheraton school from 1790 to 1805: and behind all, the strong influence of the Brothers Adam in their classic revival. What had previously been tradition came very speedily into line with current modes. Fashion, as we have shown, had a slow and impermanent effect upon village ideals. But the output of these great illustrated volumes, with working drawings, undoubtedly had a wide-reaching influence. The last quarter of the eighteenth century saw an intense outburst of interest in the arts of interior decoration. A great amount of finely designed and beautifully executed furniture belongs to those days, and the echo of the splendid achievements in mahogany and in satinwood is seen in the farmhouse and cottage furniture, which came singularly close upon the heels of fashion. Chippendale furniture in oak, elm, or beech is being largely collected. We illustrate a sufficient number of types to show that this class of design known as "Cottage Chippendale," has peculiar charms of its own. The arm-chair illustrated p. 225 is in elm, and is in the style Chippendale employed in his rich mahogany creations in 1760. The fine interlaced carving of the back is graceful and well proportioned. The adjacent chair, in elm, still follows the Chippendale style. The seat is rush, and the maker has confined himself to his own limitations and avoided in the splat the too intricate work of more sumptuous models. He has arrived at a very finely balanced result. The heart cut out of the splat is frequently found in cottage examples, suggesting that some of the more ornate examples may have been made as wedding presents for young couples just setting up housekeeping, or possibly the village cabinet-maker himself had thoughts in that direction, and such work was destined to equip his own home. The illustration of a chair, in beech, with a plain wooden seat, has a somewhat intricate ribbon-like pattern terminating in the Prince of Wales's feathers. The heart is present in the design at the base of the splat, cut out in fretwork. The arm-chair on the right, with its dipped seat, is in oak, and is an instance representing the adaptations of Sheraton styles in the provinces. Another page of chairs in oak (p. 215) shows the influences at work in moulding the character of the styles of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century farmhouse furniture. Of the three chairs at top of p. 215, the left-hand one is in Chippendale style merging into Hepplewhite. The Cupid's bow at the top rail has become less pronounced. The other two chairs on right are typically Hepplewhite in character. The Prince of Wales's feathers, so often associated with Hepplewhite's own work, are embodied in the splat of one. [Illustration: ELM CHAIR. COUNTRY CHIPPENDALE STYLE. 1760.] [Illustration: ELM CHAIR, COUNTRY CHIPPENDALE STYLE.] [Illustration: BEECH CHAIR. COUNTRY CHIPPENDALE STYLE.] [Illustration: OAK CHAIR, COUNTRY CHIPPENDALE STYLE. WITH DROPPED SEAT.] In the lower group, the right-hand chair is of the Chippendale type. The other two chairs have features of three styles--the Queen Anne, the Chippendale, and the Sheraton. It is this piquancy and incongruous combination of styles adjacent to each other in point of time, but having little other relationship, which make the provincialisms of the cabinet-maker of exceptional interest. At times more ambitious attempts were made in oak, following the lines of the Chippendale style in mahogany. These have pronounced features always recognisable as belonging to the farmhouse variety of furniture. Two examples are illustrated, p. 219. The upper example of country-made oak settee, with double back, at once indicates that it is provincial by the shaped underframing, which is never found in other classes of furniture. The lower example of farmhouse oak settee is clearly in Chippendale's Chinese style. A reference to the "Gentleman and Cabinet Maker's Directory," published by Thomas Chippendale in 1754, shows that this Chinese style adopted by the local maker is very far removed from the series of delicate fretwork designs illustrated by Chippendale in his volume. It is true that the old designer of St. Martin's Lane sent forth his work with the sub-title stating that it was "calculated to improve and refine the present Taste, and suited to the Fancy and Circumstances of Persons in all Degrees of Life." The great master cabinet-maker, in scattering his designs far and wide, evidently had in mind the formation of a new style. He builded better than he knew. The importance of his book of designs cannot be overrated. It was subscribed for in Yorkshire, in Devon, in Westmorland, and in Ireland, and straightway minor men looked upon these delightful inventions and began to follow to the best of their ability the ideals set forth by Chippendale the dreamer. That he was an idealist in this book of designs is naïvely explained in his Preface: "I frankly confess that in the executing many of the drawings my pencil has but faintly copied out those images that my fancy suggested, and had they not been published till I could have pronounced them perfect, perhaps they had never seen the light." But Chippendale was also a practical cabinet-maker as well as a designer. He has a lingering doubt that after all, perhaps, the country cabinet-maker and those who bought the book for use might not be able to carry out his designs. Evidently this had struck others too. Perhaps he was accused of fobbing-off in a design-book mere fanciful work that was too far above the plane of ordinary cabinet-work. He meets this objection with a declaration, so to speak, upon honour, with which he winds up his Preface, which is a pretty piece of eighteenth-century advertising:-- "Upon the whole, I have given no design but what may be executed with advantage by the hands of a skilful workman, though some of the profession have been diligent enough to represent them (especially those after the Gothic and Chinese manner) as so many specious drawings, impossible to be worked off by any mechanic whatsoever. I will not scruple to attribute this to malice, ignorance, and inability, and I am confident I can convince all noblemen, gentlemen, or others, who will honour me with their commands, that every design in the book can be improved, both as to beauty and enrichment, in the execution of it, by--Their Most Obedient Servant, Thomas Chippendale." Enough has been said to prove that "country Chippendale" is not a misnomer. It is equally true that the Hepplewhite style was disseminated in like fashion in the provinces. It must be remembered that these trade catalogues, as they really were, brought out somewhat in rivalry with each other by the great London designers and cabinet-makers, were the only literature the country makers had to indicate town fashions. These volumes therefore served a double purpose in procuring clients for the firm and in stimulating the art of the country designer. That they were in part intended to be educational is shown by the Preface to the "Cabinet Maker and Upholsterer's Guide," published by A. Hepplewhite & Co., Cabinet-makers. We quote from the Preface of the third edition, "improved," 1794. The Preface opens with a lament that owing to "the mutability of all things, but more especially of fashions," foreigners who seek a knowledge of English taste and workmanship may be misled by the "labours of our predecessors in this line of little use." "The same reason in favour of this work will apply also to many of our own countrymen and artisans, whose distance from the metropolis makes even an imperfect knowledge of its improvements acquired with much trouble and expense." "In this instance we hope for reward; and though we lay no claim to extraordinary merit in our designs, we flatter ourselves they will be found serviceable to young workmen in general, and occasionally to more experienced ones." In view, therefore, of the books of design we have enumerated, it is obvious that the country designer had a new field open to him, and now and again he made ample use of his opportunities. During the last quarter of the eighteenth century there was quite an outburst of literature on furniture, much of it forgotten and much of it waiting to be disinterred by patient research; and with the dissemination of these fine designs some of the most perfect examples of country-made furniture began to exhibit touches of skill of the practised hand. =The Grandfather Chair.=--From the illustration given on p. 231 it will be seen that the type known as the "grandfather" has a humble lineage. It will be found with the same wings and curved arms and plain wooden seat in the alehouse or in the ingle nook of the farmhouse. The specimen we illustrate does duty as a bacon-cupboard as well as a chair. Usually such pieces have the cupboard opening at the back, but in this instance the cupboard opens in front. [Illustration: COUNTRY GRANDFATHER CHAIR.] [Illustration: ARM-CHAIR AND BACON-CUPBOARD. Opens at foot. This type usually opens at back.] As early as the opening years of the eighteenth century there were upholstered chairs of a somewhat similar type to the so-called "grandfather" with scrolled arms or wings. The example we illustrate is representative of those which may be met with in the country farmhouse. =Ladder-back Types.=--The ladder-back chair belongs to the northern half of England, and similarly the spindle-back chair is found in the same locality. The Windsor chair, on the other hand, is mainly confined to the southern half of the country. These are points which become noticeable after years of systematised research, and although nowadays these three varieties of chair may still be found, somewhat scattered, their real home and place of origin is as indicated. Another feature of interest is that both ladder-back and spindle-back varieties, with but slight differences, are found on the Continent. It will be observed that this class of chair has a rush seat. This feature it has in common with the spindle-back chair. The rush-bottom chair covers a wide area. It comes with an air of _naïveté_ and rustic simplicity. One recalls the long lines of green rushes by the river-bank and the rush-gatherers in idyllic placidity slowly trimming the banks, disturbing coot and moorhen with their punt, and adding another human touch to the lonely angler. They are pursuing a calling as old as the river itself, and the use of rush for floor, for lighting, or for seating furniture, found occupation for generations of men plying curious trades, of which the plaiting of osiers into baskets and the thatching of cottage roofs may be numbered among the decaying industries. Indeed, this latter art and the making of birch and heath brooms may be almost said to be extinct. A good artisan who can thatch in the old artistic style is much sought after. Of course ricks have still to be thatched, but the picturesque skill of masters of this old-world craft is absent, and corrugated iron sheets have found favour in lieu of the old style. The ladder-back chair is, as its name denotes, decorated with horizontal supports, ladder fashion. These are capable of the most pleasing variation. The perfection of form of this type is seen in the arm-chair illustrated p. 237. The well-balanced proportion of the ladder rails is a test as to the excellence of the design. They are not meaningless ornaments put in place, unthinkingly, to create a new style. The two examples illustrated on page 235 show other types of the ladder-back chair. The left-hand one shows the later stages in the development of the design, and its top rail is of the Sheraton period. The right-hand one, with arms, is composite in its character, and is in date about 1820, and exhibits a touch of the Sheraton slenderness of style in the splats and the round turning of arms. Both examples show the quaint survival of the Queen Anne foot. The ladder-back form survived the eighteenth century and lasted down to within fifty years ago, when it became merged into that of the Windsor chair. [Illustration: LADDER-BACK TYPE OF CHAIR. Showing Empire influence in curved back. Dated 1820-1830.] [Illustration: SPINDLE-BACK NURSING CHAIR WITH ROCKER. Three rows of spindles.] [Illustration: SPINDLE-BACK CHAIR. Two rows of spindles.] [Illustration: LADDER-BACK CHAIRS WITH RUSH SEAT. Both chairs showing quaint survival of the Queen Anne feet. Late Eighteenth Century, with top rail in Sheraton style. Later form of splat with turned ends. Dated 1820.] [Illustration: COUNTRY BARBER'S CHAIR.] [Illustration: LADDER-BACK CHAIR. Perfect specimen in regard to style.] [Illustration: OAK CORNER CHAIR.] [Illustration: LADDER-BACK FORM OF CORNER CHAIR WITH RUSH SEAT. Probably Lancashire. (_By the courtesy of Messrs. Phillips, Hitchin._)] =The Spindle-back Chair.=--The spindle-back chair is of long lineage. As early as the reign of Charles I. this type was known. There is still treasured in America the chair of Governor Carver, with simple turning in legs and back, which practically consisted of upright posts rounded and having slight ornament. The back was set with "spindles." The older types of these chairs had thick upright posts, the back and back legs being two posts and the front legs, continued upward beyond the seat, forming supports for the arms. These posts are often six or seven inches in circumference, and belong to early-Jacobean days. The type found its way to America in Puritan days and has continued to be a favourite. Hickory wood was used for American specimens, and considerable attention has been paid to this form of chair and its varieties, the differing heights of the posts and the number of the spindles and their character, by American collectors. In England examples are not easily found of early date. The examples illustrated (p. 235), a Nursing Chair on rockers and an ordinary Spindle-Back Chair, are of eighteenth-century days, and are sufficient to indicate the type of chair, but these two represent the style when it had become of more general use. Practically it was not until the eighteenth century that such types were commonly used in cottages and farmhouses. These turned chairs, turned in every portion but the rush seat, lend themselves to the above-mentioned two styles of treatment. Their upright posts forming the open back can be treated with vertical splats divided by horizontal divisions, or they can, as in the ladder form, receive horizontal splats. The complete simplicity of this attitude towards the back absolved the homely cabinet-maker from dangerous experiments. Avoiding curved backs, he had not to face the intricacies of the nicety of balance in the splat. Altogether it was a very satisfactory solution, and in practice resulted in the production of a wide range of chairs, differing in slight details but well within the range of the local workman's art. The unassuming simplicity of this class of chair made its appeal to Madox-Brown, who held that simplicity and utility were the two desiderata, united with soundness of construction, for domestic furniture. Veneer was as abhorrent to him as to all genuine lovers of the artistic. "Let us be honest, let us be genuine in furniture as in aught else," were his words. "If we must needs make our chairs and tables of cheap wood, do not let them masquerade as mahogany or rosewood; let the thing appear that which it is; it will not lack dignity if it be good of its kind and well made." Accordingly he put his theories into practice and designed some furniture. In a chair in the possession of Mr. Harold Rathbone he has employed the rush seat and used spindles to decorate the back, and in another chair in the same collection he has adhered to the horizontal ladder-back style, coupled with the rush seat, with pleasing effect. =Corner Chairs.=--Among interesting types of chairs often with lingering traces of the Jacobean style and additional features of splats that may be regarded as standing on the threshold of the Chippendale period, corner chairs stand in a class alone. The illustrations on p. 237 show some typical examples. The chair with the double tier is the oak adaptation of Chippendale with the retention of the old Jacobean form of support for the arm. These chairs with this added tier are often used as country barber's chairs. The rush-seated corner chair on the same page, probably made in Lancashire, is suggestive of the ladder-back form, and there are indications in its construction that it is subsequent to the Hepplewhite period. With these notes relative to the evolution of the chair, and with carefully selected illustrations of types likely to be of use to the collector, enough has been said to whet the curiosity of the reader to study the matter for himself. It requires keen and discriminating judgment to allocate specimens with passing exactitude as to time and place. The taste for the subject must be natural and not acquired. Training alone will give the eye the readiness to detect false touches and modern additions. The search for bargains goes on apace, and those who enjoy stalking their quarry in out-of-the-way places have an exciting quest nowadays for fine pieces. To those with endless patience, forbearing under disappointment, and having plenty of leisure, the search will offer abundant delight, if, to quote Mrs. Battle, they enjoy "the rigour of the game." CHAPTER VIII THE WINDSOR CHAIR CHAPTER VIII THE WINDSOR CHAIR Early types--The stick legs without stretcher--The tavern chair--Eighteenth-century pleasure gardens--The rail-back variety--Chippendale style Windsor chairs--The survival of the Windsor chair. The Windsor chair in its early form is coincident with the early years of the eighteenth century. Its history and development therefore exhibit traces of the various styles in furniture which ran their courses throughout the century. It is essentially a chair which belongs to minor furniture, and in its use it is bound up with the country farmhouse, the country inn, or in the metropolis with the chocolate-houses and taverns, and later with the innumerable pleasure gardens which sprang up around the metropolis in the eighteenth century. There is more than a strong suggestion that the type originated in the country. The first forms have a similarity to the easily made three-legged stools. The seat is one piece of wood into which holes are bored to admit the legs. The origin of the term "Windsor chair," according to a story largely current in America, is that George III., the Farmer King, saw a chair of this design in a humble cottage near Windsor, and was so enamoured of it that he ordered some to be made for the royal use. The chair had a singular vogue in America, and it is stated that George Washington had a row of Windsor chairs at his house at Mount Vernon, and Jefferson sat in a Windsor chair when he signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776. =The Stick Legs without Stretcher.=--Obviously this is the earliest type, and the illustrations of these primitive forms (p. 247) show the simplicity of the joinery. The chair on the left with its almost straight top rail suggests a probable date. It was not till 1768 that Chippendale made the first straight top rail in English furniture. The seat is of the saddle-form. The spindles at the back in the lower row taper at each end. It will be observed in all the types we illustrate in this chapter that the arms extend in one piece around the chair. Nor has every example the saddle seat. On the same page is illustrated one with a plain seat, but still having the stick legs set at an angle towards the centre of the chair. Whatever interest attaches to this early type, from a collecting point of view, they cannot compare in beauty with the finer varieties of a later period, with cabriole leg and with pierced splat, displaying a pleasing diversity of patterns in pierced work, no two of which are always quite alike. [Illustration: WINDSOR CHAIRS. Earliest form; stick legs with no stretcher. (_By the courtesy of Messrs. Phillips, Hitchin._)] =The Tavern Chair.=--It was Dr. Johnson who declared that a tavern chair was the throne of human felicity. Undoubtedly the eighteenth century found the need of a comfortable chair for club meetings at taverns and alehouses. The country inn to-day has its Windsor chairs, many of them of great age. Nor were chairs of this type always with arms. There are many plainer chairs without arms and having what is termed "fiddle-string" backs; more often than not across this back there is a rail put transversely to strengthen it. Many of these chairs were made by local carpenters and wheelwrights. They employed any wood that happened to be in their workshop at the time; in consequence the variety of woods in which these chairs are found is great. Sometimes the seat is made from beech or elm and the arms are fashioned from the wood of the pear-tree. The curved horseshoe rails and back are more often than not constructed from the ash. =Eighteenth Century Pleasure Gardens.=--There is no doubt that we owe the considerable output of Windsor chairs in the middle of the eighteenth century to the growth of coffee-houses, and especially the numerous tea and pleasure gardens on the outskirts of London and other great towns. These semi-rural resorts began to be in great demand as a recreation for jaded eighteenth-century town-dwellers. The nobility and persons of fashion had Bath and Tunbridge Wells to fly to for country air and open-air recreation. The citizen and mechanic, the society beau, and the politician, crowded to Ranelagh Gardens, to Vauxhall, to Sadler's Wells, and to Hampstead, to enjoy sunny afternoons and summer evenings in the open air, or to spend Sundays. It was the eighteenth-century diversion similar to the nineteenth-century Crystal Palace and the twentieth-century Earl's Court. To quote Mr. Percy Macquoid in his lordly work on English furniture, "So great were the numbers of visitors to these places that attention was called to their increase in one of the contemporary weekly journals, where a calculation was made that on Sundays alone two hundred thousand people visited the tea-gardens situated on the northern side of London; and as half-a-crown per head was probably the least sum expended by them, it can be no exaggeration to state that £20,000 on a fine Sunday was taken at these places of amusement. Many cheap chairs must have been required at such places of entertainment." Between the year 1760 and the end of the century the Windsor chair was being made for general country use. "The backs and arms of these," continues Mr. Macquoid, "are made of hoops of yew, held together by a number of slender uprights and a perforated splat of the same tough and pliant wood; the seats were generally invariably of elm, as yew cut into a superficies of any size is liable to split; the legs and stretchers were generally of yew." [Illustration: OLIVER GOLDSMITH'S CHAIR. Wood, painted green, with circular seat, curved arms, and high back. Bequeathed by Oliver Goldsmith in 1774 to his friend, Dr. Hawes. (_Bethnal Green Museum._)] =The Rail-back Variety.=--We have alluded to the use of the rail placed across the back from the top rail to the seat, crossing the uprights. It is not an elegant device, but it was used as a means of strengthening the back. It seems almost unnecessary, although possibly these chairs received a good deal of rough usage. Later, when the fiddle splat began to be employed, this transverse rail--sometimes there were two used--was discontinued. An historic example of the chair with transverse rails is that which was once in the possession of Oliver Goldsmith. There is no doubt about the authenticity of this, as it was bequeathed by the poet to his medical attendant, Dr. Hawes, who, by the way, was the founder of the Royal Humane Society. Goldsmith told his farmer friends at his cottage at Edgware that he should never in future spend more than two months a year in London, and at the time of his death in 1774 he was negotiating the sale of the lease of his Temple chambers. This chair (illustrated p. 251) has a rather small shaped seat, curved arms, a top rail that is of exceptional interest considering the date, which is, say, from 1770 to 1774, perhaps a little earlier. This was at the commencement of the Hepplewhite period, which lasted till 1790. The year 1768 was, as we have already said, the date at which chairs with straight top rails, designed by Adam and executed by Chippendale, were first made. The turned legs are interesting, showing the hoofed foot, and the turned stretcher retains an earlier form. The chair is of soft wood, probably beech, and is painted green. It is preserved at the Bethnal Green Museum, with the distinctive label on the stand: "Oliver Goldsmith's Chair." =The Splat Back and the Cabriole Leg.=--It is here that the Windsor chair assumes a character essentially charming and attracts the admiration of connoisseurs of styles that are peculiarly English. The splat back is a feature only found in English varieties of the Windsor chair. In America a great deal of attention has been paid to old types, and there the pliant hickory wood is used in the making of chairs of this form; but the splat back is never used in America, and when found by collectors there the piece is attributed to English manufacture. The splat, with its varying forms, denotes the date of the chair. From 1740 to 1770 the form with cabriole legs and with finely ornamented fiddle splat was at its best. We illustrate a sufficient number of specimens to show how graceful and perfectly well balanced these chairs had become. In contemplating pieces remarkable for the highest style, it must be admitted that their artistry and their simple unaffected sense of comfort do make a direct appeal to those who are willing to recognise fine qualities in minor furniture. The two chairs illustrated (p. 255) differ slightly in details of construction. That on the left has the plain urn splat, a survival of the Queen Anne type. The seat is finely shaped and the legs are cabriole form. The top rail is almost straight, and is ornamented at the two ends with turned discs. The three stretchers are turned, and in the adjacent chair the stretchers are similar, save in a slight variation in the pattern of the turning. But here the splat is perforated with an intricate design suggestive of the lines of Chippendale; the top rail is a departure in form, imparting a distinctiveness which lifts the chair from the ordinary type. [Illustration: WINDSOR CHAIR. With plain fiddle splat of Queen Anne type, Chippendale top rail and cabriole legs, and three turned stretchers.] [Illustration: WINDSOR CHAIR. With pierced fiddle splat, shaped arms, cabriole legs, and three turned stretchers. (_By the courtesy of Messrs. Phillips, Hitchin._)] [Illustration: CHIPPENDALE WINDSOR CHAIRS. Chippendale splats. The type of splat indicates the date of Windsor chairs.] [Illustration: HEPPLEWHITE WINDSOR CHAIR. Exceptionally fine legs back and front. Urn back. Probably Welsh carving.] [Illustration: HEPPLEWHITE PERIOD WINDSOR CHAIR. With wheel back, in yew. (_By courtesy of Messrs. A. B. Daniell & Sons._)] =Chippendale Style Windsor Chairs.=--The page of chairs (p. 257) tells its own story. The beautiful sweep of the curved back is always a sign of the old and true form. Later imitations or replicas seem somehow to lose this effect. It has been suggested that the back of this style was produced by the village wheelwright in horseshoe form, but possibly that is a conjecture which is more fanciful than real. It has also--collectors are often fond of inventing theories to fit little-known facts--been asserted that the wheel-back variety, which is of somewhat more modern growth, is due to the same origin. This wheel is fretted with six triangular openings. One chair on this page has the wheel unperforated. In the examination of the details of the four examples there is nothing of great importance to differentiate them from each other in construction. The two at the top are suggestive of Chippendale in the ornament employed in the splat. The lower two incline more to the slightly later Hepplewhite period. Of these the one on the left has only fourteen upright rails at the lower portion and six in the upper portion of the back, in comparison with sixteen and eight in the other chairs. The legs of this chair are exceptionally fine both back and front. The work in the splat is slightly suggestive of Welsh carving, especially that style associated with Welsh love-spoons. Following the influence of Chippendale and Hepplewhite came the style of Sheraton, which after 1790 began to affect the character of some forms of minor furniture. That this was a very real factor is often shown most unexpectedly in cottage and farmhouse pieces. The satinwood and the painted panel, and the intricacies and subtleties of his employment of colour, were of course too far removed from the simple cabinet-work of the country maker to have the least effect upon him, even if he ever saw them. But the slenderness and elegance of the Sheraton styles did in a small degree have weight with cabinet-makers as a whole in the provinces. So that it is quite within reasonable surmise to attribute certain forms to the Sheraton school, or rather to the oncoming of the early nineteenth-century mannerisms. On p. 261 two examples are illustrated showing this influence. The one with the horseshoe back is devoid of the splat, which had now disappeared. The turned legs begin to show signs of modernity. The other has the top-rail familiar in later forms of cottage chair. The turned rails for the arms and the type of turning in the legs show signs of decadence. The fine days of the old Windsor chair were coming to an end. [Illustration: WINDSOR CHAIR. Horseshoe back, saddle seat, turned legs, with stretcher. Sheraton style.] [Illustration: WINDSOR CHAIR. Curved top rail, turned arms, legs, and stretcher. Sheraton style, pierced fiddle splat.] =The Survival of the Windsor Chair Type.=--Apart from the love of the simple form and especially well-conceived design of the Windsor chair, which have made it at once the especial favourite of artists and lovers of simplicity and utility, it has won the practical approval of generations of innkeepers, who to this day store hundreds of chairs for use at village festivals. What we have said in regard to the popularity of the gate-leg table applies in greater degree to the Windsor chair. The industry of turning the legs and rails of this type of chair is still carried on in Buckinghamshire. Until recent years much of this turning was done by hand by villagers in the district surrounding High Wycombe, where the parts are sent to be finished and made up. To this day some of the old chair-makers use the antiquated pole lathe. But the chairs have departed from their old stateliness. It is true that they have survived, almost in spite of themselves. They are not now the objects of beauty they once were. But they have, by reason of modern requirements, found a fresh field of usefulness. Will it be supposed that the modern office chair is in reality a Windsor? An examination will at once show this, even in the latest American types. The saddle-shaped seat is there, the straight turned legs, and the back is the same except that the upper extension has disappeared and the old centre rail has become broader as a properly-formed rest for the tired clerk's back. A perusal of a few catalogues of up-to-date office furniture will establish this. Here, then, is the last stage of the country Windsor chair. The twentieth-century Windsor has come to town and graces the head cashier's private office in a bank or the senior partner's room of a firm of stockbrokers. CHAPTER IX LOCAL TYPES CHAPTER IX LOCAL TYPES Welsh carving--Scottish types--Lancashire dressers, wardrobes, and chairs--Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Cambridge, and Essex tables--Isle of Man tables. The charm of collecting cottage and farmhouse furniture lies in the wide area over which it is found. Those who have given especial attention to collecting it have learned instinctively to differentiate between the work of various localities. Some well-defined types of cottage furniture are only to be found in certain counties, and nowhere else. Take for example the ladder-back and the spindle chairs. The latter are usually found in the northern half and the former in the southern half of England. It is obvious that craftsmen developing on original lines, or on lines more or less apart from outside influence, must establish designs peculiarly identified with their field of labours. The sturdy insularity of the British peasant, and his uneasy reception of foreign suggestion, have had a very pronounced influence upon his methods of work. He has the defects of his qualities, the stern, almost uncompromising conservatism in habit of mind and in his daily pursuits. A close study of the thoughts, and as far as is recorded the written ideals, of the rural labouring population exhibit an extraordinary fixity of purpose in clinging tenaciously to old customs. The country songs more often than not express disapproval of innovations and call up the memories of slowly vanishing customs. The farm hands recall wistfully the old style of Shearers' feasts and Harvest homes, when great festivities with song and dance and old country sports enlivened the company. In Yorkshire this was termed the Mel Supper, in Kent the Kern Supper, and in parts of the North of England it was called the Churn Supper. Annual feasts were given to labourers such as the Wayzgoose or Bean feast, which later name remains to this day. The good old days is a refrain not confined to the cottager in his relation with the farmer. The farmer, imbued with the same wistful regard for the vanished past, bewails the May Day tenants' feast of the eighteenth-century English squire. We get touches of disdain for the oncoming fashion of seclusion which invaded the farmhouse in "A Farmer's Boy," by Robert Bloomfield. He laments that the annual feast of the harvest home had lost its former joviality. This was written in 1798. "The aspect only with the substance gone." Evidently the mug that passed around was becoming a thing of the past. "The self-same Horn is still at our command, But serves none now but the plebeian hand." The picture he draws of the farmer who, in face of prevailing fashion, "yields up the custom that he dearly loves" is pathetic. The long table and dining in common together had seemingly vanished. "The _separate_ table and the costly bowl" touch the rustic poet's pride. He italicises the word "separate." [Illustration: CHEST. DATED 1636. With Welsh inscription on lid. (Standing on table of later date.)] [Illustration: WELSH CUPBOARD. With typical coarse style of carving. Should be 1650 at latest. Inscribed I.S. 1710.] This loving regard for the past is natural at a time when the rural population jealously feared the oncoming of the age of machinery, which threatened to supersede many of their local industries and finally succeeded in so doing. The obstinate adherence to old forms was possibly part of a nervous fear of the unknown future. The love for existing forms of furniture was therefore part of this apprehensive retention of tradition. Not only was the resistance of town fashions a strong feature, but local prejudices prevailed against the adoption of designs belonging to rival counties. To this day the Staffordshire clothes-horse, carried on pulleys to the ceiling when not in use, differs from the clothes-horse of the cottager in the South with no such mechanical device. In Edinburgh, in the narrow closes, there is a kind of gallows projecting from the windows. These apparently minor details which find their embodiment in articles of everyday use, fascinate and hold the attention of the acute collector of cottage furniture. The same local types apply to the art of the potter and are well known to collectors. There are Sussex "tygs" and Nottingham "bears" and Sunderland and Newcastle jugs and mugs. Bristol had its characteristic earthenware, and the Lowestoft china factory was strongly Suffolk in its homely inscriptions with a touch of dialect. =Welsh Carving.=--Wales is famous for the abundance of the oak farmhouse furniture proudly kept to this day in families who have held the same homestead sometimes for centuries. One of the most noticeable features is the elaboration of the carving and its native representation, coarsely carved, without foreign influence, of birds and beasts and heraldic monsters which largely figure in the decorative panels of chests, and especially dressers. So popular was oak that it might almost be advanced that there never was any mahogany in Wales. But it is indisputable that the great outburst in carved mahogany chairbacks coincident with the advent of Chippendale and the publication of his _Director_, never penetrated Wales, although it led to the foundation of a remarkable school of woodcarving on the new lines in Ireland, known as Irish Chippendale, a study of which can be made in Mr. Owen Wheeler's volume on old furniture. The intense love of the Welsh woodcarver for intricacy is hardly less than that of the sturdy Swiss craftsmen environed by mountains. Perhaps the long winters and the solitary life influence the development of individual character in the applied arts. The Welsh love-spoons of wood, linked together and exhibiting delicate pierced work and minute carving of no mean order, are among other attractive specimens of native art. Ironwork of fine quality is also to be found in Wales. [Illustration: LANCASHIRE DRESSER. ABOUT 1730-1750. Oak inlaid with mahogany.] [Illustration: ELM WARDROBE (WELSH). ABOUT 1670.] (_By the courtesy of Messrs. Phillips, Hitchin._) [Illustration: FLAP-TOP TABLE. Rare Hertfordshire Example. Diameter of top, 2 ft. 6 ins. (_By the courtesy of Messrs. A. B. Daniell & Sons._)] [Illustration: LANCASHIRE SPINDLE-BACK CHAIRS.] A carved oak chest of Welsh origin, dated 1636, with Welsh inscription on lid, is illustrated (p. 269). The table on which it stands is of a later date. The carving in this piece is delicate and the middle panel is typical of the representation of birds and foliage. The Welsh cupboard on the same page typifies the coarse woodcarving associated with Welsh farmhouse art. In style this really belongs to a date not later than 1650. But it is dated 1710 and bears the initials "I.S." This is an interesting example, showing how middle-Jacobean styles lingered in country districts remote from outside influence until the early eighteenth century. An elm wardrobe, probably about 1670 in date, shows another type, but still retaining the coarse character of its carving and its well-filled panels and uprights (illustrated p. 273). =Scottish Types.=--Scotland has antiquities of her own which are closely allied to those of all the Gaelic races. As with Welsh carved farmhouse furniture, there is a marked leaning towards coarse style. As a rule it is too utilitarian in appearance to display much carving. The spinning-wheel is still found in farmhouses, and is still used in Harris and the outlying islands. Sometimes these old Highland spinning-wheels come into the market with the smooth surface worn by generations of workers, a surface impossible to reproduce. The Scottish ironwork is especially interesting. Perhaps the most curious of the Scottish antiquities is the crusie. This is undoubtedly a survival of the classic oil lamp. It consists of a shallow trough with a spout in which the wick stands, the oil being contained in the trough (see illustration, p. 289). =Lancashire Furniture.=--The especial characteristics of Lancashire-made furniture are a strong leaning to solid structure and a very noticeable reticence in carving. Well-balanced as a rule, and possessing good joinery, they have been favourites with collectors of furniture designed for modern use. A Queen Anne oak dresser illustrated (p. 135) shows this Lancashire sturdiness at its best. This style of large dresser with cabriole legs is associated with Lancashire cabinet work. A Lancashire dresser, the date of which is from about 1730 to 1750, shows the oak dresser inlaid with mahogany. The carved pediment and the carved underwork beneath the drawers mark this as an unusual specimen (p. 273). A typical Lancashire oak settle is illustrated (p. 279), showing the Jacobean style in the carved work and in the arms. In date this is about 1660. It will be noticed that the front of the seat has a row of holes, which, prior to the upholstered cushion, a later addition, were intended for ropes to support a cushion, much in the same manner as the iron laths of a modern bedstead. On the same page is illustrated an oak chest of drawers of Yorkshire origin, in date about 1770. Its plain lines suggest the Hepplewhite types of subdued character. In regard to spindle-back chairs, Lancashire offers distinctive varieties. Two examples are illustrated (p. 275) as indicating this local type. [Illustration: OAK CHEST OF DRAWERS. _C._ 1770. Yorkshire type. Height, 3 ft. 3 ins.; width, 3 ft. 1 in.; depth, 1 ft. 5-1/2 ins.] [Illustration: LANCASHIRE OAK SETTLE. _C._ 1660.] [Illustration: ISLE OF MAN TABLE. Showing three legs with knee breeches and buckle shoes.] [Illustration: "CRICKET" TABLE. _C._ 1700.] [Illustration: "CRICKET." _C._ 1750. (These types are found in Hertfordshire, South Bedfordshire, South Cambridge, and Essex.)] =Three Legged Tables.=--Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Cambridge, and Essex have produced a type of tables termed colloquially "cricket tables," possibly because the three legs are suggestive of three stumps. The term is a foolish one and not very appropriate. A very interesting flap-top table with the three flaps to turn down, illustrated (p. 275), is a very rare Hertfordshire example. This is small in size, having only a diameter of two and a half feet. Two other tables, one in date about 1700 and the other, of slender form, in date about 1750, are typical of this class of table. A very interesting table is a specimen from the Isle of Man having three carved legs with knee-breeches and buckle shoes. Sussex is also well-known for her ironwork (see Chapter X.). Norfolk and Suffolk used to have a class of oak furniture of quaint type, less cumbersome than the Welsh. A type of Sheraton Windsor chair, often inlaid with brass, used also to be found there. On the whole, those localities which are removed from important towns are the richest in cottage furniture, for example, Wales, Devonshire, Cumberland, Northumberland, and parts of Yorkshire. In places, where the prosperity of the peasants is of long standing, the cottage furniture has been maintained whole almost until the present day. Altogether the study of local types affords considerable scope for critical study. It is essential that such pieces should be identified and classified before it is too late. Rapidly all cottage and farmhouse furniture is being scattered over all parts of England. Collectors transfer furniture from the North to the South, and the rural treasures of the peasant have been brought to towns and dispersed to alien districts. The Education Act of 1870 and the halfpenny newspaper have brought town fashions to the door of the cottager, and the motor has laid a heavy tribute on rustic seclusion. CHAPTER X MISCELLANEOUS IRONWORK, Etc. CHAPTER X MISCELLANEOUS IRONWORK, ETC. The rushlight-holder--The dipper--The chimney crane--The Scottish crusie--Firedogs--The Warming-pan--Sussex firebacks--Grandfather clocks. The everyday iron utensils and implements of the cottages were simple. It is one of the curious features of the English peasantry that just as they clung to their oak of generations back when mahogany was in vogue, so they adhered tenaciously to ironwork of almost mediæval character when other metals were in fashionable everyday use. Thus the cottager did not feel the oncoming desire for the brass, or later silver and plated candlesticks, but remained firm in his affection for the rushlight-holders in iron, the same types which his ancestors had used, and the firedogs and firebacks of earlier type remained to decorate his hearth. Thus ironwork and rarely brasswork form the sum total of the metal portion of cottage furniture. We will deal with these various utilitarian objects one by one. It must be remembered that the country farmer was not familiar with ready-made candles, and it probably no more entered his head to purchase candles in a town than it occurred to him to do other than bake his own bread. The cottager therefore made his candles for himself. If he were well-to-do and could afford to entertain his friends in modest fashion, he would doubtless like to illuminate his table with candles of symmetrical form. In which case he would use a candle-mould, and the wax bought in towns would serve for this purpose. But he was not always so rich, and perhaps he was happiest of all with the faintly glimmering rush dips which his forbears used. These afforded a rough-and-ready form of lighting. They burned and spluttered like a torch or flickered faintly as the tallow grew thin. Their form closely resembled an amateur's first attempt at making a cigarette. They were made in the following manner: the thin wirelike rushes which grew by the water's edge were gathered and stripped of their green surface till only the soft white pith remained. This served as a wick. The wax was then melted over a fire in a trough or candle-dipper, of which an illustration appears (p. 289). Across this long receptacle the pith wicks were laid till the wax soaked into them. They were then taken out for the wax to cool and were dipped once or twice afterwards in order to form their outer coating. By such a primitive process a kind of thin taper was formed. It was not parallel along its sides, but bulged and narrowed throughout its length in primitive manner. [Illustration: RUSHLIGHT HOLDERS. Showing rush fixed ready for lighting. SCOTCH CRUSIE. With holder. RUSHLIGHT HOLDERS. Showing forceps for holding rushlight.] [Illustration: SUFFOLK PIPE CLEANER. The long clay "churchwarden" pipes were placed in this iron rack and put into the fire, after which they came out perfectly cleaned. CANDLE-DIPPER. (_In the collection of Messrs. Phillips, Hitchin._)] [Illustration: QUEEN ANNE POT-HANGER. With original grate. Same date. (_By the courtesy of Messrs. Phillips, Hitchin._)] [Illustration: KETTLE TRIVET. Brass and Iron. Dated about 1770.] Such a taper, from its uneven thickness, would naturally not fit the socket of a candlestick, and the only receptacle would be a scissor-like mechanism with jaws capable of clasping it at any point. Thus we find the rushlight-holder of common use, as illustrated (p. 289). The illustrations show two rush-holders with the rushlights affixed in position ready for lighting, and one showing how the jaws or forceps clip the rushlight. In practice about an inch or an inch and a half was above the clip and the rest below. A rushlight some twelve to fifteen inches long would burn half an hour, and it had to receive constant attention, being pushed upwards every five minutes. But it must be remembered that the persons who used this primitive form of light did not use it for reading nor for a long period at a time. They usually went to bed early after sunset. In regard to rushlight-holders the earliest form was without the accompanying candle-socket, but when the use of tallow dip candles became prevalent, later forms are found, as illustrated, with the candle-socket in addition to the holder for the rushlight. The Scottish crusie is an iron trough of dimensions like a small sauceboat, which was used for lighting purposes, and was often suspended, as in the one illustrated (p. 289), from a crane or hanger. This crusie was filled with oil and the illumination given by a floating wick, much in the same manner as classic examples, to which the shape bears a distant resemblance. The firedogs were always simple, doubtless the product of the local blacksmith. Where they had hooks along the backs they held crossbars to prevent the logs falling into the room. The dates of these, as of all cottage ironwork, are almost impossible to fix, owing to the survival of the earlier types even so late as the middle of the nineteenth century. =The Chimney Crane.=--A most important part of the cottager's fireplace was his chimney crane. These were of two kinds, the pot-hook and the swing-arm variety. The pot-hook hung in the chimney from a chain, and from its teeth was fixed a catch which might be lowered or raised to keep the cauldron at a level with the flames. The swing-arm type is more elaborate, and was made to fit very large fireplaces, where the fire might not invariably be in the same spot on the hearth. This type was used in the kitchens of the better farmhouses. Its end was fixed to the wall of the hearth, and the pot could be swung backwards and forwards and sideways, besides being raised or lowered to the fire. The pot-hook is of great antiquity, and belongs to days when man first learned to cook his food. Frequently in this country early examples are dug up. There are fine specimens to be seen of the late Celtic period at the Owens College Museum, at the Northampton Museum, at the Liverpool Museum, at the Pitt Rivers Museum at Farnham, at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and elsewhere. "Pot-hooks and hangers" is an English phrase denoting the beginning of things academic, and the French phrase _pendre la crémaillère_ (literally to hang the pot-hook) is used to-day in reference to what we term a "house-warming" party on settling in a new abode. Another interesting cottage treasure is the cake-baker. This was a kind of thick frying-pan having a lid, which protected the dough from the heat when it was held over the smouldering ashes. The tops of these are often incised with quaint patterns, the impress of which appears on the cake. Kettle-trivets are sometimes found in cottages, possibly relics from better houses or having belonged to the more prosperous farmer. They are not wholly of iron, being partly of brass. The specimen illustrated (p. 291) is of late eighteenth-century days. =The Warming-pan.=--There is an especial charm in the old brass warming-pan of the farmhouse and the treasured highly-polished ornament of many a proud cottager to-day. Many modern-made warming-pans from Holland and elsewhere have found their way into the possession of unsuspecting collectors. But fine old English warming-pans are interesting, and summon up memories of careful housewives and well-aired lavender-smelling sheets in ancient old-world inns. On fine examples inscriptions may be found, and the incised work of the pattern on the brass covers is often individual in character. Of the examples illustrated (p. 307) one has an incised inscription around the edge, "The Lord only is my portion." The other has a dotted geometrical pattern with a star-like design of conventional floral incised work. It is unfortunate that the diligence of the housewife has often obliterated much of the fine work of some of these designs. The warming-pan offers in itself a complete field for the collector. He can compare the work of seventeenth-century Dutch examples, with their quaint religious inscriptions and their finely embossed and engraved ornamentation, with English specimens of the same date. That the warming-pan was in use in Elizabethan days is proved by references in Shakespeare. It has a long history, from Sir John Falstaff, when Bardolph was bidden to put his face between the sheets and do the office of a warming-pan, to Mr. Pickwick--to quote Sergeant Buzfuz, "Don't trouble yourself about the warming-pan--the warming-pan! Why, gentlemen, who does trouble himself about a warming-pan?" =Sussex Firebacks.=--The fireback was usually part of the cottager's belongings, though perhaps only one would figure in his house, where possibly his only hearth was in his living-room. These were cast and forged in various parts of the country, and large numbers appear to have been made in Sussex, which is, or rather was, the greatest hunting-ground for good specimens of cottagers' ironwork. Some highly interesting specimens of these are to be herein illustrated. The records of the Sussex iron industry go back to a very early date, and the town of Lewes, in the thirteenth century, raised taxes by charging a toll on every cartload of iron admitted. Under Edward III. the Sussex ironworks provided three thousand horseshoes and twenty-nine thousand nails for the English army in its campaign in Scotland. The local rhyme-- "Master Hogge and his man John They did cast the first cannon"-- is not without reason, as in Bodiam Castle and elsewhere are mortars of Sussex work of fifteenth-century style. In the sixteenth century a considerable number of firebacks was made, some with the royal arms and with the royal cipher, "E.R.," and bearing dates and sometimes makers' names. [Illustration: COUNTRY FIREDOGS. EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.] [Illustration: FIRE GRATE. EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.] The earliest form was stamped with the _fleur-de-lys_ or with portions of twisted cable to form some sort of symmetrical design. We are enabled, by the kindness of Mr. C. Dawson, F.S.A., of Lewes, to reproduce some Sussex firebacks from his collection. An example of the first half of the sixteenth century, illustrated (p. 301), shows the rope-like border impressed on the sand mould, and the field impressed with repetitions of a _fleur-de-lys_ from a single stamp. Another interesting fireback is the "Royal Oak" design, with the initials "C.R." This is commemorative of the escape of Charles II. from pursuit by Cromwell's Ironsides and his refuge in the oak-tree. It will be observed that this specimen has a moulded edge, which is from a single wood pattern carved in one piece. Amidst the oak foliage will be seen three crowns, and this exuberance of loyalty bears a resemblance to certain chairs of the period (copied by the score nowadays), in which the crown finds a place in the stretcher. One fireback illustrated (p. 303) shows an ironmaster with his hammer at his forge. The adjacent piece has the Tudor rose surmounted by the royal crown, and bears the date 1650, slightly earlier than the "Royal Oak" example. All the foregoing specimens are native in their conception of design. They approximate closely to the Jacobean carved panel with its narrow range of subjects, and have a relationship to Stuart needlework with its royal symbolism. Later came the Dutch influence, most marked in its effect upon the shape, height, and character of these firebacks. This became especially noticeable in the eighteenth century, and in the illustrations (p. 303) of two wooden patterns from which the firebacks were made at Ashburnham, Sussex, this is clearly shown. The designs are ornate and represent either some scriptural or mythological subject. The woodcarving is of a style strongly under Dutch influence, and the tall proportions suggest gravestones (indeed, in Sussex there are headstones made of iron, with pictures and inscriptions). The mode of casting these iron firebacks in sand and the employment of wooden patterns to form the mould into which the molten metal was to run is familiar to any foundry in casting iron. In regard to the early examples with the twisted cable rim, it is conjectured that pieces of twisted rope were actually laid on the wet sand to produce this pattern--that is, before the use of carved wooden patterns such as are illustrated. In regard to the bolder "cable twist" pattern, it is believed this was produced by impression of pieces of rope stiffened with glue, and twisted around iron rods. [Illustration: SUSSEX IRON FIREBACK. FIRST HALF OF SIXTEENTH CENTURY. Rope-like border impressed on sand mould. The field impressed with repetitions from a single _fleur-de-lys_ stamp.] [Illustration: SUSSEX IRON FIREBACK. The Royal Oak Design, commemorative of the Restoration. Late Seventeenth Century. Moulded edge and carved in one piece from a single pattern. (_In the collection of Charles Dawson, Esq., F.S.A., Lewes._)] [Illustration: SUSSEX FIREBACKS. Tudor Rose surmounted by Royal Crown. Dated 1650. Depicting Ironmaster at his Forge. (Very rusty and worn.)] [Illustration: ORIGINAL WOODEN PATTERNS. Dutch influence. Eighteenth Century. From which firebacks were made at Ashburnham, Sussex. (_By the courtesy of Charles Dawson, Esq., F.S.A., Lewes._)] The size of the wooden pattern is slightly larger than the resultant fireback, owing to the shrinkage of the metal on cooling. This diminution in design is a factor in the potter's art, when figures in some cases lose nearly a third of their original proportions when moulded in the clay prior to firing. Firebacks have attracted a considerable amount of interest. There are many collectors, and a great deal of close study has been applied to the subject. Country museums in the vicinity of the Weald of Sussex and Kent contain many notable examples, especially those of Lewes, Hastings, Brighton, Rochester, Maidstone, and Guildford. In the first mentioned there are some very rare and beautiful examples of Sussex firebacks. Especially interesting in connection with the Sussex ironworks is the illustration (p. 309) of a clock face made by a local maker, Beeching of Ashburnham, in the late seventeenth century. This brass dial of a thirty-hour clock, with single hand and alarum, is ornamented with designs showing various phases of the iron industry as carried on in Sussex. There is a cannon with diminutive figures holding the match. There are cannon-balls, and a liliputian fireback with a crown on it. Men with pickaxes, men felling trees, and others tending the furnaces, symbolise the business of a foundry. It was not until 1690 that the minute numerals were placed outside the minute divisions in clock faces, so that this face, having the minute numerals absent and the minute divisions in the inner circle, presumably belongs to the late seventeenth century. =Grandfather Clocks.=--A volume on cottage and farmhouse furniture would be incomplete without some reference to grandfather clocks. At the beginning of the eighteenth century this type of clock had become popular. The early brass-bracket clock known as "Cromwellian," varying from six to ten inches in height, had a spring. With the use of the long pendulum and revolving drums, around which catgut is wound to support the heavy weights, these unprotected parts required a wooden case. The "lantern" or "bird-cage" clocks (wallclocks from which the pendulum and weights hung unprotected) lasted till about 1680, when the first grandfather type with wood case came into use. The early examples with cases exhibiting fine marquetry are outside the scope of the class of furniture now under consideration. In such specimens there is frequently a round or oval opening covered with glass in the centre of the panel. In earlier types the metal dial is square, and later it became lunetted at top, and the wood case had a corresponding curve. In clocks made for great houses there were chimes, and their works were by well-known town makers. But in cottage examples, instead of the eight-day movement, more often than not the clock only ran for twenty-four hours. There is little attempt at ornament in these plain oak varieties. The case is soundly constructed, and sometimes, in exceptional examples, the head is surmounted by brass ball finials, as in the finer examples. As a rule the country cabinet-maker confined himself to an ornamental scrolled head. In later examples the metal dial--and these come at the beginning of the nineteenth century--is painted with some rustic scene with figures, and frequently there is a revolving dial showing the days of the month. [Illustration: WARMING-PANS. Finely decorated with incised work. One with inscription, "The Lord only is my portion." (_By the courtesy of Mr. S. G. Fenton._)] [Illustration: GRANDFATHER CLOCK. With Oak Case. Made by J. Paxton, St. Neots. Height, 6 ft. 10 ins.] [Illustration: BRASS DIAL OF THIRTY-HOUR CLOCK. Single Hand and Alarum. Late Seventeenth Century. Ornamented with designs showing various phases of the iron industry, as carried on at Ashburnham, Sussex. (_In the collection of Charles Dawson, Esq., F.S.A., Lewes._)] The entire head covering the dial is often removable in old clocks to which there is no hinged door, as in later made examples. These country grandfather clocks are much treasured by their owners, and have been handed down in families for generations. Owing to the indefatigability of collectors and their persistent and tempting offers, many have left their old homes. The demand has been great, and thousands of "grandfather" clocks have been made during the last twenty years and sold as "antique," or old cases with plain panels have received the unwelcome attention of the modern restorer and have been carved to please a popular whim for carved oak panels. In regard to dates of grandfather clocks the records of the Clockmakers' Company give a list of makers of the eighteenth century, enabling the period to be fairly accurately fixed. The walnut cases inlaid with floral marquetry, often attributed to the period 1690-1725, that is William and Mary and Queen Anne, frequently belong to a quarter of a century later. The case-makers clung more closely to old designs than did the clockmakers. Hence the case very often is of apparently older style than the works, though both were made contemporaneously. In addition to this, new clocks were put in older cases, or _vice versa_, which, like putting new pictures in old frames, adds to the gaiety of collecting. In general the London clock-cases are only roughly indicative, in comparison with the Company records, of contemporary styles of furniture. In country-made pieces the wood cases are anything from twenty to forty years behind London fashions. For example, the arched top occurs after 1720 in London, and after 1735 in the provinces. In the _Director_ of Chippendale and in Sheraton's and Hepplewhite's books of designs there are illustrations of clock cases. The progression of styles of eighteenth-century grandfather clock cases is from plain oak to figured walnut, black and red lacquer, floral, "seaweed," or mosaic marquetry, and in the latter decades of the eighteenth century inlaid mahogany cases, and many of these have finely veneered panels. In many country clocks oak cases are veneered in mahogany, but as a rule country made grandfather cases are plain oak. The example illustrated (p. 307) indicates the plain type of solidly made provincial piece. The clock was made by J. Paxton at St. Neots. The mahogany-cased grandfather clock is never found in cottages. There are no Chippendale styles in this field for the collector to search for. The plainness of the country style has happily in many instances preserved them from alien hands. An interesting revival, chiefly on account of expense, is found in the Dutch clock, with china face painted with flowers, which the cottager bought in early and middle nineteenth-century days. This form of clock reverted to the unprotected pendulum and weights, and is an object-lesson in what the style of English clock was before the use of a long wooden case. But these Dutch clocks are interesting rather than valuable, and have not yet claimed the attention of collectors. CHAPTER XI OLD ENGLISH CHINTZES CHAPTER XI OLD ENGLISH CHINTZES BY HUGH PHILLIPS The charm of old English chintz--Huguenot cloth-printers settle in England--Jacob Stampe at the sign of the Calico Printer--The Queen Anne period--The Chippendale period--The age of machinery. The present chapter has been added with perhaps some justification, since it seemed to the writer that such a subject as old English chintzes might appropriately take its place beside the equally homely craft of the rural cabinet-maker. For the chintz is the _tapisserie d'aubusson_ of the peasant--it covers his chairs and drapes his windows, giving warmth and wealth of colour to the otherwise barren appearance of his cottage. Further, it reflects his simple horticultural tastes, for the brilliantly coloured roses, pansies, and convolvuluses which shine prominently on the glazed surface of the cloth are those flowers which are always to be found in his garden. Chintz or printed cotton is the only decorative fabric known to the village upholsterer. When persons of wealth hung their windows with silk brocades and covered their chairs with costly needlework and damasks, the rural cabinet-maker was supplying his modest _clientèle_ with these homely patterns printed upon common cloth. These unassuming fabrics were as much cherished by the cottagers as anything which they possessed. The classical ornament of expensive silks they did not understand, and the freely treated birds and flowers which figured on chintz represented the Alpha and Omega of beauty in textile design. So great, indeed, is the fascination of these for the cottagers that to-day, in districts less penetrated by modern advance, the rural populace will not extend their affections to the up-to-date designs of upholsterers, but insist upon the old spot and sprig patterns of their ancestors. There is much wisdom in the conservative taste of the peasant, for the old chintz of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was of the highest artistic merit. In the heyday of its fame the fabric was exceedingly fashionable amongst the richest persons, and there are abundant records of the popularity of old English chintzes upon the Continent. For, at its best periods, the chintz was not a base imitation of more expensive fabrics; it did not, for instance, occupy the relationship of pewter to silver or moulded composition to genuine woodcarving. On the contrary, the designing of chintzes is an art of distinction, governed by canons which bear little relationship to other decorative textile crafts. For where the silk-weaver is confined to solid patterns which will appear in his transverse threads, the printer of cloths can wander unrestrained into designs of wonderful intricacy and beauty: every colour in nature he can imitate, and no object is too delicate or too rich to stamp upon his cotton. Indeed, his art stops little short of that of the painter of pictures. [Illustration: OLD TRADE CARD SHOWING CALICO PRINTERS AT WORK. "Jacob Stampe living at ye Sighn of the Callico Printer in Hounsditch Prints all sorts of Callicoes Lineings Silkes Stuffs New or Ould at Reasonable Rates." (_From old print at British Museum._)] [Illustration: ENGLISH PRINTED CALICO. ABOUT 1690. With contemporary portraits. (_By courtesy of Mr. T. D. Phillips._)] A glance at the illustrations will more closely confirm this, for such designs could not be imitated by any other textile process, the multitudinous twists and curves and the delicate shades and patches of colour being only possible to the printer. Interesting as is the study of old chintzes, the history of the art in England is even more fascinating. From the obscurity of a small local craft it became one of our great national industries. Of its earliest history in England we know nothing, and a search among old documents fails to reveal any traces of chintz-printing before the Renaissance. There are several vague references to the subject in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but none of them disclose any solid information. Thus the question of who was the first chintz-printer remains an unsolved riddle. It appears, however, that in the seventeenth century there was a gradual immigration of foreign workmen of Dutch and French nationalities who were well versed in the art of cotton-printing--then well established upon the Continent. These people came over in gradually increasing numbers, their arrival culminating in the huge influx of foreigners about 1650 to 1700. The majority of them were by trade silk-weavers and printers. Their departure was a serious blow to France, for they transferred to England what had been great national industries in France. Settling in and about London, the refugees peaceably recommenced their work, and soon the weaving of silks in Spitalfields and the printing of chintzes in Richmond, Bow, and Old Ford became a source of great prosperity to this country. On p. 319 is an illustration of a seventeenth-century trade card of one of the chintz-printers, or, as they were then called, calico-printers. Here we see in a most lucid manner the process by which chintzes were produced in the time of James II. The inscription runs: "Jacob Stampe living at Ye Sighn of the Callico Printer in Hounsditch Prints all sorts of Callicoes Lineings Silkes Stuffs, New or Ould, at Reasonable Rates." A printer is standing at a table upon which is stretched a length of cloth, which falls in folds on the floor. He holds in his hand a wooden block, which he is applying at intervals to the cloth. The other hand contains a mallet, which is about to strike the wooden block and stamp the colour firmly into the threads of the material. Behind him is an apprentice boy, standing over a tub of colour, preparing the blocks for his master to use. [Illustration: HAND-PRINTED CHINTZ. Queen Anne Period.] [Illustration: HAND-PRINTED CHINTZ. Chinese style. Middle Eighteenth Century.] By so clumsy a process very delicate work could not be produced, and, indeed, the few examples of this period which remain are very heavy in character. One of these, which has been lent by Mr. J. D. Phillips, the owner, is illustrated on p. 319. It belongs to the end of the seventeenth century and corresponds to the William and Mary period of English furniture, being contemporary with the pieces illustrated on pp. 77, 117 in the earlier chapters. It will be seen that this example contains two portraits in costume of the late Stuart period, possibly intended for portraits of William and Mary. Their portraits are of frequent occurrence on Lambeth delft of this period. The printer has only produced the outline, the colour being added by hand with a brush, for at this date the printing of colour by the successive application of blocks had not been mastered. The black ink to-day lies thick upon the cloth, as coarsely as though it had been dabbed on with a stencil. The material is a rough hand-woven canvas. Printed cloths of the period of Charles II. and James II. and William and Mary are exceedingly rare and seldom met with, as, owing to their roughness, they have been destroyed by subsequent owners. A few, however, are to be found on walnut chairs under the coverings of later date. Often, indeed, one meets a chair covered in Victorian horsehair which will reveal underneath the successive coverings of many generations of owners, including perhaps the material in which it was first upholstered. As the seventeenth century wore on and we enter upon the early years of the eighteenth century--the days of Queen Anne--the chintz-printers became more prosperous. Their work, owing to its increasing delicacy, met with great public approval, and it began to supplant woven silks for the purposes of curtains, coverings, and dresses. Thus the silk-weavers of Spitalfields found a declining market for their goods and soon came into friction with the printers. Much bad feeling ensued, and eventually their quarrels resulted in the distribution of defamatory literature which is to-day most amusing. The weavers circulated the curious "Spittlefields Ballad" against "Calico Madams," or the ladies who wore chintz dresses. THE SPITTLEFIELDS BALLADS OR THE WEAVER'S COMPLAINT AGAINST THE CALLICO MADAMS Our trade is so bad That the weavers run mad Through the want of both work and provisions, That some hungry poor rogues Feed on grains like our hogs, They're reduced to such wretched conditions, Then well may they tayre What our ladies now wear And as foes to our country upbraid 'em, Till none shall be thought A more scandalous slut Than a tawdry Callico Madam. When our trade was in wealth Our women had health, We silks, rich embroideries and satins, Fine stuffs and good crapes For each ord'nary trapes That is destin'd to hobble in pattins; But now we've a Chince For the wife of a prince, And a butterfly gown for a gay dame, Thin painted old sheets For each trull in the streets To appear like a Callico Madam. [Illustration: HAND-PRINTED CHINTZ. Exotic-Bird style. Middle Eighteenth Century.] [Illustration: HAND-PRINTED CHINTZ. Gothic style. Late Eighteenth Century.] The poet in several long stanzas warms in his indignation, and finally directs his verse against the male friends of all fair wearers of chintzes, suggesting that-- "It's no matter at all If the Prince of Iniquity had 'em, Or that each for a bride Should be cursedly tied To some damn'd Callico Madam." It is not surprising that the weavers should find it difficult to set their productions against those of the cloth-printers, for the chintzes of this period are surpassingly beautiful. One of them is illustrated on p. 323. Here the material is no longer a rough canvas, but is now a light dress cambric, similar to the thin smooth chintz cloth which has survived till to-day. A delicate pattern of intertwining stems winds upwards, the stalks having blossoms of finely cut outline and brilliant colours. Old chintzes of this period may be recognised by their lightness and by the long thin designs of intermingling flowers of Indian type. These were all more or less borrowed from the Marsupalitan printed cloths brought over by the India trading companies, and the flowers and colourings of this date are nearly always very closely copied from Eastern originals, the cornflower and carnation being among those most frequently met with. The ill-feeling between the printers and weavers was of long duration, and eventually took the form of open riots and street demonstrations similar to those of to-day. On one occasion, in 1719, they went from Spitalfields to Westminster and protested against the popularity of chintzes and suggested that their use be forbidden. On the return journey they manifested their feelings by tearing off the chintz gowns of various ladies whom they met upon the route. Evidently Parliament pandered to these labour riots, for in 1736 printed cloths were forbidden by Act of Parliament, but this legislation was of short duration; the Act was soon repealed and the fascinating material became the rage once more. The next stage at which we look upon chintz-printing is about 1760, in the middle of the period of Chippendale furniture. This is the golden period of its printing. Technically and artistically the hand-printed chintz now reached its climax. Colour-work by superimposed blocks was in full swing, and the designer had, in the works of contemporary artists, a wider field for the selection of subjects suitable for his fabric. Among the many varieties of chintzes which we find at this date the most prominent are the Gothic and Chinese designs to suit the current taste in furniture, and the exotic bird patterns, which are perhaps the finest of all. [Illustration: HAND-PRINTED CHINTZ. ABOUT 1760. By R. Jones, of Old Ford, London.] The formation of the designs has changed considerably by this time and we no longer find the intertwining or serpentine form as in the Queen Anne chintzes. The flowers and objects to be printed are now massed together and represented as little disjointed islands floating in mid-air. By this distinctive feature they may easily be recognised. One of these charming exotic bird chintzes is illustrated on p. 327. Here a pheasant is resting under a palm-tree upon a small island of densely packed foliage. The whole idea of the design is taken from the Chinese porcelain of the period. The bird, the flowers, and every object portrayed come from the East and are drawn in the manner constantly seen upon the _Famille Rose_ dishes and vases of the period. These exotic bird patterns are not exclusively found upon chintzes, for the collector of English porcelain will be familiar with them in the early productions of the Bow and Worcester factories. Another feature which one notices in printed fabrics at this date is the buff ground. The cloth is white, and the pattern is printed upon it in this state so that the pinks, blues, and greens of the flowers may have every advantage of transparency. The buff background is then printed in afterwards, leaving a thin margin around the design. In this manner great richness and depth is given to the colours without undue harshness, which would be the result if they were exhibited upon a white background. The illustration on p. 323 shows a chintz in the Chinese manner, designed to conform with the oriental furniture of Chippendale. Here again we see the detached islets of vegetation, but instead of exotic birds we have Chinese vases containing flowers, and in the foreground a rococo shell, one of the then little-known species from the East greatly treasured in England. The carnations and foliage will be readily recognised as copies from Chinese paintings. One might illustrate a very large number of these Chinese chintzes, but space will only permit one example. This particular specimen is probably unique; it is taken from an old roll of chintz printed about 1760 and left over after the owner had curtained his house. The roll (about twenty yards long) has been carefully preserved and handed down from generation to generation, so that its original colours and soft glaze remain intact. A chintz in the Gothic manner is illustrated on p. 327. It differs slightly from the others in that the island formation is combined with serpentine foliage. In the centre is a patch of ground upon which are the ruins of a Gothic church. The artist, however, has not forgotten to please those patrons who might prefer the Chinese style, and therefore he has quietly added the incongruous elements of prunus flowers in the foreground and palm-trees in the background. At first this quaint admixture may appear a bad art, but it must be remembered that at this quaint period the whole principle of decorative design was upset by the rococo school, and quaintness and delicacy of detail outweighed the greater considerations of line and proportion. We find a similar treatment of design later on in many Spode plates, especially in blue transfer-printed subjects. [Illustration: PRINTED CHINTZ. Hepplewhite Period.] [Illustration: PRINTED CHINTZ. Victorian Period.] In the third quarter of the eighteenth century we enter upon a new era in the history of chintzes. We may appropriately call it the age of machinery, for from this date the mechanical processes came in whereby chintz-printing was raised from the position of a comparatively small craft to that of a huge national industry. The great manufacturing towns in the North, such as Manchester, were rising in importance, and Lancashire was forming the basis of its gigantic cotton trade. Following these trade movements, the old industry of cloth-printing gradually left its centre in London and was developed on a larger scale in the North of England. In spite of this great commercial spirit which seized the printing of textiles, hand-block printing did not pass away, for it has survived till to-day as the best method for fine artistic work; cretonnes and chintzes produced in this manner, even during the nineteenth century, are always good. Mechanical roller work, however, was responsible for a large output of work which is little worthy of preservation, and in the nineteenth century we find much machine-printed chintz which, to say the least, is not reminiscent of the fine handwork which preceded it in the mid-eighteenth century. The earliest machine-work was carried out by means of engraved copper plates applied to the cloth in a printer's press. One of these is illustrated on p. 331. It is exceedingly fine in its details, and very few old specimens of this pattern are in existence. In several places are inserted the printer's name and date, "R. Jones, Old Ford, 1761." The design is doubtless borrowed from the _Toiles de Jouy_, printed by a Bavarian at Jouay, near Versailles, about this time. The drawing, however, is finer than any specimens of his work which have come to the author's notice. A shepherdess is tending to her flock amid a classical ruin while she is listening to the music of a flute. In another portion of the design, a cock and hen are mourning for the loss of one of their brood which has been carried off by an eagle. This design is worthy of interest for its superior quality, as it must have been produced for some very fine house. There is another specimen printed in red in the Victoria and Albert Museum. The one which is illustrated here was found upon an exceedingly fine Chippendale bedstead. During the Hepplewhite and Sheraton periods of furniture the chintz ceases to have its pattern detached and grouped. Architectural details with figures disappear, and once more the designer returns to flowers as his subject for illustration. The foliage, however, now takes the form of vertical stripes, being contained within lace-like ribands placed at even distances. On p. 335 is an illustration of a chintz about 1790 in which these features will be noticed. In the nineteenth century we find the chintz covered with disjointed sprigs, as though the flowers had been plucked and cast upon the cloth. Their outline is softened by a margin of dots. An illustration of this style is shown on p. 335. [Illustration: PRINTED CHINTZ. From the Calico Printing Factory at Sobden, in Lancashire. Printed in 1831 under the direction of Richard Cobden. (_In the collection of Mrs. Cobden Unwin._)] One need not pursue the history of chintzes further, for to do so would entail a discussion of modern methods. Suffice it to say that in the nineteenth century we come across the hideous black grounds, the base imitation of woven designs, leopard skins, and other inartistic perversions. We must rather bid adieu to this beautiful art ere it has begun to decline. It will afford the reader much pleasure if he should form a collection of old specimens and frame them around his walls, for then he will fully appreciate their charm. In examining his own collection the author has spent many a pleasant hour, for these gaily coloured chintzes are among the most articulate relics which have come down to us. They breathe the spirit, the feelings, and the ideals of the periods wherein they were made. They show lucidly the various changes in fashion and the rise and wane in the popularity of certain forms of decoration. So delectable are their soft, faded colours, so fascinating are the designs, and above all, so enchanting is the old-world musty scent which always clings to them, that it would be hard indeed to withhold one's affection from them. INDEX Adam style table, 186 America, the Windsor chair acclimatised in, 246 America, spindle-back chairs, 239 America, carved chests of Puritan colonists, 60 America, types coincident with Jacobean, 60 Anachronism in country makers' work, 204 Anne, Queen, chintz printing in time of, 325 Anne, Queen, style--cabriole leg, advent of, 167 Anne, Queen, chests of drawers, 67 Anne, Queen, scandal at Court of, 158 Anne, Queen, so-called style, 167 Back--the chair, and its development, 203 Bacon cupboards, 154 Ball and claw foot, introduction of, 162 "Barley sugar" turning, illustrated, 105 Bedfordshire tables, 283 Bedstead, Jacobean, illustrated, 77 Bevel of panel indicating date, 204 Bible-boxes, 34, 139-154 Bloomfield, Robert, quoted, 268 Bobbins, Buckinghamshire, 153 Brittany dressers, 134 Broken corners, Queen Anne style, 167, 169 Buckinghamshire bobbins, 153 Bureau bookcase and cupboard, 176 Bureaus, marquetry in coloured woods, 169 Byzantine types of furniture existent in Elizabethan days, 37 Cabriole leg, advent of the, 167 Cabriole leg (Queen Anne period), 129 Cambridge tables, 283 Candle dipper, the, 288 Cane-back chairs, 203, 207 Cane-back chairs, late Stuart, 199 Cane-back chair, its influence on farmhouse styles, 208 Caning in chairs out of fashion, 162 Chairs-- America, Windsor chair, types of, 246 Back, the, its development, 203 Caned-back chair, its influence on farmhouse styles, 208 Caned chairs, late Stuart, 199, 203, 207 Caning out of fashion, 162 Charles II. period styles, 211 Chippendale styles, 179 Chippendale, Windsor styles, 254 Corner chairs, 240 Country Chippendale, Hepplewhite and Sheraton, 221 Cupid's bow top rail, 218 Cushions, their use with, 199, 207 Derbyshire chairs, 203 Elizabethan turned chairs, 37 Evolution of the chair, 189-241 Fiddle splat chairs, introduction of, 162 Fiddle splat, Queen Anne style, 217 Fiddle splat, Windsor, at its best, 254 "Fiddle-string" backs, 249 Goldsmith, Oliver, his chair, 253 Grandfather variety, 168, 230 Hepplewhite country styles, 221 Hepplewhite Windsor chairs, 254 Horseshoe back, Windsor, 259, 260 Jacobean, typical form, 196 Ladder-back chairs, 233 Lancashire rush-bottom chairs, 241 Lancashire spindle back chairs, 278 Modern office-chair, derivation of, 260 Prince of Wales's feathers in back, 227 Ribbon-back, introduction of, 179 Rush-bottomed chairs, 233 Shell ornament employed, 167 Sheraton country styles, 221 Sheraton Windsor chairs, 259, 260 Spindle-back chairs, 234 Splat, Queen Anne, the, 217 Straight-backed chairs, 203 Stretcher, evolution of the, 200 Tavern chairs, 249 Wheel-back Windsor chairs, 259 Woods used, Windsor chairs, 249, 250 Charles II. chests of drawers, 62 Charles II. period, impetus given to furniture design, 95 Charles II. period, styles of chairs, 211 Chests, Gothic, 34 Chests, sixteenth century, 34 Chests, Welsh carving, 277 Chests of drawers, 60 Chests of drawers, Charles II. period, 62 Chests of drawers, Queen Anne style, 67 Children's stools, Jacobean, illustrated, 77 Chimney crane, the, 294 China and glass cupboards, 180 Chinese designs in chintzes, 333 Chinese style of Chippendale, 227 Chintz printing becomes a national industry, 321 Chintzes, old English, 317-341 Chippendale and his contemporaries, 180 Chippendale clock cases, 312 Chippendale quoted, 227, 228 Chippendale, ribbon designs of, 179 Chippendale style, provincial, 221 Chippendale style Windsor chairs, 254 Chocolate houses, polemic against, 170 Chronology, seventeenth-century, 45-48 Claw-and-ball foot, introduction of, 162 Clock and dresser combined, 129 Clocks, grandfather, 306 Club foot, introduction of, 162 Cobbett, William, quoted, 67 Coffee-drinking and coffee-houses, 170 Coffee, women's petition against, 170 Corner chairs, 240 Cottage furniture and earthenware compared, 31 Country cabinet-maker, his mixture of styles, 211 Country Chippendale, Hepplewhite and Sheraton, 221 Country furniture, its sturdy independence, 24 Country makers little influenced by contemporary fashion, 50 Cradles, 148 Cromwellian chests with drawers, 52 Crusie, the Scottish, 277, 293 Cupboard, the bacon, 154 Cupboard, Welsh carving, 277 Cupboards, corner, introduction of, 162 Cupboards and drawers, taste for, 125 "Cupid's bow" underframing, 107, 185 "Cupid's bow" top rail of chair, 218 Cushions, their use with chairs, 199, 207 Delany, Mrs., quoted, 153 Denmark, the conservation of old farmhouse furniture in, 38 Derbyshire chairs, 203 Design books, eighteenth-century, publication of, 222 _Director_, by Chippendale, a working guide, 223 Drawer accommodation a feature in late dressers, 130 Drawers, chests of, 60 Drawers, chests of, Charles II. period, 62 Drawers, chests of, Queen Anne style, 67 Dresser and clock combined, 129 Dressers, farmhouse, 115-135 Dressers-- Brittany, 134 Lancashire, 134 Normandy, 134 Welsh, 133 Dutch artisans print early English chintzes, 321 Dutch influence early eighteenth century, 168, 170 Earthenware and cottage furniture compared, 31 Eighteenth-century dressers, 130 Eighteenth-century pleasure gardens, 249 Eighteenth-century styles, 157-187 Elizabethan turned chairs, 37 English chintzes, old, 317-341 English farmhouse furniture, desirability of its preservation, 42 English joiners' work, its solidity, 51 Essex tables, 283 Exotic bird patterns in chintzes, 333 "Farmer's Boy" (Robert Bloomfield) quoted, 268 Farmhouse furniture (English), desirability of its preservation, 42 Farmhouse furniture influenced by walnut styles, 208 Farmhouse styles contemporary with the cane-back chair, 208 Feet-- Arcaded foot, Charles II. period, 62 Ball, 62; illustrated, 65 Claw-and-ball foot, introduction of the, 162 Club foot, its introduction, 162 Hoof foot, the, 176 Scroll or Spanish foot, 104, 203 Spanish foot, the, 104, 203 Spanish foot, in corrupted form, illustrated, 105, 109 Trestle, in Gothic style, 90 Fiddle splat chairs, introduction of, 162 Fiddle splat, Queen Anne style, 217 Fiddle splat Windsor chair at its best, 254 "Fiddle-string" backs, 249 Firebacks, Sussex, 296 Firebacks, Sussex, fine examples exhibited, 305 Firedogs, cottage and farmhouse, 294 Food of country population, seventeenth century, 81 Foreign styles, slow assimilation of, 67 French artisans print early English chintzes, 321 Gate-leg tables, 85-112 Gate-leg table, double gates, 96; illustrated, 93 Gate-leg table, established as a popular type, 90 Gate-leg table, square top, illustrated, 105 Geometric panels, chests of drawers, 61; dressers, 121 Georgian styles, early types, 179 Gibbons, Grinling, the style of, 56 Goldsmith, Oliver, his chair, 253 Gothic brackets to chests, 34 Gothic chests, 34 Gothic trestle, gate-leg table, 89 Grandfather chair, the, 230 Grandfather chair, curved lines of, 168 Grandfather clocks, 306 Grandfather clock combined with dresser, 129 Great Seal of Queen Anne, showing style of ornament, 168 Hardwick Hall, suite at, 55 Hepplewhite clock cases, 312 Hepplewhite influence on village work, 207 Hepplewhite quoted, 229, 230 Hepplewhite style, provincial, 221 Hertfordshire tables, 283 Hogarth, the line of beauty the curve, 168 Hoof foot, the, 176 Horseshoe-back Windsor chairs, 130, 257, 260 Incongruity of provincial cabinet-maker, 211 Inlaid work rarely employed, 55 Inlaid work with walnut, 169 Inlaid work, woods used, 169 Irish Chippendale, 272 Ironwork, miscellaneous, 287-313 Ironwork, Scottish, 277 Isle of Man tables, 283 Jacobean cradles, 148 Jacobean dressers with geometric panels, 121 Jacobean furniture, typical styles, 49 Jacobean oak chair, typical form, 196 Jacobean period, its characteristics, 95 Jacobean period, late styles of, 115 Jacobean style, its transition to William and Mary, 207 Jacobean Sussex firebacks, 299, 300 Joinery, the solidity of English, 51 Jones, R., of Old Ford, chintz printer, 337 Kettle trivet, the cottager's, 295 Lacquer employed in clock-cases, 312 Ladder-back chair, the, 233 Lancashire chintzes, 337 Lancashire dressers, 134 Lancashire furniture, 278 Lancashire Queen Anne settle, 167 Lancashire rush-bottom chair, 241 Legs-- "Barley sugar" turning illustrated, 105 Cabriole leg, introduction of the, 167 Egg and reel turning, 43; illustrated, 93 Eight legs (gate table), 99 Elizabethan bulbous leg, 60 Jacobean straight-turned leg, 60 Jacobean, various forms of turning, 89 Queen Anne cabriole leg, 129 Six legs, gate table, illustrated, 99 Split urn leg, illustrated, 91, 119 Straight leg again in vogue, 180 Urn-shaped leg, 60 Urn-shaped splat, 121; illustrated, 91, 119 Linen-fold pattern on chests, 32 Local types, 33 Local types of furniture, 267-284 London and the vicinity, chintz printed in, 322 Longleat, oak furniture at, 55 Lyngby (near Copenhagen), collection of old farmhouse furniture at, 41 Macaulay quoted, 158 Macaulay, "State of England in 1685" quoted, 76 Mahogany gate-leg tables, 103 Mahogany styles, their gracefulness, 179 Mahogany, the chief designers of, of the golden age, 104 Marlborough, Duchess of, and her intrigues, 158 Marquetry bureaus in coloured woods, 169 Marquetry, woods used in, 169 Minor cabinet-makers' work lacking harmony, 212 Modern office-chair, derivation from Windsor type, 263 More, Hannah, and the agricultural classes, 175 Morris, William, his influence on furniture, 111 "Mule" chests, 52 Norfolk, oak furniture, 283 Normandy dressers, 134 Normans, furniture, styles of, introduced by, 37 North, Roger, quoted, 170 Oak, erroneously used to carry out walnut designs, 212 Oak, general in its use, 55 Oak supplanted by walnut in fashionable furniture, 207 Oak the chief wood employed, 33 Office-chair, derivation from Windsor type, 263 Oriental patterns in chintzes, 333 Panelling, bevel of, indicating date of, 204 Panels, sunk, Jacobean style, 62 Patterns, wood, used for firebacks, 300 People, changing habits of the, in seventeenth century, 72 Pepys's _Diary_, quoted, 79 Pleasure gardens, eighteenth-century, 249 Pot-hook, the, 294 Pot-hooks, fine examples, where exhibited, 294 Prince of Wales's feathers, 227 Provincial furniture many decades behind fashion, 50 Queen Anne, cabriole leg, 129 Queen Anne dressers, 122 Queen Anne flap tables, 89 Queen Anne period, the splat of the, 217 Restoration period, chests of drawers, 62 Ribbon designs, introduction of, 179 Roads in provinces, bad state of, 79 Rush-bottom chair, the, 233 Rushlight holder, the, 288 Scandinavian origin of Elizabethan chair, 37 Scotland, Union with, proclamation by Queen Anne, 161 Scottish types of ironwork, 277 "Seaweed" marquetry in clock-cases, 312 Settle, Lancashire form, 278 Settle, Queen Anne style, 167 Seventeenth-century, chronology of, 45-48 Seventeenth-century settle (Lancashire), 278 Seventeenth-century sideboard, typical style, 56 Seventeenth-century styles, 49-82 Seventeenth-century styles, types of, 72 Shell ornament, early eighteenth-century, 167 Sheraton clock-cases, 312 Sheraton influence on country makers, 234 Sheraton influence in Windsor chairs, 259 Sheraton style, provincial, 221 Sideboard, typical seventeenth-century style, 56 Sixteenth-century chests, 34 Sizergh Castle, oak room at, 55 Spanish foot, its use, 104, 107 Spanish Succession, War of the, 161 Spindle-back chair, the, 234 Spindle-back chairs (Lancashire), 278 Spinning-wheels, 153 Spitalfields weavers, complaint as to chintz fashions, 326, 330 Splat, the Queen Anne, 217 Staffordshire pottery and cottage furniture compared, 31 Stands for chests of drawers, 67 Stockholm, collection of farmhouse furniture at, 38 Stools, children's Jacobean, illustrated, 77 Straight-backed chairs, 203 Stretcher, evolution of the, 200 Stretcher, Yorkshire splat form, 96 Suffolk oak furniture, 283 Sussex firebacks, 296 Sussex ironworks, the, 295, 296 "Swan head" to cupboard, 168 Sweden, the conservation of old farmhouse furniture in, 38 Swift quoted, 161 Tables-- Adam style, 186 Arcaded spandrils, illustrated, 179 Bedfordshire types, 283 Cambridge types, 283 Collapsible form (Charles II.), 103 Cross stretcher, =X= form, 103 Cupid's bow underframing, 107; illustrated, 109 Elizabethan bulbous-leg form, 60 Essex types, 283 Flap tables (Queen Anne), 89; (Georgian), illustrated, 183 Gate-leg, 85-112 Gothic trestle, gate-leg table, 89 Hertfordshire types, 283 Isle of Man table, 283 Scalloped-edge tea-table, illustrated, 181 Scalloped underframing, illustrated, 73 Sixteenth-century style, 52 Spandrils, arcaded, illustrated, 179 Stretchers, splat form, 89; illustrated, 97 Tea-table, Queen Anne style, 185 Three-legged, 283 Underframing, Cupid's bow, illustrated, 109 Various local types, 283 Yorkshire type, 89 Tapers, how made by cottagers, 288 Tavern chair, the, 249 Tea-drinking becomes national, 170 Tea-gardens, eighteenth-century, 249 Tea-table, Queen Anne style, 185 Three-legged tables, 283 Transition from Jacobean to William and Mary styles, 207 Trestle in gate-leg table, 89 Triangular gate form, 86; illustrated, 87 Tripod tables, 185 Turning, various patterns in Jacobean leg, 89 Union with Scotland, 161 Varangian Guard introduce Byzantine furniture into Scandinavia, 37 Veneer, in walnut, early eighteenth-century, 169 Village cabinet-maker, originality of, 32 Wales, Prince of, feathers in chair back, 227 Walnut gate-leg tables, 103 Walnut in general use, 207 Walnut styles, early eighteenth-century, 169 Walnut supplanted by mahogany, 207 Warming-pan, the, 295 Wardrobe, Lancashire type, 278 Welsh carving, 272 Welsh dressers, 133 Wesley and the Methodist movement, 175 Whitefield and the colliers, 175 Wheel-back Windsor chairs, 257 William and Mary dressers, 126 William and Mary gate-leg tables, 104 William and Mary period, finely turned work, 75 William and Mary style, its development from Jacobean, 207 Windsor chair, the, 243-263 Windsor chair, the, Sheraton influence, 259 Windsor chair, its survival, 260 Windsor chairs, Chippendale style, 254 Wood patterns used for firebacks, 300 Woods employed in farmhouse furniture, 33 Woods used in Windsor chairs, 249, 250 Woods used in walnut marquetry, 169 Women's petition against coffee, 170 Yorkshire chairs, 203 Yorkshire splat stretcher to tables, 96 UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON. VOLUMES FOR COLLECTORS BY THE SAME AUTHOR CHATS ON OLD FURNITURE Companion volume to "Chats on Cottage and Farmhouse Furniture" _Press Notices, First Edition_ "Mr. Hayden knows his subject intimately."--_Pall Mall Gazette._ "The hints to collectors are the best and clearest we have seen; so that altogether this is a model book of its kind."--_Athenæum._ "A useful and instructive volume."--_Spectator._ "An abundance of illustrations completes a well-written and well-constructed history."--_Daily News._ "Mr. Hayden's taste is sound and his knowledge thorough."--_Scotsman._ "A book of more than usual comprehensiveness and more than usual merit."--_Vanity Fair._ "Mr. Hayden has worked at his subject on systematic lines, and has made his book what it purports to be--a practical guide for the collector."--_Saturday Review._ CHATS ON ENGLISH CHINA _Press Notices, First Edition_ "A handsome handbook that the amateur in doubt will find useful, and the china-lover will enjoy for its illustrations, and for the author's obvious love and understanding of his subject."--_St. James's Gazette._ "All lovers of china will find much entertainment in this volume."--_Daily News._ "It gives in a few pithy chapters just what the beginner wants to know about the principal varieties of English ware. We can warmly commend the book to the china collector."--_Pall Mall Gazette._ "One of the best points about the book is the clear way in which the characteristics of each factory are noted down separately, so that the veriest tyro ought to be able to judge for himself if he has a piece or pieces which would come under this heading, and the marks are very accurately given."--_Queen._ CHATS ON ENGLISH EARTHENWARE (Companion volume to "Chats on English China") "Complementary to the useful companion volume, in this 'Chats' Series, on English China which Mr. Hayden issued five years ago."--_Times._ "Is a compendious account of our native English faïence, abundantly illustrated and accurately written."--_Guardian._ "A thoroughly trustworthy working handbook."--_Truth._ "It is a mine of knowledge, gathered from all quarters, and the outcome of personal experience and research, and it is written with no little charm of style."--_Lady's Pictorial._ "Mr. Hayden knows and writes exactly what is needed to help the amateur to become an intelligent collector, while his painstaking care in verifying facts renders his work a stable book of reference."--_Connoisseur._ "The volume has been written as a companion to Mr. Hayden's 'Chats on English China' in the same series, and those who recall the admirable character of that book will find this to be in no way inferior."--_Nation._ "The illustrations are profuse and excellent, and the author and the publishers must be commended for offering us so many reproductions of typical specimens that have not appeared in any previous handbook. The illustrations alone are worth the cost of the book."--_Manchester Guardian._ "Mr. Hayden's book is filled to overflowing with beautiful and most instructive and helpful illustrations, and altogether it is one that will give immense pleasure to collectors, and much information to the admiring but ignorant."--_Liverpool Courier._ CHATS ON OLD PRINTS A Practical Guide to Collecting and Identifying Old Engravings. "Mr. Hayden writes at once with enthusiasm and discrimination on his theme."--_Daily Telegraph._ "Any one who, having an initial interest in matters of art, wants to form sound and intelligent opinions about engravings, will find this book the very thing for him."--_Literary World._ "These 'Chats' comprise a full and admirably lucid description of every branch of the engraver's art, with copious and suggestive illustrations."--_Morning Leader._ 
42098	----	WINDOWS a book about STAINED & PAINTED GLASS by LEWIS F. DAY author of Nature in Ornament & other Text-books of Design. 1897 LONDON B·T·BATSFORD 94 High Holborn, W.C. BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO. LD., PRINTERS, LONDON AND TONBRIDGE. TO THOSE WHO KNOW NOTHING OF STAINED GLASS; TO THOSE WHO KNOW SOMETHING, AND WANT TO KNOW MORE; TO THOSE WHO KNOW ALL ABOUT IT, AND YET CARE TO KNOW WHAT ANOTHER MAY HAVE TO SAY UPON THE SUBJECT;--I DEDICATE THIS BOOK. PREFACE. A stained glass window is itself the best possible illustration of the difference it makes whether we look at a thing from this side or from that. Goethe used this particular image in one of his little parables, comparing poems to painted windows, dark and dull from the market-place, bright with colour and alive with meaning only when we have crossed the threshold of the church. I may claim to have entered the sanctuary, and not irreverently. My earliest training in design was in the workshops of artists in stained glass. For many years I worked exclusively at glass design, and for over a quarter of a century I have spent great part of my leisure in hunting glass all Europe over. This book has grown out of my experience. It makes no claim to learnedness. It tells only what the windows have told me, or what I understood them to say. I have gone to glass to get pleasure out of it, to learn something from it, to find out the way it was done, and why it was done so, and what might yet perhaps be done. Anything apart from that did not so much interest me. Those, therefore, who desire minuter and more precise historic information must consult the works of Winston, Mr. Westlake, and the many continental authorities, with whose learned writings this more practical, and, in a sense, popular, volume does not enter into any sort of competition. My point of view is that of art and workmanship, or, more precisely speaking, workmanship and art, workmanship being naturally the beginning and root of art. We are workmen first and artists afterwards--perhaps. What I have tried to do is this: In the first place (Book I.), I set out to trace the course of _workmanship_, to follow the technique of the workman from the twelfth century to the seventeenth, from mosaic to painting, from archaism to pictorial accomplishment; and to indicate at what cost of perhaps more decorative qualities the later masterpieces of glass painting were bought. In the second place (Book II.), I have endeavoured to show the course of _design_ in glass, from the earliest Mediæval window to the latest glass picture of the Renaissance. Finally (Book III.), I have set apart for separate discussion questions not in the direct line either of design or workmanship, or which, if taken by the way, would have hindered the narrative and confused the issue. The rather lengthy chapter on "_Style_" is addressed to that large number of persons who, knowing as yet nothing about the subject, may want _data_ by which to form some idea as to the period of a window when they see it: the postscript more nearly concerns the designer and the worker in glass. In all this I have tried to put personality as much as possible aside, and to tell my story faithfully and without conscious bias. But I make no claim to impartiality, as the judge upon the bench understands it. We take up art or law according to our temperament. I can pretend to judge only as one interested, to be impartial only as an artist may. LEWIS F. DAY. 13, MECKLENBURGH SQUARE, LONDON. _January 29th, 1897._ _NOTE IN REFERENCE TO ILLUSTRATIONS._ _Theoretically the illustrations to a book about windows should be in colour. Practically coloured illustrations of stained glass are out of the question, as all who appreciate its quality well know. It may be possible, although it has hardly proved so as yet, to print adequate representations of coloured windows, but only at a cost which would defeat the end here in view._ _The_ EFFECT _of glass is best suggested by process renderings of photographs from actual windows or from very careful water-colour drawings, such as those very kindly placed at my disposal by Mr. T. M. Rooke (pages 128, 159, 337) and Mr. John R. Clayton (pages 51, 74, 98, 186, 207, 252, 286, 304, 342), an artist whose studio has been the nursery of a whole generation of glass designers._ _Details of_ DESIGN _are often better seen in the reproductions of tracings or slight pen-drawings, little more than diagrams it may be, but done to illustrate a point. That is the intention throughout, to illustrate what is said, not simply to beautify the book._ _The direction of the pen-lines gives, wherever it was possible, a key to the colour scheme. Red, that is to say, is represented by vertical lines, blue by horizontal, yellow by dots, and so on, according to heraldic custom._ TABLE OF CONTENTS. BOOK I. THE COURSE OF CRAFTSMANSHIP. CHAP. PAGE I. THE BEGINNINGS OF GLASS 1 II. THE MAKING OF A WINDOW 5 III. GLAZING 15 IV. EARLY MOSAIC WINDOWS 32 V. PAINTED MOSAIC 43 VI. GLASS PAINTING (MEDIÆVAL) 59 VII. GLASS PAINTING (RENAISSANCE) 67 VIII. ENAMEL PAINTING 77 IX. THE NEEDLE-POINT IN GLASS PAINTING 87 X. THE RESOURCES OF THE GLASS WORKER (A RECAPITULATION) 95 BOOK II. THE COURSE OF DESIGN. XI. THE DESIGN OF EARLY GLASS 111 XII. MEDALLION WINDOWS 123 XIII. EARLY GRISAILLE 137 XIV. WINDOWS OF MANY LIGHTS 151 XV. MIDDLE GOTHIC DETAIL 162 XVI. LATE GOTHIC WINDOWS 178 XVII. SIXTEENTH CENTURY WINDOWS 201 XVIII. LATER RENAISSANCE WINDOWS 220 XIX. PICTURE WINDOWS 236 XX. LANDSCAPE IN GLASS 251 XXI. ITALIAN GLASS 260 XXII. TRACERY LIGHTS AND ROSE WINDOWS 272 XXIII. QUARRY WINDOWS 283 XXIV. DOMESTIC GLASS 296 XXV. THE USE OF THE CANOPY 311 XXVI. A PLEA FOR ORNAMENT 317 BOOK III. BY THE WAY. XXVII. THE CHARACTERISTICS OF STYLE 322 XXVIII. STYLE IN MODERN GLASS (A POSTSCRIPT) 354 XXIX. JESSE WINDOWS, AND OTHER EXCEPTIONS IN DESIGN 360 XXX. STORY WINDOWS 371 XXXI. HOW TO SEE WINDOWS 380 XXXII. WINDOWS WORTH SEEING 385 XXXIII. A WORD ON RESTORATION 404 WINDOWS, A BOOK ABOUT STAINED GLASS BOOK I. CHAPTER I. THE BEGINNINGS OF GLASS. The point of view from which the subject of stained glass is approached in these chapters relieves me, happily, from the very difficult task of determining the date or the whereabouts of the remote origin of coloured windows, and the still remoter beginnings of glass itself. The briefest summary of scarcely disputable facts bearing upon the evolution of the art of window making, is here enough. We need not vex our minds with speculation. White glass (and that of extreme purity) would seem to have been known to the Chinese as long ago as 2300 B.C., for they were then already using astronomical instruments, of which the lenses were presumably of glass. Of coloured glass there is yet earlier record. Egyptologists tell us that at least five if not six thousand years ago the Egyptians made jewels of glass. Indeed, it is more than probable that this was the earliest use to which stained glass was put, and that the very _raison d'être_ of glass making was a species of forgery. In some of the most ancient tombs have been found scarabs of glass in deliberate imitation of rubies and emeralds, sapphires and other precious stones. The glass beads found broadcast in three quarters of the globe were quite possibly passed off by Phoenician traders upon the confiding barbarian as jewels of great price. At all events, glass beads, according to Sir John Lubbock, were in use in the bronze age; and, if we may trust the evidence of etymology, "bedes" are perhaps as ancient as praying. Apart from trickery and fraud, to imitate seems to be a foible of humanity. The Greeks and their Roman successors made glass in imitation of agate and onyx and all kinds of precious marbles. They devised also coloured glass coated with white glass, which could be cut cameo-fashion--a kind of glass much used, though in a different way, in later Mediæval windows. The Venetians carried further the pretty Greek invention of embedding vitreous threads of milky white or colour in clear glass, the most beautiful form of which is that known as _latticelli_, or _reticelli_ (reticulated or lace glass), from the elaborate twisting and interlacing of the threads; but nothing certain seems to be known about Venetian glass until the end of the eleventh century, although by the thirteenth the neighbouring island of Murano was famous for its production. The Venetians found a new stone to imitate, aventurine, and they imitated it marvellously. So far, however, glass was used in the first instance for jewellery, and in the second for vessels of various kinds. Its use in architecture was confined mainly to mosaic, originally, no doubt, to supply the place of brighter tints not forthcoming in marble. Of the use of glass in windows there is not very ancient mention. The climate of Greece or Egypt, and the way of life there, gave scant occasion for it. But at Herculaneum and Pompeii, there have been found fair sized slabs of window glass, not of very perfect manufacture, apparently cast, and probably at no time very translucent. Remains also of what was presumably window glass have been found among the ruins of Roman villas in England. In the basilicas of Christian Rome the arched window openings were sometimes filled with slabs of marble, in which were piercings to receive glass (which may or may not have been coloured), foreshadowing, so to speak, the plate tracery of Early Gothic builders. According to M. Lévy, the windows of Early Mediæval Flemish churches were often filled in this Roman way with plaques of stone pierced with circular openings to receive glass. Another Roman practice was to set panes of glass in bronze or copper framing, and even in lead. Here we have the beginning of the practice identified with Mediæval glaziers. There is no reason to suppose that the ancients practised glass painting as we understand it. Discs of Greek glass have been found which are indeed painted, but not (I imagine) with colour fused with the material; and certainly these were not used for windows. The very early Christians were not in a position to indulge in, or even to desire, luxuries such as stained glass windows, but St. Jerome and St. Chrysostom make allusion to them. It is pretty certain that these must have been simple mosaics in stained glass, unpainted: one reads that between the lines of the records that have come down to us. Stained and painted glass, such as we find in the earliest existing Mediæval windows, may possibly date back to the reign of Charlemagne (800), but it may safely be said not to occur earlier than the Holy Roman Empire. A couple of hundred years later mention of it begins to occur rather frequently in Church records; and there is one particular account of the furnishing of the chapel of the first Benedictine Monastery at Monte Cassino with a whole series of windows in 1066--which fixes the date of the Norman Conquest as a period at which stained glass windows can no longer have been uncommon. The Cistercian interdict, restricting the order to the use of white glass (1134), argues something like ecclesiastical over-indulgence in rich windows before the middle of the next century. Fragments, more or less plentiful, of the very earliest glass may still remain embedded in windows of a later period (the material was too precious not to have been carefully preserved); but archæologists appear to be agreed that no complete window of the ninth or tenth century has been preserved, and that even of the eleventh there is nothing that can quite certainly be identified. After that doctors begin to differ. But the general consensus of opinion is, that there is comparatively little that can be incontrovertibly set down even to the twelfth century. The great mass of Early Gothic Glass belongs indubitably to the thirteenth century; and when one speaks of Early Glass it is usually thirteenth century work which is meant. The remote origin of glass, then, remains for ever lost in the mist of legendary days. There is even a fable to the effect that it dates from the building of the Tower of Babel, when God's fire from heaven vitrified the bricks employed by its too presumptuous builders. Coloured glass comes to us from the East; that much it is safe to conclude. From ancient Egypt, probably, the art of the glass-worker found its way to Phoenicia, thence to Greece and Rome, and so to Byzantium, Venice, and eventually France, where stained glass windows, as we know them, first occur. It is probably to the French that Europe owes the introduction of coloured windows, a colony of Venetian glass-workers having, they say, settled at Limoges in the year 979. Some of the earliest French glass is to be found at Chartres, Le Mans, Angers, Reims, and Châlons-sûr-Marne; and at the _Musée des Arts Décoratifs_, at Paris, there are some fragments of twelfth century work which may be more conveniently examined than the work _in sitû_. The oldest to which one can assign a definite date is that at St. Denis (1108) but its value is almost nullified by expert restoration. In Germany the oldest date is ascribed to some small windows at Augsburg, executed, it is said, by the monks of Tegernsee about the year 1000. There is also a certain amount of twelfth century work incorporated in the later windows at Strasbourg. The oldest remains of glass in England are, in all probability, certain fragments in the nave of York Minster. The more important windows at Canterbury, Salisbury, and Lincoln are of the thirteenth century. CHAPTER II. THE MAKING OF A WINDOW. Since it is proposed to approach the subject of stained glass in the first place from the workmanlike and artistic, rather than the historical or antiquarian, point of view, it may be as well to begin by explaining precisely what a stained glass window is. It is usual to confound "stained" with "painted" glass. Literally speaking, these are two quite distinct things. Stained glass is glass which is coloured, as the phrase goes, "in the pot;" that is to say, there is mixed with the molten white glass a metallic oxide which stains it green, yellow, blue, purple, and so on, as the case may be; for which reason this self-tinted glass is called "pot-metal." This is a term which will recur again and again. Once for all, "pot-metal" is glass in which the colour is _in_ the glass and not painted _upon_ it. It goes without explanation that, each separate sheet of pot-metal glass being all of one colour, a varicoloured window can only be produced in it by breaking up the sheets and putting them together in the form of a mosaic: in fact, that is how the earliest windows were executed, and they go by the name of mosaic glass. The glass is, however, not broken up into tesseræ, but shaped according to the forms of the design. In short, those portions of it which are white have to be cut out of a sheet of white glass, those which are blue out of a sheet of blue glass, those which are yellow out of a sheet of yellow, and so on; and it is these pieces of variously tinted glass, bound together by strips of lead, just as the tesseræ of a pavement or wall picture are held in place by cement, which constitute a stained glass window. The artist is as yet not concerned in painting, but in glazing--that is to say, putting together little bits of glass, just as an inlayer does, or as a mosaic worker puts together pieces of wood, or marble, or burnt clay, or even opaque glass. There is illustrated opposite a piece of Old Burmese incrusted decoration, a mosaic of white and coloured glass bound together by strips of metal, which, were it but clear instead of silvered at the back, would be precisely the same thing as an early mosaic window, even to the completion of the face by means of paint--of which more presently. In painted glass, on the other hand, the colour is not in the glass but upon it, more or less firmly attached to it by the action of the fire. A metallic colour which has some affinity with glass, or which is ground up with finely powdered glass, is used as a pigment, precisely as ceramic colours are used in pottery painting. The painted glass is then put into a kiln and heated to the temperature at which it is on the point of melting, whilst the colour actually does melt into it. By this means it is possible to paint a coloured picture upon a single sheet of white glass, as has been proved at Sèvres. Strictly speaking, then, stained and painted glass are the very opposite one to the other. But in practice the two processes of glazing and painting were never kept apart. The very earliest glass was no doubt pure mosaic. It was only in our own day that the achievement (scientific rather than artistic) of a painted window of any size, independent of glazier's work, was possible. Painting was at first always subsidiary to glazier's work; after that, for a time, glazier and painter worked hand in hand upon equal terms; eventually the painter took precedence, and the glazier became ever more and more subservient to him. But from the twelfth to the seventeenth century there is little of what we call, rather loosely, sometimes "stained" and sometimes "painted" glass, in which there is not both staining and painting--that is to say, stained glass is used, and there is painting upon it. The difference is that in the earlier work the painting is only used to help out the stained glass, and in the later the stained glass is introduced to help the painting. [Illustration: 1. INCRUSTED GLASS MOSAIC, BURMESE (B. M.).] That amounts, it may be thought, to much the same thing; and there does come a point where staining and painting fulfil each such an important part in the window that it is difficult to say which is the predominating partner in the concern. For the most part, however, there is no manner of doubt as to which practice was uppermost in the designer's mind, as to the idea with which he set out, painting or glazing; and it makes all the difference in the work--the difference, for example, between a window of the thirteenth century and one of the sixteenth, a difference about which a child could scarcely make a mistake, once it had been pointed out to him. Here perhaps it will be as well to describe, once for all, the making of a mosaic window, and the part taken in it by the glazier and the painter respectively. It will be easier then to discriminate between the two processes employed, and to discuss them each in relation to the other. The actual construction of an early window is very much like the putting together of a puzzle. The puzzle of our childhood usually took the form of a map. It has occurred to me, therefore, to show how an artist working strictly after the manner of the thirteenth century--the period, that is to say, when painting was subsidiary to glazing--would set about putting into glass a map of modern Italy. In the first place, he would draw his map to the size required. This he would do with the utmost precision, firmly marking upon the paper (the mediæval artist would have drawn directly on his wooden bench) the boundary line of each separate patch of colour in his design. Then, according to the colour each separate province or division was to be, he would take a separate sheet of "pot-metal" and lay it over the drawing, so as to be able to trace upon the glass itself the outline of such province or division. That done, he would proceed to cut out or shape the various pieces of glass to the given forms. In the case of a simple and compact province, such as Rome, Tuscany, Umbria (overleaf), that would be easy enough. On the other hand, a more irregular shape, say the province of Naples, with its promontories, would present considerable difficulties--difficulties practically insuperable by the early glazier, to whom the diamond as a cutting instrument was unknown, and whose appliances for shaping were of the rudest and most rudimentary. If with the point of a red-hot iron you describe upon a sheet of glass a line, and then, taking the material between your two hands, proceed to snap it across, the fracture will take approximately the direction of the line thus drawn. That is how the thirteenth century glazier went to work, subsequently with a notched iron instrument, or "grozing iron" as it was called, laboriously chipping away the edges until he had reduced each piece of glass to the precise shape he wanted. It will be seen at once that the simpler the line and the easier its sweep the more likely the glass would be to break clean to the line, whereas in the case of a jagged or irregular line there would always be great danger that at any one sharp turn in it the fracture would take that convenient opportunity of going in the way it should not. For example, the south coast of Italy would be dangerous. You might draw the line of the sole of the foot, but when it came to breaking the glass the high heel would be sure to snap off (there is a little nick there designed as if for the purpose of bringing about that catastrophe), and similarly that over-delicate instep would certainly not bear the strain put upon it, and would be bound to give way. It should be mentioned that even were such pieces once safely cut (which would nowadays be possible) the glass would surely crack at those points the first time there was any pressure of wind upon the window, and so the prudent man would still forestall that event by designing his glass as it could conveniently be cut, without attempting any _tour de force_, and strengthening it at the weak points with a line of lead, as has been done in the glass map opposite. There is a jutting promontory on the coast of Africa, which, even if safely cut, would be sure to break sooner or later at the point indicated by the dotted line. The scale of execution would determine whether each or any province could be cut out of a single sheet of glass, but the lines of latitude and longitude would give an opportunity of using often three or four pieces of glass to a province without introducing lines which formed no part of the design. That, however, would be contrary to early usage, which was never to make use of the leads as independent lines, but only as boundaries between two colours. There is a reason for this reticence. You will see that in the surface of the sea, where the latitudinal and longitudinal lines come in most usefully, it is necessary to use also other leads, which mean nothing but that a joint is there desirable. These constructional leads, when they merely break up a background, are quite unobjectionable--they even give an opportunity of getting variety in the colour of the ground--but when some of the leads are meant to assert themselves as drawing lines and some are not, the result is inevitably confused. [Illustration: 2. THE WAY A WINDOW IS GLAZED.] All that the glass gives us in our mosaic map is the local colour of sea and land--the sea, let us say, dark blue, the countries, provinces, and islands each of its own distinctive tint. When it comes to giving their names, it would be possible indeed on a very large scale to cut the letters out of glass of darker colour, and glaze them in as shown in the title word "Italy." That would involve, as will be seen, a network of connecting lead lines. On a much smaller scale there would be nothing for it but to have recourse to the supplementary process, and paint them. The words Germany, Austria, Turkey, Naples, Sicily, and the rest would have to be simply painted in opaque colour upon the translucent glass. But, once we have begun to use paint, there are intermediate ways between these two methods of inscription, either of which would be adopted according to the scale of the lettering. These are shown in the names of the seas. In the word "Mediterranean" each separate letter would be cut out of a piece of glass, corresponding as nearly as possible to its general outline or circumference, and its shape would be made perfect by "painting out"--that is to say, by obscuring with solid pigment that part of the glass (indicated by dots in the drawing) which was meant to retire into the background. Presuming this wording to be in a light colour and the background darkish, this amount of painting would, as a matter of fact, be quite lost in the dark colour. In the lesser descriptions "Tyrrhenian" and "Adriatic Sea," each separate word, instead of each letter, would be cut out of one piece of glass (or perhaps two in the longer words), and the background would be painted out as already described. Paint would further be used to indicate the rivers, the mountains, the towns, or any other detail it was necessary to give, as well as to mark such indentations in the coastline as were too minute to be followed by the thick lead. As a matter of practice, it is usual to paint a marginal line of opaque colour round the glass representing just a little more than that portion eventually to be covered by the flange of the lead, so as to make sure that that will not by any chance cut off from view what may be an important feature in the design. For example, the mere projection of a lead which too nearly approached the delicate profile of a small face might easily destroy its outline. The glazier's lead, it should be explained, is a wire of about a quarter of an inch diameter, deeply grooved on two sides for the insertion of the glass. Imagine the surfaces exposed to view on each face of the window to be flattened, and you have a section very much like the letter =H=, the uprights representing the flanges, and the cross-bar the "core," which holds them together and supports the glass mosaic. The process of painting employed so far is of the simplest; it consists merely in obscuring the glass with solid paint. This is laid on with a long-haired pencil or "tracing brush." The paint itself may be mixed with oil or gum and water, or any medium which will temporarily attach it to the glass and disappear in the kiln; for the real fixing of the paint is done solely by the action of the fire. The pigment employed consists, that is to say, of per-oxides of iron and manganese ground up with a sufficient amount of powdered flint-glass or some equivalent silicate, which by the action of the fire is fused with the glass (reduced to very nearly red heat), and becomes practically part and parcel of it. Whenever a glass painter speaks of painted glass that is what he means--viz., that the colour is thus indelibly burnt in. After the middle of the sixteenth century various metallic oxides were used to produce various more or less transparent pigments (enamel colours as they are called to distinguish them from the pot-metal colours), but in the thirteenth century transparent enamel colours were as yet unknown to the glass painter, and he confined himself to the solid deep brown pigment already spoken of--an enamel also, strictly speaking, but by no means to be confounded with the enamel colours of later centuries. Those were colours used for colour's sake; this is simply an opaque substance used solely on account of its capacity to stop out so much of the colour of pot-metal glass as may be necessary in order to define form and give the drawing of detail; and in effect the brown, when seen against the light, does not tell as colour at all but merely as so much blackness. The only colour in the window is the colour of the various component pieces of glass. Thus in the case of an early figure (page 33) the face would be cut out of a sheet of pinkish glass and the features painted upon it in brown lines; each garment would be cut out of the tint it was meant to be, and the folds of the drapery outlined upon the pot-metal. In like manner a tree would be cut out of green glass, its stem perhaps out of brown, and only the forms of the leaves, and their veining, if any, would be traced in paint. In the execution of the map there is no occasion for further painting than this simplest and fittest kind of work, little more than the glazier would himself have done had his means allowed him. And in the very earliest glass the painter was almost as sparing of paint as this: he did, however--it was inevitable that he should--use lines, whether in drawing the features of a face or the folds of drapery, which were not quite solid, and which consequently only deepened the colour of the pot-metal, and did not quite obscure it: he went so far even as to pass a smear of still thinner colour, a half tint or less, over portions of the glass which he wished to lower in tone. He began, in fact, however tentatively, to introduce shading. Happily he was careful always to use it only as a softening influence in his design, and never to sacrifice to it anything of the intrinsic beauty and brilliancy of his glass. The glass duly painted and burnt, the puzzle would be put together again on the bench, and bands of lead, grooved at each side to admit and hold the glass, would be inserted between the two pieces. These would be soldered together at the joints where two leads met; a putty-like composition or "cement" would be rubbed into the interstices between lead and glass to stiffen it, and make it air-and water-tight; and, that done, the window was finished. It would only remain (what would in practice have been done before cementing) to solder to the leads at intervals sundry loose ends of copper-wire, eventually to be twisted round the iron saddle bars let into the stone framework of the window to support it; it would then be ready to be fixed in its place. In contradistinction to the mosaic method of execution adopted by the thirteenth century glazier, a glass painter of the eighteenth century, and perhaps of the seventeenth, would, even though there were no necessity for longitudinal and latitudinal lines, cut up his window into oblong pieces of convenient size, only, of course, parallel and at right angles to one another. The sea he might or might not glaze in blue glass; here and there perhaps, but not necessarily at all, an occasional province might be leaded in with a piece of pot-metal; but for the most part he would use panes of white glass, and rely for the colour of the provinces upon enamel. He would have no need to separate his enamel colours by a line of lead, and where he wanted a dividing line he would just paint it in opaque brown. This method of glass painting forms an altogether separate division of the subject, not yet under discussion. It is referred to here only by way of contrast, and to emphasise the fact that, though we are in the habit of using the term stained glass rather loosely--though a stained glass window is almost invariably helped out to some extent by painting (unless it be what is technically known as "leaded glass" or "plain glazing"), and though a painted window is seldom altogether innocent of glass that is stained--there are, as a matter of fact, two methods of producing coloured windows, the mosaic and the enamelled; and that however customary it may be to eke out either method by the other more or less, windows divide themselves into two broad divisions, according as it is pot-metal or enamel upon which the artist relies for his effect. Between these two widely different ideals there are all manners and all degrees of compromise, and methods were employed which, to describe at this point, would only complicate matters. It will be my purpose presently to describe in detail the steps by which mere glazing developed into painted glass, and how painting came to supersede glazing; to show in how far painting was a help to the glazier, and in how far it was to his hurt; to describe, in short, the progress of the glass painter's art, to better and to worse; and to distinguish, as far as may be, the principles which govern or should govern it. [Illustration: 3. ANCIENT ARAB WINDOW.] CHAPTER III. GLAZING. The art of the glass painter was at first only the art of the glazier. To say that may seem like self-contradiction. But it is not so. On the contrary, it is almost literally the truth; and it is difficult to find words which would more vividly express the actual fact. We are accustomed to think of a painter as using pigment always in some liquid form, and applying it to wood or plaster, canvas or paper, with a brush. Should he lay it on with a palette knife, as he sometimes does, it is painting still. If he could by any possibility put together his colours in mid-air without the aid of paper, canvas, or other solid substance, it would still be painting. This is very much what the worker in stained glass, by the help of strips of intervening lead, practically succeeded in doing. As a painter places side by side dabs of paint, so the glazier put side by side little pieces of coloured glass. (Glass, you see, was the medium in which his colour was fixed, just as oil, varnish, wax, or gum is the vehicle in which the painter's pigment is ordinarily held in suspension.) He could execute in this way upon the bench or the sloped easel quite an elaborate pattern in coloured glass; and although, in order to hold the parts together in a window frame, he had perforce to resort to some sort of binding, in lead or what not, he may still reasonably be said, if not actually to have painted in glass, at all events to have worked in it. In fact, until about the twelfth century, there were no glass painters, but only glaziers. Nay, more, it is to glaziers that we owe the glory of the thirteenth century windows, in which, be it remembered, each separate touch of colour is represented by a separate piece of glass, and each separate piece of glass is bounded by a framework of lead connecting it with the neighbouring pieces, whilst the detail added by the painter goes for not very much. [Illustration: 4. ARAB WINDOW LATTICE, GEOMETRIC.] No strictly defined, nor indeed any approximate, date can safely be given at which the art of the glass-worker sprang into existence. Arts do not spring into existence; they grow, developing themselves in most cases very slowly. The art of working in stained glass can only have been the result of a species of evolution. The germ of it lay in the circumstance that glass was originally made in comparatively small pieces (there were no large sheets of glass a thousand years or more ago), and so it was necessary, in order to glaze any but the smallest window opening, that these small pieces should be in some way cemented together. It followed naturally, in days when art was a matter of every-day concern, the common flower of wayside craftsmanship, that the idea of putting these pieces together in more or less ornamental fashion, should occur to the workman, since they must be put together somehow; and so, almost as a matter of course, would be developed the mosaic of transparent glass, which was undoubtedly the form stained glass windows first took. It has been suggested that in some of the earliest windows the glazing is meant to take the form of tesseræ; but the examples instanced in support of that idea afford very little ground for supposing any such intention on the part of the first glass-workers. It may more reasonably be presumed that any resemblance there may be between early glass and earlier wall mosaic comes of working in the same way; like methods inevitably lead to like results. It is by no means certain, even, that the first glaziers were directly inspired by mosaic, whether of marble or of opaque glass. They were probably much more immediately influenced by the work of the enameller. That may appear at the first mention strange, considering what has been said about the absolute divergence between mosaic and enamelled glass. But it must be remembered that enamelling itself among the Lombard Franks, the Merovingians, and the Anglo-Saxons, was a very different thing from what the Limousin made it in the sixteenth century. It was, in fact, a quite different operation, the only point in common between the two being that they were executed in vitreous colour upon a metal ground. The enamel referred to as having probably influenced the early glazier is of the severer kinds familiar in Byzantine work, and known as _champlevé_ and _cloisonné_. In the one, you know, the design is scooped out of the metal ground, in the other its outline is bent in flat wire and soldered to the ground. In either case the resulting cells are filled with coloured paste, which, under the action of the fire, vitrifies and becomes embodied with the metal. In _champlevé_ enamel naturally the metal ground is usually a distinguishing feature. In _cloisonné_ the ground as well as the pattern is, of course, in enamel; but in either case the outlines, and, indeed, all drawing lines, are in metal. In _cloisonné_ enamel the metal "_cloisons_," as they are called, fulfil precisely the function of the leads in glass windows; and it would have been more convenient to have left altogether out of account the sister process, were it not that, in the painting of quite early glass, the strokes with which the lines of the drapery and suchlike are rendered, bear quite unmistakable likeness to the convention of the Byzantine worker in _champlevé_. For that matter, one sees also in very early altar-pieces painted on wood, where gold is used for marking the folds of drapery, the very obvious inspiration of Byzantine enamel--but that is rather by the way. [Illustration: 5. ARAB LATTICE, GEOMETRIC.] The popular idea of an early window is that of a picture, or series of pictures, very imperfectly rendered. It may much more justly be likened to a magnified plaque of Byzantine enamel with the light shining through it. The Byzantine craftsman, or his descendants, at all events, did produce, in addition to the ordinary opaque enamel, a translucent kind, in imitation presumably of precious stones; and it might very well be that it was from thence the glazier first derived the idea of coloured windows. Quite certainly that was nearer to his thoughts than any form of painting, as we understand painting nowadays; and, what is more, had he aimed deliberately at the effect of enamel (as practised in his day), he could not have got much nearer to it. His proceeding was almost identical with that of the enamel worker. In place of vitreous pastes he used glass itself; in place of brass, lead; and, for supplementary detail, in place of engraved lines, lines traced in paint. Side by side with the early European window glazing, and most likely before it, there was practised in the East a form of stained glass window building of which no mention has yet been made. In the East, also, windows were from an early date built up of little pieces of coloured glass; but the Mohammedan law forbidding all attempt at pictorial representation of animate things, there was no temptation to employ painting; the glazier could do all he wanted without it. His plan was to pierce small openings in large slabs of stone, and in the piercings to set numerous little jewels of coloured glass. The Romans, by the way, appear also to have sometimes filled window spaces with slabs of marble framing discs of coloured glass, but these were comparatively wide apart, more like separate window-lets, each glazed with its small sheet of coloured glass. The Oriental windows, on the contrary, were most elaborately designed, the piercings taking the form of intricate patterns, geometric or floral. Sometimes the design would include an inscription ingeniously turned to ornamental use after the manner of the Moorish decorators of the Alhambra (page 15). A further development of the Oriental idea was to imbed the glass in plaster, a process easy enough before the plaster had set hard. This kind of thing is common enough in Cairo to this day, and specimens of it are to be found at the South Kensington Museum. M. Vogué illustrates in his book, _La Syrie Centrale_, an important series of windows in the Mosque of Omar (Temple of Jerusalem), erected in 1528, by Sultan Soliman. The plaster, says M. Vogué, was strengthened by ribs of iron and rods of cane imbedded in the stouter divisions of the framework, a precaution not necessary in the smaller Cairene lattices (measuring as a rule about four superficial feet), in which the pattern is simply scooped out of the half-dry plaster. [Illustration: 6. ARAB LATTICE, FLORAL.] The piercings in these Oriental windows and window lattices are not made at right angles to the slab of stone or plaster, but are cut through at an angle, varying according to the position and height of the window, with a view to as little interference as possible with the coloured light. The glass, however, being fixed nearest the outside of the window, there is always both shadow and reflection from the deep sides of the openings, much to the enhancement of the mellowness and mystery of colour. In the Temple windows referred to, still further subtlety of effect is arrived at by an outer screen or lattice of _faïence_. Thus subdued and tempered, even crude glass may be turned to beautiful account. Whence the mediæval Arabs got their glass, and the quality of the material, are matters of conjecture. If we may judge by the not very ancient specimens which reach us in this country, the glass used in Cairene lattices is generally thin and raw; but set, as above described, in jewels as it were, isolated each in its separate shadow cell, the poorest material looks rich. The lattices here illustrated are none of them of very early period; but, where the character of design is so traditional and changes so slowly, the actual date of the work, always difficult to determine, matters little. [Illustration: 7. ARAB GLAZING IN PLASTER.] It is more than probable, it is almost certain, that the Venetian glass-workers, who in the tenth century brought their art to France, were familiar with the coloured lattices of the Levant; for, as we know, in the middle-ages Venice was the great trading port of Italy, in constant communication with the East. If that was so, the Italians, always prone to imitate, would be sure to found their practice, as they did in other crafts, more or less upon Persian and Arabian models. At all events, there is every reason to suppose that at first they, practically speaking, only did in lead what the Eastern artificer did in stone or plaster, and that the windows which, according to various trustworthy but vague accounts, adorned the early Christian basilicas as early as the sixth century, bore strong likeness to Mohammedan glass--Christianised, so to speak. This is not to unsay what was before said about the affinity of early glass to enamel. A river has not of necessity one only and unmistakable source; and though we may not be able to trace back through the distant years the very fountain of this craft, we may quite certainly affirm that its current was swollen by more than one side-stream, and that its course was shaped by all manner of obstinate circumstances and conditions of the time, before it went to join the broad and brimming stream of early mediæval art. [Illustration: 8. ARAB GLAZING IN PLASTER.] One more source, at least, there was at which the early glazier drew inspiration--namely, the art of jewel setting. Coloured glass, as was said a while ago, was itself probably first made only in imitation of precious stones, and, being made in small pieces, it had to be set somewhat in the manner of jewellery. In all probability the enameller himself wrought at first only in imitation of jewellery, and afterwards in emulation with it. Just as white glass was called crystal, and no doubt passed for it, so coloured glass actually went by the name of ruby, sapphire, emerald, and so on. It is recorded even (falsely, of course) how sapphires were ground to powder and mixed with glass to give it its deep blue colour; indeed, this wilful confusion of terms goes far to explain the mystery of the monster jewels of which we read in history or the fable which not so very long ago passed for it. Stories of diamond thrones and emerald tables seem to lead straight into fairyland; but the glass-worker explains such fancies, and brings us back again to reality. Bearing in mind, then, the preciousness of glass, and the well-kept secrecy with regard to its composition, it is not beyond the bounds of supposition that the glazier of the dark ages not only intended deliberately to imitate jewellery, but meant that his glass should pass with the ignorant (we forget how very ignorant the masses were) for veritably precious stones. Even though we exempt glaziers from all charge of trickery, it was inevitable that they should attempt to rival the work of the jeweller, and to do in large what he had done only in small. That certainly they did, and with such success that, even when it comes to glass of the twelfth, and, indeed, of the thirteenth century, when already pictorial considerations begin to enter the mind of the artist, the resemblance is unmistakable. [Illustration: 9. ARAB GLAZING IN PLASTER.] Try to describe the effect of an early mosaic window, and you are compelled to liken it to jewellery. Jewelled is the only term which expresses it. And the earlier it is the more jewel-like it is in effect. So long as the workman looked upon his glass as a species of jewellery, it followed, as a matter of course, from the very estimation in which he held his material, that he did not think of obscuring it by paint--defiling it, as he would have held. It is not so much that he would have been ashamed to depend on the painter to put his colour right, as that the thought of such a thing never entered his mind; he was a glazier. It was the painter first thought of that, and his time had not yet come. Possibly it may have occurred to the reader, _apropos_ of the diagram on page 10, in which it was shown how far the glazier could go towards the production of a map in glass, that that was not far. Certainly he does not go very far towards making a chart of any geographical value, but he does go a long way towards making a window; for the first and foremost qualities in coloured glass are colour and translucency--and for translucent colour the glazier, after the glass-maker, is alone responsible. It is in some respects very much to be deplored that the Gothic craftsman so early took to the use of supplementary painting, which in the end diverted his attention from a possible development of his craft in a direction not only natural to it but big with possibilities never to this day realised. Of richly jewelled Gothic glass all innocent of paint, no single window remains to us; but there are fairly numerous examples extant of pattern windows glazed in white glass, whether in obedience to the Cistercian rule which forbade colour, or with a view to letting light into the churches--and it is to churches, prevalent as domestic glass may once have been, we must now go for our Gothic windows. [Illustration: 10. GLAZING IN PLASTER, SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM.] Some of this white pattern work is ascribed to a period almost as early as that of any glass we know; but it is almost impossible to speak positively as to the date of anything so extremely simple in its execution; in which there is no technique of painting to tell tales; and which, when once "storied" windows came into fashion, was probably left to the tender mercies of lesser craftsmen, who may not have disdained to save themselves the trouble of design, and to repeat the old, old patterns. The earlier glazier, it was said, painted, figuratively speaking, in glass. It is scarcely a figure of speech to say that he drew in leadwork. This mode of draughtsmanship was employed in all strictly mosaic glass; but it is in the white windows (or the pale green windows, which were the nearest he could get to white, and which it is convenient to call white) that this drawing with the leads is most apparent--in patterns, that is to say, in which the design is formed entirely by the leadwork. You have only to look at such patterns as Nos. 11 to 17, to see how this was so; they are all designed in outline, and the outline is given in lead. It is perfectly plain there how every separate line the glazier laid down in charcoal upon his bench stood for a strip of lead. And, looking at the glass, we see that it is the lead which makes the pattern. It is no straining of terms to call this designing in the lead. The ingenuity in designing such patterns as those below and opposite, which is very considerable, consists in so scheming them that every lead line shall fulfil alike a constructive and an artistic function; that is to say, that every line in the design shall be necessary to its artistic effect, that there shall be no lead line which is not an outline, no outline which is not a lead. [Illustration: 11. PLAIN GLAZING, BONLIEU.] It is not always that the glazier was so conscientious as this. M. Viollet le Duc pointed out, in the most helpful article in his famous Dictionary of Architecture, under the head of _Vitrail_, how in the little window from Bonlieu, here illustrated, the mediæval craftsman resorted to a dodge, more ingenious than ingenuous, by which he managed to economise labour. Each separate lead line there does not enclose a separate piece of glass. The lines are all of lead; but some of them are mere dummies, strips of metal, holding nothing, carried across the face of the glass only, and soldered on to the more businesslike leads at each end. The extent of _bonâ fide_ glazing is indicated in the right-hand corner of the drawing. I confess I was inclined at first to think that Viollet le Duc might, in ascribing this glass to the twelfth century, very possibly have dated it too far back; for this is the kind of trick one would more naturally expect from the later and more sophisticated workman; but I have since come upon the same device myself, both at Reims and Châlons, in work certainly as old as the thirteenth century. You see, cutting the glass was the difficulty in those days, and sometimes it was shirked. It should be noted that the subterfuge employed at Bonlieu and in the specimens from Châlons, opposite, was not in order to evade any difficulty in glazing--the designs present none--but merely to save trouble. There would have been more occasion for evasion in executing the design from Aix-la-Chapelle (14), where the sharp points of the fleur-de-lys give background shapes difficult for the glazier to cut. It will be noticed that to the left of the panel one of the points joins the necking-piece, which holds the fleur-de-lys together. That is a much more practical piece of glazing than the free point, which presents a difficulty in cutting the background, indicative of the late period to which the glass belongs. The earlier mediæval glazier worked with primitive tools, which kept him perforce within the bounds of simplicity and dignified restraint. [Illustration: 12. CHÂLONS.] In white windows, so called, he did not by any means confine himself wholly to the use of what it is convenient to call "white glass." From a very early date, perhaps from the very first, he would enrich it with some slight amount of colour. Having devised, as it were, a lattice of white lines, as in the left-hand pattern from Salisbury (overleaf), it was a very simple thing to fill here and there a division of his design with a piece of coloured instead of white glass, as in the pattern next to it in order. The third pattern, to the right, shows how he would even introduce a separate jewel of colour, perhaps painted, which had to be connected with the design by leads forming no part of the pattern. [Illustration: 13. CHÂLONS.] Colour spots are more ingeniously introduced in the example from Brabourne Church, Kent, (said to be Norman) where the darker tints are ingeniously thrown into the background. But here again, although this is perhaps as early a specimen of glazing as we have in this country, the glazier resorts in his central rosettes to the aid of paint. [Illustration: 14. AIX-LA-CHAPELLE.] [Illustration: 15. SOUTH TRANSEPT, SALISBURY.] It will be observed that in the marginal lines which frame this window, and again in the white bands in two out of the three patterns from Salisbury, leads are introduced which have only a constructional use, and rather confuse the design. That they do not absolutely destroy it is due to its marked simplicity, and to the proportion of the narrow bands to the broad spaces. This is yet more clearly marked in the very satisfactory glazing designs from S. Serge at Angers. The fact is, there is a limit to the possibilities of design, such as that from Sens (page 96), in which literally only four leads (viz., those from the points of the central diamond shape) are introduced wholly and solely for strength; and when it comes to windows of any considerable size, such as clerestory windows, to which plain glazing is peculiarly suited, leads which merely strengthen become absolutely necessary. The art of the designer consists in so scheming them that they shall not seriously interfere with the pattern. [Illustration: 16. BRABOURNE CHURCH KENT.] Were the pattern in lines of colour upon white, the crosslines strengthening them would of course be lost in the darker tint; but, as it happens, we do not find in the earliest glazing lines of interlacing colour, though they occur by way of border lines, as at S. Serge (below), where a marginal line of yellow is enclosed between strips of white. [Illustration: 17. S. SERGE, ANGERS.] The interlacing character of several of the white glazing patterns illustrated betrays of course Romanesque influence; but there would not have been so many designs consisting of interlacing bands of white upon a white ground, enclosing, at intervals more or less rare, what had best be called jewels of colour, had it not been that the forms of interlacing strapwork lend themselves kindly to glazing. Every time a strap disappears, as it were, behind another, you have just the break in its continuity which the glazier desires, and if only the interlacings are frequent enough (as on page 96) they give him all he wants. So far the examples illustrated are, for the most part, in outline; that is to say, on a ground of white the pattern appears as a network of leads, flowing or geometric as the case may be, emphasised here and there by a touch of dark colour, focussing them as it were. Without such points of colour a design looks sometimes too much like a mere outline, meant to be filled in with colour, and, in short, unfinished; but as yet the darker and lighter tints of white are not used to emphasise the pattern, as they would have done if, for example, the interlacing straps had been glazed in a slightly purer white than the ground. On the contrary, notwithstanding the very great variety in the tints of greenish-white, which resulted from the chemically imperfect manufacture of the glass, they were employed very much at haphazard, and so far from ever defining the design, go to obviate anything harsh or mechanical there may be in it. There is else, of course, a tendency in geometric pattern to look too merely geometric. One wants always to feel it is a window that is there, and not just so many feet of diaper. Another practical form of design is that in which it is not the network of leads, but the spaces they inclose, which constitutes the pattern; where lines are not so much thought of as masses; where the main consideration is colour, and contour is of quite secondary account. The leads fulfil still their artistic function of marking the division of the colours, as they fulfil the practical one of binding the bits of coloured glass together; the glazier still draws in lead lines; but attention is not called to them especially; indeed, with identically the same lead lines one could produce two or three quite different effects, according as one emphasised by stronger colour one series of shapes or another. In the case of a framework of strictly geometric lines, straight or curved, one gets patterns such as we see in marble inlay. The slab of marble mosaic and the stained glass border opposite are more than alike; the one is simply a carrying further of the other. The glass design might just as well have been executed in marble, or the marble design in glass. In the upper church at Assisi are some borders of geometric inlay, one of which is given on page 96, identical in character with the minute geometric inlay (which, by the way, was also in glass, though opaque), with which the Cosmati illuminated, so to speak, their marble shrines and monuments. This species of pattern work, appropriate as it is to glass mosaic, transparent as well as opaque, does not seem to have been much used in glass, even in Italy; where it does occur it is in association, as at Assisi and Orvieto, with painted work of the thirteenth or fourteenth century, though from its Byzantine character it might as well be centuries earlier. It appears that this, which was, theoretically, the simplest and most obvious form of leaded pattern work, and might, therefore, well have been the earliest, was never adopted to anything like the extent to which interlacing ornament was carried. [Illustration: 18. MARBLE MOSAIC, ROMAN.] [Illustration: 19. GLASS, ORVIETO.] Mediæval glaziers did not attempt anything like foliated ornament in leaded glass, and for good reason. In such work the difficulty of doing without lines detrimental to the design is greatly increased, whereas abstract forms you can bend to your will, as you can bend your strip of lead. The more natural the forms employed the more nature has to be considered in rendering them, and nature declines to go always in the direction of simple glazing. It might seem easy enough (to those who do not know the difficulty) to glaze together bits of heart-shaped green glass for leaves, and red for petals, with a dot of yellow for the eye of the flower, and to make use of the lead not only for outlines but for the stalks of the leaves and so on, all on a paler ground; but it is not so easy as that. The designer cannot go far without wanting other connecting leads (besides those used for the stalk); and when some leads are meant very emphatically to be seen and some to be ignored, there is no knowing what the actual effect may be: the drawing lines may be quite lost in a network of connecting leads. Again, the mediæval glazier did not, so far as we have any knowledge, build up in lead glazing a boldly pronounced pattern, light on dark or dark on light. This he might easily have done. On a small scale plain glazing must perforce be modest; but, given a scale large enough, almost any design in silhouette can be expressed in plain glazing. You may want in that case plenty of purely constructional leads, not meant to be seen, or in any case meant to be ignored; but if the contrast between design and background be only strong enough (say colour on white or white on colour), they do not in the least hurt the general effect. On the contrary, they are of the utmost use to the workman who knows his materials, enabling him to get that infinite variety of colour which is the crowning charm of glass. What the designer of leaded glass had to consider was, in the first place, the difficulty of shaping the pieces. That is now no longer very great, thanks to the diamond, which makes cutting so easy that there is even a danger lest the workman's skill of hand may outrun his judgment, and tempt him to indulge in useless _tours de force_. The absurdity of taking the greatest possible pains to the least possible purpose is obvious. The more important consideration is now, therefore, the substantiality of the window once made. Think of the force of a gale of wind and its pressure upon the window: it is tremendous; and glazing does not long keep a smooth face before it. Except there is a solid iron bar to keep it in place, it soon bulges inwards, and presents a surface as undulous, on a smaller scale, as the pavement of St. Mark's; and, as it begins to yield, snap go the awkwardly shaped pieces of glass which the glazier has been at such pains to cut. The mediæval artist, therefore, exercised no more than common sense, when he shaped the pieces of glass he employed with a view to security, avoiding sharp turns or elbows in the glass, or very long and narrow strips, or even very acutely pointed wedge-shaped pieces. No doubt the difficulty of cutting helped to keep him in the way he should go; probably, also, he was under no temptation to indulge in pieces of glass so large that, incapable of yielding, they were bound to break under pressure of the wind. That he sometimes used pieces so small as in time to get clogged with dust and dirt, was owing to the natural desire to use up the precious fragments which, under his clumsy system of cutting, must have accumulated in great quantity. Where most he showed his mastery was, in foreseeing where the strain would come, and introducing always a lead joint where the crack might occur, anticipating and warding off the danger to come. He was workman enough frankly to accept the limitations of his trade. Occasionally (as at Bonlieu) he may have shirked work; but he accommodated himself to the nature of his materials. Never pretending to do what he could not, he betrayed neither its weakness nor his own. Mere _glazing_ has here been discussed at a length which perhaps neither existing work of the kind nor the modern practice of the craft (more is the pity) might seem to demand. It is the most modest, the rudest even, of stained glass; but it is the beginning and the foundation of glass window making, and it affects most deeply even the fully developed art of the sixteenth century. The leading of a window is the framework of its design, the skeleton to be filled out presently and clothed in colour; and, if the anatomy is wrong, nothing will ever make the picture right. The leads are the bones, which it is necessary to study, even though they were intrinsically without interest, for on them depends the form which shall eventually charm us. Beauty is not skin deep: it is the philosophy of the poet which is shallow. CHAPTER IV. EARLY MOSAIC WINDOWS. It has been explained already at how very early a period "stained" glass begins also to be "painted" glass more or less. But for the fond desire to be something more than an artist--to teach, to preach, to tell a story--the glazier would possibly have been quite content with the mere jewellery of glass, and might have gone on for years, and for generations, using his pot-metal as it left the pot. As it was, working always in the service of the Church, in whose eyes it was of much more importance that a window should be "storied" than that it should be "richly dight," he found it necessary from the first to adopt the use of paint--not, as already explained, for the purpose of giving colour, but of shutting it out, or at most modifying it. His work was still essentially, and in the first place, mosaic. He conceived his window, that is to say, as made up of a multiplicity of little pieces of coloured glass, the outlines supplied, for the most part, by the strong lines of connecting leadwork, and the details traced in lines of opaque pigment. He still designed with the leads, as I have expressed it, and throughout the thirteenth century (though less emphatically than in the twelfth) his design is commonly quite legible at a distance at which the painted detail is altogether lost; but in designing his leads he had always in view, of course, that they were to be helped out by paint. In the late thirteenth century or early fourteenth century figure from Troyes, on page 336, which depends very little indeed upon any painted detail to be deciphered, the lighter figure glazed upon a ground of dark trellis-work is not only readable, but suggestive of considerable feeling; and in the undoubtedly fourteenth century figure on page 241, where, with the exception of the hands and face, there is absolutely no indication of the paint with which the artist eventually completed his drawing, there is no mistaking the recumbent figure of Jesse, even without any help of colour. But the earlier the glass, the less was there of painting, and the more the burden of design fell upon the glazier. The two figures from Le Mans, here given (generally allowed to belong to about the year 1100) show very plainly both the amount and the character of the painting used, and the extent to which the design depends upon it. There is no mistake about the value of the lead lines there, or the extreme simplicity of the painted detail. [Illustration: 20. FIGURES FROM ASCENSION, LE MANS.] It will be seen that paint is there used for three purposes: to paint out the ground round about the feet, hands, and faces; to mark the folds of the drapery, and just an indication of shading upon it; and to blacken the hair. It was only in thus rendering the human hair that the earliest craftsman ever used paint as local colour. In that case he had a way of scraping out of it lines of light to indicate detail. If such lines showed too bright, it was easy to tone them down with a film of thinner paint. In these particular figures from Le Mans the artist had not yet arrived at that process; but from the very first it was a quite common custom, instead of painting very small ornamental detail, to obscure the glass with solid pigment, and then scrape out the ornament. [Illustration: 21. HITCHIN CHURCH.] The fact is, that in early windows a much larger proportion of the glass is obscured, and had need to be obscured, than would be supposed. It will be seen what a considerable area of paint surrounds the feet of the two apostles on page 33. This is partly owing to the then difficulty of exactly shaping the pieces of glass employed; but it is largely due to the actual necessity of sufficient area of dark to counteract the tendency of the lighter shades of glass, such as the brownish-pink employed for flesh tints, to spread their rays and obliterate the drawing. Not only would the extremely attenuated fingers, shown in the scraps from Hitchin Church above look quite well fleshed in the glass, but it was essential that they should be so painted in order to come out satisfactorily--that is, without the aid of shading, to which painters did not yet much resort. On the contrary, they were at first very chary of half tint--employing it, indeed, for the rounding of flesh and so on, but not to degrade the colour of the glass, small though their palette was. [Illustration: 22. S. REMI, REIMS.] Something, however, had to be done to prevent especially the whites, yellows, and pale blues, and in some degree all but the dark colours, from taking more than their due part in the general effect. It was not always possible to reduce the area of the glass of an aggressive tint to the dimensions required. To have reduced a line of white, for example, to the narrowness at which it would tell for what was wanted, would have been to make it so narrow that the accumulation of dust and dirt between the leads would soon have clogged it and blotted it out altogether. What they did was to paint it heavily with pattern. For example, they would paint out great part of a white line and leave only a row of beads, with so much paint between and around them that certainly not more than one-third of the area of the glass was left clear, and the effect at the right distance (as at Angers, page 116) would be that of a continuous string of pearls. They would in the same way paint a strip of glass solid, and merely pick out a zig-zag or some such pattern upon it, with or without a marginal thread of light on each side (Le Mans). Rather than lower the brightness of the glass by a tint of pigment they would coat it with solid brown, and pick out upon it a minute diaper of cross-hatched lines and dots, by that means reducing the volume of transmitted light without much interfering with its purity (S. Remi, Reims, below). Diaper of more interesting kind afforded a ready means of lowering shades of glass which were too light or too bright for the purpose required, and for supplying in effect the deficiencies of the pot-metal palette. Overleaf are some fragments of diaper pattern so picked out, from Canterbury, which would possibly never have been devised if the designer had had to his hand just the shade of blue glass he wanted. Something certainly of the elaboration of pattern which distinguishes the earliest glass comes of the desire to qualify its colour. Viollet le Duc endeavours to explain with scientific precision which are the colours which spread most, and how they spread. His analysis is useful as well as interesting; but absolute definition of the effect of radiation is possible only with regard to a rigidly fixed range of colours to which no colourist would ever confine himself. A man gets by experience to know the value of his colours in their place, and thinks out his scheme accordingly. He puts, as a matter of course, more painting into pale draperies than into dark, and so on; but to a great extent he acts upon that subtle sort of reasoning which we call feeling. Intuition it may be, but it is the intuition of a man who knows. The simple method of early execution went hand in hand with equal simplicity of design--the one almost necessitated the other--and the earlier the window the more plainly is its pattern pronounced, light against dark, or, less usually, (as in some most interesting remains of very early glass from Châlons now at the _Musée des Arts Décoratifs_ at Paris) in full, strong colour upon white. In twelfth century work especially, figures and ornament alike are always frankly shown _en silhouette_. Witness the design on pages 33 and 115. Similar relief or isolation of the figure against the background is shown in the thirteenth century bishops, occupying two divisions of a rose window at Salisbury, on page 275; and again in the little subject from Lyons, where S. Peter is being led off by the gaoler to prison. [Illustration: 23. CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL.] In proportion as the aim of the artist becomes more pictorial he groups his figures more in clumps (you see indications of that at Canterbury), whence comes much of the confusion of effect characteristic of the thirteenth century as it advances, not in this respect in the direction of improvement. In his haste to tell a story he tells it less effectively. Where an early subject is unintelligible (supposing it to be in good preservation) it is almost invariably owing to the figures not being clearly enough cut out against the background. Isolation of the design seems to be a necessary condition of success in glass of the simple, scarcely painted, kind. In ornament, where the artist had nothing to think of but artistic effect, he invariably and to a much later period defined it unmistakably against contrasting colour. That is illustrated on page 117, part of a thirteenth century window at Salisbury, and in the border below, as well as various others of the period, pages 129, 130, and elsewhere. [Illustration: 24. POITIERS CATHEDRAL. (Compare with 59.)] It is the almost unanimous verdict of the inexpert that the lead lines very seriously detract from the beauty of early windows. How much more beautiful they would be, it is said, without those ugly black lines! Possibly the expert and the lover of old glass have unconsciously brought themselves not to see what they do not want to see; and the leads may, soberly and judiciously speaking, seriously interfere with the form of the design. But, in the first place, the beauty of early glass is in its colour, not in its form. That is very clearly shown in the illustrations to this chapter and the next; which give, unfortunately, nothing of the beauty and real glory of the glass, but only its design and execution; they appear perhaps in black and white so merely grotesque, that it may be difficult to any one not familiar with the glass itself to understand why so much should be said in its praise. In reality the lack of beauty, especially apparent in the figure drawing of the early glass painters when reduced to monochrome, taken in conjunction with the magnificent effect of many of the earliest windows (which no colourist has ever yet been known to deny) is proof in itself how entirely their art depended upon colour--colour, it should be added, of a quality quite unapproachable by any other medium than that of translucent glass or actual jewellery. No one who appreciates at anything like its full value the magnificence of that colour will think the interference of occasional lead lines a heavy price to pay for it. [Illustration: 25. S. KUNIBERT, COLOGNE.] For--and this is the second point to be explained in reference to leading--the leads, were they never so objectionable, are actually the price we pay for the glory of early glass. It is by their aid we get those mosaics of pot-metal, the depth and richness of which to this day, with all our science of chemistry, we cannot approach by any process of enamelling. Moreover, though merely constructional leads, taking a direction contrary to the design, may at times disturb the eye, (they scarcely ever disturb the effect) they add to the richness of the glass in a way its unlearned admirers little dream. Not only is the depth and intensity of the colour very greatly enhanced by the deep black setting of lead, a veritable network of shade in which jewels of bright colour are caught, but it is by the use of a multiplicity of small pieces of glass (instead of a single sheet, out of which the drapery of a figure could be cut all in one piece--the ideal of the ignorant!), that the supreme beauty of colour is reached. Examine the bloom of a peach or of a child's complexion, and see how it is made up of specks of blue and grey and purple and yellow amongst the pink and white of which it is supposed to consist. Every artist, of course, knows that a colour is beautiful according to the variety in it; and a "Ruby" background (as it is usually called), which is made up of little bits of glass of various shades of red, not only crimson, scarlet, and orange, but purple and wine-colour of all shades from deepest claret to tawny port, is as far beyond what is possible in a sheet of even red glass as the colour of a lady's hand is beyond the possible competition of pearl powder or a pink kid glove. Not only, therefore, were the small pieces of glass in early windows, and the consequent leads, inevitable, but they are actually at the very root of its beauty; and the artificer of the dark ages was wiser in his generation than the children of this era of enlightenment. He did not butt his head against immovable obstacles, but built upon them as a foundation. Hence his success, and in it a lesson to the glazier for all time--which was taken to heart (as will be shown presently) by craftsmen even of a period too readily supposed to have been given over entirely to painting upon glass. Let there be no misunderstanding about what is claimed for the earliest windows. The method of mosaic, eked out with a minimum of tracing in opaque pigment, does not lend itself very kindly to picture; and it is in ornament that the thirteenth century glazier is pre-eminent. There is even something barbaric about the splendour of his achievement. Might it not be said that in all absolutely ornamental decoration there is something of the barbaric?--which may go to account for the rarity of real ornament, or any true appreciation of it, among modern people. We might not have to scratch the civilised man very deep to reach the savage in him, but he is, at all events, sophisticated enough to have lost his unaffected delight in strong bright colours and "meaningless" twistings of ornament. Be that as it may, the figure work of the thirteenth century window designer is distinctly less perfect than his scrolls and suchlike, partly, it is true, because of his inadequate figure drawing, but partly also because his materials were not well adapted to anything remotely like pictorial representation. The figures in his subjects have, as before said, to be cut out against the background in order to be intelligible. Hence a stiff and ultra-formal scheme of design, and also a certain exaggeration of attitude, which in the hands of a _naïve_ and sometimes almost childish draughtsman becomes absolutely grotesque. This is most strikingly the case in the larger figures, sometimes considerably over lifesize, standing all in a row in the clerestory lights of some of the great French cathedrals. [Illustration: 26. LYONS.] The scale of these figures gave opportunity (heads all-of-a-piece show that it did not actually make it a necessity) for glazing the faces in several pieces of glass; and it was quite the usual thing, as at Lyons (opposite) to glaze the flesh in pinkish-brown, the beard in white or grey or yellow or some dark colour--not seldom blue, which had at a distance very much the value of black--and the eyes in white. Sometimes even, as at Reims, the iris of the eye was not represented by a blot of paint but was itself glazed in blue. The effect of this might have been happier if the lines of the painting had been more of the same strength as the leads, and so strong enough to support them. As it is, the great white eyes start out of the picture and spoil it. They have a way of glaring at you fixedly; there is no speculation in their stare; they look more like huge goggles than live eyes. And it is not these only which are grotesque; the smaller figures in subject windows are, for the most part, rude and crude, to a degree which precludes one, or any one but an archæologist _pur sang_, from taking them seriously as figure design. They are often really not so much like human figures as "bogies," ugly enough to frighten a child. What is more to be deplored is that they are so ugly as actually to have frightened away many a would-be artist in glass from the study of them--a study really essential to the proper understanding of his _métier_; for repellant as those bogey figures may be, they show more effectually than later, more attractive, and much more accomplished painting, the direction in which the glass painter should go, and must go, if he wants to make figures tell, say, in the clerestory of a great church. Apart from the halo of sentiment about the earliest work--and who shall say how much of that sentiment we bring to it ourselves?--apart from the actual picturesqueness--and how much of that is due to age and accident?--there _is_ in the earliest glass a feeling for the material and a sense of treatment seldom found in the work of more accomplished glass painters. If there is not actually more to be learnt from it than from later and more consummate workmanship, there is at least no danger of its teaching a false gospel, as that may do. From the grossest and most archaic figures, ungainly in form and fantastic in feature, stiff in pose and extravagant in action, out of all proportion to their place in the window, there are at least two invaluable lessons to be learnt--the value of broad patches of unexpected colour, interrupting that monotony of effect to which the best-considered schemes of ornament incline, and the value of simplicity, directness, and downright rigidity of design. Severity of design is essential to largeness of style; it brings the glass into keeping with the grandeur of a noble church, into tune with the solemn chords of the organ. Modern windows may sometimes astound us by their aggressive cleverness, the old soothe and satisfy at the same time that they humble the devout admirer. The confused effect of Early glass (except when the figures are on a very large scale) is commonly described as "kaleidoscopic." That is not a very clever description, and it is rather a misleading one. For, except in the case of the rose or wheel windows, common in France, Early glass is not designed on the radiating lines which the kaleidoscope inevitably gives. It is enough for the casual observer that the effect is made up of broken bits of bright colour; and if they happen to occupy a circular space the likeness is complete to him. But to know the lines on which an Early Gothic window was built, is to see, through all confusion of effect, the evidence of design, and to resent the implication of thoughtless mechanism implied in the word kaleidoscopic. Nevertheless, little as the mediæval glaziers meant it--they were lavish of the thought they put into their art--their glass does often delight us, something as the toy amuses children, because the first impression it produces upon us is a sense of colour, in which there is no too definite form to break the charm. There comes a point in our satisfaction in mere beauty (to some it comes sooner than to others--too soon, perhaps) at which we feel the want of a meaning in it--must find one, or our pleasure in it is spoilt; we even go so far as to put a meaning into it if it is not there; but at first it is the mysterious which most attracts the imagination. And even afterwards, when the mystery is solved, we are not sorry to forget its meaning for a while, to be free to put our own interpretation upon beauty, or to let it sway us without asking why, just as we are moved by music which carries us we know not where, we care not. CHAPTER V. PAINTED MOSAIC GLASS. The glass so far vaguely spoken of as "Early" belongs to the period when the glazier designed his leads without thinking too much about painting. [Illustration: 27. CHARTRES.] There followed a period when the workman gave about equal thought to the glazing and the painting of his window. Then came a time when he thought first of painting, and glazing was a secondary consideration with him. [Illustration: 28. S. KUNIBERT, COLOGNE.] According as we contemplate glass painting from the earlier or the later standpoint, from the point of view of glass or of painting, we are sure to prefer one period to the other, to glory perhaps in the advance of painting, or to regret the lesser part that coloured glass eventually plays in the making of a window. To claim for one or the other manner that it is the true and only way, were to betray the prejudice of the partizan. Each justifies itself by the masterly work done in it, each is admirable in its way. It is not until the painter began, as he eventually did, to take no thought of the glass he was using, and the way it was going to be glazed, that he can be said with certainty to have taken the downward road in craftsmanship. We shall come to that soon enough; meanwhile, throughout the Gothic period at least, he kept true to a craftsmanlike ideal, and never quite forsook the traditions of earlier workmanship; and until well into the fourteenth century he began, we may say, with glazing. In the fourteenth century borders overleaf and in the figure on page 47, no less than in the earlier examples on pages 43 and 46, the glazing lines fulfil a very important part in the design, emphasising the outlines of the forms, if they do not of themselves form an actual pattern. Naturally, once the glazier resorted to the use of paint, he schemed his leads with a view to supplementary painting, and had always a shrewd idea as to the details he meant to add; but it will be clear to any one with the least experience in design that a man might map out the leadwork of such borders as those shown below with only the vaguest idea as to how he was going to fill them in with paint, and yet be sure of fitting them with effective foliage. So the architectural canopies on pages 134, 135, 154, were pretty surely first blocked out according to their lead lines; and not till the design was thus mapped out in colour did the designer begin to draw the detail of his pinnacles and crockets. The invariable adherence to a traditional type of design made it the easier for him to keep in mind the detail to come. For he had not so much to imagine as to remember. He was free, however, always to follow any spontaneous impulse of design. [Illustration: 29. S. OUEN, ROUEN.] It was told in Chapter IV. how, in the beginning, pigment was used only to paint out the light, to emphasise drawing, and to give detail--such as the features of the face, the curls of the hair, and so on. That was the ruling idea of procedure. In practice, however, it is not very easy to paint perfectly solid lines on glass. At the end of a stroke always, and whenever the brush is not charged full of colour, the lines insensibly get thin, not perfectly opaque, that is to say; and so, in spite of himself, the painter would continually be obtaining something like translucency--a tint, in fact, and not a solid brown. Not to have taken advantage of this half tint, would have been to prove himself something less than a good workman, less than a reasonable one; and he did from the first help out his drawing by a smear of paint, more or less in the nature of shading. In flesh painting of the twelfth century (or attributed to that early date) there are indications of such shading, used, however, with great moderation, and only to supplement the strong lines of solid brown in which the face was mainly drawn. The features were first very determinedly drawn in line ("traced" is the technical term), and then, by way of shade, a slight scum of paint was added. Still, in thirteenth century work, there is frequently no evidence of such shading; the painter has been quite content with the traced line. In the fourteenth century a looser kind of handling is observed. The painter would trace a head in not quite solid lines of brown, and then strengthen them here and there with perfectly opaque colour, producing by that means a much softer quality of line. In any case, the painting until well into the century was at the best rude, and the half tint, such as it was, used, one may say, to be smeared on. Here again practice followed the line of least resistance. It was difficult with the appliances then in use to paint a gradated tint which would give the effect of modelling; and accordingly very little of the kind was attempted. Eventually, however, the painter began to stipple his smear of shadow, at once softening it and letting light into it. Towards the end of the century this stippling process was carried a step further. It occurred to the workman to coat his glass all over (or all of it except what was meant to remain quite clear) with thin brown, and then, with a big dry brush, dab it until it assumed a granular or stippled surface (darker or lighter, according to the amount of stippling). This was not only more translucent than the smeared colour but more easily graduated, and capable of being so manipulated, and so softened at the edges, as readily to give a very fair amount of modelling. This shading was often supplemented by dark lines or hatchings put in with a brush, as well as by lines scraped out of the tint to lighten it. But in any case there was for a while nothing like heavy shading. Even in work belonging to the fifteenth century, and especially in English glass, as at York, Cirencester, Ross, &c., it is quite a common thing to find that the drawing is mainly in line, very delicately done, helped out by the merest hint of shading in tint. This glass is sometimes a little flat in effect, and it is not equal in force to contemporary foreign work; but it is peculiarly refined in execution, and it has qualities of glass-like sparkle and translucency which more than make amends for any lack of solidity in painting. Solidity is just the one thing we can best dispense with in glass. [Illustration: 30. SALISBURY.] A comparison of the two borders on pages 38 and 175, both German work, will show how little difference of principle there was between the thirteenth century craftsman and his immediate successor. The difference in style between the two is strikingly marked--the one is quite Romanesque in character, the detail of the other is comparatively naturalistic; but when you come to look at the way they are executed, the way the glazing is mapped out, the way the leads emphasise the outlines, whilst paint is only used to make out details which lead could not give--you will see that the new man has altered his mind more with regard to what he wants to do in glass than as to how he wants to do it. Very much might be said with regard to the two figures on this page and the opposite. The French designer has departed from the archaic composition of the earlier Englishman, and put more life and action into his figure, but there is very little difference in the technique of the two men, less than appears in the illustrations; for, as it happens, one drawing aims at giving the lines of the glass, the other at showing its effect. The fourteenth century figure on page 51 relies more than these last upon painting. The folds of the saint's tunic, for example, are not merely traced in outline, but there is some effect of modelling in them. It will be instructive also to compare the fourteenth century hop pattern on page 173 with the fourteenth century vine on page 364, and the fifteenth century example on page 345. In the first the method of proceeding is almost as strictly mosaic as though it had been a scroll of the preceding century. Leaves, stalks, and fruits are glazed in light colour upon dark, and bounded by the constructional lines of lead. In the second, though the main forms are still outlined by the leads, much greater use is made of paint: the topmost leaf is in one piece of glass with the stalk of the tree, and all the leaves are relieved by means of shading. In the third the artist has practically drawn his vine scroll, and then thought how best he could glaze it; and the leads come very much as they may. This last-mentioned proceeding is typical of a period not yet under discussion, but the second illustrates very fairly the supplementary use of paint made in the fourteenth century. [Illustration: 31. S. URBAIN, TROYES.] A rather unusual but suggestive form of fourteenth century glazing is shown on page 176. It was the almost invariable practice at this period, as in the preceding centuries, to distinguish the pattern, whether of scroll or border, by relieving it against a background of contrasting colour, usually light against dark; but here the border is varicoloured, without other ground than the opaque pigment used for painting out the forms of the leaves, etc., and filling in between them. The method lends itself only to design in which the forms are so closely packed as to leave not too much ground to be filled in. A fair amount of solid paint about the leaves and stalks does no harm. A good deal was used in Early work, and it results in happier effects than when minute bits of background are laboriously leaded in. The main point is--and it is one the early glaziers very carefully observed--that the glass through which the light is allowed to come should not be made dirty with paint. It was mentioned before (page 35) how, from the first, a background would be painted solid and a diaper picked out of it. Further examples of that are shown overleaf and on pages 88 and 103, though, as will be seen, a considerable portion of the glass is by this means obscured, the effect is still brilliant; and in proportion as lighter and brighter tints of glass came into use, it became more and more necessary; in fact, it never died out. The diaper opposite belongs to the fifteenth century, and the minuter of the three diapers above, as well as those on pages 88 and 103, belong to the sixteenth century. [Illustration: 32. DIAPERS SCRATCHED OUT.] Now that the reader may be presumed to have a perfectly clear idea of the process of the early glazier, and to realise the distinctly mosaic character of old glass, it is time mention should be made of two important intermediate methods of glass staining which presently began to affect the character of stained glass windows. Allusion has been made (page 2) to the Roman practice of making glass in strata of two colours, which they carved cameo-fashion in imitation of onyx and the like; at least, one _tour de force_ of this kind is familiar to every one in the famous Portland vase, in which the outer layer of white glass is in great part ground away, leaving the design in cameo upon dark blue. The mediæval glass-blower seems from the first to have been acquainted with this method of coating a sheet of glass with glass of a different colour. As the Roman coated his dull blue with opaque white glass, so he coated translucent white with rich pot-metal colour. It was not a very difficult operation. He had only to dip his lump of molten white into a pot of coloured glass, and, according to the quantity of coloured material adhering to it, so his bubble of glass (and consequently the sheet into which it was opened out) was spread with a thinner or thicker skin of colour. The Gothic craftsman took advantage of this facility, in so far as he had any occasion for its use. The occasion arose owing to the density of the red glass he employed, which was such that, if he had made it of the thickness of the rest of his glass, it would have been practically opaque. To have made it very much thinner would have been to make it more fragile; and in any case, it was easier to make a good job of the glazing when the glass was all pretty much of a thickness. A layer of red upon white offered a simple and practical way out of the difficulty. What is called "ruby" glass, therefore, is not red all through, but only throughout one half or a third of its thickness. The colour is only, so to speak, the jam upon the bread; but the red and the white glass are amalgamated at such a temperature as to be all but indivisible, to all intents and purposes as thoroughly one as ordinary pot-metal glass. [Illustration: 33. DIAPER SCRATCHED OUT.] For a long while glass painters used this ruby glass and a blue glass made in the same way precisely as though it had been self-coloured. But in shaping a piece of ruby glass, especially with their inadequate appliances, they would be bound sometimes to chip off at the edges little flakes of red, revealing as many little flaws of white. This would be sure to suggest, sooner or later, the deliberate grinding away of the ruby stratum in places where a spot of white was needed smaller than could conveniently be leaded in. As to the precise date at which some ingenious artist may first have used this device, it may be left to archæology to speculate. It must have been a very laborious process; and the early mediæval ideal of design was not one that offered any great temptation to resort to it during the thirteenth or even the fourteenth century. It was not, in fact, until the painting of windows was carried to a point at which there was some difficulty in so scheming the lines of the lead that they should not in any way mar its delicacy, that the practice of "flashing" glass, as it is termed, became common. That is why no mention of it has been made till now. It will be seen that it is a perfectly practical and workmanlike process, rendering possible effects not otherwise to be got in glass, but lending itself rather to minuteness of execution and elaboration of detail than to splendour of colour or breadth of effect. [Illustration: 34. QUEEN OF SHEBA, FAIRFORD.] The second intermediate method of staining glass began earlier to affect the design and execution of windows; and the character of fourteenth century glass is distinctly modified by it; and, curiously enough, whilst flashing applied to red and blue glass, this applies to yellow. It was discovered about the beginning of the fourteenth century that white glass painted with a solution of silver would take in the kiln a pure transparent stain of yellow, varying, according to its strength and the heat of the furnace, from palest lemon to deepest orange. Observe that this yellow stain is neither an enamel nor a pot-metal colour, but literally a stain, the only stain used upon glass. In pot-metal the stain (if it may be so called) is _in_ the glass, this is _upon_ it. But it is absolutely indelible; it can only be removed with the surface of the glass itself; time has no more effect upon it than if the glass were coated with yellow pot-metal. This silver stain was not only of a singularly pure and delicate colour, compared to which pot-metal yellows were hot and harsh, but it had all the variety of a wash of water-colour, shading off by imperceptible degrees from dark to light, and that so easily that the difficulty would have been in getting a perfectly flat tint. [Illustration: 35. S. GREGORY, ALL SOULS' COLLEGE, OXFORD.] Moreover, it could be as readily traced in lines or little touches of colour as it could be floated on in broad surfaces. By its aid it was as easy to render the white pearls on a bishop's golden mitre as to give the golden hair of a white-faced angel, or to relieve a white figure against a yellow ground--and all without the use of intervening lead. [Illustration: 36. DIAPER IN WHITE AND STAIN, ALL SAINTS' CHURCH, YORK.] It is not surprising that such a discovery had a very important effect upon the development of the glass painter's practice. By means of it were produced extraordinarily beautiful effects, as of gold and silver, peculiarly characteristic of later Gothic work. The crockets and finials of white canopies would be touched with it as with gold, the hair of angels and the crowns of kings; or the nimbus itself would be stained, the head now being habitually painted on one piece of white glass with the nimbus. The crown and the pearl-edged head-band of the Queen of Sheba, from Fairford, (page 50), are stained upon the white glass out of which the head is cut. In the figure of S. Gregory on page 51 the triple crown is stained yellow, and so is the nimbus of the bull, whose wings also are shaded in stain varying from light to dark. Of the elaborate diapering of white drapery, with patterns in rich stain, more and more resorted to as the fifteenth century advanced, a specimen is here given, in which the design is figured in white upon a yellow ground, outlined with a delicately traced line of brown. Stain was seldom used on white without such outline. In the end white and stain predominated. Early glass was likened to jewellery; now the jewels seem to be set in gold and silver. There was a loss in dignity and grandeur, but there was a gain in gaiety and brightness. How far stain encouraged the more abundant use of white glass which prevailed in the fifteenth century it might be rash to say; at any rate, it fitted in to perfection with the tendency of the times, which was ever more and more in the direction of light, until the later Gothic windows became, in many instances, not so much coloured windows as windows of white and stain enclosing panels or pictures in colour. Even in these pictures very often not more than about one-third of the glass was in rich colour. And not only was more white glass used, but the white itself was purer and more silvery, lighter, and at the same time thinner, giving occasion and excuse for that more delicate painting which perhaps was one great reason for the change in its quality. At all events, the more transparent character of the material necessitated more painting than was desirable in the case of the hornier texture of the older make. Hence the prevalence of diaper already referred to. By the latter half of the fifteenth century painting plays a very important part in stained glass windows. We have arrived at a period when it is no longer subsidiary to mosaic; still it has not yet begun to take precedence of it. The artist is now a painter, and he relies for much of his effect upon painting; but he is a glazier, too, and careful to make the most of what glass can do. He designs invariably with a view to the glazing of his design, and with full knowledge of what that means. He knows perfectly well what can be done in glass, and what cannot. He has not yet carried painting to the perfection to which it came eventually to be carried, but neither has he begun to rely upon it for what can best be done in mosaic. He can scarcely be said to prefer one medium to another; he uses both to equally workmanlike purpose. He does not, like the early glazier, design in lead any longer, but neither does he leave the consideration of leading till after he has designed his picture, as painters came subsequently to do. It amounts, it might be thought, to much the same thing whether the artist begins with his lead lines and works up to his painting, as at first he did, or begins with his painting and works up to the leads, as became the practice,--so long as in either case he has always in mind the after-process, and works with a view to it. But the truth seems to be that few men have ever a thing quite so clearly in their minds as when they have it in concrete form before their eyes. The glazier may reckon upon the paint to come, but he does not rely upon it quite so much as the painter who starts with the idea of painting. [Illustration: 37. NATIVITY, GREAT MALVERN.] The later Gothic artists gradually got into the way of thinking more and more of the painting upon their glass. In the end, they thought of it first, and there resulted from their doing so quite a different kind of design, apart from change due to modifications of architectural style; but so long as the Gothic tradition lasted--and it survived until well into the sixteenth century, in work even which bears the brand of typical Renaissance ornament--so long the glazing of a window was in no degree an after-thought, something not arranged for, which had to be done as best it might. It is apparent always to the eye at all trained in glass design that the composition even of the most pictorial subjects was very much modified, where it was not actually suggested, by considerations of glazing. As more and more white glass came to be used, it was more and more a tax upon the ingenuity of the designer so to compose his figures that his white should be conveniently broken up, and the patches of colour he wanted should be held in place by leads which in no way interfered with his white glass; for it is clear that, in proportion as the white was delicately painted, there would be brutality in crossing it haphazard by strong lines of lead not forming part of the design; and to the last one of the most interesting things in mediæval design is to observe the foresight with which the glass-worker plans his colour for the convenience of glazing. There is very skilful engineering in the subject from Ross on page 339. It is not by accident that the hands of the hooded figure rest upon the shoulders of S. Edward, or that, together with his gold-brocaded surcoat and its ermine trimming, his hands, and the gilt-edged book he holds in them, they fall into a shape so easy to cut in one piece. Scarcely less artful is the arrangement of the head of the bishop with his crosier and the collar of his robe all in one. The glass painter has only to glance at such subjects as the Nativity from Great Malvern (page 54), or the Day of Creation from the same rich abbey church (page 252), or at the figure of S. Gregory from All Souls', Oxford (page 51), to see how the colour is planned from the beginning, and planned with a view to the disposition of the lead lines. In the Nativity, which is reproduced from a faithful tracing of the glass, and is in the nature of a diagram, the actual map of the glazing is very clear, in spite of its disfigurement by leads which merely represent mending, and form no part of the design. There, too, may clearly be seen how the yellow radiance from the Infant Saviour is on the same piece of whitish glass on which the figure is painted. In the Creation and S. Gregory, which are taken from careful water-drawings, the effect of the glass is given, and it is perceived how little the leads obtrude themselves upon the observation in the actual windows.[A] Footnote A: These, together with illustrations 35, 44, 54, 142, 156, 174, 191, 207, 234, are from the admirable collection of studies from old glass very kindly placed at my disposal by Mr. John R. Clayton, himself a master of design in glass. The Preaching of S. Bernard from S. Mary's, Shrewsbury, opposite, is again disfigured by accidental leads, where the glass has been repaired; but it will serve to show how, even when lead lines are as much as possible avoided, they are always allowed for, and even skilfully schemed. Many of the heads, it will be noticed, are painted upon the same pieces of white which does duty also for architectural background; or white draperies are glazed in one piece with the white-and-yellow flooring; yet the lead lines, as originally designed, seem to fall quite naturally into the outlines of the figures. [Illustration: 38. S. BERNARD PREACHING, S. MARY'S, SHREWSBURY.] A very characteristic piece of glazing occurs in the foreground figure, forming a note of strong colour in the centre of the composition. The way the man's face is included in the same piece of glass with the yellow groining of the arch, while his coloured cap connects it with his body, bespeaks a designer most expert in glazing, and intent upon it always. The danger in connection with a device of this kind, very common in work of about the beginning of the sixteenth century--as, for example, in the very fine Flemish glass at Lichfield--is that, being merely painted upon a white background, and insufficiently supported by leads, the head may seem not to belong to the strongly defined, richly draped figure. It is, of course, very much a question of making the outline strong enough to keep the leads in countenance. The artist of the Shrewsbury glass adopts another expedient at once to support the lead lines, to connect his white and colour, and to get the emphasis of dark touches just where he feels the want of them. He makes occasional use of solid black by way of local colour, as may be seen in the hood of the abbess and the shoes of the men to the right. [Illustration: 39. S. MARY'S, SHREWSBURY.] In another subject from Shrewsbury (here given), in the bodice of the harpist, and the head gear of the figures on page 104, effective use is made of these points of black. So long as they remain mere points, the end justifies the means, and there is nothing to be said against their introduction; they are entirely to the good; but such use of solid pigment is valuable mainly in subjects of quite small size, such as these are. It would be obviously objectionable if any considerable area of white glass were thus obscured. The glass referred to at Shrewsbury, Malvern, and Oxford is of later date than much work in which painting was carried further; but there is here no question of style or period; that is reserved for future consideration (Book II.). The fact it is here desired to emphasise is, that there was a time when glazier and painter took something like equal part in a window, or, to speak more precisely, there were for a while windows in which the two took such equal part that each seemed to rely upon the other; when, if the artist was a painter he was a glazier too. Very likely they were two men. If so, they must have worked together on equal terms, and without rivalry, neither attempting to push his cleverness to the front, each regardful of the other, both working to one end--which was not a mosaic, nor a painting, nor a picture, but a window. CHAPTER VI. GLASS PAINTING (MEDIÆVAL). The end of the fifteenth century brings us to the point at which painting and glazing are most evenly matched, and, in so far, to the perfection of stained-and-painted glass, but not yet to the perfection of glass painting. That was reserved for the sixteenth century, when art was under the influence of the Renaissance. Glass painting followed always the current of more modern thought, and drifted picturewards. Even in the fourteenth century it was seen that there was a fashion of naturalism in design, in the fifteenth there was an ever-increasing endeavour to realise natural form, and not natural form alone; for, in order to make the figure stand out in its niche, it became necessary to show the vault in perspective. It was obviously easier to get something like pictorial relief by means of painting than in mosaic, which accordingly fell by degrees into subordination, and the reign of the glass painter began. It must be admitted that at the beginning of the sixteenth century there was still room for improvement in painting, and that to the realisation of the then pictorial ideal stronger painting was actually necessary. Perhaps the ideal was to blame; but even in Gothic glass, still severely architecturesque in design, more painting became, as before said, necessary, as greater use was made of white, and that painting stronger, in proportion as the material used became thinner and clearer. But though the aim of the glass painter was pictorial, the pictorial ideal was not so easily to be attained in glass; and so, though the painter reigned supreme, his dominion was not absolute. The glazier was in the background, it is true, but he was always there, and his influence is very strongly felt. The pictures of the glass painter are, consequently, still pictures in glass, for the painter was still dependent upon pot-metal for the greater part of his colour; and he knew it, and was wise enough to accept the situation, and, if he did not actually paint his own glass, to design only what could, at all events, be translated into glass. He not only continued to use pot-metal for his colour, but he made every possible use of it to his end, finding in it resources which his predecessors had not developed. His range of colours was extended almost indefinitely, and he used his glass with more discretion. He took every advantage of the accidental variety in the glass itself. No sheet of pot-metal was equal in tint from end to end; it deepened towards the selvedge, and was often much darker at one end than the other. It ranged perhaps from ruby to pale pink, from sea-green to smoky-black. This gradation of tint wisely used was of great service in giving something like shadow without the aid of paint, and it was used with great effect--in the dragons, for example, which the mediæval artist delighted to depict--as a means of rendering the lighter tones of the creature's belly. Supposing the beast were red, the glass painter would perhaps assist the natural inequality of the glass by abrading the ruby, by which means he could almost model the form in red. If it were a blue dragon he might adopt the same plan; or, if it were green, by staining his blue glass at the same time yellow, he could get every variety of shade from yellow to blue-green. Every casual variety of colour would be employed to equal purpose. Even the glass-blower's flukes came in most usefully, not merely, as before, to break the colour of a background accidentally, but as local colour. Sheets of glass, for example, which came out, instead of blue or ruby, of some indescribable tint, streaked and flecked with brighter and darker colour, until they were like nothing so much as marble, were introduced with magnificent effect into the pillars of the architecture which now formed so prominent a feature in window design. The beauty and fitness of this marble colour is eventually such as to suggest that the glass-blower must in the end deliberately have fired at this kind of fluke. Beautiful as were the effects of white and stain produced in the middle of the fourteenth century, it was put now to fuller and more gorgeous use. Draperies were diapered in the most elaborate fashion; a bishop's cope would be as rich as the gold brocade it imitated; patterns were designed in two or even three shades of stain, which, in combination with white and judicious touches of opaque-brown, were really magnificent. Occasionally, as at Montmorency--but this is rarer--the painter did not merely introduce his varied stain in two or three separate shades, nor yet float it on so as to get accidental variety, but he actually painted in it, modelling his armour in it, until it had very much the effect of embossed gold. In some ornamental arabesque, which does duty for canopy work at Conches, in Normandy, this painting in stain is carried still further, the high lights being scraped out so as to give glittering points of white among the yellow. The result of this is not always very successful; but where it is skilfully and delicately done nothing could be more brilliantly golden in effect. It is curious that this silver came to be used in glass just as goldleaf was used in other decorative painting; in fact, its appearance is more accurately described as golden than as yellow, just as the white glass of the sixteenth century has a quality which inevitably suggests silver. It was stated just now that blue glass could be stained green. It is not every kind of glass which takes kindly to the yellow stain. A glass with much soda in its composition, for example, seems to resist the action of the silver; but such resistance is entirely a question of its chemical ingredients, and has only to do with its colour in so far as that may depend upon them. Apart from glass of such antipathetic constitution, it is quite as easy to stain upon coloured glass as upon white; and, if the coloured glass be not too dark in colour to be affected by it, precisely the same effect is produced as by a glaze or wash of yellow in oil or water-colour. Thus we get blue draperies diapered with green, blue-green diapered with yellow-green, and purple with olive, in addition to quite a new development of landscape treatment. A subject was no longer represented on a background of ruby or dense blue, but against a pale grey-blue glass, which stood for sky, and upon it was often a delicately painted landscape, the trees and distant hills stained to green. Stain was no less useful in the foreground. By the use of blue glass stained, instead of pot-metal green, it was easy to sprinkle the green grass with blue flowers, all without lead. It was by the combination of stain with abrasion that the most elaborately varied effects were produced. The painter could now not only stain his blue glass green (and just so much of it as he wanted green), but he could abrade the blue, so as to get both yellow, where the glass was stained, and white where it was not. Thus on the same piece of glass he could depict among the grass white daisies and yellow buttercups and bluebells blue as nature, he could give even the yellow eye of the daisy and its green calyx; and, by judicious modification of his stain, he could make the leaves of the flowers a different shade of green from the grass about them. The drawing of the flowers and leaves and blades of grass, it need hardly be said, he would get in the usual way, tracing the outline with brown, slightly shading with half tint, and painting out only just enough of the ground to give value to his detail. In spite of the tediousness of the process, abrasion was now largely used--not only for the purpose of getting here and there a spot of white, as in the eyes of some fiery devil in the representation of the Last Judgment, but extensively in the form of diaper work, oftenest in the forms of dots and spots (the spotted petticoat of the woman taken in adultery in one of the windows at Arezzo seems happily chosen to show that she is a woman of the people), but also very frequently in the form of scroll or arabesque, stained to look like a gold tissue, or even to represent a garment stiff with embroidery and pearls. Often the pattern is in gold-and-white upon ruby or deep golden-brown, or in white-and-gold and green upon blue, and so on. In heraldry it is no uncommon thing to see the ground abraded and the charge left in ruby upon white. Sometimes a small head would be painted upon ruby glass, all of the colour being abraded except just one jewel in a man's cap. Stain and abrasion, by means of which either of the three primaries can be got upon white, afford, it will be seen, a workmanlike way of avoiding leadwork. But there are other ways. There is a window at Montmorency in which the stigmata in the hands and foot of S. Francis are represented by spots of ruby glass inlaid or let into the white flesh, with only a ring of lead to hold them in place. It would never have occurred to a fourteenth century glazier to do that. He would have felt bound to connect that ring of lead with the nearest glazing lines, at whatever risk of marring his flesh painting; but then, his painting would not have been so delicate, and would not in any case have suffered so much. Indeed, the more delicate painting implies a certain avoidance of lead lines crossing it, and hence some very difficult feats of glazing. This kind of inlaying was never very largely used, but on occasion not only a spot but even a ring of glass round it would be let in in this way. There is a window at Bourges in which the glories of the saints are inlaid with jewels of red, blue, green, and violet, which have more the effect of jewellery than if they had been glazed in the usual way. Whether it was worth the pains is another question. A more usual, and less excusable, way of getting jewels of colour upon white glass was actually to anneal them to it. By abrading the ground it was possible to represent rubies or sapphires, surrounded by pearls, in a setting of gold, but not both rubies and sapphires. In order to get this combination they would cut out little jewels of red and blue, fix them temporarily in their place, and fire the glass until these smaller (and thinner) pieces melted on to and almost into it; the fusion, however, was seldom complete. At this date some of the jewels--as, for example, at S. Michael's, Spurrier Gate, York--are usually missing--but for which accident one would have been puzzled to know for certain how this effect was produced. The insecurity of this process of annealing is inevitable. Glass is in a perpetual state of contraction and expansion, according to the variation of our changeable climate. The white glass and the coloured cannot be relied upon to contract and expand in equal degree; they are seldom, in fact, truly married. The wedding ring of lead was safer. Sooner or later incompatibility of temper asserts itself, and in the course of time they fidget themselves asunder. All these contrivances to get rid of leads are evidence that the painter is coming more and more to the front in glass, and that the glazier is retiring more and more into the background. The avoidance of glazing follows, as was said, upon ultra-delicacy of painting, and dependence upon paint follows from the doing away with leads. We have thus not two new systems of work, but two manifestations of one idea--pictorial glass. The pictorial ideal inspired some of the finest glass painting--the windows of William of Marseilles, at Arezzo, to mention only one instance among many. With the early Renaissance glass we arrive at masterly drawing, perfection of painting, and pictorial design, which is yet not incompatible with glass. One may prefer to it, personally, a more downright kind of work; but to deny such work its place, and a very high place, in art is to write oneself down a bigot at the least, if not an ass. It is not until the painter took to depending upon paint for strength as well as delicacy of effect, trusting to it for the relief of his design, that it is quite safe to say he was on the wrong tack. Towards the sixteenth century much more pronounced effects of modelling are aimed at, and reached, by the painter. Even in distinctly Gothic work the flesh is strongly painted, but not heavily. In flesh painting, at all events, the necessity of keeping the tone of the glass comparatively light was a safeguard, as yet, against overpainting. The actual method of workmanship became less and less like ordinary oil or water-colour painting. It developed into a process of rubbing out rather than of laying on pigment. It was told how the glass painter in place of smear shadow began to use a stippled tint. The later glass painters made most characteristic use of "matt," as it was called. Having traced the outlines of a face, and fixed it in the fire, they would cover the glass with a uniform matt tint; and, when it was dry, with a stiff hoghair brush scrub out the lights. The high lights they would entirely wipe out, the half tints they would brush partly away, and so get their modelling, always by a process of eliminating shadow. The conscientious painter who meant to make sure his delicate tints would stand would submit this to a rather fierce fire, out of which would come, perhaps, only the ghost of the face. This he would strengthen by another matt brushed out in the same way as before, and fire it again. Possibly it would require a third painting and a third fire; that would depend upon the combined strength and delicacy at which he was aiming, and upon the method of the man. For, though one may indicate the technique in vogue at a given time, no one will suppose that painters at any time worked all in the same way. Some men no doubt could get more out of a single painting than others out of two; some were daring in their method, some timid; some made more use than others of the stick for scraping out lines of light; some depended more upon crisp touches with the sable "tracer," necessary, in any case, for the more delicate pencilling of the features; some would venture upon the ticklish operation of passing a thin wash of colour over matt or stippling before it was fired, at the risk of undoing all they had done--and so on, each man according to his skill and according to his temperament. But with whatever aid of scratching out lights, or touching in darks, or floating on tints, the practice in the sixteenth century was mainly, by a process of scrubbing lights out of matted or washed tints of brown, to get very considerable modelling, especially in flesh painting and in white draperies. It is impossible in illustrations of the size here given to exemplify in any adequate manner the technique of the Early Renaissance glass painters, but it is clear that the man who painted the small subject from the life of S. Bonnet, in the church dedicated to that saint at Bourges, (page 210) was a painter of marked power. A still finer example of painting is to be found in the head of William de Montmorency (opposite) from the church of S. Martin at Montmorency near Paris, really a masterpiece of portraiture, full of character, and strikingly distinguished in treatment. There is at the Louvre a painting of the same head which might well be the original of the glass. If the glass painter painted the picture he was worthy to rank with the best painters of his day. If the glass painter only copied it, he was not far short of that, for his skill is quite remarkable; and the simple means by which he has rendered such details as the chain armour and the collar, and the Order of S. Michael, supplementing the most delicate painting with touches of opaque colour, which in less skilful hands would have been brutal, show the master artist in glass painting. Here, towards the end of the first quarter of the sixteenth century, we have glass painting carried about as far as it can go, and yet not straying beyond the limits of what can best be done in glass. The apologists for the Renaissance would attribute all such work as this to the new revival. That would be as far wide of the mark as to claim for it that it was Gothic. The truth is, there is no marked dividing line between Gothic and Renaissance. It is only by the character of some perhaps quite slight monumental or architectural detail that we can safely classify a window of the early sixteenth century as belonging to one or the other style. It belongs, in fact, to neither. It is work of the transition period between the two. Gothic traditions lingered in the glass painter's shop almost as long as good work continued to be done there; so much so, that we may almost say that with those Gothic traditions died the art itself. For all that, it is not to be disputed that the most brilliant achievements in glass painting were certainly in the new style and inspired by the new enthusiasm for art. [Illustration: 40. GUILLAUME DE MONTMORENCY, MONTMORENCY.] CHAPTER VII. GLASS PAINTING (RENAISSANCE). The quality _par excellence_ of Renaissance glass was its painting; its dependence upon paint was its defect. Until about the middle of the sixteenth century the painter goes on perfecting himself in his special direction, neglecting, to some extent, considerations of construction on the one hand, and of colour upon the other, which cannot with impunity be ignored in glass, but achieving pictorially such conspicuous success that there may be question, among all but ardent admirers of glass that is essentially glass-like, as to whether the loss, alike in depth and in translucency of colour, as well as of constructional fitness, may not be fully compensated for by the gain in fulness of pictorial expression. According as we value most the qualities of glass in glass, or the qualities of a picture in no matter what material, will our verdict be. But there comes a point when the painter so far oversteps the limit of consistency, so clearly attempts to do in glass what cannot be done in it, so plainly sacrifices to qualities which he cannot get the qualities which stained glass offers him, that he ceases to be any longer working in glass, and is only attempting upon glass what had very much better have been done in some other and more congenial medium. The event goes to prove the seductiveness of the pictorial idea, and illustrates once more the danger of calling to your assistance a rival craft, which, by-and-by, may oust you from your own workshop. The consideration of the possibilities in the way of pictorial glass is reserved for a chapter by itself. It concerns us for the moment only in so far as the pictorial intention affected, as it very seriously did, the technique of glass painting. In pursuit of the pictorial the painter strayed from his allegiance to glass. He learnt to depend upon his manipulation instead of upon his material; and that facility of his in painting led him astray. He not only began to use paint where before he would, as a matter of course, have glazed-in coloured glass, but to lay it on so heavily as seriously to detract from that translucency which is the glory of glass. It is rash to say, at a glance, whether glass has been too heavily painted or not. I once made a careful note, in writing, that certain windows in the church of S. Alpin, at Châlons, were over-painted. After a lapse of two or three years I made another equally careful note to the effect that they were thin, and wanted stronger painting. It was not until, determined to solve the mystery of these contradictory memoranda, I went a third time to Châlons, that I discovered, that with the light shining full upon them the windows were thin, that by a dull light they were heavy, and that by a certain just sufficiently subdued light they were all that could be desired. There is indiscretion, at least, in painting in such a key that only one particular light does justice to your work; but the artist in glass is always very much at the mercy of chance in this respect. He cannot choose the light in which his work shall be seen, and the painter of Châlons may have been more unfortunate than in any way to blame. There comes, however, a degree of heaviness in painted glass about which there can be no discussion. When the paint is laid on so thick that under ordinary conditions of light the glass is obscure, or when it is so heavy that the light necessary to illuminate it is more than is good for the rest of the window, the bounds of moderation have surely been passed. And in the latter half of the sixteenth century it was less and less the custom to take heed of considerations other than pictorial; so that by degrees the translucency of glass was sacrificed habitually to strength of effect depending not so much upon colour, which is the strength of glass, as upon the relief obtained by shadow--just the one quality not to be obtained in glass painting. For the quality of shadow depends upon its transparency; and shadow painted upon glass, through which the light is to come, must needs be obscure, must lack, in proportion as it is dark, the mysterious quality of light in darkness, which is the charm of shadow. The misuse of shading which eventually prevailed may best be explained by reference to its beginnings, already in the first half of the century, when most consummate work was yet being done. For example, in the masterpieces of Bernard van Orley, at S. Gudule, Brussels--one of which is illustrated overleaf; it is a mere diagram, giving no idea of the splendour of the glass, but it is enough to serve our purpose. The execution of the window is, in its kind, equal to the breadth and dignity of the design. The painter has done, if not quite all that he proposed to do, all that was possible in paint upon glass. Any fault to find in him, then, must be with what he meant to do, not what he did. To speak justly, there is no fault to find with any one, but only with the condition of things. We have here, associated with the glass painter, a more famous artist, the greatest of his time in Flanders, pupil of Michael Angelo, court painter, and otherwise distinguished. It was not to be expected that he should be learned in all the wisdom of the glass painter, nor yet, human nature being what it is, that he should submit himself, lowly and reverently, to the man better acquainted with the capacities of glass. All that the glass painter could do was to translate the design of the master into glass as best he might, not perhaps as best he could have done had there been no great master to consult in the matter. This was not the first time, by any means, that the designer and painter of a window were two men. There is no saying how soon that much subdivision of labour entered the glass worker's shop; but so long as they were both practical men, versed each in his art, and, to some extent, each in the technique of the other, it did not so much matter. When the painter from outside was called in to design, it mattered everything. What could he be expected to care for technique other than his own? What did he know about it? He was only an amateur so far as glass was concerned; and his influence made against workmanlikeness. He may have done marvels; he did marvels; but his very mastery made things worse. He bore himself so superbly that it was not seen what dangerous ground he trod on. Lesser men must needs all stumble along in his footsteps, until they fell; and in their fall they dragged their art with them. [Illustration: 41. MOSAIC GLASS, AREZZO.] The fault inherent in such work as the Brussels windows is neither Van Orley's nor the glass painter's; it is in the mistaken aim of the designer striving less for colour in his windows than for relief. He succeeds in getting quite extraordinary relief, but at the expense of colour, which in glass is the most important thing. The figures in the window illustrated are so strongly painted that even the white portions of their drapery stand out in dark relief against the pale grey sky. That is not done, you may be sure, without considerable sacrifice of the light-giving quality of the glass. It is at a similar cost that the white-and-gold architecture stands out in almost the solidity of actual stone against the plain white diamond panes above, giving very much the false impression that it is placed in the window, and that you see through its arches and behind it into space. Another very striking thing in the composition is the telling mass of shadow on the soffit of the central arch. It produces its effect, and a very strong one. The festoons of yellow arabesque hanging in front of it tell out against it like beaten gold, and the rather poorish grey-blue background to the figures beneath it has by comparison an almost atmospheric quality. It is all very skilfully planned as light and dark; but there is absolutely no reason why that shadow should have been produced by heavy paint. Under certain conditions of light there are, it is true, gleams of light amidst this shadow. You can make out that the roof is coffered, and can perceive just a glow of warm colour; but most days and most of the day it is dead, dull, lifeless, colourless. The points to note are: (1) that this painted shadow must of necessity be dull; and (2) that on work of this scale at all events (the figures here are very much over lifesize), this abandonment of the mosaic method was not in the slightest degree called for. On the contrary, the simpler, easier, and more workmanlike thing to do would have been to glaze-in the shadow with deep rich pot-metal glass. That was done in earlier glass, and in glass of about the same period as this. [Illustration: 42. RENAISSANCE WINDOW, S. GUDULE, BRUSSELS.] For example, at Liège, where there are beautiful windows of about the same period, very similar in design, the glass is altogether lighter and more brilliant, partly owing to the use of paint with a much lighter hand, but yet more to greater reliance upon pot-metal. In the Church of S. Jacques, as at S. Gudule, there are arched canopies with festoons in bright relief against a background of shadowed soffit; but there the shadow is obtained by glazing-in pot-metal, which has all the necessary depth, and is yet luminous and full of colour. So also the deeply shadowed architectural background to the representation of the Daughter of Herodias dancing before Herod, in the Church of S. Vincent, at Rouen (overleaf), is leaded up in deep purple glass, through which you get peeps of distant atmospheric blue beyond. And this was quite a common practice among French glass painters of the early half of the sixteenth century--as at Auch, at Ecouen, at Beauvais, at Conches, where the architecture in shadow is leaded in shades of purple or purplish glass, which leave little for the painter to do upon the pot-metal. At Freiburg, in Germany, there is a window designed on lines very similar indeed to Van Orley's work, in which the shadowed parts are glazed in shades of deep blue and purple. In Italy it was the custom, already in the fifteenth century, to lead-in deep shadows in pot-metal; and they did not readily depart from it. Surely that is the way to get strong effects, and not by paint. You may take it as a test of workmanlike treatment, that the darks have been glazed-in, where it was possible, and not merely painted upon the glass. There is some misconception about what is called Renaissance glass. Glass painting was not native to Italy, and was never thoroughly acclimatised there, any more than Gothic architecture, to which it was--the handmaid I was going to say, but better say the standard-bearer. Much glass was accordingly executed in Italy in defiance, not only of all tradition, but of all consistency and self-restraint. But even in Italy you will find sixteenth century glass as workmanlike as can be. The details from Arezzo and Bologna, above, overleaf, and on page 266, are pronouncedly Renaissance in type, but the method employed by the glass painter is as thoroughly mosaic as though he had worked in the thirteenth century. Not less glazier-like in treatment are the French Renaissance details from Rouen, on pages 75 and 347, from which it may be seen that a workmanlike treatment of glass was not confined to Gothic glaziers. It was less a question of style, in the historic sense, than of the men's acquaintance with the traditions of good work, and their readiness to accept the situation. [Illustration: 43. MOSAIC GLASS, AREZZO.] Possibly the Netherlandish love of light and shade--and especially of shade--may account for the character of the Brussels glass. Against that it should be said that, elsewhere in Flanders, splendid glass was being done about the same time, less open to the charge of being too heavily painted--at Liège, for example. But everywhere, and perhaps more than anywhere in the Netherlands, which became presently a great centre of glass painting, the tendency, towards the latter part of the century, was in the direction of undue reliance upon paint; of which came inevitably one of two things--either the shaded parts were heavy, dirty, and opaque, or they were weak and washy in effect. If, by means of painting, an artist can get (as he can) something worth getting not otherwise to be got, though we may differ as to the relative value of what he gains and what he sacrifices, it would be hard to deny him his preference, and his right to follow it; but if by painting on glass he attempts to get what could better be expressed by working in it, then clearly he has strayed (as Van Orley did) from the straight path, as glass-workers read the map. [Illustration: 44. SALOME, S. VINCENT, ROUEN.] It is rather a curious thing that the avoidance of leading, the dependence upon glazing and paint, should manifest itself especially in windows designed on such a scale that it would have been quite easy to get all that was got in paint, and more, by the introduction of coloured glass; in windows, for example, on the scale of those at King's College, Cambridge, with figures much over lifesize, where the artist, you can see, has been afraid of leading, and has shirked it. Evidently he did not realise for how little the leads would count in the glass. He does not in that case fall into the error of painting with too heavy a hand, but he trusts too much to paint--a trust so little founded that the paint has oftentimes perished, much to the disfigurement of his picture. [Illustration: 45. RENAISSANCE MOSAIC GLASS.] The French glass painters of about the same period, though working upon a smaller scale, did not depart in the same way from the use of glazing; and where they did resort to painting, it was often with a view to a refinement of detail not otherwise to be obtained, as in the case of the delicate landscape backgrounds painted upon pale blue, which have a beauty all their own. There is here no intention whatever of disparaging such work as that at S. Gudule. Any one capable of appreciating what is strongest and most delicate in glass must have had such keen delight in them that there is something almost like ingratitude in saying anything of them but what is in their praise. But the truth remains. Here is a branching off from old use; here the painter begins to wander from the path, and to lead after him generations of glass painters to come. It takes, perhaps, genius to lead men hopelessly astray! CHAPTER VIII. ENAMEL PAINTING. The excessive use of opaque paint was not so much a new departure as the exaggeration of a tendency which had grown with the growth of glass painting itself. The really new thing in glass painting about this time was the introduction of enamel. When glass painters were resorting, not only to opaque painting, but to abrasion, annealing, or whatever would relieve them from the difficulty of getting in mosaic glass the pictorial effect which was more and more their ruling thought, when glazing had become to them a difficulty (to the early glass-workers it was a resource), it was inevitable that they should think about painting on glass in colour. Accordingly towards the middle of the sixteenth century they began to use enamel. This was the decisive turning-point of the art. In theory the process of painting in enamel is simple enough. You have only to grind coloured glass to impalpable dust, mix it with "fat oil," or gum-and-water, and paint with it upon white or tinted glass; in the furnace the medium will be fired away, and the particles of coloured glass will melt and adhere, more or less firmly, to the heated sheet of glass to which they have been applied. This theory glass painters began to put into practice. In the beginning they used enamel only tentatively, first of all in the flesh tints. It had been the custom since the fourteenth century to paint flesh always upon white or whitish glass in the ordinary brown pigment; and something of the simple dignity and monumental character of old glass is due, no doubt, to that and similar removedness from nature. Gradually the fashion was introduced of painting the flesh in red instead of brown. In one sense this was no such very new thing to do. The ordinary brown pigment spoken of all along is itself enamel, although it has been thought better not to speak of it by that name for fear of confusion. Inasmuch, however, as this was the use of a pigment to get not merely flesh painting but flesh tint--that is to say, colour--it was a step in quite a new direction. Pictorially it offered considerable advantages to the painter. He could not only get, without lead, contrast of colour between a head and the white ground upon which it was painted, or the white drapery about it, but he could very readily give the effect of white hair or beard in contrast to ruddy flesh, and so on. There is a fragment at the _Musée des Arts Décoratifs_ at Paris, attributed to Jean Cousin, 1531, in which a turbaned head appears to have been cut out of a piece of purplish-blue glass, the flesh abraded, and then painted in red, the lips still redder, whilst the beard is painted on the blue, which shades off into the cheeks in the most realistic manner. Very clever things were done in this way, always in the realistic direction; but down to the middle of the century, and even later, there were always some painters who remained faithful to the traditional cool brown colour. A rather happy mean between warm and cold flesh is found at Auch (1513), where warmish enamel upon grey-blue or greenish glass gives modelling and variety of colour in the flesh, which is yet never hot. Well-chosen pieces of glass are made use of, in which the darker half comes in happily for the bearded part of a man's face. So, also, the head of the Virgin at the foot of the cross is painted upon grey, which tells as such in her coif, shaded with a cooler brown, but only deepens and saddens her face, and intensifies the contrast with the Magdalen. Occasionally one of these heads comes out too blue, but at the worst it is better than the hot, foxy flesh painting which became the rule. Painting in colour upon glass could naturally not stop at flesh red. It was used for pale blue skies, at first only to get a more delicate gradation from pale pot-metal colour to white, but eventually for the sky throughout the picture. In connection with yellow stain it gave a green for distant landscape. Enamel was used in ornament to give the colour of fruits and flowers in garlands and the like, and generally for elaboration of detail, which, if not trivial, was of small account in serious decoration. For a while there were glass painters who remained proof against its seduction. It was not till the latter half of the sixteenth century that glass painters generally began seriously to substitute enamel for pot-metal, and to rely upon paint, translucent as well as opaque. Even then they could not do without pot-metal, avoid it as they might. The really strong men, such as the Crabeth Brothers, at Gouda, by no means abandoned the old method, but they relied so much upon paint as to greatly obscure the glory of their glass. The Gouda windows, which bring us to the seventeenth century, contain among them the most daring things in glass extant. They prove that a subject can be rendered more pictorially than one would have conceived to be possible in glass, but they show also what cannot be done in it; in fact, they may be said to indicate, as nearly as can be, the limits of the practicable. What artists of this calibre could not do we may safely pronounce to be beyond the scope of glass painting, even with the aid of enamel. [Illustration: 46. THE BAPTISM, GOUDA.] No skill of painting could make otherwise than dull the masses of heavily painted white glass employed to represent the deep shade of the receding architecture in the upper part of the window on page 242; so, the mass of masonry which serves in the lower half of the window on this page as a background to the Donor and his patron saint and some shields of arms, represented as it is by a thick scum of brown paint, could not but lack lustre. Think of the extent of all that uninteresting paint; what a sacrifice it means of colour and translucency! Enamel painting did not lead to much. The colours obtained by that means had neither the purity nor the richness and volume of pot-metal. They had to be strengthened with brown, which still further dulled them; and, the taste for light and shade predominating as it did in the seventeenth century, the glass painter was eventually lured to the destruction of all glass-like quality in his glass. There are some windows in the cathedral at Brussels, in the chapel opposite that of the Holy Sacrament, where are Van Orley's windows, which bear witness to the terrible decline that had taken place during something like a century--not that they are badly executed in their way. The texture of silk, for example, is given by the glass painter perfectly; but, in the struggle for picturesque effects of light and shade, all consistency of treatment is abandoned. The painter is here let loose; and he can no more withstand the attractions of paint than a boy can resist the temptation of fresh fallen snow. The one must throw snowballs at somebody, the other must lay about him with pigment. Here he lays about him with it recklessly. He is reckless, that is, of the obscurity of the glass he covers with it. At moments, when the sun shines fiercely upon it, you dimly see what he was aiming at; nine-tenths of the time all is blackness. Slabs of white glass are coated literally by the yard with dense brown pigment through which the light rarely shines. It had become the practice now to glaze a window mainly in rectangular panes of considerable size. Where pot-metal colour was used at all, it had of necessity to be surrounded with a leaden line; but within the area of the coloured mass the leading was usually in these upright and horizontal lines, and not at all according to the folds of the drapery or what not. If the glazier went out of his way to take a lead line round a face, instead of across it, that was as much as he would do; if it was merely the face of a cherub, however delicately painted, he would, perhaps, as at S. Jacques, Antwerp, cut brutally across it; and even where structural lead lines compelled him to use separate pieces of material, he by no means always took advantage of the opportunity of getting colour in his glass, but, as at Antwerp, contentedly accepted his rectangular panes of white, as something to paint on--to the exclusion of no matter how much light. It simplified matters, no doubt, for the painter thus to throw away opportunities, and just depend upon his brush; but it resulted at the best only in an imitation of oil painting, lacking the qualities of oil paint. [Illustration: 47. S. MARTIN ÈS VIGNES, TROYES.] The French glass painters were less reckless. At Troyes, indeed, there is plenty of seventeenth century glass in which a workman can still find considerable interest. That of Linard Gontier, in particular, has deservedly a great reputation. He was a painter who could get with a wash of colour, and seemingly with ease, effects which most glass painters could only get at by stippling, hatching, and picking out; and he managed his enamel very cleverly, floating it on with great dexterity. But it is rarely that he gets what artists would call colour out of it. Even in the hands of a man of his prodigious skill the method proclaims its inherent weakness. The work is thinner, duller, altogether poorer, than the earlier glass of much less consummate workmen, who worked upon sounder and severer principles. The strength and the weakness of the painter are exemplified in the group of Donors above. The painting is admirable, not only in the heads, but in the texture of the men's cloaks; those cloaks, however, are painted in black paint. When the light is quite favourable they look like velvet; they never look like glass. There is here the excuse, for what it may be worth, of texture and perhaps other pictorial qualities. Even that is often wanting in seventeenth century work, as when, at S. Jacques, Antwerp, the background to a design in white and stain is glazed in panes of white glass solidly coated with brown paint. This is obscuration out of pure wilfulness. It was not only when the artist sought to get strong effects in enamel painting that the method fell short of success. The delicacy that might be got by means of it was neutralised by the necessity of some sort of glazing, and matters were not mended by glazing the windows in panes. It is impossible to take much satisfaction in the most delicately painted glass picture when it is so scored over with coarse black lines of lead or iron that it is as if you were looking at it through a grill. That is very much the effect seen in Sir Joshua Reynolds' famous window in the ante-chapel at New College, Oxford (two lights of which are shown opposite), where the Virtues are seen imprisoned, you may say, within iron bars. They look very much better there than in the glass, which, for all the graceful draughtsmanship of the artist and the delicate workmanship of the painter, is ineffective to the last degree. It has no more brilliancy or sparkle than a huge engraving seen against the light; square feet of white glass are muddied over with paint. It was not Sir Joshua's fault, of course, that the traditions of the glazier's craft were in his day well-nigh extinct; but Sir Horace Walpole was quite right when he described these vaunted Virtues as "washy." To say that they are infinitely more pleasing in the artist's designs is the strongest condemnation of the glass. [Illustration: 48. VIRTUES, BY SIR J. REYNOLDS, NEW COLL., OXFORD.] There was one use made of enamel which promised to be of real help to the glazier--that of painting the necessary shadows on pot-metal in shades of the same colour as the glass. Since enamel of some kind had to be used, why not employ a colour more akin to the glass itself than mere brown? It would seem as if by so doing one might get depth of colour with less danger of heaviness than by the use of brown; but the glass painted in that way (by the Van Lingen, for example, a family of Flemings established in England, whose work may be seen at Wadham and Balliol Colleges, Oxford) was by no means free from heaviness. Enamel then, it will be seen, was never really of any great use in glass painting, and it led to the degradation of the art to something very much like the painting of transparencies, as they are called, on linen blinds. Let us note categorically the objections to it. A glazier objects to it, that it is an evasion of the difficulty of working in glass, and not a frank solution of it. That may be sentimental more or less. A colourist objects to it, because it is impossible to get in it the depth and richness of strong pot-metal, or the brilliancy of the more delicate shades of self-coloured material. That, it may be urged, remains to be proved, but the enamel painter practically undertook to prove the contrary, and failed. Admirers of consistency object to it, that it succeeds so ill in reconciling the delicacy of painting aimed at with the brutality of the glazing employed. That, again, is a question of artistic appreciation, not so easily proved to those who do not feel the discord. Lovers of good work, of work that will stand, object to it that it is not lasting. This is a point that can be easily proved. The process of enamel painting has been explained above (page 77). The one thing necessary to the safe performance of the operation is that the various glass pigments shall be of such consistency as to melt at a lower temperature than the glass on which they are painted. That, of course, must keep its shape in the kiln, or all would be spoilt. The melting of the pigment is, as a matter of fact, made easier by the admixture of some substance less unyielding than glass itself--such as borax--to make it flow. This "flux," as it is called, makes the glass with which it is mixed appreciably softer than the glass to which it is apparently quite safely fixed by the fire. It is thus more susceptible to the action of the atmosphere; it does not contract and expand equally with that; and in the course of time, perhaps no very long time, it scales off. Excepting in Swiss work (to which reference is made in Chapter IX.) this is so commonly so, that you may usually detect the use of enamel by the specks of white among the colour, where the pigment has worked itself free, altogether to the destruction of pictorial illusion. And it is not only with transparent enamel that this happens, but also with the brown used by the later painters for shading. The brown tracing and painting colour was originally a hard metallic colour which required intense heat to make it flow. The glass had to be made almost red-hot, at which great heat there was always a possibility that the pigment might be fired away altogether, and the painter's labour lost. In the case of the thirteenth century painter's work the danger was not very serious. Thanks to the downright and sometimes even brutal way in which he was accustomed to lay on the paint, solidly and without subtlety of shade, his work was pretty well able to take care of itself in the kiln. It was the more delicate painting which was most in danger of being burnt away; and in proportion as men learnt to carry their painting further, and to get delicate modelling, they became increasingly anxious to avoid all possibility of any such catastrophe. The easiest way of doing this was (as in the case of transparent enamel) to soften this colour with flux. That enabled them to fire their glass at a much lower heat, at which there was no risk of losing the painting, and they were able so to make sure of getting the soft gradations of shade they wanted; and the more the painter strove to get pictorial effects the more he was tempted to soften his pigment; but, according as the flux made the colour easier to manage in the fire, it made it less to be depended upon afterwards; and the later the work, and the more pictorial its character, the more surely the painting proves at this date to have lost its hold upon the glass. In many a seventeenth century window the Donors were depicted in their Sunday suits of black velvet and fur, the texture quite wonderfully given; now their garments are very much the worse for wear, more than threadbare. The black or brown is rich no longer, it is pitted with specks of raw white light; sometimes the colour has peeled off _en masse_. Time has dealt comparatively kindly with the gentlemen on page 81, but in the glass there is an air of decay about their sable cloaks which takes considerably away from their dignity. It is one characteristic of enamelled windows that they do not mellow with age, like mosaic glass, but only get shabby. Any one altogether unacquainted with the characteristics of style is apt to be very much at fault as to the date of a window. The later windows are in so much more dilapidated a condition than the earlier that they are quite commonly mistaken for the older. It has to be borne in mind that most of the devices adopted by the glass painters--the use, namely, of large sheets of fragile glass, and the avoidance of strengthening leads, no less than the resort to soft enamel, whether for colour or for shading--all go to make it more perishable. It may be said that the decay of the later painting is due not so much to the use of enamel as to the employment of soft flux. That is true. But when it comes to the painting of texture and the like, the temptation to use soft colour has generally proved to be irresistible. One is forced to the conclusion that the aim of the later glass painter was entirely wrong; that for the sake of pictorial advantages--which went for very little in a scheme of effective church decoration, even if they did not always detract from the breadth of the work--he gave up the qualities which go at once to make glass glorious, and to give it permanence. Whatever the merits of seventeenth century glass painting they are not the merits of glass; there is little about it that counts for glass, little that is suggestive of glass--except the breakages it has suffered. What is said of seventeenth century glass applies also to that of the eighteenth century, only with more force. Sir Joshua and Benjamin West were quite helpless to raise the art out of the slough into which it had fallen, for they were themselves ignorant of its technique, and did not know what could be done in glass. It was not until the Gothic revival in our own century, and a return to mosaic principles, that stained glass awoke to new life. CHAPTER IX. THE NEEDLE POINT IN GLASS PAINTING. Allusion has been made to the glass painter's use of the point for scraping out lights, and especially diapers upon glass coated with pigment. These are often quite lace-like in their delicacy. That would be a poor compliment if it meant that the glass painter had had no more wit than to imitate the effects produced in a material absolutely unlike glass. But it is not merely for want of a better word that the term lace-like is used. It is strictly appropriate, and for a very good reason. It was explained how from the first the glass painter would use the stick end of his brush to scrape out sharp lights in his painting, or even diaper patterns out of a tint. The latest glass painters made more and more use of the point, and of a finer point than the brush end, until, in Swiss work, they adopted the pen and the needle itself. It is not surprising, then, that point-work should resemble point-work, though the one be in thread and the other on glass. The strange thing would have been if it were not so. Thus it comes about that much of the Swiss diaper work is most aptly described as lace-like in effect. The field of a small shield is frequently diapered with a pattern so fine that it could only have been produced with a fine point. Some of the diapers opposite may be identified as portions of heraldic shields. On a shield it may be taken to represent the engraving of the metal surface of the thing itself; and, indeed, here again is a significant resemblance between two technical processes. To scratch with a needle or with a graver is much the same thing; and thus many a Swiss diaper suggests damascening, and might just as well have been executed in bright lines of gold or silver filigree, beaten into lines graven in steel or iron, as scraped out of a tint on glass. [Illustration: 49. EXAMPLES OF SCRATCHING OUT.] But the use of the point was by no means reserved for ornamental detail. It became the main resource of the painter, and so much so, that this technique, or this development of technique, is the most striking characteristic of Swiss glass painting--if that should be called painting which has really more affinity with etching. For the laying on of the paint in the form of solid colour, or of matted tint, or of skilfully floated wash, is only the groundwork of the Swiss glass painter's method. It scarcely needs to be explained how admirably the point adapted itself to the representation of hair, fur, feathers, and the like. The familiar bears, for example, the device of the city of Berne, which occur very frequently in Swiss heraldic work, are rendered at Lucerne in the most marvellously skilful manner. First a juicy wash of colour is floated all over the body of the beast, more or less translucent, but judiciously varied so as to give _à peu près_ the modelling of the creature. Then with a fine point the lines of the fur are scraped out, always with an eye to the further development of the modelling. Finally, the sharp lights are softened, where necessary, with delicate tint, and a few fine hair-lines are put in with a brush in dark brown. By no conceivable method of execution could certain textures be better rendered than this. A similar process is adopted in rendering the damascened surface of slightly rounded shields; but in that case the modelling of the ground is first obtained by means of matt, not wash. Black as a local colour, whether by way of heraldic tincture or to represent velvet in costume, was very generally used; but in such small quantities always as entirely to justify its use. The practice, that is to say, referred to on page 57, with reference to the German work at Shrewsbury, was carried further. This was quite a different thing from what occurs, for example, in a late window at Montmorency, where four brown Benedictine monks are frocked in muddy paint: that is a fault of judgment no skill in execution could make good. In the case of black used by way of local colour the drawing lines were of course scraped out in clear glass, and toned, if need were, with tint. The hair, cap, and feathers of the figure opposite illustrate the processes of execution above described; the chain armour about the man's neck is also very deftly suggested. [Illustration: 50. NEEDLE POINT WORK, SWISS.] The use of the point went further than rendering the texture of hair, and so on. It was used for the rendering of all texture and the completion of modelling everywhere. The Swiss glass painter did very much what is done in large when one draws on brown or grey paper in white and black; only instead of black chalk he used brown paint, and instead of putting on white chalk he scraped away a half tint with which he had begun by coating the glass; and of course he worked in small. One knows by experience how much more telling the white crayon is than the black, how much more modelling you seem to get with very little drawing; and so it is in glass; and so it was that the glass painter depended so much more upon taking out lights than upon putting in darks. The difference between the Swiss manner and the process already described in reference to Renaissance church glass was mainly that, working upon so much smaller a scale, the artist depended so much more upon the point. His work is, in fact, a kind of etching. It is the exact reverse of drawing in pen and ink, where the draughtsman works line by line up to his darkest shadow. Here he works line by line to clearest light, precisely as the etcher draws his negative upon copper, only on glass it is the positive picture which is produced. So far as manipulation is concerned the two processes are identical. It is indeed quite within the bounds of possibility that the method of the glass painter (and not that of the damascener, as generally supposed) may first have put the etcher upon the track of his technique. The method of workmanship employed by the painter is shown pretty clearly on page 90. In spite of a certain granular surface given by the stone employed by the lithographer in reproducing the design, it is quite clearly seen how the man's armour and the texture of the silk in his sleeves is all obtained by the point. The trace of the needle is not clearly shown in the flesh, except in the hand upon his hip; but on page 93 it is everywhere apparent--in the shading of the architecture, at the top of the page, in the damascening of the tops of shields below, in the drawing of the pastoral staff, in the modelling of the mitre and the representation of the jewels upon it, no less than in the rendering of the texture of the silk. This ultra-delicacy of workmanship was naturally carried to its furthest extent upon white glass or upon white and stain, but the same method was employed with pot-metal colour; and, during the early part of the sixteenth century at least, pot-metal colour was used when it conveniently could be, and the leading was sometimes cleverly schemed, though the glass employed was often crude in colour. Eventually, in Switzerland as everywhere, enamel colour succeeded pot-metal, by which, of course, it would have been impossible correctly to render the tinctures of elaborately quartered shields on the minute scale to which they were customarily drawn. At Lucerne, for example, there are some small circular medallions with coats of arms not much bigger than occur on the back of an old-fashioned watchcase. Needless to say that there the drawing is done entirely with a point. This kind of thing is, of course, glass painting in miniature; it is not meant to say that it is effective; but it is none the less marvellously done. It was at its best, roughly speaking, from 1530 to a little later than 1600. Some of the very best that was ever done, now at the Rath-haus at Lucerne, bears date from 1606-1609; there is some also at the Hof-kirche there; but that is out of the reach of ordinary sight, and this is placed where it can conveniently be studied. The point-work, it should be understood, is still always scraped out of brown, or it may be black. The enamel that may be used with it is floated on independently of this; and as time went on enamel was of course very largely used, especially in the seventeenth century. To the credit of the Swiss it should be said that, alone among later glass painters, they were at once conscientious and expert in the chemistry of their art, and used enamel which has been proof against time. They knew their trade, and practised it devotedly. Possibly it was the small scale upon which they worked which enabled them to fuse the enamel thoroughly with the glass. It is due to them also to say that, though their style may have been finikin, there was nothing feeble about their workmanship; that was masterly. And they remain the masters of delicate manipulation and finish in glass painting. Although the needle point was used to most effective purpose in Swiss glass it did not of course entirely supersede other methods. At the Germanic Museum at Nuremberg (where there is a fair amount of good work, 1502-1672) there is some matted tint which is shaded and then lined in brown, much after the manner of one of Dürer's woodcuts. It has very much the appearance of a pen drawing shaded, as many of the old masters' drawings were, in brown wash. [Illustration: 51. NEEDLE-POINT WORK, SWISS.] A fair amount of simple figure work in white and stain continued to be done, in which outline went for a good deal, and matted shadow was only here and there helped out with the point. In landscape backgrounds shade tint was sometimes broadly and directly floated on. But as often as not shading was executed to a great extent with the needle, whilst local colour was painted with enamel. Even in association with admirable heraldry and figure work, one finds distant figure groups and landscapes painted in this way. They look more like coloured magic-lantern slides than painted window glass. Sometimes subtlety of workmanship was carried rather beyond the bounds of discretion, as when at Nuremberg (1530) faces were painted in tint against clear glass, without outline, the mere shading, delicate as it is, being depended upon to relieve them from the ground. It must be confessed that, near to the eye, it does that; but the practice does not recommend itself. It is remarkable how very faint a matt of colour on the surface of transparent glass gives a sort of opacity to it which distinguishes it from the clear ground. Sometimes white enamel is used, sometimes perhaps a mere coat of flux: it is difficult to say what it is, but there is often on the lightest portions of the painted glass no more than the veriest film, to show that it has been painted. It is obvious that glass of the most delicate character described must be the work of the designer; and it seems clear, from numerous drawings extant, which are evidently the cartoons for Swiss window panes, that the draughtsman contemplated carrying out his design himself. At all events, he frequently left so much out of these drawings, that, if he trusted to the painting of another, no little of the credit of the draughtsmanship was due to that other, and he was at least part designer of the window. In glass where painting is carried to a high state of perfection it goes without saying that the painter must be an artist second only to the designer. Invention and technical power do not always go together. But if the designer can paint his own glass, and will, so much the better. It is more than probable that the best glass is the autograph work of the designer. CHAPTER X. THE RESOURCES OF THE GLASS PAINTER--A RECAPITULATION. Having followed the course of technique thus far, it may be as well to survey the situation and see where we now stand. Suppose an artist altogether without experience in glass had occasion to design a window. The first thing he would want to know would be the means at his command at this present moment, and what dependence he could place upon them. That is what it is intended briefly to set forth in this chapter, quite without reference to date or style or anything but the capacities of the material. The question is, what can be done with it? Not until a man knows that is he in a position to make up his mind as to what he will do. If he ask, as artists will, why cannot he do just what he likes, and as he likes, the answer is: because glass was not made for him, and will only do what he wants on condition of his demands upon it being reasonable. He might find it pleasanter if the world revolved round him; but it does not. If he would make a window he must go the way of glass; and the way of glass is this:-- In the first place, it is mosaic. It may be a mosaic of white glass or of the pearly tints which go to make what is termed grisaille, in which case the leads which bind the glass together form the pattern, or, at all events, a feature in it. Or it may be of coloured glass, or of white and colour, in which case the glass forms the pattern, and the lead joints are more or less lost in the outline of the design. If the pattern is in white upon a deep-coloured ground the lead joints crossing the pattern and not forming part of it are, as it were, eaten up by the spreading rays of white light, and, supposing them to be judiciously contrived, do not count for much. On the other hand, the lead joints crossing the coloured ground are lost in its depth. Advantage is taken of this to break up the ground more than would be necessary for convenience of glazing, or of strength when glazed, and so to get that variety of pot-metal upon which so much of the beauty of glass colour depends. [Illustration: 52. PLAIN GLAZING, EARLY FRENCH.] To give satisfactory colour the best of pot-metal glass is essential. Structural conditions which a man is bound to take into account in his design are--that the shapes he draws must be such as can readily be cut by the glazier; that his lead joints must be so schemed as, where not lost in the glass, to form part of the design, strengthening, for example, the outlines; that his plan must at intervals include provision for substantial iron bars which shall not interfere with the drawing. He must understand that each separate colour in his composition is represented by a separate piece of glass, cut out of a sheet of the required colour. There may, and should, however, be variety in it. A sheet of glass varies in depth of tone according to its thickness, which in the best glass is never even; moreover, it may be streaked or otherwise accidentally varied; and so considerable play of tint may be got in a well-selected piece of pot-metal. Should a tint be required which the palette of the glazier does not supply it may sometimes be obtained by leading up two thicknesses of glass together. This expedient is called "plating." [Illustration: 53. MOSAIC GLASS, ASSISI.] There are two very workmanlike ways in which white and colour may be obtained in one piece of glass. If the glass is not coloured throughout its thickness, but only a part of the way through, the coloured part may be eaten away in places by acid (it used formerly to be tediously abraded); and so a pattern of white may be traced upon a ground of blue, for example, or, as is more common, ruby. A piece of white or pale coloured glass may further be _stained_, but only, so far, of one colour, yellow. The window opposite is all in white and golden-yellow. This result is produced by the action of silver upon it, which, at a sufficient temperature, develops a tint varying from lemon to orange of beautiful quality, and as imperishable as the glass; but one cannot be quite certain always as to the precise shade it will take in the fire. On blue it gives green, and so on. By the combination of these two processes three tints may be obtained, or even four upon the same piece of glass--say white, green, and yellow all upon a blue ground. There is a third method of avoiding lead glazing. If little jewels of coloured glass be cut out of various sheets and placed upon white glass they become fused at a sufficient heat in the kiln, and adhere more or less firmly to the glass on which they are laid; but this process of "annealing" is not very safe. Still less to be depended upon is the fourth process of "enamelling." In that case the coloured glass is applied in the form of a paint upon a sheet of white. Fusing at a comparatively low temperature, it rarely gets quite firmly fixed. Nor has it the depth of pot-metal colour. The three processes of staining, annealing, and enamelling, entail, it will be seen, the burning of the glass. Literally this is the limit of what can be done in stained glass. [Illustration: 54. WINDOW IN WHITE AND STAIN, WARWICK CASTLE.] The term stained glass, however, is generally used to include painting, which from the first has been associated with it. This painting (not to be confounded with the above mentioned enamelling) is a second process, which the glass undergoes after it is cut and before it is fired. It is not in the least what a painter understands by painting. It is, in the first place, a means of giving in solid brown pigment, which effectually stops out the light, detail smaller than mere glazing would permit, such as the features of a face or the veining of a leaf: it gives the foils of the foliage, and marks the individual berries in the border overleaf. In the next it is used partially to obscure the glass, so as to give shading. The pigment is not used as colour, but for drawing and shading only. Local colour is represented by the pieces of pot-metal glass employed; the painting fulfils precisely the part of the engraving in a print coloured by hand. The various methods of painting are explained on pages 45, 64, 89. In some respects they have more affinity with line drawing, mezzotint, and etching than with oil or water-colour painting. [Illustration: 55. AUXERRE.] It is extremely difficult to get delicacy of modelling or high finish at one painting--to all but a consummate glass painter impossible. Many a time the work has to be painted several times over, each painting being separately burnt in, always at some risk. Painting that is not sufficiently fired peels off in time. If it is fired too much it may be burnt quite away. The effect of paint in the form of shading is naturally to obscure the glass. Up to a certain point there is not much harm in that; it counts for nothing as compared with the facilities of expression it affords. But that point is soon reached. Then it becomes a question of the relative value of, on the one hand, purity and translucency of glass colour, and, on the other, of pictorial qualities. The problem is to get the utmost of modelling or expression with the minimum of obscuration. Much depends upon the method of painting adopted. So long as the light is allowed to get through it, one may indulge in a fair amount of shading, but a deep even tint, leaving none of the glass clear, is inevitably heavy. The more one can represent shadows by deeper tinted glass the more brilliant the result will be. This painting, although, strictly speaking, in brown enamel, is not, as was said, what is usually meant by enamel painting: that is described on page 77. A window may be painted altogether in enamel; and, when the mosaic method went out, designs were painted in enamel upon panes of plain white glass; but, for the most part, since the pieces had to be connected by lead, it was found convenient to use pot-metal for some of the stronger colours. In recent times, however, owing to the introduction of large sheets of thicker glass, to improved glass kilns, and also to more accurate knowledge of the chemistry of enamel colours, it is possible to paint a picture-window on one sheet of glass. That has been done with extraordinary skill at Sèvres. You may see really marvellous results in this kind in the Chapel of the Bourbons at Dreux. If you want neither more nor less than a picture upon glass, and are content with a picture in which the shadows are opaque and the lights transparent, that is the way to get it. You will not get the qualities of glass. Within the last two or three years there seems to have been very considerable improvement in the purity, translucency, and depth of enamel colours. How far they are lasting remains to be proved. Anyway, brilliant as they are, they have not by any means the intensity of pot-metal glass, and it does not seem, humanly speaking, possible that a film of coloured glass upon a sheet of white can ever compete in strength and volume with colour in the body of the glass itself. If, therefore, we want the qualities of deep, rich, luminous and translucent colour, which glass better than any other medium can give, we must resort to the use of pot-metal--that is to say, to glazing--assisted more or less by brown paint, used, not to get colour, but to stop it out, or to tone it down. According to the more or less of your dependence upon paint your method may be described as mosaic or pictorial. Starting upon the mosaic system, you rough out your design in coloured glass (or what stands for it upon paper), and then consider how, by use of paint, as above mentioned, you may get further detail, shading, harmony of tone. Starting upon the pictorial system you sketch in your design, shade it, and colour it, and then bethink you how you can get the glass to take those lines. In either case you have, of course, from the first, a very distinct idea as to the assistance you will get from the supplementary process; but it makes all the difference whether you think first of the glass or of the painting. Upon that will depend the character of your window. If you want all that glass can give in the way of colour, begin with the mosaic. If you want pictorial effect, think first of your painting. If you want to get both, balance the two considerations equally in your mind from the first. Only, to do that, you must be a master of your trade. A first consideration in the design of a window are the bars which are to support it. The skilled designer begins by setting these out upon his paper, nearer or closer together, according to the width of the opening, from nine to eighteen inches asunder. In a wide window it may be as well to make every second or third bar extra strong. Upright stanchions may also be introduced. Exigencies of design may make it necessary to alter the arrangement of bars with which you set out. You may have occasionally to bend one of them to escape a face, or other important feature; but, if you begin with them, this will not often be necessary. Bars may be shaped to follow the lines of the design. There is nothing against that, except that it is rather costly to do; and, on the whole, it is hardly worth doing. In big windows, such as those at King's College, Cambridge, raised some feet above the level of the eye, stout bars have, in effect, only about the value of strong lead lines, whilst lead lines disappear. The points to be observed with regard to glazing are these: Since leads must form lines, it is as well to throw them as much as possible into outlines. In a cleverly glazed window the design will tell even when the paint has perished. To glaze a picture in squares, regardless of the drawing, is mere brutality. Because by aid of the diamond glass may actually be cut to almost any shape, it is not advisable, therefore, to design shapes awkward to cut, but rather to design the lead lines of a window with a view to simplicity of cutting and strength of glazing. Pieces of glass difficult to cut are the first to break. It is the business of the designer to anticipate breakage by introducing a lead just where it would occur. _Tours de force_ in glazing are not worth doing. It is a mistake to be afraid of leads. Skilfully introduced, they help the effect; and, except in work which comes very near the eye, they are lost in the glass. The quality of pot-metal glass is all important. It should never be mechanically =flat= and even. The mechanically imperfect material made in the Middle Ages is so infinitely superior to the perfect manufacture of our day, that we have had deliberately to aim at the accidents of colour and surface which followed naturally from the ruder appliances and less accurate science of those days. There are legends about lost secrets of glass making, to which much modern produce gives an appearance of truth. But, as a matter of fact, though old glass undoubtedly owes something of its charm to weathering, better and more beautiful glass was never made than is now produced; but it is not of the cheapest, and it wants choosing. The choice of glass is a very serious matter. What are called "spoilt" sheets are invaluable. It takes an artist to pick the pieces. But without experience in glass the judgment even of a colourist will often be at fault. Some colours spread unduly, so that the effect of the juxtaposition of any two is not by any means the same as it would be in painting. It is only by practical experiment that a man learns, for example, how much red will, in conjunction with blue, run into purple, and which shade of either colour best holds its own. Effects of this kind have been more or less scientifically explained--by M. Viollet le Duc for one--but, in order to profit by any such explanation, a man must have experience also. Referring to "flashed" glass, all kinds of double-glass are now made: red and blue = purple, yellow and blue = green, and so on; but there is not, except, perhaps, in work on quite a small scale, much to be gained by this. In fact, it is not well in work on a fairly large scale to depend too much upon etching pattern out of coated glass. In a window breadth of effect is of more account than minuteness of detail. Damask or other patterns in draperies might, more often than they are, be leaded up in pot-metal. It would compel simplicity on the part of the designer, and the effect of the glass would be richer. With the increasing variety of coloured glass now made, plating becomes less necessary than once it was. The drawback to the practice is that dust and dirt may insinuate themselves between the two pieces of glass, and deaden the colour. The safe plan is to fuse the two pieces of glass together. Good glass is more than half the battle. Raw glass may be toned down by paint, but poor glass cannot be made rich by it. The Italian glass painters often used crude greens and purples, and softened them with brown. They might do that with comparative safety under an Italian sky; but the deeper tones produced that way have not the purity and lusciousness of juicy pot-metal, and the paint is liable to peel off and betray the poverty of the cheap material. It is the fundamental mistake of the painter, because by means of paint he can do so much, to depend upon it for more than it can do. The toning of local colour with brown paint is only a makeshift for more thoroughly mosaic work; but it is an ever-present temptation to the painter, and one against which he should be on his guard. The actual technique of glass painting, it has been explained already, is quite different from painting as the painter understands it; often it is not so much painting as scraping out paint. The artist may, nay must, choose his own technique. He will get his effect in the way most sympathetic to him. What he has to remember is, that, except where he wants actually to stop out light, he must get light into his shadows--whether by stippling the wet colour, or by scrubbing it when dry with a hog tool, or by scraping with a point, is his affair. For example, if he wants to lower the tint of a piece of glass, the worst thing he could do would be to coat it with an even film of paint. It would be better to stipple it so that in parts more light came through. But the best way of preserving the brilliancy of the glass would be either to paint the glass with cross-hatched lines, or to scrape bright lines out of a coat of paint. In draperies, backgrounds, and so on, this is most effectively done in the form of a diaper, often as minute as damascening, which scarcely counts much as pattern. Bold or delicate, a diaper is quite the most effective means of lowering colour; even hard lines seldom appear hard in glass, owing to the spreading of the light as it comes through; but the inevitable hardness of lines scraped out may be mitigated by dabbing the wet paint so as to make it uneven, or by rubbing off part of the paint after the lines have been scraped out. Another and yet another delicate film of paint may be passed over the painted diaper by a skilful hand, but out of each film lights should be scraped if the full value of the glass is to be preserved. [Illustration: 56. SCRATCHED DIAPER.] Solid pigment as local colour is a thing to indulge in only with extreme moderation. The strong black lead lines often want lines or touches of black strong enough to keep them in countenance (that is not sufficiently remembered, and it is when it is forgotten that the leads assert their harshness in white glass), and here and there, in work on a small scale, a point of black (a velvet cap, a bag, a shoe, as shown overleaf,) is very valuable as local colour; but, when the scale allows, it is better always to get this mass in dark-toned glass, which gives the necessary depth of colour most easily, most safely, and with most luminous effect. The thing not to do, is to paint the robes of black-draped figures in black, a common practice in the seventeenth century. On the other hand, a robe of black richly embroidered with gold and pearls may quite well be rendered, as it was in late Gothic work, by solid paint, because the pearls being only delicately painted, and the gold being in great part perfectly clear yellow stain, plenty of light shines through. As to the means of getting delicate painting in glass, the utmost delicacy can be got, but it costs patient labour, and there is risk of its going for nothing. The only quite safe way of getting very delicate effects of painting is to paint much stronger than it is meant to appear. A very fierce fire will then reduce that to a mere ghost of what it was; possibly it will burn it away altogether. Upon this ghost of your first painting you may paint once again, strengthening it (and indeed exaggerating it) in all but quite the most delicate parts. A strong fire will, as before, reduce this without affecting the first painting. Possibly a third or even a fourth painting may be necessary to an effect of high finish. When you have it, it is as lasting as the glass itself. [Illustration: 57. S. MARY'S, SHREWSBURY.] This painstaking process, however, is found to be tedious. A much easier plan is to add to the pigment a quantity of borax, or other substance which will make it flow easily in the kiln. That necessitates only a gentle fire, in which there is no risk of burning away the work done, and enables you to do in one or two operations what would have taken three or four. But the gentle fire required to fix soft flux only fixes it gently. Securely to fix the pigment, the glass should have been raised to almost red heat, to the point, in fact, at which it just begins to melt, and the colour actually sinks into it, and becomes one with it. A heat anything like that would have wiped out soft colour altogether. Moreover, the borax flux itself is very readily decomposed by the moisture of a climate like ours. Accordingly the more easily executed work cannot possibly be fast. It fades, they say. That is not the case. It simply crumbles off, sooner or later; but eventually the atmosphere has its way with it. That is how we see in modern windows faces in which the features grow dim and disappear. We have got to reckon with this certainty, that if we want our painting to last we must fire it very severely. What will not stand a fierce oven will not stand the weather. In view of the labour and risk involved in very delicate painting it becomes a question how far it is worth while. That will depend upon the artist's purpose. But the moral seems to be that, for purposes of decoration generally, it would be better not to aim at too great delicacy of effect, which is after all not the quality most valuable, any more than it is most readily attainable, in glass. Only those who have had actual experience in glass appreciate the value of silver stain. It gives the purest and most beautiful quality of yellow, from lemon to orange, brilliant as gold. There is some risk with it. One kind of glass will take it kindly, another will reject it; you have to choose your glass with reference to it. The fire may bring it to a deeper colour than is wanted. It may even come out so heavy and obscure that it has to be removed with acid, and renewed. Some all but inevitable uncertainty as to its tint, renders this peculiar yellow more suitable for use where absolute certainty of tint is not essential. Nevertheless, the skilled glass painter makes no difficulty of doubling the process, and staining a dark yellow upon a lighter, with very beautiful results. Occasionally a master of his craft has gone so far as literally to paint in stain, scraping out his high lights in white, and giving, for example, the very picture of embossed goldsmith's work. In the diapering of draperies and the like stain is of great service, and again in landscape upon blue. But it has not been used for all it is worth as a means of qualifying colour which is not precisely right, apart altogether from pattern. Many a time where a scum of paint has been employed to reduce a tint, a judicious blur of stain, not appreciable as such, would have done it more satisfactorily, without in the least obscuring the glass. Nowhere is silver stain more invaluable than in windows of white glass or _grisaille_, the quality of which is not sufficiently appreciated. The mother-of-pearl-like tints of what is called white glass lend themselves, in experienced hands, to effects of opalescent colour as beautiful in their way as the deeper pot-metal tones. There is no great difficulty in combining _grisaille_ and colour, provided the white be not too thin nor the colour too deep; but the happiest combinations are where one or the other is distinctly predominant. With very deep rich glass, such as that used in the thirteenth century, it is most difficult to use white in anything like a patch (for the flesh, for example, in figure work). Unless very heavily painted it asserts itself too much, and heavy paint destroys its quality. Practically the only thing to do is to use glass of really rather strong tint, which in its place has very much the value of white. The "whites" in Early windows are a long way from purity. They are greenish, bone colour, horny; but they have much more the effect of white than has, for example, pure white glass reduced by paint to a granular tint of umber. Flesh tints present a difficulty always, unless you are content to accept a quite conventional rendering of it. In connection with strong colour you may use flesh-tinted glass; but that is just the one tint which it is most difficult to get in glass. It is usually too pink. Painting on white glass in brown produces the most invariably happy results, and in windows into which white largely enters that is quite the best expedient to adopt. In practice it proves ordinarily a mistake to adopt a warmer brown for flesh tint, or to paint it in brown and red, as was done in the sixteenth century and after that. It looks always unpleasantly hot. When flesh wants relieving against white it is better to use a colder white glass for the background. The only condition under which warm-tinted flesh is quite acceptable is when it is in the midst of strong red and yellow. The use of red enamel for flesh seems to be a weak, unnecessary, and unavailing concession to the pictorial. It does not give the effect of actual flesh, and it does not help the effect of the window. Since you cannot get actual flesh tones it is as well to accept the convention of white flesh, which gives breadth and dignity to the glass. There is a sort of frivolity about enamelled flesh-pink. It is, in a way, pretty, but out of key with the monumental character of a window. Glass lends itself best to strong, large work. The quality of pot-metal gives the colour chord. The leads give the key to the scale of design--the pitch, as it were, of the artist's voice. That these are strong (it is seldom worth while resorting to extra thin leads) does not argue that design must be coarse. You have to balance them with strong work, with patches, perhaps, as well as strong lines, of dark paint, to carry off any appearance of brutality in them. This done, much delicate detail may be introduced. A strong design need not shout any more than a speaker need, who knows how to manage his voice. That is the condition: you must know your instrument, and have it under control. Experience seems to show that a certain formality of design befits stained glass. Formality of colour arrangement soon becomes tedious; but it is seldom, if ever, that the design of glass strikes one as unduly formal. Mosaic glass is designed, it was said above, with a view to glazing. The skilled artist designs, so to speak, in leads; but they are not the design; in fact, they count only as contours, and, except in mere glazing, they should not be expected to give lines. It is a common fault to make leads take a part in the design which they will not play in the glass. In drawing, strong, firm, even angular lines are valuable, if not imperative. The radiating light softens them. Drawing which is already suave is likely to be too soft in the glass, to want accent. Only experience will tell you how much you must attenuate fingers and the like in your drawing in order that the light shall fill them out, and give them just their normal plumpness. The beginner never allows enough for the spreading of light. Glass painters who know what they are about use plenty of solid painting out; but it takes experience to do it cunningly. An artist whose _métier_ is really glass is not careful of the appearance of his drawings. Cartoons are nothing but plans of glass, not intrinsically of any account. Really good glass is better than the drawings for it--necessary as good sketches may be to please the ignorant patron. New departures in technique will suggest themselves to every inventive mind. They may even be forced upon a man--as, by his own confession, they were forced upon Mr. Lafarge--by the inadequacy of the materials within his reach, or the incompetence of the workmen on whom he has to depend. Mr. Lafarge's glass is sometimes very beautiful in colour, and is strikingly unlike modern European manufacture; but it is not so absolutely original in method as Americans appear to think. He seems to have discovered for himself some practices which he might have learnt from old or even modern work, and to have carried others a step further than was done before. The basis of his first idea, he explains, was in a large way to recall the inlay of precious stones that are set in jade by Eastern artists. That was practically the notion of the earliest Byzantine workers in glass. His use of other materials than glass in windows he might have learnt from China, Java, or Japan, where they use oyster, tortoise, and crocodile shell; or from ancient Rome, where mica, shells, and alabaster were employed. There is nothing very new in blended, streaked, or even wrinkled glass, except that moderns do by deliberate intention what the mediæval glass-maker could not help but do, and carry it farther than they. In chipping flakes or chunks out of a solid lump of glass, Mr. Lafarge certainly struck out an idea which had probably occurred to no one since, in prehistoric ages, man shaped his arrow heads and so on out of flint. He has produced very beautiful and jewel-like effects by means of this chipping, though the material lends itself best to a more barbaric style of design than the artist has usually been content to adopt. He has appreciated, no one better, the quality of glass, but not the fact that so characteristic a material as he adopts must rule the design. The attempt to get pictorial, atmospheric, or other naturalistic effects by means of it, soon brings you to its limitations. At the rendering of flesh it comes to a full stop. The experiment has been tried by Mr. Lafarge of a minute mosaic of little pieces of glass between two sheets of white, all fused into one; but it appears to be too costly, if not too uncertain an expedient, to be really practical as a means of rendering the human face, more especially if you want to get expression, which is there of more importance than natural colour. Another new departure, the device of blowing glass into shapes, so as to get modelling in them, results so far in rather dumb and indeterminate form. It is quite possible to melt together a mosaic of glass without the use of lead. That practice may yet come into use in window panes, but they will be as costly as they are fragile. In larger work there is no real artistic reason why lead or its equivalent should be avoided. How much old glass would have remained to us if it had been executed in huge sheets? Here and there perhaps a broken scrap in a museum. It is not meant to suggest that we should do in the nineteenth century only what was done in times gone by. Our means are ampler now, our wants are more. We can follow tradition only so far as it suits our wants; and, in carrying it further, we are sure to arrive at something so different that it may be called a new thing. If old methods do not meet new conditions we must invent others. The problem of our day is how to reconcile manufacture with anything like art; or failing that, whether there is a livelihood for the independent artist-craftsman? Whoever it may be that is to make our stained glass windows in the future, he will have to make them fit the times. He may discover new materials. Meanwhile it is of no use quarrelling with those he has. He must know them and humour them. Bars have to be accepted as needful supports, leads to be acknowledged as convenient joints; glass must be allowed its translucency, and painting kept to what it can best do. A window should own itself a window. And what is the aim and use of a stained glass window? To "exclude the light," said the poet, sarcastically. Yes, to subdue its garishness, soften its glare, tinge it with colour, animate it with form perhaps. The man who means to do good work in windows will devote as serious study to old glass as a painter to the old masters. He will not rest satisfied without knowing what has been done, how it was done, and why it was done so; but he will not blind himself to new possibilities because they have never yet been tried. The pity is that often the antiquary is so bigoted, the glass painter so mechanical, the artist so ignorant of glass. The three men want fusing into one. The ideal craftsman is a man familiar with good work, old and new, a master of his trade, and an artist all the while; a man too appreciative of the best to be easily satisfied with his own work, too confident in himself to accept what has been done as final; a man experimenting always, but basing his experiments upon experience, and proving his reverence for the great men who light the way for him by daring, as a man has always dared, to be himself. BOOK II. CHAPTER XI. THE DESIGN OF EARLY GLASS. Design in glass developed itself on lines almost parallel to the progress of technique. Each, of course, affected the other--how and why it is now proposed to show. It is not intended at present to say more than is absolutely necessary about "Style," in the historic sense--that is reserved for a chapter by itself--but, as it is convenient to refer to a period of design by its name, it will be as well at this stage briefly to enumerate the historic "Periods." Glass follows, inevitably, the style of architecture of the period. Accordingly it is divided broadly into Gothic and Renaissance. Gothic, in its turn, is divided by Rickman (who first attempted to discriminate between the styles of architecture in England) into three periods. Winston, who did for English glass what Rickman did for English architecture, adopts his classification as follows:--Early Gothic--to about 1280. Decorated Gothic--to about 1380. Perpendicular Gothic--to about 1530. Renaissance art has been classified in Italy according to the century, and in France has been named after the reigning sovereign--François Premier, Henri Deux, and so on. In England also we make use of the terms Tudor, Elizabethan, Jacobean, and the like. No one, however, has attempted to draw subtle distinctions between the periods of Renaissance glass, for the obvious reason that the best of it was done within a comparatively short period, and the rest is not of much account. It is enough, therefore, to mark off two divisions of Renaissance glass. The first (which overlaps the latest Gothic) may be called Sixteenth Century, or by the Italian name Cinque-Cento, or simply Renaissance; whilst the second, which includes seventeenth century and later work, is sufficiently described as Late glass. The development of style in other countries was not quite parallel with its march on this side of the water. The French were always in advance of us, whether in Gothic or Renaissance; the Germans lagged behind, at all events in Gothic; but the pace is equal enough for us to group windows generally into three Gothic and two Renaissance periods--Early, Middle, and Late Gothic; Early and Late Renaissance. If we do that it will concern us less, that Early German work is more Romanesque than Gothic, that Late French work is not Perpendicular but Flamboyant, and so on. The accepted classification is determined mainly by the character of the architectural or ornamental detail of the design. Such architectural or other detail--that of costume, for example--is of the very greatest use as a clue to the date of glass. That is a question of archæology; but it is not so much the dates that artists or workmen have to do with as with the course of craftsmanship, the development of art. It is convenient for us to mark here and there a point where art or workmanship has clearly reached a new stage; it gives us breathing time, a starting-point on some fresh voyage of discovery; but such points need be few. The less we bother ourselves by arbitrary subdivisions of style the better; and Winston himself allows that his divisions are arbitrary. The student need not very seriously concern himself about dates or names. People are much too anxious to get a term for everything, and when they can use the term glibly they fancy they know all about the thing. It is no doubt easier to commit to memory a few names and a few dates than to know anything about a craft; but the one accomplishment will not do in place of the other. A very little real knowledge of art or practical workmanship will lead you to suspect, what is the truth, that there is a good deal of fee-fi-fo-fum about the jargon of styles. It is handy to talk of old work as belonging to this or that broadly marked historic period; and it is well worth the while of any one interested in the course of art to master the characteristics of style. The student should master them as a matter of course; but he must not take the consideration of period for more than it is worth. Really we give far too much attention to these fashions of bygone days--fashions, it must be allowed, on a more or less colossal scale, compared to ours, but still only fashions. It is proposed then to allude here only so far to the styles as may be necessary to explain the progress of design, and especially the design of stained glass windows. In dividing Gothic into Early, Middle, and Late Gothic, corresponding roughly with the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, it is not forgotten that there is an earlier Gothic of the twelfth and perhaps eleventh centuries, more or less reminiscent of the Romanesque period preceding it; but English glass begins, to all intents and purposes, with the thirteenth century, and even in France there is not a very great quantity of characteristically earlier glass. What there is differs from thirteenth century work mainly in the Romanesque character of the figure drawing and ornamental detail, in its deliberately simple composition, and in the spontaneity of its design. The glazier was still feeling his way. Any composition to be found in a Byzantine ivory-carving, enamel, illuminated manuscript, or what not, might just as well occur in glass. The more familiar types of early Gothic window design had not yet settled down into orthodoxy. The lines on which the oldest windows extant were set out are in the main those of the thirteenth century also. They were more or less suggested by the shape of the window opening, which, it will be seen, had always had a good deal to say as to the direction glass design should take. [Illustration: 58. POITIERS.] The window openings in Romanesque or Norman-French churches were single lights, round or pointed arched, rather broad in proportion to their width. Stained glass, it has been explained, has to be held in its place by copper wires, soldered to the leadwork, and attached to iron bars let into the masonry for that purpose. In the case of a very narrow lancet, such bars would naturally be placed at convenient intervals across the opening. But for the most part windows were the reverse of narrow, and the horizontal bars had to be supplemented by vertical stanchions, so that the window space was divided into rectangular divisions. As a matter of construction the glass was made in panels, corresponding to these, and attached to them. It is not surprising, therefore, that these divisions should often have been accepted as part of the design, or that the design of the glass should to some extent have followed them. On page 113 is the skeleton of the upper part of a twelfth century window. The strong black lines in the diagram show the bars, the finer ones indicate the main divisions of the design of the glass. It will be seen that the four strips into which the upright bars divide the window are not equal, but that the outer divisions are narrower than the inner, so as to accommodate themselves to the width of the border. Naturally that was determined always by the proportion of the window; such borders measured often one-sixth part, or more, of the entire width. The way in which the central circular shape in the glass breaks across in front of the border is an instance of the spontaneity and unexpectedness of design characteristic of the earliest existing work; later one series of forms would repeat themselves without interruption throughout the length of the window. When, as above, the centre of a window is occupied by a great crucifix, or, as below, other such irregularity occurs, it is safe to conclude that the glass, if not prior to the thirteenth century, belongs to its first years. It is characteristic of the very early date of the glass that the bars in the diagrams given do not go out of their way to follow the outline of the circles, vesicas, quatrefoils, and other shapes, but on occasion cut relentlessly across them. [Illustration: 59. POITIERS EAST WINDOW. (Compare with 24.)] [Illustration: 60. POITIERS, NORTH TRANSEPT.] The filling out of such a skeleton as those given would in many respects be much the same in the eleventh, twelfth, or thirteenth century; and in each case it would be in direct pursuance of the traditions of Early Christian design. You may see in Byzantine ivories and enamels precisely the kind of thing that was done in glass; and in the Romanesque Michaelis Kirche at Hildesheim, is a painted roof, the design of which might have been carried out, just as it is, in a giant window. [Illustration: 61. BORDER, ANGERS.] [Illustration: 62. BORDER, ANGERS.] The main divisions of the centre part of such a window would each contain its little "subject" or glass picture; the border and the interstices between the pictures would be occupied with foliated ornament; only, the earlier the work, the more pronounced would be the Romanesque character, alike of the ornament and the figure work. The broad borders from Angers, above, and the narrower one from Le Mans (page 327) differ materially from the accepted thirteenth century type (page 117). Witness how in the Angers glass the stalks of the foliage frame little panels in the border, and how in the Le Mans work the stalks take the form of straps, patterned with painted ornament. This elaboration of the stalks with painted zig-zag, pearlwork, and so on, is precisely the kind of thing one sees in Byzantine carving and inlay. The very early spandril from Angers, below, if not markedly Romanesque in character is yet not of the distinctively Early Gothic type. [Illustration: 63. ANGERS.] The shape of each medallion would be emphasised by a series of coloured lines or fillets framing it. In quite early work the broader of these would be broken up into blocks of alternating colour; they would be patterned probably (which in the thirteenth century they would probably not be), and altogether the effect of the ornament would be more jewelled. One of these broken and patterned margins is shown in the vesica-shaped framing to the figure on page 37--belonging, by the way, to the window given in skeleton on page 114. The difference between twelfth and thirteenth century pictures is in the lingering of Byzantine traditions of design in the earlier work, and in the strictly simple disposition of the figures _en silhouette_ against the background, as well as in the way the drapery is wrapped closely round them, so that the figure always explains itself. There is an expression and a "go" about some of the earliest figures for which we look in vain later in the thirteenth century. The figures of the Apostles from the Ascension at Le Mans on page 33 are altogether more alive than the thirteenth century bishops, for example, on page 276, who seem by comparison tame and altogether respectable. A certain exaggeration there is, no doubt, about the action of these earliest figures, a certain brutality of rendering, as there is also a certain barbaric quality in the ornament, and, indeed, in the whole effect; but of its superlative richness there is no manner of doubt. One is even led to speculate, when one compares it with later work, whether a certain barbaric character of design does not go to that unrivalled brilliancy. In the absolute glory of rich colour the very earliest glass has never been equalled. The advance of glass painting was at the cost of this, perhaps barbaric, quality. [Illustration: 64. EARLY ORNAMENT, SALISBURY.] In the earliest windows the subjects were not invariably enclosed in medallions; sometimes the square lines of the bars would be accepted as division enough; these would be framed with lines of colour, and the design of the portion of the window within the border would consist (as occasionally at Chartres) of a series of square subjects, each with its marginal lines, ranged one above the other. For the most part, however, the design of the earliest richly coloured windows extant took the shape of little pictures in panels or medallions. Another favourite scheme was to delineate the Tree of Jesse. The upper portion of such a window is given on page 117; but further consideration of Jesse windows is reserved for a separate chapter. [Illustration: 65. S. REMI, REIMS.] From the earliest period, no doubt, clerestory or other lights were often occupied each with a separate figure standing upright; but such of these as may remain in their places are not readily distinguishable from thirteenth century work; and the undoubtedly earlier figures--such, for example, as those in S. Remi at Reims--have been re-set in framework more or less old, but so as not to tell us anything very authentic about the setting out of the original windows. Again at Augsburg, where the figures in the clerestory are said to be the oldest in Germany (to belong, in fact, to about the year 1000), the windows are bordered with modern glazing in white. At Reims we have very rudely drawn figures in rich colour against a deep background, standing with splayed feet upon little rounds or half rings of colour, representing the earth, their names inscribed in bold lettering, which forms a band of yellow behind their heads. At Augsburg the figures, equally rude in drawing, equally splay-footed, are in white and colour upon a white ground. They stand upon little hemispheres of Byzantine ornament, and their names are writ large in black letters upon the white glass around their heads. Presumably they were framed in a border of pattern work similar to that surrounding the medallion windows. The ornamental work in the windows at S. Remi may not always have formed part of the same window with the figure work--it does not go very happily with it now--but it is probably of about the same date; and it illustrates, together with some similar work at S. Denis, near Paris (so "thoroughly restored" as to have lost its historic value), a kind of pattern work peculiar to the earliest glass. As a rule, early glass divides itself naturally into two classes: work in rich colour, which is what we have hitherto been discussing, and work in "grisaille," as it is called; that is to say, in which the glass is chiefly white, or whitish, relieved only here and there by a line or a jewel of colour. Occasionally, as at Auxerre, Reims, and Poitiers, rich figure work is found set in grisaille or framed by it; and in some fragments from Châlons, now at the _Musée des Arts Décoratifs_ at Paris, coloured figures are found on a white ground. You find also in France rich colour-work surrounded by white glass--the work of a period when the powers that were became possessed of the idea that they must lighten the interior of their churches, and accordingly removed so much of the coloured glass as seemed good to their ignorance, and replaced it with plain glazing. But, as a rule, and apart from the tinkering of the latter-day ecclesiastic, rich colour and grisaille were kept apart in early mediæval churches; that is to say, a coloured window has not enough white in it perceptibly to affect the depth and richness of its colour, nor a grisaille window enough colour to disturb the general impression of white light. At Reims and S. Denis, however, you find ornament in which white and colour are so evenly balanced that they belong to neither category. The amount of colour introduced into grisaille was never at any time a fixed quantity; one has to allow something for the predilection of the artist; but here the amount of colour makes itself so distinctly felt that the term grisaille no longer serves to express it. The design of these patterns was of a rather mechanical type (pages 35, 118, 120) and not in any case very interesting; but it would have been difficult under any circumstances to produce a very satisfactory effect by so equally balancing white and colour. The designer falls between two stools. The well-known gryphon medallions at S. Denis seem at first to promise something rather amusing in design, but there is no variety in them:--and no wonder! the greater number of them prove to be new, and they have all been rearranged by Viollet le Duc. That is as much as to say, some of the gryphons are of Abbot Suger's time, but the design of the window is Viollet le Duc's. White and colour are again too evenly mixed in the heavy-looking English glass at Lincoln shown on page 121, but that is of the thirteenth century. It need hardly be said that the earlier the work, the simpler was the character of the painting, the more deliberately was pigment reserved for painting out the light, the more strictly was the shading in lines. But the painted detail was often small; glass was used in small pieces; subjects themselves were ordinarily small in scale. The largeness of effect was due first to the actual simplicity of the main lines of the design, and then to breadth of colour, a breadth of colour all the more remarkable seeing the small pieces of glass of which the broad surfaces were of necessity made up. Of course, too, the earlier the work the more the design was influenced by the technique of glazing, the more clearly it can be seen how the glazier designed (as was explained on page 44) in lead lines, and only made use of paint to fill them out. [Illustration: 66. S. REMI, REIMS.] In twelfth century glass the white was greenish and rather horny in texture; ruby was sometimes streaky, and often tawny or inclined to orange; blue varied from deep indigo to pale grey, occasionally it was of the colour of turquoise; yellow, dark or pale, was usually brassy; green ranged from bluish to pale apple, and from dull to emerald. These colours, with a rich brownish-purple, the lighter shades of which served always as flesh tint, made up the glazier's palette. Happily there was considerable inequality of colour in the material. It deepened, for example, towards the selvage of the sheet where it was thickest; it had streaks and bubbles in it; no two batches ever came out of the pot quite alike; and altogether the rudely made pot-metal was chemically most imperfect and artistically all that glass should be. [Illustration: 67. LINCOLN.] It would be rash in the extreme to formulate any theory as to early schemes of colour; probably the glazier's main thought was to get somehow a deep, rich, solemn effect of colour. He secured this very often by not confusing his tints, and by allowing a single colour so to predominate that the window impressed you at once as bluish or greenish or reddish in tone. He was on the whole happiest when he kept his colour cool; but he produced also red windows which are never to be forgotten. In the cathedral at Poitiers, where many of the beautiful medallion windows belong to the very early part of the thirteenth century, the scheme is usually to adopt a blue background, alike for the medallions and for the spaces between, relying upon a broad band of ruby, edged with white pearling, to mark the medallion shapes, which it effectively does; but these are not the most beautiful windows in the church. One recognises their date rather by the individuality and spontaneity of the design than by any distinctly Romanesque character in the detail. It should be mentioned, also, that at Poitiers, even in windows which seem not so emphatically to belong to the very beginning of the century, the early practice of using only straight upright and cross bars is adhered to. There may be something of local conservatism in that. [Illustration: 68. BARS IN EARLY MEDALLION WINDOWS.] CHAPTER XII. MEDALLION WINDOWS. In the thirteenth century the practice of the earlier glaziers stiffened into something like a tradition, and design took almost inevitably the form of (1) the Medallion window, (2) the Single Figure window, (3) Ornamental Grisaille. The full-blown thirteenth century Medallion window differed from what had gone before in that it was more orthodox. The designer begins as before by marking off a broad border to his glass, defined on the inner side by an iron bar, and proceeds to fill the space within the border with medallion shapes. But he now adapts the medallions more regularly to the spaces between the bars. At most two alternating shapes occur throughout the length of the light, without break or interruption, such as occurs in earlier work, and as a rule they keep strictly within the lines of the border. In all the nine examples here given, taken at random from Chartres, Bourges, Canterbury, and elsewhere, only in one case does a medallion cut boldly across the border in the head of the light. The slight overlapping of the quatrefoils in one case is not really an overlapping of the border but only of the marginal lines to it, not shown in the diagram above, but clearly enough explained on page 132, which shows the completion of a corner of the window, less its side border. In the window with large circular medallions divided into four, there is no upright bar to define the border, faintly indicated by a dotted line. [Illustration: 69. BARS IN EARLY MEDALLION WINDOWS.] It will be seen from these diagrams, which illustrate at once the main divisions of the glass and the position of the ironwork, what a change came over the construction of windows in the thirteenth century. The window is no longer ruled off by upright and horizontal bars into panels into which the design is fitted; it is the bars which are made to follow the main lines of the design, and to emphasise the forms of the medallions. The rare exceptions to this rule (as at Bourges, overleaf) may generally be taken to betray either the beginning or the end of the period; but at Poitiers they seem to have passed through the early period without ever arriving at shaped bars. The early glazier, it was said, first blocked out his design according to his leading; here he begins with the bars. The iron framework forms, itself, in many of these windows, a quite satisfactory pattern, and one which proudly asserts itself in the finished window. The designs of the period are not of course all equally ingenious. Sometimes, in order to strengthen a circle or quatrefoil of great size, the glazier, instead of breaking up the shape ornamentally as was the rule, merely supports it by cross bars; not only that, but he accepts the awkward shapes given by them as separate picture spaces. Of this comes one of two evils: either he frames his little pictures with sufficient border lines to keep them distinct, and so draws attention to the shapes, an attention they do not deserve; or he has to accept the bars, with perhaps a fillet of colour, as sufficient frame, which they are not, and his pictures run together, to the bewilderment of whoever would decipher them. [Illustration: 70. SPANDRILS OF MEDALLION WINDOW, BOURGES.] It is matter for regret that the French did not accept the full shape of even the largest medallion, and fill it with one bold subject; over and over again one feels that the subjects in medallion windows are not only too small to be readable, but so small that the figures are out of scale with the ornamental detail. The scale of the church has, of course, to be taken into account; but the French churches are big enough to warrant figures thrice the size of those which ordinarily occur in medallions. In our narrower "Early English" lancet windows the medallions naturally came small. To divide a window into eccentric divisions (halves or quarters of circles, quatrefoils, and the like) and then to take these awkward shapes as separate picture frames, is an archaic method of design much in need of excuse. The more reasonable thing to do would have been to make use of such incomplete forms only in some secondary position, and as framework for ornament, or at least quite subsidiary figures. Apart from shapes which are really only segments of medallions, the only awkward medallion shapes occurring in Early glass are those which are broader than they are high, such as occur, for example, at Soissons. These have always the uncomfortable appearance of having been crushed. How the iron skeleton of a medallion window is filled out with leaded glass; how the border and the medallion shapes are strengthened by bands of colour; how the medallions themselves are occupied with little figure subjects, and how the interspaces are filled in with ornament, is indicated opposite and on pages 132, 325. By way of variation upon the monotony of design, the designer will sometimes reverse the order of things. At Bourges, for example, you will find the centre of a light devoted to insignificant and uninteresting ornament, whilst the figure subjects are edged out into half quatrefoils at the sides of the window; and, again, at Chartres and Le Mans you may occasionally see the pictures similarly ousted from their natural position by rather mechanical ornament. One can sympathise with an artist's impatience with the too, too regular distribution of the stereotyped medallion window. There is undoubtedly a monotony about it which the designer is tempted to get rid of at any price; but consistency is a heavy price to pay for the slight relief afforded by the treatment just described. This striving after strangeness results not only in very ugly picture shapes--no one would deliberately design such a shape as that which frames the picture of the Dream of Charlemagne (overleaf)--but it produces a very uncomfortable impression of perversity. It is quite conceivable that ornament may be better worth looking at than some pictures; but a picture refuses to occupy the subordinate position; it will not do as a frame to ornament. There is no occasion to illustrate very fully the design of Early figure medallions; they are often of very great interest, historical, legendary and human, but there is little variation in the system of design. The picture is of the simplest, perhaps the baldest, kind. The figures, as before stated, are clearly defined against a strong background, usually blue or ruby; a strip or two of coloured glass represents the earth upon which they stand; a turret or a gable tells you that the scene is in a city; a foliated sprig or two indicate that it is out of doors, a forest, perhaps; a waving band of grey ornament upon the blue tells you that the blue background stands for sky, for this is a cloud upon it. The extremely ornamental form which conventional trees may assume is shown in Mr. T. M. Rooke's sketch from a medallion at Bourges, opposite. In the medallions from Chartres (page 325) are instances of simpler and less interesting tree forms, and in the upper part of the larger of the two, a bank of conventional cloudwork. Explanatory inscriptions are sometimes introduced into the background, as in the dream of Charlemagne (above), or in the margin of the medallions, as in the Canterbury window on page 132, fulfilling in either case an ornamental as well as an elucidatory function. [Illustration: 71. THE DREAM OF CHARLEMAGNE, CHARTRES.] In the Canterbury glass it will be seen the figures are more crowded than in the French work illustrated. This is not a peculiarity of English glass, but a mark of period; as a rule the clump or compact group of personages proclaims a later date than figures isolated against the background. There is no surer sign of very early work than the obvious display of the figures against the background, light against dark or dark against light. Another indication of the date of the Canterbury figures is that their draperies do not cling quite so closely about them as in figures (page 33) in which the Byzantine tradition is more plainly to be traced. There is no mistaking a medallion window, the type is fixed: within a border of foliated ornament a series of circles, quatrefoils, or other medallion shapes, for the most part occupied by figure subjects on a rather minute scale, and between these ornament again. The border might be wider or narrower, according to the proportion of the window, though a wide border was rather characteristic of quite early glass. A twelfth century border (Angers) will sometimes measure more than a quarter of the entire width of the window. The borders from Canterbury, Beverley, Auxerre, and Chartres (overleaf) are of the thirteenth. A border of sufficient dimensions will sometimes include medallion shapes as on pages 115, 325, and even occasionally little subject medallions at intervals, or it may be half-circles, each containing a little figure; but such interruption of the running border is rare. In so far as it counts against monotony it is to the good. [Illustration: 72. DETAIL FROM AN EARLY MEDALLION.] In narrower windows, such as more frequently occur in this country, where, as the Gothic style of architecture supplanted the Norman, lancet lights took a characteristically tall and slender shape, the border was reduced to less imposing proportions, as for example at Beverley;--there was no room for a wide frame to the medallions, nor any fear, it may be added, that these should be so large as to require breaking up into segments, as in much French glass, or at Canterbury: there the window openings, as was to be expected of a French architect, are more characteristically Norman than English in proportion. In a very narrow light in the one-time cathedral at Carcassonne the medallions break in front of a not very wide border; but then this, though a medallion window, belongs probably by date to the Second Gothic period. [Illustration: 73. CANTERBURY.] Medallions themselves may be simple or fantastic in shape. They may be devoted each to a single picture, or subdivided into a series of four or five; they may be closely packed, and supported by segments of other medallions, also devoted to figure work, or they may be separated by considerable intervals of ornament. The character of that ornament takes two distinct forms. [Illustration: 74. BEVERLEY MINSTER.] In the examples given (pages 132, 325) it takes the form of foliated scrollwork, very much of a piece with the ornament in the borders, except that there is more scope for its growth. In actual detail it varies, according to its date and whereabouts, from something very much like Romanesque strapwork to the more or less trefoiled foliage typical of Early Gothic ornament, whether French or English. Further examples of the last are shown in the borders from Auxerre and Chartres (page 328). The one from Chartres illustrates the transition from the Romanesque; it is intermediate between the two. The borders from S. Kunibert's, Cologne, are quite Romanesque in character, though they are of the thirteenth century; but then it has to be remembered that the Romanesque style of architecture was flourishing on the Rhine long after the Gothic style had developed itself in France and England. Many of the details from Canterbury--which, by-the-bye, are almost identical with contemporary French ornament--show a lingering influence of the pre-Gothic period, but the scroll occupying the spandril on page 132 is pronouncedly of Early Gothic type. Of much the same character is the detail from Salisbury on page 117, which forms no part of a medallion window, but more likely of a tree of Jesse. [Illustration: 75. AUXERRE.] [Illustration: 76. CHARTRES.] It was in this ornamental kind of design that the thirteenth century glaziers were most conspicuously successful. One no longer feels here, as one does with regard to their figure work, that they mean much better than their powers enable them to do. And it is with scrollery of this kind, either growing free or springing from the margin of the medallion, that the Early English designers occupied the intervals between the medallions in their windows. In France it became the commoner practice to substitute for it a diaper of geometric pattern. Other expedients were occasionally adopted. There is a window at S. Denis in which there is foliated scrollwork on a background of geometric diaper, although this last is so much "restored" that, for all one can tell, Viollet le Duc may be entirely responsible for it. [Illustration: 77. S. KUNIBERT, COLOGNE.] [Illustration: 78. FRENCH MOSAIC DIAPERS.] At Soissons is a window in which the interspaces between the medallions are filled with deep blue, broken only here and there by a spot of ruby; at Poitiers also the ornament in spandrils is often just a quatrefoil or so, barely foliated, if at all; at Bourges there is an instance of spandrils (page 125) occupied by bare curling stalks and rosette-like flowers; at Poitiers the bands which frame the medallions have a way of interlacing, not in the simple fashion shown in the example from Canterbury below, but so as to form a kind of pattern in the spandrils in front of the geometric filling; and there are other variations on the accustomed medallion tunes; but as a rule the ornament consists either of the usual Early Gothic foliation, closely akin to that in the borders, such as is shown on pages 129, 130, 328, 330, or of geometric pattern, such as is here given. The rarity of the mosaic diaper in this country may be gathered from the fact that in the whole series of Early medallion windows at Canterbury it is found only once, its frequency in France from the fact that in the choir alone of Bourges Cathedral it occurs in no less than twenty-two instances; again at Chartres, out of twenty-seven great windows, not more than four have scrollwork; at Poitiers, on the other hand, there is little geometric diaper, but the ornament is of the simplest, and barely foliated. This device of geometric diaper-filling was possibly inspired by the idea of utilising the small chips of precious glass, which, with the then method of working, must have accumulated in great quantity. In any case, it must have been encouraged by that consideration, if not actually suggested by it. Apart from economy, which is a condition of craftsmanlike work, there does seem a sort of artistic logic in the use of merely geometric design for quite subordinate filling, to act as a foil to figure work; but there was no occasion to put the mosaic of fragments quite so regularly, not to say mechanically, together, as was the custom to do. [Illustration: 79. CANTERBURY.] [Illustration: 80. FRENCH MOSAIC DIAPERS.] [Illustration: 81. DETAIL OF MEDALLION WINDOW, CANTERBURY.] [Illustration: 82. FRENCH MOSAIC DIAPER.] That is shown in a rather unusual instance in a window of the Lower Church at Assisi; there occurs there a diaper of circles with blue interstices, where the circles, though all alike painted with a star pattern, vary in colour in a seemingly accidental way, and are red, yellow, green, brown, just as it took the fancy of the glazier. It follows inevitably from the small scale on which these patterns are set out, and from the radiation of the coloured light, that unless very great discretion is exercised the rays get mixed, with a result which is often the reverse of pleasing. And the worst of it was that the French glaziers particularly affectioned a combination of red and blue most difficult to manage. A very favourite pattern consisted of cross bands of ruby (as above), enclosing squares or diamonds of blue, with dots of white at the intersection of the ruby bands, which persists always in running to purple. Instances of this unpleasant cast of colour are of continual occurrence, but they are never otherwise than crude and plummy in effect. The rather unusual combination of red and green mosaic diaper occurs, however, pretty frequently at Carcassonne. The diapers illustrated indicate the variety of geometric pattern to be found at Bourges, Chartres, Le Mans, and Notre Dame at Paris, and elsewhere. In proportion as there is in them a preponderance of blue and ruby the effect is that of an aggressive purple. The safest plan seems to be in associating with the blue plenty of green, or with the ruby plenty of yellow glass; or a similar result may be obtained by the choice of a deep neutral blue and of an orange shade of red, taking care always that the two contrasting colours shall not be of anything like equal strength. At the best these diapers compare very unfavourably with scrollwork. They are, in the nature of things, more monotonous and less interesting than a growth of foliage; they are apt also to run to gaudy colour, which by its mass overpowers the pictures set in it. Compare, in any French church, the windows in which there is geometric mosaic and those in which there is scrollwork; and, though they may be all of the same period, and presumably the work of the same men, you will almost certainly have to marvel how artists who at one moment hold you spellbound by the magic of their colour can in the next disturb your eyesight with a glare of purple produced by the parody of a Scotch plaid. Many of these diapers are very minute in scale; the smaller the scale on which they are designed the greater the certainty of the colours running together. [Illustration: 83. S. PETER DELIVERED FROM PRISON, LYONS.] It is to the very small scale of the figures, also, that the confusion of effect in medallion subjects, in spite of their comparatively flat treatment, is to be attributed. At Bourges, at Canterbury, everywhere, the medallion subjects are on far too minute a scale to be made out by mortals of ordinary patience, or, to speak accurately, impatience. Often, even in windows which come close enough to the eye for study, it is only the more conventionally familiar pictures which explain themselves readily; and those you recognise almost by anticipation. You have no difficulty in deciphering the Nativity, the Crucifixion, the Ascension, and so on, because you expect to find them. A certain muddle of effect must be accepted as characteristic of medallion windows. It is not to be wondered at, that, considering the difficulty of making out the ordinary medallion subjects in the lower windows, where they are usually found, some other scheme of composition should have been adopted for clerestory windows where those would have been more than ever unintelligible. Accordingly, in that position, the single figure treatment was adopted, and carried further than in the preceding century. The figure was now, not for the first time, but more invariably, enclosed in something like an architectural niche--a practice borrowed from the sculptor, who habitually protected the carved figures enriching the portals of great churches by a projecting canopy, giving them at the same time a pedestal or base of some kind to stand upon. In glass there was clearly no occasion for such architectural shelter or support; but the pretended niche and base offered a means of occupying the whole length of the space within the border, which, without some additional ornament, would often have been too long in proportion to the figure, the mere band of inscription under its feet not being enough to fill out the length. These very rudimentary canopies, specimens of which are given here, are usually very insignificant. It takes sometimes an expert to realise that the broken colour about the head of the saint (page 46) stands for architecture. The forms, when you come to look at them closely, may be ugly as well as childish, but they go for so little that it seems hardly worth while to take exception to them. It is only as indication of a practice (later to be carried to absurd excess) of making shift with sham architecture for the ornamental setting necessary to bring the figure into relation and into proportion with the window it is to occupy, that the device of thus enshrining a figure as yet deserves attention. As the beginning of canopy work in glass it marks a very eventful departure in design. All that need here be said about the Early Gothic canopy is that it would have been easy to have devised decorative forms at once more frankly ornamental, more interesting in themselves, and more beautiful, not to say less suggestive of a child's building with a box of bricks. [Illustration: 84. LYONS.] Sometimes, as at Chartres and elsewhere, the base of the canopy would itself take the form of a little subordinate niche enclosing a figure in small of the Donor, or perhaps only of his shield of arms. Sometimes it would take the form of a panel of inscription, boldly leaded in yellow letters upon blue or ruby. An alternative idea was to represent the Saints, or other holy personages, sitting. The figure on page 135 belongs actually to the beginning of the fourteenth century; but, except for a slightly more naturalistic character in the drawing of the drapery, it might almost have belonged to the same period as the standing figure on page 46. In longer lights two saints are often figured, sitting one above the other. This may be seen in the clerestory at Canterbury; but the effect is usually less satisfactory than that of the single figure on a larger scale. The standing position is also much better suited to the foreshortened view which one necessarily gets of clerestory windows. A curious variation upon the ordinary theme occurs in four of the huge lancets in the south transept at Chartres, where the Major Prophets are represented each bearing on his shoulders an Evangelist. The same idea recurs at Notre Dame, Paris, under the south rose. That is all very well in idea--iconographically it is only right that the Old Testament should uphold the New--but reduced to picture it is absurd, especially as the Evangelists are drawn to a smaller scale than the Prophets, and irresistibly suggest boys having a ride upon their fathers' shoulders. Dignity of effect there can be none. Not now for the first time, seemingly, is art sacrificed to what we call the literary idea. It shakes one's faith somewhat in the sincerity of the early mediæval artist to find that in the serried ranks of Kings, Prophets, Bishops, and other holy men, keeping guard over the church in the clerestory lights, one figure often does duty for a variety of personages, the colour only, and perhaps the face, being changed. At Reims there are as many as six in a row, all precisely of the same pattern, though the fraud may not be detected until one examines them from the triforium gallery. At Lyons, again, it looks as if the same thing occurred; but one cannot get near enough to them to be quite certain. None the less they are fine in colour. Thirteenth century glass was capable of great things in the way of colour; and the rows of Kings and Prophets looking down upon you from the clerestory of a great church like Bourges, archaic though the drawing be, are truly solemn and imposing. CHAPTER XIII. EARLY GRISAILLE. With grisaille glass begins a new chapter in the history of glass painting, and a most important one--not only because of the beautiful work which was done from the first in white, but also because coloured glass grew, so to speak, always towards the light. [Illustration: 85. S. SERGE, ANGERS.] The first coloured windows were intense in colour, rich, and even heavy. The note they struck was deep, solemn, suited to the church and to the times. Neither priest nor parishioner was afraid to sacrifice a certain amount of light. It was the business of a window to shut in those that worshipped from the outer world, and wrap them in mysterious and beautiful gloom. With other days, however, came other ideals. As time went on, and men emerged from the dark ages, the problem of the glazier was how more and more to lighten his glass; until at last white glass predominated, and the question was how to introduce colour into it. Meanwhile the thirteenth century glaziers resorted, where they wanted light, to the use of windows in grisaille, in absolute contrast to the rich picture-glass in the same church. The model for grisaille design was readily found in the earlier pattern work in plain glazing. [Illustration: 86. S. SERGE, ANGERS.] [Illustration: 87. S. JEAN-AUX-BOIS.] This last never quite went out of use. But already in the thirteenth century, and probably in the twelfth, it began to be supplemented, for the most part, by painting. The exceptionally graceful work at S. Serge, Angers, for example, on this page and the last, is probably not very much later than the year 1200. You can see at a glance how this is only a carrying further of the unpainted work in the same church (page 27) attributed to the thirteenth century. There may be found indeed amidst the plain glazing scraps of painted work; but they never happen to fit, and have pretty certainly found their way into the window in course of repairs. The unpainted window seems to be of greener and more silvery glass than the painted, to which perhaps the cross-hatching gives a rather horny look. The one way of painting grisaille in the thirteenth century was to trace the design (which of course followed the traditional lines) boldly upon the white glass, and then to cross-hatch the ground, more or less delicately according to the scale of the work and its distance from the eye, as here shown. By this means the pattern was made to stand out clear and light against the background, which had now the value of a tint, only a much more brilliant one than could have been got by a film or wash of colour. Very occasionally a feature, such as the group of four crowns which form the centre of the circle, above, might be emphasised by filling in the ground about them in solid pigment; but that was never done to any large extent. The rule was always to cross-hatch the ground. [Illustration: 88. S. JEAN-AUX-BOIS.] [Illustration: 89. SOISSONS.] With the introduction of colour into grisaille comes always the question as to how much or how little of it there shall be. There is a good deal of Early French work, which, on the face of it, was designed first as a sort of strapwork of interlacing bands in plain glazing, and then further enriched with painted work, not growing from it, except by way of exception. This is seen in the example here given. The painter indulged in slight modifications of detail as he went on. He had a model which he copied more or less throughout the window; but he allowed himself the liberty of playing variations, and he even departed from it at times. By this means he adapted himself to the glass, which did not always take just the same lines, and at the same time he amused himself, and us, more than if he had multiplied one pattern with monotonous precision. His painting was strong enough to keep the leads in countenance; that is to say, his main outlines would be as thick (see opposite) as lead lines. [Illustration: 90. EARLY DETAIL.] Patterns such as those on pages 138, 139, and below, from Soissons, Reims, S. Jean-aux-Bois, would make good glazed windows apart from the painting on them. Indeed, the painting is there comparatively insignificant in design. In the Soissons work, in particular, it consists of little more than cross-hatching upon the background, to throw up the interlacing of the glazed bands; for, with the exception of just a touch of colour in the one opposite, these designs are executed entirely in white glass. The geometric glazing shapes so completely convey the design, that the painted detail might almost be an after-thought. [Illustration: 91. SOISSONS.] [Illustration: 92. REIMS.] [Illustration: 93. LINCOLN.] [Illustration: 94. WATER PERRY, OXON.] In much of the earliest grisaille there is absolutely no colour but the greenish hue belonging to what we are agreed to call white glass, and the effect of it is invariably so satisfactory as to show that colour is by no means indispensable. And, at all events in France, the colour was at first very sparingly used, except in those twelfth century patterns (pages 35, 118, 120) which cannot fairly be called grisaille. In the window on page 137 the colour is, practically speaking, enclosed in small spaces ingeniously contrived between the interlacing bands of white; in that on page 138 it is introduced in half rings, which form part of the marginal line, and in spots or jewels; but in either case there is little of it, and it is most judiciously introduced. The interlacing of bands of plain white upon a ground of cross-hatching, itself enriched with scrollwork clear upon it, is characteristically French. Similar bands of white occur, though not interlacing, in the comparatively clumsy panel from Lincoln (above), but the more usual English way was to make the bands of white broader, and to paint a pattern upon them, as in the lancet from Water Perry, Oxfordshire (opposite), or in the much more satisfactory light from Lincoln (overleaf), leaving only a margin of clear glass next the cross-hatched background. A similar kind of thing occurs in the church of S. Pierre at Chartres (below). A yet more usual plan with us was to make the strapwork in colour, as at Salisbury. In the patterns on this page the straps do not interlace. In that on page 143 they not only interlace one with the other, but the painted ornament, which now takes the form of more elaborate scrollwork than heretofore, is intertwined with them. This is an extremely good example of Early English grisaille. Altogether Salisbury Cathedral is rich in white glass windows of this period (pages 143, 148, 329, 332). [Illustration: 95. LINCOLN.] [Illustration: 96. S. PIERRE, CHARTRES.] The grisaille in the clerestory at Bourges is similar to the Salisbury work, but it is not possible to get near enough to it to make careful comparison. The scrollwork on page 143 may be profitably compared with the very unusual white window at S. Jean-aux-Bois (overleaf). There the design consists altogether of scrolls in white upon a cross-hatched ground. It is as if the designer had set out to glaze up a pattern in white upon a white ground, cross-hatched. But it is obvious that, as there is no change of colour, it was no longer necessary always to cut the ornament out of a separate piece of glass from the ground. We find consequently that, wherever it is convenient, a painted line is used to save leading. That, it has been already explained (page 24), was a practice from the first; and it was resorted to more and more. It came in very conveniently in the French windows, in which the design consisted largely of white strapwork. It was adopted in the example from Châlons here given, though it does not appear in the sketch, any more than it does in the glass until you examine it very carefully. However, in the sketches from the great clerestory window from Reims Cathedral (overleaf), and in the smaller one from S. Jean-aux-Bois (facing it), the economy of glazing is easy to perceive; whilst in that from Coutances (page 147) the glazier is already so sparing of his leads that they no longer always follow or define the main lines of the pattern. [Illustration: 97. GRISAILLE, SALISBURY CATHEDRAL.] [Illustration: 98. CHÂLONS.] In a remarkable window in the choir of Chartres Cathedral (page 150) the design includes interlacing bands both of white and colour, the coloured ones flanked with strips of white; but the white bands are not glazed separately. They are throughout included in the same piece of glass as the cross-hatching, which defines them. This ingenious and very graceful pattern window is still of the thirteenth century, though clearly of much later date than, for example, the windows of S. Jean-aux-Bois, which might indeed almost belong to the twelfth. [Illustration: 99. CLERESTORY, REIMS.] In several of the Salisbury windows (pages 148, 386) thin straps of colour are bounded on the outer side by broader bands of white painted with pattern. And here it should be noticed the bands no longer interlace at all; on the contrary, the ornamental forms are superposed one upon the other. This is very markedly the case on page 148. In the centre of the light is a series of circular discs, and at the sides of these a row of zig-zags, which, as it were, disappear behind them, whilst at the edges of the window, again, is an array of segments of smaller circles losing themselves behind these. In such cases, it will be seen, the broad white bands fulfil the very useful purpose of keeping the coloured lines apart, and separating one series of shapes from the other. In this window, as in the narrow light on page 386, where the vesica shape is occupied once more with flowing scrollwork, and as in all but one of the windows on that page, the background of cross-hatching is for the first time omitted, and the pencilled pattern is by so much the less effective. As a rule, patterns traced in mere outline like this belong to a later date; but these windows are certainly of the thirteenth century. It is seldom safe to say that this or that practice belonged exclusively to any one period. The white glass on page 335, almost entirely without paint, might have been executed in the twelfth century, but its border indicates more likely the latter part of the thirteenth. Quite the simplest form of glazing was to lead the glass together in squares or diamonds. These "quarries," as they are called (from the French _carré_) are associated sometimes with rosettes and bands of other pattern work, as at Lincoln (pages 284, 287); but more ordinarily the ornamental part of the window is made up entirely of them. "Quarry" is a term to be remembered. It plays in the next century an important part in the design of windows. [Illustration: 100. S. JEAN-AUX-BOIS.] The best-known grisaille windows in England are the famous group of long lancets, ending the north transept of York Minster, which are known by the name of the Five Sisters. You remember the legend about them. The "inimitable Boz" relates it at length in "Nicholas Nickleby"; but it is nonsense, all the same. The story tells how in the reign of Henry the Fourth five maiden ladies worked the designs in embroidery, and sent them abroad to be carried out in glass. But, as it happens, they belong to the latter part of the thirteenth century; they are unmistakably English work; and, what is more, no woman, maiden, wife, or widow, ever had, or could have had, a hand in their design. Their authorship is written on the face of them. Every line in their composition shows them to be the work of a strong man, and a practical glazier, who worked according to the traditions that had come down to him. A designer recognises in it a man who knew his trade, and knew it thoroughly. The notion that any glazier ever worked from an embroidered design is too absurd. As well might the needlewoman go to the glazier to design her stitchery. But such is the popular ignorance of workmanship, and of its intimate connection with design, that no doubt the vergers will go on repeating their apocryphal tale as long as vergers continue to fill the office of personal conductors. [Illustration: 101. COUTANCES.] The Five Sisters are rather looser and freer in design than the Salisbury glass, and have broad borders of white. In detail they are certainly not superior to that, nor in general design, so far as one can make it out at all; but, from their very size and position, they produce a much more imposing effect. Whoever is not impressed by the Five Sisters is not likely ever to be moved by grisaille. They form one huge fivefold screen of silvery glass. The patterns are only with great difficulty to be deciphered. It is with these as with many others of the most fascinating windows in grisaille; the glass is corroded on the surface, black with the dirt and lichen of ages, cracked and crossed with leads introduced by the repairing glazier, until the design is about as intelligible as would be a conglomeration of huge spiders' webs. But, for all that, nay, partly because of it, it is a thing of absolute beauty, as beautiful as a spider's web, beaded with dewdrops, glistening in the sun on a frosty winter's morning. It is a dream of silvery light: who cares for details of design? But it is all this, because it was designed, because it was planned by a glazier for glazing, and has all that gives glass its charm. [Illustration: 102. GRISAILLE, SALISBURY CATHEDRAL.] [Illustration: 103. CHARTRES CATHEDRAL.] Stained glass, like the men who design it, has always the defects of its qualities. It is the first business of those who work in it to see that it has at least the qualities of its defects. CHAPTER XIV. WINDOWS OF MANY LIGHTS. The merry life of the medallion window was a short one. It reigned during the Early Gothic period supreme; but after the end of the thirteenth century it soon went quite out of fashion, and with it the practice of shaping the bars to suit the pattern of the window--a practice, it will have been noticed, not followed in grisaille windows, though it might very well have been. With the change which came over the spirit of later thirteenth century architecture some new departure in the design of glass became inevitable. The windows spoken of till now were all single lights, broader or narrower, as the case might be, but each so far off from the other that it had to be complete in itself, and might just as well be designed with no more than general reference to its neighbours. But in time it began to be felt in France that the broad Norman window was too broad, and so they divided it into two by a central shaft, or mullion as it is called, of stone. In England equally it began to be felt that the long narrow lancet lights were too much in the nature of isolated piercings in the bare wall, and so the builder brought them closer and closer together, until they also were divided by narrow mullions. In this way, and in answer especially to the growing demand for more light in churches, and consequently for more windows, it became the custom to group them. Eventually the window group resolved itself into a single window of several, sometimes of many, lights, divided only by narrow stone mullions. Or, to account for it in another way, windows of considerable size coming into vogue, it became necessary, for constructional no less than for artistic reasons, to subdivide them by mullions into two or more lights. The arched window head was broken up into smaller fancifully shaped "tracery" lights, as they are called; and so we arrive at the typical "Decorated" Gothic window. The height of these windows being naturally in proportion to their width, the separate lights into which they were divided were apt to be exceedingly long. To have treated them after the Early medallion manner, each with its broad border, would have been to draw attention to this, and even to exaggerate their length. The problem now to be solved in glass was, how best to counteract the effect of insecurity likely to result from the thinness of the upright lines of the stone and the narrowness of the openings between them. It is not meant to say that the medallion window expired without a spasm. For a while Decorated windows were treated very much after the fashion of the earlier medallion windows. The medallions were necessarily smaller, and usually long in proportion to their width, although they extended now to the edge of the stonework, the narrowish border to the lights passing, as it were, behind them. This is very amply illustrated in the windows in the choir clerestory at Tours. Occasionally there is no border but a line of white and colour, and the whole interval between the elongated hexagonal or octagonal panels is given up to mosaic diaper. The medallions naturally range themselves in horizontal order throughout the three or four lights of the window, giving just the indication of a horizontal line across them. By way of exception, the subject of the Last Supper extends through all three lights of the East window, the tablecloth forming a conspicuous band of light across it. This glass at Tours is deep and rich throughout, as intense sometimes as in earlier work, though warmer in colour, owing to the greater amount of yellow glass employed. That was not to last long. [Illustration: 104. DECORATED MEDALLION WINDOW, GERMAN.] It lingered longest in Germany. There is a curious two-light window in Cologne Cathedral, with queer rectangular medallions, of considerable interest, which is probably not very early in date. A not very common type of Decorated medallion window is illustrated above. The cutting across the border by medallion or other subjects, is a common thing in fourteenth century glass (below and opposite), just because such encroachment is obviously a most useful device in dealing with narrow spaces. It occurs in some medallion windows (also of the fourteenth century) at the church of Santa Croce, at Florence. But this was not enough. The Germans went a step further, and carried the medallions boldly across two lights, treating them as a single medallion window with a stone mullion instead of an iron bar up the centre. There is an instance of this at S. Sebald's Church, Nuremberg, and another, more curious than beautiful to see, at Strassburg. They went further still, and carried the medallions across a three-light window. There is one such at Augsburg, where the medallions almost fill the window, extending to the extreme edge of the outer lights. Indeed, a broad outer border of angels surrounding the great circles is cut short by the side walls. This is at least a means of getting rid of the littleness resulting sometimes from the small medallion treatment, and it is in fact most effective. The broad, sweeping, circular lines also have the appearance of holding the lights together and strengthening them. [Illustration: 105. FREIBURG.] This was a thing most needful to be done in Decorated glass. It was needed sometimes already in Early work. At Clermont-Ferrand the narrow lancets at the end of the South transept are filled, except for a thin white beaded border, with diaper work in rich colour, interrupted at intervals by big rosettes of white, which form two bands of light across the series, and make them seem one group. [Illustration: 106. DETAILS OF DEC. GERMAN GLASS.] The deliberate use of horizontal lines (or features giving such lines) in glass, was clearly the most effective way of counteracting the too upright tendency of the masonry, or rather of preventing it from appearing unduly drawn out; and it became the custom. Even in a comparatively small Decorated window, for example, the figures would usually form a band across it, distinguished from the ornamental shrinework above and below it by a marked difference in colour. In a taller window there would be two, or possibly three, such bands of figures, in marked contrast to their framing. In Germany very often one big frame would cross the window, or the figure subjects would be separated--as at Strassburg, for example--by bands of arcading, out of which peeped little saints each with a descriptive label in his hand. A typical English canopy of the period is given on this page. It was commonly enclosed, as here shown, within a border, wide enough to be some sort of acknowledgment of the subdivision of the window, but not wide enough to prevent the colour of the canopy from forming a distinct band across the window. The predominance of a powerful, rather brassy, yellow in the canopy work, and a contrast in colour between its background and that of the figures, carried the eye without fail across the window. A notable exception to the usual brassiness of the Decorated canopy occurs at Toulouse, where a number of high-pitched gables of the ordinary design, stronger in colour than usual, have crockets and finials of a fresh bright green. [Illustration: 107. TYPICAL DECORATED CANOPY.] The Decorated canopy, with its high-pitched gable and tall flying buttresses, its hard lines, and its brassy colour was a characteristic, but never a very beautiful feature in design; and it grew to quite absurd proportions. It was in Germany that it was carried to greatest excess, extending to a height three or four times that of the figure and more; but with us also it was commonly tall enough altogether to dwarf the poor little figure it pretended to protect. Even when it was not preposterously tall, its detail was usually out of all proportion to the figure. Your fourteenth century draughtsman would have no hesitation in making the finial of his canopy bigger than the head (nimbus and all) of the saint under it. Clumsiness of this kind is so much the rule, and disproportion is so characteristic of the middle of the fourteenth century, that, but for some distinctly good ornamental glass of the period, one might dismiss it as merely transitional, and not worthy of a chapter to itself in the history of glass design. [Illustration: 108. S. URBAIN, TROYES.] [Illustration: 109. NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD.] Our distinctions of style, as was said, are at the best arbitrary. We may devise a classification which shall serve to distinguish one marked type from another, but it is quite impossible to draw any hard-and-fast line between the later examples of one kind and the earlier of another one. We may choose to divide Gothic art into three classes, as we may subdivide the spectrum into so many positive colours, but the indeterminate shades by which they gradate each into the other defy classification or description. Certainly the best figure work of the middle period is that which might quite fairly be claimed as belonging, on the one hand, to the end of the Early, or on the other to the beginning of the Late, Gothic period. In the figures from Troyes, for example (page 47 and opposite), the Early tradition lingers; in those from New College (also opposite) the characteristics of Late work begin to appear. In the figure of the headsman on this page there is certainly no sense of proportion. In all the wealth of Decorated figure-and-canopy work at York Minster there is nothing to rank for a moment with the best Early or Perpendicular glass. Nor in France, though there is Decorated work in most of the great churches, is there anything conspicuously fine. Even at S. Ouen, at Rouen, there is nothing particularly worthy of note. It is true that the period of the English occupation and the troubles which followed it was not the time when we should expect the arts to flourish there. [Illustration: 110. EXECUTIONER OF S. JOHN THE BAPTIST, 14TH CENTURY.] A most characteristic thing in glass of this intermediate period was the way in which colour and grisaille were associated. It has been already told how, before then, white and colour had been used together in the same light--at Auxerre, for example, where, within a broad border of colour, you find an inner frame of grisaille, enclosing a central figure panel of colour. Quite at the beginning of the fourteenth century, if not already at the end of the thirteenth, you find, as at S. Radegonde, Poitiers, upon a ground of grisaille, coloured medallion subjects, or more happily still, little figures, as it were, inlaid, breaking the white surface very pleasantly with patches of unevenly but judiciously dispersed colour--the whole enclosed in a coloured border. But in the fourteenth century the more even combination of white and colour was quite a common thing. Naturally it was introduced in the form of the horizontal bands already mentioned. And indeed it is in windows into which grisaille enters that this band-wise distribution of design is most apparent, and most typical. The designer very commonly conceived his window as in grisaille, crossed by a band or bands of colour, binding the lights together. That may be seen in the chapter-house at York, where you have several series of little subjects, more or less in the shape of medallions, forming so many belts of colour across the five-light grisaille windows, which belts the eye insensibly follows right round the building. [Illustration: 111. DECORATED BORDERS.] That is the theory of design. Its practical construction may be better described otherwise. The iron horizontal bars, to the use of which the glaziers had by this time come back, divide the lights each into a series of panels, which panels are filled at York alternately with coloured subjects and ornamental grisaille. Elsewhere perhaps two panels are filled with colour to one of grisaille, or three to one, or _vice versâ_. In any case these alternate panels of white and colour, occurring always on the same level throughout the lights composing the window (and often through all the windows along the aisle of a church), range themselves in pronounced horizontal strips or bands. [Illustration: 112. GRISAILLE AND FIGURE.] This acceptance of the bars as a starting-point in design, and this deliberate counterchange of light and dark, may appear to indicate a very rough-and-ready scheme of design. But any brutality there might be in it is done away with by the introduction of a sufficient amount of white into the coloured bands and of a certain modicum of colour in the bands of white. And that was habitually the plan adopted. Into the subjects it was easy to introduce just as much white as seemed necessary. A little white might be there already in the flesh, which was no longer always represented in flesh-coloured glass but more and more commonly in white. The usual border at the sides of the grisaille--now reduced to quite modest proportions--perhaps a simple leaf border, as on pages 44, 158, perhaps a still simpler "block" border, as above, served to frame the white, at the same time that it was an acknowledgment once more of the fact that each light forms a separate division of the window. In most cases the introduction of a little colour into the grisaille panel, very often in the form of a rosette, went further to prevent any possible appearance of disconnection between the figures and their ornamental setting. As a matter of fact, so little obvious is the plan of such windows in the actual glass that it often takes one some time to perceive it. [Illustration: 113. EVREUX.] In the nave at York Minster the grisaille is crossed by two bands of coloured figure work. Elsewhere it is crossed by one; but where the figures have canopies, as they often have, that makes again a horizontal subdivision in the coloured portion of the glass. Sometimes the topmost pinnacles of the coloured canopies will extend into the grisaille above, breaking the harshness of the dividing line; but it is seldom that it appears harsh in the glass. The fact seems to be that the upward tendency of the long lights is so marked, and the mullions make such a break in any cross line, that there is no fear of horizontal forms pronouncing themselves too strongly; the difficulty is rather to make them marked enough. Architects came eventually to feel the want of some more sternly horizontal feature than the glazier could contrive, when they introduced the stone transom, which was a feature of the later Gothic period. When it was a question of glazing a broad single light of earlier construction, the fourteenth century artist designed his glass accordingly. Not that he then adopted the thirteenth century manner--it never entered his mind to work in any other style than that which was current in his day; the affectation of bygone styles is a comparatively modern heresy--but he adapted his design equally to help, if not to correct, the shape of the window opening. Accustomed as he was to narrower lights, the broad window of an earlier age appeared to him unduly broad, and his first thought was to make it look narrower. This he did by dividing it into vertical (instead of horizontal) strips of white and colour. That is shown in the window from Troyes (page 159), in which the centre strip of the window, occupied by figures and canopies in colour, is flanked by broad strips of grisaille, and that again by a coloured border. There, as usual, you find some white in the figure work and some colour in the grisaille, always the surest way of making the window look one. The judicious treatment of a belated lancet window like this goes to show that it was of set purpose that the tall lights of a Decorated window were bound together by ties of coloured glass. So long as windows were built in many lights, that plan of holding them together was never abandoned. There is a very notable instance of this at Berne, where the four long lights of a Late Gothic window are crossed by lines of canopy work, taking not horizontal but arched lines (a device common enough in German glass), effectually counteracting the lean and lanky look of the window. Still markedly horizontal lines of subdivision in glass design are more characteristic of the second Gothic period than of any other. CHAPTER XV. MIDDLE GOTHIC GLASS. Towards the fourteenth century, it seems, a wave of realism swept over Gothic art. So much is this so that a relatively speaking naturalistic form of ornamental detail is the most marked feature of the Decorated period, giving it its name, and, indeed, its claim to be a style. [Illustration: 114. NORBURY, DERBYSHIRE.] No great stress has been laid in the foregoing chapters upon this new departure in naturalism, because it did not so very vitally affect design. When it is said that glass followed always the fashion of architecture, that is as much as to say that, as the sculptors took to natural instead of conventional foliage, so did the glass painters; and there is not much more to tell. To trace the development of naturalistic design would lead us far astray. Enough to say that, by the naturalistic turn of its ornamental foliage you may recognise the period called "Decorated." How far that naturalism of Decorated detail may be to the good is a question there is no need here to dispute. It was a new departure. The new work lacked something of the simple dignity and self-restraint which marked the earlier, and it had not yet the style and character which came in the next century of more consistently workmanlike treatment. In so far it was a kind of prelude to Perpendicular work. This is not to deny that excellent work was done in the Decorated period, especially perhaps in glass, where naturalism, at its crudest, is less offensive than in wood or stone. But there is no getting over the fact that the period was intermediate; and Decorated glass is in a state of transition (1) between the archaism of the early and the accomplishment of the later Gothic; (2) between the conventional ornament which merely suggests nature and natural foliage conventionally treated; (3) between strong rich colour and delicate silvery glass. The transition of style is nowhere more plainly to be traced than in the grisaille of the period. At first the character of fourteenth century grisaille did not greatly differ from earlier work, except in the form of the painted detail. That from S. Urbain, Troyes, on page 333, is a typical instance of Early French Transition foliage, in which the scroll is only less strong and vigorous than before. Precisely the same kind of detail is shown again in the lower of the two instances, likewise from Troyes, opposite; but already natural leaves begin to mingle with it; whilst in the illustration above it, though the mosaic border is characteristically early, the foliage in grisaille is deliberately naturalistic. The grisaille at Troyes, by the way, often reminds one of that at York Minster. It is mainly by the naturalistic character of the ivy scroll, or perhaps it would be nearer the mark to say of the leaves upon it, that the design from Norbury, Derbyshire (page 162), betrays its later date, by that and the absence of cross-hatching on the background. The glazing of the window is still thoroughly mosaic. [Illustration: 115. S. PIERRE, CHARTRES.] [Illustration: 116. DEC. GRISAILLE, S. URBAIN, TROYES.] [Illustration: 117. CHARTRES.] [Illustration: 118. EVREUX.] [Illustration: 119. ROUEN CATHEDRAL.] There is a different indication of transition in the little panel from S. Pierre at Chartres, almost entirely in white glass, on page 163. The foliated ornament is here still early in character; but, it will be seen, there is no longer any pretence of leading up the bands of clear glass in separate strips. They are only bounded on one side by a lead line. That is so again in the three designs from Chartres Cathedral above, where, further, the background is clear of paint; and in those from Evreux, on pages 165, 284. There the background is cross-hatched; but in one case the foliage is naturalistic. The coloured strapwork in the grisaille from the Lady Chapel of Rouen Cathedral on page 165 is frankly mosaic; but the foliated ends of the straps, gathered together into a central quatrefoil in a quite unusual fashion, indicates the new spirit. The white glass is there painted with trailing foliage in outline upon a clear ground, not shown in the sketch, which is merely a diagram of the glazing. The grisaille from Stanton S. John, Oxford, here given, still hesitates rather between two opinions. The foliage is naturalistic, but the background is cross-hatched; the broad diagonal bands, patterned with paint, are glazed in colour; the rings of white are not separately leaded. That sort of thing has occurred, as already pointed out, before; but it was not till the fourteenth century, or thereabouts, that the strapwork of white lines, forming so characteristic a feature in Decorated grisaille, are systematically indicated by painted outlines and not glazed in if it could be helped. [Illustration: 120. STANTON S. JOHN, OXFORD.] You have only to examine the crossing of the white lines in any of these last-mentioned patterns to see that, now that they are not separately glazed, they do not really interlace as before. It is out of the question that they should. It is easy enough to glaze up bands so that they shall interlace; but, when some of the drawing lines are lead and some paint, it occurs continually that you want a leaded line to pass behind a line of clear glass--which, of course, is a physical impossibility. It follows that the pretended interlacing comes to grief. The pattern is confused (it is worse when there is no hatched background) by the occurrence of leads, stronger than the painted lines, which, so far from playing any part in the design, occur just at the points where they most interfere with it. [Illustration: 121. CHÂLONS.] That this did not deter them, that they made a shift with interlacing which does not truly interlace, marks a falling off in what may be called the conscientiousness of the Gothic designers. French and English Decorated grisaille, effective as it often is in the window, is distinctly less satisfactory in design than the common run of earlier work. Its charm is never in its detail. The patterns may be ingenious and not without grace, but they are never altogether admirable, any more than are the figures. [Illustration: 122. CHÂLONS.] What you most enjoy in it is the distribution of white and colour; and you enjoy it most when you do not too curiously examine into the detail of the design, when you are satisfied to enjoy the colour, and do not look for form, which after all is of less account in glass. [Illustration: 123. REGENSBURG.] [Illustration: 124. MUNICH MUSEUM.] So far as effect only is concerned, quarry work, the mere glazing in squares, answers in many places (such, for example, as the clerestories of narrow churches, where you could not possibly enjoy any detail of design that might be there) all the purpose of grisaille; and it was commonly resorted to. But the painting upon such quarries counts for very little; it is far too small and fine in detail to have any effect further than to tone the glass a little, which would have been unnecessary if the glass employed had been less clear. In fact, delicate paint on distant clerestory glass is much ado about very little; and one cannot help thinking that plain glazing would there have answered all the purpose of the most delicately painted pattern work. The fourteenth century glaziers seldom complicated their quarry work by the introduction of bands or straps of colour between the quarries, or by the introduction of colour other than such as might occur in rosettes or shields and so on, planted upon them, rather than worked into the design. Occasionally, however, as at Châlons-sur-Marne, you come upon an ornamental window (page 167) in which quarries are separated by bands of clear white, a certain amount of colour being introduced in the form of yellow quarries substituted at regular intervals for the white. On the same page is another coloured diaper window designed on quarry lines, also at Châlons. In that quarries of white and yellow are separated by a trellis of blue. Something of the sort is to be seen also at S. Radegonde, Poitiers. In these cases the painting, as will be seen, is strong enough to hold its own at a considerable distance from the eye, but the effect is not very happy. When, by the way, it was said that delicate painting on distant quarries was lost, it was not meant to imply that strong painting on quarries would be a happy solution of the difficulty. As a matter of experience, it is seldom satisfactory. On the other hand, the common expedient of leading up the coloured backgrounds to figure work in small squares of ruby, green, and so on, was generally the means of securing good broken colour. It can hardly be said that geometric pattern windows in strong colour are ever very successful. The Germans, who, it should be remembered, call their second Gothic period the "Geometric," often attempted it, but without conspicuous success. [Illustration: 125. 14TH CENTURY GERMAN.] In Germany it was customary to use geometric diaper work long after it had gone out of use in France. In fact, it is there more likely a sign of the second period. The crosslines in the diaper from Regensburg (opposite) would have been in lead, not paint, if the work had been executed in the thirteenth century; again, the diaper below it would not at that period have been painted in the likeness of oak-leaves. Diaper of this kind was not used merely to fill up between medallions, but as background, for example, to canopy work. Frequently it was very small in scale, as well as elaborate in pattern. It can hardly be said that it was always worth the pains spent upon it--often it was not; but the Germans avoided, as a rule, the dangerous red and blue combination, and preferred, as did also the Italians, less stereotyped arrangements of green and yellow, or of red and green, or of red and green and yellow; if they ventured upon red and blue, it was with a difference very much to their credit. For example, they would enclose diamonds of ruby in bands of purple-brown, with just a point of blue at the interstices; again, they would make a diaper of purple, purple-brown, and grey; and in many another way show that they deliberately aimed at colour in such work--whereas many of the Early diapers suggest that the glazier was thinking more of pattern. An instance of heraldic diaper is given on page 169. [Illustration: 126. FREIBURG.] In Italy also you find sometimes, as at Florence and Assisi, medallion windows with mosaic diaper between, or mosaic diaper used as background to figures which certainly cannot be described as Early. [Illustration: 127. FREIBURG.] The Germans differed from the rest of us in their frank use of geometric pattern. We habitually disguised it more or less, clothing it most likely with foliation; they used it quite nakedly, and were not ashamed. Instances of this innocent use of geometric form are here given. At Freiburg are quite a number of windows entirely of geometric pattern work. There is a good deal of white glass in them, but they count rather for colour than for grisaille. It would not be quite unfair to say they fall between the two stools. These designs are much more pleasing in the glass than in black and white (where they have rather too much the appearance of floor-cloth), but they are by no means the happiest work of the Germans of that day. Where they were really most successful, more successful than their contemporaries, was in foliated or floral pattern windows, and those of a kind also standing dangerously near midway between colour and grisaille. The method of execution employed in them was to a large extent strictly mosaic; but there is quite a refreshing variety and novelty, as well as very considerable ingenuity, in their design. [Illustration: 128. FROM REGENSBURG, MUNICH MUSEUM.] [Illustration: 129. IVY, MUNICH MUSEUM.] The window from Regensburg on page 389 sets out very much as if it were going to be a grisaille window; but it has, in the first place, more colour than is usual in grisaille, and, in the second, it will be seen that the little triangular ground spaces next the border are filled with pot-metal. The contrast of the set pattern and the four coloured leaves crossing each circle with the flowing undergrowth of grisaille is unusual, and so is the cunning alternation of cross-hatching and plain white ground. The designs from Munich Museum on pages 171 to 174 have nothing in common with grisaille. The design consists of natural foliage chiefly in white, growing tree-like upon a coloured ground up the centre of the light. In the one the stem is waved, in the other it takes a spiral form, in the third it is more naturalistic. But nature is not very consistently followed. What appears like a vine on page 171 has husks or flowers which it is not easy to recognise; and the ivy here is endowed with tendrils. The border of convolvulus leaves and the hop scroll, opposite, are unmistakable, though there is some inconsistency between the naturalness of the leaves and the stiffness of their growth. The ivy pattern differs from the others inasmuch as the leaves show light against the yellow ground, whilst the green stem and stalks tell dark upon it, and there is a band of red within the outer border which holds the rather spiky leaves together. The most interesting window of this kind illustrated is that on page 174, in which the stem is ingeniously twisted into quatrefoil medallion shapes, so as to allow a change in the colour of the ground, and the leaves are designed to go beyond the filling and form a pattern upon the border. The rose is a hackneyed theme enough, but this at least is a new way of working it out. Fourteenth century German windows are altogether more varied in design than contemporary French or English work. The glass is not so much all of one pattern. There are more surprises in it. The Germans treated grisaille in a way very much their own. At the risk of a certain coarseness of execution, they would paint out the background to their natural foliage in solid pigment, or in brown just hatched with lines scratched through to the clear glass. That is very effectively done, for example, at the Church of S. Thomas at Strassburg. It is not contended that this is at all a better plan than that practised in France or England: it is on the whole less happy; but there are positions in which it is more to the purpose; and it has at least the merit of being different; it suggests something better than it accomplishes, and it is a timely reminder that the best methods we know of cannot be accepted as final. [Illustration: 130. GERMAN ORNAMENTAL GLASS.] Again at Regensburg there is some distant ornamental work, so simple in execution that it is little more than glazing in colours; in fact just what distant work should be--effective in its place without any waste of labour. [Illustration: 131. 14TH CENTURY GLASS.] A word or two remains to be said about borders. The narrower decorated light implied, as was said, a narrower border. It was, as a rule, only when a wide Early window had to be glazed that there was room for a broad one. In that case it showed of course the new naturalism, with perhaps the added interest of animal life, as here illustrated; but there lingers in German borders such as this and the one on page 338, something of early tradition. It looks as if it would not be difficult to accept glazing lines like these and fill them in with painted detail _à la Romanesque_. In one of the windows in York Minster there is a border of alternate leaves and monkeys, both much of a size, which broadens out at the base, affording space for the representation of a hunt, men, dogs, grass and all complete. [Illustration: 132. 14TH CENTURY GERMAN.] [Illustration: 133. 14TH CENTURY GERMAN.] There was another reason for the adoption of a narrower border. Not only were windows narrower now, but their arched heads were cusped, which made it exceedingly difficult to carry any but the narrowest possible border round them satisfactorily. It will be seen how awkwardly the border fits (or does not fit) the window head on page 155. Even the simplest border had to be very much distorted in order to make it follow the line of the masonry; and, in any case, it gave a very ugly shape within the border, and one again difficult to fill. Already, at the beginning of the fourteenth century, the designer found it convenient to run his border straight up into the cusped head of the light and let the stonework cut it abruptly short; that occurs at Carcassonne. Sometimes, as at Tewkesbury, the inconvenient border is allowed to end just above the springing line of the arch, against a pinnacle of the canopy, beyond which point there is only a line or two of white or colour, by way of frame or finish to the background. An unusual but quite satisfactory way of getting over the difficulty of carrying the border round the window head is, to accept the springing line of the arch as the end of the central design, and to make the foliated border spread and fill the entire window head above. Some quarry lights in the triforium at Evreux are effectively treated in that manner. [Illustration: 134. STRASSBURG.] Types of ordinary Decorated borders, English, French, and German, are shown in this and the preceding chapter. The leafage springs from one side or the other or from a central stem, or from either side of a waving stem, or from two stems intertwined (page 158). Sometimes the ground on one side is of a different colour from that on the other; in any case the glazing is usually simple. One of the leaf borders at Rouen Cathedral includes a series of little green birds; another, an oak pattern, is inhabited at intervals by squirrels and wild men of the woods. Rather interesting variations upon the ordinary type of border are given on this and the preceding pages. The broader one above is of distinctly unusual character, inasmuch as it has no background except the painting out, and the colour of the leafage varies quasi-accidentally. [Illustration: 135. 14TH CENTURY GERMAN.] The use of the rosette borders on pages 171, 172 is sufficiently accounted for by the desire to get contrast to the foliated filling, but it occurs at all periods more or less. So does the "block border"; but for all that it is almost as characteristic of Decorated work as the leaf border. It is seen in its simplest form on page 144. On page 389 it is associated with foliage and rosettes. A typical form of it is where the blocks are charged with heraldic devices, which may serve to indicate the date, or to confuse one. In the design from Evreux on page 160 there occur, for example, the Fleurs-de-Lys of France alternating with the Castle of Castille. These particular charges occur frequently in the windows of the S. Chapelle at Paris, and in the lights from that source now in the South Kensington Museum; and they go perhaps to show that Blanche of Castille (who married Louis VIII.) gave them to the chapel, or that they were in her memory. She died in 1252. It is most improbable that the Evreux glass should belong to so early a date as that. Were it so, the occurrence of this kind of thing in such early work would only go to show that heraldic devices are as old as heraldry, and that when the glazier had a narrow light to fill he treated it as a narrow light, with a border in proportion to its width: he certainly did that at the S. Chapelle. The fact remains that this particular form of "block" border marks, as a rule, the approach of the fourteenth century. It may be as well to remind the reader that dates and periods are only mentioned in order to save circumlocution. When the thirteenth century is mentioned, it is not meant to convey the year 1201, nor yet 1299, but the century in its prime. And, what is more, it is not meant to say that the work ascribed to that period was quite certainly and indisputably done after the year 1200 or before the year 1300, but only that it bears the mark of the century--which, from the present point of view, is the important thing. The precise and certain year in which this or that device was by exception for the first time employed, or until which by chance a practically obsolete practice survived, is interesting (if it can be ascertained) only as a question of archæology. Anyway, a workman would rather believe the evidence of his eyes, which he can trust, than of documents, which, even if authentic, may not be trustworthy, and which are perhaps open to misinterpretation. Typically Decorated glass, apart from the ornamental windows just referred to, is the least interesting of Gothic. There is in it a straying from Early tradition without reaching the later freedom and attainment. In colour it has neither the strength of the Early work nor the delicacy of the Late. It marks some progress in technique, but little in design, and none in taste. CHAPTER XVI. LATE GOTHIC WINDOWS. The subdivision of art into periods is in reality the veriest makeshift. To be on quite safe ground we should have, as a matter of fact, to reduce our periods to not more than half their supposed duration, and to class all the rest of the time as belonging to intervals of transition. The truth is, it is always a period of transition. The stream moves perpetually on; there are only moments in its course when it seems to move more slowly, and we have time to fix its characteristics. It follows that, if we divide our periods according to time, we have to include within them work of very various character; and if we divide them according to style, our dates get hopelessly confused. Some sort of classification is necessary in order to emphasise changes which actually took place only by degrees, and are perceptible only to the expert. But no sooner do we begin to classify, than we find so many exceptions, that we are inclined almost to wonder if they do not form the rule. All that has been said, therefore, and may yet be said, about the periods of design, must be taken with more than a grain of suspicion. For example, what shall be said about the great East window at Gloucester Cathedral, which Winston instances as a typical example of Decorated glass? Doubtless the technique is that of soon after the middle of the fourteenth century, and the detail of the canopies, when you come to examine them, is more nearly Decorated than anything else; but the first impression of the glass is quite that of Perpendicular work. This may come partly of the circumstances that the masonry of the window follows already distinctly Perpendicular lines; but it comes much more from the colour of the glass and its distribution. It is not merely that blue and ruby backgrounds are carried straight up through the long lengths of each alternate light, or that the blue is lighter and greyer than in Decorated glass, but that the figures, and especially the canopies, are for the first time, practically speaking, altogether in white, only very slightly relieved with yellow stain. The student who accepted this as typical Decorated work, would be quite at sea when he came to Perpendicular glass, in which this paler colour, this preponderance of white, and especially this framing of the figures in white canopy work, is a most distinctive, if not the most distinctive, feature. After all, the window is Perpendicular; and, though the glass in it may have many characteristics of Decorated work, it cannot well be said that the glass is Decorated, true though it be that glass did, as a rule, follow rather in the wake of architectural progress. Many windows are almost equally difficult to classify. In the Decorated glass at Wells there are both earlier and later features. The heads glazed in pinkish glass, with eyes and beards leaded up in white, strike an Early note, whilst the broadly treated bases or pedestals of certain canopies in the Lady Chapel, one of which is here shown (the canopies themselves are strictly Decorated), prelude the coming style. [Illustration: 136. PEDESTAL, WELLS.] These bases remind one of those in the ante-chapel at New College, Oxford, dating from the last quarter of the fourteenth century, which, though it is not difficult to trace in them the lingering influence of Decorated tradition, must undoubtedly be put down as early examples of the later style. In these fine windows (upon which the tourist turns his back whilst he admires the poor attempt of Sir Joshua Reynolds in the West window) there is not yet the accomplishment of full-fledged Perpendicular work. The figures, though full of fine feeling, are not well drawn, and the painting is not delicate; but the design of the glass, its setting out, the balance and arrangement of colour, the tone of the windows, and the breadth of effect, are admirable; and it is precisely in these respects that it proclaims itself of the later school of Gothic. Indeed, we may assume that it was in order to include such work as this that the line was drawn at the year 1380. To class it with Decorated glass would have been too absurd. Compare the New College canopy on page 180 with the Decorated canopy on page 155 and the more orthodox Perpendicular canopies below and on pages 185, 340, and there is no possible hesitation as to which it most resembles. The only thing in which it shows any leaning towards Decorated work is in the very occasional introduction of pot-metal colour; and the main thing in which it differs from later Perpendicular design is that its shafts are round instead of square, and that it is more solidly built up, larger, more nobly conceived. [Illustration: 137. CANOPY, NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD.] A parallel French instance is at the S. Chapelle at Riom, in which canopies, having at first sight all the appearance of typically Late Gothic work, prove to have details which one would rather describe as Decorated. The German canopy work at Shrewsbury (pages 183, 186) is not very far removed from Decorated. The later Perpendicular canopies run to finikin pinnacles. [Illustration: 138. TYPICAL PERPENDICULAR CANOPY.] The New College canopies have none of the brassy yellow colour characteristic of Decorated work, but are absolutely silvery in effect. The gradual dilution, as one may say, of the deep, rich, Early colour is noticeable throughout the fourteenth century. Towards its close the glass painter halts no longer between two opinions, between light and colour. He has quite made up his mind in favour of white glass. He has come pretty generally to conceive his window as a field of white, into which to introduce a certain amount of rich colour, not often a very large amount. As a rule, perhaps not more than one-fourth of the area of a fifteenth century window was colour; for, in addition to the white of the canopy, there was commonly a fair amount of white in the draperies, and the flesh was now always represented by white. The typical Perpendicular window, then, is filled with shrinework in white, enclosing figures, or figure subjects, into which white enters largely (the flesh and some of the drapery, often a good deal, is sure to be white), upon a background of colour. Not much of this coloured background, most often in blue or ruby, and sometimes deep in colour, was ordinarily shown, so fully was the space occupied by figure work. Sometimes there would be represented, behind the figure, a screen of white, so that only the head and shoulders would stand revealed against dark colour. Sometimes this screen would be in colour, contrasting with the background, richly diapered in imitation of damask (page 342). Sometimes the background would be white, leaded perhaps in quarries; but in any case the prevalent scheme of design was to frame up pictures, more or less in colour, in architectural canopy work of white and stain. Yellow stain, it should be said, was freely used in connection with all this white; and its invariable association therewith is one of the marked characteristics of Later Gothic glass; but as a rule the yellow was not only delicate in tint but delicately introduced, so that it did not much disturb the effect of white. There were significant passages of yellow in it, but the effect of the mass was cool and silvery. In canopies yellow stain was used as gold might be in stonework, which the canopies imitated; crockets and pinnacles would be tipped with yellow, as with gilding (see opposite), and the reveal of the arch, shown in false perspective above the figure, would be similarly stained, so as to soften the transition from the dark colour of the background to the white of the canopy mass. One comes upon windows, probably of about the beginning of the end of the fourteenth century, in which the colour scheme is practically limited to red, white, and blue, the yellow being, comparatively speaking, lost in the white. Again, one finds windows in which the colours are much lighter than in earlier glass. But as a rule the lighter colours now introduced (the glazier's palette was by this time quite extensive) were used to support, and not to the exclusion of, the richer and deeper colour, which is the glory of glass, seldom to be dispensed with even in grisaille. You may do without colour altogether, but pale colours always have a poor effect. [Illustration: 139. FIGURE AND CANOPY, S. MARY'S, SHREWSBURY.] The typical Perpendicular canopies illustrated and already referred to are quite favourable specimens of the kind of thing in vogue throughout the fifteenth century. In France much the same forms were adopted (page 342). Some exceptionally delicate figure-and-canopy windows (or parts of them) are to be found in the cathedral at Toulouse--the figure in colour, or in white and colour, against a background of white, richly diapered with damask pattern, which quite sufficiently distinguishes it from the architecture only just touched with yellow. An instance of later German work is given below. The German designer indulged temperamentally in the interpenetration of shafting and other vagaries of the kind, which we find in German stone carving. Sometimes in German work, and occasionally also in French, Late Gothic canopies were all in yellow, framing the picture, as it were, in gold. As a rule, however, they were, as with us, silvery in tone, and framed the coloured glass in a way most absolutely satisfactory, so far as effect is concerned. [Illustration: 140. GERMAN LATE GOTHIC CANOPY.] In itself, however, this canopy work is rarely of any great interest; occasionally, as already in the preceding century, the designer has enniched in the shafts little figures of saints or angels (there is just the indication of such introduction of little statuettes in the very simple and restrained example of canopy work from Cologne, on page 191), redeeming it from dulness; but as a rule it is trite and commonplace to a degree. The white, as frame, is perfect. It is none the more so that it simulates misplaced stonework. What a strange thing it is in the history of ornament that the natural bias of the designer seems to be so irresistibly towards imitation! The man's first thought seems to be to make the thing he is doing look like something it is not. Why, having designed openings in the wall of his building, he should proceed forthwith to fill them up with something in poor imitation of masonry, is a mystery. Economy had then, perhaps, as now, more to do with it than art, for it is a very cheap expedient. [Illustration: 141. ALL SOULS' COLLEGE, OXFORD.] Not only in the matter of colour, but in that of proportion, the later Gothic canopies were a great improvement upon what had gone before. They were distributed still very much upon the horizontal principle so noticeable in Decorated work; but by this time the architect had come to the tardy conclusion that the long lights of his window wanted holding together, and he tied them together, if they were of any length, by means of transoms, in which case the glass-worker had to deal with lights of manageable length. The light from All Souls' College, here given, is an example of a very usual Perpendicular arrangement. About one half its entire length is occupied by a figure enshrined, as it were, in an architectural niche. The base of the canopy is about equal in height to the width of the light. The shafts are broad enough to emphasise the independence of the light. The pinnacles of the canopy extend into the window head. A point or two of background colour, as though one could see through, are ingeniously introduced into the canopy and its base. It would be difficult to better such an arrangement of white and colour, except that one feels the urgent want of a margin of white, to separate the coloured background from the masonry round the window head. [Illustration: 142. TWO WINDOWS, S. MARY'S, SHREWSBURY.] The idea is, no doubt, that the shrinework should appear to stand in the opening, and the figure be sheltered under that. The illusion aimed at, it is scarcely necessary to say, is not produced, and in any case would not have been worth producing. On the contrary, the desirable thing to be done was, to acknowledge the window opening, which, except for this pretence, the colour of the design effectually does. [Illustration: 143. FAIRFORD.] A frequent and equally typical arrangement was, where the light was long enough, to make the base itself take the form of a low canopy over a more or less square-proportioned subject, possibly a scene in the life of the Saint pourtrayed above. This gave opportunity of introducing figures on two different scales, without in any way endangering the significance of the more important figure, which, by its size and breadth of colour, asserted itself at a distance from which the smaller subject appeared only a mass of broken colour. The proportions and outline of such a subject are indicated by the Nativity on page 54, the jagged line at the top of the picture marking the inner line of the canopy work. In German work very commonly the base canopy encloses, as, for example, at Cologne Cathedral, a panel of heraldic blazonry. The height of the canopy was, with us, more or less in accordance with the length of the window; but sometimes more space was allowed for the figure than at All Souls', and the vacant space about the head of the saint was occupied with a label in white and stain bearing an inscription. There are some admirable figure-and-canopy windows of this description on the north side of the choir of York Minster, which seem to have inspired a great deal of our modern mock-Perpendicular figure-and-canopy glass. The label occurs, on a background of white architecture, behind the Prophets from Fairford on pages 187, 391. A more important example of it occurs round the figure of Edward the Confessor, from S. Mary's, Ross (opposite), and again in the group from the same source on page 339. Extremely clever ornamental use is made of the label--a typically Perpendicular form of enrichment--in the German glass on page 186. The extraordinary breadth of the phylacteries held by the Prophets in the early fifteenth century windows in the S. Chapelle at Riom, gives them quite a character of their own, and an admirable one. [Illustration: 144. THE QUEEN OF SHEBA BEFORE SOLOMON, FAIRFORD.] At Great Malvern we find the lights above the transom of a window occupied each by a figure and its canopy, whilst the lower lights contain each three tiers of small subjects, separated only by bands of inscription. In the four-light window at Malvern illustrating the Days of Creation, each light contains three little subjects, one of which is given on page 252. Sometimes, as in the windows from Fairford on pages 188, 372, subjects under a canopy are drawn to a scale as large as the size of the window will allow. [Illustration: 145. KING EDWARD, S. MARY'S, ROSS.] In some shape or another the canopy almost invariably appears in connection with figure work; it is the rarest thing to find, in place of the familiar shafting, a border, such as that opposite. [Illustration: 146. YORK MINSTER.] Of the gradual improvement in drawing in the fifteenth century work it is not necessary to say much. It belongs to the period rather than to glass painting, and it is shown in the examples illustrated. It is of no particular country, though our English work was possibly more constrained than contemporary continental work. Particularly characteristic of English work was the delicate tracing of the faces, which were pencilled, in fine lines, the treatment altogether rather flat, and this at a period when foreign glass was much more solidly modelled. It is not possible, on the scale of illustration determined by a book of this size, to illustrate this English peculiarity as clearly as one would wish, but it will be apparent to the seeing eye even here. It is within the bounds of possibility that the Fairford glass may have been executed in England; if so, Flemish or German painters certainly had a hand in it. To compare it with the neighbouring Perpendicular glass at Cirencester, with its delicate tracing and fine stain (in which matter the Fairford glass does not by any means excel), is to see how very different it is from typical English work. Whether we look at the detail of the canopies, or the drawing of the drapery, or the painting of the glass, we see little to connect this with English work, though it falls at once into its place as excellent Late Gothic glass. In the windows of the nave of Cologne Cathedral, a figure from one of which is here given, German Gothic glass reaches its limit. There is already a trace, if only in the broad shaft of the canopy, of Renaissance influence in the design. In others of these windows there are no single figures. Entire lights are filled with biblical or legendary scenes, one above the other, under dwarf canopies, which do not very clearly define the horizontal divisions of the window; for all that, the horizontal divisions are for the most part there. Except where the canopies are so insignificant as not to count, a Perpendicular window presents, as a rule, a screen of silvery-white, on which the pictures form so many panels of more or less jewelled colour. [Illustration: 147. COLOGNE CATHEDRAL.] The enormous East window at York Minster, which belongs to the very early years of the fifteenth century, contains, apart from its tracery, no less than a hundred and seventeen subjects in its twenty-seven lights; but the canopies dividing them are so narrow that they scarcely answer the purpose of frames to the separate subjects. The design is inextricably confused, and the subjects are very difficult to read; but the effect is still as of a mass of jewels caught in a network of white. In fact, the progress towards light is such that, whereas in the last century the problem was how to get more and more white glass into a coloured window, it seems now more often to be how to get colour into a white one. White and stain enter so largely into Late Gothic glass that there remains little to be said about grisaille. The glass of the period is, for the most part, in grisaille and colour, the difference between it and earlier grisaille being, that it consists so largely of figure-and-canopy work. Windows, however, do occur all in white or all in white and stain. Figures, for example, in white and stain, occur, as in the South transept at York, on a ground of delicately painted quarries. Again, a common arrangement is that of figures in white and colour against a background of quarry work, a band of inscription separating the pavement upon which they stand from quarries below them. Such figures form a belt across many moderate-sized windows in parish churches. Mere quarry lights also occur, with a border in which perhaps some colour occurs. But the subject of quarries and quarry windows is reserved for consideration in a chapter by itself. It must not be supposed that the drift of Later Gothic in the direction of white glass was uninterrupted. That was by no means so. At certain places, and at certain periods, and especially by certain artists, there seems to have been a reaction against this tendency, if ever there was any yielding to it. For example, notwithstanding all that has been said about the lighter tone of Decorated glass, some of the very finest fourteenth century German work, at S. Sebald's Church, Nuremberg, is as intensely and beautifully rich as anything in Early work. There rows of small subjects are framed in little canopies as deep in colour as the pictures, and white glass is conspicuous by its absence. The nearest approach to it is an opaque-looking horn colour, and that is used only very sparingly. Possibly, however, it is not quite fair to call these windows rich, for the upper part of them is light. So light is it, and so little has it to do with the stained glass, that one scarcely accepts it as part of the window, and therefore speaks of it as if it ended with the colour. The unfortunate plan has been adopted here, as in the cathedral at Munich and elsewhere in Germany, of filling only about half the window, from the sill upwards, with strong stained glass. This ends abruptly at an arbitrary and very unsatisfactory canopy arch, which, in a way, frames it; and above it the window is filled with plain white rounds. At Freiburg there is yet a further band of plain rounds next the sill of the windows. The object of this is, doubtless, to get light into the church; but the effect is as if the builders had run short of coloured glass, and had only finished off the window temporarily. As a means of combining white and colour this German shift is not, of course, to be compared to the plan current elsewhere of distributing them in alternating bands. It does not attempt to combine them, but cuts the window deliberately in two. Not until you have shaded off from your eyes the distracting rays of white light, can you properly appreciate or enjoy the coloured glass. But, if these windows must be considered, as in a sense they must be, as conforming to the demand for more light, there are others in which strong colour is carried consistently through, not only in the fourteenth but in the fifteenth century. (It is irritating and annoying to have to hark back in this way to periods supposed to have been long since left behind, but any arbitrary line of division between the styles must, as it were, cut off points which project from one into the other, sometimes very far indeed across the boundary line; and hence the absolute necessity, at times, of seeming to retrace our steps, if we would really trace the progress of design.) There are shown opposite four lights out of a large window in the clerestory of the cathedral at Troyes, in which the history of the Prodigal Son is pictured in little upright subjects, framed in canopies of quite modest proportions and of colour which in no wise keeps them separate from the richly coloured figures underneath. One of them, for example, is of green, very much the colour of an emerald, on an inky-purple ground. The result is a very rich window, full of quaintly dramatic interest when you come to examine it; but there are no broadly marked divisions of colour in the glass to affect the architecture of the building one way or the other, nor does it tell its tale very plainly. It is more easily read on page 194 than from the floor of the church. [Illustration: 148. THE PRODIGAL SON, TROYES.] In the windows so far discussed the figure subjects, however small and however close together, have always been marked off one from the other, slightly as it might be, at first by the marginal lines round the early subject medallions, and then by canopies. It is shown in another fifteenth century window from Troyes (opposite) how even that amount of framework was now sometimes abandoned. Progress in glass design, it was said, was in the direction of light and of picture. Moved by the double impulse, the designer of the Later Gothic period framed his coloured pictures in white. But where he happened not to care so much about light, or had not to consider it, he omitted even the narrow shaft of white or colour (which, so long as he used a canopy, usually divided the picture from the stonework) and left it to the mullions to separate them vertically. Horizontally he divided them slightly by a band of ornament, as at Troyes, of about the width of the mullions, or more frequently, and more plainly, by lines of inscription on white or yellow bands. If the subjects were arranged across the window in tiers alternately on ruby and blue grounds, that, of course, separated each somewhat from the one next above and below it, but it banded those on the same level together. This helped the architectural effect, but confused the story-telling. If the pictures were arranged, throughout the width as well as the length of the window, alternately in panels on red and blue grounds, that kept the pictures rather more apart, but made the distribution of the colour all-overish. That mere change of ground could not keep pictures effectively separate will be clear when it is seen (opposite) how little of the background extends to the mullion. The greater part of the figures come quite up to the stonework, and the subjects consequently run together. It is difficult to realise, except by experience, how little the stonework can be depended upon to frame stained glass. It seems when you see it all upon paper that the mullions, with their strongly marked mouldings, must effectually frame the glass between them. They do nothing of the kind. They go for so much shadow: what you see is the glass. This the glass painters realised at length, and took to carrying their pictures across them. And it has to be confessed that so long as they schemed them cleverly the interference of the mullion was not much felt. [Illustration: 149. THE STORY OF TOBIT, TROYES.] The distinction drawn so far between "single figures" and "subjects" has answered its obvious purpose; but that also is, in a manner, arbitrary. Figures standing separately, each in a light by itself, form very often a series--such as the four Evangelists, the twelve Apostles, the Prophets, the Doctors of the Church, or a succession of kings, bishops, or other ecclesiastics. More than that, they form perhaps a group. When we discover that facing the figure of the Virgin Mary is that of the Angel Gabriel, we see at once that, though each figure occupies a separate light of the window, and each stands in its own separate niche, we have in reality here a subject extending through two lights--the Annunciation. So in a four-light window--if in one light stands the Virgin with the Infant Christ, and in the others a series of richly garbed figures with crowns and gifts in their hands, it is clear that this represents the Adoration of the Magi--a subject in four lights; and the canopies over them may be taken to be one canopy with four niches. A yet more familiar instance of continuity between the single figures in the lights of a window occurs where the central light contains the Christ upon the cross, and in the sidelights stand the Virgin and S. John. We have in such cases the beginning of the subject extending through several lights. It is only a short step from the Annunciation, or the Adoration, or the Crucifixion described, to the same subject, under one canopy, extending boldly across the window, with shafts only to frame the picture at its sides. That is what was done--especially in Germany. It occurs already in Early Decorated glass, where the upper part of a big geometric window is sometimes occupied by brassy pinnacle work, which asserts itself, perhaps, upon a ground of mosaic diaper, in the most unpleasant way. In the white glass of a later period the effect was happier. At first the designer did not, as a rule, aspire to carry his subjects right across a big window. Accepting the transom as a natural division, he would perhaps divide a four-light window vertically into two, so as to get four subjects, each under a canopy extending across two lights; or, in a five-light window, he would probably separate these by other narrow subjects in the central lights. Divisions of this kind often occur already in the stonework of the window, the lights being architecturally divided by stronger mullions into groups. In that case all the glass painter does is to emphasise the grouping of the lights schemed by the architect. Where the architect has not provided for such grouping he does it, perhaps, for himself. It enables him to design his figures on a larger scale, and to get a much broader effect in his glass than he could do so long as he kept each picture rigorously within the limits of a single light. Consideration for his picture had probably more to do with his reticence than respect for its architectural framework; and so soon as ever he realised how little even a strong mullion would really interfere with his work, he made no scruple to take all the space he wanted for his purpose. Infinite variety of composition is the result. The upper half of the window is perhaps devoted to a single subject, or to two important pictures, whilst below the transom the lights are broken up into quite little pictures; or in place of these smaller pictures may be found little panels of heraldry, as occurs often in Flemish work. These or the smaller pictures may be continued in the sidelights of a broad window, flanking, and in a way framing, a large central picture. Sometimes, as in the nave of Cologne Cathedral, the upper half of the window may contain one imposing composition; below that may be a series of important single figures, each provided with its separate canopy; and below that again, at the base of the window, may be a series, or several series, of small heraldic panels. The canopy extending across a broad window (page 200) may be so schemed that there is obvious recognition of the lights into which it is divided, or it may sprawl across the window space with as little regard to intervening mullions as possible. There is now, in short, full scope for the fancy of the artist, were he never so fanciful; and it would be a hopeless task to try and catalogue the lines on which the design of a large window might now be set out. We do not in the fifteenth century arrive yet at the most remarkable achievements in glass painting. But you have only to compare such pictures as those on pages 194, 196, with that on page 127 to see what a complete revolution has come over the spirit of design. It is not only that the draughtsman has learnt to draw, and the painter to paint; they work on quite a different system. It was explained (page 44) how in early days the glazier conceived his design as mosaic, how he first thought it out in lead lines, and only relied on paint to help him out in details which glazing could not give him. Now, it is easy to see that the painter begins at the other end. He thinks out his picture as a painting, and relies upon glazing only for the colour which he cannot get without it. In the beginning, it was said, the glazier might often have fixed his lead lines, and trusted to his ingenuity to fill them in with painted detail. Now, it would seem, the painter might almost have sketched his picture, and then bethought him how to glaze it. But that is not yet really so. He did not even conceive his design as a picture and then translate it into glass. His work runs so smoothly it cannot be translation. The ingenuity with which he leads up little bits of colour in the midst of white, is no mere feat of engineering; it is spontaneous. It is clear that he had the thought of glazing in his mind all along--that he designed for it, in fact. The difference between the thirteenth century and the fifteenth century designer is, that one thinks first of glazing, is primarily a glazier, the other thinks first of painting, is primarily a painter. [Illustration: 150. FAIRFORD.] [Illustration: 151. RENAISSANCE WINDOW, TROYES CATHEDRAL.] CHAPTER XVII. SIXTEENTH CENTURY WINDOWS. The customary line between Gothic and Renaissance glass is drawn at about A.D. 1530. That is to say, that there are to be found examples, presumably of that date, which are still undoubtedly Gothic in character. But he would be a bold man, even for an archæologist, who dared to say precisely when the Gothic era came to an end. Quite early in the sixteenth century the new Italian movement began to make itself felt in France, Germany, Flanders; in due course it spread to this country. Eventually it supplanted the older style; but it was only by degrees that it insinuated itself into the affections of cis-alpine craftsmen. And in stained glass, even more plainly than in wood or stone carving, is seen how gradually the new style was assimilated by the mediæval craftsmen--more quickly, of course, by the younger generation than the older--so that, concurrently with design in the quasi-Italian manner, Gothic work was still being done. Much of the earlier Renaissance work shows lingering Gothic influence. In the first quarter of the sixteenth century a great deal of glass was designed and executed by men hesitating between the old love and the new, only partially emancipated from mediæval tradition, or only imperfectly versed in the foreign style. There is a window at S. Nizier, at Troyes, for example, in which the details are Renaissance, but the feeling is quite Gothic. The subjects are even explained by elaborate yellow scrolls or labels inscribed in black, very much after the manner of those which form such a feature in the German Gothic work at Shrewsbury (page 186). Renaissance forms are traced with a hand which betrays long training in the more rigid mediæval school; and Gothic and Italian details are put together in the same composition with a _naïveté_ which is sometimes quite charming. You can see that the designer of the window on page 203 was not untouched by Renaissance influence. Possibly he thought the hybrid ornament in his canopy was quite up to date. In the glass in the nave of Cologne Cathedral the suspicion aroused by the side columns of the otherwise quite Gothic canopy on page 191 is confirmed by definitely Renaissance forms in the ornament in the window head. Again, at the Church of S. Peter, at Cologne, is a sort of pointed canopy with ornament which looks at first like Gothic crockets, but on nearer view it is just Italian arabesque in white and stain. Apart from architectural accessories and detail of costume or ornament, to justify the attribution of the work to this or that period, it is very often difficult to give a name to early Renaissance work; the only safe refuge is in the convenient word transitional. But for the nimbus in perspective, and the shield of arms and its little amorino supporter, it would have seemed safe to describe the "Charge to S. Peter" from S. Vincent at Rouen on page 207 as "Gothic." In French glass a lingering Gothic element is noticeable at a period when Italian forms had firmly established themselves in contemporary plastic art; but, then, glass painting was not an Italian art; and, whilst wood carvers and sculptors were imported from Italy, and directly influenced the Frenchmen working with them, glass painting remained in the hands of native artists. Before very long the Renaissance did, of course, assert itself, in glass painting as in all art, and we arrive at windows absolutely different from anything that was done in the Middle Ages. The change was in some places much more rapid than in others. Wherever there was a strong man his influence would make for or against it. But meanwhile much intermediate work was done, belonging more or less to the new school, whilst retaining very much of the character of Gothic glass. That Gothic character was something well worth keeping; for it is the character which belongs inherently to the material. The Gothic glass painters did, in fact, so thoroughly develop the resources of the material, that a Renaissance window treated really like glass inevitably suggests the lingering of Gothic tradition. This is no slight praise of Gothic work; and, by implication, it tells against the later Renaissance glass painters, whose triumphs were in a direction somewhat apart from their craft. The great windows at Brussels, for example (page 71), illustrate a new departure. They seem to have nothing in common with mediæval art. On the other hand, one traces the descent of such masterpieces of translucent glass painting as are to be found at Arezzo (page 397), through those same intermediate efforts, directly to Gothic sources. [Illustration: 152. ST. MARY'S, SHREWSBURY.] To trace the steps by which the new encroached upon the old, as one may do, for example, at Rouen, is almost to come to the conclusion that the short but brilliant period of Renaissance glass painting is really the after-fruit of Gothic tradition, fertilised only by the great flood of Renaissance feeling which swept over sixteenth century art. Nowhere is this more clearly argued than in the windows at Auch, completed, according to all accounts, as early as 1513. A strain of Gothic is betrayed by the cusping which here and there fringes a semicircular canopy arch; but no less mistakably mediæval is the technique throughout, and equally so the setting out of the windows. For the somewhat imposing canopies are not, for once, devised as frames to correspondingly important pictures; but are simply shrines adorned with figures each confined to its separate light: it is only the small subsidiary predella or other such pictures which extend beyond the mullions. No doubt there is doctrinal intention in the juxtaposition of Prophets, Sibyls, and the rest--one of whom may even be supposed to be addressing the other--but to all intents and purposes decorative, they are just a row of standing figures, as distinct one from the other as the usual series of figures under quite separate canopies. It is only the canopy which connects them. This kind of composition (which is seen again at Troyes, page 200) would never have occurred to a man altogether cut off from Gothic tradition. [Illustration: 153. CHAPEL OF THE BOURBONS, LYONS.] [Illustration: 154. S. GODARD, ROUEN.] It is worth remarking that, even when Gothic and Renaissance canopies alternate at Auch in a single window, or where Gothic niches are built, as it were, into or on to larger Renaissance structures, there is no appearance of incongruity. Truth to tell, the Gothic is not so purely Gothic, nor the Renaissance so purely Renaissance, as that they should clash one with the other. Both are seen through the temperament of the artist. He mixed them in his mind; and the result is quite one, _his_ style in short. Early Renaissance glass submitted itself, one can hardly say duly, but almost as readily as late Gothic design, to the restraint of Gothic mullions. The windows in which, as it happens, some of the best Early French Renaissance work is found (and it is in France that the best is to be found) are often smaller than the great Perpendicular windows referred to, and do not lend themselves to such elaborate subdivision. But the lines on which they are subdivided are very much as heretofore. The canopy still extends through several lights, and covers a single subject. Only now it is Renaissance in design. That does not mean to say merely that round arched architecture takes the place of pointed. The round arch occurs indeed, as in the windows in the Chapel of the Bourbons, in Lyons Cathedral (on pages 204 and 349), supplemented by amorini and festoons of fruit. But more often the canopy takes the form of a frieze of Renaissance ornament, painted in white and stain, as at S. Godard, Rouen (opposite), or glazed in white on colour, as in the cathedral of the same city (pages 75, 350), supported at each end by a pilaster. Not seldom it resolves itself into arabesque only very remotely connected with architecture at all. Indeed, if it simulate anything, it is goldsmith's work rather than masonry. Executed, as at Rouen (pages 75, 206), in brilliant yellow on a dark coloured ground, it has very much the appearance and value of beaten gold. That, rather than sculpture, must have been in the mind of the designer. One form of imitation is not much better than another; but here, at all events, there is nothing which in the least competes with the surrounding architecture; and it will scarcely be denied by any one who takes the least interest in ornament, that design of this kind is vastly more amusing than the dull array of misplaced pinnacles which often did duty for ornamental detail in Gothic shrinework. A German version of a canopy which ceases almost to be a canopy and becomes more like arabesque, is given on page 350. That is supported by columns (the caps are shown in the illustration) rather out of keeping with the ornament they support, which makes very little pretence of being architectural. The canopies on pages 204, 350, are supported only on little brackets at each side, and have no shafts at all. This marks a new departure. The picture has now no frame at its sides, only the stone mullion. [Illustration: 155. S. PATRICE, ROUEN.] [Illustration: 156. SUBJECT, S. VINCENT, ROUEN, 1525.] It was explained, in reference to glazing, what confusion of detail resulted from the use of leads of which some were intended to form part of the design and some not. Similar confusion is inevitable when certain of the mullions are meant to be accepted as frame to the picture and others to be ignored. The perhaps not very conspicuous canopy is often the only hint as to which of the stone divisions you are to accept as such, and which not. Even that was not always there to serve as a guide. Already, as early as 1525, the date given to the window illustrating the life of S. Peter (page 207), the canopy was sometimes annulled, and the window given over entirely to picture, either one complete subject or a series of smaller ones. The window dedicated to S. Peter contains in its four lights eight equal subjects, a plan adopted in several others of the windows at S. Vincent, Rouen. In a series of unframed subjects, such as these, there is much less danger of confusion should some one prominent figure recur throughout always in the same costume. That is the case here, and again at Châlons, where the figure of Our Lord, robed in purple, is conspicuous throughout: the mind grasps at a glance that this is not one picture but a series. A change of period is indicated by the departure from the disc-shaped nimbus. On pages 207, 210, 234, 397, the nimbus is shown in perspective; an attempt is even made to make it hover above the head, an effect not possible to produce in leaded glass; even at Arezzo it is not achieved. Neither is the use of a mere ring of light, whether in flat or in perspective, a happy substitution for the Gothic colour disc, as may be seen, for example, at Cologne. The idea of the nimbus only keeps within the border line which separates the sublime from the ridiculous, so long as the thing is frankly accepted as a symbol, not as an effect. But, were it otherwise, the use of the strongly marked disc of colour about the head of prominent personages has an enormous value as a means of distinguishing them from the background or from surrounding figures. Its decorative importance is no less than its symbolic. Very especially is this so in glass; and the glass painter who wantonly departs from its use, reduces it to a mere ring (which does not separate it at all from the background) or poises it in the air, is beginning to wander from the way, narrow if you please, which leads to success in glass. This is said with some reluctance in face of the all but perfect little panel from S. Bonnet, at Bourges, on page 210. It is true that there the nimbus of the boy saint, though in perspective, does by its dark tone separate the head from the light ground, as the face is separated from the darker drapery of his teacher; and, in so far, little of definition is sacrificed; but, after all, admirably as the design is schemed, the oval nimbus is not a whit less conventional than the round disc of mediæval times, and it does lack something of distinction and dignity which that conveyed. The date inscribed (1544) serves to remind us that we are nearing the middle of the century, at which period glass painting may safely be said to have reached its zenith and to be nearing the verge of decline. It will have been seen in the examples lately instanced how story is gradually more and more naturally set forth in glass. There is now no vestige of flat treatment left. Even the standing figure (page 191) stands forth from his niche, and though he may be backed by a curtain of damask, there is shown above that a background of receding architecture. So in the S. Bernard windows at Shrewsbury (pages 56, 203) there is architectural distance shown in perspective, and again in the subjects from Fairford, whether it be the portcullised gate of Jerusalem that is represented (page 251), or the very inadequate palace of King Solomon (page 188), or the Garden of Eden, in which the scene of the Temptation is primitively pourtrayed (page 372), there is some attempt to render the scene. Even in the fifteenth century work at Troyes (page 194) the Prodigal is not merely shown among the swine, joining them in a dinner of gigantic acorns, but he leans against an oak tree, and in the distance is a little forest of trees. In Renaissance glass the scene is much more naturally rendered, and forms almost invariably an important part of the composition. Witness the palace of Herod (page 74) when Salome dances before him, which is a great advance upon the Gothic throne-room of King Solomon (page 188). [Illustration: 157. SUBJECT, S. BONNET, BOURGES.] The scene takes one of three forms: either it is architectural, or it is landscape, or it is of architecture and landscape combined. A very favourite plan of the French was to show distant architecture (glazed in deep purple) through which were seen glimpses of grey sky, and perhaps a peep of landscape; and it resulted invariably in a beautiful effect of colour. In fact, a scheme of colour which recurs again and again at Rouen, and in other French glass of the first part of the sixteenth century, consists in the introduction of figures in rich colour and white upon a background where white, green, purple, and pale blue predominate to such an extent as to give quite a distinctive character to the glass. The more distant landscape was painted very delicately upon the pale grey-blue glass which served for sky, as shown on page 255, and in the same way architecture was also painted upon it. In the view through the arches above the screen in a window at Montmorency (page 213), both trees and buildings are represented in that way upon pale grey glass, the green of the trees and hills stained upon it. Sometimes the distance is painted upon white, as at King's College, Cambridge; but in France the pale grey-blue background is so usual as to be quite characteristic of the period. All this is a long way from the mere diaper of clouds which in the early fifteenth century sometimes took the place of damask pattern upon the blue which formed a background to the Crucifixion, or other scene out of doors. It is now no longer a case of symbolising, but of representing, the sky, and it is wonderful what atmospheric quality is obtained by the judicious use of pale blue painted with the requisite delicacy. The beauty of this kind of work, especially on a small scale, is beyond dispute. Together with the rendering of the flesh, it implies consummate skill in painting. The painter comes quite to the front; but he justifies himself inasmuch as he is able to hold the place. He does what his Gothic predecessors could not have done, and does it perfectly. Could the Gothic artist have painted like this, he also might have been tempted so far in the pictorial direction as to have sacrificed some of the sterner qualities of his design. The architectural environment of the figures on page 213 fulfils somewhat the function of the Perpendicular canopy; it forms a kind of setting of white for the colour; but, in the first place, it does not pretend to frame them at the side, and, in the second, the attempt at actual perspective necessitates an amount of shading upon the white glass which detracts at once from its purity and from its value as setting to the colour. The idea is there that you see through the window into space; and, though that effect is never obtained, it is wonderful how far some of the glass painters later in the century went towards illusion. A certain false air of truth was sometimes given to the would-be deception by an acknowledgment of the window-shape--that is, by making the foremost arch or arches follow the shape of the window head, and form, as it were, a canopy losing itself in perspective. Architecture proper to the subject, or not too inappropriate to it, is sometimes schemed so far to accommodate itself to the window-shape as to form, with the white pavement, a more or less canopy-like setting for the figures. It may be a sort of proscenium, the sides of which recede into the picture, and form what may be called the scenery. At King's College, Cambridge, Esau is seen bargaining away his birthright at a table where stands the coveted pottage, in the midst of spacious halls going back into distant vistas, seen through a sort of canopy next the actual stonework. That concession to the framework of the window does mend matters somewhat. The base of the picture opposite, for example, is much more satisfactory than it would have been had it not acknowledged the window-sill; but the architecture in the top part of the lights is not a frame to the picture at all, nor yet a finish to the glass: it is part of the picture, which thus, you may say, occupies the window as a picture its canvas. In reality that is not quite so. There is some acknowledgment, though inadequate, of the spring of the arch by a horizontal cornice parallel with the bar; and the arcading, though interrupted by the mullion and by the marble columns, steadies the design; and altogether the architecture is planned with ingenuity, though without frank enough acceptance of the window-shape. One would be more tolerant to such misguided freedom of design were it not for the kind of thing it led to. It must be admitted that both French and Flemings, until they began to force their perspective, and to paint shadow heavily, did very beautiful and effective work in this way. A multitude of figures, as, for example, in the Judgment of Solomon at S. Gervais, Paris, more or less in rich colour, could be held together by distant architecture and foreground pavement largely consisting of white glass, in a way which left little to be desired, except fuller acknowledgment of the stonework. But it took a master of design to do it, and one with a fine sense of breadth and architectural fitness. When such architecture was kept so light as to have the full value of white, and when the figures against it were also to a large extent in white, and the colour was introduced only in little patches and jewels skilfully designed to form, here the sleeves of a white-robed figure, there a headdress, there again the glimpse of an underskirt, and so on--all ingeniously designed for the express purpose of introducing rich colour, the whole shot through with golden stain--the effect is sometimes very beautiful. [Illustration: 158. SAINTS, CH. OF S. MARTIN, MONTMORENCY.] Admirable Flemish work, Renaissance in detail, but carrying on the traditions of Gothic art, is to be found in plenty at Liège, both in the cathedral (1530 to 1557) and at S. Martin. This is excellent in drawing and composition, most highly finished in painting, fine in colour, and silvery as to its white glass, which last is splendidly stained. In the same city there is beautiful work also at S. Jacques, with admirable treatment of the canopy on a large scale. It differs from French work inasmuch as it is Flemish, just as the glass at the church of Brou differs in that there is a characteristic Burgundian flavour about it; but those are details of locality, which do not especially affect the course of glass painting, and which it would be out of place here to discuss. In England we are not rich in Renaissance glass. The best we have is Flemish, from Herkenrode, now in the cathedral at Lichfield. The greater part of this is collected in seven windows of the Lady Chapel--no need to explain which; the miserable shields of arms in the remaining two convict themselves of modernity. In the tracery, too, there is some old glass, but it is lost in the glare of new glazing adjacent. Otherwise this glass is not much hurt by restoration. Four of the windows are treated much alike; that is, they have each three subjects, extending each across the three lights of which they are composed, some with enclosing canopy, and some without. A fifth three-light window is broken up into six tiers of subjects, each of which appears at first sight as if it were confined to the limits of a single light, but there is in fact connection between the figures; for example, of three figures the central one proves to be the Patron Saint of the Donor, himself occupying one of the sidelights, and his wife the other. If the Saint is seated the Donors stand. If he is represented standing they kneel before him. The two larger six-light windows at Lichfield are divided each into four; that is to say, the four quarters of the window have each a separate subject which extends laterally through three lights, and in depth occupies with its canopy about half the entire height of the window. The Lichfield glass has very much the character of that at Liège. So has the Flemish glass now at the east end of S. George's, Hanover Square, a church famous for its fashionable weddings. This is some of the best glass in London, well worthy the attention of the guests pending the arrival of the bride. The design, however, is calculated to mystify the student, until he becomes aware that the lights form part of a "Tree of Jesse," adapted, not very intelligently, to their present position, and marred by hideous restoration, such as the patch of excruciating blue in the robe of the Virgin. The vine, executed in stain upon white, with grapes in pot-metal purples, is not nearly strong enough to support the figures; this may be in part due to the decay of the paint, which has proceeded apace. Again, at Chantilly (page 218) may be seen how lead lines quarrel with delicate painting. The more delicate the painting, the greater the danger of that--a danger seldom altogether overcome. [Illustration: 159. S. GEORGE'S, HANOVER SQUARE, LONDON.] The most important series of Renaissance windows in this country is in King's College Chapel, Cambridge. "Indentures" still remain to tell us that these were contracted for in 1516 and 1526. Apart from some strikingly English-looking figures in white and stain upon quarry backgrounds in a side chapel, and other remains of similar character, and from a very beautiful window almost opposite the door by which one enters--differing in type, in scale, in colour, altogether from the other windows--the glass throughout the huge chapel was obviously planned at the time of the first contract, and there is a certain symmetry of arrangement throughout which bespeaks the period of transition. The windows consist each of two tiers of five lights. A five-light window offers some difficulty to the designer if he desire (as in the sixteenth century he naturally did) to introduce subjects extending across more than one light. A subject in two lights does not symmetrically balance with a subject in three. He might carry his subject right across the window, but that might give him very likely a larger space to fill than he wanted; and besides, the time was hardly come for him to think of that. He might carry it across the central group of three; but that would leave him a single light on each side to dispose of. Remains the idea of a subject in two lights at each side of the window, and a central composition occupying only one light. That was not a very usual plan, although it was adopted, at Fairford for example, where the side subjects in two lights under a canopy are effectually separated by a central subject which has none. At King's the sidelights have no canopies further than such as may be accepted as part of the architecture proper to the subject, schemed more or less to frame the picture (as in the case of the window at Montmorency, page 213); it is only in the centre lights that the figures (two in each light, one above the other) are enclosed in canopy work. These figures (described as "messengers"), with elaborately flowing scrolls about them inscribed with texts of Scripture, are many of them quite Gothic in character, even though they have Renaissance canopies over them. The designs of these mostly do duty many times over, as if this merely decorative or descriptive work were not of much account; and the same figure occurs, here well painted, there ill done, or painted perhaps in a late, loose way, quite out of keeping with the drawing: there is no sort of sequence in them. The notion of these intermediate figures, at once distinguishing the subjects one from the other, and throwing light upon their meaning, is good. But in effect it fails of its object, thanks to the independent spirit of the later painters, who thought more of their pictures than of architectural restraint. The subjects on each side of the window are very large in scale, very pictorially and very freely treated, very finely designed at times, and very splendid in effect; but they are most unequal, and they are all more or less of a tangle. Their confusion is the greater inasmuch as there is no attempt to balance one picture with another. A landscape background on one side of the window answers to an architectural background on the other. On one side the interest of the subject is towards the top of the lights, on the other to the bottom, and so on. Either subject or both may be so merged with the "messengers" that a casual observer would hardly be aware of the existence of such personages. [Illustration: 160. THE STORY OF PSYCHE, CHANTILLY.] All this makes it difficult to trace the subject; and yet the windows are in a certain pictorial way the more effective. In fact the unity of the _window_ has been preserved: the white landscape on one side, and the white architecture on the other, make equally a setting for the colour, and form, with the "messengers" and their little canopies, _one_ framing, not several frames. Right or wrong, the artist has done what he meant to do, and done it oftentimes very cleverly, though not with uniform success. The inequality spoken of is not only in workmanship but in design. Some of these pictures have characteristics, such as the needless evasion of leading, which one associates rather with quite the end of the century than with anything like the date of the second contract: possibly the execution of the work extended over a longer period of time than is generally supposed. However that may be, the windows generally, remarkable as they are, are not markedly enough of a period to serve as an object lesson in glass design. They are neither quite late enough to illustrate the decline of art, nor workmanlike enough to show the culmination of sixteenth century design--painter-like and pictorial, but in which the designer knew how to make the most of the glass in which it was to be wrought. That is best seen in some of the French and Flemish work above referred to, in the work, for example, at Ecouen and Montmorency, so fully illustrated in Monsieur Magne's most admirable monograph. The figure, for example, of William of Montmorency (page 66), the father of the great Anne, might serve for a votive picture of the period; but it is designed, nevertheless, as only a man careful of the conditions under which glass painting was done could design. Careful of conditions! That is just what the designers of the King's College glass were not, or not enough. And so begins the end. CHAPTER XVIII. LATER RENAISSANCE WINDOWS. The magnificent windows of Van Orley at S. Gudule, Brussels, mark in a sense the summit of design, as well as of painting, in stained glass. But it is design of a kind not strictly proper to the material, for which reason the discussion of his work, though it was done well within the first half of the sixteenth century, has been reserved by way of introduction to the period which it inaugurated, the period when the glass painter not merely put painting first of all, but sacrificed to it qualities peculiar to glass. The heavy painting of this work and much that followed it has already been discussed. But something of that was perhaps implied in the very ideal of the painter; the execution only follows out the scheme of the design. The scope as well as the power of the designer is better illustrated in the two great transept windows, than in those of the chapel of the Holy Sacrament. Even in the very inadequate rendering of the one of them on page 71 may be seen how large and dignified the man's conception was. The effect is gorgeous; but it is produced as simply, for all the unsurpassed elaboration of ornamental detail, as a Goth could wish. An unsophisticated designer of the thirteenth century could scarcely have gone more directly to work. He would not have grouped his figures with such art, but he would have separated each from the other and from the ground in much such a straightforward way. Yet the _motif_ of the design, the idea of making figures and architecture stand as it were in strong and round relief against the light, went far to bring about excessive use of paint; and the design is therefore in a measure at fault, as was the later Netherlandish work, founded upon it, of which it may be taken as the nobler type. It is a far cry from the slender Perpendicular canopy to this triumphal arch. The architecture is here no frame to the picture, but the backbone of the picture itself, and it is disposed in the most masterly way. It takes the place of a magnificent high altar. Sometimes in compositions of this kind the altar-like canopy enshrines a rich picture, just as veritable stonework might frame a painted altar-piece, whilst in the foreground kneel the Donors. In this case Charles the Fifth and his wife Isabella and their attendant saints are the picture, the object of their adoration, the Almighty, being relegated to one of the side arches. Similarly in a three-light window (of much more glassy character, however) at Montmorency, Guy de Laval has the central position, and the crucifix before which he kneels is put on one side. This is rather characteristic of the period. In the sixteenth century windows were erected, not so much to the glory of God, as to the glorification of the Donor, who claimed a foremost, if not the very central, place for himself. The donor was no doubt always, as to this day, an important person in connection with the putting up of a stained glass window. But in early days he was content to efface himself, or if he appeared upon the scene at all it was in miniature, modestly presenting the little image of his gift in a lower corner of the window. In the fourteenth century he is still content with the space of a small panel, bearing his effigy or his arms, at the base of the window. Even in the fifteenth he is content at times to be represented by his patron saint, as in the beautiful window in the chapel of Jacques Coeur, at Bourges. In the sixteenth he is very much in evidence. No scruple of modesty, or suspicion of unworthiness, restrains him from putting in an appearance in the midst of the most serious and sacred scenes, very much sometimes to the confusion of the story. Eventually the donor, his wife, and perhaps his family, with their patron saints, who literally back them up in their obtrusiveness, claim, if they do not absorb, all our attention, and the sacred subject takes quite a back place. In the foreground of the scene of the Last Judgment which occupies the great west window at S. Gudule, Brussels, kneels the donor, with attendant angels, on a scale much larger than the rest of the world, competing in fact in importance with the figure of Our Lord in Majesty above. However, the vain-glory of princes and seigneurs resulted in the production of works of such consummate art that, as artists, we can but be grateful to them. In the presence of the splendid achievement of Van Orley, who shall say that the artist does not justify himself? Nothing equal to it _in its way_ was ever done. [Illustration: 161. THE PARABLE OF THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAN, GOUDA.] It may not be according to the strict rules of the game: it is not; but that it is magnificent, no fair-minded artist can deny. Our just cause of quarrel is, not with that, but with what that led to, what that became in less competent hands. It is the price we pay for strong men that they induce weak ones to follow them in a direction where they are bound to fail. Van Orley's triumphant answer to any carping of ours would be, to point to the great west window of the cathedral, designed on earlier and more orthodox lines, and say: "Compare!" We have no right to limit art to what small folk can do. The further development of the Netherlandish canopy is shown in the Gouda glass above. Here is still considerable skill in the way in which the window is set out, and the patches of colour are introduced (for example, in the two figures leaning on the balcony and the wreath of leaves and fruit above them) amidst the predominant white,--if only the white glass had been whiter in effect. But there is altogether too much of this architectural work, even though it is used, in the pictured parable at least, to dramatic purpose. The notion of the Pharisee gesticulating away in the far distance, whilst the Publican modestly fills the foreground, is cleverly conceived and skilfully carried out; but the picture is overpowered by its ponderous frame. [Illustration: 162. GOUDA, 1596.] It is in the wonderful series of late sixteenth century windows at Gouda, in Holland, that the fullest and furthest development of pictorial design is shown. The period of their execution extends from 1555 to 1603; and, as they are admittedly the finest works of their day, they may be taken to represent the best work of the latter half of the sixteenth century. They are, in fact, typical of the period, only at its best; it is not often that work of that date was designed with such power or painted with such skill. The diagrams given here and on pages 79, 244, 258, do no manner of justice to the glass; but they will help the reader better to understand what is said concerning it. They indicate at least the lines on which these daring designers planned their huge windows, the main lines which pictorial design on a large scale is destined henceforth to take. In the clerestory of S. Eustache, Paris, are some large two-light windows which somewhat recall the Gouda work; but the design is rather original. One vast architectural composition in white, not very heavily painted, fills the window, against which stand a series of giant Apostles in colour, one in each light, occupying about one-third of the height of the window. This much recognition of the separate openings is something to be thankful for towards the middle of the seventeenth century. [Illustration: 163. S. SEBALD'S, NUREMBERG.] A striking feature, we have seen, about the later Renaissance canopy as shown at Gouda, and already at Brussels, is its vast dimensions. It no longer frames the picture: it is a prominent, sometimes the most prominent, feature in its design. Even earlier than that the canopy was already sometimes of very considerable extent. At S. Sebald's, Nuremberg, there is a great altar-like canopy ending in a pediment about two-thirds of the way up the window, with plain white glass above, in which the shafting at the side takes up practically the entire width of the two outer lights, as here shown in the diagram of a portion of the glass. Yet this window is as early as the year 1515, and before the period when masses of deep shadow were represented by paint. Accordingly the canopy in this instance is glazed in pot-metal of steely grey-blue, which, with the little figures, mainly in steely grey armour against a white ground, and the heraldic shields at the side, mainly in red and white, all very slightly shaded, has a singularly fresh, bright, and delicate effect. Another instance of preponderating architectural work occurs also at Nuremberg in the choir of the church of S. Lorenz, and though it belongs to the beginning of the seventeenth century, that too is leaded up much as it might have been in the fifteenth. But the great clumsy column, opposite, with its clumsier figure of Fame, against a ruby background extending right up to the stonework of the window, is not a satisfactory filling to the outer light of a big window. The last thing to expect of late Renaissance work is modesty in the use of architectural accessories, whether in the form of frame or background. Frame and background they are not; they claim to be all or nothing. Just as ornamental design was gradually pushed out of use by figure work, so the picture was in time overpowered by its frame. And the frame was in the end such that, when it came to be discarded, it was not much loss. [Illustration: 164. S. LORENZ, NUREMBERG.] In the latter half of the sixteenth century and thenceforward design continued to travel in the direction of what was meant for a sort of realism. If the more or less altar-like canopy was retained, it was meant to appear as if it stood bodily under the arch of the window; if it was abandoned, you were supposed to see more or less _through_ the window, perhaps into distant country, perhaps into receding aisles of the church. It formed part of the canopy scheme, that the structure should end before it reached the top of the window, so that you could see beyond it into space. The designers would have been only too happy if they could have done away with the glass above that. If they had had big sheets of plate glass, they would certainly have used them to produce the effect of out of doors--there was already a _plein air_ school in the eighteenth century--as they had not, they were obliged to accept the inevitable, and lead up their white glass; but they went as far as they could to doing away with its effect, using thin, transparent material, which was not meant to appear as though it formed part of the composition. Occasionally they would use pale blue glass, or tint it in a blue enamel, further to suggest the sky beyond. This (page 222) would commonly be glazed in squares. The pure white glass also was often glazed in square or, as at Brussels, diamond quarries (page 71). Subjects themselves, it has been explained, came to be glazed as much as possible in rectangular panes; but it marks, it may here be mentioned, a decline of design, as well as of technique, when these came to interfere in any way, as they did, with the drawing. Having made up his mind that his design is to be glazed in rigid square lines, the artist should logically have designed accordingly. He had only to mark off the glazing lines on his cartoon, and scheme his composition so that it was not hurt by them. Towards the seventeenth century the plain glass, the extra part beyond the canopy or beyond the picture, would often be glazed in some simple pattern. That, you might imagine, stood for the window _behind_ the picture or the monument. At the church of S. Jacques, Antwerp, above a picture of the Circumcision, is a canopy leaded in squares and painted to look like falsehood, beyond which clear glass is glazed in a pattern. Occasionally an attempt is made to merge the picture into the plain glazing above, as at S. Paul's, Antwerp, where the yellow sky, against which is shown the distant city, and so on, is glazed in squares, which further off become gradually white, and then at their interstices have smaller diamond-shaped pieces of glass let in. Where a subject glazed in quarries is represented against a background of plain glazing of more elaborate design, there is difficulty in joining the two, except by means of a strong lead outline to the figures, or whatever may come next to the plain glass, which outline the seventeenth century designer was anxious before all things to avoid. Accordingly, as the plain pattern work approached the margin of the painted work, he replaced the leads by paint, which sham leads, of course, could be made to disappear as seemed good to him. But these little games of his, to judge by results, were hardly worth the candle. It will be seen how, in the French glass on page 200, the canopy came to be backed and surrounded by unpainted glass, quarries in that case. There the canopy sufficiently occupies the window space not to strike one unpleasantly; but that is sixteenth century work; later, and especially in Flanders, canopies are represented, as in the cathedral at Antwerp (1615), adrift, as it were, in a sea of plain glazing. Even when the glass has some quality of glass the effect of that is not happy. When the glass is thin and transparent it is disastrous. At S. Jacques, Antwerp, again, coats of arms hover unsupported in mid-air, the mere lines of the glazing being quite inadequate to their apparent support. It is different, of course, where the heraldic device, as opposite, is itself little more than plain glazing. That is a very mild form of art; but, in its way, it is satisfactory enough. Perhaps least fortunate of all in effect are the landscapes at S. Jacques, which float, without even a canopy to frame them, in an atmosphere of leaded glass. Antwerp is rich in glass, much of it very cleverly executed, which would serve very well to illustrate how _not_ to design a window. [Illustration: 165. GOUDA, 1688.] The place of the canopy was supplied sometimes, especially in later Netherlandish work, by the cartouche so dear to the Dutch. It fulfilled very much the office of the canopy, framing the design; and, had it been kept white, it would have framed it well, affording circular and other shapes which form a welcome variation upon the usual arched opening. But it was not white at all; very much the reverse. Indeed the idea of the Dutch cartouche, with its interpenetration of parts, and curling and projecting straps and bolts, tempts the painter to a heavy method of painting, destructive of the very quality of white. The device depends for its effect far too much upon force of shadow to be of any great use in white glass. The comparatively early cartouche in the lower half of the window at Gouda, given on page 223, is of the simplest kind, and has none of that too-seductive bolt work; but it is dull and heavy in effect, being painted in heavy brown, with the idea of giving atmospheric effect to the picture supposed to be seen through it. [Illustration: 166. PLAIN GLAZING, S. GERVAIS, PARIS.] A great cartouche is often used as a kind of base to a canopy extending across the whole width of a wide window, or the base of the canopy may include a very important cartouche, occupied in either case by a long inscription. Here again the oblong patch of white or yellow may have value, in proportion as it is allowed to preserve the quality of glass. There is, however, something poor and mean about large areas of small lettering, and it is a pity to see the opportunity which bold inscriptions give quite thrown away. Moreover, the inscriptions are invariably too long. The framers of inscriptions do not realise the multitude of readers they scare away by the volume of their wording. The design of a window at S. Jacques, Antwerp, consists merely of an inscription label, with a helmet above and mantling in black and white (the black, of course, paint) set in plain glazing. Up to the very last whole windows were glazed very often in plain patterns, usually all in clear white glass. A couple of designs, into which a little colour is introduced, are given below and opposite. In spite of the increased facility for cutting glass, afforded from the beginning of the century by the use of the diamond, patterns were seldom very elaborate; but, by way of illustrating what can be done by means of the diamond, there is shown overleaf quite a conjuring feat of glazing. The thick black lines in the drawing represent the leads; the white spaces enclosed are plain white glass, rather poor in quality; the thinner lines stand for cracks, possibly not, or not all of them, of the glazier's doing, for it would be almost impossible to handle such work without breaking it. It is well-nigh incredible that each of these _fleurs-de-lys_ should have been cut out of a single piece of glass, the marginal band to it out of a second, and so with the background spaces. Glaziers may be inclined to question the possibility of such a _tour de force_, even in poor thin glass. Certainly one would not have thought it possible; but there it is, in the museum at Angers, close to the eye, where you can see and examine it. This is glazing with a vengeance. It is not the sort of thing that any one would undertake, except as a trial piece, to show his skill; but if ever a glazier deserved his diploma of mastership here is the man. [Illustration: 167. PLAIN GLAZING, LISIEUX.] [Illustration: 168. A TOUR DE FORCE IN GLAZING, ANGERS MUSEUM.] The composition of some of the windows belonging to the first half of the seventeenth century at Troyes does not follow the general tendency of the period. The better part of this, if not the greater, is attributed to Linard Gontier (1606-1648). But the design of these windows, and the style of them, is so varied, and sometimes so little of the period, that one is disposed to think, either that he was a painter only and did not design them at all, or that he borrowed his designs freely from Italian and other sources. The panel on page 400, the Virgin girt with clouds and cherubs, distinctly recalls the work of the Della Robbia School; and again the figures opposite remind one of late sixteenth century paintings. An unusual thing, however, about some of these windows is the way they are set out. The disposition of the design of the three-light window from S. Martin ès Vignes is as simple and severe as though it had been Gothic. The glazing, too, is not in squares, but follows the design. Except for the rather robustious drawing of the figures, and the futile kind of detail which does duty for canopy work, the glass might belong to the first half of the sixteenth century. [Illustration: 169. THREE LIGHTS, S. MARTIN-ÈS-VIGNES, TROYES.] Again, in the subject of the marriage of SS. Joachim and Anna on page 234, it is rather by the types of feature and the cast of draperies, than by the composition, that the date of the work proclaims itself. It is proclaimed, of course, unmistakably by the use of enamel, not only in the warm-coloured flesh, but throughout, to support, and sometimes to supply the place of, pot-metal glass. Nevertheless, the effect of much of this glass is brilliant to a degree almost unprecedented in the first half of the seventeenth century. The painter had skill enough to get the maximum of modelling with the minimum of paint. He could afford, therefore, to use paint sparingly, leaving plenty of glass clear, and seldom sacrificing its translucency, as was done in the group of donors on page 81, whose black mantles are rendered in solid paint. Those heavily painted figures recall a couple of Donors in a window at Antwerp (1626), equally black robed, against a nearly black screen, all in paint: they would have made a capital votive picture; but they are about as unlike glass as anything one can conceive. Exceptionally good seventeenth century work is to be found also at Auch. It seems that it was proposed (towards 1650) to complete the windows in a way worthy of the splendid beginning in the choir; but the art was not forthcoming; and the Chapter of that day was wise enough to fall back upon comparatively unimportant quarry windows, with borders and tracery in white and stain and blue enamel, which is at least brilliant in colour, and pleasing in effect. That may be said also of the Western Rose. In the Roses of the transepts, the artist goes further, and produces, by means of arabesque in white and stain, upon a ground mainly of blue and ruby, occasionally varied by green, each light defined by a simple border of white and stain, a couple of flamboyant Rose windows with glass which would do credit to the period of the stonework. They might well (at the distance they are placed from the eye) be taken at first sight for Early Renaissance work. In fact they are really mosaic glass--so rare a thing by this time that the windows are probably of their kind unique. Even at its best enamelled glass is less effective than the earlier work. In proportion as the place of pot-metal is supplied by enamel, the colour is inevitably diluted, and at times it is quite thin. Indeed, it is pretty well proved, by the work of men who are masters in their way, that, in painted as distinguished from mosaic glass, the choice lies between weak colour and opacity. At Auch and at Troyes we have weak but still often pure and brilliant colour. The opposite defect of opacity reaches probably its greatest depth in the four great Rubens-like windows at S. Gudule in the chapel of Our Lady immediately opposite that of the Holy Sacrament, where Van Orley's windows are. The design is there absolutely regardless of any consideration of glass or architecture. Each window is treated as a vast oil picture, without so much as a frame. Here is no vista of distant architecture, nor any such relief of lighter colour as you find at Gouda. Force of colour is sought by masses of deep shadow, into which the figures merge. This shadow being obtained by paint, and the glazing being in the now usual squares, there are literally yards of painted quarries, which, except when the sun is at its fiercest, are all but black. And withal the effect is not rich as compared with even the common Gothic glass, though it is not without a certain picturesqueness when perchance the sun struggles through. A painter might find it an admirable background to his picture; no architect would choose it for his building. Three of these windows were designed, it seems, by a pupil of Rubens, Van Thulden, who worked under him at the Luxembourg, and they have all the character of his work--except that the colour is dull. At New College, Oxford, are some smaller windows with figures, also recalling the manner of the master, and said to be by pupils of his. They, too, are dull and heavy in effect. The canopies over the figures are terrible caricatures of the Gothic shrines in the ante-chapel. Better seventeenth century glass is to be found at Oxford in the work of the Van Lingen, a family of Dutchmen settled in England, who executed windows in Wadham and Balliol Colleges and elsewhere. Some of these are rich in colour. Apart from the rather interesting use of enamel made in them, they are not of great value; but they show as well as more important examples the kind of thing which did duty for design. The windows in Lincoln's Inn Chapel, London, illustrate not unfairly the dreary level of dulness as to colour and design to which seventeenth century glass declined. That it could fall still lower was shown, for example, by Peckitt, of York, who is responsible for the glass on the north side of New College Chapel, Oxford, facing the work of the Dutchmen. These date from 1765 to 1774. [Illustration: 170. ST. MARTIN ÈS VIGNES, TROYES.] The history of eighteenth century windows may, if one may plagiarise a famous bull, be put into the fewest possible words: there were none--worth looking at. To find pleasure even in Sir Joshua's design at New College, you must consider it as anything but glass. CHAPTER XIX. PICTURE-WINDOWS. The course of glass design was picture-ward. Picture design, however, did not stand still, and hence arises some confusion in the use of the word "pictorial." It is time to try and clear that up. Stained glass, it may be truly said, has been from the very first pictorial. The earliest glass, therefore, and the latest, the best and the worst, may alike be termed pictorial. The difference is in the conception as to what constituted a picture, say, in the thirteenth century and the seventeenth. It all depends upon the kind of picture attempted. Archaic art aims already at nature. We probably do not give the early painter credit enough for his intention of rendering natural things naturally. In part at least the stiffness of his design comes from lack of skill, and often where we find him quaint he meant no doubt to be perfectly serious and matter-of-fact. But it was not alone incompetence that held his hand. He was restrained always by a decorative purpose in his work. Here again he was not conscious of sacrificing to any higher rule of art; he bothered himself as little about that as a bee about the way it shall fashion its cell; he worked in the way to which he was born; but the idea had not yet developed itself that a picture could be painted quite apart from the decoration of something, and it never entered his mind to do anything but adapt himself to the decorative situation. A picture, then, in mediæval times was a work of decorative art, designed to fit a place, to fulfil part of a scheme of decoration, in which it might more often than not take the first place, but no more; it had no claim to independence. In glass the picture obeyed two conditions which more or less pulled together: as art it subserved to decorative and architectural effect; as craftsmanship it acknowledged and accepted the limitations of glass painting. In the course of years the ideal of architectural fitness underwent successive changes, and the limitations of the glass painter grew less; his scope, that is to say, was widened, and his art took what we call more pictorial shape. Still, so long as the pictorial ideal itself was restrained within the limits of mediæval ambition, glass painting might safely approach the pictorial. It was not until painting broke loose from traditional decorative trammels and set up, so to speak, on its own account, until pictorial came to mean something widely different from decorative, that the term became in any way distinctive of one kind of art or another. It is in that later sense that the word pictorial is here used. Artists still differ, and will continue to differ, as to the precise use of the term. There are artists still who contend that, since in old time art was decorative, and since in their opinion all art should be decorative, therefore the picture which is not decorative is not art. Arguing thus in a circle, they would say (the pictorial including in their estimation the perfection of decorative fitness, and all art which overshot the mark ceasing to count with them) that art was always at its best when it was most pictorial. But that is a species of quibbling about words which not only leads us no further, but hinders mutual understanding. It is wiser to accept words in the sense in which they are generally understood, and to try and see where the real difference of opinion is. Difficult it may be, impossible even, to draw the line between a picture which is decorative and decoration which is pictorial; but there is no difficulty in drawing a band on one side of which is decoration and on the other picture. You have only to draw it wide enough. If we can succeed in defining a picture as distinguished from a work of decorative art, and can then show how a stained glass window, in attempting to conform to conditions which we have agreed to call pictorial, fails of its decorative function, it will then not be so difficult to see how, in proportion as glass aims at the pictorial, it falls short of making good windows. Granted, then, that a picture may fulfil all decorative conditions, and that a decoration may sometimes rightly be pictorial, that the two go, as historically they did, a long way hand in hand, it is contended that there is a point at which decoration and picture part company and take distinctly different ways; thenceforth, if either is led away by the other, it is at the cost of possible success in the direction more peculiarly its own. Now, the first point at which picture definitely parts company with decoration is where the painter begins to consider his work apart from its surroundings. The problems the artist may set himself to solve are two. "How shall I adorn this church, this clerestory, this chancel, this window, with stained glass?"--that is distinctly a problem of the decorator; "How shall I realise, on canvas or what not, this thought of mine, this fact in nature, this effect seen or imagined?"--that is distinctly a problem of the painter. Each, it is granted, may be swayed more or less by the other consideration also, but according as a man starts with the one problem or the other, and seeks primarily to solve that, he is painter or decorator. Suppose him seriously to endeavour to combine pictorial and decorative qualities in his work, there will come times when he has perforce to choose between the two. Upon the choice he makes will hang the final character of his work, decorative or pictorial. We are too much in the habit of laying down laws as to what a man may or may not do in art. He may do what he can. He may introduce as much decorative intention into his picture, as much pictorial effect into his decoration, as it will stand; it is not till he overweights one with the other, attempts more than his means or his power allow him, and fails to do the thing that was to be done, that we can say he has gone wrong. When the two ideals of decoration and painting were more nearly one, and in proportion as that was so, success in the two directions was possible; when painting aimed at effects, of painting--in proportion, that is, as it became pictorial--it was impossible. It is safe to say, since masters attempted it and failed--since, for example, the finest work in glass which aims at the pictorial and depends upon painting ends always in being either thin or opaque in effect--that the happy medium was not found. The fact is, the time came when a painter, in order to design successfully for glass, was called upon to relinquish some of the effects he had come greatly to value in painting: effects of light and shade, atmosphere, reflected light, relief, perspective, violent foreshortening. To seek these at the expense of qualities proper to decoration and to glass, was to attempt picture; to sacrifice such pictorial qualities to considerations of architectural fitness, to the quality of the glass, its translucency, its colour, its consistent treatment, was to attempt decoration; and in proportion as the sacrifice is not made, the work of the glass painter may be characterised as "pictorial." There should now be no possible misunderstanding as to what is meant by the word. It implies something of reproach, but only as applied to glass. Let the pictorial flourish, in its place--that is, in picture. All it is here meant to assert is that, pictures being what they are, what they were already by the end of the sixteenth century, the pictorial element in stained glass is bound to spoil the window. There are two respects in which a stained glass window differs from a picture: first, in that it is a window; second, in that it is glass. Suppose we take these two points separately. It scarcely needs showing that the designing of a window is a very different thing from the painting of a picture. In the first place, the architectural frame of the window is there, arbitrarily fixed, whereas the painter chooses his frame to suit his picture. The designer of a window has not only to accept the window-shape, but to respect both it and the architecture of the building. The scale of his work, the main lines of its composition, if not more, are practically determined for him by architectural considerations, just as the depth of colour in his scheme is determined by the position of his window and the amount of light he desires "or is allowed" to shut out. Moreover, he has to accept the window plane, to acknowledge it as part of the building, to let you feel, whatever he does, that it is a window you see, and not something through the window or standing in it. That was tried, as we have seen, at Gouda and S. Gudule; but, even if the illusion had been achieved, it would have been destructive of architectural effect. The idea of a picture seen through the mullions of a window is one of the will-o'-the-wisps which led glass painters astray. They did not succeed; and, had they done so, they would have given a very false, and to some of us a very uncomfortable, impression of not being protected from the outer air. Mullions are in any case a very serious consideration. It has been shown already (page 197) how the artist sought continuity of subject through the lights of his window, and gradually extended his picture across them. And if he is at liberty to occupy a four-light window with the Virgin and Child and the Three Kings, and if it is lawful to introduce more than one figure into a light, why may not each king be accompanied by an attendant, holding his horse or bearing gifts; why should not the Kings kneel in adoration; why should not Joseph be there, the manger, and the cattle; why should there not be one landscape stretching behind the Magi, binding the whole into one picture? So with the Crucifixion. If the Virgin and S. John may occupy sidelights, why not introduce as well in a larger window the two thieves, the Magdalene at the foot of the cross, the good centurion, the soldiers, the crowd? Obviously there is no reason why the subject should not be carried across a window; and from the time that windows were divided into lights it was done, at all events in the case of certain subjects, such as the Tree of Jesse, which spread throughout the window, or the Last Judgment, for which the available space was yet never enough. But there is a wide difference between designing a subject which extends through the whole width of a window and designing it so that it appears to be seen through the window. In the one case the mullions are seriously taken into account; in the other they are ignored. If you were looking at a scene through a window, of course the mullions would interfere. Why, therefore, consider them if you wish to produce the effect of something seen through? Naturally you would not allow the stonework to cut across the face of a principal personage, or anything of that kind; but, apart from that, its intervention would only add to the air of reality. The problem of dealing with the mullions is thus rather shirked than solved. Its solution is not really so difficult as would seem. Mullions count for much less in the window than one would suppose. The eye, for example, follows naturally the branches of a Tree of Jesse from one light into another, and it is not felt that the stonework interferes with it at all seriously, whilst the scheming of the figures, each within a single light, is a very distinct acknowledgment of its individuality. So in the case of a subject. If the design is so planned that the important figures are grouped in separate lights, the landscape or other continuous background helps to hold the picture together, and is not hurt by the mullions. The important thing is that mullions should be considered; only on that condition do they cease to interfere with the design. There is no reason always to put a border round each light, or even to keep every figure within the bounds of a single light. A reclining figure, such as that of Jesse at the base of the window (below), Jacob asleep and dreaming, or the widow's son upon the bier, may safely cross two or three lights, if it be designed with reference to the intervening stonework. Further, it seems desirable that the shape of each separate window opening should be acknowledged by at least a narrow fillet of white or pale colour next the masonry, broken, it may be, here and there by some feature designed to hold the lights together, but practically clearing the colour from the stonework, and giving to the division of the window the slight emphasis it deserves. It is not worth while dividing a window into lights and then effacing the divisions in the glass. Given a window of four or five lights, the decorator has no choice but to design a four or five-light window. He must render his subject so that the constructional divisions of the window keep their proper architectural place; if his subject will not allow that, he must abandon his subject, or give very good reason why not. The reason of mere pictorial ambition will not hold good. The test of a good picture-window is, how the mullions affect the design. If to take them away would make it look foolish, then it has probably been designed as a window, decoratively; if to take them away would improve it, then it has been designed pictorially; and, however good a picture it might have been, it is a bad window design. [Illustration: 171. S. MARY'S, SHREWSBURY.] It is quite possible, nay, probable, that in connection with any given window, or series of windows, there will be architectural features which deserve to be emphasised. It may be the springing of the arch which calls for accentuation; it may be a string-course in the walls that asks for recognition; it may be that the proportion of the window wants correction. Whatever it be, it is the part of the decorator to feel the want and to meet it, to grasp the situation and to accept it. In not doing so, he shows perhaps pictorial, certainly not decorative, instinct. So with regard to the plane of a glass picture. It is not necessary to restrict one's design to silhouette, to make one's picture as flat as the first glass painters or the Greek vase painters made theirs. How much of distance and relief a man may indulge in is partly his own affair. It depends upon what he can manage to do without destroying the surface of his window. So long as he preserve that, he may do as he pleases, and yet not lay himself open to the charge of being unduly pictorial; only it is as well to remember that on the simplest and severest lines grand work has been done, and may still be done, without falling into archaism; whilst the Crabeths, and the rest of the astoundingly clever glass painters of Gouda fail to reconcile us to the attempt to render the sky beyond (page 258) or distant architectural vistas in glass. It has sometimes been contended that all lines of perspective (which in the sixteenth century begin to take a very important place in design) are amiss in glass, inasmuch as they destroy its flatness. That is surely to go too far. So long as no effect of relief is sought, no effect of distance attempted, no illusion aimed at, one can hardly find fault with lines indicating the perspective necessary perhaps to the expression of the design--assuming, of course, that the lines of perspective take their place in the decorative scheme, and help the composition of the window. They do that very cleverly in Crabeth's picture of "Christ Purifying the Temple" (page 244). Our complaint is rather with the strong relief attempted, the abuse of shadow, and especially of painted shadow. The case is far worse where, as at S. Eustache, Paris, the architectural background is shown obliquely. In that case, no uncommon one in the seventeenth century, when the painter would just as likely as not choose his point of view as best suited his picture, without any reference whatever to its architectural setting, the painter shows himself, as glass painter, at his most pictorial and worst. So much for the window as an architectural feature, now let us look at it as glass. It becomes here very much a question of craftsmanship. To a workman it seems so natural, and so obvious, that the material he is working in, and the tools he is using, must from beginning to end affect the treatment of his design, that it appears almost unnecessary to insist upon such a truism. Experience, however, goes to show that only the workman and here and there a man who ought, perhaps, to have been one, have any appreciation of what artists call treatment. The rest of the world have heard tell that there is such a thing as technique, to which they think far too much importance is attached. That is so, indeed, when artists think technique is enough; but not when they look upon it as indispensable, the beginning of all performance, not when they insist that a man shall know the grammar of his art before he breaks out into poetry. Now the A, B, C, of workmanship is to treat each material after its kind. It is a truism, therefore, to say that glass should be treated as glass. Yet we find that a man may be enthusiastic to a degree about an art, learned above most men in its history, and yet end in entirely misconceiving its scope. "What is to be condemned on canvas," said Winston, "ought not to be admitted on glass." As well might he have said, that what would be condemned on glass should not be allowed on canvas, or that language and behaviour which would be unbecoming in church should not be tolerated on the platform, or at the dinner-table. The fallacy that one rule applies to all forms of art is responsible alike for the muddiness of seventeenth and eighteenth century windows and for the thin transparent tinting of nineteenth century Munich glass. That "art is one" is a fine saying, rightly understood. So is humanity one, and it is well to remind ourselves of the fact; but race, climate, country, count for something; and to speak with effect we must speak the language of the land. Each separate craft included in the all-embracing title of art, and making for its good and its glory, works under conditions as definite as those of climate, has characteristics as marked as those of nationality, and speaks also a language of its own. And, to express itself to full purpose, it must speak in its own tongue. The only pictures, then, which prove satisfactory in glass are the pictures of the glass painter; and by glass painter is not meant any one who may choose to try his hand at glass painting, but the man who has learnt his trade and knows it from end to end, to whom use has become second nature, who thinks in glass, as we say. Now and again, perhaps, where a draughtsman and a glass painter are in unusual sympathy, it may be possible for the one to translate the design of the other into the language of his craft; but good translators are rare, and translation is at best second-hand. Success in glass is achieved mainly by the man to whom ideas come in the form of glass, who sees them first in his mind's eye as windows. Even such a man may lack taste, insight, discretion; he may be led away by a misplaced ambition--it is not merely on the stage that the low comedian aspires to play Hamlet--but only the man who knows so well the dangers ahead that he insensibly avoids them, who knows so surely what can be got out of his material that he makes straight for that, who does, in short, the best that can be done in glass, can dare to be "pictorial" without danger of being false to his trade. A painter without experience of glass might, of course, be coached in the technique of the material; but he would never get the most out of it. Conditions which to the glass painter would be as easy as an old coat, would be a restraint to him, and the greater his position the more impatient he would be of such restraint, the more surely his will would override the better judgment of the subordinate who happened to know. [Illustration: 172. CHRIST PURGING THE TEMPLE, GOUDA.] It was unfortunate that at a critical period in the history of glass, just when great painters from the outside began to be called in to design for it, knowledge was in rather an uncertain state. The use of enamel had been discovered; it offered undoubted facilities to the painter; it was believed in; it was the fashion. Any one who had protested the superiority of the old method would possibly have been set down as an old fogey, even by glass painters. At that moment, very likely, a glass painter, anxious of course to conciliate the great man, but flushed also with faith in his new-found method, would have said to Van Orley, in reply to any question about technique:--"Never you mind about glazing and all that; give us a design, and we will execute it in glass." And he did execute it in a masterly and quite wonderful way. Still the success of it is less than it would have been had the designer known all about glass: in that case his artistic instinct would have led him surely to trust more to qualities inherent in glass, and less to painting upon it. Van Orley's picture scheme depended too much upon relief to be really well adapted to glass, but it was splendidly monumental in design, and to that extent admirably decorative. Something of decorative restraint we find almost to the end in sixteenth century work; the picture had not yet emancipated itself entirely, and the pictorial ideal did not therefore necessarily go beyond what glass could do; in any case, it did not take quite a different direction. It may be as well to define more precisely the ideal glass picture. The ideal glass picture is, the picture which gives full scope for the qualities of glass, and does not depend in any way upon effects which cannot be obtained in glass, or which are to be attained only at the sacrifice of qualities peculiar to it. And what are those qualities? The qualities of glass are light and colour, a quality of light and a quality of colour to be obtained no other way than by the transmission of light through pot-metal glass. Compare these qualities with those of oil painting, and see how far they are compatible. Something depends upon the conception of oil painting. The qualities of glass are compatible enough with the pictorial ideal of the oil (or more likely tempera) painters whom we designate by the name of "primitives"; and, indeed, fifteenth century Italian windows often take the form of circular pictures which one of the masters might have designed. A painting by Botticelli, Filippo Lippi, Mantegna, or Crivelli, might almost be put into the hands of a glass painter to translate. It is quite possible that some of the Florentine windows were executed in Germany from paintings by Italian masters; the odd thing is that they are attributed sometimes to sculptors. Ghiberti and Donatello may, for all one knows, have been great colourists; but it is so universal a foible to ascribe works of decorative art to famous painters or sculptors who could never by any possibility have had a hand in them, that one never has much faith in such reputed authorship. The severity of the "primitive" painters' design, the firm outline, the comparatively flat treatment, the brilliant, not yet degraded, colour--all these were qualities which the glass painter could turn to account. Without firm and definite outline, of course, a design does not lend itself to mosaic. But it is especially the early painter's ideal of colour which was so sympathetic to the glass painter. A designer for glass must be a colourist; but the colour he seeks is _sui generis_. Not every colourist would make a glass designer. Van Thulden may not have been a colourist of his master's stamp, but Peter Paul Rubens himself could not have made a complete success of those windows in the Chapel of Our Lady in S. Gudule. Reynolds was a colourist, but he came conspicuously to grief in glass. Velasquez was a colourist, but one fails to see how by any possibility the quality of his work could be expressed in glass. On the other hand, colour in which the simple artist delighted, as in light and sunshine, in the sparkle of the sea, in the purity of the sky, in the brilliancy of flowers, in the flash of jewels, in the deep verdure of moss, in the lusciousness of fruit or wine, colour as the early Florentine painters saw it and sought it--this is what glass can give, and gives better than oil, tempera, or fresco, on an opaque surface. How far these early painters deliberately sacrificed to pure bright colour qualities of light and shade, aerial perspective, and so on, may be open to question. The certain thing is that, if we want the quality of glass in all its purity and translucency, we have to sacrifice to it something of the light and shade, the relief, the atmospheric effect, the subtlety of realistic colour, which we are accustomed nowadays to look for in a picture. Happy the men who could contentedly pursue their work undisturbed by the thought that there were effects to be obtained in art beyond what it was possible for them to get. Even the Italian painters soon travelled beyond the limits of what could possibly be done in glass. Flesh-painting, as Titian understood it, or Correggio, or Bonifacio, is hopelessly beyond its range. But it was the Dutch who formed for themselves the idea most widely and hopelessly beyond realisation in glass. The Crabeths, like good glass painters, struggled more or less against it; but they could not keep out of the current altogether; and in proportion as their work aims at anything like chiaroscuro it loses its quality of glass. Rembrandt, to have realised his ideal in glass, would have had to paint out of it every quality which distinguishes it and gives it value. In proportion, as the painter's aim was light and shade rather than colour, and especially as it was shade rather than light (or perhaps it would be fairer to say, as it was light intensified by obscuring light around it) it was diametrically opposed to that of the glass painter. His pursuit of it was a sort of artistic suicide. It led by quick and sure degrees to what was to all intents and purposes the collapse of glass painting. Realism of a kind was inevitable when once the painter gained the strength to realise what he saw, but when the glass painter, seeking the strength of actual light and shade, began to rely upon painted shadow for his effects, the case was hopeless. Glass asks to be translucent. The point of perfection in glass design is not easily to be fixed. Glass painting, it must be confessed, as it approaches perfection of technique, is always dangerously near the border line; the painter is so often tempted to carry his handiwork a little further than is consistent with the translucency of glass. It happens, therefore, that one expects almost to find consummate drawing and painting marred by some obscuration of the glass. If on the other hand we travel back to the time when the evil does not exist, we find ourselves at a period when neither drawing nor painting were at their best. It is by no means surprising that this should be the outcome of the association of glazier and painter. According as one cares more for glass or for painting one will be disposed to shift, backwards or forwards, the date at which glass painting began to decline. It may safely be said, however, that pictorial glass painting was at its best during the first half of the sixteenth century. That is the period during which you may expect to find masterly drawing, consummate painting, and yet sufficient recognition of the character of glass to satisfy all but the staunch partisan of pure mosaic glass--who, by the way, stands upon very firm ground. In Flanders, as has been said, and in France, are to be found exquisite pictures in glass, admirably decorative in design, glowing with jewel-like brilliancy of colour, not seriously obscured by paint, the figures modelled with a delicacy reminding one rather of sculpture in very low relief than of more realistic painting and carving, the colour delicate and yet not thin, the effect strong without brutality. But it is in Italy that are to be seen probably the finest glass pictures that have ever been painted; the work, nevertheless, of a Frenchman--William of Marseilles--who established himself at Arezzo, and painted, amongst other glass, five windows for the cathedral there, which go about as far as glass can go in the direction of picture. The man was a realist in his way--realist, that is, so far as suited his artistic purpose. Not merely are his figures studied obviously from the life, but they are conceived in the realistic spirit, as when, in the scene of the Baptism, he draws a man getting into his clothes with the difficulty we have all experienced after bathing, or when, in the Raising of Lazarus (page 397), he makes more than one onlooker hold his nose as the grave-clothes are unwrapped from the body. In design the artist is quite up to the high level of his day (1525 or thereabouts); but you see all through his work that it was colour, always colour, that made his heart beat (we have here nothing to do with the religious sentiment which may or may not be embodied in his work), colour that prompted his design, as in the case of so many a great Italian master. This man possibly did in glass much what _he_ would have done on canvas; but he could never have got such pure, intense, and at the same time luminous, effects of colour in anything but glass, and he knew it, never lost sight of it, and tried to get the most out of what it could best give him--that is to say, purity of colour, and translucency and brilliancy of glass. Whatever amount of pigment he employed (probably more than it seems, the light is so strong in Italy) it seldom appears to do more than just give the needful modelling. Now and again, in the architectural parts of his composition, the white is lowered by means of a matt of paint, where a tint of deeper-coloured glass had better have been employed; but even there the effect is neither dirty nor in the least heavy. And in the main, for all his pictorial bias, the system of the artist is distinctly mosaic; his colour is pot-metal always or purest stain. The sky and the landscape, for example, in which the scene of the Baptism is laid, are leaded up in tints of blue and green. In the scene where Christ purges the Temple the pavement is of clear aquamarine-tinted glass, against which the scales, moneybags, overturned bench, and so on, stand out in quite full enough relief of red and yellow, without any aid of heavy shading, or cast shadow, such as a Netherlander would have used. And, for all that, the difficulty even of foreshortening is boldly faced. Not even in the most violently shaded Flemish glass would it be easy to find a figure more successfully foreshortened than the kneeling money-changer, scooping up his money into a bag. That a designer could do this without strong shading, means that he was careful to choose the pose or point of view which allowed itself to be expressed in lightly painted glass. There is no riotous indulgence in perspective, but distance is sufficiently indicated; and the personages in the background, drawn to a smaller scale than the chief actors in the scene, keep their place in the picture. Everywhere it is apparent that the figures have been composed with a cunning eye to glazing. These are not pictures which have been done into glass; they are no translations, but the creations of a glass painter--one who knew all about glass, and instinctively designed only what could be done in it, and best done. This man makes full use of all the resources of his art. His window is constructed as only a glazier could do it. He does not shirk his leads. He uses abrasion freely, not so much to save glazing, as to get effects not otherwise possible. Thus the deep red skirt or petticoat of the woman taken in adultery is dotted with white in a way that bespeaks at a glance the woman of the people, whilst more sumptuous draperies of red and green are, as it were, embroidered with gold, or sewn with pearls. These are the effects he aims at, not the mere texture of silk or velvet. He delights in delicate stain on white, and revels in most gorgeous stain upon stain. In short, these are pictures indeed, but the pictures of a glass painter. Work like this disarms criticism. One may have a strong personal bias towards strictly mosaic glass, and yet acknowledge that success justifies departure from what one thought the likelier way. Things of beauty decline to be put away always in the nice little pigeon-holes we have carefully provided for them. Shall we be such pedants as to reject them because they do not fit in with our preconceived ideas of fitness? Alas!--or happily?--alas for what might have been, happily for our wavering allegiance to sterner principles of design, it is seldom that the glass painter so perfectly tunes his work to the key of glass. In particular, he finds it difficult to harmonise his painting with the glazing which goes with it. He is incapable in the early sixteenth century of the brutalities of his successors, who carry harsh lines of lead across flesh painting recklessly; but the very association of ultra-delicate painting with lead lines at all demands infinite tact. An idea of the point to which painting is eventually carried may be gathered from the representation of little nude boys blowing bubbles in which are reflected the windows of the room where they are supposed to be playing. That is an extreme instance, and a late one. Short, however, of such frivolity, and in work of the good period, painting is often so delicate that bars and leads unquestionably hurt it. It is so even in the very fine Jesse window at Beauvais (page 368). Occur where it may it is a false note which stops our admiration short; and, after all our enthusiasm, we come back heart-whole to our delight in the earlier, bolder, more monumental, and more workmanlike mosaic glass. The beautiful sixteenth century work at Montmorency or at Conches does not shake the conviction of the glass-lover, that the painter is there a little too much in evidence, that something of simple, dignified decoration is sacrificed to the display of his skill. The balance between glass decoration and picture is perhaps never more nearly adjusted than in some of the rather earlier Italian windows. CHAPTER XX. LANDSCAPE IN GLASS. At once a distinguishing feature of picture-glass, and a characteristic of later work generally, is the _mise-en-scène_ of the subject. [Illustration: 173. FROM THE ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM, FAIRFORD.] In quite the earliest glass the figures, it was shown, were cut out against a ground of plain colour (pages 33, 127), or diapered perhaps with a painted pattern, or leaded up in squares, or broken by spots of pot-metal (page 37), which, by the way, being usually of too strongly contrasting colour, assert themselves instead of qualifying its tone. Sometimes the ground was leaded up in the form of a more or less elaborate geometric diaper (page 336). Occasionally it was broken by the simplest possible conventional foliage. The figure stood on a cloud, an inscribed label, a disc or band of earth. In the fourteenth century spots breaking the ground took very often the form of badges, _fleurs-de-lys_, heraldic animals, cyphers, and so on (page 156), and even in the fifteenth it was quite common to find figures against a flat ground, broken only by inscription, either on white or yellow labels (pages 186, 339), or leaded in bold letters of white or yellow into the background itself (page 196). But simultaneously with this the figure was frequently represented against a screen of damask (page 191), above which showed the further background, usually more or less architectural in character. In the Fairford windows (page 187) is shown this treatment together with the label which helps to break the formality of the horizontal line. Sometimes the line is curved, as though the figure stood in a semicircular niche, or broken, as though the recess were three-sided. Sometimes the figure stood upon a pedestal (page 391), but more usually, as time went on, upon a pavement. Certain subjects were bound to include accessory architecture, but at first it was as simple as the scenery in the immortal play of _Pyramus and Thisbe_. But even in the fifteenth century it was rendered, one may judge how naïvely, from the little Nativity on page 54, a subject hardly to be rendered without the stable. Again, the quite conventional vinework, also from Malvern, shown in the upper part of page 345 (a jumble of odds and ends), forms really part of the scene depicting Noah in his vineyard--see the hand holding the spade handle. The Fairford scenery (pages 251, 372), quaint as it is, goes much nearer to realism than that; and towards the sixteenth century, and during its first years, there was a good deal of landscape in which trees were leaded in vivid green against blue, with gleaming white stems suggestive of birch-bark, always effective, and refreshingly cool in colour. There is something of that kind in the window facing the entrance to King's College, Cambridge; but the more usual English practice in the fifteenth century was to execute the landscape in white and stain against a coloured ground. That is the system adopted in the scene of the Creation at Malvern (page 252), where trees, water, birds, fishes, are all very delicately painted and stained. In the left-hand corner it will be seen that solid or nearly solid brown is used for foliage in order to throw up the white and yellow leafage in front of it. There is some considerably later work very much in this manner at S. Nizier, Troyes. But that kind of thing was not usual in French glass. [Illustration: 174. FROM THE CREATION, MALVERN ABBEY.] The sky had of course from the first been indicated by a blue background; but, the blue ground being used, in alternation with ruby, for all backgrounds, except a few in white, it was not distinctive enough to suggest the heavens, without some indication of clouds, which accordingly were leaded up upon it, sometimes in mere streaks of colour, sometimes in fantastically ornamental shapes. It was a later thought, which came with the use of paler glass, to paint the blue with clouds, indicating them, that is to say, more or less in the form of diaper. As with the sky so with the sea. It was at first glazed in wave pattern; eventually the wave lines were painted on the blue. The blue background, which had gradually become paler and paler, became soon in the sixteenth century pale enough to stand approximately for a grey-blue sky, on which was painted, with marvellous delicacy, distant landscape, architecture, or what not, always in the brown tint used generally for shading, although a tint of green was given to grass and trees by the use of yellow stain. This distant view painted upon blue was a beautiful and most characteristic feature of sixteenth century glass. The French painters adopted it, and made it peculiarly their own, though it occurs also in German and Flemish glass. Backgrounds of this kind, which in themselves suffice to mark the departure from Gothic use, are shown on pages 207, 213, and on a larger scale opposite. The wintry landscape there with the bare tree trunks against the cold grey sky, forms the upper portion of the subject shown on page 207, in which Our Lord gives His charge to Peter; the paler grey behind the heads of the group stands for the sea. The wintry effect of the scene is not suggestive of the Holy Land, but it brings the subject innocently home to us. The leads, it will be seen, take the lines of the larger limbs of the trees, whilst the lesser branches and small twigs are painted on the glass. There is ingenuity in the glazing as well as delicacy in the painting. This is a very different thing from the landscape painted in enamel colours. The propriety, the beauty, the decorative quality of such work as this, comes of the acceptance of the necessary convention of treating the painted background, of rendering it, that is, always more or less in monochrome, and not attempting anything like realism in colour. The painted landscapes illustrated are of the simplest. The French painters went much further than that, associating with their painting broad masses of pot-metal colour, but still keeping distinctly within the convention of deliberately simple colour. By the use of silvery-white and shades of pot-metal blue and purple and green, they produced the most pleasing and harmonious effects. There was no great variety in the tune they played, but the variations upon it were infinite. Let us picture here a few of them. 1. _Ecouen._--A distant city, in white, and beyond that more distant architecture, painted on the pale blue of the sky. 2. _Conches._--Against a pale blue sky, broken by cumulous white clouds, a grey-blue tower. 3. _Conches._--A grey-blue sea and deeper sky beyond: from the waves rises a castle, in white, breaking the sky-line, the pointed roofs of its turrets painted in black upon the background. [Illustration: 175. BACKGROUND TO THE CHARGE OF S. PETER, S. VINCENT, ROUEN. (COMP. 156.)] 4. _Freiburg, 1528._--A smoke-grey sea, fading away towards the horizon into pale silver, the sky beyond dark blue, its outline broken by a range of deeper blue mountains. 5. _Conches._--Beyond the foreground landscape in rich green, a pale blue sea, with slightly deeper grey-blue sky beyond, a tower in darker blue against it; a strip of deep blue shore divides the sky and sea, and gives support to the dark tower; against that a smaller tower catches the light, and stands out in glittering white. 6. _Montmorency._--A canopied figure subject in gorgeous colour; the foreground a landscape with rich green herbage, separated by a belt of white cliffs from buildings of pale grey, amidst trees stained greenish, backed by purple hills; further a pale blue sky; against the sky, overshadowed beneath the canopy arch by a mass of purple cloud, the stained and painted foliage of a tree, growing from this side the hill. 7. _Montmorency._--S. Christopher crossing the stream; blue water painted with waves and water plants, the foliage stained. 8. _S. Nizier, Troyes._--A vineyard, very prettily managed; the vines painted on the blue, their leaves stained to green, the grapes grey-blue, whilst grey stakes are leaded in pot-metal. Sometimes, as at Ecouen, far-off architecture would be painted not upon blue but upon a pale purple hill. At Laigle figures and animals are painted upon green, but they do not hold their own. On the other hand, at Alençon, some distant figures appearing in very pale grey against a delicate greenish landscape (stained upon the grey), are charming in effect. White backgrounds painted as delicately as the blue are not rare. At Groslay, for example, steely-white architecture is separated from white sky beyond by grey-blue hills, a church with blue steeple breaking the sky. But white does not lend itself so readily to combination with colour as blue; and, as a rule, such backgrounds are grisaille in character, relieved, of course, with stain. The great sea-scape at Gouda (page 223), representing the taking of Dalmatia in Egypt (a very Dutch Dalmatia), is nearly all in grisaille, against quarries of clear white, with only a little stain in the flags and costumes, and one single touch of poor ruby (about two inches square), which looks as if it might be modern. The port in perspective, the ships, the whole scene, in fact, is realistically rendered, and comes as near to success as is possible in glass. Delightful peeps of landscape are sometimes seen through the columns and arches of an architectural background. Whether the architecture be in purple of divers shades, or in white with only shadows in purple, or whether the nearer architecture be in white and the more distant in purple, in any case a distance beyond is commonly painted upon the grey-blue sky seen through it. Possibly, as at Conches, further vistas of architecture may be stained greenish upon it--any colour almost, for a change. But whatever it may be, and wherever it may be, in the best work it is colour; and it is always more effective than where the shadow is represented by paint, even though the brown be not laid on with a heavy hand, infinitely more effective than when blue or other coloured enamels are relied upon, as in some instances at Montmorency. Enamel may, for all one can tell, have been used in some of the landscapes here commended--it is impossible to say without minute examination of the glass, which is rarely feasible--but it never asserts its presence; and in any case it has not been used in sufficient quantity to damage the effect. It will be gathered from the descriptions of early sixteenth century glazed and painted distances, that they were as carefully schemed with a view to glazing (though in a very different way) as a Gothic picture. Sometimes, as at Conches, they are rather elaborately leaded; and where that is the case there is not so much danger of incongruity between the delicacy of the painting and the strength of the leads--which assert themselves less than where they occur singly. It stands to reason also that the more mosaic the glass the less fragile it is. Painting alone upon the blue is best employed for small peeps of distance. It adapts itself to smaller windows; and it must be done (as for a while it was done) so well, that it seems as if the designer must himself have painted it. Were the artist always the glass painter, and the glass painter always an artist, who knows what case pictorial glass might not make out for itself? It is a coarser kind of distance than the French that we find at King's College, Cambridge. There the landscape backgrounds are in white and stain, grey-blue being reserved for the sky beyond, broken more or less by white clouds, or, occasionally, by the white trunks of trees, the foliage of which is sometimes glazed in green glass, sometimes painted upon the blue and stained. Here and there a distant tree is painted entirely upon the blue. This treatment is not ill adapted to subjects on the large scale of the work at King's College, but one does not feel that the painters made anything like the most of their opportunity. The inexperience of the designers is shown in their fear of using leads, a most unnecessary fear, seeing that, at the distance the work is from the eye, the bars themselves have only about the value of ordinary lead lines. [Illustration: 176. THE RELIEF OF LEYDEN, GOUDA.] Stronger and more workmanlike, but not quite satisfactory, is the much later landscape (1557) of Dirk Crabeth at Gouda. There the sky is blue, leaded in quarries, on which are trees, painted and stained, and some rather florid clouds. In the later work generally the lead lines are no longer either frankly acknowledged or skilfully disguised. The outline of a green hill against the sky will be feebly softened with trivial little twigs and scraps of painted leafage. The decline of landscape is amply illustrated at Troyes. At Antwerp again there is a window bearing date 1626, in which the landscape background of a quite incomprehensible subject extends to a distant horizon, above which the sky is glazed in white quarries, with clouds painted upon it. This is an attempt to repeat the famous feat of glass painting which had been done some twenty years before at Gouda. The Relief of Leyden, of which a diagram is here given, is in its way a most remarkable glass picture. In the foreground is a crowd of soldiers and citizens, upon the quay, about lifesize. They form a band of rich colour at the base of the composition; but the design is confused by the introduction of shields of arms and their supporters immediately in front of the scene. Beyond are the walls and towers of the city of Delft, and the adjacent towns and villages, and the river dwindling into the far distance where Leyden lies--in the glass a really marvellous bird's-eye view over characteristically flat country. The horizon extends almost to the springing line of the window arch, and above that rises a sky of plain blue quarries, broken only towards the top by a few bolster-like and rather dirty white clouds. Absolute realism is of course not reached, but it is approached near enough to startle us into admiration. It is astonishing what has here been done. But the painter has not done what he meant to do. That was not possible, even with the aid of enamel. CHAPTER XXI. ITALIAN GLASS. In the course of the preceding chapters the reader has been rather unceremoniously carried from country to country, in a way which may have seemed to him erratic. But there was a reason in the zig-zag course taken. The progress of the glass painter's art was not by any means a straight line. Nor did it develop itself on parallel lines in the various countries in which it throve. It advanced in one place whilst it was almost at a standstill in another. That is easily understood. It was inevitable that glass painting, though it arose in France, should languish there during the troublous times when English troops overran it under Edward III. and throughout the Hundred Years' War, that it should revive in all its glory under Francis the First, and that during the disturbances of the Fronde it should again decline. The extremity of France was England's opportunity; and our greatest wealth of stained glass windows dates from the reign of the later Plantagenets. The Wars of the Roses do not appear greatly to have affected art; but after the Reformation we were more busy smashing glass than painting it. In Germany the course of art ran smoother. Glass throve under the Holy Roman Empire, and it was not until the Reformation that it suffered any very severe check. Mediæval Swiss glass may be classed with German. In the Netherlands glass painting blossomed out suddenly under the Imperial favour of Charles V. It continued to bear fruit under the Dutch Republic, until it ran to seed at the end of the seventeenth century. So it happens that, in following the development of glass painting, it has been necessary to seek the best and most characteristic illustrations first in one country and then in another, to travel from France to England, from England to Germany and back to France, thence to Flanders, to France again, and finally once more to the Netherlands, to say nothing of shorter excursions from one place to another, as occasion might demand. In each separate locality there was naturally some sort of progress, but we cannot take any one country as all-sufficient type of the rest; and to have traversed each in turn would have been tedious. There were everywhere differences of practice and design; in each country, for that matter, there were local schools with marked characteristics of their own. Some of the characteristic national differences have been pointed out in passing. To describe them at length would be to write a comparative history of glass, of which there is here no thought. What concerns us is the broadly marked progress of glass painting, not the minor local differences in style. Something more, however, remains to be said of Italian glass than was possible in any general survey. The mere facts, that the Renaissance arose in Italy so long before it reached this side the Alps, and that glass painting was never really quite at home in Italy (any more than the Gothic architecture which mothered it), sufficiently account for the difficulty, nay, the impossibility, of classing it according to the Gothic periods. Indeed, one is reminded in Italian glass less often of other windows of the period, English, French, or German, than of contemporary Italian painting. The comparative fitness of the works of the "Primitive" painters for models of glass design has already been pointed out. It is so evident that the Italian sense of colour could find more adequate expression than ever in glass, that one is inclined to wonder, until it is remembered that Italian churches were at the same time picture galleries, that it did not more commonly find vent in that medium. Even as it is, Italian painters did found a school of glass painting, comparatively uninfluenced by the traditional Gothic types of design, whilst observing the best traditions of glazier-like technique. Hence it is that we find in Italy windows such as are nowhere else to be seen, windows which at their best are of the very best. There are resemblances in Italian glass to German work; and some of it is said to have been executed by Germans. It is none the less Italian. Though it were executed in Germany, glazier and painter must have worked under the direct influence of the Italian master, and in complete accord with him, putting at his service all their experience in their craft, and all their skill. So well did they work together, that it seems more likely that the executant not only worked under the eye of the master, but was at his elbow whilst he designed. That alone would account satisfactorily for the absolutely harmonious co-operation of designer and glass-worker. One thing is clear, that the artist, whatever his experience in glass, great or little, had absolute sympathy with his new material, felt what it could do, saw the opportunities it offered him, and seized them. An Englishman, or a Frenchman, who found himself for the first time in Italy, would be puzzled to give a date to the windows at Pisa or Milan, or in either of the churches of S. Francis at Assisi. Even an expert in the glass of other countries has to speak guardedly as to Italian work, or he may have to retract his words. Italian Gothic is so Italian and so little Gothic, it is of no use attempting to compare it with Northern work. To those, moreover, who have been in the habit of associating the Renaissance with the sixteenth century, the forms of Quattro-Cento ornament will persist at first in suggesting the later date--just as the first time one goes to Germany the survival of the old form of lettering in inscriptions throws a suspicion of lingering Gothic influence over even full-blown Renaissance design. It takes some time to get over the perplexity arising from the unaccustomed association of an absolutely mosaic treatment of glass (which with us would mean emphatically Gothic work) with distinctly Renaissance detail, such as one finds at the churches already mentioned, at the Certosa of Pavia, or at Florence. At Assisi the glass means, for the most part, to be Gothic. One is reminded there sometimes of German work, both by the colour of the glass and by the design of some of the medallion and other windows. The ornament generally inclines to the naturalistic rather than to the Quattro-Cento arabesque, or to the geometric kind shown on page 96; and though it includes a fair amount of interlacing handwork of distinctly Italian type, and is sometimes as deep in colour as quite Early glass, it is approximately Decorated in character. That is so equally with the brilliant remains in the tracery lights of Or San Michele at Florence. But it is characteristic of Italian glass of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries that, both by the depth of its colour and the very quality of the material, it should continually recall the thirteenth century. Sometimes, as at Milan, for example, you find even sixteenth century glass in which there is practically no white at all except what is used for the flesh tint. In the cathedral at Pisa are some windows with little subjects, framed in ornament, all in richest and most brilliant colour, which are at first sight extremely perplexing. The leading is elaborately minute, and there is no modelling in the figures, which yet have nothing of archaic or very early character. It turns out that the paint upon the glass has perished, and there is hardly a vestige of it left to show that this was not intended for mere mosaic. The effect, nevertheless, is such as to prove how much can be done in pot-metal glass, and how little it depends upon the painting on it. [Illustration: 177. ASSISI.] Elsewhere, as at Arezzo (in work earlier than that of William of Marseilles), the paint has often peeled off to a very considerable extent, revealing sometimes patches of quite crude green and purple, which go to show that the Italians habitually used glass of a raw colour, where it suited their convenience, and just toned it down with brown enamel. The result proves that it was a dangerous practice; but, where the paint has held, the effect is not dull or dirty, as with us it would be. The Italian sun accounts probably both for the use of this scum of paint and for its not injuring the effect of colour. The same quality of deep rich pot-metal colour associated with Renaissance design, is the first thing that strikes one in the windows at Bologna, in the cathedral at Milan, and in Florence everywhere. At Milan in particular there are compositions, in which blue and red predominate, magnificently rich and deep, in spite of recent cleaning. The cunning way in which green is occasionally used to prevent any flowing together of red and blue into purple, is a lesson in colour. Two schemes of design prevail in the nave windows (the old glass in the choir is so mixed up with new that it does not count), both equally simple. In the one the rectangular divisions formed by the mullions and the stouter bars are accepted, without further framing, as separate picture spaces; in the other the main form of the window is taken as frame to a single picture, the mullions being only so far taken into account that the prominent figures are designed within them. Some of these windows are late enough in the century to show a falling off in treatment. In the Apostle window (attributed to Michel Angelo?) the white glass is all reduced to a granular tint of umber; and in the one illustrating the Life of the Virgin there is a most aggressively foreshortened figure, which may have been effective in the cartoon, but is absurd in the glass. It is not, therefore, at Milan that typically Italian glass is best to be studied, though there is enough of it to startle the student of glass whose experience had not hitherto extended so far as Italy. Neither is Italian glass at its best at Bologna, though the city was noted for glass painting, which was practised there by no less a person than the Blessed James of Ulm. But, truth to tell, the best windows at Bologna (they are most of them fairly good) are not those of the Saint but of Pellegrino Tibaldi and Lorenzo Costa. It is at Florence that the distinctive quality of Italian glass is best appreciated. There is a vast quantity of it, varying in date from the early part of the fifteenth to the latter part of the sixteenth century, but it is uniformly Italian, and, with few exceptions, it is extremely good. Figures under canopies are of common occurrence in Florentine windows; but the canopies differ in several respects, both from the ordinary Gothic canopy and from the shrine-like structure of the later Renaissance. In the first place, the canopy returns in Italy to its primitive dimensions. It may or may not be architecturally interesting, but there is in no case very much of it. The Italians never went canopy-mad; and they kept the framework of their pictures within moderate dimensions. The Italian canopy of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, then, was just a niche, sometimes of Renaissance design, sometimes affecting a more Gothic form with pointed or cusped arch and so on, under which, or in front of which, the figures stood. It bore definite relation to the figures, and it was neither impossible of construction nor absurd in perspective. Occasionally, in later work, as at the Certosa at Pavia, it was delicate in colour, but, as a rule, it was strong and rich. It was not merely that the shadowed portions were glazed in pot-metal, as when, at Santa Croce, the coffered soffits of the arches are one mosaic of jewellery, but that the canopy throughout was in colour. [Illustration: 178. S. MARIA NOVELLA, FLORENCE.] That is the most striking characteristic of Italian canopy work, and indeed of other ornamental setting--that it is as rich as the picture, a part of it, not a frame to it. Constructionally, of course, it is a frame; but the colour does away with the effect of framework. It serves rather to connect the patches of contrasting colour in the figures, than to separate one picture from another. Occasionally this results in too much all-overishness, more commonly it results in breadth, making you feel that the window is one. It was explained what use was made of white canopy work in Gothic glass, judiciously to break up the surface of the window. In Italy the surface is judiciously left unbroken, and in that case also the result is most admirable. With the exception of an occasional brassy yellow canopy, recalling German colour, the same system of connecting canopy and subject together by colour is adopted alike at S. Croce, at S. Maria Novella, and at the Duomo at Florence. The composition of the windows is simple: within a border of foliage or other ornament, two or three tiers of figures, under modest canopies, separated perhaps by little medallions containing busts or demi-figures. That occurs at S. Domenico, Perugia, as well as at Florence. [Illustration: 179. FLORENCE.] A modification of the canopy occurs in the nave windows of the Duomo. The space within a narrow border which frames the broad lancet, is divided into two by a strong upright bar, and the divisions thus formed are treated as separate trefoil-arched lancets, each with another border of its own, the space above being treated much as though it were tracery. (Something like this occurs, it will be remembered, already in the thirteenth century, at Bourges.) In the tall spaces within the borders are the usual tiers of figures under canopies. Again, in the chapel of the Certosa in Val d'Ema, near Florence, there is a window with double-niched canopies and pronounced central shaft dividing the broad lancet into two narrow ones. [Illustration: 180. S. GIOVANNI IN MONTE, BOLOGNA.] The Italian canopy is not of so stereotyped a character as in Decorated or Perpendicular design; and generally it may be said that there is, both in the design and colour of Italian glass, more variety than one finds out of Italy. The plan is less obvious, the scheme less cut and dried; you know much less what to expect than in Northern Gothic, and enjoy more often the pleasure of surprise. Elaborately pictorial schemes of design are less common in Italian glass than might have been expected. There is a famous window in the church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo, at Venice (1473), in which the four lights below the bands of tracery which here takes the place of transom are given over to subject. There green trees and pale blue water against a deep blue sky and deeper blue hills, anticipate a favourite sixteenth century colour scheme; but the glass is a mere wreck of what was once probably a fine window. Figure groups on a considerable scale are chiefly to be found in the great "bull's-eye" windows, which are a striking feature in Italian Gothic churches, occupying a position where in France would have been a rose--over the West door, for example. [Illustration: 181. AREZZO.] These great circular windows, which occur at Arezzo, at Bologna, at Siena, and especially at Florence, are usually surrounded by an arabesque border. Occasionally the border consists of a medley of cherubic wings and faces; occasionally, as at Siena, it is in white, more in the form of mouldings; in one case, at least, it disappears, as it were, behind the figure group in the lower part of the window; but, as a rule, it consists of Renaissance pattern, such as are shown here and on page 70, large in scale, simple in design, and as mosaic in execution as though it had been twelfth century work. The centre of these circular lights may have, as at the Duomo at Florence, a single upright figure, enthroned, occupying a sort of tall central panel, supported by angels in the spandrils at the sides; or it may have a subject running across it, as in the case of Perino del Vaga's "Last Supper" (1549) at the West end of the cathedral at Siena. But very often it enclosed one big figure subject, such as the "Descent from the Cross" at Santa Croce, attributed to Ghiberti. An earlier manner of occupying a bull's-eye is shown in the East window at Siena, dating probably from about the beginning of the fourteenth century. This is subdivided by four huge cross bars (two horizontal and two vertical) into nine compartments, or a cross consisting of one central square, four squarish arms, and four triangular spandrils. Each of these divisions is taken as though it were a separate light, and has its own border, enclosing a separate subject. The bars, it is true, are of great size, wide enough almost to have been of stone; but the scheme rather suggests that the designer was not quite aware, when he designed it, how much less significant they would appear in the glass than they did in his drawing. Unquestionably the finest windows in Florence are the great lancets in the apse and south apsidal transept of the Duomo, finer than the three lights at the East end of S. Maria Novella, which are so much more often spoken of, possibly because they are seen to so much more advantage in the dark-walled Lady Chapel. It is difficult to trace in these Duomo windows the hand of Ghiberti or Donatello (1434), their reputed designers. They are planned on the simplest lines. In the upper series, the space within a narrowish border is divided, by a band of ornament or inscription, into two fairly equal parts, in each of which stand two figures facing one another (opposite) under the simplest form of canopy, if canopy it can be called. It is a mere frame, at the back of which is a two-arched arcade, with shafts disappearing behind the figures. They stand, that is to say, not under but in front of it. In the lower series the arrangement is the same, except that the upper compartment contains a single figure, larger in scale, and seated, under a canopy of rather more architectural pretensions. Some of the canopies have cusped arches, and some of the borders are foliated in a more or less Gothic way; but obviously the Gothicism throughout is only in deference to prevailing fashion. In feeling and effect the work is Renaissance. The design here given shows about one half of a window; but it gives, unfortunately, no hint of the colour. The depth of it may be imagined when it is told that the only approach to white in it is in the beaded line round the nimbus of the figure to the right, and that is of the horniest character. The flesh is of a rich brownish tint. The head on page 270 goes nearer to suggesting colour. There again the face is brown, the hair and beard dark and bluish; against it the band round the head, which is ruby, tells light. The orange-yellow nimbus, rayed, is rather lighter still, the beaded fillet edging it bone-white. The drapery is of brightest yellow diapered with occasional blue trefoils, each of which has in its centre a touch of red. The background is of very dark blue, the architecture nearest it bright green, beyond that it is dark red. [Illustration: 182. FIGURES, DUOMO, FLORENCE.] This short explanation will serve to indicate the key in which the colour is pitched. The glass itself, it has been said, is as rich as French work of the twelfth century, as deep as German of the fourteenth, but more vivid than either; there are no low-toned greens or inky blues. The blue is sapphire, the green has the quality of an emerald. In this palette of pure colour the artist revelled. Nowhere as in the Duomo at Florence is one so impressed with the feeling that the designer was dealing deliberately always with colour. Plainly that, and no other, was his impulse, colour--broad, large, beautiful, impressive, solemn colour masses. Elsewhere the story-teller speaks, or the draughtsman, here the colourist confesses himself. The grand scale of his figures allows him to treat his colour largely, and its breadth is no less notable than its brilliancy. There is infinite variety in it; but the general impression is of great masses of red, blue, yellow, green, purple, brown, and so on, held together by the same colours distributed in smaller threads and spots, as in diapers on drapery. The broad mass of any one colour is itself made up of many various tints of glass. The accidental fusion of colour, as of red and blue into purple, is guarded against by framing, say, the blue with green, or the ruby with brownish-yellow. At other times neutral tones are deliberately produced by the combination of, for example, red and green lines. [Illustration: 183. FLORENCE.] The event proves that in this way, and by the choice of deep rather than low tones, not only mellowness but sobriety of colour is to be obtained. The artist would certainly have chosen rather to be crude than dull; but it is very rarely that a false note occurs, and then most likely it is due to the decay of the brown paint upon which he relied to bring it into tone. At Arezzo one was disposed to think nothing could be finer than the glass of William of Marseilles; at Florence one is quite certain that nothing could be more beautiful than the glass in the Duomo. Each is, after its kind, perfect. But at Florence, at all events (_les absents ont toujours tort_), one finds that this is not only the more decorative kind, but the more dignified. One is disposed to ask, whether it is not better that in glass there should be no deceptive pictures, no perspective to speak of, only simple and severely disposed figures, which never in any way disturb the architectural effect, which give to the least attractive interior--the Duomo is as bare as a barn and as drab as a meeting-house--something of architectural dignity. [Illustration: 184. PRATO.] CHAPTER XXII. TRACERY LIGHTS AND ROSE WINDOWS. Glass in tracery lights and Rose windows cannot consistently be planned on the lines suitable to lancets or other upright shapes; and it is interesting to observe the modifications of design necessitated by its adaptation to circumstances so different. This applies not only to Gothic glass but to Renaissance, the best of which, as it happens, is in Gothic windows. Happily it never occurred to sixteenth century artists to hamper themselves by any affectation of archaism, and their work is deliberately in the new manner. One can understand, too, a certain "up-to-date" contempt on their part for the "old-fashioned" stonework; but it is rather surprising that so few of them seem to have realised how greatly their own work would have gained by a little more consideration of (if not for) the stonework. Where, as at Gouda, by way of exception, Gothic windows were built to receive later glass, tracery is to all intents and purposes abandoned: the builders would have done away with mullions had they known how otherwise to support such huge glass pictures. It has been explained already, in reference to the influence of the window-shape, and especially of the mullions, upon glass design, how much more formidable these divisions appear upon paper than in the window. That is very plainly seen in many a window where the designer has relied upon them to frame his subjects. The pictures have a way of running together in the most perplexing way, and one has to pick them out for oneself again. The practical conclusion from that is, that the designer is under no obligation to confine himself too strictly within the separate lights of a large window. What he is bound to do is to take care that the mullions never hurt his picture; if they do, it is his picture which is to blame. He may urge with reason that the upright shafts of stone are there merely for the support of the window, and that it is not his business to emphasise them, enough if he acknowledge them. In tracery, however, it is his bounden duty to take much more heed of the stonework. It was designed, in intricate and often very beautiful lines, with deliberately ornamental intent; it was meant to be seen, and it is his function to show it off. The question he has to put to himself is now no longer: does the stonework hurt my design? but: does my design hurt the stonework? And he should not be satisfied unless it helps it. The artist who, at Bourges, having _fleur-de-lys_-shaped tracery to deal with, carried across it a design quite contrary to the lines of the stonework, was guilty of a blank absurdity. The Early Rose windows, which were habitually filled with rich coloured glass, consisted either of simple piercings, as at Lincoln, or they were made up of piercings very definitely divided by massive stonework. In proportion as mullions become narrow, and form in themselves a design, it seems doubtful how far deep-coloured glass can do them justice. Only strong tracery lines will stand strong colour. At Châlons-sur-Marne, for example, the foils of certain cusped lights surrounding a central circular picture are successfully ornamented with arabesque of deep yellow upon paler yellow ground; and again at Or San Michele, Florence, certain gorgeous wheels of ruby and yellow, or of blue, green, and yellow, and so on, are unusually satisfactory. In such cases not only breadth of effect but definition of the tracery forms is gained by keeping them (more especially in their outer circumference) much of one tone, whilst contrast of colour between one light and another helps still further to assist definition. But this applies only to stonework strong enough to take care of itself. There is a sort of perverse brutality in putting into delicate and graceful tracery deep rich glass which hides its lines. Such lines want sharply defining against the light. Early windows had, of course, no tracery properly so called. The great Rose windows, and the smaller Roses surmounting a pair of lancets, were rather piercings than tracery; and it was not difficult to adapt the design of a medallion window to suit them. A small piercing was ready designed for a medallion subject; nothing was wanted but a border round it, narrower, of course, than would have been used for a broad lancet light, but of the same foliated character. The individual quatrefoils or other principal openings, which went to make up a great Rose window, were filled in the same way. If the opening were wedge-shaped, as it often was, the obvious thing to do was to introduce into it a medallion (probably circular) of the full width of the opening, at about its widest, and to fill up the space about it with foliated ornament or geometric mosaic, with which also the smaller and less important piercings would naturally be filled. Sometimes the recurring figure medallions were set alternately in foliated ornament and geometric diaper; or the lights might be grouped in pairs, two with foliage and two with diaper. Similar alternation of the two common kinds of Early filling, naturally occurred in minor openings which contained no medallion. Something of this kind occurs at Reims. When the shape of the great Rose permitted it--if, that is to say, the circular outline was strongly pronounced--it was possibly further acknowledged by a fairly broad border, following it and disappearing, as it were, behind the stonework; otherwise, except in the case of smaller medallion-shaped openings, it was not usual to mark them by even so much as a border line. Small Roses had sometimes, as at Auxerre, a central figure medallion round which were secondary foliage medallions set in diaper. A certain waywardness of design, already remarked in medallion windows, was sometimes shown by filling the central medallion with ornament and grouping the pictures round it. As the lights of a Rose window radiated from the centre, features which recurred throughout the series arranged themselves inevitably in rings; and according to the disposition of the emphatic features of the design, the rays or the rings pronounced themselves. This is partly the affair of the architect who sets out the stonework, but it lies with the glazier whether he choose to subdue or to emphasise either feature. It is hard to say why one or other of these schemes of glass design, in rays or in rings, should be preferred; but, as a matter of experience, the sun and star patterns are not among the most happy. Perhaps the stone spokes of a wheel window assert themselves quite enough any way, and the eye wants leading, not vaguely away from the centre, but definitely round the window. The circular belts of pattern formed by medallions or other features answer to, and fulfil the part of, the horizontal bands in upright windows (page 153), and bind the lights together. The band has it all its own way in a mere "bull's-eye," such as you find in Italy, where there are no radiating lines of masonry. It is strongly pronounced in some circular medallion windows at Assisi, in which an extraordinarily wide border (a quarter of their diameter in width) is divided into eight equal panels, each enclosed in its own series of border lines, within which is a medallion set in foliated ornament. This is fourteenth century work; but, as in thirteenth century Roses, the bars follow and accentuate the main divisions of the window. Even when it came to the glazing of a Rose window in a later Gothic style, it is not uncommon to find a series or two of medallions running round the window, as occurs at Angers. They hold the design together; but in the nature of the case they are on too small a scale for the pictures to count for more than broken colour. Indeed you may see here the relative value in such a position of small figure subjects and bold ornament. The scrollwork is as effective as the medallions are insignificant. In fact, compared to them, the illegible medallion subjects in the lancet lights below are readable by him who runs. It has to be confessed that quite some of the most beautiful and impressive Rose windows are perfectly unintelligible, even with a good field-glass. This is so with the West Rose at Reims. In the centre it is ablaze with red and orange, towards the rim it shades off into deliciously cool greens and greenish-yellows. It may mean what it may; the colour is enough. Room for figure work on an intelligible scale is only to be found by a device which verges on the ridiculous. In the beautiful North Rose at S. Ouen, Rouen, figures which should be upright are arranged in a circle like herrings in a barrel. Similar figures on a smaller scale occur in certain tracery lights at Lincoln, two of which are here given. Again in the North Rose at Le Mans there are twenty-four radiating figures. In fact, they were customarily so arranged, even down to the sixteenth century, a period at which one does not credit the designer with mediæval artlessness. It is obvious that out of a series of twenty or more figures, radiating like the spokes of a wheel, only a very few can stand anything like upright. The designer of the South Rose at S. Ouen has endeavoured to get over the difficulty, as well as to accommodate his design to the exceeding narrowness of the lights as they approach their axis, by giving his personages no legs, and making them issue from a kind of sheath or bouquet-holder. A number of the figures pretending to stand in the radiating lights by a Rose or wheel window must be ridiculously placed. And then there occurs the question as to whether they shall all stand with their feet towards the hub. Where the figures have space to float, it is different. The angels in the Late Gothic Rose window at Angers, with swirling drapery which hides their feet, and makes them by so much the less obviously human, if not more actually angelic, solve the difficulty of full-length figures (on any appreciable scale) in the only possible way. [Illustration: 185. TWO LIGHTS OF A ROSE WINDOW, LINCOLN.] A portion of a simple and rather striking wheel window of the Decorated period, in which concentric bands of ornament form a conspicuous feature, is shown overleaf. In the small Rose from Assisi (page 278) the glazier has very successfully supplemented the design of the architect, completing the four circles, and accentuating them further by glazing the central spandrils in much darker colour than the rest of the glass, which is mainly white. In the elaborate tracery of the Decorated or geometric period the mullions, as was said, ask to be pronounced. This was usually done in the Second Gothic period by framing each light with a border, separated from the stonework always by a fillet of white glass. The exception to this was in the case of trefoiled or other many-foiled openings, in which a central medallion or boss, usually circular, extended to the points of the cusps, and the border round the cuspings stopped short against the border to that. Or again in triangular openings a central boss would sometimes extend to its margin, and the borders would stop against that, or pass seemingly behind it. A typical form of Decorated tracery occurs in the West window at York Minster, by far the most beautiful part of it. There, every important opening has within its white marginal line a broader band of ruby or green, broken at intervals by yellow spots, within which border is foliage of white and yellow on a green or ruby ground. Some of the smaller openings show white and yellow foliage only, without any coloured ground. A plan equally characteristic of the period is illustrated at Tewkesbury. There again occurs similar white foliage, its stem encircling a central spot of yellow. This also is on green and ruby backgrounds, the former reserved for the more prominent openings; but the border is in white, painted with a pattern. This broader white border more effectively relieves the dark lines of the masonry than the border of colour, which sometimes confuses the shapes of the smaller tracery openings: it does so, for example, in the Late glass on page 200. [Illustration: 186. PART OF A ROSE WINDOW, GERMAN 14TH CENTURY.] For what was said of the difficulty of carrying a broad border round the heads of Decorated lights applies more forcibly still to tracery. The merest fillet of colour is often as much as can safely be carried round the opening, if even that. On the other hand, a broad border of white and stain, even though it contain a fair amount of black in it, may safely be used--as at Châlons, where it frames small subjects in rich colour. Some admirable Decorated tracery occurs at Wells, much on the usual lines, and containing a good deal of pleasant green; but there the white and yellow foliage in the centre part of the lights is sometimes so closely designed that very little of the coloured ground shows through it, and it looks at first as if what little ground there is had all been painted-out. At S. Denis Walmgate, York, the background to the foliage in white and yellow (which last predominates) is painted solid: the only pot-metal colour (except in the central medallion head) is in a rosette or two of colour leaded into it; the border is white. Another expedient there employed is to introduce figures in white and stain upon a ground of green or ruby, diapered. At Wells there occur little figures of saints in pot-metal colour, planted upon the white foliated filling of the tracery lights. Decorated circular medallions occupying the centre of ornamental tracery lights are usually framed in coloured lines; occasionally the inner margin of the medallion is cusped, in imitation of stonework. [Illustration: 187. ASSISI.] An effective plan, adopted at Evreux, is to gather the lights into groups, by means of the colour introduced into them, which grouping may or may not be indicated by the stonework. In any case, it is a means of obtaining at once variety and breadth of colour. Perpendicular tracery lights are themselves, in most cases, only copies in miniature of the larger lights below, and the glass is designed on the same plan. A good illustration of this is at Great Malvern, where the design consists of the orthodox canopy work in white and stain, with little figures also nearly all in white, colour occurring only in the lower skirts of their drapery, in the background about their heads, and behind the pinnacles above. The effect is beautifully silvery. Often such figures under the canopies are angels, all in white and stain. Sometimes seraphim, in stain upon a white ground, quarried perhaps, fill the lights, without canopies. These are all typical ways of filling the tracery of a Perpendicular window. It was quite a common thing to fill it with glass wholly of white and stain. In the centre there might be a medallion head in grisaille, or an inscribed label, the rest of the space being occupied by conventional foliage having just a line of clear white next the stonework. Beautiful examples of this treatment occur at Great Malvern; occasionally the foliage is all in yellow with white flowers. Small openings are thus often glazed in a single piece of glass, or in any case with the fewest possible leads. At S. Serge, Angers, there is larger work of a similar kind, a bold scroll in white and stain on a ground of solid pigment, out of which is scratched a smaller pattern, not so bold as in the least to interfere with the scroll, but enough to prevent anything like heaviness in the painted ground. Similar treatment is adopted in the cathedral at Beauvais. Once in a while one comes, in English work, upon figures in white and stain on a solid black ground extending to the stonework, without any line of white to show where the glass ends and the stonework begins. It would be impossible more emphatically than that to show one's contempt for the architecture. Some disregard, if not actually contempt, is shown for architecture in the practice, common no less in Late Gothic than in Renaissance design, of carrying a coloured ground right up to the stone, without so much as a line of light to separate the two. Comparatively light though the colour may be, it is usually dark enough, unless it be yellow, to confuse the forms of any but the boldest tracery. Something of the kind occurred by way of exception even in fourteenth century glass, as at S. Radegonde, Poitiers, and at Toulouse, where the tracery of the windows is one field of blue, irregularly sprinkled with white stars. The lines of the tracery are lost, and one sees only spots of white. The Later Gothic plan was to keep tracery light, even though the window below it were altogether in rich colour, and the effect was good; as at Alençon, where a distinctly blue window has in the tracery only angels in white and yellow on a white ground; or, again, at Conches, where white-robed angels, on a ground of rich stain, contrast pleasantly with the cool blue of the lights below. Unusual treatment of the tracery occurs at Auch (1513). In the main the tracery lights contain figures in colour upon a ruby or paler-coloured ground, which, as in so many a Renaissance window, runs out to the stonework; but occasionally here and there a light is distinguished by a border of white. Moreover, the ground is, as a rule, not of one colour throughout, nor even throughout a single light, but varied; and that not symmetrically or pattern-wise, but so as artfully to carry the colour through. In fact, the artist has taken his tracery much more seriously than usual, and has carefully studied how best he could balance by the colour in it the not quite so easily-to-be-controlled colour of his figure composition below. The result is that the windows are all of one piece--each a complete and well-considered colour composition: the tracery is not merely the top part of the frame to the coloured picture below. [Illustration: 188. LYONS.] In Renaissance glass the tracery was more often in comparatively full colour, even though the lights below were pale. A grisaille window at Evreux, with practically blue tracery, has a very pleasant effect. It was not often that the Renaissance glass painters gave very serious attention to the tracery which they had to fill. They were, for the most part, content to conceive each separate opening as a blue field upon which to place an angel (as above), a crown, a _fleur-de-lys_, or other emblem, as best might fit. In very many sixteenth century windows the design consists merely of angels, emblems, labels, or even clouds, dotted about, as suited the convenience of the designer. Sometimes, as at S. Alpin, at Troyes, there occurs in a tracery light a tablet bearing a date,--presumably, but not always positively, that of the window. Such devices were very often in white upon a ground of blue, purple, or ruby. Angels of course adapted themselves to irregular shapes in the most angelic way; and they are introduced in every conceivable attitude--standing, kneeling, flying, swinging censers, singing, playing on musical instruments, bearing scrolls or shields; angels all in white, angels in white with coloured wings, angels in gorgeous array of colour: and more accommodating, still, is the bodiless cherub, beloved of Luca della Robbia. There is a quite charming effect of colour in a Jesse window at S. Maclou, Rouen, where the tracery lights are inhabited by little cherubs, in ruby on a grey-blue ground, in grey on deeper grey-blue, and in emerald-like green upon the same. The scroll without the angel was a very convenient filling for smaller openings. Some elaborately twisted scrolls, in white and stain on purple, occur at Moulins. Larger and more prominent lights often contain a separate picture, or one picture runs through several lights, or perhaps all through the tracery. Worse than that is, where the picture runs through from the lights below; as at Alençon, where the trees grow up into the blue of the tracery, broken otherwise only by white clouds; or at Conches, where the architecture from the subject below aspires so high. It is almost worse still where, as at Alençon again, and at the chapel at Vincennes, it is the canopy which so encroaches. In the exceptional case of a Jesse window there seems less objection to accepting the whole window as a field through which the tree may grow; yet the tracery is not the happiest part of the Beauvais window (page 368). Sometimes the heads of the lower lights are made to appear as though they were part of the tracery. A happier form of Renaissance tracery design is where medallion heads in white and stain are introduced upon a ground of plain colour--blue at Châlons, purple-brown at Montmorency. These are sometimes most beautifully painted, as are the Raffaellesque little cherubs amidst white clouds, also at Montmorency; but they are much more delicately done than they need have been, and less effective than they might. Very delicate painting upon white does produce an effect even at a distance; at least it gives quality; but there should be some relation between effort and effect; and here the effect is weak as compared with the expenditure of art. In the tracery on page 213, fairly effective though monotonous, the birds are glazed in with such unnecessary avoidance of lead, that the cutting of the ground must have been a work of great difficulty. In glass of every period it has been the custom to put too much into tracery; in Early work too much detail, in Later too much finish. What is wanted is breadth. CHAPTER XXIII. QUARRY WINDOWS. The very simplest form of window glazing, the easiest and the thriftiest thing for the cutter to do, and the most straightforward for the glazier, is to frame together parallel-sided pieces of glass in the form of a lead lattice. Quarries, as all such little square or rhomboid shaped panes of glass came to be called, were used from the first. Ordinarily they were set on end, so as to form diamonds; which as time went on, were generally not rectangular, but long in proportion to their breadth. For the most part they were painted with patterns traced in brown; and, on the discovery of silver stain, they were in parts tinted yellow. From the fourteenth century onwards, quarry lights, framed in borders, and enlivened with colour, form a very important variety of grisaille. Many a grisaille pattern was not far removed from quarry glazing, as may be seen opposite. It was natural that, for clerestory and triforium windows in particular, the glazier should do all he could to simplify his work. Clerestory windows are placed too high to be fairly seen in a narrow church, and triforium lights are often half shut off from view by projecting shafts of open arcading in front of them. It is only when, by rare chance, they happen to front you squarely at the end of an aisle or transept, that they are properly seen. There is no occasion, therefore, to indulge in subtleties of design; the one thing needful is that the effect of the windows as a whole, should be pleasant, since all study of detail is out of the question, except from the triforium galleries opposite, or by the aid of a field-glass; and light arrangements of grisaille and colour are in most cases all that is wanted. The colour may be more or less, according as it is desired to exclude light or to admit it; but some very simple, unpretending, and perhaps even rude treatment, is indicated by the conditions of the case, which to contradict, is wasteful and unworkmanlike. The effect, for example, of the band of figures across the grisaille in the triforium of the transepts at Evreux is admirable; but the way in which seven saints out of the eight are cut vertically in two by the pillars of the architectural screen in front of them, is nothing less than exasperating. These figures tell only as the patches of colour; and that could so easily have been obtained by much simpler means. In such a position, quarries may well take the place, not only of figures, but of more interesting grisaille; and, even though they be not painted at all (as is again the case at Evreux), but merely broken by occasional sun-discs in white and stain crossing them, and framed in a simple block border of white and colour, the effect may be entirely adequate. It is not meant to deny that figures in rich colour embedded in carefully designed grisaille are more attractive; but, for its purpose, quarry work, with borders and bosses of colour, is in the majority of such cases, enough. [Illustration: 189. LINCOLN.] [Illustration: 190. EVREUX.] Figures or figure subjects in formal bands across tall quarry lights are always effective; so are figures planted more casually upon the quarries--kneeling donors, flying angels, or whatever they may be. So again, are figure panels alternating with bosses of ornament; but, if the window occupy a position where the figures can be appreciated, a surrounding of quarries seems hardly of interest enough, and if not, the figures seem rather thrown away. One is tempted to make exception in favour of figures in grisaille, which, if very delicately painted (as for example at S. Martin-cum-Gregory, York), show to advantage on a quarry ground, which has the modesty not to compete with them in interest. The quarries keep their place perfectly as a background; and the slight painting upon them is just enough to give the glass quality, and to indicate that, however subordinate, it is yet part of the picture. A quarry window, no less than any other, wants a border, if only to prevent the strongly marked straight lines of lead from appearing to run into the stonework. A simple line of colour with another of white next the mullions is enough for that. Even this is occasionally omitted, more especially in tracery lights, but in that case the glass seems to lack finish. The most satisfactory border to quarry lights into which otherwise no colour is introduced, is a broadish border of white, painted with pattern and in part stained. A coloured border seems to imply other colour breaking the field of quarries. By itself it is too much or not enough. Its proportion is a thing to be determined in each case on the spot; but even in narrow lights, if they contain bosses of colour (as do those in the transepts at Le Mans) a broad border about one fifth the width of the window, with a broad white line next the stone, is very effective. The monotony of any great surface of quarry work, has led to the introduction of medallions and the like, even where it is not desired to introduce pot-metal colour. In the window from Evreux, illustrated opposite, the effect of the delicately painted little angel medallions, in white on a ground of stain, is all that could be wished. Any little surprise of that kind is always welcome; but, should it occur too frequently, it becomes itself monotonous. There is no end to the variety of forms in which colour may be introduced into quarry work. It is best in the form of patches, and not in the form of lines between the quarries as occurs occasionally, at Poitiers, for example, at Rouen cathedral, and at Châlons (page 167). [Illustration: 191. QUARRY WINDOW, EVREUX.] Big rosettes, discs, wreaths, rings of colour, and the like, are more effective than small spots. They need not be heavy, there may be any amount of white in them. In narrow lights, they may sometimes with advantage come in front of the border; that admits of the biggest possible medallion, and it is best to have such features large and few. Mean little rosettes are too suggestive of the contractor; in the church of S. Ouen, at Rouen, one is uncomfortably reminded of him--it would be so easy to estimate for glass of that kind at so much the foot! Heraldic shields form often peculiarly effective colour-patches in quarry windows, more especially because of the accidental arrangement of colour they compel. There is a point at which symmetry of colour palls upon the eye. [Illustration: 192. LINCOLN.] The even surface of quarry lights all in white and stain is broken sometimes by an occasional band of inscription, which may either take the line of the quarries, or cross them in the form of a label. At Evreux some quarry lights are most pleasingly interrupted by square patches of inscription in yellow, or, which is still more satisfactory, in white. In the same cathedral there is a very interesting instance of inscription, in letters some five or six inches high, leaded in blue upon a quarry ground. [Illustration: 193. GERMAN QUARRY BORDER.] [Illustration: 194. EARLY ENGLISH QUARRY.] The patterns with which quarries are painted naturally followed the ordinary course of grisaille. In the thirteenth century the designs were strongly outlined, and showed clear against a cross-hatched ground; which, however, did not, as a rule, extend to the lead, but a margin of clear glass was left next to it, in acknowledgment of the quarry shape. The combination of quarries and strap ornament in the example at Lincoln (page 287) is unusual, but the quarries themselves are, but for the absence of a clear line next the leads, characteristically of the thirteenth century. The quarry border from Nuremberg (above) is rather later in character. In that case also, as it happens, there is no marginal line of clear glass. The typical treatment is shown below. Later, as in other grisaille, the cross-hatched ground was omitted; and the foliage took, of course, more natural form. It was presently more delicately traced (page 290), and more often than not tinted in yellow stain. Consistently with the more natural form of leafage the design in fourteenth century work was often one continuous growth trailing through the window, and passing behind the marginal band of stain which now usually emphasised the top sides of the quarries. Often a futile attempt was made (page 286) to give the appearance of interlacing to these bands, but that was nullified by the stronger lead lines. True, interlacing was only possible where, as in some earlier work, the bands were continued on all four sides of the quarry, so that the lead fell into its place as interspace between two interlacing bands. It was better when there was no pretence of interlacing (below). Additional importance was sometimes given to the marginal band by tracing a pattern upon it, or, as on page 291, painting it in brown, and then picking out geometric tracery upon it. There came a time when marginal lines were omitted altogether. That was the usual, though not invariable, practice in the fifteenth century, by which time the draughtsman had apparently learnt to husband his inventive faculty. The continuous growth of the pattern, as well as the marginal acknowledgment of the lead lines, died out of fashion, and quarries were mostly painted sprig fashion. The character of these sprigs will be best judged from the specimens on page 289, some of the most interesting given in "Shaw's Book of Quarries." Quarry patterns do not, of course, occur in that profuse variety; it is seldom that more than two patterns are found in a single window, often there is only one. The range of design in quarries of this kind is limited only by the invention of the artist. It includes both floral and conventional ornament, animal and grotesque figures, emblems and heraldic badges, cyphers, monograms, mottoes, and so on. There is scope not only for meaning in design, but for the artist's humour; but, when all is said, the Late Gothic pattern windows, now given over entirely to quarry work, are of no great account as concerns their detail. The later quarry patterns are often pretty enough, sometimes amusing, but they go for very little in the decoration of a church. Plentiful as quarry work is everywhere, and characteristic as it is of Perpendicular glass, there is not much that shows an attempt to do anything serious with the quarry window. All that was done was to paint more or less delicate and dainty patterns upon the little lozenge panes. However, they were traced with a light hand and a sure one, and with a kind of spontaneity which gives them really what artistic charm they have. [Illustration: 195. QUARRY PATTERNS (SHAW).] [Illustration: 196. 14TH CENTURY QUARRY.] [Illustration: 197. 14TH CENTURY QUARRIES.] The occasional endeavours to get stronger and bolder effects in quarry work were not very successful. At Evreux and at Rouen there are some late quarries painted more after the fashion of bold mosaic diaper; but the effect, though satisfactory enough, is not such as to convince one that that is the better way. [Illustration: 198. 14TH CENTURY QUARRY.] To heraldry, and especially to shields of arms surrounded by mantling (page 293), quarries form an excellent background, but only in the event of there being enough of them left free to show that it is a quarry window upon which the heraldry is imposed, or rather into which it is inlaid. Odds and ends of quarries want to be accounted for, as forming the continuation of the glass above and below. In the case of a window not a quarry window, it is a mistake to break up the background, as was sometimes done, into quarries, or rather into fragments of quarries. The object of the square or diamond shape is to break up a plain surface. If the ground is naturally broken up by figures, foliage, mantling, or what not, why introduce further quarry lines? They are not in themselves interesting. Their great value is in that they give scale to a window; but that is only on condition that they are seen in their entirety. [Illustration: 199. ROUND GLASS, ROUNDELS, OR BULL'S-EYES.] [Illustration: 200. HERALDIC GLASS.] In Germany the place of quarries was supplied by roundels (page 292) unpainted. What applies to quarries applies in many respects to them; and they have a brilliancy which flat glass has not. They were usually enclosed in painted borders of white and stain, and have a very delicate and pearly effect; but where (as at S. Peter's, at Cologne) they occur in great quantity as compared with coloured subjects, these appear to be floating rather uncomfortably in their midst. The Italians, who also used roundels in place of quarries, often let colour into the interstices between them, and also little painted squares or pateræ of white and stain. In the sham windows decorating the Sistine Chapel at Rome, separating Botticelli's series of Popes, the pointed spaces between the rounds are coloured diagonally in successive rows of red, yellow, and green; but the result is most pleasing where, as at Verona and elsewhere, the little triangular spaces are neither of one tint nor yet symmetrically arranged, but distributed in a quasi-accidental and unexpected way. Sometimes it was the little pateræ that was in colour and the rest white. In any case, the effect is refined, as it is at Arezzo also, where the monotony of roundels, in sundry clerestory windows, is broken by figure medallions and other features in white and colour. The adaptation of roundels to the circular shape is shown in the portion of a round window from Santa Maria Novella. What more remains to be said about roundels and quarry windows is reserved for the chapter on "Domestic Glass." [Illustration: 201. QUARRY FROM CHETWODE CHURCH.] [Illustration: 202. WINDOW IN THE CERTOSA IN VAL D'EMA, FLORENCE.] CHAPTER XXIV. DOMESTIC GLASS. It is customary to draw a distinction between "Ecclesiastical" and "Domestic" glass. In mediæval days the Church was the patron of art; and, when kings and corporations commissioned stained glass windows, it was usually to present them to Mother Church. It is in churches, then, that the greater part of the old glass remains to us, iconoclastic mania notwithstanding; and it is only there that the course of glass painting can be traced. Once in a while, as at S. Mary's Hall, Coventry, one comes upon a great window designed to decorate a civic building; but the whiles are few and far between. When such windows do occur they prove not to differ widely from more familiar church work. What, then, is the difference between the two kinds of glass? It is not that the one is ecclesiastical the other secular, the one religious the other profane art. "Sacred Art" is a term consecrated by use; but, strictly speaking, it is a meaningless combination of words, signifying, if it signify anything, that the speaker confounds the art of telling with the thing told. Art has no more a religion than it has a country. No doubt there clings always to the art of the devout believer some fervour of faith, as there may hang about the sceptic's doing a chill of doubt. The historian will enrich his glass with story, the preacher will convey in it a dogma. Poet or proser, philosopher or fool, may each in turn peep out of the window. Youth will everywhere betray its ardour, manhood its vigour, age its experience. A live man cannot help but put himself into his work. But none of that is art. His art is in the way he expresses himself, not in what he says; and there is no more religion in his glass painting than in his handwriting, though the graphologist may read in it his character. The difference between church glass and domestic arises, speaking from the point of view of art, solely from architectural conditions. In so far as they are both glass, the same methods of glazing and painting apply to both. It is only in so far as the position and purpose of the two are different, that they call for different treatment in design. The treatment suitable to a great hall does not materially differ from that adapted to a church; the same breadth of design, the same largeness of execution, are required; what suits a cloister would suit a passage. When, however, it comes to the windows of dwelling-rooms, the scheme and execution appropriate even to the smallest chapels of a church, would most likely be out of place. The distinction is very much as that between wall decoration in fresco and cabinet paintings in oil- or water-colour. In the house there is less need than in the church for severity, and more for liveliness, less occasion for breadth, and more for delicacy. The scale of the dwelling-room itself justifies, perhaps demands, a smaller treatment. Here, if anywhere, is opportunity for that preciousness of execution which, in work of more monumental character, it seems a pity to expend upon so frail a substance as glass--frailer than ever when it was the thin white glass employed for window panes. For, so far from the glazier of the sixteenth or seventeenth century imagining, as we mostly do, that it was any part of the purpose of domestic glass to shut out the view--less need in those days!--he employed in most cases a material which was not merely translucent but absolutely transparent. This use of transparent glass marks a distinction, and forms something of a new departure. It was employed to some extent in Renaissance church work; but there it was more as a background to the stained glass window than as a part of it. Here the transparent glass is the window; and the design, whether in pot-metal or in enamel, shows more or less against the clear. The relationship of certain seventeenth century windows at Antwerp to the Italian windows on pages 295, 299, 352, is obvious. They may be quite possibly founded upon them. There is the same arrangement of subjects in cartouches, set in geometric glazing of clear glass. But in the Italian windows one kind of glass is used throughout (the little pieces of thin pot-metal colour in the cartouches, and so on, scarcely count); and the proportion of the painted work to clear glass is so schemed that, although you may feel that the plain work wants just a touch of enrichment to bring it all together, you are not asked deliberately to imagine yourself to be looking through, beyond the painting, into space. [Illustration: 203. ITALIAN GRISAILLE, FLORENCE.] The detail in these windows from the Certosa in Val d'Ema, near Florence, is all outlined and painted in brown upon clear white glass, the flesh warmer in tint than the rest; the high lights are brushed out of a matt tint, and some pale stain is washed in. The artful thing about the design is, the cunning way in which the borders are planned, so as to avoid the absolute parallelism of marginal lines. For the rest the design is rather characteristically Late Renaissance, though the relation of border to cartouche, and of both together to clear glass, is better than usual. It will be noted that these are not strictly domestic windows; but they are designed to be seen about on a level with the eye, and from a distance of not more than ten feet, which is as far as the width of the cloister allows one to get away from them. [Illustration: 204. CERTOSA IN VAL D'EMA.] They fulfil, therefore, altogether very much the conditions which apply generally to domestic glass, and may be taken, if not as types of domestic work, at least as something on the way from the church to the house. This, though the common type of Italian Renaissance grisaille, was not invariable. At S. Frediano, Lucca, for example, there is a white window, which, except for a little medallion in its centre, might at a glance almost pass for thirteenth century work: the Cinque-Cento scroll is so rendered, with cross-hatched ground and all, as to suggest the early mediæval craftsman; it is centuries away from Da Udine in style. The domestic quarry window differed, in mediæval work, in no respect from church work. In the sixteenth century it took rather a new form. It consisted no longer of a more or less diaper-like all-over pattern, but of a panel, designed to be glazed in quarries. Here, again, is an approximation to the seventeenth century practice of leading up pictures in rectangular panes, but only an approximation. There is this important difference, that the quarry window starts from the lead lines, and is religiously designed within them. Thus to accept, the simple square and obviously fit lines of quarry glazing, and to expend his art in painting upon them, simplifies the task of the glass painter; and he very frequently fell back upon that plan, more readily perhaps when he happened to know more about painting than about glazing. That was Da Udine's case, who is credited with the design of the windows in the Laurentian library at Florence, as of those at the Certosa in Val d'Ema. They bear a date some few years after his death; but they are so like what he certainly would have done that, directly or indirectly, the design is clearly due to him. The one illustrated on page 298 is quite one of the best of these windows; in the others the ornament is even less coherent. The characteristic arabesque is painted in brown enamel, with redder enamel for the flesh tints, some yellow stain, and a little blue enamel in the heraldic lozenge, all upon clear white glass. The effect is delicate and silvery and no appreciable amount of light is excluded (a point usually of some importance in domestic work); but, though the main forms are designed within the lead lines, one feels that these have not been considered enough, that the leads compete with the painting, and that the bars, in particular, which are far thicker than need be, and occur with unnecessary frequency (in fact, at every horizontal quarry joint but one), very seriously mar the effect of delicate painting. That is as much as to say that the design, graceful and fanciful as it is, does not fulfil the conditions of quarry glass. It is not enough for complete success in this form of window that the quarry lines shall be the basis of the design; the painting also must be strong enough to hold its own against leads and bars. That is hardly the case with the exceptionally delicate ornament in the Dutch glass opposite. But here, notwithstanding that the scroll is slighter than the Italian work and more delicately painted, the central patch of enamel colour in the shield and mantling does, to some extent, focus the attention there, and so withdraw the eye from the lead lines. The window is not merely cleverly designed; it is a frank, straightforward, manly piece of work, marred only by the comparative heaviness of the leads. The truth is that a glass painter becomes so used to lead lines, and gets to take them so much for granted, that they do not offend him; and he is apt to forget how obtrusive they may appear in the eyes of the unaccustomed. Hence his sometimes seemingly brutal treatment of tenderly painted ornament. [Illustration: 205. DUTCH QUARRY WINDOW, S. K. MUSEUM.] Other good examples of Dutch domestic glass, not quite so good as this, but painted with admirable directness, are to be found at the _Musée des Antiquités_ at Brussels. At the Louvre also the Dutch work is good. There are two lights there in which cartouches enclosing small oval subjects (fables) spread over the greater part of the quarry glazing, leaving only the lowermost of them comparatively empty. On these are painted butterflies, a dragon-fly, even a gad-fly, almost to the life. These flies upon the window pane, like the little miniature figures in the bottom corner quarries on page 301, are trivial enough in idea; but the idea is cleverly and daintily expressed; and one does not expect much else than triviality in seventeenth century design. Moreover, in the privacy of domestic life it is permitted to be trivial. For dignity of treatment it would be difficult to match the specimen of Flemish glass shown on page 304, now at Warwick Castle. Like the Dutch and Italian work, it is painted on clear glass but without the prettiness of flesh tint, and the background to the ornament (it shows dull grey in the print) is brilliant yellow stain. This little light and its companion on page 98 are as large in style as they are beautiful in effect. There is a gayer touch in the less seriously decorative panel of French work in the Louvre given on page 307. In that pot-metal is used for the dark ruby of the outer dress, and for the little bits of blue rather cunningly let into the spandrils of the arch. The fancifully designed canopy, the arabesque, and a portion of the drapery are in stain, all delicately painted upon clear glass, and glazed mainly on quarry lines--from which, however, the designer saw fit to depart. What he meant by the unfortunate circular lead line about the head is difficult to imagine. It can hardly be, like other erratic leading, the result of mending. No fracture could possibly have steered so carefully between the figure and the ornament. It looks almost as if at the last he had lost confidence in his technique, and, in trying vainly to avoid lead lines, had ended in giving them extraordinary emphasis. In ultra-delicate domestic work the leads are more than ever the difficulty. One is uncomfortably conscious of them in the wonderful series of windows--formerly at Ecouen, and now in the Château de Chantilly--in which is set forth in forty pictures the story of Cupid and Psyche. A specimen of these is given on page 218, thanks to the friendly permission of Monsieur Magne, who illustrates the whole of them in his admirable monograph of the Montmorency glass. The legend to the effect that Raffaelle designed and Palissy painted them, is past all possible belief; but they are very remarkable specimens of sixteenth century work, restored about the period of the First Empire, and mark somewhere about the high-water mark of French domestic picture glass. A glance at these windows is enough to show that they were never schemed with any definite view to glazing. Rather it would appear that the pictures were first designed and then the leads introduced where best they could be disguised. But the disguise is everywhere transparent. Such gauzy painting is inadequate; it hides nothing. You see always the thick black lines of lead, cruel enough, but clinging in a cowardly way to the edges of weak forms, sneaking into shadows, and foolishly pretending to pass themselves off as the continuation of painted outlines not one-twentieth part so strong as they. The sparing use of glazing lines makes them all the more conspicuous. They must originally have asserted themselves even more than they do now; for the accidental lead lines introduced in reparation, however much they damage the pictures, do in a measure support the original glazing lines, and pull the windows together. The Chantilly glass goes to prove the impossibility of satisfactorily disposing of the leads in very small figure subjects in grisaille. In work on a larger scale it wants only a man who knows his trade to manage it. Witness what was done in church work. [Illustration: 206. GRISAILLE, WARWICK CASTLE.] The propriety of executing figures in grisaille at all has been called in question by Viollet le Duc. "Every bit of white glass," he said, "should be diapered with pattern traced with a brush; and, since this treatment is not possible in flesh painting, flesh ought not to be painted." Moreover, he says that grisaille has always the appearance of vibrating, and the vibration fatigues the eye; therefore, he argues, it is labour lost to paint white figures. Far be it from an ornamentist to deny that a great deal too much importance is attached to figure work in decoration. But the amount of tracing necessary on white glass is relative. In grisaille it is quite safe to leave some glass clear; and, if it is not worth while to paint figures, is it worth while to paint anything worth looking at, or worth painting? [Illustration: 207. LOUIS XIII. AND ANNE OF AUSTRIA.] The truth is, it wearies the sight to look at any glass for long at a stretch, and for a mere _coup d'oeil_ the most brutal workmanship would often do. But, if work is ever to be seen from near, the charm is gone when once you know how coarse it is. One tires of crude work, and delights more and more in what is delicate. Whoever has taken pleasure in such work as the windows at S. Alpin at Troyes would find it hard to renounce the figure in grisaille. To return to the leading of grisaille. Of the two extremes, the bold, even the too bold, acknowledgment of the constructional lines of a window, is far preferable to the timid attempt to conceal them. The glaziers of the Renaissance eventually got over the difficulty by the simple plan of inserting into quarry windows (usually unpainted) or into pattern work of plain glass only, little panes of painted glass. In this way there are introduced into some windows at the Château de Chaumont some very beautiful little portrait medallions, outlined with a firmness and modelled with a delicacy which remind one of the drawings of Clouet. At the Germanic Museum at Nuremberg are some similar medallion heads, quite Holbein-ish in character. A later portrait panel, lacking the style and draughtsmanship of these, but very cleverly painted (by Linard Gontier they say), is reproduced on page 305. It represents, as the inscription and cypher go to show, Louis Treize and Anne of Austria, as bride and bridegroom. Its date, therefore, speaks for itself. Another little pane by Gontier, from the Hôtel des Arquebusiers at Troyes, now in the library there, is given on page 310. The characteristic ornamental work surrounding this, though not forming a consecutive frame to the picture, is of about the same period with it (1621). Its design consists of that modified form of Arab foliation (compare it with the detail on page 352), which was very much used in damascening and niello work; indeed, the French still call that kind of pattern "_nielle_." Here it is traced in a fine brown outline, and filled in partly with yellow stain and partly with blue enamel. The effect is pleasing. [Illustration: 208. DOMESTIC GLASS, THE LOUVRE.] It was in Switzerland that glass painting other than for churches was most extensively practised. The Council Chambers of Swiss towns, and the halls of trade and other guilds, were enriched with bands of armorial glass across the windows; and throughout the sixteenth century it was the custom to present to neighbouring towns or friendly Corporations a painted window panel. Great part of these have been dispersed, and in Switzerland they are now perhaps rarer than in the museums of other countries. The Germanic Museum at Nuremberg and the Hôtel Clûny, at Paris, are rich in Swiss glass; and we have some at South Kensington. Superb examples, however, still remain in Switzerland--for example, in the Rath-haus at Lucerne--though they belong to a period as late as the first ten years of the seventeenth century. [Illustration: 209. PIERCED QUARRIES, WARWICK.] The usual form of design consisted of a sort of florid canopy frame of moderate dimensions, enclosing a shield or shields of arms, supported by fantastically dressed men-at-arms. There was often great spirit in the swagger of these melodramatic swashbucklers, admirably expressive of the idea which underlies all heraldry: "I am somebody," they seem to say, "pray who are you?" It is a comparatively modest specimen of this class that is presented on page 90. In the windows of a private house it was frequently the master and mistress who supported the armorial shield, all in their Sunday best, and very proud of themselves too. Little Bible subjects were also painted, mainly in grisaille. It was for window panes that Holbein drew the Stations of the Cross, now among the chief treasures of the museum at Bâle. These also must be classed with domestic work. They may in some cases have been destined for a church; but they would much more appropriately decorate a private oratory. These heraldic or pictorial panes go even beyond the delicacy of cabinet pictures, and are sometimes more on the scale of miniatures; but of such miniature painting the Swiss were masters. They carried craftmanship to its very furthest point, and among them traditions of good work lingered long after they were quite dead in France. Of English work there was not much; and of that the less said the better. Far into the eighteenth century the Swiss still had a care for their window panes, and, when painting went out of fashion, engraved them with armorial or other devices. Precisely that kind of engraving was employed also upon polished mirrors, of which one finds examples in Italy. Unpainted quarry windows in English houses were sometimes relieved, at the same time that ventilation was secured, by the occasional introduction (in the place of glass) of little fretted panels of pierced lead, as shown on page 308. Below is a diamond-shaped piercing of the Jacobean period. [Illustration: 210. QUARRY OF FRETTED LEAD.] [Illustration: 211. DOMESTIC WINDOW PANE, TROYES.] CHAPTER XXV. THE USE OF THE CANOPY. No one can have paid much attention to stained glass without observing the conspicuous part played in its design by the quasi-architectural canopy. Inasmuch as it, in a sense, enshrines the figure, there exists some sort of symbolic reason for its use. But that is not enough to account for its all but universal employment. A more obvious excuse for it is, the purpose it fulfils in the construction of design. It is a means of accounting for the position of figures midway up the window, perhaps one above the other, and not standing upon the sill. It is at once framework and support to them, preventing them from seeming to float there in space. Where the designer of the church designed also the glass for it, it was almost inevitable that he should plan it more or less upon architectural lines; and so we find that in windows known to have been designed by architects the canopy is very often the most conspicuous part of the design. But at all times the master-builder must have been a power, and at all times also even glaziers and glass painters must have been so intimately acquainted with forms of architecture, that it is not surprising they should have introduced them into their work. The fact is, the designer happens upon something like a canopy almost without intending it, and, having arrived so far, perfects the resemblance to it. Suppose a window of four long lights, in each of which it is desired to introduce three figures. That means dividing it horizontally into three, which may be done by the use of bands of inscription, as at _a_ in the diagram overleaf: there is no suggestion of architecture there. Supposing you wish to frame the window at the sides, so as to stop the picture, as at _b_, to the left of the diagram; you have still no very distinct suggestion of architecture. But if, the better to frame the picture, you add an extra band of colour, as shown at _c_, you arrive at once at something so like perspective as to indicate an architectural elevation. Indeed, that is precisely the form the canopy takes sometimes in Italian glass. Even when the cinque-centist framed his picture merely in lines he could hardly help giving them the appearance of mouldings, painting upon (as at Arezzo) egg-and-tongue or other familiar architectural enrichment in white and stain. [Illustration: 212. DIAGRAM.] In the clerestory at Freiburg is a window in which the serried saints appear at first sight to be simply framed by lines of pale purple; but on examination these resolve themselves into a simple architectural elevation, with even a hint of unsuspected shadow in it. The date of that example is 1512; and canopies, not to go back to Græco-Roman decoration, begin with the beginning of Gothic. It is adduced, therefore, to show, not the origin of canopy work, but how inevitably something of the sort occurred. Its immediate source is clearly imitation. The thing is borrowed straight from architecture, and indicates, it may justly be said, if not a certain lack of inventive faculty on the part of the designer, at least some disinclination to take the pains to invent. So in the thirteenth century we have funny little glass penthouses over the figures of saints, architectural in form but not in colour; in the fourteenth windows are crossed by rows of tall brassy disproportioned tabernacles, as yet flat fronted; in the fifteenth, white ghosts of masonry pretend to stand out over the figures; in the sixteenth, altar-like, or other more or less monumental, structures, are pictured with something like the solidity of stonework; and eventually the canopy is merged in painted glass architecture, which joins itself on as best it can to the actual masonry. The forms of canopy typical of each period of architecture have been discussed in the several chapters on design, but something remains to be said upon canopy work in general, and upon particular instances of it. The Early canopy goes for nothing as design. Its one merit is that it is inconspicuous. One could wish that the Decorated were equally so. There is, as a rule, no shutting your eyes to its mass of overpowering shrinework. When, by way of exception, it chances to be modest it is sometimes more interesting--as where it is scarcely more than a cusped arch, or where, as at Strassburg, it takes the form of an arcaded band across the window, in which are series of little demi-figures. At Cologne Cathedral also sundry saints are pigeon-holed in this way. _Apropos_ of this, it should be mentioned that it invariably adds to the interest of a canopy, when; for example, the broad shaft of a Decorated canopy enniches angels and other figures, or when they are introduced among its pinnacles or in its base. The wide-spreading German canopy affords scope for variety of design not possible so long as the structure is confined within a single light. In some four-light windows at Erfurt (1349-1372) the broad shafts of the canopies, with saints in separate niches, occupy the whole width of the outer lights, leaving only two lights for the central picture. In a five-light window at Strassburg the canopy is five-arched, allowing separate arches in the outer lights for figures of saints, whilst the three central ones cover a single subject. In canopies which include niches with separate subsidiary subjects, these are sometimes by way of prelude to the main story. In the cathedral at Berne is something of the kind. There, among the pinnacles of the canopy which crowns the subject of the Adoration, are seen the Kings setting out on their pilgrimage, journeying by night, having audience of Herod, and arriving finally at the city of Bethlehem. In the great altar-like canopies of the Renaissance there is sometimes a gallery above, with angels or other figures, which give points of colour amidst the white. In any case, the canopy is usually more interesting when it is peopled. The Perpendicular canopy is in effect much more pleasing than what had gone before, but it sins in its simulation of stonework. There also little figures in white and stain are very effectively introduced into the shafts and other parts of the construction, but more in the form of architectural sculpture. There are some very interesting instances of this at Fairford, though the canopies themselves are not otherwise peculiarly interesting. The useful device of low, flat-topped canopies, adopted in the nave windows at Cologne Cathedral, seldom occurs out of Germany. It is there most successful. Indeed, these particular canopies are interesting examples of the interpenetration of architectural tracery as well as of its moderate and modest use. Late German canopies are often much more leafy than French or English; they are less architectural--or rather, the architecture breaks out into more free and flowing growth. The charm of Late Gothic canopy work, as was said, lies in its colour, or in the absence of colour--in its silvery effect, that is to say. And one may safely add that quite the most satisfactory canopies, in whatever style, are those in which white largely prevails, modified by stain, but preserving its greyish character. In later Renaissance work white is still largely used; but it is made less brilliant by painted shadow, and so has less to excuse its architectural pretensions. At Milan there is a window in which what should be white is in various granular tints of brown. The coloured canopy, to which the Italians adhered (as well as to the border enclosing it), does not frame them as the white glass does. The idea appears to be, on the contrary, that it should form part of the picture. Elsewhere than in Italy coloured canopies, other than yellow, are rare; but they occur. There are, for example, the hideous flesh-coloured constructions peculiar to Germany. At Troyes are some not unsatisfactory little canopies in green, and others in purple (1499). At Châlons-sur-Marne is an effective canopy (1526-1537) of golden arabesque on purple. At Freiburg (1525) is a steely-blue Renaissance canopy, from which depend festoons of white and greenish-yellow, against the ruby ground of the subject. And there are others satisfactory enough. But so invariably effective is the framework of white and stain, that to depart from it seems almost like giving up the very excuse for canopies. The Late Gothic canopy work does most effectually frame the pictures, and gives light, of course, at the same time. It goes admirably with the colour scheme, which includes always a fair quantity of white, even in comparatively rich figure subjects. There is no denying, nor any desire to deny, its altogether admirable effect. If the effect were not otherwise to be obtained, the end would justify the means. But the effect is due simply to the setting of the subjects in a framework of white, not to the architectural character of the design. All that those Perpendicular canopies do could be done equally without architectural forms at all. Canopies make no more beautiful screens of silvery-white than, say, the Five Sisters at York. Intrinsically they are less interesting than pattern work. They give less scope for arranging subjects variously, just as one will; and they allow less range for the fancy of the artist. The most interesting canopies, and among the most effective, are those Early Renaissance picture frames (French, German, or Italian) which, whilst just sufficiently suggesting something near enough to architecture to be called canopies, are really little more than arabesque. One might almost say they are pleasing in proportion as they depart from the quasi-architectural formula. The enormous value of the mass of white afforded by the canopy, as a setting for colour, has reconciled us too readily to its use. Why not this mass of white without pretended forms of masonry, without this paraphernalia of pinnacles? The architect alone, perhaps, in his heart likes canopy work, and would prefer it to any other kind of ornamental device. When he plans a window, or directs its planning, forms of architectural construction occur to him naturally. Supposing him to be an artist (as we have perhaps a right to expect him to be) he produces a fine thing; but were he to work upon more workmanlike lines, or, to speak quite precisely, more upon the lines of the worker in glass, how much better he would do--being an artist! In his reliance upon inappropriate structural forms, he makes the obvious mistake of depending upon the kind of thing with which he is most familiar, not the thing especially called for. Each particular craft has a technique of its own. One other class of person also loves canopy work--the tradesman; but his affection for it is less disinterested, and more easily accounted for. The stock canopy (as every one knows who has been, as it were, behind the counter) is a famous device for cheapening production. The examples chosen for illustration throughout these pages do, on the whole, much more than justice to the periods which they were chosen to represent; but, taken altogether, they do not, even so, form a very effective plea for canopy work. Were the canopy more defensible than it is in glass, it would still have monopolised far too large a place in the scheme of mediæval and Renaissance design. We owe largely to it, in connection with the gradually increasing claims of figure work, the all but extinction of pattern glass. Figure work is practically implied by the canopy. Occasionally, indeed, architecture has formed the whole _motif_ of a window; but the case is so rare that it does not count. Once in a while there may be excuse, and even occasion, for almost any device. There is no valid reason of art why figures and figure subjects should not be framed in ornament, designed indeed with reference to the architecture of the building, but not in the least in the likeness of architecture. This ornament might perfectly well be in white and stain. Ornamental setting in colour does occur in thirteenth century medallion windows, and again (though only by exception) in certain Early Renaissance glass; but by that time pictures, as a rule, absorbed all the interest of design. The instinct which makes us want to give even pictured personages some sort of roof above their heads is more natural than logical. Anyway, to make windows to look like niches in the wall, is an absurd ideal of design, and the nearer the glass painter gets to it the further he has gone off the track. If anything in the nature of a canopy be desirable, clearly it should be constructed on the lines, not of masonry, but of glazing. CHAPTER XXVI. A PLEA FOR ORNAMENT. There is a direction in which glass has never been fully developed, that of purely ornamental design. This is the more to be deplored because that direction is the one in which was most scope for the peculiar depth and brilliancy of colour characteristic of mosaic glass. Ornament was used in the thirteenth century not only as a setting for figure medallions, but as of sufficient interest to form of itself most beautiful windows in grisaille. Presently the attractions of figure work put an end to that; and, furthermore, the preference for picture naturally led to the development of design in the direction of glass painting, which lent itself so much more readily than mosaic to pictorial expression. We owe to that, not only the perfection of glass painting, and its ultimate degradation, but the neglect of latent possibilities in more thoroughly mosaic glass, aye, in pure glazing. Even in figure work, much might be done for clerestory and other distant work, at all events, in pure mosaic glass. Those who have not closely observed old glass have no conception of the amount of leadwork there is in the windows they admire, at the very moment that they deprecate leading, so little do these interfere with the design, when disposed with the cunning of a craftsman. One can imagine figures on a large scale boldly blocked out, with broad shadows, in which not only the shadows, but even the reflected lights in them, might be glazed in pot-metal, and from the floor of a big church the leads would be inappreciable. But, except in work upon an absolutely heroic scale, there would always be the difficulty of the flesh; the features would have to be painted; and glass pictures of this kind would needs be designed with a severe simplicity not calculated to satisfy the modern pictorial sense. The advocates of painting complain that due consideration of the qualities of glass would limit the artist to the baldest kind of pictorial effect. Something certainly must be sacrificed to fit treatment of the material, or glass suffers, whatever picture may gain. That is what has happened. But if so much sacrifice is necessary to figure, why always adopt that form of design? Why not sometimes at least abandon subject, and seek what can best be done in glass, even though that be barbaric? It is not quite certain but that glass really lends itself only to a rather barbaric kind of design, or what we are barbarous enough to call barbaric. This is certain: the interest of figure work has put an end to ornamental glass. It has become almost an article of faith with us that, to the making of a window worth looking at, figure design is indispensable. That should not be so. And, seeing that picture does not afford full scope for the qualities which glass-lovers most dearly love in glass, it seems rather cruel that picture should so largely preponderate in its design as to suppress the possibilities in the way of ornament. Why should it be so? There are two very important reasons for the introduction of figure into glass, the one literary, the other artistic. In the first place, we love a story, that is no more than human; we want to know what it is all about, that is no more than rational; and figure subjects afford the most obvious means of satisfying those cravings of ours. But artists want these cravings satisfied by means of art. Some of them, perhaps, think more of the means employed than of the end achieved, and would have "art for art's sake." Theirs is a doctrine of very limited application. Sanity insists upon subordination of the means to end; and art is not an end in itself, nor is craftsmanship. It is not, therefore, for one moment suggested that story, sentiment, meaning, in windows, should be ruthlessly sacrificed to craftsmanship, even though expression implied the use of figure, which it does not. What is claimed, is merely this: that when you employ a material or a process some consideration is due to it. Before undertaking to express an idea, it is always as well for the artist to consider how far its expression is consistent with art. If it can be expressed only at the cost of all that is best in art, it were better to adopt some other means of expression. If a particular craft is your one means of expression, and that particular thing cannot well be said in it, then say what can be said; it will be to much more purpose than saying even a better thing and saying it ill. The better the thought, the greater the crime of saying it inadequately. After all, the sentiment, or what not, which people ask for in glass, and which compels figure work, is not, in the majority of instances, by any means so important, even in their eyes, but that they would sacrifice it readily enough if they knew the price in art at which they would have to pay for it. Let patrons of stained glass, if they care for art, ponder this statement; it is not spoken in haste, but in conviction. There is one reason of sentiment which would argue against great part of the use that is made of figure work, at all events in church glass, the doubt, namely, as to how far it is possible, in these days, to reconcile the devout with the decorative treatment of sacred subjects. We are all admiration when we gaze up at the splendid figure of Moses in the great transept window at Chartres. But it is the artist in us that is entranced, the lover of glass, and especially of colour; the artless worshipper might feel that the dignity of the Lawgiver would perhaps have been better expressed with less attention to decorative effect. We are not shocked at the archaic effigy, because we realize that reverence underlies its simplicity. In modern work it is otherwise. Artistic intention, admirable or not from the æsthetic point of view, is responsible for the introduction into our churches of delineations of all that Christians hold sacred so ridiculous, it is a wonder devout worshippers allow them to be there. The excuse for glass is its decorative effect. Its value is in its colour. A Saint in stained glass (to mention no higher Person) stands in a window for just so much colour: is not that rather a degradation of the saint? In the second place, apart altogether from what has been called the literary interest (which no one will dispute) there is in figure work a charm, altogether artistic, in the very unexpectedness of the colour-patches you get in it, not accidental quite, but in many instances at least, inspired by accident. The besetting sin of ornament is obviousness; it has a way of distributing itself too symmetrically and evenly, of laying its secret bare to the most casual glance. We see at once there is nothing to find out in it, and our interest drops to zero. In figure design, on the contrary, there are breaks even in the very best balanced scheme; there is always something unexpected, unforeseen, something to kindle interest; in fact, the difficulty is, there, to distribute the composition evenly enough. The question arises whether this sameness, and consequent tameness, of ornament, the way the points of intended interest recur with irritating frequency and regularity, resolving themselves into mere spots--whether this defect is inherent in ornament, and inseparable from it. Proof that it is not is afforded by heraldry, distinctly a branch of ornamental design, in which, for precisely the same reasons as in figure work, we get just that inevitable deviation from system, and more especially from symmetry, which seems necessary to the salvation of ornament. Where by happy chance an ornamental window has been patched with glass not belonging to it, or where portions of it have been misplaced, we get similar relief from monotony. Here the unexpectedness of contrast, colour, and so on, is accidental; in heraldry it is, in the nature of things, unforeseen of the artist, and unavoidable. May not similar results be obtained of set purpose and design? Surely they may. Were it otherwise, it would be worth falling back now and then upon haphazard, and letting colour come as it might. Happily there is no occasion for that feeble sort of fatalism. Given a colourist and a man with that sense of distribution (whether of line, mass, or colour) which makes the artist, what is to hinder him from deliberately planning so much of surprise as may be necessary to tickle the appetite for the ornamental? The ogre in the path is what we call economy. Because ornament can without doubt be more cheaply executed than figure work, it is taken for granted that it must be reserved by rights for cheap work. What else is there to recommend it? And, that being so, ornament being but padding, by all means, it is argued, let it be not only cheap but of the cheapest! Design, moreover, if it be worth having at all, is costly, and there is clearly thrift in repeating the same pattern, and even one unit of it, over and over again. The practice of saving design in this way has become at last so much a matter of course, that no one thinks of designing an ornamental window, as a whole, without repetition of pattern--except the artist; and with him it is a fond desire which he hopes perhaps some day to fulfil--at his own expense. Under circumstances such as these, what wonder ornament is monotonous? It could not well be otherwise. But these conditions are not in the nature of things. Ornamental design has subsided because no one asks for, cares for, or encourages, ornament. It needs only to be in the hands of an artist--not necessarily a Holbein, but just a Rhodian potter, a Persian carpet weaver, a mediæval carver, or a nameless glazier--to be worthy of its modest place in art. Considering the costliness of good figure work and the absolute worthlessness of bad, considering the way in which glass lends itself especially to ornament, considering how in ornament the qualities most necessary to decorative effect and most characteristic of the material can be obtained, surely the wiser policy would be to do what can so readily be done. When glass lends itself so kindly to ornament it seems a sin to neglect it. Is it quite past praying for, that there may still be a future for windows merely ornamental, which shall yet satisfy the sense of beauty? BOOK III. CHAPTER XXVII. THE CHARACTERISTICS OF STYLE. What are the characteristics of the various styles in glass? How does one tell the period of a window? These are not questions that can be fully answered in the short space of a chapter, which is all that can here be devoted to it; but it may help those to whom a window tells nothing of its date, briefly to mention the characteristics according to which we class it as belonging to this period or that. With a view to conciseness and to convenience of reference it will be best to catalogue these characteristics rather than to describe them. Any subdivision of glass into "styles" must be more or less arbitrary. One style merges into the other, and the characteristics of each overlap, so to speak. The most convenient lines of demarcation are the centuries; for, as it happens, the changes in manner do take place more or less towards the century end. The one broad distinction is between Gothic and Renaissance. Gothic may best be divided into three periods--viz., Thirteenth century and before, Fourteenth century, and Fifteenth century and after. _Thirteenth century glass_, commonly called "Early English," or, as the case may be, "Early French," may as well be taken to include, for our purpose, what little remains of twelfth century or Norman work. It includes naturally Early German work, which is Romanesque and not Gothic in character. _Fourteenth century glass_ belongs to the Middle or Transitional Gothic period. We call it "Decorated," for the inadequate reason that its detail is naturalistic. _Fifteenth century glass_, with us "Perpendicular," in France "Flamboyant," in Germany "Interpenetrated," may, for convenience' sake, be taken to include so much of Gothic as may be found lingering in the sixteenth century. The _Sixteenth century_ is more properly the period of the Renaissance. It is better not to apply to it the Italian term "cinque-cento," since the greater part of it is not of the purely Italian character which that would imply. _Seventeenth century glass_ is to be distinguished from that of the sixteenth mainly inasmuch as it shows more markedly that decadence which had already begun to set in before the year 1600. It may be conveniently described as Late Renaissance. [Illustration: 213. ST. REMI, REIMS.] _Eighteenth century glass_ is not of sufficient account to be classed. It will be seen that the dates above given do not quite coincide with those of Winston, who gives Early English to 1280, Decorated to 1380, and Perpendicular to 1530. There is here no thought of impugning his accuracy; but it seems more convenient not to distinguish a new style until the work begins markedly to differ from what had gone before, especially when the marked difference happens conveniently to coincide with the beginning of a new century; and Winston himself says of Perpendicular work (and implies as much of Decorated) that the style "can hardly be said to have become thoroughly established" until the beginning of the new century. We have thus a century of Middle Gothic, the fourteenth century. What goes before is Early Gothic or Romanesque, as the case may be; what comes after is Late Gothic, cooeval for a quarter of a century or more with the Renaissance. [Illustration: 214. DETAIL FROM MEDALLION WINDOWS AT CANTERBURY.] EARLY GLASS. The first thing which strikes one in Early Glass is either its deep rich, jewelled colour (Canterbury, Chartres), or its sober, silvery, greyness (Salisbury; Five Sisters, York). Exception to this alternative occurs mainly in very early ornamental glass (_circa._ 1300--S. Denis; S. Remi, Reims; Angers), in which white and colour are somewhat evenly mixed. Early figure work occurs also occasionally in colour on a white ground. The design of the richer class of windows consists largely of figure work. The design of "grisaille" windows consists mainly of ornamental pattern. _Composition._--Rich windows are of three kinds: medallion windows, rose windows, figure and canopy windows. Jesse windows form an exception. (Chapter XXIX.) 1. _Medallion Windows_ are the most characteristic of the period (Chapter XII.). These contain figure subjects, on a quite small scale, within medallion shapes set in ornament (Canterbury, Chartres, etc.). [Illustration: 215. MOSAIC DIAPER.] In the very earliest medallion windows (Angers, Poitiers) the ordered scheme of the medallioned window is sometimes interrupted by subjects not strictly enclosed in medallions. Or else, perhaps (Chartres), the subjects take the form of panels one above the other--they can scarcely be called medallions--with little or no ornament between. After the first few years of the thirteenth century, however, the figure medallions (circles, quatrefoils, etc.) occur, as a rule, one above the other throughout the length of the light, with perhaps a boss of ornament between; the interstices being filled, in English glass with ornamental scrollwork, in French with geometric diaper (opposite). [Illustration: 216. DETAIL OF MEDALLION WINDOW, CHARTRES.] In the broad windows of Norman churches (pages 123, 124) the medallions are proportionately large, and are subdivided into four or five divisions, each of which is devoted to a separate picture. In our narrower lancet lights there is no occasion for that. [Illustration: 217. BARS IN MEDALLION WINDOWS.] The figures in medallion subjects are few and far apart, standing comparatively clear-cut against a plain background (page 325); compacter groups indicate a later period. Landscape is symbolised rather than represented by a conventional tree or so; a town by an arch or two, a battlemented wall, or the like. Medallions are framed by lines of colour and beaded bands of white, but they do not, as a rule, separate themselves very markedly from their ornamental surroundings. The effect is one rather indeterminate glory of intense colour. Except in quite the earliest medallion windows, the strong iron bars supporting the glass are, as a rule, bent (above), to follow the outline of the medallions. That was done in no other period. 2. _Rose Windows_ occur mainly in French churches. They are a variation upon the medallion window. A great Rose window (Chartres, Bourges, etc.) may be regarded as a series of radiating medallion lights, with subjects relatively fewer in number, and a greater proportion of pattern work. Occasionally they consist of pattern work altogether. Smaller Roses (the only form of tracery met with in quite Early work) contain very often a central circular medallion subject, the cusps or foils round it being occupied with ornament, all in rich colour, even though the lights below it be in grisaille. 3. _Figure and Canopy Windows_ (page 40) are more proper to the clerestory and triforium of a church, but they are not entirely confined to a far-off position. With regard to them it should be mentioned that figures under canopies, sitting, or more often standing--one above the other in long, narrow lights--occur throughout the Gothic periods, and even in Renaissance glass. The characteristic thing about the Early ones is the stiffness and comparative grotesqueness of the figures and the modesty of the canopy. This last is of small dimensions. It may be merely a trefoiled arch (page 40). Usually it is more architectural (page 46), gabled, with a little roofing, and perhaps a small tower or two rising above, not beautiful. It is in fairly strong colours. It is so little conspicuous that it is not at first sight always distinguishable from the background to the figure. Occasionally the figure has no canopy at all. The saint stands front face, straight up in his niche, in a constrained and cramped position, occupying its full width, which is obviously insufficient. His feet rest in an impossible manner upon a label bearing his name; or, if that be inscribed upon a label in his hand, or on the background behind him, then he stands upon a little mound of green to represent the earth (page 40). Figure and canopy alike are archaic in design, and rudely drawn. It is seldom that a figure subject on a smaller scale is introduced below the standing figure, as was frequently the case in later work. Groups of figures are characteristically confined to medallion windows. _The Border_ is a feature in Early glass. It is broad. In medallion windows it measures sometimes as much as one-fourth the width of the light. It takes up, that is to say, perhaps half the area of the window. It consists of foliated ornament similar in character to that between the medallions. Very broad borders occasionally include smaller figure medallions. In figure and canopy windows the borders are less, and simpler. Sometimes they consist merely of broad bands of colour interrupted by rosettes of other colours. Circumstances of proportion, and so on, influence the width of the border; but a broad border is characteristic of the Early period. [Illustration: 218. LE MANS.] In Rose windows the border is of less account, and is confined, as a rule, to the outer ring of lights, or, it may be, to their outer edge. _Detail._--Ornamental detail is severely conventional. In very Early work (page 327) it has rather the character of Romanesque ornament, with straplike stalks interlacing, often enriched by a beaded, zig-zag, or other pattern, which may be either painted upon it or picked out of solid brown. Early in the thirteenth century foliage assumes the simpler Gothic form, with cinquefoiled, or more often trefoiled, leafage (as here shown). [Illustration: 219. CHARTRES.] When it begins to be more naturalistic it is a sign of transition to the Decorated period. In Germany something of Romanesque flavour lingered far into the thirteenth century (page 330). There is properly no Early Gothic period there. Heraldry is modestly introduced into Early glass. The Donor is occasionally represented on quite a small scale in the lower part of a window, his offering in his hand; or he is content to be represented by a small shield of arms. _Colour._--The glass in Early windows is uneven in substance, and, consequently, in colour. This is very plainly seen in the "white" glass, which shades off, according to its thickness, from greenish or yellowish-white to bottle colour. The colour lies also sometimes in streaks of lighter and darker. This is especially so in red glass. The shades of colour most usually employed for backgrounds are blue and ruby. White occurs, but only occasionally. [Illustration: 220. AUXERRE.] [Illustration: 221. PATCHWORK OF GRISAILLE, SALISBURY.] The Early palette consists of:-- White, greenish, and rather clouded; red, rubylike, often streaky; blue, deep sapphire to palest grey-blue, oftenest deep; turquoise-blue, of quite different quality, inclining to green; yellow, fairly strong, but never hot; green, pure and emerald-like, or deep and even low in tone, but only occasionally inclining to olive; purple-brown, reddish or brownish, not violet; flesh tint, actually lighter and more pinkish shades of this same purple-brown. In very early work the flesh is inclined to be browner. [Illustration: 222. S. KUNIBERT, COLOGNE.] It must be remembered that, though the palette of the first glaziers was restricted, the proceeding of the glass-makers was so little scientific that they had no very great control over their manufacture. No two pots of glass, therefore, came out alike. Hence a great variety of shades of glass, though produced from a few simple recipes. They might by accident produce, once in a way, almost any colour. A pot of ruby sometimes turned out greenish-black. Still, the colours above mentioned predominate in Early work, and are clearly those aimed at. _Workmanship._--The glazing of an Early window is strictly a mosaic of small pieces of glass. Each separate colour in it is represented by a separate piece of glass, or several pieces. The great white eyes, for example, of big clerestory figures are separate pieces of white glass, rimmed with lead, and held in place by connecting strips of lead, which give them often very much the appearance of spectacles (page 40). In work on a sufficiently large scale the hair of the head and beard are also glazed in white, or perhaps in some dark colour, distinct from the brownish-pink flesh tint peculiar to the period (same page). No large pieces of glass occur. [Illustration: 223. S. KUNIBERT, COLOGNE.] Upon examination the window proves to be netted over with lines of lead jointing, much of which is lost in the outlines of the design. In large clerestory figures and the like, masses of one colour occur, but they are made up of innumerable little bits of glass, by no means all of one shade of colour; whence the richness in tone. [Illustration: 224. S. JEAN-AUX-BOIS.] _Painting._--In Early glass painting plays a very subordinate part. Only one pigment is used, and that not by way of colour, but to paint out the light and define form. Details of figure and ornament are traced in firm strong brush lines. Lines mark the exaggerated expression of the face, the close folds of the spare drapery wrapped tightly round the figure, the serration of foliage, and so on (pages 33, 37, 324). Lines, in the form of sweeping brush strokes or cross-hatching, are used also to emphasise such shading (not very much) as may be indicated in thirteenth century work, or perhaps it should rather be said that the lines of shading are supplemented very often by a coat of thin brown paint, not always very easily detected on the deep-coloured glass of the period. _White Windows, or "Grisaille."_--Grisaille assumes in France the character of interlacing strapwork all in white. Sometimes this is quite without paint (page 25). Plain work of the kind occurs also with us; but it is dangerous to give a date to simple glazing. That at Salisbury (page 26) is probably not of the very earliest. In France, as with us, such strapwork is associated with foliated detail, traced in strong outline upon the white glass and defined by a background of cross-hatched lines which go for a greyer tint (above). After the beginning of the thirteenth century, this strapwork is sometimes in colour, or points of colour are introduced in the shape of rosettes, etc., and in the border (pages 137, 138). In England there is from the first usually a certain amount of coloured glass in grisaille windows (pages 141, 332). Sometimes there is a considerable quantity of it (Five Sisters, York); but it never appears to be much. The effect is always characteristically grey and silvery. [Illustration: 225. GRISAILLE, SALISBURY.] So long as the painted foliage keeps closely within the formal lines of strapwork, etc., it is, at all events in English glass, a sign of comparatively early thirteenth century work. Later in the century the scroll winds rather more freely about the window (page 143). The omission of the cross-hatched background and the more natural rendering of the foliation (page 386) announce the approach to the Decorated period. Figure subjects in colour, planted, as it were, upon grisaille or quarry lights (Poitiers, Amiens), and grisaille borders to windows with figures in rich colour (Auxerre), are of exceptional occurrence. Winston gives the year 1280 as the limit of the Early period, but there seems no absolute reason for drawing the line at that date. The use of stain, which was the beginning of a new departure in glass, does not pronounce itself before the fourteenth century. It seems, therefore, more convenient to include the last twenty years of the century in the first period, and to call it thirteenth century, accepting the more naturalistic type of foliage, when it occurs, as sign of transition; for, apart from that, the later thirteenth century work is not very markedly different from what was done before 1280. FOURTEENTH CENTURY. [Illustration: 226. S. URBAIN, TROYES.] _Decorated or Intermediate Gothic._--Decorated glass grows characteristically livelier in colour than Early glass; at first it becomes warmer, owing to the use of more yellow, then lighter, owing to the use of white. It does not divide itself so obviously into coloured and grisaille. The figure subjects include, as time goes on, more and more white glass. The grisaille contains more colour. Figures and figure subjects are now very commonly used in combination with grisaille ornament in the same window. That is a new and characteristic departure (page 159). _Composition._--Figure windows occur, indeed, with little or no ornament, in which case the subjects are piled one above the other, in panels rather than medallions, or under canopies. When the canopies are insignificant the result is one apparently compact mass of small figure work, as deep and rich perhaps in colour (S. Sebald's, Nuremberg) as an Early medallion window; but the colour is not so equally distributed; it occurs more in patches. Decorated canopies, however, are usually, after the first few years, of sufficient size to assert themselves as very conspicuous patches of rather brassy yellow, which in a window of several lights (and windows now almost invariably consist of two or more lights) form a band (or if there are two or more tiers of canopies, a series of bands) across the window. In the case of grisaille windows also, figures or figure subjects are introduced either in the form of shaped panels or under little canopies, and take the form of a band or bands of comparatively rich colour across a comparatively light window. When these canopies are themselves pronounced, the window shows alternate bands of figures (rich), canopies (yellowish), and ornamental pattern (whitish). In any case these horizontal bands across the window mark departure from the earlier style. _Canopies._--Canopies occur now over subjects as well as single figures. The canopy is designed in flat elevation. Any indication of perspective betokens the end of the period. It has broadish shafts, usually for the most part white, which terminate in pinnacles (page 155). It has seldom any architectural base: the figures stand upon grass or pavement. It has usually a three-cusped arch, and above that a pointed gable decorated with crockets and ending in a finial. Crockets and finial are usually in strong, brassy yellow. Above are pinnacles and shrinework in white and colour, including as a rule a fair amount of yellow. It may rise to a great height, dwarfing the figure beneath it. This occurs very especially in German work. Sometimes the most conspicuous thing in the window is this disproportionate canopy. Its very disproportion is characteristic of the period. In German work one great brassy canopy will frequently be found stretching right across the several lights of the window, over-arching a single subject. This triptich-like composition will occupy, perhaps, two-thirds of the height of the window. The background behind the pinnacles of this canopy may be either of one colour or of geometric diaper in mosaic (elsewhere characteristic of the Early period), finished off by a more or less arbitrary line--a cusped arch, for instance--above which is white glass. This kind of canopy has, by way of exception, an architectural base. [Illustration: 227. CHÂLONS.] Another German practice is to fill the window with huge circular subject medallions, occupying the entire width of the window, and intersected by the mullions. Single-light windows have sometimes a central elongated medallion or panel subject (without canopy), above and below which is ornamental grisaille. _Borders._--All windows have, as a rule, borders; but they are narrower than in Early work. Tracery lights, which now form a conspicuous part of the window, are, as a rule, also each separately bordered, often with a still narrower border in colour, or it may be only a line of colour. Grisaille windows have usually coloured borders, foliaged or heraldic (as above). The border does not necessarily frame the light at its base; very often there is an inscription there. Between the coloured border and the stonework is still invariably a marginal line of white glass. [Illustration: 228. EARLY DECORATED FIGURE, TROYES.] Sometimes, more especially in tracery, this white line is broad enough to have a pattern painted upon it, in which case there is no coloured border. Or this white border line may be enriched at intervals by rosettes or blocks of colour upon it. Or, again, it may be in part tinted with pale yellow stain. Some such border is usually carried round each separate tracery light, with the result that Decorated tracery may usually be distinguished at a glance from later work by a certain lack of breadth about it. There is no need to say more about Decorated tracery, seeing that the idea of this epitome is to enable the amateur to form some opinion as to the period of a window, and not to prompt the designer. The geometric character of the stonework proclaims the period, and, unless there is something in the design of the glass to indicate a later date, it may be taken to belong to it. It cannot well be earlier if it fits. _Stain._--Yellow stain is proof positive that the glass is not much earlier than the fourteenth century, for it is only about that time that the process of staining white glass yellow was discovered. The occurrence therefore of white and colour upon the same piece of glass--_i.e._, not glazed up with it, but stained upon it, is indicative of Middle or Late Gothic. Stained yellow is always purer and clearer than pot-metal; when pale it inclines to lemon, when dark to orange. It is best described as golden. In comparison with it pot-metal yellow is brownish or brassy. This yellow stain warms and brightens Decorated windows, especially those in grisaille. It naturally does away with a certain amount of glazing, for colour is now not entirely mosaic. Bands of yellow ornament in white windows, if stained, have lead on one side of them at most. The hair of angels comes to be stained yellow upon white glass, which towards the fifteenth century takes the place of the flesh tint. _Figures._--Figures are still rather rudely drawn. They do not always fill out their niches, which, indeed, frequently overpower them. In attitude they pose and would be graceful. There is some swing about their posture, but it is often exaggerated. Drapery becomes more voluminous, fuller and freer, as shown opposite. At the back of the figure hangs commonly a screen diapered damask-fashion--the diaper often picked out of solid paint. _Grisaille._--The distinguishing characteristics of Decorated grisaille are fully described in the chapter dealing with it. It has usually a coloured border. The foliated pattern no longer follows the lines of the white or coloured strapwork, but it does not interlace with the straps (pages 163, 333). Coloured bosses adorn the centre of the grisaille panels. Frequently these take the form of heraldic shields, planted, as it were, upon the grisaille. [Illustration: 229. S. OUEN, ROUEN.] The practice of cross-hatching the background to grisaille foliage dies out in France and England. In Germany it survives throughout the period; or, it may be, the background is coated with solid paint, and the cross-hatching is in white lines scratched out of that. _Naturalism._--The foliation of the ornament is now everywhere naturalistic. That is the surest sign of the period, at first the only sign of change. In grisaille patterns and in coloured borders you can identify the rose, the vine, the oak, the ivy, the maple, and so on (pages 162, 166, 168). In Germany, the design of ornamental windows consists often of naturalistic foliage in white and colour upon a coloured ground, the whole rich, but not so rich as Early glass (pages 171 _et seq._). There also occur windows stronger in colour than ordinary grisaille, designed on lines more geometric than those of French or English glass of the period (page 170). [Illustration: 230. 14TH CENTURY GERMAN.] _Colour._--Glass gets less streaky, evener, and sometimes lighter in tint, as time goes on. Flesh tint gets paler and pinker, and at last white; "white" glass gets more nearly white. Much blue and ruby continue to be used; but more green is introduced, and more yellow, often the two in combination. In fact, there is a leaning towards combinations of green and yellow, rather than the red and blue so characteristic of Early glass. Green is frequently used for backgrounds. The pure bright emerald-like green gives way to greens inclining more to olive. In some German windows, green, yellow, and purple-brown predominate. Occasionally, in the latter part of the century, pale blue is modified by yellow stain upon it, which gives a greenish tint. _Painting._--Outline is still used; but it becomes more delicate. Shading is still smeared on with a brush. But in the latter half of the century it was the practice to stipple it, so as to soften the edges and give it a granular texture. This is not quite the same thing as the "stipple or matt shading" described on page 64, where the glass was entirely coated with a stippled tint and the lights brushed out. [Illustration: 231. WELLS.] Decorated glass is plentiful in England and Germany, not so abundant in France. FIFTEENTH CENTURY. _Perpendicular Glass._--By the fifteenth century the glass painter had quite made up his mind in favour of more light. He makes use of glass in larger sheets, and of lighter and brighter colour. His white is especially purer than before, and he uses it in much greater quantities. [Illustration: 232. FIGURES, S. MARY'S, ROSS.] So decidedly is this so, that a typical fifteenth century window strikes you as a screen of silvery-white glass in which are set pictures or patches of more or less brilliant, rather than intensely deep, colour. _Design._--Design takes, for the most part, the form of figure and canopy windows, schemed somewhat on the same lines as in the Decorated period--the subjects, that is to say, cross the window in horizontal bands. But there is so much white glass in the canopy work--it is practically all in white (as stone) touched with stain (as gilding)--and it so entirely surrounds the figure subjects, that you do not so much notice the horizontal bands (into which the subjects really fall when you begin to dissect the design) as the mass of white in which they are embedded. [Illustration: 233. PERPENDICULAR CANOPY.] _Canopies._--The larger Perpendicular windows are now crossed by stone transoms, so that very long lights do not, as a rule, occur. Each light has a canopy, without any enclosing border (233). The canopy stands, as it were, in the window opening, almost filling it, except that, above, behind the topmost pinnacles, are glimpses of red or blue background, not separated from the stonework by so much as a line of white, heretofore of almost invariable occurrence. The hood and base of canopy are shown in misunderstood perspective, indicating usually a three-sided projection (page 342). Its shafts and base rest upon the ground, on which are painted grass and foliage, all in white and stain. When standing figures occupy the place of honour, the base may very likely include a small subject, illustrative of a scene in the life of the personage depicted above. Or the base may be a sort of pedestal (page 179). The figures usually stand upon a chequered mosaic pavement in black and white, or white and stain, not very convincingly foreshortened (page 185). In the canopy may be little windows of pot-metal colour, and in the base perhaps a spot or two of colour; but, whatever the amount of pot-metal (never much) or of stain (often a good deal), the effect is always silvery-white; and as time goes on the canopy becomes more solidly and massively white. The groining at the back of the niche just above the figures is a feature of the full-blown style. The vault is usually stained, less often glazed in pot-metal. There is more scope for this coloured groining in windows where the canopy runs through several lights. That is more common in France and Germany than with us. In English work each light has, as a rule, its own canopy. In France, and more especially in Germany, the canopies are not seldom in yellow instead of white, golden in effect instead of silvery. Sometimes white and yellow canopies alternate (Nuremberg, Munich). The German canopy is often more florid, and less distinctly architectural than the English. Perpendicular canopies are more in proportion to the figures under them than Decorated. Usually they are important enough to be a feature in the window, if not the feature. Sometimes, however, they are quite small and insignificant (East window, York), in which event the subjects appear more like a series of small panels, one above the other. In that case there is likely to be a large amount of white glass in the subjects themselves (pages 252, 339). Possibly the background is white. In any case, there is usually a fair share of white glass in the drapery of figures. The faces also are almost invariably white, often with stained hair; and this white flesh is characteristic of the period. Until the turn of the century, landscape or architectural accessories are, to a large extent, in white and stain, against a blue or ruby ground. Variety of colour in the background (or a further amount of white) is introduced by means of a screen of damask behind the figure, shoulder high, above which alone appears the usual blue or ruby background, diapered. The screen may be of any colour: purple-brown is not uncommon. When scale permits, the damask pattern is often glazed in colours, or in white and stain upon pot-metal yellow. [Illustration: 234. FIGURE AND CANOPY WINDOWS, BOURGES.] [Illustration: 235. FAIRFORD.] Heraldic shields are more conspicuous than ever in the design. Donors and their patron saints are often important personages in the foreground of the picture. _Tracery._--Tracery lights being now more of the same shape as the lights below, the glass is designed on much the same plan. That is to say, they also contain little figures under canopies. These are often entirely, or almost entirely, in white and stain, only here and there a point of colour showing in the background, more especially about their heads. Trefoiled, quatrefoiled, three-sided, or other openings not adapted to canopy work, have usually foliated ornament in white and stain, with border line of white and stain, the background painted in solid brown. Inscribed scrolls and emblematical devices in white and stain also occur in the smaller tracery lights. _Grisaille._--Grisaille takes almost invariably the form of quarries. The pattern of the quarries consists ordinarily of just a rosette or some such spot in the centre of the glass, delicately outlined and filled in with stain. A band of canopied figures sometimes crosses quarry windows, the pinnacles of the canopies breaking into the quarries above. Figures occur also often in white and stain, against a quarry ground, without canopy, standing perhaps on a bracket, or on a mere label or inscription band (York Minster). Occasionally we get subjects altogether in white and stain, without quarry glazing. In Germany unpainted roundels, or circular discs of white glass, take the place of quarries (page 292). _Detail of Ornament._--The detail of Perpendicular foliage is no longer very naturalistic; it has often the appearance of being embossed or otherwise elaborated. It is most commonly in white with yellow stalks. _Borders._--The border is no longer the rule, except in quarry windows. It is now very rarely used to frame canopies. Where it occurs it is usually in the form of a "block" border, differing only from that of the Decorated period by the character of the painted detail. Borders all in white and stain also occur. The border does not follow the deeply cut foils of the window head. These are occupied each by its separate round of glass painted with a crown, star, lion's head, or other such device, in white and stain, against which the coloured border stops. _Stain._--Abundant use of beautiful golden stain is typical of the period. Stain is always varied, sometimes shading off by subtle degrees from palest lemon to deep orange. The deliberate use of two distinct tones of stain, as separate tints, say of a damask pattern, argues a near approach to the sixteenth century. So does the use of stain upon pot-metal yellow. Other signs of the mature style are:-- 1. The very careful choice of varied and unevenly coloured glass to suggest shading or local colour. 2. The use of curious pieces of accidentally varied ruby to represent marble, and the like. 3. The abrasion of white spots or other pattern on flashed blue (the abrasion of white from ruby begins with the second half of the century). 4. The introduction of distant landscape in perspective, and especially the representation of clouds in the sky, and other indications of attempted atmospheric effect. 5. The treatment of several lights as one picture space, without canopy. _Colour._--White glass is cooler and more silvery, more purely white. Red glass is less crimson, often approaching more to a scarlet colour. Blue glass becomes lighter, greyer; sometimes it is of steely quality, sometimes it approaches to pale purple. More varieties of purple-brown and purple are used. Purer pink occurs. _Drawing._--In the fifteenth century the archaic period of drawing is outgrown. Figures are often admirably drawn, more especially towards the end of the period, at which time the folds of drapery are made much of. _Painting._--Painting is much more delicate. The method adopted is that of stippling (page 64). Figure and ornament alike are carefully shaded, quarry patterns and narrow painted borders excepted. [Illustration: 236. SCRAPS OF LATE GOTHIC DETAIL.] For a long while painters hesitated to obscure the glass much; they shaded very delicately, and used hatchings, and a sort of scribble of lines, to deepen the shadows. As a result the shading appears sometimes weak, but the glass is always brilliant. [Illustration: 237. FAIRFORD.] With the progress of the century stronger stipple shading was used; more roundness and greater depth of shadow was thus achieved, at proportionate cost of silvery whiteness and brilliancy in the glass. The characteristic of the later technique was that it depended less upon mosaic, and more upon paint. Leads were not used unless they were constructionally unavoidable; and it was sought to avoid them. The nimbus, for example, was glazed in one piece with the head (page 189), stained perhaps, or with a pattern in stain upon it, to distinguish it from the face; or it showed white against the yellow hair. From the lead lines alone of an Early window, and of many a Decorated one, you could read the design quite plainly. The later the period the less that is so. By the end of the fifteenth century the lead lines convey very often little or no idea of the picture, which they hold together but no longer outline. Canopies, for example, are sometimes leaded in square quarries, without regard to the drawing, except where that must be (page 342). A pretty sure sign of period is afforded by the way the leads give, or do not give, the design. Exceptions are mentioned on page 73. Where leads seem to occur more or less as it happens, as though they might have been an after-thought, that is most positive proof of Late work. SIXTEENTH CENTURY. Renaissance glass does not, like Gothic, divide itself into periods. It was at its best when it was still in touch with mediæval tradition. [Illustration: 238. FRENCH RENAISSANCE, MOSAIC.] The finest work in the new manner must be ascribed therefore to the first half of the sixteenth century. After that its merits belong more to picture than to glass. Apart from details of architecture, ornament (as above), costume and so on, which at once proclaim the style, it is difficult to distinguish between Gothic and Renaissance glass of the very early sixteenth century. The distinction does not in fact exist; for Gothic traditions survive even in work belonging, according to the evidence of its detail, to the Renaissance. _Design._--Design takes now mainly the pictorial direction. It spreads itself more invariably over the whole face of the window. The canopy, for example, is seldom confined to a single light. _Canopies._--The canopy scheme is at first not widely removed from Gothic precedent, although the detail may be pronouncedly Renaissance. It frames the subject as before; but it is less positively white. It is enriched with much more yellow stain; and the mass of white and stain is broken by festoons and wreaths of foliage, fruit, and flowers, medallions with coloured ground, ribbons, or other such features, in pot-metal colour. A simple François Ier canopy is given on page 349. Sometimes these canopies consist rather of arabesque ornament than of anything that can properly be called architectural, in white and yellow (page 350), or perhaps all in yellow, upon a ground of pot-metal colour (page 205); that is to say, the setting out of the window and the technique employed are absolutely Gothic, and perhaps not even very late Gothic, whilst the detail is altogether Renaissance in design. This mosaic manner (as at Auch) bespeaks, of course, the early years of the Renaissance. Another sure sign of lingering Gothic influence is where the round arch is fringed with cusping. The more typically Renaissance form of design is where a huge monumental structure fills the greater part of the window, not canopying a subject, but having in front of it a figure group (Transept of S. Gudule, page 71). The foreground figures stand out in dark relief against the architecture and the sky beyond, seen through the central arch. Into this grey-blue merges very often a distant landscape, painted in great part upon the blue, and really seeming to recede into the distance. The effect of distance is largely obtained by contrast with the strong shadow of the soffits and sides of the arch seen in perspective. We have here four characteristics of Renaissance glass:-- 1. The monumental canopy with figures in front of it. 2. Strong contrast of light and shade. 3. Fairly accurate perspective in the architecture. 4. Something like atmospheric effect in the landscape, which is painted more or less upon the sky. When in a canopy the shadowed portions of the architecture are glazed in deep-coloured glass (purple, as a rule), and not darkened by painting, it indicates the early part of the century. The canopy, instead of being arched, ends sometimes in a rich frieze and cornice (Church of Brou). When it is in two stages, enclosing two subjects, the lower one has naturally this horizontal entablature (Chapel of the Holy Sacrament, S. Gudule). A less usual treatment is where the figures do not occupy the foreground, but are seen through the arch. The subject occupies, in fact, very much the position of a painted altar-piece in a carved stone altar. Foreground figures prove often to be donors and their patron saints. The head of the window above the great architectural canopy, as it is convenient to call it, is usually of plain white glass, glazed in rectangular or diamond quarries (page 71). A coloured ground above a Renaissance canopy indicates Gothic tradition, and an Early period therefore (S. Jacques, Liège). More to the latter half of the century belong the pictorial compositions in which architecture, more or less proper to the subject, fills great part of the window, the foremost arches adapting themselves, sometimes, to the stonework. In this case the architecture is in white glass, more or less obscured by painted shadow; and pot-metal colour occurs only in the figures, where it is perhaps quite rich, in occasional columns of coloured marble, and in a peep of pale blue distance seen through some window or other opening (page 213). [Illustration: 239. FRANÇOIS IER CANOPY, LYONS.] The grey-blue distance has often figures as well as landscape and architecture painted upon it; to represent verdure it is stained green. Blue is more usual than white as a ground; but that also occurs, similarly painted. The not very usual landscape in white, with a blue sky above, in the windows of King's College Chapel, Cambridge, belongs to the early part of the century. _Tracery._--In small windows the subject, or its canopy, is often carried up into the tracery lights (page 368), or the architecture ends abruptly and horizontally at the springing of the arch, and the heads of the lights are treated as part of the tracery. Tracery lights often contain figure subjects. Very commonly they are occupied by figures of angels robed in white and stain, or in rich colour, or with colour only in their wings, playing upon musical instruments, bearing emblems, scrolls, and so on, all on a coloured ground (page 280). There occur also, but less frequently, cherubic heads, portrait medallions, badges, twisted labels, or other devices, upon a ground of ruby, pale blue, purple, or purple-brown. A purple or purplish background is of the period. Coloured grounds are used without borders. White grounds are usually diapered with clouds. There is no very distinctive treatment of rose windows. They are filled as pictorially as they well can be. They contain, perhaps, a central subject and in the outer lights angels, cherubs, and the like, much as in other tracery lights. _Ornament._--The detail of their ornament is a ready means of distinguishing Renaissance windows. In place of Gothic leafage we have scrollwork of the marked arabesque or grotesque character derived from Italy. It needs no description. Screens and draperies have often patterns in white and stain on ruby and other coloured grounds, produced by abrading the red and painting and staining the white thus exposed. The process may be detected by the absence of intervening lead between the white or yellow and the deep ground. Other damask patterns are stained on the coloured glass without abrasion, yellow on blue giving green, on purple olive, and so on. Ornamental windows scarcely go beyond quarry work, with a border of white and stain. Except in quarry windows, borders are seldom used. Grisaille windows scarcely occur. The little subjects in white and stain painted upon a single piece of glass, usually circular and framed in quarries or in a cartouche set in plain glazing (page 352), belong to a class by themselves. [Illustration: 240. CHURCH OF S. PETER, COLOGNE.] _Technique._--In many respects the technique of the Renaissance glass painter is only a carrying further of the later Gothic means. He uses more and more white glass, employing it also as a background; he uses more shades of coloured glass, especially pale blues, greens, and purples; he chooses his glass more carefully for specific purposes; he uses more coated glass, and abrades it; he makes greater use of stain, staining upon all manner of colours--ruby, blue, purple, green--and even painting in stain, and picking out high lights upon it in white. He paints delicate work more delicately. Flesh-painting he carries to a very high point of perfection, more especially in the portraits of Donors. In strengthening his shadows he eventually gets them muddy. At first he used to hatch them to get additional strength; eventually he was not careful always so much as to stipple them. He uses often a warmer brown pigment for flesh painting, and by-and-by resorts to a quite reddish tint by way of local colour; he uses large pieces of glass when he can, and glazes his backgrounds and other large surfaces in rectangular panes. Above canopies he comes to use pure white glass, as if to suggest that the canopy is solid, and beyond only atmosphere. The one quite new departure in sixteenth century technique was the use of enamel colour (see Chapter VIII.). That began to come into use towards the middle of the century. When you detect the least touch of enamel colour in a window, other than the pinkish flesh tint, you may suspect that it belongs to the second half of the century; when it seriously affects the design and colour of the window, you may be sure it does. But it is not until quite the end of the century that mosaic anywhere practically gives way to enamel painting. [Illustration: 241. S. JEAN, TROYES, 1678.] The sixteenth century, therefore, includes, broadly speaking, all that is best in Renaissance glass and much that is already on the decline. There is a tide in the affairs of art; and after the full flood of the Renaissance, sweeping all before it, glazing and glass painting sank to the very lowest ebb, out of sight in fact of craftsmanship. Only here and there, by way of rare exception, was good or interesting work any longer done,--as for example at Troyes, where good traditions, piously preserved in a family of exceptionally skilful glass painters, were followed long after they were elsewhere extinct. SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. You may recognise seventeenth century work not so much by any new departure in design (except that it aims more and more at the effect of an oil picture, and that the portrait of the Donor and his family constitutes the picture) as by its departure from the old methods, the methods above described; by the introduction of pure white glass, glazed in geometric pattern, in the upper half of the window or, it may be, as a background; by the use of enamel paint instead of coloured glass; by the abuse of heavy shading (in the vain attempt to get chiaroscuro), and by a loss, consequently, of the old translucency and brilliancy; by the aggressiveness of the lead lines (now that it is sought to do as much as possible without them); by the adoption of thin-coloured glass, toned by paint, instead of deep pot-metal; by the occurrence of whole panes of glass coated with solid paint; by the decay of the enamel; and by the general dilapidation of the window. [Illustration: 242. CERTOSA IN VAL D'EMA.] The unlearned must not be misled by the shabbiness of a window, by the breakages, the disfiguring leads which represent repair, the peeling off of the paint, and so on, into the supposition that these are signs of antiquity. On the contrary, the very method of its making was the saving of Early glass, and Late work owes its vicissitudes largely to the mistaken process adopted in its execution,--by which you may know it. It would be beyond the scope of a book about glass to go more thoroughly into the characteristics of style generally. Enough to indicate what more especially concerns the subject in hand. Without some slight acquaintance with the course of art, it will perhaps be difficult to trace the development of glass design. Historical or antiquarian knowledge of any kind will make it more easy. Not merely the character of ornament or architecture, but the details of lettering, costume, heraldry, give evidence in abundance to those who can read it; but it is with art and craftsmanship that we have here to do. The data given in this chapter and throughout are derived from the study of old work. Winston and other authorities have been referred to only to corroborate impressions gained by personal experience,--the experience only of a designer, a workman, a lover of glass, professing to no more learning than a student must in the course of study acquire. Nevertheless these few notes on what is characteristic in design and workmanship, may, it is hoped, be helpful to artists, craftsmen, students, and lovers of art, and perhaps sufficient for their guidance. CHAPTER XXVIII. STYLE IN MODERN GLASS (A POSTSCRIPT). It is easy, and it is only too common a thing, for the designer to depend for inspiration over much upon old work; but until he knows what has been done he is not fully equipped for his trade. Moreover, a workman skilled only in his craft may be prolific in good work: one, on the other hand, learned only in archæology, is, in the nature of things, sterile. He may know as much about old glass as Winston, and fail as utterly even to direct design a-right as he did at Glasgow. The Munich windows there are glaring evidence as to what a learned antiquary and devoted glass-lover can countenance. Too surely the fire of archæological zeal warps a man's artistic judgment. What, then, about historic style? Are we to disregard it in our work? That question may be answered by another: What about old work? Old work, it is argued, should be our guide. Well, old work preaches no adherence to past styles. It went its own way, in delightful unconsciousness that the notion could ever occur to any one deliberately to go back to a manner long since out of vogue; and when the idea of a Renaissance did occur to the artist, he very soon made it something quite different from the thing he set out to revive--if ever that was his deliberate intention. It is too lightly assumed that "the styles" are there, ready made for us, and that all we have to do is to make our choice between them, and take the nearest to a fit we can find. So many of us only learn to copy, whereas the whole use of copying is to learn. Artists study style for information, not authority. The truth is, no style of old glass is fashioned to our use. Early Gothic glass has most to teach us with regard to the mosaic treatment of the material, and perhaps also about breadth and simplicity of design; but when it comes to figure drawing and painting, here is surely no model for a nineteenth century draughtsman. Renaissance work has most to teach in the way of painting and pictorial treatment; but it is not an exemplar of workmanlike and considerate handling of glass. Because Early work was badly drawn, because Decorated was ill-proportioned, because Perpendicular was enshrined in stone-suggesting canopy work, because Renaissance was apt to depend too much upon finish, because seventeenth century work was overburdened with paint; must a man, therefore, according to the style of the building for which his work is destined, make it rude, misproportioned, stonelike, ultra-finished, or over-painted? It happens that Early figure work in glass was mostly in deep rich colour. Are we to have no figures, therefore, in grisaille? It happens that later glass was, at its best, delicate and silvery in effect. Are we, therefore, to have no rich windows any more? Thirteenth century pictures were diminutive in scale. Are we to have no larger pictures ever? Sixteenth century subjects spread themselves over the whole window. Are we never to frame our glass pictures? And as to that frame, are we to choose once and for all the ornamental details of this period or that, or the formula of design adopted at a given time? Whether in the matter of technique or treatment, of colour or design, no one style of old glass is enough for us. What does an historic style mean? Partly it means that during such and such years such and such forms were in fashion; partly it means that by that time technique had reached such and such a point, and no further. Must we rest there? If at a certain period in the history of design the scope of the glass painter was limited, his art rude, shall we limit ourselves in a like manner? If at another it was debased, ought we to degrade our design, just because the building into which our work is to go is of that date, or pretends to be? It was the merest accident that in the thirteenth century drawing was stiff and design more downright than refined, that the appliances of the glazier were simple, and the technique of the painter imperfect. It was an accident that silver stain was not discovered until towards the middle of the fourteenth century, that the idea of abrading colour-coated glass did not occur to any one until nearly a century later, that the use of the glass-cutter's diamond is a comparatively modern invention, and so on. Out of the very scarcity of the craftsman's means good came; and there is a very necessary lesson to us in that; but to throw away what newer and more perfect means we have (all his knowledge is ours, if we will) is sheer perversity. To affect a style is practically to adopt the faults and follies of the period. If you are bent upon making your glass look like sixteenth century work, you glaze it in squares, and introduce enamel. To treat it mosaically would be not to make it characteristic enough of the period for your pedant, notwithstanding that sixteenth century glass was, by exception, treated in a glazier-like fashion. Should one, then, it may be asked, take the exception for model? The answer to that is: take the best, and only the best. It is no concern of the artist whether it be exceptional or of every-day occurrence; some kinds of excellence can never be common. Is it good? That is the question he has to ask himself. With regard to the use of the forms peculiar to a style--Gothic Tracery or Renaissance Arabesque--that is very much a question of a man's temperament. Has he any sympathy with them? Does that seem to him the thing worth doing? If his personal bias be that way, who shall say him nay? Assume even that the conditions of the case demand Decorated or Italian detail, it does not follow that they demand precisely the treatment of such detail found in the fourteenth or the sixteenth century. The style of a building is not to be ignored. To put, nowadays, in a thirteenth or fourteenth century church windows in the style of the fifteenth or sixteenth would be absurd; to put in a fifteenth or sixteenth century church windows in the style of the thirteenth or fourteenth, more foolish still. But it does not follow that in a church of any given century, the modern windows should be as nearly as possible what would have been done in that century. No man in his senses, no artist at all events, ever denied that the designer of a stained glass window must take into consideration the architecture of the building of which his work is to form part. The only possible question is as to what consideration may be due to it. The archæologist (and perhaps sometimes the architect) claims too much. Certainly he claims too much when he pretends that the designer of a window should confine himself to the imitation of what has already been done in glass belonging to the period of the building, or of the period which the building affects. Why should the modern designer submit to be shackled by obsolete traditions? What is his sin against art, that he should do this dreary penance, imposed by architectural or ecclesiastical authority? And what good is to come of it? The unfortunate designer of modern glass is asked to conform both to the technique and to the design of glass such as was executed at the period to which belongs the building where his glass is to go, no matter how inadequate the one or the other, or both, may be. So far as technique is concerned, it can scarcely be questioned that the only rational thing to do, is to do the best that can be done under the circumstances. That is equally the thing to aim at in design, simply one's level best. It seems strange that there should be two opinions on the subject. A building of some centuries past (or in that style) is to be filled with nineteenth century glass. Choose your artist: a man whose work has something in common with the sentiment of the period of the building, a man with education enough to appreciate the architecture and what it implies, with modesty enough to think of the decorative purpose of his work and not only of his cleverness; let such a man express himself in his own way, controlled only by the conditions of the case; and there would be little likelihood that his work would, in the result, shock either the feelings or the taste of any but a pedant--and if art is to conform to the taste of the pedant, well, it is time the artist shut up shop. Why will men of learning and research discount, nay, wipe out, the debt art owes to them, by claiming what is not their due? Even though it were necessary or desirable that we should restrict ourselves to what might have been done in the thirteenth century or in the sixteenth, that would not argue that we must do only what was done. Surely we may be allowed to do what the men of those days might conceivably have done had they possessed our experience. Surely we need not go for inspiration to the glass of a period when glass was admittedly ill-understood, inadequate, poor, bad. It is quite certain that the thirteenth century workmen did not realise all that might be done in painted glass, quite certain that those of the seventeenth did not appreciate what might be done in mosaic glass. It would be sheer folly to paint no better than a thirteenth century glazier, because our window was destined for Salisbury Cathedral, to make no more use of the quality inherent in glass than was made by a painter of the seventeenth century, because it was designed for St. Paul's. Those who are really familiar with old work know that, even in periods of decline, work was sometimes done which showed no falling away from good tradition. You may find Renaissance glass almost as mosaic in treatment as thirteenth century work. But because that was comparatively rare, because the average work of the period was much less satisfactorily treated, modern Renaissance must, it is absurdly assumed, be on the same unsatisfactory lines. Suppose we want modern Italian Renaissance, and, further, that we wish not only to retain the character of Renaissance detail but to get good glass, suppose also that we do not want forgery,--the thing to do would be, to inspire oneself at the very best sources of Italian ornament--carving, inlay, goldsmith's work, embroidery, no matter what (ornament is specifically mentioned because it is in ornament that the tyranny of style is most severely exercised), and to translate the forms thence borrowed into the best glass we can do. That, of course, is not quite so easy as appropriation, wholesale; it implies research, judgment, a thorough knowledge of glass; but it would certainly lead, in capable hands, to nobler work, and work which might yet be in the Italian spirit. The danger is that it would clash, not with Renaissance feeling, but with preconceived ideas as to what should be. Our affectations of old style would be much more really like old work if they pretended less to be like it. Had the old men lived nowadays they would certainly have done differently from what they did. An artist in glass cannot safely neglect to study old work, more especially in so far as it bears upon modern practice. It is for him to realise, for example, what artistic good there was in early archaic design, what qualities of colour and so on came of mosaic treatment, what delicacy is due to the liberty of the later Gothic glass painter, what fresh charm there was in the more pictorial manner of the Cinque-Cento, and at what cost was this bought. Questions such as these are much more to the point than considerations of the date at which some new departure may have been made. The several systems on which a window design was set out, the various methods of execution--mosaic and paint, pot-metal and enamel, smear-shading and stipple, cross-hatching and needle point, matting and diapering, staining and abrading--all these things he has to study, not as indices of period, but that he may realise the intrinsic use and value of each, that he may deduce from ancient practice and personal experience a method of his own. Doubtful and curious points concern the antiquary not the artist. He had best keep to the broad highway of craftsmanship, not wander off into the byeways of archæology. Typical examples concern him more than rare specimens--examples which mark a stage in the progress of art, and about which there is no possibility of learned dispute. He wants to know what has been done in order to judge what may be done, and especially he wants to know the best that has been done. The problem is how to produce the best glass we can in harmony with the architecture to which it belongs, but without especial regard to what happens to have been done during the period to which the architecture of the building belongs. We may even inspire ourselves at the sources of sixteenth century Italian art, and yet in no wise follow in the footsteps of the glass painters of the period, who were more or less off the track; we may set ourselves to do, not what they did (glass was not their strong point), but what they might have done. There, if you like, is an ideal worthy of the best of us. If we pretend to be craftsmen we must do our work in the best way we know. If we are men, let us at least be ourselves. Let us work in the manner natural to us. If we undertake to decorate a building with a style of its own, let us acknowledge our obligation to it; let us be influenced by it so far as to make our work harmonious with it--harmonious, that is to say, in the eyes of an artist, not necessarily of a savant. Evidence of modernity is no sin, but a merit, in modern work. To see how a man adapted his design to circumstances not those of his own day, gives interest to work. We never wander so wide of the old mediæval spirit as when we pretend to be mediæval or play at Gothic. True style, as craftsmen know, consists in the character which comes of accepting quite frankly the conditions inherent in our work. CHAPTER XXIX. JESSE WINDOWS. The subjects depicted in stained glass tell the story of the Church, or preach its doctrine. Scenes from the Old Testament, from the Life of Christ, from the legends of the Saints, and so on, recur from the earliest Gothic times, and throughout the period of the Renaissance. These pictures accommodate themselves to the current plans of design, or the plan of design is chosen to suit them, as the case may be. There is one subject, however, occurring from the first in glass, which does not fall into any of the usual schemes of design, and which, in fact, differs so entirely from any of them, that it forms a class of design apart. The subject, in fact, by way of exception to the rule, not merely affects but determines the decorative form of the window. This subject is the Descent of Christ--in short, the genealogical tree of the Saviour; and the window devoted to its delineation is called a Jesse window. Much freer and more varied scope for composition was offered by this piece of church heraldry than the ordinary medallion or figure and canopy window afforded, and the glazier turned it early to exceedingly decorative use. The tree is shown issuing, as it were, from the loins of Jesse. It bears his descendants, or rather a very arbitrary selection of them (it is as well not to inquire too strictly as to their legitimate right to be there), ending in the Virgin and the Saviour. The earliest arrangement of a Jesse window is as follows: at the base is the recumbent figure of Jesse; the straight stem of the tree, proceeding from him, is almost entirely hidden by a string of figures, one above the other, occupying the centre part of the window, and represented, for the most part, as Kings; above them is the Virgin, also crowned; and in the arch of the window sits our Lord in Majesty, surrounded by seven doves, to signify the gifts of the Spirit. It is not perhaps quite clear upon what these figures sit. They hold on with both hands to branches of highly conventional Romanesque foliage, springing from the main stem, and occupying the space about the figures in very ornamental fashion. A series of half medallions on each side of this central design contain little figures of attendant prophets--in a sense, the spiritual ancestors of the Saviour. All this is in the deepest and richest mosaic colour, as in the beautiful bluish Jesse window at the West end of the cathedral at Chartres, which belongs to about the middle of the twelfth century. Very much the same kind of thing occurs at Le Mans and elsewhere. Later the tree more often branched out into loops, forming oval or vesical-shaped spaces, in which the figures sat, as may be seen on page 362. The ground of the window is in that case blue, the background of the figure ruby. Had it been red the figures would probably have been upon blue. This particular instance, by the way, is said to be of the twelfth century, although the ornament has more the character of thirteenth century work. You see also the doves referred to encircling the figure sitting in Majesty, and the figures attendant upon the Virgin. Sometimes these are prophets, sometimes angels; sometimes they stand in little canopy niches, sometimes they are in the midst of the foliage. The fragment from Salisbury on page 117 formed most probably part of a Jesse window. The symbolic doves have often each a nimbus. A single dove represents, of course, the Holy Ghost. A rather suggestive variation upon the orthodox Early scheme occurs in a window at Carcassonne. Each of the three lights is bordered with a rather geometric pattern. Within the border the central light is designed much on the usual lines: Jesse recumbent below, and above the figures of Kings, sitting each in his own little vesical-shaped space formed by the growth of the tree. In the sidelights, however, the Prophets are provided with the very simplest canopies, one above the other. An interesting arrangement is to be found in the clerestory of the cathedral at Tours, where the central light of a window has a Tree of Jesse, with the usual oval compartments, corresponding with hexagon-shaped medallions in the two sidelights, in which are depicted scenes presumably appropriate to the subject; it is difficult to make them out with any certainty. [Illustration: 243. PART OF EARLY JESSE WINDOW, MUSÉE DES ARTS DÉCORATIFS, PARIS.] Occasionally what seems at first sight a medallion window resolves itself, as at S. Kunibert, Cologne, into a kind of genealogical tree, enclosing subjects illustrative of the descent of Christ. The rather unusual combination of medallion and vine shown below, also German, is of rather later date. [Illustration: 244. FREIBURG.] In the fourteenth century the tree naturally becomes a vine, usually in colour upon a blue or ruby ground, extending beyond the limits of a single light, and crossing not only the mullions, but the borders (which, by the way, often confuse the effect of a Decorated Jesse window). The vine extends also very often into the tracery, where sits the Virgin with the Infant Christ. The figure of our Lord is always, of course, the topmost feature of the tree--in the arms of the Virgin, in the lap of the Father, or sitting in Majesty. A variation upon ordinary practice occurs where the Father supports a crucifix. The figure of Jesse naturally, as at Shrewsbury (page 241), extends across several lights. Occasionally a figure and canopy window proves to be also a Jesse window--a vine, that is to say, winds about the figures, and connects them with the figure of Jesse; but this combination of canopy work with tree work (as at Wells, some of the detail of which is given overleaf) is confused and confusing. A much happier combination of figures under canopies with tree work occurs in a sixteenth century window at S. Godard, Rouen, which has at the base a series of five figures, above whom spreads the tree, its roots appearing above the head of the central one, who proves to be Jesse. By the fifteenth century the vine is rather more conventionally treated. It is usually in white and stain upon a coloured ground, or, if the leaves are green, the stems are white and stain. The figures also have more white in their drapery. In the earlier part of the century the main stem branches very often in an angular manner so as to form six-sided bowers for the figures, framing them, perhaps, in a different colour from the general groundwork of the window. Or the various lights of the window may have alternately a blue and a ruby ground. It is rarely that two figures are shown in the width of a single light, either in separate compartments or grouped in one. [Illustration: 245. PART OF A JESSE WINDOW, WELLS.] Later the tree, oftenest in white and stain, branches more freely, not twisting itself any longer into set shapes or obvious compartments. The figures are, as it were, perched amongst its branches. In French and German work the tree, towards the sixteenth century, is not so necessarily a vine. It may take the form more of scrollwork, white or yellow, and the personages in its midst may be only demi-figures, issuing possibly from vase-like flowers or flower-like ornament. That is so in a remarkably fine window in the clerestory of the cathedral at Troyes (three lights of which are shown on page 366), where the figures no longer occupy the centre of the lights, but are scattered about from side to side, balanced in a very satisfactory way by their names writ large upon the background. This characteristic lettering gives not only interesting masses of white or yellow on the ruby ground, but horizontal lines of great value to the composition. In the lower part of the window a separate screen of richest yellow marks off the figure of Jesse, and at the same time distinguishes the Donors, together with their family and their armorial bearings, from the merely scriptural part of the design. In earlier windows, it should have been stated, prominence is sometimes given to the really more important personages by drawing them to a much larger scale, or by showing them full-length when the others are only half-length, or by draping them all in white and stain, whilst the rest are in colours not so strongly relieved against the ground. There are two other rather unusual Jesse windows at Troyes, both of Late Gothic period. The one is at S. Nizier: there the foliage is so rare as to give the effect almost of a leafless scroll. The other is at S. Nicholas: there the tree grows through into the tracery, where it appears no longer, as in the lights below, upon a deep blue ground, but upon yellow, the radiance, as it proves, from the group of the Trinity, into which the tree eventually blossoms. [Illustration: 246. PART OF A JESSE WINDOW, CATHEDRAL, TROYES, 1499.] Quite one of the most beautiful Jesse trees that exist is in a Late Gothic window at Alençon. It is unusual, probably unique in design. The figures, with the exception of Jesse, are confined to the upper lights and tracery, forming a double row towards the top of the window. This leaves a large amount of space for the tree, a fine, fat, Gothic scroll, foliated more after the manner of oak than acanthus leaves, all in rich greens (yellowish, apple, emerald-like) on a greyish-blue ground. It forms a splendid patch of cool colour, contrasting in the most beautiful way with the figures, draped mostly in purple, red, and yellow. The figures issue from great flower-like features as big as the width of the light allows, mostly of red, or purple, or white, with a calyx in green. The Virgin issues from a white flower suggestive of the lily. In the window shown on page 368 the tree blossoms also into a topmost lily supporting the Madonna. A characteristic feature about the Alençon window is, the absence of symmetry in its scheme. Of the eight lights which go to make up its width, only three are devoted, below the springing of the great arch over it, to the Jesse tree. Three others contain a representation of the death of the Virgin, under a separate canopy, and in the two outermost lights are separate subjects on a smaller scale. This kind of eccentricity of composition is by no means unusual. A Jesse window very often occupies only one half or one quarter of a large Late Gothic window. And the strange thing is that the effect is invariably satisfactory, often delightful. You do not miss the symmetry, but enjoy the accidental variety of colour. In sixteenth century work, and even before that, you meet with windows in which figures are in colours upon a white ground. In that case the tree is usually painted upon the white and stained. So it was in the beautiful Flemish window, parts of which are now dispersed over the East windows of S. George's, Hanover Square, calculated, there, rather to mystify the student of design. In it the grapes, it will be seen (page 216), are glazed in purple pot-metal colour. In the present condition of the window, now that the enamel-brown has partly peeled off, the grape bunches scarcely seem to belong to the rather ghostly vine behind them. That is a misfortune which not uncommonly happens where reliance has been placed upon delicate painting; but for all that this is noble glass, and the figures, as was also not uncommon at the period, are designed with great dignity. [Illustration: 247. JESSE WINDOW, BEAUVAIS.] There is distinction, again, in the drawing of the figures in the Jesse at S. Etienne, Beauvais, shown on page 368. That is a splendid specimen of characteristically Renaissance work. Jesse is honoured by a rich canopy of white and stain, which allows of a deep purple background separating him from his descendants. These appear as demi-figures, very richly robed, in strong relief against a pale purplish-blue ground of the atmospheric quality peculiar to the period. The vase-shaped flowers whence they issue are also in rich colour, dark against the ground, as are the variegated fruits and green leaves of the tree, but its branches are of silvery-white, suggesting of birch-bark. This tree-trunk is altogether too realistically treated for the ornamental leafage and still more arbitrary flowers growing from it; but it is a marvellously fine window, masterly in drawing and perfectly painted. And it owes positively nothing to age or accident. Indeed, the effect is somewhat diluted by restoration. Even on the reduced scale of the illustration given, you can detect in the head of the hatless figure to the right a touch of modern French character; and the fine colour of it all is fine in spite of the flatness of tint in the background, for which the nineteenth century must be held responsible. Except for the confusion caused by the occasional introduction of canopies and borders, a Jesse window may be usually recognised at a glance. In the cathedral at Troyes, however, is what might be mistaken, at first sight, for a Jesse tree. But the recumbent figure is not that of Jesse, but of Christ. He lies, in fact, in the wine press, whence grows a vine bearing half effigies of the Twelve Apostles, and the patron saints of the Donor and his wife, who themselves had places in the lower portion of the sidelights, but the figure of the wife is now missing. The general design and effect of this window, and especially the seriousness of the ornamental portion of it, are such as almost to belie the period of its execution. It is an exceptionally fine window for the year 1625. This same subject is anticipated in a sixteenth century window (1552) at Conches. There the Saviour treads the blue grapes, and a stream of blood-red wine issues from them. The frame of the press immediately behind him is designed to suggest the cross. The Jesse window referred to in the north transept at Carcassonne is balanced by a window on the south, which is of peculiarly interesting design, not, to my knowledge, elsewhere to be found in glass, although it occurs in Early Italian painting. It represents the Tree of Life, of Knowledge of Good and Evil--which knowledge appears to be inscribed all over it and the window. It might almost be described as a tree of lettering, for it bears upon its branches (which are labels) and upon its fruit (which are heart-shaped tablets) voluminous inscriptions, not, in the present state of the glass, always easy to decipher, but most effectively decorative. On either side the window, by way of border to the outer lights, is a series of little figures, prophets, or whoever they may be, bearing other inscribed scrolls, mingling with the boughs of the tree, the leaves of which form, as it were, a kind of green and yellow fringe to the inscribed white branches. At the foot of the tree stand Adam and Eve, in the act of yielding to the temptation of the woman-headed serpent coiled round its trunk, and beyond are shown the Ark of Noah and the Ark of the Covenant. Amidst the upper branches is a crucifix, the narrow red cross so inconspicuous that the Christ seems almost to hang upon the tree, and at its summit is the emblem of the pelican, _Qui sanguine pascit alumnos_. This is altogether not only a striking, and, at the same time, most satisfactory window, but an admirable instance of the use of lettering in ornament. Lettering is very often introduced into Jesse windows, and forms sometimes a conspicuous feature in them: how much more use might be made of it is suggested by this Tree of Life. CHAPTER XXX. STORY WINDOWS. There is something very interesting in the simple heartedness with which the mediæval artist would attack a subject quite impossible of artistic realisation, apart from his modest powers of draughtsmanship, or the limitations of glass. The daring of the man may be taken as evidence of his sincerity. If he had not believed absolutely in the things he tried to pourtray, he could not have set them forth so simply as he did, not only in the quite archaic medallions of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, but even in pictures conceived at the end of what we call the Middle Ages. It would be impossible nowadays to picture Paradise, as in the scene of the Temptation at Fairford (overleaf), with its bald architecture and little Gothic fountain, to say nothing of the serpent. But down to the sixteenth century no subject was impossible to the designer. Even the Creation did not deter him; on the contrary, it was a favourite subject in old glass, throughout the mediæval period (page 252): there is no shirking the difficulty of rendering the division of light from the darkness, or the separation of the waters from the dry land. Indeed, problems such as these are sometimes solved with very remarkable ingenuity, if not quite in a way to satisfy us: the Creator in the likeness of a Pope, triple crown and all, as at Châlons-sur-Marne, was pictured no doubt in all good faith and reverence. Perhaps one of the most daring notions ever put into stained glass occurs in a window in All Saints' Church, North Street, York. The design illustrates an old Northumbrian legend called "The Pryck of Conscience," and boldly sets out to show--the fishes roaring, the sea a-fire, a bloody dew, and, as a climax, the general conflagration of the world. "Of heaven and hell I have no power to tell," wrote the "idle singer" (as he most wilfully miscalled himself) of this perhaps "empty day." It was left to the modern artist to discover that. The subject most frequently affected by the designer of the West window of a Gothic church was "The Last Judgment," in which appeared our Lord in Majesty, St. Michael weighing human souls, angels welcoming the righteous into heaven, and fiends carrying off the doomed to hell. These "Doom" windows, as they are also called, are not, to the modern mind, impressive--not, that is to say, as the pictures of reward and punishment hereafter they were meant to be. The scene strikes us invariably as grotesque rather than terrible, actual as it may have been to the simple artist, who meant to be a sober chronicler, and to the yet simpler worshippers to whom he addressed himself. [Illustration: 248. THE TEMPTATION, FAIRFORD.] Apart from that, "Last Judgment" windows are among the most interesting in the church. The portion of the window, in particular, which is devoted to perdition is most attractive. Hell flames offered to the artist a splendid opportunity for colour, upon which he seized with delight. And the fiends he imagined! Doubtless those crude conceptions of his were very real to him, convincing and terror-striking. The grim humour which we see in them may be of our own imagining; but that the draughtsman enjoyed his creations no artist will doubt. [Illustration: 249. PART OF LAST JUDGMENT, FAIRFORD.] That is easy to understand. His subject allowed him freedom of imagination, gave him scope for fancy, humour, colour; and all his faculties found outlet. No wonder his would-be fiends live beautiful in our recollection! In the midst of ruby flames dance devils, purple, black, and brown, gnashing carnivorous teeth or yellow fangs, their beady, white eyes gleaming with cruelty. Devils there are apparently red-hot; others green and grey, with a beautiful but unholy kind of iridescence about them. As for the blue devils, they are beautiful enough to scare away from the beholder blue devils less tangible, which may have had possession of him. There is a great white devil in a window at Strassburg, who has escaped, it seems, from the Doom window near by, but not from the flames about him, a background of magnificent ruby. The drawing of a part of the Last Judgment from Fairford (page 373) gives only the grotesqueness of the scene, the quaintly conceived tortures of the damned; but that division of the glass is in reality a glory of gorgeous colour, to which one is irresistibly attracted. For that, as ever, the designer has reserved his richest and most glowing colour. Some slight touch of human perversity perhaps inspires him also. At Fairford, at all events, he has put some of his best work, and especially some of his finest colour, into the figures of the Persecutors of the Church. Unfortunately, they are high up in the clerestory, and so do not get their share of attention; certainly they do not get the praise they deserve. Why, one is inclined to ask, this honour to the enemies of the Church on the part of the churchman? Was he at heart a heathen giving secret vent in art to feelings he dared not openly express? Not a bit of it! He was just a trifle tired of Angels, and Saints, and subjects according to convention; he was delighted at the chance of doing something not quite tame and same, and revelled in the opportunity when it occurred. In the tracery openings above the persecutors, where in the ordinary way would be angels, are lodged much more appropriate little fiends. They haunt the memory long after you have seen them, not as anything very terrific, but as bits of beautiful colour. The Devil overleaf, hovering in wait for the soul of the impenitent thief upon the cross, is not by any means a favourable specimen of the Fairford fiends. Occasionally there is a grimness about the mediæval Devil which we feel to this day. In a window at S. Etienne, Beauvais, there is a quite unforgettable picture of a woman struggling in the clutches of the evil one. She is draped in green, the Devil is of greenish-white, the architecture is represented in a gloom of purple and dark blue; only a peep of pale sky is seen through the window. On the one hand, this is a delightful composition of decorative colour. On the other it is intensely dramatic. It sets one wondering who this may be, and what will be the outcome of it. The struggle is fearful, the fiend is quite frantic in action. One is so taken with the scene that one does not notice that his head is wanting, and has been replaced by one which does not even fit his shoulders. That the effect, for all that, is impressive, speaks volumes for the story-teller. [Illustration: 250. FAIRFORD.] Alas, alas, the Devil is dead! His modern counterfeit is a fraud. You may see this at the church of S. Vincent, at Rouen, in one of the subjects representing the life of that saint, where he puts the devils to flight. The nearest of them is an evil-looking thing, ruby coloured, uncannily spotted, like some bright poisonous-looking fungus. The restorer has supplemented these retreating devils by a farther one painted on the grey-blue sky. The imp is grotesque enough, and very cleverly put in, but it plainly belongs no longer to the early sixteenth century. It suggests a theatrical "property," not the hobgoblin of old belief. That is just what the devilry in old glass never does. It must be owned that mediæval Angels charm us less. They are by comparison tame. Their colour is delicate and silvery, belike, but not seductive; their wings sit awkwardly upon them; they fulfil more or less trivial functions, bearing scrolls or emblems, shields of arms even. They are not in the least ethereal. They are too much on the model of man or woman. What possible business, for example, have they with legs and feet? Yet it is by the rarest chance that the body is, as it were, lost in a swirl of drapery, which, by disguising the lower limbs, makes the image by so much, if not the more angelic, at least the less obviously of the earth. The glass hunter cannot but be amused every now and again by odd anachronisms in mediæval and even later illustrations in glass. But wonder at them ceases when we remember how simple-minded was the craftsman of those days before archæology. If he wished to picture scenes of the long past--and he did--there was nothing for it but to show them as they occurred to his imagination--as happening, that is to say, in his own day; and that is practically what he did. He had perhaps a vague notion that a Roman soldier should wear a kilt; but in the main he was content that the onlookers at the Crucifixion should be costumed according to the period of William the Conqueror, or Maximilian, in which he himself happened to live. The practice had, at least, one advantage over our modern displays of probably very inaccurate learnedness, in that it brought the scene close home to the unlearned observer, and, as it were, linked the event with his own life. In short, there is more vitality in that rude story-telling than in the more elaborate histories, much less inaccurate in detail doubtless, to which to-day and henceforth artists are pledged. There is no occasion to dwell upon the oddities of glass painting; they are those of mediæval art all through. If we take a certain incongruity for granted, the guilelessness of it only charms us. That same guilelessness enables the artist to make absolutely ornamental use of themes which to-day we might think it profane to make subservient to decorative effect. We never question his sincerity, though in the scene of the Creation, as at Erfurth, he made a pattern of the birds, pair and pair, each on its own tree. He can safely show the staff of S. Christopher, as at Freiburg, blossoming so freely as conveniently to fill the head of the window and balance the Child upon his shoulder. According as it occurs to him, or as it suits his purpose, kings and bishops take part in the Crucifixion; S. Michael tramples upon a dragon big enough to swallow him at a mouthful; Abraham goes out, gorgeously arrayed in red and purple, to slaughter Isaac on a richly decorated altar, and a white ram, prancing among the green, calls his attention to itself as the more appropriate sacrifice; Adam and Eve are driven forth from Eden by a scarlet angel, draped in white, with wings as well as sword of flaming red. In this last case the peculiar colour has a significance. Elsewhere it implies the poverty of the glazier's palette, or indicates the sacrifice of natural to artistic effect. So it was that, till quite the end of the thirteenth century, we meet with positively blue beards, ruby cows, and trees of all the colours of the rainbow; and even at a much later date than that, primary-coloured cattle look over the manger at the Nativity, and Christ is shown entering Jerusalem on a bright blue donkey. To the last the glass painter indulged in very interesting compound subjects--the Nativity, for example, with in the distance the Magi on their way; the Last Supper, and in the foreground, relieved against the tablecloth, Christ washing Peter's feet, the apostles grouped round so as to form part of each or either subject. Sometimes a series of events form a single picture, as where you have the Temptation, the Expulsion, Eve with her distaff, Adam with his spade, the childhood of Cain and Abel, and the first fratricide, all grouped in one comprehensive landscape. Consecutive pictures, by the way, generally follow in horizontal not vertical series, beginning on your left as you face the window. There is no invariable rule; but in most cases the order of the subjects is from left to right, row after row, terminating at the top of the window. From the beginning difficult doctrinal subjects are attempted, as well as histories and legends. In the sixteenth century the design is often an allegory, full of meaning, though the meaning of it all may not be very obvious. The Virtues, for example, no longer content to stand under canopies, systematically spearing each its contrasting Vice, harness themselves, as at S. Patrice, Rouen, to a processional car, in which are the Virgin, Christ upon the Cross, and sundry vases, preceded by the Patriarchs and other holy personages. Another interesting "morality," at S. Vincent, Rouen, is pictured in a medley of little figures each with descriptive label--"Richesse," for example, a lady in gorgeous golden array; "Pitie," a matron of sober aspect; "Les Riches Ingrass," a group of gay young men; "Le Riche" and "Le Poure," alike pursued by death. Another decorative device of the sixteenth century is the Virgin, lifesize, surrounded by her emblems and little white scrolls describing them--"Fons ortorum," "Sivit as Dei," and so on, in oddly spelt Latin. This occurs at Conches. In Later Gothic, and of course in Renaissance glass, the situation is, if not realised, at all events dramatically treated. One scarcely knows to which period to attribute the window at S. Patrice, Rouen, with scenes from the life of S. Louis, an admirably sober and serious piece of work. Conspicuous in it is the recurring mantle of the King, deep indigo coloured, embroidered with golden _fleurs-de-lys_, on an inky-blue ground. The whole effect is rich but strikingly low in tone. An exceptionally fine scene is that in which the King, in a golden boat with white sails, ermine diapered, a crown upon his head, kneels in prayer before a little crucifix, whilst his one companion lifts up his hands in terror: the man is clad in green; for the rest the colour is sombre, only the pale blue armour of the Saint, his dark blue cloak, for once undiapered--as if the artist felt that here the golden lilies would be out of place--and the leaden sea around: that extends to the very top of the picture, distant ships painted upon it to indicate that it is water. An inscription explains how:-- "En revenant du pays de Syrie En mer fut tourmente ... gde furie Mais en priant Jesu Christ il en fut delivré." It must be allowed that the storm does not rage very terrifically; but the effect is not merely beautiful as colour but really descriptive, and something more. It is only occasionally that this much of dramatic effect is produced; but touches of well-studied realism are common, as where, in the same church, at the martyrdom of a saint, the executioners who feed the fire shrink from the yellow flames and guard their eyes. Decorative treatment goes almost without saying in the early sixteenth century. At S. Patrice, again, is a singularly fine instance of that. In the centre of the window, against a background of forest, with the distant hunt in full cry, S. Eustache stands entranced, his richly clad figure a focus of bright colour; facing him, in the one light, the legendary stag, enclosing between its antlers the vision of the crucifix, balanced, in the other, by the white horse of the convert: the note of white is repeated in the lithe hounds running through the three lights, and, with the silvery trunks of the trees, holds the composition together. This subject of the Conversion of S. Hubert was rather a favourite one in glass, and was usually well treated. The stag is invaluable. At Erfurth he stands against the green, a mass of yellow, with purple antlers, which form a vesica-shaped frame for the fabled vision. The use of white, by the way, as a means of holding the window together is remarkable throughout Later glass, even apart from white canopy work. In the cathedral at Perugia there is a window in which a stream of white pavement flows, as it were, down through the groups of richly coloured figures, emphasising them, and at the same time connecting them with the canopy. There is no end to the interest of subject in glass; but the subject would lead us too far astray from the purpose of this book. Enough has been said to indicate the kind of interest which each of us best finds for himself in glass hunting. CHAPTER XXXI. HOW TO SEE WINDOWS. The just appreciation of stained glass is more than difficult, and judgment with regard to it more than ordinarily fallible. It is too much to expect of a window that it should stand the test of a light for which it was not designed. The most conscientious artist can do no more than design it for the light by which he imagines it is most likely to be seen. There must inevitably be times of day, when the sun is in a position not favourable to it, and many days when the intensity of the light, even though it come from the right quarter, is not what he relied upon. It happens, of course, that glass is often seen under such conditions that the brilliancy of the windows on one side of the church is literally put out by a flood of light poured in upon them through the windows (brilliantly illuminated by it) on the opposite side. The best of critics could not appreciate the best of glass under circumstances like that. Suppose the windows north and south of a church to be of equal merit, one's appreciation of them, at first sight, would depend upon the time of day; and the light which did most justice to the northern windows would do least to the southern, and _vice versâ_. Experience teaches a man to make allowances, but he can only judge what he has seen; and it is only with the light shining through a window that he can see its colour or judge of its effect. The wonderful difference which the strength of the light makes in the appearance of a window, is nowhere quite so obvious as in the case of windows, not of glass, but of translucent alabaster--as, for example, at Orvieto, in the lower lights on either side of the nave, or, framed in black marble mullions, at the West end of the cathedral. The more or less square-shaped slabs of which they are formed are, in very many cases, made up of a number of pieces cemented together in lines which take very much the place of lead lines, and suggest, with the bars holding them in place, the practice of the glazier; but the effect is much less that of glass than of deepest amber in the unbroken panels, of gorgeous tortoise-shell in those that are patched and pieced together. These last are, if not the more beautiful, certainly the more interesting. The brown and gold and horny-white grow murkier when the light does not shine full upon the windows; but there is a mystery about the colour still, which makes up for the loss of brilliancy. If your mood is that way, you may find in the curious marbling of the stone strange pictures of cloudland and fantastic landscape. It is partly the shape, no doubt, of a circular slab high above the western door, which calls to mind the image of the moon with its mysterious mountains. A more delicate, if not always so rich an effect, is to be seen in the great monolithic slabs which fill the five square-headed windows in the apse of the upper church at S. Miniato. Effect, did I say? Nay, rather effects, for they change with every gradation in the light. You may see at first little more than flat surfaces of pleasantly mottled white and purple-grey, translucent, but comparatively dull and dead. Then, as the sun creeps round the corner, a strange life comes into them. The white and palest greys begin to glow, and turn by slow degrees to pearly-pink, which kindles into gold, and deepens in the duskier parts to copper-red. The stronger markings of the stone now show out in unsuspected strength, and the lighter veins take on by contrast a greenish tint, so that the warm colour is subtly shot with its cool counterpart. If, when you first see the windows, the sun illumines them, the effect is less magical; you get your strongest impression first; but in the course of an hour or so a great change may take place--when, for example, towards noon the light passes away; but for a long while the stone remains luminous. Your eyes are open now, and in the delicate ashen-grey you see--or is it that you feel it to be there?--a tint of rose. In proportion as it is less opaque than alabaster, glass is less perceptibly affected by changes of light; but, whether we perceive it or not, it owes all its effect to the light shining through it. The most fair-minded of us misjudge windows because we cannot see them often enough to be quite sure we have seen them at their best--that is to say, on the right day, and at the right time of day. In comparing one window with another we are more than ever likely to do injustice. Even if they happen to be both in the same church, the light most favourable to the one may, as just said, be quite the least favourable to the other. Each must in fairness be judged at its best; and it is no easy matter to compare to-day's impression with yesterday's, or it may be last week's--more especially when a newer impression of the same thing, staring you in the face, will stamp itself upon the vision. When years, instead of days, intervene, the justice of even the most retentive memory is open to gravest doubt. Go to the church of S. Alpin, at Châlons, and in the morning you will find the East windows brilliantly rich: in the early afternoon, even of a bright day, they will be lacking in transparency, dull, ineffective. So at S. Sebald's, Nuremberg, the splendid fourteenth century glass on the north side of the choir proves absolutely obscure in the late afternoon. Grisaille, which was delicate under a moderately subdued light, will appear thin and flimsy with a strong sun behind it. It has happened to me to describe the same glass on one occasion as too heavily, on another as too thinly painted; and, again, to describe a window as warm in tone which memory (and my notes) had painted cool. On another occasion, well-remembered windows were not to be identified again. It seemed that in the course of a few intervening years they must have been restored out of all knowledge; a few hours later in the day there was no mistaking them, though they had, indeed, lost something by restoration. When the most careful and deliberate notes tell such different, and indeed quite opposite, stories, notes made at times not far enough apart to allow for anything like a complete change of opinion on the part of the critic, it is clear that conditions of light go so far towards the effect of glass, that it is quite impossible to appraise it fairly the first time one sees it. The more momentary the impression on which one has to found an opinion, the more essential it is that we should choose the moment. The strongest light is by no means the most favourable to glass. In a glare of sunlight it is quite probable that some unhappy windows will have more light shining upon than comes through the glass. Happiest are the windows seen by "the subdued light of a rainy day." Occasionally a window, so deep that under ordinary conditions of light it is obscure, may need the strongest possible illumination; but even in the case of very deep-toned windows--such, for example, as those in the transepts of the Duomo at Florence--the glass, as a whole, is best seen by a sober light. You get the maximum of colour effect with the minimum of hurt to any individual window, if there be any hurt at all. A really garish window may be beautiful as the light wanes. The great North Rose at Notre Dame (Paris) is impressive at dusk. Other conditions upon which the effect of glass largely depends are quite beyond our control. As a matter of fact, we rarely see it at its best. For one thing, we do not see it in sufficient quantity. We find it in here and there a window only, white light shining unmitigated from windows all round. Perhaps in the window itself there is a breakage, and a stream of light pours through it, spoiling, if not its beauty, all enjoyment of it. It is not generally understood how completely the effect of glass depends upon the absence of light other than that which comes through it. Every ray of light which penetrates into a building excepting through the stained glass does injury to the coloured window; more often than not, therefore, we see it under most adverse circumstances. It is worse than hearing a symphony only in snatches; it is rather as if a more powerful orchestra were all the while drowning the sound. It takes an expert to appreciate glass when light is reflected upon it from all sides. The effect of some of the finest glass in Germany, as at Munich and Nuremberg, is seriously marred by a wicked German practice of filling only the lower half of the window with coloured glass and glazing the upper part in white rounds. That enables folk to read their Bibles, no doubt; but the volume of crude white light above goes far to kill the colour of the glass. In such case it is not until you have shut off the offending light that it is possible to enjoy, or even to appreciate, the windows. A comparatively dark church is essential to the perfect enjoyment of rich glass. The deep red light-absorbing sandstone of which Strassburg and Shrewsbury Cathedrals are built, adds immensely to the brilliancy of their beautiful glass. White light is the most cruel, but not the only, offender. Old glass sometimes quarrels with old glass. An Early window is made to look heavy by a quantity of Late work about it, and a Late window pales in the presence of deep rich Early glass. As for modern work, it is that which suffers most by comparison with old; but it arouses often a feeling of irritation in us which puts us out of the mood to enjoy. Worst offence of all is that done in the name of restoration, where, inextricably mixed up with old work, is modern forgery; not clever enough to pass for old, but sufficiently like it to cast a doubt upon the genuine work, at the same time that it quite destroys its beauty. Something of our appreciation depends upon the frame of mind in which we come to the windows. They may be one of the sights of the place; but the sight-seeing mood is not the one in which to appreciate. How often can the tourist sit down in a church with the feeling that he has all the day before him, and can give himself up to the enjoyment of the glass, wait till it has something to say to him? A man has not seen glass when he has walked round the church, with one eye upon it and the other on his watch, not even though he may have made a note or two concerning it. You must give yourself up to it, or it will never give up to you the secret of its charm. CHAPTER XXXII. WINDOWS WORTH SEEING. The course of the glass hunter seems never yet to have been clearly mapped out for him. Nor can he depend upon those who pretend to direct his steps. The enthusiastic description of the monograph proves in the event to have very likely no warrant of art; the paragraph in the guide-book is so cold as to excite no spark of curiosity about what may be worth every effort to see. Between the two a beginner stands uncertain which way to turn, and as often as not goes astray. The question which perplexes him on the very outskirts of the subject is: Which are the windows to see? That depends. Some there are which every one who cares at all about glass should certainly see, some which the student who really wants to know should study, some which the artist should see, if merely for the satisfaction of his colour sense. To enumerate only a single class of these would be to write a catalogue; but catalogues are hard reading; the more interesting and more helpful course will be, to tell shortly of some of the windows best worth seeing, and why they should be seen. And if choice be made of instances typical enough to illustrate the history of glass, the list may serve as an itinerary to such as may think it worth while to study it, as it should be studied, not in books, but in churches. [Illustration: 251. GRISAILLE PATTERNS, SALISBURY.] Churches favourable to the study of Early glass in England are not very many. A series of thirteenth century windows is rare; and good examples, such as the fragments from the S. Chapelle, at South Kensington, are few and far between. The one fine series of medallion windows is at Canterbury Cathedral, in the round-headed lights of the choir. In the clerestory also is some figure work, on a larger scale, but less admirable of its kind. For good thirteenth century grisaille in any considerable quantity one must go to Salisbury, where, fortunately, the aisle windows are near enough to the eye to show the very characteristic patterns of the glass. To sit there in the nave and wait until service is over, is no hardship even to the most ardent glass hunter. The silvery light from the windows facing him at the East end of the aisles is solace and delight enough. Yet more enchanting is the pale beauty of the Five slim Sisters, in the North transept of York Minster; that, however, is gained, to some extent, by the confusion of the pattern, which is not quite typically Early, but begins to show symptoms of a transition stage in design. To appreciate at its full value the stronger colour of the Early mosaic glass one must cross the Channel. We have nothing in this country to compare in quantity, and therefore for effect, with the gorgeous glass illuminating the great French churches. Reims, for example, Bourges, Le Mans, are perfect treasure houses of jewelled light. But richer than all is Chartres. The windows there are less conveniently placed for study than at Le Mans, but they are grander, and more in number. At Reims the art is coarser, though the magnificence of certain red windows there lives in the memory. Emphatically Chartres is the place to know and appreciate thirteenth century glass. No other great church of the period retains so much of its original glazing; and since it is one of the largest, and the glass is very much of one period, it follows that no church contains so much Early glass. The impression it produces is the more pronounced that there is little else. Except for a modern window or two, one Late Gothic window, and some four or five lights of grisaille, which belong to the second period, the glass throughout this vast building is typically Early. It is well worth a pilgrimage to Chartres only to see it. You may wander about the church for hours at a time, unravelling the patterns of the windows, and puzzling out the subjects of the medallion pictures. To sit there in more restful mood upon some summer afternoon, when the light is softened by a gentle fall of rain, is to be thrilled by the beauty of it all. It is as though, in a dream, you found yourself in some huge cavern, lit only by the light of jewels, myriads of them gleaming darkly through the gloom. It is difficult to imagine anything more mysterious, solemn, or impressive. Yes, Chartres is the place in which to be penetrated by the spirit of Early mediæval glass. There is a story told of a child sitting for the first time in his life in some French church, awed by the great Rose window facing him, when all at once the organ burst into music; and it seemed to him, he said, as if the window spoke. Words could not better express than that the powerful impression of Early mosaic glass, the solemnity of its beauty, the way it belongs to the grandeur of the great church, the something deep in us vibrating in answer to it. Exceptionally interesting Early glass is to be found in the cathedral of Poitiers; but it is hurt by the white light from other windows. In the case of Early coloured windows it is more than ever true that their intensity can only be appreciated when all the light in the building comes through them. That intensity, as was said, is deepened where, as at Strassburg, the colour of the walls absorbs instead of reflecting light. There the red sandstone of which the church is built gives back so little light that, as you enter the door, you step from sunshine into twilight, in which the glass shines doubly glorious. Some of these (certain of the Kings, for example, on the north side of the nave, each with its huge nimbus eddying, as it were, ring by ring of colour, out to the margin of the niche) are of the thirteenth if not of the twelfth century; but they are typical of no period. The borders framing them are perhaps a century later than the figures. Indeed, the period of this glass is most perplexing to the student of style, until he realises that, after the great fire at the very end of the thirteenth century, remains of earlier glass, spared from the wreck, were incorporated with the newer work. And, not only this, but, what was rare in mediæval days, the fourteenth century designer, in his endeavour to harmonise, as he most successfully did, the old work with the new, gave to his own work a character which was not of his period,--much to the mystification of the student, who too readily imagines that he cannot go far wrong in attributing to the glass in a church a date posterior to its construction. The cathedral at Strassburg is rich also in distinctly Decorated glass, to all of which the tourist pays no heed. He goes there to see the clock. If he should have a quarter of an hour to spare before noon--at which hour the cock crows and the church is shut--he allows himself to be driven by the verger, with the rest of the crowd, into the transept, and penned up there until the silly performance begins. To hear folk talk of the thing afterwards at the _table d'hôte_ you might fancy that Erwin Von Steinbach had built his masterpiece just to house this rickety piece of mock old mechanism. Some of the most interesting glass of the Middle Gothic period is to be found in Germany, for tradition died hard there; and, whilst thirteenth century glass was more often Romanesque than Gothic in character, that of the fourteenth often followed closely the traditions of earlier Gothic workmanship. The Germans excelled especially in foliage design, which they treated in a manner of their own. It was neither very deep in colour nor grisaille, but midway between the two. The glass at Regensburg is an exceedingly good instance of this treatment; but instances of it are to be found also in the Museum at Munich, very conveniently placed for the purposes of study. The windows at Freiburg in the Black Forest should also be seen. But some of the very richest figure work of the period is to be found in the choir windows of S. Sebald's Church, at Nuremberg. Except for the simplicity of their lines these are not striking in design; but the colour is perhaps deeper in tone than in the very richest of thirteenth century glass. The first impression is that the composition is entirely devoid of white glass; but there proves to be a very small amount of horny-tinted material which may be supposed to answer to that description. As the light fades towards evening these windows become dull and heavy; but on a bright day the intensity of their richness is unsurpassed. They have a quality which one associates rather with velvet than with glass. [Illustration: 252. 14TH CENTURY GERMAN GLASS.] Excellent Decorated glass, and a great quantity of it, is to be found at Evreux, and again at Troyes. The clerestory of the choir at Tours is most completely furnished with rich Early Decorated glass of transitional character--interesting on that account, and, at the same time, most beautiful to see. There is other Decorated work there with which it is convenient to compare it, together with earlier and later work more or less worth seeing. Again most interesting work, but not much of it, and that rather fragmentary, is to be found at the church of S. Radegonde, at Poitiers; but there was in France at about that time rather a lull in glass painting. In England, on the contrary, there is an abundance of it. There is good work in the choir of Wells Cathedral. Part of it is in a rather fragmentary condition, but it is all very much of a period; and there is enough of it to give a fair idea of what English Decorated glass is like. York Minster is rich in it. It is quite an object lesson in style to go straight from the contemplation of the Five Sisters, which belong to the latter part of the Early period of glass painting, into the neighbouring vestibule of the Chapter House, where the windows are of the early years of the Second Period, and thence to the Chapter House itself, where they are typically Decorated. The study of Decorated glass can be continued in the nave again, which is filled with it. Entering, then, the choir, you find mainly Perpendicular glass, much of it typical of English work of the Late Gothic period. Other very beautiful Late Gothic work is to be found in some of the smaller churches of York, such as All Saints'. There is a window there made up of fragments of old glass, among which are some very delicately painted and really beautiful heads. This work is all characteristically English. English also is the glass in the Priory Church at Great Malvern. There is a vast quantity of it, too, which adds to its effect; but unfortunately, a great part of it now fills windows for which it was obviously not designed. This is the more unfortunate because, where it has not been disturbed, it shows unmistakable evidence of having been very carefully designed for its place. The tracery of the great East window is, for example, an admirable instance of the just balance between white and colour so characteristic of later Gothic glass. Again, the Creation window, amongst others, is a lesson in delicate glass painting. [Illustration: 253. FAIRFORD.] Distinctly English in the delicacy of their painting are, again, the windows in the church of S. Mary, Ross. The far-famed windows of Fairford are, of course, not English. They were captured, the story goes, at sea, and brought to Gloucestershire, where a Perpendicular church was built to accommodate them. English antiquaries make claim that they are English, but internal evidence shows them to be Flemish or German. Considerable notoriety attaches to the Fairford windows owing to a theory which was at one time propounded to the effect that they were designed by Albert Dürer. The theory is now as dead as a back number, but the notoriety remains--and not undeservedly; for although this glass stands by no means alone, and is distinctly second to some contemporary work (such, for example, as that on the north side of the nave of Cologne Cathedral, which Dürer might conceivably have designed), it is remarkably fine; and it enjoys the comparatively rare distinction of practically filling the windows of the church. You not only, therefore, see the colour (which, rather than the painting, is its charm) at its best, but you have a complete scheme of decoration--Type answering to Anti-type, the Twelve Apostles corresponding to the Prophets, the Evangelists to the Four Fathers, and again the Saints opposed to the Persecutors of the Church. Most old glass owes something to the disintegration of its surface, and the consequent refraction of the light transmitted through it. In the Fairford glass the colours are more than usually mellow. The white, in particular, is stained to every variety of green and grey--the colour, as it proves, of the minute growth of lichen with which it is overgrown. It is said that, when the fury of iconoclasm was abroad, this glass was buried out of harm's way; which may possibly have hastened the decay of the glass, and so have given root-hold for the growth which now glorifies it. It would not be easy to find finer instances of Late Gothic German work than the five great windows on the North side of Cologne Cathedral. There, too, one has only to turn right-about-face to compare early sixteenth century with nineteenth century German practice, and on precisely the same scale, too. Any one who could hesitate for an instant to choose between them, has everything yet to learn in regard both to glass and to colour. The garish modern transparencies show, by their obvious shortcomings, the consummate accomplishment of the later Gothic glass painters. There is a very remarkable late Gothic Jesse window in the Lorenz Kirche at Nuremberg, and another almost equal to it in the cathedral at Ulm. The Tree of Jesse is very differently, but certainly not less beautifully, rendered in the fine West window at Alençon. In most of the great French churches, and in many of the smaller ones, you find good fifteenth century work. At Bourges you have seven four-light windows and one larger one, all fairly typical. The best of them is in the chapel of Jacques Coeur, the Jack that built at Bourges quite one of the most remarkable of mediæval houses extant. But there is no one church which recurs before all others to the memory when one thinks of Late Gothic glass in France. One remembers more readily certain superlative instances, such as the flamboyant Rose window at the West end of S. Maclou, at Rouen, a wonder of rich colour, or the Western Rose in the cathedral there. The fact is, that the spirit of the Renaissance begins early in the sixteenth century to creep into French work; and, as glass painting arrives at its perfection, it betrays very often signs of going over to the new manner. This is peculiarly the case in that part of France which lies just this side of the Alps; so much so, that a markedly mixed style is commonly accepted as "Burgundian." This is most apparent in the beautiful church of Brou, a marvel of fanciful Gothic, florid, of course, after the manner of the Early sixteenth century, extreme in its ornamentation, but, for all but the purist, extremely beautiful. The church itself is as rich as a jewel by Cellini, and infinitely more interesting; and the glass is worthy of its unique setting. There is a very remarkable series of windows to see in the cathedral at Auch, all of a period, all by one man, filling all the eighteen windows of the choir ambulatory. Transition is everywhere apparent in them, though perhaps one would not have placed them quite so early as 1513, the date ascribed to them. A notable thing about the work is its scale, which is much larger than is usual in French glass of that period. Nowhere will you find windows more simply and largely designed or more broadly treated. Nowhere will you find big Renaissance canopies richer in colour or more interesting in design. The fifty or more rather fantastically associated Prophets, Patriarchs, Sibyls, and Apostles depicted, form, with the architecture about them and the tracery above, quite remarkable compositions of colour. And it is very evident that the colour of each window has been thought out as a whole. There is not one of these windows which is not worth seeing. They form collectively a most important link in the chain of style, without, however, belonging to any marked period. Indeed, they stand rather by themselves as examples of very Early Renaissance work, aiming at broad effects of strong colour (quite opposite from what one rather expects of sixteenth century French work), and reaching it. And though the artist works almost entirely in mosaic--using coloured glass, that is to say, instead of pigment--and depends less than usual upon painting, he yet lays his colour about the window in a remarkably painter-like way. There are noteworthy windows at Châlons-sur-Marne, in the churches of SS. Madelaine and Joseph, which can be claimed neither as Gothic nor Renaissance, details of each period occurring side by side in the same window. At the church of S. Alpin at Châlons is a series of picture windows in grisaille, not often met with, and very well worth seeing. Early sixteenth century glass is so abundant that it is hopeless to specify churches. Nowhere is the transition period better represented than at Rouen, and, for that matter, the Early Renaissance too. The church of S. Vincent contains no less than thirteen windows, with subjects biblical or allegorical, but always strikingly rich in colour. The choir is, you may say, an architectural frame to a series of glass pictures second to few of their period, and so nearly all of a period as to give one an excellent impression of it: the brilliancy of the colour, the silveriness of the white glass, and the delicacy of the landscape backgrounds is typical. Scarcely less interesting is the abundant glass in the church of S. Patrice, which carries us well into the middle of the sixteenth century and beyond; so that Rouen is an excellent place in which to study all but Early glass: there is not much of that to speak of there. Two exceptionally fine Renaissance windows are to be found in the church of S. Godard; and there are others well worth seeing whilst you are in Rouen, if not in every case worth going there to see, in the churches of S. Romain, S. Nicaise, S. Vivien, in addition to S. Ouen, S. Maclou, and the cathedral. Yet finer Renaissance work is to be found at Beauvais--finer, that is to say, in design. One is reminded there sometimes of Raffaelle, who furnished designs for the tapestries for which the town was famous; these may very well have inspired the glass painters; but there is not at Beauvais the quantity of work which one finds at Rouen. The very perfection of workmanship is to be seen also in the windows at Montmorency and Ecouen (both within a very short distance of Paris); but, on the whole, this most interesting glass hardly comes up to what one might imagine it to be from the reproductions in M. Magne's most sumptuous monograph. In a certain sense also the windows at Conches, in Normandy, are a disappointment. In a series of windows designed by Aldegrever one expects to find abundant ornament; and there is practically none. What little there is, is like enough to his work to be possibly by him; but one feels that Heinrich Aldegrever, if he had had his way, would have lavished upon them a wealth of ornamental detail, which would have made them much more certainly his than, as it is, internal evidence proves them to be. It would hardly have occurred to any one, apart from the name in one of the windows, to attribute them to this greatest ornamentist among the Little Masters. It is only the ornamentist who is disappointed, however, not the glass hunter. It is an experience to have visited a church like Conches, simple, well proportioned, dignified; where, as you enter from the West (and the few modern windows are hidden), you see one expanse of good glass, of a good period, not much hurt by restoration. The effect is singularly one. You come away not remembering so much the glass, or any particular window, as the satisfactory impression of it all--an impression which inclines you to put down the date of a pilgrimage to Conches as a red-letter day in your glass-hunting experiences. There is magnificent Renaissance glass in Flanders, and especially at Liège, in which, for the most part, Gothic tradition lingers. Most beautiful is the great window in the South transept of the cathedral. The radiance of the scene in which the Coronation of the Virgin is laid, reminds one of nothing less than a gorgeous golden sunset, which grows more mellow towards evening when the light is low. In the choir of S. Jacques there are no less than five tall three-light windows, by no means so impressive as the glass at the cathedral, but probably only less worthy of study because they have suffered more restoration. The seven long two-light windows at S. Martin, though less well-known, are at least as good as these. In most of them may be seen the decorative use of heraldry as a framework to figure subjects, characteristic of German and Flemish work. Very much of this character is the glass from Herkenrode, which now occupies the seven easternmost windows of the Lady Chapel in Lichfield Cathedral. They are pictorial, but the pictures are glass pictures, depending upon colour for their effect; and they are really admirable specimens of the more glass-like manner of the Early Flemish Renaissance. There is in the three windows at the East end of Hanover Square Church, London, some equally admirable glass, which must once have belonged to a fine Jesse window; but it has suffered too much in its adaptation to its present position to be of great interest to any but those who know something about glass. All this work is in marked contrast to the not much later Flemish glass at Brussels--the two great transept windows, and those in the Chapel of the Holy Sacrament at S. Gudule, to which reference is made at length in Chapter VII. They are windows which must be seen. They are at once the types, and the best examples, of the glass painter's new departure in the direction of light and shade. On the other hand, the large East window at S. Margaret's, Westminster (Dutch, it is said, of about the same date), has not the charm of the period, and must not be taken to represent it fairly. The brilliant achievements of William of Marseilles at Arezzo, and the extraordinarily rich windows in the Duomo at Florence, have been discussed at some length (pages 248, 268). They should be seen by any one pretending to some acquaintance with what has been done in glass. Other Florentine windows worthy of mention are, the Western Rose at S. Maria Novella, and the great round window over the West door at S. Croce, ascribed to Ghiberti. The transept window in SS. Giovanni e Paolo at Venice does not come up to its reputation. It is in a miserable condition, and as to its authorship (whence its reputation), you have only to compare it with the S. Augustine picture, which hangs close by, to see that it is not by the same hand. One of the multitudinous Vivarini may very likely have had a hand in it, but certainly not Bartolomeo. His manner, even in his pictures, was more restrained than that. There are a number of fine windows in the nave of Milan Cathedral, two at least in which the composition of red and blue is a joy to see. Earlier Italian glass is of less importance; the windows at Assisi, for example, are interesting rather than remarkable. They show a distinctly Italian rendering of Gothic, which is of course not quite Gothic; but to the designer they indicate trials in design, which might possibly with advantage be carried farther. [Illustration: 254. RAISING OF LAZARUS, AREZZO.] By far the most comprehensive series of Renaissance windows in this country is in King's College Chapel, Cambridge. In the matter of dignity and depth of colour, the small amount of rather earlier glass in the outer chapel holds its own; but the thing to see, of course, is the array of windows, twenty-three of them, all of great size, within the choir screen. It flatters national vanity, though it may not show great critical acumen, to ascribe them to English hands. Evidently many hands were employed, some much more expert than others. It seems there is documentary evidence to show that the contracts for them (1516-1526) were undertaken by Englishmen. Very possibly they were executed in England, and even, as it is said they were, in London. That they were not painted by the men who drew them, or even by painters in touch with the draughtsmen, is indicated by such accidents as the yellow-haired, white-faced negro, of pronounced African type, among the adoring Magi. It is as clear that the painter had never seen a black man as that the draughtsman had drawn his Gaspar from the life. Certain of the accessory scroll-bearing figures, which keep, as it were, ornamental guard between the pictures, might possibly have been designed by Holbein, who is reported to have had a hand in the scheme; but they are at least as likely to be the handiwork of men unknown to fame. But, no matter who designed the glass, it is on a grand scale, and largely designed. It is not, however, a model of the fit treatment of glass, though it belongs to the second quarter of the sixteenth century. For the designers have been more than half afraid to use leading enough to bind the glass well together, and have been at quite unnecessary pains to do without lead lines. The windows vary, too, in merit; and they bear evidence, if only in the repetition of sundry stock figures, of haste in production. Still, they have fine qualities of design and colour, and they are, on the whole, glass-like as well as delightful pictures. We have nothing to compare with them in their way. To see how far pictorial glass painting can be carried, go to Holland. No degree of familiarity with old glass quite prepares one for the kind of thing which has made the humdrum market town of Gouda famous. Imagine a big, bare, empty church with some thirty or more huge windows, mostly of six lights, seldom less than five-and-twenty feet in height, all filled with great glass pictures, some of them filling the whole window, and designed to suggest that you see the scene through the window arch. They do not, of course, quite give that impression, but it is marvellous how near they go to doing it. No wonder the painters have won the applause due to their daring no less than to what they have done. Any one appreciating the qualities of glass, and realising what can best be done in it, is disposed at first to resent the popularity of this scene-painting in glass;--one measures a work naturally by the standard of its fame;--but a workman's very appreciation of technique must, in the end, commend to him this masterly glass painting. For the Crabeth Brothers, their pupils, and coadjutors, were not only artists of wonderful capacity, daring what only great artists can dare, but they had the fortune to live at a time when the traditions of their art had not yet been cast to the winds. Though working during the latter half of the sixteenth century, they were the direct descendants of the men who had raised glass painting to the point of perfection, and they inherited from their forbears much that they could not unlearn. Ambitious as they might be, and impatient of restraint, they could not quite emancipate themselves from the prejudices in which they were brought up. More than a spark of the old fire lay smouldering still in the kiln of the glass painter, and it flared up at Gouda, brilliantly illuminating the declining years of the century, and of the art which may be said to have flickered out after that. This last expiring effort in glass painting counts for more, in that it is the doing not only of strong men but of men who knew their trade. It is extremely interesting to trace the work of the individual artists employed; which a little book published at Gouda, and translated into most amusing English, enables one to do. Dirk Crabeth's work is pre-eminent for dignity of design, his figures are well composed, and his colour is rich; although in the rendering of architectural interiors he falls into the mud, that is to say, into the prevailing Netherlandish opacity of paint. His brother Walter has not such a heavy hand; he excels in architectural distance, as Dirk does in landscape; and his work is generally bright and sparkling, not so strong as his brother's, but more delicate. Their pupils, too, do them credit, though they lack taste. Among the other more or less known artists who took part in the glass, Lambrecht van Ort distinguishes himself in canopy work, as a painter-architect might be expected to do; Adrian de Vrije and N. Johnson delight also in architecture, Wilhelmus Tibault and Cornelius Clok in landscape. Clok and Tibault compete in colour with the Crabeths, and go beyond them in originality. Description of this unrivalled collection of later Dutch glass painting, except on the spot, is as hopeless as it would be dull. The windows must be seen. The men were artists and craftsmen, and their work is truly wonderful. Who shall attempt what these men failed to do? That is the moral of it. [Illustration: 255. THE VIRGIN, S. MARTIN-ÈS-VIGNES, TROYES.] The only other place where later glass is of sufficient worth to make it worth seeing, the only place where Seventeenth century work arouses much interest, is Troyes. There is a quantity of it in the churches of S. Nizier, S. Pantaleon, and in the cathedral, attributed, for the most part, to Linard Gontier, who is certainly responsible for some of the best of it. But it is in the church of S. Martin-ès-Vignes, in the outskirts of the town, that it is to be appreciated _en masse_. There you may see some hundred and ten lights in all, executed during the first forty years of the seventeenth century. This is the place to study the decline and fall of glass painting--a melancholy sort of satisfaction. Here more thoroughly than ever must be realised how hopeless it is to evade in glass the glazier's part of the business; how powerless enamel is to produce effect; how weak, poor, lacking in limpidity and lustre, its colour is--and this even in the hands of an artist born, one may say, after his time. Gonthier was an incomparable glass painter. He could produce with a wash of pigment effects which lesser men could only get by laborious stippling and scratching; he could float enamel on to glass with a dexterity which enabled him to get something like colour in it; but he was not a colourist, nor yet, probably, a designer. The difference in the work attributed to him, and the style of his design (which is sometimes that of an earlier and better day) lead one rather to suppose that he adapted or adopted the designs of his predecessors as suited his convenience. To see what glass painting came to in the eighteenth century you cannot do better than go to Oxford. You have there the design of no less a man than Sir Joshua Reynolds, painted by one of the best china painters of his day. None but a china painter, by the way, could be found to do it. It is not unfair, therefore, to compare this masterpiece of its poor period with the rude work of the fourteenth century, done by no one knows whom. And what do we find? Conspicuous before us is the great West window, which might as well have been painted on linen, so little of the translucency of glass is there left in it. It in no way lessens the credit of the great portrait painter that he knew nothing of the capacities of glass; that was not his _métier_. And there was no one to advise him wisely in the matter. But the result is disastrous. The beauty of his drawing--and there is charm at least in the figures of the Virtues--counts for little, as compared with the dulness of it all. It has neither the colour of mosaic glass nor the sparkle of grisaille. The white is obscured by masses of heavy paint, which, when the sun shines very brightly behind it, kindles at best into a foxy-brown; and even this is in danger of peeling off, and showing the poverty of the glass it was meant to enrich. Any pictorial effect it might have had is ruined by the leads and bars, which assert themselves in the most uncompromising manner. In short, the qualities of oil painting aimed at are altogether missed, and the facilities which glass offered are not so much as sought. It is no hardship to turn your back upon such poor stuff. And there, high up on the other side, are seven great Gothic windows. These are by no means of the best period. The design consists largely of canopy work, never profoundly interesting; the figures are, at the best, rudely drawn; some of them are even grotesquely awkward. Their heads are too large by half, their hands and feet flattened out in the familiar, childish, mediæval way. In all the sixty-four figures there is not one that can be called beautiful. Yet for all that, there is a dignity in them which the graceful Virtues lack. They are designed, moreover, with a large sense of decoration. The balance of white and colour is just perfect, and the way the patches of deep colour are embedded, as it were, in grisaille, is skilful in the extreme. To compare them with the futile effort of the eighteenth century, opposite, is to apprehend what can be done in glass, and what cannot. The whole secret of the success of the mere craftsman where the great painter failed, is that he knew what to seek in glass,--colour, brilliancy, decorative breadth. He not only knew what to do, but how to do it; and he did it in the manliest and most straightforward way. Rude though the work, it fits its place, fulfils its function, adorns the architecture, gives grandeur to it. What more can you ask? Domestic glass, such as that in which the Swiss excelled (window panes, many of them, rather than windows), is best studied in museums, whither most of it has drifted. There is no national collection without good examples. Better or more accessible it would be difficult to find than those in the quiet little museum at Lucerne--so quiet that, if you spend a morning there, studying them, you become yourself, by reason of your long stay, an object of interest. So little attention do these masterpieces in miniature glass painting attract, that the guardians do not expect any one to give them more than a passing glance; but they leave you, happily, quite free to pursue your harmless, if inexplicable, bent. The list of windows worth seeing is by no means exhausted. In many a town, as at York, Tours, Troyes, Evreux, Bourges, Rouen, Nuremberg, Cologne, and in many a single church, you may find the whole course of glass painting, from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century, more or less completely illustrated; and, where that is so, of course one period throws light upon another. But the impression is always stronger when the century has left its mark upon the church. Not until you have a clear idea of the characteristics of style, can you sort out for yourself the various specimens, which occur in anything but historic sequence in the churches where they are to be found. Having arrived at understanding enough to do that, you will need no further guidance, and may go a-hunting for yourself. To the glass hunter there are almost everywhere windows worth seeing. CHAPTER XXXIII. A WORD ON RESTORATION. If old windows have suffered at the hands of time, they have also gained, apart from sentiment, a tone and quality which the glass had not when it was new. Their arch-enemy is the restorer, at whose hands they have suffered cruel and irreparable wrong. He is the thief who has robbed so much old glass of its glory, and a most impenitent one: there are times when any one who cares for glass could find it in his heart to wish he were crucified. So greedy is he of work, if not of gain, that restoration cannot safely be left even to the most learned of men; to him, perhaps, can it least of all be entrusted. The twelfth century windows at S. Denis should be among the most interesting extant. They are ruined by restoration. The beauty which they may have had, which they must have had, is wiped out; and, for purposes of study, they are of use only to those who have opportunity and leisure to ferret out what is genuine amidst the sham. The S. Chapelle is cited as a triumph of restoration, an object lesson, in which we may see a thirteenth century chapel with its glass as it appeared when first it was built. If that is so, then time has indeed been kinder even than one had thought. No less an authority than Mr. Ruskin (in a letter to Mr. E. S. Dallas, published in the _Athenæum_) praises the new work there, and says he cannot distinguish it from the old. There is at least a window and a half (part of the East window, and the one to the left of that) in which, at all events, the old is easily distinguishable from the new. But if the new is not more obvious throughout, that is not because the new is so good, but because the old has been so restored that it is unrecognisable--as good as new, in fact, and no better. The old glass is so smartened up, so watered down with modern, that it gives one rather a poor idea of unspoiled thirteenth century work. A more adequate impression of what it must have been, may be gained from the few panels of it, comparatively unhurt by restoration, now in South Kensington Museum. The story of destruction repeats itself wherever the restorer has had his way. Sometimes he has actually inserted new material if only the old was cracked, obscured, corroded; and has effaced the very qualities which come of age and accident. Sometimes he has indulged in a brand-new background. There, at least, it seemed to his ignorance, he might safely substitute nice, new, even-tinted, well-made glass for streaky, speckled, rough, mechanically imperfect material. Invariably he has thinned the effect of colour by diluting the old glass with new. Many quite poor new-looking windows, spick and span from the restorer (those, for example, at the East end of Milan Cathedral), turn out to contain a certain amount of old work, good perhaps, lost in garish modern manufacture. At Notre Dame, at Paris, the considerable remains of Early and Early Decorated glass go for very little. One has to pick them out from among modern work designed to deceive. Certain windows at Mantes have suffered such thorough restoration that one begins to wonder if they are not altogether new; and you have precisely the same doubt at Limoges and at scores of other places. At Lyons an Early Rose has been made peculiarly hideous by restoration. Much of the harsh purple in Early French mosaic is surely due to the admixture of crude new glass. It is needless to multiply examples; they will occur to every one. All this old work swamped in modern imitation goes inevitably for nought. If the new is good it puzzles and perplexes one; if bad, one can see nothing else. What is crude kills what is subdued. It is as if one listened for a tender word at parting, and it was drowned in the screech of the steam-engine. Early glass was so mechanically imperfect, and age has so roughened and pitted it, that its colour has, almost of necessity, a quality which new work has not; and one is disposed, perhaps too hastily, to ascribe all garish glass in old windows to the restorer. Many a time, however, the new work convicts itself. At Strassburg it is quite easily detected. You may check your judgment in this respect by surveying the windows from the rear. It is a very good plan to preface the study of old work by examining it from the churchyard, the street, the close, or in the case of a big church from its outer galleries. The surface exposed to the weather, with the light upon it, explains often at a glance what would else be unaccountable. A vile habit of the restorer is to smudge over his glass with dirty paint, perhaps burnt in, perhaps merely in varnish colour; this he terms "antiquating." The worse the new work added to the old, the more thoroughly it spoils it; the better the forgery, the more serious the doubt it throws upon what may be genuine. The modern ideal of restoration is thoroughly vicious. All that can be done is mending; and it should be an axiom with the repairer, that, where glass (however broken) can possibly be made safe by lead joints, no new piece of glass should ever be inserted in its place. Better any disfigurement by leads than the least adulteration of old work. It is absurd to set good old work in the midst of inferior reproduction of it, as the common practice is, more especially in the case of Early work. Every bungler has thought himself equal to the task of restoring thirteenth century glass. It was rudely drawn and roughly painted. What could be easier than to repeat details of ornament, or even to make up bogus old subjects, and so complete the window? To paint figures anything like those in the picture windows of the sixteenth century was obviously not so easy, and the difficulty has acted as a deterrent. Where it has not, the discrepancy between old and new is usually unmistakable. Men like M. Capronnier, however, have sometimes put excellent workmanship into their restoration of Renaissance work, to be detected only by a certain air of modernity, which happily has crept into it, in spite of the restorer. But was it not he who flattened the grey-blue background to the transept windows at S. Gudule? The fine window at S. Gervais, Paris, with the Judgment of Solomon, has lost much of its charm in restoration. To compare it with the two lights in the window to the right of it, is to see how much of the quality of old glass has been restored away. That quality may be due in part to age and decay. What then? Beauty is beauty; and if it comes of decay (which we cannot hinder), let us at least enjoy the beauty of decay. It has been proved at Strassburg that thirteenth or even twelfth century work may be quite harmoniously worked into fourteenth century windows. And even in the sixteenth century there were artists who managed to adapt quite Early mosaic glass to Renaissance windows, in which abundant stain, and even enamel, was used. The effect may be perplexing, but it does not deceive. Why will not a man frankly tell us what is new in his work? Then we could appreciate what he had done. But it is only once in a while that he takes you into his confidence. This happens, by way of exception, in a window at S. Mary's Redcliffe, Bristol, in the case of some figure work on quarry backgrounds, in which the new work is all of clear unpainted white or coloured glass, but so judiciously chosen that you do not at first perceive the patching. The effect is absolutely harmonious; and when you begin to study the glass, you do so without any fear that imposition is being practised upon you. Where the painting has in parts been made good, there is always that fear, as, for example, at S. Mary's Hall, Coventry: the windows have been restored with great taste; but one cannot always be quite sure as to what is modern. The merest jumble of old glass, more especially if it be all of one period or quality, is far better than what is called restoration. Who does not call to mind window after window in which the glass is so mixed as to be quite meaningless, and is yet, for all that, beautiful? The Western Rose at Reims is an unintelligible jumble mainly of blue and green. It may not be design, but it is magnificent. Again, the Western lights at Auxerre, in great part patchwork, are simply glorious when the afternoon sun shines through. At the East end of Winchester Cathedral is a seven-light window, reckoned by Winston to be one of the finest of a fine period. At the West end is an enormous window, which seems to be a mere medley of odds and ends. On examination you can trace in perhaps twelve out of forty-four lights of this last the outline of canopy-work, and in two or three that of the figure under it; but for the rest, certainly in the two lower tiers (which are best seen), it is mere patchwork, including some quite crude blue, and a certain amount of common clear white sheet. The effect, when you examine it closely, is anything but pleasing. But as you stand near the choir screen on a not very bright morning, and look from one window to the other, the effect is just the opposite of what might have been expected. For the really fine East window has been restored; and, whether to preserve it or to bring old work and new into uniformity, it has been screened with sheets of perforated zinc! On the other hand, the really considerable amount of crude white and colour with which the West window has been botched is, so to speak, swallowed up in silvery radiance. Probably it helps even to give it quality; anyway, the effect is delightful. Indeed, it recalls the impression of the Five Sisters at York, or suggests some monster cobweb in which the light is caught. Beauty, forbid that any busybody should restore it! At Poitiers (S. Radegonde) is a grisaille window of the fourteenth century, all patched, defaced, undecipherable--mended only with thick bulbous bits of green-white glass--which is quite all one could desire in the way of decoration. [Illustration: 256. A RESTORATION AT ANGERS.] In very many churches there remain fragments of old glass in stray tracery openings, not enough to produce effect. The question has been what to do with them. A common practice is to use up such scraps in the form of bordering to common white quarry glass. That is quite a futile thing to do. The effect of setting old glass amidst plain white is to put out its colour; and this, not only in the case of deep-coloured glass, but equally of Early grisaille; which when framed in clear glass, looks merely dirty. The most beautiful and sparkling of thirteenth century glass so framed would be degraded. At Angers are some windows consisting of a mosaic of scraps worked up into pattern (before the days of restoration as we know it); and the mere introduction amidst it of a strapwork of thin white sheet (above) is enough to take from it all charm of colour, all quality of old glass. Massed all together in one window, without such adulteration, the most miscellaneous collection of chips makes usually colour. In the hands of a colourist it would be certain to do so. What if it be confused? Mystery is, at all events, one element of charm, and even of beauty. [Illustration: 257. S. JEAN-AUX-BOIS.] It is not beyond the bounds of possibility to marry old work with new; but the union is rarely happy. It wants, in the first place, good modern glass. Further than that, it wants an artist, and one who has more care for old work than for his own. There is some satisfactory eking out old glass with new at Evreux, where a number of small subjects, many of them old, are framed in grisaille, in great part new, in a very ingenious way. At Munster is a window in which little tracery lights (you can tell that by their shapes) are used as points of interest in a modern composition--with a result, only less happy than where, at S. Mary's Redcliffe, a window is made up almost entirely of old glass, very much of one period, the more fragmentary remains forming a sort of broken mosaic background to circular medallions, heads, and other important pieces, arranged more or less pattern-wise upon it. Old glass must needs be mended sometimes, patched perhaps; new may have to be added to it; it has even to be adapted on occasion to a new window, with or without the admixture of new; but none of this is restoration of the glass in the modern sense. That implies restoring it to what once it was--which is, on the face of it, absurd. The effect of windows made up (as at S. Jean-aux-Bois, page 409) of segments of two or three old windows satisfies the artistic sense perfectly. What the restorer does is to take each pattern he finds in it for what he calls "authority," and to make two or three windows, all of which have much more the appearance of modern forgeries (which in great part they are) than of old work. The "antiquation" of the new glass in them deceives none but the most ignorant; but it does throw doubt upon the genuineness of the old work found in such very bad company. If there remain enough old glass to make a window, let it be judiciously repaired; if there be not enough for that, let it be piously preserved, best of all, in a museum, where those who care for such scraps may see it: scattered about in stray windows in out-of-the-way churches they are practically unseen. Better than what is called restoration, the brutality of the mason who plasters up gaps in the clerestory windows of great churches with mortar, or the plumber's patch of zinc, which temporarily at least keeps out the weather and the crude white light, leaving us in full enjoyment of the colour and effect of old glass. How grateful we are when it is only cobbled, and not restored. Restoration is a word to make the artist shudder. In a window at Auch, representing the Risen Christ, with, on the one side, the doubting Thomas, and on the other the Magdalene, the customary inscription, "Noli me tangere," is followed (in letters of precisely the same character) by the signature of the artist, Arnaut de Moles. It is the reverend Abbé responsible for the authorised description of the church, who suggests that it may have been with intention he signed his name just there. He has come off, as it happens, very much better at the hands of the restorer than most men. Had it been possible for him to foresee what nineteenth century "restoration" meant, well might he have written over his signature "Leave me alone"! INDEX. (The ordinary figures refer to the numbers of the illustrations, and those in black type to the pages of the book.) ABRASION, =60=, =62= AIX-LA-CHAPELLE, 14 ALABASTER windows, =380=, =381= ALENÇON, =366= ANGELS, =375= ANGERS, 61, 62, 63, 256 " museum, 168 " (S. Serge), 17, 85, 86 ANNEALING, =63= ANTWERP, =80=, =82=, =226=, =227=, =258= ARAB glass, =19=, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23 ARCHITECTURE (due consideration of), =356= AREZZO, =248=, 41, 43, 181, 254 ASSISI, =262=, 53, 177, 187 AUCH, =233=, =280=, =393=, =410= AUGSBURG, =118= AUXERRE, 55, 75, 220 BACKGROUND, =251= " (architectural), =209=, =211= " (landscape), =209=, =211= BARS, =101=, =113=, =114=, =122=, =158=, =267=, =275= " (shaped), 68, 69 BEAUVAIS, =374=, =394=, 247 BEVERLEY minster, =74= BLACK PAINT (used for local colour), =89= BOLOGNA, =264=, 180 BONLIEU, =11= BORDERS (Early), =114=, =327= " (Decorated), =174-7=, =335= " (Perpendicular), =190=, =344= BOURGES, =392=, 70, 72, 234 " (S. Bonnet), =208=, 157 BRABOURNE church, 16 BRISTOL (S. Mary's), =407= BRITISH Museum, =1= BROU, =393= BRUSSELS (S. Gudule), =69=, =79=, =80=, =233=, =395=, 42 BULL'S-eye windows, =267= CAMBRIDGE (King's College), =216=, =257=, =396= CANOPIES (Early), =135=, =313=, =334= " (Decorated), =155=, =197=, =313= " (Italian), 264=, 265= " (Perpendicular), =184= _et seq._, =340= " (Renaissance), =205=, =221=, =224=, =225=, =347= CANOPY (the beginning of the), =135= CANTERBURY, =385=, 23, 73, 79, 81, 214 CARCASSONNE, =362=, =369= CARTOUCHES, =229= CHÂLONS, =393=, 12, 13, 98, 121, 122, 227 CHANTILLY, =303=, 160 CHARTRES, =144=, =387=, 27, 71, 76, 103, 117, 216, 219 " (S. Pierre), 96, 115 CHETWODE church, 201 CHOICE of glass, =60=, =101= CLERESTORY windows, =283= CLOK (Cornelius) =399= COATED glass, =49= COLOGNE, =392=, 147 " (S. Kunibert), 25, 28, 77, 222, 223 " (S. Peter), 240 COLOUR (Early), =122=, =328=, =330= " (Decorated), =338= " in quarry windows, =287= " (Italian), =268=, =270= " (Perpendicular), =346= CONCHES, =394= CONFUSED effect, =42=, =134=, =217= COSTA (Lorenzo), =264= COUTANCES, 101 CRABETHS (the), =247=, =399= CUTTING, =8= " (economy of), =25= DA UDINE (Giovanni), =300= DECAY, =219= DECLINE of glass painting, =86= DECORATED borders, =176=, =335= " canopies, =155=, =313=, =334= " colour, =338= " composition, =334= " figure design, =157=, =337= " grisaille, =163=, =337= " Jesse windows, =363= " medallion windows, =152= " quarries, =290= " style, =333-338= " tracery, =278= DESIGN (banded), =160= " (Early), =36=, =111=, =112= " (effect of window-shape upon), =113= " (essential conditions of), =96= " (Perpendicular), =187=, =340= DETAIL (ornamental), =328= DEVILS, =374= DIAPER (geometric), =133= " (German), =171= " (painted or picked out), =35=, 32, 33, 36, 49, 56 DONORS, =221= "DOOM" windows, =372= DRAMATIC effect, =378= DRAWING, =346= EARLY canopies, =313= " colour, =328=, =330= " design, =36=, =111=, =112= " English, =327= " figures, their crudity, =41= " glass (confusion in effect of), =42= " glazing, =330= " grisaille, =137= _et seq._, =408= " Jesse windows, =362= " mosaic windows, =32= _et seq._ " ornament, =40=, =115=, =130= " rose windows, =273= " tracery, =274= ECOUEN, =394= ENAMEL, =12= _et seq._, =77= _et seq._, =99=, =232= " (influence of Byzantine), =17= " (objections to), =84= " (use of in ornament), =78= ENAMEL _plus_ POT-METAL, =79= ENGLISH (Early), =327= " (Perpendicular), =190= EVREUX, =176=, =177=, 113, 118, 190, 191 FAIRFORD, =374=, =391=, 34, 143, 144, 150, 173, 236, 237, 248, 249, 250, 253 FIFTEENTH century glass, =322=, =340= FIGURE-AND-CANOPY windows, =326= FIGURE design, =157=, =337= FIGURES (Early), =41=, =42= FIGURES and ornament, =126=, =319= FIVE Sisters (the), =146=, =147= FLASHED glass, =49=, =50= FLESH tints, =77=, =106= FLORENCE, =264=, =270=, =300=, 179, 182, 183 " (Certosa in Val d'Ema), 202, 203, 204, 242 " (S. Maria Novella), 178, 199 FOURTEENTH century glass, =322=, =333= " " painting, =47= FREIBURG, 105, 126, 127, 244 FRENCH glass painting, =75= " medallion windows, =125= GEOMETRIC diaper (German), =171= " " (mosaic), =133= GERMAN foliated pattern windows, =174= " geometric diaper, =171= GLAZING, =6=, =15= _et seq._, =80=, =82=, =101=, =229=, =282=, 168 " (Early), =330= " (economy in), =144= " (ingenuity in), =56= GLAZING _plus_ PAINTING, =43=, =44=, =53=, =54= " in rectangular panes, =80=, =225= " shadows in pot-metal, =72=, =224= GONTIER (Linard), =80=, =81=, =229=, =230= GOTHIC influence, =203= " (Italian), =263= " landscape, =253= " pattern windows, =291= " tracery, =280= GOUDA, =223=, =256=, =258=, =398=, =401=, 46, 161, 162, 165, 172, 176 GRISAILLE (Early), =137= _et seq._, =331=, =408= GRISAILLE (Decorated), =163=, =337= " (Perpendicular), =192=, =343= " and colour, =106=, =120=, =157= HERALDRY, =198= HITCHIN church, 21 INTERLACING, =167= ITALIAN canopies, =265= " Gothic, =263= " glass, =248=, =260= _et seq._, =299= JESSE windows, =360= _et seq._ " (Early), =362= " (Decorated), =363= " (Renaissance), =367= JEWELLERY (glass related to), =21= JOHNSON (N.), =399= KALEIDOSCOPIC effect, =42= KING'S College, Cambridge, =216=, =257=, =396= LANDSCAPE, =209=, =251=, =256= LAST Judgment windows, =372= LATE GOTHIC pattern windows, =291= " " style, =343= " " technique, =346= " " tracery, =280= " " windows, =178= _et seq._ LATE RENAISSANCE canopies, =225= LEAD lines, =38= " outlines, =23= LEADING (its influence on colour), =39= LEADS (contrivances for avoiding), =61=, =62=, =63=, =97= " (scheming of), =27=, =28= LE MANS, 20, 218 LICHFIELD, =214=, =395= LIÈGE, =214=, =395= LINCOLN, 67, 93, 95, 185, 189, 192 LISIEUX, 167 LOCAL schools, =261= LONDON (S. George's, Hanover Square), =214=, 159 LUCERNE, =403= LYONS, 26, 83, 84, 153, 188, 239 MALVERN, =55=, 37 MANY lights (windows of), =151= _et seq._ MAP of a window, =8= MARSEILLES (William of), =248= MATERIAL and design, =107= MEDALLION windows, =123= _et seq._, =324=, =325= " " (Decorated), =152= " " (French), =125= " " of many lights, =153= MEDIÆVAL artlessness, =376= MENDING (judicious), =407= MIDDLE GOTHIC glass, =162= _et seq._ MILAN, =263= MISUSE of shading, =68= MONTMORENCY, =394=, 40, 158 MOSAIC, =5=, =6= " (marble and glass), =29= " diaper, =133= MULLIONS, =151=, =195=, =197=, =198=, =240=, =272= MUNICH museum, 124, 128, 129, 131 NATURALISM, =337= NEEDLE-POINT work, =87= _et seq._ NETHERLANDISH glass, =73=, =302= NEW departures, =109= NIMBUS (the), =208= NORBURY, 114 NUREMBERG, =224=, 125 " (S. Lorenz), 164 " (S. Sebald), 163 OBSCURATION, =68=, =79=, =82= OLD work (the spirit of), =358= ORNAMENT (a plea for), =317= _et seq._ " (Early), =40=, =115=, =130= " (Decorated), =160= " (Perpendicular), =343= " (possibilities in), =321= " (Renaissance), =349= ORVIETO, =380=, 19 OXFORD (All Souls' College), 35, 141 " (New College), =179=, =401=, 48, 109, 137 PAINT (brushing out), =64= " (early use of), =33= " (first use of), =11= PAINT as local colour, =57= PAINTED mosaic glass, =43= _et seq._ PAINTER as glass designer (the), =69= PAINTING, =6=, =44=, =45=, =47=, =53=, =59= _et seq._, =64=, =68=, =85=, =89=, =103=, =105=, =190=, =211=, =247=, =263=, =331=, =338=, =346= PAINTING out, =11=, =34=, =35=, =44=, =45=, =278= PALETTE (the early), =328= PARIS (Louvre), 208 " (Musée des Arts Décoratifs), 243 PARIS (S. Eustache), =223= " (S. Gervais), 166 PATTERN windows (German), =174= " " (Late Gothic), =291= PECKITT, =233= PERPENDICULAR, =340= " (English), =188=, =190= " (German), =188= PERPENDICULAR borders, =344= " canopies, =184=, =340= " colour, =346= " design, =187=, =340= " detail, =343= " drawing, =346= " grisaille, =343= " ornament, =343= " style, =340= " tracery, =278=, =279=, =343= PICKING out, =35=, =103= PICTORIAL _versus_ DECORATIVE, =238= PICTURE (achievement in), =250= " (the ideal glass), =246= PICTURES (a medley of), =195= PICTURE-WINDOWS, =236= _et seq._ PISA, =263= PLAIN glazing, =226=, 166, 167 " " and painted grisaille, =139= POICTIERS, =388=, 24, 58, 59, 60 POSSIBILITIES in the way of ornament, =321= POT-METAL, =5= PRATO, 184 QUARRIES, =146=, =168=, =192=, =283= _et seq._ QUARRY-LIKE patterns, =169= QUARRY windows (colour in), =287= REGENSBURG, =389=, 123, 128, 131, 252 REIMS, 92, 99 " (S. Remi), =118=, 22, 65, 66, 213 RENAISSANCE canopies, =205=, =347= " " (Late), =225= RENAISSANCE Jesse windows, =367= " landscape, =255= " ornament, =349= " tracery, =280-282=, =349= RESOURCES of the glass painter, =95= _et seq._ RESTORATION, =404= _et seq._ REYNOLDS (Sir Joshua), =401=, =402= ROSE windows, =272= _et seq._, =326= " " (Early), =273= ROSS (S. Mary), 55, 145, 232 ROUEN, =392=, =394=, 45, 119, 238 " (S. Godard), 154 " (S. Ouen), 29, 229 " (S. Patrice), =377=, =378=, 155 " (S. Vincent), =375=, =377=, 44, 156, 175 ROUNDELS, =293=, 199 S. DENIS, =404= S. JEAN-AUX-BOIS, 87, 88, 100, 224, 257 S. MINIATO, =381= SALISBURY, =385=, 15, 30, 64, 97, 102, 221, 225, 251 SCRAPS, =409= SENS, 90 SEVENTEENTH century glass, =233=, =323= " " style, =352= SHADING (misuse of), =68=, =70=, =73=, =79=, =80=, =247= " (the beginning of), =13=, =45= SHREWSBURY, 38, 39, 57, 139, 142, 152, 171, 174 SILVER stain, =52= SINGLE-FIGURE windows, =118=, =197= SIXTEENTH century glass, =323=, =347= " " style, =348= " " technique, =350= " " windows, =201= _et seq._ SOISSONS, 89, 91 SOUTH KENSINGTON Museum, 205 STAIN, =50=, =52=, =60=, =61=, =62=, =105=, =182=, =336=, =344= STANTON S. John, 120 STORIED windows, =195=, =209=, =371= _et seq._ STRASSBURG, =388=, 134 STYLE, =111=, =112=, =156=, =177=, =178=, =323= " (Early), =324= " (Decorated), =335=, =338= " (Late Gothic), =343= " (Perpendicular), =340= " (16th century), =348= " (17th century), =352= " (the characteristics of), =322= _et seq._ " in modern glass, =354= _et seq._ SUBJECTS not within mullions, =198= SUBJECT-WINDOWS, =197= SWISS glass, =87=, =94=, =308= THIRTEENTH century glass, =322= " " ornament, =130= TIBALDI (Pellegrino), =264= TIBAULT (Wilhelmus), =399= TIME of day to see windows (the), =382= TOURS, =362=, =389= TRACERY (Early), =274= " (Decorated), =278= " (Gothic), =280= " (Perpendicular), =343= " (Renaissance), =280-2=, =349= TRACERY lights, =272= _et seq._ TRANSITION, =165=, =178=, =181=, =333= " from Gothic to Renaissance, =65=, =202=, =204= " from plain glazing to painted grisaille, =139= TREE of Life (the), =370= TRIFORIUM windows, =284= TROYES, =32=, =366=, =401=, 112, 148, 149, 151, 228, 246 " (museum), 211 " (private collection), 207 " (S. Jean), 241 " (S. Martin ès Vignes), =230=, 47, 169, 170, 255 " (S. Urbain), 31, 108, 114, 226 VAN LINGE, =233= VAN ORLEY (Bernard), =69=, =222=, =245= VAN ORT (Lambrecht), =399= VAN THULDEN, =233= VERONA (S. Anastasia), 199 WARWICK Castle, 54, 206, 209 WATER Perry, 94 WELLS, =390=, 136, 231, 245 WHITE and colour (combination of), =193= WHITE as a frame for colour, =192=, =315= WHITE-LINE work, =91= WINCHESTER, =407= WINDOW plane (the), =242= WINDOW shape (effect of, upon design), =113=, =211=, =212=, =240= WINDOWS (how to see), =380= _et seq._ WINE press (the), =368= WORKMANLIKENESS, =244= WORKMANSHIP (Early), =330= YELLOW stain, =52= YORK, =147=, =192=, =277=, =387=, 146 " (All Saints), =371=, 36 NOTE--_The name of a town without mention of a church may be taken to mean that the glass is in the cathedral or principal church._ THE END. BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO. LD., PRINTERS, LONDON AND TONBRIDGE. * * * * * TRANSCRIBER NOTES: Archaic, alternate and misspellings of words have been retained to match the original work with the exception of those listed below. Missing punctuation has been added and obvious punctuation errors have been corrected. Illustrations have been moved so as not to interrupt the flow of the text. Page 85: the printing of several lines was transposed in the original. They have been corrected. Page 125: "borders-lines" changed to "border-lines" (He frames his little pictures with sufficient border-lines to keep them distinct). Page 226: "(16R5)" changed to "(1615)" (as in the cathedral at Antwerp (1615)). 
49559	----	MODERN DESIGN IN JEWELLERY AND FANS EDITED BY CHARLES HOLME OFFICES OF 'THE STUDIO,' LONDON, PARIS, NEW YORK MCMII PRELIMINARY NOTE JOHN RUSKIN has laid down some broad and simple rules which are especially applicable to DESIGN IN JEWELLERY AND FANS. He says, "Never encourage the manufacture of any article not absolutely necessary, in the production of which invention has no share." And, again, "Never encourage imitation, or copying of any kind, except for the sake of preserving records of great works." It is in the thorough belief of the soundness or these principles that the Editor has selected a number of representative modern examples of design by British and Continental workers, which, from their beauty and freshness of treatment, bear testimony to the great advance that has recently been made in the right understanding and rendering of the jeweller's and fan-maker's arts. If articles of good taste are to be produced, there must be a demand for them. So long as a public is to be found that will purchase trinketry in imitation of wheel-barrows, cocks and hens, flower-pots, and moons and stars, so long will the advance in art be retarded. The Editor has pleasure in acknowledging the courtesy of the owners of copyrights for their kindness in sanctioning the reproduction of important work; and his best thanks are due to all the artist-contributors, and especially to those who have made designs expressly for this publication. Table of Literary Contents MODERN FRENCH JEWELLERY AND FANS By Gabriel Mourey MODERN BRITISH JEWELLERY AND FANS By Aymer Vallance MODERN AUSTRIAN JEWELLERY By W. Fred MODERN GERMAN JEWELLERY By Chr. Ferdinand Morawe MODERN BELGIAN JEWELLERY AND FANS By F. Khnopff MODERN DANISH JEWELLERY By Georg Brochner LIST OF CRAFTSMEN AND DESIGNERS FRENCH SECTION Aubert, Félix plate 35 Bécker, E. plate 15 Bing, Marcel plates 25, 26 Boucheron plates 12, 13, 14 Cauvin plate 12 Colonna plates 25, 26 Desbois, Jules " 16, 17, 18 Dufrène " 28, 33 Feure, Georges de " 1, 35 Follot, Paul " 19, 28 Fouquet, G. plates 7, 8, 9, 11 Grasset, E. plate 10 Hirtz, L. plates 12, 13, 14 "L'Art Nouveau" plates 25, 26 Lalique, René plates 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 Lambert, Th. " 32, 33, 34 "La Maison Moderne" plates 19, 27, 28, 29, 30, 33, 35 Mangeant, E. plates 23, 24 Monvel, de, Ch. Boutet " 21, 22 Mucha plate 7 Orazzi plates 27, 28, 29, 30 Richard, Paul plates 14, 15 Rivaud, Charles plate 31 Templier, P. plates 32, 33, 34 Verger, Ferdinand (_Editeur_) plates 14, 15 Vever plates 13, 19, 20 BRITISH SECTION Alabaster, Annie plate 48 Alabaster, M. " 34 Allen, Kate plates 19, 29, 31, 33, 38 Angus, Christine plate 12 Arscott, A. E. " 29 Ashbee, C. R. plates 17, 18, 20, 21 Baker, Oliver " 35, 36 Barrie, B. J. " 19, 31, 34 Brangwyn, Frank plate 8 Brown, E. May " 29 Cook, Thomas A. plates 15, 24 Conder, Frank plates 2, 5, 6, 7 Dawson, Nelson plate 14 Dawson, Edith " 14 Dick, Reginald T. plate 1 Evers-Swindell, Nora plates 34, 50, 52 Fell, H. Granville plate 11 Fisher, Kate plates 25, 37 Gaskin, Arthur J. " 44, 45 Guild of Handicraft plates 17, 18, 20, 21 Hammett, Lydia C. plate 9 Hart, Dorothy " 34 Hodgkinson, Ethel M. plates 39, 50, 52 Hodgkinson, Winifred plates 29, 30, 39, 52 King, Jessie M. plate 16 Larcombe, Ethel plates 10, 34 McBean, Isabel " 29, 47 Mackintosh, C. R. plate 43 Mackintosh, Margaret Macdonald plate 43 McLeish, Annie plates 28, 29, 32, 34, 39, 50 McLeish, Minnie plates 34, 47 McNair, Frances " 21, 22, 42 McNair, J. H. " 22, 23 Morris, Talwin " 40, 41, 42 Naylor, Myra " 3, 4 Pickett, Edith " 25, 49 Rankin, Arabella " 51 Robinson, F. S. " 46 Simpson, Edgar " 26, 27, 36 Syrett, Nellie " 13, 15 Talbot, J. M. plate 51 Veazey, David plates 19, 34, 39, 48, 50 AUSTRIAN SECTION Fischmeister, Herr plates 2, 3 Gringold, Emil plate 7 Hauptmann, Franz " 4 Hofstetter, Josef plates 1, 5 Holzinger, E. plate 8 Mesmer, F. plates 1, 8 Prutscher, Otto plates 1, 5, 6 Roset, Herr " 2, 3 Schönthoner, V. plate 1 Schwartz, Prof. " 5 Unger, Elsa plates 7, 8 Wagner, Anna plate 8 GERMAN SECTION Fahrner, Theodor plates 3, 8 Gosen, Theodor von plate 5 Hirzel, H. R. C. " 4 Koch, Robert " 1 Loewenthal, D. and M. plates 2, 3, 8 Möhring, Bruno plate 6 Morawe, C. Ferdinand plate 7 Olbrich, Joseph M. plates 2, 3, 8 "Vereingte Werkstaetten, Munich," plate 5 Werner, F. H. " 6 Werner, Louis " 4 BELGIAN SECTION Cassiers, H. plate 1 Dubois, Paul " 9 Van Strydonck, L. plate 2 Wolfers, Ph. plates 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 DANISH SECTION Bindesböll, Th. plate 8 Bollin, Moyens plates 6, 7, 8 Magnussen, Erick plates 2, 5, 6 Slott-Möller, H. plates 1, 2, 3, 4 MODERN FRENCH JEWELLERY & FANS. BY GABRIEL MOUREY. [Illustration] French superiority in the art of jewellery seems to be incontestable to-day. No unbiased observer will deny the fact that with us there is more richness, more variety, more originality than can be found elsewhere; and the jewellery section in the Esplanade des Invalides at the Exhibition of 1900 showed to the whole world the progress made in this special branch of applied art by our craftsmen and our artists; showed, too, the verve, the imagination, the fancifulness, which are the special property of the French race in all that relates to articles of luxury, to those things which are essentially "useless," if so we may term a woman's adornments; if so we may regard the beauty of precious stones, of enamels skilfully and subtly formed--of all that, in a word, which, taken from Nature's infinite treasure-house, serves to constitute that adorably vain, that exquisitely superfluous thing--the jewel. Ruskin once remarked, in his strange, penetrating way, that the loveliest things are those which are the least useful--lilies and peacocks' feathers, for instance. Furthermore, to depreciate the part played by jewellery in relation to decorative art would be equivalent to minimising the rôle of womankind in civilisation. Then, again, as regards decoration or adornment, has not the highest mission devolved on woman? Has she not had to assume the most active part in it all? The modern jewellery vogue has, I am convinced, done more in France to propagate new ideas in the way of decorative art than all the æsthetic theories ever evolved, however sound. One might say much, might make many reflections on this renascence of the jeweller's art, as manifested at the present moment in Paris. This revival reveals itself rich and abundant--perhaps too rich and abundant; but what of the future? What fruit will it bear when the glamour of that which it has already borne has passed away? Is there no danger of seeing good intentions miscarry--high gifts falling into excesses injurious to the prosperity of the movement? Is not the new fashion--if it be merely a fashion--being adopted with too much enthusiasm, followed with too much ardour, to last? Is there no fear of a reaction? Here are several questions to which we cannot reply with any certainty. Yet, what matter? Among the works produced during the past five years or so--that is, since the full expansion of the movement--there are many which, by their originality, their technical perfection, deserve to remain. And remain they certainly will, to bear witness to the audacious fancy, the creative faculty of our artists, and as a sort of passionate homage laid by the men of to-day at the feet of the Eternal Feminine. * * * * * The name of M. René Lalique arises instinctively as soon as one begins to discuss the modern jewel. He is the renovator, or, preferably, the creator, of the art as we know it nowadays, and one can easily understand the enthusiasm and the admiration aroused by his work. M. Lalique is almost as celebrated as M. Edmond Rostand; and he at least deserves his celebrity, for he is a real, a very great, artist. And such he must indeed be to be able to make one forget his imitators, many of whose productions are as detestable as copies can be. At times even--most unjustly, I admit--one almost comes to hate the art of M. Lalique himself, so persistently is it badly imitated. One has been constrained before now to hate Raphael, on seeing a Cabanel or a Bouguereau! But enough of that! The jewels by M. Lalique now reproduced are rather different, both in conception and in treatment, from his usual manner. Here he appears as a more direct observer of Nature, more devoted to simplicity and breadth. His new combs, with pansy and sycamore-leaf _motifs_, in horn and silver--especially the exquisite one with sycamore seeds in horn, silex, black enamel, and obsidian, with golden insects here and there--show him still anxious to extend the field of his experiments, never tired of seeking fresh subjects and testing new materials. Instead of remaining stationary and falling asleep at his post, he is spurred by a desire for conquest, and shows himself ever fertile in imagination, of infinite fancy, constantly advancing, with undiminished freedom and originality. At the Universal Exhibition the works executed by M. Vever, in collaboration with M. Eugène Grasset, obtained the success that was their due. But the most important piece of work achieved by these two artists was not finished at that time. I refer to the sumptuous and heroic pendant of Hercules, which we are fortunate enough to be able to reproduce here from the original water-colour by M. Grasset. It is truly an admirable work, one in which all the imaginative and technical qualities possessed by the illustrator of the "Quatre Fils Aymon" are to be seen in profusion. What richness, what distinction in the details; what perfection of balance, both in design and in colouring! As for the execution by the firm of Vever, they deserve as much credit for it as if they had produced an original work. This is a jewel worthy to find a permanent place in one of the great European galleries, to rank side by side with the wonderful productions of the past. M. Georges Fouquet is a most daring _fantaisiste_, and his creations impress one by qualities altogether different from those of the MM. Vever. He might perhaps be said to belong to the Lalique school, not that he imitates him, but by reason of his imaginative gifts. He is generally complicated, somewhat Byzantine, and thoroughly modern in any case. Some of his jewels would, I think, gain by being less rich; nevertheless, they are very interesting, and they deserve all the success they have won. The chief objection that can be urged against them is their lack of spontaneity. M. Georges Fouquet certainly holds a foremost place in the new movement. Already his production is considerable. Altogether an artist of rare gifts and splendid audacity. I have always had a liking for the jewellery of M. Colonna--for some of it, at any rate, that which is most simple, most original, and most wearable. His works have this great charm in my eyes, that they are neither show-case jewels nor mere _bijoux de parade_, things intended solely for display. As a rule, they are quiet and practical. In most cases they have no "subject," being simply happy combinations of lines and curves and reliefs, the _imprévu_ of which has a particular charm. M. Marcel Bing, all of whose productions, like those of M. Colonna, are the monopoly of the "Art Nouveau Bing," has done some delightful things. One can see that he is still somewhat timid and hesitating, but his taste is sure, and he has an imagination which, if not specially abundant, is at least delicate and fine. He has a sense of colour too, and his pretty fancies are carried out with evident delight. "La Maison Moderne," so actively directed by M. Meier-Graefe, has produced a large number of jewels. Ordinarily the designs are supplied by MM. Maurice Dufrène, Paul Follot, and Orazzi. Of course, they are not of uniform merit, but this in no way diminishes the interest attaching to their efforts. They are marred to some extent, it must be admitted, by certain extravagances, but even that is better than a relapse into the old _formulæ_, or the profitless reproduction of the bad models which were the rage some thirty years since. Moreover, "La Maison Moderne"--all praise to it!--has brought within the reach of the public quantities of jewellery which, without being masterpieces of conception or execution, are yet thoroughly good work based on excellent principles of novelty and freshness. They are what may be termed "popular" jewels. The works designed by M. Théodore Lambert, and executed by M. Paul Templier, are of altogether different character. In these days, when excessive complications in jewel-work are so general and so much esteemed, these rings, necklaces and _plaques_, with their symmetrical linear designs in monochrome or reddish or greenish metal, relieved at times by pearls only, and with their formal _ajourements_, will doubtless seem to many people too simple or too commonplace. It will be justly urged against them that they are not sufficiently symbolic, that they take no account of the human form. No nymph disports herself amid the fall of the leaves in a lake of enamel bordered by water-lilies and iris blooms; no serpent nor devil-fish winds about in spasmodic contortions: yet these are charming works of art, beautifully and harmoniously designed, and with lines balanced to perfection. They are, in fact, jewels meant to be worn, _bijoux de ville_, which, while attracting no special notice, form nevertheless most exquisite objects of female adornment. M. René Foy is a strange artist, rather restless, never altogether satisfied with himself, and haunted by a perpetual desire for something novel. Is he completely himself, that which he wishes or strives to be? This is the question those who have closely watched his career are asking themselves. For my part, I know some delightful things of his, extraordinarily delicate and graceful; but I also remember some of his work in which his exaggerations are such that one despairs of understanding his meaning. Unless I greatly mistake him, he wants the jewel to express more than it is possible for the jewel to express, and therefore is continually restless in his attempts to achieve the unachievable. He loses himself in a maze of "refinements" which, in my opinion, are outside the limits of the art he practises. He has created lovely things, things so novel as to be almost too novel, but I do not think he has said his final word yet. He is a young man who may have many surprises in store for us. The jewels of M. Jules Desbois are works of pure sculpture. His vision, at once broad and delicate, takes the form of beautiful female forms in dreamy or voluptuous attitude, sleeping amid the masses of their abundant hair, against a background of gold, or shell, or whatever the material may be. Any womanly gesture suffices; and, in truth, what more is needed to make a real work of art in the form of a brooch or a button? No conventional flowers, no complicated interlacements, nothing "decorative" in the bad sense of the word; yet his work is powerfully and delicately modern. M. Desbois' jewels are perfect pieces of sculpture. Victor Prouvé, the painter, has been influenced in a similar way, but, not being a regular sculptor, he is more complicated without being any more original on that account. There is more "composition" in his jewels than in those of M. Desbois, more real, more visible, intention. His waistbelts, his brooches, &c., are admirably suited to the purpose for which they are intended, their modelling being full, supple, and keen. The jewels, executed with scrupulous care and irreproachable _technique_ by M. Rivaud, are real works of art. M. Bécker and M. Paul Richard, who are both working almost exclusively for M. Ferdinand Verger ("F. V." is the trademark of the firm), incline to that type of jewellery which might be termed "sculptured." They are very conscientious artists, but in my opinion, at any rate, the originality there may be within them has not yet made itself fully apparent. M. Louis Bonny's jewels deserve special attention. Like M. Vever, M. Bonny shows a predilection for precious stones, which he has the art of using with rare originality. At the last _salon_ of the Société des Artistes Français he exhibited a series of jewels which attracted much attention, among them--in addition to a beautiful necklace of wild grape in enamel, diamonds, and emerald, in addition to various floral pendants and neck ornaments in enamel and diamonds--a curious diadem, representing cocks in gold and enamel fighting for possession of a superb topaz. This was a real _tour de force_ in the way of execution. Other beautiful things of his I know, particularly his _plaque de cou_ of geraniums, with the leaves in diamonds, the flowers in rubies, the stems and buds in dark green enamel, the whole being at once rich and sober in colouring and most harmoniously and flexibly composed. M. Joé Descomps is a sound artist, whose efforts, laudable as they may be, nevertheless lack boldness. He has imagination enough, but it looks as though he feared to give it rein. With a little less timidity M. Descomps would doubtless produce something more piquant and more fresh. I greatly like the work of M. Charles Rivaud. It displays a love of simplicity too often wanting in the productions of many of his fellow artists. If his jewels recall--without imitating--the ornamental jewellery of Egypt or Greece, those of primitive civilisations or those sorts popular in Russia, I can see no harm in the fact. Better for him and for us that he should turn to these inexhaustible springs than become a mere imitator of other imitators of successful jewellers. His rings and his necklaces, in which he is always careful to leave to the materials employed all the natural charm they possess, are productions which will please the artist rather than the _bourgeois_ and the "snob." They are discreet and honest, never loud or eccentric. No less interesting, in another way, are the jewels by M. Mangeant and M. Jacquin. It is urged against them that they are crude, incomplete and imperfect in execution. The truth is, these two artists--whom I bring into conjunction, although their work is dissimilar, save from their common regard for freedom in the use of materials--have, above all, a love for natural forms. Out of a flower, a piece of seaweed, or any humble _motif_, vegetable or animal, they construct jewels in gold or oxidised silver, discreetly relieved by stones, which, if of no great intrinsic value, are nevertheless highly decorative. M. Mangeant, with mother-of-pearl and hammered _repoussé_ silver, has created charming jewels, in which all the constructive parts have been intentionally left visible. Professional jewellers shrug their shoulders at the sight of these jewels, which bear so plainly the stamp of the hand that fashioned them. Yet, in their _naïve_ rudeness, they appeal to me far more forcibly than does the polychromatic tin-ware of so many highly-esteemed producers. M. Charles Boutet de Monvel, although gifted with a richer and subtler imagination, may be included in this little group. In certain of his jewels there is, as it were, a reminiscence of Byzantine art--in this owl-comb, for instance, which I regard as one of his best works. His swan hair-pin, his seaweed buttons in gold and silver on greenish enamel with a pearl in the centre, his _plaque de cou_ in translucid enamel, are also strong and captivating. His sunshade handles too, and his scarf-pins, are full of delicate fancy. It is impossible, within the space at my disposal, to describe in detail the productions of many other workers well worthy of extended mention. Let it suffice, therefore, to cite the names of M. Henri Nocq, that fresh and bold artist; of M. and Mme. Pierre Selmersheim; M. Feuillâtre; Mme. Annie Noufflard; MM. Haas, Cherrier, Chalon, Falguières, Dabault, G. Laffitte, Houillon, Archambault, L. H. Ruffe, Quénard, Blanchot, Muret, Desrosiers, Le Couteux, Marioton, Lucien Hirtz, and Nau--artists who work, some on their own account, some for the big jewellery firms. Of the firms in question one must in justice name in the first place those of Boucheron and Falize frères, not forgetting L. Aucoc, Vever, Sandoz, Lucien Gaillard, Fouquet, Després, Teterger, Chaumet, Templier, Ferdinand Verger, J. Duval, Coulon, and Piel frères. Such, briefly, is the modern art-jewellery movement in France. Its intensity, as one sees, is so great as to be almost alarming. Whither is it tending? Some of its excesses are dangerous; what will be the result? M. Emile Molinier, in a recent article on "Objects of Art in the Salons of 1901," expresses certain fears which I share. He dreads a reaction due to the eccentricities of certain artists, to their love of the outrageous and the _bizarre_, to their lack of proportion, both in form and in choice of material. "It would really be a pity," he says, "if so promising a revival of the true artistic jewellery should come to a bad end. Happily we have not reached that point yet, but it is a result which may soon be reached if artists continue to foist these weird things on the public. A fashion in jewellery should last longer than a fashion in dresses or in hats; but it should not be forgotten that it must rely in the long run on its appropriateness and adaptability." My sincere hope is that these fears may prove to be groundless. GABRIEL MOUREY. [Illustration] (_French_) DESIGN FOR A FAN BY GEORGES DE FEURE. [Illustration] [Illustration: PLATE 1 ] [Illustration: _Comb in Horn, Silex, Black Enamel and Obsidian. Insects in Gold_ RENÉ LALIQUE PLATE 2] [Illustration: FIG. A FIG. B _A. Pendant in Gold, Ivory, Enamel and Pearl_ _B. Pendant in Gold, Enamel and Pearl_ RENÉ LALIQUE PLATE 3 ] [Illustration: _Watch in Ivory, Gold and Enamel_ _Clasp, Leaves of Plane Tree, in Silver_ RENÉ LALIQUE PLATE 4 ] [Illustration: _Comb, Leaves of Sycamore Horn and Silver_ RENÉ LALIQUE PLATE 5 ] [Illustration: _Combs in Horn and Silver_ RENÉ LALIQUE PLATE 6 ] [Illustration: _Parure de Corsage, in Gold and Enamels_ MUCHA and G. FOUQUET PLATE 7 ] [Illustration: _Girdle with Pendants in Gold, Pearls and Brilliants_ G. FOUQUET PLATE 8 ] [Illustration: _Necklet with Pendant, Gold and Enamel_ G. FOUQUET PLATE 9 ] PENDANT AND NECKLET BY E. GRASSET. [Illustration] [Illustration: PLATE 10 ] [Illustration: FIG. A FIG. B _A. Pendant in Gold, Enamel and Stones_ _B. Pendant in Gold, Enamel and Pearls_ G. FOUQUET PLATE 11 ] [Illustration: FIG. A FIG. B _A. Lorgnon in Chased Gold and Chrysoprase_ } Designed by CAUVIN } } Executed by BOUCHERON _B. Lorgnon in Chased Gold_ } Designed by L. HIRTZ } PLATE 12 ] [Illustration: FIG. A FIG. B FIG. C { _A. Devant de Corsage, Brilliants upon green { with Emeralds "en cabochon"_ Executed by BOUCHERON { { _B. Necklet in Chased Gold, with a large Topaz_ Both designed by L. HIRTZ _C. Pendant in Gold, Diamonds, Pearl, Opal and Enamel_ VEVER PLATE 13 ] [Illustration: FIG. A FIG. B _A. Waist-band Buckle in Silver_ Designed by PAUL RICHARD. Executed by F. V. ÉDITEUR _B. Brooches in Chased Gold_ Designed by L. HIRTZ. Executed by BOUCHERON PLATE 14 ] [Illustration: FIG. A FIG. B FIG. C FIG. D _Chatelaines and Watches_ F. V. ÉDITEUR and PAUL RICHARD _B_ and _C_ designed by E. BÉCKER PLATE 15 ] [Illustration: _Brooches in Chased Gold_ JULES DESBOIS PLATE 16 ] [Illustration: _Buttons and Brooches in Chased Gold_ JULES DESBOIS PLATE 17 ] [Illustration: _Brooch in Chased Gold and two Waist-band Buckles in Silver_ JULES DESBOIS PLATE 18 ] (=French=) _Design for a Comb in Enamel Shell, and incrusted Gold_ From an original drawing by HENRI VEVER _Comb in Enamel, Shell, and Precious Stones_ Designed by PAUL FOLLOT Executed by LA MAISON MODERNE _Comb in Enamel, Gold, Shell, and Precious Stones_ Designed by PAUL FOLLOT Executed by LA MAISON MODERNE [Illustration] [Illustration: PLATE 19 ] [Illustration: FIG. A FIG. B _A. Comb in Gold and Horn. Leaves in green translucent Enamel, set with Siberian Amethysts_ _B. Horn Fan Handle, incrusted with Gold, Brilliants, and Enamel_ VEVER PLATE 20 ] [Illustration: FIG. A FIG. B _A. Hat Pins in Gold, Enamel, and Pearl_ _B. Umbrella Handle, Silver Gilt and Stones_ CH. BOUTET DE MONVEL PLATE 21 ] [Illustration: FIG. A FIG. B _A. Comb in Horn and Gold with Turquoises_ _B. Comb in Ivory, Silver and Mother-o'-pearl_ CH. BOUTET DE MONVEL PLATE 22 ] [Illustration: FIG. A FIG. B _A. Hammered and Chased Silver Brooches_ _B. Comb in Silver and Mother-o'-pearl_ E. MANGEANT PLATE 23 ] [Illustration: _Clasps in Hammered and Chased Silver_ E. MANGEANT PLATE 24 ] [Illustration: FIG. A FIG. C FIG. B { _A. Pendant in Gold and Enamel_ { _B. Hanging Mirror in Gold and Enamel_ Executed by L'ART NOUVEAU { Designed by MARCEL BING { _C. Pendant in Gold and Pearls_ Designed by COLONNA PLATE 25 ] [Illustration: FIG. A FIG. B FIG. C { _A. Brooch in Gold, Enamel and Ivory_ Executed by { _B. Pendant in Gold and Enamel_ L'ART NOUVEAU { MARCEL BING { _C. Belt Clasp in Gold_ { COLONNA PLATE 26 ] [Illustration: _Combs in various materials_ Designed by ORAZZI Executed by LA MAISON MODERNE PLATE 27 ] [Illustration: FIG. A FIG. C FIG. D FIG. B { _A. & B. Brooches in Gold with_ { _Precious Stones_ { Designed by M. DUFRÊNE Executed by { _C. Comb_ LA MAISON MODERNE { Designed by ORAZZI { D. _Gold Pendant with Enamels { and Precious Stones_ { Designed by P. FOLLOT PLATE 28 ] [Illustration: _Combs_ Designed by ORAZZI Executed by LA MAISON MODERNE PLATE 29 ] [Illustration: _Hat and Hair Pins_ Designed by ORAZZI Executed by LA MAISON MODERNE PLATE 30 ] [Illustration: FIG. A FIG. B _A. Plaque de Corsage in Gold, Enamel and Precious Stones_ _B. Rings_ CHARLES RIVAUD PLATE 31 ] [Illustration: _Silver Waist-band Buckles_ Designed by TH. LAMBERT Executed by P. TEMPLIER PLATE 32 ] [Illustration: FIG. A FIG. B FIG. C FIG. E FIG. C FIG. D _A, B, C & D. Silver Brooches_ Designed by TH. LAMBERT Executed by P. TEMPLIER _E. Chatelaine and Watch_ Designed by M. DUFRÈNE Executed by LA MAISON MODERNE PLATE 33 ] [Illustration: FIG. A FIG. B FIG. C _A & B. Silver Brooches_ _C. Silver Necklet with Pendant_ Designed by TH. LAMBERT Executed by P. TEMPLIER PLATE 34 ] [Illustration: FIG. A FIG. B _A. Painted Fan_ GEORGES DE FEURE _B. Lace Fan_ Designed by FÉLIX AUBERT Executed by LA MAISON MODERNE PLATE 35 ] (_British_) DESIGN FOR A STENCILLED FAN BY REGINALD T. DICK. [Illustration] [Illustration: PLATE 1 ] MODERN BRITISH JEWELLERY & FANS. BY AYMER VALLANCE. [Illustration] None but the most superficial observers can have failed to note the immense advance that has been attained in British jewellery; though how or at what precise point of time the improvement originated may not be determined with too rash precision. It began not more than fifteen or twenty, nor perhaps later than ten years ago. Somewhere between these two limits is about the approximate date. At any rate, it is certain that, thirty years since, it was quite impossible to procure jewellery in the design and composition of which there entered any artistic taste whatever. Such simply did not exist. Whereas now there is a widespread, though unhappily not a universal, movement amongst us for the design and production of jewellery on true æsthetic principles. The movement may even be described as in a measure concerted, that is, in so far as it presents certain main characteristics common to the work of the various individual artists or schools of artists who are concerned with this branch of decoration. And, firstly, must be noted the development of the goldsmith's and silversmith's craft as an important artistic factor entirely distinct and apart from the subsidiary task of stone-setting. The recognition of the art of the metal-worker, as worthy and capable in itself of providing beautiful ornaments, without their serving any such ulterior purpose as sporting trophies or eccentric badges of buffoonery; and also without the adventitious attraction of costly gems, is a decided point gained. And, secondly, where stones do happen to be employed, there is an increasing practice of introducing them for the sake of their decorative properties, not, as formerly, for the commercial value they represent in pounds sterling. Mere glitter and the vulgar display of affluence are gradually yielding before the higher considerations of beauty of form and colour. Nor is it any longer deemed improper, should the æsthetic effect of the juxtaposition demand, to set diamonds or other valuable gems side by side with common and inexpensive stones. In these colour combinations, since flash and transparence are become of minor esteem, jewels, instead of being cut in facets, are not infrequently polished in their natural shape, _en cabochon_, or "tallow-cut," as it is called, their irregularities of formation imparting not a little to the barbaric richness of the ornaments in which they occur. Moreover, out of the taste for colour effects in jewellery has arisen an enthusiastic study of the special peculiarities of many gems not hitherto much sought after; a study resulting in the adoption of certain gems not very precious, yet sufficiently rare, and such that, like Mexican or fire opals, for example, possess peculiar qualities of chameleon-like iridescence or depth or lustre that render them admirably appropriate for quaint and picturesque settings. Among other stones thus employed may be mentioned lapis lazuli; malachite and its corresponding blue mineral, azurite; Connemara marble, or serpentine; amazonite, a light green spar; chrysoprase; and lumachella, Hungarian both in name and origin. The last named consists of fossilised shells imbedded in a black matrix, the shells of wonderful iridescence, or flecked with streaks of vivid colour, and possessing, in short, such ornamental qualities as amply compensate the difficulty of obtaining it and of working when obtained. Another material included in the same category is river pearl, or mother-of-pearl, in the form technically known as pearl "blisters," that is, pearls undeveloped in the shell and misshapen, which nevertheless are peculiarly useful for decorative jewellery. One advantage of these substances is that, on account of their comparative cheapness, one does not scruple to diminish and divide and fashion them as may best serve the purpose in hand; whereas in the case of the more precious stones, like diamonds, whose cost, _ceteris paribus_, increases proportionately with their size and weight, one shrinks from impairing their commercial value, and consequently is apt to preserve them whole, very often at the sacrifice of decorative effect. The craftsman is unhampered in the use of those jewels only which he knows he is at liberty to treat as adjuncts subordinated to his art. There has, moreover, taken place an extended revival of enamelling, an art which offers abundant opportunities for the exercise of the decorator's skill and fancy. It is worthy of remark that our artists' imagination in jewellery seldom degenerates into any great extravagance. For the most part the designs, even among beginners and students in art schools, a number of whom have taken up this branch of ornament, are strictly restrained within bounds, in accord, may be, with our national character of reserve. Few drawings comparatively have been executed, but there is no reason why a large proportion should not be translated from paper into actual existence; for they are in general fairly simple, straightforward, and practicable, or such that, with but slight modifications, could be rendered quite practicable for working purposes. It is often stated that art can only flourish through the patronage of the wealthy, to whose comfort and luxury it ministers. If this be true at all, then surely of all things in the world the jeweller's craft should be a case in point, whereas it is conspicuously the reverse. The artistic jewellery produced in this country has not, from its very nature, appealed chiefly to the richest classes of the community, but rather to those of quite moderate means. And while, on the one hand, it is encouraging to observe how much of good work has been and is being done towards raising the standard of jewellery design amongst us, it is nevertheless disappointing to have to record how little support it has found in influential and official quarters. One notable exception is the commission Mr. Alfred Gilbert received to design a mayoral collar, chain and badge for the Corporation of Preston. The sketch model for the same was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1888, and, for bold originality of outline, as well as for the crisp curling treatment of the parts executed in sheet metal, must have been, as was remarked at the time, a revelation to the ordinary trade jeweller. Among pioneers of the artistic jewellery movement, Mr. C. R. Ashbee holds an honourable place. He stood almost alone at the beginning, when he first made known the jewellery designed by him, and produced under his personal direction by the Guild and School of Handicraft in the East End. It was immediately apparent that here was no tentative nor half-hearted caprice, but that a genuine and earnest phase of an ancient craft had been re-established. Every design was carefully thought out, and the work executed with not less careful and consistent technique. In fact, its high merits were far in advance of anything else in contemporary jewellery or goldsmith's work. The patterns were based on conventionalised forms of nature, favourite among them being the carnation, the rose, and the heartsease, or on abstract forms invited by the requirements and conditions of the material--the ductility and lustre of the metal itself. Most of the ornaments were of silver, the surface of which was not worked up to a brilliantly shining burnish, in the prevalent fashion of the day, but dull polished in such wise as to give the charming richness and tone of old silverwork. Mr. Ashbee also adopted the use of jewels, not lavishly nor ostentatiously, but just wherever a note of colour would convey the most telling effect, the stones in themselves, _e.g._ amethysts, amber, and rough pearl, being of no particular value, save purely from the point of view of decoration. Novel and revolutionary as were, at its first appearance, the principles underlying Mr. Ashbee's jewellery work--viz. that the value of a personal ornament consists not in the commercial cost of the materials so much as in the artistic quality of its design and treatment--they became the standard which no artist thenceforward could wisely afford to ignore, and such furthermore that have even in certain quarters become appropriated by the trade in recent times. Mr. Ashbee himself is an enthusiastic student of Benvenuto Cellini, whose treatises he translated, edited, and printed in 1898. But fortunately the influence of Italian style is by no means paramount in Mr. Ashbee's own designs for jewellery, unless indeed the fine and dainty grace which particularly characterises some of his later work is to be attributed to this source. One or two of the necklaces here reproduced are examples of this lighter manner of Mr. Ashbee's, as the two handsome peacock pattern brooches are of his more solid and substantial jewellery; while, again, the necklace of green malachite, turquoise, and silver, with pendants of grape bunches alternating with vine-leaf and tendril ornaments, occupies an intermediate position midway between the two former classes of his work. One is always glad to welcome an artist who is courageous and firm enough to grapple with the practical difficulties that surround him, and who sets about to reform, where need requires, the native industry of his own neighbourhood. Such is the aim of Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Gaskin. Their home is in a locality where a large amount of very deplorable jewellery is produced; so deplorable that they determined, if possible, to provide an antidote to the prevailing degradation. And the reason why the vast mass of the trade jewellery manufactured in Birmingham is bad is that in style and outline it is utterly devoid of artistic inspiration, while at the same time it is perfect as concerns mere technique. The pity of it is that such excellent workmanship should be wasted on such contemptible design. Mr. Gaskin, therefore, saw no alternative but to start afresh, reversing the accepted order of things. His plan is to give the foremost care to the design, and only secondly to regard technique; and so, by keeping design well in advance, executive skill following after, to raise the former to its proper level. Absence of mathematical uniformity is no doubt held to be a blemish in the opinion of the tradesman, but it gives a living and human interest to the work, and a decorative quality which machine-made articles cannot claim to possess. Mr. Gaskin came to the conclusion that it was of little benefit for a draughtsman to make drawings on paper to be carried out by someone else; studio and workshop must be one, designer identical with craftsman. It is not very many years since Mr. Gaskin, ably seconded by his wife, started with humble, nay, almost rudimentary apparatus, to make jewellery with his own hands; but the result has proved how much taste and steadfast endurance can accomplish. Their designs are so numerous and so varied--rarely is any single one repeated, except to order--that it is hardly possible to find any description to apply to all. But it may be noted that, whereas a large number have been characterised by a light and graceful treatment of twisted wire, almost like filigree, the two pendants here illustrated seem to indicate rather a new departure on the part of Mr. Gaskin, with their plates of chased metal, and pendants attached by rings, a method not in any sense copied from, yet in some sort recalling the beautiful fashion with which connoisseurs are familiar in Norwegian and Swedish peasant jewellery. Next in order may be mentioned Mr. Fred Robinson. This artist is actuated by similar ideals as Mr. and Mrs. Gaskin, as is evidenced more especially by his necklace with bent wire pendants of open-work arabesque. Another artist of distinction is Miss Annie McLeish, of Liverpool, whose jewellery design, particularly in the way in which the several parts are connected together--an ornamental feature being made out of the structural requirement of strengthening and tying together the portions pierced _à jour_--is curiously suggestive of the perforated iron guards of Japanese sword-handles. At the same time, it is not to be implied that Miss McLeish is at all an imitator of Japanese work. Another point to be noticed is her decorative use of the human figure, in which regard two more lady designers, Miss Larcombe and Miss Winifred Hodgkinson, also excel. The latter, to whose work black-and-white reproduction scarcely does adequate justice, is stronger in her figure work than in that which comes easiest to most people--to wit, the treatment of floral forms that constitute the subordinate portions of the design. The number of ladies who have achieved success in jewellery design proves this, indeed, to be a craft to which a woman's light and dainty manipulation is peculiarly adapted. Besides those already mentioned one has only to instance Miss Ethel Hodgkinson and Miss Swindell, who both contribute graceful designs for hat-pins and other small articles; Miss Dorothy Hart, whose charming _pentacol_ is executed by herself; Miss Kate Fisher and Miss McBean, in whose designs for clasps, etc., enamel is a prominent item; Miss Alabaster, whose beautiful gold brooch, adorned with blue and green enamel, is based on a _motif_ of trees with intertwining stems and roots; and Miss Rankin, whose four silver hat-pins of handsome design, representing a peacock, thistles, and Celtic beasts respectively, are executed by Mr. Talbot, of Edinburgh, himself a designer as well as artificer. Miss Edith Pickert, in her designs for various articles of jewellery, usually employs a fairly thick outline of metal to enclose a coloured enamel surface. How diversely one and the same _motif_ may be rendered in different hands is illustrated by a comparison of Miss Pickert's belt design and Mr. Nelson Dawson's belt-clasps, both in enamel and both founded on the flower "love in a mist." Mr. Nelson Dawson, well known as an eminent metal-worker and active member of the Society of Arts and Crafts, is also Director of the Artificers' Guild. Another belt-clasp from his design represents the delicate form of the harebell plant. Mr. Edgar Simpson, of Nottingham, is an artist of great gifts, as his drawings and, still more, the specimens of his actual handiwork here illustrated fully testify. Many excellent designs lose vigour and character in the process of execution from the original sketch; but Mr. Simpson, on the contrary, manages to give his designs additional charm by the exquisite finish with which he works them out in metal. Particularly happy is this artist's rendering of dolphins and other marine creatures; as in the circular pendant where the swirling motion of water is conveyed by elegant curving lines of silver, with a pearl, to represent an air-bubble, issuing from the fish's mouth. Mr. David Veazey's work, including, among other things, a hair comb decorated with enamel, has a variegated opal-tinted quality of colour; while Miss Barrie obtains admirable effects in translucent enamel without backing, after the Russian method. Her design for a belt-clasp with interlaced ornament and stones is excellent. Other belt-clasps and buckles are from designs by Mr. Oliver Baker. Some of this strap-work ornament looks as though it might have been produced by casting from a model; but, as a matter of fact, it is entirely wrought and folded by hand. Mr. and Mrs. McNair's jewellery, as well as that of Mr. and Mrs. Mackintosh, has that quaint mannerism which one instinctively associates with the Glasgow school of decorators, as also, in a still more marked degree, that of Mr. Talwyn Morris, whose characteristic book-covers are well known. For jewellery, he frequently elects to work in aluminium. His design is strikingly original in effect, though on analysis it is found to consist of very simple units, such as various-sized rectangles overlaid, their boundary lines interpenetrating; with the occasional apparition of a peacock's eye-feather or the bird's neck and head in the midst. In these cases a completer sense of organic unity might be obtained if, instead of a detached limb, the whole bird were represented, or some other logical coherence established between the incidents of the composition. Mr. Thomas Cook, of West Ham, inserts small slabs of mosaic, after the Italian mode, only he frankly adopts a purely conventional treatment, wisely refraining from any approach to pictorial realism. It is a hopeful sign that in many of the technical art schools throughout the land students are taking up jewellery design, and not only that, but in some cases carrying out the actual work themselves. It is largely due to the same fostering influence that the beautiful art of enamelling, frequently referred to above, has been developed amongst us, notably at the Central School of Arts and Crafts, where classes for this department were inaugurated under the able guidance of Mr. Alexander Fisher. But if the improvement in jewellery is to be general and permanent, in order to set it on a secure basis the motive power must come from within. Much good, therefore, may be expected to result from the official sanction afforded by the Goldsmiths' Company to the jewellery work of their Technical Institute, to which a number of very creditable designs owe their existence. Among others may be singled out some decorations for watch-backs, a branch of the craft as useful as it is neglected; those who have taken it up, like Miss Kate Allen, for instance, being unfortunately but rare exceptions. There is no reason, however, why everyone who carries a watch should not enjoy in it the constant companionship of a thing of beauty. To sum up, then, if our modern art jewellery cannot boast any conspicuously brilliant features, at any rate it is of a high average standard. And though, as is the case of all good work, it must needs share many qualities in common with the noble treasures of the past, it yet does not assimilate to any historic style. In fine, it is original; and, withal, there may be traced in most of it a certain family likeness. It seems almost as if some new-born idea were really beginning to dominate it with the impress of a distinct nationality, destined to develop some day into a tradition which future generations may justly feel it a privilege to follow. The case of fans is the exact opposite to that of jewellery. In the former department, it cannot be said that there exists any sort of consensus of ideals, nor any paramount type of ornament. And, notwithstanding the existence amongst us of some few fan-painters of very considerable repute, their operations remain as yet quite personal and individualistic. They have no regular following; have founded no school of decoration. It is, therefore, a subject still open to determine by what principles the ornament of fans should be guided. Firstly should be taken into account the peculiar shape of the surface available for decoration; and, secondly, the fact that this surface is not a flat plane, but such that must in practice infallibly be broken into so many set divisions or folds. The latter circumstance is the real crux of the question, many decorations, otherwise beautiful enough in the flat, being utterly ruined in effect as soon as they undergo the ordeal of mounting. Thus it may perhaps seem an ingenious plan to subdivide the space horizontally, but it must be remembered that every horizontal line will lose its value when converted, as it must be, into a series of irregular zigzags. The folding is an essential factor, without taking which into account no fan decoration can be satisfactory. In setting out the design, then, it should always be borne in mind that no sharply defined straight lines are admissible, except those that radiate from the centre; and that, of curves, concentric ones are the best, such, that is, as are parallel with the arc shape. If the ornament is floral, it may take the form either of a powdering, or of an all-over pattern of moderately small scrolls. Those on a large scale would run counter to the folds in too emphatic a manner to be agreeable. In figure subjects, of course, care should be taken so to dispose them that no important feature like an eye or a nose be split asunder by the lines of the folds. The larger and more pronounced the pattern, the more necessary it is to observe these conditions. On the other hand, where the colouring is of fairly even tone, and without strongly contrasted masses, or where the design is on a small scale, the surface can the more safely be spaced out by lines or medallions or cartouches, or other devices that may commend themselves. As regards material, there is no question that a silk ground, prepared with rice-size and stretched, until the decoration is completed, on a stretcher, offers as suitable a texture as one could desire for delicate and softly-blended harmonies in water-colour; as the fans of Mr. Conder, a prolific fan-painter, whose work appeals to a large circle of admirers, amply testify. The detail is all Mr. Conder's own, though the influence of French XVIIIth century ornament is unmistakable. Miss Syrett again is a clever artist working on somewhat similar lines. No one, however, who knew her figure compositions in her Slade School days, productions full of promise, if marred by the attenuated model with prim, smooth-drawn hair, the type of Carlos Schwabe's illustrations to "Le Rêve" and "l'Évangile," could have foreseen that Miss Syrett would develop in the direction of her present work. The reduced black-and-white illustrations convey no idea of the tender beauty of the colouring, nor of the exquisite pen-work in brown with which such features as the faces, hair, and hands are executed. Another gifted artist is Mr. Brangwyn, who now makes his _début_ as a fan decorator, with a finished painting on silk, and also a crayon study for the same purpose. His design shows how much individuality an artist may impart even to work consciously founded on that of a past style. Here, for example, in the drawing of Cupids shooting their darts at a pair of lovers, may be recognised the very figures of the Trianon period, but happily without any of their doll-like affectation and effeminacy. Those who recollect Miss Jessie King's drawing in the last winter's special number of THE STUDIO--her _Pelleas and Mélisande_--in which the lank forms of Schwabe or Torop were combined with a wealth of accessory ornament of the artist's own, will scarcely recognise her hand in the present fan. She seems to be able to pass with marvellous facility from one fully matured style to another. The elaborate, nay, luxuriant finish of the whole, to say nothing of separate details such as the butterflies, the festoons, knots, etc., vividly recall the work of the late Aubrey Beardsley. It is no derogation of Miss King's remarkable powers to assert that, but for the existence of Mr. Beardsley, this drawing of hers would certainly not have been what it is. One could wish that, for the sake of support to the leaf, more room had been allowed to the sticks. But, apart from this defect, the dainty care with which every minute detail is consistently carried out merits little else than praise. Miss Christine Angus contributes two designs--one, in a pictorial style, for a paper fan, not nearly so decorative as the other, of nude boys and sweet peas, for painting on silk. Miss Ethel Larcombe's gauze fans are attractive compositions, which bear tokens of a diligent appreciation of Granville Fell. Another kind of fan ornamentation is exemplified by the stencil work of Mr. Reginald Dick and Mr. Thomas Cook. It is true these decorations are in a degree, but only in a slight degree, mechanical. The one unchangeable element is the white tie-lines of the pattern. For the rest, no little skill is required of the artist in devising and cutting his stencil. The number of plates is limited, but the mode adopted of colouring by hand admits of such variations that no two specimens from the identical stencil plates would ever be alike. Mr. Dick's fan is provided with enamelled sticks in keeping with the other parts of the decoration. Mr. Cook's design is the less characteristic of this particular method. Indeed, though finished off at either end with a certain plausibility, the pattern is an obvious repeat, and such that might very well be the section of a circular dish border. Less ambitious are the designs for different sorts of lacework by Miss Hammett and Miss Naylor. Each of these patterns, while keeping strictly within the limits of the special technique proposed, shows yet much freshness and fertility of resource. In the one case the design is floral, in the other the theme is relieved by the introduction of bird forms into the composition. To conclude, the scope for decoration that fans afford is so great, and the possible methods so manifold, that the wonder is there are not many more artists employed in this industry. It is one well worthy of their attention; and it is to be hoped that no long time may elapse before the joint efforts of designers may, in this, as already in other branches of arts and crafts, result in something like a native style of ornamentation being evolved. AYMER VALLANCE. (_British_) A FAN PAINTED ON SILK BY FRANK CONDER. (_In the possession of Thomas Greg, Esq._) [Illustration] [Illustration PLATE 2 ] [Illustration: _Design for a Lace Fan_ MYRA NAYLOR PLATE 3 ] [Illustration: _Design for a Lace Fan_ MYRA NAYLOR PLATE 4 ] (_British_) A FAN PAINTED ON SILK BY FRANK CONDER. (_In the possession of Dalhousie Young, Esq._) [Illustration] [Illustration: PLATE 5 ] [Illustration: FIG. A FIG. B _A. "The Medallion" Fan_ _B. "A Travesty" Fan_ FRANK CONDER (_By permission of Messrs. Carfax & Co._) PLATE 6 ] [Illustration: FIG. A FIG. B _A. "The Empire" Fan_ _B. "L'Anglaise" Fan_ FRANK CONDER (_By permission of Messrs. Carfax & Co._) PLATE 7 ] (_British_) A PAINTED SILK FAN BY FRANK BRANGWYN. [Illustration] [Illustration: PLATE 8] [Illustration: _Designs for Lace Fans_ LYDIA C. HAMMETT PLATE 9] [Illustration: _Designs for Painted Gauze Fans_ ETHEL LARCOMBE PLATE 10] (_British_) "THE COURT OF LOVE" DESIGN FOR A PAINTED FAN BY H. GRANVILLE FELL. [Illustration] [Illustration: PLATE 11] [Illustration: _Designs for Painted Silk Fans_ CHRISTINE ANGUS PLATE 12] [Illustration: _Painted Silk Fans_ NELLIE SYRETT PLATE 13] (_British_) BUCKLE IN WROUGHT SILVER AND ENAMEL BY NELSON AND EDITH DAWSON. [Illustration] [Illustration: PLATE 14] [Illustration: FIG. A _A. Painted Silk Fan_ THOMAS A. COOK FIG. B _B. Painted Silk Fan_ NELLIE SYRETT PLATE 15] [Illustration: _Design for a Fan_ JESSIE M. KING PLATE 16] [Illustration: FIG. A FIG. B _A. Necklet in Gold and Silver, with Amethysts and Enamels_ _B. Necklet in Silver and Gold, green Malachite and Turquoise_ Designed by C. R. ASHBEE Executed by THE GUILD OF HANDICRAFT PLATE 17 ] [Illustration: FIG. A FIG. B _A. Necklet in Gold, Pearls and Enamels_ _B. Silver Muff-Chain with Pearl Blisters_ Designed by C. R. ASHBEE Executed by THE GUILD OF HANDICRAFT PLATE 18 ] (_British_) _Comb in Mother-of-pearl and Enamel_ B. J. BARRIE _Comb in Beaten Silver with Ivory Prongs_ DAVID VEAZEY _Hair Comb in Silver and Transparent Enamels_ KATE ALLEN [Illustration] [Illustration: PLATE 19 ] [Illustration: FIG. A FIG. B FIG. C _A. Peacock Brooch with Pearls, White Enamel and Turquoises_ _B. Silver Brooch, with Green and Blue Enamels_ _C. Peacock Brooch, in Gold, with Pearls and Diamonds, a Ruby in the Peacock's eye_ Designed by C. R. ASHBEE Executed by THE GUILD OF HANDICRAFT PLATE 20 ] [Illustration: FIG. A FIG. B _A. Silver Clasp, enriched with Amethysts, Pearls and pale violet Enamel_ Designed by C. R. ASHBEE Executed by THE GUILD OF HANDICRAFT _B. Hair Comb, in Silver and Enamels_ FRANCES McNAIR PLATE 21 ] [Illustration: FIG. A FIG. B _A. Vinaigrette and Chain_ J. HERBERT McNAIR _B. Pendant in beaten Silver, pierced and enamelled to hold a Crystal Locket_ FRANCES McNAIR PLATE 22 ] [Illustration: FIG. A FIG. B _A. Belt-buckle and two Brooches in beaten Silver and Wire_ _B. Brooches and Earrings_ J. HERBERT McNAIR PLATE 23 ] (_British_) DESIGNS FOR JEWELLERY IN GOLD, SILVER, ENAMELS, MOSAIC AND PRECIOUS STONES BY THOMAS A. COOK. [Illustration] [Illustration: PLATE 24] [Illustration: FIG. A FIG. B _A. Necklace in Gold and Enamel_ KATE FISHER _B. Belt in Silver and Enamel_ EDITH PICKETT PLATE 25 ] [Illustration: _Silver Clasps and Gold Pendants set with Opals and Amethysts_ EDGAR SIMPSON PLATE 26] [Illustration: _A Pendant, Two Buttons, a Brooch and a Cloak Clasp in Silver_ EDGAR SIMPSON PLATE 27] [Illustration: _Silver Pendant, Brooch and Clasp_ ANNIE McLEISH PLATE 28] (_British_) _Enamelled Silver Brooch_ A. E. ARSCOTT _Silver Pendant touched with Enamel_ E. MAY BROWN _Enamelled Silver Brooch_ W. HODGKINSON _Silver Brooch with Beads of Enamel_ ANNIE McLEISH _Brooch in Silver and Enamel_ KATE ALLEN _Silver Brooch set with Red Coral_ ISABEL McBEAN _Silver Locket Enamelled_ W. HODGKINSON _Brooch in Gold and Enamel with Pearl Centre_ KATE ALLEN _Brooch, Silver and Enamel_ A. E. ARSCOTT _Silver Brooch enriched with Enamel_ ANNIE McLEISH _Enamelled Silver Brooch_ W. HODGKINSON [Illustration] [Illustration: PLATE 29] [Illustration: _Belt Buckles in Silver, Niello and Enamels_ WINIFRED HODGKINSON PLATE 30] [Illustration: FIG. A FIG. B _A. Enamelled Silver Belt-Clasp_ KATE ALLEN _B. Silver Clasp set with Stones_ B. J. BARRIE PLATE 31 ] [Illustration: _Clasps in Silver and Enamel_ ANNIE McLEISH PLATE 32] [Illustration: _Watch Backs in Silver and Enamels_ KATE ALLEN PLATE 33] (_British_) _Brooch in Silver and Enamel_ DAVID VEAZEY _Brooch in Silver, Enamel, and Precious Stones_ B. J. BARRIE _Gold Pendant with Pearls, and Turquoise, and Champlevé Enamel_ DOROTHY HART _Gold Pendant enriched with Enamel_ E. LARCOMBE _Silver Pendant with Enamel_ MINNIE MCLEISH _Brooch in Silver and Enamel_ ANNIE MCLEISH _Enamelled Silver Brooch_ MINNIE MCLEISH _Enamelled Brooch in Silver_ N. EVERS-SWINDELL _Brooch in Gold and Enamel_ M. ALABASTER [Illustration] [Illustration: PLATE 34] [Illustration: _Silver Clasps set with Stones_ OLIVER BAKER PLATE 35] [Illustration: British FIG. A FIG. B FIG. C _A. Silver Pendant set with Opal in matrix_ EDGAR SIMPSON _B and C. Silver Buckles_ OLIVER BAKER PLATE 36 ] [Illustration: _Clasps in Silver and Enamels_ KATE FISHER PLATE 37] [Illustration: _Clasps in Silver and Enamels_ KATE ALLEN PLATE 38] _Pin in Beaten Silver and Enamel_ D. VEAZEY _Hair Pin in Silver and Enamel_ E. M. HODGKINSON _Pin in Silver and Enamel_ E. M. HODGKINSON _Pin in Beaten Silver and Enamel_ D. VEAZEY _Pin in Beaten Silver and Enamel_ D. VEAZEY _Silver Hair Pin touched with Enamel_ ANNIE MCLEISH _Hair Pin of Gold decorated with Enamel and Mother-of-pearl_ W. HODGKINSON _Hair Pin in Silver and Enamel_ E. M. HODGKINSON [Illustration] [Illustration: PLATE 39] [Illustration: FIG. C FIG. A FIG. B FIG. D _A and B. Jewelled Brooches in beaten Copper_ _C and D. Jewelled Buckles in beaten Aluminium_ TALWIN MORRIS PLATE 40 ] [Illustration: FIG. A FIG. B FIG. C _A Jewelled Shoe-Buckle in beaten Copper_ _B. Cloak Clasp in beaten Silver_ _C. Waist-band Clasp in beaten Silver_ TALWIN MORRIS PLATE 41] [Illustration: FIG. A FIG. B FIG. C _A and B. Buckles in beaten Aluminium_ TALWIN MORRIS _C. Pendants in Silver; the upper one with Enamels, the lower with Turquoises_ FRANCES MCNAIR PLATE 42] [Illustration: _Silver Finger Ring set with Pearls, Amethysts, and Rubies_ CHARLES R. MACINTOSH _Silver Brooch and Pendant Heart set with Rubies, Pearls, and Turquoises_ M. MACDONALD MACKINTOSH PLATE 43] [Illustration: _Necklet of beaten Silver, chased, and set with Fire Opals_ ARTHUR J. GASKIN PLATE 44] [Illustration: _Silver Pendant and Chain set with Turquoises and Chrysoprase_ ARTHUR J. GASKIN PLATE 45] [Illustration: FIG. A FIG. B _A. Silver Belt_ _B. Silver Necklet, set with Pearl Blisters, Coral and Aquamarine_ FRED S. ROBINSON PLATE 46] [Illustration: FIG. A FIG. B _A. Silver Chain and Pendants set with Stones_ ISABEL McBEAN _B. Enamelled Silver Pendant_ MINNIE McLEISH PLATE 47] _Silver Clasp enriched with Enamel_ ANNIE ALABASTER _Silver Clasp inset with Enamel_ DAVID VEAZEY [Illustration] [Illustration: PLATE 48] [Illustration: _Silver and Enamel Clasps, Pins and Brooches_ EDITH PICKETT PLATE 49] [Illustration: FIG. A FIG. B FIG. C FIG. E FIG. D FIG. F FIG. G _A, D, G. Brooches and a Cross in Gold, set with Stones_ ANNIE McLEISH _B. Brooch in Silver and Enamels_ DAVID VEAZEY _C. Silver Brooch with Opals_ ETHEL M. HODGKINSON _F. Brooch in Silver, Enamel and Pearls_ NORA EVERS-SWINDELL PLATE 50] [Illustration: _Four Silver Hat Pins_ Designed by ARABELLA RANKIN Executed by J. M. TALBOT PLATE 51] [Illustration: _A. Six Pins in Silver and Enamel_ NORA EVERS-SWINDELL _B. Two Pins in Silver and Enamel_ WINIFRED HODGKINSON _C. Two Silver Pins set with Enamel_ ETHEL M. HODGKINSON PLATE 52] MODERN AUSTRIAN JEWELLERY. By W. FRED. [Illustration] Critical examination of the jewellery of any particular period cannot fail to be practically a chapter of the history of culture. The popular saying: "Every time has the poet it deserves," is superficially true, yet holds within itself a certain element of falsehood, as does pretty well every commonplace proverb of the same kind. However, if the sentence be slightly modified, as it very well may be, so that it reads, "Every time has the jewellery it deserves," there will be absolutely nothing untrue about it, for the ornaments worn, whether on the dress, the hair, or the person of the wearer, have always reflected in a marked degree the taste of their period, and are very distinctly differentiated from those of any other time, so that changes in fashion imply changes of a more radical description in popular feeling. A history of personal ornament is open to many side issues, and unfolds itself in two different--indeed, opposite--directions. Primitive savages, as is well known, wear ornaments before they take to clothes. The Fiji islanders sport gold chains round their necks, and the African negroes in their untamed state load themselves with every glittering object they can get hold of, looking upon the multiplication of ornaments as a sign of wealth. Very different, of course, is the state of civilisation of those who look upon decoration as an evidence of art culture, and care only for such ornaments as require the exercise of technical skill in their production, valuing them in proportion to the amount of that skill displayed by their craftsmen, rather than the intrinsic value of their material. The time of the Italian Renaissance is an instance of the truth of this. As has so often before been the case in the times of transition which are of inevitable recurrence, our own modern epoch is characterised by a certain unrest and confusion, in which many tendencies are contending with each other side by side, and neutralising, to a great extent, each other's effects. In America, the Tiffany company seems to aim at producing masses of precious stones, which will give primarily the impression of the great wealth of their owner and producer; whereas, in France, Lalique the jeweller endeavours rather to throw into the background the actual value of the jewels, their artistic setting being the first thing to strike the observer. We in Austria have greater leanings to France than to America, and precious stones, however great their intrinsic value, are looked upon as of quite secondary value in modern art-work to beauty of line and of colour. French influence on Austrian work cannot fail to be recognised. Its germs fell indeed on a soil of exceptional fertility, with the result that they have taken root and borne abundant fruit. It should perhaps, however, be remarked that those races who are the heirs of a strong art tradition do not need, as do others less fortunate, to prove the wealth of their inheritance by the use of lavish ornament. Their inherent artistic culture is indeed evidenced by the fact that they expect their artists to exercise their skill on materials less costly than do those who, to a certain extent, have their reputations still to make. Benvenuto Cellini had to be content to work in silver, the Americans want to have every stick or umbrella-handle to be of gold. If we cast a glance, however hasty and cursory it may be, over the development of jewellery in Vienna, noting the forms most popular in that city in past times, it is impossible not to be struck with the way in which every historical phase of art is reflected in these forms. The favourite style with Viennese jewellers, and that in which the most effective, and at the same time the most characteristic, results have been achieved was undoubtedly the so-called _baroque_, a term originally restricted to a precise architecture or art-style alone, but now loosely applied to characterise any ornamental design of an unusual kind. It is in this half-serious, half-sportive style, with its grotesque yet bold effects and its complete freedom from convention, that the finest pieces of Austrian jewellery have been produced. At the time of the great Congress of Vienna, when the representatives of the Powers met in that city to settle the affairs of Europe after the fall of Napoleon--that is to say, about one hundred years later than the first introduction of the _baroque_ style from Italy, French work, though it was of a crude description, exercised an influence over Austrian jewellers, and what seemed like a second renaissance of the art of ornament began in Austria. The art of jewellery in Austria remained under French influence almost until the present day--in fact, throughout the whole of the 19th century--and it has only been in the last year that Austrian art-industries have been set free from the foreign yoke which so long oppressed them, so that the true Viennese style of jewellery has but rarely come to the fore. Now at last, however, the liberating influence of the modern spirit is making itself felt in the art of jewellery, as in everything else; and every ornament produced, whether in precious stones or in enamel, bears the unmistakable impress of the distinctive psychic character of our capital city, which even foreigners do not fail to recognise. The result of this individuality is that a work of art is indissolubly bound up with the personality of its creator, and with the idiosyncrasies of the town which was its birthplace. In Austria men wear very little jewellery, and the only noteworthy examples of ornaments made for them which can be quoted are a few rings and charms, the former perhaps adorned with designs in low-relief. The flat gold circle of the wedding-ring, which can be easily carried in the waistcoat pocket, and the engagement-ring, the psychic meaning of which is clear enough, the latter generally bearing one large diamond or other precious stone, do not afford much scope for the æsthetic feeling of their makers. A man who ventures to wear much jewellery is called old-fashioned, but there are still people who dare to sport a single great diamond or some other simple ornament on their shirt fronts. A pearl without setting, an emerald, or so-called sapphire _en cabochon_, are still frequently seen. The present fashion allowing men to tie their cravats in all manner of different styles to suit their own particular fancy, has led to the manufacture of a few varieties of scarf rings which admit of a certain amount of artistic intertwining of the gold, if it be gold of which they are made. When the making of jewellery for men is left to the unfettered imagination of the artist, he generally produces something quaintly original and fantastic, such as queer figurals, grotesque masks, comic caricatures of human or half-human figures or faces, etc. On the other hand, there is no doubt that there is far more activity in the production of jewellery for women in Vienna than in almost any other city. The culture of our town is, indeed, essentially feminine. The graceful and witty, yet dreamy and passionate, girls and women of Vienna give to it its distinctive character. A foreigner who once spent two days only in our capital was yet able to say of it, that all through his wanderings in its streets and alleys the rhythm of female culture was sounding in his ears. The men of Vienna pride themselves more than the French, more even than the people of Northern Europe, on their women, and as a result of this pride there is sure to be plenty of beautiful jewellery of varied design to be met with in the town in which they live. Amongst jewels and precious stones the spotless white pearl is perhaps the favourite, but, as proved at the last great Exhibition in Paris, the pale rose-coloured coral from the East runs it very close. Diamonds are still set in the old-fashioned way--that is to say, after simple designs, the best of which are copies from Renaissance or _baroque_ models. Only now and then is any attempt made to produce lightly incised representations direct from Nature of flowers, birds, or leaves. Of course, bouquets of brilliants and leaves consisting entirely of diamonds have always been easily made at any period; but what is now aimed at for that very reason is the evolution of designs which shall be essentially true to Nature, but at the same time really artistic. Crude masses of naturalistic flowers are really of no account whatever, for a bouquet of diamonds can never have the exquisite charm of a fresh, sweet-smelling bunch of real blossoms. Only a fairly good design, founded on some flower or leaf which can be satisfactorily reproduced in, and is, so to speak, _en rapport_ with, the jewels to be used, can succeed in pleasing through beauty of form alone, independently of any association. Good examples of the best style of ornament in which precious stones are used are the necklace, figured herewith, with the earrings to match, by Roset and Fischmeister. In them the natural form, which has been the motive from which the design was evolved, was the fruit and leaf of the rare plant known in Germany as the Gingopflanze. The delicate separate stems are worked in dull gold, and the way the joining is managed cannot fail to be admired, whilst the single stems are in platinum. The charm and distinction of this piece of jewellery is due above all to its beauty of form, in other words it is not the gross value of the precious stones with which it is set which makes it a worthy possession, but the skill with which the motive has been worked out. Viennese jewellers do not use the colourless precious stones much. They generally combine jewels with enamel, and also with what they themselves call the coloured Halbedelsteine, or half-jewels, such as the agate, onyx, cornelian, and other less valuable precious stones. The modern tendency is in every case to rely upon colour and line for effect rather than upon massive form, so that the greater number of new designs, or of revived designs of the past, require for their satisfactory treatment what may be almost characterised as a new technique. First of all, the modern buckle for the belt or girdle claims attention. The lately revived custom of wearing the blouse led, as a matter of course, to the use of the belt with a more or less ornate buckle, just as, a few years ago, the long necklace came into general use again. The young women of the present day found both all ready for use in the jewel-chests of their grandmothers. It seems likely, too, that there will presently be a revival of the costly shoulder-clasps which used to be the fashion in the time of the Empire, and if this be the case, the new fancy will probably, to some extent, oust the belt buckle from popular favour. In the designing of ornaments for the neck, art jewellers have far more scope than formerly for the exercise of their imagination, and they are disposed, to some extent, to follow the French mode, that is to say, they make necklaces flat and broad, so as to give an effect of slenderness to the throat of the wearer. It is a matter of course that combs and pins for the hair are often of very fine workmanship, showing much skill and taste on the part of their designers. Strange to say, however, even in Vienna, few rings for women of real art value are produced. In certain cases, however, the pendants in gold relief, in crystal, or in enamel, are of pleasing, though not particularly original design. Working in enamel is of course an independent art in itself, and to begin with, I must remark that, as a general rule, beautiful as are the colour effects produced by Viennese craftsmen, it is impossible to reproduce exactly the delicate charm of the original sketches from which the designs are worked out. Very good results can, however, be obtained in what the French call _émail à jour_, or _émail translucide_, as well as in the old-fashioned opaque enamel. It would, however, be out of place here to attempt to describe the various modifications of what may now be called an international art. Gustav Gurschner is a sculptor _par excellence_. His fingers are accustomed to moulding clay or plaster designs in such a manner as to be readily reproduced in bronze. His slim and graceful statuettes holding candles or gongs, and other artistically designed objects for household use, have all a distinctly Viennese character. His charming nude figures are full alike of childlike innocence and nervous strength, and are moreover instinct with the spiritual expression which naturally belonged to their originals. Gurschner's designs for jewellery have very much the same effect upon a true judge. The great thing distinguishing his work from that of his contemporaries is the fact that it is modelled from the living figure, not as is generally the case, from mere water-colour sketches. The difference cannot fail to strike the most superficial observer. Elsewhere, colour is often the chief consideration; with Gurschner it is form. In modern decorative work, silver is now very largely used and appreciated. It is her skilful use of this material which has won so high a position for Elsa Unger, a daughter of the wonderfully successful etcher, Professor William Unger. Elsa Unger has a very great predilection for silver, and has attained to rare skill in expressing herself in that material. She herself knows perfectly well how to deal with it at every stage of its progress as art material. She can hammer it out and chisel it; she can engrave it, and combine with it beautiful _émail à jour_ of soft, harmonious colouring. One of the most noteworthy peculiarities of Elsa Unger's work is, indeed, her mastery of her material. She is not content, as are unfortunately most of her contemporaries, with delegating to others the working out of her designs, but she herself sees to every detail, doing all the work with her own hands. Some of her articles, such as gentlemen's studs and sleeve-links, in beaten silver, relieved with blue enamel, are alike simple and elegant, and have the rare advantage of being also cheap. With Elsa Unger may be classed another woman worker in silver, Anna Wagner, who has produced amongst other tasteful work a beautiful silver buckle, relieved with enamel. Amongst men who have won a reputation as skilful workers in silver maybe named E. Holzinger and Franz Mesmer, who were trained in the same institution as Elsa Unger and Anna Wagner, the School of Art Craftsmanship connected with the Museum of Vienna, well known for the thoroughness of the instruction given in it. In this academy, which was thoroughly reformed a few years ago, and is now under the able direction of Baron Myrbach, the students learn to esteem skill in art craftsmanship as it deserves, and become thoroughly familiar with the materials employed in it. In the course of their training, feeling for true beauty and elegance is mixed, so to speak, with their very blood, becoming part of their natures, so that they cannot go far wrong. Look, for instance, at some of the combs made by Elsa Unger. How delicately harmonised are the beaten silver and the pale lilac-coloured enamel, and how well the gracefully curving lines of the two materials blend with and melt into each other! How chastely effective, moreover, is the way in which the leaf-motive is worked out in the pins for the hair designed by Mesmer, and what a happy thought it was to make the many-coloured half-jewels, or jewels of minor value, emerge as they do from the beaten silver. These works are, moreover, a very striking example of how necessity may sometimes become a virtue. The cheapness of material, so essential in an educational establishment, has not been allowed to detract in the very slightest degree from the beauty of the work produced; so that it is possible to have a real work of art, of which but few examples are produced, at a very low price--say from about thirty-five shillings; and that work is not a machine-made article, but one the production of which, by his or her own hand, has been a true labour of love to the designer, marking a real progress in art culture. To the Technical Academy of Vienna the architect, Otto Prutscher, and the painter, V. Schoenthoner, also owe much, but the charm of their work consists rather in its colour than in its form. Much is to be hoped in the future from both of these talented artists, and what they have already produced proves that there has been no sacrifice of individuality, no cramping of special tendencies, such as is so much to be deprecated elsewhere, in the training they have received. Otto Prutscher's necklaces and rings are remarkable alike for the beauty and harmonious variety of their colouring. He uses enamel to a great extent, and also quite small precious stones. Very uncommon, too, is the way in which he employs metal, though only enough of it to hold the enamel in its place. It would appear as if the artist had in his mind a vision of the women who are to wear his work, who are too tender and frail to carry any weight, so that the use of much metal in ornaments for them would be quite unsuitable. For a Salome or a Queen of Sheba that sort of thing is scarcely appropriate--but it is done for the softly nurtured Mignonne of the present day. The little coloured pins designed by F. Schoenthoner are also noticeable for their elegance and suitability for the purpose for which they are intended. A word of unstinted praise must be accorded to the graceful designs of the talented Fräulein Eugenie Munk, whose skill and good taste have been devoted to the production of a great deal of very beautiful and refined jewellery. I have already spoken of the work in diamonds of Roset and Fischmeister, and I should like to refer to those two master craftsmen again in connection with some of their figural ornaments, such as buckles for belts, rings, studs for shirt fronts and cuffs, etc., worked in dull or bright gold, all of which I consider worthy to be spoken of as Viennese works of art. The different masks on the studs, each with its own individual expression, really display quite remarkable talent in their designer, for they are not only thoroughly artistic but most amusing studies in physiognomy. Unfortunately it is impossible to give in reproductions of such work any true idea of the subtle manner in which the blue-green colours of the enamels, the gleaming white of the diamonds, and the pearly opaline tints of the moonstones, harmonize with each other and with the gold of their setting in the beautiful necklaces of Messrs. Roset and Fischmeister. The watch-chains for men, with their finely-modelled and characteristic ornaments, manufactured by the firm of F. Hofstetter, must also be mentioned on account of the skill with which the links are interwoven. The pendant is designed from a sketch made by Professor Stephan Schwartz. Two other designs from the same firm show very considerable skill. Very interesting is the way in which the materials are combined in the belt-buckles by Franz Hauptmann. The water-lily buckle is of greenish gold, and the enamel, which is of the translucid variety, is also of a green hue, as are the onyx stones worked into the design. The motive is the flower and seed of the water-lily, and from the water, represented in enamel, rise up the delicate flowers in the same material of a snowy whiteness. An examination of the sketches of designs for jewellery, reproduced here, cannot fail to bring one fact forcibly before the mind. Mechanical repetition is most carefully avoided, and as a result every example retains its own unique charm--the mark of the artist's hand. W. FRED. _Scarf Pin_ V. SCHÖNTHONER _Scarf Pin_ V. SCHÖNTHONER _Scarf Pin_ V. SCHÖNTHONER _Silver Brooch with Enamel_ F. MESMER _Pendant in Gold, Enamel and Pearls_ OTTO PRUTSCHER _Silver Brooch with Enamel_ JOSEF HOFSTETTER _Scarf Pin_ V. SCHÖNTHONER _Head of Scarf Pin_ V. SCHÖNTHONER _Head of Scarf Pin_ OTTO PRUTSCHER _Silver Brooch with Enamel_ F. MESMER _Gold Brooch with Enamel_ OTTO PRUTSCHER [Illustration] [Illustration: PLATE 1.] [Illustration: _Necklace of Brilliants_ ROSET & FISCHMEISTER PLATE 2] [Illustration: _Jewellery_ ROSET & FISCHMEISTER PLATE 3] [Illustration: _Belt-Buckles in greenish Gold, enriched with Onyx Stones and Enamel_ FRANZ HAUPTMANN PLATE 4] [Illustration: FIG. A FIG. B FIGS. C & D _A. Silver Pendant and Chain_ The Chain by J. HOFSTETTER The Pendant by PROF. SCHWARTZ _B. A Comb in Silver and Horn_ J. HOFSTETTER _C and D. Gold Pendants set with Precious Stones_ OTTO PRUTSCHER PLATE 5 ] [Illustration: _Jewellery_ OTTO PRUTSCHER PLATE 6] [Illustration: FIG. A FIG. B FIG. C _A. Belt and Silver Clasp_ EMIL GRINGOLD _B and C. Silver-mounted Combs_ ELSA UNGER PLATE 7 ] [Illustration: _Necklace_ E. HOLZINGER & ELSA UNGER _Threefold Clasp, Upper Central Clasp_ E. HOLZINGER & F. MESMER _Large Twofold Silver Clasp_ ANNA WAGNER _Brooches and Links_ E. HOLZINGER, E. UNGER & A. WAGNER PLATE 8] MODERN GERMAN JEWELLERY. BY CHR. FERDINAND MORAWE. [Illustration] My opportunities of surveying the German jewellery market, and of making acquaintance with the ins and outs of the jewellers' business, have been limited; but it is certain that both are flourishing; at least, the German jewellers do not look as if they starved! Moreover, the demand for precious ornaments seems to increase year by year, and the display in the jewellers' windows grows more and more luxurious, as is the case with most other businesses. Nobody will store superfluous and unmarketable goods, least of all the jeweller, who is always a business man. You will be thoroughly aware of this fact if you start discussing art with him. He is cautious and suspicious of anything in the shape of novelty. He seems to say to himself: "This artist has ideas; he wants to show something new; but we cannot agree with these ideas, for we do not know if we shall be able to do business." This is a great pity, for the trade in women's ornaments offers more artistic scope than almost any other. It is not enough nowadays just to set some nicely polished stones neatly, or to be so lavish of material that the ornament produced represents an immense value; for the result will probably be something not at all artistic. Indeed, this generally occurs. The lot of the artist who designs women's ornaments is not a happy one, and it is almost like a message from heaven when a jeweller tells him that he will really condescend to carry out an original design. Even then he must sometimes put up with the fact that his design, which was intended for one person or purpose only, is repeated, like a manufactured article, a hundred and a thousand times again. Happily there are some artists in Germany, as in England, France, and Belgium, who are above the fashion, and whose artistic individuality is so strong that they are bound to succeed in other spheres of art as well as in that of women's jewellery. Two of the first to show activity in this direction were the Berlin artists, Hirzel and Möhring. Both chose for their ornaments the same manner and methods which Eckmann and his fellow-workers had previously employed in decorative art; they adhered as closely as possible to simple natural plant-forms, especially Hirzel. Thallmayr, of Munich, is still working in the same style, but with more individuality than Hirzel. Thallmayr will certainly spend his life studying the leaves and blossoms of the trees and the flowers in his garden, while the other will doubtless produce new results, departing somewhat from the real forms of nature. Möhring's works already showed this tendency when he produced them nearly at the same time as Hirzel his. Subsequently these artists were occupied less with women's ornaments than with other things coming within the category of decorative art,--this owing to lack of intelligence and enterprise on the part of the jewellers and manufacturers. Tables, chairs, and other necessary household articles found a much wider market. But we are now dealing exclusively with women's ornaments. Two circumstances in this connection are very strange. In the first place, it seems that the artists of the present time (I speak of Germany) are not successful in designing finger-rings. Here and there one sees an attempt made to design characteristic shapes, but the sphere of the ring is so confined that nobody has succeeded in producing anything really elegant and novel. Mostly one sees extravagant examples, of confused design. The second peculiar fact is, that one very seldom finds an artist devoting himself to designing earrings. The whole artistic movement in relation to women's ornaments is still somewhat puerile. This may be recognised by the absence of the ear-ring, that most superior ornament, which, unlike all others, has an independent language of its own. Although in the list of female ornaments the clasp and the brooch occupy the foremost place, the pendant for the breast should not be forgotten. The mission of the pendant is to show by its fancy and its tastefulness how and in what degree the German is distinguished from the Englishman and from the Frenchman. I will mention in this connection two artists living in Germany who are not Germans, but by their manner of life and work might be such. Both these artists, in their several ways, will exercise great influence on the development of our ornaments. I refer to Van der Velde and Olbrich. It is well known that the first is a Belgian, while the other is a foreigner, inasmuch as he comes from Austria. Olbrich's pendants and pins are very characteristic. He takes a hammered gold-plate, enriches it with precious stones and enamel, and adds a rim set with long pearls. It is easy to see that he is fond of rummaging among the treasures of the old cathedrals and convents; he knows the secret of their effect, and, besides this, he has an extraordinary talent for inventing new things himself. His jewellery is the best we have now in Germany, because it is superior to fashions and periods. His jewels are pure, thoughtful works of art. When worn, they produce a most sumptuous effect; but their richness has nothing tawdry about it. These jewels show us how we ought to deck our wives, both at home and at the theatre; moreover, they suggest things fit for the lady superiors of religious orders, for abbesses, even for our queens. They show us too how our burgomasters' chains, with their insignificant crosses and stars, might be improved. These ideas are perhaps at present as intangible as a beautiful dream, but that is no reason why we should not indulge our fancy in this direction. For the moment, however, we must be satisfied if the jeweller is inclined to carry out our designs. Looking further among our artists, we find Karl Gross, of Dresden. Mr. Gross, who formerly lived in Munich, delighted us while there with a good many beautiful designs for jewellery. He produced not only female ornaments, but also paper-cutters, seals, and so on. He always displayed good taste and a fine sense of form, having, like Olbrich, the capacity to carry out his designs quite independently, without consideration of his predecessors' effects. A hair-pin of Gross's may be regarded as quite an independent work, although it relies on an old tradition. Those artists, indeed, show the most freedom who have adapted the beautiful examples of past generations. Examining our new jewellery, we find very little work which has the appearance of having been done by a strong hand. Most of it in time becomes unbearably monotonous. Still, it is something that we in Germany have at least two artists who design in so fresh and characteristic a manner that their works are always looked at with the greatest interest. I already have mentioned them--Olbrich and Van der Velde--and I fall back again upon them, though I have already taken them in consideration. We have other artists, too, who follow sound principles in other branches of decorative art. One of the most individual of these is Riemerschmid, of Munich. Others there are who are nearly on the right way, but whose personal artistic sense is not broad enough to make them produce something really good. This general mention is, therefore, all their work demands. In addition to finger and earrings our jewellery artists are responsible for other objects, such as the bracelet, the watch, and the fan. I think it is very difficult to rescue the bracelet from conventionality. We must hope the best for the future. But what about watch-cases, especially those of ladies' watches? This art is quite neglected, not so much by the manufacturers as by the artists. At this year's Darmstadt Exhibition there were two watches displayed. One of them had the case enamelled, if I mistake not, in the form of a chrysanthemum, and on the other was modelled the figure of one of the "Fates." The effect of the chrysanthemum watch was fairly good, but the less said about the "Fate" the better. Why is it not possible to design an ornament with taste and furnish it with precious stones and enamel? It is the greatest pity that our sculptors have no imagination. Having arrived at the determination to think of a watch, the artist has no idea beyond depicting one of the "Fates" with the thread and the scissors. I said just now that the watch was neglected less by the manufacturers than by the artists. Nowadays you may find watches indeed with gaily-coloured cases, but the decorations are miserable, like everything else that is invented by the manufacturers. They don't want to pay a good price for the artist's sketch, and they are proud of the inspiration of their own Muse. In this case one cannot avoid the conclusion that the artists are themselves to blame for their neglect of this branch of the jeweller's art. THE condition of affairs with regard to the fan is also very astonishing. Why do our artists not supply our ladies with nice fans? Please do not confound "nice" with "precious." The fan as we know it now is so utterly "played out" that scarcely anything can be done with it. New arrangements of the feathers are invented; the handle is trimmed in different ways; new materials are used, but a really new and artistic idea cannot be devised. Titian's "Lady with the Fan" is admired; the fan is known very well, but nobody thinks of making use of it. Meanwhile another kind of fan is being more and more extensively employed. I refer to the palm-leaf of the Japanese and the Chinese. People are very fond of being fanned by these leaves, but nobody observes their artistic possibilities. An artist who can afford to be independent of mere fashion is therefore wanted to give new life to the fan. Such an artist will win lasting success. [Illustration: FIG. A FIG. B _A. Collar Ornament in Gold, Enamel, Onyx, and Brilliants_ _B. Collar Ornament in Gold, Enamel, and Brilliants_ ROBERT KOCH PLATE 1] [Illustration: _Gold Pendant, set with Lapis Lazuli, Pearls, and Rubies_ Designed by JOSEPH M. OLBRICH _Silver Pendant, set with Bloodstones and a large Pearl_ Executed by D. & M. LOEWENTHAL PLATE 2] [Illustration: _Pendant in Gold, Silver, Enamel, and Pearl_ Executed by THEODOR FAHRNER _Gold Pendant set with Amethysts and Pearls_ Executed by D. & M. LOEWENTHAL Both designed by J. M. OLBRICH PLATE 3] [Illustration: _Gold Brooches_ Designed by HERMANN R. C. HIRZEL Executed by LOUIS WERNER PLATE 4] [Illustration: _Gold Brooches_ Designed by THEODOR VON GOSEN Executed by "VEREINIGTE WERKSTAETTEN," MUNICH PLATE 5] [Illustration: _Gold Brooches_ Designed by BRUNO MÖHRING Executed by F. H. WERNER PLATE 6] [Illustration: FIG. A FIG. B FIG. C _A and C. Gold Pendants set with a Turquoise_ _B. Gold Pendant set with Turquoises and Moss-Agates_ CHR. FERDINAND MORAWE PLATE 7] [Illustration: FIG. A FIG. B _A. Silver Brooch set with Turquoise and Enamel_ Executed by THEODOR FAHRNER _B. Gold Pendant set with Pearls and Sapphires_ Executed by D. & M. LOEWENTHAL Both designed by JOSEPH M. OLBRICH PLATE 8] MODERN BELGIAN JEWELLERY AND FANS. By F. KHNOPFF. [Illustration] Recent _Salons_ in Belgium have been notoriously unsuccessful, and it cannot be disputed that the public is becoming less and less interested in the large exhibitions of Fine Arts. Notable artists have been conspicuously absent; new works have been as scarce as old ones have been abundant; and, lastly, the general arrangements have been altogether lacking in attractiveness. Despite the violent opposition of interested persons, official and otherwise, the type of display started some time ago in Brussels by the "XX" club, and continued by the "Libre Esthétique" and "Pour L'Art" societies, has succeeded in attracting the attention of _connoisseurs_ and art lovers generally, with, apparently, every prospect of retaining it. The combination of works of painting and sculpture with the most exquisite productions of ceramic art, glass-ware, and all that is most delicate in jewellery and goldsmith's work, adds a special attraction to these exhibitions, which are always looked for with the utmost interest. It is, indeed, the jewellers, who, among all our Belgian art workers, have succeeded in making themselves and their productions the best known and most widely appreciated; the more so as in their case one was able to compare their works closely and determine their relative merits. It may truly be said that their most notable characteristic is diversity--a diversity which is shown, not only by the amateurs, so to speak, but also among the professionals. No remarks on Belgian sculpture--particularly in its decorative sense--are complete without mention being made of Charles Van der Stappen. True, he has executed but a small number of detached ornaments, but in the arrangement of the hair in his exquisitely fanciful busts he has lavished a wealth of fine modelling, the influence of which is still widely felt. In the works of M. Paul Dubois we discover the sculptor modelling the details of his buckles and clasps as he would so many powerful muscles. M. Fernand Dubois seems to be a _chercheur_ of a more subtle kind; but this very excess of ingenuity sometimes mars the plastic effect of his jewels. From Victor Rousseau we have had so far nothing more than a gold bracelet. The subject is quite simple--two hands holding a pearl; but the work is in every way worthy of the young Brussels artist, whom I regard as one of the most remarkable personalities in the domain of contemporary Belgian sculpture. The decorator Van de Velde, who has left Brussels, and is now settled in Berlin, exhibited at some of the "Libre Esthétique" _salons_ a series of jewels remarkable for their firm and consistent construction. The jewels displayed recently by M. Feys are distinguished by grace and felicitous appropriateness; but even more striking is the perfection of their execution, which is really extraordinary in its suggestion of suppleness. Other jewels displayed recently at the "Libre Esthétique" by M. Morren and Mlle. de Bronckère also deserve notice. In the course of a very interesting study on M. Ph. Wolfers, M. Sander Pièrron, the sagacious Brussels critic, thus described the work of this remarkable specialist in the "Revue des Arts Décoratifs":-- "M. Wolfers seeks his inspiration in the study of the nature and the forms of his marvellous domain, and his vision of things is specially defined in his jewels. The detail therein contributes largely to the spirit of the entire work, which borrows its character from the decoration itself or from the subject of that decoration. He never allows himself to stray into the regions of fancy; at most, he permits his imagination to approach the confines of ornamental abstraction. Nevertheless, he interprets Nature, but is never dominated by it. He has too true, too exact a sense of the decorative principle to conform to the absolute reality of the things he admires and reproduces. His art, by virtue of this rule, is thus a modified translation of real forms. He has too much taste to introduce into the composition of one and the same jewel flowers or animals which have no parallel symbol or, at least, some family likeness or significance. He will associate swans with water-lilies--the flowers which frame, as it were, the life of those grand poetic birds; or he will put the owl or the bat with the poppy--that triple evocation of Night and Mystery; or the heron with the eel--symbols of distant, melancholy streams. He rightly judges that in art one must endeavour to reconcile everything, both the idea and the materials whereby one tries to make that idea live and speak. Inspired, doubtless, by the fact that the ancients chose black stones for the carving of the infernal or fatal deities, M. Wolfers uses a dark amethyst for his owls, which gives them a special significance. The Grecians used the aqua-marina exclusively for the engraving of their marine gods, by reason of its similarity to the colour of the sea, just as they never carved the features of Bacchus in anything but amethyst--that stone whose essence suggests the purple flow of wine." M. van Strydonck expresses himself to me in the following terms on the subject of his art:-- "I am of opinion that the jewel can be produced without the aid of stones, enamels, etc. I do not exclude them entirely, but they should not be used unless it be to give the finishing touch, or occasionally to relieve an _ensemble_ lacking in vigour of colour. My preference is for oxydations, for in general effect they are more harmonious to the eye, and by careful seeking one can find all the tones required. I think you will share my opinion that it is much easier to use enamels, by means of which one's object is instantly attained. Yet it is seldom one produces a beautiful symphony of colour. Enamel can only be employed in small quantities. Why? Because, in the first place, he who uses it must have a profound knowledge of colours and a special colourist's eye; he must remember, moreover, that he is appealing to a _clientèle_ composed principally of ladies, who in most cases regard the jewel simply as a means to complete such and such a toilette. "It seems to me, indeed," continues M. van Strydonck, "that translucent enamel is the most suitable because it simply serves as an auxiliary--a basis necessary to the completion of the _ensemble_--and adds value to workmanship and design; and there is nothing to prevent its alliance with the beautiful oxydations which come almost naturally from gold." Note how, little by little, enamel is being abandoned in favour of stones, such as onyx, agate, and malachite, materials of no special value, which can be cut in different ways, and whose colour gives fine effects infinitely preferable to those of inferior enamels. Of course, I do not despise the fine stone, which, by its bold colour, often relieves the work, but this is not altogether the object of the jewel, unless profit be the sole object of the maker; and I ought to add that the revival of the jewel in recent years has not been favourably regarded by certain firms, who saw therein a distinct diminution of gain, the fact being that their large stock of fine stones--beautiful in themselves, but out of place in works such as I have mentioned--threatens to remain on their hands. One cannot truly say that Belgian _eventaillistes_ exist, for it is only very occasionally that such water-colour painters as MM. Cassiers, Stacquet, and Uytterschaut carry out their delightful landscapes and seascapes in the shape required for a fan. Something has been done in lacework in connection with the fan, and on this point I should mention in terms of praise M. Van Cutsem, a Brussels designer, who has made numerous models for M. Bart and M. Sacré, amongst which may be noted several happy experiments in the direction of the "modern style." To conclude, let me refer to the lace by Mlle. Bienaimé, admirably mounted by M. Goosens, of Brussels. (_Belgian_) A FAN PAINTED ON SILK BY H. CASSIERS. [Illustration] [Illustration: PLATE 1] [Illustration: _Design for a Necklet in Silver and Enamel_ L. VAN STRYDONCK PLATE 2] [Illustration: _Pendant with Chain. The masque is an Iris with red Enamel for the hair. The Orchid's petals are in translucent Enamel of opalescent tones_ PH. WOLFERS PLATE 3] [Illustration: _Pendant and Chain set with Brilliants and Pearls. The Figure in Gold, the Serpent in black and brown Enamel_ PH. WOLFERS PLATE 4] [Illustration: _Necklet, with Ornaments of transparent Enamel_ PH. WOLFERS PLATE 5] [Illustration: _Parure de Corsage, set with Emeralds, Brilliants and transparent Pearls_ PH. WOLFERS PLATE 6] [Illustration: FIG. A FIG. B _A. Waist-band Buckle. The Serpent in green Bronze, the Crab in Silver-gilt_ _B. Pendant. The Pheasants in green and yellow-brown Enamel, the centre Stone a pale-green Ceylon Sapphire_ PH. WOLFERS PLATE 7] [Illustration: _Coiffure, set with Brilliants; the petals in Opal, the Serpent in Gold touched with a slight patina_ PH. WOLFERS PLATE 8] [Illustration: FIG. A FIG. B FIG. C FIG. D _A, B, and D. Silver Belt-Clasps_ _C. Silver Buckles_ PAUL DUBOIS PLATE 9] MODERN DANISH JEWELLERY. BY GEORG BROCHNER. [Illustration] Emanating from England--and, I am tempted to add, with THE STUDIO for its pioneer--the new movement, the rejuvenation, the second Renaissance, or whatever one may be pleased to call it, in matters of Fine, and more especially Applied Art, is like a mighty wave making its way over many lands. But, as with the waves of the ocean, its movements are often fitful and impulsive, its progress irregular and spasmodic. Why this is so it is often futile to speculate upon, and even where a plausible explanation is apparently near at hand, it may on closer investigation prove more or less of a fallacy. Thus it may appear natural enough that a small country should be unable to vie with large and rich empires in the matter of jewellery, for the making of such is likely to entail expenditure out of proportion to the buying capacity of smaller nations. Yet this argument really does not hold good, for inasmuch as in modern jewellery it is more the design and conception, more the intrinsic artistic value and the proper choice and handling of the material which are the main things (and not the quantity of precious stones used), the cost need by no means be excessive. For day wear, at least, delightful jewellery is now made entirely from gold and silver, and enamel, and even bronze, possessing decorative properties immeasurably beyond those of the far more costly articles produced up to only a few years ago. Be this as it may, the fructifying effects of these new ideas have, on the whole, been somewhat slow in making themselves felt within the craft of the gold and the silver-smith, or, rather, within that branch of it which embraces articles for personal adornment. Some countries have so far ignored them altogether; in others they are only just beginning to take root. In Denmark, for instance, which in other fields of applied art holds such an honourably prominent position, comparatively little attention has hitherto been given to jewellery by those distinguished artists who have for years brought their talent to bear upon other crafts. But, if I mistake not, a change is beginning to manifest itself in this respect, and I have very little doubt that the material for an article on modern Danish jewellery will be vastly augmented within a span of but a few years, although it is unfortunately a little scanty at the time of writing. Bindesböll, whose characteristic style is so easily recognised, has some good clasps and brooches to his credit. They are distinguished by that unconventional boldness and freedom which one always hails with unmixed pleasure wherever one finds them, whether it be on a book-cover, on a sofa cushion, on a metal vessel, or in some architectural decoration. It is only very rarely Bindesböll deigns to employ a distinct figure or motif in his designs, but, in spite of a capriciousness in his lines--a capriciousness which at times borders upon recklessness--the effect is almost invariably harmonious and decorative. Of a totally different stamp is Harald Slott-Möller, to whom is due the place of honour when dealing with modern Danish jewellery. His designs are carefully conceived and they almost invariably illustrate a fine poetic idea or allegory, always happily chosen. They are somewhat elaborate, both in details and drawing, and in the choice of material, with regard to which he is rather extravagant than otherwise. His jewellery is possessed of a distinguished decorative beauty, and although he is entirely original, both in his choice of motifs and in his way of dealing with them, it might perhaps not be very difficult to trace certain English influences in his work. He is himself a skilful craftsman, whilst some of his designs have been executed at the famous establishment of Mr. Michelsen, Danish Court jeweller. For one of Mr. Michelsen's daughters, Slott-Möller designed the exceedingly beautiful brooch of which we give an illustration (Plate 4). It is made of silver, which is strongly oxidised, with blue, white, and green enamel. The stars are set in diamonds, and the pendants at the side are pearls. The comb with the butterflies on the lyre is the property of another sister, and is made of tortoise-shell and gold, with enamel, set with pearls, diamonds, and sapphires. A second comb, likewise made of tortoise-shell, has for its decorative motif a mermaid, gold, enamel, and coral being used with no mean skill. In the necklace the myth of Helen is represented. The central portion is of dark oxidised silver, with flames and sparks in gold, the walls of burning Troy and the grass are enamel, and the figure of Helen is carved in ivory. On the side plates men fight and die, illustrating the inscription, in Greek: "She brought devastation, she gave fame." Slott-Möller has himself made the whole of this elaborate and charming necklace. The hand-mirror is made in silver, with an ivory handle, in the likeness of a candle, round the flame of which a number of luckless moths flutter; the moths and the ooze from the candle are oxidised. Moyens Bollin, who has lately gone in for the making of artistic metal objects, has also designed several pretty combs, clasps, etc., made in silver or bronze. In the former material is a clasp, of which we give an illustration, with flowers in blossom and bud, admirably drawn so as to fill their allotted space. Another clasp, a butterfly, is in bronze. Erick Magnussen is a very young artist, who seems to give promise. The "1901" in the pendant mirror is very deftly drawn, covering its space evenly and well, as does also the design of the "Fish" clasp illustrated. The other, with the mermaids, shows that he can also successfully employ the female form for decorative purposes. A silver clasp and brooch by Niels Dyrlund are distinguished by a quaint but well balanced intertwining of lines, the effect produced being pleasing and decorative, and Einar Nielsen, the talented painter, Axel Hou, and Georg Jensen have also recently taken to the designing of clasps and such like objects. [Illustration] [Illustration: _Necklace representing the story of Helen of Troy. The central part in dark oxidised Silver, with flames and sparks in Gold; the walls of burning Troy and the grass in Enamel; the figure of Helen is carved in Ivory_ HARALD SLOTT-MÖLLER PLATE 1] [Illustration: _A. Belt-Mirror in chased Silver_ ERICK MAGNUSSEN _B. Silver Hand-Mirror with an Ivory handle. The moths are oxidised_ HARALD SLOTT-MÖLLER PLATE 2] [Illustration: FIG. A FIG. B _A. "Butterfly" Comb in Tortoiseshell and Gold, with Enamel, and set with Pearls, Diamonds, and Sapphires_ _B. "Mermaid" Comb in Tortoiseshell and Gold, with Coral and Enamel_ HARALD SLOTT-MÖLLER PLATE 3] [Illustration: _Enamelled Brooches in oxidised Silver_ HARALD SLOTT-MÖLLER PLATE 4] [Illustration: FIG. A FIG. B _A. Silver Clasp_ _B. Enamelled Silver Clasp_ ERICK MAGNUSSEN PLATE 5] [Illustration: FIG. A FIG. B _A. Twofold Silver Clasp_ MOYENS BOLLIN _B. Silver Belt-Clasp_ ERICK MAGNUSSEN PLATE 6] [Illustration: FIG. A FIG. B _A. "Butterfly" Clasp in Bronze_ _B. Silver Clasp_ MOYENS BOLLIN PLATE 7] [Illustration: FIG. A FIG. B _A. Silver Clasp in three pieces_ MOYENS BOLLIN _B. Silver Buckles and Brooches_ TH. BINDESBÖLL PLATE 8] * * * * * +----------------------------------------------------------+ | | | Transcriber's notes: | | | | P.1. 'unbiassed' changed to 'unbiased'. | | P.4.(French) no devil-fish, 'no' changed to 'nor'. | | P.7. 'themelves' changed to 'themselves'. | | Plate 43. 'Pendent' changed to 'Pendant'. | | Corrected various punctuation. | | | | '=' around words mean bold as in =French=. | | '_' around words mean italic as in _French_. | | | +----------------------------------------------------------+ 
45570	----	THE CONNOISSEUR SERIES OF BOOKS FOR COLLECTORS OLD IRISH GLASS PLATE I. [Illustration: CARD OF MEMBERSHIP OF THE CORK GLASS-CUTTERS' UNION. _In the possession of the Author._] THE CONNOISSEUR SERIES OF BOOKS FOR COLLECTORS EDITED BY C. REGINALD GRUNDY OLD IRISH GLASS BY Mrs. GRAYDON STANNUS _New Edition :: Revised and Enlarged_ [Illustration] PUBLISHED BY THE CONNOISSEUR, 1, DUKE STREET, ST. JAMES'S, LONDON, S.W.1 MCMXXI [Illustration: Publisher's Logo] [Illustration: GLASS] CONTENTS PAGE THE FASCINATION OF IRISH GLASS 1 GLASS FACTORIES IN IRELAND 3 Irish Gilding 4 The Last Maker 4 Glass-makers' Wages 4 Glass Cutters 5 WALL AND TABLE LIGHTS 7 CHANDELIER DROPS, PENDANTS, AND ORNAMENTS 7 THE CHARACTERISTICS OF IRISH GLASS 10 Weight 10 Colour 10 Resilience 11 The Feel of Irish Glass 12 The Ring of Irish Glass 12 Difference in the Ring of other Glass 12 FAKES 12 Difference of Colour 13 THE INCREASING POPULARITY OF IRISH GLASS 13 EXPERIENCE ESSENTIAL 14 IRISH GLASS SOLD ABROAD 14 UNCUT PIECES 14 THE ILLUSTRATIONS 14 LIST OF PLATES PLATE Card of Membership of the Cork Glass-cutters' Union I. Interior of a Primitive Hand Glass-cutter's Shed II. Device for Stoppering Bottles and Opening Pans III. Four pairs of Dublin and Waterford Wall-lights IV., V., VI., VII. Waterford Bowls. (Mr. Walter Harding) VIII. Waterford Bowl, _circa_ 1783. Pontil worked into an ornament. (Commander Swithinbank) IX. Waterford Flower Bowl, _circa_ 1783. (Commander Swithinbank) IX. Waterford Canoe-shaped Bowl, 1783. (Viscount Furness) IX. Cork "Turnover" Bowl, 12 in. high. (Mrs. Rea) IX. Christening Bowl, 1760. (Author) X. Munster Bowl, _circa_ 1780. (Mrs. Hall) X. Irish "Pinched"-sided Bowl. (Mr. Henderson) X. Waterford Orange Bowl, _circa_ 1790, 16 in. by 7-1/2 in. (Major Pope) X. Irish Moulded Bowl, very large, 1760. (Mrs. Rea) XI. Irish "Pinched" Bowl, early, retaining waste metal at foot. (Author) XI. Irish "Pinched" Bowl, traveller's sample, 3 in. (Author) XI. Waterford Revolving Centre Dish, _circa_ 1783. (Hon. Mrs. York) XI. Cork Glass Orange Bowl, _circa_ 1790. (Mr. Walter Harding) XII. Waterford Bowl, _circa_ 1790. (Viscount Furness) XII. Cork "Pillar" Bowl, early. (Viscount Furness) XIII. Irish Large Bowl of exceptional shape, _circa_ 1785. (Author's family) XIII. Irish Glass, curious specimen of early, on carved bog-oak stand. (Commander Swithinbank) XIV. Irish Posset Bowl, large two-handled, possibly 1750. (Mrs. Hall) XV. Irish Ogee Bowl, _circa_ 1760. (Mr. R. Frank) XV. Waterford Bowl, bearing the Stannus crest, 1790. (Author) XVI. Waterford Bowl and Basin, _circa_ 1783. (Mr. Wild) XVI. Dublin copy of Bristol Two-handled Cup and Cover, _circa_ 1780. (Mrs. Day) XVI. Waterford Giant "Turnover" Round Bowl and Dish, _circa_ 1815. (Mrs. Rea) XVI. Waterford deep "Step"-cut Dish, _circa_ 1825. (Mrs. Oliver) XVI. Waterford "Step"-cut Dishes with fan handles, _circa_ 1820. (Mrs. Hall) XVII. Munster Banqueting Tazze, 1790-1810. (Mrs. Hall) XVII. Irish Posset Bowl, early, probably 1730. (Mrs. Rea) XVIII. Irish Urn, large, _circa_ 1795. (Mr. R. Philipson) XVIII. Waterford "Canoe"-shaped Bowl, 1790. (Author's family) XVIII. Waterford Salad Bowl, _circa_ 1785. (Col. Fitzgerald Stannus) XIX. Dublin Urns, very early. (Mr. Hugh Weguelin) XIX. Dublin Finger-bowl, early (marked). (Mr. R. Frank) XIX. Cork Bowl, _circa_ 1785. (Mr. Henderson) XX. Irish Glass, three rare specimens of early, probably Dublin. (Mr. R. Philipson) XX. Irish Plain Punch-bowl and Ladle, _circa_ 1770. (Mr. R. Frank) XXI. Waterford "Step"-cutting, examples of, after 1815. (Author) XXI. Waterford Bowl, one of the rarest extant, _circa_ 1785. (Mr. Walter Harding) XXII. Waterford "Helmet" Bowl. (Major Courtauld) XXII. Waterford Dishes, pair of finely cut. (Major Courtauld) XXII. Waterford Chandelier, 1785. (Author's family) XXIII. Waterford Chandelier, 1788. (Author's family) XXIV. Waterford Chandelier. (Author) XXV. Waterford Sideboard Lights, Adam design, pair. (Author) XXVI. Waterford Chimney Set, with drops, probably Dublin, _circa_ 1815. (Author) XXVI. Waterford Table Lights, set of three. (Viscount Furness) XXVII. Waterford Table Lights, set of four, _circa_ 1785. (Viscount Furness) XXVII. Waterford Lights, on "Bosi"-work pedestals, pair. (Viscount Furness) XXVIII. Irish Table Lights, _circa_ 1780, pair. (Author) XXIX. Waterford Table Lights, late Adam, on Wedgwood urns, pair. (Mr. Hugh Weguelin) XXIX. Waterford Table Lights, _circa_ 1783. (Mr. E. Parsons) XXX. Waterford Table Lights, Adam period. (Major Pope) XXX. Waterford Candlesticks, 1785, pair. (Mr. H. Samuelson) XXX. Waterford Chandelier, 1783. (Mrs. Cox) XXXI. Waterford Candelabra and pair of Candlesticks. (Col. Jenner) XXXI. Waterford Chandelier, Adam. (Mrs. Sabin) XXXII. Irish Candle-shades, finest period, pair. (Author) XXXIII. Waterford Altar Candlesticks, _circa_ 1783, pair. (Mr. R. Frank) XXXIV. Irish Candlesticks, probably 1760, three unique. (Mrs. Rea) XXXIV. Irish Candlesticks, with unusual bases, _circa_ 1770, pair. (Mrs. Rea) XXXV. Waterford Tapersticks, circa 1790, pair. (Mrs. Rea) XXXV. Waterford (?) Lamps, 1790, very unusual pair. (Mr. Walter Harding) XXXVI. Waterford Candlestick, 1783. (Mr. Walter Harding) XXXVI. Cork Candlesticks, early, pair. (Mr. Walter Harding) XXXVI. Irish Rushlight Holders, blown-glass, early eighteenth century. (Mr. R. Frank) XXXVII. Waterford Table Lights, pair. (Mr. Fitzroy Chapman) XXXVII. Waterford Altar Candlesticks, pair, finest period. (Mr. Walter Harding) XXXVIII. Waterford Candlesticks. (Mr. Walter Harding) XXXIX. Dublin (?) Mug, _circa_ 1740. (Mr. Walter Harding) XXXIX. Waterford Jug, shaped. (Mr. Walter Harding) XL. Irish "Freak" Jug, _circa_ 1760. (Author) XL. Waterford Jugs, three. (Mr. R. Philipson) XL. Waterford or Cork Tankard, _circa_ 1785. (Author) XL. Dublin (?) Two-handled Spun Cup, 1750. (Author) XL. Irish Jug, heavy lustre cut, flint glass, _circa_ 1800. (Commander Swithinbank) XL. Cork Decanters, early blown, marked "Cork Glass Co.," pair. (Author) XLI. Munster Liqueur Bottles, pair. (Author) XLI. Irish Decanter, early blown. (Author) XLI. Waterford Liqueur Bottles, 1820-50. XLI. Waterford Decanters, _circa_ 1780-90. (Author) XLI. Munster Jugs, set of early. (Author) XLII. Munster Decanters, set of early. (Author) XLIII. Irish Chalice, 1790-1800. (Mrs. Hall) XLIV. Dublin "Lustre-cut" Goblets, _circa_ 1850, set of. (Mr. David Blair) XLIV. Irish Sweetmeat Stands, 1760-70. (Author) XLIV. Munster Chalice, 1790-1800. (Mrs. Magee) XLV. Waterford Basket Sweetmeat Stand. (Mrs. Magee) XLVI. Cork Sweetmeat Stand, with two candle sconces, early. (Mrs. Magee) XLVI. Waterford Dessert Service. (Hon. Mrs. Vickers) XLVII. Waterford Dessert Service, _circa_ 1785. (Major Pope) XLVIII. Waterford Miniature Sweetmeat Stand, late Adam. (Mr. Walter Harding) XLVIII. Dublin Posset Two-handled Bowl, 1760; Flat Flask, 1770; Goblets, Mugs, and Tea Caddy of early dates. (Author) XLVIII. Cork Table Service, early Adam period. (Mr. R. Frank) XLIX. Irish Lamp, probably 1660, and other early pieces. (Mr. Walter Harding) XLIX. Cork and Waterford Urns, _circa_ 1785. (Commander Swithinbank) L. Waterford Urns, _circa_ 1783. (Mrs. Hall) LI. Dublin Wig Stands, pair. (Mr. R. Frank) LII. Munster Glass Dishes, etc. (Mr. Hunt) LII. Waterford Cruets LII. Dublin Strawberry Cut Teapot. (Mrs. Day) LII. Munster Moulded Teapot. (Author) LII. Waterford Teapot, _circa_ 1783. (Mr. R. Frank) LII. Irish Cream or Ice Pails, _circa_ 1825-35. (Mrs. McBean) LII. Dublin Blue Glass Bowl, _circa_ 1740. (Author) LIII. Irish Blue Glass Bowl. (Author) LIII. Dublin Blue Glass Lace-makers' Lamps, _circa_ 1730-40. (Author) LIII. RUBBINGS Cutting on Waterford Canoe-shaped Bowl. (Author) LIV. Special Cutting on "Pinched" Boat-shaped Bowl. (Author) LIV. Fan Edge from a fine Waterford Bowl, _circa_ 1815 LIV. "Vandyke" Cutting or "Geometrical" Design LIV. Swag and Line Cutting, with fan edge, probably 1765 LIV. Hobnail Cutting, late 1830 LV. Strawberry Cutting LV. Flat Diamond Cutting LV. Fine "Fan" Cutting from a Waterford Decanter LV. "Double," "Long" Diamond, or "Lozenge" Cutting LV. Adaptations of Cutting, 1790-1835 LVI. "Leaf," "Shallow Diamond," and "Flute" Cutting from a Waterford Bowl LVI. "Castellated" Edge from a Waterford Fruit Dish LVI. "Diamond" Cutting, a rare adaptation of, _circa_ 1770 LVII. Cuttings on Cork and Waterford Glass LVII. Cuttings on early Waterford Glass LVIII. "Leaf" Cutting, variation of LVIII. Flat "Leaf" Cutting LVIII. "Lustre" Cutting, Dublin, _circa_ 1785 LIX. Cutting on a Cork Bowl, late eighteenth century LIX. Star, Soft Early, _circa_ 1750 LIX. Star, Shallow-cut, from a Waterford Dish, _circa_ 1790 LIX. "Husk" or "Leaf" Cutting from an Irish Wine-glass, _circa_ 1760; one of the earliest cuttings LIX. * * * * * Dublin Wall-light, one of a pair. (Author) LX. ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT PAGE Drops, Pendants, and Ornaments 6, 8, 15 Blow-pipe and Ladles for making Stars and Ornamental Pendants 9 The Stannus Crest, engraved on a Waterford bowl (see Plate XVI.) 16 PLATE II. [Illustration: INTERIOR OF A PRIMITIVE HAND GLASS-CUTTER'S SHED. _From a drawing in the Author's possession._] =THE FASCINATION OF IRISH GLASS= All old glass is interesting, but old Irish glass possesses certain unique qualities which make its collection peculiarly fascinating. In it we find an unsurpassed beauty and depth of colour--a poetry of design and a velvet softness of touch which are a pure joy to the connoisseur. Before describing Irish glass, however, let me first give some idea as to where and when it was produced. Glass appears to have been made in Ireland to a very small extent during the Middle Ages, and it would seem from the evidence of contemporary records that as early as 1332 the coloured windows of Dublin Castle were made by local workers in Dublin. Some authorities, however, hold that these records refer not to glass-makers, but merely to glaziers, who used foreign glass for their work. What is certain is that the manufacture of glass was not seriously commenced in Ireland until the last quarter of the sixteenth century. Window glass, coloured glass, and drinking glass were certainly made there in 1585, and their manufacture appears to have been carried on more or less steadily from that time onwards in various parts of the country. History records, for instance, that very early in the seventeenth century a patent was granted to a man named Aston to make glass in Ireland for a period of twenty-one years. It was not until the second quarter of the eighteenth century that the great period of Irish glass-making arrived, and pieces were produced rivalling, or even surpassing, the best wares of their kind made in England and on the Continent. Unfortunately for the success of the factories, the English Government passed an Act, in 1788, entirely prohibiting the export of glass from Ireland. This measure did more than anything to cripple the great and growing industry, but did not actually kill it, as the makers were not forbidden to sell their goods in their own country! Irish glass was characterised by what was then regarded as a grave defect. Little or none of it was as colourless as contemporary English pieces, and consequently it did not in those days attain the reputation of the latter. This characteristic, despite the endeavour of local manufacturers to do away with it, appears to have continued for something like a century. Mr. Dudley Westropp, in his important work on "Irish Glass," page 162, mentions a "letter from Exeter, dated December 7th, 1832," in which "Elizabeth Walpole, one of the partners in the Waterford Glass Works, says she had a conversation with Edward Eardley, a glass merchant of Exeter and Plymouth, about some glass she was getting over from Waterford, with a view of selling. She says that Eardley stated that all the Irish glass he had ever seen was dark coloured; but she told him she had sent for some Waterford glass, so that he might see for himself." This statement throws a light on the somewhat equivocal reputation enjoyed by Irish glass until well on in the second quarter of the nineteenth century, and also shows that at that time the Waterford makers considered that they had entirely freed their metal from the dark tone formerly characterising it. It is indeed a curious irony of human endeavour that the makers of Waterford glass, now deservedly famous for its beautiful and dark grey-blue tone, tried to eradicate it from quite an early date. They endeavoured to make their glass whiter and clearer, like that of Bristol, and in this they succeeded after 1830. The _late_ glass of Waterford, _i.e._, made 1835 or afterwards, was actually whiter than that of Dublin. _Little did these glass artists think that a century later people in all parts of the world would be trying to reproduce the early dark colour without success._ The poor reputation for colour that Irish glass suffered under during the eighteenth century must in itself have greatly interfered with the export trade in the finer pieces. That there was an immense export trade during that period is shown from contemporary statistics, but this appears to have been largely confined to commoner wares, such as bottles, glasses, vials, and other articles in constant use and requiring frequent renewal. The finer and more fragile pieces were generally kept at home. The country gentry considered it the proper thing to support local factories by buying the wares made at them, though they did not always appreciate their purchases, and in many instances supplemented them with imported English glass, which they used in preference. Thus it happens that in many old Irish country houses choice specimens of Irish glass have been discovered stored away in garrets and cupboards practically unused since they were made. There is little or no documentary evidence to establish the origin of these pieces, for, as a race, Irish land-owners are not addicted to keeping receipts of century-old bills, but tradition and the appearance of the surviving pieces confirm the fact that they were originally of Irish manufacture. It must be remembered that the tradition is the more likely to be true because until comparatively recently Irish glass was only lightly valued, so that it was more to the interest of the owner to consider it of English rather than of native manufacture. The tradition, however, is confirmed by the colour and other characteristics of the pieces. It is interesting to note that in many instances missing pieces in sets have been replaced by later productions of English manufacture. The differences between these and their originals are generally easily discernible, the rich depth of tone, which is such a beautiful characteristic of Irish work, being almost altogether absent from the former. It must not be thought from these remarks that old Irish glass is plentiful. The commoner wares, such as wine glasses, tumblers, and bottles, which were manufactured in such profusion during the eighteenth century, have practically disappeared; and though a larger proportion of the finer and more valuable pieces, used less frequently and treated with greater care by successive generations of owners, have survived, they are still comparatively rare. Nine-tenths of the so-called old Irish glass offered for sale have no claims to be considered as genuine, but are either old pieces from other countries or modern fakes--chiefly the latter. =GLASS FACTORIES IN IRELAND= From time to time humorists over here state that "no glass was ever made in Ireland," so that the following list of localities where a few of the best known glass-houses stood will be of interest:-- ANTRIM: (BALLYCASTLE) 1755 TO 1790. Bottles, heavy rummers, and very coarse but useful glass. BELFAST: 1781 TO 1870. Fine flint glass, heavy, rather white handsome deep cutting and very fine bold engraving. _Glass was brought here from other parts of Ireland to be decorated._ Foreign engravers were employed and excellent work done. Very fine lustres, candlesticks, etc., were made here by McDowell, following chiefly Adam and Georgian designs. CORK: 1782 TO 1844. Finely cut glass of every description, delicate engraving on blown ware, gilding; particularly famous for its rummers, heavy and light-blown decanters, and, after 1800, whole dessert services of beautiful colour and various cutting. Black glass was made here in 1785, and window glass in 1782. As the card of membership of the Cork Glass Cutters' Union (shown on Plate I.) proves, "lustre" cutting was popular here. DUBLIN: CIRCA 1630 TO 1896. Window glass was made here from about 1630 and onwards, and as early as 1729 the Round Glass House in Dublin produced choice specimens of glass, such as salvers and dessert baskets, with handles and feet, of particularly fine workmanship and design, but now exceedingly rare and difficult to find. Very beautiful glass was made in Marlborough Street, Dublin, by the firm of Williams, about 1771. They appear to have specialised in chandeliers, candlesticks, salvers, bowls, decanters, bottles, bells, and épergnes. During the last quarter of the eighteenth century and onwards there were numbers of houses here in which every kind of white and coloured glass was made. Many fine specimens still exist, of which Pugh's productions (though rather late) are worthy of note, particularly his "lustre" cutting. The early moulded pieces were very elegant and quaint, very much like Bristol, but so far as I have observed, heavier, and, of course, richer and darker in tone. DRUMREA: (DUNGANNON) 1771 TO 1776. Much the same kind of glass as Cork, but clearer; noted for fine green and amber coloured glass both in bottles, drops for chandeliers, jelly glasses, wine glasses, and épergnes. NEWRY: 1790 TO 1847. A great variety of flint glass, both cut and plain, very heavy. A great deal of table glass was made here. WATERFORD: 1729 TO 1852. Produced every possible kind of glass of the most beautiful colour and cutting. The chandeliers, candelabra, boat-shaped and turnover bowls, were perfect. The finest period was just after 1780. After 1830 the glass became much whiter. About 1815 some wonderful deep "step" cutting was done, which made the glass, in some lights, look like silver plate; while dessert services were a great feature, and I constantly come in contact with _parts_ of these services (tucked away in cellars and odd places) of the most surprisingly beautiful workmanship and colour. _NOTE._--_According to official records, the Waterford Glass Houses closed down from 1750 to 1780, but there exists a good deal of glass traditionally made within this time, certainly having all the attributes of Waterford, and being fashioned in contemporary styles._ PORTARLINGTON: 1670. One of the very earliest glass-houses was erected here on the Stannus property, but very little is known about it or its particular productions, and it closed down in a few years from lack of financial support. I believe drinking glasses were its chief output. We have a tumbler which was made here, and some wine glasses are still in existence. =IRISH GILDING.= Foreign workmen were employed in Ireland, particularly cutters, engravers, and gilders. Irish gilding almost stands alone. It is _very_ hard, and cannot be rubbed off in the usual way. When deliberately scraped off it leaves the glass underneath quite rough, consequently it has survived ordinary wear and tear almost intact. The process was chemical, and it is a great pity that more of it was not done. Very fine soft oil gilding was executed for some years, about 1786, by a German called Grahl. =THE LAST MAKER.= The glass industry died out about 1896, Pugh, of Dublin, being the last maker of flint glass in Ireland. He is often credited with being the first to introduce "lustre" cutting, but the rare plate of the Cork Glass Cutters' Union, already referred to, shows that this decoration must have been done in Cork early in the nineteenth century, since it may be presumed that the pieces they have chosen as being representative of their own craft would be those most largely produced. The fine old jug in the centre, for instance, is a splendid specimen of "lustre" work. Some people, other than glass-cutters, refer to this as "pillar cutting"--quite a good description. =GLASS-MAKERS' WAGES.= While on the subject of the workers, it will be of interest, in these days of high wages, to recall the remuneration paid to these artists in glass as recorded in the Dublin Museum. The founder received the princely sum of 7s. for his week's work, while the fireman only got 6s. The glass-maker himself (not the cutter or the engraver) was evidently a piece-worker, earning at most 50s. a week, and was doubtless a mighty wealthy man. PLATE III. [Illustration: DEVICE FOR STOPPERING BOTTLES AND OPENING PANS. _From a drawing in the Author's possession._] Naturally the extraordinary cheapness of fuel in Ireland was a great help to the owner of a glass-house, as wood was the chief thing he burnt. But late in the seventeenth century an Act was passed prohibiting the felling of trees for this purpose, so even in those early days manufacturers had their troubles. However, I do not think this interfered very much. If an Irishman wants a thing, it takes a great deal more than an Act of Parliament passed by the Englishman _on the other side of the water to stop him_. As late as the nineteenth century, in my father's time, our village carpenter would come and buy a good-sized ash tree for 1s. 6d. Those not so well off freely helped themselves by the light of the moon. We do not bring people to justice in Ireland for little slips of that sort: we should have no time left to ourselves if we did. =GLASS CUTTERS.= Very simple and primitive were the instruments used by the glass-cutters. Speaking broadly, the artist (for he _was_ an artist) merely required revolving wheels, from 2 in. to 14 in. or 16 in. in diameter, sand, water, powdered pumice, and "putty powder," a mixture of whitening and other ingredients for polishing. The wheels consisted of "mild steel" for cutting (many sizes), a "blue stone" wheel for smoothing, and one of very hard wood for polishing. Brush wheels were also employed. The illustration of a very primitive glass-cutter's shed (from a drawing in my possession) will explain better than words how the work was done; the wheels were turned by the rough boards worked by the cutter's foot, while with his unerring hands he would perform marvellous feats of glass-cutting. Water and sand dripped slowly on to his wheel while he worked, generally from a flower-pot hung above. He worked from a rough design on paper beside him, and this design he first _scratched_ on the piece of glass with a sharp instrument. Much of the glass-cutting was done _outside_ the glass-houses by men who had their cutting sheds in their own homes, as is shown in the illustration, and this accounts for the "individuality" of the work done. These men, dreamers and artists, were a "guild" with a very high ideal. The old Irish silversmiths also worked at home in a similar fashion, and, as all the world knows, executed the most perfect work. In these days it is interesting to know that a strike ended the industry in Cork previous to 1840. Some English workmen came over and told the Cork men they were working too cheaply, though in fact they were much better off than those in England (where machinery was now well installed). The glass owners, who had become wealthy, but saw little prospects of retaining their fortunes under changed conditions, fought the men, and eventually closed down their factories. Those in Waterford continued for some years later, and the last record of this town is in the catalogue of the London Exhibition of 1851, where Gatchell had some wonderful exhibits, including one centrepiece of forty pieces of glass for a banqueting table, _no metal work of any kind being used in it_. In 1788 William Penrose made a celebrated service for their Majesties. And as early as 1729 beautiful deep green glass was made at Waterford. Interesting and romantic were the tales told by the last of the hand glass-cutters, Barry Sheehan, who died a very old man in Cork in 1890. He knew all the old glass-cutters, was an artist and enthusiast, and always kept an old hand-cutting wheel at the back of his shop, a relic of a past age of inspired workers. According to this great authority, "lustre cutting" was the most difficult of all, and very popular in Cork. One old lady who lives in Cork, a sister of the late Mrs. Gatchell, who is nearly 100 years of age, has a set of chessmen in old Irish glass, and many children's toys and trumpets were made in her late husband's factory. One of the glass-houses in Cork was owned by "honest Joe Romayne," one time M.P. for Cork, and another by a family named Foley, and the descendants of both of these people have some splendid pieces still. Engraving was a different matter. This decoration was more often done by men (chiefly foreigners) who wandered round the country carrying with them a queer little box (one of which I have in my possession). A few delicate copper wheels were used outside the box, which were driven by a shaft, and two wheels inside. The handle was turned by a boy while the engraver worked. [Illustration: Glass Drops No. 1.] [Illustration: Glass Drops No. 2.] PLATE IV. [Illustration: ONE FROM A SET OF FOUR PAIRS OF WALL-LIGHTS MADE IN DUBLIN, 1795-1830. _In the Graydon Stannus family collection._ _From a drawing in the Author's possession._ _(See also Plates V., VI., and VII.)_] PLATE V. [Illustration: ONE FROM A SET OF FOUR PAIRS OF WALL-LIGHTS MADE IN DUBLIN, 1795-1830. _In the Graydon Stannus family collection._ _From a drawing in the Author's possession._ (_See also Plates IV., VI., and VII._)] PLATE VI. [Illustration: ONE FROM A SET OF FOUR PAIRS OF WALL-LIGHTS MADE IN WATERFORD. 1815. _In the Author's collection._ _From a drawing in the Author's possession._ _(See also Plates IV., V., and VII.)_] PLATE VII. [Illustration: ONE FROM A SET OF FOUR PAIRS OF WALL-LIGHTS MADE IN DUBLIN, 1820. _In the Author's collection._ _From a drawing in the Author's possession._ _(See also Plates IV., V., and VI.)_] =WALL AND TABLE LIGHTS.= Candle-lights became very popular during the early Adam period, and continued to be made for many years. Their conception was, I am sure, French in its origin. A great many were made in Ireland (especially advertised in Dublin), and they were permeated with Adam feeling--graceful and simple. These lights fell into disuse when gas became popular, and were stowed away in boxes and cellars and lumber-rooms; while others, still less fortunate, were actually thrown away or sold to the ragman for a few shillings. Of those I have unearthed, a great number are in varying degrees of bad and good condition, and it is most interesting, with the aid of some original drawings (which I am fortunate enough to possess), to reconstruct these lovely fittings to their original beauty (see Plates IV., V., VI., VII.). Out of about five or six broken lights I can generally reconstruct one pair. In my determined search for these treasures, I find that the metal back plates which fitted on the wall and held the glass lights are in nine cases out of ten missing, and after puzzling over this fact for some time I discovered they were nearly always utilised by being left on the walls and the gas-pipe brought through them! In any case, all the metal mounts appear to have been removed from the branches, cups, etc., and I think they were probably taken off and used for various purposes by the "house-carpenter," or handy man, and held far more value for him than the discarded glass, which is now rapidly becoming priceless. In one instance I lost the ferrule off the end of my whip, and one of our men said he'd "put it right." I noticed a fine bit of chased brass appear on it. I said, "Larry, where did you get that?" "Shure, me lady, it's off th' auld glass light that was tooken from t' hall"! And it was! Irishmen have natural instincts--they always know a good thing, and they can unerringly tell you if a person is "someone" or not! =CHANDELIER DROPS, PENDANTS, AND ORNAMENTS.= There are many interesting things to be learnt about the drops which hang on chandeliers and table lights. The first and most surprising is that most of them, even those found on quite early Irish chandeliers, were made in England and France! _Very few were manufactured in Ireland._ The genuine old Irish drops (so far as my personal observation and experience goes) were always round or _almond_ shaped. The most characteristic distinction between them and those made in other countries is that they are very flat when viewed sideways (see illustration No. 3, page 8), whereas the English and French come to a point in the centre--sometimes on one side, more often on both--not a sharp point, of course, but still a point (see illustration No. 4, page 8, which will make the difference quite clear). No. 1 (page 6) is a very rare specimen. [Illustration: No. 3.--FACE. No. 3.--SIDE VIEW. No. 4.--FACE. No. 4.--SIDE VIEW. No. 5. No: 6. No. 7. ORNAMENTAL DROPS.] _All the chandeliers and lights made for my family had in every case these Irish drops, being, of course, special orders._ When seen on a chandelier it is remarkable how much more graceful the Irish drops look; they are softer, more richly facetted, smoother, and, of course, deeper in colour. The large pendants (see illustrations Nos. 2, 5, 6, 7) for ornaments and stars for chandeliers were manufactured in an interesting way. They were made in _ladles_, designed to the required outline and size, with a long handle (see illustration below). The ladle was dipped in the pot of molten glass, withdrawn full, and after being allowed to cool slightly until the glass had set, tipped out into a "dry" furnace (known as a lehr) for some hours; by that time the glass was hard and fit to be facetted by hand. In Italy and Spain I have watched the glass-makers at much the same work, but in these instances the glass was made in cut moulds, so that the glass was _pressed_ into a pattern while hot, and not cut afterwards. The illustrations are of Irish ornaments in my possession on family chandeliers, and vary in length from 5 in. to 8-1/2 in. [Illustration: BLOW-PIPE AND LADLES (one shown side view). USED IN MAKING STARS AND ORNAMENTAL PENDANTS.] =THE CHARACTERISTICS OF IRISH GLASS= Irish glass, more especially Waterford, of the typical period, may be distinguished from contemporary English glass and foreign and modern fakes of all nationalities by a number of characteristics which may be grouped under the headings of Weight, Colour, Resilience, Feeling to the Touch, and Ring. Let me take these one by one. WEIGHT. Irish glass is generally very heavy, though there are exceptions to this rule, markedly in the blown specimens from about 1735 to 1750, which are extremely light. These pieces were never cut, but either engraved only or left perfectly plain. They can be distinguished from foreign pieces of similar weight, as they never show the little specks of sand in the metal peculiar to the latter. On the other hand, air-bubbles often appear in the Irish glass, which were caused by the faulty stirring of the molten metal. These are sometimes so minute that they appear like sand specks to the naked eye, and it is only possible definitely to identify them as bubbles by the use of a magnifying glass. COLOUR. All old Irish glass has a peculiar depth of tone, but the early glass of Cork, Waterford, and Dublin is especially distinguished in this quality. Its steel or grey-blue tone is unique. In this respect there is very little difference between the wares from the three places, as they are all characterised by the same mysterious grey colour (supposed to be caused by impure ingredients). It should be remembered that the factories in all three localities obtained their materials for glass-making from the same sources, and that the workmen employed in them frequently passed from one to another, so that, theoretically, the metal produced in the three towns should be practically identical. There are, however, tangible differences in at least a portion of the glass emanating from the various localities. Thus I have noticed that some Cork glass has a decided yellowish tinge which Waterford never has. On the other hand, Waterford glass is often distinguished by a peculiar cloudy bloom covering the metal, which can be rubbed off, but will assuredly return. This "bloom" must not be confused with the milkiness found in decanters, etc., which is caused by wine or water being allowed to remain in them for long periods. It is quite different: a soft bloom, exactly like that on grapes, the same colour, or even darker, than the glass, and often will be found forming a beautiful band of rainbow hue running round the piece it adorns. I do not know, for certain, the cause of this appearance, but it probably originates in some atmospheric action on the lead in the metal. It is only found on very early dark pieces, and its possession may be regarded not only as an additional charm of the piece so characterised but also as a proof of its authenticity. These pieces are most interesting, but are not always appreciated as they should be. Some time ago I parted with a magnificent Waterford bowl, beautifully toned in this manner, only to find a week later that it had been chemically polished clear and bright, leaving it with not a tithe of its pristine beauty. These distinctions of tone and colour which I have ventured to point out are by no means universal, so that a piece which does not possess them must not be rejected as spurious _merely on this account_. Sometimes it is impossible to say from what county a piece came, and this has led experts to refer to the products supposed to emanate from the Cork or Waterford factories as "Munster glass." Even this term is not broad enough, however, for it fails to include the pieces turned out by the Dublin factories, and these are nearly as likely to be mistaken for Cork or Waterford wares, as the two latter are likely to be mistaken for each other. _The blue-grey tinge popularly regarded as exclusively associated with Waterford glass is quite an erroneous means of identification, as most of the pieces I have come across, actually impressed with the mark "Cork Glass Co.," were of this tint._ Dublin glass, before 1800, was very dark in colour, and the very early pieces are almost black. It is very frequently suggested that the chemical action of the air on old Irish glass may have something to do with the mystery of its unique coloration; and, strange as it may seem, it is an undoubted fact that glass does change its tone with the slow lapse of years. I believe this to be specially so with Irish glass which has remained a long time in Ireland; and the existence of such phenomena is borne out by the effect that the atmosphere of Ireland has on old white marble. It may be argued that, should this be the case, the coloration of Irish glass may be caused entirely by the atmospheric conditions under which it is kept, and owe nothing to its local peculiarities of manufacture. This theory, however, cannot be substantiated, _as English glass does not appear to be affected by Irish atmosphere to anything like the same degree as the native metal_. I have frequently seen old Irish dessert services and chandeliers in which individual pieces which had been broken had been replaced by facsimiles made in England. These replaced pieces, however early their origin, do not appear to have changed colour in the least, and because of this can be readily singled out among their fellows of native manufacture. RESILIENCE OF IRISH GLASS. Irish glass is far tougher and stronger than any other, hence its wonderful survival even when in constant use. It takes a severe blow to break it, or even chip it, and I have seen solid pieces fall on a hard floor without being any the worse, beyond "singing" loudly. It has a wonderful elasticity, and actually bounces in a way that I have never found in any other glass. Some time ago the ring securing a large and valuable chandelier to the ceiling of one of my rooms gave way, with the result that the chandelier fell to the ground from a height of twelve or fifteen feet. It was, of course, broken with the fall from such a height, but the centre pendant, a large solid lump of lead glass, weighing 9 lbs., had not been shattered in the least, _though the force of the fall had flattened its point_. THE FEEL OF IRISH GLASS. Irish glass does not feel harsh or cold like most English or foreign, but gives a sense of soft warmth to the touch. There is something of the same distinction as between porcelain and earthenware, though not nearly to such a marked extent. One has to acquire a knowledge of it by experience; and though the tyro may at first perceive little or no variation between the feel of Irish and English glass, if he will cultivate his sense of touch by handling authenticated pieces of both varieties, he will soon find that there is a small but perfectly distinguishable difference between them. THE RING OF IRISH GLASS. I must make special mention of the ring of Irish glass, as this is an important point. All British glass has a clear, definite, bright ring, but to anyone with a musical ear it will be interesting to listen to the peculiar throb in Irish glass, not so much a ring as a rich throb, sometimes (particularly in large pieces) like a vibrato between two notes. I do not say that you get this in all Irish glass, only in the greater part of it. No one, for instance, would expect a candlestick to ring or a salt-cellar, or a thick shallow piece heavily cut. Jugs, as a rule, also have a special dislike to displaying their voices, so, naturally, people must use their discernment. DIFFERENCE IN THE RING OF OTHER GLASS. This peculiar ring of Irish glass is not to be found in glass of alien origin. The foreign copies are quite different. Sometimes they will not ring at all, especially the wine glasses; the better ones give a sound of sorts, but it is very dead, and, if carefully listened to, the note is never true, just a little flat, quite unlike the "singing Waterford." =FAKES= These are innumerable, and belong to all periods, old and modern, since Irish glass first became popular. No glass in the world has been so much copied, and none has, in the long run, stood out so successfully in defying the faker. This constitutes one of the great attractions of Irish glass to the collector, for though many imitations of it have been made of sufficient excellence to deceive the inexperienced and unwary, it cannot be copied sufficiently well to deceive the connoisseur. The finest reproductions from France, Belgium, Holland, and even Germany, all fail in colour and texture, though some of the cutting is exceedingly clever. At the present moment there is an enormous amount of spurious glass on the market, and some time ago a lot of remarkable copies were in circulation. They were the best that have yet appeared, especially the urns and candlesticks, and _numbers_ fell into the hands of the unwary. One special weakness, however, was very noticeable--_the colour fell in the tall pieces, leaving the tops whiter than the bases_. PLATE VIII. [Illustration: WATERFORD BOWL OF RARE BEAUTY. 7-1/2 in. high, 12 in. diam. Engraved with escutcheon of the WINDE family (Chamberlain to H.R.H. Princess Sophia, sister to George III.). Probably a Christening Bowl. _Walter Harding collection._] [Illustration: A REMARKABLE CONE-SHAPED BOWL IN TWO PARTS. 12 in. high, base 8 in.; _circa_ 1770. No duplicate. _Originally in the Author's and now in the Walter Harding collection._] At the present moment some very clever reproductions from Bohemia are arriving in England, but they are very light and have a peculiar _pink tinge_, which is more specially noticeable in the larger pieces. As has already been pointed out, nearly all Irish glass is heavy, and a very large proportion of the modern fakes fail to attain the required weight. A marked exception to the general rule of weight is to be found in Irish blown specimens, produced from about 1735 to 1750, which were very light, and only engraved or quite plain, _never cut_. The faker frequently forgets the latter point. When, however, he remembers it, and produces plain or engraved pieces similar to the Irish, there is yet another point of distinction. The Irish pieces often show air-bubbles, but never the little specks of sand which, as I have already said, almost invariably appear in the metal peculiar to foreign glass. DIFFERENCE OF COLOUR. The most important distinction between Irish glass and foreign imitations is to be found in their colours, and in this respect it is the early glass of Cork, Waterford, and Dublin that defies the copyist more than any other. Its steel or grey-blue tone stands alone, although, alas, imitations artificially coloured with thin cobalt and ultramarine have been, and in all probability will continue to be, sold as the genuine article. In the analysis of Irish glass there is no trace of cobalt. Some copies of an almost emerald green have changed hands in good faith as Waterford glass. How could green be produced from lead oxide, potash, soda, and silica?--for this is the analysis of an early piece of Waterford "pot metal" glass of the dark grey hue. =THE INCREASING POPULARITY OF IRISH GLASS= The multitude of fakes on the market bears testimony to the increasing demand for Irish glass. During the last six years, those members of the public who have a knowledge of glass have realised more and more the value of the genuine Irish article, which, of course, is due to the fact that it cannot be copied sufficiently well to deceive the connoisseur. The direct outcome of this is a steady increase in the market value, and rare specimens, which were made at from 25s. to £4, now readily fetch anything from £10 to £400; in fact, a single piece sold recently for £750, and a beautiful bowl passed through my hands at £550; while only a few months ago a chandelier was sold at an Irish auction for £1,218. Magnificent specimens of Irish glass have found their way into English collections, as will be seen by the plates shown in this book. Photographs of most of the well-known pieces in the Dublin Museum, and in private Irish houses, have already been reproduced in various publications; but the accompanying photographs are of exceptional specimens, taken exclusively from _English_ collections, and a very large number of them has passed through my own hands. EXPERIENCE ESSENTIAL. It is absolutely impossible to become a sound judge of Irish glass without years of experience, and, above all, without the constant actual handling of pieces of all dates and descriptions, consequently the genuine Irish dealer who has lived amongst it all his life has a very great pull with regard to actual knowledge. So many specimens were made to order, and were therefore of special shape and cutting, that it is very difficult for the uninitiated to recognise a piece as being of any certain factory or period, and he is naturally mystified when he tries to classify such pieces into more or less well-known categories. For instance, an ancestor of mine had in his possession an early deep coloured bowl, cover, and stand of exceptional quality, made about 1750. His son, in 1790, had it cut in "flat diamonds" (a cutting then much in vogue), the result being a specimen of early dark "wavy" glass, adorned with the beautiful cutting of forty years later, and this is only _one_ instance of many which could be quoted. IRISH GLASS SOLD ABROAD. Great quantities of Irish glass were made, and the official Irish records show that large numbers of pieces were exported to America, Spain, Portugal, and the West Indies, etc. Many of our finest specimens were also taken to Holland, where they found a permanent home, _and were extensively copied by the foreign glass-makers_. France was very keen on Irish glass, and I have unearthed there some very lovely and absolutely genuine specimens, especially wall-lights and chandeliers. Needless to say, a very big trade was done by the glass-houses direct with old Irish families, who gave large orders for glass-ware, ranging from single pieces to complete table services, of which few records appear to have been kept. UNCUT PIECES. A large amount of Irish glass was made and put by, uncut, as Irish families (especially those who lived near the glass-houses) preferred to choose their own cuttings from drawings, so as to have something different from their neighbours. This accounts for the number of uncut pieces still to be found in various parts of Ireland, especially thick finger-bowls, which were, undoubtedly, made in great quantities to await orders. THE ILLUSTRATIONS. The following plates give some idea of the beautiful pieces of glass which have left Ireland, but there are magnificent specimens still there, which will probably never be placed on the market--pieces as poetic in design as their owners are in mind; pieces that will live for the sons and heirs to love and cherish with the many other treasures of Ireland's finest periods, long after Sinn Feiners have ceased their endeavours to destroy all that is best and loveliest in the old country. At the time of writing this, I find an enormous amount of spurious "Irish" glass on the market, and I take this opportunity of warning all collectors and dealers (many of whom are my friends) to be exceedingly careful. It is essential that all lovers of Irish glass should keep their collections pure, and some of these fakes are so clever that dealers will have to exercise the greatest vigilance and care if they are to avoid the ignominy of having pieces which they have sold in good faith returned to them as "wrong." At the present time, all the best known dealers in Irish glass are trusted by their customers, and their advice is taken without question. It is in the best interests of their great profession that this sense of confidence should remain. In conclusion, I should like to add that I hope this book--written, as it is, at the request of many lovers of Irish glass--may be a real help to the novice, and assist him to distinguish between the "true" piece and the forgery. [Illustration: STAR FROM A CHANDELIER.] [Illustration: THE STANNUS CREST, ENGRAVED ON A WATERFORD BOWL, 1790. (_See Plate XVI._)] ILLUSTRATIONS _Photos by Hana_ =BOWLS, DISHES, PLATES AND TAZZE= PLATE IX. [Illustration: WATERFORD BOWL, _circa_ 1783. 8 in. by 10 in. Very flat diamond cutting, on three feet carved as paws. This bowl, which is one of the finest the author has ever seen, is exceptionally notable from the fact that the pontil has been _worked up into an ornament_ instead of being broken off. In the collection of Commander Swithinbank.] [Illustration: WATERFORD FLOWER BOWL, 12 in. high. Heavy early glass, finely cut, with castellated edge. _Circa_ 1783. In the collection of Commander Swithinbank.] [Illustration: WATERFORD CANOE-SHAPED BOWL, deep colour and rare shape; 1783. 10 in. high, 14 in. wide. In Viscount Furness's collection.] [Illustration: An exceptionally large "TURNOVER" CORK BOWL, on heavily domed base; early. Flat cutting. 12 in. high. In the collection of Mrs. Rea. A similar example is in the Walter Harding collection.] PLATE X. [Illustration: Rare heavily chiselled CHRISTENING BOWL. Irish, 1760. 26 in. across. In the Author's collection.] [Illustration: MUNSTER GLASS BOWL. 10 in. by 11 in. _Circa_ 1780. Heavily but beautifully cut. In the collection of Mrs. Hall.] [Illustration: "PINCHED" SIDED BOWL on round domed foot. 11 in. wide, 8 in. high. In Mr. Henderson's collection.] [Illustration: WATERFORD ORANGE BOWL. 16 in. by 7-1/2 in. Unusually large. _Circa_ 1790. In Major Pope's collection.] PLATE XI. [Illustration: Very large early IRISH MOULDED BOWL. It rings exactly like a bell. Deep coloured and very soft glass. No duplicate known. Date 1760. In Mrs. Rea's collection.] [Illustration: A wonderful early "PINCHED" BOWL, showing the remarkable "rainbow" band of faint colour running round the body. The foot is square and moulded in a "dome." Note that the waste metal running from the square base has not been cut away, proving that this piece, for some reason unknown, has been left unfinished. There is no trace of "milkiness" about this bowl. The small one (3 in. high) beside it is a traveller's sample, made this minute size for convenience in carrying about. In the Author's collection.] [Illustration: Shallow diamond-cut WATERFORD REVOLVING CENTRE DISH, 18 in. by 6 in. The glass all fits together without any metal mounting. _Circa_ 1783. In the Hon. Mrs. York's collection.] PLATE XII. [Illustration: Rare specimen of CORK GLASS ORANGE BOWL, _circa_ 1790. 14 in. long, 8-1/2 in. high. Originally in the Author's collection; now in the Walter Harding collection.] [Illustration: Finely cut WATERFORD BOWL, _circa_ 1790. 13 in. long, 9 in. high. In Viscount Furness's collection.] PLATE XIII. [Illustration: Early Cork "PILLAR" BOWL. In Viscount Furness's collection.] [Illustration: Large BOWL of exceptional shape, colour, and cutting. Knopped stem. _Circa_ 1785. In the Author's family collection.] PLATE XIV. [Illustration: Curious specimen of early IRISH GLASS, engraved. Of a beautiful deep colour. The stand is of Irish bog-oak, Celtic carving, the Irish wolfhound being very carefully executed. 18 in. high. In the collection of Commander Swithinbank.] PLATE XV. [Illustration: Large TWO-HANDLED POSSET BOWL, 18 in. high. Possibly as early as 1750. Irish. In the collection of Mrs. Hall.] [Illustration: Rare heavy, dark, plain OGEE BOWL, 11 in. by 11 in. Irish, _circa_ 1760. In the collection of Mr. Robert Frank.] PLATE XVI. [Illustration: STRAWBERRY AND FAN CUT BOWL, 8 in. high. Made at Waterford in 1790, and bearing the Stannus crest, finely engraved. In the Author's collection.] [Illustration: WATERFORD BOWL AND BASIN, cut all over with large, flat double stars. 11 in. by 12 in. _Circa_ 1783. In Mr. Wild's collection.] [Illustration: TWO-HANDLED CUP AND COVER, heavy clear glass. 4 in. high. _Circa_ 1780. Dublin (copy of Bristol, but much heavier). In Mrs. Day's collection.] [Illustration: A giant "TURNOVER" ROUND BOWL AND DISH. Bowl, 12 in. wide; dish, 20 in. Waterford, _circa_ 1815. In Mrs. Rea's collection.] [Illustration: OCTAGONAL DEEP "STEP" CUT WATERFORD DISH, 12 in. _Circa_ 1825. A very unusual specimen. In Mrs. Oliver's collection.] PLATE XVII. [Illustration: Set of "STEP" CUT DISHES with fan handles. Waterford, _circa_ 1820. In the collection of Mrs. Hall.] [Illustration: Pair of BANQUETING TAZZE, Munster glass of about 1790-1810. Made of heavy dark glass _in one piece_, with a heavily domed foot, and finely cut in slash and diamonds. They are 13 in. high, and weigh 32 lbs. each. In the collection of Mrs. Hall.] PLATE XVIII. [Illustration: Early IRISH "POSSET BOWL," probably 1730. Heavy glass of a beautiful dark colour. In Mrs. Rea's collection.] [Illustration: Large IRISH URN, _circa_ 1795. In Mr. R. Philipson's collection.] [Illustration: WATERFORD "CANOE" SHAPED BOWL, on scroll base, 1790. 14 in. long, 9 in. high. In the Author's family collection.] PLATE XIX. [Illustration: A beautiful WATERFORD SALAD BOWL, _circa_ 1785. 12 in. diam., 5 in. high. In Colonel Fitzgerald Stannus's collection.] [Illustration: One of a pair of heavy URNS, very early Dublin. 12 in. high. In Mr. Hugh Weguelin's collection.] [Illustration: A rare FINGER BOWL, marked "Dublin," very dark colour and soft glass. An early piece. In Mr. Robert Frank's collection.] PLATE XX. [Illustration: Round CORK BOWL, of beautiful colour and ring, _circa_ 1785. In Mr. Henderson's collection.] [Illustration: Three rare specimens of very early IRISH GLASS. The pressed piece in the centre is particularly beautiful in colour and texture, and the two vases are very heavy, probably early Dublin, with unfinished feet. In Mr. R. Philipson's collection.] PLATE XXI. [Illustration: IRISH PLAIN PUNCH BOWL AND LADLE, heavy uncut glass of fine colour, _circa_ 1770. In Mr. R. Frank's collection.] [Illustration: Fine examples of the later period (after 1815) "STEP" CUTTING WATERFORD. This glass is whiter and much clearer than the earlier examples. In the Author's collection.] PLATE XXII. [Illustration: One of the rarest WATERFORD "2-PIECE" BOWLS in existence, _circa_ 1785. 12-1/2 in. high, 10 in. wide, 14-1/2 in. long. Remarkable for its colour and texture. Originally in the Author's collection; now in the Walter Harding collection.] [Illustration: WATERFORD "HELMET" BOWL, very rare, and a pair of large, finely cut oval WATERFORD DISHES. Adam period. In Major Courtauld's collection.] =CANDELABRA, CANDLESTICKS AND CHANDELIERS= PLATE XXIII. [Illustration: Original CHANDELIER, made at Waterford in 1785. 6 ft. 3 in. long. The upper trio of arms are "hand bent," and the stars on these arms are 6 in. high. The pendant at the bottom weighs 9 lbs. In the Author's family collection.] PLATE XXIV. [Illustration: Original CHANDELIER, made at Waterford in 1788. 6 ft. 6 in. long. The arms are each 2 ft. 8 in. long, and it weighs 2-1/2 cwt. The cutting, workmanship, and colour are unsurpassed. It is built upon an iron rod covered in silver tubing. In the Author's family collection.] PLATE XXV. [Illustration: A WATERFORD CHANDELIER of exquisite design and cutting. 4 ft. 6 in. long. In the Author's collection.] PLATE XXVI. [Illustration: Pair of WATERFORD SIDEBOARD LIGHTS, of the finest period and rare cutting. Adam design. In the Author's collection.] [Illustration: WATERFORD GLASS CHIMNEY SET, draped with deep "pot-metal" blue drops. 20 in. high. Probably Dublin, _circa_ 1815. In the Author's collection.] PLATE XXVII. [Illustration: Set of three WATERFORD TABLE LIGHTS, 26 in. high. In Viscount Furness's collection.] [Illustration: Rare set of four single DINING TABLE LIGHTS. The facet cutting on the long "reflectors" is particularly fine and interesting. Waterford, _circa_ 1785. In Viscount Furness's collection.] PLATE XXVIII. [Illustration: One of a pair of ADAM LIGHTS, 4 ft. high. Waterford glass, on old marble "Bosi" work pedestals. Slightly restored. In Viscount Furness's collection.] PLATE XXIX. [Illustration: Typical pair of IRISH TABLE LIGHTS, 25 in. high, on square bases. _Circa_ 1780. In the Author's collection.] [Illustration: Pair of WATERFORD TABLE LIGHTS, hung with the palest amber round drops (Dublin), and mounted on Wedgwood urns. 22 in. high. Late Adam period. In Mr. Hugh Weguelin's collection.] PLATE XXX. [Illustration: Three WATERFORD FACET-CUT TABLE LIGHTS, with almond-shaped drops, 22 in. and 23 in. high. _Circa_ 1783. In Mr. E. Parsons' collection.] [Illustration: Three WATERFORD TABLE LIGHTS, Adam period, 24 in. high, with "almond" drops. In Major Pope's collection.] [Illustration: Pair of WATERFORD CANDLESTICKS, 1785. 10 in. high. In Mr. H. Samuelson's collection.] PLATE XXXI. [Illustration: WATERFORD CHANDELIER, 4 ft. 3 in. long. _Circa_ 1783. In Mrs. Cox's collection.] [Illustration: Early WATERFORD CANDELABRA and pair of CANDLESTICKS with facet-cut ornament. In Colonel Jenner's collection.] PLATE XXXII. [Illustration: ADAM CHANDELIER, Waterford, in its original condition. 5 ft. long. In Mrs. Sabin's collection.] PLATE XXXIII. [Illustration: IRISH CANDLE SHADES, 23 in. high; finest period. One cut flat double stars. These shades were used in halls and covered large-size church candles. Unique specimens. In the Author's collection.] PLATE XXXIV. [Illustration: Pair of WATERFORD ALTER CANDLESTICKS. _Circa_ 1783. In Mr. R. Frank's collection.] [Illustration: Three unique early IRISH CANDLESTICKS. Probably 1760. In Mrs. Rea's collection. These candlesticks have the largest bases on record, with high domes, and bear the "pontil" mark _on top of the nozzle instead of at the bottom_. They were made upside down.] PLATE XXXV. [Illustration: Very large IRISH CANDLESTICKS, with unusual bases. _Circa_ 1770. In Mrs. Rea's collection.] [Illustration: Pair of rare WATERFORD TAPERSTICKS, 5 in. high. _Circa_ 1790. In Mrs. Rea's collection.] PLATE XXXVI. [Illustration: Pair of IRISH LAMPS. Probably Waterford, 1790. Very unusual specimens. In the Walter Harding collection.] [Illustration: WATERFORD CANDLESTICK, 1783, 14 in. high; and a pair of early CORK CANDLESTICKS, 12 in. high. In the Walter Harding collection.] PLATE XXXVII. [Illustration: Set of three very early IRISH BLOWN GLASS RUSHLIGHT HOLDERS, early eighteenth century. In Mr. Robert Frank's collection.] [Illustration: WATERFORD TABLE LIGHTS, of exceptional quality, 24 in. high. In Mr. Fitzroy Chapman's collection.] PLATE XXXVIII. [Illustration: Pair of antique ALTAR CANDLESTICKS, about 16 in. high. Waterford, of the very finest period and cutting. In the Walter Harding collection.] PLATE XXXIX. [Illustration: Four fine specimens of WATERFORD CANDLESTICKS. In the Walter Harding collection.] [Illustration: A wonderful Irish deep-coloured, moulded MUG, 8 in. high. Probably Dublin. _Circa_ 1740. In the Walter Harding collection.] =DECANTERS, JUGS, AND BOTTLES= PLATE XL. [Illustration: SHAPED WATERFORD JUG. 11 in. high. In the Walter Harding collection.] [Illustration: UNIQUE JUG, ordinarily termed a "freak piece." 25 in. high, weighing 18 lbs. Irish glass, _circa_ 1760. An ordinary cream jug is placed beside it for purposes of comparison. In the Author's collection.] [Illustration: Three very interesting IRISH JUGS. The two cream jugs are finest period Waterford. The centre jug is very early and the metal peculiarly soft. In Mr. R. Philipson's collection.] [Illustration: TANKARD, Waterford or Cork, _circa_ 1785. 9 in. high. TWO-HANDLED SPUN CUP, probably Dublin, 1750; deep toned glass, very soft to the touch. 8 in. high. In the Author's collection. HEAVY LUSTRE CUT JUG, flint glass, _circa_ 1800. 7 in. high. In Commander Swithinbank's collection.] PLATE XLI. [Illustration: EARLY BLOWN CORK DECANTERS, with the primitive engraving of the period. These decanters are impress-marked "Cork Glass Co." In the Author's collection.] [Illustration: Pair of heavy old MUNSTER GLASS LIQUEUR BOTTLES and an early BLOWN IRISH GLASS DECANTER, engraved. In the Author's collection.] [Illustration: STEP AND PRISMATIC CUT LIQUEUR BOTTLES, Waterford, 1820-50.] [Illustration: SWAG AND DIAMOND CUT WATERFORD DECANTERS, _circa_ 1780-90. In the Author's' collection.] PLATE XLII. [Illustration: Set of early "MUNSTER" JUGS. In the Author's collection.] PLATE XLIII. [Illustration: Set of early "MUNSTER" DECANTERS. In the Author's collection.] =GOBLETS, CUPS, AND CHALICES= PLATE XLIV. [Illustration: CHALICE, 1790-1800. Sharp diamond cut, 13 in. high. One of the rarest pieces of Irish glass. In Mrs. Hall's collection.] [Illustration: A set of DUBLIN "LUSTRE CUT" GOBLETS, _circa_ 1850. The property of Mr. David Blair, who has a similar set of tumblers.] [Illustration: EARLY SWEETMEAT STANDS. Irish glass, moulded 1760-70. In the Author's collection.] PLATE XLV. [Illustration: A rare CHALICE. Munster glass, 1790-1800. In Mrs. Magee's collection.] =SWEETMEAT STANDS= PLATE XLVI. [Illustration: A WATERFORD BASKET SWEETMEAT STAND, 24 in. high. In Mrs. Magee's collection.] [Illustration: MOULDED SWEETMEAT STAND, with two candle sconces. Early Cork. In Mrs. Magee's collection.] =TABLE SERVICES= PLATE XLVII. [Illustration: An entire early WATERFORD DESSERT SERVICE. Leaf cutting, and "drawn stem" wine-glasses. In the possession of the Hon. Mrs. Vickers.] PLATE XLVIII. [Illustration: WATERFORD DESSERT SERVICE, _circa_ 1785. In the collection of Major Pope.] [Illustration: A miniature WATERFORD SWEETMEAT STAND, only 13 in. high. The handles of the baskets are glass, and the piece is a most beautiful colour. Late Adam period. In the Walter Harding collection.] [Illustration: Early DUBLIN POSSET TWO-HANDLED BOWL, 1760; FLAT FLASK, 1770; GOBLETS, MUGS, and TEA CADDY of early dates. In the Author's collection.] PLATE XLIX. [Illustration: TABLE SERVICE OF ENGRAVED CORK GLASS, early Adam period. Glass older than the engraving. In the collection of Mr. Robert Frank.] [Illustration: Early IRISH GLASS, the lamp probably as early as 1660. Originally in the Author's collection; now in the Walter Harding collection.] =URNS, HONEY POTS, SALTS, ETC.= PLATE L. [Illustration: Pair of early IRISH URNS, 22 in. high. Magnificent soft dark metal and very shallow cutting. Probably no duplicates. In the collection of Commander Swithinbank.] [Illustration: Collection of tall URNS, Cork and Waterford, _circa_ 1785. In the collection of Commander Swithinbank.] PLATE LI. [Illustration: Set of three WATERFORD URNS, _circa_ 1783. Very fine examples of flat cutting. 14 in. and 12 in. high. In the collection of Mrs. Hall.] [Illustration: Celtic motif] [Illustration: Decoration] =MISCELLANEOUS= PLATE LII. [Illustration: Pair of WIG STANDS, probably Dublin, heavy lead-coloured glass of an early period. In Mr. Robert Frank's collection.] [Illustration: FINE MUNSTER GLASS. In the collection of Mr. Hunt.] [Illustration: TYPICAL WATERFORD CRUETS AND CRUET BOTTLES.] [Illustration: OLD STRAWBERRY CUT DUBLIN TEAPOT. In Mrs. Day's collection. OLD MUNSTER GLASS TEAPOT, moulded. In the Author's collection. TEAPOT. Waterford, _circa_ 1783. In Mr. Robert Frank's collection.] [Illustration: CREAM OR ICE PAILS, Irish, _circa_ 1825-35. A wonderful example of deep step cutting, with feather handles. The glass is nearly 3/4 in. thick. In the possession of Mrs. McBean.] PLATE LIII. [Illustration: A very fine old Irish blue glass BOWL, with a magnificent ring, 9 in. diam. In the Author's family collection.] [Illustration: A very rare Dublin blue glass BOWL, with unfinished foot, 8 in. high; extremely heavy. Specially made, _circa_ 1740. In the Author's family collection.] [Illustration: Pair of LACEMAKER'S LAMPS, heavy purple-blue glass, made in Dublin, _circa_ 1730-40. 13 in. high. In the Author's family collection.] [Illustration: Decoration] =RUBBINGS= PLATE LIV. [Illustration: The only cutting on a rare canoe-shaped Waterford bowl in the Author's collection. "Flutes" also a very early idea, but became deeper and smaller and sharper as time went on.] [Illustration: A wonderful special cutting on a "pinched" Waterford boat-shaped bowl a little deeper than engraving. In the Author's collection.] [Illustration: A very beautiful fan edge from a fine Waterford bowl of _circa_ 1815.] [Illustration: Vandyke cutting, more commonly known as "bull's-eye." A cutting very much done between 1770 and 1800, and probably more copied both abroad and in England _than any other_. Sometimes referred to as "Geometrical design."] [Illustration: Beautiful swag and line cutting with fan edge. This is an early effort, probably 1765; but there is a fine example on a Waterford dessert service in the possession of Colonel Wike.] PLATE LV. [Illustration: Hobnail cutting, _late_ 1830, so often confused with diamond cutting.] [Illustration: Strawberry cutting, so often confused with hobnail cutting; much used from 1780. This is an early example. Note the unevenness of the lines.] [Illustration: Flat diamond. This was a _shallow_ cutting from _circa_ 1768 onwards; after 1790 it became _much_ deeper and sharper, the centre coming out to a sharp point.] [Illustration: Fine "fan" cutting from an old Waterford decanter.] [Illustration: "Double," or "long" diamond, so often called in England "lozenge." It was a very soft shallow cutting till after 1780, when it became bolder and deeper.] PLATE LVI. [Illustration: One of many adaptations of cutting on Irish glass from 1790 to 1835.] [Illustration: One of many adaptations of cutting on Irish glass from 1790 to 1835.] [Illustration: Cutting from a rare Waterford bowl. "Leaf," "shallow diamond," and "flute." This early cutting was very irregular, and so shallow that it is little deeper than heavy engraving.] [Illustration: A fine "castellated" edge from a Waterford fruit dish.] PLATE LVII. [Illustration: A most rare and very shallow adaptation of diamond cutting from an old Irish chalice, _circa_ 1770.] [Illustration: A most beautiful bit of cutting on a rare early Waterford mirror in Commander Swithinbank's collection.] [Illustration: Curious shallow cutting from a set of Cork plates and finger-bowls in the Author's collection.] [Illustration: An example of step cutting, horizontal and vertical, from a late Waterford bowl.] PLATE LVIII. [Illustration: Cutting from an early Waterford canoe-shaped bowl. In the Author's collection.] [Illustration: Very early cutting from Mr. Weguelin's Waterford urns, showing the remarkable inaccuracy of the cutting.] [Illustration: A variation of the early leaf cutting, somewhat later, therefore a little sharper and more symmetrical.] [Illustration: Flat "leaf," one of the first ideas of cutting. It is so soft that to the touch it is almost like moulding.] PLATE LIX. [Illustration: A wonderful example of "lustre" cutting. Dublin, _circa_ 1785.] [Illustration: Cutting, soft and shallow, from a Cork bowl, late eighteenth century. In the Author's collection.] [Illustration: A soft early star found on the bottoms of finger-bowls and decanters, _circa_ 1750. Note the remarkable variation from the given centre.] [Illustration: A very beautiful shallow-cut star, from a Waterford dish, about 1790.] [Illustration: A very early husk or leaf cutting from an early Irish wine-glass, _circa_ 1760. This is one of the earliest cuttings.] PLATE LX. [Illustration: ONE OF A PAIR OF DUBLIN WALL LIGHTS. _In the Author's collection._ _From a drawing in the Author's possession._] Transcriber's Notes: Plate XI caption, removed "." from "rainbow." band. Italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and bold text by =equal signs=. HTML version, Illustrations have been laid out sequentially, with captions below each. 
44750	----	THE LIBRARY OF WORK AND PLAY CARPENTRY AND WOODWORK By Edwin W. Foster ELECTRICITY AND ITS EVERYDAY USES By John F. Woodhull, Ph.D. GARDENING AND FARMING By Ellen Eddy Shaw HOME DECORATION By Charles Franklin Warner, Sc.D. HOUSEKEEPING By Elizabeth Hale Gilman MECHANICS, INDOORS AND OUT By Fred T. Hodgson NEEDLECRAFT By Effie Archer Archer OUTDOOR SPORTS, AND GAMES By Claude H. Miller, Ph.B. OUTDOOR WORK By Mary Rogers Miller WORKING IN METALS By Charles Conrad Sleffel [Illustration: HANGING A PICTURE The wall space is a part of the framing of a picture] HOME DECORATION BY PROF. CHARLES F. WARNER, Sc.D. _For eight years Master of the Rindge Manual Training School, Mass. Twelve years principal of the Technical High School and Director of the Evening School of Trades, Springfield, Mass._ [Illustration: Title Page] GARDEN CITY NEW YORK DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 1916 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY TO THE BOYS AND GIRLS OF AMERICA THIS BOOK WHICH RECORDS WHAT SOME OF THEM HAVE DONE IS HOPEFULLY DEDICATED Some pure lovers of art discard the formula, _Art for Progress, the Beautiful Useful_, fearing lest the useful should deform the beautiful. They tremble to see the drudge's hand attached to the muse's arm. They are solicitous for the sublime if it descends as far as to humanity. Ah! they are in error. The useful, far from circumscribing the sublime, enlarges it.... Is Aurora less splendid, clad less in purple and emerald--suffers she any diminution of majesty and of radiant grace, because, foreseeing an insect's thirst, she carefully secretes in the flower the dewdrop needed by the bee? Victor Hugo. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This volume is the result of an effort to bring together in close relation with fundamental principles of design a variety of practical problems which are more or less closely connected with the general problem of home decoration and suited to the constructive ability of boys and girls from twelve to eighteen years of age. While the book is mainly a record of the author's experience and observation in this department of educational work, he has received many suggestions from co-workers in the same field. It will be impossible to give credit to all who have directly or indirectly assisted in the preparation of this book: but special acknowledgments are due to Mr. Fred M. Watts, who furnished the material for the chapter on Pottery and several drawings for other parts of the book; to Miss Grace L. Bell for the illustrations and descriptions embodied in the chapter on Block Printing; to Mr. Burton A. Adams for the problems in metal work; to Mr. Edwin A. Finch and Mr. Lewis O. Richardson who contributed many of the specifications for the problems in furniture-making; to Miss Elizabeth M. Morton for specific suggestions pertaining to the subject of dress as related to the principles of decoration; and to Mrs. Ruth B. S. Flower, of Florence, Mass., who supplied several of the photographs and much of the descriptive matter for the chapter on Weaving. Springfield, Mass. C. F. W. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. Introductory--The Story of a House 3 II. Decorations and Furniture 34 III. Pictures 64 IV. The Arrangement of Flowers 81 V. Decorative Fabrics 95 VI. Dress and the Principles of Decoration 121 VII. Furniture Making 129 VIII. Finishing and Re-finishing 212 IX. Hand Weaving 244 X. Pottery 280 XI. Decorative Work in Leather, Copper, and Other Materials 321 XII. Concluding Suggestions--Country Homes 366 ILLUSTRATIONS Hanging a Picture _Frontispiece_ FACING PAGE All the Rough Carpentry was Assigned to the Boys of the Woodworking Sections of the Vocational School 22 The Boys of the Forging Classes of the Technical High School were not Overlooked in the Distribution of the Work on the House 24 A Table Runner of Russian Crash and Pillow Cover with Geometrical Design 96 Window Draperies with Stencilled Border 108 Crocheted Panels, a Linen Work Bag with Conventional Landscape in Darning Stitch, a Crash Table Mat Embroidered in Darning and Couching Stitch 118 Finishing a Library Table 212 Weaving a Rug 244 Hand Made Rugs, Hand Made Towels 252 An Alcove with Window Draperies, Pillow Covers, Window Seat and Moss Green Rug, All Hand Woven 262 Hand Woven Window Draperies, Couch Cover, Slumber Rug, and Pillow Covers 266 Girls at Work on Pottery 280 Bowls 294 Vases and Fern Dishes 312 Tiles 316 Pottery: Designed and Made by Schoolgirls 318 Decorative Forgings 364 HOME DECORATION [Illustration: A model house: Designed by girls and built by boys] I INTRODUCTORY THE STORY OF A HOUSE To design, plan, and build a house is a task that rarely falls to the lot of boys and girls. In fact, it is not the common experience of men and women to build houses without the aid of architects, masons, and carpenters. Such a task, however, was recently offered to certain classes in one of the public schools of a well-known New England city. It was, indeed, a school problem, and yet there was something about it that seemed to suggest larger and more interesting things than are ordinarily dealt with in the school-room. It did not seem at all like some school work. It was more like real life; for all boys and girls must some day have homes of their own, and here was a chance to learn how the house, which is an important part of every home, is planned and built. It is hardly necessary to say that this work--or play, if you like that word better--was undertaken with genuine enthusiasm. It was a task crammed full of the pleasure of interest and of accomplishment--full of the joy of doing something worth while--from the beginning to the end. _The House a Work of Art._--One of the first lessons learned by these young builders--perhaps the most important one of all--was that a great many things have to be thought of in planning a house, if the thing is to be well done. It is not simply a question of deciding how many rooms one will have, arranging them in some conventional order, and building the house around them with whatever external features style or fancy may dictate. Too many houses, it is true, are planned, or at least put up, in this thoughtless fashion; and whatever goes into them in decoration or furniture is generally chosen either for necessary use or for display--not with any thought of the real comfort and satisfaction that come from artistic surroundings. People who are satisfied with such dwellings seem to show less appreciation of art, the highest product of civilization, than those uncivilized tribes who decorated their caves or huts with beautiful rugs of their own weaving and who ornamented their pottery and their utensils and implements with wonderfully conceived and elaborately wrought designs. Modern cave dwellers in apartment houses with all the conveniences of their ready-made surroundings, are in danger of missing that self-expression in their home belongings that encouraged and delighted even the savage. The most extreme example of this form of degeneracy is found in the suggestion of a certain great inventor, that the age of concrete construction, now at hand, means that we are to have concrete houses poured into a standard mould, hardened in twenty-four hours, and finished for occupancy in a day or two. The boys and girls of this story would not have accepted a machine-made, standardized house if one had been offered them, ready for use. There was a special purpose for which their house was to be planned and built, as there generally is in the case of any real house. No style A, B, or C, chosen from any series of pattern-built or moulded houses, could fulfil such a purpose; and even if it could, would they willingly give up all the fun of planning and building and furnishing? Would they forego the lessons of experience to be learned from all this work? This is always a large part of the satisfaction which comes to any one who builds his own house. In the present instance it was the chief motive, since the boys and girls who were planning this house were not expecting to make their home there. _Why the House Was Built._--What, then, was the purpose for which this house was to be built; and what were the specific problems involved in realizing this purpose? It was to be a practice house for the girls of the household technology course. This meant that it should be, so far as possible, a model house; but it must of necessity be a simple one. Economy, always a safe guide, was a most important factor in determining the character of the design. A limited appropriation--about $1000--for building material was available. Economy of space as well as of expense was also important. The only available land was a triangular lot in the corner of the school yard, 665 square feet in area. This limited the dimensions of the floor plan to 24 by 35 feet. It was decided to develop the design within these dimensions, on a rectangular plan, with one story and a hip roof, because such a design would present comparatively easy problems in framing and insure a building of pleasing external proportions. THE GENERAL DESIGN AND THE PLAN In attacking the problem of design the method of approach was determined by the fact that school-girls and school-boys were to be the architects and builders. House planning, home decoration, and household management were important subjects of study on the part of the girls and various forms of drawing and constructive work were required of all the boys of this school; so they all felt that they had a right to contribute something out of their study and experience that might be of value in working out this problem. The design must therefore be a composite of the best features of many studies. _A Composite Design._--The rooms required for a house of this character were thought to be a hall, a living room, a dining-room, a kitchen, a pantry, a bedroom with a closet, a bath room, and a linen closet. Nothing short of this outfit of rooms would satisfy the demands of a house to be used to give practical training in all the essentials of plain housekeeping and in the entertainment of guests. With these requirements in mind and with full knowledge of all the limitations of the problem, the girls of the junior and senior classes, who were taking the course in household technology, entered into a lively but friendly competition with each other to produce the most acceptable design and draw the best plan. So many excellent plans resulted from this competition that it was difficult to select the best. It was therefore decided to combine in a new and final plan the best features of several studies that seemed to meet the conditions of the problem with equal success. Two of these were selected as having the greatest number of good points. From these the final floor plan was developed and the necessary modifications made in the original drawings to make the general design of the building fit the plan. [Illustration: Floor plan of the model house] _The Hall._--It may be of interest to note how some of the details of the problem of design were worked out for the final plan. Beginning with the hall, it was easily seen that economy of space required that the room should have small dimensions. In fact, it did not need to be a separate room at all. It could easily be a space between the living room and the dining-room, separated from both by means of portières and joined upon occasion with either room or with both, thus making possible a reception room or a dining-room of good size, or one large room. Of course, the central idea of a hall must not be lost sight of in providing for a desirable extension of other rooms. It should suggest a warm welcome to the guest; and here is where the fireplace may fulfil the double function of giving the cheer of the hearth-stone at all times and the comfort of fire when warmth is needed. The absence of a stairway, since none was needed, was a favourable circumstance. Appropriate decoration and furnishing in due time were to add a few distinguishing marks so that the house could retain, without any appreciable sacrifice of space, the dignity of an entrance hall. _The Living Room and the Dining-room._--The relative positions of the living room and the dining-room, as already stated, were determined by the location of the hall. The purpose of each was distinct and self-evident, and determined the features of design that lent themselves most readily to appropriate decoration. In the living room the floor, the wall spaces, and the ceiling needed consideration with regard to their final treatment, to give pleasing proportions and harmonious colouring. The same was true of the dining-room, though its different purpose suggested a different design. An abundance of light was important for both rooms, hence the large, multiple windows. Such windows would also offer a good chance for pleasing drapery effects. _The Kitchen and Its Appointments._--No room demanded so much study as the kitchen. In the first place it was necessary to make provision for a relatively larger kitchen than would ordinarily be needed in a house of this size, because in this case it was designed to be used as a practice kitchen and must therefore be large enough to accommodate a considerable number of girls--at least eight--at one time. This point assumed so much importance in the minds of the young designers that they were constantly tempted to rob other rooms of the space that was due them in order to get a "nice, big kitchen." But by clever adjustments and combinations the necessary floor dimensions were secured without unduly cramping other features of the plan. The range, laundry tubs, and sink were conveniently located near each other with the tubs at such a height that when not in use the cover was flush with the top of the range, forming a shelf on which kettles and other kitchen utensils could be easily placed as they were moved back and forth from the range. It was thought that it would be very desirable, if not necessary, to have this shelf covered with zinc or some kind of sheet metal. It will be noted as a possible fault in the plan that the range is very near the door into the passageway leading to the bedroom, the living room, and the hall. This point received due consideration; but in view of the compensating advantages the arrangement was thought allowable, inasmuch as the door into the passageway would be used only occasionally. There seemed to be no more convenient location for the passageway, which was designed to give privacy to bedroom and bath room and, in cases of sickness or any emergency requiring it, easy communication between the kitchen and the bedroom. _Special Features._--The pantry was located between the kitchen and the dining-room for obvious reasons--to give easy communication in serving and to confine kitchen odours to their proper place. In place of a kitchen closet a cabinet was provided for as being on the whole the more serviceable of the two. It is always desirable to have an entry or lobby, with a convenient part of it reserved for the refrigerator; but the need of providing as much room as possible in the kitchen itself seemed to justify the omission of the lobby. Another unusual feature--this time not an omission--is to be found in the window of the bedroom closet. Such a window, although not common, was thought to be very desirable on sanitary grounds and as a possible protection against moths. _Early Plans for Decorating and Furnishing._--These were by no means all the features of design that had to be considered. As already suggested, there was much study given to the question of interior decoration and furnishing, even at this early stage. This was simply necessary forethought; for much of the attractiveness, restfulness, and homelike atmosphere of any house is created by the architect, who, in his arrangement of rooms, door-ways, and windows, disposes his wall areas so that they may be divided symmetrically and lend themselves naturally to colour toning, offering tempting spaces for a few choice pictures and opening up beautiful vistas. Such house-planning, begun with clear vision and followed with taste and delicacy in every detail, may often lead to a harmony of effects as pleasing to people of artistic temperament as a symphony is to those who enjoy a fine musical composition. In fact, the parallel between sympathetic gradations of form and colour and harmony of musical tones is a very close one, and the appreciation of it is by no means rare. Any intelligent person, on seeing a suite of rooms designed and arranged by a real artist, though he may not understand why, will be impressed by the rhythm of space divisions, the harmony of colours, the lack of any jarring or discordant notes in the decoration, the simplicity, fitness, and real beauty, not of any particular part, perhaps, but of the whole combination. We often find ourselves using the same language whether we are describing the work of an artist-architect or the work of a musical composer. FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN _Adaptation to Purpose._--Our young architects discovered that there are certain fundamental principles or laws that must be observed at the very beginning, if a really good and true design is to be made. The first of these laws is the _law of adaptation to purpose_. The application of this law was illustrated in the location of the various rooms in the plan of the house, in the dimensions agreed upon for each, and in the details of arrangement, especially in the kitchen and other rooms connecting with it. But this law is universal in its application. It determines not only the broad features of the plan but the details as well. It does not permit anything useless or superfluous to exist, for that would mean weakness. It aims at efficiency and strength. It dictates the details of construction all along the line, from the framing of the building to its finish and its decoration. It even determines the character of the furniture and the amount of it. Adaptation to purpose is a ruling principle. _Simplicity._--Another great principle that revealed itself as the plans of the house developed may be called the _law of simplicity_. This is one of the elementary laws of nature transferred to the realm of craftsmanship. It is an axiom of geometry that the straight line is the shortest distance between two points. Not less evident is the fact that when Nature undertakes to do anything she goes about it in the simplest and most direct way. The natural tendency of all motion is along a straight line--so reads the first law of motion. Analyze the most complex forms and processes of nature and we shall find them due to the harmonious combination of the simplest elementary lines and movements. But the same law of simplicity which invariably marks the works of nature gives strength and beauty also to the works of man. Thus, in discussing the various problems that developed as the designing of the house progressed, it was found--as of course it should have been--that the solution which met the test of simplicity, while satisfying the law of adaptation to purpose, was the true one. _Correlation._--A third great fundamental principle that found expression in these studies of the house plans was the _principle of correlation_. Not only must each part of the design be adapted to its use in the simplest possible manner, but it must support all other parts and receive support in return. It is like cooperation or team-work in play or in the practical affairs of life. Every room in a house bears some natural relation to every other room, and even the objects in the same room or in adjoining rooms must assist each other, whether their purpose be utility or decoration or a combination of both. Only by due attention to the mutual relations of the various elements that must enter into the composition, can the designer produce those pleasing space effects, those blendings of colour tones, those manifest relations between the various objects, useful or decorative, that give order, unity, and sympathetic feeling to a complete design. THE COLOUR SCHEME _The Floor the Foundation._--Almost unconsciously our young architects found themselves under the guidance of these three great fundamental principles of design. When they came to the problem of specifying the finish for the floors and other wood work of the hall, living room, and dining-room, they found that this problem was intimately associated with the larger question of the colour scheme as a whole. The mutual dependence of all the elements concerned could not be overlooked. It was evident that the floor, which is the foundation of the room, should be darker than the walls and ceiling and the general tone of the furnishings, in order to give the suggestion of sufficient weight and firmness for the support of the entire room and all it might contain. The effect of solidity could be produced by staining the floor boards or by providing a liberal supply of dark, rich-toned rugs, large ones as well as small ones. There was no question of carpets. These, of course, are not allowable in a model house. A few rugs were already available, and others could be procured by buying them or by making them. A properly toned floor, however, is desirable, even with a most generous covering of rugs. It was therefore decided to give the floor a coat of stain when it was ready to be finished. _Importance of Colour Schemes._--But what was the colour to be? The designers were thus brought face to face with that difficult but important problem which all who plan houses have to solve before they can hope to bring their work into harmonious adjustment with the various natural and human conditions that must be satisfied in the final product, if it be made a good example of the designer's art. The problem of the colour scheme is fundamental. Upon this depends not only the tone of the floors, the walls, and the ceilings, but also, to a certain extent, as has already been suggested, the kind of woods to be used in the interior finishing, and whether they are to be painted, stained, or left in their natural colours. It will determine the material and the colours of the portières, curtains, cushions, lamp shades, picture frames, vases; in fact, it will largely settle the decorative character of every article placed in the rooms. The consideration of movable objects, however, may be deferred till the more substantial and fixed elements are decided upon. _Southern Exposures and Cool Colours._--In settling the all-important question of the colour scheme the first point to be considered was the location of the rooms with reference to light and to external surroundings. Rooms that have a southern exposure and nothing to interfere with their being flooded with sunlight need to be protected against the glare of too much light. For such rooms dull tones of colour are the best--dull browns, soft gray-greens, certain blue tones, and the medium grays--light, cool colours that counteract the overbrilliancy of direct sunlight and give a positively tempered feeling to the atmosphere of a room. Incidentally, too, perhaps because they are the tints associated with distant views, the cool colours make a room seem larger than it really is. _Northern Exposures and Warm Colours._--Northern rooms, on the other hand, do not generally suffer from excess of sunlight and heat. Warm colours are needed in such rooms. Deep reds, rich yellows, and golden browns will seem to bring sunlight into a sunless room. Our designers noted the fact that many of the rooms in the house they were planning must be comparatively dark. The house was to face the high brick walls of the neighbouring school building, not more than twenty-five feet distant, and its principal rooms had a northern exposure. A warm colour treatment, therefore, was unquestionably needed. Should red, brown, or yellow be the prevailing tone? The deciding point was the location of the hall and its relations to the other rooms. It was, first of all, the hall, the place of welcome for the guest; but it was dark. Its walls must have the sunniest of all colours--a rich golden yellow. The same would serve the needs of the living room, or perhaps a brown with yellow enough in it to be well in tune. The dining-room could safely be darker and more luminous, in pleasing contrast with the golden yellow of the hall; but it must not be decidedly red. The ceilings of these three rooms, whether beamed or not, since they must be lighter than the walls, could have the same or nearly the same tint. This might well be a light corn yellow. The colouring of the walls of the bedroom, bath room, and kitchen was not so important a question as the decoration of the three front rooms. Utility and sanitary conditions were important things to be considered. Light tints were decided upon, which in the bedroom might be relieved, in the finishing touches, by delicate stenciled figures in some warm tone. _Interior Woodwork._--With the colour scheme settled it was a comparatively easy matter to decide what should be the general tone and character of the interior woodwork. The floors of the three front rooms, since they were to be closely associated, required the same solid colour, which could well be a walnut brown, darker than any of the walls. Fumed oak trimmings were thought desirable for the dining-room and gum wood for the living room, either of which could be extended to the hall; but ivory white for the living room and the hall, leaving the oak for the dining-room, found much favour. It was finally decided, however, to adopt for the three front rooms the combination of natural woods first suggested. The bedroom and bath room, where suggestions of cleanliness are peculiarly appropriate, were specified to be finished in white. Yellow southern pine was decided upon for the kitchen and its accessory rooms. ORGANIZING THE WORK OF CONSTRUCTION As soon as the chief features of design were decided upon, preparations were made for carrying them out in the actual work of building; for the house was not to be a "castle in air." The first step was to put these ideas on paper and work out the details of construction in clearly executed and accurately dimensioned drawings. These included, as the first to be used, the working drawings for the framing and other rough woodwork, blue print copies of which were to be put into the hands of the boys of the elementary vocational school, who were to carry out this part of the building plans. [Illustration: Front or north elevation of the model house] _The Working Drawings._--A considerable number of detailed drawings had to be made before the work of construction could be wisely begun. This furnished an interesting set of problems for the mechanical drawing groups of the technical high school. The material for this work consisted of rough sketches in pencil, but with the correct dimensions as determined in the plan accepted as the result of the competition in design. These preliminary sketches required much study on the part of both boys and girls, under proper guidance, in order to find out what the elements of construction should be, what dimensions were required, and how the various parts should be put together. It was an experience of great value to all, but especially to those boys who were looking forward to architectural draughting as a possible vocation. They got an inside view of the importance, on the one hand, of accurate working drawings as a basis for good construction and, on the other hand, a practical illustration of the necessity of a thorough knowledge of constructive principles, in order to make correct working drawings. They saw that the efficient architect must be a builder, acquainted with all the detailed processes employed by the carpenter or mason, informed upon all the conditions to be met, and knowing the best ways of meeting them. They gained impressions which should help them, in studying the work of great architects, to look beyond the exterior, however pleasing it may be, for those elements of strength and beauty that characterize all good workmanship. [Illustration: All the Rough Carpentry Was Assigned to Boys of the Woodworking Section of the Vocational School. Plate I] _How the Work Was Distributed._--It will be recalled that boys and girls were to be coworkers in the designing, planning, and building of the house. The boys were to be held responsible for the drawings, the decorating after designs made by the girls, and the higher grades of woodwork, including the finishing of the rooms and the making of the furniture. They were to do the wiring for the electric lights, the bells, and the interior telephones; and they were to install all the fixtures in connection with this wiring. Boys from the metal-working sections were to do the necessary piping for gas and water and some of the work of plumbing; but, since the laws regulating plumbing are strict and well enforced, as they should be, it was necessary to keep this most essential feature of the work under charge of licensed plumbers. But this requirement did not remove even the plumbing of the building from the field of public school work; for, fortunately, this city has a well-equipped plumbing school in the trades school department, under the direction of licensed plumbers of high standing, who were glad to have given them, as an exercise for their classes, a practical problem in house plumbing. The boys in the forging classes were not overlooked in the distribution of the work on the house. Many of the fixtures needed for use or ornament were designed to be made in the school forge shop. The girls designed and made rugs, curtains, portières, and cushions as a part of their school work in weaving and stencilling; and they contributed many decorative articles in clay, copper, leather, and other materials. Thus every technical department of the school was brought into service; for in the building of a house there is to be found something to enlist the interest of every boy and girl. [Illustration: The Boys of the Forging Classes of the Technical High School Were Not Overlooked in the Distribution of the Work on the House. Plate II] _Boy Foremen in Charge._--To bring about the right distribution of the work and to marshal the working forces effectually required the oversight and management of an experienced instructor. But much of the work of direction was delegated to competent boys. The preliminary tool work in the school shops had revealed those who were especially observant and capable as leaders, and those who worked best under specific directions. Thus the twenty boys of the vocational school who set the posts and framed the house worked sometimes in pairs--one being the chief foreman and the other the helper--sometimes in gangs of three or four under a foreman. The plan was varied according to the nature of the work in hand. When leaders of more technical knowledge and skill were needed, as was the case in setting the window frames and directing the shingling, capable boys from the technical high school were placed in charge of groups of younger boys from the vocational school. In this way the work was advanced in several directions at the same time; and the advantage was not all in the advancement of the house construction. It was a delightful and profitable experience for all the boys, not unlike that which some of them will doubtless repeat when school days are over and they take their place in the more serious affairs of life. In after years they may look back upon the first house that they helped to build and recall the part they took, their companions in the work, and the good time they had withal. SOME DETAILS OF CONSTRUCTION _Setting Batter Boards, Posts, and Sills._--The first step in actual construction was to mark off the lot and set the batter boards. These were made by driving three stakes to form a right angle about four feet from the point where each of the four main corners of the house was to be located. Two rough boards, one for each side of each angle, were nailed horizontally to each of the four sets of stakes, with their upper edges all brought to the same level. It is very important to set these batter boards with accuracy, since their function is to carry the lines which mark the dimensions and level of the ground floor. In the present instance their first use was to locate the concrete posts on which the sills of the house were to rest. Twenty-two of these posts, which were 4 feet long and 8 inches square, were put in position by first setting moulds or boxes, the interior dimensions of which were those of the posts, 3 feet deep in the light soil and filling them with a mixture of concrete and crushed rock. It was not thought necessary to remove the moulds after the hardening of the concrete. In fact, the sills were framed and placed in position resting on these boxes before sufficient time had been given for the concrete to harden. The sides of the boxes, however, were scored with a saw cut so that they could be easily broken off just below the ground, exposing the projecting ends of the concrete posts for about one foot. The sills were of 6 by 8-inch first quality spruce. They were set on the 6-inch face, the two long sills being spliced over posts, using a long halved joint. Mortise and tenon joints, draw-bored and pinned, were used at the corners. The floor timbers of 2 by 8-inch spruce were gained into the sills with the top faces flush with the top of the sill and crowning (_i. e._, bending) upward if at all. The spacing of the floor timbers was taken off at the sill on a strip of furring--spruce, 7/8 of an inch thick by 2 inches wide--which was moved out to the centre near the line of bridging and lightly nailed, bringing crooked timbers into line. The bridging was then nailed in, the outside last to prevent springing the sills. [Illustration: Plan A. Framing details] Referring to the accompanying sketch (Plan A) it will be noticed that the corner posts and centres were not mortised into the sills, but were simply butted on and heavily nailed or spiked. There was a time when carpenters would have regarded such a method as altogether wrong; but those were the days of great corner posts and heavy studding, placed two or three times as far apart as is the practice now. It was thought that placing the studs 16 inches on centres, which is the common practice in modern house framing, removed the necessity of mortising into the sill. Mortising is still recognized, however, as a good thing to do and is sometimes practised by first-rate carpenters. Plan A also shows how the outside walls were trussed over openings; and Plan B shows how the corners of the building were tied by the lapping of the double plate, and how the ceiling timbers and rafters were placed on the top of the plate. [Illustration: Plan B. Details of cornice, sill, and roof A SHINGLES B ROOF BOARDS C RAFTER 2" × 6" 20" O.C. D PLATE 4" × 4" E ROUGH BOARDING F STUD G FRIEZE H CROWN MOLD I BED MOLD J CEILING JOIST 2" × 6" K GROUND L LATH & PLASTER M BASE N FINISHED FLOOR O LINING FLOOR P FURRING Q SILL R CONCRETE POST 8" × 8" S CORNER POST T HIP RAFTER 3" × 8" U FLOOR JOIST ] The window frame details are shown in a series of cuts (Plan C) which for the sake of completeness are drawn to show also the interior finish, not usually represented in the framing drawings. A detailed description of these features of construction is unnecessary, since the dimensions and relations of the various elements and the technical terms by which they are known are all clearly indicated in the illustrations. [Illustration: Plan C. Details of interior finish A OUTSIDE CASING I HEADER Q SURBASE B BACK BAND J CORNER BLOCK R SILL 1-3/4" TH'K C HEAD K ROUGH BOARDING S INSIDE CASING D STOP 1/2" THICK L SHINGLES T SOFFIT E SASH 1-3/8" ditto M WEIGHT U BED MOLD F LATH & PLASTER N PULLEY STYLE V FINISHED FLOOR G GROUND 3/4" TH'K O PARTING STRIP W BASE H STUD 2" × 4" P STOOL CAP X LINING FLOOR ] In the same series of cuts a detail of the base is shown which includes the framing, the base board, and the lath and plaster. It should be stated, however, that a substitute for lath and plaster was recommended to the student architects--a new product in paper board especially designed for walls and ceilings, which it was decided to use. The use of this material removed the necessity of the "grounds" shown in the drawings and always needed as a nailing base for the wood trim when the walls and ceilings are lathed and plastered. In the detail of the dado cap, which will be found on the page of construction drawings, the dotted lines show how the cap was to be expanded into a plate rail, requiring the addition of brackets with a bed moulding between, in the finishing of the walls of the dining-room. Among these drawings will also be found a detail showing a section of the beamed ceiling finish. It will be readily understood that none of the finishing work called for in the detailed drawings was begun until the rough carpentry on the house was practically completed. All the rough work, which included framing, boarding, shingling, laying of the lining floors, and putting up partitions, was assigned to boys of the woodworking sections of the vocational school. This is an elementary industrial or trade school, admitting from the grades below the high school boys who have attained the age of fourteen years and wish to learn some mechanical trade. It represents a new and promising experiment in American education. The building of this house furnished an excellent opportunity for the boys of this school to show the honesty of their purpose in enrolling themselves to learn the fundamentals of a trade and thus prove their right to have the chance. So the house was built by the combined efforts of the boys and girls of the public schools of this New England city, unassisted by professional architects or paid labourers. How they carried out with their own hands the designs for decorating and furnishing the house is told in the succeeding chapters of this book, which also suggests wider applications of the principles of household decoration as possible to be made in the homes of clever boys and girls throughout the country. To carry out these suggestions will mean work--but work of a kind that gives pleasure to the worker and to many others. It was work for the young designers and builders of whom this story tells, but they said it was "great fun," and there really is no pleasure quite equal to that found in doing with one's own hands an exceptionally good thing. The true craftsmen of all time have found it so. One of these master workmen, Stradivarius, the violin maker, so George Eliot tells us, made his confession thus: " ... God be praised! Antonio Stradivari has an eye That winces at false work and loves the true, With hand and arm that play upon the tool, As willingly as any singing bird Sets him to sing his morning roundelay, Because he likes to sing and likes the song." II DECORATIONS AND FURNITURE Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful--_William Morris_ The decorating and furnishing of a house have their true beginning in good architectural design. It is a mistake to proceed upon the theory that decoration necessarily implies something added for its own sake--something beautiful in itself but selected and applied without regard to the lines, spaces, and colours of the room in which it is to be placed and without considering the relation of this room to neighbouring rooms and to more remote surroundings. The truth is, a decorative object may or may not be intrinsically beautiful; but however beautiful it may be in itself, it finds its truest beauty in an appropriate setting. And the decorator who is actuated by the true spirit looks to the architect for inspiration and finds his greatest successes in acknowledging that leadership. To attempt to lead when one should follow is neither good art nor good sense. There is danger, perhaps, that this truth may be taken too seriously. It would also be a mistake to run to the other extreme and adopt at the outset a rigid plan of decoration and furnishing, specified like contract work to be carried out and completed on a certain date soon after the house is built. The problem is one of growing interest, especially as regards furniture, pictures, and the smaller objects of use or beauty, and for its best and happiest solution requires time and study. Only the broad and fundamental features can be settled in advance. The important thing is to have the main lines, dimensions, space relations, and colour schemes settled with due regard to utility and appropriateness and, as the work of construction proceeds, to keep all details in harmony with this general plan. THE FLOORS, THE WALLS, AND THE CEILINGS _Colour Harmony in the Model House._--It will be remembered that the colour scheme of the hall, living room, and dining-room of our model house was settled quite early in the development of the design. Standing near the centre of the living room and looking through the hall into the dining-room, one may see at a glance how some of the details of decoration were worked out in keeping with the general treatment. The walnut brown stain of the floors gives a good foundation of colour. It flows easily into the lighter browns and yellows of all the lower wall spaces. The suggestion of olive green in the frieze of the living room offers a pleasing contrast with the prevailing browns and harmonizes well with the woodwork of this room, which, it will be remembered, was designed to be finished in gum wood. This beautiful wood, when properly treated, presents a surface of satin-like texture and soft colour tone. In the dining-room a corner of which is shown in the frontispiece, the frieze lends a warmth of colour where it is needed and is in keeping with the fumed oak trim. The wide openings into the hall from the rooms on each side of it, together with the long, unbroken lines of the beamed ceilings, give the impression of generous width. The plain wall spaces, though varied in tone and relieved of monotonous spacings by the location of the necessary doors and windows, are of great assistance in increasing the apparent size of the room. Plain walls are also the best of backgrounds for pictures. _Redecorating Old Houses._--It is, of course, true that the decorating and furnishing of a house or an apartment cannot always have a new and original architectural design as the basis for the solution of the problems involved. As a matter of fact, in the great majority of cases, the houses in which homes are made are already built and have been previously occupied. Often they are very old houses, presenting difficult and even impossible tasks for the decorator. Sometimes, however, such houses are all the more desirable if they bear the marks of age that suggest a past of dignity and charm. But the spirit which inspires the artist in decorating and furnishing a house already built is the same as that which controls his thought when he can begin with the foundation of a new and original design. His first thought is to discover how beauty may be enhanced and at the same time unity of purpose and harmony of treatment be preserved. His constant care is to avoid incongruous elements, however beautiful they may be in themselves or however appropriate in other houses. His general aim is to use his art to develop the design as it is, if there be any design at all, and make the most of it. _Decoration as a Corrective._--But this does not prevent him from attempting to counteract the blunders of faulty design and bad architecture. Such correction, indeed, forms a large part of the work of decorators and furnishers, both professional and amateur. If the lines and space divisions of a room be not good, the decoration must be planned with a view to giving the needed harmony of proportions, or at least the appearance of it. If the ceiling be too high, it may be made to "look" lower by carrying the ceiling paper or tinting one or two feet down the walls of the room to meet the picture moulding. The effect of reduced height is accentuated by a high base board or by wainscoting. If the ceiling be too low, the depressing effect may be largely overcome by extending the picture moulding along the top of the wall spaces close to the ceiling. This is a desirable thing to do in the living rooms of most modern houses. Striped wall papers of proper tones may be used in low rooms with good effect in increasing their apparent height. Bad wall spacing may also be corrected by enlarging door-ways, substituting portières for the doors, and by arranging the drapery over windows to give the effect either of increasing or of diminishing their height, as the conditions may require. _Wall Papers._--Probably no element of decoration furnishes so many pitfalls to ensnare the unwary as wall papers do. It is easy to fall a victim to a captivating design as it appears in the few square feet of wall paper displayed on the dealer's rack. The same interesting figure, spread out in endless repetition on the four walls of the living room, may create an atmosphere of unrest and positive discomfort keenly felt by sensitive persons. A wise choice cannot be made in the absence of all the conditions that should really determine it. After all, it is not the paper which is beautiful in the roll that should be selected, but only that which will become beautiful when hung upon the walls of a certain room. Papers with large figures should be avoided unless there is a special reason for using them. They always have the effect of reducing the apparent size of everything associated with them. They make a small room appear dwarfish and a large one over decorated unless well relieved by plain spaces harmonizing in colour with the large-figured patterns. Strong contrasts in colour values should also be avoided, not only between the designs and the ground colour of the wall paper itself, but also between the paper and other objects of importance in the room. The principle of gradation in colour values, which does not as a general thing allow the placing together of light and dark shades or tints, is almost as important as harmony of colour tones. _Nature of Decorative Design._--The one fact never to be lost sight of by the decorator is the real nature of true decorative design. It is never a picture. While it may suggest the natural forms of plants or animals, it does not aim to represent them in a naturalistic way. Some of the best decorative designs do not even suggest natural forms; but, whether they do or not, the central idea is the repetition of good combinations of line and form in closely related colours and values on a flat surface. If natural forms are used, they should be more or less highly conventionalized. Anything that destroys the idea of flat surfaces in the same plane is a false note in wall decoration. In the nature of the case, a wall can have but one plane. Clusters of flowers or patterns of any kind that seem to hang in front of this plane, or back of it, are out of place and therefore offend the sense of fitness. Such incongruities are sometimes so pronounced that they positively shock the sensibilities of refined people. Extreme examples have been known to give such pain to sensitive persons as to drive them from the room. _Advantage of Plain Walls._--Decorative designs, however, are not essential in wall papers. The main point in the treatment of walls is to secure and preserve a good background. If one is in doubt as to the kind of figure or pattern to be used, which is often a perplexing question, it is well to leave them out altogether. Plain walls are always good if the colour tone is right; for colour is the main thing in wall decoration. The decorative effects of form may be brought out in the portières and window draperies, which may easily carry more elaborate patterns when associated with plain walls than is desirable with figured wall decorations. In fact, with figured walls plain portières and curtains are much to be preferred. In our model house, as has been explained, the wall decorations were designed to offer a plain background of colour. The figured borders of the portières and curtains, combined with the careful gradation in the colouring of the floors, wall spaces, and ceiling, gave such a variety of tone to this background that nothing further was needed to avoid monotony. _Trial Needed in Doubtful Cases._--It is, indeed, a good rule to omit whatever is unnecessary. To observe this rule wisely is to escape much that is positively bad in decoration. Overwrought designs, too great variety in decorative material, too many decorative objects, however great their individual beauty, too many odd pieces of furniture, too many interesting things in whatever direction one may turn, create an oppressive and disquieting atmosphere and a feeling of unrest which it should always be the aim of home decoration to dispel. And yet it may not always be best to set aside our treasures because they do not seem perfectly suited to the general scheme of decoration or are not apparently needed to complete it. It is, in fact, often very difficult to determine where the line should be drawn between what is needed and what is not needed. The fact that nothing seems to be lacking is not a final test if one has at hand useful or beautiful things that may be introduced into a scheme of decoration already well thought out and be given a trial. Such experimenting will often reveal unsuspected needs or add a new charm that at once proves its right to be retained. To take a step like this, somewhat out of line with accepted rules as strictly interpreted, is entirely safe if this step is dictated by good taste and does not lead the young decorator too far afield. Exceptional treatment of any kind should show proper restraint, and such restraint, when it is plainly indicated in any work of art, is in itself an attractive feature. _Precise Rules not Always Practicable._--The truth is, the rules of decoration, though founded upon fundamental principles of art, are not rules of precision like those founded upon mathematical principles. In the nature of the case they must in their application yield more or less to circumstances. It is, for example, a good general rule to determine the colour scheme and background first and accommodate other decorative features to these as a foundation; and yet it is possible for a situation to be so exceptional as to justify a complete reversal of this rule. Here is a concrete case. A young artist was the fortunate possessor of a considerable number of Japanese and Chinese embroideries and other Oriental ornaments. He wished to make these the main decorative materials for one of his rooms. The embroidered figures were in yellow and white on a deep, strong blue, the general effect being quite dark. There were in the collection several prints, showing the typical dull reds, dark blues, and yellows of Japanese art. Now the room itself happened to be one that, under the general principle of colour schemes as determined by exposure and other fixed conditions, would demand warm colours on its walls. It would easily support a rich red frieze with appropriate combinations in floor, dado, and ceiling. This would set off well the dark oak trim and the mahogany furniture, but it would rule out the Oriental decorations. One or the other must give way; and, since the value of these decorative materials was beyond question, it was decided to try them, even at the cost of setting aside the general rule. The whole matter resolved itself into selecting a proper background for these beautiful pictures and embroideries; and for these the best colour was a gray blue--the coldest of colours. But when the whole decorative scheme was carried out to completion and the cold background was fully employed in setting off the rich colours and exquisite workmanship of the Oriental prints and draperies, all the circumstances that ordinarily determine the choice of backgrounds were forgotten in the charm of originality. No one thought of the exposure as requiring warm colours, the dark oak trim was not noticed, and the mahogany furniture was still in keeping. The result was so absolutely satisfying that no one who saw it could question the good taste displayed in this very original plan of decoration. But such exceptional cases should not shake our confidence in the fundamental principles of decoration. It is true that these principles cannot be reduced to formulas to be applied invariably in all cases, and it is unreasonable to assume that any form of treatment is the only one possible in any given case. Modifications in the application of these principles are always possible, but the principles themselves are as unalterable as the Mosaic law. One is, indeed, tempted to summarize them thus as the TEN COMMANDMENTS OF DECORATION Thou shalt have no household gods except those that be beautiful or those that be useful. Thou shalt not make unto thyself any likeness that is in the heaven above or in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth, that does not find an appropriate setting in thine house. Thou shalt not look in vain upon the creations of the great masters of decorative art. Remember the colour scheme and keep a good background. Honour the original design, however old it may be, and make the most of it. Thou shalt not hesitate to correct the blunders of faulty design and bad architecture. Thou shalt not kill thy neighbours or thy friends with over-decorated wall papers or oppressive decorations of any kind. Thou shalt not bring together incongruous articles nor permit insane arrangements of anything that is thine. Thou shalt not permit any false note to mar the harmony of thy decorations. Thou shalt not imitate thy neighbour's house or anything that is thy neighbour's, for it is the glory of the good decorator to show originality but at the same time to acknowledge his dependence upon those who have preceded him. THE FURNITURE _Relation of Furniture to Decoration._--So much for the treatment of floors, walls, and ceilings. We may now turn to the more special consideration of those objects of use or beauty that are to be associated with these backgrounds--furniture, pictures, lamp shades, and small ornaments. That these are closely related to decoration has been implied in all that has been said. They are, in fact, in themselves elements in the decorative scheme and as such must obey the same laws. Their value, however, depends more or less upon their utility, and for this reason they seem to require consideration somewhat apart from their merely decorative functions. This is especially true of furniture, which would have very little reason for being if it were not for its usefulness. In designing the furniture for the model house the questions that constantly suggested themselves were: What is this piece of furniture under consideration to be used for? What form, construction, and finish will enable it to give the best service? What features of design are needed to render it suited to its surroundings? In considering the furniture for the model house it was most natural to apply these tests to the various rooms in order. [Illustration: A library desk in fumed oak] _Hall of the Model House._--First, there is the hall. This is the room into which a visitor is first admitted, and from its atmosphere he gets his first impressions. But in this house it is a very small room and designed to serve not merely as a place for the formalities of welcome but also as an expansion of the rooms on either side. Its furniture must consist largely of the fireplace. There is no room for a hall settle nor even for a chair. A mirror, simply but richly framed, might hang on the wall near the front door, balanced by a picture on the opposite wall behind the door. An umbrella rack should stand outside on the porch. [Illustration: A hall chair] [Illustration: A hall settle--simplicity, strength, dignity] _Hall Furniture in General._--The halls of modern houses vary greatly in their relative importance. In some the traditions of the old English manor houses seem partially to survive. In mediæval England the hall was the principal room, if not the only one comfortably furnished. When modern houses combine the living room and library or reception room with the hall, there is need of something more than hall furniture of the formal kind. The requirements of comfort must be met. But, generally speaking, hall furniture is of little real use. Odd chairs, attractive by reason of their oddity, the richness of the materials used in their construction, or some other assertive quality, but not fit to sit in, are suitable or at least excusable in the hall. The hat and coat rack of our fathers has been declared insane and no longer appears in well-regulated houses. In place of it is found the hall settle, which is of real use. It should be designed on simple lines and give the impression of strength and dignity. If the hall is to be used as a waiting room for guests, a few good chairs, conveniently placed, will be needed for their comfort and a choice picture or two on the walls will add greatly to their pleasure. [Illustration: Two Morris chairs that invite to solid comfort] [Illustration: A satisfactory writing desk] _Living Room Furniture._--In furnishing living rooms there is bound to be a wide range for the exercise of good taste because of the variety of needs to be met and the large facilities afforded in the markets for meeting these needs with due regard to artistic requirements. It will be quite impossible to go into detail in discussing so large a topic. The important thing is to keep in mind the central idea of a living room--the place of all places where the freedom, comfort, and protection of home life are to be enjoyed. The very atmosphere of the room should suggest simplicity, sincerity, and good cheer. Every article of furniture should be there to serve a genuine need, and it should be strong enough to do its full duty. Spider-legged, top-heavy tables; light, weak chairs; chairs on casters or rockers; sofas with carved backs or couches with none at all,--these have no place in the living room. The long, straight lines of the craftsman or mission style of furniture are in the right direction; but if these be used at all they must be made quite general, since few other styles harmonize with them. Wicker or reed furniture is a notable exception. When well designed it will fit in almost anywhere. [Illustration: An ample library table] [Illustration: A plain but useful magazine stand] The frequent combination of the library with the living room requires a suitable adjustment of the furniture to this use. A plain, serviceable magazine rack, which may be easily made, will relieve the tables of an accumulation of weeklies and monthlies. Moderately low bookcases, with or without doors, are to be preferred to the more ordinary high ones because this form harmonizes better with the lines of a room, which are generally longer horizontally than vertically. If doors are used, it is well to break up the glare of the glass by heavy sash, the spacing of which may be arranged in a very pleasing manner. Good design in library tables calls for ample size. Firmness and convenience as well as satisfactory proportions should control the choice of a writing desk. [Illustration: A low bookcase with sash doors] _Dining-room Furniture._ Only a few elements enter into the design for the furnishing of a dining-room; but they are evident and should have a controlling influence. The table and chairs are for a definite purpose and this should show itself in good design. Heavy construction is permissible since the chairs are to be moved but little and the table is practically stationary. Moreover, weight and generous dimensions are suggestive of bounty and good service. The rectangular extension table is most readily adjusted to varied demands, but the round table is preferable for the family circle; and for a company of twelve or fifteen a large, round, temporary table top, placed on an ordinary extension table, has been found very attractive. [Illustration: A round dining table] [Illustration: A sideboard of good proportions. Convenient and generous but not overdone] As comfort is the chief result to be obtained in furnishing a living room, so richness, within one's means, is an appropriate aim in furnishing a dining-room. The history of sideboard design might be cited in proof of this statement, if proof were needed. Probably no single article of furniture has been subjected to greater elaboration; but the desirable suggestion of plenty with convenience may be secured without overdoing it. The unique purpose of the sideboard makes it an interesting study for one who wishes to design and construct his own in conformity with the architecture of his dining-room. The buffet or serving table furnishes an equally interesting, though simpler, problem. [Illustration: A buffet of simple but effective design] For the care of the china, the built-in cabinet as a feature of the architecture of the room is to be preferred to the movable cabinet designed for this purpose, because of its richer decorative possibilities. Large, glazed doors are desirable in either case, not for the full display of china and glassware but to give a suggestive glimpse of it. As this cabinet is for decoration and not for show, it is well to avoid plain glass doors unbroken by sash. Leaded panes are frequently employed with good effect. The decorative effect of old and odd pieces of china--not too many of them--is most appropriately employed by the use of the plate rail; but it is better to leave the plate rail bare than to load it with commonplace crockery and inappropriate ornaments. [Illustration: A china cabinet. A part of the finish of the room] _Chamber Furniture._--The bedroom speaks for itself. A dainty freshness in all its appointments is conducive to sleep and rest, which it is the distinctive purpose of this room to provide. The necessary articles of furniture are a bed, a dressing table, a bureau or chiffonier, a few chairs, and, if there be no bath room attached, a commode or wash stand. A couch is an appropriate addition; and here, if anywhere, rocking chairs are allowable. When the bedroom must be used more or less as a living room or sewing room, as it too often unfortunately is, furniture to serve such uses must be provided. In selecting or designing all this furniture, lightness, and simplicity of design, combined with strength, should be allowed a controlling influence. The recognition of this idea has given great popularity to the brass or iron beds; but it is possible to design and construct beds of oak, maple, or other woods that harmonize with the rest of the furniture, carry out the idea of daintiness, and have sufficient strength for service. [Illustration: Leaded panes] Many of these suggestions on furniture design are being carried out in fitting up the model house described in our introductory chapter. A small house like this, limited to one story, does not permit great variety in its furnishings. Certain standard conditions, however, were to be met here, as everywhere else, and the young designers found much pleasure and great profit in working out the furniture problems. Some of the construction details will be given in the later chapters. [Illustration: A Duxbury chair] ARRANGEMENT OF THE FURNITURE _Arrangement Follows Selection._--The problem of furnishing a home is not fully settled when the questions of design have been answered and the right selections made. After selection comes arrangement, or, to speak more accurately, after a certain amount of selection a certain amount of arrangement; for, as has already been suggested, there is considerable dependence of one upon the other. It is not wise to drop the arrangement till the selection is complete, for the simple reason that the happiest choices are often the late ones, determined by the disposition of the earlier ones. And yet in the main the order as stated is the true one. It should be noted, too, that in arrangement there is a larger field for the exercise of individuality and taste. While artistic principles still hold sway, they yield more readily to exceptional interpretation by the ruling spirit of the household, to the demands of style, and to the larger number of possibilities for pleasing effects when the question is one of the arrangement of things already well chosen for their usefulness and for their artistic value. [Illustration: A dainty bed in white maple] _Utility the Controlling Principle._--The problems of arrangement, however, are by no means vague and uncertain. The natural law of adaptation to purpose is not difficult to follow. In some rooms obedience to it has become a settled custom. No one, for example, would think of placing the dining table in any other place than the centre of the dining-room or, if the room be a long one, in the centre of one end. The sideboard, serving table, and china closet likewise fall into their natural places. So also the bedroom and the hall, though perhaps to a less degree, present comparatively easy problems in furniture arrangement when due regard is paid to the purposes for which such rooms are designed. _Importance of Appropriateness._--But it is in the library and the living room that we find the most difficult and at the same time the most interesting problems. And this is due to the operation of the same law of adaptation to purpose. It is the variety of uses and the diversity of useful objects that make the problem somewhat complex. However refined and beautiful the different units may be, there must be some arrangement of them into working groups. The important elements should dominate and those of lesser importance should fall naturally into related but subordinate places. The easy corner with its couch, pillows, and its low seats, has a definite function to perform. So also have the piano and the music rack, the bookcases and library table, the Morris chairs and tabourettes, the window seats and screens, the writing desk and its proper lighting by window or lamp, the fireplace and all the accessories of comfort that may belong to it. The various centres of interest should be accentuated by grouping around them the most appropriate furnishings and the most suggestive decorative features. It may be well to add one word of caution, and that is that a proper balance should be maintained between the various centres of arrangement in order that no part of the room may seem neglected and bare. _The Danger of Overcrowding._--Finally, the one great danger to be avoided in meeting the requirements of good arrangement is the temptation to overcrowding. Many otherwise excellently appointed living rooms suffer from an embarrassment of riches. Such overcrowded rooms are worse than an overloaded ship because they cannot topple over and sink as one might well wish them to. To secure the right things and just enough of them, arranged with a proper balance between utility and beauty, is the true aim. It is as true to-day as it ever was in the arrangement and beautifying of the home, and, for that matter, in everything that concerns every-day life--just as true as it was in ancient times when men wrote those famous inscriptions over the doors of the temple at Delphi: over one, KNOW THYSELF, and over the other, THE GOLDEN MEAN OF NOT TOO MUCH. III PICTURES I now require this of all pictures, that they domesticate me, not that they dazzle me. Pictures must not be too picturesque. Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing. All great actions have been simple, and all great pictures are.--_Ralph Waldo Emerson_ The decoration of a room is generally not complete without pictures. There is, of course, great value in good pictures entirely aside from their decorative effect; and too great care cannot be exercised in their selection. But our present purpose is to consider them as decorative features; for, though a decoration is not a picture, pictures themselves are properly regarded as important elements in the general scheme of decoration. And this is especially true as regards matting and framing, the distribution of pictures upon the wall spaces, and the method of hanging them. _Importance of Space Relations._--A picture mat and frame are simply elements of finish, and their function is to give the picture a certain individuality and yet connect it harmoniously with the space in which it hangs. In fact, the wall space is a part of the framing of the picture. The importance of giving some study to the relations of all the spaces involved is evident. The mat and the frame should not be of equal width. Here is a fine opportunity to secure variety in spacing. No definite rules can be given; sometimes the one, sometimes the other should give way. Generally speaking, tall wall spaces require vertical pictures, and spaces longer horizontally demand horizontal pictures. But variation from this rule is possible and even necessary through the grouping of several pictures. In grouping, however, there is danger of being tempted to allow too many pictures. In the houses of the well-to-do, and even in the homes of those of moderate means, too many pictures, rather than too few, are often found. The example of one New England home, known to the author, may be mentioned. The house is new, of generous proportions, and it is the home of an artist. There are few pictures on the walls, but they are distributed with rare artistic effect. There are many good pictures stored in the attic because there is no suitable space in which to hang them. _The Japanese Way._--The Japanese have taught us many valuable lessons in art, and in the matter of the number of pictures to be displayed they have a very interesting lesson to teach. It is their practice to hang a single choice picture for a season in a space where it may be best enjoyed, and then after a time to replace it with another picture, and this, perhaps, by another if circumstances permit. There are many conditions that determine the selection of the picture to be displayed. It may be the preference of a guest, or it may be the season of the year, or, in fact, any occasion that may give a certain picture special significance. There is, in this singular custom, a very definite service which the picture is made to perform, and it is given an individuality which perhaps has no parallel in our own practice. _Grouping of Small, Simple Pictures._--If a considerable number of pictures are grouped together, it is quite essential that all the pictures of the group should be of similar character and tone and similarly framed. It is hardly possible for them to be all of the same size, nor, indeed, is such agreement desirable except in so far as is required to give proper balance to the group. Small pictures in light frames are, of course, the most desirable for such grouping, and if possible there should be an evident reason for the grouping. A series of photographs of a certain locality, for example, might form a group of four or five or even more pictures so that they could be easily seen together and so more thoroughly enjoyed. A collection of photographs in passe-partout bindings, especially if they deal with subjects in any way related, may form an attractive group. But pictures of any considerable size or those having decided individuality are generally not suited to any plan of grouping. They should appear by themselves, in frames and other surroundings which accentuate their peculiar merits. _The Kind of Frame._--The material of the frame, its colour, and the colour of the mat are determined by the tone of the picture. Oil paintings easily support gilt frames and should be hung in good light. Pictures of light values with white mats are well finished in narrow gilt frames. Carbon photographs and other pictures of dull tones, are appropriately framed in wood of dark or medium colour, and appear best when hung against a dark wall. The truth of these statements will hardly be questioned by any one who has a good sense of colour harmony. But there are many other elements that enter into a concrete problem of picture framing that cannot be brought under general rules or formulas. It is generally best to depend largely upon the tests of trial. In framing and hanging pictures, as in many other things, observation and experience are the best teachers. Some suggestions may be found in the following record of two actual framing problems that were satisfactorily solved. FRAMING AN OLD-TIME INTERIOR, DRAWN IN COLOURS The conditions which had to be met in this problem are plainly shown in the framed picture as it hangs on the wall. The picture itself is a small one, 8 inches wide and 13 inches long. It is interesting because of its representation of a sewing room in one of the high-class homes of the colonial period. The mistress and her two young daughters are engaged in sewing and embroidery. Patterns are displayed upon the wall; the furniture is appropriate and evidently an example of the best of the period. All these details are suggestive of the delightful home life of our grandmothers. Such a picture needs a mat to give it depth and to properly emphasize its details; and it requires a simple, narrow frame. The mat was accordingly made 2-1/2 inches wide and the frame 1 inch wide. The tone of the mat selected was a light bluish gray, forming a good connecting link between the bright colours of the picture and the gray of the wall against which it was to be placed. Since it was to hang directly over a fine old mahogany table, it was thought fitting to give the frame a mahogany finish, connecting the furniture shown in the picture with that of the room. The frame was made with mitred corners of perfectly plain, square-edged birch, which readily takes a mahogany finish. The stain was first applied with a brush, rubbed in, and allowed to dry. A surfacing coat of shellac, coloured to match the stain, was next put on, allowed to dry, and then carefully sand-papered, special care being taken to guard against rounding the edges and corners. A coat of varnish was next applied, which, after hardening for one week, was rubbed first with pumice stone and oil and finally with rotten stone and oil. A final coat of thin finishing varnish was then put on, which was lightly rubbed with rotten stone and water to give the half dull effect required to match the antique mahogany table. FRAMING A CARBON PHOTOGRAPH OF A MASTERPIECE The picture is a copy in sepia tones of Murillo's Saint Anthony, 16 inches in height by 20 inches horizontally. The frame is made of quartered oak 3 inches wide, slightly convex but smooth; and it is well joined with mitred corners. A picture of this character needs no mat. Indeed, it would have been the height of presumption to strive to accentuate a masterpiece of such highly idealistic meaning and treatment. It must be left to itself as much as possible. The dimensions of the frame are therefore determined by the size of the picture itself. The picture hangs against a light gray wall in good light, somewhat apart from other pictures. It was a happy thought thus to recognize its dignity. It was given further distinction by finishing the oak frame so that it should not associate itself with the other woodwork in the room. Since the room in which the picture was to hang has a light ash trim and most of the furniture a mahogany finish, this requirement was easily met. But there are many ways of finishing a frame to avoid too close association with the commonplace that would have been anything but appropriate to such a picture as this. A gilt surface, a silver-gray tone, or a highly polished golden oak are possible blunders. Nothing should be done to call attention to the frame of any picture, least of all to one of such spiritual feeling as this one. The frame should seem to be a part of the picture, repeating its prevailing tones with a richness in keeping with the composition of the picture itself. The colour should be a rich, dark brown, but not so dark as to obscure the figure of the wood. The finish should be dull, but soft and smooth. There are several brown stains which, properly applied, would give the desired effect. For the colour it was thought best to rely upon Van Dyke brown, which may be used either with alcohol or turpentine. It is not desirable to use a water stain in a case like this because it would raise the grain, necessitating sand-papering, which should be avoided as much as possible on picture frames in order to keep the edges and corners intact. Ammonia fuming preserves the figure of the wood better than any other form of staining, but it was thought that the oak might not take on a tone dark enough to meet the requirements. It was decided, however, to try the fuming method and to tone up with a thin coat of stain if the effect proved to be not sufficiently dark. The ammonia process resulted in a rich, soft surface, but in a colour too light. A thin Van Dyke brown alcohol stain was therefore applied and when dry this was followed by a very thin coat of shellac--mostly alcohol--coloured to match the stain. This was to fill partially the grain of the wood. Finally, it was thoroughly coated with wax finish and well rubbed to restore the soft, satin-like surface. [Illustration: A group of passe-partouts] PASSE-PARTOUTS Framing pictures in passe-partout binding is one of the little arts of home decoration, though it is by no means an unimportant one. It is easy to learn and it involves small expense in time and money, but it furnishes a means of preserving many pictures of real worth in themselves or of value to their owners because of pleasant associations; and it is in itself a delightful occupation. It offers the same chances for artistic effects in colour harmony and contrasts, in spacing, and in the arrangements for hanging that the more difficult methods of framing do, with the added advantage that one need not be deterred by the question of expense from discarding an unsuccessful result and trying again. _Varieties of Binding._--Passe-partout binding is made in a great variety of colours. It costs from ten to twenty cents per roll of twelve yards, according to colour and quality, and it may be purchased of dealers in artists' supplies. For general use the ordinary width of binding--7/8 of an inch--is required; but extra narrow widths are supplied when it is desired to add a margin of a contrasting colour. For these margins the gold and silver narrow bindings are, with certain pictures, very effective; but white and other light colours are often used for this purpose. _Artistic Colour Effects._--The choice of the colour for the principal binding should be controlled mainly by the tone of the picture, with which, as a general thing, it should blend. If no mat be used, more or less of a contrast in colour between the picture and the binding is permissible; but the most artistic effects are obtained when mats are used. These should, of course, be in harmony with the colour tones and general character of the picture. It may be a harmony of agreement if there is a border of light tone between the picture and the mat, as illustrated in the accompanying drawing. Without such a border it will be necessary to show a pleasing contrast of tone. But in almost all cases when a mat is used the outer binding should repeat the predominant colour or some other prominent characteristic of the picture. For example, if it be a picture of an English hunting scene with mounted sportsmen in red coats, the mat may be of a light greenish hue and the binding red. If it be a landscape photograph in sepia tones, a white or light coffee-coloured mat with a dark brown binding is a good combination. A Scotch scene is appropriately framed in a plaid binding. In this case it is the subject of the picture rather than the colour that suggests the binding. But in all cases opportunity is offered for carefully selecting the colour combinations, planning the spacing, and arranging the grouping of pictures of like character. Thus one of the simplest of decorative processes presents large artistic possibilities. _An Actual Problem._--The various steps in the process of framing a picture in passe-partout binding may perhaps be best understood by giving an example of it. The actual problem is to frame a silhouette--an original drawing in black India ink on light gray paper, 8 by 10 inches in size, with the longer dimension vertical. _Materials and Tools._--The materials and tools required are as follows: A piece of glass the size of the picture (8 by 10 inches), since no border is needed; two pieces of thin pasteboard, which may be cut from an old box cover, the same size as the glass; a generous yard of black passe-partout binding; two passe-partout rings, which cost five cents per dozen; a little photographers' paste; a sharp knife or a pair of scissors; and an awl or a pointed nail. _The Process._--With these materials in hand it will require scarcely more than twenty minutes to complete the work. The first step is the setting of the rings. This is accomplished by punching two small holes in one of the pieces of pasteboard two inches from the edge chosen for the top and about one inch from each side. Through these holes the points of the rings are pushed until the ring is close to the pasteboard. Bending the points over in opposite directions fastens the ring firmly. This is a comparatively large picture. Had it been small--say 4 by 5 inches or smaller--only one ring in the centre, fastened about 1-1/2 inches from the edge, would have been needed. The picture is now mounted on the second piece of pasteboard by fastening it at the upper corners with a little paste. It is desirable to use as little paste as possible. The two pieces of pasteboard are then brought together, care being taken that the rings are on the outside, and the glass laid over the picture. These parts are now ready to be bound together. The sides are bound first. This is done by cutting two pieces of the binding 1/4 of an inch longer than the short edges of the picture, wetting the gummed side and laying it along the edge of the glass so that it will lap 1/4 of an inch over the face of the glass. Each end of this binding will extend 1/8 of an inch beyond the glass. The rest of the binding is now folded over upon the pasteboard back, taking pains to draw it down close to the edge of the glass and pasteboard before it is permanently fastened. The 1/8 of an inch that projects at each end is then folded over the corner and pressed down as close as possible to the edge of the glass and pasteboard. The upper and lower edges are bound in the same way, excepting that the pieces of binding are first cut the same length as the edges over which they are to be pasted, and, before they are pasted on, the two corners on the side to be pasted to the glass are cut off 1/4 of an inch back at an angle of 45 degrees, and the other corners are also trimmed back to about 1/8 of an inch. The accompanying drawing shows more clearly how these binding strips are trimmed. The purpose of it is evident; for when the strips are pasted over the top and bottom edges of the glass, it is seen that they have been cut to give the appearance of mitred corners, and that when folded over the edges upon the back of the pasteboard no rough edges of binding are left exposed at the corners. [Illustration: How the binding strips are trimmed] One of the lessons of experience in this work is that it is well to take great pains in centring the binding strips accurately before pasting them on, as they do not stick well if the attempt is made to correct a mistake by removing the binding and pasting it on again. The more elaborate passe-partouts, requiring mats, borders, and double bindings, are scarcely more difficult than the simple example just described, though they will require more time. It is well to begin with the easier problems. When borders and double bindings are used the narrow passe-partout strips are pasted on first, with proper care to cut the mitres correctly and to centre the strips accurately before pasting them down upon the glass. The edges are bound last. This partly covers the brighter-coloured strips previously pasted along the edge of the glass, and leaves a narrow line of colour exposed as a border just inside the binding. HANGING PICTURES [Illustration: A correct method of hanging pictures] _How to Hang Pictures._--If wire be used for hanging pictures, it should be as small and inconspicuous as possible. In place of the braided steel wire, which may be needed for large pictures, a single brass or copper wire is much to be preferred for those of lighter weight. In all cases where the wire shows it should appear as two vertical lines against the wall and not as a single wire bent over a single hook in the form of an inverted V, so commonly seen and so manifestly failing to conform with any lines of a room. Levelling the picture may be easily managed by using only one wire, making it continuous through the screw eyes on the back of the picture. These screw eyes should be placed near the top of the frame--about one sixth the whole vertical width of the picture from the top--so that the picture may hang nearly flat against the wall. Whenever possible, however, pictures should be hung without showing the wire at all. This may be easily managed without seriously marring the finish of some rooms by driving two fine finishing nails in the part of the lower wall which is to come directly behind the top of the picture, allowing them to project about 1/2 of an inch and bending them up a little with a pair of pliers so that the wires will not slip off. Choice, small pictures may be hung in this way on fine upholstery tacks. It is often possible, when the wire must be exposed, to stop it just below the dado cap and thus avoid showing the wire over the frieze. Whenever it is necessary, as it often is, to suspend wires by means of the so-called picture hooks from a picture moulding or cornice strip placed above the frieze, some attention should be paid to the colour of these hooks. Bright metal hooks showing over a delicately coloured moulding are in bad taste. Some people prefer to use the inverted V suspension in order to reduce the number of these picture hooks. But it is far better to retain the straight, fine, and nearly invisible wires and colour the hooks to make them less conspicuous. In determining the height of pictures it is only necessary to remember that they are placed upon the walls to be enjoyed. While monotony in height is to be avoided, the average eye level should not be disregarded. The frontispiece illustrates an effective placing of a picture in the dining-room of the model house. IV THE ARRANGEMENT OF FLOWERS "I know not which I love the most, Nor which the comeliest shows; The timid, bashful violet, Or the royal-hearted rose; "The pansy in her purple dress, The pink with cheek of red, Or the faint, fair heliotrope who hangs, Like a bashful maid, her head." --_Phoebe Cary_ Formerly when the furniture, pictures, and draperies had been arranged in our rooms, with perhaps a few pieces of bric-à-brac, we considered their decoration quite complete. But we have learned how much cheerfulness a few simple flowers, properly arranged, impart to the same rooms; and so flowers have come to be considered as almost essential to the complete decoration of the home. _A Lesson From the Japanese._--If we have learned much from the Japanese in regard to the arrangement and hanging of pictures, from them we have learned more about the artistic arrangement of flowers. They have taught us to value the stem and leaves of the flower as essential to an artistic arrangement, that flowers of the same kind should be grouped together, and that harmony and blending of colour are necessary to secure the most artistic effects. _Flowers of a Kind Grouped Together._--We may have been in the habit of putting several different kinds of flowers together and of being satisfied with such a composition; but the Japanese would tell us that when several different kinds of flowers are combined in one grouping the full beauty of each is lost; and after a few experiments we shall come to see the truth of this. Here is an illustration: At a summer camp with which I am familiar it was the daily duty of one of the younger boys to go for the wild flowers we used for keeping the camp gay. He often brought home snug little bunches of the flower of the wild convolvulus and the wild rose, to be used together. No pleasing arrangement could be made from such a handful, so he was asked to bring long pieces of the vine of the convolvulus and gather branches of the rose, especially those with the buds. The convolvulus we arranged in a flat dish at one end of a gray stone mantel, letting the vine hang over the mantel, and he quickly saw that it "looked prettier--more as though it were growing." When a few of the stalks of the wild rose were arranged by themselves in a green glass vase he pronounced them much "prettier than when mixed up with other flowers." _The Way of the Garden._--In our gardens we plant the sunshiny daffodils by themselves, the sweet peas grow in a mass together, and we have beds of roses. If we follow the same plan in the arrangement of our flowers indoors we shall realize their decorative qualities to the utmost. So we may consider it a safe rule to follow in arranging flowers,--to use only one kind of flower, with its stems and leaves, arranging them loosely, rather than to have many in a compact grouping. One single, long-stemmed rose, with its beautiful foliage, in a tall, slender glass is more decorative and gives us more pleasure than a dozen roses stripped of their foliage and crowded into a small vase. _Exceptions._--While the above rule should be generally followed, there are exceptional instances of the perfectly harmonious arrangement of flowers of two or more kinds together. Among these we may mention the combining of field daisies and buttercups, or buttercups with the grasses among which they grow. So, too, the lacy flower of the wild carrot may sometimes be effectively combined with some other flower. The spikes of the cardinal flower, for example, are gorgeous in colour, but very stiff and difficult to arrange; so the addition of a few sprays of the wild carrot softens the effect and makes it more pleasing. COLOUR ARRANGEMENT We have just considered the grouping of flowers by themselves. There is another element to be considered before we can have artistic results, and that is arrangement as to colour. _Colour Grouping._--We may not all be sensitive to colour ourselves, but in arranging flowers we should always keep in mind the pleasure that is to be given others, and so we wish nothing in our colour grouping that will offend those whose colour sense is keen. There are three colour schemes that can be followed with success and satisfaction to all. In one we group together only flowers of the same colour, as red roses, pink sweet peas, yellow iris, not red, pink, and white roses, nor all of the various colours of sweet pea. Another arrangement calls for shades and tints of the same colour. With many flowers it is possible to get exquisite effects by following this scheme. For instance, pansies ranging from a pale lavender to deep purple are lovely arranged in a low basket of damp moss. Sweet peas have beautiful shades of pink that can be combined, as well as shades of red and of lavender. Nasturtiums are never so effective as when the various shades of yellow, orange and brown are used together. The garden aster of to-day is another flower that affords much pleasure in colour arrangement; for it has lavenders and purples, a variety of pink tones, beautiful reds, and perfect white ones. And the white ones! What shall we do with these? Three or four pure white asters of the same variety may be used together; or two or three white ones may be grouped with a few lavender ones, or pink ones. White may be combined with any colour with good results. Nature is a good teacher here for she gives us both the coloured and the white in almost every variety of flower. For example there are crimson cosmos and white cosmos, scarlet geraniums and white geraniums, blue violets and white violets, and so on through a great many varieties. _Combination of Complementary Colours._--Another colour grouping that is sometimes desirable makes use of the complementary colours. The salpiglossis, a garden flower that ought to be better known than it is, gives us examples of these, with its blue and orange-yellow flowers that are so effective together. The iris also has flowers of complementary colours, yellow and violet blue being common among them. THE FLOWER HOLDERS _A Flower Composition as a Picture._--Having learned something about the artistic use of colour, we come to the consideration of the arrangement of the flowers, and this includes the vase or other receptacle used for holding them. An artistic flower composition is a picture; and as the mat and frame give finish to a picture hanging on the wall, so the vessel holding flowers should give the required finish to the flower picture. Like the frame, it should be simple in design, have graceful lines, and serve only as a medium to set off the flowers to the best advantage. There should be as little decoration as possible, and when jars or vases of colour are used they must blend or harmonize with the colour schemes of the flowers placed in them. _Receptacles for Flowers._--It often is a problem to find the most fitting thing for holding flowers; but in the reliable Japanese shops one can always find some simple holders, and there are very good designs in the clear and in the green glass that are inexpensive and appropriate. As a rule the less expensive the article the better adapted it is as a suitable holder for flowers. One need never mourn that she cannot afford cut glass vases for flowers, as they and their cheap imitations are among the most unsuitable of holders. _Four Typical Flower Holders._--Let us suppose our equipment includes four simple receptacles,--a small, clear glass fish globe such as may be had for twenty-five cents; a clear glass vase, about twelve inches in height, cylindrical in shape though flaring a little at the top, costing twenty-five cents; a large cylindrical Japanese jar of a pale green tint, eighteen inches in height and costing about one dollar and a quarter; and a deep green one, about eight inches in height, which may be bought for sixty or seventy cents. The fish globe is very effective when nasturtiums and their leaves are loosely arranged in it. The stems show through the water and glass and form a part of the composition. Short stemmed roses may be most artistically grouped in it. I have seen a very charming combination of mignonette and bachelor's buttons in the same bowl, as well as a harmonious picture in yellow, composed of the various shades of California poppies and their foliage. [Illustration: A fish globe with daisies] The tall glass sets off two or three long stemmed roses: and a few yellow daffodils or the narcissus with their leaves look equally well in it. Poppies for a day, in the same vase, have given pleasure to the beholder. At Easter it has joyously borne a stalk of two perfect lilies, and in the autumn tall spikes of salvia have been equally at home in it. Our tall Japanese jar is suited to larger arrangements, for we need to remember that in tall or vertical compositions the vase should be about one third the height of the whole combination; so this is adapted to holding branches of apple blossoms or mountain laurel; or, if one is fortunate enough to find tall lilac bushes, about three branches from these are effective in it. Tall-growing golden-rod looks equally well placed here. It furnishes a modest setting for dahlias and chrysanthemums, and one of its most decorative compositions has been two or three branches of pine bearing their brown cones. The possibilities of the smaller green jar are numerous, and only a few are given as suggestions. A loose arrangement of jonquils and their leaves, or of white narcissus, is effective. The shorter stemmed lilacs, either the purple ones or the white ones, may be placed in it. An arrangement of white field daisies, and one of yellow roses, have been found equally successful. One soon discovers the harmony and balance that exist between the flower and holder. [Illustration: A tall vase with narcissus] THE BACKGROUND _Space and Harmonious Surroundings._--To obtain the largest decorative effect we must have not only artistic grouping and harmonious setting of flowers, but space and background, just as are needed for the hanging of pictures. Many a floral composition has lost all decorative effect from being placed in too small a space and surrounded by distracting objects. A few days ago I stepped into a room on an errand and forgot my errand in the pleasure I derived from seeing some beautiful yellow chrysanthemums, three or four, I think, in a yellowish brown jar on a large mahogany table, having for a background the upturned leaf of the table. It stood some little distance from anything else, a shaft of sunlight lay across the whole, and as I looked at it I thought: Here is all that constitutes a decorative arrangement of flowers. It was the feature of the room that held one's attention. [Illustration: An arrangement for the tall Japanese jar] _Flowers for the Dining Table._--If we can have flowers in but one room in the house, it may be difficult to decide which one it shall be. Since it often happens that the dining-room is the only room where a busy family comes together for any length of time, flowers should certainly be introduced here that all may share their beauty and cheer. Any arrangement for the home table should be moderately low; and there are many simple flowers that can be used in this way to advantage. For instance, one can gather a quantity of the innocence or common bluet (root and all), to be found in any field in the spring, and put them in a shallow glass dish. Simple and effective decoration for the table is the result. Flowers with any degree of fragrance should never be used in the dining-room. The fragrance of some flowers is offensive to many people, and when combined with the odour of food doubly so. [Illustration: An arrangement of roses in a small jar] At a luncheon served by the girls in the model house the floral decoration for the table was a half dozen single, yellow jonquils with their foliage, placed in a creamy brown vase made by one of the girls. Their dishes being in white with a gold edge and the walls and furniture in browns, nothing could have been more harmonious than these few simple flowers. _Expensive Flowers not Necessary._--It is evident that for floral decoration neither expensive nor lavish displays are necessary, that simplicity is the thing to strive for, and that a few sprays of wild flowers in their season are more truly artistic than many expensive hot-house flowers. In this country we do not, as the Japanese do, make a festival in honour of certain flowers; but if we rightly appreciate and utilize the flowers of each season, we may give a touch of festivity to the life of every day. In the early spring nothing can be more appropriate than an arrangement of pussy willows or branches of the alder with its tassels, while the red maple when in flower gives a touch of colour that will brighten any room. A clump of blood root in a small jardiniere is as decorative as the expensive plants one may see in the home of some friend. The flowers of the field and the garden offer so many possibilities for decorative results that no one's home need lack the cheery touch which they can give. There is a personal element in flowers such as is not found in any other means of decoration, not even in pictures, with the single exception of good portraits. They seem to speak to us. We can almost believe that they feel an interest in all that we have said about them. If they really could know, would they not approve the principles that we have laid down? We may fancy that they _would_ approve and that, if they could really speak and we would listen, they would tell us so in some such language as the following: WHAT THE FLOWERS SAY ABOUT IT Don't mix us; we are exclusive and prefer our own kind. Don't make a confusion of colour with us. Don't arrange us in snug, solid masses. Don't neglect to use our stems and foliage as a part of the decoration. Don't tie us with ribbons, nor put paper-lace frills around us. Don't crowd us in with an assortment of household goods; we need space and a background. Don't arrange us in tall, stiff forms for the dining table. _Do_ love us and use us in the home as much as possible. This is well for you. By so doing not only will your love of us increase, but your artistic perception of the fitness of things will constantly enlarge. For truly has it been said, "The poorest woman in the world, if she has faith in beauty, will always be able to fill her home with light; she can always place there some flowers." V DECORATIVE FABRICS PORTIÈRES, WINDOW DRAPERIES, CUSHION COVERS, TABLE MATS The very need of ornament arises out of a certain innate discontent with plain, smooth surface--_Lewis F. Day_ No kind of decorative art offers greater possibilities for touching the right--or the wrong--chord than that which makes use of fabrics. Portières, curtains, cushion covers, table runners and mats, lamp shades, and many other furnishings, in which fabrics are involved, present problems that quickly engage the interest of the amateur decorator who wishes to avoid the commonplace and, when well worked out, add greatly to the attractiveness of artistic surroundings. And every house becomes a studio for problems peculiar to itself, when the possibilities of development in this direction are realized. Here, as everywhere else, decorative art is secondary to architectural design and must never fail to acknowledge its dependence. Its glory is to follow. To attempt to lead means miserable failure. _Example of the Model House._--The wide doorways connecting the hall, the living room, and dining-room of our model house made doors undesirable and portieres necessary to assist in marking the division between the rooms and to soften the lines of the wood finish. They were made to harmonize with the colour scheme but were darker and richer in tone. The multiple windows, with the absence of direct sunshine, suggested the light style of drapery; and the preference given to straight-lined, substantial furniture, made in the school shops, led as a natural consequence to cushions and coverings of leather or coarse fabric, in order to bear out the idea of simplicity, directness, and durability in craftsmanship. Velvets and satins would have been out of place. _Utility to be Regarded._--The highly decorative function of such accessories makes it doubly necessary to exercise care in selecting materials, designing the ornamental features, and properly placing the completed article, in order that the requirements of use be not subordinated to the demands of art. It must never be forgotten that utility is the basis of all true decoration. Portieres were originally a substitute for doors--a means of closing an opening between rooms. It must be possible always for them easily to serve this purpose. Hence loops or rings, which slide easily over a pole, should be used. Portières may properly be made of heavy cloth and they may have a lining harmonizing or in pleasing contrast with the tone of the principal fabric. They should always be at least opaque. Window draperies, on the other hand, are not a substitute for shades or curtains. They should not shut out the light but soften it. They should, therefore, be made of light, washable, and durable material, and be hung so that they can be easily taken down for cleaning. The simplest style of hanging, by means of a brass rod and plain brackets, is the best. Since there is no need of frequently sliding them over the rod, it is well to hang them by means of a hem, stitched two or three inches from the top of the drapery, through which the rod may be easily pushed. Cushion covers and table runners, made of durable material and decorated with colours that are washable, are manifestly more serviceable than those that look fresh only when new, and hence are more in keeping with the idea of sincerity in household decoration. There is necessity for honesty in decoration as well as in plumbing if it is to meet the tests with equal success. [Illustration: Pillow Cover With Geometrical Designs Printed on Dyed Cotton Cloth. Table Runner of Russian Crash with Block Printed and Embroidered End Panels. Plate III] How such decorative features are worked out from beginning to end, is told in the following directions for a few practical problems which are known to be practical, because they have been actually carried through from the design to the completed article. This detailed and complete explanation, with the accompanying illustrations, will suggest many similar problems which every home offers. BLOCK PRINTING Problem: _Decorating a Table Runner_.--This problem is easily separated into four distinct parts--making the design, cutting the block, printing, and finishing. The materials needed are as follows: (1) Making the design Ordinary drawing paper Rice paper Charcoal Pencil Japanese or sable brush, medium size Water-proof India ink (2) Cutting the block Gum wood Small penknife Vise Sand-paper, fine (3) Printing the design Printing board Sheet of glass Oil paints Turpentine Palette knife Cotton batting Cheese cloth (4) Finishing the runner Embroidery silk or mercerized cotton [Illustration: The peacock design] _The Design._--To carry out the problem as illustrated, it is necessary, first of all, to make the design. Geometry, nature, and the imagination are satisfactory sources upon which to draw for the motif. If the inventive faculty is quite undeveloped, one should study for suggestions the figures in Oriental rugs, photographs of early Eastern art, and the fine old tapestries in museum collections. Some good geometrical designs, like that used on the pillow cover illustrated on page 104, were made by school-girls after drawing many figures found in rugs; and interesting bird patterns, after studying numerous reproductions of Coptic designs. In no case was the block pattern in the least like the designs studied. They served only as ideas to start with and led to the production of truly original work. It is essential to keep a few simple principles in mind in working out the design: (1) Both the dark and light shades in the patterns should be varied in size and form to avoid a monotonous result and should be as beautiful in proportion as possible. (2) There should be a centre of interest, one part of the design dominant--more attractive than any other. (3) The design must be a unit--_i. e._, the parts must hold together. All feeling of unity is lost if the parts of the design call attention to themselves to the exclusion of the whole. [Illustration: Block used in printing the peacock design] _Preliminary Sketches and the Drawing._--It will be found desirable to make many preliminary sketches in charcoal or soft pencil, rubbing in a part of each sketch with a tone in order to secure immediately the dark and light effect. These should be compared, keeping clearly in mind the principles stated above. When one possessing the right qualifications has been found, the next step is to draw on a fresh piece of paper an accurate 3-inch square and copy upon it the satisfactory design in pencil outline. This should be done very carefully, that the spirit of the original charcoal sketch may not be lost. When the drawing is completed it must be put into shape to be transferred to the block. To do this we fasten a piece of rice-paper over the drawing and trace with very light pencil lines, filling in the dark spaces with black ink, using a brush. This brush work may be done directly without the pencil line if the drawing underneath shows very plainly through the paper. When the ink has thoroughly dried, the design may be cut out on the edge of the 3-inch square. [Illustration: Bird pattern] _Laying the Pattern and Cutting the Block._--A block 3 × 3 × 7/8 inches will now be required. This should be procured and sand-papered. One face of it should then be covered with a coating of library paste, the pattern laid upon it, and rubbed down smooth. If the design is symmetrical it should be pasted on the block, ink side up, but otherwise with the ink side down, or the design will be reversed upon the cloth. When the paste gets quite dry one may then fasten the block in the vise and, holding the blade of the knife at a slight angle and always away from the dark spots, proceed to cut the design along the outlines. These must be kept very smooth and sharp. All of the white shapes should be cut out, leaving the black ones in relief. Usually an eighth of an inch will be deep enough for the background, but it will be found after practise in printing that the larger spaces should be cut deeper and that, when the edges or corners of the block form a part of the background instead of the dark pattern, they also need a deeper cut. The paper that still adheres to the face of the block may now be removed by rubbing it upon a sheet of sand-paper laid upon something hard and smooth like glass in order that the block may have an absolutely level surface. [Illustration: A flower and leaf design] [Illustration: Block used in printing this design] _The Padded Board._--All block printing should be done upon a padded board. A very convenient one can be made by laying upon a bread board three or four sheets of blotting paper, and tacking over these several thicknesses of cheese cloth. In place of these an ironing board may be used. _Material Required._--It is essential to select for the runner a piece of crash of fine texture and even weave. This is sold under the name of Russian crash and is from 15 to 16 inches wide but varies considerably in quality. It is very difficult to print well upon the coarser grades. [Illustration: Alternating animal and geometrical design] [Illustration: Blocks used in printing this design] _Trying the Colours._--After deciding upon a colour which will harmonize with the general colour scheme of the room in which the table runner is to be used, it is in order to mix the paint and try the block upon a small piece of crash. To prepare the paint, squeeze a small quantity of the true colours chosen upon a sheet of glass and blend thoroughly with the palette knife, thinning with turpentine to the consistency of cream. It is seldom that a colour right from the tube will prove a pleasing one to use. Other colours mixed with it will change its hue and intensity; black or white will alter the value. Tie a little cotton batting up in a small square of cheese cloth or old handkerchief linen, being careful to remove from the raw edges all ravellings that might drop into the paint. Spread out quite thin upon the glass a small portion of the prepared paint and press the pad into it a number of times until it has absorbed all it will. Now charge the block by lightly pounding its surface with the pad. Press the block upon the cloth evenly. Only by repeated experiment will it be possible to determine just the right quantity of paint to mix, its brilliancy of tone, its consistency, how heavily to charge the block, etc. A good print shows the texture of the cloth through it, is even in tone, and has clear-cut edges. If the print looks like a painted spot, or if, when quite dry, you find it has stiffened the cloth, the paint used was too thick or else the block was too heavily charged. Different materials require different treatment. For a thin silk the block should be very lightly charged and lightly though evenly pressed upon the material. In printing upon crash it is necessary to press the block very firmly upon the material; and frequently, to insure getting a sufficiently strong impression, it is advisable to tap the block lightly with a hammer or wooden mallet. If one has a steady hand, the block can easily be lifted at one side to determine just where the extra pressure is needed. The block should be thoroughly rubbed with old cloth after each impression is made and occasionally sand-papered to remove any paint that may adhere to it. The first print made after sand-papering the block is liable to be a little less distinct than the others and should therefore be made upon an extra piece of the material. _Centring the Work._--A good way to plan the placing of the panel design is to run a basting thread across the crash between two of the woven threads. Mark the centre of the runner upon this thread, and, using these guides, print the design, beginning with one of the central units. _Additional Features._--Considerable charm can be added to the pattern by filling some of the spaces with a simple darning or running stitch in some bright colour. The embroidery thread used should be rather fine. It is well to finish the ends of the runner by button-holing with ravellings of the crash. Tiny dots of some colour used in the panel may be embroidered at intervals just above the button-holed edge. _Colours._--The following list of oil colours will be found practical: ivory black, flake white, burnt sienna, light red, crimson lake, chrome yellow, chrome green, permanent blue. _Materials._--Linen, cotton, soisette, all or part silk pongee, crêpe de chine, cheese cloth, and unbleached muslin are excellent materials for block printing. Beautiful background tones can be obtained by dyeing the two latter with easy dyes. In place of the gum wood for the block, basswood, maple, or holly may be used. It is possible to get along without a vise by fastening the block between two cleats nailed to an old table or heavy board. Success is sometimes achieved in cutting blocks while simply held in the hand. _Laundering._--If the material used for the foundation is washable, block printed articles can be satisfactorily and easily laundered in soapy, lukewarm water. The colours are not injured in the least. A liquid called stencil mordant is sometimes used in place of turpentine, insuring still greater permanency of colour. _Other Applications of Block Printing._--Other articles suitable for decoration by block printing are curtains, pillow covers, table covers, cushion covers, bureau scarfs, Portieres, table mats, bags of many sorts, etc. Printing may also be used to ornament articles for personal use, such as aprons and scarfs. STENCILLING Problem: _Window Draperies_.--Making the design, cutting the stencil, printing, and finishing form the divisions of the problem to be worked out. A list of necessary materials follows: (1) Making the design Charcoal Pencil Reflector Ordinary drawing paper Tracing paper Carbon paper Stencil paper (2) Cutting the stencil Sheet of glass Sharp penknife (3) Printing Large board Blotting paper Turpentine Oil paints Bristle brushes Pins _The Design._--Suggestions as to the method of procedure in making a design have been already given in the section on block printing. The principles of design to be considered are outlined there also. In working out this problem, however, several new things come up for explanation: (1) The difference between a design to be stenciled and one to be printed by means of a wood block; (2) the method of joining units to form a border; (3) the method of turning a corner in a border design. [Illustration: Window Draperies With Stenciled Border. Designed and Executed by a School Girl. Plate IV] _The Stencil Bands._--By studying the illustrations accompanying this section and by experimenting with the charcoal or soft pencil, it will be seen that in a stencil design the dark spots which stand for the color in the finished work are completely separated from one another by bands of varying widths. [Illustration: A stencilled pattern--portion of pillow cover] These bands, or bridges, as they are called, serve to hold the stencil together and are connected throughout the design. Though they may be as wide as one desires, it is seldom wise to make them much narrower than one eighth of an inch, as they are easily broken; and, unless carefully pinned down when stencilling, the paint is liable to run under them and ruin the work. In a block print design no connection of the light or separation of the dark parts has to be considered. In the illustration of the stencil observe that the dark and light are reversed as compared with the stencilled pattern--_i. e._, the dark represents the stencil paper, the light the openings through which the paint is applied. [Illustration: The stencil for this pattern] _The Complete Unit._--It will be readily understood that a border may be made up by repetition of one unit which is a complete thing in itself. The unit in such a case may be made very long and narrow, so that in repeating it along the vertical edge of a curtain it produces a narrow band, while along the horizontal edge the band is broad. A border worked out in this way, with perfectly straight and practically continuous margins, is very structural in character, emphasizing, as it does, the vertical and horizontal edges of the drapery. The effect is strong and dignified. The corner in this kind of border presents no difficulty. _The Subordinate Unit._--By studying the illustration in Plate IV it will be seen that the unit of the border in this case is not complete in itself, but that the very conventional flower and stem composing it are joined to the next unit by what might be called a subordinate unit, composed, in this case, of a leaf form. The units are so closely spaced that a structural effect is fairly well obtained--_i. e._, the upper and lower edges of the border are nearly straight, giving a feeling of restfulness to the design that never accompanies one with broken or wavy edges. _Designing the Corner._--Having planned a design for the straight running border of the curtains, take a reflector and experiment with the corner. The reflector can easily be made by cutting from an old discarded looking-glass a small rectangular piece, 3-1/2 by 6 inches being a convenient size. The edges should be very straight and the corners square. Hold the reflector at various points along the border and always at an angle of 45 degrees. Study these possible corners which will be reflected in the glass, and when one sufficiently strong and interesting is found draw a light line along the edge of the reflector. This line, of course, exactly bisects the corner of the border to be made. Avoid making a border of this kind too deep or, when turned for the vertical edges, it will form a very broad and heavy band. _The Outline Drawing._--The dark and light design having thus been worked out in charcoal, the next thing to do is to make a very careful pencil-outline drawing of the same. It is well to draw the corner and one unit free-hand and trace the rest. To do the tracing, pin a piece of very thin paper over the finished part, and trace with a well sharpened and fairly soft pencil. Turn the tracing paper upside down, fitting a part of the tracing to the drawing underneath. After tacking it down, trace the remainder, using a firm, even pressure and being careful exactly to follow the line. Strengthen the part of the pattern thus transferred by going over it with a sharp, hard point, and continue as before until you have a border of which both the vertical and horizontal sections are from 9 to 12 inches long. _Transfer to Stencil Paper._--Now, take a piece of stencil paper and square up one corner. Fasten the pencil drawing securely to the stencil paper along one edge, slip a piece of carbon paper between the two, and trace the design. _Cutting the Stencil._--Before cutting the stencil for the curtain a beginner should do a little practising upon an extra piece of the paper. Trace a portion of the design upon this piece, lay it upon a sheet of glass or very hard wood, and with a sharp penknife cut along the outline of the pattern. The knife should be held at a slight angle and the cut made completely through the paper. The pieces of stencil paper should never be pulled out but will fall out without aid when the cutting is completed. After a little practice it will be found a simple matter to cut the design with perfectly smooth edges. _Suitable Materials for Stencilling._--For the curtains fine cheese cloth or batiste will be found excellent. Even unbleached muslin will make attractive curtains where expense must be carefully considered. Unless the woodwork of the room is white, the pure white materials will be found less pleasing than those that are quite creamy in tone. Scrim in a charming, grayish tan colour is obtainable, and, if of good, soft quality, makes most satisfactory curtains. It is not advisable to hemstitch this material before stencilling as in case of accident or failure so much work is lost; but the hems should be carefully planned and basted, those along the inner edges of the curtains being narrower than the bottom hems. _The Colours._--The color scheme of the room should be carefully considered in deciding upon the colour or colours to be used in stencilling. If two colours are chosen, they should be of the same value--_i. e._, the two colours should form equally dark spots in order that the pattern of the border may appear in the same dark and light as the original charcoal sketch. _Pinning the Stencil._--When ready for the actual process of stencilling, lay a large sheet of blotting paper upon a board and over this place the corner of the curtain. Pin the stencil securely to the curtain so that the edge of the border when printed shall be about half an inch from the hem and the edges of both shall be absolutely parallel. Use as few pins as possible but enough to keep the stencil close to the cloth. _Testing the Paint._--Having mixed the oil paint with turpentine or stencil mordant, using an old cup or glass for each colour, practise stencilling upon a small piece of cloth. Put blotting-paper under the cloth and pin the stencil down with great care. Use short, stiff bristle brushes for the stencilling, one for each colour. Remove almost all the paint from the brush by pressing it upon blotting-paper. When it leaves scarcely a mark, proceed to stencil the pattern by pounding the brush upon the exposed portions of the cloth, working close to the edge of each spot. If, upon removing the stencil, the edges are blurred, the paint was too thin or the stencil not carefully pinned down. If, on the other hand, the coloured spots look thick and painty, so that upon drying, the cloth is found stiffened in these places, you may be sure that the paint used was too thick or that the brush was too wet. The secret of good stencilling is to use the paint as thin and the brush as dry as possible. Hold the stencilled sample up to the window and see whether, when the light shines through it, the colour appears right. _The Real Process._--When confident that the process is understood and that the colour is satisfactory, proceed to stencil the corner of the curtain. Always have at hand a bottle of turpentine and a clean piece of cloth to use in case of accident. When removing the pins from the stencil wipe each one carefully. Clean the stencil, too, handling it with care that none of the slender bridges may be broken. Replace the stencil, fitting a section of it to the finished work. Put the pins in the holes already made, otherwise the paint will get into them and disfigure the work. Continue the stencilling, a section at a time, until the border is completed. Do not fold the curtains until the stencilling is thoroughly dry. If the threads of the material can be easily pulled, a hemstitched edge will make the best finish; but careful hand hemming will look well upon material like fine batiste. _The Valance._--The curtains should hang in vertical folds from the top of the window to a point slightly below the window sill. They should be drawn back at each side of the window and the space between at the top filled by a valance about a foot deep, perhaps deeper if the window is very high. This valance should have the border stencilled upon it and should be tacked just underneath the edge of the curtains. Sometimes, as in the illustration in Plate IV, a valance running across the entire width of the window is used. In this case it is run upon an extra rod in front of the one from which the curtain hangs. Double rods for this purpose can be bought. _Other Possible Problems._--As stencilling can be employed in practically the same place and upon the same materials as block printing, it is only necessary to refer to the lists given at the end of that section of this chapter for suggestions as to further possibilities in the way of home decoration by stencilling. EMBROIDERY Problem: _Table Mat_.--As in the preceding problems, the first thing to do is to plan the design roughly in charcoal or soft pencil in order to get the dark and light relations and the best proportions possible. If convenient, the mat should be made for use with some special lamp or vase. By measuring the base of this object it is easy to determine the size of the plain central space, which may be either circular or square in shape. The forms in the decorated part may be made of various shapes, but it is well to keep them very simple in outline. Straight lines alone may be employed, as in the mats illustrated in Plate V, or a combination of straight and curved lines, as in the one shown in Plate III. After working out the design very accurately with a hard pencil, the next thing in order is to transfer it to a piece of coarse Russian crash or heavy linen by means of carbon paper, taking great care to get the straight edges of the design even with the threads of the crash. _Desirable Combinations of Colour and Stitches._--The simple running or darning stitch should be employed in embroidering the pattern. Two or more colours may be used. Darning in dull green and outlining with black in the same stitch makes a very attractive mat. Other good combinations are green and white, blue and white, blue and green, soft dull blue, and pinkish orange. This by no means exhausts the pleasing contrasts that may be found. The brighter colour should always be employed in the smaller quantities. The mat illustrated in Plate V was embroidered in dull green and red mercerized cotton. After the darning was completed it was found that the red used in the small circles alone was too conspicuous, although it was very dull in tone. This defect was completely remedied and a perfect unity given to the design by outlining the forms in a couching stitch, using both colours. This was done by laying a green thread along the edge of each spot and taking a stitch of red over it at equal intervals. [Illustration: CROCHETED PANELS A Linen Workbag With Conventional Landscape in Darning Stitch A Crash Table Mat Embroidered in Darning and Couching Stitch Designed and Executed by School Girls. Plate V] After the embroidered pattern is done one may finish the mat with fine, close hemstitching or by button-holing the edge with ravellings of the crash. The latter method is usually more pleasing. The simple darning stitch can also be used to make very attractive borders for table runners, sofa pillows, decorations for work bags, as illustrated in Plate V, besides being used to enrich a great variety of block printed or stencilled articles. _The Satin Stitch._--Another effective and easy embroidery stitch to be used in decorating articles for the home is the over-and-over or satin stitch. When planning to use this stitch upon coarse linen in which the threads can be easily counted, transfer the design, after having carefully drawn it in pencil outline, to paper marked off into little squares. This can be bought where kindergarten supplies are sold. Redraw the outline of the design, following exactly the lines on the paper, and at the same time keep as close as possible to the original form. Let a certain number of threads of linen represent a square of the design and copy the pattern in the satin stitch or even the cross stitch if preferred. No transferring of the pattern to the cloth is necessary. A pattern worked out on cross section paper in this way can also be crocheted, as illustrated in Plate V, and set into linen or some of its many imitations to decorate numberless articles for home or personal adornment. This crocheted work, if evenly done in fine thread, is quite suggestive of the Italian filet lace. VI DRESS AND THE PRINCIPLES OF DECORATION "A foolish little maiden had a foolish little bonnet With a feather and a ribbon and a bit of lace upon it; And that the other maidens of the little town might know it, She thought she'd go to meeting of a Sunday just to show it. 'Hallelujah! hallelujah!' sang the choir above her head. 'Hardly knew you! hardly knew you!' were the words she thought they said." In considering the dress of the person as related to home decoration one is not so far afield as one may seem to be at first thought. It is true that dress has a variety of functions to perform that have no connection with the subject of decoration; and yet there is much that is common to both. Well-dressed people of whatever age or sex, in the design and general make-up of their costumes, must observe the same laws that govern design wherever it is applied, as an expression of the artistic sense in the affairs of every-day life. Beauty of line and proportion, harmony of colour, adaptation to use and to a great variety of special conditions, simplicity, symmetry, restraint, are all involved in personal attire, as they are in the decoration of a room; and in most cases success or failure in one field has its counterpart in the other. Have we not often remarked of a house or of a room that it looks "just like her" or perhaps "just like him"; and do not attractive costumes give pleasure to others than those who wear them for the same reasons that properly decorated and well-arranged rooms afford similar enjoyment to those who live in them? _Art and the Fashions._--In discussing the parallel between art in clothing and the more stable art of home decoration it must be admitted, of course, that style in dress introduces some embarrassing questions; for the styles, especially for women, suffer wonderful changes with every season. And yet people of artistic feeling and good taste, succeed in maintaining a fair degree of harmony between the changing demands of fashion and the established principles of art as applied in dress. _How to Be Well Dressed._--The well-dressed woman knows how to select her clothes and how to wear them. She must study her own figure and know her defects as well as her good points. With this knowledge she can learn to subdue the one and bring out the other. She should have a clear conception of the ideal figure and strive to adapt herself to it. To acquire this training the principles of the art of decoration must be understood and applied. She should never wear a garment of a certain style simply because it is the fashion, but strive to make it conform to her individual type. _Good Lines._--Decorative design in dress must follow the construction lines of the figure and not destroy them. These are the much discussed good lines of which we hear and read so much. Horizontal lines break the figure and increase the breadth, while vertical lines give the appearance of height. It is the simple lines, conforming to and following the lines of the ideal figure, which are the best. The taste of most women leads them to desire simple clothes; but through ignorance or inexperience many of these women fail to achieve that aim. A stout woman with a round back is sometimes seen wearing a dress with lapels or ruffles over the shoulders. This only serves to accentuate her defect. _Unity and Harmony._--In all forms of decoration harmony is essential--_i. e._, all the parts that are to be combined must agree with one another and with their surroundings. To secure this in dress is to give unity to the entire costume. A dress hat with plumes should not be worn with a tailored suit in the morning; and yet we often see such a combination. Here the lack of harmony is between the parts of the costume; but the entire costume must be suited to the peculiarities of figure. There are women who never look well in the straight lines of a tailored suit: the severity is not becoming to them. They must tone down the effects of the lines by ruchings, ruffles, a soft stock, or some such softening elements of dress. Others do not look well in fluffy things. Each must know what is becoming and dress accordingly. _Importance of Colours._--Every season we hear that certain colours are to be worn. Many women will choose a colour because they like it without considering whether it is suitable for them to wear. A little attention to a few well-known facts will help them to avoid failures of this kind. It is generally recognized that light colours seem to increase the size. Striped materials should not be worn by the stout women unless the stripes are very indistinct. Dots are also very dangerous for her; but she may choose a pattern with pin-point dots scattered over the surface at some distance from each other. She is always safe in a plain, dark colour. _Colour and Complexion._--In deciding on a becoming colour one must take into account the colour of the hair and eyes and the tone of the complexion. It has been thought that young girls can wear clear, light shades and that older women should keep to dark, quiet colours; yet there are older women who wear pale gray, mauve, and lavender charmingly and many young girls who cannot wear blue or pink. It is quite impossible to make accurate colour rules, because it would be hard to find two complexions that require exactly the same colour setting. It is well, however, to study combinations of different colours with the idea of finding the right colour, to use in any costume, the amount of each, and the best arrangement to give a proper balance. _Proportion._--The importance of the principle of proportion is often overlooked, but beauty of dress is never possible if it be neglected. A well-dressed woman, in selecting her hat, must have given consideration to the relation of the size and shape of the head to the lines of the entire figure. Strictly speaking, a hat is a covering for the head, and it should seem to belong to the head, to protect it, and, through harmony of colour and proportion of line and mass, to improve the appearance of the whole costume. The artist, when drawing a figure, uses the head as the unit of measure. Therefore in choosing a hat one should select a style that is in good proportion to the size of the head and to the height of the figure. If the mass of the head is increased disproportionately by too large a hat, the entire figure is apparently shortened and the natural proportions destroyed. One often wonders why photographs of people with hats on look so old-fashioned and sometimes so ridiculous. It is because the hat is not in good proportion. The Gainsborough and Reynolds ladies with hats never look queer. Their hats bear the right relation to the head and the figure. _Appropriateness._--The general proportions of a hat or a gown may be good, but the addition of the decoration may destroy all the good effect obtained by securing the right relation of line and mass. The aim of all decoration should be to harmonize and strengthen the whole. Beauty of dress, therefore, depends upon simplicity and appropriateness of the material used as well as upon the form and arrangement of the material. Wherever ornament is used it must fulfil the condition of fitness to place; otherwise it is not really decorative. In trimming a hat, the one who is to wear it should take her seat before a mirror, and place the hat comfortably upon her head; then with the aid of a hand glass she should try the trimming in different positions until the best effect is obtained. The designs in trimming should be appropriate to the garment. The size of the design and the kind of form used should be considered. Simple forms are the best for all decorative art work. In fact, there is great advantage in plain materials. They always work to greater economy than stripes or plaids. _Influence of Occupation._--The well-dressed woman should realize how great is the influence of occasion and occupation. Some gowns were intended only for afternoon wear in the house; but we often see them worn on the street cars or for shopping. I have always approved of the rule in many shops which requires the clerks to wear plain black gowns. Formerly it was the old finery which was used for every-day wear. Now the business woman to be successful has to exercise more thought upon her clothes than the woman at home. Her clothes have harder wear and must be appropriate for her work. The dress of school-girls and children must not be overlooked. It should be as simple as possible and above all else it should be comfortable. It should never bind or pinch; indeed, the clothing should not interfere with any function of the body. But we often see children dressed with much lace, with many ruffles, and even with jewellery; and we have seen school girls wearing net waists, plumed hats, and high-heeled shoes. What an infraction is this of the principle of appropriateness in dress! VII FURNITURE MAKING It is only by labour that thought can be made healthy, and only by thought that labour can be made happy--_John Ruskin_ The chief purpose of this chapter is to outline the most important general facts upon which good furniture making is based and to give specific directions for working out a number of typical problems, following designs which have been proved in completed articles made, for the most part, by school-boys and tested by use. No attempt is made to give this great subject complete and systematic treatment; for this would involve many problems in constructive design and a corresponding number of working drawings, with specifications for the selection and preparation of materials and for the work of construction--a subject so extensive that it would easily overrun the limits of a single chapter. The aim is rather to select a few of the most suggestive lessons of experience in constructive work with special reference to our main subject of household decoration. It is taken for granted that the interested reader is familiar with the use of the common hand tools for woodworking or that he can, with some assistance, perhaps, easily command their use. It is not thought necessary, therefore, to describe in detail the proper method of using tools, but rather to offer practical suggestions on the selection, preparation and constructive use of woodworking materials and, in the series of problems which follow, to give some helpful hints on the way woodworking tools should be used. It is also assumed that in most cases the very great advantage of woodworking machinery may be utilized, especially in preparing the materials and bringing them within easy reach of the hand-tool processes. The true art-craft spirit, which always honours handwork as the supreme method, may not hesitate to command the services of machines so long as it does not become slavishly dependent upon them. SELECTION AND PREPARATION OF STOCK The first thing that should claim the attention of the artistic woodworker is the selection and preparation of his materials, commonly known as the stock. The sculptor selects his marbles with the greatest care. So should the cabinet-maker make sure that his woods are taken from the right parts of selected timber and that they are properly sawed and well seasoned. The importance of this cannot be overestimated. Hard wood boards, cut from the sides of a tree, will in drying, invariably curve across their grain. It is only those that are cut from the centre to the outside of the tree that may be depended upon to remain approximately true; for, after this cutting, the grain runs directly through the thickness of the board, or nearly so. Boards taken from timber in this way are said to be "quarter sawed"; those cut by sawing through the logs from side to side, as is always done with soft woods and often with hard woods, are said to be "plain sawed." This is illustrated in the accompanying drawings. _Quartered Oak._--In the case of oak, the quarter sawing not only maintains a flat surface but greatly improves the appearance of the stock when finished. The popularity of quartered oak for furniture may therefore be said to be well founded, for it is the sincerest of woods. It is as good as it looks. [Illustration: Quarter sawed log] Quarter sawing, however, is very largely confined to oak because the appearance of the grain and the strength of most woods is far from being improved by this method of cutting. Thus ash and gum wood and all the softer woods sometimes used in furniture making are plain sawed. We shall, therefore, generally find stock from these woods curved and twisted badly so that it will be necessary, in selecting material for large surfaces such as table tops, to pick out the straight parts for these surfaces and save the remainder to be cut into the smaller pieces which will always be needed. These pieces can be easily planed without much loss of thickness. [Illustration: End of quarter sawed board] [Illustration: Plain sawed log] [Illustration: End of plain sawed board] _Kiln-dried Lumber._--This bending and twisting of the boards does not take place as soon as they are sawed out of the log, but gradually during the process of seasoning; and, unless the lumber is kiln-dried, the more gradual the seasoning the less the bending. Lumber is kiln-dried by stacking it, with air spaces left between the boards, in steam-heated closets or kilns, where the process of drying is carried on evenly though rapidly. Kiln-dried lumber, therefore, retains its shape quite as well as that which is dried slowly in the lumber pile. But whether kiln-dried or not, it should be allowed to remain in a dry place as long as possible before using it so that it will have a chance to change all that it is likely to and so lessen the subsequent shrinking and warping. A good cabinet-maker never undertakes to make furniture from stock that he does not know to be perfectly dry and well seasoned, not only because unseasoned lumber is more likely to shrink, warp, and crack, but also because it cannot be depended upon to hold the glue, take varnish well, or respond readily to other methods of finishing. _Planing Down to a Flat Surface._--Since boards are seldom perfectly flat, even if one has taken the greatest pains to select well-seasoned stock, it will almost invariably be necessary to work them down to a plane surface when they are glued up or joined together in any way. To accomplish this result it is necessary to plan the arrangement of the pieces in such a way that the concave of the bend shall fall on the same side, as shown in the illustration, and thus provide for the final working down with the least possible removal of stock. They can be arranged on a level bench top or floor with the convex side down so that they will lie as flat as possible. The boards should then be taken out one by one and their edges should be carefully planed so that they will match together in the position in which they are laid. It will be necessary to take each board from its place and return it several times in order that this matching may be made as perfect as possible. The object of all this is to prevent the entire arrangement from springing--_i. e._, from acquiring any new bend or twist when the parts are glued up. In joining boards to form large pieces of glued-up work, like table tops, it is customary to strengthen the joints by means of dowel pins. Small table tops and similar work may be safely glued up without dowelling. [Illustration: Boards placed for planing to flat surfaces] _Fastening Glued-up Work._ It will be readily understood upon a little reflection that all plain glued-up work should be allowed to move slightly upon the framework to which it is attached; for even after it is well seasoned and well finished all woods will swell slightly in a damp atmosphere and shrink slightly when the air is dry, the greatest movement being across the grain. Solid table tops, therefore, should never be fastened down firmly upon the framework with glue or with screws, but should be secured by means of buttons screwed to the under side of the top which travel in grooves cut in the framework and thus allow for expansion and contraction. A drawing is shown to illustrate the method of attaching the table-top buttons. Much of the warping and splitting of furniture is due to the failure of the designer or maker to observe this precaution. [Illustration: Method of fastening table tops] In planing up stock, whether it be a single piece or several glued together as just described, the cabinet-maker planes off one side first and then, using this side as the working face, gauges to the required thickness and planes off the other side if necessary. If the work be upon glued-up stock, it is well to plane off the projecting edges of the concave sides first, as that is generally somewhat easier and may be all the planing that will be necessary. If it be single pieces of stock that need to be planed up, the natural twist or "wind" is first planed out to a flat working face on one side before putting the plane to the opposite side. _The Surface Plate._--Planing to a flat surface requires some device to guide the eye. If the surface be very uneven at first, a beginning may be made in the planing without much assistance; but a point will finally be reached when neither the unaided eye nor the hand can determine whether or not a surface is flat. To determine this a surface plate, as it is called, is needed. This consists of a block of cast-iron, thick enough to prevent it from being bent--_i. e._, an inch or more--and with a somewhat rough but perfectly flat surface on one side. This surface is well chalked over. When the wood surface which is being planed down is laid upon this chalked surface and slightly moved it is readily seen that the highest places on the wood will become marked with the chalk and so indicate to the cabinet-maker what parts are to be removed. By making several tests of this kind he is able to plane to a good flat surface. [Illustration: Winding sticks] _Winding Sticks._--If the amateur's workshop is not provided with a surface plate, a simple means of testing for a flat surface is by means of two narrow straight edges or "winding" sticks, placing them on their narrow edges across each end of the piece, as shown in the illustration, and sighting across their upper edges. The slight projections in the surfaces of the board can be determined in this way and planed off until the two top edges of the sticks are found to be level. These winding sticks are simply wooden strips, accurately made, with opposite faces parallel. Their dimensions may be 1 × 2-1/2 × 30 inches. _Importance of True Surfaces._--It may be well to add that all this care to produce flat and parallel surfaces is not merely for the purpose of giving a good appearance to these surfaces. True surfaces are necessary for the good of the work as a whole, for they form the basis from which other surfaces are gauged and other parts "trued up"--_i. e._, made square or otherwise geometrically correct. When the main surfaces of a piece of cabinet work are properly shaped, all the framework and other parts may be brought into line without bending or twisting. All such strains should be religiously avoided in good cabinet work. The natural curves, twists, or projections of the stock used should be removed by the use of the proper tools and never be strained to force any of the parts into their proper places or shapes. Such efforts produce strains which are transmitted to other parts, displacing them, causing new defects or a general failure of the parts to support each other. _A Systematic Plan of Work._--When the cabinet-maker undertakes to make either a single piece of furniture or several pieces, he goes about it in a very systematic way. Consulting his working drawing he makes an accurate list of the different pieces that will be required. For example, if he is to make a Morris chair he notes the fact that he will need four legs or posts 2-1/2 inches square by 22-3/4 inches long, a front rail and a back rail each 7/8 × 2-1/4 × 22 inches, two side rails 7/8 × 2-1/4 × 24 inches, and so on until the list of necessary parts is completed. With this list in hand he makes a careful selection of the lumber and prepares the pieces in the rough, allowing economically for the necessary working waste. Economy of time and labour is also secured by keeping together all parts on which similar work is to be done. Thus, if several parts are to be sawed to the same width or fashioned to the same curves, it is generally the best plan to work these parts out together while the machines and tools are set for this purpose. Such a plan not only saves time but, partially at least, it obviates the danger of mistakes. It is important also to follow a systematic order of work. All sawing to rough dimensions should be done before the pieces are dressed to drawing dimensions, and the latter operations should generally all be completed before laying out and cutting the joints. As the work progresses toward completion great saving of time and much comfort will result from keeping the completed parts in good condition and so arranged that they can be easily assembled. GLUING _Necessity of Good Joints._--After the selection and preparation of the material for the stock, the next important general process that demands attention is gluing; for good cabinet work implies good glue and a knowledge of how to use it. Prepared glue, such as is sold in bottles, is unsatisfactory for work of any consequence. A good woodworker always has his own glue pot and sees to it that it may be made ready for use on short notice. The glue should be fresh, thin, and hot. It should be applied quickly in a warm room and the parts to which it is applied clamped up quickly before the glue chills. It is the glue which penetrates the wood that holds the parts together and not a layer of glue between the joined edges or surfaces. It is therefore evident not only that joints and surfaces should be well smeared with glue, hot and thin enough to be quickly absorbed, but also that the parts should be clamped up quickly while the glue is still hot so as to prevent any surplus from remaining in the joint. This is an additional reason for making close fits in all joints--in those which are to be glued up as well as in those which are not. It is a common fault of beginners to be satisfied with loose mortise and tenon joints, counting upon the glue to fill up the spaces. Much of the furniture found in the markets falls to pieces for the same reason. Such work should never be allowed to pass. It is based upon an entirely mistaken notion of the true office of glue and is nothing more nor less than a falsehood in wood. [Illustration: Method of holding framing parts square while glue is setting] _Systematic Methods Required._--As in the preparation of stock and working it up, so in gluing, system is all important. The hand screws or clamps should be made ready and adjusted to the required width so that they may be quickly placed in position as soon as the glue is applied. The whole process must be managed as quickly as possible because the joints must be tested before the glue has had time to set. A carpenter's large square should be used for testing the right angles, since it is more reliable than the small try squares. It will frequently be found necessary to hold framing pieces square while the glue is hardening. This can easily be done by nailing small strips of waste stock across the parts, as shown in the drawing. A beginner should be cautioned not to attempt to glue up too many joints at one time. Two opposite corners of a framing piece should be glued up separately and left to set before the attempt is made to glue the whole rectangle together. The two remaining joints, however, should be glued and clamped together at the same time. PICTURE FRAMING _Inexpensive Framing Stock._--Picture-frame stock can be easily obtained of dealers in artists' supplies and in furniture stores in a great variety of styles. Much of it is so well prepared and so nicely finished that it leaves little to be desired. It is, therefore, often best to secure the stock for frames in this way. It is, however, somewhat expensive, so that, when economy is important, it behooves the young woodworker to prepare his own framing stock. Very satisfactory frames 2 inches in width or less may be made from matched oak flooring, a section of which is here illustrated, by planing off the tongue and cutting away one side of the groove to furnish the inset for the glass. Wider flat frames of any thickness can, of course, be cut out from the ordinary stock. A special tool for cutting the inset is desirable but not necessary. A 1/4-inch saw cut may be made with a circular saw or even with a hand saw and the necessary removal of the wood accomplished by means of careful chiselling. [Illustration: Picture framing stock made from oak flooring] [Illustration: The mitre joint] _Mitres._--Frames may be joined at the corners in various ways. A common way is by the mitre joint illustrated in the drawing. To secure good joints of this kind it is necessary that the mitres be cut on an angle of exactly 45 degrees and that the pieces for the corresponding sides of the frame be precisely of the same length. Hand sawing is generally not exact enough to produce angles of sufficient accuracy even when an ordinary mitre box is used. Hand-sawed mitres, therefore, will require a little truing with a small plane. Great care must be exercised also in fitting the corners together. The common bench square is not large enough to prove the work. A better way is to lay a carpenter's framing square on the bench and fit the two pieces of the frame against the sides of the square, testing each corner in that way. [Illustration: Clamping mitre joints] _Gluing the Joints._--If the corners are unusually well fitted, a good joint can be made by first sizing the ends with glue and then firmly pressing the pieces together upon a true surface, leaving them undisturbed for four or five hours until the glue is hard. By sizing the ends of the joints is meant thoroughly filling the end pores with glue, rubbing it into the pores with another block. Generally speaking, however, it is necessary to make use of a mitre-clamping device. If a special clamping device is not available, one can be easily made by gluing small soft wood blocks to the parts of the frame near the corners, as shown in the accompanying drawing. In a half hour or so these blocks will become firmly set so that the mitre joints may be glued together, clamping them up with a hand screw. As already explained under the general directions on gluing, it is good practice for a beginner to glue up opposite corners and not attempt to glue up the two remaining corners until the first two are well set. When the first two corners are well set they should be nailed; and before the two remaining corners are glued it is well to try the parts together to see if they do not require a little correcting before gluing. These joints also should have light nailing after the glue has been set. In nailing, small holes should be made with a brad awl or drill in order to avoid splitting the corners, and long finishing nails should be used. _The Defect of Shrinking._--With proper tools the mitre joint is the easiest one to make, but it has one unavoidable defect, especially in wide frames. It is very difficult to get stock well seasoned and almost impossible to get it perfectly seasoned, so that wide frames, however well finished, must be expected to shrink a little after they are joined together. As most of this shrinking is across the width of the stock it is evident that it will tend to open the mitre joints on the inside of the corners. This is what happens almost invariably with joints made in this way from wide stock in picture framing. The same defect is also frequently observed in the interior finishing around windows and doors. There are three other methods of joining the corners of picture frames--_viz._, the halved lap joint, the mortise and tenon joint, and the dowelled joint. A drawing is shown to illustrate these three kinds of corner joints, and it is hardly necessary to say that no one of them is open to the same objection that attaches to the mitre joint. All these joints require accurate cutting and rather more of it than the mitre joint requires, but they are more easily glued up. The halved lap joint is easily clamped up with a common hand screw, even when the frame is a very large one. But the other two require long clamps in order to pull the joints up well. [Illustration: Halved lap joint] [Illustration: Mortise and tenon joint] _Character of the Frame._--The kind of joint required depends upon the general character of the frame--whether it is to be heavy or light, wide or narrow, and whether made of picture frame moulding or of the plain framing stock with round or flat face; and the character of the frame is a matter of design, determined by the kind of picture, by its setting, and by other considerations discussed in Chapter III. How the plan for the construction of the frame for any given picture is influenced by such considerations may be seen in the example which follows: [Illustration: Dowelled joint] MAKING A FRAME FOR A LARGE PHOTOGRAPHIC REPRODUCTION This photograph is 60 inches long by 16 inches wide. It is a copy in brown tones of a classic painting by Otto Kneille--_The Education of Athenian Youth_, the original of which hangs in the Royal Gymnasium in Berlin. It represents a spacious hall or court showing three of the large marble columns and a massive seat in which an old man reclines while another old man is expounding some doctrine to him and to a group of younger men gathered around. In the centre of the scene a boy lies flat upon the pavement reading a manuscript. Near him several youths under the direction of a master, are contending in feats of strength. The composition is one that suggests weight and power. It may appropriately hang in the hall or in the library over a wide, low bookcase. A picture of this character needs no mat and must have a wide, heavy frame. The stock chosen was oak, 4 inches wide, 1-1/2 inches thick, and flat faced. The size and weight of such a frame, including the glass, demand firmness of construction as the first consideration. The stock is too wide for successful mitring because shrinking would naturally open and weaken such joints. It was therefore framed together with mortise and tenon joints, well glued. A dowelled joint might have sufficed, but it would not have the same strength. The mortises were cut in the vertical ends and the tenons were left on the long horizontal pieces. This was in conformity with the usual method of joining framework--for example, door frames, window frames, panel frames, and other interior woodwork; for the greatest possible length is invariably given to the vertical parts. The frame was given a dark brown finish, repeating the darkest tones of the picture. Long screw eyes were fastened to the back 2 inches from the top, so that the picture might hang nearly flat against the wall. A strong braided wire about 75 inches long was run through the eyes and securely looped at each end, so that a little more than an inch of wire on each side passed through the eyes. Since the picture was to have a prominent place on a certain wall, two nails 66 inches apart allowing for the two widths of the frame as well as for the length of the picture were driven into this wall, and the heavy photograph was easily hung and balanced without exposing the wire to view. TO MAKE A KNOCK-DOWN BOOKCASE [Illustration: A knock-down bookcase] _The Design._--The problem of design was to plan a simple, inexpensive bookcase which could be easily transported and set up in a student's room and which would hold approximately two hundred books. The drawings show how these requirements were met in the design. When in use it is held together by keyed shelves at the top and bottom. The necessary stiffness is given to it by the base pieces which are fastened both to the sides and to the bottom shelf by screws. Additional stiffness is given by drawing up the three middle shelves to the sides by means of screws. Upon removing the screws and the keys the bookcase is easily taken apart so that it may be crated in compact form for transportation. It is equally easy to set it up again. It has no back and may therefore stand away from the wall as well as against it. Its contour is plain, with few curves, giving a simplicity which will harmonize with modest surroundings and yet not bar it from keeping company with more pretentious furnishings. The original of this design was actually made up in white wood, stained and finished to harmonize with black walnut furniture; but it may be made up in oak, ash, cherry, or any of the common woods used for furniture. For one bookcase the stock required is as follows, the sizes allowing for finishing to the dimensions as given in the drawing: For the ends, two pieces 7/8 inch × 10-1/4 inches × 4 feet 2-1/2 inches; for the short shelves, three pieces 7/8 inch × 10-1/4 inches × 3 feet 1 inch; for the long shelves, two pieces, 7/8 inch × 10-1/4 inches × 3 feet 5 inches; for the base pieces, two pieces 7/8 inch × 6-3/4 × inches × 3 feet; for the keys, one piece 7/8 inch × 7/8 inch × 1 foot. In addition to this there should be two dozen No. 10 round-headed blued screws, and one half dozen 1-1/2 inch No. 10 flat headed blued screws. The tools needed are as follows: Rip saw, cross cut saw, back saw, compass, jack-plane, smoothing plane, block plane, spokeshave, try square, steel square, rule, knife, hammer, mallet, screw-driver, 3/4, 1/2, and 3/16 inch bits and bitstock, and 1/2 and 3/4 inch chisels, gauges, and sand-paper. [Illustration: Details and dimensions for a knock-down bookcase] _Construction._--All the stock should be jointed, planed to width, and smoothed with sand-paper. The two end pieces should be squared to length, the top corners rounded, and the curve at the bottom cut as shown in the drawing. Care should be exercised in sand-papering not to round the edges. The correct spacing for the shelves should then be marked off on the end pieces and squared across, care being taken to have both ends spaced alike. To do this plane the ends together, with their edges flush; and, beginning at the bottom, measure off each of the spaces with correct allowance for the thickness of the shelf and mark these spaces across the edge. Then, separate the end pieces and with the marks on the edges as a guide, square across each of the end pieces on the inside and mark with a knife. In allowing for the thickness of the shelves it should be remembered that the stock, though originally 7/8 of an inch in thickness, has been planed and sand-papered, some of the shelves perhaps having been finished down more than others. It will therefore be necessary to measure and allow for the thickness of each shelf separately. [Illustration: Method of gaining-in the shelves] The three middle shelves are "gained" in--_i. e._, set into grooves in the upright ends--1/4 of an inch deep, as shown in the sketch. It will be better craftsmanship if the grooves are not carried across the full width of the end pieces but stopped, say, one inch from the edge, the shelves being cut to fit, as shown in the drawing. If this be done, the grooves should be cut out carefully with a chisel. If the grooves be carried across the full width of the end, they may be cut down with a back saw and then chiselled out. To insure a good fit in either case care should be exercised not to cut outside the knife lines. Chisel the bottom of the grooves carefully so that they will be uniformly 1/4 of an inch deep. The next step is to cut the mortises for the top and bottom shelves. The dimensions for these should first be laid off on the stock by means of a gauge. They should then be bored well inside the marks and carefully chiselled out. Before this chiselling is done, however, knife lines should be marked on the outside of the end pieces exactly opposite the gauge lines. In mortising, as in cutting the grooves, the greatest care will need to be exercised that the chisel does not cut outside the knife lines. In working for a close fit it is better to err on the side of removing too little stock at first, if one must err at all, since it is quite easy to remove a little more in the final fitting. It is quite impossible to replace stock once removed. In measuring for the length of the shelves it should not be overlooked that the top and bottom shelves are to carry the tenons to be keyed through the end pieces. These tenons should be cut out accurately with a rip saw, and the stock between them removed with a chisel after a deep knife line has been made. After fitting these tenons to the mortises and finishing them, the mortises for the keys should be cut, using a small chisel. It should not be overlooked that the outside face of each key mortise is cut on an angle, as illustrated. The three middle shelves are then cut to length, the ends squared by means of a block plane, and corners cut out to fit the grooves. [Illustration: Details of the keys] The parts are now ready to be put together temporarily and squared up in order to fit in the base pieces more perfectly than could be done by mere measurement. It will add a pleasing detail to set back these base pieces 1/4 of an inch from the front and back faces. After all the parts are carefully fitted they should be assembled and the key and screw fastenings inserted. When this is accomplished the bookcase is ready for finishing. As this is a distinct part of furniture making it is reserved for treatment in a later chapter. A HANGING BOOK RACK [Illustration: A hanging book rack] _The Design._--It is designed to plan a light but strong book rack, to be fastened to the wall of a chamber. Since it is intended to occupy the space that might be given to pictures it is properly as simple in construction as a picture frame, depending upon good proportions and symmetry to give a pleasing effect. The straight lines of the design, which is illustrated above, meet these requirements and also harmonize with the general form and outline of books. Both shelves may be used for books, if desired, but the design permits them to be confined to the lower shelf, reserving the upper one as a suitable place for a bit of pottery or two, or some other choice bit of bric-à-brac. The mortise and tenon joints give the essential stiffness and strength without requiring the use of heavy stock. _Materials and Tools._--Since strength with lightness is an essential feature to realize in the working out of this design, soft woods should be avoided. Ash is probably the strongest of the light woods in common use. Oak is much stronger but heavy and hard to work. White wood is comparatively light and very strong. Gum wood is classified with ash excepting that it is closer grained. Since this book rack is to be used in a chamber in which the wood trim is in enamelled white and most of the furniture of a mahogany finish, it will be equally appropriate to make it of white wood, to be finished in enamelled white, or of bay wood as a basis for mahogany finish. It was decided to adopt the latter course. The stock requirements for carrying out this design are as follows: 2 back posts, 1-1/4 inch × 1-1/4 inch × 24 inches; 2 front posts, 1-1/4 inch × 1-1/4 × 18 inches; 2 centre uprights, 5/8 × 1 × 18 inches; 1 back rail, 5/8 × 1-1/4 × 37 inches; 1 end rail, 1 × 1-1/4 × 44 inches; and 2 shelves, 7/8 × 7 by 37 inches. [Illustration: Construction details and dimensions for hanging book rack (front)] The tools needed are much like those required in the previous problem--_i. e._, the same planes, saws, bitstock, squares, and the gauge; but there will be needed a 3/8-inch bit, 3/8-inch and 3/4-inch chisels, a knife rule, a rabbet plane, a mitre box, and a mallet. _Construction._--The details of construction required are as follows: Dressing the stock pieces, cutting the posts to length, cutting the points on the posts, rabbeting the cross rails and cutting them to length, cutting the mortise and tenons, halving on the end rails, cutting and fitting the shelves, cutting, fitting, and fastening the back rail, arranging the clamps and other appliances for gluing up, and cleaning off the glue after hardening. [Illustration: Construction details and dimensions for hanging book rack (end)] [Illustration: How the tenon is applied to the rail] The stock pieces should be first "dressed" down to the drawing dimensions. This means that they should be planed and sand-papered preparatory to laying out the cutting dimensions. The front and back posts should be cut to length in the mitre box, care being taken to allow an extra 1/2 inch for the pointed ends at the top and bottom. These pointed ends are cut in the mitre box by raising one end of the post and sawing to lines squared around the post 1/4 inch from the other end. The angle of the cut is made uniform by resting the raised end of the post on a block lightly nailed on the inside of the mitre box, thus giving the same elevation for all the posts. The 1-inch by 1-1/4-inch piece for rails is rabbeted out, using the plane designed for that purpose, and afterward cut to length as called for. The blind mortises should be made not more than 7/8 of an inch deep, and the tenons 1/16 of an inch shorter in order not to strike the bottom of the mortise. One of these rails should be accurately laid out with knife lines and the rest marked from this as a pattern. The drawing shows the location of the tenon with reference to the part of the rail on which the shelf rests. This is the most convenient position for cutting the tenon and it also gives greater strength. The centre uprights should be halved on after the end rails are in position, being cut for this purpose as illustrated in the drawing. They may be allowed to stand out 1/8 of an inch beyond the face of the end rail, and in making the joint an equal amount of stock is to be taken from the rail and from the upright. The shelves are then easily cut to length and the ends fitted with the block plane and dropped into place, being lightly glued and nailed with brads from the under side of the rabbet. Finally the top back rail should be halved in, being left to the last in order that the more important fitting of the shelves may be more easily accomplished. [Illustration: How the centre uprights are halved on] In gluing up the mortise and tenon joints care must be exercised to set clamps out ready for use before the glue is applied so that the parts may be promptly drawn up in position. After gluing they should be allowed to remain about ten hours in order that the glue may properly harden before the clamps are taken off. All the extra glue squeezed out of the joints in clamping must be scraped off with a chisel, after the glue has hardened a little; and any remaining spots of glue must be carefully removed with fine sand-paper so as not to leave anything to interfere with the filling and finishing. AN UMBRELLA STAND _The Design._--So far as the question of use is concerned, no problem of design could be more definite than this one, since an umbrella rack can have but one use. The only elements of beauty possible are found in simplicity, proportion, and the general effectiveness of the construction for meeting the demands of use. The drawing shows four square, straight posts, squared at the ends, which are allowed to project a little above the top to avoid a box-like effect. All the joints are mortised except the division bars at the top. The cross pieces at the base are made wider not only to conceal the drip pan but to give a more stable appearance to the whole rack. _Materials and Tools._--Oak is selected as perhaps the most appropriate wood; but other woods, if the surroundings require it, may be used to good advantage. Oak is one of the strongest and most durable of the woods used for furniture and takes well a great variety of finish. It is also quite easily obtained. [Illustration: An umbrella stand] The stock requirements are as follows: Four corner posts 1-1/4 × 1-1/4 × 27-1/2 inches; four top rails 1/2 × 1-1/4 × 9 inches; four base rails 7/8 × 3 × 9 inches; two division bars 1/4 × 1-1/4 × 9-1/4 inches; four cleats 1/2 × 1/2 × 9 inches; and one board 1/2 × 7-1/2 × 7-1/2 inches to support the pan. The same tools in general will be required as in the previous exercises, but it will be necessary to add a 1/4-inch bit, a 1/4 inch chisel, a steel scraper, and two short clamps. [Illustration: Details and dimensions for umbrella rack] _Construction._--All the stock should be planed to size, scraped, and sand-papered with the exception of the base board for the pan, since that is hidden from view. The scraper corrects all slight unevenness of surface and removes scratches and other blemishes. Care should be taken in sand-papering to rub always with the grain of the wood and to avoid rounding the corners. The corner posts should first be cut to proper length and the tops and bottoms slightly chamfered. Mortises are then to be located, bored, and chiselled up. The top and bottom rails should be laid off and the tenons gauged and cut, care being taken not to have them too long. The inside edges of the tenons have to be pared off slightly, as illustrated in the drawing, to allow room for each when they come together. [Illustration: Top rail tenons] [Illustration: Bottom rail tenons] The next step is to assemble the parts, clamp them up, and test them for accuracy. While these parts are in the clamps, measurements should be taken for the cross pieces, which may then be made, allowing extra length of 1/4 of an inch in each end for the tenons to enter the top rails. These cross pieces are to be halved together at the centre, as shown in the drawing. The base rails are designed to be thick enough to take up all the space on the inside of the posts so as to hide the corner, as illustrated in the sketch showing the bottom construction. The next step is to assemble the parts for gluing. It is not necessary to explain this process in detail, since it has already been thoroughly explained in the general section on gluing. It is not necessary to glue on the cleats on which the pan rests; they may be nailed in. When the base is glued together measurements may be taken for the pan. A MAGAZINE STAND _The Design._--This problem calls for an attractive article of furniture which should also be useful as a receptacle for magazines and current newspapers. An enclosed portion between two of the shelves is desired to conceal from view and preserve for a time the more valuable papers, parts of magazines, or clippings, as may be found convenient. The perspective sketch on this same page shows how these simple requirements are met. The overhanging top adds character and strength to what might otherwise seem too light for the load it is intended to carry. [Illustration: A magazine stand] _Materials and Tools._--Oak is selected as a suitable wood because of its strength and durability; for this stand is likely to be in almost constant use. A light wood, delicately finished, would soon show wear. The stock list, according to the drawing, may be itemized as follows: 4 corner posts 1-3/4 × 1-3/4 × 36 inches; 4 upright slats 5/8 × 1 × 34 inches; four shelves 7/8 × 10-1/2 × 17 inches; one piece for the top 7/8 × 14 × 21 inches; 2 top rails 1 × 1-3/4 × 12 inches; 1 piece for the door 7/8 × 8 × 15-1/2 inches for the ends and the back of the closet 1 piece 5/8 × 8 × 36 inches; 1 pair 1-1/4-inch brass butts with screws for the hinges, and one brass knob or catch. The tools needed are a jointer, a block plane, a smoothing plane, steel square, try square, knife gauge, fine cross cut saw, 1/2-inch bit and bit stock, key-hole saw, 1/2-inch chisel, mallet, nail set, hammer, screw-driver, and steel scraper. The principal operations are as follows: Planing to size; scraping and sand-papering stock; squaring ends and smoothing them to the required length; laying out gains at corner posts; making mortises for top rails; making the rails; assembling the main parts; fitting ends and sides of the closets; hanging the door and putting on the fixtures. [Illustration: Details and dimensions for magazine stand] _The Construction._--Smoothing with the plane and scraping are very important and they should be completed before any sand-papering is done because particles of sand (silica), adhering to the wood, will dull the steel tools. All three operations are needed to remove the marks of the machine tools of the factory, in order to give a good finish in the end. The scraper follows the plane, removing the unevenness which the latter leaves on board surfaces. Sand-papering gives the finishing touches. [Illustration: Method of mortising] After the stock is well smoothed, the top and the shelves should be squared off, cut to length, and block planed. The posts should then be cut and accurately trimmed to dimensions. They may be marked with a knife line for the gains into which the corners of the shelves are to be fastened. Since the posts are perfectly square, no attention will have to be given to their exact location in marking or cutting the gains; but when the mortising for the rails is laid out, care must be exercised to mark them so that the mortises will come on the proper faces for assembling. In mortising for the top rail it is well not to work up to the end of the post but to cut back, say 3/4 of an inch, as shown in one of the details. The rails may now be laid off and the tenons cut and fitted. It is exactly 8-1/2 inches between the shoulders of the rails. Since the shelves are 10-1/2 inches wide, one inch is thus left on each side to be gained into the posts. The parts are now ready for the first assembling. To do this it is convenient to have a clear bench top on which the posts may be laid on one side, face down. The rails and shelves may then be slipped into place, the other two posts placed on top, and the whole clamped firmly together. This is the preliminary assembling for the purpose of testing the accuracy of the work. If it be found all right, it should be taken apart again, and, after glue has been applied to the tenons and to the ends of the shelves, the parts should be quickly re-assembled and clamped up as before, with the angles kept true. Before the glue hardens the shelves should be nailed into the posts, as indicated in the drawing. In this case it is the nail that is the main stay. The glue is accessory, adding much to the stiffness of the construction. [Illustration: Method of fastening shelf] The top may now be set on and fastened by screws or by brads driven through into the posts and well set so that they may be concealed by putty, coloured to match the stain used. The end slats should be fastened on in the same way. The back and ends of the closet are next cut to size and bradded in. The door is then fitted and, to break the surface a little, an ornamental design is cut in the centre. Still further relief is given by setting in the door 1/4 of an inch from the edge of the shelf and ends of the closet. The door is now hung on brass hinges, the stop and catch added, and the stand is ready for staining and finishing. [Illustration: Method of fastening posts to the top] A LIGHT LIBRARY TABLE _The Design._--This is to be a table designed on simple lines and of good proportions. It is to have no drawer but as much shelf room as conveniently possible. The under shelf is designed to be cut out to allow a chair to be drawn up on either side. The end shelves may be regarded as designed to combine a bookcase with the table, thus adding much to its usefulness. _Materials and Tools._--For a table of this kind oak is very appropriate. The following list gives the stock required for one table. The widths and the thickness are as called for in the drawing, but the lengths are given a little long to allow for cutting. A board not less than 9 inches wide and 10 feet long will be needed as stock for the top, the dimensions of which are 7/8 × 26 × 39 inches. A 10-inch board, 4-1/2 feet in length, will also be required for the shelves. There will also be needed four legs 1-3/4 × 1-3/4 × 30 inches; eight slats 1/2 × 1-1/2 × 18 inches; two back pieces 1/2 × 2 × 20-1/2 inches; two rails 7/8 × 3 × 32 inches; and two rails 7/8 × 3 × 20 inches. [Illustration: A light library table] The same tools will be required as in the foregoing problems excepting that a 1/2-inch bit and a 1/2-inch chisel will be required for mortising, and two 3-foot clamps. _Construction._--The first step in the construction is to dress the stock, smoothing, scraping, and sand-papering it, and working the various parts to size. The lengths, however, of all parts excepting the legs are not cut accurately until, in the process of construction, these parts are needed. The legs are at once cut to length and the mortises laid out, bored, and cut. A gain should also be cut in each leg, into which the bottom shelf is to be fitted, glued, and bradded from the under side. The end and side rails may then be laid off for shoulders and tenons, and cut. In this case the tenons should be made 1/2 of an inch wide. [Illustration: Construction details and dimensions (a) front; (b) end] In gluing up, the top should receive attention first, in order to allow the longest possible time for testing the work under the inevitable changes due to continued seasoning. Great care must always be exercised in making the glued joints. It is often necessary to make them over on account of the development of cracks. Proper care, however, will prevent this. The general directions for gluing, given at the beginning of this chapter, will be of service. As soon as the top has been glued the four short side pieces may be glued to the shelf, taking pains to make good joints before applying the glue. It should be noted that the inside ends of these short pieces are to be 15 inches apart, and it is important that the ends on opposite sides should be exactly squared across, as indicated in the drawings. This may be accomplished by first locating the centre of the shelf, at the intersection of lines, marked c in the drawing, and measuring 7-1/2 inches each way to the line of the back pieces, which are to run across the whole bottom shelf. As soon as the glue is hardened the ends should be squared and made true to set into the gains when the table is assembled. Finally, the legs, the rails, and the shelf may be assembled, glued, squared up, clamped, and set aside to harden before the clamps are removed. It is a good plan to brad the shelf in from the under side before the glue hardens. After standing a few hours the table will be ready for the 1/2-inch strip which forms the back of the shelf. This is to be fitted and bradded in. Then the slats may be cut to length. They project slightly below the shelf, and are fastened in position by screws. The top may be cut to length and its ends smoothed, after which it may be fastened on the frame by means of screws and buttons, as already described in the early part of this chapter. A HEAVY LIBRARY TABLE _The Design._--This table, as the illustration shows, is designed to be of simple style, without a drawer or side shelves, and with the bottom shelf keyed into the base rail. Heavy, square legs, and mortise and tenon joints are called for. [Illustration: A heavy library table] _Materials and Tools._--The mission type of furniture, to which this design belongs, suggests oak as the fitting wood. The stock for the top, the dimensions of which are to be 7/8 × 28 × 44 inches, may be cut in three pieces from a 10-inch board, 12 feet long. For the shelf a board 7/8 × 12 × 43 inches is required. There are needed also four legs 2-3/4 × 2-3/4 × 30 inches; two side rails 7/8 × 4 × 36 inches; two end top-rails 7/8 × 4 × 22 inches; two end bottom rails 1-1/2 × 4 × 22 inches; and for keys a strip 1 × 2 × 28 inches. [Illustration: Construction details and dimensions (front)] The same tools are required as were needed in the foregoing problem. _Construction._--Since this table has a larger top than the light library table, even greater pains must be taken than in the case of the smaller table to join the boards for gluing up. All like parts should be laid off together and the necessary mortises and tenons cut and fitted, as in the previous case. The two end rails may be glued into the legs first and clamped, leaving the side rails to be put in place last, when the bottom shelf may also be fastened in without gluing by means of the tenons and keys. The latter should be cut somewhat longer than is really needed so that they may appear to be as effective as they really are; and they should be tapered at least 1/2 of an inch in order to drive up well. A small brad may be driven in to keep them from getting loose when the work shrinks. [Illustration: Construction details and dimensions (end)] A BOOKCASE WITH GLAZED DOORS _The Design._--This is to be an upright bookcase, with five shelves and an overhanging top. Some variety of surface is afforded by the arrangement of the sash, as indicated in the drawing. The shelves are made to be adjustable, and not fixed as in other problems. _Materials and Tools._--The stock required for one bookcase of this pattern is as follows: two end pieces 7/8 × 11-1/2 × 48-1/2 inches; for the top and bottom, two pieces 7/8 × 12 × 40 inches; four shelves 7/8 × 11 × 40 inches; for the sides of the doors, four pieces 7/8 × 2 × 45 inches; for the top and bottom rails of the doors, four pieces 7/8 × 2-1/2 × 18 inches; for the middle rail, one piece 7/8 × 2 × 18 inches; for the sash, one piece 7/8 × 1/2 inch × 6 feet; for the back, enough 1/2 inch stock to cover the space 38 × 46 inches. In addition to this there will be required four hinges, two catches, a lock, and glass for the sash as dimensioned in the drawing. It is not necessary, however, to cut the small lights. One large pane of glass may be set in the full width of the door so that the small sash divisions may be apparent rather than real. [Illustration: Bookcase with glazed doors] The tools for this problem are the same as those used in previous problems with the addition of a 1/4-inch bit and 1/4-inch chisel, and a rabbet plane, or a universal plane for cutting out the rabbet for the glass. [Illustration: Details and dimensions for bookcase] It is not necessary to give directions for the treatment of the stock, since it is practically the same as that employed in preceding problems. The details for cutting dimensions are given in the accompanying drawings. It would be well for the young woodworker to study these carefully and make out a working plan of procedure similar to that which has been outlined in other problems. _Construction._--The first thing to do is to erect the bookcase--_i.e._, to cut the sides, the top, the bottom, and the back pieces to proper form and dimensions, bring them into position, and fasten them. It will be noticed that the sides and top are rabbeted out, as indicated in one of the small drawings, so that the edge of the back will not show when it is nailed in position. The bottom shelf is also made narrow enough to allow the back boards to be brought down over it and nailed to the edge. [Illustration: Method of concealing ends of back boards] After the case is erected the doors should be laid out according to the drawing for mortises and tenons, and the inside edges rabbeted to give an inset for the glass. If it is decided to use one large light at the top of the door instead of six small ones, the sash effect for this light will have to be made of pieces thin enough to allow this arrangement. When the doors are ready for setting the glass it may be held in place by small 1/4 round strips, bradded in behind it. Great care should, of course, be exercised in gluing up the doors to avoid strains which might give them such a twist that they could not be fitted to the case. Careful fitting of all the mortises and tenons and the usual assembling of the parts of each door before gluing is attempted is a wise precaution. It will also be wise to allow a little stock for trimming off, both on the sides and on the ends, when the doors are finally fitted in. A ROUND CENTRE TABLE [Illustration: Details and dimensions for round centre table] [Illustration: Detail of top mortise] [Illustration: Details and dimensions for round centre table] _The Design._--This problem calls for a table of mission style with square legs set into the circumference of the table flush with the top and having tenons exposed on the face of the legs. Simplicity of form combined with strength characterizes the design. _Materials and Tools._--Quartered oak is recommended for a table of this design. The stock required for one table is as follows: four legs 2-3/4 × 2-3/4 × 27 inches; two cross rails 1-1/4 × 3 × 29 inches; one piece of 3 × 12 × 20 inches for the curved rails; and stock enough to make a round top 1-1/8 inches thick and 27 inches in diameter. The only tools desirable to provide, in addition to those previously used, are a trammel and spokeshave or a circle plane. _Construction._--The first step is to join up and glue the top so that it may have ample time to harden and dry while the other work is being accomplished. The stock for the legs may then be dressed and the bottom mortises marked and cut through the posts. Care must be taken to transfer the marks to the opposite side so that the mortises may be accurately outlined on the face. Care must also be taken in cutting the mortises, in order to make good, clean joints. A dimensioned detail of the top mortises, which are to receive the tenons of the curved rail, shown on page 180, should be consulted before laying out this work. It should be noticed that the legs project 1-1/4 inches above the top rail. After the top mortises are cut the cross bottom rails should be halved together and the tenons laid off and cut. It will be noticed that the projecting end of the tenons is to be bevelled off, but this should not be done until the fitting is completed. In laying out the plan of work for the construction of the curved rails the trammel comes into use. With this, mark off carefully the inside and outside curves on a thin piece of board and, with a large steel square, draw straight lines from the centre or pivot point, making an exact quarter circle. This is shown in one of the drawings on page 180. Then, parallel with each straight line and on the inside, mark off other lines one half the thickness of the leg. This locates the shoulder of the tenon. The pattern should then be carefully cut out of the thin board and used as a template for marking out on the stock the form of the curved rails. After these rails are band sawed and smoothed, the tenons may be cut. When the framing parts of the table have all been cut and fitted they may be assembled and glued. Finally the top is placed face down on a bench top or on horses, and the inverted frame laid over it and centred to give the correct position of the insets for the legs. These should be laid off with great care, the outline reproduced exactly on the opposite side, and the stock cut out. The top and frame should then be fastened together from the under side. After a few finishing touches have been given to the projecting ends and exposed surfaces, the table will be ready for the filling and varnishing. A LIBRARY DESK This is the most ambitious of the special problems in furniture making here suggested. Details are given in the drawings on the opposite page. If the young woodworker can give sufficient time to it and can command the services of a few machine tools it will not be an unreasonable task to undertake. Most of the operations required in its construction have already been carefully explained and need not be repeated as detailed directions. There are, however, one or two principles of cabinet-making called for in this problem which were not required in the others. They will therefore need explanation. [Illustration: A library desk] _Panelling._--To avoid the difficulties which would result from the swelling, shrinking, and warping of wide surfaces in furniture it is common practice to make use of the panel. The design of the panel is easily understood. It consists of a framework of ordinary thickness, put together usually with mortise and tenon joints. The inside edges of this framework are grooved, and into the groove is fitted a piece of stock generally thinner than the frame which fills the space between the sides of the frame. The panel board may be in one piece of wide stock or it may be glued up. It may be of very thin stock inset on both sides of the panel, or it may be of thicker stock inset only on one side, and perhaps not inset on either side, in which case only the edges of the board are made thin enough to run in the groove of the panel frame. In this problem the panel board is to be made of 1/2-inch stock, flat on the outside, and inset 1/4 of an inch. The back of the panel board is flush with the frame and is chamfered off to give the necessary tongue all around to run in the groove. The narrow stock of the framework is not likely to swell or shrink appreciably and, if well constructed, cannot become warped or twisted. The panel, on account of its greater width, may and generally does swell and shrink considerably; but it should be fitted to move easily in the grooves so that its changes may not be noticeable. Should it be desired to finish the panels with a moulding this should be nailed to the rails, not to the panel board. _Danger in the Power Saw._--The panel frame may be constructed by hand, but if a circular saw be available it will be found of great service. Beginners, however, should employ the services of an expert sawyer and not assume the great risk involved in the use of a circular saw or even a band saw, especially if these saws are without guards. The necessary operations should be carefully laid out on the partially finished stock, with a good square and gauge. A combination plane is quite essential for cutting the grooves; and this carries its own gauge. Care should be taken to make all measurements from the centre of the piece, and gauge and square always from the face sides and from the face edges of the joints. The cuts that it is necessary to make for the joints are indicated in the drawing. In gluing up, the directions already given in the section on gluing should be followed. _Sand-papering._--There is a legitimate use for sand-paper in the finishing stages of the work on this desk, as there is, in fact, in almost every kind of fine woodwork. Its use has already been advised in the directions for furniture making. In furniture manufactories sand-papering machines are among the most expensive machines to be found in the shops; and their high cost is of course justified by their productive value. It is quite impossible to work down large pieces to a good surface by the process of planing. If a sand-papering machine is within easy reach of the amateur cabinet-maker, it will be very desirable for him to send all large pieces like the tops of tables and panel boards to the factory in order to have them run through the machine. The expense is very slight. In sand-papering by hand considerable pressure should be applied as evenly as possible and always along the grain. Any movements directly across the grain or at an angle are sure to show through the finish. The process is facilitated by wrapping the sand-paper around a block of wood about 2 × 4 inches in diameter or, better still, a block of cork of the same dimensions. A MORRIS CHAIR _History of the Design._--Among furniture designs the Morris chair has become a classic. It takes its name for its originator, William Morris, the great English designer and reformer, to whom, perhaps more than to any other person, we are indebted for sane and honest work in furniture design and in all forms of household decoration, not only in England but in other European countries and in America. And probably no one of his creations has done more to teach the lesson of simplicity, comfort, and utility in furniture than the Morris chair. [Illustration: A Morris chair] [Illustration: Details and dimensions of Morris chair (front)] [Illustration: Details and dimensions for Morris chair (side)] It may be well to add, however, that like many other famous works of art, the original design of William Morris has suffered much in countless imitations. The furniture shops display carved and otherwise embellished monstrosities under the name of Morris chairs which are nothing less than an insult to the great name they bear. But the life of all imitations of original and really great ideas is bound to be short. Only the good and true, which are the original, survive. The really valuable features of the original Morris chair design, combining beauty of material with simplicity of form and construction, have taken a lasting hold upon the hearts of all people who have found solid comfort in these chairs. The chairs contemplated in this problem are illustrated on page 50, chapter II. Both are in quartered oak. The one on the right is stained in dark brown and has a box cushion for the seat and a pillow cushion for the back, in medium brown leather. The one on the left is in light fumed oak with cushions of mahogany velour. On account of its smaller dimensions it is somewhat lighter in weight than the one on the right, and the dimensions of the smaller one will be followed in this problem. This chair is an exact copy of one in ash which, with a centre table and stool, were designed and made for a college girl's room; and a large part of the work of constructing the three pieces of furniture was done by the girl herself. By careful examination of the dimensioned drawing shown on the preceding page the young woodworker who undertakes this problem should select his stock according to the following list: 4 legs 2-1/2 × 2-1/2 × 24 inches; two arms 3 × 5-1/2 × 38 inches; two bottom side rails 1-1/8 × 6 × 26 inches; two top side rails 5/8 × 2-1/4 × 26 inches; two bottom rails (front and back) 1-1/8 × 6 × 24 inches; one top rail (back) 5/8 × 2-1/4 × 24 inches; two back uprights 1-1/8 × 1-7/8 × 25 inches; three cross pieces for back (lower) 3/4 × 2-5/8 × 20 inches; one cross piece for back (top) 3/4 × 6 × 20 inches; one bracket 1 × 3 × 18 inches; four pins 4-1/2 × 4-1/4 inches square. [Illustration: Detail of Morris chair arm] [Illustration: Detail of pins] In sawing up the stock, allowance should be made of course, for necessary waste in working down to the drawing dimensions. The arms are drawn with a curve and may be fashioned by band sawing them out of 3-inch stock. There will be a considerable saving in material and labour, of course, if the arms are made flat; but the effect of the curve is very pleasing. The back slats may be sawed to a slight curve, which is another attractive feature; but flat slats are easier to make and just as serviceable. The process of construction does not differ in general from that already described in some of the foregoing problems, and need not be repeated here in detail. The method of finishing this and all other furniture referred to in the problems will be explained in the following chapter. Since the Morris chair is a heavy piece of furniture, it will be necessary to provide casters for it. The Acme Pin caster, so-called, was used in the chair referred to in this problem. It makes use of a steel ball turning upon ball bearings, and is set up into the legs so as to leave only about 1/4 of an inch of the ball exposed. A HALL CLOCK [Illustration: A hall clock NOTE.--The original of the hall clock was designed and made by Mr. Egbert E. MacNary.] _Design._--This clock was designed and built to conform to the requirements of the space allotted to it. The lines of the case are all straight; there are no spires or gables or fantastic curves on the top. A hall clock is indoors, and the top should be horizontal; for all the other lines such as tops of window casings, picture moulding, etc., are horizontal. If the clock stood out of doors under the stars, then the top might be spired or pointed. [Illustration: Construction detail of a hall clock] The construction, as indicated in the sketches, is simple and substantial. The long sides extend the entire height of the clock, being firmly joined into the base and head. The works are supported between these sides. The wood is 3/4-inch quartered oak, hand dressed, and stained a warm brown. The dial, hinges, catches, pendulum, and weight are of brass. _Cutting Glass with a Wheel Cutter._--The long door has a panel of transparent leaded glass. This leaded glass work is a most fascinating process. The lead strips required for it were purchased of a dealer in lead specialties. Stained glass window concerns are usually willing to sell this lead. A full-size drawing was made of the design for the glass panel and the glass cut in pieces to match the pattern. A ten-cent wheel glass cutter was used. One caution, kept in mind, will enable one to use a wheel cutter of this kind without injuring it. _It should never be used twice in the same cut._ One stroke of a few inches over a cut previously made will ruin the wheel; but if the wheel is not abused by tracing over a cut, it will last a long time. The glass should be laid on a level table and the cutter used with a firm hand, making a continuous cut against a straight edge. _Soldering._--The long lines of the design are in one piece; and there is a strip around the entire outside edge. To solder the pieces together, the glass and lead strips are laid in position on a board, and brads (about 1 inch long) are driven part way into the board close against the outside strips, so as to hold the pieces in position. A small bead of soldering paste is placed on each joint. A small soldering "iron" (which is really copper) and wire solder are used. The copper may be "tinned" by filing the point bright, heating it, dipping it in the soldering paste, and then quickly touching it to the solder wire. The point will become coated with the solder, or, as we say, "tinned." The iron will need frequent heating. A quick, light touch of the iron and solder wire to the joints will give the best result. [Illustration: Method of holding glass and lead strips for soldering] The two rings in the brass dial were "raised" by driving the brass into a groove in a piece of oak with a hard wood wedge. The piece of oak was revolved around the dial by means of a nail driven through the centre of the dial into the oak piece. When a short arc of the ring had been raised, the grooved piece was swung around about 1 inch and the groove continued. [Illustration: Method of raising the dial rings] The length of the pendulum depends upon the number of teeth in the escape wheel. It was necessary in the case of this clock to take out the escape wheel, which had 32 teeth, and substitute one of 22 teeth to accommodate the length of pendulum desired. [Illustration: Dimensioned dial piece of clock before edges are turned] OUTDOOR FURNITURE The greatest charm of home life in the summer season is rarely found within the house. This is especially true in the village or in the country, where nature is at her best; but even in city homes that are fortunate enough to include in their surroundings a small yard, a bit of garden, or any means of connecting the home with "God's great out-of-doors," though it be but a sheltered balcony or a window garden, the touch of nature is not lost. It is possible, however, for art to assist nature; and in many cases her assistance is very much needed. It is certainly true that nature cannot be left wholly to herself in the neighbourhood of the village or city home. If there be a garden, as much forethought must be exercised in planning it and as much pains taken in developing and caring for it as is called for in working out any form of interior decoration. There are problems of design and construction suggested by the need of suitable chairs and settles for the piazza, comfortable hammocks and couches for the balcony, awnings for the windows on the sunny side, and the right furniture, perhaps, for an out-door dining-room. The more decorative features are found in the rose arbours, the trellises, the garden screens, the lawn tent, the pergola, and the garden gate; and all these offer problems that easily come within the reach of enterprising and capable young craftsmen. _General Types._--In the designing of out-door furniture there are two suggestions from nature that may appropriately find expression. On the one hand large masses, as seen in the hills and rocks, suggest solidity, weight, and permanence. This idea is embodied in walls of masonry, stone posts, iron gates, stone or concrete pedestals, or in some other kind of heavy construction. On the other hand, there are the suggestions of lightness, delicacy, and growth, seen in the growing vines, shrubbery, and small trees, which are carried out in the so-called rustic furniture, trellises, arbours, and garden screens. _An Example of Heavy Furniture in Wood._--A settle designed for comparatively permanent use in some cool or retired corner of the garden may be made of native pine, white wood, or spruce, well protected by several coats of paint. A suggestion is here given for such a design, laid out on substantial lines. Ordinary 4 × 4 spruce, planed, may be used for the posts, pine or white wood for the rest of the construction, 2-inch stock being used for the back pieces and arms, and 7/8-inch boards for the rails and seat. Mortise and tenon joints should be used in the framing. The illustration shows also a simple design cut in the back pieces and repeated in the two front posts. It is a decorative feature which seems to counteract, somewhat successfully, the general severity of the lines on which the settle is designed to be built. [Illustration: A garden settle] _Concrete Furniture._--Still more substantial out-door furniture may be made of concrete cement. This material has come into use for sidewalks and pavements and as a substitute for brick and stone masonry in retaining walls, bridge abutments, and in a great variety of heavy building construction. Concrete is, in fact, an artificial stone, made by mixing Portland cement with sand or pulverized rock in the right proportions, thoroughly wetting the mixture with water, and allowing it to harden. It is so commonly associated with heavy, crude work that it is not easy to believe that it may be also fashioned into anything of an artistic or decorative character; and yet it is capable of a wide range of out-door decorative uses. Gate posts, pedestals, fountains, window boxes, urns, and other forms of garden pottery in great variety, tables, and garden seats, have been successfully moulded in this material. Its natural stone gray colour and surface are well suited to many of these uses; but it may be given a variety of colour effects in bold design if occasion requires it. In weight and durability it leaves nothing to be desired. _The Wire Form._--Concrete cement cannot be modelled like clay. In its formative state it is too soft for such manipulation. It must be supported in some way while it is being worked into the desired shape and until it has hardened. In general there are two methods of giving the necessary support: _viz._, by employing an interior framework or skeleton, generally of wire lath, which is permanently encased in the cement; or by using a plaster or wooden mould into which the material in a soft and plastic state is poured and from which it is removed when hardened. The latter method has been elaborated quite extensively for commercial purposes, because it readily yields an indefinite number of marketable results from the same moulds. The simpler wooden moulds may be easily made by a clever boy; and after a little experience he can soon learn how to mix the cement properly and mould a form successfully. For single pieces of concrete work, however, the wire forms are to be preferred. A suggestive illustration of this method is found in the following problem: A CYLINDRICAL GARDEN VASE The dimensions called for in this design are a diameter of 10 inches and a height of 8 inches. The wire form must therefore be made to approximate quite closely to these dimensions. A good material for the form is galvanized wire lath of 1/2-inch mesh. This problem will require a piece about 8 inches wide and 34 inches long for the convex side, and a piece about 10 inches square for the base. From the square piece a circle 10 inches in diameter should be cut out. A strong pair of tinners' shears will be needed for this purpose. In bending the long piece into the cylindrical form it is well to proceed slowly in order to produce an evenly curved surface--_i. e._, one free from angular bends. A good way to accomplish this result is to lay the piece down on a bench top and bend it up over a cylindrical wooden block. If nothing better is available a rolling pin will serve this purpose. When the bending is nearly complete, the two ends of the piece should be brought together, lapped over about an inch, and bound together with free ends of the strands of wire. A pair of pliers will be of great assistance. If this part of the process has been carefully done, there will result a cylindrical form 10 inches in diameter. The circular piece should now be attached to one end of this form by means of the free ends of the strands found there, bending the projecting wires over and clinching them at convenient points on the circumference of the circular piece where there are uncut meshes of the wire. The form is now ready for covering with the cement. [Illustration: A garden vase] The first step is the mixing of the cement for what is known as the scratch coat. This is made by mixing Portland cement with fine, clean sand in the proportion of one part cement to two of sand. These ingredients should be thoroughly mixed together in the dry state, and then there should be added a small quantity of goats' hair, well picked apart. For the problem at hand about five pounds of cement will be needed and as much goats' hair as can be held in the hand. The whole should be thoroughly wet down with just the right amount of water. It is important that the mixture should not be made too soft. A scratch coat should be given a consistency that will enable it to be easily spread over the wire form and, at the same time, to hang well together. When a sufficient amount of the right mixture has been obtained, it should be spread upon the wire form by means of a small mason's trowel or a large knife. It is well to begin at the bottom of the convex side of the cylinder, working upward, taking no pains to make this first coat smooth, since roughness is desirable, and paying no attention whatever to the inside of the cylinder, excepting to see that the cement is forced well through the meshes so that the whole mass will be held together firmly when dry. The inside is given a smooth coat as a part of the later finishing process. When the convex surface has been well covered, the form should be turned bottom up and the cement spread upon the base of the cylinder in the same way. After the wire has been completely covered, the form, which is likely to be somewhat distorted, should be corrected by careful manipulation till a true cylinder has been obtained. This is allowed to stand for about five hours until the cement has thoroughly hardened. It is then ready for the finishing coat. The next step in the process is to make the cement for the finishing coat. Considerable variety is possible here, depending upon the colour and other surface effects that are desired. In this design a light, sparkling surface when finished is required. To produce this effect a mixture of one part Portland cement and two parts marble dust will be needed. This should be mixed without hair to a consistency like that used for the scratch coat. Before applying the finishing coat the surfaces should be thoroughly moistened by means of a brush well filled with water. There are various methods of applying this coat. The simplest is carefully spreading it on with a trowel and smoothing it with the moistened hand. When the surface has hardened sufficiently it is sometimes possible to improve the finish by the judicious use of sand-paper or a coarse file. It is not possible to produce perfectly even surfaces in this way; and yet the method has the characteristic freedom of handwork in general, and yields very satisfactory results. [Illustration: A vase with blocked rim] _The Decoration._--A great variety of decorative effects may be obtained in concrete pottery and in other articles made of this material for out-door use. In pottery these decorations may take the form of raised figures or ornaments, of borders or designs cut in the surface, and of inlays in colour. Whatever the form of design, the necessary cutting for it is best made when the cement has become well set but not very hard--_i. e._, from 6 to 10 hours after the finishing coat is applied. A stout, sharp, pointed knife blade is all the tool that will be required. A narrow chisel, however, may be found desirable for deepening the cuts. The knife should be guided by means of a ruler, which should be flexible if used on curved surfaces; and the depth of the cut will depend somewhat upon the size of the piece. In work similar to that described in the problem just given, a depth of 3/16 or 1/4 of an inch is sufficient. This cutting, of course can be made after the cement has hardened, by the use of hammer and chisel; but it will be much more difficult. [Illustration: A square form] _The Colours._--Colour cement for inlaid designs is made by using the best quality of white Portland cement as a base, colouring it with dry mineral pigments which are sold by dealers under the name of lime or cement-proof colours. Among the pigments suitable for this purpose are red oxide of iron, which produces a red; oxide of cobalt, which gives a good blue; chromate of lead, which produces yellow; carbonate of copper, which gives a good dark green; and burnt umber, which yields a good brown. These come as dry powders and should be mixed with the dry cement and marble dust, making a mixture of uniform colour, before the water is applied. In order to determine the right colour it is well to experiment with a small quantity of the various ingredients until a satisfactory shade has been found. Then with this as a guide a sufficiently large quantity should be mixed, in the same proportions, to the consistency of a thick paste, and applied to the design, which has been previously cut in the surface to be decorated. To insure thorough adhesion of the paste to the concrete, the cutting should be well moistened with a wet brush. A number of suggestive designs are shown in the accompanying drawings. _Rustic Furniture._--The lighter out-door furniture can be easily made up in a great variety of designs. The form of rustic settles and chairs is determined largely by the material which is available. Very useful and ornamental effects are produced by using sticks cut from the tops or from branches of small trees. Birch saplings, easily found in the second growth of some wood lots, afford a good supply of material. It is not necessary that the sticks be straight; the natural crooks and notches are often very useful in bracing the framework. Chairs, settles, tables, standards for flower boxes, and other articles of furniture may be made out of this rough and unfinished material. [Illustration: A garden screen] _Lattice Work._--Trellises and garden screens have been made in an almost endless variety of forms. Among the most satisfactory is the plain lattice work in squares and rectangles. Its simplicity and evident durability are points in its favour. Experience proves also that vines and other plants needing support are readily adjusted to this form of trellis. The size of the stock required in making the right-angled lattice work depends upon the uses to be made of it. For a garden screen the uprights need to be of 2 × 2 inch stock and of any convenient length. End posts of 3 × 3 inch stock will be required, to give necessary stiffness; and, if the screen be a long one, intermediate posts of the same size should be placed at intervals of ten or twelve feet. The horizontal pieces may be strips of 7/8-inch stock, 2 inches wide, set their full thickness into the uprights. Spruce furring, which lumber dealers supply in 2-inch widths, is suitable for the small rails; but if chestnut be used for the uprights it is well to use the same wood for the rest of the construction. The top and bottom rails should be of heavier stock, not less than 2 by 3 inches. The best foundation is a line of concrete posts, firmly set into the ground at intervals of 6 feet, to which the bottom rail or the uprights are fastened by means of irons set into the cement when the posts are formed. Two coats of dull green paint will protect the wood and properly subordinate the lattice work to the trailing branches which it supports. VIII FINISHING AND RE-FINISHING 'Tis toil's reward that sweetens industry--_Ebenezer Elliot_ In the commercial production of furniture the cabinet-maker has nothing to do with the finishing of his work. This essential part of furniture making is turned over to artisans who are finishers by trade. In a separate part of the factory they attend to the cleaning and filling of the wood and to whatever finish is applied to the work of the joiner. It is hardly necessary to add that the finishing of all kinds of woodwork is quite as important as any other feature in its production; for, however good the lines of design may be and however thoroughly the design may be carried out in the construction of any piece of furniture or other woodwork, it may be and often is spoiled as a work of art in the finishing. [Illustration: Finishing a Library Table. Plate VI] But the amateur cabinet-maker should be his own finisher. He should familiarize himself with the various kinds of finish that may be applied to the different woods. He should know the object of filling wood and how it is done. He should understand the processes of fuming, staining, and varnishing so well that he can produce with certainty the results desired. CLEANING, SURFACING, AND FILLING _First Steps in Finishing._--The first step in finishing woodwork is to clean it up and prepare it for the filler. Too great care cannot be taken in examining all surfaces for slight oversights that have occurred in the joinery work or for blemishes that have been acquired in any part of the process of construction. Light planing, chiselling, or scraping, and perhaps a little sand-papering, always with the grain, may be needed to remove these faults and blemishes. The most serious of these generally result from gluing. All surplus glue should be carefully removed, even to the film that soaks into the surface of the wood. The slightest spot of glue remaining will keep the filler out of the wood and show through any kind of finish. _Importance of Filling._--As soon as the furniture is thoroughly cleaned, if it is to be finished in the natural color, the grain of the wood must be filled with a light, transparent, semi-liquid substance, known as the filler, which, after standing from five to seven minutes, should be thoroughly rubbed off with a piece of coarse cloth or a handful of shavings. This process, as its name indicates, fills the pores of the wood and protects them against the absorption of moisture and the consequent swelling. But this is by no means its chief purpose. Strictly speaking, filling is the ground-work of all subsequent finishing processes and, for that reason, it may be said to be the most important operation connected with wood finishing. If improperly done, no amount of good work with the varnish brush will remove the fault. In fact, good work is impossible after a bad beginning. Good varnishing or good finishing of any kind requires that, before the final finishing processes begin, the surface should be made perfectly level and smooth, free from all unevenness or roughness or minute openings of any kind that might allow the varnish or other finishing material to penetrate the wood. If the filling has not been so thorough that no part of the subsequent finishing material can be absorbed by the wood, a rough surface will be sure to follow. This may, of course, be rubbed down and re-finished, but never with that perfection of result which is assured by laying a good foundation in correct filling. It may be set down as a fundamental principle of wood finishing that the best result is obtained when the filling or surfacing has been so thoroughly done that the thinnest of finishing coats, few in number, are required to produce the desired result. _Liquid Fillers or Surfaces._--There are many kinds of fillers in common use, but they may all be considered as belonging to one or the other of two classes. They are either liquid fillers or paste fillers. Woods differ greatly in the coarseness or fineness of their grain. The coarse or open-grained woods require a filler with body enough to close up the pores of the wood and give that perfectly even surface necessary as a foundation for good finishing. The close-grained woods, on the other hand, do not present the same filling problem. They could not absorb a paste filler. In fact, it is hardly too much to say that the fine, close-grained woods, like maple, gum wood, and birch, do not need a filler at all; and there are some coarse-grained woods, like southern or hard pine and cypress, the pores of which are naturally filled with gummy or resinous substances and will not absorb an artificial filler. But all such woods _do_ need to be given a finishing surface which will prevent the finishing coats from soaking into the fibre of the wood. This is the office of the so-called liquid fillers, which are very properly called "first coaters" or "surfacers." _How to Make a Liquid Filler._--A standard formula for the preparation of a liquid filler is as follows: Mix four parts by weight of carbonate of soda with six parts of china clay, and grind this mixture in about eight parts of japan, thinning the product with turpentine or benzine to the consistency of linseed oil. Laundry starch may be used in place of china clay, giving a filler which is somewhat easier of application than the clay filler because it does not settle. It lacks in durability, however, especially if it is not well covered. The finest grained woods do not require the addition of any material to the filler to give body. A great variety of liquids may be easily obtained which, without being mixed with anything, will give the necessary surface. Glue size, water glass, and the cheaper grades of varnish, thinned if necessary with benzine or turpentine, are often used for this purpose. But these are all inferior to the standard surfacers and never should be used on the best grades of woodwork. Shellac is always preferred as a first coater for hard pine, as it keeps the resinous sap in the pores of the wood and preserves the natural colour of the grain. If oil is applied to hard pine without first applying this protecting coat of shellac, the wood blackens with age. Shellac is an excellent first coater for other woods also. It is commonly used in house finishing as the surfacer for the interior trims. But it dries rapidly, and generally with a rough surface. The first coating of shellac, therefore, requires careful sand-papering before the varnish is put on. _Time Needed for a Shellac Coat to Dry._--It may be well to caution the amateur finisher as to the time required for the thorough drying of shellac. While it may be truly said to dry very rapidly, the first drying is necessarily upon the outer surface, forming a hard coating which delays somewhat the drying throughout, so that a shellac filling is not really dry enough to sand-paper a half hour or so after it has been applied, though it may appear to be. It is a good rule to allow at least twenty-four hours for thorough drying; and it may be well to add that all methods of filling, rubbing off, etc., require for the best results more time than energetic workers sometimes allow. _Cost of Surfacing._--A practical question that the amateur finisher will ask is, how can one know in advance how much filler is needed for given pieces of work, and what will be its cost? For a good quality of liquid filler it is safe to say that one pint will cover eight square yards with one coat. The cost varies greatly, depending upon the quality of the filler and whether it is home-made or obtained of a dealer. A good commercial filler or surfacer can be bought for $1.50 per gallon, making the cost per square yard of one-coat surfacing about 2-1/2 cents. A small can costs 15 cents. Good work cannot be done with the cheaper grades of filler. Shellac, which is, all in all, the best of surfacers, can be bought for $1.85 a gallon, which would make the cost of surfacing somewhat under 3 cents a square yard. _How to Make a Paste Filler._--A good paste filler, such as is required for the open-grained woods like oak, ash, baywood, and poplar or white wood, may be made from pulverized and floated silica as a base, thoroughly mixed with raw linseed oil, turpentine, and japan in equal parts, with enough silica added to the liquid mixture to form a good paste of a consistency somewhat thicker than paper-hangers' paste. If the mixture should prove to be a little too thick, it may easily be thinned with turpentine. The final mixing of this filler requires grinding in a hand mill. Unless a considerable quantity of it is needed it is quite as well to purchase a can of the paste filler of a dealer in painters' or finishers' supplies, though commercial fillers are not generally quite so good as a one made on this formula. They often contain wax and whiting and other materials as a base which are not so satisfactory in the long run as the floated silica. _How a Paste Filler is Applied._--Paste fillers should be spread on the surface to be filled very liberally with a wide, stiff brush, allowed to stand from five to seven minutes, and then rubbed off with a piece of burlap or a handful of fine shavings or excelsior. But it must not all be rubbed off or drawn out of the grain. This is an easy mistake for an inexperienced worker to make. The thing to do is to rub it in and at the same time leave the surfaces smooth. The surfaces should then be allowed to dry for about twenty-four hours before receiving the final finishing coats. VARNISHING The importance of a good foundation surface--even, smooth, and free from unsealed pores that would absorb and thus undermine the first coat of varnish--has been explained in the section on filling and surfacing. If this foundation has been well laid, the amateur finisher may enter upon the varnishing stage of his work with confidence; but he will soon learn that there is much call for skill in order to produce the desired results in this part of the finishing process. The selection, preparation, and application of varnish is a special calling, and great skill comes only as the result of experience; but certain main facts and principles are easily learned. _How a Good Varnish is Recognized._--It is hardly necessary to say that a superior varnish must be clear, transparent, and brilliant. These qualities are always associated with this kind of finish. But durability is also a necessary quality. An expert will, with his eyes shut, recognize a high-grade varnish by its peculiar odour, which is to him an agreeable one. He will at once detect inferior grades by the rank, sharp odour of resin and benzine used in their manufacture. The range of quality and cost in varnishes is probably greater and more varied than in any other finishing material. For fine, artistic work only the best varnish is allowable; and this may be bought for $3.00 a gallon. _"Sag" and How Corrected._--A good varnish flows easily from the brush, spreads evenly, and dries slowly, thus allowing plenty of time for its proper distribution over the surface. And time enough should be taken to apply an even coat which will not dry unequally and lead to cracking due to irregular contraction in the process of hardening. It is of the utmost importance that each coat be spread evenly over the surface when first applied. Great care should be taken not to brush long in one place. Re-brushing after a brief interval leaves brush marks which are objectionable. Unequal spreading on broad surfaces often causes the varnish to run or "sag." A tendency to sag may be brushed out if attended to promptly. But, if it is not noticed until the varnish has begun to set, the only way to prevent a bad blemish is to absorb the thickening parts of the coat by means of a partly dried brush; and this must not be attempted three or four minutes after the varnish has been put on. By that time it will have become quite well set and a sag will be beyond repairing by any simple means. _Time Required Between Varnish Coats._--The best varnishes, as has been stated, dry quite slowly, and they seem to dry and harden not, as shellac does, on the top first, but from the under surface outward. This peculiarity emphasizes the need of allowing sufficient time between coats. And it should be added that mere drying is not all that is required. Each coat must harden; and during the process of hardening slight movements take place throughout the mass of the coat until it becomes permanently set or hardened. The time required for this permanent setting or seasoning, as it may be called, varies with the character of the under coat, with the temperature of the room in which the finishing is done, and with the thickness of the varnish coat itself. Five days is usually thought to be a short seasoning period. As many weeks would not be too long for the best results. It is folly to attempt to hurry up a job of varnishing. In the nature of the case it cannot be hurried without yielding disastrous results. There is no other kind of work in which "haste makes waste" with the certainty that it does in varnishing. Great pains must be taken with each coat. Least of all should the under coats be slighted, for solidity and depth in the appearance of the finished surfaces depend upon there being plenty of evenly laid and well hardened varnish before the final or finish coat is applied. All this work should be done in a well-lighted room, free from dust, and with a good supply of fresh air, kept at an even temperature, of about 70 degrees--certainly not colder than this, since a lower temperature prevents varnish from spreading evenly. _Number of Coats Needed._--The number of coats of varnish required vary with the character of the work. What is known as piano finish requires from three to seven under coats of good elastic rubbing varnish, each well hardened and rubbed down to give under surfaces more even than the best brushing can give. In addition to these under coats a final finish coat is needed to give brilliancy and lustre. _How to Rub Down Varnish._--Rubbing down varnish is a unique and important part in the process of finishing. The beginning of the operation consists of long and persistent rubbing with pulverized pumice stone mixed with oil or with water, if the work is such that water would have no chance to soak into the pores of the wood. Whichever liquid is used, a rubbing pad will be found necessary. This is a block about 4 inches square, made of thick, loose cloth like felt or hair cloth. In use it is first moistened in the oil or water and then dipped into a box containing a quantity of powdered pumice. With this the varnished surface is rubbed vigorously, giving a circular movement to the pad in rubbing down the broad surfaces. As the smoothing progresses, less and less of the pumice powder is used. Near the end of the process enough will be found on the surface or adhering to the rubbing pad. What remains on the surface is finally all wiped off carefully with chamois skin, when it will be found that the surface has been levelled down but that it is covered with fine scratches due to the grains of the pumice. These are removed by a second rubbing in rotten stone and oil or water. _Dull Finish and Flat Varnish._--For many purposes good finishing requires but one under coat rubbed down and covered with a finish coat; and this finish coat is often not allowed to retain its natural lustre. For furniture a dull finish is much to be preferred. It is more durable, it harmonizes better with its surroundings, and it is more in keeping with the idea of simplicity and usefulness. In working for a dull finish it is not so essential to secure depth and evenness of surface as it is when a high lustre is required, and therefore fewer coats are necessary. In fact, a dull finish may be given to furniture without any varnish at all. Two or three coats of shellac, each well rubbed down, give a very satisfactory result. Wax finish, to be described later, gives beautiful effects. There are varnishes known as flat varnishes which give a dull finish without rubbing. They are made by dissolving beeswax in turpentine in the proportion of two ounces of the solid to a pint of the liquid, using moderate heat and mixing the wax solution while warm with four times the quantity of warm varnish. What is known as the old Dutch finish is obtained by using over the proper stain one coat of wax varnish. But there is no kind of dull finish so durable as that given by several coats of high-grade varnish, each well rubbed down. WAX FINISH _How to Prepare and Apply Finishing Wax._--The simplest and at the same time one of the most attractive methods of finishing woodwork is rubbing it with finishing wax. This is one of the old processes which has of late years been revived by the arts and crafts societies and is becoming deservedly popular. Finishing wax may be purchased ready for use or it may be made by dissolving yellow beeswax in turpentine in the proportion of two parts wax and one of turpentine. To do this the wax should be cut into small pieces or shavings, placed in a dish, and covered with the liquid. The solution may be hastened by heating in a water bath; but, if a gas flame be used for heating the water, care should be exercised to extinguish the flame before bringing the turpentine near, on account of the inflammable character of turpentine vapor. This mixture, which is too thick to spread with a brush, may be applied either hot or cold by means of a piece of soft cloth. Soft cloths, like clean cheese cloth, should be used also in rubbing. The rubbing should be continued for a considerable time, but it is by no means so tedious a process as the rubbing down of the several coats of varnish. Less rubbing is required if the wax is applied hot. One of the greatest advantages of the wax finish is that it may be quickly applied and immediately rubbed down, after which the furniture is ready for use. Filling and finishing are accomplished together. It is also easy to apply a fresh coat of wax at any time. In fact, it is desirable to re-finish new pieces of furniture in this way several times during the first few months of their use, and after that about once a year. STAINING _Object of Staining._--Up to this point the processes of finishing considered have assumed that the wood treated is to retain its natural colour, excepting that it may darken with age. But it is often desirable to give artificial colours to woodwork--_i. e._, to dye or stain it. This is done for a variety of purposes--to reduce to one tone the different shades of the natural colour often found in the same kind of wood, to bring out the natural beauty of the grain and texture, to give an entirely new colour to the cheaper kinds of wood in imitation of the more expensive kinds, and to produce tones that will harmonize with various colour schemes. To accomplish this great variety of results, scores of different kind of wood dyes or stains have been put upon the market in almost countless shades and tints, but they are all easily classified under three heads. They are oil stains, water stains, or alcohol stains. _A Perfect Stain._--A perfect stain, if it could be obtained, would be a clear, limpid liquid, free from all solid particles or specks of colouring matter that might clog the pores of the wood and interfere with the absorption of the filler--so clear and transparent that it would in no way obscure the grain of the wood, which in many varieties is the chief element of beauty--so limpid that it would easily soak deep into the pores of the wood, carrying to a considerable depth below the surface an artificial colour which will not fade on exposure. _Water, Alcohol, and Oil Stains Compared._--The water and alcohol stains on the whole meet these requirements better than the oil stains do. They are clear, and without body, and they have great penetration. But they are not free from faults. Many of the water stains are made from aniline dyes which are not durable. The alcohol stains, however, are generally permanent. Both the water stains and the alcohol stains raise the grain of the wood and are liable to show darker in corners and on end grains and to show laps from re-brushing. The oil stains, on the other hand, are free from these faults. They spread easily and evenly, they do not raise the grain, they do not double up or show laps or streaks, and they do not fade; but they have a few defects which overbalance these good qualities. They have considerable body which prevents them from penetrating equally all parts of the surface, so that they do not carry in the colouring as either the water or the alcohol stains do. Their oily nature causes them partly to close up the filaments of the wood and thus interfere with the subsequent process of filling. This is so bad a defect that oil stains are not to be recommended for open-grained woods, the fine finish of which depends so much on correct filling. They are more successful with the close-grained woods, which need only to be surfaced with shellac or the ordinary liquid filler. _How Stain is Applied._--If furniture or any kind of woodwork is to be artificially coloured, staining is the first of the finishing operations to be attended to. The stain should be spread upon well-cleaned surfaces by means of a brush, a cloth, or a sponge, and allowed to stand for a few minutes so that it may penetrate well into the wood. The surfaces should then be carefully wiped off with clean, soft cloths or cotton waste to remove any stain that may not have soaked into the wood, and thus prevent a streaked or painted effect. After the stained surface is thoroughly dry, a filler, coloured to match the stain, should be applied and rubbed well into the pores, as already explained in the section on natural finish. The beginner will need to be cautioned again and again not to rub the filler all off or draw it out of the grain, but to rub it in as much as possible. He will also need to be on his guard against the presence of moisture or grease, which will interfere with good results. Excellent prepared stains in great variety may be easily obtained of dealers in painters' supplies. They will not always produce the effects claimed for them, but with a little experimenting it is possible to find prepared stains that will give almost any desired result. They are somewhat expensive, however, and the amateur finisher may prefer to develop his own stain. Following are some suggestions along this line: _Asphaltum and Golden Oak Stain._--A good chocolate brown stain may be produced on almost any light-coloured wood by a very thin varnish made by colouring turpentine with asphaltum and applying with a brush. A considerable quantity of asphaltum should be used, but not enough to make a sticky liquid. This will need to be finished with shellac or finishing varnish. When applied to quartered oak it produces the beautiful effect known as golden oak. It may also be used on white wood to give an imitation of black walnut; and Georgia pine under this stain takes on a very attractive tone without obscuring the natural figure of the wood. _Mahogany._--A clever imitation of mahogany may be made by staining birch of the right grain with logwood stain. The stain is made by boiling together equal parts of logwood chips and water for about three hours. While the mixture is hot, chloride of tin is added gradually until the right shade of colour is produced. The stain should be allowed to cool before it is applied, and then several coats may be needed to secure the right depth of shade. The filler used should be coloured with burnt umber and sienna. The finish may be a brilliant or a flat varnish, or wax. _Baywood as Mahogany._--Mahogany stain is also applied to baywood, resulting in what commonly passes for real mahogany. The genuine article, however, is an imported wood coming from South America, Mexico, and Africa in several varieties; and it is a much harder wood than the American baywood imitation. Both the birch and the baywood imitations of mahogany may be so well stained and finished that it is difficult to distinguish them from the imported varieties. _Flemish Oak._--The various oak stains are worthy of special mention. Flemish oak finish is very dark, almost black. It is prepared by first applying a stain made of bichromate of potash dissolved in water in the proportion of one half pound of bichromate to a gallon of water. The solution should be strained and applied with a stiff brush. After drying, the surface is well sand-papered and a coat of thin black stain is applied, made by dissolving japan drop-black in turpentine. This is allowed to stand a few minutes, then wiped off, and when the surface is thoroughly dry a coat of thin shellac is applied. After a thorough drying and hardening the surface is smoothed down with fine sand-paper and finished with wax. _Mission Oak._--The so-called mission oak finish may be in several colours, but as a rule it is of a dull gray with the flakes slightly reddish. The stain is made from drop-black in oil, tinged with a little rose pink, and thinned with japan and turpentine. The mixture should be strained through cheese cloth and applied with a staining brush. Wax finish is invariably used for mission oak. _Forest Green Oak._--Forest green oak is among the best of the green effects in this wood. The stain is made by mixing two parts of chrome green with one part of chrome yellow for the colouring material. This is added to a mixture of three parts turpentine and one of raw linseed oil, with a little white japan. The resulting stain should be somewhat thinner than linseed oil. After this has been applied to the oak surface, rubbed in and dried, it is given a coat of thin shellac coloured with tumeric and a very little green aniline. This should have a wax finish. _Gray Oak._--A gray stain may be given to oak by a solution of iron sulphate, made by dissolving a small quantity of chemically pure crystals in water, and giving the solution a strongly acid quality by adding a little sulphuric acid. This solution is most conveniently used by placing it in a box tank large enough to contain the pieces of wood to be stained, as they must soak in the solution until they are thoroughly saturated. The pieces may be kept separate by stout cords tied around them, and they may be held under the solution by means of weights. When taken out they should be allowed to dry before they are rubbed down. _Weathered Oak._--Weathered oak stain is made by taking two ounces of copperas and the same quantity of dry tannin, dissolving them separately in about a quart of water, and when thoroughly dissolved mixing them together. When applied to oak it gives it the natural weathered tone with a slight bluish cast. It may then be oiled, shellaced and finished with a flat varnish or wax. _Fumed Oak and Chestnut._--But the most satisfactory method of giving a brown tone to furniture or other woodwork, is without question, by fuming with ammonia, though this process is limited to two woods, viz., white oak and chestnut. All other woods, including red oak, are deficient in tannic acid, the essential element to combine with the ammonia gas in the production of the stain. This method requires a fuming box of sufficient dimensions to contain the article of furniture to be fumed. It must be carefully constructed with all its joints made vapour proof by pasting over them strips of paper and covering them with shellac. The top or one side of the box should be fastened with screws, so that it may be vapour proof when the box is in use and yet easily removed. The operation of fuming consists simply in placing the furniture in the box with one or more shallow pans filled with the strongest ammonia--not the household ammonia, which is too weak--screwing the top or cover on, and allowing the apparatus to stand from 12 to 24 hours, according to the shade desired. If the fuming box be provided with small glass windows in its adjacent corners, a good light will be thrown across the furniture so that the development of colour may be observed without opening the box. When the desired shade has been obtained and the furniture removed, it is best to give it a good wax finish which will develop a beautiful velvety texture. _Peculiarities of Fumed Finish._--It will be observed that the toning of quartered oak by the fuming process develops the beauty of the grain far better than any other process of staining; and there should also be noted the still more remarkable fact that the contrasts of tone are the reverse of those given by staining; _i. e._, the parts that appear lighter in the one case are the darker parts in the other. This gives a certain distinction to the fumed finish and furnishes a means of detecting that which is not genuine. WHITE ENAMEL A vivid and very effective finish for furniture as well as for the trim of some rooms is white enamel. It is used on new work and also in re-finishing old furniture and other woodwork. In the latter case the old finish, whatever it may be, must be removed and the surfaces thoroughly sand-papered. But whether the wood be old or not, a satisfactory enamel finish cannot be produced by using the white varnish alone, since, like all other varnishes, it is somewhat transparent. It is necessary, first, to coat the wood with flat white--a paint made of white lead with some zinc oxide for hardening and thinned with turpentine. Oil should not be used in any part of the process. Three coats of this paint will generally be needed to produce the right surface for the final finish. Each of these coats should be allowed to dry and become well hardened. Two or three days, better still a week, should be allowed for hardening between coats, since insufficient hardening leads to cracks in the subsequent coats and develops a tendency to chip off. When a surface is ready for the enamel, only one coat of it should be applied, and that should be given not less than one week to harden before it is exposed to wear. Enamel is simply a good varnish coloured with zinc oxide ground in varnish. It may be thinned, if necessary, with turpentine, and it is applied with a brush like any other varnish. PROBLEMS Problems in filling and finishing were developed in the series of furniture making problems in Chapter VII. It is only necessary to bring forward the unfinished work there described and apply to it the finishing methods outlined in this chapter. Our problems are, therefore, the following: _The Knock-down Bookcase._--If made up in white wood it may, like its original, be stained in imitation of black walnut and waxed. It may, however, be of oak, ash, or cherry, and finished to harmonize with the furniture with which it is to be used. _The Hanging Book Rack._--In the design for this rack it was suggested that it might be made of white wood and given a white enamel finish, or of baywood with a mahogany stain and varnish. _The Umbrella Stand._--Oak was advised for this piece of furniture. It needs to be treated with a paste filler and given two coats of varnish, well rubbed down. _The Magazine Stand._--Oak was suggested for this stand. The color will depend upon the surroundings. Filling and varnishing will be required if it be given a liquid stain, and wax finish if it be fumed. _The Light Library Table._--Oak was mentioned as a very appropriate wood for this table, but some lighter wood like ash may be used. It will be remembered that all open-grained woods require treatment with a paste filler before they are finished. _The Heavy Library Table._--As this was designed in the mission style, oak was chosen as the most suitable wood. It may be given the so-called mission oak stain and a wax finish. _The Round Centre Table._--This may be made in any of the woods commonly used for furniture, but quartered oak was mentioned. A golden oak finish will be found very satisfactory. _The Bookcase with Glazed Doors._--This may be made up in ash, in quartered oak, or in gum wood. The finish will depend upon the kind of wood used and the furniture with which it is to be associated. _The Library Desk and the Morris Chair._--The originals were made in quartered oak, fumed, and waxed. _The Hall Clock._--This may be made in quartered oak and given a weathered oak stain and wax finish. RE-FINISHING OLD FURNITURE There is nothing that affords more satisfaction to one looking for pleasing effects in household fittings than the occasional piece of genuine old furniture repaired and re-finished. Some of the rare old colonial designs are of exceptional merit. This is proved by the high prices which they often command. These designs originated in the days of the genuine hand crafts, before the invention of machine-made, cheap furniture. The work of the older designers was characterized by a certain individuality which gave it artistic value; and the craftsmen who worked out these designs did their work with such care and thoroughness that what they produced has had a lasting quality. It is for these reasons that we find it still in existence and so much desired. _Caution as to Repairs._--In the work of renovating old furniture, problems are met which are very different from those which have to be considered in the production of new work. All questions of design are settled. There is generally enough of the original article to show what the design was. The problem is one of restoration; we must supply the missing parts and re-finish the whole. The first thing to do, therefore, with any piece of genuine antique furniture is to look it over carefully from the point of view of the cabinet-maker, note its defects, supply the missing or loosened parts, and mend the breaks. It will be found that the wood is generally exceedingly dry and brittle on account of its age, and that it will therefore need to be handled more carefully than new wood; and, in matching up, it will often be found desirable to make use of parts of other old pieces rather than to add new wood to the old. This is especially true of veneering, which cannot be well matched in any other way. Old bits of veneer, on the other hand, may be so deftly fitted into the spaces where they are needed that the grafting is entirely obscured by subsequent finishing. _Scraping._--After the necessary repairs have been made, the next thing to be done is to remove the old finish. If the varnish is dry and brittle and somewhat cracked, it may be removed by means of a well-sharpened scraper, great care being taken, however, not to injure the wood surface, especially at the corners and edges. If the scraper does not take off the varnish well at certain points, fine sand-papering may be resorted to. It is generally wise, also, to give the entire surface a light sand-papering before it is cleaned up for finishing. _The Varnish Remover._--It often happens, however, that the scraper will not accomplish the desired result. In that case the liquid varnish remover is necessary. This may be found at the paint stores. The best formulas for producing these varnish and paint removers are known only to the manufacturers. It is therefore not wise for the young finisher to attempt to make his own remover. He should provide himself with a can of it and a bristle brush with which to apply it to the furniture. After putting on a good coat he should let it remain a few minutes and then try to scrape off the softened finish with a putty knife. If it doesn't come off readily, it should stand a little longer. The amount of time required depends entirely upon the hardness of the old finish. But in due time it will become soft and can be very quickly and effectually removed. A putty knife, however, will not remove it all. After scraping off as much as possible from the plain surfaces and from the corners, a careful washing with turpentine or benzine will clean off what remains. It is of the greatest importance that none of the old varnish nor any of the varnish remover should be permitted to remain. Either of them will show through the finish as stains on the broad surfaces and collect in the corners when the new finish is put on. _Re-finishing._--The re-finishing process is much like that described for new work, the chief exception being that there is generally no need of filling unless it has been found necessary to add new wood in making the repairs. Generally speaking, the re-finishing begins with the surfacing, which may be done with thin shellac coloured to match the stain of the furniture. This is sand-papered lightly before receiving the one or more coats of finishing varnish necessary to produce the desired effect. Very often all that is needed is a well rubbed down wax finish. PROBLEM: RE-FINISHING AN ANTIQUE MAHOGANY TABLE The table with which this problem deals was found in an old furniture shop among a large number of pieces probably of equal antiquity but of poor design; for all old furniture was not conceived on beautiful lines. Much of it was quite as ugly as some of the modern furniture. This table, however, when separated from the rubbish which almost concealed it, was found to have good proportions, with simple but graceful elements designed to make it useful as well as attractive. It was a drop-leaf table, the leaves being cut in with a double curve at each of the four corners. The legs were of turned stock and fluted, terminating in brass thimbles with casters. One leg was broken off, one of the leaves had broken away entirely from its hinges and the other was partly broken, the table top had received some hard knocks, and the entire surface was so begrimed with dust and dirt that it was with difficulty that one could tell the kind of wood of which the table was made. It took some imagination to conceive the possibilities which lay in this much abused and dilapidated old relic. The first thing to do was to wipe off the dust and dirt as well as possible with a damp sponge. The part of the top that remained on the frame was then removed so that the repairs could be easily made. The broken leg was replaced by boring each of the broken parts and setting them together with a 3/4-inch dowel, glued in. The brass tips and casters were removed and set aside to be burnished. The missing parts of the top were replaced by new pieces of baywood, fitted in, glued, and stained to match the original wood. After the necessary repairs had been made the entire table was treated with varnish remover and the old finish scraped off with a putty knife. This part of the process was completed by washing all the surfaces thoroughly with turpentine, carefully picking out with a pointed knife from corners, cracks, and openings of any kind, all remnants of the old finish and of the varnish remover. After carefully wiping off the results of this treatment with clean cheese cloth all the broad surfaces were then smoothed off with fine sand-paper. It was found that the wood was well filled, so that all it now needed was a final finishing with wax. The transformation from the begrimed old table found in the shop to a graceful and beautiful article of antique furniture was complete. IX HAND WEAVING And Aphrodite came to comfort them With incense, luscious honey, and fragrant wine; And Heré gave them beauty of face and soul Beyond all women; purest Artemis Endowed them with her stature and white grace; And Pallas taught their hands to flash along Her famous looms. The "Daughters of Pandarus" (from the "Odyssey," Lib. XX). Translation by Mrs. Browning. Among the home industries which the arts and crafts societies have lately revived, perhaps none invite more interest or deserve greater honour than weaving with the hand loom. Weaving is an ancient art. If we were to seek its origin we should have to go back to the time when men adopted homespun clothing in place of rude coverings made from the skins of animals. That was a great change, for it meant the beginning not only of the textile industries but of civilization itself. It is no wonder that the distaff and the loom were highly honoured in ancient mythologies. Not less honour is due the spinning wheels and looms of our grandmothers, which played an important part in the early beginnings of our own history. The New England colonists spoke with pride of communities which showed progress in the weaving of cloth; and this was then largely a home industry in the hands of honourable women. It was a work of necessity, but not without love and devotion. Many evidences remain in beautiful coverlets or bedspreads, in towels of homespun flax, in durable linen sheets and table-cloths--examples of unfailing patience, great ingenuity, and marvellous skill--handed down from generation to generation to their present fortunate and proud possessors. [Illustration: Weaving a Rug. Plate VII] _The Primitive Loom._--In the Orient, where our choicest rugs are made, two trees growing near each other, some strings and pieces of bamboo, and a few simple accessories, are all the worker requires. This is a primitive loom. The modern hand loom is the same in principle; and the looms of our factories do not differ from it essentially. While it is true that their productive power has been enormously multiplied, this great improvement, which was actually one of the chief causes of a great industrial revolution, was due mainly to the inventive genius of two men who harnessed the motive powers of nature to the English hand looms. [Illustration: Shuttle and bobbin] _Warp and Woof._--The fundamental process in all weaving is essentially the same; and it is exceedingly simple. It consists in passing one set of threads between two other sets of threads which cross each other alternately and are moved first up and then down to allow the passage of the shuttle with its bobbin and thread. The set of threads which cross each other and which, by being moved up and down, interlock the thread which is passed between them, is known as the _warp_. The thread which the shuttle carries across and between the warp threads is called the _woof_. By careful selection of materials, by skilful design in the dyeing and arrangement of these materials, and by proper management of the warp and woof to express the design, the most beautiful Oriental rugs are fashioned; and, though we may not be able to reproduce these in our homes, very beautiful and very useful things may be made upon the hand loom by those who have the necessary enthusiasm and patience. [Illustration: The hand loom] [Illustration: The reed] _What the Hand Loom is._--The hand loom consists of four uprights or posts, joined on two sides at the top and bottom by cross pieces. Attached to the lower cross piece are two other uprights, one on each side of the loom, bolted in such a manner as to give free play back and forth. This is the beater. These cross pieces are grooved on their inner edges, and into this groove is slipped the reed, which is a frame divided into sections by short, stiff wires, making from 10 to 25 or more sections to the inch. It is called a reed because it was formerly made from reeds. The sections of the reed are called dents, and through each one is to be threaded a single strand of the warp. From the upper cross pieces extend two other uprights, one on each side, to a height of about two feet above the general framework. They are united at the top by a round piece called the roll, over which, near each end, are passed cords attached to pulleys which in turn carry other cords fastened by means of screw eyes to inch-wide sticks extending across the width of the loom. These sticks are in pairs and carry cords or wires of uniform length through the centre of each of which a thread of the warp is passed by means of an eye in each wire, as through the dent of the reed. This is called the harness. There must be at least two of them, and there may be more. Two are necessary for the simplest weaving of a plain surface, and more than two if the work is to be more complex, as is required for scarfs with fancy borders, cushions, or any figured products of the loom. Near each end of the loom are two rollers to which the two ends of the warp threads are attached when the loom is set up for weaving. These rollers are called beams. Over one of them the woven product passes as the loom is operated, while the other holds the unwoven warp. At the back of the loom is still another cross piece, underneath which pedals are fastened. These pedals connect by chains with the harnesses in such a manner that when the foot is placed on one of them the cords attached to it play over the pulleys, throwing the harness and the warp threads which it carries below the level of the other set or sets of warp threads. An ingenious device of cogs at the side of the loom holds the work taut and enables the worker to let out fresh warp and also to roll up completed work. THE PROCESS _Preparing the Warp._--When the essential parts of the hand loom and their uses are understood, the amateur weaver is prepared to make ready the warp and attach it to the machine. The thread or warp is taken from spools or cones, four threads at one time, which constitute what is called a bout. After determining how many threads will be required, allowing so many threads to form one inch of the woven cloth, the operator must decide how wide her warp is to be and how long. With the width, the length, and the number of threads to the inch in mind, she proceeds to wind upon her warping bars or frame the requisite amount until she has it all in one great skein. In putting this upon the bars or frames she should be very careful to cross each bout--_i. e._, each four threads--so that one bout shall go above and one below, in order to allow the introduction of a pair of sticks, called lease-sticks or leash-sticks. These attachments keep the order of the threads so that they may be drawn into the harness in the same order in which they are wound on the beam. _Warping the Loom._--To warp the loom the operator loosens one end of the skein and, passing it from the warping bars to the loom, attaches it to the roller or beam at the back of the loom, after carefully dividing it so that it may be evenly distributed. At this point an attachment called a rake is firmly fastened to the loom by cords and a certain number of threads placed in each division. By the aid of the lease-sticks, which are inserted, and with the assistance of a second person to hold the skein firm, the threads are wound upon the beam. The rake is now removed and the worker proceeds to set up the piece. [Illustration: Warping hook] _Drawing in the Warp._--As has already been explained, two harnesses only will need to be used for simple weaving. Taking the first bout of four threads, the weaver draws the first thread through the centre of the first loop in the first harness, or the one to which the right-hand pedal is attached. The next thread is put through the centre of the first loop of the second harness, or the one attached to the left-hand pedal. The third is drawn through the second loop of the harness connected with the right-hand pedal, and the fourth, in turn, through the second loop of the harness attached to the left-hand pedal. Great care must be exercised that no mistakes are made; for a single misplaced thread means that the work of drawing in must be all done over again. A special kind of hook is used to assist in drawing in the warp. When the drawing in is completed properly, the operator begins at the right-hand side of the loom and, measuring the reed, allows one half the width of web from the centre of the reed and draws each thread through each dent in regular order. When this is done it is only necessary to connect the warp threads to the canvas of the beam by means of heavier threads which hold the warp out in the loom, test the work, and proceed joyously with the weaving. _Beating Up the Woof._--The weaver presses the right-hand pedal, and every alternate thread separates from the other, leaving a space between the two sets of warp threads for the shuttle to be thrown from right to left, carrying the woof threads through. The operator then draws this thread up at the side to make a good selvedge and brings home the beater, thus pressing the woof into the warp. A sheer fabric requires a light stroke of the beater, while firm cloth requires more force. Releasing the right pedal, the operator presses the left, which causes the warp threads to cross, holding more firmly the woof threads just thrown. The shuttle now passes from left to right, carrying through another woof thread which, in turn, is beaten up as before. So the work goes merrily on with the throws of the shuttle alternating from right to left and from left to right, interspersed with the strokes of the beater. [Illustration: Hand-Made Towels. Plate VIII] PROBLEM: MAKING A RUG _The Design._--This problem, like all others in house decoration, involves in its initial stages questions of design. Before planning the rug it is necessary to know what use the rug is to have--whether it is to be for a hall, a living room, a dining-room, or a chamber, and whether it is to be used upon hard wood floors or with a carpet. This is a question of colours, and of materials; for the designer must avoid too sharp contrasts in colour, not only in the rug itself but in its relation to the other colours with which it should harmonize, and the materials used must not display glaring inconsistencies of texture. Unless the beginner has special talent as a colourist it is not wise to attempt the introduction of too many colours in one piece of work. If the warp is dark it is usually better to use light or medium woof. If several shades are used in the body of the rug, better results are obtained by using for the border or end decoration one or more plain colours which match or readily blend with the principal colours of the body of the rug. [Illustration: Hand-Made Rugs. Plate IX] _Materials: Denim._--There are many materials suitable for rug making. Denim in moss or forest green makes a rug fit for a queen. This should be woven on a blue or green warp thread of carpet size. In preparing the woof it will be necessary to cut the denim on a true bias into strips from 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch wide. The latter width is better. In cutting, the best method is to fold back one corner of a square cut end along the selvedge, forming a fold across the cloth at an angle of 45 degrees. Crease this fold carefully and make the first cut along the fold. With a yardstick or a straight edge of some kind rule off lightly with a piece of chalk or soft pencil strips of the proper width for the succeeding cuts, taking great pains to maintain a true bias. When a sufficient amount has been cut, the pieces should be ravelled or fringed on each edge by drawing them quickly through a button hook. There is a certain knack in this, but it is soon acquired. The fringed strips should then be fastened together at the ends by means of overhand stitching, trimming off neatly all projecting corners. The moss-like effect when woven is improved if the woof, as soon as it is prepared, is not rolled into balls but left in suitable lengths for filling the shuttle. A special form of shuttle without a bobbin or spool is used for carrying the woof cloth for rug weaving. Its simple construction is shown in the illustration. The woof is wound endwise and unwound in weaving by turning the shuttle. [Illustration: Shuttle for woof cloth] Another good material for rug making is found in various kinds of woollen cloth. Warm, durable, and handsome effects may be obtained by using a gray wool with catawba or some other warm shade of red as the end decoration, with set figures for the body of the rug. Geometric designs, arrows, swastika, the pine tree, and many other forms are possible. Very dainty colours also may be combined in rugs for chamber use. Materials for these may be obtained from worn lawn dresses, discarded silkaleen and mull, which work up beautifully with one or two plain colours reserved for use in the borders. _Combination of Blue and White._--Blue and white is always a happy combination; and exceedingly dainty creations may be woven, to be placed perhaps in the guest chamber, by using a woof of old blue with a white warp, combined with white borders and a white knotted fringe. A vine-like effect may be obtained in the border by twisting blue and white together in opposite ways and weaving in a plain thread of white or blue between the two. Another happy combination of blue and white results from weaving on a blue warp a woof of white outing flannel, cut and fringed as described for the moss rug of denim, with a border of old blue and figures of the same colour. For a chamber or for a bath room in white such a rug as this will leave nothing to be desired. _A Weaving Design._--It has just been said that design in rug making is a question of colours and of materials. It is already apparent that it is more than that. It is largely a question of procedure in the process of weaving. That this is so may be shown in the following account of the making of a blue and white rug. The thought was to produce a rug with five stripes of blue running lengthwise, with white figures at regular intervals through the middle of the rug. To accomplish this result two threads of white warp were removed from the reed and harness every two inches for a space of ten inches on each side, thus making what may be called a weaving design; for the blue stripes, it will be easily seen, had to appear to the number of five on each side when the rug was woven. The white figures were formed by first throwing the blue cloth or woof through the warp by the usual throw of the shuttle and, before beating it up, threading into the warp white cloth in the desired pattern, after which the woof and pattern were beaten up together. For the pattern five threads or pieces of white cloth were used, two of which were 6 inches in length and three 2 inches, the two longer ones being placed between the shorter ones as illustrated. A space of 7 inches was left between the white figures, the location of which was carefully determined by counting the threads, both of warp and of woof, so that in weaving the figures should appear at the right place. The result of this weaving design was a very beautiful rug. [Illustration: White figure in blue rug] _Another Example of Weaving Design._--This feature of rug designing is capable of indefinite expansion. Perhaps one more example may be given. The object was to produce a rug of medium dark centre with an 8-inch border all around of a darker colour. This effect was produced by first weaving 8 inches of the dark end border, which was of mixed goods showing several dark colours contrasting happily. Having reached the place where the medium centre was to begin, a woof thread of this medium colour and of the right length was joined each time to short pieces of woof of the border colour so that, as the weaving progressed along the length of the centre, not only the centre colour appeared in its proper place but 8 inches of border on each side. When the proper length of the centre had been woven, the rug was finished by weaving another 8 inches of the border colour. The result was a rug of individuality and charm. _Great Variety of Material._--Endless combinations will occur to any one who becomes interested in this captivating art. The field for colour design is almost without limit. No material is so old and useless as to be despised by the clever rug maker. Old bed ticking with its blue and white stripes cut on the bias makes a very desirable combination when woven on a blue warp with a plain blue border. A charming mottled effect in one instance was produced by a yarn which was ravelled from an old raw silk portière of a mahogany shade and wound into balls with finely cut strips of tan cloth, the balls being rewound several times. This was used as the woof for the centre of the rug. The border was made of a weaving thread of the unravelled mahogany yarn, doubled several times to give thread of a size equal to that of the tan cloth. Discarded clothing in which the prevailing colours are red, when made up into woof threads and woven on a white warp, gives a charming effect which may be strengthened or toned down by a border combination as desired. Dyes may, of course, be used if the colours of the weaving threads made up from old cloths and discarded clothing are not suited to the design that is to be worked out. _Weaving the Rug._--When the design for the rug has been thoroughly worked out, determining the colours, materials to be used, and the method of procedure, the warp and the woof threads should be prepared and the warp attached to the loom, as already explained in the discussion of the general process of weaving. Further details of procedure are not needed here. The thing to do is to weave a rug as designed. The next thing to do is to design and weave another rug, and then another and so on. As in most crafts so in weaving, experience is the great teacher--a teacher who demands faithful work, who finds lessons of value in every failure and abundant satisfaction in every success. Some of these successes were found in the rugs illustrated opposite page 252. Rug weaving is probably the simplest of all weaving and therefore a good problem with which to begin. After serving a satisfactory apprenticeship in this field the amateur will have acquired sufficient knowledge of design and sufficient skill in the art to pass to more difficult problems. This will take her out into a large field of opportunity. Portières, window draperies, table scarfs, bedspreads, and covers for pillows and cushions in endless variety will suggest themselves to the ambitious worker. In all these, as has been seen in the case of rug making, design is all important. The management of the loom is much the same in all plain weaving. What differences there are will be found, for the most part, in the weaving designs. In the following problems are described some of the special features involved in the other forms of weaving. PROBLEM: PORTIÈRES AND COUCH COVERS _Suggestions for the Design._--If the loom is wide enough these may be woven in one piece; but usually it is necessary to weave them in sections or breadths. In this case, of course, they must be afterward neatly joined. The possibilities in colour design are naturally varied. They may be woven with a woof of plain colour contrasting with the colour of the warp, in stripes, or with plain centres with striped ends. Harmony of colour effects is always to be sought. Depth and richness may sometimes be obtained to a highly satisfactory degree by a generous use of black. Materials may be yarns, bits of silk or velvet, or pieces of fine, soft woollen goods. The warp may be silk or linen or mercerized cotton. Beautiful portières have been woven by leaving out two threads of warp at regular intervals, giving a loose and fluffy effect. Silk and wool pieces may be used in the woof, alternating with one or more threads of wool yarn of any desired shade; and, if of the same colour as the warp used, they will impart a very decided tone to the whole product. In portières, the general appearance is much improved if the woof is not beaten up hard into the warp. The soft beating gives a resulting texture that is more pliable and more suitable for hanging in easy folds such as is demanded in portières. Couch covers, however, which will have to resist more wear and tear, should be beaten up harder. In preparing the silk and wool pieces the cloth should be cut into very fine strips, joined by carefully lapping the ends, and, by cutting away a part of the cloth, making the joint uniform in size. If the material is cloth of ordinary thickness 1/2 an inch is quite wide enough for strips. The length of the pieces used may vary greatly, though they may be somewhat different in colour. They may vary all the way from a few inches to a length long enough to weave an inch in the portière or cover. This makes it very easy to secure a source of supply for the material in saving old garments and short pieces of cloth for the specific purpose of making up the woof threads for these products of the loom. Almost any household will be able to save enough in a short time to furnish the material for a beautiful pair of portières or a couch cover which will be durable in quality, easy to clean, attractive in colour, and satisfactory from every point of view. PROBLEM: WINDOW DRAPERIES AND CURTAINS _The Design._--Curtains of one colour or of several are woven on the simple loom with two harnesses. They may be of the soft cream tint, the material for which is easily obtained and the effect of which, in softening the light passing through them, leaves little to be desired. But if a little colour be required, the weaving design may be easily changed to secure this result. One may, for example, weave at first 7 inches of the plain cream. This will give woven material enough for a 2-inch hem at the bottom of the curtain and 5 inches before the beginning of a coloured border. The border may consist of two threads of colour alternating with two threads of the cream, thus making a stripe of about 7 inches in width. Following this may come 8 to 10 inches of the plain cream, followed in turn by a narrow stripe of the same colour as the border, 3 inches wide, in turn followed by another 10 inches of the plain cream and another narrow stripe, and so on, alternately, until the required length of the curtain has been woven. If desired, a top border may be woven in, though it is well to make it somewhat narrower than the one at the bottom--say about 5 inches--and it must be added so that it will show below the hem. In any case the top of the curtain should be woven plain, allowing for hemming, and also for shirring if a rod is to be inserted for hanging the curtain. Vertical stripes are often desirable in curtains, especially if the room is so low studded as to invite the employment of every possible means for making it seem higher. Such stripes may be made by using two colours for the warp--as, for example, blue and white or green and white--with one of these colours as woof. [Illustration: An Alcove With Window Draperies, Pillow Covers, Window Seat Cover, Chair Seat and Moss Green Rug. All Hand Woven] _Importance of Selecting Good Warp._--The successful working out of this problem depends very largely upon the proper selection of materials. While many things may be used for warp with a certain degree of success, there are fine points to be observed in weaving as in all the art-crafts, and the real beauty of the result depends upon giving due attention to these points. It is always well to remember that in all weaving the warp plays a most important part. Mercerized cotton warp works out effectively with silk or linen woof or with a combination of both, and retains its beauty after being laundered many times. In the soft cream shade it has almost the appearance of silk, at a much less cost. But silk may often be obtained at a low price if the weaver lives in the neighbourhood of a silk mill. Bargains in small lots of unsalable colours may be secured with which the weaver may do wonders; and if the colours are not good the silk may be dyed at small expense. Our grandmothers saved their tea grounds for a week or more, boiled them, and made a dye which gave a beautiful gray warp. They were, in fact, very particular about their warping threads. Not everything would suit them. They learned from experience that the wearing quality of goods is improved by having the warp stronger and harder twisted than the filling. It was common for them to spin a certain thread for this purpose. Exquisite results follow the use of a fine linen warp in white or natural colour with linen or silk for filling. Striking and beautiful also, in its way, is the very coarse linen warp. _Variety in Woof Threads._--A very pleasing effect in sash curtains or in full length window draperies is produced by weaving heavy threads alternately with fine threads, using two shuttles or bobbins, one holding the heavy thread and the other the fine one. Two or more threads may be alternated in this way as the fancy of the designer prompts; and this style of weaving may be confined to borders, leaving the body of the fabric plain, or the borders may be woven of the solid, heavy threads and the body of the curtains or draperies ribbed with the alternate coarse and fine threads. Such curtains are very beautiful in cream white; but colour may be used if the colours are fast so that the curtains may be successfully laundered. PATTERN WEAVING Before undertaking more difficult problems in weaving it will be necessary to explain in general two important processes. The first one is the process of pattern weaving; the second, dyeing. Among the heirlooms treasured by many families are the beautiful blue and white coverlets or bedspreads and the hand-woven table-cloths and towels. No one with strong domestic tastes who has been fortunate enough to see these products of home industry can have failed to be charmed with the wonderfully wrought designs and with the quaint names by which they were once well known; for our grandmothers designated these designs by such names as Spring Flowers, Governor's Garden, the Path of the Roses, Flowers of Lebanon, Ladies' Delight, Fairies Ring, and doubtless by many more names which have been lost. This work in pattern design is wrought by the use not of two pedals and harnesses, right and left, as used in the first three problems, but by the use of several additional harnesses. _To Be Learned by Experimenting._--If the beginner in weaving has mastered the use of the simple loom with two harnesses it is possible to extend her knowledge and skill to the successful operation of a pattern weaving loom. But the procedure is too technical and too varied to be described in detail as directions for a practical problem for amateurs. It is far better to experiment with a loom of this kind under the guidance of some person competent to point out the way step by step. Nor will it be possible, in a brief description of this somewhat intricate subject, to suggest ideas for original weaving designs to ambitious beginners who wish to take up pattern weaving. Copies of the traditional designs may be obtained as material for study and practice. After a little it will be possible to make variations and so lead to the delight of originating simple and perhaps more elaborate new patterns. [Illustration: Hand Woven Window Draperies, Couch Cover, Slumber Robe and Pillow Covers. Plate X] [Illustration: A written pattern with a variety of figures woven from it] _How Patterns Are Written._--Complete working directions for pattern weaving will therefore not be attempted in this chapter; but it may be possible to point out a few leading facts and principles which will be of assistance to the experimenter who ventures to take up by herself this interesting application of the art of weaving. Patterns for this work are plainly written out from right to left on cross section paper, as shown in the upper part of the accompanying illustration, each horizontal section of which corresponds to one of the harnesses of the loom and the pedal attached to it. If we have a four-harness loom, as would be required for working the pattern and weaving the figures illustrated, the right-hand pedal and the harness connected with it, which is the one farthest from the operator, are designated by the number 1, and correspond to that harness number in the pattern. Following in order, the next three pedals and connected harnesses are numbered 2, 3, and 4 to correspond with the same numbers in the pattern. Turning now to the vertical sections of the pattern, we shall find that each one corresponds to a certain warp thread, so that when the pattern is "drawn in"--_i. e._, when the warp for weaving the pattern is attached to the loom--we shall find the thread of the warp which is to be drawn through the first loop or wire indicated by a mark on the section of the pattern corresponding to that warp thread and to the number of the harness through which it is drawn. Thus, according to the pattern shown in the illustration, the first thread is to be drawn into the 3d harness, the 2d thread into the 4th harness, and 3d thread into the 3d harness, and so on alternately until we reach the 8th thread, which is drawn into the 2d harness; the 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th threads are drawn alternately into the 2d and 3d harnesses, and the 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, and 17th are drawn alternately into the 1st and 2d harnesses. This process is now continued, as will be clearly understood by reference to the pattern, up to and including the 42d thread, when one drawing in of the pattern will have been completed. A further study of the pattern shows that the marks on lines 3 and 4 form a continuously alternating series; and similarly that those on 2 and 3, 1 and 2, and 1 and 4 form also a continuously alternating series. But these numbers, however paired, correspond to the harnesses into which the warp threads, indicated by the numbers 1 to 42, are drawn. It thus appears that after we have drawn in as many warp threads as the pattern calls for once around in the order indicated in the pattern, we have prepared the loom for weaving one of these patterns. We must therefore draw in the rest of the warp threads in the same order as those already drawn in, thus repeating the drawing in of the pattern as many times as required for the width of the piece to be woven. The illustration shows two "repeats" of the pattern. _Operation of the Harnesses._--Having explained the method of drawing in the pattern, we may now study the movement of the harnesses necessary to guide the warp properly for the weaving of the pattern. It has been noted that, with the pattern under consideration, harnesses 1 and 3 hold a continuous line of alternating warp threads, leaving harnesses 2 and 4 to take up all the intervening warp threads. If then the operator should throw down pedals 1 and 3 together, and alternately 2 and 4 also together, the warp threads would be crossed exactly as in plain weaving. Bringing out a pattern in weaving must, of course, require a variation of the pedal movement from that used in plain weaving. Now, upon reference to the illustration it will also be noted that in writing the pattern, or in drawing it in, no two threads have ever come together on the same harness. If the 1st thread has been drawn into the 3d harness, and the 2d thread into the 4th harness, as shown in the pattern illustrated, the operator begins the weaving of the pattern by throwing down the 3d and 4th pedals together and throwing the shuttle which carries the pattern thread. This operation is what weavers call a "pick." Each pick of the pattern thread is represented in the diagram (page 268) by a broken black line running across the pattern. Thus the diagram of the first design shown indicates that there are 6 throws of the shuttle alternately over and back, or 6 picks of the pattern thread, for each corresponding section of this design. But between every two picks of the pattern thread there must be a pick of the plain weave, requiring, as has already been explained, the pressing down of either the 1st and 3d pair of pedals together when the shuttle is thrown from the right side, or of the 2d and 4th if thrown from the left side. It is evident, then, that there must be two shuttles prepared for carrying the woof threads. One of these is to be used for the plain weave and the other for the pattern weave. The shuttle used for the plain weave is usually threaded with a fine thread of linen, though this, of course, is subject to variation according to the design of the weaver. The pattern weaving shuttle should carry a coarser thread, which may be of silk, linen, wool, or mercerized cotton. _Variations in Pattern._--From the fact that a carefully written pattern is necessary in preparing a four-harness loom for pattern weaving, one would naturally infer that the pattern must be closely followed in the weaving process. And so it must if the pattern be woven as written; but, after the drawing in, it is by no means necessary to follow the written pattern. As the weaving progresses it is easy to see many variations in pattern which may be woven upon one drawing in--patterns so varied as to seem to hold very little relation to each other. In fact, one of the delights of weaving with a pattern loom is to devise ways of modifying simple patterns, elaborating them into new weaving designs, producing unique and sometimes very interesting original figures. We have only to remember that patterns are made by the order and number of the overshots--_i. e._, the throws of the shuttle carrying the pattern threads--and that the overshots in the same horizontal and vertical lines are produced by the same pair. In the pattern illustrated the overshots are made by 2 and 3, by 1 and 2, by 1 and 4, or by 3 and 4, not counting 1 and 3 and 2 and 4, which are the pairs for plain weaves. We should also remember that the last end in one overshot is usually the first one in the next. Examples of two variations in design that may be woven from the original written pattern, to which we have already referred, are illustrated in the diagram and probably at least a dozen more variations are possible. PROBLEM: A BORDERED TABLE SCARF This problem will require the use of the four-harness loom. The first thing to do is to procure the written pattern for the border and draw it in. When the drawing in is completed and the weaving is begun, the first step in the process is to weave a few inches of the plain cloth. In doing this, however, we shall, of course, find that the pressing of the right-hand and left-hand pedals as in simple weaving will not accomplish the desired result; for it has already been explained that the pedals of a four-harness loom must be worked in certain pairs to produce a plain weave. It will be remembered that to do plain weaving with the warp drawn in as required by the pattern illustrated on page 268, it is necessary to press pedals 1 and 3 together alternately with 2 and 4--_i. e._, both pedals of each pair must be pressed at the same time to produce the same effect as that produced by the alternate movements of the right and left pedals in simple weaving. When a sufficient length of plain cloth has been woven, the written pattern for the weaving of the border design must be faithfully consulted and the right pairs of pedals pressed down in proper order for the weaving of the pattern. The second or weaving shuttle carries the bobbin, which is filled with the colour required in the pattern. Any changes of colour required by the design are easily produced by inserting a new bobbin filled with the desired colour. _The Design._--A great variety of design is possible in table scarfs. It is common to weave in a narrow beading of whatever colour may have been chosen, following this by a few threads of white, and this in turn by a narrow band of the colour of the border with some slight suggestion of the pattern, then more of the plain white and finally the full pattern of the border. The centre of the table scarf is simply a matter of plain weaving in white or possibly in some solid colour, while the other end of the scarf must be woven with the same border and bands as were woven at first, but in the reverse order. _Variations in Design._--One pleasing style of decoration is found in repeating the border several times with inch-wide spaces between. Another variety requires a heavy border at the ends, with narrow ones at short intervals throughout the length. Shadow borders, so-called, are also common, and may alternate with borders of colour or may constitute the entire decoration. Shadow borders are heavy borders woven in the cream or body colour of the scarf instead of being in a contrasting shade. In order to make them stand out well it is necessary to use a coarser thread than is required for the colour borders. A gray linen plain weave is often embellished in white with delicate effect. There is also a heavy linen thread which is good for scarf borders. It is obtainable in dainty colours, and the heavy thread seems to bring out the patterns in greater perfection. Darning silks in fast colours are also employed, but these should be woven double in order to obtain the best effect. They are found in the market in short lengths and in such attractive colours as Delft blue, reseda green, pink, and catawba. The last two colours, used with linen in the natural shade, make a happy combination. Scarfs should be woven from 20 to 24 inches wide and about 1-1/2 yards long, unless some special use requires that they should be of different length. Not only do they make pleasing table covers, but they are useful as tray cloths, and from them charming sewing or embroidery aprons may be fashioned by folding one end over, tying it with ribbons, and arranging pockets to hold the work. One scarf will make two aprons. Fancy bags are also woven on the same general lines as scarfs, but the width needs to be only 8 or 10 inches. These may be woven of the pattern throughout, or they may be striped with bands or borders. Lined with silk and finished with ribbons or cords, they are very much admired for embroidery and other fancy work. DYEING In the discussion of the problem of hand weaving, frequent reference has been made to the use of coloured materials. While it is possible to obtain many good colours in the market, it is much more satisfactory to make these colours at home by the use of the dye pot. In former times, when hand weaving was general, there was no other way; and, in fact, dyeing and weaving may well be considered now, as they were then, sister arts. When the wool was washed, carded into rolls, spun into yarn, and again doubled and twisted, it was, generally speaking, still necessary to treat the yarn with some permanent dye before weaving it into cloth. One notable exception was found in the natural gray homespun, which was of yarn spun from the wool of both the black and the white sheep carded together. The modern worker with the hand loom will find almost the same necessity as our grandmothers did for a knowledge of the art of dyeing. Seldom will she find at hand just the shade or colour required by the design of the piece to be woven. Much of the material that is worked up for the woof of rugs, for example, will be found to be so faded or spotted that it would poorly repay one for the labour of weaving it up in that condition. And even the new material, which it is often necessary to procure for plain weaving, for pattern weaving, and for use in borders, will often need a bath in the dye pot in order to furnish the tone of colour needed. _Some Good Points in Dyeing._--Good results in dyeing are obtained by using the prepared dyes of the markets, mixing together more than one colour often, after some experimenting, in order to produce the desired shade. Instead of mixing the dye one may, if she chooses, dye first in one colour and top off with another. A fine permanent green is obtained by dyeing thread or cloth a good yellow and topping with a blue bath. Green and blue dye used together give neither green nor blue but a blending of both colours, which is exceedingly pleasing. In all cases it is better to make the dye bath weak, leaving the article to be dyed in the bath a long time rather than to keep it a shorter time in a stronger dye. The advantage is not only greater permanency of colour but also greater certainty in the result; for one can watch the process of dyeing more easily and guard against the colours becoming too dark. The material which remains in the dye bath until it takes practically all the colour from it may generally be depended upon neither to fade nor crock. _Some Common Dyes._--The dull, soft colours, made generations ago from barks and teas with alum as a mordant, had artistic qualities and were generally permanent. It is well worth while to experiment in this direction. Straw colour may be made from the old-fashioned herb saffron; orange comes from madder and fustic; yellow is obtained from powdered dock root; rusty nails boiled in vinegar with a bit of copperas give a good black dye, useful also in freshening black yarns that have acquired a dull or faded colour. White maple bark boiled in water makes a fine medium brown which may be made fast by first treating the cloth or yarn to be dyed in it with a solution of alum. A permanent and fine nankeen colour may be made from a pail of lye with a piece of copperas half the size of an egg boiled in it. In fact, nearly everything which possesses colour may be considered a dye. Vegetable substances are generally in themselves more permanent, but most dyes need to be fixed or "set" by the use of some mordant. All this will mean much experimenting, of course, unless one is fortunate enough to possess an old receipt book with its quaint allusions to mordants, kettles of brass, and vessels of pewter. The use of the prepared dyes, which may be easily obtained with explicit directions, is generally satisfactory and of course somewhat easier; and yet the interest which inspires one to cultivate the art of hand weaving leads to a desire to master all of the arts intimately associated with this ancient and fascinating home industry. X POTTERY To watch a potter thumping his wet clay--_Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam_ The boy who makes his mud pie, baking it in the sun, and the Indian who, ages ago, coiled clay in a basket which he burned away, are but two widely separated links in a continuous chain; for men of all time have found a fascination in the wet clay that is so easily moulded and fashioned into all manner of things of beauty and of use. And, beside the joy of exercising the creative faculty, there has also been the spur of a common need to inspire men of different races, independently of each other, to develop the primitive household arts, like pottery and rug making, by the use of methods no less remarkable for their similarity than for their cleverness. The impressions that the primitive man received from his natural surroundings were easily expressed in the plastic mud, and it was probably not long before he discovered that fire made them permanent and practically indestructible. Improvement was bound to come in due time. By washing the grosser impurities from the clay mud through a process in which the heavier particles settled, leaving the silt or finer clay to be poured off, some artist of a very early time found a material that became one of his most valuable helps in adding to the furnishings of his tribal household. First it was simply burned clay; but in due time enamel or glazed work found its use in tiles for building purposes, in grain jars, in wine jugs, in many kinds of table ware; for the uses of ancient terra cotta and porcelain were numerous. [Illustration: Girls at Work on Pottery. Plate XI] The primitive arts, however, were not confined to objects of necessary use. We find, buried with the ruins of ancient cities, many evidences of the potter's craft, and among them articles for decorating the home, for personal adornment, and for religious use, like the rings and scarabs of Egypt. And in modern decorative art, as applied in the household, the one final touch which gives that indescribable charm, which it is the aim of all art to give, is perhaps to be found in a few--a very few--choice bits of pottery. All of this use of clay, from the rude art of prehistoric times to the finest product of modern skill, is based on a plain scientific fact, _viz._, that a small quantity of water in the clay, not removable by any ordinary means of drying, can be driven out by intense heat so as to cause a permanent change in the character of the clay. This water is called the water of combination. If the clay is not heated more than enough to dry it, a later mixing with water restores it to its former plastic state; but clay once burned has lost its water of combination and never can return to its original condition. Most beginners in clay modelling will expect, perhaps in the early stages of their work, to be made acquainted with the potter's wheel; for who has not heard of this interesting device? It is of interest chiefly because of its practical utility in the manufacture of pottery; and yet no one can forget the potter's song with which Longfellow begins his beautiful poem Keramos, making it a text for a sermon on the philosophy of life: "Turn, turn, my wheel! Turn round and round Without a pause, without a sound; So spins the flying world away! This clay, well mixed with marl and sand, Follows the motion of my hand; For some must follow, and some command, Though all are made of clay!" _Potter's Wheel Unnecessary._--The potter's wheel was used in comparatively early times and has been intimately associated with the art ever since. But it requires much physical strength and considerable skill to use it effectively; and its use has been by no means universal. We find the Indians of our own time and people of other races, expert in building pottery by hand, using the method of coiling. It seems best, therefore, to advise beginners to adopt the simpler method and to forego the use of the potter's wheel. The comparative inexpensiveness of the hand method of building is another point in its favour. The tools required are few and simple. Inexpensive and easy methods are favourable to the experimental stage; and it is well for the amateur to have every encouragement to experiment freely both with methods for building and with designs for his ware, keeping in mind always that the beautiful is generally the simple and strong, not the fantastic and complicated. _The Method of Coiling._--It will be understood, therefore, that in general the process to be followed consists in building up the bowl or jar or whatever the design may be by using coils of clay of the right consistency, welding and shaping them together, and scraping them down, if necessary, until they are ready to receive the first firing. After this they may receive a coating of glaze and be fired again. At first the beginner will find his chief interest simply in experimenting with the building up process. MATERIALS AND TOOLS The materials and tools needed are as follows: Clay; oil-cloth, 18 inches square; cotton cloth or flannelette, 18 inches square; a few simple modelling tools; a soft pencil; drawing paper; card-board, 6 ply; a plaster of paris "bat," or a piece of slate. _Clays._--It will be necessary to add a word of explanation in order that these materials and tools may be well selected. There is a great variety in clays, ranging from a very coarse red clay used for flower pots to the finest white clay used for porcelain. The latter is called kaolin and is very pure. A good modelling clay may be obtained from dealers in school supplies or from potteries. In some localities, especially in the neighbourhood of brick-yards or other clay industries, a satisfactory clay may be easily found. But, however obtained, some experimenting will be necessary to test its suitability. The modelling clay is probably the least liable to yield disappointing results. The cotton cloth or flannelette is to be moistened and used to wrap up the clay in order to keep it from drying too rapidly during the intervals when it is set aside. This will not be necessary during the early part of the process, for then it is desirable for the clay to stiffen as rapidly as possible by natural means. [Illustration: Simple tools used in pottery] Of the modelling tools needed some can be whittled from hard wood. They are not expensive, however, and the beginner will perhaps find it well to obtain most of them from a dealer in artists' materials. The accompanying illustration shows some of these, among them a very useful tool (F) with brass wire loops which are in turn wound with finer wire. F and C are especially useful for scraping clay too soft to be easily managed with smooth edges. The thumb-like tool A is perhaps the most generally useful of those shown here. In this connection it is well to emphasize the fact that _the greatest of all tools is the human thumb_. Cultivate its use. Most modelling and building can be managed with the thumb, assisted by the fingers. _The Bat and How Made._--A plaster of paris bat will be found exceedingly useful. A sheet of thin, unsized paper serves well, however, for a surface on which to build; but the dry plaster of the bat absorbs the moisture of the clay at the bottom and hastens the stiffening process. This bat can be easily made. Take a small quantity of water (a half pint or more according to the size of the bat required), sift into this from the hand an equal amount of plaster of paris, and stir it in until a little dry plaster appears at the surface. After a little more vigorous stirring let it rest a few minutes and then pour it into tin pans which are 4 or 5 inches in diameter by 1 inch deep. The pans should be previously coated on the inside with a thick soap solution, made by dissolving soap in hot water to the consistency of a thick cream. The bats will harden in 10 or 15 minutes and may be easily removed from the pan, ready for use. PROBLEM: A BOWL FOR FLOWERS This problem naturally divides itself into six important steps, as follows: The design or profile; building and shaping; decoration, if any; firing (bisque); glazing; and firing the glaze. [Illustration: Variety in dimensions] _The Design or Profile._--As in all problems of decoration the first step is found in design. For present purposes we may consider a bowl as having a diameter as great as or greater than the height. The bowl will be more interesting from the standpoint of variety if there is a difference between its height and its greatest diameter, and also between its diameters at the top and at the bottom. The accompanying drawing shows such differences. [Illustration: Suggestive profiles] Another example of the value of variety is to be found in the curve of the profile. A line that is simple but constantly changing in its degree of curvature--as, for example, an elliptical curve--is more pleasing than an arc of a circle, which is sometimes called the curve of limitation. It should be noted that a curved form, in order to be forceful, should have some dominant curve in combination with others which are subordinate. The profiles illustrated in the following drawings have this dominant element and are in no case composed of arcs of circles. These varied, interesting, yet simple lines--live lines as they are sometimes called--consisting in each case of only two or three elements, are given here merely as suggestive material. A little experimenting will show unsuspected possibilities in strong, forceful curves, and the young student is advised to make many experiments in the effort to discover such possibilities. An example of profiles to be avoided is given in Problem II, on page 309. That these are vase forms and not bowl contours is immaterial. _A_ is commonplace because the two parts of the curve are too much alike. _B_ is unrestful in its three curves of nearly equal size. If the suggestive profiles illustrated in the foregoing drawing be turned upside down it will be noted that very few of them seem as pleasing as before. It will be found also that a different ratio of height to diameter will give very different effects with the same profile. A bowl having top and bottom alike may, so far as design is concerned, be classed with the pill box. We don't know which is the top until we have spilled the pills. If attractive pieces of pottery are found with the top and bottom of equal diameter and with curves in themselves objectionable, it will invariably be found that the attractiveness consists in some beauty of glaze, colour, or decoration which is prominent enough to conceal the defects of form. _Natural Forms._--It may be well to add a word here in regard to the imitation of natural forms in designing the general shape of any piece of pottery; and that word is a very brief one. Avoid them. Nature is a great teacher in all branches of art; but in pottery her suggestions are to be used as decorative elements rather than for fundamental shapes. A fish with a flower in its mouth does not seem appropriate; but a bowl for water-lilies, while it may not take the form of a fish, might reasonably have a fish as an element of its decoration. _Testing Profiles._--A good way to study the effect of the profile of both sides of the bowl is to fold the paper on which the profile is drawn vertically through the centre and transfer the line reversed by rubbing the back of the paper, thus giving the other half of the drawing in exact symmetry. When the general shape of the profile has been tested in this way one side should be redrawn carefully; then, with the paper folded along the centre line, so that the pencil line falls outside, the whole form may be cut out; and then it may be unfolded. The next step is to begin to build up the design in clay. _The Building._--Roll out a coil of clay a little thicker than the bottom of the bowl is to be; perhaps 3/8 or 1/2 of an inch will serve, since the bottom is to be hollowed slightly by scraping. The roll should be uniform in diameter and rolled as little as possible, in order that it may not become too dry. Upon the piece of paper or the plaster bat start to coil the roll from the centre until the desired size is reached, then smear the rolls together, working toward the centre. Turn the coil over and work the other side together, truing up the circle and making the bottom of uniform thickness. Avoid the use of water in smoothing the coils together. It may seem to make the work easier, but it softens the clay and invites careless work. [Illustration: Manipulating the coil] With another coil begin to build up the sides, making a complete circle, and, having pinched off the ends where they meet, join them carefully. Lay two or three coils in this fashion, pressing each coil firmly into place as it is laid, and smooth them together as in the base. The process is illustrated in the drawing. If the clay is very soft, the work may be set aside to harden a little, while a beginning is made upon other pieces. It is well to have two or three pieces in the process of construction at the same time. _Testing the Work._--A template or gauge will be needed to test the work as it progresses from the first rough stages to the finish. This is made of card-board by cutting out an exact copy of the profile, leaving at the bottom sufficient width to insure rigidity when the template is held upright on the table or bat. [Illustration: A template] As the work goes on, if the design requires that the form should be "brought in" toward the top, the coil must be laid a little inside of the profile desired, as the smoothing tends to increase the diameter slightly. In all the building, allowance should be made for this enlargement. When the coil is high enough and of the shape desired, it should be allowed to stiffen until it is rigid enough to handle. With the various modelling tools the surface should then be scraped wherever it is necessary to remove the hardened clay in order to give a symmetrical shape to the desired profile. [Illustration: Scraping a square form] A drawing is shown to illustrate the process of scraping. The surface should be left smooth and even; and this may be accomplished without water or sponge. The flat sides of the scraping tool may be used to polish the clay as soon as it becomes leather hard--_i. e._, hard and stiff, but before it begins to whiten and dry. The lip or top of the bowl will require special attention. It will probably need to be thinned down and have all sharp edges removed. Then the bowl should be turned upside down and the bottom hollowed out to a depth of 1/16 to 1/8 of an inch, leaving a "foot" or rim around the outside of the circle to give it steadiness. _The Decoration._--After the bowl is complete as to its general form, the problem of its decoration, if there is to be any, must be solved. This may be studied during the intervals when it is necessary to set the bowl aside to harden. If the form and colour are good, the bowl may possess a charm that will not be improved by decoration. On the whole, less decoration, rather than more, should be the aim. The three vases illustrated at the top of a following page are examples of pottery without decoration. (See page 308.) [Illustration: Bowls. Plate XII] Generally speaking, bowls like the one we are building may be decorated by one of three methods: By sinking lines or channels in its surface by means of a sharpened, chisel-like stick (D, page 285); by modelling or carving the surface; or by painting the surface with coloured "slip" or with coloured glaze. It should be explained that "slip" is a mixture of clay and water of the consistency of cream; it may be coloured or uncoloured. A combination of two or more of these methods is, of course, possible. Examples of the first two methods are shown in the illustrations of bowls, vases, and tiles. A combination of the first and third methods was used in decorating the tiles of the middle row shown in Plate XIV opposite page 316. [Illustration: Spacing in decoration] _Classes of Decoration._--The _form_ of the decoration is simply a matter of space division, as illustrated by two examples shown below. It is evident, too, that decoration, so far as form is concerned, divides itself naturally into three general classes: (a) The horizontal band; (b) the vertical division; (c) a combination of these two. The last will prove to be the most common of the three. It should be noted that an all-over pattern, which has been left out of consideration as tending to monotony, would commonly be a combination of both horizontal and vertical methods of division. It should be noted also that the presence of other than vertical and horizontal lines in pottery decoration does not affect the main classification. Typical examples of these divisions are illustrated in both bowls and vases, as well as in the cuts A and B. It will be seen in each case that one scheme or the other predominates and that there are possibilities for great variation in treatment. Analyzing the patterns shown in all these illustrations, we find that the band or horizontal scheme offers a succession of large and small spaces, giving variety and rhythm. In many of those patterns showing the combination type there is a concentration or "knotting" of the line at regular intervals, frequently at the intersection of both horizontal and vertical elements. This is well illustrated by the left-hand bowl of the middle row shown in this plate opposite page 294. When the method of painted decoration is employed the concentration point is composed of mass instead of line. All this serves to give emphasis and rhythm. For subject matter in decoration natural forms may be used as shown in the vase at the left of the top row illustrated in Plate XIII, opposite page 312. Or an abstract arrangement of lines may be employed, as shown in its nearest neighbour, which may or may not have had its origin in a very much conventionalized natural motif. The essential thing to remember is that the divisions of spaces must be varied and rhythmic and the decoration suited to the method of application. _How the Design is Applied to the Clay._--After the design has been studied as much as possible on paper it should be planned out on the bowl with a soft pencil, allowing sufficient space for the incised line or channel to be made. The clay should be leather-hard--_i. e._, stiff but not dry. The spacing around the circumference should be made exact, deviating somewhat, if necessary, from the spacing of the paper drawing. A good way to manage this important step in the process is to measure the circumference at the point of greatest width with a narrow strip of paper and then to divide this circumference by folding the paper evenly into the number of units desired. By wrapping the paper around the bowl again the points of division may be transferred to the clay and then projected upward or downward vertically to the belt that it is desired to meet. It is necessary to make sure that the vertical lines are true "meridians" and do not swerve to the right or the left. In order to test the horizontal lines, measurements may be made from top or bottom. All of this work is best done free-hand; for, aside from the value of the eye training derived, hand-built pottery is seldom exact enough to permit of a more mechanical method of planning its decoration. The drawing on the clay having been completed, the next point is to choose the tool best fitted for the work and carefully make the cuts, deepening them from time to time as the work progresses. If the design is to be worked out in line, a chisel, like that illustrated in D (page 285), may be whittled from a pine stick. It is held nearly upright and used as a scraper to cut out at first a shallow channel. Reserve should be exercised in cutting, because, generally speaking, there is danger of making the design too insistent. Some of the best designs are very subtle and quiet. Care should be taken, however, to allow for a slight filling in of the hollow by the glaze when it is applied. _Modelling a Decoration._--If the decoration is to be modelled it would seem wise to do it, in whole or in part, as the work is built up; but in this case great care will be needed to keep a firm hold on the relief and unity of the decoration. It will be easy to over-model the work. _How Under-glaze is Applied._--For decoration with under glaze the colours given under the head of glazing (page 304) are mixed in different proportions with dry powdered clay and water to form a colour paste. This is painted on the "green" or moist clay, forming a smooth and even surface. Experience will teach the proportions of colour to be mixed with the clay. These proportions vary greatly with different colours. A very strong colour like cobalt will give a deep blue if mixed in the ratio of one part by weight of cobalt to ten parts of clay. Colours like the oxides of iron and copper are of medium strength, and antimony is quite weak. Before the work is left to dry it would be well to make sure that all corners and rough edges are smoothed off as they will show light and rough through the glaze. The use of sand-paper, however, is not advised, though it may occasionally be used in the emergency of an accidental roughness remaining after the piece is dry. The aim should be to have all clay work show something of the plastic nature of the material out of which it is made. _Firing._--Pottery must be "bone" dry before it is fired. A very satisfactory portable kiln for firing may be purchased for from $34 to $175, according to the size. The smallest size, which is illustrated in the next drawing, will be ample for the needs of one or two persons. If, however, the amateur does not care to go to the expense of purchasing a kiln, it is generally possible to find a pottery factory in the vicinity that will undertake the firing and perhaps the glazing. [Illustration: A portable kiln] _Temperature Required._--Pottery is fired at a temperature varying, according to the clay and the glaze used, from approximately 1800 to 2000 degrees Fahrenheit. Modelling clay fires at 1958 degrees Fahrenheit, or what is called "cone 04." This term comes from the fact that the heat is gauged by pyrometric cones, which can be seen through a spy hole attached to the kiln. These cones are graded compositions of various materials and possess different degrees of resistance to heat. They are usually set up in clay in groups of three or more. When one of them melts it bends over, as illustrated in the accompanying drawing, which shows cone 05--the most fusible one--completely "down," and 04 at a point indicating that it is time to shut off the heat from the kiln. This must be done gradually and the kiln must be allowed to cool completely before it is opened. This is especially necessary when firing the glazes described in the following section, which require the same temperature as modelling clay. Further details about firing and caring for the kiln may, of course, be learned from descriptions accompanying the apparatus. Pottery comes out of the first firing in the kiln a dull porous ware and in colour either cream, buff, or red, according to the amount of iron in the clay. In this state it is called "bisque" or "biscuit." [Illustration: Pyrometric cones] _Glazing._--It is necessary to bring the pottery up to the condition of bisque before it can be glazed; or, to speak more accurately, before it can be over-glazed; for it has already been shown how the so-called under-glaze is put on before the first firing. The subject is somewhat technical, and it will not be possible in a single chapter to take up the details extensively. Briefly speaking, the glazes most used for this class of work are the lead glazes--combinations of "white lead" or carbonate of lead as a flux with kaolin, flint, whiting, feldspar, and other ingredients. These are supplied in powdered form and are ground together in water by means of a mill or a large mortar and pestle; a mortar 8 inches in diameter will serve. _Grinding the Glaze._--The grinding should continue about an hour. It should be said, however, that there is such a thing as grinding too fine. After the glaze has been properly ground a small quantity of gum tragacanth, dissolved in water, is to be added as a binder to prevent flaking and rubbing off in handling. It is also a good plan, though not always necessary, to strain the glaze, as soon as it is ground, through fine muslin. The tools and materials needed for this work may be itemized as follows: Lead carbonate, whiting, Canadian feldspar, Florida kaolin, French flint, white oxide of zinc, and various other oxides and colours noted in the text; earthenware bowls, 10 or 12 inches in diameter, for holding the glaze; large spoons, preferably aluminum; agate mortar and pestle, 8 inches in diameter. _Example of Matt Glaze and Bright Glaze Mixes._--Two mixes are given below calculated to fuse at cone 04. One has a "matt" or dull velvety surface, and the other has a "bright" or shiny surface. The matt will be found more desirable for general work because it harmonizes better with flowers and foliage. The figures given below refer to units of weight. Metric weights (grams) are most convenient to use, but any units will serve so long as the same one is used throughout. The matt glaze should be of the consistency of thick cream, the bright glaze somewhat thinner. MATT BASE Lead carbonate 154 Whiting 25 Canadian feldspar 83 Florida kaolin 51 BRIGHT BASE Lead carbonate 142 Whiting 20 Canadian feldspar 84 Florida kaolin 8 White oxide of zinc 8 French flint 44 The bases itemized above are colourless and there must be added to them from 3 to 6 per cent. of colouring material that will stand heat. A list of materials with their colours when fired is given on page 304, together with a few typical combinations of colours in quantity suitable to be added to the glaze bases given above. The following lists are by no means complete, and it is expected that the young decorator will make use of these colour mixtures simply as an introduction to quite extensive experimenting: COLOUR MATERIALS Black oxide of cobalt Blue Black oxide of copper Blue green Green oxide of chromium Yellow green White oxide of antimony Lemon yellow Red oxide of iron Yellowish brown Green oxide of nickel Dirty gray (for neutralizing) White oxide of tin Makes glaze opaque Black oxide of manganese Purplish brown Yellow ochre Yellow Burnt umber Brown COLOUR COMBINATIONS Olive green Iron oxide 5 Cobalt oxide .5 Dark brown Iron oxide 3 Nickel oxide 2 Manganese oxide 5 Light gray-blue Tin oxide 5 Cobalt oxide .5 Copper oxide 1.7 Blue-green Cobalt oxide 1 Copper oxide 7 Yellow ochre 4 Dark gray-blue Nickel oxide 5 Yellow ochre 3 Cobalt oxide 2 Copper oxide 1 _Applying the Glaze._--Before applying the glaze to the piece of pottery or bisque, the latter should be soaked in clear water for about five minutes or until the air is expelled from the pores. When this has been accomplished it should be removed from the water and all moisture should be wiped from its surface. The piece is then ready to be dipped into the glaze, or to have the glaze poured over it, if the size and shape of the piece make it more convenient to apply the glaze in this way. It is usually best to glaze the inside first, shaking out all the superfluous glaze before applying the glaze to the outside. During this process the piece must be held firmly but by as few points of contact as possible. These points of contact will generally need to be touched up before it is ready for firing. It is sometimes necessary to glaze large pieces with a brush, putting on several coats in order to cover the surface with an even thickness. The matt glaze requires a greater thickness than the bright glaze in order to develop its characteristic velvety texture. The greater thickness may be easily secured, because it flows more slowly than the thinner bright glaze and is less likely to drip from the sides of the piece to which it is being applied; but, on the other hand, it is at a disadvantage in that it does not, in flowing slowly, correct inequalities of thickness so readily as the more mobile bright glaze does. A certain thickness, however, is essential; and if, after firing, it is found that the glaze was put on too thin, a second coat may be applied and the article again fired. _Firing the Glaze._--Before the glazed piece is fired the glaze should be dried and what runs down and collects about the bottom or foot should be scraped off. It should then be set in the kiln on a kind of pointed tripod of hard burned clay, called the "stilt," which prevents the glaze from sticking to the floor or shelves of the kiln. All glazed ware should be placed in the kiln with at least 1/2 an inch of space between the pieces to prevent them from sticking together during the fusing state of the glaze, when it is apt to bubble or "boil." The firing of glaze is a process very similar to that employed in the production of bisque, already described. Greater care, however, must be taken in controlling the increase in temperature so that it shall be even and steady--free from all sudden flashes of heat. The cooling also should be very gradual and, as in bisque firing, the kiln should be allowed to get cool before it is opened. With this second firing the pottery is finished unless it should happen that a second coat of glaze is found to be necessary. If only a few spots need attention, this second coat is best applied with a brush. PROBLEM: A VASE FOR LONG STEMMED FLOWERS The tools required for making this vase are the same as those used for the bowl, and the process of building is much the same. The chief difference is that it is more difficult to preserve the profile in building because the added height and the greater weight tend to bulge the lower part. To meet this difficulty it will be necessary to set the work aside quite often in order to let the lower part harden sufficiently to support the upper part. _The Profile._--In preparing the profile the same rules hold as were applied in working up the problem of the bowl. It will be well to remember, however, that the curves of a vase must be treated with greater reserve as to their lateral projection than was necessary in the case of the bowl--_i. e._, the curve of a vase should be enclosed within a rectangle narrower in comparison with its height than is the case with the curve of a bowl. The reason for this, of course, is found in the greater height of a vase in comparison with its diameter. The following figure shows three typical vase forms. If these curves be compared with those shown on page 288, illustrating bowl contours, it will be observed how the height of the vase is emphasised in the greater restraint and subtlety of its curves. In the next illustration we have two "horrible" examples to which attention has already been called in the suggestions for the design of bowls. The dotted lines in the illustration show how these curves may be improved if, in either A or B, one element of the compound curve be made dominant at the expense of the other. If at the same time the diameter be made smaller in comparison with its height the attractiveness of the contours will be still more improved. Indeed, it will be a transformation from a profile that is positively bad to one that is very good. [Illustration: Typical vase forms] [Illustration: Profile to be avoided] _Decoration._--The problem of decoration is not very different from that of the bowl. Here again, however, the added height seems to call for greater accent by means of vertical or panel divisions. Unless this be understood there is some danger that the larger vertical spaces will seem to offer simply more room for horizontal bands, resulting in a barber pole effect. _Handles._--If handles or buttresses are desired, care should be taken that they are designed as an integral part of the vase--_i. e._, that they continue or reinforce its lines. Two suggestions for the treatment of the problem of handles are given in the accompanying drawing. It will be noted how sympathetically these handles conform to the lines of the vases to which they are attached. Handles that give the impression of being made for another vase should be avoided. [Illustration: Suggestions for handles] PROBLEM: THE FERN DISH The process of building the fern dish is not essentially different from that employed in making the bowl described in the first problem. If the fern dish is to be round, the coiling method may be used; but if the dish is to be square or rectangular it is not necessary to use this method. In place of it the process of "piecing on" may be employed--_i. e._, one piece of soft clay may be added to another and the different pieces welded together as the work proceeds. [Illustration: Development of the fern dish] _The Lining._--The fern dish requires a separate inner dish or lining with a hole in the bottom of it like that in the ordinary flower pot. This feature forms the unique part of the problem. Generally speaking, the presence of this lining seems to call for a little closer approach to the vertical in the sides of the outer bowl; and yet some latitude is allowable, as is shown in the right hand dish illustrated in Plate XIII following, which is somewhat similar in profile to that illustrated in the accompanying drawing. This drawing shows the development of the problem as applied to a round fern dish. Much freedom, however, may be used in the plan as either the round or the rectangular fern dish seems to give satisfaction. The half section in the drawing shows a very narrow space between the inner and outer bowls at the top edges. This adds greatly to the good appearance of the completed fern dish. The sides of the inner dish are made vertical, since it is necessary for it to be easily removed. _Decoration._--The problem of decoration differs very little from that discussed under the problem of the bowl. Either the fern itself or its woodland neighbours may easily furnish the motif. Sometimes there is occasion for designing similar dishes not for ferns but for other plants. Thus the smaller square dish, illustrated in Plate XIII opposite, was designed and made for the familiar "bluets," and the subject matter for its design was found in that flower. _Glazing._--The rules already given for glazing apply in this case, but it will be necessary to glaze the outside fern dish only. It is well, however, to glaze a narrow strip along the upper edge of the inner dish; but the rest of it should be left unglazed. It hardly needs to be added that in firing it is necessary to keep the inner and outer dishes separate. [Illustration: Vases and Fern Dishes. Plate XIII] PROBLEM: THE CANDLESTICK _The Design._--This problem introduces several points in design that need to be especially emphasized. The candlestick should be of such size that it will easily support the average candle without putting the user to great inconvenience in fitting it by paring it off or melting it down. It is necessary to provide a lip to catch the stray drops of wax that will run down the sides of the candle; and it will be a convenience to have this supplemented by a slight dishing of the base if the candlestick is to be carried about. If a handle is to be added it should seem to be a natural outgrowth of the candlestick itself, as was explained in the discussion of handles for vases; and it should, at the same time, offer a place for a firm and comfortable grasp. The accompanying drawing shows how handles may be designed really to form a part of the candlestick and at the same time, by means of a sharp bend or elbow at the top, to provide a natural place for the thumb to assist in grasping the handle. Whether the candlestick is to be high or low depends entirely upon the use intended for it or upon the preference of the user. Generally speaking, a low candlestick is better for carrying about and a high one more desirable for standing in a cabinet or on shelf or table. It is well for some definite idea of utility to manifest itself in the form chosen. Merely planning a tube and a handle upon a base, without carefully relating these three different elements according to the requirements of use, can hardly be called designing a candlestick. [Illustration: Suggestive designs for candlesticks] The building of the candlestick is started, like the bowl in the first problem, by coiling from the centre, and the rim may be added in the same way. Care should be taken, however, to attach the central tube firmly. This may be coiled or simply modelled from a single lump of clay. If there is to be a handle it is well to build it at the time the central tube is built, as it is then easier to make a firm attachment. PROBLEM: TILES The varied and extensive uses of tiles make it difficult to limit the scope of this problem. Tiles are used for paving, wall facings, ceilings, coverings for stoves, linings and facings for fireplaces, rests for flower pots and teapots, and for various other purposes. Tiles figure very prominently in the history of art. They are objects of interest and study in many public buildings and museums throughout the civilized world. But this problem will confine itself to two of the many varieties of tiles, _viz._, tiles designed for bowls or teapots and tiles used for the facing of fireplaces. [Illustration: A tile frame] _The Tile Frame._--In building tiles a frame is used measuring about 6 inches square by 5/8 of an inch thick. The strips forming the frame may be 1 inch wide, lightly nailed together at the corners so that, if necessary, the frame can be easily taken apart while the clay is moist. This frame is placed on a plaster bat or piece of paper and the clay forced firmly into its corners and sides, working toward the centre, until the frame is completely filled. It is then turned over in order to make sure that the under side of the clay is thoroughly welded together. Care should be taken to use sufficient clay to bring both surfaces well up to the surface of the frame, scraping off the surplus clay with a straight edge. While the clay is moist, one side is chosen for the back, and this is hollowed out to prevent warping. The hollowing may take the form shown in the right-hand tile at the top of Plate XIV, or it may be in the shape of channels 3/4 of an inch or more in width, separated by ridges 1/2 of an inch wide running across the back of the tile. Whichever method is used, the depth should be about 3/16 of an inch and not over 1/4 of an inch. Even when the utmost precaution is taken, the tile is very liable to warp. It should therefore be dried slowly and with the greatest possible evenness of exposure on both sides. The greatest help of all is found in the use of the so-called "grog." This is made by grinding to a powder clay that has been fired once and shrunk, but not glazed. It is used by mixing it with the clay before it is moulded, in the proportion of one part grog to three of the clay. It may be added here that grog will be found of great assistance not only in making tiles but in making other ware. It will not be necessary, however, to burn clay for the express purpose of making grog. The occasional failures which develop at the first firing of every batch of pottery will furnish an adequate supply. [Illustration: Tiles. Plate XIV] _Decoration._--When the tile is dried and shrunk a little it may be easily taken from the frame, but it should be allowed to get quite stiff before decoration is applied. While the hardening process is going on the decoration may be studied. The three general methods of decoration considered under the flower bowl--_viz._, the sunken line, the modelled surface, and the painting with under-glaze or over-glaze--are all available for use with the tile. If it is to be a tea tile the modelled surface must be treated with considerable caution, otherwise there may result an uneven surface for the teapot to rest upon. _Firing._--In giving the tile its first firing it is safer to stand it on one edge in the kiln, but not on the floor of the kiln, as the intense heat of the floor would be liable to shrink that side more than the others. It may be supported on two stilts or it may be placed on one of the shelves. For the glaze firing the tile should be placed flat on the stilt. _Tea Tiles._--The tiles illustrated at the top and bottom of Plate XIV were designed and made to serve as rests for a teapot, a bowl, or a vase. It will be noticed that the centre is left free with one exception, which is given as an interesting variation from the general rule. The free space is an advantage in giving relief to the design and in furnishing an even surface for the teapot or bowl to rest upon. In the decoration of rectangular tile forms the general principles as to variety of measure or shape in space divisions hold true. Emphasis should be concentrated at the corners in order to strengthen the design. _Fireplace Tiles._--Some of the tiles illustrated in Plate XIV would be entirely appropriate for facing a border around the opening of a fireplace. This is especially true of the middle design shown at the top of the plate, on account of the lines which project through the corner design nearly to the edges of the tile. This makes it especially adapted to repetition in a facing or border. [Illustration: Pottery, Designed and Made by Schoolgirls. Plate XV] _Decoration of Tiles._--It is in the field of painted decoration, however, that the most attractive possibilities in fireplace tile designs are found. The framed tile illustrated in Plate XV opposite--an example of over-glaze painting--is intended for use as a colour accent for the wall. This tile is painted in matt glaze between raised outlines. Three similar tiles are illustrated in the middle row in Plate XIV. The right-hand one, like the framed tile of Plate XV, is a matt over-glaze, but the outline instead of being raised was slightly depressed. The other two are examples of under-glaze painting. They were painted on moist clay, as described in the problem of the bowl, and afterwards covered with a bright glaze. In this case the glaze was itself coloured, thus adding richness to the colour scheme. The repetition in a tile facing of landscapes, designed to be complete or nearly so, would be tiresome. It is better so to design the entire facing that it will be made up of a series of very simple landscape motifs, each fairly complete in itself, but all so related to each other as to form, when joined, a larger, somewhat conventionalized, landscape. A treatment of this kind lends itself to many other decorative schemes. The fireplace offers a great opportunity for design, not only in itself, but as related to the decorative scheme of the room in which it is placed. It should not be forgotten that it is, in a sense, the focal centre of the room. This fact, together with its comparatively small size, makes it possible to give it a strong and rich note of colour, accenting the prevailing colour scheme of the room. Tiles, properly designed and applied, offer a rich and varied field for charming effects in colour and texture. XI DECORATIVE WORK IN LEATHER, COPPER, AND OTHER MATERIALS To become an artist in dealing with tools and materials is not a matter of choice or privilege; it is a moral necessity; for a man's heart must be in his skill and a man's soul in his craftsmanship--_Hamilton Wright Mabie_ LEATHER WORK Leather work, like weaving and pottery, is of very ancient origin. The New Testament text concerning "new wine in old bottles" referred to bottles of leather, or wine skins. We read of leather as having been used in still earlier times for shields, saddles, harnesses, parts of chariots, and as an accessory to clothing. In the middle ages the "gentle craft of leather" was not confined to the shoemakers' useful productions but included much ornamental work. There were wall coverings of leather with designs carved, or modelled, or stamped with hot tools; seats were upholstered and books were covered with tooled leather. Some of this work was richly adorned with painted and gilt figures like the celebrated Spanish leather. _Why Leather is Suited to Decoration._--Leather seems, therefore, to have won the right to a high place among the materials suited to decoration. Its beautiful texture, the rich brown tones of its natural colour, the ease with which it takes dyes, and the readiness with which under proper treatment, it receives and retains the marks of the modelling tool, qualify it to minister to the artistic sense no less than its durability enables it to serve the more common uses. _Limited Decoration Desirable._--The tooling of leather is based upon the fact that, when wet, the fibre yields readily to compression and receives impressions that are retained after the leather is dry. But the beauty of design depends upon the colour and texture of the surface quite as much as upon the figured impressions upon it. It is therefore a good point in design not to cover the surface so completely that the peculiar beauty of the material itself be lost. The decorations should be bold and rich, but the tooling should be confined to a small part of the surface. Calf skin and cowhide are well suited to tooling. They are supplied in two general forms, _viz._, the smooth, generally as Russia calf, and the rough or split cowhides, known as ooze. Leather may be stained a variety of colours by aniline dyes; but since the natural colour of leather is brown, brownish tones are more satisfactory than the blues, greens, violets, grays, etc., because they seem more sincere. [Illustration: Leather-working tools] _Tools._--The simple tools required for tooling leather may be purchased at small cost, or they may be made from cheap nut picks by filing these to shape, polishing them, and buffing them. The illustrations show two different tools, each double pointed. A and B are different views of the first tool; C is the second tool. The narrow pointed end of the first tool is for outlining and working into corners. The broad, flat end is for smoothing down and for general use; the broad tool should be used whenever possible. The round point on the left end of C is used for outlining and transfering the design to leather. The right hand end of C is known as the background tool. It is cupped out like a nail set, as indicated by the lengthwise section just above and by the end view at the extreme right; in fact, a nail set may be used for the same purpose. The background tool, however, is to be used sparingly. If used to excess, especially on large surfaces, the result is likely to have a mechanical and "shoppy" appearance. PROBLEMS TO DESIGN AND TOOL A BELT The sizes given in the illustration on page 325 are typical, but it is expected that in this and other problems, dimensions will be varied to suit conditions. When the size has been determined the leather should be cut a little longer and wider than the final dimensions are to be, to allow for attaching the belt pin or buckle. The strip of leather should be thoroughly soaked in _cold water_ and then rolled in dry cloth until the leather is dry enough for tooling. It is essential that there should be absolute uniformity of moisture. If on applying the tool, water follows pressure, the leather is still too wet. If it should get too dry to retain the mark of the tool it may be sponged on the back. There is danger of water stains, however, if the entire back is not wet. [Illustration: Two belt designs] _The Design._--The illustration shows two treatments. An interlaced pattern is shown in A which concentrates the interest at the ends and in the middle of the back. The pattern shown is tooled solid and the background is left untooled. If the pattern be tooled in outline it is well to shade these outlines out into the background in order to give relief to the interlaced bands. Modelled natural forms are shown in B. In this the background is tooled down, but is heaviest at the ends or in the spaces against the raised forms. This gives the background a richer appearance than it has when tooled absolutely flat. Both patterns here shown are straight with parallel sides. Other shapes are possible--for example, those wider in the middle and tapering toward the ends. When a satisfactory design has been worked out and drawn it is transferred to thin bond paper. The greatest care should be taken not to have any pencil marks on the back of this paper, for they leave a dirty gray stain on the leather which is difficult to remove. It may be added here that whenever it is desired to mark the leather for any purpose a tool should be used, not a pencil. _The Process._--As soon as the leather has dried just enough to retain the marks, the pattern should be placed upon it, pencilled side up, allowance being made for trimming to the desired width. The paper may be held in position by thumb tacks, which must not, however, pass through the leather inside the part that is to be cut off. The pattern may now be traced through the paper, over the lines of the drawing, with the round pointed tool. Care will have to be exercised to make sure that the pattern is completely transferred to the leather. When this is accomplished the pattern should be removed and the lines, which will be found somewhat dimly traced on the leather, should be immediately deepened by going over them with the same tool. [Illustration: Method of using the broad tool] The next step is to tool down the design; and in doing this the work should be turned under the tool rather than the tool itself on the work, in order that the pressure of the tool may be applied at the edge of the pattern farthest from the hand. This not only insures a correct and convenient position of the tool, but allows a perfect view of the work. In this part of the process the broad tool should be used, moved sidewise, as shown by the direction of the arrow in the accompanying cut. In working up into corners the narrow tool may be used if necessary. The movement may be described as "ironing the leather down." The surface should not be roughed up or cut up into "shoulders." It is a process requiring time. One should not try to get the full depth with the first pressure of the tool. One should coax the surface and add pressure with each succeeding stroke, taking care that the tool does not scrape. It should glide; and yet, on the other hand, beginners will perhaps need to be cautioned not to wear out the surface by feeble scratching and patting. A firm, even gliding pressure does the work. As the leather dries it will be seen that the tooling has given it a dark, glossy surface. When the process is completed the belt may be trimmed down with a firm, sure cut of the knife, using a straight edge wherever straight lines are desired. TO DESIGN AND TOOL A MAT [Illustration: Supported and unsupported circles] _The Design and the Process._--The purpose for which a mat is used requires as one condition of design that there should be a plain surface in the middle. If the general form be square the design at the corners should be strengthened. If circular, the design should be so arranged that it will lend support to the perfect curves of the circle rather than weaken them. In the three outlines given below, C shows a form supporting the circle; D and E show forms tending to weaken the circle. Conditions determining size are more variable in this problem than in others, because of the great variety of uses which a mat may serve. In a design like that shown in A of the accompanying illustration, the portions left untooled--_i. e._, the leaves and fruit--may be raised still more by pressing out the leather from the back by means of a tool. To do this the leather should be placed face down in the palm of the hand or on modelling wax, which has been covered with a piece of chamois or sheepskin. Then by gently forcing the leather down with a round, blunt tool such as the blunt end of a nut pick the desired relief in the figure may be obtained. After this is done it will probably be necessary to turn the mat over and correct the modelling. In order to preserve the higher relief it is well to back it up with cotton batting, soaked in paste, and finally to cover the entire back with a lining of silk or leather. [Illustration: Two mat designs] TO DESIGN AND TOOL A PEN WIPER A pen wiper consists of a cover, which in this case must be made of leather suitable for tooling, and several leaves of soft material like sheepskin or chamois, which should match the cover in colour. The process of tooling the pen wiper does not differ essentially from that already employed in the foregoing problems. It should, of course, be carried through to completion before the book is made up. These parts are to be tied together with knots of sheepskin thongs of the same colour. [Illustration: Steps in tying a knot] The series of cuts given below show the progressive steps in forming the knot, which should finally take the shape of Figure 5. After it has been formed the thongs are passed through holes punched in the cover and leaves of the pen wiper, and secured by a second knot formed on the back, resembling Figure 4 with the ends cut as close as will leave them securely tied. [Illustration: Two designs for pen wipers] Another illustration gives two suggestions for the design: A, a rectangular pen wiper tied with two knots at the end; B, a circular pen wiper tied with one knot in the middle. In these designs, and indeed in all others, decoration should recognize (not antagonize!) the outer form of the article to which it is applied. This point is made in the illustration. TO MAKE A SLIP COVER FOR A NOTE-BOOK FILLER [Illustration: Design for slip cover] _Planning the Cover._--The object in this problem is to make a permanent protection for fillers. It is well known that the fillers themselves may be purchased for a trifling sum and that they are provided with a backing of stiff paper which is designed to be slipped into a pocket in the back of a leather cover and thus form a neat pocket note-book. It is evident that the dimensions of the filler determine the size of the cover; but, in planning the cover, care should be exercised to allow sufficient play for width, length, and thickness after all the cutting and sewing are done. This means that the stock for the cover and lining should be cut a little larger than called for in the final size. The design illustrated shows both the outside (A) and the inside (B) of the cover. As it is planned the cover is to be lined with sheepskin of harmonizing colour; but this may be left out if desired, though it, of course, gives a much better finish to put it in. _Assembling the Parts._--The first step after cutting out the leather for the cover is to prepare the leather and tool it, if it is to have any decoration. A piece of leather should be cut for the pocket, and the edge (C) shaped. The edges of the lining and the pocket should next be lightly pasted and pressed on the cover. A line is then to be ruled with a leather tool (not with pencil) on the outside to serve as a guide for stitching. A machine stitch may be employed or it may be done by hand. If by the latter method it will be necessary to pierce the leather at equal distances along the tooled line. Hand stitches may safely be a little longer than the machine stitches. [Illustration: Stitching with two needles] _Stitching._--A good way to secure equally spaced stitches by hand sewing is to make use of bow springs or spacing dividers set to the required distance. A more rapid way to accomplish the same thing is possible by making use of a tracing wheel, if one is available of suitable size and of the right spacing between the teeth. The hand stitching may be done either with one needle or with two. If with one it is best to sew a running stitch once around the seam and then return, covering the alternate spaces left on the first round. It is better, however, to use two needles, one on each end of one thread, selected long enough to finish the sewing without piecing it, and to proceed as illustrated in A and B, _i. e._, to draw one needle with its thread through to the middle of the thread, as shown in A, and then the other through the next hole, and so on alternately from opposite directions, producing a stitch like that illustrated in B. It will, of course, be understood that, in the illustration, the length of the stitch is exaggerated in order to show the process plainly. _Trimming and Finishing._--When the sewing is finished the thread is fastened by doubling over one or two of the stitches and drawing the ends inside between the cover and lining. Then a line should be tooled on the cover about 1/16 of an inch outside of the stitching, and on this line the cover, lining and pocket are trimmed together. The raw edges may be treated with water colour to give them a finish. Finally the cover is moistened a little and folded back with firm pressure in order to establish an even and permanent bend in the leather. TO DESIGN AND MAKE A DESK PAD _The Design._--The problem of design in this case is, first of all, to determine the dimensions of the pad, which depend, of course, upon the use to be made of it. Then a dimensioned sketch should be drawn in outline, including the spacing for the corners as illustrated in the drawing (A). The only detail that will need elaboration is the corner. The shape and decoration of one of the corners should be carefully laid out on thin paper, from which in due time it may be transferred to the leather and tooled as in other problems. [Illustration: Detail of the leather corner] [Illustration: Outline of desk pad] _Material and the Process._--For making the pad it will be necessary to secure a piece of binders' board--_i. e._, heavy pulp or straw board--of the required size. The medium weight is the best, and it may generally be obtained at the bookbinder's. If this cannot be obtained, two sheets of 10-ply card-board may be used instead. The size given in the drawing will carry a half sheet of commercial blotting paper. The edges of the paper board should be bound with passe-partout binding of a colour to harmonize with the leather that is to be used; the strips of binding should be long enough to extend under the leather corners but they need not reach up to the corners of the board. After the binding has been put on, the top of the board should be covered with paper also harmonizing in colour with the leather, and the paper should be cut of such size as to lap over the edge of the binding and yet leave a suitable width of the binding. The so-called "cover papers" will be found satisfactory. _Making the Corners._--The next step in the process is to lay out and cut the leather corners according to the original design. The form in which the leather is to be cut and the dimensions are shown in the illustration B. The little flap at _x_ should be noted. It is designed to tuck under and close the corner. The edges of leather at _x_ should be "skived" or thinned down so as to add to the neat appearance of the work. Further improvement will result from skiving down the edges S R S and T V T of the large flaps, which are to be folded over underneath and pasted down to the back of the board. The ordinary photographers' paste is satisfactory for this work. When the leather corners are placed in position for pasting, two or three thicknesses of blotting paper should be used at each corner, in order to secure the necessary space for the reception of the blotters when the board is in use. After the corners are pasted on, the back of the board should be covered with paper in the same way as the front, care being taken to leave a portion of the binding and leather exposed. Finally a number of blotters of full size should be inserted in position under the corners to keep them in shape and the whole placed under light pressure until dry. TO DESIGN AND MAKE A CARD-CASE _The Design._--In the illustration (A), showing a card-case unfolded, the dimensions give the finished size. The same card-case is illustrated in B somewhat reduced in scale and with the flaps turned in. The design on A is a rectangle broken at the corners. In this case, as it may be with all similar forms, the design is treated as a sort of binding, extending across the middle fold. C shows an alternative design which is treated as a panel and may be placed on one or on both sides of the card-case. The question of which is the top and bottom in such a design as that in C can be determined only by the owner's habit of holding a case. Sometimes a monogram is placed in one of the inner flaps, as illustrated in A, or on one of the outer surfaces. [Illustration: Design for a card-case] _The Process._--In cutting the leather for a card-case it is necessary to provide a piece a little larger than the finished dimensions in order to allow for trimming. The design should be transferred, the line of stitching determined, and the tooling done, according to the description already given for the other problems. _The Lining._--A card-case may be lined either with silk or with sheepskin, in a colour to harmonize with the outside. If lined with silk it must be trimmed down to size accurately after tooling, great care being exercised to have the sides parallel and the corners true and square. Then the silk is to be turned in at the edges and lightly pasted along the edges to a width of 1/8 of an inch, care being taken, however, not to paste those portions of the edges that will be visible when the flaps of the cover are turned in, _i. e._, the middle of the fold B. This precaution should be taken because the paste may strike through and spot the lining. The flaps should then be moistened a little and folded down with firm pressure; but before stitching they should be fastened down with a little paste to form pockets. This takes the place of basting and is followed by stitching as described in the problem of the note-book. If lined with sheepskin, the ooze side showing, the cover need not be trimmed down until after the stitching; then both may be trimmed at once. TO MAKE A LEATHER PURSE _The Design._--The details of design and construction are shown in the accompanying illustrations. In A the outer flap is shown tooled. It will be noticed that the cap of the snap fastener is taken as the central point in design. The tooling is done as directed in the other examples of this class of work. [Illustration: Design for a purse] The purse is lined throughout with leather. It has bellows ends, as shown in the perspective at C and in the end view at B. The pattern of the bellows end shown in D is intended to fold in the middle, bringing both ends of the leather together and thus giving an end of double thickness. With thin leather, such as is used in the present instance, this pattern is practicable. If thicker leather be used the bellows must be made of single thickness. In this case the pattern would simply be like that shown in the lower half of D. _The Process._--After the lining is pasted to the cover a snap fastener should be attached. Proper care, of course, should be taken to see that the fastener comes in the right place so that the purse will fold properly. The cover and lining should then be trimmed and the leather surface ruled for stitching. It is well to fold the inner flap of the purse while it is moist from pasting. Finally a little paste is applied along the edges of the bellows ends and they are placed in position. Stitching is started at the point E shown in the perspective. Hand stitching is the most practicable. The direction is down one side, up the other, and around the outside flap to the other bellows end, stopping at the point F. When the stitching is completed the inside flap should be folded down. TO MAKE A LIMP LEATHER BOOK COVER _The Design._--The first step is to choose the book to be bound. For the sake of simplicity, as perhaps the first piece of bookbinding undertaken, it should be a folio or "section." And it should be _worth binding in leather_. The subject, the paper, and the typography should be worthy of the distinction. [Illustration: Typical arrangements suitable for tooled leather covers of books. Details of tooling, relief, etc., worked out as in other problems.] _The Process._--If the book selected is already bound or "cased" it is necessary first to remove the binding or casing. Then at least three fly leaves should be added, made up to match the other leaves of the folio. A piece of bookbinders' linen or buckram is now cut to the size of the open folio, placed upon it like a cover, and, with the fly leaves and the folio itself, stitched through the back with silk of a colour to harmonize with the leather. The next step is to prepare the leather cover. To do this, first place the leather in position on the closed folio and, allowing 1/4 of an inch at the top and bottom and 3/8 of an inch at the fore edge, mark and cut out the stock for the cover. The decoration, if there is to be any, may now be tooled on. If the design is heavy enough in relief to need a backing, it may be at once filled with cotton batting, pasted in as directed in the problem of the mat, and covered with thin paper. Stock for the end papers is now selected. They may be of cover paper, or of silk, and they should harmonize in colour with the leather. They are formed of two thicknesses of the material chosen, by folding it over to fit into the part between the linen and the first fly leaf. If of paper they are to be cut to the length of the folio leaves, but the width is to be left with an allowance for adjustment after the linen is pasted in. If the end leaves are to be of silk, an allowance of 1/4 of an inch must be left for turning in at the top, the bottom and the fore edge. We are now ready to paste the linen to the leather. Strong paste, with perhaps a little thin glue added, is needed for this part of the process. Now paste the outside end leaves to the linen on the inside of the cover; and, if silk has been used for these leaves, paste the other two to the outer fly leaves. Finally, the book should be placed under very gentle pressure and kept in this condition until dry. Care should be exercised to adjust this pressure to the character of the tooling, if there is any, so as not to crush it. COPPER WORK There is a limited field for metal work in home decoration; but there are some things of metal that combine beauty and utility to a remarkable degree and, in their making, introduce us to most interesting operations. Beginning with the gate, which may be of wrought iron, or with the door knocker, which may be of antique brass, we may find in every home problems of design involving work in metals. Ornamental hinges, key escutcheons, fastenings of various kinds, andirons, and other accessories of the hearth, lamp holders, card trays, crumb trays, bon bon dishes, and many other useful things that may be made in attractive forms readily suggest themselves. How some of these may be made is suggested in the following simple problems: TO MAKE A LETTER RACK This is an easy problem. Only four constructive operations are required, _viz._, cutting out the stock, sawing the design, bending, and finishing. The illustration shows the form and the dimensions and suggests a simple design. The material required is 18-gauge soft copper. [Illustration: Design for a letter rack] The first step in the process is to cut out a strip of copper 8 inches long and 4 inches wide. If necessary the edges may be trimmed even and then the round corners should be cut. The design is traced on strong, thin paper and securely pasted on the copper in the proper position by using cold liquid glue. A hole is drilled through each unit of the design by means of a hand drill, a jewellers' saw inserted, and the design cut. Time and patience will be required for this operation. Saws are easily broken, and new ones must be attached to the saw frame and again applied to the work. After sawing the design it is necessary to give the edges a smooth finish. This is done with a file. The surface which is to form the inside of the rack is then thoroughly cleaned and polished with water and pumice. The copper is now ready to be bent to the required shape. To do this prepare a block of hard wood 8 inches long and 2 inches wide, grip it in a bench vise, and clamp the strip of copper squarely across the block in such a position that the sides may be bent over the edges of the block. When this has been done it only remains to clean the outside surface and finish it on the felt buffing wheel. If a fine polish is desired, the buffing should be preceded by careful grinding with a Scotch water stone and water. TO MAKE A LETTER OPENER This requires the same kind of material as the letter rack and the same operations, with the addition of riveting. After the stock is cut out, trimmed and trued up at the edges, an outline of the design is pasted on, as in the previous problem, and the design cut out. The top is then bent over and riveted with a copper tack, having shaped the head of the tack in the vise before inserting it. While the tack is being riveted the finished head should be protected by placing it on a lead block. Finally the edge should be filed to the shape shown in the cross section, and the whole cleaned and polished. [Illustration: Design for a letter opener] TO MAKE A HAT PIN For this problem 12-gauge copper will be needed. The operations required are cutting out, sawing, and soft soldering. After the necessary stock has been cut to the required shape and the edges filed, the design is outlined, pasted on, sawed, and finished as before. It is desirable to grind with the Scotch stone and water to a good polish. The head will then be ready to be attached to the pin. [Illustration: The hat pin] Carefully scrape with a knife the portions of the surface where the pin is to be attached (shown in the drawing), select a steel pin of desired length, scrape the surface of the little disk attached to one end of it, apply to this disk a little soldering paste by means of a small stick, and then, with a gas (or alcohol) blowpipe, melt on a bit of soft solder, which should cover the whole disk. Now place the copper, outside face down, on an asbestos pad, applying the soldering paste to the central portion, place the disk with its bit of solder on this portion of the copper, and fuse as before. When the copper has cooled, clean off the oxide, which will have formed, by dipping in diluted sulphuric acid, and polish on the buffing wheel. TO MAKE A BELT PIN [Illustration: The belt pin] Eighteen-gauge copper is required for this problem. The operations are like those for the hat pin except that hard soldering is necessary. The slight bending of the copper, required in this case, is done by means of a horn mallet and a sand pad. For hard soldering, the surface must be scraped as before and covered with a little borax ground in water and applied with a small brush. The belt plate should then be placed on the asbestos pad, with its convex face down, and blocked up so that the end where the soldering is to be done is horizontal. The catch should then be placed in position with a small piece of silver solder at the base. The solder should be melted as before by means of a mouth blowpipe and gas or alcohol flame. The hinge is soldered on in the same way, and finally the pin is cleaned and polished for use. TO MAKE A SET OF BOOK ENDS This problem is much like the first one described under metal work. Sixteen-gauge copper is required. It may be bent by placing it between two hard wood blocks in a vise and hammering it with a rawhide mallet. [Illustration: Design for book ends] TO MAKE A TEAPOT STAND [Illustration: Design for a teapot stand] Twenty-gauge copper is required for this problem. The operations are similar to those already described; but the cutting and bending are much more difficult. After determining the design it will be necessary to make a drawing showing fully developed surfaces, as illustrated in the detail of the corner. The four corners must be marked and cut exactly as shown in the drawing. A piece of hard wood is then cut to the size of the top, 5 inches square in this case, to be used as a form on which to bend down the sides and turn the flanges. If the corners are correctly cut the parts will fall naturally into place, to be bored and riveted, as the drawing plainly shows. In order to protect the tablecloth, the under side of the rivet holes should be countersunk so that the ends of the rivets may be finished smooth and flush with the under surface. As an additional protection, a felt mat may be glued on the bottom. [Illustration: Detail of a corner] TO MAKE A WATCH FOB This problem introduces engraving and enamelling, two interesting but somewhat difficult operations. The process to be carried out is as follows: Using 12-gauge copper, saw the outline, and apply the design for the part to be enamelled to the copper by sketching it with a pencil or transferring it by means of carbon paper. Then strengthen the pencil or carbon lines by scratching lightly with a scratch awl. Imbed this fob in pitch, either in a pitch bowl or in a small quantity of pitch placed on a piece of board clamped to the bench or table. Using an engraving tool, remove the copper from the spot to be enamelled to the depth of 1/32 of an inch. It is well to have the bottom of the spot reasonably level but not necessarily smooth and the sides slightly undercut. Before applying the flux, clean, by pouring a small quantity of concentrated nitric acid over the cut and immediately rinsing it off under the water tap. Flux should be kept in a closed jar under water after grinding, and taken out as needed on the tip of a small strip of copper previously cleaned with acid. Enough flux should be applied to cover the bottom of the spot to be enamelled; but the depth of the spot must not be filled up. [Illustration: Design for a watch fob] Now place the fob on a piece of wire gauze on an iron tripod, and apply the flame of the blowpipe to the under side. Heat very slowly until all the water is driven off, then force the heat until the flux is fused. Allow it to cool slowly, then remove any flux that may have adhered to the surface of the fob by grinding with Scotch stone. Clean with acid as before, fill the spot with enamel in the same manner as the flux was applied, and fuse again. After fusing, the surface should be stoned again to remove inequalities and again fused, cleaned with water and buffed on the wheel. If it is desired to apply enamel to sterling silver the flux may be omitted and the enamel applied directly, but the silver should be cleaned with sulphuric acid instead of nitric acid, and great care should be used in heating as the fusing point of silver is but little above that of enamel. The depth of the engraving on the silver need not be as great as on the copper. TO MAKE A CARD TRAY Eighteen-gauge copper should be used for this problem, and two new operations, _viz._, raising and chasing, are introduced. After cutting out a circular piece of copper to the diameter indicated, allowing one half an inch extra for raising, it is annealed by heating it to red heat under the blowpipe flame and cooling by dipping in a sulphuric acid pickle bath. A circle indicating the inner edge of the rim is lightly scratched, and a hard wood block is cut on the end grain to the shape indicated in the sketch, and placed in a vise. Now holding the copper on the block, it is raised to shape with the round end of the roughing hammer. It is well to anneal frequently. [Illustration: Design for a card tray] After shaping, the design may be applied by means of transfer paper and the lines lightly scratched on the surface. Then imbed the tray in pitch and outline the design by following the lines with a narrow chasing tool. Reverse the tray on the pitch and, with a chasing tool of suitable shape, raise the body of the design to the height desired. Reverse on the pitch again and with a flat tool true the outlines and smooth the background. Remove from the pitch, trim the edge of the tray if it is forced out of line, clean with pumice stone and buff. [Illustration: Method of shaping with the hammer] All the foregoing articles may be agreeably coloured by painting them with, or immersing them in, a weak solution (boiling) of liver of sulphur. If soft solder has not been used, another pleasing finish may be secured by applying a thin coat of lubricating oil and heating gently until the oil is volatilized. An antique green or verdigris finish may be obtained by painting with a mixture of acetic acid and copper carbonate. Several coats may be necessary; and it is desirable to lacquer the surface to ensure permanency. WORK IN OTHER MATERIALS A CANDLE SHADE The materials and tools for this problem are six ply card-board in dull shades of gray, brown or green, and with mat surface; Japanese paper of average thickness; passe-partout binding a little darker than the card-board and of harmonizing colour; paste; a penknife with a thin blade; and a water colour outfit. Of the drawings included in the group on the opposite page one shows a development of the surface of the candle shade which is the subject of this problem. Referring to the elevation it will be seen that if the edges AE and DH be continued until they meet at O, OE and OH are really equal to the radii of the outer arc of the development shown in the upper part of the group, and OA and OD, to the radii of the inner arc. This upper developed surface really forms the pattern of the candle shade. [Illustration: Details of candle shade] The decoration consists of openings cut through the card-board segments. These are covered with Japanese paper, thus allowing light to pass through, but adding the effect of colour. A margin of 3/8 of an inch is allowed along the openings, the remaining spaces being divided by partitions of card-board, as shown in the different typical designs at the right of the illustration. It will be noticed that the group of openings forming the decoration of one side conforms in the main to the shape of that side. It will also be noticed that there is a variety of size and shape in the openings, but that they all show a certain unity and harmony of space division. The openings are cut with a penknife, care being taken to make as clean a cut as possible. Japanese paper, of pale green, orange, or some suitable light colour, is pasted under the openings. The process of pasting is one that requires some care. It is well to paste only a portion of the pasteboard at a time taking care not to use more paste than necessary and not to let any get over the edges of the openings. The paper should be pressed on while the paste is still moist, and the paper itself should, of course, not be pasted at all. It should be placed with colour side next to the openings. When the paste is dry the card-board should be lightly scored on the lines AE, BF, etc., and bent on these lines, bringing the sectors together into the form of the shade and fastening them at the top and bottom temporarily with a bit of passe-partout binding. If the binding is of the ordinary width (7/8 of an inch), it should be cut lengthwise into two strips of equal width, to be used for mounting the edges. No attempt should be made to run the binding along more than one edge. The separated strips should then be cut the exact length for each top and bottom edge and applied one at a time. Then the side edges are bound, with the apex of the angle at the middle of the binding. When the binding is firmly fastened it is carefully trimmed off at the top and bottom. ELECTRIC LIGHT PENDANTS [Illustration: A seven-light fixture] Two designs for such pendants are illustrated in the accompanying drawings. They were derived from suggestions in the _Craftsman_, and were successfully worked out in remodelling a house. The seven-light fixture consists of a circular pendant-board about 30 inches in diameter, made from 2-inch plain oak stock, cut into 60-degree segments and, with splined joints, glued up to form a circular piece which was turned up on a large lathe. An open space 7 inches in diameter was left in the larger circle, which was covered by a cup-shaped cap turned from plain oak stock and attached to the larger circle by screws. The considerable opening covered by this cap contained the cut out and the wiring necessary for connecting with each of the seven lights. Seven medium-sized hooks of composition metal were procured which had large, coarse threaded screws. A 3/16-inch hole was drilled lengthwise through the shanks of these hooks. Holes were bored near the centre of the arc of each segment in the board circle to receive these hooks. When the fixture was assembled the wires for each light were carried from the cut out across a channel made for that purpose on the upper surface of the board, passed down through the hole in the shank of the hook, woven into the links of the chain pendant and connected with the corresponding bulb socket after passing through another hook, like those described above, which linked the socket to the chain. As a finish around the hooks shallow cups of beaten copper were fashioned over a wooden form, turned for the purpose, and oxidized to a tone somewhat darker than the brown of the oak board. Copper cups in a conventional petal design were made to place over each of the bulbs. The chains were also oxidized to conform with the other metal work. The entire combination was satisfactory. [Illustration: A five-light fixture] Another design for the dining-room of the same house and much easier to construct is also illustrated. It will be observed that the square form instead of the circle is carried out consistently in the woodwork and metal caps. These caps and the chains are in natural brass of a dull finish. The shades are of ground glass, decorated with a flower design in heavy black lines. The central light has a larger shade than the others, wholly enclosed. In this one is placed a red incandescent bulb for use whenever such decorative effect is desired. DECORATIVE FORGINGS In the story of the designing and building of the model house reference was made to contributions from the forge shop. Among these were the andirons, door knocker, lantern bracket, and other articles shown in the accompanying illustrations. It should be understood that all wrought iron work that has any reality in it requires an equipment especially adapted to its production. There must be a good forge and fire, an anvil, and proper tools, all in the hands of a workman of some experience and skill. Successful forge work can hardly be considered among the handicrafts easily adapted to the needs of the amateur working without instruction and with poor equipment. But with good tools, proper equipment, and a little experience any clever boy will be able to design and fashion many useful articles for the home which have real artistic merit. [Illustration: Decorative Forgings. Plate XVI] For the fireplace, in addition to andirons, there may be made the shovel, poker, and tongs, and possibly the old-fashioned crane and pot hooks. Other fixtures that may be made are ceiling hooks, lantern brackets for the wall or for lantern posts, standards for the newel post, the hall lantern or the porch lantern, the latch and the knocker for the door, and, if the architectural design permits, hinges, plates, and bolts for the door. This list by no means exhausts the uses of wrought iron in house decoration. It may be extended to include draw pulls, key escutcheons, furniture handles and hinges of great variety, nails with ornamental heads for use with heavy construction, and many small articles such as trivets for steam kettles, toasting forks, candle holders, and many other useful articles which have also decorative value. XII CONCLUDING SUGGESTIONS COUNTRY HOMES To know what you prefer, instead of humbly saying amen to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to have kept your soul alive.--_Robert Louis Stevenson_ Keen observers of American customs, who have studied the development of our taste in house designing and furnishing, tell us that the best expression of our art in architecture and home decoration is to be found in our country homes. They do not overlook, of course, a beautiful public building in this city or that, perhaps ten altogether, or an occasional private residence on Millionaire Avenue, which are monuments to the genius of the men who created them and of which any country may be proud. What they mean is that as a people we seek and secure the right combination of utility and beauty in our homes more frequently in the country than in the city. At first thought such a criticism may seem to be an exaggeration. Is it reasonable, we ask, that people of good sense, such as most Americans are, really succeed better in planning, building, and decorating the houses which they are to occupy but a few weeks in the summer than they do in developing their city homes? We are told that it is true and that there are good reasons for it. _Simplicity of Country Life._--It is the life in the country and at the seashore that is the simple life, the natural life, the life that sets us free from the accumulated burden of mere "things." Here we come to forget for a time the many and find pleasure in the few. Here we are to feel the joy of living. Nature is all about us, and she gives of her bounty freely. Our wants are few because we are so well satisfied with the free gifts. What wants we have keep step with our needs here as they do nowhere else. We care less for what others have; we are more individual, more rational. Here we generally demand what we really need and we more frequently obtain it. And this is true whether it be something that appeals to the æsthetic side of our natures or whether it be that which ministers to our material needs. In seeking the beautiful for the simple home in the country we do not so often forget the useful; for here, away from the world of museums and studios and collections, we learn that art is possible without paintings and statuary. In the exterior form and colouring of the shingled cottage, set like a gem on the hillside or by the sea, in the harmonious arrangement of its interiors, with every article of furniture chosen only for use and comfort and placed where needed, and with decorations, cheerful but restrained and subordinate, suggestive of more glorious colours and more interesting things in the world without--in such surroundings we have beauty and utility combined. Here we have the time and the opportunity to realize the truth that all art is one and that it may find in the problems of decoration in the country home, if not its highest mission, its most open field for giving to appreciative people the pleasure of seeing and enjoying the beautiful. _Opportunities for Constructive Art._--If it be true that there is a more universal recognition of the true principles of art in the better class of our country homes than in our city homes, it is proof, if proof be needed, that the elements of art expression are found in the simple, natural materials of every-day life. It may be that in the development of art amid simple surroundings "necessity is the mother of invention," and that, more or less naturally, simplicity is thrust upon us. The general habit of our time is to extend the vacation period in the country or at the seashore to the point of making a home there for every summer season. But only a few can carry wealth and elegance with them. A great majority must be satisfied with simple and inexpensive homes. At first we accept them as the only thing possible, and then we discover that in their very simplicity they offer the best of opportunities for true æsthetic expression. And this opportunity is largely for the younger members of the family--for the boys and girls whose vacation period is more extended, whose interest in the summer home is perhaps the more vital and whose imagination is the more susceptible to the art suggestions of nature. We have seen that it is possible for boys and girls to build and furnish a house under the exacting requirements of city life. How much easier it must be to build a cottage for the summer season, decorating and furnishing it in harmony with the simple needs of a vacation home. If such a suggestion meet with acceptance, those who undertake the work will find much practical help in the problems outlined in the foregoing chapters. It is not expected, of course, that the directions there given will always be exactly followed. In the furniture problems, for example, soft woods like pine and spruce may be substituted for the harder woods specified. Very attractive as well as very useful simple furniture has been made in this way at a merely nominal expense. Staining and finishing may easily bring it into harmony with colour schemes; but the bright, fresh colour of new pine and spruce is in itself by no means unattractive. The smooth, exposed beams of the ceilings and walls, if of well chosen stock, may be stained a beautiful gray green or a soft brown. A good colour suggestion may be found in the weathered gray of the hewn timbers of very old buildings. The effect of a ceiled-up wall or of a dado may be easily obtained by stretching burlap or denim over the studding or over a backing of inexpensive sheathing. These materials are very durable and inexpensive, and they may be found in a great variety of beautiful shades. They make excellent portières. A lighter, thinner material like scrim is better for window draperies. All these fabrics afford good surfaces for decoration by stencilling. Stained or painted soft wood floors, covered with grass cloth rugs or the more dainty hand woven rugs like those described in the chapter on weaving, with simple, useful furniture, a picture or two, and a few choice pieces of pottery, complete the equipment for a charming living room. If it all be the product of home industry, the cash outlay for the material need not be over forty dollars, though an outlay of ten times that amount for better materials would not in the least interfere with such a room being decorated and furnished by the unaided labours of the amateur artists and craftsmen of the family. [Illustration: A fireplace in field rock] The chief expense would naturally be for the living room, dining-room, and kitchen. The dining-room, however, may well be simply a corner or alcove of a large living room. Such an arrangement greatly increases the value of a single fireplace, which will be required to give the summer home the sense of perfect comfort. This may be of rough field rock and should be large enough to take one-cut fireplace wood. The chamber furnishings may be very simple indeed. Furniture dealers make a point of supplying beds, bureaus, chairs, and cabinets of simple design, unfinished, so that the purchaser may stain them to harmonize with any desired colour scheme. But such furniture, or good substitutes for it, can be made very inexpensively. For example, the stock for a good bed will not cost over seventy-five cents. Cases provided with shelves and curtains in place of drawers, made at a cash outlay possibly of one dollar, will serve for bureaus. The cost of materials for building an eight-room cottage in every way satisfactory need not exceed five hundred dollars; and such a cottage could be beautifully furnished by clever boys and girls at an expense for materials of one hundred and fifty or perhaps two hundred dollars. [Illustration: An inexpensive bed] In the exterior finishing of summer cottages nature generally needs very little assistance. No colours harmonize so well with the gray rocks, sere fields and marshes, and the evergreen trees by the seashore, as the weathered grays of the shingled cottage. The window frames, door frames and facings, painted to preserve them, may be of the same colour or in dull green or brown, plainly marking the outlines of the house but without unpleasant contrasts. A stained roof in slate gray or creosote brown is also in keeping. The underpinning and outside chimneys in the field rock of the locality are eminently fitting. The house among the hills will stand more colour because the colours of nature are richer, especially in the autumn season. But wherever the house may be, it should repeat in its larger surfaces the prevailing colour tones of its natural setting. It should seem to fit into its surroundings as if it belonged there and would always remain there, a part of the simple, natural beauty all around it. [Illustration: A country house] THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y. [Transcriber's Notes: Spelling is the same mix of US/UK as others in series (eg color/colour) Corrected obvious typos: tell -> tells arrrangement -> arrangement CROHETED -> CROCHETED STENCILING -> STENCILLING on account -> on account of will be be -> will be retain -> and retains expecially -> especially Portières/Portieres found with and w/o accent in equal parts (left as in text in each case) Hyphenation made consistent: wood-work -> woodwork outdoor -> out-door ] 
44393	----	Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 44393-h.htm or 44393-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/44393/44393-h/44393-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/44393/44393-h.zip) Project Gutenberg has the other two volumes of this work. Volume I: see http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/44391 Volume II: see http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/44392 Transcriber's note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). The ligature oe is represented by [oe]. The dagger sign has been marked as [dagger]. A carat character is used to denote superscription. A single character following the carat is superscripted (XIV^e). [=a] represents a letter (in this instance a lower case "a") with a macron above it. [Illustration: "THE GRAPE-GATHERERS" (_Tapestry from Cartoon by Goya. El Escorial_)] The World of Art Series THE ARTS AND CRAFTS OF OLDER SPAIN by LEONARD WILLIAMS Corresponding Member of the Royal Spanish Academy, of the Royal Spanish Academy of History, and of the Royal Spanish Academy of Fine Arts; Author of "The Land of the Dons"; "Toledo and Madrid"; "Granada," etc. In Three Volumes, Illustrated VOLUME III Chicago A. C. McClurg & Co. Edinburgh: T. N. Foulis 1908 American Edition Published October 10, 1908 CONTENTS OF VOLUME THREE TEXTILE FABRICS PAGES INTRODUCTION 1-38 SPANISH SILK 38-105 CLOTHS AND WOOLLENS 105-125 EMBROIDERY 125-137 TAPESTRY 137-159 LACE 159-175 * * * * * APPENDICES 177-258 BIBLIOGRAPHY 259-268 INDEX 271-282 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS _VOLUME THREE_ TEXTILE FABRICS PLATE PAGE "The Grape-Gatherers"; Tapestry from Cartoon by Goya; El Escorial _Frontispiece_ I. The "Banner of Las Navas"; Monastery of Las Huelgas, Burgos 22 II. Fragment of the Burial Mantle of Ferdinand the Third; Royal Armoury, Madrid 26 III. King Alfonso the Learned; from "The Book of Chess," MS. in the Escorial Library 28 IV. Spanish Velvet; about A.D. 1500 30 V. The Tunic of Boabdil el Chico; National Museum of Artillery, Madrid 36 VI. The "Banner of Saint Ferdinand"; Seville Cathedral 40 VII. Velvet made at Granada 56 VIII. The Daughters of Philip the Second; Prado Gallery, Madrid 98 IX. A _Charra_ or Peasant Woman of Salamanca, in the year 1777 102 X. Embroidered Priest's Robe; about A.D. 1500 118 XI. Embroidered Priest's Robe; about A.D. 1500 120 XII. Embroidered Chasuble; Palencia Cathedral 122 XIII. Embroidered Case of Processional Cross; Toledo Cathedral 124 XIV. Embroidered Altar-Front 126 XV. Embroidered Altar-Front; Toledo Cathedral 128 XVI. Embroidered Altar-Front; Palencia Cathedral 130 XVII. Embroidered Altar-Fronts; Palencia Cathedral 132 XVIII. Costume of Woman of the Balearic Islands; about A.D. 1810 134 XIX. The "Genesis Tapestry"; Gerona Cathedral 138 XX. _Tapiz_ of Crimson Velvet worked in gold tissue; Monastery of Las Huelgas, Burgos 144 XXI. "The Spinners," by Velazquez; Prado Gallery, Madrid 148 XXII. Tapestry made at Brussels from Granada Silk 150 XXIII. "A Promenade in Andalusia"; Cartoon for Tapestry, by Goya 152 XXIV. Tapestry; Arras-Work, from Italian Cartoons; Zamora Cathedral 156 XXV. Flemish Tapestry; Collection of the late Count of Valencia de Don Juan 158 XXVI. The Marchioness of La Solana, by Goya 160 XXVII. A Spanish _Maja_; A.D. 1777 162 XXVIII. A _Maja_, by Goya 164 XXIX. A Lady of Soria; about A.D. 1810 166 XXX. Handkerchief of Catalan Lace, presented to Queen Victoria of Spain on her marriage 168 XXXI. Curtain of Spanish Lace; Point and Pillow Work, modern 170 XXXII. Point Lace Fan, of Mudejar Design, modern 172 TEXTILE FABRICS INTRODUCTION Our earliest intelligence respecting textile fabrics of old Spain derives almost exclusively from Moorish sources, and shows, together with the silence of Saint Isidore, that until the subjugation of the Visigoths, the occupants of the Peninsula attached no great importance to this industry. Under the Moors, the south and east of Spain grew rapidly famous for the manufacture of all kinds of textile stuffs, and in particular those of silk. The origin of these silks, or of the most luxurious and artistic of them, may be traced to Almería. According to Al-Makkari, what made this Andalusian capital superior to all other cities of the world was her "various manufactures of silks and other dress materials, such as the _dibaj_, a silken fabric of many colours, surpassing, both in quality and durability, all other products made elsewhere, and also the _tiraz_, a costly stuff whereon are inscribed the names of sultans, princes, and other personages, and for making which there used to be no fewer than eight hundred looms. Inferior fabrics were the _holol_ (a kind of striped silk), and brocades woven upon a thousand looms, while as many more were employed continually in making the scarlet stuffs called _iskalaton_. Another thousand produced the robes called _al jorjani_ (or 'the Georgian'), and yet another thousand the Isbahani robes, from Isfahan, and yet another thousand the robes of Atabi. The making of damask for gay-coloured curtains and turbans for the women kept busy as many persons as the articles above-mentioned." Edrisi, a chronicler of the twelfth century, says of the same capital that she was the principal city belonging to the Moors in the time of the Moravides. In fact, she was then a great and prosperous industrial centre, possessing, together with other kinds of looms, eight hundred which produced the fabrics known as _holla_, _debady_, _siglaton_, _espahani_, and _djordjani_, curtains with a flowered decoration, cloths of a smaller size, and the stuffs which were denominated _attabi_ and _mi djar_. A similar notice is contained in the _Chronicle of Rassis the Moor_. Referring to the end of the tenth century, this author wrote that "Almería is the key of profit and of all prosperity. Within her walls dwell cunning weavers who produce in quantities magnificent silken cloths inwoven with gold thread." Other important centres of this trade and craft were Málaga, Baeza, Alicante, Seville, and Granada. Rassis wrote of Málaga: "She has a fertile territory, wherein is made the finest _sirgo_ in the world. From here they trade in it with every part of Spain. Here too is made the finest of all linens, and that which the women best esteem." Of Baeza he wrote: "She manufactures excellent and famous silken cloths of the kind which are called _tapetes_"; and of Alicante, "This city lies in the Sierra de Benalcatil, which in its turn is situated in the midst of other ranges containing prosperous towns where silken cloths of finest quality were made in other days; and the weavers of these cloths were skilled exceedingly." Málaga is described by the Cordovese historian Ash Shakandi (thirteenth century) as "famous for its manufactures of silks of every colour and design, some of them so costly that a suit is sold for thousands; such are the brocades of beautiful pattern, inwoven with the names of caliphs, emirs and other wealthy personages.... As at Málaga and Almería, there are at Murcia several manufactories of silken cloth called _al washiu thalathat_, or 'the variegated.' This town is also celebrated for the carpets called _tantili_, which are exported to all countries of the east and west, as well as for a sort of bright-coloured mat with which the Murcians cover the walls of their houses." The ancient Illiberia or Illiberis, believed to have been situated not far from where is nowadays Granada, is described in Rassis' chronicle as "a city great and flourishing by reason of the quantity of silk that she exports to every part of Spain. She lies at sixty thousand paces distance from, and on the southward side of Cordova, and six thousand paces from, and to the north of the Frozen Sierra" (_i.e._ the Sierra Nevada). Another chronicle--that of El Nubiense, who visited Spain towards the twelfth century--states that in the kingdom of Jaen alone were six hundred towns which produced and carried on a trade in silk. The foregoing extracts show that under the Spanish Moors the manufacture of textile fabrics attained in mediæval times a very great importance. It is also certain that during the same period the textile fabrics in use among the Christian Spaniards were strongly and continually influenced, and even to a large extent produced, by Spanish Moors, while, as the Moorish cities fell into the power of the enemy, the Christian rulers encouraged their newly-sworn Mohammedan lieges to prosecute this industry with unabated zeal. A privilege is extant which was granted by Jayme the Conqueror in the year 1273, to a Moor named Ali and his sons Mohammed and Bocaron, empowering these artificers to manufacture silk and cloth of gold at Jativa, in the kingdom of Valencia. The fabrics produced by Mussulman weavers such as these, found ready purchase with the wealthier classes of the Christian Spaniards. The dress and other materials thus elaborated possessed a great variety of names, whose meaning cannot always be determined at the present day. Among the fabrics most in vogue were those denominated _samit_ (also _xamed_ or _examitum_), _ciclaton_, _tabis_ or _atabi_, _zarzahan_, _fustian_ or _fustan_, _cendal_ or _sendat_, _camelote_ (also _chamelote_ or _xamellot_), _drap imperial_, and _bougran_ (also _bouckram_, _buckram_), stated by Dr Bock to be derived from Bokhara, and which was of a quality far superior to the buckram of more modern times. These Saracenic or semi-Saracenic stuffs were manufactured from an early period, but modern experts are not agreed as to their character. Miquel y Badía and some other authorities believe that _samit_ was a costly material which was sometimes coloured green, and shot with gold or silver thread. Others believe it to have been a kind of velvet. In either case it is known to have been used for shrouding the bodies of the wealthy. _Ciclaton_ was a strong though flexible material used for robes and also for wall-hangings. _Tabis_ or _atabi_ was a kind of taffeta, and probably consisted, as a general rule, of silk, though sometimes it was mixed with cotton. _Chamelot_ was an oriental fabric of rich silk, coloured white, black, or grey. It is mentioned, together with velvets, taffetas, and _cendal_ or _sendat_ (another silken stuff) in a law passed by the Cortes of Monzón in 1375, and which is quoted in Capmany's _Memorias_.[1] Fustian is thought to have been first produced in Egypt. It was woven of thread or cotton, and was largely used in England from at least as early as the twelfth century. From about the same time buckram was also popular in northern countries. [1] "Perco con los draps d'or é d'argent, é de seda axi brocats d'or é d'argent con altres é velluts, xamelots, tafetanes, é sendats se usen molt de vestir en lo dit Principat d'alguna generalitat ne dret no y sia posat, mes solament vi liners per liura per la entrada." Early in the fourteenth century a number of other costly stuffs began to be made in various quarters of the civilized world, including Spain. Among these fabrics were _zatonin_ or _zatony_ (perhaps the same as _zetani_, _aceituni_, or _aceytoni_--that is, satin), several kinds of _drap d'aur_ or cloth of gold, several kinds of velvet, _sarga_ or serge, and _camocas_, which is stated by Miquel y Badía to have been a strong material used for lining curtains, coats of mail, etc. The same writer observes that the stuff called by the name _zatonin_ and its variations is the same as the Castilian raso and the Catalan _setí_ or _satí_, a favourite though expensive and luxurious fabric in the fourteenth and succeeding centuries. Under the name _aceytoni_ it is mentioned in a work in the Catalan language titled _Croniques d'Espanya_, by Pedro Miguel Carbonell, in which we read that at the coronation of Don Martin of Aragon this monarch's consort, Doña María, was "dressed in white cloth of gold and a long mantle ... and rode upon a white horse covered with trappings of white _aceytoni_." Miquel y Badía has discovered the names of other fabrics which are known from documentary evidence to have been used in older Spain, and which were called _aducar_, _alama_, _tela de nacar_, _primavera_ or _primavert_, _almexia_, _picote_, and _velillo_. It is probable that _alama_ and _tela de nacar_ had silver interwoven with their texture. The _primavera_ or "spring fabric" was so named from the flowers which adorned it. _Almexía_ is mentioned in the _Chronicle of the Cid_. It was a costly and elaborate stuff, and is believed by Miquel to have taken its title from the city of Almería. _Picote_ was a kind of satin manufactured in the island of Majorca, and _velillo_ a thin, delicate fabric decorated with flowers and with silver thread. The devices on all these stuffs were very varied. Prominent types among them were the _pallia rotata_, containing circles which are commonly combined with other ornament, the _pallia aquilinata_, in which the dominant motive was the eagle, and the _pallia leonata_, in which it was the lion. Other beasts, birds, and monsters were also figured with great frequency, such as griffins, peacocks, swans, crows, bulls, tigers, or dogs; but the emblem most in favour, especially throughout the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries, was the eagle, owing to the numerous and illustrious qualities attributed to it, such as majesty, victory, valour, and good omen. These creatures, too, were frequently represented face to face or back to back, in pairs; nor were they so disposed in textile fabrics only, but on ivory, wood, or silver caskets, and on numerous other objects, as well as on the painted friezes of a place of worship.[2] [2] "We have seen many instances of such opposed animals and birds on the metal-work and carving of the thirteenth century, and there is no doubt that the design is much older than Mohammedan times, and goes back to the productions of the old artists of Mesopotamia and Persia. We read in Quintus Curtius of robes worn by Persian satraps, adorned with birds beak to beak--_aurei accipitres veluti rostri in se irruerunt pallam adornabant_. Plautus mentions Alexandrian carpets ornamented with beasts: _Alexandrina belluata conchyliata tapetia_. There is indeed reason to believe that the notion of such pairs of birds or beasts may have originated with the weavers of ancient Persia, and have been borrowed from them by the engravers of metal-work; for the advantage of such double figures would be specially obvious to a weaver. The symmetrical repetition of the figure of the bird or animal, reversed, saved both labour and elaboration of the loom. The old weavers, not yet masters of mechanical improvements, were obliged to work their warp up and down by means of strings, and the larger the design the more numerous became these strings and the more complicated the loom. Hence, to be able to repeat the pattern in reverse was a considerable economy of labour, and could be effected very simply on a loom constructed to work _à pointe et à reverse_. Examples of such repetitions of patterns, especially of symmetrical pairs of animals within circles, are common in Byzantine and Sassanian woven work, and the Saracens followed these models."--Stanley Lane-Poole, _The Art of the Saracens in Egypt_, p. 288. The colours of these fabrics also varied very greatly. That which was most admired was probably red, crimson, or carmine, used by preference as a ground, with the pattern inwoven or super-woven in gold, silver, or otherwise. Velvets, too, were not invariably in monochrome, but would contain two or three colours such as purple, crimson, blue, or yellow, besides gold and silver. Miquel y Badía mentions a magnificent velvet pluvial in gold and three colours, belonging to a church in Cataluña. The following observations are by the same authority, who himself possesses a valuable collection of early textile fabrics, many of which are Spanish. "The same prevailing colours are found in the Mudejar textile fabrics as in those of the Spanish Moors--the same ground of red inclining to carmine, of dark blue, or of bluish green, with a pattern in yellow, green, blue, or red, according to the colour which combines with it. I have seen copies of Mudejar stuffs in which there is no white, because this was wanting in the fragments which the copying artist had before him. And it is a fact that from some cause, which we cannot now determine, white silk is that which disappears soonest from among the textile fabrics of the Spanish Moors and Mudejares, so that by far the greater part of them contain no white at all, or only traces of it." In Spain these handsome stuffs were used by all the wealthier classes, and some idea of their prevalence and popularity may be formed from the voluminous mass of sumptuary laws which deal with them at almost every stage of Spanish history. Thus, an edict of Jayme the First of Aragon established, in the year 1234, that neither the monarch nor any of his subjects were to decorate their clothes with gold and silver, or fasten their cloaks with gold or silver clasps. The _Ordenamiento_ of Alfonso the Tenth, subscribed at Seville, February 27th, 1256, provides that no woman is to carry _aljofar_-work, trim her dress with gold or silver, or wear a _toca_ decorated with those metals, but only a plain white one, the price of which is not to exceed three _maravedis_. It is also provided by this edict that on the celebration of a wedding, the cost of the bridal clothes must not exceed sixty _maravedis_, nor may the number of guests who sit down to the marriage banquet exceed five women and five men, besides the witnesses of the ceremony and relatives of the bride and bridegroom. This absurd law was so extensively neglected that two years later the Cortes of Valladolid took up the matter afresh, and even resolved that the expenses of the king's table, without the cost of his invited guests, were not to exceed a daily total of a hundred and fifty _maravedis_. In A.D. 1286 the Council of Cordova decreed that knights and squires, upon the celebration of their marriage, were not to present their brides with more than two dresses, one of these to be of scarlet, without trimming of ermine or grey fur, or decoration of gold, silver, or _aljofar_. A law of Alfonso the Eleventh, dated May 6th, 1338, proclaimed that the women of the upper classes were not to clothe themselves in any silken fabric decorated with gold thread. Similar restrictions were laid upon the other sex. "No man, whatever be his condition (excepting only Us, the King), shall wear cloth of gold, or silk, or any stuff adorned with gold lace, _aljofar_, or any other trimming, or with enamel: only his cloak may bear _aljofar_ pearl-work, or fillets without pearls." Other dispositions signed by the same monarch show that the Spaniards of his time were in the habit of wearing costly cloth adorned with gold and silver, pearls, gold buttons, enamel, and other ornament, while even the squires wore furs and gilded shoes. The _ricos-hombres_ loaded their saddles with gold and with _aljofar_-work, and their wives were licensed to bear on each of their dresses the same _aljofar_-work or strings of tiny pearls, to the value of four thousand _maravedis_. Provisions of the same tenor are contained in the prolix sumptuary pragmatic of Pedro the Cruel, signed in the year 1351 at Valladolid, as well as in that of Juan the First, A.D. 1385, which ordained, together with other vexatious prohibitions, that "neither man nor woman, whatever be their condition or estate, shall wear cloth of gold or any silk-stuff, gold or silver _aljofar_, or other precious stones, excepting the Infante and Infantas, who may wear whatever pleases them." The extravagance of Isabella the Catholic in dress and personal adornment generally, was illustrated in an earlier chapter of this work. A further instance is recorded by Clemencin. According to this chronicler, in 1476 and 1477, upon her reception at Alcalá of two embassies from France, the queen was dressed in a magnificent robe, which drew upon her a sharp rebuke from her confessor, the virtuous and austere Hernando de Talavera. From this charge Isabella defended herself with more spirit than truthfulness. "Neither myself nor my ladies," she wrote in her letter of reply, "were dressed in new apparel. All that I wore on this occasion I had already worn in Aragon, and the French themselves had seen me wearing it. I only used one robe at all, and that of silk with three marks of gold, the plainest I could find: in this was all my festival. I say this much in that my clothing was not new; nor did we deem that error could dwell therein."[3] [3] _Elogio de la Reina Católica_, p. 374. Although their own extravagance is past all question, on September 30th, 1499, Ferdinand and his consort issued a proclamation at Granada, in which it was commanded that "no persons shall wear clothing of brocade, or silk, or silk _chamelote_, or _zarzahan_, or taffeta, or carry linings of the same upon the trappings of their horses, or upon hoods, or the straps and scabbards of their swords, or bits, or saddles, or _alcorques_[4] ... nor shall they wear embroidered silk-stuffs decorated with gold plates, whether such gold be drawn or hammered, spun to a thread, or interwoven with the fabric." [4] These are defined by the Count of Clonard as "a kind of clog (_chapín_) with a cork sole, and which was introduced by the Moors under the name _al-kork_." These prohibitions, or others of their import, were ratified by Doña Juana at the Cortes of Burgos, and, in 1533, by Charles the Fifth at Valladolid. In 1551 the Emperor again prohibited "all brocaded stuffs, or gold or silver cloth, whether embroidered or enriched with gold or silver thread, or bound with cord or edging of the same;" and a royal edict of January 12th, 1611, forbade the wearing of brocade and every other costly stuff to all except the clergy and the military. The clergy, indeed, had always been notorious for extravagance, and not a few of all these sumptuary laws are aimed specifically at them. In A.D. 1228 the Council of Valladolid prohibited the use by priests of sleeved robes, or gilded saddles, bits, spurs, or poitrels. In 1267 the Synod of León repeated these prohibitions, further insisting that the garments of the clergy, besides being sleeveless, were not to be red or green, and were to have a moderate length ("_non muy largas, non muy cortas_"), and that their cloaks were not to fasten with a clasp or cord; these regulations to be rigidly adhered to _en sennal de honestidat_--"as a sign of honesty." We also know that at this time (thirteenth century) the shirts of many of the wealthier Spaniards were woven of finest linen imported from the East, embroidered and picked out with gold and silver thread, and that the clergy were at least the equals of the laity in their craze for costly clothing. In A.D. 1273, an inventory was made of the effects belonging to Don Gonzalo Palomeque, on his election to the bishopric of Cuenca. It mentions _almadraques_ and Murcian _tapetes_, _carpitas viadas_ from Tlemcen, fine Murcian blankets (_alhamares_), silk _xamedes_, Murcian matting for covering walls and daïses ("_para paret et para estrado_"), and stuffs from Syria. Another inventory, that of Don Gonzalo Gudiel, archbishop of Toledo, is dated A.D. 1280, and mentions, as included with his property, quantities of oriental fabrics which are designated by the general name _tartaricas_.[5] Among them were "unus pannus operatus ad aves de auro et campus de serica viridi, item unus alius pannus tartaricus cum campo de seta alba et vite aurea, item unus pannus tartaricus de seta rubea cum pinis aureis, item unus pannus tartaricus de seta viridi."[6] [5] Specifically, _tartari_ was a costly fabric, heavily embroidered. Ducange considers that it came, or came originally, from Tartary. We read of it twice in the _Chronicle of the Cid_, and again, in the _Chronicle of Ferdinand the Fourth_:--"tiraron los paños de marhega que tenia vestidos por su padre é vistiéronle unos paños nobles de tartari." [6] Quoted by Fernandez y Gonzalez, _Mudejares de Castilla_, p. 231, from the originals in the Archiepiscopal Library of Toledo. A number of mediæval textile fabrics, some in fragments, some intact, have been preserved in Spanish private collections or museums. It is, however, seldom easy to determine whether they were made in this Peninsula, or whether in Sicily, Byzantium, Venice, or the East. Among the most remarkable of all these interesting specimens are, a strip which was extracted from the mausoleum of a Spanish bishop, Don Bernardo Calbó, a native of Vich in Cataluña, and which is now in the museum of that town; other fragments in the same collection, including one of _holosericum_ or pure silk, which was formerly in the neighbouring church of San Juan de las Abadesas, and is commonly known as the _pallium_ or altar front "of the witches" (owing to certain beasts or monsters figuring in the design), a Moorish _tiraz_, now in the Academy of History at Madrid, the celebrated Moorish "banner of the battle of Las Navas," now in the Monastery of Santa María la Real de las Huelgas at Burgos, the banner (also Moorish) of the battle of the River Salado, the chasubles "of the Constable" and of Chiriana, preserved respectively at Burgos and at Caravaca, a fragment, preserved in the Royal Armoury at Madrid, of the shroud of Ferdinand the Third, and the Moorish clothing of the son of the same King Ferdinand, the Infante Don Felipe, and of Felipe's second wife, Doña Leonor Ruiz de Castro. The strip of woven material found in the sepulchre of Bishop Calbó, who is said to have accompanied Don Jayme the Conqueror in the conquest of Valencia (A.D. 1238), is described by Miquel y Badía as belonging to the class denominated _pallia rotata_--that is, with circles forming part of their design,--and dates most probably from the twelfth century; but it is impossible to say whether it was manufactured in the East, or whether at Valencia or some other Spanish town. The same remark applies to other fragments which are also, as I stated, in the Vich Museum. The one discovered in the tomb of Bishop Calbó contains, coloured in green, grey, and black upon a carmine ground, a decorative scheme of circles, flowers, and gryphons or other monsters in pairs, _affrontés_, and also, within the circles, the figure of a man grappling with two lions, tigers, dogs, or other beasts, and who is believed to represent Samson or Daniel--more probably the latter. Miquel y Badía points out that in this fragment the figure of the man recalls Egyptian art, suggested by his curious head-dress, and by the crossing of his clothes upon his breast. Another textile fragment in the same collection is coloured black, red, and grey upon a yellowish ground. It is decorated with long-tailed birds resembling peacocks, and with sphinxes which fill the circles or medallions. A third fragment, also in the Vich Museum, belongs to the type of _pallia cum aquilis et bestiolis_. The design consists of a double-headed eagle with half-extended wings, holding in the claws of either foot some kind of quadruped--perhaps a bull. The colour of the ground resembles carmine, and on it the design is wrought in greenish black--that may have been originally green--relieved at intervals with yellow. The "witches'" _pallium_ in the same collection is decorated with the series of extraordinary beasts or monsters that have won for it this title with the vulgar, depicted in yellow, white, black, and dark green upon a red ground. Miquel believes this fabric to proceed from Byzantium, and to date from not much earlier than the eleventh century. The devices are disposed in two rows, the lower containing peacocks _affrontés_, and the upper a series of fantastic monsters, each of which possesses a head, two bodies, and four feet--the head being semi-human, semi-bestial, the double body that of a bird, and the claws those of a lion or some other formidable quadruped. The Royal Academy of History at Madrid possesses a fragment of the costly fabric known as _tiraz_, an eastern word (corrupted by the Spaniards into _taracea_, _i.e._ embroidery on clothing), which means the bordering for a royal robe. Such bordering, which contained inscriptions, or the sultan's name, or both together, is said to have been first used in Spain by Abderrahman the Second, who ruled from A.D. 825 to 852. "The caliphs of Cordova," says Riaño, "had a place set apart in their palaces where this stuff was kept: this custom lasted until the eleventh century, when it disappeared, and was re-established in the thirteenth century with the kings of Granada." _Tiraz_, in fact, was both produced and stored in special departments of the Sultan's palaces[7]; or so we must infer from the following passage by Ibn-Khaldun. "The places (_almedinas_) where these stuffs were woven were situated within the palaces of the caliphs, and were known as the 'pavilions of the _tiraz_.' The person at the head of these workshops was called the superintendent of the _tiraz_: he had charge of both the weavers and the looms, administered the salaries, and looked to the quality of the work. This post was entrusted by the princes to one of the foremost officers of their kingdom, or else to some freedman who thoroughly deserved their confidence." The same historian adds that the manufacture of _tiraz_ was conducted in Spain in the same manner as in the East under the dynasty of the Ommeyades. It is, however, certain that among the Spanish Moors _tiraz_ was not produced exclusively in royal factories. Al-Makkari states that in the time of the Somadies and the Almoravides there were looms at Nerja (and possibly at Almería) for weaving this luxurious fabric, as well as _holas_, a fine brocade, heavily embroidered, and adorned with figures representing the caliphs and other personages. In the time of the Almoravides there were at Almería as many as a thousand factories for making _holas_. [7] "An interesting parallel to the royal silk factory, or D[=a]r-et-tir[=a]z of Kay-Kub[=a]d, and to that of the F[=a]timy Khalif at Tinn[=i]s, is found in the similar institution at Palermo, which owed its foundation to the Kelby Am[=i]rs who ruled Sicily as vassals of the F[=a]timis in the ninth and tenth centuries, though it maintained its special character and excellence of work under the Norman kings. The factory was in the palace, and the weavers were Mohammedans, as indeed is obvious from a glance at the famous silk cloth preserved at Vienna, and called the "Mantle of Nürnberg," where a long Arabic inscription testifies to the hands that made it, by order of King Roger, in the year of the Hijra 528, or A.D. 1133."--Stanley Lane-Poole, _The Art of the Saracens in Egypt_, p. 289. The piece of _tiraz_ which belongs to the Spanish Academy of History measures about a yard and a half in length by eighteen inches wide. Riaño describes it as of wool, embroidered in silks with "seated figures which appear to be a king, a lady, lions, birds, and quadrupeds"; but after carefully examining it I cannot but agree with Miquel y Badía that this fabric is woven throughout of pure silk, without the slightest trace of hand-embroidery. It has two borders containing these inscriptions in Cufic letters: "In the name of God, the clement, the merciful. (May) the blessing of God and happiness (be) for the Caliph Iman Abdallah Hixem, the favoured of God and prince of believers." This monarch, second of the name, reigned at the end of the tenth century and early in the eleventh, and the _tiraz_ we are noticing was found in a casket on the altar of a church at San Esteban de Gormaz, in the province of Soria. As Riaño suggests, it was very probably a war trophy. [Illustration: I THE "BANNER OF LAS NAVAS" (_Monastery of Santa Maria la Real de las Huelgas, Burgos_)] Another most interesting example of Saracenic textile work is the so-called "banner of Las Navas" (Plate i.), which popular tradition affirms to have been captured (A.D. 1212) in the memorable battle of Las Navas de Tolosa, between the Almohades and the Spanish Christians. Most experts now consider that this object is not a military ensign, but a curtain or some other hanging for a tent or doorway. The material is _sirgo_ or silken serge, and both the decoration and the workmanship are purely Moorish. The design is rich and intricate throughout, consisting of scrolls, leaves, stems, and inscriptions from the Koran, disposed with exquisite effect about the principal and central motive, formed by a large eight-pointed star within a circle, and which contains, so as to form the angles of the star, eight repetitions of the words in Arabic, "_The Empire_." The dominant colour is carmine, and the fabric terminates in eight _farpas_ or scallops with red and yellow edges, and bearing a series of inscriptions in the African character. The "_pendon_ of the Rio Salado," a trophy which seems to have really been a war-flag, belongs to the cathedral of Toledo. It measures at this day about nine feet two inches by seven feet four inches, but is believed to have been originally of a square form, with scalloped edges. The dominant colours are red, green, and gold. The decorative scheme consists of tastefully combined circles and inscriptions in the Cufic character, and the lower end concludes in the following sentences, now rendered incomplete through the loss of nearly two feet of the material:--"... the wise, the victorious, the assiduous, the generous, the sultan, the caliph, the famous emir of the Muslims and representative of the Lord of the Universe, Abu-Said Otsmin, son of our lord and master ... the worshipper of (Allah), the modest, the warlike, the emir of the Mussulmans Nassir-li-Din (_defender of the law_), Abu Yusuf Yacub, son of Abd-il-Hac. In the Alcázar of Fez (God bless it. Praised be God), in the Moon of Moharran of the year twelve and seven hundred" (712 of the Hegira, or May 9th-June 7th, A.D. 1312). Tastefully disposed in white Cufic characters, within four rows of circles woven in gold, are the words which sum the Mussulman religion,--"There is no God but God: Mahoma is His Messenger"; and on other parts of the flag are inscribed these sentences:-- "The prophet believes in the purpose for which he was sent by his Lord, and all the faithful believe in God, in His angels, in His writings, and in His messengers. We make no distinction between any of His messengers. And these declare: 'We hear and do obey. Pardon us, O Lord.' ".... And unto Thee we shall return. God will not lay on any soul but such a weight as it can bear; for it or against it shall be the deeds it may have done. O Lord, chastise not our forgetfulness or errors. O Lord, lay not upon us the burden Thou hadst laid on those that were before us. ".... O Lord, burden us not too heavily. Blot out our faults, and pardon them to us, and have mercy on us. Thou art our Lord. Grant us victory over the infidel. There came to us a glorious prophet that was born among us. "On him rests the weight of your faults, and full of goodness and of clemency he longs ardently for you to believe. If you should be forsaken, exclaim, 'God is sufficient for me. There is no God but He. I trust in Him, because He is Lord of the throne that is on high.'" Miquel y Badía considers that when it was intact this object must have measured eleven feet square. Attention was first drawn to its merit and antiquity when it was shown at the Exposición Histórico Europea of 1892. The chasubles of Chirinos (Caravaca) and of the Chapel of the Constable in Burgos cathedral are both considered to be of Spanish-Moorish workmanship. The former is woven of silk of various colours, but without admixture of gold thread, and bears an inscription in Arabic which Amador de los Ríos has interpreted as, "Glory to our Sultan Abul-Hachach." The same authority deduces that the fabric dates from the fourteenth or the fifteenth century--that is, from the time of the Sultan Abul-Hachach (Yusuf the First) or of his immediate successors. The chasuble preserved at Burgos is also woven of variegated silk without gold thread, and may originally have been a _tiraz_, since it bears, in African letters, the inscription, "Glory to our lord the Sultan." The date is probably the fifteenth or sixteenth century. Fragments of similar material are in the collections of Señores Osma and Miquel y Badía. [Illustration: II FRAGMENT OF THE BURIAL MANTLE OF FERDINAND THE THIRD (_Royal Armoury, Madrid_)] The object represented in Plate ii. is described in the Catalogue of the Royal Armoury at Madrid as _A fragment of the royal mantle in which was buried the king and saint, Ferdinand the Third of Castile_ (A.D. 1217-1252). Gestoso, in the course of his researches into the history of old Seville, has found that in the year 1579 Philip the Second caused an examination to be made at that city of the remains, enshrined in her cathedral, of Saint Ferdinand. The body was found "with a ring with a blue stone on a finger of the right hand, and wearing sword and spurs." In 1677 Charles the Second sent for the ring in question, and eleven years later a fresh examination was made, when the mummy of the saint was stated to be wrapped in "clothing of a stuff the nature of which cannot now be recognised, but which is chequered all over with the royal arms of Castile, and with lions." A third examination was made in 1729, when the "holy body of Señor San Fernando" was reported to be "covered, the greater part, with a royal mantle, of a stuff which could not be recognised for its decay: only it was seen to be embroidered with castles and lions." Probably, therefore, this fragment was taken to Madrid at the same time as the ring--that is, in the year 1677. It has an irregular shape, and measures eighteen inches long by thirteen and a half in breadth. The material is a woven mixture of silk and gold thread, and the decoration consists of castles and lions in gold and red respectively, upon a ground of carmine and dirty white. Count Valencia de Don Juan points out that this strip belonged to the lower end of the mantle, since it includes a portion of the border, formed by a series of horizontal stripes, blue, yellow, red, and gold. The character of the whole fragment is decidedly Mohammedan, and indicates a Mudejar fabric, made at Seville in the thirteenth century. I find that in the _Book of Chess_ of Alfonso the Learned (an illuminated Spanish manuscript executed in the thirteenth century, and now preserved at the Escorial), Alfonso himself is represented (Plate iii.) as wearing a mantle with this very pattern of lions and castles contained in squares. Therefore it seems extremely probable, either that this device was not uncommon on the robes of Spanish kings, or else that at some time the body of San Fernando was enveloped in a mantle belonging to, and which perhaps had been inherited by, his son. [Illustration: III KING ALFONSO THE LEARNED (_From "The Book of Chess"; MS. in the Escorial Library_)] The clothing of the Infante Don Felipe and of Doña Leonor, his wife, consists of the prince's cloak, which is nearly intact, a piece of his _aljuba_, his cap, and a strip of silken cloth inwoven with gold. The latter fragment is thought to have belonged to the robe of the Infanta. These objects, discovered in 1848, in the tomb of Don Felipe and Doña Leonor, at Villalcazar de Sirga, near Palencia, are now in the National Museum. The cloak or mantle is richly wrought in silk and gold, and bears the word _Blessing_, woven in Cufic characters upon the ground. The _aljuba_ is also of silk and gold, showing a delicate combination of blue and yellow, and the style and workmanship of all these fragments are unmistakably Mohammedan. Therefore, in textile crafts, the Spanish Moors supplied the wants and the caprices both of themselves and of their enemies the Christians. The relationship between certain under-garments of the two peoples is evident from the very titles of those garments. Thus, the Spanish _joquejo_ or _soquejo_, a scarf for winding round a woman's body, is obviously derived, or merely corrupted, from the Arabic _jocob_; the Spanish _arrede_ or _arrelde_, a kind of cloak, from the Arabic _arrida_, and the Spanish shirt or tunic for ordinary wear, called the _casot_, _quesote_, or _quizote_ (which was sometimes white and sometimes coloured) from the Arabic _al-kuesnat_. The _Chronicle of Juan the Second_ (A.D. 1410) tells of a mountain covered with Moorish troops, "and all of them had red _quesotes_." [Illustration: IV SPANISH VELVET (_Red upon Gold Ground. About A.D. 1500_)] Among the cities of Moorish Spain, Almería and Granada were undoubtedly those which produced the handsomest stuffs--Almería from comparatively early in the days of Muslim domination, Granada from a somewhat later time.[8] Notices are extant of Christian princes who directly ordered these materials from Granada; _e.g._ in 1392 Don Juan the First caused to be purchased there, as a present to his daughter on her marriage, "una cambra de saya orlada ab son dozer e cobertor de color vermella, blaua, ó vert, ù otro que fuera de buena vista" (_Archives of the Crown of Aragon_). The manufacture of velvet was probably introduced into Aragon in the reign of Pedro the Fourth. Excellent silks and cloth of gold were also made at Málaga, Seville, Toledo, and Valencia. Indeed, no better source exists for studying the character of this important industry in older Spain than the Ordinances of the cities I have just enumerated.[9] We learn from these municipal provisions, most of which were framed or ratified in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, that the mingling of fine with base material was forbidden in the strictest terms, and that the styles and classes of even the luxurious and elaborate stuffs, which bore an infinite variety of devices, were very numerous. Thus, there were satins, taffetas, _azeytunis_, double and single velvets (Plates iv. and vii.), brocades, and silken serges; as well as fabrics interwoven with gold and silver thread, including the _gorgoranes_, _restaños_, _sargas_, and _jergas de filigrana de plata_. The Ordinances of Toledo mention the following fabrics as manufactured in that city in the reigns of Ferdinand and Isabella, and of Charles the Fifth:-- "Stuffs of gold and silver made in the same manner as satin. "Satins woven with gold. "Satins brocaded with silk and gold, or silver flowers. "Silver serges with double filigree. "Silver and gold materials, which are made like _gorgoran_ or serge. "Silver and gold stuffs which are made like taffetas, or in silver with silk flowers. "Embroidered stuffs. "Embroidered stuffs called silver serge, or _berguilla_. "_Lama_, cloth of silver, shaded with watering in silver. "Plain silk-stuffs woven with silver or gold, and called _restaño_. "Silk-stuffs woven with gold or silver, and called _relampagos_. "Serges woven with gold and silver for church vestments. "Plain filigree serges. "_Velillo_ of silver. "Satin woven with gold and silver. "Brocades of different kinds. "Church vestments. "Silver _primaveras_. "Serges for church vestments." [8] The Alburquerque inventory mentions, in 1560, "two Almería sheets, one with green and purple edging, and the other with white and red"; also "two _short_ holland shirts for sleeping in at night." Commenting on the word _short_, Señor de la Torre de Trassierra aptly recalls the thrifty proverb of the Spaniards,--"A shirt which reaches below the navel is so much linen wasted." [9] See particularly _Las Ordenanzas de los tejedores de seda de Sevilla_ (officially proclaimed on March 2nd, 1502), and also _Las Ordenanzas para el buen régimen y gobierno de la muy noble, muy leal, é imperial cuidad de Toledo_. (_Tit._ cxxxv: "silk-weavers.") It was usual for ladies of the Christian-Spanish aristocracy to trim their clothes, in Moorish fashion, with strings of larger pearls or of _aljofar_-work--a custom which continued until the extinction of the House of Austria. The Alburquerque inventory includes "a _marlota_ of crimson satin, trimmed with pearls and with _aljofar_, as to the hem, the sleeves, and the hood; with twelve buttons of _aljofar_-pearls in the front thereof, that on a time were thirteen; but one is missing _which was ground up for the said Duchess when she was sick_, and six buttons on each sleeve, and the same where each sleeve meets the shoulder." Early in the seventeenth century, Pinheiro da Veiga mentions the same fashion at Valladolid:--"At the sale of the Marchioness of Mondejar, I saw twelve of her _sayas_ with long trains to them, and satin bodices, all of embroidered silk, and some with _aljofar_-work, besides a number of all kinds of _diabluras_." It is stated by Ibn-Said, Al-Makkari, Al-Khattib, and Ibn-Khaldun, that the Moors of Granada occasionally adopted Christian clothing, and we know that the Sultan Mohammed, a contemporary of Alfonso the Learned of Castile, was assassinated by Abrahim and Abomet, the sons of Osmin, because he was so clothed, and because he had further violated the precepts of the Koran by eating at Alfonso's table.[10] But as a rule the costume of the Spanish Moors was almost wholly that of orientals. Where they were tolerated in a city under Christian rule, a certain dress was sometimes forced upon them by their subjugators, as by the _Ordenamiento_ (A.D. 1408) of Doña Catalina, issued on behalf of her son, Juan the Second, and which prescribed for the Moorish men a _capuz_ of yellow cloth with a mark upon it in the form of a blue half-moon measuring an inch from point to point, and which was to be worn on the right shoulder. The garments of the women were to be similarly marked, on pain of fifty lashes administered publicly, together with the forfeiture of all such clothes as lacked this necessary and humiliating token. [10] On the other hand, Rosmithal recorded in his narrative of a tour of Spain that Henry the Second of Castile affected the costume of the Mohammedans. But where the Spanish Moors were in possession of the soil, their clothes were similar in most respects to those of eastern peoples. Detailed notices of these costumes are furnished us by Ibn-Said and other writers. Fray Pedro de Alcalá explains in his _Vocabulary_ that, among the Granadinos, the use of one garment in particular was limited to royalty, or nobles of high rank. This was the _libas_ (or, in the Granadino dialect, _libis_), shaped like roomy breeches, and greatly resembling the _zaragüelles_ worn until this hour by the peasants of the Huerta of Valencia. Ibn-Said, quoted by Al-Makkari (see Gayangos, _History of the Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain_, Vol. I., p. 116) says that the dress of the Moors of Andalusia was not identical with that of the Asiatic Mussulman. The former, he declares, would often discard the turban; especially those who lived towards the eastern frontier. In the western region the turban continued to be generally worn by the upper classes and by the leading State officials. Thus, at Cordova and Seville every _cadi_ and _alfaqui_ would wear a turban, while at Valencia and Murcia even the nobles went without it, and among the lower classes it had fallen into absolute disuse. Neither officers nor soldiers of the army wore the turban. We learn from Casiri (_Bibl. Arabico-Hispana_, II., p. 258) that the _imama_[11] was the only form of head-dress used by the _cheiks_, _cadis_, and _ulemas_ of Granada. At this capital red was the distinctive colour of the sovereigns of the Alahmar dynasty, who took their very title from this circumstance, the Arabic word _alahmar_ meaning "red." The distinctive colour of the Nasrite sultans was purple, which was replaced by black in time of mourning. In this last fashion the sultans were probably influenced by the Christian usage, for Ibn-Khaldun remarks that black was not a colour approved of by the orientals, who considered it to be related with the spirits of evil. However this may be, the manuscript _History of the House of Cordova_ quoted by Eguilaz Yanguas, says that when Boabdil el Chico entered that city as a prisoner, "the captive monarch was dressed in black velvet, in token of his adverse fortune and defeat. He rode a richly caparisoned charger, whose coat was black and glossy." [11] This was a large form of turban. In the well-known painting in the Hall of Justice of the Alhambra, the head-dress is the _aharim_ or _almaizar_. The Moors regarded green or white as pleasant and well-omened colours, symbolic of the angels and of all good fortune. Perhaps this preference was suggested to them by the cool oasis in the desert. Nevertheless, when Ibn-Hud became ruler of Andalusia, his shields and banners were black, as well as his costume. Black, too, was the colour adopted by the Abbaside Sultans, to whom Ibn-Hud was subject. Under the Beni-Nasr and Beni-Alahmar, this gloomy hue was changed, as we have seen, to purple or to scarlet, though black continued to be used in sign of mourning. [Illustration: V THE TUNIC OF BOABDIL EL CHICO (_National Museum of Artillery, Madrid_)] The chronicle says that Abu-Said, "the Red," who was assassinated at Tablada, under the walls of Seville, by Pedro the Cruel, was clothed in scarlet at the time of that atrocious deed. Boabdil was also clothed in red at the battle of Lucena. The _History of the House of Cordova_, from which I have already quoted, says: "Il était armé d'une forte cuirasse à clous dorés, doublée de velours _cramoisi_, d'un morion teint de _grenat_ et doré.... Sur sa cuirasse était passé un caban de brocart et de velours cramoisi" (Plate v.). Eguilaz quotes a further passage from Hurtado de Mendoza, to prove that red continued to be the official colour of the Moorish rulers of Granada; for when the Moriscos had risen in the Alpujarra, and met together to invest their leaders, Aben-Abu and Aben-Humeya, with the insignia of royalty, they clothed the former in a red costume and the latter in purple, "passing about his neck and shoulders a red token in the form of a scarf."[12] [12] Eguilaz Yanguas, _Les Peintures de l'Alhambra_. As I remarked in speaking of the _tiraz_, the clothing of the Moorish kings of Spain was of the richest quality obtainable, massively wrought, embroidered in colours and in gold, and bearing "sometimes a prince's name, sometimes his device or motto, or even a portrait of himself embroidered on the right breast of his _caban_ or robe, thus following the fashion of the monarchs of Assyria and Persia." SPANISH SILK A very fair idea of the magnitude of the craft and trade of Spanish silk in bygone epochs may be formed by tracing chronologically the production and treatment of the raw material in various parts of the Peninsula. During the centuries of Moorish rule, Spain's principal silk-producing centre was the kingdom of Granada, which then embraced a large extent of coast, together with Málaga and other thriving ports. In proof of this, and in his interesting memorial on the silk factories of Seville,[13] Ulloa quotes old Spanish ordinances of the weavers, stating that quantities of this substance were exported from "tierra de Moros" for use by Christian craftsmen, and also the _Chronology of the Kings of Granada_, concluded by Al-Khattib in the year 1364. A fragment of this chronicle is preserved at the Escorial, and states, in the well-known version of Casiri, that the silk produced at Granada was both abundant and of excellent quality, surpassing even the Assyrian. [13] Don Martin de Ulloa, _Discurso sobre las fábricas de seda de Sevilla_. The growing of mulberry trees and rearing of silkworms was also busily pursued in the kingdom of Aragon, which formerly included Cataluña, Valencia, and the Balearic Islands. Hence, though somewhat gradually, it seems to have spread to Seville. In the ordinances of this town relating to her weavers of silks and velvets, and which are dated 1492, it is stated that her _oficiales de texer sedas_ were so few that, as a stimulus to augment their number, all who wished might join them in the practice of this craft without examination. Between that year and 1502 they evidently multiplied, since subjects of examination of no easy character are formulated in the ordinances of this later date, examined and confirmed by Ferdinand and Isabella. Nevertheless, it is impossible to credit the assertion of some authors that by the year 1519 Seville possessed no less than sixteen thousand looms, affording occupation to one hundred and fifty thousand persons. As Ulloa suggests, it is far more reasonable to suppose that her silk trade grew in proportion as the Spaniards continued to discover, and to open up to commerce, new regions of America; and that it reached the maximum of its development in the reigns of Charles the Fifth and Philip the Second. The same writer attributes its decline and downfall to the "piracies and insults" of Spain's foreign enemies and rivals. The price of Seville silks was also raised and the trade injuriously affected, by the imposition, at the close of the reign of Philip the Second, of the onerous _millones_ tax, as well as of the minor dues denominated _alcavalas_ and _cientos_; while finally, when Philip the Third was on the throne, the expulsion of the Moriscos precipitated the utter ruin of this industry. [Illustration: VI THE "BANNER OF SAINT FERDINAND" (_Seville Cathedral_)] The Spanish government proved quite incapable of grappling with these wrongs and difficulties. There were, however, numerous attempts to legislate in the direction of reform. Measures forbidding the introduction of silk proceeding from abroad received the royal signature in 1500, 1514, 1525, 1532, and 1552. A petition to the same effect, framed by the procurators of the Cortes, was presented to the king in 1618, urging that no skein or twisted silk proceeding from the Portuguese Indies, China, or Persia should be imported into Spain in view of the damage thus inflicted on the silk-producing regions of Granada, Murcia, and Valencia. At the same time the petitioners suggested that if it should be found impracticable to suppress such importation altogether, the foreign silk should be required to be in the form of stuffs already woven. Matters grew steadily worse all through the reign of Philip the Fourth. The principal cause of this additional decline lay in the constant depreciation of the national currency, which kept at an intolerable pitch of dearness the price of home-grown silk, and enabled foreign traders to undersell the Spaniard. This will be better understood if we consider that the composition of the copper and silver coinage was often tampered with by Crown and Parliament in such a way as to allow the foreigner to rid the country of nearly all her gold and silver, leaving in exchange only the baser metal. At intervals of a few years, proclamations were issued altering the values of the coinage in the most capricious and disastrous terms, and Ulloa mentions as still in circulation in the eighteenth century, _ochavos_ of Philip the Third which bore inscribed the value of twelve _maravedis_ in Roman numerals, and also (owing to the restamping of the coins by order of the Crown), the second and successive value of eight _maravedis_, marked in ordinary numerals. In fact, so grave were these abuses, that the arbitrary value imposed upon the coins in question grew to be six times that of the actual value of the metal. At the close of the seventeenth century, when Charles the Second was on the throne, a couple of well-meant and not completely ineffectual attempts were made to bring about a fresh revival in the growth of Spanish silk. On November 18th, 1683, the silk-makers of Toledo, Seville, Granada, and Valencia were summoned to a council at Madrid, and the dispositions they then agreed upon received the royal signature and became law on January 30th of the following year, the pragmatic which embodied them being issued to the public ten days later. It was commanded by this document that all the silk produced at the above-named towns should be examined and approved by the _veedores_ or _mayorales_, and bear the official stamp which guaranteed their quality. The effect of these ordinances was further strengthened by a Crown _cedula_ of July 15th, 1692, confirming other dispositions dated 1635; and later still, in June of 1699, a law was passed prohibiting the exportation of all home-made silks to other countries. The accession of the Bourbon kings heralded a further slight improvement. Philip the Fifth had barely mounted the throne when the Junta de Comercio was revived by his command, and drafted various laws for bettering this and other industries. Royal decrees of June 20th and September 17th, 1718, renewed in June of 1728 and in April and August of 1734, forbade the introduction of silk and certain other stuffs from China and the rest of Asia--a measure which was made more strict as time went on, the prohibition being extended to linens and cottons produced and printed in Africa or Asia or imitated in Europe. In the meantime another _cedula_, signed at the Escorial on November 10th, 1726, had ordered that every Spanish citizen of either sex should dress exclusively in silks or cloths of Spanish manufacture. These laws, though founded on mistaken principles, undoubtedly restored the national silk trade for a while. In 1713 the silk looms of Seville had increased to four hundred and five, and by 1732--in which year the Court resided at that capital--to a thousand; but on the return of the royal family to Madrid, and the declaration of war against England in 1739, the number dropped to a hundred and forty. In 1743 an effort was made to remedy this by exempting Seville silks from payment of the _alcabalas_ and _cientos_, and further support was rendered in 1749 by Ferdinand the Sixth, who lowered to eighty _maravedis_ per pound weight the tax on Spanish silks exported from the kingdom, and issued, in 1752, 1753, and 1756, additional decrees intended to encourage and protect this industry. In 1748 the same ruler established the celebrated silk factories of Talavera de la Reina, sparing no pains to bring their products to a level with the best in Europe, and choosing as director of the works a thoroughly proficient Frenchman named Jean Roulière, a native of Nîmes, who was assisted by a carefully selected staff of experts, also principally foreigners. About the end of the century Laborde described this enterprise as follows:--"The manufactures of silks, gildings, and galloons are highly useful and important.... There has also been raised at Cervera, a village two leagues from Talavera, another large edifice, in which are twelve mills for twisting the silk, four large windles for winding it, and six machines for doubling it. This complicated machinery is put in motion by four oxen, and the various processes of twisting, winding, and doubling seven thousand and seventy-two threads of silk are thus performed at once. "This establishment was rapidly augmented under the direction of Roulière and the other French mechanics who succeeded him in its superintendence. So successful were their labours that, in a short time, stuffs were fabricated in Spain not unworthy of competition with those of France, the demand for which was found to diminish. In 1762, Roulière being obliged to withdraw from this manufactory, the care of it was committed to a company to the exclusion of almost all the French who had previously assisted in its establishment. The consequences of this change were soon discovered; the manufacture declined, the stuffs deteriorated, and the consumption diminished; the artisans were discharged from the loom, and everything threatened the total subversion of the establishment, when the king interposed, and again extended to it his care and protection, It has since been yielded to the incorporated society of the Gremios at Madrid, but has never recovered its former splendour and prosperity. "Taffetas, satins, silk cloths, and serges are fabricated here, as are silk ribbons, plain and figured velvets, stuffs of silk and silver, stuffs of silk and gold, galloons, gold and silver fringes, and silk stockings. The factory employs three hundred and sixty-six looms, and affords occupation to two thousand persons. There are annually consumed in it about a hundred thousand pounds of silk, four thousand marks of silver, and seventy marks of gold. "Some of the stuffs issuing from the manufactory are beautiful and good, but they want the gloss and lustre of the French stuffs; and as they are dearer than those, with all the contingent expense of commission and transportation, they are far from being able to maintain a competition with them. The stockings are of the vilest quality, being thin, shaggy, and ill-dressed. The greater part of these articles are exported to the Spanish colonies." Further efforts to improve the quality of Spanish silk were made by Charles the Third, in whose reign the silk looms of Seville increased to four hundred and sixty-two for weaving larger pieces, sixty-two for silver and gold galloons, three hundred and fifty-four for finely-worked ribbons, twenty-three for small pieces of gold and silver stuffs, eight for fringes and _cintas de rizo_, sixty-three for stockings, sixty-five for _redecillas_, three for caps, and one thousand three hundred and ninety-one for ordinary ribbon. At the same time, according to Ulloa, one hundred thousand pounds of silk required to be annually brought to Seville to supply these factories. "In its fortunate days," wrote Alexander de Laborde, "Seville had many splendid manufactures; it wove silks of every kind, gold and silver tissues, linens, and cottons.[14] A memoir presented in 1601 by the seventeen companies of arts and trades of this city gives us an idea of the brilliant state of those manufactures: the amount of the silk looms is there stated to be 16,000, and the persons of both sexes employed at them, 130,000. These manufactures had greatly declined even in the last century. We learn from Francisco Martínez de la Mata, in his _Discursos_, published in 1659, according to a memoir presented to the king by an _alcalde_ of the silk manufactures of Seville, that there were no more, at that time, than sixty-five looms, that a great number of persons having no work had quitted the town, that the population had decreased a third, and that many houses were shut up, uninhabited, and going to ruin. The silk manufactures began to look up again in the eighteenth century, but they are very far below the brilliant state they formerly displayed: in 1779 there were 2318 silk looms in Seville, including those for stockings, slight stuffs, and ribbons."[15] [14] In former times, linens and cottons painted, stencilled, or stamped with decorative patterns from an iron or boxwood matrix, were considered to be luxurious fabrics, and are denounced as such in the sumptuary pragmatic (quoted by Miquel y Badía) issued by Jayme the Conqueror in A.D. 1234: "Item statuimos quod nos nec aliquis subditus noster non portet vestes _incisas_, _listatas_, vel trepatas." Latterly, these kind of stuffs were made in great quantities at Barcelona, and exported to other Spanish provinces, as well as to America. "Several manufactures of printed linens are established here," wrote Swinburne, in 1775, "but have not yet arrived at any great elegance of design or liveliness of colour." The manuscript (dated about A.D. 1810) attached to my copy of Pigal's plates of Spanish costume, says that the _pañoleta_ or _fichu_ (neckerchief) of the women of Cartagena in their gala-dress was at that time of "mousseline blanche, quelquefois brodé, et três souvent n'est qu'un mouchoir d'indienne des fabriques de Barcelonne, avec une brodure en fleurs rouges, le fond blanc et parsemé de petits bouquets." The same manuscript describes the dress of a cook at Granada:--"Le jupon (_refajo_), qui est toujours três court, est en hiver de laine avec une garniture au bas: en été il est en indienne. Cette _indienne_ est une sorte de percale ou toile de coton peinte, dont il y a plusieurs fabriques en Catalogne. On en exportait autrefois une quantité, immense que l'on portait dans les Amériques Espagnoles; c'est ce qui lui a fait donner le nom d'indienne." From the same source we learn respecting another cotton fabric, which might easily be thought by the unwary reader of to-day to have been of Spanish manufacture, that "l'habitant de Mahon fait en été un grand usage de l'étoffe des Indes appelée _nankin_. Cette étoffe n'est connue dans plusieurs parties de l'Espagne que sous le nom de _Mahon_." [15] In 1799 the Marquis of Monte-Fuerte declared the silk of Seville to be of as fine a quality as that of Valencia and Carmona. (_Discurso sobre el plantío de moreras en Sevilla y sus inmediaciones._) Turning our attention from Seville to Granada, we find that the fame of the silks produced in this latter city, or rather kingdom (for silk was raised in great quantities throughout the entire region) extended as far abroad as Constantinople, and that they were used in Greece in the reign of Comnenus. The Muzarabs, who petitioned Alfonso el Batallador to bring an expedition to their rescue and wrest Granada from her Mussulman lords, reported to him in enthusiastic terms the quality and abundance of the silk of that locality, and many a document and chronicle record its vogue among the Spanish Christians of the Middle Ages. The Alcaicería or silk-market of Granada is referred to by various of the older writers, including Marineus Siculus, Navagiero, Lalaing, Bertaut de Rouen, and Alvarez de Colmenar. The name itself is stated in Fray Pedro de Alcalá's _Vocabulario_ to be derived from the Arabic _al-aqqisariya_, meaning "an exchange for merchants." Buildings, or groups of buildings, of this kind existed both in Spain and in Morocco. Early in the eighteenth century a Spanish friar wrote of Fez; "The Moorish portion of this city is the Alcaicería. It stands nearly in the centre of the level part of the town, and near the principal mosque, resembling a town in itself, with solid walls and doors, and chains across it to keep out the horses. It consists of fifteen streets of wealthy shops, stretching without a break, and what is sold in them--whether of linen, silk, or cloth--is of the richest and the noblest quality." Very similar are the descriptions relative to the Alcaicería of Granada in the olden time. Bertaut de Rouen wrote of it, and of the adjoining Zacatin; "En retournant devers la porte d'Elvire est le _Zacatin_, qui est une rue paralelle au Canal du Darro, longue et assez estroite, qui vient de la place de la Chancellerie à la place de _Vivarambla_. Dans cette rue sont tous les orfévres, les marchands de soie, de rubans, de vermillon, qui croist assez près de Grenade, dont on fait là grand trafic. C'est une plante semblable à celle du Safran, dont il y a beaucoup dans ces quartiers-là. "Dans cette mesme rue du _Zacatin_ donne d'un costé l'_Alcayzerie_, qui est une espèce de Halle couverte à la manière de la Foire Saint Germain, où sont plusieurs boutiques remplies des Marchandises les plus curieuses. Ils disent que cette place, aussi bien que beaucoup d'autres des autres Villes d'Andalousie, se nomme ainsi à cause d'un privilege que donnerent les Cesars aux Arabes de travailler en Soye." Alvarez de Colmenar wrote of the same edifice, a few years later than Bertaut; "Vis-à-vis de la Chancellerie on voit une maison fort longue, nommée Alcacéria (_sic_), partagée en près de deux cent boutiques, où les Marchands ètalent tout sorte de marchandises, particulièrement des étoffes en soie." On the authority of the same writer, the makers and the dyers of silk-stuffs inhabited another quarter of the town. "Le dernier quartier de la Ville, nommé Antiqueruela, est dans une plaine, peuplé de gens venus d'Antechera, d'où lui vient le nom qu'il porte. Ses habitants sont pour la plupart ouvriers en soie, tisseurs de satin, de tafetas, de damas; teinturiers qui teignent en pourpre, en écarlate, et autres ouvriers semblables." He adds; "Il s'y fait grand commerce d'étoffe de soie; et la Ville et les environs sont pour cet effet plantés d'un si grand nombre de meuriers, que le seul impôt sur les feuilles de ces arbres vaut annuellement trente mille écus au Roi." About the beginning of the nineteenth century Laborde wrote: "The Alcaicería is in the Bivarambla: it is merely an immense edifice, without ornament, covering a considerable extent of ground. The Moors used it as a bazaar, and a good many tradesmen still carry on their business there. It contains about two hundred shops." It remained, in fact, in much the same condition as when the Moors possessed it, until the year 1843, when a fire, which broke out on the night of July 20th of that year, reduced it almost totally to ashes. To-day the historic silk trade is no more; but the Alcaicería, consisting of a chapel and a street which call to mind the graceful and effective decoration of its predecessor, has been rebuilt with taste and accuracy from the model of the old. The _Ordenanzas_ of Granada city, the first edition of which was published in 1552, and the second in 1678, inform us very closely of the silk trade of that region in the times immediately succeeding the reconquest. Having regard to the fact that the silk was now spun in skeins in an imperfect manner, "with much deceit and trickery," and that its quality was of the worst (Ordinance of A.D. 1535), nobody was allowed henceforth to spin silk in or about Granada without being qualified through examination by the _veedores_ or inspectors appointed for this purpose by the corporation. The inspector might charge for this examination a fee of twenty-five _maravedis_, and if the candidate were successful he was permitted to set up his loom forthwith, and engage two lads or girls, not less than twelve years old, to fetch and carry at his wheel, "so that the work may be continued all day long." Minute instructions follow as to the method of spinning the silk, wages, the treatment of apprentices, and other detail. Many of these narrow points of city law were troublesome and senseless, and must have tended to destroy the trade. For instance, the earnings of a master-spinner, after paying the lads or girls who worked for him, were limited to a maximum of two _reales_ and a half per day. Women were allowed to spin upon the following conditions: "Also, seeing that there be some honest women here who have no access to a public wheel, but work within their dwellings only, we (_i.e._ the city councillors) command that these may spin per thousand of cocoons, or at a daily wage, not to exceed two _reales_ and a half." The silk was not to be spun with an _escobilla_ or brush, but with the hand, obedient to the rhyming Spanish proverb which says, or used to say, _con escobilla el paño, y la seda con la mano_ ("brush cloth with a brush, and silk with the hand"). The laws affecting the dyers of silk contain the following provisions. They were not to dye with pomegranate or sumach, and if the rind of the former fruit were found in their houses, they were liable to a fine of six thousand _maravedis_ and thirty days' imprisonment. Dyeing with Brazil-wood was also prohibited in the case of silks of finer quality exposed for sale in the Alcaicería. Elaborate directions follow as to the manner of applying the dye. In the case of silks dyed blue or purple, the dyer, before he drew the fabric from the vat, was required to show it to the _alamin_ or inspector of the silk, or else to one of the _veedores_ nominated by the city councillors. The fines imposed upon the dyers who were found to contravene these regulations were distributed in the following proportion: one-third towards repairing the ramparts or _adarves_ of Granada; another third between the _alamin_, the _veedores_, and the other officials who discovered and denounced the culprit; and the remaining third between the magistrates and other authorities who tried and sentenced him. Further, each silk-dyer was to have six _tinajas_, or large jars (see Vol. II., pp. 120 _et seq._), kept continually full of dye, well settled, and liable at any hour to be analyzed by the _veedores_. In dyeing fabrics black, each pound of silk was to be treated with ten ounces of foreign galls of fine quality, two ounces of copperas, and two ounces of gum-arabic. It is evident that nearly all this legislation was of a mischievous character, nor can it cause surprise that certain of the silk-makers of this locality should have been in the habit of committing many kinds of fraud, such as mixing salt or oil with the raw material, in order to increase its weight. Thus, at the same time that the laws themselves were made more numerous and stringent, the more elaborate and various were the shifts invented by the citizens as a means to violate those laws. The inspectors were empowered to enter a shop and examine its contents at any hour. Sometimes, we read, such ingress was denied them, and the door was kept closed, or slammed in their faces. The penalty for this resistance was a fine of two thousand _maravedis_ and twenty days imprisonment. No silk-spinner was allowed to possess more than two spinning-wheels (Ordinance of November 18th, 1501), or to keep these working after midnight, for we are told that in this way the _veedores_ were impeded from paying their official visit in the small hours of the morning, and much "deceit and insult" was the consequence. This Ordinance was confirmed by a royal rescript of 1542. [Illustration: VII VELVET MADE AT GRANADA (_Late 15th Century_)] Another group of _Ordenanzas_ concerns the weavers and the silk-merchants of the Alcaicería, determining that no silk was to be imported from the kingdoms of Valencia or Murcia, and that no merchant was to buy the raw material in order to resell it at a profit, but might only trade in the productions of his own factory. Minute instructions are appended for weaving the various stuffs which had a silk foundation, such as several kinds of damask, scarlet velvet[16] many kinds of satin, velvet dyed with Brazil-wood, taffeta of four leishes, taffeta of two leishes, and _sargas_, or silken serge. Other fabrics mentioned in the Ordinances are _tocas_ called "San Juanes," _campuses moriscos_ (elsewhere "las tocas moriscas que se llaman _campuzas_"), "las tocas moriscas labradas que se dizen _coninos_," _quinales_ and _alfardillas_, _alcaydias_, _tocas de Reyna_, and _espumillas_. Most of these names are of obscure meaning at the present day; but I find that _espumillas_ were silken crape, while _alfardillas_ are defined in the old dictionary of Fathers Connelly and Higgins as "an ancient kind of silken ribbon, or tape." [16] Granada was especially renowned for her velvets (Plate vii.), grounded or relieved, in the oriental manner, with gold or silver. No weaver was allowed to be the owner of more than four looms for making velvet, satin, damask, taffeta, or silken serges. The apprentice to a satin-maker required to be bound for a minimum term of three years, the apprentice to a damask-maker for five years, the apprentice to a taffeta-maker for three years. No weaver was to have more than three apprentices at one time, except in the case of the damask-makers, who might have four. No weaver might dismiss his apprentice without deponing to the cause before the city officers, nor might he accept money, or anything in lieu of money, from an apprentice. Master-weavers were required to pass their examinations in Granada; no other city would suffice. We further learn that many of the apprentices were "of evil character," and damaged velvet stuffs "maliciously, though knowing perfectly how to weave the same." If any worker at this craft fell sick, the guild or _oficio_ was to defray the expenses of his cure, including physic "until he be recovered, provided his be not a venereal ailment, or a wound inflicted with a knife." If he succumbed, the guild was to bury him; and when a master-weaver died, his apprentices were compelled to serve out the rest of their indentures with his widow, or his sons. No slave might learn to weave, even though he should be made a _horro_ or freedman. Other ordinances refer to the officers known as Xelizes and Almotalefes of the silk, the privilege of appointing whom had been conferred upon the town-council by Ferdinand and Isabella. It was the business of the _almotalefe_ or _motalefe_ to collect silk throughout the _alcarias_ or villages of the surrounding districts, and convey it, on behalf of the owner, to a _xeliz_ or "superintendent of the market," attached to one or other of the three Alcaicerías of the kingdom of Granada. The _xeliz_, in his turn, was required to see that the parcel was put up for sale by public auction and disposed of to the highest bidder, after which he handed to the _motalefe_ a certificate of the price obtained, together with the corresponding cash, less certain fees deducted for himself and calculated on a reasonable scale. The number of _motalefes_ throughout this region was evidently large, because in the year 1520 the town-council resolved to appoint as many as "one or two in every town and district." Ordinances to the above effect were notified to the city of Almuñecar, and the towns of Motril, Salobreña, and the Alpujarras; from which we must infer that, though subordinated to the capital herself, these places also were silk-producing centres of no slight importance. Further laws relating to the Xelizes were passed in 1535. On August 13th, the mayor of Granada (described as the "very magnificent" Señor Hernan Darias de Saavedra) summoned before him these officials in order to admonish them respecting certain fresh decisions that had been adopted by the councillors. The said Xelizes were six in all, known severally as Juan Ximenez, Hernando el Comarxi, Juan Infante Zaybona, Juan de Granada, Lorenzo el Mombatan, and Francisco Hernandez Almorox--names which are of interest, as showing that the Morisco element was still of weight among the manufacturers and merchants of Granada. From this time forth, and by the resolution of the town authorities, the Xelizes in question were called upon to lodge a deposit of one thousand ducats as security for the value of the silk entrusted them for sale. Besides this, the silk was to be sold in the Zaguaque--that is, by public auction "as in the time of the Moors," from two in the afternoon onward. The buyer was required to settle his account before ten in the morning of the day next following his purchase. Failing this, the silk was to be again put up for sale, and the costs of this new operation were charged to the defaulting first purchaser, who was further obliged to pay a daily compensation of two _reales_ to the _motalefe_ who had brought the silk to market. Xelizes were strictly forbidden to traffic on their own account, and the fines for infringing any of these laws were heavy. If the infraction were repeated once, the fine was doubled; if twice, in addition to the same amount in money, the transgressor was banished for all his lifetime from Granada. All pieces of stuff which measured ten yards long and upwards, and which it was desired to sell within the capital or district of Granada, required to be marked with the weaver's stamp. If three pieces were sold together, or sent abroad to other places to be sold, they required to be stamped with the city seal at a fee for stamping of two _maravedis_ the piece. This was to be performed by the _veedores_, who were also to keep a register of all the city looms, and pay them a visit of inspection once at least in every month. Finally, one of the most ridiculous and noxious of these ordinances forbade the planting of more mulberry-trees in or about Granada; notwithstanding that it was also forbidden to deal in silk imported from Valencia or Murcia, as the merchants were said to mingle these foreign silks with that of Granada herself, to the detriment of the latter. Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the silk-trade of this capital remained in much the same condition. In 1747 a company was formed at Granada titled the "Compañía Real de Comercio y Fábricas de Granada," and the formal prospectus of this society, of which document a printed copy is in my possession, was embodied in a royal _cedula_ dated in the same year. The preliminary remarks attached to this certificate explain that the people of Granada were now reduced to "the most unhappy state of poverty, insomuch that nowhere is there memory of a greater horde of mendicants." The principal cause of this distress is stated to be the ruin of the silk-trade, in which disaster may be recognised the consequences of the senseless legislation I have instanced in the foregoing paragraphs. The fifteen thousand looms which once upon a time existed there had dwindled to six hundred, and the production of raw silk, from one million pounds a year to one hundred thousand. The new Company was floated with the professed ambition of restoring Granada to a measure of her old prosperity. The capital was half a million _pesos_, divided into shares of two hundred _pesos_ each; but silk and woven fabrics generally, whose value had been suitably appraised by the authorities, were admissible in payment of a share. The holder of each five shares enjoyed one vote, except in the case of founders, who were privileged, as "instruments of this important establishment," to vote upon possession of a single share. If a shareholder wished to sell his interest, the Company was to have the first refusal. It further possessed initially in cash a sum exceeding one hundred and twenty thousand _pesos_--sufficient to construct and work three thousand looms in all; and it engaged, in return for certain favours and exemptions under royal warrant, to set up twenty looms for making serges of fine quality, and eight more in each year, for the space of ten years, for making _carros de oro_, _medios carros_, _anascotes finos_, _christales_, "and every other kind of stuff that is not manufactured in this kingdom." The favours and exemptions thus solicited were of a very mischievous character; for the political mind of Spain was not yet shrewd enough to grasp the fact that where all competition is removed, quality cannot but decline. The products of the Company were freed from paying taxes for ten, or in the case of stuffs whose price amounted to six _reales_ per yard, for twenty years. Similarly, all of its merchandise exported to America "in _flotas_, _galeones_, _registros_, or other craft of those that are permitted," was freed from all except the royal dues on loading, although if shipped to other parts it was to pay a tax of fifty _maravedis_ for each Castilian pound of sixteen ounces. All the materials and ingredients required by the Company in the preparation of its fabrics were exempted from customs and other dues. The Company enjoyed a preferential right to purchase silk throughout the kingdom of Granada, and such as it abstained from purchasing was to be sold by public auction in the Alcaicerías of Granada and Málaga, that of Almería being henceforth suppressed. The Company was also empowered to introduce silk from Murcia and Valencia, and the determination to crush all private enterprise is clearly expressed by the twenty-second heading of this document, which says; "All manufacturers and traders who do not associate themselves with this body shall pay the full tariff of dues at present established." The Company was further empowered to compel the inhabitants of this locality to plant new lots of mulberry-trees, "in view of the notorious fact that not the one-hundredth part remains of all that were delivered by the Royal Census to the occupants of the kingdom of Granada at the time of the reconquest." The Company might further open shops and erect warehouses wherever it chose. Its assets were to enjoy perpetual immunity from seizure by the city council, whether as a loan or otherwise, and none of its servants might be called upon to serve the Crown in the event of war. Very shortly after its foundation, this Company united (each bringing half the capital) with another powerful association titled the Commercial Company of Estremadura, with a view to securing a conjoint Crown monopoly or "exclusive privilege" for Portugal, "to the effect that only these two companies may traffic there in silk, and none other of my vassals or the inhabitants of my dominions may do business, whether in pure silk, or silk mixed with silver or with gold, in the kingdom of Portugal aforesaid." The privilege was granted in these terms, and bears the royal signature, attached at Aranjuez, June 17th, 1747. Its provisions were to last for ten years, and, in return for their concession, the two Companies engaged for a like term of ten years to set up fifty silk-looms annually at Toledo, "over and above the looms at present working in that city." I have not been able to trace, in writing or in print, the subsequent records of the Royal Commercial and Manufacturing Company of Granada, although I have been told that it existed for some time, and that on one occasion there was a riot among the townsfolk in opposition to its tyranny.[17] In 1776 Swinburne wrote of the same region: "The annual produce of silk in this province, before the year 1726, seldom fell short of two millions six hundred thousand pounds weight, whereas now it does not exceed one hundred thousand." Judging from this, the Company does not appear to have prospered. In 1775 the same author wrote of other and more fertile silk-producing districts: "The manufacturers of silk are the cause of a population (_i.e._ in Valencia) that may be reckoned considerable, if compared to that of other provinces of Spain. The produce of this article came this year to one million pounds, but one year with another the average quantity is about nine hundred thousand pounds, worth a doubloon a pound in the country. The crop of silk this last season was very abundant. Government has prohibited the exportation of Valencian raw silk, in order to lay in a stock to keep the artificers constantly employed in bad years; for it has happened in some, that half the workmen have been laid idle for want of materials. As they are not so strict about Murcian silk, which is of an inferior quality, I am told that some from Valencia is sent out of Spain under that denomination. The great nurseries of mulberry-plants in this plain (the Huerta of Valencia) are produced from seed obtained by rubbing a rope of _esparto_ over heaps of ripe mulberries, and then burying the rope two inches under ground. As the young plants come up, they are drawn and transplanted. The trees, which are all of the white kind, are afterwards set out in rows in the fields, and pruned every second year; in Murcia, only every third year, and in Granada never. The Granadine silk is esteemed the best of all; and the trees are all of the black sort of mulberry." [17] Similar companies were formed at Toledo, Zaragoza, Burgos, Seville, and Zarza. For the Crown _cedula_, dated February 10th, 1748, authorizing the Real Compañía de Comercio y Fábricas of Toledo, see Larruga's _Memorias_, Vol. VII., p. 63. According to Laborde, who wrote some twenty-five years later; "The cultivation of silk was formerly very flourishing in Andalusia; the kingdoms of Granada, Seville, and Jaen produced immense quantities of it, but after the conquest of those countries it was burdened with heavy taxes: silk was made subject to ecclesiastical tithes payable in kind; the royal tenth it paid under the Moors was retained, estimated at three _reales vellon_ each pound of silk. To these were added a duty of _tartil_ of seventeen _maravedis_ per pound and duties of _alcabalas_ and _cientos_, fixed at eleven _reales_ thirty-two _maravedís_. There accrued from it a tax of fifteen _reales_ fifteen _maravedís_ for the king, and six _reales_, or thereabouts, for the ecclesiastical tithe, making together twenty-one _reales_ fifteen _maravedís_, or about four shillings and sixpence the pound, which at that time sold only for thirty _reales_, or six shillings and three pence English. The speculators were consequently discouraged, most of them relinquished a labour from which they derived so little profit, and this branch of industry entirely failed in the kingdoms of Cordova and Seville, and afterwards in those of Granada and Jaen. For some time it has been looking up in the two latter kingdoms, but it is very far from what it was under the Moors. The mulberries of Granada and Jaen are black; they are suffered to grow without any care or management, are never lopped or dressed, and look as if they were planted by chance." Of Murcia he wrote; "This province has the raw materials of other manufactures no less important. In the first place, it has a prodigious quantity of silkworms, which are not turned to advantage; most of the raw silks are sold to the neighbouring provinces, and manufactured silk is imported from foreign looms, though the inhabitants might manufacture their own materials, and make it an article of considerable exportation. The town of Murcia is the only place where they work some small quantity; there they manufacture a few slight silks, chiefly taffetas and velvets, but of an inferior quality; and the whole is confined to a small number of looms. They make a much greater quantity of ribbons, in which twelve hundred looms are employed; but they are badly dyed, and have not a good gloss. The Murcians likewise prepare the raw silk, spin, and twist it; they have even a warden, and a great number of masters in this business, and, in spite of its importance, they carry it on without being subject to any superintendence, everyone doing as he pleases. The consequence is that the silk is badly prepared and spun unequally. The threads are collected without any method, sometimes more, sometimes less, and then twisted unequally. They are of course unfit to make fine stuffs, and the trade of Murcia is therefore declining.... Silk stuffs, satins, velvets, and taffetas are made here, but there is no great manufactory of them. They are wrought at private houses, and are but of a middling quality." Toledo silk, including the delicate and costly _cendal_ (see pp. 5, 6) which is mentioned in the sumptuary law, dated 1348, of Alfonso the Eleventh, was largely in demand from early in the Middle Ages till about the sixteenth century. The statements of the older writers as to this neighbourhood are contradictory. According to Damián de Olivares, himself a native of Toledo, this city in the sixteenth century possessed between five thousand five hundred and six thousand looms, consuming annually more than six hundred thousand pounds of raw silk. Other authors estimate the number of her looms at twenty, thirty, or even forty thousand. Writing in our own time, Count Cedillo is responsible for declaring that after the revolt of the Communities, the persons occupied in weaving silk amounted to fifty thousand, all of whom were natives of Toledo and the neighbouring villages; and he adds, perhaps a little rashly, that the velvets, damasks, satins, and taffetas of this locality were "unrivalled, even in comparison with the admirable products of Seville, Cordova, and Granada."[18] Certainly, the silk stockings of Toledo enjoyed a wide-spread fame, and were used, among other distinguished patrons, by the Duke of Guise and by Philip the Second. They were also exported in quantities to America. Banners, altar-fronts, and vestments for religious worship were also made here in large numbers, and of excellent quality, both in silk alone, and in this substance mixed with gold and silver. [18] _Toledo en el Siglo XVI._ Miquel y Badía says that in the fifteenth century Toledo, together with Genoa and Venice, manufactured superb velvets, coloured crimson, blue, purple, or yellow, and figured with pineapples or pomegranates (Plate iv.). The latter tree and fruit are commonly related, in Spain, with the city of _Granada_; but quite apart from this, the pomegranate was formerly regarded as a symbol of fecundity and life. (See Goblet d'Alviella, _La Migration des Symboles_, p. 184, and also Madame Errera's Catalogue, No. 50.) In these velvets the gold thread is woven with consummate skill, and forms, in the costliest and most elaborate specimens, a groundwork of exceedingly small rings. These fabrics were used as hangings for beds and walls, as well as for the clothing of great lords and ladies. Touching the use of silk for certain articles of dress, an amusing story is told in the MS. account of Valladolid, published by Gayangos in the _Revista de España_. "One day, Don Pedro de Medicis is reported to have paid a visit to a married lady, to whom he had presented some damask curtains, and he was wearing at the time some taffeta hose which made a creaking as he walked. The lady came out of her room, and, finding him in one of the lower apartments, exclaimed, 'Why do you come here at such an hour, and with that silk on you which creaks so loudly? Take care my husband does not hear it.' Whereto the gentleman replied; 'Good God, madam, is it possible that the two hundred yards of damask which I gave you for that curtain have made no noise at all, but that a mere four yards of simple taffeta about my breeches should put you in such consternation?'" Laborde wrote of all these manufactures at the time of their decline; "It is easy to estimate their former importance from the loss they sustained by the introduction of foreign merchandise. The memorial states that the consumption of silk was materially diminished, and computes the loss sustained by thirty-eight thousand artisans, from the interruption of their occupation, at 1,937,727 ducats. Symptoms of decay continued to increase till the middle of the sixteenth century, when every vestige of commerce was effaced. "Toledo remained in this state of listless despondence till the present archbishop made a noble effort to revive the love of industry, and to open an asylum for the tribes of mendicants, accustomed from infancy to subsist on precarious bounty. The measure adopted by this prelate was to establish in the Alcazar various branches of manufacture, such as linen, ribbons, cloths, serges, woollen stuffs, and silk stuffs of every description. He introduced also another branch of occupation, appropriated solely to the production of sacerdotal ornaments. In 1791 there were a hundred and twelve manufactories in Toledo, ten for lawns and canvas, twelve for ribbons, fifty-five for silk, and seven for sacerdotal ornaments. At this period the indigent class employed in them amounted to six hundred people, who were instructed in various processes, and were led insensibly to acquire the useful habits of industry. They were taught to draw, to prepare the materials, and to perform the manufacture; and each was destined to pursue some occupation suitable to his age, his inclination, and his abilities." In 1786 Townsend, himself a clergyman, had written of Toledo in far less hopeful terms. "This city, which contained two hundred thousand souls, is now reduced to less than twenty-five thousand. The citizens are fled; the monks remain. Here we find twenty-six parish churches, thirty-eight convents, seventeen hospitals, four colleges, twelve chapels, and nineteen hermitages, the monuments of its former opulence." Townsend's good taste, unusual for a traveller of that time, was horrified at the profanation of the Alcazar, whose "magnificent apartments are now occupied with spinning-wheels and looms, and instead of princes they are filled with beggars. The good archbishop here feeds seven hundred persons, who are employed in the silk manufactory; but unfortunately, with the best intentions, he has completed the ruin of the city; for by his weight of capital, he has raised the price both of labour and of the raw material, whilst, by carrying a greater quantity of goods to the common market, he has sunk the price of the commodity so much, that the manufacturers, who employed from forty to sixty workmen, now employ only two or three, and many who were in affluence are now reduced to penury. "These people are so far from earning their own maintenance, that over and above the produce of their labour they require forty thousand ducats a year for their support." Alvarez de Colmenar, Ricord, Bourgoing, Laborde, and other writers, Spanish and non-Spanish, of the eighteenth century, inserted full descriptions of the silk trade of Valencia and Barcelona. "On y fait," wrote Alvarez de Colmenar of the former of these towns, "de très bonnes draperies, fortes, d'un bon et long usage, et propres à résister à la pluie, et grande quantité d'étoffes de soie; delà vient que les meuriers, dont les feuilles servent à nourrir les vers à soie, y font d'un fort gros revenu pour les habitans." Ricord, in his scarce pamphlet, printed at Valencia in 1793, gives valuable statistics relating to this industry and locality, prefacing his figures arranged in tabular form by the following remarks: "The silk factories of this province form the principal basis of her commerce. They not only consume all the silk which is raised in the kingdom (of Valencia), and which, in 1791, amounted to 581,688 pounds of fine silk, 93,800 of that of Alducar, and 26,115 of _hiladillo_, but they also require to provide themselves from Aragon and other parts of Spain, or even from abroad, seeing that in the year aforesaid more than 37,000 pounds were imported from foreign countries." The tabular statement appended to these observations tells us that in the region of Valencia the looms for making fine and silken fabrics such as velvets, _anascotes_, stockings, handkerchiefs, scarves, garters, and ribbons, gave employment to a total of 9,668 workmen, and were distributed among the towns or villages of Valencia, Alcira, San Felipe, Alcoy, Vilanesa, Denia, Ruzafa, Alicante, Peniscola, Beniganim, Pego, Olivo, Liria, Asuevar, Orihuela, Gandia, Elche, Castellon, and Vall de Almonacid. Riaño admits, however, that this manufacture might have prospered even more, if means had been adopted to suppress certain acts committed by the weavers, spinners, and twisters of the silk. More curious and instructive is the description of the same industry by Jean-François Bourgoing, whose observations, evidently secured at first-hand, are worth translating _in extenso_:-- "What attracted us still more than the fine-art works were the stuffs produced at the silk-factories, which constitute the principal glory of Valencia and contribute to her prosperous condition. We followed all the process of this manufacture, from the cultivation of the mulberry-tree to the weaving of the richest fabrics. I will try, therefore, to give a comprehensive account of them. "Spain, and particularly the kingdom of Valencia, could well export her silk to foreign parts, even after setting apart a quantity sufficient for her factories. Government, however, does not appear to be convinced of this, because it offers constant hindrance to such exportation, or else, when it consents to it, imposes heavy dues. These dues consist of nine _reales_ and a _quartillo_, or nearly two _livres_ seven _francs_ per each Valencian pound of silk, which only weighs twelve ounces, and is worth at least fifteen _livres_ when it is in the raw state. When the silk harvest has been scanty, as in the year 1784, it has been known to fetch eighty _reales_ or twenty _livres_. This year, too, the yield of silk has been so small that the manufacturers of Valencia petitioned Government to allow the introduction, duty-free, of two hundred thousand pounds of it from Italy and France. "In ordinary years, the pound of (raw) silk costs eight _reales_ for twisting and three _reales_ for dyeing in green, blue or other common colours; so that this material, ready to use, costs altogether about seventy-one _reales_ the pound, or seventeen to eighteen francs of our money. "Of course this price varies according to circumstances. One of the causes which exercise the greatest influence on this fluctuation is the harvest of the mulberry. These valuable trees are thickly planted over the champaign of Valencia, and all of them are of the white-leaved kind. This distinction, which would be superfluous in France, is by no means so in Spain, where, in several provinces, as, for instance, the kingdom of Granada, the leaves of the black mulberry are used to nourish the silkworms, and yield almost as handsome a silk as those of the white.[19] [19] "The mulberry of Valencia is the _white_, as being most suitable to a well-watered plain. In Granada they give the preference to the _black_, as thriving well in elevated stations, as more durable, more abundant in leaves, and yielding a much finer and more valuable silk. But then it does not begin bearing till it is about twenty years of age. In this province they reckon that five trees should produce two pounds of silk. "I had the curiosity to examine their method of feeding the silkworms. These industrious spinners are spread upon wicker shelves, which are placed one above the other, all round, and likewise in the middle of each apartment, so as to leave room only for the good woman to pass with their provisions. In one house I saw the produce of six ounces of seed, and was informed that to every ounce, during their feeding season, they allow sixty _arrobas_ of leaves, valued at two pounds five. Each ounce of seed is supposed to yield ten pounds of silk, at twelve ounces to the pound. March 28th, the worms began to hatch, and May 22nd they went up to spin. On the eleventh day, from the time that they were hatched, they slept; and on the fourteenth, they awoke to eat again, receiving food twice a day till the twenty-second day. Having then slept a second time, without interruption, for three days, they were fed thrice a day; and thus alternately they continued eating eight days and sleeping three, till the forty-seventh day; after which they ate voraciously for ten days, and not being stinted, consumed sometimes from thirty to fifty _arrobas_ in four and twenty hours. They then climbed up into rosemary bushes, fixed for that purpose between the shelves, and began to spin. "Upon examination, they appear evidently to draw out two threads by the same operation, and to glue these together, covering them with wax. Thismay be proved by spirit of wine, which will dissolve the wax, and leave the thread. Having exhausted her magazine, the worm changes her form and becomes a nymph, until the seventy-first day from the time that the little animal was hatched, when she comes forth with plumage, and having found her mate, begins to lay her eggs. At the end of six days from this period of existence, having answered the end of their creation, they both lie down and die. This would be the natural progress; but, to preserve the silk, the animal is killed by heat, and the cones being thrown into boiling water, the women and children wind off the silk."--Townsend; _Journey through Spain in the years 1786 and 1787_; Vol. III., pp. 264-266. "The leaves to these mulberry-trees are sold by the load of ten _arrobas_; and the Valencian _arroba_, which is about equal to twenty-seven French pounds, cost, in 1783, about thirty _sols tournois_. "The mulberry leaves are gathered once, twice, or, at most, three times in each year; but it is not often that the two last crops are of as fine a quality or as abundant as the first. The greater part of the year is suited for harvesting the leaves, and this harvesting is carried out progressively as the silkworms copulate, steadily increasing in quantity up to the moment when they build their cocoons. As a rule only the leaves are plucked, the branches being spared as far as possible. Thus despoiled of its verdure in the middle of the finest times of year, although surrounded by a dazzling vegetation, the tree looks like a dry log floating on a green expanse of waters, while the mass of naked trunks which seem to be completely sterile, and which grow more numerous as the season advances, combine to render cheerless a prospect otherwise so fertile and so smiling. Still worse becomes their state when the trees are pruned entirely of their branches--an operation which is performed upon them at least once in every three years. "In the space of ten years the kingdom of Valencia has yielded six million pounds of silk, which makes a yearly average of six hundred thousand pounds; and as the whole of Spain produces a million pounds per annum, we see from this that Valencia alone supplies more than half of the entire quantity. The silks of Valencia are the finest of the whole Peninsula, and fit to be compared with the best of Europe generally, but the spinning is still imperfect, because in Spain there are not, as in France and elsewhere, houses where the women who spin are gathered together under the eye of an inspector to see that all the silk is spun evenly. In the kingdom of Valencia the spinning is distributed among several thousand hands, who introduce six, seven, eight, or even more ends in a thread of silk which should always have the same number; hence the unevennesses in the fabrics which are woven from them, while for the same reason we do not utilize for any delicate work the raw material which we import from Spain. The silk we employ for our costlier fabrics is of the kind which we import from Piedmont and the southern provinces of France. Also, for the last few years we have felt less need of the Valencian silk. The laws prohibiting the exportation of this Spanish silk have stimulated the cultivation of mulberry-trees in Languedoc, where the peasantry, alive to the profit which these trees could render them, have preferred them to other kinds for planting round their property. This is why, in the year 1783, French silk could be bought for a lower price than the Valencian silk purchased in that region, plus the dues levied upon its exportation. I know of a merchant who at this time enjoyed the privilege of exporting for six years a hundred thousand pounds free of all dues, but who throughout the year 1783 was unable to find a purchaser in France. Spain could perhaps remedy the egress of her raw material by further increasing (as, indeed, she daily does) the number of her looms, and by exporting a greater number of her products to her American possessions; but her silk-stuffs will never be perfected until she markets them in foreign countries, where the taste of her customers may tend to better that of her manufacturers. "The silk raised in the kingdom of Valencia is estimated, during an average year, to be worth six or seven millions of _piastres_ (nineteen to twenty-two millions of _livres_.) At the time of my visit to this city, she only employed one half this quantity, although her looms of every size amounted to four thousand. The rest, in spite of the prohibitions laid upon its extraction, is smuggled off to foreign countries, escaping, sometimes to France by way of Barcelona, and sometimes to Portugal by way of Seville and Extremadura. Nevertheless, there is probably more silk in Spain to-day than formerly, and measures have been earnestly adopted to encourage the industries which make use of it. For some time past, silk-looms have been scattered over the whole of Cataluña, and in the kingdoms of Granada, Cordova, Seville, etc., producing handkerchiefs, ribbons, and other stuffs in sufficient quantity to supply, or nearly so, the national market: nevertheless this still left a large market for our stocking-factories of Languedoc. The Spanish Government, by the law of 1778, limited itself to excluding these stockings from forming part of the foreign cargoes to the Colonies, but as they continued to be imported into Spain, this law was readily evaded, since it sufficed to stamp the French article with the mark of a Spanish factory. It would have required an excessive vigilance, almost a positive inquisition, to guard against a fraud of this kind, prompted by the avarice of traders. The Spanish Government next sought, by the law of 1785, to put a stop to it by totally excluding our silk stockings, and this measure, together with the establishment of a number of new looms in Spain, has produced an almost absolute stagnation in the market which our factories of Languedoc had formerly enjoyed in the Peninsula. But let me return now to the Valencian factories. "This city has no one building in which might be performed the whole of the processes through which the silk must pass. Any person who wishes to examine them, must visit several workshops; and this was the course which we adopted, under the guidance of a manufacturer as intelligent as he is amiable, named Don Manuel Foz, a gentleman who has travelled extensively in order to perfect his knowledge of handling silk, and who, among other secrets, has brought from Constantinople the art of watering silken stuffs. As a reward for his activity, he has been appointed _Intendente_ of all the factories of Valencia. "There are hardly any merchants at Valencia who are not more or less concerned in silk-making: indeed, they look upon this industry as quite a _point d'honneur_. Some of them supply with silk no more than four or five looms, which work at their expense, while others have under their control as many as several hundred. "After the silkworm has cleverly built its cell, the first thing to be done is to stifle it before it can pierce the cocoon in search of a new existence. For this purpose the cocoons are thrown into a moderately heated oven; and then, when once the worm is killed, they can be kept without being spun for as long as may be needed. "In order to strip them of their covering of silk, they are thrown into hot water, after which the women workers pick up, and with surprising quickness, the threads of several of them, join them, and deal them out, thus joined, on wheels constructed for this object. On the design of the wheels depends the degree of thoroughness with which the silk is spun; but those which are employed in Spain are generally the most imperfect, as I shall presently explain. "I have already said that the slip of silk should be drawn from at least four cocoons, and even then it only serves for making slender fabrics, such as taffeta or ribbon. We were shown, indeed, a skein which was assured to contain no more than two cocoons; but so slight a slip is of no use at all. Most of them are made from seven or eight cocoons, and two of the former are joined in order to form a thread sufficient to be placed upon the loom. "My readers are sure to know that all woven fabrics consist of two distinct parts, the woof and the warp. The woof is that which is passed by the shuttle from one side of the loom to the other, and which is enchased between the two surfaces formed by the warp. As the woof is subjected to more wear and tear than the warp, it should be stouter. For this reason each of the two ends of which it is composed is twisted separately before the two are twisted together, while for the warp the latter of these processes is sufficient. The result of this difference is that, when looked at beneath the microscope, the thread of the woof has an uneven look, as though it were a small cable, while that of the warp looks flat and smooth, and is therefore adapted to reflect the light, receiving the shiny look which makes a silk-stuff so attractive. "But the beauty of these fabrics depends, above all else, upon the way in which the silk is divided as it is drawn from the cocoon. This first stage of the spinning is performed in one or other of three ways, according to the kind of wheel which is employed for it. The method which the Spaniards have adopted from an early period has the following drawback; that the small threads of six, seven, and eight cocoons which are stripped at the same time, go to form a single thread, and are deposited upon a small spindle without the thread rubbing against another one, which friction serves to lay the little hairs which bristle up, so that the slip of silk thus formed retains a hairy nap and is easily frayed. In the Piedmontese method, on the other hand, each slip is joined to another, and is not drawn apart until it has been twisted round it four or five times. "The third method, known as that of Vaucanson, is more expensive than the one last mentioned. In the wheel invented by Vaucanson, the two silk-slips are reunited after the first twisting, in order to be twisted once again. This operation is called the 'double _croissade_.' "If these threads, thus placed on bobbins, are intended for the woof, they are enchased perpendicularly in a machine consisting of several compartments, in which they are twisted separately. Thence they are transferred to another machine, in which they are twisted all together; after which they are ready for the loom. Those which are destined for the web are not twisted (as I have explained above) until the moment when they are united. Both at Valencia and at Talavera de la Reina these machines, so precious to the weaver's craft, and which economise manual toil, are not unknown.[20] [20] They certainly were not unknown at Valencia. I have before me a copy of the work, _Disertacion descriptiva de la Hilaza de la Seda, segun el antiguo modo de hilar y el nuevo llamado de Vaucanson_, written by the priest Francisco Ortells y Gombau, and published at Valencia in 1783, by order of the Royal Council of Commerce and Agriculture. This book, which clearly sets forth the superiority of Vaucanson's method over those which had preceded it, states that at first the Valencians were strongly opposed to the Vaucanson wheel, believing that it caused a loss and waste of silk. Probably the real reason was that it prevented the manufacturers from adding spurious weight to the silk by mixing it with oil. This practice, says Ortells, was then "so widespread an evil in the kingdom of Valencia, that there is hardly anybody who does not resort to it: notwithstanding it has been so often prohibited by His Majesty, yet openly, where all the world may witness, do the workers spin with much oil added to the silk." The Vaucanson form of wheel was also more expensive. In the region of Valencia its cost was about thirty _pesos_, that of the older wheels being only fifteen or sixteen _pesos_. However, this difficulty was not insuperable, for in the year 1779 the Royal Council of Commerce presented a hundred and twenty Vaucanson wheels to the peasants who had raised a minimum crop of a hundred pounds of silk, requiring, in return, that the recipients of the gift should spin not less than fifty pounds of silk per annum. "At the latter of these towns I had already seen a single toothed-wheel, which set in motion up to a thousand of these tiny bobbins on which are wound the twisted slips of silk. The wheels I saw at Valencia were smaller, because in this city there is not, as there is at Talavera, a royal factory self-contained within a single building. At Valencia each manufacturer, in order to carry out these various processes, requires to deal with workmen and machines distributed through several quarters of the town, and chooses from among them such as he best prefers. "Nothing can be simpler than the working of these silk-twisting machines, when once the toothed-wheel has set them going. The perpendicular movement of all these little bobbins is looked after by women, and even children.[21] [21] At the time when Vaucanson's wheels began to be used in Spain, silk was spun by men all over the Peninsula, except in the immediate neighbourhood of Valencia (Orteils; _Hilaza de la Seda_, pp. 134 _et seq._) In every other region devoted to this industry such as the valley of the Jucar and the Huertas of Orihuela and Murviedro, as well as in the factories of Toledo, Seville, Granada, Cordova, Jaén, Baeza, Talavera, and Priego, the spinning was performed by men exclusively. Women, however, were often engaged in harvesting the cocoons. "If they should happen to clog, a touch of the finger disengages them. If one of the slips should break, the harm is mended in a trice: the practised fingers of the machinist pick up the broken ends with marvellous despatch, tie them together by an imperceptible knot, and the bobbin which was thus delayed loses no time in overtaking its neighbours. "The slips of silk, before being twisted two by two, are put through another process which I ought to mention. When they are still in skeins they are spread upon a large tub in which is a quantity of viscous substances heated to boiling point, the gases from which tend to make them adhere to one another. This is termed _passer à la brève_. "Thence they are removed to the machine for twisting them. The silk, on issuing from this machine, is called organzine; and it is only when it is in this state that it can be exported from Piedmont, where the twisting process was better executed than elsewhere, until the time when it was rendered yet more perfect by Vaucanson.[22] This clever mechanic has combined all possible advantages relating to the business of the silk-weaver. His system, and no other, is practised in the Lyons factories; but these wheels _à double croissade_ are only available for silk produced in France; since that which is exported from abroad and which is principally used in these factories, requires to be reduced to organzine before it can again be taken out of the country. [22] "I should here remark that the silk which is spun and twisted according to the method of Vaucanson, forms a fabric a third part closer and stronger than ordinary silk-stuffs." "In this respect Spain possesses a sensible advantage over other manufacturing nations; since she raises a greater quantity of silk than she is able to consume, and could easily put it through the most advanced and perfect processes; in spite of which she has clung for ages to her faulty method. The present government has attacked this method by the only means efficient to bring about a change; that is, the slow but certain influence of persuasion. In 1781 the Count of Floridablanca contracted with a French merchant settled in Madrid, that he should supply a hundred _tours_ of the Vaucanson pattern for spinning silk, first to the Murcian factories (of which province the Count was a native), next to the Valencian, and subsequently to any others that might wish for them; and with this object he granted to the merchant in question the privilege of exporting, free of duty, six hundred thousand pounds of silk in six years. Nevertheless, it is possible that this measure may yet remain fruitless for many years owing to the apathy of the Spanish manufacturers, who were loth to use a finer, closer quality of silk, because it must be woven with greater care owing to its containing three ends instead of two, the work being greater on this account without a corresponding increase in the gain. It has also been found necessary to employ Frenchmen in the earliest trials made in Spain of this new method. "The success of the Spaniards should not be counted on, if we are to judge of it by a factory, which was founded some years since at _La Milanesa_, a league's distance from Valencia, by an intelligent man named La Payessa.[23] [23] This man, Joseph Lapayese or La Payessa, did not initiate Vaucanson's method in this region. He succeeded a Frenchman named Reboul, who, in 1769, and holding privileges from the Crown, began to work with Vaucanson wheels at Vilanesa, near Valencia--the same place which Bourgoing calls _La Milanesa_. Both the king and his minister of finance, Don Miguel de Muzquiz, were keenly interested in these experiments, and Muzquiz, who owned an estate near the town of Sueca, in the same neighbourhood, imported four more of the new wheels there, under Reboul's direction. This craftsman, however, was not successful. Lapayese, who came after him and enjoyed the same Crown privileges, made considerably better progress, his efforts being seconded by the Royal Junta, the archbishop, and other bodies or individuals of Valencia, who awarded prizes of wheels and money to the best workers in the new style. "He introduced the method of Vaucanson, but when I went to see his factory he had not seen his way to recover the money which this improvement had cost him. He employed barely two hundred persons for the most important work; nothing more was done than to spin the silk, divide it, and convert it into organzine. Thus treated, it cost from fifty to sixty _reales_ more per pound than that which is prepared according to the Spanish method, so that its success was but small. "I shall not describe in detail either the method of dyeing the silk, or that of weaving it. The first of these operations is readily imagined; the second is hard to understand, and still more so to explain, unless one is assisted by engravings. I will merely observe that all silk is dyed in skeins, just before it enters the loom. If it be required occasionally to dye it after it is woven, this is only when the silk is spotted, or when the dyeing of the skeins has proved a failure. At the time of my visit to Valencia, there were a hundred and seventeen master-dyers in that city, but not all of them were working. "The stuffs in which the factories of Valencia are most successful are principally of the smooth sort; they also make there handsome damask _brochés_ with large flowers for wall-hangings; but generally all that is undertaken is by order of the Court, Madrid, and the provinces. The Valencians follow as closely as possible the rapidity with which the French designs are changed, and those who profess to invent new ones are but copying the French ones in a greater or less degree. Notwithstanding, the Valencian Fine-Arts Academy is taking serious steps to form designers, and a school has been founded which has already developed able pupils--amongst others, a young man called Ferrers, who had died a short while before our arrival at the city, and some of whose designs of flowers we had occasion to admire. "But the process in which the Valencians particularly excel is that of watering stuffs, which M. Foz has rendered absolutely perfect. He gave us a clear account of this process, which consists in passing a cylinder over the stuff to be watered, this cylinder being pressed upon by a heavy mass moved to and fro by a mule which draws a lever round and round. The stuff is folded in the manner of a closed jalousie, and these folds require to be often varied so as to distribute the undulations evenly. M. Foz admitted that the shape and the arrangement of these undulations are more or less a matter of chance, but he proved to us that it is possible to influence them to some extent by moistening the stuff in a certain manner and direction, and this is the particular secret which he alone possesses in the whole of Spain. The excellence of this method is demonstrated by the beauty of the watered silk which issues from these presses. M. Foz himself set us to judge of this by asking us to compare the blue ribbon of the Order of Charles the Third, watered by himself, with those of the Order of the Holy Spirit. The comparison, I must admit, was far from advantageous to these last." The subsequent vicissitudes of the Valencian silk trade are indicated by Laborde, who wrote, some few years later than the conscientious and observant author of the _Nouveau Voyage en Espagne_:-- "The mulberry-trees are of great importance; the fields of Valencia are covered with them, particularly in the environs of that town, in the dale of Elda, in the county of Carlet, in almost all the places situated on the sea coast, etc. There are white mulberry-trees, which are lopped every two years. "The leaves of these trees serve as nourishment to silkworms, which are raised almost everywhere in the kingdom of Valencia. Algemesi, Alcira, Carcagente, Castillo of San Felipe, the county of Carlet, Undasuar, Gandia, Denia, Orihuela, and all the villages near the sea are places which produce the greatest quantity. "The silk made from them is the finest in Spain. It would be equal to the best and finest silks of Europe, if the Valencians, in spite of the vivacity of their imagination, did not obstinately persist in their old routine in the skeining; for in the skein they put an undetermined number of threads. The government has hired a man who has the most experience in this kind of work; but in vain does he endeavour to instruct them, since the manufacturers continue their bad custom just the same. The quantity of silk wound annually is, on an average, about 1,500,000 pounds of twelve Valencian ounces (1,312,500 pounds of sixteen ounces avoirdupois). It is commonly sold raw for fifty reals of vellon a Valencian pound, which gives a total of 75,000,000 reals of vellon (£731,250).... "Silk is twisted in different places in the kingdom of Valencia, for which purpose machines and mills are established at Gandia, San Felipe, Carcagente, Orihuela, and Valencia. The most important establishment of this kind is at La Milanesa, near the last mentioned town. Nevertheless, these machines are not able to furnish as much as the manufactures of the country require. Part of the silk is sent to Priego and Toledo in Andalusia, whence it is returned into the kingdom of Valencia to be worked.... "A great many impediments are thrown in the way of the exportation of silk, which is only allowed for six months after the harvest. If in that period the national manufacturers want it, they are at liberty to take it from the merchants who have bought it, on reimbursing them the purchase-money together with six per cent. interest. The consequence is that the merchants, uncertain whether they will be allowed to export the silk which they have purchased, no longer take any foreign commissions for it, and so this branch of exportation has fallen. Besides this, a duty has been laid upon the silk sent out of the kingdom, of nine reals of vellon and one quartillo (1s. 11-1/4d. sterling) on every pound of twelve Valencian ounces, which is almost a fifth of its value. This is another obstacle to the exportation of it. A very small quantity, twisted and dyed, is sent into Portugal. "Generally 1,500,000 pounds of silk are made annually, of which 1,100,000 are consumed in the province, and 400,000 pounds are exported to Talavera de la Reina, Requeña, Toledo, Granada, Seville, Priego, and Cataluña. From this results a product of 20,000,000 reals (£208,333, 6s.)." Of the city of Valencia, Laborde wrote:-- "The manufactories of silk are the most considerable. They employ nearly 25,000 persons, and make taffetas, serges, silks, satins, plain damasks, striped, printed, of one colour and of mixed colours, full velvets, flowered velvets, plain and of various colours. The plain stuffs are those in which they succeed best. There are also fine damasks made and worked with large flowers." According to the same writer, the manufacture at Valencia of silk stockings, galloons, silk ribbon, handkerchiefs, and sashes revived to such an extent, that in the year 1799 the looms for producing these articles were 423 more than they had been in 1769. "There are 3618 silk looms, which work about 800,000 pounds of silk annually; the handkerchiefs, sashes, and other little articles of lace consume 100,000 pounds." [Illustration: VIII THE DAUGHTERS OF PHILIP THE SECOND (_By Sanchez Coello. Prado Gallery_)] Equally as instructive is Laborde's account of Barcelona.[24] After remarking that the decay in her manufactures lasted from the end of the sixteenth century till the middle of the eighteenth, he continues:--"They are at present in a very flourishing state, and are more numerous and varied than ever.... There are 524 looms of silk stuffs, and 2700 of ribbons and silk galloon. The silk works consist of taffetas, twilled and common silks, satins, and velvets of every kind and colour. These are mixed with gold and silver. Gold cloths and brocades are also made there.[25] The manufactures are not carried on by companies, but dispersed among the workmen themselves, by which perhaps the qualities may in some degree be injured. It is remarked that the stuffs would be better if they were closer, for their texture is commonly loose; they are also different in the gloss, which is seldom fine, and is never equal to that in the manufactures of France. Another fault in all these stuffs is the imperfect preparation of the silk, which leaves it nearly always shaggy: the cause of this is the silk being spun or twisted in an uneven manner. The same unpleasant effect is observed in the silk stockings. They cannot be fine, their stitches being uneven, and often large and shaggy. They do not last long, and are as dear as the French stockings after the duty on their entrance into Spain has been paid. [24] The art of weaving silk appears to have found its way into Barcelona comparatively late, for the veil-makers did not form a guild of their own till A.D. 1553, the velvet-makers till 1548, the silk-twisters till 1619, and the dyers of silk till 1624. [25] Brocade (Spanish _brocado_ or _brocato_) may be generally described as a silk-stuff woven with devices or raised figures in gold and silver thread, or either of these metals separately (Plate viii.). This costly fabric, which may be said to have superseded the earlier kinds of cloth of gold, was greatly in vogue in older Spain, especially throughout the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries. It is constantly referred to by her writers ("No siendo nueva la que prohibe las telas de oro, los _brocados_, y tabies."--Fernandez Navarrete; _Conservacion de Monarquías_, p. 231), and denounced by her priests (Fray Luis de León, "Y ha de venir la tela de no sé donde, y _el brocado de mas altos_, y el ambar que bañe el guante"), or in the pragmatics of her kings (_e.g._ that of September 2nd, 1494, and of 1611: "Está prohibido todo género de colgaduras, tapicerias sillas, coches, y literas de _brocados_, telas de oro ó plata.... Asi mismo se prohiben bordaduras en el campo de los doseles y camas; pero no en las cenefas, que podrán llevar alamares, y fluecos de oro, ó plata, ó _brocado_"). Brocade was made in Spain at Toledo, Barcelona, Seville, Valencia and elsewhere, but as a rule it could not be compared in quality with that of Genoa or Venice. A cheaper, though showy and attractive modification of brocade was brocatel, in which the silk was mixed with common thread or flax. According to the Dictionary of the Spanish Academy, this commoner fabric was used for hangings for churches, halls, beds, etc., and a document of 1680 tells us that the price of brocatel made at Granada, and containing two colours, was twenty-two _reales_ the yard. "At Barcelona, laces, blonds, net-work, and tapes employ about twelve thousand persons. Galloons, laces, and gold and silver fringes, are likewise made here; but these are of no great importance. Silk, gold, and silver embroideries are very common, and the embroiderers are so numerous that they are to be found in every street. "_Silk Stuffs._--These are manufactured at Manresa, Cardona, and Mataró, which has forty-eight looms; but principally at Barcelona, where there are five hundred and twenty-four. There they make velvets, satins, damasks, silks, taffetas, and gold and silver stuffs. The town of Barcelona alone uses annually 300,000 pounds of raw silk. "_Taffetas, Handkerchiefs, and silk sashes._--They make a great quantity of these at Barcelona, where there are a good many little manufactories of this kind. There are a hundred and fifty looms at Reus, and six hundred at Manresa. At the last place sixty thousand dozen handkerchiefs are made, which take about seventy thousand pounds of raw silk. "_Silk twisters._--There are some of these in several towns, and a great many in Barcelona. There are eighteen frames at Mataró, which twist, one year with another, one hundred and twenty-four quintals of silk; and thirty-seven at Tarragona, which twist eleven thousand quintals." Elsewhere in the course of his exhaustive tomes, Laborde sums up the general revival of the Spanish silk-trade in the following terms:-- "Silk stockings are woven at Málaga, Zaragoza, Valencia, and at various other places in the kingdom of Valencia; at Valdemoro, and at Talavera de la Reina in New Castile; also in different parts of Cataluña, more especially at Mataró, Arenys del Mar, and Barcelona. The most extensive manufacture is carried on at the latter city, where the number of frames amounts to nine hundred. In the city of Mataró are fifty-two, in Valencia one hundred and fifty, and nearly as many in Talavera. The stockings made in Spain are of a loose texture; owing to the improper method in which silk-throwsting is conducted, they are badly dressed and worse glossed. The Spanish people themselves prefer French stockings, and most of those manufactured in the country are exported to America. "Ribbons hold a distinguished place among the manufactured articles of Spain. Some few are woven at Jaen, Granada, and Cordova; but more at Talavera. Cadiz has but twenty ribbon-looms, Manresa five hundred, Mataró eighty, Vich twenty-two, Requeña two hundred, Valencia four hundred, Murcia twelve hundred, and Barcelona nearly three thousand. These looms are not in factories, but individually dispersed. The Spanish ribbons are in general thin and flimsy, have little lustre, and their colours are neither brilliant nor permanent. Ribbons are made of floss-silk at Toledo, where there are about twelve looms, and at Manresa, where there is a greater number.[26] [26] Towards the nineteenth century, ribbon was a great deal worn upon, or together with, the regional costumes of the Spanish women; for instance, on the gala bodice or _cotilla_ of the _hortelana_ of Valencia, who further used it to make fast her _alpargatas_ or sandals, described in the manuscript account attached to Pigal's plates as "espèce de cothurnes, attachés avec des rubans en soie ou fil bleu ou rouge." The same fabric served the peasant woman of Carthagena for securing the sleeves of her gala camisole, for lacing the bodice of the woman of Iviza, and in the other Balearic Islands, for tying the _rebocillo_ or _rebociño_ beneath the chin. Also it was with ribbon that the servant-girls of Granada suspended a cross round their necks, that the _charra_ of Salamanca (Plate ix.) trimmed her hat, that the women of Madrid, La Mancha, and Andalusia bound up their knots of hair (_moños con cinta_), and that, in some localities, even ladies of the highest class secured their shoes about the lower leg and ankle. [Illustration: IX A _CHARRA_ OR PEASANT WOMAN (_Salamanca, A.D. 1777_)] "Silk taffetas, serges, and other articles, such as common and figured satins, damasks, and plain and flowered velvets, are made at Jaen, Granada, Murcia, Valencia, and the adjacent villages; at Málaga, Zaragoza, Toledo, Requeña, Talavera de la Reina, Mataró, Manresa, Cardona, and Barcelona. The silk-trade of Jaen and Granada is at present in a very languishing state; the manufacture of Murcia is dwindled to a few individual looms. At Toledo are fifty looms, fifty at Mataró, forty at Málaga, six hundred at Requeña, four hundred at Talavera, which consume annually two hundred thousand pounds of silk; five hundred at Barcelona, which annually manufacture, in conjunction with those of Cardona and Manresa, about three thousand pounds weight of silk; and in the city of Valencia are three thousand, whose annual demand of silk is eight hundred thousand pounds, while twenty-two thousand persons are employed in the trade. In Zaragoza are sixty looms, which consume fifty thousand pounds of silk; but taffetas only are manufactured there. The cities of Toledo and Talavera de la Reina are the only places where the looms are collected together in factories: in all other places they are separated, and are found individually at the houses of the respective weavers. "A great portion of the silks manufactured in Spain are stout and excellent, but they are destitute of the brilliancy observable in French silks. The damasks made at Valencia are extremely beautiful, and in that city they excel in the art of mixing silk and mohair, and produce mohair stuffs which appear to be superior to those of France and England. "Quantities of silk handkerchiefs and bands are manufactured at Reus, Manresa, and Barcelona. Reus had five hundred looms, Manresa six hundred, and annually made sixty thousand dozen handkerchiefs; Barcelona, a much larger quantity. "At Barcelona is a very considerable manufacture of white, coloured, plain, and figured gauzes. "The art of silk-throwsting tends greatly to improve the silk manufactures in Spain. Machines invented in other countries have been adopted here, and in many places profitable changes and corrections have taken place in the trade. Silk is principally thrown at Priego, Toledo in Andalusia, at Murcia in the kingdom of the same name, at Cervera near Talavera de la Reina in New Castile, at Valencia, at Milanesa near that city, at Gandia, San Felipe, and Carcagente in the kingdom of Valencia. The silk-throwsters, who work at their own houses, and are paid in the great, that is, according to the quantity of work they perform, are very numerous in Murcia; but they perform the business there in a very slovenly way. In the city of Murcia a factory is established, where silk is thrown in an excellent manner by means of an ingenious machine, which has been already described. The establishment at La Milanesa is a very important one, and well administered. At Cervera are a dozen silk-mills, each having four large dividers, and six machines for doubling and twisting, by which seven thousand and seventy-two threads are divided, doubled, and twisted at the same time." CLOTHS AND WOOLLENS Although the history of Spanish cloths and woollens is not of great importance, I think it well to briefly sketch their history. Sails and other fabrics of the coarsest kind are said to have been made, almost in prehistoric times, at Sætabi (the modern Játiva) and at Saguntum (Murviedro). From the thirteenth century cloths of good quality were made at Barcelona, Lerida, San Daniel, Bañolas, Valls, and other towns of Cataluña. A privilege of Alfonso the Learned, dated May 18th, 1283, contains the following technical disposition relative to the cloth-looms of the city of Soria: "Que la trenza cuando sea ordida que haya 88 varas, que pese una aranzada é 5 libras de estambre; é cualquier que la fallare menor, que peche 5 sueldos. Que todos los tejedores é tejedoras de la dicha cibdad é de su tierra, que pongan en las telas de lino 42 linnuelos é en las de estopazo 32 linnuelos; é en las de marga é de sayal 32 linnuelos." Segovia was another ancient centre of this manufacture, which Larruga considers to have been transferred hither upon the extinction of the factories of Cameros, Burgos, and Palencia. However this may be, the _fuero_ of Sepúlveda, signed by Alfonso the Sixth, tells us that clothworks existed here as early as the eleventh century. Towards the end of the fourteenth, when Catherine of Lancaster was married to the Infante Don Enrique, the English princess brought over, as part of her dowry, a flock of merino sheep. These are believed to have pastured near Segovia--a city where Catherine made her home for many years. In any case, Segovian cloths improved considerably from about this time, and by the reigns of Charles the Fifth and Philip the Second, when thirty-four thousand persons were employed in the manufacture and twenty-five thousand pieces of cloth were produced annually, were thought (especially the baizes and the serges) to be unsurpassed in Europe.[27] Sovereigns, including Charles the Second and Charles the Fifth of Spain, and Henry the Eighth of England, were among the patrons of these fabrics, while as late as the year 1700 the Franciscan friars engaged in redeeming captives from the Turks, reported that "at Constantinople, whither they had carried Segovian cloths as presents to the principal rulers of that country, those cloths were spoken of in terms of high approval." [27] Colmenares, who wrote a history of Segovia down to the reign of Philip the Second, says that in his time the clothmakers of this town were "true fathers of families, who within and without their houses sustain a multitude of persons (in many cases two and three hundred), producing, with the aid of other people's hands, a great variety of finest cloth: an employment worthy to be ranked with agriculture, and that is of the utmost profit to any city, or to any kingdom." Early in the seventeenth century, and owing to a series of causes such as impertinent or improvident legislation, heavy taxes, and the importation of foreign cloths, the trade showed symptoms of decay.[28] Bertaut de Rouen wrote in 1659, referring to the Spanish character at this time: "Bien souvent le pain leur manque, comme j'ay veu dans _Almagro_, petite ville située dans le meilleur pays d'Andalousie, et dans _Segovie_, qui est une des grandes villes d'Espagne, et où il y avoit autrefois des plus riches marchands à cause des draps et des chapeaux que l'on y faisoit, qui a esté longtemps le sejour des Roys de Castille, et qui n'est qu'environ à douze ou quatorze lieuës de Madrid, où il n'y avoit point de pain dans toute la ville le jour que j'y arrivay, et il n'y en eut qu'à quatre heures après midy, que l'on le distribua par ordre du _Corregidor_, aussi bien qu'à Almagro." [28] An amusing passage in Fernandez Navarrete's _Conservación de Monarquías_ (A.D. 1626) tells us that most of the costlier dress-materials used in Spain about this time proceeded from abroad, and that they were "of so fine a texture that the heat of an iron scorches them and wears them out in a couple of days; while a great number of men employ themselves in the effeminate office of dressing collars, who, ceasing also to be men, forsake the plough or warlike exercises; for it is certain that when the Spaniards kept the world in awe, this land produced a greater number of armourers, and less persons who busied themselves with looking after womanish apparel" (p. 232). The rise, decay, and subsequent revival of the Spanish cloth industries, and particularly the Segovian, are well described by Laborde, Bourgoing, and Townsend. According to the first of these authorities, "at so early a period as 1629 the merchants (of Segovia) complained that there was every year a reduction in the fabrication of cloth, to the amount of five thousand five hundred pieces; and that there resulted from this deficiency an annual loss of 2,424,818 ducats and 2 reals, or about £274,000 sterling. In the eighteenth century it appeared, from the observations of the Economical Society, that the fabrication of stuffs and cloths employed but one hundred and twenty looms, in which only four thousand three hundred and eighteen quintals of washed wool were consumed. "About forty years ago these manufactures began to revive, the looms were multiplied, and the consumption of wool considerably augmented. A single individual, Don Lorenzo Ortiz, has for some years accelerated their progress. In 1790 there was an addition of sixty-three looms, which employed eight or nine hundred quintals of wool, and afforded occupation to two thousand four hundred manufacturers." The same author wrote that early in the nineteenth century, "the woollen manufactures of New Castile are the most numerous and important. Cloths are made at Toledo, Chinchon, Brihuega, Guadalajara; serges, stuffs, and flannels at Toledo and Cuenca. The cloths of Brihuega are of an excellent quality, but those of Guadalajara are still superior to them; in particular, the cloth of Vigonia. There are twenty-eight looms at Toledo, forty at Guasmenia, a hundred at Brihuega, and six hundred and fifty-six at Guadalajara." Bourgoing wrote, a dozen years or so before the close of the eighteenth century: "Spanish wool is eagerly demanded by manufacturing peoples of the rest of Europe. Nevertheless, it is not turned to so much advantage as it might be. French, Dutch, and English come to Spain to purchase the wools of Segovia and León at the ports of Bilbao and Santander.[29] Not even so much as the commission on their sale is left in power of the Spaniards, for the foreigners buy up the wool straight from the shepherd, and wash it on their own account. Out of one million of _arrobas_[30] of fine wool which Spain produces annually, she exports more than half in washed wool, and a lesser quantity, by far, of unwashed. It has been estimated that the export duties on this wool and which it has not been hitherto thought prudent to curtail, produce a sum of close upon five millions for the King of Spain. Here, therefore, is another reason for not suppressing the 'abusive measure' of which the patriotic Spaniards complain so loudly; since it is far from easy to do away with so appreciable a source of revenue unless one has at hand a swift and sure alternative measure by which it may be substituted. All the same, government is endeavouring to derive a greater fiscal profit from the exportation of these wools, and at the same time to bring about a greater use of them in the Peninsula. For a long time past, all kinds of common woollen fabrics, such as clothing for the soldiery and lower classes, have been made in Spain. The exportation of these fabrics is prohibited. As for the finer wools, these also are employed in several places, but more than anywhere else at Guadalajara, where I visited the factories towards the end of the year 1783. I was surprised to remark that in several respects the manufacture had reached a great pitch of perfection. I say _I was surprised_, because I had heard, times without number, that the Spaniards were completely ignorant of these processes, and did not know how to card, or spin, or weave, or dye, or full, or calender; that their stuffs grew loose and wore badly; that the price was exorbitant, etc. How many prejudices of this nature was I able to throw aside after fair and deliberate examination of the stuffs in question! I will only quote a single point to prove that the censures which are aimed at the Spaniards respecting the quality of their cloths are not applicable to them all, and that they are well upon the road to being entirely undeserving of them. I was shown at Guadalajara a piece of scarlet cloth, which, both for its excellent quality and for its skilful dyeing, seemed to me to be quite comparable with the best cloths of Julienne. These latter cost at their place of manufacture as much as thirty-nine _livres_ the ell. At Guadalajara, I noted from the tariff established in the factory, that the price of the finest scarlet cloth was only from thirty-one to thirty-two _livres_ the ell. Comparing these and other figures on the tariff, I came to the conclusion that there was about the same difference in price between Spanish cloths and French cloths, in favour of the former. What seems more singular still is that the factories which work at the King's expense are generally administered in a thriftless fashion, and that the factory of Guadalajara was being greatly mismanaged at the time in question. However, subsequently to my visit, changes for the better have been introduced, which will improve the quality of, as well as cheapen, its products, though, even when I saw it, this factory was one of the most perfect to be seen anywhere. Within a space by no means large, it contained all the machines and apparatus required for clothmaking, except the thin, polished pasteboards which are placed between the folds of a piece of cloth as it is passed through the press. These were still brought from England; but everything else was prepared upon the spot, even to the large scissors used in the shearing. There were eighty looms for the finest cloths, whose proper name is _cloths of San Fernando_, from the town where they were first produced; a hundred for cloths of the second quality; and five hundred and six for making serges, in which, in course of time, hopes are entertained of excelling those of England.[31] All these looms were contained in two buildings, and kept employed three thousand eight hundred and twenty-five persons, all of them paid by the King,[32] without counting some forty thousand more dispersed all over the Castilian and Manchegan tableland, engaged in spinning the wool which is made up into stuffs at Guadalajara. It would be difficult, I am sure, to find a factory better organized. Even the town in which it is, presents a striking contrast with others of that neighbourhood. I did not see one single mendicant or idler among all its fifteen or sixteen thousand inhabitants. Such are the good results of its manufactures, and, above all, those of cloth, including many small and detailed processes which women, children, aged people, or even the sick are able to perform. Here, where Nature seemed to have condemned these ailing folk to a tedious and useless existence, art, as it were, steps in and finds employment and relief for them. Nevertheless, it must be owned that the Spaniards (as they themselves admit) are still a little behindhand in the method of dyeing and fulling their cloths, though when a people possess (as they) the raw materials needed, both for making and for dyeing, a few men skilled in these processes are all that is wanted to perfect several branches of this industry; especially when, as is the case in Spain, government spares no effort to achieve this end. Guadalajara is further the only place in Spain which produces the celebrated Vicuña cloth; an admirable fabric for which the rest of the world has cause to envy Spanish America.[33] As the use of this cloth has not as yet become general, it is not continually manufactured, nor is it easy to obtain a few ells of it without ordering them several months in advance. This stuff is also manufactured for the King of Spain, who makes presents of it to various other monarchs. In the year 1782, after concluding a treaty with the Porte, he sent twenty pieces of it to the Sultan of Turkey. They gave great satisfaction. It has been imagined from this circumstance that Spain would not be loth to supply the Turkish market with her cloths; and other of the manufacturing nations have felt some measure of alarm, perhaps unnecessarily. The Spanish government has too much sense to enter upon such a competition with other peoples as long as Spain does not supply the whole of the two and twenty million citizens who live beneath her rule. The same government, too, is well aware how remote is this degree of prosperity. The clothworks of Guadalajara have a kind of branch factory at Brihuega, four leagues distant. At Brihuega there are a hundred looms, all used for making fabrics of the finest quality. [29] This recalls the statement made, centuries before, by Alonso de Cartagena at the Council of Bâle: "And if the English should vaunt the cunning of their cloth-makers, then would I tell them somewhat; for if our country lack the weavers to make a cloth so delicate as the scarlet cloths of London, yet is that substance titled _grana_ (the kermes, or scarlet grain), from which the scarlet cloth receives its pleasantness of smell and brilliancy of hue, raised in the kingdom of Castile, and thence conveyed to England, and even to Italy."--Larruga, _Memorias_, Vol. XIV., p. 167. [30] "The weight of an _arroba_ is twenty-seven pounds. The average price is from twenty-three to twenty-seven _livres_ the _arroba_ of unwashed wool of the best quality, which pays five _livres_ ten _sols_ of export duty. The _arroba_ of washed wool pays double." [31] "It has been calculated that Spain, about this time, paid annually to England two million pounds sterling per annum, solely on account of her woollens." [32] "His Majesty maintained this factory by a monthly payment from his treasury of one hundred and fifty thousand _livres_; an exorbitant amount, which very possibly would not be covered by the sales of cloth." Townsend wrote in 1787 "Royal manufactures and monopolies have a baneful influence on population: for, as no private adventurers can stand the competition with their sovereign, where he is the great monopolist, trade will never prosper. The Spanish monarch is a manufacturer of Broad cloth, at Guadalajara and Brihuega; China, at the palace of the Buen Retiro; Cards, at Madrid and Málaga; Glass, at San Ildefonso; Paper, in Segovia; Pottery, at Talavera; Saltpetre, at Madrid and various other places; Stockings, at Valdemoro; Swords, at Toledo; Tapestry, at Madrid; Tissue, at Talavera. He has the monopoly of brandy, cards, gunpowder, lead, quicksilver, sealing-wax, salts, sulphur, and tobacco."--(_Journey through Spain_, Vol. II., p. 240.) [33] "It is made from wools of Buenos Aires and Peru. The wool of the former of these regions is the longer, but the Peruvian is the more silky." "Segovia, famous at all periods for the excellence of her wool, was formerly not less so for the number and perfection of her clothworks. Now, every patriotic Spaniard must lament to see how she has fallen. In the year 1785 the number of her looms did not exceed two hundred and fifty. The most important factory was that of Ortiz, founded in 1779 under the title of _Real Fábrica_: the King possessed an interest in it. In 1785 Ortiz was still employing three thousand workers in and about Segovia, and manufactured every quality of cloth in sixty-three looms, from the pieces which contained the two thousand threads prescribed by the _Ordenanzas_, to those which should contain four thousand. His energy was only hampered by the indolent character of the Segovians. The privileges wherewith the government has sought to stimulate his first experiments in this craft are not at all injurious to the other manufacturers. They all concur to sell their goods, and at a reasonable price. In September of 1785, the most expensive cloths cost only ninety reals the _vara_; that is to say, about thirty-one _livres_ and ten _sols_ the ell." [Illustration: X PRIEST'S ROBE; SPANISH (_Embroidered in Gold on Green Velvet. About A.D. 1500_)] Townsend wrote, precisely at the same time as Bourgoing: "Segovia was once famous for its cloth, made on the King's account; but other nations have since become rivals in this branch, and the manufacture in this city has been gradually declining. When the King gave it up to a private company, he left about three thousand pounds in trade; but now he is no longer a partner in the business.[34] In the year 1612 were made here twenty-five thousand five hundred pieces of cloth, which consumed forty-four thousand six hundred and twenty-five quintals of wool, and employed thirty-four thousand one hundred and eighty-nine persons; but at present they make only about four thousand pieces. The principal imperfections of this cloth are, that the thread is not even, and that much grease remains in it when it is delivered to the dyer; in consequence of which the colour is apt to fail. Yet, independently of imperfections, so many are the disadvantages under which the manufacture labours, that foreigners can afford to pay three pounds for the _arroba_ of fine wool, for which the Spaniard gives no more than twenty shillings, and after all his charges can command the market even in the ports of Spain. "In the year 1525, the city contained five thousand families, but now they do not surpass two thousand--a scanty population this for twenty-five parishes; yet, besides the twenty-five churches, together with the cathedral, they have one and twenty convents. When the canal is finished, and the communication opened to the Bay of Biscay at Santander, the trade and manufactures of Segovia may revive; but, previous to that event, there can be nothing to inspire them with hope." [34] A report presented by the Council of Commerce to the Marquis of la Ensenada, put forward, in 1744, the absurd pretence that the king of Spain maintained his factories "not for any State convenience or _ad lucrum captandum_, but in order to augment our own products, and diminish those which are imported from abroad."--Larruga's _Memorias_, Vol. XV., pp. 70 and 247. Also see the conference delivered by the Count of Torreánaz in 1886, in the Royal Spanish Academy of Moral and Political Science; p. 27, note. Several of the Spanish Crown factories were finally taken over by the association--immensely wealthy at one period--known as the Five Chief Gremios of Madrid (_Los Cinco Gremios Mayores de la Villa de Madrid_), and it is clear that the investment of a large amount of capital, subscribed by many shareholders, would of itself be calculated to destroy the narrow ideals and what I may term the individually greedy spirit which hitherto had ruled within the craftsman's private family. Private interests, in short, were superseded by the larger interests of a powerful company. That which I have mentioned was composed of the five _gremios_ of the capital of Spain which subscribed the largest sums in taxes to the national exchequer; namely, the drapers, haberdashers, spicers and druggists, jewellers, cloth-merchants, and linen-drapers. For many years this association administered, on government's behalf, the _alcabalas_, _tercias_, and _cientos_ of the town and district of Madrid, and subsequently (A.D. 1745) the _millones_ tax, together with other important dues, and ultimately, as I have stated, took over, on a liberal scale of purchase, the royal cloth and silk factories of Talavera de la Reina (A.D. 1785), San Fernando, Guadalajara, Brihuega, Ezcaray, and Cuenca. The decay and downfall of the company was due to gross mismanagement, and indeed, the idiosyncrasies of the Spanish character render this people, even at the present day, but little fitted to embark upon commercial schemes requiring competent directors, heavy capital, and confident assistance, moral and material, from a large body of investors. Spaniards, as I have insisted elsewhere, do not pull well together; and so, early in the nineteenth century, the association of the five great _gremios_, which had possessed at one time many millions of _pesetas_, suspended payment of all dividends. It is fair to add, however, that this collapse was partly owing to the wars between France and Spain. Swinburne had written of the same city ten years earlier (1776): "The inhabitants do not appear much the richer for their cloth manufactory. Indeed, it is not in a very flourishing condition; but what cloth they make is very fine." [Illustration: XI PRIEST'S ROBE; SPANISH (_Embroidered in Gold on Green Velvet. About A.D. 1500_)] The Ordinances of Granada (A.D. 1532), from which we learn that cloth was also manufactured at that capital, contain the usual dispositions relative to the stamping of this product by the city officers. The stamps were in a box which was kept in a corner of the cathedral and closed by two keys, guarded severally by a councillor and an inspector of the trade, or _veedor_. On every day except a public festival, between the hours of ten and eleven of the morning, and three and four of the afternoon, it was the duty of these two authorities to proceed to the Alcaicería, and ascertain if any cloth required stamping. If so, the stamps were fetched forthwith from the cathedral, the cloth was marked, and the stamps were solemnly restored to their chest beneath the double key. Among the woven fabrics other than those of silk, and which are specified in the Ordinances of Granada relative to the _tundidores_ or shearers, are cloths of Florence, Flanders, London, Valencia, Zaragoza, Onteniente, Segovia, and Perpignan; _velarte_ (a fine cloth manufactured at Granada), red _burel_ (kersey) of Baeza, black kersey of Villanueva and La Mancha, _ruan_ (Roan linen), fustians, friezes, and _cordellate_ (grogram) of Granada, Valencia, Toledo, Segovia, and Cuenca. According to Capmany, cloths of the commoner kind, and which were popular about this time, were the _granas treintenas_ and black cloths of Valencia, the white or yellow _veintiseiseno_ cloths of Toledo, the white cloths of Ciudad Real, the green _palmillas_ of Cuenca, and green _dieciochenos_ of Segovia, the _contrayes_ of Cazalla, and the _pardillos_ of Aragon. Spanish cloth was also manufactured at Vergara, Cordova, Jaen, Murcia, Palencia, Tavira de Durango, and Medina del Campo. [Illustration: XII EMBROIDERED CHASUBLE (_Palencia Cathedral_)] Laborde says: "In the archives of the Crowns of Aragon and Castile there is a notice of the duties paid from the thirteenth to the end of the seventeenth century for foreign cloths sold in Spain, and for other articles of consumption coming from abroad. The principal cloths came from Bruges, Montpellier, and London; the velvets from Malines, Courtrai, Ypres, and Florence. This trade became so injurious to Spain, that Ferdinand and Isabella thought themselves bound to limit it entirely to the stuffs required for ornaments of the church, which of itself was a considerable quantity. Their prohibition is the subject of the rescript of September 2nd, 1494, for the provinces of the Crown of Castile. Even so far back as the Ordinances of Barcelona in 1271, mention is made of the taxes levied on the cloths of Flanders, Arras, Lannoy, Paris, Saint Denis, Chalons, Beziers, and Reims."[35] [35] In the reign of Francis the First, the importation of Catalan cloth into France was prohibited altogether.--Levasseur, _Histoire des classes ouvrières en France_, Vol. II., p. 73. Among the various cloths (exclusively or chiefly of the less expensive kinds) which were manufactured in the capital and country of Cataluña, we read of those of pure scarlet, scarlet tinted with light or dark purple, ash-coloured, carmine, and rose; of cloth of combed wool, _medias lanas_ (half-woollens), serges, and _cadinas_ or _banyolenchs_. But before the close of the fifteenth century the production of these fabrics had suffered a serious decline caused by the tactless government of Ferdinand the Catholic, and above all, by the introduction of the Inquisition into Barcelona. A privilege of Ferdinand, granted on November 4th, 1493, to the Barcelonese clothmakers, admits that this was the foremost and most useful local manufacture ("no y ha altre art ni offici que mes util done"), adding, however, that it had fallen into a state of sad prostration "owing to the indisposition of these times." (Capmany, _Memorias_, Vol. II., _Doc._ ccxliv). This was undoubtedly the case; for in a report of the city council drawn up in 1491, it is stated that good cloth can only be manufactured from good wool, but that this had now become a difficult matter at Barcelona, because the clothmakers were without the money to purchase such wool. In consequence, they appealed to the city (then even more resourceless than themselves) to help them. Although it has become fashionable in some quarters to deny that the Inquisition contributed in a sensible degree to the decline of Spanish arts and industries, the following passage, quoted from the municipal archives of Barcelona, places the fact beyond all argument as far as this locality is concerned. The city councillors declared in 1492 that "by reason of the Inquisition established in this city, many evils have befallen our commerce, together with the depopulation of the said city, and much other and irreparable damage to her welfare; and as much more harm will occur in the future, unless a remedy be applied, wherefore the said councillors entreat of the king's majesty that of his wonted clemency he order the said Inquisition to cease; or else that he repair the matter in such wise that _the merchants who departed because of the Inquisition_ may return, and continue in the service of their God, their king, and of the general welfare of the city aforesaid." [Illustration: XIII EMBROIDERED _MANGA_ OR CASE OF PROCESSIONAL CROSS (_Early 16th Century; Toledo Cathedral_)] In 1809 the same author remarked: "The kingdom of Valencia produces little wool, yet there are five manufactories of woollens and coarse and fine cloths: they are at Morella, Enguera, Bocairente, Onteniente, and Alcoy. The small woollen stuffs are principally made at Enguera; nothing but the coarsest cloths are made at Morella, Bocairente, and Onteniente. The manufactory at Alcoy is the most considerable: the cloths, though finer, are generally of an inferior quality. The woof of them is thick, with little nap upon it. The finest are scarcely superior to the beautiful cloths of Carcassonne." EMBROIDERY The art of embroidering, and especially of embroidering with the aid of gold and silver thread, was communicated to the Spaniards by the Spanish Moors, who doubtless had derived it from the East. By about the thirteenth century, the needle of the Spanish embroiderer had become, in the picturesque phrase of one of his compatriots, "a veritable painter's brush, describing facile outlines on luxurious fabrics, and filling in the spaces, sometimes with brilliant hues, or sometimes with harmonious, softly-graduated tones which imitate the entire colour-scheme of Nature." Nevertheless, it was not until the fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries that this art attained, in the Peninsula, its topmost summit of perfection. It is not at all surprising that embroidery should have made great progress among a people so devoted to the outward and spectacular forms of worship as the Spaniards; nor have the chasubles, copes, and other vestments of the Spanish prelacy and priesthood ever been surpassed for costly splendour[36] (Plates x., xi., xii.). But generally where the Spanish embroiderer excelled was in the mere manipulation of the needle. In fertility of design he was far outdistanced by the Germans and Italians, and was even to a large extent their imitator; for Spanish embroidery, as occurred with Spanish painting, was influenced, almost to an overwhelming degree, firstly by northern art, and subsequently by the art of the Renaissance. [36] The cathedrals of Toledo and Palencia are particularly rich in sets of magnificently embroidered vestments. "Each set," says Riaño, "generally includes a chasuble, dalmatic, cope, altar frontal, covers for the gospel stands, and other smaller pieces. The embroideries on the orphreys, which are formed of figures of saints, are as perfect as the miniatures on illuminated MSS." [Illustration: XIV EMBROIDERED ALTAR-FRONT] These tendencies or characteristics will be found in nearly all the masterpieces of Spanish embroidery that have been preserved until to-day, of which perhaps the most remarkable specimens are the _manga_ or case of the great processional cross presented by Cardinal Cisneros to Toledo cathedral, and the "_Tanto Monta_" embroidered tapestry belonging to the same temple. The _manga grande_, known as that of the Corpus (Plate xiii.), is in the Gothic style, with reminiscences of German art, and consists of the following four scenes arranged in panels thirty-seven inches high, and hung successively about the handle of the cross:-- (1) The Ascension of the Virgin Mary, who is supported by six angels. (2) The Adoration of the Magi. (3) San Ildefonso in the act of cutting off a piece of the veil of Santa Leocadia, patron of Toledo. (4) The Martyrdom of San Eugenio, another patron of the city of Toledo. The ground of this elaborate "sleeve" is a fabric of rich silk, on which the embroidery is worked in gold and silver thread and coloured silks, principally blue and red, combined in delicate, harmonious tones. The figures are outlined with fine gold cord, which forms a kind of frame or fencing to confine the stretches of smooth silk. The careful copying of architectural detail is stated by Serrano Fatigati to be strongly characteristic of Spanish industrial art in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and even sixteenth centuries. The same writer considers that this "sleeve" was executed towards the year 1514, when embroiderers of great renown, such as Alonso Hernández, Juan de Talavera, Martin Ruiz, Hernando de la Rica, Pedro de Burgos, and Marcos de Covarrubias were engaged on similar work in the venerable city of the Tagus. Two out of the four panels, says Serrano Fatigati, may possibly be from the hand of Covarrubias, who was a famous craftsman of his time, and held the post of master-embroiderer in Toledo cathedral. In any case, the four panels are evidently not all by the same artist, nor do they appear to have been executed at precisely the same period. [Illustration: XV EMBROIDERED ALTAR-FRONT, WITH THE ARMS OF CARDINAL MENDOZA (_15th Century. Toledo Cathedral_)] The gorgeous embroidered tapestry which also belongs to this cathedral (where it serves as a hanging or _colgadura_ for the altar on the day of Corpus Christi), and which is known as the "Tanto Monta" _tapiz_, is stated by some authorities to have been the _dosel_ or bed canopy of Ferdinand and Isabella, and to have been purchased, in the year 1517, for 900,000 _maravedis_ by Alonso Fernández de Tendilla, steward of those sovereigns. Riaño gives the following account of the same object:-- "As a fine specimen of embroidery on a large scale, must be mentioned the _dosel_ or canopy called the tent of Ferdinand and Isabella, which was used in the reception of the English envoys, Thomas Salvaige and Richard Nanfan, who were sent in 1488 to Spain to arrange the marriage of Prince Henry with the Infanta Doña Catalina." The ambassadors describe it in the following manner: "After the tilting was over, the kings returned to the palace, and took the ambassadors with them, and entered a large room; and there they sat under a rich cloth of state of rich crimson velvet, richly embroidered with the arms of Castile and Aragon, and covered with the device of the King which is a ... (blank in original),[37] and his motto, written at length, which is 'Tanto Monta.'" ("Memorials of King Henry the Seventh," Gairdner, London, 1858, p. 348). [37] The device of Ferdinand the Catholic was a yoke; the sheaf of arrows, that of Isabella. (See Vol. II., p. 147, etc.). Riaño also describes the mantle of the Virgen del Sagrario at Toledo. "It is completely covered with pearls and jewels forming a most effective ornamentation. This embroidery was made in the beginning of the seventeenth century, during the lifetime of Cardinal Sandoval, who presented it to the church." Señor Parro, in his exhaustive work _Toledo en la Mano_ (Vol. I., p. 574), gives the following account of it: "It is made of twelve yards of silver lama, or cloth of silver, which is entirely covered with gold and precious stones. In the centre there is a jewel of amethysts and diamonds. Eight other jewels appear on each side, of enamelled gold, emeralds, and large rubies. A variety of other jewels are placed at intervals round the mantle, and at the lower part are the arms of Cardinal Sandoval enamelled on gold and studded with sapphires and rubies. The centre of this mantle is covered with flowers and pomegranates embroidered in seed-pearls of different sizes. Round the borders are rows of large pearls. Besides the gems which are employed in this superb work of art, no less than two hundred and fifty-seven ounces of pearls of different sizes were used, three hundred ounces of gold thread, a hundred and sixty ounces of small pieces of enamelled gold, and eight ounces of emeralds." [Illustration: XVI EMBROIDERED ALTAR-FRONT (_Palencia Cathedral_)] As in other countries, embroidery in Spain was executed in the bygone time, both by paid embroiderers, and as a domestic occupation by the ladies of the aristocracy. The work of the professional embroiderer consisted principally of paraments or altar-fronts (Plates xiv., xv., xvi., xvii.), and ecclesiastical vestments. Among the former of this class of objects, nothing is finer than the _frontal_ of the Chapel of Saint George in the Audiencia of Barcelona. It is believed to have been wrought by Antonio Sadurni, a Catalan embroiderer who flourished in the middle of the fifteenth century. The scene represented is the combat between Saint George (patron of Cataluña) and the dragon. The saint has rescued a damsel from the monster's claws, and her parents are looking on from a _mirador_ of their palace. This central episode is surrounded with borders and arabesques of extraordinary richness. Riaño gives a list, compiled from Cean, Martinez, Suarez de Figueroa, and other authors, of forty-seven Spanish embroiderers of the fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. More recently, Ramírez de Arellano has discovered, among the municipal archives of Cordova, the names of sixteen others, who resided at that city towards, or early in, the seventeenth century. The craftsmen in question were Diego de Aguilar, Juan Bautista, Bernardo Carrillo, Luis Carrillo de Quijana, Andrés Fernández de Montemayor, Hernán Gómez del Río, Diego Fabián de Herrera, Diego del Hierro, Diego López de Herrera, Diego López de Valenzuela, Antonio de Morales, Gonzalo de Ocaña, Mateo Sanguino, Manuel Torralbo, Cristóbal de Valenzuela, and Martin de la Vega. Documents in the same archive contain additional particulars respecting two or three of these artificers. Thus, on February 10th, 1607, Hernán Gómez del Río engaged himself to embroider for the convent of the Trinity at Cordova, "a bordering for a chasuble and four _faldones_ for dalmatics, with their collars and _sabastros_ and _bocas mangas_. The said _bocas mangas_ to be four in number, and the collars two; also the _collaretes_ which may be necessary for the two dalmatics, and which I am to embroider in silk and gold upon white satin. The _collaretes_ also to be embroidered by me in silk and gold to match a bordering of white satin for a cloak in possession of the said convent." Further, the convent was to supply the artist with the quantity of white satin required, and pay him two hundred and ten ducats, secured by certain of the convent's revenues, for the gold, the silk, and the workmanship. [Illustration: XVII EMBROIDERED ALTAR-FRONTS (_Palencia Cathedral_)] Manuel Torralbo contracted to embroider a velvet altar-front and its corresponding _fronteleras_ for the parish church of Luque, at a price of three hundred _reales_; and Cristóbal de Valenzuela (on September 25th, 1604) to embroider two frontals for the altar of the church of Obejo. One of them was to be of purple velvet worked in gold, and the other of "black velvet, with borders and _caidas_ embroidered in yellow satin and white satin, with skulls and bones embroidered in gold."[38] [38] The skull and crossbones were a favourite design upon these objects. The Church of the Escorial possesses four paraments so decorated, which were shown, in 1878, at the Parisian Exhibition of Retrospective Art. Turning our attention to the embroidery which was executed, principally as a recreation, by highborn Spanish ladies of some centuries ago, the romance of _El Compte Arnau_, quoted by Miquel y Badía and written in Catalan and Provençal, contains the following lines:-- "¿ Ahout teniu las vostras fillas--muller leal? ¿ Ahout teniu las vostras fillas--viudeta igual? A la cambra son que _brodan_--Compte l'Arnau A la cambra son que _brodan_--seda y estam." Isabella the Catholic presented to the Chapel Royal of the cathedral of Granada an ecclesiastical robe embroidered by her own hands for the festival of Corpus Christi. The material was black satin brocade, with a fringe of white silk, and the letters IHS in white damask.[39] [39] Gómez Moreno; _Apuntes que pueden servir de historia del bordado de imagineria en Granada_ (_El Liceo de Granada_; 6th year, No. 18). [Illustration: XVIII WIFE OF WELL-TO-DO MERCHANT (_Palma, Balearic Islands. About A.D. 1810_)] The same usage continued in the seventeenth century. Countess d'Aulnoy says: "Young ladies of great beauty and of noble blood engage themselves to wait on ladies of the aristocracy, and spend most of their time embroidering the collars and sleeves of shirts in gold, silver, and coloured silk, although, if they be suffered to follow their liking, they work but little, and gossip a great deal." The same writer refers repeatedly to the sumptuous embroideries in use among the upper classes of the Spaniards of that time. Thus, the bed-pillows of the Princess of Monteleón were embroidered with gold. The sleeves of the coat of Charles the Second were of white silk, very large, opening towards the wrist, and embroidered with blue silk and jet, the rest of his costume being embroidered in white and blue silk. In the palace of the same monarch, the daïs of the throne-room was covered with "a wondrous carpet, and the throne and its canopy were embroidered with pearls, diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and other precious stones." The cloaks of the chevaliers who belonged to the Military Orders of Santiago, Calatrava, and Alcántara were embroidered with gold. The gentlemen of Madrid covered their horses with silver gauze, and trappings embroidered with gold and pearls.[40] The same gentlemen wore coats whose sleeves were of coloured satin, embroidered with silk and jet, and even their lackeys, when they attended their masters in a procession, wore uniforms of cloth embroidered with gold and silver. Unmarried girls and brides wore gold-embroidered bodices. The chairs in which the ladies of Madrid paid visits were made of cloth embroidered in gold and silver, stretched upon the wooden frame. In the train of the Duchess of Terranova went six litters covered with embroidered velvet. "In the parish church of San Sebastián," wrote Countess d'Aulnoy, "I have seen a hand-chair made by order of the queen-mother, for carrying the Sacrament to sick persons in bad weather. It is lined with crimson velvet embroidered in gold and covered with hide studded with gilt nails: it has large window-glasses, and a kind of small belfry full of golden bells." [40] A similar usage prevailed at Valladolid. The account of this city as it existed in 1605, published by Gayangos in the _Revista de España_, describes Don Juan de Tassis, Count of Villamediana, as "riding in the finest clothes imaginable; his cloak, jacket, breeches, shoes, and the trappings, harness, reins, etc., of his horse, being all embroidered with the finest twisted silver thread. Even his horse's blinkers were of the same material." With the succession of a French line of sovereigns to the throne of Spain, a taste for French embroideries passed into the Peninsula, and these, in course of time, were imitated by the Spanish craftsmen.[41] "We find," says Riaño, "that Madrid was the principal centre of this industry, and that French designs were universally copied, as was the case in the whole of Europe. The splendid curtains and embroidered hangings for apartments which exist at the royal palaces of Madrid, the Escorial, and Aranjuez, are admirable specimens." [41] The use of embroidery was, however, greatly curbed by sumptuary pragmatics, issued early in this century (see Vol. I., pp. 287, 289). A similar pragmatic had appeared in 1622; but it is clear from the passages I have quoted, that little or no attention was paid to it. I may mention here the embroidery, often of a rich and highly ornate character, which is, or used to be, applied to the regional costumes of Spain. Plate ix. is reproduced from a rare print in my possession, showing the gala dress, as it existed in the year 1777, of the _charra_ of Salamanca, with full, white sleeves ornamented in black embroidery with animals and other devices. A similar costume is still worn in that neighbourhood. Plate xviii., also copied from a print in my collection, dating from about the year 1810, shows the costume worn by the women of the well-to-do middle class of the island of Majorca. "Le jupon ou _guardapies_," says the manuscript description prefixed to this series of plates, "en mousseline, complete le costume de cette insulaire: il est orné au bas de riches broderies, mais assez court pour laisser voir un joli petit pied chaussé d'un bas de coton ou de soie et d'un élégant soulier de satin." TAPESTRY There is a dim tradition, derived from or supported by a Latin poet ("Tunc operosa suis _Hispana tapetia_ villis") that carpets or tapestries of some kind were made in the Spanish Peninsula in the time of the Romans. Undoubtedly this craft was practised by the Spanish-Moors, particularly in the regions of Valencia, Alicante, Cuenca, and Granada. This statement is confirmed by two laconic notices which occur in the _Description of Africa and Spain_ of Edrisi, a Mohammedan geographer of the twelfth century. Of the town of Chinchilla, in Alicante province, he wrote,--"woollen carpets are made here, such as could not be manufactured anywhere else, owing to the qualities of the air and water"; and of Cuenca, "excellent woollen carpets are manufactured at this town." "En Espagne," says Müntz, "l'industrie textile ne tarda pas à prendre également le plus brilliant essor, grâce à la conquête maure. Les étoffes d'Almeria acquirent rapidement une réputation européenne; il est vrai que c'étaient des brocarts, des damas, et autres tissus analogues, non des tapisseries: l'influence qu'elles furent appelées à exercer au dehors se borna donc au domaine de l'ornementation." [Illustration: XIX THE "GENESIS TAPESTRY" (_12th Century; Gerona Cathedral_)] Of a similar composition to the foregoing fabrics specified by Müntz--that is to say, not genuine tapestries, although requiring for several reasons to be classed with these--is the celebrated "Genesis" (Plate xix.) of the cathedral of Gerona. This primitive yet complicated work of art, dating from the twelfth century, is embroidered in crewels upon linen, and represents the creation of the world. Its dimensions are about four yards high by four and a half yards wide; but the bordering has been torn away in places. The design is thus described by Riaño:--"In the centre is a geometrical figure formed by two concentric circles. In the lesser circle is a figure of Christ holding an open book, on which appear the words _Sanctus Deus_, and on each side _Rex fortis_, surrounded by the inscription, _Dixit quoque Deus, Fiat lux, Et facta est lux_. In the larger circle are the words, _In principio creavit Deus coelum et terram, mare et omnia quæ in eis sunt, et vidit Deus cuncta quæ egerat et erant valde bona_. "The space between the two circles is divided by radiating lines into eight portions, in which are represented the Mystic Dove, the angels of light and darkness: the division of land from water, the creation of sun, moon, and stars, of birds, fishes, and beasts, and of Adam and Eve. In the angles outside the larger circle are the four winds, and the whole is surrounded by a border, imperfect in parts, containing representations of the months, and apparently of certain scriptural incidents, too much defaced to be clearly made out." The royal palaces of Spain and many of her noble houses have possessed, from about the fifteenth century, splendid collections of the costliest tapestries, consisting principally of _paños de Ras_, or "Arras cloths" (as they were called among the Spaniards, and especially in Aragon). Until a later period all, or very nearly all, these objects were imported from the Flemish workshops.[42] At the palace of a nobleman in Madrid, Bertaut de Rouen observed "les plus belles tapisseries du monde." The same author tells us that in the seventeenth century, when he visited Spain and wrote his entertaining _Journal_, it was customary for the walls of the royal palace to be hung with tapestry in winter, these hangings being removed for greater coolness in the summer months. In reading descriptions of Spanish life referring to the same period, one is struck by the craze which prevailed among the Spaniards for displaying tapestries and other gay-coloured fabrics in all kinds of places and on every possible occasion. Thus, Bertaut de Rouen relates that when he saw a play performed in the Alcázar, "le long de ces deux costez de la salle estoient seulement deux grands bancs couverts de tapis de Perse"; that the boxes at the bull-fights, both at Madrid and in the country, were "tapissées de brocatelle de soye"; and that the lower part of the dome in one of the chapels of Seville cathedral was decorated with the same material. At the haunted castle of Quebaro, on the road from Galareta to Vitoria, Countess d'Aulnoy saw upon the walls of a large chamber, some tapestries representing the amours of Don Pedro the Cruel and of Doña María de Padilla. "This lady was depicted seated, like a queen, among various other ladies, while the king crowned her with a chaplet of flowers. Elsewhere Doña María was reposing in a forest, as the king offered her a falcon. I also saw her dressed as a warrior while the king, in armour, offered her a sword. This set me thinking whether she had ever accompanied Don Pedro in one of his campaigns. All the figures in these tapestries were badly drawn, but Don Fernando assured me that all well-executed likenesses of Doña María de Padilla represented her to be a woman of rare charm, the loveliest of her century." [42] "A côté de l'Italie, il faut citer l'Espagne, tributaire comme elle des ateliers flamands. Les résidences royales regorgeaient de ces précieux tissus, qui aujourd'hui encore, à Madrid ou à l'Escurial, se chiffrent par centaines. Parmi les présents que le roi de Castille envoya à Tamerlan ([dagger] 1405), on remarquait des tapisseries dont les portraits étaient faits avec tant de délicatesse, dit un chroniqueur persan, que si on voulait leur comparer les ouvrages merveilleux autrefois exécutés par le peintre Mani sur la toile d'Artène, Mani serait couvert de honte et ses ouvrages paraîtraient difformes."--Müntz, _La Tapisserie_, p. 172. Pinheiro da Veiga says that at Valladolid in 1605, a banquet was celebrated in "a large gallery, completely covered with the richest silk brocade, as were most of the other apartments." He also says that cloths of similar richness were employed as street-awnings. "Upon the ninth was the Corpus procession, at which the king was to assist; and a proclamation was issued that none should promenade on horseback or in coaches. I found nothing remarkable in this procession, unless it were the hangings and the awnings to keep off the sun, which were of the richest damask and brocade." Of the same _fiesta_ Countess d'Aulnoy wrote in 1679: "The streets through which the procession has to pass are adorned with the finest tapestries in all the world, since in addition to those belonging to the Crown, many of the greatest beauty are displayed by private persons. The _celosías_ of all the balconies are replaced by elaborate canopies and hangings, and the whole roadway is covered with an awning to ward off the sun, and which, for the sake of greater freshness, is moistened with a little water." Nearly identical with this account is that of Alexander de Laborde, who wrote, a century and a quarter later than the Countess; "On Corpus Christi day there is a grand procession composed of the regular and secular clergy of Madrid, followed by the king, his ministers, and court, each bearing in his hand a wax taper. Magnificent awnings of tapestry are raised in the streets through which the procession is to pass; the balconies are decorated with splendid hangings; the seats are covered with cushions, and occasionally surmounted with a daïs; in some of the streets the face of day is darkened by canopies which stretch from one side to the other. Altars are placed at regular intervals; the balconies are thronged with ladies superbly dressed, who sprinkle scented water, or scatter fragrant flowers on the passing multitudes." Pinheiro da Veiga also describes a set of remarkable tapestries, evidently Flemish, which he saw in the Chapter-room of the Convent of Cármen Calzado at Valladolid. "It was hung with the richest tapestry, silk, and paintings that had belonged to the Duke of Lerma. I greatly admired some cloths of green velvet, worked all over with the _Bucolics_ of Virgil, in _tarjas_ embroidered in silk and gold, as though they were _sebastos_[43] of ecclesiastical vestments, but these were old, of great value, and extraordinary merit. Finer still were certain cloths of recent workmanship, such as I had never seen equalled, of a white material painted in tempera, with the borders, dresses, and faces of the personages on them wrought in twisted gold. I never saw anything so brilliant or so novel. The cloths were eight in number, with four embroidered _guardapuertas_. The persons figured upon them wore belts of real pearls, rings set with diamonds and rubies on their fingers, and gold chains and medals studded with precious stones, just as living people wear them." [43] A Portuguese word meaning a strip of silk upon the back of a chasuble. The fashion of collecting foreign tapestries seems to have reached its height at the Spanish capital in the first half of the seventeenth century. "Nowadays," wrote Fernandez de Navarrete, in his _Conservacion de Monarquías_, published in 1626, "gentlemen are not contented with hangings which a few years ago were considered good enough to adorn a prince's palace. The Spanish taffetas and guadamecíes, so highly esteemed in other provinces, are held of no account in this one (Madrid). The _sargas_ and _arãbeles_ wherewith the moderation of the Spanish people was satisfied in former days, must now be turned into injurious _telas rizas_ of Florence and Milan, and into costliest Brussels tapestry." [Illustration: XX _TAPIZ_ OF CRIMSON VELVET WORKED IN GOLD TISSUE (_16th Century. Monastery of Las Huelgas, Burgos_)] It is perhaps allowable to include among the oldest makers of Spanish tapestry the names of Gonzalo de Mesa and Diego Roman, who, in the year 1331, were paid respectively one thousand _maravedis_ and eighteen hundred _maravedis_, for decorating the tents of King Sancho the Fourth. There also exists the following entry, dating from the same period; "To Boançibre, master of the tents; XXX _maravedis_ for his food, for fifteen days."[44] [44] Manuel G. Simancas, _Artistas Castellanos del Siglo XIII_ (_Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Excursiones_ for January, 1905.) Far clearer than these laconic excerpts is a document preserved in the library of the Academy of History at Madrid, in the form of a memorial presented to Philip the Second by a Spanish tapestry-maker of Salamanca, named Pedro Gutierrez,[45] and setting forth, in pessimistic language, the unhappy condition of this craft in the Peninsula. Pedro relates of himself that in twenty-four days he made for the Cardinal-archduke no less than a hundred and twenty _reposteros_; and that in order to exhibit his cleverness as a tapestry-weaver, he set up a loom in the royal palace (being officially the _tapicero_ to the Crown), and worked for forty days where all might criticise the product of his toil. Gutierrez also states that the township of Madrid had provided him with six hundred ducats to enable him to establish there a tapestry-factory for the space of ten years, together with six hundred and fifty ducats from the Cortes for supporting his apprentices, and a thousand ducats from the king to defray the cost of certain voyages he had made to Lisbon, Monzón, and Barcelona, and of removing his residence from Salamanca to the capital of Spain. He complains, however, that the house he dwells in at Madrid is not large enough to contain his loom, and replies to the objections of such persons as opposed his opening the tapestry-works at all (on the ground that this craft was practised better and more cheaply in Flanders), by asserting that Spanish makers of _reposteros_ were now accustomed to receive a daily wage of no more than three _reales_ and "a miserable meal." This, he urges, should render Spanish tapestries at least as inexpensive to produce as those of Flanders; although, upon the other hand, he admits that the colouring of the former is likely to prove inferior to the Flemish cloths in purity and durability. "Common tapestry," he says, "seldom keeps its colour upward of a couple of years, so that, if such were used in open sunlight on the backs of beasts of burden, or to cover carts, exposed to sun, wind, dust, and mire, or else for cleaning shoes upon, as now is practised with the _reposteros_, their imperfections would become apparent all the sooner." [45] At about the same time that this petition was presented by Gutierrez, another tapestry-maker named Pedro de Espinosa, a native of Iniesta, was living at Cordova. On February 2nd, 1560, he married Leonor de Burgos, and received as dowry from his bride the sum of thirty-five thousand _maravedis_. (Ramírez de Arellano, _Artistas Exhumados_, published in the _Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Excursiones_.) Mention of these typically Spanish objects known as _reposteros_,[46] induces me to quote an interesting notice relating to the visit of Philip the Second to Cordova, in the year 1570. The train of the Duke of Medina Sidonia, who journeyed to this city in order to receive his sovereign, consisted of a hundred and three mules covered with "new _reposteros_ of wool, and of six mules covered with _reposteros_ of purple velvet, embroidered with silver and gold, and bearing the duke's arms." [46] "_Reposteros_," says Riaño, "is the ancient name given to the hangings which are placed outside the balconies on state occasions in Spain. Several splendid examples of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries may still be seen at the houses of Spanish grandees, of which those belonging to the Conde de Oñate and Marques de Alcañices at Madrid are the most remarkable for their artistic design." It is surprising that Riaño should insert so incomplete a definition of this word, whose primitive and proper meaning, according to the Dictionary of the Spanish Academy, is "a square piece of cloth with the arms of a prince or Señor, which serves for covering baggage carried by beasts of burden, and also for hanging in antechambers." See also Vol. II., p. 16 (note) of the present work. If, as seems most likely, the woollen _reposteros_ above referred to were of woven work containing a device, this passage would demonstrate that the manufacture of the cloths in question was sometimes the province of the tapestry-maker and sometimes that of the embroiderer. Ramírez de Arellano, from whose instructive studies on the craftsmen of older Spain I quote the foregoing extract, says that the making of _reposteros_ constitutes a branch of craftsmanship distinct from embroidery of the common class, and that the men who produced them deserve to be included among artists of real merit. He gives the names of two, Hernán Gonzalez and Juan Ramos, who worked at Cordova in the middle of the sixteenth century. A document relating to the former of these men tells us that in those days the price of a _repostero de estambre_ measuring sixteen palms square, with a coat-of-arms worked in the centre, and a decorative border, was ninety _reales_. [Illustration: XXI THE SPINNERS (_By Velazquez. Prado Gallery_)] Riaño says: "I do not find any information of a later date which suggests the existence of the manufacture of tapestries in Spain during the Middle Ages." Davillier, however, affirms that in the year 1411 two master-makers of tapestry were living at the court of the King of Navarre, and that other craftsmen, holding the same title, were established at Barcelona in 1391 and 1433. This notice is accepted by Müntz: "A la fin du XIV^e et au commencement du XV^e siècle, les Espagnols tentèrent de fonder dans leur patrie quelques ateliers de haute lisse. A Barcelone, en 1391 et en 1433, plusieurs tapissiers (_maestros de tapices_) firent partie du grand Conseil. Mais ces tentaves ne semblent pas avoir eu de résultats durables. Il était plus commode de recourir aux manufactures flamandes, si merveilleusement organisées. Peut-être même ce système était-il plus économique. Ne voyons-nous pas aujourd'hui jusqu'à l'extrême Orient tirer, pour raison d'économie, des fabriques de Manchester et de Birmingham les tissus courants dont il a besoin?" The history of tapestry-making at Madrid may be said to date from the establishment in this town of a small factory by Pedro Gutierrez, whose petition to Philip the Second I have already quoted, and who received protection both from that monarch and from the queen, Doña Ana. In 1625 Gutierrez was succeeded by Antonio Ceron, who formally styled himself "tapicero de nuevo, sucesor de Pedro Gutierrez" ("maker of new tapestries, successor to Pedro Gutierrez"), and petitioned the king for the grant of a meal a day, "in recompense of having taught his trade to eight lads, and of having mounted eight looms in (the factory of) Santa Isabel." This factory of Santa Isabel was so called from the street in which it lay, and part of it is represented in the celebrated painting by Velazquez called _Las Hilanderas_ ("The Spinners," not, as it is translated in Riaño's handbook, "The Weavers." Plate xxi.). This factory was unsuccessful, and declined by degrees until it ceased completely, in spite of the efforts made to revive it in 1694 by a Belgian named Metler, and in 1707 by a Salamanquino, Nicholas Hernández. [Illustration: XXII TAPESTRY MADE AT BRUSSELS FROM GRANADA SILK (_16th Century. Spanish Crown Collection_)] A new tapestry-factory--that of Santa Barbara--was founded shortly afterwards in a building known as the Casa del Abreviador. The first director, engaged in 1720 by order of Philip the Fifth, was Jacob Van der Goten, a native of Antwerp,[47] who died in 1724, and was succeeded at the factory by his sons, Francisco, Jacobo, Cornelius, and Adrian. These craftsmen worked with _basse lisse_ looms till 1729, in which year a _haute lisse_ loom was mounted by a Frenchman, Antoine Lenger. [47] The royal contract with the elder Van der Goten, dated July 30th, 1720, was the result of secret negotiations, and largely brought about by the influence of Philip's minister, Cardinal Alberoni. In 1730, when the court removed to Seville, a tapestry-factory was established at this city also. The director was Jacob Van der Goten the younger, assisted by the painter Procaccini. At the end of three years this factory closed its doors, and Van der Goten and Procaccini, returning to Madrid, established themselves at the old factory of Santa Isabel, from which, in 1744, they again removed to the factory of Santa Barbara.[48] [48] "On Saturday, May 27th, passing through the gate of Saint Barbara, I visited the tapestry manufactory, which resembles, and equals in beauty, the Gobelins, whence it originally came. I found a Frenchman at the head of it, who was civil and communicative. This fabric was brought into Spain, and established here under the direction of John de Van Dergoten, from Antwerp, in the year 1720. They now employ fourscore hands, and work only on the king's account, and for his palaces, making and repairing all the tapestry and carpets which are wanted at any of the _Sitios_, or royal residences."--Townsend, in 1786. "The elegant manufacture of tapestry is carried on without Saint Barbe's gate, at the entrance of the promenade of Los Altos, or Chamberi; it was established in 1720 by Philip the Fifth, at whose invitation John Dergoten, of Antwerp, was induced to undertake its superintendence, an office at present filled by his descendants. The productions of this manufactory are carpets and tapestry, the subjects of which are often drawn from fable or history; it sometimes copies pictures executed by superior artists, and affords daily employment to eighty persons, including dyers, drawers, designers, and all its various branches."--Laborde (about 1800). In 1774, when, with the exception of Cornelius, who was considered the most skilful of them all, the family of the Van der Gotens had died out, the direction of the Santa Barbara factory was entrusted to several Spanish artists, named Manuel Sanchez, Antonio Moreno, Tomás del Castillo, and Domingo Galan. Sanchez, who acted as general superintendent of the works, died in 1786, and was succeeded in this office by his nephew, Livinio Stuck, whose son resumed the directorship in 1815, after the factory had been paralysed by the invasion of the Peninsula, and destroyed by the French in 1808. Since then it has never ceased working, and descendants of the Stucks continue to superintend it at the present day. [Illustration: XXIII A PROMENADE IN ANDALUSIA (_Cartoon for Tapestry. By Goya_)] The collection of tapestry belonging to the Crown of Spain is probably the finest in the world. As far back as the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the walls of the royal palace were hung with decorative textile cloths or _paños de Ras_, and among the officers in the household of their son, the youthful Prince Don Juan, we find included a keeper of the tapestry and _reposteros_. But it was not until the reigns of Charles the Fifth and Philip the Second that the royal collection was enriched with numerous sets of celebrated tapestries produced in Italy and Flanders--countries which were then subjected to the yoke of Spain. Frequent additions were also made throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, both from abroad and subsequently (when the Brussels industry declined) from the Spanish factories of Santa Isabel and Santa Barbara. As early as the year 1600 a Spaniard wrote enthusiastically of "the rich and cunning tapestries belonging to His Majesty, to whom it would be easier to win a kingdom than to get them made anew."[49] At the present day it is impossible to estimate with any certainty the number of these tapestries, the greater part of which are locked away. Only on certain festivals, such as the days of Corpus Christi and the Candelaria (Purification), a few are unfolded and displayed in the upper galleries of the palace at Madrid. Their total number is believed to be not far short of one thousand pieces;[50] but Señor Tormo calculates that were they no more than five hundred, they would, if placed end to end, cover more than two miles of ground. [49] Licentiate Gaspar Gutierrez de los Ríos, _Noticia general para la estimación de las Artes y de la manera en que se conocen las liberales de las que son mecánicas y serviles_. [50] Riaño estimates them at this number. See his _Report on a collection of photographs from tapestries of the Royal Palace of Madrid_; London, 1875; and also _Tapices de la Corona de España_, with 135 plates in phototype, and text by Count Valencia de Don Juan; Madrid, Hauser and Menet, 1903. Among the sets which form this wonderful collection, distributed between the palaces of Madrid, the Prado, and the Escorial, none is of greater merit or magnificence than the series of twelve cloths depicting the _Conquest of Tunis_ (Plate xxii.), designed for Charles the Fifth by his Court painter, Jan Vermay or Vermeyen, of Beverwyck, near Haarlem, and executed by William Pannemaker, of Brussels. It was agreed by Pannemaker in 1549 that the materials employed upon this tapestry should consist of the finest wool, Granada silk, and, for the woof, the choicest Lyons _fillet_--the very best that money could procure. The Emperor himself was to provide the gold and silver thread. Accordingly, Pannemaker was supplied with five hundred and fifty-nine pounds and one ounce of silk, dyed and spun in the city of Granada, where one of Charles' agents resided for two years seven months and twenty-five days, for the purpose of superintending its preparation. The cost of this silk, exclusive of the agent's expenses, amounted to 6,637 florins. Nineteen colours were employed in the dyeing, each colour consisting of from three to seven shades, and a hundred and sixty pounds of the finest silk were consumed in trying to obtain a special shade of blue. After receiving these materials, Pannemaker kept seven workmen constantly engaged upon each _paño_ of this tapestry, or eighty-four workmen in all. As soon as any one of the pieces was concluded, he submitted it to experts who pointed out such details as they recommended for correction. The entire work required a little more than five years, and was therefore terminated in 1554. The price paid for it was twelve florins per ell, and the number of these was 1246, representing a total cost of 14,952 florins, while Pannemaker, subject to the Emperor's being satisfied with the work, was further promised a yearly pension of a hundred florins.[51] [51] Müntz, _La Tapisserie_, pp. 217, 218. Wauters, _Les Tapisseries Bruxelloises_, pp. 76, 77. Houdoy, _Tapisseries représentant la Conqueste du Royaulme de Thunes par l'empereur Charles-Quint_. Equally remarkable are the spirited design and the flawless execution of this series of elaborate cloths, recalling, in their swarms of armed figures and the lofty point of view, which reduces the sky to a mere strip, the vivacious war and camp pictures of Snyders. The titles of the subjects, forming, as it were, a pictured epitome of the expedition led by Charles in person against the Barbary pirates, are as follows: (1) A map of the Spanish coast; (2) The review of the troops at Barcelona; (3) The landing of the forces; (4) A skirmish; (5) The camp; (6) Foraging; (7) The capture of La Goleta; (8) The battle of Los Pozos, Tunis; (9) A sortie of the besieged; (10) The sack of Tunis; (11) The victors returning to the harbour; (12) The forces embarking. According to Müntz, this tapestry has been copied at least on two occasions; once in the eighteenth century by Josse de Vos, of Brussels, and also, in the same century, in Spain, partly at Seville, and partly at the factories of Santa Isabel and Santa Barbara. [Illustration: XXIV TAPESTRY. ARRAS WORK, FROM ITALIAN CARTOONS (_First half of 15th Century. Zamora Cathedral_)] Other most valuable and beautiful tapestries belonging to the Spanish Crown are the series titled _The History of the Virgin_, believed to be from cartoons by Van Eyk, _The Passion_, from cartoons attributed to Van der Weyden, the _History of David_ and _History of Saint John the Baptist_, the _Mass of Saint Gregory_, and the _Founding of Rome_. All of these series date from the fifteenth century and early in the sixteenth. Belonging to a later period are the reproductions of rustic scenes and hunting subjects by Teniers and others, executed in Spain between 1721 and 1724, the _Scenes from Don Quixote_, made at Santa Barbara from Procaccini's cartoons, and the eminently national series produced at the same factory from designs by Francisco Goya y Lucientes. This latter group amounts to several dozen pieces, including the well-known _Blind Man's Buff_, _A Promenade in Andalusia_ (Plate xxiii.), _The Crockery-seller_, _The Grape-Gatherers_ (_Frontispiece_), and other spirited and charming scenes of popular Spanish life--"tout cela," as Lefort describes it, "spirituel, vif, pittoresque, très mouvementé, bien groupé, s'élevant sur des fonds champêtres ou baignant gaiement en pleine lumière." Other tapestry collections of great merit belong to the cathedrals of Burgos, Zamora (where they line the walls of the Sacristy; Plate xxiv.), Zaragoza, Toledo, Tarragona, and Santiago. The first of these temples possesses the following sets, which are displayed to decorate the cloisters on the feast of Corpus Christi:-- (1) The History of Cleopatra and Mark Antony. (2) The History of David. (3) The Creation. (4) An Historical Subject. (5) The Theological and Cardinal Virtues. (6) A series of five Gothic tapestries, which represent some mystery or allegory, and seem to be of Flemish manufacture. One other _paño_, of a similar character, accompanies them. All but the last of the above sets are marked with two B's separated by a shield, denoting Brussels workmanship. The _Theological and Cardinal Virtues_ were presented to the cathedral about the end of the sixteenth century. They are evidently executed from Italian cartoons, and the _haute-lisse_ craftsman who made them, in or towards the year 1571, was named Francis Greubels.[52] [52] See an article on these tapestries by Señor Lamperez y Romea, published in No. 55 of the _Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Excursiones_; and also Nos. 156 and 157 of the same publication, for an article on the Crown and other Spanish collections, by Elías Tormo y Monzó. [Illustration: XXV FLEMISH TAPESTRY (_Late 15th Century. Collection of the late Count of Valencia de Don Juan_)] The tapestries which belong to the cathedral of Zaragoza number some sixty or seventy pieces, including a series (fifteenth century) representing _The Life of Saint John the Baptist_, from designs by Lucas of Holland. Good tapestries were also the property of Valencia cathedral, but have been dispersed and sold in recent years. The convent of the Descalzas Reales at Madrid possesses a set from designs by Rubens. Ten pieces of this series formerly belonged to the Count-Duke of Olivares, who sent them to his town of Loeches; four passing subsequently to the Duke of Westminster's collection. The small though valuable collection formed by the late Count of Valencia de Don Juan (Plate xxv.), passed at this nobleman's death to his daughter, Señora de Osma, who has presented part of it to the Archæological Museum at Madrid. Another collector resident in Spain, Mons. Mersmann, of Granada, possesses a series of fine Brussels cloths representing scenes from _Don Quixote_, by Van den Hecke. LACE Although the Spaniards have enjoyed, and still enjoy, a widespread fame for lace-making, their written records of this craft are unsubstantial. Originally, perhaps, they borrowed it from the Arabs or Venetians. Certainly, the earliest Spanish lace was such as is made with a needle, that is, point, not pillow lace. In this form, _à la aguja_, and in the sixteenth century, the Spaniards possibly conveyed the secrets of its manufacture to the Netherlands, receiving from the natives of this country, in exchange, the art of making lace by means of bobbins, including the characteristic "Flemish net," or _red flandés_. Towards the sixteenth century the parts of Spain where lace was manufactured in the largest quantity were some of the Manchegan towns and villages, the coast of Finisterre, and nearly the whole of Cataluña. In La Mancha lace was made, and still is so, at Manzanares, Granatula, Almagro, and other places. That of Almagro (the celebrated _punto de Almagro_, resembling the lace of Cataluña), is mentioned by nearly all the older travellers. In _Don Quixote_, Teresa writes to Sancho Panza that their daughter Sanchita was engaged in making bobbin-lace at a daily wage of eight _sueldos_. [Illustration: XXVI THE MARCHIONESS OF LA SOLANA (_By Goya_)] In 1877, at the Exhibition of Sumptuary Arts which was held in Barcelona, a magnificent lace _toca_ was shown, which was affirmed by its possessor, Señor Parcerisa, to be the work of a Spaniard of the later part of the fifteenth century, and to have belonged to Isabella the Catholic. The cathedral of the same city owns three thread-lace albs of sixteenth century workmanship, and the South Kensington Museum other pieces of Spanish lace of a comparatively early date, probably made by nuns and subtracted from the convents during the stormy scenes of 1835. Dating from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, we have a number of notices, though scrappy and inexplicit as a rule, relating to Spanish lace. One of the more complete and interesting is quoted by Riaño from the _Microcosmia y Gobierno Universal del Hombre Cristiano_ (Barcelona, 1592) of Father Marcos Antonio de Campos. "I will not be silent," wrote this austere _padre_, "and fail to mention the time lost these last years in the manufacture of _cadenetas_, a work of thread combined with gold and silver; this extravagance and excess reached such a point that 100 and 1000 ducats were spent in this work, in which, besides destroying the eyesight, wasting away the lives, and rendering consumptive the women who worked it, and preventing them from spending their time with more advantage to their souls, a few ounces of thread and years of time were wasted with so unsatisfactory a result. I ask myself, after this fancy shall have passed away, will the lady or gentleman find that the chemises that cost them 50 ducats, or the _basquiña_ (petticoat) that cost them 300, are worth half their price, which certainly is the case with other objects in which the material itself is worth more?" [Illustration: XXVII A SPANISH _MAJA_ (_A.D. 1777_)] Several of the other notices relating to the lace-makers' craft are from the pen of Countess d'Aulnoy. Of the Countess of Lemos this writer says: "Her hair was white, but she carefully concealed it beneath a black blonde"; and of another Spanish lady, Doña Leonor de Toledo, that she wore "a green velvet skirt trimmed with Spanish blonde." In the apartments of the young Princess of Monteleón the countess saw "a bed of green and gold damask, decorated with silver brocade and Spanish blonde. The sheets were fringed with English point-lace, extremely broad and handsome." The countess also says that the petticoats of the Spanish ladies were of English point-lace,[53] and that these ladies, when they visited each other, wore on their heads "a _toca_ of the richest English black point-lace, half a yard broad, forming points like the antique laces, beautiful to look at, and very dear. This head-dress suits them rarely." [53] Upon the other hand, a notice dated 1562 says that at that time Spanish-made black lace was largely used at the Court of England. According to Balsa de la Vega, whose interesting articles on Spanish lace (published in the newspaper _El Liberal_) are worth perusal by all who are interested in this craft, about the middle of the seventeenth century the custom originated in Spain of making lace in broader pieces, dividing the pattern into a number of strips or _fajas_ which were subsequently sewn together. In Belgium, on the contrary, the design was cut out, following the contour of the floral or other decoration. In former ages gold and silver lace was made in France, and also at Genoa. I think it possible that Genoese merchants, many of whom are known to have settled in Granada and other Spanish cities, may first have introduced this branch of lace-making among the Spaniards. The sumptuary laws of Aragon, Castile, León, and Navarre would seem to show that lace of these materials, known as _punto_ or _redecilla de oro_ (or _plata_) was manufactured by the Spanish Jews between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries. During the seventeenth century and part of the eighteenth, the quantity produced in the Peninsula was very large. In his _Fenix de Cataluña_, a work which was published at Barcelona in 1683, Feliu de la Peña says that Spanish _randa_ or _réseuil_, of gold and silver, silk, thread, and aloe fibre, was better made in Spain than in the Netherlands. The journal of Bertaut de Rouen contains the following notice of this silver lace: "Le Roy y envoya le Lieutenant du Maistre des Postes, avec huit postillons, couverts de clinquant, et quarante chevaux de poste, dont il y en avoit huit avec des selles et des brides du Roy où il y avoit de la dentelle d'argent, que Monsieur le Mareschal fit distribuer à environ autant de gens que nous estions, sur une liste qu'il avoit envoyée quelques jours auparavant." [Illustration: XXVIII A _MAJA_ (_By Goya_)] It is impossible to mention Spanish lace without recalling that most graceful article of headwear, the _mantilla_, the use of which is gradually dying out. At present we understand by this word a black or white head-covering of lace alone (the white being more conspicuous and dressy), but about a hundred years ago the _mantilla_ was made of a variety of fabrics. Also, it was worn in an easier and more _negligé_ manner than nowadays, retaining a closer likeness to the _velo_ or _manto_ with which the Spanish women of the seventeenth century were able, at their pleasure, to completely mask their faces (Plates xxvi. and xxvii.). Indeed, as late as the early part of the nineteenth century the _mantilla_ was sometimes thrown over the face (Plates xxviii. and xxix.). The same usage is referred to by Townsend, who describes the _mantilla_ as "serving the double purpose of a cloak and veil."[54] To-day it is worn, not hanging loose and open, but a good deal bunched up at the bosom. The hair, too, is dressed to an unusual height, with a tall comb, and over this the delicate lace covering should droop a little to one side. A flower or two (roses or carnations by preference) may be worn at one side of the head, and where the _mantilla_ is caught up at the breast. [54] "Pour les femmes, elles ne sortent point qu'emmantelées d'une mante noire comme le deüil des dames de France, et elles ne se montrent qu'un [oe]uil, et vont cherchant et agaçant les hommes avec tant d'effronterie, qu'elles tiennent à affront quand on ne veut pas aller plus loin que la conversation."--Bertaut de Rouen; _Journal du Voyage d'Espagne_, p. 294. The manuscript account of Spanish costumes early in the nineteenth century, and which is prefixed to my copy of Pigal's coloured lithographs, contains some excellent descriptions of the older Spanish _mantilla_. We learn, for instance, that at Palma the women of the well-to-do middle class wore a _mantilla_ of black taffeta, trimmed with blonde (Plate xviii.).[55] In La Mancha, and among the peasants, it was of white muslin; at Cordova, in cold weather, "en flanelle ou en bayette fine: elle est garnie de rubans à l'extrémité desquels il y a deux gros noeuds: en été elle est en mousseline." The small _mantilla_ or "mantellina" of the wife of the smuggler of Tarifa was "en flanelle blanche, ou noire, ou rose, brodée d'un ruban: elle en fait três souvent un usage différent des autres femmes espagnoles, car au lieu de la mettre sur la tête attachés avec des épingles, elle s'en sert de schal: quelque fois elle la met en baudrier laissant flotter derrière elle les deux extrémités qui sont ornées d'un noeud en ruban." The servant-girl of Madrid wore a white _mantilla_ in summer, and a black one in winter. The same author describes in greater detail the _mantillas_ of the fine ladies. "La mantille et la basquigne," he says, "voila de quoi se compose principalement le costume du beau sexe en Espagne. Ce costume, quoique national, est susceptible de recevoir aussi bien que tout autre les divers degrés de luxe que les femmes d'une riche classe et celles du plus haut rang peuvent apporter dans leur parure: la classe la moins aisée porte la mantille en laine noire ou blanche et la basquigne en serge ou autre étoffe de laine noire. Pendant le jour, lorsque les dames espagnoles se présentent en public, c'est toujours avec la mantille et la basquigne, mais le soir si elles vont au spectacle ou ailleurs, elles sortent três souvent habillées à la française." [55] Blonde, I need hardly state, is silk-lace. It can always be distinguished by the glossy surface. [Illustration: XXIX A LADY OF SORIA (_About A.D. 1810_)] Elsewhere he says: "Nous avons déjà dit qu'un simple ruban, un peigne, ou une fleur, est la coiffure adoptée par les dames espagnoles, pour faire usage de la mantille: celle-ci est dans l'hiver quelquefois en serge de soie, taffetas, etc., noir, garnie en outre de blondes, ou d'un large ruban de velours noir en échiquier (_cinta de terciopelo à tablero_), mais ce ruban est toujours noir. Il y eut un temps où la mode, qui ne fut pas de longue durée, prescrivait que les bouts de la mantille se terminassent en trois pointes ornées chacune d'une houppe (_borla_) noire, ou d'un lacet de ruban noir. Jamais les mantilles ne sont doublées." The same author remarks of the lady of Madrid; "La mantille de tulle brodé ne se porte que dans la belle saison ... elle ne dépasse jamais la ceinture"[56]; and of the lady of Granada: "si la mantille est blanche, elle est en tulle parsemé de petits bouquets et garnie de larges et riches dentelles. Si elle est noire, comme cela arrive plus ordinairement, elle est alors en blonde: il y a de ces mantilles qui coutent cinq cent, mille, et jusqu'à deux mille francs." [56] This is incorrect. It was sometimes worn longer. [Illustration: XXX HANDKERCHIEF OF CATALAN LACE (_Presented to Queen Victoria of Spain, on her marriage_)] A good deal of lace, principally of the less elaborate and cheaper kinds, was formerly manufactured in the kingdom of Valencia. Cabanillas wrote in 1797 that at Novelda, a small town of this region, more than two thousand women and children worked at making laces, which were hawked about the country by others of the townspeople. Swinburne remarks upon the same industry, and Ricord tells us in his pamphlet (1791) that cotton lace was made in six factories at Torrente, Alicante, and Orihuela.[57] The total product of these factories for the said year was 1,636,100 yards, which sold at from nine to twelve _reales_ the yard. Laborde wrote some years later, in the first volume of his book, that lace, and gold and silver fringes were then made at Valencia, and in the fourth volume; "Gold and silver laced stuffs, and velvets of all colours brocaded and flowered with the same metals, are made at Toledo, Barcelona, Valencia, and Talavera de la Reina; and the manufacture at the last-named city annually consumes four thousand marks of silver, and seventy marks of gold. [57] A letter from Vargas y Ponce to Cean Bermudez, dated 1797, says that in this year there existed at Murcia a school for making blondes, owned by one Castilla. "He does good work, teaches well, and has executed blondes for the Queen, which are well spoken of." "At Barcelona, Talavera de la Reina, and Valencia are also manufactured gold and silver edgings, lace, and fringes, though not in a sufficient quantity to answer the demands of Spain; and the gold is very badly prepared, having too red a cast." Lace-making was an ancient and important industry of every part of Cataluña. Lace articles for ladies' headwear are known to have been made throughout this region at least as far back as the fifteenth century, and Capmany reminds us that by a _cedula_ dated from the Cortes of Monzón, December 16th, 1538, the Emperor Charles the Fifth confirmed the Ordinances of the guild, established long before, of the _tejedores de velos_ of Barcelona. Technical provisions are embodied in this code, concerning various articles of lace employed as headwear, such as _alfardillas_, _quiñales_, and _espumilla_, all of which were largely exported to America. The attention of foreigners who travelled in Cataluña towards the eighteenth century was constantly attracted by the lace-makers. Swinburne mentions "Martorell, a large town, where much black lace is manufactured," and "Espalungera (Esparraguera?), a long village, full of cloth and lace manufacturers," and wrote of Sarriá and its surroundings, close to Barcelona: "The women in the little hamlets were busy with their bobbins making black lace, some of which, of the coarser kind, is spun out of the leaf of the aloe. It is curious, but of little use, for it grows mucilaginous with washing." [Illustration: XXXI CURTAIN OF SPANISH LACE (_Point and Pillow Work. Modern_)] "Martorell," wrote Townsend in 1786, "is one long, narrow street, in which poverty, industry, and filth, although seldom seen together, have agreed to take up their abode. The inhabitants make lace, and even the little children of three and four years old are engaged in this employment." Laborde wrote that at the beginning of the eighteenth century seventeen manufactories of blondes were established at Mataró, and adds of Barcelona province generally at that time: "Laces and blondes constitute the employment of women and children. The work is principally done at Pineda, Malgrat, San Celoni, Tosa, Canet, Arenys, Callela, San-Pol, Mataró, Esparraguera, Martorell, and Barcelona.... The laces are almost all shipped for the New World." The most observant and most entertaining of all these tourists was Arthur Young, who wrote, in 1787, of the towns upon the coast of Cataluña: "The appearance of industry is as great as it can be: great numbers of fishing-boats and nets, with rows of good white houses on the sea-side; and while the men are active in their fisheries, the women are equally busy making lace." Of Mataró he says: "It appears exceedingly industrious; some stocking-frames; lace-makers at every door.... I am sorry to add that here also the industry of catching lice in each other's heads is well understood. "Pass Arrengs (Arenys), a large town ... making thread lace universal here. They have thread from France; women earn ten to sixteen _sous_ at it. Great industry, and in consequence a flourishing appearance. Canet, another large town, employed also in ship-building, fishing, and making lace.... Pass Malgrat, which is not so well built as the other towns, but much lace made in it.... Reach Figueras, whose inhabitants seem industrious and active. They make lace, cordage, and mats, and have many potteries of a common sort."[58] [58] Tour in Catalonia in 1787; Vol. I., p. 644, etc. Lace-making prevails to-day all through this region of north-eastern Spain, particularly in the strip or zone of it including the valley of the Llobregat as far as Martorell, and which extends from Palamós to Barcelona. The towns which produce the greatest quantities of lace are Arenys de Mar, Malgrat, San Pol, Canet, and Arenys de Munt. In the last of these places an important Regional Exhibition of Lace was held in July of last year, the number of exhibitors amounting to one hundred and twenty-five. Due to the increasing production of underlinen and woven fabrics generally, or to other causes, lace-making has declined at Blanes, Pineda, Calella, and one or two other places. At San Celoni, Vallgorguina, San Vicente, San Andrés de Llevaneras, Argentona, Caldeta, and San Acisclo de Vilalta, lace is made by women who combine this work with dirtier and rougher labour in the field. Most of the lace made in these towns is therefore black. [Illustration: XXXII POINT LACE FAN, OF MUDEJAR DESIGN (_Modern_)] In the spring of last year, an elaborate lace pocket-handkerchief (Plate xxx.), designed by Señor Riquer, and executed in a traditional style of Cataluña, denominated locally the _ret Catalá_, was made in the old-established lace-factory of the widow of Mariano Castells in the town of Arenys de Mar, and offered by the Agricultural Institute of San Isidro as a wedding-present to Princess Ena of Battenberg. Two _encajeras_ worked at this handkerchief under the personal direction of the widow Castells, and the time employed by them in making it was two months. Plate xxxi. represents a small portion of a very original and beautiful lace curtain, ten feet high, designed by Señor Aguado, and executed, partly by Señorita Pilar Huguet (who superintended the work throughout), and partly by seventeen of this lady's pupils, at the School of Arts and Industries, Toledo. Although it is a hackneyed trope to declare that the ornamentation of the Spanish-Moors, whether in ivory, wood or metal, stone or plaster, was "delicate enough to seem of lacework," I believe this to be the first occasion when such intricate and graceful motives have been actually reproduced in lace. The result of the experiment has proved surprisingly effective. The design is Spanish-Arabic in its purest form, recalling various arabesques upon the walls of the Alhambra, and includes thirty-three medallions which constitute the principal decorative scheme, a hundred and forty-eight palms or _alharacas_, and the Arabic expression "God is all-powerful," repeated sixty-six times. The centre of the curtain consists in all of four hundred and forty-eight pieces. The broad cenefa or bordering, which runs right round the whole, contains, in Arabic, the following inscription: "This curtain was begun in the _curso_ (course or series of classes) of the year 1903-1904, and terminated in the _curso_ following, (Art) School of Toledo." The style adopted throughout is that of Brussels, known erroneously as English point, although upon a coarser scale than is considered to be proper to this lace, the ground being executed by the needle, or in point-work, and the rest by bobbins. Plate xxxii. represents a covering for a fan, also executed by Señorita Huguet, and also in the Brussels style. The design is a combination of Mudejar motives, such as conventional foliage and geometrical bordering, with a Spanish scutcheon and the double-headed eagle of the Emperor Charles the Fifth. At the present day, and largely owing to the initiative and the skilled tuition of Señor Salvi, excellent lace is manufactured at Madrid, including reproductions--which have been generally admired in Great Britain and elsewhere--of the finest point or bobbin work of Malines, Manchester, and Venice. Appendices APPENDIX A THE LEGEND OF SAN MIGUEL IN EXCELSIS Towards the year A.D. 707, when Witiza was king of Spain, there dwelt at the castle of Goñi, not far from the city of Pamplona in Navarre, a cavalier named Don Theodosio, whose wife, Doña Constanza de Viandra, was a lady of remarkable beauty. On one occasion Don Theodosio found himself obliged to quit his native country for a time, in order to command a military expedition against the Berbers, and before his departure he begged his father and mother to cheer his wife's loneliness while he should be away, by taking up their residence at his castle. They came accordingly, and as a special mark of honour to the parents of her lord, Doña Constanza gave up to them her own chamber, together with the nuptial couch. After a time, when Theodosio's enterprise was concluded, and the warrior, safe and sound, was returning to Navarre, the Devil, disguised as a hermit, one evening lay in wait for him at a spot called Errotavidea, situated at a few miles' distance from Goñi castle, in the wooded and romantic valley of the Ollo. Stepping up to the cavalier's side, Satan assured him, in a tone of smooth hypocrisy, that during his absence the lady Constanza had been seduced by one of Theodosio's own servants. Upon the knight's demanding proof, "proceed," replied the Devil, "to your castle, enter your nuptial chamber, and there you will find your consort in the very arms of her paramour." Frantic with apprehension, the warrior spurred home, broke into his chamber at the dead of night, and, passing his hand over the bed, encountered, as Satan had malignantly foretold, two bodies; whereupon he drew his sword and, in this moment of fatal and irreflective haste, murdered his own father and mother. Then, just as he was rushing from the room, he met, carrying a lighted lamp, the lady Constanza herself, returning from the chapel in which, as was her custom every night, she had been praying for his safe return. Smitten with deep repentance for the crime, whose enormity had been discovered by the impetuous lord in so dramatic and dreadful a fashion, Theodosio journeyed to Rome, and related what had happened to the Pope, who sentenced him to wear a heavy iron collar round his neck, and chains about his body, and to wander, in a state of rigorous penance, through the loneliest regions of Navarre, without setting foot in any town, until, as a sign that divine justice was satisfied, the chains should fall from off him. Wherever this should come to pass, he was instructed to build a temple in honour of the archangel Michael. The sentence was patiently performed, and Theodosio had spent some years in solitary wandering, when on a day a single link dropped from his ponderous chains. This happened on the top of a high mountain called Ayedo, in the Sierra de Andía, and accordingly the penitent erected on the spot a simple fane in the archangel's honour, known by the name of San Miguel de Ayedo, and which, in the form of a little hermitage, still exists. This proof of heavenly grace presaged a further and a more complete deliverance. When Theodosio's wandering had lasted seven years, he reached one day the summit of Mount Aralar, at two leagues' distance from his own castle, and was there met by a ferocious dragon of appalling size. Being, as a penitent, unarmed, as well as encumbered by his massive chains, the miserable man fell helpless to his knees, and called to God to succour him. The prayer was heard. Suddenly the form of his patron the archangel flashed out against the sky, the dragon fell dead, and all of Theodosio's chains were shattered, and dropped from him. Here, therefore, he built another and a larger temple in honour of his guardian, and, accompanied by Doña Constanza, passed the remainder of his life in peaceful and secluded piety. The castle of Goñi, which was also called "Saint Michael's palace," and "the palace of the cavalier to whom Saint Michael revealed himself," was standing as late as the year 1685, but, according to Padre Burgui, by the close of another century the walls were crumbling fast. Until about the year 1715 there also stood an ancient wooden cross to mark the spot where Satan, in a hermit's garb, had appeared to Don Theodosio. APPENDIX B JET-WORK OF SANTIAGO In former times the art of carving jet was largely practised at this town. The characteristic form was the _signaculum_ or image of Saint James; that is, a more or less uncouth representation of the apostle in full pilgrim's dress. The height of these images, which are now dispersed all over Europe, varies between four and seven inches. They are fully described in Drury Fortnum's monographs, _On a signaculum of Saint James of Compostela_, and _Notes on other signacula of Saint James of Compostela_, as well as in Villa-amil y Castro's _La azabachería compostelana_. These objects were sold in quantities to the pilgrims visiting Santiago, who nevertheless were often cheated by the substitution of black glass for jet.[59] [59] The following passage from Townsend's Journey through Spain (Vol. II., p. 56), is curious as showing where jet was formerly found in this Peninsula. "When I returned to Oviedo, a gentleman gave me a collection of amber and of jet, of which there is great abundance in this province: but the two most considerable mines of it are in the territory of Beloncia, one in a valley called Las Guerrias, the other on the side of a high mountain in the village of Arenas, in the parish of Val de Soto. The former is found in slate, and looks like wood: but when broke, the nodules discover a white crust, inclosing yellow amber, bright and transparent. Jet and a species of kennel coal, abounding with marcasites, universally accompany the amber." Specimens of this work are in the British and Cluny Museums, and in the Archæological Museum at Madrid. An interesting jet figure of the apostle on horseback belonged to the late Count of Valencia de Don Juan. Jet processional crosses (twelfth and thirteenth century), studded with enamel, and which were used at funerals, are preserved in the cathedrals of Oviedo and Orense. Rings, rosaries, and amulets were also carved from this material. As to Spanish processional crosses generally (the use of which was undoubtedly borrowed from the standard borne at the head of pagan armies), I may say that they are commonly fitted with a handle, called the _cruz baja_ or "lower cross," though sometimes this handle is dispensed with, as, for instance, at the funerals of infants. According to Villa-amil y Castro, the typical shape of the Spanish processional cross has always been that denominated the _immissa_, consisting of four arms terminating in straight edges. The same authority says that within this broader definition the primitive form was the Greek cross, that is, having four arms of equal length. Another early form was the "Oviedo" cross (see Vol. I., Plate II.), with the four arms in the shape of trapezia, united at the centre by a disc. Of this latter shape are, or were, the crosses of Guarrazar and those which were presented by Alfonso the Second and Alfonso the Third to the cathedrals of Oviedo and Santiago. A later form was the _potenzada_ cross, which had a cross-piece fixed at the extremity of each arm. As time advanced, this T-shaped termination to the arms assumed such decorative and capricious forms as the trefoil and the fleur-de-lis. Early in the history of the Spanish church the processional cross consisted often of a wooden core, covered with more or less profusely ornamented silver plates, and having, between the handle and the upper part, an enamelled bulb or _n[oe]ud_. The image of Christ, converting the cross into the crucifix, was not attached until a later period, because, as Villa-amil y Castro has remarked, the primitive Christians considered the essential glory of their faith, rather than, as yet, the perils and the pains to which they were exposed by clinging to that faith. The cross was thus the symbol of the Christian's glory; the crucifix, of his suffering.[60] [60] As for the clothing of sacred images in Spain, even these are subject to changes in the fashion of costume. Ford makes merry over "the Saviour in a court-dress, with wig and breeches." Swinburne wrote in 1775, from Alicante: "We have been all the morning in great uneasiness about Sir T. G.'s valet de chambre, who, till within this hour, was not to be found in any of the places he usually frequents. His appearance has quieted our apprehensions; and it seems he has been from sunrise till dinner-time locked up in the sacristy of the great church, curling and frizzling the flaxen periwig of the statue of the Virgin, who is to-morrow to be carried in solemn procession through the city." A similar passage occurs in one of the letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. "I was particularly diverted," she wrote from Nuremberg in 1716, "in a little Roman Catholic church which is permitted here, where the professors of that religion are not very rich, and consequently cannot adorn their images in so rich a manner as their neighbours. For, not to be quite destitute of all finery, they have dressed up an image of our Saviour over the altar in a fair, full-bottomed wig, very well powdered." APPENDIX C DESCRIPTION OF THE _CUSTODIAS_ OF SEVILLE AND CORDOVA The _custodia_ of Seville cathedral is described by its author, Juan de Arfe, in the following terms:-- The shape is circular, with projecting friezes and bases. The _custodia_ is four yards high, and is divided into four orders of symmetrical proportions, the second order being smaller by two-fifths than the first, the third smaller by the same fraction than the second, and the fourth than the third. Each order rests upon four-and-twenty columns, twelve of which are of a larger size, and wrought in relief. The other and the smaller twelve are striated, and serve as imposts to the arches. All these orders are of open work, containing twelve _vistas_ (prospects) apiece. Six are of full dimensions, and the other six spring from half-way up the larger ones, as is shown in the appended design, which I will not explain further, as the proportion and harmony can be judged of from the plan (see Vol. I., Plate xvii.). FIRST ORDER The first order is in the Ionic style. The columns and frieze are adorned with vines containing fruits and foliage, and some figures of children holding spikes of wheat, to signify bread and wine. In the centre of this, the largest order, is Faith, represented by the figure of a queen, seated on a throne, holding in her right hand a chalice with the host, and in the other a standard such as is seen in certain ancient medals of the emperors Constantine and Theodosius. Beneath her feet is a world, and behind her, overthrown and bound with chains, a monster with the face of a beautiful woman and the trunk or body of a dragon, to represent Heresy, which seems to attract by pleasantness of shape, being at bottom poison and deceit. At one side is the figure of a youth with wings, and a bandage over his eyes, representing Intelligence. His hands are shackled, and he is kneeling, as one that surrenders himself captive to Faith in all her mysteries, and particularly in this one. Corresponding to this figure, on the opposite side, is that of a beautiful woman, likewise kneeling, crossing her hands before her breast, and holding a book, to represent Human Wisdom, which acknowledges the majesty of the Catholic Faith, and is subservient thereto. On the right hand of Faith is Saint Peter, seated, holding his keys on high, and on her left Saint Paul, with naked sword, that is, the preaching of the word of God. High up, about the spring of the vault, is the figure of the Holy Spirit, assistant in the church. Between the six _asientos_ of the base are the four doctors of the Church, together with Saint Thomas and Pope Urban the Fourth, who instituted the festival of the Holy Sacrament. All these figures are half a yard in height; that is, one half the height of the larger columns belonging to this order. In the six niches that are between the arches, are the figures of six Sacraments, in this wise:-- (1) _Baptism_, represented by the figure of a youth holding in one hand a bunch of lilies, signifying purity and innocence, and in the other a beautiful vessel, showing the act of washing the soul, that is the particular virtue of this Sacrament. Over the arch is a scroll containing the word BAPTISMUS. (2) _Confirmation_ is a damsel of spirited mien, armed with a helmet. In one hand she has some vessels of holy oil. Her other hand is raised, while with the index finger she expresses firm determination to confess the name of Christ. Inscribed upon her is the word CONFIRMATIO. (3) _Penitence_ holds in her right hand a wand, denoting spiritual jurisdiction, like the wand wherewith they smite the excommunicated at his absolution. In her left hand is a Roman javelin, that was the symbol of liberty, to signify the free estate of the captive's soul, and how, through absolution, sin is made a slave; together with the word P[OE]NITENTIA. (4) _Extreme Unction_ is represented by an aged woman, holding a vase whence issueth an olive bough, and in her other hand a candle, as token that this Sacrament is a succour to those that be in the last agony. The word inscribed is UNCTIO. (5) _Order_ is a priest with his vestments, holding an incensory, together with a chalice and the host, signifying Oration and Sacrifice. The word inscribed is ORDO. (6) _Matrimony_ is the figure of a youth, holding in one hand a cross with two serpents twined about it, in imitation of Mercury's wand. In his other hand he bears a yoke, and the inscription MATRIMONIUM. * * * * * The Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, as being most excellent of all, occupies a loftier place than all these other Sacraments. The basement of this order, forming, as it were, a boundary and bordering to this holy edifice of the Church, has twelve pedestals beneath the columns, making six and thirty sides, which are adorned with six and thirty scenes, eighteen whereof are taken from the Old Testament, and the other eighteen from the New Testament, or relating to the present state of the Church. (1) The first scene represents how God formed Eve from one of Adam's ribs. An inscription at the foot of the pedestal says, _Humani generis auspicia_. (2) Next to the preceding is an image of our Saviour with two angels supporting him by the arms, while from his wounded side issue seven rays of blood, signifying the Church and Sacraments. The inscription says, _Felicior propagatio_. (3) The tree of Life, with Adam and Eve partaking of its fruit, and the inscription, _Perituræ gaudia vitæ_. (4) A cross adorned with branches and with blades of wheat, surmounted by a chalice and the host, and round about it a few prostrate figures, eating this holy fruit, and the inscription, _Vitæ melioris origo_. (5) The angel with the flaming sword, driving our fathers from Paradise, without suffering them to reach the tree of Life. The inscription says, _Procul, procul esse prophani_. (6) The parable of the banquet, from which was driven out the man that had no wedding garment. The inscription says, _Non licet sanctum dare canibus_. (7) The stream of water that issued from the rock smitten by the rod of Moses, and the thirsty people, drinking. The inscription says, _Bibebant de spirituali petra_. (8) Beside the preceding, the figure of Christ, from whose side issues a stream of blood, of which some sheep are drinking. The inscription says, _Petra autem erat Christus_. (9) The manna which fell from Heaven. The inscription says, _Manducaverunt et mortui sunt_. (10) The miracle of the five loaves, with the inscription, _Qui manducat vivit in æternum_. (11) The raven bringing bread and meat to Elijah. The inscription says, _Non turpat dona minister_. (12) Next to this, an angel conveying a chalice and the host to the saints in the desert, with the inscription, _Sacerdos Angelus Domini est_. (13) Elisha throwing flour in the pot to sweeten the bitterness of the colocynth. The inscription says, _Vitæ solamen acerbæ_. (14) Christ turning the water into wine, with the inscription, _Vertit tristes in gaudia curas_. (15) Tobias frightening away the Devil with the smoke from the liver of a fish. The inscription says, _Fumum fugit atra caterva_. (16) Devils flying from an altar containing a chalice and the host, with the inscription, _Fugiunt phantasmata lucem_. (17) Lot inebriated, sleeping with his daughters. The inscription says, _De vinea sodomorum vinum eorum_. (18) A group of virgins prostrating themselves before the Sacrament upon the altar, with the inscription, _Hoc vinum virgines germinat_. (19) Abraham harbouring the angels and washing their feet. The inscription says, _Non licet illotos accedere_. (20) Christ washing the feet of his disciples before a table. The inscription says, _Auferte malum cogitationum vestrarum_. (21) The supper of the paschal lamb, with the inscription, _Antiqua novis misteria cedunt_. (22) The supper of Christ, with the inscription, _Melioris fercula mensæ_. (23) The throne of God, before which stands the prophet Isaiah, and an angel whose mouth is smitten by a lighted brand. The inscription says, _Purgavit filios Levi_. (24) A priest before an altar, in his robes, administering the communion to the Christian people. The inscription says, _Probet se ipsum homo_. (25) Elijah reclining in the shade of the tree, with an angel bringing him bread and a vessel. The inscription says, _In pace in idipsum_. (26) A sick man in his bed, with a priest administering the Sacrament to him. The inscription says, _Dormiam et requiescam_. (27) Habbakuk borne by the angels to the den of lions, to carry food to Daniel. The inscription says, _Adjutor in opportunitatibus_. (28) An angel with a chalice and the host, which he administers to the souls in Purgatory. The inscription says, _Emissit vinctos de lacu_. (29) Noah sleeping beneath the vine, holding a vessel, with his sons gathered about him. The inscription says, _Humanæ ebrietatis ludibria_. (30) Christ with a chalice in his hand, and angels round him, holding clusters of grapes, and a cross surrounded with a vine. The inscription says, _Calix ejus inebrians quant præclarus est_. (31) A queen adorned profanely, crowned with a snake. She holds a vessel in her hand, and rides upon a dragon with seven heads, some of which are drooping, as though they were inebriated. The inscription says, _Hæreticæ impietatis ebrietas_. (32) The figure of a virtuous lady wearing a royal crown. She holds a chalice in her hand, and rides in a car borne by the figures of the four evangelists. The inscription says, _Ecclesiæ Catholicæ veritas_. (33) The table with the loaves of propitiation, before the tabernacle, with Moses and Aaron standing beside it, and the inscription, _Umbram fugit veritas_. (34) A custodia, with a chalice and the host, borne by angels. The inscription says, _Ecce panis angelorum_. (35) David and his soldiers, who receive bread from the priest's hand. The inscription says, _Absit mens conscia culpæ_. (36) A priest, administering the Sacrament to two persons, each of whom has an angel beside him. The inscription says, _Sancta sanctis_. * * * * * And since all Sacraments have virtue and efficacy from the passion of Christ our Saviour, which passion is perpetually commemorated by this holiest of Sacraments, I placed upon the summit of the twelve columns belonging to this order twelve child-angels, naked, bearing the signs and instruments of the Passion, as voices to announce this sacred mystery. On the tympanums of the arches are angels bearing grapes and ears of wheat, and in the middle of the six sides of the frieze are graven, upon some ovals, the following images and devices, the inscription corresponding to them being on the largest scroll of the architrave. (1) A garland of vine-tendrils and ears of wheat, and in the midst thereof an open pomegranate, signifying, by the number and cohesion of its grains, the Church, guarded within the fortress of this holiest of Sacraments. The inscription says, _Posuit fines tuos pacem_. (2) A hand among clouds, extended over a nest of young ravens that have their beaks open and raised, with the inscription _Quanto magis vos_. This signifies, that the Lord who taketh care to sustain the infidels and pagans, taketh also especial care to sustain His Church with abundance of this celestial food. (3) A fair stalk of wheat, whence issue seven ears of great fatness, with the inscription, _Sempiterna satietas_; showing that, not as in the seven years in Egypt, but for ever, shall spiritual abundance abide in the Church of Christ, owing to this holy table of His body and His blood. (4) A stork upon a nest woven of wheat-ears and vine-tendrils, with the inscription, _Pietas incomparabilis_. Showing the piety and fatherly love that God affordeth to us in this Sacrament. (5) A hare smelling at a bough and some ears of wheat, with the inscription, _Vani sunt sensus hominis_. The hare signifies the senses, which are deceived by the appearance of the bread and wine, unless they be fortified by faith. (6) A hand bearing a wand, the end whereof is turning to a serpent, with this inscription, _Hic vita, hic mors_; because this Sacrament is the judgment and condemnation of all that receive it unworthily, but life for such as receive it with a clean spirit. The device has reference to the rod of Moses, that gave health to the people of Israel, affording them a passage through the midst of the sea, and making streams of sweet water to gush from the rock, but that was ruinous to the Egyptians, causing among them terrible sickness and destruction. SECOND ORDER The second order is in the Corinthian style, the columns and frieze adorned with foliage in the upper and lower thirds, and the other one with fluted columns. This order contains the Holy Sacrament in a circular _viril_ ornamented at its ends. Round it are the four evangelists with the figures of the lion, bull, eagle, and angel, adorning the majesty of the Lord that is within the Sacrament, whereof they gave true testimony, according to these words upon a tablet which each one holdeth in his hand:-- Saint Matthew, _Hoc est corpus meum_. Saint Mark, _Hic est sanguis meus_. Saint John, _Caro mea vere est cibus_. Saint Luke, _Hic est calix novi testamenti_. On the outside are placed these figures, in pairs:--Saint Justa and Saint Rufina, patron saints of Seville; San Isidro and San Leandro, archbishops of the same city; San Hermenegildo and San Sebastian; San Servando and San Germano, martyrs; San Laureano, archbishop of Seville, and San Carpóforo, priest; Saint Clement, pope, and Saint Florence, martyr. On the six running pedestals of the columns of this order are six scenes or figures of ancient sacrifices, symbolic of this holiest sacrifice of the Eucharist, as showing how this one is the consummation and perfection of all sacrifices, and that the light thereof dispersed the shadows of the others. And these be in the following wise:-- (1) The sacrifice of Abel. (2) That of Noah, on his leaving the ark. (3) That of Melchisidech. (4) That of Abraham, when he sought to sacrifice Isaac. (5) That of the lamb which was found in the thornbush and placed upon the altar. (6) Solomon's sacrifice at his dedication of the temple. * * * * * On the tops of these columns are twelve figures representing the twelve gifts and fruits of this most holy Sacrament, as they are told of by Saint Thomas in his treatise on this mystery:-- (1) _The conquest of the Devil_, represented by a maiden beautified and adorned with a palm and a cross. The inscription on the pedestal says, _Fuga dæmonis_. (2) _Spiritual cheerfulness and delight_, in the form of another maiden, holding a wand wreathed with boughs and tendrils of the vine, and in her other hand some ears of wheat. The inscription says, _Hilaritas_. (3) _Purity of soul_, represented by a heart among flames, suspended over a crucible. The inscription, _Puritas_. (4) _Self-knowledge_, represented by a figure of Reason, holding in one hand a mirror, in which she regards herself, and in the other hand a leafy bough. The inscription says, _Cognitio sui_. (5) _Peace, and the appeasing of the wrath of God_, represented by a figure holding in one hand an olive bough, and in the other a cornucopia filled with grapes and wheat. The inscription, _Reconciliatio_. (6) _Inward quiet and control of the affections_, represented by a figure holding some poppies in one hand, and in the other a lamp, the lower wick of which is being extinguished. The inscription says, _Animi qui est_. (7) _Charity, and profound love for God and for our neighbours_, represented by a figure holding in one hand a lighted heart that has two wings, and with the other pouring from a cornucopia. The inscription says, _Charitas_. (8) _Increase of true worth_, represented by a figure holding in one hand a bough of mustard, that is wont to grow and multiply exceedingly from a tiny grain, and in the other hand a half-moon, receiving greater brightness as it waxes. The inscription says, _Meritorum multiplicatio_. (9) _Firmness and constancy in well-doing_, represented by the figure of a woman holding an anchor in one hand, and in the other a palm. The inscription says, _Constantia_. (10) _The hope that guides us to our celestial home_, represented by a figure holding in one hand a bunch of flowers (denoting the hope of the fruit that is to come), and in the other hand a star, as one that guideth to a haven. The inscription, _Deductio in patriam_. (11) _Resurrection_, represented by the figure of a beautiful woman, holding in one hand a snake, and in the other an eagle; creatures that renew themselves by casting off the slough of their old age. The inscription says, _Resurrectio_. (12) _Life Eternal_, represented by a figure holding a palm in one hand, and a crown in the other. The inscription says, _Vita æterna_. * * * * * The devices contained in this order, and in the middle of the frieze, are as follows:-- (1) A bunch of grapes upon a wand, surrounded with ears of wheat. The inscription says, _C[oe]lestis patriæ specimen_. This signifies that, as the great bunch of grapes that was borne by Joshua and Caleb on their shoulders was a token of the fertile land of promise, so the greatness and the sweetness of this admirable Sacrament, which is afforded to us in the guise of bread and wine, is the living sign and earnest of the abundance reigning in the kingdom of the blessed. (2) A hand extending the index-finger, pointing to a chalice and the host, with the inscription, _Digitus Dei hic est_. This means that the miracle of this holiest of Sacraments is the work of the eternal wisdom, that cannot be attained by any wisdom of us humans. (3) A rainbow, and above it a chalice with the host, and the inscription, _Signum f[oe]deris sempiterni_. Signifying, that as in the olden time God vouchsafed the rainbow to Noah in sign of friendship and alliance, so does He now vouchsafe His own flesh and blood as a true and effective token of His lasting association with mankind. (4) Two rays, crossed, and in their midst an olive bough, with the inscription, _Recordabor f[oe]deris mei vobiscum_. These are the words that were spoken by God to Noah, when He made the said alliance with him, giving to understand the clemency wherewith God treateth mankind in the lesson of this divinest Sacrament, forgetting their errors, and establishing perpetual peace and amity with them. (5) The pelican feeding her young with the life-blood issuing from her breast. The inscription says, _Majorem charitatem nemo habet_. (6) A dead lion, from whose mouth issueth a swarm of bees, with the inscription, _De forti dulcedo_. Giving to understand, that as from the mouth of so brave a creature there issued a substance so sweet as honey, so did the God of vengeance, the brave Lion of the tribe of Judah, concert such love and peace with man, that He offered His very body for man's food. THIRD ORDER The rest of the third order, as far as the summit of the _custodia_, represents the Church triumphant: wherefore was placed in the midst of this order (which is in the composite style) the history of the Lamb that is upon the throne, and round about it the four beasts that are full of eyes, as the Apocalypse relateth. Upon the six continuous pedestals of the columns of this order are graved the following six scenes:-- (1) The saints who wash their stoles in the blood that issues from the Lamb, as is told in the Apocalypse. (2) God the Father, with a sickle in His hand, and angels gathering grapes in the vat, and corn in the granary, after winnowing out the chaff; signifying the reward accorded unto men in sowing, and in the harvest of the vine. (3) The saints in joyful procession, each with his sheaf of wheat. (4) The virgins, crowned with vine-tendrils and ears of wheat, that follow the Lamb. (5) The five prudent virgins, that with their lighted lamps go in to the feast of the Bridegroom. (6) The banquet of the blessed. * * * * * Between the arches of this order are the six hieroglyphs following, with their inscriptions above, upon tablets. (1) A burning ph[oe]nix, with the inscription, _Instauratio generis humani_. (2) Two cornucopias crossed, with a cross in their midst. The cornucopias are full of vine-tendrils and ears of wheat. The inscription says, _Felicitas humani generis_. (3) A kingfisher brooding over her young in a nest of vine-tendrils and blades of wheat, with the inscription, _Tranquillitas immutabilis_. This signifies the calm state of the blessed, whereof a token is the nest of the kingfisher, which bird, when it crosses the water, causes all storms to cease. (4) A car with flames, rising to heaven, with the inscription, _Sic itur ad astra_. Signifying that this divinest Sacrament is the harbinger of those that travel heavenward, in that Elijah was so swept away, after God had sent him bread by the angel and the raven. (5) Two dolphins, whose tails are crossed, and in the middle a chalice and the host, with the inscription, _Delitiæ generis humani_. By this device is signified the love and the delight bestowed by God on men by means of this Sacrament. (6) An altar adorned with festoons of vine-tendrils and blades of wheat, with flames upon it, and bearing the inscription, _Æternum sacrificium_. FOURTH ORDER In this order is represented the Holy Trinity upon a rainbow, surrounded by many rays of splendour, and in the fifth order is a bell, surmounted by a simple cross. Thus are all the parts of the _custodia_ adorned with the foregoing beautiful decoration, having regard to their proportions and their symmetry, according to the rules of good architecture, and to the movements and position of the statuary, designed after nature, as was prescribed by the inventor of histories. "_Et in his omnibus sensum matris Ecclesiæ sequimur, cujus etiam juditium reveremur._" Such is the description, written by Arfe himself, of this wonderful masterpiece of silver-work. Unfortunately, since his time the _custodia_ has been much meddled with by profane hands, and has been subjected to various impertinent "restorations" and "improvements." Thus, the original statuette of Faith, seated on her throne, has been replaced by another of the Virgin, and the twelve child-angels, holding the instruments of the passion, by the same number of figures of a larger size and far inferior workmanship. Further, some simple pyramids which crowned the fourth order were foolishly replaced by badly executed statuettes of children, and the Egyptian obelisk, resting on four small spheres, which surmounted the whole _custodia_, by an unwieldy statue representing the Catholic Faith. * * * * * DESCRIPTION OF THE _CUSTODIA_ OF CORDOVA CATHEDRAL (From _Córdoba_, by PEDRO DE MADRAZO) As I have stated in Vol. I., p. 98, the author of this _custodia_ was Enrique de Arfe, Juan de Arfe's grandfather. "The base, supported on small wheels placed in the interior, is in the form of a regular dodecagon, each side of which measures a foot. On the twelve-sided plate which forms the base and which has well executed heads of seraphs at each corner, is an order consisting of three tiers. The first, which has projecting and receding angles, leaves, about six sides of the dodecagon, a free space for the handles by which the _custodia_ is raised. The first tier forms a kind of socle with six buttresses, on the surface of which are represented allegorical scenes, alternated in rows with graceful designs in relief, grotesque and pastoral dances, and scenes from Bible history relative to the carriage of the Tabernacle. This tier is surmounted by a gilded balustrade of elegant design. The bas-reliefs are wrought alternately in gold and silver. "The second tier is formed by a small socle, crowned by a band of leaves and diminutive figures. Over this is a gilded balustrade, and finally another and a broader frieze containing gilded figures, together with delicate foliage wrought in dull silver. This second tier grows gradually narrower, and sustains the third, whose base projects, serving as cornice to the frieze of the tier below, and decorated with a gilded balustrade. Upon it rises a mass or body with twelve sides, following the same arrangement of projecting and receding angles as the lower tiers. In each of its receding spaces this order contains three compartments, and in each of its salient faces it has a small tower or buttress, which springs from the base and rests upon a delicate plinth carved with a gilded ornamental band. Thus, the order we are describing has six salient faces behind the six towers or buttresses, and six spaces containing three open compartments. In these compartments, separated one from another by diminutive buttresses with delicate pinnacles, there is the same number of sunken spaces, one inch deep, on which are represented, in high relief, scenes of the life and passion of our Lord. The figures, admirably executed, are two inches high. Above this order is a projecting cornice, decorated along its lower part with a band of dull silver. It should be noted, that as the _custodia_ narrows gradually as it rises, the receding spaces grow proportionally larger, thus affording room for the spacious inner order on which is raised the _viril_. This order is formed by a crystal cylinder (containing the host) resting on a base which is also cylindrical, the lower part of which is decorated with a broad hexagonal band, narrower at the top than at the bottom, and wrought with delicate foliage and figures, as are the bands which lie beneath it. Above the transparent cylinder enclosing the _viril_ rises a Gothic vault, drooping over in the manner of a plume, and resting on the buttresses which fill the projecting spaces on the base of the principal order. These buttresses have a similar arrangement to, and coincide with, the other ones which spring from the base of the third tier of the first order, and are joined one to another by means of fine cross-buttresses surmounted by statuettes. The circular vault which holds the crystal cylinder containing the _viril_, and which resembles that of the rotunda dedicated as a sepulchral chapel by the emperor Constantine to the memory of his daughter, saint Constance, supports other and finer buttresses, alternated with those beneath; but instead of rising from the salient spaces of the base, these rise from the receding spaces and support another vault, of smooth open-work, beneath which is a graceful statuette of Nuestra Señora de la Asunción. Over this vault is a kind of open-work dome, consisting of an effective series of pinnacles and buttresses in the shape of segments of a circle, which bridge over the summits of the pinnacles. Upon the dome is a crown surmounted by a statuette of Christ triumphant, with the cross. The two vaults--that which encloses the _viril_, and the other one above it, enclosing the image of the Virgin--are masked on the outside by arches of elegant design, crowned by an elaborate balustrade. The turrets or buttresses which rise upon the lowest and the principal orders are decorated with numerous statuettes, resting on plinths of exquisite design, covered by open-work canopies. "This masterpiece of art is made of gold, and polished and unpolished silver. The weight is 532 marks.... Unfortunately, it lacks its original purity of style, having been restored in the year 1735, when it is probable that certain details were added which now disfigure it." APPENDIX D THE IMPERIAL CROWN OF THE VIRGEN DEL SAGRARIO, TOLEDO This was the most elaborate and costly crown that had ever been produced in Spain for decorating an image of the Virgin. The following is a sketch of it:-- [Illustration] Before it was enlarged to the imperial shape, this crown was executed by a silversmith named Fernando de Carrión, who finished it in the year 1556, and was paid for his labour 760,000 _maravedis_. It then consisted of a gold diadem adorned with rows of pearls, emeralds, rubies, and enamelled devices of various colours, in the style of the Renaissance. The superstructure, which converts it into what is known as an imperial crown, was added by Alejo de Montoya, another silversmith of Toledo, who began it in 1574, and completed it twelve years later. The addition consisted of a number of gold statuettes of angels, covered with enamel, measuring in height from two inches to two and a half, distributed in pairs, and supporting decorative devices attached to the body of the crown. From behind these angels sprang gold bands thickly studded with precious stones, and terminating towards their union at the apex of the crown in seated allegorical figures grouped about a globe surmounted by a cross. This globe consisted of a single emerald, clear, perfect both in colour and in shape, and measuring an inch and a half in diameter. The inside of the hoop was covered with enamels representing emblems of the Virgin, disposed in a series of medallions, and the dimensions of the entire crown were eleven inches high by nine across the widest part. The crown was examined and reported upon by two goldsmiths of Madrid, who declared it to contain the following precious stones:-- Two balas rubies, valued at 150,000 _maravedis_ Twelve rubies, " 403,528 " Twelve emeralds, " 237,500 " Fifty-seven diamonds, " 555,396 " One hundred and eighty-two pearls, " 397,838 " The precious stones were thus valued at a total of 1,744,262 _maravedis_. Besides this, the value of the gold and silver contained in the crown was estimated to amount to 405,227 _maravedis_, while 3,097,750 _maravedis_ were allowed for the workmanship. These figures relate to the part which was made by Alejo de Montoya only. That which had previously been executed by Fernando de Carrión was valued at 1,954,156 _maravedis_, making a grand total, for the whole jewel, of 7,201,395 _maravedis_. At the present day the intrinsic value of the crown would be from nine to ten thousand pounds sterling. In 1869 this splendid specimen of Renaissance jewellery was stolen from a cupboard in the cathedral of Toledo, sharing thus the fate of many other precious objects which have been entrusted to the slender vigilance or slender probity of Spanish church authorities. APPENDIX E GOLD INLAY ON STEEL AND IRON The inlaying of iron or steel with gold is often thought to be a craft particularly Spanish, and to have been inherited directly by the Spanish Christians from the Spanish Moors. This work, however, although we may assume it to have been of Eastern origin in a period of remote antiquity, was quite familiar to the ancient Romans, including, probably, such as made their home in Spain. The Memoirs of Benvenuto Cellini contain the following notice of the work in question:-- "I met with some little Turkish daggers, the handles of which were of iron as well as the blade, and even the scabbard was of that metal. On these were engraved several fine foliages in the Turkish taste, most beautifully filled up with gold. I found I had a strong inclination to cultivate this branch likewise, which was so different from the rest; and finding that I had great success in it, I produced several pieces in this way. My performances, indeed, were much finer and more durable than the Turkish, for several reasons: one was, that I made a much deeper incision in the steel than is generally practised in Turkish works; the other, that their foliages are nothing else but chicory leaves, with some few flowers of echites: these have, perhaps, some grace, but they do not continue to please like our foliages. In Italy there is a variety of tastes, and we cut foliages in many different forms. The Lombards make the most beautiful wreaths, representing ivy and vine-leaves, and others of the same sort, with agreeable twinings highly pleasing to the eye. The Romans and the Tuscans have a much better notion in this respect, for they represent acanthus leaves, with all their festoons and flowers, winding in a variety of forms; and amongst these leaves they insert birds and animals of several sorts with great ingenuity and elegance in the arrangement. They likewise have recourse occasionally to wild flowers, such as those called Lions' Mouths, from their peculiar shape, accompanied by other fine inventions of the imagination, which are termed grotesques by the ignorant. These foliages have received that name from the moderns, because they are found in certain caverns in Rome, which in ancient days were chambers, baths, studies, halls, and other places of a like nature. The curious happened to discover them in these subterranean caverns, whose low situation is owing to the raising of the surface of the ground in a series of ages; and as these caverns in Rome are commonly called grottos, they from thence acquired the name of grotesque. But this is not their proper name; for, as the ancients delighted in the composition of chimerical creatures, and gave to the supposed promiscuous breed of animals the appellation of monsters, in like manner artists produced by their foliages monsters of this sort; and that is the proper name for them--not grotesques. In such a taste I made foliages filled up in the manner above mentioned, which were far more elegant and pleasing to the eye than the Turkish works. "It happened about this time that certain vases were discovered, which appeared to be antique urns filled with ashes. Amongst these were iron rings inlaid with gold, in each of which was set a diminutive shell. Learned antiquarians, upon investigating the nature of these rings, declared their opinion that they were worn as charms by those who desired to behave with steadiness and resolution either in prosperous or adverse fortune. "I likewise took things of this nature in hand at the request of some gentlemen who were my particular friends, and wrought some of these little rings; but I made them of steel well tempered, and then cut and inlaid with gold, so that they were very beautiful to behold: sometimes for a single ring of this sort I was paid above forty crowns." APPENDIX F OLD SPANISH PULPITS The earliest pulpits of the Spaniards were similar to those of other Christian nations. One of them was the _tribuna_ or _tribunal_, so called, according to Saint Isidore, "because the minister delivers from it the precepts for a righteous life, wherefore it is a seat or place constructed upon high, in order that all he utters may be heard." The ambo, too, although it is not mentioned by Saint Isidore, was probably not unknown among the Spaniards.[61] Then there were various desks, such as the _analogia_, _legitoria_, or _lectra_, on which the scriptures were deposited in church, or carried in procession, and from which the latter were read aloud by the priest. Saint Isidore remarks of the _analogium_; "It is so called because the word is preached therefrom, and because it occupies the highest place."[62] Ducange, quoting from old authors, remarks in his Glossary that these desks were often adorned with gold and silver plates or precious stones. Thus it is extremely probable that Tarik's celebrated "table" (see Vol. I., pp. 31 _et seq._) was merely some elaborate and bejewelled _analogium_ of the Christians; such as was, in fact, the predecessor of the modern lectern or "hand-pulpit." [61] "Ambo, pulpitum ubi ex duabus partibus sunt gradus." Ugutio, quoted by Ducange. [62] _Originum_, Book XV., Chap. iv. According to Amador de los Ríos, sermons in those early times were delivered from the _analogium_ only. Towards the twelfth century, the Isidorian liturgy was abolished in Spain, and the furniture of Spanish temples underwent some change. In the same century and throughout the century following, the Spanish Peninsula was invaded by the Order of Preachers, while, coinciding with, or closely consequent upon, this movement, the primitive ambo was succeeded by the _jubé_, and wood, as the material of which the pulpit was constructed, by marble, iron, stone, or plaster. Two Mudejar pulpits of great interest are preserved at Toledo, in the church of Santiago del Arabal (thirteenth century), and in the convent, erected in the reign of Pedro the Cruel, of Santo Domingo el Real. The substance of these ancient objects is a brick and plaster foundation, with panels of the stucco known as _obra de yesería_, produced from wooden moulds. The pulpit of the church of Santiago is traditionally affirmed to be the one from which, in 1411, Saint Vincent Ferrer delivered a sermon to the Toledan Jews. Whether this be so or not, the date of its construction is undoubtedly the second half of the fourteenth century, or early in the fifteenth. The shape is octagonal--a very common form with Gothic pulpits. It is divided into four _cuerpos_ or orders, including the sounding-board. The decoration, which is chiefly floral, is a combination of the Gothic and the Moorish styles. The pulpit of Santo Domingo el Real stands in the refectory of that convent. It dates from the same period as the one belonging to the church of Santiago, but unlike this latter, bears no trace of former gilding, painting, or enamelling upon the surface of the stone or plaster. It has three tiers or compartments, and, as in the other pulpit, the decoration consists of leaves and flowers, blended with geometrical patterns and Moorish _lacería_. The Moorish _mimbar_ or pulpit of the mosque of Cordova was very wonderful. According to Sentenach, its situation was near the archway leading to the _mihrab_, and on its desk rested the sacred copy of the Koran which had belonged to the Caliph Othman, and which was stated to be stained with his blood. This _mimbar_, sacrificed long years ago to Christian barbarism and neglect, was the richest piece of furniture in all that mighty building, seven years of unremitting labour being exhausted by Al-Hakem's craftsmen in constructing it of the richest and most aromatic woods, inlaid with silver, ivory, gold, and precious stones. Ambrosio de Morales called it "King Almanzor's chair," describing it quaintly as a four-wheeled car of richly-wrought wood, mounted by means of seven steps. "A few years since," he adds, "they broke it up, I know not wherefore. So disappeared this relic of an olden time." APPENDIX G SPANISH CUTLERS In former times excellent cutlery, such as knives, scissors, daggers, spearheads, and surgical instruments, was made in Spain, at Seville, Albacete, Toledo, Valencia, Pamplona, Ronda, Peñíscola, Guadix, Ripoll, Mora, Olot, and Tolosa. Rico y Sinobas has given an interesting description of the workshop and apparatus of one of these old Spanish cutlers--his graduated set of hammers, weighing from a few ounces to five pounds, his hand-saws, bench-saw, chisels, pincers, files, and drills, his forge, measuring from a yard square to a yard and a half, his two anvils of the toughest iron, the larger with a flat surface of three inches by ten inches, for ordinary work, the smaller terminated by conical points for making the thumb and finger holes of scissors.[63] The method of tempering and forging practised by these cutlers was much the same as that of the Toledo swordsmiths. [63] _Noticia Histórica de la Cuchillería y de los Cuchilleros Antiguos en España_ (_Almanaque de El Museo de la Industria_, Madrid, 1870). Rico y Sinobas also embodied in his essay the following list of cutlers and cutler-armourers, who manufactured knives, penknives, scissors, parts of firearms, or heads and blades for lances, halberds, and the like. The following is a summary of the list in question:-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- NAME. | DATE. | WORKED AT --------------------+---------------------+---------------------------- Acacio |17th century |? He made spearheads and | | fittings for crossbows. | | Aguas, Juan de |Early in 18th century|Guadix. | | Alanis |Late 16th century |? Maker of fittings for | | crossbows. | | Albacete |Late 18th century |Albacete. Scissors-maker. | | Ambrosio |Late 18th century |Mora. Maker of large | |scissors for | |sheep-shearing. | | Arbell, Ramón |17th century (?) |Olot. Knife-maker. | | Azcoitia (the elder)|Late 15th century |Guipúzcoa (?). A celebrated |and early 16th |maker of pieces for | |crossbows. | | Azcoitia (Cristóbal)|16th century |? Also a maker of pieces for | | crossbows. He was the | | fourth descendant of the | | family who worked at this | | branch of the cutler's | | craft. | | Azcoitia (Juan) |16th century |? Perhaps a member of the | | same family. He also made | | pieces for crossbows. | | Beson, Manuel |18th century |Madrid. Knife-maker. | | Bis, Francisco |18th century |Madrid (see Vol. I., | |p. 273). Maker of knives and | |arquebuses. | | Blanco, Juan |16th century |Maker of crossbows, and of | |pieces for the same. | | Castellanos (the |18th century |Albacete. Scissors-maker. elder) | | | | Castellanos (the |Late 18th century |Albacete. Scissors-maker. younger) |and early 19th | | | Castillo, Gregorio |Late 16th century |Cataluña (?). | |Scissors-maker. | | Cerda, Miguel de la |Late 16th century |Madrid and Segovia. He made | |scissors and other | |cutlery. | | Criado, Juan |Early 17th century |Madrid (?). Maker of pieces | |for crossbows. | | Diaz, Pedro |Early 18th century |Albacete. Scissors-maker. | | Escobar, Cristóbal |Late 16th century |Madrid (?). Maker of pieces |and early 17th |for crossbows. | | Escobar, Juan |17th century |Madrid (?). Son of the | |preceding, and also a maker | |of pieces for crossbows. | | Fernandez Manso |Late 18th century |Guadalajara. A Portuguese, de Payba, José | |naturalized in Spain. He | |was a scissors-maker of | |considerable fame. | | Fuente, Pedro de la |Late 15th century |Madrid (?). Maker of |or early 16th |crossbows and their pieces. | | García, Domingo |Late 17th century |Madrid. Arquebus-maker and | |cutler. | | García de la Torre, |Early 18th century |Guadalix and Alcorcón. Teodoro | |Cutler. In company with | |Manuel Beson, he invented a | |method of converting iron | |into steel. | | Garijo |18th century |Albacete. Scissors-maker. | | Garro, Martín |Early 15th century |Pamplona. Cutler and | |swordsmith. A letter dated | |October 31st, 1406, records | |that he was paid five | |_escudos_ for making a | |sword, and one _escudo_ for | |a dagger. | | Gomez, Mateo |Late 17th century |Albacete. Scissors-maker. | | Grajeras |17th century |Madrid (?). Maker of pieces | |for crossbows. | | Grande, Juan |17th century |Madrid (?). Maker of | |lanceheads. | | Gutierrez |Late 17th century |Chinchilla. Scissors-maker. | | Hernandez, Juan |16th century |Madrid (?). Maker of pieces | |for crossbows. | | Herraez, Andres |Late 16th century |Cuenca. Arquebus-maker and | |cutler. | | Herrezuelo (the |Late 16th century |Baeza. Cutler. elder) |and early 17th | | | Herrezuelo (the |Early 17th century |Baeza. younger) | |Scissors-maker. | | Horbeira, Angel |Late 17th century |Madrid. Cutler; a native of | |Galicia, and reputed to be | |one of the best craftsmen of | |his time. He was known as | |_El Borgoñon_, and passed | |his early life in Flanders. | | Hortega |Early 16th century |? Maker of pieces for | | crossbows. | | Lallabe, Juan de |Early 19th century |? Cutler, locksmith, and | | maker of surgical | | instruments. | | Lastra, Juan |17th century |Madrid (?). Maker of pieces | |for crossbows. He was one | |of the latest and most | |celebrated of these | |craftsmen. | | Leon |Early 18th century |Albacete. Scissors-maker. | | Llorens, Pablo |Late 17th century |Olot. Cutler. | | Marcoarte, Simon |Late 16th century |Madrid. Arquebus-maker and |and early 17th |cutler. He was the son of | |another craftsman of the | |same name, who settled in | |Spain in the reign of | |Charles the Fifth | |(see Vol. I., p. 273). | | Martinez, Juan |Early 16th century |? Maker of darts and lances | | for crossbows. | | Mendoza, Francisco |Early 18th century |Trigueros (Old Castile). and Manuel | |Cutlers. | | Moreno, Luis |Late 15th century |Madrid (?). Maker of pieces |or early 16th | for crossbows. | | Moro, El |Late 18th century |Madrid. Cutler. |and early 19th | | | Muñoz of Getafe |16th century and |? Maker of pieces for |early 17th | crossbows. | | Óipa, Juan | ? |Madrid. Maker of crossbows. | | Perez de Villadiego,|16th century |Madrid (?). Maker of pieces Juan | |for crossbows. | | Perez, Julian |Early 17th century |Madrid (?). Maker of darts | | and lances for crossbows. | | Puebla (the elder) |Early 16th century |Madrid. Maker of parts of | | crossbows. | | Ramirez, Juan |Late 16th century |? Cutler. He emigrated to | | the city of Puebla de los | | Angeles, in Mexico, where | | he continued to make | | knives, scissors, and | | weapons of good quality. | | Renedo (the elder) |Early 16th century(?)|? Maker of darts and lances | | for crossbows. | | Renedo (the younger)| Late 16th century |? Son of the preceding. He | | and early 17th made the | | same objects as his | | father. | | Romero |Late 18th century |Albacete. Scissors-maker. | | Rosel | ? |Mora. Scissors-maker. | | San José, Brother |Late 17th century |Jaen. Scissors-maker. Antonio | | | | Santamaría |Late 16th century |Madrid (?). Maker of pieces |and early 17th |for crossbows. | | Selva, Juan |Late 18th century |Cartagena and Madrid. Cutler | |and iron-founder. | | Segura |Late 18th century |Mora. Scissors-maker. |and early 19th | | | Sierra, Juan |18th century |Albacete. Scissors-maker. | | Soler, Isidro |Late 18th century |Madrid. Arquebus-maker, | |and early 19th cutler, and | |author of _An Historical | |Essay on making Arquebuses_. | | Sosa |17th century |Madrid (?). Maker of weapons, | |especially the heads of | |lances. | | Targarona, |Late 18th century |Madrid. Arquebus-maker to Francisco | |Charles the Third and | |Charles the Fourth, and one | |of the most skilful | |craftsmen of his day. | | Tijerero, El | ? |Toledo. Maker of swords and (Domingo Sanchez) | |scissors. | | Torres |Early 17th century |Albacete. Scissors-maker. | | Ucedo |Late 16th century and|? Maker of pieces for |perhaps early 17th | crossbows. | | V.... |16th century (?) |Toledo (?). Scissors-maker. | |The rest of this craftsman's | |name is not known. | | Valderas, Pedro de |16th century |Madrid and Valladolid. Maker | |of pieces for crossbows. | | Vicen-Perez, Pedro |Late 17th century |Albacete. Scissors-maker. | | Vilarasa, Antonio |Late 17th century |? Cutler and razor-maker. | | ... Emt.., Julian |Early 18th century |Albacete. Scissors-maker. | |Only a fragment of his name | |has been preserved upon a | |blade. Rico y Sinobas | |suggests thatthe entire | |surname may have been | |_Vicen-Perez_. | | Zeruantes, |Late 17th century |Toledo. Maker of blades for Francisco | |halberds. | | Zamora ("the deaf") |Late 16th century |Castile. Cutler, |and early 17th | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- APPENDIX H SPANISH TRADE-GUILDS The _gremios_ of Spain were copied from the guilds of France and other countries, and may be traced originally to the _corpora_ and _collegia_ of the Romans and Byzantines. The earliest which were formed in the Peninsula were those of Barcelona[64] and Soria, succeeded, not long after, by Valencia, Seville,[65] and Toledo. Prior, however, to the institution of these trade-guilds proper, whose purpose was pre-eminently mercenary,[66] there existed, in the case of several cities, _cofradías_ or religious brotherhoods, that is, associations of a philanthropic character, composed of tradesmen or artificers who pledged themselves to assist each other in poverty or sickness, or to defray the burial expenses of such members as should die without resources. [64] See Pérez Pujol, _Condición social de las personas á principios del siglo V_. "The ironsmiths of Barcelona," says Riaño, "formed an extensive guild in the thirteenth century; in 1257, four of its members formed part of the chief municipal council; this guild increased in importance in the following centuries." [65] The history of the Sevillian trade-guilds begins properly with the fifteenth century, although Gestoso states in his _Diccionario de Artífices Sevillanos_ that he has found a few documents which seem to point to their existence in the century preceding. When the Spanish Christians pitched their camp before this city, prior to their victorious assault upon its walls, the besieging army was divided according to the various trades of its component soldiery: the spicers in one part of the camp, the apothecaries in another, and so forth. It is therefore probable that the Sevillian trade-guilds were instituted shortly after the re-conquest. The wages of smiths, shoemakers, silversmiths, armourers, and other craftsmen were decreed by Pedro the First in his _Ordenamiento de Menestrales_. The ordinances of the silversmiths, in particular, are so old that Gestoso believes them to have been renewed and confirmed by Juan the Second, in the year 1416. However this may be, it is certain that the Seville guilds were regularly constituted in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella. [66] Barzanallana defines the word _gremio_ "as it came to be understood in Spain," as "any gathering of merchants, artisans, labourers, or other persons who practised the same profession, art, or office; and who were bound to comply with certain ordinances, applicable to each individual of their number." It is well, however, to distinguish broadly between actual manufacturers or producers (_menestrales de manos_) and merchants or shopkeepers (_mercaderes de tienda y de escriptorio_), who merely trafficked in what was executed by another. The formula of admission to a Spanish brotherhood was very quaint in its punctilious and precise severity. A notice of this ceremony, relating to the Cofradía of Saint Eligius, or Silversmiths' Brotherhood of Seville,[67] is quoted by Gestoso from the venerable _Regla de Hermandad_ or statutes of the members, preserved in a codex dating from the first half of the sixteenth century. It was required that the candidate for admission should be a silversmith, married in conformity with the canons of the church, a man well spoken of among his neighbours, and not a recent convert to the Christian faith. The day prescribed for choosing or rejecting him was that which was consecrated to Saint John the Baptist, coinciding with the festival of Saint Eligius or San Loy, "patron and representative" of silversmiths, and who in life had been a silversmith himself. The regulations of the Cofradía decreed the following method of election. "In the chest belonging to the Brotherhood shall be kept a wood or metal vessel with space sufficient to contain some fifty beans or almonds; and the said vessel shall be set in our chapter-room, in a spot where no man is. Each of the brothers that are present shall next be given one of the beans or almonds, and, rising from his seat, arrange his cloak about him so as to conceal his hands, in order that none may witness whether he drops, or does not drop, the almond or the bean into the vessel. Then, with due dissimulation, he shall proceed to where the vessel lies, and if he deem that he who seeks to be admitted as our brother be an honourable man, and such as shall contribute to the lustre of our Brotherhood, then shall he drop in a bean or almond, and return to his seat, still covering his hands with his cloak. But if, upon the contrary, he deem that the said candidate be a sinner, and a riotous fellow and bad Christian, that should prove a source of evil and vexation to our chapter, or that hath wronged another of our brethren, then shall he not cast in the bean or almond, but secretly reserve the same, and once more seat himself. Lastly, when all shall have crossed over to and from the vessel, they shall bear it to the table where the officers sit, and void it in the sight of all the company, and count the beans or almonds; and if the number of these be full, then is it clear that we do receive the other for our _Hermano_. But if there be a bean or almond wanting, in that a brother hath retained it in his fingers, then shall our _Alcaldes_ speak to this effect. 'Señores: here wants a bean or almond' (or two, or any number, as may be). 'Within eight days from now let him that kept it back present himself to us, or to any one of us, and give account why he that sought admission to our Brotherhood deserves to be rejected.' And if the brother that kept back the bean or almond should not present himself within the appointed time, then shall the Brotherhood admit the other: but if he appear, and state a lawful cause against the other's entry, then our _Alcaldes_, when this last presents himself to learn their resolution, shall urge him to have patience, in that not all the brothers are content with him, albeit, if such cause consisteth in a quarrel between a brother and the candidate for entry, peace may be brought about between the two, and afterward the _Cofradía_ may admit him of their number." [67] This guild, as all the others, held an annual convocation of its members, and possessed a chapel of its own in the convent of San Francisco. It exercised a strict and constant supervision upon the gold and silver work produced throughout the city. On April 15th, 1567, the inspectors appointed and salaried by the guild visited the shop of Antonio de Cuevas, and seized an _Agnus Dei_ and a faultily executed cross, both of which objects were destroyed forthwith. On February 8th, 1569, they repeated their visit to the same silversmith, and seized an _apretador_, which was likewise broken up. On February 9th, 1602, they entered the shop of Antonio de Ahumada, and took away "two rings, a gold _encomienda_, a cross of Saint John, some small cocks, a toothpick, and a San Diego of silver." Similar notices of fines, confiscations, and other punishments exist in great abundance, and may be studied in Gestoso's dictionary. See also Vol. I., p. 114, of the present work. Similar ceremonies and customs were observed in old Toledo (see the Ordinances of this city, dated June 24th, 1423, renewed and amplified in 1524).[68] Here also the silversmiths agreed to meet and celebrate the festival of their patron saint upon one day in every year, "for ever and for ever" (_para siempre jamás_). On these occasions the image of the saint was carried in procession, and a repast was given to the brothers themselves, as well as to all persons who were "willing to receive it for the love of God." Every brother who failed to present himself at this solemnity was fined one pound of candle-wax; but if he were merely unpunctual, and arrived "after the singing of the first three psalms," the fine was only half a pound. A pound of candle-wax was also the statutory tribute for admission to the Brotherhood, together with a hundred _maravedis_ and other unimportant sums in cash. The history of the _gremios_ of Valencia has been traced in an instructive essay by Luis Tramoyeres Blasco. Early in the fifteenth century guilds were established here of nearly thirty trades, including tailors, millers, carpenters, shoemakers, silversmiths, weavers, tanners, dyers, swordsmiths, and bonnet-makers. These guilds developed greatly in the sixteenth century, expanding into powerful and wealthy bodies, who practically controlled the entire commerce and commercial products of their native town. Among the _gremios_ instituted at a later date were those of the firework-makers, basket-makers, twisters of silk, stiffeners of dress fabrics, bell-founders, and painters of chests and boxes, each of these corporations being enrolled by law, and possessing a code of regulations for the government and guidance of its members. Sometimes, however, owing to diminution in its trade, a guild became extinct, as happened with the _guadamacileros_ (see Vol. II., pp. 38 _et seq._), and with the clothmakers, of whom, in 1595, but three remained in all Valencia. Or else a _gremio_ would purposely amalgamate with, or merge insensibly into, another. Thus in 1668 the tailors and the makers of trunk-hose united in a single corporation, just as, at other times, the glovers and the parchment-dressers, the clog-makers and the shoemakers. [68] The foremost in importance of the _gremios_ of Toledo was that of the silk-weavers (_arte mayor de la seda_), whose earliest ordinances date from A.D. 1533. Interesting particulars of the old Toledan _gremios_ generally will be found in the municipal archives of this city, in the _Ordenanzas para el buen régimen y gobierno de la muy noble, muy leal é imperial ciudad de Toledo_ (reprinted in 1858); in Martín Gamero's _History of Toledo_; and in the Count of Cedillo's scholarly monograph, _Toledo in the Sixteenth Century_. Those of the Valencian guilds which possessed the greatest influence and resources, and enjoyed the highest privileges from the city or the crown, were called _colegiados_. Among them were the velvet-makers, hatters, bronze-founders, wax-makers, confectioners, dyers, and makers of silk hose. The earliest to obtain this coveted and honourable title were the booksellers, in 1539, followed by the wax-makers in 1634, the confectioners in 1644, the velvet-makers also in this year, and others in succession, terminating with the dyers in 1763, the hatters in 1770, the bell-founders in 1772, and the makers of silk stockings in 1774. According to Tramoyeres, most of the Valencian trade-guilds owned a building in fee-simple, and often gave the title of their craft to the entire street in which that edifice was situated. Nor did the _gremios_, in their evolution from the simpler and less mercenary form of brotherhood or _cofradía_, wholly abandon the religious ceremonies of their prototype. In almost every instance the guild erected and maintained a chapel within its private _domicilio_, chose a particular saint to be its patron, and held, with fitting pomp and liberality, a yearly celebration of that patron's holy-day. On these occasions masses and other services were said or sung, and the embroidered banner of the guild, together with the image (which was often of silver) of its tutelar saint, was carried in procession through the streets of this bright city of the south, abounding at all seasons in flowers and sunshine, and famed, from the remotest days of Spanish history, for the splendour and munificence of her public festivals. Our earliest record of the formal attendance of the _gremios_ of Valencia at one of her _fiestas_, goes back to the visit to this capital of King Pedro the Second, in 1336, when the guilds were marshalled in military fashion, company by company, each headed by its pennon "_á la saga dels primers_," that is, next to the group or company immediately in front of it. In 1392, upon the visit of another monarch, Juan the First, who was accompanied by his queen, Violante, a more elaborate character was given to the welcome. Jongleurs and dancers were hired to perform, while several of the _gremios_ constructed decorative scenes or allegorical tableaux on a platform or a waggon, which was wheeled along the street in slow procession, surrounded by the marching members of the guild. One of these structures represented the winged dragon or _drach-alat_ which figures so conspicuously in the records of Valencia (see Vol. I., p. 210), and was attacked and overcome in mimic combat by a body of knights armed cap-à-pie. The mariners of the port built two large galleys, also moved on wheels and simulating an attack, and the _freneros_ or bit-makers presented a gathering of folk disguised as savages. Nor was the bullfight--that most characteristic of Spanish sports--omitted from the entertainment, judging from the following entry in the city archives: "Item. Sien aemprats los prohomens carnicers a procurar e haver toros e fer per sos dies feta la dita entrada joch ab aquells specialment en lo mercat com sia cert quel Senyor Rey se agrada e pren plaer de tal joch." A typical _fiesta_ and procession of these trade-guilds is described by Tramoyeres. "Formed in two long lines, the members of the guild advanced along the tortuous and narrow highways of the town, adorned with tapestries and altars. Each _gremio_ was preceded by a band of cymbal-beaters, pipers, and jongleurs, sometimes accompanied by a _comparsa_ allusive to the ceremony now being celebrated. Next came the standard of the master-craftsmen and apprentices, each group of whom attended its _divisa_ or distinguishing emblem. Close after followed the banner of the craft in general, carried by one or two of the _oficiales_, who made display of their dexterity and strength by supporting the staff of the banner upon their shoulder, the palm of the hand, or the under-lip. The cords of the banner were held by the officers of the guild, denominated _mayorales_, _clavarios_ and _prohombres_; behind these came the masters, and last of all, a triumphal car on which were represented scenes relating to the craft. Thus, in the year 1655, at the commemoration of the second centenary of the canonization of Saint Vincent Ferrer, the _gremios_ showed particular ingenuity and novelty in these devices." Don Marco Antonio Ortí, who wrote an account of the festival in question, thus describes a few of them. "The millers were preceded by a waggon drawn by four mules and covered with boughs and flowers. On it was the imitation of a windmill, wheel and every other part, contrived so cunningly that although the wheel went round at a great speed, the artifice which caused it to revolve was kept from view, and in the time that the procession lasted, it ground to flour a whole _caliz_ of wheat." Another invention, says the same chronicler, was that of the masons. "The scene devised by these was a triumphal car, handsomely adorned, on which was borne the great tower (of the cathedral),[69] imitated so skilfully that it seemed to have been rooted from its foundation, and replanted in the car aforesaid; and so enormous was its size that a special spot required to be chosen in which to set it up. This was in the garden of La Punta; and when the tower was finished and ready to be taken forth, a breach for its passage had to be opened in the garden wall. It even contained a peal of bells, which rang by turning round and round, and this invention of the bells, besides its ingenuity, was rarely fitted to this festival, seeing that the clock-bell of the cathedral (that is the greatest of them all) was given, when it was baptized, the name of San Vicente's bell, as well as of Saint Michael the Archangel; whence the tower itself is called the Micalet, this, in the language of Valencia, being the diminutive for Michael. It were impossible to imagine the stir and the applause excited in all quarters of the city by the passage of this tower." [69] That is, the ponderous structure known as the Miguelete, which stands unfinished to this day. The same writer describes the decorative car or waggon of the flax-weavers. "Upon it were a woman seated beneath a canopy, weaving at a frame, and representing Santa Ana, the child Jesus making _cañillas_, and an aged man, for San Antonio, dressed as a hermit, with a live sucking-pig at his side. Before these went Our Lady riding on a jennet, with a child in her arms, her right hand held by a man of venerable age representing Saint Joseph. This artifice was symbolic of the weavers' trade, receiving for this reason great applause, as well as for the lavish decoration of, and curious details that were in, the car." Tramoyeres further explains that the guild which took first place in the procession was that which had been most recently created, the oldest and most honoured coming last. At Valencia this proud position was held from the remotest period by the clothmakers; but from time to time, when these for any cause were absent from the festival, their place was taken by one or other of two companies almost as ancient and as honourable--the tanners or the tailors. Each guild selected an official dress or livery, distinguished from the others by its colour or design:--the tailors, purple and white; the weavers, rose with black sleeves; the cutlers, crimson with green sleeves and sprinkled with golden roses; the millers, white with crimson-striped sleeves; the silversmiths, crimson with silver trimming; and so forth. Their banners, too, were quite in harmony with the rich apparel of the vain _agremiados_. According to an author of the seventeenth century, these flags were "not of war, but of a different workmanship, and greatly larger. All are of damask, most being coloured crimson, and the poles sustaining them, and terminated by an image of the sainted patron of the guild, are longer than the longest pike of war. Truly, a splendid show these banners make, displayed with fringes of drawn gold, and shields embroidered with the same material." The image in which the pole of the banner concluded was not, however, invariably that of a saint, or of a saint alone. In the case of the cask-makers it was a golden tun surmounted by a cross, with figures of Saint Helen and the Emperor Constantine standing on either side of it. That of the armourers was a bat (the _rat-penat_ or "winged rat" contained in the _escudo_ of Valencia); that of the cloth-shearers, a pair of scissors with a golden crown and the image of Saint Christopher; of the fishermen, a boat containing Saint Peter and Saint Andrew; of the clothmakers, a sphere inscribed with the name of Jesus; of the stonemasons, a silver millwheel and a silver image of the Virgin. Similarly, each _gremio_ displayed upon its coat-of-arms some kind of emblem such as the implement, or implements, associated with its trade:--the silversmiths, a square and compass; the carpenters, a hatchet and a saw; the lock-smiths, a pair of hammers and an anvil. Quaintly instructive are the dispositions of the guilds relating to apprenticeship. The _maestro_ of a trade, described by the Count of Torreánaz as "the principal worker in the workshop," agreed to feed, clothe, and instruct his apprentice or _discípulo_, and treat him generally as a member of his own family. He was permitted to punish his apprentice for misconduct, but not to employ excessive physical violence; and a law of Jayme the First decreed that if the apprentice lost one or both of his eyes from a blow inflicted by his master, the latter was to "make good the injury" (_sia tengut del mal que li haura feyt_). The number of apprentices allowed in any one workshop was often (and subsequently to the fifteenth century, nearly always) regulated by the law. The first disposition of this kind discovered by Tramoyeres dates from the year 1451, and refers to the shoemakers, whose apprentices might not outnumber three to each _maestro_.[70] Similarly, by provisions issued at a later date, the mattress-makers and the builders were allowed no more than two apprentices, and the silk-weavers three, although sometimes the master might admit an extra _aprenent_ or so, on payment of a certain sum per head.[71] The term of the apprenticeship was also often fixed by law. In most of the trades it was four years; but in the case of the makers of ribbons and of boxes it was five years; while stocking-makers were apprenticed for six, and wax-makers and confectioners for eight years. [70] The Count of Torreánaz quotes an earlier instance, relative to another city, from the shoemakers' ordinances of Burgos, confirmed by the emperor Alfonso in A.D. 1270. These laws decreed, obviously with the purpose of limiting the number of apprentices, that every master-craftsman who engaged an apprentice was to pay two thousand _maravedis_ "for the service of God and of the hospital." Similar legislation, lasting many centuries, was in force elsewhere, for Larruga says that at Valladolid, although the city produced fourteen thousand hats yearly, most of the master-hatters had no apprentices in their workshops, and only one _oficial_. [71] _E.g._, the silk-weavers (Statute of 1701). "Que ningun collegial de dit collegi puixa matricular francament mes de tres aprenents y si volgués tenirne mes, hatja de pagar á dit collegi deu lliures, moneda real de Valencia per cascú dels que excedirá de dit numero." Before the father or the guardian of a lad could sign his papers of apprenticeship, it was required (during and after the sixteenth century) to prove before the guild, by means of his certificate of baptism, or on the declaration of witnesses, that he was the child of parents who were "old Christians," and not the offspring of Moor, Jew, slave, convert, or (in the fierce expression of the stocking-makers) "any other infected race." Still more absurd and savage was an ordinance, dated 1597, of the shoemakers, prohibiting any master of this trade from admitting to apprenticeship in any form, "a black boy, or one of the colour of cooked quince, slave or Moor ... so as to avoid the harm which might befall our brother shoemakers from the ridicule that would be stirred among the populace, if they should see in our processions and other public acts, a slave, or the son of a black slave, or a lad of the colour of cooked quince, or a Moor; as well as the rioting and scandals that would be caused by the spectacle of creatures of this nature mixing with decent, well-dressed people." These statutes are selected from the mass of local legislation which concerned Valencia only. Turning to Spanish guilds at large, the study of these institutions throws considerable light upon the customs of the Spanish nation in the past, and more especially upon the social and financial standing of the older Spanish craftsman. As in other countries, the principal and primal object of the _gremio_ was to organize a system of defence against the military and nobility, or even against the crown. Presently, however, and long before their evolution is completed, errors become apparent in the statutes or proceedings of these bodies which denote, very instructively and very plainly, the typical defects or weaknesses of the Spanish character. Foremost of all was thriftlessness. Although it is a fact that several of the Spanish guilds owned houses or even land, none of them (except the silversmiths of two or three large towns) were really affluent;[72] and indeed, in a country racked by incessant foreign wars or civil strife, there was every reason why they should not be affluent. Yet, notwithstanding this, in celebrating any kind of public festival, the poor _agremiado_ made no scruple to vie in prodigal disbursements with the moneyed aristocracy, clothing himself in fanciful and costly stuffs,[73] constructing shows and spectacles on wheels, raising elaborate altars in the streets, contracting for expensive services, performances, and tableaux. More than once, the _gremios_ were obliged to borrow funds to celebrate the festival of their patron saint.[74] So also with regard to dress. The costumes of the guildsmen of Valencia have been already noticed. An equal recklessness and foppery prevailed in other Spanish towns; for instance, at Barcelona, where, on a visit of Ferdinand and Isabella in 1481, the silversmiths formed part of the procession "dressed in the richest manner, with robes and mantles all covered with silver, and some of them with bonnets that were all of silver plate with jewels and silver foliage, while others wore silver chains about their necks." [72] It is not often, for instance, that we meet with notices of Spanish craftsmen such as Miguel Jerónimo Monegro, a silversmith of Seville, who at his death, towards the middle of the sixteenth century, was in a position to bequeath the following money and effects: 15,000 _maravedis_ to his servant, Catalina Mexia, 6000 _maravedis_ to Juan Ortiz, "a boy that was in my house, that he may learn a trade," 6000 _maravedis_ yearly to his slavewomen, Juana and Luisa, and a black mule to his executor, Hernando de Morales.--Gestoso, _Diccionario de Artífices Sevillanas_, Vol. II., p. 256. [73] This did not happen only at Valencia. The Cortes assembled at Valladolid in 1537 complained that it was "tolerable that costly stuffs should be worn by lords, gentlemen, and wealthy persons; but such is become our nation, that there is not an hidalgo, squire, merchant, or _oficial_ of any trade, but wears rich clothing; wherefore many grow impoverished and lack the money to pay the _alcabalas_ and the other taxes owing to His Majesty." Fernandez de Navarrete stated, in 1626, that "the wives of common _mecánicos_ (_i.e._ craftsmen) furnish their dwellings more luxuriously than titled personages of the realm were wont to furnish theirs some few years ago," and that hangings of taffeta or Spanish _guadamecíes_ were now regarded with contempt, being replaced, even in the homes of the moderately well-to-do, by sumptuous fabrics of Florence and Milan, and by the costliest Brussels tapestry.--(_Conservación de Monarquías_, p. 246). [74] Larruga, in Vol. XVIII. of his _Memorias_, inserts an account of the heavy debts incurred by the _gremios_ of Valladolid, upon the celebration of various of their festivals. Two of the most conspicuous faults among the Spanish race are pride and envy. Yet these defects may be explained without much puzzling, and, in a measure, pardoned. Spaniards, through all the process of their national development, have clung by preference to the calling of the soldier or the priest; that is, the only occupations which directly dissipate the revenue of the commonwealth. Since, therefore, they were thus inclined from earliest antiquity, as well as tutored by a crafty priesthood to believe that might or violence alone is right, the haughtiness of the Spanish people is a logical, and indeed inevitable, outcome of their history. Moreover, side by side with this erroneous theory that the only prowess and decorum of a people must consist in armed aggressiveness, as well as in a truculent and militant intolerance in matters of religion (or rather, of superstition), there arose the equally as mischievous and erroneous theory that the arts of peace were venal, despicable, and effeminate, or, in the current phrase of our contemporaries, "unworthy of a gentleman." "The Spaniards," wrote Fernández de Navarrete, "are so proud-hearted that they do not accommodate themselves to servile labour." Therefore this people chose their favourites and heroes in a semi-savage freebooter; never in a craftsman of gigantic merit, like the elder Berruguete, or Juan de Arfe, or Alonso Cano. Sometimes, as happened with the _reja_ of the Chapel Royal of Granada, they did not even trouble to record the surname of her best artificers. These men, in fact, exceptions to her universal rule, were coldly looked upon, or even persecuted.[75] Abundant proof is yet extant of this humiliation of her merchants, craftsmen, shopkeepers, as distinguished from her soldiery and clergy, gentry and nobility. Undoubtedly, beneath such scorn the former of these groups were sensitive to their position, and all the more acutely sensitive because of their inherent Spanish pride. In fact, so sensitive were they, that now and then the crown esteemed it prudent to appease their wounded vanity by certain declarations or emoluments. Thus, the _Repartimiento de Sevilla_ tells us that in the year 1255 Alfonso the Tenth rewarded several craftsmen of his capital of Seville with the title of _Don_, "a dignity," says Amador, "rarely bestowed at that time."[76] In 1556 Charles the Fifth resolved, in favour of the corporation of _artistas-plateros_ or "artist-silversmiths," that the masters of this craft, together with their wives, might dress in silk, "in that it was an art they exercised, and not an office" (Gestoso, _Diccionario de Artífices Sevillanos_, Vol. I., p. lx.), while Philip the Fourth decreed that they should not be forced to contribute to the equipment of his troops, but should only be invited to contribute, _just as with the nobles_. Nevertheless, Rico y Sinobas points out (_Del vidrio y de sus artífices en España_) that Philip the Fifth and Ferdinand the Sixth, on founding the royal glass factory of San Ildefonso, did not dare to ennoble the Castilian workmen. [75] The treatment of distinguished craftsmen by the Spanish church was often sheerly villainous. A document, inserted by Zarco del Valle among his collection of _Documentos Inéditos para la Historia de las Bellas Artes en España_, p. 362, and in the handwriting of "Maestre" Domingo (see Vol. I., pp. 148, 149), states that after making the choir-_reja_ for Toledo cathedral, "so richly wrought, that in the elegance and rarity thereof it far surpasseth all that has been witnessed in our time, whether in his majesty's dominions or abroad," and expending on it "all the money I had earned in my youth," this eminent _rejero_ found himself by now "owing a great quantity of _maravedis_, seeing that I am utterly without resources," concluding by an appeal to the archbishop to "take heed how that I shall not perish through such poverty, and my wife and children in the hospital." In another document the same artificer complains that in producing the aforesaid _reja_, he had sacrificed "not only my labour, but my property to boot, having been compelled to sell my house and my inheritance to compensate me for my losses," adding that the cathedral authorities had violated their engagement with him. In answer to a series of petitions such as this, the archbishop tardily gave orders for the payment to Domingo of a lump sum of fifteen thousand _maravedis_ and a pension for the rest of his life of two silver _reales_ of Castilian money, "to aid him to support himself." This was in A.D. 1563. By 1565 death had ended the miseries of the master-craftsman, and again we find his widow and children knocking at the archbishop's door, pleading that "extreme is our necessity," and declaring that Domingo had succumbed overburdened with debt, _affirming on his deathbed that the cathedral owed him three thousand ducats, being half the value of a reja he had made_. In answer to this terrible appeal, the thrifty prelate ordered that _since it was found to be true that Master Domingo had lost his maravedis in making the rejas of the choir_, his widow and children should receive a daily pension of one _real_, and that a suit of clothes should be given to each of his sons and his two daughters. [76] So rarely, that Salazar de Mendoza affirms in his book upon _Castilian Dignities_ that this "high prenomen" (_alto prenombre Don_) might properly be used by none but kings, _infantes_, prelates, and the _ricos-homes_ of the realm. In A.D. 1626, Fernández de Navarrete complained of the tendency prevailing among the Spaniards generally to usurp the title _Don_. "Nowadays in Castile," he wrote (_Conservación de Monarquías_, p. 71, etc.), "exists a horde of turbulent and idle fellows that so style themselves, since you will hardly find the son of a craftsman (_oficial mecánico_) that does not endeavour by this trick to filch the honour that is owed to true nobility alone; and so, impeded and weighed down by the false appearance of _caballeros_, they are unsuited to follow any occupation that is incompatible with the empty authority of a _Don_." Some of the reasons why these rogues or _pseudonobles_ (as Fernández de Navarrete called them), attempted to pass for _hidalgos_ or "sons of somebody," are disclosed by Townsend, writing a century and a half later. "Numerous privileges and immunities enjoyed by the _hidalgos_ or knights, sometimes called _hijos dalgo_, have contributed very much to confirm hereditary prejudices to the detriment of trade. Their depositions are taken in their own houses. They are seated in the courts of justice, and are placed near the judge. Till the year 1784, their persons, arms, and horses were free from arrest. They are not sent to the common jails, but are either confined in castles or in their own houses on their parole of honour. They are not hanged, but strangled, and this operation is called _garrotar_, from _garrote_, the little stick used by carriers to twist the cord and bind hard their loading. They cannot be examined on the rack. They are, moreover, exempted from the various taxes called _fechos_, _pedidos_, _monedas_, _martiniegas_, and _contribuciones reales_ and _civiles_: that is, from subsidies, benevolence, and poll tax, or taille paid by the common people, at the rate of two per cent., in this province, but in others at the rate of four. They are free from personal service, except where the sovereign is, and even then they cannot be compelled to follow him. None but the royal family can be quartered on them. To conclude, the noble female conveys all these privileges to her husband and her children, just in the same manner as the eldest daughter of the titular nobility transmits the titles of her progenitors. "The proportion of _hidalgos_ in the kingdom of Granada is not considerable; for out of six hundred and fifty-two thousand nine hundred and ninety inhabitants, only one thousand nine hundred and seventy-nine are noble; whereas, in the province of León, upon little more than one-third that population, the knights are twenty-two thousand. In the province of Burgos, on four hundred and sixty thousand three hundred and ninety-five inhabitants, one hundred and thirty-four thousand and fifty-six are entitled to all the privileges of nobility; and in Asturias, of three hundred and forty-five thousand eight hundred and thirty-three, nearly one-third enjoy the same distinction."--(_Journey through Spain in the years 1786 and 1787_: Vol. III., pp. 79, 80.) "I bestow the name of craftsmen in silver (_artífices plateros_), not upon all who handle silver or gold, but only upon such as draw, and grave, and execute in relief, whether on a large or small scale, figures and histories from life, just as do the sculptors." These words are quoted from a book, the whole of which was written with the aim of proving that certain classes of Spain's older craftsmen were less abject than the rest.[77] It is not so long ago that the expression _viles artesanos_ ("vile artisans") was banished from the legal phraseology of Spain. "That prejudice," wrote Laborde, "which regards the mechanic arts as base, is not extinguished in Spain, but only abated: hence it happens that they are neglected or abandoned to such unskilful hands that they are wonderfully backward in these matters. The influence of this cause is striking: in Catalonia, laws, customs, and opinions are favourable to artisans, and it is in this province that these arts have made the greatest progress." [77] Licentiate Gaspar Gutierrez de los Ríos, _Noticia general para la estimación de las Artes y la manera en que se conocen las liberales de las que son mecánicas y serviles_. Madrid, 1600. I again have occasion to mention this curious work in my chapter on Spanish tapestries. Townsend commented as follows on what he called the _national prejudice_ against trade. "Whilst the Jews were merchants, and the mechanic arts were left either to the Moors or to the vilest of the people, the grandees or knights were ambitious only of military fame. After the conquest of Granada, the Moors continued to be the principal manufacturers, and excelled in the cultivation of their lands. When these, with the Jews, were banished, a void was left which the high-spirited Spaniard was not inclined to fill. Trained for many centuries to the exercise of arms, and regarding such mean occupations with disdain, his aversion was increased by his hatred and contempt for those whom he had been accustomed to see engaged in these employments. He had been early taught to consider trade as dishonourable; and whether he frequented the theatre, or listened to the discourses of the pulpit orators, he could not fail to be confirmed in his ideas. Even in the present day, many, who boast their descent from noble ancestors, had rather starve than work, more especially at those trades by which, according to the laws, they would be degraded, and forfeit their nobility."--(_Journey through Spain in 1786 and 1787_, pp. 240, 241.) Laborde endorsed these assertions by uncharitably remarking that "the Spaniard had always fortitude enough to endure privations, but never courage enough to encounter work." In our time judgments of a still severer kind have been passed upon the Spaniards by various of their own countrymen--among others, Unamuno, Ganivet, and Pompeyo Gener. It is evident, too, that the cause of the relentless exclusion, by the Spanish guilds, of Moors, Moriscos, Jews, or converts--men who, owing to the unsubstantial taint of heresy, were hated and derided by the Spanish nation almost to a man--resided also in this morbid sensitiveness. Had not the Moorish prisoner been formerly considered as the merest chattel, legally equivalent to a beast of burden?[78] How, then, should he be ever equalled with the Christian Spaniard? These haughty and extravagant notions operated, in the seventeenth century, to bring about the general ruin of Spanish trades and manufactures. Bertaut de Rouen wrote at this time:--"L'acoûtumance qu'avoient les Espagnols de faire travailler les Morisques, qui estoient libres parmi eux, et les Mores esclaves, dont il y a encor quelques-uns qu'ils prennent sur leurs costes et sur celles d'Afrique, les a entretenus dans la faineantise et dans l'orgueil, qui fait qu'ils dédaignent tous de travailler. Ce qui achève de les y plonger, c'est le peu de soucy qu'ils prennent de l'avenir, et l'égalité du menu peuple et de tous les moindres marchands et artisans qu'ils nomment _officiales_, avec les gentilshommes, qui demeurent tous dans les petites villes." [78] It is stated in the Fuero of Nájera (A.D. 1076) that the price of the blood of a Moorish slave was twelve _sueldos_ and a half, while the Fuero Viejo of Castile (Book II., Tit. III., Ley IV.) contains the significantly contemptuous phrase, "If a man demand of another a beast or a Moor" (_si algún ome demanda á otro bestia ó moro_). The Countess d'Aulnoy wrote in 1679;--"There are here (at Madrid) a large number of Turkish and Moorish slaves, who are bought and sold at heavy prices, some of them costing four hundred and five hundred _escudos_. Until some time ago the owners of these slaves possessed the right to kill them at their pleasure, as though they had been so many dogs; but since it was remarked that this usage tallied but poorly with the maxims of our Christian faith, so scandalous a license was prohibited. Nowadays the owner of a slave may often break his bones without incurring censure. Not many, however, resort to so extreme a chastisement." In the same century the Countess d'Aulnoy recorded comical instances of the pride of the tradesmen of Madrid. "One morning," she says, "we stopped awhile in the Plaza Mayor to await the return of a servant whom my aunt had sent with a message to some place not far away. Just then I saw a woman selling some slices of salmon, crying them aloud and proclaiming their freshness in tones which positively molested the passers-by. Presently a shoemaker came up (I knew him to be such, because they called him the _señor zapatero_), and asked for a pound of salmon; since here they sell everything by the pound, even to coal and firewood. 'You have not been through the market,' cried the woman who sold the fish, 'because you fancy that my salmon is cheap to-day; but let me tell you that it costs an _escudo_ the pound.' Furious that his poverty should thus be hinted at in public, the shoemaker exclaimed in angry tones: 'It is true that I was not aware of the price of fish to-day. Had it been cheap, I would have bought a pound of it; but since you say it is dear, give me three pounds.' With these words, he held out his hand with the three _escudos_, jammed his hat upon his eyebrows (tradesmen in this town wear small hats, and persons of quality hats of great size), and then, twisting the ends of his mustachios, and clapping his hand to his rapier, the point of which bobbed upward, carrying with it a fold of his ragged cloak, caught up his purchase and strode home, looking at us with an arrogant air, as though he had performed some heroic deed and we had witnessed it. Yet the drollest part of it all was that beyond doubt the fellow had no money left at home, but had spent his week's wages upon the salmon, so that his choleric and haughty act would keep his wife and children famishing for all those days, after supping once upon abundant fish. Such is the character of this people; and there are gentlemen here who take the feet of a fowl and hang them so as to show beneath the hem of their cloak, to make it appear as though they really bore a fowl. But hunger, in truth, is all they carry with them. "You never see a shopman here who does not clothe himself in velvet, silk, and satin, like the king; or who is not the owner of a mighty rapier, which dangles from the wall, together with his dagger and guitar. These fellows work as little as they may, for, as I said, they are by nature indolent. Only in case of extreme necessity do they work at all, and then they never rest, but labour even throughout a feast-day; though when they have finished what was needed to procure them money, they deliver the product of their toil, and with its value relapse into fresh idleness. The shoemaker who has two apprentices, and who has only made one pair of shoes, hands to his lads a shoe apiece and makes them walk before him as though they were his pages; he that has three apprentices is preceded by all three; and when occasion rises, the master-_zapatero_ will hardly condescend to fit upon your feet the shoes which his own hands had put together." It seems that the shoemakers of Madrid were distinguished for their insolence and vanity above the rest of her tradespeople. In 1659 Bertaut de Rouen wrote of the two _corrales_ or theatres of this town, that they were "toujours pleines de tous les marchands, et de tous les artisans, qui quittant leur boutique s'en vont là avec la cappe, l'épée, et le poignard, qui s'appellent tous _cavalleros_ jusques au _çapateros_; et ce sont ceux qui décident si la comedie est bonne ou non, et à cause qu'ils la sifflent ou qu'ils l'applaudissent, et qu'ils sont d'un costé et d'autre en rang, outre que c'est comme une espèce de salve, on les appelle _Mosqueteros_, en sorte que la bonne fortune des autheurs dépend d'eux." The foregoing narratives sound absurd, and are particularly prone to be considered so from being of foreign authorship. Their tenor, notwithstanding, is supported by the following declarations, gravely set down in writing by a Spaniard, within some half a dozen years of the visit to Madrid of the Countess d'Aulnoy. The name of this author is Alonso Nuñez de Castro, and the title of his work (published towards the close of the reign of Philip the Fourth), _El Cortesano en Madrid_. "What man," demands this _madrileño_ of a bygone century, "eminent in any of the arts, has belonged to other nations, but has sought in Madrid the applause and gain which his native country would not, or could not, bestow upon him? Thus, either he in person, or else his master-works, visit with frequency this court of ours, wherein they meet a better fate than in their birthplace, since only at Madrid is properly esteemed the value of illustrious effort. Let London manufacture as she may her famous cloths, Holland her cambrics, Florence her satins, India her castors and vicunas, Milan her brocades, Italy and the Netherlands the statues and oil-paintings which seem to breathe the very life of the original: our Court enjoys these products one and all, proving hereby that other nations generate artists for Madrid, who is, in sooth, the supreme Court of Courts, seeing that she is served by all, yet in her turn serves none. "Yet not at slight expense does she enjoy this sovereignty, showering upon other hands her gold and silver, that they may recreate her mouth with choicest drinks and viands, her nostrils with delicious essences, her eyes with wondrous works of painting and of statuary, her hearing with the skill of world-renowned musicians, her luxury with expensive fabrics and with precious stones; albeit these disbursements mark her, not as prodigal, but as prudent in discovering the proper use of gold, together with the fitting aim and purpose of all riches. Who was possessor of more gold than Midas?--seeing that not he alone, but all he laid his hand upon, was gold; or who so wretched?--seeing that he was powerless to keep himself alive on gold, though all he touched was golden. Truly that man is rich that maketh gold to minister to his wants, and he a miserable pauper that to gold himself is slave, not knowing how to turn its uses to his good. Therefore let other peoples accumulate wealth at ease, heaping up the gold wherewith Madrid repays their ministration to her needs. Whereas her courtiers prove possession of their gold, in that they amassed it formerly, those foreigners show the evil and the mischief of their own by jealously confining it with lock and key: nay, who shall even tell if it be theirs, seeing that they enjoy it not, although they seem to be the lords thereof? "You will declare that other courts enjoy the same conveniences with less expense, because their magistrates are stricter to restrain the tradesman from establishing his prices at caprice. Truly, it may happen that elsewhere the price of foods and luxuries be less than in Madrid; yet it is certain that Madrid makes fair comparison in cheapness with the other cities of Castile. Nay, more, without there seeming to be cause, her courtiers daily find that by a marvel articles are cheaper here than in the soil which generated them, or in the town where they were wrought. The fact that in comparison with other kingdoms Madrid is in some ways the dearer, proves that she hath the money for rewarding labour; and that in other capitals the sweat of the artificer is worthless, because money is worth more. Always have I remarked that the province or the realm that is awarded the name of _happy_, because all things are purchasable there at next to no expense, is wrongly titled so, since here is evidence, either that money lacks, or that there is no purchaser."[79] [79] To further show the extravagant way of thinking and behaving of the Spaniard of the seventeenth century, the same author sets aside the sneering objection justly made by foreign writers to the river Manzanares at Madrid--namely, that it has no water--by remarking with exquisite complacency, that here precisely lies the crowning merit and advantage of the Manzanares over rival streams; in that it amuses people without endangering their lives. In the reigns of Philip the Fourth and Charles the Second, a favourite promenade of the Madrid aristocracy was the waterless channel of this river, in which, according to this work, "coaches and carriages do duty for a gondola, and form a pleasant imitation of the boats and palaces of Venice." In the eighteenth century, when better sense prevailed among the statesmen and economists of Spain, the greedy and corrupt administration of her guilds began to be awarded greater notice. Among the enlightened and progressive Spaniards who outspoke their minds upon this theme, were Florez Estrada and the Count of Campomanes. These, among others of less mark, saw and proclaimed that the harm inflicted by the _gremios_ in some directions was incalculable, while the good they were supposed to bring about in others was rather nominal than real.[80] Apart, however, from the judgment uttered by these two authorities, men of acknowledged probity and consequence who held the public ear, as well as by the patriotic Jovellanos in his spirited appeal in favour of the _libre ejercicio de las artes_, a number of causes, such as the propagation of the principles of individual liberty by the French Revolution, contributed to give the _gremios_ an archaic air, and finally to bring about their downfall. The views concerning them which gradually filled the popular mind, prior to their extinction as an act of government in the year 1834,[81] are well expressed by Townsend. "In all the trading companies or _gremios_," wrote this traveller, "religious fraternities are formed, some incorporated by royal authority and letters patent, others by connivance of the crown, but both in violation of the laws. [80] The object avowedly pursued by Campomanes was not, however, the absolute suppression of the Spanish trade-guilds, but merely their reconstruction upon a sounder basis. He still believed that admission to a guild should be preceded by a formal period of apprenticeship, as well as that the title and the privileges of the master of a trade should be hereditary. An instance of the grossly fraudulent methods employed by the _gremios_ in order to retain the privilege of manufacture in a certain family, is quoted by Larruga (_Memorias_, Vol. II., p. 201), who states that the silk-cord makers of Madrid conferred the title of _master-craftsman_ on a babe only twenty-two months old. [81] Barzanallana says that the earliest sign of a movement in the direction of emancipating the Spanish people from the thraldom of the _gremios_ is contained in the royal _cedula_ of May 17th, 1790, abolishing several of the noxious prerogatives which had hitherto been enjoyed by the families of master-craftsmen. A further crown decree, dated the same month and year, empowered the Audiencias and Chancillerías to authorize persons to pursue a craft (provided they were reasonably competent) without the necessity of approval from the _gremios_ and their _veedores_. Three years later, the same monarch (Charles the Fourth) suppressed the _gremios_ and _colegios_ of the silk-twisters, and declared this craft to be open to all such persons, of either sex, as wished to practise it. In 1797 it was permitted to all foreigners who should be competent in any art or industry (except Jews) to establish themselves in Spain or her dominions, nor were they to be molested in their religious theories if they should happen not to be Roman Catholics. At a later time the Cortes annulled, or very nearly so, the _ordenanzas_ of the _gremios_, and allowed the exercise of any lawful trade or craft to everybody, Spaniards and foreigners alike, without the requisite of special license or examination, or approval by the officers of the guilds (decree of June 8th, 1813). This measure was revoked in 1815, but again became law in 1836, and two years before this latter date was issued the decree of Queen María Cristina prohibiting associations which, under the semblance of a _gremio_, should aim at converting any craft or office into a monopoly. The Spanish _gremios_ still exist, but all their sting has departed. To-day they may be said to spring from the natural and beneficial interdependence of persons working together in the same groove, and seeking mutual support by means of peaceable association. Thus the abuses which rendered them so terrible and evil in the olden time are fortunately now no more. "Every fraternity is governed by a mayor and court of aldermen, who make laws, sit in judgment on offenders, and claim in many cases exemption from the common tribunals of the country. None but the members of these communities may exercise mechanic arts, or be concerned in trade; and to be admitted as a member is both attended with a heavy fine, and entails upon each individual a constant annual expense. "This, however, is not the greatest evil, for the mayor and officers, during their year of service, not only neglect their own affairs, but from vanity and ostentation run into expenses, such as either ruin their families, or at least straiten them exceedingly in trade. "These corporations, being established in the cities, banish, by their oppressive laws, all the mechanic arts from towns and villages. In the cities likewise they tend only to monopoly, by limiting the numbers in every branch of business, and fixing within unreasonable bounds the residence of those who are concerned in trade. This they do either by assigning the distance between shop and shop, under pretence that two shops vending the same commodities must not be so near together as to interfere, or by assembling all the mechanics of the same profession, such as silversmiths, and confining them to one street or quarter of the city, under the plausible pretext that thus the proper magistrate may with ease pay attention to their work, and see that the due standard be observed.[82] [82] This custom was borrowed from the East, and explains why, in many of the older Spanish cities, a number of their streets have taken their title from the trades that formerly were plied in them, or (in some instances) that still are so. Especially was this the case at Valencia and Toledo. In the latter capital there are, or used to be, the streets, _plazas_, or _barrios_, of the silversmiths, armourers, bakers, old-clothes vendors, potters, esparto-weavers, dyers, chairmakers, and many more. Martín Gamero, in his excellent _History of Toledo_ (Introduction, p. 60), says that in the centre of the city were located the quiet crafts, such as those of the jewellers, silversmiths, chandlers, and clog-makers, as well as the shops of the silk, brocade, and tissue-vendors. Noisy trades, such as the swordsmiths', tinsmiths', boiler-makers', chairmakers', and turners', were practised on the outskirts of the town. "In many cases the various _gremios_ bear hard upon each other. Thus, for instance, the carpenter must not employ his industry on mahogany, or any other wood but deal, nor must he invade the province of the turner. The turner must confine his ingenuity and labour to soft wood, and must not presume to touch either ivory or metals, even though he should be reduced to poverty for want of work. The wheeler, in similar distress, must not, however qualified, extend his operations beyond the appointed bounds, so as to encroach on the business of the coach-maker, who is equally restrained from either making or mending either cart or waggon wheels. The barber may shave, draw teeth, and bleed, but he must not fill up his leisure time with making wigs.[83] As mechanics are obliged to keep exactly each to his several line, so must shopkeepers confine themselves to their proper articles in trade, and under no pretence must the manufacturer presume to open magazines, that he may sell by retail. [83] Colmeiro has published _memoriales_ presented by the hatters of Zaragoza, in which they pray to be allowed to line, by their own hands, or by those of their wives, the hats which they had manufactured, instead of being required to give up this finishing and accessorial process to the makers of silk cord.--_Historia de la Economía Política en España_, and _Biblioteca de los economistas españoles de los siglos XVI., XVII., y XVIII_. "But neither are these abuses the only evils which call for reformation. Many corporations have been impertinently meddling, and have absurdly bound the hands of the manufacturer by regulations with respect to the conduct of his business and the productions of his art, such as, being too rigidly observed, would preclude all improvements, and would be destructive to his trade, by giving to foreigners a manifest advantage in favour of their merchandise.[84] [84] This meddlesomeness almost exceeds belief. It was at its worst, perhaps, in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, who decreed that the wicks of candles were to be made of the same kind of tow, and horse-shoes and nails to be of the same weight in every part of their dominions. It was required that machines, which might have been to great advantage moved by mules or horses, should only be worked by the hand of man, however lengthy and exhausting this might prove. The Count of Torreánaz, who quotes these ridiculous dispositions from the _Libro de bulas y pragmáticas_ of Juan Ramírez, further recalls that, as late as the middle of the eighteenth century, costly woven stuffs of Seville and Valencia used to be confiscated because, although the ground of the fabric was of a colour which the law allowed, the flowers or other devices which formed the decoration were of a forbidden shade. On one occasion the chief lady-in-waiting of the queen was prohibited from wearing a dress which she had ordered from a weaver of Valencia, because the flowered pattern was contrary to the _ordenanzas_. "The incorporated fraternities in the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon are 25,581, and their corporate expenses amount to 11,687,861 reals. Their revenue is not altogether consumed in feasting, nor in salaries to officers, nor in pensions to their widows, nor yet in lawsuits, which are said to be both numerous and expensive; but considerable sums are expended for religious purposes, in procuring masses to be said, either for departed spirits and the souls in Purgatory, or for the benefit of the fraternity in which each individual has a proportionable interest. For this reason, these communities enjoy the protection of the ecclesiastical courts, to which, in cases of necessity, they frequently appeal. "The chartered corporations claim their exclusive privileges by royal grant, and on this plea they resist a formation, not considering, as Count Campomanes with propriety remarks, the essential condition of these grants, _Sin perjuicio de tercero_, or that nothing therein contained shall be to the _prejudice of others_, or injurious to the citizens at large." APPENDIX I CLASSES OF POTTERY MADE AT ALCORA (From RIAÑO's _Industrial Arts in Spain_) Towards the middle of the eighteenth century:-- Vases of different shapes. Small pots (Chinese fashion). Teapots and covers (Chinese fashion). Cruets, complete sets (Chinese style). Entrée dishes. Salt-cellars (Chinese style). _Escudillas_ (bowls), of Constantinople. _Barquillos_ (sauce bowls), Chinese style. Bottles (in the Chinese manner). Cups, plates, and saucers of different kinds, with good painted borders in imitation of lace-work (_puntilla_). Some were designed in the Chinese manner, and especial care was taken with fruit-stands, salad-bowls, and dishes. Trays and refrigerators. A document, discovered by Riaño, and dated 1777, says that in that year the following kinds of pottery were manufactured at Alcora:-- _Figures of Demi-Porcelain._ Figures of tritons. " of soldiers (two sizes). " of soldiers, one-third of a _palmo_ high. " of the four seasons (two sizes). " of dancers. " of tritons in the form of children. " with brackets. " of different animals. " of gardener and female companion in the Dresden style. Dancing figures in the German style. Figures of Neptune. " of shepherd and shepherdess. " of the Moorish king, Armenius. " of the four parts of the world (two sizes). " of peasant and his wife. Small figures holding musical instruments. Figures representing different monarchies. " representing historical personages. " representing the history of Alexander the Great (two sizes). " representing Martius Curtius (two sizes). " of elephants. " of a man mounted on an elephant. " representing Chinese figures. " of Heliogabalus. " of a general on horseback. " of a grenadier supporting a candlestick. Large figures representing Julius Cæsar. Figures representing the different costumes worn in Spain, on brackets. Groups of Chinese figures. Snuff-boxes, sugar-basins, inkstands. Rabbits, horns, and pug-dogs for holding scent. Small scent-bottles. Needle-cases. Large vases with foot and cover. Brackets. Walking-stick handles. Knife handles. _Figures of white Biscuit China._ Figures representing Spanish costumes (two sizes). Groups of two figures. Large and small figures of the four parts of the world. Figures of the four seasons (two sizes). We find also, says Riaño, the following figures of painted and glazed porcelain:-- Four seasons (two sizes). Groups of two figures. Figure of a Moorish king. " of musicians and huntsmen. " of peasants. " of Chinese. Small figures of a gardener and female companion. Figures of soldiers in the German style. From 1789 to 1797, continues Riaño, the following kinds of pottery were made at Alcora:-- Hard paste porcelain (French). Porcelain of three different kinds called Spanish. Porcelain of pipeclay (English). Blue pipeclay porcelain. Marbled pipeclay porcelain. _Bucaros_, painted and gilt. Strasburg ware. Porcelain painted _en froid_. Marbled and gilt wares, hitherto unknown. _Porcelain (Frita)._ Porcelain painted with gilt lines. " painted without gold. " (_frita_), canary colour. Boxes in relief. " plain. Porcelain (_frita_), painted with marble wares. Plain boxes of the same kind. Porcelain (_frita_), of blue and brown ground. Cups and saucers of a similar kind. _Biscuit Porcelain._ Figures. Vases. Pedestals. White porcelain (_frita_) cups of different kinds. " porcelain, ornamented and plain. Boxes with busts. Boxes with ornamentations in relief. Vases for holding flowers, plates, etc. Large figures of the four seasons. Flower vases with rams' heads. Plain boxes. Boxes with ornaments in relief. _White Porcelain._ Plates, cups, etc. Figures of different kinds. _Painted Porcelain._ Cups, saucers, plates, etc. Cream-pots. Plain snuff-boxes, or in the shape of a dog. Fruit-stands in relief. BIBLIOGRAPHY The following is a fairly complete list of the works I have consulted for the preparation of these volumes. ABDÓN DE PAZ. _La España de la Edad Media._ ACADEMIA DE SAN FERNANDO, REAL. _Colección de Antigüedades Arabes de Granada y Córdoba_; 2 vols. ALBA, DUCHESS OF BERWICK AND. _Catálogo de las colecciones expuestas en las vitrinas del Palacio de Liria._ ALDERETE. _Antigüedades de España._ ALZOLA Y MINONDO, PABLO. _El Arte Industrial en España._ Bilbao, 1892. AMADOR DE LOS RÍOS. _El Arte Latino-Bizantino en España y las Coronas Visigodas de Guarrazar._ Madrid, 1861. ANTÓN, FRANCISCO. _Estudio sobre el Coro de la Catedral de Zamora_; 1904. ARGOTE DE MOLINA. _Nuevos Paseos Históricos, Artísticos, Económico-Políticos por Granada y sus Contornos._ ARPHE Y VILLAFAÑE. _Varia Conmensuración para la Escultura y Arquitectura._ Seventh edition; Madrid, 1795. _Arte en España, El_; 8 vols. _Arts italiens en Espagne, Les, ou histoire des artistes italiens qui contribuerent à embellir les Castilles._ Rome, 1825. BALSA DE LA VEGA. _Las Industrias Artísticas en Madrid_ (Lace, etc.). Articles published in _El Liberal_, 1907. BARRANTES. _Barros emeritenses._ Madrid, 1877. BERTAUT DE ROUEN. _Journal du Voyage d'Espagne._ Paris, 1669. BIRCH, SAMUEL. _History of Ancient Pottery._ London, 1873. BOCK. _Die Kleinodien des heil. römischen Reichs deutscher Nation, nebst den Kroninsignien Böhmens, Ungarns, und der Lombardei._ Vienna, 1864. _Geschichte der liturgischen Gewänder des Mittelalters._ Bonn, 1871. BONSOR, GEORGES. _Les Colonies pre-Romaines de la Vallée du Bétis._ Paris, 1899. BOURGOING, JEAN-FRANÇOIS DE. _Nouveau Voyage en Espagne._ 3 vols.; Paris, 1789. BREÑOSA Y CASTELLARNAU. _Guía y Descripción del Real Sitio de San Ildefonso._ Madrid, 1884. CABALLERO INFANTE, FRANCISCO. _Aureos y barras de oro y plata encontrados en el pueblo de Santiponce._ Seville, 1898. CAMPOS MUNILLA, MANUEL. _Mosaicos del Museo Arqueológico Provincial de Sevilla._ 1897. CAPMANY Y MONTPALAU, ANTONIO. _Memorias históricas sobre la marina, comercio, y artes de la ciudad de Barcelona._ Madrid, 1779. CARRASCO Y SÁINZ, ADOLFO. _Catálogo de los recuerdos históricos existentes en el Museo de Artillería._ Part I.; Madrid, 1893. CASCALES, FRANCISCO. _Discursos históricos sobre Murcia._ Murcia, 1624. CEAN BERMUDEZ, JUAN AGUSTIN. _Descripción Artística de la Catedral de Sevilla._ Seville, 1863. _Diccionario de las Bellas Artes en España._ CEDILLO, COUNT OF. _Toledo en el siglo XVI._ Madrid, 1901. CLONARD, COUNT OF. _Memorias para la historia del traje español_; published in the _Memorias de la Real Academia de la Historia_, Vol. IX. Madrid, 1879. _Conferencias leidas en el Ateneo Barcelonés sobre el estado de la cultura española y particularmente catalana, en el siglo XV._ Barcelona, 1893. COLE, ALAN S. _Ornament in European Silks._ London, 1899. CONTRERAS, RAFAEL. _Recuerdos de la Dominación de los Arabes en España._ Granada, 1882. COX. _L'Art de décorer les Tissus._ CRUZADA VILLAAMIL. _Los tapices de Goya._ Madrid, 1870. DANVILA Y COLLADO. _Trajes y Armas de los Españoles._ Madrid, 1877. DAVILLIER, BARON. _Recherches sur l'orfévrerie en Espagne._ Paris, 1879. _Les arts decoratifs en Espagne au moyen âge et à la Renaissance._ Paris, 1879. _Nota sobre los cueros de Cordoba, Guadameciles de España_, etc. (Spanish edition.) Gerona, 1879. DIAZ Y PEREZ, NICOLÁS. _Historia de Talavera la Real._ Madrid, 1879. DOZY. _Histoire des musulmans d'Espagne._ Leyden, 1881. DUPONT-AUBERVILLE. _L'Ornement des Tissus._ Paris, 1877. ECHEVERRÍA. _Paseos por Granada y sus Contornos_. 2 vols.; Granada, 1814. EGUILAZ YANGUAS, LEOPOLDO. _Reseña Histórica de la Conquista del Reino de Granada por los Reyes Católicos._ Granada, 1894. ERRERA, MADAME ISABELLE. _Collection d'Anciennes Étoffes_ (Catalogue). Brussels, 1901. FERNANDEZ Y GONZALEZ, FRANCISCO. _Estado social y político de los mudéjares de Castilla._ Madrid, 1866. FLOREZ. _España Sagrada._ (2nd edition). Madrid, 1824. FORD, RICHARD. _Handbook for Travellers in Spain._ 2 vols. London, 1845. GAYANGOS, PASCUAL DE (edited by). _History of the Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain._ London, 1843. (annotated by). _Chronicle of Rassis the Moor._ Madrid, 1850. GAYET. _L'Art Persan._ GESTOSO Y PEREZ, JOSÉ. _Documentos relativos á la historia de la Armería de Sevilla._ Seville, 1887. _Ensayo de un Diccionario de los artífices que florecieron en Sevilla desde el siglo XIII al XVIII inclusive._ 2 vols.; Seville, 1899. _Historia de los barros vidriados sevillanos desde sus orígenes hasta nuestros días._ Seville, 1903. _Curiosidades antiguas sevillanas._ Seville, 1885. GOBLET D'ALVIELLA, COMTE. _La Migration des Symboles._ Paris, 1891. GÓMEZ MORENO, MANUEL. _Apuntes que pueden servir de historia del bordado de imaginería en Granada_ (published in the magazine _El Liceo de Granada_; 6th year, No. 18). _Guía de Granada._ Granada, 1892. GÓNGORA. _Antigüedades Prehistóricas de Andalucía._ Madrid, 1868. GRANADA, ORDINANCES OF. _Titulo de las Ordenanças que los muy Ilustres y muy magníficos Señores Granada mandaron que se guarden para la buena governacion de su República. Las quales mandaron imprimir para que todos las sepan y las guarden._ 1552. _Ordenanzas que los Muy Ilustres y Muy Magnificos Señores Granada mandaron guardar, para la buena governacion de su Republica, impressas año de 1552. Que se han buelto a imprimir mandado de los Señores Presidente, y Oydores de la Real Chancilleria de esta ciudad de Granada, año de 1670. Añadiendo otras que no estauan impressas. Impressas en Granada. En la Imprenta Real de Francisco de Ochoa, en la Calle de Abenamar. Año de_ 1678. GUILLEN ROBLES, FRANCISCO. _Málaga musulmana._ Málaga, 1880. GUTIERREZ DE LA HACERA, PASCUAL RAMON. _Descripción General y Cronológica de España._ 2 vols.; Madrid, 1771. HÜBNER. _Inscriptiones Hispaniæ latinæ._ Berlin, 1892. _Inscriptionum Hispaniæ latinarum supplementum._ Berlin, 1892. JONES, OWEN. _The Alhambra._ London, 1842. LANE-POOLE, STANLEY. _The Art of the Saracens in Egypt._ London, 1888. _The Moors in Spain._ London, 1897. LARRUGA. _Memorias políticas y económicas sobre los frutos, comercio, y minas de España._ Madrid, 1788. LE BRETON, GASTON. _Céramique espagnole. Le salon en porcelaine du Palais Royal de Madrid et les porcelaines de Buen Retiro._ Paris, 1879. LECEA Y GARCIA. _Recuerdos de la antigua industria Segoviana._ Segovia, 1897. LOPEZ DE ARENAS, DIEGO. _Carpintería de lo Blanco y Tratado de Alarifes._ (3rd edition.) Madrid, 1867. MADRAZO, PEDRO DE. _Córdoba._ Barcelona, 1884. MARTORELL Y PEÑA, JUAN. _Apuntes arqueológicos de, ordenados por Salvador Samper y Miquel._ Barcelona, 1879. MEDINA, PEDRO DE. _Primera y Segunda parte de las grandezas y cosas notables de España._ Alcalá de Henares, 1595. MENENDEZ Y PELAYO, MARCELINO. _Historia de las Ideas Estéticas en España._ Madrid, 1886 and following years. MORALES, AMBROSIO DE. _La crónica general de España del Maestro Florián de Ocampo, continuada con el libro de las antigüedades de España._ MORENO DE VARGAS, BERNABÉ. _Historia de la Ciudad de Mérida._ Merida, 1633; reprinted at Merida, 1892. MURGUÍA, MANUEL. _El Arte en Santiago durante el siglo XVIII., y noticia de los artistas que florecieron en dicho ciudad y centuria._ Madrid, 1884. _Museo Español de Antigüedades_ (many articles in the). Madrid, 1872 and following years. _Noticia de la Fábrica de Espadas de Toledo que por tantos siglos existió hasta fines del XVII en que acabó, y del método que tenían aquellos artífices Armeros para forjarlas y templarlas, aceros de que usaban, y otras particularidades que las hicieron tan famosas en todo el Mundo como apetecidas al presente, y de la que por el Rey N.S. que Dios gue. se estableció en esta Ciudad año de 1760; por Francisco de Santiago Palomares Escriuano mayor de primeros remates de Rentas decimales de Toledo y su Arzobispado._ MS. in the Library of the Royal Academy of History, Madrid; in the volume inscribed _Varios de Historia_, 8, E, 141. _Ordenanzas de la muy noble é muy leal Cibdad de Sevilla é su tierra, assi de las tocantes al Cabildo y regimiento della, que se contienen en la primera parte, como de todos los oficios mecánicos, de que es la segunda parte. Impressas con mucha diligencia en la dicha Cibdad de Sevilla por Juan Varela de Salamanca, vezino della. Acabáronse de imprimir á catorze dias del mes de Febrero, año de Nuestro Redemptor Iesu Christo de mil quinientos é veynte y siete años (1527)._ The second edition was published, also at Seville, in 1632. _Ordenanzas para el buen regimen y gobierno de la muy noble, muy leal é imperial ciudad de Toledo._ Reprinted by the Town Council. Toledo, 1858. ORTEGA RUBIO. _Los Visigodos en España._ Madrid, 1903. OSMA, GUILLERMO J. DE. _Azulejos sevillanos del siglo XIII._ Madrid, 1902. _Los letreros ornamentales en la cerámica morisca del siglo XV._ PÉREZ DE VILLA-AMIL. _España Artistica y Monumental._ Paris, 1842-1850. PÉREZ VILLAAMIL, MANUEL. _Artes é Industrias del Buen Retiro._ Madrid, 1904. PICATOSTE, FELIPE. _Ultimos escritos._ _Estudios sobre la grandeza y decadencia de España._ PIGAL. _Collection de Costumes des diverses Provinces de l'Espagne._ Paris, about 1810. PONZ, ANTONIO. _Viaje de España._ 18 vols.; Madrid, 1787. RAMÍREZ DE ARELLANO, RAFAEL. _Ciudad Real Artística._ Ciudad Real, 1894. RIAÑO, JUAN FACUNDO. _The Industrial Arts in Spain_ (South Kensington Museum Art Handbooks). London, 1879. RICORD, TOMÁS. _Noticia de las varias y diferentes Producciones del Reyno de Valencia, etc.: segun el estado que tenían en el año 1791._ Valencia, 1793. RODRÍGUEZ VILLA, ANTONIO (edited by). _La Corte y Monarquía de España en los años de 1636 y 1637._ Madrid, 1886. SANPERE Y MIQUEL. _La Plateria catalana en los siglos XVI y XV_ (article published in the _Revista de Ciencias Históricas_; Vol. I.). _Las Costumbres Catalanas en tiempo de Juan I._ Gerona, 1878. SEMPERE. _Historia del lujo en España._ Madrid, 1788. SIMONET, FRANCISCO JAVIER. _Descripción del Reino de Granada, sacada de los autores arábigos._ Granada, 1872. STIRLING, WILLIAM. _Annals of the Artists of Spain._ London, 1848. STRABO. _Geography._ STREET. _Some Account of Gothic Architecture in Spain._ London, 1865. SWINBURNE, HENRY. _Travels through Spain._ London, 1779. TOWNSEND, JOSEPH. _Journey through Spain._ 3 vols.; London, 1792. VALLADAR, F. DE PAULA. _Guía de Granada._ Granada, 1890 and 1906. VAN DE PUT. _Hispano-Moresque Ware of the Fifteenth Century._ London, 1904. VARGAS Y PONCE. _Correspondencia epistolar en materias de Arte._ Collected by Cesáreo Fernández Duro. Madrid, 1900. VILLA-AMIL Y CASTRO. _Antigüedades prehistóricas y célticas de Galicia._ Lugo, 1873. _Arqueología Sagrada._ Lugo, 1867. VIÑAZA, COUNT OF LA. _Adiciones al Diccionario de Cean Bermudez._ _Goya._ VIOLLET-LE-DUC. _Dictionnaire raisonné du mobilier français de l'époque Carlovingienne à la Renaissance._ WALLIS, HENRY. _The Oriental Influence on the Ceramic Art of the Italian Renaissance._ London, 1900. YOUNG, ARTHUR. _Tour in Catalonia._ Dublin, 1793. ZARCO DEL VALLE. _Documentos inéditos para la Historia de las Bellas Artes en España._ Madrid, 1870. INDEX Abd-al-Azis, I. 31. Abd-er-Rhaman the First, II. 57. Abd-er-Rhaman the Second, II. 57; III. 20. Abd-er-Rhaman the Third, II. 98. Aben-Said, I. 225; II. 135, 136. Abolais, II. 226 _et seq._, 237. Abreviador, the Casa del, III. 150. Abu-Said, III. 37. _Adargas_, I. 241, 242. Addison, Lancelot, II. 18 _et seq._, 32, 45 (note). Alberoni, Cardinal, III. 150 (note). Albuquerque, the inventory of the Dukes of, I. 272, 273, 279, 283, 284; II. 9, 10. Alcaicería of Granada, the, I. 78; II. 194 _et seq._ _Alcarrazas_, II. 194 _et seq._ Alcázar of Seville, the, II. 60 _et seq._, 138, 141, 143, 148, 150, 152. Alcora, pottery of, II. 203 _et seq._ Alcoy, cloths of, III. 124. Aleman, Cristóbal, II. 245. _Aleros_, II. 65, 66. _Alfarge_ ceilings, II. 52 _et seq._ Alfonso the Second, III. 183. Alfonso the Third ("the Great"), I. 44, 57 (note); II. 106; III. 183. Alfonso the Sixth, I. 45 (note), 276; II. 15, 106; III. 106. Alfonso the Ninth, II. 39. Alfonso the Tenth ("the Learned"), I. 61, 62, 129, 205; II. 226, 239; III. 11, 28, 33, 34, 106, 238. Alfonso the Eleventh, I. 68; III. 12, 70. Alfonso the Eleventh, the Chronicle of, I. 207, 209, 268, 269, 280 (note). Alfonso the Thirteenth, I. 42 (note). Alfonso the First of Aragon, II. 14. Algeciras, the siege of, I. 269. Al-Hakem the First, II. 135; III. 213. Al-Hakem the Second, II. 57. Alhambra, the, II. 54, 56, 59, 64 _et seq._, 86, 121, 154 _et seq._, 168 _et seq._, 183, 232, 233. _Aliceres_, II. 136. Al-Jattib, I. 77 (note), 226, 268. _Aljofar_, I. 67; III. 11 _et seq._, 33. Al-Khattib, III. 33, 39. Almagro Cardenas, II. 65 (note). Almagro, lace of, III. 160. Al-Makkari, I. 32, 76; II. 137, 163, 231; III. 1, 2, 21, 33, 35. Al-Manzor, I. 227; II. 57. _Almexía_, III. 8. Almohades, the, II. 136; III. 23. Almoravides, the, III. 22. Almotalefes, III. 58 _et seq._ Altar-screens (see _Retablos_). Alvarez de Colmenar, I. 110 (note), 267; II. 23, 24, 31, 199 (note), 260; III. 50 _et seq._, 74. Amador de los Ríos, José, I. 17, 23, 28; II. 59 (note). Amador de los Ríos, Rodrigo, I. 36, 48, 49, 61, 62, 128, 129, 176, 179, 183, 185; II. 58, 101, 103, 135, 136; III. 212, 238. Amphoræ, II. 116, 117. _Analogia_, III. 211, 212. Ancheta, II. 80. Andino, Cristóbal de, I. 151 _et seq._ Angels, the Cross of, I. 41 _et seq._, 58. Apocalypse, the Codex of the, I. 223. _Arabian Nights, The_, II. 62, 63 (note). Aranda, the Count of, II. 182, 204 _et seq._ _Arca Santa_ of Oviedo, the, I. 44. Arenys de Mar, lace of, III. 172. Arenys de Munt, lace of, III. 172. Arfe, Antonio de, I. 98. Arfe, Enrique de, I. 97, 101; III. 201. Arfe, Juan de, I. 85, 96 _et seq._; III. 185, 201. Argote de Molina, II. 23. Armouries of Spain, private, I. 243, 244. Armoury, Madrid, the Royal, I. 17, 210, 214 (note), 217 _et seq._, 229 (note), 231 (note), 235 _et seq._, 248 _et seq._, 273, 274, 276, 278, 282. Arnao de Flandes, II. 243. _Arquetas_, I. 48 _et seq._ "Arras cloths" (see _Paños de Ras_). _Artesonados_, II. 47, 55 _et seq._ Ash Shakandi, III. 3, 4. Augusta, Cristóbal de, II. 152. _Axorcas_, I. 77, 79. _Azulejos_ (see Tiles). _Baculi_, ivory, II. 105, 106. Balconies, Spanish, I. 154 _et seq._ Balearics, slingers of the, I. 200, 201. Bâle, the Council of, III. 110, 111 (note). Balsa de la Vega, III. 163. _Banyolenchs_, III. 123 (note). Barcelona, silk of, III. 98 _et seq._ _Barros Saguntinos_ (see "Saguntine ware"). _Barros tarraconenses_ (see "Saguntine ware"). Bartholomew, Master, I. 149 _et seq._ Barzanallana, III. 222 (note), 249 (note). Bayan Almoghreb, I. 32. Becerra, II. 68. Becerriles, the, I. 94, 95. Bedclothes, Spanish mediæval, II. 4 (note). Benvenuto Cellini, III. 208 _et seq._ Berruguete, I. 189; II. 68, 71, 79, 80. Bertaut de Rouen, I. 3, 38, 82, 97, 101, 102, 109, 154, 155, 203; II. 39, 59, 60, 63, 67 (note), 169, 262; III. 50, 51, 108, 109, 140, 141, 164, 165 (note), 242, 243, 245. Boabdil el Chico, I. 75, 227 _et seq._; III. 36, 37. Bocairente, cloths of, III. 124. Bonsor, II. 113, 114. Bourgoing, II. 159, 181, 216, 217; III. 74, 76 _et seq._ Bowles, William, I. 4 _et seq._, 23 (note), 56 (note), 263 _et seq._; II. 58 (note), 196 _et seq._, 254, 255. Brihuega, cloths of, III. 110, 115 (note). Brims of Wells (see _Brocales_). _Brinquiños_, II. 191, 192. British Museum, The, II. 177; III. 183. Brocade, III. 98, 99 (note). _Brocales_, II. 123, 124. Bronzes, Moorish, I. 169 _et seq._ Brun, Sigismund, II. 259. _Búcaros_, II. 191, 193. Buckram, III. 5, 7. Buen Retiro, pottery of the, II. 203, 212 _et seq._ Buonaparte, Joseph, II. 218. _Burel_, III. 122. Cadalso, glass of, II. 232. _Cadinas_, III. 123 (note). Campomanes, Count, III. 248, 253. _Candil_, the, I. 167, 168. Cannon, early Spanish, I. 268 _et seq._ Cano, Alonso, II. 69, 81. _Cántigas de Santa María_, the, I. 282. Capmany, III. 6, 123 (note), 169. Carpentry, artistic, II. 46 _et seq._ _Carpintería de lo blanco_, II. 52, 53. _Carpinteros de lo blanco_, II. 50. Carrión, Fernando de, III. 206, 207. Casa de los Tíros, Granada, the, II. 65, 156. Casiri, III. 35, 39. Cataluña, cloths of, III. 123 (note). Cataluña, lace of, III. 169 _et seq._ Catherine of Lancaster, III. 107, 129. Cato, I. 5. Cean Bermudez, I. 88, 148 (note), 185; II. 62, 80, 83 _et seq._, 149, 246 (note); III. 131, 168 (note). Cedillo, Count of, III. 70 (note), 225 (note). Celosías, II. 47, 62 _et seq._ Celtiberians, the, I. 195, 196. _Cendal_, III. 5, 6. Chair-makers of Granada, the, II. 28 _et seq._ _Chamelot_, III. 5, 6, 14. Charles the Second, I. 107, 273, 274; II. 46; III. 27, 107, 134, 248 (note). Charles the Third, I. 115, 235 (note); II. 212, 218, 258; III. 46. Charles the Fourth, II. 215; III. 249 (note). Charles the Fifth, I. 129, 222, 223, 235 _et seq._, 253, 273, 283; II. 40, 56, 77; III. 15, 31, 40, 107, 153, 169, 174, 238, 239. Chests, makers of, II. 30. _Ciclaton_, III. 5, 6. Cid, the, II. 12. Cid, the Chronicle of the, I. 207. Cid, the Poem of the, I. 203, 207 (note); II. 45 (note). Cisneros, Cardinal, III. 126. Ciudad Real, II. 39. Clemencin, III. 13, 14. Clonard, Count of, I. 204, 206, 208, 213, 215 (note), 268; II. 2 (note), 5 (note), 39 (note); III. 14 (note). Cloostermans, II. 209 _et seq._ Cloth of Gold, III. 7. Cloths, Spanish, III. 105 _et seq._ Cluny, the Museum of, II. 40; III. 183. Coaches, Spanish, I. 283. _Cofradías_, III. 222 _et seq._ Commercial Company of Extremadura, the, III. 65. Compañia Real de Comercio y Fábricas de Granada, the, III. 61 _et seq._ _Contrayes_, III. 122. Contreras, II. 173. _Cordellate_, III. 122. Cordova, cloths of, III. 122. Cordova, embroiderers of, III. 131 _et seq._ "Cordova leathers," II. 38, 39. Cordova, _rejeros_ of, I. 145, 146. Cordova, the Council of, III. 12. Cordova, the mosque of, II. 57, 58, 135. Cordova, the Ordinances of, II. 43, 44. Covarrubias, II. 38, 137; III. 128. Crossbows, Spanish, I. 220 _et seq._ Crosses, iron, I. 138. Crown of Spain, tapestries of the, III. 152 _et seq._ _Cueros de Córdoba_, II. 38 _et seq._ Cunninghame Graham, I. 131, 132, 235 (note), 277 (note); II. 20 (note), 126 (note). _Cursi_, the, II. 22. _Custodia_ of Cordova, the, III. 201 _et seq._ _Custodia_ of Seville, the, III. 185 _et seq._ _Custodias_, I. 95 _et seq._ Cutlers, Spanish, III. 214 _et seq._ Dagobert, I. 29, 30. Dancart, II. 77, 83. Danis, Juan, II. 247, 248. D'Aulnoy, Countess, I. 107 _et seq._; II. 25 (note), 224; III. 134, 135, 141, 142, 162, 242 _et seq._ Davillier, Baron, I. 72, 87, 280 (note); II. 78, 144, 249, 162, 165, 166, 186 _et seq._; III. 149. Diago, II. 163, 180. Diodorus Siculus, I. 199. Diptyches, ivory, II. 89 _et seq._ Dolfin, II. 240, 241. Domingo, "Maestre," I. 148, 149; III. 237, 238 (note). Doncel, Guillermo, II. 79, 80. _Don Quixote_, I. 286 (note); III. 160. Dozy, II. 135 (note), 136. _Drach-alat_, the, III. 228. Drury Fortnum, III. 182. Ducange, III. 211. Duque y Cornejo, II. 81. Echeverría, Father, I. 82. Eder, II. 259. Edrisi, I. 224; II. 162; III. 137, 138. Egilona, I. 30, 31. Eguilaz Yanguas, II. 22; III. 36, 37 (note). El Nubiense, III. 4. Embroidery, Spanish, III. 125 _et seq._ Ena of Battenberg, Princess, III. 173. Enguera, cloths of, III. 124. _Entalladores_, II. 50, 76, 78. Escolano, II. 163, 164. Escorial, the, I. 98. Eximenes, II. 163, 164, 180. Ferdinand and Isabella, I. 65, 69 _et seq._, 252, 253; II. 74, 125, 143, 184 (note), 190, 234; III. 14, 31, 39, 123, 128, 129 (note), 152, 236, 252. Ferdinand the Catholic, I. 229, 253 _et seq._; II. 236; III. 123 (note). Ferdinand the First, I. 45 (note); II. 13, 39, 99, 104. Ferdinand the Second, II. 107. Ferdinand the Third (San Fernando), I. 128, 129, 250, 252, 276; II. 85; III. 18. Ferdinand the Sixth, III. 44, 240. Ferdinand the Second of Aragon, I. 210. Fernandez de Navarrete, III. 109 (note), 144, 199 (note), 235 (note), 237 _et seq._ Fernandez y Gonzalez, III. 17 (note). Fez, III. 50. Florez Estrada, III. 248. Floridablanca, Count of, II. 177; III. 90, 91. Fonseca, I. 80, 81. Fonts, baptismal, II. 124, 125. Ford, I. 40, 53, 56 (note), 59, 83 (note); II. 63 (note), 184 (note), 195, 196, 218, 219. Fortuny, I. 171; II. 168, 174, 183. Fouquet, II. 162. Foz, Manuel, III. 83, 84, 93, 94. Francés, Juan, I. 140 _et seq._ Francis the First, III. 123 (note). Frisleva, Cristóbal, I. 273. Fuero Viejo of Castile, the, III. 242 (note). Gamero, Martin, III. 225, 251 (note). Ganivet, III. 242. García Llansó, II. 156 (note), 180, 198, 202 (note), 233. Gates, bronze, I. 181. Gayangos, Pascual de, I. 102, 104, 127, 155, 232; II. 24; III. 35, 71 (note), 135 (note). Gelmirez, Bishop, I. 53, 54. Gener, Pompeyo, III. 242. George, Master, I. 61. Gestoso, I. 72, 73 (note), 84 (note), 114 (note), 150 (note), 187 (note), 247 (note); II. 45 (note), 51 (note), 121 _et seq._, 136 _et seq._, 142 (note) _et seq._, 149 _et seq._, 152 (note) _et seq._, 155, 187, 189, 198; III. 27, 221 _et seq._, 235 (note), 239, 240. Giralda, the, I. 177 (note), 183, 186, 187; II. 77, 151. Goblet d'Alviella, III. 71 (note). Gomez Moreno, II. 56, 57, 65 (note), 155, 172 (note); III. 133. Gonzalo de Cordova, I. 257, 258. Goya, I. 113; III. 157. Goyeneche, Juan, II. 250. Granada, cloths of, III. 121 _et seq._ Granada, silk of, III. 149 _et seq._ Granada, the Alcaicería of, III. 49 _et seq._ Granada, the Ordinances of, I. 3, 4 (note), 135, 157, 158, 247 (note), 248; II. 27 _et seq._, 52. _Granas treintenas_, III. 122. Gricci, II. 213, 214. Guadalajara, cloths of, III. 110, 112 _et seq._ Guadalete, the battle of, I. 30. _Guadamacileros_, III. 226. _Guadamacileros_ of Cordova, the, II. 42, 43. _Guadameciles_, II. 38 _et seq._ Guarrazar, the treasure of, I. 16 _et seq._ Guise, Duke of, III. 71. Gutierrez, Pedro, III. 145 _et seq._, 149, 150. Hannibal, I. 7. Harness for horses, war, I. 219, 220. Henry, Master, II. 241, 242. Henry the First, I. 68. Henry the Second, III. 34 (note). Henry the Eighth of England, III. 107. Hernández, Gregorio, II. 68, 69. Herranz, Francisco, II. 247. Hita, Archpriest of, I. 67. Hixem, II. 57. Hübner, II. 115. Hurtado de Mendoza, II. 23, 37. Ibn Abdo-l-Haquem, I. 35. Ibn Alwardi, I. 31, 32. Ibn Batutah, II. 162, 163. Ibn Hayyan, I. 33, 34. Ibn Hud, III. 36, 37. Ibn Khaldoun, II. 22; III. 21, 33, 36. Ibn Said, II. 163, 180; III. 33 _et seq._ Illiberis, I. 173, 174. Inlay on steel and iron, gold, III. 208 _et seq._ Inns, furniture of Spanish, II. 30 _et seq._ Irving, Washington, I. 82; II. 170, 171. Isabel Farnese, I. 274; II. 252. Isabella the Catholic, I. 254; II. 16, 244 (note); III. 13, 14, 133, 161. Isabella the Second, I. 25. Isidore, Saint, I. 12 (note), 15, 27, 166 (note), 198, 201; II. 2, 7. Jacquemart, II. 186. _Jaeces colgantes_, I. 281, 282. Jaen, cloths of, III. 122. Jayme the First of Aragon ("the Conqueror"), I. 210 _et seq._; II. 101, 108; III. 5, 11, 18, 47 (note), 232. Jewellery in Spain, Roman, I. 11, 12. Jewellery, Moorish, I. 73 _et seq._ Jewellery, Morisco, I. 77 _et seq._ Jones, Owen, II. 171, 172 (note). Jovellanos, III. 249. Juana, Doña, III. 15. Juan of Aragon, I. 212; II. 5. Juan the First, I. 215; III. 13, 30, 227, 228. Juan the Second, I. 130, 280 (note); III. 34. Juni, Juan de, II. 68, 69. Kersey, III. 122. Keys of Seville, the, I. 126 _et seq._ Keys, Spanish, I. 124 _et seq._ Laborde, I. 7 _et seq._, 116 _et seq._, 133, 134, 266, 267; II. 34 _et seq._, 38 (note), 131 _et seq._, 182, 183, 194, 195, 200, 201, 203, 216, 254, 260; III. 44 _et seq._, 55, 67 _et seq._, 94 _et seq._, 108, 109, 122 _et seq._, 142, 143, 151, 152 (note), 168 _et seq._, 240 _et seq._ Lace, Spanish, III. 159 _et seq._ La Granja (or San Ildefonso), the glass factory of, II. 252 _et seq._; III. 240. La Higueruela, the battle of, I. 218. Lalaing, III. 50. Lambot, Diodonet, II. 249. La Milanesa, III. 91, 105. La Moncloa, the porcelain factory of, II. 219, 220. Lampérez, Vicente, II. 62; III. 158 (note). Lamps, Roman, I. 165 _et seq._ Lamps, ware, II. 116. Lane-Poole, Stanley, II. 47, 48; III. 9 (note), 21 (note). La Payessa, Joseph, III. 91, 92. Larruga, II. 200, 213, 235, 251, 252; III. 66 (note), 111 (note), 118, 119 (note), 233 (note), 235 (note), 248, 249 (note). Lasteyrie, I. 21. _Latticinio_, II. 225, 261. _Lazo_-work doors, II. 47, 58 _et seq._ Leather, Spanish decorative, II. 38 _et seq._ Lefort, III. 157. Lenger, Antoine, III. 151. León, the Synod of, III. 15. Lerma, Duke of, I. 102, 103, 219, 220. _Libros de Pasantía_, I. 72, 73. Locks and keys, I. 135. Lope de Vega, I. 86; II. 23 (note). Lopez de Arenas, Diego, II. 51 _et seq._, 56. Lugo, exhibition of, I. 41. Luis de León, Fray, III. 99 (note). Luna, Alvaro de, I. 189, 216. Lustred pottery, Hispano-Moresque, II. 161 _et seq._ Machuca, Pedro, II. 57. Madrid, the Gremios of, III. 45, 119, 120 (note). Madrid, the National Museum, II. 58, 60, 79, 91, 94 _et seq._, 108; III. 29. Majolica ware, II. 165, 166. _Manillas_, I. 78. _Mantilla_, the, III. 164 _et seq._ Marckwart, the brothers, I. 273. María Cristina, Queen, III. 249 (note). María de Padilla, III. 141. Marineus Siculus, I. 254; II. 180, 233, 234; III. 50. Marmol, II. 169. Martial, I. 199. Martinez de la Mata, III. 48. Martinez Guijarro, Fernan, II. 151, 152. Martinez Montañes, II. 68. Martin Hume, II. 113 (note). Martin of Aragon, I. 212; III. 7. Mary of England, II. 237. Maskell, II. 97 _et seq._ _Medias lanas_, III. 123 (note). Medina del Campo, cloths of, III. 122. Medina, Pedro de, I. 55; II. 185. Mélida, II. 167, 175 (note). Mena, Alonso de, II. 69. Menandro, Vicente, II. 246. Mena, Pedro de, II. 69, 81. Mendez Silva, I. 147, 284; II. 234, 255. Mendoza, the _guión_ of Cardinal, I. 65. Micerguillo, I. 273. _Mimbar_ of the Mosque of Cordova, the, III. 213. _Mimbar_, the, II. 22. Mines, gold and silver, in Spain, I. 1 _et seq._ Mines of Spain, the iron, I. 123. Miquel y Badía, II. 2 (note), 7 (note); III. 7, 8, 10, 18, 19, 22, 26, 47 (note), 70 (note), 133. Moawia, II. 22. Mocarabes, II. 54. Mohammed the Third of Granada, I. 74. Mondejar, the Marquis of, I. 286. Monistrol, the Marquis of, II. 27. Montague, Lady Mary Wortley, III. 184 (note). Monte-Fuerte, the Marquis of, III. 149 (note). Montoya, Alejo de, III. 206, 207. Montserrat, II. 156. Monzón, the Cortes of, III. 169. Morales, Ambrosio de, I. 54, 55, 58 (note); II. 7 (note), 14, 41, 57, 58 (note), 100, 107, 108; III. 213. Morel, Bartolomé, I. 183 _et seq._ Morella, cloths of, III. 124. Moriscos, the, II. 29 (note); III. 40. Moriscos, the expulsion of the, I. 80 _et seq._ Mosaic-work, Spanish, II. 128 _et seq._ Müntz, III. 138, 140 (note), 149, 155 (note), 156. Murcia, cloths of, III. 122. Murcia, silk of, III. 67 _et seq._, 103 _et seq._ Muza, I. 31, 34, 35. Muzquiz, Miguel de, III. 92 (note). Nails, decorative, I. 134, 135. Napoleon, I. 141 (note). Navagiero, III. 50. Nebrija, II. 137. Ney, Marshal, I. 56. Nuevo Baztán, the glass-factory of, II. 250 _et seq._ Olivares, Damian de, III. 70. Olivares, the Count-Duke of, III. 159. Ollery, II. 205. Onteniente, cloths of, III. 122, 124. "Opening images," II. 107, 108. Order of Preachers, the, III. 212. Ordinances of Barcelona, the, III. 123. Ordinances of Burgos, the, III. 233 (note). Ordinances of Cordova, the, II. 43, 44. Ordinances of Granada, the, I. 78, 79, 132, 133; II. 27 _et seq._, 52, 119 _et seq._, 125, 126; III. 39, 52 _et seq._, 121, 122. Ordinances of Seville, the, II. 50 _et seq._; III. 31 (note). Ordinances of Toledo, the, II. 52; III. 31, 225. Ortiz de Zúñiga, I. 127, 128. Ortiz, Lorenzo, III. 109, 117, 118. Osma, II. 140 _et seq._, 160, 161 (note), 168, 183 _et seq._, 188 (note), 189. Othman, the Caliph, III. 213. Pacheco, II. 68. Palencia, cloths of, III. 122. _Pallia aquilinata_, III. 8. _Pallia leonata_, III. 8. _Pallia rotata_, III. 8, 18. _Palmillas_, III. 122. Pannemaker, William, III. 155, 156. _Paños de Ras_, III. 139, 140, 152. _Pardillos_, III. 122. _Passo Honroso_, the, I. 218. Pedro the Cruel, I. 270; II. 60, 61; III. 13, 37, 141, 221. Pedro the Second, III. 227. Pedro the Fourth of Aragon, I. 210 _et seq._; III. 30. Pelayo, I. 43. Petronius, I. 165. Philip the First, I. 237, 238. Philip the Second, I. 86, 129, 265, 280 (note); II. 69, 175, 236, 237; III. 27, 40, 71, 107, 145, 149, 153. Philip the Third, I. 241; III. 40. Philip the Fourth, I. 102, 243; III. 41, 240, 245, 248. Philip the Fifth, I. 274; II. 252; III. 43, 240. Pinheiro da Veiga, II. 250; III. 33, 141 _et seq._ Pisano, Francesco Niculoso, II. 139, 140, 143 _et seq._ Pizarro, I. 257 _et seq._ Plato, I. 165. Pliny, I. 166, 195, 201; II. 223 (note), 225 (note). Poblet, the monastery of, II. 156. _Poem of the Cid_, the, II. 45 (note). Polybius, I. 201. Ponz, II. 13, 62. Porous pottery, II. 190 _et seq._ _Porrón_, the, II. 261. Potosi, the silver mines of, I. 88. Pottery, prehistoric Spanish, II. 111 _et seq._ _Primavera_, III. 8. Procaccini, III. 151, 157. Processional crosses, Spanish, I. 181, 182; III. 183, 184. Procopius, I. 201. _Psephosis fsefysa_, II. 135. Ptolemy, I. 195. Puente del Arzobispo ware, II. 186 _et seq._ Pulgar, Hernando del, II. 13, 23. Pulpits, iron, I. 139 _et seq._ Pulpits, old Spanish, III. 211 _et seq._ _Punto de oro_, III. 163. _Rácimos_, II. 54. Ramírez de Arellano, I. 52, 84, 91 _et seq._, 145; II. 40, 42, 46 (note), 55 (note), 56 (note), 154; III. 131, 145 (note), 147. Ramírez, Sancho, II. 160. Rapiers, I. 259 _et seq._ Rassis, III. 2 _et seq._ Reboul, III. 91, 92 (note). Recared, I. 20. Recceswinth, I. 17. _Red flandés_, III. 160. _Rejas_, I. 141 _et seq._ _Relicarios_, I. 45 _et seq._ Renaissance, the, I. 95 _et seq._ _Reposteros_, II. 16 (note); III. 146 _et seq._, 153. _Retablo_ of Gerona Cathedral, the, I. 63, 64. _Retablos_, II. 82 _et seq._ _Ret Catalá_, III. 173. Riaño, I. 9, 12, 13, 17, 40, 44, 47, 61 (note) _et seq._, 72, 88, 95, 107, 115, 123, 126 (note), 129, 139, 174, 179, 181, 185 (note); II. 93 _et seq._, 118, 121, 123, 136, 153, 173, 177, 184, 186, 190, 191, 198, 199, 204 _et seq._, 213, 217, 225, 231, 232; III. 20, 23, 75, 126 (note), 128 _et seq._, 138, 139, 147 (note), 148, 154 (note), 161, 221, 254 _et seq._ Ricord, II. 203, 260 (note); III. 74, 75, 203. Rico y Sinobas, II. 225, 228 _et seq._, 238, 259 (note); III. 240. Riotinto, the mines of, I. 6. Roderick, I. 30, II. 89. Rodrigo, Maese, I. 217; II. 76. Roldan, Pedro, II. 68, 69, 81. Rosmithal, I. 37; III. 34 (note). Roulière, Jean, III. 44, 45. Rubens, III. 159. Sagrado, Diego de, II. 70. Saguntine ware, II. 114 _et seq._ Saint Ferdinand (_see_ Ferdinand the Third). Saint Isidore, II. 117, 129, 134, 223 _et seq._; III. 1, 211. Saint Isidro, diamonds of, II. 224, 225. Saint Vincent Ferrer, III. 212, 229, 230. _Samit_, III. 5, 6. Sanchez, Martin, II. 73, 74, 77, 78. Sancho the Fourth, III. 145. Sancho the Great, I. 51. Sandoval, Cardinal, III. 129, 130. San Fernando, cloths of, III. 114. San Isidro, the burial chest of, II. 13. San Miguel in Excelsis, the legend of, III. 179 _et seq._ Santa Barbara, the tapestry factory of, III. 150 _et seq._, 156. Santa Isabel, the tapestry factory of, III. 150 _et seq._, 156. Santiago Cathedral, the treasure of, I. 53 _et seq._ Santiago, jet-work of, III. 182 _et seq._ Santas Creus, the monastery of, II. 156. Sculpture in wood, Spanish, II. 68 _et seq._ Segovia, cloths of, III. 106 _et seq._, 122. Segovia, woollens of, III. 117 _et seq._ Sentenach, III. 213. Sepúlveda, the Fuero of, III. 106. Serrano Fatigati, III. 127, 128. Seville, the Ordinances of, I. 247; II. 50 _et seq._ Shields, Spanish, I. 207, 208, 239 _et seq._ Ships, silver, I. 65, 66. Silk, Spanish, III. 38 _et seq._ _Sillerías_, II. 69 _et seq._ Silos, the Chronicle of the Monk of, II. 13 (note). Sisenand, I. 29. Sit, Ventura, II. 252. Soria, cloths of, III. 106. South Kensington Museum, the, II. 40, 53 (note), 97, 98, 121, 123, 184; III. 161. Stalactite decoration, II. 54. Stirling, I. 138. Strabo, I. 195, 196, 198, 200. Street, I. 64 (note), 139. Stuck family, the, III. 152. Superstitions, Andalusian, I. 168, 169. Susillo, II. 69. Swinburne, I. 82, 104, 105, 168 (note), 172 (note), 235 (note), 240 (note), 274, 285 (note); II. 2 (note), 61 (note), 77 (note), 133, 155, 170, 193, 194, 224, 253, 257, 258, 261 (note); III. 47 (note), 66, 121, 168, 170, 184 (note). Swinthila, I. 22, 29. Swords, Spanish, I. 203 _et seq._, 239, 244 _et seq._ Swords, spurious Spanish, I. 265, 266. Symonds, John Addington, I. 2; II. 67. _Tabis_, III. 5, 6. _Takcht_, the, II. 22. Talavera de la Reina, pottery of, II. 186, 190 _et seq._, 198 _et seq._ Talavera de la Reina, silk of, III. 87. Talavera de la Reina, the silk-factories of, III. 44 _et seq._ Tapestry, Spanish, III. 137 _et seq._ _Tardwahsh_, II. 18 (note). Tarik, I. 31, 32, 34, 35. Tarik's "table," I. 31 _et seq._; III. 212. _Tartaricas_, III. 16, 17. Tavira de Durango, cloths of, III. 122. Teniers, III. 157. Testaments, the Codex of the, II. 3 (note). Thimbles, Moorish, I. 178, 179. Throne of Don Martin, the silver, I. 60, 64, 65. Tiles, Spanish, II. 136 _et seq._ _Tinajas_, II. 120 _et seq._, 195, 199; III. 55. _Tiraz_, III. 1, 17, 20 _et seq._, 38. Tirso de Molina, I. 282. Toledo, silk of, III. 70 _et seq._ Toledo, the Ordinances of, II. 52. Toledo, the trade-guilds of, III. 225. Torreánaz, the Count of, III. 119 (note), 232, 233 (note), 252, 253 (note). Torre del Oro, the, II. 140, 141. Townsend, I. 95, 235 (note), 266, 275, 276 (note); II. 17, 25 (note), 33, 34, 176 (note), 215, 253, 254; III. 73, 74, 79 (note), 115 (note), 118 _et seq._, 151 (note), 165, 170, 182, 183 (note), 239, 240 (note), 250 _et seq._ Trade-guilds, Spanish, III. 221 _et seq._ Tramoyeres Blasco, Luis, III. 225 _et seq._ Triptych reliquaries, I. 60 _et seq._ Turismund, I. 29. Ulloa, Martin de, III. 38 _et seq._, 47 Unamuno, III. 242. Valencia, cloths of, III. 121. Valencia, lace of, III. 169 _et seq._ Valencia, silk of, III. 66, 74 _et seq._ Valencia, the trade-guilds of, III. 225 _et seq._ Valencia, woollens of, III. 124, 125. Valencia de Don Juan, the Count of, III. 27, 154 (note), 159, 183. Valladar, II. 65 (note). Valladolid, the Council of, III. 15. Van der Goten, Adrian, III. 151. Van der Goten, Cornelius, III. 151. Van der Goten, Francisco, III. 151. Van der Goten, Jacob, III. 150, 151. Van der Goten, Jacob (the younger), III. 151. Van Eyk, III. 156. Vargas y Ponce, III. 168 (note). Vargüeños, II. 27. Vaucanson, III. 86 _et seq._ _Veintiseiseno_, cloths, III. 122. _Velarte_, III. 122. Velazquez, I. 102, 113; III. 150. _Velón_, the, I. 167, 168. Vergara, cloths of, III. 122. Vermay, Jan, III. 154. Victory, the Cross of, I. 41, 43. Vigarny, Philip, II. 78 _et seq._ Villa-amil y Castro, I. 140 (note), 143 (note), 167; II. 111; III. 182 _et seq._ Villalpando, Francisco de, I. 147, 148, 189. Villamediana, the Count of, III. 135 (note). Viollet-le-Duc, I. 211; II. 3 (note). Virgen del Sagrario, Toledo, the, crown of the, III. 205 _et seq._ Virgen del Sagrario, Toledo, the mantle of the, III. 129, 130. "Virgin of Battles," the, II. 104. Visigothic jewellery, I. 15 _et seq._ Wallis, II. 164, 167, 168, 173, 174. Washington Irving, I. 82; II. 170, 171. Weathercocks, Moorish, I. 188. Witiza, I. 276. Woollens, Spanish, III. 105 _et seq._ Xelizes, III. 58 _et seq._ Young, Arthur, II. 262, 263; III. 171, 172. Yusuf of Granada, I. 280 (note). Zafra, Hernando de, II. 234. Zaragoza, cloths of, III. 122. Zaragoza, silk of, III. 103, 104. Zarco del Valle, I. 87 (note), 141 (note), 148 (note); II. 71 (note), 245 (note), 247 (note); III. 7, 237. * * * * * PRINTED BY NEILL AND CO., LTD., EDINBURGH. * * * * * * Transcriber's note: The original spelling and minor inconsistencies in the spelling and formatting have been maintained. Inconsistent hyphenation and accents are as in the original if not marked as a misprint. The table below lists all corrections applied to the original text. p. 6: Cortes of Monzon -> Monzón p. 8: _Almexia_ -> _Almexía_ p. 15: edging of the same; -> edging of the same;" p. 33: Al-Makkari, Al-Kattib -> Al-Khattib p. 37: in the form of a scarf. -> in the form of a scarf." p. 48: il est en indiennne. -> indienne. p. 51: qui croist assez prés -> près p. 51: près de deux cens -> cent p. 51: qui est une espece -> espèce p. 51: Ses habitans -> habitants p. 108: il y avoit autresfois -> autrefois p. 109: quatre heures aprés -> après p. 123: Chalons, Beziers, and Rheims -> Reims p. 129: it to the church. -> it to the church." p. 151: invitation John Vergoten -> Dergoten p. 154: Madrid, the Pardo -> Prado p. 165: Journal du Voyage d Espagne -> d'Espagne p. 166: de rubans à l'extremité -> l'extrémité p. 166: sur la tête attachée -> attachés p. 167: autre les divers dégrés -> degrés p. 167: elle ne depasse -> dépasse p. 200: inscription, _Aeternum_ -> Æternum p. 217: Sebastian. Early -> Early. p. 217: Madrid. Cutler; a native -> native of p. 217: early life in Flanders -> Flanders. p. 220: Sosa, -> Sosa p. 242: maxims of our Christain -> Christian p. 243: through the market, -> through the market,' p. 245: that they were "toûjours -> "toujours p. 249: in the royal _cédula_ -> _cedula_ p. 262: Die Kleinodien des heil -> heil. p. 262: Nation, nebst den Kroninsignen -> Kroninsignien p. 264: la buena gouernacion -> governacion p. 264: que los Mvy Ilvstres -> Muy Ilustres p. 264: mandaron gvardar -> guardar p. 264: gouernacion -> governacion p. 264: se han bvelto -> buelto p. 273: III. 131, 16 -> 168 p. 276: Granada, cloths of, -> Granada, cloths of, III. p. 276: Juni, Juan de, 68, 69. -> Juni, Juan de, II. 68, 69. p. 280: Sepulveda -> Sepúlveda p. 281: 20 _et seq._; III. -> 20 _et seq._, p. 281: 276 (note), -> 276 (note); II. p. 282: Veintiseseno -> Vientiseiseno 
14824	----	FURNISHING THE HOME OF GOOD TASTE A BRIEF SKETCH OF THE PERIOD STYLES IN INTERIOR DECORATION WITH SUGGESTIONS AS TO THEIR EMPLOYMENT IN THE HOMES OF TODAY BY LUCY ABBOT THROOP NEW YORK ROBERT M. MCBRIDE & CO. 1920 * * * * * 1910 THE CROWELL PUBLISHING CO. 1911, 1912, MCBRIDE, NAST & CO. 1920, ROBERT M. MCBRIDE & CO. NEW AND REVISED EDITION Published, September, 1920 * * * * * [Illustration: _Trowbridge & Livingston, architects._ A principle which can be applied to both large and small houses is shown in the beauty of the panel spacing and the adequate support of the cornice by the pilasters.] _Contents_ PREFACE i EGYPT AND GREECE 1 THE RENAISSANCE IN ITALY 7 THE DEVELOPMENT OF DECORATION IN FRANCE 17 LOUIS XIV 29 THE REGENCY AND LOUIS XV 87 LOUIS XVI 47 THE EMPIRE 58 ENGLISH FURNITURE FROM GOTHIC DAYS TO THE PERIOD OF QUEEN ANNE 59 QUEEN ANNE 78 CHIPPENDALE AND THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY IN ENGLAND 79 ROBERT ADAM 91 HEPPLEWHITE 97 SHERATON 103 A GENERAL TALK 111 GEORGIAN FURNITURE 135 FURNISHING WITH FRENCH FURNITURE 149 COUNTRY HOUSES 159 THE NURSERY AND PLAY-ROOM 169 CURTAINS 175 FLOORS AND FLOOR COVERINGS 185 THE TREATMENT OF WALLS 195 ARTIFICIAL LIGHTING 209 PAINTED FURNITURE 221 SYNOPSIS OF PERIOD STYLES AS AN AID IN BUYING FURNITURE 231 _The Illustrations_ A modern dining-room _Frontispiece_ FACING PAGE Italian Renaissance fireplace and overmantel, modern 8 Doorways and pilaster details, Italian Renaissance 9 Two Louis XIII chairs 22 A Gothic chair of the fifteenth century 23 A Louis XIV chair 32 Louis XIV inlaid desk-table 33 Louis XIV chair with underbracing 33 A modern French drawing-room 40 A drawing-room, old French furniture and tapestry 41 Early Louis XIV chair 44 Louis XV _bergère_ 44 Louis XVI bench 45 Louis XVI from Fontainebleau 50 American Empire bed 51 An Apostles bed of the Tudor period 60 Adaptation of the style of William and Mary to dressing table 61 Reproduction of Charles II chair 61 Living-room with reproductions of different periods 64 Original Jacobean sofa 65 Reproductions of Charles II chairs 65 Reproductions of Queen Anne period 72 Reproduction of James II chair 73 Reproduction of William and Mary chair 73 Gothic and Ribbonback types of Chippendale chairs 78 Chippendale mantel mirror showing French influence 79 Chippendale fretwork tea-table 79 Chippendale china cupboard 82 Typical chairs of the eighteenth century 83 Chippendale and Hepplewhite sofas 86 Adam mirror, block-front chest of drawers, and Hepplewhite chair 87 Two Adam mantels 92 A group of old mirrors 93 Dining-room furnished with Hepplewhite furniture 96 Old Hepplewhite sideboard 97 Reproduction of Hepplewhite settee 97 Sheraton chest of drawers 104 Sheraton desk and sewing-table 105 Dining-room in simple country house 112 Dining-room furnished with fine old furniture 113 Dorothy Quincy's bed-room 124 Two valuable old desks 125 Pembroke inlaid table 144 Sheraton sideboard 144 Four post bed 145 Doorway detail, Compiègne 152 Reproduction of a bed owned by Marie Antoinette 153 Reproduction of Louis XVI bed 153 A Georgian hallway 162 Rare block-front chest of drawers 163 A modern living-room 178 Curtain treatment for a summer home 179 Hallway showing rugs 188 Hallway showing rugs 189 Colonial bed-room 189 Dining-room with paneled walls 196 Four post bed owned by Lafayette 197 Modern dining-room 204 Four post bed 205 Reproductions of Adam painted furniture 222 Three-chair Sheraton settee 223 Reproduction of a Sheraton wing-chair 223 Slat-backed chair 223 Group of chairs and pie-crust table 232 Groups of chairs 233 Reproduction of Jacobean buffet 236 Group of mirrors 237 Reproduction of William and Mary settee 240 Adaptation of Georgian ideas to William and Mary dressing table 240 Two Adam chairs 241 Jacobean day-bed 241 Reproductions of Chippendale table and Hepplewhite desk 244 Reproduction of Sheraton chest of drawers 245 Reproduction of William and Mary chest of drawers 245 A modern sun-room 246 Sheraton sofa 247 Hepplewhite chair and nest of tables 247 Chippendale wing-chair 247 Modern paneled living-room 248 Empire bed 248 Hancock desk, and fine old highboy 249 _Preface_ To try to write a history of furniture in a fairly short space is almost as hard as the square peg and round hole problem. No matter how one tries, it will not fit. One has to leave out so much of importance, so much of historic and artistic interest, so much of the life of the people that helps to make the subject vivid, and has to take so much for granted, that the task seems almost impossible. In spite of this I shall try to give in the following pages a general but necessarily short review of the field, hoping that it may help those wishing to furnish their homes in some special period style. The average person cannot study all the subject thoroughly, but it certainly adds interest to the problems of one's own home to know something of how the great periods of decoration grew one from another, how the influence of art in one country made itself felt in the next, molding and changing taste and educating the people to a higher sense of beauty. It is the lack of general knowledge which makes it possible for furniture built on amazingly bad lines to be sold masquerading under the name of some great period. The customer soon becomes bewildered, and, unless he has a decided taste of his own, is apt to get something which will prove a white elephant on his hands. One must have some standard of comparison, and the best and simplest way is to study the great work of the past. To study its rise and climax rather than the decline; to know the laws of its perfection so that one can recognize the exaggeration which leads to degeneracy. This ebb and flow is most interesting: the feeling the way at the beginning, ever growing surer and surer until the high level of perfection is reached; and then the desire to "gild the lily" leading to over-ornamentation, and so to decline. However, the germ of good taste and the sense of truth and beauty is never dead, and asserts itself slowly in a transition period, and then once more one of the great periods of decoration is born. There are several ways to study the subject, one of the pleasantest naturally being travel, as the great museums, palaces, and private collections of Europe offer the widest field. In this country, also, the museums and many private collections are rich in treasures, and there are many proud possessors of beautiful isolated pieces of furniture. If one cannot see originals the libraries will come to the rescue with many books showing research and a thorough knowledge and appreciation of the beauty and importance of the subject in all its branches. I have tried to give an outline, (which I hope the reader will care to enlarge for himself), not from a collector's standpoint, but from the standpoint of the modern home-maker, to help him furnish his house consistently,--to try to spread the good word that period furnishing does not necessitate great wealth, and that it is as easy and far more interesting to furnish a house after good models, as to have it banal and commonplace. The first part of this little book is devoted to a short review of the great periods, and the second part is an effort to help adapt them to modern needs, with a few chapters added of general interest to the home-maker. A short bibliography is also added, both to express my thanks and indebtedness to many learned and delightful writers on this subject of house furnishing in all its branches, and also as a help to others who may wish to go more deeply into its different divisions than is possible within the covers of a book. I wish to thank the Editors of _House and Garden_ and _The Woman's Home Companion_ for kindly allowing me to reprint articles and portions of articles which have appeared in their magazines. I wish also to thank the owners of the different houses illustrated, and Messrs. Trowbridge and Livingston, architects, for their kindness in allowing me to use photographs. Thanks are also due Messrs. Bergen & Orsenigo, Nahon & Company, Tiffany Studios, Joseph Wild & Co. and the John Somma Co. for the use of photographs to illustrate the reproduction of period furniture and rugs of different types. _Egypt and Greece_ The early history of art in all countries is naturally connected more closely with architecture than with decoration, for architecture had to be developed before the demand for decoration could come. But the two have much in common. Noble architecture calls for noble decoration. Decoration is one of the natural instincts of man, and from the earliest records of his existence we find him striving to give expression to it, we see it in the scratched pieces of bone and stone of the cave dwellers, in the designs of savage tribes, and in Druidical and Celtic remains, and in the great ruins of Yucatan. The meaning of these monuments may be lost to us, but we understand the spirit of trying to express the sense of beauty in the highest way possible, for it is the spirit which is still moving the world, and is the foundation of all worthy achievement. Egypt and Assyria stand out against the almost impenetrable curtain of pre-historic days in all the majesty of their so-called civilization. Huge, massive, aloof from the world, their temples and tombs and ruins remain. Research has given us the key to their religion, so we understand much of the meaning of their wall-paintings and the buildings themselves. The belief of the Egyptian that life was a short passage and his house a mere stopping-place on the way to the tomb, which was to be his permanent dwelling-place, explains the great care and labor spent on the pyramids, chapels, and rock sepulchers. They embalmed the dead for all eternity and put statues and images in the tombs to keep the mummy company. Colossal figures of their gods and goddesses guarded the tombs and temples, and still remain looking out over the desert with their strange, inscrutable Egyptian eyes. The people had technical skill which has never been surpassed, but the great size of the pyramids and temples and sphinxes gives one the feeling of despotism rather than civilization; of mass and permanency and the wonder of man's achievement rather than beauty, but they personify the mystery and power of ancient Egypt. The columns of the temples were massive, those of Karnak being seventy feet high, with capitals of lotus flowers and buds strictly conventionalized. The walls were covered with hieroglyphics and paintings. Perspective was never used, and figures were painted side view except for the eye and shoulder. In the tombs have been found many household belongings, beautiful gold and silver work, beside the offerings put there to appease the gods. Chairs have been found, which, humorous as it may sound, are certainly the ancestors of Empire chairs made thousands of years later. This is explained by the influence of Napoleon's Egyptian campaign, but there is something in common between the two times so far apart, of ambition and pride, of grandeur and colossal enterprise. Greece may well be called the Mother of Beauty, for with the Greeks came the dawn of a higher civilization, a striving for harmony of line and proportion, an ideal clear, high and persistent. When the Dorians from the northern part of Greece built their simple, beautiful temples to their gods and goddesses they gave the impetus to the movement which brought forth the highest art the world has known. Traces of Egyptian influence are to be found in the earliest temples, but the Greeks soon rose to their own great heights. The Doric column was thick, about six diameters in height, fluted, growing smaller toward the top, with a simple capital, and supported the entablature. The horizontal lines of the architrave and cornice were more marked than the vertical lines of the columns. The portico with its row of columns supported the pediment. The Parthenon is the most perfect example of the Doric order, and shattered as it is by time and man it is still one of the most beautiful buildings in the world. It was built in the time of Pericles, from about 460 to 435 B.C., and the work was superintended by Phidias, who did much of the work himself and left the mark of his genius on the whole. The Ionic order of architecture was a development of the Doric, but was lighter and more graceful. The columns were more slender and had a greater number of flutes and the capitals formed of scrolls or volutes were more ornamental. The Corinthian order was more elaborate than the Ionic as the capitals were foliated (the acanthus being used), the columns higher, and the entablature more richly decorated. This order was copied by the Romans more than the other two as it suited their more florid taste. All the orders have the horizontal feeling in common (as Gothic architecture has the vertical), and the simple plan with its perfect harmony of proportion leaves no sense of lack of variety. The perfection attained in architecture was also attained in sculpture, and we see the same aspiration toward the ideal, the same wonderful achievement. This purity of taste of the Greeks has formed a standard to which the world has returned again and again and whose influence will continue to be felt as long as the world lasts. The minor arts were carried to the same state of perfection as their greater sisters, for the artists and artisans had the same noble ideal of beauty and the same unerring taste. We have carved gems and coins, and wonderful gold ornaments, painted and silver vases, and terra-cotta figurines, to show what a high point the household arts reached. No work of the great Grecian painters remains; Apelles, Zeuxis, are only names to us, but from the wall paintings at Pompeii where late Greek influence was strongly felt we can imagine how charming the decorations must have been. Egypt and Greece were the torch bearers of civilization. _The Renaissance in Italy_ The Gothic period has been treated in later chapters on France and England, as it is its development in these countries which most affects us, but the Renaissance in Italy stands alone. So great was its strength that it could supply both inspiration and leaders to other countries, and still remain preëminent. It was in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries that this great classical revival in Italy came, this re-birth of a true sense of beauty which is called the Renaissance. It was an age of wonders, of great artistic creations, and was one of the great epochs of the world, one of the turning points of human existence. It covered so large a field and was so many-sided that only careful study can give a full realization of the giants of intellect and power who made its greatness, and who left behind them work that shows the very quintessence of genius. Italy, stirring slightly in the fourteenth century, woke and rose to her greatest heights in the fifteenth and sixteenth. The whole people responded to the new joy of life, the love of learning, the expression of beauty in all its forms. All notes were struck,--gay, graceful, beautiful, grave, cruel, dignified, reverential, magnificent, but all with an exuberance of life and power that gave to Italian art its great place in human culture. The great names of the period speak for themselves,--Michelangelo, Raphael, Botticelli, Titian, Leonardo da Vinci, Andrea del Sarto, Machiavelli, Benvenuto Cellini, and a host of others. The inspiration of the Renaissance came largely from the later Greek schools of art and literature, Alexandria and Rhodes and the colonies in Sicily and Italy, rather than ancient Greece. It was also the influence which came to ancient Rome at its most luxurious period. The importance of the taking of Alexandria and Constantinople in 1453 must not be underestimated, as it drove scholars from the great libraries of the East carrying their manuscripts to the nobles and priests and merchant princes of Italy who thus became enthusiastic patrons of learning and art. This later type of Greek art lacked the austerity of the ancient type, and to the models full of joy and beauty and suffering, the Italians of the Renaissance added the touch of their own temperament and made them theirs in the glowing, rich and astounding way which has never been equaled and probably never will be. Perfection of line and beauty was not sufficient, the soul with its capacity for joy and suffering, "the soul with all its maladies" as Pater says, had become a factor. The impression made upon Michelangelo by seeing the Laocoön disinterred is vividly described by Longfellow-- [Illustration: An exquisite and true Renaissance feeling is shown in the pilasters.] [Illustration: The Italian Renaissance is still inspiring the world. In the two doorways the use of pilasters and frieze, and the pedimented and round over-door motifs are typical of the period.] "Long, long years ago, Standing one morning near the Baths of Titus, I saw the statue of Laocöon Rise from its grave of centuries like a ghost Writhing in pain; and as it tore away The knotted serpents from its limbs, I heard, Or seemed to hear, the cry of agony From its white parted lips. And still I marvel At the three Rhodian artists, by whose hands This miracle was wrought. Yet he beholds Far nobler works who looks upon the ruins Of temples in the Forum here in Rome. If God should give me power in my old age To build for him a temple half as grand As those were in their glory, I should count My age more excellent than youth itself, And all that I have hitherto accomplished As only vanity." "It was an age productive in personalities, many-sided, centralized, complete. Artists and philosophers and those whom the action of the world had elevated and made keen, breathed a common air and caught light and heat from each other's thoughts. It is this unity of spirit which gives unity to all the various products of the Renaissance, and it is to this intimate alliance with mind, this participation in the best thoughts which that age produced, that the art of Italy in the fifteenth century owes much of its grave dignity and influence."[A] [A] Walter Pater: "Studies in the Renaissance." It is to this unity of the arts we owe the fact that the art of beautifying the home took its proper place. During the Middle Ages the Church had absorbed the greater part of the best man had to give, and home life was rather a hit or miss affair, the house was a fortress, the family possessions so few that they could be packed into chests and easily moved. During the Renaissance the home ideal grew, and, although the Church still claimed the best, home life began to have comforts and beauties never dreamed of before. The walls glowed with color, tapestries and velvets added their beauties, and the noble proportions of the marble halls made a rich background for the elaborately carved furniture. The doors of Italian palaces were usually inlaid with woods of light shade, and the soft, golden tone given by the process was in beautiful, but not too strong, contrast with the marble architrave of the doorway, which in the fifteenth century was carved in low relief combined with disks of colored marble, sliced, by the way, from Roman temple pillars. Later as the classic taste became stronger the carving gave place to a plain architrave and the over-door took the form of a pediment. Mantels were of marble, large, beautifully carved, with the fireplace sunk into the thickness of the wall. The overmantel usually had a carved panel, but later, during the sixteenth century, this was sometimes replaced by a picture. The windows of the Renaissance were a part of the decoration of the room, and curtains were not used in our modern manner, but served only to keep out the draughts. In those days the better the house the simpler the curtains. There were many kinds of ceilings used, marble, carved wood, stucco, and painting. They were elaborate and beautiful, and always gave the impression of being perfectly supported on the well-proportioned cornice and walls. The floors were usually of marble. Many of the houses kept to the plan of mediæval exteriors, great expanses of plain walls with few openings on the outsides, but as they were built around open courts, the interiors with their colonnades and open spaces showed the change the Renaissance had brought. The Riccardi Palace in Florence and the Palazzo della Cancelleria in Rome, are examples of this early type. The second phase was represented by the great Bramante, whose theory of restraining decoration and emphasizing the structure of the building has had such important influence. One of his successors was Andrea Palladio, whose work made such a deep impression on Inigo Jones. The Library of St. Mark's at Venice is a beautiful example of this part. The third phase was entirely dominated by Michelangelo. The furniture, to be in keeping with buildings of this kind, was large and richly carved. Chairs, seats, chests, cabinets, tables, and beds, were the chief pieces used, but they were not plentiful at all in our sense of the word. The chairs and benches had cushions to soften the hard wooden seats. The stuffs of the time were most beautiful Genoese velvet, cloth of gold, tapestries, and wonderful embroideries, all lending their color to the gorgeous picture. The carved marriage chest, or cassone, is one of the pieces of Renaissance furniture which has most often descended to our own day, for such chests formed a very important part of the furnishing in every household, and being large and heavy, were not so easily broken as chairs and tables. Beds were huge, and were architectural in form, a base and roof supported on four columns. The classical orders were used, touched with the spirit of the time, and the fluted columns rose from acanthus leaves set in an urn supported on lion's feet. The tester and cornice gave scope for carving and the panels of the tester usually had the lovely scrolls so characteristic of the period. The headboard was often carved with a coat-of-arms and the curtains hung from inside the cornice. Grotesques were largely used in ornament. The name is derived from grottoes, as the Roman tombs being excavated at the time were called, and were in imitation of the paintings found on their walls, and while they were fantastic, the word then had no unkindly humorous meaning as now. Scrolls, dolphins, birds, beasts, the human figure, flowers, everything was called into use for carving and painting by genius of the artisans of the Renaissance. They loved their work and felt the beauty and meaning of every line they made, and so it came about that when, in the course of years, they traveled to neighboring countries, they spread the influence of this great period, and it is most interesting to see how on the Italian foundation each country built her own distinctive style. Like all great movements the Renaissance had its beginning, its splendid climax, and its decline. _The Development of Decoration in France._ When Caesar came to Gaul he did more than see and conquer; he absorbed so thoroughly that we have almost no knowledge of how the Gauls lived, so far as household effects were concerned. The character which descended from this Gallo-Roman race to the later French nation was optimistic and beauty-loving, with a strength which has carried it through many dark days. It might be said to be responsible for the French sense of proportion and their freedom of judgment which has enabled them to hold their important place in the history of art and decoration. They have always assimilated ideas freely but have worked them over until they bore the stamp of their own individuality, often gaining greatly in the process. One of the first authentic pieces of furniture is a _bahut_ or chest dating from sometime in the twelfth century and belonging to the Church of Obazine. It shows how furniture followed the lines of architecture, and also shows that there was no carving used on it. Large spaces were probably covered with painted canvas, glued on. Later, when panels became smaller and the furniture designs were modified, moldings, etc., began to be used. These _bahuts_ or _huches_, from which the term _huchiers_ came (meaning the Corporation of Carpenters), were nothing more than chests standing on four feet. From all sources of information on the subject it has been decided that they were probably the chief pieces of furniture the people had. They served as a seat by day and, with cushions spread upon them, as a bed by night. They were also used as tables with large pieces of silver _dressé_ or arranged upon them in the daytime. From this comes our word "dresser" for the kitchen shelves. In those days of brigands and wars and sudden death, the household belongings were as few as possible so that the trouble of speedy transportation would be small, and everything was packed into the chests. As the idea of comfort grew a little stronger, the number of chests grew, and when a traveling party arrived at a stopping-place, out came the tapestries and hangings and cushions and silver dishes, which were arranged to make the rooms seem as cheerful as possible. The germ of the home ideal was there, at least, but it was hard work for the arras and the "ciel" to keep out the cold and cover the bare walls. When life became a little more secure and people learned something of the beauty of proportion, the rooms showed more harmony in regard to the relation of open spaces and walls, and became a decoration in themselves, with the tapestries and hangings enhancing their beauty of line. It was not until some time in the fifteenth century that the habit of traveling with all one's belongings ceased. The year 1000 was looked forward to with abject terror, for it was firmly believed by all that the world was then coming to an end. It cast a gloom over all the people and paralyzed all ambition. When, however, the fatal year was safely passed, there was a great religious thanksgiving and everyone joined in the praise of a merciful God. The semi-circular arch of the Romanesque style gave way to the pointed arch of the Gothic, and wonderful cathedrals slowly lifted their beautiful spires to the sky. The ideal was to build for the glory of God and not only for the eyes of man, so that exquisite carving was lavished upon all parts of the work. This deeply reverent feeling lasted through the best period of Gothic architecture, and while household furniture was at a standstill church furniture became more and more beautiful, for in the midst of the religious fervor nothing seemed too much to do for the Church. Slowly it died out, and a secular attitude crept into decoration. One finds grotesque carvings appearing on the choir stalls and other parts of churches and cathedrals and the standard of excellence was lowered. The chest, table, wooden arm-chair, bed, and bench, were as far as the imagination had gone in domestic furniture, and although we read of wonderful tapestries and leather hangings and clothes embroidered in gold and jewels, there was no comfort in our sense of the word, and those brave knights and fair ladies had need to be strong to stand the hardships of life. Glitter and show was the ideal and it was many more years before the standard of comfort and refinement gained a firm foothold. Gothic architecture and decoration declined from the perfection of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries to the over-decorated, flamboyant Gothic of the fifteenth century, and it was in the latter period that the transition began between the Gothic and the Renaissance epochs. The Renaissance was at its height in Italy in the fifteenth century, and its influence began to make itself felt a little in France at that time. When the French under Louis XII seized Milan, the magnificence of the court of Ludovico Sforza, the great duke of Milan, made such an impression on them that they could not rest content with the old order, and took home many beautiful things. Italian artisans were also imported, and as France was ready for the change, their lessons were learned and the French Renaissance came slowly into existence. This transition is well shown by the Chateau de Gaillon, built by Cardinal d'Amboise. Gothic and Renaissance decoration were placed side by side in panels and furniture, and we also find some pure Gothic decoration as late as the early part of the sixteenth century, but they were in parts of France where tradition changed slowly. Styles overlap in every transition period, so it is often difficult to place the exact date on a piece of furniture; but the old dies out at last and gives way to the new. With the accession of Frances I in 1515 the Renaissance came into its own in France. He was a great patron of art and letters, and under his fostering care the people knew new luxuries, new beauties, and new comforts. He invited Andrea del Sarto and Leonardo da Vinci to come to France. The word Renaissance means simply revival and it is not correctly used when we mean a distinct style led or inspired by one person. It was a great epoch, with individuality as its leading spirit, led by the inspiration of the Italian artists brought from Italy and molded by the genius of France. This renewal of classic feeling came at the psychological moment, for the true spirit of the great Gothic period had died. The Renaissance movements in Italy, France, England and Germany all drew their inspiration from the same source, but in each case the national characteristics entered into the treatment. The Italians and Germans both used the grotesque a great deal, but the Germans used it in a coarser and heavier way than the Italians, who used it esthetically. The French used more especially conventional and beautiful floral forms, and the inborn French sense of the fitness of things gave the treatment a wonderful charm and beauty. If one studies the French chateaux one will feel the true beauty and spirit of the times--Blois with its history of many centuries, and then some of the purely Renaissance chateaux, like Chambord. Although great numbers of Italian artists came to France, one must not think they did all the beautiful work of the time. The French learned quickly and adapted what they learned to their own needs, so that the delicate and graceful decorations brought from Italy became more and more individualized until in the reign of Henry II the Renaissance reached its high-water mark. The furniture of the time did not show much change or become more varied or comfortable. It was large and solid and the chairs had the satisfactory effect of good proportion, while the general squareness of outline added to the feeling of solidity. Oak was used, and later walnut. The chair legs were straight, and often elaborately turned, and usually had strainers or under framing. Cushions were simply tied on at first, but the knowledge of upholstering was gaining ground, and by the time of Louis XIII was well understood. Cabinets had an architectural effect in their design. The style of the decorative motive changed, but it is chiefly in architecture and the decorative treatment of it that one sees the true spirit of the Renaissance. Two men who had great influence on the style of furniture of the time were Androuet du Cerceau and Hugues Sambin. They published books of plates that were eagerly copied in all parts of France. Sambin's influence can be traced in the later style of Louis XIV. [Illustration: Louis XIII chair now in the Cluny Museum showing the Flemish influence.] [Illustration: A typical Louis XIII chair, many of which were covered with velvet or tapestry.] [Illustration: _By courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art_ This Gothic chair of the 16th century shows the beautiful linen-fold design in the carving on the lower panels, and also the keyhole which made the chest safe when traveling.] The marriage of Henry II and Catherine de Medici naturally continued the strong Italian influence. The portion of the Renaissance called after Henry II lasted about seventy-five years, and corresponds with the Elizabethan period in England. During the regency of Marie de Medici, Flemish influence became very strong, as she invited Rubens to Paris to decorate the Luxembourg. There were also many Italians called to do the work, and as Rubens had studied in Italy, Italian influence was not lacking. Degeneracy began during the reign of Henry IV, as ornament became meaningless and consistency of decoration was lost in a maze of superfluous design. It was in the reign of Louis XIII that furniture for the first time became really comfortable, and if one examines the engravings of Abraham Bosse one will see that the rooms have an air of homelikeness as well as richness. The characteristic chair of the period was short in the back and square in shape--it was usually covered with leather or tapestry, fastened to the chair with large brass nails, and the back and seat often had a fringe. A set of chairs usually consisted of arm-chairs, plain chairs, folding stools and a _lit-de-repos_. Many of the arm-chairs were entirely covered with velvet or tapestry, or, if the woodwork showed, it was stained to harmonize with the covering on the seat and back. The twisted columns used in chairs, bedposts, etc., were borrowed from Italy and were very popular. Another shape often used for chair legs was the X that shows Flemish influence. The _lit-de-repos_, or _chaise-longue_, was a seat about six feet long, sometimes with arms and sometimes not, and with a mattress and bolster. The beds were very elaborate and very important in the scheme of decoration, as the ladies of the time held receptions in their bedrooms and the king and nobles gave audiences to their subjects while in bed. These latter were therefore necessarily furnished with splendor. The woodwork was usually covered with the same material as the curtains, or stained to harmonize. The canopy never reached to the ceiling but was, from floor to top, about 7 ft. 3 in. high, and the bed was 6-1/2 ft. square. The curtains were arranged on rods and pulleys, and when closed this "_lit en housse_" looked like a huge square box. The counterpane, or "_coverture de parade_," was of the curtain material. The four corners of the canopy were decorated with bunches of plumes or panache, or with a carved wooden ornament called pomme, or with a "_bouquet_" of silk. The beds were covered with rich stuffs, like tapestry, silk, satin, velvet, cloth-of-gold and silver, etc., all of which were embroidered or trimmed with gold or silver lace. One of the features of a Louis XIII room was the tapestry and hangings. A certain look of dignity was given to the rooms by the general square and heavy outlines of the furniture and the huge chimney-pieces. The taste for cabinets kept up and the cabinets and presses were large, sometimes divided into two parts, sometimes with doors, sometimes with open frame underneath. The tables were richly carved and gilded, often ornamented with bronze and copper. The cartouche was used a great deal in decoration, with a curved surface. This rounded form appears in the posts used in various kinds of furniture. When rectangles were used they were always broader than high. The garlands of fruit were heavy, the cornucopias were slender, with an astonishing amount of fruit pouring from them, and the work was done in rather low relief. Carved and gilded mirrors were introduced by the Italians as were also sconces and glass chandeliers. It was a time of great magnificence, and shadowed forth the coming glory of Louis XIV. It seems a style well suited to large dining-rooms and libraries in modern houses of importance. _Louis XIV_ It is often a really difficult matter to decide the exact boundary lines between one period and another, for the new style shows its beginnings before the old one is passed, and the old style still appears during the early years of the new one. It is an overlapping process and the years of transition are ones of great interest. As one period follows another it usually shows a reaction from the previous one; a somber period is followed by a gay one; the excess of ornament in one is followed by restraint in the next. It is the same law that makes us want cake when we have had too much bread and butter. The world has changed so much since the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that it seems almost impossible that we should ever again have great periods of decoration like those of Louis XIV, Louis XV and Louis XVI. Then the monarch was supreme. "_L'état c'est moi_," said Louis XIV, and it was true. He established the great Gobelin works on a basis that made France the authority of the world and firmly imposed his taste and his will on the country. Now that this absolute power of one man is a thing of the past, we have the influence of many men forming and molding something that may turn into a beautiful epoch of decoration, one that will have in it some of the feeling that brought the French Renaissance to its height, though not like it, for we have the same respect for individuality working within the laws of beauty that they had. The style that takes its name from Louis XIV was one of great magnificence and beauty with dignity and a certain solidity in its splendor. It was really the foundation of the styles that followed, and a great many people look upon the periods of Louis XIV, the Regency, Louis XV and Louis XVI as one great period with variations, or ups and downs--the complete swing and return of the pendulum. Louis XIV was a man with a will of iron and made it absolute law during his long reign of seventy-two years. His ideal was splendor, and he encouraged great men in the intellectual and artistic world to do their work, and shed their glory on the time. Condé, Turenne, Colbert, Molière, Corneille, La Fontaine, Racine, Fénélon, Boulle, Le Brun, are a few among the long and wonderful list. He was indeed Louis the Magnificent, the Sun King. One of the great elements toward achieving the stupendous results of this reign was the establishment of the "Manufacture des Meubles de la Couronne," or, as it is usually called, "Manufacture des Gobelins." Artists of all kinds were gathered together and given apartments in the Louvre and the wonderfully gifted and versatile Le Brun was put at the head. Tapestry, goldsmiths' work, furniture, jewelry, etc., were made, and with the royal protection and interest France rose to the position of world-wide supremacy in the arts. Le Brun had the same taste and love of magnificence as Louis, and had also extraordinary executive ability and an almost unlimited capacity for work, combined with the power of gathering about him the most eminent artists of the time. André Charles Boulle was one, and his beautiful cabinets, commodes, tables, clocks, etc., are now almost priceless. He carried the inlay of metals, tortoise-shell, ivory and beautiful woods to its highest expression, and the mingling of colors with the exquisite workmanship gave most wonderful effects. Sheets of white metal or brass were glued together and the pattern was then cut out. When taken apart the brass scrolls could be fitted exactly into the shell background, and the shell scrolls into the brass background, thus making two decorations. The shell background was the more highly prized. The designs usually had a Renaissance feeling. The metal was softened in outline by engraving, and then ormolu mounts were added. Ormolu or gilt bronze mounts, formed one of the great decorations of furniture. The most exquisite workmanship was lavished on them, and after they had been cast they were cut and carved and polished until they became worthy ornaments for beautiful inlaid tables and cabinets. The taste for elaborately carved and gilded frames to chairs, tables, mirrors, etc., developed rapidly. Mirrors were made by the Gobelins works and were much less expensive than the Venetian ones of the previous reign. Walls were painted and covered with gold with a lavish hand. Tapestries were truly magnificent with gold and silver threads adding richness to their beauty of color, and were used purely as a decoration as well as in the old utilitarian way of keeping out the cold. The Gobelins works made at this time some of the most beautiful tapestries the world has known. The massive chimney-pieces were superseded by the "_petite-cheminée_" and had great mirrors over them or elaborate over-mantels. The whole air of furnishing and decoration changed to one of greater lightness and brilliancy. The ideal was that everything, no matter how small, must be beautiful, and we find the most exquisite workmanship lavished on window-locks and door-knobs. [Illustration: One of a set of three rare Louis XIV chairs, beautifully carved and gilded, and said to have belonged to the great Louis himself.] In the early style of Louis XIV, we find many trophies of war and mythological subjects used in the decorative schemes. The second style of this period was a softening and refining of the earlier one, becoming more and more delicate until it merged into the time of the Regency. It was during the reign of Louis XIV that the craze for Chinese decoration first appeared. _La Chinoiserie_ it was called, and it has daintiness and a curious fascination about it, but many inappropriate things were done in its name. The furniture of the time was firmly placed upon the ground, the arm-chairs had strong straining-rails, square or curved backs, scroll arms carved and partly upholstered and stuffed seats and backs. The legs of chairs were usually tapering in form and ornamented with gilding, or marquetry, or richly carved, and later the feet ended in a carved leaf design. Some of the straining-rails were in the shape of the letter X, with an ornament at the intersection, and often there was a wooden molding below the seat in place of fringe. Many carved and gilded chairs had gold fringe and braid and were covered with velvet, tapestry or damask. [Illustration: _By courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art_ Inlaid desk with beautifully chiselled ormolu mounts.] [Illustration: Rare Louis XIV chair, showing the characteristic underbracing.] There were many new and elaborate styles of beds that came into fashion at this time. There was the _lit d'ange_, which had a canopy that did not extend over the entire bed, and had no pillars at the foot, the curtains were drawn back at the head and the counterpane went over the foot of the bed. There was the _lit d'alcove_, the _lit de bout_, _lit clos_, _lit de glace_, with a mirror framed in the ceiling, and many others. A _lit de parade_ was like the great bed of Louis XIV at Versailles. Both the tall and bracket clocks showed this same love of ornament and they were carved and gilded and enriched with chased brass and wonderful inlay by Boulle. The dials also were beautifully designed. Consoles, tables, cabinets, etc., were all treated in this elaborate way. Many of the ceilings were painted by great artists, and those at Versailles, painted by Le Brun and others, are good examples. There was always a combination of the straight line and the curve, a strong feeling of balance, and a profusion of ornament in the way of scrolls, garlands, shells, the acanthus, anthemion, etc. The moldings were wide and sometimes a torus of laurel leaves was used, but in spite of the great amount of ornament lavished on everything, there is the feeling of balance and symmetry and strength that gives dignity and beauty. Louis was indeed fortunate in having the great Colbert for one of his ministers. He was a man of gigantic intellect, capable of originating and executing vast schemes. It was to his policy of state patronage, wisely directed, and energetically and lavishly carried out, that we owe the magnificent achievements of this period. Everywhere the impression is given of brilliancy and splendor--gold on the walls, gold on the furniture, rich velvets and damasks and tapestries, marbles and marquetry and painting, furniture worth a king's ransom. It all formed a beautiful and fitting background for the proud king, who could do no wrong, and the dazzling, care-free people who played their brilliant, selfish parts in the midst of its splendor. They never gave a thought to the great mass of the common people who were over-burdened with taxation; they never heard the first faint mutterings of discontent which were to grow, ever louder and louder, until the blood and horror of the Revolution paid the debt. _The Regency and Louis XV_ When Louis XIV died in 1715, his great-grandson, Louis XV, was but five years old, so Philippe, Duc d'Orleans, became Regent. During the last years of Louis XIV's life the court had resented more or less the gloom cast over it by the influence of Madame de Maintenon, and turned with avidity to the new ruler. He was a vain and selfish man, feeling none of the responsibilities of his position, and living chiefly for pleasure. The change in decoration had been foreshadowed in the closing years of the previous reign, and it is often hard to say whether a piece of furniture is late Louis XIV or Regency. The new gained rapidly over the old, and the magnificent and stately extravagance of Louis XIV turned into the daintier but no less extravagant and rich decoration of the Regency and Louis XV. One of the noticeable changes was that rooms were smaller, and the reign of the boudoir began. It has been truly said that after the death of Louis XIV "came the substitution of the finery of coquetry for the worship of the great in style." There was greater variety in the designs of furniture and a greater use of carved metal ornament and gilt bronze, beautifully chased. The ornaments took many shapes, such as shells, shaped foliage, roses, seaweed, strings of pearls, etc., and at its best there was great beauty in the treatment. It was during the Regency that the great artist and sculptor in metal, Charles Cressant, flourished. He was made _ébeniste_ of the Regent, and his influence was always to keep up the traditions when the reaction against the severe might easily have led to degeneration. There are beautiful examples of his work in many of the great collections of furniture, notably the wonderful commode in the Wallace collection. The dragon mounts of ormolu on it show the strong influence the Orient had at the time. He often used the figures of women with great delicacy on the corners of his furniture, and he also used tortoise-shell and many colored woods in marquetry, but his most wonderful work was done in brass and gilded bronze. In 1723, when Louis was thirteen years old, he was declared of age and became king. The influence of the Regent was, naturally, still strong, and unfortunately did much to form the character of the young king. Selfishness, pleasure, and low ideals, were the order of court life, and paved the way for the debased taste for rococo ornament which was one marked phase of the style of Louis XV. The great influence of the Orient at this time is very noticeable. There had been a beginning of it in the previous reign, but during the Regency and the reign of Louis XV it became very marked. "_Singerie_" and "_Chinoiserie_" were the rage, and gay little monkeys clambered and climbed over walls and furniture with a careless abandon that had a certain fascination and charm in spite of their being monkeys. The "_Salon des Singes_" in the Chateau de Chantilly gives one a good idea of this. The style was easily overdone and did not last a great while. During this time of Oriental influence lacquer was much used and beautiful lacquer panels became one of the great features of French furniture. Pieces of furniture were sent to China and Japan to be lacquered and this, combined with the expense of importing it, led many men in France to try to find out the Oriental secret. Le Sieur Dagly was supposed to have imported the secret and was established at the Gobelins works where he made what was called "_vernis de Gobelins_." The Martin family evolved a most characteristically French style of decoration from the Chinese and Japanese lacquers. The varnish they made, called "_vernis Martin_," gave its name to the furniture decorated by them, which was well suited to the dainty boudoirs of the day. All kinds of furniture were decorated in this way--sedan chairs and even snuff-boxes, until at last the supply became so great that the fashion died. There are many charming examples of it to be seen in museums and private collections, but the modern garish copies of it in many shops give no idea of the charm of the original. Watteau's delightful decorations also give the true spirit of the time, with their gayety and frivolity showing the Arcadian affectations--the fad of the moment. As the time passed decoration grew more and more ornate, and the followers of Cressant exaggerated his traits. One of these was Jules Aurèle Meissonier, an Italian by birth, who brought with him to France the decadent Italian taste. He had a most marvelous power of invention and lavished ornament on everything, carrying the rocaille style to its utmost limit. He broke up all straight lines, put curves and convolutions everywhere, and rarely had two sides alike, for symmetry had no charms for him. The curved endive decoration was used in architraves, in the panels of overdoors and panel moldings, everywhere it possibly could be used, in fact. His work was in great demand by the king and nobility. He designed furniture of all kinds, altars, sledges, candelabra and a great amount of silversmith's work, and also published a book of designs. Unfortunately it is this rococo style which is meant by many people when they speak of the style of Louis XV. Louis XV furniture and decoration at its best period is extremely beautiful, and the foremost architects of the day were undisturbed by the demand for rococo, knowing it was a vulgarism of taste which would pass. In France, bad as it was, it never went to such lengths as it did in Italy and Spain. [Illustration: The mantel with its great glass reaching to the cornice, the wall panels, paintings over the doors, and beautiful furniture, all show the spirit of the best Louis XV period. The fur rug is an anachronism and detracts from the effect of the room.] [Illustration: The rare console tables and chairs and the Gobelin tapestry, "Games of Children," show to great advantage in this beautifully proportioned room of soft dull gold. The side-and centre-lights, reflected in the mirror, light the room correctly.] The easy generalization of the girl who said the difference between the styles of Louis XV and Louis XVI was like the difference in hair, one was curly and one was straight, has more than a grain of truth in it. The curved line was used persistently until the last years of Louis XV's time, but it was a beautiful, gracious curve, elaborate, and in furniture, richly carved, which was used during the best period. The decline came when good taste was lost in the craze for rococo. Chairs were carved and gilded, or painted, or lacquered, and also beautiful natural woods were used. The sofas and chairs had a general square appearance, but the framework was much curved and carved and gilded. They were upholstered in silks, brocades, velvets, damasks in flowered designs, edged with braid. Gobelin, Aubusson and Beauvais tapestry, with Watteau designs, were also used. Nothing more dainty or charming could be found than the tapestry seats and chair backs and screens which were woven especially to fit certain pieces of furniture. The tapestry weavers now used thousands of colors in place of the nineteen used in the early days, and this enabled them to copy with great exactness the charming pictures of Watteau and Boucher. The idea of sitting on beautiful ladies and gentlemen airily playing at country life, does not appeal to our modern taste, but it seems to be in accord with those days. Desks were much used and were conveniently arranged with drawers, pigeon-holes and shelves, and roll-top desks were made at this time. Commodes were painted, or richly ornamented with lacquer panels, or panels of rosewood or violet wood, and all were embellished with wonderful bronze or ormolu. Many pieces of furniture were inlaid with lovely Sèvres plaques, a manner which is not always pleasing in effect. There were many different and elaborate kinds of beds, taking their names from their form and draping. "_Lit d'anglaise_" had a back, head-board and foot-board, and could be used as a sofa. "_Lit a Romaine_" had a canopy and four festooned curtains, and so on. The most common form of salon was rectangular, with proportions of 4 to 3, or 2 to 1. There were also many square, round, octagonal and oval salons, these last being among the most beautiful. They all were decorated with great richness, the walls being paneled with carved and gilded--or partially gilded--wood. Tapestry and brocade and painted panels were used. Large mirrors with elaborate frames were placed over the mantels, with panels above reaching to the cornice or cove of the ceiling, and large mirrors were also used over console tables and as panels. The paneled overdoors reached to the cornice, and windows were also treated in this way. Windows and doors were not looked upon merely as openings to admit air and light and human beings, but formed a part of the scheme of decoration of the room. There were beautiful brackets and candelabra of ormolu to light the rooms, and the boudoirs and salons, with their white and gold and beautifully decorated walls and gilded furniture, gave an air of gayety and richness, extravagance and beauty. An apartment in the time of Louis XV usually had a vestibule, rather severely decorated with columns or pilasters and often statues in niches. The first ante-room was a waiting-room for servants and was plainly treated, the woodwork being the chief decoration. The second ante-room had mirrors, console tables, carved and gilded woodwork, and sometimes tapestry was used above a wainscot. Dining-rooms were elaborate, often having fountains and plants in the niches near the buffet. Bedrooms usually had an alcove, and the room, not counting the alcove, was an exact square. The bed faced the windows and a large mirror over a console table was just opposite it. The chimney faced the principal entrance. A "_chambre en niche_" was a room where the bed space was not so large as an alcove. The designs for sides of rooms by Meissonier, Blondel, Briseux Cuilles and others give a good idea of the arrangement and proportions of the different rooms. The cabinets or studies, and the _garde robes_, were entered usually from doors near the alcove. The ceilings were painted by Boucher and others in soft and charming colors, with cupids playing in the clouds, and other subjects of the kind. Great attention was given to clocks and they formed an important and beautiful part of the decoration. The natural consequence of the period of excessive rococo with its superabundance of curves and ornament, was that, during the last years of Louis's reign, the reaction slowly began to make itself felt. There was no sudden change to the use of the straight line, but people were tired of so much lavishness and motion in their decoration. There were other influences also at work, for Robert Adam had, in England, established the classic taste, and the excavations at Pompeii were causing widespread interest and admiration. The fact is proved that what we call Louis XVI decoration was well known before the death of Louis XV, by his furnishing Luciennes for Madam Du Barri in almost pure Louis XVI style. [Illustration: A chair from Fontainebleau, typical of the early Louis XIV epoch before the development of its full grandeur.] [Illustration: This Louis XV bergère is especially interesting as it shows the broad seat made to accommodate the full dresses of the period.] [Illustration: There is a special charm about this old Louis XVI bench with its Gobelin tapestry cover.] _Louis XVI_ Louis XVI came to the throne in 1774, and reigned for nineteen years, until that fatal year of '93. He was kind, benign, and simple, and had no sympathy with the life of the court during the preceding reign. Marie Antoinette disliked the great pomp of court functions and liked to play at the simple life, so shepherdesses, shepherd's crooks, hats, wreaths of roses, watering-pots and many other rustic symbols became the fashion. Marie Antoinette was but fifteen years old when in 1770 she came to France as a bride, and it is hardly reasonable to think that the taste of a young girl would have originated a great period of decoration, although the idea is firmly fixed in many minds. It is known that the transition period was well advanced before she became queen, but there is no doubt that her simpler taste and that of Louis led them to accept with joy the classical ideas of beauty which were slowly gaining ground. As dauphin and dauphiness they naturally had a great following, and as king and queen their taste was paramount, and the style became established. Architecture became more simple and interior decoration followed suit. The restfulness and beauty of the straight line appeared again, and ornament took its proper place as a decoration of the construction, and was subordinate to its design. During the period of Louis XVI the rooms had rectangular panels formed by simpler moldings than in the previous reign, with pilasters of delicate design between the panels. The overdoors and mantels were carried to the cornice and the paneling was usually of oak, painted in soft colors or white and gilded. Walls were also covered with tapestry and brocade. Some of the most characteristic marks of the style are the straight tapering legs of the furniture, usually fluted, with some carving. Fluted columns and pilasters often had metal quills filling them for a part of the distance at top and bottom, leaving a plain channel between. The laurel leaf was used in wreath form, and bell flowers were used on the legs of furniture. Oval medallions, surmounted by a wreath of flowers and a bow-knot, appear very often, and in about 1780 round medallions were used. Furniture was covered with brocade or tapestry, with shepherds and shepherdesses or pastoral scenes for the design. The gayest kinds of designs were used in the silks and brocades; ribbons and bow-knots and interlacing stripes with flowers and rustic symbols scattered over them. Curtains were less festooned and cut with great exactness. The canopies of beds became smaller, until often only a ring or crown held the draperies, and it became the fashion to place the bed sideways, "_vu de face_." There was a great deal of beautiful ornament in gilded bronze and ormolu on the furniture, and many colored woods were used in marquetry. The fashion of using Sèvres plaques in inlay was continued. There was a great deal of white and colored marble used and very fine ironwork was made. Riesener, Roentgen, Gouthiére, Fragonard and Boucher are some of the names that stand out most distinctly as authors of the beautiful decorations of the time. Marie Antoinette's boudoir at Fontainebleau is a perfect example of the style and many of the other rooms both there and at the Petit Trianon show its great beauty, gayety and dignity combined with its richness and magnificence. The influence of Pompeii must not be overlooked in studying the style of Louis XVI, for it appeared in much of the decoration of the time. The beautiful little boudoir of the Marquise de Sérilly is a charming example of its adaptation. The problem of bad proportion is also most interestingly overcome. The room was too high for its size, so it was divided into four arched openings separated by carved pilasters, and the walls covered with paintings. The ceiling was darker than the walls, which made it seem lower, and the whole color scheme was so arranged that the feeling of extreme height was lessened. The mantel is a beautiful example of the period. This room was furnished about 1780-82. Compared to the lavish curves of the style of Louis XV, the fine outlines and the beautiful ornament of Louis XVI appear to some people cold, but if they look carefully at the matter, they will find them not really so. The warmth of the Gallic temperament still shows through the new garb, giving life and beauty to the dainty but strong furniture. If one studies the examples of the styles of Louis XIV, Louis XV and Louis XVI that one finds in the great palaces, collections, museums and books of prints and photographs, one will see that the wonderful foundation laid by Louis XIV was still there in the other two reigns. During the time of Louis XVI the pose of rustic simplicity was a very sophisticated pose indeed, but the reaction from the rocaille style of Louis XV led to one of the most beautiful styles of decoration that the world has seen. It had dignity, true beauty and the joy of life expressed in it. [Illustration: Rare Louis XVI chair--an original from Fontainebleau.] [Illustration: The American Empire sofa, when not too elaborate, is a very beautiful article of furniture.] _The Empire_ The French Revolution made a tremendous change in the production of beautiful furniture, as royalty and the nobility could no longer encourage it. Many of the great artists died in poverty and many of them went to other countries where life was more secure. After the Revolution there was wholesale destruction of the wonderful works of art which had cost such vast sums to collect. Nothing was to remain that would remind the people of departed kings and queens, and a committee on art was appointed to make selections of what was to be saved and what was to be destroyed. That committee of "tragic comedians" set up a new standard of art criticism; it was not the artistic merits of a piece of tapestry, for instance, that interested them, but whether a king or queen dared show their heads upon it. If so, into the flames it went. Thousands of priceless things were destroyed before they finished their dreadful work. When Napoleon came into power he turned to ancient Rome for inspiration. The Imperial Cæsars became his ideal and gave him a wide field in which to display his love for splendor, uncontrolled by any true artistic sense. It gave decoration a blow from which it was hard to recover. Massive furniture without real beauty of line, loaded with ormolu, took the place of the old. The furniture was simple in construction with little carving, until later when all kinds of animal heads and claws, and animals never seen by man, and horns of plenty, were used to support tables and chairs and sofas. Everywhere one turned the feeling of martial grandeur was in the air. Ormolu mounts of bay wreaths, torches, eagles, military emblems and trophies, winged figures, the sphinx, the bee, and the initial N, were used on furniture; and these same motives were used in wall decoration. The furniture was left the natural color of the wood, and mahogany, rosewood, and ebony, were used. Veneer was also extensively used. The front legs of chairs were usually straight, and the back legs slightly curved. Beds were massive, with head and foot-board of even height, and the tops rolled over into a scroll. Swans were used on the arms of chairs and sofas and the sides of beds. Tables were often round, with tripod legs; in fact, the tripod was a great favorite. There was a great deal of inlay of the favorite emblems but little carving. Plain columns with Doric caps and metal ornaments were used. The change in the use of color was very marked, for deep brown, blue and other dark colors were used instead of the light and gay ones of the previous period. The materials used were usually of solid colors with a design in golden yellow, a wreath, or a torch, or the bee, or one of the other favorite emblems being used in a spot design, or powdered on. Some of the color combinations in the rooms we read of sound quite alarming. Since the time of the Empire, France has done as the rest of the world has, gone without any special style. _English Furniture from Gothic Days to the Period of Queen Anne._ The early history of furniture in all countries is very much the same--there is not any. We know about kings and queens, and war and sudden death, and fortresses and pyramids, but of that which the people used for furniture we know very little. Research has revealed the mention in old manuscripts once in a while of benches and chests, and the Bayeux tapestry and old seals show us that William the Conquerer and Richard Coeur de Lion sat on chairs, even if they were not very promising ones, but at best it is all very vague. It is natural to suppose that the early Saxons had furniture of some kind, for, as the remains of Saxon metalwork show great skill, it is probable they had skill also in woodworking. In England, as in France, the first pieces of furniture that we can be sure of are chests and benches. They served all purposes apparently, for the family slept on them by night and used them for seats and tables by day. The bedding was kept in the chests, and when traveling had to be done all the family possessions were packed in them. There is an old chest at Stoke d'Abernon church, dating from the thirteenth century, that has a little carving on it, and another at Brampton church of the twelfth or thirteenth century that has iron decorations. Some chests show great freedom in the carving, St. George and the Dragon and other stories being carved in high relief. [Illustration: An Apostles bed of the Tudor period, so-called from the carved panels of the back. The over elaboration of the late Tudor work corresponded in time with France's deterioration in the reign of Henry IV.] Nearly all the existing specimens of Gothic furniture are ecclesiastical, but there are a few that were evidently for household use. These show distinctly the architectural treatment of design in the furniture. Chairs were not commonly used until the sixteenth century. Our distinguished ancestors decided that one chair in a house was enough, and that was for the master, while his family and friends sat on benches and chests. It is a long step in comfort and manners from the fifteenth to the twentieth century. Later the guest of honor was given the chair, and from that may come the saying that a speaker "takes the chair." Gothic tables were probably supported by trestles, and beds were probably very much like the early sixteenth century beds in general shape. There were cupboards and armoires also, but examples are very rare. From an old historical document we learn that Henry III, in 1233, ordered the sheriff to attend to the painting of the wainscoted chamber in Winchester Castle and to see that "the pictures and histories were the same as before." Another order is for having the wall of the king's chamber at Westminster "painted a good green color in imitation of a curtain." These painted walls and stained glass that we know they had, and the tapestry, must have given a cheerful color scheme to the houses of the wealthy class even if there was not much comfort. [Illustration: In this walnut dressing-table the period of William and Mary has been adapted to modern needs.] [Illustration: This reproduction of a Charles II chair shows cherubs supporting crowns.] The history of the great houses of England, and also the smaller manor-houses, is full of interest in connection with the study of furniture. There are many manor-houses that show all the characteristics of the Gothic, Renaissance, Tudor and Jacobean periods, and from them we can learn much of the life of the times. The early ones show absolute simplicity in the arrangement, one large hall for everything, and later a small room or two added. The fire was on the floor and the smoke wandered around until it found its way out at the opening, or louvre, in the roof. Then a chimney was built at the dais end of the hall, and the mantelpiece became an important part of the decoration. The hall was divided by "screens" into smaller rooms, leaving the remainder for retainers, and causing the clergy to inveigh against the new custom of the lord of the manor "eating in secret places." The staircase developed from the early winding stair about a newel or post to the beautiful broad stairs of the Tudor period. These were usually six or seven feet broad, with about six wide easy steps and then a landing, and the carving on the balusters was often very elaborate and sometimes very beautiful--a ladder raised to the _n_th power. Slowly the Gothic period died in England and slowly the Renaissance took its place. There was never the gayety of decorative treatment that we find in France, but the English workmen, while keeping their own individuality, learned a tremendous amount from the Italians who came to the country. Their influence is shown in the Henry VIIth Chapel in Westminster Abbey, and in the old part of Hampton Court Palace, built by Cardinal Wolsey. The religious troubles between Henry VIII and the Pope and the change of religion helped to drive the Italians from the country, so the Renaissance did not get such a firm foothold in England as it did in France. The mingling of Gothic and Renaissance forms what we call the Tudor period. During the time of Elizabeth all trace of Gothic disappeared, and the influence of the Germans and Flemings who came to the country in great numbers, helped to shorten the influence of the Renaissance. The over-elaboration of the late Tudor time corresponded with the deterioration shown in France in the time of Henry IV. The Hall of Gray's Inn, the Halls of Oxford, the Charterhouse and the Hall of the Middle Temple are all fine examples of the Tudor period. We find very few names of furniture makers of those days; in fact, there are very few names known in connection with the buildings themselves. The word architect was little used until after the Renaissance. The owner and the "surveyor" were the people responsible, and the plans, directions and details given to the workmen were astonishingly meager. The great charm that we all feel in the Tudor and Jacobean periods is largely due to the beautiful paneled walls. Their woodwork has a color that only age can give and that no stain can copy. The first panels were longer than the later ones. Wide use was made of the beautiful "linen-fold" design in the wainscoting, and there was also much elaborate carving and strapwork. Scenes like the temptation of Adam and Eve were represented, heads in circular medallions, and simply decorative designs were used. In the days of Elizabeth it became the fashion to have the carving at the top of the paneling with plain panels below. Tudor and Jacobean mantelpieces were most elaborate and were of wood, stone, or marble richly carved, to say nothing of the beautiful plaster ones, and there are many fine examples in existence. They were fond of figure decoration, and many subjects were taken from the Bible. The overmantels were decorated with coats-of-arms and other carving, and the entablature over the fireplace often had Latin mottoes. The earliest firebacks date from the fifteenth century. Coats-of-arms and many curious designs were used upon them. The furniture of the Tudor period was much carved, and was made chiefly of oak. Cornices of beds and cabinets often had the egg-and-dart molding used on them, and the S-curve is often seen opposed on the backs of settees and chairs. It has a suggestion of a dolphin and is reminiscent of the dolphins of the Renaissance. The beds were very large, the "great bed of Ware" being twelve feet square. The cornice, the bed-head, the pedestals and pillars supporting the cornice were all richly carved. Frequently the pillars at the foot of the bed were not connected with it, but supported the cornice which was longer than the bed. The "Courtney bedstead," dated 1593, showing many of the characteristics of the ornament of the time, is 103-1/2 inches high, 94 inches long, 68 inches wide. The majority of the beds were smaller and lower, however, and the pillars usually rose out of drum-like members, huge acorn-like bulbs that were often so large as to be ugly. They appeared also on other articles of furniture. When in good proportion, with pillars tapering from them, they were very effective, and gradually they grew smaller. Some of the beds had the four apostles, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, carved on the posts. They were probably the origin of the nursery rhyme: "Four corners to my bed, Four angels round my head, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, Bless the bed that I lie on." [Illustration: In this living-room, Italian, Jacobean, and modern stuffed furniture, give a satisfactory effect because each piece is good of its kind and is in a certain relationship to each other. The huge clock with chimes and the animal casts are out of keeping.] Bed hanging were of silk, velvet, damask, wool damask, tapestry, etc., and there were fine linen sheets and blankets and counterpanes of wool work. The chairs were high-backed of solid oak with cushions. There were also jointed stools, folding screens, chests, cabinets, tables with carpets (table covers) tapestry hangings, curtains, cushions, silver sconces, etc. [Illustration: Original Jacobean settle with tapestry covering. These pieces of furniture range in price between $900 and $1,400.] [Illustration: Fine reproductions of Jacobean chairs of the time of Charles II. The carved front rail balances the carving on the back perfectly.] The Jacobean period began with James I, and lasted until the time of William and Mary, or from 1603 to about 1689. In the early part there was still a strong Tudor feeling, and toward the end foreign influence made itself felt until the Dutch under William became paramount. Inigo Jones did his great work at this time in the Palladian style of architecture. His simpler taste did much to reduce the exaggeration of the late Tudor days. Chests of various kinds still remained of importance. Their growth is interesting: first the plain ones of very early days, then panels appeared, then the pointed arch with its architectural effect, then the low-pointed arch of Tudor and early Jacobian times, and the geometrical ornament. Then came a change in the general shape, a drawer being added at the bottom, and at last it turned into a complete chest of drawers. Cabinets or cupboards were also used a great deal, and the most interesting are the court-and livery-cupboards. The derivation of the names is a bit obscure, but the court cupboard probably comes from the French _court_, short. The first ones were high and unwieldy and the later ones were lower with some enclosed shelves. They were used for a display of plate, much as the modern sideboard is used. The number of shelves was limited by rank; the wife of a baronet could have two, a countess three, a princess four, a queen five. They were beautifully carved, very often, the doors to the enclosed portions having heads, Tudor roses, arches, spindle ornaments and many other designs common to the Tudor and Jacobean periods. They had a silk "carpet" put on the shelves with the fringe hanging over the ends, but not the front, and on this was placed the silver. The livery-cupboard was used for food, and the word probably comes from the French _livrer_, to deliver. It had several shelves enclosed by rails, not panels, so the air could circulate, and some of them had open shelves and a drawer for linen. They were used much as we use a serving-table, or as the kitchen dresser was used in old New England days. In them were kept food and drink for people to take to their bedrooms to keep starvation at bay until breakfast. Drawing-tables were very popular during Jacobean times. They were described as having two ends that were drawn out and supported by sliders, while the center, previously held by them, fell into place by its own weight. Another characteristic table was the gate-legged or thousand-legged table, that was used so much in our own Colonial times. There were also round, oval and square tables which had flaps supported by legs that were drawn out. Tables were almost invariably covered with a table cloth. Some of the chairs of the time of James I were much like those of Louis XIII, having the short back covered with leather, damask, or tapestry, put on with brass or silver nails and fringe around the edge of the seat. The chief characteristic of the chairs of this time was solidity, with the ornament chiefly on the upper parts, which were molded oftener than carved, with the backs usually high. A plain leather chair called the "Cromwell chair," was imported from Holland. The solid oak back gave way at last to the half solid back, then came the open back with rails, and then the Charles II chair, with its carved or turned uprights, its high back of cane, and an ornamental stretcher like the top of the chair back, between the front legs. This is a very attractive feature, as it serves to give balance of decoration and also partly hides the plain stretcher from sight. A typical detail of Charles II furniture is the crown supported by cherubs or opposed S-curves. James II used a crown and palm leaves. Grinling Gibbons did his wonderful work in carving at this time, using chiefly pear and lime wood. The greater part of his work was wall decoration, but he made tables, mirrors and other furniture as well. The carving was often in lighter wood than the background, and was in such high relief that portions of it had often to be "pinned" together, for it seemed almost in the round. Evelyn discovered Gibbons in a little shop working away at such a wonderful piece of carving that he could not rest until he had taken him to Sir Christopher Wrenn. From this introduction came the great amount of work they did together. The influence of his work was still seen in the early eighteenth century. The room at Knole House that was furnished for James I is of great interest, as it is the same to-day as when first furnished. The bed is said to have cost £8,000. As it is one of the show places of England one should not miss a chance of seeing it. Until the time of the Restoration the furniture of England could not compare in sumptuousness with that of the Continental countries. England, besides having a simpler point of view, was in a perpetual state of unrest. The honest and hard-working English joiners and carpenters adapted in a plain and often clumsy way the styles of the different foreigners who came to the country. Through it all, however, they kept the touch of national character that makes the furniture so interesting, and they often did work of great beauty and worth. When Charles II came to the throne he brought with him the ideas of France, where he had spent so many years, and the change became very marked. The natural Stuart extravagance also helped to form his taste, and soon we hear of much more elaborate decoration throughout the land. Many of the country towns were far behind London in the style of furniture, and this explains why some furniture that is dated 1670, for instance, seems to belong to an earlier time. The famous silver furniture of Knole House, Seven-oaks, belongs to this time. Evelyn mentions in his diary that the rooms of the Duchess of Portsmouth were full of "Japan cabinets and screens, pendule clocks, greate vases of wrought plate, tables, stands, chimney furniture, sconces, branches, baseras, etc., all of massive silver," and later he mentions again her "massy pieces of plate, whole tables and stands of incredible value." In the reign of William and Mary, Dutch influence was naturally very pronounced, as William disliked everything English. The English, being now well grounded in the knowledge of construction, took the Dutch ideas as a foundation and developed them along their own lines, until we have the late Queen Anne type made by Chippendale. The change in the style of chairs was most marked and noticeable. They were more open backed than in Charles's time and had two uprights and a spoon-or fiddle-shaped splat to support the sitter's back. The chair backs took more the curve of the human figure, and the seats were broader in front than in the back; the cabriole legs were broad at the top and ended in claw or pad feet, and there were no straining-rails. The shell was a common form of ornament, and all crowns and cherubs had disappeared. Inlay and marquetry came to be generously used, but there had been many cabinets of Dutch marquetry brought to England even before the time of William and Mary. Flower designs in dyed woods, shell, mother-of-pearl, and ivory were used. The marquetry clocks made at this time are wonderful and characteristic examples of the work, and are among the finest clocks ever made for beauty of line and finish, and proportion. Although marquetry and inlay have much in common there is one great difference between them, and they should not be used as synonymous terms. In marquetry the entire surface of the article is covered with pieces of different colored woods cut very thin and glued on. It is like a modern picture puzzle done with regard to the design. In inlay, the design only is inlaid in the wood, leaving a much larger plain background. Veneering is a thin layer of beautiful and often rare wood glued to a foundation of some cheaper kind. The tall clocks and cabinets of William and Mary's time and the wonderful work of Boulle in France are examples of marquetry, the fine furniture of Hepplewhite and Sheraton are masterly examples of inlay. [Illustration: Examples of line reproductions. The lacquer chairs carry out the true feeling of the old with great skill.] [Illustration: A reproduction of a walnut chair with cane seat and back, of the William and Mary period.] [Illustration: Reproduction of chair showing the transition between the time of Charles II and William and Mary. The carved strut remains but the back is lower and simpler.] _Queen Anne_ "Queen Anne" furniture is a very elastic term, for it is often used to cover the reigns of William and Mary, Queen Anne, George I, and a part of the reign of George II, or, in other words, all the time of Dutch influence. The more usual method is to leave out William and Mary, but at best the classification of furniture is more or less arbitrary, for in England, as well as other countries, the different styles overlap each other. Chippendale's early work was distinctly influenced by the Dutch. Walnut superseded oak in popularity, and after 1720 mahogany gradually became the favorite. There was a good deal of walnut veneering done, and the best logs were saved for the purpose. Marquetry died out and gave place to carving, and the cabriole leg, one of the chief marks of Dutch influence, became a firmly fixed style. The carving was put on the knees and the legs ended in claw and ball and pad feet. Some chairs were simply carved with a shell or leaf or scroll on top rail and knees of the legs. In the more elaborately carved chairs the arms, legs, splat, and top rail were all carved with acanthus leaves, or designs from Gibbons's decoration. Chairs were broad in the seat and high of back with wide splats, often decorated with inlay, in the early part of the period. The top rail curved into the side uprights, and the seat was set into a rebate or box-seat. The chair backs slowly changed in shape, becoming broader and lower, the splat ceased to be inlaid and was pierced and carved, and the whole chair assumed the shape made so familiar to us by Chippendale. Tables usually had cabriole legs, although there were some gate-or thousand-legged, tables, and card tables, writing-tables, and flap-tables, were all used. It was in the Queen Anne period that highboys and lowboys made their first appearance. In the short reign of Anne it also became the fashion to have great displays of Chinese porcelain, and over-mantels, cupboards, shelves and tables were covered with wonderful pieces of it. Addison, in Sir Roger de Coverley, humorously describes a lady's library of the time. "... And as it was some time before the lady came to me I had an opportunity of turning over a great many of her books, which were ranged in a very beautiful order. At the end of the folios (which were finely bound and gilt) were great jars of china placed one above another in a very noble piece of architecture. The quartos were separated from the octavos by a pile of smaller vessels, which rose in a delightful pyramid. The octavos were bounded by tea-dishes of all shapes, colors, and sizes, which were so disposed on a wooden frame that they looked like one continued pillar indented with the finest strokes of sculpture and stained with the greatest variety of dyes. Part of the library was enclosed in a kind of square, consisting of one of the prettiest grotesque works that ever I saw, and made up of scaramouches, lions, monkeys, mandarins, trees, shells, and a thousand other odd figures in china ware. In the midst of the room was a little Japan table." Between 1710 and 1730 lacquer ware became very fashionable, and many experiments were made to imitate the beautiful Oriental articles brought home by Dutch traders. In Holland a fair amount of success was attained and a good deal of lacquered furniture was sent from there to England where the brass and silver mounts were added. English and French were experimenting, the French with the greatest success in their Vernis Martin, mentioned elsewhere, which really stood quite in a class by itself, but the imitations of Chinese and Japanese lacquer were inferior to the originals. Pine, oak, lime, and many other woods, were used as a base, and the fashion was so decided that nearly all kinds of furniture were covered with it. This lacquer ware of William and Mary's and Queen Anne's time must not be confounded with the Japanned furniture of Hepplewhite's and Sheraton's time, which was quite different and of much lower grade. It was in the reign of Queen Anne that the sun began to rise on English cabinet work; it shone gloriously through the eighteenth century, and sank in early Victorian clouds. [Illustration: Two important phases of Chippendale's work--an elaborate ribbon-back chair, and one of the more staid Gothic type.] [Illustration: An elaborately carved and gilded Chippendale mantel mirror, showing French influence.] [Illustration: One of the most beautiful examples of Chippendale's fretwork tea-tables in existence.] _Chippendale and the Eighteenth Century in England._ The classification of furniture in England is on a different basis from that of France, as the rulers of England were not such patrons of art as were the French kings. Flemish, Dutch and French influences all helped to form the taste of the people. The Jacobean period lasted from the time of James I to the time of William and Mary. William brought with him from Holland the strong Dutch feeling that had a tremendous influence on the history of English furniture, and during Anne's short reign the Dutch feeling still lasted. It was not until the early years of the reign of George II that the Georgian period came into its own with Chippendale at its head. Some authorities include William and Mary and Queen Anne in the Georgian period, but the more usual idea is to divide it into several parts, better known as the times of Chippendale, Adam, Hepplewhite and Sheraton. French influence is marked throughout and is divided into parts. The period of Chippendale was contemporaneous with that of Louis XV, and the second part included the other three men and corresponded with the last years of Louis XV, when the transition to Louis XVI was beginning, and the time of Louis XVI. It was not until the latter part of Chippendale's life that he gave up his love of rococo curves and scrolls, dripping water effects, and his Chinese and Gothic styles. His early chairs had a Dutch feeling, and it is often only by ornamentation that one can date them. The top of the Dutch chair had a flowing curve, the splat was first solid and plain, then carved, and later pierced in geometrical designs; then came the curves that were used so much by Chippendale. The carving consisted of swags and pendants of fruit and flowers, shells, acanthus leaves, scrolls, eagle's heads, carved in relief on the surface. Dutch chairs were usually of walnut and some of the late ones were of mahogany. Mahogany was not used to any extent before 1720, but at that time it began to be imported in large quantities, and its lightness and the ease with which it could be worked made it appropriate for the lighter style of furniture then coming into vogue. Chippendale began to make chairs with the curved top that is so characteristic of his work. The splat back was always used, in spite of the French, and its treatment is one of the most interesting things in the history of English furniture. It gave scope for great originality. Although, as I have said before, foreign influence was strong, the ideas were adapted and worked out by the great cabinet-makers of the Georgian period with a vigor and beauty that made a distinct English style, and often went far, far ahead of the originals. There were, so far as we know, three Thomas Chippendales: the second was the great one. He was born in Worcester, England, about 1710, and died in 1779. He and his father, who was also a carver, came to London before 1727. Very little is known about his life, but we may feel sure he was that rare combination: a man of genius with decided business ability. He not only designed the furniture which was made in his shop, but executed a large part of it also, and superintended all the work done there by others. That he was a man of originality shows distinctly through his work, for although he adapted and copied freely and was strongly influenced by the Dutch, French, and "Chinese taste," there is always his own distinctive touch. The furniture of his best period, and those belonging to his school, has great beauty of line and proportion, and the exquisite carving shows a true feeling for ornament in relation to plain surfaces. There are a few examples in existence of carving in almost as high relief as that of Grinling Gibbons, swags, etc., and in his most rococo period his carving was very elaborate. It always had great clearness of edge and cut, and a wonderful feeling for light and shade. In what is called "Irish Chippendale," which was furniture made in Ireland after the style of Chippendale, the carving was in low relief and the edges fairly smoothed off, which made it much less interesting. Chippendale looked upon his work as one of the arts and placed his ideal of achievement very high, and that he received the recognition of the best people of the time as an artist of merit is proved by his election to the Society of Arts with such men as Sir Joshua Reynolds, Horace Walpole, Samuel Johnson, David Garrick, and others. The genius of Chippendale justly puts him in the front rank of cabinet-makers and his influence was the foundation of much of the fine work done by many others during the eighteenth century. He is often criticized for his excessive rococo taste as displayed in the plates of the "Gentleman's and Cabinet-maker's Director," and in some of his finished work. Many of the designs in the "Director" were probably never carried out, and some of them were probably added to by the soaring imaginations of the engraver. This is true of all the books published by the great cabinet-makers, and it always seems more fair to have their reputations rest on their finished work which has come down to us. [Illustration: The dripping-water effect, of which Chippendale was so fond at one time, is plainly shown on the doors of this particularly fine example of his work.] Chippendale, of course, must bear the chief part of the charge of over-elaboration, and he frankly says that he thinks "much enrichment is necessary." He copied Meissonier's designs and had a great love for gilding, but the display of rococo taste is not in all his work by any means, nor was it so excessive as that of the French. The more self-restrained temperament of the Anglo-Saxon race makes a deal of difference. He early used the ogee curve and cabriole leg, the knees of which he carved with cartouches and leaves or other designs. The front rail of the chair also was often carved. There were several styles of curved leg, the cabriole leg of Dutch influence, and the curved style of Louis XV. There were also several variations on the claw and ball foot. Many Chippendale chairs were without stretchers, but the straight legged style usually had four. The seats were sometimes in a box frame or rebate, and sometimes the covering was drawn over the frame and fastened with brass headed nails. Chippendale in the "Director" speaks of red morocco, Spanish leather, damask, tapestry and other needlework as being appropriate for the covering of his chairs. [Illustration: A chair from early in the 18th century of the Dutch type.] [Illustration: One of the Chippendale patterns, dating from about 1750.] [Illustration: Hepplewhite's characteristic shield-shaped back.] [Illustration: Thomas Sheraton's rectangular type of chair-back.] In about 1760 or 1765 he began to use the straight leg for his chairs. The different shapes of splats will often help in deciding the dates of their making, and its development is of great interest. The curves shown in the diagram on page 84 are the merest suggestions of the outline of the splat, and they were carved most beautifully in many different designs. Ribbon-back chairs are dated about 1755 and show the adapted French influence. His Gothic and Chinese designs were made about 1760-1770. Ladder-back chairs nearly always had straight legs, either plain or with double ogee curve and bead moldings, but there are a few examples of ladder-back and cabriole legs combined, although these are very rare. The chair settees of the Dutch time, with backs having the appearance of chairs side by side, were also made by Chippendale. "Love seats" were small settees. It was naïvely said that "they were too large for one and too small for two." A large armchair that shows a decided difference in the manners of the early eighteenth century and the present day was called the "drunkard's chair." [Illustration: DIFFERENT TYPES OF CHAIR SPLATS USED BY CHIPPENDALE.] When the craze for "Indian work" was at its height, there were many pieces of old oak and walnut furniture covered with lacquer to bring it up to the fashionable standard, but their forms were not suitable, and oak especially, with its coarse grain did not lend itself to the process. The stands for lacquer cabinets vary in style, but were often gilded in late Louis XIV and Louis XV style. The difference between true lacquer and its imitations is hard to explain. The true was made by repeated coats of a special varnish, each rubbed down and allowed to become hard before the next was put on. This gave a hard, cool, smooth surface with no stickiness. Modern work, done with paint and French varnish, has not this delightful feeling, but is nearly always clammy to the touch, and the colors are hurt by the process of polishing. Chippendale did not use much lacquer, but in the "Director" he often says such and such designs would be suitable for it. Much of the furniture that Chippendale made was heavy, but the best of it had much beauty. His delicate fretwork tea-tables are a delight, with their fretwork cupboards and carving. He seemed to combine many sides in his artistic temperament, a fact that many people lay to his power of assimilating the work of others. He did not make sideboards in our sense of the word. His were large side-tables, sometimes with a drawer for silver and sometimes not. Pier-tables were very much like them in shape, but smaller, and were often gilded to match the mirrors which were placed above them. The larger pieces of Chippendale furniture have the same characteristic of perfect workmanship and detail which the chairs possess. Dining-tables were made in sections consisting of two semi-circular ends and two center pieces with flaps which could all be joined together and make a very large table. The beds he made had four posts and cornice tops elaborately carved and often gilded, with a strong Louis XV feeling. The curtains hung from the inside of the cornice. He also made many other styles of beds, such as canopy beds, tent beds, flat tester beds, Chinese beds, Gothic beds: there was almost nothing he did not make for the house from wall brackets to the largest wardrobes. To many people used to the simple Chippendale furniture which is commonly seen, the idea of rich and beautiful carving and gilding comes as a surprise, and even in the "Director" there are no plates which show his most beautiful work. His elaborate furniture was naturally chiefly order work, and so was not pictured, and much of it that is left is still in the possession of the descendants of the original owners. The small number of authentic pieces which have reached public sales have been eagerly snapped up by private collectors and museums at large prices. [Illustration: It is interesting to compare the generous curves of the Chippendale sofa with the greater severity of Hepplewhite's taste..] In America much of the furniture called Chippendale was not made by Chippendale himself, but was made after his designs and copied from imported pieces by clever cabinet-makers here in the, then, colonies. The average American of the eighteenth century was a simple and not over rich person of good breeding and refined taste who appreciated the fact that the elaborate furniture of England and France would not be in keeping with life in America, and so either imported the simpler kinds, or demanded that the home cabinet-maker choose good models for his work. This partly explains why we have so much really good Colonial furniture, and not so much of the elaborately carved and gilded variety. [Illustration: A valuable collection of an Adam mirror, a block-front, knee-hole chest of drawers, and a Hepplewhite chair.] _Robert Adam_ Robert Adam was the second of the four sons of William Adam, and was born in 1728. The Adam family was Scotch of good social position. Robert early showed a talent for drawing. He was ambitious, and, as old Roman architecture interested him above all other subjects, he decided that he could attain his ideals only by study and travel in Italy. He returned to England in 1758 after four years of hard work with the results of his labors, the chief treasure being his careful drawings of Diocletian's villa. His classical taste was firmly established, and was to be one of the important influences of the eighteenth century. Robert and James Adam went into partnership and became the most noted architects of their day in England. The list of their buildings is long and interesting, and much of their architectural and decorative work is still in existence. To many people it will seem like putting the cart before the horse to say that Robert Adam had in any way influenced the style we call Louis XVI, but it is a plausible theory and certainly an interesting one. Mr. G. Owen Wheeler in his interesting book on "Old English Furniture" makes a strong case in favor of the Adam Brothers. Classical taste was well established in England by 1765, before the transition from Louis XV to Louis XVI began, and Robert Adam published his book in parallel columns of French and English, which shows it must have been in some demand in France. The great influence of the excavations at Pompeii must naturally not be underestimated, as it was far reaching, but with the beautiful Adam style well developed, just across the Channel, it seems probable that it may have had its share in forming French taste. The foundation being there, the French put their characteristic touch to it and developed a much richer style than that of the Adam Brothers, but the two have so much in common that Louis XVI furniture may be put into an Adam room with perfect fitness, and vice versa. As the Adams cared only to design furniture some one else had to carry out the designs, and Chippendale was master carver and cabinet-maker under them at Harewood House, Yorkshire, and probably was also in many other instances. [Illustration: A mantel of marble and steel in the drawing-room, Rushton Hall, Northamptonshire--the work of the brothers Adam.] [Illustration: Another Adam mantel. It is interesting to note how clearly these mantels are the inspiration of our own Colonial work.] The early furniture of Adam was plain, and the walls were treated with much decoration that was classic in feeling. He possessed the secret of a composition of which his exquisite decorations on walls and ceilings were made. After 1770 he simplified his walls and elaborated his furniture designs until they met in a beautiful and graceful harmony. He designed furniture to suit the room it was in, and with the dainty and charming coloring, the beauty of proportion and the charm of the wall decoration, the scheme had great beauty. [Illustration: This group of old mirrors indicates the extent to which refinement of design was carried during the Georgian period in England--the time of the great cabinet-makers.] He used the ram's head, wreaths, honeysuckle, mythological subjects, lozenge-shaped, oval and octagonal panels, and many other designs. He was one of the first to use the French idea of decorating furniture with painting and porcelain plaques, and the furniture itself was simple and beautiful in line. The stucco ceilings designed by the brothers were picked out with delicate colors and have much beauty of line. A great deal of the most beautiful Adam decoration was the painting on walls and ceilings and furniture by Angelica Kaufmann, Zucchi, Pergolesi, Cipriani, and Columbani. The standard of work was so high that only the best was satisfactory. Adam usually designed his furniture for the room in which it was to stand, and he often planned the house and all its contents, even to the table silver, to say nothing of the door-locks. The chairs were of mahogany, or painted, or gilded, wood. Some had oval upholstered backs, with the covering specially designed for the room, and some had lyre backs, later used so much by Sheraton, and others had small painted panels placed in the top rail, with beautiful carving. Mirrors were among the most charming articles designed by Adam, and had composition wreaths and cupids and medallions for ornament. They were usually made in pairs in both large and small sizes. A pair of antique mirrors should be kept together, as they are very much more valuable than when separated. Adam was one of the first to assemble the pieces that later grew into the sideboard--a table, two pedestals, and a cellaret. There is a sideboard designed by him for Gillows, in which the parts are connected, and it is at least one of the ancestors of the beautiful Shearer and Hepplewhite ones and our modern useful, though not always beautiful, article. When, late in his career, Adam attempted to copy the French, he was not so successful, as he did not have their flexibility of temperament, and was unable to give the warmer touch to the classic, which they did so well. His paneled walls, however, have great dignity and purity of line and feeling, and the applied ornament was really an ornament, and not a disfigurement as too often happens in our day. With Adam one feels the surety of knowledge and the refinement of good taste led by a high ideal. [Illustration: There are many details worthy of notice in this room, the mahogany doors, the paneled walls with the old picture paper, the over-mantel, the knife boxes on the sideboard, the Hepplewhite furniture, and the side-lights. The chandelier is badly chosen.] [Illustration: A fine old Hepplewhite sideboard, with old glass and silver, but the modern wallpaper is not in harmony.] [Illustration: A modern Hepplewhite settee, showing the draped scarf carving he used so much.] _Hepplewhite_ The work of Hepplewhite and his school lasted from about 1760 to 1795; the last nine years of the time the business was carried on by his widow, Alice, under the name of A. Hepplewhite & Co. For five years after that some work was done after his manner, but it was distinctly inferior. In the early seventies Hepplewhite's work was so well known and so much admired that its influence was shown in the work of his contemporaries. There was a great difference between his style and that of Chippendale, his being much lighter in construction and effect, besides the many differences of design. Hepplewhite was strongly influenced by the French style of Louis XVI, and also the pure taste of Robert Adam at its height. Hepplewhite, however, like all the great cabinet-makers, both French and English, was a great genius himself and stamped the impress of his own personality upon his work. Many people date Hepplewhite's fame from the time of the publication of his book, "The Cabinet Maker and Upholsterer's Guide," in 1788, not realizing that he had been dead for two years when it appeared. Its publication was justified by the well established popularity of his furniture and the success with which his designs were carried out by A. Hepplewhite & Co. It is interesting to notice the difference in the size of chairs which became apparent during Hepplewhite's time. Hoop-skirts and stiffened coats went out of fashion, and with them went the need of large chair seats. The transition chairs made by Hepplewhite were not very attractive in proportion, as the backs were too low for the width. The transition from Chippendale to Hepplewhite was not sudden, as the last style of Chippendale was simpler and had more of the classic feeling in it. Hepplewhite says, in the preface to his book: "To unite elegance and utility, and blend the useful with the agreeable, has ever been considered a difficult, but an honorable task." He sometimes failed and sometimes succeeded. His knowledge of construction enabled him to make his chairs with shield, oval, and heart-shaped backs. The tops were slightly curved, also the tops of the splats, and at the lower edge where the back and the splat join, a half rosette was carved. He often used the three feathers of the Prince of Wales, sheaves of wheat, anthemion, urns, and festoons of drapery, all beautifully carved, and forming the splat. The backs of his chairs were supported at the sides by uprights running into the shield-shaped back and did not touch the seat frame in any other way. With this apparent weakness of construction it is wonderful how many of his chairs have come down to us in perfect condition, but it was his knowledge of combining lightness with strength which made it possible. Hepplewhite used straight or tapering legs with spade feet for his furniture, often inlaid with bellflowers in satinwood. The legs were sometimes carved with a double ogee curve and bead molding. He did not use carving in the lavish manner of Chippendale, but it was always beautifully done, and he used a great deal of inlay of satinwood, etc., oval panels, lines, urns, and many other motives common to the other cabinet-makers of the day, and also painted some of his furniture. His Japan work was inferior in every way to that of the early part of the eighteenth century. The upholstery was fastened to the chairs with brass-headed tacks, often in a festoon pattern. Oval-shaped brass handles were used on his bureaus, desks, and other furniture. He made many sideboards, some, in fact, going back to the side table and pedestal idea, and bottle-cases and knife-boxes were put on the ends of the sideboards. His regular sideboards were founded on Shearer's design. Shearer's furniture was simple and dainty in design, and he has the honor of making the first real serpentine sideboard, about 1780, which was not a more or less disconnected collection of tables and pedestals. It was the forerunner of the Hepplewhite and Sheraton sideboards that we know so well. Shearer is now hardly known even by name to the general world, but without doubt his ideal of lightness and strength in construction had a good deal of influence on his contemporaries and followers. Hepplewhite was very fond of oval and semi-circular shapes, and many of his tables are made in either one way or the other. His sideboards, founded on Shearer's designs, are very elegant, as he liked to say, in their simplicity of line, their inlay, and their general beauty of wood. He was most successful in his chairs, sideboards, tables, and small household articles, for his larger pieces of furniture were often too heavy. Some of the worst, however, were made by other cabinet-makers after his designs, and not by Hepplewhite himself. _Sheraton_ Thomas Sheraton was born in 1750, and was a journeyman cabinet-maker when he went to London. His great genius for furniture design was combined with a love of writing tracts and sermons. Unfortunately for his success in life, he had a most disagreeable personality, being conceited, jealous, and perfectly willing to pour scorn on his brother cabinet-makers. This impression he quite frankly gives about himself in his books. The name of Robert Adam is not mentioned, and this seems particularly unpleasant when one thinks of the latter's undoubted influence on Sheraton's work. Sheraton's unfortunate disposition probably helped to make his life a failure. It is very sad to see such possibilities as his not reaping their true reward, for poverty dogged his steps all through life, and he was always struggling for a bare livelihood. His books were not financially successful, and at last he gave up his workshop and ceased to make the furniture he designed. He was an expert draughtsman and his designs were carried out by the skillful cabinet-makers of the day. Adam Black gives a very pitiful account of the poverty in which Sheraton lived, and says: "That by attempting to do everything he does nothing." His "nothing," however, has proved a very big something in the years which have followed, for Sheraton is responsible for one of the most beautiful types of furniture the world has known, and although his life was hard and bitter, his fame is great. Sheraton took the style of Louis XVI as his standard, and some of his best work is quite equal to that of the French workmen. He felt the lack of the exquisite brass and ormolu work done in France, and said if it were only possible to get as fine in England, the superior cabinet-making of the English would put them far ahead in the ranks. To many of us this loss is not so great, for the beauty of the wood counts for more, and is not detracted from by an oversupply of metal ornament, as sometimes happened in France. "Enough is as good as a feast." Sheraton, at his best, had beauty, grace, and refinement of line without weakness, lightness and yet perfect construction, combined with balance, and the ornament just sufficient to enhance the beauty of the article without overpowering it. It is this fine work which the world remembers and which gave him his fame, and so it is far better to forget his later period when nearly all trace of his former greatness was lost. [Illustration: A Sheraton bureau with a delightful little dressing-glass.] Sheraton profited by the work of Chippendale, Adam, and Hepplewhite, for these great men blazed the trail for him, so to speak, in raising the art of cabinet-making to so high a plane that England was full of skilled workmen. The influence of Adam, Shearer, and Hepplewhite, was very great on his work, and it is often difficult to tell whether he or Hepplewhite or Shearer made some pieces. He evidently did not have business ability and his bitter nature hampered him at every turn. The Sheraton school lasted from about 1790 to 1806. He died in 1806, fairly worn out with his struggle for existence. Poor Sheraton, it certainly is a pitiful story. [Illustration: One of Sheraton's charming desks, with sliding doors made of thin strips of wood glued on cloth.] [Illustration: A sewing-table having the spirit of both Hepplewhite and Sheraton.] Sheraton's chair backs are rectangular in type, with urn splats, and splats divided into seven radiates, and also many other designs. The chairs were made of mahogany and satinwood, some carved, some inlaid, and some painted. The splat never ran into the seat, but was supported on a cross rail running from side to side a few inches above the seat. The material used for upholstery was nailed over the frame with brass-headed tacks. Bookcases were of mahogany and satinwood veneer, and the large ones were often in three sections, the center section standing farther out than the two sides. The glass was covered with a graceful design in moldings, and the pediments were of various shapes, the swan-neck being a favorite. Sideboards were built on very much the lines of those made by Shearer and Hepplewhite. There were drawers and cupboards for various uses. The knife-boxes to put on the top came in sets of two, and sometimes there was a third box. The legs were light and tapering with inlay of satinwood, and sometimes they were reeded. There was inlay also on the doors and drawers. There were also sideboards without inlay. The legs for his furniture were at first plain, and then tapering and reeded. He used some carving, and a great deal of satinwood and tulip-wood were inlaid in the mahogany; he also used rosewood. The bellflower, urn, festoons, and acanthus were all favorites of his for decoration. He made some elaborate and startling designs for beds, but the best known ones are charming with slender turned posts or reeded posts, and often the plain ones were made of painted satinwood. The satinwood from the East Indies was fine and of a beautiful yellow color, while that from the West Indies was coarser in grain and darker in color. It is a slow growing tree, and that used nowadays cannot compare with the old, in spite of the gallant efforts of the hard working fakirs to copy its beautiful golden tone. All the cabinet-makers of the eighteenth century made ingenious contrivances in the way of furniture, washstands concealed in what appear to be corner cupboards, a table that looks as simple as a table possibly can, but has a small step-ladder and book rest hidden away in its useful inside, and many others. Sheraton was especially clever in making these conveniences, as these two examples show, and his books have many others pictured in them. Sheraton's list of articles of furniture is long, for he made almost everything from knife-boxes to "chamber-horses," which were contrivances of a saddle and springs for people to take exercise upon at home. Sheraton's "Drawing Book" was the best of those he published. It was sold chiefly to other cabinet-makers and did not bring in many orders, as Chippendale's and Hepplewhite's did. His other books showed his decline, and his "Encyclopedia," on which he was working at the time of his death, had many subjects in it beside furniture and cabinet-making. His sideboards, card-tables, sewing-tables, tables of every kind, chairs--in fact, everything he made during his best period--have a sureness and beauty of line that makes it doubly sad that through the stress of circumstances he should have deserted it for the style of the Empire that was then the fashion in France. One or two of his Empire designs have beauty, but most of them are too dreadful, but it was the beginning of the end, and the eighteenth century saw the beautiful principles of the eighteenth century lost in a bog of ugliness. There were many other cabinet-makers of merit that space does not allow me to mention, but the great four who stood head and shoulders above them all were Chippendale, Adam, Hepplewhite and Sheraton. They, being human, did much work that is best forgotten, but the heights to which they all rose have set a standard for English furniture in beauty and construction that it would be well to keep in mind. The nineteenth century passed away without any especial genius, and in fact, with a very black mark against its name in the hideous early Victorian era. The twentieth century is moving along without anything we can really call a beautiful and worthy style being born. There are many working their way towards it, but there is apt to be too much of the bizarre in the attempts to make them satisfactory, and so we turn to the past for our models and are thankful for the legacy of beauty it has left to the world. _A General Talk_ When one faces the momentous question of furnishing a house, there are numerous things which must be looked into and thoroughly understood if success is to be assured. If one is building in the country the first question is the placing of the house in regard to the view, but in town there is not much choice. The architect being chosen with due regard to the style of house one wishes, the planning can go merrily on. The architect should be told if there are any especially large and beautiful pieces of furniture or tapestry to be planned for, so they shall receive their rightful setting. After all, architects are but human, and cannot tell by intuition what furniture is in storage. It is sad to see how often architecture and decoration are looked upon as two entirely disconnected subjects, instead of being closely allied, playing into each other's hands, as it were, to make a perfect whole. To many people, a room is simply a room to be treated as they wish; whereas many rooms are absolute laws unto themselves, and demand a certain kind of treatment, or disaster follows. In America this kind of house is not found so often as in Europe, but the number is growing rapidly as architects and their clients realize more and more the beauties and possibilities of the great periods as applied to the modern house. It is only to the well-trained architect and decorator with correct taste that one may safely turn, for the ill-trained and commonplace still continue to make their astounding errors, and so to have the decoration of a room truly successful one must begin with the architect, for he knows the correct proportions of the different styles and appreciates their importance. He will plan the rooms so that they, when decorated, may complete his work and form a beautiful and convincing whole. This will give the restfulness and beauty that absolute appropriateness always lends. [Illustration: This room shows how fresh and charming white paint and simplicity can be.] This matter of appropriateness must not be overlooked, and the whole house should express the spirit of the owner; it should be in absolute keeping with his circumstances. There are few houses which naturally demand the treatment of palaces, but there are many which correspond with the smaller chateaux of France and the manor-houses of England. It is to these we must turn for our inspiration, for they have the beauty of good taste and high standards without the lavishness of royalty; but even royalty did not always live in rooms of state, for at Versailles, and Petit Trianon, there is much simple exquisite furniture. The wonderful and elaborate furniture of the past must be studied of course, but to the majority of people, then as now, the simpler expression of its fundamental lines of beauty are more satisfactory. The trouble with many houses is that their furnishings are copied from too grand models, and the effect in an average modern house is unsuitable in every way. They cannot give the large vistas and appropriate background in color and proportion which are necessary. Beauty does not depend upon magnificence. [Illustration: The warm tones of a brown Chinese wallpaper are attractive with the mahogany furniture, and the pattern is prevented from becoming monotonous by the strong rectangular lines of the ivory woodwork which frames it. The corner cupboard and the exceptionally fine dining-table and the variety of chairs are interesting.] If one has to live in a house planned and built by others one often has to give up some long cherished scheme and adopt something else more suited to the surroundings. For instance, the rooms of the great French periods were high, and often the modern house has very low ceilings, that would not allow space for the cornice, over-doors and correctly proportioned paneling, that are marked features of those times. Mrs. Wharton has aptly said: "Proportion is the good breeding of architecture," and one might add that proportion is good breeding itself. One little slip from the narrow path into false proportion in line or color or mass and the perfection of effect is gone. Proportion is another word for the fitness of things, and that little phrase, "the fitness of things," is what Alice in Wonderland calls a "portmanteau" phrase, for it holds so much, and one must feel it strongly to escape the pitfalls of period furnishing. Most amazing things are done with perfect complacency, but although the French and English kings who gave their names to the various periods were far from models of virtue, they certainly deserved no such cruel punishment as to have some of the modern rooms, such as we have all seen, called after them. The best decorators refuse to mix styles in one room and they thus save people from many mistakes, but a decorator without a thorough understanding of the subject, often leads one to disaster. A case in point is an apartment where a small Louis XV room opens on a narrow hall of nondescript modern style, with a wide archway opening into a Mission dining-room. As one sits in the midst of pink brocade and gilding and looks across to the dining-room, fitted out in all the heavy paraphernalia of Mission furniture, one's head fairly reels. No contrast could be more marked or more unsuitable, and yet this is by no means an uncommon case. If one intends to adopt a style in decorating one's house, there should be a uniformity of treatment in all connecting rooms, and there must be harmony in the furniture and architecture and ornament, as well as harmony in the color scheme. The foundation must be right before the decoration is added. The proportion of doors and windows, for instance, is very important, with the decorated over-door reaching to the ceiling. The over-doors and mantels were architectural features of the rooms, and it was not until wallpapers came into common use, in the early part of the nineteenth century, that these decorative features slowly died out. The mantel and fireplace should be a center of interest and should be balanced with something of importance on the other side of the room, either architectural or decorative. It was this regard for symmetry, balance, proportion, and harmony, which made the old rooms so satisfying; there was no magic about it, it was artistic common sense. The use for which a room is intended must be kept in view and carried out with real understanding of its needs. The individuality of the owner is of course a factor. Unfortunately the word individuality is often confounded with eccentricity and to many people it means putting perfectly worthy and unassuming articles to startling uses. By individuality one should really mean the best expression of one's sense of beauty and the fitness of things, and when it is guided by the laws of harmony and proportion the result is usually one of great charm, convenience, and comfort. These qualities must be in every successful house. In furnishing any house, whether in some special period or not, there are certain things which must be taken into account. One of these is the general color scheme. Arranging a color scheme for a house is not such a difficult matter as many people suppose, nor is it the simple thing that many others seem to think. There is a happy land between the two extremes, and the guide posts pointing to it are a good color sense, a true feeling for the proportion and harmony of color, and an understanding of the laws of light. The trouble is that people often do not use their eyes; red is red to them, blue is blue, and green is green. They have never appeared to notice that there are dozens of tones in these colors. Nature is one of the greatest teachers of color harmony if we would but learn from her. Look at a salt marsh on an autumn day and notice the wonderful browns and yellows and golds in it, the reds and russets and touches of green in the woods on its edge, and the clear blue sky over all with the reflections in the little pools. It is a picture of such splendor of color that one fairly gasps. Then look at the same marsh under gray skies and see the change; there is just as much beauty as before, the same russets and golds and reds, but exquisitely softened. One is sparkling, gay, a harmony of brilliancy; the other is more gentle, sweet and appealing, a harmony of softened glory. Again, Nature makes a thousand and one shades of green leaves to harmonize with her flowers; the yellow green of the golden rod, the silver green of the milkweed, the bright green of the nasturtium. Notice the woods in wintertime with the wonderful purple browns and grays of the tree trunks and branches, the bronze and russet of the dead leaves, and the deep shadows in the snow. Everywhere one turns there are lessons to learn if one will only use seeing eyes and a thinking mind. A house should be looked at as a whole, not as so many units to be treated in a care-free manner. A room is affected by all the rooms opening from it, as they, in turn, are affected by it. There can be variety of color with harmony of contrast, or there can be the same color used throughout, with the variety gained by the use of its different tones. The plan of each floor should be carefully studied to get the vistas in all directions so that harmony may reign and there will be no danger of a clashing color discord when a door is opened. The connecting rooms need not be all in one color, of course, but they should form a perfect color harmony one with another, with deft touches of contrast to accent and bring out the beauty of the whole scheme: This matter of harmony in contrast is an important one. The idea of using a predominant color is a restful one, and adds dignity and apparent size to a house. The walls, for instance, could be paneled in white enameled wood, or plaster, and the necessary color and variety could be supplied by the rugs, hangings, furniture, and pictures. Another charming plan is to have different tones of one color used--a scheme running from cream or old ivory through soft yellow and tan to a russet brown would be lovely, especially if the house did not have an over supply of light. Greens may be used with discretion, and a cool and attractive scheme is from white to soft blue through gray. If different colors are to be used in the different rooms the number of combinations is almost unlimited, but there must always be the restraining influence of a good color sense in forming the scheme or the result will be disappointing, to say the least. A very important matter in the use of color is in its relation to the amount and quality of the light. Dreary rooms can be made cheerful, and too bright and dazzling rooms can be softened in effect, by the skillful use of color. The warm colors,--cream white, yellows--but not lemon yellow--orange, warm tans, russet, pinks, yellow greens, yellowish reds are to be used on the north or shady side of the house. The cool colors,--white, cream white, blues, grays, greens, and violet, are for the sunny side. Endless combinations may be made of these colors, and if a gray room, for example, is wished on the north side of the house, it can be used by first choosing a warm tone of gray and combining with it one of the warm colors, such as certain shades of soft pink or yellow. We can stand more brilliancy of color out-of-doors than we can in the house, where it is shut in with us. It is too exciting and we become restless and nervous. No matter on what scale a house is furnished one of its aims should be to be restful. There is one great mistake which many people make of thinking of red as a cheerful color, and one which is good to use in a dark room. The average red used in large quantities absorbs the light in a most disheartening manner, making a room seem smaller than it really is; it makes ugly gloomy shadows in the corners, for at night it seems to turn to a dingy black, and increases the electric light bill. Red is also a severe strain on the eyes, and many a red living-room is the cause of seemingly unaccountable headaches. I do not mean to say that red should never be used, for it is often a very necessary color, but it must be used with the greatest discretion, and one must remember that a little of it goes a long way. A room, for instance, paneled with oak, with an oriental rug with soft red in it, red hangings, and a touch of red in an old stained glass panel in the window, and red velvet cushions on the window seat, would have much more warmth and charm than if the walls were covered entirely with red. One red cushion is often enough to give the required note. The effect of color is very strong upon people, although a great many do not realize it, but nearly everyone will remember a sudden and apparently unexplained change of mood in going into some room. One can learn a deal by analyzing one's own sensations. Figured wall-papers should also be chosen with the greatest care for this same reason. Papers which have perpetual motion in their design, or eyes which seem to peer, or an unstable pattern of gold running over it, must all be ignored. People who choose this kind of paper are blest, or cursed, whichever way one looks at it, by an utter lack of imagination. A room is divided into three parts, the floor, the walls, and the ceiling, and the color of the room naturally follows the law of nature; the heaviest or darkest at the bottom, or floor; the medium tone in the center, or walls; and the lightest at the top, or ceiling. It is only when one has to artificially correct the architectural proportions of a room that the ceiling should be as dark, or darker, than the walls. A ceiling can also be seemingly lowered by bringing the ceiling color down on the side walls. A low room should never have a dark ceiling, as it makes the room seem lower. Walls should be treated as a background or as a decoration in themselves. In the latter case any pictures should be set in specially arranged panels and should be pictures of importance, or fresco painting. The walls of the great periods were of this decorative order. They were treated architecturally and the feeling of absolute support which they gave was most satisfactory. The pilasters ran from base or dado to the cornice and the over-doors made the doors a dignified part of the scheme, rather than mere useful holes in the wall as they too often are nowadays. Paneling is one of the most beautiful methods of wall decoration. There are many styles of paneling, stone, marble, stucco, plaster, and wood, and each period has its own distinctive way of using them, and should be the correct type for the style chosen. The paneling of a Tudor room is quite different from a Louis XVI room. In the course of a long period like that of Louis XV the paneling slowly changed its character and the rococo style was followed by the more dignified one that later became the style of Louis XVI. Tapestry and paintings of importance should have panels especially planned for them. If one does not wish to have the paneling cover the entire wall, a wainscot or dado with the wall above it covered with tapestry, silk, painting, or paper, will make a beautiful and appropriate room for many of the different styles of furniture. A wainscot should not be too high; about thirty-six inches is a good height, but should form a background for the chairs, sofas, and tables, placed around the room. A wainscot six or more feet high is not as architecturally correct as a lower one, because a wall is, in a way, like an order in its divisions, and if the base, or wainscot, is too high it does not allow the wall, which corresponds to the column, to have its fair proportion. This feeling is very strong in many apartment houses where small rooms are overburdened by this kind of wainscot, and to make matters worse, the top is used as a plate-rail. A high wainscot should be used only in a large room, and if there are pilasters arranged to connect it with the cornice, and the wall covering is put on in panel effect between, the result is much better than if the wall were left plain, as it seems to give more of a _raison d'être_. Tapestry is another of the beautiful and important wall coverings, and the happy possessor of Flemish or Gobelin, or Beauvais, tapestries, is indeed to be envied. A rare old tapestry should be paneled or hung so it will serve as a background. Used as portières, tapestry does not show the full beauty of its wonderful time-worn colors and its fascination of texture. It is not everyone, however, who is able to own these almost priceless treasures of the past, and so modern machinery has been called to the aid of those who wish to cover their walls and furniture with tapestry. Many of these modern manufactures are really beautiful, thick in texture, soft in color, and often have the little imperfections and unevennesses of hand weaving reproduced, so that we feel the charm of the old in the new. Many do not realize that in New York there are looms making wonderful hand-woven tapestries with the true decorative feeling of the best days of the past. On the top floor of a large modern building stand the looms of various sizes, the dyeing tubs, the dripping skeins of wool and silk, the spindles and bobbins, and the weavers hard at work carrying out the beautiful designs of the artist owner. There are few colors used, as in mediæval days, but wonderful effects are produced by a method of winding the threads together which gives a vibrating quality to the color. When the warp in some of the coarser fabrics is not entirely covered it is sometimes dyed, which gives an indescribable charm. Tapestries of all sizes have been made on these looms, from the important decoration of a great hall, to sofa and chair coverings. Special rugs are also made. It is a pleasure to think that an art which many considered dead is being practiced with the highest artistic aim and knowledge and skill in the midst of our modern rush. This hand-woven tapestry is made to fit special spaces and rooms, and there is nothing more beautiful and suitable for rooms of importance to be found in all the long list of possibilities. The effect of modern tapestry, like the old, is enhanced if the walls are planned to receive it, for it was never intended to be used as wall-paper. It is sometimes used as a free hanging frieze, so to speak, and sometimes a great piece of it is hung flat against the wall, but as a general thing to panel it is the better way. Another beautiful wall covering is leather. It should be used much more than it is, and is especially well adapted for halls, libraries, dining-rooms, smoking-and billiard-rooms, and dens. Its wonderful possibilities for rooms which are to be furnished in a dignified and beautiful manner are unsurpassed. It may be used in connection with paneling or cover the wall above a wainscot. Fresco painting is another of the noble army of wall treatments which lends itself beautifully to all kinds and styles of rooms. Amidst all the grandeur of tapestry and painting one must not lose sight of the simpler methods, for they are not to be distained. Wall-papers are growing more and more beautiful in color, design, and texture, and one can find among them papers suited to all needs. Fabrics of all kinds have become possibilities since their dust-collecting capacity is now no longer a source of terror, as vacuum cleaners are one of the commonplaces of existence. Painting or tinting the walls, when done correctly, is very satisfactory in many rooms. There is no doubt that in many houses are wonderful collections of furniture, tapestries and treasures of many kinds, that are placed without regard to the absolute harmony of period, although the general feeling of French or Italian or English is kept. They are usually great houses where the sense of space keeps one from feeling discrepancies that would be too marked in a smaller one, and the interest and beauty of the rare originals against the old tapestries have an atmosphere all their own that no modern reproduction can have. There are few of us, however, who can live in this semi-museum kind of house, and so one would better stick to the highway of good usage, or there is danger of making the house look like an antique shop. [Illustration: Dorothy Quincy's bedroom contains a fine old mahogany field bed, which is appropriately covered with the flowered chintz popular at the end of the Eighteenth Century. The chairs are fitting for all bedrooms decorated in Colonial style. Notice the woodwork in the room and hall.] To carry out a style perfectly, all the small details should be attended to--the door-locks, the framework of the doors and windows, the carving. All these must be taken into account if one wishes success. It is better not to attempt a style throughout if it is to be a makeshift affair and show the effects of inadequate knowledge. The elaborate side of any style carried out to the last detail is really only possible and also only appropriate for those who have houses to correspond, but one can choose the simpler side and have beautiful and charming rooms that are perfectly suited to the average home. For instance, if one does not wish elaborate gilded Louis XVI furniture, upholstered in brocade, one can choose beautiful cane furniture of the time and have it either in the natural French walnut or enameled a soft gray or white to match the woodwork, with cushion of cretonne or silk in an appropriate design. Period furnishing does not necessarily mean a greater outlay than the nondescript and miscellaneous method so often seen. [Illustration: A very solid but not especially pleasing desk that was used by Washington while he was President. The railing is interesting. The idea was used by Chippendale in his gallery tables.] [Illustration: The tambour work doors in the upper part of this Sheraton secretary roll back; also notice the handles and inlay and tapering legs.] Whatever the plan for furnishing a house may be, the balance of decoration must be kept; the same general feeling throughout all connecting parts. If a drawing-room is too fine for the hall through which one has to pass to reach it, the balance is upset. If too simple chairs are used in a grand dining-room the balance is upset, the fitness of things is not observed. When the happy medium is struck throughout the house one feels the delightful well-bred charm which a regard for the unities always gives. It is not only in the quality of the decorations that this feeling of balance must be kept, but in the style also. If one chooses a period style for the drawing-room it is better to keep to it through the house, using it in its different expressions according to the needs of the different rooms. If one style throughout should seem a bit monotonous at least one nationality should be kept, such as French, or English. If several styles of French furniture are used do not have them in the same room; for instance, Louis XV and Empire have absolutely nothing in common, but very late Louis XVI and early Empire have to a certain extent. It does not give the average person a severe shock to walk from a Louis XVI hall into a Louis XV drawing-room, but the two mixed in one room do not give a pleasing effect. The oak furniture of Jacobean days does not harmonize with the delicate mahogany furniture of the eighteenth century in England. The delicate beauty of Adam furniture would be lost in the greatness of a Renaissance salon. A lady whose dining-room was furnished in Sheraton furniture one day saw two elaborate rococo Louis XV console tables which she instantly bought to add to it. The shopman luckily had more sense of the fitness of things than a mere desire to sell his wares, and was so appalled when he saw the room that he absolutely refused to have them placed in it. She saw the point, and learned a valuable lesson. One could go on indefinitely, giving examples to warn people against startling and inappropriate mixtures which put the whole scheme out of key. I am taking it for granted that reproductions are to be chosen, as originals are not only very rare, but also almost prohibitive in price. Good reproductions are carefully made and finished to harmonize with the color scheme. The styles most used at present are, Louis XIV, XV, XVI, Jacobean, William and Mary, and Georgian. Gothic, Italian and French Renaissance, Louis XIII, and Tudor styles are not so commonly used. We naturally associate dignity and grandeur with the Renaissance, and it is rather difficult to make it seem appropriate for the average American house, so it is usually used only for important houses and buildings. Some of the Tudor manor houses can be copied with delightful effect. The styles of Henri II and Louis XIII can both be used in libraries and dining-rooms with most effective and dignified results. The best period of the style of Louis XV is very beautiful and is delightfully suited to ball-rooms, small reception-rooms, boudoirs, and some bedrooms. In regard to these last, one must use discretion, for one would not expect one's aged grandmother to take real comfort in one. Nor does this style appeal to one for use in a library, as its gayety and curves would not harmonize with the necessarily straight lines of the bookcases and rows of books. Any one of the other styles may be chosen for a library. The English developed the dining-room in our modern sense of the word, while the French used small ante-chambers, or rooms that were used for other purposes between meals, and I suppose this is partly the reason we so often turn to an English ideal for one. There are many beautiful dining-rooms done in the styles of Louis XV and XVI, but they seem more like gala rooms and are usually distinctly formal in treatment. Georgian furniture, or as we so often say, Colonial, is especially well suited to our American life, as one can have a very simple room, or one carried out in the most delightful detail. In either case the true feeling must be kept and no startling anachronisms should be allowed; radiators, for instance, should be hidden in window-seats. This same style may be used for any room in the house, and there are beautiful reproductions of Chippendale, Adam, Hepplewhite, and Sheraton furniture that are appropriate for any need. In choosing new "old" furniture, do not buy any that has a bright and hideous finish. The great cabinet-makers and their followers used wax, or oil, and rubbed, rubbed, rubbed. This dull finish is imitated, but not equaled, by all good furniture makers, and the bright finish simply proclaims the cheap department store. In parts of the country Georgian furniture has been used and served as a standard from the first, and it is a happy thing for the beauty of our homes that once more it has come into its own. It is the high grade of reproduction which has made it possible. The mahogany used by Chippendale, and in fact by all the eighteenth century cabinet-makers, was much more beautiful than is possible to get to-day, for the logs were old and well seasoned wood, allowed to dry by the true process of time, which leaves a wonderful depth of color quite impossible to find in young kiln-dried wood. The best furniture makers nowadays, those who have a high standard and pride in their work, have by careful and artistic staining and beautiful finish, achieved very fine results, but the factory article with its dreadful "mahogany" stain, its coarse carving, and its brilliant finish, shows a sad difference in ideal. The best reproductions are well worth buying, and, as they are made with regard to the laws of construction, they stand a very good chance of becoming valued heirlooms. There are certain characteristics of all the eighteenth century cabinet-makers, both English and French, which are picked out and overdone by ill-informed manufacturers. The rococo of Chippendale is coarsened, his Chinese style loses its fine, if eccentric, distinction, and the inlay of Hepplewhite and Sheraton is another example of spoiling a beautiful thing. Thickening a line here and there, or curving a curve a bit more or less, or enlarging the amount of inlay, achieves a vulgarity of appearance quite different from the beautiful proportions of the originals, and it is this which one must guard against in buying reproductions. The lack of knowledge of correct proportion is not confined to the cheaper grades, where necessary simplicity is often a protection, but is apt to be found in all. The best makers, as I have said, take a pride in their work and one can rely on them for fine workmanship and being true to the spirit of the originals. There is one matter of great importance to be kept in mind and practiced with the sternest self-control, and that is, to eliminate, eliminate, eliminate. Walk into the center of a room and look about with seeing, but impersonal eyes, and you will be astonished to find how many things there are which are unnecessary, in fact, how much the room would be improved without them. In every house the useless things which go under the generic name of "trash" accumulate with alarming swiftness, and one must be up with the lark to keep ahead of the supply. If something is ugly and spoils a room, and there is no hope of bringing it into harmony, discard it; turn your eyes aside if you must while the deed is being done, but screw your courage to the sticking point, and do it. She is, indeed, a lucky woman who can start from the beginning or has only beautiful heritages from the past, for the majority of people have some distressingly strong pieces of ugly furniture which, for one reason or another, must be kept. One sensible woman furnished a room with all her pieces of this kind, called it the Chamber of Horrors, and used it only under great stress and strain, which was much better than letting her house be spoiled. A home should not be a museum, where one grows exhausted going from one room to another looking at wonderful things. Rather should it have as many beautiful things in it as can be done full justice to, where the feeling of simplicity and restfulness and charm adds to their beauty, and the whole is convincingly right. The fussy house is, luckily, a thing of the past, or fast getting to be so, but we should all help the good cause of true simplicity. It does not debar one from the most beautiful things in the world, but adds dignity and worth to them. It does not make rooms stiff and solemn, but makes it possible to have the true gayety and joy of life expressed in the best periods. _Georgian Furniture_ A delightful renaissance of the Georgian period in house decoration is being felt more and more, and every day we see new evidence that people are turning with thanksgiving to the light and graceful designs of the eighteenth century English cabinet-makers. There is a charm and distinction about their work which appeals very strongly to us, and its beauty and simplicity of line makes delightful schemes possible. The Georgian period seems especially fitted for use in our homes, for it was the inspiration of our Colonial houses and furniture, which we adapted and made our own in many ways. The best examples of Colonial architecture are found in the thirteen original states. In many of these houses we find an almost perfect sense of proportion, of harmony and balance, of dignity, and a spaciousness and sense of hospitality, which few of our modern houses achieve. The halls were broad and often went directly through the house, giving a glimpse of the garden beyond; the stairs with their carefully thought-out curve and sweep and well placed landings, gave at once an air of importance to the house, while the large rooms opening from the hall, with their white woodwork, their large fireplaces, and comfortable window-seats, confirmed the impression. It is to this ideal of simple and beautiful elegance that many people are turning. By simplicity I do not mean poverty of line and decoration, but the simplicity given by the fundamental lines being simple and beautiful with decoration which enhances their charms, but does not overload them. Even the most elaborate Adam room with its exquisite painted furniture, its beautifully designed mantel and ceiling and paneled walls, gave the feeling of delightful and beautiful simplicity. This same feeling is expressed in the furniture of Louis XVI, for no matter how elaborate it may be, it is fundamentally simple, but with a warmer touch than is found in the English furniture of the same time. The question of period furnishing has two sides, and by far the more delightful side is the one of having originals. There is a glamor about old furniture, a certain air of fragility, although in reality it is usually much stronger than most of our modern factory output, which adds to the charm. With furniture, as with people, breeding will out. When one has inherited the furniture, the charm is still greater, for it is pleasant to think of one's own ancestors as having used the chairs and tables, and danced the stately minuet, with soft candle-light falling from the candelabra, and the great logs burning on the old brass andirons. But if one cannot have one's own family traditions, the next best thing is to have furniture with some other family's traditions, and the third choice is to have the best modern reproductions, and build up one's own traditions oneself. The feeling which many people have that Georgian furniture was stiff and uncomfortable is not borne out by the facts. The sofas were large and roomy, the settees delightful, the arm-chairs and wing chairs regular havens of rest, and when one adds the comfort which modern upholstery gives, there is little left to desire. Even the regulation side-chair of the period, which some think was the only chair in very common use, is absolutely comfortable for its purpose. Lounging was much less in vogue then than nowadays and the old cabinet-makers realized that one must be comfortable when sitting up as well as when taking one's ease. One must not be deterred by this unfounded bugaboo of discomfort if one wishes a room or house done after the great period styles of the eighteenth century. With care and knowledge, the result is sure to be delightful and beautiful. This little book, as I have said before, is not intended to be a guide for collectors, for that is a very big subject in itself, but is meant to try to help a little about the modern side of the question. There are many grades of furniture made, and one should buy with circumspection, and the best grade which is possible for one to afford. The very best reproductions are made with as much care and knowledge and skill as the originals, and will last as long, and become treasured heirlooms like those handed down to us. They are works of art like their eighteenth century models. The wood is chosen with regard to its beauty of grain, and is treated and finished so the beauty and depth of color is brought out, and the surface is rubbed until there is a soft glow to it. If one could have the ages-old mahogany which Chippendale and his contemporaries used, there would be little to choose between the originals and our best reproductions, so far as soundness of construction and beauty of detail go. But the fact that they were the originals of a great style, that no one since then has been able to design any furniture of greater beauty than that of England and France in the eighteenth century, and that we are still copying it, gives an added charm to a rare old chair or sideboard or mirror. The modern workman in the best workshops is obliged to know the different styles so well that he cannot make mistakes, and if he ventures to take a little flight of fancy on his own account, it will be done with such correctness of feeling that one is glad he flew; but few attempt it. In the lower grade of reproductions one must have an eagle eye when buying. I saw a rather astounding looking Chippendale chair in a shop one day, with a touch of Gothic--a suspicion of his early Dutch manner--and, to give a final touch, tapering legs with carved bellflowers! "What authority have you for that chair?" I asked, for I really wanted to know what they would call the wonder. "That," the shopman answered, the pride of knowledge shining in his eyes, "is Chinese Chippendale." Another anachronism which has appeared lately, and sad to say in some of the shops that should know better, is painted Adam furniture with pictures on it of the famous actresses of the eighteenth century. The painting of Angelica Kauffman, Cipriani, Pergolesi and the others, was charming and delightful. Nymphs and cupids, flowers, wreaths, musical instruments, and poetical little scenes, but never the head of a living woman! The bad taste of it would have been as apparent to them as putting the picture of Miss Marlowe, or Lillian Russell on a chair back would be to us. The finish is another matter to bear in mind. There is a thick red stain, which for some mysterious reason is called mahogany, which is put on cheaper grades of furniture and finished with a high polish. Fortunately, it is chiefly used on furniture of vulgar design, but it sometimes creeps in on better models. Shun it whenever seen. The handles must be correct also, and a glance at the different illustrations will be of help in this matter. The pieces of furniture used throughout a house, no matter what the period may be, are more or less the same, so many chairs, tables, beds, mirrors, etc., and when one has decided what one's needs are, the matter of selection is much simplified. Of course one's needs are influenced by the size of the house, one's circumstances, and one's manner of life. To be successful, a house must be furnished in absolute harmony with the life within its walls. A small house does not need an elaborate drawing-room, which could only be had at the expense of family comfort; a simple drawing-room would be far better, really more of a living-room. In a large house one may have as many as one wishes. A house could be furnished throughout with Chippendale furniture and show no sign of monotony of treatment. The walls could be paneled in some rooms, wainscoted in others, and papered in others. This question of paper is one we have taken in our own hands nowadays, and although it was not used much before the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, there are so many lovely designs copied from old-time stuffs and landscape papers, which are in harmony with the furniture, that they are used with perfect propriety. One must be careful not to choose anything with a too modern air, and a plain wall is always safe. The average hall will probably need a pair of console tables and mirrors, some chairs, Oriental rugs, a tall clock if one wishes, and, if the hall is very large and calls for more furniture, there are many other interesting pieces to choose from. A hall should be treated with a certain amount of formality, and the greater the house, the greater the amount; but it also should have an air of hospitality, of impersonal welcome, which makes one wish to enter the rooms beyond where the real welcome waits. The window frames of Colonial and Georgian houses were often of such good design that no curtains were used, and the wooden inside shutters were shut at night. Nowadays the average house has what might be called utility woodwork at its windows and so we cover them with curtains. These curtains may be of linen, cretonne, damask, or brocade, according to the house, and may either fall straight at the side with a slight drapery or shaped or plain valance at the top, or be drawn back from the center. A carved cornice or the regular box frame may be used. The stairs were often of beautifully polished hardwood, and they were sometimes covered with rugs. Large Chinese porcelain jars on the console tables are suitable, and other beautiful ornaments. As the drawing-room usually opens from the hall, it is better to keep both rooms in the same general scale of furnishing. The average sized drawing-room will need sofas, a small settee, two or three tables, one of them a gallery table if desired, chairs of different shapes and size, mirrors, a cabinet if one has rare pieces of old porcelain, and candelabra. Oriental rugs, a fire screen, ornaments, and pictures, but these last should not be of the modern impressionistic school. The woodwork should be white, or light, and the furniture covered with damask, needlework, brocade or tapestry. The dining-room can be made most charming with corner cupboards and cabinet, a large mahogany table and side table and beautiful morocco covered chairs. Chippendale did not make sideboards in our sense of the word, but used large side tables. One of the modern designs which many like to use, for to them it seems a necessity, is a sideboard made in the style of Chippendale. The screen may be leather painted after "the Chinese taste," or it may be damask. The chairs may be covered with tapestry or damask if one does not care for morocco. Portraits are interesting in a dining-room, or old prints, or paintings, and if you can get the old dull gold carved frames, so much the better. They may also be set in panels. The bedrooms may have either four-post canopy beds or low-posts beds. Chippendale's canopy beds had usually a carved cornice with the curtains hung from the inside. The other furniture should consist of a dressing-table, a chest of drawers to correspond with a chiffonier, a highboy, a sewing table, a bedside table, a comfortable sofa, a fireside or wing chair and other chairs according to one's need. The walls may be covered with either an old-fashioned or plain paper,--or paneled, with hangings and chair coverings of chintz or cretonne. The bed hangings may be of cretonne also, for it makes a very charming room, but if one objects to colored bed hangings, white dimity, or muslin or linen may be used. It is the art of keeping the correct feeling which makes or mars a room of this kind, and no pieces of markedly modern and inharmonious furniture should be used. In furnishing a house in Georgian or Colonial manner one need not keep all the rooms in the same division of the period, for there is a certain general air of harmony and relationship about them all, and the common bond of mahogany makes it possible to have a Chippendale library, an Adam drawing-room, a Hepplewhite dining-room and a Sheraton hall, or any other combination desired. The spirit of all the eighteenth century cabinet-makers was one of honest construction and beauty of line and workmanship. When they took ideas from other sources they made them so distinctly their own, so essentially English that there is a family resemblance through all their work. Adam decoration and furniture makes most delightful rooms. The painted satinwood furniture for dining-room, drawing-room and bedrooms, lends itself to lovely schemes with its soft golden tones, its delightfully woven cane chair backs and panels. A room on the sunny side of the house, with a soft old ivory colored wall, dull blue silk curtains, and a yellow and blue Chinese rug, would be most charming with this satinwood furniture. Then, as I have said before, there are the many different shades of enameled and carved furniture and also beautiful natural wood. One can have more of a sideboard in an Adam than in a Chippendale room, as he used two pedestals, one at each end of a large serving-table. He often made tables to fit in niches, which is a charming idea. An Adam mantel is very distinctive and one should be careful in having it correct. There are beautiful reproductions made. The lamp and candle shades should also be designed in the spirit of the time. There are lovely Adam designs in nearly all materials suitable for hangings and chair coverings. Oriental rugs or plain colored carpets appeal to us more than large-figured rugs. Adam sometimes had special rugs made exactly reproducing the design of the ceiling, but it is an idea that is better forgotten. With Hepplewhite and Sheraton the same general ideas hold; keep to the spirit of the furniture, try to have a central idea in the house furnishing, so that the restful effect of harmony may be given. [Illustration: Pembroke tables were made by Hepplewhite. This is a fine example and shows characteristic inlay and the legs sloping on the inside edge only. The flaps fold down and make a small oblong table.] [Illustration: This fine Sheraton sideboard shows curved doors, and knife boxes with oval inlay of satinwood. The center cupboard is straight. The legs are reeded.] The rugs which harmonize best with Georgian furniture are Orientals of different weaves and colors, or plain domestic carpet rugs. The floor should be the darkest of the three divisions of a room--the floor, the walls, the ceiling, but it should be an even gradation of color value, the walls half-way in tone between the other two. This is a safe general plan, to be varied when necessity demands. In drawing-rooms light and soft colors are usually in better harmony than dark ones, and a wide and beautiful choice can be made among Kermanshah, Kirman, Khorasan, Tabriz, Chinese, Oman rugs, and many others. It is more restful in effect if the greater part of the floor is covered with a large rug, but if one has beautiful small rugs they may be used if they are enough alike in general tone to escape the appearance of being spotty. One should try them in different positions until the best arrangement is found. [Illustration: A pleasing design of the old field bed. The chairs here are samples of some eighteenth century manufacture that are to-day reproduced in admirable consistency. The patch work quilt is interesting and the bed hanging are exceptionally good.] Living-rooms and libraries are usually more solid in color than drawing-rooms and so need deeper tones in the rugs. The choice is wide, and the color scheme can be the deciding note if one is buying new rugs. If one already has rugs they must be the foundation for the color scheme of the room. _Furnishing With French Furniture_ "This is my Louis XVI drawing-room," said a lady, proudly displaying her house. "What makes you think so?" asked her well informed friend. To guard against the possibility of such biting humor one must be ever on the alert in furnishing a period room. It is not a bow-knot and a rococo curve or two that will turn a modern room, fresh from the builder's hands, into a Louis XV drawing-room. French furniture is not appropriate to all kinds of houses, and it is often difficult to adapt it to circumstances over which one has no control. The leisurely and pleasant custom of our ancestors of building a house as they wished it, and what is more, living in it for generations, is more or less a thing of the past. Nowadays a house is built, and is complete and beautiful in every way, but almost before the house-warming is over, business is sitting on the doorstep, and so the family moves on. We, as a nation, have not the comfortable point of view of the English who consider their home, their home, no matter how the outside world may be behaving. Their front doors are the protection which insures their cherished privacy, and the feeling that they are as settled as the everlasting hills gives a calmness to their attitude toward life which is often missing from ours. How many times have we heard people say when talking over plans--"Have it thus and so, for it would be much better in case we ever care to sell." This attitude, to which of course there are hundreds of exceptions, is an outgrowth of our busy life and our tremendous country. The larger part of the home ideal is the one which Americans so firmly believe in and act upon--that it is the spirit and atmosphere which makes a home, and not only the bricks and mortar. It is this point of view which makes it possible for many of us to live happily in rented houses whose architecture and arrangement often give us cold shivers. We are not to blame if all the proportions are wrong; and there is a certain pleasure in getting the better of difficulties. If one is building a house, or is living in one planned with a due regard to some special period, and has a well thought out scheme of decoration, the work is much simplified; but if one has to live in the average nondescript house and wishes to use French furniture, the problem will take time and thought to solve. In this kind of house, if one cannot change it at all, it is better to keep as simple and unobtrusive a background as possible, to have the color scheme and hangings and furniture so beautiful that they are a convincing reason themselves of the need of their being there, but one should not try to turn the room itself into a period room, for it would mean failure. The walls may be covered with a light plain paper, or silk, the woodwork enameled white or cream or ivory, and then with one's mirrors and furnishings, the best thing possible has been done, and it ought to be a charming room, if not a perfect one. If one can make a few changes I advise new lighting fixtures and a new mantel, for these two important objects in the room are conspicuous and nearly always wrong. It is almost impossible to give a list of furniture for each room in a house, as each house is a law unto itself, but the fundamental principles of beauty and utility and appropriateness apply to all. The furniture of the time of Louis XIV, having so much that is magnificent about it, is especially well suited to large rooms for state occasions, great ballrooms and state drawing-rooms. These rooms not being destined for everyday use should be treated as a brilliant background; paneling, painting, tapestry, and gilding should decorate the walls, and beautiful lights and mirrors should aid in the effect of brilliancy. It must be done with such knowledge that there is no suggestion of an hotel about it. Console tables, and large and dignified chairs should be used for furniture. Nothing small and fussy in the way of ornaments should be put in the rooms, for they would be completely out of scale and ruin the effect. Every house does not need these rooms for the elaborate side of life, and the average drawing-room is a much simpler affair. If both kinds are required the simpler one should be in the same general style as the great rooms, but not on so grand a scale. If the style of Louis XV is chosen for all, in the family drawing-and living-rooms the paneling, or dado, and furniture should be of the simpler kind, and beautiful, gay, and home-like rooms, evolved with soft colored brocades, Beauvais or Gobelin tapestry, and either gilded or enameled or natural walnut furniture. The arm-chairs or _bergères_ of both Louis XV and Louis XVI are very comfortable, the _chaise-longue_ cannot be surpassed, and the settees of different shapes and sizes are delightful. There need be no lack of comfort in any period room, whether French or English. A music room, to be perfect, should not have heavy draperies to deaden the sound, and the window and door openings should be treated architecturally to make this possible. In a French music room the walls may be either paneled, or have a dado with a soft tint above it. This space may be treated in several ways: it may have silk panels outlined with moldings, or dainty pastoral scenes painted and framed with wreaths and garlands of composition. The style of the Regency with its use of musical instruments for decorative motifs is also attractive. The chairs should be comfortable, the lights soft and well shaded side-lights, with a plentiful supply near the piano. [Illustration: A beautiful doorway in the bedroom of the Empress, Compiègne. The fastening shows how much thought was expended on small matters, so the balance of decoration would be kept. The chairs are Louis XVI.] [Illustration: An exquisite reproduction of the bed of Marie Antoinette.] [Illustration: A simple but charming Louis XVI bed in enamel and cane.] A piano is usually a difficulty, for they are so unwieldy and dark that they are quite out of key with the rest of the room. We have become so used to its ugliness, however, that, sad to say, we are not so much shocked by it as we should be, thinking it a necessary evil. If we walk through the show rooms of one of the great piano companies we shall see that this is a mistake, for there are many cases made of light colored woods, and some have a much more graceful outline than the regulation piano. Cases can be made to order to suit any scheme, if one has a competent designer. A music room should not have small and meaningless ornaments in it; the ideal is a restful and charming room where one may listen with an undistracted mind. The modern dining-room with all its comforts is really of English descent. In France, even in the eighteenth century, only the palaces and great houses had rooms especially set apart for dining-rooms. Usually a small ante-chamber was used, which served as a boudoir or reception room between meals. To our more established point of view it seems a very casual method. At last, late in the century, the real ideal of a dining-room began to gain ground, and although they were very different from ours, we find really charming ones described and pictured. The walls were usually light in tone, paneled, with graceful ornamentation, and often there were niches containing wall-fountains of delightful design. The sideboards were either large side-tables, or a species of side-table built in niches, with a fountain between them which was used as a wine cooler. These fountains where cupids and dolphins disported themselves would be a most attractive feature to copy in some of our rooms, in country houses especially. The tables were round or square, but not the extension type which came later from England, and the chairs were comfortable, with broad upholstered or cane seats, and rather low backs. There should be a screen to harmonize with the room in front of the pantry door. We also add hangings, for, as I have said many times, our window-frames are not a decoration in themselves. Old prints show most delightfully the manner in which curtains were hung when they were used; the very elaborate methods, however, were not used by the better class. A morning-room should be furnished as a small informal living-room, and the simpler style of the chosen period used. The style of Louis XVI is beautifully adapted to libraries, for they do not have to be dark and solid in style, as many seem to think. In fact a library may be in any style if carried out with the true feeling and love of books, but of course some styles are more appropriate than others. In a Louis XVI library the paneling gives way to the built-in bookcases which are spaced with due regard to keeping the correct proportions. There is usually a cupboard space running round the room about the height of a dado and projecting a little beyond the bookcases above. The colors of the rugs and hangings may be warm and rich as the books give the walls a certain strength. There are also beautiful reproductions of bedroom furniture, chairs and dressing-tables, desks, chiffoniers and _Chaises-longues,_ and beds. Andirons, side-lights for the walls and dressing-table, doorknobs and locks, can all be carried out perfectly. Lamp and candle shades and sofa cushions should all be in keeping. The walls may be paneled in wood enameled with white or some light color, or they may be covered with silk or paper, in a panel design, with curtains to match. There are lovely designs in French period stuffs. The rugs most appropriate for French period rooms are light or medium in tone, and of Persian design. The floral patterns of the Persians seem to harmonize better with the curves and style of furniture than do the geometrical designs of the Caucasian rugs. Savonnerie and Aubusson rugs may also be used, if chosen with care, and the plain carpets and rugs mentioned later are a far better choice than gaudy Orientals of modern make, or bad imitations. _Country Houses_ The Country House is a comparatively modern idea, and one which has added much to the joy of life. There are all kinds and conditions of them, great and small, grand and simple, and each is a joy to the proud possessor. Life was such a turbulent affair in the Middle Ages that country life in the modern sense was an impossibility. The chateaux and castles and large manor-houses were strongly fortified, and there were inner courts for exercise. When war became the exception and not the rule, the inherent love in all human beings for the open began to assert itself, and the country house idea began to grow. Italy was the first country where we find this freedom of attitude exemplified in the beautiful Renaissance villas near Rome and Florence. The best were built during the sixteenth century, and were owned by the great Italian families, like the de Medici and d'Este. They seem more like places built for the parade and show of life than homes, but the home ideal with all its conveniences was another outgrowth of peace. The plan of an Italian villa is very interesting to study, to see how every advantage was taken of the land, how the residence, or casino, was placed in regard to the formal garden and the view over the valley, for they were usually on a hillside and the slope was terraced, how the statues and fountains, the beautiful ilex and cypress and orange trees, the box-edged flower-beds and gravel paths, all formed a wonderful setting for the house, and together made a perfect whole. The Italian villa was not necessarily large, in fact the Villa Lante contains only six acres, which are divided into four terraces, the house being on the second and built in two parts, one on each side. Each terrace has a beautiful fountain, with a cascade connecting those on the fourth and third. This villa is indeed, an example of taking advantage of a fairly small space. It was built by the great Vignola in 1547, and although slightly showing the wear of time, has all the beauty and charm and romance which only centuries can give. The Italian villa can be adapted to the American climate and scenery and point of view, but it must be done by one of the architects who have made a deep study of the Italian Renaissance so the true feeling will be kept. There are some beautiful examples already in the country. In France, the chateaux which have most influenced country house building are those which were built during the sixteenth century, many of them during the reign of Francis 1st. Among the number are Azay le Rideau, Chenonceaux, and Chaumont. Blois and Amboise are also absorbingly interesting, but belong partly to an earlier time. The chateau region in Touraine is a treasure land of architectural beauty. In the time of Louis XIV Le Nôtre changed many of these old chateaux from their fortified state to the more open form made possible by a peaceful life. We turn to England for the most perfect examples of country houses, for the theory of country living is so thoroughly understood there, one might really say it is a national institution. Many of the manor-houses, both great and small, are beautiful examples of Tudor architecture, which seems especially suited to their setting of lovely green parks. The smaller country house, which has no pretention to being a show place, is as perfect in its way. The English love for out-of-doors makes them achieve wonders with even small gardens, and the climate, being gentle, helps matters immensely. In America we are taking up the English country house ideal more and more and adapting it to our own needs. The question of architecture is a question of personal choice influenced by climate, and there are now numberless charming houses scattered over the length and breadth of the land which have been built with the purpose of being country homes. They are not for summer use only, but all the year round keep their hospitable doors open, or else the season begins so early and ends so late, that, with the holiday time between, the house hardly seems closed at all. It is this attitude which is changing country house architecture to a great extent. The terraces and porches and gardens and glasshouses are all there, but the house itself is more solidly built and is prepared to stand cold weather. For the average American the best types of country house to choose from are the smaller Tudor manor-houses, Italian villas, Georgian architecture in England, and our own Colonial style which of course was founded on the Georgian. In the south and southwestern parts of this country a modified Spanish type may be used in place of Tudor, which does not give the feeling of cool spaces so necessary in hot climates. The bungalow type is also popular in the South. There are many architects in this country who understand thoroughly the plan and spirit of Colonial times, and who succeed in giving to the comforts of modern days the true stamp of the eighteenth century. The style makes most delightful houses, and with the great supply of appropriate furniture from which to choose, it would be hard to fail in having a charming whole. The house and garden should be planned together to have the best effect. Each can be added to as time goes on, but when a plan is followed there is a look of belonging together which adds greatly to the charm. [Illustration: A hall to conjure with--although a Hepplewhite or Sheraton chair would be more in keeping.] In an all-the-year country house a vestibule is a necessity as much as in a town house, and the hall should be treated with the dignity a hall deserves, and not as a second living-room. In many English houses of Tudor days the stairs were behind a carved screen, or concealed in some manner, which made it possible to use the hall as a gathering place. Our modern hall is not a descendant of this old hall of a past day (the living-room is much more so), but is really only a passage, often raised to the _n_th power, connecting the different rooms of the house, and should be treated as such. The stairs and landing and vista should be beautiful, and the furnishing should be dignified and in perfect scale with the rest of the house. Marble stairs and tapestry and old carved furniture and beautiful rugs, or the simplest possible furniture, may be used, but the hall should have an impersonally hospitable air, one which gives the keynote of the house, but reserves its full expression until the privacy of the living-rooms is reached. [Illustration: A very rare block-front chest of drawers with the original brasses.] The average country house is neither very magnificent nor very simple, but strikes the happy medium and achieves a most delightful home-like charm, which at the very outset makes life seem well worth living. It is rarely furnished in a period style throughout, but has the modern air of comfort which good taste and correct feeling give. For instance, the hall may have paneling and Chippendale mirror, a table, and chairs; the living-room furnished in a general Colonial manner mixed with some comfortable stuffed furniture, but not over-stuffed, lovely chintz or silk hangings, and a wide fireplace; the morning-room on something the same plan, but a little less formal; and the drawing-room a little more so, say in Adam or simple Louis XVI furniture. The library should have plenty of comfortable sofas and chairs, and a large table (it is hard to get one too large), some of the bookcases should be built in to form part of the architectural plan of the room, and personally I think it is a better idea to have all the space intended for bookcases built in in the first place, as this insures harmony of plan. Another important thing in a library is to have the lights precisely right, and the window-seats and the fireplace should be all that their names imply in the way of added charm and comfort to the room. The dining-room should be bright and cheerful and in harmony with the near-by rooms. A breakfast-room done in lacquer is very charming. The bedrooms should be light and airy, and so planned that the beds can be properly placed. They may be furnished in old mahogany, French walnut in either Louis XV or XVI style, or in carefully chosen Empire; painted Adam furniture is also lovely, and willow furniture makes a fresh and attractive room. The curtains should be hung so they can be drawn at night if desired, and the material should be chosen to harmonize in design with the room. The children's rooms should be sunny and bright and furnished according to their special tastes, which if too astounding, as sometimes happens, can be tactfully guided into safe channels. The servants should be given separate bedrooms, a bathroom, and a comfortable sitting-room beside their dining-room. Making them comfortable seems a simple way of solving the servant question. The bungalow type of small country house is usually very simply furnished, and the best type of Mission furniture or willow is especially well suited to it. Bungalows are growing more and more in favor, and, although they originated in America in the West, we find delightful ones everywhere, on the Maine coast and in the woods and mountains. They are a tremendous advance over the small and elaborate house of a few years ago. Cretonne and chintz can be used in all the rooms of a country house with perfect propriety, and is a really lovely method of furnishing, as it is fresh and washable, and comes in all gradations of price. Willow furniture with cretonne cushions makes a pleasant variety with mahogany in simple rooms. Fresh air and sunlight, lovely vistas through doors and windows of the garden beyond, cool and comfortable rooms furnished appropriately, and with an atmosphere about them which expresses a hospitable and charming home spirit, is the ideal standard for a country house. _The Nursery and Play-room_ We should be thankful that the old idea of a nursery has passed away and instead of the dreary and rather shabby room has come the charming modern nursery with its special furniture and papers, its common sense and sanitary wisdom and its regard for the childish point of view. The influence of surroundings during the formative years of childhood has a deal to do with the child's future attitude toward life, and now that parents realize this more, the ideal nursery has simplicity, charm and artistic merit, all suited to the needs of its romping inhabitants. The wall-papers for nurseries are especially attractive with their gay friezes of wonderful fairy-tale people, Mother Goose, Noah's Ark and happy little children playing among the flowers. Some of the designs come in sets of four panels that can be framed if desired. A Noah's Ark frieze with the animals marching two by two under the watchful eyes of the Noah family, with an ark and stiff little Noah's Ark trees, will give endless pleasure if placed about three feet from the floor where small tots can take in its charm. If placed too high, it is very often not noticed at all. Some of the most attractive nurseries have painted walls with special designs stenciled on them. If any one of these friezes is placed above a simple wainscot, the effect is charming. The paper for nurseries is usually waterproof, for a nursery must be absolutely spick and span. Another thing that gives much pleasure in a nursery is to build on one side of the room a platform about a yard wide and six inches high, and cover it with cushions. The furniture in a day nursery should consist of a toy cupboard stained to match the color scheme of the room and large enough for each child to have his own special compartment in it. If the children's initials are painted or burned on the doors, it gives an added feeling of pride in keeping the toys in order. There are many designs of small tables and chairs made with good lines, and the wicker ones with gay cretonne cushions are very attractive. The tables and chairs should not have sharp corners and should be heavy enough not to tip over easily. There should be a bookcase for favorite picture-books. Besides the special china for the children's own meals there should be a set of play china for doll's parties. A sand table, with a lump of clay for modeling, a blackboard and, in the spring, window-boxes where the children can plant seeds, will all add vastly to the joy of life. And do not forget a comfortable chair for the nurse-maid. White muslin curtains with side hangings of washable chintz or linen or some special nursery design in cretonne should hang to the sill. The colors in both day and night nurseries should be soft and cheerful, and the color scheme as carefully thought out as for the rest of the house. Both rooms should be on the sunny side of the house, and far enough away from the family living-room to avoid any one's being disturbed when armies charge up and down the play-room battle-ground or Indians start out on the warpath. The best floor covering for a day nursery is plain linoleum, as it is not dangerously slippery and is easily kept clean. If the floor is hard wood, it must not have a slippery wax finish. It will also save tumbles if the day nursery has no rugs, but the night nursery ought to have one large one or several small ones by the beds and in front of the open fire. Washable cotton rugs are best to use for this purpose. When children are very small, it is necessary to have sides to the beds to keep them from falling out. The beds should be placed so that the light does not shine directly in the children's eyes in the morning, and there should be plenty of fresh air. The rest of the night nursery furniture should consist of a dressing-table, a chest of drawers, a night table and some chairs. There should be a few pictures on the walls hung low, and beautiful and interesting in subjects and treatment. The fire should be well screened. Pictures like the "Songs of Childhood," for instance, would be charming simply framed. If there is only one nursery for both day and night use, the room should be decorated as a day nursery and the bed-cover made of white dimity with a border of the curtain stuff or made entirely of it. _Curtains_ The modern window, with its huge panes of glass and simple framework, makes an insistent demand for curtains. Without curtains windows of this kind give a blank, staring appearance to the room and also a sense of insecurity in having so many holes in the walls. The beautiful windows of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Italy, England and France, give no such feeling of incompleteness, for their well-carved frames, and over-windows, and their small panes of glass, were important parts of the decorative scheme. Windows and doors were more than mere openings in those days, but things have changed, and the hard lines of our perfectly useful windows get on our nerves if we do not soften them with drapery. In that hopeless time in the last century called "Early Victorian," when black walnut reigned supreme, the curtains were as terrifying as the curves of the furniture and the colors of the carpets. Luckily most of us know only from pictures what that time was, but we all have seen enough remnants of its past glories to be thankful for modern ways and days. The over-draped, stuffy, upholstered nightmares have entirely disappeared, and in their place have come curtains of a high standard of beauty and practicality--simple, appropriate, and serving the ends they were intended for. The effect of curtains must be taken into account from both the outside and the inside of the house. The outside view should show a general similarity of appearance in the windows of each story, in the manner of hanging the curtains and also of material. The shades throughout the house should be of the same color, and if a different color is needed inside for the sake of the color scheme, either two shades should be used or they should be the double-faced kind. Shades should also be kept drawn down to the same line, or else be rolled up out of sight, for there is nothing that gives a more ill-kept look to a house than having the shades and curtains at any haphazard height or angle. And now to "return to our muttons." The average window needs two sets of curtains and a shade. Sometimes a thin net or lace curtain, a _"bonne femme"_ is hung close to the glass, but this is usual only in cities where privacy has to be maintained by main force, or where the curtains of a floor differ greatly. Thin curtains in combination with side curtains of some thicker material are most often used. Curtains either make or mar a room, and they should be carefully planned to make it a perfect whole. They must be so convincingly right that one only thinks at first how restful and pleasant and charming the whole room is; the details come later. When curtains stand out and astound one, they are wrong. It is not upholstery one is trying to display, but to make a perfect background for one's furniture, one's pictures and one's friends. There are so many materials to choose from that all tastes and purses can be suited; nets, thin silk and gauzes; scrims and batistes; cotton and silk crepes, muslin or dotted Swiss, cheesecloth, soleil cloth, madras, and a host of other fascinating fabrics which may be used in any room of the house. The ready-made curtains are also charming. There are muslin curtains with appliqué borders cut from flowered cretonne; sometimes the cretonne is appliqué on net which is let into the curtain with a four-inch hem at the bottom and sides. A simpler style has a band of flowered muslin sewed on the white muslin, or used as a ruffle. It is also added to the valance. There are many kinds of net and lace curtains ready for use that will harmonize with any kind of room. Some of the expensive ones are really beautiful examples of needlecraft, with lace medallions and insertions and embroidery stitches. When it comes to the question of side curtains the supply to choose from is almost unlimited, and this great supply forms the bog in which so many are lost. A thing may be beautiful in itself and yet cause woe and havoc in an otherwise charming room. There are linens of all prices, and cretonnes, both the inexpensive kind and the wonderful shadow ones; there are silks and velvets and velours, aurora cloth, cotton crêpe and arras cloth, and a thousand other beautiful stuffs that are cheap or medium-priced or expensive, whose names only the shopman knows, but which win our admiration from afar. The curtains for a country house are usually of less valuable materials than those for a town house, and this is as it should be, for winter life is usually more formal than summer life. Nothing can be prettier, however, for a country house than cretonne. It is fresh and dainty and gives a cool and delightful appearance to a room. Among the many designs there are some for every style of decoration. [Illustration: The arrangement of sofa and table are excellent, but there should be other centers of interest in the room. As it is, this room just misses its aim, and is neither a strict period room nor a really comfortable modern one.] The height and size of a room must be taken into account in hanging curtains, for with their aid, and also that of wallpaper, we can often change a room of bad proportions to one of seemingly good ones. If a room is very low, a stripe more or less marked in the design, and the curtains straight to the floor, will make it seem higher. A high room may have the curtains reach only to the sills with a valance across the top. This style may be used in a fairly low room if the curtain material is chosen with discretion and is not of a marked design. If the windows are narrow they can be made to seem wider by having the rod for the side curtains extend about eight inches on each side of the window, and the curtain cover the frame and a part of the wall. This leaves all the window for light and air. A valance connecting the side curtains and covering the top of the net curtains will also make the window seem broader. A group of three windows can be treated as one by using only one pair of side curtains with a connecting ruffle, and a pair of net curtains at each window. Curtains may hang in straight lines or be simply looped back, but fancy festooning is not permissible. There is another attractive method of dividing the curtains in halves, the upper sections to hang so they just cover the brass rod for the lower sections, which are pushed back at the sides. These lower sections may have the rod on which they are run fastened to the window-sash if one wishes. They will then go up with the window and of course keep clean much longer, but to my mind it is not so alluring as a gently blowing curtain on a hot day. I have seen a whole house curtained most charmingly in this manner, with curtains of unbleached muslin edged with a narrow little ruffle. They hung close to the glass and reached just to the sill with the lower part pushed back at the sides. The outside view was most attractive, and the inside curtains varied according to the needs of each room. [Illustration: A charming window treatment, in a room whose color scheme is carried out in the garden, giving a unique and delightful touch.] Casement windows should have the muslin curtains drawn back with a cord or a muslin band, and the side curtains should hang straight, with a little top ruffle; if the windows open into the room the curtains may be hung on the frames. The muslin curtains may be left out entirely if one wishes. Net curtains on French doors should be run on small brass rods at top and bottom, and the heavy curtains that are drawn together at night for privacy's sake should be so hung that they will not interfere with the opening of the door. There should be plenty of room under all ruffles or shaped valances where the curtains are to be drawn to allow for easy working of the cords, otherwise tempers are liable to be suddenly lost. All windows over eighteen inches wide need two curtains, and the average allowance of fullness is at least twice the width of the window for net and any very soft material, while once and a half is usually enough for material with more body. Great care must be taken to measure curtains correctly and have them cut evenly. It is also a good plan to allow for extra length, which can be folded into the top hem and will not show, but will allow for shrinking. Stenciling can be very attractively used for curtains and portières for country houses. Cheesecloth, scrim, aurora cloth, pongee, linen, and velours, are a few of the materials that can be used. The design and kind used in a room should be chosen with due regard to its suitability. A Louis XVI room could not possibly have arras cloth used in it, while it would be charming and appropriate in a modern bungalow. Arras cloth with an appliqué design of linen couched on it makes beautiful curtains and portières to go with the Mission or Craftsman furniture. There is an old farmhouse on Long Island that has been made over into a most delightful country house, and the furnishing throughout is consistent and charming. The curtains are reproductions of old designs in chintz and cretonne. The living-room, with its white paneling to the ceiling, its wide fireplace, old mahogany furniture, and curtains gay with parrots and flowers, hanging over cool white muslin, is a room to conjure with. In town houses the curtains and hangings must also harmonize with the style of furnishing. When the windows are hung with soft colored brocade, the portières are usually beautiful tapestry or rich toned velvets, and care is always taken to have the balance of color kept and the color values correct. There are silks and damasks and velvets, and many lesser stuffs, made for all the period styles, whether carried out simply or elaborately, and it is the art of getting the suitable ones for the different rooms which gives the air of harmony, beauty, and restfulness, for which the word home stands. In hanging these more formal curtains the shaped valance is usually used with the curtains hanging straight at the sides of the window, so they can be drawn together at night. The cords and pulleys should always be in perfect working order. Another method is to have the curtains simply parted in the center, either with a valance or without, and drawn back at the sides with heavy cords and tassels, or bands of the stuff. If a draped effect is desired great care must be taken not to have it too elaborate. If the walls of a room are plain in color one may have either plain or figured hangings, but if the wall covering is figured it gives a feeling of unrest if the curtains are also figured. Sometimes one sees bedrooms and small boudoirs where the walls and curtains show the same design, but it must be done with skill, or disaster is sure to follow. Plain casement cloth or the different "Sunfast" fabrics are attractive with plain or figured papers, especially in bedrooms of country houses. If one has to live in the town house through the summer do not make the fatal mistake of taking down the curtains and living in bare discomfort during the hot season. If the curtains are too handsome to be kept up, buy a second set of inexpensive ones that can be washed without injury. It is better that they should stop the dust, and then go into the tub, than that one's lungs should collect it all. Curtains are useful as well as ornamental, and a house without them is as dreary as breakfast without coffee. _Floors and Floor Coverings_ In planning a room the color values should be divided into the natural divisions of the heaviest, or darkest, part at the bottom, which is the floor; the medium color tone in the middle, which is the wall; and the lightest at the top, which is the ceiling. This keeps the room from seeming top-heavy and gives the necessary feeling of support for the wall and ceiling. The walls and floor serve as a background and should not be insistant or startling in color; and the size and height of the room, the amount of wall space, the position of doors, windows and fireplace, the quantity and quality of the light, and the connecting rooms will all be factors in the color scheme and materials chosen. The floor of a room must be right or all the character of the furnishings will be lost. One should first see that it is in perfect condition. If it is a hardwood or parquetry floor it should not be finished the bright and glaring yellow which is sometimes seen, but should be slightly toned down before the finish is put on. Samples of different tones should be submitted to be tried with samples of the rug and stuffs to be used before the decision is made. A wax finish is better than the usual coats of shellac, for the wax has a soft and beautiful glow, while shellac has a hard commercial glare. A waxed floor, if properly taken care of, which is not difficult, wears extremely well and does not have the distressingly shabby appearance of a partly worn shellaced floor. If the floor is old and worn and is to be painted or stained all cracks should be filled, and the color chosen should be a neutral color-in harmony with the rest of the room, the wood shades usually being the best, with the exception of cherry and the red tones of mahogany. Teak is a good tone for hard wood. Soft wood floors of such woods as pine, fir, and cypress can be made to have the appearance of hardwood if first scraped or sandpapered and then stained with an oil stain and finished with a thin coat of shellac and two coats of prepared floor wax. The usual ways of using floor covering are: one large rug which leaves a border of hard wood floor of about a foot all around it; several small rugs placed with a well balanced plan upon the floor; and carpet, either seamless or of strips sewed together, made into one rug or entirely covering the floor. In the majority of cases the use of a single large plain rug is by far the best plan, for it gives the feeling of an unobtrusive background whose beauty of color serves to bind the room in the unity of a well planned scheme; and this sense of dignity and solidity goes a long way on the road to success. It is one of the most satisfactory methods of covering a floor imaginable. These plain carpets come in several grades and many colors and are woven in widths from nine to thirty feet which can be cut in any desired length. This makes it possible to have a rug which will be a suitable size for a room. The colors are very good, especially the soft grays, tans, putty color, and taupe. There are also some good blues and greens, a very beautiful dark blue having great possibilities. There are also, besides these wide carpets, narrow carpets from twenty-seven inches to four feet wide which can be sewed together and made into rugs, or the carpet can cover the entire floor. In some cases this is the most attractive thing to do, for it will make a room seem larger by carrying the vision all the way to the wall without the break of a border; and it also covers a multitude of sins in the way of a rough floor. In these days of vacuum cleaners the old terrors of dust have lost their sting. A plain carpet or rug may be used with propriety in any room in the house, provided the right color is chosen for the surroundings. Some people, however, prefer a figured carpet in the dining-room on account of the wear and tear around the table. This risk is not very great if the rug is of good quality in the first place. A two-toned all-over design is often chosen for halls and stairs because of the special wear which they receive, and a Chinese rug is a good selection to make with a stair carpet of soft blue and yellow Chinese design to match. A small, figured, all-over design is a good choice for a nursery. Bedrooms may have either one large rug or be covered entirely with carpet, or have several rugs so placed that the floor is practically covered but is easily kept clean. Plain rugs are more restful in effect in bedrooms than figured rugs, and with plain walls and chintz are fresh and charming. These carpet rugs should be made with a flat binding which turns under and is sewed down, as this looks far better and lies flatter on the floor than the usual over-and-over finish, which is apt to stretch. All rugs should be thoroughly stretched before they are delivered as otherwise they will not lie flat. There is a kind of plain woven linen rug, with a different colored border if desired, which is very good to use in many country houses. These rugs come in a large assortment of colors and sizes, and, when sufficient time is allowed, they can be made in special sizes. Old-fashioned woven and hooked rag rugs are not appropriate in all kinds of rooms, even in the country. They should only be used in the simple farm house type and in some bungalows, and should be used with the simple styles of old furniture and never with fine examples, whether copies or originals. [Illustration: This attractive Colonial hallway shows a good arrangement of rugs. The border on the portières spoils the effect, but the lamp is well chosen.] The light in a room must be taken into account in choosing a rug, and cold colors should not be used in north or cheerless rooms. The theory of color in regard to light has been explained in other chapters, very fully in the chapter on wallpapers, and its principles should be applied to all questions of furnishing, or disappointment will be the result. [Illustration: The Oriental rug used on the stairs harmonizes with those used on the floor.] [Illustration: This bed-room is a good example of a simple Colonial bed-room, and the rag rugs are in keeping with it. The repeat design of the wallpaper ties the room into a unified whole.] The question of whether to use Oriental rugs or plain rugs is one which many people find hard to solve. One of the deciding factors is often finding just what is right for the room, for really beautiful Oriental rugs in large or carpet size are rare and also expensive, but soft-toned Persian rugs with their interesting floral designs, and Chinese rugs with their wonderful tones of blue and yellow are works of art and well worth the trouble necessary to discover them and the price asked. They are best adapted to some libraries and halls and some dining-rooms, but they should not be startling in either design or color. To my mind Oriental rugs are not well suited to the majority of living-rooms and bedrooms because of the constant and varied use of these rooms. When Oriental rugs are used there should be plenty of plain effect in the room; the walls, for instance, should be plain. I have never seen a room which was successful if both walls and rug were figured. A fine tapestry may be used with Oriental rugs, but that is quite different from a figured wall. If several rugs are to be used in one room they must be of the same color value and the same general color tone or the floor will appear uneven. One does not wish to have a room give the uncomfortable effect of "the rocky road to Dublin." A rug with a general blue tone must not be put with other rugs of many colors or an overpowering amount of red, but should be matched in color by having blue the chief color of the other rugs also. The color value, too, must be even, for a light rug next to a dark has the same disagreeable effect. It is impossible to have a beautiful room if the rug seems to rise up and smite you as you enter. Persian rugs with their conventional floral designs should not be used with the marked color and geometrical designs of Caucasian rugs. These points are important to remember and follow, for otherwise unity of scheme for the room will be impossible. If one has several fine rugs well matched in color value and design they should be placed with a due regard to the shape of the room and the position of the furniture. A rug placed cat-a-cornered breaks up the structural plan of the room and makes it appear smaller than it really is. The new lines formed are at odds with the lines of the walls and interfere with the sense of space by stopping the eye in its instinctive journey to the boundary of things. Oriental rugs should be tried if possible in the rooms in which they are to be used before the final choice is made, and one must always try the rug with the light falling across the nap and also with the nap, for one way makes the rug lighter and the other darker, and one of the two may be just what is wanted. If one owns a rug which seems far too bright to use it can be toned down, but the owner must take the risk of its being spoiled in the process. To me it does not seem a great risk, because if the rug is so bright that it is absolutely nerve-destroying and useless, and there is a chance that for a small sum it can be made charming, why not take it? I have never heard of one failing, but I suppose some of them must or the stipulation would not be made. If an Oriental rug is used it should give the keynote for the color scheme, and the design of the rug will decide whether there can be any figured material used in the room. It is far easier to build up a scheme from a satisfactory rug than it is to try to fit one into a room which is otherwise finished. One's field of choice is much wider. Samples of wallpaper, curtain material and furniture coverings should always be tried with the rugs, whether Oriental or plain in color, for the scheme of a room must be worked out as a whole, not piece-meal. Each room must be considered in relation to the other rooms near it, because, although it may be beautiful in itself, if it does not harmonize with the connecting rooms the whole effect will be a failure. Vistas from one room to another should be alluring and charming; there should be no violent and clashing contrasts of color or styles of furniture or sudden change in the scale of furnishings. One room cannot shake off its relationship to the rest of the house and be a success, and floor coverings must bear their full share of responsibility in making the whole house beautiful. _The Treatment of Walls_ The walls of a house hold a most important place in the order of things and their treatment requires much thought. The floor is the darkest color value in a room, as it is the foundation, and the walls come next in color value and consideration. What I have said in other chapters about the necessity of connecting rooms being harmonious applies of course to the selection of wall coverings. The first question to be settled is: shall paint or paper be used? If a house is new the walls are apt to settle a little making the plaster crack, and it is far better in such a case to allow the walls to remain white for a year. If the effect of plain white plaster strikes one as too cold one of the many water tints may be used as this will not interfere with any later scheme. In houses that have been built for a number of years the walls are often so badly cracked and marred that to put them into condition for painting would be more expensive than preparing them for paper. Estimates should be given for both paint and paper. When the plaster has done its worst and settled down to a quiet life the work of covering the walls appropriately begun. Plain walls, whether painted, tinted, or papered, are more restful in effect and form better backgrounds than figured walls. This is not a question of the beauty of the design or the expense of the material, but simply the fact that a plain surface is quiet, while a figured wall, even if only two-toned, will at once assert itself more, and so be less of a background. If many pictures and mirrors are to be used, or a figured rug and much furniture, by all means have plain walls. If one has some special object of great beauty and interest, it should be treated with the dignity and honor it deserves and given a plain background. A miscellaneous collection of lares and penates can be made to hold together better by having a plain wall of some soft neutral color rather than a figured paper, which would only make the confusion more pronounced. Small rooms should have plain and light colored walls, as they then appear larger. Plain walls give a wider scope in the matter of decoration, for, beside the possibilities of plain stuffs, chintz and various striped silks and linen may be used which would be quite out of the question with figured walls, more flowers may be used, and lampshades, always a bit assertive, take their proper place in the scheme, instead of making another distracting note. [Illustration: A built-in corner cupboard has an architecturally decorative value for it supplies a spot of color in the paneled walls. The modern china closet is bad, and the chairs have the failing of many reproductions, the backs are a little too high for the width.] The question of paint or paper has often to be decided by circumstances, such as the condition of the walls or the climate. With paint one can have the exact shade desired and either a "glossy" or eggshell finish. With paper it is often a matter of taking the nearest thing to the color wanted and changing the other colors to harmonize. Paint is better to use in a damp or foggy climate, as paper may peel from the walls in the course of time. [Illustration: This fine well-curtained four poster, once the property of Lafayette, the trundle-bed, cradle, chairs and table, are all interesting, but the wallpaper appears to be of the ugly time of about 1880. Something more appropriate should be chosen.] Walls may be tinted or painted, and paneled with strips of molding which are painted the wall color or a tone lighter or darker as the scheme requires. Also, the wall inside the moulding may be a tone lighter than the wall outside, or vice versa, but the contrast must not be strong or the wall at once becomes uneven in effect and ceases to be a good background. Paintings may be paneled on the walls. If one has only one suitable picture for the room it should be placed over the mantel, or in some other position of importance, making a centre of interest in the room. Using pictures and pieces of tapestry in this way is quite different from having the walls painted in two sharply contrasting colors, because the paint gives the feeling of permanence while the picture is obviously an added decoration requiring a correct background. I am speaking of the average house, not of houses and palaces where the walls have been painted by great artists. Painted walls are appropriate for all manner of homes, from the elaborate country or city house all through the list to the farm house or small bungalow, but if, for any reason, one cannot have painted walls, or prefers paper, one need not forego the restful pleasure of plain backgrounds, for there are many beautiful plain papers to be had. Personal taste usually decides whether paint or paper is to be used. Paint is thought by some to be too cold or hard in appearance (it is only so when badly done or when disagreeable colors are chosen,) or it is considered too formal, or, with the memory of New England farm houses in mind, too informal. For those who wish paper, the possibilities are very great if the paper is properly chosen. The reason why so many people are disappointed with the effect of their newly papered rooms is that they judged the paper at the shop from one piece, and did not realize that a design which appealed to them there might be overpowering when repeated again and again and again on the wall. When choosing a figured paper several strips should be placed side by side to enable one to judge whether the horizontal repeat is as satisfactory and pleasant as the perpendicular. When an acceptable one is found a large sample should be taken home to pin on the wall to show the effect in its future environment. Samples of the curtains and furniture coverings should also be tried with the sample of paper before the final choice is made. If a paper with a decided figure is chosen pictures should be banished, for their beauty will be killed by the repeated design. The scale of the design in relation to the size of the room must also be taken into account. A small room will be overpowered by a large figure, but often the repeat of a small figure is quite correct in a large room as it gives an all-over, unobtrusive effect. If the wall space is much cut by doors and windows one should select a plain, neutral toned paper. It would be a fatal error to use a figured paper, for the room would look restless and chaotic and probably out of balance. If the windows are in groups and the doors balance each other the danger is lessened, but not done away with. One of the beautiful features in fine old Colonial houses is this ordered position of doors, but in many a modern house the doors have a trying way of appearing in a corner, as if they were a bit ashamed of themselves; and they have good cause to be, for a badly placed door is a calamity. If one is fortunate enough to plan one's own house, this matter can be taken care of properly, but in the average ready made house one has to try to make the doors less conspicuous by having them painted in very much the tone of the wall. With a gray wall, for instance, there should have a slightly lighter tone of gray for the woodwork, with a white and gray striped paper white paint may be used, with a soft tan a deep old ivory, and so on. If a room is badly proportioned it can often be improved by the simple expedient of using a correct paper. If the room is too high for its size the ceiling color may be brought down on the side wall for eighteen inches or so and finished with a moulding. This stops the eye before it reaches the ceiling and so makes the room seem lower. If the room is too low a striped paper may be used which will make the room seem higher by carrying the eye up to the ceiling where the paper is finished with a moulding. Vertical lines give the appearance of height, horizontal lines of width. Striped paper should not be used in narrow halls, for it makes them seem narrower and gives one the feeling of being in a cage. Two-toned striped papers of nearly the same color value, such as gray and white, yellow and cream-white, and white and cream color, are better to use than those of more marked contrast, although some of the green and white and blue and white are charming and fresh looking for bedrooms. Black and white is too eccentric for the average house; one should beware of all eccentric papers. There are a few kinds of paper which should be left severely alone, for they will spoil any room. One of them has a plain general tone but a suggestion of other colors which give it a blurred and mottled appearance which is singularly disagreeable. Another is plain in color but has a lumpy effect like a toad's back, and is really quite awful. Others are metallic papers, and there is a heavy paper embossed in self color with a conventional design which is apt to have a shining surface. Papers with dashes and little flecks of gold should be avoided, for the gold gives the wall an unstable and cheap appearance. Papers with small single figures repeated all over the surface are apt to look as if a plague of flies or beetles had arrived and are quite impossible to live with. Borders and cut out borders have a commonplace appearance and are not in the best of taste. And then there are papers with vulgarity of design. This quality is hard to define clearly, for it may be only a slightly redundant curve or other lack of true feeling for the beauty of line, or a bit too much, or too little, color, or a bad combination of color, or a lack of knowledge of the laws of balance and harmony and ornament, or a wrong surface of texture to the paper. But whatever the cause, a vulgar paper will vulgarize any room, no matter what is done in the way of furniture. It will assert itself like an ill-bred person. Luckily both are easily recognized. But the picture is not all dark by any means, for some of the American made papers, as well as the imported papers, are very beautiful. The makers are taking great pains to have fine designs and beautiful colors which will appeal to people of knowledge and taste. The situation is much better than it was a few years ago. Some of the copies of old figured and scenic papers are exceptionally fine, and can be used with great distinction in dining-rooms or halls with ivory or cream-white woodwork and wainscoting, and Georgian or Colonial furniture. One should not use pictures with these papers, but mirrors are permissable and will have the best effect if placed on a wood-paneled over-mantel. These papers come in tones of gray and white and also sepia. Oriental rugs, if not of too conspicuous a design, may be used with them, but plain rugs are better with plain hangings and striped silk chair seats. These papers are very attractive in country houses. There are also colored scenic papers, an especially fascinating one having a Chinese design which could be used as a connected scene or in panels, and would be lovely in a country house drawing-room or dining-room or hall. It could also be used in a city house with beautiful effect if due thought be given to the question of hangings, woodwork, rug, and furniture. Introduce a false note, and a room of this kind is ruined. These scenic papers come in sets, but the copies of the other old papers come in the regular rolls. Some of the lovely old "_Toile de Jouy_" designs have been used for wall paper, and these with other chintz designs, can be softened in effect by a special method of glazing which makes them very harmonious and charming with antique furniture or reproductions of fine old models. These old chintz papers are lovely for bedrooms or morning-rooms, with fresh crisp muslin curtains and plain silk or linen or chambray side-curtains. Either painted or mahogany furniture could be employed. A motif from the paper can be used for the furniture or it can simply be striped with the color chosen for the plain curtains. Some of the good and rather stunning bird design papers treated with this special glazing make beautiful halls with plain rugs and hangings and chair covers. Papers cost from about forty cents to several dollars a roll, but the choice is large and attractive between one and three dollars a roll, and there are also excellent ones for eighty-five cents. It is almost impossible, however, to give a satisfactory list of prices as they vary in different parts of the country. The reproductions of old scenic papers of which I have spoken are expensive, costing about one hundred dollars a set, but they may go down again now that the war is over. The difference in expense between paint and paper is not very great, in fact, with the average paper at a dollar or a dollar and a half a roll, paint is about the same, or perhaps a bit cheaper if the walls are in fairly good condition. It is a mistake to use inferior paper, and there should never be more than a lining paper and the paper itself on the wall. In some cases where there is only one paper of soft color on the wall, with no lining paper, this paper may be used as a lining paper if it is absolutely tight and firm. The risk is that the new paste may loosen the old a bit and so let all come down. Old paper must be entirely removed if there are any marred places as they will show through the new and ruin the effect. The amount of wall space and the quality and the quantity of the light are important factors in deciding the color scheme because by using them correctly we can brighten a cheerless, dark room or soften the blaze in a too sunny one. If the light is a cold dreary one from the north, the room will be vastly improved if warm, cheerful colors are used: warm ivory, deep cream color, soft or bright yellow without any greenish tinge in it, soft yellow pinks (there is a hard pink which is very ugly), yellow green (but not olive), and tones of golden tan. It is the dash of yellow in these colors which makes them cheerful and gives the impression of sunlight. Tans should never come too close to brown for a dark room, for nothing is more dreary or hopeless than a room done in that depressing color. The beautiful tones of old oak, or properly treated modern oak paneling, are quite a different matter. Small amounts of red or orange will do wonders, if used with discretion, in brightening a dull room, and are often just what are needed to bring out the beauty of the rest of the scheme; but it is a great mistake to think that red walls and a great deal of red in the hangings and furniture covering will make a cheerful or pleasant room. Red absorbs light and is also an irritant to the eyes and nerves, and, unless it is used with great skill, it is apt to look extremely commonplace and ugly or like an ostentatious hotel or public building. Few of us have large enough houses to make it possible to use red in great amounts, and it is well for the average person to shun it and remember that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred a red wall will spoil a room. [Illustration: There are few treatments for walls in a Colonial dining-room that can compare with paneled walls, or wainscoting with a decorative paper above. The subject, however, must be in keeping. This paper is extremely inappropriate, and the center light is also badly chosen and could be eliminated.] Cool colors should be used in bright and sunny rooms--blues, greens, grays, grayish tans, and those delightful colors, old ivory, and soft deep cream color and linen color. Colors with a tone of yellow in them are easier to use than cold blues and greens and violets, for the yellow tinge, be it ever so little, brings them into relation with the majority of woods used in floors and furniture frames. Light colors make a room seem larger by apparently making the walls recede, and dark colors make it seem smaller, as they make us conscious of the walls and so seem to bring them nearer. Any very bright room may have dark walls to soften the glare, but if it has to be used by artificial light it will then be heavy and cheerless in effect; and so a better choice would be some soft neutral color of medium or lighter color values, such as gray green, and use awnings and dark shades. This matter of color in relation to light is important to remember when planning one's house. There is also another question which has great influence on one's choice of paper, and that is the amount and kind of furniture to be used in the room. Georgian furniture calls for plain or paneled walls, or if a figured paper is used it should be one of the old-fashioned designs or one of the striped papers. Old-fashioned chintz designs are also appropriate for bedrooms with mahogany or painted furniture. Plain or paneled walls, striped paper, and some of the fine floral designs, which can also be used as panels, and the charming _Toile de Jouy_ designs, are all appropriate when used with French furniture. Heavily made furniture like Craftsman or Mission needs the support of strong walls which may be rough-finished natural-colored or painted plaster, or grass cloth, or one of the many good plain papers of heavy texture. There are also figured papers which are appropriate. Wicker furniture will go with almost any kind of attractive paper which is correct for the room, but when there is much figure the cushions should be covered with plain stuff. All-over stuffed furniture when covered with chintz looks best with plain walls. Painted furniture looks well with plain walls and chintz. A motif from the chintz can be used on the furniture for the decoration, but if the wall paper is figured the effect will be more restful if the furniture is only striped. [Illustration: This room is unattractive because of the poor arrangement of the furniture and the inappropriate bed-hangings. The bed, Sheraton chair, and card-table, are all very good examples.] In summing up: the important points which govern the choice and color of wall covering are the connecting rooms, the amount and quality of light, the size and shape of the room, its use, the furnishings which are to be used, the condition of the walls, and personal preference as to paint or paper. Do not be afraid of the idea that plain walls, whether paint or paper, may become tiresome, for one can stand well planned monotony year in and year out with a cheerful heart. If some rooms are to be papered with figured paper be sure the selection is made with care and with the idea in mind that a figured wall is in itself a decoration and should not have pictures crowded upon it. _Artificial Lighting_ To light a room successfully appropriate lights must be placed where they are needed to keep the feeling of balance and proportion and bring out the charm of the room by their relation to its furnishing. They should also be so placed that the life of the household can go on as cheerfully and smoothly in the evening as in the day time. The position and style of lighting fixtures is decided by the type of house, the size and height of the rooms, the amount of wall space, the use for which the rooms are intended, their style of furnishing, the chief centers of interest, such as mantels, doors, furniture, and pictures of importance, and also the manner in which the walls are treated, whether paneled or papered. If one is building a house one should give all possible data to the architect in regard to any special pieces of furniture or pictures which one may wish to use in certain places. By doing this the tragedy of a slightly too small wall space will be escaped, and the lights will be properly placed in the beginning. One must always remember in planning the position of the lights for a room that the eye naturally seeks the brightest spot, and badly placed lamps and sidelights will upset the balance of a room. The room must not be glaringly bright, but there should be a feeling of a certain evenness in the distribution of light. A top light makes the light come from the wrong direction. Artificial light in a room should take its general idea from the lighting of the room in the day time. The daylight comes from the windows, the sides of the room, and the decoration of the room is built up with that in mind; so when we are planning the lighting scheme we should remember this and realize that the light should come from lamps placed advantageously on tables, and wall lights placed slightly above eye level. Living-rooms should have a sufficient number of well placed sidelights to enhance the beauty of the room, and they should be placed near centers of importance such as each side of the fireplace, or wide door, or on each side of some important picture or mirror. If there is a group of two or three windows which need to be more convincingly drawn together to form a unit, lights may be placed on each side of the group. Sidelights can be placed in the center of panels, thus forming a decoration for the panel, and, flanking paintings or mirrors or tapestries, make beautiful and formal rooms, especially for the different periods of French, English, or Italian decoration. This treatment with simpler forms of fixtures may also be used in our charming, but more or less nondescript, chintz living-rooms and country house drawing-rooms or dining-rooms. With a sufficient number of lamps in the room the side-or wall-lights need not be lighted during the average stay-at-home evenings but are ready if there is some special occasion for brilliancy. There are some rooms which are much improved by having no side-lights at all, all the light coming from lamps. There should be plenty of floor sockets so placed that lamps may be used on tables near sofas and armchairs and on the writing table or large living-room table. It is this proper placing of lamps which has so much to do with the charm and comfort of a room when evening comes. In the average home there is no greater mistake in the matter of lighting than having a room lighted by chandelier or ceiling lights. Lights at the top of the room, or a foot or two from the ceiling, break up completely the artistic balance of the room by drawing attention to them as the brightest spot. They make the room seem smaller both by day and night, they cast ugly shadows, they do not give sufficient or correct light for reading or writing, and the glare above one's head is nerve destroying. When the sun is directly overhead we hasten to put up sunshades, so why should we deliberately reproduce in our homes the most trying position of light? The fixtures also are usually extremely ugly. One sees sometimes in private houses what is called the indirect method of lighting, which is usually an alabaster bowl suspended by chains from the ceiling in which the lights are concealed. The reflected light on the ceiling is supposed to give a suffused and bright light. To my mind there is something extremely obnoxious about this method used in homes, for it smacks of department stores and banks and public buildings generally. And then, too, the light is unpleasant. If I were the unfortunate possessor of such a light I should have it taken down and use the bowl on a high wrought iron tripod for growing ivy and ferns, and thus try to get a little good from the ill wind that blew it there. There are a few cases, however, where top lights may be used, such as large drawing-or music-rooms, rooms in which formal entertaining is to be done. Crystal ceiling lights are then best to use, or chandeliers with crystal drops or pendants. If these rooms are Italian Renaissance in style, the center lights must naturally harmonize in period. Large halls with marble stairs and wrought-iron balustrade can have this elaborate kind of light, but the average hall demands a simpler chandelier. If one is to be used there are some very good copies of old Colonial lights and lanterns, but personally I prefer wall brackets and a dignified lamp, or a floor lamp. Torchères or lacquered floor lamps may be used in pairs if the hall is large enough to have them placed properly. In a long, narrow hall they would look a bit like lamp posts. Rather close fitting round shades, nearly the same size at top and bottom, made of painted parchment give a decorative touch and sufficient light. As one does not need an especially bright light in a hall, a beautiful lamp can be made of one of the fine old alabaster vases which many people have by dropping an electric bulb in it. Placed on a consol table before a mirror it makes a delightful spot in the hall. These lamps may also be used in other rooms where a light is needed for effect and not for use. In placing lamps the charm and utility of a reflection in a mirror must not be overlooked. A vestibule may have a lantern of some attractive design in harmony with the house, or side lights, if they can be so placed as not to be struck by the door. Dining-rooms are far more beautiful and also better lighted if sidelights are used, with candles on the table, rather than a drop light. Dining-room drop-lights or "domes" have all the disadvantages of other center lights and are extremely trying to the eyes of the diners, as well as being unbecoming. Even when screened with thin silk drawn across the bottom there is something deadening to one's brain in having a light just over one's head. Side lights with the added charm of candles will give plenty of light. It is a cause for thanksgiving that drop-lights over dining-tables are rarely seen now-a-days. Bedrooms should have a good light over the dressing table, and to my mind, two movable lights upon it, which may be in the form of wired candlesticks or small lamps. These are much more convenient than fixed lights. There should be a light over any long mirror, and one for the desk and sofa or _chaise longue_, and one for the bedside table. The dressing-room should be supplied with a light over the chiffonier and long mirror, and there should also be a table light. Clothes closets should have simple lights. And do not forget the kitchen if one wishes properly cooked meals. A light so placed that it shines into the oven has saved many a burned dish, and a light over the sink has saved many a broken one. The servants' sitting-room should have a good reading lamp. The question of the style of the fixtures is important, for if they are badly chosen they will quite spoil an otherwise perfect room. They must harmonize in period with the room, and also with its scale of furnishing. There is a wide choice in the shops, and some of the designs are very good indeed, having been carefully studied and adapted from beautiful museum specimens of old Italian, French, English, and Spanish, carvings and ornament. Some of our iron workers make very fine metal fixtures which are beautiful copies of old French and Italian work. There are graceful and sturdy designs, elaborate and simple, special period designs, and many which are appropriate for rooms of no particular period. There are charming lacquer sconces to go with lacquer furniture, and old-fashioned prism candelabra and sconces, and fixtures copied from choice old whale oil lamps in both brass and bronze. There are suitable designs for each and every room. The difficulty lies not in finding too few to choose from, but too many, and, growing weary, making a selection not quite so good as it should be. One should take blue prints to the shop if possible, but necessary measurements without fail. One must know not only the width of the wall spaces, but the width of the pictures and furniture to be put in the room, or the calamity may happen of having the fixtures a bit too wide. When fixtures are meant to be a special part of the decorative scheme, and support and enhance pictures and tapestries, they should have an appropriate decorative value also, but in the average home it is better and safer to choose the simpler, but still beautiful, designs. It is better to err on the side of simplicity than to have them too elaborate. Lamps should be chosen to harmonize with the room, to add their usefulness and beauty to it as a part of the whole and be convincingly right both by day and night. There are many possibilities for having lamps made of different kinds of pottery and porcelain jars; some crackle-ware jars are very good in color. Chinese porcelain jars, both single color and figured, make lovely lamps. Old and valuable specimens should not be used in this way, for they are works of art. Many modern jars are copies of the old and these should be used. There are lacquer lamps, bronze, and brass, and carved wood lamps, and lovely Wedgwood and alabaster vases. There are charming little floor lamps, some of wrought iron with smart little parchment shades, some in Sheraton design, some in lacquer or painted wood, which can be easily carried about to stand by bridge tables or a special chair. There are dozens of different jars and lamps to use, but the one absolutely necessary question to ask oneself is: is it right for my purpose? Lamp shades are a part of the scheme of the room's decoration and should be chosen or made to order to achieve the desired effect. Special shades are made by many clever people to harmonize with any room or period and are apt to be far better than the ready made variety. There are all manner of beautiful shades, lace, silk, plain and painted parchment and paper, mounted Japanese prints, embroidery, and any number of other attractive combinations. To be perfect, beside the fine workmanship, they must harmonize in line with the lamps on which they are to be used, and harmonize in color and style with the room, and have an absolute lack of frills and furbelows. The shade for a reading lamp should spread enough to allow the light to shine out. Lamp shades simply for illuminating purposes may be any desired shape if in harmony with the shape of the lamp. Lacquered painted tin shades are liked by some for lamps on writing tables. There should be a certain amount of uniformity in the style of the shades in a room, although they need not be exactly alike. Too much variety is ruinous to the effect of simple charm in the room. The chintz which is used for curtains will supply a motif for the painted shades if one wishes them, but if there is a great deal of chintz, plain shades will be more attractive. Side lights may have little screens or shades, as one prefers, or none may be used. In that case the bulbs may be toned down by using ground glass and painting them with a thin coat of raw umber water color paint. Bedroom shades follow the same rule of appropriateness that applies to the other shades in the house. There should be several sets of candle shades for the dining-room. There is really no reason why so many houses should be so badly lighted. Often simply rearranging the lamps and changing the shape of the shades will do wonders in the way of improvement. Radical changes in the wiring should be carefully thought out so there will be no mistakes to rectify. _Painted Furniture_ The love of color which is strong in human nature is shown in the welcome which has been given to painted furniture. If we turn back to review the past we find this same feeling cropping out in the different periods and in the different grades of furniture. The furniture of the Italian Renaissance was often richly gilded and painted; the carved swags of fruit, arabesques, and the entwined human figures, were painted in natural colors, or some of the important lines of the furniture were picked out with color or gold, or both. As the influence of the Renaissance spread to France and England, changed by the national temperament of the different countries, we find their furniture often blossoming into color--not covered by a solid coat of paint but picked out here and there by lines and accenting points. During the time of Louis XIV everything was ablaze with gold and glory, but later, during the reigns of Louis XV and Louis XVI, a gentler, more refined love of color came uppermost, and the lovely painted furniture was made which has given so much inspiration to our modern work. The simpler forms of the Louis XV period, and the beautiful furniture of the Louis XVI period, were often painted soft tones of ivory, blue, green, or yellow, and decorated with lovely branches of flowers, birds, and scenery where groups of people by Fragonard and other great painters disported with all their eighteenth century charm. These decorations were usually painted on reserves of old ivory with the ground color outside of some soft tone. Martin, the inventor of famous "vernis Martin," flourished at this time, and the glow of his beautiful amber-colored finish decorated many a piece of furniture from sewing boxes to sedan chairs. In England the vogue of painted furniture was given impetus by the genius of the Adam Brothers and the beautiful work of Angelica Kaufmann, Cipriani, and Pergolesi. In both France and England there was at this time the comprehension and appreciation of beauty and good taste combined with a carefree gaiety which made the ineffable charm of the eighteenth century a living thing. There are some of our modern workmen and painters of furniture who feel this so thoroughly that their work is very fine, but the majority have no knowledge or understanding of the period, and, although they may copy the lovely things of that time, the essence, the true spirit, is lacking. Cabinet making and painting in those days was a beloved and honored craft; to-day, alas, it is too often a matter of union rules. Chinese lacquer, while not strictly coming under the head of painted furniture, was another branch of decorated furniture which was in great demand at this time. The design in gold was done on a black or red or green ground and was beautiful in effect. [Illustration: The delicacy of the painting and the graceful proportions of these reproductions are in the true spirit of Adam.] [Illustration: A three-chair settee of the Sheraton period, lacquered, and with cane seat. It would be appropriate for a living-room or hall.] [Illustration: A wing-chair with a painted frame is comfortable and harmonizes with painted furniture.] [Illustration: This simple slat-backed chair can be made most attractive at small expense with paint and a motif from the chintz for decoration.] While the upper classes were having this beautiful furniture made for their use, the peasant class was serenely going on its way decorating its furniture according to its own ideas and getting charming results. The designs were usually conventionalized field flowers done with great spirit and charm. From the peasants of Brittany and Flanders and Holland have come down to us many beautiful marriage chests and other pieces of furniture which are simple and straightforward and a bit crude in their design and color, but which have done much to serve as a help and guide in our modern work. The supply of painted furniture to-day is inspired by these different kinds of the great periods of decoration. There are many grades and kinds in the market, some very fine, keeping up the old traditions of beauty, some charming and effective in style and color, but with a modern touch, and some very very bad indeed; "and when they are bad they are horrid." I have said a great deal in other chapters on this subject, but I cannot too often urge those of my readers who have the good fortune to live near one of our great art museums to study for themselves the precious specimens of the great days of genius. It will give a standard by which to judge modern work, and it is only by keeping our ideals and demands high that we can save a very beautiful art from deteriorating into a commercial affair. When selecting painted furniture, one can often have some special color scheme or decoration carried out at a little extra expense; and this is well worth while, for it takes away the "ready made" feeling and gives the touch of personality which adds so much to a home. One must see that the furniture is well made, that the painting and finishing are properly done, and that the decoration is appropriate. If the furniture is of one of the French periods, it should be one of the simpler styles and should be painted one of the soft ground colors used at the time, and the decoration should have the correct feeling--flowers and birds like those on old French brocade or _toile de Jouy_ or old prints. The striping should be done in some contrasting color or in the wonderful brownish black which they used. The design may be taken from the chintz or brocade chosen for the room, but the painting must be done in the manner of the period. This holds true of any English period chosen, such as Adam furniture or the painted furniture of Sheraton. There are several firms who make a specialty of this fine grade of furniture, but it is not made by the car load; in fact it is usually special order work. The kind one finds most often in the shops is furniture copied from the simpler Georgian styles or simple modern pieces slightly reminiscent of Craftsmen furniture, but not heavy or awkward in build. This furniture is painted in different stock colors and designs, or can be painted according to the purchaser's wishes as a special order. These "stock" designs are often stenciled, but some of them have an effective charm and are suitable to country houses, and also many city ones. When there is much chintz used, the furniture will often be more attractive if it is only striped with the chief color used in the room. The designs which are to be avoided are of the Art Nouveau and Cubist variety, roses that look like cabbages gone crazy, badly conventionalized flowers, and crude and revolting color schemes. It sounds as if it should not be necessary to warn people against these monstrosities, and I have never heard of any one who buys them, but some one must do so or they would not be in the shops. Attractive and inexpensive painted furniture can be made to be used in simple surroundings by buying slat-backed chairs with splint seats and a drop-leaf pine table and having them painted the desired ground color and then striped and decorated with a motif from the chintz to be used in the room. A country house dining-room or bedroom could be most charmingly fitted up in this way, chintz cushions could be used on the chairs, and candle shades could be made to match. One can sometimes find a bed or chest of drawers or other piece of furniture which is a bit shopworn and can be had for a bargain. Old bureaus can be made to serve as chests of drawers by taking the mirror off and using it as a wall mirror. In many houses there are old sets of ugly furniture which can be made useful and often attractive by having the jigsaw carving removed and painting them. In a set of this kind, which I was doing over for a client, there happened to be two beds with towering headboards, quite impossible to use, but I combined the two footboards, thus making one attractive bed. The furniture was painted a soft pumpkin yellow, striped with blue and with little, old-fashioned nosegays, and a lovely linen with yellow and cream stripes and baskets of flowers was used and turned a dark and dreary room into a cheerful and pretty one. One can find some kind of suitable painted furniture for nearly every room in the average modern house. People everywhere are turning away more and more from the heavy, depressing effects of a few years ago; but unless they know the ground they are walking on they must tread with care. The style chosen must be appropriate and in scale with the style of house. The fine examples would look quite out of place in a bungalow or very simple house, and the simple kind founded on peasant designs would not be suitable in rooms with paneled walls and lovely taffeta curtains. In Georgian and simple French designs there are fascinating examples of chairs, settees and tables, corner cupboards and sideboards, beds and dressing-tables and chests of drawers, mirrors and footstools and candlesticks, everything both big and little which can be used in almost any of our charming rooms in the average house, with their fresh chintz and taffeta and well planned color schemes. Lacquered furniture is more formal than the average painted furniture, and often one or two pieces are sufficient for a room. A beautiful lacquered cabinet with its fascinating mounts and its soft, wonderful red or black and gold tones is a thing to conjure with. Lacquered furniture is lovely for some dining-rooms and morning-rooms. The tables should always be protected with glass tops, which also applies to other painted furniture. One or two pieces of painted furniture may be used in a room with other furniture if they happen to be just the thing needed to complete the scheme. A console table, for instance, with a mirror over it and sidelights, might be just the touch needed between two windows hung with plain taffeta curtains. Like all good things there must be restraint in using it, but there are few things that have greater possibilities than painted furniture when properly used. _Synopsis of Period Styles as an Aid in Buying Furniture._ When trying to select furniture for the home, people often become bewildered by the amount and variety to be found in the shops, and, not knowing exactly what to look for in the different styles, make an inappropriate or bad selection. One does not have to be so very learned to have things right, but there are certain anachronisms which cry to heaven and a little knowledge in advance goes a long way. A purchaser should also know something about the construction and grade of the furniture he wishes to buy. There are good designs in all the grades, which, for the sake of convenience, may be divided into the expensive, the medium in price, and the cheap. The amount one wishes to spend will decide the grade, and one naturally must not expect to find all the beauties and virtues of the first in the last. The differences in these grades lie chiefly in the matters of the fit and balance of doors and drawers; the joining of corners where, in the better grade, the interior blocks used to keep the sides from spreading are screwed as well as glued; the selection of well seasoned wood of fine grain; careful matching of figures made by the grain of the wood in veneer; panels properly made and fitted so they will not shrink or split; careful finish both inside and out, and the correct color of the stain used; appropriate hardware; hand or machine or "applied" carving. In the cheap grades it is best to leave carving out of the question entirely, for it is sure to be bad. Then there are the matters of the correctness of design and detail, in which all the knowledge one has collected of period furniture will be called upon; and in painted furniture the color of the background and the charm and execution of the design must be taken into account, whether it is done by hand or stenciled. Nearly all kinds of woods are used, the difference in cost being caused by the grade and amount of labor needed, the kind of wood chosen and its abundance and the fineness of grain and the seasoning. Mahogany costs more than stained birch, and walnut than gum wood, but there are certain people who for some strange reason feel that they are getting something a little smarter and better if it is tagged "birch mahogany" than if it were simply called birch. Some of the furniture is well stained and some shockingly done, the would-be mahogany being either a dead and dreary brown or a most hideous shade of red, a very Bolshevik among woods. One must remember that the mahogany of the 18th century, the best that there has ever been, was a beautiful glowing golden brown, and when a red stain was used it was only a little to enhance the richness of the natural color of the wood, more of a suggestion than a blazing fact. The wood was carefully rubbed with oil and pumice, and the shellac finish was rubbed to a soft glow. Modern furniture, especially in the medium and cheap grades, is apt to look as if it were encased in a hard and shining armor of varnish. [Illustration: This chair with its silk damask covering edged with gimp, the shape of the underframing and arms, and the dull gold carved ornaments, shows many characteristics of the Italian Renaissance.] [Illustration: An elaborately carved Chippendale chair, with late Queen Anne influence in the shape of the back. Petit point covering which was so popular in her day is now wonderfully reproduced.] [Illustration: This Chippendale pie crust tip table shows the tripod base with claw feet and the carved edge which gives it its name, and which was carved down to the level, never applied. A genuine antique pie crust table is very valuable.] [Illustration: This fine example of a Queen Anne lacquered chair shows the characteristic splat and top curve, the slip seat narrower at the back than front with rounded corners, and cabriole legs.] Beside this practical knowledge one should have a general idea of the artistic side or the appearance of the different period styles and the manner in which they were used. To achieve this, one must study the best examples it is possible to find in originals, pictures, and properly made reproductions. Many of the plates in this book are from extremely valuable originals and should be studied carefully as they give a fine idea of some of the chief points in the different styles. One should also go to libraries and Art Museums whenever possible and study their collections. The more knowledge gained the more ease one will have in furnishing one's home whether there is everything to buy, or one is planning to add a few articles to complete a charming interior, or, with an eye to a future plan, is buying good things piece by piece and slowly eliminating the bad. It is this knowledge which will help you to study your own possessions and decide what is needed and what will be correct to buy. That, is one of the most important points, to have a well thought out plan, and never to be haphazard in your purchases. Very few of us have houses completely furnished in one period, but we do try to have a certain unity of spirit kept throughout the whole, whether it be French, Italian, English, or our own charming Colonial. There can be a great variety in any one of these divisions, and suitable furniture can be found for all rooms, from the simplest kind to the most elaborate. It is easier to find good reproductions in the English periods of Jacobean, Charles II, William and Mary, Queen Anne, and the Georgian time, and the French periods of Louis XV and Louis XVI. [Illustration: The upholstery of this Sheraton chair is fastened on with brass-headed tacks placed in festoons.] [Illustration: Notice the curved seat of this Hepplewhite chair.] [Illustration: The wheel back design was often used by Adam. The arms, the curve of the seat and carving, the tapering reeded legs, and the angle of the back legs should all be noticed.] [Illustration: As Chippendale did not use this style of leg they show that the chair was probably reconstructed from two old chairs.] If one wishes a house furnished in the Gothic period it will be necessary to have nearly all the different pieces made to order, as there are few reproductions made. As our modern necessities of furniture were not known in those days, the designs would have to be carried out more in the spirit of the style than the letter, and one must be certain to have advice and designs from some person who thoroughly understands the period and who will see that the whole is properly carried out. Gothic days were rough and strenuous, and the furniture was strong and heavy and was made chiefly of oak with no varnish of any kind. The characteristic lines of the furniture and the designs for carving were architectural, and a careful study of the Gothic cathedrals of France, Belgium, and England will give a very satisfactory idea of this wonderful time. The idea of the pointed arch, rose window, trefoil, quatrefoil, animal grotesques, and geometric designs, as well as the beautiful linen-fold design, were all adapted for use as carving in the panels of the furniture of the day, which consisted of chests that served as seats, buffets, armoires, screens, trestle tables, as well as the choir stalls of churches. This style is appropriate to large and dignified country houses. The architect must see that the background is correct. The Renaissance period should not be attempted as a style to furnish one's house unless it can be carried out properly. The house should be large and architecturally correct, and there should be at least a near relation of a Fortunatus purse to draw upon. It is one of the magnificent and dignified periods, and makeshifts and poor copies have a pitiful appearance and are really time and money wasted. Much of the furniture of the Renaissance was architectural in design, many chests and cupboards and cabinets having the appearance of temple façades. The carving was in both low and high relief and was extremely beautiful, but in the later part of the period became too ornate. Walnut and chestnut were the chief woods used, and there was much inlay of tortoise shell, ivory, brass, mother-of-pearl, lapis-lazuli, and fine woods. There was much gilding, and paint was also used, and the metal mounts were of the finest workmanship. The bronze andirons, knockers, candlesticks, of this time have never been equalled. There was a strong feeling of balance in the decorations, and the chief motifs were the acanthus beautifully carved, conventionalized flowers and fruit, horns of plenty, swags and wreaths of fruit and flowers, the scroll, dolphin, human figure, and half figure ending in fanciful designs of foliage. Beautiful and fascinating arabesques were carved and painted on the walls and pilasters. The chief pieces of furniture were magnificently carved chests and coffers which were also sometimes gilded and painted, oblong tables with elaborately carved supports at each end, usually with a connecting shelf on which were smaller carved supports. The chairs were high backed with much carving and gilding, and there were others of simpler form with leather or tapestry or damask seats and backs. The Savanarola chair was in the form of a curved X with seat and back of velvet or leather or sometimes wood on which a cushion was used. Mirror frames were magnificently carved and gilded and picked out with color. The rooms were a fitting background for all this splendor, for the woodwork and walls were paneled and carved and painted, the work often being done by the greatest painters of the day. The French Renaissance followed the general line of the Italian but was lighter and less architectural in its furniture designs and ornament. Chairs were slowly becoming more common, and rooms began to be more livable. [Illustration: This Jacobean buffet is finely reproduced with the exception of the spiral carving of the legs, which is too sharp and thin, and gives the appearance of inadequate support. The split spindle ornament was much used on furniture of the period.] The English Renaissance was of slow growth and was always marked by a certain English sturdiness, which is one of the reasons why it is more easily used in our modern houses. It began in the time of Henry VIII and lasted through the Tudor and Jacobean periods. [Illustration: A style that harmonizes with Chippendale furniture.] [Illustration: This style of mirror was popular in the early nineteenth century.] [Illustration: The painted scene is often an important feature.] [Illustration: The Empire style has columns at the sides and gilt ornaments.] The best modern copies of Renaissance furniture are not to be found in every shop and are usually in the special order class. There are some makers in America, however, who make extraordinarily fine copies, and there is the supply from Europe of fine copies and "faked" originals--a guaranteed original is a very rare and expensive thing. The period of Louis XIV in France was another "magnificent" period and should not be used in small or simple houses. Louis XIV furniture was large and massive, lavish in gilding and carving and ornament, but had dignity as well as splendor. The Gobelin and Beauvais Tapestry Works produced their wonderful series of tapestries, and Boulle inlay of brass and tortoise shell was lavished on furniture, and the ormolu mounts were beautiful and elaborate. All workmanship was of the highest. During the early part of the period the legs of chairs and tables were straight and square in shape, sometimes tapering, and much carved, and had underframing. Later they were curved and carved, a kind of elaborate cabriole leg, and had carved underframing. Toward the end of the period the curved leg and underframing became much simpler, some of the furniture having no underframing, and slowly the style merged into that of the Regency and Louis XV. The illustrations for the long chapter on Louis XIV show some very fine examples of both the grand and simple form of chair, and also show that comfort was becoming more of a fact. The materials used for upholstery were brocades of large pattern, tapestries, and splendid velvets. Tables, chests, armoires, desks, console tables, mirrors, screens, all were carved or painted or inlaid, gilded and mounted with wonderful metal mounts. There is great danger, in buying furniture for both this period and the Renaissance, that the reproductions chosen may be too florid, the gilding too bright, the carving too ornate, with an indescribable vulgarity of line in place of the beauty of line which the best originals have. Some of the best makers are, however, making some very fine reproductions of the simpler forms of this time which are beautiful to use in houses of fair size and importance. If one wishes to use Louis XV furniture it is better to choose the simpler and more beautiful designs rather than the over-elaborate rococo. The period was a long one, sixty-nine years, and began with a reminiscence of the grandeur and dignity of the time of Louis XIV, which was soon lost in the orgy of curves and excessive ornament of the rococo portion; and toward the end came the reaction to simpler and finer taste which reached its perfection in the next reign of Louis XVI. The legs of the furniture of Louis XV time were curved and carved, light and slender, and had no underframes or stretchers. The frames which showed around the upholstery or cane were carved elaborately and later more simply (see illustration at end of chapter on Louis XV). Walnut, chestnut, ebony, and some mahogany were used. Some of the furniture was veneered, and there was a great deal of gilding used and also much painted furniture. The ormolu mounts were most elaborate, curved and ornate like the carving, and were used wherever possible. The brocades used for furniture coverings were lovely in color and design. Garlands, flowers, lace and ribbon effects, baskets of flowers, shells, curled endive, feathers, scrolls, all were used, as well as pastoral scenes by Boucher and Watteau for tapestry and paintings. Comfort had made a long step forward. The period of Louis XVI was much more beautiful in style than the preceding one, as it was more restrained and exquisite because of the use of the straight line or a gracious, simple curve. This comparative simplicity does not come from lack of true feeling for beauty but rather because of it. The sense of proper proportion was shown in both the furniture and the room decoration. The backs of chairs and settees were round or rectangular, and the legs were square, round, or fluted, and were tapering in all cases. The fluting was sometimes filled with metal husks at top and bottom, leaving a plain stretch between. Walnut and mahogany were much used and were beautifully polished, but had no vulgar and hard varnished glare. There was wonderful inlay and veneer, and much of the furniture was enamelled in soft colors and picked out with gold or some harmonizing color. Gilding was also used for the entire frame. The metal mounts were very fine. Brocades of lovely color and designs of flowers, bowknots, wreaths, festoons, lace, feathers, etc.; chintz, the lovely "_toil de Jouy_," which is so well copied nowadays; soft toned taffeta, Gobelin and Beauvais and Aubusson tapestries, were all used for hanging and furniture coverings. Cane also became much more popular. Walls were paneled with moldings, and fluted pilasters divided too large spaces into good proportions. Tapestry and paintings were paneled on the walls, and the colors chosen for the backgrounds were light and soft. The charm and beauty of this style as well as its dignity make it one which may be used in almost any modern house, as it ranges from simplicity to a beautiful restrained elaborateness suitable to the formal rooms. [Illustration: The modern style of mirror is brought into harmony with the eighteenth century dressing-table by means of carving.] [Illustration: This William and Mary settee would be delightful in a country house. There are chairs to match it.] The change from Louis XVI to the Empire was a violent one both politically and artistically. The influence of the great days of the Roman empire and the mystery of ancient Egypt stirred Napoleon's imagination and formed his taste. Empire furniture was solid and heavy, with little or no carving, and much ornamentation of metal mounts. Mahogany was chiefly used, and some furniture was gilded or bronzed. Round columns finished with metal capitals and bases appeared on large desks and other pieces of furniture. Chairs were solid, many of them throne-like in design, and many with elaborately carved arms in the form of swans and sphinxes, and metal ornaments. The simpler form of chair, which was copied and used extensively in America, as a dining-chair, often had a curved back and graceful lines. Furniture coverings were very bright satins and velvets brocaded with the Emperor's favorite emblems, the bee, torch, wreath, anthemion. It is a heavy and gaudy style and must be used with great discretion. American Empire furniture was far simpler and is better suited to many American homes. In buying it, however, one must be careful to select copies from the earlier part of the time, for it fast deteriorated into heavy and vulgar curves. This American Empire furniture is often shown in the shops under the name of Colonial, which is a misnomer, as we had ceased to be colonies years before it came into existence. It was used during the first half of the nineteenth century. [Illustration: These chairs are reproductions of designs by the Adam Brothers. They are of satinwood, covered with damask. This design was also used by Hepplewhite.] [Illustration: The first day beds, or chaise longue, were made during the Jacobean period. As will be seen, this "stretcher," as they were also called, has Charles II influence in its carving and Spanish feet.] When we come to English furniture, I think we all take heart of grace a little, for there is something about its sturdiness that seems to appeal to our American sense of appropriateness. By inheritance we have more of the English point of view about the standards of life and living and we seem to settle down with more comfort in a house furnished in any one of the English periods than we do with any of the other great styles. The English Renaissance is often called the age of oak, and all through the long years of its slow development this oaken bond, so to speak, gave it a certain unity which makes it possible to use much of the furniture of its different divisions together. There are many fine reproductions made of the Tudor and Elizabethan times, but from the early Stuart days, the time of James I onward, good reproductions become more plentiful. This does not mean, however, that one is safe in buying anything called Jacobean or Queen Anne or Georgian. One must still be careful and go armed with as much knowledge as possible. For instance, do not buy any Tudor, Elizabethan, Jacobean, or Charles II furniture made of mahogany or with a high polish. Do not buy any with finicky or delicate brass handles. This may seem an unnecessary warning, but I have seen dainty oval Hepplewhite handles used on a heavy Jacobean chest. This does not happen often, but a word to the wise--. The handles which were used were some times of iron and sometimes of brass, often with a little design etched on them, and the drop handles were either oblong or round rings, or pear- or tear-shaped drops with either a round or oblong plate. H-hinges of iron were used. Chairs of the time of James I, which are much like those of Louis XIII in France, were square and strong with plain or spiral turned legs, and stretchers, and had seats and half backs covered with needlework, leather, velvet, or damask. They would make very comfortable dining chairs and would harmonize with sturdy gate-legged tables, or the long narrow tables which show the influence of Elizabeth's time in the carved drum or acorn-like bulbs of the legs. A court-cupboard would make a beautiful sideboard, and one of the long tables spoken of above would make an appropriate serving-table. Carved chests, and screens covered with leather or needlework, may be used in rooms of this kind, and for modern comfort one may add stuffed chairs and sofas if the proper materials for coverings are chosen. There are some very fine copies made of old needlework of different kinds and also of damasks and other stuffs. One must have the right background for all this, oak paneled walls and tapestry and plain or figured velvet or damask hangings. There are also some finely designed heavy linens which are correct to use. The furniture of Cromwell's time was much like that of the time of James I and Charles I, but was simplified wherever possible. There were no pomps and vanities in those stern days. When Charles II came to the throne, there was a reaction against Puritan gloom which showed in the furniture being of a more elaborate design. Chair backs were high and narrow with carved and pierced panels of wood, or carved backs with cane panels, and the carved front rail carried out the feeling and balanced the carved top rail. The crown and rose and shell were used, supported by cherubs and opposed S curves. The illustration opposite page 65 will give a very good idea of the general style. Upholstery was also used, and day-beds and high-boys made their appearance. The chests of earlier days became chests of drawers. Rooms were paneled in oak, and much beautiful tapestry was used. Walnut began to take the place of oak in the later days of Charles II and those of James II, and introduced the age of walnut which lasted through the reigns of William and Mary and Queen Anne. The furniture of the early days of William and Mary was much like that of the time of Charles II. The chair backs remained high and narrow, but the carving slowly grew simpler and the caning at last went entirely across the back. Many of the early chairs had three carved splats or balusters in the back, and a feature which added greatly to comfort was the slight curve the backs were given instead of the perfectly straight backs of Jacobean days. Dutch influence at least conquered the old style, and the more characteristic furniture of William and Mary was made. A rather elaborate form of the cabriole leg was used, ending in a species of hoof with a scroll-like stretcher between the front legs and curved stretchers connecting all four legs. The cabriole leg became simpler as time passed until in the days of Queen Mary it became the one we all know so well in the Dutch chairs and the early work of Chippendale. [Illustration: These copies of rare old pieces of furniture are of the best. The choice of wood, the carving, the inlay, all show the highest ideals. The Chinese Chippendale table shows the pagoda effect, and the Hepplewhite desk has the charm of a secret drawer.] There was much beautiful marquetry used; in fact it is a marked characteristic of much of the furniture of William and Mary. After she died in 1694, the white jasmine flower and green leaves were not used so much, and the sea-weed pattern and acanthus became more popular. [Illustration: An exceptionally fine reproduction of a Sheraton chest of drawers.] [Illustration: The walnut used in this adaptation of the William and Mary period is very fine. Shaving-glasses were used throughout the eighteenth century.] The cup-and-ball design of turned legs with curved stretchers was used for chairs, settees, tables, cabinets. China cupboards with their double-hooded tops and soft colored brocade linings were used to display the wonderful china collections so much in vogue. There was much upholstered furniture covered with beautiful petit-point, which is perfectly reproduced nowadays, but is naturally expensive. Silks, velvets, and damasks were also used, and Queen Mary had a "beautiful chintz bed." The handles used were of various kinds, the favorite being the drop from a round or star-shaped boss. The furniture was beautifully polished but did not have a bright gloss. When Anne came to the throne in 1702, the English cabinet maker had became an expert craftsman, and we have the beginning of the finest period of English cabinet-making, which later, in the Georgian period, blossomed into its full glory. The furniture of this time was of walnut. The chairs had a narrow, fairly high back, with a central splat spoon-shaped and later fiddle-shaped. The corners of the back were always rounded. The cabriole legs were often carved with a shell on the knees, the acanthus being used in the more elaborate pieces of furniture, and ended chiefly in a club foot. Stretchers became less common, but if they were used were pushed back and did not form such an important part of the chair design. Seats were broader at the front than at the back, and all furniture showed a real desire for comfort and convenience. Marquetry and lacquer were both in great favor, and there are wonderful examples of both reproduced, but especially lacquer. Petit-point, damask, velvet, and chintz were all used for upholstery and hangings. Chintz was becoming more plentiful, but it was not until the Georgian period that it reached its perfection. The Georgian period covers the work of Chippendale, the Adam Brothers, Hepplewhite, and Sheraton, who gave to the eighteenth century its undying decorative fame. [Illustration: A glassed-in sun-porch furnished with comfortable wicker furniture adds much to the joy of life.] When Chippendale began his fine work, the Dutch influence of Queen Anne's reign was still strong, and this shows in his furniture; but his genius lightened and improved it. The characteristics of his style which remained fairly stable through his different phases were the use of mahogany, a certain squareness and solidity of design which has no appearance of heaviness because of the fine proportions, chair backs with a center splat reaching to the seat. The curving top rail always had curving up corners (see drawings page 84). The center splat was solid at first, but soon was pierced and carved, and went through the many developments of his style such as ribbon-back, Chinese, and Gothic. In some chairs he also used horizontal rails, and what are called "all-over backs." The legs of his earlier furniture were cabriole, and later they were straight. He used much and beautiful carving, gave great attention to the beauty of the wood and the perfection of workmanship and finish. Chippendale's settees were at first designed like two chair backs side by side, and if a larger settee was made either a third chair back of the same design or a different but harmonizing one was used. His dining-tables were made up of two center pieces with wide flaps on each side, and two semicircular tables, and all four pieces could be fastened together into one long table by brass fasteners. The end pieces were used as side tables or sideboards, for the sideboard as we know it did not come until later. He also made oblong sidetables, some with marble tops, which were used as sideboards with wine-coolers placed underneath, and usually a large tea-caddy or tea box on top. The beds which Chippendale made were large and elaborate four-posters, with beautiful carved cornices and posts. The curtains hung from the inside of the cornice, and silks or chintz were used for the curtains. His mirror frames were very elaborately carved, and in his rococo period were fairly fantastic with dripping water, Chinese pagodas, rocks, birds with long beaks, and figures. They were gilded, and some were left in the natural mahogany. He made folding card-tables with saucer-like places at the corners for candles, and later when the candle-stand came into fashion, the tables were made without them. [Illustration: An admirable example of the Sheraton style mahogany settee with original silk covering.] [Illustration: While this nest of mahogany tables is attractive in the room its appearance in the picture is of an inappropriate and heavy mission table.] [Illustration: A lamp would be an addition to this corner. The footstool is Victorian and a bit clumsy.] There are many fine reproductions of Chippendale's furniture made which carry out the spirit of his work. In the medium and inexpensive grades, however, there is danger of bad carving, a clumsy thickening of proportions, a jumble of his different periods, and too red a stain and too high a varnish glitter. Good examples can be found in these grades, but one must spend time looking for them, and perhaps it may be necessary to have them rubbed down with powdered pumice and linseed oil. If one uses Chippendale furniture, or that of any of the other Georgian makers, the walls should not be covered with a modern design of wall paper. Plain walls or molding may be used, or one of the fine old designs of figured paper, and this must be used with great discretion and is better if there is a wainscot. Chippendale was very fond of using morocco, but damask and velvet and chintz may also be used. The chintzes were charming in design, and many good copies are made. [Illustration: This is in reality a moderate-sized room, yet the open arrangement and the clear center give the impression of great space. The curve of the fireplace and the oak panelling are simple Tudor. The furniture is a mixture of many kinds.] [Illustration: The wallpaper border, the bedspread, the table cover, and the curtains are all wrong in this room. The Empire bed is good but should not have castors.] The Adam Brothers, of whom Robert was the more important, showed strong classical influence in their work, and much of it resembles that of Louis XVI, which was influenced from the same source. Chairs had square or round or oval backs, and they also used a lyre-shaped splat which was copied later by Sheraton. Often the top rail was decorated by small and charming painted panels. These little panels were also used in the center of cobweb caning in chair backs and settees. Legs of chairs and tables were tapering and round or square and often reeded or fluted. Adam used much mahogany and kept its beautiful golden brown tone (not the dead brown called "Adam" too often in the shops), and also satin-wood and painted wood. The best artists of the day did the painting. Wedgwood medallions were introduced into the more important pieces of furniture. Painted placques, lovely festoons, and charming groups of figures, vases of flowers, and Wedgwood designs, and designs radiating from a center, as on semicircular console table tops, are all characteristic of his work. He also used much inlay. As Adam usually planned all the furniture and the interior of the house, even to the door-knobs, he kept the feeling of unity in both background and furnishings. [Illustration: The Hancock desk was a design greatly favored in America in the eighteenth century. This fine example dates from about 1750.] [Illustration: The general proportions, the broken pediment and torch or flame ornaments and drops, large brasses, and cabriole legs all show that this splendid example of a highboy belongs to the same time as the desk, about 1750.] Hepplewhite's furniture has much of the delicacy of Adam's work, by whom, without doubt, he was influenced, as he was also by the French styles of the time. Luckily his own personality and sense of beauty and ingenuity were strong enough to develop a marked and beautiful style of his own. His favorite chair back was shield-shaped (see page 83), and he also used heart-shaped and wheel backs, either round or oval, and charmingly painted little panels. The three feathers of the Prince of Wales was a favorite design. He also made ladder-back chairs, usually with four rails. On much of his furniture the legs tapered on the inside edge only and were put in at a slight angle which gave security both in fact and appearance. He also used reeded legs. His console and other tables are beautiful in design and workmanship, being painted usually in different forms of the radiating fan design, or inlaid with beautiful colored woods. The inlay used was often oval in shape, sometimes only a line and sometimes panels of different woods or matched veneer. The handles used were round or oval. He made sofas and settees with either chair-back backs or all upholstered with the frame showing and the covering tacked on with brass tacks close together. His cabinets are fascinating, with their beautiful inlay and delicate strap work over the glass. He made four-post beds with fluted posts, and chests of drawers and little work tables and candle-stands and screens; and one thing we must be deeply grateful to him for is that he developed the sideboard into a really useful and beautiful piece of furniture. He made nearly everything in the way of necessities, and all show the marks of his taste. His dining-tables were on the plan of those of Chippendale but lighter in effect with tapering legs instead of the long cabriole leg ending in claw feet. His mirrors were usually oval with charming festoons. His favorite woods were mahogany and satin-wood, and he used many fine woods for inlay. Chintz and taffeta and fine velvet are all appropriate to use. In his best designs Sheraton was much influenced by Adam and Hepplewhite and the style of Louis XVI, but like them he also developed his own special and beautiful style. He used mahogany and a great deal of satin-wood of beautiful grain and of a delightful straw color, which was often veneered on oak frames. He was exceedingly fond of inlay, and his designs called for inlaid panels, borders, and festoons. He used the shell, bell-flower, fan, etc., all carried out in fine colored woods. He also used much painted furniture, and often designed white and gold furniture for drawing-rooms. His characteristic chair back was rectangular in shape with a central splat resting on a rail a few inches above the seat (see page 83). This splat was in many different forms, both inlaid and painted. The legs of his furniture were tapering and either square or reeded, the square usually being inlaid. He made beautiful sideboards which were inlaid and finished with a brass rail around the sides and back of the top, and round or oval or lion's-head handles with rings. He also designed most graceful inlaid knife boxes. Like Hepplewhite, he designed all kinds of furniture both large and small, and, until his deterioration came when he designed his astonishing Empire furniture, his style is full of beauty and charm and delicacy, and is copied very successfully by our modern makers. 
44392	----	Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 44392-h.htm or 44392-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/44392/44392-h/44392-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/44392/44392-h.zip) Project Gutenberg has the other two volumes of this work. Volume I: see http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/44391 Volume III: see http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/44393 Transcriber's note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). The ligature oe is represented by [oe]. The signs cross and dagger have been marked as [cross] and [dagger]. A carat character is used to denote superscription. A single character following the carat is superscripted (Comp^a). Multiple superscripted characters are enclosed by curly brackets (example: DELINEAV^{it}). [=a] represents a letter (in this instance a lower case "a") with a macron above it. [Illustration: _Frontispiece_ SAINT FRANCIS] The World of Art Series THE ARTS AND CRAFTS OF OLDER SPAIN by LEONARD WILLIAMS Corresponding Member of the Royal Spanish Academy, of the Royal Spanish Academy of History, and of the Royal Spanish Academy of Fine Arts; Author of "The Land of the Dons"; "Toledo and Madrid"; "Granada," etc. In Three Volumes, Illustrated VOLUME II Chicago A. C. McClurg & Co. Edinburgh: T. N. Foulis 1908 American Edition Published October 10, 1908 CONTENTS OF VOLUME TWO PAGES FURNITURE 1-86 IVORIES 89-108 POTTERY 111-220 GLASS 223-263 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS _VOLUME TWO_ FURNITURE PLATE PAGE St Francis of Assisi; Toledo Cathedral _Frontispiece_ I. Mediæval Chair 10 II. Gothic Chair 12 III. Spanish _Arcón_ or Baggage-Chest 16 IV. _Arca_ of Cardinal Cisneros 18 V. Armchair; Museum of Salamanca 20 VI. Chair and Table; Salamanca Cathedral 22 VII. Chairs upholstered with _Guadameciles_ 24 VIII. The Sala de la Barca; Alhambra, Granada 26 IX. Door of the Hall of the Abencerrajes; Alhambra, Granada 28 X. Moorish Door; Detail of Carving; Hall of the Two Sisters, Alhambra, Granada 30 XI. Door of the Salón de Embajadores; Alcázar of Seville 32 XII. The same 34 XIII. Alcázar of Seville; Façade and Principal Entrance 36 XIV. Door of the Capilla de los Vargas, Madrid 38 XV. Mudejar Door; Palacio de las Dueñas, Seville 40 XVI. _Celosía_; Alhambra, Granada 42 XVII. Carved _Alero_ 44 XVIII. Carved _Zapatas_; Casa de las Salinas, Salamanca 46 XIX. Carved _Zapatas_; Museum of Zaragoza 48 XX. _Alero_ and Cornice of Carved Wood; Cuarto de Comares, Alhambra, Granada 50 XXI. "Elijah Sleeping"; Statue in Wood, by Alonso Cano 52 XXII. Saint Bruno, by Alonso Cano; Cartuja of Granada 54 XXIII. Saint John the Baptist; San Juan de Dios, Granada 56 XXIV. Choir-Stalls; Santo Tomás, Avila 58 XXV. Carved Choir-Stall; Toledo Cathedral 60 XXVI. Choir-Stalls; Burgos Cathedral 62 XXVII. Choir-Stalls; San Marcos, León 64 XXVIII. Detail of Choir-Stalls; León Cathedral 66 XXIX. Choir-Stalls; Plasencia Cathedral 68 XXX. Detail of Choir-Stalls; Convent of San Marcos, León 70 XXXI. "Samson"; Carved Choir-Stall; León Cathedral 72 XXXII. "Esau"; Carved Choir-Stall; León Cathedral 74 XXXIII. _Retablo_; Seville Cathedral 76 XXXIV. _Retablo_ of Seville Cathedral; Detail of Carving 78 XXXV. Detail of _Retablo_; Museum of Valladolid 80 XXXVI. Detail of _Retablo_; Chapel of Santa Ana; Burgos Cathedral 82 IVORIES XXXVII. Ivory Box; Madrid Museum 90 XXXVIII. Ivory Casket; Pamplona Cathedral 92 XXXIX. Ivory Box; Palencia Cathedral 94 XL. Hispano-Moresque Ivory Casket; Royal Academy of History, Madrid 96 XLI. Ivory Crucifix; Madrid Museum 98 XLIA. Back View of same 98 XLII. Byzantine Crucifix 100 XLIII. "The Virgin of Battles"; Seville Cathedral 102 XLIV. Spanish Mediæval _Baculus_ 104 XLV. "A Tournament" 106 XLVI. Ivory Diptych; The Escorial 108 POTTERY XLVII. Amphoraic Vases and other Pottery; Museum of Tarragona 116 XLVIII. Dish; Museum of Granada 118 XLIX. Hispano-Moresque _Tinaja_ 120 L. Coarse Spanish Pottery (Modern) 126 LI. Door of the Mihrab; Cordova Cathedral 134 LII. Mosaic of the Patio de las Doncellas; Alcázar of Seville 138 LIII. Andalusian non-lustred Ware; Osma Collection 140 LIV. _Cuenca_ Tiles; Alcázar of Seville 142 LV. Altar of the Catholic Sovereigns; Alcázar of Seville 148 LVI. The Gate of Wine; Alhambra, Granada 154 LVII. Tiles of the Decadent Period 158 LVIII. Hispano-Moresque Lustred Plaque 168 LIX. Hispano-Moresque Lustred Vase; Alhambra, Granada 170 LX. Hispano-Moresque Lustred Vase; Madrid Museum 172 LXI. Lustred Tiles; Osma Collection 174 LXII. Hispano-Moresque Lustred Ware; Osma Collection 176 LXIII. Hispano-Moresque Lustred Ware; Osma Collection 178 LXIV. Hispano-Moresque Lustred Ware; Osma Collection 180 LXV. Hispano-Moresque Lustred Ware; Osma Collection 182 LXVI. Hispano-Moresque Lustred Ware; Osma Collection 184 LXVII. Hispano-Moresque Lustred Ware 186 LXVIII. Dish; Osma Collection 190 LXIX. An _Alfarería_ or Potter's Yard; Granada 192 LXX. Talavera Vase 198 LXXI. Ornament in Porcelain of the Buen Retiro 208 LXXII. Room decorated with Porcelain of the Buen Retiro; Royal Palace of Aranjuez 214 LXXIII. Porcelain of the Moncloa Factory 218 GLASS LXXIV. Vessels of Cadalso Glass 234 LXXV. Vessels of Catalan Glass 236 LXXVI. Glass of the Factory of San Ildefonso 254 LXXVII. Glass of the Factory of San Ildefonso 258 FURNITURE Whether the primitive Iberians ate as well as slept upon their cave or cabin floor, or whether--as some classics call upon us to believe--they used a kind of folding-chair (_dureta_) and (more advanced and comfort-loving than the Andalusian rustics of this day) devoured their simple meal from benches or supports constructed in the wall, is not of paramount importance to the history of Spanish furniture. The statements of those early authors may be granted or rejected as we please; for not a single piece of furniture produced by prehistoric, or, indeed, by Roman or by Visigothic Spain, has been preserved. But if we look for evidence to other crafts, recovered specimens of her early gold and silver work and pottery show us that Roman Spain grew to be eminently Roman in her social and artistic life. This fact, together with the statements of Saint Isidore and certain other writers of his day, would seem to prove that all the usual articles of Roman furniture were commonly adopted by the subjugated tribes, and subsequently by the Visigoths;--the Roman eating-couch or _lectus triclinaris_, the state-bed or _lectus genialis_, the ordinary sleeping-bed or _lectus cubicularis_, made, in prosperous households, of luxurious woods inlaid with ivory, or even of gold and silver; lamps or candelabra of silver, copper, glass, and iron[1]; the _cathedra_ or chair for women, the _bisellium_ or seat for honoured guests, the _solium_ or chair for the head of the house, the simpler chairs without a back, known as the _scabellum_ and the _sella_, and the benches or _subsellia_ for the servants. Further, the walls were hung with tapestries or rendered cheerful by mural painting; while the fireplace[2] and the brasier (_foculus_) have descended to contemporary Spain. [1] Documents, quoted by the Count of Clonard, of Alfonso the Second, San Genadio, Froylan, and the Infanta Urraca. [2] According to Miquel y Badía, the _focus_ of the Romans is the present _clar de foch_ of Cataluña; "a square platform of brick or stone raised somewhat from the ground, surrounded by a bench (_escó_), and large enough to serve for roasting beasts entire." Swinburne wrote from Reus in 1775;--"we here for the first time saw a true Spanish kitchen, viz., an hearth raised above the level of the floor under a wide funnel, where a circle of muleteers were huddled together over a few cinders." Advancing to a period well within the reach of history, we find that early in the Middle Ages Spain's seigniorial mansions and the houses of the well-to-do were furnished in a style of rude magnificence. Roman models, derived from purely Roman and Byzantine sources through the Visigoths, continued to remain in vogue until the tenth or the eleventh century.[3] Then, as the fashion of these declined, the furniture of Christian Spain was modified in turn by Moorish, Gothic, and Renaissance art; or two of these would overlap and interact, or even all the three. During the Middle Ages the furniture of the eating, sleeping, and living room which formed the principal apartment in the mansion of a great seignior, was very much the same throughout the whole of Christian Europe. Viollet-le-Duc has described it in the closest detail. The dominant object, looming in a corner, was the ponderous bed, transformed into a thing of beauty by its costly canopy and hangings.[4] Throughout the earlier mediæval times the Spanish bedstead was of iron or bronze. Wood, plain at first, then richly carved, succeeded metal towards the fourteenth century, and with this change the bed grew even vaster than before. Often it rose so high above the level of the flooring that the lord and lady required a set of steps to clamber up to it. These steps were portable, and sometimes made of solid silver.[5] I quote herewith a full description of a mediæval Spanish bed, extracted from an inventory of the Princess Juana which was made upon her marriage with the Count of Foix, in 1392. The same bed had formerly belonged to Juana's mother, the Princess Martha, at her marriage with King Juan the First. It had "a velvet canopy with lions of gold thread, and a dove and a horse confronting every lion. And each of the lions and doves and horses bears a lettering; and the lettering of the lions is _Estre por voyr_, and that of the doves and horses _aay_, and the whole is lined with green cloth. _Item_, a counterpane of the said velvet, with a similar design of doves and lions, and likewise lined with green cloth. _Item_, three curtain-pieces of fine blue silk, with their metal rings and cords of blue thread. _Item_, three cushion-covers of blue velvet, two of them of large size, bearing two lions on either side, and four of them small, with a single lion on either side, embroidered with gold thread; with their linen coverings. _Item_, a cloth of a barred pattern, with the bars of blue velvet and cloth of gold upon a red ground; which cloth serves for a state-chair or for a window, and is lined with cloth. _Item_, another cloth made of the said velvet and cloth of gold, which serves for the small chair (_reclinatorio_) for hearing Mass, and is lined with the aforesaid green cloth. _Item_, two large linen sheets enveloping the aforesaid canopy and counterpane. A pair of linen sheets, of four breadths apiece, bordered on every side with a handbreadth of silk and gold thread decoration consisting of various kinds of birds, leaves, and letters; and each of the said sheets contains at the head-end about five handbreadths of the said decoration. _Item_, four cushions of the same linen, all of them adorned all round with about a handbreadth of the aforesaid decoration of birds, leaves, and letters. _Item_, two leather boxes, lined with wool, which contained all these objects. _Item_, five canvas-covered cushions stuffed with feather, for use with the said six coverings of blue velvet bearing the said devices. _Item_, three large pieces of wall tapestry made of blue wool with the same devices of lions, horses, and doves, made likewise of wool, yellow and of other colours. _Item_, five carpets made of the aforesaid wool, bearing the same devices. _Item_, three coverlets of the same wool, and with the same devices, for placing on the bed. _Item_, a coverlet of red leather bearing in its centre the arms of the King and the Infanta. _Item_, another coverlet made of leather bars and plain red leather. _Item_, a woollen coverlet with the arms of the Infanta."[6] [3] The _Codex of the Testaments_, preserved in Oviedo Cathedral, contains some valuable illustrations of Spanish furniture of the tenth century. Greatly interesting, too, is the chair of San Raimundo (12th century) preserved at Roda in Aragon. It is of the "scissors" or folding form (_sella plicatilis_, Ducange), and the arms are terminated by heads of animals. [4] The early nomenclature of the clothes and other fittings of a Spanish bed is bewildering. We find in common use the canopy (_almocalla_, _almuzala_; Arabic, _al-mokalla_, i.e. "haven of refuge in all winds"--not always, possibly, a judicious term in the case of a _cama de matrimonio_ or "marriage-bed"); the cloth-lined skins for chilly weather (_alifafe_, _alifad_; Arabic _al-lifafh_), such as King Juan the First of Aragon provided for his daughter ("two leathers of Morocco for the bed." _Archive of the Crown of Aragon; Registro 1906, fol. 42_); the parament or _dosal_; the _galnapé_ or topmost of the bedclothes proper ("_un lecho con guenabe_"; Fuero of Cáceres, A.D. 1229); the counterpane (_fatel_, _fatol_, _alfatel_, _facel_, _farele_, _fateye_, _fatiro_; Arabic _fatla_); the linen sheets (_izares_, _lentros_, _lentos_, _lintes_, _lincas_, _linteáminas_, or _lencios_); and the mattress, pillow, and bolster, called, all three of them, _plumazo_, _plumario_, or _plumaco_. Nearly or quite identical in meaning with these last are _cúlcita_ and _almadraque_. _Cúlcita_ is corrupted into _colcedra_, _cocedra_, _conzara_, _colotra_, and other more or less barbaric variations; while _almohada_, _almuella_, _travesera_, _almofadinha_, _faseruelo_, and _aljamar_ also signify a pillow or a cushion. [5] "E due haber encara héla entegrament, ses vestitz é ses joyes é un leyt ben garnit del misllors apereylltz que sien en casa, é _una_ _escala d'argent_ é una cortina." Fuero of Jaca, A.D. 1331, quoted by Abad y la Sierra and the Count of Clonard. [6] Sanpere y Miquel; _Las costumbres catalanas en tiempo de Juan I._, pp. 83, 84. Another corner of the room was occupied by the dining-table,[7] spread at meal-times with a cloth denominated by Saint Isidore the _mappa_, _mápula_, _mapil_, _mantella_, or _mantellia_; and laid with the _mandíbulas_ or "jaw-wipers" (_i.e._ napkins; see Du Cange), plates (_discos_), dishes (_mensorios_, _messorios_, or _misorios_), spoons (_cocleares_, _culiares_), though not as yet with forks,[8] cups of various shapes and substances, with or without a cover (_copos_, _vásculos_, and many other terms), the water-flagon (_kana_, _mikana_, _almakana_), the cruet-stand (_canatella_), and the salt-cellar (_salare_). [7] Miquel y Badía believes that the Spaniards abandoned the Roman usage of reclining at their meals towards the sixth century. [8] Forks were not introduced till later. It has even been questioned whether they were known in Spain as late as the sixteenth century. But Ambrosio de Morales mentions one in 1591, while another is recorded in 1607 as belonging to the monastery of San Jerónimo de Valparaiso, near Cordova. (See vol. i., p. 84.) This table also served to write upon, while in its neighbourhood would stand the massive sideboard, piled with gold and silver plate, and vessels of glass or ivory, wood or alabaster. Besides the bed and table in their several corners, the chamber would contain a suitable variety of chairs and stools, mostly surrounding the capacious fireplace. Members of the household also sat on carpets spread upon the floor. The great armchair of the seignior himself was more ornate than any of the rest, and was provided somewhat later with a lofty Gothic back (Plates i. and ii.). A chair with a back of moderate height was destined for distinguished visitors. The back of ordinary chairs reached only to about the sitter's shoulder, and coverings of cloth or other stuffs were not made fast, but hung quite loosely from the wooden frame. This usage lasted till the sixteenth century, when the upholsterers began to nail the coverings of the larger chairs and benches. Owing to the oriental influence brought back from the Crusades, the furniture of Europe, not excluding Spain, grew ever more elaborate and costly, while further, in the case of this Peninsula, the native Moorish influence operated steadily and strongly from Toledo, Seville, Cordova, Valencia, and elsewhere. Tapestries of Eastern manufacture (_alcatifas_) were now in general use for decorating floors and walls. The bed grew more and more gigantic, and its clothes and curtains more extravagantly sumptuous, until the florid Gothic woodwork harmonized with canopies and curtains cut from priceless skins, or wrought in gold and silver thread on multicolor satin and brocade. And at the bed's head, like some jewel marvellously set, rested, in every noble home, the diptych or the triptych with its image of the Saviour or the Virgin Mary. Under the influence of the Renaissance this love of luxury continued to increase among the royal and the noble families of Spain. In 1574 an inventory of the estate of Doña Juana, sister of Philip the Second, mentions a silver balustrade, weighing one hundred and twenty-one pounds, for placing round a bed. The inventory (1560) of the Dukes of Alburquerque contains a great variety of entries relative to the furniture and chamber-fittings of the period. We find here mentioned, Turkey carpets and the celebrated Spanish ones of Alcaraz, linens of Rouen, green cloth of Cuenca, Toledo cloths, hangings of Arras and elsewhere, tablecovers of damask and of velvet, gold-fringed canopies (_doseles_) of green or crimson velvet or brocade, a "canopy for a sideboard, of red and yellow Toledo cloth, with the arms of the La Cuevas in embroidery, together with stripes and bows, and repetitions of the letter I (for _Isabel Giron_, the duchess), also embroidered fringes of the same cloth, and cords of the aforesaid colours." We also read of a _sitial_ or state-chair of crimson satin brocade, and "a small walnut table covered with silver plates, bearing the arms of my lord the duke and of my lady the duchess, and edged with silver stripes."[9] The bedstead, fitted with hangings of double taffeta and scarlet cloth, was no less sumptuous than the other objects. [9] This kind of furniture was prohibited by a sumptuary pragmatic of 1594. "No silversmith or other craftsman, or any person whatsoever, shall make, or cause to be made, or sold, or sell himself or purchase, whether openly or privately, buffets, writing-desks, chests, brasiers, pattens, tables, letter-cases, _rejillas_ or foot-warmers, images, or any other object that has silver fittings, whether the silver be beaten, stamped, wrought in relief, carved, or plain." _Suma de todas las leyes_ (A.D. 1628), p. 42. [Illustration: I MEDIÆVAL CHAIR (_Carved with the arms of Castile and León_)] A popular and even an indispensable piece of furniture in every mediæval Spanish household was the _caja de novia_ or "bride's chest." The use of this, as well as of a smaller kind of box, was common both to Moors and Christians. No matter of what size, these objects were essentially the same. They served innumerable purposes; were made of all dimensions--from the tiniest casket (_arcellina_, _capsula_, or _pyxide_; see vol. i., p. 45 _et seq._) to the ponderous and vast _arcón_,--and almost any substance--ivory or crystal, mother-of-pearl or glass, gold, silver, copper, silver-gilt, jasper, agate, or fine wood; and we find them in every part of the Peninsula, from the dawn of the Middle Ages till very nearly the end of the eighteenth century. [Illustration: II GOTHIC CHAIR (_15th Century_)] According to the Marquis of Monistrol, the larger boxes or _arcones_ constitute by far the commonest article of Spanish furniture all through the earlier portion of this lengthy period. The same authority divides them broadly into seven classes, thus:-- (1) Burial-chests. (2) Chests for storing chasubles, chalices, candelabra, and other objects connected with the ceremonies of the church. (3) Archive-chests, for storing documents. (4) Chests for storing treasure (_huches_). (5) Brides' chests. (6) Chests for storing arms. (7) _Arcones-trojes_, or chests of common make, employed for storing grain in country dwellings or _posadas_. The decorative richness of these quaint _arcones_ varies according to their date of manufacture, or the purpose they were meant to serve. Commonly, in the earliest of them, dating from the sixth or seventh century, the iron clamps or fastenings form the principal or only ornament. Such are reported to have been the two chests which the Cid Campeador loaded with sand and foisted as filled with specie on his "dear friends" Rachel and Vidas, the Jewish though trustful usurers of Burgos, in return for six hundred marks of gold and silver. Tradition says, moreover, that the chest now shown at Burgos as the "coffer of the Cid" is actually one of these. It is certain that the archives of the cathedral have been deposited in this chest for many centuries. Evidently, too, it dates from about the lifetime of the Cid, while the rings with which it is fitted show it to have been a kind of trunk intended to be carried on the backs of sumpter-mules or horses. After the Roman domination in this country, the Latin term _capsa_ was applied to every kind of chest; but at a later age sepulchral chests or coffins were denominated _urns_, in order to distinguish them from _arcas_ and _arcones_, which were used for storing clothes or jewellery. Excellent examples of Spanish mediæval burial-chests are those of Doña Urraca, preserved in the Sagrario of the cathedral of Palencia, and of San Isidro, patron of Madrid. The former, mentioned by painstaking Ponz, and by Pulgar in his _Secular and Ecclesiastical Annals of Palencia_, is of a plain design, and really constitutes a coffin. The sepulchral chest of San Isidro, dating from the end of the thirteenth century, or the early part of the fourteenth, and kept at Madrid in a niche of the _camarín_ of the parish church of San Andrés, is in the Romanic style, and measures seven feet six inches in length. It has a gable top, and is painted in brilliant colours on plaster-coated parchment, with miracles effected by the saint, and other scenes related with his life; but much of the painting is effaced. Another interesting sepulchral chest would probably have been the one presented in 1052 by Ferdinand the First, together with his royal robe and crown,[10] to the basilica of Saint John the Baptist at León, to guard the remains of Saint Isidore. This chest was covered with thick gold plates studded with precious stones, and bore, in enamel and relief, the figures of the apostles gathered round the Saviour, and medallions containing figures of the Virgin, saints, and martyrs. According to Ambrosio de Morales, the gold plates were torn off by Alfonso the First of Aragon, who replaced them by others of silver-gilt. The same monarch, regardless of the church's fierce anathema pronounced on all who dared to touch her property,[11] is accused by his chronicler of having appropriated a box of pure gold studded with gems, enshrining a crucifix made of the true Cross, and which was kept in some town or village of the kingdom of León. Doubtless as a chastisement for Alfonso's impiety, this precious box was captured from him by the Moors at the battle of Fraga. [10] Describing how the monarch made these presents to the church when lying at the point of death, the _Chronicle of the Monk of Silos_ says: "_exuit regalem clamydem, qua induebatur corpus et deposuit gemmatam coronam, qua ambiebatur caput_." [11] The formula is worded thus: "_Quisquis ille fuerit qui talia commiserit, sit maledictus coram Deo et Angelis ejus, mendicitas et lepra prosapiam teneat suam et extraneus persistat a sancta communione, quatenus cum Juda, Christi proditore, ardendus permaneat in æterna damnatione._" Among the reliquary chests, the oldest specimen extant in Spain is the _arca santa_ of Oviedo cathedral. This object, which is purely Byzantine in its style, is believed to have been made at Constantinople. It was improved by Alfonso the Sixth, who added _repoussé_ plates to it, with Arabic ornamentation in the form of meaningless inscriptions of a merely decorative character, but which are interesting as showing the kinship existing at this time between the Spanish Christians and the Spanish Moors. Equally important is the coffer which was made by order of Don Sancho el Mayor to enshrine the wonder-working bones of San Millan, and which is now at San Millan de la Cogulla, in the province of La Rioja. The author of this chest, which dates from A.D. 1033, is vaguely spoken of as "Master Aparicio." The chest itself consists of a wooden body beneath a covering of ivory and gold, further enriched with statuettes and studded with real and imitation stones. It is divided into twenty-two compartments carved in ivory with passages from the life and miracles of the saint, and figures of "princes, monks, and benefactors," who had contributed in one way or another to the execution of the reliquary. I have said that the "coffer of the Cid" was made for carrying baggage. A very interesting Spanish baggage-chest, although more modern than the Cid's by several centuries, is now the property of Señor Moreno Carbonero (Plate iii.). This very competent authority believes it to have belonged to Isabella the Catholic, and says that it was formerly the usage of the sovereigns of this country to mark their baggage-boxes with the first quartering of the royal arms and also with their monogram. Such is the decoration, consisting of repeated castles and the letter Y (for Ysabel), upon this trunk. The space between is painted red upon a surface thinly spread with wax. Strips of iron, twisted to imitate the girdle of Saint Francis, are carried over all the frame, surrounding the castles and the letters. This box was found at Ronda.[12] [12] To keep the dust or rain from entering these trunks, they were covered, when on the march, with stout square cloths called _reposteros_, which were often richly worked and bore the owner's arms or monogram. The same word subsequently came to mean the tapestried or other decorative cloths displayed in Spain on gala days from balconies of public edifices, or the mansions of the aristocracy; but dictionaries which were printed at the close of the eighteenth century still define the _repostero_ as "caparison, a square cloth with the arms of a prince or lord on it, which serves to cover a led-horse, or sumpter-horse." [Illustration: III _ARCÓN_ (_15th Century_)] A handsome _arcón_, dating from the same period as this baggage-chest of Isabella the Catholic, namely, the end of the fifteenth century, is stated by its owner, Don Manuel Lopez de Ayala, to have belonged to Cardinal Cisneros (Plate iv.). The material is wood, covered inside with dark blue cloth, and outside with red velvet, most of the nap of which is worn away. The dimensions are four feet six inches in length, two feet in height, and twenty inches in depth. The chest, which has a triple lock, is covered with _repoussé_ iron plates representing twisted columns and other architectural devices, combined with Gothic thistle-leaves. A coat of arms is on the front. Such is an outline of the history of these Spanish chests. Most of the earlier ones are cumbersome and scantily adorned. Then, as time proceeds, we find on them the florid Gothic carving, unsurpassed for purity and charm; then the Renaissance, with its characteristic ornament of urns, and birds, and intertwining frond and ribbon; and finally, towards, and lasting through the greater portion of, the eighteenth century, the tasteless and decadent manner of Baroque. Yet even in the worst and latest we descry from time to time a flickering remnant of the art of Moorish Spain. [Illustration: IV _ARCA_ OF CARDINAL CISNEROS] These Spanish Moors, obedient to the custom of their fellow-Mussulmans throughout the world, employed but little furniture. They loved, indeed, bright colours and ingenious craftsmanship, but rather in the adjuncts to their furniture than in the furniture itself; in costly carpets, or worked and coloured leather hung upon the wall,[13] or spread upon their _alhamies_ and _alhanías_; in fountains bubbling in the middle of their courts and halls; in doors, and ceilings, and _celosías_ exquisitely carved, and joined with matchless cunning; in flower-vases placed in niches; in bronze or silver perfume-burners rolling at their feet; but not (within the ordinary limit of the term) in furniture. Upon this theme the Reverend Lancelot Addison discourses very quaintly. "The host here," he wrote of "West Barbary" in 1663, "is one Cidi Caffian Shat, a grandee, reported to be an Andalusian, one of the race of the Moors bansht (_sic_) Spain.... We were called to a little upper Room, which we could not enter till we had put off our shoes at the threshold: not for Religion, but Cleanliness, and not to prevent our unhallowing the floor, but defiling the carpets wherewith it was curiously spread. At the upper end of the Room was laid a Velvit Cushion, as large as those we use in our Pulpits, and it denoted the most Honourable part of the Room. After we had reposed about an hour, there was brought in a little oval Table, about twenty Inches high, which was covered with a long piece of narrow linnen; and this served for Diaper.[14] For the Moors, by their law, are forbidden such superfluous Utensils as napkins, knives, spoons, etc. Their Religion laying down the general maxim, that meer necessaries are to be provided for; which caused a precise Moor to refuse to drink out of my dish when he could sup water enough out of the hollow of his hand." [13] The wood-carving and decorative leather-work of older Spain will be described a little later on. As to the use of decorated leather by the Moors, in the small chamber of the Alhambra opening into the Mirador of Daraxa, and known as the Sala de los Ajimeces, is a bare space about nine feet in height, which runs the whole way round beneath the copious ornament of the remainder of the wall. Contreras says that the Moorish sultans used to hang these spaces with decorated leathers, tapestry, and armour. Sometimes the tapestry or leather would be worked or painted with hunting-scenes (_tardwahsh_--the chase of the lion, panther, or wild boar), or even with portraits of the sultans. Among these latter is the celebrated painting on the ceiling of the Hall of Justice, executed, as are its companions at each side of it, upon a leather groundwork with a plaster coating. [14] I think this shows why to this day a Spaniard who professes to be an educated person will often wipe his or her mouth upon the tablecloth. Not many weeks ago I saw the elegantly dressed daughter of a Spanish member of Parliament perform this semi-oriental feat in an hotel at Granada. Montaigne would judge this _señorita_ with benevolence; not so, I fear, my compatriots. Similarly, it is considered rude in Spain to stretch yourself; but not to spit upon the dining-room floor, or pick your teeth at table. The same author proceeds to relate his experiences at bed-time. "Having supp'd and solaced ourselves with muddy beverage and Moresco music, we all composed ourselves to sleep: about twenty were allotted to lodge in this small chamber, whereof two were Christians, three Jews, and the rest Moors; every one made his bed of what he wore, which made our English constitutions to wish for the morning." [Illustration: V ARMCHAIR (_17th Century. Museum of Salamanca_)] Among the Mussulmans all this has undergone no change. Do we not find their present furniture to be identical with that of distant centuries?--a characteristic scarcity of portable articles of wood; the isolated box (_arqueta_ or _arcón_) which serves the purpose of our clumsier chest of drawers or wardrobe;[15] carpets and decorated leathers; the tiny, indispensable table; the lack of knives and spoons; ornaments to regale the eye rather than commodities which the hand might seize upon and utilize? Such was, and is, and will continue to remain Mohammedan society throughout the world; and these descriptive passages of life in seventeenth-century Morocco might have been penned with equal truth in reference to the Spanish Muslim of a thousand years ago. [15] Mr. Cunninghame Graham, visiting a Caid's house in present-day Morocco, noted, as the only furniture, "leather-covered cushions, the cover cut into intricate geometric patterns; the room contained a small trunk-shaped box." The furniture of the Moorish mosques was also of the scantiest. "They are," to quote once more from Lancelot Addison's amusing little brochure, "without the too easy accommodations of seats, pews, or benches. The floor of the Giámma is handsomely matted, and so are the walls about two feet high. If the roof be large and weighty, it is supported with pillars, among which hang the lamps, which are kept burning all the night." At one point of his expedition the reason for such paucity of furniture was vividly expounded to our tourist. A Moor indignantly exclaimed to him that it was "a shame to see women, dogs, and dirty shoes brought into a place sacred to God's worship, and that men ... should have chaires there to sit in with as much lascivious ease as at home."[16] [16] _West Barbary_, p. 150. Nevertheless, a pulpit in the mosque, and a seat of some kind in the palace or the private house, were not to be dispensed with. We learn from Ibn-Khaldoun and many other writers, that the throne of the Mussulman sultans was the _mimbar_, _takcht_, or _cursi_. Each of these objects was a wooden seat. The first of the sultans to use a throne was Moawia, son of Abu-Sofyan. The princes who came after him continued the same usage, but displayed a constantly increasing splendour in the decoration of the throne. This custom spread, in course of time, from east to west throughout almost the whole dominion of the Muslims. The Beni-Nasr princes of Granada are also known to have used a throne, but this is believed to have consisted simply of some cushions piled one upon another. This inference is drawn by Eguilaz Yanguas and other Arabists from the old _Vocabulary_ of Fray Pedro de Alcalá, who renders a "throne" or "royal seat" by _martaba_, a word equivalent to "cushion." [Illustration: VI CHAIR AND TABLE (_17th Century. Salamanca Cathedral_)] Cushions, too, became symbolic, even with the Christian Spaniards, of a seat of honour; both because they lent themselves to rich embroidery or leather-work, and because they raised their occupant above the level of the persons seated positively on the carpet or the floor. In the painting on the ceiling of the Hall of Justice in the Alhambra, ten men are congregated in Mohammedan costume, each of them seated on a cushion. Some writers, including Argote de Molina, Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, and Hernando del Pulgar, believed these figures to be actual portraits of the sultans; others maintain that they depict the _Mizouar_ or royal council. In either case, however, the cushion here is clearly an honourable place. We have, besides, abundant evidence that the Spanish Christians viewed the cushion with as marked a liking as their rivals. Alvarez de Colmenar relates that at the very close of the seventeenth century the Spanish women sat at meals in Moorish fashion. "Un père de famille est assis seul à table, et toutes les femmes, sans exception, mangent par terre, assises sur un carreau avec leurs enfants, et leur table dressée sur un tapis étendu." The same work says elsewhere that "lorsque les dames se rendent visite, elles ne se donnent ni siège ni fauteuil, mais elles sont toutes assises par terre, les jambes en croix, sur des tapis ou des carreaux."[17] [17] _Annales d'Espagne et de Portugal_, vol. iii., pp. 324, 327. Therefore, until two centuries ago, the women of Christian Spain were suffered to take their seat on cushions of brocade or damask. Only the men made use of stools or chairs, according to their rank. To "give a chair" (_dar silla_) to a visitor of the male sex was to pay him a valued courtesy;[18] and even now the wife of a grandee of Spain goes through the honourable though irksome ceremony, at the palace of Madrid, of "taking the cushion." [18] "Hónrale el Sr Roberto, alma del Rey, y _le ha dado Silla_, y le tuvo á su lado." Lope de Vega's comedy, _The Key of Honour_. [Illustration: VII CHAIRS UPHOLSTERED WITH _GUADAMECILES_ (_17th Century_)] Another usage with the Spaniards of the seventeenth and immediately preceding centuries was the "dais of honour" or _estrado de cumplimiento_. This was a platform very slightly raised, and separated by a railing from the rest of the room. The curious manuscript discovered by Gayangos, descriptive of court-life at Valladolid in 1605, contains the following account of one of the occasions when the Queen, following a common custom of a Sunday, dined alone, in sight of all the aristocracy. "The table was laid upon the dais (_estrado alto_), beneath a canopy of brocade that overhung the whole of it. The queen sat at the head of the table, and three ladies, standing, waited on her; two uncovering the dishes as they came,[19] and the third carving. The dishes were brought from the dining-room door by the _meninos_, who handed them to the ladies. Other ladies of the royal household, wives or daughters of grandees, stood leaning against the wall in company with gentlemen who, on such occasions, sue for leave beforehand to attend on Lady So and So, or So and So. Commonly there are two such cavaliers to every dame. If the queen asks for water, one of these ladies takes it to her, kneels, makes an obeisance, kisses the goblet, hands it to her majesty, and retires to her appointed place. Behind the queen was one of her chamberlains. Many of the Englishmen were witnessing the meal. They always put the English first on such occasions; and as they are such hulking fellows (God bless them!) I, who was at their back, scarce noted anything of what was passing, and only saw that many plates went to and fro." [19] The covers would be fastened by a lock and key, as a defence, not against poison, but against theft. "A little afterwards Don Federico de Cardona, who had gone out to see how matters were proceeding, returned, bearing a large silver vessel, the cover of which was secured by a lock and key, as is the custom in Spain."--Countess d'Aulnoy's _Travels_. As late as the year 1792, Townsend, in his "Directions to the Itinerant in Spain," recommends (vol. i., p. 2) that the vessel to boil the traveller's meat should be provided with a cover and a lock. Solid and expensive furniture continued to be used in Spain throughout the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries; the ponderous chest, the ponderous brasier, ponderous stools, ponderous armchairs with massive nails and coverings of velvet or of decorated leather (Plates v., vi., and vii.). Upon the wall, the tapestry of earlier times was often replaced by paintings of a sacred character, or family portraits. The comedy titled _La Garduña de Sevilla_, written about the middle of the seventeenth century by Alonso del Castillo Solorzano, describes the interior of a rich man's dwelling of this period. "Upstairs Rufina noted delicate summer hangings, new chairs of Moscovy cowhide, curiously carved buffets, and ebony and ivory writing-desks; for Marquina, though a skinflint towards others, was generous in the decoration of his own abode.... When dinner was over, he took her to a room embellished with fine paintings, and with a bed whose canopy was of some Indian fabric.... Paintings by famous masters were plentifully hung about the house, together with fine Italian hangings, various kinds of writing-desks, and costly beds and canopies. When they had visited nearly all the rooms, they opened the door of one which contained a beautiful altar and its oratory. Here were a great array of costly and elaborate Roman vessels, agnuses of silver and of wood, and flowers arranged in various ways. This chamber, too, was full of books distributed in gilded cases." [Illustration: VIII THE _SALA DE LA BARCA_ (_Before the fire of 1890. Alhambra, Granada_)] A characteristic piece of Spanish furniture was at this time the solid-looking cabinet known as the _vargueño_, so denominated from the little town of Vargas, near Toledo, formerly a well-known centre of their manufacture. These cabinets, whose origin, according to the Marquis of Monistrol, may be traced to a fifteenth-century form of _huche_, or chest provided with drawers for guarding articles of value, and which opened in the centre, are commonly made of walnut. The front lets down upon a massive wooden rest supported by the legs, and forms a folding writing-table containing at the back a number of drawers or compartments for storing documents, or other things of minor bulk. The woodwork of these cabinets is often without carving; but generally in such cases their bareness is relieved by massive and elaborately ornamented iron fastenings and a decorative key. The Ordinances of Granada tell us that in 1616 the making of defective furniture had grown to be a scandal in that town. The cause, it seems, was partly in the wood itself, proceeding from the Sierra de Segura, Pinar del Duque, and the Sierra de Gor. "Divers of our carpenters and joiners cut their walnut and other woods while yet the moon is crescent, whereby the wood decays and spoils. Others there be that make and sell chairs, desks, beds, and other furniture of green unseasoned wood which warps and loosens, insomuch that within some days the article is worthless. Therefore we order that all walnut wood and other woods for making furniture be only cut at the time of the waning moon, and be not used until they shall have seasoned thoroughly, so as not to warp; and that they be approved by the inspectors of this trade, under a penalty of six thousand _maravedis_ for each of the aforesaid Ordinances that be not complied with." [Illustration: IX DOOR OF THE HALL OF THE ABENCERRAJES (_Alhambra, Granada_)] The municipal laws of the same city relative to the "chair-makers who make hip-chairs to sit in, and leather-covered chests," were cried, in 1515 and 1536, "in the street of the chairmakers and carpenters." Fettered by irksome regulations of this kind, we cannot wonder that the arts and crafts of Christian Spain were fated to decline.[20] Owing to the "false and faulty workmanship" prevailing in Granada, it is provided by these statutes that the wood employed in making chairs must be bought by the manufacturers in public auction only, held "in the little square where dwell the chairmakers." It must be thoroughly dry and free from flaws, and of sufficient stoutness to sustain the decorative marquetry. The chair which lacks these requisite conditions must be seized and burnt. The four nails which fasten the seat of the chair to the legs must traverse the frame completely and be hammered back upon the other side, unless the surface of the chair be inlaid, in which case they need not pass completely through. The leather for the seats and backs of chairs must be good in quality and well prepared and dressed, besides being strongly sewn with flaxen thread. Chairs of all sizes must bear the official city mark, stamped by the authorities at a charge of one _maravedi_ for each of the large chairs and a _blanca_ for each of the small. [20] The purpose of these Spanish city laws was in its essence unimpeachable; namely, to guard the intensely ignorant Christian populace--the same which fugitive Moriscos of the kingdom of Valencia had readily prevailed upon to barter tons of brass and pewter trash for sterling gold and silver coin--from being imposed upon by manufacturers and merchants. But the power of discriminating between a genuine or well-made object and a piece of counterfeit or worthless rubbish is, among all peoples, better sought for and developed by experience than by legislation; and there was something noxiously prosaic in a code of city ordinances which forbade the craftsman to prepare his own design, or choose his own material, or establish his own prices. How violently, or at least how primitively, hostile to the sense of art must not have been these Christian sons of Spain to need--or think they needed--so impertinent and tyrannous a system of protection! Makers of the leather-covered chests are ordered to use the hides of horses, mares, or mules, and not the hides of oxen, cows, or calves, because, if covered with this latter, "the chests grow moth-eaten and are destroyed much sooner." The craftsman who transgresses this command must lose the faulty piece of furniture, and pay four hundred _maravedis_, while under a further penalty of two hundred _maravedis_ the hinges must be fixed inside the chest, and not to its exterior. [Illustration: X MOORISH DOOR, DETAIL OF CARVING (_Hall of the Two Sisters, Alhambra, Granada_)] I have omitted hitherto all mention of the furnishing of humbler Spanish houses in the olden time. The following passage from the Ordinances of Granada shows us, referring to an inn, an unpretentious lodging of about four hundred years ago:-- "_Item._ If the innkeeper have a parlour or alcove that fastens with a lock, and therein a bed of the better class, with hangings round about it, and a canopy above, and on the bed a counterpane, friezed blanket, and pillows; also a bench with its strip of carpet or striped benchcloth, a table with its service of tablecloths and all that be needful, besides a lamp of brass or ware, all of the best that he is able to provide--for such a bed and room he may demand twelve _maravedis_ each day; whether the room be taken by one guest, or two, or more."[21] [21] _Ordenanza de Mesoneros_, titulo 54. Nor was the Spanish inn more comfortable in the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries than in the sixteenth. "On entre d'ordinaire dans les Hôtelleries par l'écurie, du moins dans de certaines Provinces; on vous mène dans quelque chambre, où vous trouvez les quatre parois, quelquefois un bois de lit; pour chandelle on allume un grand nombre de petites bougies, qui font assez de lumière pour voir ce que vous mangez; et afin que l'odeur and la fumée de tant de bougies n'incommode pas, on vous apporte, si vous le souhaitez, un brasier de noyaux d'olives en charbon. Quand on monte, on trouve au haut de l'escalier, la _Señora de la Casa_, qui a eu le tems de prendre ses beaux habits de dimanche pour vous faire honneur et s'en faire à elle-même." (Alvarez de Colmenar, in 1715.) It is interesting to compare these passages with Lancelot Addison's account of a Morocco inn towards the middle of the seventeenth century; bearing in mind that _fonda_, the current Spanish term for _hostelry_, is common both to Spain and to Morocco:-- "In later years, every town of traffic hath erected a sort of Inns called _Alfándach_, which affords nothing but House-room for man and beast, the market yielding provision for both. Those that farm these _fandáchs_ cannot exact above a Blankil a night both for man and beast, which is in sterling money about two pence. The horses lodging costing equally with his Rider's."[22] [22] _West Barbary_, p. 129. Similarly, the keeper of the older Spanish inn was not allowed by law to traffic in provisions. "Nothing but house-room" was available for wayfarers, and the weary visitor, as soon as ever he arrived, must sally forth to do his marketing. [Illustration: XI DOOR OF THE _SALON DE EMBAJADORES_ (_Alcázar of Seville_)] "Quand on arrive aux Hôtelleries, fut il minuit passé, l'on n'y trouve rien de prêt, non pas même un pot sur le feu. L'hôtel ne vous donne que le couvert et le lit, pour tout le reste, il le faut envoyer chercher, si vous ne voulez prendre la peine d'y aller vous-même. On donne l'argent nécessaire, et l'on va vous chercher du pain, du vin, de la viande, et généralement tout ce que l'on souhaite, si tant est qu'on le puisse trouver. Il est vrai que cette coutume a son bon côté. "Le prix de toutes ces choses est réglé, l'on sait ce qu'il faut payer, et un hôte ne peut pas friponner. On vous apprête votre viande, et l'on donne une réale et demie, ou deux réaux pour le _servicio_, comme ils parlent, et autant pour le lit, ce qui revient environ à quinze sous de France. Si l'on se trouve dans quelque grande ville, on aura une nappe grande comme une serviette, et une serviette grande comme un mouchoir de poche; dans d'autres endroits il faut s'en passer. "Les lits ne sont pas fort ragoutans; quelque matelas, ou quelque paillasse, ou tout au plus une couverture de coton; à la campagne il faut passer la nuit sur le carreau, ou bien sur quelque botte de paille, qu'on doit avoir soin de faire bien secouer, pour en chasser la vermine." The statements in this passage relative to the lack of food in Spanish hostelries are confirmed, nearly a century later, by Townsend, who records that on reaching a certain village his first proceeding was to turn his steps, not to the _fonda_ or _posada_ where he would engage his bed, but to the butcher's, wine-seller's, and so forth, "to see what was to be had, as I had travelled all day fasting." It is beyond the province of this work to dwell upon the foreign taste in furniture which invaded Spain from France upon the advent of the Bourbon dynasty, and so I limit my notice of the eighteenth century to quoting from Laborde the following comprehensive passage:-- "If the Spaniards," this traveller wrote in 1809, "take many precautions against heat, they take scarcely any against cold; it is very uncommon to find doors or windows that shut close, and the rooms are very little and very ill-warmed. The use of chimneys even is very uncommon, and only prevails in the houses of such Spaniards as have travelled. Brasiers of copper or silver are generally employed, which are set in the middle of the apartment, filled with burning charcoal, and round which the family place themselves. [Illustration: XII DOOR OF THE _SALON DE EMBAJADORES_ (_Alcázar of Seville_)] "The beds in Spain are hard. They are only made of mattresses, more or fewer, laid on paillasses which rest upon a boarded bottom; for neither sacking nor feather beds are known. No bolsters are used, but in their place little, short, flat pillows are heaped up, sometimes to the number of six or eight. The sheets are in general short and narrow; and napkins scarcely as big as a small pocket handkerchief. "The furniture of the houses is usually very simple. The floor is covered with a matting of _esparto_ in winter, and of rushes or palm leaves in summer. A matting of the same kind, a painted cloth, or painting in panels, covers the walls from the floor to the height of four or five feet; above, the wall is bare, painted white, and adorned with pictures of saints and a kind of ornamented metal chandeliers; these are covered with a glass, surrounded with a border of gilt ornaments; and a little branch of gilt copper proceeds from them forming zig-zags or festoons, on which the candles are placed; they are called cornucopias; they are from one to three feet in height, and give the apartment the air of a coffee room, or billiard room. Mirrors are placed between the windows, and a lustre of clear glass in imitation of crystal is suspended from the middle of the handsomest saloons. The chairs have straw bottoms; in some provinces, as Murcia, Andalusia, and Valencia, they are of different heights; those on one side of the room being of the common height, and the others one third lower. The latter are intended for the ladies. In some of the principal cities one also sees chairs and sofas of walnut wood, the backs of which are bare, and the seats covered with damask; usually crimson or yellow. "Luxury begins, however, to show itself in these objects. In the chief cities many hangings are of painted paper or linen; even hangings of brocades, of one and of three colours, and of various other kinds of silk; large and beautiful mirrors, and a number of sofas may be seen. The houses of the grandees in Madrid are magnificently furnished, but usually with more cost than taste. Hangings of silk, velvet, and damask, adorned with rich fringes and gold embroidery, are very common, and the seats are of corresponding magnificence. Many houses in Barcelona, Cadiz, Valencia, and Madrid are decorated with equal study and elegance. "The custom of painting the walls is of late introducing itself into Spain. They are covered with representations of men and animals, with trees, flowers, landscapes, houses, urns, vases, or history pieces, divided into compartments, adorned with pillars, pilasters, friezes, cornices, and arabesques; the effect of the whole is often very agreeable. This kind of decoration was imported from Italy."[23] [23] Vol. v., pp. 301-304. [Illustration: XIII ALCÁZAR OF SEVILLE (_Façade and principal entrance_)] In this account we clearly trace each various and successive influence that had permeated older Spain, leaving her, at the close of every period, a nation that produced illustrious artists, but never a nation deeply versed in, or devoted to, the arts. The beds and brasiers of these modern Spaniards were derived from ancient Rome; their general dearth of comfortable furniture, together with the lower, and therefore more humiliating, seats for women, from the Spanish Moors; the typically ponderous hangings from mediæval Spain herself; the fresco wall-paintings, such as may still be seen in many a Spanish country home, from classic or Renaissance Italy; and the finicking gilt, rococo cornucopias from France; while the use of mirrors and of lustres in hideous combination with straw-bottomed chairs, almost reminds us of the days of Visigothic barbarism. LEATHER _Guadamacilería_, or the art of decorating leather with painting, gilding, and impressions in relief, is commonly believed to have crossed from Africa to Spain at some time in the Middle Ages. According to Duveyrier, the word _guadamecí_ or _guadamecil_ is taken from Ghadames, a town in Barbary where the craft was practised long ago; but Covarrubias gives it an origin directly Spanish, supposing that the title and the craft alike proceeded from a certain town of Andalusia. However this may be, the preparation of these leathers grew to be a most important industry in various parts of Spain, and spread, as time went on, to Italy, France, and other European countries.[24] [24] "Spain lays claim to the invention of the art of gilding leather; it is asserted that, after being discovered there, the secret was carried to Naples by Peter Paul Majorano."--Laborde, vol. v., p. 231. In the Peninsula, the principal centres of this work were Cordova, Seville, Lerida, Barcelona, Ciudad Real, and Valladolid. Cordova, however, was so far ahead of all the rest that leathers decorated in this style were known throughout the world as _cueros de Córdoba_, or "Cordova leathers." Another name for them is said to have been _cordobanes_; but possibly the application of this latter word was less restricted. Bertaut de Rouen wrote in the seventeenth century of Ciudad Real:--"C'est une ville située dans une grande plaine, et dont l'enceinte est assez grande, qui estoit mesme fort peuplée autrefois, mais elle est quasi deserte à present. Il ne luy reste plus rien sinon que c'est là où l'on appreste le mieux les peaux de _Cordouan_, dont on fait les gans d'Espagne. C'est delà aussi d'où elles viennent pour la pluspart à Madrid. J'en achetay quelques-unes." [Illustration: XIV DOOR OF THE CAPILLA DE LOS VARGAS (_Madrid_)] In 1197 Alfonso the Ninth presented the town of Castro de los Judíos to León Cathedral and its bishop, confirming at the same time the tribute which the Jews who occupied that town were bound to render upon Saint Martin's day in every year, and which consisted of two hundred _sueldos_, a fine skin, and two _guadamecís_. This tribute had existed since the reign of Ferdinand the First: that is, towards the middle of the preceding century.[25] [25] Count of Clonard; _Memorias para la historia del traje español_. None of these primitive leathers now exist, and consequently the details of their workmanship have perished with them. Ramírez de Arellano mentions two small coffers in the Cluny Museum, which date from about the fourteenth century and are decorated with the forms of animals cut from leather and overlaid on velvet. Other _guadamecís_, though not of the oldest, are in the South Kensington Museum. "The earliest _guadamecileros_," says Ramírez de Arellano, speaking particularly of this art at Cordova, "were accustomed to imitate brocade upon their leathers, employing beaten silver together with the colours red, green, blue, black, white, and carmine, applied in oils, or sometimes (although the law prohibited this) in tempera. Gold was not used till 1529, when Charles the Fifth confirmed the Ordinances of this industry. The leather-workers tanned the hides themselves, stamping the pattern from a wooden mould, and then (if we may call it so) engraving on them. The hides were those of rams. The spaces between the decoration were either coloured red or blue, or simply left the colour of the skin; or else the pattern would be wrought in colours on the natural hide. Gold, which at a later epoch almost totally replaces silver, was introduced between 1529 and 1543, and was applied as follows. The artists smeared with oil the parts they wished to figure in raised or sunk relief, and laid the beaten gold upon the oil. They then applied a heated iron or copper mould; the pattern in relief was stamped; and the gold, superfluous shreds of which were wiped away with lint, adhered upon the leather. The irons required to be moderately hot, because if overheated they would burn the hide, or, if not hot enough, the fixing of the gold would not be permanent." [Illustration: XV MUDEJAR DOOR (_Palacio de las Dueñas, Seville_)] The importance of this industry in Spain may be judged of from the fact that towards the close of the Middle Ages the _guadamacileros_ of Seville occupied nearly the whole of an important street--the Calle Placentines. Similarly, at Cordova they filled the quarter of the city known as the Ajerquía. "So many _guadamecíes_ are made here," wrote Ambrosio de Morales, "that in this craft no other capital can compare with her; and in such quantities that they supply all Europe and the Indies. This industry enriches Cordova and also beautifies her; for since the gilded, wrought, and painted leathers are fixed upon large boards and placed in the sun in order to be dried, by reason of their splendour and variety they make her principal streets right fair to look upon." We owe to Rafael Ramírez de Arellano most valuable and recent information respecting this ancient Spanish-Moorish craft.[26] He has discovered the names of nearly forty _guadamacileros_ who lived and worked at Cordova, principally in the sixteenth century. It is not worth while to repeat these names alone, but one or two particulars connected with a few of them are interesting. In 1557 four of these artificers, named Benito Ruiz, Diego de San Llorente, Diego de Ayora, and Anton de Valdelomar, signed a contract to prepare the cut and painted _guadamaciles_ for decorating a palace at Rome. This contract, which is most precise and technical, is published in No. 101 of the _Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Excursiones_. The only further notice which Señor Ramírez de Arellano has discovered relating to any of these four craftsmen, tells us that nine years after the signing of the document just mentioned, Diego de Ayora leased some houses in the Calle de la Feria for a yearly rental of twenty-two ducats and three pairs of live hens. [26] _Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Excursiones_, Nos. 101, 102; Art. _Guadamacíes_. Another interesting contract is dated April 17th, 1587. By it the _guadamacilero_ Andrés Lopez de Valdelomar agreed, in company with Hernando del Olmo of Marchena, and with Francisco de Gaviria and Francisco Delgado, painters, of Cordova, to make a number of pieces of _guadamecí_ for the Duke of Arcos. The work was to be terminated by July of the same year. Valdelomar was to receive from the duke's agent three _reales_ for each piece, and the painters two _reales_ and a half; this money to be paid them by instalments as the work proceeded. [Illustration: XVI _CELOSÍA_ (_Alhambra, Granada_)] On August 26th, 1567, before the mayor of Cordova and the two inspectors of this trade, Pedro de Blancas was officially examined and approved in "cutting, working, and completing a _guadamecí_ of red damask with gold and silver borders on a green field, and a cushion with green and crimson decoration and faced with silver brocade." The Ordinances of Cordova also tell us much about this industry. The oldest of these city laws which deal with it are dated 1529. Those of 1543 were ratified by a Crown pragmatic early in the seventeenth century, and at this later date we learn that the craft had much declined, the leather being by now "of wretched quality, the colouring imperfect, and the pieces undersized." The Ordinances published in the sixteenth century provide that every applicant for official licence to pursue this craft and open business as a _guadamacilero_, must prove himself, in presence of the examiners, able to mix his colours and design with them, and to make a canopy together with its fringe, as well as "a cushion of any size or style that were demanded of him; nor shall he explain merely by word of mouth the making of the same, but make it with his very hands in whatsoever house or place shall be appointed by the mayor and the overseers of the craft aforesaid." It was also provided by these Ordinances that the pieces of leather were to be dyed, not with Brazil-wood, but with madder, and that their size, whether the hide were silvered, gilt, or painted, was to be strictly uniform, namely, "the size of the primitive mould," or "three-quarters of a yard in length by two-thirds of a yard, all but one inch, in width." The standard measures, made of iron and stamped with the city seal, were guarded under lock and key; and the Ordinances of 1567 establish the penalty of death for every _guadamacilero_ who shall seek, in silvering his wares, to palm off tin for silver. [Illustration: XVII CARVED _ALERO_] These leathers served a great variety of purposes, public or private, sacred or profane. They were used upon the walls and floors of palaces and castles, as table-covers, counterpanes, bed-hangings, cushions, curtains for doors, linings for travelling-litters, coverings of chests and boxes,[27] and seats and backs of chairs and benches (Plate vii.). In churches and cathedrals, especially throughout the sixteenth century, we find them used as tapestry and carpets,[28] altar-fronts (such as one which is preserved in the chapel of San Isidro in Palencia cathedral), or crowns for images of the Virgin.[29] As time advanced, gold and a coat or so of colour was succeeded by elaborate painting. Thus painted, they were often cut into the forms of columns, pilasters, or friezes in the Plateresco or Renaissance style,[30] until the growing popularity of wall-pictures, together with the importation of French fashions at the death of Charles the Second, crippled and ultimately killed the decorative leather industry of Spain. [27] The _Poem of the Cid_ tells us of the two chests, covered with red _guadamecí_, which the hero filled with sand to cheat the Jewish money-lenders:-- "_Con vuestro consejo bastir quiero dos archas. Incamosla d'arena, cá bien serán pesadas, Cubiertas de guadamecí é bien enclavadas; Los guadamecís bermeios é los clavos bien dorados._" Nevertheless, the "coffer of the Cid" at Burgos (see p. 12) does not appear to have been thus fitted. [28] The same usage obtained in Morocco. Lancelot Addison wrote in 1669 that on the first day of their "Little Feast" the Moors across the Strait "spread the floor of their Giammas with coloured leather."--_West Barbary_, p. 213. [29] An inventory of effects belonging to the Hospital of San José at Jerez de la Frontera mentions, in 1589, "clothes and trimmings for the image of Our Lady. A crown of gilded _guadamecí_."--Gestoso, _Diccionario de Artífices Sevillanos_, vol. i., p. xxii, _note_. [30] A hall, says Ramírez de Arellano, would often be embellished by surrounding it with arches wrought of leather in relief and superposed on leather. As a rule the arches were gilt and silvered, and rested upon pilasters or columns. When pilasters were used, their centres would be ornamented with Italian devices such as flowers, trophies, imitated cameos, and foliage. Landscapes with a far horizon and no figures, known as _boscaje_ or _pintura verde_ were painted on the space between the arches, so that the general effect was that of a pavilion with arches on all sides, displaying everywhere a wide expanse of fertile country. The arches rested on a broad bordering of _guadamecíes_, and running round the lower part was a _zócalo_ or socle, commonly made of tiling. Such is the kind of decoration which was most in vogue in Spain throughout the latter half of the sixteenth century; that which was exported to Rome; and that which was commissioned by the Duke of Arcos. CARPENTRY AND WOOD-CARVING The artistic carpentry of older Spain produced as its most typical and striking monuments, three groups of objects which may be included generally under Furniture. These are the _celosía_ or window-lattice, the door of _lazo_-work, and the _artesonado_-ceiling which adorns a hall or chamber, corridor or staircase. [Illustration: XVIII CARVED _ZAPATAS_ (_Casa de Salinas, Salamanca_)] These happy and effective styles of decoration came originally from the East. Their passage may be traced along the coast of Africa from Egypt into Spain; and they flourished in Spain for the same reason which had caused them to flourish at Cairo. "When we remember," says Professor Lane-Poole, "how little wood grows in Egypt, the extensive use made of this material in the mosques and houses of Cairo appears very remarkable. In mosques, the ceilings, some of the windows, the pulpit, lectern or Koran desk, tribune, tomb-casing, doors, and cupboards, are of wood, and often there are carved wooden inscriptions and stalactites of the same material leading up to the circle of the dome. In the older houses, ceilings, doors, cupboards, and furniture are made of wood, and carved lattice windows, or meshrebiyas, abound. In a cold climate, such employment of the most easily worked of substances is natural enough; but in Egypt, apart from the scarcity of the material, and the necessity of importing it, the heat offers serious obstacles to its use. A plain board of wood properly seasoned may keep its shape well enough in England, but when exposed to the sun of Cairo it will speedily lose its accurate proportions; and when employed in combination with other pieces, to form windows or doors, boxes or pulpits, its joints will open, its carvings split, and the whole work will become unsightly and unstable. The leading characteristic of Cairo wood-work is its subdivision into numerous panels; and this principle is obviously the result of climatic considerations, rather than any doctrine of art. The only mode of combating the shrinking and warping effects of the sun was found in a skilful division of the surfaces into panels small enough, and sufficiently easy in their setting, to permit of slight shrinking without injury to the general outline. The little panels of a Cairo door or pulpit may expand without encountering enough resistance to cause any cracking or splitting in the surrounding portions, and the Egyptian workmen soon learned to accommodate themselves to the conditions of their art in a hot climate."[31] [31] _The Art of the Saracens in Egypt_, pp. 124, 125. [Illustration: XIX CARVED _ZAPATAS_ (_Museum of Zaragoza_)] These valuable and interesting observations apply with equal justice to the decorative woodwork of the Spanish Muslims. A further point of interest lies in the fact that window-grilles and ceilings of the kind referred to, grew to be extremely fashionable through the whole Peninsula. Carried by Moorish or Mudejar craftsmen far beyond the frontiers of the Mussulman sultans of this European land, we find to-day surviving specimens in every part of Spain--most of them, it is true, in sultry Andalus; but many also in the old seigniorial mansions of Castile, or even in the cold and humid towns and cities of Cantabria. The man who did this kind of work was not a common carpenter. Such work was largely practical and prosaic, but also it was largely decorative and poetical. Probably, both in his own and in his customer's regard, the decorative quality was set before the practical. Therefore, beyond the dry, comparatively facile details of technique, this workman studied, with an artist's reverence and zeal, the inner, subtler, sweeter mysteries of line and form; harmonies of curve and angle; patterns, now geometrical, now floral, now these two combined with magic ingenuity; steeping himself in the æsthetic sense; making, indeed, his work the literal fact or fitting of prosaic application that was indispensable; but also, and as if upon some loftier initiative of his own, a miracle of art for people of a later day to come and stand before and wonder at. [Illustration: XX _ALERO_ AND CORNICE OF CARVED WOOD (_Cuarto de Comares, Alhambra, Granada_)] Indeed, whether because Our Lord had practised it, or from some other motive, carpentry was always well esteemed among the Spaniards. The Ordinances of Seville eulogize it, in conjunction with its sister-work of masonry and building, as "a noble art and self-contained, that increaseth the nobleness of the King and of his kingdom, that pacifieth the people, and spreadeth love among mankind, conducing to much good."[32] The same Ordinances divide these honourable craftsmen into half a dozen classes and sub-classes; carvers or _entalladores_, carpenters who kept a shop (_carpinteros de tienda_), _carpinteros de lo prieto_, and _carpinteros de lo blanco_. The latter are the class we are considering here, and these, in turn, were subdivided into _lazeros_ or makers of _lazo_-work, _non-lazeros_ or those who did not make it, and _jumetricos_ or _geómetricos_. The statutory examination was severe in all these branches. Thus, the _lazero_-carpenters of Seville were required to make a chamber of octagonal _lazo_-work, including its pendentives at the corners; while the wood-carvers of the same city were required to be experienced draughtsmen and to make and carve "artistic altar-screens with decorated columns, pedestals for images, and tabernacles (_i.e._ the part of an altar where the cibory and the Host are kept), as well as tombs and chambranles with their covering, tabernacles of the utmost art (_de grande arte_), and rich choir-stalls." [32] _"Es noble arte, complida en sí; è acrescienta la nobleza del rey y del reyno, si en ella pararen mientes, como deuen; è pone paz en el pueblo y amor entre los omes, onde es carrera para muchos bienes."_--_Ordenanzas de Sevilla_, Part 1, p. 141. Nor was the making of artistic ceilings, doors, and window-gratings carried out exclusively by men of Moorish blood. Tutored by these, the Christians practised it with great success. Prominent among these last we find, early in the seventeenth century, the name of Diego Lopez de Arenas, a Christian-Spaniard and a native of Marchena, who held the licensed title of master-carpenter and lived for many years at Seville.[33] In a lucky moment it occurred to Lopez de Arenas to write and publish for the benefit of his fellow-craftsmen a book upon this decorative oriental woodwork that had passed into the Spanish national life. This book, _Carpintería de lo Blanco_,[34] appeared at Seville in 1633, and fresh editions were printed at the same city in 1727, and at Madrid in 1867. As in the Ordinances of Granada, Seville, and Toledo, Arabic terms, too copious and too complicated for elucidation here, are constantly repeated in this book.[35] Much of the general information which we gather from it is, however, of great interest. Thus, we are told that with the Spanish artists, as in Egypt, the wood most often used, no doubt as being the cheapest, was pitch pine, parcelled and put together in the most elaborate decorative schemes. Such was the characteristic _alfarge_[36] ceiling of the Moorish, Morisco, and Spanish-Christian _carpintero de lo blanco_. Its many fragments were secured upon the frame by long, small-headed nails, or by these nails combined with glue. If we observe the ceilings from close by, as when, for instance, they are taken down to be restored, the workmanship appears to be coarse, inaccurate, and hasty; the myriad pieces to be clumsily and loosely joined; the nails to be driven in without method, or even awry. Nevertheless, this false effect betrays the calculating genius of the craftsman. He planned his work for contemplation by a certain light and at a certain elevation; and therefore, as the ceiling is removed again to its appointed distance, it seems to re-create itself in proud defiance of an error of our own, and grows at once to its habitual delicacy, harmony, and richness. [33] Gestoso finds no record of him in the city archives; but from a rough portrait of Arenas prefixed to his treatise, we judge that he was born about the year 1580. [34] Arenas himself defines a _carpintero de lo blanco_ as "he who prepares and works upon the wood employed in building; also, he who fashions tables, benches, etc., in his workshop." [35] "His language abounds in Arabic words and phrases of uncertain origin, whose meaning (since he wrote for men familiar with this work) he makes no effort to explain."--Editor's introduction to the third edition of _Carpintería de lo Blanco_. [36] Arabic _al-farx_, a carpet, piece of tapestry, or anything that covers and adorns. [Illustration: XXI "ELIJAH SLEEPING" (_Statue in wood, by Alonso Cano_)] I have said that the decoration of these ceilings is sometimes floral, sometimes geometrical, sometimes a combination of the two.[37] Sometimes the wood is plain, or sometimes silvered, gilt, or painted. Sometimes it is employed alone, or sometimes variegated and inlaid with plaster points and patches. By far the commonest motive is the _lazo_--an ornamental scheme composed of infinite strips that turn, and twist, and intersect, describing in their mazy passage many polygons. One of these polygons determines, in a way, the scheme of the entire ceiling, which is denominated as consisting of "a _lazo_ of eight," "of ten," "of twelve," etc., from this particular. The most attractive and most frequent is the scheme "of eight." Among the decorative details used to brighten and enhance the _lazo_ proper are _mocarabes_ or wooden lacery for relieving cubes and joists or surfaces, and _rácimos_ or "clusters"; that is, hollow or solid wooden cones or prisms, disposed along the side and centre panels of the ceiling like (in Arenas' ingenious phrase) the buttons on a jacket, and contributing to the massive aspect of the whole. These clusters, too, were sometimes in the stalactite and sometimes in a simpler form, and show, both in the quantity and richness of their ornament, a limitless diversity. [37] This mingled decoration is extremely common; and may be studied in our country, in the carved panels at South Kensington which are believed to proceed from the pulpit of the mosque of Kusun; or in the thirteenth-century panels of the tomb of Es-salih Ayyub. [Illustration: XXII SAINT BRUNO (_By Alonso Cano. Cartuja of Granada_)] Magnificent Spanish-Moorish, Spanish, and Mudejar ceilings still exist in Spain. Such are the marvellous domed ceiling in the Hall of Comares (or of Ambassadors) in the Alhambra, those of the Castle of the Aljafería at Zaragoza and of the archbishop's palace at Alcalá de Henares, the Arab _alfarge_ ceilings in the churches of San Francisco and Santiago of Guadix, that of the Hall of Cortes in the Audiencia of Valencia, that of the Sala Capitular of Toledo Cathedral, that of the Chapel of the Holy Spirit of the Cathedral of Cuenca (considered by many to be the finest _artesonado_ ceiling in all Spain), or those of the churches of Jesus Crucificado, El Carmen, and San Pablo at Cordova. The ceiling of the Sala de la Barca, in the Moorish palace of the Alhambra, was almost totally destroyed by fire in 1890, but a good photograph had previously been taken, and I reproduce it here (Plate viii.). One of the later _artesonado_ ceilings is at Cordova, in the parish church of Santiago. Covered with a _bóveda_ or vault of cane, it is in excellent preservation, and was made in 1635 by the master-carpenter Alonso Muñoz de los Ríos, who received for his labour fourteen thousand _reales_.[38] The _artesonado_ ceilings which Diego Lopez de Arenas tells us in his treatise that he made for the church, the choir, and the _sobreescalera_ of the monastery of Santa Paula at Seville, as well as a ceiling which he made for the church of Mairena, are all extant to-day. Other remarkable examples of this craft are the ceilings of the rooms constructed to the order of, and which were actually occupied by, Charles the Fifth, within the precincts of the old Alhambra. Upon these half-Italian, half-Morisco ceilings and their frieze we read the words, "_Plus Oultre_"; and the inscription, "_Imperator Cæsar Karolus V. Hispaniarum rex semper augustus pius f[oe]lix invictissimus_." In one of the same apartments, known as the "chamber of the fruits," the ceiling has octagonal _artesones_ of superb effect, though even richer is that of what is called the Second Sala de las Frutas, conspicuously influenced by Italian art, and believed by Gómez Moreno to have been designed by Pedro Machuca and executed by Juan de Plasencia. [38] Cordova was a famous centre of this craft for many centuries. Ramírez de Arellano has found and published a notice relative to Lope de Liaño and García Alonso, two artificers of this city who signed, on January 7th, 1572, a contract with the prior of the monastery of the Holy Martyrs to build a ceiling for one of the chapels of the same. The document, which is quoted _in extenso_ in the _Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Excursiones_ for November, 1900, abounds in technical expressions, many of them partly or entirely Moorish. The same writer publishes the names (hitherto completely unrecorded) of thirteen other artist-carpenters who worked at Cordova in the latter half of the sixteenth century and early in the seventeenth. The craft, in fact, died hard, and ceilings of this kind, replete with Moorish detail, were made in certain parts of Southern Spain until the closing moments of the eighteenth century. [Illustration: XXIII SAINT JOHN THE BAPTIST (_San Juan de Dios, Granada_)] Marvellous in conjunction with the thousand lighted lamps which served to manifest its beauties, must have been the primitive ceiling (_as-sicafes_) of the mosque of Cordova, of which an Arab poet sang; "Look at the gold on it, like the kindled flame, or like the lightning-stroke that darts across the heavens."[39] Our notices of this ceiling, barbarously hacked to pieces by Christian architects, are neither numerous nor clear. We are told, however, that it was nearly finished in the reign of Abd-er-Rhaman the First, and terminated altogether by his son Hixem. New ceilings were added on the enlarging of the mosque by Abd-er-Rhaman the Second, while fresh additions were made by Al-Hakem the Second and Al-Manzor. Ambrosio de Morales gives a quaint description of the earliest, or an early, ceiling of this temple. "The roof of the whole church, made of wood painted and adorned in divers ways, is of incredible richness, as will be seen from what I am about to say. It is of larch throughout, odorous, resembling pine, which is not found in any part but Barbary,[40] whence it is brought by sea. And every time that a part of this temple was thrown down for new constructions to be added, the wood removed was sold for many thousand ducats for making guitars and other delicate objects. The ceiling was built across the church upon the nineteen naves thereof, and over it, covered likewise with wood, the roofs, nineteen in number also, each with its ridge atop, drooping to one and other side."[41] [39] That the Moors were proud of their mastery in woodwork is proved by an inscription in the Torre de la Cautiva at Granada, saying; "In the plaster and the tiles is work of extreme beauty, _but the woodwork of the roof has vanquished them in elegance_." [40] Morales was probably mistaken. "On entering Aragon one sees whole forests of 'Spanish Cedar' or _alerce_, some of the trees so thick that they measure four feet in diameter."--Bowles' _Natural History of Spain_, p. 102. [41] _Antigüedades de las ciudades de España_ (A.D. 1575), p. 123. Three pieces made of common pine, and which are thought to have belonged to the original ceiling of this mosque or to an early replica, are now in the National Museum at Madrid, but the carving of these fragments is so simple that in the opinion of Rodrigo Amador de los Ríos the decoration of the wood itself was purposely subordinated in this instance to the richness and variety of the painting. [Illustration: XXIV CHOIR-STALLS (_Santo Tomás, Avila_)] Three types of decorative doors were made in older Spain. In the earliest and simplest (_lacería en talla_), the _lacería_ or _lazo_-work is carved directly on and from the solid plank which forms the body of the door. In the second type, the carver's art is delicately blended with the joiner's--_lazo_-work with _ensamblaje_. In the third type the _lazo_-work is _sobrepuesta_--that is, attached to, not elaborated from, the planking.[42] [42] José Amador de los Ríos mentions, as a good example of the first of these types, a thirteenth-century door of the _claustrilla_ in the monastery of Las Huelgas at Burgos. Other doors in the same monastery are illustrative of the second type; while all three types are represented by the doors, described herewith, which close the principal entrance to the misnamed Hall of Ambassadors in the Alcázar of Seville. As in the case of ceilings, many and excellent examples of these doors exist to-day in Spain. Among the most remarkable are several in the Moorish palace of the Alhambra, such as the two (dating from the end of the fourteenth century or early in the fifteenth) belonging, respectively, to the famous Hall of the Abencerrajes (Pl. ix.), and to the Hall of the Two Sisters (Pl. x.). Apparently it was the former of these doors which Bertaut de Rouen wrote of in the seventeenth century as "une porte aussi grande et aussi épaisse comme celles de nos plus grandes églises. Elle s'ouvre des deux costez, et est toute de pieces rapportées, et d'un bois de differentes couleurs, comme les beaux cabinets et les belles tables qui coustent si cher."[43] [43] _Journal du Voyage en Espagne_, p. 85. An early Mudejar door proceeding from the church of San Pedro at Daroca in Aragon is now in the National Museum. This door, which is of larch, and measures nearly fourteen feet in height by nine in breadth, is of a simple design and represents a horse-shoe door described within the door itself. It was originally painted vermilion, with other decorative painting of a simple character in black, white, and red, and is fortified with massive iron braces. It is believed to date from earlier than the fourteenth century. [Illustration: XXV CARVED CHOIR-STALL (_Toledo Cathedral_)] The mighty doors of the "Hall of Ambassadors," in the mediæval royal residence of Seville (Plates xi. and xii.), are quite the finest to be seen in Spain. Although a widespread superstition assigns their manufacture to a period close upon the Moorish conquest, it has been proved conclusively that they were made by Mudejar craftsmen of Toledo at the time when the whole Alcázar was erected more or less upon the ruins of the old, by Pedro the First of Castile, denominated, according to the prejudice with which we view his character, "the Cruel," or "the Just."[44] [44] The following words record the date of the construction of this place and its doors, and may be read (Plate xiii.) upon the scroll of tiles or _alizares_ crowning the principal façade:-- [cross] EL ¦ MUY ¦ ALTO ¦ ET ¦ MUY ¦ NOBLE ¦ ET ¦ MUY ¦ PODEROSO ¦ ET ¦ MUY ¦ CONQUERIDOR ¦ DON ¦ PEDRO ¦ POR ¦ LA ¦ GRACIA ¦ DE ¦ DIOS ¦ REY ¦ DE ¦ CASTIELLA ¦ ET ¦ DE ¦ LEON ¦ MANDÓ ¦ FACER ¦ ESTOS ¦ ALCÁZARES ¦ ET ¦ ESTOS ¦ PALACIOS ¦ ET ¦ ESTAS ¦ PORTADAS ¦ QUE ¦ FUÉ ¦ FECHO ¦ EN ¦ LA ¦ ERA ¦ DE ¦ MILL ¦ ET ¦ QUATROÇIENTOS ¦ Y ¦ DOS ¦ The observant Swinburne was not misled, like many travellers of to-day, into believing the Alcázar to be of purely Moorish origin. "Having read that the Moors built one part of this palace, I concluded I was admiring something as old as the Mahometan kings of Seville; but upon closer examination was not a little surprised to find _lions_, _castles_, and other armorial ensigns of Castille and Leon, interwoven with Arabesque foliages; and still more so, to see in large Gothic characters, an inscription informing me that these edifices were built in the fourteenth century, by the most mighty king of Castille and Leon, Don Pedro." These doors, which under a pretence of restoration have been mutilated more than once, are made of larch, and measure sixteen feet in height by thirteen feet (including both the leaves) in width. The upper part of either leaf consists of geometrical and floral ornament in exquisitely tasteful combination, executed in the scheme known technically, from the angles at the central polygon, as _lazo de á doce_--"_lazo_-work of twelve." The decoration of the lower part is more minute, and in the scheme of _lazo de á diez_--"_lazo_-work of ten." Inscriptions in Arabic and Latin, many of which are quoted from the Psalms, are distributed on both sides of the woodwork, and confirm our other evidence that the doors were made during the reign and in obedience to the orders, of Don Pedro. The Plateresco sixteenth-century doors of the Capilla de los Vargas at Madrid (Plate xiv.) are attributed by Cean Bermudez and by Ponz to an artist named Giralte, who carved them in walnut with various military and other scenes from Scripture, alternating with shields and floral ornament; the whole surrounded by an exquisitely delicate and tasteful border. Lampérez remarks that the errors of perspective recall the similar productions of Ghiberti. [Illustration: XXVI CHOIR-STALLS (_Burgos Cathedral_)] The _celosía_ or decorative wooden window-grating, imported by the Mussulman conqueror from Egypt and the East, extended to all parts of Christian Spain, and was particularly used in convents. These gratings, identical in form and workmanship with those of Cairo,[45] were attached to projecting windows, so that the women of a household could look into the street without themselves being seen, a custom which the Spanish woman still recalls to us by peering, for hours at a time, between the lowered _persiana_ of her balcony.[46] By the seventeenth century, which may truthfully be called the age of Spanish jealousy, and when the "Othello-like revenge of the Moor" had eaten into the very entrails of society, the _celosía_ had become as indispensable to houses as the door or window. "La," wrote Bertaut de Rouen of a residence on the outskirts of Madrid, and obviously alluding to these gratings, "il y avoit bien des Dames dans l'appartement d'enhaut qui y demeurerent cachées, se contentant de nous voir promener dans le jardin par les fenêtres." [45] "The windows, which are chiefly composed of curious wooden lattice-work, serving to screen the inhabitants from the view of persons without, as also to admit both light and air, commonly project outwards, and are furnished with mattresses and cushions."--Lane's _Arabian Nights_, vol. i., p. 192. [46] It is strange that Ford should have confounded the _reja_ with the _celosía_ (_Handbook_, vol. i., p. 153). However, he opportunely quotes the Spanish proverb, _Muger ventanera tuercela el cuello si la quieres buena_ ("The remedy for a woman who is always thrusting her head from the casement is to twist her neck"). We know from the stone coat of arms which is carved above the doorway of the "House of Castril at Granada" that in the olden time the balconies of the Hall of Comares in the Alhambra were fitted with projecting wooden _celosías_; and Contreras says that in the Torre de los Puñales of the same palace there used to be "a kind of wooden _mirador_ or _menacir_, covered with _celosías_ like those of Cairo, and many of which were still to be seen in Granada early in the nineteenth century." I am not aware of any Moorish _celosía_ remaining to this day outside a Spanish building. In such exposed positions weather and the natural delicacy of the woodwork seem to have destroyed them all. As an interior ornament, a single one (Pl. xvi.) exists in the Alhambra. Nevertheless, I hesitate to call this _celosía_ purely Moorish. Perhaps it is the work of a Morisco, or even of a Christian-Spaniard, for we know that decorative wooden fittings for the Alhambra were made in the sixteenth century by Antonio Navarro and other craftsmen. The grating, which is well preserved, covers a window over the archway leading from the Hall of the Two Sisters into the Sala de los Ajimeces and the Mirador de Daraxa, and consists of minute prisms and turned pieces in the typical Egyptian style. [Illustration: XXVII CHOIR STALLS (_San Márcos, León_)] Other fittings for a building, wrought in wood by Moorish artists and by these communicated to the Christian-Spaniards, were balustrades and cornices, _aleros_ (decorative bands beneath the eaves of a roof, Plate xvii.) and _zapatas_ (gargoyle-looking figures, often in human form, used to support a roof or gallery). In the so-called "Patio de las Asas" of the convent of Santa Catalina de Zafra, at Granada, exists an interesting Moorish balustrade[47] that seems almost untouched by time. I reproduce an outline of it as the tailpiece to the present chapter, and am glad to append the little sketch in question, copied from a photograph I took upon the spot three years ago, because it is almost impossible to obtain admission to this convent. Beautiful or uncouth and quaint _zapatas_ may be seen in the Casa de los Tiros at Granada, and in many other places (Plates xviii. and xix.). Much of the Moorish woodwork of the palace of the Alhambra was destroyed by the fire of 1590, but there yet remain the ample cornice and carved _alero_ of the façade of the Cuarto de Comares (Plate xx.), which is often called in error the Court of the Mezquita. This _alero_ bears the following inscription, allusive to the Sultan Mohammed the Fifth:--"I am the place where the crown is guarded, and on my doors being opened the regions of the west believe the east to be contained within me. Algami Billah charged me to keep guard upon the doorway." [47] Almagro Cardenas calls it "part of a _celosía_" (_Museo Granadino_, p. 79); but as it can never have been a window-grating, this term is incorrect. Gómez Moreno calls it, not too lucidly, "a wooden balustrade forming squares and rectangular figures in the manner of a _celosía_" (_Guía de Granada_, p. 421). Valladar (_Guía de Granada_, edition of 1906, p. 117) calls it simply a balustrade, and this, it seems to me, is the only term which truthfully describes the object. Other remarkable _aleros_ are in the Generalife and in the Court of Lions of the Alhambra, while, also in this last-named mansion, genuine Moorish woodwork of elaborately inlaid ebony and larch is in two niches near the entrance to the Sala de Embajadores. SACRED STATUARY, _SILLERÍAS_ OR CHOIR-STALLS, AND _RETABLOS_ The genius of the wood-carvers of older Spain is manifested chiefly in three groups of objects--sacred statuary, choir-stalls, and _retablos_. Among this people, and probably by reason of its cheapness, plain, or gilt, or polychrome painted wood has always been a favourite material for the statues of their temples, whether such statues were employed alone, or as an accessory to a larger article of sacred furniture, such as a pulpit, or a _sillería_, or an altar-screen. So powerful, in fact, has been the vogue of this material here,[48] that even to-day the Spanish people, making, in Symonds' happy phrase, "representation an object in itself, independently of its spiritual significance," attempt to elevate the most remarkable of their wooden, and by preference their coloured wooden, statuary (typically defended by Pacheco's indigested tome), to rank beside the noblest and the purest monuments of bronze and marble; denoting, by this reckless and uneducated partiality, a positively national misconception of the true domain of art. [48] My readers are no doubt aware that every Spanish hamlet has its wooden image of the Virgin, badly executed as a rule, and rendered doubly hideous by a gaudy gown. Most of these local images are believed to hold the power of working miracles, or at least to have been fashioned and conducted to their present shrine by supernatural agency--on which account the populace and their pastors call these latter _imagenes aparecidas_, as distinct from _manufactured_ images. Such are the Virgins of Montserrat, Granada, and numerous other cities, towns, or villages of this illiterate and ill-starred Peninsula. The curious may refer for every kind of detail to Villafañe's _Compendious History of the Wonder-working Images of Spain_, which numbered in this author's day (his book was published in 1740) one hundred and eighty-nine. But the most extraordinary miracle of all was that which is recalled, with pious gravity, by Bertaut de Rouen. Speaking of the gilt-wood image of Nuestra Señora del Pilar at Zaragoza, he says:--"On y void quantité de lampes d'argent et on m'en raconta un miracle qu'il me fut impossible de ne pas croire. C'est d'un pauvre homme qui ayant eu la jambe coupée pour une blessure, et s'estant bien recommandé à _Nostra Señora del Pilar_, il se trouva un jour avec sa mesme jambe qu'il avoit déja fait enterrer. Y'ay sceu l'histoire du chirurgien mesme qui coupa cette jambe et de quantité de témoins de veuë. Il n'y a que quinze ans que cela est arrivé, mais l'homme est mort depuis peu."--_Journal du Voyage en Espagne_, p. 203. [Illustration: XXVIII DETAIL OF CHOIR-STALLS (_León Cathedral_)] It is outside the scope of such a work as this to deal at any length with Spanish figure-sculpture. However, it is only fair to recognize that Spain produced a couple of score or so of admirable carvers of wood-statuary. Among the greatest of these craftsmen or _imagineros_ were Becerra, Berruguete, Juan de Juni, author of the _Mater Dolorosa_ ("Our Lady of the Knives"), of Valladolid; Gregorio Hernández the Galician, author of "Simon the Cyrenian," "Santa Veronica," and "the Baptism of our Lord"; Martínez Montañes, author of "San Jerónimo" and of the "Cristo del Gran Poder";[49] Solis, Gaspar de Ribas, Juan Gómez, author of the "Jesus" of Puerto de Santa Maria; Pedro Roldan, with whom, according to Tubino, "the art of Seville closed its eyes"; and Alonso Cano, master of Pedro and Alonso de Mena, Ruiz del Peral, José de Mora, and Diego de Mora, and who carved the exquisite "Elijah Sleeping" (Pl. xxi.) now at Toledo, and also (as it is believed) the famous statuette (Frontispiece to the present volume) of Saint Francis of Assisi. [49] It is due to Martínez Montañes to mention that in many of his contracts he stipulated that the painters of his statuary should be chosen by himself, "so as not to corrupt the outline and the sentiment of the figures." [Illustration: XXIX CHOIR-STALLS (_Plasencia Cathedral_)] The earliest centre of this branch of wood-carving was Valladolid, where lived and laboured Juni and Hernández. Nevertheless, although so popular in every part of Spain, it had a short-lived prime, originating in the two Castiles towards the reign of Philip the Second, declining steadily (with Seville for its centre now) all through the seventeenth century, and flickering out, despite the perseverance and the genius of the Murcian Susillo, in the century succeeding. In decorative _sillerías_ or sets of choir-stalls, Spain has produced examples worthy to be set beside the masterpiece of Vitry in the abbey of Sainte-Claude, the best productions of Dürer and his followers in Germany, or those of Donatello, Brunelleschi, Valdambrino, Vechietta, and Verrochio in Italy. Nevertheless, her most distinguished _sillería_-makers were at almost every moment inspired and directed by the foreigner. Germans or Flemings were her first preceptors in this craft. These artists had been sent for, or proceeded of their own accord, to Spain, and settling in this country rapidly spread the technics of their art among the Spaniards. In the Peninsula the origin of this school or movement may be traced to Burgos. Here, just as the fifteenth century was drawing to its close, and just before the breath of the Renaissance crossed the Spanish frontier at its eastern side, was gathered a small though influential group of eminent workers in more crafts than one; painters and sculptors, architects, embroiderers, carvers of wood, _reja_-makers, and painters of cathedral glass. Prominent among them all was a foreigner named Philip Vigarny,[50] who is described by Diego de Sagrado as "singular above all others in the art of making statuary and sculpture; a man of vast experience, general in his mastery of the liberal and mechanic arts, and no less resolute in all that is related with the sciences of architecture." [50] In Spanish he is called Felipe de Borgoña, but Martí y Monsó says that the proper spelling of the surname is Biguerny. [Illustration: XXX DETAIL OF CHOIR-STALLS (_Convent of San Marcos, León_)] Burgundy is said to have been the birthplace of Felipe de Borgoña, but of his early history we have no tidings. In documents which bear his signature he styles himself "_imaginario_, resident at Burgos." Three such documents exist. On August 1st, 1505, he agrees, for 130,000 _maravedis_, to make "such images as may be necessary" for the altar of the high chapel of Palencia cathedral, "he with his own hand to carve the hands and faces, out of good smooth walnut, without painting." This document is dated from Palencia. The other two are dated severally, Burgos, December 6th, 1506, and Corcos, September 6th, without the addition of the year.[51] We also know this craftsman to have made the great _retablo_ of Burgos cathedral. Such, from the fragmentary semblance we can trace of him, was Philip Vigarny, the pioneer of the wood-carvers of older Spain, and who, aided by other craftsmen from abroad, communicated all the secrets of his art to Spaniards such as Gil de Siloe, Ruy Sanchez, Diego de la Cruz, Alonso de Lima, and Berruguete. [51] Zarco del Valle, _Documentos Inéditos para la Historia de las Bellas Artes en España_, pp. 161, 162. The typical _sillería_ consists of two tiers; the _sellia_ or upper seats, with high backs and a canopy, intended for the canons, and the lower seats or _subsellia_, of simpler pattern and with lower backs, intended for the _beneficiados_. At the head of all is placed the presidential throne, larger than the other stalls, and covered, in many cases, by a canopy surmounted by a tall spire. When the _sillería_ belongs to a monastery, the higher stalls are for the _profesos_, and the lower for the novices and _legos_. Commonly the part that forms the actual seat is hinged and rises to a vertical position, being so contrived that when the occupant rises to his feet, there remains a narrow ledge projecting from the under surface. This ledge is called the "seat of pity" or "of patience," because the worshipper is able to incline himself on it and give his limbs some measure of repose without appearing to be seated. There also is commonly another piece, intended for him to rest his hands upon in rising, which projects from the sides of the stall and forms a part of the decorative carving, as well as, somewhat higher still, the carved support to rest his arms while he is on his feet. [Illustration: XXXI "SAMSON" (_Carved Choir-stall of León Cathedral_)] The earliest Spanish _sillerías_ date from the fourteenth century; but it is not until the century succeeding that we find them at their very best. Gothic or Plateresco _sillerías_ of marvellous design and workmanship are those of the Seo of Zaragoza (begun in 1412), the Cartuja de Miraflores of Burgos (1489), the monastery of Oña, Santa María de Nájera (1495), the church of Santa María del Campo, in the province of Burgos, Santo Tomás of Avila (finished in 1493), and the cathedrals of Oviedo, Segovia (1461-1497), Ciudad Rodrigo, Tarragona (1478), Tarazona, Toledo (begun in 1494), Zamora, Astorga, Barcelona (1453-1483), and Seville (finished in 1478). The Gothic choir-stalls of the Seo of Zaragoza have lofty backs with arabesque Mudejar ornamentation, small Gothic columns, and medallions containing figures upon the arms of every stall. The material is Flemish oak. The carving was begun in 1412 by the Moors Alí Arrondi, Muza, and Chamar, who earned a daily wage of four _sueldos_. In 1446 Juan Navarro and the brothers Antonio and Francisco Gomar were working at the same stalls, and also, in 1449, Francoy. The stalls of the Cartuja de Miraflores at Burgos were carved by Martin Sánchez, who received in 1486, and for the _mano de obra_ alone, the sum of 125,000 _maravedis_. The material, which was presented by Luis de Velasco, Señor of Belorado, is dark walnut. The _sillería_ of Santa María de Nájera, the work of Maestro Andrés and Maestro Nicolás, is Gothic merging into the Renaissance. That of Santo Tomás of Avila (late Gothic) consists of sixty oaken stalls, besides two larger ones resembling thrones (Plate xxiv.), intended to be occupied by Ferdinand and Isabella, founders of this monastery, and whose arms they bear in lace-like carving. The rest of the decoration is composed of thistles, vines, trefoils, and pomegranates. Owing to the fact that not a single cross appears on any part of the _sillería_ (although this circumstance is not unusual in sacred Gothic woodwork), there is a superstition that these stalls were wrought anonymously by some Jew, condemned to execute them by the Inquisition as a form of punishment. This fable has no value. Although the author's name is not upon the stalls, they are identical in nearly every detail with those of the Cartuja de Miraflores at Burgos, known to have been carved by Martin Sánchez in 1486. Hence it is extremely probable that this craftsman was the author of both _sillerías_. [Illustration: XXXII "ESAU" (_Carved Choir-stall of León Cathedral_)] On many Spanish _sillerías_ we find most spirited reproductions of the life and manners of their time; satirical allusions to contemporary vices, allegories and caprices as fantastic, in the phrase of Vargas Ponce, as "one of Bosch's nightmares," hunting-scenes or love-scenes, banquets, tournaments, dances, battles, sieges, and even bull-fights. Thus, on the stalls of the cathedrals of Zamora, Oviedo, Plasencia, Astorga, and León are carved such subjects as the following. A fox dressed as a friar, preaching to a group of hens but slyly abstracting their chicks (Zamora), men fighting with their fists (Zamora), a hog playing the bagpipes (León), the Devil in the garb of a confessor, tempting a penitent (León), a woman suckling an ass (León), a man armed with a lance, fighting a woman (Astorga), a bird of prey struggling with a crocodile (Astorga), card-players (Astorga), a warrior on all-fours, whipped by a woman (Plasencia), an _auto-de-fé_ (Plasencia), swine praying and spinning (Ciudad Rodrigo), a fight between a tiger and a bull (Ciudad Rodrigo), a monkey beating a drum (Ciudad Rodrigo), and a monkey wearing a mitre (Ciudad Rodrigo). The style of the lower stalls of Toledo cathedral is good Plateresque. They were begun in 1494 by Maese Rodrigo, one of the very best of Spain's _entalladores_, and portray, in each successive stall, the phases of the last campaign against Granada (Plate xxv.); the sieges or battles of Altora, Melis, Xornas, Erefran, Alminia, Baza, Málaga (two stalls), Salobreña, Almuñecar, Comares, Beles, Montefrío, Moclín, Illora, Loja, Cazarabonela, Coyn, Cartama, Marbella, Ronda, Setenil, Alora, Alhama, Nixar, Padux, Vera, Huéscar, Guadix, Purchena, Almería, Rión, Castil de Ferro, Cambril, Zagani, Castul, Gor, Canzoria, Moxacar, Vélez el Blanco, Gurarca, Vélez el Rubio, Soreo, and Cabrera. The upper tier of the same stalls belongs to a later period, and will, in consequence, be noticed subsequently. The _sillería_ of Barcelona cathedral was begun in the middle of the fifteenth century by Matias Bonafé, at the same time that the German Michael Locher and his pupil John Frederic worked at the canopies. It was finished thirty years later. Upon the back (which otherwise is plain) of every stall is a coat of arms distinct from all its neighbours, marking the seat of one of the princes or nobles summoned by Charles the Fifth to the Chapter of the Order of the Golden Fleece, March 5th, 1519.[52] [Illustration: XXXIII _RETABLO_ (_Seville Cathedral_)] The splendid _sillería_ of Seville cathedral is a mingling of the Gothic with the Mudejar and Plateresque. The material is oak and fir, and the number of the seats one hundred and seventeen. The _sellia_ are surmounted by a graceful running _guardapolvo_. Each seat is carved distinctly from the rest, and further decorated in the Mudejar style with inlaid woods of various kinds and colours, imitating stone mosaic. Among this labyrinth of design are groups of people, angels, animals, and scenes from Scripture, as well as, on the lower stalls, the Giralda tower, which forms the arms of the cathedral. The _sillería_ is further embellished with two hundred and sixteen statuettes, seventy-two of which are ranged along the canopy or _dosel_, the remainder being distributed between the seats. [52] "The stalls of the choir are neatly carved, and hung with escutcheons of princes and noblemen, among which I remarked the arms of our Henry the Eighth."--Swinburne. The authors of this splendid work of art (judiciously restored some years ago by Boutelou, Fernandez, and Mattoni) were Nufio Sanchez, Dancart, and several other craftsmen, concerning whom we know but very little. Sánchez' name is carved upon the second stall of the upper row, and on the side of the Evangelist, as follows:-- [Illustration] The above inscription states that "this choir was made by Nufio Sanchez, _entallador_ (God guard him[53]), and finished in the year one thousand four hundred and seventy-eight." [53] This kind of parenthetical remark or prayer is one of the many Muslim phrases that have passed into the regular service of the Spanish Christian. With the dawn of the sixteenth century, the Gothic style runs rapidly into that of the Renaissance. At about this time, and as Baron Davillier pointed out, we sometimes find a triple influence, namely, the Burgundian, the Italian, and the native Spanish. Vigarny may be called the champion of the first of these, Berruguete (who studied in Italy) of the second, and Guillermo Doncel of the third. After this the purer Renaissance gives place to the decadent, as in the stalls of Santiago, Málaga, Cordova, and Salamanca. [Illustration: XXXIV _RETABLO_ OF SEVILLE CATHEDRAL (_Detail of Carving_)] Sixteenth-century _sillerías_ of note are those of Burgos cathedral (Plate xxvi.), carved by Vigarny, Avila cathedral, the Pilar of Zaragoza, the Minor Friars of the Cartuja of Burgos, Pamplona cathedral, San Marcos of León, Huesca, the _alta sillería_ of Toledo, and the walnut stalls--carved in 1526 by Bartolomé Fernandez de Segovia, and now in the Madrid Museum--of the Parral of Segovia. The _sillería_ of Avila cathedral is believed to have been begun in 1527 by Juan Rodrigo, although the greater part of it was probably executed between 1536 and 1547 by Cornelis de Holanda, who took for his model the stalls of San Benito of Valladolid. The cost of the walnut wood and of its workmanship amounted to 33,669 _reales_. The upper stalls of Toledo cathedral were carved by Vigarny and Alonso Berruguete in collaboration, so that we find in them the northern and Italian styles effectively and interestingly united. The Plateresque-Renaissance _sillería_, described as "genuinely Spanish," of the old convent of San Marcos of León, containing statuettes of biblical personages and of fathers of the Church--Saint Isidore among them,--was finished in 1542 by Guillermo Doncel, who added the inscription "_Magister Guillermus Doncel me fecit MDXLII_" (Plate xxvii.). We know, however, nothing more about this excellent Spanish artist, except that (on the unsupported testimony of Cean) he worked at the façade of this convent between the years 1537 and 1544. The intricate _sillería_ of the Pilar of Zaragoza, containing almost every kind of subject--beasts, birds and fishes, allegories, incidents of the chase, or scenes of popular life--was designed by Esteban de Obray, a Navarrese, and executed by him and his assistants, Juan Moreto Florentino and Nicolas de Lobato, between 1542 and 1548. That of the Minor Friars of the Cartuja of Burgos was carved at a cost of eight hundred and ten ducats by Simón de Bueras, in 1558. That of Pamplona cathedral dates from about the middle of the century, and is the work of one Ancheta, who had visited Italy and gathered inspiration from the masterpieces of Siena. The material is English oak. The stalls of Huesca, carved from oak proceeding from an older _sillería_ which had been removed, were begun in 1587 and finished in 1594. The craftsmen were Nicolás de Verástegui and Juan Verrueta de Sangüesa. [Illustration: XXXV DETAIL OF _RETABLO_ (_Late 15th century. Museum of Valladolid_)] Seventeenth-century _sillerías_ are those of Santiago, carved by Juan de Vila in 1603; Salamanca, in 1651, by Alfonso Balbás; Orihuela, in 1692, by Juan Bautista Borja; and Segorbe, carved in the same year by Nicolás Camarón; while dating from the eighteenth century--a period of manifest decadence in this beautiful but short-lived craft--are the stalls of Lerida, by Luis Bonifar y Masó (born in 1730), and Cordova, executed between 1748 and 1757, at a cost of 913,889 _reales_, by Pedro Ciriaco Duque y Cornejo, a son of Seville and a pupil of the Sevillano Roldan. The least imperfect of these later and decadent _sillerías_ is that of Málaga, whose author, Pedro de Mena, was, like his master, Alonso Cano, a native of Granada. Mena's contract with two canons of the cathedral, nominated by the bishop to prepare and sign the stipulations, will be found in No. 134 of the _Boletín de la Sociedad de Excursiones_. The stalls of Málaga number a hundred and one, carved in walnut, larch, cedar, and the heavy Indian wood called _granadillo_. As happens with many of the _sillerías_ of this country, the costumes of the figures are of great historical value. Among the saints is San Roque, in pilgrim's garb, attended by the dog who brought him day by day a loaf of bread while men refused to succour him. No less magnificent than these sets of choir-stalls are the carved _retablos_ or altar-screens,[54] a gradual excrescence from the primitive and unpretentious altar of the early days of Christianity. Several kinds of craftsmen worked upon these altar-screens, such as _tallistas_, _entalladores_, _imagineros_, and even architects. [54] Wood is the usual material for these altar-screens, though sometimes marble was employed, or stone, or silver. Of Genoese marble is the _retablo_ (end of the fourteenth or beginning of the fifteenth century) of the Cartuja del Paular in the Lozoya valley; of stone, those of the parish church of San Nicolás at Burgos (end of the fifteenth or beginning of the sixteenth century), and of the "chapel of the tailors" in Tarragona Cathedral; while a silver _retablo_, in the Renaissance style, was that of the church, now demolished, of Santa María at Madrid. The Golden Age of the _retablo_ embraces the end of the fifteenth century and the whole of the sixteenth. Notable examples belonging to this period are the screens of the monastery of Santo Tomás at Avila, San Martin of Segovia, the Cartuja de Miraflores, the Colegiata of Covarrubias in the province of Burgos, the cathedrals of Avila, Toledo, Tudela, and Tarazona; several in the churches of Toledo, two in the church of San Lesmes (Burgos), two in Burgos Cathedral (Plate xxxvi.), and three, including those of _Reyes_ and of _Buena Mariana_, in the church of San Gil in the same city. Not one of these, however, has the grandeur or variety of the altar-screen of Seville (Plates xxxiii. and xxxiv.), which is carefully described in Cean's monograph. "The style is Gothic; the material, undecaying larch; and the screen, which reaches nearly to the vaulting, is the largest in the country, although at first it spanned the presbytery only, not including either side. It was designed in 1482 by Dancat or Danchart, who began work upon it as soon as his sketches were approved, and worked at it till 1492, in which year he seems to have died. [Illustration: XXXVI DETAIL OF _RETABLO_ (_Chapel of Santa Ana, Burgos Cathedral_)] "Dancat was succeeded by Master Marco and Bernardo de Ortega, whose carving reached, by 1505, the canopy or _viga_, and who were followed in their turn by Francisco, Bernardo's son, father and teacher of Bernardino and Nufrio de Ortega, his assistants. Some of the statues were carved by Micer Domingo. The rest of the _imaginería_ was finished in 1526; and the gilding and painting were done by Alejo Fernández, his brother, and Andrés de Covarrubias. "So the screen remained till 1550, when the Chapter decided to extend it, without altering the style of decoration, to the sides of the presbytery. By this time Spanish sculpture had improved, and many of our best-known sculptors lent their aid, of whom the earliest were Roque Balduc, Pedro Becerril, el Castellano, Juan de Villalva, Diego Vazquez, and Pedro Bernal. In 1553 the Chapter appointed, to inspect the work of these artists, Juan Reclid and Luis de Aguilar, both of whom lived at Jaen. Henceforth the master-craftsmen working at the screen were Pedro de Heredia, Gomez de Orozco, Diego Vazquez the younger, Juan Lopez, Andrés Lopez del Castillo, and his sons, Juan de Palencia, and Juan Bautista Vazquez. By 1564 the screen was quite concluded. "The Gothic work is of incomparable richness. Ten groups of tall and narrow columns, resting upon two pedestals or socles, divide the _retablo_ into nine spaces, crossed by horizontal bands of complicated carving, forming a series of thirty-six niches, in four rows. Statues a little less than life-size represent, in the first row, the creation and fall of our first parents, and the mysteries of the infancy of Christ; in the second, His preaching and miracles; in the third, His passion and death; and in the fourth, His resurrection, appearance to the disciples, and ascension; also the coming of the Holy Ghost. Upon the altar-table, and resting in its niche, is the statue, covered with silver plates, of Nuestra Señora de la Sede, presented to this temple by Saint Ferdinand. Above the _viga_, which has an _artesonado_ ceiling, rises a frontispiece containing thirteen canopied niches with statues of the apostles, and in the centre niche that of the Virgin Mary. Crowning the whole _retablo_ are statues larger than life-size, and a Calvary standing in free space."[55] [55] _Descripción de la Catedral de Sevilla_, pp. 27, 28. Throughout these Spanish altar-screens the influence which predominates is that of Germany. They are essentially distinguished by a Northern art (Plates xxxv., xxxvi.), not sentimental but material, not tender but robust, not (like the art of the Italians) retrospective or prospective, but prosaic, realistic, actual. Curiously enough, their presence seems incongruous in Spain, and yet they made themselves at home here; for Spanish art was ever realistic, so probably on this account two widely different nations found, at least in this particular craft, a common bond of sympathy. Certainly the Renaissance, while it seemed to cherish and encourage, really undermined and killed this branch of Spanish wood-carving. A similar phenomenon attends the art of the Alhambra. In either case the plenitude of power and of beauty is even more ephemeral than the term of human life; and thus, deluded by so brilliant and majestic a decay, we fail to apprehend, or seek to grow oblivious of, the imminence of their ruin. [Illustration] IVORIES The story of Spanish ivory-work is shortly told, for probably no craft, excepting glass, has been so little practised in this country. The older Spanish writers rarely mention it, although from time to time this substance may have been employed for carving diptyches and boxes, and Roderick is stated to have entered the battle of the Guadalete in an ivory car, by which is meant, perhaps, a chariot of Byzantine make or pattern, covered with ivory plates. However, properly speaking, the history of this art as exercised in Spain begins in the eleventh century, attains its prime towards the fourteenth century, and ceases altogether at the time of the Renaissance. Among the ivory objects now preserved in Spain, and which were wrought by artists other than Mohammedan, none is more interesting or important than the consular diptych of Oviedo cathedral. Although this valuable diptych was not made in Spain, but manifests Byzantine art in all its purity, it well deserves to be described. It consists of two ivory tablets measuring sixteen inches and a half in height by twelve inches and a half across both leaves. Each leaf has a simple border of a triple form, and just inside each corner is a circular floral ornament in relief, with a lion's head in the centre. Another ornament, also circular, is in the centre of each leaf, and contains, carved within a graceful S-shaped border, a half-length portrait of the Consul, who is represented in the act of throwing down into the amphitheatre his _mappa_ or handkerchief[56] with his right hand, while in his left he holds the sceptre (_scipio imaginifer_), crowned with a small bust. His hair is curled in the Byzantine fashion, and his costume is a richly decorated toga. [56] _I.e._ as a signal to begin the sport. The same usage (except that the handkerchief is waved, and not thrown down) is followed at this moment in the Spanish bull-ring. An inscription runs along the top of either tablet, between the border and the circular devices carved with flowers. It says:-- _Flavius Strategius Apion--Strategius Apion. Vir inlustris Comes Devotissimorum Domesticorum et Consul ordinarius._ [Illustration: XXXVII IVORY BOX (_9th Century. Madrid Museum_)] We gather, therefore, that this magnate was a chamberlain at court, as well as ordinary consul. Diptyches were used among the Romans for all kinds of purposes, such as to convey love-messages, as invitations to a banquet, or to notify the celebration of feasts and games. We find the diptych also used in Christian temples from the time of Constantine, serving to record church festivals or names of saints and martyrs, as covers for a copy of the gospel (_diptycha evangeliorum_), or as reliquaries (_thecae reliquiarum_). Sometimes these diptyches were wrought expressly for the church, or sometimes they were consular diptyches that had been preserved from former ages. This latter class, when cleansed from pagan usage and devoted to the ceremonies of the Christian faith, was known as _diptycha mixta_. Such early objects as were wrought in ivory by Spanish hands, consisting as a rule of circular or oblong, square or oval caskets, were principally carved by Moors or Mudejares. Among the Spanish-Moorish boxes which are still preserved are several of the greatest interest and beauty (Plates xxxviii., xxxix., xl.). One of them, made from pieces of an older casket believed to date from earlier than the Moorish conquest, is in the National Museum. The decoration in its present form consists of Arabic inscriptions in relief, together with figures of the apostles. This casket, which proceeds from the Colegiata of Saint Isidore at León, measures seven inches in length by five in depth and six in height, and has been used as a reliquary. Another, dating from the middle of the eleventh century and proceeding from the same temple as the one just noticed, is also in the National Museum. It was a present from the Emir Mohammed Almotamid-Aben-Abed to his second wife, Al-Badir ("the Moon"), and includes among the decoration dogs and doves, symbolic of affection and fidelity. The style of carving is what is known as Persian-Arabic. We do not know, however, whether the box was imported from the East, or whether it was made in Spain by somebody of Persian parentage or skilled in Persian art. The material is a delicate _taracea_ of sandal, aloe, and cypress woods inlaid on larch. The box, which was used at León as a reliquary, has bronze clasps, and is inscribed along the top with sentences from which we learn that it was made by Aben-As-Serag. [Illustration: XXXVIII IVORY CASKET (_Moorish; 11th Century. Pamplona Cathedral_)] In the cathedral of Pamplona is a magnificent ivory box (Plate xxxviii.) which was originally at Sangüesa in Navarre. It measures, says Riaño, fifteen inches long by nine and a quarter inches wide. "It is completely covered with carvings in relief, within circular cusped medallions, with figures in the centres representing different subjects; men seated, hawking, or struggling with wild beasts, and numerous single figures of lions, stags, and other animals. The intermediate spaces contain an ornamentation of leaves and flowers which is accommodated to the geometrical style of Saracenic art. Round the upper part of this box appears an Arabic inscription in fine Cufic characters:--'In the name of God. The blessing of God, the complete felicity, the happiness, the fulfilment of the hope of good works, and the adjourning the fatal period (of death), be with the Hagib Seifo daula (sword of the State), Abdelmalek ben Almansur. This (box) was made by the orders (of the said Hagib), under the inspection or direction of his chief eunuch, Nomayr ben Mohammad Alaumeri, his slave, in the year of 395 (A.D. 1005).' "In the centre medallion, on the opposite side to the lock, is represented the standing figure of a man who is attacked by two lions. He holds on his arm a shield, upon which is engraved an inscription, with the following religious formula: 'There is no god but God,' or a similar one, for the characters are very illegible and confused. In the centre of this shield may be read the words, 'Made by Hair,' undoubtedly one of the artists who made the box. Another artist's name may be read with difficulty in a similar inscription which appears on one of the medallions on the left side; it is written on the thigh of a stag, which is attacked by a lion: 'It was made by Obeidat.' Three other inscriptions of a similar character appear in other parts of this box, which probably give the names of other artists, but I have been unable to decipher them." Other interesting boxes dating from the same period are that of Santo Domingo de Silos at Burgos, and several which are in the National Museum at Madrid. The box which is preserved at Burgos is made of ivory, and measures thirteen inches and a quarter in length by seven inches and a half in width and height. The decorative work consists of hunting scenes, and also of an inscription in Cufic characters which says: "Permanent felicity for the owner (of this box). May God lengthen his days. It was made at Medina ...[57] in the year four hundred and seventeen (A.D. 1025). It is the work of his servant Mohammed-ibn-Zeiyan. May God glorify him." [57] At this break in the inscription Riaño professed to discover the beginning of the word _Cuenca_. There is also in the provincial museum of Burgos a handsome ivory diptych which was formerly at the convent of Santo Domingo de Silos. It bears at each extremity--that is, four times repeated--the following inscription:--"This was ordered to be made by the Iman, servant of God, Abd-er-Rhaman, prince of believers." [Illustration: XXXIX IVORY BOX (_11th Century. Palencia Cathedral_)] Among the rectangular boxes in the National Museum is one of carved ivory, with an inscription recording it to have been a gift from Prince Ali to one of the favourites of his harem, and another of the same material which was once upon a time at Carrion de los Condes, in the province of Palencia. This box is painted with a decorative pattern in carmine and dark green. The lid, which is imperfect, contains the following inscription in Cufic characters, standing boldly out against a green ground:--"In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate. The protection of Allah and an impending victory for the servant of Allah ... and his wali Maad Abu-Temim--the Iman Al-Moez ... prince of believers (the blessing of Allah be upon him and his sons the good). (This) was commanded to be made for (celebrating) the fortunate victory. It was made by ... Jorasani." The length of this box is eighteen inches, and its height nine inches. A fine Moorish box (Plate xxxix.), now in the cathedral of Palencia, is covered with elaborately engraved and perforated ivory plates upon a ground of gilt leather backed by wood, and further ornamented with enamel-work upon a copper surface. This box is fourteen inches long, and has a gable top. The decoration on the sides and lid consists of palm-leaves, birds, and men engaged in combating and chasing antelopes and lions in the characteristic manner of Assyrian art. A lengthy Cufic inscription tells us that the box was made at Cuenca (_Medina Cuenca_) by Abd-er-Rahman ben Ziyan, to the order of the Moorish princes of Toledo, and that it dates from the year 441 of the Hegira.[58] Vives has pointed out that Cuenca was evidently a principal centre of this industry, and that caskets executed here about this time exist in Perpignan cathedral and in the provincial museum of Burgos. [58] Detailed accounts of this casket will be found in the _Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Excursiones_ for June 1893, and in the _Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia_, vol. xx. Riaño mentions seven ivory boxes of particular interest, which were probably made in Spain by Spanish Arabs, or else by Eastern craftsmen who had emigrated to this country. "On all their carving," he adds, "the names of Spanish historical persons appear, and it is hardly possible that they were ordered in remote countries, especially as some of these objects are small and comparatively unimportant." [Illustration: XL HISPANO-MORESQUE IVORY CASKET (_13th Century. Royal Academy of History, Madrid_)] Two of these boxes are in the South Kensington Museum. The one which is cylindrical in shape and has a domed cover is thus described by Maskell in his _Ivories, Ancient and Mediæval, in the South Kensington Museum_:--"This beautiful box is carved throughout, except the bottom of it, with interlacing narrow bands forming quatrefoils, in which, on the cover, are four eagles. These have spread wings and stand erect; well designed and most delicately executed. A small knob serves to lift the lid. "Round the side, each quatrefoil is filled with a star having a leaf ornament. The same decoration is repeated in the spaces between the larger quatrefoils on the cover." "The whole is carved in pierced work, except a band which forms the upper upright portion of the box, round the side of the lid. This band has an Arabic inscription: 'A favour of God to the servant of God, Al Hakem al Mostanser Billah, commander of the faithful.' He was a Caliph who reigned at Cordova, A.D. 961-976." The other box is oblong and rectangular. "The cover and sides are carved with scroll foliated ornament; the hinges and clasp are of chased silver inlaid with niello. Round the sides, immediately below the lid, is the following Arabic inscription in Cufic characters:--'In the name of God. This (box) was ordered to be made by Seidat Allah, the wife of Abd-er-Rahman, prince of the believers. God be merciful and satisfied with him.'" This inscription, adds Riaño, "must allude to Abd-er-Rahman the Third, the first Caliph of Cordova who bore the title of Emir, el Mumenin. The formula 'God be merciful,' etc., denotes that he was dead when it was written. He died A.D. 961." [Illustration: XLI IVORY CRUCIFIX (_11th Century. Madrid Museum_)] Another Spanish-Moorish casket, also at South Kensington, and dating from the eleventh century, is described by Maskell as "richly carved in deep relief with foliage and animals in scrolls interlacing one another, and forming larger and smaller circles. The top and each side is a single plaque of ivory; the sloping lid at the front and back has two panels. On the two are two animals, like doves; a large bird stands at the back of each, attacking it with his beak. The sloping sides have, in the large circles, men on horseback, and animals fighting. The intermediate spaces are completely filled with foliage, and smaller beasts. Similar subjects are repeated in the circles on the panels forming the lower sides of the casket, and among them are two groups of men and women sitting; one blowing a horn, another playing on a guitar, another holding a cup in one hand and a flower in the other." Riaño adds: "There is no inscription on this casket, but in one of the medallions on the lid there is a bust, which is carried on the back of a horse, and which is probably a representation of the prince for whom the casket was made." [Illustration: XLI (_a_) IVORY CRUCIFIX (_11th Century. Back view. Madrid Museum_)] The _Letter of Testament_ setting forth the various objects bequeathed by Ferdinand the First and his consort Sancha to the church of Saint John the Baptist (or of Saint Isidore) at León, mentions an ivory cross (which will be noticed presently), an ivory box fitted with gold, and two ivory boxes fitted with silver, one of them containing three other silver boxes, similarly decorated. One of these boxes is described by Ambrosio de Morales, and from his words we conclude it to be the one which was adorned with gold, "of which metal," he wrote in 1572, "it has even more than of ivory," adding that it measured more than half a yard in length, and enshrined the body of Saint Vincent of Avila. He also tells us that it bore the following inscription, carved upon a golden frieze:-- ARCULA SANCTORUM MICAT HAEC SUB HONORE DUORUM BAPTISTAE SANCTI JOHANNIS SIVE PELAGII CEU REX FERNANDUS, REGINAQUE SANTIA, FIERI JUSSIT. ERA MILLENA SEPTENA SEU NONAGENA.[59] [59] A.D. 1059. This _arca_ has been much mutilated, and stripped of all the precious metal. Morales' description is therefore of especial value, as are the ivory tablets (eleventh century), carved with Christian themes, which yet remain upon the body of the box. [Illustration: XLII BYZANTINE CRUCIFIX] Dating from the thirteenth century is a Moorish casket (Plate xl.), preserved in the Academy of History at Madrid, and proceeding from the Carthusian monastery of Val de Cristo at Segorbe. It measures a foot in length by eight inches in height and four and a half inches in depth. The lid is deeply bevelled, and contains on each of the bevelled sides shields with the bars which constitute the arms of Aragon, painted upon a gold ground, together with imperial eagles painted in black upon a carmine ground. A decorative device of leaves and stems is also painted on the ivory. Rodrigo Amador de los Ríos believes that this casket was captured in war by Jayme the First of Aragon, remaining with successive princes of his line until the reign of Don Martin, by whom it was presented to the monastery. The shields would thus be added to the primitive Moorish casket by some Christian-Spanish painter. The ivory crucifix (Plates xli. and xli. (_a_)), of Ferdinand the First and Doña Sancha, made in the first half of the eleventh century, and offered by these sovereigns to the church of Saint John the Baptist (or of Saint Isidore) at León, measures twenty-one inches in length by thirteen inches and a half in height. The figure of Christ recalls the rigidness and rudeness of Byzantine craftsmanship, such as is found in ancient crucifixes still preserved in Spain (Plate xlii.). The pupils of the enormous, expressionless eyes are made of jet. We see the wound upon each foot, with wavy marks to imitate the flowing blood, but no trace of a nail. Nails, however, transfix the hands. The arms are separate from the trunk, but the _suppedaneum_ on which the feet are resting is of a single piece with the body of the figure. The surface of the cross, especially about the borders, contains elaborate decoration, including animals and foliage. Above the Saviour's head is the inscription:-- IHS NAZA RENVS REX IVDEORVM Above this is another figure of Christ seated, crowned with a cruciform nimbus and holding a Greek processional cross. Beneath the feet of the larger figure is Adam in an uncouth posture, turning his head to gaze upward, and at the lower extremity of the cross are carved the words:-- FERDINANDVS REX SANCIA REGINA The lateral arms are carved with numerous devices forming an effective whole, including animals upon a tessellated band which seems to imitate a groundwork of mosaic. Other subjects represented are the Resurrection of the Flesh, the ascent of the blessed to Heaven, and the fall of the wicked to Hell. [Illustration: XLIII "THE VIRGIN OF BATTLES" (_13th Century. Seville Cathedral_)] Upon the obverse side are pairs of quadrupeds, birds, and serpents, among a maze of foliage, together with the eagle, lion, lamb, and ox, as symbols of the evangelists. The lion and the ox have wings, and at the foot of the cross is an angel. The carving of the Saviour's form is clearly inferior to that of the decoration which surrounds it. Amador de los Ríos seeks to account for this by declaring that "the difficulty from the point of view of art increases in proportion as the size of the figure is required to be larger"--a statement with which I wholly disagree. I believe, in fact, that in this cross the figure of Christ and the surrounding ornamentation are not by the same hand, and that the carver of the decorative detail was simply the better craftsman of the two. Many of the statuettes of the Virgin which are preserved in Spain were probably made in France. One that is typically and unquestionably Spanish is the celebrated "Virgin of Battles" (Plate xliii.), now guarded, together with other relics of Saint Ferdinand (see Vol. I., Plate xi.), in the Chapel Royal of Seville cathedral. These statuettes, the use of which originated with the Greek emperors, and which were called by the Byzantines _socia belli_, consist of a seated figure of the Virgin with a small door opening underneath her throne, and served as reliquaries, and also as a kind of talisman. Boutelou says that the Spanish warriors of the Middle Ages were accustomed to carry these images to war with them, fitted upon a pin protruding from the left side of the saddle-bow. The "Virgin of Battles," made in Spain in the early part of the thirteenth century, was thus carried by King Ferdinand the Saint, resting between his shield or _rodela_ and his left arm, and so protected, and protecting, in the brunt of war. [Illustration: XLIV SPANISH MEDIÆVAL _BACULUS_] The image is of ivory, and measures seventeen inches in height. The style is primitive Gothic, not as yet emancipated from Romanic and Byzantine art; and the expression of the Madonna and her Babe is marked by an engaging sweetness. Through lapse of centuries, myriads of diminutive cracks have opened on the surface of the ivory, and this has turned, in colour, to a brightish yellow. The right arm of the Virgin was broken off at some time prior to the sixteenth century, and has been replaced by another one. Mother and Child wear crowns of silver-gilt which probably were added later, and the hair, lips, and eyes have been badly painted or repainted with discordant colouring. A four-sided hole bored deep into the ivory served for holding the image to the _perno_ which projected from the monarch's saddle-bow. A few elaborate _baculi_ or pastoral staves (Plate xliv.) exist in Spain, including one of the fourteenth century, in ivory, which belonged to the late Marquis of Monistrol, and is carved with the Crucifixion and also with the Virgin contemplating the Holy Infant as He is offered cups by angels. Another interesting Spanish baculus, though not of ivory, but copper decorated with turquoises and bright blue enamel, belonged to Bishop Pelayo de Cebeyra of Mondoñedo (A.D. 1199-1218), and has been preserved, together with that prelate's gilded shoes. In the celebrated processions of Santiago, at which Alfonso the Sixth was personally present, magnificent ivory _baculi_ were borne, not only by the archbishop (_eburnea virga pontificali decoratus_), but even by the choristers. Between the eleventh and the fifteenth centuries, Spanish craftsmen produced a fair quantity of ivory boxes, reliquaries, diptyches, triptyches, combs, and other less important objects. A fifteenth-century ivory spoon, ten inches long, whose handle is carved with six crocodiles, is in the National Museum, and may be Spanish work. In the same collection are one or two ivory diptyches and leaves of diptyches, and a wooden box (fourteenth century), with figures of carved ivory representing passages from the life of Saint George upon the body of the box, and from the Old Testament upon the lid. A carved Renaissance temple of the same material, with the Virgin and Child in its interior, is probably Italian. [Illustration: XLV "A TOURNAMENT" (_Carved lid of box in ivory; 14th Century_)] In the fortieth volume of _España Sagrada_ it is stated that four ivory diptyches (_quatuor dictacos eburneos_) were offered in A.D. 897 to Lugo cathedral by Alfonso the Third and his queen Jimena. Other ivory diptyches were presented in A.D. 1063 by Ferdinand the Second to the church of Saint Isidore at León. José Villa-amil, in his study of an ivory statuette of the Virgin, belonging to the nuns of Allariz (_Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Excursiones_; nos. 76 and 77), mentions a carved ivory box (_capsa eburnea_) made in the year 1122 for Santiago cathedral by order of Archbishop Gelmirez; another which existed in the sixteenth century in the church of Santa María at Finisterre; and a third, used as a reliquary, which in 1572 was opened by the monks of Samos in presence of Ambrosio de Morales. During the Middle Ages portable altars (_altares portátiles_) were widely used in Spain, and some were made of ivory. It was the custom to open them at the time of prayer, and as a rule they rested upon _reclinatorios_ or hung upon the wall. The _imagen abriente_ or "opening image" was also popular in Spain throughout the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. As the name implies, these images opened in the manner of a triptych, and were very often used as reliquaries. Specimens are preserved in many parts of Europe, but only one or two exist in Spain and Portugal. That which belongs to the nuns of Allariz dates from the end of the thirteenth century, and was a present from Queen Violante. It is described fantastically by Morales, and accurately by Villa-amil, but the quaintest account is by the chronicler Jacobo de Castro. It measures, Castro tells us, "about half-a-yard in length and is one of the fairest ever seen, since it opens downward from the neck, discovering, on plates of half-relief, the principal mysteries of Christ and of Our Lady. The devotion towards it of the people in this neighbourhood exceeds description, and God has wrought a quantity of miracles through the intercession thereof." A fourteenth-century triptych carved in bone with scenes from Scripture is in the National Museum. It proceeds from Aragon, and is said to have belonged to Jayme the Conqueror. The Escorial possesses a handsome ivory diptych (Plate xlvi.) which is either Spanish or Italian--probably the former. It measures exactly a foot in height by nine inches across both leaves, and is deeply carved with passages from the life of Christ. The style is late Romanic merging into Gothic, and points to the second half of the thirteenth century. [Illustration: XLVI IVORY DIPTYCH (_13th Century. El Escorial_)] POTTERY ANCIENT Quantities of ancient common pottery have been, and are continually being found in many parts of Spain. Prehistoric cups, shaped with the fingers and dried and hardened by the sun, are preserved in the Museum of History at Barcelona. They were discovered at Argar. Similar objects have been extracted from the caves of Segóbriga, Lóbrega in Old Castile, and El Tesoro in the province of Málaga. Those which were found at Segóbriga are divided by Capelle into six groups, one of which includes a vessel resembling the ordinary Spanish pitcher of to-day. Villa-amil y Castro has described in the _Museo Español de Antigüedades_ pieces of prehistoric sun-dried ware discovered in Galicia, roughly decorated with patterns imprinted by the finger. In other instances a double spiral has been described with a pointed instrument about the vessel's neck. Similar fragments have been found by Góngora in Andalusia. Celtic pottery was found in 1862 by Captain Brome on Windmill Hill at Gibraltar, in 1866 by M. Lartet in the caves of Torrecilla de Cameros, and by Casiano de Prado in a cave near Pedraza, as well as at Navares de Ayuso and elsewhere. In central Spain, vessels of the Celtiberian era have been found in tombs at Prádena, and pieces of red Saguntine ware, with dark red decoration, at Otero de Herreros, close to vestiges of a Roman mine. Lecea y García describes in his work on _Old Segovian Industries_ a Celtiberian plate of reddish clay covered with black varnish, which was dug up some years ago in a garden at that town. This plate, measuring no less than four feet in diameter, and containing two inscriptions in characters believed to be Celtiberian, as well as the figure of a warrior armed with a lance and three javelins, was submitted to Heiss, who wrote of it in the _Gazette Archéologique_ and pronounced it to be genuine. I have not seen the plate in question. I have, however, met with cleverly executed forgeries, also varnished black, of primitive Spanish pottery. In 1899 quantities of Celtic ware, believed to date from the time of the Ph[oe]nicians, or even earlier, were unearthed by M. Bonsor from tumuli in the Guadalquivir valley. These objects are ornamented in relief with complicated patterns paler than the ground, obtained by using lighter-coloured clay. "As similar Celtic pottery has been found in Portugal, it will be understood that the Celtic influence, having crossed the Pyrenees, reached the south by the western seaboard. It will thus be seen that long before the arrival of the Romans a relatively high degree of civilisation had been reached at least in the south of Spain."[60] [60] Martin Hume, _The Spanish People_, p. 15 (note). In the summer of 1905 two German archæologists, Messrs. Schulten and Könen, who had obtained permission from the Spanish Government to explore the site of old Numancia, filled four large cases with the Celtiberian pottery they extracted from the ruins. These cases were forwarded to the University of Göttingen. I understand, however, that they have been returned, or are to be returned immediately, to Spain. Long before the Christian era, Greek colonies existed on the Spanish coast at Rhodas, Denia, Emporium (Ampurias), Saguntum (Murviedro), and elsewhere. Pottery of good design and workmanship was manufactured at these towns, and strongly influenced native art. Bowls and other objects showing such an influence were discovered by M. Bonsor in his recent excavations. Another powerful influence was that of Rome. Roman potteries existed in the suburb of Seville called Triana, and in the provinces of Cáceres and Badajoz. Mérida was also an important centre of this industry, and vessels which were used in sacred rites, such as the _aquiminarium_, the _prefericulum_, the _simpulum_, and the _urnula_, were discovered here not long ago. The name "Saguntine ware" was given by the Romans to a kind of pottery which seems to have been made along the Spanish littoral extending southward from Saguntum. Fragments of this pottery, which closely resembles the Arezzo ware,[61] are found in shoals upon the sites of Roman towns, particularly Tarragona. These _barros saguntinos_, or (as Hübner prefers to call them) _barros tarraconenses_, have been divided into four classes, namely, white, grey, red (covered with a dark red varnish),[62] and yellow striped with red. This ware is commonly adorned with garlands, animals, hunting-scenes, divinities, games, or religious ceremonies, and also bears, in nearly every case, the potter's name or mark; _e.g._ ALBINVS F ("Albinus fecit") or OF. ALBIN ("officina Albini"). More than two hundred marks have been discovered which were used by potters of Ampurias alone. [61] "A ware exactly like that of Arezzo, called by some the red Roman ware, and by others Samian, distinguished by its close grain composed of a fine clay, and presenting, when broken, edges of an opaque light red colour, whilst the inner and outer surfaces are quite smooth, and of a brighter and darker red, is found in all places of the ancient world to which the Roman arms or civilisation reached. It is distinguished from the Aretine by its darker tone, stronger glaze, and coarser ornamentation. Possibly, the whole passage of Pliny in which he speaks of the earthenware of his day refers to this red ware. Thus, for dishes he praises the Samian and the Aretine ware; for cups, that of Surrentum, Asta and Pollentia, Saguntum and Pergamus. Tralles and Mutina had their manufactories. Cos was most esteemed; Hadria produced the hardest ware. That one of these, that of Saguntum, was a red ware, is clear; that of Cumæ was also of the same colour.... That the red ware is found amidst the dense forests of Germany and on the distant shores of Britain, is a remarkable fact in the civilisation of the old world. It was apparently an importation, being exactly identical wherever discovered, and is readily distinguished from the local pottery."--Birch, _History of Ancient Pottery_, pp. 560, 561. [62] "It belongs to the class of tender lustrous pottery, consisting of a bright red paste like sealing-wax, breaking with a close texture, and covered with a siliceous, or, according to some, a metallic glaze. This glaze is exceedingly thin, transparent, and equally laid upon the whole surface, only slightly augmenting the colour of the clay."--Birch, p. 561. There seems to be no doubt that Saguntum and Emporium were principal centres of this industry, and possibly, since these towns were old Greek settlements, the _barros saguntinos_ were of Grecian origin. Pella y Forgas, describing in his _History of the Ampurdan_ the fine red ware of this locality, says that parts of the decoration were fashioned on the wheel, others directly by the potter's hand, and others from a mould, while the ornament of dotted lines was made by the wheeled _roulette_. Among the commoner objects dating from this time are amphoræ and small earthen lamps (Pl. xlvii.). These lamps have been discovered in great numbers, and, owing to the dryness of the Spanish soil, in excellent preservation. They measure about the size of the hand, and have two holes, one in the spout or beak, to hold the wick, and the other at the top, for pouring in the oil. The top, which as a rule is slightly concave, is often ornamented with devices in relief, such as a chariot and its driver, or the emblem of a deity. [Illustration: XLVII AMPHORAIC VASES AND OTHER POTTERY (_Museum of Tarragona_)] The typical amphora was a long, narrow vessel (usually of earthenware; less frequently of brass or glass), with an elongated handle at either side of the neck, and tapering nearly to a point. It served for storing honey, oil, or wine, and in order to keep it upright the pointed lower end was stuck into the soil, or rested on a perforated wooden stand. In the spring of 1893 some fishermen drew up in their nets, just off the coast of Alicante, three large intact amphoræ thickly cased with shells, and sold them for eight dollars each. Other fine amphoræ, now in the collection of the Marquis of Cerralbo, were washed upon the beach at Torrevieja, and many more are in museums. Vessels of this kind are known to have been made at Rhodas (Rosas) and Saguntum, and their use continued in Spain until the downfall of the second empire. HISPANO-MORESQUE NON-LUSTRED POTTERY The statements of Saint Isidore, confirmed by one or two discoveries in southern Spain, prove that the pottery in use among the Visigoths was principally Roman. Probably in this, as in so many of her arts, the Moorish conquest brought about a radical and rapid change. Remains of pottery dating from this period are extremely rare. The provincial museum of Granada contains some bowls and plates, all more or less imperfect, which are ascribed by experts to about the year 1000. These objects, which were dug up in 1878 on the slopes of the Sierra Elvira, a few miles from Granada, are coloured black and green upon a white or whitish ground. The most important is a dish which measures fourteen inches in diameter, and is decorated with a falcon on a horse's back (Plate xlviii.).[63] All of this pottery shows the double influence of Byzantium and the East. Among the designs upon the other pieces are hares and stags surrounded by a bordering of primitive arabesques. Riaño remarks that "it is almost impossible to assert whether this pottery was made in or imported into Spain." Nevertheless, Persians are stated to have settled in this region early in the days of Muslim rule, while these dilapidated specimens of ancient ware are greatly similar in colouring and substance to the common dishes and _barreños_ which are still produced throughout the province of Granada. [63] The falcon is one of the commonest devices on all Persian pottery, and was, in fact, the national emblem of the chase. Its importance for the purpose of pursuing and securing game is well described in Sir John Malcolm's _Sketches in Persia_. Moorish potteries producing lustred or non-lustred ware existed from an early date at Málaga, Valencia, Toledo, Calatayud, Murviedro, Murcia, and Barcelona. Another centre of this craft was probably Granada; for though she is not mentioned in this sense by any of the Moorish authors, the late Señor Contreras discovered here the vestiges of two ancient potteries, while one of the old entrances was known as Bab Alfajjarin, or "the potters' gate." [Illustration: XLVIII DISH (_About A.D. 1000. Museum of Granada_)] The Ordinances of Granada contain provisions which were evidently copied from the Spanish Moors, relating to the _almadraveros_ or tilemakers, the _tinajeros_ or makers of _tinajas_, and the _olleros_ or potters generally. The Ordinances which concern the tilemakers are dated between 1528 and 1540. The restrictions imposed upon these craftsmen were irksome, foolish, and unnecessary. All bricks and tiles were to be stamped in three places with the city mark, and were only permitted to be made between the first of April and the thirty-first of October in each year, "since what is made at other seasons is not good or perfect, owing to the rain, and cold, and frost." Another Ordinance, illustrating the lawlessness prevailing at Granada in the times succeeding the reconquest, complains that "many persons, including labourers and hodmen, go forth into the roads and streets, and seize the tiles and bricks by violence from those who are conveying them, and bear them to their houses, or to the work which they are paid to do." A picturesque, though cheap and unluxurious, vessel of a thoroughly eastern character, and which was very largely manufactured by the Spanish Moors, is the terra-cotta _tinaja_ or gigantic jar for storing wine, or olive oil, or grain (Plate xlix.). The use of these receptacles extended through the whole Peninsula, and has continued undiminished to this day. The principal centres of _tinaja_-making were Toledo, Seville, and Granada. The Ordinances of the latter town embody Moorish rules relating to this branch of pottery. These laws, revived in 1526, provide that all _tinajas_ must contain two kinds of earth, one red, the other white, thoroughly compounded in a trough of water. Before the potter removes the clay from the trough, he must call the city supervisor or _veedor_ to look into the quality and mixing of the mass. The vessel as it leaves the oven must be white; otherwise, even although it have no flaw, the inspector is to break it. The potter is forbidden to coat his _tinajas_ with a glaze composed of eggs, blood, chalk, and other strange ingredients; nor may he fire the glaze with torches, "because the smell of the smoke clings to the _tinaja_, and the wine or stum deposited therein grows redolent of it, and it stays within the jar perpetually." [Illustration: XLIX HISPANO-MORESQUE _TINAJA_] Owing doubtless to their plain, domestic purpose and their trifling market cost, early _tinajas_ are not often met with. A fine example in excellent preservation is at South Kensington, and is described by Riaño as "a wine jar, amphora-shaped, and ornamented with an incised pattern of vine leaves, and stamped diaper of a Gothic character." Several good _tinajas_ have been discovered of late years at Seville. Gestoso mentions six, five of which are glazed. The first of these was found in 1893, and has a bright green glaze upon a ground of reddish earth. Both handles and nearly all the neck are wanting. The decoration consists of various bands or _fajas_ round the body of the jar, a series of archways, another of leaves, and a central band of stars, three deep, strongly imprinted from a mould. In every ninth arch are stamped symbolic hands, such as we see upon the Gate of Justice of the Alhambra. The second _tinaja_ is similar to the one just mentioned, except that it has the neck. It was discovered in 1895, and is now in Seville museum. The third _tinaja_ is also in this museum, and was discovered in 1901. It is in a very poor condition, and Gestoso believes that it was originally covered with a honey-coloured glaze. The fourth _tinaja_ was found in a drain, in the same year as the preceding one, and is inscribed with words, including _Blessing_ and _Felicity_, in Cufic characters. Gestoso is unable to decide whether this vessel was made at Seville or elsewhere. The fifth _tinaja_ is in the collection of Don José Morón, and possesses greater interest than the others, both because it is in excellent condition, and also because the decoration is entirely in the Spanish-Christian style, without a trace of Saracenic ornament. Small Gothic-looking shields surround the body of this vessel, which is stamped with pomegranates, and with the arms and emblems of the Ponce de León and other families. Between each pair of shields is an oval-shaped medallion containing human figures. The sixth _tinaja_ is unglazed. It was found in June of 1893, and is adorned with repetitions of the words _Prosperity_ and _Blessing_, as well as with a series of deer and other animals in the act of running; some of them with birds upon their backs. These designs are very uncommon, and Gestoso has seen no other _tinaja_, proceeding from this region, similarly decorated. _Tinajas_ are still made in large quantities at Toboso, Lucena, Colmenar de Oreja, and other Spanish towns and villages. Other large objects of a thoroughly oriental character were earthenware glazed _brocales_ or brims of wells, which, like the _tinajas_, were largely manufactured at Seville and Toledo. Specimens of these _brocales_ exist in the museums of Toledo and Cordova. Riaño describes one which is at South Kensington. "It was bought at Toledo for three guineas at a shoemaker's shop. It is made of glazed white and green earthenware, with ornamental Cufic characters in high relief all round, which appear to be of the fourteenth century. The inscription, which is repeated, is imperfect, and all that I can decipher are the words 'the power, the excellence, and the peace.'" Gestoso describes two _brocales_ and the fragments of a third. All these objects were found at Seville. The two which are intact, or nearly so, are cylindrical, and of a white ware. One of them has a simple leaf decoration, and seems to have been covered with a green glaze. The other, which was discovered in 1894, is surrounded by a triple band of inscription in African characters which are illegible. Gestoso also describes some interesting baptismal fonts, a class of object which he pronounces to have been the most important of all that were produced in the potteries of Triana, by reason both of their large dimensions and of their elaborate ornamentation. He states that three methods were employed to decorate these fonts. The first consisted in attaching to their surface small moulded plates which bore the likeness of a saint, flowers, monograms, or other devices. By the second method the decoration was moulded directly on the font; while the third method consisted in a combination of the other two. Splendid examples of these Spanish fonts exist in various churches of Andalusia and in private collections. One of the finest is in the parish church of Nuestra Señora de la Concepción, at Laguna, Tenerife. It is suggested by Gestoso that this _pila_ of Laguna was made at Seville and sent to the Canaries in the year 1479, when orders were issued by Ferdinand and Isabella for the completion of the monasteries in those islands. _Pilas_ were also manufactured at Toledo, although Gestoso says that the workmanship of those produced at Seville was in every way superior. Nevertheless, he has only found the maker's name upon a single font, which is inscribed with that of Juan Sanchez Vachero, and is now preserved in the church of San Pedro at Carmona. Another remarkable _pila_ is that of the hospital of San Lázaro at Seville. In course of time the Spanish Church forbade the use of _pilas_ made of glazed earthenware, and ordered their substitution by fonts of stone or marble. One of these dispositions, included among the _Constituciones Sinodales_ of the bishopric of Málaga, and dated 1671, is quoted by Gestoso. It enacts that the _pila_ be of stone and not of earthenware, and that if any of this latter class remain, they are to be "consumed" (_i.e._ destroyed) within two months. Returning to the Ordinances of Granada, those which concern the potters or _olleros_ generally are dated 1530, and inform us of the price of glazed and unglazed articles in common use, such as _ollas_ or pots (with and without glaze), _cazuelas_ or earthen vessels for cooking meat, plates of many colours and dimensions, _jarros_ (jugs), _alcuzas_ (vials), _cantaros castellanos_ (Castilian water-pitchers), _cantaros moriscos_ (Moorish water-pitchers[64]), _morteros_ (mortars), _lebrillos_ (earthen tubs), _candiles_ (lamps with a green, white or yellow glaze), _orzas_ (gally pots), _botijas_ (narrow-necked jars), and _salseras_ (saucers). [64] The watersellers' Ordinance of 1516 enacts that each of these vendors shall carry a minimum load of six _cántaros_, and that the cántaros themselves shall be "of the round shape, and not the Moorish ones, as these have long spouts; each _cántaro_ to be closed with a cork." The latter is the typical pitcher of Morocco. "As we were talking, neighbours dropped in, in the familiar Eastern way, and sat quiet and self-contained, occasionally drinking from one of the two long-necked and porous water-jars, known as 'Baradas' or the 'coolers,' which stand, their wooden stoppers tied to them with a palmetto cord, on each side the divan."--Cunninghame Graham, _Mogreb-el-Acksa_, p. 88. The shape and colouring of many of these common articles have been continued till to-day, especially in Andalusia. I reproduce a photograph of some (Plate l.), in which the influence of the East is unmistakable. The smaller of the two unglazed jars is used for carrying and cooling water, and is made at Loja. The other, which is often used for storing honey, is from Guadalajara. The spherical vessel is a kind of bottle for _aguardiente_. It is glazed a brightish green, and is made in various parts of Andalusia, as are the gourd-shaped _calabazas_, which have a yellow glaze. The smallest vessel, or that which has a funnel-shaped and bulging mouth, is coated with a coarse metallic glaze coloured in white and blue, and proceeds from Granada. [Illustration: L COARSE SPANISH POTTERY (_Modern_)] So is the influence of the Spanish Moors, linking the present intimately to the past, and handed down by early craftsmen to the moderns, and from Mussulmans to Christian Spaniards, maintained and kept alive, not only by the city ordinances I have quoted, but also by the more occult yet no less permanent and cogent force of local and unchronicled tradition. In the historic quarter of Granada which is called the Albaycin, survive a few _alfarerías_ to this hour (Plate lxix.). Here, on the potter's wheel or ranged about his yard, may yet be seen the red Granada earth that is believed to have inspired the vase of the Alhambra, applied to-day to common crockery that notwithstanding has a subtle, unfamiliar charm. And towards the time of sundown, when the master turns indoors to supper and his workmen have gone home, when the last of the red light is colouring the ancient city wall until it too looks like a mammoth monument of the potter's art of old Granada, it is a strange experience to wander through these desolate yards, among the files of ruddy Granadino ware kindling with vivid memories of the vanished Mussulmans of Spain, and bringing back to us that spirited old poet of the East who also sang of pottery:-- "Listen again. One Evening at the Close Of Ramazan, ere the better Moon arose, In that old Potter's Shop I stood alone With the clay Population round in Rows. And strange to tell, among that Earthen Lot Some could articulate, while others not: And suddenly one more impatient cried-- 'Who _is_ the Potter, pray, and who the Pot?' Then said another--'Surely not in vain My substance from the common Earth was ta'en, That He who subtly wrought me into Shape Should stamp me back to common Earth again.'" MOSAIC-WORK AND TILES The art of colouring and glazing earthenware was practised by various peoples of the ancient eastern world, and passed, in course of time, through Egypt to Ph[oe]nicia, Greece, and Rome, and, later still, to Mussulman peoples of north-western Africa. Glazed earthenware was possibly produced in Roman Spain, although the specimens of it which have been discovered are singularly and, indeed, significantly few. Their colour is commonly green or lightish yellow. Gestoso makes particular mention of a small jar now preserved in the museum of Seville, describing it as "of an ordinary shape, but finely made." He admits, however, that no trace of glaze exists in any of the broken Visigothic vessels (copied, as Saint Isidore tells us, from the Roman-Spanish pottery) that were found some years ago among the ruins of Italica. Thus it is not decided whether the Spanish potters learned to glaze, or whether this development of their craft remained familiar to the Spaniards of that period through imported objects merely. As with glazed earthenware, the origin of mosaic must be looked for in the East. Greece, who had doubtless borrowed it from Egypt, communicated it to Rome at least two centuries before the Christian era, and from this time the Romans used it freely in the decoration of their buildings. The Greek mosaic was composed exclusively of stone. The Romans modified this usage by the introduction of diminutive cubes of clay, painted and baked like porcelain; and later, in the reign of Claudius, dyed these cubes with various colours. Roman mosaic-work (commonly in the tessellated style and not the _opus sectile_) has been unearthed in many parts of the Peninsula. Such are the two "mosaics of the Muses," discovered at Italica on December 12th, 1799, and June 12th, 1839;[65] other mosaics, to the number of some thirty, discovered from time to time among the same ruins; another, discovered at Majorca in 1833; that of the Calle Batitales at Lugo (the Roman _Lucus Augusti_), discovered in 1842; those of Palencia, Gerona, Merida, Milla del Rio (near León), Rielves (near Toledo), Duratón, Aguilafuente, and Paradinas (near Segovia), and Carabanchel, three miles from Madrid. The mosaic found at Lugo is believed to have formed part of a temple dedicated to Diana. The decoration is partly geometrical, and consists of the head of a man between two dolphins, with other fishes swimming along the border. Laborde describes another mosaic which existed, early in the nineteenth century, in a hall of the archbishop's palace at Valencia. "The pavement of this hall demands particular attention; it is formed of antique pavements, discovered in the month of February, 1777, three hundred paces north-east of the town of Puch, between Valencia and Murviedro; some were entire, others were only fragments. They were separated with care, and placed on the floor of this hall, where they are carefully preserved. They are different mosaics, formed by little stones of three or four lines in diameter, curiously enchased. They are distributed into seven squares in each of which medallions and divers designs have been drawn: their compartments are of blue on a white ground. We observe in one of these squares an imitation of the pavement of Bacchus, discovered at Murviedro, and of which there remained but very few vestiges; it was copied in a drawing-book which a priest of this town had preserved; it is executed with such art and exactness, that no difference can be observed between this modern work and that of the Romans. In another we see Neptune seated in a car, in one hand holding a whip, and in the other a trident and the reins of the horses by which his car is drawn: these appear to be galloping." [65] The latter, which was the finer of the two, was dug out by Don Ivo de la Cortina. It has subsequently been allowed to go to pieces, but a coloured plate depicting it will be found in the first volume of the _Museo Español de Antigüedades_. "In the same hall are also seen other pavements, of which only fragments could be preserved. Some serve for borders and ornaments to the preceding pavements. On these are represented a tiger, fishes, birds, houses, flowers, and garlands, well executed. There are particularly five stuck on wood and shut up in a closet; on these are birds, fruits, and flowers, figured in different colours, the execution of which is very curious; they are perhaps the most precious of the whole." The same author says elsewhere: "In digging to make a road from Valencia to Murviedro in 1755, at the entrance of the latter town a mosaic pavement was discovered; it was entire, and of such beauty that it was thought worthy of preservation. Ferdinand the Sixth caused it to be surrounded with walls; but the king's intentions were not properly fulfilled; the gates were suffered to remain open, and every one carried away some part of the pavement, which consequently soon became despoiled; it was rectangular, and measured twenty-four feet by fourteen. There are still some fragments of it in several houses at Murviedro. A priest of that town, Don Diego Puch, an antiquarian, took a drawing of it, which he afterwards had painted at Valencia on the tiles fabricated there, and paved an apartment of his house with them. It was likewise copied with the greatest exactness, with small stones perfectly similar, in an apartment of the library belonging to the archiepiscopal palace, as we have already stated." Swinburne also mentions a mosaic pavement which he saw at Barcelona, upon the site of what he believed to have been a temple of Neptune. In it were represented "two large green figures of tritons, holding a shell in each hand; between them a sea-horse, and on the sides a serpent and a dolphin." In October of 1901 a very important and beautiful mosaic was discovered at Italica. It is known as "the mosaic of Bacchus," the worship of which deity, says Señor Quintero, was probably general in Andalusia, owing to her wealth of vines. This mosaic was found at a depth of six feet six inches below the surface of the soil, and measures twenty-one feet square. It is believed to have formed the pavement of a Roman dining-chamber. Mosaic in the manner of the Greeks and Romans seems in Spain to have disappeared with the Visigoths. That it was known to these is told us by Saint Isidore:--"Pavimenta originem apud graecos habent elaboratae arte picturae, litostrata parvulis crustis ac tesselis tinctis in varios colores."[66] [66] _Tessela_ and _crusta_ are defined by him as follows: "Tesselae sunt e quibus domicilia sternuntur a tesseris nominata, id est quadratis lapillis, per diminutionem." "Crustae sunt tabulae marmoris. Unde et marmorari parietes et constati dicuntur. Qui autem marmora secandi in crustas rationem excogitaverunt non constat. Fiunt autem arena et ferro serraque in praetenui linea premente arenas, tractuque ipse secante: sed crassior arena plus erodet marmoris. Nam tenuis fabricis et polituris accomodata est." [Illustration: LI DOOR OF THE MIHRAB (_Showing mosaic-work. Cordova Cathedral_)] It is impossible to affirm with any confidence that glazed earthenware, whether in the form of tiles or other objects, was manufactured by the Spanish Moors during the Cordovese Caliphate, or the period of the kinglings of Taifa. No trace of it has been discovered among the scanty ruins of Medina Az-zahará[67] and Az-zahira--ancient palaces of Cordova--or in the marvellous mosque. We know, however, that towards the seventh century the Arabs borrowed from Byzantium the mosaic-work of tessons known as _psephosis fsefysa_, and this, or something similar, was used, though probably to a small extent, among the Muslims of the Spanish Caliphate. Although, towards the middle of the thirteenth century, the historian Aben-Said, a native of Granada, recorded that in Al-Andalus "is made a kind of _mofassass_ which is called in the East _alfoseifesa_," remains of this elaborate product only exist to-day at Cordova, where patches may yet be seen lining the dome of the _mirhab_ in the vast _aljama_ (Plate li.). The mosaic in question is stated to have been a gift from the Byzantine emperor to the sultan Al-Hakem, and was set in place by a skilled workman, a Greek, who, like the offering itself, proceeded from Constantinople. [67] Among these ruins, at five miles' distance from the city, pieces of common brick have come to light; but no glazed pottery of any kind, whether as _foseifesa_, _azulejos_, or mosaic. During his stay at Cordova this Greek was helped by certain of the Sultan's slaves, who thus acquired the secrets of the craft, and practised it thereafter.[68] [68] Dozy's version of _The History of Almagreb_, by Ibn-Adzarí the Moor; p. 253. Rodrigo Amador de los Rios contends, however, that this decoration is in no sense a true mosaic, but just a tempera painting executed on the wall and overlaid with cubes of glass. In any case, no other specimen of such work has been discovered in any part of the Peninsula. By the time of the Almohade invasion or very shortly after--that is, towards the twelfth century,--the Spanish Moors had grown acquainted with glazed earthenware. Indeed, the Almohades are believed by some authorities to have actually introduced it. Gestoso, on the contrary, suggests that Spain may have transmitted it to Africa. However this may be, the Almohades used it largely in the decoration of their homes and public buildings in Andalusia; first as _aliceres_ or bands composed of smallish pieces running round a room, and subsequently in the more effective and more useful form of _azulejos_ proper. The Spanish Moors employed the word _almofassass_ to designate both _aliceres_ and _azulejos_. Nevertheless, the two were not identical, although Riaño takes them to be so. He says: "The earliest tiles or _azulejos_ made in Spain are composed of small pieces let into the wall, forming geometrical patterns." These, in fact, were _aliceres_. It is not so easy to define an _azulejo_. We read in Aben-Said, quoted by Al-Makkari: "There is another kind of work employed for paving houses. It is called _azzulechí_ and resembles _mofassass_. It has wonderful colouring, and replaces the coloured marble used by the people of the East to decorate their chambers." This definition is not completely clear. Those of the Christian-Spanish writers are not more satisfactory. Covarrubias calls these objects "small bricks, square and of other shapes, used for lining chambers in the mansions of the wealthy, or in garden paths." Nebrija calls them _tessela pavimenticia_, adding that they bear the name of _azulejos_ because the earliest ones were of a blue colour--a statement which Dozy supports by instancing the Persian-Arabic _zaward_ or "blue stone." Gestoso resolves the question sufficiently for our purpose by showing that the term _azulejo_ is usually applied to square tiles of a largish size, the length of whose sides varies between eleven centimetres and eighteen centimetres, _aliceres_ being properly the smaller strips or pieces (technically known as _cintas_ or _verduguillos_) used in a bordering or frieze. Other decorative pieces of small dimensions, invented in the fifteenth century, were called _olambres_ or _olambrillas_, and served to lend variety to the red or yellow brickwork of a pavement or a floor. The production of _azulejos_ in Spain may thus be traced to as far back as the twelfth century. By far the most important centre of the craft was Seville. Here, from the twelfth until the fourteenth century, was made the glazed and decorative tiling which consisted of small pieces of monochrome earthenware--black, white, green, blue, or yellow--cut one by one, and pieced together in the manner of a true mosaic. This process, says Gestoso, was lengthy, difficult, and dear. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the same mosaic would often take the form of a series of narrow, white, ribbon-like strips, with coloured interspaces. Specimens of this "ribbon-work tiling" exist to-day in the Patio de Las Doncellas of the Alcázar (Plate lii.). Towards the sixteenth century the Sevillano potters discovered a simpler way of making effective and artistic _azulejos_, which they called the _cuerda seca_ process. This novel method consisted in pressing a wood or metal mould upon the unbaked tile, in such a manner that the outline of the pattern remained in slight relief. This outline was next brushed over with a mixture of manganese and grease, which turns, in baking, very nearly black. The body of the pattern was then filled in with the various colours, which the greasy line completely separated, and thus prepared, the tile was rendered permanent by firing. [Illustration: LII MOSAIC OF THE PATIO DE LAS DONCELLAS (_Alcázar of Seville_)] This process, in which the patterns are nearly always geometrical, remained in general use until about the year 1550, when it began to be superseded by two others, known respectively as the processes of "cuenca" and "Pisano". The _cuenca_ tile was simple and of excellent effect. The pattern, stamped from a metal mould, remained in bas-relief,--a characteristic which caused these objects to be also known as _azulejos_ "_de relieve_". The shelving border of each hollow stamped into the tile thus formed a kind of natural barrier which kept the colour there deposited from mingling with its neighbours. When of a larger size, and joined in pairs to form between each two a single motive (_ladrillo por tabla_), these _azulejos_ were often employed for decorating roofs and ceilings. The tiles which bear the name of their inventor, Francesco Niculoso Pisano the Italian, who lived and worked for many years at Seville, date from about the same time as the "cuenca" _azulejos_. In the case of the _Pisano_ tile, there is no indentation caused by the imprint of a mould, the surface being merely coated with a monochrome glaze, painted upon and fired, the decoration thus remaining flat all over. Commonly the ground is white or yellow, with the colour of the pattern shaded blue, or black, or deepish purple. This process, which lent itself to most elaborate and effective schemes of ornament, remained in vogue until the eighteenth century, and was practised, not only by Pisano himself, but by a long succession of his pupils, followers, and imitators. [Illustration: LIII ANDALUSIAN NON-LUSTRED WARE (_A.D. 1480-1495. Osma Collection_)] Such were the processes in use among the _azulejo_-makers of old Seville. Specimens of their craftsmanship which yet survive and illustrate the various styles and epochs may be thus enumerated:-- (1) Mosaic tile-work, such as appears in Seville at the time of the Almohade invasion. A fragment of this kind of work forms part of the collection of Señor Osma, and proceeds from the church of San Andrés. Tiles and smaller pieces of mosaic-work, coloured in malachite green and white, were also found in 1899 and 1900, in the upper walls of the renowned Torre del Oro, or "Golden Tower," erected in the year 1220, and which is popularly thought to derive its venerable title from the sparkle of the sun upon its _azulejos_. Another piece of primitive mosaic, measuring rather less than a yard square, and containing star-shaped geometrical devices, was found in 1890 beneath the floor of the cathedral; while mosaics of a later age, including the more elaborate _lacería_ patterns that resemble ribbon, are preserved in the Patio de las Doncellas of the Alcázar, in the Casa de Olea, and in the parish churches of San Estéban, San Gil, and Omnium Sanctorum. (2) A small group of curious tiles, believed to be anterior to the reign of Pedro the First, has come to light some years ago, in the churches of San Andrés and Santa Marina, and in the Claustro del Lagarto of the cathedral. Those of San Andrés are of white earthenware, glazed in the same colour and stamped from a mould with the figures of two wolves in fairly bold relief (see tailpiece to this chapter). Traces of a glaze of malachite green are on the bodies of these wolves. The _azulejos_ of the church of Santa Marina, also discovered recently, are examined by Señor Osma in his pamphlet _Azulejos sevillanos del siglo xiii_ (Madrid, 1902). They measure about three and a half inches square, and bear devices of a castle and an eagle, stamped in the diagonal direction of the tile, showing that this was fixed upon the wall in lozenge fashion. The tiles are bathed upon their surface with what is termed by Osma "the semi-transparent, caramel-coloured glaze peculiar to the pottery of Moorish Spain."[69] Upon this ground is stamped the decoration,--the eagles in the blackish purple of baked manganese, the castles without additional colour, so as to be distinguished only by their outline from the yellowish surface of the tile. [69] According to Gestoso, the colours in use among the Almohades consisted of green, black, caramel or honey, and deep purple. These colours underwent no change until the sixteenth century. The _azulejos_ of the Claustro del Lagarto of the cathedral are three in number, and were found in 1888. Two of them are stamped with a castle of a single tower described within a shield, and the third with a Greek cross. These are considered by Osma to be the only tiles existing at this moment which date from the latter third of the thirteenth century. In fact, he places their manufacture between the years 1252 and 1269. [Illustration: LIV _CUENCA_ TILES (_Alcázar of Seville_)] (3) _Cuerda seca_ tiles. Handsome _zocalos_ or dadoes of these tiles are in the Casa de los Pinelos, and in the chapels of the palaces of the Dukes of Alba and Medinaceli. Gestoso attributes them to the end of the fifteenth century or the beginning of the sixteenth. Detached _cuerda seca_ tiles are preserved in the municipal museum of archæology, while a fine pair (Plate liii.) of this class of _azulejos_ belongs to Señor Osma, who considers they were made between 1480 and 1495. They are thus coeval with the no less interesting dish of the time of Ferdinand and Isabella, of which a reproduction is given opposite page 190. (4) _Cuenca_ tiles. Quantities of these, dating from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, may yet be seen in many parts of Seville; for instance, in her churches or her convents, in her superb Alcázar, or in the mansions of her old nobility. Probably the most remarkable of all are those in the gardens of the Alcázar, and lining the walls of the Pavilion of Charles the Fifth. The devices on these polychrome _azulejos_ (16th century; Plate liv.) are very numerous, including men and animals, centaurs and other monsters, the Pillars of Hercules, and imitations of elaborate dress fabrics. (5) _Pisano_ tiles. Although some facts have been unearthed concerning the Italian Francesco Niculoso Pisano, we do not know precisely in what year he came to Seville, or in what year he died. Davillier thought it probable that he had studied at Faenza or at Caffagiolo. At all events, it was Pisano who broadly launched the art of the Sevillian potters on the stream of the Renaissance.[70] I have stated that the tiles which bear his name are painted on a white or yellow ground. Consequently their surface is flat, without the ridges and depressions of the _cuenca_ or the _cuerda seca_ methods. We find _Pisano_ tiles applied to various objects, such as tombs, altars, friezes, and archivolts. This artist, says Gestoso, further introduced the use of two new colours,--violet and rose. Several of his best productions are still intact, including the doorway of the church of the monastery of Santa Paula (in which he was assisted by a Spanish master, Pedro Millan), and the altar of the Catholic Sovereigns in the Alcázar. Both these masterpieces were executed in the year 1504, and bear Pisano's signature. The doorway of Santa Paula is described by Gestoso as consisting of a single body of masonry, distinct from that of the building itself, though resting against it, and constructed of bricks of uniform size, which show us, by their perfect symmetry, how skilful were the masons of that time, with whom the Moorish craftsmanship was yet a living power. The doorway is formed by a series of concentric Gothic arches resting on slender pillars. The space which forms the outer archivolt is most remarkable. Upon a ground of _azulejos_ which copy the colour of the brickwork, we see a number of Plateresque designs of exquisite beauty, painted in white and blue, with occasional touches of other colours. Among the devices are chimeras, war-trophies, volutes, chaplets, parapegms, antelopes, masks, and others which are characteristic of the Florentine Renaissance. Upon this ground, and enclosed by circular garlands in high relief, consisting of polychrome fruits and flowers, are seven medallions containing figures of male and female saints, except the one which is upon the keystone, and which represents the birth of Christ. In this medallion the figures are enamelled in white upon a cobalt-blue ground, recalling, as also do the garlands, the work of the celebrated della Robbia.[71] In the rest of the medallions the figures are glazed in brilliant colours. In the three medallions upon the left, beginning with the lowest one, we see, upon the first, Saint Helen; upon the second, two saints in monkish dress; and upon the third, Saint Peter and Saint Paul. On the medallions of the other side are another saint dressed as a monk, San Cosmé, San Damián, and San Roque. The spaces on either side of the archivolt are covered with tiles which represent a landscape. In each of the upper angles is an angel holding a large tablet with IHS in ornamental Gothic character upon a black ground. These letters, and also the angels and the frames of the tablets, are enamelled in gold. Beneath each tablet is an angel standing with extended wings upon a bracket of lustred earthenware, and holding an open book. The brickwork of the door is closed by a plain impost supporting a small battlement covered with _cuenca_ tiles, and crowned with a cornice of flamboyant ornaments alternating with the heads of cherubs glazed in white, and with a white marble cross in the centre. The tympanum is embellished by a superb shield carved in high relief upon white marble with the arms of Castile, León, Aragon, and Sicily, surmounted by a royal crown and the eagle with the nimbus. Beside this shield are two smaller ones of _azulejos_ painted with the yoke and sheaf of arrows, and the motto T[=A]TO M[=O]TA. The ground on which are executed these three shields occupies the whole tympanum, and is covered with Plateresque devices including two tablets, on one of which we read the letters S.P.Q.R., and on the other, PISANO. Above the first of these tablets is another of an oval shape, bearing the word NICULOSO. Lastly, at the base of the archivolt, and on the left-hand side of the spectator, is a very small rectangular tablet with this inscription:-- NICVLOSO FRANCISCO-I- TALIANO-MEF ECIT INELAGNO DEI · 154 · [70] Gestoso says that florid Gothic and Renaissance motives are found occasionally in the older _cuenca_ tiles. This was, however, quite exceptional. [71] A plaque belongs to Señor Gestoso which proceeds from the demolished Mudejar church of San Miguel at Seville. It measures fifteen inches high by ten wide, and is decorated with a representation, in bas-relief, of the Coronation of the Virgin. The eyebrows, eyelids, and lips of the figures are executed in cobalt upon a thick layer of white glaze, and strongly recall the method of Lucca della Robbia. Gestoso considers that this plaque was made in the latter part of the fourteenth century. If so, it is antecedent to the work of della Robbia (whose _Resurrection_ upon one of the doors of the Duomo of Florence dates from 1438) by a good many years. A similar example, also by an unknown hand and representing the Coronation, is in the chapel of the Sagrario of Seville Cathedral. The altar in the Alcázar of the same city, and which is known as that of the Catholic Sovereigns (Plate lv.), is entirely covered with "Pisano" _azulejos_ measuring sixteen centimetres square. Imbedded in the centre is a picture, also of painted tiles, representing the visit of the Virgin to Saint Elizabeth. This picture measures five feet in height by three feet eight inches in breadth. Beneath it is the figure of a patriarch resting his head upon his hand. Boughs with large flowers issue from his breast, and among the flowers are half-length figures of the prophets, together with those of Jesus and the Virgin, the whole of this decoration forming a frame to the central picture. The rest of the altar is profusely decorated with designs in the Renaissance style, consisting of vases, animals, genii, and the emblems of Ferdinand and Isabella. In the centre of the tiling which forms the altar-front is a circular picture made of _azulejos_ surrounded by a garland of fruits and laurel leaves, and representing the Annunciation, garland and picture being supported by two monsters with the tails of dragons and the upper parts of women. Large flaming torches rest between the out-stretched arms of the monsters, and round about or springing from them are flowers, animals, cornucopias, and other decoration. The entire _retablo_ is painted lightish blue and white upon a yellow ground, except the larger picture and its decorative border, which is of a deeper blue. A small tablet beneath the Virgin's feet contains the words NICULOSO FRANCESCO ITALIANO ME FECIT, and on the pilaster represented on the left hand of the same picture is added the date, 1504. As Gestoso, Davillier, and others have remarked, it is evident that while the rest of the altar is pure Renaissance-Plateresque, the pictures copied on the tiles are of a northern school. Probably they were designed for Niculoso by one of the various German or Flemish masters who at that time were resident in Seville. [Illustration: LV ALTAR OF THE CATHOLIC SOVEREIGNS (_Alcázar of Seville_)] Another altar which was formerly in the same palace, but which has disappeared, was also painted by this craftsman. It was described by Cean Bermudez as containing scenes from the life of the Virgin, the Trinity, and the two Saints John, and bore the same date as the altar which is yet existing, namely, 1504. Among the other works of Niculoso are the altar of the church of Tentudia, the tomb of Iñigo Lopez in the church of Santa Ana in the quarter of Triana, and a tile-picture representing, similarly to the one which forms the centre of the altar in the Alcázar, the Virgin's visit to Saint Elizabeth. This picture formerly belonged to the kings of Portugal, and is now in the museum of Amsterdam.[72] [72] Certain _azulejos_, signed by Niculoso and dated 1500, were formerly existing in the palace of the Counts of El Real de Valencia in the city of this name. These tiles were executed in relief, and proved that Niculoso did not work exclusively in the Italian style. Such were the decorative _azulejos_ which made the potteries of Seville famous throughout Europe, and which are known to have been exported to Italy, Portugal, and even England.[73] The names of several hundred mediæval and post-mediæval makers of these Seville tiles have been exhumed and published by Gestoso. [73] In Portugal, tiles which Gestoso believes to have been made at Seville, exist in Coimbra cathedral, the church of San Roque at Lisbon, and the two palaces of Cintra. In our own country, Seville tiles are stated by Marryat and Demmin to line the walls of the Mayor's Chapel at Bristol, whither they were doubtless conveyed by one of the numerous English merchants who traded between Spain and England, and who are known to have made their home at Seville in the sixteenth century. Another tile of Seville workmanship, proceeding from Haccombe Church, Devonshire, is in the British Museum. The general title of the Spanish potter was _ollero_, a comprehensive term which reaches from the most ambitious _azulejero_ to the maker of the meanest kitchen-ware. The _olleros_ of older Seville produced for centuries, not only glazed and coloured tiling by the processes already indicated, but countless other objects such as brims of wells, apothecary's jars, baptismal fonts, and dishes of every shape and size. They used a general mark (the tower of the Giralda) to stamp their pottery; but private marks are nearly always absent. The facts that have appeared in recent years concerning these artificers are seldom interesting. The mere mention of a name is meaningless, or even perplexing, seeing that a Moor or Mudejar would frequently assume the name and surname of a Christian. Nevertheless, Gestoso has brought to light important notices concerning one or two, and in particular a document dating from the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, relating to a celebrated potter of that period named Fernan Martinez Guijarro. This document, which is dated 1479, describes Martinez as "a very great master in the art of making _azulejos_, fonts, and all the things pertaining to his trade, insomuch that none other in all this kingdom is like unto him," and subsequently, "considering him to be so excellent a craftsman that persons come hither from Portugal and other parts to purchase and to carry off his ware." It is further stated that Martinez Guijarro was in wealthy circumstances ("hombre rrico e de mucha rrenta e fasyenda"). His _talleres_ or workshops were in the _barrio_ of Triana, and included (as we learn from one of the documents copied by the same investigator) a separate department for the manufacture or storage of lustred ware. Unfortunately, even Gestoso is unable to point to any piece of tiling or other pottery now existing, as being unquestionably executed by this master. Another Sevillian potter of exceptional merit was Cristóbal de Augusta, who worked in the latter half of the sixteenth century, and left his name upon the _azulejo_ dadoes of the Halls of Charles the Fifth in the Alcázar. The style of these most brilliant tiles is pure Renaissance, and forms a worthy continuation of the splendid work of Niculoso. Augusta, indeed, is termed in the Archives of the Alcázar "master of making tiles in the Pisano manner" (_del pisano_).[74] Some tilemakers of little note succeeded him, but even the names of these are carefully recorded by Gestoso. [74] The _pisano_ process is believed by Gestoso to have succumbed before the _cuenca_. He says he is aware of no _pisano_ tiling which can be dated from as late as the second half of the seventeenth century. Seville was thus the principal centre of the craft of decorative tile-making. _Azulejos_ were also made at Barcelona and other towns in Cataluña, at Talavera de la Reina, Burgos, Toledo, Granada, and Valencia, in several towns of Aragon, and probably at Cordova. Riaño quotes a letter written about the year 1422, from the wife of the Admiral of Castile to the abbess of the nunnery of Santo Domingo at Toledo, requesting that a number of _azulejos_ be sent to her. "She alludes, in the same letter, to painted tiles, and says she was expecting a master potter from Seville to place the tiles in their proper places. This shows us" (continues Riaño) "that it was only in the province of Andalusia that the art was known of cutting these tiles into geometrical sections and mosaic patterns." The meaning of this passage is obscure. Riaño speaks of painted tiles and _azulejos_ as though they were distinct objects, and yet they are essentially the same. Again, if only Andalusia was able to produce such tiles, why did the Almirante's wife order them from Toledo? Perhaps the faulty English of Riaño's handbook is responsible, but, as it stands, this passage tells us practically nothing. In any case, abundant evidence exists to show that large quantities of Mudejar and Renaissance tiles were manufactured at Toledo. In general appearance, they are similar to those of Seville. Ramírez de Arellano believes that decorative tiles were manufactured at Cordova in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and quotes, in proof of this, the names of "maestros de hacer vidriado" or makers of glazed ware, who resided at this ancient capital. One of these craftsmen was Alonso Rodriguez the younger, who, on June 7th, 1574, sold to a canon of the cathedral ten thousand white and green tiles of a common kind (_ladrillos_), probably employed for roofing. The price was three ducats the thousand. On April 10th, 1598, Juan Sanchez engaged to supply the same temple with the same quantity of glazed tiles (_tejas_) for roofing, coloured white, green, and yellow, at sixteen _maravedis_ each tile. _Azulejos_ were certainly made at Granada in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and probably earlier. [Illustration: LVI THE GATE OF WINE (_Showing polychrome tiling. Alhambra, Granada_)] In a passage of the Alhambra palace leading from the Patio de la Alberca to the Cuarto Dorado, a space was laid bare not many years ago, containing the original _mostagueras_ or small tiles used for flooring, glazed in two colours; and in the same building, although in constantly diminishing quantities, are large numbers of tiles which date from the time of the Spanish Moors. There has been a good deal of discussion as to whether the roofs of the Alhambra were originally covered with decorative tiles. Swinburne (who must not, however, be taken as the safest of authorities) wrote that "in Moorish times the building was covered with large painted and glazed tiles, of which some few are yet to be seen." Indifferent Renaissance tiles, made in the reign of Philip the Fifth, are still preserved in parts of the Alhambra. Excellent polychrome _cuerda seca_ tiles (fourteenth century), in white, green, yellow, blue, and black, are over the horseshoe archway of the Gate of Wine of the Alhambra (Plate lvi.). According to Gómez Moreno,[75] they were manufactured here, as were the Moorish _azulejos_, yellow, black, white, violet, and sky-blue, in the Mirador de Daraxa.[76] The archives of the Moorish palace also state that towards the close of the sixteenth century Antonio Tenorio, whose pottery was situated in the Secano, and consequently within a stone's-throw of the Casa Real, made several sets of _azulejos_ for the Hall of the Abencerrajes. Good Morisco tiles, dating from the same period and wrought by craftsmen such as Gaspar Hernandez, Pedro Tenorio, and the members of the Robles family, are in the Sala de Comares, and in one of the rooms of the Casa de los Tiros. [75] _Guía de Granada_; pp. 35, 36. [76] Pure red is the rarest of the colours employed in Moorish tile-work. It is, however, found in a single part of the Alhambra; namely, among the superb tile-decoration of the Torre de la Cautiva. Gestoso says that red was practically unknown among the Seville potters. Sometimes, however, in coats of arms, a space that should have properly been gules was left uncoloured in the actual making of the tile, and painted red with oil-colour after firing. From the thirteenth century until the eighteenth, excellent _azulejos_ were made in Cataluña. Specimens of every period exist in the collections of Don Francisco Rogent and Don José Font y Gumá, of Barcelona, and Don Luis Santacana, of Martorell. The tiles belonging to these gentlemen proceed from the cathedral and other temples of Barcelona, and from the monasteries or castles of Poblet, Santas Creus, Montserrat, Marmellá, San Miguel de Ervol, Centellas, Torre Pallaresa, San Miguel del Fay, and Vallpellach.[77] [77] Coloured plates of Catalan and other Spanish _azulejos_ are published with García Llansó's text in the _Historia General del Arte_; Vol. II. Another region which has long been celebrated for its _azulejeria_ is the kingdom of Valencia. Even in the eighteenth century, when this craft was generally in a state of great decadence, Valencian tiles were thoroughly well made, although the patterns on them were defective. Laborde pronounced them "the best executed and most elegant in Europe," and further said of this locality; "the painted earthenware tiles or _azulejos_ are used in the country, but only a small part of them; a great many are sent into the interior of Spain as well as to Cadiz, where they are shipped for Spanish America, and to Marseilles, whence they are conveyed into Africa." The same writer inserts an interesting account of the manufacture of these _azulejos_. "It is at Valencia that the tiles of earthenware are made, with which they incrust walls and pave apartments: those tiles are of a clayey earth, which is found in the territories of Quarte near Valencia; they harden the earth long after soaking it in water; the tiles are formed in moulds, and are dried in the sun; they are then beaten with a piece of square wood of the dimensions of which they are wanted. They are then put into the oven, where they undergo a slight baking. As soon as they are done they are glazed, and are afterwards painted in water colours with whatever subject is intended to be represented. The tiles are then replaced in the oven so as not to touch one another, and that the action of the fire may penetrate them all equally: as the colours change by baking, the workmen apply them anew in proportion to the changes that take place; the red alone alters entirely. The varnish with which they are glazed is made with lead, tin, and white sand. These three substances are ground in a mill to powder, which is mixed with water, to form a paste, and baked in the oven; it is again pounded and put into the oven, where it crystallises: being once more reduced to powder and diluted with water, it becomes varnish. There are two kinds of it; one is whiter than the other, though the same materials are used: the mode of mixing alone makes the difference; the whiter, the clearer the tiles. It takes a certain number of tiles to form a picture: they are of different dimensions; the smallest are three inches nine lines, the largest seven inches nine lines. The price varies according to the size of the tile, the beauty of the varnish, and the variety of the drawings: the lowest price is eight pesos (25s.) a thousand, and the highest 100 pesos or £15, 12_s._ 6_d._ There is a considerable demand for them; they are superior both in beauty and strength to those used in Holland." [Illustration: LVII TILES OF THE DECADENT PERIOD] Bourgoing, author of the _Nouveau Voyage en Espagne_, described, in 1789, the same product in the following terms: "L'industrie des Valenciens tire d'ailleurs parti de toutes les productions de leur sol. Il contient une espèce de terre dont ils font ces carreaux de faïence colorée, connus sous le nom d'_Azulejos_, et qu'on ne fabrique qu'à Valence. On en pave les appartements, et on en revêt leurs lambris; on y peint les sujets les plus compliqués, tels par exemple qu'un bal masqué, une fête de taureaux. La couleur rouge est la seule qui ne puisse être fixée sur cette espèce de faïence; elle s'altere entièrement par la cuisson."[78] [78] Vol. iii., p. 56. For the amusement of my readers, I insert an illustration of common Spanish tiles of the decadent period (Plate lvii.), displaying considerable liveliness combined with reckless ignorance of draughtsmanship. A class of these degenerate tiles, made in large quantities at Seville in the eighteenth century, is known as _azulejos de montería_ or "hunting-tiles," since episodes of the chase form one of the favourite themes of their design. Although it passed through a long period of prostration, embracing the greater part of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, at no time has the manufacture of decorative Spanish tiles succumbed completely. Of recent years it has revived surprisingly at Seville, Barcelona, and Segovia; and at the first of these cities the older _azulejos_, and particularly those in the _cuenca_ style, are imitated to perfection. In the cheapest kinds of modern tiling, such as is used for corridors and kitchens, a common device is a series of repeated curves and dots which evidently has its source in Arabic lettering. Indeed, the ornamental and attractive written characters of the Spanish Moors, rendered familiar to their rivals through long centuries of intercourse, seem to have constantly found favour with the Christian Spaniards. The _fuero_ of Jaca, dated A.D. 1064, tells us that a Christian prince of Spain, Don Sancho Ramirez, was accustomed to write his signature in Arabic lettering. Meaningless inscriptions in the same language, and evidently executed by a Christian hand, are engraved on objects in the Royal Armoury; and Señor Osma describes in an interesting pamphlet (_Los letreros ornamentales en la cerámica morisca del Siglo XV._) how, in the pottery of older Spain, a word in Arabic such as _alafia_ ("prosperity" or "blessing") would often be corrupted by Morisco craftsmen into a motive of a purely ornamental character, and which would only in this sense be comprehended and appreciated by the Christian.[79] [79] _Alafia_ is written in Neshki, [Illustration], which word, says Señor Osma, by suppressing the diacritical points and prolonging some of the lines, was converted by the potter into the conventional and exclusively decorative device:-- [Illustration] HISPANO-MORESQUE LUSTRED POTTERY Probably no pottery in the world possesses greater loveliness or interest than the celebrated, yet even to this day mysterious, lustred ware of Moorish Spain. Our knowledge of the early history of this ware is still imperfect. In modern times, attention was first drawn to the lustre process by M. Riocreux, of the Sèvres Museum. In spite, however, of the subsequent monographs and researches of Davillier and other authorities, the origin of lustred pottery is yet a problem which awaits solution. Until some years ago it was believed to have had its source in Persia, where many specimens have been discovered in the form of tiles and other objects; but this belief was afterwards shaken by Fouquet, who unearthed at Fostat in Egypt, in the year 1884, specimens of lustred ware which are known to date from the eleventh century. Saladin, too, affirms that he has seen upon the mosque of Kairuan lustred plaques with inscriptions recording them to have been presented, between A.D. 864 and 875, by the emir Ibrahim Ahmed-ibn-el-Aglab. Whatever these facts may signify, it appears from a statement by the geographer Edrisi that lustred ware was made in Spain as early as the twelfth century. "Here," said the writer, speaking of Calatayud, "is produced the gold-coloured pottery which is exported to all countries." The next allusion to it is by the traveller Ibn-Batutah, who visited certain parts of Spain in the middle of the fourteenth century. "At Málaga," he wrote, "is made the beautiful golden pottery which is exported to the farthest countries." These passages refer respectively to Aragon and Andalusia. The same ware was produced in Murcia. Ibn-Said, quoted by Al-Makkari, mentions the "glazed and gilded porcelain" of Murcia, Málaga, and Almería, calling it "strange and admirable." It was also manufactured, probably in larger quantities than in any other part of Spain, in many towns and villages of the kingdom of Valencia, such as Carcer, Alaquaz, Moncada, Quarte, Villalonga, Traiguera, and Manises. In the _Excellencies of the Kingdom of Valencia_, written by Eximenes and published in 1499, we find it stated that "surpassing everything else is the ware of Manises, gilded and painted with such mastery that all the world is enamoured thereof, insomuch that the pope, the cardinals, and princes send for it, astonished that objects of such excellence can be made of earth."[80] [80] "_Sobre tot es la bellessa de la obra de manizes daurada é maestriuolment pintada que ja tot lo mon ha enamorat ent[=a]t que lo papa, é los cardenals é lo princeps del mon per special gracia la requeren é stan marauellats que d'terra se puxa fer obra axi excellent é noble._" Other writers on the same locality, such as Diago and Escolano, author of the _Historia de la insigne y coronada ciudad y reino de Valencia_ (Valencia, 1610, 1611), confirm this eulogy of Eximenes. According to Escolano, Valencian ware was "of such loveliness that in return for that which the Italians send us from Pisa, we send them boatloads of it from Manises." One of the most recent of authorities on lustred ware remarks that "in the fifteenth century ornamental vases in the (Spanish-Moorish) wares appear to have been commanded from Spain by wealthy Florentines, as is evident from the Medici arms and impresa in fig. 40; others bearing the Florentine lily (fig. 41) seem to have been ordered from the same city." The illustrations to which the author of this monograph[81] refers, depict a vase and a boccale, both in lustred ware, and which it is extremely probable were manufactured at Manises. [81] Wallis, _The Oriental Influence on Italian Ceramic Art_. London; 1900. The same ware was also possibly made in Cataluña, where pieces of it have been found among the ruins of the village of Las Casas. _La Alhambra_, a small magazine which is published at Granada, contains, in the number dated September 30th, 1901, an account of these fragments by their finder, Joaquín Vilaplana. Some years ago the Balearic Islands were also thought to have produced this pottery. One of the earliest and most fervent champions of this theory, now definitely shown to be erroneous, was Baron Davillier. This gentleman, in some respects an excellent authority on Spanish ceramics, relied too strongly on certain assurances made him by a Señor Bover, and ended by declaring that in the museums of Paris and London he had himself seen lustred plates which bore the arms of Ynca in the Balearics, proving them to have been manufactured at that town. However, a Majorcan archæologist, named Alvaro Campaner, refuted one by one Davillier's points of argument, and showed beyond all question that both the plates of Ynca and the arms which decorated them were simply nonexistent, and that the term _Majolica_, deriving from _Majorica_, applies to pottery in general, and not with any preference to lustred ware. Campaner also suggested very ingeniously that the word _Majolica_ was probably applied by the Italians to Catalan or Valencian pottery conveyed to Italy in vessels themselves belonging to the Balearics, and which were in the habit of completing their cargoes in the ports of Barcelona and Valencia, and he added that this suggestion is supported by the fact that specimens of lustred ware are far more often met with on the Balearic coast than in the towns and villages of the interior. It is only fair to state that Davillier frankly and fully recognized the value of Campaner's refutation. As to the methods of producing lustred pottery, the chemical investigations practised by Riocreux, Brogniart, Carand, and others, have shown that the metals used to produce the characteristic reflex which gives the ware its name were copper and silver, entering into the composition of an extremely thin glaze extended over the surface of the pottery, and employed, sometimes together, and sometimes separately. It is obvious that the lustre produced by copper would be deeper, redder, and less delicate than that produced by silver, while varying gradations would be obtainable by the mixture of both metals. It is also beyond doubt that the oldest specimens of this pottery extant to-day are those which contain the palest and most pearly lustre, and consequently the largest quantity of the costlier metal. In those of later date there is an evident inferiority, both in colour, lustre, and design. In fact, two separate, or nearly separate, epochs of this branch of Spanish pottery are pointed out by Señor Mélida, who gives the name of _Mudejar_ to lustred objects manufactured at an earlier time by Moorish artists working in the cities captured by the Christians, and that of _Morisco_ to the second or inferior class produced by Morisco craftsmen after the reconquest, and distinguished by the coarser and degenerate lustre, colouring, and draughtsmanship. The rarest and most beautiful examples of this ware are naturally those which belong to the former class, and consist of various kinds of plates and other objects in which elaborate devices such as lions, antelopes, and shields of heraldry, often combined with foliage and inscriptions in Gothic lettering, are coloured in bistre or pale blue,[82] and rendered doubly beautiful by the delicate nacreous lustre. [82] In lustred pottery these colours, and particularly blue, are far the commonest. It has been found that other colours, such as green and black, were ill adapted to the lustre process. In nearly every case it is extremely difficult to determine with any certainty the date of manufacture of these objects, as well as the locality. Wallis says he is aware of "no example of Spanish lustre pottery antecedent to those in the class to which the large Palermo jar belongs, and they are not likely to be much earlier than the end of the fourteenth century. Happily the celebrated plaque (Plate lviii.) formerly belonging to Fortuny, and now in the possession of Excmo Sr. Don G. J. de Osma, furnishes an early date, which, according to its owner, is between May 1408 and November 1417. Those who know the original will remember that it is no less remarkable for the quality of its golden lustre than for the grace and elegance of its fanciful Oriental design." It is also believed by Señor Osma that this plaque was manufactured in the kingdom of Granada; _i.e._ either at Granada or Málaga. [Illustration: LVIII HISPANO-MORESQUE LUSTRED PLAQUE (_Early 15th Century. Osma Collection_)] A specimen of Spanish lustred ware more celebrated even than Fortuny's plaque is the "vase of the Alhambra" (Plate lix.), which rests to-day in a corner of the Sala de las Dos Hermanas. The history of this mighty jar is interesting. Popular superstition affirms it to have been discovered, filled to the brim with gold, by the Marquis of Mondejar, first of the Christian governors of the fortress of Granada. Exposed for many years to every stress of weather and to every mutilation at the hands of passers-by, it stood, in company with other vases of enormous size, upon a rampart which is now the garden terrace known as the Adarves. Several of the older travellers have described these vessels or alluded to them. Marmol wrote of them as far back as the sixteenth century, while the journal of Bertaut de Rouen contains the following notice;--"Sur la première terrasse par où l'on entre, et d'où l'on a de la peine à regarder en bas sans estre ébloüy, il y a deux fontaines jaillissantes, et tout du long des murs du chasteau, des espaliers d'orangers et de grenadiers, avec de grands vases de terre peinte, aussi belle que la porcelaine, où il n'y avoit pour lors, sinon quelques fleurs en quelques-uns: mais où l'on dit que le Marquis de Mondejar trouva quantité d'or que les Mores avaient caché dans la terre, quand il y fût estably par Ferdinand." The priest Echeverría, who forged the relics of the ancient Alcazaba of Granada,[83] was careful to repeat this fable in the twenty-sixth chapter of his _Paseos por Granada_. The first edition of this work was published in 1764, under the assumed name of Joseph Romero Yranzo. There were then two vases and part of a third, all "lacerated, peeled, and maltreated." The Englishman Swinburne wrote in 1776 that below the Towers of the Bell, "on the south-side, on a slip of terrace, is the governor's garden, a very pleasant walk, full of fine orange and cypress trees and myrtle hedges, but quite abandoned. The view it commands is incomparable. Two large vases enamelled with gold and azure foliages and characters are the only ornaments left: these were taken out of the vaults under the royal apartments." In the second edition of Echeverría's _Paseos_, which was republished in 1814, it is added in a footnote that only a single vase remained, "in a room that overlooks the Court of Myrtles." Lozano, however, in his _Antigüedades Arabes_, mentions two vases as existing at the same period. Argote de Molina (_Nuevos Paseos por Granada_, published about 1808) describes, together with the wretchedly executed marble statues in the Sala de las Ninfas, the "two or three great porcelain jars whereof some pieces only now remain," and reminds us that according to the old tradition these statues looked continually towards the vases, which were full of treasure. Argote, nevertheless, takes Echeverría sharply to task for his absurdities upon this theme; and Washington Irving, a diligent gleaner in Echeverría's somewhat scanty field, makes use of the same material for his well-known story. [83] I have fully described these forgeries in Chapters II and III of _Granada: Memories, Adventures, Studies, and Impressions_. [Illustration: LIX HISPANO-MORESQUE LUSTRED VASE (_Alhambra, Granada_)] In the time of Owen Jones the one surviving vase, now standing with a wooden rail before it in a corner of the Hall of the Two Sisters, still occupied the "room that looks upon the Court of Myrtles." Jones wrote of it in 1842:--"This beautiful vase was discovered, it is said, full of gold in one of the subterranean chambers of the Casa Real. It is at present to be seen in a small chamber of the Court of the Fish-pond, in which are deposited the archives of the palace. It is engraved in the Spanish work by Lozano, _Antigüedades Arabes de España_, with another of the same size, which was broken a few years ago, and the pieces sold to a passing traveller. The vase is executed in baked clay, with enamelled colours and gold similar to the mosaics." A more precise description is the following. The vase, which measures four feet six inches in height by eight feet two inches and a half in circumference, is of common earthenware painted with intricate devices fired after painting. This was a difficult operation in a vessel of such size; and here, in consequence, the colours have slightly run and mingled. Besides these technical flaws, the belly of the vase is broken clean in half, and one of the handles is missing. The shape is amphoraic, with a moderate downward curve. About the middle, surrounded by leaf and stem and geometrical devices effectively intertwined, are two antelopes. The vase is coloured blue and caramel upon a delicate yellow ground, and has a faint metallic lustre.[84] An Arabic inscription is repeated several times, and consists of the words "Felicity" and "Welcome." [84] This lustre is faint but quite distinguishable, and Rada y Delgado was clearly in error in supposing that there is none. This vase is believed to date from the fourteenth century; and if we judge from the colour and composition of the earth employed, it appears probable that it was made at Granada. Together with the other vases which have disappeared,[85] it was doubtless meant to serve as a receptacle for water, and for decorating the chambers of the palace, where it would rest in amphora-fashion on a perforated stand, while smaller vases containing flowers would fill the niches which may yet be seen in various inner walls of the Alhambra. The belief of Argote[86] and many other writers that these niches were intended to receive the slippers of the Moors is utterly unfounded. [85] The lost jar mentioned by Owen Jones, of which a drawing has been made, was of the same shape as the one which now remains; but in its decoration were included the arms of the Nasrite dynasty of Granada. It is this circumstance which has induced Gómez Moreno to suppose that these vases were the work of Granadino artists. [86] "_Los nichos para chinelas_," as he calls them, in describing the Sala de Comares. Until quite recently all published illustrations of the great _jarrón de la Alhambra_ were inaccurate, and as a rule grotesquely so. Among the very worst are those inserted in the handbooks of Riaño and Contreras. I am glad to be able to reproduce an excellent photograph, which both corrects the atrocious cuts I have observed elsewhere, and relieves me from giving a prolix and possibly a wearisome description of the decoration on the vase. [Illustration: LX HISPANO-MORESQUE LUSTRED VASE (_Madrid Museum_)] Several other lustred vases of large size are still preserved in Spain and other countries. One, proceeding from a Sicilian church, is in the museum of Palermo. Wallis, who inserts an illustration, describes it as "amphora-shaped, with two large flat handles; pear-shaped body, long neck, ribbed at lower part, canellated above, moulded lip. Whitish body, tin glaze. Ornament painted in gold lustre on white ground, the pattern in parts almost obliterated. Hispano-Moresque. Height, one metre, seventeen centimetres." Another of these great vases belonged to the painter Fortuny, and was sold at his death to Prince Basilewsky, for thirty thousand francs. It was found by Fortuny at the village of Salar, near Granada, and purchased by him at a low price. "The neck and mouth resemble those of the Alhambra vase. The ornamentation is distributed about the body of the vase in four zones; one of the two central zones has tangent circles, and the other an inscription." [Illustration: LXI LUSTRED TILES (_Osma Collection_)] Another large lustred vase is in the museum of Madrid (Plate lx.). It was found by a labourer at Hornos in the province of Jaen, and passed into the hands of the village priest, who placed it in his church to support the font of holy water. In course of time a dealer in antiquities, by name Amat, happened to pass that way, observed the vase, and made an offer for it to the _padre_. This latter at first refused, but subsequently, stimulated by an ignorant though well-intentioned and disinterested zeal for bettering the temple, he stipulated that if the dealer provided a new support of marble for the font, and paid for white washing the church, he might bear off the coveted _jarrón_. Fulfilling these conditions at all speed, he mounted the precious vessel on an ass, and briskly strode away. When he had gone a little distance the villagers, missing their cherished vase, though unaware, of course, of its artistic worth, swarmed angrily about the purchaser, flourished their knives and sticks at him, and pelted him with stones. At this he called upon the mayor for protection; the mayor provided him with two armed men for bodyguard, and, thus defended, the indomitable dealer reached Madrid and sold his jar to government for fifteen hundred dollars. Its present value is estimated at not less than thirty thousand.[87] [87] J. R. Mélida, _Jarrones arábigos de loza vidriada_; published in the _Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Excursionistas_. One of the earliest and most interesting notices relating to the preparation of this lustred ware is contained in a description by one of the royal archers, named Henry Cock, of the progress, performed in 1585, of Philip the Second from the court of Spain to Zaragoza.[88] Cock wrote of Muel, in Aragon:--"Almost all the inhabitants of this village are potters, and all the earthenware sold at Zaragoza is made in the following manner. The vessels are first fashioned to the required shape from a certain substance extracted from the earth of this locality. They are next baked in a specially constructed oven, and when removed from this are varnished with white varnish and polished, after which they are washed with a mixture of twenty-five pounds of lead, three or four pounds of tin, and as many pounds of a certain sand which is found there. All these ingredients are mixed into a paste resembling ice, which is broken small, pounded like flour, and kept in powder. This powder is mixed with water, the dishes are passed through it, and after being rebaked they keep their lustre. Next, in order to gild the pottery, they take the strongest vinegar mixed with about two _reales_ of powdered silver, vermilion, and red ochre, and a little wire. When all is thoroughly mixed they paint the patterns on the dishes with a feather, bake them again, and their gold colour is now quite permanent. I was told all this by the potters themselves."[89] [88] _Relación del viaje hecho por Felipe II. en 1585._ Madrid, 1876. [89] The village of Muel continued to be a centre of this craft. Townsend, who travelled in Spain in 1786 and 1787, wrote of it:--"There are many potters, who turn their own wheels, not by hand, but with their feet, by means of a larger wheel concentric with that on which they mould the clay, and nearly level with the floor." [Illustration: LXII HISPANO-MORESQUE LUSTRED WARE (_A.D. 1460-1480. Osma Collection_)] Another most interesting account of the manufacture of lustred ware was discovered in manuscript by Riaño in the British Museum, and, although it belongs to a later date (1785), is well worth quoting fully. It consists of a report upon the later gilded pottery of Manises, and was drawn up by order of the Count of Floridablanca:-- "After the pottery is baked, it is varnished with white and blue, the only colours used besides the gold lustre; the vessels are again baked; if the objects are to be painted with gold colour, this can only be put on the white varnish, after they have gone twice through the oven. The vessels are then painted with the said gold colour and are baked a third time, with only dry rosemary for fuel. "The white varnish used is composed of lead and tin, which are melted together in an oven made on purpose; after these materials are sufficiently melted, they become like earth, and when in this state the mixture is removed and mixed with an equal quantity in weight of sand: fine salt is added to it, it is boiled again, and when cold, pounded into powder. The only sand which can be used is from a cave at Benalguacil, three leagues from Manises. In order that the varnish should be fine, for every _arroba_, twenty-five pounds of lead, six to twelve ounces of tin must be added, and half a bushel of finely-powdered salt: if a coarse kind is required, it is sufficient to add a very small quantity of tin, and three or four _cuartos_ worth of salt, which in this case must be added when the ingredient is ready for varnishing the vessel. "Five ingredients enter into the composition of the gold colour: copper, which is better the older it is; silver, as old as possible; sulphur; red ochre; and strong vinegar, which are mixed in the following proportions: of copper three ounces, of red ochre twelve ounces, of silver one _peseta_ (about a shilling), sulphur three ounces, vinegar a quart; three pounds (of twelve ounces) of the earth or scoriæ, which is left after this pottery is painted with the gold colour, is added to the other ingredients. [Illustration: LXIII HISPANO-MORESQUE LUSTRED WARE (_A.D. 1460-1480. Osma Collection_)] "They are mixed in the following manner: a small portion of sulphur in powder is put into a casserole with two small bits of copper, between them a coin of one silver _peseta_; the rest of the sulphur and copper is then added to it. When this casserole is ready, it is placed on the fire, and is made to boil until the sulphur is consumed, which is evident when no flame issues from it. The preparation is then taken from the fire, and when cold is pounded very fine; the red ochre and scoriæ are then added to it; it is mixed up by hand and again pounded into powder. The preparation is placed in a basin and mixed with enough water to make a sufficient paste to stick on the sides of the basin; the mixture is then rubbed on the vessel with a stick; it is therefore indispensable that the water should be added very gradually until the mixture is in the proper state. "The basin ready prepared must be placed in an oven for six hours. At Manises it is customary to do so when the vessels of common pottery are baked; after this the mixture is scratched off the sides of the basin with some iron instrument; it is then removed from there and broken up into small pieces, which are pounded fine in a hand-mortar with the quantity of vinegar already mentioned, and after having been well ground and pounded together for two hours the mixture is ready for decorating. It is well to observe that the quantity of varnish and gold-coloured mixture which is required for every object can only be ascertained by practice." Nevertheless, the gilded ware of the kingdom of Valencia had by this time deteriorated very greatly. Formerly, from as far back as the reign of Jayme the Conqueror, the other towns or villages of this region which produced the lustred and non-lustred pottery were Játiva, Paterna, Quarte, Villalonga, Alaqua, Carcer, and Moncada. Early in the fourteenth century fourteen potteries were working in the town of Biar, and twenty-three at Traiguera. Manises, however, maintained the lead for many years. The notices of Eximenes and other writers concerning the pottery of this town have been already quoted. The same ware is mentioned in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by Diago (1613), Francisco Jávier Borrell, Beuter, and Martin de Viciana. Marineus Siculus, the chronicler of Ferdinand and Isabella, adds that similar or identical pottery ("_desta misma arte_") was made in Murcia, whose manufacture of it had been praised in earlier times by Ibn-Said. Toledo also manufactured gilded ware with blue or bistre colouring. García Llansó says that in the sixteenth century this capital produced plates which contain the arms of Spain in the centre, the rest of the plate being completely covered with minute geometrical or floral ornamentation. [Illustration: LXIV HISPANO-MORESQUE LUSTRED WARE (_A.D. 1460-1480. Osma Collection_)] It is certain that during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries large quantities of lustred pottery were produced in many parts of Andalusia, Castile, Aragon, and Valencia. The oldest and most valuable specimens of this pottery are those which have the palest and most purely golden lustre, combined with blue or bluish decoration in the form of animals, coats of arms, or foliage. The lustred ware of Manises began to deteriorate about the time of the expulsion of the Moriscos, when the leaves and fronds of a clean gold tone upon a lightish ground are replaced by commoner and coarser patterns, and the gold itself by the coppery lustre which is still employed. After the seventeenth century the further decline of this once famous industry may be traced from the accounts of travellers. Towards the middle of this century Bowles wrote that "two leagues from the capital (Valencia) is a fair-looking town of only four streets, whose occupants are nearly all potters. They make a _copper-coloured_ ware of great beauty, _used for common purposes and for decorating the houses of the working-people of the province_. They make this ware of an argillaceous earth resembling in its colour and composition that portion of the soil of Valencia which produces native mercury.... The objects they fashion of this earth possess a glitter and are very inexpensive, since I purchased half a dozen plates for a _real_. Nevertheless, _this is not the ware which has the highest reputation in the kingdom of Valencia_. The factory which the Count of Aranda has established at Alcora is not surpassed in Europe, and is ahead of many in fineness of substance, hardness of the varnish, and elegance of form. It would be perfect of its kind if the varnish did not crack and peel off so easily." According to Laborde, early in the nineteenth century Manises contained two potteries "of considerable extent, which employ seventy workmen. The people occupied in these possess the art of producing a gold _bronze_ colour which they carefully keep a secret, never communicating it to any person." Elsewhere in the same book Laborde is more explicit. "Manises is a village situated a league and a quarter north of Valencia. It is seen on the left coming from New Castile. It is noted for its manufactories of earthen ware, which employ thirty kilns, and occupy a great part of the inhabitants. The women are employed in forming the designs and applying the colours. There are two large manufactories of a superior kind, the earthen ware of which is tolerably fine, of a beautiful white, and a moderate price. They also make here vases worked with a great degree of delicacy." [Illustration: LXV HISPANO-MORESQUE LUSTRED WARE (_Late 15th Century. Osma Collection_)] "The society of these workmen possess the secret of the composition of a colour which in the fire takes the tint and brightness of a beautiful gilt _bronze_. It has been unsuccessfully attempted to be imitated; the heads of the society compose the colour themselves, and distribute it to the masters who take care of it; it is a liquid of the colour of Spanish tobacco, but a little deeper." The quantity of Hispano-Moresque lustred pottery preserved in the public and private collections of various countries is far from small, although to classify it according to the place and date of its production is nearly always a matter of extreme difficulty. Among the earliest specimens are the vase of the Alhambra, those which are now in the museums of Palermo and Madrid, that which belonged to Fortuny, and the plaque which once was also his, and now forms part of the Osma collection. Lustred Spanish tiles are scarce. A few exist at Seville[90] and Granada, chiefly in altar-fronts, along the archivolts of doorways, or, with heraldic motives, on the inner walls of houses of the aristocracy. Invariably, says Gestoso, such tiles are coloured with combinations of white, blue, and gold, since in the lustre process other colours--black, or green, or deepish yellow--proved unsatisfactory. Other lustred tiles of exquisite beauty are owned by Señor Osma, (Plate lxi.), and seem to have even gained in brilliance by the centuries that have passed over them. Riaño gives a list of the specimens of this pottery which are at South Kensington, consisting of bowls, vases, and plates. One of the vases is particularly beautiful. It dates from the fifteenth century, and is described by Fortnum as having "a spherical body on a trumpet-shaped base, with a neck of elongated funnel form, flanked by two large wing-shaped handles perforated with circular holes. The surface, except the mouldings, is entirely covered with a diaper-pattern of ivy or briony leaves, tendrils, and small flowers in brownish lustre and blue on the white ground." [90] No direct proof has been found that lustred ware was ever made at Seville; but a document copied by Gestoso, and which I have already mentioned (p. 152), records that the famous _ollero_ of the time of Ferdinand and Isabella, named Fernan Martinez Guijarro, reserved a department ("_tiendas del dorado_") of his premises for making or for storing lustred pottery. [Illustration: LXVI HISPANO-MORESQUE LUSTRED WARE (_Late 15th Century. Osma Collection_)] Through the courtesy of Señor Osma I am able to give illustrations of a few of the finest specimens of lustred ware in his magnificent collection (Plates lxii.-lxvi.). The three small vessels facing pages 176, 178, and 180 are of Valencian workmanship, and date, according to their owner, from between 1460 and 1480. The two plates are also Valencian. The one with a bull in the centre dates from between 1480 and 1500; and that which has a greyhound from slightly earlier--say 1470 to 1490. POTTERY OF SEVILLE, PUENTE DEL ARZOBISPO, TALAVERA DE LA REINA, TOLEDO, AND BARCELONA; POROUS WARE; PORCELAIN OF ALCORA AND THE ROYAL FACTORY OF THE BUEN RETIRO. We have seen that Seville was an early and important centre of the potter's craft in Spain. Her potteries were celebrated even with the Romans, and probably have at no moment been inactive. Fifty, established in the suburb of Triana, were mentioned in the sixteenth century by Pedro de Medina, and documents which tell of many more have recently been discovered by Gestoso. The excellence of the Seville tiles has been described in a preceding section of this chapter. Their production still continues upon a large scale; and the ware of the Cartuja factory, which reached the zenith of its fame towards the end of the eighteenth century, is considered by Jacquemart and other authorities to rival with the Italian wares of Savona. Pottery made in other parts of the Peninsula--particularly that of Talavera de la Reina--is known to have been imitated by the Seville potters with embarrassing perfection. In the case of the so-called "loza de Puente del Arzobispo," it is the Seville ware itself which seems to have been imitated. Puente del Arzobispo is a small village near Toledo. Mendez wrote of it in the seventeenth century:--"Fine pottery is manufactured in about eight kilns, which produce more than 40,000 ducats yearly." "In 1755," says Riaño, "thirteen pottery kilns existed at this place; they still worked in 1791, but their productions were very inferior in artistic merit." [Illustration: LXVII HISPANO-MORESQUE LUSTRED WARE] Not many years ago the name of Puente del Arzobispo was connected by Baron Davillier with certain polychrome non-lustred plates and other vessels which are greatly esteemed for their rarity, and of which a few specimens exist in the South Kensington and other museums, as well as in one or two private collections, such as that of Señor Osma. Gestoso says that the usual diameter of these plates is either twenty-three centimetres or forty-two centimetres. "Their decoration, betraying at a glance the Saracenic influence, consists of leaves and flowers, together with animals of a more or less fantastic character: lions, rabbits, and birds. In other specimens the centre is occupied by a heart, fleurs-de-lis, or other fancy devices, or yet, in some few cases, with the head of a man or woman. These central designs are surrounded with leaves and flowers. The draughtsmanship upon these plates is of the rudest, and the process of their colouring was as follows. The figures were drawn upon the unfired surface in manganese ink mixed with a greasy substance; and after this the aqueous enamel or glaze was allowed to drop from a hogshair brush into the spaces which the black had outlined." This will be recognized as the _cuerda seca_ process, so extensively employed in making Seville tiles. Nevertheless, judging by certain marks upon this pottery, Baron Davillier declared it to proceed from Puente del Arzobispo. The marks in question consist in one or two examples of what appears to be the letters A.P. or P.A.[91] Davillier, however, affirmed that he had seen a plate fully inscribed as follows:-- [Illustration] [91] These, says Señor Osma, are doubtful in every case, and are only found on plates which bear the figure of a lion. Two plates in this gentleman's possession are thus marked [Illustration], and another [Illustration]. The existence of this plate is now discredited; at least, no trace of it can be discovered at this day. Upon the other hand, Gestoso points to various objects manufactured by the _cuerda seca_ method, and which undoubtedly proceed from Seville. Among them are three shields, one of which, containing the arms of Ferdinand and Isabella, is of exceptional interest, for it is accompanied by an inscribed slab, evidently coeval with the shield itself, recording it to have been made in the year 1503, and by Jerónimo Suarez. This shield and slab were removed from a courtyard of the old Alhóndiga to Seville Museum, where they now remain. Of the two other shields, one belongs to Señor Osma, and the second, which is still at Seville, adorns the tomb of Don León Enriquez in the church of Santa Paula; and since it is unquestionable that all these _cuerda seca_ shields, as well as quantities of _cuerda seca_ tiles, were made at Seville, Gestoso prudently suggests that we should designate as "_cuerda seca_ ware" that pottery which has hitherto passed as specially belonging to Puente del Arzobispo. In fact, towards the end of the fifteenth century this pottery is found extending northward from Seville to Toledo, and Señor Osma assures me that Toledo specimens are of a somewhat later manufacture than those which were produced at Seville. One of the rarest and most interesting _cuerda seca_ plates in this gentleman's collection is reproduced herewith (lxviii.). No other plate of similar pattern is known to exist. Its date may be placed between 1480 and 1495, and it gives a curious illustration of the masculine headdress and headwear in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella. The pottery of Talavera de la Reina was at one time much esteemed. The earliest mention of it, says Riaño, occurs in 1560, in a manuscript history of this town, while another notice, dated 1576, says that here was produced "fine white glazed earthenware and other pottery, which supplied the country, part of Portugal, and India." More explicit are the observations of Father Alonso de Ajofrín, who wrote, in 1651, a history of Talavera. He says that "her pottery is as good as that of Pisa, while quantities of _azulejos_ are made here to adorn the front of altars, churches, gardens, alcoves, saloons, and bowers, and large and small specimens of every kind. Two hundred workmen work at eight separate kilns. Four other kilns produce the commoner kinds of ware. Red porous clay vessels and drinking-cups are baked in two other kilns in a thousand shapes to imitate birds and other creatures; also _brinquiños_ for the use of ladies, so deliciously flavoured that after drinking the water they contained, they eat the cup in which it was brought them." [Illustration: LXVIII DISH (_Andalusian non-lustred ware in the_ Cuerda seca _style. A.D. 1480-1495. Osma Collection_)] The following most interesting notice relating to this town is also quoted by Riaño: "The earthenware pottery made here has reached a great perfection; it is formed of white and red clay. Vases, cups, _bucaros_ and _brinquiños_ are made of different kinds, dishes and table centres, and imitations of snails, owls, dogs, and every kind of fruits, olives, and almonds. These objects are painted with great perfection, and the imitations of porcelain brought from the Portuguese Indies are most excellent. Everyone is surprised that in so small a town such excellent things should be made. The varnish used for the white pottery is made with tin and sand, and is now found to be more acceptable than coloured earthenware; so much so, that persons of importance who pass by this town, although they have in their houses dinner-services of silver, buy earthenware made at Talavera, on account of its excellence. The sand which was used to make the white varnish was brought from Hita, and is now found at Mejorada, near Talavera. This sand is as fine and soft as silk. "The red pottery made at Talavera is much to be commended, for besides the great variety of objects, and the different medals which they place upon them, they have invented some small _brinquiños_ of so small and delicate a kind, that the ladies wear them. Rosaries are also made of the same material. A certain scent is added in the manufacture of this pottery which excites the appetite and taste of the women, who eat the pottery so frequently that it gives great trouble to their confessors to check this custom." [Illustration: LXIX AN _ALFARERÍA_ OR POTTER'S YARD (_Granada_)] This porous pottery for keeping water cool had been imported from America, and was chiefly made in Andalusia, Portugal, and Extremadura. It is still produced at Andujar and elsewhere. Nearly all travellers in Spain describe it, and insist upon the curious circumstance that it was eaten by the Spanish women. "I have mentioned elsewhere," wrote Countess d'Aulnoy, "the longing many women feel to chew this clay, which often obstructs their bodies internally. Their stomachs swell, and grow as hard as stone, while their skin turns yellow as a quince. I also felt a curiosity to taste this ware, that is so highly yet so undeservedly esteemed; but I would devour a grindstone rather than put it in my mouth again. Nevertheless, if one wants to be agreeable to the Spanish ladies, one has to present them with some _bucaros_, which they themselves call _barros_, and which, as many deem, possess such numerous and admirable qualities, since they claim for the clay that it cures sickness, and that a drinking vessel made of it betrays the presence of a poison. I possess one which spoils the taste of wine, but greatly improves water. This liquid seems to boil and tremble when it is thrown into the cup in question; but after a little while the vessel empties--so porous is the clay of which it is composed--and then it has a fragrant odour." Similar accounts are given by travellers of a later time. "I wish," wrote Swinburne, "I could contrive a method of carrying you some of the fine earthen jars, called _buxaros_, which are made in Andalusia. They are remarkably convenient for water-drinkers, as they are light, smooth, and handy; being not more than half-baked, they are very porous, and the outside is kept moist by the water's filtering through; though placed in the sun, the water in the pots remains as cold as ice. The most disagreeable circumstance attending them is, that they emit a smell of earth refreshed by a sudden shower after a long drought."[92] [92] _Travels through Spain_; p. 305. Swinburne could have been no lover of nature to speak in such terms of the smell of earth. Laborde, who wrote a few years later, seems to have copied some of his information from Bowles. "The Murcians," he said, "use in their houses little jars called _Bucaros_, the same as those which in some parts of Andalusia are called Alcarrazas.[93] They have handles open at the top, are smaller at the bottom than above, and bulge in the middle; they are slight, porous, smooth, and half-baked; they are made of a peculiar kind of clay. When water is put into them, they emit a smell like that sent up by the earth after a shower of rain in summer. The water makes its way very slowly through the pores, and keeps them constantly moist on the outside; they are used to cool water for drinking. The windows and balconies of all the houses have large iron rings, with a flat surface, on which they are placed at night, and the water, oozing incessantly, becomes very cool.[94] In Andalusia some of these jars are white, and others red; in Murcia they have only white ones. They appear to be in every respect of the same nature as the evaporating vases of Africa, Egypt, Syria, and India, of which so much has been said by travellers, and on which the learned have made so many dissertations." [93] One of the prettiest of the popular Spanish _coplas_ has the _alcarraza_ for its theme;-- "Alcarraza de tu casa chiquilla, quisiera ser, para besarte los labios cuando fueras á beber." "Dearest, I would be the _alcarraza_ in your house; so should I kiss your lips each time you drank from me." [94] Laborde's translator adds: "These jars are very common in Jamaica; they are of different sizes, from a pint to three pints. A number of them are ranged at night in the balconies, to furnish a supply of cool water. Coolers of a similar kind have been lately introduced in England." The same vessels are noticed by Ford in his description of a Spanish _posada_. "Near the staircase downstairs, and always in a visible place, is a gibbous jar, _tinaja_, of the ancient classical amphora shape, filled with fresh water; and by it is a tin or copper utensil to take water out with, and often a row of small pipkins, made of a red porous clay,[95] which are kept ready filled with water, on, or rather in, a shelf fixed to the wall, and called _la tallada, el taller_. These pots, _alcarrazas_, from the constant evaporation, keep the water extremely cool. They are of various shapes, many, especially in Valencia and Andalusia, being of the unchanged identical form of those similar clay drinking-vessels discovered at Pompeii. They are the precise _trulla_. Martial speaks both of the colour and the material of those made at Saguntum, where they still are prepared in great quantities; they are not unlike the _ckool'lehs_ of Egypt, which are made of the same material and for the same purposes, and represent the ancient Canobic [Greek: statika]. They are seldom destined to be placed on the table; their bottoms being pointed and conical, they could not stand upright. This singular form was given to the _vasa futilia_, or cups used at the sacrifices of Vesta, which would have been defiled had they touched the ground. As soon, therefore, as they are drunk off, they are refilled and replaced in their holes on the shelf, as is done with decanters in our butlers' pantries."[96] [95] "Those of the finest quality," adds Ford, "are called _Bucaros_; the best come from South America--the form is more elegant, the clay finer, and often sweet-scented; many women have a trick of biting, even eating bits of them." [96] _Handbook_; Vol. I., p. 26. I am only aware of one author who derides the statement that this porous clay was eaten by the Spanish women. According to Bowles, who certainly describes and comments on it with intelligence and scholarship, the neighbourhood of Andujar contains "large quantities of the white argil of which are made the jars or _alcarrazas_ which serve in many parts of Spain for cooling water in the summer-time. In other parts of Andalusia is found a red variety of this clay, employed in making the vessels known as _búcaros_, which serve to freshen the water as well as for drinking it out of--a thing the Spanish ladies love greatly. Both the white _alcarrazas_ and the _búcaros_ as red as the blood of a bull are thin, porous, smooth, and half-baked. When filled with water they emit a pleasant smell like that of dry earth rained upon in summer, and as the water filters through the outer surface, remain continually damp." The same writer adds that at that time (1752) the _búcaros_ proceeding from the Indies were of finer workmanship, and had a more agreeable smell than those of Spanish manufacture. "In the Encyclopædia," he continues, "and in the Dictionary of Natural History, we read that Spanish ladies are for ever chewing _búcaro_, and that the hardest penance their confessors can inflict upon them is to deprive them for a single day of this enjoyment." Bowles, however, quotes these observations in a scornful tone, and deprecates the habit of "believing writers who without inquiring into things, concoct and publish novels to divert the populace and rid them of their money." Turning our attention once again to the finer kinds of Talavera ware, Gestoso adduces proofs that this as well as Chinese porcelain was faultlessly and freely imitated in the potteries of Seville. Here, therefore, is a source of fresh confusion; and probably a great proportion of the polychrome ware which goes by the name of Talaveran is really of Sevillian origin. It is further known that at one period, which seems to begin with the second half of the sixteenth century, potters who were natives of Talavera were hired to work in Seville. [Illustration: LXX TALAVERA VASE] It has not been ascertained when Talavera herself grew celebrated for this industry. García Llansó supposes that at first, before it felt the influence of Italy and France, her pottery was partly Mudejar, and vestiges of oriental art survive in fairly late examples. The characteristic colour-scheme was either blue on white, or else the decoration is more variegated. Riaño says:--"Although we find by the remarks we have quoted from contemporary authors that earthenware of every description was made at Talavera, the specimens which are more generally met with may be divided into two groups, which are painted on a white ground, either in blue, or in colours, in the manner of Italian maiolica. The most important examples which have reached us consist of bowls of different sizes, dishes, vases (Plate lxx.), _tinajas_, holy-water vessels, medicine jars, and wall decoration. Blue oriental china was imitated to a vast extent: the colouring was successful, but the design was an imitation of the baroque school of the time, and the figures, landscapes, and decoration follow the bad taste so general in Spain in the eighteenth century. The imitations of Italian maiolica are effective. The colours most commonly used are manganese, orange, blue, and green." Talavera maintained her reputation for pottery till nearly the middle of the eighteenth century, supporting more than six hundred workmen employed in eight large potteries.[97] From then onwards the trade declined, and by the close of the same century was practically dead, owing, Larruga tells us, to the constantly increasing cost of prime materials. Nevertheless, the Crown made efforts to revive the craft, and met with some success till 1777, in which year four establishments (locally known as _barrerías_) for making common pottery were opened in the same town, and speedily crushed their rivals. "The potteries of Talavera," wrote Laborde soon after this, "were greatly celebrated for many years, and supplied a lucrative and important branch of commerce. They are evidently on the decline. The manufactories are reduced to seven or eight. These productions no longer exhibit the same delicacy of execution. Their designs are also lamentably defective. The material employed in them is a certain earth which is found near Calera, three leagues from Talavera." [97] "On y fait," wrote Alvarez de Colmenar, "des ouvrages vernissés d'une façon ingénieuse, avec des peintures variées de bon goût; on estime ces ouvrages autant que ceux de Pise et des Indes Orientales, et on en fournit plusieurs provinces. Ce négoce rend plus de cinquante mille ducats par an."--_Annales d'Espagne et de Portugal_; Vol. II., p. 187. This work is dated 1740, but my copy is reprinted from another edition published earlier in the century. The older Talavera ware, decorated, as a rule, with horses, birds, hunting-scenes, or coats of arms, is seldom met with nowadays. Although it is not particularly choice, the drawing is firm, and the colouring vigorous and agreeable. I have said that pottery continued to be made in Aragon, at Muel, Villafeliche, and other places. In course of time these local industries were also suffered to decay. Laborde says that early in the nineteenth century the Villafeliche factory employed thirty-eight workmen. "The ware is of a very inferior sort. This article might be carried to a greater extent. In several parts of the province, earth is found of an excellent quality for earthenware, particularly in Zaragoza and in Tauste; the latter affords the best, which is very fine, and of three colours, and would answer for the making of porcelain." In the eighteenth century Toledo, upon the initiative of Don Ignacio Velasco, produced good imitations of Genoese ware, while other kinds of pottery were made at Teruel, Valladolid, Jaen, Zamora, Segovia, Puente del Arzobispo, and in the Balearic Islands. Another region which continued to be a most important centre of the potter's craft was Cataluña, where it had always been encouraged by this thrifty and art-loving people. As early as the year 1257 two potters occupied a place upon the municipal council of Barcelona, while the potters' guild was strictly regulated from the beginning of the fourteenth century.[98] At the same time two whole streets in the centre of the town, as well as others in the suburbs, were occupied by potters. The ancient names of these streets are yet retained in the Calles Escudillers, Escudillers Blancs (white varnished pottery), Obradors (where many of the potteries were situated), and Tallers (_i.e._ the potteries for producing common ware). [98] For a sketch of the origin and growth of the Spanish trade guilds, see Appendix H. The pottery of Cataluña generally was largely exported to Sicily, Alexandria, and other parts. Among the places in this region which produced it were Tarragona, Tortosa, and Villafranca. In 1528 the municipal council of the capital herself forbade, as a protective measure, the introduction into Barcelona of local pottery made at Malgrat, La Selva, and other towns and villages of this neighbourhood. In 1546 the Portuguese Barreyros declared in his work _Chorografía de algunos lugares_ that the Barcelona ware surpassed all other classes made in Spain, including the Valencian. She continued to produce good pottery all through the sixteenth century, and excellent common ware until considerably later.[99] [99] _Historia General del Arte._--Vol. II.: _Cerámica_, by García Llansó. About the beginning of the eighteenth century Laborde mentioned as working centres of this craft "manufactories of delf-ware at Avilés, Gijón, Oviedo, Nava, and Cangas de Onis, in the Asturias; at Segovia in Old Castile; at Puente del Arzobispo and Talavera de la Reina in New Castile; at Seville in the kingdom of that name; at Villafeliche in Aragon; at Onda, Alcora, and Manises, in the kingdom of Valencia; at San Andero in Biscay; and at Tortosa in Cataluña.... The most important of these potteries is the one at Alcora, the delf of which is tolerably fine, though not of the first quality. No china is made, except at Alcora and Madrid: that of the former place is very common, and inconsiderable as to quantity. The china manufactured at Madrid is beautiful, and without exaggeration may be considered as equalling that of Sèvres. It is a royal pottery; but it is impossible to give any description of its state, because admission to the interior of the manufactory is strictly prohibited." Ricord states in his pamphlet relative to Valencian industries that in 1791 factories of high-class pottery were working in the kingdom of Valencia, at Onda, Alcora, Ribesalves, Manises, Eslida, and Bechí; and of common ware at San Felipe, Morella, Manises, Murviedro, Alicante, Moncada, Orihuela, Segorbe, and other towns and villages of this locality. In all, there were throughout the province eighty-seven of these latter potteries, besides two hundred and twenty tileries, and four factories of artistic tiles or _azulejos_ established at Valencia. The yearly output of these _azulejerias_ was 150,000 tiles, 20,000 of which were exported to Andalusia and Castile. Although the pottery of Alcora only achieved distinction at a later age, this craft had long been practised in the neighbourhood. This circumstance induced the Count of Aranda to found here, in 1726, a large factory for producing costly and artistic ware. Riaño obtained permission to examine the archives of the family of Aranda, with their mass of documents relating to this enterprise. His notice of Alcora ware is therefore most complete and valuable, and has been copied, frequently without acknowledgment, by almost every writer on the subject. It appears from these archives that the cost of building and opening the factory of Alcora amounted to about £10,000. The works were placed beneath the supervision of Don Joaquín Joseph de Sayas, at the same time that a Frenchman named Ollery was engaged at a good salary and brought from Moustiers to act as principal draughtsman. A couple of years later Count Aranda paid Ollery the high compliment of saying that "the fine and numerous models which he has designed, have contributed to make my manufacture the first in Spain." He seems to have retired in 1737, when the Count rewarded him with a yearly pension of five hundred francs besides the amount of his salary, "for his especial zeal in the improvement of the manufactory, and his great skill in directing the construction of every kind of work." Riaño adds that from this date until the manufacture of porcelain in 1764, only Spanish artists worked at Alcora. The products of this factory continued to improve, and reached, in course of time, a yearly total of about three hundred thousand objects. The ordinances, which are dated between 1732 and 1733, tell us that "in these works of ours no pottery should be made except the very finest, similar to the Chinese, and of as fine an earth. The models and wheels should be perfect, the drawing first-rate, the varnish and colours excellent, and the pottery light and of the highest quality, for it is our express wish that the best pottery should only be distinguished from that of an inferior kind by the greater or less amount of painting which covers it." Not less interesting are certain communications, copied by Riaño, which passed in 1746 between the Spanish Tribunal of Commerce and the Count of Aranda, in which it is stated that "the perfection of the earthenware of Alcora consists in the excellent models which have been made by competent foreign artists, as well as in the quality of the earth and the recipes brought at great cost from abroad." We learn from the same document that "from the earliest period of the manufacture, pyramids with figures of children, holding garlands of flowers and baskets of fruits on their heads, were made with great perfection; also brackets, centre and three-cornered tables, large objects, some as large as five feet high, to be placed upon them, chandeliers, cornucopias, statues of different kinds, and animals of different sorts and sizes. The entire ornamentation of a room has also been made here; the work is so perfect that nothing in Spain, France, Italy, or Holland could equal it in merit." It is not necessary to follow in close detail all the modifications and vicissitudes (extending over quite a hundred years) which affected the Alcora factory. I therefore only take some general notices from Riaño. In 1750 Count Aranda transferred the works to a private company, which remained in possession of them until 1766. In 1741 a Frenchman named François Haly was engaged for ten years, and with a yearly salary of rather more than a thousand francs, under the following conditions:-- "That the travelling expenses of his wife and children should be given him, and that his salary should be paid as soon as he made before the Director and two competent judges the different kinds of porcelain which he had undertaken to make." Haly agreed to surrender his recipes, and it was promised him that he should have two modellers and one painter working by his side, and that if in one year his porcelain were satisfactory, the Count would make him a present of a thousand _tornoises_.[100] [100] Riaño; _Handbook_; pp. 182, 183. Porcelain was first produced at Alcora towards the middle of the eighteenth century. A contract was drawn up on March 24th, 1764, with a German called John Christian Knipfer, who had already worked there in the pottery section. By the original agreement, which exists in the archives, we find he was to prepare works of "porcelain and painting similar to those made at Dresden, during a period of six years, under the following conditions:-- "That the said Knipfer obliges himself to make and teach the apprentices the composition and perfection of porcelain paste, its varnishes, and colours, and whatever he may know at the present time, or discover during this period of six years; he is not to prevent the Director of the Works from being present at all the essays made. "The said Knipfer offers to make and varnish porcelain, and to employ gold and silver in its decoration, and in that of the ordinary wares; likewise the colours of crimson, purple, violet, blues of different shades, yellow, greens, browns, reds, and black. "That Knipfer will give up an account of his secrets, and the management and manner of using them, in order that in all times the truth of what he has asserted may be verified." [Illustration: LXXI ORNAMENT IN PORCELAIN OF THE BUEN RETIRO] In 1774 a Frenchman named François Martin was engaged to make "hard paste porcelain, Japanese faïence, English paste (pipeclay), and likewise to mould and bake it: the necessary materials to be provided by the Count of Aranda." Riaño says that the combined assistance of Knipfer and Martin went far to better the products of the factory. Martin died in 1786, and Knipfer left soon afterwards. A Frenchman was now engaged, whose services proved also beneficial to the works. This was Pierre Cloostermans, "a skilful man, well versed in the manufacture of porcelain pastes, as well as in painting and decorating them." Cloostermans, however, was much molested by the envy of the Spanish workmen at Alcora, as well as by their typical intolerance in matters of religion, although the Count, his master, behaved towards him with the utmost kindness. Under his supervision, the quality of Alcora ware was notably improved. Figures and groups of many kinds were attempted, and even Wedgwood jasper ware was creditably imitated. In 1789, among other pottery that was sent to Madrid were "two hard paste porcelain cups, adorned with low relief in the English style." The most important one was moulded by Francisco Garcés, the garlands and low reliefs by Joaquín Ferrer, sculptor, the flowers on the covers by an apprentice, helped by Cloostermans. Dated in the same year (1789), Riaño quotes an interesting letter from the Count of Aranda to Don Pedro Abadia, his steward. "I wish," he said, "to export the porcelain of my manufactory, but chiefly in common objects, such as cups of different kinds, tea and coffee services, etc. These may be varied in form and colour, the principal point being that the paste should bear hot liquids, for we Spaniards above everything wish that nothing we buy should ever break. By no means let time be wasted in making anything that requires much loss of time. The chief object is that the pastes should be of first-rate excellence and durability." In 1793 Cloostermans was driven from the country by political disturbances; but he was allowed to return in 1795, and resumed his duties at the factory. All through these years Alcora continued to make most excellent pottery. Essays were made with foreign earths, as well as with the best that could be found in Spain. About this time kaolin was discovered in Cataluña, and the Count was particularly anxious that this native product should be utilised at Alcora. "The kaolin of Cataluña," he wrote in 1790, "may be good or bad, but it is acknowledged to be kaolin, and if we do not employ it I must close my works." The Count of Aranda and Pierre Cloostermans both died in 1798, and in 1800 the Duke of Hijar became the manager and proprietor of the potteries. "Two hundred workmen were employed, and pottery of every description was made, common earthenware, pipeclays in imitation of the English ones, and porcelain in small quantities; common wares were made in large quantities; the pipeclays were pronounced superior to the English in brilliancy, but were so porous that they were easily stained. A large number of snuff-boxes and other small objects belong to this period."--(Riaño.) In the early years of the nineteenth century Alcora ware deteriorated not a little. This decline was further aggravated by the French invasion; and although an attempt was subsequently made to revive the industry by bringing craftsmen from the porcelain factory of Madrid, it suffered fresh relapses and produced henceforward little but the commonest kinds of ware. "This system," says Riaño, "continued until 1858, when the Duke of Hijar sold the manufactory to Don Ramón Girona, who brought over English workmen from Staffordshire in order to improve the wares. Many imitations of the older styles have also been made at Alcora of late years." Riaño appends instructive tables, which I copy in Appendix I, of every kind of pottery manufactured at Alcora. He also believes that a great deal of pottery which was formerly thought to proceed from French or English factories is really of Alcora make, including "a great quantity of objects of white pipeclay porcelain which have been found of late years in Spain. They have hitherto been classified by amateurs as Leeds pottery. We find, in papers relating to Alcora, that a decided distinction is made between white and straw-coloured pottery. This indication may be sufficient to distinguish it from English wares." The celebrated Royal Porcelain Factory of the Buen Retiro at Madrid, formerly situated in the public gardens of that name and popularly known as the "Fabrica de la China," was founded in 1759 by Charles the Third, who erected a vast edifice for this purpose, and filled it with a multitude of workmen and their families, including two hundred and twenty-five persons whom he brought over from his other factory of Capo-di-Monte in Italy. He also transferred a great part of the material.[101] The cost of the new works amounted to eleven and a half millions of _reales_, and they were terminated in 1764. The cost of keeping up the factory is stated by Larruga to have amounted to three millions of _reales_ yearly. The first directors were Juan Tomás Bonicelli and Domingo Bonicelli, and the first modellers-in-chief and superintendents, possessing the secrets of the fabrication (_secretistas_), were Cayetano Schepers and Carlos Gricci. [101] On September 11th, 1759, the king wrote to his Secretary of State, Richard Wall:--"The workmen and utensils of the Royal Porcelain Manufactory of Capo-di-Monte must also be sent from Naples to Alicante, in the vessels prepared for this purpose, in order to proceed from Alicante to Madrid. The necessary conveyances are to be provided, and the expenses to be charged to his Majesty's account." Riaño says that every kind of porcelain was made at the Buen Retiro, "hard and soft paste, white china, glazed or unglazed, or painted and modelled in the style of Capo-di-Monte." A great many objects existed imitating the blue jasper ware of Wedgwood, and they also made flowers, coloured and biscuit, groups (Pl. lxxi.), and single figures, and painted porcelain of different kinds. Great quantities of tiles for pavements were also made there, which may still be seen at the Casa del Labrador at Aranjuez: they are mentioned in the accounts which exist at the Ministry of Finance for 1807 and 1808. We find in these same accounts interesting details of the objects made monthly. In January, 1808, a large number of figures were made, including 151 heads for the table centre which was made for the king, 306 objects ornamented with paintings, 2506 tiles, 577 objects of less artistic importance, such as dishes, plates, etc. The finest specimens which exist are in the Neapolitan style, and are two rooms at the palaces of Madrid and Aranjuez, of which the walls are completely covered with China plaques and looking-glasses, modelled in the most admirable manner with figures, fruits, and flowers. The room at Aranjuez is covered with a bold ornamentation of figures in the Japanese style, in high relief, painted with colours and gold with the most exquisite details. The figures unite the fine Italian modelling with the Japanese decoration. The chandelier is in the same style (Plate lxxii.). Upon a vase on the wainscot to the right of the entrance door is the following inscription:-- JOSEPH GRICCI DELINEAV^{it} ET SCUL^{it} 1763. This same date is repeated in the angles, and in some shields near the roof we find, "AÑO 1765; probably the year the work was terminated." [Illustration: LXXII ROOM DECORATED WITH PORCELAIN OF THE BUEN RETIRO (_Royal Palace of Aranjuez_)] The earliest mark upon the Buen Retiro porcelain was a blue fleur-de-lis, to which were subsequently added the letter M and a royal crown. Still later, in the reign of Charles the Fourth, the mark used was a fleur-de-lis with two crossed C's. The object of the Buen Retiro Factory was almost wholly to supply the Crown with costly ware, and would-be visitors were jealously excluded. Townsend wrote in 1786: "I tried to obtain admission to the china manufacture, which is likewise administered on the king's account, but his Majesty's injunctions are so severe, that I could neither get introduced to see it, nor meet with anyone who had ever been able to procure that favour for himself. I was the less mortified upon this occasion, because from the specimens which I have seen, both in the palace at Madrid and in the provinces, it resembles the manufacture of Sèvres, which I had formerly visited in a tour through France." Laborde also complained that the factory was "wholly inaccessible: all entrance to it is interdicted, and its existence is only ascertained by the exhibition which is made of its productions in the royal palace." The same writer refers to another class of work which was produced here, namely, stone mosaic. "The process by which stone is wrought into pictures is as delicate as it is curious: a selection is made from marble fragments of various shades and dimensions, which are found, by judicious assimilation, to produce no bad resemblance to painting." Jean François de Bourgoing, French Minister at Madrid, was lucky enough, in 1782, to penetrate into the factory and view the process. "Le Monarque actuel," he wrote, "a établi dans leur intérieur une fabrique de porcelaine, dont l'entrée est jusqu'à présent interdite à tout le monde. On veut sans doute que ses essais se perfectionnent dans le silence, avant de les exposer aux regards des curieux. Ses productions ne peuvent encore se voir que dans les Palais du Souverain, ou dans quelques Cours d'Italie, auxquelles il les envoie en présens. On travaille dans le même édifice à certains ouvrages de marqueterie, qui sont encore peu connus en Europe. J'y pénétrai un jour, sous les auspices d'un étranger distingué en faveur duquel le Roi avoit levé la prohibition rigoureuse, qui en exclut tout le monde. Je suis témoin de la patience and de l'adresse avec lesquelles on taille and on rapproche divers petits morceaux de marbre coloré, pour en former des tableaux assez compliqués, qui en faisant à-peu-près le même effet que la peinture, ont sur elle l'avantage de braver par leur couleur immortelles les ravages du temps, qui n'épargnent pas les plus belles productions de cet art."[102] [102] _Nouveau Voyage en Espagne_; Vol. I., pp. 232, 233. This factory was not long-lived. Until 1803 it followed the styles of the older establishment at Capo-di-Monte, uniting neo-classic motives with the manner of Baroque. In that year it began to produce porcelain imitating that of Sèvres, and two Frenchmen, Vivien and Victor Perche, were brought from Paris to superintend this change. "Among the finest specimens of this period," says Riaño, "are a splendid clock and four vases, two mètres high, with porcelain flowers, which exist in one of the state rooms of the Palace of Madrid. The vases are placed in the four corners of the room. The clock is ornamented with large biscuit figures. A large number of vases of Retiro china exist at the royal palaces of Madrid, Aranjuez, and the Escorial. They are often finely mounted in gilt bronze with muslin or porcelain flowers. The blue of the imitations of Wedgwood is not so pure, nor is the biscuit work so fine as the English. Gold is often added to these specimens." [Illustration: LXXIII PORCELAIN OF THE MONCLOA FACTORY] Nevertheless, this manufacture was by now decadent. It had suffered severely from the death of Charles the Third, and upon the French invasion in 1808 was seized by the enemy and occupied by them for several months. During the reign of the "_intruso_," Joseph Buonaparte, porcelain was still produced to some extent; but by the time of the Peninsular campaign the works had practically ceased. "Near this quarter," wrote Ford, describing the Retiro gardens, towards the middle of last century, "was _La China_, or the royal porcelain manufactory, that was destroyed by the invaders, and made by them into a fortification, which surrendered, with two hundred cannon, August 14th, 1812, to the Duke. It was blown up October 30th, by Lord Hill, when the misconduct of Ballesteros compelled him to evacuate Madrid. Now _La China_ is one of the standing Spanish and _afrancesado_ calumnies against us, as it is stated that we, the English, destroyed this manufactory from commercial jealousy, because it was a rival to our potteries. 'What can be done (as the Duke said) with such libels but despise them. There is no end of the calumnies against me and the army, and I should have no time to do anything else if I were to begin either to refute or even to notice them?' (Disp., Oct. 16, 1813.) These china potsherds and similar inventions of the enemy shivered against his iron power of conscious superiority. "The real plain _truth_ is this. The French broke the _ollas_, and converted this Sèvres of Madrid into a Bastile, which, and not the pipkins, was destroyed by the English, who now, so far from dreading any Spanish competition, have actually introduced their system of pottery; and accordingly very fair china is now made at Madrid and Seville, and by English workmen. At the latter place a convent, also converted by Soult into a citadel, is now made a hardware manufactory by our countryman, Mr Pickman. Ferdinand the Seventh, on his restoration, re-created _La China_, removing the workshops and warerooms to La Moncloa, once a villa of the Alva family on the Manzanares." This factory of La Moncloa was founded in 1816, and it continued working until 1849. A specimen of the Moncloa ware is reproduced in Plate lxxiii. Outside the royal palaces of Spain, the Buen Retiro porcelain is scarce. The choicest collections which are not the property of the Crown belong, or have belonged till recently, to the Marquis of Arcicollar, the Count of Valencia de Don Juan, and Don Francisco Laiglesia. [Illustration] GLASS Small vessels of uncoloured glass, belonging to the Celtic period, have been discovered in Galicia; so that the origin of this industry in Spain is possibly pre-Roman. After the conquest glass was made here by the Romans,[103] who built their ovens with a celebrated argil (potter's earth) extracted from the neighbourhood of Valencia or Tortosa. The Roman glass was doubtless imitated by the native Spaniards: at least we know from observations by Saint Isidore that this substance was quite familiar to the Visigoths. "Olim fiebat et in Italia, et per Gallias, et Hispaniam arena alba mollissima pila mola qua terebatur." The same author speaks with admiration of coloured glass-work imitating precious stones. "Tingitur etiam multis modis, ita ut hyacinthos, saphirosque et virides imitetur et oniches vel aliarum gemmarum colores"; and again; "Fingunt enim eas ex diverso genere nigro, candido, minioque colore. Nam pro lapide pretiosissimo smaragdo quidam vitrum arte inficiunt, et fallit oculos sub dolo quadam falsa irriditas quoadusque non est qui probet simulatum et arguat: sic et alia alio atque alio modo. Neque enim est sine fraude ulla vita mortalium." We gather from these statements that coloured glass in imitation of the genuine precious stone was freely manufactured by the Visigoths. Such imitations, justifying by their excellence Saint Isidore's assertion that "vera a falsis discernere magna difficultas est," may still be seen upon the crowns and other ornaments discovered at Guarrazar (see Vol. I., pp. 15-29), as well as upon triptyches and weapons. Indeed, a taste for imitation jewels forms an inherent trait of Spanish character, and is discoverable at all moments of the national history. Travellers have constantly observed it, and the remarks, already quoted, of Countess d'Aulnoy, are confirmed by other authors. "In the broken banks south of the river," wrote Swinburne of the Manzanares at Madrid, "are found large quantities of pebbles, called Diamonds of Saint Isidro. They cut them like precious stones, and ladies of the first fashion wear them in their hair as pins, or on their fingers as rings. They have little or no lustre, and a very dead glassy water. The value of the best rough stone does not exceed a few pence." [103] "Jam vero et per Gallias Hispaniasque simili modo harenæ temperantur."--Pliny, Bk. xxxvi; Chap. 66. The chief centres of glass-making were Tarragona, several towns of Betica (Andalusia), and the Balearic Islands. It is chiefly in the form of imitation gems that specimens of the earliest Spanish glass have been preserved until our time,[104] although the characteristic of old Roman glass which is known in Italian as the _lattocinio_ or "milk-white" ornament, in the form of a thread or line carried all over the surface of a vessel, remains until this day a common feature of the glass of Spain, besides being found in Spanish-Moorish glass-work. [104] The distinction which Riaño attempts to draw between glass and glass paste is unsatisfactory. He remarks, too, that the manufacture of glass _may_ have existed in Spain at an earlier period than the last three centuries, but continues: "The earliest mention of glass-works in Spain will be found in Pliny, who, while explaining the proceedings which were employed in this industry, says that glass was made in a similar manner in France and Spain." Rico y Sinobas says that the rules for cutting glass by means of a diamond or _naife_ (as it was once called) are embodied in a treatise titled _El Lapidario_, originally written (perhaps in the fourth, fifth, or sixth century) in Hebrew, and which was brought to Spain some two or three hundred years later. This treatise was translated into Arabic by one Abolais, who lived at some time previous to the thirteenth century, and subsequently (in the year 1248, and by command of Alfonso the Learned) into the Castilian language. Mixed up with a great deal of fabulous and fantastic matter, this treatise contains instructive and interesting notices of the composition and the colouring of old glass, including that of Spain. One of such notices is the following. "Of the eleventh degree of the sign of Sagittarius is the glass stone, containing a substance which is a body in itself (sand), and another which is added to it (salt), and when they clean these substances and draw them from the fire, they make between the two a single body. The stone thus made (glass) has many colours. Sometimes it is white (and this is nobler and better than the others), or sometimes it is red, or green, or _xade_ (a dark, burnt colour), or purple. It is a stone which readily melteth in the fire, but which, when drawn therefrom, turneth again to its former substance: and if it be drawn from the flame unseasonably, and without cooling it little by little, it snappeth asunder. And it receiveth readily whatever colour be placed upon it. And if an animal be hurt therewith, it openeth as keen a wound as though it were of iron." The treatise also describes a stone called _ecce_, which was used in glassmaking, saying that it was found in Spain, "in a mountain, not of great height, which overlooks the town of Arraca, and is called Secludes. And the stone is of an intense black colour, spotted with yellow drops. It is shiny and porous, brittle, and of light weight ... and if it be ground up with honey, and the glass be smeared with it and submitted to the fire, it dyes the glass of a beautiful gold colour, and makes it stronger than it was before, so that it does not melt so readily, or snap asunder with such ease." I have said that the power of a diamond to cut glass is referred to in the same work, which further tells us that this gem "breaketh all other kind of stones, boring holes in them or cutting them, and no other stone is able to bruise it; nay more, it powdereth all other stones if it be rubbed upon them ... and such as seek to cut or perforate those other stones take portions of a diamond, small and slender and sharp-pointed, and mount them on slips of silver or of copper, and with them make the holes or cuttings they require. Thus do they grave and carve intaglios." All these branches of glassmaking were therefore practised by the Spaniards from an early period of their history. This people were also familiar with the use of emery powder, of talc applied to covering windows, and of rock crystal. We read in the translation of Abolais that crystal at that time was "found in many parts, albeit the finest is that of Ethiopia. The substance which composes it is frozen water, petrified. And the proof of this is that when it is broken, small grains are discovered to be within, that made their entry as it was becoming stone (crystallizing); or again, in some of it is found what seems to be clear water. And it possesses two qualities in which it is distinct from every other stone: for when crystal is heated it receiveth any colouring that is applied to it, and is wrought with greater ease, besides being melted by fire; insomuch that it can be made into any shape desired; and if this shape be round, and the stone be set in the sun, it burneth anything inflammable that be set before it: yet does it not effect this by any virtue of its own, but by _the clearness of its substance_, and by the sunbeams which beat upon it, and by the roundness of its form." We seem to foreshadow here, clearly enough, the application of this substance to making glasses to assist the sight, especially when the author of the treatise adds that on looking through the crystal, the human eye discovers "details of the greatest beauty, and things that are secreted from the simple (_i.e._ the unaided) vision." Rico y Sinobas (who possessed a fine collection of antique glass, Spanish and non-Spanish) inclined to think that in the time of the Romans the finest and strongest glass, as well as the costliest and the most sought after, was that which was manufactured in Spain. In early times the chief centres of Spanish glass-making were situated in the heart of the Peninsula (where now is New Castile), in the neighbourhood of Tortosa, and in certain districts lying between the Pyrenees and the coast of Cataluña, though subsequently the practice of this craft extended through the kingdoms of Valencia and Murcia, and the valleys of Ollería, Salinas, Busot, and the Rio Almanzora, forming a zone which reached from Cape Creus to Cape Gata. Other regions in which the craft was introduced, apparently at a later epoch, were those of the Mediterranean littoral, Cuenca, Toledo, Avila, Segovia, and other parts of New Castile, as far as the slopes of the Sierra de Guadarrama. In the rest of the Peninsula there is not the slightest indication (excepting an obscure reference by Strabo, to vessels and receptacles of _wax_) that glass was made during the Roman domination of the country, either in Andalusia, Lusitania (Portugal), or in the northern regions of Cantabria. Rico y Sinobas has described a Spanish glass-oven of those primitive times. He says that such as were used for making objects of a fair size consisted of three compartments resting one upon the other; the lowest cylindrical, to hold the fire and ashes, the next with a domed top, for concentrating the heat, and the third and uppermost, which also had a domed top, for holding the pieces of glass that were set to cool by slow degrees. The wall of the oven contained a number of openings, which served, according to the level at which they were situated, for controlling the fire, adjusting the crucibles, or extracting, by means of metal rods, the lumps of molten glass, previously to submitting them to the action of the blowpipe. The dimensions of such of these primitive ovens as have been found in Spain or Italy, are nine feet in height by six feet in diameter, and the material of which they are built is argil, of a kind insensible to heat, and carefully freed by washing from all foreign, soluble, or inflammable substances. The crucibles, which were fitted in the oven two, four, or at most six at a time, were of this argil also, wrought and purified with even greater care. Ovens and crucibles of a smaller size were used for making diminutive objects such as beads and imitation precious stones.[105] [105] Rico y Sinobas, _Del Vidrio y de sus artifices en España (Almanaque del Museo de la Industria_, 1870). Almería was probably the most important centre of Spanish-Moorish glass-making, and is mentioned in connection with this craft by Al-Makkari. The oriental shape of the older vessels which were made in this locality is still preserved in certain objects such as jars, bowls, flasks, and _aguardiente_-bottles, which are still manufactured, or were so until quite recently, throughout a region extending from Almería to the slopes of the Alpujarra. "All these objects," says Riaño, "are decorated with a serrated ornamentation of buttons, trellis-work, and the lines to which I have already alluded, which were placed there after the object was made, in the Roman style. The paste is generally of a dark green colour, and when we find these same features in vessels of clear white glass, we may affirm that they are contemporary imitations made at Cadalso or elsewhere, for they are very seldom to be met with in the provinces of Almería and Granada, and are generally found at Toledo and other localities; it is, moreover, a common condition of oriental art that its general form complies with a geometrical tracery, and we never find, as in Italian works of art, forms and capricious ornamentations which interfere with the symmetry of the general lines, and sacrifice them to the beauty of the whole." None of the original Moorish glass of the Alhambra has survived till nowadays. Most of it was destroyed by the explosion, in the year 1590, of a powder factory which lay immediately beneath the palace and beside the river Darro. In the Alhambra archives, particular mention is made of the circular glass windows or "eyes," only the corresponding holes of which remain, in the baths of the same palace. This glass, which may have been in colour, was also destroyed by the explosion, as were the windows, "painted in colour with fancy devices and Arabic lettering," of the Sala de Embajadores,[106] those of the Hall of the Two Sisters, and certain windows, "painted with many histories and royal arms," belonging to the church of the Alhambra. [106] Oliver, _Granada y sus monumentos árabes_. Excellent glass, reported by some authors to have equalled that of Venice, was made at Barcelona from as early as the thirteenth century. An inventory of the Crown of Aragon, dated A.D. 1389 and quoted by García Llansó, mentions as manufactured here, glass sweetmeat-vessels, cups, and silver-mounted tankards blazoned with the royal arms. The guild of Barcelona glassmakers was founded in 1455, and later in the same century Jerónimo Paulo wrote that "glass vessels of varying quality and shape, and which may well compete with the Venetian, are exported to Rome and other places." Similar statements are made by Marineus Siculus and Gaspar Barreyros. Other centres of Spanish glass-making were Caspe in Aragon, Seville, Valencia,[107] Pinar de la Vidriera, Royo Molino (near Jaen,) El Recuenco (Guadalajara), Cebreros (Avila), Medina del Campo, Venta del Cojo, Venta de los Toros de Guisando, and Castiel de la Peña in Castile. The glass-works of Castiel de la Peña were founded by the intelligent and indefatigable Hernando de Zafra, secretary to the Catholic sovereigns, Ferdinand and Isabella. "It has been calculated," says Riaño, "that about two tons of sand were used at these glass-works every month." [107] The inventory (A.D. 1560) of the Dukes of Alburquerque mentions "a white box with four small bottles of Valencia glass containing ointment for the hands." Other objects specified in this inventory are "a large glass cup, with two lizards for handles, and two more lizards on the cover"; "three glass cocoanuts, partly coloured and with gold blown into them, together with their covers"; and "a large glass cup, of Barcelona, blown with gold." The value of these cups, if they existed now, would not be less than two or three hundred pounds apiece. More important than the foregoing was the famous factory of a village in Toledo province called Cadalso, or sometimes, from the nature of its only industry, Cadalso (or Cadahalso) de los Vidrios. The glass made here is mentioned in terms of high praise by various writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, such as Marineus Siculus and Mendez Silva. The former of these authors says in his work upon the _Memorable Things of Spain_: "Glass was produced in several towns of Castile, the most important being that of Cadalso, which supplied the whole kingdom." Ewers and bottles of Cadalso glass are mentioned in the Alburquerque inventory. Mendez Silva says that the number of ovens was originally three, and that their coloured glass was equal to Venetian (Plate lxxiv.). This was towards the middle of the seventeenth century. Larruga tells us that by the end of the eighteenth this local industry was languishing. One of the three ovens had been abandoned. The other two produced inferior glass, as well as in diminished quantities. [Illustration: LXXIV VESSELS OF SPANISH GLASS (_South Kensington Museum_)] The glass of Cataluña maintained its ancient reputation all through the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and part of the seventeenth, and at this time was still compared with the Venetian by observant travellers (Plate lxxv.). Besides the capital, the principal glass-works in this province were at Almatret, Moncada, Cervelló, and Mataró. In 1489 a Barcelonese, by name Vicente Sala, and his sons applied to the City Council for leave to construct an oven at Moncada "in order to pursue the craft of glass-making, _lo qual a present aci se obre axi bellament e suptil com en part del mon_ (seeing that the glass we manufacture in this neighbourhood competes with any in the world for subtlety and beauty)." A document is extant from which we learn that the City Councillors of Barcelona made strenuous efforts to prevail upon Ferdinand the Catholic to abolish a certain monopoly or other form of exclusive privilege which he had conceded to a local glass-maker. The result of this appeal is not recorded. In 1503 Ferdinand presented his consort with two hundred and seventy-four glass objects made at Barcelona, and Philip the Second possessed a hundred and nineteen pieces proceeding from the same locality. [Illustration: LXXV VESSELS OF CATALAN GLASS (_From Drawings by the Author_)] An important development of this craft was the manufacture of coloured glass for churches and cathedrals. In the Peninsula, the earliest introducers of this branch of glass-making were principally natives of Germany, France, and Flanders, who came to Spain at the beginning of the fifteenth century.[108] Many of the oldest windows executed by these foreigners, or by the Spaniards who were taught by them, are still existing in the cathedrals of León, Toledo, Burgos, Barcelona, and the Seo of Zaragoza. León has several windows which date from as far back as the thirteenth century, and in which the glass is in small pieces, arranged as though it were mosaic. Some of the later and larger windows in the same cathedral are thirty-five feet high, and one, dating from the sixteenth century, is believed to have been presented to this temple by Mary of England, prior to her marriage with Philip the Second. [108] Before this time, however, Aymerich had written, in or about the year 1100, that sixty large windows in Santiago cathedral were closed by glass, which probably was coloured. We also hear of Francisco Socoma, who made or fitted windows of coloured glass at Palma, in the island of Majorca, in 1380, and of Guillermo de Collivella, who, in 1391, fitted at Lerida the glass which had been coloured for the cathedral of that town by Juan de San-Amat. It was, however, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries that the custom became general, in Spain as in other lands, of colouring the surface of white glass by partial fusing--a process which is mentioned in the treatise of Abolais, to which I have referred repeatedly. Between the eleventh and the thirteenth centuries the coloured windows of Spanish temples were still composed of pieces of glass united in the manner of mosaic, forming ornamental patterns of stars and similar devices; but subsequently to this period the decorative themes are said to be painted _en caballete_, and consist of figures, or the representation of scenes from Scripture. In Spain, and dating from the twelfth century, the workshops for preparing this coloured glass were commonly situated within the precincts of important temples, such as Toledo cathedral, or else, as was the case at Burgos, in separate buildings and _dependencias_. Here, in the square ovens characteristic of that age, and before it was mounted in the ponderous leaden frame, the glass was coloured with exquisite solicitude and patience by the hand of the master-craftsman, sometimes with a colour upon one of its surfaces alone, sometimes with the same colour upon both, or sometimes with a different colour upon either surface. The cartoons from which such windows were constructed, and which were often designed by painters of renown, were usually three in number. The first contained, upon a reduced scale, a coloured outline of the window; the second, drawn to the exact scale of the window as it was to be, was composed of all the pieces cut out and numbered according to the various colours; and the third, also of the projected size of the window, was kept complete, to serve as a pattern in case the window should suffer any accident, and require to be restored or mended. Not one of these cartoons is known to be preserved to-day, but Rico y Sinobas points out that from the strong and simple character of their colouring and outline, the illuminated illustrations of Spanish thirteenth century manuscripts, such as the _Cantigas_, and the _Book of Chess_ of Alfonso the Learned, may well have been utilized for, or else be copied from, glass windows of that period. As soon as the cartoon was finished, the window-painter traced it upon the surface of the glass. This was in square pieces, fitted conveniently together, with sufficient space between the pieces to allow the passage of the leads. Before being laid upon the glass and being submitted to the fixing action of fire, the colours were mixed with honey, urine, vinegar, and other fluids or substances which served as mediums to attach the colour to the glass. Thus prepared, and in the form of powder, the colours were allowed to dry for two or three days before the glass was placed in the oven. Yellow, which was the strongest colour, and that which penetrated deepest beneath the surface of the glass, was made from certain combinations of silver and nitrate of potash, while oxides or other forms of copper, lead, iron, tin, silver, and manganese, were used for making black, white, red, green, blue, purple, violet, or flesh-colour. These colours penetrated the glass to the depth of about half a millimetre; but sometimes, after the colour had been applied, the craftsman would submit the glass to friction by a wooden polisher or wheel, thus giving it an appearance of greater clearness and transparency at any spot he might desire. Among the artists who produced the coloured windows of León cathedral were Master Joan de Arge (A.D. 1424), Master Baldovín, and Rodrigo de Ferreras. Those of Toledo date from early in the fifteenth century, and were made by Albert of Holland, Vasco Troya, Luis Pedro Francés, Juan de Campos, and others, including the eminent Dolfín, who, according to Cean, began to work here in 1418, by order of the archbishop, Don Sancho de Rojas. The documents collected and published for the first time by Zarco del Valle tell us that on March 22nd, 1424, Dolfín received from Alfonso Martinez, treasurer and superintendent of works, two hundred gold florins and certain other moneys on account of his total payment of four hundred gold florins for "the eighth window he is making for the head of the cathedral." Other certificates of payment relating to Maestre Dolfín (as he always signed himself) are included in the same collection. By 1427 he was "defunct, God pardon him!" and the windows he had left unfinished were terminated by his assistant Lois (Louis).[109] [109] _Documentos Inéditos para la Historia de las Bellas Artes en España_, p. 282 _et seq._ In 1458, and also at Toledo, a friar named Pablo began to repair the painted windows of the _crucero_. His pay was fixed by the "abbot and superintendent of works" at fifty _maravedis_ each day, and that of "his lads, Ximeno and Juanico," at one half of this amount. Other artists engaged in the same work were Pablo (not the friar just referred to), Peter, a German, and "Master Henry," who was also German. Pablo received authority to purchase ten and a half _quintales_ and thirteen pounds of coloured Flemish glass, at two thousand _maravedis_ for each _quintal_. By a contract dated 1485 (he died between 1487 and 1493), Master Henry was handed by the cathedral authorities a sum of 150,000 _maravedis_ "to proceed to Flanders or any other part he may desire, and where good glass is to be found, white, blue, green, scarlet, purple, yellow, or blackish (_prieto_), equal in thickness to the sample which he bears, and bring us thence such quantity as he has need of for the windows of our cathedral." It is evident from this notice that Spain was then unable to produce the finest quality of glass. With such as he brought with him from abroad, Henry engaged to fashion "every kind of figure, image, scroll, and other object whatsoever be commanded him, according to the place it is to fill; the colours of the glass to be well mingled and distributed." He was also to make "the leaden casings stout and deep, so as to embrace and hold the glass aforesaid, that it may resist the air and wind." In return for this, he was to be supplied with an erected scaffolding, with all the chalk and iron he might require, and with the proper number of assistants, receiving, in payment of his labour, one hundred and fifteen _maravedis_ for every square palm of glass the preparation of which should satisfy the superintendent and examiners of works. One of the witnesses to this document was Henry's wife, María Maldonada, who came forward to affix her signature "with the license and pleasure of the aforesaid Master Enrique, her husband." In 1433, Master Juan (perhaps the same as Joan de Arge, already mentioned) began to work at the windows of Burgos, where, later in this century, he was succeeded by Juan de Valdivieso and Diego de Santillana. We learn from the _Documentos Inéditos_ (pp. 159, 160) that Santillana lived at Burgos, and that, on May 31st, 1512, he contracted to make three "historical windows" for the monastery of San Francisco, at a price of ninety-five _maravedis_ for each palm of glass, this to be "of good colours and shades," and "measured by the Burgos standard." Two other contracts are preserved, signed by the same craftsman and both relating to Palencia. By one of them Santillana is to receive for six "storied windows," the subjects of which are specified, ninety-five _maravedis_ the palm, besides the scaffolding and his house and coals. Arnao de Flandes (Arnold of Flanders) was appointed master glass-painter to Burgos cathedral in 1512. Other glass-painters who worked here in the sixteenth century were Francisco de Valdivieso, Gaspar Cotin, Juan de Arce, his son Juan and grandson Pedro, and, in the seventeenth century, Valentin Ruiz, Francisco Alonso, Simon Ruiz, and Francisco Alcalde. Most of the windows made by all these men have been destroyed by time and weather, and have been replaced by barren panes of white; but a few fine specimens of the original work may yet be seen in the chapels of the Presentation, the Constable, and San Jerónimo. Perhaps the most remarkable of any is the rose-window, above the Puerta del Sarmental.[110] [110] In the monastery of Miraflores, near this city, the queen of Ferdinand the Catholic built, at her expense, a rich pantheon to guard the ashes of her parents and her brother. The coloured glass was made by Simon of Cologne. One day, while visiting Miraflores, Isabella noticed upon the windows of this sanctuary the shield of a gentleman named Martin de Soria. Furious at the liberty thus taken with a fabric of her own, "afferte mihi gladium" she called in Latin to one of her attendants, and, raising the sword, dashed the offending window into a thousand pieces, crying that in that spot she would allow no arms but those of her father. Other good cathedral windows prior to the sixteenth century are those of Avila, which date from about the year 1497, and were executed by Diego de Santillana, Juan de Valdivieso, and other artists; those of the Seo of Zaragoza, by the Catalans Terri and Jayme Romeu (1447); and some at Barcelona, painted in 1494 by Gil Fontanet. It is, however, in the sixteenth century that Spanish ecclesiastical window-glass attains its highest grade of excellence.[111] Dating from this century are windows in Toledo cathedral, painted in 1503 by Vasco de Troya, in 1509 by Alejo Jiménez, in 1513 by Gonzalo de Córdoba (these are considered by competent judges to be the finest of any), in 1515 by Juan de la Cuesta, in 1522 by Juan Campos, in 1525 by Albert of Holland, in 1534 by Juan de Ortega, and in 1542 by Nicolás Vergara the elder.[112] In 1537 Ortega was engaged to repair the damaged or broken panes at a yearly salary of 11,250 _maravedis_. Where the panes were wanting, he was to replace them by new ones painted by his hand, receiving, for each _palmo_ of new glass so painted, an extra payment of ninety _maravedis_.[113] [111] Señor Lázaro, who has recently made at Madrid windows for León cathedral imitating those of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, remarks that with the sixteenth century the process grew more complicated, patterns composed with pieces of a single colour being replaced by glass containing a variety of tints. He has also discovered the following usage of the older Spanish craftsmen: "By way of furnishing a key to their arrangement, all the pieces used to be marked with the point of a diamond, and this mark indicates the tone the glass requires for such and such a part of the design. The signs most often employed were three, namely X, L, and V, for red, blue and yellow respectively, intermediate tones being shown by combinations of these letters--XL, LV, XV, with "lines of unities" placed before or after to indicate the necessary gradation in the tone." [112] This artist painted a series of magnificent windows representing scenes from the life of San Pedro Nolasco, for the convent of La Piedad, at Valencia. [113] Zarco del Valle, _Documentos Inéditos, etc._, pp. 339 _et seq._ In the same century the windows of Seville cathedral, begun some years previously (Cean says in 1504) by Micer Cristóbal Alemán ("Master Christopher the German"), were continued by Masters Jacobo, Juan Juan Vivan, Juan Bernai, Bernardino de Gelandia, Juan Jaques, Arnold of Flanders (1525), Arnao de Vergara (1525), Charles of Bruges, (1557), and Vicente Menandro (1557).[114] In 1562 Diego de Valdivieso, and in 1570 Pedro de Valdivieso and Gerald of Holland, painted windows for Cuenca cathedral. In 1542 the same work was done at Palencia by Diego de Salcedo, and in 1533 George of Burgundy, "master in the art of glass," then resident at Burgos, proceeded to the same town and engaged to renew the cathedral windows at a cost of a hundred _maravedis_ for every palm of coloured glass, and fifty for every palm of plain.[115] [114] According to Cean (_La Catedral de Sevilla_), Menandro painted in 1560 the conversion of Saint Paul on a window in the Chapel of Santiago, in 1567 another window with the scene of the Annunciation, over the gate of San Miguel, and in 1569 the companion to it, representing the Visitation, over the Puerta del Bautismo. "In all these windows," wrote Cean, prejudiced, as was customary in his day, in favour of the strictly classic style, "the drawing, pose, and composition are good, _although_ in the draperies and figures we observe the influence of Germany." In Cean's own time--that is, towards the close of the eighteenth century--the coloured windows of Seville Cathedral amounted to ninety-three, five of which were circular, and the rest with the pointed Gothic arch. The dimensions of the latter are twenty-eight feet high by twelve feet broad, and the subjects painted on them include the likenesses of prophets, patriarchs, martyrs, confessors, and virgins, or scenes from the New Testament, such as the rising of Lazarus, Christ driving the merchants from the temple, the Last Supper, and the anointing by Mary Magdalene. [115] Zarco del Valle, _Documentos Inéditos_, p. 159 In 1544, sixty-two windows in the nave of Segovia cathedral were filled with painted glass prepared chiefly at Valladolid and Medina del Campo, though some was brought from Flanders. The remaining windows were left unfilled till 1676, in which year a canon of the cathedral, named Tomás de la Plaza Aguirre, succeeded in rediscovering a formula for the practise of this craft, and the panes yet needed were made and coloured at Valdequemada by Juan Danis, under Plaza Aguirre's supervision. Thirty-three additional windows were completed from this factory. According to Lecea y García, the chapter of Segovia cathedral possess, or possessed for many years, two curious manuscripts relating severally to _The painting of glass windows_, by Francisco Herranz, and _Glass-making_, by Juan Danis--the same who owned and worked the factory at Valdequemada. These interesting treatises were examined by Bosarte, who has described them. He says that the one on glass-making consisted of twenty-three sheets of clear writing, and the one on glass-painting of eight sheets; both manuscripts being in quarto size. The latter contained, distributed beside the text, sketches of the various instruments required for this craft. The other and longer monograph consisted of the following chapters:--(1) How to draw upon glass. (2) How to cut glass. (3) How to paint and shade glass. (4) Of the substances and ingredients for painting glass. (5) How to give a flesh-colour to glass. (6) How to give a yellow or golden colour to white or pale blue glass, but no other. (7) How to fire glass. (8) How to make the glass-oven. Windows were painted in the cathedral of Palma de Mallorca by Sebastián Danglés in 1566 and by Juan Jordá in 1599, in that of Málaga by Octavio Valerio in 1579, and in those of Tarragona and Avila respectively, by Juan Guasch in 1571, and by Pierre de Chiberri in 1549. This craftsman was undoubtedly a foreigner. The following entry which concerns him is quoted by Rosell de Torres from the _Libro de Fábrica_ of Segovia cathedral: "By order of the Canon Juan Rodriguez, on the twelfth day of August, I paid to Pierre de Chiberri, master-maker of window-glass, the sum of 56,560 _maravedis_, 34,960 for the casings of seven large windows with their side-windows--in all twenty-one casings--besides ten casings for the windows of the lower chapels, containing altogether MMMCCCCXCVI palms, amounting at ten _maravedis_ the palm to the aforesaid 34,960 maravedis: also 19,125 _maravedis_ for CCCLXXII palms of glass for the said chapels at a _real_ and a half each palm, plus 2476 _maravedis_ for certain glass which had yet to be measured because it was in the skylights. The total sum amounts to the aforesaid 56,560 _maravedis_."[116] [116] Isidoro Rosell de Torres, _Las Vidrieras pintadas en España_ (published in the _Museo Español de Antigüedades_). During the seventeenth century, glass-work of various kinds continued to be produced upon a large scale at Barcelona, Mataró, Gerona, Cuenca, Toledo, Valmaqueda, and Seville. In 1680 the Duke of Villahermosa established a glass factory at San Martin de Valdeiglesias, and placed it under the direction of a native of Namur named Diodonet Lambot, aided by various other artists from the Netherlands. In 1683 Lambot was succeeded by Santiago Vandoleto, who proved incompetent, and caused, in 1692, the total stoppage of the factory. I have said that glass was made at Medina del Campo, in the province of Valladolid. Pinheiro da Veiga's _Pincigraphia_, written at the beginning of the seventeenth century, contains an interesting notice of this glassware. "Really, the glass-work of Valladolid is most beautiful, and worth going to see if only for the pleasure of its contemplation. There are objects of considerable size, such as (glass) pitchers of every form and colour. Others are called _penados_, and are of a syphon shape, pouring out water in small quantities.[117] Besides this there are all manner of cunningly contrived retorts such as we never see in Lisbon, and yet in Valladolid their cost is only moderate.... The principal shops for selling these and porcelain are two in number, and the prices are the same as in Portugal." [117] "_Penado._ A narrow-mouthed vessel that affords the liquor with scantiness and difficulty." Connelly and Higgins' Dictionary; A.D. 1798. Two very important Spanish glass factories were founded in the eighteenth century. The first, which was under Crown protection, was established by Don Juan Goyeneche in the year 1720 at a place called Nuevo Baztán, in the province of Toledo. The royal privilege allowed this factory to produce "all articles of glass up to a height of twenty inches, working and polishing the same, embellishing, and coating them with metal; to make looking-glasses and similar ornaments, glass vessels of all descriptions, white glass for window-panes, and glass objects of any kind or shape, whether already known to us, or that may be invented in the future." The factory of Nuevo Baztán continued working for some years, and turned out excellent glass for exportation to America and other parts; but it was killed eventually by the rising price of fuel, and above all by competition from abroad. "When the foreigners," says Larruga in his _Memorias políticas y económicas_, "saw that the factory was in full swing, they conspired to bring about its ruin, and begged their ambassadors to communicate against it with the ministers; but finding this of no avail, and recognising the importance to themselves of overthrowing this manufacture, they decided to sell glassware at a price at which it would be impossible to sell the products of Nuevo Baztán. The amount of this reduction was the one-third part of the entire value. By this means the foreigners made it impossible for the factory to support itself, since the objects it produced were laid away and found no purchaser for years. This, and the cost of the wood required to keep the ovens burning day and night, not excepting feast-days (for to stop the fires for a moment would have meant the spoiling of the oven), induced the downfall of this celebrated factory, as soon as the fuel of all the neighbouring forests had been consumed." Nevertheless, upon the closing of these works, one of the experts who had been employed there, a Catalan named Ventura Sit, attracted by the forests of Valsain and the excellent and abundant sand obtainable in this locality--principally from near the villages of Espirdo and Bernuy de Porreros--decided to open another glass-works at La Granja. Here is the royal summer residence of San Ildefonso, and Sit was fortunate enough to secure at the outset--that is, in 1728--the firm protection of Philip the Fifth and of his consort, Isabel Farnese. Instructed by the sovereigns to make some mirrors, he produced these objects of a moderate size at first, increasing it, after the year 1734, to a maximum length of 145 inches by 85 in breadth. Larruga says that these mirrors were the largest produced anywhere at that time, and they continued to be made until very nearly the end of the century. They are often referred to in the narratives of travellers. Swinburne wrote in 1776: "Not far from Carthagena is a place called Almazaron, where they gather a fine red earth called Almagra, used in the manufactures of Saint Ildephonso, for polishing looking-glasses. In Seville, it is worked up with the tobacco, to give it a colour, fix its volatility, and communicate to it that softness which constitutes the principal merit of Spanish snuff." Describing the royal palace at Madrid, the same author says that the walls of the great audience-chamber "are incrustated with beautiful marble, and all round hung with large plates of looking-glass in rich frames. The manufactory of glass is at Saint Ildefonso, where they cast them of a very great size; but I am told they are apt to turn out much rougher and more full of flaws than those of France." According to Townsend (1786), "The glass manufacture is here carried to a degree of perfection unknown in England. The largest mirrors are made in a brass frame, one hundred and sixty-two inches long, ninety-three wide, and six deep, weighing near nine tons. These are designed wholly for the royal palaces, and for presents from the king. Yet even for such purposes the factory is ill-placed, and proves a devouring monster in a country where provisions are dear, fuel scarce, and carriage exceedingly expensive." Laborde wrote of the same factory a few years later: "There is also a glass-house, in which bottles are wrought of a superior quality; and white glasses, which are carved with much ingenuity (Plates lxxvi. and lxxvii.). Near this glass-house has been founded a manufactory for mirrors, in a large and well-arranged edifice. There are two furnaces, and a considerable number of stoves, in which the plates are left to cool after they have been precipitated. They are of all dimensions, and the largest that have yet been fabricated. They are sometimes from a hundred, a hundred and thirty, or a hundred and thirty-five inches in height, to fifty, sixty, or sixty-five inches in breadth: they are expanded in the hand. The process for polishing them is performed by a machine;[118] they are then transported to Madrid, for the purpose of being metallised. It is not uncommon to see tables of bronze, on which mirrors are extended, a hundred and sixty inches in length, and ninety in breadth." [118] This machine was invented by a Catalan named Pedro Fronvila. These tables are described by Bowles: "The largest measures a hundred and forty-five inches in length by eighty-five in breadth, and weighs four hundred and five _arrobas_. The smallest measures a hundred and twenty inches in length, and seventy-five in breadth, and weighs three hundred and eighty _arrobas_." [Illustration: LXXVI GLASS OF THE FACTORY OF SAN ILDEFONSO] The best account of any is contained in the _Nouveau Voyage en Espagne_ (1789) of Bourgoing. This author wrote: "A côté de cette Fabrique naissante de première nécessité" (_i.e._ the royal linen factory at La Granja) "il y en a une de luxe qui remonte au regne de Philippe V; c'est une Manufacture de glaces, la seule qu'il y ait en Espagne. On s'étoit d'abord borné à une Verrerie qui subsiste encore, et donne des bouteilles d'une assez bonne qualité, et des verres blancs qu'on y cisele avec assez d'adresse. J'en ai rapporté quelques-uns où l'on a gravé des chiffres, des lettres, et jusqu'à de jolis paysages. Cette Verrerie étoit un acheminement à une entreprise plus brillante. La Manufacture de glaces de Saint Ildephonse est comparable aux plus beaux établissements de ce genre; on en peut voir les dessins dans les Planches de l'Encyclopédie. L'édifice est vaste et très bien distribué; il contient deux fourneaux et une vingtaine de fours où l'on fait refroidir lentement les glaces après les avoir coulées. On y en coule dans toutes les dimensions depuis les carreaux de vitres jusqu'aux plus grands trumeaux. Elles sont moins blanches et peut-être moins bien polies que celles de Venise et de St-Gobin; mais nulle part on n'en a encore coulé d'aussi grandes. L'opération du coulage s'y fait avec beaucoup de précision et d'ensemble. Monseigneur Comte d'Artois eut la curiosité d'y assister; la glace qu'on y coula devant lui avoit, autant que je puis m'en souvenir, cent trente-trois pouces de long, sur soixante-cinq de large, et l'on m'a assuré qu'il y en avoit encore de plus grandes. On les dégrossit à mains d'hommes dans une longue galerie qui est attenante à la Fabrique, et il y a à un quart de lieue une machine que l'eau fait mouvoir, et où on acheve de les polir; on les porte ensuite à Madrid pour les étamer. Le Roi consacre les plus belles à la parure de ses appartements; il en fait des cadeaux aux Cours qui ont des relations intimes avec lui. En 1783, S.M.C. en fit joindre quelques-unes aux présens qu'il envoyoit à la Porte Ottomane, avec laquelle elle venoit de conclure un traité. C'est une idée agréable pour un cosmopolite tolérant, de penser qu'en dépit des préjugés de religion et de politique qui divisoient autrefois les Nations, la main des arts a établi entr'elles un échange de jouissances d'un bout de l'Europe à l'autre, et que les beautés du serrail se mirent dans les glaces coulées à Saint-Ildefonse, tandis que les tapis de Turquie sont foulés par des pieds François. Ce qui sort d'ailleurs de la Manufacture de Saint-Ildefonse est vendu, pour le compte du Roi, à Madrid et dans les provinces; mais on sent bien que ce profit est trop mince pour couvrir les frais d'un établissement aussi considérable qui, le bois excepté, est éloigné de toutes les matières premières qu'il employe, qui est situé fort avant dans l'intérieur des terres, au sein des montagnes, et loin de toute rivière navigable; aussi doit il être compté parmi ces fondations de luxe qui prosperent à l'ombre du Trône, et qui ajoutent à son éclat."[119] [119] Vol. I., pp. 144-147. A few more details are added by Swinburne: "Below the town is the manufactory of plate-glass belonging to the crown, carried on under the direction of Mr Dowling; two hundred and eighty men are employed. The largest plate they have made is one hundred and twenty-six Spanish inches long; the small pieces are sold in looking-glasses all over the kingdom; but I am told the king makes no great profit by it; however, it is a very material point to be able to supply his subjects with a good commodity, and to keep in the country a large sum of money that heretofore went out annually to purchase it from strangers. They also make bottles and drinking-glasses (Plates lxxvi., lxxvii.); and are now busy erecting very spacious new furnaces to enlarge the works. To provide fuel for the fires, they have put the pinewoods under proper regulations and stated falls; twenty-seven mule-loads of fir-wood are consumed every day; and four loads cost the king, including all the expenses of cutting and bringing down from the mountains, about forty reals." [Illustration: LXXVII GLASS OF THE FACTORY OF SAN ILDEFONSO] In 1736, the first factory which had been established at San Ildefonso was nearly destroyed by fire; but the damage was repaired, and the factory placed under state control. Its finances were at no time prosperous. In 1762 Charles the Third granted a privilege reserving to it the exclusive sale of glass within a radius of twenty leagues from Madrid and Segovia; but the sales did not improve. In spite of this, the monarch, a few years later, erected a new and costly factory from designs by Villanueva and Real. There were two departments in this ample building. One, for the manufacture of the plainest glass, was directed by a Hanoverian, named Sigismund Brun; and the other, devoted to smaller and more elaborate articles, by Eder, a Swede. "The greater number of the objects made at these important works were of transparent, colourless glass, possessing a marked French style, and were either richly engraved and cut, or gilded, or sometimes (though less often) they were made of coloured and enamelled glass. At this time, too, were manufactured mirrors for the royal palaces, as well as candlesticks and chandeliers of great beauty, following the Venetian method, and embellished with coloured flowers."[120] [120] Breñosa and Castellarnau; _Guide to San Ildefonso_ (1884), p. 53. Rico y Sinobas observes that in the objects produced at the factory of La Granja, the glass itself is inferior to the engraving or cutting with which it is adorned. This leads him to infer that the foreigners brought over by the kings of Spain to superintend the factory, were cutters and engravers of glass, rather than skilled glass-makers. He also draws attention to the fact that the Spanish monarchs chose these foreign craftsmen from too limited a class, entrusting the most important posts at all the royal factories to Frenchmen who were stated to descend from the old nobility of their native country. In this manner the progress and welfare of the craft itself was sacrificed to an insane prejudice in favour of the aristocratic origin of the craftsman. In spite of all these efforts, the works at the dawn of the nineteenth century were in a moribund condition. In 1829 they passed into the hands of private persons, who also failed to make them pay, and subsequently, owing to the ineptitude of Spanish governments and the severity of foreign competition, have definitely closed their doors. "In Catalonia," wrote Laborde, towards the year 1800, "are two glass houses; but the glass blown in them is dark, and destitute of lustre. Aragon has four, one at Alfamen, one at Peñalva, one at Utrillas, and one at Jaulin, which is the largest; but the quality of the glass is not superior to that of Catalonia. The glass-house at Utrillas produces both flint and common glass. Glass houses are also established at Pajarejo and at Recuenco in Castile, which manufacture the most beautifully white and transparent glass." In 1791 there were six glass-ovens in the kingdom of Valencia, situated at Valencia, Alicante, Salines, Olleria, and Alcira. They turned out 2100 pieces in this year, some of which were exported to Castile and Aragon.[121] [121] Ricord; _Noticia de las varias y diferentes Producciones del Reyno de Valencia, etc.: segun el estado que tenían en el año 1791._ Valencia, 1793. Early in the eighteenth century the glass of Barcelona was praised by Alvarez de Colmenar ("Il s'y fait de belles verreries"), and we know that all through this period her _forns de vidre_ continued to produce good work, including holy-water vessels of uncoloured glass relieved with blue or with the fine white _latticinio_, the local _arruixadors_ or _borrachas_, and the typical _porrón_. The former of these vessels is of small size, and has several spouts. Commonly it is filled with scented water for gallants to sprinkle on girls at dances in the public square. The _porrón_ invariably excites the curiosity of foreigners,[122] and is often thought to be of purely Spanish origin. This is not so. Upon a Roman lampstand in Naples museum is a figure of Bacchus riding on a tiger and "holding in his hand the horn from which the ancients drank, using it as, among some other peoples, do the modern Catalans--that is, not placing the vessel in their mouth, but holding it aloft and thus imbibing it; a method which requires no small amount of practice." In fact, there is reason to believe that the _porrón_ is derived from a similar vessel in use among the ancient Persians, who poured their liquor from it into the hollow of the hand, and thence imbibed it in the fashion called, in Cataluña and Valencia, _al gallet_. For just as a certain class of American displays his marksmanship in spitting, so does the Catalan who is accomplished in the art, amuse himself and others by causing the ruby wine to spout from his _porrón_ on to the very apex of his nose, continuing from this point, in the form of a fine and undulating rivulet, over his upper lip and down his throat. [122] "The mode of drinking in this country is singular; they hold a broad-bottom'd glass bottle at arm's length, and let the liquor spout out of a long neck upon their tongue; from what I see, their expertness at this exercise arises from frequent practise; for the Catalans drink often and in large quantities, but as yet I have not seen any of them intoxicated."--Swinburne. Windows of Spanish houses were seldom glazed until about one hundred years ago. When Bertaut de Rouen travelled here in 1659, this fact impressed him disagreeably. Even in the royal palace at Madrid he found that there were chambers "qui n'ont point du tout de fenestrés, ou qui n'en ont qu'une petite, et d'où le jour ne vient que d'enhaut, le verre estant fort rare en Espagne, et la pluspart des fenestrés des maisons n'ayant pas de vitres." In 1787, Arthur Young was no less horrified at the glassless condition of the houses in Cataluña. "Reach Sculló; the inn so bad that our guide would not permit us to enter it, so he went to the house of the Curé. A scene followed so new to English eyes, that we could not refrain from laughing very heartily. Not a pane of glass in the whole town, but our reverend host had a chimney in his kitchen; he ran to the river to catch trout; a man brought us some chickens which were put to death on the spot.... This town and its inhabitants are, to the eye, equally wretched, the smoke-holes instead of chimneys, the total want of glass windows--the cheerfulness of which, to the eye, is known only by the want." However, as an exception to this doleful rule, the town of Poeblar had "some good houses with glass windows, and we saw a well-dressed young lady gallanted by two monks." PRINTED BY NEILL AND COMPANY, LIMITED, EDINBURGH. * * * * * * Transcriber's note: The original spelling and minor inconsistencies in the spelling and formatting have been maintained. Inconsistent hyphenation and accents are as in the original if not marked as an misprint. The table below lists all corrections applied to the original text. p. x: LIX -> LIX. p. 20: Mr Cunninghame Graham -> Mr. p. 23: avec leurs enfans -> enfants p. 32: feu. L'hôte -> L'hôtel p. 33: choses est règlé -> réglé p. 39: fort peuplée autresfois -> autrefois p. 71: pp. 161, 162 -> pp. 161, 162. p. 72: León Cathedral_ -> León Cathedral_) p. 96: peintures variées de bon gôut -> goût p. 98: on the cover. -> on the cover." p. 104: (see Vol. I. Plate xi.) -> (see Vol. I., Plate xi.) p. 132: appear to be galloping. -> galloping." p. 139: and "Pisano." -> and "Pisano". p. 139: "_de relieve_." -> "_de relieve_". p. 159: les plus compliqúes -> compliqués p. 159: qu'un bal masqúe -> masqué p. 169: the journal of Bertant -> Bertaut p. 180: Quarte, Vilallonga -> Villalonga p. 183: degree of delicacy. -> delicacy." p. 188: says Señor Osmo -> Osma p. 188: and another [Illustration] -> [Illustration]. p. 213: style of Capo-di-Monte. -> Capo-di-Monte." p. 225: in France and Spain. -> Spain." p. 228: albeit the the -> albeit the p. 236: VESSELS OF CATALAN GLASS -> LXXV VESSELS OF CATALAN GLASS p. 254: GLASS OF THE -> LXXVI GLASS OF THE 
51626	----	Transcriber's notes: italics converted to _ bold converted to = small caps converted to + gesperrt converted to ~ page 33 ...he native effort fred... typo repaired at ...the native effort freed... illustration caption typo stretches repaired at stretchers illustration caption typo carbriole repaired at cabriole 'patine' is the French version of the Latin/Italian, and English word 'patina' page 11 word screscent repaired for crescent This book contains instances of hyphenated and unhyphenated variants of words. All retained. JACOBEAN FURNITURE [Illustration: Plate I--THE SMALL JACOBEAN ROOM OF ELEGANCE AND INTIMACY] JACOBEAN FURNITURE AND ENGLISH STYLES IN OAK AND WALNUT BY HELEN CHURCHILL CANDEE +Author of "Decorative Styles and Periods," "The Tapestry Book," Etc.+ _WITH FORTY-THREE ILLUSTRATIONS_ [Illustration] NEW YORK FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY PUBLISHERS _Copyright, 1916, by_ +Frederick A. Stokes Company+ _All rights reserved_ CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I +Early Jacobean Styles+ 3 =James I Crowned 1603.= II +Jacobean Styles to Charles II+ 14 III +The Middle of the Century+ 27 =End of the Pure Jacobean.= IV +Carolean Styles or the Restoration+ 37 =Charles II, 1660 to 1685.= V +The End of the Seventeenth Century+ 48 =William and Mary, 1689-1702.= ILLUSTRATIONS PLATE I The small Jacobean room of elegance and intimacy _Frontispiece_ FACING PAGE II Late Tudor mantel 4 III Late Tudor bed 5 IV Large oak chest 6 V Early Jacobean chest of carved oak 7 VI Oak chest with drawers 8 VII Oak stand and marquetry cabinet 9 VIII Gate-leg table, forming console with gate closed 10 IX Oak chairs 11 X Oak chest of drawers 12 XI Early Jacobean cabinet 13 XII Oak chairs 16 XIII Spiral turned chair, characteristic of first half of Century 17 XIV Oak cabinet, dated 1653 20 XV Oak gate-leg dining table 21 XVI Oak day beds 24 XVII Stuart chairs 25 XVIII Marquetry cabinet about 1700 28 XIX Walnut cabinet 29 XX Stuart settee with carving. Second half of XVII Century 42 XXI Charles II chairs in varying styles in carving 43 XXII Walnut sofa 44 XXIII Gilt mirror, time of Charles II 45 XXIV Interesting chair transitional between Stuart Styles and William and Mary 48 XXV Chairs in variants of William and Mary 49 XXVI Chest of drawers in burr walnut veneer 50 XXVII Small walnut table 51 XXVIII Carved chairs. Period of William and Mary 52 XXIX Walnut chairs, William and Mary 53 XXX Queen Anne single chair. Queen Anne arm chair. Walnut Queen Anne chairs 54 XXXI Queen Anne chair 55 JACOBEAN FURNITURE CHAPTER I EARLY JACOBEAN STYLES JAMES I CROWNED 1603 When a passion for collecting antique furniture first swept America, and prizes were plucked from attics, cellars and old barns, the eagle eye of the amateur sought only those fine pieces that were made in the age of mahogany and satin-wood. Every piece was dubbed Colonial with rash generalisation until the time when a little erudition apportioned the well-made distinctive furniture to its proper classes. Then every person of culture became expert on eighteenth century furniture, and the names of Chippendale and his prolific mates fell glibly from all lips. That much accomplished, the collector and home-maker then threw an intelligent eye on another page of history and realised that the seventeenth century and certain bits of oak and walnut that had stood neglected, belonged to an equally interesting period of America's social development. All at once the word Jacobean was on every tongue, as Colonial had been before. Attics, cellars and barns were searched again, this time for oak and walnut, not mahogany, and for heavy square construction, not for bandy legs and delicate restraint. It was the marvellous carved chest that first announced itself, and then a six-legged highboy, and the lower part of a thousand-legged table--which now we call a gate. These, we said with inspiration, are the gods of the first settlers; mahogany is but modern stuff. But this time we were more savant than before, and instead of starving our eager minds on the occasional resurrected American bit, we went at once to the source, to England, and there found in abundance (for the long purse) a charming sequence of styles covering all the times of our earlier history as settlers and colonisers. Thus were we able to identify these strange early pieces of our own and to recognise our quarry when found in a dusty corner. That very old pieces still are found, pieces brought over here in the days of their mode, is proved to any collector. In two towns on Long Island Sound I recently found for sale two six-legged highboys, William and Mary, and that great rarity, a straight oak chair known as a Farthingale chair, made without arms for the purpose of accommodating the enormous crinoline or farthingale of its day. This chair may have supported the stiffly dressed ladies of Elizabeth's court, so like it was to the Italian models of Tudor times. [Illustration: Plate II--LATE TUDOR MANTEL From a house built in 1606, which shows a toning of Tudor style into Jacobean] [Illustration: Plate III--LATE TUDOR BED With motifs which characterised early Jacobean carving, dated 1593] The pity of it is, that no sooner had the artistic eye of the true collector begun to search for seventeenth century furniture than the commercial eye of the modern manufacturer began to make hideous variations on its salient features. He caught the name of Jacobean and to every piece of ill-drawn furniture he affixed a spiral leg and the Stuart name; or, he set a serpentine flat stretcher and called his mahogany dining set, William and Mary. These tasteless things fill our department stores, and it is they that are rapidly filling American homes. And the worst of it is, that both buyers and sellers are startlingly yet pathetically glib with attaching historic names to the mongrel stuff, and thus are they misled. New furniture must be made, however, or resort must be had to soap-boxes and hammocks. The old models are the best to follow for the reason that the present is not an age of creation in this direction. The stylist is always a hobby-rider, and I must confess to that form of activity, but it is always with the idea in mind to make and keep our homes beautiful. And so I make the plea to manufacturers to stick to old models of tried beauty, and to buyers to educate their taste until they reject a hybrid or mongrel movable with the same outraged sense that they reject a mongrel dog. Now let us pass through the gate that leads to happy hunting-grounds of study where we find historic men and women, both royal and common, making the times that called for the furniture we now admire as deeply as they admired it. One might almost say that since Henry the Eighth's introduction of the styles of the Italian Renaissance into England, that country has produced no original style of furniture. But lest this statement be resented by affronted savants and hurt sentimentalists, side by side with that fact must be placed another, that England has played upon the styles she imported with such skill and grace that she has thus produced variants of great and peculiar beauty. England has taken the furniture creations of Europe through the centuries and has impressed them with her national traits, with a resulting beauty entirely her own. The effect is bewildering to all but the student of styles, for without study one is often unable to account for certain alterations of detail and construction. It cannot be too often repeated that as each nation in turn adopted the Italian Renaissance, that nation impressed its own signet upon the style. Thus came all the variations. It is to be remembered that in the case of England, the affair is one of great interest and complication. In the sixteenth century Pistaccio and his artist mates hurried from Italy at the bidding of Henry VIII and planted their classic patterns in the British kingdom. That was an infusion of the pure Renaissance drawing is visible but with a general flattening of the relief blood of the Renaissance, and it lasted well into Elizabeth's time before the Anglo-Saxon temperament altered it characteristically. [Illustration: Plate IV--LARGE OAK CHEST In noblest type of early Jacobean carving] _Courtesy of Charles_ [Illustration: Plate V--EARLY JACOBEAN CHEST OF CARVED OAK] By the time James I, in 1603, established the Stuart reign, the style became markedly British, and British styles called Jacobean in compliment to James' Latinized name, prevailed until another imported fashion came along. Then came another and another, and so on even until the end of Georgian styles and the beginning of Victorian. The Jacobean style developed serenely, playing happy pranks with itself, altered by mechanical inventions and by new woods, until the second half of the seventeenth century, when Charles II introduced strong French influence and Portuguese--which was not greatly different from Spanish. The French influence came lightly from the light ladies of the frivolous court, and the Portuguese from Charles' queen, Catherine, whose home was Braganza. Bombay as her dowry threw Eastern colours and design into the mêlée. British styles were not yet to be let alone, for no sooner was the French way set than the Dutch pattern appeared, brought over by William and Mary. Delicately it came at first, giving place for hints from the court of Louis XIV, and then in full force by the time Anne took the sceptre in 1703. And all these styles imported throughout the seventeenth century, what were they but the several interpretations of the Renaissance as it was expressed in France, Portugal, and Holland? Let not the student stagger under these complications of English styles, for although there are yet more reasons for the shapes and ornament of furniture in England during the seventeenth century they are all bright with incidents of kings and courts. Tudor monarchs stop in 1603 at Elizabeth's death, but Tudor styles were not at once outgrown, rather they linger along far into the seventeenth century, heavily and elegantly regarding the newly throned Stuarts and their bewitching manners. The Tudor table, for instance, was a serious piece of furniture, put together as squarely and solidly as a house. Its enduring qualities are proved by the number of these tables still extant which, as refectory tables, are the smart thing for the dining-room of to-day. Bulbous legs with Italian carving, heavy square stretchers low on the ground, and draw-tops, are the distinguishing features. It is even suggested by the erudite that these tables are the last flicker of the style left by the Romans during their occupation of England, so like are they to pictured tables of Rome at that time. To fix in the mind certain important motifs used in early Jacobean carving, a pause may be made before the fine oak bed pictured in Plate 3, that we may discuss them. It is dated 1593, ten years before James I, but, although Tudor, it has certain decorative features, the development of which was left to the Jacobean styles of the seventeenth century. Note especially among these the characteristic round arch savouring of the Norman, of which two are shown on the bed's head. These arches frame a rough inlay which appears also on the square blocks of the tester. Holly and bog oak were the favourite woods for this inlay on oak, woods obdurate enough to make the labour difficult. The half-circle repeat is used freely as a moulding on the headboard, and this develops in later furniture into an important motif. The general construction of this bed is noble in its proportions, and in all changes of fashion must it stand with the dignity of a temple. [Illustration: Plate VI-OAK CHEST WITH DRAWERS This is carved with all the characteristic motifs of early Jacobean work--the arch, the guilloche, the S curve in pairs] [Illustration: Plate VII--OAK STAND AND MARQUETRY CABINET Here are combined the Jacobean robust strength and Spanish Moresque detail] As pictures on a screen melt one into another, so styles merge. Plate 6 shows a chest full of Jacobean promise yet retaining Tudor feeling. The fact that it has drawers under the coffer pronounces it as a novelty of the early seventeenth century, and therefore Jacobean. It especially well illustrates the pattern for carving that occupied workers through the reign of James I. There is the Norman arch, low and wide, set on short supports which have now lost their architectural look of a column. The arches at the ends have as ornament the guilloche, that line of circles that sinuously proceeds through all that time. The carving just under the lid shows the characteristic S curve in one of its many varieties, and the line of decoration just above the drawers indicates the development of the half-circle. Thus are shown in this one early piece the principal motifs of the carvers who were coaxing the models of a past Renaissance into an expression that was entirely British. The small oak cupboard on Plate 11 is another transition piece, being in feeling both Tudor and Jacobean. Here the guilloche is enlarged to form a panel ornament, and the acanthus becomes a long fern frond to ornament the uprights. One hardly feels, however, that this piece was ever the accompaniment of elegant living, although much antiquity gives its present distinction. Continuing with the low round arch as an ornament in the low-relief carving of James' time, an example of its use is given in the folding gate-legged table which is the property of the author (Plate 8). The turned legs finished with squares, top and bottom, are characteristic of the first quarter of the century. The arch is here used as an apron to give elegance, and above is a drawer carved with leaves. In construction this table presents three sides to the front, as does the cabinet just considered, and its Italian inspiration is evident. Like all old oak of the time, it is put together with wooden pegs, and bears the marvellous patine of time. Had the chairs of early Stuart time not been heavily made and squarely constructed we would not have had so many examples with which to gladden the eye. Almost without exception they are variants of the Italian, originality having not then appeared possible to chair makers. Three of the four chairs in the plates illustrate this so well that it is worth while to make a comparison with old Italian chairs. [Illustration: Plate VIII--GATE-LEG TABLE. FORMING CONSOLE WITH GATE CLOSED The turned legs with square bases and tops indicate date as early as 1610. The deep apron carved with fretted arch is an unusual feature] [Illustration: Plate IX--OAK CHAIRS Early XVII Century Italian Inspiration] The chair on Plate 9 with a crescent-shaped carving on the back had its first inspiration in Venice, that great port getting the idea from the wares of Constantinople which the merchant ships brought to her with prodigality. All of these chairs are of the square construction that endures, and all have baluster legs but of different styles of turning. All are understayed with honest stretchers, but one has the front stretcher close to the floor, indicating a little earlier mode. The colonnade of arches forming the back is nearer its Italian origin where a column supports the arch rather than a bulbous spindle. One more feature to note on these chairs, that is common to both late Tudor and early Jacobean styles, is the decoration of split spindles or pendants applied to a flat surface. This decoration is a favourite for wood panelling, for chests of drawers and all large pieces about the middle of the century. We have but to call to mind the costume of Henrietta Maria, the queen of Charles I, to realise why these armless chairs were the most popular of the time; the voluminous skirts of the ladies of the court--whom others imitated--could not have been squeezed into an arm chair with courtly grace. The sort of room in which this furniture was set--how happy we of to-day would be to have their panelling! Occasionally an entire room is taken from some old English home and set up in one of our American dwellings, such as the rooms now owned by Mr. Frederick Pratt and Mr. W. R. Hearst. And thus we know what beauty surrounded the English family three hundred years ago. Panelling in squares covered the walls from floor to ceiling or to a high level, above which hung tapestries or embroideries. And as the architect of the house composed the panelling it was drawn with such skill as to miss either hap-hazard or monotony. The linen-fold panel of Gothic and early Tudor popularity was no longer repeated. The true Jacobean panel is small and square with carving on the pilasters and cornice in rooms of elegance. To this day no more home-like way of treating the walls of large rooms has been devised than this wood panelling, which gives a sense of seclusion and of richness that is never so well imparted except by the use of tapestry--and the combination of the two nearly approaches perfection. Jacobean styles, so-called, extend through the greater part of the century, but each succeeding Stuart marked his special progress on them. The styles of the first kings, James I and his son Charles I, lifted the family movables from heaviness to comparative lightness, and grew away from the Renaissance in truly original ways. On this fact rests much of its interest. The other great fact for us is that these years of the first Stuart kings were the years of the first American colonisation. [Illustration: Plate X--OAK CHEST OF DRAWERS An interesting example of the Jacobean use of decorative mouldings] [Illustration: Plate XI--EARLY JACOBEAN CABINET Carved and put together with wooden pegs. A guilloche carving ornaments each panel] CHAPTER II JACOBEAN STYLES TO CHARLES II Brutally natural we may call the earlier characters in English history, but attached to the Stuart name there is always poetic romance. And without romance what would our lives be! So when we sit in our loved library or dining-room at home, embellished by a few bits of furniture such as the Stuarts lived among, those bits are like consolidated stories, things to dream about in the hours of ease. James I and his son Charles cared about things they lived with, and cared, too, about giving them as much as possible a certain lightness of effect, in revolt from Tudor bulk. Perhaps the necessity for surpassing strength was waning. Men no longer wore tons of armour, furniture in the seventeenth century no longer journeyed from castle to castle. Inigo Jones was at work also, with his marvellous talent at classical architecture, setting a standard of cheerful elegance in design that lightened the Tudor magnificence. When James I began to rule in 1603, Inigo Jones, a lightsome young man of thirty, was employed by the King as a composer of masques. After developing his architect's talent he produced the palace at Whitehall, Hatfield House and other residences. His also was the invention that threw over the steps to the Thames the noble water-gate, York Stairs, that stands there now, a record of the merry days when ladies and cavaliers, all gay as flowers, crossed the greensward, filed under this richly carved arch, and were handed into elegantly equipped barges on the river. While things of an artistic sort were progressing in England, other events closely concerning us in America were also active. The entire century runs two parallel lines of history, one that of the gaiety of the house in power, the other that of the struggle of the people divided into religious sects. While "'twas merry in the Hall, when beards wagged all," persecution was rife among religionists, and the Puritans were finding it hard to stay in their own loved land. Thus came the sufferers to America to plant new homes; and thus coming, brought with them such furniture as was in vogue at the time of migrating. And so it happens that our earliest bits of furniture, chairs that supported grim Pilgrim fathers, tables which were set out by provident Puritan mothers and maids, are Jacobean in mode. The chair of Elder Brewster which has asylum in Hartford, Conn., is a fine example of the heavy turned work of the day, and numerous oak chairs show the strap-work and other low-relief carving so well known in early Jacobean pieces. One especial class of chair (Plate 12) when found in England is called for one of its shires, Yorkshire, but when drawn from New England hiding places, we name it a wainscote chair. The design of the back easily gives reason for the name, for it is formed from a bit of panelling similar to that in vogue for walls. Stolid and strong are these chairs, square-built and stayed with four strong stretchers, usually near the floor. The collector considers the charm irresistibly increased when the front stretcher is well worn with the friction of many feet, the resting feet of a long procession that has walked down the centuries. Even better is the smoothness of the chair-arms which comes by contact with the human hand, that restless member with a habit of idly rubbing an inviting surface. Like all makers of chairs, the ancient cabinet-maker left back-legs in utilitarian simplicity, while he limited variety to the front-legs. In this type of chair, turning gave the usual ornamentation. This baluster effect had many varieties, but all united in finishing with a square block at the bottom and where the seat-frame met the leg, or where the front stretcher crossed, if it was placed high. The ornamentation of the back was done with the light spirit that distinguished early Jacobean styles from the preceding Italian models, yet without the elegance that appeared later in the century. These chairs undoubtedly have charm and interest, but as works of art they are not comparable to those which preceded, nor to those which followed. They were, however, distinctly English, and as such, command interest. [Illustration: Plate XII--OAK CHAIRS Called both Wainscote and Yorkshire chairs] [Illustration: Plate XIII--SPIRAL TURNED CHAIR, CHARACTERISTIC OF FIRST HALF OF CENTURY] A close study of the motifs used by the wood-carver shows all the favourite lines, the guilloche, that ever interesting play upon circles, the S curve in pairs, the rounded arch, the half-circle, the rose and the tulip. Cushions were a part of the chair's equipment. The tired ladies of the seventeenth century were not asked to recuperate on a thick oak plank unsoftened by padding. Loose cushions of velvet and of embroidery were usual, for this was an age when handsome fabrics were made all over Europe, and freely used in flashing blue and ruby red against the oak. Nearly allied to the wainscote chair, yet infinitely more refined, is the chair of spiral parts, with back and seat upholstered. Without arms it was favoured by ladies of voluminous petticoats who pattered about the thrones of James I and Charles I. With arms it is sometimes called Cromwellian, suggesting that the doughty Dictator ruled therefrom. But the austerity of the wainscote chair seems more fitting to his resolute manner. This turned chair with its padded back and seat, so often dignifies our modern interiors that it is worth our while to know about it. While the wainscote chair belonged more especially to cottage furniture which was made all over England according to varying local taste, this chair was more or less of an aristocrat, and furnished the halls of wealth. Its origin is Italian. France used it freely, but she too got her first model from the Italians. In the time these chairs prevailed, England outside of London was scant of luxury. The homes of all but the wealthiest were short of the comforts that ameliorate the jolt of life's car in these our modern days. But the whole country was sprinkled with inns and taverns wherein were gathered such luxuries as the times afforded, and thither went the man of the family, bored by the too rigid manner of the home. Those who travelled, too, in the saddle or by lumbering coach, fell happily into the warm embrace of the chairs at the hospitable inn at each stop on the journey. The post-road made the string, the inns the pearls, and in this way the surface of England was covered with a net for the delectation of the restless. But old-time descriptions of the highways, their ruts and sloughs, their highwaymen even, show how laborious were the journeyings and how more than glad were travellers to alight. Ben Jonson declared a tavern chair to be the throne of human felicity. Thus he spoke praise, not only of the inn but of such furniture as pleases us in these days. If, therefore, any husband of to-day rebel against the stiffness of backs, or weakness of legs, of the antique chairs at home, let him be reminded of Jonson's opinion on these same chairs. The chair with spiral legs and other members runs through the larger half of the century, and has significant variations. One shown on Plate 13 has a female head on the uprights of the arms, which represents Mary of Modena. The figure is given at full length in a model that our furniture manufacturers have many times repeated. While baluster legs for chairs and other furniture were a product of the reign of the first James, we may set down the more elegant spiral twist as an evidence of a better developed taste for which a few leaders were responsible. Such a man as Inigo Jones must have influenced widely the public taste in all liberal arts. Although his examples were set in the larger art of architecture, the crowd swaggering about the Banqueting Hall, which still excites our delight at Whitehall, must have been inspired to introduce a daintier style at home. It was in 1625 that Charles I succeeded his father, and soon after invited Van Dyck to be of those who surrounded the royal person. It sometimes seems to the art-seeking tourist, that Charles' patronage of art had as motive the production of an infinity of portraits of his own much-frizzed, much-dressed self. But apart from painting portraits of the King, which the model made a bit pathetic, through the attempt to associate majesty with preciosity, Van Dyck had a large part in improving England's taste. Another name is that of Sir Francis Crane, he who helped his royal master with the noble art of tapestry-making at the Mortlake Works. To continue with the use of the spiral leg--as its modern use creates interest in the subject--it is found as the support on those most enticing of tables, the gate-leg. Not that all gate-leg tables are thus made. Alas no, economy travels heavily in all ages, so the less expensive baluster turning prevailed. But the spiral is the favourite and gives great value to the old tables. Rarely indeed are they to be found at bargains since we in America have taken to collecting Jacobean furnishings. Gate-leg tables are labelled with the name of Cromwell by those liking to fix a date by attaching to it a ruler. Without doubt, the great Commoner leaned his weary elbows on such a table when things went wrong, or curved a smiling lip above it--if he could smile--when the table was weighted with savoury Puritan viands. But for many years before Cromwell, English homes had found the gate-leg table a mobile and convenient replacer of the massive refectory tables of Tudor or Roman inspiration. In large size these tables set a feast for the family, in smaller drawing they held the evening light; or, smaller yet, they assisted the house-mother at her sewing. The wonder is not that we of to-day find them invaluable, but that mankind ever let them go out of fashion. Collect them if you have the purse, but if you must buy a modern copy, remember that mahogany was not in use for furniture in England until the century after, for modern manufacturers flout chronology and produce gate-leg tables in the wood of which the originals were never made. They even lacquer them, in defiance of history. [Illustration: Plate XIV--OAK CABINET, DATED 1653 Decorated with split spindles, and with inlay mother-of-pearl, ivory and ebony. The legs show tendencies not developed until the next century under Queen Anne] [Illustration: Plate XV--OAK GATE-LEG DINING TABLE With oval top and rarely proportioned spiral legs. A drawer distinguishes the piece] Since the fashion is for old tables in the dining-room, these Jacobean gate-leg tables are found practical as well as beautiful. The large size, about four and a half feet wide by six feet long, accommodates a moderate family and presents none of the inconveniences that make certain antiques mere objects of art or curios. I must confess to a thrill of delight when sitting at such an old oak board set out with old lace and silver, not only for its obvious beauty, but by the thought of the groups who have gathered there through three hundred years, groups of varying customs, varying habits of thought, varying fashions in dress, yet human like ourselves, and prone to make of the dining-table a circle of joy. The inlaid cabinet on Plate 11 is an aristocrat. Though it is dated 1653 it exhibits the split spindles of earlier years, and these are executed with such nice feeling that they accord well with the Italian look of the piece. In truth, its principal decoration is Italian, an elaborate use of inlay in mother of pearl, ivory and ebony. Its feet, too, are entirely un-English, yet it remains a Jacobean piece of English make. The influences always at work in England left their mark on the development of English styles. Always and always a monarch was marrying a foreign wife, or importing a court painter or architect, and these folk naturally brought with them the fashions of their own countries. It seemed as though the English knew that native art was not a flower of the first order of beauty and so were modest about it, and ever willing to adopt the art of other countries. It is the custom of the inexact to include in Jacobean furniture all the styles of the seventeenth century up to the time of William and Mary, and this gives to such loose classification an extraordinary variety. Furniture does not die with a monarch, nor do new designs start up in a night; goods last after the master has gone, and the new master uses the old style until a later one has been evolved. James died and Charles I took his place in the year 1625, but the lightening and elaborating of furniture came not all at once, and depended as much on mechanical invention and the use of new woods as on the rise and fall of monarchs. And yet, as the first man to be pleased was the king, and as the king in Charles' case had a lighter nature than his forerunners and had moreover a Continental encouraging of that lightness, we fancy we see an evidence of gaiety, of jocundity, in the furniture of his day. He was a king who intended to take all the privileges of his state, and one of these was to surround himself with beauty of the type that brought no reminders of hard living nor serious thinking, no hint of grim Puritan asceticism. So the oak of England which had supplied austerity was now carved into shapes hitherto unknown. Typical of the results of elaborate oak carving are the chairs in Plate 17. The arm-chair is a typical example of a chair of the middle years of the century, and later. Here the square construction of the chair is not altered from Tudor days, but note how every part has been lightened, until an elegance and beauty have been attained which make it worthy of the finest rooms of any time. The carver when given free rein has left little of the chair untouched. Legs, stretchers and uprights, are all made with a well proportioned spiral, and at each square of joining a rosette is carved. Here also is seen an innovation in the ornamental stretcher across the front which, instead of being near the ground, is raised to a height out of reach of a ruthless boot which might mar its elaboration. This stretcher shows the use of the long curving palm in place of the classic acanthus, and also introduces the fat little cherubs which French designers affected. Other points to notice are the very open back, composed of spirals and three rows of carving. It was at this time that pierced carving came into vogue, so far surpassing in beauty the wainscote backs. The incising of the seat-frame is another peculiarity of the middle of the century. Perhaps the most interesting matter of all is the caning. Wooden seats were the only ones hitherto; although cushions had been used to soften them, they lacked at best the reciprocal quality that we call "giving." Springs were far in the future, but a luxury-loving aristocracy seized at once upon this amelioration. There is more or less quibbling upon the subject of caning, as to the date of its introduction. No one can fix it exactly, which robs the enthusiast of the pleasure of announcing with oracular precision, that his chair is of certain year because of its caning. The middle of the century saw it, the first part did not, but it lasted through varying styles of furniture, and is lasting still. Its origin is undoubtedly Eastern, for the tenacious splints from which it is woven are from warmer climes than England's. And that brings us again to one of those little facts in history of which our household gods are ever reminding us, the trade that united India with Portugal, Portugal with Flanders, and the Flemish with England. The small chair in the Plate is, to the careless eye, a little sister to the larger, but the wise observer notes at once the substitution of the S curve heavy in carving for the more elaborate pierced palm. Also the cane panels in the back, and the very decided change in the shape of the front legs. The heavy S curves are the same which later on gain in thickness and evolve into the ogee curve seen later, and which is often mistakenly ascribed to William and Mary, although originating earlier and receives the name of James II. Arbitrary names are hard to make consistently exact; dates are hard to place on every piece, but is it not enough to know within a very few years the time of making of one's valuable antiques? [Illustration: Plate XVI--OAK DAY BEDS Carved after manner in vogue in second half of XVII Century] [Illustration: Plate XVII--STUART CHAIRS Of lightened construction, open carving and incised seat frame] To finish the scrutiny of the smaller chair, note the curve of the front legs, the first attempt at deserting the straight perpendicular line of construction. This is the beginning of an insidious French influence which prevailed throughout the last third of the century. It beautified, of course, as the gift of France to the world is the _luxe_ of the eye, but from the time of its introduction dates the end of the furniture which was of solely English invention. So comes the end of this early Jacobean mode, in its best time of flowering when it was drowned in a flood of foreign influence. It was in the styles prevailing through the reigns of the first two Stuarts and of Cromwell, that England expressed only herself in her furniture. It is this which makes the periods rich with originality and of peculiar interest. When the Jacobean styles began Shakespeare was living those sad years whose disillusion produced his later plays, and Jacobean styles were at their height at the Restoration when Charles II played the part of king for his royal pleasure. CHAPTER III THE MIDDLE OF THE CENTURY END OF THE PURE JACOBEAN Two matters influenced greatly the furniture makers of the middle of the seventeenth century. And these had less to do with kings and courts than with humble folk. One was the invention of a saw, the kind of a saw that would divide a plank into as many thin sheets of wood as were desired. Naturally, those who looked upon these thin sheets imagined new ways of using them for the embellishment of furniture. Heavy carving had been almost the only ornament when inch-thick planks were the usual material. Now, a wondrous field of possibilities lay before the ambitious in the way of inlay and veneer. Possibly André Boulle in France gave the inspiration, but even so the English inlay is a matter all by itself. From the invention of that saw arose a style of decoration that developed from such simplicity as the rare and occasional flower seen on early Jacobean panels, to the exquisite elaboration known as the sea-weed pattern, and other masses of curving filaments, which found highest perfection in the last quarter of the century. The cabinets on Plates 18 and 19 illustrate the almost unbelievable fineness of the work. In the larger cabinet the inlay is drawn with a free hand and is less characteristic of English design than the other, excepting the naïveté of the birds and trees, and the central panel wherein a gaily caparisoned youth strides a horse held by an infinitesimal blackamoor--a bit of the East's submission thus noted. Wherever a plain surface was found, the new ornament seized it. Cabinets and chests of drawers offered the best opportunities, but next to them were tables. The tops gave a fine field--although there is always a lack of unity of feeling between a table maker and a table user. The one thinks the table should be left inviolably empty, the other regards it as a rest for books and bibelots. But there is also the drawer of the table and its apron, so upon these the inlay designs were put in all their dainty beauty of design. This class of work must not be in any way confused with the Dutch inlay of a later epoch and which is imitated to-day ad nauseam. If you have naught else to guide you in knowing the old English from modern Dutch, there are the shapes of the pieces on which the inlay is put, besides the pattern of the work. The second matter which made a change in the general aspect of furniture in the second half of the seventeenth century was the use of walnut wood in place of oak. It is a pretty bit of history, that of the rich-toned walnut. As far back as Elizabeth's day furniture of that wood was imported from Italy in all its beauty of design, colour and finish. The wise queen ordered trees brought from Italy and forests planted, that England might have a supply of the admired wood. She did not live to see the trees of use, but in the century following hers, it came suddenly into vogue. Imagine the delight of those who had been working in the more obdurate oak, to feel this finer, softer wood under the tool. [Illustration: Plate XVIII--MARQUETRY CABINET ABOUT 1700 Showing Dutch Indian influence in its design and ornament] [Illustration: Plate XIX--WALNUT CABINET With veneer and inlay of seaweed pattern showing the extreme skill of cabinet workers in the second half of the XVII century. Drop handles are noticeable] Putting together the invention of the saw which could slice wood as thin as paper as well as fret it into sea-weed, and the adoption of walnut wood, still another type of beauty in furniture was produced, that of the plain large-panelled scheme. By cunning skill panels of walnut veneer were produced where the grain of the wood supplied the design. Add to this the wonderful finish of the cabinet-maker, and the piece had the beauty of bronze and the simplicity of classicism. But no picture can give adequate idea of the beauty of the old burr walnut. Its bronze surface of innumerable tones, all polished by generations of caressing hands and never by varnish, must be seen and touched to be appreciated. The patine of time is heightened by the patine of affection, and both together make of the plain walnut furniture a thing of appealing beauty to those who love restraint in ornament. A word about this thing we call patine. It began in these old pieces with the original finish of the old maker, who, having done all of the work himself, was tenderly careful of results. This early necromancer played on the wood of his precious meuble with soothing oil, with tonic of turpentine and with protective wax. With the oil he fed the open pores of the wood, until all were filled against the attack of less judicious nutriment, then with pungent turpentine and fragrant honest wax, he rubbed patiently the surfaces. No varnish, as he valued his art. Varnish as we know it now was not in his laboratory. It was not needed when every man was lavish of the labour of his hand. Thus was begun the patine for which we collectors cry to-day. But the assistance of the housewife was a necessary adjunct, for never through all the centuries must she do other than rub with oil and wax the fine old oak and walnut. I have seen the work of centuries destroyed by a modern vandal with a can of varnish. The lawns of England are made by centuries of unremitting care. The patine on old English furniture is brought about by the same virtue. If there be any who do not value the rare old finish, then for his household wares the manufacturers provide a vat of varnish into which whole sets of chairs are dipped to avoid even the labour of brushing on a coat of the shiny stuff. Roundhead and Cavalier each had to be suited with furniture, so the varying styles, the elaborate and the plain, met all requirements. In the midst of it all reigned Charles, the second of the Stuart kings, fostering art with his wondrous assistant Van Dyck, and making a thousand mistakes in the art of government, yet ever standing a romantic figure. We feel an interest in all that concerned his life as a man, feeling more pity than indignation at his futile descent upon Parliament to pluck therefrom the five members who offended him. And who does not, when in London, glance at his high-bred marble effigy at Whitehall with a secret sympathy for his miserable end? We all love a gentleman, and time has nothing to do with effacing that. The elegance Charles I introduced into his time delights us now, and we thrill at the thought of owning any of the fine accessories with which he or his nobles surrounded themselves. After Charles came the Commonwealth. Republican as we are, we feel an unaccountable revolt against any suggestion of Cromwell's taste in life's elegant accessories. He was the great Commoner, and as such has no skill at dictating fashions for aristocrats. So we accord to him a leather-covered chair with spiral turned frame, and a gate-leg table, feeling he should be grateful for the award, as even these things were not of his own invention. Of the two great divisions, the Cavaliers and the Roundheads, the aristocratic party fell into subjection. All that was austere came to the fore, and all that had the charm of gaiety and mirth, elegance and extravagance, was disapproved by those in power. Cromwell's personality did not inspire the makers of pretty kickshaws for my lady's boudoir, nor luxuries for my lord's hall. So nothing was to be done by the cabinet-makers but to repeat the previous styles. The asceticism of the Puritan inspired no art in the few years of Roundhead rule, but there is no telling what might have happened had Cromwell stayed several decades in power. At the end he took most kindly to living in the royal palace of Hampton Court. The quick assumption of elegance of the beggar on horseback is proverbial. After Napoleon had forgotten his origin, no king was more acquisitive than he in the matter of thrones and palaces, nor more insistent in the matter of royal pomp. But "Old Noll" did not live to rule like a prince of the blood, nor to develop a style of luxurious living that left a mark on the liberal arts. The development of walnut furniture went imperceptibly on, with oak still much in use, when all at once a new fact in history gave a new excuse for changes in the mode. The Cromwells passed and the people of England took back the House of Stuart, and did it with such enthusiasm that even the furniture reflected it at once. But it is just this reflection of events in the art of a period that gives undying interest to old styles, and especially to those ancient pieces that are left from the hands which made them and those who first used them in palace or cottage. Back, then, came the old delight in royally born royalty, in being governed by a king and not by a commoner. With open arms the king was welcomed, and Cavalier families that had been in sad plight, blotted out by confiscation and disapproval, sprang lightly back to their former places. This was the time of the Restoration, that time when England adopted the rottenness of the Continent to stimulate whatever of vice lay in the Briton, forgetting to take with it the fundamental good. But the naughty game was one so prettily played that we never tire of its recounting. And as it produced so many changes in house furnishings, it must be considered. It was in 1660 that Charles II was called to smile from the throne on a pleased public. It was about that time that a queen was chosen for him, Catherine of Braganza, who brought with her, very naturally, some goods of her own. The styles in England at this time were especially England's, the native effort freed from copying Italy's Renaissance. But on this fell a sudden avalanche of new ideas greatly at variance with her methods, and from now on the styles of England took inspiration from the styles of the Continent, and have ever since continued the game. But let this sink into the consciousness: each style adopted takes on the strong characteristics of the country adopting them. If to originate a decorative style was not the natural impulse of Britain, it was her talent to alter that style in a way that expressed her characteristics. In the time of Charles II she had a love for the light side of life, coupled with prodigality and elegance, and this can be read to-day in the relics of those times. Catherine the Queen brought no children to inherit the throne--the Duke of York being accused of having selected purposefully a barren mate for his brother--but she brought Bombay as a dower. So, with her Portuguese furniture and her Eastern designs, her gifts turned the heads of artists and artisans. In England are found those chairs for which we go to Portugal, yet they were made in England in the seventeenth century, the high-back straight chair covered with carved leather in both back and seat, put on with a prodigality of big nails, and having bronze spikes as a finish to the uprights of the back. The fluted foot came then, a sort of compromise between a claw and scroll, and known in our land as a Spanish foot, and used until the end of the seventeenth century. It is found on much furniture of early Colonial times prior to Anne's day. But perhaps the first change in Charles' reign was seen on the chairs of pierced carving of palm and S curve and cherub, with caned seats or backs. The carving on these chairs at once took as its popular device the crown, the crown which had been hidden out of sight in the years of the Commonwealth. As if to show the wealth of affection with which it was welcomed, it was repeated as many as five conspicuous times on one chair. With what complacence must Charles have looked upon this gentle flattery! For the Queen's satisfaction there were matters from the Near East in the way of ivory and ebony inlay, carved ebony, introductions of small black beings into designs, always in obvious subjection to white masters. But these were exotics of a sort that English taste preferred to import rather than manufacture. Ladies who took to embroidering affected the Bombay designs and colours. Charles II had been reigning but six years when the Great Fire swept away uncountable treasures in the way of furniture. To be sure, there was all the rest of England. But at that time London was practically all of elegant England. Country gentlemen had estates and big houses, but owing to the impossibility of transportation on the always miry, rutted roads, they went without the luxuries of town life. So, with the Great Fire of London perished so much of old oak and walnut furniture as to make collectors weep who turn their thoughts thereon. But as the phoenix rises unabashed from the flames, so rose the inspirations of Sir Christopher Wren, Grinling Gibbons, and of minor artists and artisans. Wren rebuilt the fallen monuments, giving to the world his great St. Paul's, and a pattern of church steeple that climbs high in American settlements as well as all through London; and the lesser workers gave men new patterns in beds and chairs for repose, and in tables for comforting viands, for games, or for the gossip which was a deep game of the day. CHAPTER IV CAROLEAN STYLES OR THE RESTORATION CHARLES II, 1660 TO 1685 If it was to the Queen of Charles II that the Carolean period of furniture owed its Portuguese strain and the evidence of strange things from the East, it was from a woman of quite another sort that the predominating influence came. French styles were the vogue at court, not because the Queen, poor dull woman, wished it, but because Louise de Querouailles was the strong influence, and with her advent came follies and fashions enough to please the light side of one of the lightest of monarchs. France, in the person of Louis XIV, felt that England would bear watching while a Stuart strutted and flirted, oppressed and vacillated. And the French ways of those days being directed by such craft as that of the astute Cardinal Mazarin, a woman was sent from France to charm the King and stay closer beside the throne than any man could bide. Charles created the light and lovely Louise the Duchess of Portsmouth and the mother of the little Duke of Richmond; and, that so much of extravagant beauty might be royally housed, he spent much time and more money in fitting her apartments at Whitehall. Three times were they demolished at her whim, the extravagant fittings failing to suit her insatiable caprice. Such procedure was hotly stimulating to artists and artisans. In the first attempt they sought to produce their best, but seeing it displease, they were lashed on to more and yet more subtle effort until at last the pretty lady of too much power had forced the production of elegant new styles which smacked of her native France. Thus went by the board the efforts of English styles to remain English, and thus began that long habit of keeping an eye on French designs. We think of Charles II as a figure-head of romance, because the rosy mist of poetic fancy clings to the members of the Stuart family from Mary of Scots down to--but not including--that Duke of York who minced about the throne of Charles II with his soul concentrated on securing from his brother his own personal advancement. The horrors of Charles' reign, the Bloody Assizes, the Monmouth incident, his neglect to recognise the seriousness of his responsibilities, all these things are lost in the elegant frivolity of the life led at his court. Cares, ennuis, tragedies, were flicked aside by white hands thrust from brocades and lace, and a merry measure was the antidote for soul-sickness. Those who made music or danced to it, those who rhymed (the naughtier the better) and sang their verses, those who led at toasts and feasting, those who wore the richest dress, were the persons of importance under the patronage of Charles II, in the time of the Restoration. Nell Gwynn, she of the quick smile and quick tear, and vulnerable heart, was of the King's favour to the extent of honouring him with the little Duke of St. Albans; and on her Charles lavished accessories of elegant living similar to those he bestowed on Louise de Querouailles. The bewitching actress lived her quickly changing moods among the furniture that now graces our modern rooms here on this side of the water. We were not importing many of those elegances in 1664. That was the date when Charles' brother James, Duke of York, left the luxurious court at London and came to give royal dignity to the little American town of New Amsterdam on the day when its Dutch dominion ended and the city was re-christened New York. While considering the fascinating women of the court, Hortensia Mancini, for whom beautiful furnishings were made, must stand as the most alluring of them all because she ever eludes the critic or dissector. Somewhat of her uncle Cardinal Mazarin was in her astute secretiveness, but a baffling quality all her own made her proof against surrendering her soul to any man's probing or to any man's charm. So rich she was that money could not tempt; so clever, with Italian wit added to Italian culture, that none could surpass her in repartee or discourse; so full of mystery was her dark and piquant beauty that all might envy her--yet so passionately unhappy, that none would wish to exchange with her. Add to the list of women Barbara Palmer, Duchess of Cleveland, who represented a heavy voluptuousness and a prolific motherhood for the King, and we see the women favoured by the King's artisans, and for whom the beautiful furnishings of the time were produced. Though Charles II had no royal factories such as Louis XIV was conducting in France, plenty of rich objects of art were yielded by the workers. That astonishing aberration of taste, silver furniture, had a vogue at this time, the King considering his favourite worthy of such extravagance. It must have been ugly by its inappropriateness, however pretty was the woman it served. Louise de Querouailles had hers set in a room lined all with mirror glass, which at that time was an expensive novelty. But it pleased the King to wander into the apartment of his favourite satellite and see the lovely image of the Duchess of Portsmouth sitting among her silver movables, reflected so many times in the walls that the world seemed peopled only with adorable women. Nell Gwynn also had her mirror room. It was the Duke of Buckingham who made the mirror-lined room possible by establishing a factory for mirrors. Previous to this time they were exceeding rare in England. Now a leaf was taken from Italy's books and mirrors were made at home, with bevelled edges, and also with bright blue glass framing, inside the wooden frame. Grinling Gibbons was at work on his carvings and inventions, and we have record of him as a decorator in a letter in which he tells his lady client: "I holp all things will please you." It was the year after the Great Fire, 1667, that Gibbons began to make a feature of the garlands and swags of flowers and fruit, carved with excessive exuberance, that are associated with his name and that of Queen Anne in decoration. To gain his effects he used the fine soft limewood as yielding to his tool almost like a plastic stuff. In social England Bath played an important part, and thither went for new scenes the merry gossiping crowd for their routs and aristocratic carousing. This was the time of the sedan-chair, of the dropped note, the flirted handkerchief, the raised eyebrow and the quick eye-flash, all full of poignant meanings of their own. Life was a pretty game, insistently a pretty one, and following the mode, its accessories were pretty. At Bath the same elegant crowd played as in London, transferred by shockingly primitive coaches over outrageously rutted roads. The wonder is they ever cared to undertake such hardships as those imposed on travellers in England in the seventeenth century. But at Bath we see them, at the famous spas, with Nell Gwynn, way-ward and ardent, charming the men, slighted by the women. To be specific about the furniture styles of the times is satisfactory to the student, to the desired end that old pieces may be known from imitation, and that good adaptations may be distinguished from bad. In general it may be said that lightness continued to be the ideal in construction, particularly in chairs and tables, and that carvings grew ever finer in workmanship. Chair backs also grew narrower and higher. Caning was retained, but seats were covered with a squab cushion, or upholstered. A minute examination of the chairs on Plate 21 leads to the detection of certain characteristics. This Plate shows a particularly good example of the chairs as they depart from the fashion which prevailed immediately before the Fire, and as they merged into the style of William and Mary. These chairs have details in common with chairs that preceded them, but as a whole, they are entirely different. They do not tell the same story, convey the same message, as the chairs of Charles I, for example. And that shows the subtle power of furniture to express the spirit of the times in which it was made. "Feeling" is a word for the serious collector. Ability to read feeling amounts almost to a talent, and is certainly an instinct. Those who possess it know without recourse to detail where to place a piece of furniture never encountered before, and this even though it be one of those erratic pieces that appear in all periods. The feeling, then, of these chairs is French, but a transplanted French, growing under alien influence. [Illustration: Plate XX--STUART SETTEE WITH CARVING. SECOND HALF OF XVII CENTURY] [Illustration: Plate XXI--CHARLES II CHAIRS OF VARYING STYLES IN CARVING] Descending upon details, the shape of the legs is so much at variance with those of the preceding fashion that they seem to alter the scheme of construction. By means of the change from a straight line to a curve the chair loses in honesty and in balance while growing in elegance. Another point to notice is the change in the arrangement of stretchers, also the lifting from the floor of the elaborate front stretcher which is made to match the ornamental top of the chair back. The seat-frame retains the incising of the former fashion, and the square blocks at points of intersection carry the familiar carved rosette. The backs have strong points of interest. The radical change is in the uprights, which, instead of being wide, flat carvings of leafage, are gracefully designed posts. A long step in the way of beauty was made when this style of back was adopted, a treatment which developed later in the century into the exquisite carved backs, which even exceeded the French in graceful invention. An examination of the chairs of 1685 will show the perfection of the style which was begun by Charles II, adopted by James II and further developed under William and Mary. To continue the lesson of the chairs, it was here that the old flat S curve began to alter into the richer, more robust C curve. The leg of chairs carved in C scrolls follows the shape of the curves, and furniture of this pattern has exceeding charm, especially when the front stretcher has been treated by an inspired hand. Much sought are the chairs and sofas of this period, and when covered with needle-point are keenly valued for use in the superb living-room which in modern homes often takes place of the drawing-room. Happy indeed is the collector who can find such an old English sofa as that in the Metropolitan Museum on Plate 22. It is entirely characteristic, and shows not only the interesting fashion in carving, but the large advance in upholstering. Such comfortable work was unknown before the reign of Charles II. If we have curiosity as to the appearance of the gentlefolk who used such furniture, the embroidered cover of this piece shows lovely woman in her hours of ease, and mankind hovering near with a wish to please. But this very embroidery shows how difficult a matter it was for the English to draw with true hand and free, a purely decorative motive; for outside the figures of the medallions, the whole thing is meaningless and without consistency. [Illustration: Plate XXII--WALNUT SOFA Carved in C curves, time of James II covered with petit point embroidery] [Illustration: Plate XXIII--GILT MIRROR. TIME OF CHARLES II When mirrors were freely made in England] For a clue to the inspiration of English work in the last quarter of the century, which embraces that of Charles' reign, that of James II and of William and Mary, it is advisable to turn a keen eye on the artistic and political actions of France. The Great Louis was on the throne, and the great Le Brun was the leader in the decorative art of the day. One of the political mistakes of Louis XIV was the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, that edict which had protected from persecution so large a number of Protestant workers in the liberal arts. Among these people were tapestry weavers, silk weavers, glass workers, wood carvers, members of all the crafts that contribute to the beauty of the home. Eventually they came to England for safe haven. It is impossible to over-estimate the benefit to England in an æsthetic way of the advent of all these skilled workers, men whose equal were to be found in no other country. Louis XIV had made a royal hobby of exquisite furnishings. He had placed their manufacture among the royal pleasures and also among the state duties. He had glorified the art of furnishing as it had never before been done, by the magnificent institution of the Gobelins factory. Here men learned their craft--an infinite variety of crafts--and achieved perfection. All at once many of these workers were forced to flee or meet death under the new dictum of the King. And thus England received the outcasts to her own enrichment. One of the industries in which England was behind the Continent was the manufacture of silk. The French refugees were soon established in London at Spitalfields, reproducing the magic weaves they had formerly made for the imperious pleasure of the royal favourites in France. Satins, brocades, taffetas of wondrous dye and lustre, flowed from the looms of the able weavers who thus drowned their nostalgia in excess of a loved and familiar occupation. One result of this mass of beautiful material being thrown to a delighted public, was the change made in the fashion of interior wall-treatment. The beautiful oak panelling of other days oppressed with its seriousness the light mood of Charles II and his light companions. The gay sheen of silk was more sympathetic and enlivening. On the walls, then, went the silk. In Anne's time the panels grew larger, then became a wainscot and sank to the height of a man's bewigged and capricious head; then lowered to a chair's height for the Georgian era. And above flowed the gracious lines of silken fabrics concealing all the walls, made in Spitalfields by the French refugees and their followers. The pretty Duchess of Portsmouth had her rooms hung with silk and with wondrous tapestries from France, though England made both silks and tapestries. Beds of the day retained the high posts and tester or canopy, heavily draped, and the bed was similarly covered. The bed was carved, even to the tester, in French inspiration, and was elegant indeed. In such a bed came the King at last to lie in mortal illness in the palace at Whitehall, where the lovely Louise had first place by the royal invalid, while the Queen was treated as a negligible quantity. The Duchess of Cleveland, that other favourite, was not far in the background, and the King in his last hours remembered still another when he implored: "Don't let poor Nell starve." CHAPTER V THE END OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY WILLIAM AND MARY. 1689-1702 THE style named for William and Mary embraces all the changes that occurred from late Carolean days until the time of Anne, and even includes some of the models and details that are given the name of that queen. Dutch influence comes largely into both, but was stronger in the style known as Queen Anne's. Mixed up with other influences were those not only of Holland but of the countries with which her political life was concerned. Spain contributed certain details, and as for the Dutch connections with the Near and the Far East, they supplied an infinity of inspiration. Nothing more piquant to the decorative spirit could be imagined than the fantastic motifs of Indian and Chinese importation. To us, surfeited as we are from babyhood with Chinese toys and Indian stuffs, it is hard to look upon these things as startling novelties. But in those days of less travel they were delicious exotics. Among persons of fashion, there was a rage for the living evidences of the strange East, and more than popular as pets in the drawing-room became the exotic monkey and the vivid parrot. If these creatures, leashed to a standard, could be tended by a tiny black human, then fashion was pleased to an infantine joyousness. [Illustration: Plate XXIV--INTERESTING CHAIR TRANSITIONAL BETWEEN STUART STYLES AND WILLIAM AND MARY] [Illustration: CHAIRS IN VARIANTS OF WILLIAM AND MARY Covered with petit point of the time] [Illustration: WILLIAM AND MARY CANED CHAIRS, ONE WITH FLUTED SPANISH FOOT Plate XXV] Every ship that came in from far Eastern countries brought wise parrots and tiny frisking monkeys, and these were valued by decorative artists for models, as well as by my lady to pique gay conversation in her drawing-room. William and Mary styles, like all of the seventeenth century, are at present in high vogue in America, and for this reason it interests us to study them. They come in after the use of oak has passed its vogue, and when walnut prevails, although woods of lighter colour, such as pearwood and sycamore, are employed. In chairs and sofas, carving prevails as decoration; but in cabinets and tables, the preference is for veneer and for inlay. At this time occurs a change in the style of cabinets. Hitherto they had been closed cupboards; now, because of the fashion for collecting Delft china from Holland, a need came for cabinets that would display the collector's treasure. As furniture makers ever express the whims and needs of the day, so they at once invented the cabinet with shelf-top protected by glass. A feature of the design is the hooded top, so characteristic of William and Mary. Two types of carving prevailed in chairs in the last twenty years of the seventeenth century, that of the broken C curve, originating under Charles II, and that of great elaboration which in some respects caught its details from the French. A study of the plates will show that the post-like upright which flanks the back is retained in both cases. Examples of fine carving under William and Mary show the free fancy of the designer and the skill of the worker who was possibly the designer as well. But the original chairs must be seen to gain any idea of the beauty of colour and finish. The whole bears the look of bronze that has been polished with caressing hands for centuries. The shape of the leg in these finely carved chairs is to be noticed, as it is fathered by the chair-leg in vogue under Louis XIV in France, and in slight variations it prevails all through the William and Mary period. It is noticeable by a pear-shaped enlargement near the top. The Spanish foot is often seen on this style. Petit point, gros point, or mere cross-stitch embroidery you may call it, was a fashionable occupation for dame and damsel. In Charles II's time the stuffed high-relief stump work pleased the court. Sorry stuff it looks now, much like the court ladies of that time, in that its colour and gilt are gone and its false art is pitifully exposed. But the good honest embroidery in wool and silk still stands, and is again tremendously in vogue. [Illustration: Plate XXVI--CHEST OF DRAWERS IN BURR WALNUT VENEER Mounted on legs, used in the last quarter of the XVII century] [Illustration: Plate XXVII--SMALL WALNUT TABLE With spiral legs and inlay. Here is seen the beginning of the flat serpentine stretcher] It was Madame de Maintenon who gave such inspiration to the work in France that England copied. Her school at St. Cyr, which she conducted solely for the purpose of giving happiness and education to penniless daughters of fallen aristocrats, at that school the young girls executed work that ranks with objects of art. A well-known American collector has a large sofa executed thus under the hand of Madame de Maintenon which represents scenes from a play of Molière's, the piece having also been given by these same young girls, then the cartoons drawn by an artist of high talent. So petit point was almost a high art in France in the time of William and Mary, and England did her best to follow the fine pattern set her. If, in judging whether this work be French or English, the mind hesitates, it is well to take the eye from the medallions and study how the designer filled the big field outside. In French drawing the whole is a harmonious composition; in the English, the hand is crude and uncertain, and the motifs meaningless, though bold, without coherence or co-ordination. Nowadays the lady who wishes to embroider a chair gets from Paris a medallion already complete and fills in the surrounding territory at her pleasure. It would seem that the ladies in England did the same in the seventeenth century, but with less taste. Among minor points of interest, those little points used by the amateur in identifying, is the marked change in the stretcher. Away back in the beginning of the century, as seen on chairs and tables, it was heavy, made of square three-or four-inch oak, and placed almost on the ground. The first change was in using thinner wood; the next was in giving the stretcher a look of ornamental lightness by turning. When this happened the front stretcher of chairs was lifted from the ground to spare it the heavy wear apparent in older pieces. When carving attacked the stretcher, then it was placed well out of the way of harm, and it took on the ornamental effect of the chair's back. The Portuguese style of stretcher copied closely the carving on the top of the back in graceful curves. It was when the larger pieces of furniture took on a certain lightness of effect that a change in their stretchers occurred, and this was in the period of William and Mary. The stretcher became wide, flat and serpentine. In chairs it wandered diagonally from the legs, meeting in the centre. In tables its shape was regulated by the size of the table top. In chests of drawers it wavered from leg to leg of the six which like short posts supported the weight. If the piece of furniture was inlaid these flat stretchers offered fine opportunity for continuing the work. Strangely enough the stretcher, in chairs at least, disappeared at just the time it was most needed. That was at the introduction of the curved or cabriole leg, in the early days of Queen Anne. Those who know by experience how frail the curve makes this sort of construction, sigh with regret that the fine old Queen Anne pieces of their collection cannot be consistently stayed according to the older method. [Illustration: Plate XXVIII--CARVED CHAIRS. PERIOD OF WILLIAM AND MARY With all the fine characteristics of the carved designs of the time] [Illustration: Plate XXIX--WALNUT CHAIRS, WILLIAM AND MARY With the exquisitely carved backs, stretchers and legs characteristic of the time] It was in the interesting time of William and Mary that the kneehole desk made its appearance. A certain enchanting clumsiness marks these desks from later products on the same line, and a decided flavour of Chinese construction. Such a desk was recently rooted out of the dark in an obscure Connecticut town, it having been brought over in the early days, and, not being mahogany, has lain despised by local dealers until one more "knowledgeable" than his fellows discovered that it was Elizabethan! A contribution made by China was the art of lacquering. Although it was not in the fulness of its vogue until the century had turned the corner in Queen Anne's reign, it had its beginnings in the earlier importations of lacquer and the desire of the cabinet-makers to imitate the imported art. Varnish as we know it had never been in use, else had we missed the wonderful hand polish on old oak and walnut that cannot be imitated. And when it appeared it was only to use it in the Chinese manner, as a thick lacquer over painted or relief ornament. As the art of lacquering grew, cabinets of great elaboration became fashionable, and these were in many cases imported from China as the cunning handicraft of the Chinese exceeded that of the English in making tiny drawers and tea-box effects. Then these pieces were sent to England where they were painted and lacquered by ladies as a fashionable pastime, and were set on elaborate carved stands of gilt in a style savouring more of Grinling Gibbons than of China,--which is the true accounting of the puzzling combination of lacquer and gold carving. The metal mounts or hardware of furniture throughout the seventeenth century was simple beyond necessity, yet this simplicity has its charm. In earliest days, iron locks and hinges of a Gothic prudence as to size and invulnerability, ushered in the century, but it was still the time of Shakespeare, and that time threw a glance back to the Gothic just left behind. Knobs were needed as drawers appeared, and these were conveniently and logically made of wood, and were cut in facets like a diamond. But the prevailing metal mount for the rest of the century was the little drop handle that resembles nothing so much as a lady's long earring. It is found on old Jacobean cabinets, side-tables, and all pieces having drawers and cupboards. Its origin is old Spanish, and that smacks always of Moorish. With unusual fidelity this little drop handle clung until under Queen Anne (1703) the fashion changed to the wide ornamental plate with looplike handle, and _that_ in turn served, with but slight variations, throughout the century. [Illustration: QUEEN ANNE SINGLE CHAIR Made of walnut with carved motives gilded. This type of chair shows the strong effect of Chinese motifs, especially on the legs.] [Illustration: QUEEN ANNE ARM CHAIR Upholstered in gros point with splat black and Dutch shell on curved legs. _Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York_] [Illustration: WALNUT QUEEN ANNE CHAIRS With cabriole leg and claw and ball foot adapted from Chinese Spanish leather set on with innumerable nails elegantly covers the taller. These chairs foreshadow the Georgian styles. Plate XXX] [Illustration: Plate XXXI--QUEEN ANNE CHAIR With marquetry back and carved cabriole leg with hoof and serpentine stretcher _Courtesy of P. W. French_] In summing up the seventeenth century as a whole, it seems to show a British and insular attempt to form its own styles, to dress its homes and palaces in a British way, regardless of what the world else-where was doing. Bits of outside product came drifting across the Channel, but these were not treated with too great seriousness. They were never adopted intact with all the feeling of foreign thought shining from their elegant surfaces, but rather were cut apart and certain bits were used to tack onto the more British work. And it is just here that is found the secret of the charm which lies in old English furniture. It is the endeavour of England to tell her own story, and her story is necessarily different from that of France, Portugal, Spain, Holland, the East. So, although she borrows motifs from foreign lands, it is only to indicate her historical connection with them and not to make a witless copy of their wares. This holds true even at the time when two great artists dominated the decorative arts in Europe, Rubens and Le Brun, and that decorative monarch, Louis XIV, ruled art as well as politics. Yet the insularity of England kept her, happily, from realising the fine flowering of French art to imitate it, and, instead, she expressed her own sturdy characteristic development. And so we love the evidences of sincerity and the pursuit of beauty that our English ancestors made for us, and in our homes of ease, with these things about us, we like to dream of the men and women who created and used these dignified time-kissed old pieces. And in dreaming we forget the frailty and cruelty of courts and rulers and think on the nobility and courage of the lesser yet greater folk who laid the foundation of our country. THE END TABLE OF INTERESTING DATES +James I. 1603 to 1625+ Shakespeare died 1616 First American Colonies, Yorktown, 1607 First American Colonies, Plymouth, 1620 +Charles I. 1625 to 1649+ Inigo Jones, Architect, died 1651 Van Dyck, court painter Sir Francis Crane +Commonwealth Under Cromwell, 1649 to 1660+ +Charles II. 1660 to 1685+ The Restoration Queen Catherine of Braganza, 1660 Bombay Influence and East India Company, 1660 Great Fire of London, 1666 Sir Christopher Wren, 1632-1723 St. Paul's commenced, 1675 Grinling Gibbons, 1648-1726 Mirror Factory, 1673 Chatsworth Built, 1670 +James II. 1685 to 1688+ Revocation of Edict of Nantes, 1685 Spitalfields Silk Factories, 1685 +William and Mary. 1689 to 1702+ Daniel Morot Hampton Court, principal parts built +Queen Anne. 1702 to 1714+ 
33350	----	THE ARTS AND CRAFTS MOVEMENT BY T. J. COBDEN-SANDERSON HAMMERSMITH PUBLISHING SOCIETY RIVER HOUSE HAMMERSMITH MDCCCCV The Movement, passing under the name of 'Arts and Crafts,' admits of many definitions. It may be associated with the movement of ideas, characteristic of the close of the last century, and be defined to be an effort to bring it under the influence of art as the supreme mode in which human activity of all kinds expresses itself at its highest and best; in which case the so-called 'Arts and Crafts Exhibitions' would be but a symbolic presentment of a whole by a part, itself incapable of presentment: or it may be associated with the revival, by a few artists, of hand-craft as opposed to machine-craft, and be defined to be the insistence on the worth of man's hand, a unique tool in danger of being lost in the substitution for it of highly organized and intricate machinery, or of emotional as distinguished from merely skilled and technical labour: or again, it may be defined to be both the one and the other, and to have a wider scope than either; as for example, it may be defined to constitute a movement to bring all the activities of the human spirit under the influence of one idea, the idea that life is creation, and should be creative in modes of art, & that this creation should extend to all the ideas of science and of social organization, to all the ideas and habits begotten of a grandiose and consciously conceived procession of humanity, out of nothing and nowhere, into everything and everywhere, as well as to the merely instrumental occupations thereof at any particular moment. No definition, however, is orthodox or to be propounded with authority: each has its apostles: and besides the definitions attempted above, there are still others, some of them, indeed, concerning themselves only with the facilities to be afforded to the craftsman for the exhibition, advertisement, and sale of his wares. Nor do I propose, myself, to propound one at this stage of my description of the movement. I merely adumbrate the shifting goal, as it may have presented itself to the minds of the men engaged in the movement, that you may know at the outset, in vision, those far-off heights, which they, or some of them, essayed not only themselves to climb, but to make all mankind also to climb. It is to the movement itself that I will first ask your attention. Art is one, though manifold, and when the Royal Academy of Arts, in spite of many protests, continued to restrict its Academic Exhibitions to Painting, Sculpture, and Abstract Architecture, a body of protesters came together, not any longer to protest only, but this time to constitute a society of exhibitioners who should widen the academic conception of art, and open its exhibitions to all forms of art, provided only that the form _was_ of art, born of the imagination, and destined to touch the imagination. Such a society was in due time formed, and, under the name of the 'Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society,' initiated the wider movement which, from itself as source, has spread all the world over, and created a new interest. The arts and crafts have been born again, and, in a new sense, occupy the attention of mankind. The first exhibition was held in the New Gallery, in London, in the autumn of 1888. It is not necessary to dwell on the exhibits which stand enumerated in the catalogue now before me. It is sufficient to say that whereas each exhibit, standing alone, might have been seen without any sense of a new 'movement' being on foot, the accumulation, under one roof and idea, of so many different and differently conceived things of beauty, made a marked impression on the public imagination, & unmistakably heralded the advent of a new force into society, at once creative and classificatory. Old things, long since done, were to be put into new relations, & upon a higher plane, and all new work was to be conceived of as convergent upon one end, the dignity and sweetness of life, and the workman--artist or craftsman--was to derive therefrom his measure of happiness & delight. And that work, which for the world had lost all association with human initiative & solicitude, was to be made to resume that intimate relation, and the workman himself to be recalled into the assembly of those who are consciously striving to the acknowledged end. The workmen contributing to the creation of a work were to be thenceforward named its author, and to have their names inscribed upon the great roll of the world's ever visible record. Such appeared to be the new movement of which the first exhibition of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society was the first overt act. Besides the enumeration and description of exhibits, the catalogue contained a preface by the President, Walter Crane; a notice of lectures to be given in connexion with the exhibition; and a number of 'Notes' upon various arts & crafts written by men who, as stated in the preface, were associated with the subjects of which they treated, not in the literary sense only, but as actual designers and workmen. The object of the lectures was stated to be twofold: (1) To set out the aims of the Society; and (2) by demonstration & otherwise, to direct attention to the processes employed in the arts and crafts, and so to lay a foundation for a just appreciation, both of the processes themselves, and of their importance as methods of expression in design. And here I may intercalate an extract from a book which appeared at that time, as it throws a light upon, indeed constituted, one of the main impulses to which was due the inception of the lectures. I refer to 'Scientific Religion, or Higher Possibilities of Life and Practice through the Operation of Natural Causes,' by Laurence Oliphant; and the passage to which I ask your attention is the following: 'He can no longer be esteemed an excellent workman who can only work excellently! for his work, to prove that it is living, must be generative, and it will not be generative unless the workman has his mind trained to a clear conception of his own methods and their connexion with the laws of Nature: and unless he can impart that understanding by word of mouth: unless, in fine, the sum of his experience, while he is constantly increasing it, is as constantly forced by him into mental shape'--or, as I might add, into imaginative shape and association. When I read this I seemed to see all crafts and manufactures and commerce crystal clear and capable of statement, so that, even as they stood outlined and embodied to the corporeal eye, so they should shine in all their processes and relations clear as in sunlight to the eye of intelligence: and it was in such wise that when the time came I proposed to the Committee of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society that Lectures should form a part of the purpose of the Society, and should accompany and be delivered in the building of the Exhibition (1) to convert the implicit mental processes involved in the exercise of a craft into explicit articulate utterance capable of making such mental processes intelligible at once to the worker himself and to the spectator interested to know, and (2) to widen the horizons of the workers and to set their work in due relation to the other crafts and processes with which it was associated, and to the forces of Nature upon which they and it depended. Lectures, as announced in the Catalogue, were given in connexion with the first exhibition by William Morris on Tapestry, by George Simmonds on Modelling and Sculpture, by Emery Walker on Letterpress Printing, by myself on Bookbinding, and by Walter Crane on Design. Perhaps, in view of the results which have flowed from it, and at this distance of time, I may for a moment dwell particularly on the lecture on Letterpress Printing. It was at my urgent request that Mr. Walker overcame his reluctance to speak in public, and I therefore claim for myself the honour of being the real author of The Kelmscott Press! for it was in consequence of this lecture given by Mr. Emery Walker at my request, and the lantern slides of beautiful old founts of type and MS. by which it was illustrated, that William Morris was induced to turn again his attention to printing, and this time, as a printer, to produce, in friendly collaboration with Mr. Walker, that splendid series of printed books which has inspired printing with a new life, and enriched the libraries of the world with books as nobly conceived and executed as any that distinguish the great age of Printing itself. The 'Notes,' to which reference has already been made, occupied a little more than a third of the Catalogue, and treated of: Textiles, Decorative Painting and Design, Wall papers, Fictiles, Metal work, Stone and Wood carving, Furniture, Stained and Table glass, Printing, and Bookbinding: and as they contain the doctrines of the new movement so far as it was applicable to the crafts of which they treated, it may be worth while to turn over a few pages and to see what those doctrines are. Mr. Morris, who writes on Textiles, opens at once on his subject. 'There are,' he says, 'several ways of ornamenting a woven cloth.' He then enumerates the ways as follows: (1) Real Tapestry; (2) Carpet weaving; (3) Mechanical weaving; (4) Printing or Painting; and (5) Embroidery; and proceeds under each head to lay down principles, accordant with the particular method, for the production of the ornament required, and concludes his note with some general maxims applicable to all the methods alike, as thus, 'Never forget the material you are working with, and try always to use it for doing what it can do best: if you feel yourself hampered by the material in which you are working, instead of being helped by it, you have so far not learned your business, any more than a would-be poet has, who complains of the hardship of writing in measure and rhyme. The special limitations of the material should be a pleasure to you, not a hindrance: a designer, therefore, should always thoroughly understand the processes of the special manufacture he is dealing with, or the result will be a mere _tour-de-force_. On the other hand it is the pleasure in understanding the capabilities of a special material, and using them for suggesting (not imitating) natural beauty and incident, that gives the _raison d'être_ of decorative art.' In a note on wall papers Mr. Crane goes into useful detail as to the conditions of successful pattern making for their decoration. As, however, our purpose is only with the more general lines and direction of the movement, we need not follow him into this detail, and I will leave it with the remark that this and kindred notes by him and others show sufficiently that the writers did not confine themselves to general principles difficult of application without intermediary illustration, but addressed themselves vigorously to the actual practice of the craft treated of, and sought to quicken it into life at once by Principle and Precept, by Example, and by Trade Recipe. Continuing our exploration of the Notes, we next come upon an interesting one by the late--alas! too many of the early workers in the movement have ceased to be with us, and I feel here tempted to break off, and, in sympathy with that sublime chapter of Ecclesiasticus which I have recently been printing, to commemorate 'our fathers that begat us,' the great Dead. Such as did bear rule in their kingdoms, Men renowned for their power, Giving counsel by their understanding, And declaring prophecies. Burne-Jones, William Morris, Madox Brown--'these be of them that have left a name behind them to declare their praises.' And some there be that have no memorial save the memory of them enshrined in the hearts of them that knew them. But adequately to commemorate were too great an enterprise, and I return to my immediate topic; and yet, as I turn, one of great name, greater than all whom I have named, impels me to pause and to praise him, him who begat the begetters, him who was 'as the morning star in the midst of a cloud, as the moon at the full,' Ruskin! To him we all owe whatever of impulse is in us toward that goal whose outline it is my business to describe to you to-night. To Ruskin, then, all honour, all praise, to Ruskin, the great Dead who in life, living, begat us! To resume. The Note on Fictiles, by the late G. T. Robinson, carries us to the dawn of art and craft, for, as says Mr. Robinson, 'Man's first needs in domestic life, his first utensils, his first efforts at civilization, came from the mother earth, whose son he believed himself to be, and his ashes or his bones returned to earth, enshrined in the fictile vases he created from their common clay. And these fictiles,' continues Mr. Robinson, 'tell the story of his first art instincts, and of his yearnings to unite beauty with use. They tell, too, more of his history than is enshrined and preserved by any other art; for almost all we know of many a people and many a tongue is learned from the fictile record, the sole relic of past civilizations which the destroyer Time has left us. Begun in the simplest fashion, fashioned by the simplest means, created from the commonest materials, fictile _Art_ grew with man's intellectual growth, and fictile _Craft_ grew with his knowledge--the latter conquering in this our day, when the craftsman strangles the artist alike in this as in all other arts. To truly foster and forward an art,' concludes Mr. Robinson, 'the craftsman and the artist should, where possible, be united; or, at least, should work in common, as was the case when, in each civilization, the Potter's Art flourished most, and when the scientific base was of less account than was the art employed upon it.' It is not necessary for our purpose to go through the succeeding Notes, or to say more than that, assuming the principles which underlie all great art, they deal in their several ways with a number of crafts which the creative ingenuity of man, working, as described by Mr. Robinson, for the satisfaction & for the adornment of the satisfaction of his wants, imaginative and real, has in different circumstances and at different times invented, and seek, amid the confusion which has arisen in the abuse of these crafts by pseudo-craftsmen and artists, who have approached them from the outside, to restore to them their sanity, alike in process and in choice of material, in aim, and in the expression of beauty and of purpose. The master-principle, however, to be deduced from the Notes may be here restated in the words of Mr. Morris, for it is a principle applicable to the whole range of imaginative creation: 'Never forget the material you are working with, and try always to use it for doing what it can do best.' To the catalogues of the two following exhibitions more Notes were added, and finally, in 1893, all the Notes were put together and published in one volume, entitled 'Art and Crafts Essays by Members of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society,' with a Prefatory Note by William Morris. This volume was reprinted in 1899. In the Prefatory Note Mr. Morris sets out the purpose of the Society as understood by him--too narrowly, I think. 'It is,' he says, 'to help the conscious cultivation of art and to interest the public in it, by calling special attention to that,' in his judgement, 'really most important side of art, the decoration of utilities by furnishing them with genuine artistic finish in place of trade finish.' To this I shall return by and by. After the Prefatory Note comes the Table of Contents of the volume. And looking for a moment down the long list of tongues in which Craft, under the guidance of Art, is striving to speak afresh, how can one fail to lament the time now past and to wish it back, when these tongues, now the language, and too often the quite artificial language, of a professional and specially trained class, were but the vernacular of one common language, widely and familiarly spoken, and craftmanship itself but 'joy in widest commonalty spread'; joy in working in all the various ways of imaginative invention, upon all sorts and kinds of material, material brought from afar, sought with danger or grown in pastoral peace; joy in making and devising things of use and of beauty, homely things, princely things, things of beauty for beauty's adornment, noble things for a city's; all amid Nature's own, yet unsullied, immense creativeness, all for the admiration and use of vigorous emergent and vanishing generations, whose common bond in life was the thing so made, its beauty and its use. We may now leave the explanatory preludes, the Notes, and turn to the Lectures, to which reference has already been made. They were given, I think, at each Exhibition, except the last, and in the Exhibition itself, and were meant, besides the objects officially announced in the catalogues, to widen the scope of the Exhibitions, otherwise restricted to things of minor importance only, and to extend the attention of the public to things not present in the Exhibition, though to be imagined and thought of in association with it. And here we may expect to find, and shall find, as I shall show, a more extended view of the aims of the Society as set out by itself. It is matter of regret that, save one series presently to be mentioned, and a lecture by William Morris, no record has been kept of them. They were delivered, and are now perhaps forgotten. And yet how stimulating, how interesting the circumstances of some of them! William Morris, on a raised platform, surrounded by products of the loom, at work upon a model loom specially constructed from his design--now in the Victoria and Albert Museum--to show how the wools were inwrought, and the visions of his brain fixed in colour and in form; Walter Crane, backed by a great black board, wiped clean, alas! when one would have had it remain for ever still adorned by the spontaneous creations of his inexhaustible brain; George Simmonds, demonstrating to us the uses of the thumb, and how under its pressure things of clay rose into life; Lewis Day, designing as he spoke, and bringing before our inner eye, as well as the outer, the patterns of Asia and of Europe in stage after stage of development; Selwyn Image, by his studied elocution, taking us back to the church which he had left, but with sweet reasonableness depicting before its shadowy background the bright new Jerusalem toward which his enfranchised imagination burned; Lethaby, entrancing us with the cities which crowned the hills of Europe, or sat in white on the still seashore, or mirrored in the waters of Italy: all vanished, save the memory of them! And here, dwelling in memory on the past, may I not recall the fervour, the enthusiasm of those first years, the ready invention, the design, born of the moment and the occasion, for catalogue, rules and room; and one design that caused so much, long-forgotten commotion--the design by the President, to be hung over the out-door entrance to the gallery, of artist and craftsman, hand in hand! But how recall them to those who knew them not? Impossible! I mention them only in piety to that holy time, when we circled about the founts, and played, of that great movement which is now the world's! As I write these words I am reminded of that definition to which I said I would return. 'The aim of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society'--I repeat the definition--'is to help the conscious cultivation of art, and the attempt to interest the public in it, by calling special attention to that really most important side of art, the decoration of utilities, by furnishing them with genuine artistic finish in place of trade finish.' Surely this is a strange misapprehension & restriction of the aims of the Society! Were that the only aim, then the movement was not what I imagined it to be, and still imagine, nor would it be worthy of your attention to-day, not to speak of the world's! In the same preface in which this definition occurs there is a passage which I passed over at the time, but which at this stage of our history it is important that I should notice. 'We can,' says the writer, 'expect no general impulse towards the fine arts till civilization has been transformed into some other condition, the details of which we cannot see.' And it was therefore--because we could expect no general impulse towards the fine arts, until this obstacle was removed, that we were in the meantime, and this was to be our 'movement,' to help the conscious cultivation of art, which the writer at the same time says is no art at all, and the attempt to interest the public in it! Here I am at issue with the writer, and would submit that this general impulse must precede and _itself_ bring about the transformation: and further that this general impulse is precisely and already the impulse constituting that great movement dubbed 'Arts and Crafts,' and that its aim is not merely to help the conscious cultivation of art pending the transformation, but itself to bring the transformation about. In fact, I submit that in the intention of the founders, or in the intention of some of them, Art is, or should be, an agent _in the production_ of noble life, and not merely an executant dependent upon and presupposing its existence. As some evidence of this intention, I may adduce the following conclusion from an unpublished Report of the Committee to the Members of the Society. 'In conclusion, the Committee would venture for a moment to take their stand upon the higher plane of the Society, and to say a word or two upon the cause which in the opinion of the Committee constitutes the claim of the Society to attention and support. For a small body of artists to band themselves together, simply to produce and to exhibit objects of art for an age which is not indeed essentially inartistic, but which, by the accident of the failure of the imagination to grasp and mould its dominant realities, has not had revealed to itself the splendour of its opportunities, or of the meaning of Beauty in association with Industry and Science--for a small body of Artists to band themselves together for such a purpose is indeed something; but it is to leave unfulfilled, unessayed, the main function, in this and every age, of all great Art and of all great Artists. Such Art and such Artists would and should, whilst still producing, as best they may, if not "things of immortal Beauty," at least "things of their own," strive at the same time to understand the true drift and possible Ideal of the Age in which they live. It is the function of an Artist to divine the Ideal of an age, and to express it in manifold Form. The Ideal of the present age has been neglected by him. The actuality has been left as an actuality, unredeemed by ideas, to those whose sole business it is to carry on, and to constitute, the actuality of the age. But there is above and beyond every Actuality an Ideal upon which it can and should be modelled. It is this Ideal which it is the function of the Artist--which it is the function of this Society--to discover and to express, in great things as in small, in small as in great: and the Ideal, expressed, is then as a great Light to those who sit in darkness; it is a light towards which the soul of Actuality turns; it is that which, aspired to, gives to an age dignity and immortality, and converts the work of the hand and brain from work that is sordid and mean, to work that is imaginative and noble.' But the claim does not rest on unpublished records alone. This I think will be apparent if attention be given to the one series of Lectures which has survived their delivery, and been published. I refer to 'Art and Life, and the Building and Decoration of Cities,' a title which of itself carries the scope of the Society beyond all the possible Exhibits of an Exhibition. The object of these Lectures is thus explicitly stated by the Lecturer on 'Art and Life,' which introduces the series, and his statement is borne witness to throughout by all the other speakers. The statement to which I refer is as follows: 'I now begin the first of a series of Lectures having for their object generally the extension of the conception of Art, and more especially the application of the idea of Beauty to the organization and decoration of our greater cities.' And of his own Lecture he says: 'I desire to extend the conception of Art, and to apply it to life as a whole; or, inversely, to make the whole of life, in all its grandeur, as well as in all its delightful detail, the object of the action of Art and Craft.' And in the course of it the Lecturer thus defined what seemed to him the function of art in this extended conception of its meaning. 'Art implies a certain lofty environment, and is itself an adjustment to that environment of all that can be done by mankind within it. Art as a great function of human imagination is not the creation of isolated objects of beauty, though isolated objects of beauty may indeed be created by art, and, in themselves, resume all that is beautiful, orderly, restful, and stable in the artist's conception of that environment. Still less is it, what some may seem to imagine, the objects of beauty themselves. Art is, or should be, alive, alive and a universal stimulus. It is that spirit of order and seemliness, of dignity and sublimity, which, acting in unison with the great procession of natural forces in their own orderly evolution, tends to make out of a chaos of egotistic passions, a great power of disinterested social action; which tends to make out of the seemingly meaningless satisfaction of our daily and annual needs, a beautiful exercise of our innumerable gifts of fancy and invention, an exercise which may be its own exceeding great reward, and come to seem to be indeed _the_ end for which the needs were made.' It was thus and thus that, in the inception of the Society, we sought to 'divine' the Ideal of the Age, and to give effect to it in the work which lay immediately to hand. But it was not to such work only that the ideal was to be extended. 'Nor,' continues the Lecturer, 'do I stop at deeds to be done in such unison. I demand in the name of art--and here is especially the note and distinction of Modern Art as I conceive it--I demand in the name of art, that Science itself, that knowledge, shall enter upon a new phase, and itself become, in the mind of man, the imaginative _Re-presentment_ of the universe without, an analytical knowledge of which has hitherto been its one sole and supreme aim.' Again, in another matter, bearing upon the aims of the Society & of the movement, I must, albeit reluctantly, dissent from the view taken of it by my friend Mr. Morris. It will help, perhaps, to clear up the situation. In an article 'On the revival of Handicraft' published in the 'Fortnightly' in 1888, the year of the first Arts and Crafts Exhibition, an article interesting and stimulating as are all the writings of Mr. Morris, there is, amid so much that is admirable, a statement which would sweep away the whole of modern life, & render the achievement of its distinctive ideal an impossible dream--a consummation devoutly to be wished! we can indeed imagine Mr. Morris to exclaim. 'As a condition of life,' Mr. Morris says, 'production by machinery is wholly an evil.' But surely this is altogether questionable. Surely things there are, the production of which by machinery may be wholly right, things which, moreover, when so produced may be wholly right also, and in their rightness even works of art. Great works of art are useful works, greatly done. In the same article Mr. Morris, deprecating, as I would do, the exclusive production of Beauty for Beauty's sake, goes on to say, as I would wish to say: 'In the great times of art, conscious effort was used to produce great works for the glory of the city, the triumph of the Church, the exaltation of the citizens, the quickening of the devotion of the faithful: even in the higher art, the record of history, the instruction of men alive or to live hereafter, was the aim rather than beauty.' But if in the great times of art, great works were the aims of great art rather than beauty, why to-day should not great works still be the aim of great art rather than beauty? Is to-day wanting in great works waiting to be done in the great way, which is the way of art? or is it that to-day all great works are machinery only, and so an evil, incapable of artistic treatment? But, to take a simple instance, one short of that complete Transformation of Life which should be the main aim of art, to take a practical problem of modern life, the supply of water to a great city, consider the grandiose character of the problem, despite, or shall we say in consequence of, the mighty mechanical agencies now involved in its solution--the fetching of the water from the far-off pure source, the hills of rain & of snow, to the city of the plain and the sun, its storage and distribution, by the immense pulsations of machinery, day & night, year after year. Is not that a noble problem for the imaginative faculties of the artist, only less noble than the supply of the Holy Spirit from the pulpit or the altar, to the massed congregation at their feet, or than the summons from Tower or Belfry to unity of action or of prayer, of the separated members of a city or a Church? But such a problem, since the great days of Rome, is not thought of in connexion with art, nor is the grandiose character of its solution so much as dreamed of--the carriage of the water to the city, one long triumphant procession: and within the city what noble works! first in importance, the pumping station; how prosaic it sounds! yet to the imagination how magnificent! that mighty heart, that to the uttermost ambit of the city drives the far-off burthen of the hills! Then the public fountains in the great thoroughfares, at the great crossings & in the great squares; noble works of art, at once to typify and to actualize a city's purity and to satiate a city's thirst, and for a city's joy and remembrance, in pleasant shower, to cast into the air the liquid drops which first fell for it, and fall, on the distant heights of snow. And finally in each house, in each room, the separate jet, the very taps this time ablaze with beauty for happy beauty's sake, and happier use! Again, to take a larger instance--still an instance of machinery. The people of England, like the people of Rome, have been engaged for a thousand years or more in making a constitution, a great piece of machinery, for their own governance, and are still engaged in that task, and are likely to be engaged in it, perhaps for a thousand years or more to come. It is a great task, a great problem, ever changing its conditions with the changes which, with other causes, its own changes bring about: it is also, or should be, a great work of art as well as of machinery, in which, in future ages, will be seen the moral & imaginative framework of this people of England. That work of art should be had in view in the struggles of the moment, should be had in view and be promoted by every citizen who would do more than live out his individual years in selfish & ignoble isolation; but it should especially be had in view by the people as a whole, be their ideal, their supreme work of art; and theirs whom the people's will has placed at their head to mould and to guide their destinies, theirs, so that when the world's history shall be rounded off and resumed in planetary stillness, and in the consciousness of the gods, England, England's history, shall shine out starlike, England, which shall have made, not itself its goal, but an immortal purpose--ideal freedom and the world's joy! Such is one other great work of art, of machinery, still awaiting accomplishment, still awaiting the devotion to which all great art is due. But art to-day has no eyes, no devotion, & so for art there is no great object, and for the great object no art. Nor does the great artist, as does the great opportunity, sojourn in our midst. Such art and artists as there are, and are there any? are but engaged in the conscious cultivation of art for art's sake, or of beauty for beauty's sake, pending the great transformation which, meanwhile, is no affair of theirs. Of such art and of such cultivation, nothing need be expected: and such art and such cultivation are certainly not in my judgement, nor are they, so far as I know, in the judgement of the artists whose revolt founded the Society, the aims of the movement now passing under its name. What those aims are, I will now, from my own point of view, endeavour to restate: for of the subsequent exhibitions of the Society, nothing more need be said. Subsequent exhibitions, whether in England, on the Continent, or in the United States of America, were, and are, but repetitions, with variations only of detail, of the first, and need no description; though against exhibitions themselves I may be allowed before I pass away from them to urge one objection, an objection, not indeed condemnatory of them, but an objection which should, I think, be borne in mind in promoting them, and be obviated as far as the circumstances of each exhibition will permit. The objection which I would urge is this. An exhibition, as I have already insisted, is but a small part of the Arts & Crafts movement, which is a movement in the main of ideas and not of _objets d'art_, & there is a danger in the constant repetition of exhibitions, civic, national, and international, of public attention being diverted from the movement of ideas, & action thereupon, to the mere production and exhibition of exhibits. Moreover, of exhibits, very few things, relatively to the whole of life's possessions and productions, can be brought together usefully, or at all, under one roof, and of those which can very few can tell their own tale, apologize for their shortcomings, or of themselves ask to be forgiven for the sake of their approximate merit. It was to guard against the danger of this possible diversion of interest and forgetfulness of the movement's greater purposes, and indirectly, by suggestion of the ideal, to illuminate the possible deficiencies of the exhibits, as well as to draw attention to their merits, that the aid of lectures was made an essential part of at least the scheme of the Society: and lectures of the kind in question, lectures, that is to say, which shall deal at large with the meaning, as well as the contents, of an exhibition, are, in my opinion, an essential adjunct of every exhibition. With this objection stated, I now proceed to wind up my observations and to come to a conclusion. But before doing so I must ask your attention in one other matter in which I find it necessary to differ from Mr. Morris. But pray note that it is a matter of interpretation only in which here, as elsewhere, I presume to differ from that great spirit, now passed away. Only in the matter of interpretation, for I do not--how could I?--call in question, here or anywhere, the greatness of the aims of William Morris himself. I claim only (1) that the movement which I am attempting to describe had a higher aim than in his own despite he assigned to it in the passage I have quoted: (2) that machinery may be redeemed by imagination, and made to enter even into his restored world, adding to the potency of good, and to its power over evil, which itself, in my view, it is not: and (3) finally, & this is the last point of difference to which I shall have to call your attention, that the age upon which mankind entered, at the close of the fifteenth century, was one of decay of an old world indeed, but at the same time, and this was its characteristic, was an age in which a new and a greater world came to the birth, as in this age it is coming to maturity, and that it is with this new world, and not with the old world, that the movement & ourselves have now to do. To resume, and to revert to what I was about to say. In that magnificent brief lecture on Gothic Architecture, which was first spoken as a lecture at the New Gallery for the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society in the year 1889, and afterwards printed by the Kelmscott Press during and in the Arts and Crafts Exhibition in the New Gallery, 1893, Mr. Morris traced, with lightning-like swiftness and clearness, the progress of Gothic Architecture from its first inception by the Romans in the invention of the Arch to its consummation in the exquisitely poised and traceried buildings of the close of the fifteenth century. At the end of the fifteenth century, Mr. Morris says, 'the great change' came, & Mr. Morris means that we and Architecture, our principal structural expression, entered upon a period of decay. But I would rather--and here is my point of difference--I would rather put it, that the great change came in that the inner vision was substituted for the outer; or, better still, that one inner vision was substituted for another inner vision and that the outward expression of the latter was arrested. Its buildings had been built and the passion for them exhausted, for the world which had inspired them had vanished, & another had been born or created in its place: partly another world of fact, the newly discovered continent of America, and the whole round world itself; partly another world of ideas, the ancient world and its literature, Greece and Rome. At the end of the fifteenth century the printing press was at work, and Europe left for a time the outer world, the world of the senses and material building, and entered into the inner world, the world of imaginative reason, of ideas--communicable henceforward, for a time, by the printed page only, whereon only it could build up and contemplate the vision of its extended universe. Ever since that time this vision has been growing, taking on new matter for greater change still, and now it is worldwide indeed, and the time has come to cast its inspirations into form, to embody them in works of Art. What of the past is past is no matter of regret, but somewhat of the past is imperishable because it is of all time: such is the instinct to build. The building of the past is built and is in decay. The building of the future has yet to be built. Of what will it be? The answer to this question will be the answer to the question: What, then, is the movement which I am attempting to describe? The building of the future will be the building of the industries thereof, the building of its ways of looking at things determined by the vision which has taken the place of that old vision, under the inspiration of which were built the buildings of the past. And the first thing to build will be the vision itself, the supreme vision--for 'where there is no vision the people perish.' The important, the essential thing in the Architecture of the early and middle ages, as of all ages, is not the Architecture itself, but the exaltation of sentiment and knowledge, and skill of hand and brain, which produced it, and the vision of life which was also the creation of the sentiment, and in turn its inspiration. The vision, indeed, here as elsewhere & always, is the important, the essential thing. What then is there in the life of to-day comparable in exaltation to the vision of that day, what vision competent to produce to-day an Architecture of life and occupation, with resultant material and imaginative expression, comparable to the Architecture of life and occupation and resultant material and imaginative expression, which the vision of that day was competent to produce and did produce? There is one set, static universe, or vision, the Norm of Life, in which all force is at rest, at rest in equilibrium, in equilibrium of motion, and there are in the many minds of men innumerable versions thereof, isolated, unrelated or related, sequent, one: set in motion by passion, crime, terror, frenzy, even of hate, love, madness, ambition, or by the soft touch of the dreamer of dreams, the musician, painter, poet. But be these visions what they may be, they are but visions, which die again into the norm, the static universe, which is the tomb, as it is the womb, of all motion, at once the birth-place and the cinerary urn of all change, the all in all. It is with this all of change and rest, that the soul of man, athwart all distraction, aspires to be at one, at one for the fruit of its energy in creation, at one for the control of its energy in rest, in rest interlocked, repose absolute. And if I were asked, as I have asked, what that supreme vision, that Norm of Life, in plain words was, I should say that it was the vision of the universe as revealed to-day in history & science, including in science all that is not man, though revealed by man working to that end through the ages, and in history all that is man, all his doings, all his imaginings, all his aspirations, all whatsoever that is his, but all seen in the light of science, positively--the vision of the universe, framed in the infinite. And I should say that man is at the top of his thought when in exalted, ecstatic contemplation thereof, and at the top of his doing when in action in accordance therewith, be the action what it may be. And I should say that the supreme consciousness emergent from the supreme vision was the consciousness of Being--the wonder, I AM--and of its inexplicable, insuperable mystery. The next thing to build will be the work of the world in the light of this supreme vision so seen and understood. A time arrives in the development of the world's work when, in addition to the perfect workmanship and beauty of the world's wares, the embellishment of the world's work itself should become the object of ambition of those who carry the world's work on, an embellishment which may take one of two forms, but should take both: the embellishment by material means and the embellishment by ideas. In embellishment by material means the senses are satisfied and the imagination touched, and we have noble roads and houses, noble cities and harbours, noble wharves and warehouses, noble modes and means of communication, and noble modes and means of creativeness, and, crowning and giving significance to all, crowning and expressive ceremonial: in embellishment by ideas we have the illimitation which is the characteristic of the imagination, and enables us to see and to create wholes and relations which surpass the sweep of the senses, and are visible to the eye of reason only; it is thus that we have the vision, and see all man's work in its entirety and as part of the universal process of creation. Thinking, then, dispassionately of the world, not for my country's sake or another's, but for man's, I am haunted by the vision of this its industrial life, as the matter of man's art to-day. And there come to me the murmur of the beat of far-off waves on an unknown shore, the rustle and the struggle of winds through unknown forests and over wide spaces of inhabitable land: I see the masts of shipping far asunder, solitary, on the wide seas, or clustered into peopled harbours: I see the busy hives of industry, glittering like fanes of light by the river's side or bridging them--all part and parcel of the ocean, the land, and the air, obedient like them to the cadency of thought, as day and night, the seasons and the years, beat out their sequences and bear life onward into the future, or leave it, silent, in the irrecoverable past. Such a world, such a wealth of animate forces, such a vision, the creation in part of the unknown force, God, in part of man, who is ourselves, _such_ is the vision upon which, pending the arrival of the shadow which is Death, we should fix the eyes of Art, permeating all, embracing all, producing all, even as would do, were he us, the supreme force, God. As of the world of man's work, so of all the visions within the vision--build with the instincts of fitness and beauty, build & await the Shadow: to-day again, for a time, comes the light, again and yet again. In the infinitude of sequences the soul rests, and whilst it rests, resting, it disappears, even as in life, into sleep, into Death. Build and await the Shadow. Such as I dream it is the Vision of Life, such the Vision of man's world within it, such the Vision of Art, such, or something like it, the Vision of the Arts and Crafts Movement, its inception, its history, and its aims. 'And here I will make an end. And if I have done well and as is fitting the story, it is that which I have desired: but if slenderly and meanly it is yet that which I could attain unto.' It may be, indeed, that I have all the while been describing some other movement, & not that of the Arts and Crafts at all; some movement that has been taking place in my own mind, as I have had the possibilities of man's being and doing brought home to my imagination 'in thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men': for in the Introduction to the Lectures on 'Art & Life,' to which reference has been made in support of the Vision, it is stated that the Lectures are not to be taken, nor is any of them to be taken, as the official expression of the aims of the Society! But be the official expression of the aims of the Society what it may be, it is the VISION, _some_ VISION, which imports your good,--which I urgently commend to your attention. WHERE THERE IS NO VISION THE PEOPLE PERISH. Printed at the Chiswick Press: Charles Whittingham & Co., Tooks Court, Chancery Lane, London. And sold by the Hammersmith Publishing Society, River House, Hammersmith. 
56467	----	_A_ BOOK _of_ DISTINCTIVE INTERIORS _EDITED BY_ WILLIAM A. VOLLMER [Illustration] NEW YORK McBRIDE, NAST & COMPANY 1912 COPYRIGHT, 1910, 1911, 1912, BY McBRIDE, NAST & COMPANY _Published November, 1912_ Contents PAGE PLANNING THE LIVING-ROOM 5 By _A. Raymond Ellis_ DESIGNING THE DINING-ROOM 47 By _A. Raymond Ellis_ DECORATING AND FURNISHING THE BEDROOM 69 By _Margaret Greenleaf_ THE PROBLEM OF THE BATHROOM 87 By _A. Raymond Ellis_ THE PROPER TREATMENT FOR THE NURSERY 99 By _Sarah Leyburn Coe_ CHARACTERISTIC HALLS AND STAIRWAY TYPES 108 PLANNING THE KITCHEN 116 By _James Earle Miller_ [Illustration: Pleasing decorative effects may be obtained by bringing out the natural graining of the woodwork. Chestnut and cypress are particularly suitable for this as they may be stained and wax finished, or stained and rubbed down to produce this effect. This fireplace was built with outside bricks selected for their color. There is a mottling of purple and bluish tones among the reds that harmonizes strikingly with the Oriental rug before it ] [Illustration] Planning the Living-room [Illustration: A lounge before the fireplace becomes more useful if a table bearing a lamp is placed behind it. Cypress is reasonable for interior trim, costing from sixty to sixty-eight dollars a thousand feet ] After the method of modern planning, the living-room is treated as the principal room in the house. I do not mean to say that this room should be overdone, or given undue prominence to the exclusion of the other rooms, but it is essential that this room be treated differently from the old-fashioned way we formerly treated our living-rooms, then generally a front and back parlor. These two rooms have now been superseded by one large room, as our mode of living and entertaining makes it more desirable than the two small, stuffy rooms, then used only occasionally. To-day we plan to give pleasure and comfort to the family, rather than the occasional guest. [Illustration: The drawing of the suggested room arrangement shows the fireplace and the French doors leading to the piazza. Above the ivory tinted wainscoting the background paper is of a putty color and panels are filled with a striped and foliated fabric held in place by a molding strip The ground plan of the room shows a good arrangement of rugs and furniture in order that advantage may be taken of the fireplace and the various lights. Conversation may be carried on with ease and comfort and the room used for various purposes conveniently ] [Illustration: This reception room has chiefly Louis XVI furniture, which appears well with the light gray and white woodwork designed after the Adam style] There are probably two or three dozen ways that the living-room can be planned and decorated and at the same time be comfortable and attractive. I have chosen to illustrate this with a type of living-room that adapts itself to almost any house and offers the greatest amount of free space when the room is properly furnished. The room is 15 ft. × 29 ft. 6 in., with a ceiling height of 9 feet, these dimensions giving a well-proportioned room. The fireplace is in the center of the west wall, flanked on each side by two French doors which open out on a piazza. At each end of the room are two windows, balancing one another. On the east wall a wide opening with French doors permits access to the main hall. The most prominent feature of the room is the fireplace, which is accentuated and made a natural center. This is an important consideration when planning a natural grouping of the family or its guests. [Illustration: Such architectural features as beamed ceilings should only be used in rooms of pretentious size. A good example of Caen stone fireplace is found here] The treatment of the room is Colonial. A low wainscot, 2 ft. 6 in. high, comprising a base, panel, and cap, is carried around the room. The ceiling is beamed with four substantial beams and a half beam to form a cornice around the room at the junction of the wall and ceiling. Over the heads of the doors and windows there is a wide wooden frieze with a cap which ties them, one might say, to the bottom of the cornice, and makes them more completely an integral part of the woodwork. The window stools form a part of the wainscot cap. [Illustration: A summer living-room that achieves a brilliant note through white woodwork and figured hangings with upholstery to match] The finish of the room is white wood, given four coats of lead and oil paint, with a fifth coat of white enamel, rubbed down, and a sixth and final finishing coat of enamel of an ivory shade that dries out with a very dull satin-like luster that is very durable and not easily marred. Above the wainscot the walls are covered with a heavy background paper having a body color almost of a putty shade, enlivened in certain lights with a pinkish caste. This is accented by the panels, between the windows and doors, of a delicately hued fabric with a foliated striped design. A flat molding covers the edge of the fabric and forms the panel. In order to balance these and add character to the room, the draperies at the windows and doors are of soft blue velour, without which the scheme would be lifeless and flat. The facing of the fireplace is of Sienna marble surmounted with a simple mantel, consisting merely of a heavy classical architrave, with a shelf above and a large plate glass mirror over it. One must not lose sight of the fact that the colors of this room, while light and delicate, are all very rich and warm, due to the predominating ivory color of the woodwork, enlivened and strengthened by the richer and heavier color used in the panels and curtains. [Illustration: Some would consider it bold to combine white walls and white woodwork in the living-room. The rug, pictures and furniture covering, however, are chosen with an eye to bright colors ] The ceiling is sand-finished and tinted to match the walls. The floor is of quartered oak, filled and given two coats of a finish which produces a durable even surface with a dull luster that is not so slippery as a waxed floor. The disposition of the rugs over this floor is a matter of personal taste and the amount one can afford for rugs. The rugs should be Oriental and of light uniform coloring. The plans show probably the most economical way of covering the floor--using one large rug as a center and filling with smaller rugs. One large rug might be obtained that would extend from the piano to the pier glass, but it would have to be an odd shape or specially made. Two large rugs might be used, one in each end of the room, with a small rug to fill in before the fireplace. The approximate positions and proper design for the various pieces of furniture used in the room are indicated. In order to obtain the real benefit of the fireplace, it is necessary to have a broad comfortable sofa or an upholstered mahogany seat in front of it. In back of this should be a small mahogany table on which an ornamental lamp may stand. On each side of the table can be drawn up large comfortable chairs. This arrangement permits the light of the lamp to fall in the correct position for anyone wishing to read in the chairs or on the seat in front of the fireplace. At one side of the fireplace a large wing-chair would be well placed. The bookcases would, of course, be unnecessary if there were a library in the house, but where the living-room is to answer the general purposes of the family, the book-shelves would be found very useful, and could be movable or built in as part of the finish. Between the northern windows a fine position is obtained for the piano, on the right of which is a good place for a davenport. [Illustration: Where a living-room is long, various parts of it may be devoted to different uses, one end being a library and the other a sitting-room for instance, with a corner for deskwork ] The disposition of the minor pieces of furniture need not be mentioned, except the fact that a pier glass at the opposite end of the room, between the two southern windows is a very decorative treatment, and that the corner at the left affords a place for a tea table or a Colonial pie-crust table. [Illustration: The low hanging center light is rapidly being superseded by individual fixtures about the room or hung from chains. The three-quarter paneling here is attractive when combined with some conventionalized frieze design ] In addition the electric lights are provided with switches, and in the baseboard around the room are two plugs for attaching portable table lamps. There must also be a bell registering its signal on an annunciator in the kitchen,--one ring for a maid--two rings for tea, or as the housewife may arrange. The cost of the furniture used in this room, covered in cotton, made from the architect's drawings, would be as follows: 18th century sofa, rolled ends, $90; and it requires 3-1/6 yards of 50-inch goods to cover it. Low-boy with drawers, $90--size 2 ft. 6 in. × 4 ft. 6 in. Tip-top tea table, 38 in. in diameter, $60. Martha Washington wing-chair, $54, in cotton; requires 5 yards of 50-inch goods to cover. Martha Washington armchair, $40, in cotton; requires 2 yards of 50-inch goods to cover. The crown ladder-back side chairs would cost about $35 each in cotton, and the armchair to match, $40. [Illustration: As a general color rule for decoration, red should be used for north rooms and blue for east and west rooms; the warmer tones in living-rooms than in bedrooms. This shows a good use of scrim curtains with a gathered valance ] The beamed ceiling, door and window casings, mantel and wainscot in the room would cost about $450. If the wainscot were omitted about $75 would be saved--the mantel and marble facing cost about $100 separately. A. RAYMOND ELLIS [Illustration: The use of a single large rug as the basis for the floor covering is often very satisfactory. This house shows an interesting treatment with a molding that acts as cornice] [Illustration: There is something in the restraint shown in the fireplace of Indiana limestone with no mantel shelf that overdecoration could never have obtained. An interesting feature is the use of candle sconces as an auxiliary to the electric lighting ] [Illustration: Heavy woodwork requires the use of heavy, substantial furniture. In this room, where the appearance of craftsmanship is prevalent, such furniture is very suitable] [Illustration: A very unpretentious room, but one in good taste. The furniture has all been planned for a distinct location and has been built in to it] [Illustration: A large living-room demands some such architectural treatment as these pillars. The usual mistake is on the side of overdecoration. Here, however, a decided simplicity is employed, leaving the flanking windows in small bays ] [Illustration: Oftentimes four beams only are used for the ceiling; two as a cornice and two framing in the chimney-piece ] [Illustration: A consideration of modern house decoration is to provide comfort for all members. A small den off the living-room affords privacy when others occupy the living-room ] [Illustration: In a California bungalow there is an interesting decorative combination where old heirlooms of furniture from the Eastern ancestors of the family are carefully preserved and Navajo rugs are used as a floor covering. These rugs and the Indian baskets are chosen of a color that will not clash with the polished mahogany ] [Illustration: Another corner of the bungalow living-room on page 18 shows a good type of secretary. The Navajo rugs seem to add a tone of vigor that is not found in the rag rugs generally used in this connection ] [Illustration: A living-room given a Manorial treatment with the use of Gothic arches. It is carefully treated, even to the rug, which is rectangular in pattern somewhat like the ceiling beams. Although this is in a great house, there is no reason why smaller houses might not be furnished with equal consistency ] [Illustration: Two living-rooms in an old Connecticut Colonial house that are decorated with furniture in use during Revolutionary times. These flowered papers were considered very rich then and have colors well chosen as a background for the dark mahogany furniture ] [Illustration: An antique stone fireplace forms the keynote for this room and gives the suggestion for large commodious chairs and lounges. The table and chair in the foreground show Jacobean influences ] [Illustration: There is surely a decorative quality in bookcases that is heightened by the color of books when arranged properly. Perhaps the results might have been better had all the bookcases been built the same height entirely around the room. The furniture here is of a type that is particularly comfortable and wears well ] [Illustration: A living-room decorated along Colonial lines, where the fireplace of red brick with wide white mortar joints is particularly effective. French doors open onto a veranda that is used as a living-room annex. The mantel is a reproduction of an old one ] [Illustration: A charming, little Colonial room is decorated entirely in white woodwork with a baseboard. The prim pattern of the flowered wallpaper is quite appropriate. The only modern furniture appearing is the wicker chair, but it lends no jarring note ] [Illustration: This room with its heavy settles and rag rugs, its ornaments and pictures, is furnished with nothing but objects from Colonial times. The floor with its original wide boards is stained a dark color and much of it left bare ] [Illustration: This room shows the possibility of combining various sorts of furniture. Wicker and willow are suitable for the living-room when used with furniture of an informal type. Above the fireplace is a plaster reproduction of a section of the Parthenon frieze that is well placed ] [Illustration: The architects of the West are achieving distinction in the creation of a particular style. This interior is characteristic of their work. Horizontal lines are emphasized and colored brickwork enters as a part of the decoration ] [Illustration: A bay with three connecting windows of this sort may be curtained as a unit. There is but one valance for the three windows and light silk curtains are used to match the grass cloth of the walls ] [Illustration: Living-rooms need not always be indoors. In this home a glazed in piazza makes it possible to enjoy the early days of spring and late fall when the weather is too uncomfortable to remain out-of-doors. The porch is furnished with all the conveniences that may be found in an indoor living-room and has connections for reading lights and other lamps. The furniture is of grass cloth, willow and wicker, and there are rugs covering the entire floorspace ] [Illustration: Much of the Colonial carving was extremely simple. Here added decorative detail appears in the old-fashioned fireback of modeled iron. The covering of the old rosewood furniture is quite in harmony with the wallpaper ] [Illustration: An exemplification of the use of deep colors in the living-room treatment is here shown. A restful green makes a good background for large and variously formed pieces ] [Illustration: This studio living-room is a successful exponent of the same principle of color harmony shown in the previous illustration. A heterogeneous collection of various styles of furniture is rendered harmonious by the use of kindred tones of browns, tans and dull reds ] [Illustration: Built-in furniture is not limited to seats and cupboards. This desk is carpenter built, and although quite inexpensive fits more exactly than many products that could be purchased. The bookcases encircling the room are made part of the desk ] [Illustration: The living-room of two stories and with mezzanine floor is receiving more and more favor for its spacious effect. The simple woodwork in this room is well chosen and there is a good suggestion in the lighting fixtures ] [Illustration: The cream colored walls and woodwork in this English drawing-room make an especially fine background for mahogany furniture. This fireplace nook is a good example of modern English work ] [Illustration: English architects consider that woodwork may be decorative in itself, and finish it so that its natural colors take the place of wall paper. The walls are of unfinished plaster ] [Illustration: Some straight lines might be introduced by different curtains and by doing away with the fussy table-covers and frilled lounge pillow. The mantel is particularly good Dutch Colonial but is too much cluttered with bric-à-brac ] [Illustration: Every house builder should consider that the downstairs living-room may not always be occupied by the entire family at one time. The upstairs sitting-room provides privacy on all occasions. The mantel treatment here is interesting ] [Illustration: The living-room in the same house is rendered distinctive by a large inglenook. It is finished in rough plaster and colored in a light tan ] [Illustration: Green and white is a scheme for this summer living-room. White wicker chairs are combined with green willow ones and the green design of the wall paper is echoed in the green rug with a white pattern ] [Illustration: Even the most modest bungalow may have personality. The match board wall is finished with a light stain that shows the grain. India prints with their bold colors and striking designs are used for curtains, table and couch covers and for the pillows ] [Illustration: The inside curtains in this living-room are of figured Madras. Although they fade, their price is reasonable enough to permit reduplication every few years with small expense ] [Illustration: A more formal room is this with its intricate mahogany paneling. The ceiling has an architectural cornice, below which the wall is decorated with a velour in proper coloring ] [Illustration: There is a growing desire to build living-rooms that open into the light and air. This is as completely furnished as any other room in the house, but is given a dark stained lattice background as suitable for plants ] [Illustration: An informal living-room, where the plaster walls are divided by vertical strips run from a wide molding to the baseboard. This is a cheap, and if properly handled, effective substitute for paneling ] [Illustration: A living-room that was designed to take advantage of the view in many directions from a high situation. A large rug with harmonious colors occupies the center of the floor space ] [Illustration: Dutch house builders make a feature of the window nook and most of the light is directed toward one part of the room. Matting of an ivory color has been selected as a floor covering ] [Illustration: An English mantel treatment that is worth copying is shown here. A single-color carpet is used and the brilliant chintzes lend the completing note of cheerfulness ] [Illustration: In contrast is this room where deeper tones are emphasized in rugs and wall treatment and it is desired to produce a more serious effect ] [Illustration: Another example of the two-story living-room is here shown in more elaborate style where the precedent was the Manorial hall of England. Tapestries and heavy wall papers are used and the chandeliers are large and elaborate ] [Illustration: This sun room is an integral part of the house and is fitted with casement windows, but is by no means a porch. The fireplace renders it a comfortable place in the most severe weather ] [Illustration: Furniture covering and draperies here are of a large figured English chintz. As the ceiling was low, a green paper with a perpendicular stripe was used for heightening effect ] [Illustration: The chief feature of this room is the doorway with its fine fan light. The chairs in the foreground are of Heppelwhite design ] [Illustration: In England a great deal of attention is given to centering the family life about the hearth. This inglenook has almost the value of an additional room. The walls are plain except for the woodwork and the tiling ] [Illustration: The inglenook here has a raised floor of ordinary brick and an attractive brick fireplace the mantel of which is a cypress beam supported by projecting bricks. The furniture is made consistent by being stained and then waxed ] [Illustration: Glazed tile fireplaces are very much the vogue in England. Here the colors are selected to go well with the light ash treatment of the woodwork ] [Illustration: The heavy beams in this living-room made it a simple matter to place the inglenook. The curved lines of the seat, however, and the grotesque plaster figures might grow tiresome, and are most suitable for the house occupied only in the summer or one with more informal treatment ] [Illustration: An architect's suggested treatment of a Flemish dining-room. The fireplace is of Caen stone and the plaster wall is sand-finished in a dark shade ] [Illustration] Designing the Dining-room We have a habit, generally, of making the dining-room either English or Colonial in style, I suppose for the reason that we have so many good types of furniture in these two styles that their use makes it easier to obtain an attractive dining-room. The room of Flemish character is probably more unusual and I have, therefore, chosen to offer a design in this style. [Illustration: The plan shows an arrangement for a dining-room about fifteen by sixteen feet, showing suggested positions for the rugs and furniture that is consistent with the scheme ] [Illustration: A very similar treatment to that described in the article is shown in this room with its high rectangular panel wainscot. Instead of a cornice the sand-finished walls are rounded into the ceiling and the ceiling is lower. An interesting candle fixture is hung above the plain oak table. The picture framed in the paneling is an additional possibility ] [Illustration: Warm tones are appreciated in a dining-room where the woodwork is all white. Here they are obtained in an Oriental rug of good colors. Chairs are of present-day manufacture, suggested by Sheraton's work ] The room is 15 × 16 feet in size, opening from a broad hall from which it is shut off with glass doors. The morning sun, a very essential feature in any dining-room, is obtained through the eastern window and through the southern windows in the summer, while the after-glow of the summer sunset comes through the west window, thus insuring a pleasant dining-room at all times. There is nothing so cheerless as a breakfast-room which is cut off from the sun in the winter, by being isolated in the north or northeastern part of the house; it continually exerts a depressing influence on the family at meals. The dining-room is adjoined by the serving-room, which connects with the kitchen, affording a quick and direct line of service. [Illustration: Most dining-rooms need color, which may be introduced in a frieze, as here, or by the use of tapestry. Side fixtures, such as these in duplication of old Colonial lamps, may be purchased for six or seven dollars. The center light is of etched glass ] It is suggested that the room be wainscoted in oak to a height of seven feet, with rectangular panels formed by very flat rails and stiles, without any panel moldings. A wide plate-rail forms the cap of the wainscot, affording a place to put bits of china and old pieces of pewter or copper. Above the wainscot the plaster is sand-finished, as is also the ceiling, and at the intersection of the ceiling and side walls a cornice is carried around the room. On the north side is a large fireplace, which is a necessity on a rainy day to make breakfast cheerful and the room comfortable. It is built of light gray Caen stone, which has almost the appearance of limestone. It is imported in blocks and is soft enough to be worked into a variety of shapes. The hearth has a curb border, raised an inch or two above the level of the stone hearth in order to retain the ashes better. A heavy carved casing is carried around the stonework of the fireplace, surmounted by a carved shelf supported on heavy brackets. [Illustration: All the furniture necessary beside the chairs and dining-table is a sideboard and a serving-table. The china closet may be dispensed with if a place for decorative china is made on a plate rail. This china closet matches well and seems part of the room ] French doors are an essential feature in the dining-room because they permit it to be shut off from the hall and kept warm, and they prevent interruptions during the dinner hour. As they are of glass, they afford a view into the hall--a very attractive feature, which does away with that feeling of oppressiveness experienced sometimes from being shut up in a room with solid doors of wood. The floor is of oak, filled and given two coats of a finish which has a dull luster and enough elasticity to make it durable. The floor should be of a shade that is not too light or so dark that it readily shows the dust. [Illustration: Instead of using the separate pieces of dining-room furniture, two sideboards were built in flanking the fireplace and as an extension of its woodwork. A tapestry paper is used above this wainscot ] Opposite the fireplace is a position for the sideboard and there is wall space enough for a china-cupboard although I should prefer to omit this cumbersome piece of furniture, which everybody shuns with the admonition of childhood still ringing in his ears, "mustn't touch." Near the door to the serving-room is the proper place for the serving-table, and there remains plenty of wall space for chairs. By referring to the plan the position of these pieces of furniture will be made more clear. [Illustration: A possible variation for the seven-foot wainscot suggested, is the room entirely paneled with cypress finished to show the grain. The French doors in this room are desirable in a dining-room, as they allow plenty of light to enter ] The decoration of this room is a simple problem. On the floor there should be a rich-colored rug with deep reds in it, strong enough to afford a foundation for the dark sturdy Flemish furniture and the dark finish of the wainscot. Above the wainscot, the sand-finished ceiling and side walls should be sized and painted with three coats of oil paint of a dull golden shade which reflects a warm glow over the room when lighted. The rough texture of the sand-finish is well adapted for such use as this. Of course a frieze of foliated tapestry paper, or real tapestry, could be used with good effect, or even an oil-painted frieze representing a scene from medieval history is permissible. It is safe to say that all of these schemes would be good, though, of course, there would be a great difference in their cost. The radiator under the east window should be painted to match the color of the wainscot. To obtain the correct shade for this wainscot, the wood should go through several processes of staining. The first coat is a deep penetrating stain of burnt Sienna hue to form a mellowing base, similar to the warm colors the old masters used in their paintings. This makes a warm color to reflect through the succeeding coats of darker stain, each coat of which should be rubbed into the wood and any superfluous stain rubbed off, exposing each time the high lights of the wood's grain. The final coat should be a thin coat of wax or a flat-drying oil paint to give the wood a dull luster. [Illustration: The woodwork treatment here is much the same as that suggested in the text, but of a Colonial or English style and finished white. A good stenciled frieze is used above it. The chairs are of Chippendale design ] The furniture should be of the Flemish type, preferably a shade lighter or a shade darker than that of the finish of the woodwork, in order to give contrast. The dining-room table should be a modern extension table with heavy, turned legs, which would of course be repeated in the sideboard, serving-table and chairs. This type of furniture depends entirely for its beauty upon its plain sturdy lines and simple turnings. The chairs should have leather seats and backs, studded with copper nails. The brasses of the fireplace should be of odd design, and the electric lights and fixtures should be of old brass to add a touch of color to the dark wood finish. It seems hardly necessary to mention that the lights of this room should be governed by an electric switch, and an electric bell on the table should ring a buzzer in the serving-room. In the serving-room there is a counter shelf two feet eight inches high on each side wall, over which there are glazed cases with sliding doors to contain the china. Under the window there is a sink for the washing of fine china, glass, and silver, which should not go into the kitchen with the heavier dishes. Under the counter are cupboards and drawers and at one end a plate-warmer and a small refrigerator, in order that one may obtain a bite to eat late at night without having to go through the kitchen to the kitchen pantry--which is sometimes awkward if there is no servant's dining-room and the maid is entertaining. [Illustration: Still another substitute for the wainscot is the use of wood strips applied in this fashion. The Moravian tiles in the fireplace add welcome color ] The finish of the room would cost approximately $575 in selected white oak. The mantel alone is worth $80 and the wainscot about $300. The furniture for the room, made from detail drawings, would cost about $450 in oak and leather. A. RAYMOND ELLIS [Illustration: Where the dining-room woodwork shows its natural grain, a specially designed buffet of quartered oak, such as this, proves very attractive and satisfactory ] [Illustration: The rough plaster walls here are surmounted by a plaster frieze of grapes in color. This design is echoed in the center drop light ] [Illustration: Flanking china closets, when in perfect balance, form an admirable feature for the decoration of a Colonial room ] [Illustration: The ladder back design of Chippendale is most attractive. In this room with its white woodwork an attempt has been made to repeat the dominant colors of the rug in the wall paper ] [Illustration: In this dining-room there is architectural treatment that could by no means find place in any but a large room. Panels at one end of the room are filled with tapestries that give a fine color effect. The scheme is Georgian and the furniture Hepplewhite ] [Illustration: Having a large quantity of old blue china, the owner of this room selected a brown figured paper that would harmonize with it. The plates have almost the value of a stenciled frieze ] [Illustration: Two types of modern furniture are shown here. The china closet is unnatural and is of no decorative value and but little usefulness. The table and chairs are of simple design and good, solid workmanship ] [Illustration: This Colonial room shows an effective panel treatment that can be secured at low cost by applying a molding directly to the plaster and then painting the plaster and the woodwork alike. Good Colonial fixtures are shown above the mantel. ] [Illustration: Faithfulness to Colonial tradition does not necessarily make the most comfortable room, but the Windsor chairs are serviceable and easy ] [Illustration: White woodwork in this dining-room permits such a set design as this with the little green bay trees. A gate-legged table is not always the most comfortable thing for a dining-room ] [Illustration: Furniture, made of applewood, finished with a plain smooth surface and covered with reeds, is especially applicable to the small house and suggests the original home, the English cottage ] [Illustration: White enameled furniture as well as woodwork is a novel suggestion for the summer home and makes a brilliant, cheery dining-room, especially when accompanied by bright reds or blues in the rugs, chair cushions and curtains ] [Illustration: In the summer camp little ornamentation is necessary, yet the natural attractiveness of wood finish is both useful and beautiful here ] [Illustration: In remodeling an old tavern, the taproom with its smoke-blackened beams and dark wainscot was converted into the dining-room. The use of handmade floor tile is particularly interesting ] [Illustration: This Dutch interior offers a suggestion for a summer camp in the dining-room alcove placed at one end of the living-room ] [Illustration: Wilton rugs in a single color with a darker toned border serve well for the dining-room. The curtains repeat the color in a figured pattern ] [Illustration: During house cleaning there are various objections to a plate rail. In this dining-room it was done away with and a frieze was set low and secured by the use of a narrow white molding. If the room were irregular, it would have been almost impossible to locate in this position, but in a rectangular room it is not so difficult. It is in neutral colors and the friezes are in Delft blue with draperies of a darker blue. The furniture is Hepplewhite ] [Illustration: The combination of gray and white as used here is an effective background for mahogany. The candle sconce fixtures at either side of the sideboard alcove are in good taste ] [Illustration: Although the furniture need not be permanently fixed to the room it may be planned to accommodate certain spaces, as here. The chairs are reproductions along Colonial lines ] [Illustration: In a house where there is an additional room, there is a suggestion from the German boudoir. This is really the modern woman's workroom and place of rest and adjoins the sleeping apartment. It is also a place to receive intimate friends ] [Illustration] Decorating and Furnishing the Bedroom [Illustration: Attractive results are achieved in adopting a central figure or idea and planning the room about it. The main unit of design in the wall paper has been repeated on the ivory white furniture ] In the bedroom the individuality of the occupant is more in evidence than in any other room of the house, as such rooms or suites are complete in themselves and need not necessarily be considered relatively. Where the house has the marked characteristics of any period the architectural detail of the wood trim in the bedrooms as well as that in the other apartments will, of course, express this and must in a measure influence the furnishings, but even under these conditions more latitude is permissible in the chambers than in the living-rooms. [Illustration: This room, also shown in the two illustrations following, uses the blue bird as a _motif_. Cretonne repeats the design that is echoed again in the cut out border. A blue and white rag rug, having a blue bird edging, is suitable for the floor ] A room in which no period idea is dominant may be made very charming, and the individual taste of the occupant may influence the entire scheme of decoration. A very dainty and attractive room is shown in the illustration on page 69. The floral paper used on the side wall here is beautiful in color and design, and the crown of this has a cut out extension of flowers and leaves that is applied directly to the ceiling proper. The furniture of ivory enamel finish has been painted with clusters of the same flowers as those shown in the wall paper. Much of the green of the foliage in this design is repeated in the two-tone rug upon the floor. The curtains and bedspread are made of ivory white linen taffeta and bordered with four-inch bands of cretonne showing the same floral design as the side walls. Much of the comfort as well as the attractiveness of a bedroom depends upon the arrangement of the furniture it holds. The space for the bed is usually indicated by the architect in the first drafting of the plans, and should be adhered to unless the room is unusually large. However, the other furniture may be arranged and rearranged until the right position is found for each piece. Where a couch is included this may be placed near the window with the bookshelves conveniently at hand, or it may be set directly across the foot of the bed. The reading- or work-tables and easy-chairs should find their permanent place, as their proper grouping adds much to the livableness of any room. [Illustration: The wall paper is plain with a satin stripe in what is known as a cerulean blue. The crown effect of the border is a silhouetted pattern cut out and attached separately ] The English idea of placing a dressing-table directly in front of a window is not especially favored here as we are loath to sacrifice so much of direct sun and air as the closed window would necessitate, although by such an arrangement we secure a good overhead light. [Illustration: A white bedstead of this style may be had either of wood enameled or of metal] The placing of the lighting fixtures should also be given some careful study. Side or drop lights should be near the dressing-mirror, and a convenient stand or drop light, well shaded, should be placed near the head of the bed. And a well-arranged table light for reading and sewing is of great convenience in a large bedroom which is used at all as a sitting-room. However small the room, the light must be well arranged for the dressing-table. A central light for a bedroom is a very objectionable feature. [Illustration: In many cases the bedroom serves more purposes than for sleeping quarters. There should be space for a desk, comfortable chairs and books ] Light and crisp colors are more acceptable in the decorative scheme of the bedroom than any other room of the house. Where plain walls and figured cretonnes or chintzes are used in combination the latter should appear generously, that is, not only in valanced curtains at windows, but as slip covers, or cushion covers for chairs, window-seat, or lounge. The old-time idea of a blue, a pink, a green, and a yellow room is falling into disuse, although any one of these colors may be brought out prominently in the scheme of the room, or, as is even more usual, all may be combined in either wall covering or drapery material. The dominant color should appear again in the plain or two-tone floor covering. Plain and embroidered muslins for window draperies and covers for dressing-tables are effective and dainty, and by having two sets for a room it may be kept always delightfully fresh and clean, as these muslins launder well. A small coin-dot of color on a very sheer, though not fine, white ground can be purchased from 25 to 35 cents a yard and gives a dainty charm to a room in which it is freely used that few other fabrics at the same cost will supply. [Illustration: There is a preference for bedrooms furnished in light colors. Here the paper is figured and the color of the design appears in curtains of a solid color. The closet doors have full length mirror panels ] Where the decorative scheme must be very inexpensively carried out, a floral paper on an ivory ground can be purchased for 25 cents a roll of eight yards. In these cheaper papers one finds a better selection in yellow and old rose than in other colors; greens, too, are usually soft and attractive. If plain colored over-draperies are desired for the windows these may be made from cheese-cloth which has been dyed to the desired shade, matching the color of the flower in the wall paper. It is not a difficult matter for the amateur to do. There are now made some very attractive cotton crepes showing a variety of floral and other patterns. Some of these are beautiful in color and good in design, and, with plain tinted walls, a room in which the curtains and slip covers for cushions and pillows are made from this fabric is very attractive. [Illustration: The lighting fixtures should be planned for the position the dressing table and chiffonier is to occupy. This is an attractive bedroom paper of an old-fashioned design ] Old furniture may be revamped and given a fresh coat of ivory white enamel, and a central rug or a number of small rugs made after the old-fashioned rag carpet in one or two colors makes a satisfactory floor covering for use in such rooms. If the woodwork can be painted ivory white the scheme is more successful, as this is an important factor in the completed whole. In fact for bedrooms there is no better finish than the ivory white enamel. It is easy to apply and durable, and harmonizes with almost any scheme of furnishing one may desire to bring out in the room. Attractive little shades for electric lights or candles may be made from bits of silk or even tissue paper, and, used in a room in which old rose predominates, the effect is charming, as the light showing through the rose color is very soft and pleasing. MARGARET GREENLEAF [Illustration: An unusual decorative treatment is the division of walls into colored panels which are held in place by molding strips ] [Illustration: The perpendicular stripe in this paper serves to increase the height of a rather low ceiling. The window is fitted with sash curtains and draperies of a figured pattern on the order of the crown border ] [Illustration: An interesting feature of this house is the long window seat placed for reading or sewing. Beneath it is a quantity of space for many things ] [Illustration: A room consistently decorated along Colonial lines. Some sort of a couch or lounge is a decided boon in the bedroom, as it provides a place for the afternoon nap ] [Illustration: The so-called craftsman's house or house with woodwork left in natural condition may well use furniture built to match the trim ] [Illustration: The informal bedroom of rough plaster and brick substitutes strength of color and form for the delicacy of Colonial white woodwork ] [Illustration: Many people still delight in the old-fashioned four-poster or in the canopy bed. This should be considered in planning the room, as the architect generally arranges a certain set position for it ] [Illustration: This dressing table shows a satisfactory arrangement for lighting--two flanking lights and one overhead light. The striped walls require the color furnished by the hangings ] [Illustration: In this little under-the-eaves bedroom a surprising saving of space has been made by fitting part of one side of the room with a series of drawers painted in white enamel. There is room here for the household linen and for storing away clothes ] [Illustration: Where neutral grays are chosen for the walls there should be some warmth of color elsewhere. Here most of the decoration is left to the furniture in its warm mahogany tones and to the brighter colors of the rug ] [Illustration: In the small bedroom that must be used as a study there should be a space for living-room comforts. The sash curtains combined with inside ones of sill length are attractive ] [Illustration: Even a small under-the-eaves bedroom may be well arranged. This is consistent Colonial with its rag rugs and Windsor chair ] [Illustration: A bedroom in which the cream colored chintz with pink and green design is repeated in the upholstery and echoed in the carpet ] [Illustration: Curtains may be very simple but in good taste. This is a fine cheesecloth with a stencil design, which conventionalizes the flowers in the wall paper ] [Illustration: Another treatment of cheesecloth, showing a poppy design that is taken from the cut out band pasted at the top of a gray striped wall paper ] [Illustration: Views of an old-fashioned bedroom that is finished in dull grayish blue. Such heavy furniture would appear uncomfortably bulky in any smaller room ] [Illustration: The carpet helps to make the room homelike, with bare floors the height and size of the room would be more apparent ] [Illustration: A short length of cretonne hanging between two sill length curtains may be used instead of a valance ] [Illustration: The cut out paper border goes well with a shaped valance and side curtains. The valance is hung on a projecting frame ] [Illustration: The Japanese design is repeated on the gathered valance of the curtains, chairs and the table-cover. Several original stencils of butterflies are framed as decorations ] [Illustration: Ivory white is always a satisfactory color for the woodwork of most bedrooms. Here it takes the place of wall paper ] [Illustration: One article of bedroom furniture that should not be neglected is a bedside cabinet on which an electric light may be placed. These twin beds are of gray ash with a natural finish ] [Illustration: An example of several of the uses for stenciled borders is shown here in this desk corner. The room makes good use of wicker furniture and bungalow rugs ] [Illustration] The Problem of the Bathroom Only a few years ago, sanitary conveniences, which were very crude when compared with those of to-day, were considered luxuries; to-day they are necessities, demanded for our physical comfort and welfare. The old-fashioned Saturday tubbing was a much dreaded and messy event; but with sanitary house plumbing, bathing became a pleasure and a valuable adjunct to good health. It is, therefore, interesting to note the treatments of the present bathroom. The average house to-day contains at least two bathrooms, the simplest equipment being a water-closet, lavatory, and tub, the two latter fixtures supplied with hot and cold water supply pipes. From these three fixtures of the simplest kind, installed in a room not smaller than 5 ft. 6 in. × 6 ft. 6 in., we may enlarge the scheme to contain a shower-bath, with floor receptor to catch the water, a sitz or foot-bath, double lavatories, if for the owner's bath, with marble or porcelain pier slabs for toilet articles. These fixtures may be simple in pattern, of enameled iron or of porcelain or marble, in a room having tile or marble floors and wainscot. There are, happily, inexpensive fixtures of good quality that are just as efficient as the most expensive ones, and the plainer the lines of the fixtures the more beautiful they will appear in the finished bath; heavy ornamentation in color or molded design should be avoided--it is not so easily kept clean, nor is it so beautiful. In many houses having but one servant, a separate bath is provided for her use, and in a house costing $8,000 it is customary to provide a private bath connecting with the owner's chamber, as well as a general bath for the family and guests, and a servants' bath in the attic. The importance the bath and sanitary plumbing have attained is shown by the fact that seven or eight per cent of the cost of a house is taken for plumbing, and in houses costing from $8,000 to $15,000, three bathrooms are installed. [Illustration: Two oval lavatories are generally representative of the latest convenience for the modern bathroom ] The model servants' bath should have a floor of small hexagonal white, unglazed tile with hard plastered walls, above a sanitary base, painted with four coats of moisture-resisting paint and equipped with a five-foot enameled iron tub, quiet syphon-jet closet, with oak seat and tank, and a plain pattern enameled iron lavatory. A medicine closet should be built in the wall over it, having a mirror set in the door. The fixtures cannot be properly set in an area less than 5 ft. 6 in. × 6 ft. 6 in., and 5 ft. 6 in. × 7 ft. 6 in. would be much better. The owner's bath is largely a matter of personal taste and cost. Usually this has a floor of 2 in. white, unglazed hexagonal tile, with a 4 × 6 in. white glazed tile for walls, with cap and sanitary base, marble thresholds and plinth blocks. The height of the wainscot is optional; but 4 ft. 6 in. is usual, with the walls and ceilings above it oil painted. The room should not be smaller than 8 ft. × 10 ft. and may open from the owner's chamber or dressing-room. Its equipment usually comprises two lavatories of vitreous china, placed at least six inches apart, unless a double lavatory is used in one slab, over which may be a medicine closet built into the wall with mirror door set in; the bathroom door should have a full-length mirror. In the illustration that appears on page 95 is shown a silent syphon-jet closet with low-down tank finished in mahogany. The "low-down combinations," as they are called, are made in oak, cherry, mahogany, and white enamel. The tub should be at least 5 ft. long, of enameled iron or porcelain, finished on both sides if enameled, and supported on porcelain block feet, with standing waste and mixing cocks. The tub must be set far enough from the wall to permit cleaning. [Illustration: The great problem in planning a bathroom is not to sacrifice all warmth and color to sanitation. At present there are washable and sanitary papers made by the decorators that are very proper for bathroom furnishings. The seagull design in blues and greens and the kingfisher in a brilliant, cool green are both suitable and attractive ] [Illustration: The upper left hand plan shows excellent spacing and good arrangement combining all the desirable features and conveniences of a bathroom. The upper right hand plan shows a desirable arrangement for minimum space. The lower left hand plan shows a modern idea of dividing the bathroom into two sections. In the lower right hand plan there is a complete equipment, well arranged, but with few more than the necessary conveniences ] Every fitting or exposed pipe in the bathroom should be nickel-plated. The shower may be installed over the tub, as in one of the illustrations, or made a separate fixture with a floor receptor to drain off the water. It may be inclosed with a cotton duck curtain, which is more agreeable to the body than rubber or marble slabs. The merits of each fixture and its equipment I shall leave to the reader, because these things he can readily determine for himself; but the arrangements and number of fixtures required must be considered--the quality is a matter of price. The general bathroom of a house should be similar to the owner's--in some cases it is divided into two compartments, as shown in one plan, with the water-closet by itself--permitting independent use. [Illustration: One especial convenience that should not be neglected is the shower with the duck curtain arranged over the top. For bathroom floors the hexagonal tile is very suitable and enduring ] In homes costing from $15,000 up, the number of bathrooms is in proportion to the number of occupants. Every room may have a connecting bath with tile floor and wainscot, completely equipped--in such a case the visit of a guest is not fraught with hasty skirmishes to the nearest bath, perhaps only to retreat, and wait and listen for an opportunity to use it. Plumbing fixtures are made in many materials; the most popular of these, on account of durability and cost, is cast iron with an enamel glaze fused on the iron. This ware will stand hard usage, is not easily fractured, does not craze, and therefore holds its color. The vitreous china ware is, I think, more appropriate for bathrooms finished in tile, because the materials, being similar, are in harmony, while the enameled iron is not quite as heavy or substantial looking when used with tile. Vitreous china is potter's clay, properly fired, with a vitreous glaze baked on; porcelain is similar and their cost is about the same, except that this increases rapidly with the larger pieces; because fewer perfect fixtures are obtained. Fixtures cut from solid marble block are the most expensive and their relative merit with their relation to cost is a question for the owner to determine. [Illustration: A sunken bathtub is a form of luxury that is desirable but requires low ceiling in the room below, or that the bathroom be built on the ground floor. This is oftentimes an impossible arrangement ] There is little difference between the enameled iron, vitreous china and porcelain or marble as far as the retention of heat is concerned, or the feeling from bodily contact. There are in every kiln some fixtures that are not quite perfect; they are called "seconds," and catalogued as "Class B" goods, with a lower price. The weight of massive plumbing in a frame dwelling is considerable and will cause a settlement of the floors unless carefully supported. The fashions in tubs are many. The usual shape is square at the foot and round at the head-at the foot are the waste and supply pipes which are made in several combinations. The double bath cock, which gives hot or cold water or a mixture of both, is advisable for tubs-the small cup between the faucets is a ring tray and can be replaced with a soap dish if desired. Most shower-baths have a shampoo attachment or body spray that can be used instead of the overhead shower, so that the head and hair are kept dry if desired, and if a shower is not to be installed this can be provided in the tub. [Illustration: The bathroom to-day finds great need of such built-in conveniences as wall chests and cupboards. These should be arranged for at the time the house is built ] A tub incased in tile is a perfectly sanitary treatment, and in some cases the tub has been sunk into the floor a foot and then incased to avoid the high step necessary to get into the tub. The plunge--sunk in the floor--is an unusual treatment that permits more freedom of movement than the tub; but the tile, when wet, is slippery, and I should expect one might carelessly slip in with fatal results. Roman tubs are alike at each end--with fixtures in the middle of one side of the rim. Solid porcelain tubs rest on the floor, set into the tile. The ideal position for the tub, if there is available room, is with the foot against a wall and ample room on either side to get in or out of it. Tubs are made in lengths ranging from 4 ft. to 6 feet, and about 30 inches in width over rims. [Illustration: This room contains the desirable articles and fixtures for the modern bathroom in a very satisfactory arrangement. There is the latest thing in nickel plumbing and modern equipment, but at the same time there is an attractiveness that is so lacking in the cold, hospital type of room ] [Illustration: The small hexagonal floor tiles permit sections to be taken up with little difficulty and replaced at small expense. Wall tile, however, should be made of the larger rectangular units with a cornice at the top and a rounded surbase that obviates a sharp angle at the junction with the floor ] The lavatory is an important fixture that is made in a great many varieties. The old-fashioned bowl is obsolete--the oval has taken its place, though probably the best is the kidney-shaped bowl, as it permits a free and natural movement of the arms in raising water to lave the face. The bowl should be at least 14 × 17 inches, in a slab 22 × 32, with a space surrounding the bowl countersunk a little to form a border that tends to confine the splashed water. All the fixtures manufactured by responsible concerns are equipped with nickel-plated faucets, wastes, traps, and supplies that are very satisfactory; but quite often the plumber who installs the work buys the fixtures without the selected trimmings and substitutes a cheaper pattern. Some tubs and lavatories are sold in "A" and "B" qualities, and it will be to your advantage to select the fixtures with your architect, who knows the grades and fittings. [Illustration: All the wood that is in these bathrooms is heavily enameled in white. Both rooms show a good use of colored tile worked in attractive designs. The room on the left has a mosaic pattern in several shades as a decoration, while in the right hand room there is a bright border and vertical strips making panels. The tiles between them are laid in herring-bone fashion. Both tubs are without supports and rest flat on the floor ] [Illustration: This European treatment is particularly effective for the owner's bath, which opens into his bedroom. The glass doors provide all the lighting necessary and are very decorative with their curved segments ] A particularly pleasing treatment is the bath opening from the owner's chamber, and separated from it by glass partition. This arrangement is good where outside light cannot be afforded or obtained, and a curtain effectively screens it. [Illustration: A simple bathroom where waterproof enameled paint was used in several coats instead of a tiled wainscot, and above this an attractive waterproof paper that suggests tiling. Such an arrangement is a possibility where tiles may not be purchased ] Bath-room accessories should be arranged with care and consist of the following devices: Plate glass shelves supported on nickel-plated brackets are the best; towel-racks; toothbrush holders; clothes-brush hangers; clothes hooks; soap dishes; and soiled towel baskets. Hardware is usually of nickel-plated tubing screwed into the tile. The accompanying photographs and plans will illustrate the subject further and are self-explanatory. A. RAYMOND ELLIS [Illustration] The Proper Treatment for the Nursery Furnishings for the modern child's room, like everything else that belongs to that important personage, are as complete in the smallest detail as skill and ingenuity can make them, and every feature of a well-appointed bedroom may be duplicated in miniature for the youngsters. The wall-papers and draperies especially designed for nurseries and children's rooms are in a way more distinctively juvenile than the actual pieces of furniture, and are a most important consideration in fitting out such apartments. If one does not care to go to the expense of furnishing a nursery completely, paper and curtains that will leave no doubt as to the identity of the room may be had at small cost, and from this simple touch the scheme of decorations and the furniture, to say nothing of the cost, may be indefinitely extended. Strictly hygienic parents who scout the idea of wall-paper as being unhealthy and will have nothing but painted walls in a bedroom are confronted by a bare expanse that may be sanitary, but is neither attractive nor interesting for the child. With walls treated in this way a decorative frieze may be used with good effect. The friezes, which come in panels varying in depth from fourteen to nineteen and one-half inches, are printed in gay colors on backgrounds of blue-gray, ivory-white, drab, and other neutral tones that can be matched exactly in the color of the walls. The designs include processions of Noah's ark inhabitants, farmyard animals, chickens and ducks, Normandy peasants going to market, toy villages with stiff little soldiers and prim-looking trees, hunting scenes, and a row of Dutch kiddies indulging in a mad race across the paper. If wall-paper is used it also matches the background of the frieze, the paper being either in a solid color or with a figure so inconspicuous that it gives the impression of a single tone. One of the new papers for children's rooms is a reproduction of the quaint Kate Greenaway figures that are quite as fascinating to little people in these days as they were years ago. The background is a pale yellow and the figures are printed in rather delicate colors, each group representing one of the calendar months. The effect is particularly dainty and the designs are diverting for the children without becoming tiresome from too great contrast in color. Another paper that shows groups quite as charming is printed from designs by Boutet de Monvel, the famous French illustrator of child life. A new idea, and one that is proving popular, is a decided departure from the conventional wall-paper, with its figures at regularly repeated intervals. This consists in first putting on the walls a paper of solid color to be used as a background for single figures or groups that are cut from friezes and pasted on to suit one's individual taste. The figures, of course, must be quite large, in order to be effective, and in some favorite groups cut from a frieze showing little Dutch girls and yellow chicks the latter are even larger than life. For nurseries, when the children are very small, the figures are often arranged in a frieze just above the foot-board, so that they come on a line with the child's eye, and are therefore vastly more entertaining than when placed at the infinite distance of the top of the wall. Blue and white seems to be the favorite combination of colors for nursery draperies, and among the all-over patterns are a lot of roly-poly children picking gigantic daisies on a pale blue ground, and also a Delft design on a white ground covered with black cross lines that are far enough apart to give a tiled effect. A number of other colors and patterns may be had as well as the gay printed borders that come two strips to a width of the material. When figured wallpaper is used, draperies of solid color with the printed border are rather more satisfactory, as one set of children or animals tumbling over the walls, and another set chasing across the draperies, create a bewildering impression that is anything but restful and quieting for the small occupant. The borders are particularly attractive for curtains made of plain scrim or some soft white material, and are stitched on in strips or cut out and put on in silhouette. [Illustration: The playroom in this house was to be made use of by the grown folks occasionally for their handicraft work. Special attention was paid to built-in closets convenient for toys and tools ] Floor coverings especially suitable for children's rooms are to be found in the more or less recently revived rag carpet rugs, either plain or with figured borders. Almost any of these rugs with their decorative strips showing queerly constructed landscapes are suitable, but most appropriate is one that has a solemn procession of geese across either end, or another that is ornamented with a family of black and white bunnies lined up against a red brick wall. They come in various sizes, from the small hearthrug up to the one that is large enough for the center of an average size room. A new rug for nurseries that is rather more practical than pretty is woven in the same way as the rag rugs, but instead of cotton materials, strips of oilcloth are used, rolled so that the glossy side is uppermost. The idea was first employed in making small rugs for bathrooms, as they are waterproof and easy to keep clean, but they are quite as serviceable and sanitary for children's rooms, and are cleaned by wiping off with a damp cloth. They are made in different sizes, and in a mixed design, like the ordinary rag rug, or with white centers and borders of solid color. In the way of furniture, chairs and beds are to be had in a much greater variety than the other pieces, and the miniature Morris chair is no doubt the most attractive piece of furniture that is made for the little folks. It comes in almost as many different styles and prices as the grown-up variety, and may be had in light or dark wood, with cushions of velour or leather or figured cotton material, and is a perfect reproduction of the large chair. Little sets consisting of table and two chairs, one straight, the other with arms, are decorated with juvenile figures in color, and may be had for prices that are quite reasonable. They are especially useful when no attempt can be made at arranging a regulation nursery. One of the most serviceable of these sets is of dark wood with leather seat chairs and a table of good size, the top of which is hinged and may be raised disclosing a receptacle for toys or books. Small willow and wicker tables and chairs are made in attractive shapes, many of them copies of the larger pieces, and are used either in the natural color or stained to harmonize with the color scheme of the room. Less substantial than the pieces made of solid wood, they are rather more practical for older children than for small ones who are no respecters of furniture, and, while designed for use all the year round, they are particularly suitable for summer rooms or to be carried outdoors. In spite of the fact that the little white bed is always associated with the child's room in story and song, to say nothing of the popular imagination, there are various kinds of brass and wooden beds made in small sizes that are thoroughly in keeping with one's idea of a typical nursery. The white enamel beds, which may be had as plain or as elaborate as one desires, are always dainty, and have the advantage of harmonizing perfectly with furniture and hangings of almost every description. Brass beds have the same characteristic, but they are much more expensive than those of iron, and seem to require rather more elaborate surroundings. The newest brass beds for children are quite low, only about half as high as the ordinary bed, which is a distinct advantage, as it is much easier for the child to climb into, and less dangerous in case he falls out. [Illustration: The sense of possession that the child has in its own room produces much satisfaction. Substantial furniture may be purchased in small sizes and a variety of wall treatments are suggested with interesting friezes ] A recently designed wooden bed of attractive appearance shows severely plain lines in the head and foot boards, and in the sides long narrow panels are cut out, through which the covering of the box spring is seen. This bed is made only to order, and is intended for elaborately decorated rooms in which a definite color scheme is carried out. It may be had in any desired width and stained any color to match the other furniture, while the box spring and little pillow and mattress are covered with the same material as the draperies of the room. [Illustration: Japanese prints are being received with increasing favor and thousands of beautiful designs are particularly appropriate for the children's room. The subjects are chiefly natural history figures and they serve as an inspiration to have stories woven about them ] Furniture of a special size for children's rooms is made in a design that is substantial and handsome, by the manufacturer of a well-known and widely used type. There is a wardrobe just five feet high, with compartments for hats, clothing, and shoes; a bureau twenty-nine inches high, with a twenty-inch mirror on it; a bed with high sides, the simple decorations of which match those of the bureau; rocking chairs and straight chairs with leather seats, a settle, and tables of different sizes and shapes. Nothing could be more attractive or complete than a room furnished in this way for a child of six or seven years who has outgrown the daintier surroundings of the nursery. It has all of the dignity of a well-appointed grown-up room, but with everything in proportion to the size of its owner. Even washstand sets, suitable as to shape and decoration, may be had for the child's room in which no detail is to be omitted. They are little if any smaller than the usual sets, but the decorations are in keeping with those of the other appointments, and the pitchers are designed with a view to their being handled easily by small hands. They are not unlike milk jugs in shape, with a substantial handle over the top and another at the back, so that there is small chance of their slipping while in transit, and the mouth is a definitely formed one that will not fail to pour in the direction intended. For a comparatively small amount a room may be fitted up with enough distinctive juvenile furnishings to impart individuality and to give the child a sense of possession that it will never have in grown-up surroundings. Even though circumstances are such that it has not had an elaborate nursery, as soon as a child is old enough to have a room of its own there is no reason why the furnishings should not be in keeping, and with the expenditure of a little money a dainty and attractive room may be arranged. High-priced beds and other pieces of furniture are by no means necessary, and, as is often the case, the most reasonably furnished room may be the most satisfactory if a little ingenuity and good taste are brought into service. [Illustration: There are various ways that Japanese prints may be used in the child's room. This and the opposite illustration show prints put on the wall and held by a molding at top and bottom. This also may contain a glass to protect each picture ] [Illustration: There are decorations such as this that have an educational value and that take the place of toys. These little figures on the left are really companions, while the plaster plaque illustrates Stevenson's Verses ] [Illustration: These bas-reliefs make interesting decorations and at the same time serve as object lessons in illustrating good poetry ] Thirty to thirty-two dollars can be made to cover the cost of wall-paper, curtains, bed and mattress, a rug and a bureau, all in sizes and designs suitable for children. The wall-papers in juvenile patterns are not expensive, and the cost of papering a room of average size would be about five dollars. A little white iron bed may be had for as low as five dollars, with seven dollars additional for the mattress, and a rug 3 × 6 feet in size with a decorative border is $3.50. A bureau of small size, such as comes in an inexpensive grade of the so-called antique oak, costs about $8.00. For the very reason that the furnishings of the room are only temporary, and soon to be outgrown and discarded, it is quite satisfactory to buy a cheap grade of furniture whenever possible, if price is a consideration. A small bureau is less expensive than one made especially in a child's size, and is equally practical if not so substantially made. Such a bureau can be done over in white enamel to match the bed, or in any dark color that may be preferred in place of the shiny oak finish. For curtains that hang straight from the top of the window to the lower edge of the sash, scrim at twenty-five cents a yard would cost two dollars. Allowing four yards for each of two windows, and enough printed cretonne to make a decorative border, it would cost a dollar and a half additional. These figures are of the very lowest for which a child's room can be fitted up, but even with everything of the most inexpensive grade it will give more real pleasure than one on which a much greater amount has been spent if the room is nondescript in its furnishings and fails to impress the child with a sense of ownership. SARAH LEYBURN COE [Illustration] Characteristic Staircase Types and Hall Treatments [Illustration: In the right place half-timber work on plaster has many possibilities for hall decoration ] [Illustration: Japanese grass cloth in golden color is an excellent combination for chestnut stained light brown. Wood strips are used instead of paneling ] [Illustration: In certain old Colonial halls the entrance is fashioned in a semicircular recess up which the stairs curve in a spiral. The effect is exceedingly beautiful but requires much space ] [Illustration: The front door in this house opens directly into the living-room, into which stairs come down at one side. The wood has natural treatment and part of the banister forms the wainscot of the room ] [Illustration: Some of the best Colonial detail is to be found in newel posts where careful craftsmen worked a variety of spirals ] [Illustration: One method of securing pleasing decorative effects was the use of balusters in three different designs ] [Illustration: In the old farmhouses for the sake of warmth the main stairway was made with the smallest possible well and often closed with a door at the main hall ] [Illustration: This is a modern example by Wilson Eyre of the stair well inclosed for the greater part of its length. Such arrangement is only possible under certain lighting conditions ] [Illustration: The stairs that rise from this living-room are designed to take up as little room as possible. In this they are very successful and little of the banister rail and stair woodwork can be seen ] [Illustration: Where there is a large room made dignified by architectural decoration the twin stairways curving either side of a main flight are decidedly impressive; but one should not plan to make use of this effect in any but a pretentious house ] [Illustration: The hall paper should not be a decided contrast to rooms opening onto it. Tapestry paper may often be found successful in this situation ] [Illustration: Another stairway that divides on the way to the upper flight, but a treatment particularly fit for houses in English style of decoration ] [Illustration: This view shows to good advantage the value of an archway between living-room and hall. Woodwork, simply carved, frames in delightfully the stairway which is so appropriately treated with a forest frieze. Curtains would be objectionable here ] [Illustration: This hall is of generous width, and the stairs rise straight with but one landing lighted by a large window. A window is almost a necessity in the hall as it permits a free circulation of air throughout the house ] [Illustration: A use of the Colonial flat arch which separates this stairway from the living-room and makes a small room of it ] [Illustration: Simplicity characterizes this Colonial stairway that is very similar to the one at the top of page 114. There is, however, a baseboard treatment which, like the banister rail, is crowned with mahogany ] [Illustration: In the recess made by the vestibule the stairway is economically placed. The hall serves the double purpose of entrance and reception room ] [Illustration] Planning the Kitchen There is a growing and altogether proper tendency to treat the kitchen as an integral part of the house, which was almost entirely absent in English and American houses of early times; in fact, until within the last twenty-five years very little thought was attached to it. A century ago it was regarded advisable to have the kitchen occupy a separate building somewhat removed from the main building or located at a great distance from the dining or living rooms, ofttimes the whole length of the house. The principal reason for this was the primitive methods used in cooking and preparing foods which were very objectionable at close range. Odors, noises and unsanitary appliances made the kitchen a place to be abhorred and to be kept as far away as possible. The present-day intelligent methods of dealing with the kitchen, particularly in America, have effected a complete transformation in this old idea. Our modern successful architect of the home attaches great importance to the planning of the kitchen, with its adjoining pantries, closets, storage rooms, etc.; and rightfully he should, as it goes more towards making for the convenience, help and comfort of the up-to-date household than possibly any other feature of the home. The modern English kitchen with its relation to the dining-room is interesting for comparison with those here in America, chiefly because the early English settlers constitute the original source from which we obtain our start in house-building. The English kitchen's adjuncts practically comprise separate departments, such as the scullery, larder, wood, ashes, knives and boots, fuel, etc. This condition naturally requires the employment of considerable help even in the smaller homes. On the other hand, the compactness so noticeable in American homes--requiring perhaps one-half the space, thus reducing the necessary help to a minimum and obtaining the maximum of convenience--has brought our kitchen to a standard, nearly, if not entirely, approaching the ideal. The American architect has based his idea for this compactness upon the same reasoning as is exercised in fitting up a convenient workshop, for truly a kitchen is the workshop of the house. Again, the peculiar custom of medieval times in placing the kitchen a considerable distance from the dining-room still survives in the English homes, while in American homes a marked difference has long prevailed. The kitchen here is usually placed as near as possible to the dining-room, only separated, if at all, by a china-closet, pantry, or butler's room. [Illustration: The model kitchen has developed considerably from the higgledy-piggledy arrangement of Colonial times. Supplies are limited to the most necessary articles, and these stored away in a handy location ] [Illustration: Such a kitchen _de luxe_ is expensive, but not extravagant. The built-in range, tiled wall and floor, together with the open plumbing, give the highest degree of sanitation ] Convenience, cleanliness and ventilation are three essentials that must be paramount in arranging the up-to-date kitchen and its accessories. While there may be differences as to minor details, the principal features to be obtained in establishing a modern kitchen may be found in the various suggestions herein contained: 1st. The kitchen should be roomy but not excessively large. This applies to any size of house, as too large a kitchen is maintained at the expense of convenience and labor. An ideal size for a kitchen in a house measuring 25 × 50 (containing living-room, reception room, dining-room and pantry on first floor) would be 12 × 15 feet. 2nd. The general construction of the interior is of the utmost importance. The floor may be of hard Georgia pine, oiled, or covered with linoleum or oilcloth. As a covering, linoleum of a good inlaid pattern, while more expensive than oilcloth, proves the best and most economical in length of service. In a house where comfort is demanded regardless of cost, an interlocking rubber tiling is suggested. This flooring absolutely avoids noises and slipping and is comfortable to the feet, as well as being of an exceptional durability. Other floors of a well-merited character are unglazed tile, brick, or one of the many patented compositions consisting chiefly of cement, which is also fireproof. The wainscoting, if adopted for the kitchen, can be of tile, enameled brick, or matched and V-jointed boards, varnished or painted; but in any event should be connected with the floor in a manner to avoid cracks for collecting dust or dirt. This is accomplished (when a wooden wainscot is used) by means of a plain rounded molding which is set in the rightangle formed by the junction of the floor with the wainscot. While seldom seen, because of the expense, a kitchen completely tiled or bricked on walls, floor and ceiling is indeed a thing of beauty and necessarily an ideally sanitary room. [Illustration: The sink should have a drainboard space and be located where the light may fall directly upon it. The row of hooks for utensils saves much walking ] The doors, window frames, dressers and other necessary woodwork should be plain, made of medium wood and painted some light color or enameled white; or finished in the natural state with a transparent varnish. [Illustration: The butler's pantry should have an indirect connection between the kitchen and the dining-room. The two doors here keep out odors, noise and heat from the dining-room. The refrigerator is in the cook's pantry and opens out on the porch ] The walls and ceiling, if not tiled or bricked, should be finished with a hard smooth plaster and painted three or four coats of some light color--light yellow, green, or blue making a very agreeable color to the eye. This manner of treatment permits the walls to be washed and kept free from dust and dirt, which latter is a disagreeable feature in the use of wall papers. 3rd. The proper installation of the various furnishings of the kitchen is worthy of much thought and consideration. Of all these, nothing is of more vital importance nor appeals more strongly to the household than the range. The size of the range is largely governed by the size of the house or the number of persons it is intended to serve. However, it is advisable to have a range not less than three feet square for a seven or eight-room house. It should be of a thoroughly modern style, with a hood over it, either built in or of sheet iron, an excellent provision for drawing away the steam and fumes of cooking. And, by all means, the range should be placed so that direct daylight falls upon it. Most present-day houses also have either gas or electric ranges installed in them and these should be near the coal range so as to confine all cooking to one part of the kitchen; and further, especially in winter when large gatherings are entertained, they furnish a combined service. Some large establishments, in addition to the range, are especially equipped with "warmers." [Illustration: The modern kitchen may be neat and clean if all of wood, with V-matched boards varnished or painted. The space under the drainboard here for a table is a feature worth adopting. The cupboard over the shelf is also an attractive feature ] The sink, being so closely allied in its usefulness to the range, should be placed near the latter and under, between or near windows, but never where the person using it would have his back to the light. It may be of galvanized iron, copper, soapstone or enameled porcelain, and provided with an ample draining-board; two being much preferred. If there is a special sink for vegetables required, it should be immediately adjoining the draining-board to insure compactness and convenience as well as economy in plumbing. The draining-board may be of hard wood or of wood covered with copper or zinc. The best are made of enameled ware similar to the sinks. Draining-boards of copper or zinc should be given only a slight slope to prevent the possibility of dishes slipping therefrom. [Illustration: A feature of this plan is the sliding door connecting the kitchen and pantry. This may be closed when cooking is in progress and successfully keeps all odors from finding their way into the dining-room. Opposite windows provide a cross draft and excellent ventilation ] The refrigerator should be built in or placed against an outside wall in order that the ice can be put in easily from without through either a small opening or window. If it can be avoided, the refrigerator should not be placed immediately in the kitchen, but rather in the entry, pantry or enclosed porch. The kitchen of the small house which sometimes has no communicating pantry should have built therein dressers of such proportions as will accommodate all the necessary dishes, pots, vessels, bins for flour, sugar, etc., cutlery, and other things essential for obtaining the best results under the circumstances. A dresser of commodious size is always a blessing. The top portion, of plain shelves, should be enclosed either with doors or sliding glass fronts; the lower portion, first lined with zinc and enclosed with solid wooden doors so constructed to fit nearly if not airtight. If an exclusive pot closet is desired, it should be handy to the range and at the same time be under cover for sanitary reasons. [Illustration: This German kitchen is a model of neatness and cleanliness in its white enamel furnishings. The cupboard provides space for china, the long shelf beneath being a great convenience, while the various bins and drawers provide proper places for everything ] Frequently in a small kitchen a counter or drop leaves against the wall are substituted for a table, but in most kitchens a good-sized substantial table, preferably in the center of the room, is found indispensable. The table should have a smooth top that can be easily kept clean. Although costly, a heavy plate glass fitted perfectly with rounded edges makes a splendid top for the table. The service part of the house, of which the kitchen is the central room, should fit together just as parts of a machine and form a unit in themselves. The pantries, store rooms, etc., should be placed so as to afford easy access one to the other. In a house, which has two or more servants, a dining-room or alcove should be provided for their use. This may be a part of the kitchen or immediately adjoining, and merely large enough to seat comfortably the servants around a table. [Illustration: A kitchen in a large country place that is equipped with every possible convenience, sliding doors, built-in refrigerator, clothes chute, dumbwaiter and a revolving drum between kitchen and butler's pantry. There is also provision made for a servants' dining-room, advisable wherever possible ] The cook's pantry should contain cupboards in which are all the necessary paraphernalia for preparing pastries, puddings, etc., such as bins, bakeboards, crockery, pans and supplies, and should be lighted by at least one window. The butler's pantry, or china-closet as it is often called--generally located and affording direct communication between the kitchen and the dining-room--is essentially a serving-room and should contain a sink with draining-boards, cupboards and shelves to accommodate the fine china, glassware and other requisites for the table. With such a plan the door between the pantry and kitchen may be either sliding or double swinging, but between the pantry and the dining-room, a noiseless double-swinging door. A slide, with small shelves or counters on either side, between the kitchen and pantry, for the passing of food and dishes, saves time and steps. It is well to have the communication rather indirect through the pantry to prevent in a measure the passage of odors or a direct view of the kitchen by those entering the dining-room or seated at the table. This can be partly accomplished by not having the communicating doors directly opposite each other. [Illustration: The kitchen need not be large, if it is compact. In the house 25´ × 50´ the ideal size is about 13´ × 15´. A work table of this sort does away with many unnecessary steps, the lower shelf being a convenient place to put articles that are in constant use ] The outside entrance to the kitchen should be so placed as to facilitate the delivery of provisions, preferably through an entry or an enclosed porch. The laundry in many houses is combined with the kitchen or immediately adjoining, in which latter case it often serves as an entry and a place to store certain articles, such as brooms, buckets and possibly the refrigerator. The very best plan is to have the laundry in the basement, with separate outside stairs. In such a case, a chute for sending soiled linen, etc., should run from the kitchen or pantry to the laundry. [Illustration: The butler's pantry or serving-room should be equipped with a cupboard and sink in order that the finer glass ware can be stored and the more fragile articles be washed without finding their way into the kitchen ] [Illustration: A rather unusual plan, in which great economy of space is made by building the service stairs about the chimney. The pantry is exceedingly well arranged in that it takes up no room from the kitchen or the dining-room ] [Illustration: Plaster walls should be finished with a hard surface and given several coats of a waterproof paint. The shelves beneath the sink here provide a place useful and easily accessible ] The kitchen should above all be well ventilated and have plenty of daylight. The necessary fumes and heat arising from the cooking should be taken care of in such a way that none of it is carried to the dining-room or to other parts of the house. This can partly be accomplished by the hood over the range, but plenty of fresh air is required. Generally in country homes, the living-rooms are given the southern exposure, so the kitchen usually faces the north. The best location is either the northern or eastern exposure, as the cooling breezes in the summer generally come from that direction, especially in this part of the country, and combined with the morning sun, make the kitchen cheerful and cool. If possible there should be exposure on at least two sides, opposite, affording cross ventilation as well as an abundance of light. All windows should be well fitted with screens in summer to keep out flies and other insects attracted by the odors of cooking. The best artificial lighting is obtained by a reflector in the center of the kitchen, possibly with side brackets where necessary, as at the sink or at the range. [Illustration: A very novel kitchen cupboard is this, with the shelf space in the doors giving almost a double capacity. The bread board slides beneath a shelf and is provided with handles ] In a large house the service portion may be situated in a separate wing and if so the stairs should be in a small hall, centrally located and near the kitchen, especially the stairs to the cellar. This hall may contain a closet for brooms and a lavatory for the use of the servants. It it well not to have the stairway ascending directly from the kitchen, as it lessens the valuable wall space. The rooms directly over the kitchen can best be utilized in most cases for servants' sleeping rooms as they are often objectionable for members of the household, or guests. JAMES EARLE MILLER * * * * * Transcriber's Notes: Italic text is denoted by _underscores_, bold text by =equals signs=. 
44538	----	Transcriber's Note: This text contains two books which were bound in a single volume: "Armour in England" and "Foreign Armour in England", both by J. Starkie Gardner. Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as possible, including inconsistent hyphenation. The tables of contents were created by the transcriber. In the first book, Sir Noël Paton's Christian name was spelled "Noel"; this has been retained. On page 47, in the sentence starting "A little later, as at the battle of Montlhéry," "Montlhéry" is a correction of "Montlhery". Italic text has been marked with _underscores_. Letters preceded by carets appeared as superscipts. OE ligatures have been expanded. [Illustration: PLATE I.--Full suit of armour of Henry, Prince of Wales, in the guard-chamber at Windsor Castle. Attributed to William Pickering, master armourer.] ARMOUR IN ENGLAND FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE REIGN OF JAMES THE FIRST _By_ J. STARKIE GARDNER [Illustration] LONDON SEELEY AND CO. LIMITED, GREAT RUSSELL STREET NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1897 CONTENTS PAGE I. The Britons--An Early Age of Plate-Armour 5 II. The Mailed Warrior 9 III. The Transition Period--From about the Reign of Edward I. to that of Richard II., 1272-1399 27 IV. The Age of Plate-Armour 45 V. The Age of Enriched Armour 78 INDEX 99 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS _COLOURED PLATES_ PAGE I. Full suit of armour of Henry, Prince of Wales, in the Guard-chamber at Windsor Castle. Attributed to William Pickering, master-armourer _Frontispiece_ II. Second suit of Sir Henry Lee, Master of the Armoury, reduced facsimile of No. 19 in the Armourers' Album in the South Kensington Museum 28 III. First suit of Sir Christopher Hatton, Captain of the Guard, and subsequently Lord Chancellor. Reduced facsimile of No. 15 in the Armourers' Album in the South Kensington Museum 40 IV. Grand-guard of the suit of George, Earl of Cumberland, in the possession of Lord Hothfield. This is a part of the 20th suit in the Armourers' Album in the South Kensington Museum 46 V. Grand-guard, used for tilting, belonging to the suit of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, with the gilding restored. In the Tower of London 58 VI. Profile of the helmet belonging to the French suit (Fig. 32). In the Guard-chamber of Windsor Castle 76 VII. Ornament on the tapul of the breastplate belonging to the half-suit of the Earl of Essex (Fig. 35), with the original gilding slightly restored. In the Guard-chamber of Windsor Castle 90 VIII. The sword of Charles I. when Prince of Wales, 1616. The hilt entirely covered with raised gold damascened work on blue steel matrix, except the grip of silver wire work. Preserved in Windsor Castle 96 _ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT_ 1. Hauberk, or byrnie, of chain-mail, of the fourth or fifth century, found at Vimose 11 2. Norman knights in mail hauberks and conical helmets 13 3. A complete suit of mail, with coif and mufflers; A thirteenth-century suit, with reinforcing plates 17 4. Mail coif, flat-topped, with leather thong 19 5. Mail coif, round-topped, with jewelled fillet 19 6. Mail coif, conical top, with coronet and mantelet 19 7. Helmet of bronze and iron, from County Down 21 8. Illustration of the development of plate-armour 23 9. The sleeping guards, from the Easter Sepulchre in Lincoln Cathedral 25 10. Melée. From MS. of the fourteenth century 29 11. The helm and crest of the Black Prince, with his shield, from his monument in Canterbury Cathedral 31 12. The helm of Richard Pembridge, K.G., from Hereford Cathedral 32 13. Bassinet from the tomb of Sir John de Melsa, Aldborough Church, Holderness 32 14. A bassinet transformed into a sallad in the fifteenth century 33 15. A ridged bassinet with banded camail; Combed and jewelled bassinet 35 16. Effigy of the Black Prince on his tomb in Canterbury Cathedral 37 17. Gauntlet from the effigy of Ralph Neville, Earl of Westmoreland, in Staindrop Church, Durham; Gauntlet from the effigy of Sir Thomas Cawne, Ightham Church, Kent 41 18. Helm from the tomb of Henry V. in Westminster Abbey 48 19. Effigy of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, on his tomb in St. Mary's Church, Warwick 53 20. The Earl of Warwick slays a "mighty Duke." From the Beauchamp MS. 55 21. The Duke of Gloucester and Earls of Warwick and Stafford chase the Duke of Burgundy from the walls of Calais. From the Beauchamp MS. 57 22. Sallad in St. Mary's Hall, Coventry; Helm of Sir Giles Capel 59 23. English tournament helm over the tomb of John Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, in Wimborne Minster 60 24. Helm of Sir John Gostwick, in Willington Church 61 25. The entry of Queen Isabel into Paris in 1390. From MS. of Froissart 63 26. Armet of Sir George Brooke, K.G., 8th Lord Cobham 65 27. English armet from the collection of Seymour Lucas, A.R.A. 65 28. Complete suit for fighting on foot, made for Henry VIII. 67 29. Suit made for Henry VIII. by Conrad Seusenhofer of Innsbrück, 1511-1514 71 30. Part of a suit made for Sir Christopher Hatton 79 31. Armour of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, 1566-1588 83 32. A suit of French armour, early seventeenth century 87 33. Italian suit of blued and gilded steel covered with appliqués of gold 89 34. A part of the ornament of the Italian suit (Fig. 33), drawn real size 91 35. Demi-suit of the Earl of Essex, with closed helmet, magnificently engraved and gilt 93 36. Sword, probably of James I., with basket hilt, entirely covered with raised gold damascening 95 37. The sword of John Hampden, with hilt of carved steel 97 ARMOUR IN ENGLAND I _The Britons--An Early Age of Plate-Armour_ It is the nature of islands to exhibit some peculiarities in their fauna and flora, and this insularity is no less pronounced in the manners and customs of the human beings inhabiting them. Thus even the stone implements of Britain of remote prehistoric days can readily be distinguished by the expert; and we have the authority of Sir John Evans for regarding our types of bronze celts and weapons as both peculiar and indigenous. On first taking a place in history several strange and extra-European customs were noticed in these isles by Cæsar, such as the use of chariots in war, and dyeing the skin blue with woad: British nations were, moreover, frequently ruled by queens, and some practised the rare and difficult, and very far from barbaric, art of enamelling on bronze. Modern opinion is at present opposed to the theory that the culture and civilisation of Western Europe originated exclusively in the East, and is inclined to regard our primitive arts and crafts as indigenous. That this must in a large measure be true appears sufficiently established; but the large and excellently-made bronze bucklers with concentric rings of bosses or studs, called the clypeus, the singular art of enamelling, the use of studs of coral for embellishing weapons and trinkets, the chariots of war and the government by women, all so remote from savagery, and so intimately connected with Eastern civilisation, compel the belief that these isles did actually at some distant time possess a privileged and intimate communication with the East. The old and rooted tradition of a direct traffic in tin between Britain and Phoenicia cannot yet in fact be safely abandoned. These arts and practices, however, only fall within the scope of our subject so far as they were applied to arms and weapons. One of these, very rarely used for the embellishment of arms in later times, is that of enamelling, a process unknown to the Romans. Philostratus, who wrote in the third century, referring to some coloured horse-trappings, observed, "They say that the Barbarians who live in the Ocean pour these colours on to heated bronze, and that they adhere, become hard as stone, and preserve the designs which are made in them." The bronze to be enamelled was cast with the pattern upon it, and the colours used were varied and bright, but opaque. Some brilliant horse-trappings with purely Celtic decorations and a few sword-hilts are known, but the bulk of cast bronze enamelled ware consisted of brooches, seal-boxes, cups, and vases, all Romano-British in design. A much rarer enamel is found on beaten or repoussé bronze armour. Pliny, in the Natural History, remarks that the Gauls were in the habit of adorning their swords, shields, and helmets with coral, but an immense demand springing up in India, it became unprocurable. We find accordingly that resort was had in England to enamel to reproduce the effect of the coral studs. In the British Museum is an oblong shield of Celtic design, found in the Witham, embellished with coral, but a smaller and handsomer shield beside it, found in the Thames, has gold cloisonné studs of blood-red enamel. The curious Celtic reproduction of the Roman peaked helmet, and the horned helmet found in the Thames, both from the Meyrick collection, are also decorated with small raised bosses cross-hatched to retain red enamel, some of which still adheres. The horned brazen helmet should, according to Diodorus Siculus, be a relic of, or borrowed from, the Belgic Gauls, who inhabited so much of this part of England. The gem-like effect of the enamelled studs, like single drops of red on the golden bronze, must have been most refined; it is altogether too restrained to have originated with the enameller, who usually covers his surfaces. The identity of workmanship of these arms with the Irish bronze and enamel work suggests that some of those who produced them passed over and found with their traditions and arts a peaceful refuge in the sister isle. Tacitus, however, states most explicitly that the Britons wore neither helmets nor armour, and were not able, therefore, under Caractacus, to maintain their resistance. Herodianus also, relating the expedition of Severus 250 years after Cæsar's invasion, presents an extraordinary picture of savagery. He observes that the Britons were a most warlike and sanguinary race, carrying only a small shield and a spear, and a sword girded to their naked bodies. "Of a breastplate or helmet they knew not the use, esteeming them an impediment through the marshes." They encircled their necks and loins with iron rings as an evidence of wealth, instead of gold, and went naked rather than conceal the tattoos of different animals which covered and gave a blue cast to their bodies. In striking contrast to this picture are the large number of chariots employed in war and the extraordinary skill displayed in handling them. Cæsar states that Cassivelaunus, when totally defeated and a fugitive, was still accompanied by 4000 charioteers; the basis probably of Pomponius Mela's later statement that 4000 two-horsed chariots armed with scythes formed part of that chieftain's army. Having proved ineffectual against Roman discipline, this arm was perhaps soon abandoned, since we find little further mention of war-chariots, though cavalry did not cease to form part of a British army. In process of time the subjugated Britons must have become completely Romanised as to arms, and accustomed to wear the helmet, greaves, and corselet, either of one piece or formed of smaller and more flexible plates or scales. Though the manhood of the country enrolled in disciplined cohorts and legions had deserted it, Roman weapons must have been the arms of those who remained when the Romans finally retired from Britain in 410. In the two succeeding centuries, which were to elapse before the country definitely inclined to become English, an intensely Celtic feeling, embodied in the legends of King Arthur and wholly opposed to Roman ideas, had time to spring up. Judged by their ornament, it is to this period that most of the bronze enamelled arms and trappings in the British Museum belong. The golden corselet found in a barrow in Flint, together with many traditions of the finding of golden armour, such as the helmet of pure gold set with gems found in a bronze vase and presented to Katharine of Arragon, suggest the idea that serviceable qualities became sacrificed to a love of display. At this time it is said the Britons, in obsolete and fantastic panoply, bore an evil reputation, as being vain and fruitful in menaces, but slow and little to be feared in action. Their frightfully demoralised state, if not greatly overdrawn by Gildas, called for a day of reckoning and the condign, almost exterminating, punishment which overtook them. The agents destined to execute the vengeance of Providence were the Frisian pirates, the scourge of the Channel, who had with difficulty been kept in awe by the most powerful Roman fleets. The country, left to the divided rule of clergy, nobles, and municipalities, and described as "glittering with the multitude of cities built by the Romans," presented a tempting and easy prey to these professors of rapine. They were Teutons, who relied mainly on the Fram or spear-like javelin, as when Tacitus described them, and still carried the round gaudily-painted buckler, though then strengthened with an iron umbo and rim. Their weapons had been perfected in a long series of grim experiences in actual war, and they had added to their equipment a sword and dagger, and some kind of simple headpiece. That they had adopted any complete defence of plate-armour in the Roman fashion is improbable, but they were apparently entirely unacquainted with chain-mail. In the history of armour in Britain this period, taken as a whole, can only be regarded as a very primitive age of plate. To be an efficient protection plate-armour must, however, be of an intolerable weight, at least to men on foot, making celerity of movement impossible. We cannot close the chapter better than by instancing the dreadful fate of the Æduan Crupellarians, related by Tacitus, who clothed themselves in unwieldy iron plate, impenetrable to sword and javelin. Though the main army was overthrown, these kept their ranks as if rooted to the ground, until, fallen upon with hatchets and pickaxes, armour and men were crushed together and left on the ground an inanimate mass. This lesson was not forgotten by the nations of Europe who fought on foot with Rome, and no such use of body-armour among them is again recorded. II _The Mailed Warrior_ The appearance of the mail-clad warrior opens up an entirely new era in the history of European armour. The light plate defences worn by the Mediterranean nations, whether Greeks, Etruscans, or Romans, were never calculated to secure immunity from wounds; and as a fighting equipment they went down before mail, as stone before bronze, or bronze before iron. Chain-mail body-armour is distinctly represented on the Trajan column, and wherever worn, whether by the Scythian, the Parthian who was armoured down to his horse's hoofs, or the dreaded Sassanian horse, it seems to have flashed like a beacon of victory, and its wearers ever appear in history as Rome's most dreaded and formidable foes. The Scandinavian also, isolated so long and unknown in history, suddenly burst upon Europe as a new and even more redoubtable mail-clad warrior. How so remote a people became acquainted with chain-mail can only be surmised, but it was perhaps through some Scythian channel not open to Western Europe. That the ravaging Viking landed on our shores equipped in mail, the "war nets" of Beowulf, "woven by the smiths, hand-locked, and riveted"; "shining over the waters" or in "the ranks of battle," is sufficiently recorded by the Chroniclers. Shirts of mail, called "byrnies," attributed to even the fourth and fifth centuries, are found in Danish peat-bogs fashioned of rings welded and riveted in alternate rows as neatly and skilfully as can possibly be, and all made by the hammer, if it be a fact that wire-drawing was not invented till nearly a thousand years later. The almost perfect specimen we figure, one-tenth the natural size, was found at Vimose, with portions of others. Some have also been found at Thorsberg, and in a burial-place of Roman age in Jutland. Besides the mail defence, the Danes were armed with a shield, an iron cap, lance, axe, and sword. Thus equipped they proved for a long time almost irresistible, and ventured on the most dangerous and desperate undertakings. When we reflect on their adventurous voyages, the reckless attacks on powerful nations made by mere handfuls of men, and the gallant pertinacity they at all times displayed, it is impossible not to admire their exalted courage. It is easy to detect a rugged poetry, almost chivalry of a kind, underlying the Viking nature, in spite of ruthless cruelty, while the exaltation of deceit when practised on an enemy into a virtue is but a germ of modern statecraft. Their lives depending at every moment on the quality of their weapons caused these to be invested, particularly the sword, with a mystic glamour, which scarcely died out with chivalry itself, and lingers even yet in the more important functions of state. The chieftain's sword was in fact his inseparable companion, known and endeared to his followers by a name symbolic of the havoc they had seen it wreak upon the enemy, and its fame in sagas was as undying as its owner's. Tradition elevated the maker of the sword of Odin, a smith, we must believe, who forged swords of uncommon excellence, into a demigod; and has handed down the story of how he made a blade called Mimung so keenly tempered that when challenged to try conclusions with one Amilias, a rival, it sliced him so cleanly in two as he sat in his armour, that the cut only became apparent when, as he rose to shake himself, he fell dead in two halves. The name of this prince of craftsmen yet lives in the mysterious Wayland Smith of English folklore. Another vaunting smith Mimer was slain by the sword Grauer wielded by Sigurd; and the sword Hrunting is made famous by its owner Beowulf, the father of English lyrics. A Danish sword in the British Museum is inscribed in runes Ægenkoera, the awe-inspirer. From the Danes the exaltation of the sword passed to the English, and we find Ethelwulf, Alfred, and Athelstan bequeathing their swords by will as most precious possessions, equivalent to a brother's or sister's portion. Thence it passed, in legend at least, to the Britons, King Arthur's sword Calibon, or Excalibur, presented ultimately by Richard I. to Tancred when in Sicily, being almost as famous as Arthur himself. Even Cæsar is provided by history with a sword named "Crocea mors," captured from him in combat by our valiant countryman Nennius. The hilts of the Danish swords are described in the _Edda_ as of gold, and Beowulf speaks of hilts that were treasures of gold and jewels. Canute's huiscarles and Earl Godwin's crew had swords inlaid with the precious metals, and some English swords were valued at eighty mancuses of gold. [Illustration: FIG. 1.--_Hauberk, or byrnie, of chain-mail, of the fourth or fifth century, found at Vimose, one-tenth of the real size; and part of another, full size, from Thorsberg. From "Danish Arts," published for the Science and Art Department_.] The origin of the remarkable veneration for arms and armour, so apparent in the history of chivalry, is thus traced to wearers of mail, the first figures also to appear in something like what we regard as knightly equipment. The dress of Magnus Barefoot, described in 1093, differed probably but little from that of his predecessors, and consisted of helmet, a red shield with a golden lion, his sword called Leg-biter, a battle-axe, and a coat-of-mail, over which he wore a red silk tunic with a yellow lion. The wearing of armour, particularly mail, on land, necessitated riding, and the northern rovers, finding the weight intolerable on their inland forays, took to horse whenever possible, harrying by this means an extent of country otherwise almost inaccessible. They even learnt in time to transport their horses over the sea, and in the ninth and tenth centuries landed in England from France as a mounted force, as their descendants after them did at Hastings. The English, on the other hand, rarely wore mail, though the spoils of the Danes might have furnished a fair supply, and they only used cavalry as a small force for scouting. An English king of the eighth century is, however, represented in mail by Strutt, and Harold and his immediate companions may have worn mail at Hastings, as represented in the Bayeux tapestry, and as he certainly did when assisting William in his war against Conan of Brittany. Handsome presents of Norman arms and armour were then made to him by Duke William. A little later we have the curious testimony of Anna Comnena, 1083-1146, that this mail, made entirely of steel rings riveted together, was wholly unknown in Byzantium, and only worn by the inhabitants of Northern Europe. The definite conversion of the Northmen from sea-rovers to mounted men-at-arms when they settled in Normandy enabled them to lengthen their coats-of-mail, as well as their shields, lances, and swords, and to adopt many French manners and customs. But in facing the infantry wedge at Hastings, the time-honoured fighting formation of Teutonic stocks from the days of Tacitus, they did not disdain to fall back on the old Viking tactics of a pretended flight and rally, practised already by them during two centuries of warfare in England. That the English should have allowed their impenetrable ranks to be broken by so threadbare a stratagem is indeed extraordinary. [Illustration: FIG. 2.--_Norman knights in mail hauberks and conical helmets. From the Bayeux Tapestry._] The Norman Conquest introduced into England a permanent mail-clad cavalry as the chief strength of the battle, as in France, and infantry was discredited until the disputes of the sons of the Conqueror led once more to an English infantry force taking the field. The mail coat of the cavalry had in the meantime been further lengthened, and changed into a complete sheathing of steel by the addition of long sleeves and mufflers falling over the hands; leggings covering the thighs, shins, and feet; and a capuchin-like hood only leaving the eyes and nose exposed, but which could be thrown back. Thus enveloped, with a thickly-padded garment under the mail, a conical or flat-topped steel helmet, a large kite-shaped shield, and long-reaching weapons, he had little to fear when opposed to light-armed cavalry or infantry. The mail and helmets were always kept bright, as we know, but Anna Comnena adds that even the shields of steel and brass were so brightly polished as to dazzle beholders. Combined with the pennons and banners of various forms, with their glittering emblazonry, the massed men-at-arms of that day must have presented a magnificent spectacle, as the Chroniclers so frequently remind us. The coat-of-mail remained with but trifling variations the chief knightly defence until the close of the thirteenth century, and the protection it afforded was so complete that of 900 combatants who once entered battle in steel armour but three were slain. At Joppa in 1192, during a battle lasting from the rising to the setting sun, only three were killed on the side of the Crusaders; at the battle of Lincoln only three, at Evesham (1260) one knight and two esquires, at Falkirk (1295) but one knight and thirty foot on the winning side. These somewhat random examples seem fairly to represent the loss on the side of the victors, though terrible massacres overtook the losers. The protection was such that Saladin's bravest warriors reported our men to be impenetrable; blows, they said, fell as if on rocks of flint, for our people were of iron and would yield to no blows. But though so terrible on horseback, the mailed knight, as observed by Anna Comnena, was little dangerous when dismounted. Neither had the English failed to observe this, and thus directed all their efforts to dismount the enemy. They had been severely galled by the bow at Hastings, and they came to recognise it as the one weapon likely to render them really formidable to their Norman oppressors. Henry I. encouraged its use, and we soon find the English arrows described as falling in battle like a shower on the grass or as falling snow. In a skirmish at Bourgthéroude in 1124, the first discharge brought forty horses to the ground before a stroke was struck, and eighty men-at-arms soon fell prisoners into the victors' hands. At the battle of the Standard, the cloud of arrows pierced the unarmoured Scots, and chiefly contributed to the dreadful slaughter, set down at 11,000. The effects of missile weapons were such that the mailed period of which we are speaking saw three English kings fall victims to the bow, while a fourth, Edward I., escaped a like fate by a miracle. The accounts handed down of the extraordinary range and precision attained soon afterwards by this weapon appear wholly incredible in the light of modern toxophilite displays. The cross-bow was an even more powerful weapon, whose use had been forbidden in war, but allowed by the Pope to the Crusaders in 1139. Richard I. appears to have introduced it into the English army, which became so expert in its use that in some of the sieges conducted during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the enemies' walls could not be manned. It is related of Richard, both at the sieges of Acre and Nottingham, that he himself slew men with this weapon. The numbers of cross-bowmen in our armies appear, however, to have been always relatively small. King John, with 400 knights, had but 250 cross-bowmen, used as skirmishers, keeping a mile in front of the army. The splendid army of Edward I. assembled at Poitou (1242), numbering 1600 knights and 20,000 foot, comprised but 700. The battle of Lincoln, however, was gained by them owing to their shot mowing down the horses of the barons, who were rendered helpless when dismounted. The cross-bow was at first bent by the hand and foot, but was afterwards of steel, when it required mechanical aids to charge it. The short and heavy bolts, called quarrels, struck with greater force than arrows, and the knight hit full on the head or breast by one was fortunate if only stunned. Instances are recorded of twofold mail and the quilted coat being penetrated by them. Cross-bowmen for a long time formed corps d'élite, the weight of the weapon and the armour causing them to be frequently mounted, and so early as King John the mounted "balistarii" were provided with one, two, or even three horses each, with carts to carry the quarrels and even the cross-bows as well. Notwithstanding superior accuracy in aim and penetrating power, it fell into disuse in England soon after the close of the thirteenth century, owing to its heavy weight and liability to damage by wet, and above all, on account of the greater rapidity with which arrows could be discharged from the longbow,--in a ratio of something like ten to one. Nothing is more constantly met with in chronicles than accounts of the destructive effects of missiles, whether from bow or cross-bow, upon the horses of mounted combatants; yet, apart from the poetic fancy of Wace, who mounts Fitz-Osbert on an iron-clad steed at Hastings, the first mention of horse-armour at all connected with English history is at the battle of Gisors in 1198, when Richard I. speaks of the capture of 140 sets in terms which plainly show that he then met with it for the first time. It has, however, been concluded, from the absence of any mention of horse-armour in English statutes until 1298, that it was unknown here till the close of the thirteenth century. At this time a man-at-arms in France received half as much again in pay if his horse was armoured, and in 1303 every man with an estate of 500 livres was bound to provide horse-armour. A mailed horse appears in the effigy of Sir Robert de Shirland in Sheppey, and a fine figure of a steed completely clad in mail is among the figures of _The Painted Chamber_, published by the Society of Antiquaries. The English custom of fighting on foot, it is almost needless to add, had been adopted by the Danish and even the Norman settlers here, and during the civil wars of Henry I., Stephen, and Henry II., the leaders on both sides, including the kings in person, fought their battles dismounted, rendering horse-armour of relatively small importance. A permanent force was raised by a law of Henry II. in 1181, compelling every burgess or freeman to possess an iron headpiece, a lance, and either a mail hauberk or a gambeson, according to his means: and this was supplemented by the addition, under Henry III. in 1253, of swords and knives to the infantry equipment, and the calling up of a reserve of those possessed of less than 40s. of land, armed with scythes, long-handled axes, knives, and other rustic weapons. Soon afterwards a wild Welsh and Cornish infantry was enrolled, and we hear of lagers and intrenchments, and in 1302 one of the first really crushing defeats is inflicted on chivalry at the hands of burghers by the men of Bruges, who slew forty counts and barons at Cambray. This extensive arming of the population led to the formation of bands of outlaws, who devastated the country, something in the manner of the free-companies of France at a later time. A young man named William, declining to acknowledge Lewis of France in 1216, drew together a thousand bowmen and conducted a guerilla warfare in the forests of Sussex. The still more renowned Adam Gordon infested the woody country between Wilts and Hants until Prince Edward at last, about 1267, overcame him in single combat. The ancient Ballads abound with instances of such exploits, which are embodied in the romance of Robin Hood. A contemporary of Richard I. describes the equipment of an English foot-soldier as consisting of an iron headpiece, a coif and coat-of-mail, and "a tissue of many folds of linen, difficult of penetration and artificially worked with the needle, vulgarly called a pourpoint." He was taught to receive cavalry with the right knee on the ground, the left leg bent, the shield in the left hand and the butt of the lance in the ground with the point to the enemy. Between every two lances was a cross-bowman with a rear rank to load while the front shot. Against this formation the Moslem cavalry's "surging charges foamed themselves away," and as at Waterloo, the retreating squadrons were charged again and again by our heavy-armed horse. On the other hand, the same tactics, when employed against forces largely composed of English archers, were unsuccessful; thus the Welsh in 1295 set their long spears on the ground with points towards the cavalry, but the Earl of Warwick placed an archer between every two horsemen and routed them. Wallace's massed pikemen, three years later, were broken by Edward's archers and military engines, and routed by the men-at-arms, who dashed into the openings. [Illustration: FIG. 3. 1. A complete suit of mail, with coif and mufflers, late twelfth century, said to have been found in a coffin in Goring Church. 2. A thirteenth-century suit, with reinforcing plates, said to have been found with the other.] It does not appear that any special study of mail has been undertaken, or that any good collection of mail has been formed, nor have the many varieties been arranged chronologically in the order in which they appeared. Materials for such a study exist, though not very abundantly, in the Tower, the British Museum, the collection at Woolwich and Dover Castle, the Armourers' Hall, Warwick Castle, Parham, and in other private collections, and from these and the effigies of mailed knights it can be seen that an almost endless variety exists, not only in the sizes of the links, which vary from 1/6 to 3/4 of an inch in diameter, but in the sections of the wire used, which may be round, flat, triangular, trapeziform, quadrate, polygonal, etc. Nor is there less diversity in the method of closing the rings, which was accomplished either by welding, single or double riveting, with a flattening and more or less overlapping of the links, soldering or merely butting. Again, there are many ways of arranging the links, producing mail of very different weights, either double or single, as well as mail in which certain parts are stronger than the rest. In European mail four links are usually made to pass through a centre one, though this is not an invariable rule. The statement in Beckman's _History of Inventions_, that wire-drawing was invented in the fourteenth century, was held for a long time to furnish a safe date, but two Corporations of wire-drawers occur in Etienne Boileau's _Paris Livres des Mestiers_, in the middle of the thirteenth century, and the art is actually of unknown antiquity. The mail, we read, was kept bright by barreling, but does not appear to have presented much scope for decoration. The _Edda_ speaks of a byrnie of gold, and there are other allusions to gilded mail, and we find hauberks scalloped at the extremities, and finished off with rings of brass. Two suits of mail (see Fig. 3), illustrated in the catalogue of the loan collection of Ironmongers' Hall in 1861, now in the possession of Mr. J. E. Gardner, F.S.A., are formed of unriveted links, the ends of the rings being merely butted. Their authenticity has therefore been questioned. The description of them printed in 1861 was to the effect that they had been found in a chest or in a vault of a church in Oxfordshire. In the manuscript catalogue of the collection at Parham is a note to the effect that they were found in stone coffins built in the wall of the church at Goring, Berks, supposed to be coffins of the Beche or De Beche family, and contained skeletons, a third suit having been destroyed except the hood, which is now at Parham. However this may be, the larger suit affords a good representation of the mailed figure of the end of the twelfth, and the small one of that of the thirteenth century, with reinforcing pieces of plate. The possibility of their having been made for lying in state or funerals deserves perhaps a passing note, especially in view of their respective dimensions; and it is in any case very questionable whether the prices paid for them would have remunerated the labour of producing forgeries. Another hauberk of large size was found in Phoenix Park, Dublin, thirty years ago, but a silver badge of an O'Neil found with it showed it to have been buried not earlier than the middle of the fifteenth century. In the thirteenth century the curious and well-known banded mail appears on effigies and other representations, which Mr. J. G. Waller, F.S.A., regards as caused by the passing of a leather thong through each alternate row of rings, for the sake of extra strength. This variety may have originated with the single thong passed through the links of the coif over the forehead and below the knee, seen in early effigies like that of William Longespée (Fig. 4) at Salisbury. [Illustration: FIG. 4.--_Mail coif, flat-topped, with leather thong._ From the effigy of William Longespée, son of Henry II. by Fair Rosamond, who died 1227. Salisbury Cathedral.] [Illustration: FIG. 5.--_Mail coif, round-topped, with jewelled fillet._ From the effigy of Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford, died 1221. Hatfield Broad-Oak Church.] [Illustration: FIG. 6.--_Mail coif, conical top, with coronet and mantelet._ From the effigy of John of Eltham, Earl of Cornwall, died 1334. Westminster Abbey.] The defence of the body was for a time wholly left to the mail with the underlying gambeson, and the shield, but the head had always received the additional protection of a cap of steel, called the chapelle-de-fer, worn indifferently under or over the coif of mail. Effigies of the first half of the thirteenth century show it both round and flat at the top (Figs. 4, 5, 6, and 7). The nasal piece associated with the conical helm (Fig. 2) of the eleventh century tended to disappear in the twelfth. The fact that English armies under Richard I. were made to abandon their ancient formation and to engage on horseback, and to rely on the battle-axe and mace as their chief weapons, and the presence of the large bodies of archers and arbalisters which he brought into the field, led to the introduction, probably by Richard himself, of the great heaume worn over the steel cap and padding, and only put on at the moment of battle. It is first seen on Richard's second seal, and consisted of a cylinder, usually flat-topped, with two horizontal clefts for vision, and strengthened by bands crossing each other over the face and top. Breathing-holes were added towards the middle of the century, and the grated front was introduced soon after, to admit more air. This is seen in the first seal of Henry III., and another advance, the movable vantail, hinged at the side, in his second seal. An oft-described specimen in the Tower weighs 13 lb. 8 oz., but is regarded by Lord Dillon, the present Curator of the Armouries, as a forgery. About 1270 we sometimes find it with a round top, though the flat top did not go quite out till the beginning of the fourteenth century. The attempts made to seize and drag it off, so often noticed by Chroniclers, led to its being secured by a chain. The further changes seen were improvements in the visor, giving better vision and more air, fixing it more securely, and so transferring the weight from the head to the shoulders, and changing the flat top to a cone, on which blows fell with less stunning effect. These heaumes, by concealing the face, intensified a difficulty already felt at Hastings, when Duke William was obliged to raise his helmet to contradict a rumour of his death. Recognition, now become impossible, led to the use of heraldic badges, at first painted on the helm, as they already were on the shield; and of crests, first in the fan or peacock's feather shape, as on the second seal of Richard I., and afterwards to more distinctive crests and badges. The Crusading Chroniclers relate that the crests were brilliant with jewels, and they are represented as circled by coronets in the seals of Henry III. and his son Edward. The heaume of St. Louis, 1249, was gilded. Richard himself, in gala dress, on the day after his marriage with Berengaria, is described by Vinsauf as wearing a Damascus sword with gold hilt and silver-scaled scabbard, his saddle inlaid with precious stones, his horse bitted with gold, and in place of the high defensive plates before and behind in general use two little golden lions with raised paws. [Illustration: FIG. 7.--_Helmet of bronze and iron, from County Down. Twelfth century._] Next to the headpiece the most urgent necessity was to protect the breast against the direct shock of the lance, and for this a rigid defence was of the utmost importance. Thus a beginning was made even during the mail period towards the introduction of plate-armour. Jazerant and scale armour of small plates had been adopted to this end by the Franks, and Charlemagne had introduced the classic breastplate. Something of the kind was perhaps even known to the Viking, and by the twelfth century Scandinavians certainly used a defence called a briostbiorg beneath the mail, extending from the neck to the waist. Chroniclers allude to shining breastplates long before there is the slightest appearance of them in illustrations, though from the time that surcoats were worn over the armour it becomes difficult to see what is beneath. Allusion is often made to a plastron-de-fer; and in the combat between Richard, when Earl of Poitou, and William des Barres we read that an iron defence was worn over the breast. One of the effigies in the Temple Church is equipped with a back and breast plate of single plates united by straps. It is stated that the bodyguard of Henry III., 400 strong, which fled at the battle of Lewes in 1244, wore breastplates; and in 1277, 300 cavalry so armed were sent to Wales. [Illustration: FIG. 8.--_Illustration of the development of plate-armour._ 1. The gambeson appearing below the chausses, but covering the chaussons of mail, forming an extra protection to the knee. From the effigy of Robert of Normandy. 2. The same, but apparently with an extra applied cap. From the effigy ascribed to one of the Pembrokes in the Temple Church. 3. The quilted gambeson appearing below the chausses and drawn over the chaussons, with the additional protection for the knee-cap of an octagonal plate. From the effigy of Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford. 4. The chausses and chaussons overlapping, forming a double thickness of mail, with the addition of a quatrefoil plate over the knee-cap. From the effigy attributed to the second Longespée at Salisbury. 5. A ridged knee-defence of cuir-bouilli or plate enveloping the knee, over the mail. From the effigy of Robert Ros in the Temple. 6. Globose knee-cap of Aymer de Valence. Westminster Abbey. 7. Decorated knee-defence from an effigy in Whatton Church. 8. Cross-ridged knee-defence from an effigy of Robert de Bois.] Following the head and breast, the limbs received protection from plate-armour, the knees and shins of mounted men-at-arms being peculiarly exposed to injury in melées with infantry, from blows of the two-handed battle-axe and mace. Additional security was absolutely essential against these weapons, which were introduced both for horse and foot by Richard I., and had grown in favour ever since. These even penetrated mail, the Irish axe in particular being reputed to cut off limbs in spite of its protection. The Scandinavians, with their keen military instincts, had provided themselves in the twelfth century with knee-caps of iron attached to overalls worn over the mail. Our earlier mailed effigies, however, show no special defence for the knee, though the one at Salisbury, attributed by Stothard to William Longespée, already noticed, has a stout thong passing between the links of mail just under it. The effigy of Robert of Normandy, of which there is a cast in the National Portrait Gallery, shows a thick overall under the chausses of mail, and drawn over the mail chaussons at the knee (Fig. 8, No. 1), and a similar appearance is seen in the first seal of Richard I.; in the sleeping guards of the Easter Sepulchre at Lincoln (Fig. 9); and other monuments of the same date. In the effigy attributed to William, Earl of Pembroke, in the Temple, who died in 1289 (Fig. 8, No. 2), and in Stothard's drawing of the effigy at Whitworth, an appearance of a thick cap is also to be seen, perhaps the extremity of a padded overall overlapping the knee; and in other examples the thick quilted gambeson leg-defence is clearly seen below the mail, covering the knee, and in the case of De Vere, who died 1221, it has the interesting addition of an octagonal plate (Fig. 8, No. 3), apparently of iron, over the kneecap. The effigy, called the second Longespée, at Salisbury (Fig. 8, No. 4), about 1260, exhibits an apparently double thickness of mail at this point, caused by the overlapping of the chausses and chaussons, with the addition of a circular plate with a quatrefoil upon it. Contemporary Chroniclers also mention that greaves were worn by knights in the time of Richard I., though the earliest manuscript illustration of them occurs in Matthew of Paris's _Lives of the Offas_. The feet were cased in mail, and the spurs were simple straight spikes or goads, perhaps worn on one heel only and called the prick-spur. Under the early Plantagenets the point was fixed on a ball, while the rowel spur is seen in the monument to Le Botiler of the reign of Henry III. Under the heroic Richard the powers of defence seem to have definitely triumphed over those of attack. Knights sheathed in mail over quilted work, and wearing the great battle-helm, appeared invulnerable and able to encounter the most fearful odds, and even to rescue each other when dismounted amidst swarming enemies. The further changes during the mailed period were in the direction of military display, which has always offered an attractive field. Whenever the pressure for improved armament was relieved through the defensive equipment for the time satisfying the wearer, whether a naked savage or well-equipped soldier, attention was turned to the warrior's personal embellishments, partly to gratify the wearer's vanity, partly to captivate and dazzle, but chiefly to affright and awe the enemy. The fact that the French and English wore the same armour and equipment, and the common occurrence of internecine wars at this time, rendered distinguishing costumes particularly necessary. By simply throwing away their cognisance at the battle of Noyon, Peter de Maule and others escaped recognition and mingled with the pursuers, while Ralph de Courci mistook the French for his own side and was taken prisoner. Nothing but the different-coloured crosses sewn to the garments of the French, English, and Flemish Crusaders served to distinguish them, and white crosses alone distinguished the party of Simon de Montfort, 1264, from their enemies. Nothing approaching to any uniform is heard of in this age, unless when Richard of Gloucester traversed France in 1250, with a retinue of forty knights equipped all alike, with new harness glittering with gold, on his visit to the Pope. The beautifully-sculptured guards of the early fourteenth century Easter Sepulchre in Lincoln Cathedral (Fig. 9) present fine examples of the costume of the knight armed with the mace, sword, and shield towards the end of the mailed period. The bassinet on the figure to the right is particularly noteworthy. [Illustration: FIG. 9.--_The sleeping guards, from the Easter Sepulchre in Lincoln Cathedral._] III _The Transition Period--From about the Reign of Edward I. to that of Richard II., 1272-1399_ The warrior sheathed in mail, mounted on his charger, whether pricking alone or in troops over hill and dale, was a picturesque and portentous figure, and when massed for battle presented an awe-inspiring sight. The gray burnished steel, glittering in the sun or under lowering skies, relieved by the fluttering pennons and banners and emblazoned shields, formed a picture that the old Crusading Chroniclers loved to dwell on, filling the imagination with those great gatherings of the chivalry of Europe. In the days of the last of the Paladins, of Godfrey de Bouillon and Richard Coeur de Lion, the dress of burnished mail was the knight's especial pride, and no garment concealed it. But as progress and love of change are universal, and the mail itself could not well be embellished, an embroidered surcoat was worn over it in the more degenerate days of John and his son Henry, concealing all but the limbs and head. This garment became the vehicle for distinguishing marks and colours, like the modern racing-jacket. A little later, when emblazoned with heraldry, it served to distinguish the individual. The transfer of the surcoat from under to over the mail gave rise to the custom of concealing the steel panoply under rich materials, which distinguished the Transition Period in armour. While it lasted we literally and constantly meet with the "iron hand under the velvet glove." This and the continual piling of one coat of defence upon another, in the fruitless attempt to secure immunity for life and limb, are the chief characteristics of the period we are now to treat. Until the Transition, the mounted knight, cap-à-pied in mail over the quilted gambeson, with the steel cap, and the great helm for the supreme moment of combat, seemed completely invulnerable unless to missile weapons mechanically projected. Few men-at-arms fell in actual battle on the winning side, and great slaughters were only consequent on the complete rout of one of the parties. Under the warlike Edward I. the powers of attack must have gathered renewed force, for a long period of tentative changes set in which finally ended in the suit of mail being completely hidden beneath an outer shell of steel plates. The qualities of steel for offensive weapons must also at this same time have undergone marked improvements, and we now begin to hear of definite seats of manufacture attaining world-wide celebrity. Cologne, Lorraine, Poitou produced weapons which are said to have pierced mail and quilted armour with ease. The heavy blows given by the battle-axe and mace, used by horse and foot, must, however, have been chiefly instrumental in introducing extra means of defence. These were by no means at first universally of steel, for cuir-bouilli or boiled leather, a very impervious substance when properly prepared, seemed at one time likely to rival it for general use; and trial was made of every other kind of material that could be used for defence, such as horn, whalebone, ivory, padded wool, leather, either alone or strengthened with metal studs or splints, brass, and small plates of iron fixed to textiles. It is almost certain that for a time the moulded surface of cuir-bouilli, with its gilded and perhaps coloured surfaces, was preferred to steel. During this tentative period every combination of these materials with chain-mail is to be met with, and the triumph of steel-plate armour only became definite after every possible substitute, combined in every practicable way, had been tried either at home or abroad and found wanting. It is at least improbable that any armour pictured with enriched designs at this date was of steel. [Illustration: PLATE II.--Second suit of Sir Henry Lee, master of the armoury, reduced fac-simile of No. 19 in the Armourer's Album, in the South Kensington Museum.] It would be impossible within the limits of this work, and of little interest, to endeavour to describe the constant changes, often due to individual caprice, that occur; for when groups of soldiery are represented, even long after the Transition, it is rare to find two individuals accoutred in precisely the same manner. We may rest assured, however, that each piece as it successively appears was introduced to meet some new perfection in the weapons of attack, or to cope with some new tactics, in short, to protect some part that had been proved by the practical experience of armed strife to be vulnerable. These additions were naturally subject to modification, according to the passing dictates of military display, or the changing fashions of civilian dress. Fig. 10 is taken from one of the English MSS. most valuable for the knightly costume of the Transition. The armour is in this MS. almost entirely mail, of the banded variety, worn beneath a surcoat, which is hardly ever emblazoned. Plate-armour is only represented by the kneecaps, with an occasional roundel and shoulder-plate. The great helm, always with a fan-crest, the chapelle-de-fer worn beneath or above the mail coiffe, the bassinet, often visored, and the broad-brimmed round helmet are worn, except in jousts, quite indifferently. [Illustration: FIG. 10.--_Melée._ From the early fourteenth-century English MS. known as Queen Mary's Psalter, 2 B. vii., in the British Museum. The combatants are in banded mail and long surcoats, and some wear the great helms with fan-crests. Ailettes and knee-caps are the only plate-armour visible. Some of the horses have long housings and also bear the fan-crest.] The head, being the most vulnerable part of the body and the most difficult to protect, received the greatest amount of attention. The great helm, with bands and cross-cuts for the sight, continued in use throughout the Transition, but with a sugar-loaf crown, and rendered less insupportable in the reign of Edward I. by transferring the weight from the head to the shoulders. It was occasionally of brass--Chaucer mentions the knight's "helm of latoun bright," a metal used so far back as Henry I.--and much more frequently of cuir-bouilli, as in the tournament at Windsor in 1278, when twelve of the thirty-eight knights had gilded helms, and were called digniores. There can be no doubt, however, that a helm of Poitou steel was even then the surest defence. [Illustration: FIG. 11.--_The helm and crest of the Black Prince, with his shield, from his monument in Canterbury Cathedral._] To the custom of hanging arms in churches we are indebted for the preservation of all the most valuable historic pieces. The first record of this poetic usage occurs early in the thirteenth century, when William of Toulouse hung his helm and splendid shield over St. Julien's tomb at Brives, and his lance and sword, bow and quiver, outside. By the middle of the century it had become the practice, when a brave knight died, to hang his shield and helm on the walls above his grave, and it appears in addition, from the instance of the King of France after the battle of Cassel in 1328, that the victor in some cases presented his arms to the nearest church. The helm of the Black Prince, still suspended above his tomb at Canterbury (Fig. 11), is an illustration familiar to all. By the kindness of Sir Noel Paton we are enabled to present an even finer helm (Fig. 12), in more perfect preservation, which formerly hung above the tomb of Sir Richard Pembridge, K.G., in Hereford Cathedral, who died one year before the Prince of Wales, in 1375. Its admirable workmanship has been fully described by Baron de Cosson, its fine steely quality being such that no penknife would scratch its polished surface. It is formed of three pieces--the cone, the cylinder, and the top-piece, welded so beautifully that no seam is visible, and these are joined by round-headed nails clinched on the inside. Every practical detail, down to the minutest, has received careful attention. The metal is thickened and turned outwards round the eye-piece, which is thus efficiently guarded, and the bottom edge is rolled inwards over a thick wire, so as not to cut the surcoat. These and other details given by Baron de Cosson in the Catalogue of Armour exhibited at the Royal Archæological Institute in 1880, show conclusively that this specimen at least is a real war helm, fitted to resist and to strike fire under the shock of a lance that might unhorse its wearer. The conical helm was worn over the visorless bassinet next described, as the previous helms had been worn over the chapelle-de-fer, and being only donned in the hour of danger, is rarely represented in monuments, except as a pillow under the head. When worn the face was invisible and recognition impossible, so that a moulded crest of linen, leather, or some light material surmounted it and became its most important feature. A mantling was also introduced, at first in the simple form of a puggaree, as seen in the effigy of the Black Prince (Fig. 16), but later of more ample dimensions, fantastically shredded to represent the supposed rents of battle. When the taste for military display increased, these mantles were usually of scarlet lined with ermine. A wide-rimmed helm is often represented as worn over or in place of the bassinet, and jewelled and crested. This form reappears continually, its first introduction dating so far back as the Bayeux tapestry. [Illustration: FIG. 12.--_The helm of Richard Pembridge, K.G., from Hereford Cathedral. Sir Noel Paton._] [Illustration: FIG. 13.--_Bassinet from the tomb of Sir John de Melsa, Aldborough Church, Holderness. From a photograph by Baron de Cosson._] The bassinet, used with or without the helm, enjoyed a prolonged period of favour from Edward I. to Henry VI. It differed from the older chapelle-de-fer worn with the hood of mail, in having the mail hung round it, instead of passing over or under it. This mail, now called the camail or gorget, was laced to a series of staples along the edges of the bassinet and fell like a curtain on to the shoulders. At the outset merely a skull-cap, it was gradually prolonged at the back and sides so as to leave only the face exposed. Early in the fourteenth century its appearance was profoundly modified by the addition of a movable visor, at first hinged at the side, but subsequently raised and lowered from above the forehead. Being readily removed, the visor was only worn in action, and is thus rarely represented in effigies and brasses. No helm was worn over the visored bassinet, which became the battle head-piece of the fourteenth century and part of the fifteenth, the helm being reserved for jousts and tournaments. We are able, by the kindness of Baron de Cosson, to give an illustration (Fig. 13) of a real bassinet of large size, from the tomb of Sir John de Melsa in Aldborough Church, Holderness. It is described in the Catalogue of Arms already referred to as of the second half of the fourteenth century, and was worn with a large visor. A second bassinet is illustrated (Fig. 14) from Sir Noel Paton's collection, described by Baron de Cosson as transformed into a sallad about the middle of the fifteenth century. Fine bassinets are in the Tower and at Woolwich, and in the Burgess, Christy, and Wallace collections, all happily belonging to the nation, and in Warwick Castle and at Parham, but none are directly connected with English wearers. The beaked visor, represented in so many manuscripts of about the close of the fourteenth century, is a fine defensive and not unpicturesque form. There are several real examples in the Musée d'Artillerie in Paris, two of which are regarded as English. [Illustration: FIG. 14.--_A bassinet transformed into a sallad in the fifteenth century. From Sir Noel Paton's collection._] The bassinet, like the rest of the knight's armour, did not necessarily exhibit a surface of plain burnished steel. It was frequently covered with leather, as mentioned in the inventories of Humphrey de Bohun, 1322, and of Dover Castle, 1344; while the King of France at one time wore his bassinet covered with white leather. One of cuir-bouilli, in Simon Burley's inventory, 1388, is coloured white and green. It was also tinned or gilded, and even of pure gold, as prizes for tourneys, or like one set with gems, sent to Edward I. by his father-in-law in 1334. In a bequest of William Langford, 1411, is a headpiece covered with red velvet, and actual specimens so covered are not unknown. The richness of the decorations bestowed on these helmets is shown in the goldsmith's account of one made for the King of France in 1352, and of another made in the same year for the Dauphin with a band of forty large pearls. Effigies and brasses show that coronets and jewelled fillets commonly adorned them, even in the case of simple knights, and that these are not imaginary decorations may be gathered from Froissart, who mentions that the King of Castille actually entered a battle in 1385 with his bassinet enriched with 20,000 francs' worth of gems. Sir Guy of Warwick, in the Romance, is given a helmet adorned with a circle of gold set with most precious stones. Some notable champions, like Sir John Chandos and the Earl of Warwick, prided themselves on a disregard of danger and habitually fought without a visor, yet the tendency to close every crevice with plate defences developed continuously, and the frequent accidents at tourneys, when the lance-point glanced upward and entered the throat under the camail, led to the introduction, about 1330, of a gorget of plate or scales, which with the visor converted the bassinet into a closed helmet. The defence of the breast was always considered next in importance to the head, and fourteenth-century inventories constantly refer to "pairs of plates large," perhaps like those till recently worn in Persia, corsets de fer, cors d'acier, brust plate pour justes, and other defences of plate. Chaucer writes, "Some would be armed in an haubergeon, a bright breastplate and a gypoun." The globose form given to the chests of effigies, such as that of the Black Prince, seems to imply the presence of a rigid defence under the emblazoned surcoat. [Illustration: FIG. 15. 1. Example of a ridged bassinet with banded camail, from the brass of Sir John d'Abernon, died 1327. 2. Combed and jewelled bassinet from the effigy in Ash Church, of about the same date.] The limbs began to be definitely protected over the mail in the second half of the thirteenth century. Effigies and manuscript illustrations of that date commonly represent globose knee-caps, sometimes ridged down the front, and usually gilt. In the fourteenth century they are always present and frequently treated very decoratively, with shields, roundels, scalloped edges, etc. The technical name for these appendages is "Genouillière," or "knee-cap." Subsidiary plates often appear below the knee, and sometimes above it, and are continued under the mail. The greave was a rigid gaiter fitting at first only over the front of the leg below the knee, but afterwards enveloping it; and it was either of metal or cuir-bouilli. When seen on English fourteenth-century monuments it usually seems to be of steel fitting closely over the mail, and laced or buckled at the back, but at times it is so richly decorated as to suggest cuir-bouilli. Greaves are usually omitted on early monuments, and are only commonly seen when they had become an integral part of the suit of armour. As yet they were not habitually worn except in battle, and knights were not at this time represented in their effigies accoutred for war, but in ordinary military costume. Thus the effigy of Aymer de Valence shows no plate armour, except the genouillière; but the two mounted figures of the canopy present the visored bassinet, the high gorget, the arm and elbow plates, the tubular greaves and steel sollerets for the feet. The tubular leg defence is not seen in earlier representations, and its introduction may coincide with the first recorded appearance in the field of large bodies of Welsh armed with long knives. It was usually hinged and buckled, and becomes more general as the century advances. This appears in the inventory of Piers Gaveston, 1313, who possessed three pairs of such greaves. Monstrelet relates that the bailiff of Evreux, sallying out without his greaves, had his leg badly broken by the kick of a horse. Defences of plate armour for the feet are called sollerets, and are first, if somewhat indistinctly, visible in the small equestrian figure on the canopy of the tomb of Edmund Crouchback, Earl of Lancaster, in Westminster Abbey, the mail not being continued over the front of the feet as in the older effigies. One of the small equestrian figures of the adjoining tomb of Aymer de Valence has the feet, though mutilated, distinctly covered with small rectangular plates, arranged longitudinally in continuation of the greaves. In the D'Abernon and other brasses of the second quarter of the fourteenth century laminar plates are fastened across the upper part of the foot. Other varieties are the scaled sollerets of the De Cheney brass, 1375; the De Sulney brass, with sollerets of laminar plates, and one large plate over the instep; the Littlebury effigy, with longitudinal plates like those of De Valence. In the effigy of John of Eltham, 1334, we seem for the first time to meet with the whole foot visible incased in plate, as it continued to be during the rest of the century. In the Warwick collection a pair of sollerets are made each of one piece like sabots. The long curved sollerets with pointed toes of the second half of the fourteenth century are called pouleynes or poulaines, from the souliers à la Polaine, and differ slightly from those known as Cracowes, introduced by Richard II. from Bohemia. There are two fine pointed sollerets at Warwick, one measuring twenty-five inches from toe to heel, or with the spur thirty-two and a half inches. Another beautifully-made one attached to leg armour has the plates scalloped along the edges, and is attributed to Edward, son of Henry VI. [Illustration: FIG. 16.--_Effigy of the Black Prince on his tomb in Canterbury Cathedral. From the cast in the Crystal Palace, Sydenham._] The gilt spur was the honorific and distinguishing badge of the knight, and was put on in the ceremony of investiture, and hacked off by the king's cook if the knight was formally degraded. An immense spoil of gilt spurs fell to the victors after the battle of Courtrai. Both the goad and rowel forms were in use throughout the century, and when knights habitually dismounted to fight, they were taken off. Froissart mentions instances where they were fixed in the ground like caltrops. The extravagantly long, rowelled spurs of Henry VI.'s time must have been peculiarly inconvenient. No great time could well have elapsed before similar defences of plate were found necessary to protect the shoulders and elbows, which were scarcely less vulnerable than the legs. The shoulder-pieces, however, are rarely visible in illustrations and effigies, being much concealed by the surcoat. The earliest arm-defence is in the form of an elbow-guard, and appears in the effigy at Salisbury, date about 1260, consisting of one cupped rosette over another. Elbow-guards are more commonly seen in the second quarter of the fourteenth century, when they consist of cups and discs, or both combined, the latter occasionally spiked. The equestrian figures of the De Valence monument, already mentioned, show in one case gilt rosettes on the shoulders and elbows, and in the other the forearms sheathed in plate. John of Eltham, 1334, has a roundel on the elbow, with articulated plates beneath. In the Ifield effigy the arms are shown by Stothard completely sheathed, and with shoulder and elbow roundels bearing embossed lions' heads. Plain roundels, rosettes, shells, or lion masks were worn on the shoulders, and articulated plates are seen between 1320 and 1350. The singular and exaggerated plates known as ailettes, picturesque objects which rose above the shoulders like epaulettes, were as useless apparently as the shoulder-knots of the present day. They first appear on the scene in the Windsor tournament, 1278, and disappear in the first quarter of the fourteenth century. They are of many shapes and sizes, and are well seen in our illustration (Fig. 10) from Queen Mary's Psalter, in an elegant brass in Weaver's _Funeral Monuments_, as well as in many others, and in several stained-glass windows. Usually they bear the armorial bearings of the owner, though those of Piers Gaveston, 1311, were "frettez de perles." Mail gloves continued to be worn, though with divided fingers, during the first part of the fourteenth century. The first effigy to show any change is that of a Whatton, engraved by Stothard, of the time of Edward II. Gloves of leather were sometimes worn between 1311 and 1360, as well as others of whalebone, metal studs and splintwork, iron scales and brass. Plate-armour gauntlets first appear towards the middle of the century with articulated fingers and a broad plate for the back of the hand and wrist; whilst a steel cuff, sometimes articulated, was shortly afterwards added. They are at times spiked, or with gads like knuckle-dusters, as in the case of the Black Prince, and frequently richly jewelled. The jewelled example given from the effigy of Sir Thomas Cawne, of the time of Edward III., is reproduced from Stothard's drawing. The other is from the monument of the Earl of Westmoreland, of the first years of Henry VI. Gauntlets are constantly represented as gilt in MSS. of these periods. [Illustration: PLATE III.--First suit of Sir Christopher Hatton, Captain of the Guard, and subsequently Lord Chancellor. Reduced fac-simile of No. 15 in the Armourer's Album in the South Kensington Museum.] The knight's dress for war now consisted, in addition to any ordinary civilian underclothing, of a more or less complete suit of gambeson or quilted material, sometimes called the haketon, as in Chaucer's _Sir Thopas_:-- Next his shert an haketon And over that an habergeon, And over that a fin hauberk Was all ywrought of Jeweswork, Ful strong it was of plate; And over that his cote-armoure. The habergeon is the mail in this case, and the hauberk is of plate or splint armour, while the cote-armoure is the surcoat, possibly thickly padded, as in the still-existing surcoat of the Black Prince. In the mutilated effigy at Sandwich the thick quilted gambeson is distinctly seen at the knee and wrist underlying the mail, while the fine hauberk of plate overlies it, and the surcoat is worn over all. The effigy at Ash shows the plate armour, under the surcoat, fashioned in the curious armadillo-like Jazerant or brigandine form, with an upper gambeson under it, as well as the usual second gambeson under the mail. That two separate quilted defences were worn at this time is supported by the De Crell brass, 1325, the D'Abernon brass, 1327, and the Ifield and John of Eltham brasses, 1334. The colours of these various garments, the edges of which were allowed to show one above the other, were no doubt effectively contrasted, while the edges of the mail, as we have seen, were pinked, vandyked, or scalloped and gilt or finished with brass rings, while the plate-armour finishes most commonly in a fringe-like arrangement of small vertical plates. [Illustration: FIG. 17. 1. Gauntlet from the effigy of Ralph Neville, Earl of Westmoreland, in Staindrop Church, Durham. Time of Henry VI. 2. Gauntlet from the effigy of Sir Thomas Cawne, Ightham Church, Kent. Time of Edward III.] The splendid glitter of polished steel, so associated in our minds with the knight in armour, appealed scarcely at all to its wearers in this Transition age. In fact, no decided preference can be discovered even for the defensive qualities of steel, and this constitutes perhaps the most marked peculiarity of the age. In the halcyon days of mail, the steel was kept bright and bare, the helm and shield burnished, with nothing to conceal its brilliancy but a coronet and the rich sword-belts which merely enhanced the effect. But in Chaucer's _Sir Thopas_ there is no mention of steel forming part of the visible equipment:-- His jambeux were of cuirbouly, His swerdes sheth of ivory, His helme of latoun bright. Over the body armour was a garment, called by Chaucer "the cote-armoure, as white as is the lily floure." His sheld was all of gold so red, And thereon was a bores hed A charbouncle beside. The helmets were almost hidden by the large crests and the scarlet mantling, and the metal exposed was generally gilt. The trunk armour was concealed under the emblazoned surcoat or pourpoint; and when the thighs and legs are visible below this they are seen to be clothed over the mail by splinted or brigandine armour, showing velvet or satin externally attached by gilt or silver nails; the knee-caps and greaves are often richly moulded and probably cuir-bouilli, as seen in the statues on the front of Exeter Cathedral, and in the paintings from St. Stephen's Chapel they are also shown as gilt. The arms and at times the hands are similarly clothed. The horse-armour was almost entirely concealed by rich caparisons, as in Chaucer's _Knightes Tale_:-- Upon a stede bay, trapped in stele, Covered with cloth of gold diapered wele. The figures from the tomb of Edmund Crouchback and Aymer de Valence, engraved by Stothard, show the emblazoned housings of the time of Edward II. The equestrian figures in Queen Mary's Psalter show that the fully-equipped knight of this period, when in full war panoply, was a gorgeous object, blazing in colours and gold, and exhibiting little to recall the stern realities of campaigns and sieges. A few examples from inventories will best illustrate the colours and the magnificence of the materials used to conceal the steel. Humfrey de Bohun had breastplates covered with "vert velvet"; the Earl of March used "rouge samyt" and "drap d'or," and others had "cendal vermeil, samit vermeil, zatony, veluyau asuré, veluyau vert ouvré de broderie," etc. Piers Gaveston's pair of breastplates were "enclouez et garnie d'argent od 4 cheynes d'argent covery d'un drap de velvet vermail besaunté d'or." Two pairs of plates for the King of France required 3000 crescentic and 3000 round gilt nails to fix the velvet. Exposed pieces of armour were gilt, if not jewelled, pearls and carbuncles being the favourite gems. The baldric, knightly belt, sword-belt, hilt, and scabbard furnished a field for the goldsmith. The magnificence indulged in was often destructive to the wearers, who might have otherwise escaped in battle. They were "hunted for their hides," or slain for the sake of their spoils. The weight and fashion of the armour largely determined the tactics in war. The English appear at this time to have reverted to their ancient practice, once more dismounting to engage in battle. At Cressy the horses were sent to the rear, while the army, forming into battalions of archers supported by dismounted men-at-arms, took up its ground and waited the attack. The weight of armour carried by the men-at-arms made any forward movement on their part impossible on foot. By good fortune the 15,000 Genoese cross-bowmen, who might have inflicted severe loss on the English, were unable to use their bows, and the French coming up quite out of hand, charged and retreated as the spirit moved them, without deploying into any battle formation, and so fell into the utmost confusion, with the well-known results. Our archers "shot their arrows with such force and quickness that it seemed as if it snowed," piercing the Genoese and dismounting the horsemen; upon which a body of 1000 Welsh foot with long knives advanced through the men-at-arms, who made way for them, and slew numbers of the French chivalry, so that the battle was "murderous and cruel." At Poitiers, 1356, the English similarly selected a strong position and awaited the attack dismounted. The French, uncertain how to meet the enemy, commenced by attacking with a mounted division, which was routed by the effect of the English arrows on the horses before getting to close quarters. Their retreat threw the second battalion, which also appears to have been mounted, into a confusion, which quickly developed into a panic. Deeming an advance necessary at this critical moment, the English men-at-arms sent to the rear for their horses and charged, completing the destruction and dispersal of all but the rear battalion. This was dismounted in order to fight on foot, and armed with sword and battle-axe presented a most stubborn front, under the king in person, numerous parties from the broken battalions rallying and dismounting to join in its advance. The English resumed the defensive and remained immovable, the archers plying their arrows with the usual effect. The only English force capable of movement and able to skirmish in the field was the archery, while the men-at-arms kept their ground or advanced very slowly in compact order, until, seeing the day won, they again mounted to complete the discomfiture and engage in pursuit. At the battle of Auray, 1364, the French dismounted and fought on foot, when the arrows did little execution among them, and the fight developed into a hand-to-hand engagement with battle-axes, in which the leaders, Sir Oliver de Clisson and Sir John Chandos, greatly distinguished themselves. In all subsequent battles and skirmishes between French and English, until the close of the century, we find that both sides invariably fought on foot, riding up till almost within striking distance, and then dismounting as if by common consent. To advance any distance on foot after dismounting in order to engage was, in fact, almost impossible. The old knightly weapon, the lance, was in consequence almost discarded, and could now only be used effectively if shortened to about five feet, and thus with the shield fell into disuse as a weapon of battle, while the presence of artillery also began to make itself felt. IV _The Age of Plate-Armour_ Any line dividing what has here been termed a Transition Age from the age of fully-developed plate-armour must of necessity be a purely arbitrary one. Roughly speaking, the age of plate commenced when mail no longer formed the outer defence of any part of the body. The last chink, leaving the mail exposed under the armpit, was a vulnerable opening in the armour called the "vif de l'harnois," or the "defaut de la cuirasse"; and even this now became protected by small plates of steel called gussets. The necessity for such defences was often proved in tournaments: it is related that the lance pierced "au vif de l'harnois" for lack of the crescent or "gouchet." When these last plates were added the knights appeared more invulnerable than Achilles. We find at almost every period, however, that a fair blow delivered "au pas de charge" with a well-steeled lance might penetrate every defence; and that no armour could be made actually proof against downright blows from a two-handed battle-axe wielded by a powerful and expert rider. One of the most marked characteristics of this age of plate-armour was a growing appreciation of the intrinsic beauty of steel, and a new desire to invest steel armour with graceful lines. The tendency is best exemplified in the fine Gothic armour of the second half of the fifteenth century, of which much is fortunately preserved. This combines most splendidly picturesque outlines with graceful fan or shell-like ridgings, which please the more when examined critically, since every curve and fluting serves some definite and practical end. [Illustration: PLATE IV.--Grand-guard of the suit of George, Earl of Cumberland, in the possession of Lord Hothfield. This is a part of the 20th suit in the Armourer's Album in the South Kensington Museum. From a photograph communicated by Baron de Cosson.] The casing of plate-armour, which had been so long elaborating, having at last become complete, the work of the armourer was directed to further perfecting its parts, and to disencumbering the wearer, with the least risk, of his weighty underlying chain-mail, quilted gambesons, and padded surcoats. This process had not proceeded far when Agincourt was fought, if we may credit the testimony of a French knight, who was present and describes the armour as consisting of the long hauberk of chain-mail reaching below the knee, and very heavy, with the leg-armour beneath, and over this the plate or white armour with the bassinet and camail. One Allbright, noted particularly as "mail-maker," and twelve other armourers, were in the suite of the king on this expedition. The weight of armour would, therefore, have rendered a repetition advisable, on the part of the English, of the tactics of Cressy or Poitiers in this battle, had not the French disconcerted us by dismounting and seating themselves, and refusing to advance. They had also, copying the English, brought a large force of archers and cross-bowmen into the field, and, in addition, kept bodies of men-at-arms in the saddle on either wing, to make flank attacks when opportunities occurred. The English having in vain endeavoured to provoke the enemy to advance by sending out archers to fire a house and barn, posted an ambuscade and moved forward, the archers in front as usual and the men-at-arms behind. The archers thus gave up the shelter of their pointed stakes, and the men-at-arms suffered the fatigue of an advance in armour of an almost insupportable weight to men on foot. They advanced, however, with repeated huzzas, but, as the Chroniclers inform us, "often stopping to take breath." The French, stooping their visors under the amazing hail of arrows that began to fall upon them, gave way a few paces, and the English, coming close up, pressed them soon afterwards so hardly, "that only the front ranks with shortened lances could raise their hands." Our archers, flinging away their bows, fought lustily with swords, hatchets, mallets, or bill-hooks, supported manfully by King Henry and his men-at-arms. Pressing on and slaying all before them, they routed the van and reached the main body, which was also quickly destroyed. The rear battalion of the French, which had remained mounted, then fled panic-struck, and the battle terminated in some desultory charges made by a few parties of nobles and their men-at-arms, which were easily repulsed; 10,000 French perished, all but 1600 being gentlemen! many in the massacre of prisoners consequent on a false alarm. The battle of Verneuil, so fatal nine years later to the Scots, who lost the Earls of Douglas, Murray, and Buchan, with the flower of their army, was fought on precisely the same lines; the main French battalion with their Scottish allies on foot being first shaken by the storm of arrows, and then destroyed at close quarters by the advance of the archers with the usual "loud shouts," supported by the Duke of Bedford and the men-at-arms. These defeats caused the French to again waver in their plan for meeting the enemy, for at the battle of Herrings, and the skirmish at Beauvais in 1430, they made their attack mounted, the English archers receiving the first charge behind their palisade of pointed stakes, and defeating the enemy by the clouds of arrows taking their usual deadly effect on the horses. These stakes, six feet long and sharpened at both ends, formed an important item of the archers' equipment, and were planted in the ground by the front rank, sloping towards the enemy, the next rank fixing theirs intermediately to affright the enemy's horse. Throughout the Anglo-Burgundian alliance, the Burgundians of all arms were often compelled "under pain of death" to fight dismounted, the Picards especially adopting the tactics and perhaps equalling the English. A little later, as at the battle of Montlhéry, 1465, both Burgundian and English archers are armed with the formidable long-handled leaden mauls or mallets, which the armour of the men-at-arms was incapable of resisting. In the account of one of these battles we learn incidentally that the duty of the varlets who invariably formed part of the retinue of each man-at-arms was to succour and refresh their masters during the heat of the engagement, and to carry the prisoners they took to the rear. As the various hauberks of mail, brigandines, gambesons, and other defences became more or less obsolete and discarded by men-at-arms armed cap-à-pied, they were relegated to a lighter-armed cavalry and the infantry; but so long as a suit of mail continued to be worn by the man-at-arms as a defence underlying the armour of plate, flexibility in the latter was of paramount importance. [Illustration: FIG. 18.--_Helm from the tomb of Henry V. in Westminster Abbey, date 1400-1420. From a photograph lent by Baron de Cosson._] Regarding the armour of Henry V. as the earliest complete cap-à-pied plate-armour, we find it thus composed. The breast and back plates are each of one piece, the gorget is usually in one, though a standard of mail sometimes replaces it; the limb-defences are of few pieces and rigid, except at the joints, which are guarded by caps or roundels; while the armour of the fingers, toes, and upper surfaces of the shoulders is articulated or protected by narrow laminar plates. The introduction of the gussets, and more particularly of the horizontal bands of plate forming a short petticoat below the waist, materially altered the appearance of the armour of the fifteenth century from that of the fourteenth. The plates of the petticoat, called the tassets, are first seen in the brass of Nicholas Hawberk, at Cobham, who died in 1406, and they gradually increase in number till about 1420. At Agincourt, where the fighting was on foot, the visored bassinet would have been worn by the king and his men-at-arms, and not the great helm. The example of the latter suspended in the chantry of Henry V. in Westminster Abbey, though a real helm, was only purchased from Thomas Daunt, for 33s. 4d., according to Rymer, with the crest, for the funeral. The bassinet was probably plumed with ostrich feathers, which were taking the place of crests, and was encircled by a coronet, damaged in the melée by a blow from the Duke of Alençon, which among its jewels comprised the ruby of the Black Prince, now in the regalia. The diamond-hilted sword was not taken into the fray, unfortunately, as it happened, and fell a prey to the baggage-looters. The king is generally represented wearing a tabard of arms on this occasion, a garment differing from the surcoat in being loose and cut like the modern herald's tabard, emblazoned before and behind and on the broad flaps which do duty for sleeves. The horses, borrowing the custom of Lombardy, wore a heavy chamfron or headpiece of plate, of which a specimen still exists in Warwick Castle, and an articulated crinet or neck-defence of overlapping plates, put together on the same plan as the tassets, and probably some mail defences concealed by the emblazoned caparisons. The ostentatious magnificence which had hitherto covered the body armour of the knight with silks and satins, velvet and bullion and gems, especially among the Burgundian French, was now in process of being transferred to the horse. The housings are described as of silks and satins of every colour, or velvet crimson and blue, or cloth of gold, and sweeping the ground, besprinkled with escutcheons of arms, and loaded with silversmith's work, or raised work of solid gold. We read of trappings of white silver fringed with cloth of gold, and of cloth of gold interwrought with solid silver; and it appears that no materials were too rich to deck out the favourite destrier or war-horse. It is unlikely that the English were at this time behind the French in display, for so early as 1409, of the six pages of Sir John de Cornewall, two rode horses covered with ermine, and four horses with cloth of gold; and in 1414 the English embassy carried themselves so magnificently that the French, and especially the Parisians, were astonished. Splendid, however, as were the housings, the headpieces of the horses eclipsed them. The horse of the Count de Foix at the entry into Bayonne had a headpiece of steel enriched with gold work and precious stones to the value of 15,000 crowns. The Count de St. Pol's horse's headpiece on leaving Rouen was estimated to be worth 30,000 francs, while those of the Dukes of Burgundy and Cleves on the entry of Louis XI. into Paris were still more magnificent. That of the king, however, was on this occasion merely of fine gold with ostrich plumes of various colours. As with the armour in the fourteenth century, the rich trappings of the horse naturally led at times to the pursuit and capture of the owner. It is difficult to believe, in days of such magnificence, that the pay of the Duke of York under Henry V. was only 13s. 4d. per day, an earl received but 6s. 8d., a baron or banneret 4s., a knight 2s., an esquire 1s., and an archer 6d. Though Henry V. wore royal armour at Agincourt it does not appear that he followed the prudent custom, first noticed in the battle of Viterbo, 1243, of dressing several knights in an identical manner with himself. At Viterbo, on a knight dressed like the emperor being slain, the result was a panic, and the emperor himself had to press with his trumpets into the thickest of the fight to restore confidence. At Poitiers, though nineteen knights were dressed like the king, it did not preserve him from capture. In England, however, the king was saved on many a field by this precaution, as at the battle of Shrewsbury, when the earl, Sir Walter Blount and two others in royal armour were slain. The passages in Shakespeare will be present to the mind of all:-- Another king! they grow like hydras' heads; I am the Douglas fatal to all those That wear those colours on them. Who art thou, That counterfeit'st the person of a king? and again, when Richard exclaims at Bosworth-- I think there be six Richmonds in the field: Five have I slain to-day instead of him. The appreciation of steel, called by the Chroniclers plain or white armour, for its own sake, had not progressed very far by the time of Henry V.'s invasion of France, but the more lavish splendours were at least reserved for gala occasions. The next modifications were evidently devised to increase the flexibility of the armour, and can be traced with greater precision in England than elsewhere, owing to the fortunate preservation in our churches of a matchless series of military monumental brasses. These clearly indicate that the tendency during the first half of the fifteenth century was to increase the number of joints or articulations in every part of the armour. By the close of the reign of Henry V. things had proceeded so far in this direction that in some cases the greater part of the limb-defences are made up of laminated plates. The next important change in the appearance of the man-at-arms occurs in the early years of Henry VI., and is due to a striking development of the fan-shaped elbow-guards, first seen in a rudimentary form in 1425, as well as to an addition of short hinged plates called tuilles to the bottom of the hoop-like skirt of tassets which lay closer to the body. By 1435 these tuilles are ridged or fluted perpendicularly and scalloped along the lower edge, and shortly after they take the more developed, elongate and elegant forms familiar in Gothic armour. By 1440 we have the addition of great shoulder and elbow plates attached by nuts and screws, and concealing the articulated shoulder-pieces or epaulettes. These extra plates usually differ in size, being often very much larger on the left side, which received the blows, and thus conferring a quite peculiar character on the plate-armour of the middle of the century. A scarcely less important modification, introduced about 1445, is the articulation of the breastplate in two pieces, the lower overlapping and sliding over the upper, and made flexible by straps. The Daundelyon brass of this date, at Margate, exhibits a left elbow-piece of immense size, and pointed and ridged tuilles below the tassets, which are almost repeated again in form by the plates below the knee-caps. John Gaynesford's brass at Crowhurst, 1450, presents strong reinforcing shoulder-guards over articulated plates, and repeats the same long peaked and ridged plates below the knee-cap. We continue for the next few years to find the limb-defences constantly varying in the number and form of the pieces composing them, according to the dictates of conflicting requirements, namely flexibility and impenetrability. The frequent absence of tuilles at this time is held to imply that they were not used in combats on foot, then very popular. It is obvious that when the immensely long and pointed solleret came in with the equally preposterous spur, the fashion of fighting on foot was on the wane, and the men-at-arms generally fought mounted during the Wars of the Roses. We see by manuscript illustrations that a few suits were still gilded, and we find Jack Cade after his victory in 1450 flourishing about in a suit of gilt armour, the spoils of Sir Humphrey Stafford. But the ever-growing appreciation of the intrinsic beauty of the steel panoply and its fine military qualities is now distinctly felt, and the armourer sought more and more to invest his work with beauty of form. All is still entirely dictated by fitness to its purpose, and the requirements of jousts and war; and the decorative and subtle shell-like ridgings and flutings are really present more to deflect the weapon's point than as ornament, while the engrailing, dentelling, scalloping and punching of the margins of the plates unmistakably indicate that the decorative spirit is applied to embellishing and not to concealing the steel. The superb gilded metal effigy (Fig. 19) of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, presents a faithful model of the most beautiful type of Gothic armour known. Every fastening, strap, buckle or hinge is represented with scrupulous fidelity, not only on the front, but on the unseen back. Baron de Cosson, who has minutely described it, expresses the belief that it is a faithful reproduction of a suit actually worn by the Earl, and therefore earlier than 1439; although the effigy itself was only produced in 1454, and the armour agrees with that worn in England at the latter date. He regards the suit represented as the work of the celebrated contemporary Milanese armourers, the Missaglias. Italian armour is shown by sculptures, medals and paintings to have been many years in advance of English, and the two known contemporary suits by Tomaso di Missaglia greatly resemble it. The Earl of Warwick knew Milan in his youth, when he had tilted successfully at Verona; and it was a practice among the great to obtain armour there, dating from so far back as 1398, when the Earl of Derby had his armour brought over by Milanese armourers; the Baron's view presents therefore no improbabilities. Wherever made, the Earl of Warwick's suit appears to have solved the armourer's problem, being at once light, flexible, yet impenetrable. Indeed, in its beautiful proportions and admirably perfect adaptation to all requirements, it appears more like a work of nature than of art. The contours of the pieces and their graceful fan-like flutings, to give strength and deflect opponents' blows, are artistically splendid. The great shoulder-guards and elbow-pieces, the cuissarts and winged kneecaps, the tuilles, the jointed breast and back plates, the upright neck-guard, not hitherto seen, are all fashioned with consummate skill. In such a suit the preux and gallant knight for three days held his tournament victoriously against all comers, presenting each of his discomfited adversaries with new war-chargers, feasting the whole company, and finally "returning to Calais with great worship." The two cuts (Figs. 20 and 21), illustrating scenes from his life, are taken from the exquisitely drawn illustrations to the contemporary Beauchamp manuscript, now in the British Museum. The incidental testimonies to the excellence of Italian armour of the middle of the fifteenth century are abundant. A stalwart Burgundian champion tried in vain during a tournament in 1446 to penetrate or find a crevice in the armour of the Duke of Milan's chamberlain, whom it was impossible to wound; and in 1449 the suit of another knight in the service of the same Duke was said to be steeped in some magic liquid, as so light a harness could not possibly have otherwise withstood the heavy blows it received. [Illustration: FIG. 19.--_Effigy of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, on his tomb in St. Mary's Church, Warwick. About 1454. From the cast in the Crystal Palace, Sydenham._] No word ever escapes the chronicler in praise of English armour; but the splendid model of the Earl of Warwick's suit is by William Austin, founder, and Thomas Stevyns, coppersmith, both of London, with the gilding, chasing, and polishing by Bartholomew Lambespring, Dutchman and goldsmith of London. The will directs that the effigy shall be made according to patterns, directions obviously most scrupulously carried out. [Illustration: FIG. 20. The Earl of Warwick slays a "mighty Duke" who has challenged him to combat for his lady's sake, and wins the favour of the Empress, to whom he makes a present of pearls and precious stones. The costume is about fifteen or twenty years later than the death of Earl Richard, and shows the extra pieces worn in the tilt-yard, 1450-60.] In contemplating the lithe figure we may well believe that the steely quality and workmanship of such a suit would confer immunity on the wearer; and that the relative elasticity and lightness of a perfectly-fitting suit might confer such superiority on an active and sinewy champion engaging with men swathed like mummies beneath their armour in thick gambeson or mail, as to enable him to emerge from his deeds of arms as triumphantly as the heroes of romance. Nothing was worn beneath but the fustian doublet, well padded and lined with satin, with the small lozenge-shaped gussets of mail under the limb-joints and the short petticoat of mail tied round the waist. It is also unlikely that such armour was concealed under any garment, and we may observe that while some princes and nobles are still wearing brigandines of velvet and cloth of gold in pageants, many more are in "plain armour," presenting, except when standing collars of mail were worn, a uniform surface of smooth polished steel. The Missaglia suit remained the type with little modification for several years, almost to the close of the Gothic period. The Quatremayne brass in Thame Church, of the year 1460, presents a magnificent example of it with singularly exaggerated elbow-guards. During the next few years the limb-pieces and gorget become more articulated and flexible, and the breast and back plates are formed of as many as three or four overlapping articulated plates, cut chevron-wise, and notched and indented in an interesting manner. The gauntlets and sollerets are also of excellent workmanship. There are a number of peculiarly fine examples in the Museum of Artillery in the Rotunda at Woolwich, from the Isle of Rhodes, which exhibit the graceful outlines and ornament of later fifteenth-century Gothic armour in perfection, and also present early and interesting examples of engraving on armour. Lord Zouche has also some remarkable suits, said to be from the Church of Irene at Constantinople, in his collection at Parham. Sir Noel Paton's fine collection also comprises several Gothic suits, and there are some in the Tower. None, however, are connected historically with English wearers, and the destruction of Gothic armour in this country appears to have been unusually complete. The illustrations from the _Life of the Earl of Warwick_, an English MS. of the second half of the fifteenth century (Figs. 20 and 21); and the scene (Fig. 25) from the late fifteenth-century MS. of Froissart, which belonged to Philip de Commines, both now in the British Museum, give excellent ideas of the armour of this period in actual use, while the brasses supply exact figures of the details. [Illustration: FIG. 21. The Duke of Gloucester and Earls of Warwick and Stafford chase the Duke of Burgundy from the walls of Calais. They wear loose sleeves and skirts of mail, and the round broad-brimmed helmet very fashionable for a time among the higher French nobility. The balls and tufts are probably Venice gold, with which the helmet was perhaps also laced, over some rich material. This and Fig. 20 are from the Beauchamp MS. in the British Museum, an exquisite production by an English hand.] Turning now to head-defences, the great crested helm, still represented as pillowing the head in effigies, had long since been relegated to the joust and tilt, while the bassinet with a visor, already seen in the Transition period, remained the fighting helmet till about the middle of the century. The visor, however, was not unfrequently struck or wrenched off in tourneys, and the neck pierced by the lance. Some hardy warriors, indeed, like Sir John Chandos and the Earl of Warwick, dispensed with it and went into the fray with faces bare, but this was exceptional, and the pig-faced and beaked visored bassinets occur in all delineations of combats of the first half of the century. The bassinet began to be superseded towards the middle of the fifteenth century by the sallad, which remained in fashion almost to its close. Its merits were, the free supply of air it afforded, and the readiness with which the face could be concealed and protected. It was the headpiece of the Gothic armour, such as that of the Warwick effigy, though monuments of this date almost always leave the head bare. The origin of the sallad, whether German or Italian, is unknown, but the term occurs in Chaucer. In its simplest form it was low-crowned, projecting behind, and strapped under the chin, something like a "sou'wester" or the heraldic chapeau, and in this form it was worn by archers and billmen. Another kind had a higher crown, with two slits in front as an ocularium, and could be pulled over the brows till this came level with the eyes (Fig. 22). A hinged nose-piece was also sometimes present, to be let down in time of danger. It was also made more completely protective by a chin-piece called the bavier, strapped round the neck or fastened to the breastplate for tilting; while a lighter bavier was in two pieces, of which the upper was hinged at the side and could be raised for speaking. It was frequently furnished with a visor to let down. The tail-piece was occasionally so prolonged that sallads measure as much as eighteen inches from back to front. It occurs both smooth-topped and combed, and with a slot for plumes approaches nearer to classic models than any other form of mediæval helmet. This picturesque headpiece is the one so frequently represented by Albert Dürer, and was favoured for a longer time in Germany than elsewhere, many of the Germans in the picture of the meeting of Maximilian and Henry VIII. appearing in it, while all the English wear the later close helmet or armet. The form represented has the addition of articulated pieces behind and a double visor moving on pivots at the sides, which make it a near approach to a closed helmet. The sallad was the principal helmet in use throughout the Wars of the Roses, and is constantly represented in manuscripts of that period. But one solitary example has been preserved in England from the time of those destructive wars, in which its first wearer may have taken part. It hangs in St. Mary's Hall, Coventry, and owes its preservation to its use as a stage property in the Godiva processions. There are specimens, however, in all the important collections in England and abroad. [Illustration: PLATE V.--Grand-guard, used for tilting, belonging to the suit of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, with the gilding restored. In the Tower of London.] The bassinet was sometimes richly decorated, covered with velvet, plumed, crested, and of considerable value, Sir John de Cornwall wagering his helmet in 1423, which he offered to prove to be worth 500 nobles. The pretty custom of garlanding them with may, marguerites, or other flowers specially favoured by a queen or princess, or with chaplets of pearls and other gems, seen in the early part of the century, lasted until after the introduction of the sallad, which provided a better field for such display. A sallad belonging to the Duke of Burgundy, decorated with rubies and diamonds to the estimated value of 100,000 crowns, figured in the entry of Louis XI. into Paris in 1443. In the expenses of Henry VII. precious stones and pearls are bought from the Lombards to the value of £3800 for embellishing sallads and other helmets, and in France even the sallads of the mounted archers are continually mentioned as garnished with silver. [Illustration: FIG. 22. 1. Sallad in St. Mary's Hall, Coventry. 2. Helm of Sir Giles Capel, date 1510-1525. Formerly in Rayne Church, Essex. Now in the possession of Baron de Cosson.] The sallad was a relatively dangerous headpiece in tourneys on foot, and a large-visored bassinet is often mentioned as being retained in use for this purpose down to the sixteenth century. The Baron de Cosson has identified this form, seen to have been fixed to the breast by two staples and a double buckle behind, and himself possesses a magnificent example, which once hung over the tombs of the Capels in Rayne Church. Sir Giles Capel was one of the knights who with Henry VIII. challenged all comers for thirty days on the Field of the Cloth of Gold. The visor in this example is very massive, the holes so small that no point could possibly enter, and the helm being fixed the head moved freely inside. A second and possibly earlier example has the visor thrown into horizontal ridges and a small bavier. The visor is hinged at the sides, and the sight and breathing holes are short slots, parallel to and protected by the ridges. It hangs over the tomb of John Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, in Wimborne Minster, who died in 1444, but it is of later date; and another belonging to the suit of Henry VIII. in the Tower, made for fighting on foot, is not dissimilar. Baron de Cosson calls attention to the fact that this form, called a bassinet, is shown in the miniature of the manuscript entitled, "How a man shalle be armyd at his ese when he schal fighte on foote." [Illustration: FIG. 23.--_English tournament helm over the tomb of John Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, in Wimborne Minster. Weight 14¼ lbs. Date 1480-1520. From a photograph lent by Baron de Cosson._] Another very interesting and thoroughly English form of helm, intended, according to De Cosson, for the tilt with lances, is preserved in a specimen in Broadwater Church, another in Willington Church over Sir John Gostwick's tomb, and a third in Cobham Church, the helm of Sir Thomas Brooke, who died 1522. These all present considerable differences of detail. A not dissimilar helm of slightly later date with a barred visor, or the bars riveted to the helm, affording plenty of breathing space, was used for the tourney with sword or battle-axe, and has become the Royal and the nobles' helmet of heraldry. A form of helm used for tilting with the lance and also frequently depicted in heraldry, is the great helm of the time of Henry VII. and Henry VIII., of immense weight and strength, resting on the shoulders, and securely fixed to the back and breast. It was relatively flat on the crown, produced in front into a kind of blunt beak, giving a bird-like aspect with no distinct neck. The ocularium, or slit for vision, is large and in the crown, and can only be used by bending the body forward; the head being raised before the moment of impact to avoid the danger of the lance penetrating. This helm is well represented in the tournament roll of Henry VIII. in Heralds' College, and from its massive strength and the fact that by no possibility could a combatant be accidentally unhelmed, afforded absolute protection to the head. Le Heaulme du Roy is represented in this roll as silvered, with a crown-like border round the neck of pearls and gems set in gold. There is a magnificent specimen in the Museum of Artillery at Woolwich, one in Westminster Abbey, two in St. George's Chapel, one in Petworth Church, and one at Parham. This form of helm was the most massive and secure, and the last that remained in use. A very early delineation of a helmet of this type is seen in the late fourteenth-century French MS. (Burney, 257) in the British Museum. Some exceedingly interesting delineations of the same kind of tilting helm in actual use are to be seen in Philip de Commines' Froissart, Harl. MS., 4379-80 (Fig. 25). It is there represented plain and fluted, and with various crests and mantling, one of the most singular, and a favourite, being a close copy of the lady's head-dress of the period, with the lady's long gauze veil reaching below the waist. This manuscript is of late fifteenth-century date, and very remarkable for the apparently faithful representations of the armour worn by the English and French at that time. In one group of soldiery alone, in the second volume, page 84, the helm of the early fourteenth century, the beaked bassinet of the early fifteenth, and various forms of visored and unvisored sallads are assembled together. [Illustration: FIG. 24.--_Helm of Sir John Gostwick, died 1541._ Believed to have been worn at the Field of the Cloth of Gold, 1520, and now hanging over his tomb in Willington Church, Bedfordshire. From a photograph by the Rev. Augustus Orlebau, Vicar.] All these forms of helm were more or less contemporary with the sallad, which gave place in turn to the armet or closed helmet, first heard of in 1443. Like, perhaps, the sallad, the armet was invented in Italy, and did not reach England or even Germany till about 1500. In France, however, a page of the Count de St. Pol bore a richly-worked armet on the entry into Rouen of Charles VII.; and the royal armet of Louis XI., crowned and richly adorned with fleurs-de-lis, was carried before him on his entry into Paris in 1461. It is also mentioned in 1472, in an edict of the Duke of Burgundy. The fundamental difference between it and all helms and helmets that had preceded it is, that while others had either fitted the top of the head, as a cap does, or were put right over it, the armet closed round the head by means of hinges, following the contour of the chin and neck. Its advantages were neatness, lightness, and general handiness, and it conveyed the weight by the gorget directly on to the shoulders. Its use was exclusively for mounted combatants, though the great helm continued in use for jousts and tilts during the time of Henry VIII. It does not appear in English costume much before this reign, but in all the pictures of the triumphs and battle-pieces of Henry VIII. at Hampton Court, the English men-at-arms invariably wear it, and it is abundantly represented in works of art during the remainder of the Tudor period. [Illustration: FIG. 25.--_The entry of Queen Isabel into Paris in 1390._ The knights wear the great tilting helms, and the foremost has a copy of the ladies' head-dress for crest, from which depends a fine lawn veil. The housings are embroidered with gold. From the Philip de Commines copy of Froissart, Harl. MS. 4379, vol. 1, fol. 99, in the British Museum, late fifteenth century.] An early armet, identified by Baron de Cosson as Italian, with a double bavier riveted together, but without a visor, hangs over the tomb of Sir George Brooke, eighth Lord Cobham, K.G. (Fig. 26), and dates from 1480 to 1500. Baron de Cosson describes it as having a reinforcing piece on the forehead, hinged cheek-pieces joined down the middle of the chin, and of peculiarly delicate and beautiful outline. It originally had a camail hanging to a leather strap. The wooden Saracen's head may date from the funeral of this Lord Cobham in 1558, "but was certainly never worn on any helmet." Its owner served under Norfolk in Ireland, in 1520, and was subsequently Governor of Calais. [Illustration: FIG. 26.--_Armet of Sir George Brooke, K.G., 8th Lord Cobham. From his tomb in Cobham Church, Kent. 1480-1500._] [Illustration: FIG. 27.--_English armet from the collection of Seymour Lucas, A.R.A. Date about 1500. From a photograph by Baron de Cosson._] English armets dating from about 1500 are not uncommon, but, as frequently observed, "they want that perfection and delicacy to be found in fine Italian or German work." The earlier open down the front, and the later at the side. They are generally combed, the ridge or comb running from the forehead to the back of the neck, and being beaten or raised out of the metal in the most able way. There is generally, but not always, a reinforcing piece over the forehead. The visor is of one piece, and works on a pivot, but in a few of the early specimens the pin and hinge arrangement of the older Italian examples is preserved, rendering it removable. The slit for vision is generally made in the body of the visor, but is sometimes obtained by cutting out a piece of its upper edge. It is beaked, thrown into few or several ridges, with the slits or holes for breathing principally on the right side. The English armet was rarely furnished with a bavier or movable chin-piece, and the fixed one, called a mentonière, was small. Baron de Cosson obtained one from Rayne Church in Essex, when it was pulled down, and Meyrick procured a similar one from Fulham Church, and Mr. Seymour Lucas, A.R.A., has two very fine specimens, now exhibited at South Kensington, while specimens are to be met with in most great collections. The not inelegant fluted Maximilian armets of the same date are, however, far more frequent. Like the later English armets, they have no baviers. Between 1510 and 1525, a hollow rim was introduced round the base of the helmet, fitting closely into a corresponding ridge round the upper edge of the gorget. This manifest improvement was considered by Meyrick to constitute the Burgonet. Between 1520 and 1540 the visor was formed of two parts, the upper of which closed inside the lower, and was capable of being raised without unfixing the latter. It remained in this form until the closed helmet fell into disuse in the seventeenth century. The armet frequently comprised, especially in the later examples, a fixed gorget, generally of two or more articulated plates. A number of these are included in the sixteenth and seventeenth century suits illustrated in the succeeding pages, one of the most singular being the helmet of the mounted suit of Henry VIII., made for the king by Conrad Seusenhofer of Innsbrück in 1511-14. It consists of six pieces fitting one within another without hinge or rivet, and seems originally to have had one of the curious discs at the back seen in Italian fifteenth-century armets and contemporary illustrations. [Illustration: FIG. 28.--_Complete suit for fighting on foot, made for Henry VIII. In the Tower of London._] Towards the beginning of the sixteenth century knightly armour underwent some profound modifications. The exaggerated elbow-guards and shoulder-pieces were reduced, the tuilles, the laminated corselets with their handsome flutings and indented margins, and the pointed sollerets were either modified or seen no more; and with them disappear much of the angulated, defensive mannerism, and the grace peculiar to the armour of the third quarter of the fifteenth century. That which followed appears smoother, rounder, and heavier, less mobile, and less apt for real campaigning. The modifications tending to this result may have been in a large degree due to the personal tastes of the three great monarchs of Europe. Maximilian and Henry VIII. preferred at heart the pomp and pageantry to the realities of war; while the classic bias of Francis I. banished all Gothic feeling so far as his personal influence extended. The short-waisted, podgy, globular breastplate, the stolid limb-pieces, rounded knee-caps and strikingly splay-footed sollerets, appear as if invented to altogether banish the very idea of agility, if not of movement; and contrast in the strongest manner with the lithe and supple-looking armour of the Beauchamp effigy. The Tower collection, so relatively poor in Gothic armour, is fortunately extremely rich in that of the period of Henry VIII., containing four or five suits actually made for his personal use. One of the finest of these, and an admirably perfect suit, is shown in our illustration (Fig. 28). Though without any decoration or marks, it was undoubtedly made expressly for the king, and is a chef-d'oeuvre of the armourer's craft, being formed, according to Lord Dillon, of no less than 235 separate pieces, which are used about one half below and the rest above the waist. The principal pieces are fitted with a hollow groove along the inferior margin, and overlap others provided with a corresponding ridge: so that the whole suit thus interlocks, and the plates cannot be separated or the armour taken apart except by removing the helmet and beginning at the neck-pieces. To the left shoulder-piece or pauldron one of the upright neck-guards is still fixed by rivets. The breastplate is globose, and has a central ridge called the tapul. The arms are sheathed in rigid plates, separated by a series of narrow laminar plates, by which power of movement is obtained. The elbows are guarded by not inelegant caps, and the gauntlets are miton-fashioned, of eleven small plates, and very flexible. The leg-armour is in large pieces ridged down the centre, similarly to the breastplate, except above and below the knee-cap, and at the ankle, where laminar plates give the necessary play. The sollerets being made, like the gauntlets, each of thirteen pieces, are also extremely flexible, and reproduce in an exaggerated way the great broad toes of the civil dress. Like the helm, already noticed, the suit is intended for combats on foot and in the lists, which were greatly in fashion. No mail gussets were needed, for there were no crevices between the plates, and the wearer inside his armour was as well defended as a lobster in its shell; but this security, as with all armour-plate, was purchased, notwithstanding the perfection of manufacture, at the expense of unwieldiness and fatigue, for the suit weighs over 92 lbs. There are three other suits which belonged to Henry VIII., besides the magnificent equestrian one next figured. The second dismounted one was also intended for combats on foot, and is known as a tonlet suit from the long, laminated skirt of horizontal plates reaching to the knee, and sliding over each other. It is decorated with some engraved bands or borders, while the fine headpiece to it is Italian, bearing the marks of the celebrated Missaglias of Milan. We meet at this time with the sliding rivets, a new mode of attachment for the plates, which enabled them to play freely over each other without parting company. The overlapping tassets of most of the close-fitting skirts are made in this fashion, to which the term Almayne rivets, so frequently met with in inventories, is believed to apply. Some of the suits are provided with a locking gauntlet, to prevent the sword from being struck out of the wearer's hand, the so-called forbidden gauntlet, though its prevalence in collections negatives the idea that its use was disallowed. In one mounted suit the insteps are protected by the great ungainly stirrups necessitated by the broad-toed sollerets, and therefore only covered with mail. This suit is enriched with a picturesque banded ornament, partly gilt. [Illustration: FIG. 29.--_Suit made for Henry VIII. by Conrad Seusenhofer of Innsbrück, 1511-1514. A present from the Emperor Maximilian I. In the Tower._] The superbly-mounted suit in our illustration (Fig. 29), one of the finest of its date in existence, was constructed to the order of Maximilian expressly for Henry VIII., by Conrad Seusenhofer, one of the most celebrated armourers of Innsbrück, whose mark it bears on the helmet. It was sent as a gift in 1514, and was originally silvered all over, and finely engraved in every part with the legend of St. George and the badges of Henry VIII. and Katharine of Arragon. The Tudor cognisances are the rose, portcullis and red dragon; and Katharine's the pomegranate and sheaf of arrows, with finely-scrolled arabesque work between. This ornament seems to be engraved and not etched, as in later times. The most remarkable feature is the steel skirt called base, of great rarity, and made in imitation of the folds of the cloth bases so much in vogue at this time. These skirts were used for fighting on foot, and there is provision for fixing an additional piece to complete it in front, the absence of which alone permitted the wearer to sit on horseback, though the difficulty of getting into the saddle must have been considerable. The skirt is edged with a finely-modelled border of brass in high relief, with the initials H. and K. united by true-lover's knots. The suit is complete in every respect except the gauntlets, and is mentioned in the Greenwich inventory of 1547, published in the fifty-first volume of _Archæologia_ by Lord Dillon. It is there described as "a harnesse given unto the King's Maiestie by Th^e Empero^r Maximilian w^t a Base of stele and goldesmythes worke." The brass border to the base thus appears to have been regarded as silver and gilt goldsmiths' work. The horse armour matching the suit, which was to be used on foot, as Lord Dillon points out, did not exist at this period, and the figure was seated on the Burgundian horse armour of repoussé steel of the time of Henry VII., which still stands next to it in the Tower. The engraving on the horse armour or bard is designed in the same spirit as that of the armour itself, but is by an inferior hand. The subjects are treated in the style of Albert Dürer or Burgkmair, and represent incidents in the lives of St. George and St. Barbara, and besides the badges on the armour which are reproduced, the castle and the rose and pomegranate impaled appear, with the motto DIEV ET MON DROYT many times repeated round the edge. All these badges and engravings were illustrated, almost real size, by Meyrick, in the twenty-second volume of _Archæologia_. The horse armour was silvered and probably parcel gilt, like the body armour, and was made, it is supposed, by some of the German armourers brought over and established in Greenwich by Henry VIII. It is stiff and unwieldy, and does not very efficiently protect the horse, though its effect is dignified and even magnificent. The singular construction of the helmet has already been alluded to. Contemporary with these suits is the fine German late Gothic fluted armour, known as Maximilian, nearly perfect examples of which are to be seen in every collection of importance. This was used for tilts, with the immensely massive outwork of plates to fend off the blows of the lance and other weapons, and to prevent the left leg from being crushed against the barrier. Some of the rarer Maximilian suits not only reproduce the cloth skirts of the civil costume in steel, but also innumerable puffings and slashings, which were the fashion of the day. Sometimes the helmets belonging to these suits have the mask-shaped visors, a specimen of which, also a present to Henry VIII. from Maximilian, still exists in the Tower. This formed part of a tilting harness, and is described in the 1547 inventory as "a hedde pece w^t a Rammes horne silver pcell guilte." In 1660 it was attributed to Will Sommers, the king's jester, and has subsequently been rendered more grotesque by paint and a pair of spectacles. A complete helmet of the same kind is preserved at Warwick Castle, as well as one of the rarer Italian helmets, with curling woolly hair represented in embossed iron, but without the visor. All this armour was made for the shocks and pleasurable excitement of jousts, tilts, and tourneys, which its perfection and strength deprived of nearly every element of danger. Its weight and closeness would indeed have made it insupportable on active service. The great revolution in the equipments for war, commenced by the artillery train and nearly unarmoured pikeman and estradiot, was now being completed by the reiter, pistolier and arquebusier. The massed man-at-arms, armed cap-à-pied, had borne down for the last time all before him with the lance, and was ceasing to play a decisive or even an important part in warfare. Armour in campaigning was becoming of little consequence, and even for the tourney a reaction was setting in against the extravagant and ponderous precautions devised by Maximilian and his admirer Henry. The decision of battles now belonged to pike, bill, and musket. The infantry and light troops, who had hitherto been left to arm themselves as best they could, began to be dressed in some sort of uniform, with weapons and armour selected with some care, and used in definite proportions. It is certainly strange to read that the archers who did such splendid service at Agincourt were left to pick up any kind of helmet, bassinet, or cap, whether of leather or wicker bound with iron, and any description of side-arms, and were mostly without armour, save the pourpoint, with stockings hanging down or bare feet. Only the bows, arrows, and stakes were obligatory. In pictures, archers and the foot generally are represented in every kind of old brigandine, mail, bits of plate, or "jakkes" of linen, which inventories tell us were stuffed with horn or mail. It was only when the kings and nobles thought it worth their while to clothe and equip the foot-soldier that his costume became distinctive, and even sumptuous in the case of the bodyguards to Charles VII., Louis XI., or Henry VII. and VIII. A larger proportion of archers became mounted as the fifteenth century wore on, Edward IV. invading France with no less than 14,000, besides the foot. Picked men, and those of the bodyguards of kings and princes, like the Duke of Burgundy, were sometimes magnificently dressed. The uniform of the archers of the Duke of Berri in 1465 was a brigandine covered with black velvet and gilt nails, and a hood ornamented with silver gilt tassels. At the entry into Rouen, 1460, the archers of the King of France, the King of Sicily and the Duke of Maine wore plate-armour under jackets of various colours, with greaves, swords, daggers and helms rich with silversmiths' work. The leaders of other corps were in jackets striped red, white and green, covered with embroidery. English archers are sometimes spoken of as gallantly accoutred. Under Henry VIII. the bodyguard called the "retinewe of speres" comprised two mounted archers in uniform to each man-at-arms, as in France. Every layman with an estate of £1000 and upwards had to furnish thirty long-bows, thirty sheaves of arrows, and thirty steel caps. In 1548 the uniform of the English archer was a coat of blue cloth guarded with red, right hose red, the left blue, or both blue with broad red stripes, and a special cap to be worn over the steel cap or sallad, to be bought in London for 8d. They were provided with brigandines or coats of little plates, mawles of lead five feet long, with two stakes, and a dagger. The distinguishing mark of the various bands was embroidered on the left sleeve. In 1510 Henry ordered 10,000 bows from the bowyers of London, and applied for leave to import 40,000 from Venice. In 1513 he took 12,000 archers to France, and in 1518 agreed to furnish 6000 archers to the emperor. In this reign they did good service, as in repelling the descent of the French at Brighton, 1515, and at Flodden, where the King of Scots was found among the dead pierced by an arrow. Some bow-staves of yew were recovered from the wreck of the _Mary Rose_, and are now in the Tower. At Dover Castle there are a long-bow and a cross-bow, stated to be part of the original armament. The cross-bow was rarely favoured by Englishmen, though an imposing force of 4000 appeared in the united forces of England and Burgundy in 1411, each attended by two varlets to load, so that the weapons were always ready to shoot. In 1415, however, Henry V. only took ninety-eight from England in his whole force of 10,500 men, eighteen of whom were mounted. In 1465 the so-called mounted archers were very variously armed in France, with cross-bows, veuglaires, and hand culverins. If so formidable a body as the English archers could be left to their own devices as to accoutrements in the first half of the century, the rest of the foot, armed with long weapons called staves, bills, and halbards, must have presented the appearance of a mere rabble. The French foot, armed with partisans, halbards, or javelins, bore the suggestive name of "brigans," and were much despised, but at Montlhéry in 1465 the greater part of the slaughter was by the "rascally Burgundian foot," with their pikes and other weapons tipped with iron. The Swiss victory at Morat in 1476 undoubtedly led the French, and later the English, to introduce a disciplined infantry armed with the pike as a serious element into the army. In 1480 the French took the extreme course of disbanding the whole body of archers, substituting Swiss pikemen, and causing a prodigious number of pikes, halbards, and daggers to be made by the cutlers. Thus in 1482 the army of Picardy is composed of no more than 1400 men-at-arms, 6000 Swiss, and 8000 pikes. The proportions in England, ten years later, may be gauged by the Earl of Surrey's contingent of five men-at-arms, each with cushet and page, twelve demi-lances, twenty archers mounted, forty-six on foot, and thirteen bills. The archers remained an important force with us till long after Henry VIII., but it is only in his reign that the billmen and halbardiers occupy a definite position in the country's armed forces. These were armed with bill, sword, shield, sallad, and corselet. The costume of the foot and even the yeomen of the guard, 1000 strong under Henry VIII., changed with the civil dress, but always included the royal badge and crown. Henry proceeded to the siege of Boulogne in the midst of his pikemen with fifty mounted archers on the right and fifty mounted gunners on the left. Their costumes are seen in the Hampton Court pictures. In 1598 it was scarlet profusely spangled. Under Philip and Mary they were an even more important force, and under Elizabeth the backbone of the army was its pikemen, billmen, and harquebusiers, now armed, as in France, with Milanese corselets and morions. The bill was six feet long, of native production, the head at least twelve inches long, and bound with iron like the halbard, which was shorter, to at least the middle of the staff. The black bills were also shorter and from Germany, but the best halbards were Milanese. The partisan with us seems to have been more a weapon of parade, various in form, with or without wings, and richly decorated with engraving, painting, and gilding. The pike was eighteen to twenty-two feet long, with a tassel to prevent the water running down. The "Staves" in the Tower under Henry VIII. included 20,100 morris pikes, some highly decorated, and 2000 javelins, mostly richly mounted, as if for the Court guards. The army taken to France in 1513 comprised, according to the Venetian ambassador, 6000 halbardiers and 12,000 men with holy-water sprinklers, a weapon never seen before, six feet long, surmounted by a ball with six steel spikes. The name was a quaint joke, like the Flemish Godendag or the Swiss Wasistdas and Morgenstern. Besides these there were tridents, pole-axes, collen cleves, boar-spears, rawcons, partisans, and other forms of staff weapons in smaller quantities. [Illustration: PLATE VI.--Profile of the helmet belonging to the French suit (Fig. 32). In the guard-chamber of Windsor Castle.] An English army sometimes comprised light cavalry even in the earliest times, perhaps none more singular than a miserably-accoutred force of mounted Irish armed with target, short javelin, and great outlandish knives, but without using saddles, in the reign of Henry V. The army of Henry VIII. in 1513 comprised 9000 to 10,000 heavy barbed cavalry and 8000 light horse, and 2000 mounted archers. His "Retinewe of speres" comprised a page, a cushet with javelin or demi-lance, and two archers, all mounted, to each man-at-arms. An English force of about 400 demi-lances serving Henri II. in 1552 "for their pleasure," were in short petticoats, red bonnets, body with brassarts of plate, and high leather boots above the knee, mounted on swift little horses and armed with a lance like a demi-pike. The infantry, though not yet a permanent standing force, except in the case of the Royal bodyguards, was now a recognised arm into which men enlisted as a professional career for the term of their lives or until disabled. To handle the pike or arquebus efficiently required long training, and veterans were always accepted before recruits. It was their steadiness and power of manoeuvring in action that lessened the value of heavy cavalry, and consequently contributed, more than any other circumstance, to the rapid disuse of the cap-à-pied suit of armour in the field, so noticeable in the next chapter. V _The Age of Enriched Armour_ Armour began from about the accession of Edward VI. to cease to be a military necessity, and those engaged in practical warfare were more ready to dispense with its doubtful protection than to encumber themselves with its certain disadvantages. Excuses were found for appearing in the field without armour, or with an imperfect equipment, and punishments were inflicted in the vain attempt to stem the tide of change. Those who served on foot had naturally the strongest objection to bearing its weight, since when opposed to firearms it ceased to have any practical utility. A battle-scene at Hampton Court, the battle of Forty by Snayers, furnishes the strongest justification for its disuse among men-at-arms. It represents a number of mounted men in complete armour, who discharge horse-pistols point blank at each other's breastplates, the individual struck falling in every case dead or wounded from his horse. The wheel-lock pistol, the arm of the German Reiters, who wore black armour, mail sleeves, and a visored morion, was in the field in 1512. From this time, therefore, armour was worn rather for display than service, and the purchaser came to value its defensive qualities far less than the magnificence of its decoration. Nor was ostentation in arms confined to the noble or knight alone. Brantôme says that among the pikemen and musketeers of Strozzi, De Brissac, and the Duc de Guise, thousands of gilt and engraved morions and corselets were to be seen on parade days, and the armour worn by the picked force of Spaniards and Italians sent by Philip of Spain to occupy the Netherlands was a splendid sight. The great and wealthy have seldom cared to stint in matters of personal adornment, and in days when there were fewer ways in which a taste for extravagant expenditure could be combined with a high appreciation of art, fortunes were spent upon the coverings of the body. Nothing more sumptuous in applied art exists, in regard either to design or execution, than the work lavished on the armour produced for the French, Spanish, and other monarchs in the second half of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth centuries. Among this the most exquisitely beautiful is the damascened work, scattered over Europe, persistently though erroneously attributed to Cellini, of which, perhaps, one of the finest examples is the target at Windsor. It is no exaggeration to say that neither chiselling, embossing, nor damascening on metal has ever rivalled or even approached that bestowed at this time upon royal arms and armour. The chief seats of production were in Germany and Italy, at Milan above all, then Innsbrück, Augsburg, Nuremberg; and in a less degree Florence, Brescia and Venice. It is singular that few fine suits can be attributed to France, and fewer still either to Spain, the Netherlands, or England. The youth of Edward, the fact that female sovereigns succeeded, and finally, the timidity and horror of war felt by James, account for none of the known chef-d'oeuvre suits being made for English wearers. Such extraordinary and magnificent armour was meet for none but the high-spirited and rival princes of Europe, and no king distinguished for valour occupied the throne of England during the period when enriched armour reached its culminating point of grandeur. [Illustration: FIG. 30.--_Part of a suit made for Sir Christopher Hatton._ From the Spitzer collection, and now in the possession of Mr. Charles Davis. This is No. 15 in the Armourers' Album in the South Kensington Museum, reproduced in our Plate III.] There are, however, a certain number of richly engraved and gilt suits which have been in the possession of English families from time immemorial, and the fortunate acquisition for the South Kensington Museum Art Library of an Armourers' Album of the time of Elizabeth, has enabled many of the original wearers of them to be identified. This MS., as Lord Dillon relates, was in the possession, in 1790, of the Duchess of Portland, daughter of Harley, Earl of Oxford, who permitted Pennant to engrave from it a suit of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, for his account of London; while Strutt was allowed to reproduce that of George, Earl of Cumberland, for his work on dresses and costumes. The book undoubtedly once formed part of the great Harleian Library, but was lost until seen in Paris some years ago by Baron de Cosson. It was sold at the Spitzer sale, acquired by M. Stein, and offered to the Kensington Museum, by whom it was wisely purchased. The drawings are in pen and ink and water-colours and represent twenty-nine full suits, besides the extra pieces for tilting. Some of them are inscribed "Made by me Jacobe," the name of the master armourer at Greenwich during part of Elizabeth's reign, and mentioned by Sir Henry Lee, the Master of the Armoury, in a letter to the Lord Treasurer, dated 12th October 1590, published by Lord Dillon in the fifty-first volume of _Archæologia_. Wendelin Böheim, the curator of the Imperial collections of armour at Vienna, has recently identified this Jacobe with Jacob Topf, one of three brothers, natives of Innsbrück or its vicinity, and who suddenly appears as court armourer in 1575. This post he seems to have retained and worked at Schloss Ambras till his death in 1597. Suits made by him during this period for the Archduke Ferdinand of Tyrol and Archduke Charles of Styria certainly bear some resemblance to those in the Album. Böheim infers from the Italian influence seen in his work, especially in the ornament, that Topf must have proceeded from the atelier of Jörg Seusenhofer to Milan or Brescia, about the year 1558, and taken up his abode in England between 1562 and 1575. To support the identification of the Jacobe of the Album with Jacob Topf of Innsbrück, it is necessary either that all the suits should have been produced before 1575, or that those made at a later time should be regarded as by some other hand. The first two, for Rutland and Bedford, who died respectively in 1563 and 1564, are relatively plain, and have M.R. over them, and the rest E.R., which can only, it would appear, have reference to the initials of the reigning queens. All the figures are practically drawn from one model, though sometimes reversed, and are in an easy and graceful pose. Two of the richest, namely the second suit for Sir Henry Lee, the Master Armourer, No. 19, and the first suit of Sir Christopher Hatton, No. 15 of the Album, are here reproduced in facsimile, though reduced in scale (Plates II. and III.). One holds a mace and the other a truncheon in one hand, with the butt resting upon the hip, while the other arm is bent and the extended palm rests upon the thigh. They wear the close helmet or armet of Italian fashion, with a high comb and a large sharply-pointed visor. The gorgets are laminated, the pauldrons large and massive, the breastplates long-waisted, known as the peascod shape, ending in a point, with a ridge down the centre called the tapul; the tassets are short and laminated. Only the front of the thigh is protected by laminated cuissarts, and the rest of the leg by close-fitting knee-caps and greaves. The sollerets are complete and take the shape of the foot. The swords appear to be simply cross-hilted and worn in scabbards. Both the suits reproduced are richly engraved with vertical bands of gilt arabesqued ornament in the Italian fashion: Sir Christopher Hatton's being on a russet ground with a gold corded pattern connecting the bands; and Sir Henry Lee's on a white ground with a knotted reticulated pattern between. The minor details are considerably varied in the other suits, two of which have been reproduced by Lord Dillon, and two by Böheim in the publications already referred to. The complete list comprises the names of many of the leading nobles and captains of Elizabeth's reign, only two in it being foreigners. [Illustration: FIG. 31.--_Armour of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, 1566-1588. In the Tower._] The ornament is sufficiently distinct to admit of the suits being identified where they still exist. Thus the Earl of Pembroke's suit is still at Wilton, in perfect preservation; the suit of George, Earl of Cumberland, is in the possession of Lord Hothfield at Appleby Castle. The grand-guard of this suit, with volant attached, forms the subject of Plate IV., in which the original russet and gilding is somewhat restored. The ornament on the bands is an interlacing strap upon a foliated arabesque ground, with a figure of Mercury near the top, and two E's at intervals addorsed and crowned, coupled by a true-lover's knot. Between are large roses and fleurs-de-lis united by knots. The helmet of Sir Henry Lee's second suit, Plate II., is now in the Tower, having been identified by Lord Dillon, while a locking gauntlet belonging to it is in the Hall of the Armourers' Company. This gauntlet, called the "forbidden gauntlet," was in form of a closed right hand, the fingers fastened by a hook and staple, leaving an aperture for the passage of the weapon which, if a lance, or sword with cross-guard and pommel, could not be dislodged. In the Tower are also the vamplate of Sir Christopher Hatton's second suit, and the complete armour of the Earl of Worcester, with both the headpieces. A helmet of Lord Sussex's suit is in the Tower, and two gauntlets belonging to it were in the Spitzer sale. Lord Bucarte's suit is in the Wallace collection at Hertford House, and another fine suit is in Armourers' Hall. The first Sir Christopher Hatton suit, Plate III., has also recently reached this country, fortunately in almost perfect condition. It was disposed of in the Spitzer sale, and was purchased by Mr. Davies of New Bond Street. It will be a misfortune if this historic piece is not added to the national collection. Fig. 30 represents the upper part of this suit, taken from a photograph, with the high neck-guards attached to the pauldrons. The original front-plate seems to be lost, but the extra breastplate for tilting and some other extra pieces are preserved. If Boheim is correct in his identification of Jacobe with Jacob Topf, and in his dates, the armour in the Album must be by different hands. Thus Topf, arriving in 1562, could hardly have made the first two suits marked M.R., the owners of which died, as we have mentioned, in 1563 and 1564 respectively. The mail defence for the instep and the relatively broad toes are features of an earlier time, which the letters M.R. identify as that of Mary, and show that the very broad stirrup of Henry VIII. was still in use. Neither could he, being settled in Innsbrück or at Ambras in 1575, have made the suits for Sir Henry Lee, as Master of the Armoury; nor that for Sir Thomas Bromley, as Lord Chancellor, though the latter suit may have been for Sir Nicholas Bacon, the previous Lord Chancellor. The chief difficulty is the date of Sir Henry Lee's appointment, which Lord Dillon in his able treatise, in the _Archæological Journal_ for June 1895, gives as 1580, and the fact that the solitary mention of Jacobe in any document is by Sir Henry Lee himself, and is dated October 1590, in which he speaks of him as "the M^r workman of Grenewhyche," and in a way that could not well have reference to one who had quitted the post fifteen years before. These difficulties may, however, it is possible, yet be reconciled. [Illustration: FIG. 32.--_A superb suit of French armour in perfect preservation. Early seventeenth century. In the Guard-chamber of Windsor Castle._] Among the fine suits in the Tower is the equestrian armour of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester (Fig. 31), not however one of the suits in the Album. It is, like the Jacobe suits, banded in the Italian fashion, with a similar kind of design upon the bands, and between them a broad impressed diaper of crossed ragged staves and leaves filled with fine arabesques. Among the enrichments can also be seen the George of the Garter, the bear and ragged staff, the initials R.D., and the collar of the Order of St. Michael and St. George, conferred upon this favourite of Queen Elizabeth in 1566. In the illustration of this suit, Fig. 31, the bear and ragged staff is plainly visible on the horse's chamfron, from which issues a twisted spike. The armet is combed, but differs in form from the Jacobe type, and the visor is pierced on one side with round holes. In other respects the fashion of the armour is very similar to that of his enemy, Sir Christopher Hatton. The grand-guard and pass-guard or elbow-guard are preserved with it. The former is illustrated, Plate V., with its original gilding restored, the military cleaning and scouring to which it has been subjected for so many years, not wisely but too well, having obliterated every trace of the original splendour of colour. A portrait of the Earl in this very suit exists, however, to show what it was. He died, it is well known, in 1588. [Illustration: FIG. 33.--_Italian suit of blued and gilded steel covered with appliqués of gold. In the Guard-chamber of Windsor Castle._] Several splendid and historic suits are preserved in the Guard-room at Windsor Castle. Among these, one, the suit of Prince Henry of Wales, son of James I. (frontispiece), bears a remarkable resemblance to the Jacobe suits, recalling especially the design of the Cumberland suit, Plate IV. But for the alternation of thistles among the fleurs-de-lis and roses between the bands of gilded ornament, the body armour in both would be nearly identical. The monogram H.P. appears on the gilt bands of strap and arabesque work. The gilding is in fine preservation, and except that the steel was formerly a deep blue, in the Milanese fashion, it is still as represented in the portrait of Prince Henry in the possession of the Marquis of Lothian. It has been attributed to William Pickering, Master of the Armourers' Company of London in 1608-9, on the faith of some payments made to him, which Mr. St. John Hope has noted as follows: "In March 1613, a warrant issued under sign manual, for the payment to Sir Edward Cecil of a balance of £300 due for armour value £450 for the late Prince Henry: and in July 1614 a warrant issued to pay William Pickering, Master of the Armoury at Greenwich, £200 balance of £340 for armour gilt and graven for the late Prince." The helmet somewhat resembles that of the Leicester suit, but has a singularly stiff, vertically-ridged gorget with scalloped edge, and heavier gauntlets. The leg-defences and sollerets do not differ appreciably from those already noticed. A number of the extra pieces and some of the horse armour belonging to the suit are preserved with it. If really by Pickering he was a close copyist of Jacobe. An apparently companion suit of Prince Charles is looked on with suspicion by Lord Dillon. Another of Prince Henry's suits, presented by the Prince de Joinville, and now in the Tower, was originally of blued steel richly ornamented with classical designs in gold. There are also in the Tower a fine suit made for Charles I. when a boy, some silvered pieces, and the richly gilt and engraved armour presented to him by the City of London. [Illustration: PLATE VII.--Ornament on the tapul of the breastplate belonging to the half-suit of the Earl of Essex, (fig 35) with the original gilding slightly restored. In the guard-chamber of Windsor Castle.] [Illustration: FIG. 34.--_A part of the ornament of the Italian suit (Fig. 33), drawn real size._] Another suit at Windsor of extraordinary magnificence is that represented in Fig. 32. It is, unfortunately, not well set up, and differs considerably in construction from those hitherto noticed, and is of later date than the Jacobe suits. The tassets are replaced by laminar cuissarts extending to the knee, below which the suit is not continued. The ornament is banded vertically, like that of the suits previously figured, but is of a richer character. Its details and colouring are reproduced on a larger scale in the helmet, Plate VI., which is combed, fluted, and of singularly graceful outline, with all its fastenings, plume-holders, and the stiffly-ribbed gorget in most perfect condition. The whole appears to be a specimen of rare French armour, but nothing is known of its history. Even more sumptuous, if possible, is the Italian suit, Fig. 33, which also exhibits some peculiar characters, such as the single plates in place of the tassets and the construction of the arm-defences and gauntlets. The setting up in this suit is also unfortunately defective. The extraordinary richness of the damascening and appliqué work is reproduced in Fig. 34, in which a portion is sketched real size. Nearly all the escutcheon-like appliqués have been picked off at some period, either for mischief or for the gold. The original owner of this suit is also unknown, but it may, with the one last described, have possibly been a present to Prince Henry, whose passion for military exercises and display is matter of history. The last of our illustrations (Fig. 35) taken from suits in the Windsor Guard-chamber is a demi-suit of the Earl of Essex, and is a war suit, something like a pikeman's, except that the closed helmet was not worn by dismounted men. This is combed, and introduces a shade or peak over the sight. It has no visor, but a bavier in two pieces protects the face. It should perhaps be described as a burgonet with gorget and movable mentonières. Probably only a part of the suit is present, that for use on foot, and the helmet may belong to the missing equipment for a rider, or if worn on foot it would have been as an open burgonet. The Jacobe Album introduces us to the burgonet and cabasset, a lighter morion, and shows that these were used when fighting on foot by even the greatest captains. This suit is also decorated in bands, a fashion almost universal during the reign of Elizabeth. The breastplate is the peascod with tapul form, and the cuissarts "à écrivisse" form the only protection for the legs. The ornament is more finely and delicately chased than that of any suit yet noticed. The design on the bands is an interlacing and knotted strap, filled with arabesqued foliage enclosing medallions with emblematic figures and flowers encircled by mottoes, as Futura præteritis, on a ground etched down, but with foliage and bright points like grains of seed, left on it. A part of this ornament is drawn full size in Plate VII. There is a suit in the Tower attributed to the same Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, who was executed in 1601, also richly engraved and gilt. [Illustration: FIG. 35.--_Demi-suit of the Earl of Essex, with closed helmet, magnificently engraved and gilt. From the Guard-chamber at Windsor Castle._] [Illustration: FIG. 36.--_Sword, probably of James I., with basket hilt, entirely covered with raised gold damascening. Preserved in Windsor Castle_.] The suits now divided between Windsor and the Tower evidently formed part of a single collection. Those at Windsor are placed on brackets at such a height that they can only be inspected from a ladder, and they sadly require setting up, in the way that Lord Dillon has mounted those in the Tower. It is perhaps unfortunate that the national collection of armour is so scattered, parts being, besides the great collections at the Tower and Windsor, in the British and South Kensington Museums, Hertford House, Woolwich Rotunda, and Dover Castle, while most of the earlier English and historic pieces are still in churches and cathedrals. If brought together, properly displayed and added to in a reasonable manner by the purchase of such suits as that recently sold in the Spitzer sale, a suit of fine quality and directly connected with our national history, it might become worthy the country, and rank in time with the great armouries of Vienna, Paris, Madrid, Turin, or Dresden. [Illustration: PLATE VIII.--The sword of Charles I. when Prince of Wales, 1616. The hilt entirely covered with raised gold damascened work on blue steel matrix; except the grip of silver wire work. Preserved in Windsor Castle.] Besides the half-dozen really magnificent suits in the Guard-chamber at Windsor, there is a vast collection of arms and weapons in the North Corridor, formed in a great measure by Her Majesty. Among these are three swords intimately connected with our history. Of these, that of Charles I. has a pommel and guard of steel overlaid with raised gold damascening, and a grip covered with silver wire woven like basket-work (Plate VIII.). The blade is decorated with Latin inscriptions in Roman capitals along both margins, back and front, and in circles at intervals. Between these are panels, alternately of emblems and ornament, and of arabesqued scrolls, damascened so minutely that the work is almost invisible until magnified. The small portion of the blade in our figure shows the character of the work. The royal arms, Prince of Wales' feathers, and date 1616 on the blade show that it was made for Charles I. when Prince of Wales. The second sword, with the magnificently-worked basket hilt of chased gold inlay on steel (Fig. 36), has a similar blade, marvellously fine arabesques taking the place of the marginal inscriptions. It is otherwise nearly identical with the last, the spread eagles, griffins, etc., being common to both. The presence of the lion of England under a royal crown points to James I. as its owner. The third sword (Fig. 37) is that of John Hampden. Its blade is plain, but the hilt is of superb workmanship and of carved steel. The grip is small, and, like the pear-shaped pommel, covered with warriors in relief in Roman dress. The quillons are slightly curved, and carved with pomegranates and foliage, with figures reclining horizontally to form the extremities. The smaller front guard over the blade, known as the "pas-d'âne," and most elaborately worked with figures and medallions, is a prominent feature of the hilt. All three swords bear the unicorn's head mark of Nuremberg, but the two enriched blades can be identified, thanks to the assistance of Baron de Cosson, as the work of Clemens Horn of Solingen, 1580-1625. There is a similar sword in the Royal Armoury at Madrid, belonging to the suits made by Desiderius Kolman for Philip II., and another is in the Baron's own collection. The sword, as the emblem of knightly honour and faith, was from the remotest times a vehicle for the richest decoration; but it is doubtful whether any specimens were ever produced, even by the combined efforts of the swordsmith and jeweller, to equal the work of those here represented, which are not only connected with the history of our country, but happily also the property of the nation. [Illustration: FIG. 37.--_The sword of John Hampden, with hilt of carved steel. Preserved at Windsor Castle._] INDEX d'Abernon brass, 36, 40 Acre, Siege of, 14 Agincourt, Battle of, 46, 48, 49 Aldborough Church, 33 Alençon, Duke of, 48 Alfred, King, 10 Allbright (armourer), 46 Almayne rivets, 70 Appleby Castle, 85 Archæological Institute, 30 Archers, 17, 20, 43, 46, 47, 58, 74-76 Armet, The, 58, 62, 65, 66, 82, 90 Armourers' Album, 81, 82, 86, 92 Armourers' Hall, 18, 86 Arthur, King, 7, 10 Ash, Effigy at, 40 Athelstan, 10 Augsburg, 81 Auray, Battle of, 44 Austin, William (armourer), 52 Bacon, Sir Nicholas, 86 Badges, Heraldic, 20 Barres, William de, 22 Base, The, 70 Bassinets, 24, 29, 30, 32-34, 36, 46, 48, 56-61 Battle-axes, 45 Bavier, The, 58, 62, 65, 92 Bayeux Tapestry, 12, 32 Beauchamp, Richard. _See_ Warwick, Earl of Beauchamp MS., 52 Beauvais, Battle of, 47 Beche, De (monument), 19 Beckman, 18 Beowulf, 9-11 Bills, 46, 76 Black Prince, The, 30, 32, 35, 40, 48 Blount, Sir Walter, 50 Böheim, Wendelin, 82, 85, 86 Bohun, Sir Humphrey de, 34, 42 Boileau, Etienne, 18 Boulogne, Siege of, 76 Bourgthéroude, Battle of, 14 Bows and arrows, 14, 43, 74 Brantôme, 78 Breastplates, 7, 22, 34, 35, 42, 47, 51, 52, 66, 69, 85, 86 Brescia, 81, 82 Brigandine, The, 42, 47, 56, 74, 75 British Museum, 6, 7, 10, 18, 52, 56, 61, 96 Brives, 30 Broadwater Church (helmet in), 60 Bromley, Sir Thomas, 86 Brooke, Sir George, 62 Brooke, Sir Thomas, 60 Bucarte, Lord, 86 Burgess Collection, 33 Burgonet, The, 65, 92 Burley, Simon, 34 "Byrnies," 9, 18 Cabasset, The, 92 Cade, Jack, 51 Camail, The, 32, 46, 62 Cambray, Battle of, 16 Canterbury, 30 Canute, 11 Capel family, 59 Caractacus, 7 Cassel, Battle of, 30 Cassivelaunus, 7 Cawne, Sir Thomas (effigy of), 40 Cellini, Benvenuto, 81 Chain-mail. _See_ Mail armour Chamfron, The, 48, 89 Chandos, Sir John, 34, 44, 56 Chapelle-de-fer, The, 20, 29, 30, 32 Chariots, 5, 7 Charlemagne, 22 Charles VII., 62 Charles Stuart, Prince, 90, 91 Chausse and Chausson, 22, 23 Cheney, De, brass, 36 Christy Collection, 33 Clisson, Sir Oliver de, 44 Clypeus, The, 5 Cobham, 48, 62 Cognizances, 24 Commines, Philip de, 56, 61 Comnena, Anna, 12-14 Cornewall, Sir John de, 49, 58 Corselets, 66, 78 Cosson, Baron de, 30, 33, 51, 59, 60, 62, 65, 81, 98 Courci, Ralph de, 24 Courtrai, Battle of, 39 Coventry (sallad at), 58 Cracowes, 36 Crell, de, brass, 40 Cressy, Battle of, 43, 46 Crests, 20, 21, 29, 30 Crinet, The, 48 Crossbows, 14, 15, 43, 75 Crossbow-men, 16, 46 Cuir-bouilli, 28, 29, 34, 42 Cuissarts, 52, 85, 91, 92 Cumberland, Earl of, 81, 85 Damascened armour, 81 Danes, The, 12 Danish armour, 10 Daundelyon brass, The, 51 Daunt, Thomas, 48 Dillon, Lord, 20, 69, 70, 81, 82, 85, 86, 90, 96 Diodorus Siculus, 6 Dover Castle Collection, 18, 34, 75, 96 Easter Sepulchre, Lincoln, 22, 24 Edda, The, 11, 18 Edward I., 15-17, 32, 34 Elbow-guards, 39, 50, 52, 56, 66 Enamelling on bronze, 5-7 Enriched armour, 78-81 Epaulettes, 50 Essex, Earl of, 92, 95 Ethelwulf, 10 Evans, Sir John, 5 Evesham, Battle of, 14 Exeter Cathedral, 42 Falkirk, Battle of, 14 Flint, 7 Flodden, Battle of, 75 Florence, 81 Fluted armour, 73 Foix, Comte de, 49 Fram, The, 8 Francis I., 66 Frisian Pirates, 8 Froissart, 34, 39, 56, 61 Gambeson, The, 16, 19, 23, 28, 40, 46, 47, 55 Gardner, Mr. J. E., 18 Gauntlets, 39, 40, 56, 69, 70, 85, 90, 92 Gauntlets, Forbidden. _See_ Gauntlets, Locking Gauntlets, Locking, 70, 85 Gaveston, Piers, 36, 39, 42 Gaynesford, John (his brass), 51 Genouillière. _See_ Knee-cap Gildas, 8 Gilded armour, 7, 30, 40-42, 51, 73, 91 Gisors, Battle of, 15 Gloucester, Richard of, 24 Godwin, Earl, 11 Gordon, Adam (outlaw), 16 Gorget, The, 32, 34, 36, 56, 62, 65, 82, 90, 92 Gostwick, Sir John, 60 Grand-guard, The, 85, 90 Greaves, 23, 35, 36, 42, 74, 85 Gussets, 45, 48, 55, 69 Habergeon, The, 40 Haketon, The, 40 Halbards, 75, 76 Hampton Court, 62, 76, 78 Hanging arms in churches, 30 Harold, 12 Hastings, Battle of, 12, 14, 15, 20 Hatton, Sir Christopher, 82, 85, 86, 90 Hauberk, The, 16, 18, 19, 40, 46, 47 Hawberk, Sir Nicholas, 48 Helmets, 7, 12, 20, 28, 29, 32, 33, 34, 42, 56-66, 90, 92 Helm or Heaume, The Great, 20, 24, 28, 29, 48, 56, 60, 61, 62 Henry I., 14, 16 Henry II., 16 Henry III., 16, 20, 22, 24 Henry V., 46-50, 75 Henry VI., 32, 50 Henry VII., 59, 60 Henry VIII., 58-62, 66, 69, 70, 73-77 Henry Stuart, Prince, 90, 92 Hereford Cathedral, 30 Herrings, Battle of, 47 "Holy-water sprinklers," 76, 77 Hood, Robin, 16 Horn, Clemens (armourer), 98 Horse-armour, 15, 42, 49, 73, 90 Housings, 49 Ifield effigy, 39, 40 Innsbrück, 81, 82, 86 Jacobe (armourer), 82, 86, 90-92 John of Eltham (his effigy), 36, 39, 40 John, King, 15 Joinville, Prince de, 91 Joppa, Battle of, 14 Julius Cæsar, 5, 7, 11 Katharine of Arragon, 8, 70 Knee-caps, 22, 29, 35, 36, 42, 52, 66, 85 Kolman, Desiderius (armourer), 98 Lambespring, Bartholomew (goldsmith), 55 Lancaster, Earl of (Edmund Crouchback), 36, 42 Lances, 44-46, 74 Langford, William, 34 Le Botiler, 24 Lee, Sir Henry, 82, 85, 86 Leicester, Earl of, 81, 86 Lewes, Battle of, 22 Lincoln, Battle of, 14, 15 Littlebury effigy, 36 Long-bows, 75 Lothian, Lord, 90 Louis XI., 49, 59, 62 Lucas, Mr. Seymour, 65 Madrid armoury, 98 Magnus Barefoot, 12 Mail armour, 9, 12, 13, 16, 18, 22, 24, 27, 29, 45-47 Mantling, 32 March, Earl of, 42 Matthew of Paris, 24 Maule, Peter de, 24 Maximilian, The Emperor, 58, 66, 70, 73, 74 Melsa, Sir John de, 33 Men-at-arms, 43, 46, 47 Mentonière, The, 65, 92 Meyrick, 6, 65, 73 Milan, 82 Milanese armour, 52, 81 Missaglias, The (armourers), 52, 56, 69 Montfort, Simon de, 24 Montlhéry, Battle of, 47, 75 Monstrelet, 36 Morat, Battle of, 76 Morions, 78, 92 Musée d'Artillerie, 34 National Portrait Gallery, 22 Neck-guard, The, 52 Nottingham, Siege of, 14 Noyon, Battle of, 24 Nuremberg, 81, 98 Parham Collection, 18, 19, 34, 56, 61 Partisan, The, 75, 76 Paton, Sir Noel, 30, 33, 56 Pauldron, The, 69, 85, 86 Peascod, The, 92 Pembridge, Sir R., 30 Pembroke, Earl of, 22, 85 Pennant, 81 Petticoat, The, 50, 69 Philip II., 78, 98 Pickering, William (armourer), 90 Pikes, 75, 76 Pistols, 78 Plastron-de-fer. _See_ Breastplate Plate armour, 21, 22, 28, 29, 45, 47, 50, 74 Pliny, 6 Poitiers, Battle of, 43, 46, 49 Portland, Duchess of, 81 Pouleynes, 36 Pourpoint, The, 16 Quatremayne brass, The, 56 Queen Mary's Psalter, 39, 42 Rayne Church, 65 Richard I., 10, 14-16, 20-22, 24 Robert of Normandy, 22 St. George's Chapel, 61 St. Pol, Comte de, 49, 62 St. Stephen's Chapel, 42 Sallads, 33, 57-59, 61, 62, 75 Sandwich, effigy at, 40 Scale-armour, 21 Scandinavians, The, 9, 22 Schloss Ambras, 82, 86 Seusenhofer, Conrad (armourer), 66, 70 Seusenhofer, Jörg (armourer), 82 Shields, 6, 19, 44 Shirland, Sir Robert de, 15 Shoulder-pieces, 39, 50, 52, 66 Shrewsbury, Battle of, 49 Sollerets, 36, 51, 56, 66, 69, 70, 90 Somerset, Duke of, 60 Sommers, Will, 73 South Kensington Museum, 65, 81, 82, 96 Spitzer Sale, 82, 85, 96 Spurs, 24, 39, 51 Staff-weapons, 75-77 Stafford, Sir Humphrey, 51 Standard, Battle of the, 14 Standard of mail, The, 47 Stephen, King, 16 Stevyns, Thomas (armourer), 55 Stothard, C. A., 22, 39, 40 Strutt, 12, 81 Sulney, De (brass), 36 Surcoats, 27, 35, 39, 40, 42, 46, 48 Sussex, Earl of, 85 Sword, Charles I.'s, 96 Sword, James I.'s, 96 Sword, John Hampden's, 96 Swords, 10, 85, 96-98 Swords, Legendary, 10, 11 Tabard, The, 48 Tacitus, 7, 8, 12 Tancred, 10 Tapul, The, 69, 85, 92 Tassets, 48, 50, 69, 85, 91, 92 Temple Church, The, 22 Topf, Jacob (armourer), 82, 86 Tower, The, 18, 20, 33, 66, 75, 76, 85, 86, 95, 96 Tuilles, 50, 51, 52, 66 Valence, Aymer de, 36, 39, 42 Vantail, The, 20 Venice, 81 Vere, De, 23 Verneuil, Battle of, 47 Vimose, 9 Vinsauf, 21 Visor, The, 32-34, 46, 56-60, 65, 66, 82 Viterbo, Battle of, 49 Wace, 15 Wallace Collection, 33, 86, 96 Wallace, William, 17 Waller, J. G., 19 Warwick Castle Collection, 18, 34, 36, 48, 73 Warwick, Earl of, 17, 51-55, 56, 66 Weaver, 39 Westminster Abbey, 36, 48, 61 Westmoreland, Earl of, 40 Whatton effigy, The, 40 William the Conqueror, 12, 20 William Longespée, 19, 22, 23 William the Outlaw, 16 William of Toulouse, 30 Wilton House, 85 Windsor Collection, 81, 90, 91, 92, 95, 96 Windsor Tournament, The, 29, 39 Woolwich Collection, 18, 33, 56, 61, 96 Worcester, Earl of, 85 Zouche, Lord, 56 _Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_. [Illustration: PLATE I.--Painted Wooden Shield of the Fifteenth Century. Burges Collection, British Museum.] FOREIGN ARMOUR IN ENGLAND _By_ J. STARKIE GARDNER [Illustration] LONDON SEELEY AND CO., LIMITED, GREAT RUSSELL STREET NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1898 CONTENTS PAGE I. INTRODUCTORY 5 II. CHAIN MAIL 17 III. GOTHIC ARMOUR 23 IV. ENRICHED ARMOUR 56 V. FIREARMS AND GUNLOCKS By Major V. A. FARQUHARSON 84 INDEX 95 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS _COLOURED PLATES_ PAGE I. Painted Wooden Shield of the fifteenth century. British Museum _Frontispiece_ II. A Marauder of the "Bandes de Picardie." Mr. J. F. Sullivan 14 III. Half Suit, engraved and parcel-gilt. Duke of Westminster 24 IV. Gold Damascening on russet ground. Late Italian suit. Tower of London 30 V. Breast-plate, embossed and parcel-gilt. French. Mr. David Currie 38 VI. Casque of an Officer of the Guard of Cosmo de' Medici. Mr. David Currie 44 VII. Lower part of enriched Chanfron. Suit of Charles I. when prince. Tower of London 72 VIII. Two Wheel-locks. German and French. Of the seventeenth century. Major Farquharson 84 _ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT_ 1. Mail Hauberk from Sinigaglia. Sir Noël Paton's Collection 19 2. Standard Collar of Mail. Royal Artillery Institution 21 3. Gothic Armour. Said to be from the Church of Irene at Constantinople. At Parham 26 4, 5. Gothic Armour. Said to be from an old mansion in the Tyrol. Front and Back views. Sir Noël Paton's Collection 27 6. Gothic Armour. Probably Italian. Sir Noël Paton's Collection 29 7. St. Michael. By Perugino. National Gallery 31 8. The Battle of Sant' Egidio. By Uccello. National Gallery 33 9. Carved Relief from the Visconti Tomb in the Certosa at Pavia. South Kensington Museum 35 10. German late Gothic Suit. Collection of Mr. Morgan Williams 42 11. Suit of Maximilian Fluted Armour. Belonging to Mr. Percy Macquoid 43 12. Maximilian Armour from Eaton Hall. In the possession of the Duke of Westminster, K.G. 45 13. Engraved Maximilian Breast-plate. Burges Collection in the British Museum 46 14. Portrait. By Piero di Cosimo. National Gallery 47 15. Helmet. Presented by Maximilian to Henry VIII Tower of London 48 16. Cap-à-pie Suit of Henry VIII., on a Horse barded with Embossed Burgundian Armour of the time of Henry VII. Tower of London 49 17. Tilting Helm. Time of Henry VII. Westminster Abbey 51 18. Tilting Helmet. Early sixteenth century. At Penshurst 52 19. Tilting Helmet of an Ancestor of Sir Philip Sidney. Penshurst 52 20. The Sword of Battle Abbey. Fifteenth century. Collection of Sir Noël Paton 54 21. Sword of the Fourteenth Century with Guard for the Forefinger. Windsor Castle 54 22. German Armour. Date about 1570. The Duke of Westminster, K.G. 57 23. Suit of late Italian Armour. Embossed and damascened. Tower of London 61 24. Fine Italian Breast-plate, c. 1550. Said to have been worn by Philip of Spain. Collection of Mr. David Currie 63 25. Pair of fine Italian Gauntlets. Possibly belonging to the same Suit as the Breast-plate. Collection of Mr. David Currie 64 26. Embossed Gorget. French, c. 1550. Collection of Mr. David Currie 65 27. Silver Armour of Charles II. when prince. Tower of London 67 28. Sixteenth century Armet of rare form, with double visor. Mr. E. Cozens Smith 68 29. Suit of parcel-gilt Armour. Made for Charles I. when prince. Tower of London 69 30. Richly Embossed and Damascened Target. Italian, sixteenth century. Mr. David Currie's Collection 71 31. Target of Etched Steel. Italian or German, about 1550. Mr. P. Davidson's Collection 73 32. Roundel, with National Badges and Inscription. Belonging to Lord Kenyon 74 33. Hilt of Two-handed Sword with the Bear and Ragged Staff on the Pommel and Quillons in chased steel. Penshurst 75 34. Venetian Cinquedea, engraved, with Ivory Handle. The Duke of Norfolk 77 35. Main-Gauche with Steel Hilt. Belonging to Mr. Percy Macquoid 78 36. Main-Gauche with Silver Guard. Windsor Castle 79 37. Rapier with Silver Guard. Windsor Castle 79 38. Inlaid Ivory Cross-bow. Tower of London 81 39. Pistol by Lazarino Cominazzo. Collection of Major Farquharson 87 40. Early German Wheel-lock Pistol, used by the Reiters. Collection of Major Farquharson 87 41. Richly Decorated Flint-lock. Probably Spanish. Collection of Major Farquharson 91 42. Snap-hance of Italian make, about 1640. Collection of Major Farquharson 91 43, 44. Highland Pistols. Collection of Major Farquharson 92 FOREIGN ARMOUR IN ENGLAND I INTRODUCTORY A former monograph, _Armour in England_, treated of weapons and armour made either in this country or connected historically with English wearers. The more extensive field of foreign armour brought into England by wealthy and enthusiastic collectors is now embraced. The enthusiasm felt for armour is not surprising; its interest is so many-sided. Not only are collectors fascinated by it, but students of history, artists, and antiquaries. As mere decoration it appeals to some, and finds a place in their abodes; but it is among artistic people that its more ardent admirers are found. Hence it is far from rare to find the glint of arms and weapons lighting up the artist's walls. From the artistic standpoint nothing can be more picturesque than the varied forms assumed by armour and weapons in obedience to the all-powerful dictates of self-preservation, or to the more arbitrary changes of fashion. To realise what these changes mean, to appropriate them to the scenes and episodes of history, belongs to the painter, sculptor, and scenic artist. If anything in art should be accurately portrayed, it is the men and the events which make up history. Historic painting and sculpture, which might live long in art, may be disregarded by posterity owing to the anachronisms due to neglect of this important study. Most of the changes were perhaps efforts to avert the recurrence of some accident in the lists or field of battle. To definitely track them to their actual origin, to seek out the causes for the singular and ceaseless modifications arms and armour have undergone, is, however, work only possible to the antiquary. It is his province to open the door to the artist. The quality of the art lavished as decoration on the gala suits of princes and nobles is superb. In mediæval days it was the prerogative of the male sex, the fighting sex, to deck itself like a game bird in gorgeous plumage; women's raiment was more subdued. To the male, no richness of dress that ingenuity could invent or wealth procure was denied. In preparation for those stately festivals when the courtier was to shine in the presence of the fair sex, his sovereign, and his peers, nothing was spared. The armour of parade intended for royal jousts and tournaments is as sumptuous as the wit of man could devise, with time and money unstinted. Chasing, embossing, engraving, damascening, and gilding of the most exquisite quality were lavished upon it, the designs, and possibly the actual work, being by the best artists of the day. The later suits, when cap-à-pie armour was mainly consecrated to festivals and little regarded in battle, were especially loaded with decoration. Besides its excellence of design and richness of ornament, the mere craftsmanship of the armour itself is of a quality that never can be excelled, and the modern counterfeiter, with all his skill and appliances, is baffled in the reproduction of _tours-de-force_, such as the high-combed morions of Italy and Spain. To study the evolution of armour is like observing the works of nature. Necessity, it is well known, is the great stimulator of the inventive faculty of man, and no necessity is more cogent than that of self-preservation. In the long trials of skill, in which for generation after generation the armourer was pitted against the guilds concerned in the production of lethal weapons, the means of defence seemed once or twice so entirely perfected as to defy the weapons of the assailants. But ere long, the attacking forces, gathering energy, calling on the ingenuity of bowyers, fletchers, sword- and gun-smiths, seem again to emerge triumphant, armed with yet more deadly and powerful weapons. The struggle on the one hand to encase the man, like Achilles, in invulnerable armour, and on the other to break down his armour of proof, was like that between the gunners and naval architects to-day, but it lasted for centuries. It ended, as all such struggles must, in the complete discomfiture of the armourer; the increasing use and accuracy of firearms finally reducing defensive armour to a costly incumbrance. Nature, indeed, seems to will that all things, animate or inanimate, should succumb to persistent attack. Viewed in its true light, armour reveals all the stages, and is the very embodiment of, perhaps, the most prolonged and determined struggle that the development of civilisation has witnessed. It presents a gauge of the extent and limitation of man's inventive faculties, in other words, of his brain capacity, in the ages so-called mediæval. Concerning the history of the vast bulk of the armour that falls into the possession of the collector, all is speculation, and its very nationality perhaps matter of conjecture. The place whence it has come is often purposely concealed by the dealer, and a legend concocted to invest it with a higher market value. The weapon may have played its part in the stern realities of war; the armour may have saved its owner, or, failing in the hour of need, contributed to the deaths of those who trusted to it. Little armour perished with the wearer. Next to gold and silver, the harvest of arms was the most coveted spoil of victory, and none remained ungleaned on the battle-field. What harvests such holocausts as Flodden Field must have presented, affording opportunities of refitting to the man-at-arms, archer, hobiler, billman, down to the rapacious camp-follower. Though etiquette may have hindered the squire of low degree from donning the full cap-à-pie armour of the knight he overcame, no doubt many a captor of rich armour sacrificed life to indulgence in the dangerous vanity of dressing beyond his station. The historic and personal associations connected with the arms and weapons present at, and by whose agency were enacted, the decisive battles, the most stirring incidents of history humanity can witness, are not the least of the many-sided interests of armour. Though but a small proportion of the vast number of suits, helmets, and weapons that have come down to us can be assigned to definite wearers, and most of even these were but the parade suits of royalty and the court, the few pieces of real actual fighting armour identified with particular owners are invested with extraordinary interest. Most of these owe their preservation to the ancient and poetic custom of hanging the arms of knightly personages over their tombs, a custom linked with the still older dedication of arms and armour at the obsequies of the dead, either by placing them in the grave or hanging them in the temples of the gods. The reality of the connection between the pagan and Christian customs is apparent by such incidents as that of William of Toulouse, early in the thirteenth century, who dedicated his helm, shield, and weapons to St. Julian, hanging them over his shrine; or that of the King of France, who, after the battle of Cassel in 1327, presented his victorious arms to the neighbouring church. The churches in fact ought to have been the great treasure-houses for actual armour, as they are of representations of armour on monuments and brasses. Unfortunately, however, the old veneration for the person of the dead which led to the consecration of the armour and weapons he had actually used, hardly survived the close of the thirteenth century. Cupidity induced the prelate to claim them as a perquisite of the burial function, as when the Prior of Westminster received £100 as ransom for the horse and accoutrements of John of Eltham; while the temptation natural to the survivor to retain the finely tempered weapons and armour, whose quality had been tested in the field, had always to be reckoned with. This reluctance to sacrifice them is beautifully expressed in such ancient ballads as those on the death of King Arthur. Armour was moreover specially devised by will to be kept as heirlooms. Grose in the _Antiquities_ states that Thomas Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick in the time of Henry IV., left to his son Richard by will the sword and coat of mail said to belong to the celebrated Guy, Earl of Warwick, he having received them as an heir-loom from his father. Sir Thomas Poynings, in 1369, devised to his heir the helmet and armour which his father devised to him. It also became penal to make away with armour. Enactments, such as that of 1270, commanded that all armour was to be viewed and kept in safe keeping under good security not to be let go, for the king's use at reasonable valuation. The custom, which prevailed extensively, of leaving the undertaker to provide property helmets and arms in place of those the departed had himself used, also tended to lessen the interest of even the arms which yet remain. That the helmet of Henry V. was provided by the undertaker is well known, and that he continued to provide arms down to Elizabeth's time, is shown by accounts of funerals such as of Lord Grey de Wilton in 1562, when among the items of the undertaker's bill are a "cote of arms," banner and bannerolles, a "helmett of stele gylt with fyne golde," with a crest gilt and coloured, a "swerde with the hyltes, pomell, chape, buckle, and pendant, likewise gylte, with a gurdle and sheathe of velvet." This custom of substituting spurious insignia at the solemn interment of the dead was set by the Church, who consigned mock croziers and chalices of no intrinsic value to the graves of even the most exalted prelates. But of the true and the spurious armour alike, time, rust, and above all, changes of religious sentiment in regard to the churches, have spared little besides an occasional helmet. The claims of neighbouring magnates, to the custody of what they regard as family relics, the temptation to sell, and lack of interest, have further sadly reduced this residue within the present century. Yet neglect and depredations notwithstanding, the preservation of nearly all the English fighting helms known, from the time of the Black Prince to that of Henry VIII., and of many swords of early date, is due to their having been deposited in churches. Other magnificent fourteenth and even thirteenth century swords owe their preservation to their inclusion in the insignia of Municipal Corporations. Lincoln, Bristol, Kingston on Hull, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Southampton, Gloucester, Hereford, Exeter, Chester, Coventry, are among the cities still possessing these interesting relics. If our national collections are less imposing than those of Spain, Austria, Italy, France, and Germany, the enthusiasm of wealthy amateurs has made this country second to none in the richness of its private collections of European arms and armour. Of collections commenced and handed down from the time that armour was still in use, by far the most important is the Tower Armoury. Its history can be gathered from Lord Dillon's paper in the fifty-first volume of _Archæologia_, "Arms and Armour at Westminster, the Tower, and Greenwich." The collection had its origin in Henry VIII.'s passion for arms and armour, which was ministered to by Continental sovereigns, especially Maximilian, who shared this taste, and with whom he maintained a close friendship. His extensive array of tilting and jousting suits was kept at Greenwich, and an inventory taken of them upon his death. They were not removed to the Tower until perhaps 1644, though the armoury there was already, during the reign of Henry, one of the sights of London. The arms stored at Westminster were probably removed to the Tower as early as the beginning of the reign of Edward VI. The armoury was no doubt regarded more as an arsenal for use, than in the light of a collection, and perhaps was drawn upon constantly until the Civil Wars, when it was extensively depleted. Five of the Greenwich complete suits of Henry VIII. still exist, however, three mounted upon barded horses, as well as other pieces. The collection becoming on its removal a national one, several suits of distinguished nobles of Elizabeth's reign, and some of the royal armour of the Stuarts, were added. During the present century attempts to render it more complete have been made, by purchasing examples of enriched foreign armour, and more especially of pieces illustrating the armour of more ancient days. Many of the latter, however, are now pronounced to be spurious, and none of them are remarkable. It appears that the Tower collection has been drawn upon, at some comparatively recent period, for the decoration of Windsor Castle. Some half-dozen of the richest suits are now in the Guard Chamber. Arrayed in cases in the north corridor is a most extensive collection of magnificent weapons, many intimately connected with the history of the country, as well as a matchless collection of oriental arms and armour, formed to a large extent from the collection at Carlton House and added to by Her Majesty. The Museum of Artillery in the Rotunda at Woolwich contains a valuable collection of armour and weapons, formed partly from the Tower collection, and by judicious purchases. The series of Gothic armour from Rhodes is very remarkable. There are also a few pieces in the Royal Artillery Institution not far distant, and a small part of the collection has been placed in Dover Castle. The British Museum contains a limited but choice collection, chiefly bequeathed by Mr. Burges, of Mediæval and Renaissance armour, as well as its unrivalled series of antique arms and weapons. The South Kensington Museum also possesses a few interesting arms and weapons, besides collections deposited on loan. The munificent bequest of the Wallace Collection has put the nation in possession of a superb series of armour only rivalled by that in the Tower Armoury. It must unfortunately remain inaccessible, being packed away in cases until the rearrangement of Manchester House is completed; consequently none of its contents could be illustrated. It contains perhaps over 1200 specimens, without counting the Oriental arms, all of them choice and some unsurpassed. It is rich in Gothic, fluted, and highly decorated armour, and comprises a matchless series of swords and other weapons. Of private collections in this country that are historic, the Earl of Warwick's is undoubtedly the most interesting, part of it having been in the Castle from the days when armour was in constant use. Besides the few almost legendary pieces, it claims to contain armour of Lord Brooke, killed at Lichfield, of Montrose, the target of the Pretender, and Cromwell's helmet. Among the armour at Wilton House are the superb suits of the Dukes of Montmorency and Bourbon, captured by the Earl of Pembroke at the battle of St. Quentin, together with the suit worn by the Earl, and pictured in the Jacobe Album. With these are a good number of lancers' demi-suits marked with the family initial. The armour of the Earl of Cumberland, also figured in the Jacobe Album, yet remains in perfect preservation in the possession of Lord Hothfield. The collection at Penshurst Castle comprises some good armour, including helmets and weapons of the Sidneys, its former owners. Sir Wheatman Pearson possesses the barded suit of fluted armour said to have been worn by a Talbot of Shrewsbury at the Field of the Cloth of Gold. Many other ancient seats still contain family armour, either relics of the Civil Wars, as at Littlecote and Farleigh Castle, or removed from the neighbouring church, or discovered in some attic, vault, or even well, as at Arundel. The Armourers and Braziers Company possess one of the Jacobe suits in their small collection; the Benchers of the Middle Temple own some armour; and there are a few pieces in the United Service Museum in Whitehall. Mr. Leonard Brassey possesses a fine historic cap-à-pie suit of the hereditary challengers, the Dymoke family. Some of the Corporation Museums, especially at Edinburgh, comprise examples of armour and weapons. It is unfortunate that nearly all the notable private collections made within the present century have been dispersed, either on the death of their owners, or before. The Walpole, Bernal, Meyrick, Londesborough, Shrewsbury, Coutts-Lindsay, Brett, De Cosson, and many other collections have been scattered far and wide under the hammer. The Warwick and others have suffered severely by fire; and of collections made by the past generation probably only that of Lord Zouche at Parham remains intact. A great deal of armour is absorbed as decoration, not only in such stately homes of the nobility as Arundel, Eaton Hall, Hatfield, Knebworth, but in private houses. Armour is also hidden away in small and unknown collections, like two in the writer's family, which would well repay careful examination. But undoubtedly the richest treasures are in the collections of wealthy amateurs, like Mr. David Currie, Sir Noël Paton, and above all in those of members of the Kernoozer's Club. It is impossible to convey, in a slight sketch, any adequate idea of the wealth of armour in the country, the real extent of which is as yet only to be surmised; but in spite of sales it is doubtless increasing yearly. The fact cannot be ignored that, of all this mass of armour, very little has been made in England. By far the larger part was indeed certainly made in Germany, a country devoted to metal-working from the earliest periods of its history. The first dawning of anything like European reputation for the production of arms and armour, since the collapse of the Roman Empire, was achieved by Germany. Owing to its political constitution, and perhaps extent and population, its towns were more enterprising in mediæval ages than ours, and acquired a name for particular manufactures at a relatively early period. The necessity the trading towns were under of arming their citizens to defend their freedom and privileges, amidst the semi-independent princelings and nobles who kept armed retainers and combined to levy blackmail, induced many to take up the manufacture of arms in self-defence, for which they afterwards sought a market among neighbours and abroad. In the thirteenth century, when St. Louis bore a German sword to the Crusades, the names of Cologne, Passau, Heilbronn appear almost simultaneously as seats famous for the production of lethal weapons. Cologne soon assumed the ascendency, at least in English eyes, for its weapons are spoken of with respect in many an early ballad. Thus the battle of Otterbourne is fought "with swords of fyne Collayne," and King Arthur's sword hails from Cologne:-- For all of Coleyne was the blayde And all the hilte of precious stone. The Duke of Norfolk having sent for armour out of Germany proves that its armour was already regarded as of superior excellence in the time of Richard II. German armour might have been used more largely in England and at an earlier period, but for want of sympathy, perhaps inherited from the Crusades. These, which knitted so many of the races of Europe into close contact, happened not to promote any _camaraderie_ between Germany and ourselves. Their Crusades were undertaken independently, or were ill-timed relatively to ours. The unfortunate differences between Richard and the Archduke of Austria, which drained our country of so much gold and silver that even the chalices were melted, rendered Germany unpopular, and the feeling was not improved by the further great loss of treasure on the abortive election of Richard of Cornwall as Emperor. Princely intermarriages were unable to effect a union of hearts, for the Kings of Almayne never come out well in contemporary poetry. Nor was the perpetual presence of enterprising Hansa merchants in factories, such as the London Steleyard, calculated to promote good feeling, though introducing a large bulk of German goods into the country. Steel, itself a German word, was certainly amongst the imports, probably not only as a raw product, but manufactured into articles such as the "Colleyne clowystes" and "Cullen cleavers," and possibly sometimes defensive armour as well. Until late in the fifteenth century, however, the differences between the military equipment of Germany and England is more marked than between that of England and France, which country with the Netherlands formed a natural barrier that only strong common interests would effectively bridge. When bonds of trade began to knit peoples together, German armour, from its excellent quality, divided the market of the world with Italy. The accession of Henry VIII. opened the English market wide to it, his ambition to again dismember France, his alliance with Maximilian and relationship to Charles V. leading to distinct _rapprochements_. Natural inclination and political necessity strongly biassed him in favour of his wife's kinsmen, until his unhappy divorce left him isolated. Italy vied with Germany in the production of armour, Milan taking the lead. Matthew of Paris heard, in 1237, from a credible Italian that Milan and its dependencies could turn out 6000 men on iron-clad horses. An item in the inventory of Louis Hutin, 1316, is "2 haubergeons de Lombardi"; and that of Humphrey de Bohun, in 1322, mentions Bologna "un haubergeon qu'est apele Bolioun." Italian armourers were established in Paris as early as 1332. Ancient British ballads abound in references to Myllan and Myllen steel. The Earl of Derby, afterwards Henry IV., sent to procure armour from Sir Galeas, Duke of Milan, and when he had selected all he wished for in plated and mail armour, the Lord of Milan ordered four of the best armourers in Milan to accompany the knight to England. In the fifteenth century Milan was able, after the battle of Macado in 1427, to furnish within a few days 4000 suits of armour for cavalry and 2000 for infantry. At a great Spanish tournament held in 1434, only Italian armour and weapons were permitted. Louis XI. and the Duke of Burgundy settled Italian armourers in their dominions. This king seized in 1481 a heavy convoy of cuirasses, sallads, etc., packed in cotton to prevent them rattling and imitating bales of silk, on the way to the Duke of Brittany, giving them to John Doyac as a reward for their discovery. Monstrelet mentions that the Milanese gave corselets and other armour to the Swiss, with the finest promises, before the battle of Marignano. Henry VIII. kept 1000 Myllen swords for the tourney in the Tower, and sent to Milan to purchase 5000 suits of "almain rivets." The most eloquent testimony to the excellence of Milanese arms is, however, to be found in the pages of Brantôme, a very keen observer on all matters military. Milan furnished the finest engraved and most elegant corselets for _hommes de pieds_ "tant de M. de Strozzi que de Brissac." "Ce genre de cuirasse legère eut la plus grande vogue à la cour de France"; and "on y approuvoit fort les corselets gravés de Milan et ne trouvoit point que nos armoriers parvinssent à la mesme perfection, non plus qu'aux morions." Strozzi, insisting that his armaments should be Milanese, "pria voire quasy contraignit tous ses capitaines de n'avoir plus autres armes, tant harquebuses, fourniments, que corselets de Milan": while Guise wished his infantry to be armed not with muskets, but good harquebuzes de Milan--"de bonne trampe pour ne crever." Milanese armourers, like the Gambertis, were enticed to Paris; Pompée a Milanese was selected to teach the King fencing, and Maistre Gaspar de Milan is pronounced "le meilleur forgeur qui jamais eut." Brantôme further describes the troops on their way to relieve Malta, "portant sa belle harquebuze et son beau fourniment de Milan," and adds, "car nous avions passé par Milan, où nous nous estions accommodez d'habillements et d'armes si superbement qu'on ne scavait pour quelz nous prendre, ou pour gentilshommes, soldats, ou pour princes, tant nous foisoit beau veoir." [Illustration: PLATE II.--A Marauder of the "Bandes de Picardie." In the possession of Mr. J. F. Sullivan.] Florence became later a great rival of Milan, and we find Wolsey negotiating with a Florentine for "2000 complete harness of Almayne rivettes at 16s. per set." Brescia was famed for its steel, and probably supplied the vast requirements of Venice, whose arsenals contained, in the seventeenth century, arms for 800,000 combatants. Henry VIII. requested permission from the Doge of Venice, in 1544, to purchase 1500 Brescian harquebuses, and over 1000 suits of horse and foot-armour. Pisa, Lucca, Mantua, Verona, Pistoja also produced armour and weapons of high quality. Spain, with the most abundant and accessible supplies of the finest iron ores in the world, celebrated for its weapons from the time of the Punic wars, and with the immeasurable advantage of commanding the services of the Moorish steel-workers who were masters of the armourer's craft, ought to have maintained the first rank as armourers of the world. It probably did for centuries supply its own requirements. We find the Spanish warrior under James of Arragon, 1230, sheathed horse and man in mail, with his quilted _perpunto_ or pourpoint beneath, and the iron _gonio_ or breast-plate above; the iron greaves and shoes, helmet and shield. Thus equipped, the Christian rode down the Moslem by superior weight of man, horse, and arms, the Moors dispensing with pourpoint and breast-plate, and riding unarmoured horses. The helmets were of Zaragossa steel, and James's "very good sword, lucky to those who handled it," was from Monzon and called Tizo, as the more celebrated sword of the Cid was called Tizona. The most dreaded weapon, however, at this time, was the windlass cross-bow, whose bearers were mounted and carried large shields. Little of the Moorish armourer's work has come down, though they worked steel extensively in Toledo and Seville. No Hispano-moresque swords exist of earlier date than the fifteenth century, and these have richly-worked hilts in the Arab taste. A few Moorish helmets are preserved, also of the fifteenth century, two of which, attributed to Boabdil, are in the Madrid armoury, and are also richly decorated in the Arab manner. The fame of Moorish armour is preserved in the words Morion and Morris pike. The famed swords of Toledo did not obtain renown until the Renaissance, and were not produced after the seventeenth century. Real Spanish armour appears very clumsy, and probably little, if any, was made much after the accession of Charles V. One of the latest suits in the armoury at Madrid is late Gothic in feeling, with a tilting helm of Henry VII., and marked with the poinçon of the city of Valencia. France is very much in the same position as England in regard to armour, for no city in it ever established any permanent reputation as a seat of manufacture. Louis X. had a Toulouse sword--Louis Hutin's inventory comprises mail from Chambly. Metz, Pignerol, Abbeville are mentioned by Brantôme as producing armour inferior to Italian. Froissart speaks repeatedly of the excellence of Bordeaux weapons, but at the time when Bordeaux was English. The same is true of the Limoges steel. But Paris must after all have been the metropolis of French armourers. The description by Froissart of the battle of Rosebecque, fought in 1382, where the hammering on the helmets of the combatants made a noise that could not have been exceeded if all the armourers of Paris and Brussels had been there working at their trade, shows that these cities were great centres for the production of armour. The names of very few French armourers have escaped oblivion, however; and Italian workmen were employed in France from at least the time of Louis XI. Some beautifully decorated French armour exists, chiefly early seventeenth century, but in France, as in England, most of the armour was probably obtained from Italy and Germany, when once the superiority of their work was definitely established. Netherlandish armour was always in high repute, and some of the Brussels armourers achieved European fame. It even set the fashion, as we read that Sir Gilbert Talbot, 1353, provided himself with "a curas complete of Flanderis makyng of the new turn for £20." Very few specimens that can be identified as Belgian or Flemish exist, however, in collections. II CHAIN MAIL The immense antiquity of chain mail, and that it originated in the East, are the two facts beyond dispute in its history. Its fine-linked structure exposes, however, the maximum surface of the perishable iron to atmospheric decay, and hence few specimens of great antiquity are known. The two shapeless masses of iron rust in the British Museum, brought from Nineveh by Layard, only reveal on close examination that they were once supple and glittering coats of mail. Whether these are to be assigned to the Nineveh of Sennacherib or to the Sassanian period, they equally claim to be the oldest actual relics of chain mail in existence. The jackets sculptured on the Trajan column are unusually faithful and realistic renderings of chain-mail armour, for the labour and difficulty of an exact reproduction of the minute and complicated repetitions of form into which the links of mail group themselves are generally evaded by a variety of conventional ways of expressing its texture. The wearers of mail were nomadic horse--Persian, Parthian, and Scythian, and inhabited a belt stretching obliquely from the Caspian in the direction of Scandinavia, the mysterious and imperfectly known amber trade perhaps keeping these peoples in touch. The Viking became acquainted with mail and brought a knowledge of it to Western Europe; his descendants wore it in their expeditions to the East, completing the circle when the mail-clad Crusaders under Coeur de Lion met the mail-clad horse in alliance with the Saracens on the plains of Ascalon. Coats of Eastern mail called gasigans, as told by Geoffrey de Vinsauf, formed part of the spoils of victory taken by Richard, especially on the capture of the great caravan near Galatin in 1192. Although an immense quantity of mail exists in collections at home and abroad, it can as yet neither be dated nor located upon its intrinsic structure. The links of the Viking suits discovered in the peat morasses of Denmark are as carefully formed as those from Persia or India of the present century. The fashion of the garment is the only guide, but whether the mail is of the period of the garment, or older material made up, cannot be determined. It continued to be used in the West until the seventeenth century, and to a much later time in Eastern Europe; and it is probable that no scrap of such a costly material was ever discarded. It was not passed on and absorbed by foot soldiers, who seem rarely to have cared to use it. [Illustration: FIG. 1.--_Mail hauberk from Sinigaglia. Sir Noël Paton's Collection._] The Norman hauberk did not open down the front, but was drawn over the head by the attendants just before the engagement commenced. Wace relates that Duke William's mail was drawn on wrong side in front in sight of the English. The Norman Duke is the only person represented with leggings of mail in the Bayeux tapestry, and to the absence of these Harold's death and the fate of the day were directly due. His first wound was the turning-point of the battle, twenty Norman knights breaking in and securing the standard. An armed man, says Wace, struck him on the ventaille of the helmet and beat him to the ground, and as he sought to recover himself a knight beat him down again, cutting him on the thick of the thigh to the bone. Girth and Leofwine fell in this onset. The manner of a death which sealed the fate of England must have made a deep impression on the victors, and thenceforth mail chausses became an essential part of the knight's equipment. That any genuine specimens of either the sleeveless or the long-sleeved hauberks of the eleventh or twelfth or even the thirteenth century have been handed down, is improbable. Many mail suits, however, have been acquired in the belief that they were European, and of great antiquity, to the disappointment of their owners, like those adorning the Hall of the Middle Temple, which are modern Persian. One of the oldest, perhaps, is that said to have been found in making a road in Phoenix Park in 1876, and alluded to in _Armour in England_. The oft-repeated statement that it was found associated with a silver badge of the O'Neills has been ascertained by Mr. T. H. Longfield, F.S.A., to be baseless, the badge having been purloined from the ancient harp in Trinity College, Dublin, on which it is now replaced. The hauberk, now in the writer's possession, is of large size and reaches to the middle of the thighs, with short sleeves, and is exquisitely made. Mail shirts, sleeves, etc., of later date than the fourteenth century are far from uncommon, and are represented in every collection. By the kindness of Sir Noël Paton a most perfect fourteenth century specimen is illustrated. It is close fitting, and was exhibited in 1880, and described by Burgess as "one of the few coats of mail which have any decided history." In Meyrick's _Critical Enquiry_ we are told that "it had been purchased by a Jew from an ancient family at Sinigaglia, near Bologna, in whose possession it had been beyond any of their records." A note further informs us that "the Jew bought it by the ounce and paid for it forty guineas." Sir Samuel Meyrick observes that it corresponds to the coat of mail on the statue of Bernabo Visconti at Milan. It may be described as a single coat of mail with no slits and no reinforcement. It measures 2 feet 9 inches from the top of the collar, and has sleeves which are 10 inches long from the armpit. "It is wider at the bottom than at the waist, two gussets being inserted for this purpose. The rings average a good half-inch in their interior diameter; half are riveted and half are continuous, the latter have a pear-like section, the rounded parts being on the inside circumference. The riveted rings appear to have been made of circular wire, but have become rather flattened, probably by wear. The rivets are of the pyramid shape, like those of the Dublin coat of mail, but much bolder and larger. There is a row of brass rings round the neck, and the bottom of the edge and sleeves are finished by vandykes, also in brass rings, riveted with iron. This is probably the finest coat of mail that has come down to us." One of the figures guarding the Maximilian cenotaph wears a precisely similar hauberk. Italian pictures in the National Gallery show that the custom of finishing off mail defences with several rows of brass links, to form some sort of scolloped edging, was universal in Italy during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. French and English monuments and manuscripts prove that this custom extended to Western Europe, the scolloped edge commonly showing over the tassets from beneath the pourpoint. Vestiges of the camail are found on fourteenth century bassinets just as they are seen in the conical helmets from Nineveh and on the Trajan column. The standing collar or gorget superseded it. Fig. 2 reproduces a perfect specimen belonging to the Royal Artillery Institution at Woolwich, of exquisite work, with the links round the throat reinforced or doubled. Though gorgets of plate were introduced as early as 1330, many still preferred to wear the mail, so that they continued more or less in use for two centuries longer. Mail was generally worn bright. In the fourteenth century _Anturs of Arthur_ we read: His mayles were mylke quyte, enclawet full clene His stede trappet with that ilke, as true men me told. An early fourteenth century stanza, the 39th of the "Armynge of King Arthur," suggests that the surcoat over mail was to keep off rain and not sun. The colour green was almost universally used from the reign of King John. With scharfe weppun and schene Gay gownes of grene To hold theyr armour clene And werre it from the wette. For a brief period in the sixteenth century, mail was again worn without plate armour. The custom was revived in Italy when assassination was rife, and is seen in portraits of Italian noblemen in the National Gallery. [Illustration: FIG. 2.--_Standard Collar of Mail. Royal Artillery Institution._] The costume of the unfortunate Wyatt on his rebellion is described in the chronicles of Jane and Queen Mary as "a shert of mayll with sleves, very fayre and thereon a velvet cassoke and an yellowe lace with the windelesse of his dag hanging thereon, and a paire of botes and spurres on his legges; on his hedd he had a faire hat of velvet with broade bonne-work lace about it." Soon after a "shippe laden with shertes of mayll" was brought in by Strangwyshe the Rover, "who came from the French king and submitted to the Queen's mercy." The celebrated duel between Jarnac and La Chateigneraye was fought in shirts of mail. In the Scottish wars of Edward I. it was a common saying that "arrows can penetrate the hardest mail"; and more efficient armour had to be devised. Simon de Montfort, standing like a tower and wielding his sword with both hands, was pierced in the back by a foot soldier who lifted up his mail. The hero died with "Dieu merci" on his lips; not the only victim who met his death in this manner. The change in the fashion of armour was hastened by such events. The process has already been traced: it began at the knee-caps, which were covered by plates called poleyns. Three actual and perfectly unique specimens of these, belonging to Sir Noël Paton, show that they were not laid upon or over the mail, but replaced it, as represented in monumental effigies. One pair with parallel sides is finely embossed and vandyked, closely resembling those of some early fourteenth century effigies. A globose example formed of three articulated plates is still more interesting, having been richly damascened with an arabesque design worked in thin brass lines, the field being delicately and closely cross-hatched with incised lines. The really remarkable and unexpected surface decoration this discloses explains the nature, and confirms the accuracy, of certain fourteenth century representations of black armour covered with fine gold arabesques. The cross-hatching served to retain the black pigment, and gave a dark cast to the steel surface, enhancing the value of the delicate brass inlay. The process of reinforcing the mail defence was continued, as we have seen, until it was entirely cased with an outer shell of plate. A quilted coat was worn beneath the mail, if not a second one between the mail and plate armour. These multiplied defences must have made active fighting difficult and most fatiguing, and were discarded so soon as a light armour of fine steely quality, and without crevices, was procurable. III GOTHIC ARMOUR Plate armour reached the perfection of workmanship in the second half of the fifteenth century. At no period was it so light, yet impervious, with curves and angles so admirably directed to deflect the impact of sword or lance, and articulations so skilfully devised to mitigate the restraint on freedom of movement necessarily imposed by a sheathing of steel. Never was armour so closely fitted to the contour of the body, and thus so elegant, so easily and therefore so constantly worn. This, the so-called "Gothic Armour," is the cynosure of collectors, and is so rarely to be obtained that a fairly perfect cap-à-pie suit may command some £2000. This Gothic armour is the armour of the Van Eycks and Memling, of Perugino and Leonardo, and of the earlier works of Albert Dürer. The sumptuously illuminated French and English manuscripts of the fifteenth century depict it in use in every vicissitude of war or combat, by sea and land, on horse and foot, and testify how little it impeded the freedom of action of the wearer. They show that it was rarely concealed in campaigning by any textile garment, and also that when worn by prince or noble, it might be gilded, entirely or partially, even almost fantastically. Thus the upper half may be gilt, and the nether limbs left burnished steel; or these gilt and the body steel; but more often the alternate plates of the articulated breast and back defences, the arms, or the elbow and knee pieces, are gilt, while the rest presents the normal sheeny surface of steel. The general characteristics of Gothic armour have been described in _Armour in England_, illustrated in Fig. 19, by the fine and accurately modelled suit of the Beauchamp effigy at Warwick. Though many fine suits have been brought to this country from abroad, none are in any way connected with English wearers, and none could therefore be illustrated in the former monograph. It seems incredible that nothing should have been preserved either of the weapons or armour with which the long struggle for supremacy in France was maintained during the minority and rule of a king, too studious and placable for days when his turbulent subjects cared only for war. Of the armour and weapons of the thousands of men-at-arms who fell victims to the Wars of the Roses, the direct outcome of the disappointing issue of the French Wars, and so annihilating to English art, perhaps but a helmet and a few weapons remain. The extermination of the old nobility; the completeness of the change in habit and thought introduced into this country by the Renaissance, affecting alike art, literature, and costume; the change in religion, the revolution in the science of warfare, and the absolute centralisation of the ambitious and luxurious nobility in the court or camp of Henry VIII., together with that vainglorious and wealthy despot's passion for extravagant dress, novelty and pomp, combined to break most effectually with the past and to render all Gothic armour mere obsolete lumber. Contemporary pictures of Henry VIII.'s proceedings, especially of his meeting with Maximilian, in which the English retinue is equipped in the new closed armet while Germans wear the old visored sallad, as well as the accounts of his forces and his purchases of arms, convince us that out-of-date armour and weapons, even if still serviceable, were no longer, as heretofore, passed on to the lower ranks of retainers. Hall relates of the muster of the city bands in the thirty-first year of Henry VIII. that "all were put aside who had Jackes, coates of plate, coates of mail, and bryganders, and appointed none but such as had whyte harness, except such as should bear the morish pykes, which had no harness but skulles." The destruction of obsolete armour in this reign must have been very complete, for no suits of the Gothic armour worn down to this date by the fathers and grandfathers of the courtiers of Henry have been preserved. [Illustration: PLATE III.--Half Suit, engraved and parcel-gilt. Collection of the Duke of Westminster.] France and the Low Countries have been swept nearly as bare, anything that might have been spared by former ages having been finally destroyed when the houses of the nobility were gutted during the Revolution. In more conservative Italy and Spain a few Gothic suits have escaped destruction, and though the Art Renaissance of the one, and wealth and pride of the other, were inimical to the preservation of obsolete arms, yet probably some few specimens have passed from the hands of private possessors into those of wealthy amateurs of France and England. Germany, however, has ever been the inexhaustible treasure-house whence Gothic arms and armour have leaked from the hands of private possessors into those of collectors. In Germany even the trading towns had clung to their ancient buildings, walls, and traditions, and in many of the old Town Halls the furniture, arms, and weapons of the civic guards, and the old implements of punishment and torture, are still preserved. The innumerable feudal castles of the lesser nobility have to a yet greater extent preserved the belongings of their ancient occupants, who clung to their titles, heraldry, arms, and weapons as symbols of vanishing rights and power, and of ancient pretensions and privileges, so out of harmony with the world beyond. The ubiquitous and assiduous dealer has long found in them a happy hunting-ground for arms and weapons, whence to obtain the bulk of those he disposed of. In addition, some important stores of Gothic armour have been disgorged from the Levant, trophies of the incessant wars maintained by the Turks against Christendom. A large quantity existed at Constantinople, and the story goes that a ship, some fifty years ago, was actually freighted to Genoa with old armour as ballast. The indefatigable dealer Pratt of New Bond Street became possessed of some of this armour, which he made up into suits in the best way he could, restoring but too liberally the parts that were missing. The suit illustrated, Fig. 3, is in Lord Zouche's collection at Parham, where it is catalogued as from the Church of Irene at Constantinople: it no doubt formed part of this consignment. The head-piece, an Italian sallad, is of later date, while the remainder, though so beautiful in form, does not appear to be either entirely homogeneous or complete. Other suits in Lord Zouche's extensive collection are from the same source. Another much smaller series of Gothic armour was brought to England from the Isle of Rhodes and most fortunately did not pass through the hands of any dealer, and is thus in an absolutely trustworthy condition, the very rust not having been removed. It consists of a number of pieces, approximately of one date, many of particular elegance and interest, both on account of the armourer's marks, and the examples of engraving they present. [Illustration: FIG. 3.--_Gothic Armour, said to be from the Church of Irene at Constantinople. At Parham._] By the kindness of Sir Noel Paton two of his four fine Gothic cap-à-pie suits are illustrated. The first, Figs. 4 and 5, is German work of the second half of the fourteenth century. [Illustration: FIGS. 4 AND 5.--_Gothic Armour. Said to be from an old mansion in the Tyrol. Front and Back views. Sir Noël Paton's Collection._] Sir Noël observes that "the upper part of the suit especially is remarkable for its perfect condition, the original straps being intact, and the inner and outer surface of the metal having been scarcely touched by rust." The graceful and doubly articulated and engrailed breast and back-plates are beautifully designed, and finished in the manner of the great master armourer Lorenz Colman of Augsburg. The curiously plain collar is attached to the pectoral by a bolt and staple, and there is a fixed lance-rest, these appliances adapting the suit for tilting rather than war. There are no tuilles, one of the most persistent features of Gothic suits, and no pauldrons or shoulder-guards. The brassards, coudières, genouillières, formed of an unusual number of plates, and especially the gauntlets, are of great beauty, and resemble those of Lorenz Colman's suits. These and the _solerets à la poulaine retroussé_, to quote Sir Noël's description, "are exceptionally beautiful and artistic in design. Of the sollerets, however, unfortunately only the left, with its fine, long-necked spur silvered and thickly patinated, is genuine." "The head-piece is a strong bassinet of the type styled barbute by Viollet le Duc, and possibly of somewhat earlier date, and bears on either side the armourer's mark." The fine preservation of the metal "is due no doubt to the fact that the suit had remained for many generations in one place--an old mansion in the northern Tyrol, whence so late as 1872 or 1873 it was obtained by a well-known Parisian dealer, from whom it passed to Pratt of New Bond Street; after whose death it came into my hands." The second of Sir Noël's suits (Fig. 6), of about the same date, resembles more the armour of Italian pictures and actual Italian suits. The articulated and channelled breast-plate is remarkably bold and graceful in its lines, as are the entire brassards, more especially the coudières. "The spiked rondelles and the gauntlets have much picturesque character, and the tuilles are exceptionally fine in form. The sollerets are of the kind called _arc tiers point_. The head-piece is a close helmet of good design and apparently contemporary." In general effect the armour is light but dignified: though the breast-plate bears a Gothic R, no history attaches to it. The great interest and beauty of the Parham suit, Fig. 3, lies in the particularly elegant and finely laminated and engrailed breast and back-plates. Like Sir Noël's German suit, it has no tuilles and retains the staple for fastening the collar and the lance-rest. The sollerets and perhaps some other pieces are restorations. It is without armourer's marks, but resembles Nuremberg work in general form and detail. [Illustration: FIG. 6.--_Gothic Armour. Probably Italian. Sir Noël Paton's Collection._] Two magnificent Nuremberg Gothic cap-à-pie suits are in the Wallace Collection, at present inaccessible. One is on foot, partly fluted, consisting of sallad with movable visor, mentonnière, jointed breast and back-plate, and quite complete body armour with pointed-toed sollerettes, and skirt of riveted mail. The other, for man and horse, is equally complete and ornamented with brass bands, the sallad with visor and mentonnière being of fine form and contemporary. [Illustration: PLATE IV.--Gold damascening on russet ground. Late Italian suit. Tower of London.] [Illustration: FIG. 7.--_St. Michael. By Perugino. National Gallery._] For suits of Gothic armour which have belonged to known wearers, and have been handed down with unbroken pedigree, we must go to the great collections of Europe, and especially to those which, like the Viennese, were commenced while armour was still worn. Of sculptured representations of Gothic armour none surpass the Beauchamp effigy at Warwick. A no less accurate figure is that by Peter Vischer, also in gilt bronze, of Count Otto IV. of Henneburg, 1490, from the Church of Romhild in Thuringia. There is a cast of this in the South Kensington Museum, as well as one of the gilt bronze effigy of Count Weinsberg at Munich, in armour which is remarkable in several respects. Italian Gothic armour of different periods can best be studied in the National Gallery. A suit (Fig. 7) of about the close of the century is from one of the compartments of the famous altar-piece by Perugino, removed from the Certosa at Pavia in 1786, and painted according to Vasari about 1490. It represents St. Michael in full armour, except the head. The underlying mail shows, as usual in Italian pictures, at the elbows, the skirt, and below the knees, and has a deep edging of brass rings. The breast-plate, though in two, is arranged so that the body could not easily be bent. The shoulder-guards are less exaggerated than in contemporary French and English armour, but the elbow-guards seem large, angular, and loosely fitting. The sollerets are well made, unpointed, and leave the red stocking exposed at the toe and heel. The sword, on the left hip, is in a velvet scabbard with a beautifully and simply worked steel hilt and cross quillons slightly curved towards the blade. The shield is fine in form and typically Italian, bearing a Medusa's head and other classic ornaments, boldly embossed. The hands are bare, the right holding a slender staff or wand. In the figure of St. William by Ercole di Giulio Cesare Grandi of Ferrara, the head is bare and there are no plate defences to the neck, shoulders, or forearms. The top of the mail shirt shows as a narrow band round the throat, and covers the shoulders with short and very wide-open sleeves, its lower edge appearing between the tuilles over a second skirt of mail. Mail appears again below the knees and forms the covering of the feet, all edges being finished with rings of brass as usual. The breast-plate is large, plain, and of one piece; there are but three taces, with bold, finely formed, and ridged tuilles. The brassards, including the large butterfly-shaped coudière, appear from beneath the widely open sleeves of mail. The leg armour is also plain, but with the wings of the genouillières exceptionally large. The sword, unsheathed, is a magnificent weapon with gilt or brass pommel and grip and horizontally curved quillons. The striking figure of St. George by Pisano, in the broad-brimmed Tuscan hat, is of earlier date, as the artist died in 1451 or 1452. The mail shows beneath a thick quilted surcoat over which the great ill-fitting shoulder and other body defences are fixed. The limbs are almost completely sheathed in plate over the mail, but the pieces fit so loosely that the whole has a shambling appearance and seems ready to fall off. The sollerets are square-toed with long rowelled spurs. The armour represented in Boccacino's Procession to Calvary is almost identical, save that the mail sleeves are less baggy and shoulder pieces are worn. The St. William in Garofalo's Madonna and Child from Ferrara, though probably painted in the 16th century, preserves the exaggerated butterfly wings to the coudières and genouillières, and the Gothic tuilles, but has fluted sollerets and shows no mail. The St. Demetrius of L'Ortolano, who painted in the first quarter of the sixteenth century, shows fluted shoulder pieces and coudières, and half sollerets, leaving the front of the foot to a defence of mail. [Illustration: FIG. 8.--_The Battle of Sant' Egidio. By Uccello. National Gallery._] The most interesting picture in the National Gallery (Fig. 8) to the student of armour, however, is that representing the battle of Sant' Egidio by Uccello, fought in 1416, when Carlo Malatesta, Lord of Rimini, and his nephew Galeazzo, were taken prisoners by Braccio di Montone. Uccello was born in 1397 and died in 1475, but there is no evidence as to the year in which the picture was painted. It appears to represent an attempt to rescue the Lord of Rimini, by a knight clothed cap-à-pie in very advanced plate armour and wielding a horseman's hammer. The breast and back plates are articulated; tuilles, where worn, are very short; the large pauldrons are of very varied construction, and either roundels or coudières with butterfly expansions are worn indifferently; in all cases the figures are completely cased in plate armour, though some wear mail gorgets, except that Malatesta has been partly disarmed and is protected by mail alone. De Commines observes that it was the law of arms in Italy to strip those taken to their shirts and dismiss them. The chief interest lies in the head-pieces, which, except in the cases of the prisoners and some trumpeters, are closed armets with baviers and visors hinged at the side, of varied form, the occularia being in all cases notched out at the upper margin of the visor and forming either round or half-round holes or slits. These armets are provided with most fantastic crests and plumes, the crown of the helmet being in several cases covered with velvet, overlaid with goldsmith's work and merging into the crest. All have the roundels at the back of the neck. [Illustration: FIG. 9.--_Carved Relief for the Visconti Tomb in the Certosa at Pavia. South Kensington Museum._] Another notable representation of an Italian battle (Fig. 9), in which the mounted combatants are clothed in complete typical Gothic armour, is to be seen in the cast from the Visconti Tomb of the Certosa, Pavia, in the South Kensington Museum. The armour is of the most beautiful type, and the figures are singularly supple and full of action. The armet is more fully developed and almost uniform in type. The visor works on pivots, the occularium is a slit above it, and the bavier is a separate piece fastened by straps at the back. The event represented is the battle before Brescia in 1402. As a full-sized representation of the latest Italian Gothic armour nothing can perhaps be finer than the fifteenth century effigy of Guidarello Guidarelli surnamed Braccioforte from Ravenna, of which there is also a cast in the South Kensington Museum. The tuilles are flexible and pointed, formed of narrow horizontal plates; the shoulder-plates are bossed into lions' heads; and the armet has a double visor without bavier. The statue of St. George, made by Donatello for the Florentine corporation of armourers in 1416, is almost Roman in costume and of little interest. The account of the almost contemporary battle of Fornovo, 1495, by Philip de Commines bears testimony to the excellence of this Italian armour, especially of the close armets. The flower of the allied forces of Italy consisted of 2500 men-at-arms under the Marquis of Mantua, Count di Cajazzo, and Signor John Bentivoglio of Bologna, with other nobles, all well barded, with fine plumes of feathers and bourdonasses, or hollow lances, brightly painted, and used in tournaments. Great bodies of men-at-arms were in reserve. The French van contained 350 men-at-arms, 200 mounted crossbow-men of the king's guard--who fought on foot, however--300 archers and 3000 Swiss foot, several of the highest nobility dismounting to fight amongst them. In the main body were the king's guards, pensioners, 100 Scottish archers, about 900 men-at-arms, and 2500 Swiss, the whole army not exceeding 9000 men. The Italian men-at-arms delivered a charge, with lances couched, at a gentle gallop; the Estradiots, who should have supported them with their scimitars, retired to plunder the sumpter-horses; whereupon the men-at-arms who had charged and broken their lances fled, and their infantry gave ground. Those who had not charged also threw away their lances and fled, sword in hand, and were pursued and cut up. With the French were "a great number of grooms and servants, who flocked about the Italian men-at-arms, when they were dismounted, and knocked most of them on the head. The greatest part of them had their hatchets (which they cut their wood with) in their hands, and with them they broke up their head-pieces, and then knocked out their brains, otherwise they could not easily have killed them, they were so very well armed; and to be sure there were three or four of our men to attack one man-at-arms. The long swords also which our archers and servants wore did very good execution." The losses on the French side were but three gentlemen, nine Scottish archers, twenty horse of the vanguard, and some servants. The Italians lost 3500 men on the field, of whom 350 were men-at-arms, including six or eight of the Marquis of Mantua's relatives and other persons of quality. The lances "lay very thick upon the field, and especially the bourdonasses; but they were good for nothing, for they were hollow and light, and weighed no more than a javelin, yet they were finely painted." Battles in England were much more serious affairs and were stubbornly contested. Those of the Wars of the Roses opened with a cannonade, after which the archers engaged and the billmen followed, nobles fighting on foot in their ranks to encourage them. Lord Richard Herbert "twice by fine force passed through the battaill of his adversaries," at Banbury, "polle axe in hand": at the battle of Towcester many were taken because they left their horses and decided to fight on foot. The Earl of Warwick dismounted at Barnet to "try the extremity of hand strokes"; but penetrating too far among the enemy to encourage his men, and not being properly supported, he was slain. At Bosworth the archers formed the forward on both sides. Richard's archers "with a sodein clamour lette arrowes flee at theim. On the other syde they paied theim home manfully again with the same. But when they came nere together, they laied on valeauntly with swordes." The Earl of Oxford, however, kept his men in close order, and the enemy gave way, wholesale desertion sealing the fate of the battle. Henry was not engaged, but kept afar off "with a fewe companye of armed menne." Richard on horseback made a desperate attempt to get at him, but was unsupported and slain. The English costume is described in the Plumpton Correspondence, when the Archbishop of York, having dues to collect in 1441, quartered 200 men-at-arms in Ripon and held it "like a towne of warre." These borderers wore "breast-plate, vambrace, rerebrace, greves and guischers, gorgett and salett, long spears and lancegayes." English levies were not always so well armed. The 5000 men who came down from the north in the reign of Richard III. were "evell apparelled and worsse harneysed in rustic harneys." Under Henry VII. the Duke of Bedford took out "3000 mene which were harneysed but barely, for theyr breste plates were for the most parte lether." The array taken to Calais by Edward IV. in 1475 is in striking contrast to this. Hall relates that "the men were so well armed and so surely in all things appoynted and provided that the Frenche naciõ were not onely amased to behold them, but much more praysed them and there order. In this army were 1500 men of armes well horsed, of the which the moste parte were barded and rychely trapped, after the most galiard fashion, havyng many horses decked in one suyte. There were farther 15,000 archers beryng bowes and arrowes, of the which a greate parte were on horsebacke. There were also a great number of fighting men and others, as well to set up Tentes and Pavillions, as to serve their Artilarie." De Commines adds that the men-at-arms, comprising the flower of the English nobility, were richly accoutred after the French fashion, well mounted, most of them barded, and each one with several persons in his retinue. This Gothic armour, the lightest and most graceful ever produced, was ideal so long as it was customary for men-at-arms to fight indifferently on foot or mounted. The mixed tourney was still in vogue, fought the first day with sharp spears, the second day with swords, the third on foot with poll-axes. The Lord Scales and the Bastard of Burgundy, and the Duke of Albany and Duke of Orleans fought such tourneys, the latter having the misfortune to kill his antagonist by a spear-thrust. It was, in battle too, most honourable to fight on foot among the archers, and there was always a large number of gentlemen volunteering among them to "encourage the infantry" and make them fight the better. "The Burgundians had learnt this custom from the English when Duke Philip made war upon France during his youth for two-and-thirty years together without any truce." De Commines adds that at Montlhéry the order was given to the Burgundians that every man should alight without any exception. Knights equipped by the most renowned of the armourers of Italy and Germany were almost invulnerable until overthrown; but English and Burgundian armour was not an equal protection, as the rash Duke of Burgundy, who seems to have had all his armour home-made at Dijon or Hesdin, discovered to his cost on the field of Nancy, when his skull was cloven by a halberd, and two pike-thrusts penetrated the lower part of his body. [Illustration: PLATE V.--Breastplate, embossed and parcel-gilt. French. Collection of Mr. David Currie.] This fashion of armour appears to have been devised in the ateliers of the Missaglias of Milan. A work by Wendelin Böheim, custodian of the Imperial collections of armour in Vienna, published last year in Berlin (_Meister der Waffenschmiedekunst vom xiv bis im xviii Jahrhundert_), gives a short biographical sketch of this renowned family of armourers, who migrated to Milan towards the middle of the fourteenth century, from Ello, a village not distant from Asti and Lake Lecco. Petrajolo da Missaglia, the founder of the family, settled in Milan as an armourer towards the middle of the fourteenth century, and built the house in the Via degli Spadari where his sculptured poinçon or armourer's mark is still to be seen. The work of his son Tomaso da Missaglia greatly augmented the already world-wide reputation of the armour of Milan, and deserved in 1435 the recognition of Filipo Maria Visconti, who freed him in 1450 from taxes until his death somewhere about 1469. The armour by him is plain, the best known being that at Vienna of the Palsgrave Frederick the Victorious about 1450, with closed helm, roundels, unfingered gauntlets, and pointed sollerets over 13 inches in length. The suit is less graceful than German Gothic armour. The equally renowned son of Tomaso, Antonio, was born about 1430, assisting in his father's extensive business at the age of twenty. Large commissions were received, such as that in 1466, of the value of 20,000 lire, for 100 harness for the ducal mercenaries, and others from Duke Francesco, the Pope, Don Alfonso of Arragon, afterwards King of Naples, etc. On his father's death in 1469, their great patron the Duke presented him with an estate and mill, and in 1470 he added the iron mines near Canzo to his patrimony. Soon after, in 1492, a Venetian envoy sent home an account of Missaglia's works, finding finished harness to the value of many thousand ducats. His death took place near the end of the century; the exact date being unknown, like the name of his immediate successor. There are mentions of several Missaglias about whom little is known, one working in 1466 for Louis XI. Antonio was the last to bear the name of Missaglia, succeeding members of the family assuming that of Negroli, a name first met with about 1515, when a Giovanni Negroli appears as master of the works. The tomb in St. Satyro, Milan, preserves the inscription _Negroli da Ello qualunque detto Missaglia_. Few examples of Antonio's work are known. One of these, a plain suit made for the Neapolitan Count Cajazzo about 1480, is in the Vienna Imperial collections. The breast and back plates are not articulated, the pauldrons and tuilles are large and massive, coudières elegant, only the right gauntlet fingered, the leg-pieces with few articulations, and the suit, as so often seen in illustrations, is minus the sollerets. The head-piece is a sallad singularly painted in oils with the Count's armorial bearings, reminding us of the beautifully painted armour of Pisano's St. George published by the Arundel Society, which must have been executed prior to 1450. A jousting suit by him of much later date is engraved and partly gilded, apparently made in 1498 for an envoy of Ludovico Moro to the Emperor Maximilian. Italian Gothic armour is very much rarer than German. Thoroughness is a German characteristic, and once embarked on a given course the German pursues it until, as is so apparent in their general iron-work, the result becomes exaggeration verging on the grotesque. The Missaglias introduced a certain grace of line into Milanese armour, and the German armourers pursued this vein, making the figures erect and slender and imbuing the waist and bust with womanly elegance. The Italians probably kept to much the same lines, for most representations of armour towards the third quarter of the fifteenth century display the same graceful characteristics, brought to a pitch, however, but little consonant with the stern realities of war, and brusquely set aside before the close of this century. One of the most formidable of Missaglia's competitors north of the Alps was Hans Grünewalt, born about 1440 and died 1503, regarded by Böheim as one of the foremost armourers of his day. The founder of the bells of St. Sebaldus in 1396, Heinrich Grünewalt, appears to have been the grandfather of a family which became considerable in Nuremberg, building the still standing Pilatus House, properly the "Zum geharnischten Mann." Hans was employed by Maximilian when King of the Romans, and no armourer in Germany was more sought after. While he flourished Nuremberg was the most renowned of any city of Germany for the production of armour, but on his death Augsburg was allowed to entirely supplant it. The Colman family migrated from Bâle to Augsburg about 1377, to again quote from Böheim. Georg, the father of Lorenz, was well established as an armourer when he was joined in 1467 by his famous son. In 1477 they were honoured with a commission from Maximilian, then King of the Romans, for a complete harness for horse and man, which was executed to his entire satisfaction. Georg died two years later. In 1490 Lorenz was appointed Court Armourer, and he had prospered so far as to be able to afford pecuniary assistance to the ever-needy Maximilian. Towards 1506 he worked for the Court of Mantua, receiving through the house of Fugger a payment of no less than 4000 florins for a harness which gave such satisfaction that a further sum was sent him as a present. In 1507 Maximilian again employed him, and in 1508 begged him to repair personally to Court, when probably the important change in the fashion of armour, resulting in the Maximilian fluted armour, was devised personally between Lorenz and himself. The first edition of Hans Burgkmair's woodcut engraving of the Emperor in a full suit of this armour for horse and man appeared in this same year. Lorenz died in 1516. The only authentic suits by him known to Böheim are in the Imperial collections of Vienna. One is the magnificent Gothic suit made in 1493 for Maximilian, a far more complete and defensive suit than those we have figured, but with similar fleur-de-lis pattern engrailing to the margins of the plates, while some of the upper edges on the limb pieces are rolled over and finished with a cable border. The suit is graceful and of exquisite workmanship, slightly fluted in the arms, with fingered gauntlets and moderately long and pointed sollerets. Three other tilting suits bear the Colman mark, the close-helmet surmounted by a cross, with the Augsburg badge and guild mark. [Illustration: FIG. 10.--_German late Gothic Suit. Collection of Mr. Morgan Williams._] The Germans, however, as a race were not all lithe and supple men, and the burly high-living barons could not follow, and hence must have detested the elegancies of Gothic armour. They soon affected an opposite extreme, the clumsy sturdiness seen in so many of the portrait statues of the contemporaries of Maximilian round his cenotaph in Innsbrück. Fig. 10 represents a complete and characteristic suit of this kind belonging to Mr. Morgan Williams. It greatly resembles one figured by Böheim, made for Count Andreas von Sonnenberg about 1508, by Koloman Colman, and now in Vienna. Our suit, preserved in a Rhenish Castle, bears evidence, however, of being considerably earlier, and is regarded by its owner as of about 1495. It is perfectly plain except for some slight fluting on the mittened gauntlets, made to look as if fingered, and on the square-toed sollerets. The tuilles are still an important feature, but wide and plain. Some German suits of this date look affectedly ungainly; such as a mounted suit attributed to Duke John of Saxony, which is slightly fluted and bears the great tilting helm. [Illustration: FIG. 11.--_Suit of Maximilian Fluted Armour. Belonging to Mr. Percy Macquoid._] The Maximilian fluted armour is a development of this, belonging, however, rather to Renaissance than Gothic times. With its introduction the elegance so distinctive of late Gothic armour passed definitely out of fashion and gave place to armour in which the opposite characteristics were sought. The flutings which invest the Maximilian suits with so much character must have been suggested more or less by the shell-like ridgings and flutes of Gothic armour. The leading idea was the substitution of a stiff unyielding defence for one that was supple and pliable. The articulations of the breast and back plates--except in rare instances, such as the magnificent Nuremberg suit formerly worn by Lord Stafford, in which the breast-plate was formed of two pieces and decorated with graceful open-work tracery--were wholly abolished, and replaced by a stout and rigid pectoral more adapted to receive the shock of the lance in the tilt-yard. The form of tourney had changed, and was now chiefly tilting with a light and hollow lance, calculated to shiver at the impact, as may be seen in specimens still preserved in the Tower. The pliable Gothic suits adapted for mixed tourneys and for actual warfare were out of place in the tilt as now practised; and the heavy man-at-arms in full cap-à-pie armour had ceased to play the preponderating part in war and was shortly destined to disappear from the field. No longer was his function, as hitherto, to engage in the melée, and bear the brunt of the battle: this was sustained by the pike, arquebus, light-armed cavalry and artillery; the heavy-armed cavalry being reserved for charges in which the weight of man and horse sheathed in steel might ride down the opposing force. [Illustration: PLATE VI.--Casque of an Officer of the Guard of Cosmo de' Medici. Collection of Mr. David Currie.] [Illustration: FIG. 12.--_Maximilian Armour from Eaton Hall. In the possession of the Duke of Westminster, K.G._] All the cap-à-pie suits of fluted Maximilian armour resemble each other in their more salient characteristics. They are extremely defensive and well made, with every piece more or less fluted, except the greaves, which are usually perfectly plain. Many of the pieces have turned-over edges worked into cable patterns. The pauldrons and coudières are well developed, the gauntlets mittened, sollerets with very broad and square toes, breast-plate generally globose, but sometimes brought to a blunt point, often with a roundel guarding the left arm-pit. The armet has usually a low central cabled comb with parallel flutes on either side, occasionally there are three or five combs. The visor is usually thrown into three or four horizontal peaks or ridges, often with the underhung look believed to have been introduced in compliment to the House of Hapsburgh. An almost equally common form is the puffed visor, but the form of the head-piece is generally more varied than that of the rest of the suit. The fine Nuremberg suit, Fig. 11, owned by Mr. Percy Macquoid, shows the bellows visor and the rope crest, and in it all the leading characteristics of Maximilian armour are well displayed, especially the duck-bill sollerets, the flutings of which boldly finish in ram's horns. The suit formerly belonged to the King of Prussia, and seems to be perfect, except the collar, an apparent restoration. [Illustration: FIG. 13.--_Engraved Maximilian Breast-plate. Burges Collection in the British Museum._] [Illustration: FIG. 14.--_Portrait. By Piero di Cosimo. National Gallery._] Maximilian armour is greatly favoured by collectors. There are cap-à-pie and barded suits in the Tower and the Wallace collections, at Warwick, and in the collections of Mr. Panmure Gordon and Sir Wheatman Pearson. The horse armour, which nearly entirely sheathes the head, neck, and fore- and hind-quarters, is fluted, gracefully curved, and except the crinière, worked in large pieces, the lower margins curving well away from the flanks. Three-quarter and half suits are well represented in the Tower and the Wallace collections, the one figured, Fig. 12, being a finely typical example brought from Strawberry Hill, and now the property of the Duke of Westminster. This armour seems to have been at times partly gilded, and instances exist where small badges are repeated to form bands of raised work between the flutes. It is sometimes engraved with borders of floral design, either edging the different pieces, or more boldly treated as in Fig. 13 from the Burges Collection in the British Museum. Though mainly worn in Germany, fluted armour became everywhere the fashion, the portrait by Piero di Cosimo, Fig. 14, in the National Gallery affording an admirable representation of a breast-plate with delicate flutes on the lower half. An actual specimen resembling this, but engraved, is in the collection from Rhodes at Woolwich. The corselets furnished to the Swiss pike-men by the Milanese appear also to have been of this pattern. Besides the bellows visor, and one puffed out to give breathing space and fluted, the visor was at times embossed into the form of a grotesque face with mustachios. Sometimes the helmets in which this occurs had a pair of fan-like appendages in pierced and fluted steel, forming a dignified and wing-like crest. The remarkable example in the Tower, Fig. 15, once silvered, and presented by Maximilian himself to Henry VIII., has a pair of ram's horns instead of wings. It has since been painted and rendered more absurd by spectacles, and assigned without any reason to the King's jester, Will Somers. [Illustration: FIG. 15.--_Helmet. Presented by Maximilian to Henry VIII. Tower of London._] These grotesque helmets were sometimes worn with armour puffed and slashed to imitate civilian dress. A few pieces of this kind are in the Tower, but the Wallace Collection possesses a three-quarter suit, slashed, puffed, engraved, and gilt, the armet having the bellows visor and five-roped comb. The extreme of exaggeration to which German armourers were carried is seen in the suit in the Ambras Collection, figured by Hefner and by Hewett, in which the cloth bases as well as the puffed sleeves of the civilian are carefully imitated in steel. The visor is singularly grotesque, and the whole presents a ludicrous and ungainly appearance, as well as being quite unserviceable. [Illustration: FIG. 16.--_Cap-à-pie Suit of Henry VIII., on a Horse barded with Embossed Burgundian Armour of the time of Henry VII. Tower of London._] The cap-à-pie suit of Henry VIII., Fig. 16, belongs to this group, and though not fluted, is made like the Maximilian armour, the high erect shoulder-piece and large coudières giving it a striking character. The armet is of fine form, with the visor thrown into the series of peaks and ridges common to fluted armour, and known to collectors as the bellows shape. The bridle-hand wears the mainfere (main-de-fer), while the right hand grasping the spear is gauntleted. The horse armour, though so boldly embossed, is of earlier date, not later than Henry VII. The foliated scrolls surround the _cross ragulé_ and steel brickets and fire-stones, so that it probably presents a rare specimen of the Burgundian armourer's craft. [Illustration: FIG. 17.--_Tilting Helm. Time of Henry VII. Westminster Abbey._] The head-piece for tilting used in Germany and England during the reign of Henry VII. and first years of Henry VIII., and known a century earlier, is represented, Fig. 17, by the remarkably perfect specimen found in the triforium of Westminster Abbey in 1869. It weighs 17½ lbs., the few others known in England weighing, with one exception, considerably over 20 lbs. When fixed, the helm itself was immovable, but as there were quite three inches of space round the head, movement inside was possible. The occularium is placed so that the head must be lowered to see out, the combatants sighting each other like bulls before making their rush, and throwing up the head to escape splinters of the lance. The abandonment of this heavy helm for a much lighter form may have been due to Henry VIII. himself. Hall narrates that tilting on one occasion in 1524, with his great friend and brother-in-law Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, he had on a helmet of a new fashion, devised by himself, the like of which had not before been seen. It had a visor, which was up and unfastened, leaving the king's face exposed, when by some mischance the word was given to Brandon to start. No doubt in the old helm, and remarking that he could not see, he couched his lance, striking the king on the brow of the skull-piece or main portion of his helmet. Appalled at the narrow escape, he vowed he would never tilt with his sovereign more. One of the lighter forms of tilting helmet, Fig. 18, from Penshurst, shows the small trap-door for speaking or breathing, but now riveted down. A second helmet, Fig. 19, of rather later date, is surmounted by the porcupine crest in wood, removed in the illustration, and is interesting as having belonged to the grandfather of Sir Philip Sidney. Both these helmets perhaps hung in Penshurst Church. [Illustration: FIG. 18.--_Tilting Helmet. Early sixteenth century. At Penshurst._] [Illustration: FIG. 19.--_Tilting Helmet of an Ancestor of Sir Philip Sidney. Penshurst._] The sallad, the head-piece _par excellence_ of Gothic armour, continued in use, especially in Germany, until far into the sixteenth century. In its simplest form it was the archer's head-piece: but provided with slits for vision, pulled over the brow in time of danger to meet the chin defence or bavier, it became almost a closed helmet; and with the further addition of a visor and other reinforcing pieces, it was used for battle or tilting by the mounted knight. It was never a very safe head-piece, De Commines relating how the Count of Charolois received a sword-wound on the neck at Montlhéry, 1465, for want of his bavier, "which, being slightly fastened in the morning, dropped from his head in the battle--I myself saw it fall." The Venetian form survived during the seventeenth century, though for pageantry rather than use, being covered with red velvet richly ornamented with beaten iron foliage and scrolls, gilded and sometimes surmounted by a swan-like crest. The richness of decoration of the sallad has been alluded to in the former monograph. The battle picture by Paolo Uccello, Fig. 8, shows one covered with red velvet and studded with nails. Elizabeth with her own hands garnished the sallad of Henry VII. with jewels, and in 1513 Erasmus Kirkener received £462:4:2 for "garnishing a salet" and a head-piece, "and mending a shapewe." Pope Pius V. sent Alva a sallad and sword for his brave fights for the Church. Wooden shields covered with painted canvas, embossed leather, or gesso, continued in use in Germany down to about the end of the reign of Maximilian. The magnificent specimen, Plate I., is now in the British Museum. Of late fifteenth century date, it is of wood lined with leather, faced with canvas, over which a layer of gesso has been laid to receive the gilding. Upon the gold ground the design has been painted, a knight in Gothic armour, with armet and poll-axe on the ground before him, kneeling to a lady, with the appropriate legend _Vous ou la mort_. The surfaces are finely curved. In the Tower inventory, quoted by Lord Dillon, among the jewels is a target of the Passion with Our Lady and St. George. The splendid decoration of the sword-hilts used with Gothic armour has already been noticed. By the kindness of Sir Noël Paton an exquisite specimen in the finest preservation is illustrated in Fig. 20. The pommel and cross-hilt are plated with silver gilt, and the former bears a shield with the arms of Battle Abbey and the initials T. L. of Abbot Thomas de Lodelowe, 1417-1434. It came into the possession of Sir John Gage, K.G., on the suppression of the monasteries, his descendant presenting it to the Meyrick Collection. Few existing swords, except those used as municipal insignia, are in equal preservation, but richly worked hilts are represented in brasses and monuments. Swords abounded in churches, but few are left besides the royal swords at Westminster, Canterbury, and Windsor. Part of the glamour surrounding Joan of Arc was due to the consecrated sword taken by her from St. Catherine's Church at Tours. The sword of Guy, Earl of Warwick, was specially mentioned in a will of the time of Henry IV., and its custody confirmed to the family after the accession of Henry VIII. It is curious to note that in 1319 the wearing of swords in London was forbidden, and those confiscated were hung up beneath Ludgate, within and without. [Illustration: FIG. 20.--_The Sword of Battle Abbey. Fifteenth century. Collection of Sir Noël Paton._] [Illustration: FIG. 21.--_Sword of 14th century, with Guard for Forefinger. Windsor Castle._] The interesting sword, Fig. 21, from Her Majesty's collection at Windsor, dates from about the end of the fourteenth or early in the fifteenth century. Its peculiarity is the semicircular guard for the forefinger growing out of one of the quillons, the first step, as Baron de Cosson remarks, "towards the evolution of the beautiful and complicated rapier of the sixteenth century." "The pommel and guard are of iron fully gilt, the grip of wood." The blade is gilt and engraved for a few inches where it shows dark in the illustration, and is inscribed with the name of the Cid Marchio Rodericus Bivar and a shield of arms, these having been added, in the Baron's opinion, in the sixteenth or seventeenth century. Only four swords with the little semicircular guard or "half pas d'ane" were known when he described them, being introduced owing to the Italian custom of bending the forefinger round the quillon when slashing. IV ENRICHED ARMOUR Armour was enriched in almost all ages, sometimes ostentatiously so, and at other times left affectedly plain. It was, however, only when wearing it in battle ceased to be a paramount necessity, that armour definitely became little more than a mere vehicle for lavish display. Lightly armed and easily manoeuvred troops and artillery were steadily becoming increasingly important factors in deciding the fortunes of battle, and at last men could with difficulty be brought to undergo the fatigue of carrying weighty armour which they regarded as no efficient protection. Sir James Smith's complaint in 1530 puts the matter clearly: "But that which is more strange, these our new fantasied men of warre doo despise and scorne our auncient arming of ourselves, both on horseback and on foot, saying that wee armed ourselves in times past with too much armour, or peeces of yron (as they terme it). And therefore their footmen piqueurs they do allow for very well armed when they weare their burgonets, their collars, their cuirasses, and their backs, without either pouldrons, vambraces, gauntlets, or tasses." This arming is even lighter than Mr. J. F. Sullivan's picturesque Marauder of Picardie (Plate II.). The Battle of the Spurs perhaps did much to break the prestige of men-at-arms, who were routed by one-tenth their number of English horse. The French chivalry, armed cap-à-pie, came on in three ranks thirty-six deep, and were targets as usual for the English archers, who lined a hedge, "and shotte apace and galled the French horse." The English horse, and a few mounted archers who had gone forward with spears, "set on freshly crying St. George," whereupon the French fled, throwing away "speres, swordes, and mases," and cutting the bards of their horses. The Estradiots coming down in front of the French host caught sight of the English horse, and mistaking the king's battaille of foot for horse also, turned and fled, chased by the Burgundians and Walloons; the main body of English, on foot with the king, having no opportunity of engaging. [Illustration: FIG. 22.--_German Armour. Date about 1570. The Duke of Westminster, K.G._] The large proportion of mercenaries retained on either side contributed more perhaps than anything else to the disuse of armour. Nicander Nucius relates that in Henry VII.'s expedition to Scotland there were "Italians in no small number, and of Spaniards, and also moreover of Argives from Peloponnesus." In 1546 Lord Grey de Wilton brought his "Bullenoyes and Italian harquebuziers" from Boulogne. In invading Scotland two years later he divided "his menne of armes, demilaunces, and light horsemenne into troops, appointing the Spanish and Italian hagbutters on horsebacke to keepe on a wing." Captain Gambo, a Spaniard, and others held command, and, "being backed by the Almayne footmen, entered againe into Scotland." In proceeding to quell the insurrection in Devonshire, Lord Grey's forces included, among other strangers, a band of horsemen "most part Albanoyses and Italians," and a band of Italian footmen under Captain Paule Baptist Spinola of Genoa. These mercenaries armed themselves in their own fashion and were not to be controlled. Nor does it appear that the Tudor kings were anxious to put even their body-guards in anything like complete armour. Henry VII.'s guard consisted "of fifty yeomen, tall personable men, good archers, and divers others." A little later, on the marriage of Prince Arthur, the guard consisted of 300 carrying halberts, in white and green damask, with garlands of vine embroidered back and front, richly spangled in front and enclosing a red rose worked in bullion and goldsmith's work. Nicander Nucius says that "they consisted of halberdmen and swordsmen who used bucklers and Italian swords, so that resting the bucklers on the ground, they could discharge arrows." Perkin Warbeck, posing as the "Whyte Rose Prince of England," had a guard of thirty in "Murray and blewe." Henry VIII. appointed a guard of fifty "speeres" in the first year of his reign, each to be attended by an archer, demilaunce, and a custrell, on great horses. They were so extravagantly dressed, "trapped in cloth of golde, silver, and goldsmithes woorke, and their servants richly appareled also," that "they endured not long the apparell and charges were so greate." They were not reinstated until the thirty-first year of his reign. Edward VI.'s guard was 400 strong, all very tall, and dressed in crimson velvet doublets embroidered with golden roses. In meeting Philip of Spain on his way to Winchester in 1554, Lord Arundel took 100 archers in yellow cloth striped with red velvet with their bows ready, Mary's colours, however, being white and green. The taste for sumptuous armour became definitely fixed on the accession of Henry VIII. in 1509. Harding relates that, at the Coronation jousts, Brandon "turneyed in harneyes all over gylte from the heade-peece to the Sabattons." Hall devotes scores of pages to descriptions of the magnificence of Henry, especially in presence of rival potentates or their ambassadors. Before Terouenne, the weather being very foul, Maximilian and his retinue came to the rendezvous in black cloth, but Henry was attended by a large retinue extravagantly dressed, comprising his usual "nine henxmen" in white and crimson cloth of gold richly embroidered with goldsmith's work, on great coursers as richly caparisoned, with the addition of many gold bells, and "tassels of fyne gold in bullion"--these bore his helm; "the two grangardes," his spears, axe, etc. He entered Terouenne as a conqueror in "armure gilt and graven"; and Maximilian set out on his return "toward Almaine in gilte harness, and his nobles in white harness and rich cotes." On the occasion of the French ambassador's visit to Greenwich, the king disported himself at the "tilte in a newe harnesse all gilte of a strange fashion that had not been seen." No less than 286 spears were broken. Charles V. is often represented in very richly embossed armour, and some of the suits made for him, such as by the Colmans of Augsburg, show that these sculptured and pictorial representations were not wholly imaginary. It is not, however, until the reigns of Mary and Elizabeth that the culminating point of richness in armour is attained, when poems abound in allusions to it. In Spenser's _Faerie Queen_ armour always glitters with gold, and in Camoens' _Lusiad_ there are "breast-plates flaming with a thousand dyes." [Illustration: FIG. 23.--_Suit of late Italian Armour. Embossed and damascened. Tower of London._] Little sumptuously decorated armour was made in England, the finest that can claim to have been made here being five existing suits out of the twenty-nine in the Jacobe album. One only of these belongs to the nation, Lord Bucarte's bequeathed with the Wallace Collection; the opportunity of acquiring Sir Christopher Hatton's, notwithstanding its historic interest, being hitherto neglected. [Illustration: FIG. 24.--_Fine Italian Breast-plate, c. 1550. Said to have been worn by Philip of Spain. Collection of Mr. David Currie._] [Illustration: FIG. 25.--_Pair of fine Italian Gauntlets. Possibly belonging to the same Suit as the Breast-plate. Collection of Mr. David Currie._] Of foreign armour the suits of the Dukes of Bourbon and Montmorency at Wilton are spoils of victory, and others in the Tower and at Windsor were royal presents. The vast bulk of foreign armour in the country, however, has been acquired by purchase, and of late years. Of small collections one of the least known is that made by the grandfather of the Duke of Westminster, who purchased it from Sir Horace Walpole. The light peascod breast-plate and tassets (Fig. 22), richly engraved and gilt in bands, are probably German of about 1570, and the gauntlets of approximately the same date, while the close helmet is about twenty years earlier. The finely engraved and parcel-gilt breast-plate and tassets (Plate III.) are probably Italian, dating from about 1540. A deep peascod breast-plate and tassets richly arabesqued with dolphins on a blue ground, bears an engraved escutcheon with the figure of a porcupine, motto and date. [Illustration: FIG. 26.--_Embossed Gorget. French, c. 1550. Collection of Mr. David Currie._] One of the most sumptuously decorated suits in the Tower, for long described as that of the Black Prince, is reproduced in Fig. 23. It is late Italian, much of it embossed with lions' heads, etc., while the plainer surfaces are entirely covered with very delicate gold ornament on russet ground. Detail of the damascening is shown in Plate IV. [Illustration: FIG. 27.--_Silver Armour of Prince Charles, afterwards Charles II. Tower of London._] Several of our illustrations are taken from Mr. David Currie's magnificent collection, part of which is deposited in the South Kensington Museum. Very little armour is finer in its way than the breast-plate (Fig. 24) formerly in the Bernal and Londesborough collections. The repoussé work, designed in the best Italian taste of the sixteenth century, is enhanced by gold damascening on backgrounds gilt and inlaid with silver. It is said to have been worn by Philip of Spain, the steel gauntlets (Fig. 25), of similar work, having perhaps formed part of the same suit. It recalls one in Madrid presented to the Infant Philip III. by the Duke of Terranova. The finely embossed breast-plate (Plate V.), and gorget (Fig. 26), are French, but unfortunately no history attaches to them. [Illustration: FIG. 28.--_Sixteenth century Armet of rare form, with double visor. Mr. E. Cozens Smith._] This extremely costly armour, with no defensive quality, was intended for parade rather than use, and an appropriate head-piece was also especially devised for triumphal display. This was the casque, based on classic models, which left the face entirely uncovered. Artists of high renown, like Verrocchio and Pollajuolo, designed and worked upon these _casques d'honneur_, and the Negrolis, Colmans, and other famous armourers vied with each other in their production. Superb examples exist in the great national collections of Europe, but rarely find their way into private hands. Plate VI., not one of the finest examples, was formerly in Lord Londesborough's, and now in Mr. Currie's collection. It has a triple comb and plume-holder, and is believed to have formed part of the armour of an officer of the guard to Cosmo de' Medici. [Illustration: FIG. 29.--_Suit of parcel-gilt Armour. Made for Prince Charles, afterwards Charles I. Tower of London._] The casque passes almost insensibly into the more serviceable burgonet, a classic-looking helmet with ear-pieces and neck-covering, dear to Salvator Rosa and his contemporaries. This developed into the spider helmet with bars to protect the face, and the open and barred helmets of Charles I. and the Commonwealth. Fig. 27 represents an extremely rich example of the latter, made with cuirass and gorget in repoussé silver for Charles II. when prince. The defensive quality of the armet, not being so purely consecrated to parade, was rarely impaired by embossing, and even when made for monarchs, the decoration was mainly confined to etching and gilding. A rare form with double visor, five rope-like combs, and bands of engraving, is illustrated (Fig. 28) from the collection of Mr. Cozens Smith of Benyeo. The armet continued to be used by mounted officers until the middle of the seventeenth century, a picture of Rocroy, 1643, showing Condé in a hat, but his staff in visored helmets. One of the latest cap-à-pie suits, probably never worn, is that in the Tower, richly worked and gilded all over, presented to Charles I. by the City of London. [Illustration: FIG. 30.--_Richly Embossed and Damascened Target. Italian, sixteenth century. Mr. David Currie's Collection._] The high-combed morions and cabassets of the pikemen and musketeers are generally richly etched in vertical bands, or covered with interlacing arabesques, which we gather, from numerous passages in Brantôme's works, were usually gilt. Thus 4000 harquebuziers stepped out of the ranks as _enfans perdus_, at the call of Mons. d'Andelet "tous morions gravez et dorez en teste." The buckler or target appears an archaic defence, but survived with us, sometimes in high favour like the sword, at others nearly obsolete, until the reign of James I., and in Scotland till recent times. It was banished while the Spanish rapier and left-handed dagger were in use. [Illustration: PLATE VII.--_Lower part of enriched Chanfron. Suit presented to Charles I. by the City of London. Tower of London._] The most magnificent targets were made solely for parade, and were borne in front of princely personages by their esquires. The broad surfaces they presented for decoration, and the esteem they were held in, induced even very great artists, like Giulio Romano, not only to design them, but actually to work upon them. It is far from rare to find in collections of drawings by old masters, designs for shields, like those signed Polydore and B. Franco hanging in the corridors at Chatsworth. Under the Tudor and later Valois kings they were usually round and of steel, but sometimes elliptical, obovate, vesica-shaped, rectangular, and even heater-shaped, with painted arms. One of the finest ever produced is the Milanese buckler at Windsor, believed to have been in England since the time of Francis I. The repoussé work is of most exquisite finish and the gold damascening of extraordinary delicacy. Others not inferior to it are at Dresden, Turin, and Madrid, the latter by Colman of Augsburg. The shield of Charles IX. in the Louvre is also superbly damascened. Magnificent specimens are known from the hands of the Negrolis and Picinino of Milan, Gasparo Mola of Florence, Giorgio Ghisi of Mantua. A description of one, now lost, by Hieronymus Spacini of Milan, states that it comprised forty-eight engravings in gold upon niello. Hans Mielich has left several designs, some of which were carried out by Colman. The finely-embossed target in the Kensington Museum is signed by Georgius Sigman of Augsburg. The Bernal, Meyrick, Soltykoff, and other collections now dispersed, included examples illustrating the story of Coriolanus, Siege of Troy, Judgment of Paris, etc. [Illustration: FIG. 31.--_Target of Etched Steel. Italian or German, about 1550. Mr. P. Davidson's Collection._] Those intended to receive the hard knocks of active service must have presented unembossed surfaces, though perhaps richly etched and gilded like the morions. The specimen (Fig. 30) belonging to Mr. Currie is rich enough for parade, with its bands of embossing and fine damascening, while the second illustration (Fig. 31) might have been the war target of an Italian or Spanish Captain under Philip II. It is remarkable that the first Greenwich inventory only contains eight bucklers, "of steele, seven guilte and wroughte." They were probably somewhat like Fig. 31. Another among the jewels was of silver gilt, with the arms of England, roses, castles, and pomegranates. This, like the quaint little roundel belonging to Lord Kenyon (Fig. 32), was probably English. It appears that London bucklers acquired some celebrity in the time of Elizabeth, who limited the length of their steel points to two inches, for the young King of Scots greatly desired to possess one. George Brownfelde, Roger Morgan, Tothill Street, and Richard Hamkyn, King Street, Westminster, were buckler-makers to Henry VIII.; and Peter Lovat, a Frenchman, supplied steel pavices at the sign of the cock in Fleet Street at eight shillings each. They are seldom mentioned as playing a part in actual warfare, though when Lord Grey de Wilton called for forlorn hopes at the siege of Guynes, fifty stept out "with swordes and roondelles to view and essaye the breatches." The celebrated Jarnac duel, witnessed by Henri II., was fought with sword and target. [Illustration: FIG. 32.--_Roundel with National Badges and Inscription. Belonging to Lord Kenyon._] [Illustration: FIG. 33.--_Hilt of Two-handed Sword with the Bear and Ragged Staff on the Pommel and Quillons in chased steel. Penshurst._] The chanfron or head-piece to the horse's armour, originally called the chevron, received as much attention as the helmet or buckler of its rider. It was the pride of the noble, when Monstrelet wrote, to make the horse's head-front blaze with jewels. Designs for horse-armour by Hans Mielich, and that actually executed for Christian II. at Dresden, are as rich as the suits themselves. The latter illustrates the labours of Hercules, and is the one for which Colman received 14,000 crowns. The chanfron bears a spike, an appendage dating back to the time of Edward III. In the _Anturs of Arthur_ we read-- Opon his chèveronne be-forn Stode as a unicorn Als scharpe as a thorn, An nanlas of stele. The charger ridden by Lord Scales in his tourney with the Bastard of Burgundy had a "schaffrõ with a large sharpe pyke of stele," which, penetrating the nostrils of the Bastard's steed, caused it to rear and throw him. The oldest chanfron handed down is that in Warwick Castle, which was there when visited by Sir William Dugdale. The lower part of one belonging to the suit, Fig. 29, is seen in Plate VII. [Illustration: FIG. 34.--_Venetian Cinquedea, engraved, with Ivory Handle. The Duke of Norfolk._] Swords varied considerably in the sixteenth century, the extremes sometimes meeting in the same army, the two-handed sword, scimitar, rapier, sabre, cinquedea, falchion, and malchus, being borne perhaps simultaneously by the mercenary bands comprised in it. The two-handed sword represents the largest dimensions ever attained by this weapon, perhaps originating in the sword of state, like that of Edward III. in Westminster Abbey. It was used in Scotland at an early period; if not wielded by whole clans, certainly by champions of exceptional vigour. Thus Froissart relates that Sir Archibald Douglas fought on foot and wielded an immense sword, the blade of which was two ells long, and so heavy that scarcely any other man could have lifted it from the ground. This great sword is the real claymore, though the name has been misappropriated to the Scottish basket-hilted broadsword of the last century. The Swiss and Germans were the only people who made it an offensive weapon for large disciplined bodies of troops, and in the sixteenth century it had become an essentially Teutonic weapon. Henry VIII.'s great personal strength and agility enabled him to wield it, as a young man, and to withstand all-comers. The fine hilt illustrated (Fig. 33) from Penshurst, with the pommel and quillons carved and chased out of the solid steel into the bears and ragged staff of the Leicesters, is undoubtedly the most beautiful in the country. The blade has been shortened, perhaps under the edict of Queen Elizabeth, who posted guards at the City Gates to break all swords that were too long. [Illustration: FIG. 35.--_Main-Gauche with Steel Hilt. Belonging to Mr. Percy Macquoid._] [Illustration: FIG. 36.--_Main-Gauche with Silver Guard. Windsor Castle._] [Illustration: FIG. 37.--_Rapier with Silver Guard. Windsor Castle._] In striking contrast to this is the well-known Cinquedea, the Italian translation of the French _Sang de dez_. The name of a spear, _langue-de-boeuf_, has been improperly applied to it since the eighteenth century. The handles were frequently ivory with pierced brass insertions, like the illustration (Fig. 34), belonging to the Duke of Norfolk; but the finest examples are of chased steel, exquisitely worked and silvered. The Cinquedea was highly esteemed in Venice. [Illustration: FIG. 38.--_Inlaid Ivory Cross-bow. Tower of London._] Until the introduction of the Spanish rapier the sword used with the buckler was short and heavy in the blade, though with handles sometimes richly worked and inlaid with silver. The rapier appeared about 1570 to 1580, the slender tapering blade being relatively of great length, rendering it difficult to sheathe. The guards to the hilts were generally of open work, the variety of form, though endless, falling into three leading groups, the swept-hilted, shell-guard, and cup-hilted, the finest workmanship being as a rule found on the latter. The quillons, generally very long, are either straight or curved. With the rapier, a long dagger held in the left hand and called the _main-gauche_ was used to parry, the blade being notched near the base to entangle and break the opponent's weapon. Two varieties are figured, both with superbly chased hilts; the one of steel belonging to Mr. Percy Macquoid (Fig. 35), and one with silver guard (Fig. 36), belonging to Her Majesty. The cup-hilted rapier (Fig. 37), reproduced on a slightly smaller scale, is the companion to the latter dagger and is also partly silver-hilted and chased with representations of combats. The quillons are engraved with flowers, and the blade is signed Heinrich Coell, Solingen. The blades and hilts were frequently, perhaps usually, made in different workshops. Many of those in Vienna have German hilts and Italian blades, others have Solingen blades and Milanese hilts. Toledo blades were, however, preferred, and their marks were frequently imitated by German makers. The first ship of the ill-fated Spanish Armada to fall a prey to Drake and Howard was the _Capitana_ of the Andalusian squadron, which among its treasures carried a chest of swords, richly mounted, and intended for presentation to the English Catholic peers. Frequent reference is made in Elizabethan plays to Bilbao and Toledo blades, but more especially to "Foxes," so called from the Nuremberg mark. Certain passages show that these were used with the buckler, in this country at least; and in the engraving of the funeral of Sir Philip Sidney, targets both round and oval are carried. The staves, bills, pikes, morris-pikes, holy-water sprinklers, etc., played a very important part in war at this period. The halberds and partisans carried by officers of the harquebusiers, royal guards, and officials were the vehicles for an immense amount of decoration, especially throughout the seventeenth century. Albert Dürer, writing from Venice to Pirkheimer, mentions that the Italian lansquenets "have roncoins with 218 points, and if they pink a man with any of these, the man is dead, as they are all poisoned." This could hardly have been serious, but a sheet of drawings by Leonardo da Vinci shows some very extraordinary forms. Most of the varieties of staves were no doubt originally developments of the peasant scythes, bill-hooks, pitch-forks, and the poll-axe; each country preserving some peculiar form. The cross-bow had long ceased to be a military weapon, but was, owing to its silent fire, still in great repute for sport. It was usually inlaid with ivory, engraved, sometimes stained and heightened with pearl. A fine specimen in the Tower is illustrated (Fig. 38). V FIREARMS AND GUNLOCKS _By_ MAJOR V. A. FARQUHARSON The actual date of the first employment of portable firearms is uncertain, but representations of them are frequently met with in the illustrated MSS. of the early part of the fifteenth century, their form at first being simply a tube fastened to a wooden stock, and, according to the coloured drawings, the tube was either of brass or iron. The manner of firing was to apply a match by hand to a touch-hole situated on the upper part of the barrel. The first improvement was to drill the touch-hole in the side of the barrel, with the priming held in a pan formed in a projection also on the side of the barrel, which had a cover, moving on a pivot, thus protecting the powder from the wet or wind till the moment of firing, when it was pushed back by hand. This was the general kind of firearm used during the first half of the fifteenth century. For some time after their introduction, hand firearms were viewed with disfavour, and it was considered more or less unfair to employ them, seeing that the Gothic armour worn by the knights had power to resist the ordinary weapons of the field, but took no account of the effects of missiles from the clumsy "gonner." That they were in use in 1453 is evident, as the great Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, buried at Whitchurch, came to his end from this cause. "Though at first with manfull courage and sore fighting the Earle wanne the entre of their camp, yet at length they compassed him about, and, _shooting him through the thigh with an hand-gonne_, slew his horse and finally killed him lying on the ground, whom they never durst look in the face, while he stood on his feet" (Hollinshed's _Chronicle_). This was at Chatillon, 20th July 1453. [Illustration: PLATE VIII.--Wheel-lock of bright steel, with engraved and pierced brass. German, 17th Century. Wheel-lock of blued steel, with gold and silver inlay, and wheel-guard of tracery in thin gold. French, 17th Century. Collection of Major Farquharson.] The first lock was apparently a curved piece of metal in the shape of an S and pivoted in the centre, the upper point holding the match, the lower part, which was prolonged like the lever in the cross-bow, by its weight keeping the match from the pan till this lower part was compressed to the stock on firing. The next stage was the matchlock proper. This is the first lock where the mechanism is complete on a plate. The cock is kept back by a spring acting on the long arm of a lever, while fastened to the short end was a sear or trigger. The pan still projects on the side of the barrel, a principle seen in modern Eastern matchlocks. The next matchlocks had the pan fixed to and forming part of the plate; later matchlocks only vary in the shape of the plate. In the reign of William III. the plates are of the same size as the flint-lock, so that the locks could be changed when required. The matchlock was altogether in use for nearly 200 years, owing to its great simplicity and cheapness. There is a variation of the matchlock in which, by elaborate mechanism, the match is caused to descend on the priming with a snap-action. It is difficult to see the advantage to be obtained from this, as the match it would appear must have broken by contact with the pan, unless it may have taken the form of a stick of hard composition. The head of the match-holders in these locks is a short tube, which gives some probability to this theory, but there is no record to prove it. The _wheel-lock_ is supposed to have been invented in 1517, although a lock belonging to the writer has the date of 1509, yet it is not certain if 1569 is not meant. Nuremberg is reported to be the place of its invention, where indeed, at the time, most things were claimed to have been invented; and the city mark is constantly met with on early locks. It was an important invention, and, except for the delicacy of its mechanism and great expense of production, it was an efficient lock. It consisted briefly of a steel wheel, having from two to four grooves affixed to an axle which passed through the lock-plate, the edge of the wheel appearing through the bottom of the pan. The outer part of the axle was square for a key to fit on, and the inner had a shoulder or crank, which was connected by a shackle chain of three links to an extremely strong spring. The fire stone (pyrites) was fixed in a holder, screwed to the farther end of the lock-plate. The pan had a sliding cover. To put the lock in action a key or "spanner" was placed on the outer end of the axle, and given a 3/4 turn; by this the spring was compressed, and kept at tension by the nose of a sear, connected with the trigger, entering a small hole on the inner surface of the wheel. The pan was then primed, the sliding cover brought over it, and the pyrites holder depressed, bringing the pyrites down on the cover. On pulling the trigger the wheel revolved, its axle shoulder knocked back the pan cover and allowed the grooves to grate sparks from the fire-stone, thus firing the priming. There are numerous variations in the wheel-lock of all dates and of many nationalities. By the shape of the feeds, the number of grooves, and by the internal mechanism, and of course by the ornamentation, a tolerable idea can be got of the date or origin of a piece. It is remarkable that the earliest locks were more complete and had appliances that we fail to find in the later. Thus in Fig. 40, a type of the earliest pistol, the lock possesses a safety catch to prevent premature discharge, also a spring-catch to keep the pan cover back. Those, which would be thought advantages, are not to be found in the two examples in Plate VIII. of later date and finer workmanship. In some cases the wheel winds itself, when the pyrites holder is drawn back, thus dispensing with a key. This principle is such an obvious improvement that it seems strange it was not universally adopted. [Illustration: FIG. 39.--_Pistol by Lazarino Cominazzo. Collection of Major Farquharson._] [Illustration: FIG. 40.--_Early German Wheel-lock Pistol, used by the Reiters. Collection of Major Farquharson._] A result of the introduction of the wheel-lock was the invention of pistols, which never carry match-locks. The name may have been derived from Pistoia in Tuscany, or, as it has been suggested, from the name of the coin pistole, referring to the bore. There is a word in Italian _pistolese_, but it signifies a knife. Fig. 40 is a good example of an early pistol. It is of the class used by the Reiters, German cavalry, the first body of troops armed with pistols. The barrels at this time are of great thickness, owing to the dread of bursting, and the stocks sloped abruptly, being terminated by a ball butt. This was probably to act as a counterpoise, and also to facilitate drawing the piece from the holster. It would be more efficient, too, when used as a club, as it very frequently was, according to pictures of the time. In early engravings of the Reiter he is armed not only with a pair, but on occasion with four of these pistols, two in the holsters and two fastened to his belt by hasps (Fig. 40 is furnished with a hook or hasp on the reverse side). The Reiter also had a sword. The introduction of the pistol altered the tactics of war; the bodies of horse no longer charged home, but galloped up by ranks, within a few paces of the enemy, discharged their pistols, and then wheeled outward by half troops towards each flank, leaving the front clear for the succeeding rank to take their place. They then reloaded and re-formed ready for another advance. Many of the earlier pistols were wholly of steel. The smaller pistols had a flat butt, cut slanting, and were called Dags. In course of time the barrels were made longer and thinner, the stocks became more straight, and the ball butt elongated, and finally disappeared. The wheel-lock was used for pistols up to 1650. Crusoe, in the Instructions for the Cavallerie, 1632, gives some fifteen motions for the "firing Exercise" of the wheel pistol. The Queen possesses a double-barrelled wheel rifle, in which one barrel was placed vertically over the other, dated 1588. It is fired by means of two wheel-locks on one plate, in one of which the works are outside, and the other has them hidden by the plate, the stock is of dark wood, and the fittings of the locks are of chased and gilt metal. Its double barrel, date of the rifling, and the fact of its having a steel ramrod, all make it remarkable. The Dresden arms are on the heel plate, a cypher HF on the stock, and the barrel has a bear as armourer's mark. The wheel-lock was rarely used for infantry arms, but was of necessity employed by cavalry, where the match was inconvenient. The next form of lock was the _Snap-hance_, evolved from the wheel-lock by converting the pyrites holder into a fire-steel, and replacing the wheel by a hammer, acted on by a spring and affixed to the opposite side of the pan. The pan and cover remained the same, and the latter slid back as the hammer fell on the steel, leaving the powder bare for the sparks to fall on. The earliest actual lock of this sort is on a pair of pistols in the Dresden Armoury, dated 1598. The pistols are of the Scotch form, but are probably of Spanish make, as the Highlanders obtained their firearms largely from Spain. The example Fig. 42 is a snap-hance of Italian make, but of later type (about 1640). It was selected on account of the beautiful chiselled steel of which it is composed. This is in three degrees of relief. The hammer has two dragons entwined on it, and the plate and fire-steel are very richly fashioned, having the armourer's signature on it, GIOVANNI · VATE · BORGOGNONE · IN · BRESCIA. Part of the fire-steel is missing. The most famous makers of firearms of the middle of the seventeenth century lived in Brescia, such as Lazarino Cominazzo, father and son, Lazaro Lazarino, Francino, and others. Their weapons were famed for extreme lightness and beauty of decoration. Fig. 39 is a late example of Cominazzo's work. The barrel has a beautiful fluted twist on it, and the lock-plate and hammer, as well as the butt, are chiselled in high relief. These armourers made weapons with each class of lock. It was quite the thing for any one on their grand tour to visit Brescia, and bring back one of these famed weapons. Evelyn in his _Diary_ tells us how he paid a visit to "old Lazarino Cominazzo," and got from him a carbine for which he paid a good deal of money. He seems to have been rather proud of his acquisition, as he more than once alludes to it. The Civil War in England showed firearms in use with all four classes of lock. The infantry on both sides were chiefly armed with the heavy musket fired from a rest, having the match-lock. The cavalry had carbines fitted with snap-hances or the early complete flint, or were provided with wheel-locks. The wheel-lock disappears from military arms about 1670, but continued in use in Germany for sporting rifles until a much later date. The _Flint-lock_ proper came into use about 1630. The earliest specimens appear to be Spanish. The mainspring in these was on the outside of the lock-plate, and the mechanism of the simplest character, consisting of a catch forming a ledge, protruding to the outside of the lock-plate, for the foot of the hammer to rest on when cocked, and on this ledge being drawn back on pressing the trigger the hammer falls, striking the steel, which also covers the pan. [Illustration: FIG. 41.--_Richly Decorated Flint-lock. Probably Spanish. Collection of Major Farquharson._] [Illustration: FIG. 42.--_Snap-hance of Italian make, about 1640. Collection of Major Farquharson._] The example Fig. 43 is one of a class where the ornamentation is very elaborate. The design is formed mostly by the chisel and hammer, and even in the internal mechanism the file appears scarcely to have been used. Many of these fine locks exist, but never have any armourer's mark on them; the mechanism, however, points to their Spanish origin. Works of this description were found in Spanish locks to the latter end of the eighteenth century. In both English and French flint-locks the mechanism was on the inside of the lock-plate, and a tumbler connected the hammer with the action of the mainspring. A later improvement was to add a bridle to give two bearings for the tumbler axle, and a small swivel connecting the tumbler with the mainspring, both of these improvements ensuring greater smoothness in the action. This form of improved mechanism was continued in the percussion lock, after the use of a flint was discontinued, and, indeed, the hammer used in the first military breechloader generally employed in our army, the Snider, was acted on by mechanism of much the same sort. [Illustration: FIGS. 43, 44.--_Highland Pistols. Collection of Major Farquharson._] Figs. 43 and 44 show specimens of the Highland pistol, a class which stands quite by itself. These weapons no doubt were evolved from the early steel wheel dags in common use in Germany. Many Highlanders were to be found in the armies of other European nations, whence they probably took the fashion and also procured their firearms. The earliest weapons of the sort, as well as the latest, were all of steel (or rarely brass). The stocks had a heart-shaped butt, and were furnished with snap-hance locks. There is one of this description, undoubtedly a Scotch weapon, in the armoury in the old castle of Nürnberg, where the arms have always been stored, belonging probably to one of the many Scotch officers employed in Germany during the wars of the seventeenth century. Later on the butt of the pistol assumed a claw form and the ordinary flint-lock was employed, the mechanism, however, being of a distinctive sort, possibly of Dutch origin. The latest of these pistols have a rounded butt as in Fig. 44. The ornament found on the back of the hammer in Fig. 43 is not to be seen in any other class of lock. The Highlanders looking at length on their weapons as part of the equipment of their national garb, a colony of armourers sprang up in the village of Doune in Stirlingshire, a place where "trysts" or fairs were held, and where the Highlanders resorted to exchange their cattle for other goods. The following account is given in _Scottish National Memorials_, of this trade of Doune. "The only remains of any of the ancient branches of trade is the making of Highland pistols. The reputation of Doune for this manufacture, about the time of the German war, was very great. This art was introduced to Doune about the year 1646 by Thomas Caddell, who having been instructed in his craft at Muthil, a village in Strathearn in Perthshire, came and settled at Doune. This famous tradesman possessed a most profound genius, and an inquisitive mind, and though a man of no education and remote from every means of instruction in the mechanical arts, his study and persevering exertions brought his art to so high a degree of perfection that no pistols made in Britain excelled or perhaps equalled those of his making either for sureness, strength, or beauty. He taught the trade to his children and several apprentices, of whom was one John Campbell, whose son and grandson carried on the business. While the ancient dress of Caledonia was worn, that is, the 'philabeg' belted-plaid, pistols, and dirk, the pistols made in Doune excelled all others, and acquired superior reputation over France and Germany; a pair superbly ornamented were fabricated by a tradesman taught in Doune, and by the city of Glasgow given in compliment to the Marquis de Bouillé. The above Mr. Campbell's grandson, who has now given over business, made pistols for the first nobility in Europe, as Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, the Hereditary Prince of Brunswick, the Duke of Cumberland, and others. The trade is now (1798) carried on by John Murdoch (the maker of Fig. 44). These pistols were sold (1798) at from four to twenty-four guineas a pair." The names of some of these armourers were the Caddells, James Sutherland, Thomas Murdoch, John Murdoch, S. Michie, John Campbell, J. Stuart, David M'Kenzie, and others. The trade died out at the commencement of this century. These weapons were remarkable for grace of outline and great lightness. The butt has a small knob, which, when unscrewed, forms a picker to clear the touch-hole with. The mainsprings in many cases appear to be weak, having little room to work in the slender stocks. INDEX Almayne rivets, 14, 15 Ambras Collection, 48 Archers, 36-38, 52, 56, 60 Armet, 32, 36, 44, 48, 51, 53, 71, 72 Arthur, King, 8, 12, 21 Arundel, Lord, 60 Arundel Society, 40 Augsburg, 40, 41, 60 Back-plates, 28, 29, 40, 44 Bastard of Burgundy, 77 Battle Abbey, Arms of, 53 Bavier, The, 53 Bayeux Tapestry, 18 Beauchamp, Effigy of, 24, 30 Bedford, Duke of, 38 Bernabo Visconti (Statue of), 20 Bernal Collection, 14, 68, 73 Black Prince, 10 Böheim, 40, 41 Bohun, Sir Humphrey de, 14 Bourbon, Duke of, 11, 63 Bourdonasses, 36, 37 Bows and Arrows, 38 Brantôme, 14-16, 72 Brassey, Mr. Leonard, 11 Breast-plates, 15, 28-30, 37, 40, 44, 47, 60, 64, 68 Brescia, 15, 90 Battle before, 36 Brett Collection, 12 British Museum, 10, 17, 47, 53 Brittany, Duke of, 14 Brooke, Lord, 11 Bucarte, Lord, 60 Burges Collection, 10, 19, 47 Burgundian Armour, 49-51 Burgundy, Duke of, 14, 38 Cabassets, 72 Cadell, Thomas (Armourer), 93-94 Cajazzo, Count, 40 Calais, 38 Canterbury, 54 Cap-à-pie Armour, 6, 7, 11, 23, 27, 29, 32, 44, 46, 51, 56, 72 _Capitana, The_, Capture of, 82 Cassel, Battle of, 8 Chain Mail, _see_ Mail Armour Charles I., 71, 72 Charles V., 16, 60 Charolois, Count of, 53 Chatsworth, 72 Chausses, 18 Christian II., 74 Cinquedea, The, 81 Civil War in England, 90 Coeur-de-Lion, 17 Colman Family (Armourers), 40, 60, 68, 72 Colman, Lorenz, 28, 41 Cologne, 12, 13 Cominazzo (Maker of Firearms), 90 Commines, Philip de, 32, 36, 38, 53 Constantinople, 25 Corselets, 14, 48 Cosimo, Piero di, 47 Cosson, Baron de, 54 Coutts-Lindsay Collection, 12 Crests, 32, 48, 53 Crossbows, 15, 83 Crossbow-men, 36 Cuirasses, 14, 71 Cumberland, Earl of, 11 Currie, Mr. David, 12, 67, 68, 73 Damascened Armour, 22, 67, 68 Dillon, Lord, 9 Douglas, Sir Archibald, 77 Doune (Stirlingshire), 93 Dover Castle Collection, 10 Doyac, John, 14 Dugdale, Sir William, 77 Dukes of Albany and Orleans, Fight between, 38 Ear-pieces, 68 Edward I., 22 Edward III., 77 Edward VI., 10, 38, 60 Elbow-guards, 30 Farleigh Castle, 11 Flint-locks, 90 Flodden, Battle of, 7 Florence, 15 Fluted Armour, 11, 41, 43, 44, 47, 51, 53 Fornovo, Battle of, 36 Frederick the Victorious, 39 French Revolution (Destruction of Armour), 24, 25 Froissart, 16, 17 Gage, Sir John, 53 Galatin, 17 Gauntlets, 42, 44, 64, 68 Ghisi, Giorgio, 72 Gilded Armour, 60 Gordon, Mr. Panmure, 46 Gorget, The, 71 Greenwich, 9 Grünewalt, Hans (Armourer), 40 Grünewalt, Heinrich, 40 Guidarelli, Guidarello (Effigy of), 36 Halberds, 39 Hall, 24, 38, 52, 60 Harding, 60 Harold, 18 Hatton, Sir Christopher, 63 Hauberk, The, 18, 19 Head-pieces, 51, 53, 60 Helm, 39, 43, 51, 60 Helmets, 18, 20, 28, 32, 41, 48, 68, 71, 72; Tilting, 51, 52 Henry IV., 8, 14, 54 Henry V., 8 Henry VI., 60 Henry VII., 16, 38, 51, 53, 59 Henry VIII., 9, 10, 13-15, 24, 48, 51, 52, 54, 59, 78 Herbert, Lord Richard, 37 Horse-armour, 41, 44, 46, 51, 74 Hothfield, Lord, 11 Hutin, Louis, 14, 16 Italian Armourers, 14 Jarnac and La Chateigneraye (Duel between), 22 Joan of Arc, 54 John of Eltham, 8 Kenyon, Lord, 74 Kirkener, Erasmus, 53 Lances, 36, 37 Layard, 17 Lodelowe, Abbot Thomas de, 53 Londesborough Collection, 11, 68 Longfield, Mr. F. H., 18 Louis X., 16 Louis XI. 14, 16, 39 Macquoid, Mr. Percy, 45, 82 Madrid Armoury, 16 Mail Armour, 17, 18, 22 Mantua, Court of, 41 Marquis of, 36 Marignan, Battle of, 14 Matchlocks, 85 Matthew of Paris, 14 Maximilian Armour, 51 Maximilian, Emperor, 9, 13, 20, 24, 40, 41, 53, 60 Medici, Cosmo de', 68 Meyrick Collection, 11, 20, 53, 73 Middle Temple Hall, 18 Mielich, Hans, 73, 74 Milan, 13, 14, 39 Milan, Duke of, 14 Milanese Armour, 14, 40 Buckler, 72 Missaglias, The (Armourers), 39, 40 Mola, Gasparo, 72 Monstrelet, 14, 17 Montfort, Simon de, 22 Montlhéry, Battle of, 38, 53 Montmorency, Duke of, 11, 63 Moorish Steel-Workers, 15, 16 Morion, 16, 72 National Gallery, 20, 21, 30, 32, 47 Neck-guards, 68 Negrolis, The (Armourers), 68 Netherlandish Armour, 16 Nineveh, 17, 20 Norfolk, Duke of, 13, 81 Nucius, Nicander, 59 Nuremberg, 28, 40, 44, 45, 85 Otterbourne, Battle of, 12 Otto IV., Count, Figure of, 30 Oxford, Earl of, 37 Paton, Sir Noël, 12, 19, 22, 26, 28, 53 Pauldron, The, 40, 44 Pearson, Sir Wheatman, 11, 46 Pembroke, Earl of, 11 Penshurst Castle Collection, 11, 52, 78 Perugino, 30 Philip II., 74 Picinino (Milan), 72 Pistols, 86, 92 Plate Armour, 23 Plumpton Correspondence, 37 Pollajuolo, 68 Pommel, The, 55, 78 Pourpoint, The, 15 Pratt (Dealer in Armour), 25, 28 Prussia, King of, 46 Rapier, The, 81 Reiters (German Cavalry), 86-89 Richard II., 13 Richard III., 37 Rifles, 89 Romano, Giulio, 72 Rosa, Salvator, 68 Rosebecque, Battle of, 16 Roundel, The, 74 St. George (Figure of), 31, 32, 40 St. Michael (in full Armour), 30 St. Quentin, Battle of, 11 St. William (in Garofalo's _Madonna and Child_), 32 Sant' Egidio, Battle of, 32 Sallads, 14, 24, 25, 29, 40, 52, 53 Saxony, Duke of, 43 Scales, Lord, 77 Shoulder-guards, 30, 36, 51 Shrewsbury Collection, 12 Sidney, Sir Philip, 52, 82 Sigman, Georgius, 73 Smith, Mr. Cozens, 72 Smith, Sir James, 56 Snap-hance Lock, 89, 90 Sollerets, 28, 29, 30, 32, 39, 40, 52, 53 Soltykoff Collection, 73 South Kensington Museum, 10, 30, 35, 36 Spacini, Hieronymus, 72 Spain, Philip of, 17 Spanish Armada, 82 Spurs, Battle of the, 19 Stafford, Lord, 44 Standard Collar of Mail, 21, 22 Strozzi, 14 Suffolk, Duke of, 52, 60 Sullivan, Mr. J. F., 56 Swords, 9, 12, 15, 16, 31, 53, 54, 55, 59, 77, 82 Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, 85 Talbot, Sir Gilbert, 16 Target, The, 72, 73, 74, 84 Tassets, 64 Terouenne, 60 Towcester, Battle of, 37 Tower, The, 9, 10, 11, 14, 44, 46, 48, 53, 63, 67, 77, 83 Tuilles, 40, 42 Uccello, Paolo, 32, 52 Verrocchio, 68 Vikings, The, 17, 18 Vinsauf, Geoffrey de, 17 Vischer, Peter, 30 Visor, The, 44, 48, 51, 52, 71 Wace, 18 Wallace Collection, 10, 29, 46, 48, 53, 60 Walpole, Horace, 11, 64 Wars of the Roses, 24, 37 Warwick Castle, 77 Warwick, Earl of, 8, 9, 37, 54 Weinsberg, Count, Effigy of, 30 Westminster, 9, 10, 51, 54, 77 Westminster, Duke of, 47, 64 Wheel-lock, 85, 86 William III., 85 William of Toulouse, 8 Williams, Mr. Morgan, 41 Wilton House, 11 Wilton, Lord Grey de, 8, 9 Windsor Collection, 10, 54, 63, 82 Wolsey, 15 Woolwich Collection, 10, 20, 48 Wyatt, Costume worn by, 21 Zouche, Lord, 12, 25 THE END _Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_ 
19953	----	SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION--BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY. ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF FORM AND ORNAMENT IN CERAMIC ART. BY WILLIAM H. HOLMES. CONTENTS. Page. Introductory 443 Origin of form 445 By adventition 445 By imitation 445 By invention 450 Modification of form 450 By adventition 450 By intention 452 Origin of ornament 453 From natural objects 454 From artificial objects 455 Functional features 455 Constructional features 456 From accidents attending construction 457 From ideographic and pictorial subjects 457 Modification of ornament 457 Through material 458 Through form 458 Through methods of realization 459 ILLUSTRATIONS. FIG. 464.--Form derived from a gourd 446 465.--Form derived from a conch, shell 447 466.--Form derived from a stone pot 448 467.--Form derived from a wooden tray 448 468.--Form derived from a horn spoon 448 469.--Form derived from a bark vessel 446 470.--Form derived from basketry 449 471.--Form derived from basketry 449 472.--Form derived from a wooden vessel 449 473.--Coincident forms 451 474.--Form produced by accident 451 475.--Scroll derived from the spire of a conch shell 454 476.--Theoretical development of current scroll 455 477.--Ornament derived through modification of handles 455 478.--Scroll derived from coil of clay 456 479.--Ornamental use of fillets of clay 456 480.--Variation through, the influence of form 459 481.--Theoretical development of the current scroll 460 482.--Forms of the same motive expressed in different arts 461 483.--Forms of the same motive expressed in different arts 461 484.--Forms of the same motive expressed in different arts 461 485.--Geometric form of textile ornament 462 486.--Loss of geometric accuracy in painting 462 487.--Design painted upon pottery 463 488.--Theoretical development of fret work 464 489.--Theoretical development of scroll work 465 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF FORM AND ORNAMENT IN CERAMIC ART. BY WILLIAM H. HOLMES. INTRODUCTORY. For the investigation of art in its early stages and in its widest sense--there is probably no fairer field than that afforded by aboriginal America, ancient and modern. At the period of discovery, art at a number of places on the American continent seems to have been developing surely and steadily, through the force of the innate genius of the race, and the more advanced nations were already approaching the threshold of civilization; at the same time their methods were characterized by great simplicity, and their art products are, as a consequence, exceptionally homogeneous. The advent of European civilization checked the current of growth, and new and conflicting elements were introduced necessarily disastrous to the native development. There is much, however, in the art of living tribes, especially of those least influenced by the whites, capable of throwing light upon the obscure passages of precolumbian art. By supplementing the study of the prehistoric by that of historic art, which is still in many cases in its incipient stages, we may hope to penetrate deeply into the secrets of the past. The advantages of this field, as compared with Greece, Egypt, and the Orient, will be apparent when we remember that the dawn of art in these countries lies hidden in the shadow of unnumbered ages, while ours stands out in the light of the very present. This is well illustrated by a remark of Birch, who, in dwelling upon the antiquity of the fictile art, says that "the existence of earthen vessels in Egypt was at least coeval with the formation of a written language."[1] Beyond this there is acknowledged chaos. In strong contrast with this, is the fact that all precolumbian American pottery _precedes_ the acquisition of written language, and this contrast is emphasized by the additional fact that it also antedates the use of the wheel, that great perverter of the plastic tendencies of clay. [Footnote 1: Birch: History of Ancient Pottery, 1873, p. 8.] The material presented in the following notes is derived chiefly from the native ceramic art of the United States, but the principles involved are applicable to all times and to all art, as they are based upon the laws of nature. Ceramic art presents two classes of phenomena of importance in the study of the evolution of æsthetic culture. These relate, first, to _form_, and second, to _ornament_. _Form_, as embodied in clay vessels, embraces, 1st, _useful shapes_, which may or may not be ornamental, and, 2d, _æsthetic shapes_, which are ornamental and may be useful. There are also _grotesque_ and _fanciful shapes_, which may or may not be either useful or ornamental. No form or class of forms can be said to characterize a particular age or stage of culture. In a general way, of course, the vessels of primitive peoples will be simple in form, while those of more advanced races will be more varied and highly specialized. The shapes first assumed by vessels in clay depend upon the shape of the vessels employed at the time of the introduction of the art, and these depend, to a great extent, upon the kind and grade of culture of the people acquiring the art and upon the resources of the country in which they live. To illustrate: If, for instance, some of the highly advanced Alaskan tribes which do not make pottery should migrate to another habitat, less suitable to the practice of their old arts and well adapted to art in clay, and should there acquire the art of pottery, they would doubtless, to a great extent, copy their highly developed utensils of wood, bone, ivory, and basketry, and thus reach a high grade of ceramic achievement in the first century of the practice of the art; but, on the other hand, if certain tribes, very low in intelligence and having no vessel-making arts, should undergo a corresponding change of habitat and acquire the art of pottery, they might not reach in a thousand years, if left to themselves, a grade in the art equal to that of the hypothetical Alaskan potters in the first decade. It is, therefore, not the age of the art itself that determines its forms, but the grade and kind of art with which it originates and coexists. _Ornament_ is subject to similar laws. Where pottery is employed by peoples in very low stages of culture, its ornamentation will be of the simple archaic kind. Being a conservative art and much hampered by the restraints of convention, the elementary forms of ornament are carried a long way into the succeeding periods and have a very decided effect upon the higher stages. Pottery brought into use for the first time by more advanced races will never pass through the elementary stage of decoration, but will take its ornament greatly from existing art and carry this up in its own peculiar way through succeeding generations. The character of the ornamentation does not therefore depend upon the age of the art so much as upon the acquirements of the potter and his people in other arts. ORIGIN OF FORM In order to convey a clear idea of the bearing of the preceding statements upon the history of form and ornament, it will be necessary to present a number of points in greater detail. The following synopsis will give a connected view of various possible origins of form. / By adventition. Origin of form--| By imitation--------/ Of natural models. \ By invention. \ Of artificial models +FORMS SUGGESTED BY ADVENTITION.+ The suggestions of accident, especially in the early stages of art, are often adopted, and become fruitful sources of improvement and progress. By such means the use of clay was discovered and the ceramic art came into existence. The accidental indentation of a mass of clay by the foot, or hand, or by a fruit-shell, or stone, while serving as an auxiliary in some simple art, may have suggested the making of a cup, the simplest form of vessel. The use of clay as a cement in repairing utensils, in protecting combustible vessels from injury by fire, or in building up the walls of shallow vessels, may also have led to the formation of disks or cups, afterwards independently constructed. In any case the objects or utensils with which the clay was associated in its earliest use would impress their forms upon it. Thus, if clay were used in deepening or mending vessels of stone by a given people, it would, when used independently by that people, tend to assume shapes suggested by stone vessels. The same may be said of its use in connection with wood and wicker, or with vessels of other materials. Forms of vessels so derived may be said to have an adventitious origin, yet they are essentially copies, although not so by design, and may as readily be placed under the succeeding head. +FORMS DERIVED BY IMITATION.+ Clay has no inherent qualities of a nature to impose a given form or class of forms upon its products, as have wood, bark, bone, or stone. It is so mobile as to be quite free to take form from surroundings, and where extensively used will record or echo a vast deal of nature and of coexistent art. In this observation we have a key that will unlock many of the mysteries of form. In the investigation of this point it will be necessary to consider the processes by which an art inherits or acquires the forms of another art or of nature, and how one material imposes its peculiarities upon another material. In early stages of culture the processes of art are closely akin to those of nature, the human agent hardly ranking as more than a part of the environment. The primitive artist does not proceed by methods identical with our own. He does not deliberately and freely examine all departments of nature or art and select for models those things most convenient or most agreeable to fancy; neither does he experiment with the view of inventing new forms. What he attempts depends almost absolutely upon what happens to be suggested by preceding forms, and so narrow and so direct are the processes of his mind that, knowing his resources, we could closely predict his results. The range of models in the ceramic art is at first very limited, and includes only those utensils devoted to the particular use to which the clay vessels are to be applied; later, closely-associated objects and utensils are copied. In the first stages of art, when the savage makes a weapon, he modifies or copies a weapon; when he makes a vessel, he modifies or copies a vessel. This law holds good in an inverse ratio to culture, varying to a certain extent with the character of the material used. _Natural originals_.--Natural originals, both animal and vegetable, necessarily differ with the country and the climate, thus giving rise to individual characters in art forms often extremely persistent and surviving decided changes of environment. The gourd is probably the most varied and suggestive natural vessel. We find that the primitive potter has often copied it in the most literal manner. One example only, out of the many available ones, is necessary. This is from a mound in southeastern Missouri. In Fig. 464, _a_ illustrates a common form of the gourd, while _b_ represents the imitation in clay. [Illustration: _a_, Gourd. _b_, Clay vessel. FIG. 464.--Form derived from a gourd.] All nations situated upon the sea or upon large rivers use shells of mollusks, which, without modification, make excellent receptacles for water and food. Imitations of these are often found among the products of the potter's art. A good example from the Mississippi Valley is shown in Fig. 465, _a_ being the original and _b_ the copy in clay. In Africa, and in other countries, such natural objects as cocoanut shells, and ostrich eggs are used in like manner. Another class of vessels, those made from the skins, bladders, and stomachs of animals, should also be mentioned in this connection, as it is certain that their influence has frequently been felt in the conformation of earthen utensils. In searching nature, therefore, for originals of primitive ceramic forms we have little need of going outside of objects that in their natural or slightly altered state are available for vessels. [Illustration: _a_, Shell. _b_, Clay. FIG. 465.--Form derived from a conch shell.] True, other objects have been copied. We find a multitude of the higher natural forms, both animal and vegetable, embodied in vessels of clay, but their presence is indicative of a somewhat advanced stage of art, when the copying of vessels that were functionally proper antecedents had given rise to a familiarity with the use of clay and a capacity in handling it that, with advancing culture, brought all nature within the reach of the potter and made it assist in the processes of variation and development. _Artificial originals_.--There is no doubt that among most peoples art had produced vessels in other materials antecedent to the utilization of clay. These would be legitimate models for the potter and we may therefore expect to find them repeated in earthenware. In this way the art has acquired a multitude of new forms, some of which may be natural forms at second hand, that is to say, with modifications imposed upon them by the material in which they were first shaped. But all materials other than clay are exceedingly intractable, and impress their own characters so decidedly upon forms produced in them that ultimate originals, where there are such, cannot often be traced through them. It will be most interesting to note the influence of these peculiarities of originals upon the ceramic art. A nation having stone vessels, like those of California, on acquiring the art of pottery would use the stone vessels as models, and such forms as that given in Fig. 466 would arise, _a_ being in stone and _b_ in clay, the former from California and the latter from Arizona. Similar forms would just as readily come from gourds, baskets, or other globular utensils. Nations having wooden vessels would copy them in clay on acquiring the art of pottery. This would give rise to a distinct group of forms, the result primarily of the peculiarities of the woody structure. Thus in Fig. 467, _a_, we have a form of wooden vessel, a sort of winged trough that I have frequently found copied in clay. The earthen vessel given in Fig. 467, _b_, was obtained from an ancient grave in Arkansas. [Illustration: _a_, stone. _b_, clay. FIG. 466.--Form derived from a stone pot.] [Illustration: _a_, wood. _b_, clay. FIG. 467.--Form derived from a wooden tray.] [Illustration: _a_, Horn. _b_, Clay. FIG. 468.--Form derived from a horn spoon.] [Illustration: _a_, Bark. _b_, Clay. FIG. 469.--Form derived from a bark vessel.] The carapace of some species of turtles, and perhaps even the hard case of the armadillo, could be utilized in a similar way. The shaping of a knot of wood often gives rise to a dipper-shaped vessel, such as may be found in use by many tribes, and is as likely an original for the dipper form in clay as is the gourd or the conch shell; the familiar horn vessel of the western tribes, Fig. 468, _a_, would have served equally well. The specimen given in _b_ is from Arkansas. As a rule, however, such vessels cannot be traced to their originals, since by copying and recopying they have varied from the parent form, tending always toward uniform conventional shapes. A vessel of rectangular outline might originate in wood or bark. In Fig. 469, _a_, we have a usual form of bark tray, which is possibly the prototype of the square-rimmed earthen vessel given in _b_. [Illustration: _a_, Wicker. _b_, Clay. FIG. 470.--Form originating in basketry.] [Illustration: _a_, Wicker. _b_, Clay. FIG. 471.--Form originating in basketry.] [Illustration: _a_, Net. _b_, Clay. FIG. 472.--Form originating in basketry.] Basketry and other classes of woven vessels take a great variety of forms and, being generally antecedent to the potter's art and constantly present with it, have left an indelible impression upon ceramic forms. This is traceable in the earthenware of nearly all nations. The clay vessel is an intruder, and usurps the place and appropriates the dress of its predecessor in wicker. The form illustrated in Fig. 470, _a_, is a common one with the Pueblo peoples, and their earthen vessels often resemble it very closely, as shown in _b_. Another variety is given in Fig. 471, _a_ and _b_. These specimens are from southwestern Utah. Fig. 472, _b_, illustrates a form quite common in the Southern States, a section in which pouch-like nets and baskets, _a_, were formerly in use and in which the pots were often modeled. +INVENTION OF FORM.+ In the early stages of art, forms are rarely invented outright and I shall not stop to consider the subject here. +MODIFICATION OF FORM.+ The acquisition of new materials, the development of new uses, the employment of new processes of manufacture, and many other agencies lead to the multiplication of forms through modification. The processes by which highly differentiated forms are reached are interesting throughout and repay the closest study. A preliminary classification of the various causes that lead to modification is given in the following synopsis: / / /To assume form. | |Incapacity of material--\To retain form. | |Incapacity of the artisan. | |Changes in method of manufacture. |By adventition--|Changes in environment. |Changes of use. Modification of form--| |Lack of use. | \Influence of new or exotic forms, etc. | | /To enhance usefulness. |By intention--| | \To please fancy.--/For the beautiful. \ \For the grotesque. +MODIFICATION BY ADVENTITION.+ _Incapacity of material._--It is evident at a glance that clay lacks the capacity to assume and to retain many of the details of form found in antecedent vessels. This necessarily results in the alteration or omission of these features, and hence arise many modifications of original forms. The simple lack of capacity on the part of the potter who undertook to reproduce a model would lead to the modification of all but the most simple shapes. The acquisition of the art by a superior or an inferior race, or one of different habits would lead to decided changes. A people accustomed to carrying objects upon the head, on acquiring earthen vessels would shape the bases and the handles to facilitate this use. Improvements in the methods of manufacture are of the greatest importance in the progress of an art. The introduction of the lathe, for example, might almost revolutionize form in clay. As arts multiply, clay is applied to new uses. Its employment in the manufacture of lamps, whistles, or toys would lead to a multitude of distinct and unique forms. The acquisition of a new vessel-making material by a nation of potters and the association of the forms developed through its inherent qualities or structure would often lead ceramic shapes into new channels. [Illustration: _a_, wood. _b_, clay. FIG. 473.--Coincident forms.] The contact of a nation of potters with a nation of carvers in wood would tend very decidedly to modify the utensils of the former. One example may be given which will illustrate the possibilities of such exotic influences upon form. In Fig. 473, _a_, we have an Alaskan vessel carved in wood. It represents a beaver grasping a stick in its hands and teeth. The conception is so unusual and the style of vessel so characteristic of the people that we should not expect to find it repeated in other regions; but the ancient graves of the Middle Mississippi Valley have furnished a number of very similar vessels in clay, one of which is outlined in _b_. While this remarkable coincidence is suggestive of ethnic relationships which do not call for attention here, it serves to illustrate the possibilities of modification by simple contact. [Illustration: _a_ _b_ FIG. 471.--Form resulting from accident.] A curious example illustrative of possible transformation by adventitious circumstances is found in the collection from the province of ancient Tusayan. A small vessel of sphynx-like appearance, possibly derived more or less remotely from a skin vessel, has a noticeable resemblance to some life form, Fig. 474, _a_. The fore-legs are represented by two large bosses, the wide-open mouth takes the place of the severed neck, and a handle connects the top of the rim with the back of the vessel. The handle being broken off and the vessel inverted, _b_, there is a decided change; we are struck by the resemblance to a frog or toad. The original legs, having dark concentric lines painted around them, look like large protruding eyes, and the mouth gapes in the most realistic manner, while the two short broken ends of the handle resemble legs and serve to support the vessel in an upright position, completing the illusion. The fetich-hunting Pueblo Indian, picking up this little vessel in its mutilated condition, would probably at once give to it the sacred character of the water animal which it resembles, and it might readily transmit its peculiarities of form to other generations of vessels. It is not necessary in this study to refer at length to the influence of metallic vessels upon ceramic forms. They do not usually appear until the ceramic art is far advanced and often receive a heritage of shape from earthen forms. Afterwards, when the inherent qualities of the metal have stamped their individuality upon utensils, the debt is paid back to clay with interest, as will be seen by reference to later forms in many parts of the world. +MODIFICATION BY INTENTION.+ _To enhance usefulness._--There can be no doubt that the desire upon the part of the archaic potter to increase the usefulness and convenience of his utensils has been an important agent in the modification of form. The earliest vessels employed were often clumsy and difficult to handle. The favorite conch shell would hold water for him who wished to drink, but the breaking away of spines and the extraction of the interior whorl improved it immeasurably. The clumsy mortar of stone, with its thick walls and great weight, served a useful purpose, but it needed a very little intelligent thought to show that thin walls and neatly-trimmed margins were much preferable. Vessels of clay, aside from the forms imposed upon, them by their antecedents and associates, would necessarily be subject to changes suggested by the growing needs of man. These would be worked out with ever-increasing ease by his unfolding genius for invention. Further investigation of this phase of development would carry me beyond the limits set for this paper. _To please fancy._--The skill acquired by the handling of clay in constructing vessels and in efforts to increase their usefulness would open an expansive field for the play of fancy. The potter would no sooner succeed in copying vessels having life form than he would be placed in a position to realize his capacity to imitate forms not peculiar to vessels. His ambition would in time lead him even beyond the limits of nature and he would invade the realm of imagination, embodying the conceptions of superstition in the plastic clay. This tendency would be encouraged and perpetuated by the relegation of vessels of particular forms to particular ceremonies. +ORIGIN OF ORNAMENT.+ The birth of the embellishing art must be sought in that stage of animal development when instinct began to discover that certain attributes or adornments increased attractiveness. When art in its human sense came into existence ideas of embellishment soon extended from the _person_, with, which they had been associated, to all things with which man had to deal. The processes of the growth of the æsthetic idea are long and obscure and cannot be taken up in this place. The various elements of embellishment in which the ceramic art is interested may be assigned to two great classes, based upon the character of the conceptions associated with them. These are _ideographic_ and _non-ideographic_. In the present paper I shall treat chiefly of the non ideographic, reserving the ideographic for a second paper. Elements, non-ideographic from the start, are derived mainly from two sources: 1st, from objects, natural or artificial, associated with the arts; and, 2d, from the suggestions of accidents attending construction. Natural objects abound in features highly suggestive of embellishment and these are constantly employed in art. Artificial objects have two classes of features capable of giving rise to ornament: these are _constructional_ and _functional_. In a late stage of development all things in nature and in art, however complex or foreign to the art in its practice, are subject to decorative treatment. This latter is the realistic pictorial stage, one of which the student of native American culture needs to take little cognizance. Elements of design are not invented outright: man modifies, combines, and recombines elements or ideas already in existence, but does not create. A classification of the sources of decorative motives employed in the ceramic art is given in the following diagram: /Suggestions of features of natural utensils or objects. | / | | /Handles. | | |Legs | | Functional|Bands | | \Perforations, etc. | | |Suggestions of features of | |artificial utensils or objects.| /The coil. | | |The seam. Origin of ornament| |Constructional|The stitch. | | |The plait. | \ \The twist, etc. |Suggestions from accidents /Marks of fingers. | attending construction. |Marks of implements. | \Marks of molds, etc. | | \Suggestions of ideographic features or pictorial delineations. +SUGGESTIONS OF NATURAL FEATURES OF OBJECTS.+ The first articles used by men in their simple arts have in many cases possessed features suggestive of decoration. Shells of mollusks are exquisitely embellished with ribs, spines, nodes, and colors. The same is true to a somewhat limited extent of the shells of the turtle and the armadillo and of the hard cases of fruits. These decorative features, though not essential to the utensil, are nevertheless inseparable parts of it, and are cast or unconsciously copied by a very primitive people when similar articles are artificially produced in plastic material. In this way a utensil may acquire ornamental characters long before the workman has learned to take pleasure in such details or has conceived an idea beyond that of simple utility. This may be called unconscious embellishment. In this fortuitous fashion a ribbed variety of fruit shell would give rise to a ribbed vessel in clay; one covered with spines would suggest a noded vessel, etc. When taste came to be exercised upon such objects these features would be retained and copied for the pleasure they afforded. [Illustration: _a._--Shell vessel. _b._--Copy in clay. FIG. 475.--Scroll derived from the spire of a conch shell.] Passing by the many simple elements of decoration that by this unconscious process could be derived from such sources, let me give a single example by which it will be seen that not only elementary forms but even so highly constituted an ornament as the scroll may have been brought thus naturally into the realm of decorative art. The sea-shell has always been intimately associated with the arts that utilize clay and abounds in suggestions of embellishment. The _Busycon_ was almost universally employed as a vessel by the tribes of the Atlantic drainage of North America. Usually it was trimmed down and excavated until only about three-fourths of the outer wall of the shell remained. At one end was the long spike-like base which served as a handle, and at the other the flat conical apex, with its very pronounced spiral line or ridge expanding from the center to the circumference, as seen in Fig. 475 _a_. This vessel was often copied in clay, as many good examples now in our museums testify. The notable feature is that the shell has been copied literally, the spiral appearing in its proper place. A specimen is illustrated in Fig. 475 _b_ which, although simple and highly conventionalized, still retains the spiral figure. [Illustration: _a_ _b_ _c_ FIG. 476.--Possible derivation of the current scroll.] In another example we have four of the noded apexes placed about the rim of the vessel, as shown in Fig. 476_a_, the conception being that of four conch shells united in one vessel, the bases being turned inward and the apexes outward. Now it is only necessary to suppose the addition of the spiral lines, always associated with the nodes, to have the result shown in _b_, and by a still higher degree of convention we have the classic scroll ornament given in _c_. Of course, no such result as this could come about adventitiously, as successful combination calls for the exercise of judgment and taste; but the initiatory steps could be taken--the motive could enter art--without the conscious supervision of the human agent. +SUGGESTIONS BY FEATURES OF ARTIFICIAL OBJECTS.+ [Illustration: FIG. 477.--Ornament derived through the modification of handles.] _Functional features_.--Functional features of art products liable to influence ornament comprise handles, legs, feet, rims, bands, and other peculiarities of shape originating in utility. Handles, for instance, may have been indigenous to a number of arts; they are coeval and coextensive with culture. The first load, weapon, or vessel transported by man may have been suspended by a vine or filament. Such arts as have fallen heir to handles have used them according to the capacities of the material employed. Of all the materials stone is probably the least suited to their successful use, while clay utilizes them in its own peculiar way, giving to them a great variety of expression. They are copied in clay from various models, but owing to the inadequate capacities of the material, often lose their function and degenerate into mere ornaments, which are modified as such to please the potter's fancy. Thus, for example, the series of handles placed about the neck of the vessel become, by modification in frequent copying, a mere band of ornamental figures in relief, or even finally in engraved, punctured, or painted lines, in the manner suggested in Fig. 477. Legs, pedestals, spouts, and other features may in a like manner give rise to decoration. [Illustration: _a._--Coiled fillet of clay. _b._--Double coil. FIG. 478.--Scroll derived from coil of clay.] _Constructional features._-Features of vessels resulting from construction are infinitely varied and often highly suggestive of decoration. Constructional peculiarities of the clay utensils themselves are especially worthy of notice, and on account of their actual presence in the art itself are more likely to be utilized or copied for ceramic ornament than those of other materials. The coil, so universally employed in construction, has had a decided influence upon the ceramic decoration of certain peoples, as I have shown in a paper on ancient Pueblo art. From it we have not only a great variety of surface ornamentation produced by simple treatment of the coil in place, but probably many forms suggested by the use of the coil in vessel building, as, for instance, the spiral formed in beginning the base of a coiled vessel, Fig. 478 _a_, from which the double scroll _b_, as a separate feature, could readily be derived, and finally the chain of scrolls so often seen in border and zone decoration. This familiarity with the use of fillets or ropes of clay would also lead to a great variety of applied ornament, examples of which, from Pueblo art, are given in Fig. 479. The sinuous forms assumed by a rope of clay so employed would readily suggest to the Indian the form of the serpent and the means of representing it, and might thus lead to the introduction of this much revered creature into art. [Illustration: FIG. 479.--Ornamental use of fillets.] Of the various classes of utensils associated closely with the ceramic art, there are none so characteristically marked by constructional features as nets and wicker baskets. The twisting, interlacing, knotting, and stitching of filaments give relieved figures that by contact in manufacture impress themselves upon the plastic clay. Such impressions come in time to be regarded as pleasing features, and when free-hand methods of reproducing are finally acquired they and their derivatives become essentials of decoration. At a later stage these characters of basketry influence ceramic decoration in a somewhat different way. By the use of variously-colored fillets the woven surface displays figures in color corresponding to those in relief and varying with every new combination. Many striking patterns are thus produced, and the potter who has learned to decorate his wares by the stylus or brush reproduces these patterns by free-hand methods. We find pottery in all countries ornamented with patterns, painted, incised, stamped, and relieved, certainly derived from this source. So well is this fact known that I need hardly go into details. In the higher stages of art the constructional characters of architecture give rise to many notions of decoration which afterwards descend to other arts, taking greatly divergent forms. Aboriginal architecture in some parts of America had reached a development capable of wielding a strong influence. This is not true, however, of any part of the United States. +SUGGESTIONS OF ACCIDENTS.+ Besides the suggestions of surface features impressed in manufacture or intentionally copied as indicated above, we have also those of accidental imprints of implements or of the fingers in manufacture. From this source there are necessarily many suggestions of ornament, at first of indented figures, but later, after long employment, extending to the other modes of representation. +IDEOGRAPHIC AND PICTORIAL SUBJECTS.+ Non-ideographic forms of ornament may originate in ideographic features, mnemonic, demonstrative, or symbolic. Such significant figures are borrowed by decorators from other branches of art. As time goes on they lose their significance and are subsequently treated as purely decorative elements. Subjects wholly pictorial in character, when such come to be made, may also be used as simple decoration, and by long processes of convention become geometric. The exact amount of significance still attached to significant figures after adoption into decoration cannot be determined except in cases of actual identification by living peoples, and even when the signification is known by the more learned individuals the decorator may be wholly without knowledge of it. MODIFICATION OF ORNAMENT. There are comparatively few elementary ideas prominently and generally employed in primitive decorative art. New ideas are acquired, as already shown, all along the pathway of progress. None of these ideas retain a uniform expression, however, as they are subject to modification by environment just as are the forms of living organisms. A brief classification of the causes of modification is given in the following synopsis: /Through material. Modification of ornament------|Through form. \Through, methods of realization. _Through material._--It is evident at a glance that _material_ must have a strong influence upon the forms assumed by the various decorative motives, however derived. Thus stone, clay, wood, bone, and copper, although they readily borrow from nature and from each other, necessarily show different decorative results. Stone is massive and takes form slowly and by peculiar processes. Clay is more versatile and decoration may be scratched, incised, painted, or modeled in relief with equal facility, while wood and metal engender details having characters peculiar to themselves, producing different results from the same motives or elements. Much of the diversity displayed by the art products of different countries and climates is due to this cause. Peoples dwelling in arctic climates are limited, by their materials, to particular modes of expression. Bone and ivory as shaped for use in the arts of subsistence afford facilities for the employment of a very restricted class of linear decoration, such chiefly as could be scratched with a hard point upon small irregular, often cylindrical, implements. Skins and other animal tissues are not favorable to the development of ornament, and the textile arts--the greatest agents of convention--do not readily find suitable materials in which to work. Decorative art carried to a high stage under arctic environment would be more likely to achieve unconventional and realistic forms than if developed in more highly favored countries. The accurate geometric and linear patterns would hardly arise. _Through form._--Forms of decorated objects exercise a strong influence upon the decorative designs employed. It would be more difficult to tattoo the human face or body with straight lines or rectilinear patterns than with curved ones. An ornament applied originally to a vessel of a given form would accommodate itself to that form pretty much as costume becomes adjusted to the individual. When it came to be required for another form of vessel, very decided changes might be necessary. With the ancient Pueblo peoples rectilinear forms of meander patterns were very much in favor and many earthen vessels are found in which bands of beautiful angular geometric figures occupy the peripheral zone, Fig. 480 _a_, but when the artist takes up a mug having a row of hemispherical nodes about the body, _b_, he finds it very difficult to apply his favorite forms and is almost compelled to run spiral curves about the nodes in order to secure a neat adjustment. [Illustration: FIG. 480.--Variations in a motive through the influence of form.] _Through methods of realisation_.--It will readily be seen that the forms assumed by a motive depend greatly upon the character of the mechanical devices employed. In the potter's art devices for holding and turning the vessel under manipulation produce peculiar results. In applying a given idea to clay much depends upon the method of executing it. It will take widely differing forms when executed by incising, by modeling, by painting, and by stamping. Intimately associated with methods of execution are peculiarities of construction, the two agencies working together in the processes of modification and development of ornament. I have previously shown how our favorite ornament, the scroll, in its disconnected form may have originated in the copying of natural forms or through the manipulation of coils of clay. I present here an example of its possible origin through the modification of forms derived from constructional features of basketry. An ornament known as the guilloche is found in many countries. The combination of lines resembles that of twisted or platted fillets of wood, cane, or rushes, as may be seen at a glance, Fig. 481 _a_. An incised ornament of this character, possibly derived from basketry by copying the twisted fillets or their impressions in the clay, is very common on the pottery of the mounds of the Mississippi Valley, and its variants form a most interesting study. In applying this to a vessel the careless artist does not properly connect the ends of the lines which pass beneath the intersecting fillets, and the parts become disconnected, _b_. In many cases the ends are turned in abruptly as seen in _c_, and only a slight further change is necessary to lead to the result, _d_, the running scroll with well-developed links. All of these steps may be observed in a single group of vessels. It may be thought by some that the processes of development indicated above are insufficient and unsatisfactory. There are those who, seeing these forms already endowed with symbolism, begin at what I conceive to be the wrong end of the process. They derive the form of symbol directly from the thing symbolized. Thus the current scroll is, with many races, found to be a symbol of water, and its origin is attributed to a literal rendition of the sweep and curl of the waves. It is more probable that the scroll became the symbol of the sea long after its development through agencies similar to those described above, and that the association resulted from the observation of incidental resemblances. This same figure, in use by the Indians of the interior of the continent, is regarded as symbolic of the whirlwind, and it is probable that any symbol-using people will find in the features and phenomena of their environment, whatever it may be, sufficient resemblance to any of their decorative devices to lead to a symbolic association. [Illustration: FIG. 481.--Theoretical development of the current scroll.] One secret of modification is found in the use of a radical in more than one art, owing to differences in constructional characters. For example, the tendency of nearly all woven fabrics is to encourage, even to compel, the use of straight lines in the decorative designs applied. Thus the attempt to employ curved lines would lead to stepped or broken lines. The curvilinear scroll coming from some other art would be forced by the constructional character of the fabric into square forms, and the rectilinear meander or fret would result, as shown in. Fig. 482, _a_ being the plain form, painted, engraved, or in relief, and _b_ the same idea developed in a woven fabric. Stone or brick-work would lead to like results, Fig. 483; but the modification could as readily move in the other direction. If an ornament originating in the constructional character of a woven fabric, or remodeled by it, and hence rectilinear, should be desired for a smooth structureless or featureless surface, the difficulties of drawing the angular forms would lead to the delineation of curved forms, and we would have exactly the reverse of the order shown in Figs. 482 and 483. The two forms given in Fig. 484 actually occur in one and the same design painted upon an ancient Pueblo vase. The curved form is apparently the result of careless or hurried work, the original angular form, having come from, a textile source. [Illustration: _a_, free-hand form. _b_, form imposed, by fabric. FIG. 482.--Forms of the same motive expressed in different arts.] [Illustration: _a_, free-hand form. _b_, form imposed by masonry. FIG. 483.--Forms of the same motive expressed in different arts.] [Illustration: _a_ _b_ FIG. 484.--Variations resulting from change of method.] Many excellent examples illustrative of this tendency to modification are found in Pueblo art. Much of the ornament applied to pottery is derived from the sister art, basketry. In the latter art the forms of decorative figures are geometric and symmetrical to the highest degree, as I have frequently pointed out. The rays of a radiating ornament, worked with the texture of a shallow basket, spring from the center and take uniform directions toward the margin, as shown in Fig. 485. But when a similar idea derived from basketry (as it could have no other origin) is executed in color upon an earthen vessel, we observe a tendency to depart from symmetry as well as from consistency. I call attention here to the arrangement of the parts merely, not to the motives employed, as I happen to have no examples of identical figures from the two arts. [Illustration: FIG. 485.--Geometric form, of textile ornament.] [Illustration: FIG. 486.--Loss of geometric accuracy in painting.] It will be seen by reference to the design given in Fig. 486, taken from the upper surface of an ancient vase, that although the spirit of the decoration is wonderfully well preserved the idea of the origin of all the rays in the center of the vessel is not kept in view, and that by carelessness in the drawing two of the rays are crowded out and terminate against the side of a neighboring ray. In copying and recopying by free-hand methods, many curious modifications take place in these designs, as, for example, the unconformity which occurs in one place in the example given may occur at a number of places, and there will be a series of independent sections, a small number only of the bands of devices remaining true rays. [Illustration: FIG. 487.--Design painted upon pottery.] A characteristic painted design from the interior of an ancient bowl is shown in Fig. 487, in which merely a suggestion of the radiation is preserved, although the figure is still decorative and tasteful. This process of modification goes on without end, and as the true geometric textile forms recede from view innovation robs the design of all traces of its original character, producing much that is incongruous and unsatisfactory. The growth of decorative devices from the elementary to the highly constituted and elegant is owing to a tendency of the human mind to elaborate because it is pleasant to do so or because pleasure is taken in the result, but there is still a directing and shaping agency to be accounted for. I have already shown that such figures as the scroll and the guilloche are not _necessarily_ developed by processes of selection and combination of simple elements, as many have thought, since they may have come into art at a very early stage almost full-fledged; but there is nothing in these facts to throw light upon the processes by which ornament followed particular lines of development throughout endless elaboration. In treating of this point, Prof. C.F. Hartt[2] maintained that the development of ornamental designs took particular and uniform directions owing to the structure of the eye, certain forms being chosen and perpetuated because of the pleasure afforded by movements of the eye in following them. In connection with this hypothesis, for it is nothing more, Mr. Hartt advanced the additional idea, that in unison with the general course of nature decorative forms began with simple elements and developed by systematic methods to complex forms. Take for example the series of designs shown in Fig. 488. The meander _a_ made up of simple parts would, according to Mr. Hartt, by further elaboration under the supervision of the muscles of the eye, develop into _b_. This, in time, into _c_, and so on until the elegant anthemium was achieved. The series shown in Fig. 489 would develop in a similar way, or otherwise would be produced by modification in free-hand copying of the rectilinear series. The processes here suggested, although to all appearances reasonable enough, should not be passed over without careful scrutiny. [Illustration: FIG. 488.--Theoretical development of fret-work.] [Footnote 2: Hartt: Popular Science Monthly, Vol. VI, p. 266.] Taking the first series, we observe that the ornaments are projected in straight continuous lines or zones, which are filled in with more or less complex parts, rectilinear and geometrically accurate. Still higher forms are marvelously intricate and graceful, yet not less geometric and symmetrical. [Illustration: FIG. 489.--Theoretical development of scroll work.] Let us turn to the primitive artisan, and observe him at work with rude brush and stylus upon the rounded and irregular forms of his utensils and weapons, or upon skins, bark, and rock surfaces. Is it probable that with his free hand directed by the eye alone he will be able to achieve these rythmic geometric forms. It seems to me that the whole tendency is in the opposite direction. I venture to surmise that if there had been no other resources than those named above the typical rectilinear fret would never have been known, at least to the primitive world; for, notwithstanding the contrary statement by Professor Hartt, the fret is in its more highly-developed forms extremely difficult to follow with the eye and to delineate with the hand. Until arts, geometric in their construction, arose to create and to combine mechanically the necessary elements and motives, and lead the way by a long series of object-lessons to ideas of geometric combination, our typical border ornament would not be possible. Such arts are the textile arts and architecture. These brought into existence forms and ideas not met with in nature and not primarily thought of by man, and combined them in defiance of human, conceptions of grace. Geometric ornament is the offspring of technique. INDEX. Acquisition of new material modifies form in pottery 451 Adventition, a source of form 445, 450 America as a field for study of art 443 Basketry copied in pottery 449 Busycon shell copied as a vessel, The 454 California, Pottery from 447 Ceramic art, Origin and development of form and ornament in, W.H. Holmes 437-465 form discussed 444 ornament discussed 444 Coils suggesting spiral ornament 456 Decorative motive in pottery, Sources of 453 European civilization checked aboriginal American art 443 Fancy modifying form in pottery 452 Fictile art related to written language 443 Form modifies ornament in pottery 458 of pottery modified by certain influences 450-452 Hartt, Prof. C.F., on form of designs as influenced by structure of the eye 463-464 Ideographic elements of decoration 453 Imitation, A source of form 445 Improvements in modes of manufacture modify forms in pottery 450 Intention a modifier of form in pottery 452 Modification of ornaments in pottery 458 Non-ideographic elements of decoration 453 Origin and development of form and ornament in ceramic art (W.H. Holmes) 437-465 Origin of ornament in pottery 453 Ornament in pottery, Origin of 453-457 Ornamental elements modified by invention 453 Pottery from California 447 Tusayan 451 Utah 449 Scroll, Possible origin of the 459 Shells copied in pottery 447 Skin vessels copied in pottery 447 Sources of decorative motive in ceramic art 453 Spiral ornament from coils 456 Stone vessels copied in pottery 447 Symbols adopted rather than invented 460 Utility modifies form in pottery 452 Wooden vessels copied in pottery 447, 451 Written language as related to fictile art 443 
54602	----	SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM ART HANDBOOKS. EDITED BY WILLIAM MASKELL. No. 3.--FURNITURE ANCIENT AND MODERN. _These Handbooks are reprints of the dissertations prefixed to the large catalogues of the chief divisions of works of art in the Museum at South Kensington; arranged and so far abridged as to bring each into a portable shape. The Lords of the Committee of Council on Education having determined on the publication of them, the editor trusts that they will meet the purpose intended; namely, to be useful, not alone for the collections at South Kensington but for other collections, by enabling the public at a trifling cost to understand something of the history and character of the subjects treated of._ _The authorities referred to in each book are given in the large catalogues; where will also be found detailed descriptions of the very numerous examples in the South Kensington Museum._ W. M. _August, 1875._ ANCIENT AND MODERN FURNITURE AND WOODWORK BY JOHN HUNGERFORD POLLEN WITH NUMEROUS WOODCUTS [Illustration] _Published for the Committee of Council on Education_ BY CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY LONDON. DALZIEL BROTHERS, PRINTERS, CAMDEN PRESS, N.W. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I Furniture Ancient and Modern 1 II Antique: Egypt, Nineveh and Greece 4 III The Romans 17 IV Byzantine Art 29 V The Middle Ages 41 VI The Fifteenth Century 59 VII The Renaissance in Italy 66 VIII Renaissance in England, Flanders, France, Germany, ans Spain 78 IX Tudor and Stuart Styles 85 X Furniture of the Eighteenth Century 103 XI Changes of Taste and Style 116 Appendix: Names of the Designers of Woodwork and Makers of Furniture 133 Index 140 LIST OF WOODCUTS. PAGE Egyptian chair 4 Assyrian chairs 7 Greek chair 10 Greek chairs 11 Greek couches 13 Greek mirror 14 Greek chariot 15 Pompeian interior 19 Roman tripod 22 Roman candelabra 23 Roman candelabra 24 Roman table 26 Roman couch 27 Roman ceremonial chair 28 Roman _sella_ 28 Roman kitchen utensils 30 St. Peter's chair 35 The chair of king Dagobert 43 Anglo-norman bedstead 46 The Coronation chair 49 Interior of English mediæval bedroom 51 Anglo-saxon dinner-table 52 Dinner-table of middle-class, fifteenth century 53 Table of fifteenth century 53 Travelling carriage of fifteenth century; "Tullia driving over the body of her father" 55 Oriental panels 57 A royal dinner-table of the fourteenth century 58 French panel; fifteenth century 60 Venetian cornice 68 Portion of carved Italian chest 69 Venetian chair 71 Italian bellows 72 Another example 73 Knife-case; 1564 76 Carved panels 80 French table; sixteenth century 81 French panel; 1577 82 English panel; about 1590 86 French cabinet; sixteenth century 88 Italian oak pedestal 90 Venetian mirror-frame 91 German arm-chair; seventeenth century 93 English bracket; about 1660 97 English doorway; about 1690 98 Venetian looking-glass 100 Holy-water stoup 101 English dinner-table; 1633 102 Italian distaff 106 Roman _triclinium_ 117 Bedstead; fifteenth century 118 The great bed of Ware 119 Bedstead at Hampton Court 120 Mediæval room 120 Cradle; fifteenth century 121 Folding chair; fifteenth century 122 Italian chair; sixteenth century 123 Antique Roman tables 125 Folding table; English, 1620(?) 126 Mediæval chest 127 Roman carriages 130 English carriage; fourteenth century 131 State carriages 132 FURNITURE, ANCIENT AND MODERN. CHAPTER I. The study of a collection of old furniture has an interest beyond the mere appreciation of the beauty it displays. The carving or the ornaments that decorate the various pieces and the skill and ingenuity with which they are put together are well worthy of our attention. A careful examination of them carries us back to the days in which they were made and to the taste and manners, the habits and the requirements, of bygone ages. The Kensington museum, for example, contains chests, caskets, cabinets, chairs, carriages, and utensils of all sorts and of various countries. Some of these have held the bridal dresses, fans, and trinkets of French and Italian beauties, whose sons and daughters for many generations have long gone to the dust; there are inlaid folding chairs used at the court of Guido Ubaldo, in the palace of Urbino, and of other Italian princes of the fifteenth century; buffets and sideboards that figured at mediæval feasts; boxes in which were kept the jesses and bells of hawks; love-tokens of many kinds, christening-spoons, draught and chess men, card boxes, belonging to the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries; carriages of the London of Cromwell and Hogarth, and of the Dublin of Burke; panelling of the date of Raleigh; a complete room made for a lady of honour to Marie Antoinette. Besides these memorials of periods comparatively well known to us, we shall find reproductions of the furniture of ages the habits of which we know imperfectly, such as the chair of Dagobert, and various relics illustrating the old classic manners and civilisation, as they have come down to us from Roman and Greek artists, and brought to light by the discoveries at Herculaneum and Pompeii. The field through which a collection of old furniture stretches is too wide to be filled with anything like completeness; but the South Kensington collection is already rich in some very rare examples, such as carved chests and cabinets, decorated with the most finished wood carving of Flanders, France, and Italy, as well as of our own country. As wood is the material of which furniture for domestic use has generally been made, there are, of course, limits to its endurance, and not much furniture is to be found anywhere older than the renaissance. Objects for domestic use, such as beds, chairs, chests, tables, &c., are rare, and have not often been collected together. The museum of the hôtel de Cluny, in Paris, is the best representative collection of woodwork anterior to the quattro or cinque cento period--_i.e._ the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries. Some carved and gilt carriages belonging to the last century are also there; and a set of carriages, carved and gilt, made for state ceremonials, used during the latter part of the last century and down to the days of the empire of Napoleon III. are, or were till the war of 1870, kept at the Trianon at Versailles. Many cabinets and tables in Boule work, Vernis-Martin work, and in marquetry by Riesener, Gouthière, David, and others, in the possession of Sir Richard Wallace, were lately exhibited in the museum at Bethnal Green, and examples by the same artists from St. Cloud and Meudon are in the Louvre in Paris. A fine collection of carriages, belonging to the royal family of Portugal, is kept in Lisbon. These are decorated in the "Vernis-Martin" method. Several old royal state carriages, carved and gilt, the property of the emperor of Austria, are at Vienna. In order to take a general review of the kinds, forms, and changes of personal and secular woodwork and furniture, as manners and fashions have influenced the wants of different nations and times, it will be well to divide the subject in chronological order into antique; Egyptian, Ninevite, Greek, Roman:--modern; early and late mediæval:--renaissance; seventeenth and eighteenth century work: to be followed by an inquiry into the changes that some of the pieces of furniture in most frequent use have undergone. CHAPTER II. ANTIQUE: EGYPT, NINEVEH, AND GREECE. Considering the perishable nature of the material, we cannot expect to meet with many existing specimens of the woodwork or furniture of ancient Egypt. There are to be found, however, abundant illustrations of these objects in the paintings and sculptures of monuments. The most complete are on the walls of the tombs, where we see detailed pictures of domestic life, and the interiors of houses are shown, with entertainments of parties of ladies and gentlemen talking, listening to music, eating and drinking. The guests are seated on chairs of wood, framed up with sloping backs, of which specimens are in the British museum; others are on stools or chairs of greater splendour, stuffed and covered on the seat and back with costly textiles, having the wooden framework carved and gilt, generally in the form of the fore and hind legs of tigers, panthers, and other animals of the chace, sometimes supported, as in the accompanying woodcut, on figures representing captives. [Illustration] The British museum contains six Egyptian chairs. One of these is made of ebony, turned in the lathe and inlaid with collars and dies of ivory. It is low, the legs joined by light rails of cane, the back straight, with two cross-bars and light rails between. The seat is slightly hollowed, and is of plaited cane as in modern chairs. Another is square, also with straight back, but with pieces of wood sloped into the seat to make it comfortable for a sitter. Small workmen's stools of blocks of wood hollowed out and with three or four legs fastened into them may also be referred to, and a table on four legs tied by four bars near the lower ends. The Egyptians used couches straight, like ottomans; with head boards curving over as in our modern sofas, sometimes with the head and tail of an animal carved on the ends, and the legs and feet carved to correspond. These were stuffed and covered with rich material. The Egyptians did not recline at meals. Their double seats, [Greek: diphroi], or bisellia, were such as were used by the Greeks and Romans. They had shelves and recesses, chests and coffers, made of pine or cedar wood, and of a material still used in Egypt, the _cafass_--palm sticks formed into planks by thin pegs or rods of harder wood passing through a series of these sticks laid together. "Of their bedroom furniture," says Sir Gardner Wilkinson, "we know but little." They used (he tells us) their day couches probably, or lay on mats, and on low wooden pallets made of palm sticks. These last had curved blocks, which served for a pillow, forming a hollow to receive the head. Examples in alabaster and wood are in the Louvre and in the British museum. Their materials for dress were of the most delicate and costly description. The robes of the ladies were often transparent, and the gold and silver tissues, muslins, and gossamer fabrics made in India and Asia were probably also used in Egypt. All these, as well as their jewels and valuables, imply corresponding chests and smaller coffers. Small toilet boxes elegantly carved into the form or with representations of leaves and animals, are preserved in the Louvre and in the British museum and other collections. They were generally of sycamore wood, sometimes of tamarisk or sont (acacia), and occasionally the more costly ivory or inlaid work was substituted for wood. Larger boxes may also be seen in the Louvre, some large enough to contain dresses. They are square, with flat, curved, or gable tops, painted on the surface, and generally lifted from the ground by four short legs or prolongations of the rails that form the framework. These boxes are dovetailed, and secured by glue and nails. Their chariots and the harness of their horses were rich in proportion, the former painted, inlaid with ivory and gold, or with surface gilding, containing cases for their bows and arms, and made of wood filled in with the lightest materials, perhaps canvas stiffened with preparations of lac in the Japanese manner, and put together with a skill that made the carriage-makers of Egypt famous in their day. It will be sufficient to add that the great Jewish kings had their chariots supplied from Egypt. Solomon paid about £75 of our money for a chariot, and of these he kept (for war purposes alone) a force of fourteen hundred, with forty thousand horses. Mummy cases of cedar, a material readily procured and valued for its preservative qualities, are to be seen in many collections, and examples can be examined in the British museum. They are richly decorated with hieroglyphic paintings executed in tempera, and varnished with gum mastic. The furniture of Nineveh is not so elaborately or completely represented as that of Egypt, where the preservation of sculpture and painting was helped out by a climate of extraordinary dryness. But the discoveries of Mr. Layard have thrown on the details of Ninevite domestic life light enough to give us the means of forming a judgment on their furniture. "Ornaments," says Mr. Layard, "in the form of the heads of animals, chiefly the lion, bull, and ram, were very generally introduced, even in parts of the chariot, the harness of the horses, and domestic furniture." In this respect the Assyrians resembled the Egyptians. "Their tables, thrones, and couches were made both of metal and wood, and probably inlaid with ivory. We learn from Herodotus that those in the temple of Belus in Babylon were of solid gold." [Illustration] [Illustration] According to Mr. Layard, the chair represented in the earliest monuments is without a back, and the legs tastefully carved. This form occurs in the palace of Nimrúd, and is sculptured on one of the bas-reliefs now in the British museum. Often the legs ended in the feet of a lion or the hoofs of a bull, and were made of gold, silver, or bronze. "On the monuments of Khorsabad and by the rock tablets of Malthaiyah we find representations of chairs supported by animals and by human figures, sometimes prisoners, like the Caryatides of the Greeks. In this they resemble the arm-chairs of Egypt, but appear to have been more massive. This mode of ornamenting the throne of the king was adopted by the Persians, and is seen in the sculpture of Persepolis." The woodcut represents such a chair, from a bas-relief at Khorsabad. The lion head and lion foot were used by other oriental nations. The throne of king Solomon was supported by lions for arms, probably in the same position as the horses in the Khorsabad chair; and lions of gold or chryselephantine work stood six on each side on the six steps before the throne. The forms of furniture of a later date in the sculptures of Nineveh at Khorsabad are of an inferior style. "The chairs have generally more than one cross-bar, and are somewhat heavy and ill-proportioned, the feet resting upon large inverted cones, resembling pine-apples." All these seats, like the [Greek: diphroi] and _sellæ_ of important personages in Greece and Rome, were high enough to require a footstool. "On the earlier monuments of Assyria footstools are very beautifully carved or modelled. The feet were ornamented, like those of the chair, with the feet of lions or the hoofs of bulls." The tables seem in general to have been of similar form and decoration to the thrones or seats, the ends of the frame projecting and carved as in the woodcut above, only on a larger scale. The couches were of similar form, but made of gold and silver, stuffed and covered on the surface with the richest materials. The tables and the chairs were often made in the shape also found in Greece and Rome, with folding supports that open on a central rivet like our camp-stools, and like the curule chairs which were common not only in Rome but throughout Italy during the renaissance. A large piece of wood of pine or cedar is in the British museum. It is of a full red colour, the effect of time. Cedar was probably most in use; but both in Egypt and Nineveh, as also in Judæa under Solomon and his successors, woods were imported from Europe and India; ebony certainly, perhaps rosewood, teak, and Indian walnut. Ebony and ivory were continually used for inlaying furniture. Of their bedroom furniture we can say little, nor do we know of what kind were the cabinets or chests made to preserve their dresses and valuables. It is probable, however, that these were occasionally as rich and elaborate as any of their show or state furniture. Of Hebrew furniture we can give few details. It is probable that the Jews differed but little from the Assyrians in this respect. The throne of Solomon has been already noticed. In the story of Judith the canopy and curtains of the bed of Holofernes may have been taken by the chronicler from familiar examples at home, or may have been strictly drawn from traditional details. In the figurative language of the Canticles, the bed of Solomon is of cedar of Lebanon, the pillars of silver, the bottom of gold. Ordinary bedroom furniture is spoken of in the Chronicles, when the Shunamite woman, a person of great wealth, built for the prophet Elias "a little chamber on the wall, and set therein a bed, a table, a stool, and a candlestick." Ivory wardrobes are mentioned in the 45th psalm, but of what size or form we cannot determine. In the book of Esther allusions are made to Persian furniture decorations, white, green, and blue hangings fastened with fine linen to silver rings and pillars of marble. The beds were of gold and silver, &c. The bed of Og, king of Bashan, was nine cubits long by four, and was of iron: it was preserved as a trophy. As the chariots of Solomon were made in Egypt, and the artists employed on the Temple came from Tyre, it is not unreasonable to suppose that furniture was either made by foreign workmen, or that the Hebrews borrowed freely the forms and decorations of surrounding Asiatic nations. Though specially and purposely jealous of any innovation or interference with religious rites and observances, we have no cause to think that they objected to the use of furniture or utensils such as they found first during the long sojourn in Egypt, and afterwards in other countries. They are said in earlier times to have spoiled the Egyptians with reference to the ornaments and jewels carried away at the migration. We know that Moses was "learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians;" and two particular artists, and two only, are named in the book of Exodus as qualified to execute the sacred vessels and utensils. Whatever their technical qualifications were, these had been acquired in Egypt. In any attempt to picture to ourselves the kind of furniture and objects of daily use apart from chariots, arms, &c., that surrounded the Greeks in early ages, it will be necessary to bear in mind the close connection which that people must have had with the Asiatic races, and the splendour and refinement that surrounded the wealthy civilisation of the oriental monarchies. They were so continually the allies or the rivals of the various states in Asia Minor, and pushed out into that fertile region so many vigorous colonies, that it cannot be doubted that the splendid stuffs, beds, couches, thrones, chariots, &c., used by Greeks on the Asiatic continent or in Europe, had much of eastern character in form and method of execution; perhaps, at first, in decoration also. This woodcut represents a chair of Assyrian character on a bas-relief from Xanthus, in the British museum. [Illustration] Much that is oriental figures in poetic accounts of the arms, furniture, and equipments of the Greek heroic ages. The chiefs take the field in chariots. These could have been used but in small numbers on ground so uneven as the rocky territories of the Morea. The beds described by Homer, the coverlids of dyed wool, tapestries, or carpets, and other instances of coloured and showy furniture, were genuine descriptions of objects known and seen, though not common. Generally the furniture of the heroic age was simple. Two beds of bronze of Tartessus, one Dorian and one Ionian, the smallest weighing fifty talents, of uncertain date, were kept in the treasury at Altis, and seen there by Pausanias towards the end of the second century. The chariots differed little except in the ornamental carving, modelling, or chasing, from those of Egypt. The oldest remaining models of Greek furniture to which we can point are the chairs in which the antique figures in the Syrian room at the British museum are seated. These are dated six, or nearly six, centuries before Christ. They represent chairs with backs, quite perpendicular in front and behind. The frame-pieces of the seats are morticed into the legs, and the mortices and tenons are accurately marked in the marble, the horizontal passing right through the upright bars. These early pieces of furniture were probably executed in wood, not metal, which was at first but rarely used. The woodcuts show the different forms taken from antique bas-reliefs. [Illustration] The chest or coffer in which Cypselus of Corinth had been concealed was seen by Pausanias in the temple of Olympia. It was made about the middle of the sixth century B.C. The chest was of cedar, carved and decorated with figures and bas-reliefs, some in ivory, some in gold or ivory partly gilt, which were inlaid on the four sides and on the top. The subjects of the sculpture were old Greek myths and local legends, and traditions connected with the country. This coffer is supposed to have been executed by Eumelos of Corinth. The great period of Greek art began in the fifth century B.C.; but those were not days favourable to the development of personal luxury among the citizens. An extreme simplicity in private manners balanced the continual publicity and political excitement of Greek life. The rich classes, moreover, had little inducement to make any display of their possessions. The state enjoyed an indefinite right to the property of its members; the lawgiver in Plato declared "ye are not your own, still less is your property your own." In Sparta the exclusive training for war admitted of no manner of earning money by business. In Athens the poorer class had so exclusively the upper hand of the rich that the latter had to provide the public with entertainments of sacrificial solemnities, largesses of corn, and banquets. "The demos," says the author of the "Gentile and the Jew," "understood the squeezing of the rich like sponges." Greece was the paradise of the poor. It is therefore to be expected that the sculpture of the day, though employed sometimes upon the decoration of thrones or state seats, chariots, chests, looking-glasses, tripods, as the painting was on walls, vases, and movable pictures on panels, should have been employed mostly in temples and, with occasional exceptions, on objects of some public use. The chest described above was kept as a relic, and the elaborately carved thrones in the temples were those of the statues of gods and heroes. Ivory and gold laid over a substructure of olive wood were the materials quite as frequently used by great sculptors as marble or bronze for statues which did not form parts of the actual decorations of their architecture. In later times these materials were used in sumptuous furniture. The Greeks used couches for sleeping and resting upon, but not for reclining on at meals, till the Macedonian period. We give two or three examples, from marbles: one of which resembles the modern sofa. Women sat always, as in Rome, sometimes on the couch at the head or foot, on which the master of the house or a guest reclined, generally on chairs. Besides chairs like the one represented here, the Greeks made arm-chairs; and folding chairs of metal. In the Parthenon frieze Jupiter is seated in a square seat on thick turned legs, with a round bar for a back, resting on short turned posts fitted into the seat. The arms are less high than the back; they are formed by slight bars framed into the uprights at the back, and resting on winged sphinxes. [Illustration] [Illustration] [Illustration] [Illustration] Mirrors of mixed metal alloys, silver, tin, and copper, have come down to our times in great numbers. They were made occasionally in pure silver, and in gold probably among the Greeks as they were in later times among the Romans. The cases are of bronze, and engraved with figure designs of the highest character. There is, however, no proof that these were used as furniture in houses, as in Rome. They are hand mirrors, and the description of them, as works of art, belongs rather to that of antique bronzes. The woodcut shows the usual type, with the richly ornamented handle. [Illustration] Designs of the Greek couch, whether for sleeping or for reclining at meals, are abundant on tomb paintings, and sculptures, and on the paintings of vases. In the British museum we may see a large vase in the second vase room, on which a couch for two persons is arranged with a long mattress covered with rich material, lying within what appears to be a border of short turned rails with a cushion on each end, also covered with rich striped material. A long low stool decorated with ivory lies below the couch as a kind of step. The legs, as in many vase representations, are thick turned supports with lighter parts below, and a turned knob at the foot. On another vase Dionysus reclines on a thick round cushion at the head of the couch, while Ariadne sits on it. Figures feasting or stretched in death on similar couches can be seen in two beautiful and perfect funeral chests in the Ægina room. All these pieces of furniture seem made of or decorated with ivory, and furnished with coloured cushions or coverings of an oriental character. Tripods were made of bronze in great number for sacred use, and probably also as the supports of brasiers, tables, &c., in private houses. The tables were of wood, marble, and metal; the supports being either lion or leopard legs and heads, or sphinxes with lifted wings, a favourite form in Greek ornamentation. With regard to Greek houses generally, their arrangements differed very little from the earlier houses of the Romans. The bas-relief in the British museum--Bacchus received as a guest by Icarus--represents a couch with turned legs, the feet of which are decorated with leaf work; a plain square stool, perhaps the top of a box, on which masks are laid, and a tripod table with lion legs. The houses in the background are tiled. The windows are divided into two lights by an upright mullion or column, and a bas-relief of a charioteer driving two horses ornaments a portion of the wall, and may be intended for a picture hung up or fixed against the wall. The whole shows us an Athenian house, decked for a festive occasion, and garlands and hangings are festooned round its outer walls. The Greek chariot was of wood, probably similar to that of the Egyptians. It had sometimes wheels with four strong spokes only, as in the woodcut. The chariot wheel of the car of Mausolus, in the British museum, has six. The Ninevite wheels have sometimes as many as twelve, as may be seen in the sculptured bas-reliefs of the narrow Assyrian gallery of the British museum. [Illustration] The woods used by the Greeks for sculpture were ebony, cypress, cedar, oak, _smilax_, yew, willow, _lotus_, and citron. These materials were rarely left without enrichments of ivory, gold, and colour. The faces of statues were painted vermilion, the dresses, crowns, or other ornaments were gilt or made in wrought gold. CHAPTER III. THE ROMANS. The splendour that surrounded the personal usages of the earlier races of antiquity, the Egyptians, Ninevites, Persians, Greeks, and Tuscans, was inherited by the Romans. Not only did they outlive those powers, but they absorbed their territory as far as they could reach it; they affected to take in their religions and deities to add to their own system; they drained the subject populations for slaves, and eagerly adopted from them every art that could administer to the magnificence and luxury of their own private life. They have left both written records in their literature and actual examples of their furniture, made in metal or of marble. The discovery of Herculaneum and of Pompeii has given us not only single pieces of furniture, but very considerable remains of houses, shops, streets, fora or open public places of assembly, theatres, and baths. It is in such evidences of Roman social life that we shall find the materials for our present inquiry. The Romans spent their earlier ages in unceasing struggles for independence and dominion: and so long as the elder powers of Italy survived to dispute the growth of Roman greatness, there could not be much expansion of private wealth or splendour in the houses of Roman citizens. Though surrounded by splendid social life among the Etruscans, the Roman people long remained exceptionally simple in personal habits. It was after the Punic wars that oriental luxuries found their way into Italy along with the Carthaginian armies. Tapestry is said to have been first brought to Rome by Attalus, the king of Pergamus, who died B.C. 133 possessed of immense wealth, and bequeathed tapestries, generally used in the east from the early ages, to the Roman citizens. When Augustus became emperor the conquest of the world was complete. Thenceforward military habits and simplicity of individual life were no longer necessary to a state that could find no political rivals. The great capital of the world absorbed like a vast vegetable growth the thought, the skill, and the luxuries of the whole world. Nothing was too valuable to be procured by the great Roman nobles or money-makers, and nothing too strange not to find a place and be welcome in one or other of their vast households. While this was so at Rome in chief, it must be remembered that other capitals were flourishing in various countries, as wealthy, as luxurious in their own way and degree, only less in extent and means, and lacking that peculiar seal of supremacy that gives to the real capital a character that is never attained in subordinate centres of civilisation. Antioch was such a centre in the east; Alexandria in the south. Both these great cities contained wealthy, refined, and luxurious societies. Both were known as universities and seats of learning. Antioch was the most debauched and luxurious; Alexandria the most learned and refined. They did not exactly answer to the distinct capitals of modern kingdoms and states, such as we now see flourishing in Europe, to London, Paris, Vienna, Berlin, or St. Petersburg, because no one supreme state or city predominates over them; and further still, no one draws the pick and choice of the intellect and refinement of the whole of Europe to absorb them into itself as Rome did in the old world. But, in those days, Antioch and Alexandria, one at the head of the wealth and splendour of Asia, the other representing Greek learning grafted on the ancient scientific and artistic traditions of Egypt, must have contributed much to the general fusion of "ideas" and notions on art and personal manners and customs in the capital of the Roman empire. The Roman house was of traditional plan, and consisted generally of two or more square enclosures surrounded by arcades, open to the air in the centre, but which openings could be closed in summer or winter by awnings when the courts were not large enough to include a garden, as the inner enclosure usually did. The house had in front a _vestibulum_, an open space covered by a verandah-shaped roof, sometimes enclosed by lattices, sometimes open. An _ostium_ or lobby inside the entrance-door, deep enough to contain a small porter's lodge on one side, led to an inner door which opened on the _atrium_. This court had an opening to the air, and a tank for rain water was sunk in the middle. Fountains with jets or falls of water were not uncommon, the ancients being well acquainted with the principle that water if brought from an elevation in pipes will force its way up to its natural level. Inside the _atrium_ was the _nuptiale_, the nuptial bed, and here were kept in earliest times the _penates_, household or family divinities, and the family hearth, though these sacred emblems were banished in the imperial times to distant parts of the house, and statues between the columns that supported the central roof supplied their place. The _atrium_ was the general reception-room, like the hall in mediæval houses, but not the dining-room. To this succeeded an inner open court, with porticoes or corridors running round, supported on columns, and with a fountain or basin, shrubs and flowers in the centre, like the courts of the Alhambra. This court provided four halls in the four corridors, which could be screened off by tapestries and curtains. The centre was shaded in summer by canvas or carpet awnings. In winter a wooden roof could be pushed over the open space. Between the two halls or courts was a chamber called the _triclinium_, or dining-room. These rooms were roofed with timber richly painted and gilt. The roofs either hung on beams projecting from the walls, or were supported by pillars, or were carried up to a high opening, sloping back to the walls so as to admit more light to the rooms, alcoves, or screened portions furthest removed from the opening. Occasionally they were covered in wholly with a testudo-shaped roof, and in such cases lighted, perhaps, by dormers, though it is not quite clear how light was provided for in such constructions. Roman rooms were not floored with boards but paved with marble in large pieces, or in mosaic work made of small dies or squares. Coarse specimens of such work manufactured in our own times are laid down in the museum at Kensington, and fragments of the old work may be seen there on the walls. Occasionally these mosaics represent the house watch-dog chained, or the fable of Ganymede, or hunting scenes, sometimes finished with the utmost nicety. The _triclinium_ took its name from the three couches or sofas, on each of which three persons reclined during meals. Later, and in sumptuous palaces, several dining-rooms were built out beyond the inner courts. The engraving, a reconstruction, will give a fair idea of the general character of a richly furnished Roman house. First, is the _atrium_, into which smaller chambers open; next, the _triclinium_, to the left of which is a cabinet; and beyond is the _peristylium_, with its lofty colonnades. This last apartment was large and open; often planted with shrubs and trees, or containing statues, flowers in pots and vases, and surrounded by a corridor. As these courts were of various sizes they were, no doubt, in Rome on a scale out of all proportion to those found at Pompeii; were fewer or more in number, and rooms were added as the proprietor could acquire ground for building, often a difficulty in the older parts of the city. Something of this ground plan survives in a few of the very ancient Roman churches, as in that of S. Pudenziana, formerly the house of the senator Pudens, with vestibules, open courts, &c. [Illustration] Around the inner court, in the sumptuous Roman houses and the country villas of the patricians, were built other rooms, dining-halls, no longer called _triclinium_ but _triclinia_ in the plural, as admitting more than the number of nine persons reclining on the conventional three couches, to dine at once. In the city itself room was probably wanting in private houses for such expansion, the houses being in streets already laid out. In the villas there was no such restriction. These halls were built to face different quarters of the compass and to be used according to the season. _Verna_ and _autumnalis_ looked to the east, _hyberna_ to the west, _æstiva_ to the north. _[OE]ci_ were other rooms still larger; and glass windows were to be found in them. In a painting now in the Kensington museum, n^{o.} 653, given by the emperor Napoleon the third, glazed windows can be distinguished, divided by upright mullions and transoms of wood, such as were constructed in English houses in the seventeenth century. The sleeping-rooms, _cubicula_, were small closets rather than rooms, closed in general by curtains or hangings, and disposed about the sides of the rooms between the courts, or round the outer courts themselves. Besides the living and sleeping chambers, there were store-rooms for various kinds of food. Wearing apparel was kept in _vestiaria_, wardrobe rooms, fitted especially to store them in. It is doubtful whether the dresses were in chests: more probably in presses, or hanging on pegs. The ornamental woodwork in some of these rooms was rich in the extreme. The outer vestibule was protected by an overhanging balcony or by the projecting rafters of the roof of the first portion of the house, according as rooms were built over that portion or not. It was in some instances enclosed by carved or trellised woodwork. The doors were generally in two halves and could be closed with locks, which in the age of the empire were thoroughly understood, with latchets secured by a pin or with a wooden bar. The term _obserare_ was used when the security of a bar was added. The hinge was a pin or peg at the top and bottom which turned in a socket. Metal hinges strapped over the wood frame were not unknown: and bronze hinges are in the collection of the British museum. The decoration of the door, which was of wood, consisted principally of bronze mounts. The doorposts were ornamented with carving, sometimes inlaid with tortoiseshell and other rich materials. The woodwork was painted. Bedrooms were closed with doors; oftener by curtains. The windows were generally closed with shutters, hinged and in pairs. They were some six feet six inches above the level of the street, not beyond reach of the knocks and signals of friends outside. Wooden benches were usually provided in the vestibule. Besides the inlaid door frames, the ceilings of all the Roman rooms were very richly decorated. In more simple constructions the wood joists of the floor above, or the structure of the roof when no room surmounted it, were shown and painted; but in richer houses the timbers were covered with boards, and formed into coffers and panels, painted, gilt, and inlaid with ivory. This splendid system of decoration dates from the destruction of Carthage. Curved bearers from the upper part of the walls were added to form one kind of ceiling (_camara_), for which Vitruvius gives directions; and glass mosaics, like those used in the pavements, were inlaid on a plaster bed in the coffers. The cornices were of carved wood, or of plaster carved or modelled; the wood was always covered with a preparation of gesso, and gilt and painted like the walls. An examination of the remains of Roman glass found at Pompeii and elsewhere, and of which excellent examples may be studied in the Kensington museum, seems to point to the use not only of mosaics made of dies, but of mouldings, borders, and panels moulded in coloured glass of magnificent hues, and with the finest stamped ornaments. These were occasionally gilt, or were made in relief, or with a coat of opaque white glass over the translucent material, which could be cut and modelled in the manner of cameos, and helped further to decorate the ceiling, always one of the most splendid features of the room. The walls, when not painted, were sometimes hung with mirrors of glass blackened, or of silver, or of slabs of obsidian. They were of various sizes, sometimes large enough to reflect persons at full length. In the case of portable pictures, frames were added round them. Borders were certainly painted round frescoes. It is not to be supposed that paintings which could be exposed for sale, moved about, and hung up, could be finished round otherwise than by ornamental mouldings, or framework sufficient to protect and properly set them off. [Illustration] Among the ornamental pieces of furniture were tripods, three-legged frames, forming the supports of tables, of altars, of braziers, sometimes of pieces of sculpture. These were generally of bronze, and original pieces obtained in various parts of Italy can be seen in the bronze room of the British museum. Some of these much exceed the height of high modern tables. They are light, and ornamented on the upper ends with animal or other heads; some with the beginning of a hind leg about halfway down. They were, however, frequently movable, and, like the piece in the cut on the preceding page from an example in the British museum, were made to contract by folding; the stays which connect the legs internally slipping up and down them by means of loops. Such pieces might serve as table legs, or would hold altar pans or common fire pans or support pots of flowers. [Illustration] Besides tripods the reception rooms were ornamented with candelabra on tall stands of most graceful form and proportions. It will suffice to point to more than a dozen of examples in the British museum; and the woodcuts are from examples in other collections. The stems are a fluted staff or a light tree stem, commonly supported on three animal legs spread at the base, and branching out on the tops into one, two, or more boughs or hooks, with elegant modelled decorations or ending in flat stands. One has a slight rim round the dish or stand, on which a candelabrum or wax candlestick could be placed. In other cases the lamps were hung by their suspensory chains to the branches described. Other candelabra stands were of marble, six, eight, ten, or more feet in height, hybrid compositions of column caps, acanthus leaves and stems, on altar bases, &c., in great variety of design, of which engravings may be studied in the work of Piranesi. Casts, n^{os.} 93, 94 (antiques), are in the South Kensington museum. We do not know in what kind of repositories or pieces of furniture the ancient Romans kept their specimens of painting or their vases, some of which formed their most valued treasures. It is generally supposed that they were set on shelves fastened to the wall. On such shelves small images, boxes of alabaster or glass, and ornamental vases of all kinds were kept. Craters, sculptured vases on a large scale and made of bronze or marble, were also mounted on pedestals and ranged as ornaments with the statues. Bronzes and statues, pieces of sculpture that had fixed places, stood either along the walls of the reception rooms or under the eaves of the _compluvium_, whence light was obtained to set them off to advantage, and where turf, flowers, and fountains were in front of them. A vase or crater, nearly eight feet high, is in the hall of the British museum, brought from the villa of Hadrian at Palestrina; and in the entrance-hall of Nero's house there was a colossus 120 feet high, and long arcades and a tank or basin of water. But objects on this scale scarcely belong to the descriptions of what might be found ordinarily in houses of the great patricians. Sometimes a couch and a table of marble were placed close to the fountains in these delightful portions of the house. Tables were of many varieties in Rome, and enormous expenses were incurred in the purchase of choice pieces of such furniture. They were made of marble, gold, silver, bronze; were engraved, damascened, plated, and otherwise enriched with the precious metals; were of ivory, and of wood, and wood decorated with ivory; and in many other methods. Engraved (p. 26) is a very beautiful table found at Pompeii, and now at Naples. Tripods, terminal and other figures, made of bronze or marble; winged sphinxes, or leopards' and lions' legs, columns and other architectonic forms, were the supports on which these tables were fastened. Some had one central support only, in a few instances finished with animal heads of ivory. _Abaci_ were small tables with raised rims to hold valuables. Many tables were of cedar and on ivory feet. Horace speaks of maple, so also does Pliny, as a favourite wood for tables: birds'-eye maple especially was much prized. The planks and disks that could be cut from the roots and the boles of trees that had been either pollarded or otherwise dwarfed in growth in order to obtain wavy grain, knotted convolutions, &c., were in request. Veneers of well-mottled wood or of precious wood, small in scantling, were glued on pine, cedar, &c., as a base. These pollard heads, root pieces, &c., were bought at high prices, specially those of the _citrus_ or _cedrus Atlantica_. [Illustration] The point held to be desirable (says Pliny) in the grain of tables was to have "veins arranged in waving lines or else forming spirals like so many little whirlpools. In the former arrangement the lines run in an oblong direction, for which reason they are called _tigrinæ_, tiger tables. In the latter case they are called _pantherinæ_, or panther tables. There are some with wavy, undulating marks, and which are more particularly esteemed if these resemble the eyes of a peacock." Next in esteem to these was the veined wood covered or dotted, as it were, with dense masses of grain, for which reason such tables received the name of _apiatæ_, parsley wood. But the colour of the wood is the quality that was held in the highest esteem of all; that of wine mixed with honey was the most prized, the veins being peculiarly refulgent. The defect in that kind of table was _lignum_ (dull log colour), a name given to the wood when common-looking, indistinct, with stains or flaws. The barbarous tribes, according to Pliny, buried the citrus wood in the ground while green, giving it first a coating of wax. When it came into the workman's hands it was put for a certain number of days beneath a heap of corn. By this process the wood lost weight. Sea-water was supposed to harden it, and to act as a preservative. This wood was carefully polished by hand-rubbing. As much as £9,000 (a million of sesterces) was paid for one table by Cicero. Of two that had belonged to king Juba, sold by auction, one fetched over £10,000. These were made of citrus (_Thuya articulata_ or _cedrus Atlantica_). We hear of two made for king Ptolemæus of Mauritania, the property of Nomius, a freed man of Tiberius, formed out of two slices or sections of the _cedrus Atlantica_ four feet and a half in diameter, the largest known to Pliny; and of the destruction of a table, the property of the family of the Cethegi, valued at 1,400,000 sesterces. [Illustration] The Roman patricians and their ladies sat on chairs and reclined on couches when not at meals. In the _atrium_ under the broad roofed corridors, and in the halls not used for eating, were couches, such as the couch of which we give a woodcut, of bronze or of precious woods; the bronze damascened with ornaments of the precious metals, or of metal amalgam; the wood veneered or inlaid with marquetry or tarsia work of ivory, ebony, box, palm, birds'-eye maple, beech, and other woods. The chairs were of different kinds and were used for various occasions. The _atrium_ contained double seats, single seats, and benches to hold more than one sitter; chairs that either folded or were made in the form of folding chairs, such as could be carried about and placed in the chariot, _curules_. The woodcut shows the general fashion of a state or ceremonial chair; from the marble example in the Louvre. [Illustration] This woodcut is of the _sella_, a seat or couch, made of wood, with turned legs; it is intended, probably, for one person only, and has no need of a footstool. It has been covered with a cushion. [Illustration] _Scamnum_ was a bench or long seat of wood, used in poorer houses instead of the luxurious _triclinium_ of the men or arm-chairs of the women, for sitting at meals or other occasions. Seats were placed along the walls in the _exedræ_ or saloons; marble benches in most cases, sometimes wooden seats; particularly also in the alcoves that were constructed in the porticoes of baths and public buildings, where lectures of philosophers were listened to. The Romans had hearths in certain rooms. Numerous passages in ancient writers, to which it is needless to refer, concur in showing that the hearth was a spot sacred to the _lares_ of the family, the altar of family life. It was occasionally made of bricks or stone, and immovable, on which logs could be heaped. It seems doubtful whether chimneys were used in the Roman houses; probably occasionally. Writers on Roman antiquities speak of such rare constructions used, perhaps, as ventilators to the kitchen. The usual method of warming was by means of a brazier, of which an example found at Cære, in Etruria, is preserved in the British museum. It is a round dish on three animal legs, with swing handles for removing it. Another, square in form, is reproduced in a casting in the South Kensington museum collection, n^{o.} 70, standing on animal legs and damascened round the sides with gold ornaments. The Romans had also kitchen braziers with contrivances for heating pans, water, wine, &c., by charcoal. N^{o.} 71 at South Kensington is a casting of such a piece, having a round metal receptacle, like a small cask, on its end, and a raised horse-shoe frame, on which a pan could be placed, with fire space in the middle. These braziers were filled with charcoal heated thoroughly by the help of the bellows, to get rid of the noxious gases. It has been said that the dresses of the Romans were preserved, as in mediæval castles, in a separate room or wardrobe, and this room must have been fitted with apparatus for hanging shelves and lockers. They had besides for keeping valuables, and usually placed in the sleeping-room of the master or mistress of the house, cupboards and chests of beech ornamented with metal, some large enough to contain a man. In these receptacles they conveyed their property to and from country houses, and on visits. Enormous numbers of slaves moved to and fro with the family, and the chests were carried on men's shoulders, or in waggons of various shape and make. The most important action of the luxurious Roman day was the dinner. Couches were arranged for the guests, and the room was further provided with stools or low benches, side tables, and the movable table used for each course. These tables were put down and removed from the supports on which they stood. The side tables were of marble or of wood, covered with silver plates, inlaid, veneered, and ornamented in various ways; some were used for serving the dishes, others for the display of plate. Sculptured objects of plate, partly ornamental, were put on the table and removed with the courses. Petronius describes an ass of Corinthian bronze with silver paniers as the centre piece of one course; sauces dropped from the paniers on luscious morsels placed beneath. A hen of wood with eggs within and a figure of Vertumnus are also named by the same author as centre pieces. These were replaced on the sideboard or removed with the course in trays. [Illustration] Closely connected with the dining-room was, it need scarcely be said, the kitchen; and we give woodcuts of kitchen utensils, from the originals preserved at Naples. Mention should be made of tapestries and carpets before leaving the subject of Roman house furniture. Carpets, _tapete_, blankets, or other woollen coverlids for sofas or beds, were made at Corinth, Miletus, and a number of seats of fine wool manufacture. It is too large a question to go into in detail, and woven fabrics belong to a different class of objects fully described in another hand-book, upon textiles. These tapestries played a great part in the actual divisions of the Roman rooms. Bedrooms, it has been said, were often closed with curtains only, and the corridors and smaller rooms were closed at the ends and made comfortable by the same means. At the dinner detailed by Petronius the hangings on the _triclinia_ are changed between pauses in the meal. The feelings consonant with the day or occasion were symbolized or carried out in these external decorations. Mention is made by Seneca of ceilings made so as to be moved, and portions turned by machinery; perhaps the changed panels showed different colours and decorations according to the day, and to the hangings which were used. The same author alludes to wood ceilings that could be raised higher or lower by machinery, "_pegmata per se surgentia_ et tabulata _tacite in sublime crescentia_," making no noise in the operation. These contrivances were reserved for dining-rooms, where the diversions were of the freest description and the guests prepared for any exciting or sensational interludes. The Romans required some of their furniture for out-door use. Besides the curule chairs and lofty seats which were carried into theatres or baths, and other places of public resort, they used litters. The sofas or couches were sometimes carried on the necks of six or more slaves, and served as litters. But special contrivances like the Indian palanquins were made with or hung under poles, with curtains or shutters. Stations of such conveyances for public use were established in Rome. The subjects of the carving and ornamentation of Roman furniture were the classic legends mainly derived from the Greek mythology. Roman house walls were, however, in later years profusely decorated with conventional representations of architecture, and panels richly coloured on which were painted figures of dancers, cupids, gods and heroes; sometimes commonplace landscapes and domestic scenes. Their solid furniture was decorated with masks, heads of heroes, legs and feet of animals, and foliage, generally the leaves of the acanthus, of an architectonic kind. The great achievement of the Romans in woodwork of a constructive kind was the machinery contrived for public shows, such as the cages shot up out of the sand of the arena of amphitheatres, of which the sides fell down, leaving at liberty the beasts wanted for fights or for the execution of criminals. Of such constructions probably nothing in the middle ages, when timber abounded and the use of it was thoroughly understood, exceeds the following; a description by Pliny of a device of C. Curio, in Africa, when celebrating the funeral games in honour of his father:-- "He caused to be erected close together two theatres of very large dimensions and built of wood, each of them nicely poised, and turning on a pivot. Before mid-day a spectacle of games was exhibited in each, the theatres being turned back to back, in order that the noise of neither of them might interfere with what was going on in the other. Then, in the latter part of the day, all on a sudden, the two theatres were swung round and, the corners uniting, brought face to face; the outer frames too were removed (_i.e._ the backs of each hemicycle) and thus an amphitheatre was formed, in which combats of gladiators were presented to the view; men whose safety was almost less compromised than that of the Roman people in allowing itself to be thus whirled round from side to side." The following woods were in use amongst the Romans:-- For carpentry and joiner's work, _cedar_ was the wood most in demand. _Pine_ of different kinds was used for doors, panels, carriage building, and all work requiring to be joined up with glue, of which that wood is particularly retentive. _Elm_ was employed for the framework of doors, lintels and sills, in which sockets were formed for the pins or hinges on which the doors turned. The hinge jambs were occasionally made of _olive_. _Ash_ was employed for many purposes; that grown in Gaul was used in the construction of carriages on account of its extreme suppleness and pliancy. Axles and portions which were much morticed together were made of _Ilex_ (_Holm oak_). _Beech_ also was in frequent use. _Acer_ (_Maple_) was much prized, as has been already stated, for tables, on account of the beauty of the wood and of the finish which it admits. _Osiers_ were in use for chairs as in our own times. _Veneering_ was universal in wood furniture of a costly kind. The slices of wood were laid down with glue as in modern work, and they used tarsia or picture work of all kinds. _Figwood_, _willow_, _plane_, _elm_, _ash_, _mulberry_, _cherry_, _cork wood_, were amongst the materials for the bed or substance on which to lay such work. Wild and cultivated _olive_, _box_, _ebony_ (Corsican especially), _ilex_, _beech_, were adapted for veneering boxes, desks, and small work. Besides these, the Romans used the Syrian _terebinth_, _maple_, _palm_ (cut across), _holly_, _root of elder_, _poplar_; horn, ivory plain and stained; tortoiseshell; and wood grained in imitation of various woods for veneering couches and other large pieces of furniture, as well as door frames, &c., so that this imitation of grains is not entirely a modern invention. Woods were soaked in water or buried under heaps of grain to season them; or steeped in oil of cedar to keep off the worms. The _cedars_ of Crete, Africa, and Syria were the best of that class of timber. The best _fir_ timber was obtained from the Jura range, from Corsica, Bithynia, Pontus, and Macedonia. The Romans had admirable glue, and used planes, chisels, &c. Their saws, set in frames, had the teeth turned in opposite directions to open the seam in working. There are some curious historical records of the endurance of particular wood structures. The cedar roof of the temple of Diana of Ephesus was intact at the end of four centuries in Pliny's time. Her statue was black, supposed to be of ebony, but according to other authorities of vine, and had outlasted various rebuildings of the temple. The roof beams of the temple of Apollo at Utica were of cedar and had been laid 348 years before the foundation of Rome; nearly 1,200 years old in the time of Pliny, and still sound. The emperor Philip celebrated the secular games (recurring every 100 years), with great pomp, for the fifth time in the year 248. We may consider this event, for our present purpose, as a convenient finish of the classic period of antique art, and of the reflections of it in the woodwork and furniture and the surroundings of private life. Ten centuries had elapsed since Romulus had fortified the hills on the banks of the Tiber. "During the first four ages" (says Gibbon) "the Romans, in the laborious school of poverty, had acquired the virtues of war and government; by the vigorous exertion of these virtues, and by the assistance of fortune, they had obtained in the course of the three succeeding centuries an absolute empire over many countries of Europe, Asia, and Africa. The last three centuries had been consumed in apparent prosperity and internal decline." CHAPTER IV. BYZANTINE ART. We may take as the next period for illustration the centuries that witnessed the break up of the old Roman constitution and the gradual formation of a new order of society down to the end of the first ten centuries of our era. Seven hundred and fifty years out of those ten hundred belong in great part to mediæval history. The misfortunes of Italy, and the incessant state of war, invasion, and struggle in that peninsula were too destructive of personal wealth and the means of showing it in costly furniture to leave us any materials from thence for our present subject. The history of furniture and woodwork, as applied to civil and social uses, now belongs to such civilisation as took its origin and its form from Constantinople. Art of these centuries is called Byzantine. [Illustration] The woodcut is from the chair of St. Peter in Rome, the oldest and most interesting relic of antique furniture in existence; that is, of furniture made of wood and kept in use from the days of ancient Rome. But it has had repairs and additions, and a description of it shall be referred to in another section. Byzantine art is a debased form of the classic, but with a large mixture of Greek; not of the old classic Greek type which had long been exhausted, but of that Asiatic Greek which derived so much of its splendour from the rich but unimaginative decorations of Persia. The objects actually executed at Constantinople or by Byzantine artists now remaining can scarcely be included in a treatise on furniture. They are mostly caskets and other small pieces executed in metal or in ivory. Accounts of many interesting pieces of Byzantine sculpture will be found in the "Description of the ivories in the South Kensington museum." Amongst them the diptychs of the consuls are not only the most important, but the most interesting to a treatise on furniture, as we see in them consular seats and thrones of many varieties. We may select amongst other examples the following, which can be studied in the museum or referred to in that work. For instance, n^{o.} 368 (fully described in Mr. Maskell's "Ivories") is one leaf of a consular diptych of Anastasius Paulus Probus Sabinianus Pompeius. The consul is represented seated on a chair of very ornate character. It is like the old folding curule chairs of Rome, but with elements both of Greek and Egyptian ornamentation, such as belong to the massive marble seats, supported by lions or leopards, with the heads sculptured above the upper joint of the hind legs. In the mouths of these lions' heads are rings for the purpose of carrying the chair, and the top frame is ornamented with little panels and medallions containing winged masks and portrait heads of the consul and his family or of members of the imperial family. On each side of the seat are small winged figures of Victory standing on globes and holding circular tablets over their heads. These probably represent the front of the arms, and are supposed to have a bar stretching from the heads or the circular tablets to the back of the seat. This feature too is a continuation of types that are to be found on Greek vases and in the chairs of both Nineveh and Egypt. A low footstool with an embroidered cushion on it is under the feet of the consul, and another cushion, also embroidered, covers the seat. This represents a chair of the sixth century. A seat still more like the curule chair, but with a high back, is represented in another ivory, n^{o.} 270, in the South Kensington collection. This piece is a plaque or tablet with a bas-relief of two apostles seated. The chairs are formed of two curved and recurved pieces each side, which are jointed together at the point of intersection. One pair of these pieces is prolonged and connected by straight cross-bars, and forms a back. Two dolphins, with the heads touching the low front pieces and the tails sloping up and connected with the back, form the arms. This belongs to the ninth century. The lyre back, a form not unknown in old Greek and thence adopted among Roman fashions, is also to be seen in chairs on ivories and in manuscripts. Round cushions were hung on the back, others covered the seat. These are seen also figured in the mosaics of Venice, and later of Monreale in Sicily which retained much of the Byzantine spirit. The art of Sicily continued longer subject to Constantinople than that of most of its Italian provinces, and Venice preserved her old traditions far into the period of the European revival of art. The beds, as represented in manuscript illuminations, belong chiefly to religious compositions such as the Nativity, or visions appearing to saints in their sleep. They are couches in the old Roman form, or are supported on turned legs, from the frames of which valances hang down to the ground. Sometimes a curtain acts as a screen at the head or on one side, but testers are wanting. Chariots and carriages of all sorts remained more or less Roman in type. There were a greater number of waggons or carriages for the conveyance of women and families than had been in use in ancient times. Christianity had materially altered the social position of women, and they appeared in public or moved about with their families without the restraints which in the old Roman society forbad their appearance in chariots and open carriages, and made the covered couch or closed litter the usual conveyance for ladies of rank in Rome. Several forms of chariots or carriages of this larger kind can be seen in the sculptures of the column of Theodosius in Constantinople. The art and the domestic manners and customs that had been in fashion in Rome maintained themselves with some modifications in Constantinople. The life there was more showy and pompous, but it was free from the cruelties and the corruption of the elder society. It was founded on the profession of Christianity, and the numbers and magnificence of the religious hierarchy formed an important feature in the splendid social aspect of the Greek capital. The games of the circus, without the cruelties of gladiatorial combats, were maintained. Chariots were in constant use, much wealth was spent on their construction, and chariot races were kept up. Furniture, such as chairs, couches, chests, caskets, mirrors and articles of the toilet, was exceedingly rich. Gold and silver were probably more abundant in the great houses of Constantinople than they had been in Rome. As the barbarous races of the east and north encroached on the flourishing provinces of the Roman empire, constant immigration took place to Constantinople and the provinces still under its sway. Families brought with them such property as could be easily moved, gold of course and jewels; and, naturally, these precious materials were afterwards used for the decoration of their furniture and dress. The ancient custom of reclining at meals had ceased. The guests sat on benches or chairs. At the same time the "triclinia aurea," or golden dining room, was still the title of the great hall of audience in the palace at Constantinople. The term only served to illustrate the jealous retention of the old forms and names by the emperors and patricians. The last branch of the ancient empire did little for the arts of painting and sculpture, though it long preserved the old traditions of art, gradually becoming more and more debased with every succeeding generation, whilst outward splendour was increased because of the greater quantity of the precious metals that had accumulated or been inherited during so many centuries. The decay of art and skill in the old world was, however, counterbalanced by the rise of new societies, which were gradually being formed in various parts of the empire. These consisted partly of the races of Huns, Goths, Saxons, and others, who had invaded Italy and settled themselves in it, partly of the old municipal corporations, who defended their property and maintained their privileges in the great walled towns of Italy. The cities profited to a great extent by this infusion of new blood; and became the parents of the future provinces of Italy, so rich in genius and industry, so wealthy and powerful in peace and war. The most important of them was Venice, and it is in Venice that, in the later middle ages, we find the birthplace of most of the art with which the furniture and utensils of home and warlike use were so profusely decorated. We point to Constantinople as the last stronghold of the old arts of the Roman period, but it is because it was from the Greeks that the new states borrowed their first notions of art. Nearly all the early art we meet with throughout the west in manuscripts and ivories bears a Byzantine character. A remarkable piece of monumental furniture has survived from these early centuries of the Christian era, half Byzantine and half western in character, the chair of St. Maximian of Ravenna, preserved in the treasury at Ravenna, and engraved and described in the "Arts Somptuaires" of M. Du Sommerard. Ravenna was the portion of the empire that most intimately connected the east with the west. The domed churches of San Vitale, San Giovanni in Fonte, the tomb of Galla Placidia, the round church of Santa Maria, built by Theodoric, together with the great basilica of Saint Apollinare in Chiasse, and others of the Latin form, unite the characteristics of the eastern and western architecture. What is true of architecture can also be pronounced as to painting, sculpture, textile fabrics, and all decoration applied to objects, sacred or domestic, that were in daily use. But events occurred in the declining state of the empire that went far to transfer what remained of art to northern Europe. The sect of the iconoclasts, or image-breakers, rose into power and authority under the emperor Leo the Isaurian, who published an edict in 726 condemnatory of the veneration and use of religious images and paintings. During a century this principle was at work, and it caused the destruction not only of innumerable antique statues, such as those defaced in the Parthenon of Athens, but the loss of vast quantities of ivory and wood sculpture and precious objects of all kinds. Many artists took refuge in western Europe, and were welcomed in the Rhenish provinces of the empire by Charlemagne. How much ancient and domestic art in the form of bronze or other metal furniture, such as chairs, thrones, tripods, &c., whole or in fragments, survived the taking of Constantinople by Mahomet II. we cannot conjecture. Perhaps the royal palaces, or still more possibly the mosques which have been the banks and depositories of family treasures under Mahometan rule, may contain valuable bronzes, ivories, and carved wood, relics of the luxurious life of the latter days of the Greek empire, and such evidences may some day come to light. No doubt, however, much antique art and much that belonged to the first eight centuries of our era survived the ordinary shocks of time and war, only to be destroyed by the quiet semi-judicial action of a furious sect protected by imperial decrees, after the manner in which mediæval art suffered under the searching powers of fanatical government commissioners in our own country, in the sixteenth century. It is to the impulse which the Lombard and Frankish monarchs gave to art in western and northern Europe by the protection of Greek refugee sculptors and artists that we should trace the beginnings of the northern school called Rhenish-Byzantine. CHAPTER V. THE MIDDLE AGES. We cannot easily determine on a date at which we can assign a beginning to mediæval art. It differs from the art that succeeded it in the sixteenth century in many respects, and from the late classic art that preceded it still more widely. That peculiar character which we call romantic enters into the art of mediæval times, as it does into the literature and manners of the same ages. It took a living form in the half religious institution of chivalry. The northern nations grew up under the leadership of monks quite as much as under that of kings. They lived in territories only partially cleared from forests, pushed their way forward to power pioneered by the great religious orders, and their world was one surrounded by opportunities of endless adventures. But this romantic standard, though it took its rise from the times in which the Christians carried their lives in their hands, under the persecuting emperors, did not pervade Europe for many centuries. Classic art, in its decay, still furnished both forms and symbols, such, _e.g._, as that of Orpheus, to the new societies, and the names of Jupiter, Mercury, and Saturn, have survived as the titles of days of the week. The two art traditions overlapped each other for a while. Mediævalism grew very gradually. We have just said that Charlemagne welcomed Byzantine artists to the Rhine. It must be remembered, however, that the Roman empire had been firmly planted beyond the Alps, and that Gaul produced good Roman art in the second and third centuries. Architecture, sculpture, bronze casting, and the numberless appliances of daily life were completely Roman in many parts of France and Britain. The theatres and amphitheatres of Arles and Orange and the collections in various museums are enough to show how extended this character was. It was not till the old traditions had been much developed or modified by oriental influences that a thorough mediæval character of art was established in Italy, France, Germany, and England. To the last it remained semi-classic in Rome itself. We can give reference to few specimens of household furniture or to woodwork of any kind before the eleventh century, with a great exception to be noticed presently. Ivories, in any form, belonging to these ages are rare. The best objects are Byzantine. Anglo-saxon ivories, though not unknown, are all but unique examples. Ivory was probably rarely employed for any objects of secular use, unless on mirror cases, combs, or the thrones of kings; on horns, caskets, sword hilts, and the like. Metallurgy in the precious metals and in bronze, including the gilding of bronze, was probably the one art that survived the departure, if it had not even preceded the invasion, of the Romans in Britain. It is scarcely probable that tin and copper ores would have been sought for from Britain if manufactured ornaments of metal had not found their way in the first instance from this country to the south. Be that, however, as it may, the art of metallurgy survived the downfall of such architectural and sculpturesque skill as had been attained in England under Roman traditions; and that metal thrones, chairs, and other utensils were made here as in Gaul can hardly be doubted. There is an interesting collection, lately bequeathed by Mr. Gibbs, of Saxon ornaments in gold, bronze, and bronze ornamented with gilding and enamel, in the South Kensington museum. These objects were dug up chiefly at Faversham, a village in Kent. Most of these antiquities are _fibulæ_, brooches, and buckles, or portions of horse trappings, bosses, &c., and not recognisable as parts of bronze furniture, such as the chair of Dagobert. But it is difficult to examine these personal ornaments and not believe that during the Saxon occupation bronze thrones, tripods, mirrors, and other objects of household use were also made. The earliest example of mediæval furniture in the Kensington museum is a cast of the chair known as that of Dagobert, in the Louvre. A full description and history of this chair is to be found in the large catalogue, n^{o.} 68: and we here give a woodcut of it. This work (it is said) was executed by a monk. [Illustration] When we consider the rapacity of the barbarian inroads into Italy and Rome, and the amount of spoil carried bodily away from Constantinople, Rome, and the great municipal centres of Italy, it is remarkable that so little precious furniture should have survived in other parts of Europe. The Goths under Adolphus in the fifth century carried an immense plunder into Gaul and Spain. "When the treasuries, after the conquest of Spain," says Gibbon, "were plundered by the Arabs, they admired, and they have celebrated, a table of considerable size, of one single piece of solid emerald [that is, glass], encircled with three rows of fine pearls, supported by three hundred and sixty-five feet of gems and massy gold, estimated at the price of five hundred thousand pieces of gold,"--probably the most expensive table on record. It is the value of the materials that has prevented the preservation of many such objects, while the chair of Dagobert is of gilt bronze only. Early mediæval art, included under the general name of Gothic, continued down to the twelfth century full of Romanesque forms and details. Figures were clothed in classic draperies, but stiff and severe with upright lines and childish attempts to indicate the limbs or joints beneath. Nevertheless, the work of these centuries, rude and archaic as it is, is full of dignity and force. The subjects were often sacred, sometimes of war or incidents of the chase. These last were commonly mixed with animals, lions and dogs, or eagles and hawks, or leaves of the acanthus and other foliage. Throughout these ages the foliated sculpture, the paintings of books and carving of ivory, and no doubt of wood also, was, moreover, composed in endless convolutions, such as may be seen on sculptured stones in Ireland and on the Norwegian doors of the twelfth century. Whether the different convolutions are formed by figures or dragons, or by stalks of foliage twined and knotted together in bold curved lines, symmetrically arranged, each portion is generally carefully designed and traceable through many windings as having a distinct intention and purpose. Ornamental work was thus apparently conventional, but made up of individual parts separately carried out, and in some degree, though not altogether, realistic: a character gradually lost after the early thirteenth century till the new revival in the sixteenth. The tenth century was not favourable to the development of the requirements or comfort of personal life. Towards the year one thousand a superstition prevailed over many parts of Europe that the world would come to an end when the century was completed; and many fields were left uncultivated in the year 999. The eleventh century made a great advance in architecture and other arts, but down to the Norman invasion our own country was far behind the continental nations in the fine arts; metallurgy only excepted. The Anglo-saxons perhaps advanced but very slowly, as the century wore on to the period of the Norman conquest; and manners remained exceedingly simple. Early illuminations, though conventional, give us some details of Anglo-saxon houses. They were of one story, and contained generally only one room. The addition of a second was rare before the Norman conquest. The furniture of the room consisted of a heavy table, sometimes fixed; on which the inhabitants of the house and the guests slept. A bedstead was occasionally reserved for the mistress of the house. Bedsteads when used by the women or the lord of the house were enclosed in a shed under the wall of enclosure and had a separate roof, as may be seen in many manuscripts. In the Bayeux tapestry a bed roof is tiled, and the framework shut in with curtains. In many instances such a design represents only a tester with posts. Otherwise beds of straw stuffed into a bag or case were spread on the table, and soldiers laid their arms by their heads ready for use in case of alarm. Benches, some with lion or other heads at the corners, like elongated chairs or settles (with backs, for the lord and lady of the house), were the usual seats. Thrones, something like that of Dagobert, were the property of kings. King Edward the Confessor is seated on such a chair (metal, and in the Roman shape) in the Bayeux tapestry, and folding chairs of various forms, more or less following classical types, were used by great personages. Benches were also used as beds; so were the lids or tops of chests, the sack or bag being sometimes kept in it and filled with straw when required. The tables were covered with cloths at dinner. Stained cloths and tapestries, commonly worked with pictorial designs, were used to hang the walls of the house or hall. They were called wah-hrægel, wall coverings. Personal clothing was kept in chests of rude construction. Silver candlesticks were used in churches. Candles were stuck anywhere in houses, on beams or ledges. With regard to carriages during the Saxon and Anglo-norman period, carts on two wheels were common for agricultural use, and served to transport the royal property. Four-wheeled cars drawn by hand labour are used for carrying warlike stores in the Bayeux tapestry. In the battle of the Standard the standard of the English host was carried on a wheeled car or platform, and remained as the head-quarters or rallying point during action. The Norman invasion of England caused a new advance in the luxury and refinement, such as it was, of daily life. The houses began to grow--upper rooms or rooms at the side of the great hall were added, called solars (solaria), the sunny or light rooms. These seem to have been appropriated to the ladies. In due time they added a parloir or talking room, a name derived from the rooms in which conversation was allowed in monasteries where silence was the general rule. In the upper rooms fireplaces were made occasionally, but not always chimneys. In the halls, when the upper room did not cover the whole under room or when an upper room was not constructed, fire was made in the centre of the floor. Stairs were of wood. Glass was all but unknown in the windows of houses, and wooden shutters kept out the weather. The houses of landowners in England were called manoir or manor. The furniture was simple and consisted of few objects. The table was on trestles; the seats were benches. _Armaria_, armoires, cupboards or presses, either stood in recesses in the wall or were complete wooden enclosures. These had doors opening horizontally. The frames were not panelled. The doors were ledge doors of boards, nailed to stout cross bars behind, and decorated with iron hinges and clamps beaten out into scrolls and other ornaments. [Illustration] Bedrooms were furnished with ornamental bed testers, and benches at the bed foot. Beds were furnished with quilts and pillows, and with spotted or striped linen sheets; over all was laid a covering of green say, badgers' furs, the skins of beavers or of martin cats, and a cushion. A perch for falcons to sit on was fixed in the wall. A chair at the bed head, and a perch or projecting pole on which clothes could be hung, completed the furniture of the Anglo-norman bedroom. In the foregoing woodcut from Willemin there is no tester, but carving on the posts, and the coverings are of the richest description. Woodwork was decorated with painted ornament or with fanciful work on the hinges; and nails and clamps were applied to hold it together, rather than with sculpture, down to the fourteenth century; and in England, France, and Germany, oak was the wood employed for furniture. Both in England and in the countries which had retained old artistic traditions on the continent, such as Italy, France, and Spain (which profited by the skill of the Moors in painted decoration), colour was used not less on walls and wood than on metal and pottery. Tapestry was an important portion of the furniture of all houses of the richer classes. During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries mediæval art in Europe reached its greatest perfection. The classic traditions were at last forgotten everywhere except in Rome itself, where a chain lingered almost continuous between the old ideas and those which succeeded in the sixteenth century. Elsewhere the feeling in sculpture, whether of wood or other materials, was in unison with the pointed architecture and reigned unchallenged. All sorts of enrichments were used in the decoration of furniture. A chest of the time of John is preserved in the castle of Rockingham. It is of oak richly decorated with hammered iron plates, hinges, &c. The jewel chest of Richard of Cornwall was long preserved in the state treasury of Aix-la-Chapelle, and is now at Vienna. It belongs to the first half of the century, and was left at Aix when Richard was crowned king of the Romans. The body is of oak decorated with wrought-iron hinges, lock, and clamps, and with bosses of metal on which are enamelled heraldic shields. The construction of woodwork gradually became more careful and scientific. Panelled framework came into use, though seldom for doors of rooms. With this method of construction the chests were put together that formed the chief article of furniture during two centuries in the mediæval sleeping, sitting, or private room. In the middle of the thirteenth century Eleanor of Provence was escorted on her journey to England by an army of ladies, knights, nobles and troubadours, from Provence to the shores of the channel. Kings were continually making progress in this manner through their dominions, like the Indian governors of our own days, and carried their furniture and property in chests, called standards, on the backs of mules or sumpter horses. Portable furniture and hangings were the principal objects of household use on such occasions. A precept in the twentieth year of the reign of Henry the third directed that "the king's great chamber at Westminster be painted a green colour like a curtain, that in the great gable frontispiece of the said chamber a French inscription should be painted, and that the king's little wardrobe should be painted of a green colour to imitate a curtain." The queen's chamber was decorated with historical paintings. Remains of similar wall decoration are in tolerable preservation still in one of the vaulted rooms of Dover castle. Till the fourteenth century candles were generally placed on a beam in the hall, whether in the castle of a king or baron. Frames of wood with prickets were also suspended for the lighting of rooms, or were fixed to the sides of the fire-place when that was made in the wall and had a chimney constructed for it. More generally, as regards halls, the hearth was in the middle of the room and a lantern just above it in the roof acted as a chimney. Iron chandeliers, or branches, were ordered to be fixed to the piers of the king's halls at Oxford, Winchester, and other places. Though the royal table might be lighted with valuable candlesticks of metal, they were not in general use till a century later. Besides the numerous rows of tallow candles pieces of pine wood were lighted and stuck into iron hasps in the wall, or round the woodwork at the back of the dais to give more abundant light. The wardrobe was a special room fitted with hanging closets, and in these clothes, hangings, linen, as well as spices and stores, were preserved. This arrangement was common in all large castles during the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries. Great preparations were made in the bedrooms of queens of England to which they retired before the birth of children. Henry the third directed that his queen's bedroom should be freshly wainscoted and lined, and that a list or border should be made, well painted with images of our Lord and angels, with incense pots scattered over it; that the four evangelists should be painted in the chamber, and a crystal vase be made to keep his collection of relics. Room panelling was introduced into England during the same reign. Henry ordered a chamber at Windsor castle to be panelled with Norway pines specially imported; the men worked day and night. The boards were radiated and coloured, and two clear days only were allowed for the fixing and completion. [Illustration] Edward the first married a Spanish queen, and household furniture was further developed under his reign in many particulars. Pottery for the table was imported from Spain, and oriental carpets were introduced; a luxury naturally borrowed from the extensive use of them by the Moors in that country. Italian artists had already been invited to England. Master William, the Florentine, was master of the works at Guildford castle. John of St. Omer was another foreign artist employed by Henry the third. To the former of these we probably owe the introduction into this country of the method of gilding and tooled gold work, with which wood was decorated. Specimens of the work are still discernible on the famous coronation chair (of which we give a woodcut, p. 49) in Westminster abbey; made about the year 1300. The decoration and comfort of furnished houses during Henry's reign was further promoted by the general use of tapestry. Queen Eleanor is traditionally and incorrectly said to have first brought this kind of furniture into houses; it was certainly adopted for churches at earlier periods, and hangings of various materials, stained or embroidered, were employed as far back as the Anglo-saxon times. Tapestries and cypress chests to carry them probably became more general in Eleanor's reign. Amongst the particulars collected in the history of the city companies and by the record commission are lists of the royal plate, showing that objects of personal use besides table plate were made in silver and gold. We find mention of pitchers of gold and silver, plates and dishes of silver, gold salts, alms bowls, silver hannapers or baskets, a pair of knives with enamelled silver sheaths, a fork of crystal, and a silver fork with handle of ebony and ivory, combs and looking-glasses of silver. Edward had six silver forks and one of gold. Ozier mats were laid over the benches on which he and his queen sat at meals. These were also put under the feet, especially in churches where the pavement was of stone or tiles. In the furniture of bedrooms linen chests and settles, cupboards and the beds themselves were of panelled wood. The next woodcut shows the interior of a well-furnished bedroom, from a manuscript life of St. Edmund written about the year 1400. [Illustration] Chests served as tables, and are often represented with chess-boards on them in old illuminations, and husband and wife sitting on the chest and using it for the game, which had become familiar to most European nations. Chests of later date than the time of Edward, of Italian make, still show the same use of the lids of coffers. As the tops of the coffers served for tables, and for seats they began in the thirteenth century to be furnished with a panelled back and arm-pieces at either end. This development of the chest was equally common in France. It does not seem to have been placed on legs or to have grown into a cabinet till a later period. The raised dorsal or back of the seats in large rooms was a protection from the cold, and in the rude form of a _settle_ is still the comfort of old farm and inn kitchens in this country; it became the general type of seats of state in the great halls, and was there further enlarged by a canopy projecting forwards to protect the heads of the sitters, panelled also in oak. In the fifteenth century in many instances this hood or canopy was attached to the panelling of the upper end of the hall, and covered the whole of that side of the dais. The backing and canopy were sometimes replaced by temporary arrangements of hangings, as in modern royal throne rooms, the cloth being called cloth of estate and generally embroidered with heraldic devices. Panelled closets called _dressoirs_ or cupboards, to lock up food, were general in properly furnished rooms; a cloth was laid on the top at meals, with lights, and narrow shelves rose in steps at the back for the display of plate, the steps varying in number according to the rank of the persons served. Tables used at meals were generally frames of boards, either in one piece or folding in the middle. These were laid on trestles, as in the woodcut from an early manuscript in the Bodleian library, and could be removed as soon as the dinner was over, so that the company might dance and divert themselves. Somewhat later, about the year 1450, the tables although still on trestles were made more solidly, even for the use of people of the middle class. [Illustration] All houses, however, even of kings could not be completely or even comfortably furnished in such a manner, far less those of feudal lords, not princes or sovereigns. The kings moved incessantly to their various strongholds and manors in time of peace to collect dues and revenues, much of which was paid in kind and could only be profitably turned to account by carrying the Court to different estates and living on their produce as long as it lasted. Orders were continually sent to sheriffs to provide food, linen and other requisites, while hangings and furniture were carried by the train in its progress. Much of the household belongings of persons of wealth was, therefore, of a movable kind. We engrave (p. 53) a very curious table standing on a pedestal shaped like a chalice, from a manuscript of the beginning of the fifteenth century. The ladies are playing at cards. [Illustration] [Illustration] A most oppressive privilege was exercised in France, which went beyond the legal right of the lord or owner to the rents of his estates whether paid in money, agricultural produce, or manufactures carried on in his towns or villages. This was the _droit de prisage_, a privilege of seizing furniture of all kinds by the hands of stewards and others for the use of the king. Chairs, tables, and beds particularly were included in these requisitions. The _droit de prisage_ was modified at various times in consequence of the remonstrance of the commons at so oppressive an exaction; but as late as the year 1365 Charles the fifth seized beds. In 1313 Philippe le Bel entertained the English king and his queen at Pontoise with no other furniture than such as had been seized in this manner. A fire broke out in the night during their stay, the furniture was consumed, and the royal personages escaped in their shirts. It was not till 1407 that this privilege was finally abandoned. Though the usual conveyance during the thirteenth century was a horse litter for women of rank, and men rode on horseback, yet covered and open carriages or waggons were not unknown in that and in the following century. A charette containing a number of maids of honour in attendance on Anne of Bohemia at her public reception in London in 1392, was upset on London bridge from the rush of the crowd to get a sight of the queen, and her ladies were not without difficulty replaced. These charettes, cars, or waggons were covered carts on four wheels, like country waggons of our days, panelled at the sides, and the tilt covered with leather, sometimes with lead, and painted. [Illustration] We must not pass without a very brief notice the large constructions of roofs of wood begun as early as the twelfth, and continued and improved through the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the period during which the finest efforts of mediæval Gothic art were embodied all over the north and over parts of the south of Europe. The older part of Westminster hall dates from the reign of Rufus, and the walls of the present building belong to that period, though faced at a later time. How the roof of the enormous space, sixty-five feet diameter, was at first constructed there is no evidence to show. It had, perhaps, a row of arches down the middle, like the great hall of the palace of Blois, said to be of the thirteenth century, or huge kingposts supporting the ties between rafters, which in that case may have been as long as those of the later roof. The present roof, work of the fourteenth century, marks the beginning of a change in the style of architecture that accompanied and caused great changes in furniture and household woodwork. The ties are supported by curved braces that descend like arches on the stone corbels made in the wall to receive them. These braces take two flights, being tied back where they meet by hammer beams into a lower part of the rafter. The lower brace upholds another upright or collar post which supports the junction of these beams with the rafter, at its weakest part. A rich subdivision of upright mullions with cusped arch heads fills up the spandrels between these braces and the beams they support, and adds stiffness as well as decoration to the whole. Such constructions were not only more scientific than those of older date, but they are more pompous and complicated, and have a greater apparent affinity with the architecture of the day. This architectural character, from the date of the change to the third period of pointed architecture, began to show itself in furniture and wood structure of every kind. Until then a certain originality and inventiveness were preserved in the decoration both of architective woodwork and furniture, notwithstanding the strictest observance of the rules and unities of architectural law in buildings, ecclesiastical and civil. Small sculpture, such as that on ivories and utensils made of metal, or that which decorated woodwork as well as stone, and the general forms of furniture, were designed without immediate imitation of architectonic detail. Figure sculpture of great dignity remains in ivories of the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, illustrative of the general character given to things of daily use which were not, probably, nearly so numerous as in a later age, and were each carefully elaborated for the person for whom they were made. We need go no further than some of the objects in the Kensington museum, such as the statuettes and caskets of ivory, English and French work of that time. We can point to few large pieces of furniture, except the coronation chair, illustrating the fashions of this early period. Examples of wooden movable furniture are extremely rare in this country. There are large semicircular cope chests in the cathedrals of Wells, York, and other cities. These are merely chests or boxes in which the copes are spread out full size, one over the other, and the only decoration consists in the floriated ironwork attached to the hinges. [Illustration] [Illustration] We must not omit to remark that some examples of very beautiful oriental panelling of this period are to be seen in various collections. The woodcuts represent the fittings of a series of such panels from a mosque at Cairo, now at South Kensington, n^{o.} 1,051; and a single piece to show the detail. The delicacy of the carving and the apparent intricacy of the geometrical arrangement are very remarkable. [Illustration: A royal dinner table, from a manuscript of the fourteenth century.] CHAPTER VI. THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. In discussing the great wood structures such as screens, house fronts, roofs, and other large pieces of mechanism, which developed in boldness and variety in the fifteenth century, we must not forget that the abundance of oak timber in the north of Europe both suggested much of this timber art and admitted of bold features of construction from the size of the logs and the tenacity of the material. A large portion of England and perhaps an equal proportion of Ireland were covered with dense forests of oak. The eastern frontier of France, great portions of Burgundy, and many other districts in France, Germany, Flanders, and other northern countries, were still forests, and timber was to be had at low prices and in any quantity. Spanish chestnut had been introduced probably by the Romans into England. Though churches, castles, and manors were built of stone or brick, or both, yet whole cities seem to have been mainly constructed out of timber. The London of the fifteenth century, like a hundred other cities, though abounding in noble churches and in great fortified palaces, yet presented the aspect of a timber city. The houses were framed together, as a few still are in some English towns and villages, of vast posts sixteen to twenty-four inches square in section, arching outwards and meeting the projecting floor timbers, and so with upper stories, till the streets were darkened by the projections. The surfaces of these posts were covered with delicate tracery, niches and images. In the streets at Chester an open gallery or passage is left on the first floor _within_ the timbers of the house fronts. In the court of St. Mary's guild in Coventry, whole chambers and galleries are supported on vast arches of timber like bridges. Oriels jutted out under these overhanging stories, and the spaces between the framing posts were filled in, sometimes with bricks, sometimes with laths and mortar, or parts (as the century wore on) more frequently with glass. In London and Rouen, in Blois and in Coventry, these angle posts were filled with niches and statuettes or fifteenth century window tracery sunk into the surfaces. The dark wooden houses were externally a mass of imagery. In the great roofs of these centuries, such as the one spoken of at Westminster, the hammer beams were generally carved into figures of angels gracefully sustaining the timber behind them with outstretched wings; and these figures were painted and gilt. A magnificent example remains intact in the church of Knapton in Norfolk. [Illustration] The number of excellent workmen and the size and architectural character of so much of the woodwork of the day contributed to give all panelled work, no matter of what description, an architectural type; and furniture shared in this change. Coffers and chests, as well as standards or stall-ends in churches, and bench-ends in large rooms and halls, were designed after the pattern of window tracery. The panel in the above woodcut from a French chest of this date, is a very delicate and beautiful example. Little buttresses and pinnacles were often placed on the angles or the divisions between the panels. At South Kensington, the buffet, n^{o.} 8,439 and the chest, n^{o.} 2,789, with other pieces are of this kind; also a grand cabinet of German make in the same collection. This last, n^{o.} 497, is of the rudest construction, but a few roughly cut lines of moulding and some effective ironwork give it richness and dignity that are wanting in many pieces more scientifically made and more decoratively treated. The quantity of tapestry employed in these centuries in fitting up houses and the tents used either during a campaign or in progresses from one estate to another was prodigious, and kept increasing. Lancaster entertained the king of Portugal in his tent between Mouçal and Malgaço, fitted up with hangings of arras "as if he had been at Hertford, Leicester, or any of his manors." As early as 1313, when Isabel of Bavaria made her entry into Paris, the whole street of St. Denis, Froissart tells us, "was covered with a canopy of rich camlet and silk cloths, as if they had the cloths for nothing, or were at Alexandria or Damascus. I (the writer of this account) was present, and was astonished whence such quantities of rich stuffs and ornaments could have come, for all the houses on each side of the street of St. Denis, as far as the Châtelet, or indeed to the great bridge, were hung with tapestries representing various scenes and histories, to the delight of all beholders." The expense incurred in timber work on these occasions may be estimated from the long lists of pageants, and the scale on which each was prepared on this and like occasions. Of the early Italian furniture of the mediæval period there is at South Kensington one fine specimen, a coffer of cypress, covered with flat surface imagery filled in with coloured wax composition. It dates from the fourteenth century. The better known Italian furniture of the quattrocento or "fourteen hundred period," _i.e._ the fifteenth century, is gilt and painted. The richness of this old work is owing to the careful preparation of the ground or bed on which the gold is laid and the way in which the preparation was modelled with the tool. The old gold is, besides, both thicker and purer, more malleable, and less liable to suffer from the action of the atmosphere than the gold we now use for this purpose. The paintings executed on such pieces of furniture as offered suitable surfaces to the artist, boxes and coffers (and, for church uses, reliquaries), are equal to the finest works of that kind and of the same period. Many artists worked in this way. Dello Delli was the best known in regard to such productions. His work became so entirely the fashion that, according to Vasari, no house was complete without a specimen of it. Andrea di Cosimo was another. It need not be said that such men and their contemporaries had a number of pupils similarly employed. Every piece of painted furniture attributed to Dello Delli cannot be warranted. There are, however, specimens which we believe to be from his hand in the Kensington collection, and numbers of fronts and panels and fragments of great merit which illustrate his style. Besides this kind of decoration, the Venetians had derived from Persia and India another beautiful system of surface ornament; marquetry, a fine inlay of ivory, metal, and woods, stained to vary the colour. The work is in geometric patterns only. It is found on the ivory boxes and other objects sculptured in that material, and attributed to Italian as well as to Byzantine sources. In the fifteenth century Florence also came prominently to the front in the manufacture of these and other rich materials; as well as of ivory inlaid into solid cypress wood and walnut, known as Certosina work. The style is Indian in character, and consists in geometric arrangements of stars made of diamond-shaped pieces: varied with conventional flowers in pots, &c. The name Certosina is derived from the great Certosa, charterhouse, or Carthusian monastery between Milan and Pavia: where this kind of decoration is employed in the choir fittings of the splendid church of that monastery. We are inclined to the belief (as already said) that the manufacture of geometrical work of this kind was originally imported from Persia by the Venetians. There are in the Kensington museum some very interesting old chairs made for the castle of Urbino, and part of the furniture of Guidobaldo II., whose court, like that of Réné, king of Provence, was the resort of troubadours, poets, and philosophers. These chairs are covered with geometric marquetry of white and stained ivory, &c., the very counterpart of the Bombay work now brought to this country. That manufacture, in the opinion of Dr. Birdwood, was also of Persian origin and thence found its way to Bombay. The Persians continued long into the last century the inlaying of ivory in walnut wood, and their geometric marquetry is still made. The forms of chairs in use in Italy early in the fifteenth century were revivals of the old Roman folding chair. The pairs of crosspieces are sometimes on the sides, sometimes set back and front, and in that case arm and back pieces are added. Generally we may say that the fine Italian furniture of that day owed its beauty to inlaying, surface gilding, tooling and painting. Gilt chests and marriage trays, inlaid tables, and chairs are also to be seen at South Kensington. As in Italy, so in England, France, Germany, and later in Spain, the splendour hitherto devoted to the glory of ecclesiastical furniture, utensils, or architectural decoration was gradually adopted in the royal and other castles and houses. State rooms, halls of justice, sets of rooms for the use of the king or his barons were furnished and maintained. The large religious establishments also demanded the skill of artists and workmen, and to a greater extent north than south of the Alps. Many monastic houses in the north of Europe were seats of feudal jurisdiction. These communities executed great works in wood, stall-work, presses, coffers, &c., as large and continuous societies alone are able to carry through tasks that want much time for completion. All this helped to encourage the manufacture of woodwork of the finest kind. Hence the mediæval semi-ecclesiastical character maintained sway in every art connected with architecture and furniture longer in northern countries than in Italy, where both old traditions and monumental remains recalled rather the glories of antique art, and where the revival of classic learning had begun. As regards English art it is certain that, partly from the influence of foreign queens, partly from foreign wars, and partly from the incessant intercourse with the rest of Europe kept up by religious houses, many of the accomplishments of other countries were known and practised here by foreign or native artists. It is true that the wars of the Roses, more bloody and ruinous than any experienced in this country, delayed that growth of domestic luxury which might have been expected from the then wealth of England. But when Henry the seventh established a settled government, and from his time downwards, the decorations and the accumulation of furniture in houses, libraries, and collections of works of art rapidly increased. Many of the books in the "King's library," and many pictures and movables still in possession of the crown, may be traced to that day. It is difficult, indeed, to imagine the England which Leland saw in his travels. It must have been full of splendid objects, and during the reign of Henry the feudal mansions, as well as the numerous royal palaces of Windsor, Richmond, Havering, and others, were filled with magnificent furniture. Mabuse and Torrigiano were employed by the king, and this example found many imitations; artists, both foreign and English, made secular furniture, as rich and beautiful as that of the churches and religious houses which covered the country. Taste in furniture, as in architecture, both in continental Europe and in these islands had nevertheless passed the fine period of mediæval design. The "Gothic" or pointed forms and details had become uninventive and commonplace. The whole system awaited a change. The figure sculpture, however, of the latter years of this century, though life-sized statues had lost much of the dignity and simplicity of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, was approaching the realization of natural form, which it attained in such excellence in the succeeding century. The ingenuity and raciness of the smaller figure carving both in stall-work of churches and on the tops and fronts of boxes and caskets, in panel-work of cabinets or doors, &c., during the last half of the fifteenth century are scarcely surpassed by the more academic and classical figure design of the sixteenth. Carvers on all kinds of wood furniture and decoration of houses delighted in doubling their figures up into quaint and ingenious attitudes, and if the architecture was latterly tame, though showy and costly, imagery continued to be full of individuality and inventiveness. CHAPTER VII. THE RENAISSANCE IN ITALY. There are few matters regarding art more worthy of consideration than the narrowness of the limits that bound human invention: or, to speak more exactly, we should say the simplicity of the laws and principles in obedience to which the imaginations of men are exercised. The return of the painters, sculptors, and architects to the old types of classical art after the reign of the Gothic seems at first sight as if in the arts there could be nothing new under the sun: as if the imagination, so fertile in creation during many centuries since the establishment of Christianity, had been utterly worked out and come to an end, and that there was nothing left but to repeat and copy what had been done ages before. There is, however, in reality more connection between classic and mediæval art than appears on the surface, and although all the great masters of the revival studied eagerly such remains of antique art as were discovered in Italy during the early years of the renaissance, they only came into direct contact with or absolute imitation of those models occasionally; and the works of that age have a grace that is peculiarly their own, and an inventiveness in painting and sculpture, if not in architecture, that seems, when we look at such cities as Venice and Florence, inexhaustible. The renaissance began in Italy many years before the year 1500. Most changes, indeed, of manners or arts which are designated by any century are perhaps more correctly dated twenty years before or after its beginning, and in the notices which we are here putting together we are compelled to make divisions of time occasionally overlap each other. The revival of learning in Italy was accompanied by other circumstances which had a powerful influence on the arts, and particularly on the sumptuary arts of the century. It has been already remarked that while the nations of Europe were more or less convulsed with war it was not easy or possible for the inhabitants, even the wealthy, to do much in furnishing dwelling-houses with any kind of comfort. Rich furniture consisted in a few costly objects and in hangings such as could be carried about on sumpter horses or in waggons, and, with the addition of rough benches, tables, and bedsteads, could make bare walls look gay and comfortable, and offer sufficient accommodation in the empty halls of granges and manors seldom lived in, for the occasions of a visit or a temporary occupation. Churches indeed were in those ages respected by both sides in the furious contests that raged throughout Europe. The violation of holy places was a crime held in abhorrence by all combatants, and the treasuries and sacristies, therefore, of churches were full of examples of every kind of accomplishment possessed by the artists of the day. They contained objects collected there during many generations, as was the case of shrines like that of the Virgin del Pillar in Spain, of which the offerings so long preserved have been very lately sold and dispersed, and represented the art of many successive ages. But in private houses it was scarcely possible to have any corresponding richness, though in the instance of kings and potentates there was often much splendour. As in England the fifteenth century saw the close of a series of great wars and the establishment of one powerful government, so during its conclusion and the beginning of the next century a similar disorder gradually gave place to tranquillity in Italy. The practices of painting gilt furniture of all kinds, and of modelling terra-cotta work on the wood, were not altogether new accomplishments or confined to the artists of one city. When, therefore, the French having been driven out of Italy, the popes were in security in Rome and the accomplished Medici family reigned in Florence, those states as well as Urbino, Ferrara, and other independent cities were free from the perpetual attitude of defence against foreign invasion; they could indulge their enthusiasm for classic art, and the impulse given to the study of it found a ready response, as great noblemen while building palaces and digging gardens came upon statues, frescoes, vases, bronzes, and many glorious remnants of antiquity. In the various Italian states were artists well skilled and carefully trained, and there was no difficulty in finding distinguished names with whole schools of enthusiastic admirers behind them who, with these precious objects in their view, formed their style on the old classic models. We are to consider such acquirements here only so far as they came to be applied to secular woodwork (of which this cornice from Venice is an example) and the objects of daily use; to coffers, chests, caskets, mirrors, or cabinets, sideboards of various kinds, seats, tables, carriages and furniture of every description. [Illustration] The best artists of the day did not hesitate to give their minds to the making of woodwork and furniture in various materials and employed every kind of accomplishment in beautifying them. Of this fine renaissance period there are so many examples in the South Kensington collection, and some of them of such excellence, that the student need scarcely have occasion to travel beyond the limits of that museum to illustrate the quattrocento and cinquecento furniture and woodwork. Many materials were employed by the renaissance artists. Wood first and principally in making furniture, but decorated with gilding and paintings; inlaid with agate, carnelian, lapis lazuli and marbles of various tints; with ivory, tortoiseshell, mother-of-pearl; and with other woods. They also made many smaller objects, such as mirror cases in iron, damascened or inlaid with gold and silver. For many years, however, mirrors continued to be of polished metal, the enrichment being devoted to the outer case. Glass mirrors were not common till a somewhat later period. As the general material of furniture in the sixteenth century continued to be wood, its chief decoration was sculpture. The number of remarkable pieces of carved wood furniture belonging to this period in the museum is considerable. The most striking are the chests, cassoni, large coffers for containing clothes or ornamental hangings and stuffs that were kept in them when not in use. Rooms, however large, of which the walls, floors, and ceilings are decorated, do not require many substantial objects in addition; and these chests, with a table and chairs placed against the wall, nearly complete the requirements of great Italian halls and corridors. [Illustration] The general form of the carved chests is that of a sarcophagus. They are supported on claw feet, and have masks, brackets, or caryatid figures worked into the construction as in the accompanying woodcut, leaving panels, borders, or other spaces for historic sculpture. The subjects are sometimes from Scripture, often from the poems of Ovid. They are carved in walnut wood, which is free in grain and very tenacious: and the work, like most of the old furniture carving, is helped out with gilding. Sometimes the ground, at others the relieved carvings are touched or completely covered with gilding. Most of these fine chests are in pairs, and probably formed parts of still larger sets, fours or sixes, according as they were intended for the wall spaces of larger or smaller rooms or portions of wall between two doors. Carved chests commonly in use, and given to brides as part of their dowry or as presents to married couples, or simply provided as the most convenient objects both for receptacles and occasionally for seats, were often made at less cost in cypress wood. They are generally decorated with surface designs etched with a pen on the absorbent grain of that wood, the ground being slightly cut out and worked over with punches shaped like nail heads, stars, &c. Cypress chests were especially used for keeping dresses or tapestries; the aromatic properties of that timber being considered as a specific against moth. This kind of chest, when intended to hold a bridal trousseau, was occasionally made with small drawers and receptacles inside for fans, lace, combs, or other feminine ornaments. Allusions to cypress chests in England are numerous in the wardrobe and privy purse accounts of Edward the fourth and his successors. The tables of this period are sometimes solid (as n^{o.} 162, which is covered with spirited designs of mythological subjects). Dinner tables were "boards" fastened on trestles, according to the old usage already alluded to, and could be removed when the meal was over; or several could be laid together, as in our modern dining-room tables, to meet the demands of the noble hospitality exercised in those days. The Italian chairs of the quattrocento period have been spoken of above. We have, however, another very rich and effective form of chairs usual in the sixteenth century, and which were in general use in Venice. In these the seat is fastened into two planks, one before and one behind, as in the woodcut. The planks are richly carved, and a third plank is let in to form a back. The several portions, particularly the back, were sometimes sufficiently thick to admit of carving in massive relief. The flanks of the back piece are usually grotesque monsters, and the arms of the owner carved on a scutcheon in the centre. They seem to have been generally richly gilt. They also formed the decoration of a great corridor or hall, and were used without cushions. [Illustration] The frames of pictures were bold and rich. Those of the previous century had been mostly imitative of small Gothic shrines, being generally for religious subjects and for use in churches or oratories. In the cinquecento period they were square panels, carved and richly gilt. There are in the Kensington museum remarkable examples of frames made for mirrors, either for the sitting-rooms or saloons of the lady of the house, or for her bedroom. Three of these are type pieces of such productions. N^{o.} 7695 is a square frame carved in walnut, standing on a foot, and meant to be carried about. From the daisies in relief on the foot it may perhaps be ascribed to Marguerite of Valois, and have been used in the court of Provence. Nothing in the collection surpasses the elegance and perfection of the ornamental work on the mouldings. The mirror itself is of polished metal. Another is in a circular frame, n^{o.} 7694, shaped like a shield, and meant to be hung up. It was probably made for a duchess of Ferrara. There are classical details of architectonic kind on the edges of the carving, which is highly finished. The mirror itself is of metal, and the back has figures on it in relief and is solidly gilt. The third of these, n^{o.} 7226, is larger. In design it is like a monumental mural tablet, with a carved rich finish on the four sides, and the mirror furnished with a sliding cover in the form of a medallion, containing a female head of singular nobleness and beauty. In this case the material is walnut relieved by broad surfaces of inlaid wood. We may also mention the superb Soltykoff mirror, n^{o.} 7648. This is an example of metal work throughout, the case, stand, and sliding cover being of iron damascened with gold and silver in every variety of that costly process. [Illustration] Some of the richest pieces of carved walnut furniture belonging to this period are the bellows. As these are characteristic of the Italian style of the period in furniture of various kinds, we give woodcuts of two examples in the South Kensington collection. They are generally of walnut touched with gilding; and in the form still familiar to ourselves, which is as old as the classic times. [Illustration] Besides furniture carved in this way out of solid wood, there were other materials used and other methods of decorating household furniture. The tarsia or inlaid work has been alluded to. The first methods were by geometrical arrangements of small dies; but magnificent figure designs had been executed in inlaid wood in the early period of the renaissance, and before it. Work of this kind was made in two or three woods, and much of it is in pine or cypress. The large grain is used to express lines of drapery and other movements by putting whole folds or portions of a dress or figure with the grain in one direction or another, as may be required. The picture is thus composed of pieces inclined together; a few bold lines incised and blackened give such outlines of the form as are not attainable by the other method, and slight burning with an iron is sometimes added to produce tone or shadow. "'Tarsie' or 'Tarsiatura,'" says Mrs. Merrifield, "was a kind of mosaic in woods. This consisted in representing houses and perspective views of buildings, by inlaying pieces of wood of various colours and shades into panels of walnut wood. Vasari speaks rather slightingly of this art, and says that it was practised chiefly by those persons who possessed more patience than skill in design; that although he had seen some good representations in figures, fruits, and animals, yet the work soon becomes dark, and was always in danger of perishing from the worms and by fire. Tarsia work was frequently employed in decorating the choirs of churches as well as the backs of seats and the wainscoting. It was also used in the panels of doors." Another method of ornamentation dependent on material that came into use in this century was the Pietra Dura or mosaic panelling of hard pebbles. The work is laborious and costly. Not only are the materials (agate, carnelian, amethyst and marbles of all colours) expensive, but each part must be ground laboriously to an exact shape and the whole mosaic fitted together, a kind of refinement of the old marble work called Alexandrinum. Besides being formed into marble panels for table tops and cabinet fronts, pietra dura was let into wood, and helped out with gay colours the more sombre walnut or ebony base of the furniture. Vasari, speaking of particular pieces of furniture of his day, mentions a "splendid library table" made at the expense and by the order of Francesco de' Medici in Florence. This table was "constructed of ebony," that is, veneered with ebony, "divided into compartments by columns of heliotrope, oriental jasper, and lapis lazuli, which have the bases and capitals of chased silver. The work is furthermore enriched with jewels, beautiful ornaments of silver, and exquisite little figures, interspersed with miniatures and terminal figures of silver and gold, in full relief, united in pairs. There are, besides, other compartments formed of jasper, agates, heliotropes, sardonyxes, carnelians, and other precious stones." This piece was the work of Bernardo Buontalenti. Another piece of such work is described as a table "wholly formed of oriental alabaster, intermingled with great pieces of carnelian, jasper, heliotrope, lapis, and agate, with other stones and jewels, worth twenty thousand crowns." Another artist, Bernardino di Porfirio of Leccio, executed an "octangular table of ebony and ivory inlaid with jaspers." This precious manufacture has been patronised in the grand ducal factories down to recent times, and is continued in the royal establishments of the king of Italy. A feature which was strongly developed in the sixteenth century furniture is the architectural character of the outlines. It has already been observed that in the fifteenth century, chests, screens, stall fronts, doors and panelling followed or fell into the prevailing arrangements of architectural design in stonework, such as window tracery, or wall tracery. But in the cinquecento furniture an architectural character, not proper to woodwork for any constructive reasons, was imparted to cabinets, chests, &c. They were artificially provided with parts that imitated the lines, brackets, and all the details of classic entablatures which have constructive reasons in architecture, but which, reduced to the proportions of furniture, have not the same propriety. These subdivisions brought into use the art of "joinery." The parts obviously necessary for the purpose of framing up wood, whether a box or chest, a door, a piece of panelling, or a chair, offer certain opportunities for mouldings or carvings; some are the thicker portions forming the frames, some the thin flat boards that fill up the spaces. To add a variety of mouldings, such as subdivide the roofs of temples or their peristyles, is, of course, to depart from the carpenter's province and work, and rather to take furniture out of its obvious forms for the express purpose of impressing on it the renaissance type. [Illustration: Knife case. Dated 1564.] The artists of that time did this with the object of designing "in character," and special models, such as the old triumphal arches, and sarcophagi, at Rome, were in view in these designs. On both arches and tombs sculptured bas-reliefs abounded. Figures reclined over the arches, and were arranged in square compositions in the panels, for which the upper stories of the arches made provision. The renaissance cabinets fell into modifications of this ideal. A century later they grew into house fronts, and showed doors, arches, and balustrades inside, with imitative paved floors, looking-glasses set at angles of 45°, so as to make reflections of these various parts; and in this humorous fashion the inside of a walnut or ebony cabinet was turned into the model of an Italian villa. Again, in place of the running foliated borders and mouldings having a continuous design, or of compositions of foliage, animals, &c., forming in each arch moulding or cornice line a homogeneous line or circle, the renaissance arabesques introduced an entirely new method of decoration. In arabesque ornament all sorts of natural objects are grafted on a central stalk, or, as in the best work, on something like the stem of a candelabrum. The resources of this method are limited only by the fancy and skill of the artist, who grafts here a mask, there a leaf on his stem, and so on. The temptation is the license and discordance that come in when no unity is needed in a piece of ornament, and no continuous effort of mind required to think out and execute one definite idea in designing it. The central stem leads to an exact balance or reversal of one half of each element in the ornament, so that one half only of a panel or border has to be _designed_. In the hands of great artists this kind of ornamentation has been used with consummate grace. CHAPTER VIII. THE RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND, FLANDERS, FRANCE, GERMANY, AND SPAIN. In the foregoing sketch of the furniture, designs, and manufactures of central Italy, we have described the history of contemporaneous furniture throughout Europe. Pope Leo the tenth gave every encouragement to the reviving arts in Rome, and left that capital the great nursery of art down to our day. To Italy the great princes of Europe sent the most promising artists of their dominions, or encouraged such resort. Most of these men were architects and sculptors. Classical learning and splendid living were both encouraged by Henry the eighth. He is, probably, to be credited with the impulse given to the court and the country in the direction of the arts and accomplishments of Italy. If Jean de Mabuse had been patronised by Henry the seventh, his successor offered tempting terms to Primaticcio to exchange the service of his brother king, Francis, for his own. Other artists, contemporaries of Raphael and his scholars, found their way to England; to these we must add the great master of the German or Swiss school, Holbein. That the artists both of Holbein's and of the Italian schools designed furniture in this country we have proofs in the drawing for a panelled chimney-piece now in the British museum, and the woodwork of King's college chapel in Cambridge. Another piece of furniture of this date, showing the mixed character of Italian and Holbeinesque design, is the very fine "Tudor" cabinet at South Kensington. Though the court of Henry and the palaces of his wives were furnished with splendour, and works of art, especially those of the gold and silversmith, and jewellery, found their way from foreign parts to such great houses, the general manners of the country changed less in these respects than was the case in France and the more wealthy states and courts of Germany. In the portrait pictures of Henry and his family we see furniture of a renaissance character, but in the great monuments of the woodwork of the day the old style prevailed throughout the reign. The roofs, magnificent specimens of wood construction, were still subdivided, and supported by king posts, queen posts, hammer beams, arches connecting these portions and tracery panels in the spandrels, as in the two previous centuries. All parts were carved and coloured. The architecture of country houses began to change from the old form of a castle or a fortress to that of the beautiful and characteristic style to which we give the name of Tudor. Moats were retained, but still the principal features of the building were the depressed arches and perpendicular window mullions that had been long familiar in England, and were suggested by the wooden houses so general in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries. The woodwork also and the panelling of halls and chambers retained the upright lines and mouldings forming the various "linen" patterns. Leafwork and heads, busts of the reigning princes, or of heroes such as the Cæsars, filled up the more ornamental sections, giving a certain classical element which was not fully developed till later: and most of the renaissance ornamentation of this reign has a Flemish rather than an Italian character. The woodcuts on the next page show a series of panels of different countries, many of which are to be found introduced with slight variations in English work of about the same period. Flanders was in advance of this country in renaissance art. This remark extends to ornament of all kinds, whether of church woodwork, glass-painting, or domestic furniture. Still the Flemish work of this renaissance, or (speaking of England) this early Tudor period retains a mixture of details of the pointed style that makes us sometimes doubtful how to characterise the style of individual pieces. We may point to sideboards and chests in illustration. Belgium abounds in examples of this transition period. [Illustration: English, 15th century.] [Illustration: Flemish, 16th century.] [Illustration: French, 16th century.] [Illustration: German, 15th century.] [Illustration: Italian, 16th century.] In France, the most advanced and most luxurious and cultivated of the transalpine courts, the renaissance art had advanced far beyond that of England. Not only had Francis the first and the Medici princesses invited famous artists out of Italy, but they aimed at imitating Florentine luxuries and refinements as completely as they could. Admirable schools of ornamental art, such as that of the Limoges enamellers and carvers in ivory, were and had been long established in France. Classic sculpture was produced of great merit in all materials. Primaticcio and Cellini founded new schools of architects, painters, and sculptors in France. They employed pupils, and the most promising found their way to Rome and Florence, associated themselves with the great masters then practising, and brought back all the instruction they could obtain. [Illustration] Jean Goujon stands at the head of these French masters. Besides being a sculptor and architect, there is little doubt of his having designed and even sculptured wood furniture. Probably the carved woodwork of the king's bedroom and adjoining rooms in the old Louvre are by his hand. Bachelier, of Toulouse, did the same, and pieces are attributed to him now in the Kensington Museum. Philibert de L'Orme was another artist in a similar field. Both Goujon and Bachelier showed the influence of the great Italian masters in their work. The table engraved (p. 81) is a very elegant example of French sixteenth century furniture. [Illustration] [SEMPER FESTINA LENTE 1577 A. REID. DEL.] The woodwork in the renaissance houses--the panelling and fittings of the rooms--was designed by the architect, and was full of quaint, sometimes extravagant imagery. For example, the architectural and decorative plates of Jacques Androuet du Cerceau will give some idea of the dependence of all these details on the architects of the day. This author published designs for marquetry or wood mosaics, as well as for all sorts of woodwork. A glance at the heavy cabinets of the later sixteenth century, of French origin, will show how completely great pieces of furniture fell into the same character of forms. Shelves are supported on grotesque figures, while in the mouldings, instead of simple running lines worked with the plane, as in fifteenth century woodwork, we see the egg and tongue, acanthus leaves, dentils and other members of classical architecture, constantly recurring. The ornaments of French woodworkers show a fondness for conventional bands or straps interspersed with figures and other ornaments. The panel, of which we give a woodcut, is French, and dated 1577. It contains armorial bearings and a monogram, said to be of the Aldine family. In 1577, however, Aldus Manutius the elder was dead, and his son did not live in France. Germany and Spain took up the renaissance art in a still more Italian spirit than England or France. Parts of Italy as well as Spain were under the same ruler; they both, as far as regards art, felt the influence of powerful imperial patronage. We are only concerned with their art here as it refers to woodwork. German wood carvers were more quaint, minute, and redundant as to decoration. Something of the vigour, manliness, and inexhaustible sense of humour of the Germans characterises their woodwork, as it does other art, of which ornament forms the main feature. The well-known "Triumph of Maximilian," though a woodcut only, may be taken as a type of German treatment. The great cities of the empire are full of carved woodwork, house fronts, and gables. Timber was abundant. The imagery of the period, in wood as in stone, is intentionally quaint, contorted, humorous. It would be essentially ugly but for the inexhaustible fecundity of thought, allegory, and satire that pervades it. It should be added also that designers and architects had an immense sense of dignity, which we recognise immediately when we see their architectural compositions as a whole. Depths and hollows, points of light, prominences and relative retirement of parts in their arrangements of carved ornament, were matters thoroughly understood; and they succeed in imparting that general agreeableness which we call "effect" to the mind of the observers. As regards Spanish art we cannot do better than adopt the statements of Señor J. F. Riaño, who says that "the brilliant epoch of sculpture in wood belongs to the sixteenth century, and was due to the great impulse it received from the works of Berruguete and Felipe de Borgoña. He was the chief promoter of the Italian style, and the choir of the cathedral of Toledo, where he worked so much, is the finest specimen of the kind in Spain. Toledo, Seville, and Valladolid were at that time great productive and artistic centres. As a specimen of wood carving of the Italian renaissance period, applied to an object of furniture, the magnificent wardrobe by Gregorio Pardo (1549) outside the chapter house at Toledo may be mentioned as one of the most beautiful things of its kind. These various styles of ornamentation were applied to the cabinets 'Bufetes' of such varied form and materials which were so much the fashion in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The most characteristic of Spain are such as are called 'Vargueños.' These cabinets are decorated outside with fine ironwork, and inside with columns of bone painted and gilt. The other cabinets or escritoires belonging to that period, which are so frequently met with in Spain, were to a large extent imported from Germany and Italy, _while others were made in Spain in imitation of these_" (the italics are ours), "and as the copies were very similar it is difficult to classify them. It may be asserted, however, that cabinets of inlaid wood were made in great perfection in Spain at the end of the sixteenth century, for in a memorial written by a maker of tapestry, Pedro Gretierez, who worked for queen Isabella, he says, 'The escritoires and cabinets brought from Germany are worth 500, 600, and 700 reales each, and those of the same kind made in Spain by Spaniards are to be had for 250 and 300 reales.' Besides these inlaid cabinets others must have been made in the sixteenth century inlaid with silver. An edict was issued in 1594 prohibiting, with the utmost rigour, the making and selling of this kind of merchandise, in order not to increase the scarcity of silver. The edict says that 'no cabinets, desks, coffers, brasiers, shoes, tables, or other articles decorated with stamped, raised, carved, or plain silver, should be manufactured.'" CHAPTER IX. TUDOR AND STUART STYLES. The list of reigns supplies more convenient dates than the beginning or the end of a century for marking changes of national tastes in such matters as furniture. The names of kings or queens are justly given to denote styles, whether of architecture, dress, or personal ornaments, and utensils of the household. Society in most countries adopts those habits that are first taken up by the sovereign. In England, the reign of Elizabeth was pre-eminently a period during which the tastes, even the fancies, of the queen were followed enthusiastically by her people. Elizabethan is the name of the style of architecture gradually developed during her reign. Italian taste, though not perhaps so pure as it had been a few years earlier, had become far more general; classical details, however, were mixed even more in England than in other countries (Flanders excepted) with relics of older styles, the love of which was still strong in this country. The fireplaces and the panelling of our old houses, Crewe hall, Speke in Lancashire, Haddon hall in Derbyshire, Kenilworth castle, Raglan castle, and many other old buildings, are thoroughly characteristic of this mixed classical revival. The fashion is quaint and grotesque, the figure sculpture being good enough to look well in the form of caryatid monsters, half men, half terminal posts or acanthus foliations, but not sufficiently correct or graceful to stand altogether alone. Specimens, however, of very good work can be pointed out, and we give here some of the details of a panelled room brought lately from Exeter, and now in the South Kensington collection. We may say that the character of the woodwork throughout this period consists in actual architectural façades or portions of façades, showy arrangements wherever they are possible of the "five orders" of architecture, or of pedimental fronts. Doorways and chimney fronts are the principal opportunities in interiors for the exercise of this composing skill. Panelling remained in use in the great halls and most of the chambers of the house, but the linen pattern, so graceful and effective, went out of fashion. The angles of the rooms, the cornices, and spaces above the doors were fitted with groups of architectural cornice mouldings, consisting of dentil, egg and tongue, and running moulds, and sometimes room walls were divided into panels by regular columns. [Illustration] Heraldry, with rich carved mantlings and quaint forms of scutcheons (the edges notched and rolled about as if made of the notched edges of a scroll of parchment), was a frequent ornament. Grotesque terminal figures, human-headed, supported the front of the dresser--the chief furniture of the dining-room and of the cabinet. Table supports and newels of stair rails grew into heavy acorn-shaped balusters. In the case of stair balusters, these were often ornamented with well-cut sculpture of fanciful and heraldic figures. Inlaid work also began to be used in room-panelling as well as furniture; bed heads and testers, chest fronts, cabinets, &c., were inlaid, but scarcely with delicacy, during the early Elizabethan period. The art was developed during the reign of James, when, in point of fact, the larger number of the Tudor houses were erected. When the Tudor period was succeeded by that of the Stuarts the same general characteristics remained, but all the forms of carving grew heavier and the execution coarser. The table legs, baluster newels, and cabinet supports, had enormous acorn-shaped masses in the middle. The objects themselves, such as the great hall tables, instead of being moveable on trestles, became of unwieldy size and weight. The general character of Flemish work was much of the same kind and form. It is not easy to distinguish the nationality of pieces of Flemish and English oak furniture of this period. The Flemings, however, retained a higher school of figure carvers, and their church-stall work and some of their best things are of a higher stamp and better designed; and where figure sculpture was employed this superiority is always apparent. A good example of Flemish panelling can be studied in the doorway at South Kensington, n^{o.} 4329. Their furniture is represented by an excellent specimen, amongst others, of this mixed period in the cabinet, n^{o.} 156. Though large and heavy, and divided into massive parts, the treatment of ornament is well understood on such pieces. The scroll-work is bold but light, and the general surface of important mouldings or dividing members is not cut up by the ornamentation. The panels are very generally carved with graceful figure subjects, commonly biblical. As the years advanced into the seventeenth century Flemish work became bigger and less refined. Diamond-shaped panels were superimposed on the square, turned work was split and laid on, drop ornaments were added below tables and from the centres of the arches of arched panels; all these unnecessary ornaments were mere additions and encumbrances to the general structure. [Illustration] Our own later Jacobean or Stuart style borrowed this from the Flemish. The Flemings and the Dutch had long imported woodwork into England, and it is to that commerce that we may trace the greater likeness between the late Flemish renaissance carving and corresponding English woodwork, than between the English and the French. Dutch designs in furniture, though allied to the Flemish, were swelled out into enormous proportions. The huge wardrobe cabinets made by the Dutch of walnut wood with ebony inlaid work and waved ebony mouldings are still to be met with. The panels of the fronts are broken up into numerous angles and points. In France the fine architectural wood construction of the style of Philibert de l'Orme and so many great masters maintained itself, and a number of fine cabinets and sideboards in various collections attest the excellence of the work. The cabinet on the opposite page (n^{o.} 2573 in the Kensington museum) is of late French sixteenth century work, and combines the characteristics of the heavy furniture made in the north of Europe with a propriety of treatment in the ornamentation of mouldings and cornices peculiar to French architects, who continued to design such structures for the houses they built and fitted up. The descendants of Catherine de' Medicis and their generation were trained by Italian artists and altogether in Italian tastes, and no great change occurred in France in woodwork or furniture till the sixteenth century had closed. In German and in Italian furniture the principal changes were in the direction of veneered and marquetry work. The same vigorous quaintness continued to distinguish German decorative detail as has been already noticed. The Italians carved wood during the later sixteenth and the whole of the seventeenth centuries with extraordinary grace and vigour. The next woodcut, a pedestal in oak, shows their power in hard material: and smaller objects, such as the frames of pictures, were cut out in great sweeping leaves, perhaps of the acanthus, showing an ease and certainty in the artist that look as if he were employed upon some substance more yielding than the softest wood. Chairs were cut in the same rich style, and this luxurious carving was not unfrequently applied to the decoration of state carriages. Venice maintained a pre-eminence in this perhaps in a greater degree than Florence, though in the valley of the Arno the willow, lime, sycamore, and other soft white woods were to be had in abundance, and invited great freedom in carving. [Illustration] [Illustration] We may now treat of an important epoch in the history of modern furniture. Venice was the seat of the manufacture of glass. In the sixteenth century workmen had received state protection for the manufacture of mirrors, which till that time had been mere hand mirrors and made of mixed metals highly polished. Gilt wood frames were extensively manufactured for these Venetian looking-glasses, which found their way all over Europe. Besides gilt frames, gilt chairs, carved consoles, and other highly ornate furniture were introduced as the century went on, and most of this took its origin from Venice. The woodcut represents a small frame, n^{o.} 1605, at South Kensington. Another remarkable class of gilt woodwork, for which Florence and other cities had found trained carvers, was the framework of carriages. In England, France, Germany, and Italy carriages during the seventeenth century were stately, and certainly wonderful pieces of furniture. Examples of these showy carriages exist still. There is a collection belonging to the royal family of Portugal, now preserved at Lisbon, one or two in the museum of the hôtel de Cluny at Paris, dating from the time of Martin and painted by him, and there are a few carriages of old date at Vienna and probably in some private houses. The state-coach of the Speaker is an English example of the seventeenth century. Germany differed less from Italy even than France in wood carving, interior room fittings, and the frequent pedimental compositions containing grotesques, or heraldic achievements on a scale of sumptuous display. The German princes were many of them skilful and intelligent patrons of art, and made collections in their residences. A well-known piece belonging to the early seventeenth century is preserved in the royal museum at Berlin. This is known as the Pomeranian art cabinet. It is 4 ft. 10 in. high, 3 ft. 4 in. wide by 2 ft. 10 in. deep, made of ebony with drawers of sandal wood lined with red morocco leather, and is mounted with silver and pietra dura work, and fitted inside with utensils of various kinds. The chair, of which we give a woodcut, is German of about the same date. [Illustration] In the west of Europe, during the seventeenth century, marquetry was extensively used, and became the leading feature of furniture decoration. Inlaying had long been in use; but the new marquetry was a picturesque composition, a more complete attempt at pictorial representation. It comes before us in old furniture under various forms, and many examples of it may be studied in different collections. In this country we may consider it mainly as an imported art of the reign of William and Mary, when Dutch marquetry furniture became the fashion in the form of bandy-legged chairs, upright clock fronts, secrétaires or bureaux, or writing cabinets which were closed in the upper and middle parts with doors, and other pieces that offered surfaces available for such decoration. The older designs on work of this kind represent tulips and other flowers, foliage, birds, &c., all in gay colours, generally the self colours of the woods used. Sometimes the eyes and other salient points are in ivory or mother-of-pearl. In France, in the earlier marquetry designs, picturesque landscapes, broken architecture, and figures are represented. Colours are occasionally stained on the wood. Ivory and ebony were favourite materials; as also in Germany and in Italy. It is to be noted that as the vigour of the great sixteenth century movement died out, the mania for making furniture in the form of architectural models died out also; nor do we find it becoming a fashion again till quite modern times, under the Gothic and other revivals at the end of the last and the beginning of the present century. The architectural idea was in itself full of grandeur, and it was productive of very beautiful examples in the sarcophagus-shaped chests or cassoni, and in cabinet work, though the façades of temples and the vaults and columns of triumphal arches in Rome do not bear to be too completely reduced to such small proportions. With the introduction of marquetry into more general use we recognise not only a new or renewed method of decoration, but a changed ideal of construction. Boxes, chests, tables, cabinets, &c., were conceived as such. They were made more convenient for use, and were no longer subdivided by architectural mouldings and columns, all so much extra work added to the sides and fronts. About the middle of the seventeenth century a kind of work altogether new in the manufactory of modern furniture made its appearance under the reign of Louis the fourteenth of France. That king rose to a position in Europe that no monarch of modern times had occupied before, and the great ministers of his reign had the wisdom to take special measures for the establishment of the various arts and manufactures in which either the Italians or Flemings excelled the French as well as other nations. Colbert, his minister of finance, amongst his commercial reforms of learned societies and schools of art, founded in 1664 an "Academie royale de peinture d'architecture et de sculpture." It was into this that the designers of architecture, woodwork, ornament or furniture, were admitted. He established also the famous factory of the "Gobelins" for making pictorial tapestry. The place took its name from the brothers Gobelin, Flemings, who had a dyeing-house in the Rue Mouffetard. Lebrun, the painter, was the first head of it. Another important name is that of Jean Lepautre. He has left numerous designs of ornament behind him for panelling, mirror frames, carriages, &c. Lepautre was a pupil of Adam Philippon. This artist, whose chief calling was that of a joiner and cabinet maker, has also left designs. To Colbert is due the credit of pushing forward the renewal or completion of the royal palaces; especially the château of Versailles. For the furniture of this palace we find the new material employed, namely, boule marquetry, which owes its name to the maker. The orthography of proper names was still often unsettled at that time, and we find the name variously spelt. The correct way seems to have been Boulle; but we shall retain the more usual mode, both for the artist and for his work. André Charles Boule was born in 1642, and made the peculiar kind of veneered work composed of tortoiseshell and thin brass, to which are sometimes added ivory and enamelled metal; brass and shell, however, are the general materials. Boule was made head of the royal furniture department and was lodged in the Louvre. A very interesting early specimen of this work is now at Windsor castle, and other early pieces belong to Sir Richard Wallace. The date attributed to the first makes it doubtful whether Boule may not have seen the same sort of work practised in other workshops. This kind of marquetry has, however, been assigned by general consent to Boule. In the earlier work of Boule the inlay was produced at great cost, owing to the waste of valuable material in cutting; and the shell is left of its natural colour; in later work the manufacture was more economical. Two or three thicknesses of the different material were glued or stuck together and sawn through at one operation. An equal number of figures and of matrices or hollow pieces exactly corresponding were thus produced, and by counter-charging two or more designs were obtained by the same sawing. These are technically known as "boule and counter," the brass forming the groundwork and the pattern alternately. In the later or "new boule," the shell is laid on a gilt ground or on vermilion. The brass is elaborately chased with a graver. Besides these plates of brass for marquetry ornaments, Boule, who was a sculptor of no mean pretensions, founded and chased up feet, edgings, bracket supports, &c., to his work in relief, or in the round, also in brass. The original use of these parts was to protect the edges and angles, and bind the thin inlaid work together where it was interrupted by angles in the structure. Afterwards brass mounts, more or less relieved, were added to enrich the flat designs of the surfaces. Classical altars, engraved or chased as mere surface decoration, would receive the addition of claw feet actually relieved. Figures standing on such altars, pedestals, &c., were made in relief more or less bold. In this way Boule's later work is not only a brilliant and rich piece of surface decoration, but its metallic parts are repoussé or embossed with thicknesses of metal ornament. In boule work all parts of the marquetry are held down by glue to the bed, usually of oak. The metal is occasionally fastened down by small brass pins or nails, which are hammered flat and chased over so as to be imperceptible. [Illustration] In England, during the reign of Charles the second and of James, French furniture was imported; the old Tudor oak lingered in country houses. Boule hardly found its way till the following century to England. Splendid silver furniture consisting of plates embossed and repoussé, heightened with the graver and of admirable design, was occasionally made for the Court and for great families. Wood carving, in the manner of the school of Sir Christopher Wren, as in the bracket here shown, was long continued in connexion with architecture and furniture. Another style was carried to the highest pitch of technical execution and finish, as well as of truth of natural forms in the carving of Grinling Gibbons. This artist was English, but partially of Dutch descent. He carved foliage, birds, flowers, busts and figures, pieces of drapery, &c., with astonishing dexterity. We find his work principally on mirror frames, wall panels, chimney pieces, &c. Specimens may be seen over the communion table of St. James's church, Westminster, and in the choir of St. Paul's cathedral. The finest examples known are probably the carved work at Petworth house in Sussex, and at Chatsworth. His material is generally lime and other white woods. The flowers and foliage of his groups or garlands sweep round in bold and harmonious curves, making an agreeable whole, though for architectural decorative carving no work was ever so free from conventional arrangements. His animals or his flowers appear to be so many separate creations from nature, laid or tied together separately, though in reality formed out of a block, and remaining still portions of a group cut in the solid wood. [Illustration: A. REID PEARSON, S.C.] Gibbons died in 1721. Walpole mentions Watson as having been his pupil and assistant at Chatsworth. Drevot of Brussels and Laurens of Mechlin were other pupils: the former did not survive him. His school had many followers, for we find the acanthus carvings on mouldings, round doorways and chimney pieces, down to the middle of the eighteenth century, executed in England with a masterly hand. Specimens of such work have been recently acquired in the Kensington museum, the fruits of the demolition of old London, continually in progress. The border of this page represents one of these admirable pieces; a door and frame from a house in Lincoln's-inn. Nothing can surpass the perfect mastery of execution. All the work is cut clean and sharp out of wood which admits of no tentative cuts, and requires no rubbing down with sand paper, and in which errors are not to be repaired. Lengths of these mouldings were worked off by hand, evidently without hesitation and without mishap. Country houses abound with this fine though unpretending work, and give ample evidence of the existence of a school of fine workmen, carvers at the command of the architects of the day. We may here revert to an important addition to room furniture, which became European during this century. Mirrors had been made from the earliest times in polished metal, but were first made of glass at Venice. In 1507 Andrea and Dominico, two glass workers of Murano, declared before the Council of ten that they had found a method of making "good and perfect mirrors of crystal glass." A monopoly of the right of manufacture was granted to the two inventors for twenty years. In 1564, the mirror makers became a distinct guild of glass workers. The plates were not large: from four to five feet are the largest dimensions met with till late in the eighteenth century. They were commonly bevilled on the edges. The frames in soft wood (as in the woodcut, p. 100) are specimens of free carving during the seventeenth century. Both in Venice and in Florence soft woods, such as willow or lime, were used. The mirror-plates were, at first, square or oblong. Towards the end of the century we find them shaped at the top. In the eighteenth century they were generally shaped at the top and bottom. Figures were sunk in the style of intaglio or gem cutting on the back of the glass and left with a dead surface, the silver surface of the mercury showing through as the mirror is seen from the front. The looking-glasses made in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by colonies of Venetian workmen in England and France had the plates finished by an edge gently bevilled of an inch in width, following the form of the frame, whether square or shaped in curves. This gives preciousness and prismatic light to the whole glass. It is of great difficulty in execution, the plate being held by the workman over his head and the edge cut by grinding. The feats of skill of this kind in the form of interrupted curves and short lines and angles are rarely accomplished by modern workmen, and the angle of the bevil itself is generally too acute, whereby the prismatic light produced by this portion of the mirror is in violent and too showy contrast to the remainder. [Illustration] In England, looking-glasses came into general use soon after the Restoration. "Sir Samuel Morland built a fine room at Vauxhall in 1667, the inside all of looking-glass, and fountains, very pleasant to behold. It stands in the middle of the garden covered with Cornish slate, on the point whereof he placed a Punchinello." At about the same period the house of Nell Gwynne, "the first good one as we enter St. James' Square from Pall Mall, had the back room on the ground floor entirely lined with looking-glass within memory," writes Pennant, "as was said to have been the ceiling." "La rue St. André-des-arts," says Savarin, speaking of Paris in the seventeenth century, "eut le premier café _orne de glaces_ et de tables de marbre à peu près comme on les voit de nos jours." [Illustration] During the seventeenth century, tapestry, the material in use for hanging and decorating the walls of splendid rooms in France, was made also in this country. Factories were set up at Mortlake, where several copies were made of the Raphael tapestries, the cartoons of which were in this country; and in Soho fields. Sometimes tapestry was hung on bare walls; occasionally it was strained over the older panelled work of the days of the Tudor and Stuart sovereigns, the fruitful period of country house architecture in England. [Illustration: An English table and chairs of the year 1633, from a woodcut of that date.] With a woodcut (on preceding page) of a bedroom holy-water vessel we finish the account of this period. CHAPTER X. FURNITURE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. As the eighteenth century draws on, we arrive at furniture of which examples are more readily to be met with, and we are reminded of houses and rooms more or less unaltered which have come under general observation. The fashions were led in France. Boule work grew into bigger and more imposing structures as the manufacture passed into the hands of a greater number of workmen. Commodes or large presses were made with edgings and mounts, in the form of "egg and tongue" and other classic or renaissance mouldings. The tops were formed into one or three pedestals, to hold clocks and candelabra. Other changes were introduced to carry out the taste for gilding which then prevailed, and the broken shell-shaped woodwork, popularly known as Louis quinze work, began to be adopted for the frames of large glasses and the mouldings of room panels. The panels grew tall, were arched or shaped at the top, and occupied the wall space from the dado to the moulded and painted ceilings, in narrow panels. The fantastic forms of curve, emblems of the affected manners of the day, called Rococo from the words _rocaille coquille_, rock and shell curves, were well calculated to show off the lustre of gilding. The gold was admirably laid on, thick and very pure, and both in bronze gilding and in the woodwork, maintains its lustre to the present time. The severe classical grandeur of the old roll mouldings of fireplace jambs, wall and door panels, of the former reign gave way everywhere to this lighter work. Much early eighteenth century furniture was bombé, or rolled about in curious curves or undulations of surface, partly to display the skill of the cabinet-makers, and partly to show off the marquetry, which formed its only decoration. Another step was the introduction of mechanical applications and contrivances. The tops of tables lift off, and the action causes other portions to rise, to open, and so on. It is to be remembered that bedrooms were often used as boudoirs or studies, and that furniture which could shut private papers up without requiring that they should be put away into drawers was convenient in such rooms. As the century advanced, it became customary to form a sort of alcove at the end of bedrooms in France. The centre portion contained the bed, hidden by curtains, the spaces between it and the two walls were shut in with doors, and formed dressing closets, which could be used while the rest of the room was shut off. The bedroom then became a reception room and was thrown open with other receiving rooms of the house. Bureaux or mechanically shutting tables, writing desks, and the like, under this arrangement were a necessity for small rooms. A school of painters arose in the reign of Louis the fifteenth who devoted themselves to the decoration of room woodwork and ceilings; Charles Delafosse, Antoine Coypel, Jean Restout, and many pupils. We must associate the names of these artists with those of the Le Pautre family. Jean died before the end of the seventeenth century, but Pierre took part in the later works of the Louvre and of Versailles under Jules Hardouin Mansard, "surintendant des bastiments." Juste Aurèle Meissonnier did still more to make this showy work popular. He designed all sorts of room furniture and woodwork. It is amongst the published works of these artists that we must seek the eighteenth century designs of French fashion. Painted panels were inserted into the wood ceilings, over the tops of looking-glasses, and _dessus-portes_ or the short panels between the tops of doors and the line of cornice. These are generally in chiaro scuro, or light and shade only, and represent families of cupids. Nymphs and fauns, shepherdesses, and the supposed inhabitants of a fanciful Arcadia, formed the general subjects of room decorations. A process belonging to the same reign should be noticed, called after the inventor, Vernis-Martin, a carriage painter, born about the year 1706. By carriage painter we must understand a painter of heraldic ornaments, flower borders, &c. His varnish is a fine transparent lac polish, probably derived from Japan through missionaries, who had resided there before the occurrence of the great massacres which closed Japan to all but the Dutch traders. The work which we commonly associate with his name is generally found on furniture such as tables or book cases, as well as on needle cases, snuff boxes, fans, and étuis, on a gold ground. The gold is waved or striated by some of those ingenious processes still in use amongst the Japanese, by which the paste or preparation on which their gold is laid is worked over while still soft. One or two carriages beautifully painted in vernis-martin are kept in the hotel de Cluny at Paris. Although it is popularly held that Martin declared his secret should die with him, and that he kept his word, yet it is certain that he left imitators and pupils who painted and enamelled in his manner furniture of various kinds. In Sir R. Wallace's collection there are two pieces, coloured green and varnished, one a table and the other a cabinet or bookcase, of vernis-martin work. There is on these no ornament excepting the varnish and the gold mounts that are added at the edges. The most beautiful objects that bear his name are the small wares, such as fans, needle books, or snuff boxes. Later in the century we meet with other French names, Riesener, David, and Gouthière, who gained great reputation, the two first as makers of marquetry, and the latter as a founder and chaser of metal furniture mounts, such as edgings and lock scutcheons. The history of French furniture is in general the history of that of other nations. The art of wood carving was still maintained in Italy and applied, as in the instance of this distaff, to utensils of all kinds. In England we had, about the middle of the century, a school of carvers, gilders, and ornamenters following the extravagant style of the French. The most prominent name is that of Thomas Chippendale, who worked from the middle till towards the end of the century. He was descended from a family of carvers, and inherited the skill which had been general in his craft since the days of Gibbons. We find much rococo carving on bed testers, round fireplaces, over doors, &c., in our English houses built during the reign of Anne and the two first Georges. Other pieces of furniture, such as carved tables, wardrobe cabinets, chair backs or dinner trays, go by Chippendale's name. They are in mahogany, and follow the architectural moulding lines often seen in the works of Sir William Chambers and the brothers Adam. [Illustration] Among the room decorations of the century we may notice the shelves for holding Chinese porcelain and imitations of Chinese designs in delft pottery, a taste imported by William the third and the members of his court who had lived in Holland. The chimney pieces at Hampton court and elsewhere are provided with woodwork to hold these ornaments. Hogarth paints them in his interiors, and the rage for purchasing such objects at sales became a popular subject of ridicule. To the early eighteenth century belongs a class of furniture of which the decorations consisted of panels of old Chinese and Japanese lac work; fitted, as the marquetry of the day was, with rich gilt metal mounts. In England it was the fashion to imitate the Japan work, and such old furniture is occasionally met with: black, with raised figure decorations of Chinese character done in gold dust. A great change is observable in the French furniture, panel carving and such decorations from the period of Louis the sixteenth. Several causes at the time combined to give art of this kind a new as well as a healthier direction. Amongst these we may mention the discoveries made at Herculaneum and Pompeii. It is needless to say that the peculiar cause of the destruction of both those towns had preserved in them perfect memorials, in many forms, of the social life of antiquity. Decorations, utensils and furniture of all kinds that were made of metal, and had resisted the action of damp and time, were recovered in fair condition. One result, both in France and England, was a return to a better feeling for classical style. Room decorations and furniture soon reached the highest point of elegance which French renaissance art of a sumptuous kind has touched since the sixteenth century. The panelling of rooms, usually in oak and painted white, was designed in severe lines with straight mouldings and pilasters. The pilasters were decorated with well-designed carved work, small, close, and splendidly gilt. The quills that fill the fluted columns still seen round so many interiors were cut into beads or other subdivisions with much care. Fine arabesque work in the style of the "loggie" of Raphael was partly carved in relief, partly drawn and painted, or gilt, with gold of a yellow or of a green hue; the green being largely alloyed with silver. An example of the best work of this kind may be referred to in the beautiful room brought from Paris and now preserved, reconstructed, at South Kensington. The houses built for members of the brilliant court of queen Marie Antoinette were filled with admirable work in this manner, or in the severer but still delicate carved panelling in wood plainly painted. The royal factories of the Gobelins and of Sèvres turned out also their most beautiful productions to decorate rooms, furniture, and table service. In the former of these, tapestries were made for wall hangings, for chair backs, seats, and sofas. Rich silks from the looms of Lyons, and from those of Lucca, Genoa, and Venice were also employed for this kind of furniture both in France and Flanders, Germany, Italy, and Spain, as well as in our own country. In all these matters France led the fashions. During this brilliant period, from 1774 to 1790, we meet with the names of several artists employed for painting the panelling of rooms, the lunettes over chimney fronts, and the panels of ceilings. Fragonard, Natoire, Boucher (the director of the Academy) are among the foremost of these. Their history perhaps belongs rather to that of painters than of our present subject; but they are too much mixed up with eighteenth century furniture not to find mention even in a sketch like the present. Other artists such as Delafosse, Lalonde, Cauvet and Salembier designed arabesques, decorative woodwork, and furniture. The designs of many of them are still extant: and Cauvet dedicated a book of them to Monsieur, the king's brother. Four tables with silver-gilt mounts of his design were made for the queen's house of the Trianon, and afterwards removed to the favourite residence of the emperor Napoleon at St. Cloud. Robert and Barthélemy were sculptors and bronze workers who made mounts for furniture, and engravers. Meissonnier, Oppenord, Queverdo worked in the same way. Hubert Robert, a painter, helped Micque in all the decorations of the Trianon. Two or three cabinet-makers have transmitted a great name, though little seems to be known of their history. Of these Riesener and David Roentgen were _ébénistes_, or workers in fine cabinet making. The designation is taken from the ebony and other exotic woods, which had come into more general use in Europe from the end of the seventeenth century subsequently to 1695, when the Dutch settled in Ceylon. The French obtained ebony from Madagascar, but in very small quantities. After the settlements at Ceylon we find it introduced into Europe on a larger scale. There are green and yellow varieties but the black wood is the most valuable, and Ceylon is the country in which the greatest quantities are produced. We still find in English houses much old carved ebony furniture, mainly chairs and cabinets, dating generally from the early years of the Dutch occupation. Riesener used tulip (_Liriodendron tulipifera_), rosewood, holly (_ilex aquifolium_), maple (_acer campestre_), laburnum (_cytisus Alpinus_), purple wood (_copaifera pubiflora_), &c. Wreaths and bunches of flowers, exquisitely worked and boldly designed, form centres of his marquetry panels which are often plain surfaces of one wood. On the sides, in borders and compartments, we find diaper patterns in three or four quiet colours. These conventional sides or corners of diaper work help to give point to the graceful compositions that form the principal feature in his marquetry. Chests of drawers and cabinets are sometimes met with in snake wood and other varieties of brown wood, of which the grain is waved or curled without marquetry. The name of Riesener is to be found stamped sometimes on the panel itself, sometimes on the oak lining of the pieces of furniture made by him. A number of exceptional examples of Riesener's cabinets are described in the appendix to the detailed catalogue of furniture in the South Kensington museum. The best pieces are from the collection now belonging to Sir Richard Wallace. The most imposing of these is the rounded bureau or secrétaire, made for Stanislaus, king of Poland. It is beautifully inlaid on the top, ends, and back with designs emblematic of the sciences, &c., and with bust heads. The letters S. R. are put upon a broad band of decoration that runs round the lower portion of the bureau. A similar piece of furniture with gilt bronze candle branches by Gouthière, on the sides, is now in the Louvre. Both are signed. David Roentgen was born at Niewid near Luneville, in which latter city he worked as a contemporary of Riesener, but younger by some years in age. He also made marquetry in lighter woods and of rather a gayer tone than those of Riesener. Both of them often worked in plain mahogany, and in such cases trusted for the effectiveness of their pieces to the excellence of the mounts of chased and gilt metal by their contemporary, Gouthière. In his light marquetry David used various white woods. Pear, lime, and light-coloured woods were occasionally tinted with various shades by burning. This process, originally effected by hot irons, is better and more delicately managed by hot sand. Only browns and dark ochrous yellows are obtained by this means, and the more delicately toned marquetry is without hues of green or blue. Those tints, however, can be obtained by steeping the wood in various chemical solutions. As a maker of gilt bronze furniture mounts Gouthière had a wide reputation. He belongs to the period of Louis the sixteenth. With him Riesener and David worked in concert; all their best pieces are finished with the mounts of Gouthière. Among examples in this country is the cabinet in the royal collection at Windsor. No signature has been discovered on this piece, but the exquisite modelling of the flower borders, the metal mouldings and mounts, and the crown supported by figures of cupids that surmounts the whole, leave us in no hesitation as to its authorship. Gouthière modelled and chased up similar work for carriages, and mounts for marble chimney pieces, such as that in the boudoir just above referred to. The gilding on these mounts is so good and has been laid on so massively that the metal has in general suffered no substantial injury down to our own times, and can be restored to its original lustre by soap and water. Indeed, the fine old work dating from the two previous reigns by André Boule and other artists, after the designs of Berain, has suffered little. The boule clocks, with arched glass panels in front and spreading supports and figure compositions on the top, have in most cases come down to us clothed in their original water gilding, easily to be cleaned though looking black when they have been long left to neglect. Contemporaneous with Riesener in France was the Italian maker of marquetry, Maggiolino. In Florence, Venice, Milan, and Genoa, cabinets and commodes of marquetry were produced. German cabinet-makers manufactured the same work through the earlier part of the century. Bombé or curved furniture was also made by the Germans with great, we may almost say with extravagant, skill. To maintain mouldings on the angles of these curved and waving surfaces is a feat in workmanship of difficult attainment, and German cabinet-makers seem to have taken delight in exhibiting such skill. The quaint work of the minute carvings in box and other hard woods, admirably carried out during the times of the immediate pupils of Dürer and the school of well-trained artists who succeeded him, was no longer to be found. The desolating wars that swept over this part of Europe during the days of Louis the fourteenth and Frederick the great seem to have exhausted the country, and worn out the ancient industry of the cities. Guilds died away, the men who composed them being required for the exigencies of war, and the wealth of the inhabitants was so reduced that the leisure to enjoy and even the means to buy fine productions of art existed no longer. Few collectors have done greater service to the study of English art than Horace Walpole; and few have had the opportunities he enjoyed a century ago, when he was able to fill Strawberry Hill with a collection of mediæval, renaissance, and later works of art of every description. A lively passage, alluding to the contract for the roof and the glazing of King's college chapel, Cambridge, commemorates his value for these art traditions. "As much," he says, "as we imagine ourselves arrived at higher perfection in the arts, it would not be easy for a master of a college to go into St. Margaret's parish, Southwark, to _bespeak_ such a roof as that of King's college, and a dozen or two of windows so admirably drawn, and order them to be sent home by such a day, as if they were bespeaking a chequered pavement." A certain sort of revival of Gothic design took place in England about this period: and later in the century feeble attempts at Gothic woodwork were made here and there; but there was little national taste in furniture apart from a close imitation of French fashions. A still greater change was produced by Sir William Chambers, the architect of modern Somerset house, who wrote a book on civil architecture and room decorations. Another name connected with furniture has been already mentioned, that of Thomas Chippendale. He published his book of designs in 1764, containing complete sides of rooms, looking-glass frames, chimney fronts, &c. He and his contemporaries designed tables, cabinets and moveable furniture of every description, including carriages, on which, indeed, furniture designers of all periods were employed. Chippendale and his sons or assistants produced frames and cornices for gilding so different from his well-made wardrobes, &c., that there must have been more than one of the family engaged in superintending these dissimilar kinds of objects. He is a representative maker. The son has been sometimes credited with the mahogany woodwork of which delicacy and exactness are the characteristics. Satin wood came into fashion in England during the last half of the century. Both Cipriani and Angelica Kauffmann painted medallions, cameo ornaments and borders on table tops and fronts, harpsichord cases, &c., made of satin wood or coloured in the manner of the vernis-martin work. The former decorated Carlton house. Mathias Lock, with whom was associated a cabinet maker named Copeland, also published designs of furniture of every kind. A semi-classic Pompeian or Roman arabesque feeling runs through the ornamentation of these pieces of furniture. They are light in make, often elegant, and more or less follow the taste prevailing in France and Italy. Gillow, the founder of a respectable existing firm, belongs to this period; but, as yet, nothing has come to light regarding his early history or apprenticeship. Another name connected both with furniture and decorative arts of all kinds was that of Robert Adam; he was of Scotch extraction and had travelled in Italy; and his brother John built many private houses; for example, the Adelphi and Portland place. Furniture, carriages, sedan chairs, and plate were amongst the objects for which Robert, perhaps both the brothers, gave designs. Classical capitals, mouldings and niches, circles and lunettes, with shell flutings and light garlands, were favourite features in their façade ornaments. The sideboards, bust terms (or pedestals), urn-shaped knife boxes; the chairs, commodes, &c., were all designed to accord with the architectural decorations. Polished-steel fire-grates belong to this period, and we believe to the authorship of the brothers Adam. A cabinet maker named A. Heppelwhite published in 1789 a large set of designs for every sort of reception room and bedroom furniture. We see in these the mahogany chairs with pierced strapwork backs, library and pedestal tables, mechanical desks and bureaux, which continued in fashion during the early years of this century. Fanciful sashed glass doors closed in the bookcases; interrupted pediments and pedestals provided space for busts round the tops of these cases. Fluted legs, and occasionally lion-headed supports, uphold the tables and chairs. Knife cases to set on the sideboard, and urn stools for the breakfast table, are among these designs. Tea chests and tea caddies indicate that tea was then coming into general use. Thomas Sheraton, another cabinet-maker, published towards the end of the century an extensive "Dictionary" of his trade. His designs, like those just mentioned, embrace beds, sofas, &c. Mechanical dressing and washing tables, very ingeniously contrived, were among his productions. We meet with these still; of Spanish mahogany, and admirable workmanship. The structure of all these pieces was light and strong. Time has had little effect on wood so well seasoned and on pieces put together in so workmanlike a manner. The French revolution put a complete stop to the old arts of domestic life in France. As in the sixteenth century, so in the eighteenth the new ideas rushed extravagantly in the direction of republican antiquity and Roman taste and sentiment. It was under the empire, after the Italian wars and the Egyptian expedition, that the means and taste for expenditure upon civil furniture and decorations revived, with an assumption of classicalism. The art of the time however, inspired by the hard paintings of David, is but a dry and affected attempt at a fresh renaissance. In furniture mounts, chairs, &c., of supposed classical designs, it is known as the art of the "empire." This country copied the fashion as soon as the return of peace opened the continent to English travellers. Furniture and room decorations were designed after classical ideals, and we see chairs and tables imitating bas-reliefs and the drawings on antique vases. It is probable that collectors, such as Sir William Hamilton and the members of the Dilettanti society, sensibly influenced the prevailing style. James Wyatt the architect, about the end of the last century, rebuilt or cleared out many of our mediæval churches and houses, and took to designing what he called Gothic for room decoration and furniture. Sir Jeffrey Wyatt or Sir Jeffrey Wyattville (as he became) made great changes at Windsor castle, under George the fourth. Pugin designed some flimsy Gothic furniture for the same palace. At a later period of his life, however, he did much, both as a designer and a writer upon art, to turn attention to the principles on which mediæval designs of all kinds were based. We are now, perhaps, returning to renaissance art in furniture, and it is certain that collections such as those lately exhibited by Sir Richard Wallace; the Exposition Retrospective in Paris in 1865; the loan exhibitions of 1862 in London, and that of Gore house at an earlier period; and above all the great permanent collection at South Kensington, must contribute to form the public taste. In the review which we have made of what may be called the household art of so many ages, it would be difficult to assign an absolute superiority to the artists of any one generation, considering what countless beautiful objects have been made for the personal use and enjoyment of men. The sculptured thrones of ivory and gold, the seats and couches of bronze overlaid with gold and damascened with the precious metals, the inlaid chariots, tables, chests, and jewelled caskets of antiquity; the imagery, the shrines, the stalls, and roofs of the middle ages; the wood sculpture, tarsia, pietra dura, damascening and the endless variety of objects produced during the days of Leonardo, Michel Angelo, and Raphael, down to the carving of Gibbons, and the splendid work of Boule, Riesener and Gouthière, are all in various ways excellent. We must not venture to call one class of productions finer than another where the differences are so great and such high perfection has been attained in each. Every style and fashion when at its best has resulted from the utmost application of mind and time on the part of trained artists; and the highest art can never be cheap, neither can any machinery or any help from mechanical assistance become substitutes for art. Beauty which is created by the hand of man is not the clever application of mechanical forces or of scientific inventions, but is brought to light, whether it be a cabinet front or the Venus of Milo, often with pain, always by the entire devotion of the labour, the intellect, the experience, the imagination and the affection, of the artist and the workman. CHAPTER XI. CHANGES OF TASTE AND STYLE. It is interesting to trace the changes that the more common and necessary pieces of furniture have undergone during successive historic ages. The social life of ancient times, even of the middle ages which come so much nearer to us in point of years, differs from that of our own in its whole aspect. Yet though personal habits have so greatly altered the general wants of men remain much the same. Hence such objects as beds, chairs, tables, chests, dressers, wardrobes or cabinets, carriages or litters, have been always used and maintained a certain identity. With a summary of the changes of form and methods of decoration of a few of the principal objects of personal use we shall conclude. _Bedsteads and Couches._ Beds served often in antiquity and in the middle ages, and have served at all times, almost as much for sitting or reclining by day as for sleeping on at night. To what has been already said on the subject of antique beds little need be added. The Egyptian bed and the pillow or crutch, of wood or more valuable materials, have been described. Examples of the crutch are numerous in the British museum and in the Louvre. "The Egyptians had couches," says Sir G. Wilkinson, "but they do not appear to have reclined upon them more frequently than modern Europeans, in whose houses they are equally common. The ottomans were simple square sofas without backs, raised from the ground nearly to the same level as the chair. The upper part was of leather, or of cotton stuff, richly coloured, like the cushions of the fauteuils, and the box was of wood painted with various devices and ornamented with the figures of captives, who were supposed to be degraded by holding so humiliating a position. And the same idea gave them a place on the footstools of a royal throne." The bed, [Greek: lexos], of the Greeks was covered with skins, over the skins with woollen blankets; sometimes a linen cloth or sheet was added. The finest coverlids were from Miletus, Carthage, and Corinth. These varied in the softness of their woollen texture and the delicate disposition of the colours. Later Greek beds had girths of leather or string; a mattress; and a pillow. The Roman bed had the side by which it was entered open, the other was protected by a shelf. The mattresses were stuffed with herbs, in later times with wool or feathers. Precious counterpanes embroidered with gold were occasionally used. Canopies or frames for curtains, in one form or another, have always been necessary adjuncts to beds. Testers were placed on cradles, with gauze curtains to keep off flies. Beds on wheels were in use for the sick in classical and mediæval times: as also a low and portable bed, _grabatum_, with mats for bedding. This is the word used in St. John's gospel, translated "take up thy bed and walk." [Illustration] Besides beds, couches, and stools, used in antiquity, as in our own times, we find amongst the ancients the habit, unknown since, of reclining on the left elbow at meals. The Romans called the conventional arrangement the _triclinium_. The accompanying woodcut represents the plan of a _triclinium_, the guest reclining on the left elbow and the faces of each directed from 1 to 3, 4 to 6, and so on. These numbers and positions indicated a sort of superiority, or a highest, middle, and lowest to every table. A passage from Horace, often quoted, enumerates the guests in this order. Fundanius, who was at the top, giving an account of a dinner to his friends, says: "I sat at the top, Viscus Thurinus next to me; Varius, if my memory serves me, below him; Vibidius along with Servilius Balatro, whom Mæcenas brought as humble companions. Nomentanus was above, and Porcius below the host himself." The beds of the early middle ages in England had testers with curtains, often of valuable material. These slid on rings on an iron rod. Sometimes the rod, with a frame to sustain it, was on one or on three sides of the bed, and the tester wanting. Sometimes the beds were slung on uprights, as cots are at sea. No great expense was incurred in the framework till the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The splendour of state beds, or those of great people, consisted in the curtains, which were occasionally taken down, and hung up in churches on festivals. In the illuminations of manuscripts and in pictures representing scenes in which there is a bed, we find the tester strained by cords to the sides of the room or to the ceiling, as in the accompanying woodcut. The curtains ran round this frame, as in our modern four-posters; but we see them hoisted out of the way during the daytime, not round a post, only raised beyond reach. [Illustration] The finest examples of bedsteads that can be called mediæval are French, and only met with in fragments, or more or less complete. This is unfortunately the case also as regards early English bedsteads. We may refer the reader to the "Mobilier Français" of Viollet le Duc, for an idea of the sumptuous carved oak bedstead of the great palaces and hotels of France. It was a frame panelled down to the ground, often containing chests, drawers, presses, or other safe places under the sleeper. The back resembled more or less the reredos of an altar, or the great panelled presses that filled the sides of sacristies. Four posts supported the canopy. A bedstead of the fifteenth century was long preserved at Leicester, and said to have been slept on by Richard the third. The under part of it formed his military chest, and the discovery of the treasure a century afterwards occasioned a barbarous murder. None of the coin found was of a later mint than his reign. It is also said by Pennant that a stump bedstead still in Berkeley castle is the same on which the murder of Edward the second was committed. Fine examples of Tudor bedsteads are preserved there. In the town of Ware in Hertfordshire is, and has long been, an inn under the sign of the Saracen's head, "In this," says Clutterbuck, "there is a bed of enormous proportions, twelve feet square. The head is panelled in the Elizabethan style of arched panels, and a date is painted on it--1460. [This, however, is not authentic.] It is of carved oak. The top is covered by a panelled tester, supported on baluster columns at the feet. The bases of these rest on a cluster of four arches or supports to each column." Nothing is known of the original history of the bedstead. Shakespeare alludes to it in Twelfth Night. [Illustration] To the Tudor and Jacobean period of heavy oak furniture succeeded the custom of supplying the place of oak-panelled testers and headboards with rich hangings either of tapestry, cut Genoa, or Venice velvets and other costly materials, with ostrich feathers or other ornaments on the angles. The royal beds at Hampton court admirably illustrate this stately fashion, as in the accompanying woodcut. More modern changes it is unnecessary to trace. [Illustration] [Illustration] Couches for reclining or sitting upon were, in the middle ages, rather benches with cushions on them. The king conversing with a lady in her chamber is from a manuscript of about 1390 (the "Romance of Meliadus") in the British museum. In the seventeenth century we find the same ornaments that were used in chair backs extended to large frames so as to form them into couches, and the same plaited cane panels. In the last century, sofas were sometimes made in the form of several chair backs, with arms at each end, the backs being pierced work or framing made of bars in fancy shapes. This work was in mahogany or satin wood, or was painted after the fashion of vernis-martin work. In all cases such pieces were made to accord with suites of chairs, tables, &c. Cradles have been made in many shapes. The most approved in antiquity was that of a boat, [Greek: skaphos], or a shield; in either case they could be rocked. In the fourteenth century the men of Ghent destroyed the house of the earl of Flanders, according to Froissart, and all his furniture including the cradle in which he was nursed, which was of silver. The cradle of Henry the fifth is still preserved. It is in the form of a chest, much like the cradle in the Kensington museum, n^{o.} 1769; and swings on posts, one at each end, standing on cross-bars to keep them steady: but there is no higher portion, as in the example in the museum, to support a tester. A hundred years later the shape seems to have become heavier. [Illustration] _Chairs._ In the ancient Egyptian paintings at Thebes, and elsewhere, chairs are minutely represented like the throne or arm chair of the Greeks, each containing one person. Occasionally they used stools and low seats raised a little above the ground. Some sat cross-legged on the ground, though this is more rare, or kneeling on one knee. The men and women generally were apart, but in the same room, while conversing they sat, and did not recline. Wilkinson gives a full description of the old Egyptian chairs and stools. The classical curule chairs were made of ivory; sometimes of solid and entire elephants' teeth, which seems to have been the typical idea of the ivory chair; sometimes the ivory was veneered on a wooden base. The foot or point of the tusk was carved into a head or beak. It is from this curved chair of state that the later chairs were derived, of which the form remained popular in Italy through the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The mediæval name was _faldistorium_, rendered "faldstool," a stool or seat to support the arms when kneeling, or to act as a chair when sitting. [Illustration] The earliest type of the architectural thrones or chairs of the middle ages is the ancient chair of St. Peter, at Rome, of which a woodcut has been given in p. 35. A full description and plates of it will be found in the "Vetusta monumenta" of the Society of antiquaries for 1870. Another famous chair, that of St. Mark, is preserved at Venice, in the treasury of St. Mark's. Anciently this chair, like that of St. Peter in Rome, was covered with plates of ivory, carved panels probably fitted into frame pieces of wood as a covering to the stone. As it is now seen, however, the work is of oriental marble. It is a rudely shaped arm chair, with high back sloping upwards in the form of a pediment, truncated and surmounted by a stone, cut into an imperfect circle or oval, and having an arm or volute like the reversed angle-volute of a column projecting from the lower part of each side. The chair of St. Maximian at Ravenna dates from the sixth century; this is described in Mr. Maskell's "Ivories." A magnificent fourteenth century architectural chair of silver is preserved at Barcelona. The supports represent window tracery. One large arch supplies the front support, being cusped, and these cusps are again subdivided. The two sides form each a pair of windows of two lights or divisions, with a circle above, the whole cusped and having trefoil leaves on the cusps. The back is open tracery work, representing three narrow windows, with two lights or openings each. They finish in three lofty gables, crocketed outside and divided into tracery within. [Illustration] Chairs in England during the mediæval period were sometimes made of turned wood. Sometimes they were cleverly arranged to fold up, as in our own days: the engraving (p. 122) is from a beautiful manuscript of the fifteenth century. The chair known as that of Glastonbury is a square board on two pairs of cross-trestles, with a square board for a back, held to the seat by sloping arm pieces, shaped out to receive the arms of a sitter. On the edges of the seat and back tenons protrude, long enough to pass through mortices in the leg and arm pieces, which are pegged to keep them firm. Like the sixteenth century curule chairs these can easily be taken to pieces for travelling. During the reigns of Elizabeth and James, high-backed chairs, richly cut and pierced, with wooden, afterwards with cane, seats were used and remained in use simplified and lightened during more than a century. The woodcut (p. 123) represents the fashion of chair common in Italy about the year 1620: and from thence introduced into England. The use of marquetry was not confined to tables and cabinets. Rich chairs were made in this material (rarely in boule) during the eighteenth century in France, Italy, and Holland, from whence they came to this country. Light and very elegant yellow satin-wood marquetry chairs were also then in fashion. The use of mahogany for chairs, often delicately carved and admirably constructed, was general during the last century in England. The French carved chairs of the time of Louis the sixteenth covered with silk all but the legs and framework, and painted white or gilt, were made to accord with the sofas and carved woodwork of the rooms. This example was followed in England, with certain national differences. _Tables._ The ancient Egyptian tables were round, square, or oblong; the former were generally used during their repasts, and consisted of a circular flat summit, supported, like the _monopodium_ of the Romans, on a single shaft or leg in the centre or by the figure of a man intended to represent a captive. Large tables had usually three or four legs, but some were made with solid sides; and though generally of wood many were of metal or stone; and they varied in size according to the different purposes for which they were intended. Often they were three-legged, the legs in a concave shape. An antique marble table of Græco-Roman work is preserved at Naples, supported by a centaur in full relief at one end, and a sea monster, Scylla it is supposed, involving a shipwrecked mariner in the folds of her tail, with indications of waves, &c., round her body. Other Roman tables of larger dimensions had three, four, or five supports of sphinxes, lions, and the like. We give representations of three kinds of tables from paintings on vases; and another, on three marble legs, found at Pompeii. [Illustration] [Illustration] In the middle ages, as has been before said, tables were generally folding boards laid on trestles and moveable. The general disposition of the dining table was taken from those of abbeys and convents, and may be seen continued in some of our own colleges to this day. The principal table was on a raised platform or floor at the upper end of the hall, and thence called the "High" table. The guests sat on one side only, as in the traditional representations of the Last Supper, and the place of honour was the centre, the opposite side being left for the service. The principal person sat under a canopy or cloth of estate, either made for the occasion, or under a panelled canopy curving outward and permanent. Occasionally mediæval tables in England were of stone or marble. Of the former material a table is preserved belonging to the strangers' hall at Winchester; and a wooden one in the chapter-house at Salisbury. The tops of some old English tables are made with two thicknesses, the lower pulling out on either side to rest on supports drawn from the bed. A table of this description is kept at Hill hall, Essex; and the woodcut represents a folding table of the time of Elizabeth, long preserved at Flaxton Hall, in Suffolk. During the last century mahogany tables with delicate pierced galleries round the edge, and similar work to ornament the bed or frame, were made by Chippendale and his contemporaries. Many of them are light and graceful pieces of construction. Others were massively made with goat-footed legs that bulge well beyond the lines of the table top, which in these cases is often a slab of marble. The workmanship is admirable. Mahogany had then supplanted the use of oak for large tables. [Illustration] _Chests, Cabinets, and Sideboards._ The wardrobe, both in the Roman house and the mediæval castle, was a small room suitably fitted up and provided with receptacles. Chests, coffers, and caskets were also in use, and implied moveability. In later days the renaissance chests were either mounted on stands or gave place to mixed structures; and cabinets of various forms that could be kept permanently in the hall or chamber became the fashion. They were large, important objects, were never moved or carried abroad, descended from father to son, and were the monumental objects, as the panelled superstructure of the fireplace was, of halls and reception rooms. These pieces have various forms. In dining halls or rooms occasionally so used, they were cupboards, dressers, or places with a small receptacle to hold food, and a flat top with perhaps a step or shelf above it to carry plate, candlesticks, &c. When placed in receiving rooms or to hold dresses they were cabinets or wardrobes; for the conveniences of writing they are bureaux, sécrétaires, or escritoires. [Illustration] We have early notices of the use of cypress chests, perhaps cabinets as some of them are fitted with drawers, in this country. John of Gaunt in his will, 1397, specifies "a little box of cypress wood;" probably something like the chest engraved from a manuscript of that date: out of which the servant is taking a robe evidently richly embroidered with armorial bearings. In the memoirs of the antiquities of Great Britain, relating to the reformation, we find an account of church plate, money, gold and silver images, &c., delivered to Henry the eighth: "Paid William Grene, the king's _coffer-maker_, for making of a coffer covered with fustyan of Naples, and being full of drawers and boxes lined with red and grene sarcynet to put in stones of divers sorts, vi. _li._ xviij. _s._ ij. _d._," by which we may gather something of its costly construction, "and to Cornelys the locke smythe for making all the iron worke, that is to say, the locke, gymours, handels, ryngs to every drawer box, the price xxxvi. _s._ iv. _d._" The marquetry invented or brought to perfection by Boule was displayed in greater magnificence on cabinets of various shapes than on any other pieces of furniture. The same may be said of the marquetry cabinets in wood executed during the eighteenth century in France by Riesener and David, with the help of the metal mounts of Gouthière and his contemporaries. In these fine pieces the interior is generally simple and the conceits of the previous century are omitted. Japan cabinets obtained through the Dutch were frequently imported into England. The hinges and mounts were of silver or gilt metal, richly chased. The bureau, escritoire, or office desk, called in Germany Kaunitz after a princely inventor, was a knee-hole table. These tall bureaux were of general, almost universal, use in England during the last century. _Sideboards._ There are several old sideboards in the Kensington museum, described under the names of _dressoir_ or _dressoir de salle à manger_ in the large catalogue. They are small cupboards and would be called cabinets but for the drawers half-way down, and the rows of the shelves on the top; and are of the sixteenth century date. According to Willemin, the old etiquette of France, certainly that of Burgundy, prescribed five steps or shelves to these dressers for use during meals for queens; four for duchesses or princesses; three for their children and for countesses and _grandes dames_; two for other noble ladies. In the middle ages cupboards or dressers were mere covered boards or shelves against a wall on which plate was set out, and were made of three or four or more stages according to the splendour of the occasion. The cupboard dresser of more modest pretensions was considered as a piece of dining-room furniture. It was ordinarily covered with a piece of embroidery. Robert Frevyll bequeaths, 1521, to his "son John a stone cobard in the hall." A manuscript inventory of Henry the eighth names, "Item, one large cuppbord carpet of grene cloth of gold with workes lyned with bockeram, conteyning in length three yards, iii. q'ters, and three bredthes." In the herald's account of the feast at Westminster, on the occasion of the marriage of prince Arthur, we find "There was also a stage of dyvers greas and hannes (degrees and enhancings of height) for the cuppbord that the plate shulde stande inn, the which plate for the moost part was clene (pure) goold, and the residue all gilte and non silver, and was in length from the closet doore to the chimney." And when in the next reign Henry entertained Francis at Calais, a cupboard of seven stages was provided and furnished with gold and silver gilt plate. Before concluding these remarks on dining-room furniture something may be said on painted roundels or wooden platters. Though they have long ceased to be used for their original purpose, several sets still complete remain in country houses and collections of different kinds; and three sets are in the Kensington museum. They are usually twelve in number: and all seem to be of the date of the late Tudor princes. They were kept in boxes turned out of a block, and decorated with painting and gilding. Their size does not differ materially, all the sets varying from 5-3/8 to 5-5/8 inches. There are, however, smaller sets to be seen which range from 2-3/4 to 5 inches in diameter. The top surface is in all instances plain and the under surface painted with a border of flowers, generally alternating with knots more or less artistically drawn in vermilion: "posyes" or a couple of verses are generally added. These platters were used in the sixteenth century as dessert plates, the plain side being at the top. Leland speaks of the "confettes" at the end of a dinner, "sugar plate fertes, with other subtilties with ippocrass" (a sweet wine). Earthenware plates though not unknown were still very uncommon in England before the reign of Elizabeth. The dinner was served on plate in royal or very great houses, on pewter and wooden trenchers in more humble and unpretending households. Specimens of the latter may still be seen in our old collegiate establishments. Probably the earliest instance of the use of earthenware may be found in the time of Edward the first, when some dishes and plates of that material were bought from a Spanish ship. Pitchers, jugs and the like had been for centuries commonly made. "Porselyn" is mentioned in 1587: where we read of "five dishes of earth painted, such as are brought from Venice" being presented to the queen on one of her progresses. _Carriages._ [Illustration] The shape and decoration of carriages have changed continually, but these changes have not always been in the direction of convenience and handiness for rapid motion. Our space will not allow us to enter here upon a history of the chariots of ancient nations; Egyptians, Greeks, or Romans. A detailed account of them will be found in the introduction to the large catalogue of furniture at South Kensington. The woodcut represents the Roman "biga," the original of which (in marble) is in the Vatican; and the "pilentum," or covered carriage, from the column of Theodosius. [Illustration] We know but little of the period succeeding the destruction of Rome and the extinction of classic customs. In the middle ages we find carts, like those now in use for agricultural purposes in France; a long frame with spreading rails balanced on one pair of wheels of large dimensions, drawn by a string of horses. The woodcut of a family carriage is from the well-known Luttrell psalter, an illuminated manuscript of the early fourteenth century. Such vehicles seem to have been clumsy enough and had no springs: nevertheless they were much ornamented with various decorations. They had roofs as a protection from the weather, with silk or leather curtains; and the interior was fitted with cushions. In the "Squire of low degree" the father of the princess of Hungary promises, To-morrow ye shall on hunting fare, And ride my daughter in a _chare_, It shall be covered with velvet red, And cloths of fine gold all about your head, With damask white and azure blue, Well diapered with lilies new Your pomelles (knobs) shall be ended with gold, Your chains enamelled many a fold. The oldest kind of wheel-carriages known in England were called _whirlecotes_, and one of these belonged to the mother of Richard the second. Whirlecotes were used also at the marriage of Katherine of Arragon. Coaches were probably first introduced from Hungary. They seem to have been square, not differing greatly in outline from the state coaches of which numerous engraved plates can be seen; and were considered as too effeminate a conveyance for men in the days of Elizabeth. The coach of Henry the fourth of France may be studied in the plate by Van Luyken that represents his murder by Ravaillac, 1610. It is four-wheeled, square, with a flat awning on four corner pillars or supports, and curtains. The centre descends into a kind of boot with leather sides. The accompanying woodcut represents the carriage of the English ambassador at Rome in 1688: and we add also an engraving of a state carriage of about fifty years later, still in the possession of Lord Darnley. [Illustration] [Illustration] APPENDIX. NAMES OF DESIGNERS OF WOODWORK AND MAKERS OF FURNITURE. Only very meagre notices are to be found of the artists to whom we owe the designs of modern furniture. For a hundred and fifty years after the renaissance, furniture partook so generally, and the woodwork of rooms so entirely, of the character and followed so continually the details of architecture that the history of furniture-designers is that of the architects of the day. These found in the members of guilds of carvers, carpenters, or image sculptors admirable hands to carry out the ornamental details of their woodwork, such as chimney-pieces, &c., and who made sideboards, cabinets, chairs, and tables to suit the woodwork. We have space here only for the names; in the large catalogue a brief notice of almost every one of them is also given. ------------------------------+-----------------+---------------- |Country in which | Names of Artists. | they worked. | Date. ------------------------------+-----------------+----------------- A | | | | Adam, J. (and R.) |England |1728-1792. | | Agnolo, B. da |Italy |1460-1563. | | Agnolo, D. da | " |16th century. | | Agnola, J. da | " | " " | | Ambrogio, G. | " |17th " | | Ards, W. |Flanders |15th " | | Asinelis, A. |Italy |16th " | | B | | | | Bachelier, -- |France |16th century. | | Baerze, J. de |Flanders |14th " | | Baker, -- |England |18th " | | Barili, A. |Italy |16th " | | Barili, G. | " | " " | | Barili, S. | " | " " | | Baumgartner, U. |Germany |17th century. | | Beaugreant, G. de |Flanders |16th " | | Beck, S. |Germany | " " | | Belli, A. A. |Italy | " " | | Belli, G. | " | " " | | Berain, J. |France |1636-1711. | | Bergamo, D. da |Italy |1490-1550. | | Bergamo, S. da | " |16th century. | | Bernardo, -- | " | " " | | Berruguete, -- |Spain |1480-1561. | | Bertolina, B. J. |Italy |16th century. | | Beydert, J. |Flanders |15th " | | Blondeel, L. | " |1495-1560. | | Bolgié, G |Italy |18th century. | | Bonzanigo, G. M. | " | " " | | Borello, F. | " |16th " | | Borgona, F. de |Spain | " " | | Botto, B. |Italy | " " | | Botto, G. B. | " | " " | | Botto, P. | " | " " | | Botto, S. A. | " | " " | | Boulle, A. C. |France |1642-1732. | | Boulle, P. | " |17th century. | | Brescia, R. da |Italy |16th " | | Bross, -- de |France |17th " | | Bruggemann, H. |Germany |15th " | | Bruhl, A. |Flanders |16th and 17th | | centuries. | | Brunelleschi, F. |Italy |1377-1446. | | Brustolone, A. | " |1670-1732. | | Buontalenti, B. T. | " |16th century. | | C | | | | Caffieri, Ph. |France |17th and 18th | | centuries. | | Cano, A. |Spain |17th century. | | Canova, J. de |Italy |16th " | | Canozii, C. | " | " " | | Canozii, G. M. | " | " " | | Canozii, L. | " | " " | | Capitsoldi, -- |England |18th " | | Capo di Ferro, Brothers |Italy |16th " | | Carlone, J. | " |18th " | | Carnicero, A. |Spain |1693-1756. | | Castelli, Q. |Italy |16th century | | Cauner, -- |France |18th " | | Cauvet, G. P. |France |1731-1788 | | Ceracci, G. |England |18th century. | | Cervelliera, B. del |Italy | " " | | Chambers, Sir W. |England |1726-1796. | | Chippendale, T. | " |18th century. | | Cipriani, G. B. | " | " " | | Coit, -- | " | " " | | Collet, A. | " | " " | | Copeland, -- | " | " " | | Cotte, J. de |France | " " | | Cotte, R. de | " |1656-1735. | | Cotton, C. |England |18th century. | | Cressent, -- |France | " " | | D | | | | Davy, R. |England |1750-1794. | | Dello Delli |Italy |14th and 15th | | centuries | | Dolen, -- van |Flanders |18th century. | | Donatello, -- |Italy |1380-1466. | | Dorsient, A C.; C. Oc. |Flanders |16th century | | Ducerceau, A. |France |1515-1585. | | Dugar, E. |Italy |16th century. | | Du Quesnoy, F. H. and J. |Flanders |17th " | | F | | | | Faydherbe, L. |Flanders |1627-1694. | | Filippo, D. di |Italy |16th century. | | Flörein, J. |Flanders |15th " | | Flötner, P. |Germany |16th " | | G | | | | Gabler, M. |Germany |17th century. | | Galletti, G. |Italy |18th " | | Garnier, P. |France | " " | | Genser, M. |Germany |17th " | | Gervasius |England | | | Gettich, P. |Germany |17th " | | Geuser, M. | " | " " | | Gheel, F. van |Flanders |18th " | | Gibbons, G. |England |17th " | | Giovanni, Fra |Italy |16th " | | Glosencamp, H. |Flanders | " " | | Goujon, J. |France | " " | | H | | | | Habermann, -- |France |18th century. | | Haeghen,-- van der |Flanders | " " | | Hekinger, J. |Germany |17th " | | Heinhofer, Ph. | " |16th and 17th | | centuries. | | Helmont, -- van |Flanders |18th century. | | Heppelwhite, A |England | " " | | Hernandez, G. |Spain |1586-1646. | | Hool, J. B. van |Flanders |18th century. | | Huet, -- |France | " " | | Hyman, F. |England | " " | | J | | | | John of St. Omer |England |13th century. Johnson, T. | " |18th " | | Juni, J. D. |Spain |16th and 17th | | centuries. | | K | | | | Kauffmann, A. |England |18th century. | | Kiskner, U. |Germany |17th " | | Kuenlin, J. | " | " " | | L | | | | Ladetto, F. |Italy |18th century. | | Lalonde, -- |France | " " | | Lawreans, -- |England |17th " | | Lecreux, N. A. J. |Flanders |1757-1836. | | Le Moyne, J. |France |1645-1718. | | Leopardi, A. |Italy |1450-1525. | | Le Pautre, J. |France |1617-1682. | | Le Roux, J. B. | " |18th century. | | Linnell, J. |England | " " | | Lock, M. | " | " " | | Loir, A. |France |1630-1713. | | L'Orme, Ph. de. | " |16th century. | | Lunigia, A. da |Italy | " " | | M | | | | Macé, J. |France |18th century. | | Maifeis, P. di |Italy |15th " | | Maggiolino, -- | " |18th " | | Magister, O. | " |16th " | | Majano, B. da | " |15th " | | Majano, G. da |Italy |1432-1490. | | Margaritone, -- | " |1236-1313. | | Marot, D. |France |1650-1700? | | Marot, G. | " |17th century. | | Marot, J. | " |1625-1679. | | Martin, R. | " |1706-1765. | | Martincourt, -- | " |18th century. | | Meissonnier, J. A. | " |1693-1750. | | Mendeler, G. |Germany |17th century. | | Meulen, R. van der |Flanders |1645-1717. | | Minore, G. |Italy |15th century. | | Modena, P. da | " | " " | | Moenart, M. |Flanders |17th " | | Montepulciano, G. da |Italy |16th " | | Moser, L. |Germany |15th " | | Müller, D. | " |17th " | | Müller, J. | " | " " | | N | | | | Newrone, G. C. |Italy |16th century. | | Nilson, -- |France |18th " | | Nys, L. de |Flanders | " " | | Nys, P. de | " | " " | | O | | | | Oost, P. van |Flanders |14th century. | | Oppenord, -- |France |18th " | | P | | | | Pacher, M. |Germany |15th century. | | Padova, Z. da |Italy |16th " | | Panturmo, J. di | " |1492-1556. | | Pardo, G. |Spain |16th century. | | Pareta, G. di |Italy | " " | | Passe, C. de |France |17th " | | Passe, C. de, the younger | " | " " | | Pergolese, -- |England |18th " | | Perreal, J. |France |15th " | | Philippon, A. | " |16th " | | Picau, -- | " |18th " | | Picq, J. |Flanders |17th " | | Pigalle, -- |England |18th " | | Piffetti, A. P. |Italy |1700-1777. | | Plumier, P. D. |Flanders |1688-1721. | | Porfirio, B. di |Italy |16th century | | Q | | | | Quellin, A. |Flanders |1609-1668. | | Quellin, A., the younger | " |1625-1700. | | Quellin, E. | " |17th century. | | R | | | | Raephorst, B. van |Flanders |15th century, | | Ramello, F. |Italy |16th " | | Ranson, -- |France |18th " | | Rasch, A. |Flanders |15th " | | Riesener, -- |France |18th " | | Roentgen, D. | " | " " | | Rohan, J. de | " |16th " | | Rohan, J. de | " | " " | | Rosch, J. |Germany |15th " | | Rossi, P. de |Italy |15th and 16th | | centuries. | | Rovezzano, B. da |England |16th century. | | S | | | | Salembier, -- |France |18th and 19th | | centuries. | | Sangher, J. de |Flanders |17th century. | | Schelden, P. van der | " |16th " | | Schwanhard, H. |Germany |17th " | | Serlius, S. |France |16th " | | Servellino, G. del |Italy |15th " | | Sheraton, Th. |England |18th " | | Smet, R. de |Flanders |16th " | | Stoss, V. |Germany |1438-1533. | | Syrlin, J. | " |15th century. | | Syrlin, J., the younger | " |15th and 16th | | centuries. | | T | | | | Taillebert, U. |Flanders |16th century. | | Tasso, D. |Italy |15th and 16th | | centuries. | | Tasso, G. | " | " " | | Tasso, G. B. | " | " " | | Tasso, M. D. | " |15th century. | | Tatham, C. H. |England |18th " | | Taurini, R. |Italy |16th " | | Thomire, P. Ph. |France |1751-1843. | | Tolfo, G. |Italy |16th century. | | Toro, -- |France |18th century. | | Torrigiano, -- |England |1472-1522. | | Toto, -- | " |1331-1351. | | Trevigi, G. da | " |1304-1344. | | U | | | | Uccello, P. |Italy |1396-1479. | | Ugliengo, C. | " |18th century. | | V | | | | Venasca, G. P. |Italy |18th century. | | Verbruggen, P. |Flanders |17th " | | Verbruggen, P., the younger | " |1660-1724. | | Verhaegen, Th. | " |18th century. | | Voyers, -- |England | " " | | Vriesse, V. de |France |17th " | | W | | | | Walker, H. |England |16th century. | | Weinkopf, W. |Germany | " " | | Willemsens, L. |Flanders |1635-1702. | | William the Florentine |England |13th century. | | Wilton, J. | " |18th " | | Z | | | | Zabello, F. |Italy |16th century. | | Zorn, G. |Germany |17th " INDEX. Adam, Robert and John, 112 Alexandria, ancient centre of civilisation, 17 Anglo-saxon houses, 44 Antioch, ancient centre of civilisation, 17 Architectural style in furniture, 94 Art, classic, ends in third century, 34 " Byzantine, 35 " mediæval, its growth, 41 " " its perfection, 47 " Romanesque, long continuance, 42 " renaissance, 66 " classic, revived in eighteenth century, 107 " " early nineteenth century, 114 Atrium, 18 Attalus introduces tapestry, 17 Bedrooms, English, fourteenth century, 50 " French, eighteenth century, 104 Beds, Byzantine period, 37 " Norman, 46 " Egyptian, Greek, &c., 116 " Mediæval, 118, 119 " at Hampton court, 120 Bellows, renaissance, 72 Bombé furniture, 104, 111 Boucher, 108 Boule, 95 Bureaux in marquetry, 93, 104 " or knee-hole, 128 Byzantine period, 35 " wealth, 38 " artists welcomed by Charlemagne, 41 Cabinet, French, sixteenth century, 89 " Japan, 128 Cafass, Egyptian wood, 4 Candelabra, 23, 24 Candles, Anglo-saxon, &c., 45, 48 Carriage, Anglo-saxon, 45 " fourteenth century, 54, 131 " seventeenth century, 92 " the Speaker's, 132 " Lord Darnley's, 132 Caskets, Byzantine, 37 Ceilings in Roman houses, 21, 31 Chair, Egyptian, 4, 121 " Nineveh, 7 " Greek, 10, 11, 14 " Roman, 28, 122 " of St. Peter, 35 " Byzantine, 37 " at Ravenna, 39, 122 " in Bayeux tapestry, 45 " coronation, 49 " of Guidobaldo, 63 " Italian, fifteenth century, 63 " folding mediæval, 122 " of silver, at Barcelona, 123 " the Glastonbury, 123 " Italian, seventeenth century, 124 " marquetry, 124 Chambers, Sir William, 106 Chariots, Hebrew, 9 " Greek, 15 " Roman, 130 " Byzantine, 37 Chest, Greek, 11 " Roman, 29 " of king John, 47 " fourteenth century, 51 " for copes, 56 " fifteenth century, 60 Chest, Italian, 61 " renaissance, 69, 71 Chimneypieces, eighteenth century, 106 Chippendale, 106 Cipriani, 112 Cluny hôtel, carriages there, 2 Colbert, his patronage of art, 94 Couches, Egyptian, 5 " Roman, 13 " mediæval, 120 Coypel, Antoine, 104 Cradle, mediæval, 121 Cubicula, 20 Cypress chests, 70, 127 Dagobert's chair, 43 David, 105 Delafosse, 104, 108 Dilettanti society, influence, 115 Dining-room, Byzantine, 38 Diptych of Anastasius, 36 Distaff, 106 Doorway, English, seventeenth century, 98 "Droit de prisage," 54 Ébénistes, fine cabinet makers, 108 Ebony used seventeenth century, 108 Egyptian furniture, 5 Elizabethan style, 85 Flemish furniture, seventeenth century, 87 Fragonard, 108 French style prevalent in eighteenth century, 103, 105 Furniture, use of a collection, 1 " Byzantine, still perhaps in mosques and treasuries, 40 " sixteenth century, architectural, 75 " eighteenth century, 103 " bombé, explained, 104 German artists in England, sixteenth century, 78 " work, eighteenth century, 111 Gillow, 113 Glass windows in Roman houses, 20 " mosaics, &c., 22 " Venetian, 99 Glue used by the Romans, 33 Gouthière, 105, 110 Greek manners, simple, 12 " houses, 14 Grinling Gibbons, 97 " best examples of his work, 97 Halls in Roman villas, 20 Hebrew furniture, 8 Heppelwhite, 113 Hogarth, paintings of chimneypieces, 106 Holbein, his influence, 78 Holy-water stoup, 102 House, Roman, 18 " Greek, 14 " how warmed in Rome, 29 " Anglo-saxon and Norman, 44, 46 " of timber, fifteenth century, 58 Iconoclasts, destruction by, 40 Italian coffer at South Kensington, 61 " artists, sixteenth century, 68 " " in France and England, 78, 89 " carved woodwork, sixteenth century, 89 " distaff, 106 Japanese lac-work, 106 Kauffmann (Angelica), 112 Kaunitz, a kind of bureau, 128 Kitchen utensils, Roman, 30 Knife case, sixteenth century, 76 Lac-work, Chinese and Japanese, 106 Lalonde, 108 Lares, 28 Lebrun, first head of the "Gobelins," 95 Le Pautre family, 104 Litters, Roman, 31 Lock (Matthias), 112 Locks in Roman houses, 21 Louvre, Egyptian boxes, 6 Maggiolino, 111 Mansard, 104 Marquetry, Venetian, 62 " seventeenth century, 92, 93 " Boule, 95 Meissonnier, 104, 108 Metallurgy, British, 42 Micque, 108 Mirror, Greek, 13 " renaissance, 69 Mirror frames, sixteenth century, 71 " " Venetian, 91, 99 " made in England, seventeenth century, 99, 100 Mosaic, Roman, pavements and on walls, 19 " or pietra dura, 74 Natoire, 108 Nero, colossus in his house, 25 Nineveh furniture, 6 Nuptiale, 18 [OE]ci, 20 Oppenord, 108 Ostium, 18 Paintings and pictures in Roman houses, 22 " in thirteenth century, of rooms, 48, 49 Panelling for rooms, 49 " oriental, 57 " of a chest, 60 " English, sixteenth century, 79, 80 " French, sixteenth century, 84 " English, 86 Pedestal, 90 Penates, 18 Peristylium, 20 Persian furniture, 8 " marquetry, 63 Picture-frames, renaissance, 71 Pomeranian cabinet at Berlin, 92 Pompeii, value of discoveries, 16 Porcelain given to Queen Elizabeth, 130 Pottery, time of Edward I., 49 Pudens, ancient house of, 20 Pugin, 114 Queverdo, 108 Religious houses, their woodwork, 63 " " safe generally from spoliation, 67 Renaissance in Italy, 66 " materials employed, 69 " in England, France, &c., 78 Restout, Jean, 104 Riesener, 105, 108, 109 Robert, 108 Rococo furniture, 103 Roentgen, 108, 109 Roman habits, at first simple, 16 " house, 18 " couches in dining-rooms, 19, 27 " locks and hinges, 21 " tables, 25 " chairs, 28 " kitchen utensils, 30 Roof of Westminster Hall, 55 Room decorations, French, eighteenth century, 107 Room of Marie Antoinette's time at South Kensington, 107 Roundels, 129 Salembier, 108 Scamnum, 28 Sculpture, architectural, &c., fourteenth century, 56 " renaissance, 69 Settle or seat, fourteenth century, 51 Sheraton, Thomas, 113 Sideboards, 128 Silks for furniture, eighteenth century, 107 Stuart style of woodwork and furniture, 85, 96 Table, Egyptian, 124 " Nineveh, 8 " Roman, 25, 125 " " veneered, 27 " " great value, 27 " Norman, 46 " furniture of, fourteenth century, 50 " fourteenth and fifteenth century, 53, 58, 125 " sixteenth century, 71 " of Francesco de' Medici, 75 " French, sixteenth century, 80, 81 " English, seventeenth century, 102 " long kept at Flaxton Hall, 126 Tapestry first brought to Rome, 17 " in Roman houses, 30 " in England, fourteenth century, &c., 50, 61 " Gobelin, 95 Tarsia, 62, 73, 74 Temple of Diana, 33 Theatre of C. Curio, 32 Tigrinæ tables, 26 Triclinium, 18, 117 Tripods, 22 Tudor cabinet at South Kensington, 78 " style, 85 Vase from Hadrian's villa, 25 Venetian mirror-frame, 91 Vernis-Martin, 105 Vestiaria, 20 Walpole (Horace), opinion on mediæval art, 111 Wardrobe, old English, 49 " Roman, 126 Wars of the Roses, evil consequences, 64 Wood used in Nineveh, 8 " " Greece, 15 " " Rome, for tables, &c., 26, 32 " " by Riesener, 109 Woodwork, English, in thirteenth century, 48 " " sixteenth century, 79 " Germany, in sixteenth century, 83 " Spanish, in sixteenth century, 84 " Tudor and Stuart, 86 Wren, Sir Christopher, 97 Wyattville, 114 THE END. DALZIEL BROTHERS, CAMDEN PRESS, N.W. * * * * * Transcriber's Note _ _ represents italic print. ^ represents a superscript. The Table of Contents was erected by the transcriber, and placed in the Public Domain. Sundry missing or damaged punctuation has been repaired. This book, published in England, dates from 1875. Some older, but still correct, spellings may be present. There is also some 16th century spelling. Both hyphenated and un-hyphenated versions of some words appear in the text. 'Borgoña' and 'Borgona' both appear in the text, as do 'hôtel' and 'hotel'. English spelling 'rules' have only existed since the second half of the nineteenth century. Illustrations which interrupted paragraphs have generally been moved to more convenient positions between paragraphs. An exception is the illustration of St. Edmund's 'well-furnished bedroom' on Page 51, referred to in the first part of the long paragraph beginning on Page 50. It made sense to insert the illustration after 'the year 1400', as the following text began a new topic. Page 21: 'valves' corected to 'halves'. 'v' would seem to be a misprint for 'h'. "The doors were generally in two halves and could be closed with locks,..." Page 48: 'candesticks' corrected to 'candlesticks'. "Though the royal table might be lighted with valuable candlesticks of metal,..." Page 82: [Illustration: SEMPER FESTINA LENTE = Hurry Slowly!] Page 121: 'musuem' corrected to 'museum'. "... as in the example in the museum,..." 
42317	----	[Illustration: Firing the Kiln _Courtesy of the Rookwood Potteries_] VOCATIONAL EDUCATION SERIES SUPERVISING EDITOR FRED D. CRAWSHAW, M.E. PROFESSOR OF MANUAL ARTS, THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN INDUSTRIAL ARTS DESIGN A TEXTBOOK OF PRACTICAL METHODS FOR STUDENTS, TEACHERS, AND CRAFTSMEN BY WILLIAM H. VARNUM ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF DRAWING AND DESIGN UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY CHICAGO NEW YORK Copyright 1916 by SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY PREFACE _Place for the Book._ As a textbook, INDUSTRIAL ARTS DESIGN is a practical guide for designing in wood, clay, and base and precious metals. It is intended for individual student use in the High Schools, Normal Schools, and Colleges and as a reference book for elementary school teachers. Its more complex problems are intended as definite helps to the industrial arts designer or craftsman. The wood problems are treated with special reference to their adaptability to bench and cabinet work. _Need of the Book._ It has been written to fill a decided demand for a textbook that shall, without loss of time, directly apply well-recognized principles of general design to specific materials and problems encountered in the Industrial Arts. A brief description of the decorative processes adapted to the materials under discussion with the design principles directly applying to these processes, insures designs that may be worked out in the studio or shop. It is hoped that this provision will eliminate the large number of impractical designs that are frequently entirely unfitted to the technic of the craft. This lack of mutual technical understanding between the teacher of design and the shop work instructor is the cause of friction that it is hoped will be removed by the methods advocated in these pages. _The Author's Motive._ It has been the intention to reduce unrelated and abstract theories to a minimum and reach directly rules and conclusions that shall be applicable to typical materials in common use in the schools and industries. The original conception materialized in the publication of a series of articles upon Design in the _Industrial Arts Magazine_, in 1915. These articles were favorably received and their results in the schools proved highly satisfactory. Through this encouragement, the articles have been reprinted in book form, enriched by the addition of illustrations, review questions, and three chapters on color with its applications. INDUSTRIAL ARTS DESIGN develops the principles of industrial design in a new and logical form which, it is believed, will simplify the teaching of craft design. Chapters I to V deal with the elementary problems confronting the designer as he begins the first steps on his working drawing; Chapters VI to VIII show the methods by which he may express his individuality through contour or outline enrichment, while Chapters IX to XVII explain the treatment of the most difficult form of decoration, that of surface enrichment. _The Appendix._ The appendix is added to show the manner in which the rules may be directly applied to a course of study in either pottery or art metal. The present work is not intended to include the chemistry of glaze mixing or other technical requirements to which reference is made in the appendix; consequently the reader is referred to "The Potter's Craft" by C.F. Binns and "Pottery" by George J. Cox for fuller explanations of the formulae and technicalities of the craft. _Source of Principles._ The principles herein advocated are directly related to architectural design which is to be regarded as the standard authority for the industrial arts designer. It was necessary to state these principles in the form of sufficiently flexible rules which would allow the student to use his own judgment, but at the same time, restrict him to the essential principles of good design. _Rules._ This presentation of the principles of design by means of flexible rules in concrete form, serves to vitalize design by virtue of their immediate application to the material. The rules likewise save time for both pupil and instructor. This is regarded as an important factor, inasmuch as the amount of time usually allotted to classroom teaching of design is limited. While these rules are applied to the specific materials, the designer may readily adjust them to other materials and find them equally applicable. Direct copying of designs from the illustrations is a dangerous expedient and is to be discouraged as a form of plagiarism which will eventually destroy the student's initiative, originality, and reputation for creative work. _Results_. From the tests so far observed, it has been seen that under design guidance, the projects become more noticeably individual in character, lighter and better in construction, and more fully adjusted to their environment. The student's interest and initiative in his work are strengthened, and he completes the truly valuable cycle of the educative process of evolving his own idea and crystallizing it in the completed work. It is hoped that this book will tend to develop higher standards of good design in schools, industrial establishments, and the home. In conclusion, the author expresses his thanks to the following for their valuable suggestions and assistance in contributed illustrations: Miss D.F. Wilson, Miss Edna Howard, Miss Elizabeth Upham, Miss A.M. Anderson, Mr. J.M. Dorrans, Mr. J.B. Robinson, author of "Architectural Composition," and others to whom reference is made in the text. WILLIAM HARRISON VARNUM. _Madison, Wisconsin. April, 1916._ CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. DIVISIONS OF INDUSTRIAL ARTS DESIGN 7 II. THE PRIMARY MASS AND ITS PROPORTIONS 13 III. HORIZONTAL MAJOR DIVISIONS OF THE PRIMARY MASS 19 IV. VERTICAL MAJOR DIVISIONS OF THE PRIMARY MASS 33 V. APPENDAGES AND THE RULES GOVERNING THEM 43 VI. ENRICHMENT OF THE CONTOURS OR OUTLINES OF DESIGNS IN WOOD 57 VII. ENRICHMENT OF THE CONTOURS OR OUTLINES OF DESIGNS IN CLAY 77 VIII. ENRICHMENT OF THE CONTOURS OR OUTLINES OF DESIGNS IN BASE AND PRECIOUS METALS 87 IX. SURFACE ENRICHMENT OF SMALL PRIMARY MASSES IN WOOD 99 X. SURFACE ENRICHMENT OF SMALL PRIMARY MASSES IN WOOD. (Continued) 117 XI. SURFACE ENRICHMENT WITH MINOR SUBDIVISIONS OF LARGE PRIMARY MASSES IN WOOD 133 XII. SURFACE ENRICHMENT OF CLAY 145 XIII. SURFACE ENRICHMENT OF PRECIOUS METALS. SMALL FLAT PLANES 160 XIV. SURFACE ENRICHMENT OF LARGE PRIMARY MASSES IN BASE AND PRECIOUS METALS 179 XV. COLOR: HUE, VALUE, AND CHROMA; STAINS 194 XVI. COLOR AND ITS RELATION TO INDUSTRIAL ARTS DESIGN. LARGE SURFACES OF WOOD; WALL AND CEILING AREAS 201 XVII. COLOR AND ITS RELATION TO INDUSTRIAL ARTS DESIGN. SMALL SURFACES IN CLAY AND METAL 209 COMPLETE SUMMARY OF RULES 218 APPENDIX 223 (_a_) A Complete Course of Study for the Applied Arts in Thin Base and Precious Metals. Relation of the Rules to the Problems 224 (_b_) A Complete Course of Study for the Applied Arts in Pottery. Relation of the Rules to the Problems 237 INDEX 245 INDUSTRIAL ARTS DESIGN CHAPTER I DIVISIONS OF INDUSTRIAL ARTS DESIGN [Sidenote: Non-technical Criticism] This book has been written with the view of presenting design from the standpoint of the industrial arts. An instructor generally experiences difficulty in finding the exact word to use when criticizing a student's drawing. The student has equal difficulty in understanding the criticism. There is little wonder that he is confused, when the rather ambiguous terms "good-looking," "ugly," "squatty," and "stiff" are used to express qualities that can be expressed only in terms of design. [Sidenote: Intelligent Analysis] The lack of understanding between the pupil and the teacher may be compared to the attitude of the average individual "who knows what he likes." He is on an equally insecure footing regarding industrial design. His reason for liking or disliking a certain thing may depend upon some whim or fancy, the popular fashion of the times, or a desire to possess a duplicate of something he has seen. As a consumer with purchasing power, he should have the ability to _analyze intelligently_ the contents of catalogs and store windows with the thought of securing the best in industrial art--something that may be accepted as standard one hundred years from now. It is, therefore, the intention to present design of industrial character in its simplest form, freed from technicalities or ambiguous statements. It is intended to give the average individual not particularly interested in drawing or design a knowledge of the subject, based upon principles that have survived for hundreds of years in architectural monuments and history. [Sidenote: Results of Clear Criticism] [Illustration: THE FIRST MAJOR DIVISION OF INDUSTRIAL ARTS DESIGN PLATE 1] It is possible that the presentation of these principles may enable the instructor in the public schools to guide his pupil away from the heavy and expensive stereotyped designs, and by clear and simple criticism, lead him to better forms of construction. He may also be helped to lead the pupil to design problems in harmony with his home surroundings and thus avoid the introduction of an inharmonious element into what may possibly be a harmonious setting. The teacher, pupil, or layman should use his knowledge of the subject as a basis for criticism or appreciation of the field of the industrial arts. [Sidenote: Requirements of an Industrial Problem] In order to start successfully upon a design, it is necessary to know what qualities a good industrial article should possess. Whether one is designing a bird-house, a chocolate set, or a gold pendant, the article must meet three needs: (1) It must be of service to the community or to the individual; (2) It must be made of some durable material; (3) It must possess beauty of proportion, outline, and color. Ruskin said that a line of beauty must also be a line of service. The "stream line body" in automobile construction is the result of the automobile maker's attempt to combine beauty with service. This is the attitude that should govern the union of beauty and service in all of the industrial arts. [Sidenote: Divisions in Design Evolution and Enrichment] There are three divisions or phases in the designing of a structure and its enrichment. These are: (1) Structural Design; (2) Contour Enrichment; (3) Surface Enrichment. Some objects are carried through only one of these divisions, while others are developed through all three of them. [Sidenote: First Major Division] Plate 1, illustrative of the first division, deals naturally enough with the planning of the constructive or utilitarian lines of an object and its parts. It may be termed Structural or Constructive Design. Questions of how high or how long an object should be, to harmonize with its width, the proper placing of rails, shelves, and brackets, the determination of the greatest and least diameter of vase forms have to be decided in this period of Proportions and Space Relations. The knowledge of tools and materials, and of the manner in which they may be used for constructive purposes, influences the solution of these questions and others which we shall shortly discuss. Strictly utilitarian objects are seldom carried past this stage of development. [Sidenote: Second Major Division] [Illustration: THE SECOND MAJOR DIVISION IN INDUSTRIAL ARTS DESIGN PLATE 2] Plate 2 indicates the next logical division--Contour Enrichment--or the period of the enrichment of the structural outline or contour. The bounding lines, or contours, of the structure may be enriched in many ways, as, for example, curving certain portions to soften the severity of the plain structure. The garden urn and small stool have contours treated in this manner. Chippendale, Sheraton, and Hepplewhite furniture, simplified to the accepted range of shop technic, vary the straight lines of mission furniture and come within the possible developments of this division. [Sidenote: Effects of Second Division] The cement fence post at _C_, Plate 2, is a strict utilitarian problem without interest. The post at _D_, enriched by a bevel, has equal utilitarian and increased aesthetic interest and value. [Sidenote: Third Major Division] Plate 3 illustrates the last division of evolution and concerns itself with the application of design to the surface of the otherwise complete structure. This division is commonly called applied surface design or decorative design. It is readily seen that this division should be considered after the structure has been carefully planned. To separate this division from the period of structural or contour enrichment we will call it Surface Enrichment. [Sidenote: Steps in Design Evolution] It may be seen from the foregoing discussion that a design may be carried through the following steps: (1) Blocking in the enclosing lines of the design, as at Figure B, Plate 2, adding to this whatever may be needed for structural purposes, keeping the lines as nearly vertical and horizontal as possible; (2) Enriching and varying the outline or contour. It is well for elementary wood workers to use this step with extreme caution, while less reserve is necessary in clay and metal; (3) After careful consideration in determining the need of additional decoration, the last step, surface enrichment, should be used. The following chapters will take up these steps in the order stated above. [Sidenote: Ideal Correlation] The ideal method of developing the principles set forth in this chapter includes correlated activity in the shop by working out the project in the required material. As the technic of the individual improves, the larger range of design principles will be found to accompany and parallel his increasing skill. REVIEW QUESTIONS 1. What three requirements should be met in a well designed industrial article? 2. State three major divisions in industrial arts design. 3. State briefly the problems to be considered in each division. 4. What is the last and ideal step for the designer? [Illustration: THE THIRD MAJOR DIVISION IN INDUSTRIAL ART DESIGN PLATE 3] CHAPTER II THE PRIMARY MASS AND ITS PROPORTIONS [Sidenote: The Architectural Method] Upon first observing a building, one seldom notices details of structure. He sees the large mass as it is silhouetted against the sky. Nearer approach discloses mouldings, cornices, and doorways; while careful analytical study shows the technical points of construction. The architect, in his original planning, thinks in terms of masses, widths, and heights, disregarding at first the details and color. As architecture stands for parent design principles and represents some of the world's best examples of composition and design, industrial design should be based upon the best examples of architectural design. To a certain degree, also, the methods of the industrial arts designer should be those of the architect. [Sidenote: The Industrial Arts Method] It is necessary to think at first of our problem as a single mass or solid, bounded by enclosing dimensions of width, height, and thickness. Details like a mirror, handles, brackets, or knobs may project outside of this mass, but for the time being, they may be disregarded. Figure B, Plate 2, shows this manner of thinking, and will enable us to regard the problem as a big, simple mass so that the entire object, unobstructed by small details, may be seen. [Sidenote: The Primary Mass] This is the method of _thinking_ about the problem which should precede the drawing. To further describe this mass, which will be called the single or Primary Mass, it is necessary to think of the intended service of the project. A rather hazy idea of making a vase or a stool to be put to no particular use, may have been the original motive. Now the exact service should be defined as it will have a marked effect upon the shape of this primary mass. [Sidenote: Service] Rule 1a. _A primary mass must be either vertical or horizontal according to the intended service, unless prohibited by technical requirements._ Service is an important factor inasmuch as it limits the intended use of the mass. A mass is horizontal when its largest dimension is horizontal. When the horizontal dimension of this mass is reduced until the main vertical dimension is longer than the main horizontal one, it becomes a vertical mass. As an example, a davenport is generally a horizontal mass intended to hold a number of people. When the mass is narrowed to the point where the vertical dimension exceeds the horizontal, it becomes a chair for one person. A low bowl may be intended for pansies, but as soon as the service changes and we design it for goldenrod, it becomes a vertical mass. The fable of the fox who, upon being invited to dine with the stork, found the tall vases unfitted for his use illustrates the change of mass with the change of service. [Illustration: ANALYSIS OF THE PRIMARY MASS PLATE 4] [Sidenote: Horizontal and Vertical Primary Masses] Figures 1 and 4, Plate 4, are examples of horizontal masses with the dark lines indicating the dominance of the horizontal lines and planes. The shelter house contains a long bench, making necessary the long horizontal lines of the building. The calendar holder has to be a horizontal mass because of the restrictions imposed by the shape of the calendar pad. Figures 2 and 3 are vertical masses. The vase is intended for tall flowers, while the chair, as has already been mentioned, must meet the needs of a single person. Utility and service then have been found to give the primary mass a given direction or dominance. [Sidenote: Drawing the Primary Mass] The designer now represents this mass by drawing a rectangle similar to the block outline of Figure B, Plate 2. It is now necessary to see if the foundation stones of this rectangle have been laid correctly; in other words, to test the proportions of the primary vertical or horizontal mass. [Sidenote: Proportions of the Primary Masses] Rule 1b. _A primary mass should have the ratio of one to three, three to four, three to five, five to eight, seven to ten, or some similar proportion difficult for the eye to detect readily and analyze._ Proportions are generally expressed in terms of ratios. A surface of five by eight inches would give a ratio of five to eight; ten by sixteen feet is reducible to the same ratio. Certain ratios are monotonous and offend the eye by their lack of variety. Ratios such as one to one or one to two are of this class and should be avoided. If these ratios could speak they would resemble people talking in a low monotonous tone of voice. [Illustration: PROPORTIONATE RATIOS PROCESS OF DESIGNING PLATE 5] [Sidenote: Unsatisfactory Ratios] Certain other ratios are weak and indeterminate, showing a lack of clear thinking. They are like people with no definite or cleancut ideas upon a subject they discuss. Examples in this class show ratios of two to two and one-eighth, or three to three and one-fourth, neither positively square nor frankly rectangular. They hide around the corner, as it were, waiting to be anything. Figure 5, Plate 5, is an example of unsatisfactory proportionate ratios of the primary mass. The blotting tablet is nearly square, while the candlestick and sconce, which should have been designed with strongly vertical masses, lack the type of definite thinking that results in a decided vertical dimension. Disregarding the improvement in technic, Figure 6 shows problems designed with a definite knowledge of proportion. The metal objects are refined in their dimensions, and pleasing to the eye. Tests have been made with the idea of determining what the eye considers perfectly natural and agreeable proportion. This has been found to be the ratio of two to three. Consequently, it is clear why Figure 6 shows objects more pleasing than those in Figure 5. It may be felt that too much space is being given to this subject of proportion. It should be remembered, however, that the industrial arts are intimately associated with daily life and that unless proportions are pleasing to our aesthetic sense, many articles of common use shortly become intolerable. [Sidenote: Preliminary Thinking in Terms of Design] This preliminary portion of the designer's task has been given to thinking out the problem and drawing one rectangle. There is a tendency to start the design by pushing the pencil over the paper with a forlorn hope that a design may be evolved with little mental effort. This should be regarded as illogical and unworthy of the desired end. A rectangle of the most prominent surface of the problem, based upon the desired service of the project, and the best proportions which our knowledge of design and understanding of the limitations of construction will permit, should be the final result of the first study. From now on through the succeeding steps, the details of the problem will become more and more clear, as the technical limitations of the tools and materials governing the designer's ideas and controlling and shaping the work are better understood, until all governing factors become crystallized in the form of a working drawing or model. This is a strictly professional practice as illustrated in Figure 7, which shows the skilled Rookwood potter developing a vase form, the definite embodiment of correct thinking in terms of the material which is constantly before him. SUMMARY OF RULES Rule 1a. _A primary mass must be either vertical or horizontal according to the intended service, unless prohibited by technical requirements._ Rule 1b. _A primary mass should have the ratio of one to three, three to four, three to five, five to eight, seven to ten, or some similar proportion difficult for the eye to readily detect and analyze._ REVIEW QUESTIONS 1. How does the architect first plan his elevations? 2. How should the designer first think of his problem? 3. Define a horizontal primary mass. 4. Define a vertical primary mass. 5. State some desirable ratios to be used in designing the proportions of the primary mass. Explain. CHAPTER III HORIZONTAL MAJOR DIVISIONS OF THE PRIMARY MASS In the second chapter we discussed the nature of the primary mass in its relation to the intended service or duty it has to perform. It was found that the demands of service usually cause the primary mass to be designed with either a strong vertical or horizontal tendency. [Sidenote: Divisions of the Primary Mass] It now becomes imperative to carry the designing processes still further and divide the vertical or horizontal primary mass into parts or divisions, demanded either by structural requirements or because the appearance of the object would be materially improved by their presence. This latter point is sometimes referred to as the aesthetic requirement of the problem. There are two simple types of divisions, those crossing the primary mass horizontally and those crossing the primary mass in a vertical direction. This chapter will be limited to the subject of horizontal divisions. [Sidenote: Nature and Need of Horizontal Space Divisions] If a city purchases a piece of land for park purposes, presumably a landscape architect is assigned the task of laying out the paths and drives. He does this by crossing his plan at intervals with lines to represent paths connecting important points. Under favorable conditions the architect is free to curve his path to suit his ideas. He has considerable freedom in selecting his design but the paths or roads must dip and curve in sympathy with the contour of the land and in accord with the aesthetic requirements. While the landscape designer has a broad latitude in his treatment of land divisions, the industrial designer or architect is restricted, on the other hand, by the structural requirements of the object and by his materials. He must cross his spaces or areas by horizontal shelves, or rails, or bands of metal that hold the structure together. As architecture is of fundamental importance in industrial design, let us see what the architect has in mind in designing a structure. [Illustration: STEPS ILLUSTRATING THE DEVELOPMENT OF HORIZONTAL SPACE DIVISIONS FROM PRIMARY MASS TO THE STRUCTURE PLATE 6] [Sidenote: Architectural Horizontal Divisions] The architect has the surface of the ground with which to start. This gives him a horizontal line as the base of his building. He considers it of major importance in his design. We find him crossing the front of his building with horizontal moulding or long bands of colored brick, paralleling the base line and otherwise interestingly dividing the vertical face of the front and sides. His guide is the bottom line of his primary mass or the line of the ground which binds the different parts of the building into a single unit. It can be readily seen that if he shifted the position of his mouldings up or down with the freedom of the landscape architect in locating his roads, he would not be planning his horizontal divisions in sympathy with the structural requirements of his primary mass. These horizontal divisions or lines have a tendency to give apparent added length to an object. Thus by their judicious use a designer may make a building or room look longer than it really is. Let us now turn to the simpler objects with which we may be more directly concerned. The piano bench has horizontal lines crossing it, giving an effect quite similar to that of horizontal mouldings crossing a building. There may also be ornamental inlaid lines crossing the bench and intended to beautify the design, but it is to be remembered that at present we are considering the _structural divisions_ only. [Sidenote: Designing Objects with Horizontal Divisions] Plate 6 represents a concrete example of the methods to be used in designing the horizontal divisions of a piano bench. The steps may be divided as follows: (_a_) The height of a piano bench may be determined either from measurement of a similar bench or from one of the books on furniture design now on the market. The scale of one inch or one and one-half inches to the foot may be adopted. Two horizontal lines should be drawn, one for the bottom and one for the top of the bench. The distance between these lines we will arbitrarily fix at twenty inches. (_b_) Many objects are designed within rectangles which enclose their main or over-all proportions. With this in view, and keeping in mind the width of the bench necessary to the accommodation of two players and the requirements of a well proportioned primary mass (Rule 1b), the lines are now drawn completing the rectangular boundaries of the primary mass. The limitations of service and the restrictions of good designing give the width of the primary mass so designed as three feet and two inches, with a ratio of height to length of five to eight and one-half. It is simpler to design first the most prominent face of the object to be followed by other views later in the designing process. [Illustration: APPLIED AND CONSTRUCTIVE DESIGN PRINCIPLE 1: A. PROPORTIONS OF THE SINGLE PRIMARY MASS WITH DOMINANCE OF THE HORIZONTAL DIVISION PRINCIPLE 2: A. RELATION OF HORIZONTAL SUBDIVISIONS PROBLEM: HORIZONTAL SPACE DIVISIONS CLASSES 1 2 3 PLATE 7] [Sidenote: Designing Objects with Horizontal Divisions--(_Continued_)] (_c_) By observing benches similar to the one being designed it will be seen that the horizontal divisions will take the form of a rail and a shelf, making two crossings of the primary mass dividing it into three horizontal spaces. Several trial arrangements of these structural elements are now made with the thought of making them conform to the rule governing three horizontal spaces. Rule 2b. We shall later discuss this rule and its applications fully. (_d_) By selecting the best sketch of many which the designer will make he has the basis for the application of Rule 2b for the structural elements. The project now begins to take on concrete form. The top board may project slightly beyond the primary mass without materially affecting the value of the designed proportions. [Sidenote: Value of a Full Size Drawing] (_e_) The last step is the designing of the side view in relation to the front view. This enables the designer to comprehend the project as a whole. It is strongly urged that the final or shop drawing be of full size. In more elaborate designs the finer proportions are lost in the process of enlargement from a small sketch, often hurriedly executed in the shop. Again much time is lost by necessary enlargement, whereas a full size curved detail may be quickly transferred to wood by carbon paper or by holes pricked in the paper. It is not expensive or difficult to execute full size drawings; it is in accord with shop practice and the custom should be encouraged and followed on all possible occasions. See Figure 102a. The process of designing round objects is identical to that just described as illustrated by the low round bowl in Plate 7. It should be designed in a rectangle of accepted proportions. Rule 1b. The primary mass may have excellent proportions and yet the vase or bowl may remain devoid of interest. It may be commonplace. [Illustration: HORIZONTAL SPACE DIVISIONS OF THE PRIMARY MASS IN WOOD PLATE 8] As will shortly be shown, the rules governing horizontal divisions serve as a check on the commonplace. A horizontal division generally marks the point where the outward swell of the vase contour reaches its maximum width. If this widest point in the primary mass (X-Plate 7) is pleasingly located between the top and bottom of a vase form the contour will be found satisfactory. [Sidenote: Architectural Precedent for Horizontal Divisions] It is possible to continue _ad infinitum_ with these illustrations but horizontal space divisions are nearly always present in some form, due to structural necessity or aesthetic requirements. It is an easy matter to say that these lines must divide the primary mass into "interesting" spaces, well related to each other, or "pleasingly located," but the designer must have some definite yet flexible rule to govern his work. From the analysis of many famous historic buildings and well designed industrial projects it has been found that all horizontal masses may be analyzed as dividing the primary mass into either _two_ or _three_ divisions or spaces, regardless of the complexity of the project. ANALYSIS OF HORIZONTAL SPACE DIVISIONS [Sidenote: Two Horizontal Space Divisions] Rule 2a. _If the primary mass is divided into two horizontal divisions, the dominance should be either in the upper or the lower section._ Plate 7 shows this division of the primary mass--the simplest division of the space. A space divided just half way from top to bottom would be monotonous and expressive of the ratio of one to one. This arrangement as we have already discovered in the second chapter is not conducive to good design. By the stated rule, 2a, the varied adjustment of this double horizontal division affords all possible latitude for constructive purposes. It is better to place the division in such a manner that the upper division (or lower) will not appear pinched or dwarfed by comparison with the remaining area. Thus a ratio of one to three, or three to five, or five to eight is better than a ratio of one to one or one to eighteen, but there is no exact or arbitrary ruling on this point. [Sidenote: Two Horizontal Divisions in Wood] Figure 8 illustrates two horizontal divisions in wood construction and also the freedom of choice as to exact proportions. The eye will be found a good judge of the proper spacings subject to the limitations already mentioned. [Illustration: HORIZONTAL SPACE DIVISIONS OF THE PRIMARY MASS IN CLAY PLATE 9] It is best to keep the design within the limits of two horizontal space divisions in designing cylindrical clay forms, particularly in the elementary exercises. Enough variety will be found to make pleasing arrangements, and the technical results obtained by two divisions are much better than those obtained from a greater number of divisions. [Sidenote: Two Horizontal Divisions in Clay] Figures 14, 15, and 16, Plate 9, are clay forms with the dominance placed in either the upper or lower portion of the primary mass. Figure 13 has been used to illustrate the fact that horizontal space division principles are applicable to any material. The horizontal divisions in Figure 13 are due to structural needs. A horizontal line carries this division across to Figure 14, a clay vase. The horizontal division line now becomes the one which marks the widest part of the vase. It gives the same relation between the top and bottom horizontal spaces as in Figure 13. It marks an aesthetic point in the design of the vase, or a variation of the contour, introduced by reason of its effect upon the beauty of the vase, not called for by the needs of actual service. A musical composition is often played in an orchestra first by the wood instruments, taken up and repeated by the brasses, then by the strings, and finally played as an harmonious whole by the entire orchestra. There is a close parallel in Figure 12, an adaptation of one of Gustav Stickley's designs. The two-division rule is used in the relations of the plaster and wainscoting; again in the plaster over, and the cement or tile around the fireplace. It is repeated in the arrangement of the copper and cement of the fireplace facing and hood and in the door panels. By repeating again and again similar space divisions the wall space becomes a unified and harmonious whole. Variety is secured by the introduction of three horizontal divisions in the details of the wainscoting. This method of repeating similar space divisions is called "echoing" and is one of the most effective means known for securing the effect of _unity_. [Sidenote: Two Horizontal Divisions in Metal] The horizontal subdivisions in metal are usually made for service. Figures 17, 18, and 19, Plate 10, are examples of such divisions. The location of the clock face in Figure 18 calls for the placing of its horizontal axis in accordance with Rule 2a. The lamp in Figure 19 shows an instance where the entire design once divided by Rule 2a, may be again subdivided into a similar series of divisions. This arrangement is quite similar to the system of repetitions seen in Figure 12 and termed "echoing" the original divisions. [Illustration: HORIZONTAL SPACE DIVISIONS IN METAL PLATE 10] [Sidenote: Three Horizontal Space Divisions] Rule 2b. _If the primary mass is divided into three horizontal divisions or sections, the dominance should be placed in the center section with varying widths in the upper and lower thirds._ When it becomes necessary to divide the primary mass into more than two sections the designer's problem becomes more difficult. With the addition of a greater number of horizontal divisions there is a manifest tendency for the design to become cut up into so many small sections that the simplicity of the whole mass is lost. Here, as elsewhere, that principle which we call _unity_ or the quality of "holding together" is necessary and should be the constant test of the design. The instant any part of the design seems to fly apart from the main mass it becomes the designer's duty to simplify the design or pull the parts together and thus restore the lost unity. As a restriction against loss of unity it is necessary to group all of the minor horizontal divisions into a system of two or three large horizontal divisions. Referring to Rule 2b, it is seen that when three divisions are used, it becomes the practice to accentuate the center section by making it larger. This arrangement is designed to give weight to the center portion and by this big stable division to hold the other subdivisions together and in unity. [Sidenote: Three Horizontal Divisions in Wood] Two horizontal masses and one vertical mass shown in Figures 9, 10, and 11, Plate 8, illustrate the application of this three-division rule to wood construction. It is seen that the construction of rails, doors, and shelves is responsible for the fixing of all of these divisions. It may also be seen that three divisions are applicable to either the vertical or the horizontal primary mass. Figure 10 illustrates the violation of this type of spacing at the point _A_, where the shelves are no more pleasingly arranged than the rounds of a ladder. Later on we shall be able to rearrange these shelves in a pleasing manner but at present it is better to relieve the monotony by omitting the center shelf. This applies the three division rule to the satisfactory appearance of the desk at _B_. Similar monotony in spacing is seen in the screen, Figure 11. The correction in _B_ appeals at once as a far more satisfactory arrangement than that secured by placing the cross bar half way up as in _A_. There are no infallible rules for this readjustment beyond those already stated. The eye must in part be depended upon to guide the artistic sense aright. [Sidenote: Three Horizontal Divisions in Clay] It is suggested that it is desirable to keep clay forms within the limitations of two divisions. Rectangular posts, pedestals, and other vertical forms in cement may be developed by the application of Rule 2a or 2b, if care is taken to group all minor divisions well within the limitations of these rules. [Sidenote: Three Horizontal Divisions in Metal] The statement just made in reference to simplified groupings is illustrated in the candlestick and cup in Figures 20 and 21, Plate 10. The construction based upon the three functions performed by the cup, the handle, and the base, suggests the use of these horizontal divisions. The minor curves have been subordinated to, and kept within, these three divisions. The final result gives a distinct feeling of unity impossible under a more complex grouping. The Greek column will afford an architectural illustration of a similar grouping system. The lathe bed of Figure 22 shows one of innumerable examples of space violations in the industrial arts. A slight lowering of the cross brace would add materially to the appearance and strength of the casting. Figure 23 is a copper box with the following more or less common faults of design: commonplace ratio of length and width (2:1) partially counteracted, however, by a more pleasing ratio of the vertical dimension, equal spacing in the width of cover of box and box body, and equal spacing of the hinges of the box from the ends of the box and from each other. By applying the two and three horizontal division rules these errors may be avoided. [Sidenote: Freehand Curves] Figure 24 shows a low bowl with a compass curve used in designing the contour. This has brought the widest part of the design in the exact center of the bowl which makes it commonplace. In addition to this the top and bottom are of the same width, lacking variety in this respect. Correction is readily made by applying a freehand curve to the contour, raising or lowering the widest point (_F_), at the same time designing the bottom either larger or smaller than the top. INSTRUCTION SHEET Plate 7 is a sheet suggestive of the application of Rules 1a, 1b, 2a, and 2b, with an indication of the type of problem to be required. The steps of the designing processes in either wood (class 1), clay (class 2), or metal (class 3), are summarized as follows: SUMMARY OF DESIGN STEPS (_a_) Construction of the rectangle representing the vertical or horizontal character of the primary mass with desirable proportions. It is better to select a typical view (Plate 6, _D_), preferably a front elevation. (_b_) Subdivide this rectangle into two or three structural sections; horizontal in character. Make two or three trial freehand sketches for varied proportions and select the most pleasing one in accordance with Rules 1a, 1b, 2a, and 2b. (_c_) Translate the selected sketch to a full size mechanical drawing or at least to a reasonably large scale drawing. The structural elements: _i.e._, legs, rails, posts, etc., should be added and other additional views made. (_d_) Dimension and otherwise prepare the drawing for shop purposes. (_e_) Construct the project. SUGGESTED PROBLEMS Design a nasturtium bowl, applying Rules 1a, 1b, 2a. Design a writing table 2 feet 6 inches high with three horizontal divisions. SUMMARY OF RULES Rule 2a. _If the primary mass is divided into two horizontal divisions, the dominance should be either in the upper or the lower section._ Rule 2b. _If the primary mass is divided into three horizontal divisions or sections, the dominance should be placed in the center section with varying widths in the upper and lower thirds._ REVIEW QUESTIONS 1. State two methods of subdividing the primary mass. 2. Define the nature and need of horizontal space divisions. 3. Give five steps to be used in designing a foot stool or piano bench. 4. What point constitutes a horizontal division in the contour of a simple clay bowl? 5. State the rule governing two horizontal space divisions and furnish illustrations in wood, clay, and metal. 6. Give the rule governing three horizontal space divisions and supply illustrations in wood, clay, and metal. 7. State five steps in the designing of a project in the industrial arts involving the use of horizontal structural divisions. [Illustration: APPLIED AND CONSTRUCTIVE DESIGN PRINCIPLE 3: VERTICAL SPACE DIVISIONS OF THE SINGLE H OR V PRIMARY MASS. PROBLEM: VERTICAL SUB DIVISIONS IN CLASSES 1 2 3. THEY ARE USED TO BREAK OR VARY LARGE AREAS OF HORIZONTAL OR VERTICAL MASSES. PLATE 11] Chapter IV VERTICAL MAJOR DIVISIONS OF THE PRIMARY MASS [Sidenote: Nature and Need of Vertical Space Division] The design of the primary mass has now been considered under Rules 1a and 1b, and its horizontal divisions under Rules 2a and 2b. The next logical step is the consideration of the nature of the lines that cross the primary mass in a vertical direction. In the original planning of the primary mass it was found that the horizontal bounding lines and the horizontal divisions were parallel to the base line of an object and that the base line was necessary to ensure stability. Vertical lines are necessary and equally important to give the needed vertical support to an object. So accustomed is the eye to vertical lines in tree trunks, tall buildings, and thousands of other examples that the upward eye movement in viewing an object, having a predominance of vertical elements, seemingly adds to its height. The designer thus has a most useful device with which to increase the apparent height of an object that, for structural or other reasons, must in reality not have great height. Chapter III drew attention to the influence of horizontal lines on a project. Vertical lines on an object are found to produce an analogous effect vertically. [Sidenote: Architectural Precedent for Vertical Divisions] Gothic cathedral builders used the vertical line, repeated again and again in buttresses, pinnacles, and spires to give great apparent height to a building and to make it a unified vertical mass of great beauty. The modern church spire, together with the long, vertical interior columns, similarly affects our present day church edifices. [Illustration: EXAMPLES OF VERTICAL SPACE DIVISIONS IN CLASS 1 (WOOD). THE DIVISIONS OF THIS CLASS ARE GENERALLY BASED UPON THE STRUCTURAL REQUIREMENTS. PLATE 12] This idea of repeating the vertical bounding lines of the primary mass by cutting the mass into vertical spaces is also useful in breaking up or destroying the monotony of large unbroken surfaces. Pilasters may cut the front of a building into interesting spaces; piers may break up the regularity of a long fence; legs and panels may, each for the same purpose, cross a cabinet. While some of these may be structurally necessary and some not, they are all witnesses to the desire to produce beauty in design. As these examples are so numerous in the industrial arts, it is well to study in detail their proper adaptation to our needs. [Sidenote: One Vertical Space Division] Upon analyzing one vertical space division, it will be found to be a primary mass, vertical in character and governed by Rule 1a. Figure 25, Plate 12, illustrates one vertical division. The foot is an appendage to be considered in Chapter V. [Sidenote: Two Vertical Space Divisions] Rule 3a. _If the primary mass is divided into two vertical divisions, the divisions should be equal in area and similar in form._ Exception may be made in case of structural requirements. By imagining two adjacent doors of equal size, the design effect of two vertical divisions may be made clear. Plate 11 illustrates a rectangle (_A_) divided in this manner, preliminary to the development of a problem. Figure 27, Plate 12, represents the type of object to which the exception to the rule may be applied. In the design of this desk, the structure practically prohibits two equal vertical divisions, necessitating an unequal division in the section occupied by the drawers. In Plate 12, Figure 26, the designer had his vertical spacings dictated by service in the form of two doors. As service demands a tall vertical primary mass, it is but natural to design the doors to conform with the primary mass. This gives a monotonously long space for the glass panels and suggests structural weakness. To relieve this the designer applied Rule 2a and crossed the vertical panels by horizontal subdivisions, relieving the monotony and still retaining the unity of the primary mass. [Sidenote: Two Vertical Divisions in Wood] In Figure 27 his problem was a variation of that presented in Figure 26. Structural limitations called for unequal divisions of the vertical space arrangement. The left portion of the desk becomes dominant as demanded by service. The drawer or brace is necessary in this design as it acts as a sort of link, binding the two vertical legs together. The omission of the drawer would destroy the unity of the mass. [Illustration: EXAMPLES OF VERTICAL SPACE DIVISIONS IN CLASS 2. CLAY AND CEMENT. PLATE 13] [Sidenote: Two Vertical Divisions in Clay] As vertical space divisions are principally applicable to rectilinear or flat objects and moreover as it is in such forms only that they have structural value, they are not commonly met in cylindrical pottery ware. Vertical divisions are, however, occasionally used in architectural tiles and other flat wall objects. As three divisions are much more commonly used in clay and cement, this material will now be left for later consideration in this chapter. [Sidenote: Vertical Divisions in Metal] Vertical spacings in metal are quite similar to space divisions in wood. Wrought iron fences are, by reason of structural limitations composed of vertical and horizontal lines, varied by the introduction of piers and curved members. As they are typical of a certain branch of iron construction, two designs of the Anchor Post Iron Company have been introduced. Figure 32, Plate 14, represents two equal vertical divisions made so because of structural and aesthetic demands. The piers in this instance form a part of the general design of the entire gate and must be considered accordingly. The vertical subdivision in Figure 32, Plate 14, has been repeated or echoed by the long vertical bars, alternating with the shorter ones and producing pleasing variety. The horizontal divisions are designed according to Rule 2b. In designing the newel lantern in Figure 34 the designer was required to form a vertical primary mass to conform with the similar mass of the post. This he determined to subdivide vertically in practically the same manner as the cabinet in Figure 26. Threatened with the same monotony he met the situation by subdividing the vertical sections into three horizontal divisions in accordance with Rule 2b. The structural supports, however, rising up in the center of this mass, destroy its unity. They would have carried out the lines of the structure of the newel post and continued the lines of the lantern better, if they had been attached to the corners rather than to the sides of the newel post. [Sidenote: Three Vertical Space Divisions] Rule 3b. _If the primary mass is divided into three vertical divisions, the center division should be the larger, with the remaining divisions of equal size._ A large building with a wing on either side will give an idea of this form of spacing. The size of the main building holds the wings to it, thus preserving the unity of the structure, while equal divisions on either side give balance. Plate 11 (_B_) gives an example of a rectangle divided in this manner. This three-division motive is a very old one. In the middle ages painters and designers used three divisions or a triptych, as it is called, in their altar decorations. A painting of the Virgin was usually placed in the center division with a saint in each of the remaining panels to the right and left. Designers and mural decorators have been using the triptych ever since that period. [Illustration: EXAMPLES OF TWO AND THREE VERTICAL SUBDIVISIONS IN CLASS 3 (METAL). PLATE 14] [Sidenote: Three Vertical Divisions in Wood] The desk in Figure 28, Plate 12, is a good example of the three-vertical space rule. The drawer in the center forms the mid or dominant section and by its greater length holds the two smaller sections together. This design is better than Figure 27, which has a similar mass. The prominent vertical lines in Figure 27 counteract and destroy the effect of the long horizontal dominant lines of the table top, whereas in Figure 28, the vertical lines in the center of the design are so short that they do not interfere with the horizontal lines of the table top. Figure 28 supports the horizontal tendency of the primary mass while Figure 27 neutralizes or practically destroys its character. [Sidenote: Three Vertical Divisions in Clay and Cement] Figure 30, Plate 13, represents an overmantle by the Rookwood Potteries. It is typical of a class of overmantles which may be developed in tiles or in cement, forming an agreeable contrast with the brick of a large fireplace. The three divisions or triptych should be proportionately related to the opening of the fireplace and to the enclosing mass of brick or wood work. We will consider Figure 29 to show how this may be carried out. Figure 29 bears a strong resemblance to Figure 12, Plate 9, and is an elaboration of a simple three-division theme of spacing. The design seems to be complex until it is analyzed into two rules. The primary mass of the entire fireplace motive (including the surrounding panelling) has first been planned with strong and prominent horizontal lines. This was then divided vertically (_A_) to conform with Rule 3b, the three-division theme, giving the divisions for the bookcases and mantle. The horizontal divisions (_B_) were then constructed within the remaining space, affecting the distance from the picture moulding to the mantle and from the mantle to the floor line, in accordance with Rule 2a. That left the space of the width of the cement work (_C_) to be subdivided again by Rule 3b, while the top of the wainscoting panels re-echoed the previous horizontal divisions of Rule 2a. The fireplace opening merely carries out at _D_ the same proportionate relation that dominates all vertical divisions, Rule 3b, while the wainscoting follows the general horizontal divisions of Rule 2a. By this method we have variety in spacing and unity through repetition of similar proportions. [Illustration: THE EVOLUTION OF A DESIGN INVOLVING THE USE OF TWO HORIZONTAL AND THREE VERTICAL SUBDIVISIONS PLATE 15] The cement bench, Figure 31, has a three-division arrangement to break up the monotony of the long rail, and at the same time to repeat the characteristics of a horizontal primary mass. [Sidenote: Three Vertical Divisions in Metal] Figure 33, Plate 14, is a common example of three vertical divisions in metal suggested by the needs of service. Figures 35 and 36 are thin metal problems. The familiar pen tray is primarily a horizontal mass, so determined by its required service as a pen holder. The projecting handles form the outer divisions, and the spacing motive, Rule 3b, has been repeated in the raised projection, decorating the handles. The book rack in Figure 36 is an example of the manner in which a nearly square mass, so designed for structural reasons, may, by Rules 3b and 2a, be broken into a fairly pleasing arrangement of divisions. [Sidenote: More Than Three Divisions] Rule 3c. _In elementary problems, if more than three vertical divisions are required, they should be so grouped as to analyze into Rules 3a and 3b, or be exactly similar._ The eye becomes confused by a multitude of vertical divisions and it is much better designing to keep them within the number stated in this chapter. There are instances, however, when this is impossible. Under such conditions the following treatment should be adopted: Unless, as stated, a large number of vertical divisions may be grouped into two or three vertical divisions it is better to make all of the divisions of the same size. This does not fatigue the eye as much as would the introduction of a number of complex spacings. This solution enables the amateur designer to deal with complex problems with an assurance of securing a degree of unity. INSTRUCTION SHEET Plate 15 is practically self-explanatory and shows the order in which the various divisions, so far considered, are to be introduced into the design together with the grouping of details within those divisions. Figure D introduces the additional element termed the appendage to be considered in Chapter V. SUMMARY OF DESIGN STEPS (_a_) Construction of the rectangle representing the vertical or horizontal character of the primary mass with desirable proportions. Select the most prominent surface for this rectangle, preferably the front elevation. (_b_) Subdivide this rectangle into two or three structural sections, horizontal and vertical in character. Make two or three trial freehand sketches on cross section paper for varied proportions and select the most pleasing in accordance with rules. (_c_) Translate the selected sketch into a scale or full size drawing and add additional views to complete the requirements of a working drawing. Add additional structural elements: legs, rails, etc. (_d_) For shop purposes, enlarge a scale drawing to full size, dimension and otherwise prepare it for actual use. See Figure 102a, page 68, for character of this change. (_e_) Construct the project. SUGGESTED PROBLEMS Design a fire screen with two horizontal and three vertical major subdivisions. Design a bookcase 4 feet 2 inches high with three horizontal and two vertical major subdivisions. SUMMARY OF RULES Rule 3a. _If the primary mass is divided into two vertical divisions, the divisions should be equal in area and similar in form._ Rule 3b. _If the primary mass is divided into three vertical divisions, the center division should be the larger, with the remaining divisions of equal size._ Rule 3c. _In elementary problems, if more than three vertical divisions are required, they should be so grouped as to analyze into Rules 3a and 3b, or be exactly similar._ REVIEW QUESTIONS 1. What is the nature and need of vertical space divisions? 2. State the rule governing the use of two vertical space divisions and give illustrations in wood, clay, and metal. 3. Give the rule relating to the use of three vertical space divisions and furnish illustrations in wood, clay, and metal. 4. What is the treatment of more than three vertical divisions? Why? Chapter V APPENDAGES AND RULES GOVERNING THEM [Sidenote: Use of the Appendage] An appendage is a member added to the primary mass for utilitarian purposes. In the industrial arts, when an appendage is added merely for the purpose of decoration, it is as useless and functionless as the human appendix and, as a source of discord, should be removed. An appendage in industrial arts may be, among other things, a plate rail, bracket, spout, cover, or handle, all of which are capable of service either for or with the primary mass. In architecture it may be a wing or ell added to the mass of the building. Simple as its design may seem, it is often so placed in relation to the main or primary mass that it does not seem to "fit" or to be in unity with that mass. [Sidenote: Designing an Appendage] Rule 4a. _The appendage should be designed in unity with, and proportionately related to, the vertical or horizontal character of the primary mass, but subordinated to it._ Rule 4b. _The appendage should have the appearance of flowing smoothly and, if possible, tangentially from the primary mass._ Rule 4c. _The appendage should, if possible, echo or repeat some lines similar in character and direction to those of the primary mass._ [Sidenote: Violations of Appendage Design] All of the foregoing rules are intended to promote the sense of unity between the primary mass and its appendages. If a mirror on a dresser looks top-heavy it is generally due to the fact that it has not been subordinated in size to the primary mass. Rule 4a. If the handle projects from the primary mass of an object similar to the handle on a pump, it has not been designed in accordance with Rules 4b and 4c. Again, if the appendage projects from a primary mass like a tall chimney from a long flat building, it has violated Rule 4a and has not been proportionately related to the character of the vertical or horizontal proportions of the primary mass. [Illustration: EXAMPLES OF APPENDAGES IN CLASS 1 (WOOD) ADDED TO THE PRIMARY MASS FOR UTILITARIAN PURPOSES. THEY SHOULD ALWAYS BE RELATED TO THE PRIMARY MASS BY TANGENTS, PARALLELS OR BOTH. PLATE 16] It should be readily seen that if the primary mass has one dominant proportion while the appendage has another, there will be a serious clash and the final result will be the neutralization of both motives, resulting in either an insipid and characterless design or a downright lack of unity. [Sidenote: Appendages in Wood] The design of the small dressing table, Figure 37, Plate 16, with the mirror classing as an appendage, is an excellent illustration of Rule 4a. The main mass of the table is vertical in character and the mirror carries out or repeats the character of the primary mass by having a similar but subordinate vertical mass. In this instance it is so large that it has nearly the effect of a second primary mass. As tangential junctions are difficult to arrange in wood construction and particularly in furniture, the break between the table top and the mirror has been softened by the introduction of a bracket or connecting link. The curves of the link cause the eye to move freely from the primary mass to the appendage and thus there is a sense of oneness or unity between the two masses. The lantern in Figure 38 becomes an appendage and is subordinated to the large pedestal or support. The tangential junction has in this case been fully possible and the eye moves freely from the vertical lines of the base to the similar vertical mass of the lantern without noticeable break. [Sidenote: Unifying Appendage and Primary Mass] The service of the dressing table, Figure 39, with its three-division mirror makes the problem of adaptation of the appendage to the mass of the table, in accordance with the rules, much more difficult. Under the circumstances, about the best that can be done, at the same time keeping within the limitations of desired service, is to plan the mirrors in accordance with Rule 3b, with the dominant section in the center. To secure an approach to unity, each section of the mirror should echo the vertical proportion of the primary mass of the table. The top of the writing stand, in Figure 40, is an example of a horizontal appendage which repeats the horizontal character of the front or typical face of the primary mass of the table. The small drawers and divisions again take up and repeat the horizontal motive of the table, while the entire appendage may be subdivided under Rule 3b, giving the dominance to the center portion. The short curves in the appendage all tend to lead the eye in a satisfactory and smooth transition from one mass to the other or from the table top to the appendage. The proportions of the small drawers are similar to the proportions of the table drawers. Rule 4c. All of these points of similarity bring the masses into close unity or oneness of appearance. [Illustration: _Courtesy of Berkey and Gay_ FIGURE 41a] The table legs, in Figure 41, are more difficult to adjust satisfactorily. The idea of the designer is, however, apparent. The legs leave the column of the table with a tangential curve and, sweeping out with a strong curve, repeat the horizontal line of the table top in the horizontal lines of their bottom surfaces. [Sidenote: Industrial Applications] Figure 41a, a modification of Figure 39, shows close unity between the three divisions of the mirror due to the pleasing curve of the center section with its tendency to bind the other sections to it. Again, the echoing of the spacings of the three drawers in the similar spacings of the three mirrors, makes the bond of unity still closer to the ideal arrangement. Rule 4c. Figures 41b and 41c are, in a way, parallel to Figure 41. The eye moves freely from the feet (appendages) along the smooth and graceful curves to the tall shaft or column of the primary mass. The turned fillets, introduced at the junction of the appendage and the primary mass, in Figure 41c, have a tendency to check this smooth passage making the arrangement in Figure 41b preferable. The hardware for the costumers is well chosen and in sympathy with the vertical proportions of the design. [Sidenote: Appendages in Clay] With the word "clay" all difficulties in the treatment of appendages vanish. It is by far the easiest medium for the adaptation of the appendage to the primary mass. Covers, handles, and spouts are a few of the more prominent parts falling under this classification. The process of the designer is to create the primary rectangle, subdivide it into two horizontal subdivisions in accordance with Rule 2a, and proceed to add the desired number of appendages. The result may be suggested by the following illustrations. In Figure 43, Plate 17, the cover is a continuation of the curve of the top of the bowl, Rule 4a; the tops of the handles are continuations of the horizontal line in the top contour of the bowl, while the lower portions of the handles seem to spring or grow from the lower part of the bowl with a tangential curve. [Illustration: _Courtesy of Berkey and Gay_ FIGURE 41b FIGURE 41c] [Sidenote: Covers, Spouts, and Handles] Figure 44 is a horizontal primary mass with the horizontal subdivision in the upper section of that mass. The spout and handle spring naturally from the body and balance each other in proportion, while the cover handle rises smoothly from the primary mass. The horizontal character of the primary mass is consistently carried out in the appendages. The handle, in Figure 45, leaving the body at a tangent, rises with a long straight curve to turn suddenly and join the pitcher in harmony with its top. The apparent abruptness of the junction is softened by the rounded corners typical of clay construction. The Rookwood set, Figure 42, represents three similar primary masses. The proportionate ratios and the horizontal subdivisions are the same throughout. The handle for the teapot has been curved in the center to give variety to the handle. This variation is a difficult thing to manage without consequent loss of unity as by this variation Rule 4a is violated. One thing may be said in its favor. It brings the hand closer to the spout and thus supports the pouring weight. But the unusual in design is to be discouraged until sufficient skill in simple designing has been acquired. In designing handle appendages for clay, they should be so placed that they readily control the weight of the material in the container and afford room for the fingers. Thus, it is better to have the larger portion of the handle opening at the top of the primary mass. The spout in all instances should continue sufficiently high to allow the container to be filled to its full capacity without danger of the contents running out of the spout. The glaze runs into rounded corners much more freely than into square ones, hence it is preferable to use rounded corners wherever possible. [Sidenote: Requirements for Appendage Design] It is the unexpected curve that is welcome in all designing, provided it supports the structure and conforms to established rules. After completing a design involving appendages it should be checked from three points of view; (1) service, (2) unity between the primary mass and the appendages, and (3) variety of curvature. On this last point it is needless to say that compass curves are not desirable except in rounding small corners or in using fillets. It is well known that compass curves are difficult to assimilate into pleasing tangential effects. They are inclined to be monotonous and regular with a "made by the thousand" appearance to them. One should trust to freehand sweeps, drawn freely with a full arm movement when possible. All curves should spring naturally from the primary mass. Blackboard drawing is excellent practice for the muscles used in this type of designing. In a short time it will be found possible to produce the useful long, rather flat curve with its sudden turn (the curve of force) that will make the compass curve tame and commonplace by comparison. [Illustration: EXAMPLES OF APPENDAGES IN CLASS 2 (POTTERY) ADDED TO THE PRIMARY MASS FOR UTILITARIAN PURPOSES. THE PLASTICITY OF CLAY ALLOWS A PERFECT TANGENTIAL UNION WITH THE BODY PLATE 17] [Sidenote: Freehand Curves] [Sidenote: Appendages in Metal] Figures 55, 56, and 57, Plate 18, show the close bond between the appearance of the appendage in clay, and the one in metal. While it is technically more difficult to adapt metal to the rules governing appendages than is the case with clay, the final results are, in most instances, equally pleasing to the eye. In most of the figures showing examples in metal, the appendages have to be secured to the primary mass by screws, rivets, or solder, whereas in clay they may be moulded _into_ the primary mass. This tends to secure a more unified appearance; but in metal, the junction of the handle and the primary mass is often made a decorative feature of the design and gives added interest and variety to the project. The simple primary mass, Figure 58, has a horizontal space division in the lower portion of the mass. This point of variation of the contour has been used in the primary masses in Figures 55, 56, and 57, also as the starting point of that dominant appendage, the handle. Springing tangentially from the body, it rises in a straight line of extreme value in service, then with a slight turn it parallels and joins the top of the bowl, thus fulfilling the design functions of an appendage from both points of service and beauty. The spout and lid, Figure 55, may be likewise analyzed. [Sidenote: Tangential Junctions] The points of tangency, in Figure 54, become a decorative feature of the design. The handles in the parts of the fire set, Figures 48 and 49, offer different problems. It is difficult to analyze the latter figures to determine the appendages as they are in such thorough unity with the handles and are practically subdivisions of the primary mass. But referring to the rule stating the fact that the appendages are subordinated to and attached to the primary mass, it may justly be stated that the shovel portion of the design may legitimately be classed as an appendage. This will explain the need of a curve at the junction points and the feature of the decorative twists in Figure 49. Both designs may be analyzed into three horizontal divisions. [Illustration: EXAMPLES OF APPENDAGES IN CLASS 3. METAL ... SEE "A" ... NOTE THE TANGENTIAL RELATION BETWEEN THE APPENDAGE AND PRIMARY MASS AT "T" PLATE 18] [Sidenote: Andiron Design] The andirons, Figures 50 to 53, illustrate interesting transitions in wrought iron from the primary mass to the appendage. The vertical shaft of wrought iron has been treated as a primary mass while the feet may be classed as appendages. In Figure 50 we have an example of a frankly square junction point. Figure 51 discloses a weld with rounded corners, forming a more pleasing junction than does the abrupt angle of Figure 50. This conforms to Rule 4b. The appendage legs echo or repeat the vertical lines of the primary mass and there is consequently a sense of unity between them. In Figure 52 the appendage foot is curved, and the primary mass has a similar curve on the top of the vertical column to apply Rule 4c to repeat the curve. The small links at _X_ indicate an attempt to make the junction point more pleasing to the eye, but the link is too large to accomplish the desired result successfully. In Figure 53 the links have been materially reduced in size and in the amount of curvature. In this example the eye goes unhampered from appendage to primary or back again, without perceptible interruption and the unity of the mass, seriously threatened in Figure 52, is restored in Figure 53. In Figure 46 there is an example of a link becoming large enough to be classed as an appendage connecting two primary masses, _e.g._, the lantern and the wall. Under these conditions, one end of the appendage harmonizes with the lantern and the other end with the wall. Figure 47 shows a cast brass candlestick which is an excellent example, from the Studio, of tangential junction. [Sidenote: Influence of Tools and Materials] Clay may readily stand as the most adaptable material for appendages, with metal ranking second, and wood third. The grain of wood seems to interfere with the tangential junction of the appendage and primary mass. Appendages of wood are, however, quite necessary at times. Their use is merely a matter of lessening the contrast of conflicting lines in an addition of this nature. The band and bracket saws are required in many instances to construct the connecting link between opposing masses of wood. [Illustration: APPLIED AND CONSTRUCTIVE DESIGN PRINCIPLE 4. RELATION OF PRIMARY MASS TO APPENDAGES PROBLEM: APPLICATION TO CLASSES 2 AND 3 PLATE 19] [Sidenote: Influence of Tools and Materials (_Continued_)] Hand building or casting is the means used to construct the appendages in plastic materials. Appendages in cement are seen in the uprights for cement seats and are generally translated into the primary mass by means of mouldings or curves. Forging or thin and raised metal construction affords many examples of the adaptability of material in constructing appendages. Rivets form decorative features at the junction points and should be placed with great care and relation to the decoration and the point of tangency. INSTRUCTION SHEET FOR CLASS PRESENTATION The typical views to be used in classroom work, with the ordinary range of problems, are shown on Plate 19. These typical views should be supplemented by dimensions, cross sections, and other views whenever necessary. Wood construction has been omitted from this sheet, but its development in design is quite similar to the steps indicated in the summary. SUMMARY OF DESIGN STEPS (_a_) Draw the primary rectangle. (_b_) Subdivide the rectangle into two or three horizontal and, if necessary, vertical divisions. (_c_) Estimate the dimensions of the appendage necessary to perform the desired service in the best manner. (_d_) If the appendage is a handle, place it in such a position that it not only appears to but actually does support the weight of the primary mass. (_e_) Complete the contour curves of the primary mass based upon the horizontal division which acts as a unit of measurement or a turning point. (_f_) Join the appendages to the primary mass by means of tangential curves. (_g_) Establish unity between the primary mass and the appendages by applying Rules 4a, 4b, and 4c. (_h_) Dimension and otherwise prepare the drawing for shop use. See Plate 26. SUGGESTED PROBLEMS Design a sugar bowl, cream pitcher, and teapot. Consider them as different members of one set. Design a sideboard 3 feet 3 inches high with plate rack, the design to contain two vertical and two horizontal divisions exclusive of the appendage. SUMMARY OF RULES Rule 4a. _The appendage should be designed in unity with, and proportionately related to, the vertical or horizontal character of the primary mass, but subordinated to it._ Rule 4b. _The appendage should have the appearance of flowing smoothly and, if possible, tangentially from the primary mass._ Rule 4c. _The appendage should, if possible, echo or repeat some lines similar in character and direction to those of the primary mass._ REVIEW QUESTIONS 1. State the nature and use of the appendage. 2. What is the relation of the size of the appendage to the size of the primary mass? 3. How should the appendage be attached to the primary mass? 4. How does Rule 4c help to secure unity between the appendage and the primary mass? 5. Are compass curves permissible in appendage design? 6. State influence of tools and materials upon appendage design. CHAPTER VI ENRICHMENT OF THE CONTOURS OR OUTLINES OF DESIGNS IN WOOD With this chapter we introduce contour enrichment, the second major division of industrial arts design. [Sidenote: Need and Value of Enrichment] A critic of furniture designed by the average manual arts student has stated frankly that while it might have been honestly constructed it was, in the first place, too heavy for a woman to move about the house and, in the second place, it represented a decidedly uneconomical use of that valuable material, wood. That there is a basis in fact for this statement cannot be denied. Is it true, then, that furniture must of necessity be clumsy and heavy when it is sufficiently simplified in constructive processes for school work? We may say emphatically, "No!" One may correct the proportions of an object and reduce the size of the materials in it to a minimum but still fail to secure the desirable elements of lightness and interest. The object may still _look_ heavy and remain a box-like structure void of the grace synonymous with the best in design. It is, however, possible to correct the clumsy and heavy appearances by imparting to the design elements of grace and lightness. Two methods may be used, singly or together: (1) Enrichment of the Functional Outlines or Contours; (2) Surface Enrichment sometimes called Space Filling. These may be roughly classified respectively as three and two dimension enrichment. [Sidenote: Contour Enrichment] The first, or outline enrichment, concerns itself with the structural lines. As all designing processes should start with the structure, it will be our policy to do so. The present chapter will deal only with enrichment of outlines of wood projects. Rule 5a. _Outline enrichment should be subordinated to and support the structure._ Rule 5b. _Outline enrichment should add grace, lightness, and variety to the design._ [Illustration: COMMON ERRORS IN CONTOUR ENRICHMENT STAMP BOXES PLATE 19a] [Sidenote: Purpose of Contour Enrichment] [Sidenote: Requirements of Contour Enrichment] It is the purpose of enrichment to add to the problem (1) grace; (2) lightness; (3) variety; (4) unity. If it is applied in a proper manner it should likewise add to the apparent structural strength. We should carefully guard the design, therefore, against (1) enrichment that has a tendency to obscure or destroy the structural lines; in other words, enrichment that is not subordinated to the structure, and (2) enrichment that adds nothing to the structure by its application; that is, one which does not increase either the apparent strength or the beauty of the object. As an example of this first point, the turned candlestick with the candle supported by a stack of turned balls alternating with tauri or thin discs tends to obscure completely the sense of support. Again, the landscape gardener feels that he is violating a fundamental principle in design if by planting vines to grow around a building, he obscures the foundation, and the roof appears, consequently, to rest on and be supported by the stems and leaves of the vines. Thus it is seen that the eye registers a sense of structural weakness when the main supports of an object disappear and are no longer to be traced under the enrichment. Under the second point falls the indiscriminate placing of unrelated objects in the contour enrichment. Naturalistic objects similar to the claw foot and the human head, for example, should give way to natural curves that add to the appearance of total strength. Where are we to find these curves suited to our purpose? [Sidenote: Valuable Curves for Outline Enrichment] Up to this point emphasis has been placed upon straight and curved lines immediately connected with pure service. For grace and lightness it is necessary to depart at times from the rigidity of straight lines. To understand the character of this departure let us consider a simple bracket as a support for a shelf. This bracket acts as a link, connecting a vertical wall or leg with a horizontal member or shelf. A bracket shaped like a 45-degree triangle, Figure 10, page 24, gives one the sense of clumsiness. If the feeling of grace is to be imparted the eye must move smoothly along the outline of the bracket, giving one a sensation of aesthetic pleasure. A curved line will produce this effect more completely than will a straight line. One must likewise get the feeling that the curve of the bracket is designed to support the shelf. [Illustration: NATURAL AND GEOMETRIC CURVES WITH THEIR USE IN FUNCTIONAL OUTLINE ENRICHMENT PLATE 20] THE CURVE OF FORCE [Sidenote: Valuable Curves] Turning to Figure 70, Plate 20, we find that whenever nature desires to support a weight she is inclined to use a peculiar curve seen at _F_. Possibly through continued observation the eye has associated this curve with strength or supporting power. Figure 71 has detailed this curve. It is found to consist of a long, rather flat portion with a quick and sudden turn at its end. The curve is known to designers as the Curve of Force and is most valuable in all forms of enrichment. Designers even in early ages used it in some form as will be noted from the fragment of Greek sculpture in Figure 72. Its beauty rests in its variety. A circle has little interest due to its rather monotonous curvature. The eye desires variety and the curve of force administers to this need and gives a sense of satisfaction. As designers on wood, how are we to utilize this curve for purposes of outline enrichment? [Sidenote: An Approximate Curve of Force] For approximate similarity of curvature an ellipse constructed as shown in Figure 73 will be found convenient. By drawing several ellipses of varying sizes upon sheets of tin or zinc, a series of templates of utmost practical value may be formed and used as was done in securing the curves of force in Figures 74 and 75. If the rail or shelf is longer than the post, measured downward from the rail to the floor or to the next shelf, the ellipse should be used with its major axis placed in a horizontal position, Figure 75. If, on the contrary, the post is longer than the shelf the ellipse should have its major axis in a vertical position, Figure 74. Figures 76 and 77 show other instances of the use of the approximate curve of force. Many similar practical applications will occur to the designer. [Sidenote: Mouldings] We have classed the bracket as a link connecting a vertical and horizontal structure. Mouldings may likewise be considered as links connecting similar horizontal or vertical surfaces by bands of graded forms. Inasmuch as they effect the outline they are considered in this chapter. As the mouldings are to assist the eye to make the jump from one surface to another by easy steps, the position from which the mouldings are to be seen determines to some extent their design. [Illustration: ENRICHMENT OF THE CONTOUR OR OUTLINE BY MOULDINGS APPLIED TO WOOD ... TYPES OF MOULDING ... WOOD TURNING PROBLEMS PLATE 21] [Sidenote: Mouldings (_Continued_)] Figure 78 shows the relation of the spectator to three types of mouldings at _A_, _B_, and _C_. The top or _crown_ (_A_) is to be seen from below. On a large project the angle of the mouldings with the body of the object should be approximately 45 degrees. The _intermediate_ moulding (_B_) is lighter than the crown and forms a transitional link that may be seen from either above or below. The lower or _base_ moulding (_C_) is the widest member of the group as demanded by our sense of stability. It is seen from above. Both for sanitary and structural reasons it projects but slightly from the base. With this grouping in mind it is needless to say that a faulty moulding is one, some portion of which, hidden by intervening moulding, cannot be seen by the spectator. Architectural design and history have formulated a series of curves, geometric in character, that are regarded as standards in the Industrial Arts. Some of the more prominent curves with their constructions are shown in Figure 79. The horizontal divisions are analyzed in accordance with Rules 2a and 2b. It is noticed that the Scotia possesses a curve having the shape of the curve of force, while the two Cymas are saved from monotonous division by means of their reversed curves, illustrating the contrast of direction. The curves of Figure 80 are excellent lines for freehand practice in designing mouldings and will develop the principle of continuity of curvature or the smooth transition of one curve into the next. [Sidenote: Continuity and Contrast] To keep this continuity from the monotony of a Marcel Wave it is customary to break continuous curves by a fillet such as a straight line as shown at _D_, Figures 81, 82, and 83. When the desired outside diameter has been reached, contrast of direction is necessary and pleasing as a return, Figure 82. A glance at the curves so far considered will quickly determine whether they are fitted for the crown, intermediate or base mouldings. A curve should join a straight line with either a tangential or right angle junction, which makes for positiveness in contour expression. [Sidenote: Grouping of Curves] [Illustration: FIGURE 85.--Modern Candlesticks] [Illustration: _Courtesy of Berkey and Gay_ FIGURE 86.--Modern Book Trough] Application of these curves to outline enrichment for wood turning projects is to be governed by a strict adherence to Rules 2a or 2b, otherwise confusion and lack of unity will result. Figure 83 shows a major grouping under Rule 2b with the subdivisions and minor curves arranged under Rules 2a and 2b. Figure 84 shows a disregard for rules and the result is an undesirable monotony of contour. If smooth and even continuity of curvature is given considerable thought, together with that for systematic grouping and variety, a pleasing result from wood turning (a much abused but pleasing form of outline enrichment) may be secured. Figures 85 and 86 are illustrations from the industrial field with moulding curves grouped, following and supporting the structural lines of the object. The columns in Figure 86 might, however, be advantageously reversed. [Sidenote: Materials] Large objects designed to be seen from a distance require larger space divisions for their mouldings than do small objects seen from a nearer point. Material affects the curve somewhat. Smaller mouldings are more suited to the expensive woods like mahogany while larger curves may be used in pine or oak. [Sidenote: Evolution of Enriched Outline Design] We now have at our command a number of interesting and serviceable curves suited to the material. Plate 22 is a sheet of applications. Figures 87 to 94 deal with the book-rack end and in this, as in the initial chapter, architecture is referred to as the source for many laws of industrial design. It has seemed wise to illustrate some of these important parallels as follows: We will assume the type of joint construction of the book-rack end as settled and the question of enrichment to be under consideration. Figure 87 is a simple primary mass without enrichment. It is comparable to the plain box-like structure with monotonous outline and without interest. The eye follows the outline in the direction of the arrows, pausing at the square corners, which interrupt a free movement by a harsh right angle. The base (an appendage) repeats in each instance the lines of the primary mass. Figure 88. Round corners, by freeing the design from the right angles, accelerate the eye movement and give a sense of added interest and grace to the contour. Figure 89. The cornice of a building suggests a similar arrangement which may be added to the primary mass. It adds the element of contrast of direction and variety of widths. [Sidenote: Variations] Figure 90. The main primary mass of a building with two equal appendages will suggest the enrichment of the outline in sympathy with three vertical divisions. Rule 3b. The rounded corners again assist the eye to travel freely around the contours, thus giving a sense of unity to the entire form. [Illustration: ENRICHMENT OF THE FUNCTIONAL OUTLINES OR CONTOURS AS APPLIED TO WOOD THE EVOLUTION OF OUTLINE ENRICHMENT OF A BOOK RACK END WITH CROSS REFERENCES TO PARALLELS IN ARCHITECTURE PLATE 22] [Illustration: FIGURES 101 and 102] Figure 91. The pediment of a Greek temple with the interest centered at the top of the pediment (_x_) causes a similar concentration of interest in the book-rack end. The slight inclination of the sides supplies variety of widths. The architect considers an object with the interest centered in this manner in the upper portion, as possessing more individuality than a motive with purely horizontal lines across the top boundary. [Illustration: FOLDING SCREEN FIGURE 102a] [Illustration: _Courtesy of Berkey and Gay_ FIGURE 103.--A Modern Telephone Stand and Stool] [Illustration: _Courtesy of Berkey and Gay_ FIGURE 104.--Modern Chair] Figure 92. In this figure the curved inclination facilitates the upward movement of the eye, at the same time supplying variety of width. Figure 93. The addition of an appendage to the outline of the Greek temple suggests a slight drop or variation in the top edge of the book-rack end which gives increased interest and grace through variety. Figure 94. Contrast of direction is supplied in this suggestion but it is questionable whether we are adding much to the interest by the corner. [Illustration: _Courtesy of Berkey and Gay_ FIGURE 105.--A Modern Serving Table] Figures 95 to 98 are variations of one theme, the foot stool, and Figure 99 adds suggestive designs for rails. _D_ in Figure 99 shows the enrichment line cut to a depth which threatens the structural value of the rail. This is corrected in Figure 103. Figure 100 is an application of the curve of force to a chair leg _B_, with other possibilities at _A_ and _C_. Numerous applications of the varied curves under consideration are found throughout this sheet. [Illustration: FIGURE 105a] [Illustration: _Courtesy of Berkey and Gay_ FIGURE 106.--Sheraton Table] Before closing with enriched outlines it is well to consider flagrant violations of this enrichment now on the market. Figure 101 shows a typical example of complete lack of unity and simplicity. It is a type of design often associated with cheaply constructed furniture. It is an ornate parody on outline enrichment. The curves of extravagance are well shown in Figure 102 where large bulbous curves with no systematic grouping combine disastrous waste of material with lack of grace or lightness. It is excellent practice to redesign such examples as those shown in Figures 101 and 102 with special reference to Rule 5c. Rule 5c. _Outline enrichment, by its similarity, should give a sense of oneness or unity to the design, binding divergent members together._ [Illustration: INSTRUCTION SHEET CONTOUR ENRICHMENT OF WOOD DRAWN AND DESIGNED BY JEANNETTE E. FITCH U. OF W.] Illustrations 103 to 106 are typical forms of present day outline enrichment. Limitations of space will not permit reference to the use of Period furniture. Sheraton and Hepplewhite designs are most adaptable for school uses as may be seen by comparing the Sheraton desk (Figure 106) with the foot stool in Figure 96. INSTRUCTION SHEET Figure 83 and Plates 22 and 23 are indicative of what might be obtained from a class. The problem represented on Plate 23 is advantageously colored with the intended stain and with a small section of side wall and trim visible. See Chapter 16, Figures 458 to 463. Figure 102a shows the method of enlarging a design into a full size working drawing for shop purposes. SUMMARY OF DESIGN STEPS (_a_) Draw the primary rectangle. (_b_) Subdivide the rectangle into vertical and horizontal divisions. (_c_) Determine parts to be treated by contour enrichment. (_d_) Determine method suited to the project: wood turning, moulding, etc. (_e_) Group the wood turning curves under a definite system included under Rules 2a and 2b. Group the mouldings under crown, intermediate, and base classifications. Add this enrichment to the primary mass or make other simple variations that will not destroy the unity of the project. (_f_) Dimension and otherwise prepare the drawing for shop use. (_g_) Construct the project. _Note_.--If the designer is not properly equipped to prepare his own mouldings, he should consult moulding catalogs or the stock of some local lumber company. ADDITIONAL SUGGESTED PROBLEMS Design a wood pedestal with the curves grouped into three horizontal divisions. Design a hall table 2 feet 10 inches high and add simple contour enrichment. SUMMARY OF RULES Rule 5a. _Outline enrichment should be subordinated to and support the structure._ Rule 5b. _Outline enrichment should add grace, lightness, and variety to the design._ Rule 5c. _Outline enrichment, by its similarity, should give a sense of oneness or unity to the design, binding divergent members together._ REVIEW QUESTIONS 1. State nature and need of enrichment. 2. What two forms of enrichment are commonly used in industrial arts design? 3. What four qualities are added to industrial design by contour enrichment? 4. What disturbing elements should be guarded against in the application of contour enrichment? 5. Describe the curve of force and its function in the contour enrichment of wood. 6. What are mouldings? Name three types of mouldings, their positions with relation to the eye level, and some curves used in their design. 7. Give examples of curves of continuity and contrast. By what means should two contrasting curves be separated? 8. How should a curve join a straight line? 9. Explain the grouping of contour curves in wood turning projects similar to a round leg or candlestick. 10. Present five designs for book-racks, enriched by changes of the contour. Give architectural cross references for each design. 11. Present three well designed table or chair legs and top and bottom rails and assemble one of these in a design. CHAPTER VII ENRICHMENT OF THE CONTOURS OR OUTLINES OF DESIGNS IN CLAY [Sidenote: Need of Enrichment] In the medium we are now about to consider there is a tendency for the enthusiastic beginner to over-elaborate the outline into meaningless forms. This possibly is due to the ease with which clay is manipulated. It would be well then to ask two questions before starting with the work of enriching the simple structure. First, why should it be enriched--is there a positive gain by so doing? Second, (if the decision is favorable to enrichment) where should it be enriched? Let us co-ordinate the parts to assist in this process. [Sidenote: Parts Differing in Function] [Sidenote: Unity] Rule 5d. _Parts of one design differing in function should differ in appearance but be co-ordinated with the entire design._ As a suggestion to guide one in enriching an object it is necessary to consider that parts differing in function may differ in appearance, but as members of one family they should still be related to the whole. For example, a spout, handle, and lid may differ in design from that of the body of a pitcher because they differ from it in function. Again, the rim and foot of a vase may be slightly changed or individually accented because of their respective duties. The base and holder of a candlestick may vary in design from the central part or handle, as each has a special function to perform. This rule of the change of appearance with the change of functional service (Rule 5d), is found throughout architectural design. The variation in design in the base, shaft, and capital of a column is possibly one of the most common examples. While differing in function they still _must have unity and "hold together."_ These functional parts of one design, differing in service rendered, form centers of construction and may receive emphasis in outline enrichment. Corners and terminal points are likewise available for decoration and will be discussed at length later. [Illustration: FIGURE 107.--Clay Outline Enrichment in the Rookwood Potteries] Enrichment in clay and metal generally means a substitution of curved for straight lines in the enriched portions of the design. These curves have the ability to impart grace, lightness, and variety to an object provided they are based upon constructive features of the problem. They must have a unit of measurement and must likewise be appropriate to the material. It is therefore necessary to deal with clay in this chapter and follow with a consideration of metal in another chapter. In Figures 109 to 123, Plate 24, we have a number of examples of variation of practically the same primary enclosing rectangle. Figure 108 represents a "squarely" proportioned circular bowl lacking both refinement of proportion and enrichment. Figure 109 has added refinement of proportions. Figures 110 and 111 have introduced an outline enriched to the extent of a simple curve. The base is the dominant width in the first, and the top dominates in width in the second. The outline in Figure 112, while similar to 110 for a portion of its length, departs at a stated point and by curving in toward the base supplies more variety to the contour. We have already said that this outline curve should have a unit of measurement and by referring to Rules 2a and 2b we are able to formulate the following: [Sidenote: Unit of Measurement for Curves in Outline Enrichment] Rule 5e. _In cylindrical forms outline curves with a vertical tendency should have their turning points or units of measurement in accordance with the horizontal divisions of Rules 2a and 2b._ Figures 112 and 113 have as their unit of measurement two horizontal spaces formed in accordance with Rule 2a, while Figures 116 and 117 have still more variety by the addition of a compound curve with its turning points or unit of measurement based upon Rule 2b. Figures 114 and 115 with outlines similar to those in Figures 112 and 113, respectively, have an additional enrichment, the foot and rim accentuation. [Sidenote: Accentuation of Functional Parts in Clay] The new element of enrichment consists of accenting by adding to the design a modeled rim and a base or foot, as it is technically known. This not only strengthens the structure at these two functional points but, by adding a small section of shadow, it tends to break up the surface, Figure 127, and add to the variety of enrichment. Figures 124 to 127 show the building processes connected with this interesting and constructive addition. [Sidenote: Appendages] Figures 116 to 119 show variations of the preceding figures while Figures 120 to 123 introduce the appendages to preceding figures. As in the designing of all appendages, discussed in Chapter V, it is the designer's intention to balance spout and handle to avoid a one-sided or top-heavy appearance. One of the principal difficulties that confronts the amateur designer is the failure to secure variety while retaining unity. This is largely due to a lack of ideas upon the subject and a marked lack of systematic development of one theme. Attention is directed to the diagram in the lower portion of Plate 24. The idea is to start with some simple form in columns _A_, _B_, _C_, _D_, _E_, _F_, Figure 128. Figure 129 introduces _two_ horizontal divisions. Rule 2a. The _black_ portion is the dominant section. [Illustration: OUTLINE ENRICHMENT OF THE PRIMARY MASS IN CLAY GOOD CONSTRUCTIVE DESIGN IS "A FREE AND ADEQUATE EMBODIMENT OF AN IDEA IN A FORM PECULIARLY APPROPRIATE TO THE IDEA ITSELF" HEGEL PLATE 24] [Sidenote: Systematic Development of Outline Enrichment in Clay] Notice the change in outlines based upon this division. Figure 130 raises the division point of the two subdivisions into the upper half of the object. This brings out the need of an accented foot which is, however, not of sufficient prominence to be considered as a horizontal spacing. Figure 131 raises the horizontal division points, again causing the introduction of a larger foot and now qualifying it as a division of the whole mass. This then makes our design a three-division problem, Rule 2b, and places it under the restrictions of Rule 5e. The feet of all of the bowls have been systematically decreased in width by the converging lines _C-C_ while the tops have been maintained constant in width. By this simple diagram an infinite number of designs may be formed and the choice of selection from the series, thoughtfully exercised, will supply the ideal bowl, ready to be translated into a full size working drawing. It is not the idea, however, to guarantee a perfect design in each one of these divisions as that would be practically impossible, but we have systematically applied a method of determination for stimulating the imagination. A series of articles by F.H. Rhead in the Keramic Studio first suggested the system of development by means of graded rectangles. [Sidenote: Candlesticks] Plate 25 shows a further elaboration of the succeeding themes. The candlestick series, Figures 132 to 138, introduces two or three-space division problems with contour turning points at _A_, Rule 5e, and with accented or embryonic feet and rims. The change from the purely functional and unenriched member of Figure 132 through the series shows the enrichment changing slightly to meet the needs of the three functional parts: the base, the handle, and the candle socket. Rule 5d. [Sidenote: Containers] Figure 139 shows a series of illustrations representing variations for containers. The first figure is without enrichment, followed by variations of the outline in the manner already suggested. [Sidenote: Pourers] Figure 140 indicates a series of pourers with the least attractive design on the left end. This unsatisfactory design is found, upon analysis, to be due to centrally placed horizontal division violating Rule 2a. The design of the appendages in this series will again be found to conform with the rules in Chapter V. The units of measurement for the curves may be readily ascertained from observation. [Illustration: OUTLINE ENRICHMENT OF THE PRIMARY MASS IN CLAY WITH METHODS OF SECURING VARIETY PLATE 25] [Sidenote: Similarity with Varying Primary Masses] Figure 141 is useful for the following purpose. It is desirable at times to develop a number of similar forms for a set, with a gradually increasing ratio of proportions, either in height or width. Figure 141 shows how the _height_ may be increased while maintaining a common width. Notice the gradual proportionate increase of the height of the neck _A-B_ as well as that of the body. The line _X_ is of the utmost value in ascertaining the height of the intermediate bowls. The eye should now be so trained that the height of the neck _A-B_ on the last bowl can be readily proportioned by _eye measurement_ to that of the first bowl. A line similar to _X_ will give the intermediate points. Figure 142 varies the _width_ in a similar manner. Notice the gradually decreasing distances _C-D-E-F_, the spaces for which may be determined by the eye. INSTRUCTION SHEET Plate 26 suggests the sequential progression of steps leading to the potter's working drawing. SUMMARY OF DESIGN STEPS (_a_) Draw the primary rectangle. (_b_) Add limits of functional parts: handle, spout, cover, etc. (_c_) Establish unit of measurement for primary rectangle contour curves. (_d_) Design contour of primary mass and add the appendages to it, observing the rules pertaining to appendages and unit of measurement. (_e_) Dimension and otherwise prepare the drawing for the potter's use. This includes the planning of a working drawing, one-eighth larger in all directions than the preliminary design, to allow for the shrinkage of the clay body. The working drawing should also be in partial sections to show the construction of the interior of the ware. SUGGESTED PROBLEM Design a teapot, tea caddy, and cup showing a common unity in contour design. (Plate 82.) SUMMARY OF RULES Rule 5d. _Parts of one design differing in function should differ in appearance but be co-ordinated with the entire design._ Rule 5e. _In cylindrical forms outline curves with a vertical tendency should have their turning points or units of measurement in accordance with the horizontal divisions of Rules 2a and 2b._ [Illustration: RULES 5D AND 5E CONTOUR OR OUTLINE ENRICHMENT. CLAY. INSTRUCTION SHEET PLATE 26] REVIEW QUESTIONS 1. Give and illustrate the rule governing the change in the appearance of the design with the change of functional service. 2. What is the aesthetic value of curves in outline enrichment? 3. Correlate the rule governing the unit of measurement for vertical contour curves with the rules controlling horizontal divisions. 4. Show, by a diagram, the method of systematically varying the contours of circular forms: (_a_) by changing the horizontal divisions; (_b_) by varying the proportion of the primary mass. 5. What is the value of accenting the functional parts in clay design? [Illustration: _Courtesy of James Milliken University_ FIGURE 142a.--Outline and Surface Enrichment in College Pottery] [Illustration: OUTLINE ENRICHMENT OF THE PRIMARY MASSES OF THE BASER METALS ENRICHMENT OF EDGES, CORNERS, INTERMEDIATE POINTS, APPENDAGES. SEE PLATE 28 FOR TERMINALS, LINKS, DETAILS. PLATE 27] CHAPTER VIII ENRICHMENT OF THE CONTOURS OR OUTLINES OF DESIGNS IN BASE AND PRECIOUS METALS [Sidenote: Enrichment of the Base Metals--Iron, Copper, Brass, Bronze] The contours of clay forms are generally free to follow the curves and take the direction dictated by the knowledge and taste of the designer. Metal outlines are more restricted in this respect. Metal is frequently associated with service and consequently its design is often governed by its intended use. For example, if we were to design a metal drawer pull for a buffet, it would have to be considered in relation to the character and shape of the buffet. Again, the screws with which it is attached to the buffet would influence its outline design. It is, in other words, a _dependent_ outline. [Sidenote: Free and Dependent Outlines] To distinguish between an unrestricted outline and one bound by other considerations we will term the restricted outline a _dependent outline_, for its enrichment must be related to other forms either within or without its surface. A _free outline_ on the other hand is one in which the designer is free to use his ideas unrestricted by any other outside consideration, except service and design consistent with the material. In order to emphasize the nature of a dependent outline we have Rule 5f. _Dependent outline enrichment should be related to essential parts of a design and influenced by their forms and functions; it must be consistent with the idea of the subject._ [Sidenote: Enrichment of Edges] We will start with the simplest form of outline enrichment of base metals, the decoration of an edge. It is contrary to the laws of service to leave sharp edges on articles intended for intimate household use, except where cutting edges are required. The rounding of sharp edges is likewise dictated by the laws of beauty. The transition from one plane surface to another is assisted by a rounded edge, as the eye takes kindly to the softened play of light and shade. This gives us the simplest form of enrichment--the beveled, chamfered, or rounded edge, Figures 143 and 144, Plate 27. The rim of a thin 18-gauge plate is likewise improved and strengthened by lapping the edge as shown in Figure 145, giving the rounded effect shown in Figure 144. [Sidenote: Enrichment of Functional Parts] There are six important functional parts with which we are brought into common contact in industrial design of base metals. There are many more, but these are the most common and consequently are of the utmost importance to the designer as design centers. These parts are itemized as follows: (1) Corners, (2) Appendages, (3) Intermediate Points, (4) Terminals, (5) Links, (6) Details. As the decorative treatment of each part varies with the functional duty, Rule 5d, separate treatment and consideration of each part will be necessary. [Sidenote: Enrichment of Corners] Corners, as extreme turning points of a design, are often found convenient for the location of screw holes, rivets, etc. These important construction elements become prominent functional parts of the design and by custom and the laws of design, Rule 5d, they are capable of receiving outline enrichment. But the contour of the corner must be related to the screws or rivets, particularly if they are near the edge, hence our outline becomes a _dependent outline_ and as such must be related to the rivets or screws by Rule 5f. Figures 146 to 149 show various arrangements of this type of design. The unity of the design is not lost, and the functional parts are enriched by contours related to the elements of service (rivets). Figure 153 shows another but slightly modified example of the same laws applied to hinge construction. The enriched outline in this case is closely associated with the holes in the hinge. The hinges in turn must be related to the object for which they are designed. Figure 150 gives a common example of corner enrichment by means of varying the edge at the corners, _i.e._, by rounding the tray corners. [Sidenote: Enrichment of Appendages] As appendages have distinct functional duties their design may vary as the design of the arm of the human figure differs from the head. Yet, as parts of the same body, they must fit the shape of the object to which they are attached. The candle holder and handle as appendages in Figure 150 are designed in sympathetic relation by means of tangential and similar curves sufficiently varied to give the eye a feeling of variety in the design. The novel single flower holders, Figures 151 and 152, with the glass test tube acting as a container show other possible forms of the appendage design. The first is informal while the second is formal, but both adhere to the first simple rules of appendage design. Rule 4a, etc. [Sidenote: Enrichment of Intermediate Points] [Illustration: FIGURE 156a.--Candlestick, Rendered by E.R.] The enrichment of center or intermediate points should be handled with great care and with a definite reason. Careless handling may cause the design to lack unity. Figures 154 and 155 show a simple twist as enrichment. The serviceable reason for this is to obtain a grip at the point of the twist. Again, it varies the character of the straight edges and adds interest without loss of compactness or unity. If one is desirous of widening a vertical or horizontal rod, the enrichment made by welding a number of small rods together with a spreading twist gives a pleasing and serviceable handle. Figure 156. [Sidenote: Enrichment of Terminals] [Sidenote: Free and Dependent Contour Enrichment] As the public demands a happy ending to a story or a play, so does the eye demand a well-designed ending to a design. The part that terminal enrichment plays in industrial design is, therefore, to say the least, important to us as designers. Figure 157 illustrates terminals in thin metal and is shown by courtesy of the _School Arts Magazine_ from one of the articles by Mr. Augustus Rose. The outlines are in part dependent in character, controlled by rivets. Notice the change of curve as the function changes from the _dependent curve_ of the rivet area to the _free outline_ of the handle and again from the handle to the cutting blade; a functional change of marked character, but in thorough unity with the entire design. It is again emphasized that whether the design possesses a free or a dependent outline, or a combination of both types, all parts of the design must be held together by entire _unity_. The rivets are occasionally placed toward the edge and a domed boss is used to accent the center as is shown in Figure 158. [Illustration: OUTLINE ENRICHMENT OF THE PRIMARY MASS IN THE BASER METALS. THE ENRICHMENT OF TERMINALS, LINKS, AND DETAILS. FREE OUTLINES PLATE 28] THE IONIC VOLUTE [Sidenote: Terminal Enrichment in Wrought Metal] As the Curve of Force was a valuable curve in wood construction, so we find it an equally valuable curve for wrought metal. Its recurrence again and again in industrial design leads us to appreciate its value in the arts. It is the Ionic volute handed down to us in its present form from the time of the Greeks, who developed it to a high state of perfection. [Sidenote: Curve of Beauty] While its geometric development is a tedious process, it may be easily constructed for practical purposes by the following method. In Figure 159, _P_ represents a small cylinder of wood, possibly a dowel. A strong piece of thread, or fine wire, is wrapped around the base of the dowel a number of times and a loop is formed in the free end. A pencil with a sharp point is inserted in the loop and the pencil and dowel are placed together on a sheet of paper. As the thread unwinds from the dowel the point of the pencil will describe a volute which may be developed indefinitely. It will be noticed that no corresponding parts of the curve are concentric and it thus has constant variety. It has been termed the CURVE OF BEAUTY and is found in nature in the wonderfully designed shell of the nautilus. It is advisable to form several templates for the volute out of bent wrought iron, of different sizes, and to practice drawing the curve many times to accustom the hand and the eye to its changes of direction. The "eye" or center portion is sometimes terminated by thinning and expanding in the manner shown in Figure 160. [Illustration: OUTLINE ENRICHMENT OF THE PRIMARY MASS IN PRECIOUS METALS. SILVER. A DEPENDENT OUTLINE RELATED TO AND ENCLOSING A SEMI-PRECIOUS STONE. PLATE 29] [Sidenote: Greek Scroll] One form of application of the volute is shown in the terminal points of the candlestick in Figure 161. It is here shown combined with the second volute in the form of a reverse curve. In Figure 162, it has been combined with a smaller but reversed volute at the upper end. The entire and combined curve is commonly known as a Greek Scroll. In Figure 163 the Greek Scroll has been combined with the reverse curve of Figure 161 to form a portion of the bracket. In this figure we find the familiar curve of force faithfully serving its function as a supporting member for the top portion of the bracket. [Sidenote: Enrichment of Links] A link is a convenient filler in connecting parts of a right angle. It likewise serves as a brace in connecting several disconnected parts and is useful in maintaining the unity of a design. Figure 164 shows a common form of link with its ends thinned and expanded as shown in Figure 160. This construction may, however, be disregarded as it is technically quite difficult to accomplish. [Sidenote: Enrichment of Details] Details are the smaller portions of a design and are similar to the trimmings and minor brackets of a building in relative importance. They enter to a considerable extent into wrought metal grille design, and are generally formed of the link, Greek scroll, or the Ionic volute, so as to be in harmony with the other parts of the design outline. Rule 5f. Their presence and use may be readily detected on Plate 28. Rule 5g. _A curve should join a straight line with either a tangential or right angle junction._ [Sidenote: Summary of Wrought Metal Free Outline Enrichment] As we are now familiar with continuity in wood moulding curves we should feel, in reviewing the figures in this chapter, the value of flowing continuity and tangential junction points (Rule 5g) necessary in wrought metal enrichment. The curves that we have considered are adapted to the materials and a comparatively large and new field of design is opened to the designer through a combination of curves mentioned. Plate 30 is self-explanatory and brings out the general application of the foregoing principles as applied to cast bronze hardware. It is interesting to notice the change of enrichment paralleling the change of function as outlined in Rule 5d. OUTLINE ENRICHMENT OF PRECIOUS METALS [Sidenote: Outline Enrichment of Silver] [Sidenote: Stones and Their Cuttings] [Illustration: _Courtesy of P. and F. Corbin_ PLATE 30] Little has been written regarding the designing of jewelry. As can be readily seen, a semi-precious stone is the controlling factor in the major portion of the designs with silver as a background. Any enrichment merely accentuates the beauty of the setting. This statement would lead us to consider the outline as _dependent_ in character and thoroughly related to the stone. It is necessary then to take the stone as a point of departure. The standard stone cuttings used in simple jewelry are shown in Figures 166 to 170. The first three and the last are cabochon cut, elliptical in contour with flat bottoms. The long axes have been drawn in each instance. [Sidenote: Relation of Stone to Contour] With Figures 171 to 174 we begin to see the close relation between the stone and its enclosing form. Rule 5f. A longer major axis in the stone calls for an increased length in the corresponding axis of the silver foundation or background. It is really a re-echo of the proportions of the primary mass of the stone in the mass of the silver. It is well for the beginner to make the axis of the stone and the silver blank coincide and to use this long axis as a basis for future enrichment. In a vertical primary mass, similar to the one shown in Figure 180, it is better design to place the stone a short distance above the geometric center of the mass as it insures a sense of stability and balance. A stone when placed toward the bottom of a design of this nature is inclined to give a feeling of "settling down" or lost balance. Figure 176 varies the design shown in Figure 171. The two circles related to the stone are connected by four silver grains or balls. Figure 177 shows an attempt to enrich the contour of the silver, but there is a resulting tendency to detract from the simplicity of the unbroken outline and, as a result, little is gained by its attempted enrichment. Figures 178 and 179 show a better form of enrichment by accentuating the outline. This may be accomplished either by engraving a single line paralleling the contour or by soldering a thin wire around the outline. [Sidenote: Need of Top and Side Views] While the top view of an article of jewelry may have been carefully designed the side view in most instances is totally neglected. The side view should show a steady graduation from the surface of the silver to the outline of the stone. This prevents the stone from bulging from the surface like a sudden and unusual growth. Doming, small wedges of silver, or a twist around the bezel may accomplish this as can be readily seen in Figures 181, 182, and 183. [Illustration: RULES 5D 5E 5F 5G. CONTOUR OR OUTLINE ENRICHMENT. CLAY. METAL. INSTRUCTION SHEET. PLATE 31] [Sidenote: Motives for Outline Enrichment in Silver] While emphasis should be placed upon simplicity of outline, certain well regulated forms of enrichment may be added to the contour and enhance the beauty of the stone. Such motives with constructive steps are shown in Figure 184 and their application in Figures 185 to 188. It will be noticed that the enrichment _invariably leads up to the stone_ which is the center of interest in the design. The ornament is likewise based upon the prominent axes of the stone. [Sidenote: Free Outline Enrichment in Silver] Figures 189, 190, and 191 are types of beaten and raised silver work and show characteristic forms in silver, with two examples of accented outline enrichment. As they are curvilinear forms, their design is similar in many ways to clay forms of similar proportions and uses. INSTRUCTION SHEET Plate 31 shows the design steps necessary to the evolution of a lamp in two materials. A full size working drawing should follow Figure D. SUMMARY OF DESIGN STEPS (_a_) Draw the unenriched primary mass. (_b_) For dependent contours, locate the elements of service within the primary mass. This may be interpreted to mean rivets, screw holes, semi-precious stones, etc. (_c_) Determine upon the portion of the contours to be enriched, gauged by its need for grace, lightness, and variety. This enrichment is preferably concentrated at the following points: edges, corners, appendages, intermediate points, terminals, links, and details. These points may be combined provided the result does not violate the simplicity of the structural lines. (_d_) Draw the enrichment in the predetermined area, causing it to be in harmony with such interior functional parts as screw holes, rivets, semi-precious stones, etc. Utilize suggested curves. (_e_) Review all of the contour curves added to the design. Are they feeble compass curves or do they have the character of long sweeping curves with short "snappy" turns for variety? (_f_) Test the entire design for unity. Does the eye move smoothly through all parts of the contour? Does the design "hold together"? Are all links and appendages joined to the primary mass in a graceful tangential manner? (_g_) Dimension, add additional views, and details, if necessary, and otherwise prepare the drawing for shop use. SUGGESTED PROBLEMS Design an electric table lamp with square copper rod as a support, feet, and copper shade. Design a hinge for a cedar chest. SUMMARY OF RULES Rule 5f. _Dependent outline enrichment should be related to essential parts of a design and influenced by their forms and functions; it must be consistent with the idea of the subject._ Rule 5g. _A curve should join a straight line with either a tangential or right angle junction._ REVIEW QUESTIONS 1. Contrast contour enrichment of wood, clay, and metal. 2. Define free and dependent outline in contour enrichment of base metal. 3. Describe and explain the use of the Ionic volute in contour enrichment of metal. 4. Define and present illustrations of contour enrichment designed for edges, corners, appendages, intermediate points, terminals, links, and other details in base metal. 5. Define and illustrate free and dependent contour enrichment of precious metal. [Illustration: FIGURE 190a.--Union of Outline Enrichment on Clay and Metal] CHAPTER IX SURFACE ENRICHMENT OF SMALL PRIMARY MASSES IN WOOD With this chapter we enter upon a consideration of the third and last major division of Industrial Arts Design, that of Surface Enrichment. [Sidenote: Nature and Need of Surface Enrichment] We have considered in previous chapters the subject of contour or outline enrichment. Now consider for a moment the fact that articles such as a square box, or tile, are not suited to outline enrichment, yet they have large, flat, and rather monotonous surfaces capable of decoration. It is readily seen that such surfaces will admit of further elaboration which we will distinguish from contour enrichment by using the term Surface Enrichment. As in contour enrichment, so in surface enrichment, the added element of design not only increases the beauty of the object but it likewise, if properly applied, gives apparent added strength to the structure. Rule 6a. _Surfaces to be enriched must admit of enrichment._ [Sidenote: When and Where to Enrich a Surface] Strictly utilitarian articles should not be ornamented by surface enrichment. As an example, a wooden mixing spoon, bowl, or wooden knife handle should not be enriched by carving, as the carving would interfere with the proper cleansing of the article. A surface exposed to considerable wear should not be enriched. Objects not strictly in the utilitarian class, such as a paper knife, book stall, envelope holder, or library table may be appropriately enriched in an unostentatious manner so that they will harmonize with their surroundings. But the enrichment should first be placed upon the surface in such a manner that it will not interfere with the functional use of the article for service. Large projections upon the back of a chair or upon the handle of a paper cutter are unpleasant and interfere with intended uses. [Illustration: FIGURE 191a.--Structure Obscured by Surface and Contour Enrichment] Rule 6b. _Surface enrichment must be related to the structural contours but must not obscure the actual structure._ Careful consideration should be given to the often-mentioned law that the surface enrichment must be thoroughly related to structure and contour but not so as to obscure either. We must keep in mind the fact that it is necessary to support the structure, not to cover it up by related ornament, as in Figure 191a. [Sidenote: Conservative Use of Ornament] Most critics of industrial design complain of an overwhelming desire upon the part of the designer to over-decorate the structure. Surface enrichment runs wild over steam radiators, stoves, and wooden rocking chairs. Reserve is the watchword recommended as of extreme importance. The illustrations in this chapter are restricted to a limited range of design motives for the express purpose of simplifying the number of recommended methods. Rule 6c. _The treatment must be appropriate to the material._ [Sidenote: Relation of Enrichment to Material] The close-fibered woods with smooth, even textures are capable of more delicate enrichment than woods of coarser grain. Small articles are generally seen from a close range and should, therefore, be ornamented with finer decoration than large articles, such as a piece of furniture that is to be seen from a distance. The latter should have surface enrichment of sufficient boldness to "carry" or to be distinct from a distant point. Furthermore the enrichment should not have a "stuck on" appearance, but be an integral part of the original mass. [Sidenote: Appropriate Methods of Surface Enrichment for Wood] There are three distinct means of ornamenting wood: (1) inlaying, depending for interest upon the difference in value and hue of the different inlaying woods used; (2) carved enrichment, depending upon line and mass for its beauty and made visible by contrasts of light and shade; (3) painting or staining of the surface with the interest dependent upon the colors or stains and their relation to each other and to the hue of the wood. It has been deemed wise to consider the first two types in the present chapter, and leave the last type for later consideration. In Chapters XV, XVI, and XVII, accentuation has been placed on wood coloring. The designer is advised to read those chapters before attempting to stain or color his problem. [Sidenote: Inlaying] Treating surface enrichment in its listed order we find that inlaying is one of the most common and best forms of enrichment for wood work. As inlaying readily adapts itself to bands and borders, emphasis is placed upon them. [Illustration: STRAIGHT LINE SURFACE ENRICHMENT OF A SMALL PRIMARY MASS IN WOOD BANDS AND BORDERS FOR INLAYING, CARVING, STAINING PLATE 32] Rule 6i. _Inlayed enrichment should never form strong or glaring contrasts with the parent surface._ [Sidenote: Errors in Wood Inlay] Two conspicuous errors are often associated with inlaid designs. The first is the use of woods affording a glaring contrast with that of the project. Figure 209, Page 106. The right contrast of value is established when the inlay seems neither to rise from the surface nor sink through it. It should remain _on the surface_ of the plane to be enriched, for it is surface enrichment. Figures 210, 211, and 212 are illustrative of pleasing contrasts. The second specific glaring error is the use of unrelated inlay. As an example, an Indian club is created by gluing many varicolored woods around a central core. The result of the pattern so formed has little relation to the structural lines, fails entirely to support them; and, as a result, should be discarded. [Sidenote: Carving] Carving is difficult for the average beginner in wood working design, therefore merely the simplest forms of the craft are suggested as advisable. Figure 205a. If an elaborate design is desired (Figure 205c), it should be first drawn in outline and finally modeled in relief by Plastelene. This model is then an effective guide for the carver, supplementing the original outline drawing. [Sidenote: Divisions of Carving] Carving may be roughly divided into the following groups: (1) high relief carving similar to heads, human figures, and capitals; (2) low relief carving in which the planes have been flattened to a comparatively short distance above the original block of wood, such as panels, which are good examples of this group; (3) pierced carving where the background has been entirely cut away in places, such as screens, which illustrate this type; (4) incised carving in which the design has been depressed _below_ the surface of the wood. Geometric chip carving is a representative type of this group. There are possible variations and combinations of these groups. Rule 6j. _Carved surface enrichment should have the appearance of belonging to the parent mass._ _The central governing thought_ in all carved designs is to show an interesting proportion of light and shade coupled with a unity between the raised portion of the design and the background. If the carving has a glued on appearance it becomes mechanical and resembles a stamped or machine-produced ornament. [Illustration: SURFACE ENRICHMENT OF SMALL PRIMARY MASSES IN WOOD WITH BORDERS OF CURVED AND STRAIGHT LINES FOR INLAYING, CARVING, STAINING PLATE 33] [Sidenote: Steps Taken in Carving] A typical carved enrichment is carried through four steps: (1) the design is transferred to the wood surface by means of carbon paper; (2) the design is "set in" or separated from the ground by means of a grooved chisel; (3) the wood is cut away from the back of the design by a process of grounding; (4) the leaves and flowers or other elements of the design are modeled. The designer should keep these processes in mind when developing his design. [Sidenote: The Designer's Vocabulary] It is now essential to find the extent of the vocabulary possible for the designer of surface enrichment. He has three large sources of information: first, geometric forms and abstract spots; second, natural organic objects such as flowers, leaves, animals, etc.; third, artificial objects, pots, jars, ink bottles, and other similar objects. He may assemble or group these objects or elements for future designs into four typical systems: first, bands or borders; second, panels; third, free ornament; and fourth, the diaper or all-over patterns. DESIGNING BANDS ON BORDERS Rule 6d. _Bands and borders should have a consistent lateral, that is, onward movement._ Rule 6e. _Bands and borders should never have a prominent contrary motion, opposed to the main forward movement._ [Sidenote: Bands] Bands are particularly suitable for inlaying. They are composed of straight lines arranged in some orderly and structurally related manner. They are used for bordering, framing, enclosing, or connecting. They give a decided _onward_ motion which tends to increase the apparent length of the surface to which they are applied. Referring to Plate 32, Figure 192, we find three typical bands, _A_, _B_, and _C_. It is often the custom to limit the width of the inlayed bands to the width of the circular saw cut. To secure unity, the center band in _C_ is wider than the outside sections. [Sidenote: Accenting] A possible variation of motive in band designing may be secured by accenting. The single band has been broken up at _D_ into geometric sections of pleasing length. But while this design gives variety, it also destroys the unity of a single straight line. Unity may, however, be restored by the addition of the top and bottom bands at _E_. This method of restoring unity is of extreme value in all border arrangements and is constantly used by the designer. [Illustration: SURFACE ENRICHMENT OF SMALL PRIMARY MASSES IN WOOD APPLICATION OF BANDS AND BORDERS PLATE 34] Rule 6f. _All component parts of a border should move in unison with the main movement of the border._ [Sidenote: Borders] Bands, as has just been stated, give distinctly "onward" movement. Borders are merely bands combined with other motives from the designer's vocabulary. As will be seen, bands, by their onward movement, tend to hold the other elements of the border together. Figure 193 is a border design without variety, unity, or interest. Figure 194 has added unity to a similar border by the addition of the double bands, but monotony is still present. Figure 195 suggests a method of relieving the monotony by accentuating every other repeat, thus supplying variety and creating an analogy to march-time music. Figure 196 has accentuated the monotonous border in Figure 194 by omitting every other square. This makes a simple and effective inlay pattern and suggests a large number of possible variations that could be applied to accented band motives. [Sidenote: Moorish Ornament] Figures 197 and 198 are border motives of geometric derivation taken from the historic schools of ornament. Figure 198 illustrates the "strap ornament" of the Moorish school. The simple underlying geometric net upon which these designs are based may be found in Meyer's Handbook of Ornament. INCEPTIVE AXES Rule 6h. _Borders intended for vertical surfaces may have a strongly upward movement in addition to the lateral movement, provided the lateral movement dominates._ [Sidenote: Upward and Onward Borders] In addition to the purely onward borders we now come to a variety with a distinctly _upward_ movement as well. While this new feature adds materially to the interest of the border, it also adds to the difficulty of designing. The upward movement is often centered about an axis termed the Axis of Symmetry or Inceptive Axis, about which are grouped and balanced the different elements from the designer's vocabulary. When both sides are alike, the unit so formed is called a _bilateral unit_. Figure 199 shows the formation of a bilateral unit by means of grouping, accenting, and balancing straight lines over an inceptive axis. By adding bands above and below and doubling these vertical lines to gain width, we form at _A_ and _B_, Figure 199, inlaid designs with an upward and onward tendency or movement. [Illustration: _Courtesy of Berkey and Gay_ FIGURE 215.--Inlaid Band Border] [Illustration: _Courtesy of Berkey and Gay_ FIGURE 216.--Single and Double Band Inlaid Border] The introduction of curved lines and natural units allows us to add more grace to these combined movements. The leading lines of a small border, designed to be seen at close range, are planned in Figure 200. The central line or inceptive axis is repeated at regular intervals and the leading or skeleton lines are balanced to the right and left of this axis. These leading lines, as can be readily seen, have an upward and onward movement. To insure continuity, a small link and the top and bottom bands have been added to complete the onward movement. [Illustration: _Courtesy of C.E. Partch_ FIGURE 216a.--Work of High School Students] Material for straight borders may be derived from geometry, nature, or artificial forms, but for borders designed in curves, nature is generally selected as a source. Figure 201 illustrates a crude and uninteresting form, unsuited to outline enrichment. Figure 202 has brought Figure 201 into some semblance of order, but as can be readily seen by the primary outline which encloses it, the widest point occurs exactly midway from top to bottom, which makes the form monotonous. This defect has been remedied in Figure 203 and an interesting and varied area appears for the first time. What Dr. Haney calls "the feebly flapping curve" of Figure 202 has been replaced by the vigorous and "snappy" curve of Figure 203, which gives what is termed a dynamic or rhythmic value in surface enrichment. [Illustration: _Courtesy of C.E. Partch_ FIGURE 216b.--Work of High School Students] Rule 6g. _Each component part of a border should be strongly dynamic and, if possible, partake of the main movements of the border._ Any form which causes the eye to move in a given direction is strongly _dynamic_, and is opposed to the _static_ form which does not cause a marked eye movement. A circle is symbolic of the static form, while a triangle is dynamic. In the designer's nomenclature, the term "rhythmic" may be used synonymously with "dynamic." Dynamic areas or forms should carry out the upward and onward movement of the leading lines. Figure 204 shows how closely dynamic areas are connected with nature's units for design motives. A slight change in the contour may transform a leaf into excellent material with which to clothe the leading lines. The curve of force, the cyma, and other curves described in previous chapters should be recognized by the designer and utilized in the contours of dynamic forms. [Illustration: _Courtesy of C.E. Partch_ FIGURE 216c.--Instruction Sheet Problem] The leading lines of the border in Figure 200 are shown clothed or enriched in Figure 205. Vigorous dynamic spots, conventionalized from natural units, continue the upward and onward movement of the original leading lines. As will be noted, the background has been treated to allow the spots to appear in relief. Small "fussy" spots or areas have been omitted and the units, varied in size and strongly dynamic in form, balance over an inceptive axis. The small link reaches out its helping hand to complete the onward movement without loss of unity, while the bands above and below bind the design together and assist in the lateral movement. Figure 205 shows three methods of treatment: simple spots without modeling, from _A_ to _B_; slight indications of modeling, from _B_ to _C_; full modeling of the entire unit at _C_. The choice of treatment depends, of course, upon the skill of the craftsman. [Illustration: _Courtesy of Berkey and Gay_ FIGURE 217.--Carved and Accented Border and Triple Carved Band] Figure 206 shows a design varied from formal balance over a central axis of symmetry or an inceptive axis. It has a decided onward movement with the leaves balanced above and below the stem which is the axis. The "repeat" has been reversed at _B_ and is more pleasing than the portion at _A_. The area of the background, in its relation to that used for ornamentation or "filling," cannot be predetermined with exactness. There should be no blank spaces for the eye to bridge. Some designers allow about one-third ground for two-thirds filling or enrichment. This proportion gives a full and rich effect and may be adopted in most instances as satisfactory. [Illustration: _Courtesy of C.E. Partch_ PLATE 35.--Instruction Sheet] [Sidenote: Point of Concentration--Effect upon Structure] When a border is used to parallel a rectangle it is customary to strengthen the border at the corners for two reasons: first, to strengthen, apparently, the structure at these points; second, to assist the eye in making the sudden turn at the corner. The corner enforcement affords momentary resting points for the eye, and adds pleasing variety to the long line of border. The strengthened point is called the _point of concentration_ or point of force. Its presence and effect may be noted by the symbol P.C. in Figures 207, 208, 213, and 214. [Sidenote: Chip Carving] Figure 213 represents the rather angular and monotonous chip carving motive. It is, however, a simple form of carved enrichment for wood construction. Figure 214 shows the more rhythmic flow of a carved and modeled enrichment. Two methods of leaf treatment are given at _A_ and _B_. Figures 215, 216, and 217 are industrial and public school examples of the forms of surface enrichment treated in this chapter. INSTRUCTION SHEET Plate 35 shows the necessary working drawings for wood inlay and is supplied as a typical high school problem by Mr. C.E. Partch of Des Moines, Iowa. See Figure 216c. SUMMARY OF DESIGN STEPS (_a_) Draw the primary rectangle, appendage, etc. (_b_) Subdivide the rectangle into its horizontal and vertical subdivisions. (_c_) Design very simple contour enrichment. (_d_) Determine the location of zone of enrichment, and the amount and method of enriching the surface. (_e_) Make several preliminary sketches to determine the best design and add the one finally selected to the structure. Correlate with contour enrichment. (_f_) Add additional views, dimension, and otherwise prepare the drawing for shop use. SUGGESTED PROBLEM Design a walnut side table 3 feet high and enrich with a double band inlay of ebony. SUMMARY OF RULES Rule 6a. _Surfaces to be enriched must admit of enrichment._ Rule 6b. _Surface enrichment must be related to the structural contours but must not obscure the actual structure._ Rule 6c. _The treatment must be appropriate to the material._ Rule 6d. _Bands and borders should have a consistent lateral, that is, onward movement._ Rule 6e. _Bands and borders should never have a prominent contrary motion, opposed to the main forward movement._ Rule 6f. _All component parts of a border should move in unison with the main movement of the border._ Rule 6g. _Each component part of a border should be strongly dynamic and, if possible, partake of the main movement of the border._ Rule 6h. _Borders intended for vertical surfaces may have a strongly upward movement in addition to the lateral movement, provided the lateral movement dominates._ Rule 6i. _Inlayed enrichment should never form strong or glaring contrasts with the parent surface._ Rule 6j. _Carved surface enrichment should have the appearance of belonging to the parent mass._ REVIEW QUESTIONS 1. Give the reasons why surface enrichment may be used as decoration. 2. State an original example illustrating when and where to use surface enrichment. 3. Name an object from the industrial arts in which the structure has been weakened or obscured by the application of surface enrichment. Name an example of the correct use of surface enrichment and state wherein it has been correctly applied. 4. How should surface enrichment of small masses differ from that applied to larger masses; in what manner does the fiber of the wood affect the design? 5. Name three means of enriching the surface of wood. Briefly describe the processes of inlaying and carving, with the design restrictions governing each. 6. Give three sources of ornament open to the designer of surface enrichment. 7. Draw an accented triple band motive for inlay. 8. What is the inceptive axis; a bilateral unit? What are leading lines; dynamic forms; points of concentration? 9. Design an upward and onward continuous carved border for wood and base it upon a vertical inceptive axis. Treat as in A, Figure 205. 10. Illustrate the manner in which structure may be apparently strengthened by a band or border. CHAPTER X SURFACE ENRICHMENT OF SMALL PRIMARY MASSES IN WOOD--Continued ENCLOSED AND FREE ORNAMENT [Sidenote: Enclosed Ornament (Panels)] Chapter IX dealt with methods of developing continuous or repeating ornament (bands or borders). This leaves enclosed and free forms of surface enrichment to be considered in this chapter. As an enclosed form, a panel may be enriched by geometric, natural, or artificial ornament. It is enclosed in a definite boundary of bands or lines and may be a square or other polygon, circle, ellipse, lunette, spandrel, lozenge, or triangle. As the decoration does not have the continuous repeating movement of the border and as it covers an enclosed area, it is necessarily treated in a different manner from either band or border. Its object is to decorate a plane surface. The enrichment may be made by means of carving, inlaying, or painting. [Sidenote: Free Ornament] Free ornament means the use of motives not severely enclosed by bands or panels. Free ornament is generally applied to centers or upper portions of surfaces to relieve a monotonous area not suited to either panel or border treatment. It may have an upward or a radial movement dependent upon the character of the member to be enriched. [Sidenote: Summary] We then have three forms of possible surface enrichment: repeating or continuous motives, enclosed motives, and free motives. Our next point is to consider where the last two may be used appropriately in surface enrichment. [Sidenote: Zone of Enrichment] The panel of a small primary mass of wood may be enriched at any one of three places: first, at the margins; second, at the center; third, over the entire surface. The exact position is a matter to be determined by the structural design and the utilitarian requirements of the problem. For example, a bread board or taboret top would require the enrichment in the margin with the center left free. A table leg might require an enrichment in the center of the upper portion of the leg, while a square panel to be inserted in a door, Figure 233, Page 124, might require full surface treatment. [Sidenote: Structural Reinforcement] Each area of panel enrichment should have one or more accented points known as points of concentration. The design should become more prominent at these places and cause the eye to rest for a moment before passing to the next point of prominence. The accented portion of the design at these points should be so related to the structure that it apparently reinforces the structure as a whole. Corners, centers of edges, and geometric centers are salient parts of a structure; we shall therefore be likely to find our points of concentration coinciding with them. Let us then consider the first of these arrangements as applied to enclosed enrichment. MARGINAL PANEL ENRICHMENT ENCLOSED ENRICHMENT FOR PARTLY ENRICHED SURFACES Rule 7a. _Marginal panel enrichment should parallel or be related to the outlines of the primary mass and to the panel it is to enrich._ Rule 7b. _Marginal points of concentration in panels should be placed (1) preferably at the corner or (2) in the center of each margin._ Rule 7c. _To insure unity of design in panels, the elements composing the points of concentration and the links connecting them must be related to the panel contour and to each other._ [Sidenote: Marginal Zone Enrichment] The marginal method of enrichment may be used when it is impossible to enrich the entire surface because the center is to be used for utilitarian purposes or because it would be aesthetically unwise to enrich the entire surface. The marginal zone is adapted to enriching box tops, stands, table tops, and similar surfaces designed preferably with the thought of being seen from above. We shall call such surfaces horizontal planes. As the design is to be limited to the margin, the panel outline is bound to parallel the contours, or outlines, of the surface to be enriched. It is well to begin the design by creating a panel parallel to the outlines of the enriched surface. Figure 218. The next step is to place the point of concentration in the marginal zone and within this figure. Common usage dictates the _corners_ as the proper points. [Sidenote: Points of Concentration] [Sidenote: Points of Concentration in the Corner of Margin] It may be the designer's practice to use the single or double bands, Figures 218, 219, 220, with a single accentuation at the corners. The spots composing the point of concentration must have unity with the enclosing contours and with the remainder of the enrichment. Figure 220 is, in this respect, an improvement over Figure 219. But these examples are not _true_ enclosed panel enrichment. They are the borders of Chapter IX acting as marginal enrichment. It is not until we reach Figure 221 that the true enclosed enrichment appears, when the panel motive is clearly evident. In this figure a single incised band parallels the contours of the figure until the corner is reached. Here we find it turning, gracefully widening to give variety, and supporting the structure by its own increased strength. The single band in Figure 221 acts as a bridge, leads the eye from one point of concentration to the next similar point, forms a compact mass with the point of concentration, and parallels the enclosing contours of the enriched surface. [Sidenote: Points of Concentration in the Center of Margin] In Figure 222 the point of concentration is to be found in the _center_ of each margin. This bilateral unit is clearly designed on and about the center lines of the square panel. These points of concentration take the place of previous concentrations at the _corners_ which were based upon the square's diagonals. While accenting based upon the center lines is acceptable, this means of concentration does not seem so successfully to relate the accented part to the structural outlines as that of concentration based upon the diagonals. The latter, therefore, is recommended for beginners. The corners of Figure 222 are, however, slightly accented by means of the bridging spots _x-x_. [Sidenote: Inceptive Axes or Balancing Lines] The diagonals and center lines of the surface enriched squares of Figures 221 and 222 and similar structural lines are _inceptive axes_, as they are center lines for new design groups. It may then be said that a strong basic axis or similar line depending upon the structure, may become the center line or inceptive axis upon which to construct a bilateral design. It is only necessary to have this inceptive axis pass through the enrichment zone of the panel. Hereafter in the drawings, inceptive axes will be designated by the abbreviation I.A. while the point of concentration will be indicated by the abbreviation P.C. [Illustration: SURFACE ENRICHMENT OF SMALL PRIMARY MASSES IN WOOD MARGINAL ENRICHMENT OF SQUARE AREAS SYMBOLS: {PC} POINT OF CONCENTRATION; {IA} INCEPTIVE AXIS TOOL PROCESSES. INLAYING AND CARVING PLATE 36] [Sidenote: Inceptive Axis] The strongest plea for the inceptive axis is the fact that it interlocks surface enrichment with the structure, insuring a degree of unity that might otherwise be unattainable. The carved enrichment of Figure 223 fully illustrates this point. The analytical study of Figure 224 shows the diagonal used as an inceptive axis, with the leading lines grouped about it at the corner point of concentration. FREE ENRICHMENT Rule 8a. _Free ornament for partly or fully enriched surfaces should be based and centered upon an inceptive axis of the structure._ Rule 8b. _Free ornament should be related and subordinated to the structural surfaces._ Rule 8c. _Points of concentration in free enrichment of vertically placed masses are usually located in and around the inceptive axis and above or below the geometric center of the design._ [Sidenote: Center Zone Enrichment] This method of surface enrichment is used to relieve the design of heavy members in the structure or to distribute ornament over the surface of lighter parts in a piece of furniture. An example is noted in Figure 246, Page 128, where the upper portion of the legs has center enrichment. As can be readily seen, the enrichment is generally free in character with little or no indication of enclosure. Figure 225 shows the application of free enrichment to a paneled screen or hinged door. The P.C. is in the upper portion of the door and is re-echoed in the door frames, while the ornament itself is strongly dynamic in movement with a decided upward tendency in sympathy with the proportions of the door. This motive might be developed by inlay, carving, or paint. Figure 226 is a carved Gothic leaf, appropriately used as enrichment of heavy furniture. The unit may be raised above the surface or, even more easily, depressed or incised into the surface. The small corner spot is added with the intention of bringing the leaf into sympathetic conformity with the contours. Note how the center line of both units in Figures 225 and 226 coincides with the inceptive axis of the structure. Let it again be reiterated that this binding of the surface enrichment to the structure by means of the coincidence of the axes of symmetry and the inceptive axes causes the most positive kind of unity. No part of this form of enrichment should be carved sufficiently high to give it the appearance of being separated from the main surface. [Illustration: SURFACE ENRICHMENT OF SMALL PRIMARY MASSES IN WOOD FREE CENTER ENRICHMENT FOR VERTICAL AREAS TOOL PROCESSES: INLAYING, LOW RELIEF CARVING PLATE 37] [Sidenote: Examples of Free Enrichment] Figures 227 and 228 are additional examples of free enrichment. Figure 228 has introduced by its monogram the individual touch of ownership so essential to the success of school designing. The monogram represents free enrichment while the border is marginal decoration with the point of concentration in the center of the top edge. Both types of enrichment are related to each other and to the structural contours. [Sidenote: Pierced Free Enrichment] [Sidenote: Errors in the Use of Pierced Enrichment] Figure 229 is typical free _pierced_ enrichment. The wood in the enriched portion is removed and the resulting figure supplies added lightness of construction and variety to the surface. One encounters this form of enrichment in the average school project with greater frequency than either inlaying or carving. It is with the thought of adding to the possibilities of school project decoration that the latter forms have been introduced. A word regarding the errors often encountered in pierced enrichment of the character of Figure 229 may not be amiss. Pupils, believing the square to be the last word in this form of enrichment, place the figure on the member to be enriched with little thought of its possible relation to the structural contours; the result is the un-unified design illustrated in Figure 230. To correct this, reference should be made to Rule 8b. FULL PANEL ENRICHMENT Rule 7d. _The contours of fully enriched panels should parallel the outlines of the primary mass and repeat its proportions._ [Sidenote: Full Surface Enrichment] This is the richest and most elaborate form of enrichment when carried to its full perfection. It generally takes the form of a panel filled with appropriate design material. This panel may be used to enrich the plain end of a project such as a book stall and thus cover the entire surface, or it may be inserted into a large primary mass and accentuate its center as in a door, in a manner similar to Figure 233. Its use, whatever its position, leads us to the consideration of methods of designing full panels. [Illustration: SURFACE ENRICHMENT OF SMALL PRIMARY MASSES IN WOOD ENCLOSED ENRICHMENT: SQUARE AND RECTANGULAR PANELS--TOOL PROCESSES CARVING, INLAYING PLATE 38] Rule 7e. _The points of concentration for a fully enriched square panel may be in its center or in its outer margin._ [Sidenote: Square Panels] In planning designs for full panels, it would be well to consider: first, square panels; second, rectangular panels; third, varied panels. The point of concentration may be kept in the _corners_ of a square panel, as designed in Figure 231, or it may be placed in the _center_, as shown in Figure 232. The effects, when assembled, are indicated in Figure 233. To secure these effects, a square panel is commonly divided into quarter sections by center lines. The diagonals of each quarter should be drawn before proceeding with the details of the design. These diagonals and center lines are the building lines or leading _axes_ of the pattern. The _leading lines and details_ are then grouped around these center and diagonal axes in a manner quite similar to the method used in Figures 223 and 224. These leading lines are then _clothed with enrichment_ by applying the processes indicated in Chapter IX. [Sidenote: Steps in Panel Designing] Without going into detail we may say that it is good practice: first, to draw the square panel; second, to draw the center lines and diagonals; third, to locate points of concentration; fourth, to make the leading lines move inwardly to center concentration or outwardly to corner concentration; fifth, to clothe these lines with ornament having strongly dynamic movement corresponding to the leading lines; sixth, to fill in remaining space with ornament, supporting the movement toward points of concentration, even though slight and minor contrasts of direction are added to give variety. When the entire design is completed one should ask the following questions: Does the design have unity? Does it seem too thin and spindling? And most of all, do the points of concentration and shape of the panel fit the structural outlines and proportions? We cannot fit a square peg into a round hole; neither can we fit a square panel into a circular or rectangular mass without considerable change to the panel. Figures 234 and 235 have been drawn with the idea of suggesting a simple and modified form of panel enrichment which may be readily handled by the beginner. The tree as a decorative symbol is appropriate to wood, and its adaption to a square panel is drawn at Figure 235. [Illustration: SURFACE ENRICHMENT OF SMALL PRIMARY MASSES IN WOOD ENCLOSED PANEL ENRICHMENT--FORMAL AND FREE BALANCE APPLICATION OF NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL MOTIVES PLATE 39] [Sidenote: Rectangular Panels] While a rectangular panel may be divided into sections by a number of different methods, it is well for the beginner in design to treat it as a vertical mass, designed to enrich a vertical surface. This vertical panel may then be divided into halves by the axis of symmetry, which should coincide with an inceptive axis, but it is not essential to balance the enrichment exactly in each half. Small deviations from exact symmetry sometimes give added variety to the design. Figure 235. Rule 7f. _The points of concentration for a fully enriched vertical panel should be in the upper portion of the panel._ [Sidenote: Vertical Panels] The point of concentration in vertical panels should be in the upper portion, and all parts of the design, both leading lines and clothing, should have a strong upward tendency. Figure 236 is a vertical panel from historic ornament. The heavier parts have been designed at the bottom for stability and the lighter and more intricate members have been placed at the top. Rule 7g. _The fully enriched panel and its contents should be designed in unified relation to the structural outlines, with the center line of the panel coinciding with the inceptive axis of the structure._ To see how to apply rectangular panels to wood surfaces, let us look at Figure 240. This is a simple design with an incised background and might be used for enriching a narrow paneled door, newel post, or frame. The large areas are at the bottom; the point of concentration is at the top, and the entire design balances over the inceptive axis. The point of concentration consists of the geometrically treated small flower form, with its original lines modified to simplify the carving processes. The stem coincides with the inceptive axis, while narrow and sympathetically related minor panels fill in the background and keep the design from appearing weak and thin. [Sidenote: Adapting Data to Material] Figure 237 is an accurate rendering of the flower form and is the _data or record of facts_ for Figure 240. Figure 238 introduces the method of plotting the areas from these facts. Variety of form and area is, at this stage, desirable. Figure 239 has assembled these areas into orderly balance over the axis of symmetry. Figure 240 has again slightly modified them to apply to the vertical panel in wood. [Illustration: _Courtesy of Berkey and Gay_ FIGURE 246.--Example of Free and Marginal Enrichment] VARIED PANELS [Sidenote: Panels of Varied Shapes] The panels under consideration up to this time have been designed to harmonize with square and rectangular contours. The panel may, however, become a most flexible and sympathetic element, changing its form to suit the ever-changing contours. But though change of shape affects the contents of the panel to a certain extent the points of concentration and the inceptive axes still act as our guide. Objects are arranged formally on each side of the inceptive axes and the space filling is approximately the same as in former examples. [Sidenote: Use of Artificial Objects] The still life sketches of the art class may be conventionalized into appropriate motives for utilitarian objects as shown in Figure 241. This use of still life suggests a most desirable correlation and a welcome one to many drawing teachers. Three points should be kept in mind: first, adaptability of the object, its decorative possibilities, and appropriateness to service; second, adjustment of the panel to contours; third, adjustment of the object to the wood panel. Some portion of the object should be designed to parallel the panel. Small additional spots may assist in promoting harmony between the object and the panel boundary. These three considerations are essentially necessary factors in the design of enclosed enrichment. Figures 242 and 243 are other adaptations of panel design to varied contours. [Sidenote: Free Balance] In the foregoing examples the designs are more or less rigidly balanced over the inceptive axis or axis of symmetry. Imaginary axis it is, but, acting with the panel, it nevertheless arbitrarily limits the position of all parts within the panel. By removing this semblance of formal balance, we approach what is termed _free balance_. In this we find that the designer attempts to balance objects informally over the geometric center of the panel or combined panels. As the arrow points in Figure 244 indicate, the problem is to balance the trees in an informal and irregular manner, avoiding "picket fence" regularity. In all of this freedom there is a sense of order, since a mass of trees on one side of the geometric center is balanced by a similar mass on the other side. Indeed, in Figure 244 this may be carried even to the point of duplicating in reverse order the outside panels of the Triptych. [Illustration: RULES 7D TO 7E--ENCLOSED SURFACE ENRICHMENT WITH APPLICATION OF STILL LIFE TO A FULLY ENRICHED SURFACE PLATE 40] Figure 245 again reverts to artificial motives, illustrated in free balance. The jet of steam is the unifying factor which brings the cup into harmony with the enclosing space. Figure 246 shows illustrations of free balance and border enrichment from the industrial market. INSTRUCTION SHEET Plate 40 indicates the necessary design steps for a panel surface enrichment correlating with still life drawing. Note the connection between the ink bottle, pen, and book as used to decorate a book stall. SUMMARY OF DESIGN STEPS FOR SQUARE PANEL SURFACE ENRICHMENT (_a_) Draw the primary rectangle of the principal surface, appendages, etc. (_b_) Subdivide into major vertical and horizontal divisions. (_c_) Design simple contour enrichment. Determine location of zone of enrichment (the panel), the amount and method of enriching the surface. (_d_) Draw outline of the panel which should be sympathetically related to the contours. (_e_) Draw diameters, diagonals, or center lines of the panel. Regard these as possible inceptive axes. (_f_) Locate points of concentration on either diameters, diagonals, or center lines. (_g_) Draw leading lines in sympathy with the contours of the panel, the inceptive axis, and the point of concentration. (_h_) Clothe the leading lines with enrichment that shall be appropriate to the structure, the material, and the intended service. Note the result. Is the panel agreeably filled without appearing overcrowded or meager? Several preliminary sketches should be made. (_i_) Add additional views, dimension, and otherwise prepare the drawing for shop use. SUGGESTED PROBLEM Design a glove box and enrich the cover with a simple carved panel with marginal panel enrichment. SUMMARY OF RULES ENCLOSED SURFACE ENRICHMENT FOR PARTLY ENRICHED PANELS Rule 7a. _Marginal panel enrichment should parallel or be related to the outlines of the primary mass, and to the panel it is to enrich._ Rule 7b. _Marginal points of concentration in panels should be placed (1) preferably at the corners or (2) in the center of each margin._ Rule 7c. _To insure unity of design in panels, the elements composing the points of concentration and the links connecting them must be related to the panel contour and to each other._ ENCLOSED SURFACE ENRICHMENT FOR FULLY ENRICHED PANELS Rule 7d. _The contours of fully enriched panels should parallel the outlines of the primary mass and repeat its proportions._ Rule 7e. _The points of concentration for a fully enriched square panel may be in its center or in its outer margin._ Rule 7f. _The points of concentration for a fully enriched vertical panel should be in the upper portion of the panel._ Rule 7g. _The fully enriched panel and its contents should be designed in unified relation to the structural outlines, with the center line of the panel coinciding with the inceptive axis of the structure._ FREE SURFACE ENRICHMENT Rule 8a. _Free ornament for partly or fully enriched surfaces should be based and centered upon an inceptive axis of the structure._ Rule 8b. _Free ornament should be related and subordinated to the structural surfaces._ Rule 8c. _Points of concentration in free enrichment of vertically placed masses are usually located in and around the inceptive axis and above or below the geometric center of the design._ Postulate: _Surface enrichment should be inseparably linked to the surface and to the outlines or contours_. REVIEW QUESTIONS 1. What is a panel? 2. State three sections or areas at which a panel may be enriched. Give reasons for selecting a given area. 3. Explain relation of point of concentration to each section. 4. In marginal enrichment, is it preferable to locate the point of concentration in the center or corner of the margin? Why? 5. What is the value of an inceptive axis with relation to the unity of a design? What is its relation to the structure? 6. Give the characteristics and use of free enrichment. 7. State the use of full panel enrichment. 8. Where may the point of concentration be located in full square panel enrichment? 9. Name six steps essential to the designing of a square panel. 10. For what specific purpose is a vertical rectangular panel adapted? 11. Where should the point of concentration be located in a vertical rectangular panel? 12. Draw a flower form and adapt it to a carved enrichment in wood. 13. To what uses are panels of varied shapes adapted? 14. How may artificial objects be adapted to surface enrichment? 15. Explain the term "free balance." CHAPTER XI SURFACE ENRICHMENT WITH MINOR SUBDIVISIONS OF LARGE PRIMARY MASSES IN WOOD [Sidenote: Minor Subdivisions] This article is, in part, a brief summary and review of Rules 2a, 2b, 3a, 3b, 3c (vertical and horizontal major divisions) with application to minor subdivisions. By minor spacings or subdivisions in wood work we refer to the areas occupied by drawers, doors, shelves, and other small parts subordinated in size to the large or major divisions such as large front or side panels, etc. These smaller or minor subdivisions in wood work are bounded by runners, rails, guides, and stiles depending upon the form of construction and character of the minor subdivision. Major divisions are often bounded by legs, table tops, and principal rails. It is an interesting and useful fact that rules governing major divisions generally apply equally well to minor ones. There are a few exceptions and additions to be noted in their appropriate places. When minor subdivisions are well planned they supply one of the most interesting forms of surface enrichment or treatment, for if we consider paneling an appropriate form of decoration, we are equally privileged to feel that each small drawer or door adds its quota of interest to the sum total of the entire mass. We are equally justified in accenting these drawers or doors with panel decoration or other forms of surface enrichment provided that harmony is maintained. These minor subdivisions, properly enriched, may become equalizers, or elements which adjust the design to the character of the surroundings destined to receive the project of which they are a part. [Sidenote: Vertical Sections and Their Divisions] With reference to the illustrations, Figure 247, Plate 41, shows a simple minor panel treatment falling under Rule 3a. Single or preferably double band inlay might have been suitably substituted for the sunken panels. As many craftsmen are not properly equipped to produce inlays, it is practicable to use stock inlays, thus simplifying the process. [Illustration: SURFACE ENRICHMENT AND MINOR SPACE DIVISIONS FOR LARGE PRIMARY MASSES IN WOOD. ACCENTUATION OF MINOR VERTICAL DIVISIONS PLATE 41] [Sidenote: Minor Subdivisions of Three Vertical Major Parts or Divisions] In a three-part design it is the designer's desire to gain the effect of lightness and height by the use of Rule 3b. As a simple treatment of a three-part design, Figure 248 needs little comment. Figures 249 and 250 are examples of dividing, by means of minor divisions, the outer sections of a three-part design. The small drawers in the right and left sections of Figure 250 might have been improved in proportion by again applying Rule 2a to their design, thereby varying the measure of their heights. The enclosed panel enrichment affords pleasing variety to the otherwise unvaried front panels. Rule 7g. [Sidenote: Unbroken Vertical Divisions] Figures 251 and 252 show unbroken drawer runners continuing through all three vertical sections, thus definitely binding these sections together. It is seen that this device is conducive to unity, whenever two or three vertical divisions have been used. Figure 252 is a repetition of Figure 251, but shows the echo or continuation of the three divisions of the primary mass into the appendage. The use of the single or double band enrichment still further binds the minor subdivisions of the primary mass into ideal unity with the appendage. SEQUENTIAL PROGRESSION OF MINOR HORIZONTAL SPACE DIVISIONS Rule 2c. _A primary mass may be divided into three or more smaller horizontal masses or sections by placing the larger mass or masses at the bottom and by sequentially reducing the height measure of each mass toward the smaller division or divisions to be located at the top of the mass._ [Sidenote: Sequential Arrangement of Minor Horizontal Divisions] Rule 2c. Let us now imagine the center section of a three-part design to be removed and extended upward. Its transformation by this process into a cabinet or chiffonier similar to Figure 253, Plate 42, introduces the new principle of _sequential progression_. Instead of adhering to the limitation of Rules 2a and 2b, this arrangement shows that the horizontal divisions may be gradually decreased in height from the bottom toward the top of the primary mass. By this rhythmic decrease in the measure of the height, the eye is led through an orderly gradation through lesser areas to the top, thus giving a pleasing sensation of lightness and variety to the structure. By this method, also, the large areas are retained at the bottom to give stability and solidity to the structure. A quick test of these conditions may be made by reversing Figure 254, thus producing a more decidedly pleasing effect. [Illustration: SURFACE ENRICHMENT AND MINOR SPACE DIVISIONS FOR LARGE PRIMARY MASSES IN WOOD SEQUENTIAL ARRANGEMENT OF MINOR HORIZONTAL DIVISIONS IN ONE OR THREE VERTICAL DIVISIONS PLATE 42] [Sidenote: Sequential Arrangements--(_Continued_)] This orderly gradation or sequence of heights need not be carried out with absolute mathematical precision such as 7 - 6 - 5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1. Arrangements similar to the following progression make for equally pleasing and more varied effect: 9-1/4 - 8 - 6-3/4 - 6 - 5 - 4-3/4. Many designers repeat similar heights for two neighboring horizontal spaces as, 6 - 5 - 5 - 4-3/4, but the upward gradation should be apparent. Figure 255, an Austrian motive, shows a strongly marked sequence with the top division broken by Rule 3b. It is better practice to keep such attempts confined to the bottom or top members of the sequence or loss of unity may be the final result. By applying this principle to the center section of a three-part design, we now have illustrated in Figure 256 the new sequence in its application, and Figures 257 and 258 are variations of the same idea. [Sidenote: Two Horizontal and Three Vertical Divisions] We now come to the transitional type of design where three _vertical_ sections begin to lose their dominance as major divisions, but still retain their places in the design as minor sections. Replacing these in prominence is the _horizontal_ major section or division. The first immediate result of this change as shown in Plate 43 is to produce a more compact surface with a greater impression of length because of the presence of strongly accented horizontal lines which are always associated with horizontal divisions. This transitional style with its minor but dominant horizontal divisions would harmonize with the long horizontal lines of a room or similar lines in the furniture. The full expression of this style or type will be readily seen by comparing Plates 43 and Figures 251 and 252, Plate 41. Several styles of period furniture have been introduced in Plate 43 to prove the universality of these principles of space divisions. [Illustration: SURFACE ENRICHMENT AND MINOR SUB DIVISIONS FOR LARGE PRIMARY MASSES IN WOOD THREE VERTICAL DIVISIONS CROSSED BY TWO HORIZONTAL DIVISIONS PLATE 43] [Sidenote: Dominance of Lower or Upper Sections] Figures 259, 260, and 262, Plate 43, are divided by three minor vertical sections cut by two minor horizontal divisions with the dominance in the _lower section_. Rule 2a. The arrangement of the small central drawers could have been more varied by the application of the principle of sequential progression. Figures 261 and 263 show similar vertical spacings with a difference in the arrangements of the horizontal divisions. In these figures the dominance has been placed in the _upper section_ of the primary mass by the division created by the runner above the lower drawer. It is likewise seen that Figure 263 needs a top appendage to bind the top into closer unity with minor spacings. [Sidenote: Transitional Types] In carrying the transitional type to which we have referred in the previous paragraphs from the vertical space influence toward the horizontal, we are gradually approaching _three minor horizontal divisions_, still maintaining three minor vertical divisions in a modified and less prominent form. Figure 264 is an approach toward three horizontal divisions. As only one clear-cut horizontal space division is visible, this figure is not a pure example. The upper horizontal space division is broken up into a three-part design by the drawer guides. It is not until we reach Figure 266 that three horizontal divisions are clearly evident. HORIZONTAL DIVISIONS [Sidenote: Three Minor Horizontal Divisions Cut by Varying Numbers of Vertical Divisions] The horizontal minor divisions in furniture are generally drawer runners and the vertical minor divisions are often drawer guides. The horizontal divisions may be arranged in either one of two ways: first, by the application of Rule 2b; or second, by applying Rule 2c, the rule of sequential progression. Figures 266, 267, and 268, Plate 44, are representative of the former while Figures 269 and 270 are typical of the latter. The result in either case is a compactly designed and solid mass of simple structural lines. On some occasions we find the three-part rule used for minor divisions within the horizontal sections, while again the two-part rule is used. The method depends upon the desired use and appearance. In either case the long areas and large masses are to be retained as far as possible near the bottom of each primary mass, as this custom tends to give a sense of solidity to the design. [Sidenote: Four Vertical Divisions] Figure 271 is a rare reversion to more than three vertical divisions. In this case, Rule 3c has been observed and we find all of the panels are of equal size. Variety has been secured by means of the horizontal spacings. FREE BALANCE [Sidenote: Free Minor Space Treatment] [Sidenote: Free Balance] This form of design is inherent in the Japanese system. It consists in the planning and balancing of unequal areas over a geometric center. It is not subject to definite rules as is the more formal balancing. The reader is referred to Mr. Arthur Dow's excellent book on Composition for further discussion of the subject. Figure 272, Plate 45, is an example of partly formal and partly free balance and its method of treatment. [Sidenote: Carving and Piercing as Applied to Large Masses] Figures 273 and 274 are pierced designs, thoroughly related to the structure and in no way weakening it. Figure 273 is representative of a type which, if carried to extremes, will cause the structure to become too weak for service; it is, therefore, necessary to guard and restrict this form of enrichment. The carving of Figure 275, combined with the contour enrichment, forms a pleasing variation to this common type of furniture design. Small minor details in furniture construction should be designed with as much care as the larger major or minor parts. The larger areas or spaces in small details similar to stationery shelves and pigeon holes must harmonize in proportion with the space in which they are placed and of which they are a part. [Sidenote: Small Minor Details of Large Primary Masses] The three-part or three-vertical division system, Rule 3b, is generally used to design the small details in furniture as may be seen in Figures 276, 277, 278, and 279; while the rule of sequence, Rule 2c, may be employed again to subdivide these small details in a horizontal direction with as much variety as is consistent with unity. Figure 280 is a leaded glass surface enrichment for doors. Note the leading lines of the enrichment as they parallel the dominant proportions of the panel opening. INSTRUCTION SHEET Plate 46 is a typical high school sheet of design problems, with the masses accentuated by pen shading. See Plate 15. SUMMARY OF DESIGN STEPS (_a_) to (_e_). See similar steps in Chapter IV. [Illustration: SURFACE ENRICHMENT AND MINOR SUB DIVISIONS FOR LARGE PRIMARY MASSES IN WOOD FREE MINOR SPACINGS. APPENDAGES. PIERCED AND CARVED ENRICHMENT. PLATE 45] SUGGESTED PROBLEM Design a sideboard 3 feet 3 inches high with plate rack. The primary mass should have three minor horizontal divisions and three minor vertical divisions, with the horizontal divisions accented. SUMMARY OF RULES SEQUENTIAL PROGRESSION OF MINOR HORIZONTAL SPACE DIVISIONS Rule 2c. _A primary mass may be divided into three or more smaller horizontal masses or sections by placing the larger mass or masses at the bottom and by sequentially reducing the height measure of each mass toward the smaller division or divisions to be located at the top of the mass._ REVIEW QUESTIONS 1. What are minor subdivisions in wood construction? 2. What is the effect of a design with dominant vertical major divisions? State its use. 3. Show some customary methods of dividing three vertical major divisions into minor subdivisions. 4. State the rule of sequential progression. Give illustrations from the industrial arts. 5. Describe the transitional stage between the point where the dominance of the vertical motive ceases and the horizontal influence begins. 6. What is the effect of a design with dominant horizontal major divisions? State its use. 7. Show some customary methods of subdividing horizontal major divisions into minor subdivisions. 8. What should be the relation in a design between the details of a project and the divisions of the primary mass? [Illustration: INSTRUCTION SHEET SURFACE ENRICHMENT OF LARGE MASSES IN WOOD DRAWING AND DESIGN BY A. J. FOX. U. OF W. PLATE 46] CHAPTER XII SURFACE ENRICHMENT OF CLAY [Sidenote: Limitations for Surface Enrichment] In some respects the surface enrichment of clay is similar to that of wood as, for example, the similarity produced by inlays in clay and in wood. On the other hand the enrichment of clay is unhampered by the restricting effects of unequal resistance of the material, such as the grain of wood. Again it _is_ limited to those effects or forms of enrichment that are capable of withstanding the intense heat to which ceramic decoration is subjected. See Frontispiece. [Illustration: _Courtesy of the Rookwood Potteries_ FIGURE 281.--Filling the Saggars before Firing] [Sidenote: Decorative Processes of Surface Enrichment] Before proceeding with a design it is well for one to understand clearly the possibilities of clay enrichment. He must know what kind of designs are best suited to clay as a medium, to the intended service, and to the ultimate application of the heat of the pottery kiln. Without entering into technicalities let us briefly discuss the following processes. The first three deal with finger and tool manipulation of the clay body and are consequently the simpler of the processes. The last five are concerned chiefly with the addition of coloring pigments either to the clay or to the glaze and are, therefore, more complex in character. [Illustration: _Courtesy of The Rookwood Potteries_ FIGURE 282.--Stacking the Kiln] [Sidenote: Forms of Manipulation] PROCESSES Rule 9a. _Surface enrichment of clay must be so designed as to be able to withstand the action of heat to which all ware must be submitted._ Rule 9b. _Incised, pierced, and modeled decoration in clay should be simple and bold and thus adapted to the character of the material._ [Sidenote: Incising] 1. This is the simplest form of enrichment, a process familiar to the earliest primitive potters and appropriate now for beginners. It consists of the process of lowering lines or planes into the clay body to the depth of from one-sixteenth to one-eighth of an inch. These lines or planes should be bold and broad. They may be made with a blunt pencil or a flat pointed stick. A square, rectangular, or round stick may be used as a stamp with which to form a pattern for incising. Illustrations of simple incising may be found in Figures 283, 284, 295, 319, 330. The tiles shown are about six inches square. [Sidenote: Piercing] 2. This process is less common and, as its name implies, is carried out by cutting through the clay. It may be done with a fine wire. Either the background or the design itself may be thus removed. The effect produced is that of lightening an object such as the top of a hanging flower holder, a window flower box, or a lantern shade. [Sidenote: Modeling] 3. By adding clay to the main body, and by working this clay into low relief flower or geometric forms, one has the basic process of modeling. The slightly raised areas of clay form a pleasing play of light and shade that varies the otherwise plain surface of the ware. The process should be used with caution, for over-modeling, Figure 325, will obstruct the structural outlines and, because of its over prominence as decoration, will cease to be _surface enrichment_. In the technical language of the designer over-modeling is an enrichment which is not subordinated to the surface. In articles intended for service this high relief modeling is unsanitary and unsatisfactory. Figures 286 and 287 show incising with slight modeling, while 324, 328, and 329 are examples of more complex enrichment. [Illustration: SURFACE ENRICHMENT OF CLAY RECTANGULAR AND SQUARE AREAS PLATE 47] [Sidenote: Introduction of Coloring Pigments] With the introduction of the second group comes an added interest and difficulty, that of the introduction of color. Pigments that will withstand the application of heat are suggested at different points. [Sidenote: Inlay] 4. This process consists of removing certain areas from the clay body to the depth of one-eighth inch and filling in the depression with tinted clay. Tints formed by the addition of ten per cent or less of burnt umber or yellow ochre to the modeling clay will give interesting effects. Figures 284, 285, 320, and 321 show forms which may be developed by this process. Sgraffito, an Italian process, is more difficult than inlaying, but the effect is similar. A thin layer of colored clay is placed over the natural clay body, and the design is developed by cutting away this colored coating in places, thus exposing the natural clay body. Figure 306. There are variations of this plan that may be attempted by the advanced designer. [Sidenote: Slip Painting] 5. Slip is clay mixed with water to the consistency of cream. For slip painting this mixture is thoroughly mixed with not more than ten per cent of coloring pigment as represented by the underglaze colors of the ceramist. This thick, creamy, colored slip is then painted on the surface of the clay body while damp, much as the artist would apply oil colors. The ware, when thoroughly dried, is glazed and fired, which produces the effect shown in Figures 290, 291, and 327. The color range is large; almost any color may be used with the exception of reds and strong yellows. A colorless transparent glaze should be used over beginner's slip painting. [Sidenote: Colored Glazes] 6. This process refers to the direct introduction of the colored pigment into the glaze. By varying the glaze formula we may have a clear, transparent, or glossy glaze similar to Figure 317, a dull surfaced opaque effect, termed a matt glaze, Figure 332; or a glossy but opaque faience glaze similar to the blue and white Dutch tiles. There are other forms such as the crystalline and "reduced" glazes, but these as a rule are far beyond the ability of the beginning craftsman in ceramics. [Sidenote: Combinations] It is possible to use these three types of glazed surface in various ways. For example, a vase form with an interesting contour may be left without further surface enrichment except that supplied by clear glaze or by a colored matt similar to certain types of Teco Ware. [Illustration: SURFACE ENRICHMENT OF CLAY SHALLOW CIRCULAR FORMS: PLATES, ETC PLATE 48] It is likewise possible to apply transparent glazes over incised designs, inlay or slip painting, increasing their beauty and the serviceability of the ware. A semi-transparent glaze is sometimes placed over slip painting giving the charm inherent to the Vellum Ware of the Rookwood Potteries. Figure 332. Greens, blues, yellows, and browns, with their admixtures, are the safest combinations for the craftsman who desires to mix his own glazes. [Sidenote: Underglaze Painting] 7. This process may be seen in the examples of Newcomb Pottery illustrated particularly in Figure 314 or 326. The underglaze pigment is thinly painted upon the fired "biscuit," or unglazed ware. A thin, transparent glaze is then placed _over_ the color, and in the final firing the underneath color shows through this transparent coating, thus illustrating the origin of the name underglaze or under-the-glaze painting. Sage-green and cobalt-blue underglaze colors are frequently used in Newcomb designs with harmonious results. The outline of the design is often incised and the underglaze color, settling into these channels, helps to accentuate the design. Figure 314. [Sidenote: Porcelain or Overglaze Painting] 8. This is popularly known as china painting and consists of painting directly upon the glazed surface of the ware and placing it in a china kiln where a temperature between 600 degrees and 900 degrees C. is developed. At this point the coloring pigment melts or is fused into the porcelain glaze, thus insuring its reasonable permanence. Figure 302. The eight processes briefly described may be readily identified on the plates by referring to the figures corresponding to those which number the processes and are added to each figure number. Two processes are sometimes suggested as possible for one problem. [Sidenote: Classification of Structural Clay Forms] Different clay forms require different modes of treatment. To simplify these treatments will now be our problem. It has been found convenient to form four divisions based upon the general geometric shape of the ware. The first, Plate 47, includes rectangular and square areas; the second, Plate 48, shallow and circular forms; the third, Plate 49, low cylindrical forms; and the fourth, Plate 50, high cylindrical forms. The first three divisions have distinct modes of design treatment, while the fourth interlocks to a considerable extent with the third method. We shall now consider each plate with reference to its use and possible forms of enrichment. For the sake of brevity, the results have been condensed into tabulated forms. [Illustration: SURFACE ENRICHMENT OF CLAY LOW CYLINDRICAL FORMS PLATE 49] Each geometric form or type on these plates has not only distinctive methods of design treatment but characteristic locations for placing the design as well. These places or zones of enrichment have been indicated in the following tabulated forms by the letters in parentheses. There are a number of zones for each plate. For example, Plate 47 has its distinctive problems as tiles, weights, etc., and five characteristic zones of enrichment described on pages 153-155 and indicated by the letters A, B, C, D, E, followed by a brief description of that zone. Each zone is still further analyzed into its accompanying type of design, inceptive axis, point of concentration, and illustrations. Each plate has the proper zone of enrichment immediately following the figure number and in turn followed by the process number. * * * * * [Sidenote: Square and Rectangular Areas, Plate 47] _Problems_: Tiles for tea and coffee pots, paper weights, window boxes; architectural tiles for floors, and fire places. * * * * * (_A_) _Zone of Enrichment_: In the margin. _Reason for Choice_: Central area to be devoted to zone of service requiring simplicity in design. [Sidenote: Marginal Enrichment] _Type of Design_: Bands or borders. _Inceptive Axis_: For corners; the bisector of the angle. _Points of Concentration_: The corners and, if desired, at equal intervals between the corners. _Illustrations_: Figures 283, 284, 286, 287, 288. * * * * * (_B_) _Zone of Enrichment_: center of surface, free ornament. [Sidenote: Center Enrichment] _Type of Design_: Initials, monograms, street numbers, geometric patterns, and other examples for free ornament. A star or diamond is _not_ appropriate enrichment for a square area unless properly related to the contour by connecting areas. _Inceptive Axes_: Vertical or horizontal diameters or diagonals. _Points of Concentration_: Center of embellishment. _Illustrations_: Figure 285. [Illustration: SURFACE ENRICHMENT OF CLAY HIGH CYLINDRICAL FORMS. VASES, PITCHERS, ETC PLATE 50] (_C_) _Zone of Enrichment_: full surface enrichment in a horizontal position. _Type of Design_: A symmetrical pattern generally radiating from the geometric center of the surface and covering at least two-thirds of the surface. [Sidenote: Full Vertical Surface Enrichment] _Inceptive Axes_: Diameters or diagonals of the area. _Points of Concentration_: At the corners or the center of the outer margin; at geometric center, as in a rosette. _Illustrations_: Figures 283, 289, and 291. * * * * * [Sidenote: Full Horizontal Surface Enrichment] (_D_) _Zone of Enrichment_: full surface enrichment in a vertical position. _Type of Design_: A symmetrical pattern with a strong upward movement and covering more than one-half of the surface. _Inceptive Axis_: The vertical center line. _Point of Concentration_: Upper section of the surface. _Illustrations_: Figures 290 and 292. * * * * * [Sidenote: Free Balance] (_E_) _Zone of Enrichment_: free balance over full surface. _Type of Design_: Semi-decorative motive preferably covering the entire surface. _Inceptive Axis_: Masses freely balanced over the geometric center of the area. _Point of Concentration_: Near, but not in the exact center. _Illustrations_: Figures 293, 294, 295, 296, 297, 298. _Note_: The points of concentration should be accented by slight contrast of value and hue. See chapters on color. * * * * * [Sidenote: Shallow Circular Forms, Plate 48] _Problems_: Plates, saucers, ash trays, card receivers, almond and candy bowls. * * * * * (_A_) _Zone of Enrichment_: margin of interior surface; margin of exterior surface. _Type of Design_: Bands or borders thoroughly related to the structural contours. Bands for exterior enrichment may be placed directly on the contour, Figures 299 and 301, thus forming an [Illustration: APPLIED AND CONSTRUCTIVE DESIGN RULE 9: ENRICHMENT OF THE PRIMARY MASS BY A BORDER PROBLEM: ENRICHMENT OF CLASS 2 (POTTERY) PLATE 51.--Instruction Sheet] [Sidenote: Marginal Enrichment] accented contour (_F_) or slightly removed from it, as in Figure 300. _Inceptive Axes_: For interior surfaces, the radii of the contour circle generally supply the axes of symmetry. _Points of Concentration_: For interior surfaces, the points of concentration may be placed in or near the radii of the area. _Illustrations_: Figures 302, 303, 304, 305, 306. * * * * * _Problems_: Cups, pitchers, steins, nut and rose bowls, low vase forms. * * * * * [Sidenote: Low Cylindrical Forms, Plate 49] (_A_) _Zone of Enrichment_: upper margin of exterior. [Sidenote: Marginal Enrichment] _Type of Design_: Borders of units joining each other or connected by bands or spots acting as connecting links. Rule 9c. _Inceptive Axes_: Vertical elements of the exterior surface. Elements are imaginary lines dividing the exterior surface into any given number of vertical sections. Elements used as center lines form the axes of symmetry about which the butterfly of Figure 308 and similar designs are constructed. _Points of Concentration_: On each vertical element. _Illustrations_: Figures 308, 309, 310, 311, 312, 316. * * * * * [Sidenote: Full Vertical Surface Enrichment] (_D_) _Zone of Enrichment_: full vertical surface. _Type of Design_: Extended borders with strongly developed vertical lines or forms. Less than one-half of the surface may be covered. _Inceptive Axes_: Vertical elements. _Points of Concentration_: In upper portion of vertical elements, hence in upper portion of area. _Illustrations_: Figures 307, 314, 317, 318. * * * * * [Sidenote: High Cylindrical Forms, Plate 50] (_E_) _Zone of Enrichment_: free balance of full surface. (See _D_, above). _Illustration_: Figure 315. * * * * * _Problems_: Vases, jars, pitchers, tall flower holders, covered jars for tea, crackers, or tobacco. [Sidenote: Marginal Enrichment] (_A_) _Zone of Enrichment_: margin of exterior. _Type of Design_: Borders of geometric units, freely balanced floral units, and other natural motives placed in upper margin of mass. _Inceptive Axes_: Vertical elements of cylinder. _Points of Concentration_: In upper portion of vertical elements. _Illustrations_: Figures 319, 320, 321, 327, 331, 332. * * * * * [Sidenote: Full Surface Enrichment] (_D_) _Zone of Enrichment_: full surface of exterior. _Type of Design_: Free of formal conventionalized unit repeated on each vertical element. The units may be juxtaposed or may be connected by bands or similar links. _Inceptive Axes_: Vertical elements of cylinder. _Point of concentration_: In upper portion of vertical elements. _Illustrations_: Figures 322, 323, 324, 326, 328, 329. * * * * * [Sidenote: Types of Commercial Pottery] The reader should carefully consider the postulate and various divisions of Rule 7 and try to apply them to the material now under consideration. Acknowledgment is made for material supplied by the Rookwood Potteries for Figures 288, 289, 292, 293, 294, 297, 298, 315; 327 and 332; Newcomb Potteries, Figures 314, 316, 317, 318, 326; Teco Potteries, 329; Keramic Studio Publishing Company, 302, 307, 308, 310, 312. INSTRUCTION SHEET Plate 51 illustrates the marginal surface enrichment of low cylindrical forms, with part surface enrichment of two higher forms. SUMMARY OF DESIGN STEPS (_a_) Draw primary mass: For square or rectangular areas draw square rectangle, etc. For shallow circular forms draw a circle. For low cylindrical forms draw a rectangle; subdivide this if desired by a unit of measurement into two horizontal divisions. For high cylindrical forms draw a rectangle; subdivide this if desired by a unit of measurement into two or three horizontal divisions. Rule 5e. (_b_) Design simple contour enrichment based upon these units of measurement. (_c_) Locate zone of enrichment. (_d_) Draw inceptive axes: For square or rectangular areas draw diameters, diagonals, or both. For shallow circular forms draw radii of the primary circle; concentric circles for bands. For low cylindrical forms draw the elements of the underlying cylindrical form for extended borders or lines paralleling the top or bottom of the primary mass for bands. For high cylindrical forms draw inceptive axes similar to low cylindrical forms. (_e_) Locate points of concentration in these inceptive axes. (_f_) Determine manner and amount of surface enrichment. (_g_) Add leading lines and develop these into surface enrichment. (_h_) Make potter's working drawing, full size (See Plate 26). Add the necessary amount for shrinkage and otherwise prepare the drawing for potter's use. (_i_) Make a paper tracing of the surface enrichment for transfer to clay body and cut a zinc or tin template as a contour guide in building the form. SUGGESTED PROBLEMS Design a cider or chocolate set with appropriate surface enrichment. Design an architectural tile 6 in. by 9 in. for accenting a brick fireplace in the home. SUMMARY OF RULES Rule 9a. _Surface enrichment of clay must be so designed as to be able to withstand the action of heat to which all ware must be submitted._ Rule 9b. _Incised, pierced, and modeled decoration in clay should be simple and bold and thus adapted to the character of the material._ Rule 9c. _A border should not be located at the point of greatest curvature in the contour of a cylindrical form. The contour curve is of sufficient interest in itself at that point._ REVIEW QUESTIONS 1. Compare the surface enrichment of clay with that of wood. 2. State a major requirement of a good pottery design. 3. Give the broad divisions into which it is possible to divide the decorative processes of clay surface enrichment. 4. Name and briefly describe eight methods of enriching the surface of clay. 5. What precautions should be exercised with regard to the use of incised, pierced, and modeled decoration? 6. Should a border be placed at the point of greatest curvature of the contour? Give reasons. 7. Name method of classifying structural forms in clay into four groups. 8. State problems and possible zones of enrichment in each group. Give reasons for choice. 9. State type of design unit, conventionalized, natural or artificial forms, location of inceptive axis, points of concentration, and process for each zone of enrichment. 10. What is an element of a cylindrical surface? CHAPTER XIII SURFACE ENRICHMENT OF PRECIOUS METALS SMALL FLAT PLANES [Sidenote: Base and Precious Metals] Chapter XII referred to clay as a free and plastic material adapted to a wide range of surface enrichment processes. Metal as a more refractory material offers greater resistance to the craftsman and is relatively more limited in its capacity for surface enrichment. As was the case in the consideration of contour enrichment for designing purposes, it is necessary in the consideration of surface enrichment to divide metal into two groups: precious and base metals. As the field of design in both base and precious metals is large, we shall consider the surface enrichment of _precious metals only_ in this chapter. [Sidenote: Divisions for Enrichment] Following an order similar in character to that used in clay designing, problems in both base and precious metals may be divided into four classified groups as follows: flat, square, rectangular, or irregular planes; shallow circular forms; low cylindrical forms; high cylindrical forms. Designs included in the first group, flat planes, comprise such problems as are typically represented by tie pins, fobs, rings, and pendants. The design problems presented by these examples are so important that it is wise to restrict this chapter to _flat planes_. Rule 10g. _The inceptive axis should pass through and coincide with one axis of a stone, and at the same time be sympathetically related to the structure._ Rule 10h. _The position of the inceptive axis should be determined by: (1) use of the project as ring, pendant, or bar pin, (2) character of the primary mass as either vertical or horizontal in proportion._ [Sidenote: Inceptive Axes and Points of Concentration] The semi-precious or precious stone is commonly found to be the point of concentration of these designs. The inceptive axes of tie pins, pendants, and fobs are generally vertical center lines because of the vertical positions of the objects when worn. The inceptive axes, moreover, should pass through the point of concentration and, at the same time, be sympathetically related to the structure. Rings and bar pins are frequently designed with horizontal inceptive axes, so determined by their horizontal characteristics and positions. The point of concentration for tie pins, pendants, and fobs in formal balance, in addition to coinciding with the inceptive axis, is generally located above or below the geometric center of the primary mass. The point of concentration for rings and bar pins is placed in the horizontal inceptive axis and centrally located from left to right. [Sidenote: Typical Processes of Enrichment] [Sidenote: Economy of Material] As a step preliminary to designing, and in order that the enrichment may be conventionalized or adapted to conform to the requirements of tools, processes, and materials, it is now imperative to become familiar with a number of common forms of surface enrichment in metal. There are eight processes frequently encountered in the decoration of silver and gold: piercing, etching, chasing or repousséing, enameling, inlaying, stone setting, building, carving. To these may be added planishing, frosting or matting, and oxidizing as methods employed to enrich the entire surface. Economy of material is of prime importance in the designing of precious metal and, particularly in gold projects, conservation of the metals should be an urgent consideration in all designs. Rule 10a. _Designs in precious metals should call for the minimum amount of metal necessary to express the idea of the designer for two reasons: (1) good taste; (2) economy of material._ [Sidenote: Evolution and Technical Rendering of Processes] A non-technical and brief description of each process follows. All designs in this chapter may be identified by referring to the process numbers after the figure description as 1, 3, 5; 2, 4, 6, corresponding to the key numbers on Plate 52. A design to be submitted to the craftsman should be a graphic _record of technical facts_ in addition to good design, which requires that we should have an expressive _technical means of rendering each process_. The last column, on Plate 52, indicates this rendering. In addition to this rendering each one of the eight technical processes has been carried through three design steps. 1. (first column, Plate 52) Planning the original primary mass, with its inceptive axis suggested by the structure and intended use. It passes through the point of concentration. 2. (second column, Plate 52). The division of the primary mass into zones of service and enrichment with the suggestion of the leading lines which, at some points, are parallel to the contours and lead up to the point of concentration. The contours in this column have, in several instances, been changed to add lightness and variety to the problem. 3. The last step (column three, Plate 52) shows the design with graphic rendering suggestive of the completed process. [Illustration: SURFACE ENRICHMENT OF SMALL PRIMARY MASSES IN METAL WITH EVOLUTION AND RENDERING OF EIGHT PROCESSES OF ENRICHMENT PLATE 52] TECHNICAL PROCESSES AND METHODS OF ILLUSTRATING SAME IN A DESIGN [Sidenote: Piercing] 1. Removal of design unit or background by means of the jeweler's saw. Bridges of metal should be left to support firmly all portions of the design. Test this by careful study of the design. Rendering--shade all pierced portions of the design in solid black. Slightly tint portions of the design passing under other parts. Illustration, Figure 336. Rule 10j. _All surface enrichment should have an appearance of compactness or unity. Pierced spots or areas should be so used as to avoid the appearance of having been scattered on the surface without thought to their coherence._ [Sidenote: Etching] 2. Coating either design or background with an acid resistant, to be followed by immersion of the article in an acid bath. Allow the unprotected portion to be attacked and eaten by the acid to a slight depth. Rendering--slightly tint all depressed or etched parts of the design. Illustration, Figure 339. [Sidenote: Chasing or Repousséing] 3. The embossing and fine embellishment of a metal surface by the application of the hammer and punches. The work is conducted mainly from the top surface. Rendering--stipple all parts of the background not raised by the process. Chasing should seem an integral part of the background and not appear stuck upon it. Illustration, Figure 342. Rule 10k. [Sidenote: Enameling (Champleve)] 4. A process of enameling over metal in which the ground is cut away into a series of shallow troughs into which the enamel is melted. Exercise reserve in the use of enamel. Over-decoration tends to cheapen this valuable form of decoration. Rendering--shade the lower and right-hand sides of all enameled areas to suggest relief. Illustration, Figure 345. If possible render in tempera color. [Illustration: SURFACE ENRICHMENT OF SMALL PRIMARY MASSES IN PRECIOUS METAL CONTOUR AND SURFACE ENRICHMENT OF FLAT PLANES PINS AND BROOCHES PLATE 53] Rule 10i. _Caution should be exercised with regard to the use of enamel. Over-decoration by this material tends to cheapen both process and design._ Rule 10l. _The lanes or margins between enameled spots should be narrower than the lane or margin between the enamel and the contour of the primary mass._ [Sidenote: Inlaying] 5. The process of applying wire, etc., to an incision on metal either by burnishing or fusing the metal into the cavities. Rendering--tint the darker metal or, if possible, render in color. Illustration, Figure 348. [Sidenote: Stone Cutting] 6. An enrichment of the surface by the addition of semi-precious or precious stones. Other enrichment is generally subordinated to the stone which then becomes the point of concentration. All enrichment should lead toward the stone. Small stones may, however, be used to accentuate other points of concentration in surface enrichment. Rendering--shade the lower and right-side of the stone to suggest relief. Pierced subordinate enrichment should be shaded in solid black. A concentric line should be drawn outside of the contour of the stone to designate the thin holding band, or bezel, enclosing the stone on all sides. Illustration, Figure 351. Rule 10d. _Surface enrichment should at some point parallel the contours of both primary mass and point of concentration, especially whenever the latter is a stone or enamel._ Rule 10e. _In the presence of either stone or enamel as a point of concentration, surface enrichment should be regarded as an unobtrusive setting, or background._ Rule 10f. _Stone or enamel used as a point of concentration should form contrast with the metal, either in color, brilliancy, or value, or all three combined._ [Sidenote: Building] 7. The process of applying leaves, wire, grains, and other forms of surface enrichment to the plane of the metal. These may afterwards be carved or chased. Rendering--shade the lower and right-hand lines; slightly tint the lower planes of the metal. Illustration, Figure 354. [Illustration: _Courtesy of the Elverhoj Colony_ Figure 372a.--Tie Pins] 8. The process of depressing or raising certain portions of the metal surface by means of chisels and gravers. By the use of these tools the surface is modeled into planes of light and shade, to which interest is added if the unaggressive tool marks are permitted to remain on the surface. Rendering--shade the raised and depressed portions to express the modeling planes. As this is a difficult technical process the designer is advised to model the design in plastelene or jewelers' wax first. Illustration, Figure 357. [Illustration: _Courtesy of the Elverhoj Colony_ FIGURE 372b.--Tie Pins] [Sidenote: Carving] Rule 10k. _Built, carved, and chased enrichment should have the higher planes near the point of concentration. It is well to have the stone as the highest point above the primary mass. When using this form of enrichment, the stone should never appear to rise abruptly from the primary mass, but should be approached by a series of rising planes._ [Sidenote: Planishing] 9. The process of smoothing and, at the same time, hardening the surface of the metal with a steel planishing hammer. The hammer strokes give an interesting texture to the surface which may be varied, from the heavily indented to the smooth surface, at the will of the craftsman. The more obvious hammer strokes are not to be desired as they bring a tool process into too much prominence for good taste. Rendering--print desired finish on the drawing. [Sidenote: Frosting] 10. A process of sand blasting or scratch brushing a metal surface to produce an opaque or "satin" finish. Rendering--similar to planishing. [Sidenote: Oxidizing] 11. A process of darkening the surface of metal by the application of chemicals. Potassium sulphite will supply a deep, rich black to silver and copper. Rendering--see Planishing. [Sidenote: Design of Pins and Brooches] The eleven processes mentioned above are among those which, by recent common practice, have become familiar to the craftsman in precious metals. While they do not cover the entire field, they at least give the beginner an opportunity to design intelligently in terms of the material. [Sidenote: Dependent Surface Enrichment for Pins] Plate 53 is mainly the enrichment of the flat plane by the addition of semi-precious stones (process six). Whatever surface enrichment is added to this design becomes _dependent_ enrichment and quite analogous to _dependent_ contour enrichment, Plate 29, inasmuch as it has to be designed with special reference to the shape and character of the stone. Figures 358 to 363 are examples of _dependent contour_ enrichment; Figures 364 to 371 are examples of _dependent surface_ enrichment. Figures 358 to 367 are based upon _vertical_ inceptive axes as appropriate to their intended service. The point of concentration may be located at practically any point on this inceptive axis, provided the major axis of the stone coincides with the inceptive axis. The best results are obtained by placing the stone a little above or below the exact geometrical center of the primary mass. [Illustration: SURFACE ENRICHMENT OF SMALL PRIMARY MASSES IN PRECIOUS METALS CONTOUR AND SURFACE ENRICHMENT APPLIED TO FOBS MAINLY FULL SURFACE ENRICHMENT BASED UPON VERTICAL INCEPTIVE AXES PLATE 54] [Sidenote: Inceptive Axes for Pins] Figures 368 to 372 show articles based upon a horizontal inceptive axis. The stone, in accordance with formal balance, is in the geometric center from left to right. One notices the important fact that the surface enrichment must bring the stone and contour together in sympathetic relation and, at the same time, be related to both stone and contour. This again brings out the meaning of _dependent_ surface enrichment. The contour enrichment is to be kept as simple as possible and the interest concentrated upon the surface enrichment. The _accentuation of both surface and contour enrichment_ in a single design marks the height of bad taste in design. Rule 10b. _Contour and surface enrichment should never appear to compete for attention in the same design._ [Sidenote: Fobs] Plate 54 shows flat planes, the service of which suggests vertical inceptive axes. Figure 380 is noted as an exception to this vertical inceptive axis as it possesses a vertical primary mass but with radial inceptive axes. The interesting manner by which the dynamic leaves of the outer border transmit their movement to the inner border, which in turn leads toward the point of concentration, is worthy of attention. The points of concentration in other designs on this plate are all contained in the vertical inceptive axes. [Sidenote: Rings] Plate 55, at first thought, would seem to fall under the classification of low cylindrical forms but when reference is made to Figure 385 it is readily seen that the ring has to be first developed as a flat plane, to be afterwards bent into the required form. Care should be taken to keep the design narrow enough to be visible when the ring is in position on the finger. [Illustration: SURFACE ENRICHMENT OF SMALL PRIMARY MASSES IN PRECIOUS METAL ENRICHMENT OF FLAT PLANES RINGS PLATE 55] The long horizontal band of the ring supplies the motive for the horizontal inceptive axis as a common basis or starting point for a large number of designs. If the designer so desires, the vertical axis of the finger is authority for an elliptical stone to be placed with its major axis as a vertical line in harmony with the finger axis. In any instance the designer seeks to lead the eye from the horizontal portion of the ring (the finger band) toward the point of concentration (the stone), by means of surface enrichment. A long sloping contour curve helps, as a transition line in the boundary, to carry the attention from the stone to the finger band. A great number of devices are used to complete a similar transition in the surface enrichment. Figure 390a. Too much piercing weakens the structure, and it is therefore to be avoided. [Illustration: _Courtesy of the Elverhoj Colony_ FIGURE 390a.--Rings] Plate 56 suggests some vertical flat planes for pendants. While no definite rule can be stated for the location of the stone, from past experience, it is easier for beginners to place the stone on the vertical inceptive axis slightly above the geometric center of the primary mass. Figures 391 to 395. A design thus formed is less likely to appear heavy, although there is nothing arbitrary about the suggestion. Rule 10c. _Parts of a design differing in function should differ in appearance but be co-ordinated with the entire design._ [Illustration: SURFACE ENRICHMENT OF SMALL PRIMARY MASSES IN PRECIOUS METAL ENRICHMENT OF FLAT PLANES OF PENDANTS, CHAINS, LOCKETS PLATE 56] [Sidenote: Pendants and Chains] In pendant design the surface enrichment generally carries the attention from the contour of the pendant to the stone, thus insuring unity at this point, while the contour lines often lead the attention from the pendant to the chain. The eye should move in unbroken dynamic movement from pendant to chain. The chain may have points of accent designed to vary the even distribution of the links. These accents are frequently composed of small stones with surface enrichment sympathetically designed in unity with pendant, chain, and stone. Figure 401 shows examples of this arrangement and similarly the need of a horizontal inceptive axis to harmonize with the length of the chain. These small accents are quite similar in design to bar pin motives. Rule 10m. _Transparent and opaque stones or enamel should not be used in the same design._ [Sidenote: Relation of Stones to Metal] For the designer's purposes we may consider two kinds of stones, the transparent and the opaque. These should not be mixed in one design. The most favorable stones are those forming contrasts of value or brilliancy with the metal as, for example, the amethyst, lapis lazuli, or New Zealand jade, with silver; or the dark topaz, or New Zealand jade, with gold. Lack of these contrasts gives dull, monotonous effects that fail to make the stone the point of concentration. Figure 467. These effects may be partially overcome by frosting, plating, or oxidizing the metal, thus forming stronger contrasts of value. INSTRUCTION SHEET Plates 52 and 57 are representative of the steps, processes, and problems for school use. SUMMARY OF DESIGN STEPS (_a_) Draw the primary mass. (_b_) Locate the inceptive axis in this primary mass with its direction determined by the ultimate use or position of the primary mass and its general shape. (_c_) Locate zone of enrichment. (_d_) Locate point of concentration in the zone of enrichment and in the inceptive axis. (_e_) Design simple contour enrichment. (_f_) Design leading lines in sympathy with the contour and leading toward the point of concentration. (_g_) Elaborate the leading lines in sympathy with the material, the type of enrichment, the contours, and the inceptive axis. (_h_) Render in the technical manner suggested by Plate 52, dimension the primary mass, and otherwise prepare the drawing for shop use. [Illustration: _Courtesy of the Elverhoj Colony_ FIGURE 401a.--Pendants] [Illustration: _Courtesy of the Elverhoj Colony_ FIGURE 402.--Pendants] SUGGESTED PROBLEM Design a built-up ring using an elliptical cabochon cut stone as the point of concentration. The inceptive axis is vertical. SUMMARY OF RULES SMALL FLAT PLANES Rule 10a. _Designs in precious metals should call for the minimum amount of metal necessary to express the idea of the designer for two reasons: (1) good taste; (2) economy of material._ Rule 10b. _Contour and surface enrichment should never appear to compete for attention in the same design._ Rule 10c. _Parts of a design differing in function should differ in appearance but be co-ordinated with the entire design._ Rule 10d. _Surface enrichment should at some point parallel the contours of both primary mass and point of concentration, especially whenever the latter is a stone or enamel._ Rule 10e. _In the presence of either stone or enamel as a point of concentration, surface enrichment should be regarded as an unobtrusive setting, or background._ Rule 10f. _Stone or enamel used as a point of concentration should form contrast with the metal, either in color, brilliancy, or value, or all three combined._ Rule 10g. _The inceptive axis should pass through and coincide with one axis of a stone, and at the same time be sympathetically related to the structure._ Rule 10h. _The position of the inceptive axis should be determined by (1) use of the project as ring, pendant, or bar pin, (2) character of the primary mass as either vertical or horizontal in proportion._ Rule 10i. _Caution should be exercised with regard to the use of enamel. Over-decoration by this material tends to cheapen both process and design._ [Illustration: RULES 10 A TO M: SURFACE ENRICHMENT OF SMALL FLAT PLANES OF PRECIOUS METAL {IA} INCEPTIVE AXIS INSTRUCTION SHEET PENDANTS, RINGS AND FOBS IN SLIVER DESIGNED BY MISS GERTRUDE EVANS U. OF W. PLATE 57] Rule 10j. _All surface enrichment should have an appearance of compactness or unity. Pierced spots or areas should be so used as to avoid the appearance of having been scattered on the surface without thought to their coherence._ Rule 10k. _Built, carved, and chased enrichment should have the higher planes near the point of concentration. It is well to have the stone as the highest point above the primary mass. When using this form of enrichment the stone should never appear to rise abruptly from the primary mass, but should be approached by a series of rising planes._ Rule 10l. _The lanes or margins between enameled spots should be narrower than the lane or margin between the enamel and the contour of the primary mass._ Rule 10m. _Transparent and opaque stones or enamel should not be used in the same design._ Postulate.--_The design should conform to the limitations and requirements of tools, processes, and materials, and should be durable and suitable for service._ REVIEW QUESTIONS 1. What is often used as a point of concentration in the surface enrichment of precious metals? Why? 2. State direction of the inceptive axis for problems similar to: (_a_) tie pins, (_b_) pendants, (_c_) fobs, (_d_) rings, (_e_) bar pins? Why? Under what grouping of planes may they be placed? 3. State the relation between the point of concentration and the inceptive axis. 4. Give three steps in the design evolution of surface enrichment for small flat planes. 5. Describe briefly eleven decorative processes for the surface enrichment of precious metals with the technical rendering of each. 6. Illustrate examples of dependent contour and dependent surface enrichment of precious metals. 7. Where should a stone in a design similar to a pin or brooch be placed with reference to the inceptive axis and the geometric center of the primary mass? 8. Illustrate manner of planning primary mass, inceptive axis, point of concentration, contour, and surface enrichment of: (_a_) pins, (_b_) fobs, (_c_) rings, (_d_) pendants and chains. 9. State the relation of stone or enamel to metal. 10. What rule should govern the amount of metal used in a design? 11. State the objection to a design with contour and surface enrichment equally elaborated. 12. Is it possible to vary the design motive of a chain from that of a pendant? Why and how? 13. Give illustration and requirements of a good design in champleve enamel. 14. What precautions should be exercised in designing pierced enrichment? 15. What rules should be observed in designing a built-up or carved design? [Illustration: SURFACE ENRICHMENT OF LARGE PRIMARY MASSES IN PRECIOUS METALS TREATMENT OF FLAT AND SEMI-FLAT SURFACES WORK OF STUDENTS OF MILWAUKEE-DOWNER COLLEGE PLATE 58] CHAPTER XIV SURFACE ENRICHMENT OF LARGE PRIMARY MASSES IN BASE AND PRECIOUS METALS [Sidenote: Enrichment for Small Areas] The surface enrichment of small, flat primary masses treated in Chapter XIII emphasized the designer's tendency for _full_ surface enrichment of small areas. Such treatment has proved satisfactory because the eye can readily and immediately observe and comprehend or assimilate an enrichment upon a small area. For larger enriched areas considered in this chapter, full surface enrichment becomes a questionable policy for the following reasons. [Sidenote: Enrichment for Large Areas] It is true that the old time craftsman with consummate skill fully enriched large surfaces, but two factors interfere with this mode of treatment today. The first factor is the decidedly practical nature of the problem. The service to which the modern industrial project is put interferes with the use of full surface enrichment. The second is the lack of skill on the part of the modern amateur designer. It is a sound policy to avoid the ornateness that frequently accompanies a large and unskillfully planned area. In place of this, we should limit the enrichment of large masses to a few salient areas which are well related to the structural lines. Rule 11b. _Conservative application should mark the use of surface enrichment of large masses. Its use should:_ (1) _lighten or soften necessarily heavy construction;_ (2) _support or apparently strengthen good structure;_ (3) _add interest to large unbroken and uninteresting surfaces._ [Sidenote: Essentials of Good Surface Enrichment] These salient areas should determine the surface enrichment appropriate to the structure, so that the enrichment: (1) will lighten or soften necessarily heavy construction as in Figure 403; (2) support or apparently strengthen good structure, Figure 413; (3) add interest to large unbroken or otherwise uninteresting surfaces as illustrated in Figure 405. To aid in producing the desired results, we have the technical processes mentioned in Chapter XIII as follows: (1) Piercing; (2) Etching; (3) Chasing; (4) Enameling; (5) Inlaying; (6) Stone setting; (7) Building; (8) Carving; (9) Planishing; (10) Frosting; (11) Oxidizing. On the plates for this chapter, the figure generally following the cut number refers to the process, as: Figure 446, 3. [Illustration: Figure 406a.--Mainly Objects Designed to be Seen from Above] SURFACE DESIGN EVOLUTION Rule 11a. _The preliminary steps toward surface enrichment should be thought out before they are drawn._ A designer will be materially helped if he devotes a few moments of thought to his design problem before he applies the pencil to the paper. In the end the time given to thinking out his problem will gain for him both increased excellence of design and rapidity of execution, provided his thinking is systematic. A sequential order of points to be observed is given below. The object of systematic thought is to form a mental picture of the enrichment to be in full accord with the materials and construction and to be sympathetically related to the structural axes and to the contours. The unenriched mass has been designed and we are now ready for the consideration of surface enrichment in the following order. [Sidenote: Summary of Steps in Surface Enrichment] (_a_) _Placing the Zone of Service._ 1. Where is the zone of service? * * * * * (_b_) _Classification of Form_. 1. Is the object flat, shallow and circular, low and cylindrical, high and cylindrical? * * * * * (_c_) _Placing the Zone of Enrichment._ 1. Is the enrichment to be seen from above or from the side? See Figure 406a. 2. What point of the structure suggested by the form needs surface enrichment? Is it the primary mass, appendages, terminals, links, or details? Let the area selected become the zone of enrichment. (_d_) _Amount of Enrichment._ 1. Will the enrichment cover the full surface, part surface (center or margin), or accented outline? (_e_) _Location of Inceptive Axis._ 1. Is the zone of enrichment associated with a square, rectangle, hexagon, or irregularly shaped flat plane, circular or cylindrical surface? Figure 470. 2. How should the inceptive axis be placed in the zone of enrichment to harmonize with the structural forms suggested by 1 (e) and the point from which it is viewed 1 (c)? See the violation of this latter point in Figure 439. Presumably this inceptive axis will be a vertical center line, horizontal center line, diagonal, diameter, radius, the element of a cylinder, or a dynamic curve for a free border. (_f_) _Point of Concentration._ [Sidenote: Surface Enrichment] 1. Where should the point of concentration be located upon the inceptive axis? (_g_) _Unison of Enrichment and Materials._ 1. What decorative process will be adaptable to service, the material, and the contemplated design? [Illustration: SURFACE ENRICHMENT OF LARGE PRIMARY MASSES IN BASE METALS TREATMENT OF FLAT AND SEMI-FLAT SURFACES _Courtesy of P. and F. Corbin_ PLATE 59] [Sidenote: Summary of Steps in Surface Enrichment] (_h_) _Type of Units_. 1. What design units are suited to the process selected in (_g_), appropriate to the texture and structural lines of the form to be enriched and to its ultimate service? Choice may be made from nature, geometric pattern, or historic ornament. The above points may all be _thought out_. Now, with some assurance, the designer may take his pencil and begin to _draw_ the units in their proper position upon or about the inceptive axis with the point of concentration correctly placed in position in the inceptive axis. Rules and suggestions for this execution have been previously given. * * * * * (_i_) _Designing of the Units_. 1. How should the units be drawn to be in harmony with the inceptive axis, the contours, and to each other? The above points of approach to surface enrichment represent a logical reasoning process which supplies a line of sequential and developmental pictures that will reduce to a minimum the element of doubt and fog through which the average designer approaches his problem. The steps will, in time, become practically automatic and may be thought out in a surprisingly short period of time. Rule 11c. _The type of design unit for large masses should be bolder than similar designs for small primary masses._ [Sidenote: Large Masses and Their Treatment] As may be expected from briefly considering the illustrations for this chapter as compared with those for small primary masses, Chapter XIII, it is seen that the units for base and precious metals are larger and bolder than those used for smaller masses. The more effective designs are those whose appropriateness, simplicity, and correct structural proportions and relations appeal to our sense of fitness and beauty. Figures 403, 404, and 406 are composed of projects designed mainly on vertical inceptive axes or center lines. The freely balanced natural units in Figure 403 have the zone of enrichment in the upper portion of the appendage (handles), and the point of concentration in the upper portion of the zone of enrichment. Formal symmetrical balance controls the placing of enrichment in Figure 404. Initial letters, through lack of consideration of design principles, are frequently misplaced on masses with little or no consideration given to their mass relations with the structural contours. As a contrast to this, notice the carefully considered relations between the letter _W_ on the tea strainer in Figure 404 and its adaptation to the contours of the appendage. The stone enrichment on the handle of the paper cutter in Figure 404 in no way interferes with its use as a cutter and is therefore appropriate as surface enrichment. [Illustration: SURFACE ENRICHMENT OF LARGE PRIMARY MASSES IN BASE METAL TREATMENT OF FLAT PLANES IN CAST BRONZE _Door Plates, Courtesy of P. and F. Corbin_ PLATE 60] [Sidenote: Large Flat and Semi-flat Surfaces in Precious Metal, Plate 58] The pierced enrichment of the silver box in Figure 405 contains vertical and horizontal lines which bring the decorative human figures into harmonious relation with the structural contours. Figure 406 shows both formal and free balance with center and full surface zones of enrichment. _C_ and _D_ could have been improved by a more strongly marked point of concentration which would have added more character to the designs. [Sidenote: Flat and Semi-flat Surfaces in Base Metal, Plate 59] In Chapter VIII, the contour terminal enrichment problem was described at some length. Many illustrations on Plates 58, 59, and 60 are, in a way, similar in their type of surface decoration, which is termed _surface terminal enrichment_. The "happy ending" mentioned in Chapter VIII as a suitable means of terminating the contour of a long primary mass or appendage may be similarly treated by suitable surface enrichment, particularly shown in Figures 403, 404, 407, 408, 409, and 410. The terminal is quite common as a zone of enrichment. [Sidenote: Contour _Versus_ Surface Enrichment] It is readily seen that when surface enrichment is the prevailing decorative theme it becomes necessary to subordinate contour enrichment to it, Rule 10b, otherwise the strife for dominance arising between these two forms of enrichment will lead to poor and ornate design, Figure 417. Whatever contour enrichment is used must be chosen to accord with the surface enrichment, Rule 10d, as noted in the preceding figures and in Figure 411. Here we find the closest connection, as the chased forms of the surface at many points merge into the contour. Thus surface and contour are bound together in unity with the surface enrichment, which maintains its dominance throughout. The simple and dignified treatment of the fire set in Figure 413 is synonymous with the finest type of enrichment for service and beauty, Rule 11b. The peacock motives of Figures 414 and 415 are applied to the desk set. The motives as used in this case are generally well adapted to their respective areas and inceptive axes. [Sidenote: Surface Enrichment of Hardware, Plate 60] Rule 11f. _Repulsive forms should not be introduced into surface enrichment._ Figure 417 is a typical example of over-ornamentation with the surface and contour enrichment struggling in deadly conflict for prominence. In the combat, the natural structural axis has been totally neglected for irrelevant and disconnected ornament. Figure 418 illustrates correctly related surface ornament, with a dominance of the latter form, Rule 10b. Figure 419 represents a type of decoration presumably roughened to meet the needs of service. It proves, however, to be unpleasant to the touch and unnecessary as the plain knob is preferable in every way. The naturalistic snake motive of Figure 421 is repulsive to many people; this and similar decorative motives should be avoided in preference to the more conventionalized pattern of Figure 422, Rule 11f. Rule 11e. _Two periods of historic ornament should not be introduced into the same design._ [Sidenote: Historic Ornament Applied to Period Hardware Design Door Plates] It is impossible to close these chapters without reference to the influence of the great schools of architectural history upon contemporary design. There is a growing tendency for manufacturers to use period patterns in house decorations which correspond to the design of the building. A Colonial building frequently calls for Colonial hardware, a Gothic church for corresponding surface enrichment of that period. As introductory illustrations, Figure 423 stands as a simple example of accented (beveled) contour while Figure 424 has been accented with reminiscent moulding appropriate to Colonial architecture. They might, however, be used with many simply designed articles of furniture. From this slight indication or portion of a style, we have a more pronounced beginning in Figure 425 with its clearly marked Greek egg and dart ornamental border. The acanthus leaf of the Byzantine school, Figure 426, changes to the geometric arabesques of the Moorish school in Figure 427. The Gothic arch, cusps, and quatrefoil of Figure 428 are changed to the classic acanthus foliage of the French Renaissance period. Figure 429. Figures 430 and 431 are later developments of the Renaissance. The heavily enriched Flemish pattern completes our illustrations of the use of past forms of ornamentation applied to modern designs. Only a small number from a rapidly enlarging field of period design are shown. [Sidenote: Shallow Circular Forms, Plate 61] With circular plates and trays, the enrichment normally takes the form of a border (marginal enrichment), with the inceptive axes or center lines of the repeated units radiating from the center of the circle. Figures 433, 435, 436, 437, 438, and 439. An elliptical form frequently calls for handles and terminal enrichment as shown by Figure 434. Both Figures 437 and 438 have divided points of concentration and would be materially improved by the omission of the center unit _A_. The small tree used as a connecting link in the border of Figure 437 should be reversed, as it now possesses a motion or growth contrary to the larger tree units. The contour enrichment in Figure 438 could well be omitted or moved around to support the surface enrichment. The pierced enrichment _A_, Figure 439, is incorrectly used as it is not designed to be seen from above, the normal viewpoint of the tray. The design should have been based upon the horizontal axis of the project similar to Figure 439 at _B_. [Sidenote: Low Cylindrical Forms, Plate 62] Differing from the shallow plate, with the increased height of the low cylindrical forms of Plate 62, there now develops the possibility of enriching the sides of this class of project: a zone of enrichment not readily accessible in the shallow plate form. In addition to the sides there remain the appendages, quite capable of carrying enrichment to advantage. One should control the zone of enrichment in such a manner that the attention will not be equally drawn to both appendage and primary mass. Two points of enrichment, both calling for equal attention, divide the interest in the problem, and cause a lack of unity or oneness. Rule 11d. _The eye should be attracted to one principal zone of enrichment, whether located upon the primary mass, appendage, terminals, links, or details. All other zones should be subordinate to this area._ [Illustration: SURFACE ENRICHMENT OF LARGE PRIMARY MASSES IN BASE AND PRECIOUS METAL TREATMENT OF SHALLOW CIRCULAR FORMS PLATE 61] [Illustration: SURFACE ENRICHMENT OF LARGE PRIMARY MASSES IN BASE AND PRECIOUS METAL TREATMENT OF LOW CIRCULAR FORMS PLATE 62] [Illustration: SURFACE ENRICHMENT OF LARGE PRIMARY MASSES IN BASE AND PRECIOUS METALS TREATMENT OF HIGH CYLINDRICAL FORMS PLATE 63] Enrichment upon the appendages may be found in Figures 440, 441, 442, 445, and on the upper portion of the straight sides of the primary mass in Figures 443 and 444. The decorative units composing the border on these straight sides are designed upon the vertical element of the underlying cylindrical form as the inceptive axis. The enrichment for the appendage is well related to the contour of that member and is commonly based upon the center line of the appendage. [Sidenote: Cylindrical Forms, Plate 63] The principles of enriching these higher cylindrical forms in many ways closely parallel those which govern the lower cylindrical forms. The inceptive axes of the decoration on the two vases of Figures 446 and 447 may be readily analyzed as vertical elements of the cylinder. Figures 448 and 449 are quite rare exceptions of the accentuation of the _vertical_ lines of the cylinder. Horizontal bands similar to Figures 444 and 447 are more common interpretations of cylinder enrichment. Figure 450 marks a successful combination of two dissimilar materials with the shade (appendage) as the dominating enriched member. Rule 10c. The small chased bosses used as enrichment in Figure 452 are re-echoed on the several pieces of the set which binds them into collective unity. The top portion of the primary mass seems to need some form of enrichment, as the contour adds little to the beauty of that part. The symbol _X_ could have been better located by being moved to that place. The point of concentration should be placed in the upper portion of a large mass whenever that arrangement is possible. It is in every way desirable that all designs should be executed full size and in full accord with the requirements of a shop working drawing. In addition the technical rendering suggested in Chapter XIII should be carefully used in each drawing. INSTRUCTION SHEET Plates 68 and 72 show problems suitable for class presentation. The method of development is similar to that presented on Plate 52. SUMMARY OF DESIGN STEPS (_a_) Draw a primary mass with reference to its proper grouping as follows: For flat areas draw square, rectangle, etc. For shallow circular forms draw a circle. For low cylindrical forms draw a rectangle with horizontal proportions. For high cylindrical forms draw a rectangle with vertical proportions. (_b_) Locate zone of service. (_c_) Locate zone of enrichment: appendages, terminals, margins, full surface, etc. (_d_) Determine amount of enrichment. (_e_) Locate inceptive axes. (_f_) Place point of concentration in the inceptive axis where it traverses the zone of enrichment. (_g_) Select the decorative process suited to the material and contemplated motive. (_h_) Draw leading lines toward the point of concentration. (_i_) Draw conventionalized design motives based upon the leading lines, converging toward the point of concentration. Vary the contours to be sympathetically related to these design motives, provided such variation of the original primary mass is necessary to complete unity. (_j_) Add additional views, dimension, and otherwise prepare the drawing for shop use. SUGGESTED PROBLEM Design a copper nut bowl and spoon. Enrich with a chased border appropriate to the subject. Enrich spoon, using fitting method of enrichment. The bowl and spoon should have a harmonious relation. SUMMARY OF RULES SURFACE ENRICHMENT OF LARGE PRIMARY MASSES Rule 11a. _The preliminary steps toward surface enrichment should be thought out before they are drawn._ Rule 11b. _Conservative application should mark the use of surface enrichment of large masses. Its use should: (1) lighten or soften necessarily heavy construction; (2) support or apparently strengthen good structure; (3) add interest to large unbroken and uninteresting surfaces._ Rule 11c. _The type of design unit for large masses should be bolder than similar designs for small primary masses._ Rule 11d. _The eye should be attracted to one principal zone of enrichment, whether located upon the primary mass, appendage, terminal, links, or details. All other zones should be subordinate to this area._ Rule 11e. _Two periods of historic ornament should not be introduced into the same design._ Rule 11f. _Repulsive forms should not be introduced into surface enrichment._ REVIEW QUESTIONS 1. Contrast the method of enriching large and small areas of base and precious metals. Illustrate. What is the character of surface enrichment for large areas? 2. Name three essentials to good surface design for base and precious metals. Illustrate each. 3. Give nine steps necessary for the complete evolution of surface enrichment. 4. Name method of classifying the structural forms of metal into four groups. How does this compare with the classification of clay forms? 5. Between which two groups does the transition from a horizontal to a vertical primary mass occur? 6. Is there a perceptible change in the surface enrichment paralleling this change in proportions of the primary mass? 7. In which group or groups is the relation between surface and contour enrichment closest? 8. Give the characteristics of surface enrichment designed for flat or semi-flat planes. 9. State the value of the terminal as an enrichment zone. 10. Discuss common errors in the surface enrichment of hardware and their correction. 11. In what manner does historic ornament influence industrial design? Why? 12. Give characteristics of surface enrichment designed for, (_a_) large, shallow circular forms; (_b_) large, low cylindrical forms; (_c_) large, high cylindrical forms. 13. How does the point from which the article is to be seen affect the character of the design? CHAPTER XV COLOR: HUE, VALUE, AND CHROMA; STAINS [Sidenote: Need of Harmonious Color] In the previous chapters we have developed problems dealing with proportions, contours, and surface enrichment. The use of color, particularly in surface enrichment, is equally important inasmuch as its use is often necessary to bring the project, as for example a piece of furniture, into harmony with the surroundings which furnish its final color environment. The incorrect use of color may seriously mar a project otherwise correctly designed in line and form, and may also weaken its influence in a particular setting. [Sidenote: Use of Color Systems] While there are a number of excellent systems of color notation, it is well to bear in mind that a color system, however excellent, is a good servant but a poor master. It is nevertheless considered as essential to have a definite knowledge of some systematically developed color system in order that we may methodically apply color to the structural form with some degree of certainty. [Sidenote: Color Pigments for Design Rendering] For rendering drawings of problems involving the use of color it is suggested that the beginner use the tempera, or opaque colors now on the market. These colors readily adapt themselves to the average problem, while their rich hues are more successful than those produced from the ordinary water colors. Tubes of cobalt blue, ultramarine, light chrome yellow, vermilion, emerald green, crimson madder, black, and white will serve to solve the problems demanded by this chapter. [Sidenote: Application of Pigment] White is used to lighten and black to darken the pigments, which should be mixed with water to the consistency of cream, and applied to cover well the surface of the paper. One should guard against a thin, transparent wash, as the desired effect is a velvety opaque and evenly tinted surface only possible with the thick application of color. The pigment will dry out about one-quarter lighter than when first applied. The usual school color box of three pigments is useful for rendering wood stains. These pigments may be used in thin flat washes and will exhibit a transparent effect analogous to the effect of a wood stain. The natural color of wood may be first represented and, when dry, followed by a second thin wash of the hue of the wood stain. [Sidenote: Rendering of Wood Stains] Lacking as we are in a definite color nomenclature or standards, it now becomes necessary to describe the processes and define the terms necessary to the designer. [Sidenote: Hue and Hue Rectangles] _Hue_ is the technical name for color; a change of color means a change of hue. For the designer's purposes we will select twelve equally graded colors or hues from the spectrum and term them standard hues. Each hue will have twenty-seven modifications or gradations, which is a sufficient number for our purpose. These gradations are to be graphically recorded by and contained in a diagram to be known as a _hue rectangle_. There are twelve of these rectangles, one for each of the selected hues, and they are found arranged in sequence in Figure 454. [Sidenote: Standard Hues] [Sidenote: Full Chromatic Intensity] By referring to Figure 455, it is seen that the twelve selected standard hues are represented at what is termed _full chromatic intensity_, which, to the designer, means hues of the full strength of his color pigment. This is far short of the true color intensity of the spectrum, but for industrial arts purposes these hues are strong enough to serve as standards for comparison and classification. The hues should be evenly graded from red at the left to red violet at the right without noticeable unevenness in the gradations. Red violet is the link which connects the right end with the left, thus completing the circuit of the twelve hues. The following pigment table gives name and symbol of various hues. [Sidenote: Approximate Related Standard Hues] --------------+-----------------------------------+------------+------- HUES | PIGMENTS | VALUES |SYMBOLS --------------+-----------------------------------+------------+------- Red | Pure crimson madder | High dark | R-HD Orange | Crimson madder and vermilion | Middle | OR-M Orange | Vermilion and light chrome yellow | Low light | O-LL Orange yellow | Vermilion and light chrome yellow | Light | OY-L Yellow | Pure light chrome yellow | High light | Y-HL Yellow green | Light chrome yellow and | | | emerald green | Light | YG-L Green | Pure emerald green | Low light | G-LL Green blue | Emerald green and cobalt blue | Middle | GB-M Blue | Pure cobalt blue | High dark | B-HD Blue violet | Ultramarine and crimson madder | Dark | BV-D Violet | Ultramarine and crimson madder | Low dark | V-LD Red violet | Ultramarine and crimson madder | Dark | RV-D --------------+-----------------------------------+------------+------- [Sidenote: Locating Standard Hues] It now becomes imperative to locate each standard hue at its definite place in each rectangle. This invariably occurs at a predetermined point in the left vertical boundary of the rectangle of that hue. From inspection of Figure 455, it is quickly seen that violet seems to be the darkest hue; yellow the lightest, with the others between these hues. This variation of what is termed their value gives us a guide to their proper placing in the hue rectangle. [Sidenote: Values and Horizontal Value Lines] _Value_ is that quality by which we may distinguish a dark hue from a light one. For design purposes we will imagine the hue rectangle to grade from white at the top to black at the bottom. We will draw horizontal lines or steps across the rectangle, marking nine even value steps from white to black; the top one to be termed White (W), followed by High Light (HL); Light (L); Low Light (LL); Middle (M); High Dark (HD); Dark (D); Low Dark (LD); and Black (B). These value steps may be thought of as a scale of gray or neutral values descending the _right boundary_ of the hue rectangle. They have been roughly indicated in the hue rectangle at the left of Figure 454. [Sidenote: Relation of the Standard Hue to the Hue Rectangle] Each standard hue may now be located in the _left boundary_ of its hue rectangle and opposite its neutral gray equivalent in the right boundary. If the standard hue is accurately determined by the designer, it will be of exactly the same value as its gray equivalent given in the "value" column of the pigment table. The small arrows leading from Figure 455 to 454 show where four standard hues are located; the remaining hues are located in the left circle of each successive row in the remaining rectangles, and upon their respective value lines. Standard hues are expressed by the symbols in the _right column_ of the pigment table. [Sidenote: Tints] Each standard pigment or hue may be thinned with opaque white to lighten it, forming what is known as a tint of that hue. Red, in Figure 454, reaching its full chromatic intensity at the value High Dark, may be lightened four times before it ultimately arrives at white. Each step is to be considered as occurring in the left hand boundary of the rectangle above the standard hue, and is to be recorded by the symbols, R-M: R-LL: R-L: R-HL. Orange yellow has only one possible tint. Strawberry, light lavender, rose, etc., are merely nicknames for various tints. [Sidenote: Shades] Each standard hue may be darkened by the application of black, thus forming shades of that hue. Red is capable of producing two shades, R-D and R-LD, which are placed in the left boundary of the hue rectangle below the standard hue. Browns, russets, and dark tans are shades of different hues. These modifications of the standard hues into tints and shades give to the designer simple variations of his too brilliant standards. But even these modifications are not sufficiently grayed for staining or painting large wood or wall surfaces. There is a brilliancy and glare about certain tints which require modification. The shades are safer for use on large areas. The remaining space in the interior of the hue rectangle is to be devoted to the last gradation of the standard hue. [Sidenote: Chroma] _Chroma_ is the strength of a color. It is the quality by which we distinguish a strong color from a weak one. The standard hue is approximately full chromatic intensity. Likewise each tint and shade is considered to be of its full chromatic intensity, making the left-hand boundary of the rectangle the area of full chroma. From this boundary, each tint, standard, and shade _fades out or loses chroma_ until the right boundary of the rectangle is reached. In this boundary each tint, standard, and shade has faded out of its gray equivalent, but without changing its original value; in other words it has traveled along its horizontal value line to a complete grayness. The right-hand boundary of the rectangle may then be represented by a gray value scale of nine steps, including white and black. [Sidenote: Vertical Chroma Lines] It becomes necessary to record at regular intervals, this loss of chroma. For this purpose, we have cut the hue rectangle by three vertical lines. The first vertical line from the left boundary of the rectangle marks the position where the standard with its tints and shades have been grayed to the point where only three-fourths of the original of hue remains. Similarly, the center and right vertical lines mark the points where one-half and one-fourth, respectively, of the color have been retained. These losses of chroma are recorded by similar fractions. With possible modifications of value and chroma each hue now has twenty-seven possible changes. The full hue title or symbol may now be written as follows: (1) hue name, (2) amount of chroma, (3) value. Examples: GB [Sidenote: Full Hue Symbols] 3/4D-V1/2HL. We are now in a position to write whatever color we may have in mind and another person will understand it, provided the other person adopts our standard. Through the teachings of Dr. D.W. Ross, Mr. A.H. Munsell, and others, the symbols and standards are now quite generally understood and have, in a slightly modified form been accepted in several standard color industries. [Sidenote: Technical Practice] [Sidenote: Warm and Cold Colors] To familiarize oneself with the mixing of the various hues, it is excellent practice to form a vertical gray scale of the three-quarter-inch squares. There should be nine steps from white to black; an enlarged duplication of the right boundary of the hue rectangle. The warm standard hues at their full standard intensities; RV-R-OR-O-OY-Y, may be formed and placed opposite their gray equivalents on the left side of the gray scale, while the remaining or cold colors may be similarly placed with relation to the gray scale but upon the right of it. [Sidenote: Scales of Color] A vertical scale of tints and shades of one of the hues, duplicating the left side of the rectangle gives the character of the tints and shades. One shade and one tint should then be carried along a horizontal value line through three steps of loss of chroma to complete grayness, but without change of the original value. Yellow, by the addition of black becomes a false greenish shade which may be corrected by the addition of a small amount of vermilion. [Sidenote: Wood Stains] A large percentage of natural wood hues are to be found between the hue rectangles, Red-Orange, Yellow and Green, or in the warm portion of the spectrum. As a wood stain must blend harmoniously with the natural wood color, it is reasonable to expect the best results from stains with a predominance of warm hues or warm grays in their composition. [Sidenote: Basic Primary Hues] It is possible to duplicate _nearly all_ the twelve standard hues of Figure 455 with mixtures of the three so-called primary hues of red, yellow, and blue. It makes a fairly approximate scale which is, however, not sufficiently accurate for standardizing purposes. The scale is formed by mixing red and yellow in varying proportions for the intermediate hues of orange, yellow, and blue for the greens, and blue and red for the violets. This practice of mixing three primary colors together serves as an important step, governing wood stain mixing for beginners. [Sidenote: Three Basic Aniline Wood Dyes] Developing this idea further, we may select aniline brilliant scarlet as approximating red; metanil yellow, approximating yellow; and acid green as a substitute for blue. These stains are shown in the top portion of Figure 456. By comparison with Figure 455, scarlet is found to be orange red; metanil yellow, orange, and acid green to be true standard green. These basic stains have been located in their proper positions with regard to their hue, value, and chroma. Their positions are located by the large circles in the hue diagrams of Figure 456. [Sidenote: Wood Stain Mixing] These stains are modified and reduced in chroma and value by mixing them with nigrosene black, an aniline dye of blue black appearance, which fills all the needs of an ivory black in water or oil color pigment. With these four stains, almost any commercial stain may be duplicated. Aniline dye for water stains readily dissolves in water while a special aniline for oil staining is first cut with naphtha. [Sidenote: Dark Mahogany Stain] Dark mahogany stain in Figure 456 is orange red, ¾HD, and is indicated by the circle _A_ in the same figure. To duplicate this stain we have as the nearest base stain, brilliant scarlet, which corresponds to orange red. This is placed at its full intensity in the circle OR on the middle horizontal value line. To duplicate dark mahogany stain it will be necessary to reduce in value a strong solution of brilliant scarlet, slightly more than one horizontal value step, by the addition of nigrosene. We shall then add a small amount of some thinning medium, oil or water, to reduce slightly the stain in chroma. [Sidenote: Flemish Oak Stain] Flemish oak stain is orange ¾D. This calls for a mixture of metanil yellow and brilliant scarlet aniline to form the orange hue. We must then add nigrosene to reduce the value to D, and add a small amount of thinner to produce the necessary reduction in chroma. [Sidenote: Fumed Oak Stain] This is commonly produced by fuming the wood with ammonia. The hue may however be closely duplicated by a mixture of brilliant scarlet, metanil yellow, and nigrosene. It is practically the same as Flemish oak, but possesses one-quarter more color as can be seen on the orange hue rectangle. [Sidenote: Olive Green Stain] The circle _D_ shows this stain to be slightly below yellow green, ¾M, in value and chroma. The hue rectangle containing it is nearer the green than the orange yellow rectangle; hence in mixing the stain we should keep the green hue dominant by adding more of it than of metanil yellow. As in other stains, nigrosene is added to reduce the full chromatic intensities of the aniline to the proper value and chroma of olive green stain. [Sidenote: Light Weathered Oak Stain] This stain is practically blue, 1/4M, and is formed by thinning nigrosene to the proper value. [Sidenote: Color Changes of the Stain] Aniline dyes are apt to fade if exposed to full sunlight. There are, however, certain preventives that are beyond the scope of this book to treat in detail. The natural color of the wood is inclined to make a stain warmer than when originally mixed. This should be allowed for. Wood filler, the wood grain, porosity, qualities, and hue of the wood, all influence the final value of the stain. It frequently becomes darker in value as may be seen by comparing Figure 456 and Figures 458 to 461. It is good policy to test the stain upon different woods to observe the final effect. The tests may be kept for future reference. It is readily seen from the few examples in Figure 456 that, with the three basic stains, almost any other stains may be produced, thus affording a broad field for harmonious selection and adaptation to the environment. The next chapters will take up the question of color harmony and its application to wood, wall surfaces, clay, and metal. SUGGESTED PROBLEMS See paragraph upon "Technical Practice" in this chapter, page 198. REVIEW QUESTIONS 1. What pigments are best adapted to rendering design problems? What pigments are particularly adapted to the rendering of wood stains? How should each be applied? 2. What are standard hues? Why do we need standards of hue? 3. Define the term _values_. 4. What are tints and shades? 5. Define fully the term _chroma_. 6. Bound the hue rectangle and trace the value and chroma changes occurring on its vertical and horizontal lines. 7. Locate in its proper hue rectangle (Figure 455) the following hues: OY 3/4HD; YG 1/2LL; RV 3/4M; YL. 8. Name the three primary hues. How may an approximate scale of twelve hues be prepared from them? 9. Name the three basic aniline wood dyes and give their relation to the three primary hues. What is the practical use of nigrosene in stain mixing? 10. Give the symbol and explain the method of mixing Flemish oak wood stain. Name and explain the method of mixing two others. 11. How does its application to wood effect the color and value of aniline stain? [Illustration: PLATE 64] CHAPTER XVI COLOR AND ITS RELATION TO INDUSTRIAL ARTS DESIGN LARGE SURFACES OF WOOD; WALL AND CEILING AREAS [Sidenote: Color Harmony] In the preceding chapter, the classification and standardization of color were emphasized as preliminary to the study of color harmony. Color harmony is obtained by the proper balancing of value, hue, and chroma upon a surface or surfaces to give a pleasing reaction to the eye, and through the eye to the intellect. We are now ready to familiarize ourselves with the specific applications of these factors to practical design problems. Too many pieces of furniture are stained with no thought as to the final adaptation in the school or home. This is not wise, either from the standpoint of a complete educative process or of good taste. Figures 458, 459, 460, 461, show stains of Plate 64 applied to wood. Two new stains have been added, sage green and silver gray. These six stains are representative ones and act as a typical data for study of color harmony. FURNITURE--TRIM--SIDE WALLS--CEILINGS [Sidenote: Backgrounds] The side walls of a room form the background for furniture; trim, wall brackets, and similarly related objects; therefore the _closest relation and harmony_ should be maintained between them. [Sidenote: Value Range of Wood Stains] The wood stains 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, and 18, Plate 65, as they appear on various kinds of wood are, in part, duplicates of the unapplied stains of Plate 64, Figure 456. The effect of the wood has changed their values and in some instances their color as can be seen by comparing the two plates. Their _new relations_ have been plotted on the hue rectangles of Figure 457, Plate 65, and the results joined by a dotted line. The circles in the diagrams contain cross reference figures in order that the stains may be traced without difficulty. The highest value is near middle (18), and the lowest is low dark (6), showing a value range of four steps. [Sidenote: Value Range of Side Walls] The side walls, taken from well-known wall tint catalogs have been similarly plotted in Figure 457, and the results joined together by a heavy black line. The lightest value is light (11), and the darkest is middle value (14), an average range of three steps slightly above middle value. [Sidenote: Value Range of Ceilings] Ceilings are the lightest of the surfaces considered. Their range is from slightly below white (10), to light (16), a range of two values. From the results, as plotted in Figure 457, it is seen that there is a tendency to keep the ceilings within a close range of values. The results have been joined together by means of a double black line. There are exceptions to these results, but it is quite safe to keep well within the suggested range for harmonious results. We may now draw the following rules as a result of an empirical method of deduction. Rule 12a. _An average wood stain is to be retained between the values middle and low dark._ Rule 12b. _An average wall hue is to be retained between the values light and middle._ Rule 12c. _An average ceiling hue is to be retained between the values white (minus) and light._ [Sidenote: Value Range of Side Walls and Wood Work] Averaging the value range between the wood work which includes the furniture, trim, and the side walls of Figures 458, 459, 460, 461, 462, and 463, we find that the range varies from five values in Figures 459 to slightly more than one in Figure 463. As the side walls and furniture are to be regarded as unobtrusive settings for pictures and people it is well to be very conservative with the use of values. A wide range of values will cause a lack of unity. In this respect Figure 459 may be regarded as approaching the extreme limit of contrasts of value compatible with good taste. Let us, therefore, limit the value range to four values, as, for example: low light for side walls and dark for stain. Rule 12d. _The relation between the side walls and furniture, trim, etc., should be retained within the range of four values or less, as low light and dark._ [Sidenote: Value Range of Side Walls and Ceilings] The ceiling and side walls in Figure 459 are four values apart and in Figure 463 this has been reduced to a one-value step. There seems to be a common average of three values as an acceptable and agreeable contrast. For dark rooms this would well be increased. For rooms with light side walls the contrast would be considerably lessened. Rule 12e. _The relation between side walls and ceiling should be within the range of three values or less, as high light and low light._ HUE GROUPINGS [Sidenote: Hue Range for Wood Work and Walls] A wood stain should be closely related to the natural color of the wood. As this is usually a warm color we naturally find most of the wood stains included between the red and the yellow hue rectangles, inclusive of red and yellow green. Walnut then may be stained a deep shade of orange or red, but would not be adapted to a blue green stain. This arbitrary but wide range of hues of stained wood naturally affects the hue of the side walls. The plotting of the hues for the side walls, Figure 457, shows a close relation to the hues of the stain to the wall. In no instance do we find the hue rectangle of the wood work more than three hues away from that of the walls. In four instances they are within two hue rectangles of each other and in one instance they are both within the same rectangle. This develops the fact that _analogous_ or neighboring groupings of hues prevail in relating the hues of wood work and side walls. [Sidenote: Analogous Hues] An _analogous_ group of hues is an arrangement based upon a selection of tints and shades within three rectangles of each other, as orange and yellow. These harmonize because yellow is mixed with and becomes a hue common to both. While the analogous arrangement of hues seems to be most commonly used, and with a result that seems to justify its adoption into general practice, there are other arrangements that are pleasing to the eye. [Sidenote: Contrasted Hues] Figure 458 illustrates what is commonly known as a _contrasted_ grouping or arrangement of hues. It consists of the tints or shades of one or more hues and gray. It is the basis of color harmony between silver and semi-precious stones. If two hues are used, one of them should be reduced in chroma to nearly gray. [Sidenote: Dominant Hue] Figure 463 is typical of still another form of positive hue grouping. By consulting the yellow hue rectangle of Figure 457 it is noted that the wood work, side walls, and ceiling of Figure 463 _are all contained in one rectangle_. This classes this color scheme as an example of _dominant_ arrangement which may be simply defined as the _tints and shades of one hue_. The arrangement does not have the variety supplied by analogous grouping, introducing as it does, two hues from different rectangles, but for large surfaces dominant grouping is a conservative and safe arrangement. Its tendency toward monotony should be guarded against by the introduction of some object high in chroma in the room decorative scheme. A bright colored vase will accomplish this successfully. Rule 12o, Chapter XVII. Rule 12f. _Color schemes for wood work and side walls should preferably be selected from one of the following groupings: analogous, contrasted, or dominant arrangements of hues. Analogous grouping is preferable where variety of hue is desirable._ [Sidenote: Special Arrangements] The above rule is not to be taken as arbitrary. In the hands of competent designers attractive color schemes are developed that differ materially from the above suggestions. But, for the usual home setting, the above arrangement may be regarded as satisfactory, and is given with the idea of bringing the school shop work and the home environment into closer color harmony. A specimen of special arrangement is given by the Circle 3A. This is delft blue, which harmonizes with dark mahogany in a satisfactory manner. [Sidenote: Hue Range for Side Walls and Ceilings] In adjusting the hues for side walls and ceilings, the relations should be of the closest. The plotting of ceiling hues in Figure 457 shows a strong tendency for the ceiling to be colored with a tint of the side walls (dominant arrangement), or by a tint selected from the next rectangle (analogous arrangement). Yellow or yellow-green, very light and much reduced in chroma, seems to be the almost universal custom. This is due to the strongly _light reflecting_ qualities of yellow. Rule 12g. _Ceilings should be colored by a lighter tint of the side walls or by a lighter tint of an analogous hue._ [Sidenote: Range of Chroma for Stains] Stains, as they occupy a comparatively limited area in the room color scheme, are of their full chroma value or reduced to three-fourths chroma. In only one instance (18), Figure 463, do we find a reduction to one-fourth chroma, demanded by the nearly gray color scheme of the walls. We find it to be an established fact that small areas are capable of enrichment by colors of greater purity and higher chroma than larger surfaces. A silver pin may be designed to contain a stone of high brilliancy, but a wall surface has to be materially reduced in chroma to possess color harmony. [Illustration: PLATE 65] [Sidenote: Range of Chroma for Stain] Rule 12h. _Stains are usually not reduced to below three-fourths chromatic intensity. Nearly gray side walls, however, call for a reduction to one-fourth intensity._ [Sidenote: Range of Chroma for Walls] As the walls occupy a large proportionate area of the color scheme of the room we find it necessary to reduce them in chroma in order to soften the glare of too brilliant colors. Figure 457 shows only one instance (14) of a hue unreduced in chroma. It is retained at the full chroma for that value on account of the brightness of the sage green wood stain. The other hues represented in the diagram are grayed or reduced in chroma from three-fourths to less than one-fourth, or to nearly neutral gray. Rule 12i. _Wall colors are usually reduced to three-fourths chroma to a minimum reduction of slightly less than one-fourth chroma._ [Sidenote: Range of Chroma for Ceilings] The same tendency toward chromatic reduction is to be seen in ceilings, although we have two examples in Figure 457 (10 and 13) of nearly white and high light ceilings that have not been reduced. To avoid crudity a reduction in chroma by the addition of gray is to be desired. Rule 12j. _Ceilings should usually be reduced in chroma to three-fourths intensity with slightly less than one-fourth chroma as a minimum reduction._ [Sidenote: Summary] With a single exception (3A), the stains and wall tints have been selected between and including the red and green rectangles. This is customary and gives safe hue range as it insures the retention of wall and ceiling hues in unified conformity with the warm tints of the natural wood and its equally dark hued stains. [Sidenote: Wall and Ceiling Pigments] The following is a list of dry colors which may be purchased at a paint or hardware store for a few cents a pound. It is suggested for the designer or craftsman who desires to tint his own wall or ceiling. While oil paint is to be preferred, these colors are readily and quickly applied and form serviceable backgrounds. [Sidenote: Calcimine] The pigments are white, yellow ochre, chrome yellow light, chrome yellow medium, and chrome yellow dark, burnt and raw sienna, turkey and raw umber, ultramarine and ivory black. The greens are preferably mixed by adding ultramarine to one of the chromes. Shades are formed by the addition of the siennas, umbers, or black. Black and white, mixed to a gray, are useful in reducing the chroma of a hue. The stains should be mixed with hot water and a small amount of glue for a binder. White occasionally comes prepared with glue in its composition. [Sidenote: Opaque Wood Finishes] While this chapter has emphasized the transparent finish for wood treatment, as a method best fitted for woods with a distinct grain, it is realized that oil painting of wood surfaces has a distinct and important part to play in the interior decorative scheme of a room. This latter method is adapted to soft woods without a strongly marked grained surface. The warm hued rectangle of the spectrum: red, orange, and yellow with their associated hues, which are so intimately connected with the natural wood colors and their stains, no longer stand as a limiting factor in controlling the color of the wood or the side walls. The opaque nature of oil paints allows us to disregard the color of the wood, and thus select any hue of oil paint which harmonizes with the walls and decorative scheme of the room. The rules stated herein are equally applicable to opaque colors. It may be necessary to reduce oil paints in chroma beyond the point indicated in Rule 12h. While it is not within the scope of this chapter to enter into a complete discussion of the subject of interior decoration, the following suggestions are considered as applying to our subject: viz., the surface enrichment of large areas. Complete color harmony in interior decoration generally demands the presence of the three so-called primary hues: red, yellow, and blue, in some form in the wall color scheme. While this is not always possible, two may be introduced as follows. [Sidenote: Northern Exposure] The light from the north, northeast, or northwest is cold blue, supplying blue in the decorative scheme of three primary colors: blue, red, and yellow. The wall tints should then be composed of combinations of red and yellow, the remaining primaries. These may be applied to the walls by means of tints of yellow and orange reduced in chroma, or shades of orange and orange-red. No greens or blues should be used. [Sidenote: Southern Exposure] The light from the south, southeast, and southwest supplies plenty of yellow. It is, then, necessary to add the remaining primaries or at least one of them in the form of gray-blue, orange, or orange-yellow, reduced to one-fourth chroma and practically to neutrality or grayish-reds and greens, well reduced in chroma. Any hue strongly yellow should be avoided. [Sidenote: Effects of Hue upon Apparent Size] Certain hues materially affect the apparent size of a room. If the room is small certain values and hues will make it appear much smaller. Dark values, as a rule, make the room look smaller by seemingly drawing the walls closer together. Red contracts the apparent size of a room, while yellow and blue expand it. Green and shades of yellow and red-orange, if not too dark, have little effect upon the apparent size of a room. SUMMARY OF DESIGN STEPS (_a_) Determine, by its exposure, the kind of light the room receives. (_b_) Choose a hue for the walls embodying one or both of the primary hues not represented by this daylight. (_c_) Select a value and chroma for this hue in accordance with Rules 12b and 12i. (_d_) Select a hue, value, and chroma for the ceiling in accordance with Rules 12g, 12e, and 12j. (_e_) Select the correct hue, value, and chroma for paint or stain for the wood work in accordance with Rules 12f, 12a, and 12h. SUGGESTED PROBLEMS Develop the color scheme for the walls, ceiling, and wood work of a room with a northern exposure; southern exposure. Mix the stain for a piece of oak to harmonize with the wood work and walls of the living room of your home. Determine the wall tints to harmonize with dark weathered oak. Mix them from dry colors. SUMMARY OF RULES Rule 12a. _An average wood stain is to be retained between the values middle and low dark._ Rule 12b. _An average wall hue is to be retained between the values light and middle._ Rule 12c. _An average ceiling hue is to be retained between the values white (minus) and light._ Rule 12d. _The relation between the side walls and furniture, trim, etc., should be retained within the range of four values or less, as low light and dark._ Rule 12e. _The relation between the side walls and ceiling should be within the range of three values or less, as high light and low light._ Rule 12f. _Color schemes for wood work and side walls should preferably be selected from one of the following groupings: analogous, contrasted, or dominant arrangements of hues. Analogous grouping is preferable where variety of hue is desirable._ Rule 12g. _Ceilings should be colored by a lighter tint of the side walls or by a lighter tint of an analogous hue._ Rule 12h. _Stains are usually not reduced to below three-fourths chromatic intensity. Nearly gray side walls, however, call for a reduction to one-fourth intensity._ Rule 12i. _Wall colors are usually reduced to three-fourths chroma to a minimum reduction of slightly less than one-fourth chroma._ Rule 12j. _Ceilings should usually be reduced in chroma to three-fourths intensity, with slightly less than one-fourth chroma as a minimum reduction._ REVIEW QUESTIONS 1. What should we have in mind when staining furniture for the home? 2. Why are the side walls important when considering the color scheme of a room? 3. Give the value range for the average wood stains, side walls, and ceiling. 4. State the value range to include wood work, furniture, trim, and side walls. 5. State the value range that includes side walls and ceilings. 6. Give the hue range for wood work and side walls. 7. Explain the analogous, contrasted, and dominant groupings of hues and name two examples of each. 8. Give the hue range for side walls and ceilings. Name several good combinations. 9. Give range of chroma for wood work, side walls, and ceiling. Explain the reasons for each change of chroma. 10. What experience have you had in mixing calcimine for wall decoration? 11. Discuss opaque finishes for wood. 12. Give the hues for rooms with northern and southern exposures. Why? 13. State the effect of hues upon the apparent size of a room. CHAPTER XVII COLOR AND ITS RELATION TO INDUSTRIAL ARTS DESIGN SMALL SURFACES IN CLAY AND METAL Before proceeding to the discussion of the application of color to clay it becomes necessary to determine what technical possibilities are presented. [Sidenote: Color Applied to the Surface Enrichment of Clay] Plain glazing of the entire surface is a common form of pottery enrichment. A piece of ware, thus glazed, may become a point of concentration in the color arrangement of a room, and should be definitely located in that arrangement. The ware may harmonize with the background (side wall) by analogy, dominance, or contrast or through complementary coloring. Rule 12o. A glaze from the diagram in Figure 464 should be selected as forming a part in the selected arrangement. Side wall (11), Figure 457, would harmonize with glaze C9 by virtue of its dominant relation or with M7 through analogy. The glaze selected should be higher in chroma than the side wall and will be found to form a cheerful and brilliant element in the room color scheme. The definite linking of these different factors of interior decoration into unity has been earnestly advocated in these chapters. Figures 457 and 464 show the possibilities of cross references. [Sidenote: Stains for Glazes] It soon becomes apparent because of the coloring of clay ware that the designer must know something of the color possibilities of glazed pottery forms. The decorative processes were explained at some length in Chapter XII, wherein we described the common types of surface enrichment. As we are now primarily considering the question of color, we first regard the ware as uniformly glazed with either clear or matt glaze. The former is brilliant, of high chroma, and has a highly polished surface, while the latter is dull surfaced glaze of lower chroma. [Sidenote: Metallic Oxides] Metallic oxides are used to stain or color clear glazes, while underglaze colors are ordinarily used for matts. The percentage of stains to be added to the dry glazes is stated in Figure 464 where they can be readily traced to their approximate locations in the hue rectangles by the reference letters M1, C1, etc. Certain oxides are weak coloring agents and require larger amounts of oxide to color the glaze perceptibly. Iron and copper oxide may be mixed to produce a large variety of yellow greens; other combinations will suggest themselves. It is possible to use oxides as well as underglaze colors for staining matt glazes. [Sidenote: Harmony of Color] We have, to this point, considered the enrichment of large surfaces whose areas were arbitrarily determined by construction, as, for example, the extent of wall surface, ceiling, or wood trim and furniture. The essential element in this type of problem is the selection of a one, two, or three-hued color arrangement that would harmoniously link ceiling, wall, and wood together. If we had introduced stencilling or figured wall paper it would have immediately called for the solution of another problem, the factor of _how much_ strong color to use. In other words, it would have introduced the question of _proportionate distribution_ of color upon a given area. It was thought best to limit the subject of proportionate distribution to small areas, where the designer is often forced to make decisions and to divide surfaces into proportionate color parts for his surface enrichment. We may now repeat the definition of harmony with the accentuation placed upon a certain wording directly applicable to small surfaces. Harmony is obtained by the proper balancing and _proportionate distribution_ of value, hue, and chroma upon a surface to give a unified and pleasing reaction to the eye and intellect. [Sidenote: Proportionate Distribution of Color for Small Areas] Rule 12k. _Proportionate distribution of hue, value, and chroma in surface enrichment calls for a small area, high in chroma, and contrasting in value to the rest of the surface but harmonizing with it. This is usually located in the area of concentration. The larger areas are to be sufficiently reduced in chroma and value to form a slight contrast with the background._ [Sidenote: Examples of Proportionate Distribution] Figure 465 illustrates some of the salient factors of distribution of values and hues. Hues of or near standard chromatic intensity should be used in _small quantities_ and should accentuate the point of concentration. These small areas are to be regarded as giving brilliancy and life to the surface and to hold the eye at the point of concentration. Very small surfaces are capable of sustaining spots of high chroma, as is shown in the silver pin of Figure 468. The remaining portions of the surface enrichment should be kept subordinated in hue and value to the point of concentration, _but related to it_. The bands of Figure 465 are well reduced in value and make little contrast with the background, thus forming true surface enrichment or that which neither rises above or apparently falls through the surface. The point of concentration is higher in chroma than the surrounding areas. Rule 12l. _One hue, or a group of analogous hues should dominate all color schemes. The point of concentration may be emphasized by one hue related to the other hues by (1) contrasted, (2) dominant, (3) analogous, (4) complementary relations. This hue should make slightly stronger value and chroma contrast than the remaining hues._ Rule 12m. _An extreme range of five values is generally sufficient to supply contrast to a design but still retain its value unity. Restraint in the use of values is essential._ Rule 12n. _The amount of chroma may be increased in proportion to the decrease in the decorated area. Exceptions may be made to this under Rule 12o._ [Sidenote: Value and Hue and Chroma Range for Small Areas] In the vase, Figure 464A, the designer selected hues from neighboring or analogous rectangles green and blue-green. The value range is restricted to four steps and the areas of concentration are placed at the top of the vase by the stronger value and hue contrasts of the foliage of the trees and dark blue rim. In both Figures, 464A and 465, the designer has used analogous hue arrangements. This is suggested to the beginner as serviceable for objects exceeding the dimensions of jewelry and includes such problems as vase forms, book stalls, and brackets. Contrasted and dominant arrangements are also good, safe, and sound arrangements, but fail to give the variety of color to small objects afforded by analogous grouping. At a later point in this chapter the subject of complementary coloring will suggest a new arrangement to the reader, but this scheme is to be left until he has sufficiently mastered the possibilities of the arrangements just indicated. Five values form a safe value range for small objects. It is good practice to keep the larger areas, including the background, within three steps of each other and to allow the point of concentration to form the strongest value contrast. [Sidenote: Over Reduction in Chroma] The chroma may range from full to three-quarters intensity. Reduction to one-half or one-fourth intensity is inclined to make a small object appear washed out or chalky. Shades, at their full intensity, are good colors to use for small surfaces in wood. Small enameled objects may be developed in full chroma, while pottery forms range from full chroma to one-half chroma in forms of slip and underglaze painting. [Sidenote: Color Applied to the Surface Enrichment of Metal] It is interesting to note the gradually increasing chroma percentage of the different coloring media in direct proportion to the reduction of the area of the surface to be enriched. By comparing the diagrams of Figures 464 and 457 it will be seen that there is a steady movement toward the left sides of the hue rectangles or toward stronger intensity. The wall areas are shown to be lowest in chroma, followed by the increasing intensity of wood stains, glazes, and enamels. [Sidenote: Enamels] Enamels, commonly used to enrich metal surfaces, are highest in chroma of the decorative materials under discussion and are to be treated with nearly as much restraint as one would use in enriching a surface with semi-precious stones, for strong hues are cheapened by excessive use. The plate in Figure 436 has small circles filled with enamel and a large field of chased or uncolored design. [Sidenote: Transparent Enamels] Transparent enamels are comparable to clear glazes and the coloring medium is the same. Their preparation is difficult and therefore trade names have been given in the table of Figure 464. As will be seen by consulting the diagram of Figure 464, T1, T2, T3, etc., they are all at their full value intensity. Enamels, as supplied by the trade, are much too intense for use in enrichment and consequently are applied over a coating of colorless clear enamel, technically named flux or fondant. As the thickness of coating of enamel may vary, the hue classification is to be regarded as approximate. [Illustration: PLATE 66] [Sidenote: Opaque Enamels] Opaque enamels may be compared with matt glazes, for, while the texture of the surface has a distinct gloss, the enamels themselves are not so strong in hue as the transparent enamels. By referring to the diagram of Figure 464, it may be seen that many of the opaque enamels are reduced in chroma, thus accounting for their softened hue. [Sidenote: Oxidation] Metals are capable of considerable change of color by the application of chemicals to the surface. Potassium sulphuret will lower the surface value of silver or copper to a rich velvety black associated with antiques. This may be removed in places naturally subjected to wear, thus varying the dead black appearance. Copper and brass may be coated with salt and vinegar or verdigris to give the surface a corroded and greenish appearance. Heating is a fugitive method of coloring and is, therefore, not considered. [Sidenote: Harmony through Oxidation] These surface changes may be utilized to harmonize metal and its environment, as, for example, copper trimmings and a shade for a pottery lamp; or it may be used to reduce the brightness of the natural copper surface. The surfaces of metals may be changed with actual manipulation of the surface by frosting or sanding and plating. Gold may be readily plated with gold to bring it into closer harmony with the stone. Plating, applied to base metals, merely to give the impression of a more expensive metal, is to be discouraged. [Sidenote: Metal Backgrounds] One has to consider metal as a background in much the same manner as we considered wall surfaces as a background for stained furniture. Whatever color is applied to the surface must harmonize in proportionate distribution as well as hue, value, and chroma. We have a small amount of leeway for varying the background by the different processes of oxidation and plating. [Sidenote: Enamel on a Copper Background] As one of the more common processes, let us consider the application of enamel to copper in the form of champleve enrichment. Our first thought would be the analysis of the natural copper color. It is found to be a shade of orange-red and will, therefore, readily harmonize with the _analogous_ oranges and reds, as they both have the common hue of red. There should be a slight contrast of value between these enamels and the background. If this contrast is not present, it is well to oxidize slightly the copper to lower its value and thus produce the contrast. [Sidenote: Complementary Arrangement] The fourth harmonious hue combination, that of complementary arrangement or grouping, has been left to the last as its use is more closely associated with small multi-colored projects and small areas. A hue approximately complementary to the initial hue is found by counting seven rectangles to the right or left of that hue; this will give the hue complementary to the initial hue. Thus, starting with red and moving through seven rectangles toward the right, we find the complement to be green. Any two hues so selected will be found to enhance the brilliancy of each other. The best results are secured when one hue dominates the color scheme by its increased area. Pottery may be adapted to a complementary color scheme by Rule 12i. Rule 12o. _Small one or two-hued projects in clay, designed to be used as a part of the decorative color scheme for a room should bear a contrasted, dominant, analogous, or complementary relation to the side walls of the room. The project may be much higher in chroma than the side walls._ [Sidenote: The Relation of Colored Glazes to Interior Decoration of a Room] To find a glaze that will harmonize with the side walls of a room by complementary arrangement of hues, select the desired wall tint from the diagram in Figure 457. Find the similar hue rectangle in the diagram of Figure 464 and, starting with this rectangle as one, count seven hues from the side wall rectangle in either direction. In the seventh rectangle or in a neighboring one will usually be found a number of glazes answering the requirements and bearing a complementary relation to the side walls. Select a glaze from these that will make a contrast of chroma or value with the side wall. Example: background or side wall, Figure 457, No. 8, is in the orange yellow rectangle. Counting seven from this in Figure 464 we find the complement to be blue violet. As there is no glaze in this rectangle we will move to its neighbor on the left. This gives us clear glaze, C1, containing one and one-half per cent black oxide of cobalt, or a matt glaze containing seven per cent mazarine blue. Glazes that will harmonize with side wall 8 through dominant arrangements are found in the same rectangle, O Y, and are numbered M5, M6, C7, C8. Glazes that will harmonize by analogy are C9 and M7, and are found in the left and right neighboring rectangles. In Figure 466, the copper fob, R O, is combined with its complementary blue-green. Let us look at Figure 464. Counting seven intervals or hue rectangles to the right of the orange red rectangle we find T4 which is transparent blue green enamel. We may associate with this an analogous enamel from the green rectangle; this proves to be T5 medium green transparent enamel. [Sidenote: Development of Design for Enamel on Metal] The point of concentration may now be emphasized by an enamel complementary to the blue green hue. Counting seven rectangles to the _left_ we again encounter the red orange rectangle. Here there are no enamels but in the red hue rectangle we find T7 which is slightly orange-red. A small portion of this, Rule 12k, is applied and is found to center the design at the point of concentration in a satisfactory manner. Slight oxidation brings out the colors of the enamels. Upon attempting to develop the same figure in opaque enamels it is soon seen that there are no pleasing complementary enamels of this type, but many analogous combinations. Autumn brown with the point of concentration developed in orange (O5) would be an excellent compromise. Rule 12p. _Correct color for surface enrichment should neither apparently rise above nor drop below the surface to which it is applied, but should stay upon the plane of that surface. Correct value and chroma range will accomplish this._ [Sidenote: Color for Silver Enrichment] The gray-blue color of silver lends itself to a great number of gem stones, forming examples of contrasted arrangements. Care should be taken to form contrasts of _value_. Figure 467 is an example of a weak and insipid combination, lacking in value and hue contrast. The amethyst of Figure 468 corrects this error, while the oxidation of Figure 469 has partially corrected the lack of contrast shown in Figure 467. These illustrations tend to show that even stronger contrasts may be attempted with small gems and semi-precious stones than with enamels. This again proves the rule that the smaller areas are capable of sustaining stronger contrasts of hue, value, and chroma than are large ones. SUMMARY OF DESIGN STEPS The outline of the surface enrichment is considered as complete. (_a_) METAL OR WOOD. Analyze the background into its hue, value, and chroma. CLAY. Select a background that will harmonize with the controlling hue or hues of the proposed color scheme. Rule 12o. If this is a one hued color scheme without gradation or surface enrichment the design steps may terminate at this point. (_b_) METAL, WOOD, AND CLAY. Select the extreme value range of the color scheme, considering, if possible, the background as a balancing or pivotal value point upon which the values may balance above and below. As the side walls formed a balancing point for the ceiling and furniture or wood work, so may the background of metal, wood, or colored clay become a similar balancing factor for small surfaces. Rule 12m. (_c_) METAL, WOOD, AND CLAY. Select a hue or hues which will harmonize with the background through dominant, contrasting, or analogous relations. Rule 12l. In selecting the hues consider the final placing of the object. (_d_) METAL, WOOD, AND CLAY. Select a chroma range. Allow the point or area of concentration to have a slightly higher chromatic relation than the other hues. The point of concentration may be one of the hues already selected or it may bear a _complementary_ relation to them. The hues may be averaged and a complementary to the average selected. Rule 12n. (_e_) METAL, WOOD, AND CLAY. Apply the rule of proportionate distribution, Rule 12k. (_f_) METAL AND WOOD. Using the pigments suggested in Chapter XV, design the problem. Test the result by applying Rule 12p. (_g_) CLAY. If the design has been developed in slip or underglaze painting, select a glaze for an overglaze coating that will harmonize with the prevailing hues by _dominance or analogy_. Other arrangements may destroy the hues of the original color scheme. (_h_) Develop the problem in its material. SUGGESTED PROBLEMS Design a bowl for nasturtiums; make the color arrangement harmonize through analogy with the hues of the flowers. Design a vase for chrysanthemums; make the surface enrichment and the color arrangement harmonize through dominance with the hues of the flowers. Design a hat pin for a blue hat; materials, copper, and transparent enamels. Design a brooch to be worn with a gray dress. Design a pottery and copper lamp with amber art glass in the shade. Through oxidation and glazing, bring the lamp into color unity. SUMMARY OF RULES Rule 12k. _Proportionate distribution of hue, value, and chroma in surface enrichment calls for a small area high in chroma and contrasting in value to the rest of the surface, but harmonizing with it. This is usually located in the area of concentration. The larger areas are to be sufficiently reduced in chroma and value to form a slight contrast with the background._ HUES FOR SMALL OBJECTS Rule 12l. _One hue, or a group of analogous hues should dominate all color schemes. The point of concentration may be emphasized by one hue related to the other hues by (1) contrasted, (2) dominant, (3) analogous, or (4) complementary relations. This hue should make slightly stronger value and chroma contrast than the remaining hues._ VALUES FOR SMALL OBJECTS Rule 12m. _An extreme range of five values is generally sufficient to supply contrast to a design but still retain its value unity. Restraint in the use of values is essential._ CHROMA FOR SMALL OBJECTS Rule 12n. _The amount of chroma may be increased in proportion to the decrease in the decorated area. Exceptions may be made to this under Rule 12o._ Rule 12o. _Small one or two-hued projects in clay, designed to be used as a part of the decorative color scheme for a room should bear a contrasted, dominant, analogous, or complementary relation to the side walls of the room. The project may be much higher in chroma than the side walls._ Rule 12p. _Correct color for surface enrichment should neither apparently rise above nor drop below the surface to which it is applied, but should stay upon the plane of that surface. Correct value and chroma range will accomplish this._ REVIEW QUESTIONS 1. State the value of mono-hued pottery in the decorative scheme of a room. 2. What are generally used as stains for clear glazes; matt glazes? 3. What is highest in chroma--matt, or clear glaze? 4. Make a table of metallic oxides and the hues produced by them. 5. Why will iron and copper oxides produce a yellow green stain? What stains will be produced by cobalt and copper oxides; cobalt and manganese oxides; cobalt and nickel oxides? 6. Describe the type of room which you regard as best fitted for clear glazed pottery forms; matt glazed pottery forms. 7. Define harmony of color. 8. What is meant by proportionate distribution? Describe proportionate distribution. 9. Give the value, hue, and chroma range for small areas. See Rules 12l, 12m, and 12n. 10. How does the size of the area to be enriched by color affect the color medium, _i.e._, stains, glazes, enamels, etc.? 11. Describe enamels, their types, characteristics, and range of hues. Consult catalogs for fuller possibilities. 12. What is the effect of oxidation; what is its value? 13. Describe fully complementary arrangements and give illustrations for enamel on silver or copper. 14. State the color scheme for a fob to be worn with a blue-green dress; with a gray suit for a man. 15. Select a stone for a silver brooch that would harmonize with a light blue dress; for a dress of orange dark hue and value. See catalogs of dealers in semi-precious stones for color of stones. 16. What problems of hue, value, and chroma would arise in Question 15? SUMMARY OF THE GENERAL AND SPECIAL RULES IN THE PRECEEDING CHAPTERS HORIZONTAL AND VERTICAL PRIMARY MASSES Rule 1a. _A primary mass must be either vertical or horizontal according to the intended service, unless prohibited by technical requirements._ PROPORTIONS OF THE PRIMARY MASS Rule 1b. _The primary mass should have the ratio of one to three, three to four, three to five, five to eight, seven to ten, or some similar proportion difficult for the eye to detect readily and analyze._ HORIZONTAL SPACE DIVISIONS Rule 2a. _If the primary mass is divided into two horizontal divisions, the dominance should be either in the upper or the lower section._ Rule 2b. _If the primary mass is divided into three horizontal divisions or sections, the dominance should be placed in the center section with varying widths in the upper and lower thirds._ SEQUENTIAL PROGRESSION OF MINOR HORIZONTAL SPACE DIVISIONS Rule 2c. _A primary mass may be divided into three or more smaller horizontal masses or sections by placing the larger mass or masses at the bottom and by sequentially reducing the height measure of each mass toward the smaller division or divisions to be located at the top of the mass._ VERTICAL SPACE DIVISIONS Rule 3a. _If the primary mass is divided into two vertical divisions, the divisions should be equal in area and similar in form._ Rule 3b. _If the primary mass is divided into three vertical divisions, the center division should be the larger, with the remaining divisions of equal size._ Rule 3c. _In elementary problems, if more than three vertical divisions are required, they should be so grouped as to analyze into Rules 3a, and 3b, or be exactly similar._ APPENDAGES Rule 4a. _The appendage should be designed in unity with, and proportionately related to, the vertical or horizontal character of the primary mass, but subordinated to it._ Rule 4b. _The appendage should have the appearance of flowing smoothly and, if possible, tangentially from the primary mass._ Rule 4c. _The appendage should, if possible, echo or repeat some lines similar in character and direction to those of the primary mass._ OUTLINE OR CONTOUR ENRICHMENT Rule 5a. _Outline enrichment should be subordinated to and support the structure._ Rule 5b. _Outline enrichment should add grace, lightness, and variety to the design._ Rule 5c. _Outline enrichment, by its similarity, should give a sense of oneness or unity to the design, binding divergent members together._ Rule 5d. _Parts of one design differing in function should differ in appearance but be co-ordinated with the entire design._ Rule 5e. _In cylindrical forms outline curves with a vertical tendency should have their turning points or units of measurement in accordance with the horizontal divisions of Rules 2a and 2b._ Rule 5f. _Dependent outline enrichment should be related to essential parts of a design and influenced by their forms and functions; it must be consistent with the idea of the subject._ Rule 5g. _A curve should join a straight line with either a tangential or right angle junction._ SURFACE ENRICHMENT Postulate. _The design should conform to the limitations and requirements of tools, processes, and materials, and should be durable and suitable for service._ Rule 6a. _Surfaces to be enriched must admit of enrichment._ Rule 6b. _Surface enrichment must be related to the structural contours but must not obscure the actual structure._ Rule 6c. _The treatment must be appropriate to the material._ CONTINUOUS BANDS AND BORDERS FOR PARTLY ENRICHED SURFACES Rule 6d. _Bands and borders should have a consistent lateral, that is, onward movement._ Rule 6e. _Bands and borders should never have a prominent contrary motion, opposed to the main forward movement._ Rule 6f. _All component parts of a border should move in unison with the main movement of the border._ Rule 6g. _Each component part of a border should be strongly dynamic and, if possible, partake of the main movements of the border._ Rule 6h. _Borders intended for vertical surfaces may have a strongly upward movement in addition to the lateral movement, provided the lateral movement dominates._ Rule 6i. _Inlayed enrichment should never form strong or glaring contrasts with the parent surface._ Rule 6j. _Carved surface enrichment should have the appearance of belonging to the parent mass._ ENCLOSED ENRICHMENT--PARTLY ENRICHED PANELS FOR SURFACE ENRICHMENT Rule 7a. _Marginal panel enrichment should parallel or be related to the outlines of the primary mass and to the panel it is to enrich._ Rule 7b. _Marginal points of concentration in panels should be placed (1) preferably at the corners or (2) in the center of each margin._ Rule 7c. _To insure unity of design in panels, the elements composing the point of concentration and links connecting them must be related to the panel contour and to each other._ ENCLOSED ENRICHMENT--FULLY ENRICHED PANELS FOR SURFACE ENRICHMENT Rule 7d. _The contours of fully enriched panels should parallel the outlines of the primary mass and repeat its proportions._ Rule 7e. _The points of concentration for a fully enriched square panel may be in its center or in its outer margin._ Rule 7f. _The points of concentration for a fully enriched vertical panel should be in the upper portion of the panel._ Rule 7g. _The fully enriched panel and its contents should be designed in unified relation to the structural outlines, with the center line of the panel coinciding with the inceptive axis of the structure._ FREE ORNAMENT FOR PARTLY ENRICHED SURFACES Rule 8a. _Free ornament for partly or fully enriched surfaces should be based and centered upon an inceptive axis of the structure._ Rule 8b. _Free ornament should be related and subordinated to the structural surfaces._ Rule 8c. _Points of concentration in free enrichment of vertically placed masses are usually located in and around the inceptive axis and above or below the geometric center of the design._ SURFACE ENRICHMENT OF CLAY Rule 9a. _Surface enrichment of clay must be so designed as to be able to withstand the action of heat to which all ware must be submitted._ Rule 9b. _Incised, pierced, and modeled decoration in clay should be simple and bold and thus adapted to the character of the material._ Rule 9c. _A border should not be located at the point of greatest curvature in the contour of a cylindrical form. The contour curve is of sufficient interest in itself at that point._ SURFACE ENRICHMENT OF BASE AND PRECIOUS METALS FOR SMALL MASSES Rule 10a. _Designs in precious metals should call for the minimum amount of metal necessary to express the idea of the designer for two reasons: (1) good taste; (2) economy of material._ Rule 10b. _Contour and surface enrichment should never appear to compete for attention in the same design._ Rule 10c. _Parts of a design differing in function should differ in appearance but be co-ordinated with the entire design._ Rule 10d. _Surface enrichment should at some point parallel the contours of both primary mass and point of concentration especially whenever the latter is a stone or enamel._ Rule 10e. _In the presence of either stone or enamel as a point of concentration, surface enrichment should be regarded as an unobtrusive setting, or background._ Rule 10f. _Stone or enamel used as a point of concentration should form contrast with the metal, either in color, brilliancy, or value, or all three combined._ Rule 10g. _The inceptive axis should pass through and coincide with one axis of a stone and at the same time be sympathetically related to the structure._ Rule 10h. _The position of the inceptive axis should be determined by: (1) use of the project as ring, pendant, or bar pin, (2) character of the primary mass as either vertical or horizontal in proportion._ Rule 10i. _Caution should be exercised with regard to the use of enamel. Over-decoration by this material tends to cheapen both process and design._ Rule 10j. _All surface enrichment should have an appearance of compactness or unity. Pierced spots or areas should be so used as to avoid the appearance of having been scattered on the surface without thought to their coherence._ Rule 10k. _Built, carved, and chased enrichment should have the higher planes near the point of concentration. It is well to have the stone as the highest point above the primary mass. When using this form of enrichment, the stone should never appear to rise abruptly from the primary mass, but should be approached by a series of rising planes._ Rule 10l. _The lanes or margins between enameled spots should be narrower than the lane or margin between the enamel and the contour of the primary mass._ Rule 10m. _Transparent and opaque stones or enamel should not be used in the same design._ SURFACE ENRICHMENT OF BASE AND PRECIOUS METALS FOR LARGE PRIMARY MASSES Rule 11a. _The preliminary steps toward surface enrichment should be thought out before they are drawn._ Rule 11b. _Conservative application should mark the use of surface enrichment of large masses. Its use should: (1) lighten or soften necessarily heavy construction; (2) support or apparently strengthen good structure; (3) add interest to large unbroken and uninteresting surfaces._ Rule 11c. _The type of design unit for large masses should be bolder than similar designs for small primary masses._ Rule 11d. _The eye should be attracted to one principal zone of enrichment, whether located upon the primary mass, appendage, terminal, links, or details. All other zones should be subordinate to this area._ Rule 11e. _Two periods of historic ornament should not be introduced into the same design._ Rule 11f. _Repulsive forms should not be introduced into surface enrichment._ APPLICATION OF COLOR TO LARGE AREAS VALUES Rule 12a. _An average wood stain is to be retained between the values middle and low dark._ Rule 12b. _An average wall hue is to be retained between the values light and middle._ Rule 12c. _An average ceiling hue is to be retained between the values white (minus) and light._ Rule 12d. _The relation between the side walls and furniture, trim, etc., should be retained within the range of four values or less, as low light and dark._ Rule 12e. _The relation between the side walls and ceiling should be within the range of three values or less, as high light and low light._ HUES Rule 12f. _Color schemes for wood work and side walls should preferably be selected from one of the following groupings: analogous, contrasted, or dominant arrangements of hues. Analogous grouping is preferable where variety of hue is desirable._ Rule 12g. _Ceilings should be colored by a lighter tint of the side walls or by a lighter tint of an analogous hue._ CHROMA Rule 12h. _Stains are usually not reduced to below three-fourths chromatic intensity. Nearly gray side walls, however, call for a reduction to one-fourth intensity._ Rule 12i. _Wall colors are usually reduced to three-fourths chroma to a minimum reduction of slightly less than one-fourth chroma._ Rule 12j. _Ceilings should usually be reduced in chroma to three-fourths intensity, with slightly less than one-fourth chroma as a minimum reduction._ DISTRIBUTION Rule 12k. _Proportionate distribution of hue, value, and chroma in surface enrichment calls for a small area, high in chroma, and contrasting in value to the rest of the surface, but harmonizing with it. This is usually located in the area of concentration. The larger areas are to be sufficiently reduced in chroma and value to form slight contrast with the background._ HUES FOR SMALL OBJECTS Rule 12l. _One hue, or a group of analogous hues should dominate all color schemes. The point of concentration may be emphasized by one hue related to the other hues by (1) contrasted, (2) dominant, (3) analogous, (4) complementary relations. This hue should make slightly stronger value and chroma contrast than the remaining hues._ VALUES FOR SMALL OBJECTS Rule 12m. _An extreme range of five values is generally sufficient to supply contrast to a design but still retain its value unity. Restraint in the use of values is essential._ CHROMA FOR SMALL OBJECTS Rule 12n. _The amount of chroma may be increased in proportion to the decrease in the decorated area. Exceptions may be made to this under Rule 12o._ Rule 12o. _Small one or two-hued projects in clay, designed to be used as a part of the decorative color scheme for a room should bear a contrasted, dominant, analogous, or complementary relation to the side walls of the room. The project may be much higher in chroma than the side walls._ Rule 12p. _Correct color for surface enrichment should neither apparently rise above nor drop below the surface to which it is applied, but should stay upon the plane of that surface. Correct value and chroma range will accomplish this._ APPENDIX The following plates comprise complete courses for applied art problems in thin metal (copper and silver), and clay. The problems are based upon what is known as the "group system." The process forms the basis for each group in each course. The stated problem in each group is merely one of many that might be selected which involves the process of the group. The design rule that should be applied to each problem has been indicated by its proper figure and letter on each plate, as 10a, etc. The plates are sequentially arranged in order of the difficulty of the process and may be summarized as follows. THIN METAL Plate 67: Bending. Sawing. Riveting. Plate 68: Bending. Soft Soldering. Plate 69: Raising. Piercing. Etching. Plate 70: Raising and Planishing. Plate 71: Bending. Piercing. Etching. Hard Soldering. Plate 72: Hinge Construction. Plate 73: Raising. Planishing. Hard Soldering. Plate 74: Raising. Planishing. Plate 75: Champleve Enamelling. Plate 76: Precious Stone Mounting; Pins. Plate 77: Precious Stone Mounting; Rings. Plate 78: Precious Stone Mounting; Pendants. POTTERY Plate 79: Hand Built Tile. Plate 80: Hand Built Bowl, Coil and Strip Method. Plate 81: Same with Appendage Added. Plate 82: Hand Building; Spouts, Lids, Handles. Plate 83: Poured Forms and Mould Making. Plate 84: Slip Painting. Plate 85: Glaze Testing. [Illustration: APPLIED ARTS: THIN METAL PROCESS 1. BENDING, SAWING, RIVETING PLATE 67] [Illustration: APPLIED ARTS: THIN METAL PROCESS 2: BENDING AND SOFT SOLDERING PLATE 68] [Illustration: APPLIED ARTS: THIN METAL PROCESS 3: RAISING, PIERCING, ETCHING PLATE 69] [Illustration: APPLIED ARTS: THIN METAL PROCESS 3: RAISING, PLANISHING: TRAYS PLATE 70] [Illustration: APPLIED ARTS: THIN METAL PROCESS 4: BENDING, PIERCING, ETCHING, HARD SOLDERING PLATE 71] [Illustration: APPLIED ARTS: THIN METAL PROCESS 5: HINGE CONSTRUCTION PLATE 72] [Illustration: APPLIED ARTS: THIN METAL PROCESS 6: RAISING, PLANISHING, SOLDERING PLATE 73] [Illustration: APPLIED ARTS: THIN METAL PROCESS 7: RAISING, PLANISHING PLATE 74] [Illustration: APPLIED ARTS: THIN METAL PROCESS 8: CHAMPLEVE ENAMELLING. PLATE 75] [Illustration: APPLIED ARTS: THIN METAL PROCESS 9: SEMI-PRECIOUS STONE MOUNTING PLATE 76] [Illustration: APPLIED ARTS: THIN METAL PROCESS: 10: SOLDERING, CARVING, STONE MOUNTING PLATE 77] [Illustration: APPLIED ARTS: THIN METAL PROCESS 11: PENDANT CONSTRUCTION, CHAIN MAKING PLATE 78] [Illustration: FIGURE 470.--Inceptive Axes. Partial Illustration of the Metal Course] [Illustration: APPLIED ARTS: CLAY. POTTERY PROCESS 1: HAND BUILT TILE. CUT FROM FLAT PIECE PLATE 79] [Illustration: APPLIED ARTS: CLAY. POTTERY PROCESS 2: HAND BUILDING. COIL AND STRIP PLATE 80] [Illustration: APPLIED ARTS: POTTERY PROCESS 3: HAND BUILDING, SPOUT, HANDLE, LID PLATE 81] [Illustration: APPLIED ARTS: CLAY. POTTERY PROCESS 3: HAND BUILDING: SPOUT, HANDLE, LID PLATE 82] [Illustration: APPLIED ARTS: POTTERY PROCESS 4: POURED FORMS. TWO AND THREE PIECE MOULDS PLATE 83] [Illustration: APPLIED ARTS: POTTERY PROCESS 5: SLIP PAINTING (UNDER GLAZE DECORATION) PLATE 84] [Illustration: APPLIED ARTS: POTTERY PROCESS 6: GLAZE TESTING PLATE 85] [Illustration: FIGURE 471.--Results of the Pottery Course] Figure 471 shows the actual results produced by the preceding course. The process to which the individual pieces belong is indicated by the small figure placed on the table and in front of the ware. The preceding sheets should be regarded in the light of suggestions for original thinking on the part of the student. They merely suggest technical guidance, in order that his progress may be sequential and fitted to his increasing skill. The glazes are stated in the terms of the ceramist with the proportions of base, alumina, and acid content of each glaze clearly stated. By referring to the textbooks mentioned in the preface, these glazes may be developed into the potter's formulae. In both metal and pottery courses, two or more types are frequently represented upon one plate. These types will allow the teacher to assign a more difficult problem to the student with some previous experience. INDEX PAGE Accenting bands in wood, 105 Accentuation of functional parts, 79 Adapting data to material, 127 Analogous hues, 203 Analysis, intelligent, 7 Andiron design, 53 Aniline wood dyes, 199 Appendage design, 43-49 Appendage, use of, 43 Appendages, 43 Appendages and primary mass, 45 Appendages, contour enrichment of, 88 Appendages, design violations, 43 Appendages in clay, 47 Appendages, industrial applications, 47 Appendages, influence of tools and materials, 53 Appendages in metal, 51 Appendages in wood, 45 Artificial objects, 129 Architectural, horizontal divisions for, 21 Bands, wood inlay, 105 Backgrounds, 113, 201 Base metals, enrichment of, 87 Base and precious metals, surface enrichment of, 160, 163, 165, 167 Borders for wood, 107 Building, 165 Candlesticks, 81 Carving, 103 Carving and piercing, 141 Carving, design steps for, 105 Ceilings, 202-205 Center zone enrichment, 121 Chasing, 163 Chip carving, 115 Chroma, 197 Chromatic intensity, full, 195 Clay, coloring for underglaze, 151 Clay, decorative processes, 145 Clay, incising, 147 Clay, inlay, 149 Clay, introduction of pigments, 149 Clay, modeling, 147 Clay, piercing, 147 Clay, slip painting, 149 Clay, surface enrichment for, 145 Clay, surface enrichment, structural classification for, 151 Clay, underglaze painting, 151 Color for clay enrichment, 209 Color for small areas, 210 Color harmony, 201 Color pigments, 194 Color pigments, application of, 194 Color symbols, 198 Color systems, 194 Commercial pottery, 158 Complementary hues, 214 Conservative use of ornament, 101 Contrasted hues, 203 Containers, 81 Continuity and contrast, 63 Contour enrichment, influence of materials, 65 Contour enrichment, methods of varying, 70 Contour enrichment of clay, need of, 77 Contour enrichment, evolution of, 65 Contour enrichment, purpose of, 59 Contour enrichment, requirements of, 59 Contour enrichment, systematic development of, 81 Contour versus surface enrichment, 185 Corners, contour enrichment of, 88 Correlation, ideal, 11 Covers, design for, 49 Criticism, clear, 7 Criticism, non-technical, 7 Curve of beauty, 91 Curve of force, 61 Curve of force, approximate, 61 Curves for contour enrichment, 59 Curves, grouping of, 63 Curves of extravagance, 73 Dependent surface enrichment, 167 Details, contour enrichment of, 93 Design evolution, major divisions, 9 Design evolution, steps in, 11 Design, preliminary thought, 17 Dominant hue, 204 Dynamic curves and areas, 111 Edges, contour enrichment of, 87 Elements, 157 Enameling, 163, 212, 213, 215 Enrichment for small metal areas, 179 Enrichment, need and value of, 57 Enrichment of large metal areas, 179, 183 Enrichment, types of, 57 Essentials of good surface enrichment, 179 Exposures, 206, 207 Flat surfaces in base and precious metal, 185 Fobs, design of, 169 Four vertical minor divisions, 139 Free balance, 129 Free enrichment, 121 Free minor division treatment, 141 Free ornament, 117 Freehand curves, 30, 51, 63 Full size drawing, value of, 23 Functional parts, enrichment of, 88 Glazes for pottery, 149 Glazes related to interior decoration, 214 Glazes, stains for, 209 Greek scroll, 93 Handles, design for, 49 Harmonious color, need of, 194 Harmony of color, 210 High cylindrical forms in clay, 157 High cylindrical forms in metal, 191 Historic ornament in hardware, 186 Horizontal and vertical minor divisions, 137 Horizontal divisions, architectural precedent, 25 Horizontal divisions, nature and need of, 19 Horizontal divisions, steps in designing, 21 Horizontal minor divisions, 139 Hue and hue rectangles, 195 Hue groupings, 203 Industrial problems, requirements of, 9 Inceptive axes, 107, 121, 161 Inceptive axes for marginal enrichment, 119 Inlaying, 101-103 Intermediate points, contour enrichment of, 89 Ionic volute, 91 Leading lines, curved, 108 Links, 45 Links, contour enrichment of, 93 Low cylindrical forms in clay, 157 Low cylindrical forms in metal, 187 Major design division, first, 9 Major design division, second, 9 Major design division, third, 11 Marginal zone enrichment, 118 Material, adapting data to, 127 Material, economy of, 161 Material, relation to surface enrichment, 101 Metallic oxides, 210 Methods, architectural design, 13 Methods, industrial design, 13 Minor details, 141 Minor subdivisions in wood, 133 Moorish ornament, 107 Mouldings, 61 One vertical division, 35 Outlines, free and dependent, 87, 91 (See Contours.) Oxidation, 213 Panels, 117, 123, 125, 127, 129 Panel design, steps in, 125 Parts differing in function, 77 Pendants and chains, design of, 173 Pierced enrichment, 123 Pigment table, 195 Pigments, wall and ceiling, 205 Pins and brooches, design of, 167 Point of concentration, 115, 161 Point of concentration for marginal enrichment, 119 Porcelain painting, 151 Pourers, 81 Precious metals, processes of enrichment, 161, 163, 165, 169 Primary hues, 198 Primary masses, 13 Primary mass, drawing of, 15 Primary mass, divisions of, 19 Primary masses, vertical and horizontal, 15 Primary masses, proportions of, 15 Proportionate distribution, 210 Ratios, unsatisfactory, 17 Rectangular panels, 127 Rings, design of, 169 Sequential progression, 135 Service, influence of, 9, 13, 15 Sets, designing of, 83 Shades, 197 Shallow circular forms in clay, 155 Shallow circular forms in metal, 187 Side walls, 202-205 Silver, color for, 215 Silver, contour enrichment of, 93 Silver, free outline enrichment, 97 Silver, motives for contour enrichment, 97 Spouts, design of, 49 Square and rectangular areas in clay, 153 Square panels, 125 Standard hues, 195 Standard hues, locating, 196 Stones, cutting, 95 Stones, relation to contour, 95 Stones, relation to metal, 173 Structural forms, classification, 160 Structural forms, classification for clay surface enrichment, 151 Structural reinforcement, 118 Surface design evolution, 180 Surface enrichment, nature and need of, 99 Surfaces, when and where to enrich, 99 Tangential junctions, 51, 93 Technical processes for metal, 163 Technical rendering, 161 Terminals, contour enrichment of, 89-91 Three horizontal divisions, 29 Three horizontal divisions in clay, 30 Three horizontal divisions in metal, 30 Three horizontal divisions in wood, 29 Three vertical divisions, 37 Three vertical divisions in clay, 39 Three vertical divisions in metal, 41 Three vertical divisions in wood, 39 Tints, 196 Transitional types in furniture, 139 Two horizontal divisions, 25 Two horizontal divisions in clay, 27 Two horizontal divisions in metal, 27 Two horizontal divisions in wood, 25 Two vertical divisions, 35 Two vertical divisions in clay, 37 Two vertical divisions in metal, 37 Two vertical divisions in wood, 35 Unit of measurement for vertical curves, 79 Unity, 29 Unity in clay design curves, 77 Value lines, 196 Varied panels, 129 Vertical divisions, architectural precedent, 33 Vertical divisions, more than three, 41 Vertical divisions, nature and need, 33 Vertical and horizontal division evolution, 40 Vertical sections and their minor divisions, 133-135 Vocabulary, designer's, 105 Walls and ceilings, 203-204 Walls and wood work, 202-203 Warm and cold colors, 198 Wood finishes, opaque, 206 Wood, methods of surface enrichment, 101 Wood stains, 198 Wood stains, chroma range, 205 Wood stain mixing, 199, 200 Wood stain rendering, 195 Wood stains, value range, 201 Wrought iron enrichment, 91 Zones of enrichment, 118 * * * * * Transcriber's Notes Inconsistent hyphenation and obvious punctuation and spelling errors have been corrected. {PC} and {IA} have been used to represent the letters P and C or I and A overlaid on one another to label the "Point of Concentration" and "Inceptive Axis" respectively. Although referred to on page 75, no illustration is captioned as "Plate 23" in the original text. 
45772	----	BOOKS FOR COLLECTORS _With Frontispieces and many Illustrations_ _Large Crown 8vo, cloth._ CHATS ON ENGLISH CHINA. By ARTHUR HAYDEN. CHATS ON OLD FURNITURE. By ARTHUR HAYDEN. CHATS ON OLD PRINTS. (How to collect and value Old Engravings.) By ARTHUR HAYDEN. CHATS ON COSTUME. By G. WOOLLISCROFT RHEAD. CHATS ON OLD LACE AND NEEDLEWORK. By E. L. LOWES. CHATS ON ORIENTAL CHINA. By J. F. BLACKER. CHATS ON OLD MINIATURES. By J. J. FOSTER, F.S.A. CHATS ON ENGLISH EARTHENWARE. (Companion volume to "Chats on English China.") By ARTHUR HAYDEN. CHATS ON AUTOGRAPHS. By A. M. BROADLEY. CHATS ON PEWTER. By H. J. L. J. MASSÉ, M.A. CHATS ON POSTAGE STAMPS. By FRED. J. MELVILLE. CHATS ON OLD JEWELLERY AND TRINKETS By MACIVER PERCIVAL. CHATS ON COTTAGE AND FARMHOUSE FURNITURE. (Companion volume to "Chats on Old Furniture.") By ARTHUR HAYDEN. CHATS ON OLD COINS. By FRED. W. BURGESS. CHATS ON OLD COPPER AND BRASS. By FRED. W. BURGESS. CHATS ON HOUSEHOLD CURIOS. By FRED. W. BURGESS. CHATS ON OLD SILVER. By ARTHUR HAYDEN. CHATS ON JAPANESE PRINTS. By ARTHUR DAVISON FICKE. CHATS ON MILITARY CURIOS. By STANLEY C. JOHNSON. CHATS ON OLD CLOCKS AND WATCHES. By ARTHUR HAYDEN. LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN, LTD., NEW YORK: F. A. STOKES COMPANY. [Illustration] CHATS ON OLD CLOCKS BY ARTHUR HAYDEN AUTHOR OF "CHATS ON COTTAGE AND FARMHOUSE FURNITURE," "CHATS ON OLD PRINTS," ETC. WITH A FRONTISPIECE AND 80 ILLUSTRATIONS LONDON T. FISHER UNWIN LTD. ADELPHI TERRACE _First published in 1917_ (_All rights reserved_) DEDICATION TIME, you laggard, take my little book, And point to those who have a curious mind That record herein they may hidden find Of Huygens' wordy war with Dr. Hooke: Of David Ramsay's search for secret hoard: Of Thomas Chamberlaine de Chelmisforde. Many a maker left his graven name,-- That by your leave stands yet on dial plate,-- With legend _Fecit_, of uncertain date, Proud with the hope that time would bring him fame. Death stopped the wheels of maker and machine: TIME! will you not their memory keep green? TIME, take my tribute to your flying feet; Paper will shortly crumble into dust. You guard the guerdon free from moth and rust, Your even finger sifts the chaff from wheat; Hold me from hurt, I worship at your shrine With every pulse-beat,--Father, make me thine. A.H. PREFACE A preface should be personal. An author who writes on such subjects as Old Furniture and Old China, with a view to educating public taste and attempting to show why certain objects should be regarded more lovingly than others, meets with a volume of correspondence from collectors. Threaded through such correspondence, extended over a long period, I find the constant demand for a volume dealing with old clocks in a popular manner. There is no house without its clock or clocks, and few collectors of old furniture have excluded clocks from their hobby. I have been therefore blamed that I did not include some more detailed treatment of clocks in my volumes on "Old Furniture" and "Cottage and Farmhouse Furniture," my readers very justly advancing the argument that clocks form part of the study of domestic furniture as a whole. This may be admitted. But in the endeavour to satisfy such a want on the part of my clients, I plead that the subject of clockmaking is one to which years of study must be devoted. Since the first appearance of my _Chats on Old Furniture_ in 1905, I have not been unmindful of the co-related subject of old clocks. Over ten years of study, running parallel with my other work on the evolution of ornament and decoration of the English home, has enabled me to gather a mass of material and to attempt to satisfy the request for a complementary volume to my _Chats on Old Furniture_ and _Chats on Cottage and Farmhouse Furniture_. To this end I have embodied in this present volume many facts relating to provincial styles as well as Scottish and Irish types, with lists of local makers not before published. To the critics to whom I have hitherto been indebted for realizing the niche I desire to fill with my volumes, I preface this volume by stating that as far as possible the technicalities of clockmaking have been eliminated. The average reader and the average collector would be bored by such details, although some of us might like to see them included. I have not referred to foreign clockmaking, nor to famous church and turret clocks, nor to marvels of horology; I have advisedly limited my field to the English domestic clock. That such a treatment would appeal more to the collector is my personal opinion, and I trust my critics may incline to my view. The illustrations in the volume have been chosen to illustrate the letterpress and to illuminate points I endeavour to make in regard to the evolution of the various types coming under my observation. I have to express my indebtedness to the authorities of the British Museum for permission to include illustrations of examples in that collection, and I am similarly indebted to the authorities of the National Museum, Dublin. By the courtesy of the Corporation of Nottingham I am reproducing a clock in their collection, and similarly by the courtesy of the Bristol Corporation I am including an example in their possession. The Corporation of Glasgow have afforded me permission to include a remarkable example of Scottish work, and the authorities of the Metropolitan Museum, New York, have accorded me a similar privilege in illustrating specimens in their collection. Among those who have generously augmented my researches and come to my aid in regard to local makers, I desire to express my obligation to George H. Hewitt, Esq., J.P., of Liverpool, who arranged the clocks in the exhibit at the Liverpool Tercentenary Exhibition in 1907, and to E. Rimbault Dibdin, Esq., of the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool. To Basil Anderton, Esq., of the Public Libraries, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and to T. Leo Reid, Esq., of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, I am especially grateful for solid help in regard to North Country makers. To H. Tapley-Soper, Esq., City Librarian, Exeter, I am indebted for names of West-Country makers, and to A. Bromley Sanders, Esq., of Exeter, I am obliged for information relating to local clocks coming under his purview for many years. James Davies, Esq., of Chester, and S. H. Hamer, Esq., of Halifax, have enlarged my horizon in regard to local makers. H. Wingent, Esq., of Rochester, an enthusiastic collector and connoisseur of old clocks, has kindly enabled me to reproduce one of his examples. To Herbert Bolton, Esq., of the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, I am indebted for the inclusion of a fine specimen in that collection. I desire especially to record the generous aid I have had from Percy Webster, Esq., of Great Portland Street, London, who is well known as a connoisseur of old clocks, and from his son, Malcolm R. Webster, Esq., who have given me practical assistance in regard to verifying facts from actual examples. To Thomas Rennie, Esq., of the Glasgow Art Galleries and Museums, I desire to record thanks. To Edward Campbell, Esq., of Glasgow, who has enriched my volume with examples of Scottish work in his collection, I am indebted for information regarding Scottish makers embodied in this volume. I am, by the kindness of John Smith, Esq., of Edinburgh, author of _Old Scottish Clockmakers_, and of his publisher, William J. Hay, Esq., John Knox's House, Edinburgh, enabled to produce names and dates of certain Scottish makers not recorded elsewhere. In this connection my friend William R. Miller, Esq., of Leith, has spared no time to help me to do justice to Scottish makers, and I am especially grateful to him for his kindly enthusiasm. He was there at the "chap o' the knok" when I asked his help. Westropp Dudley, Esq., of the National Museum, Dublin, has extended to me his courtesy in enabling the inclusion of Irish makers coming under his research. To Arthur Deane, Esq., of the Public Art Gallery and Museum, Belfast, I am similarly obliged for data relative to old Belfast clockmakers. To the many friends who have during an extended period generously supplemented my own studies by supplying me with data in regard to provincial makers and other hitherto unelucidated matters, I wish to offer my cordial thanks. To my readers in general, whether they be collectors of old English china or earthenware, of furniture, or of prints, or of old silver, I desire to record my appreciation of their kindness in regard to my volumes on these subjects. I have honestly endeavoured to treat each sub-head concerning the evolution of design in the English home with sane reasoning, and I trust with ripe judgment. I have assiduously collected facts and studiously attempted to marshal them, each by each, according to relative value. Popular my volumes may be, but it is my hope that they may contribute something of permanent value to the subjects with which they deal. ARTHUR HAYDEN. CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE 11 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 21 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY NOTE 27 Time and its measurement--Day and night--Early mechanism--The domestic clock--The personal clock--Rapid phases of invention--The dawn of science--The great English masters of clockmaking--The several branches of a great art--What to value and what to collect--Hints for beginners CHAPTER II THE BRASS LANTERN CLOCK 45 The domestic clock--Its use as a bracket or wall clock--Seventeenth-century types--Continuance of manufacture in provinces--Their appeal to the collector CHAPTER III THE LONG-CASE CLOCK--THE PERIOD OF VENEER AND MARQUETRY 67 What is veneer?--What is marquetry?--The use of veneer and marquetry on long-case clocks--No common origin of design--_Le style réfugié_--Derivative nature of marquetry clock-cases--The wall-paper period--The incongruities of marquetry CHAPTER IV THE LONG-CASE CLOCK--THE PERIOD OF LACQUER 105 What is lac?--Its early introduction into this country--"The Chinese taste"--Colour _versus_ form--Peculiarities of the lacquered clock-case--The English school--English amateur imitators--Painted furniture not lacquered work--The inn clock CHAPTER V THE LONG-CASE CLOCK--THE GEORGIAN PERIOD 131 The stability of the "grandfather" clock--The burr-walnut period--Thomas Chippendale--The mahogany period--Innovations of form--The Sheraton style--Marquetry again employed in decoration CHAPTER VI THE EVOLUTION OF THE LONG-CASE CLOCK 153 Its inception--Its Dutch origin--The changing forms of the hood, the waist, and the base--The dial and its character--The ornamentation of the spandrel--The evolution of the hands CHAPTER VII THE BRACKET CLOCK 179 The term "bracket clock" a misnomer--The great series of English table or mantel clocks--The evolution of styles--Their competition with French elaboration CHAPTER VIII PROVINCIAL CLOCKS 211 Their character--Names of clockmakers found on clocks in the provinces--The North of England: Newcastle-upon-Tyne--Yorkshire clockmakers: Halifax and the district--Liverpool and the district--The Midlands--The Home Counties--The West Country--Miscellaneous makers CHAPTER IX SCOTTISH AND IRISH CLOCKS 255 David Ramsay, Clockmaker Extraordinary to James I--Some early "knokmakers"--List of eighteenth-century Scottish makers--Character of Scottish clocks--Irish clockmakers: Dublin, Belfast, Cork--List of Irish clockmakers CHAPTER X A FEW NOTES ON WATCHES 281 The age of Elizabeth--Early Stuart watches--Cromwellian period--Watches of the Restoration--The William and Mary watch--Eighteenth-century watches--Pinchbeck and the toy period--Battersea enamel and shagreen INDEX 295 ILLUSTRATIONS BRASS LANTERN CLOCK BY JOHN BUSHMAN, 1680 _Frontispiece_ CHAPTER II.--THE BRASS LANTERN CLOCK PAGE Ship's Lantern of Silver (Danish) 47 Early Lantern Clock by Bartholomew Newsam 47 Seventeenth-century Brass Clocks, showing pendulum at front and at back 51 Brass Lantern Clock by Daniel Quare, 1660 55 " " " with two hands and anchor pendulum 55 " " " with long pendulum, chains and weights 57 " " " by Thomas Tompion (1671-1713) 61 CHAPTER III.--THE LONG-CASE CLOCK--THE PERIOD OF VENEER AND MARQUETRY Long-case Clock. Maker, Jas. Leicester 75 " " " by J. Windmills, _c._ 1705 77 " " " enlargement of dial 77 " " " by Henry Harper (1690-5) 81 " " " by Martin (London), 1710 85 " " " in marquetry, "all over" style 87 Chest of Drawers (William and Mary period), showing use of marquetry clock panel 93-5 CHAPTER IV.--THE LONG-CASE CLOCK--THE PERIOD OF LACQUER Long-case Clock by Joseph Dudds (1766-82) 115 " " " by Kenneth Maclennan (1760-80) 117 Inn Clock by John Grant (Fleet Street), _c._ 1785 125 <sc>Chapter V.--The Long-case Clock--the Georgian Period</sc> Long-case Clock by Henderson, _c._ 1770 133 " " " by Thomas Wagstaff, _c._ 1780 137 " " " by Stephen Rimbault, case by Robert Adam, _c._ 1775 139 Musical Long-case Clock (top portion) 143 Long-case Clock by James Hatton (1800-12) 145 Regulator Long-case Clock by Robert Molyneux & Sons (1825) 149 Enlargement of dial 149 CHAPTER VI.--THE EVOLUTION OF THE LONG-CASE CLOCK Brass Dial by Henry Massy, _c._ 1680 159 " " by John Draper, _c._ 1703 159 Enlargements of Dials by John Bushman and Henry Massy 163 English Wood-carving, Cherub's Head (seventeenth century) 167 Brass Spandrel from Clock, Henry Massy (1680) 167 Stretcher of William and Mary Chair (detail) 171 Brass Spandrel of Dial of Clock 171 CHAPTER VII.--THE BRACKET CLOCK Bracket Clocks by:-- Sam Watson (Coventry), 1687. Joseph Knibb (Oxon), 1690 181 Thomas Loomes (London), 1700. Thomas Johnson (London), 1730 183 John Page (Ipswich), 1740. Godfrey Poy (London), 1745 187 Johnson (London), 1760. Thomas Hill (London), 1760 189 American Clock by Savin & Dyer (Boston), 1780-1800 193 Staffordshire Copper Lustre Ware Vase, with painted Clock Dial 195 Bracket Clocks by:-- Alexander Cumming (London), 1770. Anonymous, 1800 199 Barraud (London), 1805. Strowbridge (Dawlish) 201 Biddell (London), 1800. Anonymous (1800-15) 205 Ebony Table Clock, decorated with Wedgwood Medallions 207 CHAPTER VIII.--PROVINCIAL CLOCKS Copper Token, Leeds Halfpenny, 1793 218 Long-case Clock by Gilbert Chippindale (Halifax) 219 " " " enlargement of hood 219 " " " by John Weatherilt (Liverpool) (1780-85) 221 " " " by Thurston Lassell (Liverpool), 1745 225 " " " by Henry Higginbotham (Macclesfield) 227 " " " by Heywood (Northwich), 1790 231 " " " by Thomas Wall (Birmingham), _c._ 1795 233 Copper Token, Joseph Knibb, Clockmaker in Oxon 236 Long-case Clock by Joseph Knibb (Oxon), _c._ 1690 237 " " " Georgian, Spanish mahogany, by Cockey (Warminster) 239 Brass Dial of Welsh Clock by Shenkyn Shon (Pontnedd Fechan), 1714 243 Iron Dial of Sussex Clock by Beeching (Ashburnham) 243 Long-case Clock, with oval dial, by Marston (Salop), 1761 245 Dials of Clocks by Marston (Salop) and Thomas Wall (Birmingham) 249 CHAPTER IX.--SCOTTISH AND IRISH CLOCKS Brass Lantern Clock by Humphry Mills (Edinburgh), 1670 259 " " " do. showing movement 259 Long-case Clock by Patrick Gordon (Edinburgh), 1705-15 263 Dial of Long Pendulum Clock by Jos. Gibson (Ecclefechan), _c._ 1750 267 " " " " enlargement, showing maker's name 267 Wall Clock, decorated in marquetry, by George Graydon (Dublin), _c._ 1796 269 Musical Clock by George Aicken (Cork), 1770-95 273 Regulator Clock, mahogany case, by Sharp (Dublin) 275 CHAPTER X.--A FEW NOTES ON WATCHES Old English Watches (Elizabethan, James I, Cromwellian, and Charles II) 283 " " (eighteenth-century examples) 287 Calendar Watch (seventeenth century) by Thomas Chamberlaine de Chelmisforde 291 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY NOTE Time and its measurement--Day and night--Early mechanism--The domestic clock--The personal clock--Rapid phases of invention--The dawn of science--The great English masters of clockmaking--The several branches of a great art--What to value and what to collect--Hints for beginners. The dictionary definition of "clock" is interesting. _Clock._--A machine for measuring time, marking the time by the position of its hands upon the dial-plate, or by the striking of a hammer on a bell. Probably from old French or from Low Latin, _cloca_, _clocca_, a bell. Dutch, _klok_. German, _glocke_, a bell. This is exact as far as it goes, but the thought seizes one, how did it come about that man attempted to measure time? He saw the sunrise and he watched the fading sunset till "Hesperus with the host of heaven came," and the night melted again into the dawn. Nature marked definitely the hours of light and hours of darkness. That was a law over which he had no control. Similarly he watched the seasons--the spring, the summer, the autumn, and the winter; this gave him the annual calendar. It becomes a matter of curious speculation how it came to pass that man divided the year into twelve months, and how he came to give a name to each day, and to determine seven as forming a week. Similarly one is curiously puzzled as to why he divided day and night into twenty-four parts, calling them hours. These speculations lead us farther afield than the scope of this volume. An examination of Babylonian and Greek measurements of time is too abstruse to be included in a volume of this nature. Nor is it necessary, however interesting such may be, to record the astronomical observations at Bagdad of Ahmed ibn Abdullah. We must commence with the known data that the earth revolves on its axis in twenty-four hours, or, to be more exact, in 23 hours 56 minutes 4 seconds. Astronomical clocks recording with scientific exactitude this phenomenon are on a plane apart, as are chronometers used by mariners. The astronomer uses a clock with numbers on its dial plate up to twenty-four; the common clock has only twelve hour numerals. To come straight to modernity, it must be recognized that the measurement of time scientifically and the measurement of time according to civil law are two different things. The mean Solar day used in the ordinary reckoning of time, by most modern nations, begins at midnight. Its hours are numbered in two series from 1 to 12--the first series, called A.M. (_ante meridian_), before midday, and the second series, P.M. (_post meridian_), after midday. This is a clumsy arrangement and leads to confusion. The leading railways of the world are beginning to use the series of twenty-four. Let it be granted that the day consists of twenty-four hours, which is the apparent Solar day; the starting-point was not always the same. The Babylonians began their day at sunrise, the Athenians and Jews at sunset, the ancient Egyptians and Romans at midnight. In passing, it should be noted that the day is measured astronomically by recording the period of the revolution of the earth on its axis, determined by the interval of time between two successive transits of the sun, the moon, or a fixed star over the same meridian. The Solar day is exactly 24 hours, the Lunar day is 24 hours 50 minutes, and the Sidereal day is 23 hours 56 minutes. Apparent Solar Time is shown by the sundial, and therefore depends upon the motion of the sun. Mean Solar Time is shown by a correct clock. The difference between Mean Time and Apparent Time, that is, between the time shown by the clock and the sundial, is called the Equation of Time, and in the _Nautical Almanack_, a Government publication, there are tables showing these differences. =Day and Night.=--Obviously the hours of darkness offered a greater problem to the horologist than the hours of light. His sundial was of no use at night and of little use on cloudy days. The hour-glass was not a piece of mechanism a man would wish to employ to record the night watches. Some other self-acting mechanism had to be devised. The interval between sunset and sunset, or sunrise and sunrise, or noon and noon, was divided by the Babylonians, who had a love for the duodenary system, into twenty-four hours. It is curious to read that "until the eighteenth century in England the hour was commonly reckoned as the twelfth part of the time between sunrise and sunset, or between sunset and sunrise, and hence was of varying durations" (_Webster's New International Dictionary_, 1914). The hour was further divided, also by the Babylonians, into periods of sixty minutes. It was the Babylonians who first divided the circle into 360 degrees, and Ptolemy followed this division. The dial of a clock was at first termed the _hour-plate_, as only hours were engraved upon it and only one hand was employed. Later, another hand was added, the minute hand, which travelled a complete circuit while the hour hand was travelling between two hour numerals. Later, again, a new sub-dial was added, and a seconds hand recorded the sixty seconds which made the minute. The term "second" was at first called "second-minute," denoting that it was the second division of an hour by sixty. The learned John Wilkins, Bishop of Chester, that extraordinary old savant, writes in 1650: "Four flames of an equal magnitude will be kept alive the space of sixteen _second-minutes_, though one of these flames alone, in the same vessel, will not last at most above twenty-five or thirty seconds." These dry facts may serve to whet the curiosity of the student in regard to the measurement of time and its origin. They add a piquancy to the clock dial as we now know it. Scientific it is, as one of man's most exact recorders of natural phenomena. That an exact timekeeper should be found in the pocket of every schoolboy would seem an astounding miracle to our ancestors two hundred years ago, or even less than a hundred years ago: 'Tis with our judgments as our watches, none Go just alike, yet each believes his own, writes Pope in his _Essay on Criticism_ in 1725. This is a damning indictment of the accuracy of watches in the early eighteenth century, but Dickens in _Dombey and Son_ suggests equally faulty mechanism not in true accord with the mean solar day: "Wal'r ... a parting gift, my lad. Put it back half an hour every morning, and about another quarter towards the arternoon, and it's a watch that'll do you credit." That the civil day has taken precedence of the solar day is shown by the recent legislation in regard to Summer Time. "The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath," may be applied to the clock dial. By an Act of Parliament, in spite of science and the earth's revolution on its axis, the hands straightway mean something else. It is well that modern clocks have no wise saws and mottoes telling of the unalterable hand of Time; "Old Time, the clock-setter, that bald sexton, Time," as Shakespeare says in _King John_. =Early Mechanism.=--The problem for the old clockmakers who wished to supplant the primitive measurement of time by candle, by the hour-glass, and later by the sundial, was to produce a piece of mechanism which would in twenty-four hours, the prescribed period of day and night, indicate the flight of time hour by hour. In rapid survey we cannot pause to enter into details. The first clocks indicated the hour alone by a hand attached to the axis of a wheel. In the twelfth century a new mechanism was added to strike a bell with a hammer, showing the hours indicated by the hand. At first the motive power was a weight acting upon toothed wheels. In the fifteenth century a spiral spring placed in a barrel replaced the weight attached to a string as the motive power. This led to portable clocks of smaller dimensions being possible. The sixteenth century is remarkable for the great advance by Italian, by Nuremberg, and by Augsburg clockmakers. Striking and alarum clocks, and intricate mechanism showing phases of the moon, the year, the day of the month, and the festivals of the Church, were produced. In the sixteenth century portable clocks received further attention in regard to minute mechanism, resulting in what we now know as the watch. The moment this point was reached, ornamentation of a rich and elaborate character was applied to such objects of art, then only in the possession of princes and nobles and the richest classes of society. In the middle of the seventeenth century Huygens, the celebrated Dutch astronomer and mathematician, brought great modification in the art of clockmaking by applying the pendulum to clocks in order to regulate the movement, "and adapting, some years later, to the balance of watches a spring, which produced upon this balance the same effect as that of the weight upon the pendulum" (Labarte, _Arts of the Middle Ages_). In old clocks there is a verge escapement with a cross-bar balanced by weights. This was in the top portion of the clock. When the pendulum was introduced it was first placed in front of the clock and swung backwards and forwards across the face of the dial, being only some six inches in length, and more frequently it is found at the back of the clock, outside the case. See illustration (p. 51) of examples. As it was easy safely to convert the old form of balance into pendulum form, with hanging weight or weights, this was frequently done. So frequently, in fact, that very few of the old balance movements remain. See illustration (p. 57) of lantern clock with weights and pendulum. With the advent of the "royal" or long pendulum, the domestic clock came into being. We now arrive at the first period of the English domestic clock, and from this point a fairly definite record of styles and changes can be made. =The Domestic Clock.=--This may be said to be the clock in use in a great house, apart from the cathedral or church clock, the turret clock, or the more public clock common to the gaze of everybody. The nobility employed, on the Continent and in this country, great clockmakers to produce these new scientific timekeepers for use in their private apartments. But there came another phase when the clock visible to the dependent was supplanted by more delicate mechanism of greater value and of richer ornamentation. =The Personal Clock.=--This was the watch. It was carried on the person. It was the gift of a lover to his mistress. It was a rich and rare jewel of scientific construction, set in crystal, embellished with enamel and other rich decoration. In a measure it supplanted the clock and drove it on to a lower plane. It demanded craftsmanship of the highest character to create these masterpieces of horology, and the art has been continued in a separate stream to that of clockmaking up to the present day. The watch is not the small clock, nor is the clock the large watch. Whatever may have been their common origin, each has developed on lines essentially proper for the technique. As the clock has developed in mechanical perfection, so the watch has similarly kept in parallel progress towards the same ideal, that of the perfect timekeeper. A long succession of mechanical inventions is attached to the clock, and similarly the watch has demanded equal genius till both arrive at modernity. =The Dawn of Science.=--The mid-seventeenth century the post-Bacon period, when Newton became President of the Royal Society, may be said to be the dawn of science in this country. The Aristotelian method of analysis and the practical experiment set men's minds into scientific channels. The scientific clockmaker was the product of this period of restless activity. Science was in leading-strings. Prince Rupert's Drops, so familiar now, were a scientific wonder. Bishop Wilkins and Evelyn, Locke and Dr. Harvey, were all, from different points, attempting to unravel the secrets of nature. The Tudor Age had opened the New World; the next century was left to discover the untravelled paths of science and mechanism. Invention was being suckled by Curiosity. Invention only came to manhood in the nineteenth century. =The Great English Masters of Clockmaking.=--There is the mythical claim for Richard Harris, who is said to have invented the first pendulum clock in Europe, fixed in the turret of St. Paul's, Covent Garden, in 1640 or earlier. The Huygens pendulum was hung by a silken cord, and the arc described by the bob or weight at its end was a segment of a circle. Dr. Hooke invented the thin, flexible steel support of the pendulum, producing more scientific accuracy. In 1658 he invented the _anchor escapement_, which, together with his spring to the pendulum, is still used, although the "dead-beat" escapement invented by George Graham has supplanted the "anchor" in timekeepers requiring greater exactitude. In regard to Robert Hooke and his claim to being the inventor of the balance spring for watches, an invention claimed by Christopher Huygens de Zulichem, there is an acrimonious dispute and lengthy correspondence thereon. The Royal Society had published in their _Philosophical Transactions_ for March 25th, 1675, the discovery of Huygens, who visited England in 1661 and was made a Fellow of the Royal Society. Dr. Hooke protested. It appears that one of the "ballance double watches" was presented to Charles II and was inscribed "Robert Hooke _inven._ 1658. T. Tompion _fecit_ 1675." There is the record that George Graham declared that he "had heard Tompion say he was employed three months that year by Mr. Hooke in making some parts of these watches before he let him know for what use they were designed, and that Tompion was used to say he thought the first invention of them was owing to Mr. Hooke."[1] To come to the great masters of the art of English clockmaking. In the transactions of the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers it is recorded that "in July 1704 it was by the Master reported that certain persons at Amsterdam are in the habit of putting the names of Tompion, Windmills, Quare, Cabrier, Lamb, and other well-known makers on their works and selling them as English."[2] A committee was appointed to put an end to such abuses. [1] _Life of Robert Hooke_, by R. Waller, 1705. _Biographica Britannica._ [2] _Some Account of the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers of the City of London_, by Samuel Elliott Atkins and Henry Overall, F.S.A., 1881 (_British Museum Library_, 10349 _gg._ 11). Here then we have five of the leading English clockmakers in 1704, to which we can add George Graham, the inventor of the "orrery," named after his patron, Robert Boyle, Earl of Cork and Orrery, and to make the number up to twenty-five we add the following. These men are in the first flight. Ahasuerus Fromanteel (and the family of Fromanteel, of Dutch origin), the first to introduce the pendulum into England; Edward East; Joseph Knibb, father and son; William Dutton, Matthew and Thomas Dutton, John Ebsworth, John Harrison, J. Grant, Stephen Rimbault, Thomas Earnshaw, John Arnold, Thomas Mudge, Christopher Pinchbeck, William Tomlinson, Justin Vulliamy, and Benjamin and Benjamin Lewis Vulliamy. In _Old Clocks and Watches and their Makers_, by the late F. J. Britten, there is a list of some ten thousand names of clockmakers, so that examples coming in the possession of collectors can readily be checked by this list. But the fact that a maker's name is not in this directory does not exclude him from recognition as a master, though possibly he may not be one of the great masters. =The Several Branches of a Great Art.=--The timekeeper--whether it be the scientific astronomical clock, or the chronometer used by mariners, or the modern watch, minute in size but recording time with accuracy, or the bracket or table clock, or the long-case clock--has proceeded on parallel lines of development. These types represent the several branches of the great art of clockmaking. Clockmakers and watchmakers very soon specialized when the correct standard had been reached, and further inventions effected economy in mechanism rather than drastic changes in principle making for further exactitude. Specialization may be said to have undone clockmaking. We realize that the clockmaker could not cast the brass spandrel ornaments and chase them, or engrave the dial. We do not expect him to, nor did he, lay the marquetry, or become a lacquer varnisher in the cases. We cannot call upon him to cast the bell in the chiming movement, or to make the catgut which is wound around the drum carrying the weights. Nor was he an expert in metal design to pierce the hands and employ delicate ornament in so doing. Perhaps we may forgive him employing a special trade to supply him with delicate springs. But the factory system of the middle nineteenth century began to eat into the vitals of clockmaking in this country as a scientific craft. Makers of wheels, makers of chains, makers of every conceivable part of the movement sprang into being. No one of whom was a clockmaker, and no unit of any such industry could put a clock together. The clockmaker, and even then there is something personal yet remaining, became an assembler of component parts. He certainly understood the completed whole and made the wheels move and the hands record exact and perfect time. That is something, and it is a very great thing too. But how shorn of his former glory is the clockmaker in these conditions! In this volume we deal with the collecting period, which is the stage prior to this, but it is possible to look ahead as well as backward. Factory-made clocks will be made, perfect timekeepers without doubt. But there is still the great possibility that the clockmaker may seize his own and wrest the laurels from the impersonal syndicate. To him who can add personality to a clock--that something which parts put together with mechanical precision lack--there awaits a glorious heritage. The soul of the living clock must echo the soul of its human maker. The old masters have left to posterity living organisms which will not die. It rests with the public to say whether they prefer the gramophone to the singer, the piano-player to the accomplished pianist. If the clock of tomorrow is to be a mere soulless machine, the demand will be met. But if it is to revert to that higher plane of the old masters of clockmaking, it is for those who love beauty and truth to make their desires imperative. For the moment, therefore, the study of the old and the perfect claims the loving attention of the collector who sees new lamps, like those which the magician in Aladdin's palace proffered for sale, in place of old. =What to Value and what to Collect.=--The appreciation of old clocks is a natural gift. To one his mezzotints, to another his Chelsea china, to another his old silver plate. But to all lovers of fine furniture the English clock appeals sympathetically. It has a twofold claim to recognition. It is, if it be a fine old English clock by an English maker, a reliable piece of mechanism as a timekeeper. It is in certain periods representative, in its marquetry or lacquered case, of styles of decoration and design now only equalled by copyists. If it is by one of the leading English clockmakers its movements are unequalled. It stands as a monument to a great scientific craftsmanship now almost extinct. The great English clockmakers of the first flight "were not of an age but for all time." Roughly speaking, the first twenty-five years of the eighteenth century and the first thirty-five years of the nineteenth century represent two periods when the clockmaker was doing splendid work. The clocks of the intervening period are of value as representing work of extreme carefulness, and are of course worthy of the attention and admiration of the collector. In the first period a crowd of skilled scientific clockmakers followed each other in rapid succession and brought the art of horology to perfection. During this first period the clock cases and the clock dials came under artistic impulses not since equalled. It therefore follows that for these two reasons the clocks of the first period are most highly appreciated and are of great value. The second period, that is, the first thirty-five years of the nineteenth century, represents an era of established and sound technique, exhibiting craftsmanship of a high order struggling for supremacy and recognition at a time when factory inventions and factory-made substitutes commenced to dominate not only the art of the clockmaker but other personal crafts. During this time the case and the dial cannot be said to possess the high artistic qualities found in the earlier period. Art was beginning to sink into the Slough of Despond which for half a century characterized most European arts, both fine and applied. =Hints for Beginners.=--To set out to buy an old clock is for the tyro like setting out to buy a horse. In the latter case the teeth may be filed and the hoofs pared to give a simulation of youth to which possibly the beast could not lay claim. In the former, added touches would counterfeit antiquity: here a pair of apparently old hands, there an antiquated-looking dial, and an enshrining case of no particular period, but seeming to bear Time's own impress of age, till one is inclined to say, to quote the _Merchant of Venice_: "I never knew so young a body with so old a head." The following chapters will indicate the outline of a complex and intricate subject. The case, the dial, the hands, all have to be studied with no little skill in comparison and deduction in regard to errors in clumsy repairers or unskilled restorers, who with vandal hands have destroyed the balance of fine work and introduced component parts which are harlequin to the trained collector's eye. This much for the _visible_. Then there is the movement, that is, the mechanism which makes the clock a clock. This is unseen by the average snapper-up of old clocks, or when seen not understood. There are those collectors who stop short in their requirements. A clock is an ornament to a well appointed home, in the hall, in the smoking-room, or in the dining-room. They are unconcerned as to whether it is a timekeeper or a monument, "long to be patient and silent to wait like a ghost that is speechless." One longs to call aloud to such an encumbrance with its dead wheels and its atrophied hands: "Watchman! What of the night?" It is a servant that serves no longer. It is like a poor relation thrusting his company upon his fellow-guests with dumb tongue and a solemn demeanour telling of former glories. But the sane modern collector wants an old clock not because it is old, but because he rightly has assumed that there are certain qualities of the old clockmaker's art which are not to be found in later periods. Wise in his generation, he places himself not in the hands of a dealer who has sold a thousand clocks, but in the hands of a practical clockmaker who has made one. A trained man having a knowledge of old movements, and to whom they are something more than inanimate objects, will advise the collector. To such a man a clock is something with a soul. To him one goes who will set the silent wheels moving and endow the dead clockmaker's heritage with pulsating life. But--the word of warning cannot be too strongly sounded to all possessors of old clocks. Every year fine examples of old work are ruined for ever by ignorant repairers and restorers. In their little day they have destroyed movements and parts which can never be replaced. Of all arts, the art of the clockmaker has suffered most at the hands of the modern destroyer of work he does not understand. CHAPTER II THE BRASS LANTERN CLOCK The domestic clock--Its use as a bracket or wall clock--Seventeenth-century types--Continuance of manufacture in provinces--Their appeal to the collector. The form of the lantern clock is one that appeals to the artist. We love the candelabrum with candles, with its finely, fashioned brass forms, Dutch and English. It adds a grace to the interiors of the old masters of the Low Countries. Nobody is especially interested in the gas bracket or the paraffin lamp. There is the picture of _The Doctor_ by Luke Fildes, but here the lamp only adds to the poverty and anguish of the scene. It is realistic and had to be there, and it makes a great factor in the lighting. But the chandelier with candles is the most beloved by the artist who inclines to the primitive, as we all do. The electric light must come into art and it does. The lift and the telephone are facts, but they are difficult, naked and unashamed as they are, to clothe with æsthetic drapery. The cubist and the modern pseudo-scientific realist revel in incongruities repellent to art. They seize these as their own, and make them in their presentation more repellent. Happily the clock has not received the attention of the modern sensation-monger. We are left with the heritage of the past undisturbed. He may gibe at the paint and canvas of old masters, he may deride the grace of the Greek in sculpture, but the simple mechanism of the clock symbolizing "the inaudible and noiseless foot of Time" mocks the charlatan of a little day, with oblivion tracking his scurrying heels. The name of lantern clock may puzzle the modern collector, but its shape followed the lantern of the period, and, like the lantern, it was made to hang on the wall. We illustrate (p. 47) a silver ship's lantern of the period of Christian IV of Denmark, of the late sixteenth century, with the King's monogram. It was doubtless used in the expedition round the North Cape. It is in the collection at Rosenborg Castle at Copenhagen. This lantern shape is found in German clocks of the period, and in English seventeenth-century clocks the same shape is continued. A fine example by Bartholomew Newsam is illustrated (p. 47), showing the early type conforming to the lantern design. Not only the form but the usage determined the name. The lantern had spikes or metal hooks to hang upon. The clock similarly was affixed to a wall, and we know it as a bracket clock, because, whether on a wall or on a bracket, it had chains and weights suspended beneath it, as it was not in its early form capable of being placed on a table. [Illustration: SHIP'S LANTERN OF SILVER. Used by Christian IV of Denmark on his voyage round the North Cape. (_At Rosenborg Castle, Copenhagen._)] [Illustration: EARLY LANTERN CLOCK. By Bartholomew Newsam (1570-90). (_At British Museum. Reproduced by permission._)] We think lovingly of it as belonging to a past that is something more than tapestry figures moving in a misty background. To watch the revolving pinions of a Stuart clock is to hear the echoes of the past reverberate. It requires no gramophone to reproduce dead voices, nor a cinema picture to recall bygone incidents and happenings. One can listen to the same monotone calling forth the departure of the seconds that awakened George Herbert from a reverie and beat rhythmically to his carefully wrought verse. The same hand pointed to midnight that beckoned Lovelace from his revels. We are reminded of Justice Shallow's "we have heard the chimes at midnight,"--an old man's boast of rollicking gaiety. The trite engraved words _Tempus fugit_ drew a thousand sweet sounds from golden-mouthed Herrick, who sang of fading roses and counselled maids "with Daffodils and Daisies crowned" to make the most of their charms. _Vanitas vanitatum_, all is vanity; the sadness of it all, the flying hours that no man can recall, the long slow shadow that creeps across the grass--this is the message of the poets; and when they pause for a moment from the dance in the sunlight to think of time, it is Time the ancient reaper with the scythe, who cuts down the young flowers ruthlessly with the fateful sweep of his blade. =Its Use as a Bracket or Wall Clock.=--Old engravings of clocks and of clockmakers' workshops show clocks on the wall with the weights suspended beneath the brass case. Such a clock usually went for thirty hours. That is, it was usual to wind it by pulling up the chains once a day, a method retained, in long-case clocks of thirty-hour duration, by provincial makers a couple of centuries later in England. It is obvious that these clocks stand apart from the era of the spring as a driving force, being weight-driven, and are before the introduction of the pendulum as a regulator of the mechanism impelled by the weights. As timekeepers they never can bear comparison with the later type with the long pendulum. They stand as examples of early clockmaking, with fine brass dials, with artistic appearance, simple and unpretentious, but lacking the real scientific application of further developed principles of a succeeding period. A clock that could only be used as a bracket clock or a wall clock with weights beneath hardly filled the requirements of an age when domestic furniture demanded luxury and exquisite taste. The personal clock--that is, the watch--offered more possibilities. The advent of the pendulum came just at a time when the art of the clockmaker required the necessary impetus to carry him to newer and more extended fields. The invention revolutionized the domestic clock. As to the clocks used by the wealthy classes in England at the year 1685, one recalls the death-bed scene of Charles II as described by Macaulay: [Illustration: SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY BRASS CLOCK. With pendulum in front of dial. (_At British Museum. Reproduced by permission._)] [Illustration: SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY BRASS CLOCK. With pendulum behind back plate of clock.] "The morning light began to peep through the windows of Whitehall; and Charles desired the attendants to pull aside the curtains, that he might have one more look at the day. He remarked that it was time to wind up a clock that stood near his bed. These little circumstances were long remembered, because they proved beyond dispute that, when he declared himself a Roman Catholic, he was in full possession of his faculties. He apologized to those who had stood round him all night for the trouble which he caused. He had been, he said, a most unconscionable time dying; but he hoped that they would excuse it. This was the last glimpse of that exquisite urbanity so often found potent to charm away the resentment of a justly incensed nation. Soon after dawn the speech of the dying man failed." It was Bacon who wrote, a century before: "If a man be in sickness or pain, the time will seem longer without a clock or hour-glass than with it." The question arises as to what particular kind of clock was at the bedside of Charles II that he should notice that it required winding. It may have been usual to wind it at that particular time every morning, being, as it undoubtedly was, a thirty-hour clock conveniently wound the same time every day. But it is more probable that the King saw that it wanted winding by the position of the weights. =Seventeenth-century Types.=--The idea of the pendulum had been in men's minds since the days of Leonardo da Vinci, but Christopher Huygens, the Dutch astronomer and mechanician, applied it to the clock. At first it was placed in front of the dial and swung from the top. The illustration we give (p. 51) shows an early clock with this device. The pendulum was next placed at the back (see adjacent illustration, p. 51), and later inside the clock. We illustrate several types of the lantern clock showing its changing form from a slender and graceful clock, with the dial in correct proportion, to the later type, when the dial projected beyond the body of the clock. When the bell was placed at the top and ornamented by a brass terminal, the name applied to the clock was "birdcage," and pictures by the old Dutch masters show birdcages of this shape hanging in ladies' boudoirs. It will be observed that as a rule the dials are circular, consisting of the hour plate without the four spandrels. But we illustrate an example of a square dial by John Bushman, London, about 1680, with crown and verge escapement, with short pendulum, and alarum with striking and going trains run by same weight. It will be observed that these clocks have only one hand--the hour hand. In the example above mentioned (see Frontispiece), the dial has an inner circle showing quarters of an hour. The hand, as illustrated, has passed one quarter and half of the next; it is therefore about twenty-two and a half minutes past three. There is also an alarum marked with arabic figures one to twelve. (An enlargement of this dial is illustrated p. 163) The other specimens we illustrate exhibit slightly varying characteristics. [Illustration: BRASS LANTERN CLOCK, WITH SINGLE HAND. Thirty hours; striking, but no alarum. With chains and weights beneath; short pendulum at back. Date, about 1660. Maker, Daniel Quare (London).] [Illustration: BRASS LANTERN CLOCK, WITH TWO HANDS. Thirty hours; striking and alarum. Anchor pendulum with wings each side and chains and weight below clock. Short pendulum at back. Date, about 1670.] [Illustration: BRASS LANTERN CLOCK. Showing chains with weights and long pendulum. Date, about 1700. (_At the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York._)] The brass lantern clock illustrated (p. 55) has chains and weights. It is a thirty-hour clock, with striking but no alarum movement. It has a short pendulum behind the back plate. The use of an anchor-shaped pendulum brought a winged screen into fashion to conceal its movement. The example illustrated (p. 55) shows this style. This also is a bracket clock with chains supporting the weights. But the bracket clock did not stop at this stage. On the introduction of the long or seconds pendulum this new mechanism was embodied in brass clocks, and the illustration (p. 57) of an example about 1700 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, shows this type. A fine brass lantern clock by Thomas Tompion is at the British Museum, an illustration of which is given (p. 61). =Continuance of Manufacture in the Provinces.=--Long after the long-case clock was in general use in London, the brass clock with weights and pendulum was extensively made in the provinces. Examples are found by local makers up to the early years of the nineteenth century. In a measure this continuance of an obsolete form is parallel with the village cabinet-maker's furniture. Generation after generation produced oak chairs and settles in Stuart form, and when Chippendale seized the world of fashion, it was not till long afterwards that village craftsmen made chairs in the Chippendale manner--but in yew, in beech, and in sycamore, never in mahogany. Even Sheraton's satinwood elegance in delicate tapered legs found an echo in elm and beech. It is such naïveté which is delightful to the collector, and in provincial clocks he will find a study equally rewarded by extraordinary anachronisms and singular adaptations within the compass of the local maker. For instance, the marquetry of the village carpenter is always a hundred years behind the time. His engraving on dials is of the same character as that on his local coffin-plates or his tombstones. His painted dials often exhibit native touches difficult to equal. =Their Appeal to Collectors.=--Anything that appeals to collectors, whether it be Morland's colour prints or Wheatley's _Cries of London_, old Sheffield plate, Stuart cane-back chairs or Sheraton tea-caddies, pays the usual tribute which the antique pays to posterity. As imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, a thousand replicas start up to supply a demand. The man of taste says that such and such a thing is unique in its art-appeal to him. The man of money seeks to prove that it is not unique and buys as many uniques and antiques as his distended banking account will allow. We find this applies to lantern clocks. Birmingham has turned out thousands of these brass clocks in replica of seventeenth-century styles. Sometimes as much as ten pounds is asked for them, and sometimes it is found that an old maker's name has been added to the dial. There is no particular harm in any man having replicas of fine old objects of art in his house if he likes the styles and cannot afford originals. But it is a pity that any one should ever pay more than replica price for a copy. That is foolishness, and outside the realm of collecting. [Illustration: BRASS LANTERN CLOCK. Maker, Thomas Tompion (1671-1713). Height 8-3/4 inches. (_At British Museum. Reproduced by permission._)] Perhaps it is a wise dispensation of Providence that the man of wealth can possess the originals and that the poor man and the man of taste must content himself with copies. It was Balzac who chalked up in his garret, "Here is a Velasquez," "Here is an Andrea del Sarto." Lovers of the real can impart to the modern replicas purchased for a few pounds the spirit of the old examples. It is the same artistic impulse which accepts the translation in lieu of the original. Through FitzGerald we read Omar. Horatius Flaccus, who appeals to the esoteric with his _odi profanum vulgus_, is filtered through a Western tongue. One is grateful to see plaster casts in the British Museum of the Three Fates from the Parthenon at Athens. Echoes suggest so much to those who have the inner spirit to conjure up the original. CHAPTER III THE LONG-CASE CLOCK--THE PERIOD OF VENEER AND MARQUETRY What is veneer?--What is marquetry?--The use of veneer and marquetry on long-case clocks--No common origin of design--Le style réfugié--Derivative nature of marquetry clock-cases--The wall-paper period--The incongruities of marquetry. For some fifty years--that is, from about 1670, the date of the secret treaty of Charles II with Louis XIV, to about the year 1720, the early years of the reign of George I--there was a marked leaning towards colour in furniture as distinct from form. The solid English oak of early days and the later intricacies of walnut were dependent solely on form, either in carving or in elaborate turning, as in the Charles II and James II period, when the so-called "barley-sugar" pattern and other elaborate "corkscrew" turned legs added grace and beauty to furniture beginning to take its place beside the work of great European craftsmen. In flattering imitation of continental schools, but more particularly the Dutch, English cabinet-makers commenced to inlay their furniture with ivory and coloured woods, and designs embodying conventional birds and flowers became of frequent use. A considerable amount of skill was employed in adopting this new art, which necessitated the careful laying of veneer. In comparison with the ordinary Dutch cabinet-work, this derivative English furniture exhibits, in a measure, finished work of a high degree in regard to the exactitude of cabinet-work which surpassed the prototypes. The English craftsman was working in a new medium, and he apparently was exceptionally careful in handling its technique. In the reign of William of Orange, as may be imagined, with his Dutch retinue and the Dutch influences at Court, the style received a great impetus and the country was flooded with Dutch art. This impress of the House of Nassau is left upon Hampton Court, with its canal, its avenues, and its formal gardens. What Charles II and his exiled cavaliers brought in spirit from The Hague, William brought in reality when he landed at Torbay in 1698. It must be remembered that in 1685 and in the immediately succeeding years, owing to the revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV, fifty thousand Huguenot families fled from France to escape a horrible fate at the hands of their Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen. In vain the Archbishop of Canterbury directed the clergy not to dwell on the sufferings of the French Protestants, and in spite of James II, whose sympathies were with their persecutors, the sum of forty thousand pounds was collected in the English churches and handed over to the Chamber of London. This was a great sum in those days to be raised thus voluntarily. Three years afterwards James ignominiously fled to the Continent and a second Revolution ended the Stuart dynasty. Thousands of skilled workmen settled in London. At Spitalfields they erected silk-looms; they represented the best type of artist craftsmen, silversmiths, woodworkers, glass-blowers, cabinet-makers, designers, and other artistic industries. Their advent was an artistic asset to this country. The Duke of Buckingham ten years earlier had procured a number of expert glassworkers from Venice and had established the manufacture of glass and mirrors at Vauxhall. =What is Veneer?=--The art of veneering is of ancient origin. It has a long record before it reaches what we now know as veneering. To make a rapid survey we must commence with the art of inlay. This art may be in metal upon metal, as in damascening; stone upon stone, as in _pietra dura_; porcelain, terra-cotta, enamel, or coloured glass, as in mosaic work; or wood upon wood, as in intarsia; which subsequently became marquetry. The inlays in all these techniques are cut into cubes, hexagons, triangles, or other forms, often of very minute size, to form broad designs, as in marble pavements, or surfaces of great area such as the dome of St. Mark's at Venice, the choicest home of mosaic work in the world. From these grandeurs to the Tunbridge ware trinket-boxes with their intricate patterns, or the nicely fitting lids of Scottish snuff-boxes, is a far cry, but they embody the same principle. Veneering may therefore be comprehensively described as overlaying or inlaying one body with portions of another. A veneer may be plain, without inlay or marquetry, such as a plain panel of mahogany affixed or laid on to a body of oak or some other wood. But in practice it has been so much used as a groundwork for the art of inlay and marquetry that it is difficult to separate them. There is a prevalent idea that veneer has a sinister meaning. The comparison has been made between solid and veneer, as though the former were true and the latter something false, parallel with the distinction Pope made-- Worth makes the man, the want of it, the fellow; The rest is all but leather or prunello. There is every reason why such a notion should be held as true. It is true of modern cabinet-work of the shoddy type, where pine is veneered with mahogany and walnut and passed off as solid. But the collector is dealing with a period when veneering was an art adopted for sound decorative and technical reasons and not solely for purposes of gain. The old craftsman found it impossible to make cabinets and other pieces of furniture of rare wood, such as ebony, tulip-wood, rosewood, satinwood, and others. It was not always workable in such fashion; its weight was one factor against its employment in the solid. But in introducing panels and fronts of these richly decorative woods the cabinet-maker of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries brought colour into his work and employed the highest artistry. The sound construction of these old veneered cabinets was before the days of machinery; veneers or slices of the wood to be laid on were cut by hand, and were one-eighth of an inch thick, hence their stability. Nowadays sheets of veneer are saw-cut and knife-cut, and with modern machinery the former vary from twelve to fifteen to the inch, and the latter average about forty sheets to the inch, although sheets can be cut, incredible as it may seem, of the thinness of a cigarette paper. =What is Marquetry?=--Marquetry is the inlaying of wood into wood. We have already seen that other inlays have their respective techniques and names. But there is the question as to the application of the old word "tarsia," which apparently in the early days included both wood and metal inlays. "Intarsia" is the term applied to that particular early type of marquetry which brought inlaying coloured woods to such perfection in two great schools, the Italian and the German. By means of woods, either of their natural colour or stained, woodworkers produced pictures in wood. Great Italian masters drew for the Italian school of artist craftsmen. Just as the dome of St. Mark's at Venice shows the successive styles of mosaic work executed during several centuries from Byzantine to Italian, so the choir stalls show the work of the cloistered _intarsiatori_ at the cathedral at Siena, at the cathedral and at S. Maria Novella, Florence, at Perugia, at Lucca, at Pavia, at Genoa, and at Savona. Small pieces of carefully selected wood were inserted into darker wood panels to produce fanciful devices or pictures, with perspective and even tone. This intricate art resembled that of the mosaic-worker, whose more ambitious works have taken from fifteen to twenty years to execute. Some of the tesseræ in this technique are hardly larger than a pin's head. Day by day they were patiently laid on the cement to form the design. Similarly in the old intarsia days the workers did not heed time. They selected their delicate little pieces of coloured wood and proceeded to lay their panels and stalls for posterity. The German school of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries attracted considerable attention, at Nuremberg, at Augsburg, at Dresden, and at Munich. In North Germany intarsia was principally employed on smaller articles, such as cabinets, chairs, coffers, although Lübeck and Danzig furnish fine examples in the panelling of the town-halls. In South Germany, in closer touch with Italian influence, the practice was more diverse; sideboards, doors, bedsteads, panelling, friezes, and even gables to châteaus, received this ornamentation. Augsburg and Nuremberg developed an industry and exported their marquetry. This suggests the first attempt at duplication. Black on white and white on black, male and female as they are termed in the trade, or later, in France, Boulle and counter-Boulle, were exported. The slicing of design and the manipulation of the knife, and later the saw, came into operation to fret out the pattern. In its subsequent development marquetry left the inlaying, piece by piece, and as tools became more perfect easier methods were employed. Whether André Boulle, in his _atelier_ under Louis XIV, invented the process or whether he got it from Germany through Holland is immaterial to the present argument. His brass and tortoiseshell marquetry set a fashion to all succeeding craftsmen. He has given his name to his particular style; though it has been "defamed by every charlatan and soiled with all ignoble use" and corrupted to "Buhl," but there is no reason why _Boulle_ should not stand, although Webster's Dictionary knows him not. Practically, nowadays marquetry is the cutting of thin sheets of wood which have been superimposed upon each other, and when taken apart, after the desired pattern has been cut away, fit into each other to produce the desired colour effect. For instance, a sheet of walnut, dark brown, placed over a sheet of sycamore, light yellow, has a pattern pasted on it in paper. The delicate fret-saw traces this pattern and cuts through both light and dark woods. The result is that the light-wood surface is left with a perforation ready to receive the piece cut from its fellow, the dark wood, and _vice versa_. That is just what the marquetry-worker does. He transposes the piece of sycamore to the walnut surface and fits it in, showing a yellow design on dark brown, and similarly the walnut piece, fitted in place or the sycamore ground, shows a brown design on a yellow surface. This is only a simple outline of the process, as more than two sheets are placed together. In its intricacies it represents one of the most delicate and highly skilled crafts in connection with cabinet-making. The adept at jig-saw puzzles may draw a seemly parallel between his pastime and the patient artistry of the artist-craftsman. =The Use of Veneer and Marquetry.=--In its decoration and in its form the long-case or "grandfather" clock is as Dutch as the tiles of Haarlem. Derivative as is English art, the sharp line of a new introduction is rarely so clearly defined as in the instance of the late seventeenth-century long-case clock. As a long wooden case it was itself an innovation. Being new, it was never at any previous time English, and it started its history under Dutch auspices, as in similar manner the pendulum was introduced into England by Fromanteel. There is no mistaking its origin. It comes straight from the placid canals and waterways, the prim and well-ordered farmsteads, or the richly loaded burghers' houses of the Low Countries. It has become as thoroughly English as the Keppels and the Bentincks. [Illustration: LONG-CASE CLOCK. With fine marquetry decoration. Maker, Jas. Leicester (Drury Lane). 1710. Height, 8 ft. 2 in. Width, 1 ft. 7-1/2 in. Depth, 10 in. (_By courtesy of Percy Webster, Esq._)] [Illustration: LONG-CASE CLOCK. Maker, J. Windmills (London). Date, about 1705. Decorated in marquetry.] [Illustration: ENLARGEMENT OF DIAL. Showing cherub's head with floriated design in spandrel and broken frieze. Marquetry in hood indicates coarser style than in rest of clock. (_By courtesy of H. Wingate, Esq., Rochester._)] In regard to clock-cases, it is mostly found that the veneer has been laid upon an oak body. Usually the main surface is of walnut, into which the design has been inlaid by the use of other woods of suitable colours. At first the marquetry was in reserves or panels, as though the worker were warily picking his way and timidly mastering the technique. At this period clock-cases were, on account of the small space to be inlaid, very fit subjects for experiment. Doubtless some of the more ambitious work of the early years of this half-century (1670-1720) was actually produced by Dutch and also by French workmen settled in this country, and doubtless the clock-cases were largely imported. In either instance this would account for the early adoption of small articles such as clock-cases, after which followed chairs and tables, and finally larger pieces of furniture such as bureaus, when the cabinet-maker was master of the new art of laying veneer and marquetry, or when the public taste had advanced sufficiently to induce him to embark on more elaborate work. It is not easy to lay down any exact rules as to the priority of certain styles of marquetry. Many of them overlap in regard to date. It all depends on the point of view. Huguenot craftsmen or Dutch marquetry-workers could, and possibly did, make in London many such an example as the fine case with panels (illustrated p. 75) containing the movement by James Leicester, in date 1710, or the other example, in date about 1690 (illustrated p. 237), with the movement by Joseph Knibb, of Oxford, placed in the chapter on provincial makers as a glorious tribute to those great makers who worked outside the metropolis. In this earlier case of the Knibb clock it will be seen that there are only two panels, and they exhibit, in comparison with the James Leicester clock, a finer sense of proportion in relation to the surface to be decorated. It may not unreasonably be advanced, where the nicety of balance is well sustained, that the maker set out to make a clock-case with the dimensions fully before him as a marquetry-worker and not merely as a mechanical layer of imported panels. There is the suggestion in cut panels that they were not thought out in accord with the English clock-case, with its hole showing the pendulum. Of exceptional interest is the fine clock by J. Windmills. The marquetry case of this clock has been untouched, and its condition, as shown by the illustration (p. 77), helps to prove a point. It is clear that the panel of marquetry was not intended by the craftsman who laid it to have a hole to show the pendulum. The design shows the disturbance caused by this unexpected innovation. The enlarged hood shows the broken frieze, an accident frequently attending old examples. But the frame in hood around glass has been laid in marquetry by a coarser hand in an attempt to be in keeping with the panel of the door in case below. The somewhat clumsy joinery of the door frame, shown clearer in the enlargement, indicates the amalgamation of the English case-maker and the more finished marquetry-panel worker. [Illustration: LONG-CASE CLOCK. Maker, Henry Harper (Cornhill). 1690-95. Height, 8 ft. 6 in. Width, 1 ft. 7-1/2 in. Depth, 10 in. (_In the possession of Mr. John Girdwood, Edinburgh._)] Frequently cases offer curious obstacles to preconceived ideas. Take, for example, the fine case with the movement by Henry Harper of the period from 1690 to 1695 illustrated (p. 81). As far as it is possible to determine, it would seem that this specimen of marquetry belongs to a later period, certainly more advanced than the panel period. With so fine a field of design to select from, no marquetry-worker would take this design from a Persian carpet at the beginning of the style. This case represents the highest Dutch feeling and technique as assimilated in this country, and the carved brackets have a distinctly Marot character. It stands as a superlative example of marquetry decoration. It sometimes happens that a clockmaker, as the differences in sizes of many of these clocks are not great, found an earlier case ready to his hand, or a client desired a particular style of decoration, and he accordingly put his new clock of 1710 into a case twenty or thirty years earlier. Or it may be that some marquetry-worker reproduced the former style. Whichever may have happened we cannot say--these are the conundrums left as a heritage to the collector, who now comes two hundred years later. The fine example of a clock by Martin, London (1710), illustrated (p. 85), is well balanced, and typifies the marquetry in an early period. The turned pillar has not yet disappeared, and is reminiscent of the fine Tompion cases with turned pillars. It exhibits the transitional stage before marquetry entirely supplanted the older style. In this specimen the marquetry is under fine artistic control. In what for convenience of expression we term the "all-over" period the marquetry-worker ran riot. Not only in colour, for he had to compete with the richly coloured lacquered cases, but in form. But he had as a craftsman learned the art of laying his imported marquetry sheets where he willed. He was not deterred from rounded surfaces, and the cramped pattern of the panel was discarded, to make way for the style where the pattern, like chintz or wall-paper, conveniently repeated itself. There is no mistaking such an example, splendid though it is, as exemplifying this period illustrated (p. 87), for the quieter and more reticent style of panel-work with design in due subjection. The student will desire to take cognizance of country-made marquetry cases. Marquetry was practised in England before this outburst of colour and form on the clock-case. Occasionally settles and buffets--very occasionally--had stringing in a thin pattern of black and white intarsia work. Provincial makers are therefore a delight as well as a confoundment to the collector. A cabinet-maker in Devonshire or a would-be marquetry-worker in Cumberland may, between his intervals of making the coffins for his deceased neighbours or turning their wagon shafts, essay to try his hand at imitating the squire's clock-case of fifty years' previous date. He usually puts a label to his handiwork which renders it easily recognizable. There is no _style réfugié_ about his craftsmanship. His design is crudely "chopped in," that is, the solid wood has been cut out to receive the pieces of the design, usually, as found now, very badly glued, and severely handled by time. This is interesting as showing 'prentice work--that is, 'prentice work coming many years after the finished art had been established in this country. It is remarkable that no such apprentice work appears in London-made examples. The conclusion to which one must come is that there was no such apprenticeship. Foreign refugees made the clock-cases or they were imported from Holland. [Illustration: LONG-CASE CLOCK. Maker, Martin (London). 1710. Finely decorated in marquetry, with turned pillars in hood. Showing transitional period. (_In the possession of Mr. John Girdwood, Edinburgh._)] [Illustration: LONG-CASE CLOCK. Decorated in marquetry in the "all-over" style. (_By courtesy of Messrs. A. B. Daniell & Sons._)] =No Common Origin of Design.=--All art is derivative. It is not a crime for the craftsman to assimilate the best of all the great artists who have preceded him. This was the insanity of _L'Art Nouveau_. It wanted to commence again at elementary principles and to use poor forms that had long been discarded by great artificers. It wished us deliberately to ignore the past. An anvil has arrived by a process of evolution through long centuries of metal-workers, since man first smelted ore and fashioned metal, to its present form. It would be idle to equip the blacksmith with a square anvil. From China to Japan, from India to Armenia, from Bagdad to Cairo, from Alexandria to Venice, from Canton to Goa and thence to Lisbon, backwards and forwards across the world's trade routes art impulses have throbbed to the tune of the monsoons. Pulsating with life, they carried, and still carry, Eastern ideas to the West, and Western inventions to the East. Behind modernity and man's latest devices somnolently lies the great dead past--China and the Far East, Persia and Babylon, Egypt and Greece and Rome. Aztec gods and Ashanti gold ornaments, Peruvian Inca clay vessels and Malayan idols, surprise and bewilder the ethnologist with the similarity of rudimentary forms or with the marvellously pure ornament that comes out of the so-conceived dark corners of the earth to suggest older civilizations as artistic as those of the modern world. =Le Style Réfugié.=--The history of art is not hidden. Holbein and Hollar and Vandyck, Lely and Kneller worked in this country. The number of foreign artists and artist-craftsmen working in this country as acclimatized or as "naturalized" was stupendous. The beautiful swags and delicately carved woodwork embellishing so many English houses and proudly held as heirlooms are by a Dutchman's hand--Grinling Gibbons. The list could be extended. It is natural that the gold of England should have a hypnotic attraction to artistic temperaments. It is the law of supply and demand. Like bananas and pineapples, oranges and dates, foreign talent comes to a great emporium. The _style réfugié_ was something definite. It was a term employed in Holland just at the time when a similar immigration was occurring in this country. The French Protestant refugees fleeing from the insane fury of Roman Catholic bigots naturally fled to Protestant countries--to England, to Holland, and to Germany. It is admitted on the Continent that these highly skilled artist craftsmen had an influence on the art of the country of their adoption. It is acknowledged as _le style réfugié_. In England, writers on furniture have half-heartedly alluded to this influence, but it was very real. Daniel Marot, a descendant from an eminent family of French artists, a pupil of Lepautre, formerly at the Gobelins factory, and one of the creators of the Louis Quatorze style, took refuge in Holland, where William of Orange appointed him as Minister of Works. From The Hague he followed his patron to England at the "Glorious Revolution." It was his genius in design that made our William and Mary and Queen Anne styles. At Hampton Court his personality predominates. Sir Christopher Wren occupied himself with the architecture, but the decorations are by Daniel Marot. Marot died in 1718. He stands in the forefront of the exponents of _le style réfugié_, and behind him are hundreds of his compatriots. It is idle to ignore this influence. Chippendale owed more than most people imagine to Marot. _Le style chinois_ is to be found, so to speak, in embryo, in Marot's design books, and suggestions of it appear in some of his executed work. The un-English marquetry became acclimatized, and later, as we shall show, the equally un-English lac became a fashion. =Derivative Nature of Marquetry Clock-cases.=--The laying of marquetry as a craft is one thing, the conception of marquetry as a creative art is another. We may admire the dexterity of the inlay but deplore the design. At the Mortlake tapestry works Vandyck and Rubens made drawings for the craftsmen. In England, whenever the craftsman has been allied with the artist he has produced great results; whenever he has run alone he has rapidly run downhill. Josiah Wedgwood had on the one side Bentley the classical scholar, on the other Flaxman the artist and modeller with a perfect continental training. Chippendale, great craftsman that he was, would have been better advised to prune his Chinese taste and discard his worthless Gothic style. An artistic brain behind him would have saved him from such atrocities. Sheraton, more the artist than the craftsman, made no such blunders. Evidently the making of clock-cases became an industry. Personally we incline to the belief that seventy-five per cent. of them were of foreign manufacture, either in Holland and imported here, or made by Dutch immigrants or French refugees in this country. The derivative nature of their design tells its own story. It has nothing English about it. Take the early geometric star pattern or the early coloured birds and flowers, what else are they but Dutch? Is there anything in English art like them? The conclusion to which one must arrive is that the marquetry clock-case panel is Dutch or Anglo-Dutch. The derivative character runs through the whole gamut from the reticent and well-balanced panel period to the "all over" phase, when every inch was covered with marquetry, to the arabesque and intricate mosaic work reminiscent of Persia, and finally to the decadent period when Eastern carpets found themselves reproduced in marquetry on the clock-case. [Illustration: WILLIAM AND MARY CHEST OF DRAWERS. On original stand. Decorated in marquetry. Side showing panel in common use by cabinet-makers and clock-case makers. (_By courtesy of Messrs. Hampton & Son._)] [Illustration: CHEST OF DRAWERS DECORATED IN MARQUETRY. Side showing panel in common use by cabinet-makers and clock-case makers. (_By courtesy of Messrs. A. B. Daniell & Sons._)] When the hood of the clock-case became arched and the dial correspondingly had a lunette, the decorative marquetry panel in the case below followed the same form. It is possible, indeed very probable, that many such shaped panels were imported and were especially intended to meet the demand for use on clock-cases. It is always possible to a trained eye to see whether a panel has been made to fit the place in which one finds it. Is it part of a sanely conceived decorative scheme, or was it used because it happened to be handy as part of a cabinet-maker's stock-in-trade? We illustrate two examples of marquetry chests of drawers of the William and Mary period which offer many interesting features. In regard to the example with the oval panels (illustrated p. 93), the side of the piece exhibits a panel that is incongruous where it is. It is a clock-case panel. Similarly in the "all-over" marquetry chest of drawers of the same period (illustrated p. 95), the panel at the side is undoubtedly a clock-case panel. To examine both these chests of drawers in detail is to discover that the former shows that the panels of the drawers were carefully thought out before execution. The metal drop-handles in the centre were each intended to be there. They were in the cabinet-maker's mind when he made his design and laid his marquetry. He has accommodated his pattern to receive these handles. In the other example it is seen that no such care was taken. The escutcheon of the locks covers a portion of the marquetry. The cabinet-maker in London had his Dutch-imported panels ready to hand and he used them as he found them. If some collector or expert were to come along and determine that all the green and purple and flecked glass of the Early Victorian period, bottles with long necks and gilded stoppers, in English leather cases, vases of inimitable colour but execrable form, were typically English as representing early nineteenth century glass, we should put his theories aside as nonsense. Partly because we happen to know what Bohemia was exporting and partly because we know what the English glassworkers were doing in the same period. But in regard to 1650 to 1700 it is less easy to determine whether a wonderful school of expert marquetry-workers existed in London as a secret industry. One must assume that they had quietly assimilated all the technique of the Dutch craftsmen, and descended on the town, just at the right moment, with a new art, quite un-English, just at that moment when Dutch fashions were in the ascendant and when Mary, the consort of William of Orange, was employing Marot, the late Surveyor of The Hague, to convert Hampton Court from a Tudor into an Anglo-Orange palace. On an examination of delft earthenware of the period and Dutch decorative art in general, it is fairly obvious that the art impulses coincide with the various phases of ornament as found on the marquetry panel, whether they were the floriated designs of Italy with the vase and the symmetrical flowers in conventional form, further conventionalized by the Dutch, who clung to tulips and carnations, or the arabesque designs derived from the Dutch traffic with the East Indies, the pseudo-Persian sherbet tray as a panel, the prayer rug as a full design. With his black delft to imitate lacquered work of Japan and his blue delft to imitate the Kang-he Chinese porcelain, the Dutchman proved himself a superlative translator. The Dutch East India Company, till it was supplanted, was the conduit-pipe through which the arts of the East were allowed to pass into Europe. In another portion of this volume we show how apparently obscure ornament has a long lineage, and that craftsmen in minor details were producing something of which possibly they knew not the origin nor the significance; but it behoves the intelligent collector, who, after all, is in possession of more facts, spread over a wider area, to arrive at sane conclusions in regard to workers who wrought better than they thought. =The Wall-paper Period.=--It was a sad time when the idea originated to make wall-paper simulate marble or tapestry or leather, or anything else. Wall-hangings made of paper by the Chinese came into England in the early seventeenth century. But European wall-paper is a modern abomination. Chintz has a better excuse to imitate satin. "Callicoes" were tabooed at first, but they had and have a legitimate place. Wall-paper is an affectation which cannot be defended. It always pretends to be what it is not. It is really wonderful that amateurs did not paste it over clock-cases. Perhaps they did, and other persons, wiser in their generation, removed it. But if wall-paper of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries was not affixed to the clock-case, it was there in spirit, as it was on strident bureaus and other equally offensive articles of the period. The "all-over" style exhibits marquetry run mad. Artisans could apply the thin veneer, ten sheets to the inch, like paper, and they did. They had borders as common as modern factory-made imitation lace at a few pence per yard, and they laid them beside the pilasters and around the already well covered case. There was no square inch that could be said to be free from the attentions of the gluer of marquetry sheets. He began to dominate decoration till happily he was extinguished. =The Incongruities of Marquetry.=--To those who have handled a good many examples of marquetry furniture in which panelling is predominant, such as clock-cases, there is one feature which always strikes the practised eye. The question arises, How did the marquetry panel come there? It is another way of expressing the view that the proportion is radically wrong. A glance at a poor panel of a clock-case, or a faked panel, or a stupidly wrought panel, is enough. To the collector of old books nothing is more annoying than to find that the binder with all his fine tooling has trimmed off the margins of the printed matter and the illustrations. It is an edition with the space expurgated. It is the binder _versus_ the printer, and similarly in the clock-case it is too often the cabinet-maker _versus_ the designer of the marquetry panel. This is the sentiment one has on looking at many of the marquetry clock-cases. The persons who received them from Holland did not always know how to use them correctly. They either cut off their edges or left so little space as to convey the idea of a curtailed edition of the original. In the case of the panelled period, when there were three panels, two of them had more often than not to be cut off in the middle to make room for the circular aperture in the door showing the swinging pendulum. When the case-maker received his panels according to order from the Continent, one would have thought he would have done away with the hole in the case. But perhaps the clockmaker insisted otherwise. At any rate, it is a point showing the absence of intimate relationship between clockmaker and case-maker. Holland seems to be the answer, in spite of all experts to the contrary. On the "all-over" marquetry clock-cases there is a decided inclination to follow the designs found on contemporary delft ware. As to repetition, however well joined they are, the glue and the wax cannot hide the poverty of design. Twice or thrice in one case are patterns repeated. It is the wall-paper artist at work in a smaller area. In this connection one recalls the decadence of the wood-engravers, where three or four artists worked on portions of one picture cut into sections and screwed together as one block. The old journals, the _Illustrated London News_, and the _Graphic_ and others of the early 'eighties, tell of this decadence. The thin white lines, as long as ink and paper last, record this subterfuge. It was the last note of wood-engraving. Similarly, in marquetry, when we find the almost invisible lines denoting several hands, or the piecing together of the same design cunningly to deceive the persons at the period, we at a later stage read this as the note determining the end, and the end soon came. CHAPTER IV THE LONG-CASE CLOCK--THE PERIOD OF LACQUER What is lac?--Its early introduction into this country--"The Chinese taste"--Colour versus form--Peculiarities of the lacquered clock-case--The English school--English amateur imitators--Painted furniture not lacquered work--The inn clock. Lacquered work is the most un-English style of decoration that has ever been employed by the cabinet-maker in the embellishment of his furniture. It came from the East and was introduced into this country about the same period as tea-drinking. At first tea was drunk by fashionable folk from cups without handles, now it is the national beverage. Lac is a natural product of China, the sap of a tree in appearance resembling our ash-tree. It is not an artificial compound of resin and oils, worked down by turpentine. This natural gum is refined and coloured red, black, golden yellow, green, or grey. The surface of the wood is carefully prepared, and a ground is laid on by degrees, care being taken that each is of the right temperature and perfectly hard and dry before any layer is applied. Never less than three and sometimes as many as eighteen thin layers are thus applied to the surface of the wood before the actual decoration of this ground by the artist commences. In regard to the use of lac in this country, practical experts have questioned as to whether it is possible in a climate like this to effect the clean drying so necessary to attain perfection. London and other cities, on account of their dust-charged atmosphere, are unsuited for lacquer work. The artist draws his design of landscape or figures or birds or flowers, filling his details with gold or silver and superimposed colours built up with mastic, of those parts which are intended to be in slight relief. The Japanese brought the art of lacquer to the highest perfection. To those readers who desire to see the art of lacquer shown in its various stages, there is in the Botanical Museum at Kew Gardens a collection of specimens in various stages, including sections of the lacquer-tree, from which the lac exudes, and of various coloured lacs, and examples illustrating no less than fifty different methods of lacquering sword-sheaths. An examination of lacquer work is to be found in _Chinese Art_, vol. i, by Dr. Stephen W. Bushell, formerly physician to His Majesty's Legation at Peking. In the print-room of the Imperial Library at Paris is an album with drawings of the processes and explanatory notes. The Lacquer Industry in Japan forms a Report of His Majesty's Acting-Consul at Hakodate (Mr. J. J. Quin), printed as a Parliamentary Paper in 1882. =Its Early Introduction into this Country.=--At first the Portuguese had the monopoly of trade with the Far East. When Philip of Spain annexed Portugal in 1598, he sought to shut out the Dutch traders from participation in this trade. By this act he laid the foundation of the Dutch East India Company. It was only when Cornelius Houtman procured some Portuguese charts that the Dutch navigators first rounded the Cape _en route_ for India and China and Japan. The great Dutch East India Company was established in 1602. Porcelain and lacquered cabinets and boxes were thus at an early date distributed as rare articles of curious art at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Drake and Raleigh had captured Spanish galleons with such treasure, and the Portuguese possession of Goa in India had brought the wealth of the Far East to Western Europe. Evelyn tells us in his _Diary_, in 1681, of the richness of the apartments of the Duchess of Portsmouth at Whitehall. "The very furniture of the chimney was massy silver. The sideboards were piled with richly wrought plate. In the niches stood cabinets, the masterpieces of Japanese art." The dowry of Queen Catherine of Braganza did not come up to the expectations of the spendthrift Charles, although she came loaded with "japanned" boxes and rare artistic treasures from the East. Memoirs of this time furnish abundant proof that lacquered work was, in pieces of imported furniture, known in this country. But it is little likely that anything of that nature was manufactured here at that date. As a nation we had not developed on those lines; it is a fact worth remembering that as late as the reign of Charles II the greater part of the iron used in this country was imported from abroad. ="The Chinese Taste."=--This is a term which finds itself repeated like a parrot-cry from the late years of the seventeenth century. The vogue reached its height in 1750 as a fashion for the wealthy and a pastime for the dilettanti, and disturbed the steady growth of national spirit in art. There was a Chinese Festival at Drury Lane Theatre in 1755. Chippendale snatched his fretwork in his brackets and the angles of his chairs from the Chinese worker in ebony. He erected pagoda-like structures on his cabinets. The Bow china factory termed itself "New Canton," Worcester copied Chinese models, Bristol carried on the story. Staffordshire with her earthenware brought out the "willow-pattern," and a hundred other designs were acclimatized as reflections of the blue and white Canton porcelain. "Taste is at present the darling idol of the polite world and the world of letters, and, indeed, seems to be considered as the quintessence of almost all the arts and sciences. The fine ladies and gentlemen dress with taste, the architects, whether Gothic or Chinese, build with taste." So writes the essayist in the _Connoisseur_ journal in 1756, and he continues ironically, "Whoever makes a pagoda of his parlour fits up his house entirely in taste." This "Chinese taste" had seized France and Holland. The French artist-craftsmen readily saw that the great influx of Chinese and Japanese furniture would stifle their national artistic impulses. Louis Quatorze had to issue a decree at the end of the seventeenth century to prohibit the import of Oriental wares. The craze reached England later and developed later. But early in the eighteenth century the cabinet-makers of London petitioned Parliament against the importation of manufactured articles from the East Indies to this country. But nothing much seems to have come of their protest. The East India Company had become too powerful to brook interference with its trade by interested artisans. Thousands of lac panels were brought over in the company's ships, even in spite of the deep-rooted belief that lacquer work had at that time become an English art. It is to be presumed that some of the contentions of the old European lacquer-workers may be said to be parallel with the assertions of old potters who asseverated that they had discovered the true porcelain of China. In 1709 Böttger, at Meissen, had for the first time succeeded in producing white hard, paste porcelain, not in imitation of the Chinese, but actually a reproduction of the Oriental technique. But the secret was well kept, and Böttger and his workmen were imprisoned in a fortress. Since Father Du Halde, the Jesuit, had published in Paris in 1725 his _Description de l'Empire de la Chine_, other European potters had endeavoured to find the natural earths of the Chinese, kaolin and petuntse. When William Cookworthy, the chemist and potter of Plymouth, wrote of his discovery of the china clays, Josiah Wedgwood journeyed to Cornwall on a wild-goose chase. It may be imagined, with data such as these to guide us--first, the growing intensity of the "Chinese taste"; second, the demand for furniture and porcelain on the part of the wealthy classes--that as a consequence an attempt was made to supply the demand. There were various sources of supply for lacquered furniture, especially lacquered clock-cases. There was the Dutch market, from which was obtained, as in the case of marquetry, panels of lacquered work. At first, without doubt, these came from the East through Holland. The next stage was the Dutch lacquered panel actually produced in Holland. Later there was again the Oriental panel coming straight from the East through our own East India Company. Contemporaneously with these importations, which served as models, there was the lacquered work produced in this country. We shall later attempt to differentiate between these styles. =Colour versus Form.=--In various epochs the struggle has gone on in the applied arts in regard to the use and abuse of colour in decoration as an adjunct. In furniture the pendulum has swung to and fro. Colour follows form in the process of evolution. In England there is the oak period and the walnut period, where the beauty is solely dependent upon form. The conception of the cabinet-maker has usually been confined to form, eschewing colour, or to colour more or less ignoring the beauty of form, or as a compromise, when form has been subservient to colour. When form and colour are in exact harmony the highest ideals are reached in furniture. The Chinese have reached these ideals. The Italian school of the fifteenth century in the marriage coffer, where painting or coloured intarsia is of parallel beauty with the rich carving, achieved like success. With similar judgment, in holding the balance evenly between form and colour, André Charles Boulle conceived his wonderful work in tortoiseshell and brass and ebony and silver, forming a brilliant marquetry of colour, the colour effect being further heightened with a reddish-brown and sometimes a bluish-green ground beneath the semi-transparent tortoiseshell. Riesener and David Roentgen, in equally masterful technique, produced marquetry of tulip-wood, holly, rosewood, purple wood, and laburnum. With the style embodying the enrichment of the plain surface with colour came the use, and later the abuse, of lacquered panels. A Dutch cabinet-maker, Huygens, had won renown by reproducing remarkable imitations of the Japanese lacquered panel. In Holland, Chinese prototypes had served as models for delft ware. The Dutch potter had simulated the appearance of blue and white Chinese porcelain, but his results were obtained by a white enamel covering a brown body. Dutch lacquer work is similarly imitative of the results rather than a duplication of the Oriental processes. Chintzes and printed "callicoes" equally are surprising efforts at simulation, if not dissimulation. As a supreme effort of the successful attempt of the European to reproduce the wonderful limpid transparency of the old Chinese and Japanese work, the secret of Sieur Simon Etienne Martin, a French carriage painter, stands supreme. His varnish, called after him _Vernis-Martin_, has become the term, as in the case of Boulle, for a certain class of technique. In 1744 he obtained the monopoly in France for the manufacture of lacquered work in the Oriental style. He obtained the ground of wavy golden network, such as in rare Japanese panels, and on this Boucher and other artists painted Arcadian subjects. In England it cannot be said that these great foreign styles have been emulated in the grand manner or even attempted. When colour came to England it came straight from Holland, and _le style réfugié_ is responsible for the intermingling of the Dutch and French styles, though the former were at first greatly predominant. The important bureaus and splendid lacquered cabinets produced in the period when colour was employed so lavishly as to disregard form, are attributable, not for the least part of their excellent technique in the skilful employment of lacquer, to the great number of French and other foreign workmen who had settled in this country. =Peculiarities of the Lacquered Clock-case.=--The use of the lacquered panel in the long case of the clock cannot be said to have a definite period of its own. We cannot mark an exact date when marquetry panels or marquetry "all-over" cases were no longer the vogue, and when lacquered cases succeeded them. The two styles were comparatively contemporaneous. Marquetry cases, as we have seen, are as early as 1680, and they continued till about 1725, and later in the provinces. The lacquered case may be said to have run its day from about 1700 to 1755. On the whole they seemed to have had a longer vogue, mainly on account of the prevalence of the "Chinese taste," which demanded colour. Lacquered decoration jumped the experimental stage of reserves or panels that apparently were not quite in exact proportions to the case, but had to be fitted in and sometimes trimmed. It came at a juncture when this difficulty had been mastered. Accordingly, we find the whole of the lacquered case has been regarded as a rectangular surface to be decorated, and we have not met with any instance of more than one lacquered panel being employed on the case. The marquetry case offered other features which indicated the struggle of colour for supremacy. In the early marquetry specimens the turned walnut pillars of the hood belong to an earlier style. They indicate that that form had not been completely ousted. The marquetry worker in the end overcame this and drove these pillars out. In the lacquered case no such struggle is visible. The case is entirely a scheme in colour. It is red, or green, it is black and gold, but the design is never so strong as to tempt one to examine its form. It is simply decorative, but much in the manner that, in textile art, tapestry is pleasing, not challenging a critical examination of form, but suggesting a somnolent restfulness. Touches of incongruity appear in later examples of the lacquered clock-case when the arched hood came into fashion and the panel followed suit. It is a shape unsuited to an Oriental design. Such a Western architectural style used in combination with so Eastern a technique as lacquered work is like putting a Corinthian pillar on a Japanese bronze. The lacquered cases illustrated in this chapter indicate the style. The example with the movement by Joseph Dudds (1766-82), (illustrated p. 115), shows the early attempt to simulate the Eastern style. It is poor and thin, and has not stood the ravages of time and a damp climate. The specimen (illustrated p. 117), with the movement by Kenneth Maclellan (1760-80), is of more grandiose character. The panelled door was probably an importation, and the other decorations in lacquer done in this country. Among the Scottish clocks, the Patrick Gordon example (1705-15), (illustrated p. 263), proves this usage of imported Oriental panel with added decoration in as near a style as could be done on the spot. In this example the remainder of the so-called lacquered decoration is stencilled. [Illustration: LONG-CASE CLOCK WITH LACQUER DECORATION. Brass dial with circular medallion with maker's name, "Joseph Dudds, London" (1766-82).] [Illustration: LONG-CASE CLOCK. Maker, Kenneth Maclennan (London). Finely decorated in green lacquer. Date, 1760-80. Height, 8 ft. Width, 1 ft. 8 in. Depth, 10 in. (_By courtesy of Percy Webster, Esq._)] =The English School.=--Dutch lacquered work was as prevalent between 1680 and 1725 as was Dutch marquetry. The rivalry between "John Company" and the Dutch traders was one factor that has to be considered. Lacquered work was coming straight from the East to Amsterdam and to English ports. What was not absorbed by the Dutch burghers came to England. Apart from this competitive Oriental trade, there was the lacquered work actually made in Holland. In examining the state of that country at this time one meets with a surprise. It was a land teeming with colour. Dutch painters have taught us to think otherwise. The Rijks Museum exhibits the prevalent styles of the seventeenth century. Here we find leather decorations derivative from Spain in rich gilding, Louis Quatorze boudoirs with classic gods and goddesses. The "Chinese Boudoir" from the palace of the Stadtholder at Leeuwarden shows the intense love of colour that had conquered Holland in the late seventeenth century. Here we find the Chinese prototypes in porcelain which provided the potters at Delft with problems to solve, and lacquered work which suggested patient imitation by Dutch cabinet-makers, but the colour and advanced technique of such Oriental originals must have confounded the old craftsmen. The potter simulated the porcelain with his enamelled earthenware, the cabinet-maker produced lacquered work which passed muster in Holland and England. Take the house of the rich burgher. The table was covered with an Eastern rug, called a "table carpet." The linen cupboards so beloved by the Dutch were surmounted by Chinese and Japanese porcelain. Often a Japanese lac cabinet gave another touch of colour to the interior. Rich damask curtains, Spanish leather hangings, Oriental rugs, finely inlaid cabinets of ebony and silver, and a glowing array of copper and brass, filled the heart of the Dutch _vrouw_ with pride. Such rooms were regarded as a "holy of holies," and the family had their meals in the kitchen or living room and were warned off the show room. The seventeenth-century Dutchwoman, according to all accounts, seems to have been a shrew. But enough is extant to prove that Holland was artistically, in regard to the home-life of Stadtholder and burgher, resplendent with colour, in spite of the low tones of the canvases of Dutch painters. In England, too, the love of colour was becoming predominant. Fifty thousand Huguenot families, with their Latin blood and love of colour, scattered in the Protestant countries had no inconsiderable influence. Spitalfields silk is as English as the dark and tortuous lanes from which it emanates. But every weaver had a French name, and although the industry has come to an end, tomorrow, if the demand arose, the descendants of these French Huguenots would again stand at the looms to produce English silk. The sudden outburst of colour in the now rarely prized English lacquered cabinets and bureaus must be attributed to the foreign workmen in our midst at the close of the seventeenth century. It is English perforce, because it was made in England. The followers of Huygens the Dutchman and the disciples of Martin the Frenchman were capable of producing something new and something surprising in English cabinet work. The foreign quarters of London have always been the centre of art industry. Armenians sit on the roofs of fashionable West End emporiums and restore carpets and rugs. Polish and Russian furriers travel by the Tube from Whitechapel and Bethnal Green, from the Commercial Road and Shoreditch to Regent Street and Bond Street with their handiwork. What is now, was two hundred and fifty years ago. Alien craftsmen, more skilled than the English workmen, worked for less wages and produced better work. The English style, therefore, of the late seventeenth century in lacquered work was as English as the work of Daniel Marot the Frenchman and of Grinling Gibbons the Dutch woodcarver at Hampton Court. The English style is praised as something fine and original as a European replica of the Oriental. So it is. It is the French grafted on to the Dutch and acclimatized here. It holds the same place in lacquered work as the Dutch delft ware does in ceramics. It is a splendid imitation of a technique not grasped by the imitator. Lovers of lacquered rarities and collectors of the so-called English style, so rare and so much extolled, can take it to heart that it is really English--as English as the canvases of Vandyck or the painted panels of pergolesi. =English Amateur Imitators.=--There are records enough to show that the art of lacquer had appealed to the amateur on account of its apparent simplicity. It is ludicrous to read of the attempts of seventeenth-century teachers of the art of "japanning" to young ladies. The seventeenth-century "miss," according to old memoirs, left her Stuart stump needlework, with its quaint costume and crude figures, to simulate the subtle art of the Chinese or Japanese lacquer-worker. At that time the greatest coach-panel painter could not have approached the finesse of the lacquered work coming from the East. In spite of Stalker and Parker in 1688, with their treatise how to produce lacquered "japanning" in the Oriental style--a guide for amateurs and the standard work for all the academies that taught this new accomplishment--we cannot believe much of this amateur work found its way on clock-cases, which in point of time heralded the oncoming burst of colour. It is incredible that all of a sudden, following the clock-case and the chair-back, fine red and green and black and gold lac decoration, as exhibited by rich cabinets and gorgeous bureaus scintillating with colour, could have succeeded the stump-work amateurs. Stalker and company must go by the board as caterers for a very amateur taste. Their book possibly never reached the trade, or if it did, it could have had very little influence upon adept refugees practising a subtle art. =Painted Furniture not Lacquered Work.=--Whatever may be determined as to the merits of _Vernis-Martin_ or of the creations of Huygens the Dutchman in regard to comparison with Chinese and Japanese prototypes, it is certain that English amateur work, which is often dull gold design on a black ground, is not only an echo but a feeble echo of the original. They are splendid examples of dulness. Pepys complains that women wore feathers in his day. The feminine instinct is difficult to reckon with. Some years ago very up-to-date young wives "aspinalled" everything pea-green or peacock-blue. They did a lot of damage. Similarly, in the seventeenth century, when the boudoir escaped from needlework into lacquer, much otherwise harmless furniture must have been spoilt. Hundreds of fine pieces of furniture were brought up to date by the simple process of painting them and simulating the Chinese lacquered work. In the Early Victorian age of graining, sapient workmen painted solid oak panels and grained them to resemble the oak that they had painted. Folly is not the monopoly of any age. It is eternal. To-day the framer, if he is not watched and carefully instructed, glues a fine engraving to a sheet of cardboard and rubs a wet cloth over the surface of the print, destroying its beauty for ever with his clod-like smudge. Fools are ever present to confound the conservation of art treasures. Painting a surface, however Oriental it may be in design, is _not_ lacquer work. Half the so-called lacquered work is merely painting with a coat of varnish put on it. When Sheraton and his school brought French painted panels into fashion in this country, they brought a true art. But it was not lacquer. Cipriani, Angelica Kauffmann, and Pergolesi, who used their brushes on cabinet work, and Zoffany, who did not disdain to paint clock-cases for Rimbault, brought a new style to this country. It was the age of colour-prints in the French taste; the Wards, the George Morlands, and the Bartolozzis demanded colour as a suitable environment. Satinwood and coloured marquetry and the painted panel accordingly found a place at this moment. The amateur attempts of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, up to the _furore_ of the "Chinese taste" in 1750, must be disregarded as something outside the field of the collector--that is, if he is desirous of selecting lacquered work of excellent character. As a phase of fashionable caprice it is no doubt interesting, but it is to be hoped that most of these amateur efforts have succumbed to the influence of time and have been destroyed. They represent nothing in particular except a sham imitation of a great art, as stupidly offensive as was Strawberry Hill, the Gothic toy of Horace Walpole. =The Inn Clock.=--We interpolate here a short outline of a class of clocks which appeals to collectors. In America they are termed "banjo clocks." A good deal has been written about them, connecting them with Pitt's tax on clocks and watches in 1797 of five shillings on each clock per annum, which Act was repealed in the next year. It is supposed that these clocks suddenly came into being when private clocks were taxed, and were used in inns. Owing to such a deep-seated belief they are always known throughout the country as "Act of Parliament" clocks. But they were used earlier than the Act of 1797, and were probably ordinary inn clocks in common use about that time. They were wall clocks varnished with black lacquer, mostly plain, but sometimes decorated in gold. Often the figures were in white and they had no protective glass. [Illustration: INN CLOCK. Decorated in black and gold lacquer. Maker, John Grant (Fleet Street). About 1785. Formerly in possession of Sir Augustus Harris. (_By courtesy of John R. Southworth, Esq._)] The example illustrated (p. 125) is decorated in black and gold lacquer, and the name on the dial is John Grant, Fleet Street, about 1785. This is rather an elaborate specimen, as most of the ordinary inn clocks of this shape are innocent of these rather elaborate lacquer enrichments. They are to be found all over the country; we have seen one in an inn at Evesham. They are in Kent and the south, but do not appear to have been in common use in the northern counties, unless imported there later. Ale-house jests are frequent on old earthenware mugs--"Drink faire, don't swear"--and broad hints as to credit. This is similarly found as a standing pointed jest in an "Act of Parliament" clock in a Kentish inn, minus the works, with the inscription "No Tick"--a jest which the most seasoned toper could readily understand. Oliver Goldsmith, when he wrote his _Deserted Village_ in 1770, is said to have described in "Sweet Auburn" a typical Irish village in regard to its desertion, but he introduced touches reminiscent of his town habits. When he wrote of the village ale-house:-- The whitewash'd wall, the nicely sanded floor, The varnish'd clock that click'd behind the door, he may have been thinking of inn clocks he had seen in Fleet Street. By his use of the word "varnished" it would appear that Goldsmith had in mind the ale-house clock of which we are speaking. There was no other that was "varnished," that is, lacquered. The term "Act of Parliament" clocks must therefore be discarded; these clocks were common inn clocks, and had nothing to do with the Act levying the tax in 1797. As a rule, elaborately lacquered examples of such clocks should be regarded with caution by the collector. The inn clock was "varnished," but it had no panelled lacquer and lattice-work gold ornament. It was a simple hanging wall clock _sans_ artistic embellishment. CHAPTER V THE LONG-CASE CLOCK--THE GEORGIAN PERIOD The stability of the "grandfather" clock--The burr-walnut period--Thomas Chippendale--The mahogany period--Innovations of form--The Sheraton style--Marquetry again employed in decoration. To collectors and connoisseurs the most desirable period of the long-case clock is from 1700 to about 1720. As we have seen in the previous chapters, this embraces the two styles of marquetry and lacquered work, although lacquered work continued to the middle of the eighteenth century. The year 1720 is not an arbitrary date, but this year is a convenient one. It marks the accession of the first of the Four Georges and the advent of the House of Hanover. As the title to a period of time, the Georgian period is as good as any other. Just a hundred years afterwards George III died, and the Fourth George reigned only ten years, till 1830. In regard to the clock-case, the century was not filled with great changes. The writers of memoirs of the time--Selwyn and Walpole, Lord Hervey and Fanny Burney--furnish many sidelights on the Georgian period. Thackeray in his _Four Georges_ illuminated the Georgian era with more vigour than Early Victorians could stand. The eighteenth century is repellent by its stupidity and coarseness, by its insipidity and dulness, and yet it is relieved by a continuity of extraordinary forcefulness and freshness of vigour, undimmed in our naval and military history, unequalled in our art and letters. The following names occur to prove this suggestion: Clive and Warren Hastings, Rodney and Nelson, Moore and Wellington, Reynolds and Gainsborough, Dr. Johnson and Burke. We lost, but not for ever, the love of the American Colonies for the great Mother Country, whose tongue is a common heritage, and whose democratic freedom is akin to that across the Atlantic, and this through the obstinacy of a German monarch thwarting the will of the people. "The first and second Georges were not Englishmen, and therefore were not popular, and excited no enthusiasm in their subjects, but were simply tolerated as being better than the Popish Stuarts"; so says Lord Macaulay in his _Essay on Chatham_. It is ludicrous to learn that Walpole, beefy Englishman that he was, spoke no French, and had, as George I spoke no English, to conduct State affairs in Latin. What a stratum of misunderstanding on which to rest a people's destinies! [Illustration: LONG-CASE CLOCK. Maker, Henderson (London). Date, about 1770. Height, 9 ft. Width, 1 ft. 8-1/2 in. Depth, 11 in.] =The Stability of the "Grandfather" Clock.=--The long-case clock had become a piece of furniture. It was of marquetry decoration, in keeping with contemporary tables and cabinets, or it was lacquered in rich colours in "Chinese taste" to keep touch with the Oriental parlours. But concurrent with the age of marquetry and lacquer was the great walnut period. The delightful veneer of burr-walnut in Queen Anne days in cabinets and chests of drawers and other important pieces of furniture did not neglect the clock-case. The gnarled figure of the walnut was essentially a proper decoration to apply to the clock-case. The long-case clock had not only become acclimatized, but it had become thoroughly English. The simplicity of its construction, and its proud record as a perfect timekeeper, gave it the supremacy over all other clocks. English clockmakers, with the fine sense of practical utility which governed their employment of mechanism, had reached a point when further inventions became more of scientific use than popular. The "grandfather" clock has no equal within its limits. It runs for eight days. Its construction is so simple that when needing repair it need not be sent to a specialist. It has no delicate parts to confound the provincial maker. Hence it has lasted two centuries and more as a standard English clock. There is, too, a certain lovableness about the "grandfather" clock. The popular term suggests this. It is the heritage of the poor. The "grandfather" clock of the yeomanry has passed down through many generations. Indeed, the love of it as an article of furniture has, in many instances, endowed it with a value far greater than it possesses. =The Burr-walnut Period.=--Veneer had become an established technique. Woods with fine figure served as panels laid on wood of lesser rarity or decorative importance. Oak was a good foundation for walnut veneer. Earlier, as we have seen, walnut was laid as a ground on oak and the marquetry design laid on the walnut. But in the burr-walnut period carefully selected walnut sheets were employed to decorate surfaces of bureaus and clock-cases. The age of walnut is synonymous with the days of Hogarth. Burr-walnut clock-cases are not so frequently found as could be wished. The burr-walnut panels are marked in a series of knot-like rings, obtained from the gnarled roots of the walnut-tree. The peculiar pleasing effect of this and other mottled walnut is heightened by the mellow effect time always gives to these walnut examples, which cannot be produced with any appreciable success by modern imitators. =Thomas Chippendale--The Mahogany Period.=--There is no doubt that the name of Thomas Chippendale will always be representative of the mahogany period of English furniture. But there were other makers contemporary with him who did splendid work. The Chippendales, Thomas the father and Thomas the son, picture-frame carver and cabinet-maker at Worcester, migrated together to London in 1729. The son, Thomas, published his _Director_ in 1754. He was the leading cabinet-maker and designer of his day, and his day lasted till about 1780, when his son, Thomas Chippendale the third entered into partnership with Haig, and the firm became Chippendale and Haig, who also in turn produced magnificent work. Close upon the heels of the Chippendales was the firm of Hepplewhite. The brothers Adam, architectural designers and creators of furniture suitable for its new classic environment, began to make their impress upon interior decoration and on furniture, as they had upon Princes Street, Edinburgh, the Quays at Dublin, and the Adelphi in London, with their patent stucco mouldings and festoons. [Illustration: LONG-CASE CLOCK. Maker, Thomas Wagstaff (Gracechurch Street, London). Date, about 1780. Height, 8 ft. 2 in. Width, 1 ft. 7-1/2 in. Depth, 10 in. (_By courtesy of Percy Webster, Esq._)] [Illustration: LONG-CASE CLOCK. Movement by Stephen Rimbault, case by Robert Adam. Date, about 1775. (_By courtesy of Messrs. A. B. Daniell & Sons._)] Accordingly, the student must bear in mind these great movements taking place during the second half of our Georgian period, viz. from about 1740 to the year 1791, at which date appeared the first edition of Sheraton's _Cabinet Maker and Upholsterers Drawing Book_, to herald another style, blended with the Adam, but departing from it at important points. In examining clock-cases of this prolific and restless period, it should be of exceptional interest to the connoisseur to show how unnamed cabinet-makers in London and in the provinces attempted to employ, with varying degrees of skill, the designs promulgated broadcast by these great teachers of design and construction in cabinet work. =Innovations of Form.=--As exemplifying the variations of the mahogany period clock-case, we illustrate several types showing reflections of the great impulses that were in the air. The clock, illustrated (p. 239), has a case of Spanish mahogany with fine figure. The hood is enriched with fretwork, and with elegantly moulded door, and the superstructure as a pediment exhibits the Chinese style. The terminals are mahogany. The dial shows phases of the moon, and the movement is by a provincial maker, E. Cockey, Warminster. Of the year 1770 is another mahogany clock with handsomely carved frieze and elaborate terminals. The love for architectural ornament is seen in the hood, and in the pillars on the waist below on each side of the panelled door. The base is decorated with a panel, in mahogany of fine figure. The feet are beginning to become more pronounced. The movement of this is by Henderson, of London, and its height is 9 feet (illustrated p. 133). Another clock, by Thomas Wagstaff, in date about 1780, exhibits a less grandiose appearance. The height is less, being only 8 feet 2 inches. The pediment of the hood reverts to types which are often found decorated with lacquer work, and the brass terminals are of similar character to those of an earlier period. It is noticeable that the base continues to show increased ornament in the feet, with an added scroll (illustrated p. 137). As showing another type of clock with magnificent decoration we illustrate (p. 143) the hood of a long-case musical clock, attributed to Rimbault, who was especially noteworthy for his musical movements, and his cases were decorated by Zoffany. An examination of this shows the detailed character of the painted work. It is Italian in conception, and quite in keeping with other work of Zoffany. [Illustration: TOP PORTION OF MUSICAL LONG-CASE CLOCK. Richly decorated with painting attributed to Zoffany. Maker, no signature, but suggestive of the work of Rimbault. (_By courtesy of Messrs. Harris & Sinclair, Dublin._)] [Illustration: LONG-CASE CLOCK. Eight-day movement. Mahogany case inlaid with satinwood shell designs and banding. Maker, James Hatton, London (1800-12). Brick design in base in Chippendale manner. (_By courtesy of Messrs. D. Sherratt & Co., Chester._)] Another illustration (p. 139) shows the typical classical style. The case was designed by Robert Adam, and is in date about 1775. The dial becomes circular, and owes certain of its decoration to French form, although it is surmounted by a Greek urn, but the flying garlands betray it. The waist becomes tapered, terminating in a base of graceful proportions and reticent ornament. The fluted work and the scroll indicate the design of the architect. One can imagine such a chaste clock finding itself in the cold, un-English environment of Ken Wood, or on the staircase of some learned society, with candelabra of bronze of classic design, with hoofs as feet and with the Roman lamp throwing out its modern flame. The movement of this clock is by Stephen Rimbault, of Great St. Andrew Street, about 1775. Another example of a clock by James Hatton, London (about 1810), exhibits several new features. Its case is of rich feathered mahogany, inlaid in the Sheraton manner with satinwood shells, banding, and herring-bone stringing. The hood is massive and reverts to an earlier period, and the ornament of the base, in brickwork style, was known to have been employed by Chippendale. The finials are brass. The dial is brass, and in the lunette are painted a ship and a cottage (illustrated p. 145). For the continuation of these styles one must turn to the provincial makers (Chapter VIII), showing a variety of decoration and touches of incongruity in style and anachronism in date--a glorious intermingling of contemporary with bygone features, affording unequalled delight to the collector. In the case of provincial made furniture, whole districts carried on fashions for a quarter of a century or longer after they had been forgotten in London, and the clock-case is no exception. Included in this period is the fine clock (illustrated p. 149) by Robert Molyneux and Sons, London, 1825, now in the Bristol Museum. It has one main dial recording minutes, and two smaller dials showing hours and seconds respectively. The main dial has two hands, which indicate Greenwich mean time and Bristol time. The type is known as a "regulator" clock, with the twenty-four-hour dial and other additions appertaining to the astronomical clock. The illustration shows the time to be: Greenwich, 11.42 (i.e. 42 minutes past 11 o'clock); Bristol, 11.32 (i.e. 10 minutes difference). The clock has a mercury pendulum. There was a somewhat similar clock constructed by Dell, of Bristol. [Illustration: LONG-CASE REGULATOR CLOCK. Movement by Robert Molyneux & Sons, London. 1825. Three dials, one showing hours and one seconds, the great dial showing Greenwich time and Bristol time. ENLARGEMENT OF DIAL. The two hands on large or minute dial show difference of 10 minutes 22 seconds between Greenwich and Bristol time. (_By permission of Bristol Museum and Art Gallery._)] CHAPTER VI THE EVOLUTION OF THE LONG-CASE CLOCK Its inception--Its Dutch origin--The changing forms of the hood, the waist, and the base--The dial and its character--The ornamentation of the spandrel--The evolution of the hands. From 1680 to 1850 is a long period of time for a particular style of timepiece to run without interruption or without displacement by any other fashion. It may naturally be supposed that during this period changes have occurred in form, in decoration, and in a score of minor details delightful to the collector and interesting to the student of form in design. The inception of the long case was due to the common use of the seconds pendulum. This required a certain space to swing in, and the pendulum was of a certain length. This undue length does not seem to have been necessary in the wall clock of the so-called "Act of Parliament" type, and as Lord Grimthorpe, the constructor of "Big Ben" at Westminster, says: "Spring clocks are generally resorted to for the purpose of saving length; for as clocks are generally made in England, it is impossible to make a weight clock capable of going a week, without either a case nearly 4 feet high, or else the weights so heavy as to produce a great friction on the arbour of the great wheel. But this arises from nothing but the heaviness of the wheels and the badness of the pinions used in most English clocks, as is amply proved by the fact that the American and Austrian clocks go a week with smaller weights and much less fall than English ones, and the American ones with no assistance from fine workmanship for the purpose of diminishing friction, as they are remarkable for their want of what is called 'finish' in the machinery, on which so much time and money is wasted in English clock-work." =Its Dutch Origin.=--As we have before explained, the marquetry case came straight from Holland. Our "grandfather" was a Dutchman, as far as clock-cases go. The Dutchman Huygens is credited with having been the first to employ the pendulum in the mechanism of the clock. Leonardo da Vinci, that stupendous genius, left notes as to his study of the pendulum (1452-1520), and Galileo came with his later studies (1564-1642). It is a disputed point as to when and where the pendulum came into being. We must accept Huygens (1629-95) as the practical exponent of the pendulum, although not the original discoverer of its properties. But at any rate, the long-case clock may be generally accepted as coincident with the use of the long or seconds pendulum. And to Holland we must look for this habitual usage of the long wooden case to protect the weights and the pendulum. Among the designs of Marot there are drawings of long-case clocks certainly more ornate than those usually associated with such an early period (this was about 1660 to 1680), and French Louis XIV and Louis XV tall clocks are built on these lines, and Chippendale at a later period found Marot an exceedingly prolific master of design to study. =The Changing Forms of the Hood, the Waist, and the Base.=--The evolution of form in one class of object from one period to another is of exceptional interest. In furniture, in china, in glass, and in silver, the progression of forms is so marked as to give practically a date to each piece. The gate-leg table can be traced from three to twelve legs with double gates. The chair, from its straight oaken back and massive arms to the tapering legs and curves of the satinwood period, runs through stages as definitely marked as though the makers had signed the pieces. Now the stretcher is low, next it becomes higher, then it disappears altogether; or the splats in the back are single, then double, with cane panels, and then again upholstered. The top rail of the chair affords similar delectation to the connoisseur of form changing for a definite reason. The clock-case underwent equal changes in character, not only in its decoration, as we have seen, in marquetry, in lacquer, and in veneers of burr-walnut and mahogany, but its proportions varied. At first, coming as it did in the walnut period, the hood had turned rails, in keeping with the turned rails of the chairs of the time. The hood was square and small, the waist was more slender, and the base in proportion. During the marquetry and the lacquered periods the hood began to grow larger and more dominant. It had a domed superstructure, and the finials or metal terminals were more ornamental and grew in number (see illustrations, pp. 133, 117). The massive character of the early mahogany period, culminating with Chippendale, had its effect on the long clock-case. The hood had a pagoda-like edifice in the Chinese style (see illustration, p. 239), or it had the woodcarver's adoption of architecture, as in the crest of the hood (see illustrations, pp. 145, 117). The rail in the hood had become a Corinthian pillar, and later a pilaster. At the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century it had a new form: when it was turned mahogany it stood away from the case, as an ornament apart, rather than a supporting pillar (see illustration, p. 233). This is a noticeable feature in country-made clocks of this period. At first there was no door in the case. But on the introduction of the door, its panelled form commenced to make its progression in form in accompaniment with the other features of the case. It was square, in simple forms, with square hoods. In 1730 it took the form somewhat similar to the shape of the lowest marquetry panel, as shown in the clock by Jas. Leicester (see Frontispiece). It really follows the chair-backs of a period of some ten or fifteen years' prior date. It is an instance of the clock-case slightly lagging behind contemporary furniture design. The shapes of these panels resemble the chair-backs of the James II, William and Mary, and the Queen Anne period. In some instances the simple form becomes taller, terminating in a small semicircle. The Sussex iron fire-backs of the seventeenth century show similar forms of panel. By 1770 the panel had lost its lunette or semi-circular form at top, and in outline resembled a Chippendale chair-back. The evolution is easily traceable. A similar fashion is observed in tombstones in old country churchyards. By the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, especially in certain North of England type clock-cases, notably Lancashire and Cheshire, these panels are Gothic in character (see illustration, p. 231). Following French fashion, in some late examples there is a glass panel (see illustration, p. 275). The base undergoes certain changes, though in a lesser degree. Sometimes plain, sometimes with a plinth, sometimes with feet. Dutch long clock-cases have great wooden balls as feet. In the Chippendale period the plinth has a suggestion of Chinese character. In later types the feet are more pronounced, and the base has an ornamental panel in the Sheraton period with a delicate marquetry inlay of simple character. In Sheraton's _Design Book_ there are two clocks showing the base further ornamented by turned pillars similar to the hood. The growing importance of these feet and their frequent use, especially in ornate examples, are shown in the specimens illustrated (pp. 133, 137). =The Dial and its Character.=--When only one hand was in use, it was obviously not necessary to denote the minutes. Later, the minutes were engraved on the dial to meet the use of the minute hand; sometimes these were in a circle inside the hour numerals, and later they were put on the outer edge, outside the hour numerals. The hour numerals are almost invariably of Roman style, and the figure IV has by universal custom been engraved IIII, though there are examples of a late period with IV which are of country make. Similarly, Arabic figures have also been used. The illustration of a fine dial, of eighteenth century period, showing the various phases of the iron industry at Ashburnham, in Sussex, has these figures; this is a country-made clock (p. 243). The dials were brass, and the hour numerals appeared on a circle of brass plated with silver. Iron dials were used later, in the decadent period, and both numerals and floral designs were painted on the enamelled surface in lieu of engraved and ornamental metal-work, and often a landscape or figure subject occupied the lunette. The lunette form followed the square face, and sometimes the maker put his name in this lunette, and later below the centre of the clock, and later again not at all on the dial. The lunette form no doubt determined the shape of the panel of the door in the case below, to which we have previously alluded. The illustration (p. 159) shows these forms. The dial, by Henry Massy (1680), has the name between the numerals VI and VII. The lunette form in a dial by John Draper (1703) has the name of the maker in a circular disc above the hour circle. [Illustration: BRASS DIAL BY HENRY MASSY, LONDON. ABOUT 1680. Clock with usual eight-day movement. (An enlargement of this dial is illustrated p. 163). (_By courtesy of Edward Campbell, Esq., Glasgow._)] [Illustration: BRASS DIAL BY JOHN DRAPER, LONDON. ABOUT 1703. Spandrels exhibiting later floral style of decoration. (_At the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York._)] Enlargements of the Henry Massy dial and of another by John Bushman show the character of engraving and the position of the maker's name (illustrated p. 163). In regard to the engraving put on the dials of these old clocks, it is not impossible that William Hogarth, when he was an apprentice at Master Ellis Gamble's shop, at the sign of the "Golden Angel" in Cranbourn Street, Leicester Fields, did some of this work. We know that Thomas Bewick engraved clock dials when an apprentice at Newcastle-upon-Tyne (see p. 215). The last form of the long-case dial is circular, an unusual type in vogue during the closing decades of the eighteenth century, belonging to the classic and French styles and in no way diverting the fashion of the main stream of case-makers. Concerning the use of glass for the protection of the dial in the long-case clock, it was in use in coaches for the first time in 1667. According to Pepys' _Diary_ we learn: "Another pretty thing was my Lady Ashly's speaking of the bad qualities of the glass coaches, among others the flying open of the doors upon any great shake; but another, my Lady Peterborough, being in her glass coach with the glass up, and seeing a lady pass by in a coach whom she would salute, the glass was so clear that she thought it had been open, and so ran her head through the glass." At first the hood of the clock lifted off and the glass was fixed; later the glass was framed in a door, and subsequently the hood slid off, which fashion is found in all but the earliest examples. The term "dial" is a survival of the word "sundial." Like all innovations, there may have been those who preferred the old character, or it may have been left to Charles Lamb, lover of past and faded memories, to ruminate on garden gods in the Temple: "What an antique air had the now almost effaced sundials, with their moral inscriptions, seeming coevals with that Time which they measured, and to take their revelations of its flight immediately from heaven, holding correspondence with the fountain of light.... The shepherd, 'carved it out quaintly in the sun,' and turning philosopher by the very occupation, provided it with mottoes more touching than tombstones." Elia, Shakespearean scholar that he was, could not have forgotten the melancholy Jaques with his:-- I met a fool i' the forest, A motley fool; a miserable world! As I do live by food, I met a fool; Who laid him down and bask'd him in the sun, And rail'd on Lady Fortune in good terms, In good set terms and yet a motley fool. "Good morrow, fool," quoth I. "No, sir," quoth he, "Call me not fool till heaven hath sent me fortune": And then he drew a dial from his poke, And, looking on it with lack-lustre eye, Says very wisely: "It is ten o'clock: Thus we may see," quoth he, "how the world wags: 'Tis but an hour ago since it was nine, And after one hour more 'twill be eleven; And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe, And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot; And thereby hangs a tale." [Illustration: ENLARGEMENT OF DIAL. Showing maker's name, John Bushman, London. About 1680. From lantern clock illustrated as Frontispiece.] [Illustration: ENLARGEMENT OF DIAL. Showing maker's name, Hen. Massy, London, and square dial indicating date of month. About 1680. From long-case clock illustrated p. 159.] It is not probable that the "fool i' the forest" drew from his pocket a sundial; it was, no doubt, a pocket-clock, or, in other words, a watch. The art of dial-making is a subtle one. It is true that some are pleasing in their balance and others are displeasing, which sets us wondering what rules there are to govern the symmetrical arrangement of circles and figures and their co-related hands. There is an air of solemn grandeur about a fine dial; its dignity is as unruffled as the march of Time itself. The old masters of dial construction had the art of spacing as completely under control as had Caxton the great typographer in the balance of his printed page. What Lord Grimthorpe has said[3] about the dials of turret clocks applies in its principles to the dials of domestic clocks. "The figures are generally made much too large. People have a pattern dial painted; and if the figures are not as long as one-third of the radius, and therefore occupying, with the minutes, about two-thirds of the area of the dial, they fancy they are not large enough to be read at a distance; whereas the fact is, the more the dial is occupied by figures, the less distinct they are, and the more difficult it is to distinguish the position of the hands, which is what people want to see, and not to read the figures, which may very well be replaced by twelve large spots.... The rule which has been adopted, after various experiments, as the best for the proportions of the dial is this: Divide the radius into three, and leave the inner two-thirds clear and flat, and of some colour forming a strong contrast to the colour of the hands--black or dark blue if they are gilt, and white if they are black. The figures, if there are any, should occupy the next two-thirds of the remaining third, and the minutes be set in the remainder near the edge." [3] _Encyclopædia Britannica_ (ninth edition), vol. vi. =The Ornamentation of the Spandrel.=--There are some interesting types of ornamentation of the space between the hour circle and the square outlines of the dial. The neat filling of spandrels offered problems to the architect and woodworker long before the clockmaker found similar difficulties. It is not easy exactly to fill a triangle with a design that is pleasing. Some of the best examples are found in Italian lettering, old sixteenth-century woodcuts of the letter L. In English clocks, the spandrel in the lantern clock about 1670 had a plain cherub head, as simple in character as the fine pearwood carving from a Buckinghamshire church we illustrate of a slightly earlier period, still rich with unimpaired colour (p. 167). German clocks had this device of the cherub's head, but not in the spandrel. At the British Museum there is one example with this cherub-head as a base ornament at the foot of the clock, which rests on it. This is in date 1600. [Illustration: ENGLISH WOOD-CARVING. Painted and gilded. Early seventeenth century. (_In collection of author._)] [Illustration: BRASS SPANDREL. From dial of clock by Henry Massy (London), 1680, illustrated p. 159.] The design of the cherub with outspread wings was common enough in Italy, where children have served as models since Donatello. It became established as a form and was a favourite embellishment of the English stone-carver in the seventeenth century. Horace Walpole protested at its abuse by the contemporaries of Christopher Wren, and it can be found outside St. Paul's Cathedral and in many other London churches and over late Stuart doorways. It was, therefore, nothing new; it was a pleasing spandrel ornament which appealed to the clockmaker as suitable to clock dials. It naturally received floriated additions, and both in its simpler form and in this later and more elaborate variation it appears on the spandrels of clock dials (see p. 167). It is interesting to find the clockmaker so conservative. Once the cherub found its way on to clocks, there it remained. It is in the clock at Windsor Castle which Henry VIII gave to Anne Boleyn, formerly at Strawberry Hill before Queen Victoria purchased it. In its first form on the spandrel it practically followed the simple woodcarver's design we illustrate, but with this difference: the triangle to be filled by the clockmaker in his spandrels, at each of the four corners of his dial, was exactly opposite to that of the woodcarver or the stone-carver where he made a bracket. The triangle in these cases stood on its apex. The clockmaker's triangle stood on its base. Hence it will be observed that a straight line drawn along the head of the cherub (p. 167) finds itself level with the top of the two wings. The clockmaker modified this in his metal spandrel ornaments. He dropped the wings, so that the top of the cherub's head is the apex of the triangle and the tips of the two wings the base. Later, the head, although still retained, was enveloped in floriated ornament and the cherub became unrecognizable. But the triangle is well filled. We next come to a most interesting stage, coincident in time with the rebuilding of Hampton Court. The "Glorious Revolution" had become established and James II sent packing. The two cherubs holding up the Protestant crown would seem by its prevalence at this period to be a sort of symbolic record of events that were happening. Huguenot and Dutch metal-workers put their thoughts into form, and we find this William and Mary Protestant emblem on the clock-face (see p. 171). But we also find it on the stretcher of the walnut chair of the period (as illustrated, p. 171). Nor is this all. Lambeth and Bristol delft dishes contribute their pæan in honour of the House of Orange. On some a crown is found, with the date 1690, the sole decoration of a plate some 9 inches in diameter. On others a crown is shown on a cushion, with the sceptre and orb beside it. These are all contemporary with other English delft dishes bearing crudely painted portraits of William and Mary crowned. Cardinal Wolsey's coat of arms, as shown at Hampton Court, was two cherubs supporting a cardinal's hat. One can imagine that Queen Mary, backed by little Christopher Wren, brought Daniel Marot and Grinling Gibbons to put an end to all this. Accordingly, if one pays a pilgrimage to Hampton Court one sees the carved angels triumphantly holding up the Protestant crown to supplant Wolsey's former insignia of arrogant splendour under the old religion. [Illustration: DETAIL OF STRETCHER OF WALNUT CHAIR. Of William and Mary period.] [Illustration: BRASS SPANDREL OF DIAL OF CLOCK. Showing design of angels supporting crown.] In regard to the long continuance of this design, it is interesting to observe that it appears in plates attributed to the Lowestoft factory. As a matter of fact, such plates were made in Holland to the order of some shipmaster. They usually celebrate the wedding of some persons in the district, whose names are still known. They are decorated in blue, and have two cherubs supporting a heart, over which is a crown. There is one dated 1755, inscribed "Henry and Mary Quinton, Yarmouth, Norfolk." Its Dutch origin is proven by the orthography with the two dots over the letters _y_, and the misplacing of other letters: "Henrÿ and Marÿ Q[.u]inton, Yarmo[.u]th, nor ff: olk. 1755." After the two cherubs on the clock spandrel came further floriated designs minus the cherub's head. This, later, disappeared, and the spandrel had only a matted surface, in contrast to the rest of the dial. This in turn disappeared when the dial departed from its former glory of a silvered hour circle and became a sheet of iron painted according to taste. We give examples of this--the Sussex dial depicting the iron works (p. 243) and the provincial style with the lunette painted with a figure subject (p. 249). The end of the story is the china dial of the painted Hindeloopen Dutch clocks beloved of our childhood, with weights and chains and other pleasing mechanism. Here the nineteenth century Dutch clock joins hands with the old wall clock of the seventeenth century, Dame Fashion having pirouetted round the dial, trifling with all collectors in "the whirligig of time." =The Evolution of the Hands.=--The early examples of the long-case clock or of the lantern clock with one hand show a fine rich design in metal-work in the hand itself. It was brass, often gilded, or iron wrought with great skill and beauty. At the advent of the minute hand it was made in character with its fellow. At first the dial had a _fleur-de-lis_, and later a slightly more floriated use of this emblem on the hour circle between each hour. In old examples the hand, when it came opposite this decoration, was in keeping with the _fleur-de-lis_ as though it were part of the design of the hand. It is only a fancy, but, as no design comes by accident, it is very probable that such was the idea of the old dial engraver. The study of hands is exceptionally interesting; they run through a regular series of styles, as varied as the ornamentation of the cases. Some of the designs are of exquisite balance as specimens of delicate metal-work, in which the English have always been proficient. Their character can be gauged by the expert clockmaker or connoisseur to such a nicety that it can be seen at once if the clock has its original hands or not. Those of my readers who wish to pursue this subject will find the hands adequately treated and well illustrated in _English Domestic Clocks_, by Mr. Herbert Cesinsky and Mr. Malcolm R. Webster, a volume which no student of clocks should fail to consult as a practical and authoritative work. In regard to hands, it is curious that the fashion of placing a minute hand to travel around the dial with the hour hand has established a method of reckoning time in a popular manner not in accordance with scientific exactitude. The eye glances at the dial and sees that the minute hand has so many minutes to travel _before_ reaching the next hour. We accordingly say, for instance, it is twenty minutes to four or ten minutes to four. On one half of the dial we have acted quite scientifically in saying it is ten minutes past three or half-past three, but the moment the point of the half hour is reached we act in a different manner. We never speak or think of four thirty-five, four forty, or four fifty, unless we have to consult the railway time-table. This all comes about by reason of the minute hand being placed as it is. In clocks with the minute hand having a separate dial of its own no such unscientific error would have arisen. The second hand in such clocks travels around the dial and points outside the hour numerals. CHAPTER VII THE BRACKET CLOCK The term "bracket clock" a misnomer--The great series of English table or mantel clocks--The evolution of styles--Their competition with French elaboration. Long-case clocks came into being when the long or "royal" pendulum required protection by having a wooden case. It was possible to have a short pendulum, and clocks intended for table use had a short pendulum. The long pendulum swings exactly in a second, and for it to do this it must be of a certain length, determined by physical laws followed according to mechanical formulæ by the scientific clockmaker, too complex to be given here in detail. It may be interesting to record that the length of a seconds pendulum--that is, one requiring one second to move from extreme to extreme--is 39.1398 inches in the latitude of Greenwich and is of different lengths in differing latitudes. =The Term "Bracket Clock" a Misnomer.=--In the old form of clock--the brass lantern type, weight-driven--it is obvious that when the weights and chains were suspended below the case the clock could not stand on a table. Such clocks had to hang on a wall, as so many old engravings show, or they were placed on a bracket against a wall, with the weights hanging beneath. With the advent of the pendulum new theories were in the air. At its first use as a short pendulum it was placed in front of the dial. When the seconds pendulum was recognized as a scientific regulator, the length precluded clocks in which it was employed being used as table clocks. It was a distinct departure from miniature timepieces as decorative domestic ornaments. Scientific it undoubtedly was, and as such it commenced a new development in the direction of astronomical clocks and scientific regulators of time. The table clock had to pursue another course. It belongs to another school of mechanism. The weight-driven clock strove to arrive at exactitude and scientific accuracy. The other clock, like the watch, attempted economy of space in conjunction with the maximum of exactitude such economy would allow. It essayed to fulfil certain conditions. It was easily portable, it could stand on a table, or more often on the mantelpiece, a place it can almost claim as its own in the English home by tradition. The watch with similar aims taxed the art of the maker to enable it to be easily carried on the person. These two classes of timepiece, the portable clock and more readily portable watch, were spring-driven. The development of this mechanical principle, running parallel with the evolution of the weight-driven clock, arrived at great scientific accuracy, as exemplified by the nautical chronometer and by the modern machine-made watch, whose timekeeping qualities are remarkable. In fact, it may be said that the table or portable clock and the watch together have dethroned the weight-driven clock as a domestic clock. [Illustration: BRACKET CLOCKS. LATE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. Maker, Sam Watson (Coventry). Date, 1687. Height, 12 in. Width, 9-1/4 in. Depth, 6-3/4 in. Maker, Joseph Knibb (Oxon). Date, 1690. Height, 12 in. Width, 8 in. Depth, 5 in. (_By courtesy of Percy Webster, Esq._)] [Illustration: BRACKET CLOCKS. EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. Maker, Thomas Loomes, at Ye Mermaid in Lothbury. Date, 1700. Height, 1 ft. 3-1/2 in. Width, 11-1/2 in. Depth, 7-1/4 in. Maker, Thomas Johnson, Gray's Inn Passage. Date, about 1730. Height, 1 ft. 2 in. Width, 7 in. Depth, 5 in.] =The Great Series of English Table or Mantel Clocks.=--To the beginner the appearance of an old table clock has not the same enticement as a brass lantern clock with its obvious claim to pre-modern form. It may even be said that the tyro clings reverently to his worship of the "grandfather" clock as something sacred. With their steady, uninterrupted progress from the middle seventeenth century for two hundred years, it is remarkable how conservative these table clocks have been to a comparatively fixed form. They stand in solidarity of workmanship and perfection of mechanical detail as exhibiting the superlative character of English clockmaking. During that period, in long procession, generation after generation, they have upheld the dignity of the science of horology as practised by English clockmakers, whose craftsmanship and perfection of exact detail deservedly won a reputation on the Continent and in America. An English clock of the finest period holds few superiors and very few equals in the world for reliability and exactitude. "_Bajo la palabra de un Inglés_" (On the word of an Englishman) is a proverbial saying in the Spanish States of South America, and such an honourable appellation can equally be applied to the said Englishman's clock, upon which great clockmakers have proudly inscribed their names as guarantee of its fidelity and truth. From Thomas Tompion in the days of Charles II to Benjamin Vulliamy in the days of George IV the series has been unbroken. We find table clocks by all the leading makers of long-case clocks, so that whatever competition lay between the principles of the one and the principles of the other was confined to the workshop of the clockmaker who set himself to master the intricacies of two styles. It was a friendly rivalry which is found to exist in other fields of human action. Disraeli the politician wrote novels; Macaulay the historian published verse; Seymour Haden laid down his lancet as a doctor to take up the etching-needle to become one of the greatest modern etchers. =The Evolution of Styles.=--In the examples illustrated, the slow progression of types slightly differing from each other is readily seen. The late seventeenth century exhibits types of reticent form, with ebonized case, and having a brass basket-top decoration surmounted by a handle showing its use as a portable clock. This handle is retained in the carriage clock of to-day--a clock which finds a prototype in the carriage clock of Marie Antoinette. In height these clocks were about 12 inches and in width about 9 inches. At this period brass oblong ornaments were affixed to the case, a detail which disappeared with the next later type. [Illustration: BRACKET CLOCKS. MID-EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. Maker, John Page (Ipswich). Date, 1740. Height, 24 in, Width, 12-1/4 in. Depth, 5-1/4 in. Maker, Godfrey Poy (London). Date, 1745. Height, 26 in. Width, 11 in. Depth, 6-3/4. (_By courtesy of Percy Webster, Esq._)] [Illustration: BRACKET CLOCKS. EIGHTEENTH CENTURY (ABOUT 1760). Maker, Johnson (London). Height, 1 ft. 5 in. Width, 9-1/4 in. Depth, 5-1/4 in. Maker, Thomas Hill (Fleet Street, London). Height, 1 ft. 9 in. Width, 1 ft. Depth, 7 in.] The clock on the left (illustrated p. 181) is by Sam Watson, of Coventry, and is dated 1687. It has the basket top, reminiscent in decorative treatment of the metal fret found in lantern brass clocks of contemporary date. It will be observed that these clocks have two hands. The spandrels of this and the adjacent clock have the single cherub's-head brass ornament. The latter clock, on the right, is by Joseph Knibb, of Oxford, and is in date 1690. The basket decoration is absent and the top is of simpler form. These two examples indicate that fine work was done in the provinces. By the end of the reign of William III the table clock had grown taller. The example illustrated (p. 183), by Thomas Loomes, is 15-1/2 inches high and 11-1/2 inches wide. It will be noticed that the basket top was still being made, and from now onwards the four turned brass terminals at the top became a feature and lasted for a century. By the first quarter of the eighteenth century a lunette had been added, as shown in the clock on the same page by Thomas Johnson, in date 1730. From this date feet were almost always employed. Similar feet embellished the long clock-case from a slightly later period throughout the century, and are still in evidence in examples made as late as the first half of the nineteenth century. In the 1730 clock by Thomas Johnson, the only brass ornament on the case is the escutcheon to the lock, a feature which, as time went on, lost its prominence and became more reticent. In the reign of George II the clock again grew in stature. Its portability was evidently not a necessity. It cannot be now said to resemble a carriage clock. Chamber clocks became definite objects of decorative utility as part of the domestic fitments of a room. The architectural ornament becomes pronounced, and there is a massive grandeur about the cases which suited the early Georgian mansions and Hogarthian furniture of the period. These eight-day striking and alarum clocks had become a feature of the English home. The fine provincial example by John Page, of Ipswich, is 24 inches high and 12-1/4 inches wide. In addition to the four terminals there is a fifth at the apex on a column with supporting metal ornament. The adjacent clock by Godfrey Poy, in date 1745, has at the apex a small figure of Ajax. In both these examples there are rings at the side as ornaments, or possibly for use to lift the clock in lieu of the older style of the handle at the top (p. 187). In the reign of George III (1760-1820) the table clock shows greater variety. It was a restless time, filled with wars and political struggles--a reign notable for the American Declaration of Independence on 4th July 1776, for the beginning of the French Revolution in 1789, for the "darkest hour in English history," the planned invasion of England by French and Spanish fleets, and contemplated invasion of Ireland by the Dutch fleet. In this reign, too, there came what may be termed the industrial revolution due to the introduction of machinery and steam-power. The growing wealth of the middle classes demanded more luxurious furniture. Merchants and manufacturers, shipowners and traders with India and the East, Lancashire cotton-spinners and mill-owners founded a new plutocracy. Bristol and Liverpool traders in "blackbirds," as the iniquitous slave trade was impiously termed, amassed fortunes. Although Pitt advocated the emancipation of slaves, under his rule "the English slave trade more than doubled." [Illustration: AMERICAN CLOCK. With case of fine design in form of lyre, richly gilded and surmounted by eagle. Makers, Savin & Dyer (Boston). 1780-1800. (_By courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York._)] [Illustration: STAFFORDSHIRE COPPER LUSTRE WARE VASE. With decoration in Chinese style, blue and white, and painted clock dial with no works. Early nineteenth century. The cottager's desire to possess a mantel clock satisfied. (_In collection of author._)] Two George III clocks, in date 1760, by Johnson and by Thomas Hill, are illustrated (p. 189). One shows the recurrence of an old form with the handle at the top of the case, having only as a new feature delicate brackets--a female bust, suggesting in miniature the figure-head of some Indiaman. It is a pleasant ornament one would like to have seen more often adopted. The adjacent clock, by Thomas Hill, evidently derives its design from France, and is a forerunner, in its departure from the square case, of the style which Sheraton, in his adaptation from the French, made at a later date. =Competition with French Elaboration.=--During the latter decades of the eighteenth and the opening years of the nineteenth centuries, the influx of French fashions had a considerable influence on the furniture designers of this country. What Chippendale had commenced, Sheraton continued, each according to his point of view. So great was the effect that there is actually an English Empire period entirely dependent on the classic interpretation of the French school. To treat of French clocks would occupy a space that is denied in this outline study of English work. But that they are of paramount importance cannot be denied. The French craftsman, as he always did, realized the possibilities of his subject. His cases are elaborate and imaginative in conception. His fertility of invention is remarkable. On the whole it must be admitted that the case is the weakest part of the English clock. The case-maker never quite realized his opportunities. He might have done so much better. There is a stability and solid, almost stolid, soberness that might have been lightened, so one thinks at times. But on the other hand, when the Frenchman is bad in design, his exuberance of ornament and headstrong imagination seem too lurid for a sober clock which only records ordinary time. This French influence was world-wide. By the courtesy of the authorities of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, an American clock is illustrated (p. 193), the makers being Savin and Dyer, of Boston. This is in date 1780 to 1800. It is of fine proportions, and the lyre ornament is kept in due reticence. As exemplifying the far-reaching effect that French design had on this country, we reproduce an interesting illustration of a cottager's clock of the early nineteenth century (p. 195). It is really a vase of earthenware made in Staffordshire. On one side is painted in blue a Chinese scene, on the other is a clock-face in imitation of a French dial. But the hands perpetually mark seventeen minutes past eight. In copper lustre-ware this vase with its sham dial served the cottager as something ornamental, although not useful. It is a replica in homely English earthenware of French _finesse_, a cottage echo of the vase-clocks of Sèvres in the apartments at Versailles. The cottager's desire to have a clock was satisfied by the Staffordshire potter. [Illustration: BRACKET CLOCKS. LATE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. Maker, Alexander Cumming (London). Date, 1770. Height, 1 ft. 2 in. Width, 8-1/4 in. Depth, 5-1/4 in. No maker's name. Date, about 1800. Height, 1 ft. 3-3/4 in. Width, 10-1/2 in. Depth, 6-1/4 in. (_By courtesy of Percy Webster, Esq._)] [Illustration: BRACKET CLOCKS. EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY. DATE, ABOUT 1805. Maker, Barraud (London). Height, 17 in. Width, 12 in. Depth, 6 in. Maker, Strowbridge (Dawlish). Height, 16 in. Width, 10 in. Depth, 6-1/2 in.] Many clocks of the last quarter of the eighteenth century show the lingering styles of the earlier decades. It is impossible to lay down any definite rule in furniture, in silver, or in old clocks, that in such a year a certain style ends. Approximately, one may determine periods and by close application discover slight indications of new styles beginning to take the town. Now and again one comes across examples a great many years behind the time, especially in provincial makers, where fashions in cases were not so frequently changed. Illustrated on p. 199 are two clocks; one, in date 1770, by Alexander Cumming, is only 14 inches in height; the other, 1800, having no maker's name, is 15-3/4 inches high. A new and very pleasing form is introduced. We see the dial in process of losing its lunette. It makes its ascent on the case to take its place as in later styles. This raising of the dial affected the top of the case, which became of circular form. The transitional period is shown by the ornament remaining in the right-hand clock in the lower spandrels. The case-maker had not quite assimilated the changing form. It is interesting to note that in both these clocks the handles of the early portable clock are reintroduced. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the circular dial had become established. An interesting transitional clock by Barraud (p. 201), in date 1805, shows that the case-maker was averse to parting with the lunette. He accordingly places the dial in the centre of the case and has a crescent-shaped ornament, with a design adapted by the metal-worker from the Chinese potter. Of the same date is a provincial clock by Strowbridge, of Dawlish. Here the maker has boldly adopted the circular top, and the result is a case of pleasing proportions. Restlessness of design characterized this period. The old square dial was rarely if ever used. The arched-top case is another form, as illustrated (p. 205), where the maker, Biddell, refrained from following the line of the circular dial in his case. The adjacent example, in date 1800 to 1815, shows the circular dial surmounting the pediment of the case. After its vicissitudes it has at length triumphed in becoming the dominant note in the design. As illustrating the varied attempts to make the table clock an imposing ornament and deal with its decoration in an elaborate manner, the fine clock in ebony case inlaid with blue and white Wedgwood medallions is a remarkable example (illustrated p. 207). An especially noteworthy feature in this clock is the beaded ornamentation around the dial and the medallions and the other portions of the case of cut steel. The series of table clocks illustrated should indicate to the reader the salient features of such clocks, which are sought after by collectors and carefully prized by those who love the fine work of the old English clockmakers. [Illustration: BRACKET CLOCKS. Maker, Biddell (London). Date, 1800. Enamel dial. Height, 1 ft. 8 in. Width, 10 in. Depth, 5-1/2 in. No name of maker. Date, 1810-15. Height, 1 ft. 7-3/4 in. Width, 1 ft. Depth, 5-1/2 in.] [Illustration: EBONY TABLE CLOCK. Inlaid with medallions of blue and white Wedgwood jasper ware. Enriched with mounted ornament of cut steel. (_By courtesy of City of Nottingham Museum and Art Gallery._)] CHAPTER VIII PROVINCIAL CLOCKS Their character--Names of clockmakers found on clocks in the provinces--The North of England: Newcastle-upon- Tyne--Yorkshire clockmakers: Halifax and the district--Liverpool and the district--The Midlands--The Home Counties--The West Country--Miscellaneous makers. A great deal of attention has been paid by collectors to clocks by well-known London makers and too little examination has been given to fine examples by those of the provinces. In the present chapter an attempt is made to fill a hiatus in this respect, and by the kindness of those interested in the various localities certain data are presented which may stimulate the student to continue his researches on the lines here indicated. The metropolis attracted noteworthy makers, but they had their origin and often their early training in the provinces. The following are among the great London clockmakers, but they were not Londoners. They come from all parts of the country. Joseph Knibb (about 1670) was an Oxfordshire man. The famous Thomas Tompion, born in 1638, came from Bedfordshire. George Graham (1673-1751) tramped to London from Cumberland. Thomas Earnshaw, who perfected the marine chronometer, his additions being still in use, was born at Ashton-under-Lyne in 1750 and served his apprenticeship there. Henry Jones, who was the pupil of Edward East, was the son of a vicar at Southampton. Charles II had a clock made by him. Thomas Mudge was the son of a schoolmaster and was born at Exeter in 1715. Another Exeter man was Jacob Lovelace, who took over thirty years to construct a remarkable clock. The celebrated John Harrison was the son of a carpenter on an estate at Pontefract. It was he who competed for the Government gratuity offered for a nautical timekeeper, for which he finally received £10,000, after repeated tests in voyages to the West Indies by himself and his son. We think of his early struggles, when he travelled up to London after he was forty, only to find that he had to return to the provinces and continue his vocation as clock-mender in ordinary and inventor extraordinary. There is a long-case clock with wooden wheels and pinions by him in the Guildhall Museum, London. The list is by no means complete. There was John Ellicott, who was born at Bodmin, and another Cornishman from the same town is John Arnold, who was apprenticed to his father, a watchmaker there. Arnold continued what Harrison had begun in the chronometer. We must not exclude the great Dr. Hooke, who was born at Freshwater, Isle of Wight, who invented the anchor escapement for clocks and contested the invention of the balance spring in watches with Huygens. =Names of Clockmakers found on Clocks in the Provinces.=--It has been suggested that in some cases the name of a local maker does not necessarily determine, when found on the dial or elsewhere, that such clock has been made by the person whose name it bears. It has also been advanced that the name of the owner was sometimes put on the dial. This last theory can be dismissed as being of so infrequent use as to be practically negligible in recording lists of makers. The other conjecture may possibly have sufficient truth in it to disconcert collectors of examples of local crafts. Of course, it is a statement that cannot be proved, nor can it be disproved. Presumably a clockmaker in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, when clockmaking was something more than selling or mending clocks that other people made, did not deliberately set up business and, in a small town where secrecy was impossible, make a practice of putting his name on work he did not execute. That he did not make all the parts himself is admitted. Had he done so, he would have had to be a chain-maker or a catgut-maker, a pulley-maker, a chaser of metal for his dials, a cabinet-maker for his cases, and so on down to his most minute screws. One might as well take similar objection to Sir Joshua Reynolds or Gainsborough that they did not extract their pigments from the natural vegetables or minerals, that they neglected to become proficient in manipulating hogs' bristles or camel-hair into brushes, or that they could not and did not make their own canvases or carve their own frames. It did happen that an old clock by one maker was sent to another for repair, and he made such extensive repairs to the movement that he felt himself justified in putting his own name to the clock in its new state. The owner would have had something to say to this interchange of names had there not been some justification for it. This practice, however, is not confined to the provinces, and we cannot charge the provincial maker with being wholly unscrupulous. Some purists in collecting have objected to the presence of a country maker's name stencilled on the dial, as being evidence it was not his handiwork. But this is not in itself a crime. It is far more likely that such a clock is of local make, and that being in a remote part it was not easy to get anyone to paint his name on the dial or engrave it. Had he had it made to order in a town surely his name would have been painted for him. In a measure, crudities of this nature and peculiarities not found in clocks from the great centres are hallmarks of genuineness. At the time of the passing of the Act in 1797 relating to the taxation of clocks and watches, the following places sent representatives to London to protest against this tax:-- Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Liverpool, Leicester, Derby, Bristol, Prescot, Coventry, and Edinburgh. Of these, Prescot (a few miles from Liverpool) and Coventry represented the watch industry. We may therefore fairly conclude that the other places represent the most noteworthy centres of clockmaking at that period. =The North of England: Newcastle-upon-Tyne.=--In regard to provincial makers, one wonders what 'prentice hands have gone to the making of the long cases. Did Thomas Chippendale, when he was working at his father's bench at Worcester, execute any of his early joinery and carving to embellish now forgotten clocks? Who can say? At Newcastle-upon-Tyne we are on surer foundation, for it is on record that Thomas Bewick, the wood-engraver, was apprenticed to Ralph Beilby, an engraver at Newcastle, on 1st October 1767 for seven years. His master's business lay in engraving crests and initials on watch seals, teaspoons, sugar-tongs, and other pieces of plate, and the numerals and ornaments on clock dials, together with the maker's name. Here, then, was young Bewick's 'prentice work--the master of white line on the wood block. Later, Bewick confessed to a friend that when engraving these clock dials his hands grew as hard as a blacksmith's, and almost disgusted him with engraving. At any rate, there is the strong probability that such Newcastle dials engraved by Thomas Bewick are on clocks of the date from 1763 to 1774. The following list of names of Newcastle and other clockmakers in the North of England is produced by the kindness of C. Leo Reid, Esq., of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and by the permission of the proprietors of the _Newcastle Weekly Chronicle_, compiled from notes appearing in that valuable repository of North-country antiquities. The makers are of Newcastle, unless otherwise stated. The list is arranged alphabetically. John Airey (Hexham), 1790-95. Jas. Atkinson (Gateshead), 1770-77. Joseph Atkinson (Gateshead), 1790-1804. Beilly and Hawthorn, 1780. William Berry (Gateshead), 1810. Thomas Bell, 1785. John Bolton (Chester-le-Street), 1812; (Durham), 1812-21. S. Boverick, 1765. William Coventry, 1778. William Featherstone, 1790-95. William Fenton, 1778. William Foggin, 1833 (clock-dial maker). Gibson, 1750. John Greaves, 1780-95. Thomas Greaves, 1778-95. John Harrison, 1790-95. John Hawthorn, 1780. W. Heron, 1790. Geo. Hidspeth, 1800. J. Hutchinson, 1811. Matt. Kirkup, 1811. Jos. Ledgard, 1707-32. Richard Marshall (Wolsingham), 1796. Geo. Miller (Gateshead), 1770. Sam Ogden, 1760-70. Ord (Hexham), 1797. Jno. Peacock, 1800. John Rawson, 1790. Wm. Rawson, 1790. { Christian Ker Reid, 1778-1834. { St. Nicholas Churchyard, close to workshop of Thomas Bewick. { Reid and Son, 1817. { Reid and Sons, 1845 to present day. Henry Sanders (Gateshead), 1800. John Scott (Sandgate), 1790-95. Thomas Smoult, 1790. { Hugh Stockell, 1790. { Stockell and Stuart, 1798. { Hugh Stockell, 1800. Archibald Strachan, 1790. William Tickle, sen., 1790-95. William Tickle, jun., 1790-95. J. H. Wakefield (Gateshead), 1800. John Wakefield (Lamesley), 1827. Ward, 1811. Michael Watson, 1811-27. Thomas Weatherley (Berwick-on-Tweed), 1790-95. John Weatherston, 1790-95. John Wilson, 1782-90. Richard Young, 1811. In regard to the remarks about Thomas Bewick and clock dials, there is every likelihood that his 'prentice work in engraving them between 1763 and 1774 is to be found on clocks by S. Boverick, William Coventry, William Fenton, Gibson, John Hawthorn, John Wilson, and Christian K. Reid; the latter maker certainly knew Bewick. The dates given in the above list do not definitely represent that the maker's work was confined to that period exclusively. They are approximate dates. =Yorkshire Clockmakers: Halifax and the District.=--We have already seen that John Harrison, the great self-taught genius, born in 1683, was a Yorkshireman. Of early makers there is a record of John Ogden, of Bowrigg, of the late seventeenth century, and Samuel Ogden, born at Sowerby in 1669. The name of Ogden is found on many Yorkshire clocks. Thomas Ogden came to Halifax; although the Ogdens seem to have been a Quaker family, one of his clocks is in the Unitarian Chapel vestry. The Ogden type of dial with the phases of the moon, although not original, being adapted from Dutch models, became noteworthy in the North of England, and such styles were termed "Halifax" clocks. Samuel Ogden, a descendant, migrated to Newcastle-upon-Tyne (see list, p. 216), perpetuating the name a hundred years after. In Halifax parish churchyard is a tombstone to the memory of R. Duckworth, clockmaker, 1677. John Mason was a maker about 1760, and his father, Timothy Mason, was a clockmaker before him. At Rotherham some years ago there were some Mason clocks on exhibition, and there were eight generations of Masons as clockmakers, the later branch having settled at Rotherham. Such is the record of many provincial makers. Emanuel Hopperton, of Leeds, made clocks with marquetry cases. One bore the proud motto, _Non mihi sed mundo._ Henry Brownhill, of Briggate, Leeds, watchmaker and clockmaker, was sufficiently prosperous to issue several tons of halfpenny copper tokens in 1793. By the courtesy of S. H. Hamer, Esq., of Halifax, an illustration of one of these tokens is given. [Illustration: HALFPENNY, 1793.] This was the year when the Reign of Terror began and when Marie Antoinette was executed. In England great commercial distress was felt. Banks issued notes in excess of their capital. Gold was scarce, and the Bank of England restricted its issues. A panic ensued and several banks failed. Pitt issued Exchequer Bills to the extent of five millions. Other local clockmakers are Thomas Liston, of Luddenden, 1718-79, and his son Thomas, of Halifax, 1745-1815. It is reported that this latter Thomas Lister travelled by coach from Halifax to London to regulate and keep in order the clock at St. Paul's Cathedral. There is an orrery by him in the Glasgow University Museum. [Illustration: LONG CASE CLOCK. Maker, Gilbert Chippindale (Halifax). ENLARGEMENT OF HOOD. Showing fine fretwork and maker's name in lunette. (_By courtesy of Surgeon-Major W. Savile Henderson._)] [Illustration: LONG-CASE EIGHT-DAY CLOCK. Maker, John Weatherilt (Liverpool). Date, 1780-85. (_Reproduced by courtesy of George H. Hewitt, Esq., J.P._)] William Lister is another member of the same family who made long-case clocks. In his dials a noticeable feature is the absence of the hour circle as being separate from the rest of the plate. The dial was made in one piece and attached to a back-plate of brass. Pattison, another Yorkshire maker, made long-case clocks similar to those of William Lister. John Hartley, of Halifax, about 1770, was the maker of a thirty-hour grandfather clock in oak case with brass square dial and moon and date lunettes. Titus Bancroft, of Sowerby Bridge, 1822, a church-clock maker, also made grandfather clocks. John Hallifax, of Barnsley, who died in 1750, made a fine long-case clock now at Wentworth House. Gilbert Chippindale, of Halifax, 1781, is another maker of fine clocks. A fine example of his work is illustrated (p. 219). R. Henderson, of Scarborough, early eighteenth century, is another Yorkshire maker. Richard Midgley, 1720-40, of Halifax, made a number of clocks still treasured locally. Samuel Pearson is known about 1790, and John Stancliffe, of Bark-island, is another local maker. Collectors have too frequently associated Yorkshire clocks with the later periods, with ponderous cases of gigantic size, but, as is shown, the Yorkshire makers are worthy of considerable attention by connoisseurs as having a lineage extending back into the periods when clockmaking was at its best, and when the case-maker was not such a preponderating factor as he seems to have been in the early nineteenth century days in the North. =Liverpool and the District.=--In regard to Liverpool and the vicinity, at the Tercentenary Historical Exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery in 1907 a collection of clocks and watches was made to illustrate the art of the clockmaker in that part of the country. By the kindness of George H. Hewitt, Esq., J.P., who arranged these exhibits, we are enabled to supply the names of many of the Liverpool clockmakers. Peter Litherland patented the rack lever escapement in 1793-4 which Robert Roskell, the Liverpool maker, introduced into his watches. At the above Exhibition was shown a pendulum watch by George Taylor, about 1700, and one by William Tarleton, 1797, with the Government stamp indicating that the tax of a guinea had been paid. This was in 1797, the first and only year when a tax on watches and clocks was levied. One remembers the fine portrait of Colonel Tarleton in uniform, with one foot on a cannon, after the portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds, signed I. Johnson, on a Liverpool mug. He was the Member of Parliament for Liverpool from 1790 to 1812. This family gave the name to Tarleton Street, Liverpool. That Liverpool and the district was renowned for its watches is shown by a silver watch made by Thomas Worsley, Liverpool, inscribed, "Presented to Robert Burns by his brother ploughmen of Air (_sic_) March 9, 1785." Among other makers at Liverpool whose names are found on watches are Fair-clough (about 1800), Edmonds (about 1770), Joseph Finney (about 1770), Robert Roskell (about 1800), M. J. Tobias & Co. (1820), Harrington (1790), Peter Hope (1795), J. Johnson (1796). [Illustration: LONG-CASE EIGHT-DAY CLOCK. Maker, Thurston Lassell (Toxteth Park, Liverpool). Date, about 1745. (_Reproduced by courtesy of George H. Hewitt, Esq., J.P._)] [Illustration: LONG-CASE MAHOGANY EIGHT-DAY CLOCK. Maker, Henry Higginbotham (Macclesfield). The Gothic panel in door is a noticeable feature. (_By courtesy of A. Bromley Sanders, Esq., Exeter._)] It is possible that some of these makers also made long-case and other clocks; we find the name of Roskell on a long-case clock and R. Roskell on another. Presumably this was the Robert Roskell who used the Litherland rack-lever watch escapement. Joseph Finney also made long-case clocks. Other makers' names found on Liverpool clocks are Burges, Aspinall (with the motto, "Time is valuable"), Jno. Weatherilt. This clock is illustrated (p. 221). It indicates by the character of its marquetry in the panel of the door and in the base that it belongs to the second period of marquetry contemporary with the influence of Sheraton. In the lunette the phases of the moon are shown. The date of this is about 1780 to 1785. Another clock, illustrated on p. 225, is by Thurston Lassell, Toxteth Park, Liverpool. This in date is about 1745. The phases of the moon are shown in the lunette. The case is of more slender proportions than its fellow. The hood exhibits a reticence which was lost in later examples, especially in provincial work made in Yorkshire, where the case became of unwieldy size and somewhat ungainly shape. Other names of Liverpool makers found on long-case clocks are William Sutton, Harrison & Son, Jas. Canson, Thomas Saxon, Jo^n Taylor (Ormskirk), W. Lassell, Toxteth Park, Liverpool, with motto, "Time shows the Way of Life's Decay," with brass face, lunar movement, and monthly dial with indicator. (This style of dial is a feature of a Shropshire clock illustrated p. 249.) Brown, Liverpool, is found on a mahogany long-case clock and also on a small long-case clock. To those who are interested the portrait in oils of Peter Litherland, the inventor of the rack lever, who died in 1804, is in the possession of the Corporation of Liverpool. Among other Lancashire makers the following are noteworthy: T. Lees (Bury), 1795-1800; Archibald Coats (Wigan), 1780; Barr (Bolton), 1790; James Barlow (Oldham), 1775; Benjamin Barlow (Ashton-under-Lyne), 1780; and Nathaniel Brown (Manchester), 1780-1785. In Westmorland and Cumberland the names Burton, of Kendal, and Russell, of Carlisle, are often found on grandfather clocks of local manufacture of the late eighteenth century. In regard to a particular style of case associated with Lancashire and with Cheshire, having the door decorated with panel in Gothic style, two examples are illustrated (p. 227), one by Henry Higginbotham (Macclesfield), and the other by Heywood, Northwich, 1790 (p. 231). [Illustration: LONG-CASE MAHOGANY EIGHT-DAY CLOCK. Maker, Heywood (Northwich, Cheshire). 1790. The Gothic panel in door is a noticeable feature. (_By courtesy of Messrs. A. B. Daniell & Sons._)] [Illustration: LONG-CASE EIGHT-DAY CLOCK. With dial showing days of month. Oak case veneered in mahogany. Maker, Thomas Wall (Birmingham). Date, about 1795. (_In possession of author._)] =Clockmakers of the Midlands.=--As typical of the fine work produced, the bracket clock by Sam Watson, of Coventry, 1687, illustrated (p. 181), shows that the provincial maker was at that date in no way on a lower plane than his contemporary in London. Other makers are Wilson (Warwick), 1709; John Whitehurst (Derby), 1785--a fine long-case clock by this maker is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; W. Francis (Birmingham), and Thomas Wall (Birmingham), 1798. An example by this maker is illustrated (p. 233), exhibiting a pastoral scene painted in the lunette of the dial. This clock--in the possession of the author--keeps excellent time although 120 years old, and has gone for ten years without stopping. Of Nottingham makers, the following names of early craftsmen are found on watches: Isaac Alexander, about 1760 (a watch, gold inner case, white dial; outer case of shagreen, with portrait of Charles Stuart by J. June, 1745), and Thomas Hudson, about 1790 (silver, white dial; outer case of tortoiseshell, with silver mounts). The name of Hen. Page, Upper Broughton (Notts), is found on a brass clock, and John Kirk was a maker at Epperstone and Skegby before he came to London in 1677 and was admitted as a member of the Clockmakers' Company. Among the collection of watches at Nottingham Museum, apart from the two above-mentioned, are a good many by makers of a later date, mainly of the early nineteenth century: John Lingford, A. Shepperley, William Young--all of Nottingham, and Geo. Stacey, Worksop. Among the other watches on exhibition are an early one by Robert Dent (Lincoln), No. 61, and a watch with gold case with chased _repoussé_ figures and ornament by J. Windmills, the celebrated London maker, 1671-1700. This short list of Midland makers is obviously incomplete, and it is to be hoped that some painstaking horologists will amplify it and do honour to the makers and to the counties concerned. =The Home Counties.=--Thomas Tompion (1671-1713), the famous London maker, commenced at Bedford and ended at Bath. We have seen a brass lantern clock engraved "Thos. Tonkink de Bedforde." This might very well be one of his early clocks, and we know his great last triumph in the famous long-case clock in the Pump Room at Bath. But apart from this incidental connection of the "father of English watchmaking" with the provinces, there stands Joseph Knibb, of Oxon, who was admitted to the Clockmakers' Company of London in 1677. He worked in London for the Court of Charles II. But he was established in Oxfordshire, as is shown by the copper token he issued, with inscription "Joseph Knibb Clockmaker in Oxon," and on reverse the dial of a clock with initials I.K. in centre. We give an illustration of this token. [Illustration] A long-case eight-day clock finely decorated in marquetry, in date about 1690, is illustrated (p. 237). This exhibits the work of Knibb as being equal, as his employment at the Court shows, to the leading London makers of his day. In the chapter on Marquetry, p. 79, will be found a notice of this clock in regard to its relation to other styles of marquetry, and its place in the sequence there described. [Illustration: LONG-CASE EIGHT-DAY CLOCK. Decorated in marquetry. Maker, Joseph Knibb (Oxon). Date about 1690.] [Illustration: GEORGIAN SPANISH MAHOGANY LONG-CASE CLOCK. Hood enriched with fretwork in Chinese style of Chippendale. Terminals of carved mahogany. Maker, Cockey (Warminster). (_By courtesy of Messrs. D. Sherratt & Co., Chester._)] A fine bracket clock by Joseph Knibb, in date about 1690, is illustrated (p. 181). This is of the same period as the long-case clock, the year when William of Orange defeated James II at the battle of the Boyne, and James, the last of the Stuarts, fled into France. It is possible that the fortunes of Joseph Knibb were bound up with Whitehall. At the Revolution in 1689 our Court clockmaker no doubt retreated into Oxfordshire to continue his creations which we now know. A cloud of unpaid debts must have hung over him, for the Stuarts were bad paymasters. =The West Country.=--In publishing lists of clockmakers collected by local antiquaries, a loyal service has been rendered to the West Country by the _Devon and Cornwall Notes and Queries_. The following list is based on the researches published in that journal by R. Pearse-Chope, Esq.,[4] and by H. Tapley-Soper, Esq.[5] Balle, John (Exeter). Bickle, R. H. (Bishop's Nympton). Bradford (Tiverton). Bradford (Drayford). Braund, John (Hatherleigh). Brayley and Street (Bridgwater). Bucknell, Jas. (Crediton). Chamberlain, Hen. (Tiverton). Chasty, Robert (Hatherleigh). Chasty, William (Teignmouth). Day, Christopher (South Molton). Drake, R. (Beaminster). Eastcott, Richard (Exon). Edward, Clement, c. 1671. Ezekiel (Exon), c. 1794. Follet (Sidmouth). Foster, James (Ashburton). Fox, John (Alverton). Gard, Henry (Exeter). Gard, William (Exeter). Gaydon, J. (Barnstaple). Gould (Bishop's Nympton). Gould, G. (South Molton). Harding, Charles (Sidmouth). Harner (Membury). Hayward, Peter (Crediton), _c._ 1766. Howard, Wm., 1760. Hutchins, William (Cullompton). Huxtable (Chittlehampton). Huxtable, E. (South Molton). Jacobs, A. (Torquay). Jonas, Saml. (Exon), 1783. Keffutt, Walter (Exon). Lord, John (Farringdon). Lovelace, Jacob (Exeter), died 1766. Mallett, Peter, 1705. Mallett, John (Barnstaple), 1840. March, R. (Honiton). Otercey, John (Torrington). Passmore, R. (Barnstaple). Pile, Fra. (Honiton). Pollard (Crediton), 1760. Pollard, Thomas (Exeter). Price (Wiveliscombe). Rew, Joseph (Wiveliscombe). Routledge, George (Lydford), died 1801. (Epitaph Lydford Churchyard.) Sanderson, Geo. (Exeter). (Maker and patentee of tools for duplicating parts of watches, 1761.) Scoble, John S. (Colyton). Simons, A. (Bideford). Skinner (Exon). Snell, E. (Barnstaple). Stocker (Honiton). Strowbridge (Dawlish). Stumbel (Totnes). Thorn (South Molton). Thorne, Sim (Tiverton), 1740. Thorne, Michl. (South Molton). Tickle, John (Crediton), 1730. Upjohn, Richard (Exon). (Long-case clock, _c._ 1730.) Upjohn, Wm. (Exeter), 1741. Upjohn, Peter (Bideford). (Watch, 1780.) Weller, Geo. (Exon). Wood, I. (Exon). Waldron, John (Tiverton). Dates from church registers, family Bibles, old wills, marriage records, and old newspapers to amplify local lists such as this add greatly to their value in establishing period of clock. [4] 1912-13, p. 242. [5] 1914-15, pp. 204, 205; and July 1917. Jacob Lovelace, of Exeter, who died in 1766, was the maker of a remarkable clock of most elaborate nature, with organ that played, and a series of moving figures striking the hours, and bellringers and other intricate diversions. This clock was exhibited at the International Exhibition in 1851, and is now at the Liverpool Museum. A fine long-case clock in Chippendale style by Cockey, of Warminster, is illustrated (p. 239), and exhibits provincial work both in case and movement of the highest character. [Illustration: BRASS DIAL OF CLOCK. By Shenkyn Shon (Blackcock Inn, Pontnedd Fechan). 1714. (_At National Museum of Wales, Cardiff._)] [Illustration: IRON DIAL OF THIRTY-HOUR CLOCK. Single hand and alarum. Mid-eighteenth century. Ornamented with designs of various phases of Sussex iron industry. Maker, Beeching (Ashburnham). (_From the collection of J. C. Dawson, Esq., F.S.A._)] [Illustration: LONG-CASE CLOCK WITH RARE OVAL DIAL. Subsidiary seconds and calendar dials. Blue painted decoration, under glass, in spandrels above dial. Fine carved work in oval frame. Maker, Marston (Salop). Brass plate on door dated 1761. (_By courtesy of Walter Idris, Esq._)] Strowbridge, of Dawlish, is the maker of a bracket clock, in date about 1805, showing pleasing work in the fine marquetry decoration introduced by Sheraton (illustrated p. 201). There is an instance on record of a clock being sent to "Mr. Strowbridge" for repair. "When it came back his name, 'H. Strowbridge, Dawlish,' was engraved upon the dial." =Miscellaneous Makers--East Anglia.=--Several makers are connected with Yarmouth. There is Thomas Utting (Yarmouth), and we have seen a fine long-case clock signed thus, and there is Isaac Johnson (Yarmouth), who apparently made wall clocks. John Page, of Ipswich, is the maker of a very handsome bracket clock, in date about 1740 (illustrated p. 187). The name of Henry Terold, Ipswich, is found on a round silver watch with chased interlacing bands and silver dial, of seventeenth-century period. Joseph Chamberlain, of Norwich, is a name found on a late seventeenth-century watch. The names of Mann and Jon. Nevill, both of Norwich, are found on late eighteenth-century grandfather clocks. =Kent and Sussex.=--The name of William Gill or Gilt, of Maidstone, is found on a fine long-case clock of the eighteenth century. William Gardner, of Sandwich, and Joseph Carswell, of Hastings, are other names found on grandfather clocks of the latter part of the eighteenth century. The dial of a clock by a Sussex maker, Beeching, of Ashburnham, from a thirty-hour clock with single hand and alarum (illustrated p. 243), is of mid-eighteenth century period, and shows in its decorations the various phases of the iron industry carried on at Ashburnham. =Welsh Clocks.=--At the Amgueddfa Genedlaethol Cymru, at Cardiff, the National Museum of the Principality, there is a long-case clock by B. C. Vaughan, of Pontypool, and a brass block with movement by "Shenkyn Shon, Black Cock Inn, Pontnedd Fechan, 1714," and also there exhibited are the works of the old clock from St. David's Cathedral. Illustrated on p. 245 is a unique long-case clock with brass plate on door, with date 1761, with dragon above. The particular feature of especial interest in this clock is its oval dial (which is separately illustrated, p. 249). This dial is enamelled white, and has a medallion at top representing the figure of Hope with an anchor. The other decoration is interesting as exhibiting the attempt of the provincial maker to simulate in pigment the marquetry work of the Sheraton school, the design being similar to that found on tea-caddies, no doubt well known to the painter of the dial. There are two subsidiary dials, one for seconds and the other showing the days of the month. [Illustration: DIAL OF CLOCK ILLUSTRATED P. 245. This oval form is rare. The Sheraton type of decoration painted on dial is a noticeable feature. The panel is reminiscent of Pergolesi. The lower dial indicates the days of month.] [Illustration: DIAL OF CLOCK ILLUSTRATED P. 233. Lunette painted with figure subject of woman and pitcher at stream. Spandrels decorated with roses in red and gold.] Although the maker's name is "Marston (Salop)" there is an especially Welsh interest attaching to this clock. It once was in the possession of Daniel Owen, the famous Welsh novelist, who is buried in Mold churchyard, and whose monument is in the County Hall Field at Mold. He introduced this clock into his novel, _Rhys Lewis_. The grandmother of the youthful hero of the story had gone to the fair; in her absence the boy took this clock to pieces, so the story goes. But as the hours wore on he found it was easier to take it to pieces than to put it together again. The scene on the return of his grandmother is piquantly described. The clock-work ran like a thing demented, and the tell-tale hands revealed the secret of the culprit, who uneasily fingered a missing wheel in his pocket, and he had forgotten to put on the pendulum. The hood of the clock is of original decoration. The upper spandrels have a blue-and-gold floral design, covered with glass. The two lower spandrels are delicately carved. The frame around the oval dial is of beaded work cut in broad and effective style. Altogether this clock possesses features appealing to collectors. The provincial maker followed his own lines, and has in so doing produced something unique. * * * * * In conclusion, some apology should be made for an attempt to sketch in makers of repute, scattered over so wide an area, which resulted in a mere outline. The meagre lists may in many cases be said to be noteworthy for their omissions. But want of space has precluded the writer from pursuing the subject further, and he may be permitted to express a hope that the perusal of these facts may stimulate local efforts to worthier records. CHAPTER IX SCOTTISH AND IRISH CLOCKS David Ramsay, Clockmaker Extraordinary to James I--Some early "knokmakers"--List of eighteenth-century Scottish makers--Character of Scottish clocks--Irish clockmakers: Dublin, Belfast, Cork--List of Irish clockmakers. Among the most notable of the early Scottish makers was David Ramsay, who was clockmaker to James VI of Scotland and followed that monarch to London. In Sir Walter Scott's _Fortunes of Nigel_, Ramsay is introduced as a character. "David Ramsay by name, who, whether recommended by his great skill in his profession, as the courtiers alleged, or, as was murmured among his neighbours, by his birthplace, in the good town of Dalkeith, near Edinburgh, held in James's household the post of maker of watches and horologes to his Majesty. He scorned not, however, to keep open shop within Temple Bar, a few yards to the eastward of St. Dunstan's Church." It appears that he was of a mystical turn of mind, and conceived the idea of treasure buried in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey. Dean Withnam gave permission to dig, and prudently stipulated as a condition that he came in for a share. One John Scott, pretending to the skilled use of the divining rod, Ramsay, and several others, according to the astrologer Lilly in his _Life and Times_, dug 6 feet deep with the aid of labourers and came to a coffin, but as it was not heavy they did not open it, "which we afterwards much repented." When at this impious task a terrific storm arose, and "we verily believed the west end of the church would have fallen upon us." Candles and torches, except one, were extinguished. "John Scott, my partner, was amazed, looked pale, knew not what to think or do until I gave directions and command to dismiss the demons; which when done, all was quiet again, and each man returned unto his lodging late, about twelve o'clock at night." The share of the Dean in the treasure therefore came to nought. The _Dictionary of National Biography_ supplements and corrects Sir Walter. "Clockmaker Extraordinary" was Ramsay's title, and his son says: "When James I succeeded to the crown of England, he sent into France for my father, who was there, and made him page of the bedchamber and keeper of his Majesty's clocks and watches." He was of considerable reputation, as, when the charter of incorporation was granted by Charles I to the Clockmakers' Company of London, he was appointed as the first master in 1631. He apparently was not of a worldly disposition, and it is believed that when the destinies of the Stuarts were under a cloud he was in great poverty. His son writes of his father: "It's true your carelessness in laying up while the sun shone for the tempests of a stormy day, hath given occasion to some inferior spirited people not to value you for what you are by nature and in yourself, for such look not to a man longer than he is in prosperity, esteeming none but for their wealth, not wisdom, power, nor virtue." The knowledge of what manner of man was this old Scottish clockmaker adds a pleasure to the contemplation of his work. At the Guelph Exhibition were shown a clock and alarum watch with single hand, dated 1636, signed _D. Ramsay_. This was on the eve of the Civil War, a year before Hampden refused to pay ship money in England and the introduction of a new Prayer Book in Scotland. But the Prayer Book was no sooner opened at St. Giles's, Edinburgh, than a murmur ran through the congregation, and the murmur soon grew into a formidable riot. The Covenant signed in the churchyard of the Greyfriars at Edinburgh set a flame alight throughout Scotland. "Such was the zeal of subscribers that for a while many subscribed with tears on their cheeks"--some were indeed reputed to have "drawn their own blood and used it in place of ink to underwrite their names." In such times old David Ramsay, away in the South, saw Stuart magnificence come to a close. At the British Museum is a watch he signs "_David Ramsay, Scotus me fecit_." In signing thus, he shows he was proud of being a Scotsman, and as a great Scottish clockmaker his name and record are given the place of honour at the front of this sketch of Scottish work. His watches are richly decorated in the French style; doubtless he learned his craft in France. His last years were passed in the stormy period of the Revolution, and he lived to see Cromwell and the Roundheads defeat Leslie at Dunbar. He died in Holborn in 1654, the year of the union of England and Scotland under Cromwell by Ordinance. =Some Early "Knokmakers."=--A clock in Scottish is a _knok_. It would appear that the early "knokmakers" were more conversant with the Kirk knok, the Tolbooth knok, and the College knok, than with the domestic clock or watch. In the middle of the seventeenth century, as in England at a slightly previous date, clockmakers formed themselves into trade guilds. London was incorporated in 1631. Edinburgh followed in 1646, Glasgow, 1649, Haddington, 1753, and Aberdeen not till 1800. The metal-workers of Scotland have always been renowned, and at the above dates clockmakers were eligible to enter the Hammermen's Incorporations as affiliated with the craft of locksmith, which was of ancient lineage. During the seventeenth century the Scottish clockmakers, in common with English, came under foreign inspiration. But the eighteenth century saw a complete school of makers springing up in various parts of the country, flowing to, and again flowing from, Edinburgh and the Canongate (including Leith), which were the earliest centres of Scottish clockmaking. [Illustration: BRASS LANTERN CLOCK. With brass dial and fine fretwork. Inscribed "Humphry Mills at Edinburgh Fecit." Date, about 1670. (_In the Glasgow Museum. Reproduced by permission of the Glasgow Corporation._)] We mention a few of the early makers. There was Humphry Mills, who is referred to in the minutes of the Incorporation of Hammermen, Edinburgh, in 1661. There is an example of his work in the Antiquarian Museum, Edinburgh, and we illustrate another in the Corporation Museum at Glasgow (p. 259). This lantern clock, with brass dial and fine fretwork with floriated design, is inscribed _Humphry Mills at Edinburgh fecit_. Richard Mills, or Milne, was apparently the nephew of Humphry, and was admitted a freeman clockmaker at Edinburgh in 1678. He died in 1710. Another early maker is John Alexander, of Edinburgh, made a freeman in 1671, his trial being to make "ane Knok and mounting and ane sun dyall," also a "Kist lock and key," this part of the locksmith's craft being one of the necessary proofs of craftsmanship for admission as a fully qualified Hammerman. He died in 1707. It is interesting to note that he had to construct a sundial. The art of dialling is intricate, and this indicates that the old clockmaker had a sound technical and scientific knowledge. He was evidently no maker of clocks as "bits o' mechanism," or an assembler of parts. He understood principles. Thomas Gordon, apprentice to Andrew Brown, Edinburgh, 1688, was in business for forty years and died in 1743. His nephew, Patrick Gordon, was the son of Alexander Gordon, of Briggs, and seems to have been a man of wealth, apart from his trade as a clockmaker. A fine example of his work is illustrated (p. 263), a long-case clock having the door of lacquered work in the "Chinese taste." On the case without the panel is stencilled work, attempting to follow out the style of the imported panel. This example indicates what has already been advanced in the chapter on Lacquered Cases (pp. 110, 114), that such work was of foreign origin. This panelled door is of oak. Other seventeenth-century makers include Paul Roumieu, 1677 to 1694, the first practical watchmaker who came to Edinburgh. Before that date only clocks were attempted. Paul Roumieu, jun., son of the above, was admitted as a freeman of Edinburgh in 1692, and died in 1710. =List of Eighteenth-century Scottish Makers.=--In regard to the activities of Scottish clockmakers in comparison with their fellow-craftsmen across the border, it is interesting to note that there are very few examples of the early crown and verge escapement by Scotch makers, but there are a great number of the anchor escapement. Although invented by Hooke in 1675, this was not taken up readily. This unwillingness to adopt new styles is a feature in clockmaking in the provinces and in Scotland. The works of a clock are not unfrequently put by the maker into a case belonging to a period of cabinet work of some forty years previous. The clockmaker was an autocrat, and compelled the case-maker to follow old traditions in making cases. [Illustration: LONG-CASE CLOCK. With door decorated in lacquer; remainder of case finished in stencil. Maker, Patrick Gordon, Edinburgh (1705-15). (_By courtesy of Edward Campbell, Esq., Glasgow._)] The following names of noted makers of the eighteenth century are usually found on long-case clocks of the grandfather type:-- Richard Alcorn (Edinburgh), 1703-39 (died). Thomas Ancrum (Edinburgh). Apprenticed 1703 to Andrew Brown. Andrew Brown (Edinburgh), 1665-1711 (died). Apprenticed to Humphry Milne. Alexander Brownlie (Edinburgh), 1710-39 (died). Hugh Campbell (Edinburgh). Apprenticed to Humphry Milne 1692. James Cowan (Edinburgh), 1744-81 (died). John Dalgleish (Edinburgh), 1742-70 (died). Alexander Ferguson (Dundee), 1777. Jos. Gibson (Ecclefechan), about 1750 (see illustration, p. 267). Patrick Gordon (Edinburgh), 1699-1749 (died). Thomas Gordon (Edinburgh), 1688-1743 (died). James Greig (Perth), 1773-76. Thomas Hogg (Edinburgh). Apprenticed to Andrew Brown 1698. { Anthony Hopton (Edinburgh). { Matthew Hopton (Edinburgh). { Makers of wooden clocks 1799-1817. { John Hopton. { Carried on business to 1850. John Kerr (Glasgow), 1783. Andrew Lyon (Port Glasgow), 1783. Geo. Munro (Canongate), 1750-99. Thomas Reid (Edinburgh), 1762-1831 (died). Author of _Treatise on Clock and Watchmaking_, 1826. John Russell (Falkirk), 1797-1818 (died). Geo. Skelton (Edinburgh), 1773-1834 (died). John Smith (Pittenweem, Fife). Self-taught. Came to Edinburgh in 1774. Maker of musical clocks, etc. Disposed of his clocks by lottery in 1809 at Edinburgh. Archibald Straiton (Edinburgh), 1739-84 (died). Wm. Sutor (Edinburgh), 1712-15. William Veitch (Haddington), 1758. James Young (Edinburgh), 1756. The writer desires to record his indebtedness to the useful _Handbook and Directory of Old Scottish Clockmakers from 1540 to 1850_, by John Smith, Esq., published by William J. Hay, Esq., John Knox's House, Edinburgh, 1903. This volume is now out of print, and a new and enlarged edition containing no less than 2,700 names is shortly appearing. No student or collector of Scottish clocks can afford to be without this volume, as it is the only one dealing with its subject. In regard to districts in England and Wales, there is an opportunity for local antiquarian societies to gather and tabulate county lists on the lines of this Scottish volume. The records of provincial makers are still exasperatingly incomplete. There is the authoritative volume by the late F. J. Britten, _Old Clocks and Watches and their Makers_, with a list of over 10,000 names. But in the main these are of London makers. =Character of Scottish Clocks.=--It is seldom that a clock by a Scottish maker is found to be cased in old oak. Most of the long-case clocks are of mahogany, which was not in general use till about 1740. It is true that there are exceptions, some few being found in lacquered or Dutch marquetry cases, but the majority are in mahogany. In regard to clockmaking on a lower plane, there are the interesting clocks, with the works entirely constructed of wood, usually beech, as being the best wood adapted to cutting the teeth for the wheels; other woods used were holly and boxwood. Very few old examples now remain. There seems, too, to have been a strong proclivity towards the musical clock. Several great makers produced fine examples of this class of clock which played popular airs. No doubt in the days of musical boxes, prior to the age of the gramophone, the great folk at Edinburgh, when the "Wizard of the North" enchanted society, had a penchant for these musical sweet-chiming clocks. Daniel Brown, of Mauchline, made the modest clock that stood in the cottage of Robert Burns; and James Gray, or John Smith, or Patrick Toshach, or one of the other clockmakers who made the hours "fading in music," may have constructed some musical marvel for the master of Abbotsford. [Illustration: DIAL OF LONG PENDULUM CLOCK. With single weight for going and striking trains. Spandrel ornaments finely cut and chased, representing the Four Seasons. ENLARGEMENT OF DIAL. Showing maker's name, "Jos. Gibson, Ecclefechan." About 1750. (_By courtesy of Edward Campbell, Esq., Glasgow._)] [Illustration: WALL CLOCK. Maker, George Graydon (Dublin). Date, about 1796. With marquetry design showing volunteer in uniform, with G.R. on his cartouche box. (_At the National Museum, Dublin._)] An interesting clock with the maker's name, Jos. Gibson, Ecclefechan, is illustrated (p. 267). It has a long pendulum and single weight for striking and going trains. The spandrels are finely cut and chased and represent the four seasons. This is a feature found on Dutch dials. In date this is about 1750. The enlargement of the dial (p. 267) shows that the engraver went wrong in his spacing. He had to put the last letter above the others. Indeed, it suggests that another hand than that which engraved the decoration and the name of the maker contributed the place. It is somewhat puzzling, and leads to conjecture as to its history. It is just such examples, out of the main stream of leading makers, which so often provide exceptional interest to the collector. =Irish Clockmakers.=--The art of the clockmaker in Ireland, although having by no means lagged behind that of Scotland, has not received the attention of collectors and connoisseurs which it deserves. Researches are being made, and new data are coming to hand which will assist the student to determine the period of Irish clockmakers' work. There are some 1,100 names already known of makers, and those interested await the results of close and painstaking investigation which will enable the record to be published. By the kindness of Mr. Dudley Westropp, of the National Museum, Dublin, the following names are here given, tabulating a few of the leading Irish makers of the eighteenth century:-- George Aicken (Cork), 1770-95. A clock by this maker is illustrated (p. 273). Michael Archdekin (Dublin), 1769-1800. Joseph Blundell (Dublin), 1703-32 (died). Thomas Blundell (Dublin), 1733-75 (died). Timothy Conway (Cork), 1783-1804 (died). Thomas Coote (Dublin), 1733-47. Hugh Cunningham (Dublin), 1755-77 (died). George Furnace (Dublin), 1751-73. Charles Gillespy (Dublin), 1747-71 (died). Alexander Gordon (Dublin), 1756-87 (died). There was an Alexander Gordon at Dundee, 1729. Maker of the first clock at Brechin Town Hall. George Graydon (Dublin), 1764-1805 (died). A clock by this maker is illustrated (p. 269). Martin Kirkpatrick (Dublin), 1720-69 (died). John Knox (Belfast), 1729-83. Frederick May (Dublin), 1770-96. Thomas Meeking (Dublin), 1682-1709 (died). John Nelson (Dublin), 1786-1813. James Pickering (Dublin), 1737-71 (died). William Ross (Cork), 1764-1817. Samuel Slocomb (Cork), 1735-50. Edward Tounley (Dundalk), 1820-24. Richard Wyatt (Dublin), 1731-55 (died). These dates do not represent the makers' complete history. Some may have worked prior to the first date and after the last date, except when stated as having died then. In regard to Belfast, the late Isaac W. Ward contributed some notes to the _Belfast Evening Telegraph_ in 1909 on "Early Belfast Clock and Watchmakers," which enable some interesting particulars to be given. In 1791 one Job Rider announced that he had commenced business in Belfast, "where he makes clocks and watches of all kinds in the common manner with Harrison's and other modern improvements." It would appear that he had been to London, where possibly he was apprenticed, and had visited Dublin and Hillsborough. From 1805 to 1807 he was in partnership with R. L. Gardner. After 1807 he seems to have been associated with William Boyd. [Illustration: MUSICAL CLOCK BY GEORGE AICKEN (CORK). Date, 1770-95. Lunette marked "Minuet, March, Jigg, Air, Minuet, Gavot." The indicator is pointing to "Air." Two subsidiary dials marked "Strike," "Not Strike," and "Chime," "Not Chime." (_At National Museum, Dublin._)] [Illustration: REGULATOR CLOCK. MAHOGANY CASE. Made to hang from two rings at back of clock. Maker, Sharp (Dublin). Early nineteenth century, showing French influence. Height, 3 ft. 5-1/2 in. Width, 10-3/4 in. Base, 11-3/4 in. (_By courtesy of Messrs. Harris & Sinclair, Dublin._)] Robert Neill, who was apprenticed to Job Rider in 1791, set up business in Belfast in 1803 and joined R. L. Gardner from 1809 to 1818. At this date the firm became known as Robert Neill & Sons. Robert Neill died in 1857. His descendants still carry on business at Belfast. Another Belfast maker was James Wilson, who worked in the middle of the eighteenth century. There is a record of a musical clock being advertised by him in 1755, which he had constructed to play a number of tunes. The wall clock by George Graydon, of Dublin (illustrated p. 269), shows some interesting features. The circle round the dial is carved wood gilt; the dial itself is painted and very much cracked. The lower part is harewood inlaid. In date this example is about 1796, as it will be seen the volunteer in uniform on panel has G.R. on his cartouche-box. The bracket clock by George Aicken, of Cork (illustrated p. 273), is of fine proportions and sound design. It has striking and chiming movements, and plays six tunes marked on lunette, "Minuet, March, Jigg, Air, Minuet, Gavot." An early nineteenth century clock by Sharp, of Dublin, is illustrated (p. 275). It is a miniature long-case clock, being only 3 feet 5-1/2 inches high. It is made to hang on the wall, as there are two rings at the back of the case for this purpose. Its glass door, showing the pendulum, indicates the French influence, which in the early nineteenth century made itself felt in Ireland as elsewhere. In 1783 a company of Swiss watchmakers came to Ireland, and establishing themselves near Waterford, termed their settlement New Geneva. By 23 & 24 George III, 1784, they were granted power to assay gold and silver. An earlier Act of George II provided for only one standard of gold--22 carats. This new Act admitted three--22, 20, and 18 carats. These facilities were granted to encourage the manufacture of watches and watch-cases in Ireland. This Assay Office at New Geneva did not continue in operation more than six years. The office at New Geneva had equal powers with the Dublin Assay Office. "The Assayer or Wardens are hereby required to make, on a plate of pewter or copper, impressions of such marks or punches, with the names and places of abode of the owner thereof, in a book or books to be carefully kept for that purpose, if such owners be resident at Dublin or New Geneva." Watches or other articles of gold and silver having the stamp "New Geneva" are in date 1784 to 1790. CHAPTER X A FEW NOTES ON WATCHES The age of Elizabeth--Early Stuart watches--Cromwellian period--Watches of the Restoration--The William and Mary watch--Eighteenth-century watches--Pinchbeck and the toy period--Battersea enamel and shagreen. Early makers of English watches do not crowd the stage. On the Continent pocket clocks had had a long life before they made their appearance in this country. Queen Elizabeth had only one pair of silk stockings--she had been used to "cloth hose"--before her lady-in-waiting presented her with a pair straight from the Continent. Italian and French ideas were fast acclimatizing themselves here. Shakespeare laid many of his plays in Italy; the modern Elizabethan Englishman became quite Italian; the Queen read Tasso and Ariosto in the originals. In Germany the watch had taken various forms. The watchmakers of Nuremberg were renowned throughout Europe. "Nuremberg eggs," as they were styled, set the fashion for watches of all shapes suited to the conceits of the owner. Some were in the form of a skull, with appropriate mottoes concerning Time and Death; others were in the form of a cross, of a book, or shaped like a tulip or other flowers, or simulating butterflies and insects. The earliest styles had closed cases, these cases being subjected to various forms of ornament. The dial was not visible till the outer case was opened. Collectors of watches are collecting something that is dead. The wheels are silent for ever. The interest lies in the remoteness of the conception of a pocket clock. Possibly there is no one alive who could now set the wheels into motion, as there are no designers who could originate the exquisite tracery and filigree work, the perfect enamelling and the delicacy of metal work these old watches exhibit. They belong to a world apart. Clocks of old masters still carry on their functions: the hand still revolves in unison with the slow swing of the "royal pendulum." As timekeepers they equal most of the modern, and excel the cheap clock, hardly worth designating as a timekeeper. But the Swiss and the American factory-made watch, claiming no equality of artistic embellishment, have dethroned the antique watch in regard to accuracy. Curious and rare examples of the latter crowd the shelves of museums as being representative of that mysterious past when Time was of less moment than it is now. They belong to the age of the missal and the illuminated manuscript, and of the advent of printing with Caxton's well-balanced page. They are at variance with modernity. They were machines before the age of machinery--their very mechanism protests against being regarded as scientifically accurate. One lingers over their ornament with loving regard and forgets their purport. As timekeepers they fell short of the abbey clock, or of the sundial--a perennial stickler for truth when the sun shone. When the long pendulum, under the auspices of Christopher Huygens, commenced swinging, a timekeeper ready to hand eclipsed their gold and enamelled triumphs. But as fashionable baubles they had their continuous evolution, from Thomas Chamberlaine de Chelmisforde to Pinchbeck, and from Tompion to Eardley Norton. A considerable amount of ingenuity was given to producing examples of diminutive size which should perform adequately the correct functions of a timekeeper. But accuracy and scientific exactitude came late in the story of evolution. At length man's ingenuity triumphed. There are watches no larger than filberts which keep exact time, but there are thousands which do not. [Illustration: OLD ENGLISH WATCHES. SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. I. Elizabethan Watch, with carved and repoussé open-work design. II. James I Watch. Dated 1620. Maker, Yate (London). III. Cromwellian Plum-shaped Silver Watch, with crest engraved on case. IV. Charles II Watch. 1660. Made by Snow of Lavington (near Bath). V. William III Watch. Maker, Thomas Tompion. About 1690. (_By courtesy of Percy Webster, Esq._)] The last popular watch, which our grandfathers termed a "turnip," was the stage prior to modern development, and at that stage collecting ends. A scientific classification of watches would resolve itself under the following heads:-- I. _Early watches_, prior to the invention and general adoption of the fusee, that is, from about 1500 to 1540. This period would be further subdivided into (_a_) those with movements entirely of steel; (_b_) the next stage, with plates and pinions of brass and the wheels and pinions of steel; and the latest stage, (_c_), in which the plates and wheels were brass and the pinions of steel, as at the present day. II. _Watches from about 1540 to 1640_, all having fusees, and being made of every conceivable shape and size: octagonal, oval, cruciform, in the shape of a book, and so on. The cases were sometimes of crystal or bloodstone, and enamelled designs and chased gold work were predominant features. III. _Watches of the seventeenth century_, from 1610 to 1675, at which date the pendulum spring was invented. These are mainly round in shape, according to the fashion about 1620, which superseded the ancient quaint forms. The cases, both of silver and gold, were richly enamelled, and moving calendars and astronomical details were frequently made. IV. _Late seventeenth and early eighteenth century watches._ These would embrace the period from 1675 to 1720, after the invention of the pendulum spring. V. _The eighteenth century watch._ This should include all the improvements, changes in decorative style, and other details bringing the watch up to the threshold of the nineteenth century and modernity. We can only indicate the type of watch as falling under the various periods, and specimens of the leading types are illustrated (pp. 283, 287). The watches are numbered in the illustrations from one to ten, and can thus be easily identified by the reader. [Illustration: OLD ENGLISH WATCHES. EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. VI. Watch with black piqué case. Maker, Peter Garon (about 1705). VII. Early Georgian Watch with dark enamel dial. Maker, Duhamel. 1740. VIII. Watch with repoussé work on case signed V. Haut. Maker, Haydon. 1731. IX. Watch. Maker, Daniels of Leighton. About 1760. X. Late Georgian Watch with dial and decorations in Battersea enamel and shagreen case. (_By courtesy of Percy Webster, Esq._)] _No. 1_ shows the character of an Elizabethan watch. The fine case shows the quality of the chased and repoussé open-work design. _No. 2_ is a James I oval watch, and the maker is Yate, of London. This watch is dated 1620, in the reign of James I, the year when the _Mayflower_ sailed to America and New England was founded by those wise Puritans who foresaw the oncoming civil war of the next reign. The Earl of Ashburnham exhibited at the Stuart Exhibition in 1889 a gold watch which formerly belonged to Charles I, inscribed "Henricus Jones, Londini." Another maker of watches of this period is Edward East. The silver alarum clock given by Charles I on his way to execution to Thomas Herbert was made by Edward East. "Through the garden the King passed into the park, where making a stand, he asked Mr. Herbert the hour of the day: and taking the clock into his hand, gave it him, and bade him keep it in memory of him." This silver alarum watch is still treasured in the Mitford family. _No. 3_ is a Cromwellian silver watch, plum-shaped. As coats of arms were not so sinful as painted cherubs and stained-glass windows, this bauble with elaborately engraved crest survived the wreckers' despoiling hand. Cromwell himself boasted of a crest, and in some respects it resembled that used by royalty. _No. 4_ is a Restoration watch made by Snow, of Lavington, near Bath. It exhibits fine ornamentation and is a beautiful specimen of Late Stuart style when sumptuousness, under the guiding influence of the French Louis Quatorze grandeur, made itself felt in this country. _No. 5_ is worthy of respect and admiration as being the work of that great maker, Thomas Tompion. It is of the William and Mary period. The craftsman had arrived at the period of a scientific endeavour to create a perfect timekeeper. The case indicates utility; ornament is in due subjection. The Arabic figures showing the seconds on the dial should be observed. _No. 6_, of which the back is shown, is a watch by Peter Garon. It is in black piqué case, finely decorated in a subdued and reticent manner. Peter Garon flourished between 1694 and 1706. But in that year, when Marlborough's campaigns were at their full height, poor Garon felt the stress of commercial depression and became bankrupt. _No. 7_, showing the front and open case, is a fine watch by Duhamel, about 1740, bringing us to the days of George I and Walpole. _No. 8_, with its fine broad repoussé case, is by Haydon, and the case is signed "V. Haut." _No. 9_ shows an illustration of the back, where the movement is visible. The maker of this is Daniels, of Leighton, 1760. _No. 10_ is by Kemp, London, and is decorated in Battersea enamel and shagreen. This brings us to the age of Pinchbeck, "the toyman in the Strand," and suggests the gewgaws and trifles, the enamelled heads for malacca canes, the snuff-boxes, and all the fashionable paraphernalia of a man about town. The watch in some respects had begun to lose its old character and was again a toy. [Illustration: CALENDAR WATCH. SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. Maker, "Thomas Chamberlaine de Chelmisforde" (signature shown on right-hand illustration). The outer circle shows days of month. The indicator is pointing to 22nd. (_By courtesy of Messrs. Mallett & Son, Bath._)] Among interesting work is that of Thomas Chamberlaine de Chelmisforde. He worked in the brightest days of Charles I, when the arts were receiving stimulation from the Court. A new era seemed as though it might be about to dawn. The picture gallery of Charles I at Hampton Court showed his catholic taste, and his Queen, Henrietta Maria, was a patron of the arts. Vandyck and other great artists flocked to this country, and highly trained craftsmen commenced to build a reputation which later iconoclasts swept aside as of Baal. In the watch illustrated by Thomas Chamberlaine there is something delightfully simple and chaste. He was a maker whose work promised much. There is a specimen of his work signed "Chamberlain Chelmisford" at the British Museum, but in the specimen illustrated the name is chased "Thomas Chamberlaine de Chelmisforde." The study of watches of the various periods is a fascinating one. When the collector leaves the path of clocks, with their more Gargantuan proportions, to become a student of the intricacies of the art of the watchmaker as exemplified in some of his greatest triumphs, he has been enticed on a quest which is unending. No field in collecting and connoisseurship has claimed more devotees. INDEX "Act of Parliament" clocks, so-called, 124 Adam style, its employment in the clock-case, 147 Robert, clock-case by, illustrated, 139 Aicken, George (Cork), clock by, 277 Alarum clocks, 54 and striking clocks, early, 32 Ale-house clocks, Oliver Goldsmith quoted, 127 American clocks-- "Banjo clocks," 124 Bracket clock, by Savin and Dyer (Boston), 198 Lantern clock, with pendulum, 59 Anchor pendulum, the, 59 Arnold, John (Bodmin), 37, 212 Astronomical clock-dial, the, 28 Babylonian measurement of time, 28, 29, 30 Bacon, quoted, 53 Balance and weights prior to pendulum, 33 Barraud, clock by (1805), 203 Battersea enamel employed for watch-cases, 290 Beginners, hints for, 41 Belfast clocks and clockmakers, 272 Bewick, Thomas, engraver of clock-dials (1763-74), 215, 217 Biddell, clock by, 204 "Birdcage" clocks, 54 Böttger, his porcelain at Meissen, 109 Boulle, André Charles, and his marquetry, 72, 73, 111 Bracket clock, the, 179-204 or wall clock, the, early use of, 46, 49 Brass lantern clock, the, 45-63 Bristol clock illustrated, 149 Britten, F. J., _Old Clocks and Clockmakers_, full lists of makers in, 37 Brownhill, Henry (Leeds), copper token of, 218 Cabrier, name falsely put on Dutch clocks, 36 Calendar watch illustrated, 291 Case, the, evolution of, 155 Catherine of Braganza, dowry of, 107 Centres of clock and watch making in 1797, 214 Chamber clocks an established feature in furniture, 192 Chamberlaine, Thomas, de Chelmisforde, watch by, 291 Charles I, watch belonging to, 289 Charles II, death-bed scene of, 50, 53 Watch by Robert Hooke presented to, 36 Cherub head, the, a favourite ornament, 166 Its use on clock-dial, 169 Its use on Stuart furniture, 170 Cheshire clock-case, peculiarities of, 230 Chester, Bishop of (John Wilkins), quoted, 30 Chinese style of Chippendale, 91, 108 Designs at Worcester, Bow, and Bristol porcelain factories, 108 Taste, the _furore_ in France and Holland, 108 Chintzes, the early character of, 111 Chippendale, his Chinese style, 91, 108 His indebtedness to Marot, 155 Style in clock cases, 136 Clockmakers' Company, 1704, transactions of, quoted, 36 On fabrications of English work, 36 Clockmakers, the great English, 35 English, full list of, 37 Clockmaking, decadence of, 38 Personality in, 38, 39 Collecting period, the, 38 Collectors, hints for, foibles of, 39, 41 Colour _versus_ form, 110 Cookworthy, William, his true porcelain at Plymouth, 109 Copper tokens of clockmakers illustrated, 218, 236 Cork, clocks and clockmakers at, 289 Cornwall clockmakers, list of, 241 Country marquetry, 60 Cromwellian "plum" watch illustrated, 283 Cumming, Alexander, clock by (1770), 203 Day and night, 27, 29 Day, the, its division into hours, 28 Lunar, 29 Mean solar, 28 Delft, Dutch, ornamentation of, used in marquetry, 98 Devon and Cornwall clockmakers, list of, 241 Dial, the-- Brass, with silvered hour circle and engraved figures, 158 Character of, 157 Correct proportions of the, 165 Early form of, 30 Evolution of, 162, 165 Iron painted ornament and figures, 158 Position of maker's name on, 158, 161 Dickens, _Dombey and Son_ quoted, 31 Domestic clock, the, 33 Draper, John (1703), dial of clock by, 158 Dublin clocks and clockmakers, 272 National Museum, examples at, illustrated, 269, 273 Dutch clock panels imported, 97 Delft ware, its imitation of porcelain, 111 Fabrications of noted English makers, 36 Influence on cabinet-maker, 67 Influence on clockmaker, 217, 271 Origin of long-case clock, 154 Ornament found on clocks-- Cupids and crown, 170 Marquetry panels, 92 Phases of moon, 217 Spandrel with Seasons, 271 Dutton, Matthew, 37 Thomas, 37 William, 37 Earnshaw, Thomas (1750), 37, 212 East Anglian clockmakers, list of, 247 East, Edward, 37 East India Company, the Dutch, 107 The English, 109 Ebsworth, John, 37 Edict of Nantes and its effect, 68, 90, 120 Edinburgh clocks and clockmakers, 261-265 Eighteenth century, best period of clockmaking in, 40 Elizabethan watch illustrated, 289 Ellicott, John (Bodmin), 212 English masters of clockmaking, the great, 35 School of lacquered work, 114 Equation of time, 29 Evelyn, _Diary_ of, quoted (1681), 107 Evolution of the English mantel clock, 186 Evolution of long-case clock, 153 Base, its changing form, 155 Dial, its character, 157 Hands, their differing types, 174 Spandrel, its ornamentation, 166 Waist, its varying proportion, 155 Exeter clockmakers, list of, 241 Fleur-de-lis ornament on dial, 174 Foreign craftsmen working in England-- Dutch marquetry workers, 83, 92 French Huguenot cabinet-makers, 69, 90 Italian glassworkers, 69 Form, changing, of hood, waist, and base, 155 Innovations of, in clock-cases, 141 _versus_ colour, 111 French clocks and their influence, 147, 197, 278 Influence on mantel clocks, 197 Fromanteel, Ahasuerus, pendulum introduced into England by, 37 The family of, great clockmakers, 37 Furniture, influence of, on clock case, 141 Georgian clocks (1720-1830), 131 German school of marquetry, 72 Gibbons, Grinling, 121 Glasgow, example at Corporation Art Gallery illustrated, 259 Glass windows, when first used in coaches, 161 Workers in London, seventeenth-century, 69 Goldsmith, Oliver, _Deserted Village_ quoted, 127 Gordon, Patrick (Edinburgh), clock by, 261 Thomas (Edinburgh), 1668-1743, 261 Graham, George (1673-1751), 212 His evidence as to Robert Hooke's invention, 36 Grandfather clock, the, its Dutch origin, 74 Its long survival, 135 Its popularity, 135 Grant, John, 37 Inn clock by, illustrated, 125 Graydon, George (Dublin), clock by (1796), 277 Greek measurement of time, 28, 29 Halifax and district, list of clockmakers, 217 "Halifax" grandfather clocks, 217 Hampton Court, Dutch character of, 91 Protestant style of decoration at, 170 The work of Daniel Marot at, 91 The work of Sir Christopher Wren at, 91 Hands, the, evolution of, 174 Hour hand, at first employed, 30, 157 Minute hand first added, 30, 158 Harris, Richard, clock by, at St. Paul's, Covent Garden, 35 Harrison, John, 37 His chronometer, 212 Hill, Thomas, clock by (1760), 197 Hogarth, William, the possibility of engraved clock-dials by, 161 Home Counties, the, list of clockmakers, 236 Hood, changing forms of the, 155 Hooke, Dr. Robert, his claim for invention of balance-spring for watches, 36 His inventions, 212 Watch by, presented to Charles II, 36 Hour, the, its division into minutes, 30, 158 Hours, division of day into, 30 Huguenot refugees settle in England, 68, 120 Huygens, Christopher, Dutch astronomer, his work, 33 His quarrel with Dr. Hooke, 36 Huygens, Dutch cabinet-maker, his imitations of Japanese lacquered panels, 111 Inlaid furniture, 70, 71 Inn clock, the, 124 Innovations of form in clock-cases, 141 Irish clockmakers, list of, 271, 272 Italian school of marquetry, 71 James I appoints Ramsay as "Clockmaker Extraordinary," 256 Japanese lacquer, specimens of, 106 Johnson, Thomas, clock by (1730), 191 Jones, Henry, Charles I watch made by, 289 Charles II clock by, 212 Kent and Sussex, clockmakers of, 247 Kew Gardens Botanical Museum, Japanese lacquer at, 106 Knibb, Joseph, father and son, 37 Joseph (1670), 211 Clocks by (1690), 191, 236, 241 Copper token of (1677), 236 Knokmakers, the, of Scotland, 258 Labarte, _Arts of the Middle Ages_ quoted, 33 Lac and its properties, 105 Its introduction into England, 107 Lacquer-- Chinese and Japanese origin of, 105, 106 Dutch imitations, 110, 111 English school of lacquer work, 118, 121 French masters, 112 Its use in the clock-case, 105 Work-- English school of, 114 Foreign craftsmen in London, 120 School of English amateurs, 121 Lacquered clock-case, its peculiarities, 112 Panels imported from the East, 109 Lamb, Charles, quoted on sundials, 162 Name falsely put on Dutch clocks, 36 Lancashire clock-case, peculiarities of, 230 Clockmakers, list of, 230 Lantern clock-- Early form, 45 Its similarity to ship's lantern, 46 Lilly, _Life and Times_ quoted, 256 Liverpool and district, list of clockmakers, 224 Long-case clock-- Dutch origin of, 154 Evolution of the, 153 Georgian period, the, 131 Lacquer period, the, 105 Stability of the, 132 Veneer and marquetry period, the, 67 Loomes, Thomas, clock by, 191 Lovelace, Jacob (Exeter), 212, 242 Lowestoft china, so-called, with Dutch inscription, 173 Lunar day, the, 29 Lunette, the use of the, in dial and case, 158 Lustre ware clock vase, Staffordshire, 198 Macaulay, his account of death of Charles II, 50, 53 Mahogany long cases, the period of, 136 Makers, old, their personality given to clocks, 38 Mantel clocks, the English character of, 185 Marot, Daniel, his work at Hampton Court, 90, 91 Designs of long-case clocks, 155 Marquetry-- Country cabinet-makers' use of, 84 Decadence of, 100 Definition of, 71 Dutch school of, 79 Early English attempt at, 84 Finest period, 40, 79, 83 Foreign influence on English art, 79 German school of, 72 Imported sheets, frequent use of, 84, 97 Italian school of, 71 Provincial, 60 Revival of, Sheraton period, 123, 147 Veneer, the use of, with, 74 Martin, Sieur Simon Etienne, his varnish, 112 Mary, Queen, and Hampton Court, 98, 170 Massy, Henry (1680), dial of clock by, 158 Mean time, 29 Mechanism of clocks, early, 32 Midlands, list of clockmakers in the, 230 Mills, Humphry, Edinburgh (1661), 261 Richard, Edinburgh (1678-1710), 261 Minute, the, its division into seconds, 30 Mudge, Thomas, Exeter (1715), 37, 212 Musical clock attributed to Rimbault, 142 by George Aicken, Cork, 277 Name of maker, position on dial, 161 Names found on dials, origin of, 213 Nantes, Edict of, and its effect, 68, 120 Newcastle-upon-Tyne, list of makers, 215 New Geneva (near Waterford), Irish watchmaking centre at, 278 Silver assayed at, 278 New York Metropolitan Art Museum, clocks illustrated, 57, 193 Nineteenth century, best period of clockmaking in, 40 Long-case clock of the, 147 North of England, list of clockmakers, 215 Nottingham clockmakers, list of, 235 Numerals on dial, note on, 158, 165 Painted furniture simulating lacquer work, 123 Panels, lacquered, imported from the East, 109 Marquetry, their use in clock-case, 97 "Parliament" clocks, so-called, 124 Pendulum, the-- Advent of, 50 Early studies relating to, 154 First introduction of, 33 Introduced into England by Fromanteel, 37 Length of, determined by longitude, 179 Types of-- the anchor, 59; the "royal" or long, 33; the short, its position at front of dial, 33 Pepys' _Diary_ quoted (1667), 161 Personal clock, the, 34 Personality in clockmaking, 38 Pinchbeck, Christopher, 37 Period of watches, 290 Pitt, his tax on clocks (1797), 124 Pope, _Essay on Criticism_ quoted, 31 Porcelain, true, its introduction into Europe, 109 Poy, Godfrey, clock by (1745), 192 Pre-pendulum clocks, 33 Provincial clocks and makers, 211 Makers, some great, 211 Quare, name falsely put on Dutch clocks, 36 Queen Mary, her influence in rebuilding Hampton Court, 98 Ramsay, David, 255; watch signed by, 257 _Réfugié, le style_, its introduction into England, 90 Regulator clock, the, 148 Repairs, ignorant restoration to be avoided, 42 Riesener, the marquetry of, 111 Rimbault, Stephen, 37 Noteworthy for musical clocks, 142, 147 Roentgen, David, the marquetry of, 111 Science, the dawn of, 35 Scott, Sir Walter, _Fortunes of Nigel_ quoted, 255 Scottish clocks, 255 Character of, 266 Makers, eighteenth century, list of, 261, 262 Second, the, the second division of the hour, 30 Hand, the, 30 Seventeenth century, dawn of science in the, 35 Types of lantern clock, 53 Watches, 286, 287 Shagreen cases to watches, 290 Shakespeare, _As you like it_ quoted, 162 _King John_ quoted, 32 Sheraton style in clock-cases, 147 Spandrel ornament on clock-dial-- Artistic difficulty of, 166 Cherub head style, 166, 169 Cupids and crown style, 170 Spanish proverb quoted, 185 Specialization of clockmaking, 37 Spring, the, its early use as a motive power, 32 Staffordshire earthenware clock vase, 198 Stalker and Parker, treatise on "japanning" (1688), 122 Striking and alarum clocks, early, 32 Strowbridge (Dawlish), clock by, 204 Clock repaired by, 247 Stuart and Tudor ages compared, 35 Sundial, the, and its tradition, 162 Time, 29 Sussex, clockmakers of, 247 Clock (Ashburnham) illustrated, 243 Swiss watchmakers settled in Ireland (1784-90), 278 Table clocks, great variety of, 185 Time, apparent and mean, equation of, 29 and its measurement, 27 Babylonian method of reckoning, 28, 29, 30 Tokens, copper, of clockmakers illustrated, 218, 236 Tombstones, ornament on, indicative of contemporary styles, 157 Tomlinson, William, 37 Tompion, Thomas (1671-1713), 212, 236 Name of, falsely put on Dutch clocks, 36 Tudor and Stuart ages compared, 35 Veneer and marquetry, the use of, 74 Definition of, 69 Modern delicacy of, 69 Verge escapement of old clocks, 33 Vulliamy, Benjamin, 37 Benjamin Lewis, 37 Justin, 37 Wales, clocks made in, 248 Wall clock, early use of, 46, 49 Inn clock illustrated, 125 Irish wall clock illustrated, 277 Wall-paper-- Early use of in England, 99 Period in marquetry, 99 Repeat design of, on marquetry, 100 Walnut period of long case, 135, 136 Watches, Old English-- Battersea enamel, 290 Cromwellian, 289 Early Stuart, 289 Eighteenth-century, 290 Elizabethan, 289 Pinchbeck period, 290 Typical English described, 285, 286 William and Mary, 290 Watches, Liverpool and district famous for, 224 Waterford, Swiss watchmakers at, 278 Watson, Sam (Coventry), clock by (1687), 186 Webster's _New International Dictionary_ quoted, 30 Wedgwood medallions as ornaments to clock-case, 204 Welsh clocks and makers, 248 West Country clockmakers, list of, 241 Wilkins, John, Bishop of Chester, quoted, 30 William and Mary period of decoration, 92, 97, 98 Windmills, name falsely put on Dutch clocks, 36 Woodcarvers at Hampton Court, 170 Wooden works of clocks, 266 Wren, Sir Christopher, his work at, Hampton Court, 91 Yorkshire clock-case, peculiarities of, 223, 229 Clockmakers, 217 Zoffany, clock-cases decorated by, 142 _Printed in Great Britain by_ UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON CHATS ON ENGLISH EARTHENWARE (Companion volume to "Chats on English China.") BY ARTHUR HAYDEN With coloured Frontispiece and 80 Full-page Illustrations of specimens of Earthenware, Lists of Prices, Glossary, Bibliography, and Reproductions of 200 Marks. _Cloth_, 6s. net. "Complementary to the useful companion volume, in this 'Chats' Series, on English China which Mr. Hayden issued five years ago."--_Times._ "Is a compendious account of our native English faïence, abundantly illustrated and accurately written."--_Guardian._ "A thoroughly trustworthy working handbook."--_Truth._ "It is a mine of knowledge, gathered from all quarters, and the outcome of personal experience and research, and it is written with no little charm of style."--_Lady's Pictorial._ "Mr. Hayden knows and writes exactly what is needed to help the amateur to become an intelligent collector, while his painstaking care in verifying facts renders his work a stable book of reference."--_Connoisseur._ "The volume has been written as a companion to Mr. Hayden's 'Chats on English China' in the same series, and those who recall the admirable character of that book will find this to be in no way inferior."--_Nation._ "The illustrations are profuse and excellent, and the author and the publishers must be commended for offering us so many reproductions of typical specimens that have not appeared in any previous handbook. The illustrations alone are worth the cost of the book."--_Manchester Guardian._ "Mr. Hayden's book is filled to overflowing with beautiful and most instructive and helpful illustrations, and altogether it is one that will give immense pleasure to collectors, and much information to the admiring but ignorant."--_Liverpool Courier._ LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN, LTD., 1, ADELPHI TERRACE. +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's Note: | | | | Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. Other | | errors are noted below. | | | | Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant | | form was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed. | | | | Ambiguous hyphens were retained. | | | | Mid-paragraph illustrations have been moved between paragraphs and | | some illustrations have been moved closer to the text that | | references them. The List of Illustrations paginations and those | | in image captions were not corrected. | | | | Italicized words are surrounded by underline characters, | | _like this_, bolded words by equal signs,=like this=. | | | | Corrections: | | Bartholomew Newsom -----> Bartholomew Newsam (p. 46) | | Kenneth Maclellan -----> Kenneth Maclennan (p. 114) | | panels of ergolesi -----> panels of pergolesi (p. 121) | | Ralph Beilly -----> Ralph Beilby (p. 216) | | Peter Garron -----> Peter Garon (p. 287). | | | | Note: | | Page 173: Quinton, Yarmouth. The letter u in these two words | | appears with a dot on top. These words are shown as follows: | | Q[.u]inton, Yarmo[.u]th. | +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ 
41370	----	Transcriber's Note: Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. Italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and bold text by =equal signs=. STAINED GLASS AGENTS AMERICA THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 64 & 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK AUSTRALASIA THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 205 FLINDERS LANE, MELBOURNE CANADA THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA, LTD. ST. MARTIN'S HOUSE, 70 BOND STREET, TORONTO INDIA MACMILLAN & COMPANY, LTD. MACMILLAN BUILDING, BOMBAY 309 BOW BAZAAR STREET, CALCUTTA [Illustration: PLATE I THE ASCENSION WINDOW, LE MANS Possibly Eleventh Century] STAINED GLASS OF THE MIDDLE AGES IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE PAINTED BY LAWRENCE B. SAINT DESCRIBED BY HUGH ARNOLD ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK SOHO SQUARE·LONDON·MCMXIII PREFACE The Cathedral verger, conducting his flock of tourists round the building, while giving them plenty of really interesting and valuable information about it (for the verger of to-day is a different man from his predecessor, and is often very intelligent and well informed), remarks briefly, "The glass is of the thirteenth century"--or fourteenth or fifteenth, as the case may be; the procession gazes carelessly at it, and passes on. Yet from out of that dazzling and glowing labyrinth of coloured jewels a past age is speaking far more articulately, if one stops to unravel the message, than ever in stone or wood, and it is for those who can be induced to take that second look which will be followed by a third and a fourth and many more that I have written this book. It is impossible in a book of this size to give an adequate review of all the important windows even within the limits of place and time which I have set myself. I have therefore chosen for study certain typical windows in each century, and have written about them some of the things which interest me and which, I hope, will interest others. The work of the countries and period I have chosen is of course the most important of all. There is beauty, it is true, in much Renaissance work (only a prig could resist the gaiety and charm of the windows of St. Vincent at Rouen), but it is for the most part beauty achieved in spite of, and not through, the material. There is beautiful mediæval work in Germany and Italy, but the Germans, till the Renaissance, clung to a rather lifeless and archaic convention, and the Italians were hampered by their greater knowledge of painting. The art has found its noblest expression in the work of the great school which for nearly the whole of the Middle Ages was common to France and England. There is especial reason why we English should study the work of our own mediæval glass painters. They are the chief representatives of our primitive school of painting. It is true that there are English manuscripts in the museums, and there are the painted rood screens of Norfolk, including the superb example at Ranworth, and there is the portrait of Richard II. at Westminster; but of the painting which must once have covered the walls of our churches, there is little left but patches of faded colour clinging here and there to the plaster, and the occasional dim outline of a figure. Of our glass, on the other hand, in spite of four hundred years of destruction, a considerable quantity remains, and is worth far closer study than it has ever had. I must gratefully acknowledge the help I have had from my brother, Mr. T. K. Arnold, especially in writing of the Canterbury glass of which he has made a very close study. My thanks are also due to Mr. Noel Heaton for information on the chemical composition of glass. The publishers are fortunate in having been able to reproduce, for the illustrations, the very beautiful coloured drawings of Mr. Lawrence B. Saint, which are now in the Victoria and Albert Museum. H. A. CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE 1. THE MAKING OF A WINDOW 1 2. THE BEGINNINGS OF STAINED GLASS 11 3. THE STYLE OF THE FIRST PERIOD 29 4. TWELFTH CENTURY GLASS 41 5. EARLY THIRTEENTH CENTURY GLASS IN ENGLAND: CANTERBURY AND LINCOLN 67 6. THIRTEENTH CENTURY GLASS IN FRANCE: SENS AND CHARTRES 85 7. OTHER THIRTEENTH CENTURY WINDOWS. EARLY GRISAILLE 109 8. THE STYLE OF THE SECOND PERIOD 123 9. EARLY FOURTEENTH CENTURY GLASS IN ENGLAND: MERTON COLLEGE AND EXETER 151 10. FOURTEENTH CENTURY GLASS AT YORK 161 11. FOURTEENTH CENTURY GLASS IN FRANCE 183 12. LATE FOURTEENTH CENTURY GLASS IN ENGLAND: TRANSITIONAL--GLOUCESTER AND THE WORK OF THE WINCHESTER SCHOOL 195 13. THE STYLE OF THE THIRD PERIOD 211 14. FIFTEENTH CENTURY GLASS AT YORK 225 15. FIFTEENTH CENTURY GLASS IN FRANCE 241 16. MALVERN AND FAIRFORD 251 INDEX 267 ILLUSTRATIONS PLATE 1. The Ascension Window, Le Mans. Possibly eleventh century _Frontispiece_ FACING PAGE 2. Part of Crucifixion Window, Poitiers. Late twelfth century 8 3. Methuselah, Canterbury, originally in choir clerestory. Twelfth century 16 4. "Noë in Archa," from the north choir aisle, Canterbury. Twelfth century 24 5. The Entombment, from the east window, Canterbury. Twelfth or early thirteenth century 32 6. Scroll-work, from the east window, Canterbury. Twelfth or early thirteenth century 40 7. Border, from the Trinity Chapel, Canterbury. Twelfth or early thirteenth century 44 8. Border and Mosaic Diaper, from the Trinity Chapel, Canterbury. Thirteenth century 48 9. Western Lancets and Rose, Chartres Cathedral. Twelfth and thirteenth centuries 56 10. The Big Angel, from the clerestory of the apse, Chartres Cathedral. Thirteenth century 60 11. David, from the clerestory of the apse, Chartres Cathedral. Thirteenth century 64 12. Amaury de Montfort, from the choir clerestory, Chartres Cathedral. Thirteenth century 72 13. The Flight into Egypt, from the south aisle, Chartres Cathedral. Thirteenth century 76 14. Work of Clement of Chartres in Rouen Cathedral. Late thirteenth century 80 15. The Flight into Egypt, Poitiers. Late thirteenth century 88 16. Heraldic Panel, from the clerestory of the nave, York Minster. Early fourteenth century 92 17. Details from windows in the north aisle of nave, York Minster. Fourteenth century 96 18. Border and Shields, from Peter de Dene window, north aisle of nave, York Minster, with details from window in south aisle and sketch of clerestory window. Fourteenth century 104 19. St. Margaret, west window of north aisle of nave, York Minster. Fourteenth century 108 20. St. Stephen, from south aisle of nave, York Minster. Fourteenth century 112 21. The Nativity, upper part of east window of north aisle, All Saints', North Street, York. Fourteenth century 120 22. St. John, from east window of south aisle, St. Martin's, Micklegate, York. Fourteenth century 124 23. St. Barnabas, from clerestory of nave of St. Pierre, Chartres. Early fourteenth century 128 24. St. Luke, from choir clerestory of St. Ouen, Rouen. Fourteenth century 136 25. Window with Life of St. Gervais, from south choir aisle, St. Ouen, Rouen. Fourteenth century 140 26. Grisaille pattern and boss from Plate 25 144 27. Bosses, from Plate 25 148 28. Borders, from Plate 25 152 29. Details, from Plate 25 160 30. Angels in canopy work of Plate 25 164 31. The Annunciation, from St. Ouen, Rouen. Fourteenth century 168 32. Window in St. Bartholomew's Chapel, St. Ouen, Rouen. Fourteenth century 176 33. Details, from St. Ouen, Rouen. Fourteenth century 180 34. Canopy, from All Saints', North Street, York. Fifteenth century 184 35. Canopy, from All Saints', North Street, York. Fifteenth century 192 36. Nicholas Blackburn and his wife, from east window of All Saints', North Street, York. Fifteenth century 196 37. Priest, from "Acts of Mercy" window, All Saints', North Street, York. Fifteenth century 200 38. Kneeling Donors, from "Acts of Mercy" window, All Saints', North Street, York. Fifteenth century 208 39. Figure, from "Visiting the Prisoners," in "Acts of Mercy" window, All Saints', North Street, York. Fifteenth century 212 40. Small Figures in White and Stain, from All Saints', North Street, York. Fifteenth century 216 41. Heads, from All Saints', North Street, York. Fifteenth century 220 42. Head, from St. Michael's, Spurriergate, York. Fifteenth century 224 43. Head, from St. Michael's, Spurriergate, York. Fifteenth century 228 44. Head of an Archbishop, Canterbury. Fifteenth century 232 45. Head of Patriarch, from window in south aisle of nave, St. Patrice, Rouen. Fifteenth century 236 46. Head of St. Catherine, from window above altar in north-west corner of St. Vincent's, Rouen. Fifteenth century 240 47. Drapery from sleeve of Virgin, from west end of St. Vincent's, Rouen. Fifteenth century 244 48. Angel's Head, from Great Rose Window in north transept of St. Ouen's, Rouen. Fifteenth century 248 49. Angel's Head, from Great Rose Window in north transept of St. Ouen's, Rouen. Fifteenth century 256 50. The Prophets Joel, Zephaniah, Amos, and Hosea, from the north aisle of the nave, Fairford. Late fifteenth century 260 I THE MAKING OF A WINDOW The making of stained-glass windows is one of the arts which belong wholly to the Christian Era. Its traditions do not extend back beyond the great times of Gothic architecture, and it is to the work of those times that the student must turn, as the student of sculpture and architecture turns to that of the ancient world, to learn the basic principles of the art. In the Middle Ages stained glass formed an important part, but still only a part, of that interior colour decoration without which no church was considered complete; but in spite of its fragile nature it has on the whole survived the attacks of time, the fury of the Puritan, the apathy and neglect of the eighteenth century, and the sinister energies of the nineteenth-century restorer better than the painting which once adorned the walls and woodwork, and for this reason has come to be considered in these days as peculiarly appropriate to churches. So much so, indeed, that whereas I have sometimes found in country parishes a certain amount of opposition to any attempt to revive wall-painting as savouring of popery, no such feeling seems to exist with regard to coloured windows. [Sidenote: The process.] Stained glass is not one of the arts in which the method of production reveals itself at the first glance. Indeed, so few people when looking at a stained-glass window, whether a gorgeous and solemn one of the thirteenth or fifteenth century, or a crude and vulgar one of the nineteenth, realize the long and laborious process by which the result, good or bad, has been obtained, that a short description of that process as finally perfected some five hundred years ago may not be out of place here. One hears it so often spoken of as "painted glass"--Mr. Westlake calls his book _A History of Design in Painted Glass_--that it is not surprising that there should be a good deal of misconception on the point. It must be clearly understood then that the colour effects which are the glory of the art are not directly produced by painting at all, but by the window being built up of a multitude of small pieces of white and coloured glass--glass, that is, coloured in the making, and of which the artist must choose the exact shades he needs, cut them out to shape, and fit them together to form his design, using a separate piece for every colour or shade of colour. In twelfth and thirteenth century windows many of these pieces are only half an inch wide and from one to two inches long, and few are bigger than the palm of one's hand; so the reader can amuse himself, if he wishes, in trying to calculate the number of pieces in one of the huge windows of this date in the Cathedral of Canterbury, York, or Chartres, and the labour involved in this, the initial stage of the process. When the window is finished these pieces are put together like a puzzle and joined by grooved strips of lead soldered at the joints, just as any "lattice" window is put together (and until glass was made in large pieces this was the only way of filling a window); but before this is done the details of the design--features, folds of drapery, patterns, and so on--are painted on the glass in an opaque brownish enamel made of oxide of iron and other metals ground up with a "soft" glass (_i.e._ glass with a low melting-point). This is mixed with oil or gum and water in order to apply it, and then the glass is placed in a kiln and "fired" till the enamel is fused on and, if well fired, becomes part of the glass itself. This is the only "painting" involved in the production of a stained-glass window, and its effect, in the hand of an artist, besides enabling him to express more than could be done merely with glass and lead, is to decorate and enrich what would otherwise be somewhat crude and papery in effect. [Sidenote: The two parts of the process.] The process thus consists of two parts. The cutting and putting together of the glass is called _glazing_, and it is this that gives the window colour; while the enamel work is spoken of as _painting_, and gives detail, richness, and texture. I shall presently show that the glazing and painting are really two separate crafts, having separate origins and development, and that stained glass as we know it, or as it should be called in strict accuracy "stained-and-painted" glass, is the product of their union. There is another method, far inferior in the beauty of its results, by which pictures can be produced in glass, which is to paint on white glass with transparent coloured enamels. As, however, this method was not used till the seventeenth century, and is now once more almost wholly abandoned, it does not concern us here. The softness of lead which makes it the only practicable metal for joining pieces of glass of complicated shapes, has the disadvantage that a stained-glass window when leaded up has a considerable degree of flexibility, and, if held by the edges alone, would be quite unable to resist the pressure of the wind, which on a big window is enormous,--think of the power even of a fresh breeze on a boat's sail. [Sidenote: The iron-work.] It would not even be able to support its own weight for long, and so it follows that it must be held up by a system of short metal bars fixed firmly into the stone-work. Naturally the design of the window must be so arranged that these bars either do not interfere with it or form an integral part of it. In early windows, especially those of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and even to some extent in those of the fourteenth, the bars are sufficiently important to form the governing factor in the design. It must not be thought that stained glass loses in beauty by the presence of these black lines of lead and iron. On the contrary it gains enormously. Large pieces of unrelieved colour in windows are thin in effect and trying to the eye, which needs the continual contrast of the solid black of the lead all over the window to enable it to appreciate the colour and brilliance of the glass. The painting when rightly used is directed to the same end, for it may be said that the smaller and more divided the spaces of clear glass, the more brilliant and jewel-like is the effect. [Sidenote: Silver stain.] To the rule that a separate piece of glass must be used for every change of colour, there are, in later work, two exceptions. The most important, which was discovered early in the fourteenth century, is the use of silver stain. It was then found that if white glass is painted with a preparation of silver--either oxide or chloride of silver will do--and then "fired" in the kiln used for the enamel painting, it will be stained a clear and indelible yellow, varying from pale lemon to deep orange, according to the strength of the painting. [Sidenote: Abrasion.] The other exception was Abrasion, effected by the use of what is called "flashed" glass. Flashed glass is glass so made that instead of being coloured all through, it consists of a thin film or "flash" of colour on a backing of white. With this glass it is possible to chip with a burin, or grind away, the coloured film in places (we do it now with hydrofluoric acid) so as to get white and colour on the same piece of glass. [Illustration: PLATE II PART OF CRUCIFIXION WINDOW, POITIERS Late Twelfth Century] In the Middle Ages only red and certain shades of blue were made in this way, so the use of the process was very much restricted. The invention of silver stain, on the other hand, by enabling the artist to decorate his white glass and make it interesting, led him at once to use a larger quantity of white in his window, and so, as will be seen later, had a considerable influence on design. These, however, are the exceptions which prove the rule, and, broadly speaking, a stained-glass window must consist, to the eye, of flat patches of colour, large or small, worked on with dark monochromatic line work and shading. These patches of colour must each be separated from the next by a black line--the leading--varying from a quarter to half an inch in thickness, and crossed at intervals by still thicker black lines--the iron bars. [Sidenote: Limitations of the art.] It follows from this that anything like illusion is impossible in stained glass, and no artist with any sympathy for the medium would attempt it. Unwise persons in decadent times have wasted much ingenuity in the endeavour, but the result has always been disastrous and ridiculous. Apart from its higher mission,--the expression of ideas and emotions,--which it shares with every other branch of art, the mission of stained glass is to beautify buildings and nothing else. It is the handmaid of architecture, and can only justify itself by loyal service of its mistress. The ideal of the stained-glass artist must not be a picture made transparent, but a window made beautiful. Let no one suppose, however, that the artist is hampered by these limitations on the higher side of his work. On the contrary, they set him free to tell his story his own way. Ruskin--poor Ruskin, out of date, ridiculed, forgotten--pointed out long ago, in writing of Giotto's frescoes, the advantage which the pure colourist has over the chiaroscurist in his power of telling a story. In our times the fact has been rediscovered with a flourish of trumpets by the Post-Impressionists. I have no great enthusiasm, I confess, for the way in which they have carried out their principles, but I do know two perfect tellings of the story of the Creation. One is in mosaic on the ceiling of the narthex of St. Mark's at Venice, and the other is in the upper part of the east window of York Minster; and in each case the language used consists of flat forms and colour only. II THE BEGINNINGS OF STAINED GLASS I have said that stained-glass work is the product of the union of two crafts, the glazier's and the enameller's. The glazier's work being the groundwork of a window, I will take it first. [Sidenote: Glass-making.] What, to begin with, is glass? It is sand melted and run together. The best sand for the purpose is that which is most largely composed of the substance called silica, such as sand formed of powdered quartz, or flint. For some reason, the silica when melted does not recrystallize on cooling as might have been expected, but forms an even transparent substance, plastic while still hot. Think of the tremendous effect this one natural fact has had on the architecture, dress, and, probably, the physique of the nations of northern Europe. Given sufficient heat, glass can be made by this means alone, but the heat required is so great that it has only been done in recent years for special purposes by means of the electric furnace. Failing this, the sand must be induced to melt at a lower temperature by means of a flux, for which either potash or soda may be used, and to which lime or lead must be added, to enable the glass to resist moisture. (Theophilus, describing the process in his Treatise, certainly no later than the thirteenth century, recommends the use of beech twigs calcined in an earthen pot, whence the name "Pot-ash.") [Sidenote: Colouring.] Glass may be coloured or "stained" while in a molten condition by the admixture of various substances, mostly metals, gold, copper, manganese, and so on, the result depending on the temperature to which it is subjected and on the exact composition of the glass as well as on the colouring matter used. [Sidenote: Blowing.] Glass is made into vessels, as most people know, by "blowing." The workman takes a dab of molten glass on the end of a long metal pipe, and putting his mouth to the pipe blows the glass--soap-bubble fashion--into a hollow bulb. Then by a rapid and dexterous series of alternate and repeated heating, blowing, and spinning, and manipulation with tools, most fascinating to watch, he shapes it into the form required. If a flat sheet be required for window glass it may be run out flat when liquid, or blown as described above, and worked into a cylindrical form, split open, and unrolled. This is called "muff glass." But glass can also be formed, by rapidly spinning it while soft, into a large flat disc, called a "crown," and is then known as "crown glass." It was by these last two methods, the "muff" and the "crown," that all the material of the windows we have to consider in this book was made. [Sidenote: Cutting.] When cold, the sheet or disc of glass may be cut to the shape required, either, as in the old days, by running a hot iron slowly along the proposed line of fracture, in which case a crack will follow the iron, or by scratching it with a diamond and then bending it so as to break along the line of the scratch. The latter is a comparatively modern invention, and has in its turn been superseded by the use of a little steel wheel with a sharp edge. [Sidenote: Pliny's story.] Pliny gives a story of the invention of glass which, if false, is still so picturesque that I cannot resist quoting it here. A certain merchant-ship touched on the coast of Syria, and the crew landed near the mouth of the river Belus, on a beach of fine white sand which, Pliny says, was still in his day of great repute for glass-making. The ship's cargo consisted of natron,--a natural alkaline crystal which was much used in ancient times for washing,[1]--and the crew having lighted a fire on the sand used lumps of it from the cargo to prop up their kettle. What was their surprise to find afterwards a stream of molten glass running down from their camp-fire. In this case the natron acted as a flux and enabled the sand to melt in the heat of the camp-fire, which, however, must have been a very large and hot one. [Sidenote: Egyptian glass.] Now, whether this story is true or not, it cannot have been the beginning of more than a local industry, for the art of glass-making was known in Egypt from very early times indeed. Its earliest use seems to have been in the imitation of precious stones, and perhaps for this reason it seems from the first to have been made in colours as well as in white; but the art of blowing it into vessels was certainly known in the fourth dynasty, and in some of the paintings in the tombs the process is actually represented. [Illustration: PLATE III METHUSELAH, CANTERBURY, ORIGINALLY IN CHOIR CLERESTORY Twelfth Century] It was not, however, till the first century of the Christian Era that any one seems to have thought of using glass to fill windows. In Egypt naturally the climate made it unnecessary, and even in Italy, where it can be cold enough in winter, civilization had evolved a style of architecture independent of glass. [Sidenote: Roman windows.] Nevertheless it was introduced in Rome under the first emperors. Caligula had his palace windows glazed, and Seneca mentions it as one of the luxuries which had been introduced into life in his time, but which did not really add to a philosopher's happiness. Its introduction was, however, very gradual, and even two centuries later its use was still quoted as evidence of excessive luxuriousness. Remains of these Roman windows have been found at Pompeii and elsewhere. At Pompeii they are in the form of small panes of glass held, in one case in a wooden, and in another in a bronze lattice.[2] It must be remembered that large panes were not available. Another method seems to have been to set panes of glass directly into small openings in stone-work. When coloured glass was first used in windows we have no evidence to enable us to say. As, however, the manufacture of coloured glass was already a flourishing art it cannot have been long before the idea came of using it to decorate windows. [Sidenote: St. Sophia.] Whether the windows of St. Sophia at Constantinople originally had colour in them or not, is not quite certain. That they were glazed we know, from the description of the church by Paul the Silentiary, an officer of Justinian's court, but his language about them is tantalizingly vague. From his enthusiasm at the effect of the sunlight through them I am inclined to suspect that they were coloured, though he does not definitely say so. Of this glass, which seems to have been fixed in small rectangular openings in a slab of alabaster, nothing, I believe, remains; but similar work--coloured--is to be seen in other mosques, the only difference being that the openings in the slab are formed into patterns and kept very small. (I have already mentioned the necessity, when dealing with _clear_ coloured glass, of keeping the pieces small and contrasting them with plenty of solid dark.) [Sidenote: Mahommedan windows.] This was as far as stained glass in the East ever got. The Mahommedan conquerors seem to have taken the art as they found it, and continued it down without much change almost to modern times. Their religion debarred them from any attempt to represent living forms, so that the art as it stood sufficed for the needs of their architecture. Visitors to Leighton House may see some of these pierced and glazed lattices from Damascus, and very beautiful they are. In them the pieces are not much larger than a penny, and are set in holes cut in plaster slabs, bevelled on the inside, the glass being set at the outer edge of the hole. The glass is not really of very good quality, but treated in this way even thin poor glass looks rich and jewel-like. [Sidenote: Glass in the West.] What course the glazier's art first followed in the West it is impossible to say, for nothing of it remains earlier than the eleventh century, if as early. Nevertheless, in spite of repeated barbarian invasions, it seems never to have quite died out. The Church, the refuge of the arts and civilization in the general debacle, sheltered it, and from being the luxury of the Roman millionaire it became the ornament of the house of God. From time to time we get allusions to glazed windows, but never a description that can throw much light on their construction or design. Enough is said, however, to show that coloured glass was sometimes used. For instance, we read that St. Gregory of Tours placed coloured windows in the Church of St. Martin in that city in the sixth century. One or two facts, however, lead me to think that whereas, in the East, glass was set in stone or plaster, in the West it was usually set in metal. At Pompeii, as we have seen, panes of glass are set in a bronze lattice and fixed with nuts and screws. As colour was introduced it is probable that from the necessity, already spoken of, of keeping the pieces small, several bits would be joined together with lead to fill one opening of the rigid lattice, and so patterns could be formed. Leo of Ostia says his predecessor, the Abbot Desiderius, filled the windows of the Chapter-House at Monte Cassino in the eleventh century with coloured glass, "glazed with lead and fixed with iron"; and certain it is that the earliest existing windows consist of a large rigid lattice of massive rebated iron bars, in which leaded panels have been placed separately, and held there by light cross-bars passed through staples and keyed with wedges. If this conjecture is correct, we may assume that the art of the glazier had for some time been perfected, and had progressed as far as was possible for it unaided, when its union, probably in the tenth century, with that of the enameller gave birth to the art of "stained-and-painted" glass--that is, stained glass as we know it. [Sidenote: The opaque enamel.] Without the use of enamel the glazier's craft must always have been strictly limited to patterns in glass and lead, or, as we now call it, "plain glazing." What was needed to convert it into the art as we know it was the addition of painting in the black or brown monochrome enamel described in the first chapter. Only one who has worked in glass, and seen his work grow from a map-like combination of white and coloured glass to the finished glass painting, knows the power the enamel gives him of controlling, softening, and enriching his effects of colour. The power it gives of suggesting form is only one, and not the most important, of its functions, and it was as vital to the work of the twelfth and thirteenth as of the fifteenth century. With its introduction the glorious windows of the Middle Ages became possible. Exactly when and where the application of the enameller's craft to glass windows first took place it is impossible to say with certainty; but there is some reason to suppose that it was in France, and not earlier than the tenth century. [Sidenote: Venetian enamellers.] Enamel--the art of painting on metal with an easily fusible glass ground to powder, which is then fused on to its groundwork in a furnace--was of ancient invention, and had been carried to a high state of perfection in Constantinople in the eighth and following centuries. Thence by way of Venice it had come to France, where a colony of Venetian craftsmen had established itself before the end of the tenth century. [Sidenote: Monkwearmouth.] France was already famous for its glaziers: for instance, when in A.D. 680 the Abbot, Benedict Biscop, glazed the windows of the monastery at Monkwearmouth, we read in Bede that "he sent messengers to Gaul to fetch makers of glass (or rather artificers) till then unknown in Britain.... They came, and not only finished the work required, but taught the English nation their handicraft"; and it is probable that the French glaziers, chafing under the limitations of their art, called in the aid of the Venetian enamellers. It is noteworthy that no attempt seems to have been made to use transparent coloured enamel on glass. That mistake was reserved for the decadence of the art seven hundred years later. Perhaps experiment convinced them that enamel colour could never hope to rival the depth and richness of coloured glass, and the glazier would realize that what he wanted of the enameller was not colour but black, to modify and enrich the colour which his glass already gave him in full measure. In this book, therefore, the word "enamel," when used in connection with glass, must be understood to refer, unless coloured enamel is specifically mentioned, to this brown opaque enamel or "paint," as glass-workers call it. [Sidenote: Cloisonné.] But the enameller's art had another influence on that of stained glass. A form of enamelling developed at Constantinople and practised at Limoges was that known as "cloisonné." In this, narrow strips of metal are soldered edgeways to the groundwork and the spaces between are filled with differently coloured enamel, the different colours being thus separated by strips of metal. When the enameller's attention was first turned to glasswork, in which different coloured pieces of glass were separated by strips of lead, he must have been struck with the similarity of the two arts, and have perceived that the style of design already developed in enamel could be applied with little change to glasswork. This probably explains not only the apparently sudden birth of the art fully formed, but the strongly Byzantine character of the design in the earliest work, the enameller's art having been brought, as we have seen, from Constantinople by way of Venice.[3] What, then, is the oldest "stained-and-painted" glass in existence? At Brabourne in Kent there is a small window, of which a coloured tracing may be seen in South Kensington Museum, which may belong to the eleventh century. It consists of a simple pattern of white glass and leading, with small pieces of colour inserted at intervals. Some of these latter, however, have been formed into rosettes of simple design by means of opaque enamel, which is the only painting in the window at all. Whatever the actual date of the window, I think it is not unlikely that it shows the manner in which enamel painting and glazing were first combined. [Illustration: PLATE IV "NOË IN ARCHA," FROM THE NORTH CHOIR AISLE, CANTERBURY Twelfth Century] [Sidenote: Early window at Le Mans.] Almost the earliest glass, however, to which any date can be approximately assigned are the panels in Le Mans Cathedral,[4] which are illustrated by a sketch of Mr. Saint's in Plate I. In a thirteenth century manuscript preserved at Le Mans it is recorded that Bishop Hoel, who occupied the See from A.D. 1081 to 1097, glazed the windows of the Cathedral with stained glass, "sumptuosa artis varietate," and it is just possible that this glass, which was found in 1850 scattered and glazed up among fragments of a later date, may be part of the glass referred to. It seems to have formed the lower part of a window representing the Ascension, and consists of figures of the Virgin and the Twelve Apostles "gazing up into Heaven." The arrangement is very simple. There seems to have been little or no ornament in the window, and the figures in white and coloured draperies, standing on conventionalized hillocks which represent the top of the "high mountain," are relieved against a background of plain colour in alternate panels of red and blue. In this window and for long afterwards the background represents nothing in nature, but merely serves the purpose of throwing up and isolating the figures. As the glass is not in its original position, one can only guess at its original construction and design. All early windows, as I have said, consisted of separate leaded panels inserted into the openings of a massive metal framework, an arrangement which of necessity governed the design. In this case one would expect the six panels, with their differently coloured backgrounds, each to have filled a separate opening in the framework. If this is so, however, the panels must have been somewhat cut down, since as at present glazed the limbs and drapery of the figures occasionally overlap into the neighbouring panels. I think it very probable indeed that the glass has been so cut down, and that the window at Poitiers, illustrated in Plate II., though of later date, gives a true idea of the original relation of these panels to the iron-work. It is probable too that the upper part of the Le Mans window was filled with a figure of the ascending Christ on the same plan as that of Poitiers. It is, indeed, only fair to say that the Poitiers window, which is of the end of the twelfth century, throws some doubt on the greater antiquity of that at Le Mans. There is little or no ornament in the latter, and perhaps there was never much, though it may have once had simple borders between the panels and a rich border like that at Poitiers (not shown in the drawing) surrounding the whole. The technique followed in the painting is precisely that which obtained for nearly three hundred years after. That is to say, as far as possible the effect is obtained by glazing, and the features and folds of drapery are put in with strong, dark, sweeping lines of enamel. The style of the drawing, however, both in the figures and the drapery, is perhaps more purely Byzantine than any later work. The sweeping lines of the drapery are graceful and decorative, but the action of the figures is absolutely conventional. There is none of that feeling for motion which, expressed in line, gives so much vigour and animation to the subject windows of the thirteenth century. In colour, however, which after all is the most important thing in a window, this glass is splendid, and for the quality of the material and the way in which it has resisted the attacks of time it is superior to much glass of a later date. FOOTNOTES: [1] Pliny's word "nitrum" does not mean what we call nitre, which is potassium nitrate, but natron, or natural carbonate of soda, of which deposits are found in the Nile Delta. It is this that is meant in the passage in Jeremiah: "Though thou wash thee with nitre, and take thee much sope...." [2] These panes are, I believe, of cast glass; but I have seen Roman window glass found at Silchester that was obviously "blown" glass and of very good quality. [3] By some writers it has been claimed that the whole idea of stained-glass work was derived from cloisonné enamel; but from the fact that the glazing of windows in glass and metal had been known long before, I think the course of events I have suggested above to have been more probable. [4] There is some at Augsburg and at Tegernsee in Bavaria which may perhaps be a little earlier, but it is not certain. III THE STYLE OF THE FIRST PERIOD [Sidenote: The three periods.] Stained glass from its birth to the Renaissance has been divided by Winston into three main periods, each having broad characteristics peculiar to itself, and which he named after the corresponding architectural styles, Early English, Decorated, and Perpendicular. As, however, these terms only apply to English work, and as the architectural styles do not altogether correspond in date with those of the glass, I prefer to speak simply of the First, Second, and Third Period. The First lasts from the earliest examples almost to the end of the thirteenth century, and might be subdivided again into twelfth and thirteenth century work, between which there is a distinct difference. The Second covers nearly the whole of the fourteenth century. The Third lasts down to the end of the fifteenth century, by which time the influence of the classic Renaissance began to be felt in glasswork, but lingers on in belated examples well into the sixteenth. Between each of these periods there is a very short transitional period lasting hardly a decade, and occupying the closing years of each century. It must not be thought, however, that at any time design in stained glass stood still. Its history is rather one of periodic impulses, due no doubt to the work of individual genius, followed in each case by a long and gradual decline, towards the end of which artists began to grow restless and feel about for new modes of expression, and so prepare the way for the next impulse of genius. [Sidenote: The First Period.] The broad characteristics then which distinguish the First Period are-- (1) Its rich colour. (2) Its mosaic character. (3) The importance of the iron-work and its influence on the design. (4) The method of painting. * * * * * [Illustration: PLATE V THE ENTOMBMENT, FROM THE EAST WINDOW, CANTERBURY Twelfth or early Thirteenth Century] [Sidenote: Its rich colour.] (1) _Its Colour._--The colour of the glass in this First Period is of a barbaric richness, unequalled in the succeeding periods. A very deep and splendid blue is used, in contrast with the greyish-blue of later glass, and it is of an uneven tint, which greatly adds to its quality. The ruby,[5] too, is often of a streaky character and of great beauty. These two usually form the dominant colours in the window, the greens, yellows, and purples being used rather to relieve them. So much is the artist in love with his deep reds and blues, which he nearly always uses for the backgrounds of his figures, that he seldom insults them by painting on them except in so far as is necessary to the drawing, reserving his enamel mainly for the decoration of his whites and paler colours, keeping them in their places by a delicate fret of line and pattern work. It is only towards the latter part of the period, when the quality of the glass began to fail a little, that he ever covered the whole surface of a blue background with an enamelled diaper, to give it a depth and richness which was lacking in the glass itself. Except in the grisaille windows to be described later, in which a definitely white effect is aimed at, the amount of colour used in proportion to the white glass is considerably greater than in succeeding periods. Nevertheless the white is always present, running everywhere among the colour like a silver thread, relieving and beautifying it. In fact it was not till modern times that any glass-worker ever thought he could do without it. [Sidenote: Its mosaic character.] (2) _The Mosaic Character of the Glass._--The designer depends for his effect primarily upon glass and lead, and builds up his window out of tiny pieces. He had learned the jewel-like effect this gave to his work, and seemed to grudge no labour in it. Take, for example, the Ark at Canterbury in Plate IV. Where a fifteenth century painter would have been content to make the ark of perhaps only one piece of glass, probably of white, getting his detail in enamel and silver stain only, our thirteenth century craftsman has used over fifty pieces, purple, blue, red, yellow, green and white, and that in a space less than a foot square! He was a colourist par excellence, and his waves, too, are blue, greenish-blue and green, with caps of white foam--all a mosaic of glass and lead. From this dependence for its effect on the actual material used, it follows that the work of no period is more easily damaged than this by so-called "restoration." The introduction of only half a dozen pieces of crudely coloured modern glass is often enough to upset the whole harmony of the colour and to make the window irritating instead of restful to the eye. In France, indeed, so few windows of this period have been left unrestored that the period does not always get justice done it. I doubt if many people honestly get much pleasure from the effect of the windows of the Sainte Chapelle at Paris taken as a whole; but if you notice how much of the original glass is in South Kensington Museum you will understand the reason. [Sidenote: The iron-work.] (3) _The Influence of Iron-Work._--The windows of this period consisted from the first, as we have seen, of separate leaded panels inserted into the openings of an iron lattice. This lattice was formed of iron bars of a =T= shaped section, the head of the =T= being outwards, and having staples at intervals on the inner rib, through which light iron bars were thrust and keyed with wedges, to hold the glass in its place. In the absence of any tracery to assist in the support of the glass, this iron-work in large windows was of a massive character and could not be disregarded in the design. In figure work there were two possible ways of dealing with it: one was to make the figures so large as to be independent of it; and the other was to make the figures so small that a complete figure-subject could be included in one opening of the frame work. Both these methods were used by the artists of the early period. Where the work is far from the eye, as in the clerestory windows, we usually find large single figures--far larger, often, than life--filling the whole window, like the big angel from Chartres on Plate X. and the smaller and older figure of Methuselah from Canterbury on Plate III. When, on the other hand, the work is near the eye, as in the aisle windows, they used the other method, filling each opening of the iron-work with a small subject-panel like that of Noah and the Dove in Plate IV., thus producing what is called the medallion window. [Sidenote: Medallion windows.] At first the lattice work consisted merely of upright and horizontal bars. These, it is true, sometimes, as in the twelfth century window at Poitiers in Plate II., were manipulated to fit the subject, but more usually the subject fitted the bars. [Sidenote: Bent iron-work.] In the earliest form of medallion window, such as those in west windows at Chartres and some of the earliest ones at Canterbury, the window is divided by the iron-work into a series of regular squares, each of which alternately is filled with a square and a circular figure-subject. Later, however, in the thirteenth century, the iron-work itself was bent into geometric patterns which the medallions were shaped to fit, producing the elaborate designs shown in the insets of the whole windows in Plates IV. and VIII. from Canterbury. Even when in the latter part of the thirteenth century there was a return, prompted no doubt by motives of economy, to iron-work composed of straight bars, the influence of these elaborate lattices is still seen in the shapes of the medallions, though these are no longer outlined by the iron-work which now passes across or between them. An example of this is shown in Plate XIV. from Rouen Cathedral. [Sidenote: The method of painting.] (4) _The Method of Painting._--This consists of vigorous line work in the brown enamel, laid on with a brush in beautiful, firm, expressive strokes on a ground of clear glass. Lettering and patterns are formed by being scratched out clear from a solid coat of enamel. There is no attempt at modelling in planes or at light and shade, and half-tone is only used, as I shall presently explain, to soften the edges of the line work. [Sidenote: Irradiation.] Now the optical law which most affects the technique of stained glass is that of which the effect is known as "irradiation." In an unscientific work it is enough to say that it is the law which causes the filament of an electric light, in reality thin as a hair, to appear when incandescent as thick as a piece of worsted. In the same way it makes the clear spaces of glass appear larger than they really are in proportion to the obscured parts, and also tends to make them look rounded. From the fact that the glass between the line work was left nearly clear, the work of this period is more affected by irradiation than any other, and the artist had to make his line work very black and thick in order to tell at all, especially in work far from the eye. For instance, if he wished to distinguish the fingers of a hand he separated them with solid black spaces as thick as the fingers themselves. [Sidenote: The line work.] The glass between the line work is left nearly clear, but not quite; for if quite clear the intensity of the light would have bitten into the edge of the black line and made it appear what engravers call a "rotten" line, or even be invisible altogether at a little distance. Therefore the painter softened the edges of his line work by one of two methods. The first, described by Theophilus, though I cannot say for certain that it has been used in any glass I have examined, was to slightly smear the painting when wet with a soft brush. The other, which seems to have been more used, was to edge the dark line work, so to speak, with fainter strokes in semi-transparent half-tone. In work that was meant to be placed near the eye the line work is extraordinarily fine and delicate, while in work that has to be seen from a distance, such as the clerestory windows of a cathedral, we find the whole scale of the execution increased. Lines are there used from half an inch to an inch thick, but in every case the work is equally admirable for its precision and vigour. [Sidenote: The "Matt."] In the later periods the half-tone shading became developed into the "matt" or thin coat of enamel laid evenly all over the surface of the glass, from which, when dry, the lights were brushed out and the line work became more and more delicate. Still, as long as technique remained sound, the strength of shading was really obtained by line work, the matt or half-tone serving its true use in softening the light and making the line work visible. Renaissance glass painters, in their efforts to produce the effects of oil painting in glass, tried to get rid of the effect of irradiation altogether by dulling the whole surface of the glass, with fatal results to the beauty of the material. To sum up, although the work of this period may suffer in popular esteem from the drawing being conceived in an archaic convention,--a convention different to our own,--and from having suffered from restoration, the fact remains that at no time did the artist understand better the possibilities and limitations of his art and adopt a sounder technique in regard to them. FOOTNOTE: [5] It seems to have been the practice of glass-workers in the Middle Ages to describe the different colours in glass by the jewel they most nearly resembled. A survival of this at the present day is their universal habit of calling red glass "ruby." [Illustration: PLATE VI SCROLL-WORK, FROM THE EAST WINDOW, CANTERBURY Twelfth or early Thirteenth Century] IV TWELFTH CENTURY GLASS The few examples I have mentioned are the only ones which can with any probability be dated from the eleventh century, but of twelfth century work much more remains. [Sidenote: Poitiers.] The window at Poitiers in Plate II. shows little if any change in style from the Le Mans window in Plate I. It is still almost pure Byzantine, and if I were to judge by style alone I should place this window very early indeed. A fragment of an inscription has, however, been found on it--DITHANC ... BLAS,--which has been thought to mean that the window was the gift of one Maurice de Blason, who became Bishop of Poitiers in 1198. If so, and if we are right in identifying the Le Mans window with Bishop Hoel's glazing, a whole century separates the two. The probable explanation is that the Byzantine style had lingered on in the south-east of France, as it may well have done, whereas north of the Loire a school had by this time arisen, and had been flourishing for many years, which was producing work both in France and England of a very different and far more advanced character. [Sidenote: The school of Chartres, St. Denis, and Canterbury.] The twelfth and early thirteenth century windows at Chartres, St. Denis, Canterbury and Sens show such resemblance to each other that there can be little doubt of their common origin. As, however, their execution covers a period of at least seventy years, one man cannot have been responsible for them all. Probably they represent the work of a group of men working together--perhaps never more than half a dozen at one time--under a master who was trained by his predecessor, and who in turn would be succeeded in the leadership by the best of his pupils. Several of these masters in succession must have been men of genius, and thus between them they evolved a style which, carried on by a succession of lesser men, governed design in stained glass for a century to come. [Illustration: PLATE VII BORDER, FROM THE TRINITY CHAPEL, CANTERBURY Twelfth or early Thirteenth Century] The rise of this school is the first of the periodic impulses to which I have referred, and the work they produced was, for its dignity and grandeur, unequalled for two hundred years--if it has ever been equalled at all. The figure of Methuselah or "Matusale" in Plate III., which is one of the few remaining of the original figures once in the choir clerestory at Canterbury (it is now in the S. Transept), is a good example of their work, and a comparison of it with the Poitiers window (which is actually later in date but in the older style) shows the greatness of the change they effected. The change is, in fact, that from ancient to modern art: from Byzantine, the last lingering survival of the great classic tradition of Greece, to Gothic, the first expression of the art of the modern world. Who were these men and where did they come from? Some would have it that there was a great central school at Chartres, but there is little evidence for it. When Abbot Suger built the great abbey of St. Denis, which was dedicated in 1142, he filled it with glass, "painted," says his secretary, Monk William, "with exquisite art by many masters of _divers nations_" ("de diversis nationibus"). Does this mean that some of them were English or Germans, or only men from other provinces than the Ile de France? No one can say; but they must have been working together to produce the results they did. One statement of the Monk William's leads me to think that the work was done on the spot. He says the work was very costly, because they "used sapphires to colour their glass." Now this is an obvious misunderstanding, due to the practice, in those days, of describing coloured glass by the name of the precious stone it resembled, and such a mistake is most likely to have been made in conversation with the artists themselves. It is, of course, always possible that they had no permanent headquarters but took up their abode in whatever city their chief work was for the time being, there erected their furnaces, which the description of Theophilus shows to have been simple affairs, and remained there till their work was completed--which must have taken some years in every case--and then moved on to the next work. Much has been made of the fact that a window in Rouen bears the signature of one Clement of Chartres,--"Clemens vitrearius Carnutensis me fecit,"--but that window is a hundred and forty years later than St. Denis. By that time the whole Cathedral at Chartres had been filled with glass, a task which extended over thirty years; and Clement may well have learned his trade and passed from apprentice to master there. No other artist of the school has signed his name anywhere, nor has Clement anywhere else. One can tell pretty well the order in which the most important of their work which remains was done. First Chartres and St. Denis,--so near together that one cannot say which came first,--then Canterbury, Sens, and then back to Chartres again, where a fire had destroyed all but the west windows. This, however, probably represents only a small portion of their labours, of which the rest has disappeared. For instance, a few fragments set among later work in York Minster have all the characteristics of this school; and we know that Prior Conrad's choir at Canterbury, which was completed in 1130 and destroyed in 1175, was renowned for the splendour of its glass, which may have been their work too. A window at Le Mans, rather later than the one illustrated, and which Mr. Westlake thinks may be dated about 1120, shows signs of the new movement. It consists of a series of subjects from the stories of SS. Gervasius and Protasius, and already shows the arrangement of small medallions of simple shape, surrounded by ornament filling the rectangular openings of the iron-work, though from the fact that some of the medallions seem to have been cut down, they are probably not in their original position. In the drawing of the subjects the artist is breaking away from the Byzantine tradition. The new wine is bursting the old bottles. He is a man in love with life, and when he depicts a group of men stoning a saint he likes to make them really throwing, and to show in their faces, as well as he knows how, that they are thorough ruffians. Next in antiquity to this window, and some twenty or thirty years later (1142-1150), come the earliest of the windows at Chartres and at St. Denis. [Sidenote: Chartres.] In the year A.D. 1134 a terrible fire destroyed the town of Chartres and so damaged the west end of the Cathedral that it had to be pulled down and rebuilt--a work which took some fifteen years to accomplish, while the towers were not finished till twenty years later still. The three windows over the west door were filled with glass some time between 1145 and 1150. [Illustration: PLATE VIII BORDER AND MOSAIC DIAPER, FROM THE TRINITY CHAPEL, CANTERBURY Thirteenth Century] [Sidenote: The west windows.] In early times churches seem to have been peculiarly liable to destruction by fire, owing perhaps to the number of wooden buildings by which they were surrounded. The early history of every great cathedral is one of successive disastrous conflagrations, after each of which the building rises once more, larger and more splendid. Thus, in 1194, another fire completely destroyed the whole of the Cathedral with the exception of the newly built west end, which included the three windows in question. These escaped damage, protected perhaps by the immense depth of their embrasures, and still remain almost unimpaired to this day, the largest and most perfect windows of their time that have come down to us. In them one feels that the new movement has found itself and produced a great man. Two of them, the central one, which is the largest, being some 30 feet high and 10 wide, and that on the south, are medallion windows, containing scenes from the life of Christ. The bars of the iron-work, which are about 3 feet apart, divide them into a series of regular squares, which are filled with square and circular medallions; in the central window the figures in the medallions are relieved against alternate backgrounds of ruby and blue. The ruby of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries is a wonderful colour. It is never of a perfectly even tint, each piece having, as it were, its own character, and the colour seems to have a slightly granulated or "crumbly" texture, which gives it a quality unknown in later glass. So beautiful was it evidently considered that the artist seldom or never attempted to enrich it with painting. [Sidenote: The Jesse tree.] The third window, that on the north, is filled with a "Tree of Jesse." The subjects of stained-glass windows in this First Period were chosen with one object--the exposition of the Christian Doctrine, and of this the human descent of Christ was an essential part. Accordingly, at all periods in the history of mediæval stained glass we find windows devoted to the representation of "the Tree of Jesse." The arrangement is always the same as in this window at Chartres. The figure of Jesse lies recumbent at the foot of the window, and from his loins rises the "Tree"--a mass of branching scroll work with conventional foliage, spreading over the whole window, carrying on its branches David and other human ancestors of Christ, and culminating in the Virgin and Christ Himself at the top of the window. On either side are ranged the Prophets who foretold His coming, and the whole, surrounded by a rich border, forms, at Chartres, a mass of jewelled colour some 9 feet wide and 25 feet high. This window and the one of which a part, identical in design, remains at St. Denis, are the oldest examples I know of a Jesse tree in stained glass, and whether or not they were the first to be made, their design formed a model for others for long after. [Sidenote: La Belle Verrière.] The remainder of the windows in the Cathedral, including the western rose, are of the thirteenth century with one exception--the one in the south choir aisle, which contains the great figure of the Virgin known as "Notre Dame de la Belle Verrière": the only window, as far as I know, to which in former times people knelt by hundreds in adoration, and before which they still occasionally burn a candle. The Virgin with the Child on her knee sits enthroned in the upper part of the window, and surrounded by angels, on a much smaller scale, incensing and holding candles, while below are medallions illustrating the Marriage at Cana and the Temptation. The angels and the medallions are of the thirteenth century, but the figures of the Virgin and Child with their background are almost certainly of the twelfth. Probably the veneration in which they were held caused them to be rescued from the fire,--hurriedly broken out, perhaps, from the surrounding glass,--and then reset in thirteenth century work after the Cathedral was rebuilt.[6] The Virgin is dressed in a robe of pale greyish-blue, of a colour one seldom sees in later work, relieved against a background of deep ruby, set with jewels of a darker blue. The precision of the colour harmony is wonderful, and no drawing I have seen of the window gives, even in outline, the beautiful poise of the head, bent in gracious benediction. Although I have said that the workers of this school were breaking away from the Byzantine tradition and looking at life with their own eyes, yet it is never possible for men suddenly to produce work wholly independent of tradition, even when they are foolish enough to try; so we find in this case Greek art, through Byzantine, retains enough influence with these men to give to their work a dignity and restraint which is lacking in that of the thirteenth century. This is very noticeable wherever one gets the two in close juxtaposition, as at Chartres and also at Canterbury. There is an impressive severity of design and a feeling for proportion in the figure of the Virgin in La Belle Verrière which one misses in the surrounding work, which, though very beautiful, is by comparison small and fussy in treatment. [Sidenote: St. Denis.] In the meantime, in 1142, while the west front of Chartres Cathedral was still in progress, the great Abbot Suger had finished the construction of his abbey of St. Denis, near Paris. He was a great patron of the arts, as well as a good man and the first statesman of his age, and he seems to have spared no pains in the decoration of the church and especially in the filling of the windows with stained glass. Of this glass, alas! only the merest remnant is left, consisting of several medallions and part of a "Tree of Jesse." They have been collected and placed in the chapels of the apse of the church, embedded in garishly coloured ornament--the work of M. Gérente, acting under the orders of the great and terrible Viollet-le-Duc--which effectually prevents one taking any pleasure in their beauty. They are, however, very interesting to study. Whether or not they were done before or after the three windows at Chartres it is, I think, impossible to say for certain. The history of the two buildings shows that they must have been done within a few years of each other (two of those at St. Denis contain figures of Suger as donor, and he died in 1152), and they are certainly the work of the same school. The Jesse tree in particular is either a copy, or the original, on a smaller scale, of the one at Chartres, being almost identical in design. Many of the medallions are interesting from their deeply symbolical character. In one, for instance, is Christ, with the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, represented, as in the Jesse tree, by doves, each contained in a circle and connected with His breast by rays. With His left hand He unveils a figure labelled "Synagoga," and with His right He crowns another figure labelled "Ecclesia." Another very curious medallion represents the _foederis arca_, "ark of the covenant." A figure of the Almighty supports a crucifix which rises from the ark,--a square box on four wheels,--while round about are the four symbols of the Evangelists. The cross is thus shown as the symbol of God's new covenant with man as the ark was that of the old. A quaint feature is that the artist, while feeling that all four wheels had got to be shown somehow, has been in some difficulty as to how to show the farther pair, and has therefore placed them above the ark, as if resting on it, as an ancient Egyptian artist might have done in his place. In most of the medallions the teaching of the subject is emphasized and the application pointed out by rhyming Latin hexameters, doggerel in style and innocent of prosody, such as: Quod Moyses velat, Christi doctrina revelat. The same feature is found in the glass at Canterbury. None of the verses are identical, but the literary style is the same. [Sidenote: Angers and Chalons.] At Angers there are some remains of twelfth century windows which are thought to be about the same date as those of Chartres and St. Denis, or even a little earlier, and there are some at Chalons, but they cannot be dated with any exactitude, and I have had no opportunity of examining them. Next after these in point of date should, I think, come the earliest of the windows at Canterbury, though nearly thirty years must separate the two. [Sidenote: Fragments at York.] A few fragments in York Minster, however, show where the artists may have been occupied meantime. There are some scraps in the clerestory--scraps of a Jesse window of which the details are almost identical with the St. Denis work--and a medallion representing Daniel in the Lion's Den, which is glazed into the foot of the centre light of the great thirteenth century grisaille windows in the north transept, known as "the Five Sisters." It is a circular medallion filled out to a square form with ornament, no doubt to fit a square of the iron-work, and strongly resembles the St. Denis work. [Sidenote: Canterbury choir.] Of the stained glass of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, which was once the glory of Canterbury Cathedral, only a remnant has escaped the zeal of the Puritans. The minister placed in charge of the Cathedral under the Commonwealth, one Richard Culmer, known to his enemies as "Blue Dick," though I do not know why, relates with glee how he stood on a ladder sixty steps high with a whole pike in his hand and "rattled down proud Beckett's glassie bones." I own I feel less resentment against "Blue Dick," who at least thought the windows important enough to smash, than against that later vandal Wyatt, who in the eighteenth century sold the glass at Salisbury for the price of the lead in it, or those who even now in many places are letting old glass perish for want of proper care. [Illustration: PLATE IX WESTERN LANCETS AND ROSE, CHARTRES CATHEDRAL Twelfth and Thirteenth Century] Even "Blue Dick" seems to have tired of his pious labours before they were quite finished, for, of the early windows, he has left us two in the north choir aisle, and four in the Trinity Chapel east of the choir, in which most of the old glass remains. Besides these there are many medallions and numerous fragments scattered about in other windows and embedded in the work of the modern restorer, and several large figures from the clerestory, of which the Methuselah in Plate III., now in the south transept, is one. In the year 1174, four years after Becket's death, the splendid choir built by Prior Conrad in 1130 was completely destroyed by fire, and the monks immediately set about building a new one. Gervase the monk has left a detailed account of the progress of the great work, year by year and pillar by pillar, for the space of ten years, first under the French master-builder, William of Sens, and then under his successor, William the Englishman ("little in body but in workmanship of many kinds acute and honest"), so that we know just when each part of the work was finished. Now in the spring of 1180, he relates, the monks had a great desire to celebrate Easter in the new choir, and to gratify them the master, by a special effort, succeeded in getting the building finished and roofed in almost to the east end of the choir, where he placed a hoarding to keep out the weather. Since we are told that in this hoarding there were three glass windows, it seems reasonable to suppose that the other windows were glazed too. Now since both the windows in the north choir aisle and, when in its original position, the Methuselah on Plate III. were well to the westward of the point at which the hoarding was erected, I have no doubt that they were in position by this date, in which opinion I am confirmed by the character of the glass itself. That in the Trinity Chapel to the east of the hoarding would naturally be later. The same arrangement seems to have been followed at Canterbury as elsewhere of having large figures in the clerestory and small medallions in the lower windows. The Methuselah, which seems to have formed one of a series of Patriarchs,--of which three others remain, which filled the windows in the clerestory of the choir,--is a particularly dignified figure, and it is noticeable that the throne he is seated on is of somewhat the same type as that of Notre Dame de la Belle Verrière at Chartres. As in all windows of this date, the flesh is executed in glass of a brownish-pink colour instead of white, which later on became the rule. This illustration shows very well the early method of painting. Where possible, as in the rich blue of the background, the glass is left quite clear. The folds of the drapery and the features are drawn in sure and vigorous line work. Diaper is used very sparingly, only when it is necessary to "keep back" and subdue a piece of glass, as in the case of the green cushion to the throne and the border of the tunic. If you can imagine the glass with these pieces left clear or with any other piece diapered, you will see how unerring has been the artist's judgment.[7] The letters of the inscription are scratched out of a dark ground of enamel. This is the invariable method used in early glass, which indeed is always (except in grisaille, of which more later) conceived as a light design on a dark ground. In the fifteenth century the reverse was the case, and then we get inscriptions in dark lettering on a light ground. The arched form of the top of the background shows how it once fitted a clerestory light, though doubtless with a border, and the space above has been filled with scroll work of, I think, the same date, which may have come from some of the medallion windows in the choir aisles. The two medallion windows in the north choir aisle formed part, as we know from an old MS. still in existence, of a series of twelve dealing with the life and parables of our Lord. In style they very closely resemble the St. Denis work, perhaps a little further developed. Some of the medallions, indeed, are almost identical with those at St. Denis, notably that of the Magi on horseback following the star. The figures are tall and dignified, and both for drawing and decorative placing are far better than much work of the succeeding century. The Calling of Nathaniel is a particularly good panel. The westernmost of the two windows still retains the early arrangement found at Chartres, the iron-work consisting simply of straight bars dividing it into a series of regular squares, which are filled alternately with circular and square medallions. [Illustration: PLATE X THE BIG ANGEL, FROM THE CLERESTORY OF THE APSE, CHARTRES CATHEDRAL Thirteenth Century] The other one of the two has bent iron-work of a very simple design, consisting simply of four circles connected by straight bars, thus marking the transition from one form to another; which is another reason for dating these windows between the west windows of Chartres, where the iron-work is all straight, and those at Sens, where it is nearly all bent. The small scale-sketch in the corner of Plate IV. shows the arrangement of the iron-work and the medallions. The panel of Noah in the Ark is from one of the semicircles on the left side of the window. The spaces between the medallions are filled up with beautiful foliated scroll work, on a ruby ground of the same character as that round the head of Methuselah. The arrangement of their subjects is so interesting, forming one of the first and most complete examples of a "type and antitype" window, that I shall describe it in some detail. In each of these two windows the upper two-thirds, or thereabouts, of the glass is in its original position, while the lower panels, smashed by the pike of "Blue Dick," who seems at this point to have got tired of going up his ladder, have been filled with subjects from other windows of the series. Down the centre run the subjects from the life of Christ, while on each side are the "types" or subjects from the Old Testament which illustrate it. Thus the westernmost of the two, once the second of the series, begins at the top with the Magi following the star, while on one side is Balaam, with the words of his prophecy, "There shall come a star out of Jacob, etc.," and on the other Isaiah, with the words, "The Gentiles shall come to Thy light, and kings to the brightness of Thy rising." Next below we see in the centre the arrival of the Magi before Herod, illustrated on the left by the Israelites coming out of Egypt, led by Moses, and on the right by the Gentiles leaving a heathen temple containing an idol--a naked blue figure (blue merely because the artist wanted some blue there), and following Christ, by way of a font, towards a Christian altar, while a demon above their heads urges them to return to the idol. As at St. Denis, each of the medallions has a Latin rhyme attached, explaining and enforcing the lesson. Here, for instance, it runs: Stella Magos duxit et eos ab Herode reduxit, Sic Satanam gentes fugiunt te Christe sequentes. Next we see the Magi making their offerings to the infant Christ, on one side of which is the Queen of Sheba visiting Solomon and on the other Joseph in Egypt receiving his suppliant brethren. And so the series goes on. The twelve windows when complete formed one of the most elaborate sets of types and antitypes known, and included not only the life of Christ but eight of His parables--for some reason a very rare subject in mediæval glass. Two panels of the Parable of the Sower--the seed falling among the thorns and the seed falling by the wayside--remain, and have been used to fill up the gaps at the bottom of this window. Above is a curious subject--the Church with the three sons of Noah, who hold between them the world, divided into three regions. From the MS. above mentioned we know that this was the type to the "leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till the whole was leavened"--an idea taken, I think, from St. Augustine. The subject of Noah and the Ark from the other window was originally alongside the Baptism of Christ, the purging of the world by the flood of waters serving as the type for the purging of the soul by baptism. Altogether as one studies these windows one is almost as much struck by the subtlety of thought and earnestness of the teaching they embody as by the glory of their colouring and grace of their design. In one of the triforium windows is some glass which may perhaps be earlier even than this. It consists of three medallions, only one of which is at all perfect, which seem to be part of a life of St. Alphege, Archbishop of Canterbury, who was martyred by the Danes. In the one perfect panel which represents the storming of Canterbury by the Danes, the warriors wear the long coats of mail and kite-shaped shields of the Norman period as shown in the Bayeux tapestry, and a ship in one of the other medallions is exactly like those in which William the Conqueror and his knights are there shown crossing the sea. The obscure position of this glass in the triforium is not where one would expect to find a window devoted to St. Alphege, who before the death of Becket was the most important saint that Canterbury could boast; it may be therefore that the medallions have been moved from elsewhere, perhaps from Archbishop Lanfranc's nave, or it may, for all we can tell, be some of Prior Conrad's glass that has survived the fire. [Sidenote: Vendôme.] Of other twelfth century work there is not much in existence. There is a Virgin and Child at Vendôme which somewhat recalls Notre Dame de la Belle Verrière but has none of her grace, and I have already referred to the window at Poitiers illustrated in Plate II. [Illustration: PLATE XI DAVID, FROM THE CLERESTORY OF THE APSE, CHARTRES CATHEDRAL Thirteenth Century] [Sidenote: Poitiers.] This remarkable and impressive window, which is over 26 feet high and nearly 10 wide, is one of three, and occupies the central light of the Cathedral apse. The illustration does not show the whole of it, for it is surrounded by a rich border, which in its arrangement of alternate bunches of foliage and knots of interlaced work resembles that of the Jesse Tree at Chartres, and below the Crucifixion is a four-lobed medallion showing the Martyrdom of St. Peter, and the donor offering a model of the window. The design, as I have said, seems to show that the Byzantine style had lingered on south of the Loire, where no doubt the influence of the Limoges school would be strong, and in view of this fact it is rash to take the age of the Le Mans "Ascension" altogether for granted. FOOTNOTES: [6] Some critics have thought the figure merely a copy from an earlier design, but I cannot agree with them. [7] The little piece of white with yellow stain under the right toe is, of course, a fifteenth century scrap. V EARLY THIRTEENTH CENTURY GLASS IN ENGLAND (CANTERBURY AND LINCOLN) In passing from the twelfth to the thirteenth century one notices a certain loss of the restraint and sense of proportion which gives such dignity and refinement to the earlier work, but on the other hand a certain gain in vivacity and facility of expression. The Greek influence is dying out, but the artists, though with less sense of design than their predecessors, were accomplished at story-telling, in which, however, they seem less serious and more gossiping. Their figures are less tall, and the lines of the drapery from being straight and severe become agitated and flowing. [Sidenote: The Trinity Chapel, Canterbury.] East of the choir in Canterbury Cathedral is the Trinity Chapel, of which the building was finished in 1185 and to which the body of St. Thomas was translated with great pomp in the year 1220 and placed in a marvellous jewelled shrine, the position of which can still be traced on the pavement by the hollow worn round it by the knees of pilgrims. All around were gorgeous windows which, with the exception of those in the little circular chapel at the east end, known as "Becket's Crown," were filled with the stories of his posthumous miracles. It is a little difficult to date these windows. They cannot of course be earlier than 1185, but I do not think that any of them are much later than 1220, though from the fact that one of the medallions, and one only, contains a representation of the famous shrine--everywhere else it is the martyr's tomb in the crypt that is shown--the particular window containing it cannot have been executed before the latter date, as the shrine would not have been in existence. It may, however, have been done in that year. This window and the one next it seem to me to be by an inferior hand, and contain certain features not found in the others, but common in later glass of the thirteenth century. Whether this represents a gap in the execution of the windows it is, however, impossible to say without the evidence of the windows which have been destroyed. Seeing that from 1208 to 1213 the country was under an interdict, the existence of such a gap would not be surprising. None of the windows are entirely filled with their original glass, but four of them are nearly so. The gaps have been filled up with most ingenious imitations of the old glass, executed from 1853 onwards by Mr. Caldwell, under the direction of Mr. G. Austin, and so cleverly are they done that they are very difficult to detect by the eye alone. I do not think that "restoration" of old glass, by which is usually meant filling up or replacing it by imitation of the old work, is ever justifiable, but I am obliged to admit that, if it ever could be so, it has been justified here at Canterbury. I think there is not much doubt that in these four windows, at least, one can see the old glass better for the gaps being filled up with colour than if they had been left white. The principle, however, is a bad one, and I have seen little "restoration" elsewhere that did not disfigure the window. Fortunately a most indefatigable lover of stained glass, the Rev. J. G. Joyce, has left a series of coloured drawings of the glass as it was in 1841 before restoration. These and his manuscript notes are now in South Kensington Museum, together with some coloured tracings by a Mr. Hudson, and enable us to trace what has been done. From these we learn that in his time the place of the Crucifixion in the east window was occupied by a figure of the Virgin from a Jesse window, proving that there was once a Jesse window at Canterbury as well as elsewhere. Judging from the tracing, the scroll work of the "tree" follows closely the lines of those at Chartres and St. Denis, but is a little more elaborate and very beautiful. It seems to me more in keeping with the earlier than the later work at Canterbury. Unfortunately no one seems to know what has become of it; but Winston who saw it, quotes it in a lecture as "some of the oldest glass in the country." If the Cathedral authorities have got it stowed away anywhere I hope they will some day place it in one of the empty windows where it can be seen. [Illustration: PLATE XII AMAURY DE MONTFORT, FROM THE CHOIR CLERESTORY, CHARTRES CATHEDRAL Thirteenth Century] [Sidenote: The east window.] This east window, which is in "Becket's Crown," is one of the best preserved, only four or five of its four-and-twenty medallions being new. It is an example of an arrangement of subjects which occurs also at Bourges and at Chartres, and to which PP. Cahier and Martin in their work on Bourges give the name of "La Nouvelle Alliance." It represents, in fact, the foundation of the Church of Christ, as embodied in His Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension, in the coming of the Holy Ghost, and in the reign of the Son of Man on high, each subject being accompanied and illustrated by "types" from the Old Testament. Here, at Canterbury, on one side of the Crucifixion--which, though new, is doubtless a correct restoration as far as the subject goes--is the sacrifice of the Passover, and on the other is Moses striking the rock in the desert, from whence, as from the side of Christ, gushes the life-giving stream. Above is the sacrifice of Isaac; and below, the spies returning from Eshcol carrying the great cluster of grapes--a type of the wine of the Sacrament. Above this group come the Entombment (which is reproduced in Plate V.), the Resurrection, the Ascension, the Descent of the Holy Ghost, and Christ in Glory, each with its four types surrounding it. The Resurrection is modern, and so is the Escape of the Spies and the "Majesty." Noah and his Ark is a modern copy of the one in the north choir aisle, but the rest of the panels are original. The work seems to me fairly early in character, but it is not so well drawn as that in the north choir aisle, and there is not, to me, the same feeling for line in it. It is, however, very beautiful, and the whole window is a shimmer of iridescent colour. Plate VI. shows some of the scroll work that fills the spaces between the medallions. [Sidenote: The Becket windows.] The windows in the Trinity Chapel itself are all devoted to the tale of the posthumous miracles of the Blessed St. Thomas as related in the Chronicle of Prior Benedict, which affords a key to the pictures. The Chronicle is fascinating reading for the homely light it throws upon everyday life in England at the end of the twelfth century. By its means we can trace in the glass the story of the little boy who fell in the Medway while throwing stones at frogs, three of which, very large and green, are shown in the glass; of the workman William, who was overwhelmed by a fall of earth while digging a conduit near Gloucester; of the physician of Perigord and many others, who were one and all restored to life and health through prayer to the Blessed Martyr. There, too, is the tale of Eilward, whose eyes were put out by the magistrate for having, when drunk, broken into the house of Fulk (with whom he had quarrelled over a debt) and taken a pair of hedger's gloves and a whetstone; to whom St. Thomas, who seems to have thought the sentence excessive, appeared in a vision, and with a touch restored his eyesight. Here, too, we see the awful vengeance of the saint on the knight, Jordan Fitzeisulf, who, when his son was restored to life, meanly neglected to make the offering he had vowed at the Martyr's tomb. Three of the windows on the north side are fairly perfect, and two on the south side contain many of their original medallions. Of those on the north, one, the sixth from the west, is the best, and might be by the same hand as the east window. An interesting point about it is the border, of which the design is identical with that of a window at Sens which also deals with the history of St. Thomas à Becket. As this window contains the story of Jordan Fitzeisulf, I shall refer to it, if I have to do so again, as the Jordan Fitzeisulf window. The other two, the fourth and fifth from the west, are, I think, by an inferior hand, and contain, as I have said, certain features not found in the other windows, but common in later glass of the thirteenth century. One of them, the fifth from the west, is divided by the iron-work into four great circles, each of which contains four pear-shaped medallions, their points meeting in the middle. The spandrils between them are filled with scroll work on a ruby ground, not quite so good as those in the east window; but outside the large circles--and this is the important point--the ground is filled in with a regular mosaic of little pieces forming a repeat pattern as shown in Plate VIII. This is the only instance at Canterbury of this "mosaic diaper," as it is called, which is so common in glass a little later, and which from the fact that it could be done "by the yard," and if necessary by an apprentice, was a much cheaper method of filling in a background than by scroll work, which it soon completely superseded. It is noticeable that it is this window which in its uppermost medallion contains the representation already mentioned of the famous shrine, from which the saint is issuing and addressing a sleeping monk, who is thought to be the Prior Benedict, the chronicler of the miracles. In all the other medallions of the series it is the tomb of St. Thomas in the crypt, easily recognizable from the descriptions that remain, at which the sufferers pay their vows, so that it seems probable that the window was executed in, or soon after, the year 1220, in which the saint's body was removed to the shrine, but while the memory of the tomb in the crypt was still fresh. [Illustration: PLATE XIII THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT, FROM THE SOUTH AISLE, CHARTRES CATHEDRAL Thirteenth Century] The other, the fourth from the west, has a very remarkable peculiarity, very seldom met with in glass of the Early Period at all. The blue background to the figures in the medallions, which is of a paler and poorer quality than in the other windows, is covered all over with a thin "matt" of enamel, from which a delicate diaper pattern has been scratched out. Presumably the artist had for some reason been unable to get any more of the splendid deep blue glass, and used this means to give richness and texture to his background. The only other thirteenth century glass I know of in which at all the same thing has been done is at St. Urbain at Troyes, but that belongs, I believe, to quite the latter part of the century. It was a common device in the fourteenth century, but the patterns used then were of quite a different character. [Sidenote: Lincoln.] Except for the grisaille windows at York and Salisbury, the only other extensive remains of thirteenth century work in England are those in Lincoln Cathedral, which, however, are little more than wreckage, and consequently very difficult to date with any attempt at precision. The only window in which any of the glass is in its original position is the great rose window in the north transept, and even this, though the original design can still be made out, is much mutilated. The lancets under the rose in the south transept and the east windows of the choir aisles contain a miscellaneous collection of medallions, separated from their surrounding ornament and glazed in with remains of thirteenth century grisaille. Other medallions, too, have been used to fill gaps in the north rose, and the south rose is filled, with the exception of one light which retains its original fourteenth century foliage pattern, with scraps of thirteenth century ornament of which the effect, with the sunlight twinkling through, is wonderfully beautiful. The medallions are not, I think, all of one date, which is not surprising, for the filling of the windows of a big cathedral must always have taken many years. The difficulty of dating them is increased by the fact that much of the painting does not seem to have been so well "fired" as at Canterbury, and in many cases has perished altogether. This seems to have happened in recent years, for Mr. Westlake shows many details in his drawings of the glass which I cannot now distinguish. Where the painting remains we find that in a few of the medallions the drapery is drawn in the stiff manner of the twelfth and very early thirteenth century, but in most of them the later more flowing treatment prevails. In some, too, the blue of the backgrounds resembles that used at Canterbury, but in many, and notably in the north rose, it is of a purplish colour and much less agreeable. In a few it is of quite a grey blue. Nowhere can I trace the same hand as at Canterbury, and the borders and ornament are quite different; but that the artist had access to some at least of the same designs is shown by a medallion in the south choir aisle which represents Noah receiving the Dove, and is practically a replica of the Canterbury one in Plate IV., with a boat-like hull added to the Ark. It is not, however, nearly so good. According to Mr. Westlake the work at Lincoln strongly resembles that at Bourges, and to me it has something in common with that in the Sainte Chapelle at Paris. Lincoln Cathedral was not finished till after St Hugh's death in 1199, so none of the glass can be older than that. On the whole, I think the bulk of the glass is a little later than any but the very last of the work at Canterbury, that it is by a different hand, and shows less taste both in colour and design. Probably it was done between 1220 and 1240. [Sidenote: The south rose.] I am confirmed in this view by the examination of the fragments which fill the great south rose, which consist entirely of thirteenth century ornament and most probably once formed the setting of these same medallions. A little of it is scroll work, but the greater part is "mosaic diaper" of the kind shown in Plate VIII., and which is so characteristic of French work after 1220, whereas we only find it beginning at Canterbury. Some of the medallions are, however, very interesting, the best being those in which the drapery shows the earlier treatment. In the north choir aisle is a good one of the Israelites crossing a Red Sea of a fine streaky ruby, and in the south choir aisle is one of St. Thomas à Becket being conducted to Heaven by angels and carrying the damaged top of his head in his hands. By a touch of realism both parts of his head have been made of glass that has slight ruby streaks in it, giving it a gory appearance. This is the earliest example I know of the deliberate use of an accident of colouring in the glass to produce a realistic effect. [Illustration: PLATE XIV WORK OF CLEMENT OF CHARTRES IN ROUEN CATHEDRAL Late Thirteenth Century] Among the medallions which have been glazed into the north rose is one representing the funeral of St. Hugh of Lincoln in 1199, the coffin being carried by three archbishops and three kings. One of the kings was William of Scotland, and the other King John of England (the only occasion on which I know of that monarch appearing in a pleasant light), but the artist must have put the third king in for the sake of symmetry as there is no record of his presence. A curious medallion in the south transept shows Salome dancing before Herod, not in the languorous Oriental fashion one would have expected of her, but turning a somersault worthy of the music-hall stage, with a lavish display of red stockings. A similar treatment of the subject occurs at Bourges, and also in sculpture over one of the west doors at Rouen Cathedral. [Sidenote: The north rose.] The north rose still retains about three-quarters of its original glazing, and enables one to make out the design. In the centre is Christ, and in the four petal-like lights which surround Him are, or were, figures of the Blessed seated, not in circles but in horizontal rows. Filling the spandrils between these lights are four trefoils, of which two still each contain an angel swinging a censer, in an attitude ingeniously fitted to the shape of the light. Outside these, sixteen circular lights form a ring round the whole, and once represented the Second Coming of Christ. At the top is Christ seated on the rainbow, and in two lights on either side of Him are angels carrying instruments of the Passion. Next come St. Peter and the other Apostles, six in one light on each side, and below them, in the lights level with the centre, are the four archangels sounding trumpets. The lower half of the circle was probably devoted to the resurrection of the dead and perhaps their judgment, but of these only one light remains, showing the dead rising from their graves, the rest being filled with single figures from elsewhere. The spandrils between these circles are filled with little triangular lights forming an inner and an outer ring of sixteen each. Of these the inner ring is filled with white wavy pointed stars on a red ground and the outer with similar red stars on a dark blue ground, thus suggesting the idea--in _colour_ alone, without use of light or shade, of light and warmth radiating from the centre.[8] According to Mr. Westlake the central Christ has no stigmata, while the one in the outer circle has them; but the painting has now perished too much for me to see this even at close quarters. His theory is that the centre represents Christ as "The Word,--the uncreated Wisdom, as Creator, resting,"--and the outer circle shows His last coming as Judge. FOOTNOTE: [8] Were it not for the difference in the source of the light one would be reminded of Kipling's lines:-- "The first are white with the heat of Hell and the second are red with pain," and "... Tomlinson looked up and up, and saw against the night The belly of a tortured star blood-red in Hellmouth light; And Tomlinson looked down and down, and saw beneath his feet The frontlet of a tortured star milk-white in Hellmouth heat." VI THIRTEENTH CENTURY GLASS IN FRANCE (SENS AND CHARTRES) [Sidenote: Sens.] It was at Sens that Thomas à Becket took refuge during his exile. His mitre and chasuble are still preserved there, and the connection between the two places seems to have remained very intimate. It will be remembered that William of Sens was the first architect of the choir of Canterbury, and it is not surprising to find the resemblance between the cathedrals at the two places very marked indeed. Not only does one at once perceive the same hand in the architecture, but what remains of the early glass at Sens is quite incontestably the work of the same artist who gave us the east window and the Jordan Fitzeisulf window at Canterbury. [Sidenote: The Good Samaritan.] There are four of these windows at Sens, all in the north choir aisle. They have suffered a little from restoration but not very much. Their subjects respectively from left to right are, the Life and Death of St. Thomas à Becket, the Story of St. Eustace, the Parable of the Prodigal Son, and the Parable of the Good Samaritan. This last is another "type and antitype" window, and corresponds exactly in the arrangement of its subjects with one of the lost windows in the choir of Canterbury as described in the manuscript catalogue before mentioned. The verses, however, which were in the Canterbury window are omitted at Sens. To the mediæval mind the parable of the Good Samaritan was much more than a mere illustration of "neighbourliness." To them the "man who went down from Jerusalem"--the City of God--"to Jericho," was Adam leaving Paradise, the thieves were the seven deadly sins, the Priest and the Levite were the law of Moses, and the Good Samaritan was Christ Himself. It is this reading of the subject which is here illustrated. From the fact that at Sens it is isolated, while at Canterbury it was, as we have seen, one of a series, I think we may conclude that Sens is the later of the two. The drawing of the medallions resembles that of the older work at Canterbury, whereas the setting of them is a little later in character, showing the beginnings of "mosaic diaper." It seems to me probable, therefore, that for the subjects the actual drawings from Canterbury were used in a fresh setting. We know from the Treatise of Theophilus that designs for windows at this time were drawn out in full size on whitened boards, which also served apparently as the bench on which the window was put together. Not much would be left of the drawing when the window was finished, and the bench would be re-whitewashed for the next window; but from the fact that similar treatments of the same subject repeatedly occur, it seems to me not unlikely that drawings of figure subjects for medallions were kept on separate sheets of parchment, or in a book, and used again. [Illustration: PLATE XV THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT, POITIERS Late Thirteenth Century] To the scene of the Good Samaritan rescuing the traveller there are four scenes showing as a "type" the Passion of Christ. Of these the Crucifixion is treated in the most striking and original way, which I rather think occurs also at Bourges. On one side of the cross stands a female figure wearing a crown and with a nimbus, and receiving in a chalice the blood which flows from the side of Christ; on the other, a six-winged seraph is sheathing a sword. The latter is, no doubt, a symbol of the peace made between God and man by the atonement on the Cross,--I think PP. Cahier and Martin identify him with the angel that guarded the gates of Paradise,--while the crowned female figure is, of course, the Church. [Sidenote: The Prodigal Son.] The next window, containing the Parable of the Prodigal Son, differs from the others in having straight iron-work and a more formal arrangement of the medallions. I do not think, however, that it is older. One charming panel in it is a good illustration of the attitude of the artists of that day on the question of colour. The Prodigal Son is feeding pigs, of which one is white, two blue, one green, and one red! The next scene shows him making his way homeward, undeterred by the efforts to hamper him of several devils as gaily and variously coloured as the pigs. There is considerable dramatic power shown in this figure of the Prodigal. Let no one call the drawing of this period _bad_ drawing. It would be as true to call Japanese drawing "bad." It is drawing in a convention--a convention different from our own, but which, once mastered, set the artist free to express action and emotion without being further hampered by technical difficulties. [Sidenote: The Becket window.] Of the other two, the one dealing with the story of St. Thomas à Becket is the one which most reminds me of Canterbury. Here there is no doubt that we have the same hand that gave us the Jordan Fitzeisulf window there. The border is identical,--an unusual thing at that time even in the same church,--and the representation of Becket's tomb in the crypt is precisely the same. [Sidenote: The story of St. Eustace.] I am less certain about the St. Eustace window. Its general effect is very different from the others, being flatter and less sparkling; but this may be due to the work of a restorer. The figures, however, do not fit and decorate the medallions as well as in the other windows or in those at Canterbury; in many cases part of a figure has to project into the border.[9] The medallions themselves, too, are of rather awkward shapes, and the design of the iron-work not very restful. The scroll work, however, is very like that in the east window at Canterbury--so like that one can hardly doubt their common origin. It may be that here, too, the artist has used some one else's figure designs, less successfully than in the Good Samaritan window. There is a Life of St. Eustace at Chartres in which the scenes bear a general resemblance to those at Sens, but decorate their spaces much better. To sum up, I think that these windows at Sens, with the possible exception of the Life of St. Eustace, are the work of the same artist as the Jordan Fitzeisulf window and the east window in "Becket's Crown" at Canterbury; that in the Good Samaritan window he was using the cartoons of his master, who designed the windows in Canterbury choir, of which two, as we have seen, remain. He may have come from Canterbury at the time of the interdict in King John's reign (1208-1213), when all work there must have been suspended, and not returned, leaving another to finish the work after the interdict was removed. It would be a very probable date for the Sens work, but in the absence of the destroyed windows at Canterbury it is pure conjecture. [Illustration: PLATE XVI HERALDIC PANEL, FROM THE CLERESTORY OF THE NAVE, YORK MINSTER Early Fourteenth Century] [Sidenote: Chartres.] Meanwhile, ever since the fire in 1194, the people of Chartres, careless of their personal losses, had been working in a flame of enthusiasm and devotion at the rebuilding of their Cathedral. Every one, nobles, merchants, craftsmen, and peasants, gave what they could. Some gave money, some materials, some provisions for the workmen. Those who had nothing else gave their labour, even harnessing themselves to carts to drag stone for the building. Heaven itself seemed to lend its aid, for it is said that Our Lady worked many miracles of healing at her shrine at Chartres, which soon became a thirteenth century Lourdes, to which pilgrims came from all countries, leaving offerings of money or jewels. Finally, in 1210 the main part of the building seems to have been finished. "Entirely rebuilt in hewn stone," says William le Breton some years later, "the Cathedral of Chartres has nothing to fear from temporal fire from now till the day of judgment, and will save from eternal fire the many Christians who by their alms have contributed to its reconstruction." The great church was now ready to receive its decoration: The altars, the painting, the sculpture were still to be done, and above all the one hundred and twenty-five great windows, with the three great roses, and forty-seven lesser ones had to be filled with the glass which still makes Chartres Cathedral one of the wonders of the world. In the year 1226 Saint Louis came to the throne. Eight years later he acquired the Comté of Chartres, and lent his powerful aid to the work, giving the great rose window in the north transept and the five lancets below it, as well as other windows. The King of Castile gave a window too, and following these royal donors a crowd of princes, seigneurs, and churchmen added their gifts, while forty-seven windows were given by the Guilds of Chartres alone. Yet even so it was thirty years more before the bulk of the work was completed, and the actual consecration did not take place, for some reason, till October 17, 1260, when it was performed with great pomp and rejoicing before Saint Louis and his family and an immense concourse of prelates, nobles, and common people. There is nothing in the world quite like the Cathedral of Chartres. In the quality of its work Canterbury is as good or even better, but for the proper appreciation of the glass of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries it is necessary to have _every_ window of the building filled with it in order that the eye may get used to the gloom and attuned to the pitch of the colour; and it is only at Chartres that this is even approximately the case. I know nothing like the effect on one of several hours spent in the building, the awe and wonder, mingled with a strange sort of exaltation, which it produces. Even when its windows were complete, Canterbury can hardly have had quite the same effect, for its clerestory is much smaller, and it has not the splendid width of nave and choir which enables one to see the great clerestory windows of Chartres so well. In the thirteenth century the nave at Canterbury was still the old Norman nave of Lanfranc, of which the windows were, as an old drawing shows, comparatively small; nor indeed do we know for certain if they had coloured glass in them. York is almost as complete as Chartres, but the glass there is nearly all of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and though it is in a sense quite as beautiful, with all its great windows twinkling with lovely colour, yet the subjects are too small to be seen from below, and there is nothing like the awe-inspiring majesty of the ranks of colossal saints which fill the clerestory of Chartres. That the master or masters of Canterbury and Sens came to Chartres is, I think, certain; the Canterbury tradition is traceable in so much of the work. Here I imagine he or they ended their life's work, leaving their pupils and their pupils' successors to carry it on in the later style which they developed as they went along. One of these, no doubt, was that Clement of Chartres who signed his name in the window at Rouen which Mr. Saint has sketched in Plate XIV. I think I can trace his hand in some of the windows on the south side of the nave at Chartres, in the treatment of the mosaic diaper in which various shades of blue have been so skilfully blended as to produce, as at Rouen, a lovely play and ripple of colour over the whole surface of the window. Perhaps the most notable development of the style at Chartres is the increase in the use of mosaic diaper, of the kind illustrated in Plate VIII., as a setting for the medallions, instead of the leafy scroll work formerly used. At Canterbury the mosaic diaper setting is the exception, only occurring in one window; at Sens it is introduced tentatively, but at Chartres it is the rule. The scroll-work filling only occurs, I think, in three windows of the lower tier. One of these is the St. Eustace window already mentioned, which to me is strongly reminiscent of Canterbury work--more so, indeed, as far as the medallions go, than the similar one at Sens. [Illustration: PLATE XVII DETAILS FROM WINDOWS IN THE NORTH AISLE OF NAVE, YORK MINSTER Fourteenth Century] [Sidenote: The four extremities.] It is only at the four extremities of the Cathedral at Chartres that we find any connected idea governing the choice of subjects. The three twelfth century windows were already, as I have said, devoted to the ancestry and life of Christ, and the thirteenth century rose window above them shows His second coming. The seven great lancets of the apse are given up to the glorification of the Virgin, the especial patroness of Chartres. The north rose and the lights below it seem to show the human ancestry of Christ culminating in Saint Anne and the Virgin, while opposite in the south transept is the Christ of the Apocalypse. In other parts of the church the choice of theme seems to have been left to the taste of the donors, subject only to the general arrangement of medallion windows in the lower tier and huge single figures in the clerestory lights. Thus in the lower windows we find the story of Noah next to that of St. Lubin, Bishop of Chartres; the story of St. Eustace next that of Joseph. One or two of the clerestory windows are medallion windows, the medallions being on a very large scale, but most of them are filled, as I say, with single figures of saints, nearly twice life-size. So large are they that their faces have had to be composed of several pieces of glass. A brownish pink is used for the flesh, and the eyes are separate pieces of white with the pupil painted in. As the flesh colour has in many cases darkened considerably from the effects of time and weather, the effect of the brilliant whites of the eyes is somewhat weird and startling. Here again there seems to be no special idea governing the order of subjects, which were probably left to the donors, who would choose their patron saints. [Sidenote: The Guild windows.] It is at Chartres that for the first time, as I believe, the donors of the windows are made much account of in the glass. It is true that at St. Denis there are two very tiny figures of Abbot Suger,--in one case, prostrate, in simple monk's dress, at the feet of the Virgin in the Annunciation, and in the other, holding up a model of the Jesse window,--and there is a donor at Poitiers, but at Canterbury and Sens there is nothing to show by whom the windows were given. At Chartres, however, it is far otherwise. Partly, perhaps, because of the emulation that had been shown in presenting windows, nearly every one contains some record of its donor. In the case of those given by the Guilds this takes the form of a little panel introduced into the bottom of the window, showing members of the Guild at work--bakers, butchers, tanners, furriers, money-changers and so on--charming and valuable little pictures of the everyday life of the time. More noble donors are represented by their portraits, either kneeling at the foot of the window or, as in the clerestory of the choir, where the rose-lights of the tracery are filled with a splendid series of princes and nobles armed and on horseback, each recognizable by his shield and banner. [Sidenote: Amaury de Montfort.] The one illustrated in Mr. Saint's sketch in Plate XII. is Amaury de Montfort, brother of our own Simon de Montfort who led the rebellion of the barons against Henry III., and son of that Simon de Montfort who led the crusade against the Albigenses and was made Lord of Languedoc for his pains. Amaury, who succeeded him in 1218, finding himself not strong enough to hold the country, had ceded his rights six years later to the King of France, and was made in return Constable of France. [Sidenote: Pierre Mauclerc.] The great rose window of the south transept and the lancets below it are the gift of Pierre Mauclerc, Count of Dreux and Duke of Brittany. His arms are in the trefoils of the rose and in the central lancet. At the foot of the lancets on either side are portraits of himself, his wife, Alix de Thouars, and his son and daughter, all kneeling. From the fact that his wife died in 1226 it has been argued that the window must have been executed, or at least designed, before that date. I do not know that the argument is absolutely conclusive, but the fact seems probable. The window, however, cannot be many years older than this date. The choir would almost certainly be the first part of the church to be glazed, and the windows in the clerestory there were certainly not finished till after 1220. One, indeed, has the figure of a king of France on horseback as donor, who has always been called St. Louis. It is, however, quite possible, as far as I can see, that the figure is his father, Louis VIII., or even Philip Augustus, who died in 1223, for he bears the lilies of France only, without the castle of Castile. [Sidenote: St. Louis.] Assuming therefore that the date of the south rose is shortly before 1226, then Pierre Mauclerc, at the time he gave this and the other windows in the church which bear his arms, was practically an independent sovereign. When St. Louis ascended the throne as a boy in 1226, under the Regency of his mother, the wise and beautiful, if somewhat imperious, Blanche of Castile, Pierre Mauclerc, in company with Thibault of Champagne, who was Count of Chartres, and many other barons of France, took up arms against his sovereign, scorning to acknowledge the overlordship of a boy and a woman. Eight years later the boy and the woman, aided by the devoted support of the Commons, had brought them all to submission, and Thibault had yielded up Chartres to the Crown. It seems to me not unlikely that this latter event is marked by the gift of the north rose and the lancets below, which contain St. Louis's own arms and those of his mother. If so, the glass of Chartres may be considered as a landmark in the history of the growth of France into a nation. Whether this is so or not, the north rose cannot in any case be earlier than 1226, the year of St. Louis's accession. [Sidenote: The north rose and lancets.] This north rose, or Rose of France as it is called, has in its centre light the Virgin with the Child, in a purple tunic with a blue robe and nimbus against a ground of rich ruby. In the twelve radiating lights round her are: above her head, four doves; on her right and left, four angels,--two on either side,--two incensing and two holding candles; and below, four six-winged seraphs. Outside these are twelve kings of Judah, the Virgin's ancestors, and outside these again is a ring of the Prophets who foretold Christ's coming. Below, in the five great lancets, is a huge figure of Saint Anne carrying the infant Virgin, having on her right King David and on her left Solomon, and beyond these Melchizedek and Aaron, types of Christ as King and High Priest. Below St. Anne is a great shield with the arms of St. Louis, but under each of the four other figures is a kind of "predella," in which are shown, as a contrast: below David, Saul falling on his sword; below Solomon, Jeroboam worshipping the golden calves; below Melchizedek, Nebuchadnezzar; and below Aaron, Pharaoh being whirled away, horse and man, in the Red Sea. In this last scene the artist has been in a dilemma. The backgrounds of these lancets are alternately red and blue, and Pharaoh's should have been blue, but it represents the _Red_ Sea, and the artist has had to get out of the difficulty by making it a kind of maroon purple. [Sidenote: The south rose and lancets.] The idea of the window is the same as that of Jesse Tree: Humanity preparing, through the ages, for the coming of Christ, and culminating in His Mother. The rose and lancets opposite show the fulfilment. Here Christ is seen enthroned in the centre of the rose, as St. John beheld Him, surrounded by angels and by the four great beasts, and by the four-and-twenty elders seated on their thrones, in a double ring round the whole. In the five lancets below are, in the centre, the Virgin and Child, and on either side the four Evangelists, borne, by a quaint conceit, like children on the strong shoulders of the major Prophets. The general arrangement of the windows is the same, but the detail seems to me to bear out the supposition that the southern rose is by some years the earlier of the two. In both windows the outer and the inner ring of figures are contained in circular medallions, but where in the south rose the "filling in" is done by means of scroll work, in the north transept "mosaic diaper" is everywhere used. The borders of the lancets, too, are of an older type, and more beautiful in the south transept than in the north. Both, however, are very lovely, and the more I look at them the more I admire the nameless workers who could so use red and blue--such difficult colours to combine well. For red and blue are everywhere the groundwork of the colour scheme--green, purple, brown, and yellow being only used in small quantities to relieve them. It must be remembered, too, that the artist _could never see the effect of his work till it was finished_. Nowadays the stained-glass painter can put his work together temporarily by fastening it with beeswax to a large sheet of white glass, and can work on it so; but the artist of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, as we know from Theophilus, and as was probably the case for long after, did all his work "on the bench." The most he could do would be to hold a few pieces together in his hands up to the light, but for the rest he had to trust to his experience and training. Not quite always did he succeed. Much depended upon his getting just the right quality of blue, and sometimes this seems to have failed him. I have already noticed the rather purplish blue which is found in some of the windows at Lincoln, and this occurs again at Chartres in the central lancet of the apse, and the one next it on the north containing the big angel illustrated in Plate X. This purplish blue when interspersed with red produces at a distance the effect of a rather unpleasant mauve, making these two windows less attractive in colour than the others. This purplish blue occurs again in the north rose of Notre Dame at Paris, but there the artist has countered it by the use of a good deal of a rather sharp pale green, which completely balances it and turns the window into perhaps the most glorious of all the great rose windows of France. [Illustration: PLATE XVIII BORDER AND SHIELDS, FROM PETER DE DENE WINDOW, NORTH AISLE OF NAVE, YORK MINSTER, WITH DETAILS FROM WINDOW IN SOUTH AISLE AND SKETCH OF CLERESTORY WINDOW Fourteenth Century] [Sidenote: The apse.] Five of the seven great lancets of the clerestory of the apse are devoted to the glorification of the Virgin Mother, or perhaps one should say, to the fact of the Virgin Birth. This is what one would expect at Chartres. Not only is the church dedicated to Notre Dame, but the place in the Middle Ages was held sacred to her above all others in France. Tradition says that the Church occupies the site of a grotto in which the Druids worshipped "the Virgin that shall bear a child," of whom they had set up a wooden image, which was preserved by the Christians when the grotto became a Christian church. Certain it is that down to the Revolution a very ancient and quite black wooden statue was worshipped in the Chapel of Notre Dame Sous-terre--the ancient grotto--where it had been at all events since the days of Fulbert, who built the eleventh century Cathedral. The Sansculottes burnt it, and its place has been taken by a modern work which professes to be a copy of it. Chartres, too, can boast of the possession of the Holy Veil. Given to Charlemagne by the Byzantine Emperor, Constantine Porphyrogenitus, it has escaped successive fires, and though cut in two at the Revolution, is still preserved in the Treasury. Owing to the great height and narrowness of the lancets, each contains several figures or figure subjects, one above the other. In the head of the central lancet is Our Lady enthroned, with her Child on her knee, and below her are the Annunciation and the Salutation. In the head of the light on either side is an angel incensing, and in the lights beyond these, a cherub and a seraph. Below these are Moses, Aaron,[10] David, and the four major Prophets--Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel--and Daniel. The arrangement of these figures seems, however, quite haphazard, and as if the original design had not been carried out. The two remaining lancets, on the extreme right and left, contain, respectively, scenes from the lives of St. John the Baptist and St. Peter. How far these are meant to have a bearing on the central subject I am not quite sure. The uppermost subjects in them are the Baptism of Christ and the "Domine, quo vadis?" [Sidenote: The big angel.] The Big Angel (Plate X.) on the north side of the Virgin is especially puzzling. The other six lights of the apse have each three figures or figure subjects, set one above the other in elongated medallions,--Plate XI. shows two of them, King David and Ezekiel,--and at the foot of each is a panel showing the donors. The other figures are so set as to form regular tiers round the apse, but this angel is twice the size of any of them and forces the figure below--Aaron--down out of line, leaving no room for another figure between him and the donor. Perhaps this light represents part of a design for the apse which was afterwards modified in order to get more figures in. The donor is one Gaufridus, who has been identified with a certain Godfrey d'Illiers, a gentleman of the neighbourhood, whereas the rest are given by the Guilds--the bakers, butchers, money-changers, and furriers, which latter are seen actually bringing their window. The Prophets bear a good deal of resemblance to the figures from the clerestory at Canterbury. The Isaiah at both places wears the same curious headdress--a little round hat, not unlike the latest form of "bowler" of our own days. The figures are not from the same drawings, for the attitudes are different, but the Chartres artist has at least remembered Canterbury choir, which was probably the work of his master, thirty or forty years earlier. [Sidenote: The canopy.] Notice the simple architectural canopy over this angel. All the single figures at Chartres and in most other thirteenth century windows have them, and their counterparts may be found in the canopies over the sculptured figures on the porches outside. They occur also at Canterbury over some of the surviving figures from the clerestory, but it is noteworthy that whereas at Canterbury the canopies are round arched (and the same is true of the architecture in the medallion windows), at Chartres they are nearly all either cusped or pointed, which I take as additional evidence in support of my opinion that the Canterbury work is the older of the two. [Illustration: PLATE XIX ST. MARGARET, WEST WINDOW OF NORTH AISLE OF NAVE, YORK MINSTER Fourteenth Century] In thirteenth century work these canopies are a fairly unobtrusive feature, but in the next period they were destined, as we shall see later, to be developed out of all reason or proportion. FOOTNOTES: [9] This is a later feature, and found at Bourges and elsewhere. [10] The miraculous budding of Aaron's rod was considered a type of the Virgin Birth. VII OTHER THIRTEENTH CENTURY WINDOWS [Sidenote: Salisbury and Peterborough.] A single band of craftsmen might, as far as we can now tell, have been responsible for nearly all the stained glass that was produced at any one time in the twelfth century in England and the north of France; but by the time the Trinity Chapel at Canterbury was finished, a great many such bands must have been at work, yet all deriving their art from the same source--the school of Chartres, St. Denis, and Canterbury. The output was enormous, especially in the first half of the thirteenth century. I have already spoken of Lincoln, but Salisbury and Peterborough were once rich in glass of the thirteenth century, that of Peterborough--now destroyed--being known to have been given, some of it at least, as early as 1214, and York has the famous "Five Sisters." [Sidenote: Bourges.] In France, Bourges is only second to Chartres for the quantity and interest of its early glass, which was certainly begun long before the windows of Chartres were finished. Every one knows the rose windows of Notre Dame at Paris, and besides these Amiens, Beauvais, Laon, Rheims, Tours, Soissons, Auxerre, and in fact nearly all the great cathedrals of France, contain glass of the period, while fragments of it are to be found in many parish churches both in England and France. [Sidenote: Westwell.] At Westwell in Kent, for instance, is a Jesse Tree of 1240-1250 which is well worth study, in which the details of the foliage resemble fragments of one at Salisbury and another at Troyes, and show the development that had taken place from the Jesse Trees of Chartres and St. Denis. It is impossible, however, in the limits of this work to describe even all the important windows of this period, and I have taken those I have already described as typical of their time and as together showing the progress of the development of the art. [Illustration: PLATE XX ST. STEPHEN, FROM SOUTH AISLE OF NAVE, YORK MINSTER Fourteenth Century] [Sidenote: The Sainte Chapelle.] The most complete example of the work of the latter part of the thirteenth century is the Sainte Chapelle in Paris, built by St. Louis to contain the Crown of Thorns, which he had purchased with other relics from the Emperor of Constantinople, who was then in need of ready money. The Chapel was consecrated in 1248, but although some at least of the windows are said to have been prepared beforehand and to have been in their place on that occasion, yet the series was certainly not completed till after the death of St. Louis in 1270, as that event is represented in one of them. The glass has unfortunately suffered a good deal from restoration, and it is difficult now to say quite how much beauty it once had, but it must be confessed that at present it gives one none of the joy and wonder of Chartres. Yet the very design of the Chapel shows the importance which the art had now attained, for the building is constructed entirely with a view to being filled with stained glass, being in fact a mere glass-house with no wall spaces at all. If the colour effect may be judged of from the specimens of the original glass now in South Kensington Museum, the place must have been a wondrous Aladdin's cave of jewels, but at the same time it may be doubted whether the arrangement was a wise one. The windows at Chartres gain immensely by the spaces of gloom between them, whereas here the eye gets no rest. In detail, apart from colour, the work shows a certain falling off. The artist seems to have been cramped by the necessity of adapting the medallion window to such narrow lights. One misses the fine broad border which does so much to "pull together" the earlier medallion windows. The borders at the Sainte Chapelle are narrow and uninteresting, and even so the medallions have sometimes to overlap them. [Sidenote: Work of Clement of Chartres at Rouen.] On the other hand, the work of Clement of Chartres in Rouen Cathedral, which is as late as 1290-1295, is as good as anything that was done in the thirteenth century. Besides a great many broken remains of thirteenth century work in the nave, there are five complete windows in the ambulatory of the apse. Two of these between them illustrate the story of Joseph, and are particularly beautiful. One of them (Plate XIV.) is signed by Clement of Chartres, and the other is obviously by the same hand. I should hesitate, however, to say positively that the other three are his work too, but I think two of them may be. Of these, one contains in its lowest section the story of the Good Samaritan, with other subjects above which I have not identified, and the other--a very good one--the story of St. Julian, which is a parallel to that of Oedipus except that, being Christian, it ends with atonement and forgiveness. The fifth window illustrates the Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension of Christ. It is hardly as good as the others, and is very red and hot in general colour. The filling in, of yellow suns on a blue ground, is very unlike any other thirteenth century work. On the whole this window seems to me to show a certain restlessness, indicative of the change of style that was so soon to follow. The redness, however, may perhaps be intentional, as being appropriate to the subject, for of the three twelfth century windows in the west end of Chartres Cathedral, the one which illustrates the Passion is far redder than the others. The iron-work of these windows shows a return to the straight-bar system, but the relation of the medallions to the iron-work is, as may be seen by the illustration, wholly different to what it was in the twelfth century. By the end of the thirteenth century the bent iron-work has wholly disappeared. Before leaving the Early Period I must touch upon another of its developments, namely, the grisaille window. [Sidenote: Grisaille windows.] Side by side with the richly coloured windows which we have been considering, there had grown up during the thirteenth century a style of window in which a wholly different effect was aimed at. These are what are called grisaille windows, in which the bulk of the glass is white, only studded here and there with jewels of colour and with, perhaps, a coloured border, the surface of the white glass being variegated and ornamented with delicate patterns in painted line work. The effect of this in old glass is very beautiful,--there are few things lovelier than "the Five Sisters" at York,--but all modern attempts to imitate it have been hopeless failures, looking like so much transparent paper. Perhaps our modern white glass is too clear and hard-looking, or the difference may be merely that between the work of those who are artists and those who are not. The causes which led to the development of this style of window were probably two: one, the desire for more light, of which the richly coloured windows admitted but little; and the other, simply economy, for a window of this sort could be produced comparatively cheaply. Then, too, the Cistercians, whose rule, adopted in the twelfth century, prohibited the use of colour altogether, had shown what could be done in patterns of white glass and lead alone. Unless you count the "gryphon windows" in St. Denis, which are mainly the work of Viollet-le-Duc, grisaille seems almost wholly a development of the thirteenth century. It is interesting to see that just as the design of the coloured window seems always to have been conceived as a light pattern on a dark ground, so the earliest grisaille, even though the quantity of white far exceeds the colour, still seems to have been conceived as a white pattern on a coloured ground, the ground being, as it were, almost entirely hidden by the pattern. Later this idea gets reversed, and the coloured pieces are mere jewels or lines contained in the pattern. In a white window the leads, from their greater thickness, are more conspicuous than the traced lines of the painting, and in consequence it is upon the leads that the artist depends for the main features of his design. The earliest grisaille windows may be divided into two classes: those in which the pattern is formed of narrow "straps" of white glass interlacing or seeming to interlace; and the other in which the leads form a flat geometrical pattern, as at Lincoln. The painted pattern on the glass consists of branching scroll work in simple outline, forming stems and the round-lobed leaves which were the thirteenth century convention for foliage. In the earlier work the ground is covered with delicate cross-hatching, which at a distance resolves itself into a pearly grey, against which the scroll work stands out white. At first, too, the painted pattern is, so to speak, contained within the leading, and merely enriches and emphasizes the pattern formed by it; but in later work, towards the end of the century, it becomes independent of the leading and grows through it, spreading over the surface of the window in graceful curves like a creeper over a trellis. The influence of the medallion window is often seen in contemporary grisaille, of which the design frequently consists of interlacing medallions of strap-work of the same shape as those in the coloured windows. [Sidenote: Rheims.] [Sidenote: Angers, Soissons, and Chartres.] The ornament surrounding some of the figures in the triforium of St. Remi at Rheims, and which Mr. Westlake considers to date from about 1200, contains so much colour as to be hardly grisaille, and the same may be said of one of the lancets in the north transept of Lincoln Cathedral, of which the others contain grisaille of a later date. There is, however, some very early thirteenth century grisaille--true grisaille, with interlacing bands--at St. Serge at Angers, and some at Soissons of about 1230. Chartres has four or five grisaille windows, of the middle of the century or a little earlier, in the apsidal chapels. These have broad, richly coloured borders, a very beautiful feature, which one finds also at Salisbury. [Sidenote: Westminster Abbey.] According to Professor Lethaby[11] the original glazing of Westminster Abbey, begun in 1253, was, at least in the lower windows, of grisaille, of which some remains are in the triforium. From the fabric rolls we know the name of the master-glazier, Lawrence, presumably an Englishman, and the weekly accounts show wages paid to fourteen glaziers in all. [Sidenote: Salisbury.] The few remains of old glass which that eighteenth century vandal, the architect Wyatt, has left us at Salisbury include some very beautiful and interesting specimens of thirteenth century grisaille, of which the date is, according to Winston, from 1240 to 1270. In most of these the pattern when analysed is found to be formed of overlapping (not interlacing) geometrical forms outlined in bands of colour and filled in with white, painted with patterns of the usual conventional scroll work on a cross-hatched ground. There are besides, however, some remains of ornamental glazing of an interesting and rare kind in which there is no painting whatever, and the pattern is obtained by lead-work alone, forming diagonal white bands interlacing in various ways on a white ground, and containing here and there between them little square dies of blue. Some coloured tracings of these may be seen in South Kensington Museum. [Sidenote: "The Five Sisters" of York.] The finest grisaille windows in England or, for that matter, in the world, are the five immense lancets which fill the end of the north transept of York Minster and are known as "the Five Sisters." Their date is probably about 1260. The iron-work in them is straight-barred, and the massive main bars, placed every 3½ feet or so, divide the space between the broad borders into a succession of squares, one above the other, each one of which is occupied by a medallion--a different shape in each light--outlined with a narrow band of colour, and having bosses of colour at the centre and between the medallions. One hardly can trace the plan of the painted pattern on the white, which besides is much confused with centuries of breakage and repair, and one is only conscious of it as texture, which indeed is its _raison d'être_. Five feet wide, and towering to a height of more than 50 feet, each "sister" is a shimmering mass of pearl and silver, delicately veined and jewelled with colour to give quality to its whiteness. [Illustration: PLATE XXI THE NATIVITY, UPPER PART OF EAST WINDOW OF NORTH AISLE, ALL SAINTS', NORTH STREET, YORK Fourteenth Century] [Sidenote: "Quarries."] The same tendency that caused the artist to substitute mosaic diaper for the scroll work in the setting of his medallions in coloured windows led him in time to fill large spaces of his grisaille windows with painted "quarries." "Quarries" (from the French _carré_) are small diamond-shaped panes, and were then the quickest and most economical way of glazing any given space. Sometimes towards the end of the century the painted pattern ran over the quarries independently of them, but more often in the thirteenth century each quarry was a repetition of the next, the whole thus forming a regular diaper. Sometimes each quarry has a thick black line painted parallel to two, or sometimes all four, of its sides at a distance of three quarters of an inch or so, leaving the space between it and the lead blank while the rest of the quarry is patterned. The effect of this when glazed together is that of interlacing white bands on a ground of pattern. Apart from economy, the principal motive for the use of grisaille in windows was, as I have said, the need for light. In the Cathedral of Chartres, where there is no grisaille except that in the chapels already mentioned, and where practically all the other windows are filled with richly coloured glass, it is quite difficult to read in the nave on a dull day. It is possible, therefore, that in some churches a certain number of windows may have been deliberately reserved for grisaille. [Sidenote: Combination of grisaille and figure work.] It is not, however, till the very end of the thirteenth century, and then only rarely, that coloured figures and grisaille were combined in the same light as shown in the example from Poitiers in Plate XV., though this is a salient feature of the style of the succeeding period. In the clerestory windows of the choir of St. Pierre at Chartres, which belong to the closing years of the century, the problem has been attacked in an interesting and unique manner, but as the glass in that church really marks the transition to the succeeding period, I shall deal with it later. [Sidenote: Conclusion of the Early Period.] I must now leave the Early Period. If I have devoted a larger space to it than I have to give to either of those succeeding, it is because to me it is the most interesting of all. In all later work artists seem, by comparison, unsatisfied and trying, sometimes with more, sometimes with less, success, to reconcile opposing ideals in their work. Never again does one find the same perfect understanding of the limitations of the material, together with such daring and grandeur of conception, and such depth and earnestness in the ideas expressed. [Illustration: PLATE XXII ST. JOHN, FROM EAST WINDOW OF SOUTH AISLE, ST. MARTIN'S, MICKLEGATE, YORK Fourteenth Century] FOOTNOTE: [11] "_Westminster Abbey and the Kings' Craftsmen._" VIII THE STYLE OF THE SECOND PERIOD Although the earliest known work in the style of the Second Period may possibly date from a little before 1300, and although the transition to the succeeding style had certainly begun by 1380, yet, roughly speaking, the limits of the period are those of the fourteenth century, and it is not unusual to speak loosely of the style as the fourteenth century style in glass. The interest of the period lies perhaps rather in its tendencies and development than in its actual achievements, which by general consent are inferior not only to those of the First, but to those of the Third, Period. It is a period of transition and uncertainty, of the loss of old ideals when men "follow wandering fires." [Sidenote: Weakening of the religious motive.] Most of all does one notice the change of mental attitude. The fierce missionary zeal for the Faith, the mystic symbolism, has gone. The wonderful two hundred years which produced St. Bernard, St. Francis, St. Dominic, St. Louis and the Crusades, and which saw most of the great cathedrals built are over, and a reaction sets in. Never again do we find a whole people, from princes to ploughmen, neglecting their personal affairs and combining to build and decorate worthily a glorious house of God. Churchmen are growing comfortable and apathetic, if not corrupt, and laymen are either uninterested in religion or critical. Towards the end of the century this feeling gives rise to Wyclif's movement and we get _Piers Plowman_, with its fierce denunciation of the means by which money was obtained for windows and of "lordings" who "writen in windowes of their well deedes." With the religious motive thus weakened the artist seems to have interested himself chiefly in the technical side of his art,--he may even have talked of "Art for Art's sake,"--and the usual result follows. The lack of the underlying and unifying motive produces a want of proportion in the parts. The canopies become much more important than the figures under them; narrative subjects become much more rare, and when they occur have none of the dramatic intensity of those of the past age. Instead we have an endless series of single figures of saints, without character and each in exactly the same affected attitude, like an elongated letter S. In search of inspiration the artist turns to the study of nature and the literal reproduction of plant forms in ornament. In the figures too, although the attitudes are conventional the drawing of drapery is less so, and towards the end of the period the artist is tentatively feeling his way towards modelling. [Sidenote: Progress in technique.] One thing indeed we find during this time, which is within the power of every artist in times of artistic dearth, namely, a steady grappling with practical problems offered by the changed conditions, whereby the way was cleared for the new life that came into the art in the succeeding age. For instance, by showing how coloured figure work could be combined with grisaille in the same window they solved the problem of lighting; by the invention of the silver stain they made it possible to make white glass more interesting and to blend it better with colour; while in drawing they made steady progress towards a style more in keeping with the standards of the time. [Sidenote: Characteristics.] The outward and visible characteristics of this period as compared with the preceding one are as follows:-- (1) The simplification of the iron-work. (2) The invention and use of silver stain. (3) The combination of figure work and grisaille. (4) The extraordinary development of the canopy. (5) The style of drawing the figure. (6) The use of natural plant forms in ornament. (7) The quality of the glass, and the colours used. (8) The use of painted diaper patterns on the coloured backgrounds. * * * * * [Illustration: PLATE XXIII ST. BARNABAS, FROM CLERESTORY OF NAVE OF ST. PIERRE, CHARTRES Early Fourteenth Century] [Sidenote: Tracery] [Sidenote: The iron-work.] (1) _The Simplification of the Iron-Work._--The windows of the twelfth century had been huge single lights, but the thirteenth century had seen the gradual evolution of tracery, beginning with the grouping of lancets in pairs under a rose light above. Gradually each lancet was again subdivided into a pair of lights and a rose, the spandrils were pierced, till, at the close of the century, the glazier had to design his window to fit a row of narrow lancets divided by slender mullions, which above branched into an elaborate mass of tracery containing a multitude of roses, quatrefoils, trefoils and little openings of all shapes and sizes. With this division of the window into comparatively narrow lights the need for the elaborate iron lattice of the preceding age disappeared, its work being now largely taken up by the stone-work. Instead of lights from six to nine feet wide the glazier had now to deal with lights three and a half feet wide at most, and often much narrower, and in consequence all that was necessary was a series of horizontal bars connecting the mullions, which themselves take the place of the upright bars of former days. In windows of this time, then, and later, massive rebated bars are fixed horizontally in the stone-work at intervals of between three and four feet, and these with the mullions really form the framework into the square openings of which the panels of the glazing were inserted separately. Between, and parallel with, these massive bars, three or four light "saddle-bars" are fixed on the inside of the glass, which keep the panel in its place, the glass being attached to them by means of strips of lead (called bands) soldered to the lead-work of the glazing and twisted round the bar. In order to distinguish between the massive rebated bars which hold the top and bottom of each panel and these light bars between, I shall speak of the former as "frame-bars," the latter by the name they still hold, of "saddle-bars." The only change from this arrangement which has been made in modern times (except for the use of copper wire instead of lead for the "bands") is the omission of the stout frame-bar, the whole of the weight of the window being now borne by its edges and the saddle-bars. Not only is this arrangement less sound in construction but it is also far less decorative. The thick bars at intervals with thin bars between punctuate the length of the tall windows pleasantly, and are made use of in the design, which in this way is still based on the iron-work. In a recent disastrous "restoration" that was made of one of the windows in the nave of York, the glass was refixed with saddle-bars all of equal size and the thick frames omitted, and it is wonderful how the eye misses them. This arrangement was, of course, only used in windows above a certain size, in quite small lights the saddle-bars alone being considered sufficient. It was not, I think, an uncommon arrangement for the uppermost bar at all events--that at the springing of the arch--to pass continuously through all the mullions and bind them together. [Sidenote: Silver stain.] (2) _The Invention of Silver Stain._--In the early years of the fourteenth century an important addition was made to the technical resources of the glass painter by the discovery that if white glass is painted with a preparation of silver--oxide or chloride may be used, or even silver in its metallic form, though that is less convenient--and then subjected to the heat of the kiln, the parts so painted will be found to be stained yellow, pale or dark according to the amount of silver used and according also to the composition of the glass. This is a process quite different from enamelling. It is a true _stain_, actually penetrating the glass to a slight degree and quite indelible except by the perishing of the glass itself. The oxide or chloride of silver is only mixed with other substances, such as yellow lake, for convenience of application. [Sidenote: Its first appearance.] Precisely when and where the invention was made and first used we have no means of knowing. We may dismiss the story of the glazier from whose coat a silver button dropped on to the glass he was putting into the kiln, partly because the artist of whom the story is told, one James of Ulm, who worked in Italy and was beatified after his death, was not born till more than a hundred years later. It appears in York Minster, used very sparingly and tentatively, soon after 1300. I am not sure that there are any examples in France that can be dated quite so early, but it was certainly used there by 1310. Its first use was limited to such matters as differentiating the hair, or gold crowns, of figures from their faces, but the nave windows of York Minster show a progressive increase in its use. Yellow pot-metal is there still used for the larger pieces of yellow in the canopy, but an examination of the details in Plates XVII., XVIII. will show that stain is used in places to gild the crockets of the white pinnacles, the beak and claws of the white eagle in the border of XVII.c, and the flowers in the lower part of the border in XVII.a. The pieces that are yellow all over may, I think, be assumed to be pot-metal. It is not, however, till one gets well on in the century, to 1330 or 1340, that one finds such a free use of the stain in the grisaille as that in the windows at St. Ouen at Rouen, of which the detail is given in Plates XXVI.-XXX. [Sidenote: Combination of figures and grisaille.] (3) _The Combination of Figures and Grisaille._--This is one of the most noticeable developments of the period. As I have said, it is occasionally attempted in the preceding style towards the close of the period, but in the fourteenth century it is the rule. Small windows are sometimes still filled entirely with colour, but nearly every window of any size, especially in the early part of the century, contains a large proportion of grisaille. In the nave of the Church of St. Pierre at Chartres (Plate XXIII.) the same principle is followed as in the earlier work in the choir, namely, the arranging of the figure-work and grisaille so as to form vertical stripes of alternate white and colour. This plan, however, was not persisted in. The numerous vertical lines formed by the mullions in the newer style of architecture required horizontal lines to balance them, and accordingly we find the usual method in fourteenth century windows is for the coloured masses to be ranged in horizontal bands running right across the window through all the lights. Plate XXV. from St. Ouen at Rouen shows a very typical window of the period. Sometimes there was, as here, one row of coloured panels, sometimes two or more as in the nave of York Minster. It will be noticed that in order to blend the white and colour satisfactorily the designer includes a good deal of white among the colour and a good deal of colour among the white. This latter is no longer dispersed through the white in coloured threads, half suspected, but is collected into bosses and borders where its effect is strong enough to support the principal masses. In fact the key-note of the design--namely, the strong contrast of light and dark in flat masses, necessitated by the combination of colour and grisaille--is repeated everywhere in detail throughout the window of which the parts are thus brought into harmony with the whole. [Sidenote: The borders.] This same idea leads to a complete change in the character of the borders. The running scroll work of the preceding age would no longer be appropriate; the vertical lines need breaking rather than emphasizing, and the design of the border usually takes the form of alternate blocks of colour and white or yellow. Plate XXVIII. shows some typical borders from Rouen, borders typical of English as well as French work. It will be noticed that the coloured pieces are usually left blank while the white and yellow are decorated with patterns or foliage blocked out with solid black. The ornament of the tracery lights, which by the way are usually kept pretty full of colour, is designed on the same principle. It consists, in fact, of borders tightly curled up with, sometimes, in the larger lights, a figure or a small coloured medallion in the centre containing a head. [Sidenote: The bosses.] The intervals formed by the regular spacing of the thick iron frame-bars are further emphasized by the placing of a coloured boss or small medallion midway between each. This arrangement in some form or other is almost universal in fourteenth century grisaille, the panels contained between the frame-bars being in fact the units of the design. Some of these bosses from Rouen are shown in Plates XXVI., XXVII., XXIX. Here they are purely fantastic in design, but elsewhere, as at York, they frequently have an heraldic motive or even take the form of shields of arms (Plate XVIII.). Heraldic motives are very commonly used too in the borders, as may be seen in the details from York Minster in Plate XVII., the charges from the shield being repeated all up the border, relieved against, or sometimes alternating with blocks of the colour of the field. Symbolic objects such as chalices are sometimes used in the same way, and occasionally we find borders formed of a succession of little figures under canopies, as in the very elaborate example from York in Plate XVIII. [Illustration: PLATE XXIV ST. LUKE, FROM CHOIR CLERESTORY OF ST. OUEN, ROUEN Fourteenth Century] [Sidenote: Quarries.] As the century proceeds quarries become much the commonest form of grisaille. In Plates XXV., XXVI. they are true quarries, but in the first quarter of the fourteenth century they are sometimes, as, for instance, at York, "bulged" round the central boss, thus forming a sort of cross between quarries and geometric glazing. Grisaille glazed in geometric patterns such as we find at Merton College, at Evreux, and in St. Pierre at Chartres belongs, I think, always to quite the early years of the period, and even then, as may be seen in Plate XXIII., it shows a decided leaning towards quarry-work, and indeed needs little but the straightening of the leads to convert it into quarries altogether. Continuous painted patterns are now the rule, as shown in Plate XXVI. The cross-hatched grounds disappear, and presently the silver stain is used (as here) to enrich the painting. It will be noticed that the trellis-like pattern produced by painting lines parallel to the leading is still retained. [Sidenote: The canopy.] (4) _The Extraordinary Development of the Canopy._--As we have seen, single figures in the preceding period, even at Canterbury, usually had architectural canopies of an unobtrusive kind, of similar design to the sculptured niches which sheltered the statues on the outside of the building. The motive for their adoption by the glazier at this date is not very obvious. They do not in the Early Period form a very important feature in the design, and serve no decorative purpose that the artist could not equally well have attained by the flat ornamentation of which he was a master. However, the glazier seems to have liked the idea when he saw it in stone-work, where it had a practical object, and to have imported it into his own work, where it had none. It must be remembered that when the sculpture was painted in colours, as it was then, the resemblance between it and the stained glass would have been closer than it is now. However this may be, the canopy in the thirteenth century was a comparatively unobtrusive object, but in the fourteenth century, as the sculptured canopy grew and developed, so did its counterpart in stained glass, till the stained-glass worker seems to have run canopy mad. Not only is it now found over single figures but over subjects too. It is true there was now a certain practical reason for the tall canopy to be found in the tall and narrow shape of the lights that had to be filled. The human figure was very short and broad in proportion to them, and when it was a case of a group the resulting shape was shorter still, so the canopy offered a convenient way of elongating the design; but the fourteenth century designer developed it, as may be seen in the illustrations, out of all reason, filling it with fantastic detail--angels looking out of the windows, birds perching on the pinnacles, and miniature figures standing like statues in the niches of it--till it quite reduced the figures below it to insignificance. In doing so he was only following the rest of the artistic world, which had all gone wild over the new style of architecture,--with its "passion of pinnacle and fret," as Ruskin called it,--using its details as motives for ornament even where they were least appropriate; but all this expenditure of effort on fantastic and irrelevant detail is really a symptom of the weakening of interest in the principal theme, of which a further sign is the uninteresting treatment of the subjects themselves. The fourteenth century canopy is, at first at least, always in pure elevation, attempts at perspective not being found till close on the end of the century. Plate XXV. shows both of the forms which are most commonly found, that with a single big crocketted gable and arch spanning the opening, and that with three small ones. I think the former is the earlier form, but they are often, as here, found together. [Sidenote: The base.] In the earlier part of the century at all events, there is never an architectural base to the panel as well as a canopy, but both subject and the shafts of the canopy end off below with a straight line at one of the frame-bars. The earliest examples of anything in the nature of a base that I know of are at Wells and in the great east window of Gloucester Cathedral, where the topmost pinnacle of each canopy spreads out into a sort of bracket supporting the next figure above, while the shafts at the side are prolonged upwards into the canopy of that figure, an arrangement suggestive of Perpendicular work. But indeed in its general arrangement, though not in its details, the Gloucester east window, though executed in 1350-1360, contains many hints of the style that was to follow, the stone tracery, in fact, being pure Perpendicular, perhaps the earliest example known. The canopy work itself is always in the main yellow or white, relieved against a coloured background, and with windows, capitals and other details put in with another colour. In the aisle windows of the nave of York Cathedral, the coloured background, and, at first, the pinnacles of the canopy too, end off square at the top, at one of the frame-bars, just as the panel does at the bottom. As the series proceeds, however, the central pinnacles, as in the "Peter de Dene" window, of which details are given in Plate XVIII., are prolonged above the bar, a tendency which became more and more developed as time went on. In the big window from St. Ouen's at Rouen, shown in Plate XXV., the coloured background, by a rather inept arrangement, is also brought up behind the pinnacles, and has to end in a somewhat meaningless outline. At first the yellow of the canopies was obtained by the use of a yellow glass, a "pot-metal" (_i.e._ a glass coloured all through in the making) of a not very pleasant colour, but gradually this was superseded by the use of silver stain, by means of which a much lighter and more delicate effect could be obtained. Its introduction was gradual, however, the artist having to feel his way towards the best use of it. As its use increased, coloured glass was less and less used for details of the canopy, the character of which gradually approached more and more to that which it was to have in the following period. In some of the very earliest windows of the period, such as those in Merton College Chapel and in the chapels of the choir in Evreux Cathedral, small coloured panels, with canopies of quite modest and reasonable proportions, are used to decorate large spaces of grisaille. The growth of the canopy began very soon, however, and where these small canopies are found together with geometric glazing of the grisaille and a complete absence of silver stain, it is fairly safe to assign a date to the window not much later than 1305. [Sidenote: Figures on quarries.] Curiously enough, in spite of the fourteenth century fondness for elaborate canopies, we find at the same time another type of window in which they are wholly absent, the figures being placed simply upon a background of quarries. Plate XXIV., one of a series from the clerestory of St. Ouen at Rouen, is an example of this. Here the figures stand, it is true, on little architectural bases (an exception to the rule I mentioned just now), but elsewhere these too are absent. [Sidenote: The S-like pose.] (5) _The Style of Drawing the Figure._--The chief characteristic of this in fourteenth century work is its apparent affectation. There seems to have been a sudden revolt from the taste for dramatic force of action which characterized the subject panels of the thirteenth century. Look at Plate XXXI. from Rouen, with its three little panels showing the Annunciation and the Visitation. In each the figure is in exactly the same pose, and that a perfectly meaningless one, like an elongated letter S. Yet this pose seems to have become all the fashion, for it is almost universal in the work of this period, and is found even in such transitional work as the east windows of the antechapel of New College, Oxford, which, in other respects, belong far more to the succeeding period. Yet in spite of this loss of naturalism in movement, in the actual drawing of forms, both of the figure and of drapery, there is an advance. If you will compare St. Luke from the clerestory of St. Ouen at Rouen in Plate XXIV. with Methuselah from Canterbury in Plate III., you will see the change that has occurred. St. Luke has far less character and force, he is far less alive, his pose and gesture mean nothing, or at most are mildly argumentative, and yet there is a certain sense in which he, and still more his drapery, is better drawn, or if not better, at all events in a more advanced manner. This is more noticeable if you compare St. Luke or the little figures in Plate XXX. with the big angel from Chartres in Plate X., which is not so well drawn as the Methuselah. [Illustration: PLATE XXV WINDOW WITH LIFE OF ST. GERVAIS, FROM SOUTH CHOIR AISLE, ST. OUEN, ROUEN Fourteenth Century] [Sidenote: The effort towards grace of form.] The fact is that the twelfth and thirteenth century convention in figure drawing had served its turn well, but was now worn out. Deriving, originally, as we have seen, out of Greek art in its Byzantine form, it had formed a stock on which the artist of the Early Period had been able to graft his own observation and love of nature, but it had now ceased to satisfy and was therefore abandoned. The progress of drawing in other arts, or at all events in sculpture, had taught men to demand something different. The artist of the late thirteenth century, as the last influence of Greek art died out of his work, had undoubtedly neglected grace of form in his enthusiasm for vigorous and naturalistic movement; and, as so often happens when one quality in art is neglected, a reaction had come, in which people demanded that quality above all others. Consequently, the chief effort of the draughtsman of the fourteenth century, if I understand him rightly, was to bring his drawing of form up to the standard required of him, the S-like attitude, for instance, being merely a trick to get a willowy gracefulness into his figures, especially those of women. The same tendency is observable in the drawing of drapery. The drapery of the thirteenth century was entirely conventional in the method in which it was drawn, but it was always in movement and helped the action of the figures. Fourteenth century drapery, on the other hand, is always at rest, or at most sweeping with the slow movement of a figure, but its folds are drawn in a much more advanced manner than before, and seem to bear evidence of a certain amount of direct study of actual drapery, either on the part of the artist or of those whom he was following. The ideal of gracefulness shows itself in a love for long and sweeping folds, as may be seen in Plates XXIV., XXX., XXXI. At first the artist is content to use in his drawing the strong line work of the preceding period, but as the century proceeds this becomes rather more delicate, and he begins to feel his way towards modelling in half-tones. The drapery over the Virgin's knees in Plate XXI. shows this very clearly. [Illustration: PLATE XXVI GRISAILLE PATTERN AND BOSS FROM PLATE XXV] [Sidenote: Neglect of movement.] With this preoccupation with the truer rendering of form, it is perhaps not surprising that the study of action was neglected. The artist had enough to do to draw his figures and drapery in repose without making them move about and do things, and a contributory cause was, no doubt, the weakening of interest already alluded to in the subjects he had to illustrate. This then is why, whereas in the thirteenth century we find a highly conventional rendering of form allied to naturalism in movement, in the fourteenth, conversely, we find conventional poses and movement allied to a more naturalistic rendering of form. Comparative study of the illuminated manuscripts of the same period shows exactly the same changes in progress. So closely do the two arts keep pace with each other that I do not think it can be said that at any time either was leading the other. They must have been in very close touch even if they were not, which it is quite possible they often were, practised by the same artists. The lead, if there was a lead, must have come from sculpture. [Sidenote: Natural plant forms in ornament.] (6) _The use of Natural Plant Forms in Ornament._--This is another manifestation of the same spirit, and divides the work of the fourteenth century most sharply from that both of the preceding and following periods. The Jesse Trees, and the leafy scrolls and borders of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries belong to no genus known to botanists, but in the fourteenth century it seems as if the artist, the inspiration of religion failing him, had sought it in a rather literal study of Nature. Accordingly in the grisaille and borders of this period we find patterns formed of oak leaves and acorns, ivy leaves, maple, vine, and so on. Plate XXVI. is rather an exception in that one cannot name the particular plant; but Plates XXVIII. and XXIX. contain characteristic examples, and Plate XXI. shows a good vine border from York, and some holly leaf grisaille. Yet the feeling for Nature in these patterns does not go very deep. The artist is, for instance, content to make the oak wreath and twine itself as freely as the vine, and I always feel that his practice is the result of theory rather than the spontaneous expression of love of Nature. The earlier worker was really, I believe, more in tune with Nature than his successor of the fourteenth century. He did not copy her forms in ornament but he followed her principles. He did not copy her forms, because she had taught him to design forms for himself. Nature, it may be observed, does not adorn one object with copies of another, hardly even when she gives her creatures protective colouring and markings, but gives to each the patterning which suits it best. In the same way the ornament of the twelfth and thirteenth century artist is always perfectly suited to its purpose without distracting one's attention; and when his subject requires him to represent a tree or a bush,--such as the fig tree under which Nathanael sits, or the thicket in which the ram is caught, at Canterbury,--though the foliage is that of the shamrock, he knows how to make it grow and live better than his fourteenth century successor. The waves, too, of the Flood in Plate IV., conventional though they are, give a real sense of tossing and stormy water. [Sidenote: Change in material.] [Sidenote: Fourteenth century colour schemes.] (7) _The Quality of Glass and the Colours Used._--At first these differ little from those used in the previous period, but as the fourteenth century proceeds, the rich intense reds and blues, with their "streakiness," their endless variety of tone and texture, which makes each piece of glass a jewel with an individuality of its own, and needing no enrichment, give way to glass of a thinner, flatter quality. In Plate III. Mr. Saint has managed to catch and the printer to reproduce something of the quality of these early blues. There is a change too in the proportions of the colours used. The colour schemes of the Early Period are almost always conceived on a basis of red and blue, but now green and yellow become equally important; Plates XXI., XXII., for example, contain very little blue at all. The canopies when not white are mainly yellow, and this alone is responsible for a very large amount of yellow in the colour scheme--too much, in fact, as a rule. The yellow used at first, till silver stain took its place, was, as I have said, a rather hot unpleasant pot-metal. The green of the First Period had been a rather sharp brilliant colour, used generally in small quantities, and striking a high shrill note among the deep reds and blues, like a clarionet in an orchestra. The typical green of the fourteenth century, on the other hand, which is often used as a background, is a greyer duller colour altogether. Plate XVI. and Plate XXI. give a fairly good idea of its quality. [Sidenote: White glass for flesh.] Another change, which was the natural result, both of the increased amount of white now used in windows and of the introduction of the silver stain, was the gradual substitution of white glass in the flesh of figures for the brownish pink formerly used. Its use afforded an opportunity for getting white in amongst the colour, and so helping to bind the design together, and the fact that the hair, crowns, and mitres of figures could now be stained yellow, rendered it on the whole the most suitable glass for the purpose, and we find it holding the field down to the late sixteenth century, when a pinkish enamel began to be used. [Illustration: PLATE XXVII BOSSES, FROM PLATE XXV] [Sidenote: Painted diapers.] (8) _The use of Painted Diaper Patterns on the Coloured Backgrounds._--The red and blue backgrounds to the figures in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries needed no further decoration. Their own depth and quality was enough in itself, but the thinner, flatter tones that succeeded them needed enriching and giving texture to, in order to throw the figures up into proper relief; or so the fourteenth century artist seems to have felt, for from the beginning we find his backgrounds usually covered with a diaper painted in enamel. The method is always the same; the ground having been covered with an even coat of enamel, the pattern is scratched out clear with the point of a stick or a brush handle. Plates XVI., XX., XXI. are typical examples, and show in detail the kind of pattern that was used. It is very rarely that we find anything of the kind in the previous period. There is, as we have seen, an isolated and early example of it at Canterbury, where a rather paler, poorer blue has been used than in the other windows, but there it is more delicate than in the fourteenth century, the pattern being scratched out of a very thin semi-transparent mat of enamel; and it is found too in some late thirteenth century windows in St. Urbain at Troyes, but in fourteenth century work it is frequently met with even at the beginning of the period, and by the end of the first quarter of the century it is the rule, and remains so throughout the succeeding century as well. [Illustration: PLATE XXVIII BORDERS, FROM PLATE XXV] IX EARLY FOURTEENTH CENTURY GLASS IN ENGLAND (MERTON COLLEGE AND EXETER) The windows in the chapel of Merton College, Oxford, are perhaps the earliest in which the design of the Second Period has taken a definite and typical form. Antony à Wood, in his catalogue of Fellows, says that the donor, Henry de Mamesfield or Mannesfield, whose portrait is in the windows, caused them to be made in 1283, but in view of an order in the Bursar's Rolls of 1292 for stone for building these windows, this date must be rejected. Antony à Wood's statement elsewhere that the _whole_ chapel was pulled down and rebuilt in 1424 shows he is not altogether to be relied on. The presence of the fleur-de-lis with the castle of Castile in some of the borders makes it probable[12] that they were done after Edward I.'s second marriage with Margaret of France in 1299, while the arms of an Heir-Apparent as well as of a King of England in the east window makes it certain that they were executed while Edward I. and his son were both alive, _i.e._ before 1307. On the whole, and by comparison with the York glass, I should think 1303-1305 a not improbable date for them. [Sidenote: The east window.] There are seven windows on each side and a great east window, and, with the exception of the latter, they are still fairly perfect. Of the east window it is only the beautiful "wheel" tracery which retains its original glass, the lower lights, alas! having been destroyed in 1702 to make room for a monstrosity by one Pryce--a horrible blare of yellow. What remains in the tracery has a more transitional character than the other windows, and was probably executed first, and if only the lower lights had remained they might have thrown an interesting light on the development of the style. The three trefoils in the centre of the wheel contain three coats of arms--the short triangular shields of the thirteenth century, of which the first is that of Edward I., the leopards of England; the second the same with a label of five points azure for his son, afterwards Edward II.; and the third that of Walter de Merton, the founder of the college. For the most part the other lights contain ornament that is wholly fourteenth century in character, but the quatrefoil on each side has a feature which shows the early date of the window. In these two small figures representing the Annunciation, though themselves in the style and colouring of the early fourteenth century, are placed directly on a background of red and blue mosaic diaper, such as one finds again and again in thirteenth century work in France, and among the fragments in the South Rose at Lincoln. I have often thought that thirteenth century glaziers sometimes kept this mosaic filling in stock, and perhaps the artist of Merton had some left on his hands and used it up here. In any case it would seem to show that the style in which he was working was fairly new to his workshop. [Sidenote: The side windows.] The fourteen side windows are designed on a plan which is typical of fourteenth century work both in England and in France, especially Normandy. The sections into which the glazing is divided by the heavy iron frame-bars are taken as the units of the design. One in each light is filled with a coloured panel--a figure under a canopy--and the rest with grisaille having a coloured boss in the centre of each, the whole being surrounded by a coloured border. The effect is that of a range of greenish-white windows just dotted and edged with colour, and with a single broad band of colour running horizontally through them all. This plan is common in all early fourteenth century work, especially in England and Normandy. Evreux is another example, York nave another, but with two rows of coloured panels, and the window from Rouen in Plate XXV. is only an elaboration of it forty years later. At Merton College, however, the canopy has not yet run mad, but is of modest proportions, figure and canopy together only occupying one section of glazing. The grisaille itself is for the most part of "bulged" quarries curving round the central bosses, but two on each side have true quarries. All have the trellis pattern formed by doubling the lead with a painted line and a continuous flowing pattern of foliage--vine, oak, ivy, and fig--spreading through it over the window from a central stem. Plate XXVI. is a later example of the same thing, but with the addition of silver stain, which is nowhere found in the Merton windows. The borders, when not formed of castle and fleur-de-lis, are of a kind found in the Chapter-House at York, and common in other fourteenth century windows--leaves white or yellow, branching at intervals from a straight or wavy stem on a coloured ground. There is not much variety in the coloured bosses, which all consist either of a simple four-leaved pattern or of a small head in white on a coloured disc. There are, I think, only four different designs of these heads--Christ, an old man, a king, and a queen continually repeated. [Sidenote: Poverty of ideas.] The most woeful poverty of ideas is, however, found in the figures under the canopies. There are fourteen windows of three lights each, with a figure in each,--forty-two in all,--yet the designer could think of nothing better to do than to put an apostle in the centre light of each window, repeating two apostles to make them go round, and in every window but two a kneeling figure of the donor--"Magister Enricus de Mamesfield"--in the light on each side. Thus the proud and happy Master Henry might see himself reproduced no less than four-and-twenty times, in robes of red, white, brown or blue, wide sleeved robes with a hood, doubtless the M.A.'s gown of the period. Neither are the apostles very interestingly treated. They are almost repetitions of each other, standing in the same conventional pose and distinguished only by their attributes. The backgrounds of the figures are diapered with enamel in the usual fourteenth century way. In point of development these windows come between the Chapter-House and the earliest nave windows at York, and correspond with the earliest work at Evreux, being the earliest windows in which the style of the Second Period has taken final and definite form. They are not without their beauty, but in looking at them one wonders what has become of the spirit that created the windows of Canterbury, Chartres, and Bourges. [Sidenote: Exeter east window.] Of the same stage of development as the Merton windows are the earliest of the figures remaining in the east window of Exeter Cathedral. Although this window was rebuilt and enlarged in 1390, the original glass was, it is known, used again and eked out with new. There is an entry in the Fabric Rolls of 1301-1302 for 1271 feet of glass at 5½d. per foot, "ad summas fenestras frontis novi operis"--which seems to mean the east end of the choir, and two years later a payment to Master Walter the glazier for fixing the glass "summi gabuli," but no further light is thrown on its origin. Later on, however, in the roll for 1317-1318, there is an entry for glass, apparently for the Lady Chapel, "bought at Rouen" at the rate of 6d. a foot for white (? grisaille) and 1s. 0d. for coloured, and from this it has been argued that the whole of the glass up to that time was bought from Rouen too. To me, however, the fact that Rouen is specifically mentioned here, and nowhere else, militates against this theory, while if the price of 5½d. a foot paid for the glass of the east window was for finished figure work, it is far lower than that of the Rouen glass. The figures themselves are much larger than those at Merton College, and on the whole more interestingly treated. There are nine of them remaining: three patriarchs; three apostles--St. Peter, St. Paul, and St. Andrew; and three female saints--St. Margaret, St. Catherine, and, I think, the Magdalen. The canopies are large in proportion, being nearly twice the height of the figures,--an unusual height for so early a date,--but they are not unlike the Merton canopies in style. There is no trace of silver stain either in the canopies or the figures. Another fact which to some extent tells against the theory of their Rouen origin, is that so far I have found no glass of that date at Rouen which at all resembles them, whereas as late as 1290-1295 Clement of Chartres was, as we have seen, doing work there, which shows little change from the style of the middle of the thirteenth century. [Sidenote: Grisaille at Exeter.] There is some very interesting grisaille in two of the chapels at Exeter, of an earlier type than that at Merton, being in fact transitional between the style of the First and Second Periods. It has the interlacing medallions of coloured strap work, with the painted grisaille pattern passing behind them, but this latter, though chiefly of the "Herba Benedicta," breaks here and there into natural leafage. It is a slightly earlier point of development than even the Chapter-House at York, and corresponds very closely with some at St. Urbain at Troyes. FOOTNOTE: [12] This is not altogether conclusive. The fleur-de-lis and castle had been a favourite ornament in French glass since their adoption by St. Louis. [Illustration: PLATE XXIX DETAILS, FROM PLATE XXV] X FOURTEENTH CENTURY GLASS AT YORK The best work of the Second Period that I know of anywhere is to be found in York Minster. Here the new style seems to have become engrafted on a strong local school which had preserved much of the life and vigour of the previous age. It is true that even here one finds a certain weakening of the religious motive, but its place seems to be to some extent taken by a patriotic enthusiasm for a warrior king and for the gallant nobles who followed him in the Scotch wars, and whose arms are everywhere in the glass of the nave. [Sidenote: Chronological order of the windows.] The windows themselves show a steady and almost unbroken progression in style from the late thirteenth to the early part of the fifteenth century, which makes them most useful for study. Leaving out the fragments of very early glass I have mentioned before, the order of their execution seems to be-- 1. The "Five Sisters." 2. Chapter-House. 3. The vestibule of the Chapter-House. 4. The clerestory of the nave. 5. The first five[1] in the north aisle of the nave (dated by Winston 1306). 6. The first five[13] in the south aisle of the nave. 7. The sixth in the north aisle of the nave. {The three west windows of the nave (contract 1338). 8. {The sixth in the south aisle of the nave. {One (probably from the nave) in the south aisle of the choir. 9. The third from the east in the south side of the Lady Chapel. 10. The fifteenth century windows in the choir and Lady Chapel, which we shall come to later. Whatever difference of opinion there may be about the date of these windows, I do not think this order can be disputed. [Illustration: PLATE XXX ANGELS IN CANOPY WORK OF PLATE XXV] [Sidenote: The Chapter-House.] The "Five Sisters" have already been dealt with in their place in the First Period. Those of the Chapter-House, whether of earlier or later date than those of the Merton College Chapel, are distinctly earlier in style and are one of the few examples of work that is really transitional between the First and Second Periods, belonging almost as much to one as to the other. Unfortunately there is no record of the building of the Chapter-House, and its date is a matter of dispute, Drake putting it as early as the time of Archbishop Walter Grey, who died in 1256, and Browne holding it was not finished till nearly 1340--an impossible date for the glass. As in Merton Chapel the presence of the fleur-de-lis as well as the castle of Castile in the windows may mean that they are not earlier than 1299, but I do not think they are much later. The only French work I know of which at all corresponds to it is in St. Urbain at Troyes, which Viollet-le-Duc dates at about 1295, and the windows from Poitiers in Plate XV. [Sidenote: The grisaille in the Chapter-House.] The windows are divided by the tracery into narrow lights in which a series of coloured medallions of typical thirteenth century shape are placed one above the other on a ground of grisaille, much as in the window from Poitiers. It is in the grisaille itself that the beginnings of the new style are shown, for whereas in the "Five Sisters," which are certainly later than 1260, the pattern on the grisaille is the conventional trefoil of the First Period--the Herba Benedicta--and conforms to the shapes of the lead-work and of the hollow medallions outlined in coloured bands, in the Chapter-House, although the medallions in coloured outline are still there, the painted pattern, as at Exeter and Troyes, runs through them independently of them (giving them a rather meaningless appearance of being hung in front of it), but is wholly formed of natural foliage, oak, fig, ivy, and so on; the borders, too, are of the character of the Second Period. Similar grisaille is found at Chartham in Kent. At Poitiers, as may be seen in the illustration, the grisaille pattern is still of the Herba Benedicta, with a cross-hatched ground, and the border is of an earlier type; at St. Urbain at Troyes, as at Exeter, both the conventional and the natural foliage are found, but on the whole I am somewhat inclined to think that wherever the other features of the style originated these patterns of natural foliage were first used in England. These windows, by the way, are in a sad state and want releading, instead of which the authorities have contented themselves with placing quarry glazing on the outside of them, which now that it is dirty so darkens the old windows as to kill all light and colour in them. When I say releading, I mean that and nothing more--_not_ "restoration," which is murder. [Sidenote: The Chapter-House vestibule.] The windows in the =L=-shaped vestibule, or passage, which leads to the Chapter-House show a slight further development. Here the grisaille is of the same character as in the Chapter-House itself, but the coloured panels are each surmounted by a little crocketted canopy, which here appears for the first time in York. It is found in some glass at Selling, in Kent (which from the heraldry seems to commemorate Edward I.'s marriage to Margaret of France in 1299), in conjunction with grisaille in which the foliage is of the earlier conventional type, and which therefore may, perhaps, be a little earlier than these windows. [Sidenote: The clerestory of the nave.] The windows in the clerestory of the nave of York Minster are little, I think, if at all, later than those in the Chapter-House, but it is a little difficult to compare them as they are designed to be seen at such a very different distance from the eye, the white parts of the clerestory windows consisting only of interlacing bands of lead-work without any painted pattern at all. A small inset in Plate XVIII. shows the general arrangement of all these windows; the great wheel of the tracery, it will be seen, is filled with colour, while the lower lights are white with two bands of coloured panels running horizontally through them all. Of these panels the lower row consists of coats of arms of the great families of the North, contained in medallions of which Plate XVI. is an example. The upper row consists for the most part of subjects contained in somewhat similar medallions, but many of the panels are filled with earlier glass of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, which were doubtless preserved from the older nave. Thus, if you let your eye run along the northern side it will be arrested at the extreme west end of the line by a piece of blue that is different from all the others. It is the twelfth century blue that we have seen at St. Denis and in the west windows at Chartres, and the panel is the portion of a Jesse Tree of the same pattern as that which is found at both those places, and which I mentioned when speaking of them. Portions of the foliage of the tree are in the tracery above. I think I recognize this blue too in a panel on the south side representing a man with a horse and cart, and remains of early thirteenth century glass are plentiful. [Illustration: PLATE XXXI THE ANNUNCIATION, FROM ST. OUEN, ROUEN Fourteenth Century] [Sidenote: The aisles of the nave.] Next after the clerestory, the oldest windows in the nave are the first five from the east in each aisle. In these the style of the Second Period is fully developed and is in no sense transitional. They are rather more advanced in style than the Merton College windows and are by a far finer artist, being, in fact, the finest work of the period that I know. They seem to me all to have been executed within a few years of each other, probably in continuous succession, and to show the gradual development which might be expected during the progress of the work. Those on the north are the oldest and in the best condition, those on the south being much broken and confused, and one, alas! "restored." The general design is the same in all and is a typical fourteenth century one, two horizontal bands of coloured panels surmounted by canopies running horizontally through all the lights, separated by panels of grisaille which have a coloured spot in the centre of each panel. It is characteristic of the fourteenth century that the whole of the lower panels are in nearly every window devoted to the donor, who is thus given as much space as the subject. The grisaille is of the same type as at Merton. As in all early fourteenth century work, the sections divided by the heavy frame-bars are taken as the units of the design, the coloured panels with their canopies each occupying two sections and the grisaille panels one each. Nos. 2, 3, and 4 on the north were probably the first executed, as they contain no trace of yellow stain (Plate XVII.b). No. 5, from which the border of monks in their stalls in Plate XVII.a is taken, has a single touch of it in one place, but in No. 1 it is used, though still sparingly and tentatively, on the beaks and claws of the eagles in the borders of the outer lights (Plate XVII.c) and on the mail of the knights in the border of the centre light (Plate XVIII.), and here and there in the canopy. Another fresh development is the prolonging of the pinnacles of the canopy into the grisaille panel above. [Sidenote: The Peter de Dene window.] This window, which is sometimes called the Heraldic Window, from the number of coats of arms it contains, is the only one of them that has hitherto been the subject of any very close study, Mr. Winston having devoted a whole article to an extremely close and careful analysis of its heraldry, and to an account of the life of its donor, one Peter de Dene, whose portrait is in the central light and who was a churchman-politician under the first two Edwards. There is no space here to repeat his arguments, and I will only say that, after reading them and rereading them, I find it very difficult not to accept his conclusion that the most probable date for the window is 1306. The subject panels represent the story of St. Catherine, but are the least interesting part of the window, of which the most charming feature is, perhaps, the border of the central light, which consists of miniature portraits of kings, queens, and nobles whom the donor wished to compliment (Plate XVIII.). The two uppermost figures are those of a Templar and a Hospitaller; below them are the kings and queens of England and France, in allusion to Edward I.'s second marriage, and the recent peace concluded by it; below the Queen of France is the Heir-Apparent of England, and the remaining figures bear the arms of de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, Warrenne (both connected with the Royal Family), Beauchamp, Ros, Mowbray, Clifford, and Percy. The coats of arms which form the bosses in the white panels are those of foreign monarchs with whom the King of England was connected. The white eagles in the outer border are thought by Winston to refer to Piers Gaveston, who, though somewhat under a cloud in 1306, yet, as the friend of the heir to the throne, was a good person to keep in favour with. It is true the Gaveston eagles were golden, but heraldry was more free and easy then than later. There is a portrait of Prince Edward in the Chapter-House with a white falcon on his wrist, and white falcons are plentiful in the windows of the nave, yet I have never heard of his using it as a badge, though the last Plantagenet, Richard II., did so. [Sidenote: The Bell-founder's window.] The next window to this is the famous "Bell-founder's Window," given by Richard Tunnoc, bell-founder of York. In the lower panel of the centre light is his portrait kneeling and presenting a model of the window to an Archbishop, perhaps St. William. The panels on either side represent one, the casting, the other the turning of a bell in a lathe. Bells are everywhere in the window, the canopies are hung with them in rows, the borders are formed of them, but Mr. Westlake's careless remark that all six panels represent the process of bell-making is not true. The upper three are much perished, but one can just see that they tell the story of St. William's return to York, when the welcoming crowds broke down Ouse Bridge, but when, through his intercession, not a life was lost. [Sidenote: The de la Warde window.] The third window contains some interesting portraits in its lower panels. The central one is that of an Archbishop of York, as shown by the key in his left hand, holding in his right a model of the nave[14]. On the left is a knight dismounted, holding his horse by the bridle, and behind him the hand of some one out of the picture holds his banner, which the painting, though almost obliterated, still shows to be "vairé" argent and sable. In the opposite panel is a lady standing and behind her, half out of the picture, a man on horseback, doubtless his wife and son. Now the arms on the banner are those of the Barons de la Warde, of whom there were only two, Robert and his son Simon. Robert, who was in the Scotch wars, and in 1306 was steward of the household to Edward I., must have passed the greater part of that year in York with the King, who was there preparing for his last expedition against Robert Bruce. He, Robert de la Warde, died next year. His son Simon was Governor of York in 1321, and helped with his forces to defeat Thomas of Lancaster at Boroughbridge. It will thus be seen that the window might either have been given by the father in 1306 or the son about 1320, but since two figures are represented, and since we know that Simon died childless (the barony becoming extinct), it seems probable that it was executed in the father's lifetime. Again, though 1320 would fit the Bell-founder's window, since Tunnoc was Sheriff of York that year, it cannot be made to fit the facts in Peter de Dene's window, which is certainly not earlier but later. The presence of the Templar is against it, as it is unthinkable that the Order which was suppressed in 1312 (and its grandmaster burnt) should thus have been complimented in 1320. But for this fact I am bound to say I should have thought 1320 the more probable. If then we accept 1306 as the approximate date for these windows, it will be seen that in little more than seven years a complete change had come over the design of English stained glass, and it will presently be seen that much the same thing was happening in France at the same time. Indeed, one of the surprising things about mediæval art is the rapidity with which new ideas seem to flash across Europe from Yorkshire to Dalmatia. The outer lights of the de la Warde window have a fascinating border of monkeys bearing pitchers, and across the bottom of the window is a busy scene of monkeys hunting and feasting, with a man and woman among them. [Sidenote: The fifth window in the north aisle.] The three lower panels of the fifth window illustrate a story which I have never yet found any one to give me a clue to. It has nothing to do with the upper subjects, two of which are the martyrdoms of SS. Peter and Paul, the third being merely fragments. From its position, and from the fact that the costume is contemporary with the painting, I should rather imagine that it refers to some local story, perhaps connected in some way with the gift of the window. On the right, a figure in a red cope with a red skull-cap but no nimbus, holding a scourge or "disciplina" in his hand, is pointing apparently in denunciation at what appears to be a cringing figure in brown, much broken, among a crowd of others, some of whom are women. In the next panel, which is also much broken and jumbled, the same figures seem to be there, but the one in red seems to be exhorting rather than denouncing. The third or left-hand panel is in much better condition, and here we see the figures plainly. The one in brown, which turns out to be that of a layman, without armour, but with a dagger at his side and a spiked mace slung over his left arm, is kneeling at the feet of the figure in red, who is seated, and with one hand laid on the penitent's head is with the other firmly administering the "disciplina" to his back! The border is of monks (or canons) in their stalls, and the only heraldry in the window is contained in the painted diaper on the blue background, and consists of spread eagles and rampant lions, like the border of the Peter de Dene window. The remains of the donor's name--W ... MN ... CTON--gives me no clue. [Sidenote: The south aisle.] [Illustration: PLATE XXXII WINDOW IN ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S CHAPEL, ST. OUEN, ROUEN Fourteenth Century] [Sidenote: The de Mauley window.] The first five windows in the south aisle seem to me to follow these immediately in order of execution. The style is just a little more advanced; stain is used more freely, and the canopies begin to grow up into the white panel above them until their pinnacles reach its centre and do away with the coloured boss there altogether; they spread into the borders in many cases in order to give more room to the figures under them, thus giving rise to the three-gabled form of canopy. In colour they are still very beautiful, but have suffered much more damage than those in the north aisle. Several of them have been repaired and restored by Peckitt, of York, as the inscriptions show, at the end of the eighteenth century, but Peckitt's restoration was merciful compared to that which the fourth one has undergone at the hands of a modern firm of stained-glass manufacturers. Whole quantities of the old glass have been replaced by new, and the whole has been smeared with some brownish mess to make it look old again. As a result, all life and beauty have gone out of the window which is merely a sort of embalmed corpse, and this is the more to be regretted that it seems to have been a particularly interesting window. The lower panels each contain a pair of kneeling figures, five knights, and one churchman who hold aloft shields which show them to be various members of the Yorkshire family of de Mauley of Mulgrave. The founder of the family was the Poitevin ruffian, Piers de Mauley who, at King John's orders, murdered Prince Arthur and was rewarded for this service with the hand and estates of an unfortunate Yorkshire heiress. The descendants of this miscreant seem, however, to have been gallant soldiers who distinguished themselves in Scotland and Gascony and were made barons by Edward I. A peculiarity of the family was that the eldest son was always called Peter, and they distinguished themselves by numbers, like kings. One of the portraits must be the particular Peter who afterwards, in 1346, commanded the forces which Queen Philippa raised in her husband's absence against the invading Scots, whom he routed at Neville's Cross, taking their king, David Bruce, prisoner, and partly avenging Bannockburn. An interesting point of heraldry is the way in which the arms of the different sons are distinguished, not by the marks of cadency used later, but by the addition of different charges to the original shield which is or, a bend sable. The fifth window was once a Tree of Jesse but is now a mere wreck. It is, however, the earliest Jesse Tree I know of in which the stem and foliage of the tree are green. These windows show a progressive increase in the use of white for flesh colour instead of the brownish pink formerly used. At first, white is used only for women's faces, and then for those of saints of both sexes, brown-pink continuing to be used for other people till quite the middle of the century or later. Stain is not used on the hair at first, but sometimes a thin brown matt of enamel is laid all over the hair which at a distance has almost the effect of stain. [Sidenote: The sixth window in the north aisle.] The sixth window on the north side is, I think, a good many years later in date than these ten windows we have been considering, and is much less beautiful. A canopy and border from it are shown in Plate XVIII.a on the right. Although the same general arrangement is adhered to as in the other windows, the treatment is much coarser; the crockets of the canopies are big, heavy, and ugly, of a brownish-yellow pot-metal, but at the same time stain is freely, indeed lavishly, used, not only in the canopies and borders but, for the first time in the Cathedral, in the quarries of the grisaille as well. The borders of heraldry or little figures have given way to running patterns of natural foliage of the more common fourteenth century type. There are four different patterns of these borders in the window, so that some probably came from another window of the same date, perhaps in the now empty seventh window. [Sidenote: The west windows.] Later still are the three west windows and the sixth in the south aisle which mark a further stage in development. Here we have at last a definite date to help us, for the contract with the glazier, one Robert, is still in existence and is dated 1338, so we may assume the windows were finished about 1340. It is difficult to judge these windows fairly, for they were subjected to a most drastic restoration in the eighteenth century, and the great central one is further disfigured by protective quarry glazing on the outside, which reduces it to a dirty brown. I do not think, however, that they can ever have been, comparatively speaking, very good, and I am inclined to look upon them as perhaps the poorest work of the Middle Ages. Plate XIX. shows one light of the northernmost of the three, that at the west end of the north aisle. It will be seen that the canopy has now grown to an absurd height and fills the whole light, and neither in its proportions nor in its details is it very graceful. The border is now growing narrower and narrower, and is eventually doomed to disappear altogether. The crockets of the gable are the only yellow pot-metal used, silver stain being used everywhere else, and not very artistically, though how far this is due to the restorer it is difficult to say. [Illustration: PLATE XXXIII DETAILS, FROM ST. OUEN, ROUEN Fourteenth Century] The same qualities may be observed in the great central west window of the nave, also the work of the glazier Robert. Here, too, the canopies over the various rows of figures which form the design meet the feet of the row above, and in the top row shoot up to the head of the light. Their stiff awkwardness is in curious contrast to the wonderful flowing grace of the actual tracery of the window which contains them. The treatment of the figures, too, is dull. For the eight archbishops who form the bottom row, only two different patterns have been used, and in the row above the eleven apostles have been got into eight lights by making six of them squeeze, most uncomfortably, two in a niche. The St. Stephen (Plate XX.) is from the sixth window in the south aisle, which seems to be of about the same date as the west windows and probably by the same glazier Robert. Instead of conforming to the design of the other windows in the aisle, he has filled it with three figures larger than life under tall canopies. It has likewise suffered much from eighteenth century restoration (the head, I think, is new), and has, besides, the same faults as the west windows. To me its chief interest is in the ornamentation of the saints' dalmatic, which affords the earliest example I know of the use of silver stain on blue glass, which may be seen in the ring-like ornaments on the blue stripes. [Sidenote: All Saints', North Street, and St. Martin's, Micklegate.] The parish churches of York contain a good deal of fourteenth as well as fifteenth century glass. The windows in the west end of the north aisle of All Saints', North Street, and the south aisle of St. Martin's, Micklegate, Plates XXI. and XXII., are not very easy to place with regard to the Cathedral work. My own opinion is that they are rather later and show a recovery in quality. The canopies are as big as ever, but there is more taste and refinement in the drawing, both of the figures and ornaments, and more experience as well as taste in the use of the silver stain. At the same time, they contain later features, such as the attempt at perspective in the battlements above the canopy in Plate XXI., and in the brackets of a sort of balcony (not shown in the illustration) below. The curious device above the canopy in the window at St. Martin's (Plate XXII.) is, I imagine, the "merchant's mark" of the donor. FOOTNOTES: [13] From the east. [14] In 1306 this would be William de Greenfield, under whom the nave was building, and in 1320 William de Melton, who finished it. [Illustration: PLATE XXXIV CANOPY, FROM ALL SAINTS', NORTH STREET, YORK Fifteenth Century] XI FOURTEENTH CENTURY GLASS IN FRANCE [Sidenote: St. Pierre at Chartres.] In France the change of style seems to have occurred very much at the same time as in England. There is some transitional work in St. Urbain at Troyes, to which Viollet-le-Duc gives the date 1295. This would make it a few years earlier in all probability than the Chapter-House at York, but the type of grisaille is rather earlier too, still consisting partly, like that at Exeter, of conventional foliage. The clerestory windows of the fine church of St. Pierre at Chartres, whatever their precise date, certainly mark the local change from the previous style. The church had been begun as early as 1150, but its progress was slow and it was not completed till 1225, though the choir had been glazed in 1172.[15] The upper part of this choir was, however, pulled down in 1270, and rebuilt with large traceried windows, filling all the wall space of the clerestory. This again was not finished till 1310, but this date probably refers to the completion of the interior decoration which was always preceded by the glazing of the windows. On the whole, I think it is fairly safe to conclude that the choir windows were done about 1300, or a little before. The style is still that of the First Period but modified, experimentally as it were, to suit new conditions. Each window has four tall narrow lights with tracery above, and every other light is filled with two large figures placed one above the other each in a medallion, which is squeezed by the narrowness of the light into an elongated form, while the space between the medallions is filled in the old way with mosaic diaper of red and blue. In compliance, however, with the growing demand for more light in churches, the other two lights in each window are filled entirely with grisaille. This would give a lop-sided appearance to a single window, but seen together with only a slender shaft between window and window, they form a succession of alternate white and coloured vertical stripes all round the choir, an interesting and almost unique method of combining figure and grisaille. Altogether the clerestory windows may be considered as the very last work of the First Period already modified and influenced by the spirit of change that was in the air. In the clerestory windows of the nave the change has already come about. Although in the richness of colouring there is still a reminiscence of the earlier style, yet the medallion has vanished, and everywhere, both over single figures and over subject panels, we find decorated canopies, not yet, however, of exaggerated proportions, and with a complete absence of yellow stain. In the general arrangement the same idea is seen as in the choir, but it has had to be adapted to a different form of window-opening. The nave is part of the original church of 1225, and the clerestory windows consist, like those of the Cathedral, of broad lights grouped in pairs, with a rose above each pair--the germ of tracery. Every alternate pair is entirely filled with small coloured scenes from the life of a saint,--no longer in medallions, but each framed under a small white canopy,--but the windows between them have only a vertical stripe of colour down the centre of each light containing two large figures, one above the other, while the rest of the light is filled with grisaille (Plate XXIII.). The portrait of a certain abbot as donor enables us to date these nave windows with fair accuracy as about 1307-8, which makes them slightly later than the Peter de Dene window in York Minster. The grisaille is, however, of a distinctly earlier type, having the background still cross-hatched, but at Chartres one would expect the old traditions to die hard. [Sidenote: Fourteenth century glass in Chartres Cathedral.] There is fourteenth century work in the Cathedral, which is interesting in its way. The window given, about 1307-10, by "Geoffrey the Restorer," a canon whose "restoration" of the thirteenth century windows was of a different kind to that now in vogue, is the work of an archæologist and an enthusiast for the older style and can hardly be taken as typical. Very different is the strip of glazing which Canon Thierry got leave, in 1328, to insert in the foot of one of the big thirteenth century windows in the south transept to light an altar he had founded. Even for its date it is remarkable, consisting, as it does, of figures (Canon Thierry kneeling to the Virgin surrounded by saints) executed entirely in white and silver stain, without any coloured glass, placed directly on a background of white and stain quarries. It is perhaps the first examples of this treatment of figures, and anything more hopelessly out of keeping with the deep and solemn colours above it can hardly be imagined, so that it is difficult to do it justice. An example of _coloured_ figures placed directly on quarries is the Annunciation, which dates from 1350, in the south choir aisle, but it is not a very interesting group. The chapel of St. Piat contains some glass of the latter half of the century, but the treatment it has received prevents one forming an opinion of it. [Sidenote: Evreux.] The Cathedral of Evreux is rich in remains of fourteenth century glass, which, like that at York, illustrates the progress of design during the century, the windows being of all dates from the opening of the fourteenth century till well on in the fifteenth. The earliest are those in the choir chapels, some of which are of about the same date as the Merton College glass, which, indeed, they at once call to mind. As at Merton, small coloured panels containing figures under low canopies are made to decorate long lights of grisaille. For the most part, as at Merton, the figures consist of donors in the outer lights, kneeling to their patron saints in the inner ones, though occasionally one finds subjects, such as the part of a Life of St. Martin in one of the northern chapels. One of the chapels in the apse is remarkable for the charming use of heraldry in the border. The windows contain figures of the Count of Evreux kneeling to the Virgin. His arms are the lilies of France with a bend "componée" of argent and gules, and the fleur-de-lis and the bend are repeated alternately all the way up the border, on a ground of blue, with delightful effect. Later than these is the Harcourt window, the earliest apparently of those in the clerestory, which must date from between 1310 and 1327, though I am inclined to think it is nearer the later date. Here again one has the arrangement, so characteristic of the fourteenth century, of kneeling donors in the outer lights and their patron saints in the inner,--the first idea in nearly every fourteenth century window is the safety of the donor's soul,--but here the coloured panels are placed at the very bottom of the window, with grisaille above, an arrangement which one finds again in later work at Rouen. It has the advantage of bringing the figures nearer the eye, but as a design it is hardly happy. [Sidenote: St. Ouen at Rouen.] The fine church of St. Ouen at Rouen is very rich in fourteenth century glass of the first half of the century. The oldest, perhaps, is in the clerestory windows, which afford another example of the practice found, I think, earlier in France than in England, of placing figures directly on a background of quarries (Plate XXIV.). From the small amount of stain used I do not think they are likely to be later than 1330, though the queer little pedestal with its ogival arch does not look a very early feature. Rather later than these are the immense windows in the choir aisles, of which Plate XXV. is an example. In comparing them to those in York Minster, they seem to me to come, in point of development, between the aisle windows of the nave and the west windows, but are far better than the latter; yet, although there is hardly a detail in them which cannot be found in an earlier form at Merton College or York, they have, nevertheless, a character all their own, a hint of growing divergence between the two schools. The subject of this particular window is the Life of St. Gervais, but it is such an unimportant detail in the design as to be hardly worth mentioning, the real interest of the windows being their planning and ornament. They are planned on precisely the same system as the windows in Merton College chapel, in the choir chapels at Evreux, and the aisles of York nave, but the canopies are more highly developed, the quarries are "true" quarries, and stain is much more freely used. Plates XXVI.-XXX. show, in detail, the use that has been made of it in the grisaille borders and bosses of this window. Even the canopies that are all yellow are, I fancy, coloured with stain; but the artist has been alive to the danger of too much yellow in the window, and has made every other canopy white, merely touched with stain, a form which in time was to supersede the other altogether. If you compare the little figure from one of these canopies in Plate XXX. with the little border figures from Peter de Dene's window at York, you will see how the work is beginning to lose the mosaic character it had inherited from the previous centuries. The grisaille patterns, as well as the borders, show descent from, or at least common origin with, those of York and Merton--you can find that central stem with a wavy line on it in both; but there is a subtle difference in the Rouen work--a little more grace, and more care that the foliage shall not only decorate the whole space of white, but form a symmetrical pattern on each individual quarry, a tendency which, however, may also be found in English work towards the end of the century. [Illustration: PLATE XXXV CANOPY, FROM ALL SAINTS', NORTH STREET, YORK Fifteenth Century] Of later fourteenth century work there is not very much in France. The country was devastated by war, and there can have been little money or heart left for painted windows. Whichever side of the channel the style of the early fourteenth century originated, it is quite certain that the next great movement came from England. FOOTNOTE: [15] Lasteyrie would have it that the existing windows represent this glazing,--an extraordinary mistake for him to make,--but it is just possible that they contain figures from the older windows. [Illustration: PLATE XXXVI NICHOLAS BLACKBURN AND HIS WIFE, FROM EAST WINDOW OF ALL SAINTS', NORTH STREET, YORK Fifteenth Century] XII LATE FOURTEENTH CENTURY GLASS IN ENGLAND (TRANSITIONAL--GLOUCESTER AND THE WORK OF THE WINCHESTER SCHOOL) An interesting thing about the design of stained glass in the fourteenth century is that it never stands still, but changes more rapidly than at any other period in its history. At Gloucester, not more than from ten to twenty years after the latest of the windows I have been describing, the great east window of the Cathedral was filled with glass, which already faintly foreshadows the change into the style of the succeeding period. The Severn valley is rich in glass of the fourteenth century, the work of a school which may have had its headquarters at Gloucester, where, in later times, at all events, there were important glass-works, which may still be seen in seventeenth century views of the city. The fourteenth century glass at Shrewsbury, Tewkesbury, and Wells is all of this school, and differs in many little ways from the work at York, among which are the frequency of the ogival arch and gable in the canopies, and, at Wells, the presence of foliated brackets which support the figures. Whether the work in Bristol Cathedral also belongs to it I am not quite prepared to say. [Sidenote: The east window of Gloucester Cathedral.] I have no space, however, to describe these windows, and must return to the east window of Gloucester Cathedral which is later in style than any of them. Winston, who has given it the same careful study that he had devoted to the Peter de Dene window at York, points out that the coats of arms in it are all those of nobles who took part in the Campaign of Crècy in 1346 and deduces that the date of the window is not later than 1350, whereas Westlake thinks it cannot be earlier than 1360. In either case it is remarkable. To begin with, the tracery of this immense window, the second largest in England, is pure Perpendicular, and the earliest important example of it. The glass, on the other hand, in its architectural detail, style of drawing, and material used, belongs almost wholly to the Second or Decorated Period, and it is mainly in its planning and general colour scheme that we find a hint of approaching change. The perpendicular mullions and horizontal transoms divide the great window, which is slightly bowed outwards to give its strength, into a series of horizontal rows of narrow lights one above the other, fourteen lights in a row, each light being about two feet wide and from six to nine feet high. The lower tiers (and originally this was true of the tracery as well) are filled with quarries, and the upper one of these, the first that extends all across the window,--for the entrance to the Lady Chapel makes a gap below it,--is decorated with the splendid row of coats of arms already mentioned. Above this each light, row upon row, contains a figure under a canopy, the side shafts of which extend into the light above and support the canopy there, while the central pinnacle also extends upwards past the transom and expands into a flat-topped pedestal which carries the figure above. Figure and canopy are white, their whiteness only emphasised by touches of yellow stain, and relieved against a coloured background. The background of the two central columns of lights is ruby, that of the column on each side blue, and the next ruby again and so on alternately. Thus the general effect is of a white pattern on a background that is striped vertically with alternate red and blue. It is this simple but effective colour scheme that gives the window its resemblance in effect to Perpendicular glass; but there are other features--the complete absence of borders, the pedestals that carry the figures (which are first found at Wells), and the decoration of the quarries--which all indicate the coming change. The quarries, where the original ones remain, still have the "trellis" pattern, but instead of the continuous flowing pattern of foliage running through them each quarry has a sort of star pattern in the middle of it, stained yellow, a design much more common in the fifteenth than in the fourteenth century. This placing of quarries at the foot of the windows and in the tracery has its origin, of course, in the old fourteenth century arrangement of a horizontal stripe or stripes of figure and canopy work on a ground of grisaille. [Illustration: PLATE XXXVII PRIEST, FROM "ACTS OF MERCY" WINDOW, ALL SAINTS', NORTH STREET, YORK Fifteenth Century] The subject of the window is the enthronement of the virgin surrounded by apostles, saints, and angels; the same subject as that of the west window of York Minster which it was probably meant to, and certainly does, surpass. The figures themselves, however, still suffer from the conventionality and affectation of the period, and it was not for twenty years more that there was to be a change in that quarter as well. [Sidenote: William of Wykeham and Thomas the Glazier.] It was in 1380, or soon after, that new life came into the art through the piety and enterprise of William of Wykeham, whose influence may be compared to that of Abbot Suger in the twelfth century, and the genius of his master glazier, Thomas. Of the latter we only know his name from the portrait of himself which he put in the windows of Winchester College Chapel (now, alas! only modern copies of the originals), with the inscription "Thomas operator ist. vitri," but his hand is easily recognizable not only at Winchester, and in the three original lights from thence now in South Kensington Museum, but in the glorious set of windows in the antechapel of New College at Oxford. [Sidenote: New College antechapel.] There had been no such work as this last done since the best days of the thirteenth century. Here, once again, one finds the art used as a means of emotional expression not only in the deep and solemn harmonies of colour that strike one with a thrill on entering the building, but in the treatment of the subjects themselves, in which the artist breaks completely away from the conventionalism of the preceding period. The antechapel of New College, a graceful piece of Early Perpendicular, is really, like that at Merton, a cross transept at the west end of the Chapel, forming a =T= of which the antechapel is the head, having windows on all its four sides--two on the east, on either side of the entrance to the Chapel proper, two on the north, one on the south, and three on the west. The glass of the great central west window was taken out to make room for Jervais' smudgy rendering in muddy browns and yellows of Sir Joshua Reynolds' famous Virtues. I am not concerned with this but with the other windows, which contain, though some of the lights are evidently out of their order, the original glazing which William of Wykeham placed here when he built the Chapel, between 1380 and 1386. [Sidenote: The canopies.] The design of the windows is a very simple one. The horizontal transom divides each window into two equal tiers of four, or, in the eastern windows, six, lights with tracery above. Each light is filled with a figure standing on a pedestal and under a canopy, both canopy and pedestal being white, enriched with touches of yellow stain, relieved against a background which is, or was, blue and red in alternate lights, the colour of the background inside the canopy being counterchanged with the colour outside. From this arrangement and from the presence of the pedestal I think the artist had seen both Wells and the east windows of Gloucester Cathedral, but the architecture of his canopies is of a fantastic kind peculiar to this school and unlike anything in glass of the styles which preceded and followed it, but based to some extent on the stone canopies of the late fourteenth century, such as those on the screen of the west front of Exeter Cathedral. The most noticeable feature in them is the number of queer rounded turrets with pepper-box tops, modelled in relief. Indeed for their solidity, as well as for their violent and untrue perspective, these canopies have more in common with those introduced at Fairford a hundred years later, when the continental influence was coming in, than with the typical canopy of English Perpendicular. From the large amount of space that is occupied by the canopy work, the general effect of these windows is rather a white one (though white in all old work is a relative term, the white in this case consisting really of a delicate play of greenish, yellowish, and pure white continually contrasted), and the most beautiful to my mind are those in which, as in the windows on the north side which face one on entering, the figures themselves are almost entirely covered with a coloured mantle which makes a broad splash of distinctive colour in the middle of each light. [Sidenote: The eastern windows.] Although all the windows conform to the same general design, those on the east side, on each side of the entrance to the Chapel proper, seem to me to be by a different hand, and were probably done first. They contain or contained originally no colours but red and blue, and the drawing of the figures has much of the conventionalism of the earlier fourteenth century work. The upper tier consists of the twelve apostles, and the lower is believed to have contained the figure of the crucified Christ with His mother and St. John on either side, repeated four times. The figures of Christ have all been destroyed and replaced by figures from elsewhere, perhaps from the destroyed west window; but three figures of the Virgin and three of St. John remain, though it was only in 1900 that they were replaced in what I have little doubt were their original positions. It may, of course, be that these windows are by the same artist as the others, but done before he had quite found himself or emancipated himself from the conventionalities of his predecessors, for he has infused a certain amount of life into the old forms; and the "Mater Dolorosa," in spite of her conventional S-like pose, is a tender and pathetic figure. [Sidenote: The colouring.] There is, however, no trace of this conventionality in the other windows, quaint though the drawing may be, and in the colour of them the artist has fairly "let himself go." I know of no better piece of "colour music" in the world than is afforded by the double tier of prophets and patriarchs which occupy the two northern windows which face one on entering--deep rich purple of many shades, warm green, slaty-blue, brown, and a splendid blood-red ruby with a great deal of variety in it; the changes are rung on these in the mantles, hats, and shoes of the figures, while the reds and blues of the backgrounds form a connecting link between them all. A pretty detail is the powdering of the backgrounds to the figures in all the windows with the initials of the personage represented, in white Lombardic letters surmounted by little gold crowns. The drawing is, I admit, quaint,--Thomas was not a great draughtsman even for his time; far from it,--but it is always big, masculine, and expressive, with a strong feeling for decorative line. To copy the scrolls which twist and flutter round the prophets in the upper tier is in itself a lesson in design. [Sidenote: Eve.] Perhaps nowhere is his originality of conception so well shown as in the figure of Eve, in the northern west window. Instead of representing her, as nearly every other artist has done to the best of his ability, as a graceful nude, he has given us a peasant woman of his own time, spinning with a distaff and spindle. I do not know that he has even tried to make her pretty, and in the simple drawing of the folds of her colourless dress he has managed to suggest that it is of coarse thick stuff. She is neither nymph nor princess but the sharer of man's daily drudgery. In looking at her one is unavoidably reminded of the lines which Wat Tyler's followers had sung only a year or two before:-- When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman? The little upright tracery lights are filled with angels, but in the summit of the northern east window is a small figure of William of Wykeham kneeling before his Saviour, who shows His wounds. This and the mutilated inscription at the base of each light, "Orate pro Willelmo de Wykeham, Episcopo Wynton, fundatore istius collegii," is all there is to tell of the donor. There was a new spirit abroad; no longer were the portrait and arms of the patron allowed to usurp half, or, as at Tewkesbury, the whole of a church window, nor in England, at all events till the end of the fifteenth century, was the practice again revived to quite the same extent. These windows mark the second of the great periodic impulses in stained glass, which I spoke of at the beginning of the book. Only the second, I consider, for though there had been many changes in style since the twelfth century, each had meant, on the whole, a loss of beauty rather than a gain, whereas now we find a sudden infusion of new life into the art, which did not in England lose its force for fifty or sixty years to come, and produced a new style, the style of the Third Period. To me these windows are one of the great art treasures of the world, yet as I lately sat there all through a long spring afternoon, party after party of visitors, many of them people educated enough, one would think, to know better, came in to gaze awe-struck at Sir Joshua's muddy brown Virtues, and left without a glance at the glorious colour harmonies which surrounded them. [Sidenote: Winchester College.] Of other work of Thomas the Glazier and his school--the Winchester school, as Mr. Westlake calls it--little but fragments remain, unless one counts a window in the south aisle of the Lady Chapel of York Minster, the third from the east, which somewhat resembles their work and represents just about the same stage in development. William of Wykeham's next great work was the founding of Winchester College in 1387, and in what remains of its glass the hand of Thomas can be clearly seen. But, alas! in the early nineteenth century they took out the old glass and substituted modern copies; it was their method of restoration in those days. The old glass seems to have been the perquisite of the glazier, and three of the lights, after various peregrinations,--spending eight years in a window of St. Mary's, Shrewsbury,--have found their way to South Kensington Museum where they may still be seen. In style they are very like the north, west, and south windows at New College, and quite obviously by the same hand, though perhaps the canopies, at least in one case, show a very slight progress towards the regular Perpendicular type. The material seems to me much the same as at New College, but for some reason the coloured glass is much more pitted by the weather and consequently obscured, though the white, perhaps from a different shop, is in splendid preservation. [Illustration: PLATE XXXVIII KNEELING DONORS, FROM "ACTS OF MERCY" WINDOW, ALL SAINTS', NORTH STREET, YORK Fifteenth Century] [Sidenote: Winchester Cathedral.] The great west window of Winchester Cathedral contains fragments and a few whole figures of very similar work, and there are others in the side windows of the nave. William of Wykeham's will, made in 1403, leaves money for the glazing of the Cathedral windows "beginning from the west at the first window of the new work done by him," which sounds as if the west end had been already glazed. Indeed the fragments there are more like the eastern windows (the earliest, if I am right) in New College antechapel, while in the fragments that remain in the side windows of the nave the later hand can be traced, though the tendency in the canopies of these is to assimilate gradually to the regular Perpendicular type which by this time had been developed elsewhere. Winston thinks the west window of the Cathedral may have been glazed in the time of William of Wykeham's predecessor, Bishop Edington, in which case it is not unlikely that it and the east windows of the antechapel at New College were the work of Thomas's master, whose style was further developed and improved by Thomas himself. [Illustration: PLATE XXXIX FIGURE, FROM "VISITING THE PRISONERS," IN "ACTS OF MERCY" WINDOW, ALL SAINTS', NORTH STREET, YORK Fifteenth Century] XIII THE STYLE OF THE THIRD PERIOD [Sidenote: Divergence between English and French schools.] A notable feature of the fifteenth century is the divergence which takes place in it between the styles of English and French stained glass. Although in some respects they develop along parallel lines the two no longer form, as they did almost to the end of the fourteenth century, one school. The Hundred Years' War has done its work, and produced a separation of spirit for which the world has, perhaps, been the poorer ever since. Indeed for the first half of the fifteenth century, during which the best of the English work was done, the quantity of stained glass produced in France seems to have been almost negligible, and a comparison of the conditions of the two countries is a sufficient explanation of this fact. While England was becoming rich and prosperous and developing her foreign trade, France was laid waste by war and struggling to free herself from the foreigner who had beaten her down. It was not till the English had been finally expelled, and France had emerged from the struggle a stronger State than she had ever been before, that the art revived; and when it did so it owed little, as is not surprising, to English influence, but on the other hand began to feel, almost at once, the influence of the Continental schools of painting. In England, on the other hand, in spite of the quarrels of the nobles and the rival claimants to the throne, the middle class were steadily growing wealthy and powerful. The wool trade was bringing a great deal of money into the country, and the result is still seen not only in the number and size of Perpendicular churches that were built, but in the immense output of stained glass that took place. The fifteenth century, indeed, was by far the most prolific period in the history of English stained glass, and, in spite of four hundred years of destruction, vast quantities of it still remain. [Sidenote: General characteristics of the English style.] The general characteristics which distinguish the English style in glass in the Third Period--the "Perpendicular" style--are as follows:-- (1) The type of canopy. (2) The increased amount of white in figure and canopy work, with the delicate and accomplished use of silver stain. (3) The more advanced style of drawing. (4) The abandonment of natural form in ornament. (5) The supersession of all other forms of grisaille ornament by regular quarries. (6) The material used. * * * * * [Sidenote: The canopy.] (1) _The Type of Canopy._--Although in the fifteenth, as in the fourteenth century, figures were occasionally placed directly on a background of white quarries, as may be seen at York, in the clerestory of St. Martin's-le-Grand, and in the transepts of the Minster, the fifteenth century artists showed no signs of wishing to abandon the canopy. It was a curious freak of fate that imposed the canopy upon stained-glass designers and made it a _sine quâ non_ for two hundred years. It has certain obvious advantages, it is true. It conveniently filled the head of the light, and its upright lines and pinnacles repeated those of the surrounding architecture and made the window part of it; but the imitation of a stone niche in glass is hard to justify on abstract grounds, and it is difficult now to understand the enthusiasm which, as soon as it was introduced, made its adoption so universal that, with few exceptions, the artists of the day seemed unable to conceive of a single figure or a set of subject panels otherwise than surmounted by a bewildering mass of crockets and pinnacles. It is true that in the hands of mediæval craftsmen, in England at least, there was no attempt, as there was later, at literal imitation of stone-work; the canopy was rather ornament with an architectural motif, and as such possessed beauty; but I cannot help thinking that if they had never adopted it they would have evolved some other ornamental form which, while serving the same purposes, would have been more strictly in accordance with the rules of sound art, and might have given more room for the play of individual fancy. [Illustration: PLATE XL SMALL FIGURES IN WHITE AND STAIN, FROM ALL SAINTS', NORTH STREET, YORK Fifteenth Century] Though, however, the English fifteenth century craftsmen did not abandon the canopy, they profoundly modified it and made it far more pliant and adaptable. Plates XXXIV. and XXXV. from York will give a better idea of the canopies of the early fifteenth century than any description. It will be seen that the single overpowering crocketted gable and wall-sided tower of the fourteenth century has disappeared, and in its place we have a froth of pinnacles, windows, buttresses and niches all in white and yellow stain, on a background of colour. The earlier attempt at modelling the canopies in the round, which is seen in the work of the Winchester school, had been abandoned, and although every little shaft has its light and dark side delicately distinguished, this counts for little except to diversify the surface, the forms being expressed principally in strong and simple outline. The extent to which this simplification of outline was carried may be seen in the little crocketted pinnacles, such as those at the bottom of Plate XXXIV., which are characteristic of all English work of the time. There is, as you may see, no attempt to draw or model the foliation of the crockets, which are simply knobs outlined in the flat with a thick black line. This method is the salvation of English Perpendicular work, and shows the thorough understanding on the part of our craftsmen of the technical problem. In French work later on in the century, and in much modern pseudo-Gothic work, the attempt is made to express the canopy work in fine lines and delicate modelling, which, in the result, appears confused and indistinct, and too weak for the leading and for the coloured figure work it encloses. [Sidenote: The skilful use of silver stain.] (2) _The Increased Amount of White used._--Not only is the canopy white, but there is also as a rule a good deal of white in the figures within it, which are generally relieved against a diapered flat background of colour. Just one figure at New College has the brown-pink flesh colour, and that is its last appearance. Everywhere else one finds white used, the hair, in the case of women and young men, being stained yellow. This large increase in the use of white glass was accompanied, and indeed made possible, by a most delicate and skilful use of the yellow silver stain. This operation, of all others in stained-glass work, calls for the greatest exercise of taste and judgment as well as skill on the part of the craftsman,--_experto crede_,--and in its use the English workers of the first three-quarters of the fifteenth century stand unrivalled. [Sidenote: Loss of mosaic character.] This use of white in the figures and canopies rendered unnecessary the old fourteenth century plan of dividing the window up into alternate panels of grisaille and colour, and this is abandoned. Another result is the loss of the essentially mosaic character of the older windows. So much could now be expressed with stain and brown enamel on one piece of glass that, although the pieces used were still comparatively small, it was no longer necessary to surround every form with a lead as a matter of course. Plate XXXVI. is a good instance of this. The green-striped background to the figures is the work of the restorer and was probably once blue, as in Plate XXXVII., and this and the red mantle surcoat and shield are the only forms that it was absolutely necessary to lead in separately. It is true that, either for emphasis or from habit, the artist has outlined the man's knees in lead; but he need not have done so, and it would indeed have been easier not to. In the next plate (Plate XXXVII.) the leading on the white takes very little account of the drawing. Out of these conditions then arose a wholly new attitude towards the leading. Hitherto the disposition of the lead-work had followed naturally and inevitably from the design--the artist drew in lead, so to speak, merely supplementing it with the finer painted line; whereas now the leads had, in part at least, to be so arranged as not to interfere with the drawing, or only to emphasize it when needed, a matter requiring much more thought. A comparison of either of the above plates with Plate IV. will illustrate the difference. Hence we find a gradual tendency to use larger pieces of glass and fewer leads (the latter being sometimes concealed behind the iron-work), till by the end of the century the jewel-like quality of the early glass is a thing wholly lost and forgotten. [Sidenote: The method of drawing.] [Sidenote: Matt shading.] (3) _The more Advanced Style of Drawing._--The older conventions in drawing had, as we have seen, become outgrown and abandoned, and all through the last part of the fourteenth century there is a steady struggle for a more advanced method of expression. At the beginning of the fifteenth century, drawing, in England at least, crystallized once more into a convention satisfying to the mind of the time, which left the artist free to tell his story. Plates XXXIX. to XLIII. are examples of it as found at York, and Plate XLIV. from Canterbury does not greatly differ in method. The drawing still depends chiefly on line work, but the line work is far finer than before and is used to express modelling with the help of the matt shading. This last is the form of shading which has survived to modern times, and is done by laying a flat semi-transparent coat or "matt" of enamel over the whole surface of the glass, and, when it is dry, and before it is fired, brushing out graduated lights and half tones with a small stiff hog's-hair brush. Sometimes, but not always, the matt was stippled when wet, as may be seen in Plate XLII. In later times the matt shading was, and sometimes still is, abused in the attempt to give modelling in high relief by its means alone, a method which results in the loading of the glass with opaque muddy brown, while the modelling becomes untrue with changing lights. This, however, was hardly done within the limits of the period I am writing about in this book, in which the drawing of form is still principally dependent on line work, and is merely helped and softened with the matt. [Illustration: PLATE XLI HEADS, FROM ALL SAINTS', NORTH STREET, YORK Fifteenth Century] [Sidenote: The type of figure.] The figures themselves in contrast to those of the previous period are rather short and ungraceful, but, in the best work at least, very much alive. The quaint nose of which Plate XLII. is an extreme type is curiously universal throughout English work of the time, and was, I suppose, the accepted type of beauty. [Sidenote: Forms used in the ornament.] (4) _The Abandonment of Natural Plant Forms in Ornament._--The natural plant forms, which were so universally used in fourteenth century ornament, were abruptly abandoned at the beginning of the fifteenth. Their place is taken, in the diapered backgrounds to the figures, by a curious long serrated leaf, rather like certain kinds of seaweed, which may be seen in Plates XXXVII. and XXXVIII. Borders become less frequent, and when they occur generally consist of a leaf of something the same sort, in white and stain, wrapping round a central stem, sometimes with and sometimes without a coloured background. Later on, the conventional pomegranate pattern is occasionally introduced in vestments and hangings, but it is the exception for coloured garments to be ornamented except with an edging. White garments are sometimes powdered with little devices in yellow stain, as in Plate XXXIX. The edgings to bishops' copes are often of white set with coloured jewels, which are sometimes let into the middle of a piece of glass without its being cut across--a _tour de force_ of glazing very difficult to accomplish and not worth the trouble when done. (5) _Supersession of Other Forms of Grisaille by Regular Quarries._--The "bulged" quarries disappear by the middle of the fourteenth century and the ordinary straight-sided, diamond-shaped quarry is henceforth the rule. By the end of the century the continuous flowing pattern running through them is abandoned also. There had been a tendency towards the end, as may be seen in Plate XXVI., for the pattern to be so disposed that a flower, or other feature, was repeated in the middle of each quarry--in a transitional window at York, which I have referred to elsewhere, there is a continuous pattern with a bird in the centre of each quarry perching upon a branch of it. In the fifteenth century the connecting pattern was left out, and quarries are decorated solely by a little device in the centre of each. Sometimes these are purely conventional, but often they are the occasion for delightful exercise of fancy on the artist's part and form an exception to the general rule of the disuse of natural ornament. Birds, insects, flowers, and leaves are used, as well as heraldic devices and monograms, all expressed very simply in firm pure line work touched with the yellow stain. [Sidenote: The change in material.] [Sidenote: Flashed ruby.] (6) _The Material used._--At the beginning of the fifteenth century there is a very marked change in the material used. It becomes thinner and flatter--sometimes very thin indeed--and the colour is more even. Thirteenth century "ruby," seen edgeways, reveals itself as composed, for nearly, if not quite, half its thickness, of alternate minute layers of red and white, the rest of the thickness being white. It has been thought that to this is due the wonderful luminous quality of the early ruby. Gradually the number of these layers are reduced till at the beginning of the fifteenth century the red is all concentrated into one layer on the surface. This is the "flashed" glass referred to at the beginning of the book, and one soon begins to find instances of ornament chipped out of it. The lion on the red shield in Plate XXXVI. has, I think, been got in this way, and a later instance may be seen in Plate L. in the girdle of the prophet Hosea on the right. [Illustration: PLATE XLII HEAD, FROM ST. MICHAEL'S, SPURRIERGATE, YORK Fifteenth Century] The rich blues of earlier times are replaced by a more sober greyish blue, which, however, is a very effective colour in glass. The colours are not perfectly flat tints, for there are gradations in them, but the streaky, crumbly quality of the early glass is gone. The craftsman was beginning to rely for quality less on the glass itself than on what he put on it. XIV FIFTEENTH CENTURY GLASS AT YORK The very well-defined and distinctive style I have described, which became universal in English fifteenth century work, and which, from the architecture with which it is associated, we call Perpendicular, was not, I think, evolved by the Winchester School, although no doubt they influenced it. Where it began must always be something of a mystery, but some work in the east window of Exeter Cathedral is very suggestive in this connection. [Sidenote: Lyen's work at Exeter.] This window, glazed originally at the beginning of the fourteenth century, was enlarged and rebuilt with Perpendicular tracery in 1390-91 through the munificence of one of the canons, Henry Blakeborn; and in 1392 Robert Lyen, glazier, citizen of Exeter, and master glazier to the Cathedral, was commissioned to adapt the old glass to its new setting, adding what was necessary of his own work to fill the space. Robert Lyen's work is easily to be distinguished from the earlier work (which, besides that of 1302, includes four figures of about 1340-50, which he may have brought from other windows to fill up with). It consists of six figures, of which only three are under canopies of Lyen's time, and of a row, across the bottom, of short double-arched canopies enclosing coats of arms of past bishops of Exeter. The drawing is about equal to that of the Winchester School, but the canopies, with their multitude of crocketted pinnacles in strong outline, are far nearer to the regular Perpendicular type, such as we find at York, than anything that was being done by the Winchester School at that date. Was the work of Robert Lyen an example of a style which had become general throughout the west, and of which the influence extended as far as Coventry? For in 1405 John Thornton of Coventry was commissioned to fill with stained glass the huge east windows of the new choir of York Minster, and this is the earliest existing window, of which the date is known, in which the Perpendicular style in glass has taken definite form. [Illustration: PLATE XLIII HEAD, FROM ST. MICHAEL'S, SPURRIERGATE, YORK Fifteenth Century] [Sidenote: The east window of York Minster.] This great window is the glory of English stained glass. It is 78 feet high from top to bottom, and below the great mass of Perpendicular tracery, which fills the mighty pointed arch of it, there are the three tiers of lower lights divided by horizontal transoms, with nine lights in every tier. Each of these lights measures 3 feet 6 inches across, and is divided again by the thick iron frame-bars into roughly square panels, each of which contains a subject from the Bible. The canopy work which, in the hands of a fourteenth century artist, would have filled half the window space with its towering spires, is here reduced to a small many-pinnacled canopy just filling the head of each light (where it would have been an awkward shape for a subject), a narrow shafting forming a border down the side, and a very shallow flat arch dividing each subject from the one above. There has been no question here of eking out a poverty of ideas; on the contrary, the artist's aim seems rather to have been to get as much space as possible for the expression of them. There are one hundred and seventeen of these subject panels. Thornton would seem to have begun at the top with the idea of telling the whole story of the Old Testament, or perhaps that of the entire Bible, but by the time he had finished the upper tier, which contains three rows of panels, as compared with five in each tier below, and carried the story as far as the death of Absalom, he, or more probably his clients, seem to have changed their minds, for the rest of the window, with the exception of the bottom row panels, is devoted to the illustration of the Apocalypse, beginning with the torture of St. John under Domitian and his banishment to Patmos. John Thornton was a greater draughtsman than Thomas of Winchester, and the portrayal of these scenes is far in advance, from the pictorial point of view, of anything that had been done in glass up to that time. Here again one feels, as in the best days of the Early Period, that one can take pleasure in the actual technique of the painting, but it is a different technique to that of the Early Period. The line work is still wonderfully precise and expressive, but it is more delicate than before, and is helped by delicate modelling in "matt shading," while the drawing itself is in a much more modern convention. It is, indeed, the first example in stained glass of a style of drawing which was to hold the field in England till nearly the end of the century, and to John Thornton is due, probably, the credit of its introduction. [Sidenote: Its colouring.] As a colourist, however, John Thornton is even greater. This window stands almost alone in England, if not in Europe, for the way in which colour is made use of as a means of expression. Elsewhere in York the successors of John Thornton seem to have been content with a merely decorative distribution of red, blue, and silver stain in their subjects, but here each scene has its appropriate colour scheme, the creation of fishes, for instance, being a lovely harmony of blue and silvery white, while the scenes in Eden are a glory of spring-like greens and gold. [Sidenote: Its construction.] The necessary element of strength in the construction of this huge window, which, at Gloucester was, as we have seen, obtained by building the whole window on the plan of a bow, is here provided by doubling the mullions below the second transom. An inner set has been constructed between three and four feet on the inside of those which sustain the glass, being connected with them by little flying arches and so acting as buttresses to them. This double set of mullions carries a gallery along its top at the level of the upper transom, while another runs across the base of the window, and from these it is possible to study the upper and lower tiers of lights at close quarters. Unfortunately access to these galleries is nowadays only granted as a great favour, but for those that can obtain it, it is well worth the trouble, for it is only from this position that the pages of this vast picture-book can be studied, and its story unravelled. Indeed I think the only adverse criticism that can be made of John Thornton's work is to question the artistic wisdom of putting so much beautiful work, on such a small scale,--for the delicate drawing and finish of the work is wonderful,--in a position in which it was invisible to the ordinary observer below. Perhaps John Thornton did not realize how small his panels would look,--panels three and a half feet square seem a fair size when you are working at them,--and no doubt access to the galleries was freer then than now; but a thirteenth century artist would not have made the mistake.[16] [Illustration: PLATE XLIV HEAD OF AN ARCHBISHOP, CANTERBURY Fifteenth Century] Yet the architectural effect of the whole is little, if at all, the worse for it. The smallness of the panels only increases one's sense of the size of the window and gives the glass a jewel-like quality. It is all a twinkle of beautiful colour. Neither have the repairs effected by the eighteenth century glaziers hurt it much--pieces of clear coloured glass put in to fill up holes, and on which the glazier has usually scratched his name and the date with his diamond. Rather, I think, these tiny touches of pure colour (for they used quite a good blue) add to it and give it a quality. What does detract from its beauty is the dirty quarry glazing which has been put outside it to protect it. Beautiful as the window still is, quite a third of its beauty of light and colour has been sacrificed by this means. [Sidenote: A transitional window.] There is some glass in the Lady Chapel which seems older than the east window. I have already alluded to the third window from the east in the south aisle which represents a stage of development corresponding to the earlier work of the Winchester School in the west window of Winchester Cathedral and the east windows of New College antechapel. The three lights contain three figures, St. Edward the Confessor between St. James and St. John the Evangelist, unless the former figure is also St. John appearing to the king as a pilgrim, as in the well-known story. Below are small scenes of the Massacre of the Innocents, Christ among the Doctors, and the Baptism in Jordan. The figures still have something of the S-like curve of the fourteenth century, but the canopies are white and of the transitional type. Perhaps the most interesting things in the window are the quarry panels at the bottom, which have a continuous flowing pattern of oak foliage running through the quarries, but with birds perching on it, so arranged that a bird comes in the centre of each quarry. [Sidenote: Thornton's successors.] There is some similar glass to this in the clerestory, but, with this exception and that of a fourteenth century window in the south aisle which has evidently been moved from the nave, the rest of the glass in the choir and Lady Chapel is the work of the school which was either founded by John Thornton at York, or at least profoundly influenced by him. It seems probable to me that it was in their work, which is found not only in the Cathedral but also in most of the parish churches of York, that the Perpendicular style in glass finally crystallized into the form which, with minor local differences, became universal throughout England. Details from their work may be seen in Plates XXXIV.-XLIII. In one respect, namely in colour, they did not, as I have said, follow John Thornton, limiting themselves, for some reason unknown, very much to ruby, blue, and yellow stain. Plate XXXVIII. is a good instance of their method (the background of Plate XXXVI., it must be remembered, is modern). The blue is of a greyish quality, quite different from that of early times, but pleasant, and with a good deal of variety in it; a blue-black was sometimes used, as in Plate XXXVII., for monks' dresses. [Sidenote: A Jesse Tree.] The only exception to this rule is a window in the south aisle of the Cathedral choir, which contains parts of a Jesse Tree, in which the blue is combined with some very beautiful rich dark greens and a strong orange stain. Mr. Westlake thinks the glass is not York work at all. To me it seems not quite impossible that it is the work of John Thornton himself, the use of the deep orange stain in the east window being very similar. There is, however, no certainty of his authorship of any existing window but the east window. The glass in the Guildhall of Coventry is sometimes claimed for him, but I do not know of any evidence for it, and as it contains a portrait of Henry VI. as a grown man it can hardly be much earlier than 1440, thirty-five years later than the east window at York. [Sidenote: The St. William and St. Cuthbert windows.] Next to the great east window, the most important windows in the choir are those which fill the two choir-transepts, and which tell the histories respectively of St. William of York and St. Cuthbert. They are only five lights wide, but extend upwards to the full height of the church, and have double tracery and galleries like the east window. Except for their prevailing red and blue colouring, their general design resembles that of the east window, the whole window being divided, in the same way, into a series of small square subject panels with a short many-pinnacled canopy just filling the head of each light. The St. Cuthbert window, however, has, in addition, a life-size figure of the saint, which occupies two panels in the middle of the window. The two windows are evidently by the same hand, but the northern or St. William window is a good deal the older, having been presented, as it would seem from the portraits it contains, by Baron Ros of Hamlake about 1420, while the St. Cuthbert window cannot have been given till after 1426, and probably not till 1430 or later. No doubt, however, the execution of the first window would occupy a large part of the intervening time. Of the two, I rather prefer the effect of the St. William window, to which the larger amount of dark blue in the monks' dresses gives greater depth and richness, but the St. Cuthbert window shows perhaps more accomplishment in drawing. It is a fascinating occupation on a bright day to trace, with the aid of a strong field-glass, the stories unfolded in these rows upon rows of pictures in glass, to which a key may be found in monographs on the two windows, by the Rev. J. T. Fowler and his brother, published in the _Yorkshire Archæological Journal_, vols, iii.-iv. [Illustration: PLATE XLV HEAD OF PATRIARCH, FROM WINDOW IN SOUTH AISLE OF NAVE, ST. PATRICE, ROUEN Fifteenth Century] [Sidenote: St. Martin's, Coney Street.] [Sidenote: All Saints', North Street.] More easily studied, because nearer to the eye, are the windows, again by the same hand, in the churches of St. Martin's, Coney Street, and All Saints', North Street. The former has a large west window containing a life-size figure of St. Martin, surrounded by small scenes from his life, the gift of a former vicar, Robert Semer, who has most obligingly recorded the date--1437--in an inscription. This would probably make it just a little later than the St. Cuthbert window, which its arrangement resembles. The glass at All Saints' is particularly interesting. The east window has three lights with large figures under canopies of the type shown in Plates XXXIV. and XXXV., which, though elaborate enough, have none of the unwieldiness of the fourteenth century type and are properly subordinate to the figures. These are St. Peter and St. Christopher (always a favourite subject in England), and, between them, St. Anne, teaching the Virgin to read. This last is a very beautiful group; the Virgin, a graceful girlish figure in white and yellow stain, with a wreath of white flowers round her head, is pointing with a short stick to the letters in a book held by her mother, who wears a deep ruby mantle over a blue dress, and a most curious red turban-like headdress[17] with ermine stripes, which is one of the most striking things in the window. Below are the donors, Nicholas Blackburn, twice Mayor of York, and his wife Margaret (Plate XXXVI.), facing his son, also named Nicholas, and his wife, also named Margaret. The window has unfortunately been a good deal restored, and the background to the Blackburns is modern and was, I should think, originally blue. Modern, too, is the vivid green of the younger Nicholas's cloak. Margaret Blackburn, the elder, carries a book with the words, "Domine, labia mea aperies et os meum." The same verse occurs also, if I remember right, in a lady's hand at Selby Abbey. Were Yorkshire women, one wonders, so very silent? Some of those in the north aisle are designed on the same plan as the St. William and St. Cuthbert windows, small subject panels arranged in rows. One shows the Six Corporal Acts of Mercy--Feeding the Hungry, Giving Drink to the Thirsty, Receiving Strangers, Clothing the Naked, Visiting the Sick, and Visiting the Prisoners. The little scenes are full of verve and "go," the fifteenth century artist having regained much of the life and vigour which makes the medallions of the Early Period so delightful, with an even greater power of expression. Plate XXXIX. represents the Merciful Man visiting the prisoners in the stocks. I wish Mr. Saint could have found time to have copied the whole of the scene, of which the humour is, I feel sure, not unconscious. Plates XXXVII. and XXXVIII. are from the bottom of this window, and show the donor and his wife with the priest saying mass for them. Another window illustrates in a number of scenes the Last Fifteen Days of the World, as described in Richard Rolle's _Pricke of Conscience_, and is well calculated to make the evil-doer take thought and mend his ways. [Illustration: PLATE XLVI HEAD OF ST. CATHERINE, FROM WINDOW ABOVE ALTAR IN NORTH-WEST CORNER OF ST. VINCENT'S, ROUEN Fifteenth Century] Through the energy of the present rector, a full and careful catalogue and description of all the old glass in the church has been prepared and published. I only wish this were done for the Cathedral and other churches in York, which is richer, perhaps, in the quantity of its old stained glass than any other city in the world. FOOTNOTES: [16] Perhaps it is unfair to blame Thornton, for in the contract he undertakes to work "secundum ordinationem Decani et Capituli." [17] This is thought by some to be a piece of something else inserted here, but its effect on the design is very happy. XV FIFTEENTH CENTURY GLASS IN FRANCE [Sidenote: The influence of pictorial art.] The French school, when it revived in the second half of the fifteenth century, came, as I have said, almost at once, and far earlier than the English school, under the influence of the schools of painting which had been developed in the Netherlands (where the Van Eycks were working as early as 1420), and also, to an extent which has only been realized comparatively recently, in France itself. There was both advantage and disadvantage in this. The drawing of the French is generally a little better than our own, and there is more variety and enterprise in their colour schemes than in our later Perpendicular work. On the other hand, it seems to me that almost from the beginning they were hampered, if ever so little at first, by the desire to apply to glasswork the standards of a different medium. The difficulty had not arisen before. The illumination or wall painting of the thirteenth and early fourteenth century in England and the north of France could be translated into glass with little change, but, in the fifteenth century, the painters of illuminations and panel pictures had learnt all sorts of things about light and shade and landscape and flesh painting that did not come at all easily to the worker in glass and lead, and were of no help to him in his task of beautifying windows. It was inevitable that he should make some attempt to follow in the cry, and the extent to which he succeeded is amazing; but from henceforth, even where he most succeeds, it is to some extent by a _tour de force_, by a compromise between incompatibilities. [Illustration: PLATE XLVII DRAPERY FROM SLEEVE OF VIRGIN, FROM WEST END OF ST. VINCENT'S, ROUEN Fifteenth Century] [Sidenote: Early fifteenth century work.] For the first part of the century, as I have said, the number of windows produced in France seems to have been few. Such events as the disaster of Agincourt, the conquest of France by Henry V., and its deliverance by Joan of Arc can have left little money or thought for stained-glass windows. The names of the _maîtres verriers_ of the cathedrals show that all through the time there were men who carried on the tradition, but their output seems to have been small. What windows they have left us do not show the same complete change from the work of the previous century that we find in England; the style did not as in England crystallize into a definite form, but remained as a transitional style between that of the fourteenth and late fifteenth centuries. In its general outlines the design did not at first differ greatly from that of the fourteenth century, but, as in England, the white canopy touched with stain took the place of all others, and there was a general increase in the amount of white in windows. In detail, however, the canopy altered slowly, and it was never as in England reduced to an almost flat pattern by the use of strong line work, but persisted in the attempt to imitate solid stone-work. It is not till the second half of the century, when the wars were over, and France had settled down to quiet reconstruction under Louis XI., that we find any great revival of the art, and then it is very different to contemporary work in England. [Sidenote: Evreux.] There is a good deal of fifteenth century work still remaining at Rouen, though there seems to be a gap in the list of _maîtres verriers_ to the Cathedral from 1386 to 1426. It was during this gap, however, in the year 1400, that a window, which still remains, was placed in the clerestory of the Cathedral at Evreux. The general plan of this window is that of those later fourteenth century windows in which the whole light was filled with towering canopy work. The canopy differs only slightly in detail from the late fourteenth century type, though there is a more decided attempt at perspective in it, but, like the English work of the time, it is all white, touched with stain, and the general effect of the window is much whiter than that of earlier work. The drawing of the figures, which represent the donor, Bishop Guillaume de Cantier, presented to the Virgin by St. Catherine, does not show any very great change from late fourteenth century work. [Sidenote: St. Ouen at Rouen.] The fifteenth century windows at Rouen follow, for the most part, the general design of the fourteenth century windows in the same churches. Thus the window in the chapel of SS. Peter and Paul in St. Ouen, which Mr. Westlake thinks to be the work of Guillaume Barbe, 1459-85, has much the same arrangement and proportions as the S. Gervais window in the south choir aisle shown in Plate XXV.; that is to say, a small figure panel, under a big canopy, is set half-way up each tall light of which the top and bottom is filled with quarries. There is the same coloured background to the canopy, ending at the top in the same arched shape, but in the treatment of the canopy itself one finds a difference not only from fourteenth century work but from English work of the fifteenth century. The French canopy, as I have said, had never, like the English, been reduced to an almost flat pattern of intricate line work, and in these Rouen windows one finds the artist already trying to imitate stone-work modelled in relief with results that are heavy and unsatisfactory. It is not that, in English work, individual shafts are not given a light and dark side, but the canopy is not, as in French work, modelled as a solid whole, and the strong line work seems to keep it right. [Sidenote: The revival.] It was not, however, till the second half of the century that any new life came into French stained-glass work, and when it came it brought with it a skill in picture-making that was borrowed from contemporary painting. To this period belong, I think, the fragments from Rouen shown in Plates XLV. to XLIX. The heads of St. Catherine and the old man, if compared with those from York, show the strong difference in facial type between French and English work at this time. The stain on the hair of St. Catherine is very coarse and inartistic as compared with English work, but then no other nation ever equalled the English in their delicate and refined use of stain. [Sidenote: St. Maclou.] The two heads of Angels (Plates XLVIII., XLIX.), which are from the north transept of St. Ouen, are, I think, by the same hand as an interesting "Assumption of the Virgin," which now occupies two lights of a window in the north aisle of St. Maclou in the same city. A significant point about this glass is that the picture, which is enclosed by a wide, flat-arched canopy, delicately modelled, stretches right across both lights, completely ignoring the intervening mullion, one of the first hints that stained glass was forgetting its architectural mission.[18] The composition is much more ambitious and pictorial, and the drawing more advanced than in any of the glass we have hitherto considered. In front is a crowd of kneeling saints in robes of blue, red, and green, above whom the Virgin kneels before the Almighty, while the top of the picture is filled with rows of golden-haired angels with red wings on a blue ground, of a similar type to those illustrated. I should put the date of the window at about 1470-80. [Illustration: PLATE XLVIII ANGEL'S HEAD, FROM GREAT ROSE WINDOW IN NORTH TRANSEPT OF ST. OUEN'S, ROUEN Fifteenth Century] [Sidenote: The Lady Chapel at Evreux.] Of about the same date are the side windows of the Lady Chapel of the Cathedral at Evreux, of which the building was finished, I believe, in 1475. I am surprised that Mr. Westlake, in his notice of the chapel, only mentions the east window with its Jesse tree, which to me is much less beautiful than the others, and which I should be inclined to attribute, at the earliest, to the very end of the century, if not to the following one. The four side windows tell the story of Christ's Ministry, Passion, and Resurrection, and show His second coming. Their arrangement is somewhat English, each window having two tiers of lights, each of which has a subject enclosed in a white canopy, but the technique is different from the English. By far the best is the first window of the series, which contains eight scenes from the Ministry of Christ, from the Marriage in Cana to the Entry into Jerusalem. The canopy work with its little figures in niches is modelled as Van Eyck might have done it; the method would not tell well at a distance, but owing to the narrowness of the chapel one cannot get far away from these windows. The figure panels are very rich in colour, Christ being always dressed in a deep purple, and the other figures in rich greens, blues, and reds. The other windows of the series are not quite so good, being thinner and poorer in effect, and seem to me to have been executed by another hand, possibly from the designs of the author of the first window, who may have died in the interval. There is a good deal of similar work in the church of St. Taurin in the same town. From the pictorial point of view these windows are much more accomplished than anything that had so far been done in England. In comparing English and French fifteenth century work, however, it must always be remembered that the best English work was done during the first half of the century, and is far better than the French work of that time, whereas the best French work was done in the second half of the century when the English Perpendicular style had for the most part become stereotyped and dull, and seemed to resist the introduction of new ideas. These Evreux windows represent the style which, under the influence of contemporary picture-painting, was growing up on the Continent, but which did not obtain a foothold in England till the advent, almost at the end of the century, of the school which produced the Fairford windows. FOOTNOTE: [18] It is true that the glass is not now in its original position, but I think it must always have filled two lights. XVI MALVERN AND FAIRFORD So great was the quantity of stained glass produced in England in the fifteenth century, and so much still remains, that it is impossible, in this book, even to mention all the more important examples. We have seen the growth and perfection of the Perpendicular style at York. At Great Malvern Priory you may study its gradual decadence. [Sidenote: Great Malvern: the "Creation."] The best of the windows there are undoubtedly the earliest, namely, those in St. Anne's Chapel which include the famous "Creation," of which the date is perhaps 1440-50. It cannot, I think, compare with John Thornton's "Creation" in the east window of York Minster,--the colour scheme is so much more conventional and less expressive,--but it is nevertheless very beautiful. The resemblance of some of the scenes to those in Thornton's window is perhaps no more than one would expect to find in two representations of the same subject in the same period, but at the same time the Malvern "Creation" is very much akin to York work, though rather to the later phase represented by the St. Cuthbert and the All Saints' windows, than to the work of Thornton. I may be wrong, but I sometimes suspect that the inhabitants of the Severn and Avon valleys had more intercourse with the North of England--to which access would be easy by the Avon and Trent, navigable most of the way--than with the Thames Valley and South of England, from which they were cut off by the wild and inhospitable Cotswolds. [Sidenote: The north transept window.] In comparing the later windows in Malvern Priory with the "Creation" and its neighbours in St. Anne's Chapel, one can trace a decided and increasing decadence. The forms are the same but stereotyped and dull, the artists seem timid in their use of colour, and all the life seems to go out of the style. The great north transept window, given in 1501-2 by Henry VII. (it once contained his portrait and still has that of his son Prince Arthur and the architect, Sir Reginald Bray), is, compared with the earlier work, a very poor affair. The yellow stain in particular is very coarse and overdone, yet such was the hold which this style had got on our countrymen that in spite of the late date of the window there is not a hint in it of the new ideas which were then coming in, although it is probable that before it was finished, the famous windows of Fairford, not forty miles away across the Cotswolds, had at least been begun. [Sidenote: Fairford.] The old church of Fairford with its square central tower, standing on a green slope above a rushing trout stream, which, a few miles below, unites with the baby Thames and makes it a navigable river, occupies a unique position, not merely as the only village church in England--one may, perhaps, say in the world--which still retains the whole of its original set of stained-glass windows almost intact, but from the quality of the windows themselves. Some, it is true, have suffered damage, but there is not a subject unrecognizable, nor a window missing. [Sidenote: The new style.] The church was begun by John Tame, merchant of London, and finished by his son, Sir Edward; but since John Tame's will, dated 1496, while bequeathing various sums for ornaments to the church, makes no mention of the glass, it is argued that the glass had been already ordered. The Fairford windows are usually classed as Perpendicular on the strength of their association with Perpendicular architecture and the presence of Perpendicular detail in the canopies and elsewhere, but it is a wholly different style to the Perpendicular of York, of Malvern, of Warwick; the style which, with little change, had held the field in England since the beginning of the century. Fairford, in fact, marks a revolution in English stained glass. It is an early, if not the first work of a new school which, throwing away the old native tradition, based its style on that which had grown up on the Continent and, still more, upon Flemish painting. The Fairford windows represent a phase of their art which did not last very long, for their style soon began to assimilate itself to that of the Renaissance. In the windows of King's College Chapel at Cambridge you may see the change happening, and in the latest windows there you may also, alas! see the rapid setting in of decadence. It was, indeed, a style which contained in itself the seeds of decay, which germinated all too rapidly; but these, its first-fruits, at Fairford are magnificent, and disarm criticism. [Illustration: PLATE XLIX ANGEL'S HEAD, FROM GREAT ROSE WINDOW IN NORTH TRANSEPT OF ST. OUEN'S, ROUEN Fifteenth Century] They mark, as I say, a complete departure from the older standards of English fifteenth century glass. It is the same story, once more repeated, of old conventions of drawing becoming out of date, and failing to satisfy a newer generation. Of the more advanced schools of painting, the Flemish was the one that Englishmen were most in touch with, and it was thence that the new school of English glass-workers took their inspiration, with the result that a Flemish feeling is traceable in all their work. One immediate result of the more pictorial standard now expected of the artist was that he came to depend in quite a different way on the painting of his glass as distinct from the glazing. At Fairford, elaborate landscape backgrounds are put in with the brown enamel alone, helped by yellow stain, sometimes on white, sometimes on grey-blue glass, to which latter the stain gives a green for grass and trees. Not as yet, however, does the painting take precedence of the glazing, the balance being for a time held equal between the two. Indeed the craft of glazing, as well as that of painting, was now at its height; the artist had all the resources of both at his command and used them to the full, but as yet the limits of the medium were not overstepped. Another result of the pictorial standard now arrived at, was that the artist began to feel cramped by the narrow lights he had to fill, and to let his subjects spread through more than one of them, ignoring the intervening mullion. At Fairford many of the subjects occupy two lights, and the "Crucifixion" at the east end and the "Doom" at the west spread right across the whole width of the window. As yet this is not so done that one loses the sense of the design decorating the stone-work; but both these developments are indications of a tendency which was to increase as time went on, and eventually to ruin the art. The new point of view naturally affected the canopy, which is shaded like solid stone-work, giving it a heavy and clumsy effect. In many of the subject windows, however, the canopy is omitted altogether, the sky of the picture, which is sometimes white, with clouds and circling swifts painted on it, continuing right up to the stone-work. [Sidenote: The problem of the authorship of the windows.] I agree with Mr. Westlake in finding the work of more than one hand in the windows. Two there are certainly, and possibly four. The east window is certainly by a different, and, I think, an older hand than the west, and the windows of the north aisle, though they may be by the same hand as the west windows, are certainly by a different one to the Apostles opposite them, which are the poorest windows in the church. I think the differences are greater than could be accounted for by any development that might take place in the same man's style during the execution of the windows. The west windows are the work of a different temperament to the east windows. The forms are fuller, stronger, and more rounded, and show a much stronger sense for the decorative placing of a line. There is no record to tell us who these men were, and there has been much discussion as to whether they were Englishmen or Flemings. Indeed the wildest theories have been advanced as to the origin of the windows. They have been attributed to Dürer, without the slightest internal or external evidence except the presence of an A which does not resemble his signature. Another story which, though not heard of, I believe, till the eighteenth century, has obtained wide credence, is that they were captured at sea, bound for Rome, by Edward Tame, and the church built to contain them; but the most casual examination of the windows ought to convince any one that they were made for the church and not the church for them.[19] As to the question of the English or Flemish authorship of the windows, it is true that Flemish details crop up here and there both in architecture and the costumes; but this is not surprising, for the style, new then to England, was largely based on Flemish art, and on the other hand the English characteristics are in excess of the Flemish. [Sidenote: Barnard Flower.] In Henry VII.'s Chapel at Westminster, high up in the central clerestory window of the apse, is a single figure under a canopy which bears a most striking resemblance to the series of the Prophets at Fairford (Plate L.). In the figure, in the scroll he holds, in the canopy, in the treatment of the drapery, and even in the queer drawing of the hands, the resemblance is so close that I for one cannot doubt their common authorship. Now it is on record that the windows of Henry VII.'s Chapel were glazed by "one Barnard Flower," the king's glazier, who also is the glazier named in the first contract for the windows in King's College Chapel at Cambridge, but who died in 1525-26 before they were finished. A comparison of those windows at Cambridge which are believed to be his work, especially that over the north door, with the Fairford windows, reveals many points of resemblance, and, allowing for the twenty years which probably separate the execution of the two works, I think we should not be far wrong in assigning to Flower the whole of the north aisle at Fairford, and perhaps the Latin Fathers in the south aisle. Whether the west windows are his work too I do not feel sure, and to the names of the other artists who took part in the work we have no clue. [Illustration: PLATE L THE PROPHETS JOEL, ZEPHANIAH, AMOS, AND HOSEA, FROM THE NORTH AISLE OF THE NAVE, FAIRFORD Late Fifteenth Century] [Sidenote: The general scheme.] [Sidenote: The "Doom."] Yet though one may thus trace various hands in the work, the windows form a connected whole, the planning of which must have been the work of one mind. The arrangement is the traditional one whereby the whole church forms an exposition of the foundations of the Christian faith. The windows of the nave contain single figures, the Prophets on the north side (Plate L.) facing the Apostles on the south. Each Apostle holds a verse of the creed, and the Prophet opposite him a corresponding verse from his writings. The four Evangelists face the four Latin Fathers. Farther east, within the now vanished screen, the windows unfold the Gospel story, those on the north leading up to the Passion in the east window, those on the south showing the Descent into Hell, the Resurrection, and the events that followed. Then, as the spectator turns to the west, there faces him, in the great west window, the tremendous "Doom" or Last Judgment. Do not look at the upper half where Christ sits enthroned as Judge, surrounded by saints and angels; it has suffered the fate of the Winchester College glass. Blown in by a storm in 1703, it was "restored" in the middle of the nineteenth century, which means that the old glass was removed and a bad copy substituted. Where the blue ring of Heaven passes through the tracery lights the original glass remains, and the difference between it and the new is an object lesson in good and bad stained-glass work. But below the transom the window is still unspoilt. In the midst stands Michael with sword and scales, and below him the dead are rising naked from their graves. Michael himself, it must be confessed, is a somewhat lackadaisical figure; it was not possible for an artist of that time and school to give a figure the arresting quality of the Methuselah in Plate III.; neither does one's eye linger long over the Saved, who troop up the golden stairs on Michael's right, but is irresistibly attracted to the other side of the picture, where in a great glow of ruby glass are seen the Flames of Hell, to which devils--grey and blue at the outer edge of the fire, but darker and more purple as they are farther in--are carrying the wretched souls of the Lost. Just outside the flames an angel and a devil are fighting in mid-air for the possession of a soul, and a comparison of these figures with the similar ones in the Descent into Limbo or "Harrying of Hell," which is by the same hand as the east window, shows at once the difference between the work of the two men. [Sidenote: The west windows of the aisles.] On either side the west windows of the aisles contain, as types of the Last Judgment, on the north, the Judgment of Solomon, which protected the innocent; on the south, that of David on the Amalekite, which condemned the guilty. It seems to me not unlikely that the position of these windows was originally reversed, Solomon's judgment being on the side of the Saved in the "Doom" and David's on that of the Lost. They have both suffered greatly in the storm of 1703 and contain many blank spaces, but from what remains they seem to me, together with the "Doom," the most accomplished work in the church. [Sidenote: The clerestory.] Very splendid, too, are the Persecutors of the Church, who, clad in all the bravery of wickedness, fill the north side of the clerestory, fronting the somewhat insipid row of Martyrs on the other side. Here is Herod transfixing an Innocent; Nero, if it is he, with the head of St. Paul; the King of the Huns, and Diocletian, perhaps, with bows and arrows; and, in a dark blue robe, Judas, with the halter round his neck and the bag in his hand, between Annas and Caiaphas. In the tracery lights above the Martyrs are rather commonplace white and gold angels, but over the Persecutors are fascinating little figures of devils, grey, blue, and green, on a background of ruby flames. I am afraid there is no question which series the artist enjoyed doing most! Fairford marks the end of mediæval stained glass in England. Conservative artists might still, as at Malvern and at St. Neots in Cornwall, try to carry on the older tradition, but their works are isolated survivals. The Fairford windows themselves represent, as I have said, a very short-lived phase in English glass, of which they are the most complete example, others being the fragments in Henry VII.'s Chapel at Westminster and the remains of Bishop Fox's glazing in Winchester Cathedral, now collected into the east clerestory window there. Flower's own work at King's College, Cambridge, twenty years later than Fairford, shows signs of change, and that of his successors in the same building, as at Basingstoke, at Balliol College and elsewhere must be classed as wholly of the Renaissance. With Fairford, then, these notes on Stained Glass of the Middle Ages may fitly end. FOOTNOTE: [19] This is fully gone into by Canon Carbonel in an article in _Memorials of Old Gloucestershire_. Another theory he examines and rejects is that they were the work of the Dutch painter Aeps. INDEX Abrasion, 8, 224 Angers-- 12th century, 55 Grisaille, 118 Becket, St. Thomas, 69, 74, 80, 87, 91 "Blue Dick" Culmer, 56 Bourges, 112 Brabourne, 24 Byzantine Influence, 24, 52, 69 Canopy-- 13th century, 107 14th " 136 15th " 215 Canterbury Cathedral-- 12th century, 45, 56 13th " 69 Chalons, 55 Chartres Cathedral-- 12th century-- West windows, 48 La Belle Verrière, 51 13th century-- Rebuilding, 92 Guild windows, 98 North Rose, 101 South Rose, 102 Apse, 104 Grisaille, 118 14th century, 188 Chartres, Church of St. Pierre, 185 Chartres, Clement of, 46, 95 His work at Rouen, 114 Chartres, St. Denis and Canterbury, school of, 44 Cloisonné enamel, 23 Denis, St., Abbey of-- 12th century medallions, 45, 53 Gryphon windows, 116 Designs, method of drawing, 89 Diaper, mosaic, 76, 80, 96, 103 " painted, 59, 77, 149 Egyptian glass, 16 Enamel, brown, 5, 21 " coloured, 6 Evreux Cathedral-- 14th century, 189 15th century-- Clerestory, 246 Lady Chapel, 249 Evreux, Church of St. Taurin, 250 Exeter Cathedral-- East window-- Earliest work, 158 Lyen's work, 227 Grisaille, 160 Fairford, 255 Flower, Barnard, 260 Glass-- Blowing, 14 Colour and quality-- 12th and 13th centuries, 32 14th century, 147 15th " 223 Flashed, 8, 224 Making, 13 Cutting, 15 Painting-- General, 5 Beginning of, 21 12th and 13th centuries, 37 14th century, 144 15th " 220 Gloucester Cathedral, 197 Grisaille-- 13th century, 115 14th " 132 15th " 222 Combination with figures, 122, 132 Iron-work-- Necessity of, 7 Early, influence of, 35 Bent, 37, 60 14th century, 129 Irradiation, 38 Jesse, Tree of, 50, 53, 72, 168, 178, 235 King's College Chapel, Cambridge, 256, 264 Leading-- General, 5 15th century, 219 Lincoln Cathedral, 77 Line work, 38 Louis, St., 93, 100 Lyen, Robert, 227 Mahommedan windows, 19 Malvern, Great, 253 Mans, Le, Cathedral-- Earliest glass, 24 12th century, 47 Matt shading-- Beginning of, 39 15th century, 220 Mauclerc, Pierre, 99 Medallion windows, 36 Merton College Chapel, Oxford, 153 Monkwearmouth, 22 Montfort, Amaury de, 99 Mosaic character of early glass, 34 " " loss of, 218 Natural plant forms in ornament, 145 " " " abandonment of, 221 New College Antechapel, Oxford, 201 Periods-- The three, 31 The First, 32 The Second, 125 The Third, 213 Peterborough, 111 Pictures, influence of, 243 Pliny's story, 15 Poitiers-- 12th century, 26, 43, 64 13th " 122, 166 Process, the, 4 Quarries-- 13th century, 121 14th " 135 15th " 222 Rheims, Cathedral, 112 " Church of St. Remi, 118 Roman windows, 17 Rouen-- Cathedral, 114 Church of St. Maclou, 248 Church of St. Ouen-- 14th century, 191 15th century, 246 whether Exeter glass bought at, 159 Ruby glass, 33, 49, 223 S-like pose of figures, 141 Sainte Chapelle, 112 Salisbury, 119 Selling, 167 Sens, 87 Shrewsbury, 198 Soissons, 118 Sophia, St., 18 Stain, silver, 8, 130, 240 Suger, Abbot, 45, 53, 98 Tewkesbury, 198, 207 Thomas the Glazier, 201 Thornton, John, 228 Troyes, 77, 166 "Type and antitype" windows, 61, 73, 88 Vendôme, 64 Venetian enamellers, 22 Wells, 198, 200 Westminster Abbey-- 13th century grisaille, 119 Henry VII.'s Chapel, 260 Westwell, 112 William of Sens, 57, 87 William of Wykeham, 201, 207 Winchester Cathedral-- West window and nave, 209 East window of clerestory, 264 Winchester College Chapel, 208 York, Cathedral-- 12th century, 55, 168 13th century-- "Five Sisters," 120 14th century-- Chapter House, 164 Vestibule of Chapter House, 167 Nave, clerestory, 167 North aisle, 169 South aisle, 176 West end, 179 East window, 229 Lady Chapel, 233 Choir, 235 York, All Saints', North Street-- 14th century, 181 15th " 237 York, St. Martin's, Coney St., 237 " St. Martin's, Micklegate, 181 THE END _Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_. 
57518	----	+-------------------------------------------+ | Note: | | | | _ around word indicated italics _in._ | | | +-------------------------------------------+ [Illustration] CATALOGUE OF THE RETROSPECTIVE LOAN EXHIBITION OF EUROPEAN TAPESTRIES HELD IN THE SAN FRANCISCO MUSEUM OF ART MCMXXII EUROPEAN TAPESTRIES SAN FRANCISCO MUSEUM OF ART CATALOGUE OF THE RETROSPECTIVE LOAN EXHIBITION OF EUROPEAN TAPESTRIES BY PHYLLIS ACKERMAN M.A.; PH.D. WITH A PREFACE BY J. NILSEN LAURVIK DIRECTOR SAN FRANCISCO PUBLISHED BY THE MUSEUM MCMXXII _Published September 29, 1922, in an edition of 2000 copies. Copyright, 1922, by San Francisco Museum of Art. Reprinted November 15, 1922, 500 copies._ _Printed by_ TAYLOR & TAYLOR, _San Francisco. In the making of the type-design for the cover, the printer has introduced an illuminated fifteenth-century woodcut by an unknown master. Its original appears, illuminated as shown, in "L'Istoire de la Destruction de Troye la Grant," a book printed at Paris, dated May 12, 1484, of which only a single copy is known to exist, that in the Royal Library at Dresden, this reproduction having been made from the excellent facsimile of the block shown in Claudin's "Histoire de l'Imprimerie en France." The border-design of the cover is composed of the names of the chief tapestry-producing cities in Europe during the Gothic and Renaissance periods._ _Halftones made by Commercial Art Company, San Francisco._ PREFACE This historical exhibition of European Tapestries is the fourth in a series of retrospective exhibitions which we have planned to illustrate the chronological development of some important phase of world-art, as in the Old Masters Exhibition, held in the fall of 1920, or of the art of an individual in whose work is significantly reflected the spirit of his age, as in the J. Pierpont Morgan Collection of drawings and etchings by Rembrandt, exhibited here in the spring of 1920. In its scope and general lines this exhibition follows closely the plan of our Exhibition of Paintings by Old Masters, and, as will at once be apparent from the subject-matter and treatment, covers the same period of European history. Although important exhibitions of European tapestries have been held at various times both here and abroad, it has remained for our museum to arrange the first complete historical survey of this art given in America. This collection presents in unbroken sequence the main currents influential in the development and decadence of the great art of tapestry-weaving in Europe, from the XIVth century down to and including the early XIXth century, as exhibited in the work of the foremost designers and weavers of the period, in examples that, for the most part, are brilliantly typical and always characteristic of their particular style. Virtually, every loom of importance in France, Flanders, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, England, and Russia is here represented by historically famous pieces which run the entire gamut of subjects that engaged the interest of the most celebrated designers and weavers of each epoch, from allegorical, classical, historical, and mythological to genre subjects, landscapes, religious pieces, and even portraits and still-life subjects. The only omissions of any consequence are the Italian looms and Soho, and the output of these was relatively small and the examples extant are very scarce. However, their absence does not materially affect the historical integrity of the exhibition as a whole. On the other hand, the Gothic series is perhaps the most complete assemblage of all the most important types ever brought together at one time in this country, and every important type of Renaissance design is here included; the collection comprises two of the excessively rare products of the Fontainebleau ateliers, as well as unusually fine specimens of the relatively scarce examples of the Spanish and Russian looms. My chief concern in organizing this exhibition has been to make it exemplify, first, the history of tapestry, and, second, its æsthetic qualities as these have appeared during the different periods of its changing and varying development, which, like the art of painting, had its naïve, primitive beginnings, its glorious culmination, and its decline. Therefore, every piece has been selected both to represent a distinct and significant type in the chronology of the art and to illustrate the artistic merits of that type, and all the tapestries shown are of the highest worth in their particular category and many of them are among the supreme masterpieces of European art, considered from whatever point of view one may choose to regard them. Only too long have these noble products of the loom been relegated to a secondary place in the history of European culture, which they did so much to celebrate. I sincerely trust that this exhibition, culled from seventeen collections in New York, San Francisco, and Paris, may successfully contribute something toward abolishing the hypnotic spell of the gold-framed oil-painting, that artistic fetish which too long has held the uncritical enthralled to the exclusion of other and ofttimes more authentic manifestations of the human spirit in art. Regarded from the standpoint of design alone, the extraordinary co-ordination of color and pattern (not to speak of the depth and richness of the inner content) exhibited in certain of these pieces is a sharp challenge to the oft-repeated distinction drawn between the major and the minor arts, and one is constrained, after studying these tapestries, to conclude that there are no major or minor arts, only major and minor artists, and that greatness transfigures the material to the point of art, be it paint or potter's clay, and a simple Tanagra transcends in worth all the gilded and bejeweled banalities of Cellini, whose essentially flamboyant soul sought refuge in gold and precious stones. This truth, too rarely insisted upon, is of prime importance in any consideration of art, whether it be "fine" or applied art, and a collection such as this should do much to make it clear. Here one may observe how the principles of design and color that animate the immortal masterpieces of mural painting are identical with those that give life and vitality to these masterpieces of the loom, and thereby apprehend something of that mysterious law governing the operation of the creative impulse which finds its expression in all the arts, irrespective of time and place, whether it be in rugs, porcelains, Persian tiles and manuscripts, in European primitives, or in the works of Chinese and Japanese old masters, transcending racial differences and attaining a universal affinity that makes a Holbein one with a Chinese ancestral portrait. Surely such opulent fantasy of design and color as is revealed in Nos. 1, 3, 5, and 17, to mention only four of the Gothic pieces in the collection, is deserving of something better than the left-handed compliment of a comparison with painting. In their masterly filling of the allotted space, in the fine subordination of the varied details to the general effect, as well as in the loftiness and intensity of the emotion expressed, these glorious products of the loom are worthy exemplars of the highest ideals of mural decoration no less than of the aristocratic art of tapestry-weaving. Reflections such as these are the natural consequence of a comparative study of art, and these and kindred reasons are the impelling causes prompting one to exhibit, not only tapestries, but rugs and textiles of all kinds, in an art museum and to give them the same serious study one would accord a Leonardo, a Giotto, a Rembrandt. Æsthetically and racially, they are no less revealing and frequently more interesting in that they are the products of the earliest expressions of those æsthetic impulses the manifestation of which has come to be called art; nor are they less authentic and expressive because communicated with the force and directness of the primitive loom, which give to all its products a certain character and worth rarely equaled by the more sophisticated products of the so-called fine arts. It is our hope that this catalogue will serve as a helpful guide to all those wishing to make such use of this collection. Every serious student of the subject no less than every unbiased specialist will, I am sure, appreciate at its true worth the scholarly work done by Dr. Ackerman, whose researches have made such a text possible. Bringing to the task a critical judgment and a scientific method of analysis hitherto applied almost exclusively to the identification and interpretation of primitive paintings, the author has been able to correct several well-established errors and to throw new light on many doubtful and obscure points which are so well documented as should make them contributions of permanent value to the literature of the subject. In conclusion we wish to thank Messrs. William Baumgarten & Company, C. Templeton Crocker, Demotte, Duveen Brothers, P. W. French & Company, A. J. Halow, Jacques Seligmann & Company, Dikran K. Kelekian, Frank Partridge, Inc., W. & J. Sloane, William C. Van Antwerp, Wildenstein & Company, and Mesdames James Creelman, William H. Crocker, Daniel C. Jackling, and Maison Jamarin of Paris, for their kindness in lending us these priceless examples of the European weavers' art that constitute this notable assemblage of tapestries, and to record our deep appreciation of the generous co-operation of the patrons and patronesses whose sponsorship has made the exhibition possible by guaranteeing the very considerable expense involved in bringing the collection to San Francisco. And last, but not least, we wish to express our grateful appreciation of the unremitting thought and attention devoted by the printer to designing and executing the very fitting typographical form that contributes so largely to making the varied material contained herein readily available to the reader, and to acknowledge, on behalf of the author, the friendly help of Arthur Upham Pope, whose suggestions and criticisms have been found of real value in the preparation of the text of the catalogue. J. NILSEN LAURVIK, Director San Francisco, September 29, 1922. * * * * * _The patrons and patronesses of the Exhibition are: Messrs. William C. Van Antwerp, Edwin Raymond Armsby, Leon Bocqueraz, Francis Carolan, C. Templeton Crocker, Sidney M. Ehrman, William L. Gerstle, Joseph D. Grant, Walter S. Martin, James D. Phelan, George A. Pope, Laurance Irving Scott, Paul Verdier, John I. Walter, Michel D. Weill, and Mesdames A. S. Baldwin, C. Templeton Crocker, Henry J. Crocker, William H. Crocker, Marcus Koshland, Eleanor Martin, George A. Pope, and Misses Helen Cowell and Isabel Cowell, and The Emporium._ THE SAN FRANCISCO MUSEUM OF ART BOARD OF TRUSTEES WILLIAM C. VAN ANTWERP, EDWIN RAYMOND ARMSBY ARTHUR BROWN, JR., FRANCIS CAROLAN, CHARLES W. CLARK CHARLES TEMPLETON CROCKER WILLIAM H. CROCKER, JOHN S. DRUM, SIDNEY M. EHRMAN JOSEPH D. GRANT, DANIEL C. JACKLING WALTER S. MARTIN, JAMES D. PHELAN, GEORGE A. POPE LAURANCE I. SCOTT, RICHARD M. TOBIN JOHN I. WALTER DIRECTOR J. NILSEN LAURVIK THE MUSEUM IS HOUSED IN THE PALACE OF FINE ARTS ERECTED BY THE PANAMA-PACIFIC INTERNATIONAL EXPOSITION IN 1915 CONTENTS _For a detailed list of the tapestries catalogued herein see the subject and title index at the end of the volume_ [Illustration] PREFACE Page 5 INTRODUCTION 11 CATALOGUE 25 LIST OF WEAVERS 58 BIBLIOGRAPHY 59 SUBJECT AND TITLE INDEX 61 ILLUSTRATIONS MAP Facing Page 16 _Showing the principal centers of production of Gothic and early Renaissance tapestries_ TAPESTRIES _The Annunciation_ Facing Page 24 _The Chase_ 25 _The Annunciation, the Nativity, and the Announcement to the Shepherds_ 26 _Scenes from the Roman de la Rose_ 27 _The Vintage_ 30 _Entombment on Millefleurs_ 31 _Millefleurs with Shepherds and the Shield of the Rigaut Family_ 32 _Pastoral Scene_ 33 _The Creation of the World_ 34 _Four Scenes from the Life of Christ_ Facing Page 35 _The Triumph of David_ 38 _Two Pairs of Lovers_ 39 _Hannibal Approaches Scipio to Sue for Peace_ 40 _Cyrus Captures Astyages, His Grandfather_ 41 _The Crucifixion_ 42 _Grotesques_ 43 _Triumph of Diana_ 46 _The Niobides_ 47 _Scene from the History of Cleopatra_ 48 _Verdure_ 49 _Verdure with Dancing Nymphs_ 50 _The Conquest of Louis the Great_ 51 _The Poisoning of a Spy_ 54 _The Arms of France and Navarre_ 55 INTRODUCTION AN HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL SURVEY OF THE ART OF TAPESTRY WEAVING [Illustration] Tapestry is a compound art. It stands at the meeting-point of three other arts, and so is beset by the problems of all three. In the first place, it is illustrative, for while there are tapestries that show only a sprinkling of flowers, a conventionalized landscape, or an armorial shield, the finest and most typical pieces are those with _personnages_ that represent some episode from history, myth, or romance, or give a glimpse of the current usages of daily life. In the second place, tapestry is a mural decoration. It is part of the architectural setting of the rooms, really one with the wall. And, in the third place, it is a woven material--a solid fabric of wool or silk in the simplest of all techniques. Since a tapestry is an illustration, it must be realistic and convincing, accurate in details and clearly indicative of the story. Because it is also a wall decoration, it cannot be too realistic, but must be structural in feeling and design, and the details must fall into broad masses that carry a strong effect from a distance. And since it is a woven material, even if it be structural, it must be flexible, and must have a fullness of ornament that will enrich the whole surface so that none of it will fall to the level of mere cloth. But if the tapestry designer have a difficult problem in resolving these conflicting demands of the different aspects of his art, he has also wider opportunities to realize within those limitations. As an illustration, if he handle it with skill, he can make the design convey all the fascination of romance and narrative. As a mural decoration his design can attain a dignity and noble reserve denied to smaller illustrations, splendid in itself, and valuable for counterbalancing the disproportionate literary interest that the subject sometimes arouses. And the thick material, with its soft, uneven surface, lends, even to a trivial design, a richness and mellowness that the painter can achieve only in the greatest moments of his work. The designer of tapestry can steer his way among the difficulties of the three phases of his art, and win the advantages of them all only if he have a fine and sensitive feeling for the qualities that he must seek. A realism flattened to the requirement of mural decoration and formalized to the needs of the technique of weaving, that still retains the informality and charm of the illustration, can best be won by considering the design as a pattern of silhouettes; for a silhouette is flat, and so does not violate the structural flatness of the wall by bulging out in high modeling. Moreover, it does give a broad, strong effect that can carry across a large room. And, finally, it permits both of adaptation in attitude and gesture to the needs of the story and of easy-flowing lines that can reshape themselves to the changing folds of a textile. So, to make good silhouettes, the figures in a good tapestry design will be arranged in the widest, largest planes possible, as they are in a fine Greek relief, and they will be outlined with clear, decisive, continuous lines, definitive of character, expressive and vivacious. The strength and vivacity of the outline is of prime significance in tapestry design, even though in its final effect it appears not primarily as a linear art, but rather as a color art. The outlines have to be both clearly drawn in the cartoon and forcefully presented in the weave; for they bear the burden both of the illustrative expressiveness and of the decorative definition. If they are weakened in delineation or submerged by the glow of the colors, the tapestry becomes confused in import, weak in emphasis, and blurred in all its relations, while the charm and interest of detail is quite lost. The too heavy lines of some of the primitive tapestries are less a defect than the too delicate lines of the later pieces designed by those who were primarily painters, and which were too much adapted to the painting technique. The outlines in the best tapestries are not only indicated with a good deal of force, but these lines themselves have unflagging energy, unambiguous direction, diversified movement, and unfaltering control. In order to complete and establish the silhouette effect, the color in the best tapestries is laid on in broad flat areas, each containing only a limited number of tones. A gradual transition of tone through many shades is undesirable, because such modulations convey an impression of relief modeling, which is inappropriate and superfluous in an art of silhouette. Then, again, these gradations at a little distance tend to fuse, and thus somewhat blur the force and purity of the color; and, finally, a considerable number of color transitions are ill-adapted to the character of a textile, as they tend to make it appear too much like painting. Nor are fluctuating tones and minute value-gradations necessary for a soft and varied effect. The very quality of tapestry material accomplishes that--first, because the ribbed surface breaks up the flatness of any color area and gives it shimmering variations of light and shade, and, second, because the wide folds natural to the material throw the flat tones now into dark and now into light, thus by direct light and shade differentiating values that in the dyes themselves are identical. Color in tapestry can thus be used in purer, more saturated masses than in any form of painting, not excepting even the greatest murals. Flat silhouetted figures cannot of course be set in a three-dimensional world. They would not fit. So the landscape, too, must be flattened out into artificially simplified stages. This is also necessary both for the architectural and the decorative effect of tapestry, for otherwise the remote vistas tend to give the effect of holes in the wall, and the distance, dimmed by atmosphere, is too pallid and empty to be interesting as textile design. Yet the fact of perspective cannot be altogether denied. Often the designer can avoid or limit the problem by cutting off the farther views with a close screen of trees and buildings, and this has also the advantage of giving a strong backdrop against which the figures stand out firm and clear. But there are occasions in which a wider field is essential for the purposes of illustration. The problem is how to show a stretch of country and still keep it flat and full of detail. In the most skillful periods of tapestry design the difficulty was met by reducing the perspective to three or four sharply stepped levels of distance, laid one above the other in informal horizontal strips. Aerial perspective was disregarded, each strip being filled with details, all sharply drawn but diminishing in size. The scene was thus kept relatively flat, was adapted to flat figures, and was also filled with interesting details. This fullness of detail is important in tapestries and is the source of much of their richness and charm. The great periods of weaving made lavish use of an amazing variety of incidents and effects: the pattern of a gown, jewels, the chasing or relief on a piece of armor, bits of decorative architecture, carved furniture, and the numerous household utensils, quaint in shape or suddenly vivid in color--all these, with the innumerable flowers, the veritable menagerie of beasts, real and imaginary, gayly patterned birds, as well as rivers, groves, and mountains, make up the properties with which the designer fills his spaces and creates a composition of inexhaustible resource and delight. So with flat figures, strong outlines, deep, pure, and simple colors, a flattened setting, and a wealth of details, the artist can make a tapestry that will be at the same time both a representative and an expressive illustration, an architectural wall decoration, and a sumptuous piece of material. But even then he has not solved every difficulty; for the tapestry cannot be merely beautiful in itself. It has to serve as a background for a room and for the lives lived in it; so it must be consonant in color and line quality with the furniture current at the time it is made, and it must meet the prevailing interests of the people. Moreover, while it must be rich enough to absorb the loitering attention, it must also have sufficient repose and reserve and aloofness not to intrude unbidden into the eye and not to be too wearyingly exciting--and this last was sometimes no easy problem to solve when the designer was bidden to illustrate a rapidly moving and dramatic tale. Sometimes, in truth, he did not solve it, but sometimes he employed with subtle skill the device of so dispersing his major points of action that until they are examined carefully they merge into a general mass effect. While the designers have at different periods met these various problems in different ways and with varying skill, the technique of the weaving has never been modified to any extent. For centuries this simple kind of weaving has been done. In essentials it is the same as that used in the most primitive kind of cloth manufacture. The warps are stretched on a frame that may rest horizontally or stand upright. The shuttle full of thread of the desired color is passed over and under the alternate warps, the return reversing the order, now under the warps where it was before over, and over where it was under. A comb is used to push the wefts thus woven close together so that they entirely cover the warps. In the finished tapestry the warps run horizontally across the design. A change of colors in the weft-threads creates the pattern. In the more complex patterns of later works the weaver follows the design drawn in outline on his warps, or sometimes, in the horizontal looms, follows the pattern drawn on a paper laid under his warps so that he looks down through them. His color cues he takes from the fully painted cartoon suspended somewhere near in easy view. Occasionally, in later pieces, to enrich the effect, the simple tapestry weave is supplemented with another technique, such as brocading (cf. No. 52), but this is rare. All the earliest examples left to us of this kind of weaving are akin to tapestry as we usually know it only in technique. They have practically no bearing on the development of its design. Of the very earliest we have no evidence left by which to judge. Homer, the Bible, and a number of Latin authors all mention textiles that probably could be classed as tapestries; but the references are too general to give us any definite clue as to the treatment of the design. But from the VIth to the VIIIth century, the Copts in Egypt produced many pieces, showing, usually in very small scale, birds and animals and foliage, and even groups of people. Of these we have many samples left. From various parts of Europe, primarily from Germany, in the next two centuries we have a few famous examples. But these are almost wholly without significant relation to the central development of tapestry design. Tapestry, in our sense of the word, begins, as far as extant examples are concerned, with the XIVth century. From the XIVth to the end of the XVth century was the Gothic period. Then tapestry was at its greatest height. More of the requisites of its design were met, and met more adequately and more naturally, than by any subsequent school of designers or any looms. As illustration, the tapestry of the Gothic period is interesting, vivid, and provocative. The stories and episodes that it presents were, to be sure, all part of the mental content of the audience, so that they comprehended them more immediately than we; but even without the literary background we follow them readily, so adequate is their delineation. Moreover, they carry successfully almost every narrative mood--humor, romance, lyricism, excitement, pathos, and pure adventure--and, except in the traditional religious scenes, they wisely eschew such tenser dramatic attitudes as a momentous climax, long-sustained suspense, or profound tragedy. Finally, when they had a good tale to tell, the Gothic designers rendered their episodes with a fullness of incident and a vivacity of detail never again equaled. As mural decorations, too, the Gothic tapestries are equally successful. For the figures are always flat and, even while natural and animated, are often slightly formalized and structural in drawing (cf. No. 10); the outlines are clean and active, the colors strong and broad, the vistas either eliminated as in the millefleurs (cf. No. 11) or completely simplified (cf. No. 13), while the details are abundant and delightful. Finally, they are among the most sumptuous textiles ever woven in the Western World--sumptuous, not because of costly material, for they only rarely use metal thread, and even silk is unusual, but sumptuous because of the variety and magnificence of their designs and the splendor and opulence of their color. Thus the Gothic designers both appreciated and employed to the full all of the æsthetic conditions of their art; yet they did not do this from any theoretical comprehension of the medium. The supremacy of Gothic tapestry rests on a broad basis. It is the final product of one of the most vital and creative epochs in the history of art; its designers were brought up in a great tradition, surrounded everywhere by the most magnificent architectural monuments, accustomed to the habit of beauty in small as well as great things, still inspired and nourished by the fertile spirit that had created and triumphantly solved so many problems in the field of art. A passion for perfection and an elevated and sophisticated taste animated all of the crafts, of which tapestry was but one. The full flowering of tapestry is contemporaneous with that of Limoges enamel, paralleling it in many ways, even to the employment of the same designers (cf. No. 7). Great armor was being made at the same time--armor that exemplified as never before or since its inherent qualities and possibilities: perfection of form and finish, a sensitive and expressive surface, and exquisite decoration logically developed out of construction. Furniture also achieved at that time a combination of strength with natural and imaginative embellishments that still defies copy, while the first publishers were producing the most beautiful books that have ever been printed, unsurpassable in the clear and decorative silhouette of the type, in the perfection of tone, and in the balanced spacing of the composition. Other textile arts, such as that of velvet and brocade weaving, reached the utmost heights of subtlety and magnificence. This easy achievement of masterpieces in kindred fields, so characteristic of great epochs, doubtless stimulated tapestry-weaving as it did every other art. This great achievement of the Gothic period in so many fields of art was the natural flowering of the spirit of the time. Life for all was limited in content, education as we understand it meager and ill-diffused, opportunities for advancement for the individual about non-existent. Despite these limitations--partly, indeed, because of them--and despite the physical disorders of the age, there were, none the less, a simplicity and unity of mind and an integrity of spirit that provided the basis for great achievement. The spontaneous and tremendous energy, the inexhaustible fertility that was an inheritance from their Frankish and Germanic forbears were now moulded and controlled by common institutions, by the acceptance of common points of view and the consciousness of unified and fundamental principles of life, the acceptance of an authoritative social system that defined and limited each man's ambitions. All these factors prevented the protracted self-analysis, the aimless criticism, the uncertainties and confusion of individual aims that consume our energies, detract from our will, and impoverish our accomplishments. Theirs was in no sense an ambiguous age; they were conscious of a universal spirit, continuously pressing for expression in art which could fortunately forge straight ahead to objective embodiment. The stimulation of all of the arts had come in part, too, from the inrush of culture from the Byzantine Empire, where traditions and riches had been heaping up continuously ever since the Greek civilization had at its height spilled over into the East. Every flood-tide of culture is created by various streams of ideas and customs that have for generations taken separate courses. All competent ethnologists are agreed that, no matter what the native equipment of a people is, no matter how abundant are their natural resources, how friendly and encouraging is their environment or how threatening and stimulating, one stream of culture flowing alone never rises to great heights. Invention, evolved organization, and artistic production come only with the meeting and mingling of ideas and habits. The East had first fertilized European intellectual creativeness when the numerous Crusades and the sacking of Constantinople by the Franks brought a wealth of novel and exciting ideas into France and the neighboring territories in the XIth and XIIth centuries. There followed the great period of cathedral-building with all the minor accompanying artistic developments of the sculpture, the glass-painting, the manuscript illuminating, the enameling, the lyrics of Southern France, and the romances and fabliaux of Northern. This tide was ebbing slowly when a second rush from the East incident to the fall of Constantinople in 1453 lifted it again. The art of tapestry was especially sensitive to this second Byzantine influence. The industry was coming to its height; the demand was already prodigious, the prices paid enormous, the workers highly skilled and well organized. Tapestry was ready to assimilate any relevant contribution. It enthusiastically took unto itself the sumptuous luxury of the decadent Orient with its splendid fabrics, encrusted architecture, complex patterns, and heavy glowing colors. The simple Frankish spirit of the earlier pieces (cf. No. 2) was almost submerged by the riotously extravagant opulence of the East (cf. Nos. 17, 18). On the other hand, too, from the jewelry of Scandinavia, a remote descendant of an ancient Oriental precedent, tapestry adopted examples of heavy richness of design. And at the same time it took also from the Byzantine some of the formality, the thickness of elaborate drapery, the conventionalization of types, and the rigidity of drawing that had paralyzed the art of Byzantium, but that in tapestry enhanced the architectural character and so constituted a real addition. The tendency of the late XIVth century to an absorption in an exact naturalism which might have immediately rushed French and Flemish taste into the scientific realism of the Florentine Renaissance was checked and deflected by the example and the memory of the stiff carven form, the arrested gestures, and the fixed draperies of the mosaics and manuscript illuminations of the Eastern Empire (cf. No. 8). But aside from these general considerations, which were vital for the creation of great tapestries, there was at work a specific principle perhaps even more important. The manner of treatment which the tapestry medium itself calls for was one which was native to the mind of the time and which declared itself in a great variety of forms. [Illustration: Map Showing the Principle centers of Production of Gothic and early Renaissance TAPESTRIES drawn by Arthur Upham Pope For the San Francisco Museum of Art Retrospective Loan Exhibition of Tapestries Copyright 1922 ] In the first place, the Middle Ages were in spirit narrative. The bulk of their literature was narrative--long historical or romantic poems with endless sequences of continued episodes that never came to any dominating climax. Their drama, too, was narrative, a story recounted through a number of scenes that could be cut short at almost any point or could be carried on indefinitely without destroying the structure, because there was no inclusive unity in them, no returning of the theme on itself such as distinguishes Greek drama or Shakespeare and which we demand in modern times. Their religion and their ethics also were narrative, dependent, for the common man, upon the life history of sacred individuals that both explained the fundamental truths of the universe and set models for moral behavior. And they were supplemented, too, by profane histories with moralizing symbolism contrived to point the way to the good life, such as we find in the _Roman de la Rose_ (cf. No. 4). Even their lesser ethics, their etiquette, was narrative, derived from the fabric of chivalric romance. And, again, their greatest art, their architecture, was adorned with narrative, ornamented with multiple histories, so that even the capital of a column told a tale. The whole world about them was narrative, so that the painters and designers must needs think in narrative terms, and hence as illustrators. The narrative features of the other arts also lent them valuable examples for their tapestries. Most of their renderings of religious stories were taken direct from the Mystery Plays (cf. No. 14), and some of their scenes were already familiar to them in stained glass and church sculptures. Moreover, narrative decorations were interesting and important to the people of the XVth century because they had only very limited resources for intellectual entertainment. Books were scarce, but even if plentiful would have been of little use, for very few could read. The theatre for the mass of the people was limited to occasional productions on church holidays of Mystery and Miracle plays, and even for the great dukes these were only meagerly supplemented by court entertainers. There was no illustrated daily news, no moving pictures, no circuses, no menageries, no easy travel to offer ready recreation. In our distractedly crowded life today we are apt to forget how limited were the lives of our ancestors and what pleasure, as a result, they could get from a woven story on their walls. In the second place, the Gothic designers, when they came to draw their decorative illustrations, because of their inherited traditions, naturally fell into a technique adapted to the architectual forms of mural decoration. For all the art of the Middle Ages was the derivative of architecture, and at its inception was controlled by it. The original conception of the graphic arts in this period was the delineation on a flat surface of sculpture--sculpture, moreover, that was basically structural, because made as part of a building. So the painted figures were heavily outlined silhouettes in a few broad planes with the poise and the restraint essential to sculpture. These early statuesque figures, familiar in the primitive manuscript illumination and stained-glass windows, had, by the time the tapestries reached their apogee, been modified by a fast-wakening naturalism. But the underlying idea of the silhouette and of the poised body was not yet lost, and so it was natural for tapestry designers to meet these requirements. The naturalism, on the other hand, was just becoming strong enough to make the lines more gracefully flowing and the details more varied and more delicate and exact in drawing, so that the very transitional form of the art of the time made it especially well adapted to a woven rendition. In the third place, the cartoons, even if they were not quite right in feeling when they came from the painter's hand, would be modified in the translation into the weave by the workmen themselves; for the weavers at that time were respected craftsmen with sufficient command of design to make their own patterns for the less important orders, and were therefore perfectly able to modify and enrich the details of the cartoon of even a great painter. And no designer in the one medium of paint can ever fit his theme to the other medium of wool quite as aptly as the man who is doing the weaving himself. Thus because the Gothic period happened to be a time when it was natural for the artists to make vivacious and decorative illustrations in clear, flat silhouettes with rich details, most of the Gothic tapestries have some measure of artistic greatness, sufficient to put them above all but the very greatest pieces of later times. Even when we discount the additions that time and our changed attitude make, the beauty of softened and blended colors, the charm of the unaccustomed and the quaint, the interest of the unfamiliar costumes, the literary flavor of old romantic times--even discounting these, they are still inherently superior. To be sure, they are rarely pretty and are sometimes frankly ugly, but with a tonic ugliness which possesses the deepest of all æsthetic merits, stimulating vitality. They have verve, energy, a pungent vividness that sharply reminds the beholder that he is alive. Their angular emphatic silhouettes and pure, highly saturated, abruptly contrasted colors catch and hold the attention and quicken all the vital responses that are essential to clear perception and full appreciation. They are a standing refutation of the many mistaken theories that would make the essence of beauty consist merely in the balanced form and symmetry, or smooth perfection of rendition, or photographic accuracy of representation. They are a forceful and convincing demonstration that in the last analysis beauty is the quality that arouses the fullest realization of life. Within the common Gothic character there are clearly recorded local differences: the division between the French and the Flemish, not marked until the middle of the XVth century, because up to that time the Franco-Flemish school was really one and continuous. It amalgamated influences from both regions and absorbed a rather strong contribution from Italy. The center of activity was at first Paris and then at the courts of the Burgundian dukes. But after the middle of the century the divergence is rapid and clear. The French is characterized by greater simplicity, clarity, elegance, and delicacy. Even the strong uprush of realism was held in check in France by decorative sensitiveness. The most characteristic designs of the time are the millefleurs, the finer being made in Touraine (cf. No. 8), the coarser in La Marche. The Flemish decoration, on the other hand, is sumptuous, overflowing, sometimes confused, always energetic, and strongly varied in detail. Nothing checks the relentless realism that sometimes runs even to caricature and often is fantastic (cf. the punishment scenes in No. 4). Typical of Flemish abundance are the cartoons with multiple religious scenes, heavy with rich draperies and gorgeous with infinite detail, yet not subordinating to theme the human interest of many well-delineated types of character (cf. No. 18). Brussels was the great center for the production of work of this kind, but beautiful pieces were being produced in almost every city of the Lowlands--Bruges, Tournai, Arras, and many more. The German Gothic tapestry is quite different from both of these. It was developed almost entirely independently, under quite other conditions. While the French and Flemish shops grew up under the patronage of the great and wealthy nobles, and worked primarily for these lavish art-patrons, in Germany the nobles were impoverished and almost outcast; there was scarcely a real court, and all the wealth lay in the hand of the burghers, solid, practical folk who did not see much sense in art. So while in France and in the Lowlands the workshops were highly organized under great _entrepreneurs_, and the profits were liberal, in Germany the workshops were very small, and many of the pieces were not made professionally at all, but were the work of nuns in the convents or of ladies in their many idle hours. Thus the industry that in France and Flanders was definitely centered in the great cities such as Paris and Brussels, in Germany was scattered through many towns, primarily, however, those of south Germany and Switzerland. And, too, while the designs for the French and Flemish pieces were specially made by manuscript illuminators, painters, or professional cartoon designers, some of whom, like Maître Philippe (cf. Nos. 17-19), conducted great studios, for the German pieces the weavers themselves adapted the figures from one of the woodcuts that were the popular art of the German people or from some book illustration. So while the French and Flemish tapestries reached great heights of skill and luxury, and really were a great art, the German tapestry remained naïve and simple and most of its artistic value is the product of that very naïveté. Toward the close of the XVth century a change begins to appear in the character of tapestry design. More and more often paintings are exactly reproduced down to the last detail. At first sporadic products, the reproductions of the work of such masters as Roger Van der Weyden and Bernard Van Orley become more and more frequent until by the end of the first quarter of the XVIth century they are a commonplace. Yet even though tapestry is no longer entirely true to itself, these tapestry paintings are nevertheless beautiful and fit. A woven painting has not yet become an anomaly because painting in Northern Europe is still narrative and decorative. There are still poise and restraint and clear flat silhouette and rich detail. It was not until tapestry plunged full into the tide of the Italian Renaissance that it entirely lost its Gothic merits. But when, beginning in 1515 with the arrival of Raphael's cartoons for the Pope's _Apostle_ series, the weavers of the North began to depend more and more for their designs on the painters of the South and on painters trained in the South, the character of tapestry completely changed. True, tapestry in the old style was still made for two decades, but in diminishing numbers. The Renaissance had the field. In place of endlessly varied detail, the designers sought for instantly impressive effects, and these are of necessity obvious. Every-thing grew larger, coarser, more insistent on attention. Figures were monumental, floreation bold and strong, architecture massive. Even the verdures developed a new manner; great scrolling acanthus-leaves and exotic birds (cf. No. 33) took the place of the delicate field flowers and pigeons and songsters. Drama took the place of narrative. On many pieces metal thread was lavished in abundance. The whole flagrant richness of the newly modern world was called into play. For the first time also with Renaissance tapestry, it becomes relevant to ask, Do they look like the scenes they depict?--for realism was in the full tide of its power. A hundred and fifty years before the Renaissance realism had begun to develop, inspired by the naturalism of Aristotle, whose influence had gradually filtered down from the schools to the people, and throughout the XIVth and early XVth century it had been slowly growing. The hunting tapestries of the first part of the XVth century are early examples of it. But the Gothic realism was an attempt to convey the impression of the familiar incidents of life, to get expressive gestures, to record characteristic bits of portraiture, whether of people or things or episodes, so that a Gothic tapestry can be adjudged naturalistically successful if it carries strongly the spirit and effect of a situation regardless of whether the drawing is quite true or not (cf. No. 2). Renaissance realism, on the other hand, is not satisfied with the impression, but strives for the fact. It wishes to depict not only the world as one sees it, but as one knows it to be--knows it, moreover, after long and careful study. So in all Renaissance graphic art correct anatomy becomes of importance, solid modeling is essential, and all details must be specific. Yet, though tapestry in the Renaissance was no longer illustrative in the old sense, it still was decoratively fine; for the painting of Italy was founded on a mural art, and the decorative traditions still held true. Outlines are still clear and expressive. There was respect for architectural structure, and details, if less complex and sensitive, are still rich and full. Color, too, is still strong and pure, though the key is heightened somewhat and the number of tones increased. Moreover, the Renaissance introduced two important new resources, the wide border and the grotesque. Hitherto the border had been a narrow floral garland, a minor adjunct easily omitted. Now it became of major importance, always essential to the beauty of the piece, often the most beautiful part of it, designed with great resource and frequently interwoven with gold and silver. The grotesque, from being originally a border decoration, soon spread itself over the whole field (cf. No. 36), mingling with amusing incongruity but with decorative consistency goats and fair ladies, trellis, flowers, and heraldic devices. What the Renaissance lacked in subtlety it made up in abundance. During the Renaissance the tapestry industry was dominated by the Flemish cities, with Brussels at the head. She had the greatest looms, great both for the exceeding skill of the workers and for the enormous quantity of the production. Some workshops, of which the most famous was that of the Pannemaker family, specialized in exquisitely fine work rendered in the richest materials. Of this class, the most typical examples are the miniature religious tapestries in silk and metal thread, in which all the perfection of a painting was united with the sumptuousness of a most extravagant textile (cf. No. 35). But sometimes full-sized wall-hangings too were done with the same perfection and elaboration (cf. Nos. 23-25). Other shops sacrificed the perfection of workmanship to a large output, but even in the most commercially organized houses the weavers of Flanders in the XVIth century were able and conscientious craftsmen. These same Flemish workmen were called to different countries in Europe to establish local looms. So Italy had several small temporary ateliers at this period, as did England also (cf. No. 32). But though these shops were in Italy and England, they were still predominantly Flemish. The character of local decoration and local demand influenced the design somewhat, but fundamentally the products both in cartoon and in weave were still those of the mother country. In France, however, the Flemish workmen were made the tools of the beginning of a new national revival of the art. A group of weavers was called to Fontainebleau, where, under the extravagant patronage of Francis I, the French Renaissance was taking form. These Flemings, weaving designs made by Italians, nevertheless created decorative textiles that are typically French in spirit (cf. No. 37). France alone had a strong enough artistic character to refashion the conventions of Italy and the technique of Flanders to a national idiom. In the next century this revival of the art which survived at Fontainebleau barely fifty years was carried on in several ateliers at Paris. The workmen were still predominantly Flemish, but again their work was unmistakably French (cf. No. 38). In Trinity Hospital looms had been maintained since the middle of the XVIth century. In the gallery of the Louvre looms were set up about 1607. And the third and most important shop was established by Marc de Comans and François de la Planche at the invitation of the king. This was most important, because it later was moved to the Bièvre River, where the Gobelins family had its old dye-works, and it eventually became the great state manufactory. Thereafter for the next two centuries the looms of Flanders and France worked in competition. Now one, now the other took precedence, but France had a slowly increasing superiority that by the middle of the XVIIIth century put her two royal looms, the Gobelin and Beauvais, definitely in the forefront of the industry. For cartoons the looms of the two countries called on the great painters of the time, often requisitioning the work of the same painters, and sometimes even using the very same designs. Thus Van der Meulen worked both for Brussels manufacturers (cf. Nos. 53-56) and for the French state looms (cf. No. 52), and the Gobelin adapted to its uses the old Lucas _Months_ that had originated in Flanders (cf. Nos. 57, 58.) But though they did thus parallel each other in cartoons, the finished tapestries nevertheless retained their national differences. As in the Gothic period, the Flemish tapestries in all respects showed a tendency to somewhat overdo. Their figures were larger, their borders crushed fuller of flowers and fruit, their verdures heavier, their grotesques more heterogeneous, their metal threads solider. Their abundance was rich and decorative, but lacking in refinement and grace. The French, on the other hand, kept always a certain detachment and restraint that made for clarity and often delicacy. When the Baroque taste demanded huge active figures, the French still kept theirs well within the frame. Their borders were always spaced and usually more abstract. The verdures of Aubusson can be distinguished from those of Audenarde by the fewer leaves, the lighter massing, the more dispersed lights and shades. The grotesques of France, especially in the XVIIIth century, often controlled the random fancy popularized among the Flemish weavers by introducing a central idea, a goddess above whom they could group the proper attributes (cf. No. 36), or a court fête (cf. No. 59). And when the French used metal thread it was to enrich a limited space rather than to weight a whole tapestry. In a way the opulence of the Flemish was better adapted to the medium. Certainly it produced some very beautiful tapestries. But the refinement of the French is a little more sympathetic to an overcivilized age. With the accession of Louis XV, tapestry joined the other textile arts and painting in following furniture styles. Thereafter, until the advent of machinery put an end to tapestry as a significant art, the cabinetmaker led all the other decorators. Small pieces with small designs, light colors, delicate floral ornaments, and the reigning temporary fad--now the Chinese taste (cf. No. 71), now the pastoral (cf. No. 68)--occupied the attention of the cartoonmakers, so that the chief occupations of the court beauties of each successive decade can be read in the tapestries. During this time France was dictating the fashions of all the Western World, so other countries were eager not only to have her tapestries, but to have her workmen weave for them in their own capitals. Accordingly, the royal family of Russia, always foreign in its tastes, sent for a group of weavers to set up a royal Russian tapestry works. Similarly, Spain sent for a Frenchman to direct her principal looms, those at Santa Barbara and Madrid, which for a decade or so had been running under a Fleming. And meanwhile tapestry was steadily becoming more and more another form of painting. Until the middle of the XVIIIth century it remains primarily illustrative. The Renaissance designers continued to tell historical and biblical stories and to fashion the designs in the service of the tale they had to tell. With the influence of Rubens and his school (cf. No. 44), the story becomes chiefly the excuse for the composition; but the story is nevertheless still there and adequately presented. The artists of Louis XIV, when called upon to celebrate their king in tapestry, respected this quality of the art by depicting his history and his military exploits (cf. No. 52). But illustration already begins to run thin in the series of the royal residences done by the Gobelins during his reign, and with the style of his successor it runs out almost altogether. If Boucher paints the series of the _Loves of the Gods_ it is not for the sake of the mythology, but for the rosy flesh and floating drapes, and Fragonard does not even bother to think of an excuse, but makes his languid nudes simply bathers (cf. No. 69). So when Louis XV is to be celebrated by his weavers the designers make one effort to invent a story by depicting his hunts, and then abandon episode and substitute portraiture (cf. No. 64). Throughout most of the Renaissance, tapestry remained decorative as a mural painting is decorative, but in the XVIIth century, with the degeneration of all architectual feeling, tapestry lost entirely its architectual character. It was still decorative--it was decorative as the painting of the time was. The tapestries of the XVIIth century are giant easel paintings, and of the XVIIIth century woven panel paintings. As to the textile quality, during the XVIIth century the very scale of the pieces kept them somewhat true to it. The large figures, heavy foliage, and big floral ornaments can fall successfully into wide, soft folds. But most of the tapestry of the XVIIIth century must be stretched and set in panels or frames. That they are woven is incidental, a fact to call forth wonder for the skill of the workmen, both of the dyers who perfected the numberless slight gradations of delicate tones and kept them constant, and of the almost unbelievably deft weavers who could ply the shuttle so finely and exactly and grade these delicate tones to reproduce soft modeled flesh, fluttering draperies, billowing clouds, spraying fountains, and the sheen and folds of different materials. But that they are woven is scarcely a fact to be considered in the artistic estimate. The only advantage of the woven decorations over the painted panel is that they present a softer surface to relieve the cold glitter of rooms. Otherwise as paintings they stand or fall. Even the border has usually been reduced to a simulated wood or stucco frame. During this gradual change through five hundred years in the artistic qualities of tapestry the technical tricks of the weavers underwent corresponding modification. In the Gothic period the drawing depended primarily upon a strong dark outline, black or brown, that was unbroken, and that was especially important whether the design was affiliated rather with panel painting (cf. No. 1) or with the more graphic miniature illustration (cf. No. 5). Even the lesser accessories were all drawn in clear outline. Within a given color area, transitions from tone to tone were made by hatchings, little bars of irregular length of one of the shades that fitted into alternate bars of the other shade, like the teeth of two combs interlocked. And for shadows and emphasis of certain outlines, some of the Gothic weavers had a very clever trick of dropping stitches (cf. No. 1), so that a series of small holes in the fabric takes the place of a dark line. During the Renaissance the outline becomes much narrower, and is used only for the major figures, a device that sometimes makes the figures look as if they had been cut out and applied to the design. Hatching, if used at all, is much finer than in the earlier usage, consisting now of only single lines of one color shading into the next. In the work of Fontainbleau (cf. Nos. 36, 37), the dotted series of holes between colors is still used to give a subordinate outline. During the XVIIth century hatching is scarcely used at all, and the outline has practically disappeared. During the XVIIIth century the French weavers perfected a trick which obviated any break in the weave where the color changes, thus enabling tapestry to approximate even closer to painting effects. To the weavers who adjusted these tricks to the varying demands of the cartoons, and so translated painted patterns in a woven fabric, is due quite as much credit for the finished work of art as to the painters who first made the design. Famous painters did prepare tapestry designs. Aside from the masters of the Middle Ages to whom tapestries are attributed, we have positive evidence that, among others, Jacques Daret, Roger Van der Weyden, Raphael, Giulio Romano (cf. Nos. 23-25), Le Brun, Rubens, Coypel (cf. Nos. 62, 63), Boucher (cf. Nos. 67, 68), Watteau, Fragonard (cf. No. 69), and Vernet (cf. No. 70), all worked on tapestry designs. The master weavers who could transpose their designs deserve to rank with them in honor. Yet we know relatively little of these master weavers. Many names of tapicers appear in tax-lists and other documents, but not until the XVIIIth century do the names often represent to us definite personalities, and until then we can only occasionally credit a man with his surviving work. From the long lists of names and the great numbers of remaining tapestries a few only can be connected. Among the greatest of these is Nicolas Bataille, of Paris, who wove the famous set of the _Apocalypse_ now in the Cathedral of Angers; Pasquier Grenier, of Tournai, to whom the _Wars of Troy_ and related sets can be accredited (cf. No. 7), but who apparently was an _entrepreneur_ rather than a weaver; Pieter Van Aelst, who was so renowned that the cartoons of Raphael were first entrusted to him; William Pannemaker, another Brussels man, who had supreme taste and skill, and his relative Pierre, almost as skilful; Marc Comans and François de la Planche, the Flemings who set up the looms in Paris that developed into the Gobelins (cf. No. 38); Jean Lefébvre, who worked first in the gallery of the Louvre and then had his studio in the Gobelins (cf. Nos. 39, 40); the Van der Beurchts, of Brussels (cf. Nos. 42, 56), and Leyniers (cf. Nos. 26, 27), and Cozette, most famous weaver of the Gobelins. Such men as these, and many more whose names are lost or are neglected because we do not know their work, were in their medium as important artists as the painters whose designs they followed. With the passing of such master craftsmen the art of tapestry died. When men must compete with machines their work is no more respected, and so tapestry is no longer the natural medium of expression for the culture of the times. Tapestries are still being made, but there is no genuine vitality in the art and little merit in its product. It exists today only as an exhausted and irrelevant persistence from the past, and, as a fine art, doomed to failure and ultimate extinction. P.A. [Illustration: _The Annunciation_ No. 1 ] [Illustration: _The Chase_ No. 2 ] CATALOGUE _Abbreviations_: H. (_Height_); W. (_Width_); _ft._ (_Feet_); _in._ (_Inches_). _"Right" & "Left," refer to right & left of the spectator_ [Sidenote: 1] FRANCO-FLEMISH, POSSIBLY ARRAS, BEGINNING OF XV OR END OF XIV CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool, Silk, Gold._ H. 11 _ft._ 4 _in._ W. 9 _ft._ 6 _in._ ] THE ANNUNCIATION: _The Virgin, in a blue robe lined with red, is seated before a reading-desk in a white marble portico with a tile floor. Behind her is a red and metal gold brocade. The lily is in a majolica jar. The angel, in a green robe with yellow high lights lined with red, has alighted in a garden without. In the sky, God the Father holding the globe and two angels bearing a shield._ The treatment of the sky in two-toned blue and white striations, as well as the conventional landscape without perspective, with small oak and laurel trees, is characteristic of a number of tapestries of the opening years of the XVth century. Most of them depicted hunting scenes. But there was one famous religious piece, the _Passion_ of the Cathedral of Saragossa. In the drawing of the figures and some of the details the piece is closely related to the paintings of that Paris school of which Jean Malouel is the most famous member. The work is by no means by Malouel, but it is similar to that of one of his lesser contemporaries, whose only known surviving work is a set of six panels painted on both sides, two of which are in the Cuvellier Collection at Niort and the others in the Mayer Van der Bergh Collection at Antwerp. The very primitively rendered Eternal Father is almost identical with the one that appears in several of the panels; the roughly indicated shaggy grass is the same, the rather unusual angle of the angel's wings recurs in the Cuvellier _Annunciation_, as does the suspended poise of the Virgin's attitude. The Virgin's reading-desk, too, is almost identical, though shown in the panel at the other side of the scene. The long, slim-fingered hands and the pointed nose and chin of the Virgin are characteristic of the school. The tiles in the portico, so carefully rendered, are of interest because they are very similar to the earliest-known tile floor still in position--that of the Caracciolo Chapel in Naples. Some of the same patterns are repeated, notably that of the Virgin's initial and the star, which is more crudely rendered. The colors, too, are approximately the same, the brown being a fair rendering of the manganese purple of the chapel tiles. The majolica vase is also interesting as illustrating a type of which few intact examples are left. [Sidenote: Exhibited: _Chicago Art Institute, Gothic Exhibition_, 1921.] [Sidenote: Lent by _P. W. French & Company_.] The piece maintains a high level of æsthetic expression. The religious emotion is intensely felt and is adequately conveyed in the wistful sadness of the Virgin's face and the expectant suspense of her poised body. The portico seems removed from reality and flooded by a direct heavenly light, in its shining whiteness contrasting with the deep blue-green background. This tapestry by virtue of its intense and elevated feeling, purified by æsthetic calm and by its exceptional decorative vividness, ranks with the very great masterpieces of the graphic arts. [Sidenote: 2] FRANCO-FLEMISH, EARLY XV CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool and Gold._ H. 5 _ft._ 5 _in._ W. 5 _ft._ 11 _in._ ] THE CHASE: _A man in a long dark-blue coat and high red hat and a lady in a brown brocade dress and ermine turban watch a dog in leather armor attack a bear. A landscape with trees and flowers is indicated without perspective and a castle in simple outline is projected against a blue and white striated sky._ [Sidenote: Exhibited: _South Kensington Museum, French-English Retrospective Exhibition of Textiles_, 1921.] This tapestry is an important example of a small group of hunting scenes of the early XVth century. It is closely related in style to the famous pair of large hunting tapestries in the collection of the Duke of Devonshire. It is not definitely known where any of these pieces were woven, but Arras is taken as a safe assumption, as that was the center of weaving at the time, and these tapestries are the finest production known of the period. The very simple figures sharply silhouetted against the contrasting ground have a decidedly architectural quality, perfectly adapted to mural decoration. Yet the scene seems very natural and the persons have marked and attractive personalities. [Sidenote: Illustrated: _La Renaissance de l'Art français_, 1921, p. 104; _Burlington_, vol. 38, opp. p. 171. _DeMotte, Les Tapisseries gothiques_, Deuxième Série.] These exceedingly rare pieces mark the great wave of naturalism that began sweeping over Europe about 1350 and they exemplify strikingly one of the finest qualities of the primitive--the impressive universality and objectivity that come from the freshness of the artist's vision. Looking straight at the thing itself, free from all the presuppositions that come from an inherited convention, the draftsman saw the essentials and recorded them directly without any confusing elaboration of technique. He was completely absorbed by the unsolved problems of the task, too occupied with the difficulty of rendering the central outstanding features of the scene to be diverted by personal affectations. His realization thus became vivid and intimate, his rendition achieved a singularity and epic force never again to be found in tapestry. [Sidenote: Lent by _Demotte_.] This is one of the few tapestries that have been improved by age. Time has spread over it a slight gray bloom that seems to remove it from the actual world, giving it the isolation that is so important a factor in æsthetic effect; yet the depth and strength of the colors have not been weakened, for we interpret the grayness as a fine veil through which the colors shine with their original purity. [Sidenote: 3] FLANDERS, MIDDLE XV CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool._ H. 15 _ft._ 7 _in._ W. 14 _ft._ 7 _in._ ] THE ANNUNCIATION, THE NATIVITY, AND THE ANNOUNCEMENT TO THE SHEPHERDS: _At the left in a Gothic chapel the Annunciation. The Virgin, in a richly jeweled and brocaded robe, reads the Holy Book. The angel in rich robes kneels before her. The lilies are in a dinanderie vase. Through the open door a bit of landscape is seen, and in a room beyond the chapel two women sit reading. The Nativity, at the right, is under a pent roof. The Virgin, Joseph, and Saint Elizabeth kneel in adoration about the Holy Babe, who lies on the flower-strewn grass. John kneels in front of his mother, and in the foreground an angel also worships. Above and beyond the stable the three shepherds sit tending their flocks, and an angel bearing the announcement inscribed on a scroll flutters down to them from Heaven. Oak-trees, rose-vines, and blossoming orange-trees in the grass._ [Illustration: _The Annunciation, The Nativity, and The Announcement to the Shepherds_ No. 3 ] [Illustration: _Scenes from the Roman de la Rose_ No. 4 ] This tapestry belongs to a small and very interesting group, all evidently the work of one designer. The three famous _Conversations Galantes_ (long erroneously called the _Baillée des Roses_) in the Metropolitan Museum are by the same man, as are the four panels of the _History of Lohengrin_ in Saint Catherine's Church, Cracow, the fifth fragmentary panel of the series being in the Musée Industrielle, Cracow. A fragment from the same designer showing a party of hunters is in the Church of Notre Dame de Saumur de Nantilly, and another fragment depicting a combat is in the Musée des Arts Decoratifs. Three small fragments--one with a single figure of a young man with a swan, like the Metropolitan pieces, on a striped ground, another showing a king reading in a portico very similar to the portico of the _Annunciation_, and the third showing a group of people centered about a king--were in the Heilbronner Collection. Schmitz points out[1] a connection between the three Metropolitan pieces and the series of seven pieces depicting the life of Saint Peter in the Beauvais Cathedral, with an eighth piece in the Cluny Musée, and it is quite evident that the cartoons are the work of the same man. But whereas the other pieces all have the same characteristics in the weaving, this series shows a somewhat different technique in such details as the outline and the hatchings, so that one must assume they were woven on another loom. Fortunately, there is documentary information on one set of the type that enables us to say definitely where and when the whole group was made. The _Lohengrin_ set was ordered by Philip the Good from the first Grenier of Tournai in 1462. There can be no reasonable doubt that the set in Saint Catherine's Church is the same, for in this set the knight is quite apparently modeled after Duke Philip himself, judging from the portraits of him in both the _Romance of Gerard de Rousillon_ (Vienna Hof-bibliothèque) and in the _History of Haynaut_ (Bibliothèque Royale, Brussels). Schmitz asserts that it is almost certainly useless to seek the author of these cartoons among contemporary painters, as they are probably the work of a professional cartoon painter, of which the Dukes of Burgundy kept several in their service--and this is probably true. But artists were not as specialized then as they are now, and even a professional tapestry designer might very well on occasion turn his hand to illustrating a manuscript or making a sketch for an enamel, so that it is not impossible that further research in the other contemporary arts may bring to light more information about this marked personality who created so individual a style. [Sidenote: Lent by _Duveen Brothers_.] This tapestry is exceedingly interesting, not only for its marked style of drawing and its quaint charm, but for the direct sincerity of the presentation and the brilliant and rather unaccustomed range of colors. [Sidenote: 4] FLANDERS, MIDDLE XV CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool and Silk._ H. 8 _ft._ 4 _in._ W. 20 _ft._ 4 _in._ ] [Sidenote: Formerly in Skipton Castle, Ireland.] SCENES FROM THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE: _This piece illustrates one of the most popular romances of the Middle Ages, the Romance of the Rose, the first part of which was written in 1337 by Guillaume de Lorris, the second part in_ 1378 _by Jean de Meung, and translated into English by Chaucer. The culminating scenes are represented. Jealousy has imprisoned Bel Acceuil in a tower because he helped the Lover see the Rose after Jealousy had forbidden it. The Lover calls all his followers, Frankness, Honor, Riches, Nobility of Heart, Leisure, Beauty, Courage, Kindness, Pity, and a host of others, to aid him in rescuing the prisoner. In the course of the struggle Scandal, one of Jealousy's henchmen, is trapped by two of the Lover's followers posing as Pilgrims, who cut his throat and cut out his tongue. With the aid of Venus, the Lover finally wins._ [Sidenote: Exhibited: _Chicago Art Institute, Gothic Exhibition_, 1921.] The piece is very close in drawing to the illustrations of the Master of the Golden Fleece,[2] whom Lindner has identified as Philip de Mazarolles. The long bony, egg-shaped heads that look as if the necks were attached as an afterthought, the shoe-button eyes, flat mouths, and peaked noses all occur in his many illustrations. Characteristic of him, too, are the crowded grouping of the scene and the great care in presenting the accessories, every gown being an individual design, whereas many of his contemporary illustrators contented themselves with rendering the general style without variations. The conventional trees are probably the weaver's interpolations. The top of the tapestry being gone, there is no possibility of knowing whether his customary architectural background was included or not. [Sidenote: Lent by _P. W. French & Company_.] The tapestry is interesting, not only because it is quaint, but because it is a vivid illustration of the spirit of the time--virile, cruel, yet self-consciously moralistic. [Sidenote: 5] FLANDERS, MIDDLE XV CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool._ H. 10 _ft._ 9 _in._ W. 17 _ft._ 5½ _in._ ] THE VINTAGE: _This piece was probably originally one of a series of the Months, representing September. Groups of lords and ladies have strolled down from the castle in the background to watch the peasants gathering and pressing the grapes._ [Sidenote: Formerly in the Collection of Edouard Aynard, Paris.] [Sidenote: Exhibited: _Exhibition of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, Old Palace of Sagan, Paris_, 1913.] The costumes and the drawing indicate that the piece was made in Burgundy at the time of Philip the Good. In fact, it is so close to the work of one of the most prolific of the illustrators who worked for Philip the Good that it is safe to assume that the original drawing for the cartoons was his work. In the pungency of the illustration and the vivacity of the episodes as well as in numerous details it follows closely the characteristics of Loysot Lyedet. Here are the same strong-featured faces with large prominent square mouths, the same exaggeratedly long and thin legs with suddenly bulging calves on the men, the same rapidly sketched flat hands, and the same attitudes. The very exact drawing of the bunches of grapes parallels the exactness with which he renders the household utensils in his indoor scenes, and the dogs, while they are of types familiar in all the illustrations of the time, have the decided personalities and alert manner that he seemed to take particular pleasure in giving them. [Sidenote: Reproduced: _Les Arts_, Sept., 1913; _Gazette des Beaux Arts_, 1913.] Another tapestry that seems to be from the same hand is _Le Bal de Sauvages_ in l'Eglise de Nantilly de Saumur. The piece is one of the most vivid and convincing illustrations of the life of the time that has come down to us in tapestry form. The silhouetting of the figures against contrasting colors and the structural emphasis of the vertical lines give the design great clarity and strength. [Sidenote: Lent by _Jacques Seligmann & Company_.] Loysot Lyedet was working for the Dukes of Burgundy in 1461. He died about 1468. Among the most famous of his illustrations are those of the _History of Charles Martel_ (Bibliothèque Royale, Brussels) _History of Alexander_ (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris) and the _Roman History_ (Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal, Paris.) [Sidenote: 6] GERMANY, PROBABLY NUREMBERG, MIDDLE XV CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool and Gold._ H. 3 _ft._ 6 _in._ W. 7 _ft._ 6 _in._ ] SCENES FROM THE LIFE OF CHRIST: _The Life of Christ is shown in eight small scenes, beginning with the Entrance into Jerusalem, the Farewell to his Mother, the Last Supper, the Agony in the Garden, the Carrying of the Cross, the Crucifixion, the Pieta, and the Entombment._ The scenes in this tapestry were apparently adapted from the illustrations from a Nuremberg manuscript of the middle of the XVth century. Of course, the weaving may have been done later. The simplified arrangement of the scenes with a reduction to a minimum of the number of actors, the relative size of the figures to the small squares of the compositions, the marked indebtedness in the use of line and light and shade to woodcuts, and the courageous but not altogether easy use of the direct profile, all bring the pieces into close relationship with such book illustrations as those of George Pfinzing's book of travels (_The Pilgrimage to Jerusalem_), now in the City Library of Nuremberg.[3] In fact, the parallelism is so very close, the tapestry may well have been adapted from illustrations by the same man, the curiously conventionalized line-and-dot eyes being very characteristic of the Pfinzing illustrations and not common to all the school. [Sidenote: Lent by _P. W. French & Company_.] In weaving many of the figures the warp is curved to follow the contours. The naïve directness and unassuming sincerity of the piece give it great interest. [Sidenote: 7] TOURNAI, THIRD QUARTER XV CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool._ H. 10 _ft._ 6 _in._ W. 8 _ft._ 9 _in._ ] THE HISTORY OF HERCULES: _Hercules, clad in a magnificent suit of shining black armor, rides into the thickest tumult of a furious battle; with sword in his right hand, he skillfully parries the thrust of a huge lance, while with the other hand he deals a swinging backhand blow that smites an enemy footman into insensibility. His next opponent, obviously bewildered and frightened, has half-turned to flee. The whole apparatus of mediæval combat is shown in intense and crowded action. The piece is incomplete._ This tapestry illustrates one of the favorite stories of the Middle Ages, and was undoubtedly originally one of a set. In design it is closely related to the famous _Wars of Troy_ series, many examples of which are known and some of the first sketches for which are in the Louvre. It is also closely related to the _History of Titus_ set in the Cathedrale de Notre Dame de Nantilly de Saumur.[4] Both of these sets are signed by Jean Van Room, and this piece also is undoubtedly from his cartoon. All of these pieces were probably woven between 1460 and 1470. Jean Van Room (sometimes called de Bruxelles) is one of the most interesting personalities connected with the history of Gothic tapestry. He was a cartoon painter and probably conducted a large studio, judging from the number of pieces of his which are left to us. Fortunately, he had a habit of signing his name on obscure parts of the designs, such as the borders of garments. His work extends over sixty years and changes markedly in style during that time, adapting itself to the changing taste of his clients. This piece illustrates his earliest manner. In the succeeding decades he is more and more affected by the Renaissance and the Italian influence, until his latest pieces (cf. No. 21) are quite unlike these first designs. At the close of the century he began to collaborate with Maître Philippe, evidently a younger man, who had had Italian instruction and was less restrained by early Gothic training (cf. Nos. 17-19). Jean Van Room seems to have done designs for enamels, also, that were executed in the studio of the so-called Monvaerni. In the collection of Otto H. Kahn is a _Jesus before Pilate_ very close in style to Jean Van Room's early work,[5] on which appear the letters M E R A, which might even be a pied misspelling of Room, for similar confused signatures appear on tapestries known to be his. A triptych with _Crucifixion_ in the collection of Charles P. Taft[6] has figures very close to the _Crucifixion_ tapestry in the Cathedral of Angers done by Van Room in his middle period. According to Marquet de Vasselot, this enamel bears the letters JENRAGE, but M. de Vasselot also comments on its illegibility in the present condition of the enamel. Could he have misread a letter or two? Still another triptych with _Crucifixion_, in the Hermitage,[7] actually repeats two figures from the Angers _Crucifixion_ with only very slight variations. Jean Van Room borrowed liberally from various other artists at different stages of his career. In the _Wars of Troy_, the _History of Titus_, and this piece he seems to have relied primarily on Jean le Tavernier for his models, the affiliation being especially close in the _Wars of Troy_. Le Tavernier is known to have illustrated the _Wars of Troy_,[8] and Jean Van Room, judging from the close stylistic relations of his Troy tapestries with le Tavernier's drawings, evidently took his hints from this lost manuscript. [Illustration: _The Vintage_ No. 5 ] [Illustration: _Entombment on Millefleurs_ No. 8 ] This piece was probably woven under Pasquier Grenier at Tournai, as were the _Wars of Troy_, on which there are some documents. [Sidenote: Lent by _P. W. French & Company_.] This tapestry presents with extraordinary vividness the fury, din, excessive effort, hot excitement, and blinding confusion of crowded hand-to-hand conflicts that marked mediæval warfare. It must have been conceived and rendered by an eye-witness who knew how to select and assemble the raw facts of the situation with such honesty and directness that an overwhelming impression of force and tumult is created, and it was woven for patrons, the fighting Dukes of Burgundy, by whom every gruesome incident would be observed with relish and every fine point of individual combat noted with a shrewd and appraising eye. [Sidenote: 8] FRANCE, END XV CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool._ H. 2 _ft._ 10 _in._ W. 7 _ft._ 10 _in._ ] ENTOMBMENT ON MILLEFLEURS: _Christ lies on the tomb which is inscribed "Humani Generis Redeptori." John in a red cloak, the Virgin in a blue cloak over a red brocaded dress, and Mary Magdalene in a red cloak over a green dress stand behind the tomb. At the head, removing the crown of thorns, stands Joseph of Arimathea and at the foot Nicodemus. Both Joseph and Nicodemus are in richly brocaded robes. Borders at the sides only of alternate blue and red squares inscribed I H S and M A surrounded by jeweled frames. Millefleurs on a blue ground. In the upper left corner the monogram I S and in the upper right W S, with a scroll under each bearing the inscription "de Mailly."_ This tapestry is an unusually delicately and perfectly rendered example of the _millefleurs aux personnages_ of France of the late Gothic period. A small piece like this was undoubtedly made for a private chapel, probably that of the de Mailly family. This quality of millefleurs was probably woven in Touraine. An altar frontal showing the Pieta which is very similar in style is in the Kunstgewerbe Museum. [Sidenote: Lent by _Demotte_.] The drawing has the nice exactness of a finished miniature, the workmanship the brilliance of enamel; yet both are transfigured by the vivid conception of the tragic event. Its utter pathos is expressed with moving power. We are in the presence of an unutterably solemn moment. [Sidenote: 9] FRANCE, END XV CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool and Silk._ H. 4 _ft._ 6 _in._ W. 3 _ft._ ] MILLEFLEURS ARMORIAL WITH WILD MEN: _On a delicate millefleurs ground a wild man and woman hold an armorial shield surmounted by a winged helmet._ [Sidenote: Formerly in the C. D. Barney Collection.] [Sidenote: Lent by _P. W. French & Company_.] The wild men, probably a modified revival of the classical satyrs in modified form, were very popular in France in the XIIIth and XIVth centuries. There are tapestries extant depicting the balls where all the company came dressed in hairy tights to represent these creatures. Froissart recounts an episode of a ball at the Hotel St. Pol in Paris in 1392 when the king and five of his companions came in such costumes, all chained together, and the flax used to imitate the hair caught fire from a torch, so that in an instant all were enveloped in flames. The king was saved by the presence of mind of his cousin, who enveloped him in her skirts, and another was saved by jumping into a tub of water he had noticed earlier in the evening in an adjacent service-room. The others were burned to death. [Sidenote: 10] FRANCE, BEGINNING XVI CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool._ H. 7 _ft._ 10 _in._ W. 10 _ft._ 7 _in._ ] MILLEFLEURS WITH SHEPHERDS AND THE SHIELD OF THE RIGAUT FAMILY: _Against a background of conventionalized millefleurs, shepherds and shepherdesses and their flock. In the center, two peasants holding a shield, evidently of the Rigaut family. In the corners the shield of Rigaut and of another family. The tapestry was evidently made to celebrate a marriage, the corner shields signifying the joining of the families, an oblique reference being intended in the pairing of the shepherds and shepherdesses. A scroll in the center bears the inscription "Par Içi Passe Rigaut."_ [Sidenote: Lent by _P. W. French & Company_.] The naïveté both of the characterization and of the drawing that emphasizes the structural and silhouette character of the figures contributes greatly to the charm of this piece. The clean, sharp rendering of the millefleurs enhances the decorative effect. The piece is probably the work of a small provincial loom. [Sidenote: 11] FRANCE, PROBABLY LA MARCHE, BEGINNING XVI CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool and Silk._ H. 5 _ft._ 7 _in._ W. 9 _ft._ 4 _in._ ] MILLEFLEURS WITH ANIMALS: _Against a large-scale millefleurs ground on blue, deer are playing about a fountain within a paddock. On a fence-post perches a peacock. Outside the fence a fox waits, watching slyly. In the background conventional castles._ [Sidenote: Lent by _P. W. French & Company_.] The floreation is rather unusual, as it shows the transition from the Gothic millefleurs to the Renaissance verdure. The enlarged scale of the flowers and the use of the iris and the scrolled thistle-leaves in the foreground show the influence of the Renaissance, but the daisies and wild roses are still Gothic in feeling, as are the unusually charming and vivacious deer. The conventional rendering of the water is skillfully managed. The sly fox is especially well characterized. [Illustration: _Millefleurs with Shepherds and the Shield of the Rigaut Family_ No. 10 ] [Illustration: _Pastoral Scene_ No. 13 ] [Sidenote: 12] FRANCE, PROBABLY LA MARCHE, EARLY XVI CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool._ H. 4 _ft._ 5 _in._ W. 9 _ft._ 5 _in._ ] MILLEFLEURS WITH ANIMALS: _Millefleurs with animals on a blue ground. At the top a narrow strip of conventionalized hilly landscape._ [Sidenote: Lent by _Dikran K. Kelekian_.] Many tapestries of this type were woven in France at the end of the XVth and beginning of the XVIth century. They are one of the most successful types of tapestry decoration, the quaint animals in this piece being especially charming, and one of the most generally useful kinds of wall decoration, so that the demand for them was large and continuous. As a result, the style was produced almost without modification for over a hundred years. Only the bit of landscape at the top indicates that this was woven in the beginning of the XVIth century and not in the middle of the XVth. [Sidenote: 13] FRANCE, LATE XV CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool._ H. 9 _ft._ 6 _in._ W. 9 _ft._ ] PASTORAL SCENE: _Two ladies have strolled into the country with their lords, who are on the way to the hunt, one with a falcon and the other with a spear and dog. On the way they have stopped to talk to a group of peasants who are tending their flocks and to play with their children. One young peasant girl is gathering a basket of grapes._ Such peasant scenes as this were much in demand during the XVth century. A piece very similar both in general spirit and in detailed drawing and facial types is in the Musée des Arts Decoratifs. In this two lords are watching a large group of woodcutters. [Sidenote: Formerly in the De Zolte Collection.] The piece is an excellent illustration of the clarity of French design. Each figure stands out almost entirely detached against the background. Yet, nevertheless, the naturalness of the grouping is not sacrificed. The piece conveys extraordinarily the impression of a real scene, a common daily occurrence among people that we might reasonably expect to know, at which we are allowed to be present in spite of the intervening four hundred years. [Sidenote: Lent by _Duveen Brothers_.] Some of the tricks of drawing and the types portrayed are so very similar to those in some of the stained-glass windows of St. Etienne du Mont and of St. Germain-l'Auxerrois the cartoons must be by members of the same school, one of the groups of l'Ile de France, and may quite possibly be by the same man. [Sidenote: 14-16] FLANDERS, FIRST QUARTER XVI CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool and Silk._ No. 14: H. 11 _ft._ 6 _in._ W. 14 _ft._ 2 _in._ ] [Sidenote: No. 15: H. 10 _ft._ 9 _in._ W. 7 _ft._ 3½ _in._ No. 16: H. 11 _ft._ W. 10 _ft._ 5 _in._ ] THREE PIECES FROM A SERIES ILLUSTRATING THE CREED: _This series of scenes illustrating the Creed begins_ (_No._ 14) _with the Creation of the World_. _The designer, evidently with some allegorical poem in mind, includes in the scene Sapientia, Potencia, and Benignitas, depicted, in characteristic medieval form, as three richly dressed women. In the center scene these three offer the world to God. On the right, Gubernacio, Redempcio, and Caritas stand under the throne of the Trinity._ _In the second piece_ (_No._ 15) _the series continues with the Life of Christ_, _beginning with the Annunciation_, _the Nativity_, _and the Adoration of the Kings_. _Reverting to the older tradition of the XIVth century that had been almost displaced during the XVth century_, _all the events of Christ's public life are omitted_, _and the third piece_ (_No._ 16) _depicts the scenes of the Passion_, _including the popular interpolation of Christ's farewell to his Mother_, _with the Apostles in the background_, _the Resurrection_, _and finally Christ taking his place at the right hand of God while the angels sing hosannas_. _Below, throughout the series, is the set of the Apostles facing Prophets, symbolic of the parallelism of the Old and New Testaments, each with a scroll bearing his speech in the conventional responses depicted in so many works of art of the period. So Peter (No. 14), says, "I believe in God the Father Omnipotent," and Jeremiah, who faces him, replies, "You invoke the Father who made the earth and builded the heavens."_ _Next_ (_No._ 15) _comes Andrew_, _who originally faced David_, _a figure now missing_. _The next pair, John and Daniel, is also missing._ _There follow_ (_No._ 16) _Thomas_, _who originally faced Hosea_, _and John the Lesser_, _who is opposite Amos_. _Above_, _on either side of the Nativity_ (_No._ 15), _is introduced another pair_, _John the Greater and Isaiah_. The complete piece, of which number 16 is the right-hand end, was formerly in the Toledo Cathedral, then in the collection of Asher Wertheimer, of London. The present owner is unknown.[9] Another rendition was in the Vatican, but disappeared in the middle of the XIXth century.[10] Tapestries illustrating the Creed were common throughout the Middle Ages. They appear frequently in XIVth-century inventories, and a number of examples from the XVth and early XVIth century are left to us. The Apostles and Prophets arranged in pairs are a common feature of this type of tapestry. [Sidenote: Formerly in Evora Palace, Portugal.] The cartoons are evidently the work of the painter who painted the ceiling of the Church of St. Guy at Naarden, whom Dr. Six tentatively identifies as Albert Claesz.[11] The similarity is too close to be overlooked. The Christ of the Naarden _Resurrection_[12] and this _Resurrection_ are almost identical, the face of God the Father in the _Assumption_ is almost identical with that of an onlooker in the Naarden _Betrayal_,[13] and Adam in the first piece of this series closely resembles the Christ of the Naarden _Flagellation_.[14] But more indicative are the lesser peculiarities common to both series. There are in both the same curiously flattened and slightly distorted skulls with very large ears, the same large eyes with heavy arched lids and eyebrows close above them, oblique and not quite correctly placed in the three-quarter views, and always looking beyond their focus. The mouths, too, in some of the faces are overemphasized in the same way, and the feet have the same quaint distortion, being seen from above, as in the figure of the Prophet John (No. 15). And in very conspicuous minor agreement, the cross has a strongly indicated and rigidly conventionalized graining identical in the two renditions. The attitude of the Christ and the indication of the garment in the Toledo tapestry is very close to that in the Naarden painting. [Illustration: _The Creation of the World_ No. 14 ] [Illustration: _Four Scenes from the Life of Christ_ No. 17 ] The floreation was probably introduced by the weaver. The delightfully exact scene of the owl scolded by a magpie, while a pigeon sits near by and another bird flutters about (No. 14), is repeated with slight variations in a number of XVIth-century pieces. [Sidenote: Lent by _Demotte_.] The drawing in these tapestries is rather unusually primitive for pieces of this period, but the figures have a broad monumental character and a direct sincerity of bearing that make them very convincing. [Sidenote: 17-19] FLANDERS, PROBABLY BRUSSELS, BEGINNING XVI CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool and Silk._ No. 17: H. 11 _ft._ 10 _in._ W. 17 _ft._ 6 _in._ No. 18: H. 11 _ft._ 7 _in._ W. 7 _ft._ 5 _in._ No. 19: H. 12 _ft._ W. 26 _ft._ ] THREE PIECES FROM A SERIES ILLUSTRATING THE CREED: _In the first piece_ (_No._ 17) _four scenes from the Life of Christ are portrayed: the Adoration of the Kings_, _the Presentation at the Temple_, _the meeting of Christ and John_, _and Christ among the Doctors_. _In the corner sits a prophet, probably David. The piece undoubtedly began with the Nativity, at the left, and possibly the Annunciation, with the Apostle Andrew in the other corner. This would indicate that the piece was the second in the series, the first probably having been the Creation of the Earth, with Peter and Jeremiah._ _The second piece_ (_No._ 18) _shows the Circumcision and the Assumption of the Virgin_, _and evidently included at least one more scene at the right_. [Sidenote: _The Last Judgment_ was formerly in the Evora Palace, Portugal, and is illustrated from the Louvre example in _Migeon, Les Arts de Tissu_, p. 220; in part, in _E. Mâle, L'Art religieux de la fin du Moyen Age en France_, p. 501; _Burlington_, vol. 20, p. 9; _Figaro Illustré_, 1911.] _The third piece_ (_No._ 19) _shows the full scene of the Last Judgment with a personage who seems to be Philip in one corner and in the other Zephaniah_. _The piece is complete except, possibly, for a border. A tapestry from the same cartoon with a narrow border of flowers is in the Louvre. Christ, enthroned, is surrounded by the Virgin, Saint John, and the eleven Apostles. Angels, bearing instruments of the Passion and sounding trumpets flutter through the sky. At the right of the throne angels come bearing crowns for the elect. Below the dead are rising from the graves. Before the throne of Christ Justice bearing a sword and Pity bearing a lily come to punish the Seven Deadly Sins, Pride, Avarice, Luxury, Greed, Anger, Envy, and Laziness, an episode adopted from the Mystery Plays. On the border of the robe of the Virgin appear the letters WOL and on the border of the robe of the last Apostle at Christ's left the letters RIM DACI BAPTISTA ORADI._ [Sidenote: _The Circumcision and Assumption_ is illustrated in _Demotte, Les Tapisseries gothiques_, Première Série, pl. 39.] Seven other large tapestries very closely related to these are known. They represent various episodes involving Christ and numerous allegorical figures that have not been identified. Three of these are in the collection of Baron de Zuylen du Nyevelt de Haar, two in the Burgos Cathedral, and two others have passed into private collections and been lost sight of.[15] Another smaller piece, apparently of the same series, was number X in the Morgan Collection. Three duplicates are also in Hampton Court. The series is closely related also to the _Life of the Virgin_ set in the Royal Collection at Madrid, and also the _Presentation in the Temple_ of the Martin le Roy Collection. The cartoons are clearly the work of Maître Philippe, and the weaving was evidently done in Flanders, probably in Brussels, about 1510. Marquet de Vasselot suggests that the cartoons of the Martin le Roy piece and of the Madrid series were done after a second master under the influence of Gerard David.[16] Destrée, following Wauters, suggests Jean de Bruxelles, known author of the cartoon for the _Communion of Herkenbald_, another Maître Philippe piece, to which he sees a resemblance,[17] and Thièry repeats the claim, but on far-fetched evidence.[18] Certainly the types are very close to those of Gerard David. Some of the figures on David's _Tree of Mary_ in the Lyons Museum[19] are repeated almost exactly, and some of the female figures are very like the Saint in the _Marriage of Catherine_ in the San Luca Academy at Rome.[20] But other types, such as Zacharias in the meeting of Christ and John, are more reminiscent of Hugo Van der Goes, being, for instance, almost identical with Joseph of Arimathea in the _Descent from the Cross_ in the National Museum, Naples,[21] even to such details as the drawing and placing of the ear. The glimpses of landscapes, too, are clearly derived from Hugo in their composition and details, and even the floreations are close to those in some of Hugo's work, notably the _Original Sin_ in the Imperial Gallery of Vienna,[22] where one finds the same upspringing sheaf of iris. The work would seem to be that of a lesser eclectic, such as the author of the _Life of Mary_ in the Bishops' Palace at Evora. [Sidenote: Lent by _Demotte_.] In all the pieces there are intense sincerity and real grandeur of design. The _Last Judgment_, in the musical swinging together of the draperies, the perfect control of the great composition, and in the fine development of the dominance of Christ without sacrifice of the minor episodes, as well as in the power of expression of the thrilling solemnity of the moment, deserves to rank with the greatest interpretations of the subject. [Sidenote: 20] BRUSSELS, BEGINNING OF XVI CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool and Silk._ H. 12 _ft._ 3 _in._ W. 13 _ft._ 2 _in._ ] SCENES FROM A ROMANCE: _A queen surrounded by her court awaits the preparation of a document. There is a general interchange of documents among the courtiers at the right. In the background, upper left, a knight indites a letter, and on the opposite side two knights wait on horseback. The scenes illustrate some contemporary_ _romance and are closely related to the Court of Love tapestries that were so often woven at this time._ [Sidenote: Formerly in the Morgan Collection.] [Sidenote: Lent by _P. W. French & Company_.] The cartoon, like those of the _Court of Love_ scenes, is the work of the studio of Maître Philippe. Jean Van Room probably collaborated, as his signature appears on a very similar tapestry of _David and Bathsheba_ in the Royal Spanish Collection.[23] As in that tapestry, the elegantly dressed persons are quite typical of the prosperous burghers of the time and might well be used as fashion plates. The composition is skillful in the balancing of the groups and the massing of the drapes to form a support for the dominant figure of the queen. [Sidenote: 21] BRUSSELS, EARLY XVI CENTURY [Sidenote: H. 13 _ft._ 9 _in._ W. 22 _ft._ 1 _in._ ] [Sidenote: Barberini Collection; Ffoulke Collection. Illustrated: _Ffoulke Collection_, opp. p. 43. Exhibited: _Exposition d'Art ancien bruxellois, Brussels_, 1905, No. XXI. Illustrated: _Destrée, Catalogue of same_, pl. XXIV.] THE TRIUMPH OF DAVID: _David carrying the head of Goliath on his sword and surrounded by musicians is followed by King Saul and Jonathan on horseback. In the background a hilly landscape with the tents of the Hebrews. A narrow floral border._ The cartoon was painted by Jean Van Room, his signature appearing on another piece[24] of the same series in the Musée du Cinquantenaire, Brussels. Maître Philippe must have collaborated with him in this work, for a strong Italian influence is evident which appears only in the Van Room tapestries that have had Philippe's assistance. [Sidenote: Lent by _Mrs. Wm. C. Van Antwerp_.] Though the drawing and details show the incoming Renaissance influence, the full continuous narrative arrangement of the group, the strong vertical lines of the figures, and the simple modeling show the tarrying Gothic feeling. The groups are beautifully massed and the individual figures show great dignity. [Sidenote: 22] SWITZERLAND, EARLY XVI CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool._ H. 4 _ft._ 3½ _in._ W. 7 _ft._ 9½ _in._ ] TWO PAIRS OF LOVERS: _Two pairs of lovers are pictured against a background of vines with blue-green scrolled leaves and large red and yellow blossoms on a dark-blue field. The pair at the right is on either side of a Gothic pedestal on which is a small statue. The ladies are in red robes. One man is in a blue doublet, the other in a two-toned red brocaded cloak. Border of rose-vines and daisies._ [Sidenote: Formerly in the Collection of Comtesse Desautoy.] The piece was probably woven in Basle, and is undoubtedly adapted from a wood-block illustration in one of Leonhard Ysenmuth's publications. The width and richness of the border indicate that it was done in the early XVIth rather than in the late XVth century. The subject of pairs of lovers was quite a favorite one with German and Swiss weavers, and a number of them in different styles is left to us. The piece is probably the work of an amateur, a nun, or more probably some lady, who thus filled her long leisure hours. The wood-block print has been closely followed for the figures, even to such minor details as the very simple conventionalization of the hair. The vine background in rather a large scale is common to many Swiss tapestries of the period. The limited range of colors used is especially worthy of note, there being only three shades of blue, three of green-blue, three of tan, and two of red, in addition to the black for the outlines. [Sidenote: Lent by _Wildenstein & Co._] The work is thoroughly naïve, but it has the strong appeal of genuineness and directness common to naïve designs and shows a strong feeling for decorative quality. [Sidenote: 23-25] BRUSSELS, SECOND QUARTER XVI CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool, Silk, Gold._ No. 23: H. 13 _ft._ 5 _in._ W. 15 _ft._ 4 _in._ No. 24: H. 13 _ft._ 5 _in._ W. 20 _ft._ No. 25: H. 13 _ft._ 5 _in._ W. 20 _ft._ ] THREE SCENES FROM THE DEEDS OF SCIPIO: _In the first piece_ (_No._ 23) _Scipio enthroned offers the mural crown to Caius Laelius_. _Roman army officers stand about. In the background the army is assembled._ _In the second piece_ (_No._ 24) _Scipio is about to land in Africa_. _In the foreground two vessels filled with soldiers. In the background the city of Utica._ _In the third piece_ (_No._ 25) _Hannibal approaches Scipio to sue for peace_. _In the background the opposing armies face each other on either side of a river._ The pieces bear the Brussels city mark and the monogram H.M. (Hubert de Mecht). The cartoons are attributed to Giulio Romano, fifteen of the original small drawings being in the Louvre. There are in all eighteen pieces in this set, and two subsequent sets, the _Triumphs of Scipio_ and the _Fruits of War_, make a total of thirty-five pieces in the complete history, one of the largest sequences ever attempted in tapestry. [Sidenote: Illustrated: _Hauser y Menet, Los Tapices de la Corona de España_, vol. 2, pl. 93; _Burlington_, 1916, pp. 58-66, in connection with article by George Leland Hunter, _Scipio Tapestries Now in America_.] The cartoons have been woven a number of times and examples have been included in many famous collections, including that of Francis I. These pieces were so rich in gold that they were burned to obtain the metal during the Revolution. These three pieces are from one of the earliest weavings, and in perfection of execution and sumptuousness of material far surpass most of the renderings, ranking with the greatest productions of the early Renaissance. The use of the metal is particularly effective, occurring as it does in three techniques, plain weaving, basket weaving, which always gives a heavy richness, and couching. The borders with the classical allegorical figures under porticos are of a very fine type, following the example set by Raphael in his panels for the _Acts of the Apostles_. [Sidenote: Lent by _Duveen Brothers_.] For vividness of illustration, strength and clarity of silhouette, and delicacy and freshness of color this set is nowhere surpassed. [Illustration: _The Triumph of David_ No. 21 ] [Illustration: _Two Pairs of Lovers_ No. 22 ] [Sidenote: 26, 27] BRUSSELS, XVI CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool and Silk._ No. 26: H. 12 _ft._ W. 15 _ft._ No. 27: H. 12 _ft._ W. 16 _ft._ ] TWO SCENES FROM THE LIFE OF CYRUS: _In the first_ (_No._ 26) _Cyrus captures Astyages_, _his grandfather_. _Soldiers stand about, and in the background the army is assembled._ _In the second_ (_No._ 27) _Thomyris has the head of Cyrus offered as a human sacrifice_. _An attendant is placing the head in a gold basin and soldiers standing about draw back in horror. In the background a battle wages._ [Sidenote: Illustrated: _Hauser y Menet, Los Tapices de la Corona de España_, vol. 2, pls. 119, 121.] These two pieces, showing the moment of greatest triumph and the ultimate defeat of Cyrus, the great world conqueror, are from a famous set that has been woven several times. One of these sets, belonging to the royal family of France, was used in the funeral service of Francis II. Another group from the series is in the Royal Spanish Collection. The only set known with a weaver's signature bears the mark of Nicolas Leyniers, and it is entirely probable that all of the examples, including these two, are from those looms. [Sidenote: Lent by _Mr. & Mrs. Daniel C. Jackling_.] They are very fine examples of a type of design perfected in the first half of the XVIth century in Brussels. The fullness of details in the background serves to keep the textile rich and interesting and to throw into sharp silhouette the dominant figures. The intricate and decorative borders that are used on these pieces well illustrate one of the most important contributions of the Renaissance to tapestry design. [Sidenote: 28] BRUSSELS, XVI CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool and Silk._ H. 8 _ft._ 10 _in._ W. 7 _ft._ 2 _in._ ] THE PENTECOST: _The Apostles and the members of the Early Church are gathered together. The tongues of fire descend upon them, and the Holy Ghost appears like a dove between the figures of God and Jesus revealed above. A wide border of scroll with inset medallions of biblical scenes. In the upper border a papal coat of arms._ [Sidenote: Lent by _William Baumgarten & Company_.] Renaissance tapestries in so intimate a scale that yet are not miniature occur rather seldom. The piece has great clarity and brilliance and carries forcefully the religious feeling of the episode. In the selvage the Brussels city mark and the weaver's initials, C. S. The mark is unidentified. [Sidenote: 29] BRUSSELS, XVI CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool and Silk._ H. 6 _ft._ 9 _in._ W. 13 _ft._ 8 _in._ ] JUDITH DEPARTS FOR THE ENEMY'S CAMP: _Judith accompanied by her maid takes leave of her mother. Attendants await to lead her away and a slave awaits in the background holding two camels. Wide border of fruits and flowers._ [Sidenote: Lent by _William Baumgarten & Company_.] This is one of a very famous set of the _Story of Judith and Holofernes_, examples of which are in a number of famous collections. The tapestry bears on the selvage the Brussels city mark and the weaver's monogram, N. X. The mark is unidentified. This piece is a strong example of a set that combines characteristic Renaissance stateliness with a less customary direct charm. [Sidenote: 30] BRUSSELS, MIDDLE XVI CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool and Silk._ H. 11 _ft._ 3 _in._ W. 12 _ft._ 9 _in._ ] GARDEN SCENE: _Through a trellis upheld by caryatides a formal garden with fountains and pavilions is seen. In the foreground, deer. In the garden, various animals. Border of scrolls and flowers with inset cartouches showing animals._ Such trellis designs as this were quite often used in the middle of the XVIth century. A famous example very similar to this is the _Vertumnus and Pomona_ set, one of which was in the Palace of the Escurial and two in the Barberini Collection.[25] Another piece so like this that it must be the work of the same designer is in the Vienna Collection, number 142. [Sidenote: Lent by _P. W. French & Company_.] It is a rich and resourceful kind of decoration well fitted to the requirements of tapestry. The drawing of the deer is unusually graceful and vivacious. [Sidenote: 31] FLANDERS, XVI CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool and Silk._ H. 5 _ft._ 9 _in._ W. 12 _ft._ 9 _in._ ] VERDURE: _In the center a château surrounded by a moat on which swans and ducks swim about. At the left fishermen on the bank and a hunter with his dogs. On the right mounted hunters chasing rabbits through a wood._ [Sidenote: Lent by _Mrs. William H. Crocker_.] The high-keyed landscape on a small scale was the Renaissance successor to the Gothic millefleurs. The drawing in this piece is beautifully clean and exact, and the color delightfully and uncommonly varied and vibrant. The château is so carefully rendered that it is valuable as an architectural record. The piece may have been made by Flemish weavers working in England. [Sidenote: 32] FLANDERS, LATE XVI CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool._ H. 9 _ft._ W. 23 _ft._ ] HUNTING SCENE: _Hunters riding through a woodland. In the foreground a knight and lady strolling. Scroll border._ [Sidenote: Lent by _W. & J. Sloane_.] This piece is a rather uncommon variation of a familiar type. Many tapestries were woven in Flanders in the second part of the XVIth century that were predominantly verdure with a few minor figures, but the figures were seldom as delicately drawn nor the colors so high in key and clear. It is quite possible that the piece was woven by Flemish weavers in England, a few pieces woven there by the Poyntz family being known to have somewhat the same quality. The relatively low height in proportion to the great length also suggests that it was made for an English house. [Illustration: _Hannibal Approaches Scipio to Sue for Peace_ No. 25 ] [Illustration: _Cyrus Captures Astyages, His Grandfather_ No. 26 ] [Sidenote: 33] FLANDERS, ENGHIEN (?), XVI CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool._ H. 9 _ft._ 7 _in._ W. 7 _ft._ 9 _in._ ] VERDURE: _Large scrolling leaves, bluish-green, with bunches of fruit and flowers and small finches. Wide border of fruit and flowers._ Verdures of this type were very much in demand in the Renaissance period. They are typical of the decorative manner of the time and one of its finest inventions. [Sidenote: Lent by _Dikran K. Kelekian_.] The heavy, simple leaves are often too obvious and too readily explored for the best tapestry decoration; but in this piece the beautifully drawn birds provide delicacy and interest of detail. [Sidenote: 34] BRUGES, MIDDLE XVI CENTURY (1556) [Sidenote: _Wool and Silk._ H. 9 _ft._ 1 _in._ W. 8 _ft._ 9 _in._ ] ARMORIAL: _Two amorini support a shield. Above, crossed banners; below, dolphins. Six flags radiate from the shield, each bearing the initial P surmounted by a crown. Border of scrolls and classic figures._ _In cartouches in the side and lower borders the initials F_, _G_, _and X respectively_, _and in the corresponding cartouche of the top border the date_, 1556. _On the right lower selvage is the city mark of Bruges, with the weaver's monogram, A. F._[26] [Sidenote: Lent by _P. W. French & Company_.] This tapestry is very interesting, not only because it is a clear, strong example of a Renaissance heraldic hanging, but because very few pieces of the period can be ascribed definitely to Bruges although it is known that important looms flourished there. The weaver's monogram has not been identified. The coat of arms, which is also unidentified, seems to be Spanish, and judging by the coronet evidently belonged to a family of high station. The amorini are after a follower of Giulio Romano, if not by Romano himself. The relief effect of the design is quite extraordinary. [Sidenote: 35] BRUSSELS, XVI CENTURY (1574) [Sidenote: _Wool, Silk, Gold._ H. with frame, 4 _ft._ W. with frame, 3 _ft._ 9 _in._ ] THE CRUCIFIXION: _Christ and the two thieves on the crosses. In the foreground, right, the Roman soldiers; left, the sorrowing Marys. Floral border._ _Dated in cartouche in the border_, 1574. This is one of a number of small tapestries in silk and gold of religious subjects, most of which have been attributed to Bernard Van Orley, who probably designed this piece also. They are all of them very exact reproductions of paintings, remarkable in weave and very beautiful in color. The type was first woven in the first quarter of the XVIth century, and continued to be produced in very limited numbers until well into the XVIIth century. They were undoubtedly woven only for special orders--probably for private chapels. The piece is a very brilliant example of one of the richest types of tapestry that has ever been woven. [Sidenote: Lent by _P. W. French & Company_.] Bernard Van Orley (1492-5 to 1540) was trained by his father, Valentin, and afterwards studied under Raphael in Italy. He was engaged to supervise the translation of Raphael's cartoons for the famous series of the _Apostles_ into tapestry. In 1518 he became court painter. He designed many tapestries, of which the most famous are the _Hunts of Maximilian_ and the _Victory of Pavia_ series. [Sidenote: 36] FONTAINEBLEAU, MIDDLE XVI CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool and Silk._ H. 11 _ft._ W. 17 _ft._ ] GROTESQUES: _On a red ground, grotesques, of which the principal features are: in the center Flora in an arbor on the top of which stands Atlas upholding the world; two cartouches left and two right with candelabra and various deities. Below at the left in a small oval medallion Leda and the Swan, and in the corresponding medallion on the other side Eve and the Serpent. The remaining spaces are filled with amorini, garlands of fruit and flowers, gods, and various ornaments. Narrow floral borders, and in the center of both side borders a triangle._ The triangles in the border are the Deltas, the ciphers of Diane de Poitiers, indicating that this piece was woven in the reign of Henry II for Diane, possibly for the Château d'Anet. [Sidenote: Lent by _P. W. French & Company_.] For fertile and varied imagination this piece is quite uncommon even among grotesques, the most imaginative type of decorative tapestries. It exhibits a most entertaining sense of humor and shows a capricious independence never found in the more formal Flemish grotesques of the time. [Sidenote: 37] FONTAINEBLEAU, MIDDLE XVI CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool and Silk._ H. 12 _ft._ 8 _in._ W. 8 _ft._ ] TRIUMPH OF DIANA: _The goddess in a blue robe, bearing her bow and arrows, drives a pale-blue chariot on which a nymph is tied prisoner. Love, whose wings are beautifully multicolored, also is a prisoner. Diana's attendants, garbed in blue and red tunics, follow on foot, one in the foreground in a green tunic leading a large grey-hound. In the border shells alternate with crescents on a blue ground and in the corners above are crescents and rams' heads. The mottoes "Non Frusta Jupiter Am Bas" and "Sic Immota Manet" are in the upper and lower borders respectively._[27] The tapestry was evidently made for Diane de Poitiers, mistress of Henry II, the subject being chosen as a personal tribute. [Sidenote: Formerly in the Collection of Edouard Kann, Paris.] Aside from its evident beauty, the piece is important because it is one of the few remaining examples of the work of the Fontainebleau looms, which adapted to tapestry the characteristic Italian-French Renaissance decoration that was formulated in the frescoes of Fontainebleau. There are few documents left on these looms, but it is known that le Primatice made designs for tapestries woven there, and, judging from the drawing of the figures with the long limbs and heavily marked muscles that reflect the influence of Michael Angelo, and the contour of the small heads with the hair flowing back and the classical features, together with such other details as the long flexible fingers, this piece would seem to be an example of his work. If not by le Primatice, it was certainly done directly under his influence; but it could scarcely be by Baudouin, judging from the recently discovered set in the Viennese exhibition,[28] for it has more poise and clarity of space than any of those tapestries. [Illustration: _The Crucifixion_ No. 35 ] [Illustration: Grotesques No. 36] For grace and charm, without any loss of strength, this surpasses most French work of the period. It is an unusually typical illustration of the French Renaissance which took the technique of the Italian revival of the antique and refashioned it to her own spirit, giving the classic goddesses, even in their dignity, youthful and feminine appeal, and refining the Italian opulence. The floreation in the foreground is as delicate as in a XVIth-century millefleurs, and the colors are unusually luminous. [Sidenote: Lent by _Wildenstein & Company_.] Francesco Primaticcio (1504-1570) studied under a disciple of Raphael and worked with Giulio Romano on the decorations of the Palace de Te, Mantua. In 1532 he went from Italy to Fontainebleau to work on the decorations there. In 1540 he returned to Italy to collect works of art for the king. He returned to France and continued to create decorations at Fontainebleau with a large staff of Italian painters as his collaborators. Under Francis II he became Superintendent of the Building. [Sidenote: 38] PARIS, EARLY XVII CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool._ H. 13 _ft._ W. 16 _ft._ 9 _in._ ] THE NIOBIDES: _Apollo and Artemis from a cloud shoot down the children of Niobe, thus avenging their mother, who had been outraged by Niobe's boasting that she had the more children. Border of fruit garlands and figures in camaieux._ [Sidenote: Formerly in Marnier-Lapostalle Collection, Paris.] [Sidenote: Reproduced: _Guiffrey, Les Gobelins et Beauvais_, p. 15; _Hauser y Menet, Los Tapices de la Corona de España_, vol. 2, pl. 132.] The tapestry is one of the Artemis series designed for Marie de Medici by Toussaint du Breuil. It was woven on the looms which were under the direction of Marc Comans and François de la Planche, and which later became the Gobelins state manufactory. The cartoons were repeated many times with different borders. Judging by the border, this piece was woven about 1611. The piece is a splendid example of the dramatic and monumental character of the productions of the pre-Gobelins looms. The sensitive feeling for decorative fitness and the reserve that are evident in French designs from the Gothic period on differentiate such a cartoon as this from the contemporary Flemish productions, usually so violent and exaggerated in scale, in drawing, and in emotional expression. For, though dramatic, the scene is restrained and the figures have an almost sculptural detachment. This quality is sustained by the fine architectural border, which is very typical of the Paris looms of this period. [Sidenote: Lent by _Jacques Seligmann & Company_.] Toussaint du Breuil (1561-1602) painted decorations in the Pavilions des Poêles at Fontainebleau, and also in the Galerie des Rois in the Louvre. Most of his work has perished. [Sidenote: 39, 40] GOBELINS, XVI CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool and Silk._ No. 39: H. 7 _ft._ 9 _in._ W. 13 _ft._ 6 _in._ No. 40: H. 7 _ft._ 9 _in._ W. 11 _ft._ ] TWO SCENES FROM THE HISTORY OF CLEOPATRA: _In the first_ (_No._ 39) _Cleopatra attended by two maidens greets a young prince who is being introduced to her by a general_. _In the harbor the young stranger's ship is seen._ _In the second_ (_No._ 40) _Cleopatra welcomes a young man_. _An attendant holds a heavy canopy of silk. Beyond, a Greek temple is seen._ _Side borders, only, of classic decorations on a red ground with inset medallions showing the Judgment of Paris._ [Sidenote: Formerly in the Collection of Lord Lovelace.] The pieces both signed in the lower right corner--Lefébvre, with the fleur-de-lis and G. They do not, however, appear on the records of the Gobelins, so they must have been done by Lefébvre outside of the official work. [Sidenote: Lent by _William Baumgarten & Company_.] They are strong and fresh examples of the early work of the Gobelins weavers, and typical of the classicism of the late Renaissance in France. The requirements of mural decoration are met by the monumental character and sculptural poise of the figures, but at the same time the design is adapted to a decorative textile through the perfection of the detail and the richness of the colors. [Sidenote: 41] FLANDERS, BEGINNING OF XVII CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool and Silk._ H. 7 _ft._ 10 _in._ W. 13 _ft._ 4 _in._ ] VERDURE: _A formal garden with fountains and a château in the distance and various birds in the foreground._ [Sidenote: Lent by _Mrs. C. Templeton Crocker_.] Such landscape tapestries were a characteristic late Renaissance interpretation of the verdure type, a transition between the Gothic _millefleurs_, that were really originally landscapes without perspective (cf. No. 11), and the XVIIth-century verdures (cf. No. 43). It is a very successful form of verdure, for they are broadly effective from a distance and yet have a sufficient wealth of detail to yield interest on closer exploration. The birds in this piece are especially carefully observed and well drawn, and the purity and vivacity of the color is exceptional for this type. [Sidenote: 42] BRUSSELS, LATE XVII CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool and Silk._ H. 13 _ft._ W. 12 _ft._ ] AMERICA: _In a tropical landscape an Indian with bow and arrows caressing a crocodile. Two children beside him smoking pipes. In the background on a hill a mission; in the foreground a heap of fruits and flowers and precious objects symbolic of the wealth of the New World. Border of fruits and flowers with corner medallions representing North, East, South, and West. On the lower selvage the Brussels city mark and the signature, I. V. D. BEURCHT._ [Sidenote: Another example in Musée Impériale des Ecuries, Petrograd, No. 117.] The piece is one of a set of four representing the four quarters of the globe. It was woven by Jean Van der Beurcht, one of the great weavers of Brussels, who is known to have been working there between 1690 and 1710. The Van der Beurcht family had for several generations been painters, Jean being the first to turn from that profession to tapestry weaving. He was followed by several other members of the family (cf. No. 56), all of whom did work of the highest quality. [Sidenote: Lent by _P. W. French & Company_.] The piece is a splendid illustration of the romantic attitude toward America at the time and a reminder of the importance America had to Europeans as a source of wealth. The mission on the hill, and another mission settlement in the valley of which a glimpse can be caught, are of especial interest. [Sidenote: 43] FLANDERS, XVII CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool and Silk._ H. 11 _ft._ 10 _in._ W. 11 _ft._ ] VERDURE WITH BEAR HUNT: _In a forest of large trees hunters shooting and spearing bears. In place of a border, large columns at the sides with floral garlands hung between them across the top._ The piece is a type of verdure, numbers of which with many variations were produced in Flanders during the XVIIth century. It is one of a set of five, and is a very strong, fresh example. [Sidenote: Lent by _P. W. French & Company_.] The substitution of massive columns for formal borders is characteristic of the Baroque period and serves the better to adapt the tapestry to the prevailing architecture. [Sidenote: 44] BRUSSELS, XVII CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool and Silk._ H. 11 _ft._ W. 18 _ft._ 8 _in._ ] [Sidenote: From the Morgan Collection, No. 17. Another example in the Swedish Royal Collection.] TRIUMPH OF AUGUSTUS AND LIVIA: _Caesar offers the crown of victory to Augustus, who kneels before him. He is surrounded by his attendants and his chariot waits in the background. The side borders are of flower-draped columns, top and bottom borders of fruit and flower garlands, with ornaments. On the side borders are cartouches bearing the insignia: Pax. Aug. and Vic. Aug. (Pax Augusta and Victoria Augusta)._ [Sidenote: Illustrated: _Böttiger, Svenska Statins Samling_, vol. 3, pl. XLII.] The piece is one of a series on the _History of Julius Caesar_, three of which were in the Morgan Collection. It has all the abundance and dramatic emphasis characteristic of the Baroque period. [Sidenote: Lent by _P. W. French & Company_.] The massive yet active figures, the large folded, swinging drapes, the luxurious and heavy accessories are all typical of the work of a time when the large, the impressive, and the elaborate were sought in all forms of art. The manner was introduced into tapestry cartoons by Rubens and carried on by many of his pupils and imitators. Even the outline of the composition of this piece follows closely that of Rubens' famous _Triumphs_, from which the suggestion for the cartoon was undoubtedly taken. [Sidenote: 45] FLANDERS, XVII CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool, Silk, Gold._ H. 3 _ft._ 1 _in._ W. 4 _ft._ ] THE VIRGIN AND CHILD: _The Virgin in a pale red gown with a dark-blue cloak falling about her is seated on the ground. The child holding a staff in the form of a cross sits on her knee. Beyond is a castle, and against the sky a high mountain. Wide floral border. The high lights are in gold._ This is a most exceptional piece of tapestry, evidently made to special order, probably for a private chapel, after an Italian Renaissance painting. The excessive fineness of the weave and the unstinted use of gold to render the high lights indicate that it was made for a person of wealth and importance. [Sidenote: Lent by _Duveen Brothers_.] The painting is faithfully and delicately reproduced and the border is remarkably rich and glowing. [Sidenote: 46] BRUSSELS, LATE XVII, EARLY XVIII CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool and Silk._ H. 12 _ft._ W. 17 _ft._ 6 _in._ ] SANCHO IS TOSSED IN A BLANKET: _Sancho, following Don Quixote's example, has refused to pay the innkeeper, as that is against the tradition of knights-errant and their squires. So the clothmakers of Segovia and the needlemakers of Cordova who chance to be there toss him in a blanket, while Don Quixote sits without on his horse cursing lustily._ The piece is one of a set of illustrations of _Don Quixote_ after David Teniers the Younger. The scene has all the casual and convincing informality and boisterous good spirits for which Teniers' paintings are famous. It quite catches the spirit of the romance which it illustrates. The landscape vista is unusually lovely in color. [Sidenote: Lent by _P. W. French & Company_.] David Teniers the Younger (1610-1694) was trained principally under his father, David the Elder, also famous for paintings of peasant episodes. In 1633 he became Master of the Guild of St. Lukes, and thereafter was Dean of the Guild and painter to the governor, Archduke Leopold William, a position which he continued to hold under the next governor, Don Juan of Austria. In 1663 he helped form the Antwerp Academy of Fine Arts. He painted innumerable pictures of peasant scenes, many of which have been rendered in tapestry. [Sidenote: 47, 48] BRUSSELS, XVIII CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool and Silk._ No. 47: H. 11 _ft._ W. 8 _ft._ 9 _in._ No. 48: H. 11 _ft._ W. 8 _ft._ 9 _in._ ] TWO PEASANT SCENES: _In the first_ (_No._ 47) _a group of peasants has stopped to rest and talk beside a stream that comes tumbling down in broken cascades beneath a high stone bridge. On the hills in the background are farmhouses and the ruins of castles_. _In the second_ (_No._ 48) _a group of peasants sits and stands about under a tree in a meadow_, _in which cattle and goats wander._ _In the background is a farmhouse._ [Sidenote: Lent by _Duveen Brothers_.] These tapestries after Teniers are typical of his illustrations of life among the peasants and of his decorative and romantic yet realistic landscapes. They are in weaving and color of the best quality of examples of this type. [Illustration: _Triumph of Diana_ No. 37 ] [Illustration: _The Niobides_ No. 38 ] [Sidenote: 49] MORTLAKE, LATE XVII CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool and Silk._ H. 10 _ft._ 4 _in._ W. 7 _ft._ 6 _in._ ] PEASANTS IN A LANDSCAPE: _A group of peasants has stopped by the wayside in a mountainous landscape. Above is a shield bearing the inscription "Iocatur in Parvis sorts ut cum Magna Mercede Fallat."_ [Sidenote: Formerly in the Collection of Sir John Ramsay.] The cartoon is after Teniers. The Mortlake renditions of these cartoons, which were borrowed from Flanders, have a clarity and sharpness that give them marked distinction. The towering mountain landscape is really impressive. [Sidenote: Lent by _Frank Partridge, Inc._] The rendition of the water is unusually realistic without any loss of decorative interest. The translation of water into a woven design is one of the most difficult problems of the craft. It has been given many solutions, of which this is the most naturalistic. [Sidenote: 50] BEAUVAIS, LATE XVII CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool and Silk._ H. 10 _ft._ W. 8 _ft._ 8 _in._ ] HERMES AND THE SHEPHERD: _Hermes has taken the Shepherd's pipe, leaving the caduceus on the ground, and is attempting to play. They are in a wood with large flowers in the foreground. In the background there is a glimpse of a hilly landscape and a formal garden with fountains. Wide floral border._ [Sidenote: Lent by _Mrs. James Creelman_.] The piece is one of a set of five verdures, most of which have hunting scenes. While there is no signature, and there are no records on them, the character of the foliage and of the floreation makes it almost certain that these are of Beauvais manufacture. While in some details they resemble contemporary Aubusson tapestries, the quality of the color is rather different. They are a particularly deep and quiet type of verdure, an excellent background for fine furnishings. The quality of the greens is uncommonly fine. [Sidenote: 51] BEAUVAIS, BEGINNING OF XVIII CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool and Silk._ H. 10 _ft._ 9 _in._ W. 13 _ft._ 3 _in._ ] VERDURE WITH DANCING NYMPHS: _In a wooded dell are four nymphs dancing. Beyond is a glimpse of an open pasture with cows._ [Sidenote: Lent by _Dikran K. Kelekian_.] The strong and brilliant trees throw into sharp contrast the delicate perfection of the bit of landscape beyond. The nymphs are probably after Noël Coypel. The use of the red to relieve the general tone of green is especially successful. [Sidenote: 52] BEAUVAIS, 1685-1711 [Sidenote: _Wool, Silk, Gold._ H. 15 _ft._ 8 _in._ W. 11 _ft._ 10 _in._ ] THE CONQUEST OF LOUIS THE GREAT: _Louis XIV on horseback with two attendants points with his cane to the siege of a city whose defenses are surrounded by water. In the upper border appear the arms of Count Bruhl of Saxony. The piece is one of a set of seven._ [Sidenote: Formerly in the Lord Amherst Collection.] [Sidenote: Illustrated: _Badin, La Manufacture de la Tapisserie de Beauvais_, opp. p. 4.] This is a very rare example from one of the earliest sets woven at Beauvais when the factory was under the direction of Behagle. The cartoon was designed either by Van der Meulen or his greatest pupil, Jean-Baptiste Martin, later called Martin of the Battles, because of a famous series of cartoons which he made for the Beauvais works illustrating the victories of Sweden over Denmark. The richness of the king's group stands out brilliantly against the clear, cool color and sharp geometrical lines of the background. The city with its canals and buildings is exquisitely rendered, an interesting anticipation of an aeroplane view. [Sidenote: Lent by _P. W. French & Company_.] Adam Frans Van der Meulen (1632-1690) was a native of Brussels and studied there under Peter Snayers, but on recommendation of Le Brun was invited by Colbert to Paris, where he was pensioned by the king and given apartments in the Gobelins. In 1673 be was received into the Academy. He collaborated with Le Brun in making designs for the Gobelins, notably for the series of _The History of the King_. [Sidenote: 53-56] BRUSSELS, BEGINNING XVIII CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool._ No. 53: H. 10 _ft._ 7 _in._ W. 29 _ft._ No. 54: H. 10 _ft._ 4 _in._ W. 9 _ft._ 4 _in._ No. 55: H. 10 _ft._ 3½ _in._ W. 7 _ft._ 2 _in._ No. 56: H. 10 _ft._ 4½ _in._ W. 7 _ft._ 3 _in._ ] THE OPERATIONS OF THE SIEGE OF LILLE: _Number_ 53 _represents the battle of Wynendael Wood._ _Lord Cobham on horseback with his sword drawn is in the midst of his troops._ _Number_ 54 _shows the burning of Lille_. _The burning city is seen in the background. Soldiers in the foreground are getting bundles of wood to feed the flames._ _Number_ 55 _shows cavaliers foraging_. _Soldiers are carrying bundles of hay for their horses and a lamb lies on the ground ready to be carried off._ _Number_ 56 _shows the poisoning of a spy_. _The cavaliers have just given a glass of poisoned wine to a young woman who is about to drink._ _The borders simulate wooden frames and carry the arms of Lord Cobham._ [Sidenote: Formerly in Stowe House.] The set was designed by Van der Meulen for Lord Cobham, who served under the Duke of Marlborough and had a brilliant military career. It was woven at the Royal Manufactory of Brussels under the direction of Leyniers, whose signature appears in the border of three pieces. In the fourth piece is the signature ACASTRO, Latin for Van der Beurcht. Cobham inherited Stowe House in 1697, and these tapestries until recently hung in the dining-room there. [Sidenote: Lent by _Jacques Seligmann & Company_.] The set ranks with the strongest and most effective pieces of the period, rich both in illustrative action and in decoration. The weave is technically perfect. [Sidenote: 57] GOBELINS, MIDDLE XVIII CENTURY (1747-1751) [Sidenote: _Wool and Silk._ H. 11 _ft._ 6 _in._ W. 8 _ft._ 3 _in._ ] JULY FROM THE "MONTHS" OF LUCAS: _From a series of designs of the Months, used in Brussels since the XVth century and attributed without verification to Lucas Van Leyden. The scene represents a falconing party._ [Illustration: _Scene from the History of Cleopatra_ No. 39 ] [Illustration: _Verdure_ No. 41 ] The piece has the last type of border used for the set, the so-called Dresden border, representing a carved and gilded wood frame with corner ornaments surrounded by naturalistic flowers, and with a sign of the Zodiac (Leo) in a cartouche at the top. [Sidenote: Lent by _P. W. French & Company_.] The piece was probably woven in the tenth weaving between 1741 and 1751 on the upright looms in the atelier of Cozette.[29] This is an unusually clear and brilliant example of a famous Gobelins set. [Sidenote: 58] GOBELINS, XVII CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool and Silk._ H. 9 _ft._ 4 _in._ W. 6 _ft._ 8 _in._ ] DECEMBER FROM THE "MONTHS" OF LUCAS: _A nobleman greets a peasant woman and her child, while a man and woman carrying a baby wait for him. In the background a castle and people skating on the ice. The piece is incomplete._ [Sidenote: Another example in the Vienna Collection, No. 109.] This tapestry is from the same set as the preceding, but woven almost a century earlier, and it is interesting to contrast the changes that the change in taste has made in the feeling of the rendition and the color key. During the XVIIIth century the cartoon was refined with slight changes. The hand of the old man, for example, was modified to hold a fruit for the child. The piece probably is from the third or fourth weaving. If so, it was done on the horizontal looms in the atelier of Lefébvre, outside of the official work of the Gobelins.[30] [Sidenote: Lent by _Wildenstein & Company_.] This is one of the few really successful renditions of a snow scene in tapestry. [Sidenote: 59] BEAUVAIS, LATE XVII, EARLY XVIII CENTURY (1684-1711) [Sidenote: _Wool and Silk._ H. 9 _ft._ 8 _in._ W. 16 _ft._ 5 _in._ ] CHINESE GROTESQUE: _Under an arbor clowns conduct a circus. Above the arbor are scrolls, garlands, birds, musical instruments, and other decorations. On a yellow ground._ This is one of a famous series of grotesques by Berain on a yellow ground, woven several times at the Beauvais works when they were under the direction of Behagle.[31] The entertaining fantasy of the conception, together with the delicate drawing and the beautiful ground color, makes this one of the finest grotesques of the XVIIIth century. [Sidenote: Lent by _P. W. French & Company_.] Jean Berain (1638-1711) was appointed in 1674 designer to the king, and in this position designed the scenery and costumes for the court ballets. He is famous for his decorations. [Sidenote: 60, 61] BEAUVAIS, XVIII CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool and Silk._ No. 60: H. 15½ _in._ W. 19 _in._ No. 61: H. 15½ _in._ W. 19 _in._ ] TWO STILL-LIFE PIECES: _In one_ (_No._ 60) _a glass_, _a napkin_, _and some vegetables on a table_. _In the other_ (_No._ 61) _various vegetables about a china dish_. These panels, after paintings by Chardin, are the only recorded examples of still-life composition in tapestry. From the middle of the XVth century household utensils and various other types of accessories were used to contribute richness of ornamentation to scenes, and during the Baroque period embossed metals and lavish carvings became especially important in creating a luxurious effect, but not until tapestry was thought of as a form of painting was a purely still-life subject attempted. All still-life designs depend so much on contrasted weights, and especially on textures, that they are particularly difficult to translate into a medium which, like tapestry, renders primarily silhouettes and which has such a decided texture of its own. But the extraordinary skill of the XVIIIth-century French weavers was equal even to that problem. The skillful care of the composition of the original paintings and the pure beauty of the colors of the tapestry make of rather unpromising subjects beautiful decorations. [Sidenote: Lent by _Maison Jamarin, Paris_.] Jean Siméon Chardin (1699-1779) studied under Noël Coypel and assisted Jean Baptiste Van Loo in restoring one of the galleries of Fontainebleau. He was admitted to the Academy in 1728. His early work was devoted to still-life subjects principally, his later to peasant scenes, in which there are often fine incidental still lifes. [Sidenote: 62] AUBUSSON, MIDDLE XVIII CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool and Silk._ H. 9 _ft._ 8 _in._ W. 10 _ft._ 9 _in._ ] THE PRIEST AND CARDENIO MEET DOROTHY: _The priest and the barber while looking for Don Quixote come across Cardenio. While Cardenio is telling them the sad story of how his love, Lucinda, has been stolen from him by the treachery of Don Fernando they hear someone lamenting. Following the sound of the voice, they find Dorothy disguised as a shepherd-boy bathing her feet in a stream. She is on her way to seek Don Fernando, who is her pledged husband and who has deserted her for Lucinda. In the background Don Quixote, exhausted and starved from his wanderings, lies on the ground, while the faithful Sancho pleads with him to return to Toboso._ _The border simulates a carved frame. On the lower selvage is the signature M. R. DAUBUSSON. MAGE. PICON._ The piece is one of a series of illustrations by Coypel, originally designed for the Gobelins, and was engraved and used in many editions of the romance both in France and Spain. Several looms made tapestries after the engravings, including those of Santa Barbara in Madrid. The signature is the mark of the royal manufacture of Aubusson, and of Mage, a tapestry merchant in Paris in 1746, and Picon, dyer to the king from 1748 to 1756. The piece was evidently made in the royal works of Aubusson to the order of the dealer Mage under the supervision of Picon, who, from his position, was evidently one of the most important members of the staff there. [Illustration: _Verdure with Dancing Nymphs_ No. 51 ] [Illustration: _The Conquest of Louis The Great_ No. 52 ] The piece shows Aubusson work at its richest and finest. The foliage of the trees with every leaf shown and broken up into small spots of changing color is very typical of Aubusson, and quite different from the manner of the Flemish shops (cf. No. 55). The colors are remarkably fine. [Sidenote: Lent by _P. W. French & Company_.] Charles Antoine Coypel (1694-1752) entered the Academy in 1715, and the next year made a series of twenty-eight designs illustrating _Don Quixote_ for the Gobelins. A second important series which he designed for the Gobelins illustrated scenes from the theatre. He was a favorite painter of Queen Marie Leczinska. He wrote several comic dramas and had an interest in an understanding of the theatre which is reflected in his tapestry designs, which are conceived always as a theatrical scene in a stage setting, with actors making the proper expressive gestures. [Sidenote: 63] PARIS, XVIII CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool and Silk._ Oval; H. 28 _in._ W. 23 _in._ ] BACCHANTE: _A young bacchante wearing a tigerskin and holding Pan's pipes. In an oval panel._ This panel is after a portrait by Coypel. Though it does not appear on the official registers of the Gobelins, the technique would indicate that it was probably by a Gobelins weaver, who quite often worked outside of the official orders. [Sidenote: Lent by _Jacques Seligmann & Company_.] The delicate execution reproduces faithfully the piquant charm of the painting; even the most delicate gradations of tones are exactly reproduced. [Sidenote: 64.] GOBELINS, XVIII CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool and Silk._ H. 25 _in._ W. 21 _in._ ] PORTRAIT OF LOUIS XV: _This portrait, after a painting by Van Loo made for the Gobelins in_ 1760, _is one of a series of the royal family. It is in the original frame_. [Sidenote: Illustrated: _Böttiger, Svenska Statins Samling_, vol. 2, pl. XLI; _Fénaille, Etat général des Tapisseries de la Manufacture des Gobelins, Dix-huitième Siècle_, 2me Partie, p. 311; as portrait of Louis XVI, in _Migeon, Les Arts de Tissu_, p. 335.] While tapestry is not an appropriate medium for portraiture, a portrait is the supreme test of the skill of the weaver. In this piece the effect of the painting is reproduced with remarkable fidelity. The warp is vertical. [Sidenote: Lent by _P. W. French & Company_.] The technical difficulty was the greater because almost the entire piece was woven in wool, the proper material for tapestry, silk being relied on only for a few high lights. As a portrait it has directness and conviction, carrying the essential dignity of royalty. The XVIIIth century, which first undertook to weave tapestry portraits, produced a kind of portrait that was especially ill-adapted to this material; for the likenesses depended primarily on the delicate modeling produced by a very sensitively differentiated scale of values and scarcely at all on lines. Even in Gothic tapestries there are many heads that are striking portraits, but these are entirely graphic in character and so fitted for tapestry. In rendering this portrait the weavers had literally to paint with the shuttle. Carle Van Loo (1705-1756) studied in Rome under Luti and Le Gros. In his youth he painted scenery for the opera with Boucher. In 1737 he was admitted to the Academy, and in 1762 made first painter to the king. [Sidenote: 65] GOBELINS, FIRST HALF XVIII CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool._ H. 13 _ft._ 3 _in._ W. 8 _ft._ 3 _in._ ] [Sidenote: Another rendering in the Vienna Collection, No. 253; another in the Musée Impériale des Ecuries, Petrograd, No. 118.] THE INDIAN HUNTER: _This tapestry is one of a set of eight illustrating the New India after designs by François Desportes. The set was first woven in 1687._ _This piece has the first type of border used with the series_, _bearing the arms of the king_, _which means that it was woven before_ 1768 _under either Cozette or Neilson_.[32] The design is typical of the romantic primitivism that Rousseau formulated in his conception of the Noble Savage. The accuracy of detail in the Indian basket is interesting and rather unexpected. [Sidenote: Lent by _Demotte_.] François Desportes (1661-1743) studied under Bernaert, a pupil of Snyders. He entered the Academy in 1699 and was made painter to the king. He is famous for his paintings of animals and hunting scenes. [Sidenote: 66] BEAUVAIS, XVIII CENTURY (1777) [Sidenote: _Wool._ H. 11 _ft._ 1 _in._ W. 21 _ft._ 3 _in._ ] THE THEFT OF THE TRUNK: _A group of gypsies surround a traveler's carriage, and while some tell the lady's fortune and receive alms others attempt to steal a trunk from the baggage-rack behind._ [Sidenote: Formerly in Collection of Count Polovzoff, Petrograd. Another example in the Swedish Royal Collection. Illustrated: _Böttiger, Svenska Statins Samling_, vol. 3, pl. LXVI.] The tapestry is one of the series _Les Bohémiens_ by François Casanova, and was woven in Beauvais when the factory was under the direction of André Charlemagne Charron, whose initials it bears in signature. According to the inventories, the series has been woven only twice--once in 1777 for the king, and again in 1799.[33] The vividness of the minor episodes and the vivacity of characterization of even the lesser actors make this a most interesting tapestry. The weaving is done with exquisite skill and the color is unusually fresh and charming. [Sidenote: Lent by _Jacques Seligmann & Company_.] François Casanova (1730-1805) went to Italy in 1727 where he studied under Guardi and Francesco Simonini. He returned to France and later studied under Parocel. In 1763 he was received into the Academy and exhibited in the salons until 1783. [Sidenote: 67] BEAUVAIS, XVIII CENTURY (1735-1740) [Sidenote: _Wool and Silk._ H. 11 _ft._ 9 _in._ W. 14 _ft._ 6 _in._ ] THE ARMS OF FRANCE AND NAVARRE: _Two angels on clouds support the coat of arms before an ermine drape against a ground of fleur-de-lis on blue._ The angels are after Boucher, the only coat of arms in tapestry known to which Boucher has contributed. It is evidently one of several fleur-de-lis pieces listed in the accounts of Beauvais between 1735 and 1740 and may be the one made for the Parliament of Rouen in the latter year.[34] It is an unusually rich and interesting armorial, the angels with their characteristic Boucher grace adding great beauty to the formal setting. [Sidenote: Lent by _P. W. French & Company_.] François Boucher (1703-1770) studied with Lemoyne and during that time painted scenery for the Opera, a work to which he returned in the height of his career (1737-44). In 1734 he became Academician. In 1735 he was appointed head of the Gobelins by Marigny. In 1765 he was made first painter to the king and Director of the Academy. In the years between 1740 and 1755 he painted many cartoons for the Beauvais tapestry works. Among his most famous tapestry suites are the _Loves of the Gods_, the _Chinese Hangings_, and the _Italian Fêtes_. [Sidenote: 68] GOBELINS, XVIII CENTURY (1767) [Sidenote: _Wool and Silk._ H. 4 _ft._ 11 _in._ W. 6 _ft._ 6 _in._ ] THE FORTUNE-TELLER: _Two peasant girls seated on the ground by a fountain are having their fortune told by another girl. A naked baby clings to her skirts. From one side a goat looks on inquisitively. It is signed F. Boucher and dated._ [Sidenote: Illustrated: _Fénaille, L'Etat général des Tapisseries de la Manufacture des Gobelins, Dix-huitième Siècle_, 2me Partie, p. 238.] This is one of a series of cartoons in small size made by Boucher for the Gobelins while he was director. They were very popular and have been woven a number of times. The piece shows how remarkably the delicate gradations of tone, on which Boucher's essential quality depended, could be translated into the weave by the extraordinarily skillful craftsmen of the Gobelins. [Sidenote: Lent by _Duveen Brothers_. ] As in all of Boucher's cartoons, the subject is only an occasion for his own charming decorative mannerisms. As a rendition of peasant life, it is interesting to contrast this cartoon with the honest literalness of Teniers (cf. Nos. 47-49). [Sidenote: 69] AUBUSSON, LATE XVIII CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool and Silk._ H. 9 _ft._ 10 _in._ W. 7 _ft._ 5 _in._ ] BAIGNEUSE: _A bather attended by amorini is about to step into a woodland stream. In an oval frame surrounded by an encadrement of garlands upheld by amorini and satin drapes in the manner of Huet, on a gray ground._ The central panel is after Fragonard, a subject that he repeated with many variations. The piece is typical of the Aubusson work, delicate in color with the decorative effect depending largely on the flowery encadrement. [Sidenote: Lent by _P. W. French & Company_.] Jean Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806) studied under Boucher, Greuze, and Chardin, and is usually considered the successor of Boucher. In 1752 he was given Grand Prize for Painting. He was a favorite painter of Madame Du Barry, for whom he did a great deal of work. [Sidenote: 70] AUBUSSON, LATE XVIII CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool and Silk._ H. 8 _ft._ 10 _in._ W. 6 _ft._ 6 _in._ ] AU BORD DU MER: _In an oval panel are peasants landing from a rowboat. In the harbor under a cliff is a sailing vessel. In an encadrement of red and blue flowers and ribbons on a gray ground._ [Sidenote: Formerly in the Vaffrin Collection, Bordeaux.] The central panel is after Vernet, who was particularly famous for his port scenes. The encadrement is unusually rich and delicate. [Sidenote: Lent by _Wildenstein & Company_.] Claude-Joseph Vernet (1714-1789) first studied under his father as a decorative painter of wall and furniture panels. Afterward he studied under Bernardino Fergiori in Rome to be a marine painter. In 1735 he was received by the Academy. His most famous paintings, of the seaports of France, are in the Louvre. [Sidenote: 71] AUBUSSON, XVIII CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool._ H. 9 _ft._ W. 5 _ft._ ] CHINESE GROTESQUE: _A Chinaman, fantastically dressed, stands between two tall tropical trees. On a pale-blue ground._ [Sidenote: Lent by _A. J. Halow_.] The piece is a delightful example of the taste for _chinoiseries_ which the Pompadour fostered for the benefit of the French East India Company, in which she was interested, and which taste was eagerly followed by the frivolous and bored French court, always seeking novelty. [Sidenote: 72] AUBUSSON, XVIII CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool and Silk._ H. 4 _ft._ 3 _in._ W. 3 _ft._ 9 _in._ ] ARMORIAL: _On a red ground, two angels support a shield. Border of scrolls._ This crisp and delicate little armorial is a fine example of the best quality of work done at Aubusson in the late XVIIIth century. The clear drawing on the deep-red background makes a vivid piece of decoration. [Sidenote: Exhibited: _Detroit Museum of Fine Arts_, 1919.] [Sidenote: Lent by _Dikran K. Kelekian_.] The rendition of a coat of arms in tapestry is difficult, because the decorative value of heraldic devices depends almost entirely on the beauty of the line-drawing, and tapestry, because of the character of the weave and the surface, is not a good medium for clean lines. In the earlier periods, therefore, the shield was usually made incidental to a design better adapted to tapestry (cf. No. 9). It was only well into the XVIIIth century that the bearings could be woven delicately enough to let them stand alone. [Sidenote: 73] IMPERIAL RUSSIAN TAPESTRY WORKS, ST. PETERSBURG, 1811 [Sidenote: _Wool and Silk._ H. 9 _ft._ 4 _in._ W. 6 _ft._ 7 _in._ ] CATHERINE THE GREAT: _Catherine stands in her robes of state holding the sceptre while the Imperial crown rests on a stool beside her. On the wall is the Russian motto, NACHATOYE SOVERCHAYET ("What is begun is accomplished"). It is signed and dated._ [Sidenote: Exhibited: _Metropolitan Museum_, 1912.] For sheer technical skill the rendition of this portrait is unsurpassable. The representation of textures is remarkable, quite on a par with the cleverest paintings of the period. [Illustration: _The Poisoning of a Spy_ No. 56 ] [Illustration: _The Arms of France and Navarre_ No. 67 ] [Sidenote: Illustrated: _Hunter, Tapestries_, pl. 229; also, _Candee, Tapestry Book_, opp. p. 133,--but wrongly attributed to the Gobelins.] [Sidenote: Lent by _P. W. French & Company_.] It is, in truth, an absolutely perfect reproduction of a painting--a painting, moreover, that from the character of all the accessories is particularly difficult to render in wool; and while it is by no means the business of tapestry to imitate painting, it is nevertheless an interesting display of remarkable virtuosity. The personal power of the forceful old Empress is strongly presented. From every aspect this is one of the greatest portraits in a woven medium. In general color tone the piece has remained faithful to the character of tapestry, sustaining the rich quality that the solid texture demands. In spite, also, of the need for many delicately graded values to render the stuffs and the modeling, the weavers have kept the color in large enough masses to be broadly decorative. [Sidenote: 74] MADRID, LATE XVIII CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool and Silk._ H. 5 _ft._ W. 8 _ft._ ] THE CARD PLAYERS: _A group of men and women playing at cards sit about a table on which is thrown a rich brocade. One of the company sits to one side playing a lute._ [Sidenote: Lent by _Duveen Brothers_.] This piece is one of the rather uncommon examples of the work of the Santa Barbara looms of Madrid. The skill of the weavers is remarkable in reproducing the heavy modeling of the deep shadows and the delicate modulations of the faces. For the perfect rendition of the effect of a painting in tapestry it cannot be excelled. ADDENDA _The tapestries entered under this heading were received too late to be entered in their proper order in the body of the catalogue._ [Sidenote: 75] BRUSSELS, BEGINNING OF XVI CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool, Silk, Gold._ H. 9 _ft._ 1 _in._ W. 7 _ft._ 8 _in._ ] THE RESURRECTION: _The risen Christ discovered by Peter. Upper left, the Agony in Gethsemane; upper right, Christ appearing to Mary in the garden. In the background, the angel appearing to the three women. Border of fruits and flowers, grapes, roses, and iris interspersed with finches and a paroquet._ This tapestry, the last of a series illustrating the _Passion_ of Our Lord, was designed in the studio of Bernard Van Orley, and may be the work of Van Orley himself, though there were some of his students and followers who in purity of conception and elevation and sensitiveness of feeling were superior at times to the master himself. The weaving, unsurpassable in technical perfection, may be the work of the Pannemaker looms. The quality of the design and weaving and the lavish use of gold all indicate that this series was made for a great church or a noble family. [Sidenote: Formerly in the Collection of the Duc d'Albe.] The weavers at this period had attained complete mastery of the shuttle. This absolute technical control made possible the exact translation into tapestry of the intricate Renaissance patterns. The finish and elegance of the goldsmith's art which characterized so much of Renaissance design is perfectly rendered. However, while the weaving was fitted to the requirements of the Renaissance at this time, it had not yet sacrificed any of its qualities as tapestry. Nor did the designs of Bernard Van Orley force the weavers out of their proper limitations. For though he was Italian trained and saturated with Renaissance influences, he was still close to the technical problems of the weaver's art and he adjusted the new manner in painting to them. So this piece is rich in jewel-like detail that enriches without crowding the whole surface. The drawing of the flowers and the birds is exquisite. The figures also, in spite of their dramatic force, keep the aloof poise that decorative art demands. Finally, by means of a dispersion of substantial tones, the brilliant suffusion of golden light which the Renaissance loved is fully achieved. Such a scene as this is, in short, one of the last great monuments of the perfection of Gothic tapestry, reinspired by the new insights of the Renaissance before the ostentation and mistaken conventions of Raphael misguided the entire art. [Sidenote: Lent by _Mrs. William H. Crocker_.] Nor is it merely a technical triumph. It is the direct expression of a profound religious emotion which shines through the material beauty, elevates it above earthly things, and sets it apart in glory. Easter has scarce had a lovelier celebration. [Sidenote: 76] BRUSSELS, XVI CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool and Silk._ H. 15 _ft._ W. 19 _ft._ ] THE TRIUMPH OF WISDOM: _Wisdom with her two herons rides in a chariot drawn by mythological beasts. In the upper right are Perseus and Pegasus. Before the chariot are Ahasuerus, Abigail, David, and Saba. Cassandra walks beside, while Titus and his soldiers, Rachel, and Judith with the head of Holofernes bring up the rear. In the upper left Prometheus, in the lower Cadmus, contending with the dragons._ This is one of a very famous set of tapestries illustrating the _Triumphs of Petrarch_ and a number of other _Triumphs_ invented by French poets in imitation of Petrarch. The cartoons are evidently the product of the studio of Maître Philippe (cf. Nos. 19, 20), for the heads of several of the minor characters are regular models, often repeated in his work. The cartoons were painted and also executed before 1523, because in that year Henry VII bought eight of the set, four of which are still at Hampton Court. This piece, however, was woven in the middle of the century, as is shown by the character of the heavy floral border. In the selvage is the Brussels city mark and the mark of the Brussels weaver, Leo Van den Hecke. [Sidenote: Lent by _Mrs. William H. Crocker_.] The design is full of the oblique symbolism that the period loved. The allusions are drawn with equal interest from classic tradition, secular history, and Christian legend. The entire past has been laid under tribute with magnificent disregard of historical, social, and religious congruity. Such an unclassified assemblage of exciting personalities might even cause confusion in the Day of Judgment. It is typical of the Renaissance catholicity, the Renaissance eagerness to assimilate all knowledge and be always as impressive as possible. Yet the figures still have some of the stately restraint of the Gothic, and the dispersion of the points of interest, so that the whole textile is equally covered, is a remainder from the Gothic taste. Truly transitional, it represents the final stage of Maître Philippe's development. [Sidenote: 77] FLANDERS, ENGHIEN (?), XVI CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool and Silk._ H. 5 _ft._ W. 6 _ft._ 11 _in._ ] VERDURE: _Scrolling leaves in rich blue-green with red and yellow flowers and fruits on a very deep-blue ground. A wide border of clusters of flowers and fruits._ [Sidenote: Lent by _Mrs. William H. Crocker_.] This is a notably brilliant example of the characteristic Renaissance verdure. The drawing is both accurate and vivacious, the colors pure, deep, and brilliant, the wool of extraordinary firmness and lustre, while the weave is remarkably close for the type. Tapestries of this class are so often perfunctory in conception and mechanical in execution that we need a piece of this clarity, strength, and perfect finish to show how splendid are the possibilities inherent in the simple design. [Sidenote: 78] FLANDERS, LATE XVII CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool and Silk._ H. 11 _ft._ 8 _in._ W. 15 _ft._ ] THE CABRIOLE: _A young knight shows his skill in jumping his horse. At the left a page leads in a sumptuously caparisoned horse. At the right a large fountain is seen through the trees, and in the background is a formal garden with fountains._ [Sidenote: Lent by _Mrs. William H. Crocker_.] Such very decorative verdures, half realistic landscapes, were among the finest products of the late XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries. Audenarde looms wove many of the best pieces of the type, and this piece probably came from that district. The fountain is rendered with delightful detail and animation, and the drawing of flowing waters, a trying problem for tapestry, is managed with admirable dexterity. [Sidenote: 79] ANTWERP, LATE XVII CENTURY [Sidenote: _Wool and Silk._ H. 32 _in._ W. 24 _in._ ] SCENES FROM THE CHILDHOOD OF CHRIST: _On a black ground strewn with flowers, five oval panels framed with wreaths: the Annunciation; the Nativity; the Adoration of the Magi; the Circumcision; the Flight into Egypt._ [Sidenote: Illustrated: _Schmitz, Bild-Teppiche_, p. 265.] [Sidenote: Lent by _Mrs. William H. Crocker_.] This very unusual tapestry was the work of Balthasar Bosmanns, one of the greatest weavers of Antwerp. The realistically drawn yet richly decorative flowers show the influence of the school of flower painters of which Jan Brueghel was the most famous. The landscape in the _Adoration_ and the _Flight into Egypt_ are rendered with exquisite delicacy. The effect of the panels in such light, fresh, almost pastel colors against the black ground is a daring and striking decorative experiment. Another rendering of the same cartoon is in the Kunstgewerbe Museum, Berlin. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 1: _Schmitz, Bild-Teppiche_, p. 186.] [Footnote 2: _Lindner, Der Breslauer Froissart_.] [Footnote 3: _Amberger Catalogue._] [Footnote 4: _Thièry, Les Inscriptions des Tapisseries de Jean Van Room_, pp. 23, 24E.] [Footnote 5: _Marquet de Vasselot, Les Emaux Limousin_, No. 8, pl. II.] [Footnote 6: _Op. cit._ 29, pl. X.] [Footnote 7: _Op. cit._ 49, pl. XVI.] [Footnote 8: _Order for Payment of Philip the Good_, _April_ 4, 1455, _quoted in Van den Gheyn_, _Chroniques et Conquêtes de Charlemagne_, _by le Tavernier_, _p._ 11.] [Footnote 9: _See Burlington Magazine_, vol. 20, pp. 247, 309. _D. T. B. Wood, Credo Tapestries._] [Footnote 10: _See Barbier de Montault's inventory in Annales Archéologiques_, tome 15, pp. 232, 296.] [Footnote 11: _Van Kalcken, Peintures ecclésiastiques du Moyen Age. Notes by Dr. Jan Six._] [Footnote 12: _Op. cit._ p. 1.] [Footnote 13: _Op. cit._ p. 3.] [Footnote 14: _Op. cit._ p. 15.] [Footnote 15: _Burlington Magazine_, vol. 20, p. 220. _D. T. B. Wood, Tapestries of the Seven Deadly Sins._] [Footnote 16: _Catalogue of the Collection of Martin le Roy_, vol. 4.] [Footnote 17: _Destrée, Tapisseries et Sculptures bruxelloises_, p. 8.] [Footnote 18: _Thièry, Les Inscriptions des Tapisseries de Jean Van Room._] [Footnote 19: _Bodenhauser, Gerard David_, No. 10.] [Footnote 20: _Op. cit._ No. 25a.] [Footnote 21: _Destrée, Hugo Van der Goes_, opp. p. 48.] [Footnote 22: _Op. cit._, opp. p. 32.] [Footnote 23: _Thièry, Les Inscriptions des Tapisseries de Jean Van Room_, p. 28.] [Footnote 24: _Thièry, Les Inscriptions des Tapisseries de Jean Van Room_, p. 27. Also, _Destrée and Van den Ven, Les Tapisseries_, No. 17.] [Footnote 25: For illustration, see _Fsoulke Collection_, opp. p. 49.] [Footnote 26: _Thomson, History of Tapestry_, p. 479.] [Footnote 27: For further discussion, see _Gazette des Beaux Arts_, 2me Période; _Montaiglon, Diane de Poitiers et Son Goût dans les Arts_, t. XIX, p. 152.] [Footnote 28: _La Renaissance de l'Art français_, 1921, p. 159 ff.; _E. Dimier, La Tenture de la Grande Galerie_.] [Footnote 29: _Fénaille, Etat général des Tapisseries de la Manufacture des Gobelins, Période Louis XIV_, pp. 337, 341f., 344, 370.] [Footnote 30: _Fénaille, Etat général des Tapisseries de la Manufacture des Gobelins, Période Louis XIV_, pp. 337. 343f., 369.] [Footnote 31: _Badin, La Manufacture de la Tapisserie de Beauvais_, p. 11.] [Footnote 32: _Fénaille, Etat général des Tapisseries de la Manufacture des Gobelins, Dix-huitième Siècle_, Partie 11, p. 40ff.] [Footnote 33: _Badin, La Manufacture de la Tapisserie de Beauvais_, p. 64.] [Footnote 34: _Badin, La Manufacture de la Tapisserie de Beauvais_, p. 75.] A LIST OF WEAVERS The following is a list of the most prominent weavers. Such men as Sir Francis Crane, of Mortlake, and Delorme, of Fontainebleau, have not been included because they were only administrators. It is possible that Grenier was not a weaver, though he may have been both weaver and contractor. Nicolas Bataille Paris XIVth Century Pasquier Grenier Tournai Middle of XVth Century Pieter Van Aelst Brussels XVIth Century Wilhelm Pannemaker Brussels XVIth Century François Geubels Brussels XVIth Century Hubert de Mecht Brussels XVIth Century John Karcher Ferrara XVIth Century Nicolas Karcher Ferrara XVIth Century John Rost Florence XVIth Century Philip de Mecht Mortlake XVIIth Century Francis Poyntz Mortlake XVIIth Century Francis Spierinx Delft XVIIth Century John Vanderbanc England XVIIth Century Catherine Van der Eynde Brussels XVIIth Century Jean Raes Brussels XVIIth Century Everard Leyniers Brussels XVIIth Century Jacques Van der Beurcht Brussels XVIIth Century Marc Comans Paris XVIIth Century François de la Planche Paris XVIIth Century Jean Lefébvre Paris XVIIth Century Jean Jans Paris XVIIth Century Gerard Laurent Paris XVIIth Century Philippe Behagle Beauvais XVIIIth Century Cozette Gobelins XVIIIth Century Le Blond Gobelins XVIIIth Century De la Tour Gobelins XVIIIth Century James Neilson Gobelins XVIIIth Century Jacques Van der Goten Madrid XVIIIth Century Antoine Lenger Madrid XVIIIth Century BIBLIOGRAPHY _All the books starred_ (*) _may be consulted in the San Francisco Public Library_ [Illustration] There is, unfortunately, no satisfactory book in English on Tapestry and no wholly satisfactory book for the general reader in any language. The following are the most useful and are readily available. *_Candee, Helen Churchill. The Tapestry Book. New York_, 1912. A somewhat superficial and sentimental sketch of the history of tapestry, with almost no interpretation and little indication of the relation of tapestry to the other arts. _DeMotte, G. J. Les Tapisseries gothiques. Paris_, 1922. When complete will contain two hundred large color plates of incomparable beauty and fidelity. Invaluable as a source-book. Will contain probably the majority of important examples of the period. _Guiffrey, J. J. L'Histoire de la Tapisserie. Tours_, 1886. A narrative history, now superseded in a number of respects. _Guiffrey, J. J. L'Histoire de la Tapisserie en France_ (_L'Histoire générale de la Tapisserie_). _Paris_, 1878-85. A compilation of all the facts available at the time, and still an important fundamental reference work. _Guiffrey, J. J. Les Tapisseries du XIIe à la fin du XVIe Siècle. Paris, n. d._ The most detailed survey of the period, but unfortunately poorly organized. Superbly illustrated. *_Hunter, George Leland. Tapestries: Their Origin, History, and Renaissance. New York_, 1912. An unsystematic assemblage of facts, not all of which are correct, and many of which are irrelevant. _Migeon, Gaston. Les Arts de Tissu_ (_Troisième Partie_). _Paris_, 1909. A complete and readable account of the history of tapestry, with some excellent interpretations. _Müntz, Eugène. L'Histoire de la Tapisserie en Italie, en Allemagne, etc._ (_L'Histoire générale de la Tapisserie_). _Paris_, 1878-85. Similar to Guiffrey's volume in the same series. _Müntz, Eugène. La Tapisserie. Paris_, 1883. A brief presentation of the general history, superseded at some points, but with valuable illuminating interpretations. _Pinchart, A. L'Histoire de la Tapisserie dans les Flandres_ (_L'Histoire générale de la Tapisserie_). _Paris_, 1878-85. Similar to the other volumes of the same series. _Schmitz, Herman. Bild-Teppiche. Berlin_, 1919. By far the most systematic, scholarly, complete, and informing book yet published on the subject. *_Thomson, W. G. A History of Tapestry. New York_, 1906. A conventional history with useful tables of marks, but limited by being illustrated entirely with examples in England. *_Thomson, W. G. Tapestry Weaving in England. New York_, 1914. The fundamental reference on this aspect of the subject, with full reproduction of documents. In addition to the above titles, there are a great number of monographs on various phases of the subject, many of which are excellent. For example: _Thièry, Les Inscriptions des Tapisseries de Jean Van Room, Louvain_, 1907, is an able piece of work, a model of exact scholarship. The majority of these monographs are of interest only to the special student. Schmitz refers to the more important of them in his foot-notes. SUBJECT & TITLE INDEX _Every tapestry is listed by its respective catalogue number, and a star (*) indicates the tapestry is illustrated._ [Illustration] LOOMS REPRESENTED IN THE EXHIBITION Numbers _Aubusson_ 62, 69, 70, 71, 72 _Beauvais_ *51, *52, 59, 60, 61, 66, *67 _English_ 49 _Flemish Gothic_ *3 *4, *5, 7, *14, 15, 16, *17, 18, 19, 20, *21, 75, 76 _Flemish Renaissance_ 23, 24, *25, *26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, *35, 77 _Flemish, XVIIth Century_ *41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 78, 79 _Flemish, XVIIIth Century_ 47, 48, 53, 54, 55, *56 _Fontainebleau_ *36, *37 _French Gothic_ *1, *2, *8, 9, *10, 11, 12, *13 _French, XVIIth Century_ *38, *39, 40, 50, 58 _German and Swiss Gothic_ 6, *22 _Gobelins_ 57, 63, 64, 65, 68 _Russian_ 73 _Spanish_ 74 ALLEGORICAL, CLASSICAL, HISTORICAL, AND MYTHOLOGICAL _America_ 42 _Augustus and Livia, Triumph of_ 44 _Bacchante_ 63 _Chinese Grotesque_ 59 _Chinese Grotesque_ 71 _Cleopatra, Two Scenes from the History of_ *39, 40 _Cyrus, Two Scenes from the Life of_ *26, 27 _December from the "Months" of Lucas_ 58 _Diana, Triumph of_ *37 _Grotesques_ *36 _Hercules, the History of_ 7 _Indian Hunter, The_ 65 _July from the "Months" of Lucas_ 57 _Louis the Great, The Conquest of_ *52 _Niobides, The_ *38 _Priest and Cardenio Meet Dorothy, The_ 62 _Roman de la Rose, Scenes from the_ *4 _Romance, Scenes from a_ 20 _Sancho is Tossed in a Blanket_ 46 _Scipio, Three Scenes from the Deeds of_ 23, 24, *25 _Siege of Lille, The Operations of the_ 53, 54, 55, *56 _Wisdom, Triumph of_ 76 ARMORIAL _Armorial, Aubusson, XVIIIth Century_ 72 _Armorial, Bruges_, 1556 34 _Arms of France and Navarre, The_ *67 _Millefleurs Armorial with Wild Men_ 9 _Millefleurs with Shepherds and the Shield of the Rigaut Family_ *10 GENRE SCENES _Au Bord Du Mer_ 70 _Baigneuse_ 69 _Cabriole, The_ 78 _Card Players, The_ 74 _Chase, The_ *2 _Fortune-Teller, The_ 68 _Pastoral Scene_ *13 _Peasants in a Landscape_ 49 _Peasant Scenes, Two_ 47, 48 _Theft of the Trunk, The_ 66 _Two Pairs of Lovers_ *22 _Vintage, The_ *5 LANDSCAPES _Garden Scene_ 30 _Hunting Scene_ 32 _Millefleurs with Animals_ 11 _Millefleurs with Animals_ 12 _Verdure, Enghien_ (?) 33 _Verdure, Enghien_ (?) 77 _Verdure, Flanders, XVIth Century_ 31 _Verdure, Flanders, XVIIth Century_ *41 _Verdure: Hermes and the Shepherd_ 50 _Verdure with Bear Hunt_ 43 _Verdure with Dancing Nymphs_ *51 PORTRAITS _Catherine the Great_ 73 _Louis XV_ 64 RELIGIOUS SUBJECTS _Annunciation, The_ *1 _Annunciation, the Nativity and the Announcement to the Shepherds, The_ *3 _Childhood of Christ, Scenes from the_ 79 _Creed, Three Pieces from a Series Illustrating the_ *14, 15, 16 _Creed, Three Pieces from a Series Illustrating the_ *17, 18, 19 _Crucifixion, The_ *35 _David, The Triumph of_ *21 _Entombment on Millefleurs_ *8 _Judith Departs for the Enemy's Camp_ 29 _Life of Christ, Scenes from the_ 6 _Pentecost, The_ 28 _Resurrection, The_ 75 _Virgin and Child, The_ 45 STILL LIFE _Two Still-Life Pieces_ 60, 61 [Illustration] TAYLOR & TAYLOR EDWARD DE WITT & HENRY H. TAYLOR SAN FRANCISCO 1922 * * * * * +----------------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber Notes: | | | | P. 20. 'the minature' changed to 'the miniature'. | | Footnote p. 31. 'Chroniques et Conquêtes de Charlemaine' | | changed to 'Chroniques et Conquêtes Charlemagne'. | | P. 60. 'Les Incriptions' changed to 'Les Inscriptions'. | | Corrected various punctuation. | | | +----------------------------------------------------------------+ 
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[Illustration: _Frontispiece_ _REJA_ OF THE CHOIR (_Seville Cathedral_)] The World of Art Series THE ARTS AND CRAFTS OF OLDER SPAIN by LEONARD WILLIAMS Corresponding Member of the Royal Spanish Academy, of the Royal Spanish Academy of History, and of the Royal Spanish Academy of Fine Arts; Author of "The Land of the Dons"; "Toledo and Madrid"; "Granada," etc. In Three Volumes, Illustrated VOLUME I Chicago A. C. McClurg & Co. Edinburgh: T. N. Foulis 1908 American Edition Published October 10, 1908 Dedicated BY SPECIAL PERMISSION TO THEIR MAJESTIES KING ALFONSO THE THIRTEENTH AND QUEEN VICTORIA OF SPAIN PREFACE In preparing these volumes, it has been my aim to give a clear and fairly complete account of the arts and crafts of older Spain. It seems to me that there is room for a work of this design and scope, and that there is no reason why so attractive a subject--or rather, group of subjects--should be perpetually ignored by persons who travel through, or who profess to feel an interest in, the country of the Cid and of Don Quixote. My account of Spanish pottery is guarded, and yet I trust acceptable. The study of this craft in Spain is far from definite, and fresh researches and discoveries may be hoped for at some future time. The history of Spanish arms has also suffered from unjust neglect. Perhaps my sketch of them may slightly compensate for this deficiency. For the rest, my book, which represents the well-meant assiduity of several years, shall speak for itself. Although I was embarrassed by too much material, the illustrations have been chosen with great care, and not, I think, inadequately. Some of the photographs were taken specially for this work. For the loan of others, or for kind assistance generally, I am indebted to Excmo. Señor Don Guillermo J. de Osma, Excmo. Señor Don José Villegas, and Excmo. Señor Don José Moreno Carbonero; to Señores Góngora and Valladar, of Granada; and to Messrs Hauser and Menet, and Mons. Lacoste, of Madrid. _August_, 1907. CONTENTS OF VOLUME ONE PAGES GOLD, SILVER, AND JEWEL WORK 1-119 IRON-WORK 120-159 BRONZES 160-191 ARMS 192-289 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS _VOLUME ONE_ GOLD AND SILVER PLATE PAGE _Reja_ of the Choir; Seville Cathedral _Frontispiece_ I. Treasure of Guarrazar; Royal Armoury, Madrid 22 II. The Cross of Angels; Oviedo Cathedral 36 III. The Cross of Victory; Oviedo Cathedral 43 IV. Moorish Casket; Gerona Cathedral 46 V. Altar-Front in enamelled Bronze; Museum of Burgos 50 VI. "The Crucifix of the Cid"; Salamanca Cathedral 52 VII. The "Virgen de la Vega"; San Esteban, Salamanca 54 VIII. Saint James in Pilgrim's Dress; Santiago Cathedral 57 IX. Mudejar Triptych; Royal Academy of History, Madrid 60 X. The "Tablas Alfonsinas"; Seville Cathedral 62 XI. "The Cup of Saint Ferdinand"; Seville Cathedral 64 XII. Ship; Zaragoza Cathedral 65 XIII. Moorish Bracelets 77 XIV. Morisco Jewellery 83 XV. Silver-Gilt Processional Cross 85 XVI. Gothic _Custodia_ 95 XVII. The _Custodia_ of Seville Cathedral 100 XVIII. Early Chalice and Cross in Filigree Gold 114 IRON-WORK XIX. Old Keys; Seville Cathedral 131 XIXA. Decorative Nail-Heads; Convent of San Antonio, Toledo 134 XX. Door-Knockers 136 XXI. Ceremonial Maces and Lantern 138 XXII. Iron Pulpit; Avila Cathedral 140 XXIII. _Reja_ of Chapel Royal; Granada Cathedral 148 XXIV. The same (View from Interior) 149 XXV. _Reja_; Casa de Pilatos, Seville 155 XXVI. _Reja_ of the "Casa de las Conchas," Salamanca 156 BRONZES XXVII. "Meleager's Hunt" 164 XXVIII. A _Candil_ 166 XXIX. A _Velón_ 168 XXX. Bronze Lion 171 XXXI. Bronze Stag; Museum of Cordova 173 XXXII. Bronze Temple; Museum of Granada 174 XXXIII. Moorish Lamp and Mortar; Museum of Granada 176 XXXIV. Lamp of Mohammed the Third; Madrid Museum 178 XXXV. Abbot Samson's Bell; Museum of Cordova 180 XXXVI. Bronze Crucifix 182 XXXVII. The Puerta del Perdón; Seville Cathedral 184 XXXVIII. The Weathercock of the Giralda Tower 186 ARMS XXXIX. Crest of Jousting Helmet; Royal Armoury, Madrid 198 XL. Spanish Crossbowman; Royal Armoury, Madrid 202 XLI. The Battle of La Higueruela; El Escorial 206 XLII. Parade Harness of Philip the Third; Royal Armoury, Madrid 210 XLIII. Moorish Crossbow and Stirrup; Museum of Granada 214 XLIV. Moorish Sword; Casa de los Tiros, Granada 218 XLV. Sword of Boabdil el Chico; Museum of Artillery, Madrid 222 XLVI. Dagger of Boabdil el Chico; Museum of Artillery, Madrid 226 XLVII. Moorish Sword 230 XLVIII. War Harness of Charles the Fifth; Royal Armoury, Madrid 234 XLIX. Jousting Harness of Charles the Fifth; Royal Armoury, Madrid 238 L. Jousting Harness of Philip the Handsome; Royal Armoury, Madrid 242 LI. Moorish Buckler; Royal Armoury, Madrid 246 LII. Armour made at Pamplona; Royal Armoury, Madrid 250 LIII. _Adarga_; Royal Armoury, Madrid 254 LIV. Spanish Swords; Royal Armoury, Madrid 258 LV. Spanish Sword; Royal Armoury, Madrid 262 LVI. Spanish Sword 266 LVII. Spanish Swords; Royal Armoury, Madrid 270 LVIII. Sword Marks 272 LIX. _Bridona_ Saddle; Royal Armoury, Madrid 274 LX. Hanging _Jaeces_ for Horses 278 LXI. Travelling Litter attributed to Charles the Fifth; Royal Armoury, Madrid 282 GOLD, SILVER, AND JEWEL WORK The hyperbolic language of the ancients spoke of Spain as filled throughout, upon her surface and beneath her soil, with precious stones and precious metals. Old writers--Strabo, Pliny, Aristoteles, Pomponius Mela, and Diodorus Siculus--declare that once upon a time a mountain fire, lighted by shepherds in the Pyrenees and fanned into a conflagration by the wind, heated the earth until the ore within her entrails came bubbling to the top and ran away in rivulets of molten gold and silver, spreading all over Spain. The indigens of Lusitania as they dug their fields were said to strike their implements on nuggets half a pound in weight. The heart of the Peninsula, between the B[oe]tis and the Annas rivers--that is, the country of the Oretani and the Bastitani--was fabled to abound in mines of gold. The traders from Ph[oe]nicia, we are told, discovered silver to be so abundant with the Turdetani that "the vilest utensils of this people were composed thereof, even to their barrels and their pots." Accordingly these shrewd Ph[oe]nicians, offering worthless trinkets in exchange, loaded their ships with silver to the water's edge, and even, when their cargo was complete, fashioned their chains and anchors of the residue. In spite of their extravagance, upon the whole these legends are not utterly devoid of truth. "Tradition," said so careful an authority as Symonds, "when not positively disproved should be allowed to have its full value; and a sounder historic sense is exercised in adopting its testimony with due caution, than in recklessly rejecting it and substituting guesses which the lack of knowledge renders insubstantial." So with the legends of the gold and silver treasure of the old-time Spaniards. Besides, it seems unquestionable that those fanciful assertions had their origin in fact. Spain stood upon the western border of the ancient world. Year in, year out, the sanguine sun went seething down into the waters at her western marge. Mariners from distant countries viewed those sunsets and associated them with Spain herself. Thus, hereabouts in the unclouded south, would gold and silver be suggested by the solar orb; or emerald and jacinth, pearl and amethyst and ruby, by the matchless colours of the seldom-failing sunset. Then, too, though not of course in fabulous amount, the precious metals actually existed in this land. Various of her rivers, such as the Calom or Darro of Granada, the Tagus, the Agneda, and the Sil, rolled down, together with their current, grains of gold. "Les Mores," wrote Bertaut de Rouen of the first of these rivers, "en tiroient beaucoup autrefois; mais cela a esté discontinué depuis à cause de la trop grande dépense qu'il y faloit faire. Il est certain que souvent on prend dans le Darro de petits morceaux d'or, et il y a des gens qui sont accoûtumez d'y en chercher." Centuries before this abbot wrote his book, the Arab author of the geographical dictionary known as the _Marasid Ithila_ had made a similar remark upon this gold-producing stream; and in the sixteenth century I find an Ordinance of Granada city prohibiting the townspeople from digging up the river-bed unless it were to look for gold.[1] Probably, however, and in spite of what some chroniclers suppose, the title Darro is not in any way connected with the Latin words _dat aurum_. [1] _Ordenanza de la Limpieza_ (1537), Tit. 9: "We command that nobody remove sand from the aforesaid river Darro unless to extract gold, in which case he shall fill up the holes he made, or pay a fine of fifty _maravedis_ for damaging the watercourses that enter this city and the buildings of the Alhambra." "Two leagues from Guadarrama," wrote the mineralogist William Bowles, about the middle of the eighteenth century, "opposite the town and in the direction of San Ildefonso, is a deep valley where one notices a vein of common quartz containing some iron. Here, without the use of glasses, I perceived a good many grains of gold.... In Galicia grains of gold are found on sandy hills, and one is astonished to observe the wonderful works carried out by the Romans to bring the sands together, wash them, and extract the precious metal. Local tradition affirms that this precious sand was destined for the purses of three Roman empresses--Livia, Agrippina, and Faustina.... I know a German minister who employed his spare time in washing these sands and collecting the gold." The Romans, it is true, profited very greatly by the native wealth of the Peninsula. Helvius enriched the treasury with 14,732 pounds of Spanish silver bars and 17,023 pounds of silver money; Cornelius Lentulus, with 1515 pounds of gold, 20,000 pounds of bar-silver, and 34,550 pounds in coin. Cato came back from his pro-consulship with five-and-twenty thousand pounds of silver bars, twelve thousand pounds of silver money, and four hundred pounds of gold. Seventy thousand pounds of coined silver fell to the share of Flaccus, while Minutius exhibited at his triumph eight thousand pounds of silver bars, and three hundred thousand pounds of silver coin. Mines of silver,[2] gold, and precious stones were also fairly numerous in Spain. Moorish authors wrote enthusiastically of the mines of precious metals in or close to the Sierra Nevada. "Even at this day," said Bowles, "the Moorish mines may be distinguished from the Roman. The Romans made the towers of their fortresses of a round shape, in order to avoid as far as possible the blows of the battering-ram; and their miners, whether from habit or intentionally, made the mouths of their mines round also. The Moors, as strangers to this engine, built their towers square and gave a square shape also to the mouths of their mines. The round mouths of Roman mines are yet to be seen at Riotinto and other places, and the square mouths of Moorish mines in the neighbourhood of Linares." [2] "I am not aware of any Spanish mine containing silver in a state of absolute purity; though some, I think, would be discovered if they were searched for."--Bowles: _Historia Natural de España_. Emeralds were formerly extracted from a mine at Moron, in the Sierra de Leyta; white sapphires and agates at Cape de Gata,[3] at the eastern extremity of the Gulf of Almeria; amethysts at Monte de las Guardas, near the port of Plata, "in a precipice (_sic_) about twenty feet in depth." According to Laborde, garnets have been discovered down to modern times "in a plain half-way on the road from Almeria to Motril. They are very abundant there, particularly in the bed of a ravine, formed by rain-torrents, at the foot of a little hill, upon which a great number of them are likewise found. The emeralds are in the kingdom of Seville, all the others in that of Granada. It has been said for some time that a pit in the mountain of Bujo, at Cape de Gata, contains a great many precious stones; but none could be found there, notwithstanding the prolonged and careful searches that were lately made." [3] Possibly, as Bowles suggests, for Cabo de Agata--"Agate Cape." "It would not be strange," he adds, "if diamonds were found at this cape, since there are signs of their presence. I found white sapphires, slightly clouded, together with cornelians, jaspers, agates, and garnets." Silver mines exist, or have existed, at Benasque, Calzena, and Bielza, in Aragon; at Cuevas, near Almeria; at Almodovar del Campo; at Zalamea, in Extremadura; at Puerto Blanco, in Seville province; in the Sierra de Guadalupe; at Fuente de la Mina, near Constantina; and near Almazarron, in the province of Carthagena. Not far from this latter city was another mine, that sent to Rome a daily yield of five-and-twenty thousand drachmas, and was worked by forty thousand men. Twenty thousand pounds in weight of pure silver proceeded yearly from Asturias, Lusitania, and Galicia. Hannibal extracted from a Pyrenean mine three hundred pounds a day. The fair Himilca, wife of Hasdrubal, was owner of a silver mine at two leagues' distance from Linares. Laborde wrote of this mine: "It was reopened in the seventeenth century, when a vein five feet in breadth was found, from which many pieces of silver were taken; the working of it, however, has been neglected. It belongs to the town of Baeza." The same author, who wrote about one hundred years ago, gives curious and instructive notices of several other Spanish silver mines. "The mountains of the kingdom of Seville, on the confines of Extremadura, towards Guadalcanal, Alanis, Puerto Blanco, and Cazalla, which form a part of the extremity of the chain of Sierra Morena, contain several silver mines, which have been worked. There is one of these in the Sierra Morena, three miles from Guadalcanal, which to all appearance must have been very rich: there were three shafts for descending, the mouths of which are still to be seen: it was worked in the seventeenth century, and given up in 1653. It is believed that it was inundated by the workmen, in revenge for a new tax that was laid upon them. Another silver mine was also worked formerly, a league and a half from the other; it has a shaft, and a gallery of ancient construction; the vein is six feet in circumference, and is composed of spar and quartz. There is also a third mine, a league and a half from Guadalcanal, and half a league south-east of the village of Alanis, in the middle of a field; it is two feet wide; the Romans constructed a gallery in it, from south to north; a branch of it running eastward has been worked since their time: it originally contained pyrites and quartz, but it is by no means rich; there is lead at the bottom." Gold mines, or traces of them, have been found in the neighbourhood of Molina in Aragon, San Ildefonso in Old Castile, and Alocer in Extremadura; in the Sierra de Leyta; in the valley of Hecho in Aragon; and at Paradeseca and Ponferrada--this latter town the _Interamnium Flavium_ of the Romans. It is said that the chieftains of the ancient Spaniards adorned their robes with rude embroidery worked in gold, and that the men and women of all ranks wore gold and silver bracelets. These statements cannot now be either proved or controverted. Gold or silver objects older than the Roman domination have not been found abundantly in Spain. Riaño describes a silver bowl, conical in shape and evidently fashioned on the wheel, engraved with Iberian characters on one of its sides. A similar bowl was found in Andalusia in the seventeenth century, full of Iberian coins and weighing ten ounces. Gold ornaments, such as earrings, and _torques_ or collars for the neck, have been discovered in Galicia less infrequently than in the other Spanish regions, and may be seen to-day in private collections, in the Royal Academy of History at Madrid, and in the National Museum of Archæology.[4] Villa-amil y Castro has written fully of these _torques_ (Museo Español de Antigüedades, _Adornos de oro encontrados en Galicia_). In nearly every case, he says, they consist of a plain gold bar, C-shaped and therefore not completely closed into a ring, and with a knob at each extremity, as though their pattern were suggested by the yoke of cattle. One or two are decorated with a somewhat rude design extending through a portion of their length. [4] A fresh find of _torques_ and _fibulæ_ has occurred in the spring of this year at La Moureta, near Ferrol. On one of these occasions a pair of curious, kidney-shaped earrings was found, together with a _torque_. These earrings, apparently of later workmanship than the other ornament, are decorated over all their surface, partly with a filigree design, and partly with a fine, beadlike pattern executed with a small chisel or graving tool in the manner known in French as _fusé_, _guilloché_, or _hachié_. Their material is hollow gold, and when discovered they were filled with a substance resembling powdered charcoal, mixed with a metallic clay. These ornaments are ascribed by most authorities to an undetermined period somewhere previous to the Roman domination. I think, however, that less improbably they were produced by Spanish craftsmen in imitation of the Roman manner, and during the time of Roman rule in the Peninsula. This would account for their deficiencies of execution, and also for certain characteristics which they evidently share with Roman work. We know that Rome imposed her usages on all the peoples whom she subjugated. Consequently, following this universal law, the Spaniards would adopt, together with the lavish luxury of Rome, the Roman ornaments and articles of jewellery. Such were the _annulus_ or finger-ring; the _fibula_, a brooch or clasp for securing the cloak; the _torques_ or neck-ring, more or less resembling those in use among the Persians; and the _phalera_, a round plate of gold, silver, or other metal, engraved with any one of a variety of emblems, worn upon the breast or stomach by the persons of either sex, and very commonly bestowed upon the Roman soldiers in reward of military service. Then there were several kinds of earrings--the variously-designed _stalagmium_ or pendant, the _inaures_, or the _crotalium_, hung with pearls that brushed together as their wearer walked, and gratified her vanity by their rustling; and also several kinds of bracelets--the gold or bronze _armilla_, principally worn by men; the _periscelis_, the _spathalium_, and the _dextrale_, worn round the fleshy part of the right arm.[5] [5] These ornaments were retained in use by the Visigoths, and find their due description in the _Etymologies_ of Saint Isidore; _e.g._:-- "_Inaures_ ab aurium foraminibus nuncupatae, quibus pretiosa genera lapidum dependuntur." "_Tourques_ sunt circuli aurei a collo ad pectus usque dependentes. Torques autem et bullae a viris geruntur; a foeminis vero monilia et catellae." "_Fibulæ_ sunt quibus pectus foeminarum ornatur, vel pallium tenetur: viris in humeris, seu cingulum in lumbris." Discoveries of Roman jewellery and gold and silver work have occurred from time to time in the Peninsula; for example, at Espinosa de Henares and (in 1840) near Atarfe, on the southern side of the volcanic-looking Sierra Elvira, a few miles from Granada. Riaño describes a Roman silver dish found in a stone quarry at Otañez, in the north of Spain. "It weighs thirty-three ounces, and is covered with an ornamentation of figures in relief, some of which are gilt, representing an allegorical subject of the source of medicinal waters. In the upper part is a nymph who pours water from an urn over rocks; a youth collects it in a vessel; another gives a cup of it to a sick man; another fills with it a barrel which is placed in a four-wheeled car to which are yoked two mules. On each side of the fountain are altars on which sacrifices and libations are offered. Round it is the inscription: SALVS VMERITANA, and at the back are engraved, in confused characters, the words: L. P. CORNELIANI. PIII...." The same author is of opinion that in the time of the Romans "objects of all kinds in gold and silver were used in Spain to a very great extent, for, notwithstanding the destruction of ages, we still possess inscriptions which allude to silver statues, and a large number of objects in the precious metals exist in museums and private collections." Doubtless, in the case of articles and household utensils of smaller size--bowls, dishes, and the like, or ornaments for the person--the precious metals were made use of freely; but when we hear of mighty objects as also made of silver, _e.g._ principal portions of a building, we might do well to bear in mind a couple of old columns that were standing once not far from Cadiz, on a spot where in the days preceding history a temple sacred to the Spanish Hercules is rumoured to have been. Philostratus affirmed these columns to be wrought of solid gold and silver, mixed together yet in themselves without alloy. Strabo reduced them modestly to brass; but it was reserved for a curious Frenchman, the Père Labat, who travelled in Spain in 1705, to warn us what they really were. "Elles sont sur cette langue de terre, qui joint l'Isle de Léon à celle de Cadix; car il faut se souvenir que c'est ainsi qu'on appelle la partie Orientale, et la partie Occidentale de la même Isle. Il y a environ une lieue de la porte de Terre à ces vénérables restes de l'antiquité. Nous nous en approchames, croyant justifier les contes que les Espagnols en débitent. Mais nous fûmes étrangement surpris de ne pas rencontrer la moindre chose qui pût nous faire seulement soupçonner qu'elles fussent d'une antiquité un peu considérable. Nous vimes que ces deux tours rondes, qui n'ont à présent qu'environ vingt pieds de hauteur sur douze à quinze pieds de diamètre, étoient d'une maçonnerie fort commune. Leurs portes étoient bouchées, et nous convinmes tous qu'elles avoient été dans leur jeune tems des moulins à vent qu'on avoit abandonnés; il n'y a ni inscriptions, ni bas-reliefs, ni reste de figures quelconques. En un mot, rien qui méritât notre attention, ni qui recompensât la moindre partie de la peine que nous avions prise pour les aller voir de près. Car je les avois vue plus d'une fois du grand chemin, où j'avois passé, et je devois me contenter. Mais que ne fait-on pas quand on est curieux, et aussi des[oe]uvré que je l'étois alors." Many of the usages of Roman Spain descended to the Visigoths. The jewels of this people manifest the double influence of Rome and of Byzantium, and the latter influenced in its turn from Eastern sources. We learn from that extraordinary encyclopædia of early mediæval Spanish lore--the _Etymologies_ of Isidore of Beja--that the Visigothic women decked themselves with earrings, necklaces, and bracelets, set with precious stones of fabulous price. Leovigild is stated by the same writer to have been the first of the Visigothic princes to use the insignia of royalty. One of his coins (engraved in Florez) represents him with an imperial crown surmounted by a cross resembling that of the Byzantines. Coins of a similar design, and also bearing the imperial crown, were minted at Toledo, Cordova, or Merida, in the reigns of Chindaswint, Wamba, Ervigius, and Egica. But the true fountain-head of all our modern knowledge respecting the jewellery of Visigothic Spain is in the wonderful crosses, crowns, and other ornaments discovered in 1858 upon the site of some old Christian temple, two leagues distant from Toledo. These objects, known collectively as "the treasure of Guarrazar," were stumbled on by certain peasants after a heavy storm had washed away a quantity of earth. Some were destroyed upon the spot; others were sold to the Toledo silversmiths and melted down by these barbarians of our day; but fortunately the greater part remained intact, or very nearly so. There were in all, composed exclusively of gold and precious stones, eleven crowns, two crosses containing legible inscriptions, fragments such as the arms of a processional cross, and many single stones which time had doubtless separated from the crosses or the crowns.[6] [6] There is also in the Archæological Museum at Madrid a small collection of what has been described as Visigothic jewellery, consisting of a handsome _phalera_, necklaces, finger-rings, and earrings. Most of these objects were found at Elche in 1776. The _Museo Español de Antigüedades_ published a full description by Florencio Janer. Their interest is by no means as great as that of the treasure of Guarrazar, nor is the date of their production definitely ascertained. From various details I suspect that many of them may be purely Roman. Part of this treasure passed in some mysterious way to France, and is now in the Cluny Museum at Paris. The rest is in the Royal Armoury at Madrid. Paris can boast possession of nine of the crowns; Madrid, of two, together with a fragment of a third--this latter of a balustrade or basket pattern. Five of the nine crowns preserved at Paris are fashioned of simple hoops of gold. The most important of the five, the crown of Recceswinth, who ruled in Spain from 650 to 672 A.D., consists of two hinged semicircles of hollow gold, about a finger's-breadth across the interspace. It measures just over eight inches in diameter and four inches in depth. Both the upper and the lower rims are decorated to the depth of nearly half an inch with a design of four-pointed floral or semi-floral figures within minute circles. Amador de los Ríos has recognized this same design in the frieze of certain buildings at Toledo, and in the edges of mosaic discovered at Italica and Lugo, as well as in the Balearic Islands. The interstices of this design upon the crown are filled with a kind of red enamel or glaze, the true nature of which has not been definitely ascertained. Riaño calls it "a delicate ornamentation of _cloisonné_ work, which encloses a substance resembling red glass." The centre of the crown is filled with three rows of large stones, principally pearls and sapphires. There are also several onyxes, a stone which in those days was held in great esteem. The spaces between the rows of stones are ornamented with a somewhat rudimentary design of palm branches, the leaves of which appear to have been filled or outlined with the kind of red enamel I have spoken of. This crown is suspended by four gold chains containing each of them five leaf-shaped links, _percées à jour_. The chains unite at a gold rosette in the form of a double lily, terminated by a stoutish capital of rock-crystal. This in its turn is capped by another piece of crystal holding the final stem of gold which served as a hook for hanging up the crown. Suspended from the gold rosette by a long chain is a handsome cross, undoubtedly of more elaborate workmanship, studded with union pearls and monster sapphires. Amador believed this ornament to be a brooch. If this were so it is, of course, improperly appended here. Twenty-four gold chains hang from the lower border of the crown, concluding in pyriform sapphires of large size. Each sapphire is surmounted by a small, square frame of gold containing coloured glass, and above this, in each of three-and-twenty of the chains, is one of the golden letters forming the inscription, [cross] RECCESVINTHVS REX OFFERET. Besides this crown there are at Paris-- (1) A similar though slighter crown, the body of which is studded with fifty-four magnificent stones. A cross, now kept apart in the same collection, is thought by Spanish experts to have once been pendent from the crown. If so, the latter was perhaps presented to the sanctuary by one Sonnica, probably a Visigothic magnate, and not a woman, as the termination of the name induced some foreign antiquaries to suppose. The cross is thus inscribed:-- _ IN DI NOM INE OFFERET ___ SONNICA SCE MA RIE INS ORBA CES[7] [7] The last word is commonly believed to be the name of a place--_Sorbaces_. There has been much discussion as to its meaning. (2) Three crowns of plain design consisting of hoops of gold with primitive _repoussé_ decoration, and, in the case of one, with precious stones. (3) Four crowns, each with a pendent cross. The pattern is a basket-work or set of balustrades of thin gold hollow plates (not, as Riaño stated, massive) with precious stones about the intersections of the bars or meshes, and others hanging from the lower rim. Three of these crowns have three rows or tiers of what I call the balustrade; the other crown has four. The custom of offering votive crowns to Christian temples was taken by the emperors of Constantinople from heathen peoples of the eastern world. In Spain this custom, introduced by Recared, outlived by many years the ruin of the Visigothic monarchy--survived, in fact, until the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Thus in 891 Alfonso the Third presented to the monastery of San Adrian and Santa Natalia four crowns of gold and three of silver, while just a hundred years afterwards Ordoño the Second presented three silver crowns to the monastery of Samos. Other crowns were offered by the prelates and the secular nobility. Returning to the crowns of Guarrazar, there has been great controversy as to whether these were worn upon the head. Some experts think they must have been so worn; and in this case the rings upon the rim, through which the chains are passed, would seem to have been added on the presentation of these objects to the sanctuary. Lasteyrie, on the other hand, considered that the crowns were merely votive and were never meant for personal use, arguing that the rings were fixed about the border from the very moment when the crowns were made;[8] but Amador ingeniously replied to this by pointing out that in a few of the old Castilian coins--for instance, one of Sancho the Third--the crown, with rings about its rim, is actually upon the monarch's head. It is possible, adds the same authority, that these were old votive crowns proceeding from some church, although he thinks it still more likely that they were fashioned with the rings attached to them. We should remember, too, the hinge which serves to open and close the body of these crowns. It is difficult to guess the purpose of this hinge, unless it were to fit the crown more comfortably on the head. [8] _Description du trésor de Guarrazar_. Of that portion of the treasure of Guarrazar which has remained at Madrid (Plate i.), the most important object is the votive crown of King Swinthila, son of Recared, and described as "one of the most illustrious and unlucky princes that ever occupied the throne of Atawulf." This crown measures nine inches in diameter by two and a half in height. It consists of thin gold plates united at the edge, leaving, between the inner and the outer side, a hollow space about a quarter of an inch across. The exterior is divided into a central horizontal hoop or band between two others, somewhat narrower, at the top and bottom, these last being slightly raised above the level of the third. A triple row of precious stones, amounting to one hundred and twenty-five pearls and sapphires in the entire crown, surrounds the outer surface of the same, the central band or zone of which contains besides, wrought in _repoussé_ on the hoop, a simple circular device wherein each centre is a sapphire or a pearl, though many of these have fallen from their setting. The spaces which describe these circles are superposed on what looks like a red enamel retaining at this moment all or nearly all its pristine brightness of twelve hundred years ago. This substance was believed by French investigators to be a coloured glass or paste,[9] but Amador, after protracted chemical experiments, declared it to be layers of cornelian. Some of these layers have fallen from their grip, and if the crown be stirred are heard to move within. It is worth remarking, too, that the fillets which form the setting of the precious stones were made apart and welded afterwards; nor are these settings uniform in shape, but tally in each instance with the outline of the gem. [9] "_Ce que je puis affirmer, après l'examen le plus minutieux, c'est que la matière qui fait le fond de cette riche ornementation est réellement du verre._"--Lasteyrie, supported by Sommerard. [Illustration: I TREASURE OF GUARRAZAR (_Royal Armoury, Madrid_)] The chains which served for hanging up the crown are four in number. As in the crown of Recceswinth, each of them is composed of four _repoussé_ cinquefoil links adorned along their edge with small gold beads minutely threaded on a wire and fastened on by fusing. The chains converge into an ornament shaped like two lilies pointing stem to stem, so that the lower is inverted, although they are divided by a piece of faceted rock crystal.[10] Four gems are hung from either lily, and issuing from the uppermost of these a strong gold hook attaches to the final length of chain. [10] "In Spain," said Bowles (_Hist. Nat. de Esp._, p. 498), "are found two species of rock crystal. The one, occurring in clusters, are transparent, six-sided, and always have their source in rocks. There are great quantities all over the kingdom, and at Madrid they are found near the hills of San Isidro. The other species are found singly, and are rounded like a pebble. I have seen them from the size of a filbert to that of my fist. Some were covered with a thin, opaque integument.... The river Henares abounds with these crystals, and as it passes San Fernando, at two leagues' distance from Madrid, sweeps some of them along which are the size of the largest ones at Strasburg, though very few are perfect." Possibly the chain and cross now hanging through the circuit of the crown were not originally part of it. This cross is most remarkable. It has four arms of equal length, gracefully curved, and is wrought of plates of gold in duplicate, fastened back to back by straps of gold along the edges. The centre holds a piece of crystal in the midst of pearls and gold bead work threaded on a wire of the same metal and attached by fusion. Several fairly large stones are hung from the lateral and lower arms of the cross by small gold chains. The letters hanging from Swinthila's crown are cut and punched from thin gold plates. Their decoration is a zigzag ornament backed by the same mysterious crimson substance as the circular devices on the hoop. Hanging from the letters are pearls, sapphires, and several imitation stones--particularly imitation emeralds--in paste. The cross before the letters points to a custom of that period. We find it also on Swinthila's coins, and those of other Visigothic kings. Of the letters themselves twelve have been recovered, thus:-- [cross] SV TI NV REX OFF T The chains, however, or fragments of them, amount to twenty-three--precisely (if we count the cross) the number needed to complete the dedication.[11] [11] A veritable cryptogram awaited the decipherers of these legends. When King Swinthila's crown was brought to light, four of the letters only were in place, thus:-- [cross] ...... I ... V . R .... F .... Eight of the others were recovered shortly after; two more, an E and L, appeared at a later date, and eight continued to be missing. The inscription dangling from the crown of Recceswinth arrived at Paris in this eloquent form:-- [cross] RRCCEEFEVINSTVSETORHFEX The Royal Armoury contains another crown, a great deal smaller and less ornamented than Swinthila's. The body of this crown, which was presented by the finder to the late Queen Isabella the Second, is just a hoop of gold, two inches deep and five across, hinged like the more elaborate and larger crowns, but merely decorated with a fine gold spiral at the rims, a zigzag pattern in _repoussé_, and a rudely executed scale-work. The dedication on this cross is in the centre of the hoop, and says-- __ [cross] OFFERET MVNVSCVLVM SCO STEFANO _ THEODOSIVS ABBA We do not know who Theodosius was, but Amador, judging from the simple decoration of this crown, believes him to have been a priest of lower rank, and by no means a dignitary of the Visigothic church. A votive cross also forms part of this collection, which has a simple sunk device along the edges and seven pendent stones, two of these hanging from each of the lateral arms, and three, a little larger, from the lower arm. The inscription, which is rough in the extreme, appears to be the work of some illiterate craftsman, and has been interpreted with difficulty:-- __ IN NOMINE DEI: IN NOMINE SCI OFFERET LUCETIUS E This reading gives an extra letter at the end, which may be construed as _Episcopus_--or anything else, according to the student's fancy. I may close my notice of this collection in the Royal Armoury at Madrid by drawing attention to a greenish, semi-opaque stone, three-quarters of an inch in height. It is engraved _en creux_ upon two facets with the scene of the Annunciation. The gem itself is commonly taken for an emerald, of which, referring to the glyptic art among the Visigoths, the learned Isidore remarked that "_Sculpentibus quoque gemmas nulla gratior oculorum refectio est._" I shall insert a sketch of the cutting on this stone as a tailpiece to the chapter, and here append a full description. "The Virgin listens standing to the Archangel Gabriel, who communicates to her the will of the Almighty. Before her is a jar, from which projects the stem of a lily, emblematic of the chaste and pure, that reaches to her breast. Her figure is completely out of measurement. Upon her head appears to be a _nimbus_ or _amiculum_; her breast is covered with a broad and folded _fascia_, enveloping her arms, while her tunic, reaching to the ground, conceals one of her feet. The angel in the cutting on the stone is at the Virgin's right. His attitude is that of one who is conveying tidings. Large wings folded upon his shoulders and extending nearly to the ground are fitted to his form, better drawn and livelier than the Virgin's. He executes his holy mission with his right hand lifted. His dress is a tunic in small folds, over which is a cloak fastened by a brooch and fitting closely. Upon his head he wears a kind of helmet."[12] [12] Amador de los Ríos, _El Arte latino-bizantino en España y las Coronas Visigodas de Guarrazar_, p. 121. The drawing of this design upon the stone is most bizarre and barbarous; for the Virgin's head is so completely disproportioned that it forms the one-third part of her entire person. The merit of all this Visigothic gem or gold and silver work has been extolled too highly by the French and Spanish archæologists.[13] It is, however, greatly interesting. Rudely and ponderously magnificent, it tells us of a people who as yet were almost wholly strangers to the true artistic sense. Such were the Visigoths and the Spaniards of the Visigothic era, of all of whom I have observed elsewhere that "serfdom was the distinguishing mark of the commons; arrogance, of the nobility; avarice, and ambition of temporal and political power, of the clergy; regicide and tumult, of the crown."[14] These crowns of Guarrazar proclaim to us in plainest language that the volume of the stones, and showiness and glitter of the precious metal were accorded preference of every other factor--the _pondus auri_ preference of the _manus artificis_. We gather, too, from documents and chronicles and popular tradition, that the Visigothic princes, as they set apart their stores of treasure in secluded caves or in the strong rooms of their palaces, were ever captivated and corrupted by the mere intrinsic worth in opposition to the nobler and æsthetic value of the craftsmanship. [13] _E.g._ Sommerard: "_Une collection sans égale de joyaux les plus précieux qui, par la splendeur de la matière, le mérite de l'exécution, et plus encore, peut être, par leur origine incontestable et par leur étonnante conservation, surpassent tout ce qui possédent d'analogue les collections publiques de l'Europe et les trésors les plus renommés de l'Italie_." [14] _Toledo and Madrid_; p. 16. Thus we are told that Sisenand owned a plate of gold (no word is said of its design or style) five hundred pounds in weight, proceeding from the royal treasure of his race, and which, long years before, had been presented by the nobleman Accio to King Turismund. When Sisenand was conspiring to dethrone Swinthila, he called on Dagobert the king of France to come to his support, and promised him, as recompense, this golden plate. The French king lent his help forthwith, and then, as soon as Turismund was seated on the throne of Spain, despatched an embassy to bring the coveted vessel to his court. Sisenand fulfilled his word and placed the envoys in possession of the plate, but since his subjects, rising in rebellion, wrenched it from their power and kept it under custody, he compensated Dagobert by a money payment of two hundred thousand _sueldos_.[15] [15] _Ajbar Machmua_. Lafuente y Alcántara's edition; p. 27, note. Innumerable narratives and legends dwell upon the treasure taken by the Moors on entering Spain. Such as relate the battle of the Guadalete, or the Lake of Janda (as it is also called by some authorities), agree that when the fatal day was at an end the riderless steed of Roderick was found imbedded in the mire, wearing a saddle of massive gold adorned with emeralds and rubies. According to Al-Makkari, that luckless monarch's boots were also made of gold studded with precious stones, while the Muslim victors, stripping the Visigothic dead, identified the nobles by the golden rings upon their fingers, those of a less exalted rank by their silver rings, and the slaves by their rings of copper. The widow of the fallen king was also famous for her stores of jewellery. Her name was Eila or Egilona (Umm-Asim of the Moors), but she was known besides as "the lady of the beautiful necklaces." After being made a prisoner she was given in marriage to the young prince Abd-al-Azis, who grew to love her very greatly, and received from her, "seeing that she still retained sufficient of her royal wealth," the present of a crown. Muza, on returning to the East, is said to have drawn near to Damascus with a train of thirty waggons full of Spanish silver, gold, and precious stones. Tarik ben Ziyed, marching in triumph through the land, secured at Cordova, Amaya, and other towns and capitals, enormous store of "pearls, arms, dishes, silver, gold, and other jewels in unprecedented number." One object, in particular, is mentioned with insistency by nearly all the chronicles, both Mussulman and Christian. Quoting from the _Pearl of Marvels_ of Ibn Alwardi, this was "the table which had belonged to God's prophet, Solomon (health be to both of them). It was of green emeralds, and nothing fairer had been ever seen before. Its cups were golden and its plates of precious jewels, one of them specked with black and white." All manner of strange things are said about this table, though most accounts describe it as consisting of a _single_ emerald. Perhaps it was of malachite, or of the bright green serpentine stone extracted formerly as well as nowadays from the Barranco de San Juan at Granada, and several other spots in Spain. Bayan Almoghreb says it was of gold mixed with a little silver and surrounded by three gold rings or collars; the first containing pearls, the second rubies, and the third emeralds. Al-Makkari describes it as "green, with its 365 feet and borders of a single emerald." Nor is it known for certain where this "table" fell into the hands of Tarik. Probably he found it in the principal Christian temple at Toledo--that is to say, the Basilica of Santa María. Ibn Alwardi says that in the _aula regia_, or palace of the Visigothic kings, the lancers of the Moorish general broke down a certain door, discovering "a matchless quantity of gold and silver plate," together with the "table." Doubtless this strong room was the same referred to in the following lines. "It was for ever closed; and each time that a Christian king began to reign he added to its door a new and powerful fastening. In this way as many as four and twenty padlocks were gathered on the door." However, the most explicit and informative of all these ancient authors is Ibn Hayyan, who says; "The table had its origin in the days of Christian rulers. It was the custom in those times that when a rich man died he should bequeath a legacy to the churches. Proceeding from the value of these gifts were fashioned tables, thrones, and other articles of gold and silver, whereon the clergy bore the volumes of their gospel when they showed them at their ceremonies. These objects they would also set upon their altars to invest them with a further splendour by the ornament thereof. For this cause was the table at Toledo, and the [Visigothic] monarchs vied with one another in enriching it, each of them adding somewhat to the offerings of his predecessor, till it surpassed all other jewels of its kind and grew to be renowned exceedingly. It was of fine gold studded with emeralds, pearls, and rubies, in such wise that nothing similar had ever been beheld. So did the kings endeavour to increase its richness, seeing that this city was their capital, nor did they wish another to contain more splendid ornaments or furniture. Thus was the table resting on an altar of the church, and here the Muslims came upon it, and the fame of its magnificence spread far abroad." Another chronicle affirms that Tarik found the "table" at a city called Almeida, now perhaps Olmedo. "He reached Toledo, and leaving a detachment there, advanced to Guadalajara and the [Guadarrama] mountains. These he crossed by the pass which took his name, and reached, upon the other side, a city called Almeida or _The Table_, for there had been discovered the table of Solomon the son of David, and the feet and borders of it, numbering three hundred and sixty-five, were of green emerald." In any case this venerated jewel gave considerable trouble to its captors. When envious Muza followed up the march of Tarik, his lieutenant, he demanded from him all the spoil, and in particular the ever-famous table. Tarik surrendered this forthwith, but after slyly wrenching off a leg. Muza perceived the breakage, and inquired for the missing piece. "I know not," said the other; "'twas thus that I discovered it." Muza then ordered a new leg of gold to be made for the table, as well as a box of palm leaves, in which it was deposited. "This," says Ibn Hayyan, "is known to be one of the reasons why Tarik worsted Muza in the dispute they had before the Caliph as to their respective conquests." So it proved. Ibn Abdo-l-Haquem[16] relates that Muza appeared before the Caliph Al-Walid and produced the table. Tarik interposed and said that he himself had taken it, and not the other leader. "Give it into my hands," the Caliph answered, "that I may see if any piece of it be wanting," and found, indeed, that one of its feet was different from the rest. "Ask Muza," interrupted Tarik, "for the missing foot, and if he answer from his heart, then shall his words be truth." Accordingly Al-Walid inquired for the foot, and Muza made reply that he had found the table as it now appeared; but Tarik with an air of triumph drew forth the missing piece which he himself had broken off, and said: "By this shall the Emir of the Faithful recognize that I am speaking truth; that I it was who found the table." And thereupon Al-Walid credited his words and loaded him with gifts. [16] _Account of the Conquest of Spain_, published, with an English translation and notes, by John Harris Jones. London, 1858. Comparing the statements of these writers, we may be certain that the "table" was a kind of desk of Visigothic or, more probably, Byzantine workmanship, for holding the gospels on the feast-days of the national church. Probably, too, seeing that a palm-leaf box was strong enough to keep it in, its size was inconsiderable. Its value, on the statement of Ibn Abdo-l-Haquem, was two hundred thousand _dinares_. The sum of my remarks upon the Visigothic jewel-work is this. Distinguished by a coarse though costly splendour, we find in it a mingled Roman and Byzantine source, although it was upon the whole inferior to these styles, being essentially, as Amador observes, "an imitative and decadent art." Yet it did not succumb before the Moors, but lurked for refuge in the small Asturian monarchy, and later, issuing thence, extended through the kingdom of León into Castile. We find its clearest characteristics in such objects as the Cross of Angels and the Cross of Victory. Then, later still, it is affected and regenerated by the purely oriental art of the invader; and lastly, till the wave of the Renaissance floods the western world, by Gothic influences from across the Pyrenees. A similar sketch may be applied to other arts and crafts of Spain--particularly furniture and architecture. [Illustration: II THE CROSS OF ANGELS _(Oviedo Cathedral)_] The pious or superstitious kings and magnates of this land have always taken pride in adding (at the instigation of the clergy) to the treasure of her churches and cathedrals. Such gifts include all kinds of sumptuous apparel for the priesthood; chasubles and dalmatics heavily embroidered with the precious metals, gold or silver crowns and crosses, paxes,[17] chalices and patines, paraments and baldaquinos, reliquaries in every shape and style and size, and figures of the Virgin--such as those of Lugo, Seville, Astorga, and Pamplona--consisting of elaborate silver-work upon a wooden frame. Visitors to Spain, from leisurely Rosmithal five hundred years ago to time-economizing tourists of our century, have been continually astonished at the prodigal richness of her sanctuaries. Upon this point I quote a typical extract from the narrative of Bertaut de Rouen. "The treasure of this church," he said of Montserrat, "is wonderfully precious, and particularly so by reason of two objects that belong to it. The first is a crown of massive gold of twenty pounds in weight, covered with pearls, with ten stars radiating from it also loaded with large pearls and diamonds of extraordinary value. This crown took forty years to make, and is valued at two millions of gold money. The second object is a gold crown entirely covered with emeralds, most of them of an amazing size. Many are worth five thousand crowns apiece. The reliquary, too, is of extraordinary richness, as also a service of gold plate studded with pearls, donated by the late emperor for use in celebrating Mass." [17] The pax or osculatory used in celebrating High Mass is commonly, says Rosell de Torres, "a plate of gold or ivory, or other metal or material, according to the time and circumstances of its manufacture. The priest who celebrates the Mass kisses it after the _Agnus Dei_ and the prayer _ad petendam pacem_, and the acolytes present it, as a sign of peace and brotherly union, to all the other priests who may be present. This usage springs from the kiss of peace which was exchanged, prior to receiving the communion, between the early Christians in their churches. The pax has commonly borne an image of the Virgin with the Holy Infant, the face of Christ, or else the Agnus Dei." Its Latin name was the _deosculatorium_. Similar accounts to the above exist in quantities, relating to every part of Spain and every period of her history. Reverting to the earlier Middle Ages, a few conspicuous objects thus presented to the Spanish Church require to be briefly noted here. Famous chalices are those of Santo Domingo de Silos (eleventh century), made to the order of Abbot Domingo in honour of San Sebastian, and showing the characteristic Asturian filigree-work; and of San Isidoro of León, made in 1101 by order of Urraca Fernandez, sister of the fourth Alfonso. The latter vessel, inscribed with the dedication of _Urraca Fredinandi_, has an agate cup and foot. A remarkably handsome silver-gilt chalice and patine (thirteenth century) belong to Toledo cathedral. The height of this chalice is thirteen inches, and the diameter of its bowl, which has a conical shape, eight and a half inches. Inside and out the bowl is smooth, but midway between the bowl and the foot is a massive knot or swelling in the stem, and on the knot the emblematic lion, eagle, bull, and angel are chiselled in high relief. Below the knot is a ring of graceful rosettes. The patine which accompanies this chalice measures twelve inches in diameter. It has upon it, thinly engraved within a slightly sunk centre with a scalloped edge, the figure of Christ upon the cross, between the Virgin and St John. This central group of figures and the border of the plate are each surrounded with a narrow strip of decoration. The cathedral of Valencia has a beautiful and early cup asserted to be the veritable Holy Grail (_greal_, _garal_, or _gradal_, in the old Castilian), "of which," wrote Ford with his accustomed irony, "so many are shown in different orthodox _relicarios_." However this may be, the chalice of Valencia is particularly handsome. According to Riaño it consists of "a fine brown sardonyx which is tastefully moulded round the lip. The base is formed of another inverted sardonyx. These are united by straps of pure gold. The stem is flanked by handles, which are inlaid with delicate arabesque in black enamel. Oriental pearls are set round the base and stem, which alternate with rubies, sapphires, and emeralds. This chalice is a work of the Roman imperial epoch, and the mounts are of a later date." A series of Spanish chalices, beginning chronologically with specimens which date from the early Middle Ages, and terminating with the chalice, made in 1712, of Santa María la Blanca of Seville, was shown in 1892 at the Exposición Histórico-Europea of Madrid. Among the finer or most curious were chalices proceeding from the parish church of Játiva, Las Huelgas, and Seville cathedral, and the Plateresque chalices of Calatayud, Granada, and Alcalá de Henares. Another chalice which is greatly interesting because of the date inscribed on it, is one which was presented to Lugo cathedral by a bishop of that diocese, Don Garcia Martinez de Bahamonde (1441-1470). The workmanship, though prior to the sixteenth century, is partly Gothic. An article by José Villa-amil y Castro, dealing with all these chalices, will be found in the _Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Excursiones_ for April, 1893. A small exhibition was held at Lugo in August 1896. Here were shown sixteen chalices, nearly all of them of merit from the point of view of history or art. Such are the chalice of San Rosendo, proceeding from the old monastery of Celanova; the Gothic chalices of Tuy cathedral, Lugo cathedral, Santa María del Lucio, Santa Eulalia de Guilfrei, San Pedro de Puertomarín, and the Franciscan friars of Santiago; and the chalice and patine of Cebrero (twelfth century), in which it is said that on a certain occasion in the fifteenth century the wine miraculously turned to actual blood, and the Host to actual flesh, in order to convince a doubting priest who celebrated service. The Cross of Angels and the Cross of Victory--presents, respectively, from Alfonso the Chaste and Alfonso the Great--are now preserved at Oviedo, in the Camara Santa of that stately temple. The former of these crosses, fancied by credulous people to be the handiwork of angels--whence its title[18]--was made in A.D. 808. It consists of four arms of equal length, radiating from a central rosette (Pl. ii.). The core or _alma_ is of wood covered with a double plate of richly decorated gold, chased in the finest filigree (indicative already of the influence of Cordova) and thickly strewn with sapphires, amethysts, topazes, and cornelians. Other stones hung formerly from six small rings upon the lower border of the arms. The cross is thus inscribed:-- _"Susceptum placide maneat hoc in honore Dei Offeret Adefonsus humilis servus Xti Hoc signo tuetur pius Hoc signo vincitur inimicus._ _Quisquis auferre presumpserit mihi Fulmine divino intereat ipse Nisi libens ubi voluntas dederit mea Hoc opus perfectum est in Era DCCXLVI."_ [18] This marvel is related by the Monk of Silos. A quotation from another of my books is applicable here. "Last year," I wrote in 1902--(pp. 64, 65 of _Toledo and Madrid: Their Records and Romances_)--"the young King Alfonso the Thirteenth paid a visit to Oviedo cathedral, and was duly shown the relics and the jewels. Among these latter was the 'Cross of the Angels.' "'Why is it so called?' inquired the king. "'Because,' replied the bishop of the diocese, 'it is said that the angels made it to reward King Alfonso the Chaste.' "'Well, but,' insisted the young monarch, 'what ground is there for thinking so?' "'Señor,' replied the prelate, 'none whatever. _The time for traditions is passing away._'" [Illustration: III THE CROSS OF VICTORY (_Oviedo Cathedral_)] The other cross (Pl. iii.) is more than twice as large, and measures just one yard in height by two feet four and a half inches in width. Tradition says that the primitive, undecorated wooden core of this cross was carried against the Moors by King Pelayo. The ornate casing, similar to that upon the Cross of Angels, was added later, and contains 152 gems and imitation gems. The following inscription tells us that this casing was made at the Castle of Gauzon in Asturias, in the year 828:-- _"Susceptum placide maneat hoc in honore Dei, quod offerent Famuli Christi Adefonsus princeps et Scemaena Regina; Quisquis auferre hoc donoria nostra presumpserit Fulmine divino intereat ipse. Hoc opus perfectum et concessum est Santo Salvatori Oventense sedis. Hoc signo tuetur pius, hoc vincitur inimicus Et operatum est in castello Gauzon anno regni nostri._ XLII. _discurrente Era_ DCCCLXVI." These crosses are processional. Others which were used for the same purpose are those of San Sebastián de Serrano (Galicia), San Munio de Veiga, Santa María de Guillar (Lugo), San Mamed de Fisteos, and Santa María de Arcos. The five preceding crosses are of bronze; those of Baamorto and San Adriano de Lorenzana are respectively of silver, and of wood covered with silver plates, and all were shown at the Lugo exhibition I have spoken of. Besides the Cross of Victory or Pelayo, and the Cross of Angels, interesting objects preserved at Oviedo are a small diptych presented by Bishop Don Gonzalo (A.D. 1162-1175), and the _Arca Santa_ used for storing saintly relics. This beautiful chest, measuring three feet nine inches and a half in length by twenty-eight inches and a half in height, is considered by Riaño to be of Italian origin, and to date from between the tenth and twelfth centuries. Another handsome box belonging to the cathedral of Astorga was once upon a time the property of Alfonso the Third and his queen Jimena, whose names it bears--ADEFONSVS REX: SCEMENA REGINA. The workmanship is consequently of the close of the ninth or the beginning of the tenth century. The material is wood covered with _repoussé_ silver plates on which are figured angels and birds, together with the eagle and the ox as emblems of the evangelists John and Luke, whose names are also to be read upon the casket. Next to the sword, no object in the history of mediæval Spain was more profoundly popular or venerated than the _relicario_. This in its primitive form was just a small receptacle, such as a vase or urn of gold or silver, ivory or crystal, used by the laity or clergy for treasuring bones, or hairs, or other relics of the Virgin, or the Saviour, or the saints. In private families a holy tooth, or toe, or finger thus preserved would often, as though it were some Eastern talisman, accompany its credulous possessor to the battlefield. As time went on, the urn or vase was commonly replaced by chests or caskets made by Moorish captives, or by tranquil and respected Moorish residents within the territory of the Christian,[19] or wrested from the infidel in war and offered by the Spanish kings or nobles to their churches. Here they were kept on brackets, or suspended near the altar by a chain[20] of silver, gold, or iron. Among the Moors themselves such chests and caskets served, according to their richness or capacity, for storing perfumes, clothes, or jewels, or as a present from a bridegroom to his bride; and since the sparsely-furnished Oriental room contains no kind of wardrobe, cabinet, or chest of drawers, their use in Moorish parts of Spain was universal. [19] In many towns a hearty friendship sprang up between the Spaniard and the Moor. This was a natural consequence in places where the vanquished had a better education than the victor. The warrior population of both races might be struggling on the field at the same moment that their craftsmen were fraternizing in the workshop. Ferdinand the First and Alfonso the Sixth were particularly lenient in their usage of the dominated Muslim. Thus, the former of these princes recognised the Moorish townspeople of Sena as his vassals, while those of Toledo were freely allowed by Alfonso to retain their worship and their mosque. [20] "_Fallaron ay de marfil arquetas muy preçiadas Con tantas de noblezas que non podrian ser contadas Fueron para San Pedro las arquetas donadas; Están en este dia en el su altar asentadas._" Poem of FERRAN GONZALVEZ (13th century). A typical Moorish casket of this kind (Plate iv.) is now in the cathedral of Gerona. It measures fifteen inches in length by nine across, fastens with a finely ornamented band and clasp of bronze, and is covered with thin silver-gilt plates profusely decorated with a bead and floral pattern superposed upon a box of non-decaying wood--possibly larch or cedar. A Cufic inscription along the lower part of the lid was formerly interpreted as follows:-- "In the name of God. (May) the blessing of God, prosperity and fortune and perpetual felicity be (destined) for the servant of God, Alhakem, Emir of the Faithful, because he ordered (this casket) to be made for Abdul Walid Hischem, heir to the throne of the Muslims. It was finished by the hands of Hudzen, son of Bothla." [Illustration: IV MOORISH CASKET (_Gerona Cathedral_)] It is supposed, however, that the part of this inscription which contains the maker's name was rendered incorrectly by Riaño, who followed, on this point, Saavedra, Fita, and other archæologists; and that the casket was made to the order of Djaudar, as a gift to the heir to the throne, Abulwalid Hischem, the actual workmen being two slaves, Bedr and Tarif. That is to say, the name Hudzen is now replaced by Djaudar, whom Dozy mentions in his history of the Mussulman domination in Spain, and who is known to have been a eunuch high in favour with Alhakem, Hischem's father. These princes ruled at Cordova in the latter half of the tenth century and the beginning of the eleventh. Spanish-Moorish caskets (_arquetas_) of ivory, silver, or inlaid work, are also preserved in the South Kensington Museum, the Archæological Museum at Madrid, and the cathedrals of Braga, Tortosa, and Oviedo. There is no reason to doubt that all these boxes were made in Spain, although an Eastern and particularly Persian influence is very noticeable in their scheme of decoration. Two silver caskets which were once in the church of San Isidoro at León are now in the Madrid Museum. The smaller and plainer of the two, elliptical in shape and measuring five inches in length by two inches and a half in depth, is covered with a leaf and stem device outlined in black enamel. A Cufic inscription of a private and domestic import, also picked out with black enamel, runs along the top. The lid is ornamented, like the body of the box, with leaves and stems surrounded by a Grecian border, and fastens with a heart-shaped clasp secured by a ring. The other, more elaborate, and larger box measures eight inches long by five in height. In shape it is a parallelogram, with a deeply bevelled rather than--as Amador describes it--a five-sided top. Bands of a simple winding pattern outlined in black enamel on a ground of delicate niello-work run round the top and body of the casket. The central band upon the lower part contains a Cufic inscription of slight interest. Some of the letters terminate in leaves. The bevelled lid is covered with groups of peacocks--symbolic, among Mohammedans, of eternal life--outlined in black enamel. These birds are eight in all, gathered in two groups of four about the large and overlapping hinges. Four leaves, trifoliate, in _repoussé_, one beneath the other, decorate the clasp, which opens out into a heart containing, also in _repoussé_, two inverted peacocks looking face to face. Between the birds this heart extremity is pierced for the passage of a ring. Amador de los Ríos considers that both caskets were made between the years 1048 and 1089. The use of coloured enamel in the manufacture of these boxes dates, or generally so, from somewhat later. Although the history of enamelling in Spain is nebulous and contradictory in the extreme, we know that caskets in _champlevé_ enamel on a copper ground, with figures either flat or hammered in a bold relief, became abundant here. Two, from the convent of San Marcos at León, and dating from the thirteenth century, are now in the Madrid Museum. Labarte says that the lids of these enamelled reliquaries were flat until the twelfth century, and of a gable form thenceforward. [Illustration: V ALTAR-FRONT IN ENAMELLED BRONZE (_11th Century. Museum of Burgos_)] Other old objects--boxes, triptyches, statuettes, incensories, book-covers, crucifixes, and processional crosses--partly or wholly covered with enamel, belong or recently belonged to the Marquises of Castrillo and Casa-Torres, the Count of Valencia de Don Juan, and Señor Escanciano. All, or nearly all, of these are thought to have proceeded from Limoges (Pl. v.). _Champlevé_ enamel is also on the tiny "Crucifix of the Cid" (Pl. vi.) at Salamanca, as well as on the Virgin's throne in the gilt bronze statuette of the Virgin de la Vega at San Esteban in the same city.[21] Of this image, although it properly belongs to another heading of my book, I think it well to give a reproduction here (Plate vii.). I will also mention, in spite of its presumably foreign origin, the enamelled altar-front of San Miguel de Excelsis in Navarre--a small sanctuary constructed by a mediæval cavalier who, by an accident occasioned by the dark, murdered his father and mother in lieu of his wife.[22] This altar-front, conspicuously Byzantine in its style, measures four feet three inches high by seven feet five inches long, and is now employed as the _retablo_ of the little church which stands in solitary picturesqueness on the lofty mountain-top of Aralar. The figures, coloured in relief upon a yellowish enamel ground, are those of saints, and of a monarch and his queen--possibly King Sancho the Great, who is believed to have been the donor of the ornament. If this surmise be accurate, the front would date from the eleventh century. [21] Together with the statuette of Ujué in Navarre, the Virgen de la Vega of Salamanca may be classed as one of the earliest "local Virgins" of this country. Sometimes these images are of wood alone, sometimes of wood beneath a silver covering, sometimes, as that of the Claustro de León, of stone. But whatever may be the substance, the characteristics are the same:--Byzantine rigidness and disproportion, the crude and primitive anatomy of artists only just emerging from the dark. The Virgin and Child of Santa María la Real of Hirache in Navarra may be instanced as another of the series. This image dates from late in the twelfth or early in the thirteenth century, although a crown and nimbus have been added subsequently. It measures rather more than a yard in height, and consists of wood covered with silver plates, except the hands and face, which are painted. The Virgin, seated, holds the Infant with her left arm; in her right hand is an apple. A kind of stole bearing the following inscription in Gothic letter falls upon the Infant's breast; "_Puer natus est nobis, venite adoremus. Ego sum alpha et omega, primus et novissimus Dominus._" Before this statuette the King Don Sancho is stated to have offered his devotion. [22] I quote this legend in Appendix A. I have said that the history of Spanish enamel-work is both confused and scanty. The subject in its general aspects has been studied by M. Roulin, whose judgments will be found in the _Revue de l'Art Ancien et Moderne_, and in his article, "Mobilier liturgique d'Espagne," published in the _Revue de l'Art Chrétien_ for 1903. M. Roulin believes the altar-front of San Miguel in Excelsis to be a Limoges product, not earlier than the first half of the thirteenth century. Ramírez de Arellano declares that no enamelling at all was done in Spain before the invasion of the Almohades. López Ferreiro, who as a priest had access to the jealously secreted archives of Santiago cathedral, gives us the names of Arias Perez, Pedro Martinez, Fernan Perez, and Pedro Pelaez, Galician enamellers who worked at Santiago in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Martin Minguez says that enamelling was done at Gerona in the fourteenth century, and Moorish enamels were certainly produced at Cordova and Cuenca from comparatively early in the Middle Ages. A few obscure workers in enamel are mentioned by Gestoso, in his _Diccionario de Artistas Sevillanos_, as living at Seville in the fifteenth century, though, in the entries which refer to them, little is told us of their lives and nothing of their labours. In the sixteenth century we obtain a glimpse of two enamellers of Toledo--Lorenzo Marqués and Andrés Ordoñez, and dating from the same period the Chapter of the Military Orders of Ciudad Real possesses a silver-gilt _porta-paz_ with enamelling done at Cuenca. However, our notices of this branch of Spanish art have yet to be completed. [Illustration: VI "THE CRUCIFIX OF THE CID" (_Salamanca Cathedral_)] A long array of royal gifts caused, in the olden time, the treasure of Santiago cathedral to be the richest and most varied in the whole Peninsula, although at first this see was merely suffragan to Merida. But early in the twelfth century a scheming bishop, by name Diego Gelmirez, intrigued at Rome to raise his diocese to the dignity of an archbishopric. The means by which he proved successful in the end were far from irreproachable. "Gelmirez," says Ford (vol. ii. p. 666) "was a cunning prelate, and well knew how to carry his point; he put Santiago's images and plate into the crucible, and sent the ingots to the Pope." The original altar-front or parament (_aurea tabula_) was made of solid gold. This altar-front Gelmirez melted down to steal from it some hundred ounces of the precious metal for the Pope, donating in its stead another front of gold and silver mixed, wrought from the remaining treasure of the sanctuary. Aymerich tells us that the primitive frontal bore the figure of the Saviour seated on a throne supported by the four evangelists, blessing with his right hand, and holding in his left the Book of Life. The four-and-twenty elders (called by quaint Morales "gentlemen") of the apocalypse were also gathered round the throne, with musical instruments in their hands, and golden goblets filled with fragrant essences. At either end of the frontal were six of the apostles, three above and three beneath, separated by "beautiful columns" and surrounded by floral decoration. The upper part was thus inscribed:-- HANC TABULAM DIDACUS PRÆSUL JACOBITA SECUNDUS TEMPORE QUINQUENNI FECIT EPISCOPI MARCAS ARGENTI DE THESAURO JACOBENSI HIC OCTOGINTA QUINQUE MINUS NUMERA. And the lower part:-- REX ERAT ANFONSUS GENER EJUS DUX RAIMUNDUS PRÆSUL PRÆFATUS QUANDO PEREGIT OPUS. This early altar-front has disappeared like its predecessor; it is not known precisely at what time; but both Morales and Medina saw and wrote about it in the sixteenth century. [Illustration: VII THE "VIRGEN DE LA VEGA" (_Salamanca_)] Another ornament which Aymerich describes, namely, the _baldaquino_ or _cimborius_, has likewise faded from the eyes of the profane, together with three bronze caskets covered with enamel, and stated by Morales to have contained the bones of Saints Silvestre, Cucufate, and Fructuoso. One of these caskets was existing in the seventeenth century. The silver lamps were greatly celebrated. Ambrosio de Morales counted "twenty or more"; but Zepedano made their total mount to fifty-one. The French invasion brought their number down to three. Three of the oldest of these lamps had been of huge dimensions, particularly one, a present from Alfonso of Aragon, which occupied the centre. The shape of it, says Aymerich, was "like a mighty mortar." Seven was the number of its beaks, symbolic of the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost; and each beak contained a lamplet fed with oil of myrtles, acorns, or olives. All kinds of robberies and pilferings have thus been perpetrated with the once abundant wealth of Santiago.[23] The jealous care which keeps the copious archives inaccessible to all the outside world is in itself of sinister significance. It has transpired, furthermore, that many of the bishops have "exchanged," or simply stolen, portions of the holy property. Besides these clerical dilapidations, a cartload, weighing half a ton, was carried off by Marshal Ney, though some was subsequently handed back, "because the spoilers feared the hostility of the _Plateros_, the silversmiths who live close to the cathedral, and by whom many workmen were employed in making little graven images, teraphims and lares, as well as medallions of Santiago, which pilgrims purchase."[24] [23] A recent instance, not devoid of humour, is as follows. About three years ago, a silly rogue removed and carried off the crown from Santiago's head; but since the actual jewel is only worn on solemn festivals, his prize turned out to be a worthless piece of tin. An odd removal of the treasure of another Spanish church was noted by the traveller Bowles. "The curate of the place, a worthy fellow who put me up in his house, assured me that a detachment of a legion of locusts entered the church, ate up the silk clothes upon the images, and gnawed the varnish on the altars." Perhaps these adamantine-stomached insects have assailed, from time to time, the gold and silver plate of Santiago. [24] Ford, _Handbook_, vol. ii. p. 671. I briefly notice, in Appendix B, the Santiago jet-work, also practised by these craftsmen. [Illustration: VIII SAINT JAMES IN PILGRIM'S DRESS (_Silver-gilt statuette; 15th Century. Santiago Cathedral_)] Among the gifts of value which this temple yet preserves are the ancient processional cross presented by the third Alfonso in the year of grace 874,[25] and the hideous fourteenth-century reliquary shaped to represent the head of James Alfeo, and containing (as it is believed) this very relic (Pl. viii.). I make a reservation here, because the Chapter have forbidden the reliquary to be opened. In either case, whether the head be there or not, heads of the same apostle are affirmed to be at Chartres, Toulouse, and other places. Similarly, discussing these Hydra-headed beings of the Bible and the hagiology, Villa-amil y Castro (_El Tesoro de la Catedral de Santiago_, published in the _Museo Español de Antigüedades_) recalls to us the ten authenticated and indubitable mazzards of Saint John the Baptist. [25] To lend my censures further cogency, I leave this statement as I set it down some weeks ago; since when, on picking up a Spanish newspaper, I read the following telegram:-- "THEFT IN SANTIAGO CATHEDRAL "SANTIAGO, _May 7th, 1906_ (9.15 _p.m._). "This morning, when the canon in charge of the Chapel of the Relics unlocked the door, he was surprised to observe that some of these were lying in confusion on the floor. Fearing that a theft had been committed, he sent for the dean and others of the clergy, who had examination made, and found the following objects to be missing:-- _"A gold cross, presented by King Alfonso the Great, when he attended the consecration of this temple in the year 874._ "Another cross, of silver, dating from the fifteenth century--a present from Archbishop Spinola. "An aureole of the fifteenth century, studded with precious stones belonging to a statuette of the apostle Santiago. "The authorities were summoned and at once began their search. "They find that two of the thick iron bars of the skylight in the ceiling of the cloister have been filed through. This cloister has a skylight which opens upon the chapel. "They have also found, upon the roof, a knotted rope. This rope was only long enough to reach a cornice in the chapel wall. _The wall itself affords no sign that anybody has attempted to descend by it._" The head-shaped reliquary is of beaten silver with enamelled visage, and the hair and beard gilt.[26] The workmanship is French. The cross, which hung till recently above the altar of the Relicario, but which now requires to be placed upon the lengthy list of stolen wealth, was not unlike the Cross of Angels in the Camara Santa at Oviedo, and had a wooden body covered with gold plates in finely executed filigree, studded with precious stones and cameos. Not many days ago, the wooden core, divested of the precious metal and the precious stones, was found abandoned in a field. [26] This form of reliquary was not uncommon. Morales, in his _Viaje Sacro_, describes another one, also preserved at Santiago, saying that it was a bust of silver, life-size and gilded to the breast, "with a large diadem of rays and many stones, both small and great, all or most of them of fine quality, though not of the most precious." Other bust-reliquaries belong, or have belonged, to the Cathedrals of Burgos and Toledo. Visitors to the shrine of Santiago seldom fail to have their curiosity excited by the monster "smoke-thrower" (_bota-fumeiro_) or incensory, lowered (much like the deadly sword in Poe's exciting tale) on each _fiesta_ by a batch of vigorous Gallegos from an iron frame fixed into the pendentives of the dome. "The calmest heart," says Villa-amil, "grows agitated to behold this giant vessel descending from the apex of the nave until it almost sweeps the ground, wreathed in dense smoke and spewing flame." Ford seems to have been unaware that the real purpose of this metal monster was not to simply scent the holy precincts, but to cover up the pestilential atmosphere created by a horde of verminous, diseased, and evil-smelling pilgrims, who, by a usage which is now suppressed, were authorized to pass the night before the services within the actual cathedral wall. The original _bota-fumeiro_, resembling, in Oxea's words, "a silver boiler of gigantic bulk," was lost or stolen in the War of Spanish Independence. It was replaced by another of iron, and this, in 1851, by the present apparatus of white metal. Striking objects of ecclesiastical _orfebrería_ were produced in Spain throughout the thirteenth and the fourteenth centuries. Among the finest are the triptych-reliquary of Seville cathedral known as the _Alfonsine Tables_; the _retablo_ and _baldaquino_ of the cathedral of Gerona; the silver throne, preserved in Barcelona cathedral, of Don Martin of Aragon; and the _guión_, at Toledo, of Cardinal Mendoza. [Illustration: IX MUDEJAR TRIPTYCH (_Interior of one leaf of the door. 14th Century. Royal Academy of History, Madrid_)] Triptych-reliquaries, which had gradually expanded from the diptych form--three leaves or panels thus replacing two,--were generally used in Spain from the eleventh century, and varied in dimensions from a few inches in height and width to several yards. We find them in the Gothic, Mudejar,[27] Romanic, or Renaissance styles--wrought either in a single style of these, or in effective combination of some two or more. The Academy of History at Madrid possesses a richly ornamented Mudejar triptych (Plate ix.) proceeding from the Monasterio de Piedra. It is inferior, notwithstanding, to the _Tablas Alfonsinas_,[28] "a specimen of Spanish silversmiths' work which illustrates the transition to the new style, and the progress in the design of the figures owing to the Italian Renaissance."[29] In or about the year 1274, this splendid piece of sacred furniture was made by order of the learned king, to hold the relics of certain saints and of the Virgin Mary. The maker is thought by Amador to have been one "Master George," a craftsman held in high esteem by the father of Alfonso and the conqueror of Seville, Ferdinand the Third. Romanic influence is abundant in this triptych, showing that, although exposed to constant changes from abroad, the Spanish mediæval crafts adhered upon the whole with singular tenacity to primitive tradition. [27] The Mudejares were the Mussulmans who submitted, in the conquered cities, to the Spanish-Christian rule. The word _Mudejar_ is of modern growth, nor can its derivation be resolved with certainty. From the thirteenth century onwards, and formed by the fusion of the Christian and the Saracenic elements, we find Mudejar influence copiously distributed through every phase of Spanish life and art, and even literature. [28] Amador prefers to call these Tables "the triptych of the learned king," in order to distinguish them by this explicit title from the _Astronomical Tables_ prepared by order of the same monarch. [29] Riaño, _Spanish Arts_, p. 16. The triptych is of larch, or some such undecaying wood, and measures, when the leaves are opened wide, forty inches over its entire breadth, by twenty-two in height. Linen is stretched upon the wood, and over that the silver-gilt _repoussé_ plates which form the principal adornment of the reliquary. "The outside is decorated with twelve medallions containing the arms of Castile and Aragon, and forty-eight others in which are repeated alternately the subjects of the Adoration of the Magi and the Annunciation of the Virgin, also in _repoussé_. In the centres are eagles, allusive, it is possible, to Don Alfonso's claim to be crowned Emperor.... The ornamentation which surrounds the panels belongs to the sixteenth century" (Riaño). The arms here spoken of contain the crowned lion and the castle of three towers; and the interesting fact is pointed out by Amador that the diminutive doors and windows of these castles show a strongly pointed Gothic arch. The sixteenth-century bordering to the panels is in the manner known as Plateresque.[30] The clasps are also Plateresque, and prove, together with the border, that the triptych was restored about this time. [30] So named because the silversmiths (_plateros_) of this country used it in their monstrances (_custodias_) and in many other objects or utensils of religious worship. The most refined and erudite of Spanish silver-workers, Juan de Arfe, thus referred to it in rhyme:-- _"Usaron desta obra los plateros Guardando sus preceptos con zelo; Pusiéronle en los puntos postrimeros De perfección mi abuelo."_ [Illustration: X THE "TABLAS ALFONSINAS" (_View of Interior; 13th Century. Seville Cathedral_)] Inside (Plate x.), it consists of fifteen compartments, "full of minute ornamentation, among which are set a large number of capsules covered with rock crystal containing relics, each one with an inscription of enamelled gold, _cloisonné_. Several good cameos with sacred subjects appear near the edge of the side leaves" (Riaño). These cameos, handsomely engraved with figures of the Virgin and other subjects of religious character, are fairly well preserved; but the designs upon enamel are almost obliterated. Eight precious stones, set in as rude a style as those upon the ancient crowns and crosses of the Visigoths, have also fallen out, or been removed, from the interior. The _retablo_ of Gerona cathedral and its baldachin date from the fourteenth century. "The Retablo is of wood entirely covered with silver plates, and divided vertically into three series of niches and canopies; each division has a subject, and a good deal of enamelling is introduced in various parts of the canopies and grounds of the panels. Each panel has a cinq-foiled arch with a crocketed gablet and pinnacles on either side. The straight line of the top is broken by three niches, which rise in the centre and at either end. In the centre is the Blessed Virgin with our Lord; on the right, San Narciso; and on the left, St Filia. The three tiers of subjects contain figures of saints, subjects from the life of the Blessed Virgin, and subjects from the life of our Lord."[31] [31] Street, _Gothic Architecture in Spain_. San Narciso is patron of the city of Gerona; which explains the presence of his image here. From the treasury of the same cathedral was stolen, during the War of Spanish Independence, a magnificent altar-front of wrought gold and mosaic, a gift of Countess Gisla, wife of Ramón Berenguer, count-king of Barcelona. It had in the centre a bas-relief medallion representing the Virgin, another medallion with a portrait of the donor, and various saints in niches, interworked with precious stones. The great armchair of Don Martin, called by Baron Davillier a "beau faudesteuil gothique," which possibly served that monarch as a throne, and was presented by him to the cathedral of Barcelona, dates from the year 1410. The wooden frame is covered with elaborately chiselled plates in silver-gilt. This most imposing object is carried in procession through the streets upon the yearly festival of Corpus Christi. [Illustration: XI "THE CUP OF SAN FERNANDO" (_13th Century. Seville Cathedral_)] [Illustration: XII SHIP (_15th Century. Zaragoza Cathedral_)] The _guión de Mendoza_, now in Toledo cathedral, is a handsome later-Gothic silver-gilt cross, and is the same which was raised upon the Torre de la Vela at Granada on January 2nd, 1492, when the fairest and most storied city in all Spain surrendered formally to Ferdinand and Isabella. Many other interesting crosses, of the character known as processional, are still preserved in various parts of the Peninsula, at South Kensington, and elsewhere. The more remarkable are noticed under various headings of this book. Their workmanship is generally of the fifteenth or the sixteenth century. The Seo or cathedral of Zaragoza possesses a handsome ship (Plate xii.), presented to this temple, towards the end of the fifteenth century, by the Valencian corsair, Mosén Juan de Torrellas. The hull is a large shell resting on a silver-gilt dragon of good design, with a large emerald set in the middle of its forehead, and a ruby for each eye. Ships of this kind were not uncommon on a Spanish dining table of the time, or in the treasuries of churches and cathedrals. Toledo owns another of these vessels (in both senses of the word), which once belonged to Doña Juana, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella. Hitherto I have confined my notice almost wholly to the treasure of the Spanish temples. Turning from ecclesiastical to secular life, we find, all through the Middle Ages, the humbler classes kept by constant penury and war aloof from every form of luxury. Jewellery and gold and silver work were thus essentially the perquisite or, so to speak, the privilege of princes, nobles, and the Church. The mediæval kings and magnates of this land were smitten inveterately with a passion for display, and chronicles and inventories of the time contain instructive details of the quantities of gems and precious metals employed by them to decorate their persons and their palaces. The richness of their bedsteads will be noticed under Furniture. Quantities of jewellery and plate belonged to every noble household. For instance, the testament of the Countess of Castañeda (A.D. 1443) includes the mention of "a gilded cup and cover to the same; a silver vessel and its lid, the edges gilt, and in the centre of both lid and vessel the arms of the said count, my lord; a silver vessel with a foot to it; a diamond ring; a silver vessel with gilt edges and the arms of the count, companion to the other vessels; a jasper sweetmeat-tray with silver-gilt handles and feet; four coral spoons; a gilt enamelled cup and lid; a small gilt cup and lid; two large silver porringers; two French cups of white silver; two large plates of eight marks apiece; two middling-sized silver vessels; two silver-gilt barrels with silver-gilt chains."[32] [32] Count of Clonard. On each occasion of a court or national festivity, the apparel of the great was ponderous with gold and silver fringe, or thickly strewn with pearls--the characteristic _aljofar_ or _aljofar_-work (Arabic _chawar_, small pearls), for which the Moors were widely famed. Towards the thirteenth century unmarried Spanish women of high rank possessed abundant stores of bracelets, earrings, necklaces, gold chains, rings, and gem-embroidered pouches for their money. Their waist-belts, too, were heavy with gold and silver, and _aljofar_.[33] The poem of the Archpriest of Hita (1343) mentions two articles of jewellery for female wear called the _broncha_ and the _pancha_. The former was an ornament for the throat; the other, a plate or medal which hung to below the waist. An Arabic document quoted by Casiri, and dating from the reign of Henry the First of Castile, specifies as belonging to an aristocratic lady of that time, "Egyptian shirts of silk and linen, embroidered shirts, Persian shirts with silk embroidery, Murcian gold necklaces, ear-pendants of the same metal, set with gems; finger-rings and bracelets, waist-belts of skins, embroidered with silk and precious stones; cloaks of cloth of gold, embroidered mantles of the same, coverings for the head, and kerchiefs." [33] _Ibid_. For all the frequency with which they framed and iterated sterile and exasperating sumptuary pragmatics for their people, the Spanish kings themselves went even beyond the nobles in their craze for ostentatious luxury. Upon the day when he was crowned at Burgos, Alfonso the Eleventh "arrayed himself in gold and silver cloth bearing devices of the castle and the lion, in which was much _aljofar_-work, as well as precious stones innumerable; rubies, emeralds, and sapphires." Even the bit and saddle of the monarch's charger were "exceeding precious on this day, for gems and gold and silver covered all the saddle-bows, and the sides of the saddle and its girths, together with the headstall, were curiously wrought of gold and silver thread." Similar relations may be found at every moment of the history of mediæval Spain. Another instance may be quoted from the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella. When these sovereigns visited Barcelona in 1481, the queen was dressed as follows:--"She advanced riding upon a fine mule, and seated on cushions covered with brocade, rising high above the saddle. Her robe was of gold thread and jewel-work, with a rich brocade skirt. Upon her head she wore a crown of gold adorned with richest diamonds, pearls, rubies, balas rubies, and other stones of passing price." During the same visit, a royal tournament was given in the Plaza del Born, in presence of the aristocracy and wealthy townspeople, "the counts, viscounts, deputies, councillors, _caballeros_, _gentiles hombres_, burgesses, and others without number." Ferdinand, who "with virtue and benignity" had deigned to break a lance or two in tourneying with the Duke of Alburquerque, the Count of Benavente, and several gentlemen of Cataluña, was wearing "over his harness a jacket all of gold brocade. His horse's coverings and poitral also were of thread of gold, richly devised and wrought, and of exceeding majesty and beauty. And on his helm he wore a crown of gold, embellished with many pearls and other stones; and above the crown a figure of a large gold bat, which is the emblem of the kings of Aragon and counts of Barcelona, with white and sanguine bars upon the scutcheon.[34] The queen and the cardinal of Spain were in a window of the house of Mossen Guillem Pujades, conservator of the realm of Sicily. Her highness wore a robe of rich gold thread with a collar of beautiful pearls; and the trappings of her mule were of brocade."[35] [34] Four pallets gules, on a field or; which were the arms of Cataluña and subsequently of Aragon. [35] _Archives of the Crown of Aragon._ Eleven years later the youthful prince, Don Juan, son of these rulers, appeared before the citizens of Barcelona dressed in "a robe of beautiful brocade that almost swept the ground, and a doublet of the same material; the sleeves of the robe thickly adorned with fine pearls of large size." He carried, too, "a gold collar of great size and beauty, wrought of large diamonds, pearls, and other stones."[36] [36] _Ibid_. It was an ancient usage with the people of Barcelona to present a silver service to any member of the royal family who paid a visit to their capital. The service so presented to Ferdinand the Catholic cost the corporation a sum of more than twelve hundred pounds of Catalan money, and included "a saltcellar made upon a rock. Upon the rock is a castle, the tower of which contains the salt.... Two silver ewers, gilt within and containing on the outside various enamelled devices in the centre, together with the city arms. Also a silver-gilt lion upon a rustic palisade of tree-trunks, holding an inscription in his right paw, with the arms of the city, a flag, and a crown upon his head. This object weighs thirty-four marks."[37] The service offered on the same occasion to Isabella, though less in weight, was more elaborately wrought, and cost on this account considerably more. It included "two silver ewers, gilt within and enamelled without, bearing the city arms, and chiselled in the centre with various designs of foliage. Also a silver saltcellar, with six small towers, containing at the foot three pieces of enamel-work with the arms of the city in relief. This saltcellar has its lid and case, with a pinnacle upon the lid, and is of silver-gilt inside and out."[38] [37] Sanpere y Miquel, _Revista de Ciencias Históricas_, art. _La Platería catalana en los siglos XIV. y XV._, vol. i. p. 441. [38] _Ibid_. From about the fifteenth century the goldsmiths and the silversmiths of Barcelona enjoyed considerable fame. Among their names are those of Lobarolla, Roig, Berni, Belloch, Planes, Mellar, Corda, Fábregues, Farrán, Perot Ximenis, Rafel Ximenis, Balagué, and Antonio de Valdés. Riaño quotes the names of many more from Cean's dictionary. The most important facts relating to these artists were brought to light some years ago by Baron Davillier, who based the greater part of his research upon the _Libros de Pasantía_ or silversmiths' examination-books (filled with excellent designs for jewel-work) of Barcelona. These volumes, formerly kept in the college of San Eloy, are now the property of the Provincial Deputation of this city. The goldsmiths' and the silversmiths' guild of Seville also possesses four of its old examination-books, of which the earliest dates from 1600. Gestoso, in his _Dictionary of Sevillian Artificers_ describes the actual ceremony of examination for a silversmith or goldsmith. Once in every year the members of the guild assembled in their chapel of the convent of San Francisco. Here and upon this day the candidate was closely questioned, to begin with, as to his "purity of blood"--that is, his freedom from contamination by relationship with any Moor or Hebrew. When it was duly and precisely ascertained that he, his parents, and his grandparents were uniformly "old Christians," untainted with the "wicked race of Moors, Jews, heretics, mulattoes, and renegades," and that neither he nor his ancestors had ever been put on trial by the Inquisition or by any other tribunal, "whether publicly or secretly," he was permitted to proceed to his examination proper.[39] The formula of this was simple. The candidate was summoned before the board of examiners, consisting of the Padre Mayor or patriarch of the guild, and the two _veedores_ or inspectors, the one of gold-work, the other of silver-work. The book of drawings was then placed upon the table, and a ruler was thrust at haphazard among its leaves. Where the ruler chanced to fall, the candidate was called upon to execute the corresponding drawing to the satisfaction of his judges. [39] Gestoso mentions that Juan de Luna, a silversmith of Seville, was turned into the gutter from the workshop where he was employed, solely because his father had been punished as a Morisco by the Inquisition (_Diccionario de Artífices Sevillanos_, vol. i. p. lvi.). Riaño lays too slight a stress upon the Moorish and Morisco jewellery of Spain. Although the use of gold and silver ornaments is forbidden by the Koran, the Muslim, wherever his vanity or his bodily comfort is involved, tramples his Bible underfoot almost as regularly, tranquilly, and radically as the Christians do their own. The Moors of Spain were not at all behind their oriental brethren in displaying precious stones and metals on their persons or about their homes. Al-Jattib tells us that the third Mohammed offered to the mosque of the Alhambra columns with capitals and bases of pure silver. Or who does not recall the Caliphate of Cordova; the silver lamp that measured fifty palms across, fitted with a thousand and fifty-four glass lamplets, and swinging by a golden chain from the cupola of the entrance to the _mirhab_ in the vast _mezquita_; the silver candlesticks and perfume-burners in the same extraordinary temple; the precious stones and metals employed in mighty quantities to decorate the palaces of Az-zahyra and Az-zahra?-- "A wilderness of building, sinking far And self-withdrawn into a wondrous depth, Far sinking into splendour without end! Fabric it seemed of diamond and of gold, With alabaster domes and silver spires, And blazing terrace upon terrace, high Uplifted." In brief, just as the prelates of the Christian Church habitually precede the Christian laity in trampling underfoot the elemental doctrine of Our Lord, so were the most exalted and responsible of all the Mussulmans--that is, their sultans--indefatigably foremost in neglect of the Koranic law. The Spanish sultans wore a ring of gold containing one large stone (such as an emerald, or ruby, or turquoise), on which was cut the royal seal and signature. Such was the ring belonging to Boabdil el Chico, worn by him on the very day of the surrender of his capital, and by his hand presented to a Spanish nobleman, the Count of Tendilla, governor-elect of the Alhambra. According to Rodriguez de Ardila, the following inscription was upon the stone:--"_La Ala ile Ala, abahu Tabiu. Aben Abi Abdalá_," meaning, "_There is no God but God; this is the seal of Aben Abi Abdalá._" Ardila, who was the author of a history of the Counts of Tendilla (which still remains in manuscript), adds that he saw the ring, although, as Eguilaz observes, two words of the inscription are inaccurately rendered. Among the Moors of Spain the use of signet rings was general. The stone employed was commonly cornelian, richly mounted and inscribed in various ways, as with the owner's name, his name together with a date, or the name of the town of which he was a native. In other instances we meet with pious phrases or quotations from the Koran; or perhaps a talismanic figure, such as the open eye to guard the wearer from the dreaded _mal de ojo_; or the open hand that still surmounts the gateway of the Tower of Justice at Granada.[40] [40] An article by Señor Saavedra on these inscribed jewels and signets of Mohammedan Spain will be found in the _Museo Español de Antigüedades_. Undoubtedly, too, the Moorish sultans of this country owned enormous hoards of silver, gold, and precious stones. Al-Makkari says that the treasure of the Nasrite rulers of Granada included quantities of pearls, turquoises, and rubies; pearl necklets; earrings "surpassing those of Mary the Copt" (Mohammed's concubine); swords of the finest temper, embellished with pure gold; helmets with gilded borders, studded with emeralds, pearls, and rubies; and silvered and enamelled belts. [Illustration: XIII MOORISH BRACELETS] The Moorish women of this country, and in particular the Granadinas,[41] were passionately fond of jewellery. Ornaments which once belonged to them are sometimes brought to light in Andalusia, Murcia, or Valencia, including pendants, rings, necklaces, and _axorcas_ or bangles for the ankle or the wrist, and bracelets for the upper portion of the arm. The National Museum contains a small collection of these objects, dating from the time of the Moriscos, and including a handsome necklace terminating in a double chain, with ball and pyramid shaped ornaments about the centre, a square-headed finger-ring with four green stones and a garnet, and a hollow bracelet filled with a substance that appears to be mastic, similar to those which are reproduced in Plate xiii. [41] "As to the ornaments and jewels of the ladies of Granada, these wear at present necklaces of rich design, bracelets, rings (upon their ankles), and earrings of pure gold; together with quantities of silver and of precious stones upon their shoes. I say this of the middle class; for ladies of the aristocracy and of the older noble families display a vast variety of gems, such as rubies, chrysolites, emeralds, and pearls of great value. The ladies of Granada are commonly fair to look upon, shapely, of good stature, with long hair, teeth of a shining white, and perfumed breath, gracefully alert in their movements, and witty and agreeable in conversation. But unfortunately at this time their passion for painting themselves and for arraying themselves in every kind of jewellery and costly stuffs has reached a pitch that is no longer tolerable."--Al-Jattib, in _The Splendour of the New Moon concerning the Nasrite Sultans of Granada_. These jewels, I repeat, are of Morisco workmanship, and therefore date from later than the independent empire of the Spanish Moors. Nevertheless, the geometrical or filigree design was common both to Moorish and Morisco art. As I observed in my description of the casket-reliquaries, we note continually the influence of these motives on the arts of Christian Spain. The Ordinances relative to the goldsmiths and the silversmiths of Granada, cried at various times between 1529 and 1538, whether "in the silversmiths' street of the Alcaycería, that has its opening over against the scriveners'"; or in "the street of the Puente del Carbon, before the goldsmiths' shops"; or "in the street of the Zacatin, where dwell the silversmiths," prove also that for many years after the Reconquest the character and nomenclature of this kind of work continued to be principally and traditionally Moorish. Firstly, the Ordinances complain that the goldsmiths of Granada now employ a base and detrimental standard of the precious metals, especially in the bracelets or _manillas_ of the women. The goldsmiths answer in their vindication that equally as poor a standard is employed at Seville, Cordova, and Toledo. These city laws herewith establish twenty carats as a minimum fineness for the gold employed in making ornaments. The makers, also, are ordered to impress their private stamp or seal on every article, or in default to pay a fine of ten thousand _maravedis_. A copy of each stamp or seal to be deposited in the city chest. The _alamín_ or inspector of this trade to test and weigh all gold and silver work before it is exposed for sale. We learn from the same source that the gold bracelets were sometimes smooth, and sometimes "covered over with devices" (_cubiertos de estampas por cima_). The technical name of these was _albordados_. The silver bracelets were also either smooth, or stamped, or twisted in a cord (_encordados_). Bangles for the ankle, upper arm, and wrist are mentioned as continuing to be generally worn, while one of the Ordinances complains that "Moorish _axorcas_ are often sold that are hollow, and filled with chalk and mastic, so that before they can be weighed it is necessary to rid them of such substances by submitting them to fire, albeit the fire turns them black." The weapons and war-harness of the Spanish Moors were often exquisitely decorated with the precious stones or metals. Splendid objects of this kind have been preserved, and will be noticed in their proper chapter. The ruinous and reckless measure known to Spain's eternal shame as the Expulsion of the Moriscos, deprived this country of a great--perhaps the greatest--part of her resources. Fonseca estimates this loss, solely in the quantity of coin conveyed away, at two million and eight hundred thousand _escudos_, adding that a single Morisco, Alami Delascar de Aberique, bore off with him one hundred thousand ducats.[42] To make this matter worse, the Moriscos, just before they went on board their ships, fashioned from scraps of tin, old nails, and other refuse, enormous stores of counterfeit coin, and slyly sold this rubbish to the simple Spaniards in return for lawful money of the land. In the course of a few days, and in a single quarter of Valencia, more than three hundred thousand ducats of false coin were thus passed off upon the Christians. Besides this exportation of good Spanish money, the cunning fugitives removed huge quantities of jewellery and plate. Chains, _axorcas_, rings, _zarcillos_, and gold _escudos_ were taken from the bodies of many of the Morisco women who were murdered by the Spanish soldiery; but the greater part of all this treasure found its way to Africa. In his work _Expulsión justificada de los Moriscos_ (1612), Aznar de Cardona says that the Morisco women carried "divers plates upon the breast, together with necklaces and collars, earrings and bracelets." It is recorded, too, that the Moriscos, as they struggled in the country regions to avenge themselves upon their persecutors, did unlimited damage to the ornaments and fittings of the churches. "This people," says Fonseca, "respected not our temples or the holy images that in them were; nor yet the chalices and other objects they encountered in our sacristies. Upon the contrary, they smashed the crosses, burned the saints, profaned the sacred vestments, and committed such acts of sacrilege as though they had been Algerian Moors, or Turks of Constantinople." [42] There was, however, from long before this time a prohibition to export from Spain the precious metals, in any form, whether as objects of plate or as coined money. The penalty for a repetition of this offence was death. Another law prohibited all foreigners who were resident in Spain, not excluding the Moriscos, from buying gold or silver in the bar (_Suma de Leyes_, p. 46). It was also forbidden to sell the jewels or other objects of value belonging to a place of worship (_ibid_. p. 87). Legends of hidden Moorish and Morisco wealth are still extant in many parts of Spain. The Abbé Bertaut de Rouen[43] and Swinburne among foreigners, or Spaniards such as the gossiping priest Echeverría, who provided Washington Irving with the pick of his _Tales of the Alhambra_, have treated copiously of this fascinating and mysterious theme. The Siete Suelos Tower at Granada is particularly favoured with traditions of this kind. Peasants of the Alpujarras still declare that piles of Moorish money lie secreted in the lofty buttresses of Mulhacen and the Veleta, while yet another summit of this snowy range bears the suggestive title of the Cerro del Tesoro, where, almost within the memory of living men, a numerous party, fitted and commissioned by the State, explored with feverish though unlucky zeal the naked cliffs and sterile crannies of the lonely mountain.[44] [43] This entertaining and inquisitive tourist describes, in 1659, a wondrous cavern in the south of Spain, "ou l'on conte que les Mores ont caché leurs trésors en s'en retournant en Afrique, et ou personne n'ose aborder de peur des esprits que l'on dit que l'on y voit souvent. Mais comme il commencait a se faire nuit, je n'eus pas le loisir de m'y amuser beaucoup." With this our author shelved his curiosity, and prudently retired. [44] Leonard Williams. _Granada: Memories, Adventures, Studies, and Impressions_, p. 90. Reducing all these fables to the terms of truth, Moorish and Morisco jewellery and coin are sometimes brought to light on Spanish soil. Such finds occur, less seldom than elsewhere, within the provinces of Seville, Cordova, Granada, and Almeria (Plate xiv.), but since they are neither frequent nor considerable, although the likeliest ground for them is being disturbed continually, we may conclude that nearly all the Muslim wealth accumulated here slipped from the clumsy if ferocious fingers of the mother-country, and found its way, concealed upon the bodies of her persecuted offspring, to the shores of Africa.[45] [45] Ford was more hopeful as to the preservation of this wealth in Spain. "No doubt much coin is buried in the Peninsula, since the country has always been invaded and torn by civil wars, and there never has been much confidence between Spaniard and Spaniard; accordingly the only sure, although unproductive, investment for those who had money, was gold or silver, and the only resource to preserve that, was to hide it."--_Handbook_, vol. ii. p. 682. [Illustration: XIV MORISCO JEWELLERY (_Found in the Province of Granada_)] Sometimes, too, an early gold or silver object would be melted down and modernized into another and a newer piece of plate. This was a fairly common usage with the silversmiths themselves, or with an ignorant or stingy brotherhood or chapter. Thus, the following entry occurs in the _Libro de Visita de Fábrica_ belonging to the parish church of Santa Ana, Triana, Seville. In the year 1599 "the large cross of silver-gilt, together with its _mançana_ and all the silver attaching thereto, was taken to the house of Zubieta the silversmith, and pulled to pieces. It weighed 25 marks and 4 _ochavas_ of silver, besides 5 marks and 2 ounces and 4 _ochavas_ of silver which was the weight of the three lamps delivered to Zubieta in the time of Juan de Mirando, aforetime steward of this church. It is now made into a silver-gilt cross."[46] [46] Gestoso, _Diccionario de Artífices Sevillanos_, vol. ii. p. 360. A similar instance may be quoted from a document of Cordova, published by Ramírez de Arellano in his relation of a visit to the monastery of San Jerónimo de Valparaiso. In the year 1607 Gerónimo de la Cruz, a Cordovese silversmith, agreed with the prior of this monastery to make for the community a silver-gilt _custodia_. For this purpose he received from the prior, doubtless a man of parsimonious spirit and a boor in his appreciativeness of art, eight pairs of vinegar cruets, four of whose tops were missing; a silver-gilt chalice and its patine; a _viril_ with two angels and four pieces on the crown of it; a small communion cup; some silver candlesticks; four spoons and a fork, also of silver; and a silver-gilt salt-cellar. The total value of these objects was 1826 _reales_; and all of them were tossed, in Ford's indignant phrase, into the "sacrilegious melting-pot," in order to provide material for the new _custodia_. [Illustration: XV SILVER-GILT PROCESSIONAL CROSS (_Made by Juan de Arfe in_ 1592. _Burgos Cathedral_)] The gold and silver work of Christian Spain attained, throughout the fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries, a high degree of excellence (Plates xv., xvi., etc.). The best of it was made at Seville, Barcelona, Toledo, and Valladolid. Objects of great artistic worth were also produced at Burgos, Palencia, León, Cuenca, Cordova, and Salamanca. I have already mentioned some of the principal _orfebreros_ of Barcelona. Juan Ruiz of Cordova, whom Juan de Arfe applauds as "the first silversmith who taught the way to do good work in Andalusia," was also, in this region, the first to turn the precious metals on the lathe. A famous silversmith of Seville was Diego de Vozmediano, whom we find living there in 1525. Toledo, too, could boast, among an army of distinguished gold and silver smiths (Riaño gives the names of no fewer than seventy-seven), Cristóbal de Ordas, Juan Rodríguez de Babria, and Pedro Hernandez, _plateros_, respectively, to Charles the Fifth, to Philip the Second, and to the queen-dowager of Portugal; and also the silversmith and engraver upon metals, Pedro Angel, whose praise is sung by Lope de Vega in the prologue to his _auto_ called _The Voyage of the Soul_:-- "_Y es hoy Pedro Angel un divino artífice con el buril en oro, plata, ó cobre._" By far the greater part of all Toledo's gold and silver work was made for service in her mighty temple. Such were the statue of Saint Helen, presented by Philip the Second; the crown of the Virgen del Sagrario, wrought by Hernando de Carrión and Alejo de Montoya; the bracelets or _ajorcas_ made for the image of the same Madonna by Julián Honrado; and the exquisite chests carved in 1569 and 1598 by Francisco Merino from designs by the two Vergaras, father and son, as reliquaries for the bones of San Eugenio and Santa Leocadia, patrons of this ancient capital.[47] A magnificent silver lamp was also, in 1565, offered by the chapter of the cathedral to the church of Saint Denis in France, in gratitude for the surrender of the bones of San Eugenio to the city of his birth. These and other objects of Toledan gold and silver work are stated to be "worthy of comparison with the very best of what was then produced in Germany, Italy, and France."[48] [47] A full description of these chests will be found in Cean Bermudez, vol. iii. pp. 135-137. [48] Rada y Delgado, in his reply to the Count of Cedillo's address in the Royal Academy of History. For particulars of the silver lamp, which was made by Marcos and Gonzalo Hernandez, Toledanos, and by Diego Dávila, see Zarco del Valle, _Documentos Inéditos para la Historia de las Bellas Artes en España_, vol. lv. p. 580. Baron Davillier also held a high opinion of the Spanish _orfebreros_ of this time. After remarking that the Italian influence was powerful among the Spaniards in the sixteenth century, and more particularly for some fifty years at Barcelona, he says: "A cette époque les _plateros_ espagnols pouvaient rivaliser sans désavantage avec les Italiens, les Français, les Flamands, et les Allemands." The same authority also says that the Spanish _plateros_ of this period were skilled enamellers on gold and silver, and quotes some entries from French inventories of the time in which we read of cups, salt-cellars, washing-basins, and other objects executed or enamelled "à la mode d'Espagne."[49] [49] _Recherches sur l'Orfévrerie en Espagne_, pp. 61 _et seq._ As we have seen, the exodus of the Moriscos lost to Spain a great proportion of her total wealth, although, conjointly with this loss, new wealth flowed into her in marvellous abundance from the New World.[50] Thus, the silver-mines of Potosi, discovered in 1545, sent over to the mother-country, between that year and 1633, no less than eight hundred and forty-five millions of _pesos_. And yet this mighty influx of new riches cannot be said, except in the artistic sense, to have enriched the nation. She had renounced the service of the most industrious and, in many instances, the most ingenious of her native craftsmen; while on the other hand the Christians, with but limited exceptions, were far too proud and far too indolent to set their hand to any form of manual exercise; just as (I much regret to add) a great proportion of them are this very day. Foreign artificers in consequence (particularly after the royal pragmatic of 1623 encouraging their immigration), attracted by the treasure fleets that anchored in the bay of Cadiz, came trooping into Spain and filled their pockets from the national purse, fashioning, in return for money which they husbanded and sent abroad, luxurious gold and silver objects that were merely destined to stagnate within her churches and cathedrals. [50] Ulloa, _Memorias Sevillanas_, vol. i. p. 199. Riaño and Baron de la Vega de Hoz extract from Cean Bermudez a copious list of silversmiths who worked in Spain all through the Middle Ages. This long array of isolated names and dates is neither interesting nor informative. Newer and more attractive notices have been discovered subsequently. Thus, in the National Library at Madrid, Don Manuel G. Simancas has disinterred quite recently the copy made by a Jesuit of a series of thirteenth-century accounts relating to various craftsmen of the reign of Sancho the Fourth ("the Brave"). Two of them are concerning early _orfebreros_:-- "Juan Yanez. By letters of the king and queen to Johan Yanez, goldsmith, brother of Ferran García, scrivener to the king; for three chalices received from him by the king, CCCCLXXVIII _maravedis_." The second entry says:-- "Bartolomé Rinalt. And he paid Bartolomé Rinalt for jewels which the queen bought from him to present to Doña Marina Suarez, nurse of the Infante Don Pedro, MCCCL _maravedis_."[51] [51] _Libro de diferentes Cuentas y gasto de la Casa Real en el Reynado de Don Sancho IV. Sacado de un tomo original en folio que se guarda en la Librería de la Santa Iglesia de Toledo._ Años de 1293-1294. Por el P. Andres Marcos Burriel de la Comp^a de Jesus. Among Spain's gold and silver craftsmen of the fifteenth century we find the names of Juan de Castelnou, together with his son Jaime, who worked at Valencia; of Lope Rodríguez de Villareal, Ruby, and Juan Gonzalez, all three of whom worked at Toledo; and of Juan de Segovia, a friar of Guadalupe. Papers concerning Juan Gonzalez, and dated 1425, 1427, and 1431, are published among the _Documentos Inéditos_ of Zarco del Valle. One of Segovia's masterpieces was a silver salt-cellar in the form of a lion tearing open a pomegranate--clearly allusive to the conquest of Granada from the Moors. Upon their visiting the monastery, Ferdinand and Isabella saw and, as was natural, conceived a fancy for this salt-cellar; and so, whether from inclination or necessity, the brotherhood induced them to accept it. Sixteenth-century _plateros_ of renown were Juan Donante, Mateo and Nicolás (whose surnames are unknown)--all three of whom worked at Seville; and Duarte Rodríguez and Fernando Ballesteros, natives of that city. In or about the year 1524 were working at Toledo the silversmiths Pedro Herreros and Hernando de Valles, together with Diego Vazquez, Andres Ordoñez, Hernando de Carrión, Diego de Valdivieso, Juan Domingo de Villanueva, Diego Abedo de Villandrando, Juan Tello de Morata, Francisco de Reinalte, Hans Belta, and Francisco Merino. Several of these men were natives of Toledo. Among the silversmiths of sixteenth-century Cordova were Diego de Alfaro and his son Francisco, Francisco de Baena, Alonso Casas, Alonso del Castillo, Luis de Cordoba, Sebastián de Cordoba, Cristóbal de Escalante, Juan Gonzalez, Diego Fernandez, Diego Hernandez Rubio (son of Sebastián de Cordoba), Rodrigo de León, Gómez Luque, Ginés Martinez, Melchor de los Reyes (silversmith and enameller), Andrés de Roa, Pedro de Roa, Alonso Sanchez, Jerónimo Sanchez de la Cruz, Martin Sanchez de la Cruz (Jerónimo's son), Pedro Sanchez de Luque, Alonso de Sevilla, Juan Urbano, and Lucas de Valdés. Not much is told us of the lives and labours of these artists. The best reputed of them as a craftsman was Rodrigo de León, who stood next after Juan Ruiz, _el Sandolino_. Ramírez de Arellano, from whom I have collected these data, publishes a number of León's agreements or contracts, which from their length and dryness I do not here repeat. In 1603 we find him official silversmith to the cathedral, under the title of "_platero de martillo_ ("silversmith of hammered work") _de la obra de la catedral desta ciudad_." Francisco de Alfaro, although a Cordovese by birth, resided commonly at Seville. In 1578 he received 446,163 _maravedis_ for making four silver candlesticks for use in celebrating divine service. These candlesticks are still in the cathedral. Sebastián de Cordoba was one of the foremost artists of his age. He died in 1587, leaving, together with other children, a son, Diego, who also won some reputation as a silversmith. Ramírez de Arellano publishes a full relation of the property which Sebastián de Cordoba bequeathed at his decease, as well as of the money which was owing to him. Among the former, or the "movable effects," we read of "Isabel, a Morisco woman, native of the kingdom of Granada; her age thirty-four years, a little less or more." The same inventory includes a curious and complete account of all the tools and apparatus in Sebastián's workshop. But the quaintest notice of them all, though it does not apprise us of his merit as a silversmith, is that concerning Cristóbal de Escalante. Cristóbal suffered, we are told, from "certain sores produced by humours in his left leg; wherefore the said leg undergoes a change and swells." He therefore makes a contract with one Juan Jiménez, "servant in the Royal Stables of His Majesty the King," and duly examined as a herbalist ("licensed," in the actual phrase, "to remedy this kind of ailments"), who is to heal his leg "by means of the divine will of the cure." As soon as Cristóbal shall be thoroughly well, "in so much that his ailing leg shall be the other's equal in the fatness and the form thereof," he is to pay Jiménez five-and-fifty _reales_, "having already given him ten _reales_ on account." Probably, as Señor Ramírez de Arellano facetiously supposes, Cristóbal, after such a course of treatment, would be lame for all his life. At any rate, he died in 1605, though whether from the gentle handling of the stableman and herbalist is not recorded in these entries. Still keeping to the sixteenth century, in other parts of Spain we find the silversmiths Baltasar Alvarez and Juan de Benavente, working at Palencia; Alonso de Dueñas at Salamanca; and Juan de Orna at Burgos, about the same time that the foreigners Jacomi de Trezzo and Leo Leoni were engaged at the Escorial. Cuenca, too, boasted three excellent silver-workers in the family of Becerril, mentioned by Juan de Arfe in company with other craftsmen of the time of the Renaissance.[52] Stirling says of Cuenca and the Becerriles: "They made for the cathedral its great _custodia_, which was one of the most costly and celebrated pieces of church plate in Spain. They began it in 1528, and, though ready for use in 1546, it was not finished till 1573. It was a three-storied edifice, of a florid classical design, crowned with a dome, and enriched with numberless groups and statues, and an inner shrine of jewelled gold; it contained 616 marks of silver, and cost 17,725-1/2 ducats, a sum which can barely have paid the ingenious artists for the labour of forty-five years. In the War of Independence, this splendid prize fell into the hands of the French General Caulaincourt, by whom it was forthwith turned into five-franc pieces, bearing the image and superscription of Napoleon."[53] [52] "_Con estos fué mi padre en seguimiento Joan Alvarez tambien el Salmantino, Becerril, que tambien fué deste cuento, Juan de Orna, y Juan Ruiz el Vandolino._" [53] _Annals of the Artists of Spain_, vol. i. pp. 161, 162. A more reliable notice says that this _custodia_ was begun by Alonso Becerril and finished by his brother Francisco. The third member of this family of artists, Cristóbal, who flourished towards the end of the sixteenth century, was Francisco's son. [Illustration: XVI GOTHIC _CUSTODIA_ (_15th Century_)] Towards the close of the Gothic and during the earlier phases of the Renaissance movement in this country, enormous quantities of gold and silver began to be employed in making these _custodias_ or monstrances of her temples; so that the fifteenth century may well be called, in Spanish craftsmanship, the "age of the _custodia_." A century ago the reverend Townsend, loyal to the Low Church prejudices of his day, spoke of this object with something of a sneer as "the depository of the Host, or, according to the ideas of a Catholic, the throne of the Most High, when, upon solemn festivals, He appears to command the adoration of mankind." Riaño's description is more technical. "The name of _custodia_," he says, "is given in Spain, not only to the monstrance or ostensoir where the Blessed Sacrament is exposed, but also to a sort of temple or tabernacle, of large size, made also of silver, inside which is placed the monstrance, which is carried in procession on Corpus Christi day (Plate xvi.). In order to distinguish these objects one from another, the name of _viril_ is given to the object which holds the consecrated Host; it is generally made of rock crystal, with a gold stem and mount ornamented with precious stones. The small tabernacles are generally objects of the greatest importance, both from their artistic and intrinsic value." A third description of the monstrance, written in quaint and antiquated Spanish verse by Juan de Arfe, is truthfully if not melodiously translated into English rhyme by Stirling:-- "Custodia is a temple of rich plate, Wrought for the glory of our Saviour true, Where, into wafer transubstantiate, He shows his Godhead and his Manhood too, That holiest ark of old to imitate, Fashioned by Bezaleel, the cunning Jew, Chosen of God to work His sov'ran will, And greatly gifted with celestial skill."[54] [54] _Op. cit._, p. 159, note. Notwithstanding that the monstrance of Toledo, surmounted by a cross of solid gold, turns the scale at ten thousand nine hundred ounces, and that of Avila at one hundred and forty pounds, the weight of nearly all of these _custodias_ is far exceeded by the value of their workmanship. The style employed in their construction is the Gothic, the Renaissance, or the two combined. _Custodias_ of the eastern parts of Spain are more affected than the others by Italian influence, noticeable both in decorative motives which recall the Florentine, and in the use, together with the silver-work, of painting and enamels. In other parts of Spain the dominating influence is the later Gothic. Among the former or Levantine class of monstrances, the most important are those of Barcelona, Vich, Gerona, and Palma de Mallorca; and of the others, those of Cordova, Cadiz, Sahagún, Zamora, Salamanca, and Toledo--this last, according to Bertaut de Rouen, "à la manière d'un clocher percé à jour, d'ouvrage de filigrane, et plein de figures." _Custodias_ in the purest classic or Renaissance style are those of Seville, Valladolid, Palencia, Avila, Jaen, Madrid, Segovia, Zaragoza, Santiago, and Orense. Juan de Arfe y Villafañe, who may be called the Cellini of Spain's _custodia_-makers, was born at León in 1535. He was the son of Antonio de Arfe, and grandson of Enrique de Arfe, a German who had married a Spanish wife and made his home in Spain. The family of Juan, including his brother Antonio, were all distinguished craftsmen, and he himself informs us that his grandfather excelled in Gothic _platería_, as may be judged from the _custodias_, by Enrique's hand, of Cordova, León, Toledo, and Sahagún, and many smaller objects, such as incensories, crosiers, and paxes. The father of Juan, Antonio de Arfe, worked in silver in the Renaissance or Plateresque styles, and executed in the florid manner the _custodias_ of Santiago de Galicia and Medina de Rioseco; but the training and tastes of Juan himself were sternly classical. His work in consequence has a certain coldness, largely atoned for by its exquisite correctness of design and unimpeachable proportions. Arfe's ideal in these matters may readily be judged of from his written verdict on the Greco-Roman architecture. "The Escorial," he says, in the preface to his description of the _custodia_ of Seville cathedral, "_because it follows the rules of ancient art_, competes in general perfection, size, or splendour with the most distinguished buildings of the Asiatics, Greeks, and Romans, and displays magnificence and truth in all its detail." In point of versatility Juan de Arfe was a kind of Spanish Leonardo. His book, _De Varia Conmensuración_, etc., published in 1585, is divided into four parts, and deals, the first part with the practice of geometry, the second with human anatomy, the third with animals, and the fourth with architecture and silver-work for use in churches. [Illustration: IOAN DE ARFE] This book is prefaced by the portrait of the author, given above. It shows us--what he really was--a quiet, cultured, gentle-hearted man. Indeed, while Arfe was studying anatomy at Salamanca, it gave him pain to lacerate the bodies even of the dead. "I was witness," he records, "to the flaying of several pauper men and women whom the law had executed; but these experiments, besides being horrible and cruel, I saw to be of little service to my studies in anatomy." Arfe's workmanship of the _custodia_ of Avila cathedral, which he began in 1564 and terminated in 1571, won for him an early and extended fame. He also made the _custodia_ of Burgos (brutally melted during the Spanish War of Independence), and those of Valladolid (finished in 1590), Lugo, Osma, and the Hermandad del Santísimo at Madrid. The _custodia_ of Palencia is also thought by some to be his handiwork. But Arfe's crowning labour was the Greco-Roman _custodia_ of Seville cathedral (Plate xvii.). The chapter of this temple selected his design in 1580, and nominated the licentiate Pacheco to assist him with the statuettes. Pacheco also carried out his portion of the task with skill and judgment. A rare pamphlet, written by Arfe and published at Seville in 1587, gives a minute description of the whole _custodia_. In Appendix C, I render this description into English, together with a similarly detailed notice of the _custodia_ (1513 A.D.) of Cordova. This last, which we have seen to be the work of Juan de Arfe's grandfather, Enrique, is not to be surpassed for fairy grace and lightness, seeming, in the eloquent metaphor of a modern writer, "to have been conceived in a dream, and executed with the breath." [Illustration: XVII _CUSTODIA_ OF SEVILLE CATHEDRAL (_By Juan de Arfe. Late 16th Century_)] Spain in the seventeenth century had reached the lowest depth of her decadence and impoverishment; and yet we find that century an age--to quote a Spanish term--of "gallantries and pearls," in which a craze for reckless luxury continued to prevail in every quarter. Narratives innumerable inform us of the life and doings of that prodigal court and prodigal aristocracy; their ruinous and incessant festivals; the fortunes that were thrown away on furniture, and jewels, and costume. True, we are told by Bertaut de Rouen that, except upon their numerous holidays, the costume of the Spanish men was plain enough. This author, who calls them otherwise "debauched and ignorant," says that their clothes were all of "méchante frise," and adds that they continually took snuff, "dont ils ont toujours les narines pleines, ce qui fait qu'ils n'ont que des mouchoirs de laine, de toile grise, et peinte comme de la toile de la Chine." The same traveller, attending an ordinary reception in the royal palace at Madrid, was unable to distinguish the nobles from the lower orders, except that, by the privilege peculiar to this country, the former kept their hats on in the presence of the sovereign. Even of Philip himself he says: "Le Roy d'Espagne estoit debout avec un habit fort simple et fort ressemblant à tous ses portraits"; alluding, probably, to those of Philip the Fourth by Velazquez, in which the monarch wears a plain cloth doublet. But when the Spaniard dressed himself for any scene of gala show, his spendthrift inclinations swelled into a positive disease. The women, too, squandered enormous sums on finery. The Marchioness of Liche, said to have been the loveliest Española of that day, is spoken of by Bertaut as wearing "un corps de brocard d'argent avec de grandes basques à leur mode, la jupe d'une autre étoffe avec grand nombre de pierreries, et cela luy fetoit fort bien." An anonymous manuscript of the period, published by Gayangos in the _Revista de España_ for 1884, describes the _fiestas_ celebrated at Valladolid in 1605, in honour of the English ambassador and his retinue. In this relation the Duke of Lerma is quoted as possessing a yearly income of three hundred thousand _cruzados_, besides "as much again in jewellery and furniture, and gold and silver services." At the state banquets which were given at that wasteful court, even the pies and tarts were washed with gold or silver; and at a single feast the dishes of various kinds of fare amounted to two thousand and two hundred. At the banquet given by the Duke of Lerma, three special sideboards were constructed to sustain the weight of four hundred pieces of silver, "all of them of delicate design and exquisitely wrought of silver, gold, and enamel, together with innumerable objects of glass and crystal of capricious form, with handles, lids, and feet of finest gold." The whole of Spain's nobility was congregated at these festivals, "richly attired with quantities of pearls and oriental gems," while everybody, young and old alike, wore "diamond buttons and brooches on cloaks and doublets," feather plumes with costly medals, gold chains with emeralds, and other ornaments. The ladies of the aristocracy were also "clothed in costliest style, as well as loaded with diamonds and pearls and hair-ornaments of pearls and gold, such as the women of Castile lay by for these solemnities." The Spanish churches, too, continued to be veritable storehouses of treasure. The manuscript published by Gayangos says that in 1605 the church of La Merced at Valladolid had its altars "covered with beautiful gold and silver vessels, of which there are a great many in the whole of Castilla la Vieja, and particularly here at Valladolid." Bertaut de Rouen's notice of the shrine of Montserrat in Cataluña has been inserted previously. In 1775 Swinburne wrote of the same temple:--"In the sacristy and passages leading to it are presses and cupboards full of relics and ornaments of gold, silver, and precious stones; they pointed out to us, as the most remarkable, two crowns for the Virgin and her Son, of inestimable value, some large diamond rings, an excellent cameo of Medusa's head, the Roman emperors in alabaster, the sword of Saint Ignatius, and the chest that contains the ashes of a famous brother, John Guarin, of whom they relate the same story as that given in the _Spectator_ of a Turkish santon and the Sultan's daughter.... Immense is the quantity of votive offerings to this miraculous statue; and as nothing can be rejected or otherwise disposed of, the shelves are crowded with the most whimsical _ex votos_, viz., silver legs, fingers, breasts, earrings, watches, two-wheeled chaises, boats, carts, and such-like trumpery." Many pragmatics from the Crown vainly endeavoured to suppress or mitigate the popular extravagance. Such was the royal letter of 1611, which forbade, among the laity, the wearing of "gold jewels with decoration or enamel in relief, or points with pearls or other stones." Smaller jewels, of the kind known as _joyeles_ and _brincos_,[55] were limited to a single stone, together with its pearl pendant. The jewellery of the women was exempted from these laws, though even here were certain limitations. Rings for the finger might, however, bear enamel-work, or any kind of stone. Enamel was also allowed in gold buttons and chains for the men's caps, as well as in the badges worn by the knights of the military orders. [55] _Brinco_ (_brincar_, to jump or spring). These jewels were so called from their vibrating as the wearer walked. The Balearic Islands were famous for their manufacture; and the late Marquis of Arcicollar possessed a case of valuable examples, most of which proceeded from this locality. "It is forbidden," continues this pragmatic, "to make any object of gold, silver, or other metal with work in relief, or the likeness of a person; nor shall any object be gilt, excepting drinking vessels, and the weight of these shall not exceed three marks. All other silver shall be flat and plain, without gilding; but this does not apply to objects intended for religious worship." "All niello-work is prohibited, as are silver brasiers and buffets."[56] [56] _Suma de Leyes_, 1628, p. 116 (2). What I may call the private jewel-work of Spain, largely retains throughout its history the characteristic lack of finish of all the Visigothic treasure found at Guarrazar. From first to last, until extinguished or absorbed by foreign influences two centuries ago, it strives to compensate in ponderous and bulky splendour for what it lacks in delicacy, elegance, and taste. It is just the jewellery we should expect to find among a military people who once upon a time possessed great riches simultaneously with little education, and who, from this and other causes, such as the strenuous opposition of the national church to pagan sentiments expressed in fleshly form, were never genuinely or profoundly art-loving. Long residence and observation in their midst induce me to affirm that as a race the Spaniards are and always have been hostile, or at least indifferent, to the arts; and that their most illustrious artists have made their power manifest and raised themselves to eminence despite the people--not, as in Italy, on the supporting shoulders of the people. Dazzle and show monopolized, and to a great extent monopolize still, the preference of this race. The Spanish breast-ornaments of the seventeenth century, preserved at South Kensington and reproduced by Riaño on pages 37 and 39 of his handbook, are strongly reminiscent of the Visigothic ornaments. Who would imagine that a thousand years had come and gone between the execution of the new and of the old? As late as the reign of Charles the Second the culture of a Spanish lady of high birth was little, if at all, superior to a savage's. "False stones enchant them," wrote Countess d'Aulnoy. "Although they possess many jewels of considerable value and the finest quality, it is their whim to carry on their person wretched bits of glass cut in the coarsest fashion, just like those which pedlars in my country sell to country girls who have seen nobody but the village curate, and nothing but their flocks of sheep. Dames of the aristocracy adorn themselves with these pieces of glass, that are worth nothing at all; yet they purchase them at high prices. When I asked them why they like false diamonds, they told me they prefer them to the genuine as being larger. Indeed, they sometimes wear them of the bigness of an egg." Even where the stones were real, the Spanish taste in setting and in wearing them was no less execrable. The Countess says: "the ladies here possess great stores of beautiful precious stones, and do not wear, like Frenchwomen, a single article of jewellery, but nine or ten together, some of diamonds, others of rubies, pearls, emeralds, and turquoises, wretchedly mounted, since they are almost wholly covered with the gold. When I inquired the cause of this, they told me the jewels were so made because the gold was as beautiful as the gems. I suppose, however, the real reason is the backwardness of the craftsmen, who can do no better work than this, excepting Verbec, who has no lack of skill, and would turn out excellent jewels if he took the trouble to finish them." "In the neck of their bodices the ladies fasten pins profusely set with precious stones. Hanging from the pin, and fastened at the lower end to the side of their dress, is a string of pearls or diamonds. They wear no necklace, but bracelets on their wrists and rings on their fingers, as well as long earrings of so great a weight that I know not how they can support them. Hanging from these earrings they display whatever finery they may fancy. I have seen some ladies who wore good-sized watches hanging from their ears, strings of precious stones, English keys of dainty make, and little bells. They also wear the _agnus_, together with little images about their neck and arms, or in their hair. They dress their hair in various ways, and always go with it uncovered, using many hairpins in the form of coloured flies or butterflies of diamonds, emeralds, and rubies." Book-worm authorities, addicted to "dry bones" of letters, are prone just now to doubt this visit of Countess d'Aulnoy to the capital of Spain. But if such patient doubters will compare her narrative with those of other foreigners, _e.g._ Bertaut de Rouen, or the manuscript description of Valladolid, written by a Portuguese, and now in the British Museum library, their scepticism will--or should--be done away with on the moment. The letters of the countess make it plain by copious inner testimony that she actually performed her Spanish visit; and though from time to time she over-colours or misreads the truth, it was the very usages of Spain that were absurd and out of joint, and not, except in isolated instances, the sprightly and observant Frenchwoman's account of them.[57] [57] But on the other hand I much suspect that the following passage in Alvarez de Colmenar's _Annales d'Espagne et de Portugal_ (vol. iii. p. 326) is stolen from Countess d'Aulnoy. "Elles ne portent point de colier, mais en échange elles ont des bracelets, des bagues, et des pendans d'oreille, plus gros que tous ceux qu'on voit en Hollande. Telle est la diversité des gouts des nations différentes, en matière de beauté. Il y en a même quelques-unes, qui attachent quelque beau joli bijou à leurs pendans d'oreilles, quelque ornement de pierreries, par exemple, ou d'autres choses semblables, selon leur quantité ou leur pouvoir." Elsewhere the Countess says: "Utensils of common metal are not employed here, but only those of silver or of ware. I hear that a little while ago, upon the death of the Duke of Alburquerque, six weeks were needed to make out an inventory of his gold and silver services. His house contained fourteen hundred dozen plates, five hundred large dishes, and seven hundred of a smaller size, with all the other pieces in proportion, and forty silver ladders for climbing his sideboard, made in grades like an altar in a spacious hall." These statements have been proved in later years. Dating from 1560, an inventory of the ducal house of Alburquerque was found not many years ago. In it we find the detailed list of gold and silver; cups and dishes, bowls and basins, plates and salt-cellars, trenchers, wine and water flagons, sauce-spoons, salad-spoons, conserve-spoons, and innumerable other articles. Here, too, we find, upon the mighty sideboard mounted by its forty silver stairs, such objects as the following:-- "A gold cup with festoon-work above and beneath, wrought with leaves in relief. At the top of the foot there issue some leaves that fall down over a small gold staple, and below this, about the narrowest part of the foot, are leaves in relief and several dolphins. The broad part of the foot is decorated with festoons. The lid of this cup is wrought with leaves in relief, and on the crest thereof is a lion, crowned. The cup weighs three hundred and fifty-one _castellanos_ and a half." "A Castilian jar from which my lord the duke was wont to drink, weighing two marks and five ounces."[58] [58] The mark was a standard of eight ounces, and was divided into fifty _castellanos_. "A cup with a high foot, gilt all over, with the figure of a woman in its midst, and decorated in four places in the Roman manner." "A flagon of white silver, flat beneath the stem, with a screw-top surmounted by a small lion; for cooling water." "A small silver dish, of the kind they call meat-warmers." "A large silver seal for sealing provisions, with the arms of my lord the duke, Don Francisco." "A large silver vessel, embossed, with a savage on top." "A gold horse, enamelled in white upon a gold plate enamelled in green and open at the top; also a wolf, upon another gold plate enamelled in green, with lettering round about it; also a green enamelled lizard upon blue enamel; and a gold toothpick with four pieces enamelled in green, white, and rose; also a small gold column enamelled in black and rose." "A silver lemon-squeezer, gilt and chiselled, with white scroll-work about the mesh thereof, through which the lemon-juice is strained." "A large round silver salt-cellar, in two halves, gilt all over, with scales about the body, and two thick twisted threads about the flat part. One side of it is perforated." Among the property of the duchess, Doña Mencía Enriquez, we find "a small gold padlock, which opens and closes by means of letters"; two gold bangles; a gold necklace consisting of forty-two pieces "enamelled with some B's";[59] a gold signet ring with the duchess's arms; and "a gold and niello box with relics, for wearing round the neck." Also, resting on a table covered with silver plates, "a box of combs; the said box wrought in gold upon blue leather, containing five combs, a looking-glass, a little brush, and other fittings; girt with a cord in gold and blue silk." [59] For Beltran de la Cueva, ancestor of this family. The seventeenth century and a race of native Spanish kings declined and passed away together. A dynasty of France succeeded to the throne of Spain, and with the foreigner came a fresh reactionary movement towards the neo-classic art, coupled with the canons of French taste. Henceforth a century of slow political reform goes hand in hand with slow suppression of the salient parts of Spanish character. Madrid transforms or travesties herself into a miniature Versailles, and national arts and crafts belong henceforward to a Frenchified society which found its painter in Goya, just as the preceding and eminently Spanish society had found its painter in Velazquez. Another of the causes of the falling-off in Spanish _orfebrería_ at this time, is stated to have been the craftsmen's overwhelming tendency to substitute the slighter though venerable and beautiful gold or silver filigree (Plate xviii.), for more artistic and ambitious, if less showy work in massive metal. Thus, in 1699, a supplementary chapter of the Ordinances of Seville complained in bitter phrases of this tendency, denouncing it as "a source of fraud and detriment to the republic," and deploring that "of the last few years we have forsaken our goodly usages of older times, in the matter of the drawings entrusted to the candidates who come before us for examination." In the same year the goldsmiths' and the silversmiths' guild of Seville enacted that none of its members were to work in filigree, unless they were qualified to execute the other work as well. Such efforts to suppress this evil were not new. More than a century before, on April 15th, 1567, the inspectors of the guild had entered the shop of Luis de Alvarado, silversmith, and seized some filigree earrings "of the work that is forbidden," breaking these objects on the spot, and imposing a fine of half-a-dozen ducats on the peccant or oblivious Alvarado.[60] [60] Gestoso, _Diccionario de Artífices Sevillanos_, vol. ii. p. 134. The modern gold and silver work of Spain is thus exempted from a lengthy notice, seeing that its typical and national characteristics have succumbed, or very nearly so. I may, however, mention the giant silver candelabra in the cathedral of Palma de Mallorca, which were made at Barcelona, between 1704 and 1718, by Juan Matons and three of his assistants. They measure eight feet high by four feet and a quarter across, weigh more than eight thousand ounces, and cost 21,942 pounds, 15 _sueldos_, and 11 _dineros_ of Majorcan money. The State seized them during the Napoleonic wars, in order to melt them down for money; but the chapter of the cathedral bought them back for eleven thousand dollars. [Illustration: XVIII EARLY CHALICE AND CROSS IN FILIGREE GOLD-WORK (_Church of Saint Isidore, León_)] During this century Riaño mentions several factories of silver articles established at Madrid, including that of Isaac and Michael Naudin (1772) and the Escuela de Platería (1778), protected by Charles the Third; but since the work of these was purely in the French or English manner, they call for no particular notice. The principal objects they produced were "inkstands, dishes, dinner-services, chocolate-stands, cruets, knives and forks, together with buckles, needle-cases, brooches, snuff-boxes, frames for miniatures, and similar trinkets." Early in the nineteenth century Laborde wrote that "the fabrication of articles of gold and silver might become an important object in a country where these metals abound; but it is neglected, and the demand is almost entirely supplied from foreign markets. What little they do in this branch at home is usually very ill executed, and exorbitantly dear. Madrid, however, begins to possess some good workmen; encouragement would increase their number and facilitate the means of improvement; but manual labour is there excessively dear. Hence the Spaniards prefer foreign articles of this kind, which, notwithstanding the expense of carriage, the enormous duties that they pay, and the profits of the merchants, are still cheaper than those made at home." Several of the inherent characteristics of the national _orfebrería_ may yet be noticed somewhat faintly in the ornaments and jewels of the Spanish peasants, though even these are being discarded. A century ago Laborde described the dress of the Mauregata women, near Astorga, in the kingdom of León. "They wear large earrings, a kind of white turban, flat and widened like a hat, and their hair parted on the forehead. They have a chemise closed over the chest, and a brown corset buttoned, with large sleeves opening behind. Their petticoats and veils are also brown. Over all they wear immense coral necklaces, which descend from the neck to the knee; they twist them several times round the neck, pass them over the shoulders, where a row is fastened, forming a kind of bandage over the bosom. Then another row lower than this; in short, a third and fourth row at some distance from each other. The last falls over the knee, with a large cross on the right side. These necklaces or chaplets are ornamented with a great many silver medals, stamped with the figure of saints. They only wear these decorations when not working, or on festivals." I have a manuscript account in French of Spanish regional costumes at the same period. The dress of the peasant women of Valencia is thus described: "Elle se coiffe toujours en cheveux, de la manière appelée _castaña_, et elle y passe une aiguille en argent que l'on nomme _rascamoño_; quelque fois elle se pare d'un grand peigne (_peineta_) en argent doré. Son cou este orné d'une chaine d'or ou d'argent (_cadena del cuello_) à laquelle est suspendue une croix ou un reliquaire." This was the Valencian peasant's dress for every day. On festivals the same woman would adorn her ears with "pendants (_arracadas_) de pierres fausses; mais lorsque la jardinière est riche, elles sont fines. Une relique (_relicario_) dans un petit médaillon en argent, est suspendue à son cou; ainsi qu'un chapelet très mince (_rosario_) en argent doré." The peasant women of Iviza, in the Balearics, are described in the same manuscript as wearing "un collier en verre, quelque fois en argent, et rarement en or"; while Laborde wrote of Minorca, another of these islands, that "the ladies are always elegantly adorned; their ornaments consist of necklaces, earrings, bracelets, rings, and chaplets. _The peasants wear these also._" Of the women of Barcelona he said: "Silk stockings are very common in every class; and their shoes are embroidered with silk, gold, silver, pearls, and spangles." But Spain, like Italy or Switzerland, or many another country, is throwing off her regional costumes, of which these various jewels form a prominent and even an essential feature. More rarely now we come across the gold and seed-pearl necklaces of Salamanca, the Moorish filigree silver-work of Cordova, the silver-gilt necklaces of Santiago, and the heavy _arracadas_, hung with emeralds and sapphires, of Cataluña. Murcia, nevertheless, retains her Platería, a street of venerable aspect and associations, where to this hour the oriental-looking silver pendants of the neighbourhood are made and trafficked in. [Illustration] IRON-WORK The ancient iron mines of Spain were no less celebrated than her mines of silver and of gold. Nevertheless, the history of Spanish iron-work begins comparatively late. Excepting certain swords and other weapons which require to be noticed under _Arms_, and owing to the commonness and cheapness of this metal, as well as to the ease with which it decomposes under damp, few of the earliest Spanish objects made of iron have descended to our time.[61] Even Riaño pays but little notice to this craft in the Peninsula before the second half of the fifteenth century. Henceforth, he says, "it continued to progress in the sixteenth, and produced, undoubtedly, at that period works which were unrivalled in Europe." [61] A small collection, formed by Don Emilio Rotondo, of primitive iron rings, bracelets, brooches, and other ornaments, is preserved in the Schools of Aguirre at Madrid. Villa-amil y Castro (_Antigüedades prehistóricas y célticas_, and _Castros y Mamoas de Galicia_, published in the _Museo Español de Antigüedades_), describes some iron objects of uncertain use discovered in Galicia, together with spear-heads and other weapons or pieces of weapons which will be noticed under _Arms_, and also an object which he says may once have been a candlestick, or else a kind of flute. All these are probably pre-Roman. Dating from the Roman period are an iron ploughshare and some sickles, discovered at Ronda in Andalusia, and now in the Madrid Museum. Góngora, however (_Antigüedades prehistóricas de Andalucía_), inclines to think that previous to the Roman conquest the occupants of Betica were ignorant of this metal, though not of gold, from which they fashioned diadems and other articles of wear. See also Caballero Infante, _Aureos y barras de oro y plata encontrados en el pueblo de Santiponce_, Seville, 1898. The decorative iron-work of Spain may suitably be dealt with in three classes: railings, screens, or pulpits of churches, chapels, and cathedrals; balconies and other parts or fittings applied to public or private buildings of a non-ecclesiastical character; and smaller, though not necessarily less attractive or important objects, such as knockers, locks and keys, and nail-heads. The last of these divisions, as embracing Spanish-Moorish craftsmanship, shall have, as far as order is concerned, our preferential notice. Surely, in the whole domain of history, no object has a grander symbolism than the key. In mediæval times the keys of cities, castles, towns, and fortresses were held to be significant of ownership, or vigilance, or conquest. Especially was this the case in Spain--a nation incessantly engaged in war. Probably in no country in the world has the ceremony of delivering up this mark of tenure of a guarded and defended place occurred so often as here. Do we not read of it in stirring stanzas of her literature? Do we not find it in her paintings, on her stone and metal _rilievi_, or carved in wood upon the stalls of her cathedrals? Therefore the key, just like the sword, seemed, in the warm imagination of the Spaniards, to be something almost sacred. The legislative codes of Old Castile are most minute in their relation of its venerated attributes. Nor were the Spanish Muslims less alive to its importance than their foe, taking it also for an emblem of their own, and planting it in lordly eminence upon their gates and towers of Cordova, and Seville, and Granada. For what was Tarik's Mountain but the key of the narrow gate that led to their enchanted land, as sunny as, and yet less sultry than, their sandy home; truly a land of promise to the fiery children of the desert, panting for the paradise that smiled at them across the storied strip of emerald and sapphire water? So was it that both Moors and Spaniards made their keys of fortresses and citadels almost into an object of their worship. In hearing or in reading of such keys, the mind at once recurs to those of Seville (Plate xix.), two in number, famed throughout the world of mediæval art, and stored among the holiest relics in the sacristy of her cathedral. The larger is of silver, in the style now known as Mudejar, and dates from the second half of the thirteenth century. The length is rather more than eight inches, and the whole key is divided into five compartments, ornamented in enamels and in gold. Castles, ships, and lions adorn the thicker portion of the stem between the barrel proper and the handle; and on the rim of the latter is this inscription, in Hebrew characters:-- "_The King of Kings will open; the king of all the land shall enter._"[62] [62] Riaño's reading was, "_the King of the whole Earth will enter_." But is not this contradicted by the other inscription on the same key? The wards are also beautifully carved into the following legend, distributed in two rows, one superposed upon the other, of two words and of ten letters apiece:-- "_Dios abrirá; Rey entrará._" "_God will open; the king shall enter._" The iron key is purely Moorish, smaller than its fellow, and measures just over six inches. Like the other, it consists of five divisions, and the wards are in the form of an inscription in African Cufic characters, which Gayangos and other Arabists have variously interpreted. Five of the commonest readings are as follows:-- (1) "_May Allah permit that the rule (of Islam) last for ever in this city._" (2) "_By the grace of God may (this key) last for ever._" (3) "_May peace be in the King's mansion._" (4) "_May God grant us the boon of the preservation of the city._" (5) "_To God (belongs) all the empire and the power._" Our earliest tidings of this iron key are from the Jesuit Bernal, who wrote in the seventeenth century. It was not then the property of the cathedral chapter, for Ortiz de Zúñiga says that it belonged, in the same century, to a gentleman of Seville named Don Antonio Lopez de Mesa, who had inherited it from his father. Tradition declares that both this key and its companion were laid at the feet of Ferdinand the Third by Axataf, governor of Seville, when the city capitulated to the Christian prince on November 23rd, 1248. But Ortiz is careful to inform us that he neither countenances nor rejects the popular notion that the iron key was thus delivered as the token of surrender, "although," he says, "the owners of it are strongly of this judgment." What we do know is that on June 16th, 1698, the iron key was presented to the cathedral by Doña Catalina Basilia Domonte y Pinto, niece of the Señor Lopez de Mesa aforesaid; and that the chapter forthwith accepted it with solemn gratitude as "one of the keys delivered by the Moors to the Rey Santo on the conquest of the city," ordering it to be guarded in a special box. Such is the popular fancy still accepted by the Sevillanos. However, Amador de los Ríos has sifted out a good deal of the truth, showing that the iron and the silver key are wrought in different styles, and were intended for a different purpose. He places the iron instrument among the "keys of conquered cities," and its silver neighbour among the "keys of honour, or of dedication"; and he declares as certain (although the reasons he adduces do not quite convince me) that this iron key is actually the one which figured in the ceremony of surrender. The other he considers to have been a gift from the Sevillians to the tenth Alfonso, son of Ferdinand the saint and conqueror, as a loyal and a grateful offering in return for his protection of their industries and commerce. However this may be, the decorative aspect of the larger key, together with the choice material of which it is made, appears to prove that it was not associated with the rigours of a siege, but served in some way as a symbol of prosperity and peace. It was a common custom at a later age for Spanish cities to present their sovereign, when he came among them, with a richly ornamented key. Such keys were offered to Charles the Fifth and Philip the Second when, in 1526 and 1570, respectively, they visited Seville; while Riaño reminds us that "even in the present day the ceremony is still kept up of offering a key to the foreign princes who stay at the royal palace of Madrid." Similarly, as an ordinary form of salutation, does the well-bred Spaniard place his house at your disposal. Five Moorish keys--one of bronze and four of iron--are in the Museum of Segovia, and bear, as Amador observes, a general resemblance to the iron key of Seville. The wards of four of them are shaped into the following inscriptions: the first key, "_In Secovia_ (Segovia)"; the second, "(_This_) _key was curiously wrought at Medina Huelma, God protect her_"; the third, "_Open_"; and the fourth, "_This work is by Abdallah._" The first and smallest of these keys informs us, therefore, that it was manufactured at Segovia. The third key is that which is of bronze, and bears the word "_Open_," probably addressed to Allah. The second, which is also the largest and the most artistic and ornate, belonged, we read upon its wards, to Huelma, a fortress-town upon the frontiers of the kingdom of Granada. This town was wrested from the Moors on April 20th, 1438, by Iñigo Lopez de Mendoza, first Marquis of Santillana, who possibly sent this key to Castile as a present to his sovereign, Juan the Second, in company with the usual papers of capitulation. Other Moorish keys are scattered over Spain in various of her public and private collections, though none are so remarkable as those of Seville and Segovia. The town of Sepúlveda possesses seven early iron keys, several of which are Moorish. Others are at Burgos, Valencia, Palma, Jaen, and Granada. At the last-named city the following key, dating undoubtedly from the period of the Muslim domination, was discovered, in 1901, among the débris of the Palace of Seti Meriem.[63] [63] _La Alhambra_ (from which this sketch is taken) for September 30th, 1901; article on the Palace of Seti Meriem, by F. de Paula Valladar. [Illustration] Keys of awe-inspiring magnitude are still preferred among the Spaniards to a handier and slighter instrument, this people seeming to believe that the bigger the key the more inviolable is the custody which it affords--a theory not at all upheld by modern experts in this venerable craft. Perhaps this singular and local preference is derived from Barbary. At any rate it still obtains across the Strait. "Our host," wrote Mr Cunninghame Graham in _Mogreb-El-Acksa_, "knocks off great pieces from a loaf of cheap French sugar with the key of the house, drawing it from his belt and hammering lustily, as the key weighs about four ounces, and is eight or nine inches long." Of such a length are nearly all the house-keys of contemporary Spain; and with this apparatus bulging in his belt the somnolent _sereno_ or night-watchman of this sleepy, unprogressive, Latino-Mussulmanic land prowls to this hour along the starlit streets of Barcelona, Seville, or Madrid. The city Ordinances of Granada form a valuable and interesting link between the Spanish-Moorish craftsmanship and that of Spaniards Christian-born. The _Ordenanzas de Cerrageros_, or Locksmiths' Ordinances, though not voluminous, are curious and informative beyond the rest, and show us that a general rascality was prevalent in Granada after her reconquest from the Moor. Locksmiths were forbidden now to make a lock the impression of which was put into their hands in wax, even if the order should be sweetened by "a quantity of maravedis," since the effect of such commissions, whose very secrecy betrayed illicit and improper ends in view, was stated to be "very greatly perilous and mischief-making." Another Ordinance reveals the Christian locksmiths of Granada as arrant scoundrels, almost as troublesome to deal with as the pestering little shoeblacks of to-day. "Word is brought us," groaned the aldermen, "how many locksmiths, foreigners that dwell within this city as well as naturals that go up and down our thoroughfares, in taking locks and padlocks to repair, do, at the same time that they set the keys in order, contrive to fit them with new wards inferior to the older ones, so as to be able to open and close them with the keys they have themselves in store, wherein is grave deceitfulness, seeing that the aforesaid locks and padlocks may be opened in such wise without a key at all."[64] [64] _Ordenanzas de Granada_, p. 191. If we except the vast dimensions of the common keys of houses, this branch of Spanish craftsmanship has now no quality to point it from the rest of Europe, having become, in Riaño's words, "simply practical and useful." Laborde observed in 1809 that "locks and various iron utensils are made in divers places. Locksmiths are numerous at Vega de Ribadeo in Galicia, at Helgoivar in Biscay, at Vergara in Guipuscoa, at Solsona and Cardona in Catalonia. Different kinds of iron goods are manufactured at Vergara, Solsona, and Cardona. The articles made of iron and steel at Solsona are in high estimation, notwithstanding they are destitute of taste and elegance, badly finished, and worse polished; and can by no means be put in competition with similar articles introduced from other countries."[65] [65] Those of my readers who have visited Spain will probably have seen the inlaid iron-work of Eibar and Toledo. The objects chiefly manufactured in this style are brooches, bracelets, scarf and hat pins, photograph frames, jewel and trinket boxes, watches, and cigarette cases. The workmanship is often elaborate and costly, nor can it be denied that the red or greenish gold has an effective look against the jet-black surface of the polished or unpolished iron. Upon the other hand, the taste displayed in the design is seldom good; while in a climate with the slightest tendency to damp, the iron is apt to rust and tarnish, and the fine inlay to loosen. Iron nails with ornamented heads and decorative door-knockers are other objects which reveal the influence of Mohammedan Spain. A number of artistic Spanish nails are in the South Kensington Museum. "Some doors," says Riaño, "still exist at the Alhambra, Granada, covered with enormous heads of nails of a half-spherical form with embossed pattern. These same nails are constantly to be found on old Spanish houses, to which are added in the angles pieces of iron of a most artistic order" (Pl. xix.A). In the same city, though not precisely in the Alhambra, I have seen upon the doors of private houses nails of a decorative kind which appear to consist of a single piece, but which are really formed of two--an ornamental boss perforated through its centre, and the nail proper, which fastens through it to the woodwork of the door behind. Thus, when the nail is hammered tight upon the boss, the effect is naturally that of a single piece of metal. Similar nails are on the door of Tavera's hospital at Toledo. [Illustration: XIX_a_ DECORATIVE NAIL-HEADS (_Convent of San Antonio, Toledo_)] The _Ordenanzas_ of Granada tell us minutely of the nails which were produced there in the sixteenth century. They were denominated _cabriales_, _costaneros_, _palmares_, _bolayques_, _vizcainos_, sabetinos, and _moriscos_; of all of which I can only find that the _cabriales_ and _costaneros_ were used for beams and rafters, and the _moriscos_ for fixing horse-shoes. In Spain the custom of fastening down the decorative coverings of chairs or benches dates from comparatively late; and it was probably with this innovation that iron-workers began to exercise their ingenuity upon the heads of nails. Towards the close of the Middle Ages the city of Segovia was celebrated for her locks and keys, her knockers, and her _rejas_. In 1892, collections of iron objects, chiefly manufactured in this town, were shown by the duke of Segovia, Don Nicolás Duque, and Don Adolfo Herrera at the Exposición Histórico-Europea of Madrid. Segovia still preserves an old door covered with extraordinary iron spikes, that once belonged to the castle of Pedraza; many curious balconies, such as that in a first floor of the Calle del Carmen; and the grilles--proceeding from the old cathedral--of the chapel of the Cristo del Consuelo and the chapel of the Piedad. Another interesting collection of early decorative Spanish iron, belonging to the well-known painter, Señor Rusiñol, is kept at the town of Sitjes, in Cataluña. The late Marquis of Arcicollar possessed a number of specimens of Spanish manufactured iron of the later Middle Ages, such as boxes, candelabra, locks, nails, door-knockers, _braseros_, and a rare and curious iron desk (fourteenth century), with leather fittings. The collection of the late Count of Valencia de Don Juan included four door-knockers of Spanish iron, dating from late in the fifteenth century or early in the sixteenth. I give a reproduction of these knockers (Pl. xx.). The two which occupy the centre are evidently from a sacred building; while the other pair are just as evidently _señoriales_, and belonged to a noble house. In the former pair, the clumsy carving of the saints, Peter and James, is attributed by Serrano Fatigati to the native coarseness of the iron. [Illustration: XX DOOR-KNOCKERS (_15th Century_)] Proceeding from the same collection are a pair of ceremonial maces and a ceremonial lantern, which I also reproduce (Pl. xxi.), since the Spanish writer from whom I have just quoted pronounces them to be "excellent specimens of the iron-work of our country at the close of the Middle Ages." He says that, as we notice in the pinnacles, they show a tendency to copy architectural detail, and are otherwise characteristic of the period. Towards the fourteenth century the file replaced the hammer, and the sheet of iron was substituted for the bar. These objects, dating from the fifteenth century, duly reveal this change. Also, as was usual at the time, they are composed of separate pieces stoutly riveted. In the knockers with the figures of the saints "we notice the partial use of the chisel, which became general in the sixteenth century, at the same time that iron objects were loaded with images, forms of animals, and other capricious figures. These may be said to belong to a period of transition, culminating in the _rejas_."[66] [66] Serrano Fatigati, in the _Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Excursiones_. The Madrid Museum contains a sixteenth-century cross of _repoussé_ iron, in the Greek form, and which is certainly of Spanish make. According to Villa-amil, it formerly had a gilded border and was painted black, which leads this writer to suppose that it was used at funerals. Iron crosses may be seen occasionally on churches and on other public buildings, and Stirling has inserted cuts of several in his _Annals of the Artists of Spain_. Crosses of large size were sometimes planted on the highway. Such was the elaborate but ugly iron cross, measuring three yards in height, made by Sebastian Conde in 1692 for the Plazuela de la Cerrajeriá in Seville, and now preserved in her Museum. The iron balustrade or _verja_ of the marble tomb of Cardinal Cisneros is finely wrought in Plateresque-Renaissance, with elaborate designs of gryphons, foliage, urns, birds, masks, sheep's heads, swans, coats of arms, dolphins, and other ornament in great profusion. The craftsman was Nicolás de Vergara the elder. Lesser in size, though not less striking in its execution, is the railing, by Francisco de Villalpando, which surrounds the _Altar de Prima_ in the choir of Toledo Cathedral. [Illustration: XXI CEREMONIAL MACES AND LANTERN (_15th Century_)] "Iron pulpits," says Riaño, "have been made in Spain with great success." He mentions five: two in Avila Cathedral (Plate xxii.); two at Seville; and one at the church of San Gil at Burgos. The latter is described by Street, who says: "It is of very late date, end of the fifteenth century, but I think it quite worthy of illustration. The support is of iron, resting on stone, and the staircase modern. The framework at the angles, top and bottom, is of wood, upon which the iron-work is laid. The traceries are cut out of two plates of iron, laid one over the other, and the iron-work is in part gilded, but I do not think that this is original. The canopy is of the same age and character, and the whole effect is very rich at the same time that it is very novel. I saw other pulpits, but none so old as this." The iron pulpits of Salamanca, "covered with bas-reliefs representing the Evangelists and subjects taken from the Acts of the Apostles and the apocalypse," were made at the same time as the _reja_ by Fray Francisco de Zalamea or Salamanca, Fray Juan, and other artists. The two at Avila are stationed one on either side of the Capilla Mayor, and are of gilded iron, hexagonal in form, and measuring about ten feet in height. Gryphons or other beasts support the pulpit on its stem or column. The body of each pulpit bears the arms of the cathedral, namely, the _Agnus Dei_, a lion, and a castle--the whole surmounted by a crown--and is divided lengthways by a central band into a double tier, closed by a richly decorated cornice at the upper and the lower border. Otherwise the pulpits are quite dissimilar. In one the decorative scheme is almost purely geometrical, while in the other it consists of foliage, birds and beasts, and niches containing statuettes of saints. The stair-railings are modern; but the primitive carving still adorns the end of every step.[67] [67] For a detailed account of these pulpits see Villa-amil y Castro's article in the _Museo Español de Antigüedadess_. [Illustration: XXII IRON PULPIT (_Avila Cathedral_)] We do not know who was the maker of these pulpits. Some believe him to have been a certain Juan Francés, to whom our notice will again be called as figuring among the earliest masters of this eminently Spanish craft, and who, on strongish evidence, is thought to be the author of the _rejas_ in the same cathedral which enclose the choir, and the front and sides of the Capilla Mayor. This is the only reason for supposing him to have made the pulpits also. One of these, however, is in the Flamboyant, and the other in the Renaissance style; so it may well be doubted whether both were produced by the same hand, or even at exactly the same period.[68] [68] Payments made to "Master Juan Francés" are recorded by Zarco del Valle, _Documentos Inéditos para la Historia de las Bellas Artes en España_, pp. 320, 321. It is, however, in the _rejas_ that the craftsmanship of older Spain attains its loftiest pinnacle. They consist, says Banister Fletcher, of "rich and lofty grilles in hammered and chiselled iron ... strongly characteristic of the national art. The formality of the long and vertical bars is relieved by figures beaten in _repoussé_, in duplicates, attached back to back, and by crestings and traceries adapted to the material, and freely employed. Few things in Spain are more original and artistic."[69] [69] _History of Architecture_, p. 303. They possess, too, the advantage, from their ponderous solidity and fixedness, that most of them are still extant and in the best of preservation, although Napoleon's Vandals rooted up the chapel _rejas_ of the Church of Santo Domingo at Granada, and turned them into bullets; just as their general, Sebastiani, threw down the tower of San Jerónimo to make a trumpery bridge across the trickling stream of the Genil. Scores of thousands of such crimes, not to forget the blowing up of the gate and tower of the Siete Suelos, were perpetrated by the French all over Spain; yet Washington Irving, in a strangely infelicitous passage of his _Tales of the Alhambra_, congratulates the invaders for their reverential treatment of the noblest monuments of Spanish art! The _reja_ generally was not, as many have supposed, of late invention. It existed from the earliest days of Christianity; but it was only in the Gothic and Renaissance ages that Spain converted it into a vehicle for decorative art. The growth of these ornamental _rejas_ may be traced in cities of Old Castile, together with Seville, Salamanca, Cuenca, and Toledo. Spain, it is idle to observe, was at no moment so appreciative of her craftsmen as was Italy, so that our information as to mediæval Spanish craftsmen and the process of their lives and labours is, upon the whole, deplorably deficient. Nevertheless, among the oldest of her artists known in Spanish as _rejeros_, or (a finer and more venerable term) _"reja_-masters"--_maestros de rexas_--appears Juan Francés, working in 1494 in Toledo Cathedral and, in the same capacity (for he seems to have been an armourer besides, and to have held the title of "master-maker of iron arms in Spain")[70] at Alcalá de Henares, as well as, in 1505, at Osma, in whose cathedral he made the _rejas_ of the choir and high chapel.[71] [70] So, in Spain, does war appear to have been connected even with the peaceful _reja_. Similarly, in 1518, the contractors for the grille of the Chapel Royal of Granada were Juan Zagala and Juan de Cubillana, "master-artillerymen to their highnesses." Valladar, _Guía de Granada_, 1st ed., p. 302, note. [71] A quaint but somewhat tautological and prosy letter concerning matters of his craft, addressed by Francés to the cardinal-archbishop of Toledo, is published in the _Museo Español de Antigüedades_, article _Los Púlpitos de la Catedral de Avila_, by Villa-amil y Castro. The _reja_ of the presbytery at Burgo de Osma is thus inscribed: "_Izo esta obra maestre Joan Francés maestre mayor._" The top consists of repetitions of a shield containing five stars and supported by angels, lions, and gryphons. Two iron pulpits project from the lower part of the grille, and a swan of the same metal, with extended wings, rests upon either pulpit. Although the craftsman's name has rarely been recorded, we know that excellent _rejería_ was made at Barcelona in the fifteenth century. Also dating from the fifteenth century, and therefore prior to the Plateresque, is the _reja_, ornamented with leaves and figures of centaurs and other creatures, mythical and real, enclosing the sepulchre of the Anayas in the old cathedral of Salamanca. During the first quarter of the sixteenth century much work in decorative _rejería_ was completed in Seville Cathedral by Fernando Prieto, Fray Francisco de Salamanca,[72] Sancho Muñoz, Diego de Adrobo, and others (_vide_ Frontispiece). Taught by these, while yet belonging to a slightly later time, and linking in this way the riper and decadent Gothic with the new Renaissance and the Plateresque, were Pedro de Andino, Antonio de Palencia, and Juan Delgado. Rosell observes that without doubt these artists, excepting only Juan Francés--the pioneer of them all--were Spanish-born; and they in their turn were succeeded by other Spaniards who worked most regularly at Toledo; such as Bartolomé Rodriguez, Luis de Peñafiel, and Francisco de Silva. [72] A Dominican friar, summoned to Seville in 1518, to make her cathedral _rejas_. He also made the pulpits of the high altar in 1531, and was working in this city as late as 1547. Account-sheets penned by his hand were still extant a century ago, and Cean conveys to us some knowledge of Fray Francisco, receiving as the wages of his labour, now a score or so of ducats, now a bushel or two of corn. The friar, whom the canons spoke of with affection for his many virtues, seems to have been a handy man, seeing that between his spells of _reja_-making he put the clock of the Giralda into trim, and built an alarum apparatus to rouse the cathedral bell-ringer at early morning. For the sums paid to Fray Francisco and to Sancho Muñoz for their work, see Gestoso, _Diccionario de Artífices Sevillanos_, vol. ii. pp. 365 _et seq._ An excellent _rejero_ named Hernando de Arenas completed the grille of Cuenca Cathedral in 1557. Three years before, a Cordovese, Fernando de Valencia, had made the intricate Renaissance _reja_ of the Chapel of the Asunción in the mosque of that most ancient capital--a noble piece of work, which still exists. Other _rejeros_ who were either natives of, or who resided in, this city were Pedro Sanchez, Alonso Perez, Pedro Sanchez Cardenosa, Francisco Lopez, Juan Martinez Cano, and Diego de Valencia. One of these men, Alonso Perez, a native of Jaen, contracted, on April 13th, 1576, to make the _rejas_ of the Capilla Mayor in the church of the convent of the Trinity at Cordova. He was to finish them within one year, at a cost of fifty-one _maravedis_ for every pound of iron, of sixteen ounces to the pound. Ramírez de Arellano, who has extracted these notices of Cordovese artists from the city archives[73], says that the _reja_ in question is no longer standing; but a document of the time informs us that it was of an elaborate character, and carried architraves, cornices, and the usual decorative detail of the Spanish Renaissance. [73] Consult his valuable studies, _Artistas exhumados_, published in various numbers of the _Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Excursionistas_. In 1593 Pedro Sanchez agreed to make, within four years, a grille for the old chapel of the Concepción, also in Cordova, at a cost of forty-nine maravedis for every pound of iron that the finished _reja_ should contain; and a year later the same artist signed a contract for what is thought to be his masterpiece--the _reja_ of the chapel of the Holy Cross, in the nave of the _sagrario_ of the same temple. The stipulated time was two years only; but the cost amounted in this instance to one hundred maravedis for every pound of the completed _reja_. Marvels of power and of patience are among the _rejas_ of this land. In them, obedient to the genius of the craftsman, the ponderous metal assumes the gossamer lightness of the finest gauze, now seeming to be breathed rather than built across the entrance to some side-chapel, now tapering skyward till we fancy it to melt away, like vapour, on the surface of the lofty roof. Such are the screens--which here demand a brief description--of Toledo and Palencia and Granada; that of Cuenca, where Arenas plied his master-hand; and, first in merit of them all, the peerless _reja_, royal in magnificence and faultless taste, that closes in at Burgos the no less royal-looking chapel of a Count of Haro, sometime Constable of all Castile. The _reja_ of the Capilla Mayor of Toledo Cathedral is twenty-one feet high by forty-six in breadth. "Armies of workmen," wrote Méndez Silva, referring to this screen and to its neighbour, that of the _coro_, "were toiling at them for ten years, nor would their cost have been greater had they been of founded silver." The cost of which he speaks was more than a quarter of a million _reales_, although the workmen's daily wage was only two _reales_ and a half, or, in the case of the particularly skilled, four _reales_. The author of this admirable screen was Francisco de Villalpando, whose plans and estimate were approved by Cardinal Tavera in 1540. "The _reja_ consists of two tiers resting on different kinds of marble. Attic columns ornamented with handsome _rilievi_ and terminated by bronze caryatides, divide these tiers into several spaces. The upper tier is formed by seven columns of ornate pattern, containing, on a frieze of complicated tracery, figures of animals and angels, and other delicately drawn and executed objects in relief. Upon the cornice are coats of arms, angels, and other decoration; and in the centre, the imperial arms of Charles the Fifth, together with a large crucifix pendent from a massive gilded chain. On the frieze of the second tier are the words, ADORATE DOMINUM IN ATRIO SANCTO EJUS KALENDAS APRILIS 1548, and on the inner side, PLUS ULTRA." [74] [74] Rosell y Torres; _La Reja de la Capilla del Condestable en la Catedral de Burgos_, published in the _Museo Español de Antigüedades_. [Illustration: XXIII _REJA_ OF CHAPEL ROYAL (_Granada Cathedral_)] The other of the larger _rejas_ in this temple--that of the choir--is not inferior in a great degree to Villalpando's masterpiece. It was made by "Maestre" Domingo (de Céspedes),[75] who, in his estimate of June 18th, 1540, engaged to finish it at a total cost of 5000 ducats, "he to be given the necessary gold and silver for the plating" (_Archives of Toledo Cathedral_, quoted by Rosell). This Maestre Domingo was aided by his son-in-law, Fernando Bravo, and both of them, says de la Rada y Delgado, were probably natives of Toledo.[76] In the same city they also made the _rejas_ for the Baptismal Chapel, and for the chapels of the Reyes Viejos and Reyes Nuevos. [75] He is called Domingo de Céspedes by Cean Bermudez, although, as Zarco del Valle remarks, the surname does not appear in any of the documents relating to this craftsman which are yet preserved in the archives of Toledo cathedral. These documents merely tell us that Domingo was his Christian name, that his own signature was _Maestre Domingo_, and that he and Fernando Bravo were required to find surety to the value of 375,000 _maravedis_ for the faithful and expert performance of their work, which they were to complete within two years, receiving for it the sum of six thousand ducats. [76] Conde de Cedillo, _Toledo en el Siglo XVI_. Reply to the Count's address, by J. de Dios de la Rada y Delgado. [Illustration: XXIV _REJA_ OF CHAPEL ROYAL (_View from interior. Granada Cathedral_)] Excellent Plateresque _rejas_ are those of the Capilla Mayor and Coro of Palencia Cathedral--the latter from the hand of Gaspar Rodriguez of Segovia, who finished it in 1571 at a cost of 3400 ducats. In the same city is the _reja_ of the chapel of Nuestra Señora la Blanca, finished in 1512 by Juan Relojero, a Palencian, who received for his labour 25,000 _maravedis_ and a load and a half of wheat. The noble and colossal gilt and painted[77] _reja_ of the Chapel Royal of Granada Cathedral was wrought between the years 1518 and 1523 by one Master Bartholomew, whose name is near the keyhole. This was a person of obscure life though mighty powers as a craftsman. We know that he resided at Jaen, and, from a document which still remains,[78] that he petitioned Charles the Fifth for payment (sixteen hundred ducats) of this grille, because the clergy had continually refused to liquidate it. He made, besides the work I herewith describe, the _reja_ of the presbytery for Seville cathedral,[79] and possibly, as Sentenach suggests, the iron tenebrarium, ten feet high by five across, for the cathedral of Jaen. [77] The painting of a _reja_ was commonly executed by the "image-painter" (_pintor de imaginería_). As the term implies, it was this artist's business to gild or colour sacred furniture, such as altars, panels, images, and decorative doors and ceilings. [78] Archives of Simancas. _Descargos de las R.C._; _Legajo 23 prov._ Valladar, _Guía de Granada_ (1st ed.), p. 302, note. [79] "To Master Bartholomew, _rexero_, twenty gold ducats for the days he took in travelling from Jaen, and for those on which he was at work upon the _reja_ of the high altar here in Seville." On March 18th, 1524, the same craftsman was paid 13,125 _maravedis_ for making the "samples and other things belonging to the _reja_ of the high altar."--_Libro de Fábrica_ of Seville Cathedral. Gestoso, _Sevilla Monumental y Artística_, and _Diccionario de Artífices Sevillanos_, vol. xi. p. 362. The _reja_ of the Chapel Royal of Granada, "of two faces, the finest that was ever made of this material," [80] has three tiers. "The first tier contains six Corinthian pilasters and a broad frieze covered with Plateresque ornamentation, as are the pedestals on which the pilasters rest. In the second tier are the arms of Ferdinand and Isabella within a garland supported by two lions, and other crowns together with the yoke and arrows;[81] all intertwined with stems, leaves, and little angels of an exquisite effect. Before the pilasters of this tier and of the one immediately above it are figures of the apostles on Gothic brackets--a style we also notice on the fastening of the gate and on the twisted railing; but every other detail of the grille is Plateresque. Upon the top are scenes of martyrdoms and of the life of Christ, the whole surmounted by a decorative scheme of leaves and candelabra, and, over this, a crucifix together with the figures of the Virgin and Saint John. The designing of the figures is only moderately good, but all remaining detail and the craftsmanship are admirable" [82] (Plates xxiii. and xxiv.). [80] Pedraza, _Historia de Granada_ (1636), p. 40. [81] The yoke and sheaf of arrows were the emblems of these princes--the yoke, of Ferdinand; the arrows, of his queen. Shields of their reign, whether employed in architecture or on title-pages, almost invariably include these emblems and the well-known motto, _Tanto Monta_. [82] Gómez Moreno, _Guía de Granada_, p. 291. Last on my list of Spanish _reja_-makers I place the greatest and most honoured of them all--Cristóbal de Andino, who, as a modern writer has expressed it, "uttered the last word in the matter of giving shape to iron." Cristóbal, son of Pedro de Andino--himself an artist of no mean capacity--excelled in architecture, sculpture, _rejería_, and probably in silver-work as well. "Good craftsmen," wrote his contemporary, Diego de Sagredo, "and those who wish their work to breathe the spirit of authority and pass without rebuke, should follow--like your fellow-townsman, Cristóbal de Andino--ancient precepts, in that his works have greater elegance and beauty than any others that I witnessed heretofore. If this (you think) be not the case, look at that _reja_ he is making for my lord the Constable, which _reja_ is well known to be superior to all others of this kingdom." Such is the _reja_ thought, both then and now, to be the finest ever made. The style is pure Renaissance. Two tiers of equal height consist of four-and-twenty ornamented rails or balusters disposed, above, between four columns; below, between four pilasters. An attic is upon the cornice, and contains two central, semi-naked, kneeling figures which support a large, crowned shield. This is surmounted by a bust of God the Father, enclosed in a triangular frame, and raising the hand to bless. On either side of the attic are S-shaped crests sustaining circular medallions with the likenesses, in bold relief, of Christ and Mary. Along the friezes are the legends; EGO SUM ALPHA ET [Greek: omega]; EGO SUM LUX VERA; and ECCE ANCILLA DOMINI, together with the words, referring to the artist, AB ANDINO, and the date A.D. MDXXIII. The decorative scheme is spirited and delicate at once, whether we observe it on the railing, pilasters, and columns, or on the horizontal parts and members of the _reja_. The attic which surmounts the double tier and cornice is finally surmounted by a gilt Saint Andrew's cross; and the entire screen is lavishly painted and gilded throughout. Here is a thing--almost a being--created out of iron, so intensely lovely that the eye would wish to contemplate it to the end of time; and, as we linger in its presence, if perchance the dead are privileged to hear their earthly praises echoed in the silence of the tomb, surely from his marble sepulchre Cristóbal de Andino listens to such praises at this hour. For yonder, in the neighbouring parish church of San Cosmé, beside a wife devoted and well-loved the great artificer is laid to rest, where Latin words (although of idle purport while the _reja_ of the Constable remains) are deep engraved to thus remind us of his worth:-- CHRISTOPHORUS ANDINO EGREGIUS ARTIFEX ET IN ARCHITECTURA OMNIUM SUI SECULI FACILE PRINCEPS MONUMENTUM SIBI PONENDUM LE GAVIT ET CATERINA FRIAS EJUS UXOR HONESTISSIMA STATIM MARITI VOTIS ET SUIS SATISFACIENDUM B ENIGNE CHRISTIANEQUE CURAVIT URNAM CU JUS LAPIDES SOLUM AMBORUM OSSA TEGUNT SED ADMONET ETIAM CERTIS ANNUI HE BDOMADE CUJUSQUE DIEBUS SACRIFICIA PRO EIS ESSE PERPETUO FACIENDA But if these splendid _rejas_ of her temples constitute to-day a special glory of this nation, her private balconies and window-gratings were in former times, though from profaner motives, almost or quite as notable. Between the sixteenth and the eighteenth centuries, few of the foreigners who visited Spain omitted to record their admiration of these balconies, crowded upon a holiday with pretty women. "Il y avoit," wrote Bertaut de Rouen in 1659, "autant de foule à proportion qu'à Paris; et mesme ce qu'il y avoit de plus beau, c'estoit que comme il y avoit des balcons à toutes les fenestres et qu'elles estoient occupées par toutes les dames de la ville, cela faisoit un plus bel effet que les échaffauts que l'on fait dans les rues de Paris en semblables rencontres." [Illustration: XXV _REJA_ (_Casa de Pilatos, Seville_)] Pinheiro da Veiga, in his queer _Pincigraphia_, or "Description and Natural and Moral History of Valladolid," written earlier in the same century, and published twenty years ago by Gayangos from a manuscript in the British Museum, is more plain-spoken than the Frenchman on the various merits and peculiarities of the Spanish balconies and _rejas_. "All of these churches have the most beautiful iron balustrades and iron open-work doors (_cancelas_) that can be found in Europe, for nowhere is iron worked so skilfully as here in Valladolid. These objects are made by the Moriscos with turned balusters, foliage, boughs, fruits, war-material, trophies, and other contrivances, which afterwards they gild and silver into the very likeness of these metals. I say the same of window-balconies; for nearly every window has its balcony. There are in Valladolid houses up which one might clamber to the very roof from balcony to balcony, as though these were a hand-ladder. So too from balcony to balcony (for the distance from one to other is never greater than a palm's breadth) one might climb round the whole Plaza. By reason of this, we Portuguese were wont to say that if there were as many thieves or lovers in Valladolid as in Portugal, verily both one and other of this kind of folks would have but little need of hand-ladders. Yet here the thieves content themselves with stealing by the light of day, while as for the women (crafty creatures that they are!), they perpetrate their thefts away from home; and, having all the day at their disposal, prefer to thieve while daylight lasts, rather than pass the night uncomfortably. To this I heard a lady of Castile declare, when one of my friends, a Portuguese, petitioned her for leave to speak with her at night across her _reja_: 'That would be tantamount to passing from one _hierro_ to another _yerro_;[83] and in my house (which is also your worship's) it would not look well for you to seem a window-climbing thief.'" [83] _Hierro_ means _iron_; _yerro_, a _fault, faux pas_. Thus glossed, the somewhat feeble pleasantry or pun is able to explain itself. [Illustration: XXVI _REJA_ OF THE _CASA DE LAS CONCHAS_ (_Salamanca_)] It is curious, in the foregoing narrative, to read of Morisco craftsmen working as late as 1600, and as far north as Castile. Perhaps the notice of Moriscos doing Spanish iron-work may be traced to certain Ordinances of Granada, published about three-quarters of a century before. On October 14th, 1522, the councillors of that town confabulated very lengthily and seriously as to the damage caused by "balconies and _rejas_ in the streets, fixed in the basements and the lower rooms of houses, or projecting portals which extend beyond the level of the wall. For we have witnessed, and do witness daily, numerous mishaps to wayfarers, alike on horseback and on foot, whether by day or night, because the highways, narrow in themselves, are rendered yet more narrow by such balconies and _rejas_. Whereas in winter persons seeking to escape the filth by keeping to the wall are thwarted, or at night-time injured, by these _rejas_. Or yet in summer, when the waters swell, and conduits burst and overflow the middle of the street, then neither can they keep the middle of the way, nor pass aside (by reason of the balconies aforesaid) to its edges." Having regard to all these grievances, the councillors decreed that "none of whatsoever order or condition shall dare henceforth to place, or cause to be placed, about the lower floors or entrance of their dwelling, _rejas_ or iron balconies, or anything projecting much or little from the level of the wall. But all projections shall be set three yards, not any less, above the street. If not so much, they shall be set within the wall, on pain of a fine of ten thousand _maravedis_, and five thousand _maravedis_ to the mason and the carpenter that shall repair their fixing. Further, we order that all balconies and _rejas_ now at a height of less than the aforesaid three yards be taken away within three days from the crying in public of these Ordinances."[84] [84] These laws affecting balconies were not, or not as time went on, restricted to Granada. "Nobody," prescribes the general Spanish code in force in 1628, "shall make a balcony or oversailing part to fall upon the street, nor yet rebuild or repair any that shall fall."--Pradilla, _Suma de Todas las Leyes Penales, Canonicas, Civiles, y destos Reynos_. For this deplorable state of things a double influence was to blame; namely, the oriental narrowness of the street, and also the elaborate ornamentation, proceeding very largely from a northern Gothic and non-Spanish source, of these annoying yet impressive gratings. Some of them, sweeping the very soil, and boldly and fantastically curved, may yet be seen at Toro. Those of Granada are no more. Indeed, not only have the _rejas_ of the Spanish private house long ceased to show the decorative cunning of the craftsman, but even in their present unartistic form are largely limited to Andalusia. Yet even thus, they seem to guard a typical and national air, mixed with a subtle, semi-Mussulmanic poetry. Across them, while the term of courtship lasts, the lover whispers with his mistress, oblivious of the outer world, fixing his gaze within, until his sultaness emerges from the gloom, and holds his hand, and looks into his eyes, and listens to his vow. Therefore, in "April's ivory moonlight," beneath the velvet skies of Andalusia, one always is well pleased to pass beside these children of romantic Spain, warming the frigid iron with the breath of youth, and hope, and happiness, and telling to each other a secret that is known unto us all--at once the sweetest and the saddest, the newest and the oldest story of all stories. BRONZES The earliest objects of bronze discovered in this country are comparatively few. As in other parts of Europe, they consist mostly of weapons, such as spear-heads and hatchets (which will be noticed under _Arms_), or bracelets, necklaces, and clasps or brooches. Earrings (_inaures_), brooches (_fibulæ_), and other objects of a similar purpose dating from the Roman period have been discovered in Galicia, while plates of the same alloy[85] which imitate a shell were used as personal ornaments by the men and women of the ancient Spanish tribes. [85] Le Hon reminds us, in _L'homme fossile_, that before the Iron Age all bronzes of our western world contained one part of tin to nine of copper. The province of Palencia is a fertile field for archæological discovery. Here have been found some curious clasps, intended, it would seem, to represent the old Iberian mounted warrior, sometimes brandishing the typical Iberian lance. The following is a sketch in outline of an object of this kind, fashioned as clumsily and crudely as the cheapest wooden plaything of our time:-- [Illustration] Two parts--the figure of the horseman, and a four-wheeled stand on which the warrior's steed is resolutely set--compose this comical antiquity. The rider's only article of clothing is a helmet; while the horse, without a saddle or a bridle, is completely nude. This toy, or table ornament, or whatever it may be, was found not far from Badajoz, where other prehistoric bronzes are preserved in the museum of the province;[86] and Mr E. S. Dodgson says that in possession of an Englishman at Comillas he has seen another bronze rider of primitive workmanship, with the head of a wild boar under his left arm. Those who are interested in the meaning of these early bronzes should consult an article, _El jinete ibérico_, by Señor Mélida, published in Nos. 90-92 of the _Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Excursiones_. [86] See Romero de Castilla, _Inventarios de los objetos recogidos en el Museo Arqueológico de la Comisión de Monumentos de Badajoz_. Badajoz, 1896. Plate xxvii. represents another of these objects. [Illustration: XXVII "MELEAGER'S HUNT" (_Primitive Spanish Bronze_)] We know that the use of Roman lamps grew to be general in this land--a fact which justifies my noticing the specimens preserved in the museum of Madrid; and more particularly so because their shape and general character have been perpetuated through the Spanish Moors and Christians of the Middle Ages till this very moment. The Roman lamp, shaped somewhat like a boat by reason of the _rostrum_ or beakish receptacle for the wick, consisted of an earthenware or metal vessel with a circular or oblong body and a handle, together with at least one hole for pouring in the oil. The commonest material was earthenware, and next to this, bronze. The lamp was either suspended by a chain or chains, or else was rested on a stand. Plato and Petronius tell us that the stand was borrowed from the rustic makeshift of a stick, or the stout stem of a plant, thrust into the ground. As time went on, the stem or stick in imitative metal-work was rendered more or less artistic and ornate. But there was more than a single kind of lampstand. The _lychnuchus_ ([Greek: lychnouchos]), invented by the Greeks, held various lamps suspended from its branches, while, on the other hand, the Roman _candelabrum_ supported but a solitary lamp upon the disc or platform at its top extremity.[87] The island of Egina was famed for the production of these discs, and Pliny tells us that the decorated stem or _scapus_ was chiefly manufactured at Tarentum. [87] Undoubtedly the use of the Roman _candelabrum_ was continued by the Spanish Visigoths. "_Candelabrum_," says Saint Isidore, "_a candelis dictum, quasi candela feram, quod candelam ferat_" (_Originum_, book xx., chap. x.). The Spanish word _candela_ is loosely used to-day for almost any kind of light or fire, or even for a match; but an ordinary candle is generally called a _vela_ or _bugía_ (_bougie_). The Roman lampstands also varied in their height. When the stem was long they stood upon the ground--a fashion we have seen revived in recent years, and even where electricity replaces oil. When, on the contrary, the stem was short, the stand was known as a _candelabrum humile_, and rested on a table or a stool. The Madrid Museum contains a remarkable bronze lamp in the form of an ass's head adorned with flowers and with ivy. The ass is holding in its mouth the _rostrum_ for the wick. The hole for the oil is shaped like a flower with eleven petals, under one of which is the monogram M[dagger]R. The back of this lamp consists of an uncouth human male figure, in a reclining posture, wearing a Phrygian cap and holding the ass's head between his legs. [Illustration: XXVIII A _CANDIL_ (_Modern_)] Other lamps of bronze, including several of an interesting character, are in the same collection. One of these represents a sea-deity; another has its handle shaped like a horse's head and neck; and in a third the orifice for the oil is heart-shaped, while the handle terminates in the head of a swan. There is also a series of three pensile lamps--two in the likeness of the head and neck of a griffin, and the third in that of a theatrical mask; as well as a candelabrum fourteen inches high, terminating beneath in three legs with lions' claws (foreshadowing or repeating oriental motives), and above in a two-handled vessel on which to place the lamp. This vessel supports at present a fine _lucerna_ in the form of a peacock. Probably no people in the world have kept extant, or rather, kept alive, their oldest forms of pottery or instruments for giving light more steadfastly or more solicitously than the Spaniards. Their iron _candil_[88] and brass _velón_ of nowadays (Pls. xxviii. and xxix.)--the one of these the primitive lamp that hangs; the other, the primitive lamp that rests upon a table or the ground--are borrowed with but a minimum of alteration from the lighting apparatus of the ancient Greeks and Romans, and possess, for all their coarse and cheap and unpretentious workmanship, a subtle interest and elegance attributable only to the inspiration of antiquity. [88] "A small open lamp with a beak, and a hook to hang it, within which is another of the same make that contains oil and a wick to give light, commonly used in kitchens, stables, and inns."--Fathers Connelly and Higgins, _Spanish-English and English-Spanish Dictionary_. Swinburne wrote of these _candiles_:--"The Spaniards delight in wine that tastes strong of the pitched skin, and of oil that has a rank smell and taste; indeed, the same oil feeds their lamp, swims in their pottage, and dresses their salad; in inns the lighted lamp is frequently handed down to the table, that each man may take the quantity he chooses." [Illustration: XXIX A _VELÓN_ (_Modern_)] More than the shape of these old objects seems to have passed to modern Spain--if any phase at all of Spanish life can ever justly be accounted modern. The ancients had an almost superstitious reverence for a lighted lamp, and were accustomed to declare that "_lucerna, cum extinguitur, vocem emittit, quasi necata_"; "a lamp, on being put out, utters a sound as though it were being murdered." Now, it may be a coincidence--although I cannot but regard it as distinctly more than a coincidence--that even at this day a large proportion of the Andalusian people are markedly averse to blowing out a kindled match; nor do they think it of good augury to be in a room where three lights--candles, matches, or whatever they may be--are simultaneously aflame. I have noticed, too, that, whether from utter carelessness or whether from ancestral superstition handed down from Rome, one rarely sees upon the staircase or the doorstep of a Spanish public building a vesta that has been (if I may be allowed the term) extinguished _artificially_.[89] [89] Perhaps it is not foreign to my theme to add that the current name in Spanish for an oil lamp is _quinqué_, from Quinquet, the Parisian chemist who invented the _tuyau-cheminée_ a hundred and odd years ago. The same word passes also into Spanish slang, "_tener quinqué_"--_i.e._ to be quick-witted and perceptive. In the Madrid Museum are several military bronze _signa_ which were found in Spain and date from the Roman era, as well as a _vexillum_, or one of the T-shaped frames on which the warriors of that people used to hang their standards. One of these _signa_ is in the form of a wild boar; another in that of a saddled and bridled horse. Beneath this latter is the word VIVA and a cross, which shows that the object dates from a period not earlier than the reign of Constantine. It is strange--or rather, would be strange in any country that had been less constantly afflicted both with civil and external warfare--that hardly anything remains of all the bronze artistic objects manufactured by the Spanish Moors. Poets of this race have sung of gold and silver fountains, door-knockers, and statues that adorned the buildings of Cordova. In many of these instances the hyperbolic gold and silver of the writers would undoubtedly be bronze. Al-Makkari quotes an Arab poet who extols in passionate terms Almanzor's dazzling mansion of Az-zahyra. "Lions of metal," sang this poet, "bite the knockers of thy doors, and as those doors resound appear to be exclaiming _Allahu akbar_" ("God is great"). Another bard describes the fountains of the same enchanted palace. "The lions who repose majestically in this home of princes, instead of roaring, allow the waters to fall in murmuring music from their mouths. _Their bodies seem to be covered with gold_, and in their mouths crystal is made liquid. "Though in reality these lions are at rest, they seem to move and, when provoked, to grow enraged. One would imagine that they remembered their carnage of past days, and bellowing turned once more to the attack. "When the sun is reflected from their _bronze_ surface, they seem to be of fire, with tongues of flame that issue from their mouths. "Nevertheless, when we observe them to be vomiting water, one would think this water to be swords which melt without the help of fire, and are confounded with the crystal of the fountain." [Illustration: XXX BRONZE LION (_Found in the Province of Palencia_)] Figures in bronze, of eagles, peacocks, swans, stags, dragons, lions, and many other creatures were set about in garden and in hall, to decorate these splendid palaces of ancient Cordova. A specimen of this class of objects is a bronze lion of small dimensions (Plate xxx.) found not many years ago in the province of Palencia, and believed to date from the reign of Al-Hakem the Second of Cordova. It belonged for some time to the painter Fortuny--a diligent and lucky hunter of antiquities,--and was subsequently purchased in 1875 by M. Piot. The modelling and decoration of this beast, especially the mannered and symmetrical curls which are supposed to form its mane, are quite conventional and strongly reminiscent of Assyrian art, such as pervades the various lions rudely wrought in stone and still existing at Granada; whether the celebrated dozen that support and guard the fountain in the courtyard of the Moorish palace,[90] or else the greater pair of grinning brutes proceeding from the ruins of the palace of Azaque (miscalled the Moorish Mint), which may be noticed squatting with their rumps towards the road, beside the garden entrance to the Carmen de la Mezquita. [90] Swinburne fell into a comical error concerning these. "In the centre of the court are twelve ill-made lions _muzzled_, their fore-parts smooth, their hind-parts rough, which bear upon their backs an enormous bason, out of which a lesser rises."--_Travels through Spain_, p. 180. This little bronze lion measures about twelve inches high by fourteen inches long. The legs and part of the body are covered with a pattern representing flowers. The mane is described by comma-shaped marks. The tail, bent not ungracefully along the animal's back, is decorated with a kind of plait through nearly all its length. The eyes are now two cavities, but seem in other days to have contained two coloured stones or gems. Upon the back and flanks is a Cufic inscription which says, "_Perfect blessing. Complete happiness._" [Illustration: XXXI BRONZE STAG (_Moorish. Museum of Cordova._)] Mussulman historians have described, in terms of cloying praise, the "red gold animals contrived with subtle skill and spread with precious stones" which Abderrahman placed at Cordova upon the fountains of his palaces. "Rivers of water issued from the mouth of every animal, and fell into a jasper basin." The words "red gold" are patently an oriental term for bronze. In view of this, and of the fact that the lion of Palencia is hollow-bellied, with his mouth wide open for ejecting water, and with a tail of cunning craftsmanship, which would avail, on being rotated, to produce or check the current of the "liquid crystal," we may conclude that it was intended both to form a part of, and to decorate a Moorish fountain of old days, and is the kind of beast "with precious stones for eyes" so often and so ecstatically lauded by the Muslim writers. Similar to the foregoing object, and dating from about the same period, is a small bronze stag (Pl. xxxi.) in the provincial museum of Cordova. It is believed to proceed originally from the famous palace (tenth century) of Az-zahra, and used to be kept, some centuries ago, in the convent of San Jerónimo de Valparaiso. The museum of Granada contains some interesting Moorish bronzes, found on the site of the ancient city of Illiberis, abandoned by its occupants on their removal to Granada at the beginning of the eleventh century. The most remarkable of these discoveries are pieces of a fountain, a small temple (Plate xxxii.), an _almirez_ or mortar (Plate xxxiii.), similar to one (not mentioned by Riaño) which was discovered at Monzón, and a few lamps. The fragments of a fountain end in the characteristic Assyrian-looking lions' heads, with lines in regular zones to represent the eyes and other features. One of the lamps (Pl. xxxiii.) is far superior to the rest. Notwithstanding Riaño's assertion that all of these antiquities are "incomplete and mutilated," this lamp is well preserved, and still retains, secured by a chain, the little metal trimming-piece or _emunctorium_ of the Romans. The small bronze temple is sometimes thought (but this hypothesis seems rather fanciful) to be a case, or part of a case, designed for keeping jewellery. The height of it is two-and-twenty inches, and the form hexagonal, "with twelve small columns supporting bands of open work, frescoes, cupola, and turrets; in the angles are birds" (Riaño). [Illustration: XXXII BRONZE TEMPLE (_Moorish. Museum of Granada_)] The most important object in this substance now extant in any part of Spain is probably the huge and finely decorated lamp of Mohammed the Third of Granada (Pl. xxxiv.), called sometimes "the lamp of Oran," from a mistaken belief that it had formed part of the booty yielded by this city after her capture in 1509 by Cardinal Jimenez de Cisneros. The material of this lamp is bronze, possibly provided by the bells of Christian churches taken and pillaged by the Moors. It has four parts or tiers of varying shape, delicately wrought in open-work, and reaching a height of nearly seven feet in all. The third and largest tier, corresponding to the shade, is in the form of a truncated pyramid, and shows a different design on each of its four sides. The lamp bears several inscriptions, interrupted here and there through breakage of the metal. The longest of these legends is interpreted as follows:-- "In the name of God the Merciful. (May) the blessing of God be on our lord Mohammed and his kin; health and peace. (This lamp) was ordered (to be made) by our Lord the egregious sultan, the favoured, the victorious, the just, the happy, the conqueror of cities, and the extreme boundary of just conduct among the servants (of God); the emir of the Mussulmans Abu-Abdillah, son of our lord the emir of the Mussulmans Abu-Abdillah, son of our lord Al-Galib-Billah, the conqueror through God's protection, the emir of the Mussulmans Abu-Abdillah; (may) God aid him (praised be God)." Here is a breakage and a corresponding gap in the inscription, which continues, "beneath it, lighted by my light for its magnificence and the care of its _xeque_, with righteous purpose and unerring certainty. And this was in the month of Rabié the first blessed, in the year 705.[91] May (God) be praised." [91] September 20th to October 19th, A.D. 1305. The history of this lamp has been explored with scholarly care by Rodrigo Amador de los Ríos, whose monograph will be found in the _Museo Español de Antigüedades_. He says that the lamp was formerly suspended from the ceiling of the chapel of San Ildefonso in the university of Alcalá de Henares. Here, too, he has discovered entries which relate to it in two separate inventories, dated 1526 and 1531, from which we gather that the lamp, excepting the lowest part or tier, which probably proceeded from Oran, was brought to Alcalá by Cardinal Cisneros from the mosque of the Alhambra of Granada. [Illustration: XXXIII MOORISH LAMP AND MORTAR (_Museum of Granada_)] All of the lamp (continues Amador) that properly belongs to it, is the open-work shade, together with the graduated set of spheres which we now observe on top.[92] The lowest part is clearly an inverted bell, from which project four decorative pieces. This is believed by Amador to be a Spanish bell, dating from the fifteenth century, designed for striking with a hammer, and proceeding from some monastery or convent plundered by the Moors. Indeed, one of the two inventories discovered at Alcalá mentions "a bell with a hole in it, _which used to belong to a Moorish lamp_," thus countenancing the widespread supposition that the lamps of the mosque of Cordova were made of the Christian bells of Compostela, which the fierce Almanzor caused to be conveyed upon the aching backs of Christian captives to the Moorish court and capital of Andalusia. [92] These spheres recall the four great gilded globes of bronze, tapering from the bottom to the top, that crowned in olden days the Giralda tower of Seville. According to the _Crónica General_ the glitter of these globes "de tan grande obra, é tan grandes, que no se podríen hacer otras tales," could be distinguished at a distance of eight leagues. On August 24th, 1395, when Seville was assailed by a frightful tempest accompanied by an earthquake, the metal rod which pierced and held the globes was snapped, and the globes themselves were dashed into a myriad pieces on the _azotea_, scores of yards below. It is probable, therefore, that the lamp of the third Mohammed of Granada is now composed of two lamps, and that the primitive arrangement of its parts was altered by the ignorant. Eight chains would formerly suspend it, in the following order of its tiers or stages, from the dome of the _mezquita_. First and uppermost would come the shade; then, next to this, the set of tapering spheres; and, last and lowest, the saucer or _platillo_, which has disappeared. Further, and as Koranic law prescribed, the lamp would hold two lights--one to be kindled on the saucer, and the other underneath the shade. [Illustration] Other articles of Spanish-Moorish ornamented bronze are thimbles, buckets, and the spherical perfume-burners which were used to roll upon the stone or marble pavement of a dwelling. Moorish thimbles, conical and uncouthly large, are not uncommonly met with at Granada. I have one, of which the above is an outline sketched to size. [Illustration: XXXIV LAMP OF MOHAMMED THE THIRD (_Madrid Museum_)] Sometimes these Moorish thimbles are inscribed in Cufic lettering with phrases such as--"(May) the blessing of God and every kind of happiness (be destined for the owner of this thimble)"; or else the maker's name--"The work of Saif"; or a single word--"Blessing." The thimbles from which I quote these legends are in the National Museum. The same collection includes a very finely wrought bronze bucket or _acetre_ (Latin _situlus_; Arabic _as-setl_, the utensil for drawing water for a bath). The outside is covered with delicate ornamentation, varied with inscriptions of no great interest, invoking Allah's blessing on the owner or employer of the bucket, which is thought by Amador to be of Granadino workmanship, and to date from about the middle of the fourteenth century. Not many specimens remain of early mediæval Spanish bronzes wrought by Christian hands. Riaño, who admits that "we can hardly trace any bronze of this period other than cathedral bells," mentions as probably proceeding from abroad the altar-fronts and statuettes, in gilt enamelled bronze, of Salamanca and elsewhere,[93] and gives a short description of the bell, about six inches high (Pl. xxxv.), known as the Abbot Samson's, now in Cordova Museum. This object bears an early date (875 A.D.), and is inscribed, "_Offert hoc munus Samson abbatis in domum Sancti Sebastiani martyris Christi, Era_ D.C.C.C.C.XIII." [93] See p. 50. It is curious that Riaño should make no mention of Spanish bronze processional crosses. In my chapter on gold, silver, and jewel work I mentioned those belonging to churches in the north of Spain. A bronze crucifix (Plate xxxvi.), believed to date from the beginning of the twelfth century, and proceeding from the monastery of Arbós, in the province of León, is now in the possession of Don Felix Granda Builla. It is undoubtedly of Spanish make, and probably was carried in processions. The style is pure Romanic, and the drawing of the ribs, extremities, and limbs is typically primitive. The _sudarium_ is secured by the belt or _parazonium_. The feet, unpierced, rest on a _supedaneum_. A bronze Renaissance parish cross of the sixteenth century, once hidden in a village of Asturias, was bought some thirty years ago by the museum of Madrid. The body of the cross is wood, covered on both sides with bronze plates wrought with figures of the Saviour as the holy infant and as full-grown man, and also with a figure of the Virgin. These figures were formerly painted, and traces of the colour yet remain. The cross was also silvered. The rest of the ornamentation consists of vases, flowers, and other subjects proper to Renaissance art. [Illustration: XXXV ABBOT SAMSON'S BELL (_9th Century. Museum of Cordova_)] A similar cross belongs to the parish church of San Julian de Recaré, in the province of Lugo, while San Pedro de Donas, near Santiago in Galicia, possesses a processional cross of bronze, pierced along the edges in a pattern of trefoils and _fleurs-de-lis_, but otherwise undecorated. Sometimes in Spanish bronze we find the handiwork of Moors and Christians picturesquely intermingled, as in the gates of Toledo cathedral (1337), and the Puertas del Perdón--forming the principal entrance to the Court of Orange Trees--of the mosque of Cordova, made of wood and covered with bronze plating decorated with irregular hexagons and Gothic and Arabic inscriptions. The knockers contain a scroll and flowers, and on the scroll the words, _Benedictus Dominus Deus Israel_. The gate of the same name of Seville cathedral (Pl. xxxvii.) is similar in workmanship, and is considered by Riaño to be a good example of Moresque bronze-work. While speaking of these doors, we should remember that Moorish craftsmen were employed to decorate or to repair the mosque of Cordova long after it had been converted to the worship of the Christians. When he was acting as viceroy in the year 1275, the Infante Don Fernando confirmed a letter of his father, King Alfonso, remitting tolls and taxes that would otherwise be leviable upon four Moors who worked in the cathedral. The Infante's confirmation, after recording that "one (of the four Moors) is dead and the other blind, in such wise that he can work no more," consents to the engagement of another two, Famet and Zahec by name, to fill their places, and who also are hereby exempted from the payment of all dues. Five years afterwards this privilege was reconfirmed by King Alfonso, and we are further told on this occasion that two of the Moorish four were _albañís_, or masons, and the others _añaiares_, or carpenters. As time progressed, the situation of the vanquished and humiliated Mussulmans grew more irksome. On October 25th, 1320, the Infante Don Sancho, who had usurped the throne, proclaimed, in ratification of a letter issued by his father, that all the Moorish carpenters, masons, sawyers, and other workmen and artificers of Cordova must work in the cathedral (presumably without a wage) for two days in every year.[94] [94] _Libro de las Tablas_, pp. 17, 18. See Madrazo, _Cordova_, pp. 273 _et seq._ [Illustration: XXXVI BRONZE CRUCIFIX (_12th Century_)] In the latter half of the sixteenth century, Bartolomé Morel, a Sevillano, produced some notable work in bronze.[95] Three objects by his hand--namely, the choir lectern and the tenebrarium of Seville cathedral, and the weathercock or _Giraldillo_ which crowns the celebrated tower of the same enormous temple--are specially distinguished for their vigour and effectiveness. [95] In documents which relate to him (see Gestoso's _Dictionary of Sevillian Artificers_) Morel is often called an _artillero_. His father, Juan Morel, was also a founder of cannon, and signed a contract in 1564 to cast two bronze pieces or _tiros_, with the royal arms on them. The least important of these objects is the choir lectern, for which Morel was paid six hundred ducats. The decoration is of statuettes and _rilievi_, well designed and better executed. The tenebrarium, aptly defined by Amador as "an article of church furniture intended to make a show of light,"[96] is more ambitious and original. "It was designed and made by Morel in the year 1562. Juan Giralte, a native of Flanders, and Juan Bautista Vazquez helped him to make the statues at the head of this candelabrum, and Pedro Delgado, another noted sculptor of Seville, worked at the foot of it. It is eight and a half yards high, and the triangular head is three yards across. Upon this upper part are fifteen statues, representing the Saviour, the apostles, and two other disciples or evangelists. In the vacant space of the triangle is a circle adorned with leaves, and in the centre of this circle is a bust of the Virgin in relief, and, lower down, the figure of a king. All of this part is of bronzed wood, and rests upon four small bronze columns. The remainder of the candelabrum is all of this material, and the small columns are supported by four caryatides, resting upon an order of noble design decorated with lions' heads, scrolls, pendants, and other ornamentation, the whole resting upon a graceful border enriched with harpies." [96] The efficacy of light in illuminating, or may be in dazzling and confounding, Christian worshippers is too self-evident to call for illustration. The symbolic meaning of church candles is, however, neatly indicated by the wise Alfonso in his compilation of the seven _Partidas_. "Because three virtues dwell in candles, namely, wick, wax, and flame, so do we understand that persons three dwell in the Trinity--Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; and we may understand three other things that dwell in Jesus Christ; to wit, body, soul, and godhead. Hence the twelve lighted candles manifested to each quarter of the church exhibit unto us the twelve apostles who preached the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ through all the earth, and manifesting truest wisdom illumined all the world." This description of the Seville tenebrarium is translated from Cean Bermudez, and is the one most commonly quoted, though Amador complains that it is not precise, and fails to dwell upon the symbolism of this mighty mass of bronze.[97] Thus, what Cean affirms to be the bust of a king is declared by Amador to be the head of a pope, probably Saint Gregory the Great. Metal, as Cean remarks, is not employed throughout. In order to preserve its balance, the upper part of the tenebrarium, containing the triangle which is said by some to symbolize "the divinity of Jesus as God the triple and the one," is merely wood bronzed over. Amador adds that the foot and stem are intended to represent "the people of Israel in their perfidy and ingratitude." He also says that the statue in the centre of the triangle is that of Faith, and that which crowns the entire tenebrarium, of the Virgin Mary. [97] The English rendering of Cean's description inserted by Riaño is inaccurate throughout. [Illustration: XXXVII THE _PUERTA DEL PERDÓN_ (_Seville Cathedral_)] Morel, like Brunelleschi, was an architect as well as a craftsman in bronze.[98] He completed this tenebrarium in 1562, and the chapter of the cathedral were so contented with it that instead of paying him the stipulated price, namely, eight hundred ducats, they added of their own accord a further two hundred and fifty. They also commissioned him to make a handsome case to keep it in; but the case has disappeared, and the naked tenebrarium now stands in the Sacristy of Chalices of the cathedral.[99] It is still used at the Matin service during the last three days of Holy Week, and still, in the _Oficio de Tinieblas_, the custom is observed of extinguishing the fifteen tapers, one by one, at the conclusion of each psalm. [98] As architect, he made a monument (which exists no longer) for the festivals of Holy Week at Seville. [99] In 1565 Juan del Pozo, an ironsmith, received one hundred _reales_ "on account of an engine which he made of iron for moving the tenebrarium of the cathedral, and other heavy things."--Gestoso, _Diccionario de Artífices Sevillanos_, vol. i. p. 313. The title of the object which surmounts the famed Giralda tower of Seville is properly "the Statue of Faith, the triumph of the Church" (Pl. xxxviii.); but it is known in common language as the Giraldillo (weathercock), which name has passed into the word Giralda, now applied to all the tower. The populace of Seville also call it, in the _argot_ of their cheerful town, the _muñeco_ or "doll," the "Victory," and the "Santa Juana." [Illustration: XXXVIII THE WEATHERCOCK OF THE GIRALDA TOWER (_16th Century. Seville Cathedral_)] This statue, made of hollow bronze, rotates upon an iron rod piercing the great bronze globe which lies immediately beneath the figure's feet. The globe is nearly six feet in diameter. The figure itself represents a Roman matron wearing a flowing tunic partly covering her legs and arms. Sandals are secured to her feet by straps. Upon her head she wears a Roman helmet crested by a triple plume. In her right hand she holds the semicircular Roman standard of the time of Constantine, which points the direction of the wind and causes the figure to revolve, excepting when the air is very faint, in which case it is caught by two diminutive banners springing from the large one.[100] So huge are the proportions of this metal lady that the medal on her breast contains a life-size head which represents an angel. [100] The statue, which looks so tiny from the street, measures nearly fourteen feet in height, and weighs more than two thousand two hundred pounds. The banner alone weighs close upon four hundred pounds. The figure was raised into its place in 1568, in which year I find that eighteen Moriscos were paid seventy-eight _reales_ between them all for doing the work of carriage (Gestoso, _Diccionario_). Gestoso also mentions a large bronze plate made by Morel for the pavement of the cathedral, and which has disappeared. It weighed 2269 pounds, or about the same as the weathercock of the Giralda, and Morel was paid for it the sum of 289,361 _maravedis_. The Spanish Moors were also well acquainted with the use of weathercocks. During the reign, in the eleventh century, of the Zirite kingling of Granada, Badis ben Habbus, a weathercock of strange design surmounted his _alcázar_. The historian Marmol wrote in the sixteenth century that it was still existing on a little tower, and consisted of a horseman in Moorish dress, with a long lance and his shield upon his arm, the whole of bronze, with an inscription on the shield which says: "Badis ben Habbus declares that in this attitude should the Andalusian be discovered (at his post)." Not many other objects in this substance can be instanced as the work of Spanish craftsmen of the sixteenth and succeeding centuries, or of the later-Gothic age immediately preceding. Among them are the pulpits of Santiago cathedral, made by Celma, an Aragonese, in 1563; the choir-screen (1574-1579) in the cathedral of Zaragoza, made by Juan Tomás Cela, also a native of Aragon; the gilt lecterns of Toledo cathedral, which are the work of Nicolás Vergara and his son; the Gothic lectern of the mosque of Cordova; the choir-lectern (1557) of Cuenca, made by Hernando de Arenas, who will also be remembered as having made the _reja_ of the same cathedral; and the octagonal gilt-bronze pulpits of Toledo, wrought by Francisco de Villalpando, as are the bas-reliefs (1564) upon the door of Lions, executed by the same craftsman from designs by Berruguete. These last-named pulpits are associated with a legend. Within this temple, once upon a time, rested the metal sepulchre of the great Don Alvaro de Luna, so constructed by his orders that upon the touching of a secret spring the statue of the Constable himself would rise into a kneeling posture throughout the celebration of the mass. His lifelong and relentless foe, the Infante Enrique of Aragon, tore up the tomb in 1449; and from its fragments, superstition says, were made these pulpits. Spanish Renaissance door-knockers in bronze are often curious. Fifteen large bronze rings adorned with garlands, heads of lions and of eagles, or with the pair of columns and the motto PLUS OULTRE of Charles the Fifth, were formerly upon the pilasters of the roofless, semi-ruined palace of that emperor at Granada. Removed elsewhere for greater safety,[101] they will now be found among the couple of dozen curiosities preserved in a chamber of the Moorish royal residence of the Alhambra. [101] Spaniards have a very scanty confidence in one another's honesty, as well as in the competence of their police. Often, at Madrid, and at this day, the porter of a house, as soon as it is dark, unscrews the knockers from the downstairs door, and guards them in his _conciergerie_ until the morning. Herewith I end my sketch of Spanish bronzes, without delaying to describe the tasteless _transparente_ behind the altar of Toledo cathedral, or the neo-classic, Frenchified productions of the reign of Charles the Third, such as the table-mountings of the Buen Retiro, or trifles from the silver factory of Antonio Martinez. At the Escorial, the shrine of the Sagrario de la Santa Forma and the altar-front of the pantheon of the kings of Spain, wrought by Fray Eugenio de la Cruz, Fray Juan de la Concepción, and Fray Marcos de Perpignan, are meritorious objects of their time. But the history of Spanish bronzes properly ends with the Renaissance. This material, possibly from its cost, has not at any time been greatly popular in Spain. Wood, plain or painted, was preferred to bronze in nearly all her statuary. Her mediæval and Renaissance _reja_ and _custodia_ makers can challenge all the world. So can her potters, armourers, leather-workers, and wood-carvers. But if we look for masterpieces in the art of shaping bronze, our eyes must turn to Italy, where, to astonish modern men, the powers of a Donatello or Ghiberti vibrate across all ages in the bas-reliefs of Saint Anthony at Padua, or in the gates of the Baptistery of Florence. ARMS Lovers of the old-time crafts approach a fertile field in Spanish arms; for truly with this warworn land the sword and spear, obstinately substituted for the plough, seem to have grown well-nigh into her regular implements of daily bread-winning; and from long before the age of written chronicle her soil was planted with innumerable weapons of her wrangling tribesmen. The history of these ancient Spanish tribes is both obscure and complicated. If Pliny, Strabo, Ptolemy, and other authors may be credited, the Celtic race invaded the Peninsula some seven centuries before the Christian era, crossing the river Ebro, founding settlements, and fusing with the natives into the composite people known henceforward as the Celtiberians. Thus strengthened, they extended over nearly all the land, and occupied, by a dominative or assimilative policy, the regions corresponding to the modern Andalusia, Portugal, Galicia, and the flat and central elevations of Castile. These Spanish tribes were ever quarrelling, and knew, in Strabo's words, "no entertainment save in horsemanship and in the exercise of arms." Quantities of their weapons have been found all over Spain, such as the heads of spears and arrows, or the blades of daggers, hatchets, knives, and swords. With these Iberian tribesmen, as with other peoples of the ancient world, the truly prehistoric age is that of stone; hence they advanced to bronze, and finally to iron. Beuter, the historian of Valencia, wrote in 1534 that near to the town of Cariñena, in Aragon, on digging out some earthen mounds the excavators came upon enormous bones, flint lance and arrow heads, and knives the size of half an ordinary sword; all these in company with "many skulls transfixed by the said stones." In the collection at Madrid, formed by Don Emilio Rotondo y Nicolau, these primitive Spanish weapons number several thousands; and many more are in the National Museum.[102] [102] According to Tubino, the existence of a prehistoric age of stone was not suspected in Spain until the year 1755, when Mann y Mendoza affirmed that a state of society had existed in the Peninsula before the age of metals. Since then the Celtic remains of Spain and Portugal have been investigated by many scientists, including Assas, Mitjana, Murguía, and Casiano de Prado, who discovered numbers of these weapons. Towards the middle of last century Casiano de Prado, aided by the Frenchmen Verneuil and Lartet, explored the neighbourhood of San Isidro on the Manzanares, and found large quantities of arms and implements of stone. Valuable service in the cause of prehistoric Spanish archæology has also been performed by Vilanova, Torrubia, and Machado. Discoveries of ancient Spanish arms of bronze occur less often and in smaller quantities than those of stone or iron. Bronze hatchets, principally of the straight-edged class (_à bords droites_) have been found in Galicia and certain other provinces. Villa-amil y Castro describes a bronze dagger of curious workmanship, which was found in Galicia in 1869. The point of the blade is missing. If this were included, the length of the weapon would be about six inches. Other examples, now in the Madrid Museum, include two swords, two daggers, and two arrowheads. The swords, sharp-pointed, narrow in the blade, and used by preference for thrusting, were found not far from Calatayud--the ancient town renowned, as Roman Bilbilis, for weapons of incomparable temper. The daggers were probably used for fighting hand to hand. At the time of the Roman invasion we find, of course, the Spaniards using iron weapons. I shall not tax the patience of my readers by enumerating all these weapons. Their names are many, and the comments and descriptions of old authors which refer to them are constantly at variance. Nevertheless, the sword most popular with the Celtiberians at the period of the Roman conquest seems to have been a broad, two-handed weapon with a point and double edge, and therefore serviceable both for cutting and for thrusting. Another of the Celtiberian swords, called the _falcata_, was of a sickle shape. It terminated in the kind of point we commonly associate with a scimitar, and which is found to-day in Spanish knives produced at Albacete. One of these swords, in good condition, is in the National Museum. It has a single edge, upon the concave side of the blade, and measures rather less than two feet. Other weapons in common use among the Celtiberians were an iron dart--the _sannion_ or _soliferrea_; the javelin; the lance--a weapon so immemorially old in Spain that patriotic writers trace its origin to the prehistoric town of Lancia in Asturias; and the _trudes_ or _bidente_, a crescent blade mounted upon a pole, mentioned by Strabo and Saint Isidore, and identical with the cruel weapon used until about a quarter of a century ago for houghing coward cattle in the bull-ring. [Illustration: XXXIX CREST OF JOUSTING HELMET (_Royal Armoury, Madrid_)] Thus, when the Romans entered Spain the natives of this country were experienced in the use of arms, and made their own from such materials as their own soil yielded. Their tempering was excellent, for Diodorus Siculus tells us that they had already discovered the secret of burying the metal in order that the moisture of the earth might eat away its baser portions. Besides the ancient Bilbilis in Aragon, a Spanish city famous for her faultless tempering of implements and weapons was Toledo. Martial,[103] the most illustrious son of Bilbilis, has sung the praises of the one; less celebrated poets, such as Gracio Falisco, of the other.[104] Even the armourers of Rome were found to be less skilful and successful swordsmiths than the Spaniards;[105] and so, before the second Punic War, the model or the models of the Spanish sword had been adopted by the Roman army. [103] "_Gerone qui ferrum gelat._" This river, the purity and coldness of whose waters lent, or so it is supposed, its virtues to the steel, rolls past the walls of Calatayud, and is called in later ages the Jalon. [104] "_Imo Toletano præcingant ilia cultro._" [105] "_Romani patriis gladiis depositis Hannibalico bello Hispaniensium assumpserunt ... sed ferri bonitatem et fabrica solertiam imitari non potuerunt._"--Suidas. Various of the native peoples of Iberia were distinguished by a special instrument or mode of fighting. Strabo says that the Iberians as a general rule employed two lances and a sword. Those of Lusitania were especially adroit in hurling darts. Each of their warriors kept a number of these darts contained within his shield. Upon the head they wore a helmet of a primitive pattern strapped beneath the chin. This helmet, called the _bacula_, protected all the wearer's face, and had a mitred shape, with three red feathers on the crest. Together with these arms, the Lusitanians used a copper-headed lance and the typical form of Celtiberian sword. More singular and celebrated in their mode of fighting were the Balearic islanders, who carried, through persistent exercise, the art of slinging stones and leaden plummets to the utmost limit of perfection. The beaches of these islands, we are told, abounded, then as now, in small, smooth pebbles, "weapons of Nature's own contrivance," rarely suited to the sling.[106] These slings were of three patterns, severally designed for near, far, and middling distances. The lead or stone projectile sometimes weighed a pound. Accordingly--so strenuous was their zeal to be unrivalled in the practice of this arm--even as little children the Baleares went without their dinner, till, with the formidable _funda_ in their hand, they struck the stick their parents planted for them in the soil. Pliny and Polybius, notwithstanding, state that the sling itself was not indigenous in this region, but imported from Ph[oe]nicia. However this may be, the islanders within a little time contributed to swell the power of the Roman legions. [106] _Descripciones de las Islas Pithiusas y Baleares._ Madrid, 1787. The Visigoths continued using many of the Roman or Ibero-Roman arms. Nevertheless, the solid armour of the Romans, such as their greaves and thigh-pieces and breastplates, was now replaced by primitive chain-mail resembling scales of fishes. According to Saint Isidore, Procopius, and other writers, the favourite weapons of the Spanish Visigoths were the sword or _spatha_, long, broad-bladed, with a double edge; the hatchet, the bow, the sling, the lance, the scythe, the mace, the _pilum_ or javelin (used extensively in Spain throughout the Middle Ages),[107] the _dolon_, a dagger which concealed itself within a wooden staff, and took the name of "treacherous" or "wily" from this circumstance; and the _conto_, a keenly pointed pike. We also find among the military engines of the Visigoths the _balista_, for hurling stones and darts of large size, and the _ariete_ or battering-ram, constructed from a gnarled and powerful tree-trunk braced with iron and suspended by a cable. Their defensive body-armour consisted of a coat of mail composed of bronze or iron scales, and called the _lóriga_ or _perpunte_. This was worn above the _thorachomachus_, a kind of tunic made of felt, in order to shield the body from the roughness of the mail. Upon their heads they wore an ample helmet. [107] A javelin made throughout of iron was found in Spain some years ago, completely doubled up, so as to admit of its being thrust into a burial urn. The javelin in question is now in the Madrid museum, and a similar weapon may be seen in the provincial museum of Granada. A fragment of stone carving preserved in Seville museum shows us two Visigothic Spanish warriors who wear a tunic and helmet of a simple pattern, and carry a two-edged sword and a large shield. García Llansó says, however, that the nobles of this people wore close-fitting mail tunics covered with steel scales, a kind of bronze bassinet, tight breeches, and high boots, and carried, besides the sword which was slung from their belts, a large, oval shield.[108] [108] _Historia General del Arte_: García Llansó; _Armas_, pp. 439, 440. [Illustration: XL SPANISH CROSSBOWMAN (_Late 15th Century. Royal Armoury, Madrid_)] From about the time of the Moorish invasion, the changes in the arms and armour of the Spaniards coincided in the main with those in other parts of western Europe. Nevertheless, as late as the eleventh century the Spanish sword retained the characteristic which had endeared it to the Roman legionaries--namely, a hilt of small dimensions and a broad and shortish blade. In course of time the blade grows narrower and begins to taper towards the point. The _quillons_ or crossbars (Spanish _arriaces_, from the Arabic _arrias_, a sword-hilt) were originally straight or semicircular, and ended in a knob (_manzana_, literally "apple"; Latin _pomum_, English _pommel_). Thus, in the _Poem of the Cid_ we find the verse:-- "_Las manzanas é los arriaces todos de oro son._" Throughout these early times the scabbard was of wood lined with leather or with velvet, and strengthened and adorned with leather bands; but when the owner was of high estate, it often bore enamels in the _cloisonné_ style; that is, with patches of the coloured, vitreous substance bordered and fastened in by metal wire. In Spain this style, undoubtedly of foreign origin, was superseded in the thirteenth century by _champlevé_ enamelling, in which the enamel lies within a hollowed ground. Spanish mediæval weapons down to the fourteenth century are specified in the _fuero_ of Cáceres and other documents contemporary with their use. Next always in importance to the sword we find the hatchet, lance, crossbow, and mace. Montaner's _Chronicle of the Kings of Aragon_ tells us that the sovereign, mace in hand, dealt one of his enemies "such a blow upon his iron hat that his brains came oozing out at his ears." Covarrubias mentions a dart-shaped missile called the _azcona_--a word which some authorities derive from the Arabic, and others from the Basque _gascona_, an arm employed by the natives of Gascony. The former derivation seems the likelier. The _fuero_ of Cáceres mentions the _tarágulo_, described by the Count of Clonard as a kind of dagger; and at the close of the thirteenth century appears in Spain the poniard, which was called among the Germans _Panzerbrecher_, or "breaker of cuirasses," and among the French the _misericorde_. The _fuero_ of Cáceres tells us, furthermore, what was the regular equipment of the Spanish foot and mounted soldier of that period. "Each horseman shall go forth to battle with a shield, a lance, a sword, and spurs; and he that carries not all these shall pay each time five sheep wherewith to feed the soldiers.... Each mounted man or pawn that trotteth not or runneth not to quit his town or village as he hears the call,--the first shall have his horse's tail cut off; the other shall have his beard clipped." Defensive arms included various kinds of coverings for the head; the _lóriga_ or covering for the body, the _cálcias_ or covering for the legs, and the shield. The _lóriga_ (Latin _lorica_) was the ordinary hauberk or shirt of mail, such as was worn all over military Europe, made of rings or scales sewed strongly on a linen or leather under-tunic consisting of a single piece, and reaching to the knee. The _Gran Conquista de Ultramar_ of Alfonso el Sabio also informs us that it was tied at certain openings known as _ventanas_ ("windows"), and that the collar of the tunic was called the _gorguera_. The resistance of the Spanish _lóriga_ to a pointed weapon does not seem to have been great, for the Chronicle of the Monk of Silos says that at the siege of Viseo the arrows of the Moorish bowmen went through the triple _lórigas_ of their foe. Towards the twelfth century the custom arose of wearing over the coat of mail a loose, sleeveless frock (the _Waffenrock_ of Germany), woven of linen or some other light material, painted or embroidered with the owner's arms. As the Count of Clonard observes, it is clearly this kind of frock that is referred to in the following passage of the _Leyes de Partida_: "For some (of the knights) placed upon the armour carried by themselves and by their horses,[109] signs that were different one from another, in order to be known thereby; while others placed them on their heads, or on their helmets." [109] The horse was also covered with a _lóriga_, on which, from about the twelfth century, were thrown the decorative trappings of _cendal_ or thin silk, painted or embroidered with the warrior's arms. [Illustration: XLI THE BATTLE OF LA HIGUERUELA (_Wall painting. Hall of Battles, El Escorial_)] The Normans used a form of hauberk with attached mail-stockings. In Spain we find in lieu of this leg-covering, the Roman _cálcia_ (Latin _caliga_), extending from the foot to just below the thigh, and subsequently called the _brafonera_.[110] This was, in fact, a separate mail-stocking, made of closely interlacing steel rings, and worn above the leather boots or _trebuqueras_. [110] "_Calzó las brafoneras que eran bien obradas Con sortijas de acero, sabet bien enlazadas; Asi eran presas é bien trabadas, Que semejaban calzas de las tiendas taiadas._" _Poem of the Cid._ The Spanish _escudo_ or shield was usually made of wood covered with leather, and painted with the arms or the distinguishing emblem of its lord. Sometimes it was made of parchment. Thus the Chronicle of the Cid informs us that this hero after death was equipped with "a painted parchment helm and with a shield in the same wise." Another form of Spanish shield, the _adarga_ (_atareca_, _atarca_; Arabic _ad-darka_, to hold upon the arm), of which I shall subsequently notice specimens in the Royal Armoury, was commonly in the shape of a rough oval or of a heart, and made of various folds of leather sewn and glued together. The Chronicle of Alfonso the Eleventh speaks of a certain famine which broke out among the Spanish troops, and caused them such privation that "they chewed the leather of their shields."[111] [111] Count of Clonard, _op. cit._ The battle headgear of this people passed through many changes. "The helmet of the eighth century," says the Count of Clonard, "was the same which had been used by the Cantabrians and Vascones before the general peace proclaimed by Augustus Cæsar. Helmets of this design are engraved upon the medals (reproduced by Florez) of the imperial legate Publius Carisius. They covered the entire head and face, leaving only two holes for the eyes, as we see upon the carved stone fragments in relief at the door of the church of San Pedro de Villanueva, representing the struggle of King Froila with a bear." Another form of helmet which the Spaniards began to use about this time was the _almofar_ (Arabic _al-mejfar_), made of iron scales. It covered all the head, with the exception of the eyes, nose, and mouth, and corresponds to the _camail_ of the Normans. Beneath it was worn the linen _cofia_, a kind of bag or cap in which the warrior gathered up his hair. After about another century a round or conical iron helmet (_capacete_), fitted with cheek-pieces, was superposed on the _almofar_ and fastened round the chin with straps. The _capacete_ of a noble was often adorned with precious stones and coronets of pure gold, while a spike projecting from the top was tipped with a large carbuncle, in order to catch and to reflect the flashing sunbeams. The substitution for this spike of multiform and multicolor figures or devices dates from a later age. The Chronicle of Alfonso the Eleventh describes as something altogether novel and surprising, the crests upon the helmets of the foreign knights who flocked, in 1343, to Algeciras to aid the cause of Christianity against the Moor. "All of them," says this narrative, "placed their helmets at the door of their dwellings, supporting them on stout and lofty staves; and the figures on the helmets were of many kinds. On some was the figure of a lion; on others that of a wolf, or ass's head, or ox, or dog, or divers other beasts; while others bore the likeness of the heads of men; faces, beards, and all. Others, too, had wings as those of eagles or of crows; and so, between these various kinds there were in all as many as six hundred helmets." This brings us to the celebrated helmet or _cimera_ (Plate xxxix.), now in the Royal Armoury of Madrid, believed till recently to have belonged to Jayme the First, conqueror of Palma and Valencia, and the greatest, both in spirit and in stature, of the old-time kings of Aragon. Such part of this interesting helmet as is left consists of two pieces, one of them resting loosely on the other. Baron de las Cuatro Torres infers, from a detail which will presently be noted, that the lower of these two pieces is not original; and his opinion was shared by the Count of Valencia de Don Juan, who, notwithstanding, thought the spurious part to be coeval with the actual crest. The upper part consists of a fragment of a helm, made, like some flimsy theatre property, of linen, card, and parchment, and surmounted with the figure of the mythical monster known in the Lemosin language as the _drac-pennat_, or winged dragon, which formed, conjointly with the royal crown, the emblem or device of all the Aragonese sovereigns from Pedro the Fourth to Ferdinand the Second. [Illustration: XLII PARADE HARNESS OF PHILIP THE THIRD (_Royal Armoury, Madrid_)] There is, however, no reason to doubt the helmet's authenticity. It is known to have remained for centuries at Palma, in the Balearics, where it was worn upon the day of Saint Sylvester in each year, by a person who walked in the procession of the _Standart_ to celebrate the capture of the city by Don Jayme. This would explain the lower piece contrived and added to the crest itself, in order to adjust the incomplete and upper portion to the subsequent wearer's head. The helmet as originally made was meant for tourneying only, and is therefore fashioned, not of metal, but of the frail theatrical materials I have stated. Copper and wood, says Viollet-le-Duc, were also used in making these objects. The earliest wearer of the helm cannot have been Don Jayme. Baron de las Cuatro Torres remarks that on an Aragonese coin of the reign of Pedro the Fourth, the monarch is wearing on his head something which looks identical with this _cimera_.[112] Demay has further told us that the vogue of such _cimeras_, whose principal purpose was to distinguish seigniories, lasted from 1289 till the introduction of movable visors at the end of the fourteenth or the beginning of the fifteenth century. The present helmet, therefore, probably belonged to Don Pedro the Fourth of Aragon ("the Ceremonious"), and was made at some time in his reign--that is, between 1335 and 1387. A document has been discovered in which this monarch's son, Don Martin of Aragon, commands that year by year his own helmet, "_nostram emprissiam sive cimbram_," together with the banner of Jayme the Conqueror, is to be publicly exhibited in commemoration of the capture of Majorca. Therefore we may conclude from these important facts that here is the crest of a tourneying helmet which belonged either to Don Pedro the Fourth of Aragon, or else to either of, or possibly both, his sons, Don Juan and Don Martin. [112] _Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Excursiones_; Nos. 16 and 17. The changes which occur in Spanish arms and armour between the fourteenth and the sixteenth centuries keep pace, upon the whole, with those in other parts of Europe. It is, however, opportune to notice how the Spanish armies of this time were organized. Their regular cavalry consisted of: (1) the force directly mustered by the king and under his immediate leadership; (2) the mounted burghers who defrayed the whole or part of their expenses, being in certain instances assisted by a stipend which had been created by municipal and local _fueros_; (3) the knights belonging to the military orders; and (4) the barons, together with the men these last were called upon, obedient to the summons of the royal _mandadero_ (messenger), to mount, equip, provision, and bring to war with them. Such was the heavy cavalry of later mediæval Spain. A lighter class, said by the Count of Clonard to have been recruited from the southern regions of the land, was known as _alfaraces_, _almogávares_, or _omes de la gineta_. These latter lived in frugal fashion. Water was their only drink; bread and the roots of plants their only food. Their clothing, too, was of the slightest, consisting merely of a shirt, high boots, and a kind of net upon the head. They wore no armour, and carried as their only weapons an _azagaya_ and a lance. Their principal value was in skirmishing. The infantry were also of two kinds. The first, collective or stipendiary, was levied by the towns and cities, and from them received its maintenance. The second was the _almogávares_, who served for scouting, like their mounted comrades of the same denomination. The stipendiary or regular troops proceeded chiefly from the northern provinces--Alava, Guipúzcoa, the Asturias, and the mountains of León, and carried commonly the lance, sword, sling, crossbow, and the _azagaya_--this last a dart-shaped missile borrowed from the Berber tribesmen,--the ancient Moorish _azgaya_, the modern _assagai_ or _assegai_ of Zululand.[113] [113] One of these weapons may be seen in the Royal Armoury (No. I. 95). It is made of iron covered with leather, and has a laurel-shaped blade with sharpened edges. The other end consists of two projecting pieces of the metal, shaped to resemble the plumes of an arrow. The length of this arm is 5 feet 8 inches. In a country which was plunged in ruinous and almost unremitting internecine strife; which was (and is) inherently averse to commerce or to agriculture; and where the bulk of all the national wealth was either locked away in churches and in convents, or in the coffers of great nobles who were frequently as wealthy as, or even wealthier than, the Crown, the armour of the common mediæval Spanish soldier consisted of the plain and necessary parts and nothing more. The aristocracy, upon the other hand, often adorned their battle-harness with the finest gold and silver work, and studded it with precious stones. Even the esquires would sometimes imitate their masters in this costly mode. "We command," said Juan the First in one of his pragmatics dating from the end of the fourteenth century, "that no shield-bearer shall carry cloth of gold or any manner of gold ornament upon his trappings, scarf, or saddle; or on his badge or arms, excepting only on the edges of his bassinet and his cuisses, together with the bit and poitral of his horse, which may be gilded." [Illustration: XLIII MOORISH CROSSBOW AND STIRRUP (_Museum of Granada_)] It is also evident from Royal Letters of this time, that the kings of Spain depended very largely for the flower of their forces on the private fortune or resources of the Spanish noblemen or even commoners; nor did they ever hesitate to turn these means of other people to their own particular good. The Ordinance of Juan the First, dated Segovia, 1390, commands that, "Every man who possesses 20,000 _maravedis_ and upward shall have his proper set of harness, habergeons and scale-pieces, and lappet-piece, cuisses and vantbrasses, bassinet, camail, and war-cap[114] with its gorget; or else a helmet, together with sword and dagger, glaive and battle-axe. And whoso possesses 3000 _maravedis_ and upward shall have his lance and javelin and shield, his lappet-piece and coat of mail, and iron bassinet without a camail, and a _capellina_, together with his sword, _estoque_, and knife. And whoso has between 2000 and 3000 _maravedis_ shall have his lance and sword or _estoque_ and knife, or a bassinet or _capellina_, together with a shield. And whoso has from 600 to 2000 _maravedis_ shall have a crossbow with its nut and cord and stirrup, quiver and strap, and three dozen shafts. And whoso has from 400 to 600 _maravedis_ shall have a lance, a javelin, and a shield. And whoso has 400 _maravedis_ shall have a javelin and a lance." [114] _Capellina_. The Count of Clonard says that this was in the shape of half a lemon, and fitted with a visor with a cutting edge. The wealthier classes responded lavishly to this command. Describing the battle of Olmedo and the forces of Don Alvaro de Luna sent against the Navarrese, the chronicle of the Constable declares that among his entire host could hardly have been found a single cavalier whose horse was not covered with trappings, and its neck with mail. "For some there were that carried divers figures painted on the aforesaid trappings, and others that bore upon their helmets jewels that were a token from their mistresses. And others carried gold or silver bells suspended from their horses' necks by thick chains; or plates upon their helmets studded with precious stones, or small targes richly garnished with strange figures and devices. Nor was there less variety in the crests upon their helmets; for some bore likenesses of savage beasts, and others plumes of various colours; while others carried but a plume or two upon their helmet crest, like unto those upon the forehead of their horses." The fifteenth century is often called in Spain her golden age of arms--not in the sense that she invented anything new relating to this craft, but that her warriors were more fully and more frequently equipped with what had been imported from elsewhere. As in the case of crested helmets, foreign initiative brought about the substitution of plate or German armour--developed from the chain armour and the coat of mail--for the earlier sets of disconnected pieces. Possibly, as a chronicle which describes the Englishmen and Gascons who were present at the siege of Lerma in 1334 would seem to indicate, it was in consequence of this direct association with the foreigner that the older form of Spanish harness yielded to the new. However this may be, plate armour certainly appeared in Spain at some time in the fourteenth century, and grew in vogue throughout the fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries. Suits of armour worn by Spanish pikemen and crossbowmen of this period may be profitably studied in the Royal Armoury (Plate xl.); and the same harness is reproduced in the choir-stalls of Toledo cathedral, carved by Maestre Rodrigo in 1495. It is also useful to consult the prolix description of the _Passo Honroso_ (1433) of Suero de Quiñones, held at the bridge of Orbigo, as well as the painting of the battle of La Higueruela (Plate xli.) in the Sala de las Batallas of the Escorial. We find from these authoritative sources that Spanish harness then consisted of the war-hat or _capacete_, with its _barbote_ or piece to cover the mouth and cheeks, and fringe of mail (_mantillos_) to protect the neck: the _coracina_ or korazin of tinned steel plates;[115] the coat of mail; armlets and gauntlets; leg-pieces with closed greaves; and steel-pointed mail shoes. [115] The following armourers' marks are stamped on various korazins in the Royal Armoury, made in Aragon and dating from the fifteenth century:-- [Illustration] The Spanish man-at-arms of the sixteenth century is well described by Martin de Eguiluz, in his book, _Milicia, Discursos, y Regla Militar_. "The man is mounted and bears a lance. His head is covered with a visored helmet. He wears a double breastplate, of which the outer piece is called _volante_. His thighs are guarded by cuisses, his legs by greaves, and his feet by shoes of mail or iron. His horse's face, neck, breast, and haunches are covered with iron or with doubled leather. These coverings are called _bardas_, and the horses protected by them _bardados_, of which each man-at-arms is called upon to possess two." [Illustration: XLIV MOORISH SWORD (_Casa de los Tiros, Granada_)] These plainer sets of war-harness for horses were made in Spain. The costlier bards, whether for war or tournament, were made in Italy and Germany, and often match the outfit of the rider in the splendour and luxuriance of their decoration. Striking examples of these bards are in the Royal Armoury, including one (Plate xlii.) which formerly belonged to Philip the Third. Probably it is the same referred to in the manuscript account of Valladolid from which I have already quoted curious notices of other crafts. Speaking of the Duke of Lerma in 1605, this narrative says; "He rode a beautiful horse with richly decorated arms and gold-embroidered bard, fringed, and with medallions in relief. The trappings, reaching to the ground, were of black velvet covered with silver plates as large as dinner-plates, and others of a smaller size that represented arms and war-trophies, all of them gilt, and studded with precious stones. I heard say that this armour which the Duke now wore, had once belonged to the Emperor, and is now the King's."[116] [116] My theory that this harness and the one in the Royal Armoury are the same is strengthened by the official inventory, which specifies "a band of gold and silver, striped, and with devices in relief, studded with lapis lazuli, and yellow gems and luminous crystals." The Count of Valencia de Don Juan says that this fine outfit, except the portions which are represented in the plate, was mutilated and dispersed in later years, and that he has discovered fragments in the museums of Paris and Vienna, and in the collection of Baron Nathaniel de Rothschild. The crossbow was an arm of great importance from about the eleventh century until the seventeenth, and Spain, throughout the latter of these centuries, was celebrated for their manufacture. Roquetas, a Catalan, "master-maker of crossbows," constructed them of steel, so skilfully and finely that they could be carried concealed inside the sleeve of a coat, and discharged without awaking the suspicion of the victim. A letter of René of Anjou, quoted by the Count of Valencia de Don Juan, also refers to the skill of the Catalans in making crossbows, and mentions one of these weapons constructed by "Saracen," of Barcelona, "who refuses to teach his craft to Christians." The letter further states that this arm was of a curious shape, and that, "despite its small dimensions, it carries to a greater distance than any other I have yet possessed." A handsome Moorish crossbow, inlaid with bronze (Plate xliii.), exists in the provincial museum of Granada. The Royal Armoury has no example of the rare form of crossbow fitted with wheeled gear, but all the commoner kinds employed for hunting or for war are represented here, including those with the _armatoste_ or goat's-foot lever, stirruped crossbows, and those which have the _torno_ or windlass (French _cranequin_). Demmin appends the following note to an illustration in his handbook of a crossbow with a goat's-foot lever fixed to the stock:--"A similar weapon in ironwood, sixteenth century, belonged to Ferdinand the First, proved by the inscription on the bow: DOM FERNANDO REI DE ROMANO, followed by four Golden Fleeces. It bears the name of the Spanish armourer Juan Deneinas. This valuable crossbow once belonged to M. Spengel, at Munich, but it is at present in the collection of the Count of Nieuwerkerke." There is also in the Royal Armoury a crossbow of the scarcer kind known in Spanish as _ballestas de palo_, in which the gaffle is not of steel, but put together from slips of springy woods, including yew. The wings are tipped with horn, and traces of heraldic and Renaissance decoration, painted on parchment, yet remain upon the weapon. Other portions are inlaid. Except for the erasure of the painting, this arm is splendidly preserved, and still retains its double cord, nut, and pins, together with the separate lever. Another interesting crossbow in this armoury belonged to Charles the Fifth, who used it for the chase. It has a _verja_ or yard of steel engraved with the letter C four times repeated and surmounted by a crown, and bears the inscription, PRO · IMPERATORE · SEMPER · AVGVSTO · PLVS · VLTRA ·, together with · IV DE LA FVETE ·, for Juan de la Fuente, the name of a celebrated maker of these parts of a crossbow. The shaft (_tablero_), ornamented in bone and iron, is from the hand of another master, Juan Hernandez, whose signature is IO: HRZ. The Count of Valencia de Don Juan supposed that this was the one crossbow which Charles took with him to the rustic solitude of Yuste, and which is mentioned in a document at Simancas as "a crossbow with its gear and gaffles (it is in His Majesty's possession, but he has not paid for it)." [Illustration: XLV SWORD OF BOABDIL EL CHICO (_Museum of Artillery, Madrid_)] Hitherto I have traced the war-equipment of the Spanish Christians only. In the early period of Mohammedan rule, the conquerors used a simple dress for war, consisting of the _capacete_ or _almofar_ for the head, secured by a chain beneath the chin and covered by a piece of cloth called _schasch_, hanging to just below the shoulders; a wide sleeveless tunic; a shirt of mail; tight breeches, and leather shoes. Their weapons were the lance and sword. The foot-soldiery wore the _djobba_, a tight-sleeved tunic of white wool, bound to the body by a scarf, and leather shoes, and carried as their arms a _capacete_ of beaten iron, without a crest or cheek-pieces; a large round shield with its projecting umbo; and either a lance, or a double-edged and double-handed sword. Such are the details represented in the _Codex of the Apocalypse_, preserved in the cathedral of Gerona. As time progressed, the weapons and defensive armour of these Spanish Moors grew more luxurious and ornate, being often decorated with enamels, precious stones, or inlaid metals such as silver, gold, and bronze. Prominent centres of this industry were Murcia, Zaragoza, and Toledo, which are even said to have surpassed Damascus. Andalusia, too, was celebrated for her gold-inlaid cuirasses and coats of mail; while, according to El Idrisi, the town of Jativa enjoyed a widespread fame for every kind of decorative armour.[117] [117] _Historia General del Arte_: García Llansó; _Armas_; pp. 440, 441. The military outfit of the Spanish Moors was, therefore, much the same as that of Christian Spain. Toledo under Muslim rule continued to be famous for her swords. Moorish Seville, Ronda, and Valencia were also favourably known for weapons, household knives, and scissors. Cutlery in the Moorish style is still produced in certain parts of eastern Spain, and in his _History of the Mohammedan Dynasties_ of this country, Gayangos tells us of a knife which bore upon one side of the blade the inscription in Arabic characters, "_With the help of God I will inflict death upon thy adversary_," and upon the other side, in Castilian, the words, "_Knife-factory of Antonio Gonzalez. Albacete, 1705._" The primitive Spanish-Moorish sword was an arm of moderate breadth used both for cutting and for thrusting. As time went on, this people gradually adopted swords of Spanish make or pattern, such as the ponderous _brandimartes_ and _montantes_ made for wielding with both hands. The Granadino writer Aben Said complains that the adoption of the arms, and even of the costume of the Spanish Christians, was prevalent at Granada in the thirteenth century. "Sultans and soldiers alike," he said, "dress in the manner of the Christians, even to their arms and armour, crimson cloaks, standards, and saddlery. They wield in battle a shield and a long lance,[118] which serves them to attack with; nor do they seem to care for Arab bows or maces, but prefer to use the Frankish ones." [118] This weapon can have been no other than the typical Iberian lance. Nevertheless, the warriors of Granada carried several weapons which were not of Christian origin. The tribe of the Beni-Merines brought across from Africa a kind of sword called often in the Christian chronicles the _espada gineta_, used principally, as we gather from its name, by those addicted to the Moorish mode of horsemanship, or riding with short stirrups. The use of it extended later to the Christian Spaniards, and it is said to have contributed in later times to the victory of the Spanish army at Pavia. Other swords in use among the Granadinos were the _alfange_, the _chifarra_, the _chifarote_, and the _nammexi_. The last of these is described in an old dictionary of the Valencian and Castilian languages as a kind of scimitar, although Quatremère and Fleischer believe it to have been a dagger. [Illustration: XLVI DAGGER OF BOABDIL EL CHICO (_Museum of Artillery, Madrid_)] Another author who describes the arms and armour of the Granadinos is Al-Jattib, who says in his _Splendour of the New Moon_; "There are in Granada two kinds of soldiery--those of Al-Andalus and those of Africa. Their leader is a prince of royal blood, or some exalted personage at court. Formerly they used the Christian arms; that is, ample coats of mail, heavy shields, thick iron helmets, lances with broad points, and insecure saddles.... Now they have discarded that equipment, and are beginning to use short cuirasses, light helmets, Arab saddles, leather shields, and thin lances." Of the African troops the same historian adds; "Their weapons for attacking are spears, either short or long, which they propel by pressing with the finger. These arms they call _marasas_; but for daily exercise they use the European bow." Descriptions of the Spanish-Moorish swords inserted in the chronicles and poems of the Middle Ages, together with the few examples that have been preserved until our time, enable us to form an accurate idea of the shape and decoration of these weapons generally. Those of the sultans and the Muslim aristocracy were, as a rule, profusely ornamented, either with precious stones or with enamels, or else with delicate and lavish damascening, or with the characteristic Oriental _ataujía_-work of gold and silver inlay. Inscriptions, too, were freely used upon the hilt or scabbard. Thus we are told that the great Almanzor kept for daily use a sword which bore the legend; "_Strive in warfare till ye win great victories. Battle with the infidels till ye win them over to Islam_"; and similar inscriptions may be quoted in great number. But four or five of these magnificent arms have proved superior to the ravages of time, and naturally tell us more than any weapons whose renown survives in written records merely. Among such extant Spanish-Moorish swords are two attributed respectively to Aliatar and Abindarraez; two others which are known to have belonged to the last ill-fated monarch of the Moors of Spain, Boabdil el Chico; and another, considered to have also been Boabdil's property, now in possession of the Marquises of Campotejar, owners of the Generalife and of the Casa de los Tiros at Granada. The "sword of Aliatar," preserved in the Museum of Artillery at Madrid, is said to have been wrested from the clenched hand of that warrior, father-in-law of Boabdil and governor of Loja, as his corpse was swept away down stream after the rout of the Moorish expedition at Lucena. This arm is richly damascened as well as decorated with the characteristic _ataujía_. The centre of the hilt is made of ivory, and the pommel and crossbars--which latter terminate in elephants' heads with slightly upturned trunks--of damascened and inlaid iron, ornamented here and there with _ataujía_. Part of the blade--probably about an eighth--is broken off. The sheath has disappeared. An idle superstition has attributed the so-called "sword of Abindarraez" to the hero of the well-known sixteenth-century romance entitled _The Abencerraje and the Beautiful Jarifa._ This weapon, which for many years was in possession of the Narvaez family, belongs at present to the Marquis of La Vega de Armijo. The decoration is not particularly rich, and part of it is worn away; but the narrow blade is still engraved with figures or portraits from the story which has given the sword its name. The sword (Pl. xliv.) belonging to the Marquises of Campotejar, and which is preserved in the Casa de los Tiros at Granada, bears some resemblance to the "sword of Aliatar," and has about the same dimensions. Although it is commonly believed that Boabdil was the original owner of this sword, Gómez Moreno considers that more probably it belonged to one of the Moorish princes of Almería. The handle and crossbars, as well as the shape of the sheath, are silver-gilt, covered with minute arabesque ornamentation forming leaves and stems, and further decorated with enamel. The sheath is of Morocco leather worked with silver thread. The crossbars, curving abruptly down,[119] terminate in elephants' trunks boldly upturned towards the pommel. The blade is stamped with a Toledo mark consisting of Castilian letters and a pomegranate. [119] In the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, this characteristically eastern downward curve of the crossbars grew to be popular even with the Christian Spaniards, as we observe from the swords of Ferdinand himself, preserved in the Royal Armoury at Madrid, and the Chapel Royal of the cathedral of Granada. But the most important, interesting, and beautiful specimens of Spanish-Moorish arms preserved to-day are those which were captured from Boabdil at the battle of Lucena (1482), when the monarch was made prisoner by the young Alcaide de los Donceles, Don Diego Fernandez de Cordova. A manuscript _History of the House of Cordova_, quoted by Eguilaz Yanguas,[120] says that upon the day in question, irretrievably disastrous to the Moorish cause in Spain, Boabdil carried "a short, silver-handled sword, a damascened dagger, and a lance and buckler of great strength" (Plates xlv. and xlvi.). These arms, together with another and a larger sword (_montante_ or _estoque real_) for wielding with both hands, and certain articles of Boabdil's clothing, continued in the captor's family for centuries, and were, some years ago, presented by the Marquises of Villaseca, his direct descendants, to the National Museum of Artillery. [120] _Las Pinturas de la Alhambra_, p. 15. [Illustration: XLVII MOORISH SWORD (_Hilt and upper part of sheath_)] The smaller or _gineta_ sword[121] is handsomer and more important than the large _estoque_. The crossbars, as we find so often in weapons of this character and date, are bent abruptly down, and then curve up in a design of dragons' heads--the well-known emblem of the Nasrite sultans of Granada. Part of the handle is of solid gold adorned with crimson, white, and blue enamel distributed about the top and bottom of the hilt, the pommel, and the _arriaces_ or crossbars. The centre of the hilt consists of ivory, richly carved. On either side of it are two octagonal intersecting figures, bearing upon one side, in semi-Cufic characters, the words, "_Achieve thy aim_," and on the other, "_in preserving his_ (_i.e._ the owner's) _life_." Round the upper border of the ivory is carved the sentence; "_In the name of God; the power belongs to Him, and there is no Divinity but He. Happiness proceeds from God alone_"; and round the lower border, "_The marvellous belongs to God. Assuredly at the outset the ignorant do not know their God; seeing that error is their custom._" [121] The Count of Valencia de Don Juan states that seven Hispano-Moresque _gineta_ swords are known to exist to-day: the one vwhich is here described, and those belonging to the Marquises of Viana and Pallavicino, Baron de Sangarrén, the Duke of Dino, Señor Sánchez Toscano, the archæological museum at Madrid, the museum of Cassel in Germany, and the national library at Paris, A _gineta_ sword in the Madrid Armoury popularly attributed to Boabdil can never have belonged to him. The hilt is modern, and the blade proceeds from Barbary. Other inscriptions of a sacred character, combined with delicate _ataujía_-work, are on the pommel and the upper portion of the hilt; but it has been remarked that, although the entire decoration is amazingly elaborate and rich, these inscriptions nowhere indicate that the weapon belonged to a personage of royal blood. The sheath of this most sumptuous arm is also lavishly adorned with silver and enamel on a purple leather ground. The blade is of a later date than either sheath or hilt, and bears the letter S, believed to be the mark of Alonso Sahagun the elder, of Toledo. The total length of this weapon is thirty-nine inches; and Gayangos declares that it was worn suspended by a belt between the shoulders.[122] [122] A number of Moorish swords are mentioned in the inventory, compiled in 1560, of the Dukes of Alburquerque. One is particularly interesting. It is described as "a Moorish _gineta_ sword which belongs to the Count of Monteagudo, and is pawned for six thousand _maravedis_. The sheath is of bay leather, worked in gold thread. The chape and fittings are of silver, decorated with green, blue, purple, and white enamel. There are two serpents' heads upon the fitting, together with the figure of a monster worked in gold thread on a little plate, and two large scarlet tassels: the little plate has three ends of the same enamel and a silver-gilt buckle." A note at the margin adds; "The chape is wanting, and is owed us by the Marquis of Comares, who lost it at the cane-play at Madrid." The two serpents' heads formed part of the arms of the Alahmar sultans of Granada; so that from this and from the richness of this weapon we may infer that it had once belonged to Mussulman royalty. The same inventory describes "a Moorish scimitar with gilded hilt; the cross and pommel, and a great part of the scimitar itself, being of gilded _ataujía_ work. The sheath is green inside, and black and gilt upon the face; and hanging from the hilt is a gold and purple cord with a button and a black tassel." The large _montante_ which belonged to the same ill-fated monarch has a cylindrical hilt, narrower in the centre of the handle than at either end. This hilt is made of steel inlaid with _lacería_ or network ornament in ivory. In a small shield within the decoration of the pommel, appear the words "_To God_"; and in the centre of the handle, the familiar motto of the Nasrite sultans of Granada; "_The only Conqueror is God._" Part of the blade is broken off. That which is left is broad and straight, with two grooves (one of which extends about three inches only) on each side, and bears an oriental mark consisting of five half-moons. The sheath is of brown Morocco decorated with a small gilt pattern forming shells and flowers. The mouth and chape are silver-gilt. In beautiful and skilful craftsmanship Boabdil's dagger or _gumía_ matches with his swords. The handle is of steel inlaid in ivory with floral patterns, and terminates in a large sphere, similarly decorated. The blade has a single edge, and is exquisitely damascened in gold designs which cover more than half of all its surface. Along one side we read the inscription; "_Health, permanent glory, lasting felicity, permanent glory, lasting felicity, and lasting and permanent glory belong to God_"; and on the other side, "_It was made by Reduan._" The sheath of this little arm is made of crimson velvet richly embroidered with gold thread, and hanging from it is a large tassel of gold cord and crimson silk. The chape and mouth are silver-gilt, profusely decorated, and the latter of these pieces is embellished with circular devices of a lightish green enamel, in addition to the chasing. The small, plain knife, also preserved among the spoil, was carried in this sheath, together with the dagger.[123] [123] To-day the craft of finely decorating arms is not forgotten in Morocco. "A silversmith advanced to show a half-completed silver-sheathed and hafted dagger, engraved with pious sentences, as, "God is our sufficiency and our best bulwark here on earth," and running in and out between the texts a pattern of a rope with one of the strands left out, which pattern also ran round the cornice of the room we sat in, and round the door, as it runs round the doors in the Alhambra and the Alcazar, and in thousands of houses built by the Moors, and standing still, in Spain. The dagger and the sheath were handed to me for my inspection, and on my saying that they were beautifully worked, the Caid said keep them, but I declined, not having anything of equal value to give in return."--Cunninghame Graham; _Mogreb-El-Acksa_, p. 234. [Illustration: XLVIII WAR HARNESS OF CHARLES THE FIFTH (_Royal Armoury, Madrid_)] The Royal Armoury at Madrid is often thought by foreigners[124] to contain a representative collection of the arms, offensive and defensive, used by the Spanish people through all their mediæval and post-mediæval history. This is not so. Although it is the choicest and the richest gallery in Europe, the Armería Real was formed almost entirely from the _cámaras de armas_ or private armouries of Charles the Fifth and of his son, and is, as Mélida describes it, "a splendid gallery of royal arms," dating, with very few exceptions, from the sixteenth century. [124] _E.g._, by Townsend, who wrote of it, with ill-informed enthusiasm, as "an epitome of Spanish history." Swinburne's notice of the same armoury is also curious: "At the bottom of the palace-yard is an old building, called the Armeria, containing a curious assortment of antique arms and weapons, kept in a manner that would have made poor Cornelius Scriblerus swoon at every step; no notable housemaid in England has her fire-grates half so bright as these coats of mail; they show those of all the heroes that dignify the annals of Spain; those of Saint Ferdinand, Ferdinand the Catholic, his wife Isabella, Charles the Fifth, the great Captain Gonsalo, the king of Granada, and many others. Some suits are embossed with great nicety. The temper of the sword blades is quite wonderful, for you may lap them round your waist like a girdle. The art of tempering steel in Toledo was lost about seventy years ago, and the project of reviving and encouraging it is one of the favourite schemes of Charles the Third, who has erected proper works for it on the banks of the Tagus." The greater part of its contents were made within a limited interval, as well as not produced in Spain. Such are the glittering and gorgeous harnesses constructed for the actual use of Charles the Fifth by celebrated German and Italian armourers, ponderous suits for jousting or parade, or lighter suits for combat in the field, whether on foot or horseback (Plate xlviii.), fashioned, chiselled, and inlaid by craftsmen such as the Negroli and Piccini of Milan, Bartolommeo Campi of Pesaro, or Kollman of Augsburg, bombastically called, by a Spanish poet in the mode of Gongora, "the direct descendant of Vulcanus." This German and Italian armour, with its multitude of accessorial pieces,[125] falls outside the province of a book on Spanish arts and crafts. Nevertheless, I reproduce, as being too little known outside Madrid, the sumptuous jousting harness (Plate xlix.), of Charles the Fifth, made for the emperor when he was a lad of only eighteen years by Kollman Helmschmied of Augsburg.[126] Laurent Vital, describing the royal jousts at Valladolid in 1518, relates that "après marchait le Roy bien gorgiasement monté et armé d'un fin harnais d'Alemaigne, plus reluisant que d'argent brunti." This is the very harness told of by the chronicler. The helmet turns the scale at forty pounds; the entire suit at two hundred and fifty-three pounds; and the length of the lance exceeds eleven feet. [125] Throughout this time, the full equipment of the knight consisted of no less than four complete suits, for tournament or battle, or for foot or mounted fighting, together with their lances, swords, and targes. The Alburquerque inventory describes in detail a complete set ("all of it kept in a box") of war and tourneying harness belonging to the duke. Although the warriors of that day were short of stature, their muscular strength is undeniable, for one of their lances has to be lifted nowadays by several men. When the author of _Mogreb-El-Acksa_ wrote contemptuously of the "scrofulous champions tapping on each other's shields," he was perhaps, forgetful for a moment of this fact. [126] The Count of Valencia de Don Juan has found, from documents at Simancas, that in the year 1525 Kollman visited Toledo to measure Charles for armour. It is also certain, adds the Count, that, in order to produce this armour of a perfect fit, Kollman first moulded Charles' limbs in wax, and then transferred the moulds to lead. In a budget of accounts which coincides with Kollman's visit to Toledo appears the following item: "Pour trois livres de cire et de plomb pour faire les patrons que maître Colman, armoyeur, a fait"--followed by details of the cost. There is, however, also in this armoury a jousting harness (Plate l.) formerly the property of Philip the First of Spain, a part of which, including the cuirass, is known to be of Spanish make. The cuirass in question bears the mark of a Valencia armourer, and the harness generally dates from about the year 1500, at which time Gachard tells us in his _Chroniques Belges_ that Philip was learning to joust "à la mode d'Espaigne." Besides the enormous helmet and the Spanish-made cuirass, covered with gold brocade, this ornament includes a tourneying lance with a blunt three-pointed head,[127] and a curious form of rest, said by the Count of Valencia de Don Juan to be peculiar to the Spaniards and Italians. This rest is stuffed with cork, on which, just as the fray began, the iron extremity of the lance was firmly driven. Another interesting detail is the _cuja_, fastened to the right side of the cuirass, and also stuffed with cork, made use of to support the lance upon its passage over to the rest. Nor in this instance was the _cuja_ a superfluous device, seeing that the lance is over fifteen feet in length. [127] This, in the later Middle Ages, was a favourite form of tourneying lance. These are the principal portions of the harness. The seemingly insufficient protection for the arms is explained by the fact that the solid wooden shield completely covered the fighter's left arm, while the right would be defended by the shield-like disc or _arandela_ of the lance. [Illustration: XLIX JOUSTING HARNESS OF CHARLES THE FIFTH (_Royal Armoury, Madrid_)] Spanish shields and swords of great antiquity and interest are also in this armoury. The oldest of the shields dates from the twelfth century, and proceeds from the monastery of San Salvador de Oña, Burgos. The material is a wood resembling cedar, although much eaten by moth, and is covered on both sides with parchment bearing traces of primitive painting of a non-heraldic character. Inside the shield, this decoration consisted of a black ground crossed diagonally by a broad red band, and outside, of a red ground covered with rhomboid figures, some in gilt and some in colour. Such figures were a popular pattern at this time and on this class of objects. The general stoutness of this shield shows that it was meant for war. It still retains the strap which slung it from the warrior's neck, as well as fragments of the braces--made of buffalo leather covered with crimson velvet--for the hand. Another shield, proceeding from the same monastery, dates from the thirteenth century. The material, here again, is wood and parchment; but in this hundred years formal heraldic ornament had superseded fancy or conventional devices. Accordingly, this shield is painted with a blazon, now much worn, of which, however, enough remains to show that it consisted once upon a time of four black chaperons crowned with gold _fleurs-de-lis_ upon a gold ground--said to have been the arms of Don Rodrigo Gomez, Count of Bureba. The _scut_, or polished metal shield, with painted blazonry or other decoration, was limited to Aragon and Cataluña.[128] [128] _Historia General del Arte; Armas_, by García Llansó; p. 445. Among the smaller and more modern shields preserved in this collection are two wooden bucklers dating from the sixteenth century. One is in the Spanish-Moorish style and of a convex shape, with iron bordering and umbo, and a lining of yellow brocade. The other, of the Christian Spaniards, is small and lined with painted parchment, and was intended, so the inventory says, "for going about at night."[129] [129] "Dès que le soir arrive, on ne va point n'y à Madrid ny ailleurs, sans cotte de maille et sans _broquet_ qui est une rondache."--Bertaut de Rouen, _Voyage d'Espagne_ (1659 A.D.), p. 294. The arms of Spaniards promenading after dark were even fixed by law. The _Suma de Leyes_ of 1628 ordains that after ten o'clock nobody is to carry arms at all unless he also bears a lighted torch or lantern. No arquebus, on pain of a fine of ten thousand _maravedis_, may have a barrel less than a yard long. Nobody may carry a sword or rapier the length of whose blade exceeds a yard and a quarter, or wear a dagger unless a sword accompanies it. Sometimes these prohibitions extended even to seasons of the year. In 1530 an Ordinance of Granada proclaims that from the first of March until the last day of November nobody may carry a hatchet, sickle, or dagger, "except the dagger which is called a _barazano_, of a palm in length, even if the wearer be a shepherd." The penalty for infringement of this law was a fine of ten thousand _maravedis_; but labourers who worked upon a farm were exempted from the prohibition. Swinburne wrote from Cataluña, in 1775, that "amongst other restrictions, the use of slouched hats, white shoes, and large brown cloaks is forbidden. Until of late they durst not carry any kind of knife; but in each public house there was one chained to the table, for the use of all comers." There is also a richly gilt and silvered buckler of the seventeenth century, made at Eugui in Navarre, and covered with a scene--decadent in design and workmanship--which represents the judgment of Paris. Defensive armour, chiefly of a highly decorative kind, was made all through this century at the capital of Navarre, Pamplona. The Royal Armoury contains a Pamplonese parade harness (Plate lii.), offered as a gift to Philip the Third, as well as six diminutive sets of armour made to his order for the youthful princes Don Felipe, Don Fernando, and Don Carlos. The _adarga_ was a kind of targe used by the light cavalry, and had its origin in Africa. Those which were stored in the palace of the Nasrite sultans of Granada are described by Al-Makkari as "solid, without pores, soft to the touch, and famed for their imperviousness." The material was strong leather, such as cowhide, often embroidered with a scutcheon or with arabesques. Two Spanish-made _adargas_ in this armoury are particularly handsome. One is of Moorish craftsmanship, and dates from the end of the fifteenth century. The other (Plate liii.), apparently the work of a Spanish Christian and dating from a century later, is embroidered in silver thread and coloured silk with arabesque devices and also with four coats of arms, one of which belongs to the noble family of Fernández de Cordova. The dimensions of this shield are a yard in height by thirty inches in breadth. [Illustration: L JOUSTING HARNESS OF PHILIP THE HANDSOME (_Royal Armoury, Madrid_)] There also are preserved in this collection a shield (late sixteenth century) adorned by Mexican Indians with a most elaborate "mosaic of feather-work," and a number of Spanish _adargas_ of the same period, for playing the _juego de cañas_ or "game of canes." The armoury contained in former days as many as forty-two _adargas_; but the fire of 1884 completely destroyed sixteen and badly damaged twenty-three, obliterating their heraldic and other decoration. A yet more sinister event befell on December 1st, 1808, when the Spanish mob, exasperated by the French, broke in and seized three hundred swords, not one of which was afterwards recovered. Mention of these disasters leads me to recall the quantity of beautiful or historic military gear that Spain has lost through many tribulations and vicissitudes. Formerly her noble families had excellent collections in their palaces or castles. Such were the private armouries of the Dukes of Pastrana at Guadalajara, and of the Dukes of Alburquerque at Cuéllar Castle, near Segovia. Bertaut de Rouen describes the first as "une des plus belles qui se voyent pour un seigneur particulier. Il y a quantité d'armes anciennes, et l'on y void une épée qui s'allonge et s'accourcit quand on veut, de deux pieds et demy."[130] The Cuéllar armoury was pulled to pieces by Philip the Fourth to arm his troops against the French. "Send me," he wrote to the Duke from Madrid, in a letter dated April 16th, 1637, "all your pistols, carbines, harness for horses, breastplates and other arms for mounted fighting"; and the loyal nobleman complied upon the spot, despatching more than five hundred pieces, many of which were doubtless of the greatest interest.[131] [130] _Voyage d'Espagne_, p. 199. [131] Gonzalo de la Torre de Trassierra; Articles on Cuéllar published in the _Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Excursiones_. Had I the erudition and the time, I would attempt to write, as it deserves to be written, an introduction to the history of Spanish swords. Of all the objects mentioned in these volumes, here is the most inherently symbolic of the Spanish character and history. The Spanish Moors and Spanish Christians spoke of it as something superhuman. "Once the sword is in the hand of man," observed, in solemn tones, the Wise Alfonso, "he hath it in his power to raise or lower it, to strike with it, or to abandon it." The Spanish Mussulmans talked of putting "clothes and breeches" on a sword that had a sheath, as though it were a breathing person; while a Spaniard of the time of Gongora would often use such language as the following: "Truly in point of look there is as great a difference between a costly sword and a _Toledan Loyalty_ or _Soldier's Dream_, as between a marquis and a muleteer, or a washerwoman and the Infanta. Yet every sword is virtually an hidalgo. Does not the basest of our Toledanas, even to the _perrillos_ and _morillos_, which have no core, and cost a dozen _reales_ merely, afford a chivalrous lesson to its wearer, as it bids him _no me saques sin razon, ni me envaines sin honor_?[132] The horse and the sword," he continued, taking a magnificently damascened rapier, and stroking it caressingly, "are the noblest friends of man, albeit the nobler is the sword; for the horse at times is obstinate or faint-hearted, but the sword is ready continually. The sword, moreover, possesses the chiefest of all virtues--justice, or the power of dividing right and wrong; a soul of iron, which is strength; and, last and greatest, the Cross, which is the symbol of the blessed Catholic Faith."[133] [132] "Draw me not without a cause, nor sheathe me without honour." A sword with this inscription is in the Royal Armoury--(G. 71 of the official catalogue). [133] Leonard Williams; _Toledo and Madrid: their Records and Romances_; p. 102. Notices of early Spanish sword-makers are far from common. Don Manuel G. Simancas quotes the following, dated in the thirteenth century:-- "_Master Almerique._ By letters of the King and Queen, to Master Almerique, for making the (sword) blades for the King; out of the MCC _maravedis_ of his salary he received CCCC _maravedis_." "_Master Enrique._ By letters of the King and Queen, to Master Enrique, for making the swords, MCCCC, (of which) he received CCCCXII _maravedis_." Other entries of the same period relate to Juan Ferrández, armourer, who received a sum for making coverings for arms and saddles; and to Master Jacomin, who was paid three gold _doblas_, or sixty-three _maravedis_, for making a breastplate. In the inventory (1560) of the Dukes of Alburquerque occurs a very curious notice which seems to show that mediæval Spanish swords were manufactured even in the rural districts. The entry runs; "an old grooved sword of a broad shape, bearing the words _Juanes me fezió_ ("John made me"). In the middle of the same a P within a parted wave, with Portuguese fittings, varnished, black silk hilt and fringes, and double straps of black leather, with varnished ends and buckles and black leather sheath. _Juan de Lobinguez made this sword at Cuéllar._" [Illustration: LI MOORISH BUCKLER (_Osier and metal. Royal Armoury, Madrid_)] The Spanish guilds of armourers enjoyed high favour,[134] since the examination for admission to this craft was very strict, as well as fenced about with curious prohibitions. Thus at Seville, "no Moor, Jew, black man, or other person such as the law debars, shall set up a shop for making and selling defensive arms, or undergo examination in this craft."[135] The penalty for infringement of this law was confiscation of the arms, together with a fine of twenty thousand _maravedis_. [134] In the Corpus Christi festival at Granada the banner which preceded all the rest was that of the armourers and knife-makers, followed by that of the silk-mercers. _Ordenanzas de Granada_; tit. 126. [135] _Armourers' Ordinances of Seville_, extant in ms. (quoted by Gestoso; _Diccionario de Artífices Sevillanos_; vol. I., p. xxxvi). Throughout these times the armourer's and the gilder's crafts are found in closest union; just as the armourer's craft would often alternate with that of the goldsmith or the silversmith. At Seville, the Ordinance of 1512 prescribed that every candidate who came to be examined must make "a set of horse harness, complete with stirrups, headstalls, spurs, poitral, and the fittings of a sword; and he must silver several of these pieces and blue them with fine blue; and make of iron, and gild the spurs and fittings of the sword. Thus shall he make, and gild, and silver the aforesaid pieces." Equally severe and comprehensive are the swordsmiths' Ordinances (1527 to 1531) of Granada. The aspirant to the title of _oficial_ "shall mount a sword for wear with ordinary clothes, fitted in black, together with its straps, and fringed and corded hilt; besides a sword gilded a low gold, together with its straps and other parts, all of a single colour. Also he shall fit a velvet-scabbarded, silver-hilted sword, and a two-handed sword, fully decorated, with the knife attaching to the same, one-edged and with a smooth hilt; also a sword whose scabbard shall be fitted with knives numbering not less than three; and a hilt of _lacería_ (network ornament); and another sword in a white sheath, with woven hilt; and another of a hand and a half."[136] [136] "_De mano y media_"; _i.e._ for wielding either with one hand or both. Specimens of this kind of sword existing at Madrid will be described immediately. The Royal Armoury at Madrid contains an excellent collection of these weapons. Among the earliest known to be of Spanish make are two which date from the thirteenth century. One of them (Plate liv., No. 1), with fittings of a later time, is frequently miscalled the "Cid's Colada," and seems to have been confounded with the genuine weapon of that hero which was acquired in the thirteenth century by one of the sovereigns of Castile, and which has probably disappeared. The blade of this remarkable sword has two edges and tapers gradually to the point. Part of the blade is slightly hollowed, and bears, extending through about a quarter of the hollow or _canal_, the following inscription or device:-- [Illustration] This is believed by some authorities to represent the words SI, SI, NO, NON ("Yes, yes, no, no"); and by others to be a purely meaningless and decorative pattern. The weapon, in any case, is in the best of preservation, and is especially interesting from the fact that engraved blades dating from this early period are very seldom met with. The Count of Valencia de Don Juan believes this weapon to be the same _Lobera_ which belonged to Ferdinand the Third, and aptly quotes the following passage from the chronicle. When Ferdinand, conqueror of Seville, was lying on his death-bed in that capital, surrounded by his children, he gave his blessing to his younger son, the Infante Don Manuel, and addressed him in these words. "I can bequeath no heritage to you; but I bestow upon you my sword Lobera, that is of passing worth, and wherewith God has wrought much good to me." If the Count's surmise be accurate, another passage which he quotes from the work _Nobleza y Lealtad_, written by the twelve councillors of Ferdinand, fully explains the legend on the blade. "_Sennor, el tu si sea asi, e el tu non, sea non; que muy gran virtud es al Príncipe, ó á otro qualquier ome ser verdadero, e grand seguranza de sus vasallos, e de sus cosas._"[137] [137] "Señor, let thy yea be yea, and thy nay be nay; for of great virtue is it in the prince, or any man, to be a speaker of the truth, and of great security to his vassals and to his property." I said that the chiselled and gilded iron fittings to the blade are of a later period. They date from the earlier part of the sixteenth century, and are the work of Salvador de Avila, of Toledo. [Illustration: LII ARMOUR MADE AT PAMPLONA (_17th Century. Royal Armoury, Madrid_)] The other sword in this collection, and which also belongs to the thirteenth century, has a long, broad blade with two edges and a central groove, thinly engraved with circles (Pl. liv., No. 3, and Pl. lv.). The crossbars are of silver-gilt, engraved with _ataurique_, curving towards the blade and terminating in trefoils. A shield midway between them bears the arms of Castile upon one side, and those of León upon the other. The grip is of wood, covered with silver plates with decorated borders, and the pommel is of iron, also covered with ornamental plates of silver-gilt. Formerly this arm was studded with precious stones, but all of these excepting one have disappeared. The scabbard is of wood lined with sheepskin, and is covered with a series of five silver-gilt plates, profusely decorated with Hispano-Moresque _lacería_, studded with various kinds of gems. These gems upon the scabbard amounted once upon a time to seventy-six, which sum, through pilfering or accident (probably the former, since the finest stones are gone), has been diminished by one-half. An inventory, made in the reign of Philip the Second, states that the inner side of the sheath, now wholly worn away, was covered with lions and castles, and that the belt was of broad orange-coloured cloth, with silver fittings. This sword has been absurdly attributed to the nephew of Charlemagne, who lived not less than half a thousand years before its date of manufacture. The Count of Valencia de Don Juan thought that it may have been the property of a Spanish monarch of the thirteenth century,--perhaps Alfonso the Learned, or Ferdinand the Third, Alfonso's father. Ferdinand, we know, possessed a sword which he delivered with due ceremony to his elder son, the Infante Don Fernando, upon his leading out a force against the town of Antequera. This sword the chronicler Alvar García de Santa María described as having "a sheath in pieces, with many precious stones." Of even greater interest than the foregoing weapon is the great two-handed and two-edged _estoque_ or ceremonial sword of Ferdinand and Isabella, which measures forty-two inches in length. The fittings are of iron, gilded and engraved. The crossbars, terminating in small half-moons, with the concave side directed outward, are inscribed with the well-known motto of the Catholic sovereigns, TANTO MONTA, and with a supplication to the Virgin, MEMENTO MEI O MATER DEI MEI. The pommel is a flat disc, suggestive in its outline of a Gothic cross, and bears upon one side the figure of Saint John together with the yoke, emblem of Ferdinand the Catholic, and upon the other the sheaf of arrows, emblem of his consort Isabella. The hilt is covered with red velvet bound with wire. The sheath of this most interesting sword--affirmed by the Count of Valencia de Don Juan to have been used by Ferdinand and Isabella, and subsequently by Charles the Fifth, in the ceremony of conferring knighthood, and also, during the Hapsburg monarchy, to have been carried by the master of the horse before the king upon his formal visit to a city of his realm--is made of wood covered with crimson silk, bearing in "superposed" embroidery the arms of Spain posterior to the conquest of Granada, together with a repetition of the emblems of the Catholic sovereigns (Plate liv., No. 2). In the same collection are two other swords which probably belonged to Ferdinand the Catholic. One of them (Pl. lvii., No. 1), has a discoid pommel and a gilded iron handle. The flat crossbars grow wider and bend down towards the blade, and on the hilt we read the words PAZ COMIGO NVNCA VEO, Y SIEMPRE GVERA DESEO ("Never does peace attend me, and always do I yearn for war"). This sword has been attributed to Isabella. The evidence for this belief is slight, although the Count of Valencia de Don Juan discovered that in the year 1500 Isabella was undoubtedly the possessor of certain weapons and armour which she sometimes actually wore. Among these objects were several Milanese breastplates, a small dagger with a gold enamelled hilt in the shape of her emblem of the sheaf of arrows, and two swords, one fitted with silver and enamel, and the other with iron. The other sword, which probably belonged to Ferdinand the Catholic, is of the kind known as "of a hand and a half" (_de mano y media_; see p. 248, _note_), and also of the class denominated _estoques de arzón_, or "saddle-bow swords," being commonly slung from the forepart of the saddle upon the left side of the rider. Ferdinand, however, had reason to be chary of this usage, for Lucio Marineo Sículo affirms that at the siege of Velez-Málaga the sword which he was wearing thus suspended, jammed at a critical moment of the fray, and very nearly caused his death. Sículo adds that after this experience Ferdinand invariably wore his sword girt round his person, just as he wears it in the carving on the choir-stalls of Toledo. [Illustration: LIII _ADARGA_ (_Royal Armoury, Madrid_)] The Royal Armoury contains another sword improperly attributed both to Ferdinand the Third and Ferdinand the Catholic. It dates from the fifteenth century, and has a blade of unusual strength intended to resist plate armour. This blade, which has a central ridge continued to the very point, is very broad towards the handle, tapers rapidly, and measures thirty-two inches. At the broader end, and on a gilded ground embellished with concentric circles, are graven such legends as:-- "The Lord is my aid. I will not fear what man may do to me, and will despise my enemies. Superior to them, I will destroy them utterly." "Make me worthy to praise thee, O sweet and blessed Virgin Mary." The handle is of iron, with traces of gilded decoration, and corded with black silk. The Count of Valencia de Don Juan says that no reliable information can be found concerning this fine arm. Its length and general design would allow of its being used with one hand or with both, and either slung from the saddle-bow or round the middle of a warrior on foot. Another handsome sword, wrongly attributed by the ignorant to Alfonso the Sixth, is kept at Toledo, in the sacristy of the cathedral. The scabbard is adorned with fourteenth-century enamel in the _champlevé_ style. Baron de las Cuatro Torres considers that this sword belonged to the archbishop Don Pedro Tenorio (see p. 269), and adduces his proofs in the _Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Excursiones_ for March 1897. The prelate in question, appointed to command an army sent against Granada, was, like so many of the Spanish mediæval clerics, of a warlike temper, and "exchanged with great alacrity his rochet for his harness, and his mitre for his helm." One of the most ridiculous and barefaced forgeries in the Royal Armoury is a sixteenth-century sword which has inscribed upon its blade the name of the redoubtable Bernardo del Carpio. The Count of Valencia de Don Juan says he remembers to have met with other blades of later mediæval make, engraved with such legends as "belonging to Count Fernán-Gonzalez," or even "Recaredus Rex Gothorum," while others in this armoury are ascribed, without the least authority of fact or common sense, to García de Paredes, Alvaro de Sande, and Hernando de Alarcón. Others, again, with less extravagance, though not on solid proof, are said to have belonged to Hernán Cortés, the Count of Lemos, and Diego Hurtado de Mendoza. Some, upon the other hand, belonged undoubtedly to celebrated Spanish warriors of the olden time. Such are the swords of the Count of Coruña, of Gonzalo de Córdova, and of the conqueror of Peru, Francisco Pizarro. The first of these weapons (Pl. lvii., No. 4) has a superb hilt carved in the style of the Spanish Renaissance, with crossbars curving down, a _pas d'âne_, and a Toledo blade of six _mesas_ ("tables") or surfaces, grooved on both sides, and ending in a blunt point. The armourer's mark, which seems to represent a _fleur-de-lis_ four times repeated, is that of the swordsmith Juan Martinez, whose name we read upon the blade, together with the words IN TE DOMINE SPERAVI, and on the other side, in Spanish, PARA DON BERNARDINO XVAREZ DE MENDOZA, CONDE DE CORVÑA. The sword of "the great captain," Gonzalo de Córdova (1453-1515), is not of Spanish make (Plate lvii., No. 3). It has a straight blade with bevelled edges. The pommel and _quillons_ are decorated with Renaissance carving, and the bars, which are of gilded iron, grow wider at their end and curve towards the blade. The pommel, of gilded copper, is spherical, and bears, upon one side, a scene which represents a battle, together with the words GONSALVI AGIDARI VICTORIA DE GALLIS AD CANNAS. Upon the other side are carved his arms. Other inscriptions in Latin are also on the pommel and the blade. The Count of Valencia de Don Juan believed that this sword was a present to Gonzalo from the corporation of some Italian town, and that it replaced, as an _estoque real_, or sword of ceremony, the state sword (see p. 252) of Ferdinand and Isabella. [Illustration: LIV SPANISH SWORDS (_Royal Armoury, Madrid_)] Pizarro's sword remained in possession of his descendants, the Marquises of La Conquista, until as recently as 1809, in which year this family presented it to a Scotch officer named John Downie, who had fought in the Peninsular War against the French. Downie, in turn, bequeathed it to his brother Charles, lieutenant-colonel in the Spanish army, from whom it passed into the hands of Ferdinand the Seventh. The appearance of this sword is not remarkable. It has a stout, four-surfaced blade, with a powerful _recazo_ or central ridge, engraved with the Christian name of Mateo Duarte, a swordsmith who was living at Valencia in the middle of the sixteenth century. The hilt is of blued (_pavonado_) steel, inlaid with leaves and other ornament in gold. The pommel is a disc; the _quillons_ are straight, or very nearly so, and there is a _pas d'âne_ (Plate lvii., No. 2). The sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries are famous as the epoch of the Spanish rapier. Toledo, as the world is well aware, enjoyed an undisputed name for the production of these weapons. Within this ancient and historic capital generations of artists bequeathed, from father to son, and son to grandson, the secret (if there were a secret) of the tempering of these matchless arms; nor have Toledo blades deteriorated to this day. Many an idle superstition seeks to justify the talent and dexterity of these swordsmiths; though probably the key to all their skill was merely in the manual cunning, based on constant practice, of the craftsman, as well as in the native virtues of the water of the Tagus. In one of my books I have described the workshop of an armourer of Toledo in the sixteenth century. "After a few moments we entered the Calle de las Armas, which struck me as having grown a good deal narrower; and my companion, pausing beside an open doorway topped with a sign depicting a halberd and a sword, invited me to enter. Two or three steps led downwards to a dark, damp passage, and at the end of this was a low but very large room, blackened by the smoke from half a dozen forges. The walls were hung with a bewildering variety of arms and parts of armour--gauntlets and cuirasses; morions, palettes, and lobster-tails; partisans and ranseurs; halberds, bayonets, and spontoons; as well as swords and daggers without number. Several anvils, with tall, narrow buckets filled with water standing beside them, were arranged about the stone-paved floor; and beside each forge was a large heap of fine, white sand. "The showers of sparks, together with a couple of ancient-looking lamps whose flames shook fitfully to and fro in the vibration, showed thirty or forty workmen busily engaged; and what with the clanging of the hammers, the roaring of the bellows, and the strident hissing of the hot metal as it plunged into the cold water, the racket was incessant. "My cicerone surveyed the discordant scene with all the nonchalance of lifelong custom, daintily eluding the columns of scalding steam, or screening his _chambergo_ from the sparks. Finding, however, that I was powerless to understand the remarks he kept addressing to me, he finally held up his finger and gave the signal to cease work; upon which the _oficial_ handed him a bundle of papers which I took to be accounts, and the men, doffing their leathern aprons, and hanging them in a corner, filed eagerly away. "'It is quite simple,' said my companion, as though divining the query I was about to put to him; 'and indeed, I often wonder why we are so famous. They say it is the water; but any water will do. Or else they say it is the sand; and yet this sand, though clean and pure, is just the same as any other. Look! The blade of nearly all our swords is composed of three pieces--two strips of steel, from Mondragón in Guipúzcoa, and an iron core. This latter is the _alma_, or soul. The three pieces are heated and beaten together; and when they grow red-hot and begin to throw out sparks, they are withdrawn from the fire, and a few handfuls of sand are thrown over them. The welding of the pieces is then continued on the anvil; and, finally, the file is brought to bear on all unevennesses, and the weapon passes on to the temperer, the grinder, and the burnisher.' "'It is in the tempering that we have earned our principal renown, although this process is quite as simple as the rest. Upon the forge--see, here is one still burning--a fire is made in the form of a narrow trench, long enough to receive four-fifths of the length of the weapon. As soon as the metal reaches a certain colour' (I thought I noted a mischievous twinkle in the armourer's eyes, as though this _certain colour_ were the key to all our conversation), 'I take these pincers, and, grasping the portion which had remained outside the fire, drop the weapon so, point downwards, into the bucket of water. Any curve is then made straight by beating upon the concave side, and the part which had been previously kept outside the trench of fire returns to the forge and is duly heated. The entire blade is next smeared with mutton fat, and rested against the wall to cool, point upwards. There is nothing more except the finishing. Your sword is made.'"[138] [138] _Toledo and Madrid: their Records and Romances_; pp. 99-101. [Illustration: LV SWORD (_13th Century. Royal Armoury, Madrid_)] The following passage from Bowles' _Natural History of Spain_, written in 1752, is also of especial interest here:--"At a league's distance from Mondragón is a mine of varnished, or, as miners term it, frozen iron. It lies in the midst of soft red earth, and produces natural steel--a very curious circumstance, seeing that, as I am assured, there is no other mine of this description in the kingdom. A tradition exists that the iron from this mine was used for making the swords, so celebrated for their tempering, presented by Doña Catalina, daughter of the Catholic Sovereigns, to her husband, Henry the Eighth of England. A few of these swords are yet extant in Scotland, where the natives call them _André Ferrara_,[139] and esteem them greatly. The famous sword-blades of Toledo, and the Perrillo blades of Zaragoza, which are still so highly valued, as well as others made elsewhere, are said to have been forged from the iron of this mine, which yields forty per cent. of metal. It is, however, somewhat hard to melt. With a little trouble it is possible to secure excellent steel, because this mine, like many another, possesses in itself the quality of readily taking from the coal of the forge the spirit which is indispensable for making first-rate swords; but without cementation I do not think it would serve for making good files or razors." [139] Andrés Ferrara was a well-known armourer of Zaragoza. "The swords of which I spoke as being so famed were generally either of a long shape, for wearing with a ruff; or broad, and known as the _arzón_, for use on horseback. It is probable that when the ruff was suddenly abandoned at the beginning of this century, large quantities of ready-fitted swords began to be imported from abroad, of such a kind as was demanded by the novel clothing. This would account for the decline and the eventual collapse of our factories, and the loss of our art of tempering swords. Concerning the mode of executing this, opinions differ. It is said by some that the blades were tempered in winter only, and that when they were withdrawn for the last time from the furnace, the smiths would shake them in the air at great speed three times on a very cold day. Others say that the blades were heated to a cherry-colour, then plunged for a couple of seconds into a deep jar filled with oil or grease, and changed forthwith to another vessel of lukewarm water, after which they were set to cool in cold water; all these operations being performed at midwinter. Others, again, declare that the blades were forged from the natural iron of Mondragón by placing a strip of ordinary iron along their core so as to give them greater elasticity; and that they were then tempered in the ordinary manner, though always in the winter. Such are the prevailing theories about the iron swords of Mondragón, which are, in truth, of admirable quality." Magnificent examples of Toledo sword-blades, produced while her craft was at the zenith of its fame--that is, throughout the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries--are in the Royal Armoury (Pl. lvii., Nos. 5, 6, 7). Among them are a series of _montantes_ made for tournament or war, and a superb blade, dated 1564, forged for Philip the Second by Miguel Cantero. The Count of Valencia de Don Juan considered this to be one of the finest weapons ever tempered; adding that the sword-blades of the city of the Tagus were held in such esteem all over Europe that he had seen, in numerous museums of the Continent, weapons professing to be Toledo-made, in which the blade and mark are evidently forged; bearing, for instance, _Ernantz_ for Hernandez, _Johanos_ for Juanes, and _Tomas Dailae_ for Tomás de Ayala. It is generally agreed that the changes in the national costume, together with the importation of a lighter make of sword from France, were directly responsible for the decline of the Toledo sword-blades early in the eighteenth century. However, this decline was only temporary. Townsend wrote in 1786: "From the Alcazar we went to visit the royal manufactory of arms, with which I was much pleased. The steel is excellent, and so perfectly tempered, that in thrusting at a target, the swords will bend like whalebone, and yet cut through a helmet without turning their edge. This once famous manufacture had been neglected, and in a manner lost, but it is now reviving." Laborde endorsed these praises subsequently: "Within a few years the fabrication of swords has been resumed at Toledo; the place allotted to this object is a handsome edifice, a quarter of a league distant from the city, which commands the banks of the Tagus. This undertaking has hitherto been prosperous; the swords are celebrated for the excellence of their blades, which are of finely tempered steel." [Illustration: LVI OLD SWORD (_Erroneously attributed to the Cid. Collection of the Marquis of Falces_)] The modern small-arms factory of Toledo, situated on the right bank of the Tagus, a mile from the city walls, had, in fact, been opened in 1783, when the same industry was also reviving at Vitoria, Barcelona, and elsewhere. Toledo worthily maintains to-day her ancient and illustrious reputation for this craft. The Tagus still supplies its magic water for the tempering, while part of the prime material of the steel itself proceeds from Solingen and Styria, and the rest from Trubia and Malaga. Cutlery continued to be made in Spain all through the eighteenth century. Colmenar says that the knives of Barcelona were considered excellent. According to Laborde, cutlery was made at Solsona and Cardona in Cataluña, at Mora in New Castile, and at Albacete in Murcia. "The cutlery of Solsona is in great repute; but the largest quantity is made at Albacete. In the latter place are about twenty-eight working cutlers, each of whom employs five or six journeymen, who respectively manufacture annually six or seven thousand pieces, amounting in the whole to about one hundred and eighty thousand pieces."[140] [140] Vol. iv. p. 358. FIREARMS Cannon of a primitive kind were used in Spain comparatively early. A large variety of names was given to these pieces, such as _cerbatanas_, _ribadoquines_, _culebrinas_, _falconetes_, _pasavolantes_, _lombardas_ or _bombardas_, and many more; but the oldest, commonest, and most comprehensive name of all was _trueno_, "thunder," from the terrifying noise of the discharge. This word was used for both the piece and the projectile. The Count of Clonard quotes Pedro Megía's _Silva de Varias Lecciones_ to show that gunpowder was known in Spain as early as the eleventh century. "Thunders" of some description seem to have been used at the siege of Zaragoza in 1118; and a Moorish author, writing in 1249, describes in fearsome terms "the horrid noise like thunder, vomiting fire in all directions, destroying everything, reducing everything to ashes." Al-Jattib, the historian of Granada, wrote at the beginning of the fourteenth century that the sultan of that kingdom used at the siege of Baza "a mighty engine, applying fire thereto, prepared with naphtha and with balls." The Chronicle of Alfonso the Eleventh describes in a quaint and graphic passage the crude artillery of that period, and the panic it occasioned. At the siege of Algeciras in 1342, "the Moors that were within the city threw many 'thunders' at the (Christian) host, together with mighty balls of iron, to such a distance that several overpassed the army, and some did damage to our host. Also, by means of 'thunders' they threw arrows exceeding great and thick, so that it was as much as a man could do to lift them from the ground. And as for the iron balls these 'thunders' hurled, men were exceedingly afraid thereof; for if they chanced to strike a limb they cut it off as clean as with a knife, and though the wound were but a slight one, yet was the man as good as dead; nor was any chirurgery that might avail him, both because the balls came burning hot, like flame, and because the powder which discharged them was of such a kind that any wound it made was surely mortal; and such was the violence of these balls, that they went through a man, together with all his armour." Towards the close of the same century the testament of Don Pedro Tenorio (see p. 256), the bellicose archbishop of Alcalá de Henares, who ruled that diocese from 1376 to 1399, contains the following passage:--"_Item_. We bought crossbows and bassinets both for foot and horse, together with shields, pikes, javelins, darts, lombards, hemp, powder, and other munitions for the castles of our Church; of which munitions we stored the greater quantity at Talavera and at Alcalá de Henares, purposing to deposit them at Cazorla and in the castles of Canales and of Alhamin, which we are now repairing after they were thrown down by the King Don Pedro, and for the tower of Cazorla, which we are now erecting. And it is our will that all of these munitions be for the said castles and tower; and that no one lay his hand on them, on pain of excommunication, excepting only the bishop elected and confirmed who shall succeed us; and he shall distribute them as he holds best among the aforesaid castles. And all the best of these munitions shall be for the governorship of Cazorla, as being most needed there to overthrow the enemies of our faith; and we have duly lodged the shields and crossbows, parted from the rest, upon the champaign of Toledo; whither should arrive more shields from Valladolid, that all together may be carried to Cazorla." [Illustration: LVII SPANISH SWORDS (_Royal Armoury, Madrid_)] The article from which I quote this passage adds that the palace of the archbishop at Alcalá de Henares was fortified with cannon until the beginning of the nineteenth century.[141] [141] Escudero de la Peña; _Claustros, Escalera, y Artesonados del Palacio Arzobispal de Alcalá de Henares_; published in the _Museo Español de Antigüedades_. Cannon are mentioned with increasing frequency throughout the fifteenth century; and in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella we read of lombards of enormous size, which had to be dragged across the Andalusian hills and plains by many scores of men and beasts; which frequently stuck fast and had to be abandoned on the march; and which, even in the best of circumstances, could only be discharged some twice or thrice a day. In reading documents and chronicles of older Spain, it is easy to confound the early forms of cannon with the engines similar to those employed by the Crusaders in the Holy Land, and built for hurling stones or arrows of large size. Such engines were the _trabuco_, the _almajanech_ or _almojaneque_, the _algarrada_, and the _fundíbalo_ or Catalan _fonevol_. Beuter, in his _Chronicle of Spain and of Valencia_, describes the latter as "a certain instrument which has a sling made fast to an extremity of wood ... made to revolve so rapidly that the arm, on being released, projects the stone with such a force as to inflict much harm, even in distant places, whither could reach no missile slung by the hand of man." Turning to portable Spanish firearms, we find that the precursor of the arquebus, musket, and rifle seems to have been a weapon which was introduced about the middle of the fifteenth century, and called the _espingarda_. Alfonso de Palencia says it was employed against the rebels of Toledo in 1467; and the Chronicle of Don Alvaro de Luna relates that when this nobleman was standing beside Don Iñigo d'Estúñiga, upon a certain occasion in 1453, "a man came out in his shirt and set fire to an _espingarda_, discharging the shot thereof above the heads of Don Alvaro and of Iñigo d'Estúñiga, but wounding an esquire." [Illustration: LVIII MARKS OF TOLEDAN ARMOURERS (15TH-17TH CENTURIES), FROM SWORDS IN THE ROYAL ARMOURY AT MADRID] As time advanced, portable firearms of first-rate quality were made throughout the northern Spanish provinces, and also in Navarra, Cataluña, Aragon, and Andalusia. The inventory of the Dukes of Alburquerque mentions, in 1560, "four flint arquebuses of Zaragoza make ... another arquebus of Zaragoza, together with its fuse," and "arquebuses of those that are made within this province" (_i.e._ of Segovia). Cristóbal Frisleva, of Ricla in Aragon, and Micerguillo of Seville were celebrated makers of this arm; but probably these and all the other Spanish masters of this craft derived their skill from foreign teaching, such as that of the brothers Simon and Peter Marckwart (in Spanish the name is spelt _Marcuarte_,) who were brought to Spain by Charles the Fifth.[142] [142] The brothers Marckwart, or possibly one or other of them, are believed to have stamped their arquebuses with a series of small sickles, thus: [Illustration] The Royal Armoury contains some finely decorated guns, made for the kings of Spain at the close of the seventeenth century and early in the eighteenth, by Juan Belen, Juan Fernandez, Francisco Baeza y Bis, and Nicolás Bis. The last-named, pupil of Juan Belen, was a German; but all these gunsmiths lived and worked at Madrid. Nicolás was arquebus-maker to Charles the Second from 1691, and afterwards held the same post from Philip the Fifth. He died in 1726, and the Count of Valencia de Don Juan says that in 1808--that is, before it was plundered by the mob--the Royal Armoury contained no fewer than fifty-three weapons of his manufacture. One of the guns which bear his mark, and still exist, is inscribed with the words, "I belong to the Queen our lady" (Isabel Farnese, first wife of Philip the Fifth), combined with the arms of León and Castile, and of the Bourbon family. This weapon was used, or intended to be used, for hunting. Diego Esquivel, another gunsmith of Madrid, was also famous early in the eighteenth century, as, later on, were Manuel Sutil, José Cano, Francisco Lopez, Salvador Cenarro, Isidro Soler (author of a _Compendious History of the Arquebus-makers of Madrid_), Juan de Soto, and Sebastián Santos. Swinburne wrote from Cataluña in 1775; "the gun-barrels of Barcelona are much esteemed, and cost from four to twenty guineas, but about five is the real value; all above is paid for fancy and ornament; they are made out of the old shoes of mules." [Illustration: LIX _BRIDONA_ SADDLE (_15th Century. Royal Armoury, Madrid_)] Until 1793, the smaller firearms of the Spanish army were made at Plasencia in Guipúzcoa. In that year the government factory, where hand-labour alone continued to be used till 1855, was removed to Oviedo. To-day this factory employs about five hundred workmen. In 1809 Laborde wrote that "firearms, such as fusees, musquets, carbines, and pistols are manufactured at Helgoivar, Eybor, and Plasencia; at Oviedo, Barcelona, Igualada, and at Ripoll; the arms made at the latter city have long had a distinguished reputation. Seven hundred and sixty-five gunsmiths, it is estimated, find employment in the factories of Guipúzcoa." Both Townsend and the foregoing writer give a good account of Spanish cannon at this time. According to Laborde, "two excellent founderies for brass cannon are royal establishments at Barcelona and Seville; in the latter city copper cannon are cast, following the method recommended by M. Maritz. Iron ordnance are made at Lierganez and Cavada." Townsend wrote of Barcelona, in 1786; "The foundery for brass cannon is magnificent, and worthy of inspection. It is impossible anywhere to see either finer metal, or work executed in a neater and more perfect manner. Their method of boring was, in the present reign, introduced by Maritz, a Swiss. Near two hundred twenty-four pounders are finished every year, besides mortars and field-pieces." SADDLERY AND COACHES Probably no relic of the former of these crafts in Spain is older or more curious than the iron bit (Plate lvii., No. 8), inlaid with silver dragons' heads and crosses, and attributed, from cruciform monograms which also decorate it, to the Visigothic King Witiza (who died in 711), or sometimes to the conqueror of Toledo, Alfonso the Sixth (eleventh century). The spurs or _acicates_ (Plate lvii., No. 9) of Ferdinand the Third of Castile, who conquered Seville from the Moors, are also treasured in the Royal Armoury, and bear upon an iron ground remains of gold and silver decoration representing castles. The Count of Valencia de Don Juan believed these spurs to be authentic, because they are identical with the ones which Ferdinand wears in his equestrian seal, preserved among the National Archives of France, and dating from the year 1237. Saddles of various kinds were used in Spain throughout the Middle Ages. Among them were the ordinary travelling-saddle or _silla de barda_ (Arabic _al-bardá_); saddles _de palafrén_,[143] the _silla de la guisa_, or _de la brida_ or _bridona_, for riding with long stirrups, and consequently the antithesis of the _gineta_ saddle;[144] or saddles made for use exclusively in war, on which the rider was accustomed to make the sign of the cross before or after mounting, such as the _lidona_, _gallega_ ("_siellas gallegas_" are mentioned in the _Poem of the Cid_), and _corsera_ or _cocera_ (Arabic _al-corsi_), or else the _silla de conteras_, "whose hindmost bow," according to the Count of Valencia de Don Juan, "terminated in converging pieces to protect the wearer's thighs." [143] An old account copied into a book (see p. 89, _note_) in the National Library at Madrid, and dating from the reign of Sancho the Fourth, states that Pedro Ferrández, saddler, received a certain sum for making various saddles, including two "_de palafrés_, wrought in silk with the devices of the king." [144] "In mediæval Spain, good riders were often designated as 'Ginete en ambas sillas,' that is, accustomed to either saddle, _i.e._ the Moorish and the Christian, and I now understand why chroniclers have taken the trouble to record the fact. Strangely enough, the high-peaked and short-stirruped saddle does not cross the Nile, the Arabs of Arabia riding rather flat saddles with an ordinary length of leg. The Arab saddle of Morocco, in itself, is perhaps the worst that man has yet designed; but, curiously enough, from it was made the Mexican saddle, perhaps the most useful for all kinds of horses and of countries that the world has seen." Cunninghame Graham: _Mogreb-El-Acksa_, p. 66. The same writer naïvely adds the following footnote to the words _Ginete en ambas sillas_. "This phrase often occurs in Spanish chronicles, after along description of a man's virtues, his charity, love of the church, and kindness to the poor, and it is apparently inserted as at least as important a statement as any of the others. In point of fact, chronicles being written for posterity, it is the most important." A saddle known as the _silla de rua_, or "street saddle," was generally used in Spain throughout the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries. It was intended, not for war, but promenade and show, and therefore richly decorated. The Royal Armoury has nineteen of these saddles, all of which are Spanish-made. In the same collection is a plain _bridona_ saddle (Plate lix.), with iron stirrups and two gilt-metal bells, such as were commonly used in tournaments or other festivals. This saddle has been erroneously ascribed to the thirteenth century. It dates from the beginning of the fifteenth century, and proceeds from Majorca. [Illustration: LX HANGING _JAECES_ FOR HORSES] The old belief that one of the saddles in this armoury, whose bows are chased with a design in black and gilt of leaves and pilgrim's shells, was once upon a time the Cid Campeador's, has been exploded recently. The saddle in question is known to be Italian, dates from the sixteenth century, and bears the arms of a town in the duchy of Montferrato. The inventory (1560) of the dukes of Alburquerque mentions some curious saddles, including one "_de la brida_, of blue velvet, with the bows painted gold, and on the front bow a cannon with its carriage, and on the hind bow another cannon with flames of fire." Among the rest were "a _gineta_ saddle of red leather, used by my lord the duke," together with saddles of bay leather, of dark brown leather, of "smooth leather with trappings of blue cloth," of Cordova leather, and "a date-coloured _gineta_-saddle, complete." The same inventory specifies innumerable smaller articles of harness, such as stirrups, spurs, reins, headstalls, and poitrals or breast-leathers. Many of these pieces were richly ornamented; _e.g._, "some silver headstalls of small size, enamelled in blue, with gilt supports of iron,"[145] as well as "some silver headstalls, gilded and enamelled green and rose, with shields upon the temples." Others of these headstalls were made of copper, and nearly all were colour-enamelled. [145] As I have stated in another chapter, the precious stones and metals were continually employed in arms and harness, both of Spanish Moors and Spanish Christians. In 1062 Pedro Ruderiz bequeathed to the Monastery of Arlanza all his battle harness, together with his silver bit (_frenum argenteum_). Thousands of such bequests have been recorded. The Chronicle of Alfonso the Eleventh says that after the victory of the Rio Salado, this monarch found among his spoil "many swords with gold and silver fittings, and many spurs, all of enamelled gold and silver.... And all this spoil was gathered by the king into his palaces of Seville (_i.e._ the Alcázar), the doubloons in one part, and the swords in another part." The testament (sometimes considered to be a forgery) of Pedro the Cruel mentions "my sword in the Castilian manner, that I caused to be made here in Seville with gems and with _aljofar_." In 1409 Yusuf, King of Granada, presented Juan the Second and the Infante Don Enrique with silver-fitted swords. Referring to a later age, Davillier discovered at Simancas a detailed list of weapons sumptuously decorated with gold and coloured enamels, made for Philip the Second by Juan de Soto, "_orfebrero de su Alteza_." _Recherches_, pp. 149-151. The stirrups included "two Moorish stirrups of gilded tin, for a woman's use";[146] "some large Moorish stirrups, gilt, with two silver plates upon their faces, enamelled gold, green, and blue, and eight nails on either face"; "some other Moorish stirrups, wrought inside with _ataujía_-work in gold, and outside with plates of copper enamelled in green, blue, and white; the handles gilt, with coverings of red leather"; and "some silver stirrups with three bars upon the floor thereof, round-shaped in the manner of an urinal, with open sides consisting of two bars, a flower within a small shield on top, and, over this, the small face of a man." [146] The women of mediæval Spain had few amusements besides riding. Another--though owing to the temperate climate it must have been on few occasions--was skating, since this inventory mentions "two pairs of skates, for a man, for travelling over ice. Two pairs of skates, for the same purpose, for a woman." This entry almost matches in its quaintness with the "irons for mustaches," or the "triggers for extracting teeth," set forth in Spanish documents such as the _Tassa General_ of 1627. The many sets of reins included several of Granada make, coloured in white, red, and bay; while one of the most elaborate of the poitrals was of "red leather, embroidered with gold thread, with fringes of rose-coloured silk, buckles, ends, and rounded knobs; the whole of copper enamelled green, and blue, and white." Small but attractive accessories to these handsome sets of mediæval Spanish harness were the decorative medals (Plate lx.) hung from the horse's breast in tourneying or in war. In France these medals were known as _annelets volants_, _branlants_, or _pendants_; although in Spain, where it is probable that they were used more widely than in other countries, they have no definite name. The term _jaeces_ is sometimes applied to them; but _jaez_ properly means the entire harness for a horse, and the word is thus employed by classic Spanish authors, such as Tirso de Molina. A recent term, invented by a living writer, is _jaeces colgantes_, or "hanging _jaeces_." These ornaments, which had their origin among the Romans and Byzantines, are figured in certain of the older Spanish codices such as the _Cántigas de Santa Maria_. In Christian Spain, however, their vogue was greatest in the thirteenth and the fourteenth centuries. They disappeared altogether in the sixteenth century; and among the Spanish Moors their use, though not unknown, was always quite exceptional. The mottoes and devices on these little plates are very varied. Sometimes the motto has an amorous, sometimes a religious import. Sometimes the vehicle of the motto is Latin, sometimes Spanish, sometimes French. Sometimes the device contains, or is composed of, a blazon, and commonly there is floral or other ornament. A collection of nearly three hundred of these medals belonged to the late Count of Valencia de Don Juan, all of which were probably made in Spain. The material as a rule is copper, adorned with _champlevé_ enamelling, and the colours often used to decorate and relieve the interspaces of the gilded metal are red, blue, black, white, and green. [Illustration: LXI TRAVELLING LITTER (_Attributed to Charles the Fifth. Royal Armoury, Madrid_)] According to Florencio Janer, coaches were not known in Spain until the middle of the sixteenth century. Before that time the usual conveyance was the litter. The Madrid Armoury contains an object which is thought to have been the campaigning-litter of Charles the Fifth (Plate lxi.). The Count of Valencia de Don Juan also inclined to this belief from the circumstance that an engraving exists in the British Museum which represents a German litter of the sixteenth century, identical in all respects with this one. Probably, however, these litters were the same all over Europe. The inventory of the Dukes of Alburquerque includes, in 1560, a "cowhide litter, black, lined with black serge; also poles stained black, and harness for mules." This, together with other travelling gear, belonged to "my lady the duchess"; and it is worth noting that the litter attributed to Charles, though cased with a protective covering of whitish canvas, is also of black leather and lined with black serge, besides being evidently built for carriage by two mules. The interior contains a small armchair rising some inches only from the floor, and which, requiring him to keep his legs continually outstretched, could hardly fail to prove excruciatingly uncomfortable to the traveller. Mendez Silva says that the precise date of the introduction of coaches into Spain was 1546, and other writers do not greatly differ from him. The Alburquerque inventory includes "two four-wheeled coaches," as well as "a triumphal car with four wheels, its body painted with red and gold stripes." Vanderhamen, who says that the first coach ever seen in Spain was brought here by a servant of Charles the Fifth in 1554, adds that within a little time their use became "a hellish vice that wrought incalculable havoc to Castile." Certainly this vehicle for many years was far from popular among the Spaniards, and was assailed with special vehemence by all who lacked the income to support one. The Duke of Berganza is said to have remarked that "God had fashioned horses for the use of men, and men had fashioned coaches for the use of women"; while a priest, Tomás Ramón, declared that it was "a vast disgrace to see bearded men, with rapiers at their side, promenading in a coach." Even the governing powers thought fit to interfere. In 1550, 1563, and 1573 the Cortes demanded the total prohibition of these modish yet detested vehicles, while the Cortes of 1578 decreed four horses as the statutory and invariable number for a private carriage. A further law enacted in 1611 that coaches must be strictly private property, and not, on pain of rigorous chastisement, be lent or hired by their owner;[147] while the owner, to own or use a coach at all, required a special licence from the Crown. [147] This prohibition was not inopportune. Swinburne wrote towards the end of the eighteenth century; "Having occasion one day for a coach to carry us about, the stable-boy of our inn offered his services, and in a quarter of an hour brought to the door a coach and four fine mules, with two postillions and a lacquey, all in flaming liveries; we found they belonged to a countess, who, like the rest of the nobility, allows her coachman to let out her equipage when she has no occasion for it; it cost us about nine shillings, which no doubt was the perquisite of the servants." Some curious facts relating to these vehicles in older Spain are instanced by Janer. In the seventeenth century a Spanish provincial town would normally contain a couple of hundred coaches. Among such boroughs was Granada. Here, in 1615, the authorities, backed by nearly all the citizens, protested that the coaches ploughed the highway into muddy pits and channels, and gave occasion, after nightfall, to disgraceful and immoral scenes.[148] After a while the protest grew so loud that the use of coaches in this capital was totally suppressed. One of the first persons to employ a coach in Granada had been the Marquis of Mondejar; and yet, in spite of his extensive influence, this nobleman, each time he wished to drive abroad, required to sue for licence from the town authorities, and these, in making out the written permit, took care to specify the streets through which he was allowed to pass. [148] Towns still exist in Spain where vehicles are not allowed to proceed at more than a walking-pace through any of the streets. One of such towns is Argamasilla de Alba (of _Don Quixote_ fame), where I remember to have read a notice to this effect, painted, by order of the mayor, on a house-wall of the principal thoroughfare. Assailed by numerous pragmatics,[149] chiefly of a sumptuary tenor and repeated at spasmodic intervals until as late as 1785, the private coach became at last an undisputed adjunct to the national life of Spain. Doubtless the use by royalty of gala-coaches or _carrozas_ went far to sanction and extend their vogue. However, I will not describe these lumbering, uncouth, and over-ornamented gala-carriages (some of which were made in Spain) belonging to the Spanish Crown, but quote the following pragmatic, dated 1723, as aptly illustrative of the progress of this industry, and other industries akin to it, in the Peninsula:-- "In order to restrain the immoderate use of coaches, state-coaches, _estufas_, litters, _furlones_,[150] and calashes, we order that from this time forth no one of these be decorated with gold embroidery or any kind of silk containing gold, nor yet with bands or fringes that have gold or silver points; but only with velvets, damasks, and other simple silken fabrics made within this realm and its dependencies, or else in foreign countries that have friendly commerce with us. Also, the fringes and galloons shall be of silk alone; and none, of whatsoever dignity and degree, shall cause his coach, state-coach, etc., to be decorated with the fringes that are known as net-work, tassel-pointed, or bell-pointed; but only with undecorated, simple fringes, or with those of Santa Isabel; nor shall the breadth of either kind of these exceed four fingers. Also, he shall not cause his coach, state-coach, etc., to be overlaid with any gilt or silvered work, or painted with any manner of design--meaning by such, historic scenes, marines, landscapes, flowers, masks, knots of the pattern known as coulicoles, coats of arms, war devices, perspectives, or any other painting, except it imitate marble, or be marbled over of one single colour chosen at the owner's fancy; and further, we allow in every coach, state-coach, etc., only a certain moderate quantity of carving. And this our order and pragmatic shall begin to rule upon the day it is made public; from which day forth no person shall construct, or buy, or bring from other countries, coaches or _estufas_ that infringe our law herein expressed; wherefore we order the _alcaldes_ of this town, our court and capital, to make a register of all such vehicles that each house contains, without excepting any. Nevertheless, considering that if we should prohibit very shortly those conveyances that now be lawful, the owners would be put to great expense, we grant a period of two years wherein they may consume or rid themselves thereof; upon the expiration of which term our law shall be again made public, and thenceforward all, regardless of their quality and rank, shall be compelled to pay obedience to the same. Also we order that no person make or go abroad in hand-chairs fitted with brocade, or cloth of gold or silver, or yet with any silk containing gold and silver; nor shall the lining be embroidered or adorned with any of the stuffs aforesaid; but the covering of the chair, inside and out, shall only be of velvet, damask, or other unmixed silk, with a plain fringe of four fingers' breadth and button-holes of the same silk, and not of silver, gold, or thread, or any covering other than those aforesaid; but the columns of such chairs may be adorned with silken trimmings nailed thereto. And we allow, as in the case of coaches, a period of two years for wearing out the hand-chairs now in use.... Also, we order that the coverings of coaches, _estufas_, litters, calashes, and _furlones_ shall not be made of any kind of silk, or yet the harness of horses or mules for coaches and travelling litters; and that the said coaches, gala-coaches, _estufas_, litters, calashes, and _furlones_ shall not be back-stitched (_pespuntados_), even if they should be of cowhide or of cordwain (goatskin); nor shall they contain any fitting of embroidered leather." [149] A royal degree of 1619 disposed that "every one who sows and tills twenty-five _fanegas_ of land each year, may use a coach." [150] The _estufa_ (literally _stove_) was a form of family-coach. The _furlon_ is described in an old dictionary as "a coach with four seats and hung with leather curtains." PRINTED BY NEILL AND COMPANY, LIMITED, EDINBURGH. * * * * * * Transcriber's note: The original spelling and minor inconsistencies in the spelling and formatting have been maintained. Inconsistent hyphenation and accents are as in the original if not marked as an misprint. The text decoration above IV DE LA FVETE has been omitted on page 222. The table below lists all corrections applied to the original text. p. xii: Old Keys; Seville Cathedral 126 -> 131 p. 11: for securing the cloak; the _torquis_ -> _torques_ p. 12: _Fibulae_ -> _Fibulæ_ p. 17: Amador de los Rios -> Ríos p. 28: Amador de los Rios -> Ríos p. 28: de joyaux les plus precieux -> précieux p. 65: is generally of the fifteeenth -> fifteenth p. 70: He carried, too, a -> "a p. 72: The goldsmiths' and the silversmiths -> silversmiths' p. 82: Mores ont caché leurs tresors -> trésors p. 90: a friar of Guadelupe -> Guadalupe p. 91: Juan González -> Gonzalez p. 93: As soon as Cristobal -> Cristóbal p. 94: fué deste cuento, Jan -> Juan p. 102: et cela luy feioit -> fetoit p. 105: pearls or other stones. -> stones." p. 123: in the _Museo Español de Antigüedades_ -> Antigüedades_) p. 140: Museo Español de Antiguedades -> Antigüedades p. 143: Museo Español de Antiguedades -> Antigüedades p. 176: the emir of the Mussulmans Abi-Abdillah -> Abu-Abdillah p. 180: D.C.C.C.C.XIII. -> D.C.C.C.C.XIII." p. 181: and the Puertas del Perdon -> Perdón p. 188: consisted of "a -> a !!! p. 205: among the Germans _panzerbrecher_ -> _Panzerbrecher_ p. 206: frock (the _waffenrock_ -> _Waffenrock_ p. 220: which specifies "a bard -> band p. 222: It has a _verga_ -> _verja_ p. 229: as well as the chape -> shape p. 232: button and a black tassel. -> tassel." p. 244: published in the _Boletin -> _Boletín p. 262: and the burnisher. -> burnisher. p. 264: making good files or razors. -> making good files or razors." p. 273: of Segovia). Cristobal -> Cristóbal 
47870	----	[Illustration: VICAR & MOSES. Modelled by RALPH WOOD. About 1750. Marked R. WOOD, BURSLEM. _At British Museum._] CHATS ON OLD EARTHENWARE BY ARTHUR HAYDEN AUTHOR OF "CHATS ON OLD CHINA," "CHATS ON OLD PRINTS," ETC. WITH A COLOURED FRONTISPIECE AND 150 ILLUSTRATIONS, AND TABLES OF OVER 200 ILLUSTRATED MARKS NEW YORK FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY PUBLISHERS 1909 (_All rights reserved._) TO MY OLD FRIEND WALTER EASSIE WHOSE FINE ENTHUSIASM HAS BEEN A STIMULANT, AND WHOSE EVER-READY HELP HAS ADDED MANY ARTISTIC TOUCHES TO THIS VOLUME. PREFACE Five years have now elapsed since the publication of my volume, "Chats on English China," and in the interval a great number of readers have written to me suggesting that I should write a companion volume dealing with old English earthenware. It is my hope that this complementary volume will prove of equal value to that large class of collectors who desire to know more about their hobby but are fearful to pursue the subject further without special guidance. It is a matter for congratulation in these days, when so many books have only a short life for one season, to know that, owing to the enterprise of my publisher in making the "Chats" Series for collectors so widely known, the volume dealing with old English China still retains its vitality, and holds its place as a popular guide to collecting with profit. As far as is possible in the limits of this volume, the subject of old English earthenware has been dealt with in order to show how peculiarly national the productions of the potter have been. The collection of old English earthenware, in the main, is still within the reach of those who have slender purses. English china during the last decade has reached prohibitive prices, and there is every likelihood that old English earthenware will in the near future become of unprecedented value. I have carefully refrained from confining my treatment of the subject to rare museum examples which are unlikely to come under the hand of the average collector. It is necessary to have the ideal in view, but it must be borne in mind that such specimens must always be ideal to the larger number of collectors. I have, therefore, without belittling the old potters' art, given considerable attention to the golden mean in the realm of old earthenware to be collected. The two volumes--"Chats on English China," which mainly consists of an outline history of English china, with hints as to its collection, and the present volume, "Chats on English Earthenware," with a faithful _résumé_ of the work of the old English potters--together form a record of what has been done by the potter in England, and are intended to be practical working handbooks for the collector of old English china and English earthenware. The illustrations in this volume have been carefully chosen to illustrate the letterpress, and to enable readers to identify specimens that may come under their observation. _Lists of Prices_ accompany the various sections whenever it has been thought that they may be of practical value. I am indebted for the accuracy of these prices to that useful and authoritative quarterly publication, "Auction Sale Prices," which is a supplement to the _Connoisseur_, and forms the standard record in the collectors' world of the prices realised at auction. A _Bibliography_ of works on the subject has been given, in order that those who may wish to delve deeper may consult special volumes dealing in detail with special sub-heads of old earthenware. I must here record my thanks for the generous aid I have received from possessors of fine examples who have willingly placed their treasures at my disposal, and by so doing have enabled me to present them as illustrations in this volume. To Colonel and Mrs. Dickson I am especially indebted for many specimens from their interesting collection. Miss Feilden has been good enough to select some typical examples from her fine collection of old earthenware of exceptional interest, and they are here reproduced by her courtesy, and to Mr. Richard Wilson I owe my gratitude for kindly allowing illustrations of some examples of Leeds cream-ware from his remarkable collection. Mr. Robert Bruce Wallis, with fine enthusiasm, has spared no trouble to enable me to present some of his rare examples, and Mrs. Herman Liebstein has kindly supplied some fine pieces from her collection. Mr. W. G. Honey has also kindly contributed several excellent illustrations of specimens in his collection. The illustrations of specimens in the Victoria and Albert Museum are reproduced by permission of the Board of Education, and similar permission has been accorded me by the authorities of the British Museum to illustrate some of the rare examples in that collection. By a like courtesy I am enabled to give an illustration of an exceptional piece of marked Wincanton Delft, and some other examples from the collection at the Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh. Messrs. Josiah Wedgwood and Sons, of Etruria have afforded me the pleasure of illustrating some fine specimens in their museum, including examples of the celebrated service made for the Empress Catherine II. of Russia. I am especially indebted to their courtesy in giving me facilities for the reproduction of a fine series of photographs showing the various stages in the manufacture of earthenware, which illustrations should be of practical advantage to the student and of no little interest to the general collector. It should be mentioned that these illustrations have been specially selected to represent the stages through which a piece of old earthenware passed in the hands of the Staffordshire potters. In regard to the illustrations of the rare examples of Leeds and other pieces decorated at Lowestoft, and for the latest details known of this class of ware, I have to acknowledge the particular kindness of Mr. Merrington Smith, fine art expert of Lowestoft, who is known in connection with the excavations conducted a few years ago on the site of the old Lowestoft china factory, and whose detailed research regarding that factory has dissipated many erroneous theories and thrown so much light on its history and achievements. To Mr. Rudd, fine art dealer of Southampton, I am indebted for a considerable fund of information relating to some of the exceptional examples of old English earthenware which have passed through his hands, and I am under a similar obligation to Mr. S. G. Fenton, who has contributed some fine pieces as illustrations to this volume. Mr. James Davies, of Chester, has given me access to his collection, and has added some fine examples which are here included as illustrations. Mr. F. W. Phillips, of Hitchin, has from his fine collection made a generous selection of noteworthy specimens. Mr. A. Duncan, of Penarth, has included photographs of some especially fine Swansea ware. By the kindness of Mr. Hubert Gould, I am reproducing some typical examples of transfer-printed jugs from his collection of old earthenware. To other friends who have generously forborne with my inquiries, and lent me their practical aid in various directions in assisting me to prosecute my researches in attempting to arrive at definite conclusions in regard to points not hitherto determined, I tender my warm appreciation of their kindness. I may say, in conclusion, that a good photographer is a treasure, and no trouble has been spared by Mr. A. E. Smith, the well-known art photographer, to render difficult subjects pictorially attractive in conditions exceptionally detrimental to his art. ARTHUR HAYDEN. _March, 1909._ CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE 9 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 17 BIBLIOGRAPHY 23 GLOSSARY OF TERMS USED 27 CHAPTER I. HOW TO COLLECT: A CHAPTER FOR BEGINNERS 33 II. EARLY WARE 83 III. ENGLISH DELFT 101 IV. STONEWARE 133 V. EARLY STAFFORDSHIRE WARE--THOMAS WHIELDON; HIS CONTEMPORARIES AND SUCCESSORS 159 VI. SALT-GLAZED WARE, STAFFORDSHIRE 195 VII. JOSIAH WEDGWOOD 221 VIII. THE SCHOOL OF WEDGWOOD 257 IX. LEEDS AND OTHER FACTORIES 287 X. TRANSFER-PRINTED WARE 317 XI. STAFFORDSHIRE FIGURES 353 XII. SWANSEA AND OTHER FACTORIES 395 XIII. LUSTRE WARE 423 XIV. LATE STAFFORDSHIRE WARE 443 INDEX 485 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FRONTISPIECE. Staffordshire Group, _Vicar and Moses_. Modelled by Ralph Wood about 1750. Marked R. WOOD, BURSLEM. _At British Museum._ PAGE CHAPTER I.--HOW TO COLLECT. Exterior of Works, Etruria 37 A Corner of Old Etruria Works 41 Mill for Grinding Raw Materials 45 The Thrower (showing the Potter's Wheel) 49 The Oven 53 The Dipping House 57 The Enamel Kiln 61 CHAPTER II.--EARLY WARE. Mediæval Tiles 85 Toft Dish, dated 1671; Posset Pot, dated 1685 89 Earthenware Jug (late 17th century) 93 CHAPTER III.--ENGLISH DELFT. Lambeth Delft Jar (with Arms of Apothecaries' Company) 103 Lambeth Delft "Sack" Bottle, dated 1652 107 Bristol Delft Plate, representing Balloon Ascent 107 Lambeth Delft Candlestick, dated 1648 111 Old Dutch Brass Candlestick 111 Bristol Delft Plate and Bowl 115 Bristol Delft Dish, dated 1740 119 Title-page and Illustration, from volume dated 1638 123 Wincanton Delft Dish 127 CHAPTER IV.--STONEWARE. Stoneware Jugs, Bellarmine and other forms 135 Dwight Bust of _James II._, and Figures of _Children Reading_ 139 Elers Coffee Pot, Mug, and Teapot 143 Astbury Teapots 149 Fulham Stoneware Mug (dated 1725) and Jug 153 CHAPTER V.--EARLY STAFFORDSHIRE WARE. Whieldon Ware Cauliflower Teapot 161 Tortoiseshell Ware Plate 161 Tortoiseshell Ware Teapot and Bowl and Cover 167 Group of Astbury Ware 171 Agate Cat and Salt-glazed Bear Jug 171 Whieldon Tortoiseshell Animals 175 Whieldon Group. _St. George and the Dragon_ 175 Whieldon Toby Jugs 179 Groups of Early Staffordshire Jugs 183 Early Staffordshire Jugs 189 CHAPTER VI.--SALT-GLAZED WARE, STAFFORDSHIRE. Salt-glazed Teapots. Heart-shaped (Lovers') and Camel 197 Group of Salt-glazed Ware 201 Salt-glazed Teapot enamelled in colours 205 Salt-glazed Vase and Punch Bowl enamelled in colours 209 Salt-glazed Jug enamelled in colours 213 CHAPTER VII.--JOSIAH WEDGWOOD. Cream Ware Dessert Basket and Centre-piece 225 Catherine II. of Russia Service--Cream Ware Plates 233 Busts of _Rousseau_ and _Voltaire_ 233 Black Basalt Teapot and Jasper Ware Tea Set 241 Jasper Vase--"The Apotheosis of Virgil" 245 CHAPTER VIII.--THE SCHOOL OF WEDGWOOD. Turner Jasper Vase--"Diana in her Chariot" 261 Adams Blue and White Jasper Vase 261 Turner Stoneware Teapot and Jug 267 Black Basalt Teapots by Birch and by E. Mayer 271 Stoneware Jugs by Spode and by Davenport 277 Black Basalt Teapot (early 19th century) 277 CHAPTER IX.--LEEDS AND OTHER FACTORIES. Leeds Cream Ware Centre-pieces 291 Leeds Cream Ware Group. _Basket, Candlesticks, &c._ 295 Mug and Jug. Leeds Cream Ware, decorated at Lowestoft 299 Leeds Cream Ware Plate and Mug 303 Staffordshire Jug, decorated at Lowestoft 303 Rockingham Teapot 307 Castleford Jug--Black Basalt 307 CHAPTER X.--TRANSFER-PRINTED WARE. Salt-glazed Plate--"Hercules and the Waggoner" 319 Transfer-printed Jug--"Diana in her Chariot" 319 Transfer-printed Jugs--"Duke of York" and "Success to Trade" 323 Group of Chinese Blue and White Porcelain Plates 327 Spode Under-glaze Blue-printed Plate and Jug 331 Turner Dish with Blue-printed "Willow pattern" 331 Spode Blue-printed Ware, "Tower" pattern 335 Blue-printed Dishes by Rogers and Adams 341 Blue-printed Dishes--one with Claude landscape 345 CHAPTER XI.--STAFFORDSHIRE FIGURES. Salt-glaze Figure and Figure of _Cock_ marked R. WOOD 351 _Diana_ and Group, _Birth of Venus_ 355 Group of Staffordshire Figures (NEALE & CO.) 355 _Eloquence_, or _St. Paul Preaching at Athens_ 359 Group _Bacchus_ and _Ariadne_, and Figures of _Venus_ and _Adonis_ 363 Busts of _Bonaparte_ and _Alexander of Russia_ 367 Figures of _Falstaff_ 371 Staffordshire Figure decorated by Absalon, Yarmouth 375 Staffordshire Figures of Musicians (various) 379 Group of Toby Jugs 383 _Cupid_ and Figures of _Flower Boys_ 387 Figures of _Fishwife_ and _Mother Goose_ 391 CHAPTER XII.--SWANSEA AND OTHER FACTORIES. Swansea Plates and Swansea Bulb-pots 397 Cambrian Vase, painted by Pardoe 401 Swansea Jug, painted by Evans 401 Swansea Transfer-printed Ware, Group of 405 Dillwyn's Etruscan Ware, _Vase_ and _Tazza_ 405 Portland Vase in Red Ware (Isleworth) 409 Liverpool Plate and Finely Painted Mug 409 Brown Stoneware Jugs (Isleworth) 413 CHAPTER XIII.--LUSTRE WARE. Lustre Goblets and Gold Lustre Mugs 425 Silver Lustre Figures by Wood and Caldwell 431 Silver Lustre Jugs 431 Copper Lustre Mug and Group of Copper Lustre Ware 437 CHAPTER XIV.--LATE STAFFORDSHIRE WARE. Dessert Plates and Dessert Dish (Mason's Patent Ironstone China) 447 Granite China Vase, marked C J M & Co. 451 Transfer-printed Plates (C. Meigh & Son) 455 Set of Staffordshire Earthenware Vases, richly decorated 455 Group of Nelson Jugs 459 Transfer-printed Plate in Colours, subject--_Steam Carriage_ 463 Old Print, _New Steam Coach_, dated 1827 463 Transfer-printed Jug, representing Stephenson's _Rocket_ 467 Cyder Mug, Transfer-printed, representing Railway Train 467 Doulton Stoneware Jug, with Bacchanalian subject 471 BIBLIOGRAPHY GENERAL. Catalogue of British Pottery and Porcelain. By T. Reeks and F. W. Rudler. 1876. (Out of print.)(Formerly in the Museum of Practical Geology, Jermyn Street.) Marks and Monograms on Pottery and Porcelain. By W. Chaffers. 12th Edition. 1908. Ceramic Art of Great Britain. By Llewellyn Jewitt. 2 vols. 1878. 2nd Edition. 1 vol. 1883. English Earthenware (made during the 17th and 18th centuries). By Professor A. H. Church, F. R. S. 1905. History of Pottery and Porcelain. By J. Marryat. 1857. History of English Earthenware and Stoneware (to the beginning of the 19th century). By William Burton, F. C. S. (Cassell & Co.) 1904. Catalogue of British Pottery, &c., at the British Museum. By R. L. Hobson. 1903. Art of the Old English Potter. By M. L. Solon. Folio. 2nd Edition. 1885. Old English Pottery. By Mr. and Mrs. Frank Freeth. (Morgan, Thompson, & Jamison.) £2 12s. 6d. net. Catalogue of Pottery and Porcelain. (Willett Collection, at Brighton Museum.) 1905. Pottery and Porcelain. A Guide to Collectors. F. Litchfield. 1900. English Pottery and Porcelain. By E. A. Downman. 1896. History of the Staffordshire Potteries. By S. Shaw. (Hanley.) 1829. Reissue by the _Pottery Gazette_. 1900. The Chemistry of Pottery. By S. Shaw. (London.) 1837. Reissue by the _Pottery Gazette_. 1900. Catalogue of English Pottery and Porcelain. (Alexandra Palace.) By R. H. Soden Smith. Destroyed by fire. 1873. Transfer Printing on Enamels, Porcelain, and Pottery. By William Turner. 1907. Examples of Early English Pottery. By J. E. Hodgkin and E. Hodgkin. 1891. Staffordshire Pots and Potters. By G. W. Rhead and F. A. Rhead. 1906. Catalogue of a Collection of English Pottery Figures deposited on loan by Messrs. Frank Falkner and E. J. Sidebotham at the Royal Museum, Peel Park, Salford. (Manchester.) 1906. Chats on English China. By Arthur Hayden. (T. Fisher Unwin.) 4th Edition. 1909. (The concluding chapters contain an outline history of English Earthenware.) PARTICULAR. _Staffordshire._ Pre-Wedgwood English Pottery. (Solon Collection.) _Connoisseur_, December, 1901; February, 1902. William Adams, an old English Potter. Edited by W. Turner. 1904. Josiah Wedgwood. By Miss E. Meteyard. 2 vols. 1865-6. Wedgwood and his Works. By Miss E. Meteyard. 1873. Memorials of Wedgwood. By Miss E. Meteyard. 1874. The Wedgwood Handbook. By Miss E. Meteyard. 1875. Josiah Wedgwood, Master Potter. By Professor A. H. Church. 1903. Old Wedgwood (1760-1795). By F. Rathbone. Folio; 65 plates in colour. 1896. Catalogue of Loan Collection of Wedgwood Ware, Liverpool Art Club. (Liverpool.) 1879. Josiah Wedgwood. By Llewellyn Jewitt. 1865. Handbook to the Tangye Collection of Wedgwood Ware. (Birmingham.) By F. Rathbone. 1885. Wedgwood, Josiah--his Catalogue of Cameos, Intaglios, Bas-reliefs, Busts, and Small Statues, with a General Account of Tablets, Vases, Escritoires, and other Ornamental and Useful Articles. (London.) 1787. Wedgwood, Josiah--his "Catalogue" (as above). Edited by Miss E. Meteyard. 1873. John Wesley Busts in Staffordshire Pottery. By C. S. Sargisson. _Connoisseur_, September, 1907. Catalogue of the Museum at the Etruria Works, Messrs. Josiah Wedgwood & Sons, Ltd. By Frederick Rathbone. 1909.(Mr. Rathbone has arranged the collection of Flaxman's designs, Wedgwood's original pattern models and experimental "trials.") _Bristol._ Two Centuries of Ceramic Art in Bristol. By H. Owen. 1873. _Derby._ The Pottery and Porcelain of Derbyshire. By A. Wallis and W. Bemrose. 1870. _Liverpool._ The Art of Pottery, with a History of its Progress in Liverpool. By J. Mayer. (Liverpool.) 1873. The Liverpool Potteries. By C. T. Gatty. (Liverpool.) 1882. _Leeds._ Old Leeds Pottery. By J. R. and F. Kidson. (Leeds.) 1892. Catalogue of Exhibition of Works of Art in the Cartwright Memorial Hall, Bradford. 1904. Old Leeds Ware. By Henry B. Wilson. _Connoisseur_, 1904. _Swansea._ The Ceramics of Swansea and Nantgarw. By William Turner. GLOSSARY =Agate Ware.=--Earthenware made either "solid" or in "surface" decoration to resemble the veinings of agate and other natural stones. The "solid" agate ware is produced by layers of different coloured clays being twisted together and cut transversely. The "surface" agate ware is splashed and grained decoration on an ordinary cream body. =Astbury Ware.=--A generic term applied to specimens in the manner of the Astburys, with raised floral decoration of white on a red unglazed body. =Basalt.=--Black Basalt, or "Egyptian" ware, is a solid black stoneware of great hardness, made by Wedgwood and by his school of followers. =Biscuit.=--This term is applied to earthenware and porcelain when it has been fired once. It is after the biscuit stage that decorations in colour are applied, and the specimen goes to the oven a second time (see Chapter I.). =Body.=--The body of a piece of earthenware is the clay of which it is composed irrespective of the nature or colour of decoration applied to its surface. =China.=--This term is applied to porcelain of all classes, whether true porcelain of hard paste, _e.g._, Chinese, Japanese, Meissen, Plymouth, Bristol, &c., or artificial porcelain of soft paste, _e.g._, Sèvres (_pâte tendre_), Worcester, Chelsea, Bow, Lowestoft, &c. =China Clay.=--The whitest clay known. Obtained in England from Devon and Cornwall. Used for porcelain, and also for light-coloured earthenware. =China Stone.=--Known also as Cornish stone; used in conjunction with the china clay for porcelain, and employed for stoneware bodies. =Cream Ware.=--This term applies to all light-coloured English earthenware from about 1750 to the present day. It varied in character from the Queen's Ware of Josiah Wedgwood, 1760, to the "chalk body" used by Wilson at the end of the eighteenth century. Cream ware of later date when broken shows a pure white body--a puzzling fact to beginners in collecting. =Delft Ware.=--A generic term given to earthenware with tin enamelled surface. True Delft ware was made at Delft in Holland after 1600, but it was successfully imitated at Lambeth, Bristol, Liverpool, &c. =Earthenware.=--All ware may be termed earthenware which when in the _biscuit_ state is too porous for domestic use but requires a coating of glaze. As a rule, earthenware is opaque, differing in this respect from porcelain, which is translucent. =Enamel Colours.=--The colours applied either in painted or printed decoration _over_ the glaze. =Elers Ware.=--A generic term used in regard to unglazed red stoneware with applied decoration in the style of the Elers brothers. =Glaze.=--The glassy coating applied to earthenware and porcelain. _Lead-glaze._--The earliest form used in England was known as _galena glaze_, when sulphide of lead was in powder form dusted on the ware. Later liquid lead glaze was used, into which the vessels were dipped. _Salt-glaze._--Common salt was thrown into the kiln, and the resultant vapour deposited a fine layer of glaze on the ware. _Over-glaze._--This term applies to painted or printed decoration done _after_ the glaze has been applied to the object--_i.e._, over the glaze. _Under-glaze._--This applies to decoration, painted or printed, done _before_ the glaze is applied to the object--_i.e._, when completed the decoration is under the glaze. =Ironstone China.=--An earthenware for which Mason took out a patent in 1813. The body contains a large proportion of flint and slag of ironstone. =Jasper Ware.=--A fine hard stoneware used by Wedgwood, and imitated by his followers. It is unglazed. =Lustre Ware.=--Earthenware decorated by thin layers of copper, gold, or platinum (see Chapter XIII.). =Marbled Ware.=--Ware of a similar nature to agate ware, having its surface combed and grained to imitate various natural marbles or granites. =Marks.=--In earthenware these makers' names or initials or "trade marks" were usually impressed with a metal stamp. Obviously this must have been done when the ware was in plastic state; therefore it is impossible to add such marks after the ware is made, and when present on old ware they are a sign of undoubted genuineness. Of course a copy can be made bearing an impressed mark. Painted or printed marks sometimes occur on earthenware usually of a later date. Such marks may be under-or over-glaze; the former are not likely to have been added after the piece has been made. =Modern.=--English earthenware may be termed "modern" when it is of a later date than 1850. Though, as is indicated in Chapter XIV., the modern renaissance in earthenware should be of especial interest to collectors. =Over-glaze.=--See _Glaze_. =Oven.=--The "oven," as the potter terms it, is a specially-built furnace in which the "saggers" containing the ware are placed during the firing (see Chapter I.). =Paste.=--This is another term for the "body" of the ware. ="Resist" Pattern.=--A term in silver lustre ware. For detailed description see Chapter XIII. =Sagger.=--A fire-clay box in which the earthenware is placed when being fired in the oven (see Illustration, Chapter I.). =Salt-glaze.=--See _Glaze_, and see Chapter VI. =Semi-china. Semi-porcelain.=--Terms applied to early nineteenth century earthenware having a very white or chalk body, and having the outward appearance of china or porcelain. Strongly imitative and false to the true qualities of earthenware. It is always opaque. Sometimes it is naïvely termed "opaque china." =Slip.=--A thick semi-solid fluid composed of clay and water. =Spurs. Spur mark.=--During the glazing of earthenware "spurs" or "stilts" of fire-clay are used to support the articles and keep them from touching each other. "Spur" or "cockspur" marks are found on the ware where it has rested on these supports (see Chapter IX., p. 298). =Stoneware.=--A variety of pottery distinct from earthenware, and more nearly approaching porcelain in its characteristics. Earthenware, as has been shown, needs a coating of glaze to protect its porous defects. Stoneware is a hard body needing no glaze. Glazed stoneware is frequently found, and the glaze employed is usually salt. =Throwing.=--The art of fashioning shapes on the potter's wheel (see Illustration, Chapter I.). =Transfer Printing.=--Printing employed as a decoration on ware by means of paper which had received a design from a copper-plate, and was transferred to the surface of the ware (see Chapter X.). =Under-glaze.=--See _Glaze_. ="Wedgwood."=--This has become a generic term for one or two classes of ware--_e.g._, jasper and black basalt, which were made by most of the potters succeeding Josiah Wedgwood. The word has, in common with Boule and Chippendale become popularly and erroneously used. =Whieldon Ware.=--A generic term covering all classes of ware of a mottled, cloudy, or splashed character--_e.g._, tortoiseshell plates, vases, figures, &c. I HOW TO COLLECT: A CHAPTER FOR BEGINNERS Chats on Old Earthenware CHAPTER I HOW TO COLLECT: A CHAPTER FOR BEGINNERS Reasons for collecting--What is earthenware?--How earthenware is made--What to collect--Method of studying old earthenware--Forgeries--Table for use in identifying old English earthenware. To attempt to advance reasons for collecting old English earthenware is seemingly to commence this volume with an apology on behalf of collectors. But there are so many persons ready to throw a stone at others who betray the possession of hobbies differing from their own, that it is necessary to state that the reasonable collection of old earthenware is based on sound premisses. Similar reasons may be given for the collection of old English earthenware to those that may be advanced for the collection of old English china. Earthenware may be approached mainly from the æsthetic side and studied with a view to show the development of decorative art in this country and the foreign influences which have contributed to its evolution. The art of the old English potter is of especial interest to students of ceramic art, as many processes were invented in this country, and, in spite of periods of decadence, English earthenware has won for itself a considerable reputation on the Continent from a technical point of view. It may be collected as an adjunct to old furniture by lovers of old furniture who are precisians in regard to harmony in schemes of decoration. They prefer to see china and earthenware of the same period as the furniture. A modern set of vases adorning a Georgian cabinet is like putting new wine into old bottles. So that concomitant with the love for old furniture, old pictures, and old prints is the accompanying regard for contemporary china and earthenware. The "drum and trumpet history" relating the personal adventures of princes and nobles, and the pomp of courts, or the intrigues of favourites, sets no store on the apparent trivialities which mark the social and intellectual progress of a nation. But the scientific student of history cannot afford to ignore the detailed study of social conditions which are indicated by the china-shelf. The due appreciation of the development of costume, of furniture, and of the domestic arts gives life and colour to the written records of byegone days. A mug or a jug with an inscription may tell a story of popular party feeling as pointedly as a broadsheet or a political lampoon. [Illustration: EXTERIOR OF WORKS, ETRURIA: THE MARL BANK. _By the courtesy of Messrs. Josiah Wedgwood & Sons._] The ordinary man sees in the collection of china and earthenware an interesting hobby. He reads of the prices remarkable specimens bring under the hammer, and he begins to think that his education has been partly neglected since he knows little or nothing concerning these art treasures, which seemingly are attractive to other men of culture and means. "Collecting for profit" is a phrase that tickles the ears of many others. Undoubtedly there have been many who have entered the field of collecting and regarded their purchases solely as investments. It must be borne in mind that this class of collector is not to be despised, inasmuch as when he has mastered his subject (and as there is money in it he very speedily sets to work to do this) he is a very formidable rival. It is absurd to imagine that an amateur, after having given especial study to a subject such as old earthenware, is not in a better position to enter the market as a buyer or a seller than he who comes with little or no training. It is only reasonable that a man should take an intelligent interest in the evolution of the ware in everyday use. But it is to be feared that long rows of cases at the museum with specimens of earthenware behind glass doors must necessarily be a valley of dry bones to the spectator unless he bring the seeing eye and the understanding heart to quicken these dry bones into life. Enough, perhaps, has been said as a prelude to this volume to show that various reasons may be advanced to account for the new spirit of collecting which has become so infectious. It is the hope of the writer that the following chapters, as an outline of the subject of collecting old English earthenware, may point the way to a better appreciation of what is really of value in this field, and will enable the collector in his search to sift the wheat from the chaff, and him who already possesses _lares et penates_ of uncertain age to identify them. =What is Earthenware?=--To know what is earthenware always puzzles the beginner. A rough-and-ready means of determining the difference between earthenware and porcelain is to apply the light test. Porcelain more nearly approaches glass and is translucent--that is, it clearly shows the shadow of the hand holding it when placed up to the light. But there are occasions when this test fails; for instance, a block of porcelain may, as in a heavy figure, be so thick as to render this experiment impossible. On the other hand, fine stoneware may be partly translucent in the thinner parts. In early nineteenth-century days a class of ware, such as that of Mason, is stamped "ironstone china" or "stone china." This is earthenware of a peculiar nature, having certain of the properties of porcelain. Similarly, at various times earthenware has been made which nearly approaches porcelain in its constituents. Dwight with his stoneware busts and Wedgwood in his jasper ware produced earthenware of such character as to come close to the border line dividing earthenware from porcelain. The potter's art is divided into two sub-heads--porcelain and earthenware--which latter, for purposes of simplification, includes stoneware. [Illustration: A CORNER OF OLD ETRURIA WORKS. _By the courtesy of Messrs. Josiah Wedgwood & Sons._] Earthenware is of soft body, is opaque--that is, it cannot be seen through. Its thinness or its thickness has nothing to do with its title. Stoneware is equally opaque, but it is as hard as porcelain. It may be as thick and heavy as a German beer-mug or a stone ginger-beer bottle, or it may be cream in colour, and thin as a Passover cake, as in salt-glazed Staffordshire ware, or white and heavy, as in later stone china. Porcelain may be hard or soft and possesses properties equally its own, but is outside the scope of this volume. Practically earthenware is of such porous clay that when fired in the kiln it is unfit for use, as it is still too porous until it receives a coating of glaze. Unglazed stoneware, Egyptian black, and Wedgwood's jasper ware differ from earthenware in this respect, as they do not receive any glaze, since they are of dense enough body to be used in "biscuit" or unglazed state. _Its appearance._ In colour earthenware may be brown or white in exterior, or brown or white in body as shown when broken. At its best its style to the beginner may not be suggestive of great difference between earthenware and porcelain. Similar figures were attempted in the one material as in the other. In France at Niderviller, at Marseilles, and at Scieux the potters deliberately set themselves to make objects in earthenware as delicate and fanciful as were produced in hard porcelain at Dresden or in soft porcelain at Vincennes. Clocks, vases, sweetmeat-boxes, and elaborate dinner services lavishly decorated in over-glaze enamels and gilded, emulated the best work of the porcelain factories. In Staffordshire the story has been repeated. So that form is no guide as to what kind of ware a piece may be. In weight earthenware is lighter than porcelain as a general rule, though variations in the body make this rule an elastic one. In stoneware, and ware approximating to this in character, the weight is heavier than porcelain. All ironstone ware is exceedingly heavy. _Reasons for its appearance._ The earlier earthenware was brown in body. The Dutch potters in the seventeenth century covered their ware with an opaque white tin enamel to conceal the dark earthen body and to enable them to paint on its surface in imitation of Chinese porcelain. Stoneware, such as the jugs of early type known as Bellarmines, is of very vitreous earthenware fired so hard as to resist acids or the use of a file when applied to the surface. When glazed this class of ware has salt glaze. Dwight, of Fulham, introduced white, or nearly white, stoneware into England in his statuettes, which induced him to claim that he had discovered the secret of making porcelain. Cream ware followed later, and, perfected by Wedgwood, it was adopted as the standard earthenware of Staffordshire. It was the last note in earthenware till the beginning of the nineteenth century, when the Staffordshire potters invented an earthenware with a white body more nearly approaching porcelain in appearance. For fifty years experiments had been carried on, and this cream ware was whitened by a process called "blueing" by the use of cobalt to whiten the lead glaze. But the final invention was by Mason with his patent ironstone china, in which he produced a hard, white body. =How Earthenware is made.=--A good deal of theory has found its way into print, but it is not every one, even among collectors, who has actually seen the various stages through which a lump of clay passes before it finally takes its place on the table as a teapot or a breakfast cup. [Illustration: MILL FOR GRINDING RAW MATERIALS. _By the courtesy of Messrs. Josiah Wedgwood & Sons._] It has, therefore, been thought of interest to illustrate a few steps in the process of this transformation of clay into vessels of utility and beauty. By the kindness of Messrs. Josiah Wedgwood and Sons, of Etruria, this series of illustrations appears, and the subjects have been chosen with a view to showing those processes of the potter which are practically the same as in the days of the great Josiah. The first illustration (p. 37) shows an _Exterior View of the Etruria Works_, with the Cornish stone and the ball clays from Dorset and Devon and the flints lying in heaps exposed to the sun and frost in order to "weather." This exposure is considered advantageous, as the longer the clay is in the open the better it will work when required for use. The second illustration (p. 41) shows a _Corner of the old Etruria Works_. The structure is practically the same as in the early days, and the bottom windows on the right have remained unaltered. The farthest at the bottom corner on the right was the room of old Josiah. The third illustration shows the _Mill for grinding raw materials_. The clays are put into this vat and crushed between two stones. There is nothing different now from the early days. The old oak beams tell their story. It is true that steam is now used, but that is all to make this process differ from that employed a century and a half ago--first when wind-power was used, as in flour mills, and later when a horse was substituted. This grinding is done with water, and the mixture comes out a thick liquid. The mixing-tank is the next stage. These liquid constituents, such as ball clay, china clay, flint, &c., according to the formula of the pottery, are carefully admitted into the tank in correct proportions and thoroughly "blended" together. The body is now in its "slip" state, and is pressed and dried to make it more malleable when not required for casting. In its later stage, in more solid form, it is ready to be thrown on the potter's wheel. =The Potter's Wheel.=--We illustrate (p. 40) the ingenious potter who is known as "The Thrower." It is he who, on a little revolving table between his knees pressed with his hands, magically transforms the lump of clay into beautiful shapes. Unfortunately, modern methods are eliminating the work of "the thrower," whose art dates back to the remotest past in the East when man first made clay into objects of beauty. We find the prophet Jeremiah saying, "Then I went down to the potter's house, and behold he wrought a work on the wheel. And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hands of the potter, so he made again another vessel as seemed good to the potter to make it." Old Omar Khayyam brings a moral to bear on the potter and his wheel: "Surely not in vain My substance from the common Earth was ta'en That He who subtly wrought me into shape Should stamp me back to common Earth again." And Shakespeare, not to miss a good simile, makes one of his characters say, "My thoughts are whirled like a potter's wheel." [Illustration: THE THROWER. Showing the Potter's Wheel. _By the courtesy of Messrs. Josiah Wedgwood & Sons._] =The Pottery Kilns.=--The next stage is to convert the vessel thrown in soft clay, and put aside to dry, into being as a piece of pottery. There are three ovens, termed the "biscuit," the "glost," and the "enamel." In the illustration (p. 53) it is seen how the vessels are put into "saggers," which are boxes of fire-clay piled upon one another. The doorway is bricked up and plastered, and gradually the furnace is heated. Practically this "oven" illustrated is typical of the "biscuit" or the "glost" oven, the difference being in the temperature applied, the latter being at a much lower temperature. It may be interesting to mention that a quick oven is three days in firing and three days in cooling before the ware is removed. For ornamental and important specimens of a very special nature as long a period as a month may be taken to fire and half that time to cool. But of course this is only in exceptional circumstances. It conjures up a picture of the awful anxiety of some of the great master potters at the critical moment when the doorway is pulled down and the contents of the oven are drawn. It is here where the triumph or the failure of the potter manifests itself. When taken out of the first oven the ware is termed "biscuit." It is now ready for glazing. Of course, in such ware as jasper or unglazed stoneware, basalt, and similar kinds, the "biscuit" state is the final one, the object being completed. =The Dipping-house.=--In the illustration (p. 57) it will be seen that the ware in its "biscuit" state is dipped in liquid glaze in a very deft manner, after which it proceeds to the "glost" oven to harden this glaze on its surface. It is here that great care has to be exercised in keeping the pieces from coming in contact with each other; spurs and tripods are placed between each piece to obviate this. The "saggers" in which this newly-glazed ware is placed are dusted with material infusible at the lower heat to prevent the pieces adhering to these "saggers." In fact, as is readily seen, a fine specimen may be easily ruined at any stage. In undecorated ware, as in the cream-ware examples illustrated (p. 225), this ends the process, and they are complete. But in ware that is to be decorated _over_ the glaze there is yet another stage before they are finished. It will be observed that we are alluding to _over-glaze_ decoration. But ware may be painted before being glazed,--that is _under-glaze_. In order, however, not to confuse the beginner at the outset, this has been described in a later chapter (p. 326). =The Enamel Kiln.=--After the decorations have been painted upon the glazed ware it has to be fired in the enamel kiln. A far lower heat than that of the "glost" oven is required; the flames do not pass inside the kiln, as in an oven, but are led in flues all round the kiln. We give an illustration (p. 61) of this for firing colours or gold _over_ the glaze. As will be seen, the pieces are carefully protected from contact with each other, and at this last stage it is quite possible to undo all the patient labour previously employed and irretrievably ruin a piece. In this hasty outline of the various processes of the potter much has been omitted; but, in the main, these illustrations should serve to kindle a more intelligent interest, even among collectors, in the earthenware and china which has passed through so many critical periods in its life-history. [Illustration: THE OVEN. Showing the "saggers" containing ware ready for firing. _By the courtesy of Messrs. Josiah Wedgwood & Sons._] =What to Collect.=--This is largely a question of personal predilection. In general the field of English earthenware may be divided into nine classes, and the collector who wishes to specialise will have his individual taste for one or more of these, according as its technical or artistic qualities appeal to him. This arrangement is mainly chronological, but obviously one class will overlap others in point of time. These classes are further summarised in detail in the table intended for use in identifying old earthenware given at the end of this chapter. I. Early English pottery. II. Delft ware. III. Stoneware (including Staffordshire salt-glaze ware). Prior to the inventions of Josiah Wedgwood. IV. Variegated ware--agate and clouded ware. V. Cream ware-- (1) Plain. (2) Decorated by painting. (3) Transfer-printed. By far the largest variety of English earthenware, including domestic ware and figures. Made by all potters. VI. Classic ware--the school of which Josiah Wedgwood is the founder. VII. Figures (mainly Staffordshire). VIII. Lustre ware. IX. Opaque china } Semi-porcelain } Nineteenth century. Ironstone china } =Method of studying old Earthenware.=--To those readers who peruse this volume without any definite idea of the standpoint of the collector it should not be left unsaid that the proper study and collection of old English earthenware require a considerable amount of reading and, what is of much greater importance, a very practical examination of some hundreds of specimens. It is this practical experience which alone can give the beginner the training he requires. It is a complex subject bristling with unexpected difficulties in regard to technical points and crowded with apparent contradictions. The bibliography given on pp. 23-25 will enable readers to pursue special studies in greater detail. The next best thing to handling the actual specimens is to see them. It cannot here be impressed upon the beginner too strongly that it is absolutely necessary, in order to educate his eye, that the finest known examples in the particular classes should be frequently seen. The national museums, the Victoria and Albert and the British, in London, both contain splendid collections classified in a very thorough manner. In the provinces, the following museums among others contain fine collections, often of richer interest in special subjects than the aforementioned. For instance, the Public Museum at Liverpool contains the most representative collection of the various classes of Liverpool ware. The fine Art Gallery at Leeds is rich in typical examples of the finest productions in Leeds earthenware. At the Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh, and at the Science and Art Museum, Dublin, there are finely arranged collections of pottery. At the Castle Museum, Nottingham, at York, at Norwich, at Bath, at Bristol, at Swansea, at Cardiff, at the Weston Park Museum, Sheffield, at the Pitt-Rivers Museum, Farnham, North Dorset, at the Grosvenor Museum, Chester, at Maidstone, at Bury St. Edmunds, and at Saffron Walden, there are collections which can be studied. [Illustration: THE DIPPING HOUSE. Showing how the ware is glazed. _By the courtesy of Messrs. Josiah Wedgwood & Sons._] In the district of the Potteries itself the following museums have representative collections of special varieties of Staffordshire ware. At Hanley, at Tunstall, at Burslem, at Stoke-on-Trent, and at Etruria, with its Wedgwood Museum, there is material enough to be seen, so that it may be said that there is little need for the beginner to be starved for want of opportunities to see fine examples. =Hints as to Prices.=--It is impossible in such a complex subject as old earthenware to lay down any hard and fast rules as to prices to be paid. Specimens vary very considerably in quality, and according to demand prices fluctuate as in other markets. If the beginner will make a point of learning his subject and will keep in touch with a few dealers, he will find that they will readily assist him to identify his own specimens and systematically aid him in adding judiciously to his collection. A great deal of offensive nonsense has been written by fashionable lady journalists, declaiming against the professional dealer and crediting him with every conceivable trick under the sun. But the greatest and the wisest of collectors number a host of dealers as personal friends. A continuous stream of good things passes through the hands of the dealers who, by incessant handling and practical study, are able and willing to help the collector and to solve his difficulties. _Dealers' prices_ are in many cases surprisingly low considering the great trouble they have taken to acquire the pieces. It is far better to procure bargains in this manner, with one's personal knowledge supplemented by the friendly suggestions of one's favourite dealer, than to attempt to obtain through private sources "great bargains" from amateur dealers whose possessions would not, in many cases, bear the light of day in the open market. =Forgeries.=--There are many "faked" pieces in existence, and there are many copies and a great quantity of productions of factories of to-day who reproduce their old patterns made a century or more ago. Some of this is made with intent to deceive, and much is merely a trade movement to supply a known want on the part of the public. But it is exactly here that the dealer who has a respect for his clients, and being a business man naturally does not wish to ruin his reputation, may be of inestimable value in advising the collector. Mr. Solon, the eminent authority and a practical worker in artistic pottery, tells in his "Art of the Old English Potter" how, when he was searching for fine specimens to make his collection, he was deceived by some sham old slip ware bought at a high figure in a lonely cottage in a remote district. If the fabricator could lure so studious a collector into his net, it goes without saying that especial precautions should be taken by the beginner not to give large prices unless he has a guarantee or knows the seller's reputation. Buyers of old delft ware should be careful in examining the decoration of their purchases. Plain ware, which is not so valuable and is comparatively common, is decorated in blue, or a coat-of-arms and a date added, giving a fictitious value to the piece. In fact, such genuine dated pieces are worth ten times the plain ones. Plain jars and jugs worth £2 or £3, with the fraudulently added word "Sack" and the initials "C. R." in blue, may tempt the unwary collector to give £20. It will thus be seen that this is the most dangerous of frauds, and difficult to detect unless the collector has handled many decorated pieces, for the delft itself is absolutely genuine. [Illustration: THE ENAMEL KILN. Showing the ware after being enamelled stacked ready for firing. _By the courtesy of Messrs. Josiah Wedgwood & Sons._] Similarly, plain pieces of genuine Staffordshire salt glaze are enamelled in colours in order to enhance the value, owing to the fashionable demand for coloured examples. As much as £50 has been paid by an unfortunate collector for a teapot quite worth this if genuine old colour work, but unhappily it was, although fine old salt glaze, quite recently coloured, evidently with fraudulent intentions. Staffordshire figures that are modern tell their own story, or should do so, to the collector who has ever carefully examined the potting and the glaze of fine old examples. Nor is there much excuse for the blundering collector who cannot readily distinguish between the crude modern Toby jug with its blatant colouring, so smudgy and smeary with black stains to impart age, and its genuine prototype. There are some fairly modelled Toby jugs, of modern origin, one in particular seated in a corner chair, with a salt-glaze surface. Another "fake" appeals to the lover of the Whieldon style, and has a mottled base and hat. But they are, as the expressive term goes, "hot from the oven." The "Vicar and Moses" was so well modelled by Ralph Wood that it shared the fate of George Morland's pictures which were copied by his contemporaries. Ralph Wood's "Vicar and Moses" was copied all through the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and to-day modern fabrications repeat the same model _ad nauseam_. Sham Voyez "Fair Hebe" jugs, made for foolish collectors, are frequently to be seen and avoided. Leeds ware has engaged the attention of the imitator. Some of the ware is made in Germany and is unmarked. But other modern productions exist stamped "Leeds Pottery," and are imitations of the old Leeds patterns. There is a tobacco jar in pewter having a shield with the Leeds coat-of-arms, and raised medallions of a ship and of the patron saint of the woolcombers. This jar has been of late years copied in cream ware, and with its lid with twisted handle it has passed as "genuine old Leeds." But it is nothing of the sort. In general, earthenware comes off better in regard to forged marks than porcelain. In the latter, of course, it is the easiest thing in the world to add the marks, especially when most of them were _painted_. But in earthenware the majority of marks were _impressed_ in the ware and this cheats the "faker" of his quarry. As a matter of fact, the mark should not lead the collector by the nose. Before seeing any mark a collector should begin to know his subject so well that the mark is an additional piece of information which serves to confirm his previous conclusions as to the specimen under examination. An unmarked example may show every evidence in modelling, in paste, in colour, and in glaze, of having been made by a certain potter at a particular date. The only confirmation lacking is the mark. It is here that marked ware becomes of paramount importance for purposes of comparison. And it is better to have a genuine marked piece in one's cabinet, from a business point of view, than a genuine piece equally fine that bears no signature or trade-mark. But this craving on the part of collectors for marks has led in the field of china to a disastrous state of things; marks of one potter have been added to the productions of another, and no fabricated Worcester china is worth its salt as a correct piece of forgery unless it bears the square mark or the crescent. Happily, in earthenware the question of marks only affects the ware from Wedgwood's day onwards. The finest specimens of earthenware in the noted collections throughout the country, of Elers, and Dwight and Astbury, and Whieldon, and the whole salt-glaze school bear no mark, for the very simple reasons that the old potters had no "marks." But they signed their pieces all over, and the touch of these old masters is immediately intelligible to the trained eye of the collector. =How to identify old Earthenware.=--The following Table roughly summarises the field under which English earthenware may be classified. It is the hope of the writer that possessors of earthenware which they are unable to identify will, by the help of this Table, be able to place their pieces under the sub-head to which they belong. The references given to the chapters dealing with the classes in detail are intended to point the way to a more extended examination of specimens. A good general rule for beginners in attempting the proper identification is to commence by eliminating all the classes of ware to which the piece obviously cannot belong. Gradually the field becomes limited to one period, and finally it is narrowed to two or three factories. But it is only by practice that definite and accurate conclusions can be arrived at. TABLE FOR USE IN IDENTIFYING OLD ENGLISH EARTHENWARE. =I. EARLY POTTERY.= Early examples of green glazed pitchers and jugs of crude form, =Mediæval.= 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries. Domestic Vessels. Costrels (_i.e._, pilgrims' bottles), flasks with holes at shoulders for use of cord in carrying. Ecclesiastical Tiles Ecclesiastical tiles. Incised or (15th-16th centuries). impressed patterns, raised, inlaid, or with slip decoration. Floral, geometrical, heraldic ornamentation. Figures of men and of animals (see illustration, p. 85). =Slip Ware.= Loving-cups, or tygs, with several (17th century.) handles, posset pots with spouts. Lead-glazed, greenish in colour, with tones varying from purplish-brown to black (see illustration, p. 89). Wrotham Ware Wrotham, in Kent, the seat (1612-1717). of this ware of red body with slip stamped decorations or incised ornamentation. A great number of pieces of this class bear dates covering a century. Toft Ware Dishes and posset pots of Staffordshire (Latter half of origin, Thomas Toft, 1660, 17th century). Ralph Toft, Ralph Turnor, William Chatterly, Robert Shaw, William Tabor, John Wright, Joseph Nash, John Meir and other names appear on this ware, some being those of the potters, and others the owner's name. (=These varieties of Early Pottery are described in Chapter II.=) =II. DELFT WARE.= _General Characteristics of Delft Ware._ In appearance it cannot be mistaken for any other ware. It has a brown or grey body, showing at crumbled edges where the glaze is chipped off. The surface is white, and the painting upon it is more coarse than Dutch examples. English decorations are mostly painted under glaze in blue, yellow, or dull purple. =Lambeth.= Dishes, plates, salt-cellars, puzzle-jugs, sack bottles, pharmacy jars Early examples, 1630. and candlesticks are most ordinarily found. The enamelled surface of Van Hamme, potter of Lambeth delft has a pinkish tint. Lambeth, 1671. Plates with portraits and dates (1637-1702), Adam and Eve dishes, of large size, painted in blue with this and other Biblical subjects, "The Journey to Emmaus," "Jacob's Ladder," or with Oriental designs. Earlier specimens have a purplish or dull yellow lead glaze at back of dish. =Bristol.= Election and other plates dated 1740-1784. Painted tiles and plates with landscape subjects--Chinese figures, parrots. _Bianco sopra bianco_ white enamel on greenish ground. Bowls with purple ground and white reserved panels with blue decoration. =Liverpool.= Prior to 1762 all Liverpool delft, including tiles, was printed. Early in 18th century, the principal trade Delft dishes decorated in Chinese of the city. style. Bowls with ships as decoration. Druggists' jars. Transfer-printed tiles by Sadler & Green, or later by Zachariah Barnes. =Wincanton.= Similar to Bristol in character. Up to the present very little is known of this factory. (See illustration, p. 127.) (=These varieties of Delft Ware are dealt with in detail in Chapter III.=) =III. STONEWARE.= Mottled red-brown colour, mostly salt glazed, pitted surface like orange skin. Early Bellarmine Jugs. Having dates and coats-of-arms in foreign examples; coarser style probably English. =Fulham.= White busts and figures. Red, unglazed ware. Brown jugs and mugs. Marbling on John Dwight vases and bases, and stamped ornaments (1671-1703). in relief on teapots. =Staffordshire.= A generic name for all unidentified red (unglazed) ware. Teapots, &c., Elers Ware. with stamped ornament similar to Dwight. John Philip Elers, _Prunus_ blossom and Chinese ornament, David Elers in relief. Turned on lathe and perfectly (1690-1710). finished. Spouts plain, moulded by hand. John Astbury Red, buff, orange, and chocolate body. (died 1743). Similar ware to Elers, with the ornaments in relief in white pipe-clay. Made early salt-glaze crouch ware. Thomas Astbury Followed same style. Little to (from 1725). distinguish his work from that of his father. _Astbury_ is a generic term for all ware of this nature, with white stamped ornaments in relief. Many Staffordshire potters made this type of ware in latter half of eighteenth century, and it was imitated at Liverpool. =Nottingham.= As early as Dwight's day Morley made stoneware mugs, and Nottingham ware Early 18th century holds a high place. The jugs are sometimes with decorative pierced work, showing an inner shell which holds the liquid. The glaze is decidedly lustrous in appearance, and the colour of the body is a warm reddish brown. Discontinued at end of 18th century. _Bear Jugs_ were a feature of this factory, and cruder examples were made at Chesterfield and Brampton. (=These varieties are described in detail in Chapter IV.=) =Staffordshire Salt Glaze= Finely potted thin stoneware, surface like skin of orange, almost as Astbury and Whieldon translucent as porcelain. were the pioneers of this finer stoneware. 1. Plain white or undecorated with Most of the Staffordshire raised stamped ornament. potters from 1725-1780 made salt-glaze ware. 2. Plain white body with incised But this ware was ornament filled in with blue. supplanted by Wedgwood's cream ware, which seized 3. Enamelled in colours on a white body. the market in the last quarter of the 18th 4. Body colour blue (rare examples by century. William Littler), enamelled decorations in black, white, or gold. 5. Pierced ware with decorations in colour, or undecorated. 6. Ware decorated by transfer printing. 7. Ware with raised ornament, touched with colour. Some of this salt-glaze ware is in colour a slate grey. The sharpest cut designs and the highest type of the undecorated ware belong to the period from 1725-1740. The enamelling in colours was at its best from 1745-1760. Salt-glaze ware, in imitation of the Staffordshire potters, was also made at Swansea and at Liverpool. (=These varieties are described in detail in Chapter VI.=) =Fulham.= Fulham has been the seat of the (Eighteenth century.) manufacture of stoneware since the days of Dwight. Early 18th century. Blue and grey stoneware jugs and mugs, with initials of Queen Anne or those of George I., often dated. Late 18th century. The following are typical--brown stoneware jugs and mugs with bacchanalian subjects, or sporting scenes, in relief, inkstands, brandy flasks of grotesque shape. In 19th century days "Doulton & Watts, Lambeth Pottery," is impressed on similar examples, and in middle 19th century days, under the guidance of Sir Henry Doulton, a revival of artistic stoneware took place, which traditions Messrs. Doulton carry on at the present day. =IV. VARIEGATED WARE.= Marbled or agate wares (1740-1756), Dwight (of Fulham), John Astbury. The earlier Usually known under surface marbling or combing supplanted by the generic term of "solid agate" ware--a blending of layers _Whieldon ware_. of different coloured clays. Early tortoiseshell plates made by Whieldon. Tortoiseshell and mottled ware also made by Philip Christian at Liverpool, at Leeds, and at Castleford. _Wedgwood._--Later developments of this ware--vases and important classic pieces in imitation of coloured marbles. _The imitators of Wedgwood._--Palmer, Neale, and others made this marbled ware. Neale employed with great success sprinkled marbling, touched with gold, on a cream body. Both Wedgwood and his successors made "solid agate" and also surface-decorated ware of cream body. (=This ware is described in Chapter V. (Whieldon), and in Chapters VII. and VIII. in regard to Wedgwood and later developments.=) =V. CREAM WARE.= _Experimental Stage._--Astbury (1725), Whieldon (from 1740), Warburton (Hot By far the largest Lane), Baddeleys (Shelton). variety of English earthenware. Made _Queen's Ware_ perfected by Wedgwood by all potters. The (1765). Wedgwood, Turner, Warburton, standard type of all (Leeds) Messrs. Hartley, Greens & Co., subsequent domestic Liverpool, Swansea, Derby. ware. _In colour creamy or yellowish white. In weight light._ Plain or undecorated. Many of Wedgwood's finest cream ware pieces are undecorated, and Leeds, at first largely imitative, developed a fine quality in design and potting, especially in designs after silversmiths' models. Decorated by painting. At first painting was sparely used. The style of enamelling used on salt-glaze ware was modified to suit the new cream ware. Later the colours began to emulate those of porcelain. Spode, in particular, copied the latter in earthenware, and cream ware became richly painted and gilded. Transfer-printed. As the invention of transfer-printing and the perfection of cream ware by Wedgwood were contemporaneous, the Liverpool printers decorated all the early cream ware. But cream ware was subsequently made as well as printed at Liverpool, and printed as well as made in Staffordshire and elsewhere. =Early Cream Ware.= _Wedgwood._ Enormous variety of domestic ware, _plain or undecorated_, as in perforated or basket patterns, fruit dishes, &c., _painted_ in simple border designs, and _transfer-printed_ in red, black, or puce, at Liverpool, for Wedgwood. Warburton, William Adams, John Turner, Spode, and many others made similar cream ware. _Leeds._--Great variety of dishes, fruit baskets, centre-pieces, &c., made of undecorated cream ware. In addition painted and transfer printed decorations were also employed. =Transfer-printing= _Liverpool_ made cream ware punch bowls =in blue.= finely decorated in blue. In imitation of Chinese _Caughley_ produced for a few years styles, and in earthenware of cream body decorated, in competition with the characteristic style, by Thomas Turner, porcelain of Worcester, who introduced the willow pattern in 1780, Bow, Plymouth, &c. which appears together with similar Chinese subjects in his early Salopian _porcelain_. =Staffordshire.= John Turner (of Lane End) first introduced (=See Chapter X.=) under-glaze blue into Staffordshire. Josiah Spode introduced "willow pattern" into Staffordshire, 1784. William Adams (of Greengates), 1787, fine under-glaze blue. Thomas Minton, 1793, fine under-glaze blue. Apprenticed to Thomas Turner (of Caughley). Adams, Warburton, Spode, and other Staffordshire potters engaged largely in this deep blue printed ware. _Swansea_ had a similar cream ware, which had painted designs or blue-printed in imitation of Chinese style, with pagodas, &c. (See illustration, p. 405.) =VI. CLASSIC WARE.= =Wedgwood.= _Red ware_ in imitation of Elers ware, chocolate ware with black Josiah Wedgwood (born, ornamentation in relief. _White fine 1730; died, 1795). stoneware_ used as plinths of marble ware and agate vases; this was the experimental Thomas Bentley, stage of Wedgwood's celebrated _jasper_ in partnership with ware. _Black basalt_, or Egyptian ware, Wedgwood (1768-1780). fine unglazed stoneware, sometimes used for tea services, but mainly for busts, medallions, and vases. _Jasper ware._ Wedgwood's crowning invention. A fine, unglazed stoneware, white throughout. Produced either "solid" or "jasper dip," in blue (various tones), sage green, olive green, lilac, pink, yellow, and black. Used in classic vases, and on cameos, plaques, &c., with a ground of one of these colours and relief ornament in white. (=See Chapter VII.=) William Adams (or =Contemporaries of Wedgwood.= Adams, Tunstall), pupil of Turner, Palmer, Neale and Mayer, all made Wedgwood (1787-1805). ware of a similar nature to above; all of fine quality. Benjamin Adams John Turner's "jasper" was really a (1805-1820). semi-porcelain. John Turner (of Lane End) Other potters whose stoneware in jugs and (1762-1786). Pottery vases, &c., carried on the traditions of continued by sons. Wedgwood (though in the second flight), { H. Palmer (of Hanley), were Birch, Keeling, Clews, Hollins, { from 1769. Steel, Myatt, and many others, whose names { Neale (1776-1778) are found impressed on ware, betraying the { R. Wilson (1778) influence of Wedgwood. { Neale & Co. { (1778-1787). (=See Chapter VIII. for detailed list.=) Jacob Warburton (of The _Castleford Pottery_, near Leeds Cobridge) (1786-1826). (1790-1820), David Dunderdale (D. D. & Co.) made black basalt ware in similar style. (=See Chapter IX. for details.=) At _Swansea_ (1790-1817) basalt figures of fine style were made. Etruscan Ware (Dillwyn & Co.), 1845. (=See Chapter XII. for marks.=) =VII. FIGURES.= The body of Staffordshire figures by Ralph Wood, Neale and Palmer, Walton, Enoch (Mainly Staffordshire.) Wood, Salt, and other potters, is of cream ware. _Leeds_ figures are similar, and are of the same body as the dessert centre-pieces and other cream ware. Most of the Staffordshire figures are unmarked, but they can be identified as belonging to one of the following schools, by comparison with similar marked examples. =Salt-glazed Figures.= A class by themselves. Mainly small in size, and no marked specimen is known. Bears, cats, birds, and miniature figures of men, chief designs, and the kneeling camel modelled as teapot. =Whieldon School.= Artistic blending of colourings and (1740-1780.) glazings. Animals, birds, sometimes classic figures, _e.g._, Diana, Venus, and Madonna and Child. Miniature musicians, and satyr head moulded in form of cup. Early form of Toby jug. (See illustration, p. 179.) =Ralph Wood School.= This represents the high-water mark of Staffordshire figures. _Vicar and Moses_ Ralph Wood (died 1772). group, _Toby Jug_, _St. George and Dragon_, _Haymakers_, _Charity_, Ralph Wood, jun. (born, _Neptune_, _Summer_, _Old Age_, &c., all 1748; died, 1795). remarkable for fine modelling and delicate colouring. =Wedgwood School.= Many large figures, such as _Ceres_, _Diana_, _Juno_, _Prudence_, _Fortitude_, Josiah Wedgwood. _Charity_, _Venus and Cupid_, &c., in { Neale and Palmer. cream ware delicately coloured. { Wilson. { Neale & Co. Other subjects of less classic taste were produced at Etruria, _e.g._, Voyez, as a modeller, _Sailor with Cutlass_, employed at Etruria, and _Girl playing Mandoline_, _Sailor's by Neale and Palmer. Farewell_ and _Return_ (a pair), _The Lost Piece_ (after the Ralph Wood model), and Lakin and Poole. _Elijah and the Widow_, a popular scriptural subject (a pair). _Fair Hebe_ group modelled as a jug. =Wood and Caldwell= _Eloquence_ (or _St. Paul preaching at_ =School.= _Athens_), _Descent from the Cross_, and Enoch Wood other fine pieces display the powers of (1783-1840). Enoch Wood at his best as a fine modeller. Wood and Caldwell Other figures, some marked, are (1790-1818). _St. Sebastian_, _Britannia_, Quin as _Falstaff_, _Antony_ and _Cleopatra_, Enoch Wood and Sons reclining figures (pair), _Fire_, _Earth_, (1818-1866). _Air_, _Water_ (set of four), _Diana_ (similar to Wedgwood); group, _The Tithe Pig_ (parson, farmer, and his wife and baby and pigs), with tree and foliage as background; _Leda and Swan_, _Jolly Traveller_ (man, dog, and donkey), _Hurdy-Gurdy Player_, _Sportsman and Dog_, _Old Age_ (pair), _Lovers_ on garden bench, tree background, _Tailor and his Wife_, riding on goats (after the Dresden model). Busts were also a noteworthy production of this School. _Wesley_, _Whitfield_, _Wellington_, _Emperor of Russia_, _Napoleon_, _Miss Lydia Foote_, and several marked silver lustre busts and figures, _e.g._, _Mater Dolorosa_, _Boys Reading_, &c. The _Vicar and Moses_ group and other earlier models were duplicated by this school, and many _Toby Jugs_ were produced of bright colouring. =Walton School.= Continuing the traditions of the Wood School, Walton and others produced a great John Walton (of Burslem) number of _Toby Jugs_, following the Ralph (1790-1839). Wood model, but growing more debased in form and colouring. _Girl_ with lamb, _Boy_ with dog, and simple figures largely made for popular markets. =Ralph Salt School.= Great fondness shown for village groups, with figures with tree background Ralph Salt (of Hanley) (imitation of Chelsea style). In character (1812-1840). the work of this School differs little from that of Walton. (=See Chapter XI. for detailed description.=) =Leeds School.= Some of the Leeds figures are marked, (1760-1825.) _e.g._, _Venus_, delicately coloured, slight oil gilding. Busts were made such as _Wesley_, and _Rhytons_, or drinking cups, in form of fox's head. Rustic figures of _Children_, and other miscellaneous subjects. _Lion_ couchant, _Snuff bottle_ in shape of Lady's head. =Liverpool School.= Largely imitative of Staffordshire figures. Some excellent busts and figures Herculaneum were produced. Busts of _Wesley_, (1794-1841.) _Admiral Duncan_, and Mask Cup moulded with portrait of _Admiral Rodney_. _Toby Jug_, man standing upright holding jug of ale. _Lady_ with bulldog at her feet. =Salopian.= Earthenware figures of fine modelling are attached to Caughley, but are unmarked. Thomas Turner _Prudence_ and _Fortitude_ (large size), (of Caughley), _Antony_ and _Cleopatra_ (recumbent), about 1774. _Ceres_ and _Apollo_, and others. A figure of _Jacobin Pigeon_ sitting on nest in shape of sauceboat has the impressed mark =S=. =Swansea.= _Cows_ and other small figures were typical of Swansea, but a recumbent figure of _Antony_ is marked "G. Bentley, Swansea, 22 May, 1791." =Sunderland School.= Figures of _Seasons_, set of four female figures marked "Dixon, Austin & Co." _Shepherds_ and _Shepherdesses_ and _Bull Baiting_ groups were also made here. The potting and colouring are crude, and the figures are of no artistic interest. =VIII. LUSTRE WARE.= =Early Copper Lustre.= Richard Frank at Brislington, near Bristol, crudely decorated in simple ornament. =Gold Lustre.= Gold-purple or pink in colour. Wedgwood used this lustre in mottled and veined ware with rich effect. _As an adjunct to other decoration_ this lustre has been widely used, crudely as at Sunderland, and with fine effect by Spode and other Staffordshire potters. Swansea employed it with great artistic skill. =Silver Lustre.= _Plain._ Late 18th century. Thomas Wedgwood, E. Mayer, Spode, and others in imitation of silver designs. _Decorated._ 1. Silver lustre decorations painted on other coloured grounds in combination with subjects in colours, birds, foliage, &c. 2. Silver lustre as a background with white, blue, or canary-coloured design. This unlustred ground, used as a pattern, is known as the "resist" style, and some of the most artistic effects are found in this, and in combination with painting in colours. =Copper Lustre.= _Plain._ Early 19th century. Early and best style thin and well potted. _Decorated._ Red or blue or green in embossed floral design in combination with copper lustre frequently found. (=For details of makers and marks see Chapter XIII.=) =IX. NINETEENTH CENTURY= _Early Experiments._ =DEVELOPMENTS.= Wedgwood's semi-porcelain, used at first for the plinths of his variegated vases. His _Pearl Ware_. Spode's Felspar China, _Nineteenth Century._ 1805. Spode's Stone China. Josiah Spode the Second in 1805 introduced an opaque porcelain of ironstone body, which he termed Haynes' Opaque China _Felspar China_, _Stone China_, and on (Swansea), invented some of his marks, _New Fayence_. end of 18th century. Spode's new ware received rich decorations Mason's Patent Ironstone in colour, in imitation of Derby and other China, 1813 porcelains. Riley's Semi-China. Haynes, of the Cambrian Pottery, Swansea, invented a similar opaque china at the end Minton's Stone China. of the 18th century. Meigh's Stone China. At the Cambrian Pottery in this new hard white earthenware, floral painting by trained artists was done in excellent style on enamelled grounds of chocolate. Mason, with an earlier softer body, had followed the Japanese colours in his jugs, but when Charles James Mason, in 1813, patented his ironstone china, the jugs took a new form, becoming octagonal, and their corners were not easily broken as in the chalkier body. Long dinner services of a great number of pieces were made in this ironstone china richly decorated. Other Staffordshire makers made stone china, including Minton, Meigh, Riley, Clementson, Ridgway, Adams, Davenport, and many others. By the time the middle of the century had been reached, English earthenware had cast off its own characteristics and become what so many people to-day believe it to be--a poor imitation of porcelain. (=For details and marks see Chapter XIV.=) II EARLY WARE CHAPTER II EARLY WARE Mediæval Tiles (thirteenth to sixteenth centuries)--Slip Ware--Wrotham (Kent) (1656-1703)--Staffordshire Makers (1660-1700)--Prices of Early Ware. As will be seen from the table at the end of the preceding chapter, the main body of English earthenware to which collectors can give their attention, belongs chiefly to the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The beginnings of pottery and the first steps towards perfection in art are always interesting, but in the realm of English pottery the beginner had better push forward as the subject is a very complex one, and the general collector is perforce obliged to confine attention to the later periods. It will therefore suffice if a hasty survey be made of the chief earthenware prior to the eighteenth century. =Mediæval Tiles.=--From the thirteenth century to the dissolution of the monasteries the ecclesiastical tiles used in England were of a particularly noticeable character. The tiles vary in size, the earlier ones, as at Chertsey Abbey, were not more than three or four inches square. The earlier the tile, as a rule, the smaller is its area. The tiles were ornamented in various ways. They had incised, raised, inlaid, or painted patterns. The incised and relief tiles are the most uncommon, probably being the earlier. The designs are very numerous, and vary in character in the different abbeys at which they originated. Specimens have been found at Great Malvern, Denny Abbey in Norfolk, Castle Acre Priory, Jervaulx Abbey, Lewes Priory, St. Alban's Abbey, and at Chertsey Abbey, which latter had "one of the finest, if not the finest, inlaid tile pavement in existence" (Hobson). The Chertsey tiles are of different shapes, sometimes being round or half-circular to meet the exigencies of the design, and in general they are very quaint and original in their conception. The British Museum has some fine examples of these Chertsey tiles in composite pictures made up of many tiles. The designs found on mediæval tiles consist of the figures of animals, mythical and heraldic, of birds, of human heads and grotesques, as well as conventional, floral, and geometric patterns. They are highly artistic and of great technical excellence. It is generally believed that the monks made these tiles themselves in the great religious houses, and possibly some of them may have had foreign inspiration or have been made here by foreigners. But as the tiles at Malvern and at Chertsey are finer than any found on the Continent it opens up a field for conjecture. Mr. Solon says, "I have often thought that considering the French pavements of the earliest periods have mostly been found in the provinces then under English domination, it would be worth while inquiring whether the art of tile-making had not been imported from England--a point which has never yet been sifted." [Illustration: MEDIÆVAL TILES. TILE FROM CHAPTER HOUSE, WESTMINSTER. Probably of the reign of Henry III. (Thirteenth century). TILE FROM VERULAM ABBEY. Bearing arms and initials of Sir Nicholas Bacon (1510-1579). (_By the courtesy of Mr. F. W. Phillips, Hitchin._) TILE FROM MALVERN ABBEY. (English, fifteenth century.) TILE FROM WHITMORE PARK, NEAR COVENTRY. (Early fourteenth century.)] So here, then, is a subject ready to hand for the collector willing to specialise in a branch of ceramic study and collecting not greatly inquired into, and the way has already been pointed out by experts. There is every reason why these ecclesiastical tiles should be studied with as much assiduity as are the Bristol delft painted tiles and those of Liverpool. =Slip Ware.=--This ware is peculiarly English and owes little or nothing to any foreign influences, as no ware like it has ever been made on the Continent. White or light-coloured clay was used in the form of "slip," that is, a mixture of water and clay of such consistency as to be dropped in fanciful pattern upon the darker body of the ware much in the same manner as the confectioner ornaments his wedding-cakes with sugar. Candlesticks, cups, tygs (drinking vessels having several handles for use in passing round), posset-pots, jugs, besides the large ornamental dated dishes by Toft and others were all made of this slip-decorated ware. =Wrotham, in Kent=, claims superiority in the manufacture of this ware, of which many pieces exist. The earliest Wrotham specimen is dated 1656 (Maidstone Museum). There are other dated pieces, one as early as 1621, of red clay with more elaborate slip decoration than is found in Staffordshire and elsewhere, and in some cases with fine incised decoration cut through the white dip and exposing the red body beneath. But considerable doubt exists as to whether to ascribe some of this slip ware to Kent or to Staffordshire. It is probable that it was made at many other places, certainly in Derbyshire, in Wales, and in London. As some undoubted Wrotham pieces betray a slightly advanced type of decoration although prior in date to other pieces made elsewhere, it has been fairly conjectured that the style originated in Kent, and was brought thither by some foreign refugees from the Continent. But as it became practised more generally in England it assumed a national character entirely its own, and took to itself a quaint humour racy of the soil. [Illustration: TOFT DISH, DATED 1671. (_In the Grosvenor Museum, Chester._) _By permission of the Proprietors of the "Connoisseur."_] [Illustration: POSSET POT, STAFFORDSHIRE, DATED 1685. Decorated in slip ware, yellow ground, with brown ornament. Inscribed "William Simpson. His cup." (_In the collection of Dr. W. L. Glaisher, Cambridge._)] =Toft Ware.=--The names of Ralph Toft and Thomas Toft appearing on certain large dishes, usually about eighteen inches in diameter, decorated in slip in a somewhat crude manner, have given the name to this class of ware, which at best is peasant pottery. The Tofts had their works near Shelton in Staffordshire. Similar dishes were made at Derby and at Tickenhall. The following names occur on examples in the National and other collections with dates, Ralph Toft, Thomas Toft, 1671; Robert Shaw, 1692; William Chaterly, 1696; Ralph Turnor, 1681; William Talor, 1700; John Wright, 1707; initials S. M., 1726, _Dublin Museum_ (possibly Samuel Mayer, of Derby); John Wenter, 1686; I. W., 1706. The manufacture of this slip ware continued, in more or less spasmodic manner, throughout the eighteenth century. Pots and jugs had illiterate inscriptions on them in halting verse, or pious mottoes. Toft ware, that is, the large dish form, apparently was made solely for ornament. There is a remarkable Toft dish in the Grosvenor Museum at Chester, having the inscription in Toft's peculiar orthography, "Filep Heues, Elesabeth Heues" (Philip and Elizabeth Hughes), signed Thomas Toft and dated 1671. This is evidently a marriage plate. There is the royal arms above, a favourite design in Toft ware, probably copied from some of the more elaborate foreign Bellarmine jugs. The slip potters had a fondness too for royal portraiture which ended lamentably in becoming dreadful caricatures of the subject. As many as nine crowned heads are found on one dish by Ralph Toft, signed "Ralalph To." These have as much art as the Stuart stump-work pictures in needlework, which were contemporary with them, in which kings and queens were represented in no more pleasing manner than on a pack of cards. In speaking of Toft's portrait dishes in general, and of the Grosvenor Museum example in particular, Mr. Frank Freeth, no mean connoisseur, says, "It must not be forgotten that these dishes were ornamental, and intended to occupy a conspicuous place in the homes of loyal citizens, just as oleographs of the King and Queen, that one often sees in country cottages, are made for the purpose in the present day. The same idea has remained; but the form of its expression has changed." Looking at slip ware as a whole, one must not be too critical in regard to its somewhat inartistic appearance. It certainly has a charm about it which cannot be denied. It is native to the soil, and this peasant industry (if one can appropriately term it such), is chiefly to be regarded from the standpoint of what might have been if it had been allowed to develop on natural and untrammelled lines. But it was pressed on the one side by stoneware, such as the Bellarmine jugs and mugs imported from Germany, and it finally succumbed to foreign delft, which was largely used here prior to the Englishman's determined attempt, at Lambeth, at Bristol, and at Liverpool (where it was the staple industry for some time) to make his own wares. It is the same story with the fine stoneware, the salt glaze of Staffordshire, which was a magnificent outburst of English art of the highest order, which fell before the cheapness of Wedgwood's and other cream ware, after a heroic struggle in its enamelled stage with the coloured ware of the new English china factories. These precedents might be continued further up to the present day, when German, Austrian, and Japanese competition have driven English potters into the position of attempting to hold their own against foreign art. It is the opinion of the present writer that the coats-of-arms on the Toft dishes were a deliberate attempt to copy those frequently found on the belly of the Rhenish stoneware jugs. From the days of Elizabeth coats-of-arms and heraldic devices were a feature in these jugs used in this country. Among those at the British and the Victoria and Albert Museums, and in the fine collection at the Guildhall, the use of crests is seen to be a striking characteristic (see illustration, p. 135). As a conclusive proof that the maker of earthenware had his eye on these stoneware models, we give as an illustration a jug in _earthenware_ (not stoneware) of Bellarmine form made in England, undoubtedly by an English potter. The arms on it are those of the Earl of Dorset, not improbably those of the sixth Earl, Charles Sackville, who lived from 1637 to 1706, and was the author of the well-known song, running-- "To all you ladies now on land We men at sea indite; But first would have you understand How hard it is to write"-- written in 1665, when he attended the Duke of York as a volunteer in the Dutch war, and this song he composed when with the fleet on the eve of battle. [Illustration: EARTHENWARE JUG. Copy of Rhenish Bellarmine or Greybeard form. With the arms of the Earl of Dorset. (Late seventeenth century.) (_At the British Museum._)] There is a sort of heraldic touch about some of these Staffordshire dishes of the Toft class. The same idea seems to have possessed the workers of the Stuart stump-pictures in needlework, which were contemporary with these dishes. Coins and medals and Stuart marriage-badges are evidently the source from which Toft and his school on the one hand, and the gentle needlewoman on the other, derived their inspiration in design. Various animals and birds are used symbolically with great freedom. The caterpillar and butterfly nearly always accompany needlework portraits of Charles I., and the unicorn was the device of his father James I. There seems some similarity to this idea in the use of the _Mermaid_ in the dish by Thomas Toft. Another dish of his, entitled "The Pelican in her Piety," depicts that bird with her young, the idea being that the pelican used to feed her brood with her own blood. The Latins called filial love _piety_, hence Virgil's hero is always termed _pius Aeneas_. "Ralph Simpson" is another name found on this pelican dish. We give an illustration of a fine posset-pot of Staffordshire origin, dated 1685, in slip ware, with yellow ground and conventional ornament in brown, with dotted work. It is inscribed, "William Simpson, His Cup." It has three handles and three loops, and is quite a typical piece of this class of ware. It recently sold for fifty-five pounds (p. 89). _Metropolitan Slip Ware._--There is a slight distinction between pieces made in London and found during excavations, and those discovered elsewhere. The slip decoration is lightly done and there is a tendency to incised decoration of conventional floral design. One noticeable feature in this type of ware is its inscriptions, written in doggerel, always of a pious nature. "When this you see, Remember me,--Obeay God's word"; or "Drink faire, Don't sware"; or "Be not hyminded but feare God, 1638." This class of ware savours strongly of the Puritan influence, and it is evident that the potters who made these pieces were of the "Praise God Barebones" order of visionary, not uncommon at a time when books with titles like the following appeared, "Some fine Baskets baked in the Oven of Charity, carefully conserved for the Chickens of the Church, the Sparrows of the Spirit, and the sweet Swallows of Salvation." It seems absurd in regarding the productions of this school of English slip workers, from middle Stuart days down to the early years of the eighteenth century, to consider that Vandyck had painted his galleries of beauties; that Hollar, with his etching needle, had drawn a long procession of figures in costume, thousands of etchings which surely must have caught the eye of some Toft or some Simpson. There was Grinling Gibbons working his artistic profusion in wreaths of flowers and fruit carved in wood, and there were the treasures of the silversmith, to say nothing of the sumptuous furniture that was beginning to make its way in England. But these slip ware dishes seem to stand somewhat like the Jacobean chairs made in Yorkshire and Derbyshire, of the same date, apparently unaffected by any of the æsthetic movements of the period. Simply and naturally, and, be it said, crudely representing the artistic aspirations of the ordinary craftsman when he was left to himself, it is _naïve_, standing as it does for English native art at a time when Bernard Palissy, the French potter, had been dead a hundred years. EARLY WARE PRICES. WROTHAM WARE. £ s. d. Loving cup, four handled, fine specimen, decorated in slip; initials W.L.R. and H.I.; dated 1656. Sotheby, January, 1906 56 0 0 Wine jug, brown with yellow slip, inscribed Samuel Hugheson and dated 1618; 8 in. high. Sotheby, June, 1906 10 0 0 Cradle, with inscription, "Mary Overton, Her cradle, 1729." Puttick and Simpson, May, 1908 17 0 0 TOFT WARE. Plate (17 in. diameter), with figure of soldier, in relief, with sword in each hand; trellis border; dated 1677. Warner, Leicester, March, 1906 86 0 0 SLIP WARE. Brown posset-pot, two handled with lid, inscribed "William and Mary Goldsmith," date incised "June ye 7th, 1697"; 9 in. high. Bond, Ipswich, April, 1906 15 0 0 Dish, bearing royal arms of England, inscribed "G. R. 1748"; 18-1/2 in. diameter. Sotheby, June, 1906 21 0 0 Posset-pot, three handled, inscribed "Robert Shaw." Sotheby, June, 1906 35 0 0 Posset-pot, larger, inscribed "God save the Queen 1711." Sotheby, June, 1906 26 0 0 Posset-pot, two handled, inscribed "Iohn Taylor, 1690." Sotheby, November, 1907 12 15 0 Dish, slip decorated and salt glazed, inscribed on rim, "Joseph Mosson, the Best is not too good for You 1727." Sotheby, May, 1908 13 10 0 Dish, trellis pattern, on rim in brown and yellow slip, portraits of Charles II. and Catherine of Braganza; inscribed with maker's name "George Taylor"; 17-1/2 in. diameter. Sotheby, May, 1908 53 0 0 Posset-pot, yellow ground, conventional ornament in brown, with dotted work, inscribed "William Simpson, His Cup." Dated 1685. Sotheby, December, 1908 (see illustration, p. 89) 55 0 0 III ENGLISH DELFT CHAPTER III ENGLISH DELFT What is Delft?--Its foreign origin--Introduction into England--Lambeth Delft--Bristol Delft--Liverpool Delft--Delft Tiles printed at Liverpool by Sadler and Green--Wincanton (Somerset)--Prices of English Delft Delft, of all earthenware, is, so to speak, the most earthen, and presents an object lesson to the student. It accurately conforms to the technical definition as to what constitutes the difference between earthenware and porcelain. It consists of a porous body (in the case of Dutch delft very porous, as we shall see later), covered by a thick coating of white, opaque enamel. The porous nature of its body makes it light in weight, and the tin enamel which covers the brown body enables the potter to paint upon this white surface designs, usually in blue. This decoration is over the enamel, if it were under this opaque enamel, that is, on the brown underneath body of the ware, the coating of this white enamel would obliterate the designs. After a piece has been fired to the biscuit state and dipped in white enamel and painted upon when dry, it is, to preserve the painting, fired a second time, when it receives a thin surface of transparent lead glaze. =Its Foreign Origin.=--Its name is derived from the town of Delft in Holland. It was about the year 1602 that Dutch potters invented this class of ware in their attempts, in common with all the other European potters, to produce some ware as decorative as the porcelain which had been brought to Europe long before by the Portuguese traders, and now was being largely imported by the East India Dutch merchants. This first employment of a white enamel on a brown earthenware was clearly due to the very natural desire on the part of the potter to procure some surface upon which his decorations in colour would show well in contrast. All primitive potters have passed through several stages of evolution. Brown ware was at first plain, then it received scratched or incised decoration. Searching for greater contrast the potter applied his ornament in relief in white, as in slip ware, or he added coloured glazes, as in the Tudor miniature jugs. But it seems that sooner or later the light background for the painted decoration must have become an ideal to strive for. It is, in effect, the same necessity which induces the signboard painter to cover his brown panel with a white background prior to painting in letters of red or blue some attractive announcement. But with the models of the Chinese potter now constantly before him the Dutch potter commenced at once to imitate them. [Illustration: LAMBETH DELFT JAR. Painted in blue, with arms of Apothecaries' Company with crest mantling and supporters. Motto--Opifer: Quæ: per: orbem: dicor; oval shield below with arms of City of London. (11 inches high, 27-1/4 inches greatest circumference.) (_In the collection of Mr. Robert Bruce Wallis._)] But pleasing as is the Dutch delft in its fine colours, incorporated as they are with the enamel and glaze and giving the rich tone so much admired by collectors, and faithfully copying the form of the Nankin models, it falls short of these Oriental prototypes in many important respects. It is admittedly an imitation of the _appearance_ of porcelain, and not an imitation of the qualities peculiar to porcelain. The Dutch potter in his delft did not, as in the case of other European potters, essay to copy the body of porcelain, and arrive at true hard white paste, as did Meissen. Apparently he took his earthenware, and with the limitations in technique in its working he produced a colourable imitation, in appearance only, of his blue and white Chinese models, and very fine some of these early seventeenth century Dutch delft pieces are, and highly prized by collectors. But delft in comparison with porcelain may be said to be very similar to veneered furniture in relation to solid specimens. The veneer in the one case and the enamel in the other disguises something inferior beneath. =Introduction into England.=--There is no doubt that, prior to its manufacture in this country, a great quantity of Dutch delft was imported and in general use in the middle years of the seventeenth century. In dealing with delft ware, in connection with the various types of earthenware at different periods of the history of the potter's art it must be borne in mind that delft was entirely of foreign origin. It owed everything to the inventiveness of the Dutch potters, and it gained very little when it became acclimatised in England, although it was manufactured here until the closing years of the eighteenth century, when Wedgwood's cream ware drove it off the market as a cheap and serviceable ware. Naturally the close connection of the royal house of England with Holland accelerated the fashion of storing delft in closets and making considerable use of its rich colours as a decorative effect on sideboards and buffets. The lac cabinets and the fine blue and white delft jars at Hampton Court testify to the influence that the advent of William of Orange had on the taste of the country from the memorable year of 1688, when he landed at Torbay. Delft was presumably being made in this country fifty years before that by Dutch refugees, but the thirties of the seventeenth century was not a very happy time to inaugurate the birth of a new branch of art in England. The rumblings of the civil war were in the air. It was in 1642 that Charles precipitated matters by going with an armed force to the House of Commons to arrest five members; and seven years later he lost his head in Whitehall. It is not until the last years of Charles II. that there appears to be any documentary evidence connected with the actual manufacture of delft in England. John Ariens van Hamme, evidently a Dutch refugee, a potter working at Lambeth, took out a patent for making "tiles and porcelain after the way practised in Holland." The word "porcelain" was used somewhat indiscriminately at this date and apparently meant anything having the appearance of the wares coming over in large numbers from the East, imported by our East India Company. [Illustration: LAMBETH DELFT WINE BOTTLE. Inscribed "SACK WKE 1652." (_At British Museum._)] [Illustration: BRISTOL DELFT WARE. (About 1784.) Representing balloon ascent, two figures in car, with Union Jack flying. (_In the possession of Mr. W. L. Yeulett._)] =Lambeth Delft.=--To Lambeth must be accredited the best results of English delft ware. The glaze is thinner and whiter than is used elsewhere and the tone of the blue is less crude. It is difficult to differentiate between the work of Dutch refugees and of English born potters. Drug pots and sack bottles formerly imported from Holland began to be made at Lambeth. Some of these bottles are dated and the dates upon them range from 1649, the year of the execution of King Charles I., to 1664, during the early years of the reign of Charles II., the year in which New York, then New Amsterdam, a Dutch settlement, was surrendered to the English. There are not a great number of these authentic dated sack bottles known. Lambeth must also be credited with the series of plates having dates and initials, and with some of the "blue dash" chargers or dishes. These are usually decorated with blue dashes clumsily applied round the edge, sometimes brown is used instead of blue. In the centre of the dish is generally a figure, often on horseback, and the foliage of the trees in the background is done with a sponge hastily applied. The range of colours used is not great--blue, green, orange, puce, and brown. Sometimes four colours are found on one dish, but not infrequently the decorator has been content with two, in addition to blue, which is nearly always present. The following are among the subjects found on these dishes, which are usually about thirteen inches in diameter:--Charles I., Charles II., James II., William and Mary, William on foot or on horseback, Queen Anne, the Old Pretender, Duke of Marlborough, Duke of Monmouth, and the celebrated Adam and Eve dishes, in which Eve was represented as Queen Mary giving a kingdom to her husband, represented by an orange as a pun on his royal house. Although portraits of Charles I. appear in this series, they are not contemporary, and were probably not made at Lambeth until after about 1670, and their manufacture continued for a little over a quarter of a century, that is, until the opening years of the reign of George I. That delft was made in England a little earlier than 1672 is proved by the fact that in that year a royal proclamation forbade the importation of "painted earthenware" to compete with the same production "but lately found out in England." Here is an instance of trade protection, but it should be borne in mind at that date we were at war with the Dutch, who were in that year defeated off Southwold Bay. Something should be said about the characteristics of this Lambeth delft. The body is fairly hard and the tin enamel or glaze is often found on the back of the piece; when this is not the case the back has received an application of yellowish lead glaze. The English clay being less spongy than that of Holland, did not take the enamel well, and often shows the colour of the body in pink lines through the glaze. English delft, owing to the glaze not being incorporated, is crazed on the surface. In regard to dated sack bottles, great caution should be exercised in buying them, as genuine examples of plain undated bottles have been skilfully redecorated by fraudulent hands, and the words Sack or Canary, together with a date, added. There is an element of doubt about much of the Lambeth delft ware, as it is certain that some of the patterns were copied by the Staffordshire potters, and some of these copies are so faithfully done as to puzzle experts, but many of the cruder dash series of dishes and platters may safely be attributed to Staffordshire. [Illustration: CANDLESTICK, LAMBETH DELFT. Inscribed W E 1648. (_At Victoria and Albert Museum._)] [Illustration: OLD DUTCH BRASS CANDLESTICK. (Seventeenth century.) (_In the collection of the Author._)] In the illustration of a dated candlestick, with the initials W.E. and coat of arms, and dated 1648, from the National collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum, it will be seen that the authorities attribute an earlier date to the manufacture of delft at Lambeth than the above-mentioned royal proclamation in 1672 would seem to warrant. But so learned an authority as Professor Church is of the opinion that "a considerable manufactory existed there at least as early as 1631." It is interesting to compare the style of this delft candlestick with a brass one of early Dutch manufacture, which at any rate shows that the design, as well as the method of manufacture, was derived from Holland. Pharmacy jars, decorated in blue and plain white delft, were also made at Lambeth; of this latter there are many small jugs and puzzle jugs, and a variety of fancy pieces. We give an illustration of a very interesting Pharmacy Jar with the arms of the Apothecaries' Company, and with motto inscribed. A shield below has the arms of the City of London. =Bristol Delft.=--There is no doubt that the delft of Bristol has not yet been thoroughly exploited. Farther removed from the influence of a constant stream of Dutch examples, the potters took some of their designs straight from Oriental models. Richard Frank and Joseph Flower are two potters who had works at Bristol. They are known to have manufactured delft as early as the opening years of the eighteenth century, contemporary with Lambeth, when the industry at this latter place was in full swing, and delft was made at Bristol until the middle of the reign of George III., after which delft was no longer fashionable. It is not easy to distinguish between the productions of Frank and Flower, nor is it less difficult in some instances to state definitely whether a piece is Bristol, or Liverpool, or Lambeth, and we might add Staffordshire. There is a very interesting delft plate decorated in blue, representing a balloon ascent. In date this is about 1784 and it may be attributed to Bristol or Liverpool (see illustration, p. 107). But as a rule it is held that Bristol delft is bluish in tint, and has a more brilliant and even surface. The ware is decorated with Oriental landscapes, and a considerable number of tiles were made and painted for use as pictures in the fireside in old Bristol houses a century and a half ago. Bowen, John Hope, Michael Edkins, and Thomas Patience are some of the painters who worked at the Frank pottery. There is one subject picture representing Hogarth's _March to Finchley_, and it was certainly executed more than once as there is one set consisting of forty-two tiles and another of seventy-two tiles of the same subject. A peculiarity of some of the Bristol delft is the ground of powdered purple or brown with white panels, having a decoration in blue. We illustrate a bowl of this type of ware, which, although not having the white panel, is representative of this class as the fish is on a white ground with outline decorations in blue (see p. 115). Another fine style of decoration is that known as _bianco sopra bianco_, that is, a pattern of foliage or sprays of flowers enamelled in white upon a dull, greenish-white ground (see illustration, p. 115). [Illustration: BRISTOL DELFT PLATE. Decorated in blue in middle and _bianco sopra bianco_ around border. (_At Victoria and Albert Museum._)] [Illustration: BRISTOL DELFT BOWL. Ground of powdered purple. Decorated with fishes in white and blue. (_In the possession of Mr. S. G. Fenton._)] There are many dated pieces of Bristol delft with initials, bowls, marriage and election plates, and sometimes tile pictures. At the Victoria and Albert Museum there is a fine plate with the initials E.M.B., and dated 1760, the initials being those of the painter, Michael Edkins, and his wife Betty. This was made at the factory of Richard Frank, and was presented to the National collection by the grandson of the painter. In the collection of pottery at the Bristol Museum there is an example attributed to Brislington which in colouring is slightly duller than the Bristol examples. Connoisseurs of Bristol delft divide the ware into the earlier period prior to 1735, when the decoration followed Dutch prototypes, and they attribute much of the thinner or finer potted examples to Joseph Flower, but after that the Bristol potters struck out for themselves, and imparted more originality in their ware. Landscapes appeared on the ware, but not seen through Dutch eyes, and a slight variation was given to the form of the bases of the bowls and plates, falling into line with typical shapes employed by other English potters. We illustrate a very remarkable piece of Bristol delft which is dated 1740, and bears the initials I.F., which may probably stand for Joseph Flower, whose factory was on the quay at Bristol. This plate, which is 13-1/2 inches in diameter, has a painted illustration with the inscription in a medallion, "A Voyage to the Moon, by Domingo Gonsales from the Ile of Tenerife." We do not know what is the particular story connected with the making of this plate, nor why such a subject should have been chosen. But there is no doubt that the painter of the plate took his design from a book entitled "The Man in the Moone, or a Discourse of a Voyage thither, By Domingo Gonsales, The Speedy Messenger." We give a facsimile of the title-page. This was a romance written by Francis Godwin, bishop of Hereford, and in the second edition of 1657, the title-page has the addition, "By F.G.--B. of H." There were many editions of this book, which became very popular. A French edition under the title of _L' Homme dans La Lune_, is dated 1671, and has the same illustration as the first English edition, with the exception of the inscription on the medallion. This is not the place to give details of this interesting volume, which describes in language as faithful as that of Defoe, the voyage of Domingo Gonsales, a shipwrecked Spanish adventurer, from Teneriffe to the Moon in a car he invented, which was carried by a flock of wild geese he had trained in his solitude. After a stay of a year in that country, and meeting with adventures with the inhabitants of that kingdom, he sets sail for the earth and lands in China. He by great fortune hears of some Jesuit fathers hidden away in Far Cathay, who welcomed him, "much wondering to see a lay Spaniard there," and by them his story is committed to writing. Written in 1638, the following sentence in the _Preface_ sounds quite modern, "That there should be Antipodes was once thought as great a paradox as now that the Moon should be habitable. But the knowledge of this may seem more properly reserved for this, our discovering age." There is no doubt that the book had a very considerable circulation, and it is not improbable that Swift knew of it and incorporated some of the ideas of the author in his "Gulliver's Travels," which appeared in 1726. But it is not easily explained why this delft plate, dated 1740, bears the inscription and illustration of a volume published nearly a century earlier. [Illustration: BRISTOL DELFT DISH. Inscribed "A Voyage to the Moon by Domingo Gonzales from the Ile of Tenerife."] [Illustration: REVERSE OF DELFT DISH. Marked I F and dated 1740. (Diameter 13-1/2 inches.)] (_In the collection of Mr. W. C. Wells._) =Liverpool Delft.=--Collectors of Liverpool delft would like to ascribe many pieces to that city. But, unfortunately, the difference between this and the other English delft is not so defined. One has to take the style of subject largely as a guide for the origin. There is a large punch bowl at the Victoria and Albert Museum which may certainly be attributed to Liverpool. It was painted by John Robinson at Seth Pennington's factory. A similar bowl is in the Mechanic's Institution at Hanley. It is painted in blue with a three-masted man-of-war inside the bowl. The flag is touched with red. The exterior shows an array of military trophies. It is somewhat confusing to collectors to know that the fine punch bowls of Seth Pennington, with his renowned blue colouring, are of delft, earthenware, and of _china_. These latter are of great rarity and value. Another maker of delft punch bowls was Shaw, but it is not easy to determine with exactitude to which factory to ascribe some of these delft bowls, and there is room for considerable inquiry and exhaustive research to be made into the early history of the Liverpool potteries in general, as much information is needed to settle controversial points. =Delft Printed Tiles.=--It is here that Liverpool stands pre-eminent in the transfer printed delft tiles. As early as 1750 Sadler and Green discovered the transfer printing by means of adhesive paper placed on previously inked copper-plates and laid on the earthenware as a decoration in black or in red, and sometimes puce. The signature of the engravers appears on some specimens, _J. Sadler, Liverpool_; _J. Sadler, Liverpl._; _Sadler, Liverpool_; _Green, Liverpool_; or _Green_. The invention was invaluable as a decoration for china and earthenware in lieu of painting. The following affidavit was made in 1756 by John Sadler and Guy Green that they "without the aid of or assistance of any other person or persons, did, within the space of six hours, to wit, betwixt the hours of nine in the morning and three in the afternoon of the same day, print upwards of 1,200 tiles of different patterns at Liverpoole aforesaid, and which, as these deponents have heard and believe, were more in number, and better and neater, than one hundred skilled potmakers could have painted in the like space of time in the common or usual way of painting with a pencil, and these deponents say that they have been upwards of seven years in finding out the method of printing tiles, and in making tryals and experiments for that purpose, which they have now, through great pains and expense, brought to perfection." There is no doubt that this invention revolutionised the decoration of all wares. In regard to the controversy which has arisen as to the prior claims of Battersea for its transfer decorated enamels, and of Worcester for similar decorations by Hancock, the whole matter has been exhaustively dealt with by Mr. William Turner in his "Transfer Printing on Enamels, Porcelain, and Pottery," in which the case for each claimant is minutely analysed. [Illustration: TITLE PAGE AND ILLUSTRATION. From volume, "The Man in the Moone," published in 1638. (_In Library at British Museum._)] Sadler and his partner Green conducted a large business in this transfer printing for other factories as well as, of course, for the Liverpool delft and other wares. Sadler apparently left the partnership somewhere between 1769 and 1774, so that the signature on the tiles by him gives the date of their printing. Green carried on the business until 1799, and so great was the fame of the firm that cream ware was sent from Etruria and by other Staffordshire potters to be printed at Liverpool, and up till 1799 Wedgwood's successors still continued the practice of having their cream ware printed by Green. Liverpool tiles obviously differ from Bristol tiles inasmuch as the former were printed after 1756, but of course before that date Liverpool delft tiles must have been painted as they were elsewhere. There are many series of the Sadler and Green period, one notable one being a number of actors and actresses, including Garrick, Foote, Mrs. Abington, Mrs. Yates, and others, in character. Fable illustrations from Æsop and others were largely printed, and some of Wedgwood's plates have been decorated in red, with fable subjects some five inches square, which, in spite of the festoons in which they are set, cannot escape from seeming what they are--square tile-subjects applied to the decoration of a round plate--and the result is not pleasing. Among the signed pieces of Sadler and of Green, if any difference in style can be discerned in the results, it is indicated by the subjects they chose. Sadler's name appears on pastoral subjects with luxurious foliage and with dainty rustic scenery, while Green seems to have had a fondness for Oriental groups with a framework of fantastic furniture. The best collection of Liverpool delft in this country is in the museum at Liverpool. At this museum may be seen the printed work on delft tiles of a later Liverpool potter, Zachariah Barnes, who was only twelve years of age when Sadler and Green commenced their tile printing, but who lived till 1820, and had a considerable business in printing wall tiles of fine character. =Wincanton Delft.=--A delft factory existed at Wincanton (Somerset), and recent excavations have brought to light material proving the class of ware made there. Nathaniel Ireson is believed to have started the works about 1730. There are examples of this delft bearing the name "Wincanton," and dated 1737. One specimen has the name Nathaniel Ireson, and is dated 1748. One of these dated plates is in the National Scottish Museum at Edinburgh, which we are enabled to reproduce as an illustration. It is decorated in blue, with the arms of the Masons' Company, and inscribed "Js. Clewett," and dated 1737. At the back of the dish are painted sprays of blossom, and it is marked "Wincanton." This is a remarkable specimen. =Tudor Jugs.=--Though earliest in date, we mention this last, as the ware is not true delft. This is a class of Elizabethan ware, mostly small jugs some five or six inches in height, of brown-and-blue mottled surface. The exterior has all the appearance of Cologne stoneware, but the pieces bear a closer relationship to delft; they have a tin glaze, whereas the stone Cologne ware has a salt glaze. They are exceedingly rare and valuable, and some of them are mounted with silver bearing Elizabethan hall-marks. They are disclaimed by continental authorities, who refuse to acknowledge them as belonging to their factories, and they apparently were made in England. A great deal of mystery surrounds their origin, and no doubt further research will at some future date determine the history of these specimens which, under various fancy names, such as "Tiger" pattern, due to their peculiar mottling, bring considerable prices under the hammer. [Illustration: WINCANTON DELFT DISH. With arms of Masons' Company. Inscribed "Js. Clewett 1737." BACK OF DELFT DISH. Showing the mark "Wincanton." (_At the Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh._)] To bring the story of English delft to a conclusion, it may be said that it had an ephemeral life as a ware for domestic use, until it was dethroned by Staffordshire salt glaze ware, which held the field until Wedgwood's cream ware drove this latter from the market. DELFT PRICES. LAMBETH. £ s. d. Dish, octagonal, decorated in blue and white, bearing arms of Routledge family, with motto, _Verax atque probus_, dated 1637. Sotheby, February, 1906 7 0 0 Coronation mug, 3-1/2 in. high, portrait of Charles II., inscribed and dated "C. 2nd R., 1660." Bond, Bristol, April, 1906 38 0 0 Set of six plates inscribed "What is a Merry Man," &c., all dated 1734. Sotheby, June, 1906 41 0 0 Vessel modelled in form of cat, painted in blue, dated 1657. Sotheby, June, 1906 20 0 0 Plaque, with arms of Apothecaries' Company in blue. Christie, November, 1906 9 19 6 Wine bottle, inscribed "Sack, 1650," in blue. Sotheby, May, 1908 15 15 0 Plate with blue decoration on border, and C initials A E, 1698. Sotheby, April, 1908 3 3 0 STAFFORDSHIRE. Delft dish painted with tulip and with blue dash border, 13 in. diameter; another with head of Charles II., and inscribed "The Royal Oak"; another inscribed G L. 1680. Sotheby, December, 1908 1 12 0 BRISTOL. Plates, small, ordinary style, from 7s. 6d. to 1 0 0 Dishes, larger size, ordinary style, from £1 to 2 0 0 Plates, small, with initials and dated, from £1 10s., upwards. Dishes, larger size, with initials and dates, or of especial interest, from £2 to £5 and upwards. LIVERPOOL. (Similar prices to those of Bristol.) Puzzle jug painted in blue, with verse. Puttick and Simpson, December, 1905 3 12 6 TUDOR JUGS. These jugs vary in character, but are always of some rarity, and range in value from £10, as a minimum price, upwards. With hall-marked silver mounts, in date from 1530-1600, they are greatly sought after. The West Malling Jug is the most famous specimen that has been sold of recent years. The description is as follows,-- Fulham delft or stoneware, splashed purple, orange, green, and other colours. With silver mounts, having London hall-mark, 1581. Height, 9-1/2 in. Strong probability that it is nothing more than an old sack-pot. Sold at Christie's, February, 1903 £1,522 10 0 IV STONEWARE CHAPTER IV STONEWARE Cologne Ware and Bellarmines--John Dwight of Fulham (1638-1703)--The Brothers Elers, working in Staffordshire (1690-1710)--John Astbury (1679-1743)--Thomas Astbury--Fulham Stoneware--Nottingham Stoneware--Prices of Stoneware. Stoneware in point of date is prior to delft in its beginnings, and it had in its subsequent development a longer life than delft. It has already been shown (Chapter II.) how broken is the history of the evolution of the potter's art in England in the Middle Ages. There are great gaps which divide the period of the mediæval tiles from the more or less peasant pottery known as slip ware. It is not until the seventeenth century had well advanced that the manufacture of stoneware took its place as an industry. To the beginner it should be explained that stoneware is coated with a glaze by means of common salt. It is extremely hard, and has a surface in old and admired specimens like the skin of an orange being pitted with minute depressions, or in finer and thinner ware being like the surface of leather or chicken skin. The ordinary ginger-beer bottle is stoneware, and although serving in a humble capacity, is often found to be perfect in the technique of salt glazing. In old jugs of seventeenth-century manufacture, the mottled colouring and distinctly pleasing surface varying in tone from warm brown to reddish-yellow, is exceptionally attractive to collectors who import a love for technique into their hobby. Undoubtedly the Bellarmine, or Greybeard, jug was in use in this country for a considerable period. References abound in old plays. Ben Jonson, in his "Bartholomew Fair" (Act IV.), makes Captain Whit say, "He has wrashled so long with the bottle here, that the man with the beard hash almosht streek up hish heelsh," in simulation of the speech of a man who has well drunken. But it must be concluded that this stoneware, or Cologne ware, was largely imported, and was never greatly made in this country until John Dwight, of Fulham, took out his patent in 1671. There are pieces bearing Elizabethan dates and coats of arms, as, for instance, the small brown cruche in the Schreiber Collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum, with the initials "E. R." and the date 1594; and the fine Bellarmine jug in the British Museum, with the arms of Queen Elizabeth, and dated 1594. We illustrate a fine stoneware Bellarmine jug, of the late sixteenth century, having a coat of arms with crown and Tudor roses. The character of some of these jugs differs from continental examples. This may have been due to a desire on the part of the consumer for vessels of that type, but there seems some likelihood that the commoner sorts were made here, and it is conjectured that Fulham was the chief place of their manufacture. [Illustration: STONEWARE JUG. BELLARMINE OR GREYBEARD. Having arms with Tudor roses. (Late sixteenth century.) (_At British Museum._)] [Illustration: STONEWARE JUGS WITH ROYAL ARMS AND PORTRAIT MEDALLIONS OF WILLIAM AND MARY. The left-hand jug with portrait of Queen Mary is attributed to Dwight. (_In the collection of Mr. F. W. Phillips, Hitchin._)] In the group of fine Bellarmine jugs illustrated, the characteristics of the ware are shown. The decorations begin to assume a national feeling, and the jugs differ in form from the continental type. The fine specimen of grey stoneware with the portrait medallion of Queen Mary is attributed to Dwight. The inscription runs "Maria. D. G. Mag. Brit. Franc, et. Hib. Regina." The right hand jug in the group has a raised medallion portrait of William III. The Bellarmine, or Greybeard or Longbeard, is so called from the head which appears on the neck of the jug, which mask is always referred to in a satirical manner as being the likeness of Cardinal Robert Bellarmin, who rendered himself obnoxious by his opposition to the reformed religion in the Low Countries. These old examples of foreign stoneware, miscalled _grès de Flandres_, are known to have been made at Raren, at Siegburg, at Grenzhausen, near Coblenz, and later in the seventeenth century they were made at Namur. The fact that they were imported and not made here appears from the petition of William Simpson, merchant (_Lansdowne MSS._) to Queen Elizabeth: "Whereas one Garnet Tyne, a strainger living in Acon, in the parte beyond the seas, being none of her Majestie's subjects, doth buy up all the pottles made at Culloin called Drinkynge Stonepottes & he onlie transporteth them into this realme of England & selleth them; It may please your Majestie to graunt unto the sayd William Simpson full power & only license to provyde, transport, & bring into this realme, the same or such like Drynkynge pots"; the petitioner adds that "no Englishman doth transport any potte into this realme," he also gives a promise "as in him lieth" to attempt to "drawe the making of such like potte into some decayed town within this realme, whereby many a hundred poore men may be set a worke." Thirty years later Letters Patent were granted to Thomas Rous and Abraham Cullyn in 1626 for the sole making "of the stone pottes, stone juggs, & stone bottles, for the terme of fourteene years for a reward for their invention." Here, then, are sufficient facts to show how largely the importation and manufacture was in foreign hands, and the finer specimens must undoubtedly be assigned to foreign potters. =John Dwight.=--In 1671 a patent was taken out by John Dwight for "the mistery of transparent earthenware, commonly knowne by the names of porcelaine or China and Persian ware, as alsoe the misterie of the stoneware vulgarly called Cologne ware." It appears from this patent that he had "invented and sett up at Fulham, several new manufactories." There is no doubt that John Dwight was one of the greatest, if not the greatest of English potters. His magnificent life-size bust in stoneware of Prince Rupert, now in the British Museum, excites the wonder and admiration of modern potters. The technical excellence he displays in his fine stoneware, which is of a grey-white or pale fawn colour, and is salt glazed, is as remarkable a triumph of modelling as it is of skill in potting. To quote Professor Church in regard to Dwight's busts and figures, "They stand absolutely alone in English ceramics. They are the original and serious work of an accomplished modeller. The best of them are instinct with individuality and strength, yet reticent with the reticence of noble sculpture." [Illustration: STONEWARE BUST OF JAMES II. By Dwight, of Fulham. (About 1686.) (_At Victoria and Albert Museum._)] [Illustration: DWIGHT STONEWARE FIGURES. Children reading. (_At British Museum._)] The illustration of the bust of _James II._ (p. 139) is not so well known as the famous _Prince Rupert_, nor is it of the same superlative power; but it is a fine example of stoneware. The two figures illustrated of _Children Reading_ have just been added to the national collection, and exhibit the mastery of Dwight over his medium. There is no doubt that John Dwight is coming into his own. Among the fathers of English pottery there are Dwight and Elers, and Astbury and Whieldon, and Josiah Wedgwood, and the greatest of these is unquestionably Dwight. Dr. Plot, in his "History of Oxfordshire," published in 1677, passes this eulogy upon him: "He has so advanced the _Art Plastick_, that 'tis dubious whether any man since Prometheus have excelled him, not excepting the famous Damophilus and Gorgasus of Pliny." And yet this Dwight is reported to have destroyed most of his formulæ and many of his papers connected with his inventions in the hope that his descendants would not engage in so unprofitable a business. It is not known when Dwight was born; 1638 is the conjectured date. He was M.A. and B.C.L. of Christ Church, Oxford, and was secretary to the Bishop of Chester. Between 1671 and 1676 he settled at Fulham. It appears that he had previously established a factory at Oxford with considerable success. He died in 1703, and the pottery was continued by his son Samuel, who died in 1737. The works were carried on by his widow, and subsequently by William White, who married her, and the pottery remained in the hands of the White family until 1862. Of his portrait busts and statuettes, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the British Museum have about thirteen examples, and there is a fine statuette of _Jupiter_ in the Liverpool Museum. Besides this class of ware, he certainly made stoneware jugs of the Cologne type, and red-ware teapots. He was known to use small raised ornaments on this ware, produced by the use of metal stamps. His vases have marbled decorations, and he was fully aware of the use of pounded flint, which gave his ware a porcellanous character, "a discovery which was not apparently known to the Staffordshire potters until about 1720."[1] [Note: 1 "Guide to English Pottery and Porcelain in the British Museum," R. L. Hobson. In relation to Dwight and his patents, new light has been thrown upon the originality of the work of the Brothers Elers in their secretly-guarded factory at Bradwell Wood. All earnest students are indebted to Professor Church for his recent researches to establish Dwight's reputation, which go a great way towards dethroning the two Dutch brothers Elers, who have been hitherto regarded as the pioneers of Staffordshire fine pottery. [Illustration: COFFEE POT, ELERS RED UNGLAZED WARE. MUG, RED UNGLAZED WARE, PROBABLY MADE BY ELERS OR DWIGHT. (_At British Museum._)] [Illustration: ELERS RED WARE TEAPOT. (_In the collection of Mr. F. W. Phillips, Hitchin._)] =Elers Ware (1690-1710).=--There is a great deal of mystery surrounding the name and fame of the two Dutchmen, John Philip Elers and David Elers. They came to this country as did so many of their countrymen in the latter part of the seventeenth century. Earlier, Dutch refugees had fled hither on account of religious persecution, and later, when William of Orange came over, his court attracted many of his countrymen of distinguished birth. Martin Elers, the father of our two Dutchmen, had been ambassador to several European courts. John Philip his son was "the godson of the Elector of Mentz, after whom he was named, and was held at the baptismal font by Queen Christina of Sweden."[2] [Note: 2 "Staffordshire Pots and Potteries," G. W. and F. A. Rhead.] There is no reason to believe that they had any patronage from the court themselves, but their sister was granted a pension of £300 a year by William, and she subsequently became the second wife of Sir William Phipps, founder of the house of Mulgrave, the title of Earl of Mulgrave is now borne by the Marquis of Normanby, whose family name is Phipps. However aristocratic they were, it is certain that they had considerable practical knowledge in order to embark in business and carry on a pottery. They prepared the red clay of Bradwell in a far more scientific manner than had any Staffordshire potters prior to that date, and by the lathe they turned forms far thinner than could be done on the wheel. Wherever they had gained their technical skill, they placed for the first time the wares of Staffordshire on the same plane as Böttcher's work of Meissen, or the models of the old Chinese potters. We have already shown that they engaged some of Dwight's workmen from Fulham, and that they infringed Dwight's patents in respect to the Cologne jugs and red teapots. This does not accord with the fables hitherto industriously repeated in every succeeding volume dealing with china, that the Elers employed imbeciles in their factory, in order that their trade secrets might be jealously guarded. It is true that Twyford and John Astbury learned all that they wanted to know by gaining employment at the Elers pottery at Bradwell, and there is little doubt that in so doing they simulated a stupid indifference as to the new methods of stamping china ornaments by metal stamps and of the lathe work employed on the red teapots. Both black and red teapots were made by Elers and ornaments in Chinese style added in relief. These ornaments were stamped with a metal die and laid on the vessel, several dies were used for portions of the same teapot. The connecting portions such as the stalks between two sprigs were finished by hand. This red ware was unglazed. As most people are familiar with Wedgwood's black, basaltes ware, it is useful to know that, except in colour, the wares are almost identical in point of external appearance and to the sense of touch. Some of this red tea and coffee ware or "old china," as it was called, is marked with a seal in imitation of Chinese marks. The red teapots of small dimensions sold for ten to twenty-five shillings apiece, and David Elers had a shop in the Poultry in Cheapside, where he sold them. The Elers left Staffordshire in 1710, so that their pottery lasted only twenty years. In view of the fact that Dwight complained about their manufacture of stoneware jugs and mugs as being subsequent to his, it would seem doubtful if they can still be accredited with the invention of this old ware or with the introduction of salt glaze into England. Undoubtedly this early class of hard red stoneware, almost approaching porcelain in character, will have to be thoroughly reviewed with the object of assigning to Dwight what is his, and to the Elers, and to Aaron, Thomas, and Richard Wedgwood what is theirs, to say nothing of Richard Garner, and of John Morley, of Nottingham, who confessed to copying Dwight's "browne muggs." The subsequent history of the Elers may be interesting in passing. John Philip is believed to have been in some way connected with the foreign glass works at Chelsea, established by Italian workmen, under the patronage of the Duke of Buckingham, as early as 1676. He afterwards, with the assistance of Lady Barrington, set up as a glass and china merchant in Dublin, and became successful. David Elers remained in London. =John Astbury.=--We have seen that the Elers' secret became known in Staffordshire to Twyford, and to John Astbury, and this latter together with his son carried on the same style of manufacture. As a general rule it is held that the ware of the earlier Astbury is not so sharp in its details as was the careful work of the Elers. His ware is of red, fawn, chocolate, and orange colour. His ornaments followed the style of Elers in being stamped, but he made them of Devon or pipe-clay, which has a cruder effect in white upon the darker grounds. He died in 1743. His son Thomas Astbury commenced potting in 1723, and his work is so similar to that of his father, that considerable doubt exists as to which pieces may safely be attributed to the father. It is certain that the son experimented with the bodies of clays until he produced a "cream colour," afterwards improved by Josiah Wedgwood in his renowned cream ware. We illustrate (p. 149) an Astbury teapot in date about 1740, with an orange-coloured glaze body having design in relief in white. The other Astbury ware teapot is of slightly later date, and has a coffee-brown body with white and green floral ornaments in relief. The Porto Bello bowl in the British Museum, of red clay with white stamped ornaments in relief of a group of miniature ships in battle array, made to celebrate the capture of Porto Bello by Admiral Vernon in 1739, is held to be a typical example of the work of the elder Astbury. As a rule, black or red specimens having the name of Astbury impressed upon them are attributed to Astbury the second. But it must be borne in mind that for want of more exact knowledge, all red ware with stamped ornaments applied in relief and with indications of plain engine turning has been generically termed _Elers ware_, and it is quite certain that later than Astbury junior's day red ware with wavy lines was made. Similarly the type of ware with white applied ornament in relief has been termed _Astbury ware_. The elder Astbury, in addition to the stoneware, made crouch ware, a term employed for the earlier forms of the fine delicate stoneware known as salt glazed. The younger Astbury introduced the use of flint into his ware in or about 1723. Collectors should be cautioned not to assign plates and dishes marked ASTBURY, to Thomas Astbury. They are cream ware, and decorated in blue with Chinese patterns, and belong to a much later period. Mention should be made of Ralph Shaw, of Burslem, who made brown or chocolate ware dipped in white pipe-clay, which afterwards was worked upon with a tool to display the dark body beneath. There is a jug in the British Museum (Franks Collection) which is thus decorated with birds and foliage. Twyford, the colleague of Astbury the elder, when with the Elers, seems to have applied himself to the use of white decoration, sometimes the red and brown ware is wholly coated inside with pipe-clay, and this is supposed to be his work. [Illustration: ASTBURY TEAPOT. Orange glazed body, pattern in relief. (About 1740. Height 4 inches.) (_At British Museum._)] [Illustration: ASTBURY WARE TEAPOT. Coffee brown body, white and green floral ornament in relief. (About 1750.) (_At British Museum._)] With the advent of Josiah Wedgwood came the strong classic influence upon his plastic art, and in his various classes of stoneware (dealt with in Chap. VII.) considerable variety was introduced both in design and in colouring. Among the most notable of the contemporaries and successors of Wedgwood who successfully produced high-class stoneware, the following may be mentioned: William Adams, Turner, Elijah Mayer, Neale, Palmer, Birch, Keeling, and Toft, Hollins, Wilson, Spode, Davenport, and Dunderdale of Castleford, and the Leeds Pottery and the Swansea Pottery both made basalt in black ware (see Chap. VIII., The School of Wedgwood). =Fulham Stoneware.=--In the eighteenth century Fulham became noticeable for a type of mug similar to that illustrated (p. 153), bearing the initials "W.G." and the date 1725. Another series made at Fulham are the jugs usually marked with the initials "A.R." and "G.R." belonging to the days of Anne and of George I. A great many exist of the fuller-bodied shape, with initials inscribed "G.R." Formerly on museum shelves these were attributed to Fulham, but it is now generally held that this form was imported from the Continent, and belongs to the _Grès-de-Flandres_ class. The true Fulham contemporary form is that which we illustrate (p. 153). The manufacture of stoneware continued for a century, and in the nineteenth century many fine specimens were being made by various potters, and Messrs. Doulton, of Lambeth, still continue to make stoneware vases and jugs and other vessels of an ornamental character. =Nottingham Stoneware.=--John Morley, of Nottingham, was cited in 1693, as one of the persons who infringed Dwight's patent for stoneware. Evidently the same family of potters carried on the business, for in 1726, Charles Morley was a maker of brown stoneware jugs and mugs. There is a brown bowl at the Victoria and Albert Museum bearing this date. The Castle Museum at Nottingham possesses some fine examples of brown stoneware. The dates of jugs and mugs vary from as early as 1700 to the last quarter of the eighteenth century. Nottingham ware is smoother in its surface than old Staffordshire, only slightly showing the orange skin texture so noticeable in the other stoneware. It is rich warm brown, sometimes inclining to red and sometimes to yellow in colour. Bear jugs are a feature of Nottingham stoneware, but they are not peculiar to that pottery, as they were also made in Derbyshire and Staffordshire. The Nottingham stoneware is excellently potted and, of course, is salt glazed, the glaze having a slightly lustrous appearance. The examples most familiar to collectors belong to the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The bear jugs may be either of plain surface or may have the rough grained exterior formed by minute particles of clay. They frequently have a collar around the neck, and a chain to which is attached a rattle. A rarer form represents a Russian bear hugging Bonaparte, who wears a big plumed hat. Puzzle jugs with incised ornament, and tall loving-cups of large size, are another noticeable production; many of these are inscribed with names and dates. [Illustration: FULHAM STONEWARE MUG. (Dated 1725. Period of George I.) With embossed ornament of dogs, &c., and medallion portraits.] [Illustration: FULHAM STONEWARE JUG. Raised medallion with crown and G.R. (Period of George I.) Incised decoration filled with blue.] STONEWARE--PRICES. BELLARMINES. £ s. d. The prices of this class vary in ordinary examples, plain, or of slight decoration, from 15s. to 1 10 0 Bellarmines with English arms of especial interest are of considerably greater value, though not always of English origin. Exceptional pieces bring exceptional prices. DWIGHT. All specimens of Dwight are extremely rare. It is impossible to say what a Dwight stoneware figure or bust would realise at auction, but certainly a very high figure. ELERS. Elers teapots, &c., are rare. The smaller lighter coloured teapots of the true Elers ware are worth as many half-sovereigns as the later coarser examples are worth shillings. ASTBURY. A similar difficulty arises in attempting to state prices for Astbury stoneware. Fine examples rarely come into the market. FULHAM. G. R. jugs ascribed to Fulham may be bought from 15s. to £1 10s., according to condition and decoration. The large jugs and mugs with medallion busts of William and Mary, inscribed and dated, vary in price from £3 to £5 and upwards. NOTTINGHAM. Bear jugs of coarse type may be procured from £1 10s. to 2 10 0 Tall Loving Cups, inscribed with name and date, vary from £2 to 5 0 0 The Russian Bear model hugging Bonaparte is worth £5 or more. Nottingham ale jugs, dated and inscribed, have realised £12 under the hammer. V EARLY STAFFORDSHIRE WARE THOMAS WHIELDON: His Contemporaries and his Successors CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. XVIIITH CENTURY. _Anne_ 1704 Gibraltar taken by Sir George Rooke. (1702-1714) Marlborough gained victory of Blenheim. 1711-1714 Addison published the _Spectator_. _George I._ 1715 Rebellion in Scotland. (1714-1727) The Old Pretender landed at Peterhead. 1715-1719 Pope translated Homer's _Iliad_ into English verse. 1719 Defoe's _Robinson Crusoe_ published. 1721 The South Sea Bubble burst; thousands of families ruined. _George II._ 1742 Fielding's _Joseph Andrews_ published. (1727-1760) 1748 Richardson's _Clarissa Harlowe_. 1749 Gray's _Elegy in a Country Churchyard_. 1750 Fielding's _Tom Jones_ published. 1755 Dr. Johnson's Dictionary published. 1757 Clive laid the foundation of the Indian Empire. _George III._ 1759-67 Sterne's _Tristram Shandy_. (1760-1820) 1766 Goldsmith's _Vicar of Wakefield_. 1768 Sir Joshua Reynolds first president of the Royal Academy. 1775 The American War. 1777 Sheridan's _School for Scandal_. 1779 Gainsborough at the height of his fame. 1782 The Independence of the United States recognised. 1786 Gillray's caricatures commenced to appear. 1790 Burke's _Reflections on the French Revolution_. 1791 Burns's _Tam O' Shanter_. 1792 Thomas Paine's _Age of Reason_. 1795 War with Holland. Capture of the Cape of Good Hope. 1801 Union of Great Britain and Ireland. CHAPTER V EARLY STAFFORDSHIRE WARE THOMAS WHIELDON: HIS CONTEMPORARIES AND HIS SUCCESSORS The forerunners of Whieldon--The position of Staffordshire Ware--Whieldon as a potter--Early Staffordshire Art--The rivalry with salt glaze--Form _versus_ Colour--The last years of the Eighteenth century--The English spirit--Prices. "Early Staffordshire" is a generic term used to include much of the unknown ware of the early period between about 1720 to 1760. It is not early enough to go back to the butter-pot days of Charles II. nor to include the school of Toft and his contemporaries, with their quaint native humour. But it is an important period when earthenware was in a transitional stage. It is, in fact, the period when Staffordshire may be regarded as the great nursery of potters in swaddling clothes who came into their majority later with full honours. The chronological table at the head of this chapter shows the great events that were shaping the destiny of this country, and, in politics, in art, and in letters, it must be admitted that the age of Anne and the first two Georges was prolific enough in incident. It was during the greater portion of the first half of the eighteenth century that English earthenware was finding itself. Attempts at classification nearly always leave the borders overlapping. In trying to gather in our net a band of representative potters with work peculiarly illustrative of this period which was essentially English--as English as Toft--but progressing towards something that should stand as worthy of our art, several great potters, such as the Woods, have escaped, and will be treated separately later. It must be granted that the influence of the Whieldon school was not obliterated even by the great rise of the classic school of design as exemplified by Wedgwood, Turner, and Adams. The strong English robustness and the national insularity of design never wholly died out in the eighteenth century. It was eclipsed by classic frigidities from across the Alps, and it suffered discomfiture from the rococo insipidities from France first naturalised at Chelsea and at Derby. But it lingered in the hearts of the common people like the tunes of some of the old ballads in spite of the fashions of Gluck and of Handel. Thus it comes to pass that, side by side with the Iphigenias, the Andromaches, the Venuses, the Minervas, and the other esoteric personages from among the gods and goddesses of Olympus, with their accompaniment of foreign fauns and satyrs, there were the very English (founded on Gillray and Rowlandson), almost Rabelaisian, grotesques in the army of Toby Jugs and the sporting, rural, nautical, historic, commemorative, and satiric jugs and mugs and figures, with English doggerel and with idiosyncrasies enough to make our earthenware essentially national. [Illustration: WHIELDON WARE CAULIFLOWER TEAPOT. With vivid green and yellow colouring. TORTOISESHELL WARE PLATES. Richly glazed, producing clouded and mottled effects. (_At Victoria and Albert Museum._)] Unfortunately in the early days it is impossible with any degree of certainty to assign many of these older pieces to any particular potter. The collector can only lament "the iniquity of oblivion blindly scattering her poppy," as Sir Thomas Browne puts it. It is without doubt rightly believed that Thomas Whieldon had a great and lasting influence upon the potters of his generation, but his own actual work has been swallowed up by the covering phrase "Whieldon ware," which, like "Elers ware" and "Astbury ware," has come to mean a good many things, and these are names of types rather than persons. =The forerunners of Whieldon.=--It is necessary briefly to recapitulate the events immediately from the commencement of the eighteenth century to the day when Whieldon established his status. There was a continuous chain of potters working in Staffordshire from the days of the Elers (1690-1710), to the period when Josiah Wedgwood became a master potter on his own account in 1760; he was then thirty years of age. Wedgwood's own estimate of the Elers is interesting. Speaking of what Elers did for Staffordshire he says, "It is now about eighty years since Mr. Elers came amongst us ... the improvements made (by him) in our manufactory were precisely these--glazing our common clays with salt which produced _Pot d'grey_ or stoneware, and this after they had left the country was improved into white stoneware by using the pipe clay of this neighbourhood and mixing it with flint stones calcin'd and reduced by pounding in to a fine powder." There is not a word about Dwight in all this; evidently Josiah seems not to have known of the legal action against Elers and one of his own kinsmen amongst others. The invention of flint is an allusion to Thomas Astbury about 1720, but Dwight also knew of this formula as his recorded notes prove. To continue, "The next improvement by Mr. Elers was the refining of our common red clay by sifting and making it into tea and coffee ware in imitation of the Chinese red porcelain by the casting it in plaster moulds and turning it on the outside upon Lathes, and ornamenting it with the tea branch in relief, in imitation of the Chinese manner of ornamenting the ware. For these improvements--and very great ones they were--we are indebted to the very ingenious Messrs. Elers, and I shall gladly contribute all in my power to honour their memories and transmit to posterity the knowledge of the obligations we owe to them." This is in respect to a jasper medallion portrait of John Philip Elers. Wedgwood is wrong in one or two particulars. The salt glaze question is open to doubt, and most certainly Elers never used moulds for their ware. We give this as showing the continuity which existed between Elers and Wedgwood, the latter certainly owed his application of the ornamentation in relief to the method which Elers had introduced into Staffordshire. We do not say invented, because there is always Dwight standing in the background. To give Elers his due he certainly set Staffordshire talking and wondering, and he unwittingly filled Twyford and Astbury with new ideas which they were not slow to adopt. Astbury comes as the echo which Elers left behind in Staffordshire, a substantial enough echo, for Astbury took his master's ideas and created a ware with white stamped ornaments in relief, to which his own name is given as a generic term. John Astbury the elder died in 1743, and Thomas, his son, commenced potting as early as 1723. And the Astburys rub shoulders with Thomas Whieldon, whose apprentice and sometime partner (1752-1758) was Josiah Wedgwood. It will thus be seen that Thomas Whieldon (1740-1780) came upon the scene in the history of the Staffordshire potteries when the art was in a somewhat transitional stage. New fields were opening and new ideas developing that were shortly to bring English pottery into line with that on the Continent. =The position of Staffordshire Ware.=--It is necessary to show the stage at which English pottery had arrived in order to place Whieldon aright and to show the various impulses which led to the outburst of potting which stirred Staffordshire. Stoneware in crude form or in highly finished foreign style in Cologne ware had been gaining ground since Tudor days. Later the use of delft had won favour and was still in full swing at Lambeth, at Bristol, and at Liverpool when Whieldon commenced potting. It had also become acclimatised in Staffordshire. Toft's and other slip ware was contemporary with delft as a native art. And now, looking forward, we see the oncoming triumph of stoneware, in its finely potted and highly artistic Staffordshire form, which was to overthrow delft and slip ware, and in turn be stamped out by the utilitarian cream ware of Whieldon's apprentice, Josiah Wedgwood, who built up his fortune at Etruria on this domestic ware. The Whieldon period (1740-1780) was an important one in ceramic events. In 1744 Bow commenced to make porcelain. In 1745 is the earliest dated piece of Chelsea porcelain, the year that the Pretender won the battle of Preston Pans, near Edinburgh, and invaded England, bringing his army as far as Derby. In 1750, Derby made earthenware, and in 1751 commenced to make porcelain, which is the same year in which Worcester commenced a glorious record in the making of porcelain. Longton Hall, Bristol, and Liverpool continued the same story, and transfer-printing was practised at Worcester by Hancock on porcelain, and at Liverpool on delft tiles by Sadler and Green. Lowestoft opened a kiln in 1756. Leeds ware was made in 1760, and, finally, Wedgwood's queen's ware in 1762, and four years before Whieldon gave up his work Wedgwood had invented his jasper ware. =Whieldon as a potter.=--Not a great deal is known of Whieldon's personality. He must have commenced in a small way of business as he tramped from place to place with specimens of his wares on his back in pedlar fashion. But he became of considerable importance as he held the office of High Sheriff of Staffordshire in 1786, some six years after he retired from his pottery. Whieldon numbered among his apprentices some young men who afterwards became famous. There was Josiah Wedgwood, who became his partner from 1753 to 1759, Josiah Spode, and William Greatbach, Edge, Heath, Marsh, and there was Aaron Wood, who was employed at Little Fenton for some time. On account of his apprentices having become famous, it has been suggested that he was probably indebted to them for much of his fame. On reflection it may possibly be seen that the opposite conclusion may very well be true, and it is not improbable that Wedgwood and Spode and Greatbach and the others owed a considerable debt to Whieldon for having received a highly technical training at his hands. [Illustration: TEAPOT, TORTOISESHELL WARE. Embossed with hawthorn pattern. (_At the Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh._)] [Illustration: BOWL AND COVER, TORTOISESHELL WARE. Embossed with floral pattern. (_At the Victoria and Albert Museum._)] In regard to cream ware, undoubtedly this was in an experimental stage, and Whieldon in common with Astbury made those queer little figures with yellow heads and red or yellow bases, but the tortoiseshell flown colouring apparently denotes some of the specimens made by Whieldon. He made salt glaze, he made tea and coffee pots with the Astbury decorations, but with a strong leaning to the earlier Elers style in his avoidance of too strong contrast between white pipe-clay ornament on a dark body. Whieldon toned his ornaments with touches of his own in green and yellow and brown. His solid agate ware and his tortoiseshell and clouded wares, and his cauliflower ware have become so memorable in the cabinets of collectors that they have won him fame, and he has in consequence been credited with all specimens of these classes of ware. We illustrate (p. 161) an example of the Whieldon _Cauliflower Teapot_ with vivid green and yellow colouring. Of this early period, the fine group we illustrate (p. 171) with a _coffee-pot_ of glazed red ware, a kaolin of deep cream colour decorated in red, may not unreasonably be attributed to John Astbury, while the little _Figure_ of flown colouring, with red base and brown shoes, may be either by Whieldon or possibly by Thomas Astbury. The "solid agate" of Whieldon is something far more artistic than the combed ware of earlier days or the very rough attempts at solid agate made by clumsier hands than his own prior to his experiments. Surface decoration in imitation of agate had been produced by employing two different coloured clays on the surface of a vessel, and when in a wet state combing them to represent the desired veining of the stone to be simulated. "Solid agate" is another process of placing layers of clay of different colours and cutting them in section to show the bands of colour. In Whieldon's hands the layers were thin and the waves and twists, cut off the clay with a wire like cheese is cut, showed in the finished result something more artistic than had ever been attempted before. He made jugs and sauceboats, teapots, teapoys, and other table utensils of this ware, including knife handles. No two pieces are exactly alike, and there is a considerable variety in the breadth of the veining and in the ware, some being intentionally coarser in order to suit the subject potted. There is no doubt that this ware, standing in a measure in a _cul de sac_ of ceramic art, is highly effective, and Wedgwood used with great skill both the solid agate and the surface colour for his ornamental pieces and vases of classic type, in imitation of granite, Egyptian pebble, jasper, porphyry, and several kinds of agate. His range of colour was more extended than that of Whieldon, but there is little doubt that he gained his first knowledge of the properties and possibilities of this variegated ware when he was with Whieldon. Casting about for something equally effective with possibly less technical difficulties, Whieldon evolved his celebrated clouded wares. Here he took advantage of the new cream ware as a body, the surface of which is splashed or sponged with various tints in imitation of tortoiseshell, although many of the colours introduced depart from tortoiseshell tones and introduce something fresh and original in earthenware decoration. [Illustration: GROUP OF ASTBURY WARE. KYLIN. Chiefly red and deep cream colour. COFFEE POT. Glazed red ware. FIGURE. Flown colouring, red base and brown shoes. (_In the collection of Col. and Mrs. Dickson._)] [Illustration: AGATE CAT. (4 inches high.) Grey, with brown solid marbling, and splashed with blue on body and ears. SALT-GLAZED BEAR JUG. (Height 3-1/8 inches.) (_In the collection of Mr. Robert Bruce Wallis._)] There is the patent taken out by Redrich and Jones, Staffordshire potters in 1724, for "staining, veining, spotting, clouding, or damasking earthenware, to give it the appearance of various kinds of marble, porphyry, and rich stones, as well as tortoiseshell." And Ralph Wood, of Burslem, made variegated ware of a particular kind which may well be termed "tesselated," as small pieces of tinted clay were affixed or inlaid on the surface of vessels to be decorated, and subsequently glazed. This mosaic work in imitation of granite was employed also at Leeds. To return to Whieldon. There is no doubt that he found this variegated ware in a somewhat inchoate state in regard to technique, and the more scientific exactitude which he employed has gained for his wares their fame. We illustrate (p. 167) two fine examples of tortoiseshell ware, a _Teapot_ embossed with hawthorn pattern design, and a finely decorated _Bowl and Cover_ having a running floral pattern in relief. The many coloured dessert plates, sometimes of octagonal shape, made by Whieldon in this later mottled manner, in which the surface only is decorated, are well known to collectors. In Whieldon's own examples the potting is more perfect than in those of other potters. His plates are to be recognised not only by their colour, but in the very subtle way he has handled it. The deft touch of blue or yellow or green, has in other hands become a patch of obvious crudity, striking a discordant note at once. The deep grey octagonal plates by him are loved by connoisseurs as exhibiting his subtlety at its best. We illustrate two examples of this class of Whieldon tortoiseshell plates with rich brown colouring flecked with green and yellow (see p. 161). The mechanical mottling by his imitators, seemingly dabbed on in spots by a sponge, should not be easy to distinguish after having seen one of his best examples. In regard to the potting, Whieldon ware plates have a flat broad rim, which almost invariably has a border of applied strips laid crosswise. But it must not be forgotten that, when once the fashion for "Whieldon ware" became general, other potteries came into line. At Liverpool this class of mottled and clouded ware was made, and also at the Castleford pottery, near Leeds, and consequently many unmarked examples may be attributed to these potteries. Some of the Castleford tortoiseshell plates are impressed "D.D. & Co." =Early Staffordshire Art.=--Among the earlier figures of the Astbury pottery the elder Astbury worked from 1736 to 1743, and his son continued his traditions later. There are a number of quadrupeds and birds which are assigned by collectors to the elder Astbury, which are, although crude, extremely interesting as showing the experiments in coloured clays and in lead glazing. Agate figures of cats of intermingled clays, and diminutive figures of men, some six inches in height, with splashed or clouded decoration, all come into this indeterminate period. The figure in the group (p. 171) already referred to is a case in point. In the illustration of a fine specimen of an agate cat, in height only 4 inches, the body colour is light grey with dark brown solid marbling, and the front and ears are splashed with blue. Another miniature animal figure belonging to this period is the salt-glaze jug in form of a bear, only 3-1/8 inches high (see illustration, p. 171). [Illustration: WHIELDON TORTOISESHELL ANIMAL. (_In the collection of Col. and Mrs. Dickson._) SPLASHED CREAM WARE ELEPHANT. (Staffordshire, about 1750. Height 3-3/4 inches.) (_At British Museum._)] [Illustration: WHIELDON GROUP. ST. GEORGE AND THE DRAGON. Knight in green and cream; horse and base tortoiseshell. EARLY STAFFORDSHIRE FIGURES. Old Women Hucksters. (_In the collection of Mr. James Davies, Chester._)] We illustrate two animals, one of the tortoiseshell variety, a beast of formidable appearance and having considerable power in the modelling and strongly suggestive of the jaguar, but it must be remembered that beasts as depicted in contemporary books have an inclination towards heraldic monsters such as "never were on land or sea." The splashed cream ware elephant, only 3-3/4 inches in height, is fairly well modelled. But these, in common with the many diminutive figures of a like nature, belong to a period when Staffordshire was endeavouring to found an English school of potters, blindly groping along in almost untutored fashion--lame in design and feeble in inventiveness. From out of this chaos it seems impossible that there should arise soul enough to set the fashion later--nearly fifty years later--to the continent of Europe, and make English earthenware the formidable rival in point of cheapness, and often in point of beauty, to anything produced on the Continent. But the earthenware of Staffordshire was able to teach new points in technique concerning body and glaze to the continental potter. In the illustration showing the group of _St. George and the Dragon_ it will be seen that the modelling begins to assume a more pretentious character. The prevailing colours of the knight are green and cream, the horse and the base of the group are of the familiar tortoiseshell colouring. Beside this St. George are two early Staffordshire figures representing two old women as hucksters. Here the feeling is instinctively English, as national as are the Dutch beggars of the seventeenth-century Dutch etchers. Pity it is that this class of figure, recording national and local types, did not develop on uninterrupted lines. It is true, and of these we shall speak later, that the family of Wood in their types carried on the tradition, but the unfortunate classic influence monopolised the talents of the best modellers. We illustrate two fine examples of _Toby Jugs_ belonging to the Whieldon period. There is a strong family likeness between the two. The left-hand one is richly glazed and mottled in tortoiseshell markings. The other has the fine translucent colouring and glazing so noticeably prominent in this school. They are both remarkably good specimens of the Whieldon manner, and of unusual interest, as they represent the Toby jug in its earliest form. =The rivalry with Salt-glaze.=--This "Whieldon ware" (of course it must not be forgotten that Whieldon made salt-glaze too) was contemporaneous with undecorated salt-glaze ware, which at its best exhibited in no small degree a complete knowledge of the strength and beauty of form unaided by colour. But in this school of Whieldon there is a distinct appeal to colour as a leading feature of the ware as opposed to form. There is a fine artistic blending of the colours and the variation of the glazes which palpitate with life and give extraordinary power to pieces possessed of the "Whieldon" touch. Not only on flat surfaces such as the well-known octagonal plates, but in figures and groups such as we have illustrated, these colour effects were employed with considerable dexterity. So that, in the contemplation of black-and-white illustrations of "Whieldon ware," everything is lost which gave the beauty and richness and mellowness which have an irresistible charm to those collectors who confine themselves to this early school of colourists. [Illustration: WHIELDON TOBY JUG. Richly mottled and glazed. (_In the collection of Col. and Mrs. Dickson._)] [Illustration: WHIELDON TOBY JUG. Fine translucent colouring and glazing. (_In the collection of Mr. A. H. Baldwin._)] =Form _versus_ Colour.=--The salt-glaze potters, when they left their ideals of form and essayed to become colourists as well, made this attempt chiefly for two reasons. (1) They had a very laudable desire to emulate the coloured porcelain made at Worcester, Bow, Chelsea, and Derby, which had become a serious competitor in their markets. (2) They recognised a certain weakness in their ware in regard to its inapplicability to figures and groups. Unless the modelling is of the highest order the salt-glaze figures are insipid. With regard to enamelled salt-glaze in general this is dealt with in another chapter, but it may here be remarked as touching the second point--the salt-glaze figure--that the salt-glaze potter brought himself directly in comparison with the figures and groups of earthenware of the later Whieldon school. Realising that if he must stand at all as a figure potter his modelling must be superlative, we find the salt-glaze figures, which are mainly small in size, taken direct from the antique or from porcelain models. But feeling the lack of colour he added touches here and there by applying reliefs of different coloured clays to heighten the effect. The salt-glaze potter rarely enamelled his figures in colours. In the illustration of a salt-glazed figure (p. 351) there are slight touches of blue. So that in the contest between salt-glaze (the pre-eminent art of the Staffordshire potter in early eighteenth-century days) and its two great rivals, English porcelain and Staffordshire coloured earthenware, in other words--Form _versus_ Colour--the first fall it received was at the hands of "Whieldon ware." The coloured and exquisitely clouded tortoiseshell plate, with its fine gradations of tone throbbing with colour, more than holds its own with the salt-glaze plate, even although its clear-cut arabesque designs and intricate patterns exhibit the excellence of its potting. =The Last Years of the Eighteenth Century.=--Enough has been said to show that this typically English school had firmly established itself in Staffordshire. Whieldon, Dr. Thomas Wedgwood, Aaron Wood (block cutter to Whieldon), Josiah Spode the first, Greatbach, Enoch Booth, and many others, firmly adhered to their love of colour and their desire to see cream ware triumphant. The struggle for the supremacy of earthenware over English porcelain was still waging. And Wedgwood, with his marvellous invention of jasper ware and his equally stupendous innovation in the introduction of severe classic ornament, did not impose his style on all Staffordshire. We shall see in a later chapter how he had a crowd of followers and imitators, but at the same time many, very many, productions were potted contemporary with him that owed nothing in design to him, and on the face of them bear no traces of the classic influence. It is this overlapping period, during which so many examples are unmarked, which is so puzzling to the collector. "Old Staffordshire," they certainly are, "Early Staffordshire" they may not be, but they exhibit a national and original feeling which it is impossible not to recognise and value. [Illustration: GROUP OF EARLY STAFFORDSHIRE JUGS. 1. Jug. Pencilled floral decoration in blue. Inscribed "William and Mary Harrison. One Nother and Then." 2. Jug. Panel with _Miser_ each side in relief. 3. Jug. Heart-shaped panel in low relief, _Children at Play_. 4. Jug. Panels of _Peacocks_ in relief.] [Illustration: GROUP OF EARLY STAFFORDSHIRE JUGS. 1. Finely mottled granite jug. 2. Whieldon jug. Figures in coloured relief. 3. Jug. Moulded in form of satyr's head. (_The above groups are in the collection of Mr. James Davies, Chester._)] We illustrate two groups of jugs which belong to this period. In the top jug of the upper group, which is pencilled with blue floral decoration, the spout betrays a trace of Worcester and a tinge of classicism in the acanthus leaf ornamentation at its base. But the inscription drops at once into the homely vernacular, "William and Mary Harrison One Nother and Then." The quaint phonetic spelling tells its own story of the mission of the ale-house jug, with its invitation to another burst of hospitality. The three jugs below are of the same species. The handles vary slightly, showing the inclination to adopt silver models. The left-hand one has a panel with figure of Miser in relief each side. The middle jug, with the heart-shaped panel, is decorated in relief with group of Children at play. Such subjects had not appeared on jugs before Wedgwood's day, but the idea might easily have been derived from contemporary prints of the pretty school of Bartolozzi and Angelica Kauffman. The right-hand jug, with its Peacocks in relief, is evidently derived from the exotic birds of Worcester. In the other group of jugs, the uppermost betrays in the spout and neck distinct traces of its indebtedness to classic forms. It is translucent green in colour, and with coloured figures in high relief. At the front is Shakespeare, with figures of _Miser_ and _Spendthrift_ each side. Between these (one is just visible in illustration) are classic medallions. This is an incongruous style of decoration, and shows how little the Staffordshire potter who made it understood the meaning of ornament. He realised that the classic style was becoming popular, and so he half hesitatingly affixed two cameos to his otherwise harmonious production. The granite-ware jug, finely mottled, with two black-and-white bands as ornament round body, is the newer development of the early variegated ware. The right-hand jug is, in its gnarled and bulgy protuberances, known as the crabstock variety, the moulding, in the form of satyr's head crowned with vines, is an addition and is extraneous to the usual crabstock form. Obviously this is a welding together of the English and classic grotesque, and the combination is not too harmonious. The early Staffordshire potters, apart from the splashed and variegated ware associated with Whieldon, made a variety of ware in pre-Wedgwood days and in the late eighteenth century. Obviously such a jug as that illustrated (p. 189) is an Oriental design taken straight from the contemporary English porcelain, or even from the actual Chinese original. But the Staffordshire potter was conservative in his shapes. Similarly, such jugs as that illustrated (p. 189) with the rustic design in crude painting, or seemingly in parts applied with a sponge, must have been general in the latter half of the eighteenth century. The scene is suggestive of Herrick and maypoles and haywains and rustic junketings, and such early cream-ware cider-mugs and ale-jugs are not uncommon. The _Mug_ (illustrated p. 189) shows distinctive qualities. It is by Enoch Wood. It is decorated with translucent bands at top and base, and ornamented with a diaper-pattern stamped and coloured brown, with alternate lines of grey. These jugs and mugs are here illustrated to impress upon the reader the fact that in the Whieldon period (1740-1780) other forms than variegated ware were being made, and much unidentified early Staffordshire ware belongs to the later years of the eighteenth century. =The English spirit.=--These forms--and the field is a great one for detailed study--were growing up in spite of foreign and un-English fashions, and long after Wedgwood's day they existed. It seems as though it was a dogged and obstinate attempt on the part of the potter to ignore classic models, and produce something "understanded of the people." Obviously such ware did not rise to elaborate ornamental vases, but confined itself to mugs and jugs and useful articles in common use. So that, in spite of the enormous influence of Wedgwood, both in technique, but more especially in decoration, upon his contemporaries and his successors, it would seem that there was always an undercurrent of pottery which, even if crude, was extremely national. It appealed to no cosmopolitan _clientèle_, and the potters who made it were not important enough to issue price lists in three or four languages. Their message--as conveyed by their quaint inscriptions, "One Nother and Then," "I drink to you with all my hart, Mery met and mery part," and a host of other naïve sentiments--comes direct from the heart of the potter to his friend and neighbour who bought his wares. In a word, we may say that much that is native, much that is racy of the soil, in the long line of queer Staffordshire figures of animals and birds and of homely individuals, grotesque in their diminutive personality, owe direct kinship to Whieldon and the pre-Wedgwood school of potters, forgetful of the cold classic day, and, in the words of William Blake, snug by the glad sunshine of "the Alehouse so healthy and pleasant and warm." [Illustration: CREAM WARE JUG. Painted decorations in under-glaze colours. Typical example of Oriental influence on earthenware. (_In the possession of Mr. W. L. Yeulett._)] [Illustration: STAFFORDSHIRE CREAM WARE JUG. Crudely painted in colours with English subject. Typical of earthenware of latter part of eighteenth century. (_In the collection of Mrs. M. M. Fairbairn._)] [Illustration: BARREL-SHAPED MUG BY ENOCH WOOD. Decorated with translucent green at top and base. Diaper pattern stamped and coloured brown, and alternate lines of grey. (_In the collection of Mr. Robert Bruce Wallis._) PRICES--EARLY STAFFORDSHIRE WARE. WHIELDON. £ s. d. Teapoy, square, cream coloured, splashed with green, having female embossed figures, and inscribed "Abraham Randell, Alice Randell 1779," 5-1/4 in. high. Bond, Ipswich, April, 1906. 7 10 0 Plates, pair, foliage in blue on mottled ground, inscribed "LBC 1739." Christie, June, 1906 14 3 6 Teapot, agate ware, modelled with shells. Christie, June, 1906 12 1 6 Figures of musicians (three). Christie, November, 1906 13 2 6 Plaque. Portrait of Sarah Malcolm Saunders, executed in 1733 (very rare), taken from picture by Hogarth. Sotheby, November, 1906 2 10 0 Teapot and cover and milk ewer and cover, mottled. Puttick & Simpson, November, 1906 4 4 0 Figure of "Hope," with splashed and mottled base. Sotheby, February, 1907 1 15 0 Toy Teapot and cover, with vine-leaves and grapes in relief, decorated in rich translucent colours. Sotheby, February, 1907 2 18 0 Teapot and cover, agate ware, modelled with shells. Christie, April, 1907 5 15 6 Teapot, with roses in colours on blue ground, and another with rosebuds and strawberries on pink ground. Christie, April, 1907 27 6 0 Teapot, teacup, and two saucers, with flowers in colours in Chinese style. Christie, April, 1907 11 0 6 Group of two birds in tree, translucent colours. Sotheby, July, 1907 2 18 0 Teapot and cover, with peasant figures in colours. Christie, July, 1907 13 13 0 Figure of _Stag_ at rest, mottled brown and white, on green pedestal (10-1/2 in. high). Christie, November, 1907 10 10 0 Group of _Lovers_, pair, with birdcage, lamb, and dog (10 in. and 11 in. high). Christie, January, 1908 22 1 0 _St. George and Dragon_ figure (11 in. high), and group nearly similar. Christie, January, 1908 10 10 6 Figures, pair, Peasant Boy and Girl, emblematic of Autumn and Winter, on octagonal plinths (7-1/4 in. high), and a Figure of _Man with Bagpipes_ (8-1/4 in. high). Christie, January, 1908 13 13 0 "King David" Figure (12-1/2 in. high), and "Neptune" (11-1/2 in. high), on square pedestals, with medallions in relief. Christie, January, 1908 14 3 6 Cauliflower-pattern Teapot, cream-jug, and canister. Christie, February, 1908 11 0 6 Teapot and cover, solid agate ware, very large size. Sotheby, May, 1908 10 0 0 Teapot and cover, formed of leaves, with rabbit on cover. Sotheby, May, 1908 4 4 0 ASTBURY WARE. Teapot and cover, dark buff body, decorated in relief with grapes, tendrils, and leaves in cream colour. Sotheby, November, 1907 3 10 0 Teapot and cover, brown hexagonal shape, with panels of Chinese subject in relief, lid surmounted by rabbit. Sotheby, November, 1907 3 15 0 Astbury and early Whieldon figures, which are of small size as a rule, range in price from £4 to £10. Exceptional examples command much higher prices. VI SALT-GLAZED WARE--STAFFORDSHIRE CHAPTER VI SALT-GLAZED WARE--STAFFORDSHIRE The originality of English Salt-glazed Ware--What is Salt glaze?--Early Salt-glaze--The classes of Salt-glaze--Its decadence and its extinction--Prices of Salt-glazed Ware. The fine salt-glazed stoneware of Staffordshire which was made during the greater part of the eighteenth century is something in art of which the English potter may very justly be proud. It is remotely derived from the fine Flemish and Rhenish decorated stoneware, but the connection ends with the common qualities of being glazed with salt and of being extremely hard, almost so hard as to resist a file. But in the Staffordshire salt-glazed ware the body became almost of a porcelain-like quality. It was able to be made as thin as stamped silver, and in the thinnest portions of the pieces it is translucent like porcelain. Indeed, since the days of Elers (whom Dwight termed a silversmith) earthenware, or rather stoneware, took some of its details in form and in ornament from the worker in silver. The applied ornament of Elers stamped with a brass die suggests the metal worker, and, with the models of the school of Astbury before them, Staffordshire potters followed the same methods. It is not astonishing to find the moulded designs with their intricate patterns in the newer school of potters of salt-glaze ware--which in its best period (1720-1740) relied solely on form and not on colour, being a dull, creamy white--emulating the fine work of the silversmith. It was only a natural striving in the new generation of potters of the Whieldon school, with fresh inventions in clays and glazes and moulds, to cast about them for better and worthier ideals than Toft had, and fresher models than stoneware Bellarmines which had been in circulation in the country since Tudor days. Silver models provided many a fine shape for Wedgwood, his cream ware and his basalt teapots are bodily taken from Sheffield. But imitativeness has always been the curse of English potters. Wedgwood copied in jasper ware the cameo work of the classic world, and the whole of Staffordshire to a man commenced to pot on similar lines. Through the last decades of the eighteenth century, and well into the nineteenth, thousands of vases and jugs were turned out as echoes of Etruria in Staffordshire which, as its name denotes, was but an echo of something centuries earlier. Bow called itself "New Canton," and Worcester slavishly copied Chinese mandarins and exotic birds, coined in the brain of some Oriental potter. Chelsea copied Dresden, and Lowestoft copied the Bow and Worcester copies of Chinese originals, and the list could be prolonged _ad nauseam_. [Illustration: SALT-GLAZED LOVERS' TEAPOT. In the shape of a heart. Floral decoration slightly gilded. (_At Victoria and Albert Museum._)] [Illustration: SALT-GLAZED TEAPOT. In the form of a camel. (_In the possession of Mr. F. W. Phillips, Hitchin._)] Indeed, this curse lies very heavy on the collector who has to devote a great portion of his energy to research in order to determine who first made certain models. This, unfortunately, tends to divert the study of old earthenware, its artistic qualities and its technical triumphs, into channels more or less contentious. The literature of English ceramics is rapidly becoming like many of the editions of Shakespeare, where a few lines of text stand as an oasis in a desert of commentators' controversial opinions. It is, therefore, refreshing to find, as one does undoubtedly find in Staffordshire salt-glazed ware, one of the most remarkable and original outbursts in English art pottery that has taken place. This delicate stoneware is as thin as some of the Oriental porcelain, and possesses a grace and symmetry peculiarly its own. In some of its decorations it bears a likeness to Chinese work. This does not detract from its high place as a ceramic record. On the contrary, this similitude is a tribute to pay to its artistic excellence, for there is very little earthenware that came out of Staffordshire that will bear comparison with the work of the Chinese potter. =What is Salt glaze?=--We know that many of the stoneware Bellarmines and Rhenish jugs were glazed with salt. It was a process known on the Continent at a very early date, some authorities place it as early as the twelfth century. But it was not until the second half of the sixteenth century that German and Flemish potters used this salt glaze to any great extent. We have seen, in the chapter on stoneware, that the appearance in the mottling and in the orange-skin-like surface is due to the action of salt glaze. To cover pottery with an outer surface has been practised from earliest times either by the use of some glassy material or by powdered lead. Glazing with common salt was quite a new departure by the English potters. In order for this salt glaze to be used there must be a very high temperature, so high, as a matter of fact, that it would melt or soften in the kiln most English earthenware. This is where stoneware in its body differs from earthenware; it is what is termed "refractory," that is to say, it is not readily fusible. Stoneware is not always glazed. Elers did not glaze his red ware, and Wedgwood did not glaze his basalt or black ware. Stoneware can also be glazed with other processes than the salt glaze, but, as a rule, stoneware is associated with salt glaze. Without entering too tediously into the exact steps by which salt glazing is performed, it may be roughly described as follows. Other glazes, such as lead, are applied to the surface of the ware prior to its entry into the kiln for firing, but in salt glaze the glaze is incorporated with the ware while it is actually in the kiln. Towards the end of the firing common salt (chloride of sodium) is thrown into the kiln, which is packed with the ware, through apertures in the kiln which has to be specially designed for salt-glaze use. At the high temperature of the kiln (about 2,190° Fahr.) the salt is volatised and its vapour penetrates the saggers (that is, the earthen vessels containing the pieces being made), which have perforated sides to enable this vapour to form on the surface of the pieces being fired. This vapour chemically unites with the silica largely present in the body of the stoneware, and forms a silicate on the surface of the ware. That is to say, the stoneware becomes coated with a thin layer or glaze of sodic silicate or soda-glass. [Illustration: GROUP OF SALT-GLAZED WARE. Jug enamelled in colours. Teapot blue enamel by Littler. (_In the collection of Col. and Mrs. Dickson._)] This chemical action taking place simultaneously with the final firing of the ware before its removal from the kiln incorporates the glaze with the body of the ware itself. It is this combination which causes the minute depressions or tiny pin-holes in all stoneware from Bellarmines down to the finely and nearly translucent salt-glazed Staffordshire ware which has a surface like that of leather. The same multitudinous pin-hole surface is characteristic of Oriental porcelain, which like stoneware is fired at a very high temperature, and the glaze and the body completed at one firing in the _grand feu_. Though, of course, this is not salt glaze, nor is the surface other than as smooth as glass to the touch, although under a strong glass or even to the naked eye these pin-holes are easily discernible. At the present day salt glaze is mainly used for such ware as ink-pots, drain pipes, insulators for telegraphic instruments, and common ginger-beer bottles. The connection between John Dwight, of Christ Church, Oxford (Master of Arts), the creator of the magnificent bust of _Prince Rupert_, the glory of the ceramic collection at the British Museum, and between John Philip Elers, godson of Queen Christina, and this sad array of utilitarian nondescripts, is not a pleasing subject for reflection. It is sad to think that these triumphs have been won in vain by the genius of the old potters over the plastic clay. What an ignoble ending to the long chain of experiments! When Dwight destroyed his secret memoranda it is as though he foresaw the era of the drainpipe. =Early Salt-glaze.=--The early stages of the manufacture of salt-glazed ware were crude and experimental. There is some connection between the finely potted lustrous stoneware of Nottingham and "Crouch ware," the undeveloped form of the later phase of finely-potted Staffordshire salt-glaze ware. This "Crouch" ware represents the transitional stage between the ordinary brown stoneware and the later drab or greyish white examples. Crouch ware at its earliest was not made in Staffordshire till 1690, and there is presumptive evidence to show that salt-glaze brown ware was made at some pot-works at Crich, near Matlock, Derbyshire; and that the same or similar clay was used by the Staffordshire potters who gave it that name, and there is proof that the Crich pottery existed as early as 1717, and Nottingham has dated pieces as early as 1700. On the face of it, in spite of Josiah Wedgwood's letter in connection with the medallion to John Philip Elers, there is little evidence to go upon to credit the Elers with having made salt-glaze ware at all. Excavations on the site of their factory at Bradwell Wood have only resulted in the discovery of fragments of their unglazed red ware, "red porcelain" as it was called, and experts have pronounced their oven as being unfitted for salt-glaze operations. On the whole, therefore, in accordance with the latest research, one is inclined to come to the conclusion that the Brothers Elers did not invent Staffordshire salt-glazed ware. If they made it at all, they made very few examples. The red ware is theirs as far as Staffordshire is concerned, although Dwight had something to say on that score when he charged them and Nottingham potters and others with infringing his patents. [Illustration: SALT-GLAZED TEAPOT. Enamelled in colours. Marked "John Toft." (_In the collection of Col. and Mrs. Dickson._)] Among the early makers of salt-glazed ware were Astbury and Twyford, and Thomas Astbury, son of the former, being associated with the introduction of ground flint into the body in 1720. Thomas Billing in 1722, and Ralph Shaw in 1732, made further improvements in the body. Dr. Thomas Wedgwood and Aaron Wood, and Thomas Whieldon and Ralph Daniel, of Cobridge, were all well-known makers of this ware, the latter having introduced plaster-of-paris moulds in lieu of alabaster, and being further notable for his enamelled decorations in colour, in the period 1743 to 1750, which attempted to vie with the contemporary coloured porcelain. William Littler, of Longton, used a similar blue to that which he used on the porcelain at Longton Hall. At this date the ware became white in colour, and took its pleasing forms so dear to connoisseurs. =The Classes of Salt-glaze.=--In its various styles salt-glazed ware may be roughly divided into periods. The experimental stage was over in 1720. From 1720 to 1740 the undecorated or white examples were made, depending on form for their beauty. These had applied ornamentation stamped with metal dies, or made in separate moulds and affixed to the body to be decorated (similar to the Elers style). It is during this period that some of the finest pieces were made with sharp, clear-cut designs. Later, when moulds were made of plaster-of-paris in place of alabaster, the design became blurred. Among the most beautiful designs in this plain white ware having raised ornament are sauceboats, pickle trays, sweetmeat dishes, teapoys or tea canisters, and teapots; these latter are of a great variety of shapes, many having shell ornament, very exquisitely moulded, and others being of hexagonal shape divided into compartments. There is, too, a trace of the grotesque discernible in some of these teapots and a subtle humour too rarely found in English pottery. There are those of the camel form, such as the specimen illustrated (p. 197). The peculiar handle made by hand is very noticeable, usually such handles are snipped off at the end. Others are of the shape of a house, and many types of this design occur. Some are in the form of a squirrel. Then there are the heart-shaped teapots with the spout incongruously representing an arm resting on the neck of a swan. These teapots were supposed to have been made for lovers. We give an illustration (p. 197) of one of these heart teapots, and it will be seen how a slight touch of gilding has been added to heighten the effect on the embossed portions showing the fruit. Of course the cauliflower teapot exhibits a touch of humour, too, but this form is rarely found in salt glaze. The bright natural colours of that interesting vegetable were reproduced by Whieldon, who made this type as well as melon and pineapple teapots and coffee-pots. The vivid green and yellow glaze of this cauliflower ware is of the period when Josiah Wedgwood was with Whieldon and is held to be young Josiah's invention. He afterwards made similar ware himself. The next stage was the slight use of colour in what is termed "scratched" blue. This style of decoration is the opposite of the relief ornaments. The pattern was incised with a sharp instrument on the piece, in the lines thus cut cobalt blue was applied with a sponge. Birds and foliage are the typical form of decorations to pieces of this style from 1740 to about 1750. From 1745 to 1750 William Littler introduced his cobalt blue ware over which decorations in black or white were enamelled or gilded, and such pieces are rare. (See illustration p. 201.) [Illustration: SALT-GLAZED VASE. Enamelled in colours--turquoise blue, yellow. (Height 5-3/4 inches.)] [Illustration: SALT-GLAZED PUNCH BOWL. Enamelled in colours, with portrait of the Young Pretender. (Diameter 10 inches.) (_In the possession of Mr. S. G. Fenton._)] Then comes the period in which colour was in full swing. From 1740 to 1760 enamelling in colours was extensively used. It was employed on plain surfaces, or as a touch of colour to ornaments in relief. There is no doubt that some of these coloured examples are very beautiful. It is not necessary to dethrone the plain white ware from its place of honour. With later developments it was found that colour could be used with artistic advantage, nor is there any deterioration of the ware from an æsthetic point of view in this colour work when in the hands of skilled craftsmen. Similarly transfer-printing was recognised as a suitable means of decoration, and pieces are found with printed designs of black or red or puce. The head of the King of Prussia is found on some specimens of this type. Of course this is later in date, and must have been subsequent to 1760, when Sadler and Green invented transfer-printing at Liverpool. Doubtless these pieces entered into competition with the new colour ware then in vogue, which drove the salt-glaze ware from the market, and killed the most artistic and original productions the English potter had ever made. The industry had by this time grown to great dimensions, and apparently the Staffordshire potters were turning out this salt-glazed ware as fast as they could, no very good sign that good work was to last much longer. Nor is all the enamel work English; two Dutchmen were secretly employed at Burslem to do this enamelling in colour. But the secret spread, and we find two Leeds painters, Robinson and Rhodes, doing enamelling on the salt-glazed ware for the Staffordshire potters. We are enabled to reproduce a very fine example of enamelled salt-glaze ware having the inscription "James and Martha Jinkcuson," and dated 1764. It stands as a fine specimen of its class. The colours of the flowers and insects are very rich, being, as is usual, enamelled over the salt-glaze ground. Dated salt-glazed ware is always uncommon, and an example of such fine colouring in such perfect condition stands as a rare and splendid specimen. There is yet another style in salt-glaze in which the whole surface of the piece to be decorated is coated with a slip of another colour, and the decoration cut through it to show the white body beneath. This belongs to the last period, 1760 to 1780, as also does the basket work for which Aaron Wood, and R. J. Baddeley, of Shelton, are noted for their fine patterns. Incised work in imitation of Japanese work was also prevalent during the last period of salt-glaze work. We illustrate another very important salt-glazed piece, a teapot enamelled in colours having what is known as a "crabstock" handle, spout, and lid. It is remarkable as being incised with the name "John Toft" (see p. 205). Undoubtedly this is a member of the celebrated Toft family, whose dishes, marked "Ralph Toft" and "Thomas Toft" in slip-ware, gave the generic name to a class of ware. It is not improbable that one of the Tofts modelled the celebrated salt-glaze "pew group" in the Victoria and Albert Museum. It exhibits the peculiarly quaint doll-like faces with beady eyes associated with Toft dishes. [Illustration: SALT-GLAZED JUG. Richly enamelled in colours, and inscribed 'James & Martha Jinkcuson 1764.' (_In the collection of Mr. Frederick Rathbone, South Kensington._)] In the group illustrated (p. 201) there is one enamelled jug. The two dishes show another type of plain salt-glaze. The teapot shows incised work on the broad band around it, but no indication of colour. The coffee-pot is the well-known squirrel form, and the dark teapot on left is enamelled in blue by Thomas Littler, and is a rare example. In colouring the salt-glazed vase in bright turquoise blue and pink and green, with its Oriental design, strongly suggests the enamel work of Limoges (see p. 209). It stands in the eighteenth century in the same relationship to the metal enameller as does a modern French factory at Bordeaux, Messrs. Viellard & Cie., whose work in coarse earthenware simulates the _cloisonné_ enamel. The punch bowl illustrated has a portrait of the Young Pretender. In date it is, of course, not earlier than 1745, the year of the Rebellion in Scotland on behalf of the Pretender, and when his son Charles Edward landed and defeated the royal forces near Edinburgh. This punch bowl tells its story of stirring days, when Jacobites secretly met at night in quiet manor houses and drank a toast to the Stuart claimant. In public by a kind of subtle jest when they were driven to drink the health of "the king," they by a specious mental reservation flourished their glasses over any water on the table, the hidden meaning being "the King--over the water." But here is a punch bowl which was probably brought out for the sworn partisans to drink to the pious memory of the exiled Stuarts. There was always, even when the Stuart cause was a lost one, a tender recollection of "Prince Charlie," the "Young Chevalier." The lilting lines of Bobbie Burns in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, always awaken romantic associations, and bowls such as this were relics of something that had been, and without doubt in its day this same bowl has filled the glasses of a loyal company who drank the health of his Gracious Majesty George the Third. As we have pointed out in the introductory note there are many monuments in clay on the collector's shelf which punctuate the sonorous phrases of the historian. Such pieces are exceptionally interesting in aiding the reflective mind to recreate the events of a former day which touched the life roots of the nation. PRICES. SALT GLAZE. £ s. d. Teapoy, square shaped, decorated with scratched flowers in blue. With female half-length figure (within a Chippendale frame), inscribed "Martha Saymore September ye 25th 1770" (5-1/4 in. high). Bond, Ipswich, April, 1906 11 0 0 Bowl and cover and milk jug decorated, rich blue ground. Sotheby, June, 1906 26 0 0 Teapot, brilliantly enamelled in colour with roses, auriculas, &c., with turquoise handle and spout. Sotheby, June, 1906 50 0 0 Teapot, crimson ground, with white panels with flowers in colour. Sotheby, June, 1906 26 0 0 Teapot and cover, modelled as house with royal arms over door. Sotheby, February, 1907 5 12 6 Teapot and cover, modelled as a camel. Sotheby, February, 1907 6 6 0 Jug and cover, hexagonal, with subjects in relief. Sotheby, February, 1907 4 4 0 Teapot, enamelled in colours, with portrait of Frederick King of Prussia; on reverse, spread eagle holding ribbon with inscription, "Semper Sublimis." Sotheby, March, 1907 21 10 0 Milk jug and cover, enamelled in colours in a continuous landscape with castle, obelisk, and other buildings. Sotheby, March, 1907 7 15 0 Vessel, modelled as a _Bear_, head forming cup. Sotheby, March, 1907 4 4 0 Basin with raised subjects in panels. Sotheby, July, 1908 13 5 0 Teapot and cover, enamelled in colours, with roses, &c. Sotheby, July, 1908 8 0 0 Teapot and cover, dark blue ground. Sotheby, July, 1908 8 5 0 Coffee-pot and cover (small), decorated in enamel colours with Chinese figures. Sotheby, July, 1908 14 15 0 VII JOSIAH WEDGWOOD CHAPTER VII JOSIAH WEDGWOOD 1730-1795 Josiah Wedgwood's place in the ceramic world--His business abilities--Josiah Wedgwood's wares--Cream Ware and its invention--Jasper Ware and its imitation--The influence of Josiah Wedgwood--Wedgwood Marks--The Prices of Wedgwood. The time is now ripe to form a mature judgment as to the exact niche in the temple of fame which Josiah Wedgwood is to occupy permanently. His immediate successors were in too close proximity to his own day to form an opinion as to his life-work in relation to what had gone before and what has succeeded him. The inquiry into the origins of certain inventions attributed to him have been pursued of late years with a scientific thoroughness, and many facts have come to light which tend to raise the reputation of other lesser known potters who immediately preceded him or were his contemporaries. John Dwight (of Fulham) has come into his own. The Elers (of Staffordshire) have been dethroned from the unique position they occupied as pioneers of salt-glaze ware. In regard to the Astburys, father and son, credit has been given them for great work, and Whieldon is held to have had an immense influence on his contemporaries. During the great outburst in salt-glazed ware, cream ware, its later rival and conqueror, was in a transitional stage. This transitional period embraces a great field of pioneer workers who experimented unceasingly with clays and glazes. The days of salt-glaze were drawing to a close, it had many obvious defects; the ware would not readily stand hot liquids--and this in an age when tea drinking was becoming fashionable. The artistic side for the moment was cast aside in these experiments, the uppermost question in the Staffordshire potters' minds was the invention of some ware that could hold its own against the competition of the new English porcelain factories. It thus came about that this period of great technical activity (1720-1740) was immediately succeeded by an almost simultaneous exhibition of work, suggesting a renaissance of earthenware in England (1740-1800) and establishing the European reputation of Staffordshire. Josiah Wedgwood with John Turner, of Lane End, and William Adams, of Greengates, stand as a trio of master potters who developed the classic spirit in jasper and kindred ornamental ware. In regard to developing the manufacture of cream ware and stone ware for domestic use, and in building up a continental and American trade which won for British earthenware the supremacy of the world's trade in pottery, Josiah Wedgwood takes an equal prominence together with Warburton and the Baddeleys and the Adamses and Turner. In roughly detailing the stages which led up to the manufacture of the main classes of ware for which Wedgwood was famous, it will be shown how with a masterly mind for realising broad results he combined the patient industry of a practical potter. He commenced with a capital of twenty pounds and died worth half a million. In spite of his ill-health and the loss of his leg, his unflagging energy and his keen foresight enabled him to build up an important business which is still carried on by his descendants. His love of organisation and the system of control which he exercised over his own enormous output had a lasting effect on the methods of the Staffordshire potteries. The genius of Josiah Wedgwood has won the continued admiration of succeeding generations. It may be that he has somewhat overshadowed many of his contemporaries, and his successors have been termed imitators. In order to adjust matters there is a tendency in some quarters to belittle the work of the great Josiah. But surely the pendulum has swung too far the other way when it is advanced that "Wedgwood himself was no artist, he was a tradesman pure and simple." This is not the opinion of critics with nicer balanced judgment and of cosmopolitan taste. The epitaph upon his monument in the parish church of Stoke-upon-Trent, which bears the inscription that he "converted a rude and inconsiderable Manufactory into an elegant Art," has been assailed in order to prove it to be a "travesty of the fact," and to state that "what he _really_ did was to convert an Art--rude it may be, and inconsiderable, but still an Art--into a manufacture. In other words, he inaugurated an entirely new order of things in the production of pottery, and a less desirable one." The truth is that it is not necessary to belittle Wedgwood in order to put his great contemporaries in the order of their merit. The later and more corrected opinion may be arrived at quite judicially by crediting them with some of the artistic impulses he possessed. While he lived he worked harmoniously and in close friendship with his fellow potters, and a century after his death it should not be difficult to determine their relative positions without bespattering his epitaph with mud. =Wedgwood's business abilities.=--He was undoubtedly a keen man of affairs. When in partnership with Whieldon he had travelled to London, to Manchester, to Birmingham, to Sheffield, and to Liverpool, which brought him into touch with silversmiths and metal workers in connection with the agate knife-handles and similar Whieldon ware. He evidently realised that Staffordshire was behind other districts in many respects. Although only a young man, he interested the influential people in the neighbourhood of the potteries and the roads were improved and water transit provided as an outlet for goods. He cut the first sod of the Trent and Mersey Canal. In 1759 he was master potter, but he made most of his own models, prepared his own mixtures, superintended firing, and was his own clerk and warehouseman. Less than ten years afterwards, on the advice of the Duke of Marlborough, Lord Gower, and Lord Spencer, he opened showrooms in London in Newport Street. A year after this the demand for his fine jasper ware and expensive ornamental productions had so increased that he found the greatest difficulty in finding sufficient workmen. [Illustration: WEDGWOOD CREAM WARE DESSERT BASKET. Showing fine pierced work. _By the courtesy of Messrs. Josiah Wedgwood & Sons._] [Illustration: WEDGWOOD CREAM WARE DESSERT CENTRE-PIECE. Designed from Josiah Wedgwood's collection of shells. (_In Museum at Etruria._) _By the courtesy of Messrs. Josiah Wedgwood & Sons._] His catalogues were printed in several languages, and he had the shrewd common sense to add some forewords of his own to indicate the lines on which he was working as a potter and to bring the attention of likely buyers to his ware. =Wedgwood as a potter.=--There is no doubt that Wedgwood always had in view the improvement of whatever ware he engaged to make. When with Whieldon he perfected the green glaze in the cauliflower and kindred ware, and when he became a master potter in 1759, he produced pieces which were eminently remarkable for their fine technique. There is no doubt that his connection with silversmiths induced him to follow their designs. Some of his early ware, such as teapots, have punched perforated ornament in the rims for which he invented tools. In the museum at Etruria are some six thousand trial pieces, some few inches in length, covering a wide period when Josiah was pursuing his way towards his crowning achievement, the invention of his jasper ware.[3] [Note: 3 These have been recently arranged and catalogued by Mr. Frederic Rathbone.] He claims credit for great improvements, both as an inventor and as a ready and masterly adapter, quick to seize the salient points of a half-perfected ware and by a few touches of genius make it his own. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society for his invention of a pyrometer, an instrument for registering high temperatures in the kilns. His experiments led him into new fields in connection with bodies, glazes, and colours, and he introduced for the first time in pottery certain minerals such as barytes in his pastes. =Josiah Wedgwood's wares.=--It will be seen, in the enumeration of the various classes of ware which were produced by him, in what respect he added improvements which in their turn were improved upon by later potters, and to what extent his productions were entirely original, adding a new note in English pottery, creating an entire school, and leaving the mark of his genius on his successors for nearly a century. _Variegated ware._--The agate, the cauliflower, and melon ware, the clouded and mottled glaze, and the various imitations of marbling, came into vogue in the days of Whieldon. But Wedgwood was more ambitious in his designs. We have already seen, in dealing with Whieldon ware, how the "solid" agate ware was produced by means of fine layers of clays of different colours, which after careful manipulation produced a series of waves resembling the natural ornamentation of the stone. Wedgwood also employed "surface" colouring for this variegated ware, the body being of the common cream-coloured earthenware and the veining and mottling being applied to the surface. In such pieces the handles and the plinths were usually oil gilded; later he used a white semi-porcelain for plinths of such ware. Two agate vases and ewers marked "Wedgwood and Bentley" belong to the period 1768 to 1780. The plinths of the agate vases show the white undecorated body. Wedgwood imitated Egyptian pebble, jasper, porphyry, and various kinds of granite speckled with grey, black, white, or green. Much of this is a flight higher than the agate ware. _Black basalt Ware._--In this ware, which was termed "Egyptian black," Wedgwood triumphed over his predecessors. We know the black ware made by Elers and by Twyford (two fine black Twyford teapots are in the Hanley Museum), but the ware into which Wedgwood infused his genius is worthy to be called what he termed it--"black porcelaine." With its rich black, smooth surface it was capable of varied use, including useful as well as ornamental ware. In the former, we find tea services and coffee or chocolate pots strictly adopting the severe Queen Anne silver shapes, and in vases he followed bronze prototypes. See illustration (p. 241) of two _Black basalt Teapots_. It was used in fine manner for life-size busts and for medallion portraits of "illustrious Ancients and Moderns." This basalt ware Wedgwood further used in combination with other processes. He imitated the ancient Greek vase paintings by decorating the black surface with unglazed colours, or he had ornaments in relief in red. Another replica of classic art was his simulation of bronze, and this black ware formed the groundwork to which he added the bronze metallic colouring in his rare bronze examples. The two black basalt ewers, entitled _Wine_ and _Water_, designed by Flaxman, are well known. It is at once evident that they owe no inconsiderable debt to the metal worker. It requires no great stretch of imagination to believe them to be in bronze. Technically, as specimens of earthenware, they are perfect, but it is open to question whether the potter has not trespassed on the domain of the worker in metal. There are canons which govern the art of pottery; form and ornamentation strictly appropriate in metal are utterly unfitted for the worker in clay. Branched candelabra are false in porcelain though extremely beautiful in silver. In passing this criticism, which applies to some of Wedgwood's work, we are incidentally brushing aside the contention of those critics who find him unoriginal. As a matter of fact he was so original and so responsive to the suggestion of allied arts that he often undertook the creation of pieces in his kilns the like of which no potter had ever attempted before. _Red Ware._--It is not to be supposed that Wedgwood would allow the fine red Elers ware to stand as representative of the uttermost that Staffordshire had produced without attempting to emulate this early ware. Accordingly, we find in what he terms his _rosso antico_, a red ware of extraordinary beauty. Some of the engine-turned pieces of this red ware are exceptionally fine. There is in the Hanley Museum a coffee-pot of great technical and æsthetic value. Wine-coolers and other useful creations, with classic ornamentation in relief, show the wide range of this red terra-cotta or unglazed ware. The Elers style was simple, with applied stamped ornament of small dimensions and Oriental rather than classical in _motif_. The red stoneware of Böttcher, of Dresden, was by this time fairly well known, and Wedgwood had both Elers and Böttcher to serve as models, although he does not seem to have employed this red ware to any great extent. Nor did Wedgwood confine himself to red in this type of ware; he made chocolate-coloured examples, and in his cane-coloured and bamboo ware he made articles for domestic use, such as tea and coffee services as well as mugs and jugs of this type, which differed from the black basalt inasmuch as the basalt was an especially hard body, whereas these others were porous and soft. As was usual with Wedgwood, not only did he have a series of wares of different colours, but he often worked with a combination of these colours in the same piece. =Cream Ware.=--Something must be said concerning the development of cream ware before it can be accurately determined how much Staffordshire was indebted to Wedgwood for its development. At the outset it must be granted that he did not invent the ware. But he improved it. Similarly it was further improved subsequent to his day by other potters who made it finer and whiter. But to this day, a hundred and fifty years after the introduction of this cream ware, his descendants, still trading under the name of Messrs. Josiah Wedgwood and Sons, produce this cream ware exactly as it was then produced. Dinner services are made with Flaxman's designs on the border, essentially English in character and feeling. Last year Messrs. James Powell and Sons, of the Whitefriars Glass Works, near the Temple, which were flourishing in 1710, and still continue to produce the finest glass in England, held an exhibition of Wedgwood ware. Considerable interest was drawn to the subject of this revival of the old patterns of 1775 from the designs of Josiah Wedgwood's band of artists. Those connoisseurs who love old furniture and old eighteenth-century glass ware, as made by Messrs. Powell, welcomed the Wedgwood queen's ware designs as being something eminently fitted to strike the right note of harmony, and accordingly, by arrangement with the firm at Etruria, some of the finest patterns of the old ware are exclusively made for Messrs. Powell. The English dinner table may now be as English as it was in Georgian days, and, happily, this æsthetic revival has met with a warm response by the patronage of the royal family, the nobility, and by all those who love the old-world charm of the domestic art of our forefathers. Before Wedgwood's day cream ware was made. Astbury used an addition of white clay and flint to his bodies about 1720. In 1726 the grinding of flint stones into powder for the potters' use became so important that Thomas Benson took out a patent for a machine to do this. In 1750 we find cream ware being largely made. Aaron Wedgwood and William Littler introduced about this time a fluid lead glaze instead of the old manner of using powdered galena (native sulphide of lead). Body and glaze were at this period fired at one operation. Enoch Booth improved this by revolutionising the method of glazing. He fired the pieces to a biscuit state and then dipped them in this fluid lead glaze (ground flint and white lead), and refired them at a lower temperature. At this date two other potters, Warburton (of Hot Lane) and Baddeley (of Shelton), followed Booth's practice, and cream ware may be said to have been in a fairly flourishing condition. These facts are all important and cannot be ignored in arriving at a satisfactory conclusion. Wedgwood commenced as a master potter in 1759, that is, about nine years after the latest inventions in cream ware had brought the ware into something more than an experimental stage. In 1761 Wedgwood's cream ware, both by its variety of beautiful form and its finer glaze and body, had surpassed that of his rival potters. In 1762 Wedgwood presented to Queen Charlotte a caudle and breakfast service of the ware; this was painted by Thomas Daniel and David Steele. The Queen and the King were so pleased with the ware that complete table services were ordered, and Wedgwood received the Queen's command to call himself "Potter to Her Majesty" in 1765, and from that date he termed the ware "Queen's Ware." [Illustration: WEDGWOOD CREAM WARE PLATES. Painted with English scenery. From service made for Catherine II. of Russia, 1774. Having green frog in reserve on each plate. (_In Museum at Etruria._) (_At British Museum._)] [Illustration: WEDGWOOD BUSTS OF ROUSSEAU AND VOLTAIRE. Enamelled in colours. (Height 6-1/2 inches and 6 inches.) (_At Victoria and Albert Museum._)] Though the invention of cream ware may not be his, there must have been something essentially more pleasing in his productions to have made such strides in so short a time. Perhaps Wedgwood, "the tradesman pure and simple," had something to do with this achievement, but we prefer to think it was the master hand of Wedgwood the potter and Wedgwood the artist. We cannot leave this _cream ware_ question without referring to an old legal controversy. This brings us down to the year 1775 when Wedgwood, in company with John Turner (of Lane End) journeyed to Cornwall and jointly leased some clay mines. The reason for their visit was that the whole of the Staffordshire potters were up in arms. Salt glaze was coming to an end in spite of the enamelling in colours in emulation of English porcelain. And now Cookworthy, the potter of Plymouth, the maker of the first hard porcelain in England, had sold his patent rights to Champion of Bristol, who, in 1775, applied for a further patent for fourteen years to use certain natural materials for making porcelain. The Staffordshire potters elected Josiah Wedgwood and John Turner as their representatives and petitioned against the granting of this patent, and Wedgwood urged that "the manufacture of earthenware in Staffordshire has of late received many essential improvements, and is continually advancing to higher degrees of perfection; that the further improvement of the manufactory must depend upon the application and the _free use_ of the various raw materials that are the natural products of this country." He further adds that "the natural productions of the soil ought to be the right of all." Incidentally, this controversy throws light on the position of Wedgwood as a maker of cream ware, and it had a lasting effect, as we shall show in the improvement of cream ware itself and upon the class of ware turned out in Staffordshire. Champion, in his reply to the Staffordshire outburst in petitioning parliament not to grant his patent, pays Wedgwood a great compliment: "Mr. Champion most cheerfully joins in the general praise which is given to Mr. Wedgwood for the _many improvements which he has made in the Staffordshire earthenware_, and the great pains and assiduity with which he has pursued them. He richly deserves the large fortune he has made from these improvements." Champion goes on to make a most vital point in upholding his claim to protection that he "has no objection to the use which the potters of Staffordshire may make of his or any other raw materials _provided earthenware only, as distinguished by that title, is made from it_." Here, then, is the reason of the visit of Wedgwood and Turner to the West, in search of the natural earths that half the potters in Europe had been hunting for since Böttcher, of Dresden, made his great discovery of white clay. But the story of _cream ware_ is not ended. Wedgwood to this printed "Reply" by Champion entered the lists with some printed "Remarks," which he circulated to members of parliament. In this--and we must bear in mind that he was holding a brief on behalf of all the Staffordshire potters--we find the following statement:-- "_When Mr. Wedgwood discovered the art of making Queen's Ware_, which employs ten times more people than all the china works in the kingdom, he did not ask for a patent for this important discovery. A patent would greatly have limited its public utility. Instead of one hundred manufactories of Queen's Ware there would have been one; and instead of an exportation to all quarters of the world, a few pretty things would have been made for the amusement of the people of fashion in England." In spite of the opposition of Staffordshire, the Bill enabling Champion to obtain his patent rights passed both houses of parliament, and in the last stage a clause was inserted throwing open the free use of raw materials to potters for any purpose _except for the manufacture of porcelain_; practically this patent was to be enjoyed by Champion for nearly twenty-two years. Two extraordinarily important effects upon the pottery industry in Staffordshire were the result of this controversy: (1) The Staffordshire potter confined himself to earthenware. (2) Growan stone and Cornish Kaolin were added to the cream ware body, which enabled earthenware to compete successfully with china. It may have struck an inquiring spirit as singular that the Staffordshire potters as a body were content to imitate English porcelain and compete with it. At first, of course, the remoteness of the Potteries from the West accounted for this, but clay was brought by sea from Bideford to Chester and carried overland to Staffordshire, but not the growan stone nor Cornish kaolin. Chelsea and Bow did not have natural earths to hand. But the additional reason seems to be the one we have given--that practically Champion's patent precluded them from making porcelain. When, in or about 1769, cream ware was perfected there was no need to cast about for new bodies. Staffordshire earthenware had found itself, and all other improvements after that date, for fifty years, until early nineteenth-century days, mainly concerned enamelling, printing, glazing, and the _exterior_, or developments in mechanical production, or attempts at higher artistic effects. In the illustrations we give of cream ware it will be seen that it was of varying form and it received a variety of decoration. It was _plain or undecorated_, relying chiefly on its symmetry of form as an artistic asset. The cut and pierced designs and many other shapes followed those of the silversmith, and in dessert dishes and centre-pieces considerable beauty was exhibited in modelling--a style which was closely followed by the Leeds potters, who made excellent cream ware. A beautiful example of the perforated basket ware is illustrated (p. 225). It is a dessert dish of most pleasing shape, and is a rare specimen of the pierced work in Wedgwood's cream ware. Wedgwood, as early as 1775, still experimenting with a view to make his cream ware better, determined to make a whiter body by the addition of more china clay and flint and to kill the yellow tone by the use of blue (oxide of cobalt). This later white ware he termed "Pearl ware." Among the most noticeable productions in this whiter ware are the dessert services modelled from shells. We know that Wedgwood had a collection, although he was not a conchologist, yet it is not improbable that the contemplation of these beautiful forms suggested ideas and he derived many of his artistic shapes from the forms of shells. The use of shell forms was not unknown. Salt-glaze pieces repeatedly show the pecten shell design, and Plymouth porcelain had adopted shell designs in salt cellars and similar pieces. We illustrate (p. 225) a remarkable example of a centre-piece in the form of a nautilus shell. Some of the shell dishes have a faint wash in pink, and yellow radiating bands, hardly perceptible, but conveying the suggestion of the interior of the shell. Queen's ware, when decorated, was of two classes: (1) painted; (2) transfer-printed in red or puce or black. It is not necessary to go into details in regard to these two forms of decoration. It is interesting in regard to the enamelling in colour to know that Wedgwood sent his ware to Mrs. Warburton's factory at Hot Lane to be painted. He also employed a band of enamellers at Chelsea who had been trained in the china factory. We reproduce an illustration (p. 233) of two painted queen's-ware plates from the celebrated service executed for Catherine II. of Russia. The enamel painting of the views and borders cost Wedgwood over £2,000. In the centre of each piece is a scene representing some place of interest in the country. Each view in this series of British scenery is different, and there are some twelve hundred. The body is in pale brimstone and the view painted in a brownish purple; the border was a wreath of mauve flowers and green leaves, and, as will be seen in the illustrations, each plate has a green frog in a reserve. This design has puzzled many writers, but as the Messalina of the North intended to place this service in her palace of La Grenouillère, near St. Petersburg--Grenouillère meaning a marshy place full of frogs--explains the whimsical design of the frog on each plate. This dinner and dessert service was completed in 1774 at a cost of about £3,000. It was exhibited in London, and set the town agog with amazement. The rooms in Greek Street, Soho, were thronged with fashionable people, and, as may be imagined, it gave a great impetus to the manufacture of Wedgwood's ware. The other decoration employed by Wedgwood on his cream ware was transfer printing. He availed himself at once of the new style of printing by Sadler and Green on the glazed surface of his ware, which was periodically sent to Liverpool to be so decorated. In the earlier pieces the tile design is evident, quite unsuitable for a round plate, in spite of Wedgwood's addition of wreaths and ribbons in enamel painting to help out the incongruity. In early books illustrated by Bewick with square woodcuts a similar use of garlands and ribbons as an ornamental border is observed. Nor was the cream body confined to strictly domestic ware. Among his multifarious productions Wedgwood made some fine coloured figures, remarkable for strong modelling and subdued and harmonious colouring. The large figures, such as Fortitude, Charity, Ceres, Juno, Prudence, and many others, are not always marked. "Fortitude" and "Charity" both bear the impressed mark WEDGWOOD, the latter belonging to the series Faith, Hope, and Charity designed for Wedgwood by Mrs. Landré, and a marked example is in the Willett Collection. Many small coloured cream-ware busts were made. We illustrate two typical examples (p. 233) of Rousseau and Voltaire. They were evidently intended for the French market, and are very dainty though somewhat highly-coloured likenesses of two great Frenchmen. Jean-Jacques is portrayed in Armenian costume, after the well-known portrait. The coat is a chocolate brown and the stand is marbled. Voltaire has a blue surcoat, a terra-cotta cloak, and lilac vest. [Illustration: WEDGWOOD BLACK BASALT TEAPOTS. WEDGWOOD JASPER WARE DICED PATTERN TEA SET. _By the courtesy of Messrs. Josiah Wedgwood & Sons._] =Jasper Ware.=--As early as 1773 Wedgwood was experimenting with a view to producing jasper body. It is here that his greatest triumph in the ceramic art was won. Nothing like it had ever been seen in pottery before, and the ware he produced in an endless variety of forms which were termed "ornamental" by him to distinguish them from the queen's ware, or "useful" ware. About 1775--a great date in Wedgwood's history--the jasper ware was perfected, and from 1780 to 1795 is the period when it was at its best, when he poured forth from Etruria, then filled with a highly-trained body of workmen and artists, his jasper ware, exquisite with grace and beauty of form and fascinating in its charm of dainty and subtle colour. The spirit of classicism was in the air in the days of Wedgwood. Dr. Johnson had imposed his ponderous latinity on the world of letters. Alexander Pope was still writing when Josiah was apprenticed and known already as a "fine thrower." Homer's _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ had appeared in many editions just prior to Wedgwood's manhood. The statues of naval and military commanders in Westminster Abbey were in Roman costume. The Brothers Adam were in the heyday of their popularity. From sedan chairs to silver-plate their style was the vogue. The classical mouldings, capitals, and niches, the shell flutings and the light garlands in the Adam style are welcome sights in many otherwise dreary streets in London. In furniture, the Adam style is as severe as the French prototypes which had absorbed some of the ancient spirit of Rome and Greece. As early as 1763 Grimm wrote, "For some years past we are beginning to inquire for antique ornaments and forms. The interior and exterior decorations of houses, furniture, materials of dress, work of the goldsmiths, all bear alike the stamp of the Greeks. The fashion passes from architecture to millinery; our ladies have their hair dressed _à la Grecque_." Men of thought joined in clamouring for simplicity, and Diderot lent his powerful aid in heralding the dawn of the revival of the antique long before the France of Revolution days. But eyes other than French were fixed on the remote past. The excavations of Herculaneum and Pompeii had given a new stimulus to archæological research. In this country Sir William Hamilton, as early as 1765, promoted the publication of the magnificent work, "Greek, Roman, and Etruscan Antiquities," illustrated from his collection. It was a specially valuable exposition of the system and methods and æsthetic value of classic art, especially plastic art; and in promulgating this sumptuous illustrated disquisition on the ancient potter's art Sir William Hamilton laid modern workers in the same field under a heavy debt. Incidentally it may be mentioned that Sir William was the husband of the beautiful Lady Hamilton. So that in the midst of this eighteenth-century classic revival Josiah Wedgwood was but the child of his age, and, associated in partnership with Bentley, a man of refined and scholarly tastes, he entered into the new spirit with willing mind. Adroitly seizing classic models, Wedgwood in his art adapted all that was most suited to modern requirements. Pope translated Homer into English verse, and Wedgwood translated classic designs into English pottery. [Illustration: WEDGWOOD JASPER VASE. Subject--representing the Apotheosis of Virgil; surmounted by Pegasus cover. _By the courtesy of Messrs. Josiah Wedgwood & Sons._] Wedgwood's jasper ware is of various colours--blue in various tones, sage-green, olive-green, lilac, pink, yellow, and black, and, of course, white, which is its natural body without the addition of metallic oxides. It is capable of taking a polish on the lapidary's wheel. In use it was mainly employed for ware of a highly ornamental character, though it was also employed for utilitarian objects, such as tea and coffee services, dishes, and flower vases, and in plaques it was used as interior decorations in fireplaces and in furniture. We illustrate (p. 241) a jasper ware diced pattern _Tea Set_, which shows how wide a field Wedgwood covered with his new ware. It is usually found with a ground of one colour, such as blue, lilac, _et cetera_--one of the seven--and the ornament applied in relief is, as a rule, white. It was Wedgwood's appreciation of antique gems that suggested the idea of reproducing them in earthenware, and in the period prior to Bentley's death, in 1780, cameos, portrait medallions, and plaques were mostly made. There are two classes of jasper ware--_solid jasper_ and _jasper dip_. The difference is similar to that between solid agate and surface agate. Solid jasper is coloured throughout. That which is coloured only on the surface is jasper dip. This latter gives more delicate effects, and was employed, after 1780, in the important series of classic vases which required translucency and greater delicacy in the white reliefs, which is especially effective in the filmy garments and flowing draperies of the classic figures. Considerable progress had been made in Staffordshire since Elers left in 1710, but it is the Elers method of stamping the ornaments and applying them to the body of the ware that Wedgwood adopted. But there was more than enough originality of invention in this jasper ware to carry his fame to the confines of Europe. Blue and white porcelain in imitation of his jasper was made at Sèvres, and other continental factories, such as Meissen, Furstenburg, and Gros Breitenbach, made similar echoes of this wonderful English jasper ware of Josiah Wedgwood. No illustrations can do justice to the charm and tender colour of some of the finer examples of this Wedgwood jasper ware, varying from pale lemon colour to delicate mauve as a ground, and having translucent diaphonous draperies in white standing in relief in the groups of figures. To the sense of touch fine old specimens of this jasper ware are as soft as satin. Usually the dull matt surface of this ware is left without polish, though it is so dense and hard as to receive a high polish, which was occasionally employed in the inside of basins and cups and on the bevelled edges of some of his cameos. His classic subjects were no feeble echoes of ancient art, but were executed from designs by a band of great artists working together and saturated with the spirit of the new classic revival. John Flaxman, James Tassie, John Bacon, William Hackwood, Thomas Stothard, George Stubbs, William Greatbach, were all employed by Wedgwood. And distinguished amateurs such as Lady Diana Beauclerk and Lady Templeton supplied him with designs, and it is interesting to note that Mrs. Wilcox, an accomplished painter of figures and borders on his Etruscan ware, was a daughter of Fry, the mezzotint engraver and founder of the Bow porcelain factory. We illustrate (p. 245) a fine jasper vase representing _The Apotheosis of Virgil_, the cover surmounted by a Pegasus. The square pedestal has griffins at the corners. A companion vase, _The Apotheosis of Homer_, changed owners at eight hundred guineas, and is now in the possession of Lord Tweedmouth. Wedgwood himself regarded his copy of the celebrated Barberini vase, which was lent to him by the Duke of Portland, as his masterpiece. This vase is a cameo glass vase, which was discovered in the middle of the seventeenth century in a marble sarcophagus on the road to Frascati, two miles from Rome. This vase belongs to the early part of the third century. It was bought by Sir William Hamilton for £1,000, and subsequently purchased by the Duke of Portland. This vase, of rich dark blue glass, almost black, is decorated with opaque white enamel cameos in relief cut with the most extraordinary skill, and it stands as a superb example of classic art. Strictly speaking, Wedgwood's copy of this was at best a copy in one material of the technique of another. But if it be not the highest art to copy thus in intricate detail, yet it must be admitted that such masterly elaboration had never before been attempted by the potter, and the early copies of Wedgwood (he set out to make only fifty) stand unequalled as specimens of potting by the hands of trained workmen directed by genius. =Wedgwood and his influence.=--As a final word on Wedgwood and his influence, something should be said as to the charge laid against him that he inaugurated the factory system as applied to pottery. There is no doubt that he organised what was before his day a somewhat chaotic industry. And it is certain that he trained his workmen to become specialists, and that the system of the division of labour was the order of the day at Etruria. But how else could such an output as his be handled? It has been advanced that the quaintness of the peasant potter and his later development was submerged, and that all individuality was lost under the new system. There was a growing tendency to develop mechanical perfection and to introduce labour-saving appliances, but this was the spirit of the oncoming modern age. Other factories, his contemporaries, were adopting the same principles, and those who think Wedgwood unoriginal or uninventive are quite willing to credit him with all the inventiveness and originality necessary to overturn the old system. The truth lies between these two extremes. Wedgwood, in common with his contemporaries, not unwillingly embraced all the newest devices known. It was Sadler and Green, of Liverpool, who together in one day by their invention printed as many tiles as it would have taken a hundred painters to do in the same time. Similarly all over the country artisans in the china trade were becoming specialised. There were the enamellers at Chelsea and other places, and a little examination will show that Wedgwood did not inaugurate this modern factory method, but without doubt, in common with all other master potters, he had to go with the times. Trade rivalry was very strong, and competition was not unknown when every potter in Staffordshire was jealously watching the latest improvement of his neighbour. But to saddle Josiah Wedgwood with the responsibility of stamping out original talent is beside the mark. His life-work stands impregnable against petty assault. "In a word, no other potter of modern times has so successfully welded into one harmonious whole the prose and the poetry of the ceramic art." WEDGWOOD MARKS. [Illustration: wedgwood] 1.--This mark occurs upon a very early specimen of "Queen's Ware," a teapot, painted with flowers, &c., supposed to have been made by Wedgwood at Burslem: each letter apparently stamped singly with printers' type. [Illustration: WEDGWOOD WEDGWOOD Wedgwood] 2, 3, 4.--These marks, varying in size, were, it is thought, used by Wedgwood up to the accession of Bentley as his partner, 1768-9, and are found upon specimens said to have been purchased about that period. [Illustration: WEDGWOOD & BENTLEY] 5.--The circular stamp, without the inner and outer rings, and without the word Etruria, is doubtless the earliest form of the Wedgwood and Bentley stamp, and is found upon a set of three early painted vases, in imitation of natural stone, with gilt serpent and scroll handles. No other example of this mark is known: it may have been an experimental one, afterwards changed for No. 6, and never in general use. [Illustration] 6.--This mark, with the word Etruria, is made upon a wafer, or bat, and fixed in the corner, inside the plinth of old basalt vases, reversing for candelabra and some large specimens; it is sometimes found on the pedestal of a bust or large figure. [Illustration] 7.--The well-known circular stamp, with an inner and outer line, always placed round the screw of the basalt, granite, and Etruscan vases, but is never found upon the jasper vases of any period. [Illustration: WEDGWOOD & BENTLEY WEDGWOOD & BENTLEY Wedgwood & Bentley Wedgwood & Bentley] 8, 9, 10, 11.--These marks, varying in size, are found upon busts, granite, and basalt vases, figures, plaques, medallions, and cameos, from the largest tablet to the smallest cameo for a ring (the writer has one, only half an inch by three-eighths of an inch, fully marked); also found upon useful ware of the period. [Illustration: Wedgwood & Bentley 356] 12.--Marks upon the Wedgwood and Bentley intaglios, with the catalogue number, varying in size. Very small intaglios are sometimes marked W. & B. with the catalogue number, or simply with number only. [Illustration: Wedgwood & Bentley.] 13.--This rare mark is found only upon chocolate and white seal intaglios, usually portraits, made of two layers of clay; the edges polished for mounting. It may be noted that the word "and" in every Wedgwood and Bentley mark is always contracted "&," that no punctuation or other points, excepting those in marks No. 5, 6, 7, and 13, are ever used. [Illustration: Wedgwood Wedgwood Wedgwood WEDGWOOD WEDGWOOD WEDGWOOD WEDGWOOD] 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20.--Marks, varying in size, attributed to the period after Bentley's death, and probably used for a time after Wedgwood died. These marks and others were used by chance--a small piece often bearing a large stamp, and a large one a minute stamp. [Illustration: WEDGWOOD & SONS] 21.--This rare mark exists upon some large square plateaux in cane-coloured jasper. It may have been one adopted upon the change of partnership in 1790, but little used. The circular announcing the change says: "The mark 'WEDGWOOD' will be continued without any addition." [Illustration: WEDGWOOD ETRURIA WEDGWOOD ETRURIA Wedgwood Etruria] 22, 23, 24.--These marks rarely found upon pieces of very high character--usually upon dark blue stoneware, vases, and glazed ware. Adopted about 1840, but soon disused. [Illustration: WEDGWOOD (_in red, blue, or gold_)] 25.--The mark upon Wedgwood PORCELAIN made from 1805-1815. Always printed either in red or blue, sometimes in gold. An impressed mark cannot be used with certainty upon soft-paste porcelain, being so apt to diffuse out in firing. [Illustration: WEDGWOOD WEDGWOOD ] 26, 27.--These marks, varying in size, are still used at Etruria for the modern jasper and useful ware of all varieties. [Illustration: WEDGWOOD] 28.--The manufacture of fine porcelain was revived at Etruria, 1878, and is still continued. This mark, _printed_ in black and other colours, is used. [Illustration: ENGLAND] 29.--The word ENGLAND was added to the mark WEDGWOOD in 1891, to comply with the new American Customs Regulations, known as the McKinley Tariff Act. The occurrence of three capital letters, ANO, REP, &c., in addition to name appears on ware after 1840. The first two letters are workmen's marks, and the third is a date letter, _e.g._, O = 1855, P = 1856, and so on, as in hall-marks on silver. PRICES. WEDGWOOD. £ s. d. Oval. Ganymede feeding Eagle (6-1/4 in. by 5-1/4 in.), marked Wedgwood & Bentley Christie, June, 1906 40 19 0 Oblong oval. Marriage of Cupid and Psyche (6 in. by 7-3/4 in.), marked Wedgwood & Bentley. Christie, June, 1906 54 12 0 Busts, _Minerva_ and _Mercury_, black basalt, 18 in. high. Christie, November, 1906 16 16 0 Oval portrait, in jasper, white on blue ground, of Captain Cook (10 in. by 8 in.), marked Wedgwood & Bentley. Sotheby, February, 1907 16 16 0 Jasper vase, blue, with Venus and Cupid in relief, handles coiled with serpents. Christie, February, 1908 33 12 0 A pair of splashed mauve Nautilus Shells, marked Wedgwood. Sotheby, December, 1908 3 10 0 The above prices are for ordinary collectors' examples of old Wedgwood. But exceptional pieces bring exceptional prices. The largest known example of a blue and white jasper plaque (11 in. by 26 in.) sold for £415 at Christie's in 1880, and the fine jasper vase _The Apotheosis of Homer_ (now in the Tweedmouth Collection) realised 800 guineas. VIII THE SCHOOL OF WEDGWOOD CHAPTER VIII THE SCHOOL OF WEDGWOOD 1760-1810 William Adams (of Greengates) (1789-1805)--John Turner (of Lane End) (1739-1786)--The plagiarists of Wedgwood--The Wedgwood influence--The passing of classicism--Table of Marks--Prices. Potters who followed Wedgwood may be divided into three classes. Men such as John Turner and William Adams, who were competitors with him in friendly rivalry, each striving to emulate the successes of the other, and each doing original and independent work. Indebted, and greatly indebted to Wedgwood as these potters were, they produced work equal with his in technique. The blue jasper of William Adams, if anything, is rather finer than that of his master. John Turner, of Lane End, made jasper from a different formula to Wedgwood, being more porcellanous in character. These men, his friends and intimates, and Palmer, of Hanley, who was first to apply bas-reliefs to his black vases, in 1769, may be said to represent original research, as compared with uninventive copying. The second class, which includes contemporaries such as Elijah Mayer, and Palmer, of Hanley, who must be included here (in spite of his streak of originality above alluded to, and his fine use of gilding to granitic ware), and Neale, his brother-in-law, and Voyez, the modeller, and Hollins, may all be said to be plagiarists who lived largely on Wedgwood's jasper and basalt ware, as well as several schools such as Hartley Greens (of Leeds), and Swansea and Spode, and many others who followed his cream-ware designs. In regard to Palmer and Neale and Voyez the case is very strong, as they are stated to have forged the mark "Wedgwood & Bentley" in some of their medallions; but against the others the case must not be pressed too closely, as they undoubtedly displayed a fertility of invention and an originality after they had once learned the Wedgwood manner. Leeds, in particular, having caught the spirit that Wedgwood had transplanted from the silversmith to his dessert services, produced cream-ware rivalling that of Etruria. Tennyson had a set of verses which illustrate this situation. He tells of him who "cast to earth a seed" which grew so tall "it wore a crown of light." "But thieves from o'er the wall Stole the seed by night." Sown far and wide in every town, it won universal admiration, and, says the poet--who, by the way, was thinking of plagiarists of his own style-- "Most can raise the flowers now, For all have got the seed." We must make one other point; it was Wedgwood who lighted the way even to his source of inspiration. He made no secret of his indebtedness to the art of the silversmith, and in recognising in the antiquarian works of Count Caylus and Sir William Hamilton a new field, he left it open for others to go to the same original sources, nor were his contemporaries slow in doing this. So that, in a measure, this second class of potters may be exonerated from the charge of plagiarism when we find them striking out for themselves. Chippendale, when he promulgated his "Director" giving designs for furniture, straightway started a school of cabinet-makers, who worked after his designs in every locality in England. These early pioneers in art--Chippendale, the masterly adapter of all that was best on the Continent, and Wedgwood, translator of classicism into English pottery--worked with broad and generous spirit, and their contemporaries and those who came immediately after them helped themselves liberally to the overflowing profusion of ideas. The third class is the great crowd of lesser men, potters who claim little attention for original work, but who are remembered as producing, as an echo to the great classic revival, designs and shapes and copies of Wedgwood's ware, sometimes in stoneware for jugs, and more often in cream-ware, without an added touch of originality. In this decadent period, when not only in Staffordshire but in other parts of the country this was being largely done, and not always done well, though there are exceptions to which we shall allude later, one is reminded of the pregnant words of Goethe: "There are many echoes, but few voices." =William Adams (1745-1805).=--The Adams family are renowned in Staffordshire as being among the oldest potters in the country. In connection with classic ware William Adams, of Greengates, is pre-eminent. At his death, in 1805, the works were carried on by Benjamin Adams till 1820. There is considerable confusion between contemporary members of this family, both of the same name, William Adams (of Cobridge), William Adams (of Greenfield), and the subject of the present remarks, William Adams, of Greengates, who commenced as master potter there in 1789. There were other firms, such as J. Adams & Co., or Adams & Bromley, who made jasper ware between about 1870 and 1886, and who stamped their ware "ADAMS," or "ADAMS & CO." This, of course, does not come into the realm of collecting, and this latter firm has nothing to do with the old-established family of Adams. But collectors cannot be too careful when auction catalogues describe such ware as "Adams." The beautiful Adams blue which is of a violet tone is much admired, and in the finely-modelled classic reliefs the style is less frigid than Wedgwood, as William Adams drew his inspiration more from Latin than Greek models. As a rule his jasper is a trifle more waxen than that of Wedgwood, but never glossy. William Adams was a favourite pupil of Wedgwood, and was doubtless indebted to him for the guidance that set the young potter to work in friendly and amicable rivalry with his late master. [Illustration: BLUE AND WHITE JASPER VASE. Impressed mark TURNER. Subject--Diana in her Chariot. (John Turner, of Lane End, 1762-1786.) BLUE AND WHITE JASPER VASE. Impressed mark ADAMS. (About 1790.) (William Adams, of Greengates, made jasper 1787-1805.) (_At British Museum._)] As a modeller he was of exceptional merit, and it is known that he designed, himself, several of his finest pieces, such as the _Seasons_, his _Venus Bound_, and _Cupid Disarmed_, his _Pandora_, _Psyche trying one of Cupid's Darts_, and the _Muses_. Monglott, a Swiss artist, was employed by him on jasper vases, and it is believed that Enoch Wood is responsible for designing the hunting scenes which appear on the fine stoneware jugs and tankards similar in style to the Turner jug illustrated (p. 267). Many of his jugs had silver mounts. In regard to marks, that usually found is ADAMS impressed. Sometimes, though rarely, the mark is ADAMS & CO.; and later his son, Benjamin Adams, had the impressed mark B. ADAMS, which appears on stoneware and blue printed ware. To those who desire to familiarise themselves with the genius of William Adams, there is a special volume by Mr. William Turner, entitled "William Adams, an Old English Potter" (Chapman & Hall, 1904), which is a full and learned monograph, dealing in thorough manner with the productions of William Adams and of his kinsfolk, the Adams family of potters. We illustrate one of a pair of jasper vases in blue and white by Adams, in date about 1790. The classic figure subjects, as will be seen, display a simplicity and exquisite grace of modelling and arrangement not surpassed even by Wedgwood (see p. 261). =John Turner, of Lane End (1739-1786).=--Wedgwood and Turner were intimates, and in considering Turner we must regard him as a friendly neighbour, as well as a rival potter. He made some remarkably fine jasper, though it differed in its body very greatly from that of Wedgwood, being more closely allied with porcelain. It contained no barytes in its composition. In design Turner, though not imitative, followed the Greek school and produced, as a modeller himself, some exquisitely proportioned pieces. We illustrate a fine vase in blue-and-white jasper which is especially graceful in design, the severity being relieved by the delicacy of the fine subject in relief of _Diana in her Chariot_ drawing a pair of goats and accompanied by flying cherubs (see p. 261). This subject, it will be noticed, is reproduced in a transfer-printed jug illustrated in a later chapter (p. 319). But it is in the unglazed stoneware that he surpassed anything his contemporaries had done. It was about 1780 that he discovered, after hunting for clay even so far afield as Cornwall, the precise earth he wanted in his own neighbourhood at Longton. In colour it was a warm biscuit tone, and it was capable of being modelled with exactitude into fine sharp designs in relief. In stoneware jugs with classic figures in relief he set the fashion for half a century. His teapots and coffee-pots are models of graceful design. We illustrate a fine example of a _Teapot_ (p. 267), with the lid perfectly fitting, made to slide in a groove, and showing in clear relief the style of ornamentation for which Turner became so renowned. The other illustration, on the same page, of an equally perfect _Stoneware Jug_ with metal mounts, shows a slight departure from classic ornament. The figures are in old English costume, and are engaged in archery. It will thus be seen that even in the early days there was exhibited a tendency to depart from classic figure design and turn to equally graceful but homelier subjects. Possibly this influence may have been due to Enoch Wood, who is believed to have been employed by Turner as a modeller; but accurate information regarding Turner's modellers is not known. Besides the above-mentioned wares, Turner also made black basalt of very high quality, being preferred by some connoisseurs to that of Wedgwood. He also was the first to introduce under-glaze printing into Staffordshire, and although he did not introduce the "willow pattern" (Spode brought that from Caughley), he made ware with this pattern printed in under-glaze blue, and his plates and dishes have perforated borders. We illustrate a fine example of this ware (p. 331). =The Plagiarists of Wedgwood.=--We have seen that John Turner, of Lane End, that William Adams, of Greengates, came under the strong influence of Wedgwood, but were no more imitators, in the broad sense, than Gainsborough and Romney may be said to be imitators of Sir Joshua Reynolds. It must be allowed in art that a school may arise under the guidance of some remarkable genius who tinges the originality of his contemporaries with his own master mind. Wedgwood had the inspiration to transplant classic decoration into Staffordshire--the rest was easy; having shown the way, crowds of lesser men seized the new ideas with avidity. Chief among the direct copyists was Henry Palmer. He had a spark of originality, as we have seen, anticipating Wedgwood by some five years in applying bas-reliefs to his black vases, and the sprinkled marbled ware touched with gold was another success of his, but here his ingenuity ended. He must have been a great thorn in Wedgwood's side, for he is said to have procured every new pattern on its appearance and copied it. Voyez, who was a modeller and not a potter, assisted in this nefarious traffic; but Voyez, in spite of his rascality, was a clever modeller, and struck out a new line in his rustic or "Fair Hebe" jugs. He was employed at one time by Wedgwood, and probably by Ralph Wood. Voyez specialised on the intaglio seals, and added Wedgwood and Bentley's names to his handiwork. On other intaglios, equally imitative, and on vases is the name PALMER or the initials H. P. Wedgwood himself--as do collectors nowadays--was obliged to acknowledge the fine quality of the work of Palmer and of Neale, for he admitted to Bentley that they were "serious competitors," and he evidently feared their activity, as he says, "We must be progressing or we shall have them treading on our heels." The sagacity of Wedgwood's remark is obvious, for an examination of the Neale-and-Palmer jasper and other ware reveals an amazing mastery of technique. It is finely potted and well balanced in ornament and design. If it were not for the impressed mark such vases might readily pass as Wedgwood. It is not improbable that in the middle nineteenth century the names both of Adams and Palmer and Neale were ground out of the bases of some of their finer vases by ingenious persons, who passed them off as the work of Wedgwood. [Illustration: TURNER STONEWARE TEAPOT, UNGLAZED. With ornament in relief and classic figure subjects. Mark impressed TURNER. (Height 4-1/2 inches.) (_In the collection of Mrs. L. Scott._)] [Illustration: TURNER STONEWARE JUG, UNGLAZED. With decoration in relief of archery. Silver lid and rim. Mark impressed TURNER. (Height 9 inches.) (_In the collection of Mr. John Watson Bradley._)] =Marks--Palmer, Neale, Wilson.=--In regard to marks, H. PALMER or PALMER. HANLEY is the earliest--sometimes only the initials H. P. About 1776 he entered into partnership with his brother-in-law, and sometimes the mark NEALE alone is found and often NEALE & CO. These marks are usually in circles; on one piece appears I. NEALE, with the word HANLY (spelt wrongly) beneath. About 1778 Robert Wilson joined the firm, and after 1788 his name alone appears. Stoneware jugs--drab ground with cupids in relief--baskets, and cream-ware are often found marked WILSON surmounted by a crown with the letter C above. Sometimes this is present without the name. Wilson, too, is remembered for having introduced chalk into the body of his cream-ware, which was of exceptional value in whitening the ware and rendering it more adapted for under-glaze printing. At Wilson's death, in 1802, David Wilson succeeded to the pottery, and the firm shortly after became D. Wilson & Sons. These Wilsons made pink lustre, similar to that of Wedgwood, and also silver lustre, upon some of which the name of Wilson is impressed. This brings the factory down to 1820, when it passed into other hands. We have seen that Adams and Turner and Palmer and Neale came more or less into touch with Wedgwood as contemporary rivals. Before coming to the crowd of lesser men, or lesser-known men, we must not omit Josiah Spode, who was a colleague of Wedgwood under Whieldon; Elijah Mayer, whose black basalt was almost equal to that of Wedgwood, and whose enamel cream-ware stands artistically very high; and Samuel Hollins, of Shelton, with fine red or chocolate ware, having as dense a character as Wedgwood's imitations of the Elers ware, and Hollins in his jasper produced some fine examples with original combinations of colours. =Josiah Spode= the First (there are three potters in succession of that name) made, in common with other potters, the black basalt ware from 1770, when he commenced as potter, and he produced stoneware jugs similar in character to those of Adams and Turner, following the sporting subjects in relief and departing from the ultra-classical subjects of Wedgwood. This class of jug and mug was made by many potters--its character was English, and it was evidently popular. An illustration of the type appears on page 277. Davenport, of Longport, made the same pattern; it was made at Castleford, near Leeds, and Hollins and others adopted the design in relief of a fox-hunt, with horsemen dismounted preparing to join others at the "kill," which is shown on the reverse. In fact, it was almost as much copied in stoneware as the "willow pattern" was in blue-printed ware. But Josiah Spode is best known as devoting considerable skill in the improvement of under-glaze blue-printing cream-ware. In 1783 he brought two workmen into Staffordshire from Caughley, where under-glaze blue-printing under Thomas Turner was in full swing. Spode was not the first to introduce under-glaze blue-printing into Staffordshire; this is due to John Turner, of Lane End (whom we have described, maker of the fine jasper-ware and stoneware teapots and jugs), not to be confounded with Thomas Turner, the maker of porcelain at Caughley, who introduced the "willow pattern" in 1780, which same design was introduced into Staffordshire in 1784 by Spode--a year after his two men came over from Caughley. But this and blue transfer-printing is dealt with in a subsequent chapter. Something should be said of Josiah Spode the Second (1797-1827), who continued the blue-printed ware, and produced a great number of stoneware jugs with decoration in relief similar to those we have alluded to, and produced jasper ware in blue and white with the familiar subjects of Wedgwood's day. To him must be given the credit of introducing colour into Staffordshire earthenware, colour such as it had never before attempted. His fine imitations of the Derby-Japan porcelain designs mark a new era in Staffordshire earthenware. [Illustration: BLACK BASALT TEAPOT, UNGLAZED. Impressed mark E. MAYER. (1770-1813.) (About 1786.) (_At British Museum._)] [Illustration: BLACK BASALT TEAPOT, UNGLAZED. Impressed mark BIRCH. (About 1802.) (_In the possession of Mr. F. W. Phillips, Hitchin._)] These illustrations show the imitativeness of this school of potters and the difficulty of identification. The Spodes brought something new into Staffordshire earthenware. The elder Spode evidently had a strong love for Oriental subjects, as in the "willow pattern," which he "lifted" from Caughley porcelain. He broke away--and others followed him readily enough--from the cupids and psyches and gods and goddesses of the old world, and followed the newer-imported ideas in Chinese taste, now the fashion at Worcester, Bow, and other china factories. Leeds and Swansea were not slow in snatching at this new Oriental style of decoration. In the Staffordshire cream-ware jug we previously illustrated painted in under-glaze colours, somewhat brown owing to the imperfect knowledge of the Staffordshire potter in under-glaze work submitted to great heat, we see an example of painted design in Oriental style, which came shortly to be more perfectly done in under-glaze blue, as in the painted plate of Leeds ware illustrated (p. 303). But much in the same manner work such as the painted scenery on services like that made by Wedgwood for Catherine II. was shortly supplanted by black and purple and red transfer-printing done at Liverpool, so the short-lived under-glaze blue painting on earthenware was quickly killed by Spode and the other Staffordshire potters when they rapidly developed the under-glaze transfer-printing in blue. It was quite an original departure, and owed nothing to Josiah Wedgwood (who never employed transfer-printing in blue), though it was adopted very successfully by the firm after his death. And Josiah Spode the elder most certainly had a strong influence in the potters of his day in acclimatising the "willow pattern" in Staffordshire, and in assimilating the best efforts of Chinese decoration as applied to blue-and-white ware. And Josiah Spode the Second, with equal originality, took up the next stage in adopting the gorgeous colouring of Japan. This brings the story of the development of Wedgwood's cream-ware up to modern times. And the same chain of development might be traced in the history of some of the other great potters whose descendants still carry on the manufacture. Cream-ware at first painted, then transfer-printed in black or red, then painted in blue under-glaze--which was killed by the blue under-glaze printing--finally emulated the rich colours and gilding of porcelain. To return to =Elijah Mayer= (1770-1813). From 1786 he appears to have produced black basalt tea ware; his fine teapots with the seated figure at the apex are well known, and his unglazed cane-coloured ware is much prized, with its simple decorations in lines of green and blue. We illustrate (p. 271) an example of a _Black Basalt Teapot_, and beneath it an illustration of a similar model by Birch, showing the imitativeness of this school of potters and how difficult it is to identify specimens. His cream-ware deserves especial attention, as his enamelling was in very artistic manner, and it stands out prominently among a crowd of imitators of Wedgwood's cream-ware borders. Every maker not only took the body of the ware, but in so doing he followed the designs by Flaxman or some of Wedgwood's other artists, still found in the old pattern-books to-day at Etruria. As an example of this imitation in detail, see the Swansea cream-ware plate illustrated (p. 397). Mayer made black glazed tea ware, and this, when unmarked, is very commonly attributed by beginners to Turner. The marks impressed are E. MAYER, and after 1820 E. MAYER & SON. At a later period the mark was JOSEPH MAYER. =Samuel Hollins= (1774-1816), with his red and chocolate unglazed ware decorated with ornament in the Elers manner and made from the clay at Bradwell Wood, is deservedly noteworthy as well as for several important departures in colour in the stoneware teapots and coffee-pots which he made of green, with touches of applied ornament in blue jasper. He followed silver designs, and avoided the cold, classic forms of Wedgwood. He departed from the straight lines of the Turner teapot. He loved ornament, and there is a touch of elaboration in his design, as though attempting to shake off the severe formality of the Brothers Adam style of design, and he strongly loved colour. Samuel Hollins was one of the proprietors in the New Hall china works, and his successors were T. and J. Hollins, who continued to make jasper ware in the style of Wedgwood. Their names are impressed on many examples. =The Wedgwood influence.=--In the latter days of the eighteenth century and the early days of the nineteenth, the direct influence of Wedgwood became something more remote. But even in early nineteenth-century days there were undeniable traces of the old models and the old form of ware. Take, for example, the unmarked early nineteenth-century _Black Basalt Teapot_ in the form of a barrel, with the grape-vine ornament in relief, and the pine cone at top of lid (illustrated p. 277). Undoubtedly this has left all classic form, but it has retained the technique of Wedgwood. In some of the buff-coloured, unglazed stoneware jugs which are unmarked, there is the inclination to follow the sporting subjects in relief, which Adams and Turner and Spode so successfully adopted, and the twisted snake-handle and reptilian-modelled mouth become original in treatment. In general, it may be said, that the classic influence remained for a considerable time in the stoneware of various kinds, but in the cream-ware which is the main stream of English earthenware, the forms and the ornamentation more rapidly departed from the styles of Wedgwood's queen's ware. Hence we find two opposing influences working against each other in the Staffordshire potters' minds. The best of them in their highest flights essayed to make jasper, or to copy or emulate Wedgwood's classic style in vases and important ornamental pieces. Most of them largely made the stoneware of various colours, and also the black basalt. All of them made cream-ware, which was the staple ware of Staffordshire, in a thousand different forms. As time went on all except cream-ware began to deteriorate from the earliest prototypes, and the later forms are debased in design and inferior in potting. [Illustration: SPODE STONEWARE JUG. Rich blue glazed ground with decoration of hunting scene in white relief. DAVENPORT STONEWARE JUG. Same design as adjacent jug, but having white ground with subject in relief. (_In the possession of Mr. Hubert Gould._)] [Illustration: BLACK BASALT TEAPOT. In the form of a barrel, with grape-vine decoration in relief. (Early nineteenth century.)] =The passing of classicism.=--From the first there were those who were classic only by compulsion. Wedgwood was regarded as too classic for vulgar tastes. The cream-ware and the coloured figures display a ready appreciation of public wants. Even Voyez descended to rusticity in his jugs. Spode had a leaning for Oriental subjects in his blue printed ware, which was quickly adopted by Leeds. Adams leaned to landscape subjects after Claude and English scenery. Nor was this all. The cream-ware figures and the mugs and jugs provided full scope for the potter's fancy in political, satirical, patriotic, and humorous and fancy subjects. From Sunderland to Swansea the cream-ware took to itself more homely sentiments and more characteristic design. It became, during the last quarter of the eighteenth century and the first quarter of the nineteenth, as English as if the gods and goddesses had never descended into Staffordshire, and as though Wedgwood had never been. Most of this cream-ware was transfer-printed, the Caxtons of Staffordshire had found blank spots enough to fill on their white ware, and in filling them they have left us a permanent record of popular feeling which was at the time strong enough to induce them to rush into print on every conceivable subject with queer engraved decoration and whimsically illiterate verse. =Marks.=--The following are some of the names, mostly found as impressed marks, on ware of the Wedgwood school, in date from 1760 to 1835, a period of three-quarters of a century. In many cases in addition to ware bearing traces of a classic influence, the potters made cream ware with blue-printed decoration, a style which was not employed at Etruria until the second Wedgwood period, on the death of Josiah Wedgwood in 1795.[4] [Note: 4 Compare this with the List of Marks on Transfer-printed Ware, pp. 347-35.] The names are arranged alphabetically, and, where of interest, the class of ware associated with the potter is given. William Adams 1787-1805 Fine jasper ware of the highest (of Greengates) quality. Stoneware and blue-printed ware. J. Aynsley 1790-1826 Silver lustre. Transfer-printed ware. Melon- and barrel-shaped teapots. Batty & Co. Vases and jugs, classic figures as frieze, printed in under-glaze blue touched with vermilion. E. J. Birch Black basalt ware of good quality (sometimes marked with E.I.B. impressed). Bott & Co. Busts painted in colours. Vases transfer-printed. J. Clementson 1832-1867 White ware blue-printed with foreign scenery. (Marked with name and phoenix.) Clews 1814-1836 Stoneware jugs. Blue-printed cream ware. Picturesque views and subjects after Wilkie's pictures, Rowlandson's _Dr. Syntax_, _Don Quixote_, &c. Close & Co. from 1843 Cream ware with printed decoration (Successors to W. in brown. Adams & Sons, of Stoke.) Cookson & Harding 1856-1862 Cream ware blue transfer-printed. C. & H. (late Hackwood.) Davenport (Longport) 1793-1834 Cream ware painted and printed. (Firm continued Handles in form of dolphins. Plates till 1886.) and dishes--dragons and fret border printed in blue; ground pencilled in scale pattern. Eastwood 1802-1830 Vases small, jasper, Wedgwood style; stoneware blue and buff. W. Baddeley, of _Eastwood_, is believed to have used this mark, frequently found. Hackwood 1842-1856 Cream ware painted with knights and armed figures. Harding 1862-1880 Blue glazed earthenware, white ornaments in relief. Brown glazed jugs and teapots in Rockingham style. Harley about 1809 Teapots, white glazed stoneware; cover surmounted. Heath 1770-1777 Heath & Bagnall 1777-1785 Heath, Warburton 1786- & Co. S. Hollins 1774-1816 Jasper ware, white ground cameo figures in blue. T. & J. Hollins 1802-1820 Similar ware to above. A. & E. Keeling 1786-1828 Black basalt and cream ware. Lakin Cream ware blue-printed with English landscape subjects, &c. Lakin & Poole 1770-1846 Dishes and cream ware. Centres often finely painted with exotic birds in Worcester style. J. & T. Lockett 1786-1829 White stoneware and salt-glaze. E. J. Mayer 1770-1813 Black basalt tea services, &c., with animals in relief; silver lustre. E. Mayer & Son 1813-1830 Mayer & Newbold 1823-1837 Made porcelain as well as earthenware (marked M. & N.). Mayer & Elliott Cream ware, blue-printed. F. Meir White glazed earthenware services, English landscapes printed in blue, dishes with pierced border. Morr & Smith Moseley 1802-1825 Black basalt ware; teapots, &c. Myatt 1802-1840 Unglazed red ware coffee-pots in Elers style. Engine-turned with wavy patterns. Sometimes marked with an oval enclosing letter =W=. H. Palmer 1760-1775 Fine jasper ware, granitic vases; figures. Neale & Palmer 1776-1778 Jasper ware strongly imitative of Wedgwood. Neale & Co. 1778-1788 Jasper ware and classic figures. Phillips (Longport) 1760-1830 Small dishes; salt cellars, cream ware, Oriental decoration, blue-printed. Pratt Vases and jugs, white stoneware, with blue figures in relief; border of vine. Ridgway 1790-1854 Various elaborate marks used. W. Ridgway and W. Ridgway & Son. In 1836 the firm became W. Ridgway, Morley, Wear & Co. Riley Rogers 1786-1829 Blue-printed stoneware. Inferior imitations of Wedgwood. Salt 1820-1864 Figures enamelled in colour. Shorthose 1783-1802 Black basalt vases and flower jars. Shorthose & Heath 1802- White glazed earthenware, transfer printed in red over-glaze. Subjects--children at play, &c. Cream ware embossed with wicker pattern pierced border. (Mark printed in red, also impressed.) Sneyd about 1850 Imitations of Portland vase, &c. Josiah Spode 1770-1797 Black basalt ware. Stoneware (_the First_) jugs with sporting subjects in relief. Steel 1780-1824 Jasper and ornamental ware, white relief on blue, dark blue figures in relief on pink ground, &c. W. Stevenson about 1828 White glazed ware, classic figures in relief on pale blue ground; impressed mark W. Stevenson, Hanley. John Turner 1739-1786 Fine Jasper ware of excellent (of Lane End) quality. Stoneware jugs, &c., of warm biscuit colour unglazed. Black basalt, and under-glaze, blue-printed ware. Walton 1806-1839 Figures-classical Lions, _Fishwife_, _Gardener_, &c. Warburton 1751-1828 Rarely marked. Mrs. Warburton, of Cobridge, in 1751 made great improvements in cream ware prior to Wedgwood's queen's ware. In 1828 the firm was J. Warburton & Co. Wilson 1788-1820 Stoneware jugs with classic figures in relief. Ornamental vases in Wedgwood style. Copper lustre ware. E. Wood 1784-1790 Cream ware, basket pattern, &c. Busts. Wood & Caldwell 1790-1818 White glazed earthenware. Figures, coloured busts, &c. Enoch Wood & Sons 1820-1846 Figures of classic form. PRICES. =School of Wedgwood.= ADAMS. £ s. d. Jug (with old Sheffield plate lid), chocolate band with Bacchanalian subject. Escritt & Barrett, Grantham, April, 1907 2 2 0 Jug, blue jasper, with figure subjects of _Seasons_ in white relief, old Sheffield plate cover. Sotheby, May, 1908 6 5 0 Sucrier and Cover, marked "ADAMS & CO." Sotheby, November, 1908 2 14 0 TURNER. Female figure of a "Water Carrier" in black basalt, marked TURNER. Sotheby, December, 1905 3 5 0 Teapot and Cover, blue ground with classical subjects in high relief; impressed mark, TURNER. Sotheby, November, 1908 2 6 0 Teapot, of different form, similar decoration, unmarked. Sotheby, November, 1908 2 4 0 Sucrier and Cover, similar decoration; impressed mark, TURNER. Sotheby, November, 1908 3 12 0 Cake Plate with classic decorations in relief; impressed mark, TURNER. Sotheby, November, 1908 4 10 0 Coffee Pot and Cover, similar style; impressed mark, TURNER. Sotheby, November, 1908 4 0 0 NEALE & PALMER. Vase and Cover with medallions, wreaths and masks in relief, in gilt on mottled grey-blue ground, marked NEALE, HANLEY. Puttick & Simpson, Nov., '08 4 10 0 Vase and Cover, urn-shaped, with medallion and figure subject in white relief; ram's head handles, wreaths and borders in gilt on mottled-blue ground, marked H. PALMER, HANLEY. Puttick & Simpson, November, 1908 3 10 0 RALPH WOOD. Figure of Apollo with lyre. Sotheby, May, 1908 2 5 0 Figures, Boy and Girl Harvesters, square bases; one marked R. WOOD. Sotheby, May, 1908 10 5 0 E. WOOD. Bust of John Wesley, signed ENOCH WOOD. Sotheby, June, 1906 2 0 0 E. MAYER. Four plaques of Cupids in relief; mark impressed, E. MAYER, and dated 1784. Sotheby, November, 1905 1 18 0 HEATH. Plate of cream ware, crudely decorated for the Dutch market, subject--Abraham offering up Isaac (Hodgkin Collection). Sotheby, December, 1903 0 3 0 LAKIN. Dish decorated with border of rose, shamrock, and thistle. Prince of Wales' feathers and lion over crown in centre. Made for the Prince Regent (George IV.); marked "Lakin." Sotheby, February, 1906 2 0 0 Pair of _Lakin_ plates from above service. Sotheby, November, 1907 3 0 0 LAKIN & POOLE. Mug, with mask head on front, marked "Lakin & Poole," and four shell dishes. Sotheby, June, 1906 1 6 0 IX LEEDS AND OTHER FACTORIES CHAPTER IX LEEDS AND OTHER FACTORIES Leeds Marks--The best period of Leeds--Leeds Cream Ware--Blue and White Ware--Leeds Ware decorated at Lowestoft, Castleford, Jackfield, Rockingham, Sunderland, and Newcastle--Table of Marks--Prices. Leeds claims notice mainly on account of its fine cream ware that was produced in the period from 1783 to about 1800 when the factory was at its zenith. The date which commences its known history is the year 1760, a most pregnant year in the history of pottery. Before that there always exists some doubt as to the exact date or the particular maker. "Early Staffordshire" or "Whieldon" are as definite as most collectors dare go. In 1762 Wedgwood's cream ware was perfected, and all Staffordshire was aflame with the prospects of something that at last was to stand artistically side by side with Bow and Chelsea and Worcester and Derby and Plymouth. It did nothing of the sort, but still it was the dream of the Staffordshire potters that it should by reason of its cheapness smash the new china factories, and it seems to have had no little share in doing this. In 1775 the Leeds pottery was in the hands of Humble and Green. In 1783 it was known as Hartley, Greens & Co., and for the next ten years some splendid examples of cream ware were produced rivalling the best productions of Wedgwood, at first imitative, but later strikingly original, and possessed of extraordinary artistic qualities. Down to the opening days of the nineteenth century the trade in cream ware was considerable. Pattern books and catalogues were issued in French and German and Spanish, and the output from Leeds was very considerable, and the continental trade very extensive, especially with Northern Europe. From 1825 to 1832 the firm was known as Samuel Wainwright & Co. From 1832 to 1840 the name changed again to the Leeds Pottery Company, under the managership of Stephen Chapel, who, together with his brother James, held the pottery till 1847. In 1850 Warburton, Britton & Co. were proprietors until 1863, and Richard Britton & Sons carried on the works until 1878 when the factory closed. =Forgeries of Leeds Ware.=--Leeds ware has appealed, on account of its artistic qualities, to so wide a circle of collectors and admirers that it has had the honour of being forged with intent to deceive. Nearly all these pieces are marked either "Leeds Pottery," "L.P.," or "Leeds P." In addition to being copied for sale to unwary collectors some of the basket and other patterns have been of recent years made in Germany for sale in this country. But to any one who has had the opportunity of handling genuine old Leeds ware the lightness in weight, the fine finish, and the peculiar colour of the body, especially the slightly green tinge in the old Leeds glaze are never to be mistaken. The modern copies lack the fine potting, and they are slightly heavier in weight, and always without exception have a thick white, glassy glaze which fills the corners of the pierced work, and shows the touch of modern haste. =Leeds Marks.=--The following marks occur on Leeds ware, largely on the blue-printed ware which was after 1791, for many of the finest examples of cream ware are unmarked. However, these marks used may be a guide: LEEDS POTTERY (often printed twice over and crossing at right angles), HARTLEY, GREENS, & CO., LEEDS POTTERY (either in two lines or in a semicircle), also the initials L.P. In its latter stage (1863-1878) R. Britton and Sons marked their ware R. B. & S. with the initial L enclosed in a circle. The Don pottery at Swinton near Leeds, established about 1790, came in prominence about 1800, when one of the brothers Green, of Leeds, became owner. It passed through various vicissitudes of fortune, a comparison of the old pattern books show that many pieces made at the Don pottery were originated at Leeds. In 1834 it was purchased by Samuel Barker, and in 1882 it was still known as Samuel Barker and Sons. The Don Pottery mark was both printed and impressed DON POTTERY in its early days prior to 1834, and sometimes the word GREEN appears above. Later in the Barker _régime_ a demi-lion rampant holding in his paws a pennon with the words "Don Pottery" was used, sometimes with the word BARKER, and sometimes with the initials S. B. & S. [Illustration: LEEDS CREAM WARE CENTRE-PIECES. Made to take into four parts. (Height 4 feet.) Pierced baskets, removable. (Height 2 feet 6 inches.) (_In the collection of Mr. Richard Wilson._)] =The best period.=--But it is chiefly the best period, that is, Hartley, Greens & Co., from 1781 to about 1805, which appeals to collectors of old Leeds, though a pattern book was issued as late as 1814, which still maintained the old traditions, but when Hartley died in 1820 the factory practically went to pieces. The two brothers Green and William Hartley nobly carried on the manufacture of cream ware. At first they looked to Wedgwood for inspiration, but very shortly introduced a lightness of design in the exquisite and intricately pierced patterns in the borders, and original touches in the feather edges in relief and twisted handles and the floral terminals. The gadrooned or fluted edges of Leeds plates were sometimes painted in blue. The ware is extremely light in weight, and varies in colour from a pale, sometimes a very pale, cream colour to a light buff. We have seen how Wedgwood invented punches at first for his pierced cream ware. But he at a later stage had the perforations punched _en bloc_. But in Leeds ware each perforation is done separately by hand, and the edges are sharp and clean-cut. These are in the shape of diamonds, squares, ovals, and hearts, arranged in geometrical patterns. The characteristic feature of Leeds ware is the varied use of this pierced work in the rims of plates and dishes and trays and cups. This work was carried into such unlikely portions of the ware such as bases of candlesticks or plinths of massive candelabra. In conception no doubt it followed the work of the silversmith, but as it developed it acquired the character of some of the finest Oriental types of this class of ware, and in particular the Leeds potters achieved a ceramic triumph when they made, in the delicately pierced work with small apertures, something not dissimilar to the rice-grain form found on old Chinese white ware which in the case of Chinese wine-cups of white porcelain is filled with glaze. This especially fine style is at the present day being carried out by the potters at the Copenhagen porcelain factory. When held up to the light this porcelain of China and of Denmark is singularly beautiful, and looks as though it is perforated--but is not. If Leeds at first copied Wedgwood and the Staffordshire cream-ware patterns the Staffordshire potters were not slow to return the compliment when they saw that Leeds had a note of originality, consequently we find many salt-glaze pieces of identical shape to some of Hartley, Greens & Co.'s patterns. It is improbable that salt-glaze ware was ever made at Leeds, though before salt-glaze was as well understood as it is now much of it was wrongly attributed to Leeds. We give an illustration (p. 319) of a salt-glaze plate which has the typical perforated edge of Leeds cream ware, and is decorated with a transfer-print of a fable subject, illustrating "Hercules and the Waggoner." But Leeds very early did its own printing, and only the early examples were sent to Liverpool to Sadler and Green. At this time salt-glaze ware was in a bad way, and every effort was being made to compete with cream ware its new rival, and with porcelain which had struck the first blow at its supremacy as domestic ware. When cream ware was decorated by transfer-printing salt-glaze followed the new fashion, and leaving its lofty ideals of undecorated form it hastily assumed the enamel colouring of the English porcelain. =Leeds Cream Ware.=--The various classes of Leeds cream ware may be roughly divided into two classes: (1) _Plain or undecorated_, in which (especially by reason by the grace and lightness of structure imparted by the nicely balanced perforations) artistic excellence is reached by _form_ alone. (2) _Decorated cream ware._ Decorated with enamel colours, green, red, lilac, and yellow being usually found, or transfer-printed in the early manner of Liverpool--black, puce, or red, or later by printing in blue. In regard to the finer specimens of the cream ware dependent on form and exhibiting especial delicacy in the treatment of the pierced work, the illustrations here given convey a pictorial representation of the great variety and fertility of the design. The two magnificent centre-pieces represent Leeds cream ware at its highest. The favourite form of the centre-piece is that in which tiers of escallop shells are supported by dolphins or by ornamental brackets. The left-hand centre-piece illustrated (p. 291) is in the form of the trunk of a tree, supporting four tiers of leaf-shaped dishes. The piece is surmounted by a classical draped figure. It is noticeable that the brackets have every resemblance to metal design. These large centre-pieces are made to take apart. This example illustrated takes into four pieces, which fit into each other with great accuracy, showing great technical perfection in potting. It is no less than 4 feet in height, and one of the largest pieces known. Its rich cream colour, the perfection of the glaze, and the graceful proportion in the structure, and the modelled figure have won for this and similar creations of Leeds the admiration of all connoisseurs. [Illustration: CHESTNUT BASKET AND CANDLESTICKS. Pierced LEEDS cream ware. (_In the collection of Mr. Richard Wilson._)] [Illustration: LEEDS CREAM WARE CANDLESTICKS AND KETTLE AND STAND. With fine pierced work. (_In the collection of Mr. Richard Wilson._)] The other centre-piece illustrated is 30 inches in height, and is constructed in the form of hanging baskets separate and removable. These baskets, which are of exquisite pierced work, are in three tiers supported from the central column. The top consists of a vase resting upon four winged figures. The piece is surmounted by a classical draped figure of Flora with a cornucopia. Such pieces as these hold the blue riband of Leeds cream ware, and collectors who wish to find specimens only approximating to them in grace and beauty have to search as far afield as Russia and Sweden before they can hope to gratify their desire. Another class typical of Leeds cream ware in its highest moods is the large class consisting of handsome cruets, baskets, and a great variety of candlesticks. The pierced work in these articles is of very fine character, and the design is happily lightened by this style of decoration. In regard to imitations of this cream ware, as has already been mentioned, they are heavier, are thickly coated with white glaze, whereas old Leeds pieces are extremely dainty and light in weight, and when the glaze is seen in the crevices where it may have run it is of a peculiar green, due to the use of arsenic. We illustrate two groups of Leeds cream ware, exhibiting the perfection of its pierced work. The chestnut basket in the upper group is partly derived from Wedgwood's model. There is an indication in the use of the sphinx in the pair of candlesticks of one of Wedgwood's models in basalt. But the treatment here is more graceful, and the character imparted by Leeds to its cream ware is peculiarly its own. Leeds cream ware undecorated plates have a great variety of patterns in the pierced borders, and are always attractive to collectors. Some of the Leeds plates, with blue painted feathered edge, had either a crest or printed design in middle. In regard to colour, there are fine under-glaze blue plates in which there is as strong a leaning to Oriental pagoda designs as at Bow and Worcester. We illustrate a fine plate of this nature (p. 303), similar in design to plates impressed ASTBURY of Staffordshire. Under-glaze blue-printing (black printing over-glaze was done, but not to the same extent as in Staffordshire) was introduced about 1790. The willow pattern, among others, was a favourite design, and most of these printed blue plates are marked. It may be of interest to the collector to know that there are marks on the old blue-printed Leeds ware which tell their own story. These marks were made by the "cockspurs" placed between each plate to keep them separate in the kiln. There were three of these little tripods of earthenware placed between each plate. They made, as they had only one point at their apex, only three "spur" marks on the front of the plates in the border, and nine "spurs" at the back, in groups of three. [Illustration: LEEDS CREAM WARE. Seascape, and floral decoration in puce, green, red, &c. Painted by Allen at Lowestoft and refired there. (_In the collection of Mr. Merrington Smith, Lowestoft._)] In regard to subjects in colour it may be mentioned that a good many Leeds jugs bear names and dates upon them, from about 1769 to 1786. These enamel colours are green, red, lilac, and buff, and are not dissimilar to those employed at Lowestoft. We illustrate a fine Leeds mug with the characteristic twisted handle (p. 303), having Oriental figure in colour and dated and inscribed. The following curious and gruesome verses appear on it. Inside the mug is a modelled frog, as found in Sunderland examples. "In marriage are two happy things allowed A wife in wedding-sheets and in a shroud. How can a marriage state be then accurs'd Since the last days are happy as the first." Then follows "I. C. U. B. YY for me" (I see you be too wise for me). "SAMUEL CUDWORTH, 1777." * * * * * =Leeds Ware decorated at Lowestoft.=--There is a connection between Leeds and Lowestoft. It appears that some of the Leeds ware was sent undecorated to Allen, of Lowestoft, who decorated it there and refired it, disposing of it on his own account. The fine Leeds mug having the painted decoration, over-glaze of course, of a vessel, and entitled "Homeward Bound" (illustrated, p. 299), is typical of this work of Allen at its best. He appears to have procured ware from Turner and other Staffordshire potters for decoration and sale by himself. We illustrate (p. 303), a Staffordshire jug painted by Allen, of Lowestoft, representing a local scene, recognisable by the tower in the background. He inscribed it "A Trifle from Lowestoft." This is enamel work over-glaze, the key pattern at the rim is under-glaze and was done in Staffordshire. Another Leeds jug decorated by Allen is that illustrated (p. 299), bearing the verses:-- "From hence to the deep May division be tost And prudence recovre What folly have lost." The "have" is a peculiarly Suffolk idiom. The floral scrolls are in the usual low tones of Lowestoft colouring. =Castleford= (1790-1820).--This factory, some twelve miles from Leeds, was established about 1790, contemporary with the establishment of the Don Pottery near Doncaster. This Castleford factory, under the proprietor, David Dunderdale, commenced to make cream ware, black basalt, and the usual stoneware teapots with ornaments in relief. The mark employed by this factory, when it was used, is D. D. & CO., CASTLEFORD. This is impressed, and is found on various imitative ware, such as clouded tortoiseshell plates in the Whieldon manner. One of the characteristics of Castleford teapots with raised figures is the use of a blue line at the edge and the tops of these vessels depart from the straight lines of Turner and are scalloped, as in the illustration (p. 307) of a Castleford black ware jug and cover, having the impressed mark of the factory. [Illustration: LEEDS CREAM WARE PLATE. Painted with Oriental figures in under-glaze blue. (_In the collection of Miss Feilden._) LEEDS CREAM WARE MUG. With Oriental figure and set of verses. (_In the collection of Mr. Robert Bruce Wallis._)] [Illustration: STAFFORDSHIRE JUG. Painted and inscribed by Allen at Lowestoft. (_In the collection of Mr. Merrington Smith, Lowestoft._)] =Rockingham.=--At Swinton, near Rotherham, as early as 1778 a factory was started by Messrs. Thomas Bingley & Co., who began to manufacture cream ware. The Leeds factory, apparently jealous of rivals, as in the case of the Don Pottery, soon had an active interest in this factory. In 1790 it became Greens, Bingley & Co., and the ware then made was blue printed and the highly glazed black pottery associated with Jackfield, of which we shall speak later. At this time a brown glazed earthenware became widely known and appreciated. It was cream ware which had received a heavy lead glaze richly and warmly coloured in brown. From 1796 to 1806 this glaze became extensively used, not only by Swinton or, as it afterwards came to be known, as "Rockingham," taking the name from the Marquis of Rockingham, upon whose estate the works were situated. This "Rockingham ware," of smooth surface and fine reddish brown colour, was very popular, and a teapot was made, known as the "Cadogan," which was an imitation of the Chinese puzzle teapot. It was made without a lid and was filled by turning it upside down. An opening, very much in the manner of the safety glass inkpot, admitted the tea, and on reversing the vessel it could be poured out. Some of these teapots are marked "Rockingham," or "Brameld," or "Brameld & Co.," and sometimes "Mortlock," a London dealer for whom they were made. In 1806 the Leeds interest passed out of the firm, and the factory remained in the hands of John and William Brameld. In 1826 it assumed the name of the Rockingham Works, and used the crest of the Fitzwilliam family. China was made there from 1820, and the factory obtained considerable reputation and was still in the hands of the Brameld family till the close of the works in 1842. A gorgeous Rockingham china dessert service made for William IV. costing £5,000. We illustrate a "Cadogan" teapot, with its rich brown glaze, and moulded in the form of a peach, with smaller peaches applied at the top. It is a remarkably un-English design, and it is singular that it became so fashionable. =Jackfield.=--We mention Jackfield here, as it has become among collectors quite a generic term for all highly glazed black ware, especially little teapots and cream jugs. It is certain that Elijah Mayer and other Staffordshire potters largely made this ware, and Bingley & Co. (Swinton) among a crowd of others. Jackfield is in Shropshire. Its history as a pot works is as old as any in the country, but it is chiefly in the period between 1760 and 1765, when Maurice Thursfield carried on the little factory, that it became renowned for its black ware. It is quite unlike black basalt. It is red clay, covered with a bright and highly lustrous black glaze. This is ornamented with oil gilding, which in use has almost disappeared. Some of the ware is decorated with raised ornaments of vine leaves. The lids of teapots often have a bird, with outstretched wings. The designs were not original, and are found in salt-glaze and in Whieldon ware, and some of this so-called "Jackfield" ware may be attributed to him. =Newcastle and Sunderland.=--On the Tyne, the Wear, and the Tees there were a group of potters working at Gateshead, at Hylton, at Stockton-on-Tees, but mainly at Newcastle and Sunderland. There is nothing exceptionally artistic in any of these productions. Some of these transfer-printed mugs were made by Dixon & Co., of Sunderland, to commemorate the building of the Iron Bridge over the Wear, which was begun in 1793 and completed in 1796. [Illustration: ROCKINGHAM TEAPOT. Known as the "Cadogan" pattern. In form of peach. Having no lid and being filled from bottom. Copied from Chinese rice-spirit pot. (_At Victoria and Albert Museum._)] [Illustration: BLACK BASALT JUG. Castleford Pottery. Impressed mark D D & Co. (Height 6 inches.) (_In the collection of Mr. F. W. Phillips, Hitchin._)] Among the names found on this ware are impressed: SEWELL, or SEWELLS & DONKIN, or SEWELLS & CO., sometimes with the addition of ST. ANTHONY'S. These were made at St. Anthony's, near Newcastle, in date about 1780 to 1790. FELL, or FELL NEWCASTLE, made at St. Peter's, Newcastle, about 1815. SCOTT, or SCOTT BROS., made ware at Southwick, Sunderland, 1789-1803, when they were succeeded by MOORE & CO. J. PHILLIPS, HYLTON POTTERY, appears on some Sunderland pieces. This firm was established as early as 1765. FORD is another name in connection with the South Hylton works about 1800. DIXON, AUSTIN & CO., sometimes with the addition of SUNDERLAND, is found at the beginning of the nineteenth century. W. S. & CO., with the word WEDGEWOOD (having an additional "e") was the mark used by William Smith & Co., of Stockton-on-Tees, or even "WEDGWOOD & CO." Against this firm Messrs. Josiah Wedgwood & Sons, of Etruria, obtained in 1848 an injunction to restrain the use of their name. Another equally confusing mark to collectors is that of a firm near Pontefract, who marked their ware "Wedgwood & Co." sometimes with the word name of the factory, "Ferrybridge," and sometimes "Tomlinson & Co." Their ware is mainly cream ware of an ordinary type. In regard to the productions of Newcastle and Sunderland these are best known by the familiar mugs and jugs having a nautical flavour, with ships in black transfer decoration, and never without verses appropriate to the _clientèle_ of sailors, for whom they were made. These mugs and jugs are frequently decorated with pink lustre at the rims and in bands around the body. A feature which associates these northern factories with Leeds is the frequent use of a modelled frog crawling up the inside of the vessel, which was intended as a practical joke on the person who was lifting the jug to his lips. These frog mugs were previously made at Leeds, and the one illustrated (p. 303) has a frog so affixed in the inside. The ware, as a whole, is rather crude in its potting and slightly inferior to similar Staffordshire ware, but all these northern factories are now closed, and the quaint doggerel, the queer nautical allusions, and the strain of patriotism found on much of this humble earthenware always appeal strongly to the collector. =MARKS USED AT LEEDS, CASTLEFORD, ROCKINGHAM, NEWCASTLE, AND SUNDERLAND.= [Illustration: HARTLEY GREENS & CO LEEDS +*+ POTTERY] =Leeds.= From 1783, Hartley, Greens & Co. [Illustration: LEEDS POTTERY LEEDS POTTERY] 1825-1832, Samuel Wainwright & Co. 1832-1840, Leeds Pottery Co. [Illustration: LEEDS +*+ POTTERY] 1840-1847, Stephen and James Chapel. 1850-1863, Warburton, Britton & Co. [Illustration "R B & S [Printed]] 1863-1878, Richard Britton & Sons. After which the works closed. [Illustration: +L+ [Impressed]] [Illustration: DON POTTERY] =Don Pottery= (at Swinton near Leeds). [Illustration: DON POTTERY BARKER] 1790-1834, at one time in hands of John Green, of Leeds Pottery. [Illustration: S B & S] 1834-1850, Samuel Barker, and 1851-1882, Samuel Barker & Sons. [Illustration: DON POTTERY] Late Marks used by the Barkers during above period:-- In addition to the lion with pennon the word BARKER was added later, when the mark was _printed_. [Illustration] Another _printed_ mark was an eagle and ducal coronet, used when the firm became Samuel Barker & Sons in 1851. But was shortly discontinued, and the lion-printed mark again used. [Illustration: D D & Co CASTLEFORD] =Castleford= (near Leeds), 1790-1820. David Dunderdale & Co., and the impressed mark in margin is found on some of the productions of the Castleford Pottery. =Rockingham.= [Illustration: ROCKINGHAM BRAMELD] The name of the factory at Swinton, established 1757. Came into the hands of the Bramelds in 1807. Ceased, 1842. [Illustration] The "Cadogan" lower glazed teapots sometimes bear the impressed mark "Mortlock," the London agent for whom some of them were made. [Illustration: Rockingham Works. Brameld.] The crest of the Fitzwilliam family was printed as a mark after 1826, and is also found _printed_ on porcelain made at the Rockingham factory. =Newcastle-on-Tyne=. [Illustration: FELL NEWCASTLE 15] Fell of Newcastle (about 1815), impressed cream ware mugs and jugs with this mark. Various figures appear underneath, denoting the particular pattern. [Illustration: FELL] =Sunderland.= [Illustration: SEWELL. ST ANTHONY'S] Messrs. Sewell, established about 1780, after Sewell & Donkin, used these marks. [Illustration: SEWELL & DONKIN] Other Sunderland makers--DIXON, AUSTIN & CO., DIXON & CO., SCOTT BROTHERS & CO. (established 1788), PHILLIPS & CO. (established about 1800), J. PHILLIPS, HYLTON (established, 1780), DAWSON (about 1810)--impressed their names on ware. PRICES. LEEDS. £ s. d. Coffee Pot and Cover, with mask under spout, twisted handles, decorated in colours. Sotheby, June, 1906 2 2 0 Basket dish, with stand and covers with embossed and open work. Sotheby, June, 1906 2 2 0 Jug, painted with flowers, inscribed "John Barnes, Chadlington, 1769." Sotheby, July, 1907 2 10 0 Teapot and cover, painted with portraits of George III. and Queen Charlotte. Sotheby, November, 1908 2 8 0 Teapot and cover, printed in red, with lady and gentleman taking tea, with negro servant at side; on reverse, a shepherd and sheep. Sotheby, November, 1908 1 10 0 Jug, printed with transfer medallions of ladies seated in a garden, blue and black bands at rim. Sotheby, November, 1908 1 14 0 CASTLEFORD. Loving cup with handles, painted with fruit and roses, made for David Dunderdale. Escritt & Barrett, April, 1907 3 15 0 JACKFIELD. Figure of _Diana_ (height 10 in.). Escritt & Barrett, April 1907 3 5 0 Jugs, brown glazed, two. Sotheby, November, 1907 1 1 0 ROCKINGHAM. Small "Cadogan" Teapot, marked _Brameld_, richly gilt upon brown, and another without gilding. Sotheby, June, 1906 1 14 0 Milk jug modelled as cow, brown glaze; Figure of Horse; Jug, brown glaze, with twisted handles, marked _Rockingham_. Sotheby, June, 1906 2 5 0 "Cadogan" Teapot, rich brown glazed; impressed mark. Sotheby, May, 1908 1 2 0 SUNDERLAND. Sugar Basin and Cover and six cups and saucers, painted with figure subjects on yellow ground, marked SEWELL. Sotheby. November, 1905 1 13 0 NEWCASTLE. Frog mugs and jugs vary in price from 10s. to £2, according to the style of decoration. X TRANSFER-PRINTED WARE CHAPTER X TRANSFER-PRINTED WARE Its origin--Liverpool--Its adoption in Staffordshire--What is Transfer-printing?--Over-glaze printing--Under-glaze printing--The Staffordshire Transfer-printers--Other Transfer-printers--Leeds, Swansea, Sunderland, and Newcastle--The Mission of black Transfer-printed Ware--Types of Blue-printed Ware--The Willow Pattern--Table of Marks--Prices. Before the year 1756, all ware, whether it be porcelain or delft or earthenware, was painted, or, to follow the term used in popular phraseology, it was "hand painted." It is an essentially English art, and something which stands with salt-glaze and with Wedgwood's jasper ware as being famous throughout Europe. The subject of transfer-printing is surrounded with a certain amount of conjecture in regard to its invention. Quite a dozen persons were credited with having originated it. Mr. William Turner, in his volume, "Transfer Printing on Enamels, Porcelain, and Pottery," published by Messrs. Chapman and Hall, in 1907, has thoroughly investigated the various claims set up for the discovery of transfer-printing and, with no little research extending over a wide area, has for the first time settled the relative position of the various claimants and factories for which this honour is claimed. It is impossible, covering the same ground as Mr. William Turner, to say anything new on transfer-printing, and we must express our indebtedness to him in making use of his original investigations and embodying them in this chapter on transfer-printed ware. In regard to over-glaze printing, including copper enamels such as Battersea, porcelain such as Worcester, and earthenware such as Liverpool delft--it was at Battersea where enamels were first printed in 1753; Liverpool, with Sadler and Green's invention, comes second with printed delft tiles in 1756. A year after, in 1757, we have Worcester with transfer-printed porcelain. This Worcester printed ware is well known from the early transfer-printed design known as Hancock's "Tea party" and the "King of Prussia" jugs and mugs. After Worcester all the other porcelain factories followed with transfer-printed ware. There was Derby in 1764, and Caughley in the same year. It will be seen that, so far as Liverpool is concerned as representative of the earthenware factories (cream ware being printed here to the order of the Staffordshire potters), earthenware over-glaze printing is slightly ahead of the porcelain factories. But in under-glaze printing porcelain stands easily first. Worcester commenced under-glaze printing in the same year (1757) that over-glaze was employed there, and Derby is the second in the field in under-glaze printing in 1764. [Illustration: SALT-GLAZED PLATE. Transfer-printed in red. Fable subject--_Hercules and the Waggoner_.] [Illustration: LIVERPOOL TRANSFER-PRINTED JUG. Medallion representing _Diana in her Chariot_. (Height 9-1/4 inches.) (_In the possession of Mr. S. G. Fenton._)] It has already been shown that Liverpool did the printing on the Staffordshire cream ware for the potters who sent it there to be printed, and the same method was followed by Leeds. But there came a time when it was no longer necessary to ask Liverpool to employ a secret process for the decoration of Staffordshire or Leeds work. The secret known at Worcester, and Derby and Battersea, was not many years a secret. The Staffordshire potters undertook to do their own printing, and every pottery soon learned the new process of transfer-printing, and it was not long before improvements were made and newer forms of printing adopted. =Its adoption in Staffordshire.=--Allusion has been made to the awkward form of the square tile decoration of fable subjects at Liverpool as applied to circular plates. But Staffordshire in its adoption of the new process made the transfer fit the object to be decorated. In the illustration of the salt-glaze Staffordshire plate with the black transfer-printed design of "Hercules and the Waggoner" from _Æsop's Fables_ (p. 319), the engraver has departed from the four corners of his circumscribed tile, and we may put this piece down as of Staffordshire printing. It is often largely a matter of conjecture as to what was printed at Liverpool and what was printed elsewhere (with the exception of Worcester, where the engraving and printing were more delicate). The Staffordshire jug showing a full-length portrait of His Royal Highness Frederick, Duke of York, having on the reverse the Dragoon in the uniform of the period, tells its own story as regards date. Frederick was the second son of George III. and was born in 1763 and died in 1827. As this portrait represents him as being advanced into manhood and as at that date--say about 1786--the Liverpool printers had been at work twenty years, the transfer-printing may very reasonably be attributed to Staffordshire. But it is not always easy to fix the date of the printing, and determine whether by that time Staffordshire had embarked on its own transfer-printing in black; of course, blue transfer-printing is later. The difficulty usually arises in connection with black transfer-printed ware. Liverpool was still engaged in printing for Staffordshire potters as well as printing cream ware of its own potting, and Leeds was producing similar transfer-printed over-glaze ware, so that in unmarked pieces there must always be an uncertainty in coming to a definite conclusion. In all probability the jug (illustrated p. 323) and bearing the inscription "Success to Trade" and having a typical eighteenth century rural subject on the reverse entitled "The Faithless Lover," was actually printed by Sadler and Green at Liverpool. Another finely decorated printed jug is that illustrated (p. 318), the subject representing _Diana_ on crescent moon driving a pair of goats in her chariot. The date of this piece is about 1780 to 1800, and is strongly suggestive of Wedgwood cream ware. It will be observed that the design is identical with that in the Turner jasper vase (illustrated p. 261). [Illustration: JUG, TRANSFER-PRINTED IN BLACK. Emblems and inscribed "Success to Trade." Subject on reverse--"The Faithless Lover." (Height 7 inches.)] [Illustration: JUG, TRANSFER-PRINTED IN BLACK. Portrait of Duke of York, and mounted dragoon on reverse. (Height 7 inches.) (_In the possession of Mr. Hubert Gould._)] =What is Transfer-printing?=--A piece of pottery may be plain or undecorated, it may be painted, or it may be printed. The process of printing consists of affixing an engraved print from a copper plate and transferring an impression to the pottery to be decorated. It is this latter process which claims our attention in this chapter. When transfer-printing was first used, subjects such as portraits (King of Prussia), costume subjects (series of actors and actresses on Liverpool delft tiles), fancy or pastoral scenes (such as _Æsop's Fables_, &c.), were produced in black, puce, or reddish brown. These were at first culled from contemporary volumes with engraved copper-plate prints as illustrations. We find Wedgwood in quite early days searching London for suitable prints of views and similar small subjects for decorative purposes. Probably at first the copper plates which had been used in books were bought up by the potters, and did service again for their ware. Later they employed engravers, who no doubt copied or adapted other people's engraved work to suit their purpose, and as the art advanced it gained in originality, and a band of engravers worked for the potters in designing subjects strictly applicable to the limitations in the technique of earthenware. This process of transfer-printing is roughly as follows. The copper-plate is inked, and a sheet of tough tissue paper, wetted with a mixture of soap, is applied to its surface and printed in a press. The paper is taken off, showing an impression or print, which is carefully laid on the surface of the piece of earthenware to be decorated. The inked design on the paper transfers itself to the earthenware. =Over-glaze Printing.=--The difference between over-glaze and under-glaze decoration always seems to puzzle the beginner, but the explanation is simple enough. A piece of pottery is produced by the following steps. The clay is "thrown," that is, it is spun into shape on the potter's wheel, or it may be made in a mould. When in this soft state, say in the form of a basin, it could be crushed by the hand into the shapeless mass of clay whence it sprung. It is next put aside to dry sufficiently to allow handling. It may receive some of its decoration at this stage as it is possible to paint on the more or less damp clay, but as a general rule that is left till the next stage. It is now placed in the "biscuit" oven and receives the most intense heat, and is here stacked in fireproof saggers or boxes to protect it from the flames, and it is fired for about three days before being taken out in the state known as "biscuit." Wedgwood's jasper ware, black basalt, and all unglazed stoneware stop at this biscuit or unglazed stage. It is next dipped in liquid glaze and goes again to be fired, this time into the "glost" or glaze oven, which is lower in temperature. After coming from this second oven it is no longer "biscuit" in appearance, but is covered with a skin or coating of glass or glaze, which has amalgamated with the body underneath. It is now ready for painting with enamel colours or for transfer-printing, which obviously is "over-glaze" decoration. Lastly, after this decoration has been made, it goes to be fired for a third time, and is put into the enamel or "muffle" kiln, which is the lowest temperature of the three. In effect, then, the "over-glaze" decoration is on top of everything, and obviously, when the piece is scratched in use, this decoration wears away first. This at once gives the reason for another process, known as under-glaze decoration, where the work receives the protection of the glaze. As a postscript to this description of the three firings, it may be noted in passing that, in true porcelain, such as Chinese, Dresden, and Bristol (all hard pastes), the body and glaze are fired at one operation, the glaze receiving as high a temperature as the body. [Illustration: CHINESE BLUE AND WHITE PORCELAIN PLATES. Painted in dark blue under-glaze. Painted in light blue under-glaze. The types from which English potters made their copies. (_In the collection of the Author._)] [Illustration: CHINESE BLUE AND WHITE PORCELAIN PLATES. Painted in rich blue under-glaze. The "Willow pattern" and the "Aster pattern." The types from which English potters made their copies. (_In the collection of the Author._)] =Under-glaze Printing.=--This is printing which is transferred to the ware, either porcelain or earthenware, when in its "biscuit" state _prior to being dipped in glaze_. Blue was the most frequent colour used in under-glaze transfer-printing, as of course it was the earliest colour used in the painted under-glaze decorations at Worcester and Caughley. There are other colours, obtained from metallic compounds, used both on porcelain and earthenware under the glaze, and owing to the temperature required for firing in this manner the range is limited, being usually confined to cobalt blue, green, brown, lilac, black, and a few others. But blue is the chief under-glaze colour to be considered in connection with under-glaze transfer-printing. There was a great demand for deep blue and for a lighter blue, both of which came to the Staffordshire earthenware printers and potters from English porcelain factories such as Caughley, where Thomas Turner, an apprentice at Worcester under Robert Hancock, made in 1780 his famous under-glaze blue "Willow-pattern"; or the idea may have been derived straight from the Chinese blue porcelain under-glaze of Nankin, so much in vogue in middle eighteenth-century days. =Staffordshire Transfer-printers.=--It has been shown how the Staffordshire potters at first turned to Liverpool, and readily sought the aid of Sadler and Green in the decoration of their salt-glaze and their cream ware, in order to compete with the porcelain factories with Worcester and Caughley at their head. But trade secrets found their way into Staffordshire. The over-glaze printing as practised by Sadler and Green was soon mastered, and later the under-glaze blue printing was imported by workmen from Caughley. Among the Staffordshire potters the following are the principal pioneers in regard to transfer-printing in its various developments. William Adams, of Cobridge, in 1775 first introduced transfer-printing into Staffordshire. John Turner, of Lane End (not to be confounded with Thomas Turner, of Caughley) was the first to print under-glaze blue in Staffordshire. Josiah Spode, about 1784, introduced his under-glaze blue "willow pattern," a copy of the Caughley pattern. William Adams, of Greengates, in 1787 brought out his under-glaze blue, which in richness and mellowness has never been surpassed; and Josiah Wedgwood, although he never deserted Liverpool for some of his patterns, had a press at work at Etruria, in 1787; and Thomas Minton, now a master potter at Stoke, formerly an apprentice at Caughley with Thomas Turner, designed the celebrated "Broseley Dragon" pattern tea service for porcelain in 1782 (following the willow pattern, 1780), and produced in the late years of the eighteenth century, about 1793, some fine blue-printed ware at Stoke. These may be termed the earlier exponents of transfer-printing in Staffordshire, but there were others whose blue-printed ware was of great merit in Staffordshire, and Leeds and Swansea, held no insignificant place. [Illustration: SPODE EARTHENWARE. Transfer-printed under-glaze blue. "Bridge pattern" Plate and "Willow pattern" Jug.] [Illustration: CREAM WARE DISH WITH IMPRESSED MARK "TURNER." With pierced border and band of embossed wickerwork. Centre printed in blue with "Willow pattern." (_At Victoria and Albert Museum._)] =Other Transfer Printers.=--Staffordshire did not long have the monopoly of under-glaze blue-printed ware. Leeds and Swansea both produced similar work, and in both cases there is a strong attachment to Oriental design. Black transfer-printing was also executed at both these factories, and at Swansea some exceptionally fine engraved work was turned out (see illustration of Swansea plate, p. 397). At Sunderland and Newcastle the black transfer-printed mugs and jugs with the _Wear Bridge_ and with nautical subjects became quite the vogue, and in these two factories the jugs and mugs often had a frog modelled in the interior, and pink lustre decoration was used in combination with the transfer design usually at the borders or at the rims. =The Mission of Black-printed Ware.=--In the designs and inscriptions of the black transfer-printed ware the Staffordshire potter used his jugs and his mugs as a medium to record events and to ventilate grievances, not in "imperishable verse," but in the fickle body of the clay. This class of ware from 1760 to 1860 stands for a century as typically English in character. It reflects the political, social, and religious events, and in matter-of-fact, humorous, or satirical fashion. The black transfer-printed or earlier period, (though some of this class come down as late as the railway mugs of 1830), may be said to depict events and chronicle popular sentiment in black and white. The blue transfer-printer strove to be decorative, and mainly represented scenery and topography, and much of it was bound down to formal designs of Oriental nature. At first fable subjects, as on Wedgwood's cream ware, were employed, and it has been seen how the square tile form was discarded by the engraver who made his engraving fit the object to be decorated. This perfect mastery of the technique of transfer-printing is shown very clearly in the old blue Spode service of the "Tower" pattern (illustrated, p. 335). It will be seen how, as the shape of each vessel differed, the engraver has altered his bridge to fit the new circumstances. At one time, on a broad, flat dish, it appears as a wide bridge, and in the circular plate the trees appear at greater height and the viaduct assumes a more circular form. In the jug of the same design the bridge is narrow, as though spanning a deep ravine. To enumerate the classes of ware with black transfer-printing is to make a catalogue of the principal events which stirred the heart of the people. It must be borne in mind that this school was working side by side with the makers of fine stoneware and of jasper ware with classic subjects, but it is, after all, to the black-printed ware that one turns most lovingly as being more human. It will suffice, perhaps, if we quote a few examples and stir the enthusiasm of the reader to pursue the collection of these really historic records which have something more endearing in them than the relics of Napoleon or the shoestrings of some of the Stuart monarchs. There is a fine flavour of patriotism, of conviviality, and of homely sentiment in some of the following:-- On a bowl, salt-glazed ware, with Admiral Vernon and his fleet is inscribed "The British Glory revived by Admiral Vernon. He took Porto Bello with Six Ships only. Nov. ye 22 1739." A cream-ware jug printed, with medallion portrait of Earl Howe, is inscribed "LONG LIVE EARL HOWE, Commander-in-Chief of the Victorious BRITISH FLEET. In the ever memorable engagement on the Glorious First of June, 1794." On a cream-ware jug about 1800 with a view of Greenwich Hospital, and entitled "The Sailor's Adieu," the following lines are inscribed: "What should tear me from the arms of my Dearest Polly but the undeniable calls of my country in whose cause I have engag'd my Honour and my Life." This in date is the last year of the eighteenth century. [Illustration: OLD SPODE BLUE PRINTED WARE. "Tower pattern." (_In the collection of Mrs. Herman Liebstein._)] "The Sailor's Farewell and Return" are rather frequent, and Charles Dibdin's verses appear on some of these jugs and mugs. There is one interesting jug in the form of a sailor seated on a chest, coloured earthenware about 1770, with a breezy inscription, "Hullo, Brother Briton, whoever Thou be, Sit down on that chest of Hard Dollars by me, and drink a health to all sailors bold." Another cream-ware jug, partly printed and touched by colour representing a man-of-war towing a frigate, has the inscription: "A sailor's life's a pleasant life; He freely roams from shore to shore, In every port he finds a wife, What can a sailor wish for more?" A red earthenware mug with white slip may be mentioned here as having a characteristic motto: "From rocks and sands and barren lands Good Fortune sets me free; And from great Guns and Women's tongues, Good Lord, deliver me." A Staffordshire blue-printed jug, made in 1793, shows the execution of Louis XVI. At the beginning of the nineteenth century there was quite a burst of Napoleonic jugs and mugs and busts, and some of Gillray's caricatures find themselves on earthenware. There is one lustre earthenware jug printed and coloured with caricatures entitled "Jack Frost attacking 'Bony' in Russia" and "Little 'Bony' sneaking into Paris with a white feather in his tail." This is in date about 1813. A cover of an earthenware jar has the inscription printed in violet within a wreath, "Peace! May its duration equal the years of War." The relations between England and America received attention at the Staffordshire potters' hands. There are cream-ware mugs and jugs and plates with portraits of Washington in date from 1785 to 1790. On one the inscription runs, "Success to the United States, America." Prize-fighting, bear-baiting, cock-fighting, racing, coaching, all received their records on the earthenware of the late eighteenth century. Stag hunting, fox hunting, coursing, come as ready subjects to the transfer-printer. Cricket is recorded in earthenware on a printed mug representing the "Grand Cricket Match played in Lord's Ground, Mary-le-bone, June 20 and following day between the Earls of Winchester and Darnley for 1,000 guineas." The date of this is 1790. Even the velocipede and the balloon are not disregarded. This list is but a rough outline of the mission of the transfer-printer in recording current events on his earthenware, for the pleasure of his own contemporaries and for the information and delectation of succeeding generations of collectors who may be something other than connoisseurs of pastes and bodies, and have learned to read aright the story of the china-shelf and enjoy to the full the secret pleasures in the byeways of collecting. =Types of Blue-printed Ware.=--The black over-glaze transfer-printing came into Staffordshire in imitation of the transfer-printed delft tiles of Liverpool. But it rapidly acquired a strength and originality of its own. It lacked the delicacy of the transfer-printed black porcelain of Worcester, but its virility more than made up for its artistic defects. Under-glaze blue-printed ware was an imitation from the porcelain printed at Caughley. Here again it may be said to have outstripped by new departures and broader effects the under-glaze blue-printing of the early china factories. In common with them its inspiration was from the Chinese. We illustrate (p. 327) four examples of Chinese porcelain plates, which are types of the Oriental china designs which served as models both for the English porcelain makers and for the earthenware of Staffordshire. The lower left-hand plate is evidently the Chinese design from which the English potters derived the well-known and favourite "willow pattern." After Thomas Turner, of Caughley, had printed it on china in 1780, and Josiah Spode in 1784 had employed it on his earthenware in Staffordshire, all the other potters commenced to make the same design with slightly different details, mainly in the fret border. The other plate on the right hand is the well-known "aster" pattern, so frequently adopted by English potters in blue-printed cream ware. The two upper octagonal plates show the two styles of dark blue and light blue under-glaze painting employed by the Chinese; and the Staffordshire potter, true to his models, followed in his under-glaze blue-printing these tones. The period when the rich deep dark-blue-printed ware was in vogue is from the early nineteenth century to about 1825. Light blue printing was employed from 1790 till the deep blue supplanted it, and when the craze for deep blue had spent itself the light blue again became fashionable until printing in colour in the middle period of the nineteenth century came to be largely practised. In the treatment of the border in the Oriental example we illustrate, it will be noticed how Josiah Spode and others, including the fine school at Leeds, who were printing in under-glaze blue in 1790, and the potters at Swansea, followed this decorative treatment. Spode in particular had a great fondness for Chinese subjects. We illustrate (p. 345) a blue-printed dish by him, where, as was his wont, he introduced, quite incongruously, a Gothic castle. The fine, rich colouring of this dish is most noticeable. In the Spode earthenware _Jug_ and _Plate_ illustrated (p. 331), it will be seen that the plate, known as the "Bridge" pattern, closely follows the design of the Chinese porcelain plate (p. 327), and the jug is decorated with the familiar "Willow" pattern. Another variation of the "Willow" design is found on the _Turner Cream-ware Dish_, illustrated, having a band of embossed wickerwork and a pierced border. This piece has the impressed mark TURNER. A similar Oriental influence is seen in the dark blue transfer-printed dish by William Adams, of Greengates (see illustration, p. 341). The inclination here is towards figure subjects, and the decorative use of the exotic bird, as shown in the centre panel of this dish, finds a place on some of Mason's early blue-printed dishes. Of the colour of the dishes of William Adams, of Greengates, it may be remarked that for richness of tone in the under-glaze blue he introduced in 1787 they have never been surpassed. =What is the Willow pattern?=--The name "willow-pattern" has been so frequently mentioned in connection with the subject of old English earthenware and china that it will be of service to state something of the details of the history of this particular pattern, which seems to have unaccountably seized hold of popular imagination. [Illustration: DISH, TRANSFER-PRINTED IN DEEP BLUE, BY ROGERS. Subject--the Naval Fight between the _Chesapeake_ and _Shannon_. (_In the collection of Miss Feilden._)] [Illustration: DISH, TRANSFER-PRINTED IN BLUE. Mark impressed "ADAMS" (of Greengates). (_In the collection of Mr. Russell Allan._)] By the courtesy of Mr. Percy W. L. Adams. From "_William Adams. An Old English Potter._" The Caughley pattern, which some authorities believe was engraved by Minton when he was an apprentice there, was closely followed by Spode, Adams, Wedgwood, Davenport, Clews, Leeds, the Don Pottery, and Swansea. The differences are slight mainly in the treatment of the fretted border, either a lattice-work or conventional butterfly being used, and details of the fence in the foreground differing. The term "Willow" is applied in a general way to many of the copies of the blue-and-white Oriental porcelain imported from China during the last half the eighteenth century. But the "willow pattern," to which a story is attached, is of the same design as the Chinese plate illustrated (p. 327), which Caughley copied. This popular adaptation appears as a decoration on the covers of this volume. Whether the story was invented by some ingenious person to fit the plate we do not know; but there is strong probability that this is so. On Chinese plates the _dramatis personæ_ are missing. The willow has ever been a sad tree, whereof such as have lost their love make their mourning garlands. "I offered him my company to a willow-tree ... to make him a garland, as being forsaken," says Benedick in _Much Ado about Nothing_. This is the love-story that is told concerning the "willow" plate. Chang, the secretary of a mandarin whose house is on the right of the plate, dared to love his master's daughter, Li-chi. But the mandarin had other designs, and his daughter was promised to an old but wealthy suitor. In order to prevent the lovers from meeting, the mandarin imprisoned his daughter in a room in his house overlooking the water. A correspondence ensued, so the story goes, between the lovers, and the lady sent a poetical message, in a cocoa-nut shell, floating down the river, that she expected Chang when the willow-leaf commenced to fall. By the connivance of a gardener, who apparently lived in the small cottage on the left, overshadowed by a fir-tree, the lovers escaped, and are depicted as fleeing over the bridge--the mandarin behind with a whip in his hand, the lady in front, and Chang in the middle carrying her jewel-box! The individual in the junk, higher up, is intended to denote that they fled to the island in the north-west of the plate. They lived happy until Fate, in the shape of the wealthy lover, overtook them and burned their house to ashes. But the gods changed them into two doves, which, of course, figure prominently in the design. This tragic story of disastrous love has clung to the willow-pattern plates, and nobody can shake the belief of owners of indifferent specimens of middle-nineteenth century days that these plates are of great value. As a matter of fact, apart from the eighteenth-century examples, anything else is not worth the attention of the serious collector. We have alluded to the historic character of the black transfer-printed ware, but sometimes similar subjects were attempted in the blue ware. We illustrate a dish known as the "Chesapeake and Shannon" dish, depicting the famous naval encounter between these two vessels. [Illustration: SPODE DISH. Transfer-printed in deep blue under-glaze.] [Illustration: DISH WITH LANDSCAPE SUBJECT IN STYLE OF CLAUDE. Transfer-printed in deep blue under-glaze. (_In the possession of Mr. S. G. Fenton._)] At a time when the school of landscape engravers dearly loved a classic ruin or the broken arch of a temple in the composition of the scene, it is only natural to find this class of subject on the printed ware. We illustrate a typical under-glaze blue-printed dish with fine contrasts showing very accurately what excellent decoration was employed in this engraved work. The school of Claude landscapes found its votaries, and some strong engraving by Brookes and others was done for this old blue earthenware. It is pictorial, and betrays an attempt to break new ground and get away from the conventions of Oriental design, but the border in the dish we illustrate (p. 345) shows the strong Japanese spirit which had inspired Spode, and this touch of incongruity makes it more than probable that this dish is of Spode origin. There are many other phases of printed ware that can only be alluded to in passing. The transfer printing in outline, the colour being added by hand, was the beginning of the establishment of all the modern methods for china and earthenware as commonly in use. Something, too, should be said of "bat" printing. This was the use of a block of glue instead of transfer-paper to receive the inked impression from the copper plate and transfer it to the body of the earthenware. William Adams, of Cobridge, in 1775 first introduced "bat" printing into Staffordshire. Of the various types of engraving, such as line, and stipple, and aquatint, and, later, lithography, there is no space to deal. But enough has been said in connection with the various types of printed ware to show that when pursued in a special manner it may be found to be of exceptional interest to the collector. MARKS. Transfer-printed Earthenware. Many printed examples are unmarked, both of the early transfer-printing in black over the glaze, and of the latter under-glaze blue-printed ware, but over a wide period the following names are found as marks upon various transfer-printed specimens. It will be observed that in addition many of these potters made stoneware, following the Wedgwood influence.[5] [Note: 5 Compare this with the List of Marks of the School of Wedgwood, pp. 279-282.] William Adams 1787-1805 Blue-printed under-glaze (marked (of Greengates) Adams). Benjamin Adams 1805-1820 Blue-printed under-glaze (marked (of Greengates) B. Adams). William Adams 1804-1835 Dark blue-printed under-glaze and & Sons (of Stoke) black over-glaze (marked Adams). (Marked "Close & Co., late William Adams & Sons, Stoke on Trent"--after 1843.) William Adams 1830-1840 Black over-glazed printing. & Sons (of Burslem) Wedgwood 1795-1845 Blue-printed ware introduced (of Etruria) (The second shortly after the death of Josiah Wedgwood Wedgwood in 1795. Black period) transfer-printed views after 1830. Wedgwood & Co 1790-1796 Ralph Wedgwood. Black (of Burslem) transfer-printing over-glaze. Josiah Spode the 1798-1827 Blue under-glaze printing of great Second (of Stoke) variety. Thomas Minton 1790-1836 Blue under-glaze printing, Oriental (of Stoke) and other patterns. John Davenport 1793-1834 Under-glaze blue-printing (marked (of Longport) Davenport, Longport). Henry and William Davenport 1835-1869 John Turner 1762-1786 Oriental patterns, under-glaze (of Lane End) blue (impressed mark, Turner). William & John 1786-1803 Turner (sons of above) John Aynsley 1790-1826 Masonic plates printed in outline (of Lane End) over-glaze and coloured. T. Fletcher & Co 1786-1810 Black transfer-printed sporting (of Shelton) subjects, sometimes _under-glaze_. Shorthose & Co 1783-1802 Red over-glaze printed fancy (of Hanley) subjects. Andrew Stevenson 1810-1818 Black over-glaze printing tinted (of Cobridge) in colours (marked A. Stevenson, with crown in circle). Joseph Stubbs 1798-1829 Dark blue under-glaze printing (of Longport) (marked Joseph Stubbs in circle. Longport impressed). James Clews 1814-1836 Black under-glaze after 1825. (of Cobridge) American views of Hudson River, &c. John and Richard 1820-1827 Blue under-glaze printing. Riley (of Burslem) Picturesque views. Miles Mason 1813-1851 Rich blue under-glaze printing; (of Lane Delph) Oriental subjects and birds. Enoch Wood & Sons 1820-1846 Deep blue under-glaze printing. (of Burslem) R. & J. Baddeley 1780-1806 } (of Shelton) } } J. & E. Baddeley } Transfer printing from the Hicks & Meigh 1806-1820 } earliest date, both over-glaze and (of Shelton) } under-glaze. } Hicks, Meigh & 1820-1836 } Marked I. E. B., or full names, Johnson (of Shelton) } or R. M. W. & Co. } John and William 1824-1836 } Deep dark blue under-glaze Ridgway } printing. "Beauties of America," (of Shelton) } and other views. } Ridgway, Morley, 1836-1854 } Wear & Co. (of Shelton) } Leeds 1790-1878 Over-glaze black printing (little practised), under-glaze blue, Oriental subjects (marked Leeds Pottery). Don Pottery 1790-1834 Under-glaze blue, Oriental subjects (near Doncaster) (marked _Don Pottery_ or _Barker_--the latter after 1834). Liverpool 1796-1841 Deep under-glaze blue-printed; (Herculaneum) Oriental subjects (marked Herculaneum). Swansea 1802-1870 Under-glaze blue-printing and (Cambrian Pottery) over-glaze, black and brown printing (marked Dillwyn & Co.) (See group illustrated, p. 397.) Derby 1780-1785 Over-glaze black printing of (Cockpit Hill figure subjects (marked Derby Pot Factory) Works). Caughley 1780-1799 Under the management of Thomas (Salopian) Turner. Dark blue under-glaze printing; Oriental subjects (marked in blue +C+). Sunderland and 1790-1850 Black transfer-printed mugs and Newcastle jugs of crude decoration. Various firms. _Sunderland._--Scott Brothers, Brunton & Co., Moore & Co. (1803), Phillips. _Newcastle._--Dixon, Austin, & Co., Dawson & Co., Fell & Co. (1817), marked with +F+ and anchor, Sewells & Donkin. Middlesborough 1831-1850 Blue-printed ware (marked with Pottery impressed anchor and _Middlesbro' (Yorkshire) Pottery_, or with the word _London_ and anchor, about 1848, or M.P. Co). PRICES--TRANSFER-PRINTED WARE. £ s. d. Transfer-printed Jug with ship on one side and mariner's compass on reverse; another Jug with Sailor and his Lass. Sotheby, November, 1904 1 18 0 Transfer-printed Jug with portrait of Lord Nelson on one side, and plan of Battle of Trafalgar on reverse. Sotheby, November, 1904 3 15 0 Transfer-printed Jug with "Britannia weeping over the ashes of Her Matchless Hero, Lord Nelson," and a sailing ship on reverse, with motto "Success to Trade." Sotheby, November, 1904 3 8 0 Transfer-printed Jug with Subject relating to the Independence of America; _rare._ Sotheby, November, 1904 3 3 0 Twelve Plates, transfer-printed, with farmyard scenes in blue, and large dish similar. Sotheby, May, 1907 1 10 0 [Illustration: STAFFORDSHIRE FIGURE, SALT-GLAZED. Touched in parts with blue. (Height 5-1/8 inches.) (_In the collection of Mr. Robert Bruce Wallis._)] [Illustration: STAFFORDSHIRE EARTHENWARE FIGURE OF COCK. Tail feathers enamelled in dark blue. (Height 8 inches.) Marked R WOOD. (_In the collection of Mr. Robert Bruce Wallis._)] XI STAFFORDSHIRE FIGURES [Illustration: OLD STAFFORDSHIRE FIGURES. DIANA. BIRTH OF VENUS. Modelled from the Plymouth porcelain group. (_In the collection of Miss Feilden._)] [Illustration: GROUP OF STAFFORDSHIRE FIGURES. MINERVA. PARSON AND CLERK. TOBY JUG. Finely modelled. All marked NEALE & CO. (_In the collection of Col. and Mrs. Dickson._)] CHAPTER XI STAFFORDSHIRE FIGURES Early Period (1675-1725): Slip, Agate, and Astbury Figures--Best Period (1725-1760): Fine Modelling and Reticent Colouring, Ralph Wood the elder, Aaron Wood, Thomas Wheildon--Classic Period (1760-1785): Wedgwood, Neale, Voyez, Ralph Wood, junior, Enoch Wood, Lakin and Poole--Decadent Period (1785-1830): Walton, Scott, Bott, Lockett, Dale, and imitative school. In attempting to classify the great array of Staffordshire figures and groups, extending over a period of a century and a half, no little difficulty has been experienced. The number of unmarked specimens is very great, and in many cases, owing to trade rivalry, models were so extensively imitated that it is impossible to say who was the first modeller. These Staffordshire figures, except in the instances of the highest modelling and restrained under-glaze colouring of the best period, cannot be regarded as ceramic triumphs. But they are highly valuable, although not from an artistic point of view, as illustrative of the character of the common folk in England, and exemplifying their tastes and their sentiments. Ornament, even in the humblest articles of daily use, has its meaning and can tell its story, to those who read aright, of the feeling of the man who produced it; whether he took a pleasure in making the article, or whether he was a machine, human or other, producing only a thin echo of art. Practically it may be asserted that from middle eighteenth-century days to middle nineteenth-century days ceramic art was steadily deteriorating. Applied art had practically ceased to exist in the early nineteenth century. It is said that men's eyes were first opened to this fact by the cumulative hideousness of the Great Exhibition of 1851, and certainly a perusal of the illustrated catalogue of that Exhibition is a saddening occupation. In the study of the china shelf this decadence must always be considered, and it is fully borne out by a close study of the subject of Staffordshire figures. Practically, the crude agate cat and the little mannikin of early days playing bagpipes found replicas in crudity and poverty of invention in the spotted poodle dog or the kilted Scotsman, the common cottage ornaments of a century later. And between these two dates, with the exception of an outburst which promised to develop into something really great and almost did so, there was, owing to want of artistic instinct and general lack of culture, a fairly rapid degeneration into the hideous nightmare of the Toby jug and all the awful insularities of the late Staffordshire period. [Illustration: STAFFORDSHIRE FIGURE OF ELOQUENCE. (Sometimes known as _St. Paul Preaching at Athens_.) In coloured earthenware. (Height 18 inches.) Similar to figure in Schreiber Collection by Enoch Wood. (_In the collection of Col. and Mrs. Dickson._)] =Early Period= (1675-1725).--The method of slip decoration has already been described, and to this period, when Toft and his school had implanted their quaint and original taste upon the common people, these early figures belong. Among the best-known figures of this early date are small _Cats_ of stoneware or earthenware body, coated with white and ornamented with spots in brown slip. _Ducks_ are sometimes found similarly ornamented in spots and wavy lines. These figures are only 3 inches in height. To these days belong the solid agate _Cats_ made of two or three clays of different colours intermingled, and highly glazed. These are some 5 or 6 inches in height. We give an illustration of this type of ware (p. 171). _Bears_ in agate ware the same nature, and small figures of doll-like individuals are also found. The elder Astbury (1736-1743) has been credited with a series of figures of men, some 6 inches in height, playing bagpipes or other instruments. They are splashed with green and brown, and have yellow slip ornament, their lead glazing is warm and rich. The beady eyes of some of these tiny figures is suggestive of the Toft slip applied figure on some of his dishes, and was produced by the use of manganese. Among early figures those of salt-glaze are rare and of exceptional interest, and the figure illustrated (p. 351), stands as a typical example of a class not frequently met with, and highly prized by collectors. We have seen in the chapter dealing with Whieldon and his influence that he commenced potting before 1740 and continued till 1780, and although none of his figures is marked it is tolerably certain that he produced some fine work in which he introduced the beautiful tortoiseshell glazings, which characteristic is found on figures attributed to him. Obviously over a period of nearly half a century Whieldon ware varies in quality. The following class of figures may be attributed to the early Whieldon period, that is, before 1760. _Actor_, with turban and flowing mantle, hand resting on dagger; tortoiseshell ware, brown and green glazing; height, 5-1/2 inches. _Diana_, with dog, on square hollow pedestal made of buff clay; brown and grey glazings, eyes of brown clay; height, 7 inches. _Venus_, with bow, on irregular base, eyes brown clay; height, 5-1/2 inches. Figure of _Sphinx_, coloured with brown and green glazings; height, 3-1/2 inches. _Monkey_, eyes, black; height, 4 inches. Other animals, such as _Lion_, height, 3-1/4 inches; _Squirrel_, height, 7 inches; _Cock_, height, 7-1/4 inches; _Cow_, in form of small jug with woman milking, height, 5-1/2 inches; _Dog_, with brown glazing, height, 3-3/4 inches. Other figures of this early period are _Summer_ and _Winter_, each 4-1/2 inches high; sauceboats in form of _Duck_ and _Drake_, coloured glazings, height, 4-1/2 inches. (We have illustrated several types of these figures, pp. 171, 175). =The Best Period= (1735-1760).--This is known to collectors as the Wood School. Briefly, the history of the Wood family is as follows, and will be of interest to collectors of Staffordshire figures. So strong and original is the work of the modeller Ralph Wood the elder, that connoisseurs recognise the class of face in his work. Aaron Wood and Ralph Wood were the sons of the old Ralph Wood, a miller. They were both modellers of distinction. Aaron is mainly known as a block-cutter of salt-glaze moulds. Ralph Wood (1750-1772) made figures and other rustic groups at his own factory at Burslem. His models are straightforward and homely and strongly English, not greatly influenced by any extraneous classic models. He modelled the celebrated "Vicar and Moses," which for quaint humour is inimitable. It has been copied by all the potters, and much of its strength and simplicity of modelling has been lost, while its restraint in colouring disappeared in the copies upon which enamel colours were lavishly laid. [Illustration: OLD STAFFORDSHIRE GROUP, BACCHUS AND ARIADNE. By ENOCH WOOD. Enamelled in colours. (Height 24 inches.) (_In the collection of Col. and Mrs. Dickson._)] [Illustration: OLD STAFFORDSHIRE EARTHENWARE FIGURES. ADONIS (after the antique). (Height 23 inches.) VENUS. (Height 24 inches.) (_In the possession of Mr. S. G. Fenton._)] There was a strong Quaker element in Staffordshire, and the Established Church was the subject of a good deal of satire by the potter. The _Parson and Clerk_ returning home after a carousal, _The Tithe Pig_ and other subjects exemplify this. Fielding published "Joseph Andrews" in 1742, and it appears that parson-baiting was a familiar form of amusement. Probably there were a good many abuses in the Church that were evident. The hunting parson was often the boon companion of the drinking squire. At any rate the Ralph Wood group, entitled _The Vicar and Moses_,[6] showing the sleeping vicar, with full-bottomed wig, and Moses, the clerk, seated underneath the pulpit exhorting the congregation with uplifted hand, is a masterly piece of modelling. In colour the original Ralph Wood examples are light purplish throbbing brown in the pulpit and desk, and carved cherubs, green in the canopy behind the vicar, and who has a white cassock, and the coat of Moses is a slatey blue. The flesh tints are low in tone. [Note: 6 See coloured _Frontispiece_.] To return to Aaron Wood, the brother of Ralph Wood, he was the father of William Wood, who became one of Wedgwood's modellers, and of Enoch Wood, who went to Palmer as modeller for some years. In 1784 Enoch Wood commenced business for himself. He produced cream ware and black basalt and, what most interests us here, he made some excellent figures, including a bust of _John Wesley_. In 1790 he entered into partnership with James Caldwell. The ware is marked "Wood and Caldwell" till 1818, when the firm became "Enoch Wood and Sons," till 1866. In regard to Ralph Wood, the elder, he appears to have engaged his son in his pottery, so that prior to his death, in 1772, we do not know which Ralph Wood modelled some of the figures; but from 1772 to 1797 Ralph Wood, junior, was responsible for the factory, and there seems to have been business connection, about 1786, between him and his cousin Enoch Wood. Concerning the figures of Ralph Wood, father and son, it may be said that they were the first to impress their names upon Staffordshire figures. Some of the pieces are marked with impressed mark R. WOOD, RA WOOD, BURSLEM (impressed on _Vicar and Moses_). This mark is found on some of the finest and earliest Toby jugs. It is believed, though not proved, that "RA WOOD" is the mark adopted by Ralph Wood, junior. That the Woods reflected English feeling and sentiment and did not go to the classics for their inspiration is shown by their fine model of _Hudibras_ upon his horse, in the act of drawing his sword. "The trenchant blade, Toledo trusty, For want of fighting was grown rusty, And ate into itself, for lack Of some body to hew and hack." The horse of Hudibras is as famed in story as _Rosinante_, the famous charger of Don Quixote, and in fine satire Butler enumerates his points. [Illustration: BUST OF BONAPARTE. Coloured earthenware. By ENOCH WOOD. (Height 9-1/2 inches.) (_In the collection of Mr. Robert Bruce Wallis._)] [Illustration: BUST OF ALEXANDER, CZAR OF RUSSIA. Coloured earthenware. By WOOD & CALDWELL. (_In the collection of Col. and Mrs. Dickson._)] It is not too much to aver that, if it were not known that the Wood model bore the title _Hudibras_, the source of inspiration would go unknown. Similarly it may not be impossible, since no title appears on the famous _Toby Philpot_ jug, that it may be derived from the character of _Uncle Toby_ in Sterne's "Tristram Shandy," which was published in nine volumes from 1759 to 1767. The type of blunt, jovial, rubicund Englishman was beginning to become as pronounced in Bunbury and other caricaturists as it became later on the china shelf. Among other noticeable figures of the Ralph Wood period the pair of figures are the _Haymakers_, separate figures (7-1/2 inches high each, impressed R. WOOD), a youth and maiden leaning against tree trunks. A bust of _Milton_, cream ware, uncoloured, is impressed RA. WOOD, BURSLEM; height, 9 inches. _Old Age_ is represented by a rustic figure of an old man leaning upon a stick and a crutch. _Neptune_ and _Venus_ and _Apollo_ betray the contemporary classic influence. In examining the figures of the elder Ralph Wood they will be found in parts, though hardly perceptible, to be unglazed. This is owing to the fact that he applied his glaze with a brush. In the figures of the best period the colouring is extremely delicate, and the flesh tints do not approach the rosy pink associated with other figure work. It is difficult to describe them, but they approximate to a biscuit-coloured grey. But there are the usual exceptions to all rules. In one case in particular the colouring is more pronounced--the bust of _Handel_, who died in 1759. It is marked "RA. WOOD." It is finely modelled and bright in colouring. A figure of a _Cock_, marked R. WOOD, is illustrated (p. 351). It is 8 inches in height. The body is light in colour, with light and dark brown decoration about the neck. The wings are yellow, with brown stripes, the tail brown and dark-blue enamel colours. Legs dark brown and green and splashed base. This specimen is in one piece, not having any joint at neck. The fine coloured large figure (18 inches in height) of _Eloquence_, known also as _St. Paul preaching at Athens_, is by Enoch Wood, after a model by Sir H. Cheere. There is a similar figure in the Schreiber Collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum. But it must be admitted that some of these large figures bear a strong resemblance in technique and modelling to those of Wedgwood. The _Bacchus and Ariadne_ group was most certainly reproduced by Enoch Wood, who signed it. So that the difficulty in such cases of determining which was the original model becomes very great. =The Classic Period= (1760-1785).--It appears that Josiah Wedgwood, when under the influence of Whieldon and before he embarked upon his classic ornamentation under the guidance of Bentley, modelled some very fine figures which are unmarked, but exhibit considerable strength and beauty. There are three figures, _Faith_, _Hope_, and _Charity_, in date about 1770, in the Willett Collection marked Wedgwood. Other figures are the large ones of _Fortitude_ and _Prudence_ (height 21 inches). But these symbolistic figures betray the classic influence. They are magnificent pieces of modelling. Then there is the fine group of _Bacchus and Ariadne_, the same height. The specimen at the British Museum is cream colour, but later imitators adopted the same modelling and added colour to the decoration. A copy of this group so treated, possibly by Enoch Wood, is illustrated (p. 363). Other busts of Wedgwood in coloured cream ware of _Voltaire_ and _Rousseau_ will be found illustrated on p. 233. [Illustration: STAFFORDSHIRE EARTHENWARE FIGURE OF FALSTAFF. Shield decorated in silver lustre. Marked WOOD & CALDWELL. (_In the collection of Mr. F. W. Philips, Hitchin._)] [Illustration: DERBY PORCELAIN FIGURE OF FALSTAFF.] [Illustration: CHELSEA PORCELAIN FIGURE OF FALSTAFF.] =Neale & Co.= betray classic influence in much of their work, and as Voyez, the Frenchman, was their modeller, this is not hard to understand. Among their well-known figures are _Flora_ (12-1/2 inches high) and _Diana_ (5 inches high), and they were large makers of Toby jugs. We give an illustration (p. 355) of a group of finely modelled ware by Neale & Co., including a Toby jug copied from the Ralph Wood model and impressed NAELE & CO., and the familiar group of the _Parson and Clerk_ copied by them after the well-known Chelsea-Derby porcelain model of the same subject, and reproduced as an earthenware group by many other Staffordshire potters. It is often attributed to Ralph Wood the younger. It is interesting to compare the _Minerva_ with the _Diana_ illustrated above. The same classic spirit was the inspiration of the two modellers, and in the case of unmarked classic figures there always exists considerable difficulty in definitely assigning their origin. In regard to all these coloured Staffordshire figures it should be borne in mind that, until well towards the close of the eighteenth century, they were coloured by the use of pigments under the glaze, which gave a low-toned effect of very delicate character. Later, enamel colours were used with lurid effect, and much of the beauty of the old school vanished. =Enoch Wood= (1783-1840), =Wood and Caldwell= (1790-1818).--Of this school there are several fine examples. There is no doubt that the ease with which classic prototypes could be copied and porcelain figures imitated began to tell upon the originality of most of the modellers. The _Bacchus and Ariadne_ (illustrated p. 363), with the vine leaf wreaths in green around the heads and the finely coloured drapery, is by Enoch Wood. There is a specimen in a private collection at Eccles signed "E. WOOD, Sculp. and HEWITT Pinxt." (the height of this example is 27 inches), in spite of the similar uncoloured group at the British Museum marked Wedgwood. Enoch Wood is best known for his portrait busts of _John Wesley_ and of _George Whitfield_. The former who stayed at his house in the Potteries sat for this bust, which is a fine piece of portraiture. This is marked "E. WOOD," and sometimes "ENOCH WOOD, Sculp., Burslem 1781." George Whitfield was probably modelled at a later date. There is a fine equestrian statuette of _St. George and the Dragon_, sometimes signed "E. Wood," similar in modelling to the Whieldon mottled tortoiseshell coloured specimen (illustrated p. 175). There are other busts by Enoch Wood which are noteworthy. There is the fine bust of _Bonaparte_ as First Consul in coloured earthenware, with blue coat with yellow border, and having marbled base. The height of this is 9-1/2 inches, and it is marked "E. WOOD." This is in date about 1802. A bust of _Alexander I._ of Russia, in highly coloured earthenware, in military costume, marked WOOD & CALDWELL. The date of this is later than the Bonaparte, an inscription on the back on some examples runs "Alexander Aet. 35. Moscow burnt. Europe preserved 1812." Another well-known figure by Wood and Caldwell is the figure of Quin as _Falstaff_. By the illustrations we have given (p. 371) it will be seen that this model was in direct imitation of the similar figures in porcelain at Derby and Chelsea. The colouring is different, the shield is silver lustre, the costume consists of red breeches, striped yellow and white surtout; but these colours are a feeble imitation of the finer enamel work on the china models from which they have been copied. [Illustration: STAFFORDSHIRE FIGURE. (About 1790.) Decorated and refired by Absolon, of Yarmouth.] BASE OF FIGURE. (Enlarged.) Showing painted mark "Absolon Yarm." (_In the collection of Mr. F. I. Burwood._)] The group of _Toby Jugs_ illustrated (p. 383), exhibit the best known models of a much collected variety of earthenware. These examples are collectors' specimens, but later models may be said to be like-- The grand old name of gentleman, Defamed by every charlatan, And soil'd with all ignoble use. That it was not infrequent to take a model bodily from English porcelain is shown by the group entitled the _Birth of Venus_, which is taken from a Plymouth group of the same subject (illustrated p. 355), this apparently belongs to the Enoch Wood period. In the figures of children we illustrate p. 387, the figures of _Flower Boys_, some 4-1/2 inches high, are evidently inspired by some of the Chelsea-Derby figures which in their turn were under strong French influence. The middle figure of the trio is one of a pair by Wood and Caldwell. The figure of _Cupid_ above is a fine specimen, standing 17-1/2 inches in height. Cupid is fully armed with his deadly bow and arrow, which by the way are decorated in silver lustre, suggestive of the Falstaff shield of Wood and Caldwell, and at his feet are two lions crouching in subjugation, and he holds the torch of Hymen in his hand. This is a remarkably fine modelled figure representing this contemporary foreign influence upon Staffordshire figures at its best. In regard to the strong classic influence the two figures (illustrated p. 363) are in white earthenware. That on the left, of _Adonis_, is obviously taken direct from the antique, while the _Venus_ is a fine Staffordshire adaptation of a well-known classic statue in the pose and in the dolphin by her side. The only touch of colour is the darkening of the hair. It is a magnificent piece of modelling something in the nature of the classic art seen through French eyes. To find this in Staffordshire is as though one found _La Source_ of Ingres in the Royal Academy of the year 1856. The date of this Staffordshire _Venus_ cannot be stated. It is an important figure, being 24 inches in height and exhibits something so strikingly realistic that it must be assigned a high place among the figures. We illustrate a Staffordshire figure belonging to this period, which is signed "Absalon, Yarmouth." Towards the end of the eighteenth century, as in the latter days of Lowestoft, a factory termed "The Ovens" at Yarmouth carried on a decorating business, receiving the ware from Leeds and from Staffordshire, and decorating and refiring it in the glost oven. The date of the figure illustrated is about 1790. On some of the pieces decorated by Absalon, the name of the Staffordshire maker, Turner, appears as an impressed mark. Turner, who carried on an extensive trade with the Baltic and Northern Europe, no doubt readily came into touch with these East Anglian decorators. [Illustration: GIRL WITH TAMBOURINE. Coloured Staffordshire figure.] [Illustration: COLOURED STAFFORDSHIRE FIGURES. TAMBOURINE PLAYER (marked SALT) AND MUSICIANS. (_In the collection of Miss Feilden._)] =The Decadent Period= (1785-1830).--It is impossible to keep exactly to dates in any of these periods of rough classification. But in general the later period becomes more homely and a great number of mantel ornaments of a simple nature with rustic subjects were made for the homes of cottagers. These have trees as background and are Arcadian in subject. They are, when in this style, of the finnicking school of the Chelsea shepherds and shepherdesses known as of the boscage school. John Walton (1790-1839), made a great many figures in this manner, accompanied by a lamb, as well as a great number of Toby jugs. Another potter is Ralph Salt (1812-1840), whose name appears on the little _Tambourine Player_ (p. 379), and probably the _Musicians_ of the adjacent group are by him too. A larger figure of the _Girl with Tambourine_ above is of the same period, though its maker cannot be identified. We illustrate (p. 391) two later figures, _The Fishwife_ and _Mother Goose_. Both are well modelled, and were evidently intended to meet the popular taste. The days of gods and goddesses were over, and figures and groups begin to grow commonplace. In _Mother Goose_ the nursery rhyme is substituted for the mythology of the Greeks. Among other names found on these later figures are Lakin and Poole, Dale (mark usually impressed I. DALE BURSLEM), and Edge and Grocott, who made figures of boys partly draped holding baskets of flowers. It is possible that they made the two outside figures of _Flower Boys_ (illustrated p. 387). There is to lovers of the ultra-aesthetic something which appears to be trivial and insipid in this peasant pottery of the later date. But in spite of its defects, it holds, to those who read between the lines and can add that necessary touch of human interest to their collecting, a charm on account of its quaintness. Those who have sought these old cottage treasures high and low and secured from far-away habitations snug in the hills or lone huts on the wolds, or from the dim-lit cabins of fisher folk these relics of byegone days, read into their newly acquired possessions something of the life history in their old environment, lying _perdu_ these many years, perched aloft on the high mantel or hidden in the cupboard recess silently listening to the old tales of the strange men and women who live apart from the hum of cities. Chelsea we know, Derby we know, Bow we know, with their dainty china shepherdesses minding impossible sheep, and with gallants prinked out in all the colours of the humming-bird. These were the trifles in porcelain that my dear Lady Disdain in a waft of bergamot set apart in her glazed case by Sheraton. In the days of paint and patch and of the revels at Vauxhall and Ranelagh, virtuosos drowsily passed comment on my lady's latest acquisition just to please her passing whim and wean her from the vapours. These earthenware figures "in homespun hose and russet brown" suggest the old world nooks of other days. Give Chelsea and Bow to the town. This homely art of Staffordshire became English after all. It was found in thatched cottages "with breath of thyme and bees that hum." These boscage shepherds and shepherdesses, these rustic musicians, lusty post-boys, and the family of Toby Philpots, found kinship in the miller and the farmer, the herdsman and the milkmaid, the gamekeeper and the woodman, the ostler and the waggoner--simple, kind-hearted folk, the children of nature uncloyed by the subtleties of art. Red-cheeked lasses and wrinkled crook-backed old dames, mother and daughter and granddaughter, toilers and sufferers, who chose the warm west window seat in the sun and the ingle nook by the fireside--these were the whilom owners of the old Staffordshire figures. Somehow, nor is the fancy a foolish one, one likes to associate these diminutive figures with the old gardens of England set in sweet places where one "Can watch the sunlight fall Athwart the ivied orchard wall; Or pause to catch the cuckoo's call Beyond the beeches." [Illustration: GROUP OF FINELY COLOURED TOBY JUGS. (Date 1790-1810.) (_In the possession of Mr. S. G. Fenton._)] There seems to be something added to old Staffordshire figures which have steeped themselves in somnolent repose these many years till they have become invested with a subtle human interest not easily disassociated from them. The squire had his services of Worcester and of Crown-Derby, and the nobleman relegated his cases of fine porcelain to the care of his housekeeper, to dust and to safeguard till he came again to hunt and to shoot. But the cottager's Staffordshire figures were lovingly handled when the good wife furbished up her brass candlesticks, and they insensibly became part of the environment of the cottage home. Here, then, is the key to the charm and magic which goes to the collecting of old Staffordshire figures, even of the decadent period. There is within them and around them and about them something redolent of a sturdy peasantry, something sad, something tinged with autumn days and autumn mists because they belong to days that have faded, and almost to a race that is extinct. [Illustration: CUPID Large coloured Staffordshire figure. (Height 17-1/2 inches.) Bow and arrow in silver lustre. (_In the collection of Miss Feilden._)] [Illustration: COLOURED STAFFORDSHIRE FIGURES OF FLOWER BOYS. Pair 4-1/2 inches. Centre figure one of pair by WOOD & CALDWELL. (_In the collection of Miss Feilden._)] PRICES. LEEDS FIGURES. £ s. d. Pair of Leeds cream-ware Figures of Musicians, Youth and Girl; _rare_. Marked "Leeds Pottery." Sotheby, November, 1904 6 6 0 STAFFORDSHIRE FIGURES. Group of Madonna and Child (probably Wedgwood), illustrated in "English Earthenware" (Professor Church). Sotheby, February, 1906 8 0 0 Staffordshire Models of Cottages (some porcelain), encrusted with flowers. Christie, January, 1906 (59 models). 31 10 0 "Vicar and Moses," group, decorated in translucent colours. Sotheby, June 1906 35 10 0 "Vicar and Moses," group, decorated in translucent colours. Sotheby, November, 1906 8 10 0 Bacchus and Ariadne, large; brown glaze; 25 in. high. Christie, November, 1906 13 2 6 Toby Philpot jugs (four male and one female), grotesque models. Christie, November, 1906 30 9 0 Falstaff, two examples, on plinths, encrusted with flowers; 9 in. high. Christie, November, 1906 5 15 6 "Elijah," "The Widow," and "Virgin and Child"; three figures. Puttick and Simpson, March, 1907 3 12 6 Busts of _Milton_ and _Handel_, impressed mark, "Ra Wood Burslem"; white: 9 in. high. Sotheby, July, 1907 6 0 0 Figure of Gamekeeper: white; 8-1/2 in. high. Sotheby, July, 1907 2 0 0 Figure of _Lost Sheep_; white; 8-3/4 in. high. Sotheby, July, 1907 2 18 0 Figure of _Girl Haymaker_; white; 7-3/4 in. high. Sotheby, July, 1907 3 0 0 Figures, _Chaucer_ and _Sir Isaac Newton_, decorated in colours; marked "Ra Wood"; impressed "Burslem." 12-1/2 in. high. Sotheby, 1907 12 10 0 Figures, _Cobbler and his Wife_, pair, large, seated; 12-1/2 in. high. Christie, January, 1908 13 2 6 Figures, reclining, _Cleopatra_, 8-1/2 in. high, and _Antony_, 8 in. high. Christie, January, 1908 14 14 0 "Bacchus and Ariadne," 25 in. high; _Female_, holding dove, 25 in. high. Christie, January, 1908 16 16 0 Figures, pair, Boy and Girl harvesting, square base, one marked "R. Wood." Sotheby, May, 1908 10 5 0 "Vicar and Moses," in Whieldon colours (attributed to R. Wood), yellow, green, brown, manganese purple, &c. Sotheby, May, 1908 15 0 0 _Shepherd and Shepherdess_, seated, with dog, lamb, and goat; shepherd playing flute; Whieldon colouring (attributed to R. Wood). Sotheby, May, 1908 12 0 0 "St. George and Dragon" in Whieldon colouring (attributed to Ralph Wood) Sotheby, May, 1908 14 0 0 Toby Jug, representing man seated with jug on knee (attributed to R. Wood). Sotheby, May, 1908 6 6 0 [Illustration: FIGURE OF FISHWIFE. (Late Staffordshire.) (_In the collection of Miss Feilden._)] [Illustration: FIGURE OF MOTHER GOOSE. (Staffordshire, early nineteenth century.) (_In the collection of the Author._)] XII SWANSEA AND OTHER FACTORIES CHAPTER XII SWANSEA AND OTHER FACTORIES Swansea--The Cambrian Pottery--Opaque china--Etruscan Ware--Lowesby Pottery (Leicestershire)--Liverpool, Herculaneum (1794-1841)--Bristol, Joseph Ring (1784-1825)--Caughley or Salopian (1751-1775)--Derby, John and Christopher Heath (1758-1780)--Isleworth, Shore & Goulding (1760-1830)--Marks--Prices. Undoubtedly the earthenware productions at Swansea are of a high artistic order. For a century, from 1768 to about 1870, the Cambrian Pottery at Swansea manufactured ware bearing various marks and comprising a wide range of examples. During part of the time a rival factory at Glamorgan, which existed from 1814, to 1839, produced "opaque china" and cream ware in common with Swansea. Practically the history of the Cambrian Pottery dates from 1790, when George Haynes bought the factory. Fine black basalt ware was produced. There are two recumbent figures of _Antony_ and _Cleopatra_, the latter in the Victoria and Albert Museum having the impressed mark SWANSEA, and the former in the possession of Mr. C. F. Cox, and marked with the name of the modeller, "G. Bentley, Swansea, 22 May, 1791." The length of these figures is 12 inches. Two somewhat similar recumbent figures of _Antony_ and _Cleopatra_ in colours have been attributed to Lowestoft (see "Lowestoft China," by W. W. R. Spelman, Jarrold & Sons, Norwich, 1905). But these more properly belong to the Staffordshire school, and are probably by Neale and Palmer. Under-glaze blue-printed ware, notably "willow pattern" from Caughley, had been made at Swansea probably before Haynes bought the factory, certainly not later than 1790, when Leeds commenced similar imitations of Turner's "willow patterns." Salt-glazed ware, some marked "Cambrian Pottery," but mostly unmarked, was made and decorated in enamel colours with figure subjects, landscapes, and flowers. The transfer-printed ware is of great variety and is excellently finished, and compares very favourably with the best of the Staffordshire cream ware similarly decorated, or with the highest productions of Leeds in the same manner. We illustrate (p. 405) a group of various types of transfer-printed ware in black and brown, and blue under-glaze transfer-printing. As will be noticed, the Oriental influence from Caughley and the china factories was very strong, but in the print of the ship there is something suggestive of Liverpool. [Illustration: SWANSEA PLATES. 1. Cream ware, rim painted in green and violet with vine pattern. Mark impressed SWANSEA. 2. Earthenware, black transfer-printed. Mark impressed DILLWYN & CO. SWANSEA. (_In the Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh._)] [Illustration: SET OF FINELY PAINTED SWANSEA BULB POTS. (_In the collection of Col. and Mrs. Dickson._)] A very fine transfer-printed plate in black is illustrated (p. 397), showing something higher in engraving than Staffordshire had attempted. It stands, leaving out the delicate black transfer-printing done on the Worcester porcelain, as an exceptionally artistic piece of work. The adjacent plate in the illustration at once shows the source of its inspiration. It follows one of Wedgwood's Queen's ware patterns painted in green and violet of the grape pattern, although it must be admitted that the Swansea adaptation is richer than the somewhat thinner design found on old Wedgwood plates. One of the most interesting features in the history of the Swansea factory is the introduction by Haynes of a ware termed "opaque china," which was in reality a finer and whiter kind of cream ware, and eminently suitable for the painted decorations by W. W. Young, an artist from the Bristol factory, who painted from about 1803 to 1806, flowers and butterflies and shells with great fidelity. He was followed by another artist Thomas Pardoe, from the Derby factory, who brought more poetry into his floral subjects. Another artist named Evans painted flower-pieces with almost equal beauty. We illustrate a fine Cambrian vase painted by Pardoe, and a Swansea jug painted by Evans (p. 401). There is no doubt that a very high standard of painting on the Swansea ware prevailed during the best period, and the illustration of a set of three Swansea-ware bulb pots (see p. 397) shows that landscape painters of no mean gifts were employed. It is this picturesque quality of decoration (dependent in a great measure on the fact that from 1814 to 1824 porcelain was made too), together with the equally fine quality of the ware itself, that has placed Swansea well to the front among the collectors of artistic earthenware. We have alluded to Haynes the proprietor who first brought the factory into prominence. This was in 1790. But in 1802 it passed into the hands of Lewis Weston Dillwyn, and it was during this period that W. W. Young did the work we have alluded to. In 1817 the factory passed into the hands of the Bevingtons, and in 1824 it again came into the possession of the Dillwyn family, who held it till about 1850, when the firm was known as Evans and Glasson, and later as D. J. Evans & Co. until its close in 1870. During this long period the marks assumed various characters. We have at the end of this chapter given most of the more important to enable collectors to identify the period of their Swansea ware--when marked. Another ware greatly collected must be alluded to, of which an illustration is given (p. 405). This Etruscan ware, following the early example set by Wedgwood, was an attempt to copy some of the Greek vases which were painted red on a black body. In "Dillwyn's Etruscan Ware," made only for three years from 1847 to 1850, the body was a warm red, and the design was impressed thereon either by means of black transfer-printing or outline, and the background was then painted and the classic figures heightened. This ware is not always marked, but when the mark appears it is in a scroll, as given in the list of marks (p. 416). =Lowesby Pottery.=--There is very little to be said about this pottery in Leicestershire, which was conducted under the auspices of Sir Francis Fowke about 1835. The mark is always puzzling to collectors which is a _fleur-de-lis_ with the name Lowesby, both impressed. The ware usually made at this small pottery was red terra cotta coated with a dull black upon which were flowers and butterflies painted in bright enamel colours. This decoration was done elsewhere, probably in London. [Illustration: CAMBRIAN VASE. Painted by Pardoe. (_In the collection of Mr. A. Duncan._)] [Illustration: SWANSEA JUG. Painted by Evans. (_In the collection of Mr. A. Duncan._)] =Liverpool.=--We have already alluded to the Liverpool delft, but the story of Liverpool as a potting centre is not yet complete. There was, of course, the enormous business in transfer-printing on Staffordshire cream ware established by Sadler and Green. But they made cream ware themselves as well as decorated it for others. Cream ware was produced at the factories of Chaffers, Barnes, Pennington, and others. And at a date immediately prior to the cream ware, Shaw, of Liverpool, had made "Astbury" and "Whieldon" and salt-glaze wares. So that here at once is a difficulty, and a very great one, in identifying with exactitude the origin of some of these wares. There is a great deal yet to be discovered concerning the long line of Liverpool factories, and if only as much special attention had been given to this locality as has been given to the much smaller factory of Lowestoft, original research might disentangle many a ceramic puzzle. =W. Reid & Co.=--These potters made artistic earthenware from about 1754 to 1760, another firm established by Richard Abbey about 1793 continued till 1796 to make cream ware of a high order. This pottery, bought by Messrs. Worthington, was named Herculaneum Pottery. =The Herculaneum Pottery= (1796-1841).--At first, when a band of Staffordshire potters came over to the new works, stoneware and black and red unglazed ware in the Wedgwood manner were made. Later a considerable amount of cream ware of pleasing character was turned out. The various marks found on the ware of this factory are given at the end of this chapter. Shortly after the end of the eighteenth century porcelain was made here, and some of the examples are of a very high quality both in potting and in decoration. From 1836 to 1841 the proprietors were Messrs. Close, Mort & Co. Until more facts come to light and trained research is applied to all classes of Liverpool ware nothing definitely can be stated. But it is certain that some of the Liverpool ware is so fine in character as even to confuse old collectors who have never seen specimens before. We illustrate a Liverpool plate (p. 409) with the usual Oriental design, and having no special feature about it which many another factory could not have produced. Its blue is fine and its potting is excellent, but it is not exceptional. The illustration beside it (p. 409) is of an earthenware mug some 5 inches in height which undoubtedly is a puzzle to experts. The exquisitely-painted exotic birds in rich colouring are not less perfect than those painted on Worcester vases or on Chelsea dishes. Indeed, it seems to show very strong traces of the style of Worcester painting. One is inclined to attribute it to Liverpool with the proviso that it must have been painted by some artist who had been trained at Worcester. It will thus be seen by this case that in unmarked earthenware there are exceptional difficulties in correctly placing examples where so much cream ware was made not very dissimilar in character, and where artists, as we have seen at Swansea, came over from other factories, apparently to the confoundment of the present-day collector. [Illustration: GROUP OF SWANSEA WARE. Transfer-printed in blue, black, and brown. (_In the collection of Mr. A. Duncan._)] [Illustration: DILLWYN'S ETRUSCAN WARE. VASE. With Warriors in Chariot and Pegasus. (Height 14 inches.) TAZZA. With Dancing Girl (side view and interior). (10-1/2 inches diameter.) (_In the collection of Mr. A. Duncan._)] =Bristol.=--Joseph Ring in 1786 commenced to make a cream ware with the assistance of potters he engaged from Shelton in Staffordshire. In colour it was a warm cream due to the glaze and not to the body of the ware itself. Connected with this factory are some finely painted flower-pieces in enamel colours by William Fifield (born in 1777, and died in 1857), and his son, John Fifield. The factory changed hands in 1825, and became Pountney and Allies and Pountney & Co. until 1872. Many of Fifield's decorated pieces with floral works bear the name and date of the person for whom they were made. These are quite characteristic of the pottery, and occur after 1820 and in the Pountney and Allies period. There is a strong similarity in these chains of flowers and garlands to the Oriental ware, and its later French imitation which poses as Lowestoft. Much of this Bristol earthenware is confounded with somewhat similar New Hall porcelain, and is termed by very inexperienced buyers and sellers as "cottage Worcester." "Cottage" it may be, but it has no relationship with Worcester. =Caughley or Salopian.=--The Caughley under-glaze blue-printed ware with its rich almost purplish blue is well known, but the various tints of this blue employed in the porcelain are not so well known varying as they do from this deep blue to a fairly light slate blue--but that concerns china and is another story. The Coalport factory china mark at the present day has the date 1750, proudly going back to these early days. Of Salopian earthenware not too much is known, it is eclipsed by the porcelain which Thomas Turner commenced to make at Caughley in 1772. But earthenware was made at the factory from 1750 to 1775 by Browne, the owner of the factory, whose niece Thomas Turner married and took over the pottery in 1772. There are, belonging to this early period, some exceedingly well-modelled Caughley figures which are equal to the finest work of the Staffordshire potters. Some of these figures are 20 inches in height, and among those attributed to this Salopian pottery are the following: _Prudence_, holding a mirror, draped classical figure with figured gown; and _Fortitude_, a companion figure. _Antony_ and _Cleopatra_ are also believed to belong to this factory by some collectors. Caughley pottery is sometimes, though rarely, marked with the word SALOPIAN or with the initials S or C in blue under the glaze. A considerable doubt still exists as to what is and what is not Salopian or Caughley earthenware, and an opinion should not be hastily arrived at on superficial examination. Many of the early under-glaze blue-printed porcelain cups and saucers with Oriental designs similar in character to the "willow pattern" bear a mark of a blue crescent not unlike that of the Worcester factory. When such specimens in earthenware are found thus marked in under-glaze blue with the crescent they may certainly be pronounced to be Caughley, in date about 1772 to 1785. Some of the octagonal dark blue-printed Caughley earthenware plates are of similar shape to the Oriental porcelain model (illustrated p. 327), and the design especially in the treatment of the border is handled in the same manner except that Turner was fonder of more crowded detail. [Illustration: COPY OF PORTLAND VASE. In red ware Isleworth. (Early nineteenth century.) Marked S & G. (Height 7-3/4 inches.) (_In the collection of Mr. W. G. Honey._)] [Illustration: FINE EARTHENWARE MUG. Exquisitely painted with exotic birds in Worcester style (attributed to Liverpool). (_In the collection of Col. and Mrs. Dickson_.) LIVERPOOL CREAM WARE PLATE. With Oriental decoration in blue. (_In the collection of Miss Feilden._)] =Derby Earthenware.=--Derby porcelain is well known. But it is not so well known that Derby earthenware is worth considering from a collecting point of view. There is a certain amount of obscurity surrounding the early ware made at Cockpit Hill. Slip ware was made in early days and delft appears to have been made there at the beginning of the eighteenth century. In 1772 the Derby pot-works, in the hands of the Heath family who were bankers, produced cream ware, though not equal to the Staffordshire products. Messrs. John and Christopher Heath, of Derby, are described as "bankrupts" in 1780, and a great sale of the earthenware in stock took place. The collector has mainly to rely on dated examples, which are very rare, or on pieces bearing local allusions to elections which may be safely attributed to Derby, but like so many of the extinct factories the ware has not received special attention in regard to its identification, nor is the task an easy one owing to cream ware being of very general manufacture. =Isleworth.=--There is not much known about this factory established by Joseph Shore, who appears to have come from Worcester in 1760. The ware later is marked with the initials S. & G. after the firm became Shore and Goulding. The factory was never very large, and employed only twenty hands at the most. We illustrate (p. 409) a copy of the celebrated Portland Vase in red ware marked S. & G., and although some of the Isleworth ware appears to have been coarse earthenware to which the term "Welsh ware" was applied, some of it reverting to the old method of slip decoration, yet it must be admitted that certain pieces in red unglazed earthenware are of a high artistic character. There is a very fine teapot of this red ware in exact imitation of the Oriental style, being hexagonal in form, and having embossed decorations on the panels, the lid being surmounted with a Chinese grotesque animal, such as never was designed in Europe. The potting of such pieces as these has directed the attention of connoisseurs to this obscure factory. There is no doubt that some of the finer pieces of Isleworth red ware have passed as Elers ware, but the former has a slight glaze and the handles are moulded. It is heavier in weight, and the teapots, &c., by Elers were undoubtedly of small dimensions. It appears that "hound jugs" were made at Isleworth too. They were made at Brampton and elsewhere, but in those illustrated (p. 413) the mark is S. & G. They are brown stoneware with subjects of game in high relief, and are early nineteenth century in date. In the second illustration it will be seen that the handle of the hound jug shows a later stage in its development. The reason is not far to seek, the awkward points of the hound handle were found to be in the way when Betsy Prue drew the beer. Any projection of this nature is distinctly out of place in earthenware for everyday use. This the potter readily recognised, and pattern number two was the result. Here he followed, without knowing it, the practice of the Japanese, who in their finely-carved ivory netsukes, so much collected nowadays, which were used as buttons and fastenings for dresses, always took care to leave no projecting points--the sleeping mouse has his tail well coiled around him--the dwarf mime has a smooth head and a figure as rotund as a miniature barrel. It will be seen in this second illustration that the hound is still discernible in the handle, but probably only to those who have seen him in his former state. He has now become a clumsy, twisted handle with less meaning. It is here that his delicately balanced proportions when he was leaping over the brim with outstretched limbs--the attitude to the life of a hound when attempting to get through a fence--became a mere symbol in this later stage of his ceramic existence. [Illustration: BROWN STONEWARE JUGS. Decorated with game in high relief. SHORE & GOULDING (Isleworth). Marked S & G. (Height 7-1/2 inches.) (_In the collection of Mr. W. G. Honey._)] [Illustration: BROWN STONEWARE JUGS. With sporting subjects in relief, the handles showing a debased form of the "hound" handles. (_In the collection of Mr. W. G. Honey._)] The pictorial history of the evolution is not a pretty one. It shows how the rushing need of the public for "more pots" destroyed the craft of the potter. It was far easier, since the demand was for pots, to turn out hasty work, and to let the modelling take care of itself. For this reason the mug degenerated into a mere commonplace mug, such as Staffordshire could produce quite as cheaply by the ton. So the factory put out its furnaces for ever. MARKS USED AT SWANSEA, LOWESBY, LIVERPOOL, CAUGHLEY, DERBY, AND ISLEWORTH. [Illustration: HAYNES, DILLWYN & CO CAMBRIAN POTTERY SWANSEA] =Swansea.= Established 1769, works closed 1870. Cambrian Pottery, after 1780. A large number of marks employed. Sometimes the marks were impressed, but more often painted or stamped in red. [Illustration: CAMBRIAN] The word "Cambrian" as a mark is very uncommon. [Illustration: OPAQUE CHINA SWANSEA] Used on the improved white hard earthenware invented by Haynes at the end of eighteenth century. [Illustration: IMPROVED STONE WARE DILLWYN & CO] Stone china was made from 1810-1830, and on some pieces this mark is found. [Illustration: DILLWYN] Other of Dillwyn's Marks, from 1802-1817, are given here. [Illustration: DILLWYN SWANSEA] Swansea _porcelain_, with its finely painted flowers, was produced from 1814 to 1817. [Illustration: DILLWYN'S ETRUSCAN WARE] The celebrated "Etruscan Ware" was made by Dillwyn from 1847 to 1850, and it generally bears this printed mark. [Illustration: D J EVANS & Co SWANSEA] From 1850 to 1870 the firm was Evans & Glasson, and D. J. Evans & Co., and some of the later marks printed on the Swansea ware of this period are reproduced. [Illustration: D. J. EVANS & Co SWANSEA] This Prince of Wales' Feathers mark was often accompanied by the fancy name of the particular pattern on which it appeared. [Illustration: LOWESBY] =Lowesby.= The mark of this small Leicestershire factory often puzzles collectors, and it is given here. In date it is about 1835, and it only existed for a few years. [Illustration: P P] =Liverpool.= The marks of Liverpool are of exceptional interest. Sadler & Green (except in rare instances, when they signed their tiles) did not use a mark. Seth Pennington (1760-1790), celebrated for punch bowls of rich blue decoration, may have used the mark here given. [Illustration: HERCULANEUM] [Illustration: HERCULANEUM] The Herculaneum Pottery (1794-1841) (which produced porcelain too, in 1800, as did W. Reid & Co. (1754-1760) of fine quality, but unmarked). [Illustration] The Herculaneum marks are various on earthenware, and when the mark of the bird, the "Liver," appears, it may be attributed to Herculaneum. [Illustration: LIVERPOOL] [Illustration: SALOPIAN] =Caughley or Salopian= (1751-1775). As a china factory Caughley is well known, and is the parent of the Coalport porcelain factory. [Illustration: TURNER.] In its early days nothing was marked, but from 1772 to 1775, under Thomas Turner, Salopian figures, some of large size, were made, and a great deal of under-glaze blue-printed earthenware produced. The word Salopian sometimes appears, and TURNER is impressed on cream-ware plates (often ascribed to John Turner, of Lane End, Staffordshire). [Illustration: S C] Sometimes the letters =S= or =C= appear in blue under the glaze. These marks appear also in Salopian porcelain. [Illustration: Bristol Pottery] =Bristol.= The pottery at Bristol has a history extending from seventeenth-century days down to 1820. Its delft frequently had dates inscribed, and sometimes initials of potters. Its later ware was rarely marked. But sometimes a blue cross appears, and we give a late mark, found infrequently. [Illustration: S & G] =Isleworth= (1760-1830). As much of the red ware of Messrs. Shore and Golding passes as Elers ware, the mark should be of interest to collectors. It is very small and impressed sometimes at the side of the piece near the base. PRICES. SWANSEA EARTHENWARE. £ s. d. Dillwyn. Dinner service decorated with figures, and quantity of tea and breakfast ware similar (60 pieces in all). Leeder, Swansea, September, 1906 7 18 6 Etruscan ware Drinking Cup, formed as horse's head. Sotheby, February, 1908 2 0 0 LIVERPOOL. Cream-ware Punch Bowl, printed outside with figure subjects and inside with ship in full sail, in colours, and inscribed "Success to the Glory 1783." Sotheby, February, 1906 2 18 0 Bowl with ship inside, inscribed "Success to William and Nancy," dated 1776. Sotheby, November, 1906 3 0 0 Mug, with painted portrait of William Pitt. Sotheby, November, 1906 2 8 0 CAUGHLEY OR SALOPIAN EARTHENWARE. Figures, reclining, _Cleopatra_ and _Antony_, on oblong blue plinths (19-1/2 in.). Christie, January, 1908 15 15 0 ISLEWORTH. Ewer, decorated with Etruscan figures, rare, marked. Sotheby, November, 1907 1 2 0 BRISTOL EARTHENWARE. Jug with inscription and landscape in blueand white. Sotheby, February, 1907 1 8 0 LOWESBY. Basket of tortoiseshell ware, another of stoneware, another of red ware, marked "_Lowesby_," illustrated in _Queen_, January 26, 1907. Sotheby, December, 1908 2 0 0 Vase of red ware and two bottle-shaped vases, decorated with flowers in colours, marked "_Lowesby_." Sotheby, December, 1908 4 6 0 XIII LUSTRE WARE CHAPTER XIII LUSTRE WARE Early crude Copper Lustre (Brislington)--Gold Lustre, pink and purple Wedgwood, Leeds, Swansea, Sunderland--Platinum Lustre (termed "silver lustre").--Thomas Wedgwood (1791), Spode, E. Mayer, Wood and Caldwell, Leeds, Castleford, Swansea, and others--Lustre in combination as a decoration--"Resist" Lustre--Copper or Bronze Lustre--Marked Lustre Ware--Prices. The collection of lustre ware is comparatively modern. In common with salt-glaze ware which was not thought much of in the auction-room some few years ago, lustre-ware has been studied and collected with avidity, and a good deal has been discovered concerning its origin. It may be said at the outset that lustre varies very considerably in quality, and the plain undecorated platinum or "silver" lustre is being produced at the present day in teapots and cream-jugs in simulation of the old Georgian silver patterns. So great is its variety and quality that some collectors have confined themselves specially to the collection of what is known as silver lustre "resist" style, and others have specialised in the pink or gold purple, with veined effects, of the Wedgwood school. Lustre ware may be divided into the following classes:-- 1. _Early brown copper lustre_, crude in style, made by Frank, of Brislington, near Bristol, about 1770. 2. _Gold lustre_, probably invented by Josiah Wedgwood, about 1792 (not to be confounded with gilding). The effect varies from pink to purple, and in the early pieces a combination was effected of gold, yellow, and purple, iridescent in varying lights. 3. _Platinum or "silver" lustre_ (discovered by Thomas Wedgwood, the youngest son of Josiah Wedgwood, about 1791), imitations of silver ware, busts, &c. 4. _Copper or bronze lustre_ (differing from the coarse early ware of Brislington), plain or undecorated. 5. Gold or purple lustre _used as an adjunct or decoration_, either around band or rim, as at Sunderland, &c. 6. Platinum or "silver" lustre _used as an adjunct or slight decoration_ such as in the _Falstaff_ figure (illustrated p. 371), or in the figure of _Cupid_ (illustrated p. 387). 7. Platinum or "silver" lustre _in combination with other painted decoration_: (_a_) Birds, foliage, &c., painted in silver lustre on a ground of another colour; (_b_) Silver lustre "resist" style when the ground is platinum and the ornamentation is white, blue, or yellow. 8. Copper or bronze lustre _in combination with painted designs_. [Illustration: PAIR OF MOTTLED PINK GOLD LUSTRE GOBLETS. (_In the collection of Miss Feilden._)] [Illustration: GOBLET AND GOLD LUSTRE MUGS WITH MOTTLED INTERIORS. (_In the collection of Miss Feilden._)] =Early Lustre (Brislington).=--Richard Frank, the delft potter, of Bristol, produced a crude ware composed of a hard body coated with a yellow dip resembling delft in character, and, upon this surface, ornamentation in copper lustre was made which gave it the appearance of burnished copper. It has been most inaptly compared with the Hispano-Mauro ware, with its rich arabesque ornamentation. There is nothing in common between the two except that they are both lustrous, and here the similarity ends. The Brislington colour was crude and the lustre ornaments extremely inartistic, and only suitable for the baking-dishes and mere utilitarian articles rudely and sufficiently decorated. Finer and thinner lustre ware found in the vicinity of Bristol can more safely be attributed to Swansea. =Gold Lustre.=--As may readily be imagined, the amount of gold in the lustre decoration is very small. Gold lustre is _not_ heavy English gilding. As early as 1776 Josiah Wedgwood obtained a formula from Dr. Fothergill, a Fellow of the Royal Society, of which he himself was a Fellow, which induced him to experiment with gold in order to produce lustrous effects. The Purple of Cassius was employed with great success in obtaining marbling and veining, but it was not till late in his career, about 1792, that he produced the gold lustre in its happiest combination in connection with the fine Pearl Ware shell dessert-services. We have already alluded to the thin wash of yellow and pink which was applied to these dishes to represent the interior of the shell, but the addition of gold lustre was the finishing touch, and such pieces are remarkably rare. They glow with fleeting colours as the light plays upon their surface. In regard to this gold lustre, it should be stated that it varied, and varied most considerably, according to the character of the body not only subjacent to it, that is upon which it was placed, but owing to its filmy and translucent character it received reflection from adjacent surfaces. On a brown body the same effect is different from that on a white or cream body. This must be borne in mind to a smaller extent in platinum lustres. The warmer the body beneath, the richer the lustre and the greater its similarity to the silver which it is intended to imitate. We illustrate two very fine mottled pink and gold lustre goblets which belong to the Wedgwood period and are very light and of very fine lustrous appearance (p. 425). In certain districts these are termed "Funeral cups," and whether they were used only on those solemn occasions or not, we cannot say. It appears that gold lustre was sometimes used in combination with copper or bronze. In the two mugs illustrated (p. 425), the interiors are finely mottled in purple and gold, and suggest by the beautiful potting the work of the goldsmith in their sharp contour. They may be attributed to the best period, as, too, may the goblet in the centre which glows like gold. Incidentally it may be remarked that the photographs used for these illustrations cannot convey the rich and glorious colouring of these examples. The writer knows of a cup and saucer marked "Dawson." There was a Samuel Dawson in 1802, a Staffordshire potter, and there is Dawson of Sunderland, a better-known maker of ware, which has lustre decoration, to which latter pottery this may more safely be attributed. In general effect the scheme of colour is ambitious. The centre panel is painted in red enamel colours over the glaze. The borders have a highly lustrous gold floral decoration on a ground of pink. In regard to Sunderland and Newcastle, as a rule, the ware is crude and may be readily dismissed, but not too hurriedly. The rough bands of purple lustre inartistically painted as borders to the transfer-printed jugs and mugs with nautical subjects are well known. In broad effect on a jug or a punch bowl, this class of pink or purple lustre decoration is seen at its best. On a jug of this nature with bands and rough spongings of purple lustre appear the verses-- "The man doomed to sail With the blast of the gale, Through billows Atlantic to steer, As he bends o'er the wave Which may soon be his grave Remembers his home with a tear." It is not a happy sentiment and suggests more the landsman's views of the sea than those of the sailor. The following has a truer ring, but it was not put on jugs to be sold to sailors' wives:-- "Go patter to lubbers and swabs, d'ye see, 'Bout danger and fear and the like; A tight water-boat and good sea room give me, And it ain't to a little I'll strike." =Platinum or Silver Lustre.=--It is not definitely known who was the first potter to adopt this decoration. Obviously it could not be earlier in date than the year that platinum was discovered as a new metal. Its chemical individuality and qualities were established by the successive researches of Scheffer (1752), Marggraft (1757), Bergmann (1777). In 1784 the first platinum crucible was made by Achard. In 1800 Knight, of London, published all that was known concerning the use of platinum in manufacture. Thomas Wedgwood, the youngest son of Josiah, employed it as early as 1791, but it is claimed that John Hancock (born 1757, died 1847), first employed gold, silver, and steel lustres at Messrs. Spode's factory at Stoke for Messrs. Daniel and Brown, who were decorating Spode ware at that date. That is his own account when he was eighty-nine years of age. But he was employed at Etruria. At any rate Hancock did not retain the secret, for among contemporary potters John Gardner, of Stoke, Sparkes, of Hanley, and Horobin, of Tunstall, seem to have practised it. At the beginning of the nineteenth century other potters were making lustre. In 1804 John Aynsley, of Lane End, and in 1810 Peter Warburton, of Lane End, who took out a patent for "decorating china, porcelain, earthenware, and glass with native pure or unadulterated gold, silver, platina, or other metals fluxed or lowered with lead or any other substance which invention or new method leaves the metals, after being burned, in their metallic state." Pieces of silver lustre occur with the name Wood and Caldwell impressed on them. This was the style of the firm from 1790 to 1818. Such pieces may have been made during the last years of the factory's existence. But we know that it was made in 1810, for a painted lustre jug bears the inscription "Richard Bacchus, 1810." Another name which the writer has seen impressed on plain silver lustre ware of Early-Georgian shape is E. Mayer, who commenced as a potter in 1770, and died in 1818. It thus appears that at present, until more marked pieces turn up, the exact date within a few years of the manufacture of platinum or silver lustre in its first form is not determinable. [Illustration: PAIR OF SILVER LUSTRE FIGURES. By WOOD & CALDWELL. (Height 6-1/4 inches.) (_From the collection of Mr. W. G. Honey._)] [Illustration: SILVER LUSTRE JUGS. 1. "Resist" style, with stencilled decorations. 2. Bird painted in red, foliage in green in panel, silver lustre painted bands and borders. (_In the possession of Mr. Hubert Gould._)] Among makers known to have produced silver lustre are Robert Wilson, of Hanley, who was in partnership with Neale prior to the manufacture of this ware. His brother David Wilson, in the opening years of the nineteenth century, made silver lustre goblets and figures. There is a mounted figure of a hussar with uplifted sword attributed to the Wilsons, at the British Museum. The Wilsons also made copper or bronze lustre ware. Lakin and Poole is the name of another firm, and Spode, and it is believed Davenport embarked on this popular ware also. It is known, too, that Leeds made silver lustre ware of fine quality, that has stood the test of time; and gold lustre in imitation of Wedgwood's "Pearl Ware" lustrous decorations was made in early nineteenth-century days. Swansea is credited with similar productions of gold and gold-purple lustre on a marbled ground, although none of its silver-lustre ware is marked. Probably the earliest use of silver lustre was when it was employed as an adjunct to figures in subsidiary portions in lieu of gilding. But most certainly it began to simulate the silver ware at an early date. This early type is undecorated, and was also used in busts or statuettes of classical form. We illustrate a pair of silver-lustre figures by Wood and Caldwell. There is another pair of children in silver lustre, marked Wood & Caldwell, which are colourable imitation of the figures of "children reading" made by Dwight (illustrated, p. 139). In regard to decorated silver lustre we give two examples which are fairly typical of a large class. The illustration (p. 431) shows a jug decorated in enamel colours. The bird is in red and the foliage in green, on a cream ground. The border of the panel is in silver lustre and the rim of the jug and the bands around neck are also silver lustre. This decorated silver-lustre ware is of two classes. The first class comprises patterns painted in silver lustre on a white ground, the foliage and birds and other patterns being in silver lustre, carefully painted over the white. As a rule in such pieces there is more white showing, and the lustre silver is palpably a decorative effect. In the second class the silver lustre appears as a background, and the ornamental decoration is in white, covering the piece in most elaborate designs. This is known as "resist" ware, and on account of the great beauty and variety of its ornamentation, has strongly appealed to latter-day collectors. The pattern twining its way over the silver-lustre background may be white, blue, canary colour, pink, apricot, or turquoise-blue. White is most frequently found. This second style is capable of the most intricate designs varying from farmyard and hunting scenes to ordinary conventional floral arrangements almost resembling the Japanese stencilled work in another field of art. =How "resist" ware is made.=--If a white design is intended the ware is left white, but if any other colour, such as those we have mentioned, that colour is laid as a body or ground colour on the specimen to be lustred. The next step is to paint the exact design which later is to appear white, or blue, or yellow, on the surface of the vessel. This pattern is painted or stencilled on the ware with a substance composed of a glucose matter such as glycerine. The next stage is to apply the silver lustre to the whole surface which is allowed partially to dry. On its immersion in water the pattern painted previously to the addition of lustre peels off being on a soluble ground. The result is that the background of white or yellow or blue is laid bare, and the rest of the vessel is covered permanently with silver lustre. The adhesive lustre "resists" the water, adhering to the surface by means of its resinous nature, except in the pattern which peels off. Hence the term "resist" ware. We illustrate one specimen of this silver-lustre "resist" ware (p. 431). It is of the ordinary floral conventional pattern probably stencilled on as described above. Some of the more elaborate specimens are painted. One of the finest collections of "Resist Silver Lustre" is that of Mr. William Ward, at the Kennels, Mellor, near Blackburn. It comprises examples that one may search for in vain in any of the museums. Many of the examples are marked such as "Warburton," or with the letter "W" impressed, and one specimen is marked "Leeds" a rare mark. The subjects of some of these jugs and mugs relate to the Napoleonic wars, and are dated. There is one rare jug entitled "Boney escaping through a Window," and in combination with this "resist" style are examples finely painted or transfer-printed in colours. =Copper or Bronze Lustre.=--This class of lustre is generally held to be later (excepting of course the early attempts at Brislington which stand by themselves). It is held too by collectors up to the present not to offer such artistic possibilities as the "resist" silver lustre. This is amply borne out by the prices obtained at auction. But it must not be forgotten that this bronze or copper lustre varies very considerably. It may be and often is very coarse brown ordinary ware, and it may be very thin and delicate as to tempt the connoisseur to regard it with more than a passing glance. In the highest forms of copper or bronze lustre, painted views appear in panels against the lustrous background, and such views are of a high order of merit. They may in all probability have been executed at Swansea. We illustrate a fine example (p. 437) of a large copper lustre mug with painted panel of landscape and other panels of fruit. Very frequently in this copper lustre the jugs and mugs have ornamentation in relief which is enamelled in vivid colours. This is a fairly common form, and has been reproduced in very coarse examples, not to be confounded with the finer and thinner copper lustre at its best. We illustrate a copper lustre jug (p. 437) with serpent handle and Bellarmine mask spout, decorated in turquoise blue, and with basket of flowers in relief. The Goblet to the right is of similar decoration, and that on the left is of conventional coloured design on a mottled pink lustred band. =Marked Lustre Ware.=--We have already mentioned a number of potters who are known to have made lustre ware, but the following names have been found impressed on the ware in various collections throughout the country, and may be of interest to collectors who have specimens either by these potters or by other makers not on this list. Wedgwood, Wilson, Warburton, Bailey and Batkin, J. Lockett & Sons, E. Mayer, Mayer & Newbold, E. Wood, Wood & Caldwell, Minton, Bott & Co., P. & U. (Poole & Unwin), Meigh, C. Meigh & Sons, Copeland & Garrett, and Leeds Pottery. [Illustration: LARGE COPPER LUSTRE MUG. Panels painted with landscapes and flowers in colours. (_In the collection of Miss Feilden._)] [Illustration: GROUP OF COLOURED COPPER LUSTRE. Goblet with enamelled decoration in relief. Jug with Bellarmine mask and spout and decorated in turquoise blue. (_In the collection of Miss Feilden._)] PRICES. LUSTRE WARE. £ s. d. _Silver lustre_ Barber's jug with medallion of Barber and Customer, inscribed "William Freeman, 1809"; 6-3/4 in. high. Bond, Ipswich, April, 1906 5 0 0 _Silver lustre_ "resist" pattern jug with grape and barley design. Sotheby, June, 1906 2 0 0 _Nelson & Hill_ jug in silver lustre and decorated in red and black. Sotheby, June, 1906 1 10 0 _Silver lustre_ jug, decorated with bird and flowers, and inscribed "J. Simpson, original Staffordshire Warehouse, 1791." Christie, January, 1908 14 14 0 _Lustre decorated_, Sunderland figures of _Seasons_ (four) decorated in colours and purple lustre; all impressed, mark "DIXON, AUSTIN & CO." Sotheby, February, 1908 10 0 0 _Copper lustre_ pair of five-fingered flower vases marked SEWELL. Sotheby, November, 1905 4 15 0 XIV LATE STAFFORDSHIRE WARE CHAPTER XIV LATE STAFFORDSHIRE WARE The School of Colour--Josiah Spode the Second (1798-1827)--Davenport (1793-1880)--Thomas Minton--Semi-porcelain--Ironstone China--The Masons--Early nineteenth-century Commemorative Ware--The revival of Stoneware--Messrs. Doulton--The twentieth-century Collector--Table of Marks--Prices. The latest phases of earthenware are mainly concerned with the school of colourists, the chief of which was Josiah Spode the Second, who controlled the factory on the death of Josiah his father, in 1797, and took William Copeland as partner. It was this Spode who introduced into earthenware decorative patterns of Japanese colouring in which reds and yellows and dark cobalt blue predominate, following the style of the Crown-Derby Japan style. About 1800 Spode commenced the manufacture of porcelain as well as earthenware, and his richly gilded Japan patterns began to rival those of Derby. In regard to the light-blue-printed ware of a fine quality turned out by Spode, an illustration is given in the chapter on Transfer-printed Ware (p. 331). It was this second Josiah Spode who standardised the body used in English porcelain, which is to-day practically the same as Spode's formula. It may be said, roughly, to consist of the constituents of true porcelain plus a proportion of bone ash. Enoch Wood, when an apprentice with Palmer, was the first to use bone with earthenware, about 1770. It is obvious that with these rich colours of Staffordshire porcelain side by side in the same factory, with earthenware, the latter began to assume all the decorative appearance of porcelain. A reign of colour set in. Earthenware was as lavishly decorated in colours, and as richly gilded as any of the contemporary porcelains, and in putting on these colours it lost all its old characteristic features and became an echo of porcelain. Before leaving the Spode family, it may be mentioned that Josiah Spode the second, who died in 1827, aged seventy-three, was succeeded by his son, Josiah Spode the third, who died within two years. William Copeland had died in 1826, and in 1833 the factory at Stoke came into the hands of W. T. Copeland, known as Alderman Copeland, as he then was, of the City of London. He became Lord Mayor of London in 1835, and in that year took Thomas Garrett into partnership. Copeland and Garrett is the name of the firm till 1847. For twenty years it was known as "W. T. Copeland, late Spode," and is now at the present day Messrs. W. T. Copeland & Sons. The marks belonging to the firm at various dates are given at the end of this chapter. We illustrate a row of five remarkably fine earthenware vases decorated in rich colour in the Derby style, so perfectly simulating the brush work of that famous porcelain factory, that upon a hasty examination they would pass for Crown-Derby. They evidently belong to the days when Josiah Spode was turning out at Stoke more Japan patterns than were produced at Derby. At the same time a good deal of less ornate earthenware for cottage use was being made, and specimens may frequently be met with, such as tea-sets with old-fashioned teapot and two-handled sugar-bowl made about 1825. Their homely English rural subjects are very pleasing, and show that there was still a large market in the country for simple ware without any great pretensions to foreign taste. It was the last stage of the great tradition of old English earthenware. =Davenport (1793-1880).=--John Davenport, of Longport in Staffordshire, began potting in 1793. There is no doubt that he was a great potter with artistic instincts. He went to France prior to 1800, and on his return introduced a porcelain body superior to anything then produced in England. With Josiah Spode the second he claims more attention as a maker of porcelain than of earthenware. But his earthenware is highly prized by collectors. His blue-printed ware was exceptionally fine, and he followed in his plates and dishes the style of Turner and of Minton in the perforated rims. His stone china is well potted and carefully painted, and in design he was not loth to follow Mason of whom we shall speak later. Many specimens of the familiar type of jug associated with Mason's name, of octagonal shape are found in porcelain. Some collectors noticing the great similarity to Mason have been inclined to attribute these porcelain jugs to him, and doubtless, as Mason made china, many are his, but Davenport who made replicas of the Mason stoneware jugs, being a maker of porcelain too, is likely to have produced these porcelain replicas also. None of these porcelain jugs appears to be marked. Davenport ware is strong in colour, and follows the rich designs of Spode. Some pieces of stoneware are richly gilt, and have finely painted fruit-pieces and landscapes, some probably by Steel from the Derby factory. The illustration (p. 447) of the highest flight of Mason typifies this class of landscape ware. Swansea, in common with Staffordshire, had not hesitated in painting earthenware with landscape subjects hitherto employed only by artists who decorated porcelain. The Davenport marks are given at the end of this chapter, and are always prized when found on specimens, as Davenport did not mark his ware so freely as did Spode. From 1835 the firm became "William Davenport & Co.," and later "Davenport & Co.," and ceased about 1880. [Illustration: DESSERT PLATES. With border richly gilded with floral design. Impressed mark MASON'S PATENT IRONSTONE CHINA. (_In collection of Author._)] [Illustration: DESSERT DISH. Richly gilded border with landscape painted in colours. Impressed mark MASON'S PATENT IRONSTONE CHINA.] =Semi-porcelain.=--This is found as a term in some of the marks of the early-Victorian period; sometimes the title "opaque china" appears. These descriptions are always puzzling to the collector. As a matter of fact they tell of the later and more modern development of earthenware. It had snatched the china glaze, it had employed the enamel colours, and had adopted the designs of the English porcelain factories. The rivalry of the Staffordshire potters and the English porcelain factories was coming to an end. This stage of semi-porcelain and semi-china represented the last word of earthenware. It now simulated porcelain in its body, with one drawback, it was not translucent as is porcelain. It was naïvely termed "opaque china." But the potters were proud of their latest achievement, and accordingly marked their wares with the above terms. As has been shown, Swansea came to the front, and Haynes in the closing years of the eighteenth century produced a hard, white earthenware termed "opaque-china," and Riley's "semi-china" about 1800 was the Staffordshire equivalent. But, as we have seen, the Staffordshire potters not only imitated porcelain, continuing a long trade rivalry extending over nearly a century, but many of them had commenced to make porcelain themselves. Even the firm of Wedgwood succumbed to the temptation, and made porcelain from 1805 till 1815, which manufacture was revived again in 1878. =Thomas Minton (1765-1836).=--Minton was one of Spode's engravers, and commenced as a master potter at Stoke in 1793. Minton had been apprenticed to Thomas Turner, of Caughley, as an engraver, and it was he who designed the celebrated "Broseley dragon" pattern on the Caughley porcelain, and it is held by some authorities that Minton engraved the "willow pattern" too. At first, at Stoke, he made only earthenware, and his blue and white ware in imitation of the Nankin porcelain won him distinction. About 1800 porcelain was made and was continued throughout the nineteenth century. His son, Herbert Minton in 1836, took into partnership John Boyle, who joined the Wedgwoods in 1842. Herbert Minton raised the quality of the productions, being one of the greatest of the Staffordshire modern potters. In the latter half of the century Mintons obtained a world-wide reputation. From 1850 to 1870 a band of French modellers and painters executed some fine work, but this trespasses on the field of porcelain. Among the earthenware of Minton some of the early pieces such as plates and dishes enamelled in colours with Chinese subjects, are marked with the letter M in blue and a number. Some of the earliest-known examples in earthenware of the celebrated "willow pattern," such as plates with perforated edges (similar to that illustrated, p. 331) and baskets, are by Thomas Minton. _Ironstone China._--This again is a term used by Mason and others in regard to an earthenware body for which the firm of Mason, of Lane Delph, took out a patent in 1813. It is a ware, heavy in weight, and possessing great strength. In pieces of important size, such as punch bowls of huge proportions, and posts for old-fashioned bedsteads this was of no little value. We have already alluded to the Mason series of octagonal-shaped jugs of pleasing shape, undoubtedly following the Spode scheme of colour in Japanese style, but lacking the finer finish of Spode ware. Although undoubtedly original in design, these jugs were easily excelled in potting and colouring by copyists such as Davenport. But Mason's blue in his imitations of old Nankin ware is exceptionally fine. There are dinner-services consisting of a great number of pieces painted in under-glaze blue which are very rich in tone, and stand comparison with any of the blues of Staffordshire, not excepting those of Adams and Minton. We illustrate a large vase obviously a replica of a Chinese model, and enamelled in very rich colours. It shows a remarkable facility in potting, and although strongly coloured conveys without caricature the decorative qualities of the Chinese potter. [Illustration: "GRANITE CHINA" VASE. Richly decorated in colours. Grass-green ground. Panels with landscape in Japanese Imari colours. Rich blue base and top heavily gilded. Dragon handles salmon-pink colour. (Height 2 feet.)] [Illustration: BASE OF ABOVE VASE. Showing mark "GRANITE CHINA. STAFFORDSHIRE POTTERIES. FENTON STONE WORKS. C J M & CO." (_In the collection of Dr. H. Bournes Walker._)] The vase is two feet in height. The ground is grass green. The panels have painted landscapes in Imari colours. The base and the top are a rich blue heavily gilded, and the dragon handles are a salmon pink. Obviously this, although imitative, is a very ambitious piece. The mark of this vase stamped on the bottom (illustrated p. 451) is interesting. An outline design represents the pottery works. It is marked "Fenton Stone Works C. J. M. & Co." and in the outer rim is the inscription "Granite china," "Staffordshire Potteries." The initials C. J. M. stand for Charles James Mason, who together with G. Miles Mason applied for the ironstone china patent in 1813. Among other ware, similar to the early cream ware is a body termed "Mason's Cambrian-Argil." This evidently is in direct rivalry to the Swansea cream ware marked "Cambrian." Earlier jugs by him are rarely marked, and are not of the octagonal form, though the sides are prismatic, and usually seven in number. They are of a buff-coloured, soft, and chalky body, but the decorations are obviously his in similar style to his series of stoneware jugs. The handle of this earlier form is not of the snake or lizard form, but follows in design the metal handle of teapots of the period. That the Masons could and did produce earthenware of a very high, artistic quality is shown by the illustration (p. 447) of three pieces marked with the impressed mark running in one line across the back of the examples "MASON'S PATENT IRONSTONE CHINA." The gilding in the floral design in the borders is well done, and the landscapes in the centre are finely painted. They are in the brush work patiently stippled with as much minuteness as the work of Birket Foster. A dessert service of which this forms portion, is a very desirable acquisition, and represents stone china at its high-water mark. The various marks used by the Masons are given at the end of this chapter. In 1851 the pottery was purchased by Francis Morley, and it was incorporated with Ridgway, Morley, Wear & Co., and at a later date passed into the hands of Messrs. C. E. Ashworth and Taylor Ashworth, who to this day revert to the original patterns of the Mason jugs which have become so deservedly popular. Most of these old patterns are being produced, although of course they have not the charm for the collector whose interest ends with the original period under Mason. "Stone china" became a term used by many other potters who produced strong and durable earthenware, heavy in weight, and extremely suitable for domestic use. Mintons had a series of patterns in this ware decorated in Oriental style in colour. The most popular of these is one termed "Amherst, Japan," following the old anglicised versions of Japanese Imari designs and colours. This was at the date when Lord Amherst was in the public eyes. It will be remembered that he headed an embassy to China, and was requested to perform the _ko-tou_, or act of prostration, nine times repeated with the head touching the ground. Sir George Staunton and other members of the Canton Mission protested, and the mission was admitted to the Emperor's presence on their own terms, which consisted of kneeling upon a single knee. Lord Amherst was later appointed Governor-General of India. There are a great many potters whose names are found on earthenware of mid-Victorian days. They cannot be said to exhibit much originality in design, and their value as collectors' specimens is infinitesimal. [Illustration: PLATES, TRANSFER-PRINTED IN BLUE UNDER-GLAZE. Impressed mark "IMPROVED FELSPAR. C. MEIGH & SON." (Date 1850.) (_In the collection of the Author._)] [Illustration: SET OF STAFFORDSHIRE EARTHENWARE VASES. Floral decoration in gold on rich blue ground. Flowers in enamel colours on white panels in imitation of Derby porcelain style. (_In the collection of Miss Feilden._)] We illustrate two finely-potted stoneware plates, by Messrs. C. Meigh and Sons, made about 1850. They are printed in blue with designs of English primroses twined with peacock feathers! Here is East and West in strange combination. Fortunately the plates are not in colours or the result might have been disastrous; as it is they are very pleasing for the blue is of a very excellent tone. There is nothing hasty about the potting; the finish and the minor details suggest work of the old days long gone. It is evident that in the treatment of the design the inspiration came from the Japanese potter whose influence was beginning to make itself felt in pictorial art even so far back as the middle of the nineteenth century. Whistler's peacocks and the dawn of the later æstheticism were at hand. =Nineteenth Century Commemorative Ware.=--It has been previously shown how fond the potters became of recording events and creating figures of popular heroes in earthenware. The story is continued in the nineteenth century, which covers, one is apt to forget, the last twenty years of the reign of George III., includes the ten years of George the Fourth's reign, and the seven of William IV., commencing the Victorian Era in 1837 on the accession of the late Queen. So that the term early nineteenth century is not the same as early Victorian; as a matter of fact a good deal of very good porcelain and earthenware comes well within the nineteenth century, but very few examples that appeal to the artistic collector belong to the early-Victorian period. The nineteenth century as a whole was crowded with incident, and in the class of earthenware with which we are now dealing the record is a full one. From Nelson to Garibaldi; from Maria Martin the victim of the Red Barn murder to Moody and Sankey, the American revivalists; from Napoleon crossing the Alps to George III., as the King of Brobdingnag, looking at Napoleon through a telescope; from Burns's _Souter Johnny_ to Dickens's _Sam Weller_; from punch bowls, inscribed "Rum and Water" and "Health to all," to figures of Father Mathew, the temperance reformer--all sub-heads are touched, and although the artistic may be absent the human touch is ever present. There are jugs and mugs with a portrait of "Orator Hunt," with inscriptions "Universal Suffrage," "No Corn Laws," dating from 1818. A lustre mug has a print with a dragoon represented as riding over a woman, and has the legend, "Murdered on the plains of Peterloo, near Manchester, 16th August, 1819." The woman carries a flag inscribed, "Liberty or Death." A puzzle jug of Staffordshire earthenware is inscribed, "Hatfield shot at George III., 1800. God save the King." The trial of Queen Caroline produced a crowd of figures and mugs and plates with portraits and verses. The Crimean War had its ceramic record. There is a Newcastle earthenware butter-dish printed and coloured, with an English soldier greeting a French soldier, and motto, "May they ever be united." [Illustration: NELSON JUG. Portrait of Admiral Nelson, inscribed "England expects that every man will do his duty." On reverse, female figure and children, inscribed "Behold the Widow casting herself and Orphans on benevolent Britons." (_In the collection of Miss Feilden._)] [Illustration: NELSON JUG. With portrait of Admiral Lord Nelson. Aged 47. Inscribed "England expects every man to do his duty." On reverse, plan of Battle of Trafalgar.] The transfer-printed jugs and mugs with nautical subjects we have already alluded to in a previous chapter. The unfamiliar uniform of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century "Jack Tar" is a study in costume. This silent ceramic world of old three deckers and ships of the line and barques and brigantines is all that is left of a fleet of ships which have long since sailed their last voyage--an armada of non-existent craft as ghostly as the phantom ship of Vanderdecken. Nelson jugs are of many types; we illustrate two varieties (p. 459). Some of them are as early as 1797, and others as late as 1820. The top jug illustrated is of Staffordshire cream ware, and is in date after Trafalgar (1805), made to commemorate this victory. The portrait of Nelson has an inscription over it, "England Expects every Man to do his Duty." On the reverse is a plan of the Battle of Trafalgar with the disposition of the ships and a slight description which ends in the sentence "in which Action the Intrepid Nelson fell covered with Glory and Renown." The lower jug is of the same period and the portrait of Nelson is more authentic. It is transfer-printed, the uniform being slightly touched in colour. On the reverse there is a female figure and two children, and the sad human touch in the inscription, "Behold the Widow casting herself and Orphans on benevolent Britons." This is, indeed, the reverse of the medal. The glory of war is exalted unduly. But the awful reality does not always come home so pointedly as in this homely jug, which in its way records the "simple annals of the poor." We are reminded of the lines of that forgotten poet, Amelia Opie, and of the wood-engraving by Dalziel in Willmott's "Poets of the Nineteenth Century," published in the sixties. "The Orphan Boy's Tale," who tells how pleased he was-- "When the news of Nelson's victory came, Along the crowded streets to fly And see the lighted windows flame!" The shouts of the crowd rejoicing drowned the widow's tears. In simple, but none the less poetical, language the child continues: "She could not bear to see my joy; For with my father's life 'twas bought, And made me her poor orphan boy." It is undoubtedly such human touches as these on the domestic crude ware which stir the heart's blood quicker than all the gods and goddesses ever turned out in Staffordshire. The age of steam and steel and its inventions did not come unheralded. We illustrate a plate of one of the earliest steam carriages (p. 463). The plate is of Staffordshire origin and evidently was intended to be sold in Germany as a "present from London," as the inscription runs, "Dampf Wagen von London nach Bristol. Ein Geschenk für meinen Lieben Jungen" ("Steam Coach from London to Bristol. A Present for my dear boy"). In date this is about 1827 as the accompanying engraving, entitled the "New Steam Carriage," is from a periodical publication of that date. [Illustration: TRANSFER-PRINTED PLATE IN COLOURS. Inscription--"Dampf Wagen von London nach Bristol. Ein Geschenk für meinen Lieben Jungen." (Staffordshire, about 1830.) (_In collection of Author._)] [Illustration: "NEW STEAM COACH." From an old print dated 1827.] Equally interesting is the Staffordshire blue-printed _Jug_ marked at back "Liverpool and Manchester Railway" showing the famous _Rocket_ steam-engine invented by George Stephenson. The date of this is 1830. A fine _Cyder Mug_ printed in black with touches of colour shows an early passenger train. The luggage, as will be seen, is on the roofs of the carriages. The aristocratic company at the rear are seated in their own carriage, the ladies of the party are noticeable by their old-fashioned poke bonnets. There is something very interesting in these old railway mugs and jugs. They are modern, that is in regard to technique and artistic beauty, but the subjects are of sufficient interest to make the ware important enough to find a treasured place of honour in the collector's cabinet. =Lambeth Stoneware.=--Mention should be made of the revival of artistic stoneware at Lambeth about 1850 by Henry Doulton, of the Lambeth pottery. An attempt was made to make vessels for ordinary use as ornamental in character as the old Flemish stoneware. Some of the early pieces are in brown stoneware with incised decoration filled with blue-glaze. Tankards and vases and jugs were made of very pleasing character. Under Sir Henry Doulton great advances were made, and mugs with hunting subjects and many grotesque brandy bottles of stoneware were made. Light brown stoneware flasks modelled to represent Lord Brougham, and impressed "The True Spirit of Reform," and "Brougham's Reform Cordial," are often of Lambeth origin. In date these are about 1830, other factories made similar ware, including the Derbyshire potteries. Of the Doulton and Watts period which commenced 1815, from 1815 to 1832 some fine Napoleonic stoneware was turned out. There is, in particular, a small stoneware, brown jar of Napoleon made about 1825, which is finely modelled and an excellent portrait. In the Reform days of the early thirties they produced, to supply a public demand, many spirit jars with more or less grotesque models of Earl Grey, Lord Brougham, William Cobbett, and Lord John Russell. In the museum at Messrs. Doulton's at Lambeth are some fine examples of the early period. We illustrate a strongly modelled jug with Bacchanalian subject in high relief (p. 471), showing the excellence of some of this early work at its best. =The Twentieth Century Collector.=--The story of the triumphs and sometimes of the decadence of English pottery cannot be ended without a passing reference to the wondrous ware being produced at the end of the nineteenth century and now. It should appeal to-day to the prescient collector. It will appeal to the collector fifty years hence. Under the name of the Lancastrian Pottery Messrs. Pilkington, at Clifton Junction, near Manchester, have during the past few years produced some of the most beautiful ware ever seen in this country. At the exhibition of this ware in London in 1904 they astonished all experts. The indescribable variety of exquisite colours, ranging from faint pink and sky blue to the richest purple and dark green and amber, showed at once that modern scientific methods and painstaking research had rediscovered the lost glazes of the old Chinese potters. The starry crystalline glazes so well known in the Copenhagen porcelain have been faithfully reproduced, recalling the patterns traced on the window-pane by frost--sometimes brilliantly coloured blue or green against a background of pale lavender blue, at other times having a sheen like bronze. Other crystalline glazes are the _Sunstone_ in which brilliant prismatic and golden crystals are disseminated through rich green yellow or olive brown glazes. The fiery crystalline glazes display brilliant red crystalline formation through purple and grey glaze in dazzling patches. [Illustration: STAFFORDSHIRE BLUE PRINTED JUG. Marked at back "Liverpool & Manchester Railway." Showing the famous _Rocket_ locomotive invented by George Stephenson. (Date 1830.) (_In the collection of Miss Feilden._)] [Illustration: CYDER MUG. Printed in black with touches of colour. (_In the collection of Mrs. M. M. Fairbairn._)] Opalescent clouded, or curdled, or veined, or serpentine glazes have countless variations of colours--copper-green, turquoise-blue, or deep lapis-lazuli broken with white curds, or opalescent veinings, or fine lines of variegated colour shot through the glaze from top to bottom--this alone suggests a dream of colour schemes, and the wise collector will realise without further ado that we are in a period of great ceramic triumphs in pottery of this nature. Texture glazes of chicken-skin, fruit-skin, and orange-skin are highly prized, and vellum or egg-shell glazes splashed and marked like Nature's own handiwork in the most beautiful birds' eggs. Or there are metallic effects of peculiar beauty and golden lacquer glazes resembling the old gold lac-work of Chinese and Japanese artists so cunningly imitated by Martin, the French cabinet-maker, in his Vernis-Martin, so beloved of collectors of furniture and fans. Of purple glazes of the transmutation class some of the richest effects have been obtained in colour and in splashed effects. Wine purple, mulberry, and other alluring tones have burst upon an astonished circle of connoisseurs. Of the _flambé_ specimens it is not too much to say that their like, for which the Chinese potters were so famous, have never been seen before in Europe. The Havilands of Limoges, Copenhagen, and Sèvres, and Berlin potters, as well as the artists in the Rookwood Pottery in America, have worked in the same field; but it is pleasant to think that English potters have produced greater variety, including Lancastrian lustre ware of wealth of glowing colour not surpassed by the Hispano-Moresque potters nor by the lustrous majolica of the Italian renaissance. To the scientific activity in wresting from the past the lost secrets of the old Chinese potters, a great tribute of praise should be accorded to Mr. William Burton and his brother, Mr. Joseph Burton. Other workers in the same field of glazes are Mr. Bernard Moore, of London, whose glorious _flambé_, rich red, and _sang-de-boeuf_ glazes are of unsurpassed beauty. Mr. William de Morgan has for many years been known for his lustrous tiles and work of fine originality and strength. Another pottery known as the Ruskin Pottery conducted by Mr. W. Howson Taylor at West Smethwick, Birmingham, is a bright spot in recent ceramic enterprise, and has won distinction for ware which is of great beauty. In bringing the story of English earthenware to a conclusion, it is the hope of the writer that the ground has been sufficiently covered to provide an outline history of a complex subject. It may be that much appears that might have been omitted, and that much is omitted that might have appeared within these covers. But it must be allowed that personal tastes play an important part in selection either by the collector or by the student. But in matters of fact and in the mass of details relative to the potters and their wares no pains have been spared to make this little handbook worthy of its subject. [Illustration: DOULTON STONEWARE JUG. (Date about 1845. Height 10 inches.) (_In the collection of Mr. W. G. Honey._)] MARKS FOUND ON LATE STAFFORDSHIRE EARTHENWARE. The first half of the nineteenth century in earthenware included a variety of types: (1) the last output of the classical school; (2) cream ware transfer-printing in under-glaze blue; (3) the school of colourists in imitation of English porcelain. In the following list a great many names appear of potters not well known nor worthy of more than passing allusion. But their trade marks often puzzle collectors. =Adams.= One of the oldest firms in Staffordshire. [Illustration: Adams & Co.] Early mark for cream ware, plain and enamelled, 1770-1790. [Illustration: ADAMS & CO.] Mark used for solid jasper ware, 1780-1790. [Illustration: ADAMS] Mark for printed ware, stoneware, and jasper, 1787-1810. [Illustration: ADAMS WARRANTED . STAFFORDSHIRE] Mark used for deep blue-printed ware, 1804-1840, so much collected by American connoisseurs. =Spode.= [Illustration: SPODE Stone-China or SPODE Stone-China] Josiah Spode the second, who introduced Derby-Japan patterns into earthenware. The name is found impressed, or printed, or painted in colours on back. [Illustration: Spode's NEW FAYENCE] [Illustration: SPODE] At the introduction of ironstone china other marks were introduced, and they were printed on the ware. [Illustration: Spode's Imperial] Similarly the "new fayence," another of Spode's improvements, was printed on ware of that character. [Illustration: COPELAND & GARRETT LATE SPODE THE TIBER COPELAND & GARRETT NEW JAPAN STONE] Other marks, both impressed and printed, in the ware are SPODE, SON & COPELAND, or SPODE & COPELAND. [Illustration: COPELAND AND GARRETT] COPELAND & GARRETT NEW FAYENCE] From 1833 to 1847 these, among other trade marks, were used. [Illustration: COPELAND Mark used 1847-56.] From 1847 to 1856 this mark was used. [Illustration: COPELAND LATE SPODE] The present day mark of Messrs. W. T. Copeland & Sons. =Davenport= (1793-1886). [Illustration: LONGPORT] [Illustration: DAVENPORT] [Illustration: Davenport] These marks are found on the earthenware, stamped or printed, in small letters in red, and other Davenport marks, such as that with the anchor and the stone china design used after 1805, are frequently puzzling to collectors, especially when partially obliterated. [Illustration: DAVENPORT STONE CHINA] =Minton.= Established at Stoke, 1790. In 1800 porcelain was made, and was continued throughout the century and at the present day. [Illustration: M & B FELSPAR PORCELAIN] From 1790-1798 blue and white earthenware in imitation of common Nankin largely made. In 1798 semi-porcelain was made. Felspar china, similar to Spode and stone china, in common with other Staffordshire potters, was largely produced. From 1836-1841 the firm was Minton & Boyle, and afterwards Minton and Hollins, and at the present day Minton is one of the best-known English firms. Not many of the early earthenware pieces were marked, and it is difficult to distinguish Minton's firm from some of the fine blue-printed ware of Adams and of Mason. [Illustration: B B New Stone] This +B B+ mark appears on all stone china of Minton from 1845-1861, signifying _Best Body_. The name MINTON was not stamped nor impressed on the ware till after 1861. About 1823 the _Amherst Japan_ pattern was made, and has a printed mark in a scroll. It is frankly imitative of Spode and the Derby-Japan style. [Illustration: R M & Co] A rhomboidal mark with the letter +R+, sometimes "+R^D+," signifying that the design is "Registered," and having +M & Co+, is not confined to Mintons, as other potters used the same mark with their names or initials underneath. It is quite late and on ware not likely to appeal to the collector. =Mason.= [Illustration: MASON'S CAMBRIAN-ARGIL] The marks of Mason are found, after 1813, either impressed in a straight line or having the mark under a crown and in scroll, on his celebrated ironstone china printed in blue. [Illustration: MASON'S PATENT IRONSTONE CHINA (_impressed_)] [Illustration: M. MASON] His semi-porcelain or Cambrian-argil bears the name on the ware, and was intended to compete with Swansea. [Illustration: MILES MASON] An illustration of the mark on stone china, marked "Fenton Stone Works, C J M & Co," is given on page 451. [Illustration: MASON'S PATENT IRONSTONE CHINA] It should be mentioned that the blue-printed mark with a crown and scroll does not necessarily mean that the ware (especially in the hexagonal set of jugs) is old. It is still used at the present day by Messrs. Ashworth, who are reproducing some of the old and favourite patterns. Collectors are advised to buy one of these jugs as a model to compare it with the older work. [Illustration: P. B & Co] The mark of Pindar, Bourne & Co., of Burslem, who made red terra cotta spill vases decorated in colours and gold with arabesque designs, about 1835. In 1880 the factory passed into the hands of Messrs. Doulton. [Illustration: ROGERS] Mark of Dale Hall Pottery, John Rogers & Son, 1815-1842. Notable for light blue printed "Willow" and "Broseley Dragon" series. [Illustration: _J E & S_ DALE HALL] J. Edwards & Son, Dale Hall, 1842-1882. [Illustration: W B. W & B W B & S CLEWS] =W. Brownfield & Son= (Cobridge) 1808-1819. [Illustration: W B] Bucknall & Stevenson and A. Stevenson alone during part of above period. _James Clews_, 1819-1829. His mark was a crown above his name. _Robinson, Wood & Brownfield_, 1836. [Illustration: WARRANTED REAL IRONSTONE CHINA W & B] _Wood & Brownfield_, 1836-1850. _W. Brownfield_, 1850-1870. _W. Brownfield & Sons_, 1871 to present day. China has been made since 1871. [Illustration: ITALIAN GARDEN W & B] We append some of the marks of this firm, including the Staffordshire knot, which has been used by other Staffordshire potters. [Illustration: I. RIDGWAY] [Illustration: JR VICTORIA] =Ridgway=, founded in 1794. J. & W. Ridgway and Ridgway & Sons, 1814-1854. Many of these marks have puzzled collectors, as only the initials are used in many cases. The firm subsequently became T. C. Brown-Westhead, Moore & Co., and has had a distinguished career in the ceramic world, gaining honours at the various international exhibitions. [Illustration: India Temple Stone China J.W.R.] (_See Table p. 349_). [Illustration: P & B] [Illustration: Best P & B] These marks are found impressed in ware of Messrs. Powell & Bishop, 1865-1878, of Hanley. They are often confused with Pindar, Bourne & Co., when only initials are used. [Illustration] Another form is a Caduceus, the emblem of Mercury, impressed in the ware and sometimes printed. (_Messrs. Powell & Bishop._) [Illustration: ORIENTAL IVORY] A seated figure is another trade mark which has given rise to a good deal of speculation among tyros in collecting. (_Messrs. Powell & Bishop._) [Illustration: G. HEATHCOTE & Co CAMBRIA] _Heathcote & Co._ is a mark found in early nineteenth century ware. The blue-printed earthenware was of a fine quality. [Illustration] =Late Nineteenth Century Earthenware.= The three marks of the Lancastrian Pottery, the Ruskin Pottery, West Smethwick, and of the earthenware of Mr. William De Morgan, are known to connoisseurs of what is great in latter-day English earthenware, and they are given here for the information of collectors who may be interested. [Illustration: RUSKIN POTTERY WEST SMETHWICK 1907.] [Illustration: D M] PRICES. LATE STAFFORDSHIRE. £ s. d. =Spode= (Earthenware). Spode felspar, ice pails and covers painted with flowers and richly gilded. Puttick & Simpson, March, 1907 12 1 6 =Davenport= (Earthenware). Toby Jug, marked "Davenport." Sotheby, November, 1904 3 12 6 =Minton= (Earthenware). Set of Chessmen, in form of mice, drab and ivory coloured, decorated with black and gold. Kings and Queens crowned, Knights with swords, Bishops with croziers, and Castles with warder on top and a mouse imprisoned below. Sotheby, July, 1908 2 0 0 =Mason.= Vases, pair, large, decorated in gold with kylin tops. Debenham, January, 1906 8 5 0 Ironstone china dinner service (197 pieces) floral decoration in colours. Christie, March, 1906 53 11 0 Vases, pair (12 in. high), mazarin blue ground, decorated with Oriental birds, &c. Bradby, Perth, September, 1906 7 7 0 Ironstone china bowl, decorated in flowers blue, red and gold. Puttick & Simpson, January, 1907 5 0 0 EARLY VICTORIAN. =Staffordshire= (Earthenware). Red Barn (scene of well-known murder of Maria Martin), very scarce. Sotheby, February, 1907 2 10 0 Jug, with portrait of Lord Nelson, marked HOLLINS. Sotheby, November, 1908 1 19 0 Jug with figures of Volunteers, and a smaller jug with portrait of Wellington. Sotheby, May, 1907 3 0 0 Three Jugs, brown ground, with Madonna and Child in relief, marked "Meigh," and three jugs with Tam o' Shanter subjects marked "Ridgway." Sotheby, May, 1907 1 3 0 INDEX A Abbey, Richard (Liverpool), 403 Absalon, decorator at Yarmouth, 378 "Adam and Eve" delft dishes, 67, 109 Adams (marks), 263 Adams (prices), 282, 283 Adams & Bromley, 260 Adams & Co., marks, 260, 473 Adams, Benjamin, mark, 263, 348 Adams, William (of Cobridge), 260, 329 Adams, William (of Greenfield), 260 Adams, William (of Greengates), =259-263=, 279, 330, 340, 348 (mark) Adams, William, & Sons (of Burslem), 348 Adams, William, & Sons (of Stoke) (mark), 348 Æsop, _Fables_ of, reproduced on earthenware, 321, 322 Agate ware, definition of, 27; summary of, 70, 169; _solid_ and _surface_ (Wedgwood), 228 Alexander, Czar of Russia, bust of, 374 Allen, of Lowestoft, Leeds ware decorated by, 301 America and England (in earthenware), 337, 338; independence of, jug relating to, 350; views in (Clews), 349 "Amherst, Japan" (Minton), 454 Anchor as a mark, Fell, Newcastle, 350; Middlesbro', 350 Animals, figures of, 174 Antony and Cleopatra, Swansea figures, 395 Ashworth, C. E., Messrs., 454 Astbury, John, =147-151=; the successor of Elers, 164; early salt glaze, 204 Astbury, Thomas, 147; flint, 232; figures, 361; as a mark, 298 Astbury ware, definition of, 27; summary of, 68; prices, 155, 191, 192 Aynsley, John, 348; lustre ware, 430; mark, 279 B Bacon, John, 248 Baddeley, 222, 232 Baddeley, J. and E., 349 Baddeley (R. J.), basket-work, salt glazed, 212 Baddeley, R. and J., 349 Baddeley, W. (Eastwood), 280 Bailey and Batkin (lustre ware), 436 Balloon ascent depicted on delft, 113 Bamboo ware (Wedgwood), 230 Barberini Vase, 249 Barker (mark), Leeds ware, 289, 310 Barnes, Zachariah, 67, 125, 403 Basalt ware, definition of, 27; Wedgwood, 228 Basket-work, Leeds, 297; salt glaze, 212; Wilson, 266 "Bat" printing, 347 Battersea enamels, 318 Batty & Co., 280 B B. New stone (Minton mark), 476 Bear hugging Bonaparte (Nottingham), 152 Bear jugs, Nottingham, 69, 152 Beauclerk, Lady Diana, 248 Beehive as a mark (Ridgway), 479 Bellarmine jugs, 68, 134; prices, 152 Benson, Thomas, use of flint, 232 Bentley, his influence on Wedgwood, 244 Bentley, G., modeller (Swansea), 395 Bevington (Swansea), 399 Biblical subjects in delft, 67 Billing, Thomas (1722), 207 Birch, E. J., 280 Birch, black basalt ware, 274 Bird as a mark, 417 Birds, figures of, 174 Bingley, Thomas, & Co., 302, 305 Biscuit, definition of, 27, 51 Black basalt (E. Mayer), 269 Black printed ware, its mission, 333 Blue dash decoration (delft), 109 Blue enamelled salt-glazed ware (Littler), 207 Blue printed ware, =338-347= Body, definition of, 28 Bonaparte, bust of, 374; caricatures of in earthenware, 337; lustre ware, 435; Russian bear hugging, 152; stoneware, 465 Bone-ash, first use of, 444 Bordeaux earthenware, 215 Books, quaint titles of Puritan, 95 Booth, Enoch, 182; improved glazing, 232 Boscage school of figures (Walton), 378 Bott & Co., 280; lustre ware, 436 Boyle, John, 449 Brameld, Rockingham, 305, 311 Brampton pottery, 69, 412 Brislington lustre, 424 Bristol delft, summary of, 67, =113-118=; prices, 129 Bristol earthenware prices, 419 Bristol pottery, 404; mark, 418 British Museum, mediæval tiles at, 84 Britton & Sons (Leeds), 288, 310 Bromley (Adams & Bromley), 260 Bronze busts imitated, 229 Bronze lustre ware, 435 Brookes, engraver for earthenware, 347 Brougham, Lord, stoneware flask, 465 Browne, Sir Thomas, quoted, 163 Brown-Westhead, T. C., Moore & Co., 479 Burns's _Souter Johnny_ in earthenware, 458 Busts and figures, stoneware, 68 Butler, Samuel, _Hudibras_, quoted, 366 C C as a mark, 408, 418; Caughley, 349; Wilson, 266 "Cadogan" teapots, 305, 311 Caduceus as a mark, Powell & Bishop, 480 Cambria as a mark, Heathcote & Co., 480 Cambrian-Argil (Mason), 453 Cambrian pottery (Swansea), 395; marks, 415 Camel pattern teapots, 208 C. & H. (Cookson & Harding) mark, 280 "Canary" bottles, fraudulent, 110 Caricatures in earthenware, 337 Castle Acre Priory, tiles from, 84 Castleford Pottery (D. D. & Co.), 174, 270, 302, 311; prices, 313 Catalogues printed in several languages (Leeds), 288; Wedgwood, 224 Cats, figures of, 174; slip decorated, 358; agate, 359 Caughley earthenware, 407; prices, 419; marks, 417, 418 Caughley, transfer-printing at, 318 Cauliflower ware, 169; teapots, 208 Caylus, Count, 259 Chaffers (Liverpool), 403 Chalk introduced into cream ware, 269 Champion (Bristol), 235-237 Chapel, Stephen (Leeds), 288 Chatterly, William, 66 Chertsey Abbey, tiles from, 83 Chester, Grosvenor Museum, Toft dish at, 88 Chesterfield, 69 China, definition of, 28 China clay, definition of, 28 China stone, definition of, 28 Chinese pottery as a model for delft, 102; inspires English potters, 196; old glazes of, rediscovered, 466 Chippendale, his similarity to Wedgwood, 259 Christian, Philip (tortoiseshell ware), 70 Chronological table of chief events, eighteenth century, 158 Church, Professor, quoted (Lambeth delft), 113; Dwight ware, 138 C J M as a mark (Mason), 453 Classicism, eighteenth century, 243; foreign to Staffordshire, 160; the passing of, 276 Classic ware, summary of, 73, 74; Greek designs (Turner), 263; figures, Staffordshire, 370 Claude landscapes on earthenware, 344 Clays used for pottery, 28; various, how used, 47 Clementson, 79 Clementson, J., 280 Clews, 280 Clews, James, 349 Close & Co., 280; mark, 348 Close, Mort & Co. (Liverpool), 403 Cobalt blue used in salt-glazed ware, 208 Cobbett, William (stoneware flask), 465 Cockspur-mark, definition of, 31, 298 Collecting, the field of, 52; reasons for, 35 Cologne ware, 134 Colour, its adoption, 273; _versus_ Form in earthenware, 178 Coloured salt-glazed ware, 211 Cookson & Harding, 280 Cookworthy (Plymouth), 235 Copeland, 443, 444 Copland & Garrett, 444; marks, 474, 475 Continental potters, indebted to Staffordshire, 177; imitations of Wedgwood, 247 Copenhagen porcelain, 293, 466 Copper lustre ware, 435; Wilson, 282; prices, 439 Copyists--earthenware imitating china, 43; of Wedgwood, 257, 265 Cornish clay mines, 235; kaolin, its use in cream ware, 237 Cottage ornaments, figures for, 378 "Crabstock" handles, 212; jug and handle, 185 Cream ware, =230-240=; definition of, 28; its experimental stage, 169; its later white body, 44; Leeds, =293-301=; Queen's ware, 232; revival of old Wedgwood designs, 231; summary of, =71-73= Crich ware, 204 Cricket match depicted in earthenware, 338 Crouch ware, 204 Crown in circle as a mark (Stevenson), 348 Crown as a mark, 266 D Dale (mark), 381 Dalehall as a mark, 477 Daniel, Ralph (salt-glaze), 207 Daniel, Thomas, painter, 232 Davenport marks, 475; prices, 481 Davenport, John, 445 Davenport (of Longport), 269; mark, 280 Davenport, Thomas, 348 Davenport, Henry and William, 348 Davenport & Co., 446 Dawson, Samuel (lustre), 428 D. D. & Co., Castleford mark, 302, 311 Decadent period Staffordshire figures, 378 Delft ware (_Bristol delft_), 113-118; definition of, 28; general characteristics of, 67; how made, 101; its foreign origin, 102; its introduction into England, 105; (_Lambeth delft_), 106-113; (_Liverpool delft_), 118-125; prices, 129-130; summary of, =67-68=; (_Wincanton delft_), 125 De Morgan, William, pottery of, 481 Denny Abbey, tiles from, 84 Derby (earthenware), 408; (Pot Works) mark, 349; transfer-printing at, 318 Dickens, _Sam Weller_ in earthenware, 458 Dillwyn, L. W. (Swansea), 399 Dillwyn & Co. (marks), 415, 416 Dipping-house, the, 51 Dixon, Austin, & Co., Sunderland, 309 Dixon & Co., Sunderland, 306 D. J. Evans & Co., Swansea, 400; marks, 416 D. M., mark of William De Morgan, 481 Don Pottery marks, 289, 310, 311 Dorset, Earl of, arms on jug, 92 Doulton, Lambeth stoneware, 151, 465 Drug pots, 106 Dunderdale, David, 302 Dunderdale & Co. (D D & Co), 174 Dutch enamellers employed on salt-glaze, 211 Dwight, John, 68, 134, =138-142=; prices, 155 E Eagle as a mark (Leeds), 311 Early English ware, =83-98= Early pottery, summary of, 66 Early salt-glazed ware, 203 Early-Staffordshire ware, =159-192=; prices, =187-192= Early-Victorian earthenware (prices), 482 Earthenware, definition of, 29, 40; figures compared with china, 382; how made, 44; imitating porcelain, 273; its appearance, 43; method of studying, 55; the nine classes of, 55; _versus_ porcelain, 182 East India Company, 106 Eastwood mark, 280 Edwards, J., & Son, Dale Hall, 477 Egyptian ware, definition of, 27 E. I. B. mark, 280 Eighteenth century, chief events of, table, 158 Election plates (_Bristol delft_), 67, 114 Elers, David, 142, 146 Elers, John Philip, 144 Elers Brothers (_not_ the inventors of salt glaze), 204; prices 155; their effect upon Staffordshire, 164; Wedgwood's opinion of, 163 Elers ware, definition of, 29, =142-147=; summary of, 68 Elizabethan silver mounts on earthenware, 126; coats of arms on jugs, 134 Enamel colours, definition of, 29; use in salt glaze, 211; kiln (enamel), description of, 52 Engine turned ware, 148 English character in early Staffordshire ware, 160; costume subjects, 264; porcelain factories largely imitative, 196; scenery (on earthenware), 277; national spirit in earthenware, 186 Engravers employed to decorate earthenware, 325 Etruria Museum, catalogue of, 227 Etruscan ware, Dillwyn's (Swansea), 400; prices, 418 Evans, painter (Swansea), 399 Evans & Glasson (Swansea), 400 Exhibition, Great, of 1851, hideousness of, 358 F F as a mark (Newcastle), 350 Fable subjects in earthenware, 321, 322; Liverpool tiles, 125 Factory system, the, its origin, 249 Falstaff, earthenware figure of, 374 Fell (Newcastle), 306 Ferrybridge, 309 Fifield, William and John, painters (Bristol), 404 Figures (Astbury), 361; Astbury prices, 192; earthenware and china compared, 382; Leeds prices, 385; Salopian, 407; salt-glazed, 181; Staffordshire, best period, 362; Staffordshire, =357-389=; decadent period of, 378; prices, 385, 386; summary of, =74-77=; Wedgwood, 240; Whieldon, 361; prices, 192 Firing, period of duration, 51 Fitzwilliam family, crest of, as a mark, 311 Flaxman, John, 248; his designs in cream ware, 231; designs of, copied, 274 Fletcher & Co. (Shelton), 348 _Fleur-de-lis_ as a mark, 400 Flint introduced into body, Thomas Astbury, 207; use of, 232 Ford (South Hylton Pottery), 309 Forgeries (in general), 59 Forgeries--Slip ware, 60; sack bottles, dated, 60; salt-glaze coloured, 60; Toby jugs, 63; "Fair Hebe," 63; "Vicar and Moses," 63; Whieldon ware, 63; Leeds, 63. Form _versus_ Colour in earthenware, 178 Fowke, Sir Francis (Lowesby), 400 Frank, Richard (Brislington), 424 Freeth, Mr. Frank, quoted (Toft ware), 91 Frog, green, on Catherine II. service, 239 Frog mugs, 309 Fulham stoneware, =151=; summary of, 68, 70; prices, 155 Funeral cups (lustre), 428 Furniture decorated with Wedgwood ware, 247 G Gateshead Potteries, 306 Gilding used in salt-glazed ware, 208 Gillray's caricatures in earthenware, 337 Glazes, various, definition of, 29; rich, used by Whieldon, 169 Glazing, description of process, 51; improvement by Booth, 232 Glost oven, description of, 48, 51 Godwin, Francis, Bishop of Hereford, 117 Goethe, quoted, 259 Gold lustre ware, 427 Gonsales, Domingo, Voyage to Moon, 117 Granite ware, 170; Wedgwood, 228 Greatbach, William, 166, 248 Great Malvern, tiles from, 84 Green (mark), Leeds ware, 289; signature of, Liverpool tiles, 121 Greens, Bingley & Co., 302 Grenzhausen, stoneware of, 137 _Grès de Flandres_ ware, 137, 151 Grey, Lord (earthenware flask), 465 Greybeard jugs, 134 Griffin as a mark (Rockingham), 311 Grotesque design, in early Staffordshire ware, 160; in English pottery, 208 Growan stone, its use in cream ware, 237 H Hackwood, 280 Hackwood, William, 248 Hamilton, Sir William, 244, 259 Hancock, John (lustre), 430 Hancock, Robert, 329; his "Tea Party," Worcester, 318 Harding, 280 Harley, 280 Hartley, Greens & Co., 288 Haynes, 79 Haynes, George (Cambrian Pottery), 395 Haynes, Dillwyn & Co., marks, 415 Heath, 280; prices, 284 Heath family, Derby potters, 408 Heath & Bagnall, 280 Heath, Warburton & Co., 280 Heathcote, C., & Co., mark, 480 Herculaneum Pottery (Liverpool), 403; marks, 417; figures of, 77 Hewitt, painter (Wood figures), 373 Hicks & Meigh, 349 Hicks, Meigh, & Johnson, 349 Historical events, chronicled in earthenware, 333 Hollins, Samuel, 269, 275, 280 Hollins, T. & J., 281; mark, 275; prices, 482 Howe, Earl, portrait of, 334 Hudson River, American views (Clews), 349 Humble & Green, 288 Humour in pottery, 208 Hylton Potteries, 300 I I. Dale, mark on figures, 381 Identification of earthenware, 65; =Table=, =66-79= I. E. B. as a mark, Baddeley, 349 Imitation of porcelain in earthenware, 273; bronze busts (by Wedgwood), 229; Chelsea and Derby figure of Falstaff 377; Chinese pottery (at Leeds), 290; Crown Derby, 443; Japanese incised work (salt-glaze), 212; Oriental porcelain styles, 196, 215; Plymouth group by Staffordshire, 377; silversmiths' work (by Elers), 195; at Leeds, 294; by Wedgwood, 196; Wedgwood, 257, 265; Wedgwood's Queen's ware at Swansea, 396 Imitativeness of English potters, 196 Imitativeness, black basalt ware, 274 Incised decoration, salt glaze, 208 "Indian Temple," J. W. R. (Ridgway), 479 Ireson, Nathaniel, 125 Ironstone china, 450; definition of, 30; prices, 482 Isleworth pottery, 411; marks, 418; prices, 419 "Italian Garden" (W. and B.), mark, 478 J Jackfield pottery, 305; prices, 313 Jacobite toasts, 215 James II., Dwight bust of, 141 Japanese decoration adopted in Staffordshire, 273 Japanese incised work imitated, salt glaze, 212 Jasper ware, definition of, 30; Adams, 259-263; Turner, 263-265; Wedgwood, 240-249; _solid_ and _dip_, definition of, 247 J. E. & S. as a mark, 477 Jervaulx Abbey, tiles from, 84 Jinkcuson, name on salt-glazed jug, 212 Jonson, Ben, quoted, Bellarmine jugs, 134 J. R. as a mark, Ridgway, 479 J. W. R. as a mark, Ridgway, 479 K Keeling, A. and E., 281 Kilns, the various, description of, 48 L L., Leeds mark, 289, 310 Lakin, 281; prices, 284 Lakin & Poole, 281 (lustre ware), 433; mark, 381; prices, 284 Landré, Mrs., figure designer (Wedgwood), 240 Late Staffordshire ware, 443-483; marks, 473 Lambeth delft, =106-113=; summary of, 67; prices, 129 Lancastrian Pottery, 466 Landscape subjects after Claude, in earthenware, 276 Lead-glaze, definition of, 29; early experiments, 174; improvements in, 232 Leeds ware, =287-301=; basket-work, 297; best period of, 290; decorated at Lowestoft, 301; decorated at Yarmouth, 378; figures, 76; figures, prices, 385; a fine collection of, 56; fraudulent, 63; marks, 289, 310; prices, 312 Leeds Pottery Co., 288 Leeds Pottery (lustre), 436 Lewes Priory, tiles from, 84 Lion as a mark, 289, 311 Littler, William, lead glaze, 232; salt glaze, 207, 208 Liverpool, fine collection of, 56; (_cream ware_), =402-404=; figures, 77; prices, 419; (_delft_), =118-125=; prices, 130; tiles, subjects of, 125 Lockett, J. and J., 281 Lockett, J., & Sons (lustre ware), 436 London as a mark, 350 Longton Hall, blue used on salt-glazed ware, 207 Lovers' teapots, 208 Lowesby Pottery, 400; prices, 419 Lowestoft, Leeds ware decorated at, 301 L. P. (Leeds), mark, 288 L. P., monogram, as a mark, 481 Lustre ware, =423-439=; definition of, 30; first use of lustre, 430; marks, 430, 433, 435, 436, 439; prices, 439; summary of, =77=, =78=; copper lustre, 435; Wilson, 269, 282; silver lustre as a decoration to figures, 377; silver or platinum, =429-436=; silver, J. Aynsley, 279; various classes of, 424 M M. as a mark (Minton), 450 M. & Co. as a mark (Minton), 476 M. & B. as a mark (Minton & Boyle), 476 M. & N. as a mark (Mayer & Newbold), 281 Malling jug (Tudor earthenware), 130 Marbled ware, definition of, 30; summary of, 70 Marbling on early vases, 68 _Marks_ (see under special class of ware), their use and value, 30; used fraudulently, 64 Marseilles earthenware imitates Dresden models, 43 Martin, Maria, of Red Barn, in earthenware, 482 Mason (ironstone china), 450; marks, 477; prices, 482 Mason, Miles, 349 Masonic plates (J. Aynsley), 348 Mary, Queen, portrait of, on jug, 137 Mayer, E., lustre, 430; prices, 284 Mayer & Newbold, 281; lustre ware, 436 Mayer, E., & Son, 281 Mayer, E. J., 281 Mayer, Elijah, 151, 269, 274; glazed black ware, 305 Mayer & Elliott, 281 Mediæval tiles, 83; summary of, 66 Meigh, 79 Meigh, C., & Sons, 457; lustre ware, 436 Meir, F., 281 Meir, John, 66 Meissen, imitation of Wedgwood by, 247 Metal imitated: Wedgwood, silver lustre, 229 Metal designs copied at Leeds, 294 Metal dies used by Elers, 195 Metal stamps, used for ornament in earthenware, 142 Metal workers, influence of, upon pottery: Elers, 195; Wedgwood, 196 Metropolitan slip ware, 95 Meyer, Joseph (mark), 275 Middlesbrough Pottery (mark), 350 Milton, bust of (R. Wood), 369; prices, 386 Minton, 79; marks, 476; prices, 482; (Thomas), 330, 348, 449; (Herbert), 449 Modern, earthenware when considered, 30 Modern silver lustre teapots, 423 Modern spirit, the beginning of the, 249 Monglott, Swiss artist (Adams), 260 Moore & Co. (Sunderland), 306 Morley (Nottingham) (seventeenth century), 69 Morley, Charles (Nottingham), 151 Morley, John (of Nottingham), 146 Morr & Smith, 281 Mortlock as a mark, 305, 311 Moseley, 281 M. P. Co. as a mark (Middlesbro'), 350 Museums where earthenware is exhibited, 56 Musicians, earthenware figures of, 381 Myatt, 281 N Namur, stoneware of, 137 Napoleon, bust of, 374; caricatures of 152, 337; in lustre ware, 435; in stoneware, 465 Nash, Joseph, 66 National character in early Staffordshire ware, 160 National spirit in earthenware, 186 Nautical subjects in earthenware, 334 Neale & Co., figures, 370; marks, 266 Neale & Palmer marks, 266; prices, 283 Nelson jugs, 461 Newcastle lustre, 428; transfer-printing at, 330 Newcastle ware, =306-310=; prices, 313 New stone B B. (Minton), 476 Nineteenth-century commemorative ware, 457 Nineteenth-century developments, 78, 79 Niderviller earthenware imitates Dresden models, 43 Nottingham ware, early, 204; summary of, 69; prices, 155-156; stoneware, 151-152 O Omar Khayyam quoted, 48 Opaque china, 79, 446; Haynes (Swansea), 399 Opie, Amelia, quoted, 461 "Orator Hunt" on late earthenware, 458 Oriental decoration adopted in Staffordshire, 273; designs at Leeds, 298; styles imitated (Leeds), 290 "Oriental ivory" as a mark (Powell & Bishop), 480 Oven, description of, 31, 48, 51 Over-glaze, definition of, 29; printing, description of, 325 P P as a mark (Lancastrian Pottery), 481 Palmer, Henry, 265; marks, 266; prices, 283 P & B as a mark (Powell & Bishop), 480 P. & U. (Poole & Unwin), lustre ware, 436 Pardoe, Thomas, painter (Swansea), 399 Parson and Clerk group, 365 Paste, definition of, 31 P. B. & Co. as a mark (Pindar, Bourne & Co.), 477 Pearl ware (Wedgwood), 238 Peasant pottery of nineteenth century, 381 "Pelican in her Piety" (Toft dish), 95 Pennington (Liverpool), 403; marks, 417 Pharmacy jars, 106; (Lambeth), 113 Phillips, J. (Hylton Pottery), 306 Phillips (Longport), 281 Phoenix as a mark (Clementson), 280 Pilkington, Messrs., 466 Plagiarists of Wedgwood, 257, 265 Plaster of Paris moulds first introduced, 207 Political events chronicled in earthenware, 333 Poole & Unwin (lustre ware), 436 Porcelain colours imitated in earthenware, 273 Porcelain copied in earthenware, 43; made by earthenware potters (Caughley), 407; (Minton), 449; (Rockingham), 305; (Staffordshire), 444; (Swansea), 399 Portland Vase, 249 Porto Bello Bowl, the, 147 Portraits in earthenware: Bonaparte, 337, 435, 465; Brougham, 465; Cobbett, 465; Duke of York, 321; Grey, 465; James II., _bust_, 141; King of Prussia, 318; Nelson, 461; Prince Rupert, _bust_, 138; Rousseau, _bust_, 240; Washington, 338; Wesley, _bust_, 374; William III., 137; Young Pretender (salt-glaze), 215 Posset-pot inscribed "Wm. Simpson, 1685," 95 Potter's wheel, the, 48 Pountney & Allies (Bristol), 407 Pountney & Co. (Bristol), 407 Powell & Bishop (mark), 480 Powell & Sons, Messrs. James, 231 Pratt, 281 Prices, hints concerning, 59; dealers', 59 Prince of Wales's Feathers as a mark, 480 Prince Rupert, Dwight bust of, 138 Printed ware, =317-350= Printing on earthenware, at Leeds, 293; over-glaze, description of, 325; under-glaze, description of, 326 Prussia, King of, mugs and jugs (Worcester), 318 Puritan influence on earthenware, 95 Q Queen's ware (Wedgwood), 232 Queen's ware, its decoration, 238, 239 Quin as _Falstaff_, figure of, 374 R Railway mugs, 462 Railway, Liverpool and Manchester, inscription on jug, 462 Raren, stoneware of, 137 Rathbone, Mr. Frederic (Wedgwood), 24, 25, 227 R. B. & S., Leeds mark, 289, 310 Reasons for collecting, 35 Red Barn murder, in earthenware, 482 Redrich & Jones, patent of, 170 Red ware, Wedgwood, 230 Reform days, commemorative ware, 465 Reid, W. & Co., Liverpool, 403; marks, 417 Renaissance of Staffordshire, 165 Resist pattern, definition of, 31 "Resist" silver lustre, how made, 434 Rhodes, salt-glaze enameller, Leeds, 211 Ridgway, 79; prices, 483 Ridgway, J. & W., 349; marks, 479 Ridgway, Morley, Wear & Co., 454; mark, 349 Riley, 79, 281; semi-china, 449 Riley, J. & R., 349 Ring, Joseph, Bristol, 404 R. M. W. & Co. as a mark, 349 Robinson, salt-glaze enameller (Leeds), 211 Rockingham, 302; prices, 313 Rogers, 281 Rogers, John, & Son (mark), 477 Rous, Thomas, 138 Rousseau, bust of, 240 Royal portraits, on delft, 109; on stoneware, 137; on Toft ware, 91; bust of James II., 141; King of Prussia, 211, 318; bust of Prince Rupert, 138; Duke of York, 321 Ruskin Pottery, mark, 481 S S as a mark, 408, 418 "Sack" bottles, 106; fraudulent, 60, 110 Sadler & Green, 122 Sadler Liverpool tiles, signature of, 121 Saggers, definition of, 31; description of, 48 St. Alban's Abbey, tiles from, 84 St. Anthony's as a mark, 306 Salopian earthenware, 407; prices, 419 Salopian, earthenware figures, 77 Salt, 281 Salt, Ralph, figures of, 378; School of, figures, 76 Salt-glaze, definition of, 29; description of process, 199 Salt-glazed ware, =195-217=; classes of, 207; coloured, fraudulent, 60; defects of, 222; figures, 74, 181; prices, 216; rivalry with early Staffordshire, 178; summary of, 69 S. & G. (mark), Isleworth, 411, 418 Satire, earthenware the medium for political, 333 S. B. & S. (mark), Leeds ware, 289, 311 Scieux earthenware imitates Dresden models, 43 Scott Brothers (Sunderland), 306 "Scratched blue," salt glaze, 208 Semi-china, definition of, 31 Semi-porcelain, 446; definition of, 31 Sewell, 306 Sewells & Donkin, 306 Sèvres, imitation of Wedgwood by, 247 Shakespeare, quoted (potter's wheel), 48; willow pattern, 343 Shaw (Liverpool), 403 Shaw, Ralph, 148, 207 Shaw, Robert, 66 Shell forms used in earthenware, 238 Ships as decoration on delft (Liverpool), 67 Shore & Goulding, 411 Shore, Joseph, 411 Shorthose, 281 Shorthose & Co., 348 Shorthose & Heath, 282 Siegburg, stoneware of, 137 Silver designs, in earthenware, 195, 196, 229; copied at Leeds, 294; imitated (Hollins), 275 Silversmith, influence of, upon earthenware (Elers), 195; (Wedgwood), 196 Silver lustre as a decoration to figures, 377 Silver lustre ware, =429-436=; J. Aynsley, 279; marked pieces, 430, 433; prices, 439; summary of, 78 Simpson, Ralph, 95 Simpson, William, 95; petition of, 137 Slip, definition of, 31, 47 Slip ware, 87; prices, 97; summary of, 66 Sneyd, 282 Solid agate ware, 170; Wedgwood, 228; definition of, 27 "Solid" jasper, definition of, 247 Solon, Mr., quoted (mediæval tiles), 84 Spode, Josiah (the first), 269, 330, 339; Josiah (_the second_), 270, 348, 443; marks, 474; prices, 481 Sporting subjects in earthenware, 269, 270, 338 "Spur" marks, 298; definition of, 31 Squirrel pattern teapots, 212 Staffordshire delft, prices, 129; early ware, =161-192=; figures, =357-389=; figures, best period of, 362; figures, decadent period of, 378; potters ahead of the Continent, 177; potters confined to earthenware, 237; pottery, its renaissance, 165; the transfer-printers of, 329 Steam carriages, on earthenware, 462 Steel, 282 Steele, David, painter, 232 Stevenson, A., 348 Stevenson, W., 282 Stockton-on-Tees potteries, 306 Stone china, 79; marks, 474-477 Stoneware, =133-156=; definition of, 32, 40; Lambeth (nineteenth century), 465; prices, 152; summary of, =68-70= Stothard, Thomas, 248 Stuart, stump work pictures, similarity to Toft ware, 91 Stubbs, George, 248 Stubbs, Joseph (mark), 349 Sunderland School, figures of, 77 Sunderland ware, 306-310; lustre, 428; Moore & Co., 306; prices, 313; transfer-printing, 330 Surface agate ware, 169; definition of, 27; Wedgwood, 228 Swansea, =395-400=; figures, 77; marks, 415; prices, 418; transfer-printing at, 330 Syntax, Dr., tour of (on earthenware), 280 T =Tables=, chief events of eighteenth century, 158; dividing earthenware into classes, 55 Tabor, William, 66 Tassie, James, 248 Templeton, Lady, 248 Tennyson, quoted, 258 Thrower, the, 48 Thursfield, Maurice, 306 Tiles, Bristol delft painted, 67, 114; printed, 121; mediæval, 83; transfer-printed (Liverpool delft), 67 Titles of Puritan books, strange, 95 Toby, jugs, 366, 374; fraudulent, 63 Toft, John, name on teapot, 212 Toft, Thomas, Toft, Ralph, 66 Toft, ware, =88-95=; prices, 97; summary of, 66 Tomlinson & Co., 309 Tortoiseshell ware, 170, 177; summary of, 70; Castleford, 302; Castleford (D. D. & Co.), 174; Liverpool, 174 Transfer-printed ware, =317-350=; marks, =347-350=; prices, 350 Transfer-printers, the Staffordshire, 329 Transfer-printing, definition of, 32; description of, 322; in outline, 347; its adoption in Staffordshire, 321; at Battersea, 318; at Caughley, 318; at Derby 318; at Leeds, 293; at Liverpool, 318; at Newcastle, 330; in Staffordshire, 329; at Sunderland, 330; at Swansea, 330, 396; at Worcester, 318 Triangle as a mark (Powell & Bishop), 480 Tudor jugs, 126; prices, 130 Turner, John (Lane End), 235, =263-265=, 330; marks, 348; prices, 283 Turner, Thomas (of Caughley), 270, 329, 339; marks, 418 Turner, William and John, 348 Turnor, Ralph, 66 Twentieth century collector, the, 466 Twyford, early salt glaze, 204 U Under-glaze, definition of, 29 Under-glaze printing, description of, 326 V Van Hamme (Lambeth), 67; his patent (Delft), 106 Variegated ware, =169-174=; summary of, 70; "tesselated" style, 173; Wedgwood, 228 Vernon, Admiral, victory of Porto Bello, 334 Verse on earthenware, 334, 337 Vicar and Moses group, 362, 365; fraudulent, 63 Viellard & Cie (Bordeaux), 215 Voltaire, bust of, 240 Voyez, modeller, 265, 370 W W as a mark (lustre ware), 435; (Myatt), 281 Wainwright & Co. (Leeds), 288, 310 Walton, 282; (John), figures by, 378 Walton School, figures of, 76 Warburton, 222, 232, 282 Warburton, Peter (lustre ware), 430, 435 Warburton, Britton & Co. (Leeds), 288 Washington, portraits of, 338 W & B as a mark (W. Brownfield), 478 W B as a mark, 478 W B & S as a mark, 478 Wedgwood, Aaron (lead glaze), 232 Wedgwood, Josiah, as a potter, 227; his views of Elers, 163; influence of, 249; gold lustre, 427; under-glaze blue, 330; Josiah _the second_, 348 Wedgwood, Ralph, 348 Wedgwood, Dr. Thomas, salt glaze, 207 Wedgwood ware, =221-254=; figures, 370; influence, the wane of the, 276; marks, 251-253; printed at Liverpool, 240; prices, 253, 254; school, 257; figures of, 75; old cream ware designs, revival of, 231 Wedgwood & Co. (of Burslem), 348 "Wedgwood & Co.," spurious mark, 309 "Welsh" ware (Isleworth), 411 Wesley, John, busts of, 374 Wheel, the potter's, 48 Whieldon (Thomas), =159-193=; prices, 187 Whieldon School, figures of, 75 Whieldon ware, definition of, 32; prices, 187-192 Whitefriars Glass Works, 231 Whitfield, George, busts of, 374 Wilcox, Mrs. (Etruscan ware), 248 Wilkie's pictures on earthenware, 280 William III., portrait of, on jug, 137 Willow pattern at Caughley, 329; at Leeds, 298; at Swansea, 396; Chinese original of, 339; where first made in England, 329; story of the, 340 Wilson, 282; (D. Wilson & Sons) marks, 269 Wilson, Robert (marks of), 266 Wincanton Delft, 125; summary of, 68 Wood (Aaron), salt-glazed basket-work, 212; salt glaze, 207 Wood, E., 282; prices, 284 Wood, Enoch, 373; mug, 186; (Turner jugs), 264; use of bone ash, 444 Wood, Enoch, & Sons, 282, 349 Wood & Caldwell, 282, 373; lustre, 430, 433 Wood and Caldwell School, figures of, 75 Wood family, the, Staffordshire figures, 362-370 Wood, Ralph, 362; prices, 284; variegated ware, 173 Wood School, figures of, 75 Worcester, transfer-printing at, 318 Workmen, trained, transferred to new factories (Liverpool), 403; (Minton), 330; (Shelton), 404; (under-glaze blue printing), 329 Worthington, Liverpool, 403 Wright, John, 66 Wrotham (Kent) ware, 87; prices, 97; summary of, 66 W. S. & Co. (William Smith & Co.), 309 Y Yarmouth, Staffordshire figures decorated at, 378 Young, W. W., painter (Swansea), 399 UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON. Transcriber's Notes In the text version of this book, italic text is marked _italic_ and bold marked =bold=. The text also contains some single character pottery marks and these are represented as e.g. +C+ Blank facing pages to illustrations are included in this books page numbering system (although they are not marked). These page numbers are not shown in the html version of the text. Minor punctuation errors and inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation have been corrected. p 488. Derby (earthenware), 408; (Pot Works mark, 349; changed to: Derby (earthenware), 408; (Pot Works) mark, 349; p 496. ((under-glaze blue printing), 329 changed to: (under-glaze blue printing), 329 p 153. Raised medallion with crown and G.R. (Period of George I. changed to: Raised medallion with crown and G.R. (Period of George I.) p 243. Added a closing quote to _à la Grecque_." p 365. including bust of _John Wesley_ changed to: including a bust of _John Wesley_ p 395. Caughley or Salopian (1751-1775) Derby, changed to: Caughley or Salopian (1751-1775)--Derby, 
53954	----	Other Works by Walter Crane _Crown 8vo, 6s. net each_ THE BASES OF DESIGN WITH 200 ILLUSTRATIONS LINE AND FORM WITH 157 ILLUSTRATIONS THE DECORATIVE ILLUSTRATION OF BOOKS OLD AND NEW WITH 165 ILLUSTRATIONS _Medium 8vo. 10s. 6d. net_ IDEALS IN ART PAPERS THEORETICAL, PRACTICAL, CRITICAL WITH TITLE-PAGE, END-PAPERS, AND COVER DESIGNED BY THE AUTHOR, AND NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS LONDON: G. BELL AND SONS, LTD. WILLIAM MORRIS TO WHISTLER [Illustration: WILLIAM MORRIS TO WHISTLER PAPERS AND ADDRESSES ON ART AND CRAFT AND THE COMMONWEAL BY WALTER CRANE WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM DRAWINGS BY THE AUTHOR & OTHER SOURCES LONDON: G BELL & SONS LTD YORK HOUSE PORTUGAL S^T W.C. 1911 ] CHISWICK PRESS: CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO. TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON. PREFACE Of the collected papers and addresses which form this book, the opening one upon William Morris was composed of an address to the Art Workers' Guild, an article which appeared in "The Progressive Review," at the instance of Mr. J. A. Hobson, and a longer illustrated article written for "The Century Magazine," and now reprinted with the illustrations by permission of Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons, to whom my thanks are due. "The Socialist Ideal as a New Inspiration in Art" was written for "The International Review," when it appeared under the editorship of Dr. Rudolph Broda, as the English edition of "Documents du Progrès." "The English Revival in Decorative Art" appeared in the "Fortnightly Review," and I have to thank Mr. W. L. Courtney for allowing me to reprint it. It has some additions. "Notes on Early Italian Gesso Work," was written for Messrs. George Newnes's Magazine of the Fine Arts with the illustrations, and I am obliged to them for leave to use both again. "Notes on Colour Embroidery and its Treatment" was written at Mrs. Christie's request for "Embroidery," which she edited, and I have Messrs. Pearsall's authority to include it here. "The Apotheosis of 'The Butterfly'" was a review written for "The Evening News," and I thank the editor for letting me print it again. It appears now, however, with a different title, and considerable additions. "A Short Survey of the Art of the Century" appeared in a journal, the name of which has escaped me, but it has been largely rewritten and added to since. For the rest, "Modern Aspects of Life and the Sense of Beauty" was originally addressed as the opening of a debate at the Pioneer Club, in which my late friend Lewis F. Day was my opponent, and my chief supporter was Mr. J. Ramsay Macdonald, M.P. "Art and the Commonweal" was an address to the Students of Art at Armstrong College, Newcastle-on-Tyne, and the paper "On Some of the Arts allied to Architecture" was given before the Architectural Association. That "On the Study and Practice of Art" was delivered in Manchester before the Art School Committee and City authorities, and the "Notes on Animals in Art" to the Art Workers' Guild in London. WALTER CRANE. KENSINGTON, _September 1911_. CONTENTS PAGE WILLIAM MORRIS AND HIS WORK 3 THE ENGLISH REVIVAL IN DECORATIVE ART 47 THE SOCIALIST IDEAL AS A NEW INSPIRATION IN ART 83 ON THE STUDY AND PRACTICE OF ART 105 ON SOME OF THE ARTS AND CRAFTS ALLIED TO ARCHITECTURE 125 NOTES ON COLOUR EMBROIDERY AND ITS TREATMENT 149 NOTES ON EARLY ITALIAN GESSO WORK 163 NOTES ON THE TREATMENT OF ANIMALS IN ART 185 MODERN ASPECTS OF LIFE AND THE SENSE OF BEAUTY 207 A SHORT SURVEY OF THE ART OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, CHIEFLY IN ENGLAND, WITH SOME NOTES ON RECENT DEVELOPMENTS 223 ART AND THE COMMONWEAL 241 THE APOTHEOSIS OF "THE BUTTERFLY" 259 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE Portrait of William Morris. From a photograph by Emery Walker 2 Pen-Sketch of Morris Speaking from a Wagon in Hyde Park. By Walter Crane 15 Design for Wall-paper. "The Daisy" 18 Design for Wall-paper. "Rose Trellis" 19 Woollen Hanging. "The Peacock" 22 Design for Silk Hanging 23 Cotton Print. "Evenlode" 25 Kelmscott House. Meeting Room of the Hammersmith Socialist Society 27 Pages from Morris's MS. of Omar Khayyám 30, 31, 32, 33 Pen Design by Walter Crane 47, 83 Progressive blackboard practice in Bi-Manual Training from "New Methods in Education" by Liberty Tadd 109 Patterns of Roman Mosaic Pavement, from the Baths of Caracalla 129, 130, 131 Patterns in Plain Leading, from "The Glazier's Booke" 143 Russian Peasant Embroidery: Blouse in Cross Stitch 151 Cretan Embroidery 153 Embroidered Cover from Bokhara 155 Original Design for Embroidered Hanging, by Walter Crane 157 Examples of Early Italian Gesso Work (Victoria and Albert Museum) 167-181 Egyptian Treatment of Birds. Eighteenth dynasty, Hieroglyphics. Thebes 186 Assyrian Lion 187 Persian Lion 188 Egyptian Lion 188 Graeco-Buddhist Lions from Sarnath 189 Animal Forms from Early Greek Pottery 191 English Heraldic Lions. Thirteenth Century 193 Birds and Animals in Sicilian Textiles. Thirteenth Century. (From Fishbach) 195, 196, 197 Japanese Birds. From the "Hundred Birds" of Bari 199 Stone Carvings at Gwalior 200, 201, 202, 203 Lion by Alfred Stevens 204 Pen Designs by Walter Crane 207, 223, 241 Butterfly Device 259 Portrait of Whistler. After Charcoal Drawing by Himself 261 "The Thames in Ice" 267 Panels from the Peacock Room 269 ERRATA (TN: These corrections have been applied.) Page 50, line 4 from foot, _for_ "Burgess" _read_ "Burges." Page 92, line 2, _for_ "Le Thangue" _read_ "La Thangue." Page 134, line 14, _for_ "give" _read_ "gives." Page 190, line 7 from foot, _for_ "Fringe" _read_ "Frieze." Page 198, line 2 from foot, _for_ "Central Provinces" _read_ "Central India." WILLIAM MORRIS AND HIS WORK [Illustration: PORTRAIT OF WILLIAM MORRIS. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY EMERY WALKER.] WILLIAM MORRIS AND HIS WORK If it is agreed that art, after all, may be summed up as the expression of character, it follows that the more we realize an artist's personality the clearer understanding we shall get of his work. So remarkable a personality as that of William Morris must have left many distinct, and at the same time different, impressions upon the minds of those who knew him, or enjoyed his friendship in life. It is difficult to realize that fifteen years have passed away since he left us; but from the dark and blurred background of changing years his character and work define themselves, and his position and influence take their true place, while his memory, like some masterly portrait, remains clear and vivid in our minds--re-presented as it were in the severe but refined draughtsmanship of time. With so distinct and massive an individuality it was strange to hear him say, as I once did, that of the six different personalities he recognized within himself at different times he often wondered which was the real William Morris! Those who knew him, however, were aware of many different sides, and we know that the "idle dreamer of an empty day" was also the enthusiastic artist and craftsman, and could become the man of passionate action on occasion, or the shrewd man of business, or the keen politician also, as well as the quiet observer of nature and life. Even the somewhat Johnsonian absoluteness and emphasis of expression which characterized him generally, would occasionally give way to an open-to-conviction manner, when tackled by a sincere and straightforward questioner. But Morris was above and before all else a poet--a _practical_ poet, if one may use such a term--and this explains the whole of his work. Not that personally he at all answered to the popular conventional idea of a poet, rather the reverse, and he was anything but a sentimentalist. He hated both the introspective and the rhetorical school, and he never posed. He loved romance and was steeped in mediaeval lore, but it was a real living world to him, and the glimpses he gives us are those of an actual spectator. It is not archaeology, it is _life_, quite as vivid to him, perhaps more so than that of the present day. He loved nature, he loved beautiful detail, he loved pattern, he loved colour--"_red_ and _blue_" he used to say in his full-blooded way. _His patterns are decorative poems_ in terms of form and colour. _His poems and romances are decorative patterns_ in forms of speech and rhyme. His dream world and his ideal world were like one of his own tapestries--a green field starred with vivid flowers upon which moved the noble and beautiful figures of his romantic imagination, as distinct in type and colour as heraldic charges. Textile design interested him profoundly and occupied him greatly, and one may trace its influence, I think, throughout his work--even in his Kelmscott Press borders. One might almost say that he had a textile imagination, his poems and romances seem to be woven in the loom of his mind, and to enfold the reader like a magic web. But though he cast his conceptions in the forms and dress of a past age, he took his inspiration straight from nature and life. His poems are full of English landscapes, and through the woods of his romances one might come upon a reach of the silvery Thames at any moment. The river he loved winds through the whole of his delightful Socialistic Utopia in "News from Nowhere." As a craftsman and an artist working with assistants and in the course of his business he was brought face to face with the modern conditions of labour and manufacture, and was forced to think about the political economy of art. Accepting the economic teaching of John Ruskin, he went much further and gave his allegiance to the banner of Socialism, under which, however, he founded his own school and had his own following, and conducted his own newspaper. From the dream world of romance, and from the sequestered garden of design, he plunged into the thick of the fight for human freedom, in which, he held, was involved the very existence of art. Ever and anon he returned to his sanctuary--his workshop--to fashion some new thing of beauty, in verse or craftsmanship, in which we see the results of his labour in so many directions. He certainly seemed to have possessed a larger and fuller measure of vitality and energy than most men--perhaps such extra vitality is the distinction of genius--but the very strenuousness of his nature probably shortened the duration of his life. There were never any half-measures with him, but everything he took up, he went into seriously, nay, passionately, with the whole force of his being. His power of concentration (the secret of great workers) was enormous, and was spent from time to time in a multitude of ways, but whether in the eager search for decorative beauty, his care for the preservation of ancient buildings, in the delight of ancient saga, story, or romance, or in the battle for the welfare of mankind, like one of his own chieftains and heroes, he always made his presence felt, and as the practical pioneer and the master-craftsman in the revival of English design and handicraft his memory will always be held in honour. His death marked an epoch both in art and in social and economic thought. The press notices and appreciations that have appeared from time to time for the most part have dwelt upon his work as a poet and an artist and craftsman, and have but lightly passed over his connection with Socialism and advanced thought. But, even apart from prejudice, a hundred will note the beauty and splendour of the flower to one who will notice the leaf and the stem, or the roots and the soil from which the tree springs. Yet the greatness of a man must be measured by the number of spheres in which he is distinguished--the width of his range and appeal to his fellows. In the different branches of his work William Morris commanded the admiration, or, what is equally a tribute to his force, excited the opposition--of as many different sections of specialists. As a poet he appealed to poets by reason of many distinct qualities. He united pre-Raphaelite vividness (as in "The Haystack in the Floods"), with a dream-like, wistful sweetness and charm of flowing narrative, woven in a kind of rich mediaeval tapestry of verse, and steeped with the very essence of legendary romance as in "The Earthly Paradise"; or with the heroic spirit of earlier time, as in "Sigurd the Volsung," while all these qualities are combined in his later prose romances. His architectural and archaeological knowledge again was complete enough for the architect and the antiquary. His classical and historical lore won him the respect of scholars. His equipment as a designer and craftsman, based upon his architectural knowledge and training enabled him to exercise an extraordinary influence over all the arts of design, and gave him his place as leader of our latter-day English revival of handicraft--a position perhaps in which he is widest known. In all these capacities the strength and beauty of William Morris's work has been freely acknowledged by his brother craftsmen, as well as by a very large public. There was, however, still another direction in which his vigour and personal weight were thrown with all the ardour of an exceptionally ardent nature, wherein the importance and significance of his work is as yet but partially apprehended--I mean his work in the cause of Socialism, in which he might severally be regarded as an economist, a public lecturer, a propagandist, a controversialist. No doubt many even of the most emphatic admirers of William Morris's work as an artist, a poet, and a decorator have been unable to follow him in this direction, while others have deplored, or even denounced, his self-sacrificing enthusiasm. There seems to have been insuperable difficulty to some minds in realizing that the man who wrote "The Earthly Paradise" should have lent a hand to try to bring it about, when once the new hope had dawned upon him. There is no greater mistake than to think of William Morris as a sentimentalist, who, having built himself a dream-house of art and poetry, sighs over the turmoil of the world, and calls himself a Socialist because factory chimneys obtrude themselves upon his view. It seems to have escaped those who have inclined to such an opinion that a man, in Emerson's phrase, "can only obey his own polarity." His life must gravitate necessarily towards its centre. The accident that he should have reached economics and politics through poetry and art, so far from disqualifying a man to be heard, only establishes his claim to bring a cultivated mind and imaginative force to bear upon the hard facts of nature and science. The practice of his art, his position as an employer of labour, his intensely practical knowledge of certain handicrafts, all these things brought him face to face with the great Labour question; and the fact that he was an artist and a poet, a man of imagination and feeling as well as intellect, gave him exceptional advantages in solving it--at least theoretically. His practical nature and sincerity moved him to join hands with men who offered a practical programme, or at least who opened up possibilities of action towards bringing about a new social system. His own personal view of a society based upon an entire change of economic system is most attractively and picturesquely described in "News from Nowhere, some Chapters of a Utopian Romance." He called it _Utopian_, but, in his view, and granting the conditions, it was a perfectly practical Utopia. He even gave an account (through the mouth of a survivor of the old order) of the probable course of events which might lead up to such a change. The book was written as a sort of counterblast to Edward Bellamy's "Looking Backward," which on its appearance was very widely read on both sides of the water, and there seemed at the time some danger of the picture there given of a socialized state being accepted as the only possible one. It may be partly answerable for an impression in some quarters that a Socialist system must necessarily be mechanical. But the society described in "Looking Backward" is, after all, only a little more developed along the present lines of American social life--a sublimation of the universal supply of average citizen wants by mechanical means, with the mainspring of the machine altered from individual profit to collective interest. This book, most ingeniously thought out as it was, did its work, no doubt, and appealed with remarkable force to minds of a certain construction and bias, and it is only just to Bellamy to say that he claimed no finality for it. But "News from Nowhere" may be considered--apart from the underlying principle, common to both, of the collective welfare as the determining constructive factor of the social system--as its complete antithesis. According to Bellamy, it is apparently the _city_ life that is the only one likely to be worth anything, and it is to the organization of production and distribution of things contributing to the supposed necessities and comforts of inhabitants of cities that the reader's thoughts are directed. With Morris the country life is obviously the most important, the ideal life. Groups of houses, not too large to be neighbourly, each with a common guest-hall, with large proportions of gardens and woodland, take the place of crowded towns. Thus London, as we know it, disappears. What is this but building upon the ascertained scientific facts of our day, that the inhabitants of large cities tend to deteriorate in physique, and would die out were it not for the constant infusion of new blood from the country districts? Work is still a hard necessity in "Looking Backward," a thing to be got rid of as soon as possible, so citizens, after serving the community as clerks, waiters, or what not, until the age of forty-five, are exempt. With Morris, work gives the zest to life, and all labour has its own touch of art--even the dustman can indulge in it in the form of rich embroidery upon his coat. The bogey of labour is thus routed by its own pleasurable exercise, with ample leisure, and delight in external beauty in both art and nature. As regards the woman's question, it never, in his Utopia, appears to be asked. He evidently himself thought that with the disappearance of the commercial competitive struggle for existence and what he termed "artificial famine" caused by monopoly of the means of existence, the claim of women to compete with men in the scramble for a living would not exist. There would be no necessity for either men or women to sell themselves, since in a truly co-operative commonwealth each one would find some congenial sphere of work. In fact, as Morris once said, "settle the economic question and you settle all other questions. It is the Aaron's rod which swallows up the rest." I gather that while he thought both men and women should be economically free, and therefore socially and politically free, and free to choose their occupation, he by no means wished to ignore or obliterate sex distinctions, and all those subtle and fine feelings which arise from it, which really form the warp and weft of the courtesies and relationships of life. Now, whatever criticisms might be offered, or whatever objections might be raised, such a conception of a possible social order, such a view of life upon a new economic basis as is painted in this delightful book, is surely, before all things, remarkably wholesome, human, and sane, and pleasurable. If wholesome, human, sane, and pleasurable lives are not possible to the greater part of humanity under existing institutions, so much the worse for those institutions. Humanity has generally proved itself better than its institutions, and man is chiefly distinguished above other animals by his power to modify his conditions. Life, at least, means growth and change, and human evolution shows us a gradual progression--a gradual triumph of higher organization and intelligence over lower, checked by the inexorable action of natural laws, which demand reparation for breaches of moral and social law, and continually probe the foundations of society. Man has become what he is through his capacity for co-operative social action. The particular forms of social organization are the crystallization of this capacity. They are but shells to be cast away when they retard growth or progress, and it is then that the living organism, collective or individual, seeks out or slowly forms a new home. As to the construction and colour of such a new house for reorganized society and regenerated life, William Morris has left us in no doubt as to his own ideas and ideals. It may seem strange that a man who might be said to have been steeped in mediaeval lore,[1] and whose delight seemed to be in a beautifully imagined world of romance peopled with heroic figures, should yet be able to turn from that dream world with a clear and penetrating gaze upon the movements of his own time, and to have thrown himself with all the strength of his nature into the seething social and industrial battle of modern England. That the "idle singer of an empty day" should voice the claims and hopes of Labour, stand up for the rights of free speech in Trafalgar Square, and speak from a wagon in Hyde Park, may have surprised those who only knew him upon one side, but to those who fully apprehended the reality, ardour, and sincerity of his nature, such action was but its logical outcome and complement, and assuredly it redounds to the honour of the artist, the scholar, and the poet whose loss we still feel, that he was also a man. Few men seemed to drink so full a measure of life as William Morris, and, indeed, he frankly admitted in his last days that he _had_ enjoyed his life. I have heard him say that he only knew what it was to be alive. He could not conceive of death, and the thought of it did not trouble him. [Illustration: William Morris speaking from a wagon in Hyde Park, May 1 1894] I first met William Morris in 1870, at a dinner at the house of the late Earl of Carlisle, a man of keen artistic sympathies and considerable artistic ability, notably in water-colour landscapes. He was an enthusiast for the work of Morris and Burne-Jones, and had just built his house at Palace Green from the designs of Mr. Philip Webb, and Morris and Company had decorated it. Morris, I remember, had just returned from a visit to Iceland, and could hardly talk of anything else. It seemed to have laid so strong a hold upon his imagination; and no doubt its literary fruits were the translations of the Icelandic sagas he produced with Professor Magnússon, and also the heroic poem of "Sigurd the Volsung." He never, indeed, seemed to lose the impressions of that Icelandic visit, and was ever ready to talk of his experiences there--the primitive life of the people, the long pony rides, the strange, stony deserts, the remote mountains, the geysers and the suggestions of volcanic force everywhere, and the romance-haunted coasts. I well remember, too, the impression produced by the first volume of "The Earthly Paradise," which had appeared, I think, shortly before the time of which I speak: the rich and fluent verse, with its simple, direct, Old World diction; the distinct vision, the romantic charm, the sense of external beauty everywhere, with a touch of wistfulness. The voice was the voice of a poet, but the eye was the eye of an artist and a craftsman. It was not so long before that the fame began to spread of the little brotherhood of artists who gathered together at the Red House, Bexley Heath, built by Mr. Philip Webb, it was said, in an orchard without cutting down a single tree. Dante Gabriel Rossetti was the centre of the group, the leading spirit, and he had absorbed the spirit of the pre-Raphaelite movement and centralized it both in painting and verse. But others co-operated at first, such as his master, Ford Madox Brown, and Mr. Arthur Hughes, until the committee of artists narrowed down, and became a firm, establishing workshops in one of the old-fashioned houses on the east side of Queen Square, Bloomsbury, a retired place, closed by a garden to through traffic at the northern end. Here Messrs. Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Co. (which included a very notable man, Mr. Philip Webb, the architect) began their practical protest against prevailing modes and methods of domestic decoration and furniture, which had fallen since the great exhibition of 1851 chiefly under the influence of the Second Empire taste in upholstery, which was the antithesis of the new English movement. This latter represented in the main a revival of the mediaeval spirit (not the letter) in design; a return to simplicity, to sincerity; to good materials and sound workmanship; to rich and suggestive surface decoration, and simple constructive forms. [Illustration: DESIGN FOR WALL-PAPER. "THE DAISY."] The simple, black-framed, old English Buckinghamshire elbow-chair, with its rush-bottomed seat, was substituted for the wavy-backed and curly-legged stuffed chair of the period, with its French polish and concealed, and often very unreliable, construction. Bordered Eastern rugs, and fringed Axminster carpets, on plain or stained boards, or India matting, took the place of the stuffy planned carpet; rich, or simple, flat patterns acknowledged the wall, and expressed the proportions of the room, instead of trying to hide both under bunches of sketchy roses and vertical stripes; while, instead of the big plate-glass mirror, with ormolu frame, which had long reigned over the cold white marble mantel-piece, small bevelled glasses were inserted in the panelling of the high wood mantel-shelf, or hung over it in convex circular form. Slender black wood or light brass curtain rods, and curtains to match the coverings, or carry out the colour of the room, displaced the heavy mahogany and ormolu battering-rams, with their fringed and festooned upholstery, which had hitherto overshadowed the window of the so-called comfortable classes. Plain white or green paint for interior wood-work drove graining and marbling to the public-house; blue and white Nankin, Delft, or Grès de Flandres routed Dresden and Sèvres from the cabinet; plain oaken boards and trestles were preferred before the heavy mahogany telescopic British dining-table of the mid-nineteenth century; and the deep, high-backed, canopied settle with loose cushions ousted the castored and padded couch from the fireside. [Illustration: DESIGN FOR WALL-PAPER. "ROSE TRELLIS."] Such were the principal ways, as to outward form, in which the new artistic movement made itself felt in domestic decoration. Beginning with the houses of a comparatively limited circle, mostly artists, the taste rapidly spread, and in a few years Morrisian patterns and furniture became the vogue. Cheap imitation on all sides set in, and commercial and fantastic persons, perceiving the set of the current, floated themselves upon it, tricked themselves out like jackdaws with peacocks' feathers, and called it "the aesthetic movement." The usual excesses were indulged in by excitable persons, and the inner meaning of the movement was temporarily lost sight of under a cloud of travesty and ridicule, until, like a shuttlecock, the idea had been sufficiently played with and tossed about by society and the big public, it was thrown aside, like a child's toy, for some new catch-word. These things were, however, but the ripples or falling leaves upon the surface of the stream, and had but little to do with its sources or its depth, though they might serve as indications of the strength of the current. The art of Morris and those associated with him was really but the outward and visible sign of a great movement of protest and reaction against the commercial and conventional conceptions and standards of life and art which had obtained so strong a hold in the industrial nineteenth century. Essentially Gothic and romantic and free in spirit as opposed to the authoritative and classical, its leader was emphatically and even passionately Gothic in his conception of art and ideals of life. The inspiration of his poetry was no less mediaeval than the spirit of his designs, and it was united with a strong love of nature and an ardent love of beauty. [Illustration: WOOLLEN HANGING. "THE PEACOCK."] One knows but little of William Morris's progenitors. His name suggests Welsh origin, though his birthplace was Walthamstow. Born 24th March 1834, one of a well-to-do family, it was a fortunate circumstance that he was never cramped by poverty in the development of his aims. Escaping the ecclesiastical influence of Oxford and a Church career, his prophets being rather John Ruskin and Thomas Carlyle, he approached the study and practice of art from the architectural side under one of our principal English Gothic revivalists, George Edmund Street, although he at one time entertained the idea of becoming a painter, and the very interesting picture of "Guinevere" which was shown at one of the Arts and Crafts Exhibitions makes one regret he did not do more in this way. Few men had a better understanding of the nature of Gothic architecture, and a wider knowledge of the historic buildings of his own country, than William Morris, and there can be no doubt that this grasp of the true root and stem of the art was of enormous advantage when he came to turn his attention to the various subsidiary arts and handicrafts comprehended under decorative design. The thoroughness of his methods of work and workmanlike practicality were no less remarkable than his amazing energy and capacity for work. [Illustration: DESIGN FOR SILK HANGING.] In one of his earlier papers he said that it appeared to be the object with most people to get rid of, or out of, the necessity of work, but for his part he only wanted to find time for more work, or (as it might be put) to live in order to work, rather than to work in order to live. While as a decorative designer he was, of course, interested in _all_ methods, materials, and artistic expression, he concentrated himself generally upon one particular kind at a time, as in the course of his study and practice he mastered the difficulties and technical conditions of each. At one time it was dyeing, upon which he held strong views as to the superiority, permanency, and beauty of vegetable dyes over the mineral and aniline dyes, so much used in ordinary commerce, and his practice in this craft, and the charm of his tints, did much to check the taste for the vivid but fugitive colours of coal-tar. His way was to tackle the thing with his own hands, and so he worked at the vat, like the practical man that he was in these matters. An old friend tells the story of his calling at the works one day and, on inquiring for the master, hearing a strong, cheery voice call out from some inner den, "I'm dyeing, I'm dyeing, I'm dyeing!" and the well-known robust figure of the craftsman presently appeared in his blue shirt-sleeves, his hands stained blue from the vat where he had been at work. [Illustration: COTTON PRINT. "EVENLODE."] At another time it was weaving that absorbed him, and the study of dyeing naturally led him to textiles, and, indeed, was probably undertaken with the view of reviving their manufacture in new forms, and from rugs and carpets he conceived the idea of reviving Arras tapestry. I remember the man who claimed to have taught Morris to work on the high-warp loom. His name was Wentworth Buller. He was an enthusiast for Persian art, and he had travelled in that country and found out the secret of the weaving of the fine Persian carpets, discovering, I believe, that they were made of goats' hair. He made some attempt to revive this method in England, but from one cause or another was not successful. William Morris, when he had learned the craft of tapestry weaving himself, set about teaching others, and trained two youths, one of whom (Mr. Dearle) is now chief at the Merton Abbey Works, who became exceedingly skilful at the work, executing the large and elaborate design of Sir Edward Burne-Jones (_The Adoration of the Magi_), which was first worked for the chapel of his own and Morris's college (Exeter College) at Oxford. In this tapestry, as was his wont, Morris enriched the design with a foreground of flowers, through which the Magi approach with their gifts the group of the Virgin and Child, with St. Joseph. In fact, the designs of William Morris are so associated with and so often form part of the work of others or only appear in some conditioned material form, that little or no idea of his individual work, or of his wide influence, could be gathered from any existing autograph work of his. That he was a facile designer of floral ornament his numerous beautiful wall-papers and textile hangings prove, but he always considered that the finished and final form of a particular design, complete in the material for which it was intended, was the only one to be looked at, and always objected to showing preliminary sketches and working drawings. He was a keen judge and examiner of work, and fastidious, and as he did not mind taking trouble himself he expected it from those who worked for him. His artistic influence was really due to the way he supervised work under his control, carried out by many different craftsmen under his eye, and not so much by his own actual handiwork. In any estimate of William Morris's power and influence as an artist, this should always be borne in mind. He always described himself as an artist working with assistants, which is distinct from the manufacturer who simply directs a business from the business point of view. Nothing went out of the works at Queen Square, or, later, at Merton Abbey, without his sanction from the artistic point of view. [Illustration: KELMSCOTT HOUSE. MEETING ROOM OF THE HAMMERSMITH SOCIALIST SOCIETY.] The wave of taste which he had done so much to create certainly brought prosperity to the firm, and larger premises had to be taken; so Morris and Company emerged from the seclusion of Queen Square and opened a large shop in Oxford Street, and set up extensive works at Merton Abbey--a most charming and picturesque group of workshops, surrounded by trees and kitchen gardens, on the banks of the river Wandle in Surrey, not far from Wimbledon. The tapestry and carpet looms which were first set up at Kelmscott House, on the Upper Mall at Hammersmith,[2] were moved to Merton, where also the dyeing and painted glass-work were carried on. This latter art had long been an important part of the work of the firm. In early days designs were supplied by Ford Madox Brown and D. G. Rossetti, but later they were entirely from the hands of Morris's closest friend, Edward Burne-Jones; that is to say, the figure-work. Floral and subsidiary design were frequently added by William Morris, as was also the leading of the cartoons. The results of their co-operation in this way have been the many fine windows scattered over the land, chiefly at Oxford and Cambridge, where the Christ Church window and those at Jesus College may be named, while the churches of Birmingham have been enriched by many splendid examples, more particularly at St. Philip's. Their glass has also found place in the United States, in Richardson's famous church at Boston, and at the late Miss Catherine Wolfe's house, Vinland, Newport. An exquisite autograph work of William Morris's is the copy of "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyám," which he wrote out and illuminated with his own hand, though even to this work Burne-Jones contributed a miniature, and Mr. Fairfax Murray worked out other designs in some of the borders. This beautiful work was exhibited at the first Arts and Crafts Exhibition in 1888. It is in the possession of Lady Burne-Jones, and by her special permission I am enabled to give some reproductions of four of the pages here. It is so beautiful that one wonders the artist was not induced to do more work of the kind; but there is only known to be one or two other manuscripts partially completed by him. Certainly his love for mediaeval illuminated MSS. was intense and his knowledge great, and his collection of choice and rare works of this kind probably unique. The same might be said of his collection of early printed books, which was wonderfully rich with wood-cuts of the best time and from the most notable presses of Germany, Flanders, Italy, and France. [Illustration: 8 OMAR KHAYYAM Alike for those who for today prepare And those that after a tomorrow stare A muezzin from the Tower of Darkness cries Fools, your reward is neither here nor there 25 Why, all the saints and sages who discussed Of the Two Worlds so learnedly, are thrust Like foolish prophets forth, their words to scorn Are scattered, and their mouths are stopt with dust 26 O come with old Khayyam, and leave the wise To talk; one thing is certain, that Life flies; One thing is certain, and the rest is lies The flower that once has blown for ever dies 27 Myself when young did eagerly frequent Doctor and saint, and heard great argument FROM MORRIS'S MS. OF OMAR KHAYYÁM.] [Illustration: About it and about, and evermore Came out by the same door as in I went. 28 With them the seed of Wisdom did I sow, And with my own hand laboured it to grow: And this was all the harvest that I reaped-- I came like water, and like wind I go. 29 Into this Universe, and why not knowing Nor whence, like water willy-nilly flowing And out of it as wind along the waste I know not whither, willy-nilly blowing 30 What without asking hither hurried whence And without asking whither hurried hence Another, and another cup to drown The memory of this impertinence! FROM MORRIS'S MS. OF OMAR KHAYYÁM.] [Illustration: My thread-bare penitence apieces tore. 71 And much as wine has played the infidel, And robbed me of my robe of honour--well, I often wonder what the vintners buy One half so precious as the goods they sell. 72 Alas, that Spring should vanish with the rose, That Youth's sweet-scented manuscript should close The Nightingale that in the branches sang, Ah whence, and whither flown again, who knows! 73 Ah, Love! could thou and I with Fate conspire To grasp this sorry scheme of things entire, Would we not shatter it to bits, and then Remould it nearer to the heart's desire? FROM MORRIS'S MS. OF OMAR KHAYYÁM.] [Illustration: Ah Moon of my delight who knowest no wane, The Moon of Heaven is rising once again; How oft hereafter rising shall she look Through this same garden after me--in vain. 75 And when Thyself with shining foot shall pass Among the guests star-scattered on the grass, And in thy joyous errand reach the spot Where I made one--turn down an empty glass! TAMAM SHUD FROM MORRIS'S MS. OF OMAR KHAYYÁM.] This brings us to William Morris's next and, as it proved, last development in art--the revival of the craft of the printer, and its pursuit as an art. I recall the time when the project was first discussed. It was in the autumn of 1889. It was the year of an Art Congress at Edinburgh, following the initial one at Liverpool the preceding year, held under the auspices of the National Association for the Advancement of Art. Some of us afterwards went over to Glasgow to lecture; and a small group, of which Morris was one, found themselves at the Central Station Hotel together. It was here that William Morris spoke of his new scheme, his mind being evidently centred upon it. Mr. Emery Walker (who has supplied me with the photographs which illustrate this article) was there, and he became his constant and faithful helper in all the technicalities of the printer's craft; Mr. Cobden-Sanderson also was of the party; he may be said to have introduced a new epoch in book-binding, and his name was often associated with Morris as binder of some of his books. Morris took up the craft of printing with characteristic thoroughness. He began at the beginning and went into the paper question, informing himself as to the best materials and methods, and learning to make a sheet of paper himself. The Kelmscott Press paper is made by hand, of fine white linen rags only, and is not touched with chemicals. It has the toughness and something of the quality of fine Whatman or O.W. drawing-paper. When he set to work to design his types he obtained enlarged photographs of some of the finest specimens of both Gothic and Roman type from the books of the early printers, chiefly of Bale and Venice. He studied and compared these, and as the result of his analysis designed two or three different kinds of type for his press, beginning with the "Golden" type, which might be described as Roman type under Gothic influence, and developing the more frankly Gothic forms known as the "Troy" and the "Chaucer" types. He also used Roman capitals founded upon the best forms of the early Italian printers. Morris was wont to say that he considered the glory of the Roman alphabet was in its capitals, but the glory of the Gothic alphabet was in its lower-case letters. He was asked why he did not use types after the style of the lettering in some of his title-pages, but he said this would not be reasonable, as the lettering of the titles was specially designed to fit into the given spaces, and could not be used as movable type. The initial letters are Gothic in feeling, and form agreeably bold quantities in black and white in relation to the close and rich matter of the type, which is still further relieved occasionally by floral sprays in bold open line upon the inner margins, while when woodcut pictures are used they were led up to by rich borderings. The margins of the title and opening chapter which faced it are occupied by richly designed broad borders of floral arabesques upon black grounds, the lettering of the title forming an essential part of the ornamental effect, and often placed upon a mat or net of lighter, more open arabesque, in contrast to the heavy quantities of the solid border. The Kelmscott Chaucer is the monumental work of Morris's Press, and the border designs, made specially for this volume, surpass in richness and sumptuousness all his others, and fitly frame the woodcuts after the designs of Sir Edward Burne-Jones. The arabesque borders and initial letters of the Kelmscott books were all drawn by Morris himself, the engraving on wood was mostly done by Mr. W. H. Hooper--almost the only first-rate facsimile engraver on wood left--and a good artist and craftsman besides. Mr. Arthur Leverett engraved the designs to the "The Glittering Plain," which were my contribution to the Kelmscott Press, but I believe Mr. Hooper did all the other work, while Mr. Fairfax Murray and Mr. Catteson Smith drafted the Burne-Jones designs upon the wood. It was not, perhaps, generally known, at least before the appearance of Miss May Morris's fine edition of her father's works, published by Messrs. Longman, that many years before the Kelmscott Press was thought of an illustrated edition of "The Earthly Paradise" was in contemplation, and not only were many designs made by Burne-Jones, but a set of them was actually engraved by Morris himself upon wood for the "Cupid and Psyche," though they were never issued to the public. I have spoken of the movement in art represented by William Morris and his colleagues as really part of a great movement of protest--a crusade against the purely commercial, industrial, and material tendencies of the day. This protest culminated with William Morris when he espoused the cause of Socialism. Now some have tried to minimize the Socialism of William Morris, but it was, in the circumstances of his time, the logical and natural outcome of his ideas and opinions, and is in direct relation with his artistic theories and practice. For a thorough understanding of the conditions of modern manufacture and industrial production, of the ordinary influences which govern the producers of marketable commodities, of wares offered in the name of art, of the condition of worker, and the pressure of competition, he was in a particularly advantageous position. So far from being a sentimentalist who was content melodiously and pensively to regret that things were not otherwise, he was driven by contact with the life around him to his economic conclusions. As he said himself, it was art led him to Socialism, not economics, though he confirmed his convictions by economic study. As an artist, no doubt at first he saw the uglification of the world going on, and the vast industrial and commercial machine grinding the joy and the leisure out of human life as regarded the great mass of humanity. But as an employer he was brought into direct relation with the worker as well as the market and the public, and he became fully convinced that the modern system of production for profit and the world-market, however inevitable as a stage in economic and social evolution, was not only most detrimental to a healthy and spontaneous development of art and to conditions of labour, but that it would be bound, ultimately, by the natural working of economic laws, to devour itself. Never cramped by poverty in his experiments and in his endeavours to realize his ideals, singularly favoured by fortune in all his undertakings, he could have had no personal reasons on these scores for protesting against the economic and social tendencies and characteristics of his own time. He hated what is called modern civilization and all its works from the first, with a whole heart, and made no secret of it. For all that, he was a shrewd and keen man in his dealings with the world. If he set its fashions and habits at defiance, and persisted in producing his work to please himself, it was not his fault that his countrymen eagerly sought them and paid lavishly for their possession. A common reproach hurled at Morris has been that he produced costly works for the rich while he professed Socialism. This kind of thing, however, it may be remarked, is not said by those friendly to Socialism, or anxious for the consistency of its advocates--quite the contrary. Such objectors appear to ignore, or to be ignorant of, the fact that according to the quality of the production must be its cost; and that the cheapness of the cheapest things of modern manufacture is generally at the cost of the cheapening of human labour and life, which is a costly kind of cheapness after all. If anyone cares for good work, a good price must be paid. Under existing conditions possession of such work is only possible to those who can pay the price, but this seems to work out rather as part of an indictment against the present system of production, which Socialists wish to alter. If a wealthy man were to divest himself of his property and distribute it, he would not bring Socialism any nearer, and his self-sacrifice would hardly benefit the poor at large (except, perhaps, a few individuals), but under the working of the present system his wealth would ultimately enrich the rich--would gravitate to those who _had_, and not to those who _had not_. The object of Socialism is to win justice, not charity. A true commonwealth can only be established by a change of feeling, and by the will of the people, deliberately, in the common interest, declaring for common and collective possession of the means of life and of wealth, as against individual property and monopoly. Since the wealth of a country is only produced by common and collective effort, and even the most individual of individualists is dependent for every necessary, comfort, or luxury of life upon the labour of untold crowds of workers, there is no inherent unreasonableness in such a view, or in the advocacy of such a system, which might be proved to be as beneficial, in the higher sense, for the rich as for the poor, as of course it would abolish both. It is quite possible to cling to the contrary opinion, but it should be fully understood that Socialism does not mean "dividing up," and that a man is not necessarily not a Socialist who does not sell all that he has to give to the poor. "A poor widow is gathering nettles to stew for her dinner. A perfumed seigneur lounging in the _[oe]il de b[oe]uf_ hath an alchemy whereby he can extract from her every third nettle and call it rent." Thus wrote Carlyle. Men like William Morris would make such alchemy impracticable; but no man can change a social (or unsocial) system by himself, however willing; nor can anyone, however gifted or farseeing, get beyond the conditions of his time, or afford to ignore them in the daily conduct of life, although at the same time his life and expressed opinions may all the while count as factors in the evolution by which a new form of society comes about. Thus much seems due to the memory of a man like William Morris, who was frequently taunted with not doing, as a Socialist, things that, as a Socialist, he did not at all believe in; things, for which, too, one knows perfectly well, his censors, if he had done them, would have been the first to denounce him for a fool. At all events, it is certain that William Morris spent some of the best years of his life, he gave his time, his voice, his thought, his pen, and much money to put Socialism before his countrymen. This can never be gainsaid. Those who have been accustomed to regard him from this point of view as a dangerous revolutionary might be referred to the writings of John Ball, and Sir Thomas More, his predecessors in England's history, who upheld the claims of labour and simple life, against waste, want, and luxury. Indeed, it might be contended that it was a conservative clinging to the really solid foundations of a happy human life which made Morris a Socialist as much as artistic conviction and study of modern economics. The enormous light which has been recently thrown by historic research upon mediaeval life and conditions of labour, upon the craft guilds, and the position of the craftsman in the Middle Ages--light to which Morris himself in no small degree contributed--must also be counted as a factor in the formation of his opinions. But whether accounted conservative or revolutionary in social economics and political opinion, there can be no doubt of William Morris's conservatism in another field, important enough in its bearings upon modern life, national and historic sentiment, and education--I mean the protection of Ancient Buildings. He was one of the founders of the society having that object, and remained to the last one of the most energetic members of the committee, and in such important work his architectural knowledge was of course of the greatest value. At a time when, owing to the action of a multitude of causes, the historic buildings of the past are in constant danger, not only from the ravages of time, weather, and neglect, but also, and even to a greater extent, from the zeal of the "restorer," the importance of the work which Morris did with his society--the work which that society carries on--can hardly be overestimated. The pressure of commercial competition and the struggle for life in our cities--the mere necessity for more room for traffic--the dead weight of vested interest, the market value of a site, the claims of convenience, fashion, ecclesiastical or otherwise, or sometimes sheer utilitarianism, entirely oblivious of the social value of historic associations of architectural beauty--all are apt to be arrayed at one time or another, or even, perhaps, all combined, against the preservation of an ancient building if it happens to stand in their way. The variety, too, of the cases in which the difference of the artistic conditions which govern the art and craft of building in the past and in the present is another element which often prevents the defenders and destroyers from meeting on the same plane. It is the old tragic conflict between old and new, but enormously complicated, and with the forces of destruction and innovation tremendously increased. William Morris was a singularly sane and what is called a "level-headed" man. He had the vehemence, on occasion, of a strong nature and powerful physique. He cared greatly for his convictions. Art and life were real to him, and his love of beauty was a passion. His artistic and poetic vision was clear and intense--all the more so, perhaps, for being exclusive on some points. The directness of his nature, as of his speech, might have seemed singularly unmodern to some who prefer to wrap their meaning with many envelopes. He might occasionally have seemed brusque, and even rough; but so does the north wind when it encounters obstacles. Men are judged by the touchstones of personal sympathy or antipathy; but whether attracted or repelled in such a presence, no one could come away without an impression that he had met a man of strong character and personal force, whether he realized any individual preconception of the poet, the artist, and the craftsman, or not. He was certainly all these, yet those who only knew him through his works would have but a partial and incomplete idea of his many-sided nature, his practicality, personal force, sense of humour,[3] and all those side-lights which personal acquaintance throws upon the character of a man like William Morris. [Footnote 1: At the same time, it must be remembered, his knowledge of mediaeval life, the craft guilds, and the condition of the labourer in England in the fifteenth century, helped him in his economic studies and his Socialist propaganda.] [Footnote 2: Here Morris lived when in London and his press was set up close by at Sussex House, opposite to which is the Doves Bindery of Mr. Cobden-Sanderson. Much of Morris's time was spent at Kelmscott, near Lechlade, Gloucestershire, a delightful old manor house close to the Thames stream. This house was formerly held by D. G. Rossetti conjointly with Morris. At Hammersmith the room outside the house, after the carpet looms went to Merton, was used as the meeting room of the Hammersmith Socialist Society.] [Footnote 3: It is noteworthy that one who excluded humour from his own work, whether literary, or artistic, had a keen appreciation of it in the work of others. Few who only knew Morris through his poems, romances, and designs would imagine that among his most favourite books were "Huckleberry Finn," by Mark Twain, and "Uncle Remus." I have often heard him recall passages of the first-named book with immense enjoyment of the fun. He was, besides, always an admirer of Dickens.] THE ENGLISH REVIVAL IN DECORATIVE ART [Illustration] THE ENGLISH REVIVAL IN DECORATIVE ART The sense of beauty, like the enchanted princess in the wood, seems liable, both in communities and individuals, to periods of hypnotism. These periods of slumber or suspended animation, are not, however, free from distorted dreams, having a certain tyrannical compulsion which causes those under their influence blindly to accept arbitrary ideas and cast-iron customs as if they were parts of the irreversible order of nature--until the hour of the awakening comes and the household gods of wood and stone, so ignorantly worshipped, are cast from their pedestals. Such a period of apathetic slumber and of awakening in the arts we have been passing through in England during the last quarter of the nineteenth century, and since, side by side with analogous movements in the political and social world. As regards domestic architecture, the streets of London will illustrate the successive waves of taste or fashion which the past and present century have seen, from the quasi-classical, represented in the Peloponnesus of Regent's Park, to the eclectic Queen Anne-ism of the aesthetic village at Turnham Green; or the more recent developments which have followed newer ideas of town-planning, the modern hotel such as the Savoy or the Piccadilly, or the New Aero Club in Pall Mall, the modern store, such as Selfridge's. Contrast such examples of what one might call our new Imperial Renascence style with the types of simple cottage dwellings in the Garden City at Letchworth, or in the Hampstead garden suburb, and elsewhere; or these again with the larger country mansions some of our best architects are raising in the land. These extremes, with all the various modifications of the outward aspect of the English home--degrees indicating the arc of architectural fashion, as it were--imply a series of corresponding transformations of interiors with all their modern complexities of furniture and decorations. But the wheat of artistic thought and invention is a good deal encumbered with chaff--the chaff of commerce and of fashion--and it needs some pains to find the real vital germs. To trace the genesis of our English revival we must go back to the days of the pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and although none of that famous group were decorative designers in the strict sense--unless we except D. G. Rossetti--yet by their resolute and enthusiastic return to the direct symbolism, frank naturalism, and poetic or romantic sentiment of mediaeval art, with the power of modern analysis superadded, and the more profound intellectual study of both nature and art, which the severity of their practice demanded, and last, but not least, their intense love of detail, turned the attention to other branches of design than painting. The very marked character of their pictures, standing out with almost startling effect from among the works of the older Academic School, demanded at least a special architecture in the frames of their pictures, and this led to the practice of painters designing their own frames, at least those who were concerned for unity and decorative effect. Mr. Holman Hunt, for instance, I believe always designed his own frames, as well as some of the ornamental accessories of his pictures--such as the pot for the basil in his "Isabella." D. G. Rossetti the poet-painter, and perhaps the central and inspiring luminary of the remarkable group, evidently cared greatly for decorative effect, and bestowed the utmost pains upon tributary detail, designing the frames to his pictures, the cover and lining for his own poems, and various title-pages. Many of his pictures, too, are remarkable for their beauty and richness of accessory details which give a distinct decorative charm to his work, closely associated as they are with its motive and poetic purpose. The researches of Henry Shaw, and his fine works upon art of the middle ages, first published in the "Forties" by Pickering, and printed by the Chiswick Press, no doubt had their share in directing the attention of artists to the beauty and intention bestowed upon every accessory of daily life in mediaeval times. Above all influences from the literary side, however, must be placed the work of John Ruskin, an enormously vitalizing and still living force, powerful to awaken thought, and by its kindling enthusiasm to stir the dormant sense of beauty in the minds that come under the spell of his eloquence, which always turns the eyes to some new or unregarded or forgotten beauty in nature or in art. The secret of his powers as a writer on art lies no doubt in the fact that he approached the whole question from the fundamental architectural side, and saw clearly the close connection of artistic development with social life. The whole drift of his teaching is towards sincerity and Gothic freedom in the arts, and is a strong protest against Academic convention and classical coldness. Among architects, men like Pugin and William Burges, enthusiasts in the Gothic revival, gave a great deal of care and thought to decorative detail and the design of furniture and accessories. The latter, in the quaint house which he built for himself in Melbury Road, showed a true Gothic spirit of inventiveness and whimsicality applied to things of everyday use as well as the mural decorator's instinct for symbolism. Since their day Mr. Norman Shaw may almost be said to have carried all before him, and has quite created a type of later Victorian architecture, and his advice is still sought in the design of various buildings and street improvements of modern London. His work, beautiful, well proportioned, and decorative as it often is, however, has not the peculiar character and reserve of the work of Mr. Philip Webb, and the latter is a decorative designer, especially of animals, of remarkable originality and power. His work in architecture and other designs is generally seen in association with that of William Morris in decoration. The impulse towards Greek and Roman forms in furniture and decoration, which had held sway with designers since the French Revolution, appeared to be dead. The elegant lines and limbs of quasi-classical couches and chairs on which our grandfathers and grandmothers reclined--the former in high coat-collars and the latter in short waists--had grown gouty and clumsy, in the hands of Victorian upholsterers. The carved scrolls and garlands had lost even the attenuated grace they once possessed and a certain feeling for naturalism creeping in made matters worse, and utterly deranged the ornamental design of the period. An illustrated catalogue of the exhibition of 1851 will sufficiently indicate the monstrosities in furniture and decoration which were supposed to be artistic. The last stage of decomposition had been reached, and a period of, perhaps, unexampled hideousness in furniture, dress, and decoration set in which lasted the life of the second empire, and fitly perished with it. Relics of this period I believe are still to be discovered in the cold shade of remote drawing-rooms, and "apartments to let," which take the form of big looking-glasses, and machine-lace curtains, and where the furniture is afflicted with curvature of the spine, and dreary lumps of bronze and ormolu repose on marble slabs at every opportunity, where monstrosities of every kind are encouraged under glass shades, while every species of design-debauchery is indulged in upon carpets, curtains, chintzes and wall-papers, and where the antimacassar is made to cover a multitude of sins. When such ideas of decoration prevailed, having their origin or prototypes, in the vapid splendours of imperial saloons, and had to be reduced to the scale of the ordinary citizen's house and pocket, the thing became absurd as well as hideous. Besides, the cheap curly legs of the _un_easy chairs and couches came off, and the stuffed seats, with a specious show of padded comfort, were delusions and snares. Long ago the old English house-place with its big chimney-corner had given way to the bourgeois arrangement of dining and drawing-room--even down to the smallest slated hut with a Doric portico. The parlour had become a kind of sanctuary veiled in machine-lace, where the lightness of the curtains was compensated for by the massiveness of their poles, and where Berlin wool-work and bead mats flourished exceedingly. Enter to such an interior a plain unvarnished rush-bottomed chair from Buckinghamshire, sound in wind and limb--"C'est impossible!" And yet the rush-bottomed chair and the printed cotton of frank design and colour from an unpretending and somewhat inaccessible house in Queen Square may be said to have routed the false ideals, vulgar smartness and stuffiness in domestic furniture and decoration--at least wherever refinement and feeling have been exercised at all. "Lost in the contemplation of palaces we have forgotten to look about us for a chair," wrote Mr. Charles L. Eastlake in an article which appeared in "The Cornhill Magazine" some time in the "sixties," or early "seventies." The same writer (afterwards Keeper of the National Gallery) brought out "Hints on Household Taste" shortly afterwards, and he, too, was "on the side of the angels" of sense and fitness in these things. The "chair" at any rate was now discovered, if only a rush-bottomed one. Nowadays it might perhaps be said that the chair gets more contemplation and attention than the palace, as since then the influence of our old English eighteenth-century furniture designers has been restored, and Chippendale, Sheraton, and Hepplewhite are again held in honour in our interiors, and to judge from the innumerable specimens offered in their name by our furniture dealers the industry of these famous designers must have been prodigious! The first practical steps towards actually producing things combining use and beauty and thus enabling people so minded to deck their homes after the older and simpler English manner was taken by William Morris and his associates, who founded the house in Queen Square afore-mentioned. Appealing at first only to a limited circle of friends mostly engaged in the arts, the new ideas began to get abroad, the new designs were eagerly seized upon. Morris and Company had to extend their operations, and soon no home with any claim to decorative charm was felt to be complete without its vine and fig-tree so to speak--from Queen Square; and before long a typical Morris room was given to the British Public to dine in at the South Kensington (now the Victoria and Albert) Museum. The great advantage and charm of the Morrisian method is that it lends itself to either simplicity or to splendour. You might be almost plain enough to please Thoreau, with a rush-bottomed chair, piece of matting, and oaken trestle-table; or you might have gold and lustre (the choice ware of William de Morgan) gleaming from the sideboard, and jewelled light in your windows, and walls hung with rich arras tapestry. Of course, a host of imitators appeared, and manufacturers and upholsterers were quick to adapt the more superficial characteristics, watering down the character a good deal for the average taste--that is, the timid taste of the person who has not made up his mind, which may be described as the "wonder-what-so-and-so-will-think-of-it" state--but its effects upon the older ideas of house decoration were definite. Plain painting displaced graining and marbling, frankly but freely conventionalized patterns routed the imitative and nosegay kinds. Leaded and stained glass filled the places which were wont to be filled with the blank despair of ground glass. The white marble mantelpiece turned pale before rich hangings and deep-toned wall-papers, and was dismantled and sent to the churchyard. These were some of the most marked effects of the adoption of the new, or a return to older and sounder ideas in domestic decoration. The quiet influence of the superb collections at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the opportunities of study, open to all, of the most beautiful specimens of mediaeval, renascence, and oriental design and craftsmanship of all kinds must not be forgotten--an influence which cannot be rated as of too much importance and value, and which has been probably of more far-reaching influence in its effect on designers and craftsman than the more direct efforts of the Art Department to reach them through its school system. By means of this, as is well known, it was sought to improve the taste and culture of artisans by putting within their reach courses of study and exercises in drawing and design, the results of which, it was hoped, carried back into the practice of their various trades and handicrafts, would make them better craftsmen because better draughtsmen. Now, if we were to ask why on the whole the system has not been so fruitful of result in this direction we should find ourselves plunged at once into the deep waters of economic conditions, of the relations of employer and employed, of hours, of wages, of commercial competition, trade unions, and, in fact, should bring the whole Labour question about our ears. Of course the whole scheme of the schools of design was based upon the idea of improvement _downwards_, and like many modern improvements, or reforms, its contrivers sought to make the tree of art flourish and put forth new leaves without attending to the nourishment of the roots or touching the soil. But the drawing-board and the workshop-bench are after all two very different things, and it is by no means certain that proficiency at one would necessarily produce a corresponding improvement at the other, except indeed, it be on the principle that if a man acquires one language it will be easier for him to learn others. But at this point another consideration comes in. You get your student seated at his drawing-board, you set him to represent at the point of his pencil or chalk certain objects, casts, for instance, and encourage him to portray their appearance with all relief of light and shade, dwelling solely on the necessity of his attaining a certain degree of purely pictorial skill, which in itself is really of no practical use to a designer of ornament intended to be worked out in some other material such as a textile, wood, or metal. In fact, the development of pictorial skill has a strong tendency to lead the student to devote himself entirely to pictorial work, and hitherto there have been plenty of other inducements, such as the chance of larger monetary reward and social position. If he is not ultimately drawn into the already overcrowded ranks of the picture producers, he is too likely to carry back into his own particular craft a certain love of pictorial treatment and effect which may really be injurious to his sense of fitness in adapting design and material. This indeed is what evidently has happened as the result of much so-called art-education, and we are only now slowly awakening to the conception that art is not necessarily the painting of pictures, but that the most refined artistic feeling may be put into every work of man's hand, and that each after its kind gives more delight and becomes more and more beautiful in proportion as it follows the laws of its own existence--when a design is in perfect harmony with its material, and one does not feel one would want it reproduced in any other way. It is next to impossible to get this unity of design and material unless the craftsman fashions the thing he designs, or unless the designer thoroughly understands the conditions and allows them to determine the character of his design, which he can hardly do unless he is in close and constant touch with the craftsman. Now the industrial conditions under which the great mass of things are produced, which have gradually been developed in the interests of trade rather than of art have tended to separate the designer and craftsman more and more and to subdivide their functions. Our enterprising manufacturers are quick enough to adopt or adapt an idea, and some will pay liberally for it, but they do not always realize that it does not follow because _one_ good thing is produced in a limited quantity that therefore it must be much better if a cheap imitation of it can be produced by the thousand--but then we no longer produce for _use_ but for _profit_. Demand and supply--"thou shalt have no other gods but these," says the trader in effect; although the demand in these days may be as artificial as the supply. The Nemesis of trade pursues the invention of the artist, as the steamers on the river on boat-race day pursue, almost as if they would run down, the slender craft of the oarsmen straining every nerve for victory. It is a suggestive spectacle. Someone's brain and hand must set to work--must give the initiative before the steam-engine can be set going. But how many brains and hands, nay lives, has it devoured since our industrial epoch began? Up to about 1880 artists working independently in decoration were few and far between, mostly isolated units, and their work was often absorbed by various manufacturing firms. About that time, in response to a feeling for more fellowship and opportunity for interchange of ideas on the various branches of their own craft, a few workers in decorative design were gathered together under the roof of the late Mr. Lewis F. Day on a certain January evening known as hurricane Tuesday and a small society was formed for the discussion of various problems in decorative design and kindred topics; meeting in rotation at the houses or studios of the members. The society had a happy if obscure life for several years, and was ultimately absorbed into a larger society of designers, architects, and craftsmen called "The Art Workers' Guild," which met once a month with much the same objects--fellowship and interchange of ideas and papers and demonstrations in various arts and crafts. In fact, since artists more or less concerned with decoration had increased, owing to the revived activity and demand arising for design of all kinds, the feeling grew stronger among men of very different proclivities for some common ground of meeting. A desire among artists of different crafts to know something of the technicalities of other crafts made itself felt, and the result has been the rapid and continual growth of the Guild which now includes, beside the principal designers in decoration, painters, architects, sculptors, wood-carvers, metal-workers, engravers, and representatives of various other crafts. A junior Art Workers' Guild has also been established in connection with the older body, and there are besides two Societies of Designers in London, while in the provinces there is the Northern Art Workers' Guild at Manchester and various local Arts and Crafts societies all over the country. We have, of course, our Royal Academy, or as it ought to be called, Royal Guild of Painters in Oil, always with us; but its use of the term "Arts" applies only (and almost exclusively so) to painting, sculpture, architecture, and engraving, and while absorbing gifted artists from time to time, often after they have done their best work, it has never, as a body, shown any wide or comprehensive conception of art, although it has done a certain amount of educational work, chiefly through its valuable exhibitions of old masters and its lectures and teaching in the schools, which are free, and where famous artists act as visitors. Its influence in the main it is to be feared has been to encourage an enormous overproduction of pictures every year, and to foster in the popular mind the impression that there was no art in England before Sir Joshua Reynolds, and none of any consequence since, outside the easel picture. The magnificently arranged and deeply interesting "Town-planning Exhibition," held last year in connection with the International Congress on that subject, however, was a new departure and most welcome as an example of what might be done by the Royal Academy under the influence of wider conceptions of art. Nevertheless, the work of such fine decorative artists as Albert Moore, Alfred Gilbert, Harry Bates has been introduced to the public through the Royal Academy, these two last-named being members; and once upon a time even a picture by Sir E. Burne-Jones appeared there. Many gifted artists have strengthened the institution since these passed away. The names of Watts and Leighton will always shed lustre and distinction upon it, but of course the Academy necessarily depends for its continued vitality upon new blood. The advantages of membership are generally too strong a temptation to our rising artists to encourage the formation of anything like an English "secession," though according to our British ideas of the wholesomeness of competition or, let us say _emulation_, a strong body of independent artists might have a good effect all round. I have often wondered that no attempt has been made by the Royal Academy to give a lead in the arrangement and hanging of an exhibition. With the fine rooms at their disposal it would be possible to make their great annual show of pictures far more striking and attractive by some kind of classification or sympathetic grouping. The best system, of course, would be to group the works of each artist together. This, however, would take up more wall space and lead to more exclusions than at present; but, still the plan might be tried of placing all the portraits together, and, say, the subject pictures according to scale, and the landscapes, arranging them in separate rooms. Sculpture and architecture, and water colours and engravings are already given separate rooms, so that it would only be extending a principle already adopted. The effect of the whole exhibition would be much finer, I venture to think, and also less fatiguing, and there would probably be less chance of pictures being falsified or injured by juxtaposition with unsympathetic neighbours. Surely some advance is possible on eighteenth-century ideas of hanging, or the old days of Somerset House? I respectfully commend the above suggestion to their consideration. While mentioning names we must not forget (although I have hitherto dwelt rather on the Gothic side of the English revival) such distinguished designers as the late Alfred Stevens and his able followers Godfrey Sykes and Moody. These artists drew their inspiration largely from the work of the Italian Renascence, and it is a testimony to their remarkable powers--especially of the first-named--that they should have achieved such distinction on the lines of so marked a style, and one which, as it appears to me, had already reached its maturity in the country of its birth, unlike Gothic design, which might almost be said to have been arrested in its development by the advent of the Renascence. Another influence upon modern decorative art cannot be left out of account, and that is the Japanese influence. The extraordinary decorative daring, and intimate naturalism; the frank or delicate colouration, the freshness, as of newly gathered flowers of many of their inventions and combinations: the wonderful vivacity and truth of the designs of such a master as Hokusai, for instance--these and the whole disclosure of the history of their art (which, however, was entirely derived from and inspired by the still finer art of the Chinese), from the early, highly wrought, religious and symbolic designs, up to the vigorous freedom and naturalism of the later time, together with their extraordinary precision of technique, inevitably took the artistic world by storm. Its immediate effects, much as we may be indebted to such a source, cannot be set down altogether to the good so far as we can trace them in contemporary European art; but perhaps on the whole there is no more definitely marked streak of influence than this of the Japanese. In French art it was at one time more palpable still. In fact it might almost be said to have taken entire possession of French decorative art, or a large part of it; or rather, it is Japanese translated into French with that ease and chic for which our lively neighbours are remarkable. Whistler, by the way, who must be numbered with the decorators, showed unmistakably in his work the results of a close study of Japanese art. His methods of composition, his arrangements of tones of colour declare how he had absorbed it, and applied it to different methods and subjects, in fact, his work shows most of the qualities of much Japanese art, except precision of drawing, although his earlier etchings have this quality. In modern decoration, the most obvious and superficial qualities of Japanese art have generally been seized upon, and its general effect has been to loosen the restraining and architectonic sense of balance and fitness, and a definite ordered plan of construction, which are essential in the finest types of design. On the whole, the effects of the discovery of Japanese art on the modern artistic mind, may be likened to a sudden and unexpected access of fortune to an impoverished man. It is certain to disorganize if not demoralize him. The sudden contact with a fresh and vigorous art, alive with potent tradition, yet intimate with the subtler forms and changes of nature, and in the full possession and mastery of its own technique--the sudden contact of such an art with the highly artificial and eclectic art of a complex and effete civilization must be more or less of the nature of a shock. Shocks are said to be good for sound constitutions, but their effect on the unsound are as likely as not to be fatal. While fully acknowledging the brilliancy of Japanese art, however, one feels how enormously they were indebted to the art of China, and the greater dignity and impressiveness of the latter becomes more and more apparent on comparison. Both in graphic characterization of birds and animals and flowers and splendour of ornament, the Chinese both preceded and excelled the Japanese. There were recently some striking demonstrations of this at the British Museum, when Mr. Laurence Binyon arranged a series of most remarkable ancient Chinese paintings on silk side by side with Japanese work. The opening of the Grosvenor Gallery in 1877, owing to the enterprise of Sir Coutts Lindsay, was the means of bringing the decorative school in English painting to the front, and did much towards directing public attention in that direction. What was known as "aestheticism" has, of course, been freely satirized both by press and stage, which latter, however, was not slow to avail itself of some of its results in the increased variety and picturesqueness of its interior scenes, and the charm of delicate harmonies of colour in draperies and costume. The movement was seized upon by the commercial instinct, which always hastens to make hay while the sun shines, and the aesthetic sun shone very gaily for a time, in the society sense. It was somewhat amusing to see the travesties of ideas which had been current in artistic circles for long before, now proclaimed as the new gospel of aesthetic salvation. But in spite of all the clamour, fashionable extravagance, and ridicule, which obscured the real meaning of the movement, so far as it was a sincere search after more beauty in daily life, its influence is just as strong as ever, and is likely to increase with the growth and spread of greater refinement, and the desire for more harmonious social conditions. Organizations continued to increase and multiply, having for their object, in one way or another, the "encouragement" of the arts and crafts of design, and whether for good or for evil, it cannot be denied that their number and activity were, and are, remarkable signs of the times--of an awakening interest in decorative art and a general impulse towards ornamental expression. It is true in some instances this impulse runs rather wild, and to some of its ruder results we might even apply the words of the poet Cowper describing the gambols of the kine at high noon: Though wild their strange vagaries, and uncouth Their efforts, yet resolved with one consent, To give act and utt'rance as they may To ecstasy, too big to be suppress'd. It would be difficult to enumerate all the different associations having for their object the teaching, or the spread of a knowledge or love of decorative art and handicraft, outside the big trade organizations and decorating firms, but among those who contributed from various sides to the main stream mention may be made of "The Century Guild," identified chiefly with the publication of its "Hobby Horse," with its careful attention to the printer's art under the fine taste in type and book ornaments of Mr. Herbert P. Horne. "The Home Arts and Industries Association," which has started village classes in various handicrafts all over the kingdom, has held annual exhibitions at the Albert Hall, The Royal School of Art Needlework, now in noble premises in Imperial Institute Road, The School of Art Woodcarving in Pelham Place; while design on the strictly industrial and technical side is cared for by the City and Guilds of London Institute under Sir Philip Magnus. Since these and the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society were established, the London County Council came into being and founded its schools of Art and Craft all over London with the assistance of members of that Society; it has now become the central authority in technical education, and extends a helping hand (with a grant in aid) to some of the schools above named. All these institutions, and many more, invoke the name of art, and desire to unite good design and workmanship, and also to find a market for it. (Some of our large decorating firms would claim to have the same objects perhaps.) Their great difficulty is how to produce good designing ability out of nothing, as it were. All the crafts which they specially address themselves to teach and cultivate are, after all, entirely dependent for their interest and value upon vigour of design and vital expression, and this cannot suddenly be forced into existence by artificial heat. It is a power of slow development and is nourished from all sorts of sources, and is as many sided as life itself, being in fact only another form of life. You can lead a horse to the water but you cannot make him drink. You can provide any number of words but you cannot make people think, and the possession of rhyming dictionaries will never make a poet, neither will the possession of tools and a method make artists. This is, of course, obvious enough. At the same time it may fairly be urged on the other side that no one can learn to swim without entering the water, and it is only by repeated experiments and years of patient labour that we arrive at good results. Genius is always rare, but efficiency is what keeps the world going, and it must be said that admirable work in various crafts has been produced in the London County Council Technical Schools. Their system of scholarships gives opportunities to young people of promise to carry on their studies, and pupils and apprentices in various trades are enabled to gain a more complete knowledge of their craft and its various branches than is possible in any ordinary workshop, as well as tasteful ideas in design generally. In the summer of 1886 the smouldering discontent which always exists among artists in regard to the Royal Academy, although very often only the result of personal disappointment, threatened to burst into something like a flame. A letter appeared in the leading dailies proposing the establishment of a really National Exhibition of the Arts, which should include not only painting, sculpture, and architecture, but also the arts of design generally. This letter was signed by George Clausen, W. Holman Hunt, and the present writer. The stronghold of the movement at first was among the group of painters, distinguished as the Anglo-French school, whose headquarters were at Chelsea, and who were the founders of the New English Art Club. The idea of such a comprehensive exhibition was an exciting one, and large and enthusiastic meetings of artists were held. It was however discovered before long that the mass of the painters attracted by the movement intended no more than to press a measure of reform on the Royal Academy--to induce them to take, in fact, a leaf out of the book of the French Salon as regards the mode of election of the hanging committees of each year. The decorative designers, however, perceiving their vision of a really representative exhibition of contemporary works in all the arts fading away, and the whole force of the movement being wasted in the forlorn hope of forcing reforms upon the Academy, left the agitators in a body, and proceeded to take counsel together as to the best means of furthering their aims, and the immediate result was the founding of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society which, after many difficulties opened its first exhibition at the New Gallery in the autumn of 1888. The members of the Society, who were also most of them members of the Art Workers' Guild aforementioned, were well aware of the difficulties they would have to face in the endeavour to realize their aims, and carry out their principles. Their main object, however, was to demonstrate by means of a representative public exhibition the actual state of decorative art in all its kinds as far as possible. They desired to assert the claims of the decorative designer and craftsman to the position of artist, and give every one responsible in any way for the artistic character of a work full individual credit, by giving his name in the catalogue, whether the work was exhibited by a firm or not. In spite of all drawbacks the richness and artistic interest of the Exhibition was generally acknowledged, and the novelty of the idea attracted the public. An exhibition of designs and cartoons for decoration had been held by the directors of the Grosvenor Gallery in 1881, but it was limited to that class of work, so that this Arts and Crafts Exhibition may be said to have been really the first which attempted anything like a representative and comprehensive display of not only designs for work but the actual work itself, for its artistic and decorative quality alone. It comprised designs and cartoons, modelled work, woodcarving, furniture, tapestry and embroidery and printed cottons, pottery, tiles, and glass-metal work, jewellery, printed books, binding, calligraphy and illuminations, and undoubtedly included some of the best contemporary work which had been produced in England up to that time. The Exhibition was repeated at the same place the following year, at the same time, and also the year after. Since then, however, the exhibitions of the Society have been held triennially, the latest in January 1910 being the ninth. It is obvious that exhibitions of this kind involve many more difficulties of organization and management than ordinary picture shows. The very fact of having to deal with such a variety of work as was submitted, and the conditions under which work in decoration is generally done (making it difficult for the artist to retain possession of his work for exhibition purposes) make the formation of such an exhibition at all no easy matter. Then there were two open and palpable dangers to be encountered. The danger of being swamped by a great influx of amateur work, as it is generally understood, on the one hand, and the danger of merely commercial work getting the upper hand on the other. To keep Along the narrow strip of herbage strown That just divides the desert from the sown was a delicate matter, and it was easy to wander off into the regions on either hand. For in spite of the immense activity and industry, the independent artists in design and handicraft were but few, and although many inventive brains and skilled hands might be disguised as "---- and Company," they had to be discovered; the bushel had to be taken away and the light put upon the candlestick of publicity, and this appeared to be a trial to some. It might be thought to be of small importance, this matter of assigning artistic authorship or credit for any part of the work, where it was due; and it may be quite true that when men have reached the point when artistic tradition and social condition both favour a fraternal co-operation in production, they can afford to sink the individual claim to distinction in the collective pride of saying, "This is _our_ work." But we have not reached that stage yet, and it seems only common fairness, if individual and artistic responsibility is attached to a work, the credit should go with these, and be assigned in the proper quarter. In these days of commercial competition, and sculptor's "ghosts," it is perhaps hardly surprising that the assertion of such a principle might produce a little consternation, and also in cases of a great multiplicity of cooks it might easily be understood to be embarrassing to distribute properly the individual responsibility for spoiling the broth, and therefore not wonderful that it should in some instances have been shirked altogether. As another indication of the way the wind was blowing, an Association was formed this same year (1888) for the Advancement of Art in Association with Industry--a somewhat large order. Almost everything and everybody had had their congresses and why not Art? So an Art Congress was arranged to take place at Liverpool in December of that year. It was properly divided into sections for the separate discussion of painting, architecture, sculpture, and decorative or applied art, as the phrase goes. It may be mentioned here that the Society of Arts had before this formed a special committee to arrange for lectures and discussions on "The Applied Arts," and had also offered prizes to art-workmen for excellence in various departments of handicraft, and had held a small exhibition of such works in their rooms in the Adelphi. Well, the Congress at Liverpool duly met, and every one having a particular axe to grind brought it to the common grindstone of public discussion. It was a fairly representative parliament. The royal academician sat down with the socialist; the scientific colour theorist fed with the practical decorator; the industrial villager faced the manufacturer; the art critic and the painter mingled their tears, and all were led to the pasture by a gentle Fine Art professor. Some home truths were spoken and there were many interesting papers and discussions, but whether we were really nearer solving the problem how to bring about the marriage of Art and Industry is doubtful, though the Association had another campaign at Edinburgh the following year and one since at Birmingham. Association and discussion among people of common interests is of course good, but Art is a subject by its very nature difficult to deal with in words, although perhaps more is said about it in these days than almost any other subject--and here am I still adding to the sum! A hair perhaps divides the false and true. We have no word-symbols for defining those delicate shades of difference so important to the artist, and to be perpetually qualifying is fatiguing. It is useful to consider art in its relation to life; to consider how it is affected by economic conditions, to study its history and influence, and the lives of its workers. One can even proceed a certain distance with general principles, but finally we must get down to the solid ground of practice to solve its real problems. All these movements may be but fluttering leaves in the wind, but at least they serve to show its direction. The colours of spring sometimes resemble those of autumn; but the former are distinguished by a certain daintiness and delicacy: a soft bloom of silver and russet comes over the woods before the cloud-like green drapes them for the coming summer. When we see delicate and harmonious dyes and patterns in the fabrics of the windows of commerce, when we see dainty gowns in the street, expressing the fair forms of their wearers with the grace of flowers; when we see a certain sense of relation and harmony of tint in the most ordinary arrangements of paint and paper in the interiors of our houses: when our chairs and couches not unfrequently show lines of good breeding; when we find books on the table which have been considered by their printers and designers as works of art as well as of literature, and thus give a double pleasure, since they satisfy more than one of the senses--well, we begin to think that something has happened to us; some new spirit has breathed upon the land, that such refinements should be possible to the moderate citizen, remembering that such things but a few years ago could not be had for love or money. We might still be happy were it not for the whirlwind of trade, and the whirligig of fashion which occasionally seem to coquette with art, as a child plays with a toy, but soon turn away to continue their mad chase after a supposititious "novelty." Happily they leave some quiet corners unswept, as they have always done, or we could never have known what the homes of our ancestors were like. But how many still does England hold of those delightful places full of the pathos of old time, where each dumb thing of wood or iron, or copper, each fragment of faded tapestry seems to have the speech of romance. Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing. When the utilitarian would destroy such relics for the sake of "modern improvements" we do not realize what priceless things we lose. We can only realize it when we live for a time in country or city without antiquity of any sort. Here in England there are still many places where one might have the suggestion that we moderns were like children playing with new toys in front of a rich tapestried background full of great deeds and romances. In America the idea could not occur, and the absence of such suggestion is no doubt much felt by the more cultured and thoughtful, especially after visiting Europe. It may partly account, too, for the more fantastic character in the architecture of some of their recent country dwellings, which are full of nooks and corners and odd gables and stairways, as if their designer wished to make up by his invention for the absence of old time sentiment. Some of us appear to be trying to turn England into another America--for ever scheming railways where they are not wanted, cutting down trees, and clearing away old dwelling places, and insulting even the green fields with advertisements. Anything that interferes with extra percentages is as dust in the balance to such. In the destruction of beauty of any kind, however, is involved the destruction of the faculty of its perception and appreciation. The artistic capacity and sense of beauty must be fed by the contemplation of beauty or both will in time perish. We cannot really satisfy one of the senses unless we satisfy them all. It is often said, "you must sacrifice this or that to comfort and convenience;" but it is quite possible to have every so-called comfort and convenience, and yet to be anything but happy or comfortable--especially if the comfort of the eye is forgotten. Unless the utilitarian succeeds in eliminating the sense of beauty and art altogether, the natural man will still revolt against the tyranny of mechanical and artificial conditions. Such revolts make epochs, and when the human mind is deeply stirred it is sure sooner or later to find expression in some revival, or new form of art. A great intellectual revolution has taken place in the last half century: a great social and industrial revolution is preparing, or even now progressing. Whether art will again be able to sum up and express adequately in monumental form the new life and its aspirations, as it expressed the heart of ancient life in Greece and mediaeval Europe, must depend upon its power of appeal, and this again must depend upon the sensitiveness to form and colour on the part of the people. In England the domestic sentiment is so strong that enthusiasm for large public works is rare, and opportunities for sculptor or painter to express anything like the generic thought of their time, or to touch the pride or hopes of the nation rarer still.[4] The art that is capable of illustrating this spirit is what is called decorative art: but the art which can cover large mural spaces with a peoples' history and legend in noble and typical forms, the art which can lift our souls with large thoughts, or enchant them with a sense of mystery and romance, can also be a familiar friend at our firesides, and touch each common thing of every day use with beauty, weaving its golden threads into the joys and sorrows of common life, and making happy both young and old. [Footnote 4: It is true we have our frescoes of English history at the Houses of Parliament, but they cannot be said, with the exception of the work of Mr. G. F. Watts, to have been conceived in an epic spirit, but are rather anecdotic or incidental. Though the new pictures for the House of Lords by some of our ablest men of the younger school, such as Mr. Payne and Mr. Cadogan Cowper, show much finer mural and decorative feeling.] THE SOCIALIST IDEAL AS A NEW INSPIRATION IN ART [Illustration] THE SOCIALIST IDEAL AS A NEW INSPIRATION IN ART Art as the commentator or the recorder of human life, reflecting not only its physical aspects but its mental attitude, must necessarily be influenced by every change which modifies the course and character of that life. It is the sensitive plate in the camera of the mind of the age which receives every image, every shadow which passes before the lens of its vision, and, over and above the fleeting shows of the hour, registers the prevailing sentiment of its period. In proof of this we have only to look around us and see how intimately the life and spirit of our own times are represented in the art of the day, more especially pictorial art. In any of our large annual popular mixed picture shows we may see the effects of the modern commercial principle of individual competition. Pictures of the utmost diversity of subject and treatment are crowded together, clamorous for attention, often injured by the juxtaposition of unsympathetic neighbours, the principal quality telling in such a conflict being force. Certain dominant, or privileged, individuals hold front places, but even the marked individual style of some leading painters is apt to be discounted by numerous more or less successful imitations. Painters are said to be extreme individualists as a rule, and while, no doubt, the economic conditions of the day tend to encourage this, and to make painting more and more a matter of personal expression or impression, yet, I think, the individuality of modern artists is more apparent than real, and that it would not be difficult to classify them in types, or to trace the main influences in their work to some well-known artistic source either in the present or the past, or both. This, however, would be in no way to their discredit, but it shows how art, even in its most individualistic forms, is essentially a social product, and that each artist benefits enormously by the work of his contemporaries and his predecessors. Our mixed picture exhibition also discloses another prominent characteristic of our time--the domination of money, and the influence of the possessing classes and material wealth. This appears in the preponderance of portraits and the comparative absence of imaginative works. We may see the monarch and the political, financial, or commercial magnate in all their glory; generals and admirals, slayers and destroyers, in scarlet and blue and gold; the fashionable dame in purple and fine linen; the motorist in his career; national pride or imperialism is appealed to by pictures of battle and triumph over inferior races; and sports and pastimes, especially those involving the pursuit and death of birds and animals. Nor is the reverse of the medal unrepresented, for we may see side by side with brilliant ballroom scenes and banquets in marble halls, as a picturesque contrast or foil perhaps, various aspects of poverty and rags, sometimes sincere, sometimes sentimental, and occasionally flashes of insight reveal the pathos of the toiler's lot in the field, the factory, or on the treacherous ocean. The genuine modern love of wild nature and landscape, and the roaming spirit of travel is generally catered for by our painters; in these directions, perhaps, may be detected the suppressed sigh of super-civilized man for primitive freedom and natural conditions of life, or, The devotion to something afar From the sphere of our sorrow. With such mixed elements we may find some false sentiment, and also sensationalism, not infrequently connected with Christian sentimentality, and amid a fair allowance of military exploits, and flag-waving imperialism, there may be a few well-staged masquerades of past history, some grim and stark realism, perhaps, or gloomy pictorial pessimism, and for the rest, decorative or amatory posings, painted anecdotes and domesticities, flowers, babies, and bric-à-brac. Thus, in pictorial form, with more or less completeness, the mixed drama of our age is presented, its very discords even, and the absence of any prevailing idea or unity of sentiment (except bourgeois) and artistic aim is characteristic, as the pictures jostle one another in a competitive crowd, each struggling for a share of attention. Painters of the Latin and the Teutonic races are more dramatic, and also more daring in their conceptions, and often appear to strip the mask (or the fig-leaf) from objects and subjects which the more timid or prudish Anglo-Saxon would discreetly veil. Grim pictures of the industrial war not unfrequently appear in Italian and French salons, and in that of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts I have seen large and lurid canvases depicting strikers on the march with a background of factory chimneys looming through the smoke. Apart from their economic and historical significance, however, such subjects may fall in with a certain mood of gloom and pessimism which, in violent reaction from superficial grace and beauty, and classical tradition, manifests itself in some quarters. Now and again a new sensation is made by some eccentric genius, as it were, dragging a weird aesthetic red herring across the fashionable artistic scent, and diverting attention to side tracks in artistic development, often mixed with morbidity, or, as a change from the pursuit of superficial and ephemeral types of beauty, debased and revolting types and loathly subjects are drawn under the pictorial limelight and analysed. So, in the pictorial world, the economic system under which we live makes itself felt by encouraging each artist to fight for his own hand, and to become a specialist of one sort or another, unless he can live by exploiting some other artist's discovery and method. Few, probably, among artists are fully conscious of this compulsion, or, at least, of its cause, and but few trouble themselves about the economic system, but mostly, though not without social sympathies, take the risks, as individuals, of swimming or sinking, with the off chance of fortune and fame, as in the necessary order (or disorder) of things. Yet the economic position of the modern artist can hardly be considered as at all satisfactory, dependent as he is mainly upon the caprice of the rich, or the control of the dealer, and upon the surplus value and unearned increment it may be in the power of individuals to spend upon art. Painting, however, though the most individual, popular, vivid, and intimate of the arts, is not the _only_ art, and the arts, like humanity, do not flourish under Imperial rule. They are a brotherhood or a sisterhood (they are traditionally represented as the latter) though, in neither case are they necessarily celibate; on the contrary, for it is by the union of art with a human character and personality that living offspring are produced. From the point of view of the necessities of the community (and amongst these necessities I would certainly count beauty of environment) the constructive arts come first in order. Man needs shelter and security, and therefore architecture and the craft of building take the first place, since without roof and walls it would be difficult to enjoy the other arts which minister to our comfort, refinement, and pleasure (nor would it be hardly possible for many of them to exist) unless we could satisfy our aesthetic predilections by textiles and a tent, or by painting or chiselling the walls of a cave. Now architecture or the art of building is essentially a co-operative art. The planning and general scheme of the design of a building may indeed emanate from one mind, but its realization needs an army of skilled artificers and artists--stonemasons, carvers, carpenters, smiths, tilers and plasterers, and a host of labourers working harmoniously together. And yet, in order to make the building really expressive--a work of art, in short--something more than training and manual skill, something above learned tradition, and beyond even organized co-operative labour is wanted. What, then, is this something--this unknown quantity or quality? What makes the great difference between ancient and modern architecture, we might ask, for it is in the answer to this question that we find the answer to our first? Unity of sentiment--the inspiration of a great ideal, this it was which enabled the artists and craftsmen of past great periods in art to work in harmony on great public monuments, but without losing their character or individuality, as the different parts of the work might be full of invention and variety, and yet conduce to a harmonious whole, as in a Gothic cathedral. Mr. Halsey Ricardo, in an interesting address recently given to the Architectural Association of London, aptly described the architecture of Ancient Egypt as "priest's architecture"; that of Ancient Assyria as "the architecture of kings"; the architecture of Greece he considered as "sculptor's architecture," and that of the revived classicism of the Renascence as "the architecture of scholars." Well, these have all had their day. The turn of the people must come, and in the architecture of the future, under the inspiration of the great Socialist Ideal we may realize what may be described as the architecture of humanity. And, looking to the probable requirements of a co-operative commonwealth, this hope seems to be well founded in view of the likelihood of the construction of collective dwellings (already projected in the garden city) of noble public halls and schools. The unifying effect of a great Ideal, a Hope, a Faith, is obviously wanting generally in modern architecture, wherein the influence most paramount is too often the limits of the builders' contract. The golden image (which yet is never, like Nebuchadnezzar's, actually "set up") is the real god bowed down to, whosesoever the image and superscription over the porchway, and so modern art is everywhere tied to the purse strings. But the money-bag makes a poor device for an escutcheon, and is still less effective as an inspirer in art. The standard of the man in possession is "market value," and art under capitalism has become mostly a kind of personal and often portable property, and as much a matter for speculative investment as stocks and shares. As money cannot write history or ancestry, every portable bit of antiquity is now in danger of being bought up by dealers for the use of millionaires, and we shall soon have no visible history but in our museums. But, above the din of the market and the confusion of political tongues, a clarion call is heard, and through the darkness breaks a new dawn. The Socialist Ideal comes, scattering the clouds of pessimism and decadence which have lain heavily on the spirit of modern art. Artists have already been touched by the stress and stir of the struggle of Labour and the pathos of the life of the toiler, who, as a patient Atlas, sustains the earthy heaven of wealth and luxury. In contact with the earth again, and in sympathy with the life of the people, many painters have found inspiration. One of the greatest of modern sculptors--Meunier, the Belgian (alas! now no more) was himself a Socialist, and devoted himself to the study and realization of types of heroic labour--the labour that takes its life in its hand in every ordinary day's work--at the furnace mouth or in the coal mine. A group of his figures and reliefs forms a noble epic in bronze of the modern toiler. François Millet may be said to have painted the epic of the French agricultural labourer, though not, apparently, from any conscious or revolutionary point of view, but rather as a sympathetic observer recording its pathos. Much in the same spirit Joseph Israels in Holland, and Liebermann in Germany, have painted aspects of the worker's life. Many of our island painters from a similar standpoint have painted the English workers--such as George Clausen, H. H. La Thangue, Frank Brangwyn, Stanhope Forbes, H. S. Tuke, Prof. Frederick Brown, the late Charles Furse, and the late F. Madox Brown--and shown us the toilers of the sea and land, and the nameless heroes of the life-boat, and the tragedies of the fishing village. The aspects of labour under modern conditions, indeed, have a deep significance, more, perhaps, than the artist or the labourer, unconscious of Socialism, is probably aware of. To the artist it is always invigorating to get down to the roots of life, and draw fresh inspiration from the simple life of simple people meeting nature face to face every day of their lives. The representation of types and aspects of modern labour, however, may or may not always be an indication of the effect of Socialist sympathies or the inspiration of the Socialist Ideal, and in any case it only exhibits one phase of such sympathy. But the Socialist ideal has undoubtedly had a great influence in another direction, namely, in what are generally known as the "Arts and Crafts"; and it is not a little remarkable that the modern revival in Design and Handicraft may claim manufacturing and individualistic England as its birthplace. This fact has been freely and generously acknowledged by our Continental brethren. The perception of the essentially social character of the arts that minister to daily life, and the dependence of Design and Handicraft upon effective and sympathetic co-operation among groups of workers have drawn craftsmen together, and has led in some sort to a revival of guilds. Some of these guilds, like the Art Workers' Guild (founded as long ago as 1884) are for discussion of a demonstration in the various artistic handicrafts, and for mutual information and help. The influence of such guilds in the revival of many beautiful crafts on sound lines, and, above all, in imbuing artists of different crafts with a sense of the unity of art can hardly be overestimated. Other guilds, groups of workers, and industrial associations have been formed in many parts of the country for the practice of the handicrafts, influenced by the teaching of John Ruskin and William Morris. Others, again, are hardly more than commercial enterprises, but all endeavour to meet in one way or another the increasing public interest in hand-work. This English movement of the last twenty-five or thirty years or so is usually traced to the workshop of William Morris, who, with a group of distinguished artists, represented the advanced school in English art at that time, founded the firm which still bears his name some time in the sixties, mainly, at first, to supply artists and people of refined taste with simple furniture and domestic decoration that they could live with. Morris, who became so conspicuous an instance later, of the influence of the Socialist Ideal, was not then a conscious Socialist, though he was from the first in constant protest against the false taste and pretentiousness of modern decorative art, which had sunk to a very commercial and common-place level under mid-nineteenth century industrial conditions, controlled by division of labour and the machine. The fact that he was a poet and a man of letters as well as an artist gave additional force to his revolution in English taste, and increased his influence very much, while his own position as an employer, and man of business brought him face to face with the conditions of labour and modern industry. Although in his own work and the work he controlled he was highly successful, and by the vigour and beauty of his designs, under mediaeval influence, especially in woven stuffs and wall coverings, he quite turned the tide of taste, he abandoned hope that there could be any real or lasting improvement in the arts under the existing economic and social conditions, and he did not seem to share in the belief which has animated some of his friends and followers, that the Arts and Crafts movement itself would prove a means of revolutionizing methods of production and carrying on an effective propaganda for Socialism. The next step forward was made by the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society which was founded in 1888 by a group of artists which included architects, painters, sculptors, as well as designers and craftsmen of different kinds. The society arose from the ruins of a sort of secessionist movement of painters against the Royal Academy and its narrow views of art and exclusiveness. Among its members were men of very different ideas, but with these were several fully convinced and conscious Socialists, strongly imbued with Morris's ideals, though Morris himself did not at first join us, the present writer being elected as first president and serving in that office for the first three years of the society's existence, when Morris was elected to the chair and served till his death in 1896. Our main and ostensible purpose was to advance the state of the decorative arts by uniting design and handicraft, and by acknowledging the share and artistic responsibility of the individual workmen who co-operated in the production of a work of art, also to give opportunities to designers and craftsmen to exhibit their work and appeal directly to the public, and by holding selected exhibitions of design and handicraft from time to time to maintain a standard of taste and workmanship which hitherto there had been no means of doing. Courses of lectures on the arts by members of the society accompanied our earlier exhibitions, and these have since been published, and by such means our propaganda was greatly extended. If we cannot claim to have solved the Labour question, which, of course, nothing short of a Socialist system can do, we have asserted the claims of decorative and industrial art and of the craftsman, and we have enabled a body of artistic craftsmen to appeal direct to the public, while many of our members through teaching bodies, such as the Board of Education and the County Councils have been the means of inculcating sound traditions of workmanship among large numbers of young students and apprentices from various trades who go to study in the evening schools, and so carry back into their ordinary work fresh ideas and enhanced skill and taste. The influence of the Arts and Crafts movement has certainly been socialistic in increasing the respect for workmanship, and in awakening the sense of the public to the need of humane and healthful conditions for the workers, over and above the inculcation of the desire for beauty in common things, and harmonious surroundings of a refined if simple life. Its quiet methods still serve indirectly the propaganda of the Socialist Ideal. Only recently, for instance, an exhibition was organized in London of the work of various Guilds of Handicraft, by a lady on the staff of a well-known Socialist weekly journal, which demonstrated on the one hand the joy in art and handicraft under happy and fair conditions for the worker, and on the other showed the conditions of "sweated" labour by living examples working at their miserably paid trades. A river gathers volume by the contributions of the small streams which flow into it, and so with the great movement of Socialism, which, comprehending as it does, the whole range of human effort and aspiration, is continually widening and increasing in depth and force, not only by the direct action of its leaders, and the support of its conscious followers, but in many indirect ways. The sum of which it would be difficult to estimate though every influence counts, and even the very opposition of enemies often has the contrary effect to that intended by them, and not only so, but as we may observe in the political arena these are sometimes driven to defend their position by borrowing palliative weapons from the armoury of those they profess bitterly to oppose. The forms which art will take when Socialism is actually established will probably be very different from those which herald its advent. The consideration of such a large subject involves much speculation, but from the analogy of the inspiring influence of the ancient religions which have held sway over mankind, and which, controlling the whole of human life, focussed the most beautiful art upon its mysteries and beatitudes, and drew both the senses and the intellect of man into their service, we cannot but believe that the feeling of the solidarity of humanity, and all that it implies, which would dominate all social thought and conduct in a collective socialized community, would become a religion, when its full significance and its bearing on every department of life was fully realized; but a religion free from the shadow of degrading superstitions, and from the taint of asceticism, and under which there would be no shirking of either the work or the enjoyment of the earth--a religion whose highest sanction would be human happiness, and in which its votaries would discover not only a sound rule of conduct for every-day life, but an inspiring ideal to lead the spirit ever onwards. Human history would acquire a new significance in the mind of the poet and the artist, as they beheld, in the long course of evolution, the race in a vast procession emerging from the mists of primaeval time; from its early struggles with wild nature; from the gens and the tribal state, finding safety in primitive communism, and in that state beholding the invention of the essential fundamental necessities and appliances, such as the spade, the plough, and the wheel, the spinning and weaving of cloth, pottery, and the birth of song and art. From the tragic vicissitudes of history, of race-conflict, of conquest and domination of warlike tribes and the institution of slavery, the foundation and influence of the great ancient states and empires, and their inevitable decay and fall, and the new order springing from their ruins; the tragic tale of wars and pestilence and famine, of flood and of fire and of earthquake, and yet onward still through all these perils and disasters we may see humanity marching beneath the banner of social justice to fulfil its destiny; the hero spirits still passing the torch of enlightenment and freedom from hand to hand, and as one sinks into the silence another advances towards the full flush of the new morning. Transfigured in that new light may we not see a recreated earth, and her children set free from the bondage of gold whether of spirit or of body--the race of man entering into its inheritance at last, having triumphed over the worst and most insidious of all the despotisms that have ever dominated the earth--Capitalism. Then under the collective control of the means of existence, when none shall be crippled or stunted by want, or degraded by forced or unhealthy labour, what a different thing life will mean to the people. The cloud of care and anxiety to secure a bare subsistence which now darkens the spirit of millions shall be lifted, as well as its inverted reflection in the parsimonious spirit of some who have never known want, and all the sordid ingenuity, toil, scheming, craft, and trouble to win a lucky throw in the commercial speculative gamble will pass away, and we may begin to live. The whole noxious and squalid brood of vices and crimes connected with the individual possession of riches, or the desire for them, or the want of them, being swept away, we may begin to understand the possibilities of life upon this earth, in so far as they may be in the collective power of man. With all the resources of science, and the potential glories of art in our hands, with unprecedented control over the forces of nature, and in full knowledge of the essentials of health, these being all dedicated to the service of the whole community, who would thus be in possession of the elements and materials for a full and happy human life, surely we shall find new and abundant inspiration for art, and constant social use and demand for its powers. In depicting the story of man, and the drama of life; in great public monuments; in commemoration of the past, in the education of the present; in the adorning of domestic and public buildings and places; in the accompaniments of great festivals, processions, and celebrations--in such directions, surely, we shall find the widest possible field for the exercise of all the capacities of art--architecture, painting, sculpture and the arts of design and handicraft, with music and poesy, as in the fullness of communal life we shall possess the materials for building and maintaining fair cities, and dwelling places surpassing in beauty anything that the history of the world has yet recorded, since their foundations will rest upon the welfare of the whole people. ON THE STUDY AND PRACTICE OF ART ON THE STUDY AND PRACTICE OF ART Various views of an artist's life, and motives for following art are apt to present themselves to those on the threshold of the vast field of its study, but these after all may mostly be summed up in one of the two governing reasons, which may be expressed as follows: 1. The pure love of art. 2. The sake of a livelihood. (A third, _for pastime_, sometimes comes in, but may be dismissed as art cannot be studied to any purpose except in a serious spirit.) In practice it generally comes about that these first two have to be reconciled in some way, and it becomes a pressing question sooner or later as to _how_ to do so, though it is always well to remember that there is no _natural_ connection between love and money in the arts and, indeed, it would be better if all work could be inspired by and done for love. At the same time, under present economic arrangements, the labourer is at least worthy of his hire; and it might also be said that when poverty comes in at the door art--if not love--is apt (though not always) to fly out of the window. The same sequence sometimes happens also with the sudden advent of riches, which also has a way of throwing domestic arrangements out of harmony, so that here, as in other cases, extremes meet, and _too much_ may be as bad as _not enough_ in its effects upon art. To paint great masterpieces and make fame and fortune is an ambition given to few to realize. The masterpiece at all events must be a labour of love, whether fame or fortune follow or not, and in the history of art it has happened over and over again that masterpieces have not been instantly recognized, and the master usually has had to wait for recognition and reward--if that can be said in any real sense to lie outside the accomplishment of his work. Good art, like virtue, is its own reward. Yet, as a financial character remarks, in a play of Mr. George Moore's, "Man cannot live by virtue alone." Virtue itself indeed requires appropriate conditions for its development and sustenance, just as the artist requires support and sympathy. The warm breath of appreciation will draw up the sap of creative impulse and it will put forth bud and leaf, blossom and fruit. This potentiality for art, exists in a rudimentary way though in very varying degrees in perhaps all individuals, but as a general rule skill and facility are only acquired at the price of constant devotion, a devotion spontaneous and sincere. Even great gifts and natural or inherited adaptability require to be strengthened and made supple by study and constant practice and observation. I have alluded to the importance of a sympathetic atmosphere, and it sometimes happens that the germ of artistic impulse has to struggle with adverse circumstances, and it becomes a question of its strength and endurance whether it will survive till more favourable opportunities for its development arrive. Where from the earliest the student has been surrounded by the tools and implements of art, when he has seen it progressing before his eyes, the gain is enormous over those who take up their studies late, and to whom the world of art is comparatively mysterious and strange. The mere imitative impulse, which appears to be possessed in common by all mankind in a certain degree, will in the first instance gain a certain ease and facility of hand in dealing with tools--say pencil, brush and colour, which itself is a very great advantage to begin with. In fact, the first consideration in studying art is _facility of hand_. Without it, really nothing can be done since the power of expression is so much dependent upon it. In this connection I was much struck, while in America, with a method adopted by a teacher (Mr. Liberty Tadd)[5] in Philadelphia, a city in which very great attention was being paid to all forms of technical instruction. Well, this teacher did not profess to train artists at all. His object was to give _facility of hand_. He took children of various ages--quite young to begin with--from the ordinary primary schools, and set them to draw on the black board with a piece of chalk in each hand certain figures. Circles to begin with, and certain symmetric forms of ornament as shown in the diagram. The facility they acquired was extraordinary. He then set them to what he called "memorize" these forms and combine them in design as they best could, and to model such designs in clay, and to carve them in wood. Well, it struck me this might be capable of development. At any rate, clearly, facility of hand could be developed by exercise, just as muscular strength can be. [Illustration: PROGRESSIVE BLACKBOARD PRACTICE IN BI-MANUAL TRAINING. (From "New Methods in Education," by Liberty Tadd).] From such simple exercises a student might advance, and those who developed more faculty or taste in certain directions rather than others--say in modelling rather than drawing, or in carving--might pursue further those particular branches, making them main studies to which other side studies would contribute. The use of colour, and the habit of working directly on the paper with the brush, like the Japanese, would again give enormous facility and precision of touch, of great value both to the designer of patterns and also to the pictorial artist. The direct brush method has been, since this was first written, practised in our schools, often with surprising results indicating considerable design faculty in young children. Method is so much a question of habit, and in so many departments of design precision of touch and directness of execution are of such importance--in the preparation of working designs for cotton printing for instance. The india-rubber, I am inclined to think, sometimes is the root (or the sap) of all evil. It is for this quality of precision and technical adaptability to the conditions of manufacture which has, I believe, induced many manufacturers to seek their designs and working drawings on the continent. From the specimens I have seen however, I cannot say I am impressed with the originality or fertility of the designs, and when, too--though I am by no means of the Jingo persuasion--it came to getting your British lion designed abroad, unicorn and all the rest of the national heraldry, it seemed rather a _reductio ad absurdum_. Yet after all, of course, we must concede morally our French or German brother has as much right to life as we. Competitive commerce certainly is no respecter of nationality. We must all take our chance in the world market nowadays. We are all chained to the conqueror's car. We want a new Petrarch to write the triumph of commercialism, and a new designer to picture it, as the old triumphs are depicted with every splendour of inventive accessory, and magnificence of decorative effect in those Burgundian tapestries at Hampton Court and South Kensington. Well, I am afraid the modern triumph, such as it is, is pictured for us in the rampant poster, which pursues us in and out of stations, up and down streets, and even along the railway lines, which last vantage ground hitherto has been the prerogative of our American cousins. I do not say the poster has no place in art, and many very able artists have designed posters, and, on the whole, our free popular exhibitions on the hoardings have gained both in interest and printing skill, and decorative effect of late years. Under considerable restraint and chastening it might be possible to make the announcement of useful wares and theatrical events at least inoffensive, perhaps, and it may be that the mere working of competition will produce a demand for more refined productions, since when all shout together no one voice is likely to be heard, and the accepted theory of a poster is that it _must_ shout--but let us keep it out of our scenery. Any way the subject is important since our hoardings are evidently the most obviously public education in pictorial and typographical design. It is, after all, what meets our eyes every day that influences us. It is the surrounding--the set scene of every-day life that affects our artistic sense more than anything. While a visit to a museum or art gallery is only an occasional matter, except for students, the mass of mankind must take their impressions of colour and form from what they see around them. It is, we know, the persistence and aggregation of small causes that have played the chief part in the modelling of the earth as we see it, and which are continually changing its aspect. In like manner the general sense or sensitiveness to beauty is acted upon unconsciously, I have no doubt, by the aspects of every-day life, by the colours and forms of the street and the market as well as by the pictures and furniture of our domestic interiors. If this theory is correct, it follows that anything which impairs that sensitiveness must injure the faculty of its appreciation and production. We have been too careless in this matter, and constant toleration and familiarity with hideous surroundings brutalizes and blunts the perceptions, and seeing how largely ugliness of form and colour prevails in at least the externals of modern life, especially of our manufacturing centres, it is perhaps not surprising that a certain cult, a certain worship of the ugly should have obtained a footing even in art. I do not deny there are certain tragic aspects of industrialism, a certain weird fascination in drifting clouds of smoke, and beauty in the forms of escaping steam, and that graphic representations of the various restless aspects of modern life, have, in proportion to their sincerity, historic value. It is at all events _our_ life and must be recorded, though it leads to the art of the newspaper--but a great deal of clever art can be put into a newspaper. Our newspapers are perhaps getting the better of us; like Chronos the press devours its own children, and no one knows how many geniuses are yearly swallowed up, or how many lives and talents consumed in order that the comfortable world shall have its dish of news and views at the breakfast table, as well as in successive relays, served up like muffins, from the rising of the sun to the going down of the electric light. Well, Art, like literature, may be said to be divided into prose, poetry, and penny-a-lining, or, to find equivalents we might say, the creative, the pictorial, and the pot-boiling kinds. The first two are governed by their own laws and the individual preferences of the artist, the third depends upon fashion, the state of the markets, averages and the laws of supply and demand. Now it seems quite possible in an artistic life, while preserving an ideal of beauty of design and workmanship in whatever direction without sacrifice of principle, to remain in touch with the ordinary wants of humanity--to realize that that art is not necessarily the highest which is always in the clouds, but, indeed, that all kinds of art gain in character and beauty in proportion as the ideas they express are incarnate as it were--inseparable from the particular materials in which they are embodied. Their peculiar conditions and limitations openly and frankly acknowledged, and so far from being felt in the nature of a bondage, really are aids to distinct and beautiful decoration, as is the case in all the arts and crafts of design, showing that sincerity is the fundamental condition of good design and workmanship, which never pride themselves on imitating qualities which properly belong to other forms of art and other materials. There are two systems, or methods, or principles of education in art. i. The Academic or absolute. ii. The Experimental, or relative, and adaptive. The one teaching art or design in the abstract on certain cut-and-dried principles and methods, and fixed canons and standards, passing every mind through the same mill, without special reference to any particular conditions of craftsmanship or individual preference. The other teaching design in concrete forms and in direct relation to tools, methods and materials, with the object of calling out the individual feeling and setting it free to express itself under the natural limitations of art in its own way. The latter is the method of our new technical and Arts and Crafts schools, so that a student may really acquire a practical working knowledge of the peculiar requirements of design to be reproduced in any process of manufacture, instead of being launched on the world with vague general ideas of drawing and painting, but ignorant of how to apply them. It of course remains to be proved how far technical schools can really efficiently take the place of the old workshop training under the apprenticeship system, which led to good results in the past, but while one must of course recognize that changed times require new methods, we ought also clearly to realize that efficiency in the use of tools and materials, and adaptability to materials, with the view of bearing on the prosperity of trade and supplying manufacturers with more highly skilled designers and workmen, with increased competition, go to form _one_ aim and ultimate object. Quite another is the like efficiency, governed by the fresh creative impulse of artists and craftsman taking keen pleasure in their work, with leisure for reflection and enjoyment, and the gathering of fresh ideas from no poor, mean or stinted life, and not deprived of the stimulating influences of natural or architectural beauty, or the touch of refinement, and with the stimulating emulation and co-operation of fellowship instead of cut-throat competition. These are two ideals somewhat distinct. It remains to be seen which goal we shall ultimately reach, but much depends upon which we each individually work for, since individual impulse and action are precipitated in the collective force which finally moves the world. At present the requirements of artistic ideals are not always identical with the demands of commerce, and sometimes not so in any sense at all. There must be always I should think some particular individual reserve in the artist which must bide its time and the fitting medium and opportunity for its expression. The world is slow to apprehend new manifestations of original talent and will not accept immature masterpieces. It becomes a question therefore for the individual artist how far he can, without casting away or losing sight of his higher ideals and aspirations, associate himself with work of a less ambitious, more immediately serviceable, but not necessarily less artistic kind. It is here that technical knowledge will come in to help him, and there is room for the very best talents and invention in design in the work of the loom, and the printing press, iron, wood, stone, metal, glass, in a thousand materials and forms which contribute to build up the life of ordinary civilized man. When the design and construction of our furniture, and the various patterns and accessories which minister to the daily wants of humanity fall into purely mechanical hands, and artistic craftsmen no longer concern themselves with the unity of use and beauty, the sense of beauty and pleasure in life which comes of the exercise of the artistic faculty and of its appreciation, both are in a fair way to perish of inanition. It cannot too often be insisted on that the vital springs which nourish the growth of the tree of art to its topmost branches must be looked for in the harmonious character of all things connected with life itself, and since human happiness is bound up with harmonious social arrangements in all ways, the importance of such considerations cannot well be exaggerated. As in the pursuit of art we advance in the possession and interpretation of beauty and in the power of conferring higher pleasure to the cultivated senses and intellect, so are the forms of art apt to be placed higher in the scale: but High Art can only mean the art which embodies the highest beauty and conveys the most lasting and ennobling pleasure. It is its _quality_ more than its particular _form_ which settles this. Sharp lines of demarcation are often drawn between fine art and decorative, or industrial, art, for instance, which have proved very misleading. A good design is far and away better than a bad picture any day, but the arts are really an equal brotherhood. Excellence in any one branch probably requires as fine capacities as excellence in another. Beauty is of different kinds, but perfect beauty of design and workmanship must be acknowledged to be so, after its kind, whenever we meet with it, and who shall hold the scales between one kind of beauty and another. If an exquisite work of the loom--say such a Persian carpet as may be seen in the Victoria and Albert Museum, satisfies the eye with lovely and subtle harmonies of colour, with delicate and beautiful and inventive design, and even suggestions of romance and poetry: can the finest work of the painter give us more? Are threads and dyes necessarily inferior to pigments and palettes, or the loom less a work of ingenious joinery than the easel? Whatever may be the official and scientific classification of the arts agreed on, there is but one spirit in which to study and practice in any or all of them--sincerity and the love of beauty. "Strive to attain excellence in the things which are themselves excellent" sounds a good dictum but it is thoroughly Academic. Certain things are assumed to be excellent, and then excellence is to be striven for in them and in them alone. But how often in life--in the history of art and humanity has it been that some great artist and inventor has taken some poor despised thing and made it excellent. Think of the wealth of beauty and invention which makes alive the smallest fragment of Gothic carving, and invests every cup and bowl, every bench end and knife-handle of the middle ages with beauty and romance. The commonest weed may contain a fine motive in design, just as, in another way, the whole spirit of Japanese art in its weird, half-supernatural naturalism and magic delicacy of touch, may haunt a tiny ivory button, or be wrought into a sword hilt. It does not follow that everything should be ornamented. Artistic feeling is shown often as much in the judgement which restrains or forbids ornament as in the fertility of invention from which it springs. Organic consistency, adaptation to purpose, harmony and relation to surroundings. These are qualities at least as important as ornament. Yet it seems often to be thought that decorative art means ornamenting something: but the very word decoration must mean something appropriate--fitting, perfectly adapted. The engineer who borrows cast-iron Roman capitals and mouldings to adorn the iron railing and supports of his gasometer is not necessarily making it more artistic. A wrought-iron screen veiling the cylinder altogether, full of fancy and grace of treatment, might be more artistic--though it might raise the price of gas. The skeleton has a beauty of its own, "Thou art nor modelled, glazed, or framed," says Tennyson, to his "rough sketch of man." Yet we should not like to live in a world of skeletons, however valuable a knowledge of the bones and mechanism of the joints is to students of the human form. Engineers are good skeleton makers, but their skeleton structures do not often appeal to the sense of the beautiful--from the Eiffel Tower to the Forth Bridge. They can never be mistaken for architecture, they are triumphs of engineering, but they remain skeletons, and they are too big to be put in the cupboard. Perhaps our engineers are busy devising skeletons for the future to clothe and invest with life and beauty--or to _bury_! Yet for all that constructive lines--at least, simple ones which the eye can follow are, as a rule, beautiful lines. But I think if the sense of beauty was really a living and effective force, we should consider it a crime to destroy natural or architectural beauty, or to take away the public possession or enjoyment of it by any means, and should insist that the problem of utility was but half solved unless the result was harmonious. At present the world seems too busy about other matters--dissecting and analysing, experimenting, buying and selling, manufacturing and speculating, to care collectively for beauty, perhaps, and truth is at present too many-sided and composite to be easily reconciled with beauty. All is tumult and conflict, and through the smoke and dust of the commercial competitive battle in which we spend our lives we are not quite sure when the sun is shining, and when we _are_ sure, are perhaps too busy making the proverbial hay to notice the beauty of it. That is only for artists and idlers, and the world has such a horror of idleness that people, not condemned to hard labour, have acquired a habit of being extremely busy about nothing in particular, and it is supposed to be a conclusive argument against Socialism to ask "What will you do with the idle?" which seems a little like raising an objection to eating your dinner because you don't know what you will do when you are not hungry! Artistic ability and power of design are often talked of as if they were in the nature of conjuring tricks, and their exponents like those automatic machines at the stations which only require "a penny in the slot" to satisfy every ordinary modern human requirement from butter-scotch to green spectacles. It is not sufficiently realized that the sense of art and the power of its creation is a growth of the mind (as well as facility of hand) which must have its processes of germination and fruition. Art is not nature. It is a commentary or creative variation upon it, but in the progress of its own development art follows natural laws. Truth and Beauty are true lovers, but the course of true love never did run smooth. While Truth in various disguises is roaming desert places, sometimes like a knight errant fighting with sphinxes and dragons, sometimes, like Thor with his hammer, striking blows, the effects of which are only seen long afterwards; Beauty, like an enchanted princess, is often shut up in gloomy castles closed round with thorny woods or thronging factory chimneys. It is our business to re-discover her, to awaken her, to interpret her afresh to the world--to show that if beauty sleeps, our senses are only half awake, and our lives a meaningless monotony. [Footnote 5: Mr. Liberty Tadd has since developed his system and has embodied his teaching in a large and fully illustrated work--"New Methods in Education." He has visited this country and given lectures in exposition of his method, a part of which is known as bi-manual training, or ambidexterity, upon which there is an interesting book by Mr. John Jackson, F.E.I.S., with an introduction by Major-General R. S. S. Baden-Powell, C.B., published by Messrs. Kegan Paul, Trench and Co.] ON SOME OF THE ARTS AND CRAFTS ALLIED TO ARCHITECTURE ON SOME OF THE ARTS AND CRAFTS ALLIED TO ARCHITECTURE. AN ADDRESS TO THE STUDENTS OF THE ARCHITECTURAL ASSOCIATION I have been asked to address you on the Arts allied to Architecture. Now, as students of Architecture you will feel, considering how closely associated all the arts of design have been in the past, with Architecture as the mother-art, that it would be very difficult to draw a line between them, or to define the precise point at which any one of them naturally part company to be considered as a separate art. In the course of evolution many causes and forces have combined to change their relationship, however, and to give some of them a more or less independent position relatively to what they once had, as in the case of modern painting and sculpture; although these arts in their origin appear to be more closely related and essential to the forms of architecture with which they are combined than almost any of the other crafts. Indeed, it would almost seem as if sculpture might dispute the claim of primogeniture with architecture itself, since cave-dwelling and rock-cut temples seem more of the nature of the former; and also when we come to the wall sculptures of Nineveh and find winged bulls forming gateways; or see, as at the gate of Mycenae, beyond the builders' cyclopean craft of stone on stone, the only architectural forms and ornament in the sculpture of the slab over the gateway itself, in the column each side of which the lions stand, and in the carved discs and spirals below them. Again, when we come to the buildings of ancient Athens, temples of the Parthenon type might almost be described as frames or pedestals for sculpture, although in the case of the Parthenon the architecture and sculpture are so perfectly united that we hardly think of them apart. The sculptor seizes upon the deep pediments and the triglyphs to tell his mythical and symbolic story, and emphasizes them in bold relief and counterbalancing mass; to which the lines of roof and cornice, of entablature and column play a harmonious accompaniment, while the more delicate frieze completes and unites the whole scheme. Though we know that sculpture was not left to the cold embrace of white marble, but must have been beautiful in colour as it now is in form, the genius of sculpture seems to dominate here. Greek architecture, too, only repeats in stone and marble and on a large scale the primitive construction of wood; and this takes us back to the days of the sacred ark, or the tabernacle of the Israelites, more of a shrine or tent than a building, which depended so much for its beauty upon the adornment it received from--"The cunning workman, the engraver, the embroiderer in blue, and in purple, in scarlet, and in fine linen, and of the weaver, even of them that do any work, and of those that devise cunning work" (Ex. xxxv, 35). Certainly here, as in the descriptions of the building of Solomon's temple all the arts appeared to co-operate and were equally important to the beauty of the result, and we get a splendid picture of oriental colour and ornament. The account of the olive-tree doors of the temple carved with cherubim and palm trees and open flowers and overlaid with gold, shows the early use of a craft very dear to the modern decorator--gilding: though it probably means a more substantial kind than that of the modern frame-maker, since the text has it that "he covered them with gold fitted upon the carved work" (1 Kings, vi, 35). The craft of working thin plates of gold and other metals in repoussé is clearly a very ancient one, and contributed to what must have been a very splendid effect in interior decoration. Our use of silvered or gilded metal in modern wall sconces and door plates may be a relic of times when it was more extensively used and on larger surfaces, but one can hardly imagine a more splendid effect than a wall covering of beaten gold. The ordinary brass or copper repoussé work of our own day is either worked from the surface only by following the lines of the design drawn on the metal by a tool called a tracer, straight or curved, as may be required for straight or curved lines, although a straight tracer will follow all but very small curves. The tracer is tapped with a broad-ended hammer according to the amount of relief intended. I should have said the sheet of metal is fastened down over a sheet of lead by screws or nails to a deal board before working on. When the outlines of the design are hammered out, the background, which bumps up between the traced lines, has to be matted. This may be done by various patterned tools called matting tools. Your design, when the matting is done, will stand in low relief from its ground, and may be polished as much as desired. Although a pleasing effect of soft relief is obtained, this is not carrying the work very far, and would only satisfy amateurs. True repoussé work consists in actually modelling by the hammer and punch, and for this both for delicate and bold relief it is necessary to reverse the metal on the pitch block. This is formed of a mixture of pitch and Russian tallow sprinkled with plaster of paris, which forms a somewhat firm but easily indentable substance when warmed, and can be held together in tin trays. While the pitch is soft you must press in your metal plate the reverse side up and then beat up the hollows of the design as they have been defined by the tracer on the face of the work and which show clearly on the back. The tools used for doing this are rounded punches of various forms. The hammering is done rather persuasively, as sudden blows make sudden dents, which are not easily smoothed. Parts of the work, again, may be hammered on the surface over a lead or pitch block, or it may be hammered over a pattern carved in wood. This method is used when several forms recur, or it is desired to repeat the same pattern. [Illustration: Black & white marble Roman mosaic pavement. Baths of Caracalla. From sketch made in 1871.] [Illustration: Patterns of Roman mosaic pavements. Baths of Caracalla. From sketches made in 1871.] Another art of very early association with Architecture is mosaic, which may be said to be perhaps the most permanent and most splendid kind of architectural decoration ever used. In the matter of marble mosaic the Romans, though not the inventors of the art, in their pavements carried it to great elaboration, and worked it in many forms, the most successful being, to my mind, the simpler forms of flat pattern-work such as are seen in the baths of Caracalla at Rome, where white marble, or black, or black or white, is very effectively used, and there are some admirable scale-pattern borders. These make more reserved and satisfactory decorations for a floor than the shaded pictorial battle-pieces and figures of gladiators such as are seen at the Borghese Villa. In the Bardo Palace Museum at Tunis there is a very fine collection of Roman mosaic pavements. There has been a very extensive revived use of marble mosaic for the covering of entrance floors and halls in our own time; but it has been rather too much of the second-hand Roman type, although at its best it is a good type, and, as we know, many original Roman examples have been discovered, so that we are not without historic models in our own country. Marble mosaic is usually somewhat limited in colour but looking to the variety and beauty of tint to be found in marbles there is perhaps more restriction than need be, as well as in type of design. I made a design for the floor of a bank at Cleveland, Ohio, when I was in the States, which I am afraid might have tried the colour-resources of the mosaicist, since I introduced a symbolical figure of Columbia coining, wrapped in a robe of stars and stripes, which, however, would look sober enough when translated into marble tones. [Illustration: PATTERN OF ROMAN MOSAIC PAVEMENT, FROM THE BATHS OF CARACALLA.] For real splendour of colour we must turn to glass mosaic, and for magnificent examples of its architectural use we cannot do better than look at the churches of Ravenna. My friend, the late J. T. Micklethwaite, speaking of mosaic, once humorously remarked that mosaic in decoration was "like beer--of no use unless you had a lot of it." (That is all very well for those who can imbibe, and the dictum should appeal to Britons.) However, the use of mosaic at Ravenna and St. Mark's shows what my friend meant. In the mausoleum of Gallia Placida, a small rounded arched and vaulted Byzantine building of the fifth century, there are no mouldings or carving, or any kind of architectural enrichment, to interfere with the effect of the complete lining of mosaic, chiefly in pale tones of gold and colour on a deep, subdued but rich blue ground. The effect is very solemn and splendid. The actual workmanship of the Ravenna mosaics would no doubt be considered rough by the more mechanical modern mosaicist who does not accept the cube principle in using tesserae. The head of the Empress Theodora at San Vitale, for instance, is very simply done. The tesserae are few--but since the effect from the proper distance is fine, they must be fit though few. Then these mosaics like all the ancient ones, must have been worked from the surface. This gives a certain play of surface and depth and richness of colour, each tesserae not having been set at precisely the same angle to the plane of the wall, or to its neighbour cube. The modern Venetian way is to make the panels perfectly flat on the surface, the cement being spread over the tesserae when arranged face downwards. The modern Venetian workmen will copy a cartoon properly tesserated with the utmost precision, as I have discovered, but his panels have not the surface sparkle and variety of the old work. The method of putting in the tesserae from the front has however been revived since I made my designs. The design by Sir Edward Burne-Jones for the dome of the New American Church at Rome was worked in this way, and recently a mosaic altar-piece of "The Last Supper," for a church in Philadelphia, was executed in this way by Mr. and Mrs. Henry Holiday, the tesserae being inserted in a layer of putty. In London we have the great work of Sir W. B. Richmond in the choir of St. Paul's, which was all worked from the surface--the tesserae being set in red lead putty which, occasionally allowed to show at the joints, gives a certain warmth of tone to the whole. Whatever difference of opinion there may be about the decoration of St. Paul's, the designs of Sir William Richmond are exceedingly fine and conceived in a noble spirit. Mr. Anning Bell has carried out a charming design in mosaic worked from the surface for the exterior of the Horniman Museum. One projected for the exterior of the Whitechapel Picture Gallery, from a design of my own, has not so far been executed for want of funds. I have often thought, when looking at the beautiful arrangements of tint in the fine shingle of some of our sea beaches, that the materials for a very effective kind of mosaic, at small cost, might be found there, and adapted for the ornamentation of the external walls of seaside houses, in friezes, strings, panels, or even entire walls. In thus reviving the ancient art of pebble-mosaic, a charming local character might thus be given to the buildings of certain of our coast places which would add very greatly to their attractions. The thing, of course, would need some intelligence and taste, without which indeed the most costly and beautiful materials in the world may be wasted. One of the most charming and simple ways of decorating external walls is to be found in the patterns indented in the plaster of the surface filling of half-timbered houses such as are so plentiful in Suffolk and Essex. It is a characteristic and ancient method which it is gratifying to note is made use of by modern architects and builders in that district. Figures and ornament in relief are also used. A mixture of Portland cement and lime is a good material for this purpose, as it does not set too quickly, but finally sets hard and is durable. Delicate plaster relief-work for ceilings and friezes is also a very charming method of interior decoration, and there are very fine examples scattered over the country, though its original home was, I presume, in Italy, whose craftsmen still maintain their pre-eminence in the skill with which they deal with the manipulation of all kinds of plaster-work. Plaster and stucco must have been largely used in ancient Rome, and there are very beautiful, both bold and delicate, examples in the decorations of the famous tombs of the Via Latina. In one instance, on a wagon vault, the figures appear to have been worked directly in the soft plaster and the relief-work is used with vigorous indented lines. The effect of the work is wonderfully direct, simple, and fresh, and suggests having been done with speed and certainty. Raphael, influenced no doubt by old Roman work, introduced modelled portions in his painted designs for the Loggia of the Vatican. The usual modern method is to model the design in clay, mould it in gelatine, and then cast it in fibrous plaster panels (supposing it is for relief work) and screw them in position, stopping the joints afterwards. This, though it has many conveniences, is not so artistic in its results as when the design is worked directly in stucco or gesso in its proper position; but if we could be sure of finding the plasterers and craftsman to do it, we should but rarely find the opportunity, or the client who would allow time for such work _in situ_. A middle course is to model your design--say, for a frieze or ceiling--in gesso or stucco of some kind on fibrous plaster panels; and the design may be planned so as to cut up into convenient-sized panels to work on an easel in the studio, and be fixed in position afterwards. I have worked panels in this way using plaster of paris, thin glue, and cotton wool. The ground should be wetted, or the suction stopped by a coat of shellac, or the work is apt to dry too quickly and peel off. For delicate relief ornamentation, say, in wall panelling and furniture, a kind of gesso duro is good. This is a mixture of whitening, glue, boiled linseed oil and resin. It is mixed to a creamy consistency, the whitening being first soaked in water. The gesso is laid on with a brush--long pointed sable is best. The gesso sets slowly, but very hard, so that any part of the work could be scraped down if necessary. Another effective method for external and interior work in decoration is sgraffito, also of Italian origin. It consists in cutting or scratching a design through one or more layers of mixed lime and cement on to coloured grounds. A ground is laid on the plaster of the wall, say, of black, made by mixing black oxide of manganese and breeze from a smith's forge with the cement. When this is set, a layer of mixed lime and cement is laid over the black, about a quarter of an inch or more thick. When this layer has partly set, and is about the consistency of cheese, you cut your design out, its lines and masses defined by the black ground beneath as you cut away the top layer. Two or three colours may be used in the same way, one being laid over the other, and the effect produced by cutting down to the different layers as you wish. I once came to a town in Bohemia, Pracatic, a wonderful old place, with a fine deep Gothic gateway, with a fresco of a knight-at-arms over it. The walls of the principal houses appear to have been entirely decorated with designs in sgraffito. The Rathaus or town hall was the most elaborate and best preserved, and was covered with designs from Bible story, divided by pilasters, and panelled in scroll ornament. Sgraffito is still extensively used in Italy and Germany, where one sees much more elaborate work in it, and on a more extensive scale than anything here, unless we except the considerable and excellent work of Mr. Heywood Sumner in this material. He, however, has used it chiefly for interior wall decoration and churches. He generally uses three colours, red, green, and black, by which his large, simple, and bold designs are well expressed. Our climate--more especially town climate--is generally unfavourable to the effectiveness and permanence of the work as exterior decoration. There is, however, an excellent object lesson in sgraffito of various kinds to be seen on the back wall of the Science Schools at South Kensington, the work of the late Mr. Moody. It seems curious that more has not been attempted in the way of external decoration by means of coloured and glazed tiles. The colour in these is permanent enough, and good quality of colour can be obtained. I fancy pleasant effects could be produced by facing the front of houses with coloured tiles, and introducing friezes and plaques beneath and between the windows. The ground story of many brick houses in London streets are cemented and painted. Why not try the effect of coloured tiles instead? Mr. Halsey Ricardo, it may be mentioned, has used De Morgan tile panels most effectively in a house he designed in Addison Road, Kensington, which is distinguished also by a beautiful roof of green glazed tiles from Spain. Mr. Conrad Dressler has also designed extensive mural decorations in a kind of Luca della Robbia manner, which is very effective. For splendour of effect, too, few things could equal designs produced in lustre. Tiles, of course, have long held an undisputed position as decorative linings for fire-places. A new domestic application of them is suggested in that little gem of a picture by Van der Meer of Delft, recently added to our National Gallery, where white Dutch tiles with blue figures are fixed along the wall on the floor line, where one usually sees the wooden skirting. Of the beauty of the effect of raised figures treated in faïence colours and glazes as an architectural decoration there is a splendid example in the frieze of archers from the palace wall of Darius, now at Paris, apparently made of moulded bricks glazed with colour, a good reproduction of which was to be seen in what was formerly the architectural court at the Victoria and Albert Museum; where also we could study the bold and beautiful frieze of Luca della Robbia from the Ospedale at Pistoia. One wants to see it in the full Italian sunshine and in its proper architectural setting fully to appreciate its fine decorative effect, and it is to be regretted that these reproductions of architectural decorative works are not exhibited in the Museum with an indication of their framework to show their relation to the buildings of which they form part.[6] It would be better to have fewer examples properly displayed, I believe, than a multitude crowded together, with no means of judging of them in their proper relation to their surroundings. If the examples were accompanied by good and clear drawings or photographs of the entire buildings it would be useful. At Pistoia, also, there is a charming porch to the cathedral covered with Robbia ware in white, yellow, and blue, in association with black and white banded marble.[7] Such examples show with what beautiful decorative effect majolica can be associated with architecture. To Italy, again, we must look for the most beautiful illustrations of the unity of painting with architecture, from the work of Giotto at Padua and Assisi to the crowning work of the Renascence, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel by Michael Angelo. The most perfect example of mural decoration in Italy I have seen, is, however, to be found in the Appartimenti Borgia in the Vatican, painted by Pinturrichio, a very beautiful model of which can be studied in the Victoria and Albert Museum (it was formerly in the Italian Court). Here we have a scheme of decoration at once restrained and rich, in strict relation to the construction, and yet full of variety and beauty of detail; and it is interesting, too, as an example of the use of gilded gesso used both for details in the wall pictures, as well as for arabesque ornament, and bordering on the vaulted ceiling. The lower wall was evidently originally intended to be covered with tapestry hangings, as there is a moulding with the little hooks to hold them; and this would have completed the effect of the whole in a rich and reposeful way. Another very rich and beautiful instance of the earlier Renascence mural painting may be seen in the Riccardi Chapel at Florence by Benozzo Gozzoli. Some full-sized copies are at South Kensington, notably one of Lorenzo de Medici in a gilded dress going a-hunting. The famous Campo Santo at Pisa, and the frescoes in the town hall of Siena are fine instances of the days when mural painting was a living and popular art, frankly appealing to the love of story and romance, vivid, dramatic, and yet superbly decorative. Superior modern critics might scorn such types of art as "literary," and their _naïveté_ as "childish"; but their story-telling power is an inseparable part of their artistic form, and never oversteps it, just as their decorative instinct is in perfect accord and harmony with their architectural conditions. This was long before the days of academies and art schools, when there was no technical art education outside the workshop, no competitive examinations, and a man learnt his craft by apprenticeship to it, beginning at the beginning, under a master craftsman. I fail to see how any art can be wholly taught or learned on general principles, since it is of the nature of art to address itself to particular problems, the conditions of which constantly vary. Certain general principles have been evolved out of collective practice of more or less value, no doubt, in a general way, but they must always be liable to qualification in their adaptation to particular cases. Nothing of the nature of art can be formulated as an exact science, happily, or the limits of its invention and variety would soon be reached. Art, however, has its scientific side, though the science of art is not exactly scientific or theoretic, but practical, and rather consists in recognizing particular necessities of conditions and materials, and the realizing that the frank acknowledgment of the nature of these conditions and materials leads, in all the varieties of design, in association with craftsmanship and architecture, to the highest beauty. [Illustration: Patterns in plain leading, from "THE GLAZIER'S BOOKE."] The peculiar beauty of a stained glass window, for instance, is entirely dependent upon this frank acknowledgment of conditions. A screen of transparent colour and pattern, defined and united by leads, and held in position by iron bars. Directly any attempt is made to overstep its natural limits--to make it look like a painted picture, to get chiaroscuro and vanishing points, or to try to ignore the leading as an essential condition of its existence--the charm and the joy of it is lost. There is a distinct character and beauty both in plain leaded glass and roundels throwing a pleasant network of simple geometric lines over the blankness of window-panes. Henry Shaw, in his Glazier's Book,[8] gives a great variety of delightful leading patterns. Now, any design for a coloured glass window should, in the first place, be a good arrangement of lead-lines, I think--a good pattern, in short, whether figure subject or not--and, secondly, a good pattern considered as an arrangement of colour or jewelled light. The artistic designer and maker of a wrought-iron gate, grille, or railing, whatever phantasy he might introduce, would never forget the essential requirements of a gate, grille, or railing. He would never forget the architectural relation of his work, or rather he would make the chief beauty and inventiveness of his treatment of wrought iron spring out of that relation. The practice of modelling in clay (though it may be useful in a student's training) designs intended to be carved in wood, has, it seems to me, been most destructive of the beauty and character of true woodcarving. The same may be said of stone and marble. The essential spirit and go of the thing, the characteristic touch and treatment which each material in which the designer works claims as its own, and which is its own particular reason for existing, these are, of course, lost or tamed out of recognition when a copy is made of something already existing in a material and produced by a method totally different. Much better keep to simple mouldings and plain painting than bring in ornament which has no character or meaning of its own. We must not confuse the mere spreading of ornament with decoration in its true sense, for Design in all its forms may be said to be governed by an architectural instinct of its own, which makes it a harmonious part of the building with which it is united, and which unites it, and puts it in harmony with itself. In the limits of a short paper it is impossible to do more than deal very lightly with so vast a subject as the Arts allied to Architecture, and there are many that I have not been able to touch at all, since, properly considered, _all_ the arts are, or should be, allied to architecture, and the history of architecture covers the history of human life itself; and what, let us ask, would architecture be without the associated arts which help to express and adorn it and fit each part for the use and service of man. [Footnote 6: This was written before the arrangement of the collections in the new building of the Victoria and Albert Museum was complete.] [Footnote 7: An illustration of this porch is given in my "Bases of Design."] [Footnote 8: The full title is "A Booke of Sundry Draughtes. Principally serving for Glasiers: And not impertinent for plasterers, and gardeners: besides sundry other professions. London. William Pickering 1848." It is almost wholly copied from an older work "printed in Shoolane at the sign of the Falcon by Walter Dwight 1615."] NOTES ON COLOUR EMBROIDERY AND ITS TREATMENT NOTES ON COLOUR EMBROIDERY AND ITS TREATMENT Embroidery as an art of design may be considered from many different points of view--but none of these are more important than those of colour and its treatment. It is indeed to colour that decorative needlework owes its chief charm, and in no direction is the influence of controlling taste more essential, and in its absence the most elaborate workmanship and technical accomplishment are apt to be wasted. The choice and treatment of colour must naturally depend, in the first place, upon the object and purpose of the work, which would, of course, decide the scale and motive of its pattern. As applied to costume, in which direction we find some of its most delicate and beautiful examples, nearness to the eye, the construction of the garment and the proportions of figure would have to be considered. The Russian peasants have a form of frock or long blouse worn by young girls, which affords an instance of effective use of frank and bright colour upon a white ground. The garment itself is of homespun linen. It has a square opening for the neck, and is put on over the head, like a smock frock. The sleeves are quite simple, full on the upper arm and narrowing to a band on the wrist. The skirt, which falls straight from the shoulders, is decorated with a series of horizontal bands of pattern worked in cross-stitch, the principal colours being red and green, colours which always tell well upon white. The square-cut opening at the neck and the cuffs are emphasized by embroidered pattern of similar kind but on a smaller scale. The garment is ingeniously adapted to the growth of its wearer by adding extra rings of pattern to the skirt, and by enlarging a square piece let in at the arm-pits. The Hungarian peasant women are most admirable embroiderers, and in their festal costumes display an extraordinary wealth of brilliant colour, employing, like the Russian, principally the cross-stitch on white linen. They are fond of decorating the ends of their pillow-cases which are piled up one upon the other on the bed, usually set against the wall in their cottages, so that only the outside ends show, and these alone are embroidered. Both the patterns, which are traditional and have an oriental character, and their colour show a strong decorative sense and natural taste. Many of them being worked in a single tone of red or blue, always effective on white. In some parts short sleeveless leather jackets lined with sheep's wool are worn. These are made incredibly gorgeous in colour by a kind of combined _appliqué_ and stitch embroidery, the vivid greens, reds, blues, and purples being kept in their place by the broad white of the shirt sleeves which flank them on each side when worn. [Illustration: RUSSIAN PEASANT EMBROIDERY CHILD'S BLOUSE in home spun linen worked in cross-stitch Red pattern in cross stitch Red band Neck opening Red band Red pattern in cross stitch Square enlarging piece Red band herring bone stitched Blue (stitched) Pattern in Red (Cross stitch) Blue (stitched) Red band Red band ] More austere arrangements are however found. There is a large heavy overcoat, with hanging sleeves and deep collar, worn by the Hungarian farmers, made of white wool. This is ornamented most judiciously by _appliqué_ embroidery in black and green. The chief points of decoration being the collar, the cuffs, and the hem. In the Montenegrin section of the Balkan States Exhibition at Earl's Court there were some charming shirts and blouses embroidered with gold thread and colour, in bands. The constructive points, such as the neck opening, the junction of the yoke and sleeves, sometimes the sleeves themselves were richly ornamented with designs in gold and colour with excellent effect. Good examples of treatment of rich colour in combination with light pattern are to be found among Cretan embroideries. The decoration in bands of the ends of the muslin scarves, relieved with silver and gold thread, often recalls the effect of the illuminated borders of fourteenth and fifteenth-century manuscripts, having a delightfully gay and sparkling effect. These Cretan embroideries are examples of the harmonious effect in the arrangement of a number of different colours in the same pattern, grouped around a central feature which forms the dominating note; this is generally in the form of a large red flower with a gold centre, and this is surrounded with smaller detached star-like flowers, and formal cypress trees in leaf-shaped enclosures of gold or silver thread. The design being repeated, with slight variations, to form a band or border of pattern decorating the ends of the scarf. In a sample before me eight colours are used, besides gold and silver thread. The colours are: (1) red, in centre flower (a light vermilion); (2) crimson (sometimes, alas, magenta); (3) pink (pale salmon); (4) orange; (5) light (lemon) yellow (of greenish tone); (6) olive (dark); (7) pale blue, and (8) dark blue. [Illustration: CRETAN EMBROIDERY. Silk on Muslin, heightened with gold and silver thread. Colours: 1. Orange 2. Crimson 3. Red 4. Pink 5. Olive 6. Yellow (green) 7. Light blue 8. Dark blue 9. Gold 10. Silver ] As every embroideress knows, colour in embroidery is very much influenced by texture. The colour of a skein of silk looking different from the same colour when worked. Juxtaposition with other colours, again, alters the effect of a colour. As a general principle, especially where many colours are employed, we are more likely to secure harmony if we choose reds, for instance, inclining to orange, blues inclining to green, yellows inclining to green or brown, blacks of a greenish or olive tone. Perfectly frank and pure colours, however, may be harmonized, especially with the use of gold, though they are more difficult to deal with--unless one can command the natural, primitive instinct of the Hungarian, the Greek, or the Persian peasant. For bold decorative work few kinds of embroidery design are more delightful than the bordered cloths and covers from Bokhara. Here, again, the colours are chiefly red and green in different shades, the reds concentrated in the form of big flowers in the intervals of an open arabesque of thin stems and curved and pointed leaves in green, the whole design upon a white linen ground. [Illustration: BOKHARA EMBROIDERY. Silk on linen, chiefly in chain stitch. The large flowers are worked in two shades of rich red inclining to crimson with yellow centres relieved by dark blue. The blue & yellow & red are repeated in the smaller flowers. The leaves are blueish green with a red line down centre. They are outlined with bronze brown which I also used for the stems & spirals. Inner border, between red lines. The star flowers are alternately blue & red with yellow centres with bronze leaves. The outer border, also between red lines. The flowers are red with blue & yellow centres alternately, & green & bronze leaves.] Such joyful, frank, and bold colour, however, would be usually considered too bright for the ordinary English interior, and under our gray skies; and colour, after all, is so much a question of climate, and though for its full splendour we turn to the south and east, we need not want for models of beautiful, if quieter, harmonies in the natural tints of our native country at different seasons of the year. There are abundant suggestions to be had from field and hedgerow at all times--arrangements in russet, or gold, or green. What can be more beautiful as a colour motive than the frail pink or white of the blossoms of the briar rose, starring the green arabesque of thorny stem and leaf; or its scarlet hip and bronze green leaf in the autumn; or the crisp, white pattern of the field daisy on the pale green of the hay field, relieved by the yellow centres and by the red of sorrel; or the brave scarlet of the poppy between the thin gold threads of the ripe corn. Then, too, there are beautiful schemes of colour to be found in the plumage of our birds. Take the colours of a jay, for instance--a mass of fawn-coloured gray with a pinkish tinge, relieved with touches of intense black and white and small bars of turquoise blue and white. A charming scheme for an embroidered pattern might be made of such an arrangement, if the colours were used in similar proportions to those of nature--say in a costume. The mainspring of colour suggestion, as of design, in embroidery, however, must be found in Nature's own embroidery--flowers, and the garden must always be an unfailing source of fresh suggestion for floral design both in colour and form. But, of course, everything in the process of adaptation to artistic purposes is under the necessity of translation or transformation, and any form or tint in nature must be re-stated in the terms proper to the art or craft under its own conditions and limitations as being essential to the character and beauty of the result, _suggestion_, rather than imitation of nature, being the principle to follow. But while we must go to nature for fresh inspiration in colour invention or combination, we have a guide in the traditions and examples of the craft and the choice of stitches to influence our treatment. The colour principles, too, we may find in allied arts may help us. [Illustration: DESIGN FOR AN EMBROIDERED HANGING Showing the use of shields of arms as contrasting elements in colour & pattern COLOURS: oak leaves - sage green. stone & acorns - golden brown on pale green or unbleached linen ground. Heraldic colours as noted on sketch ORIGINAL DESIGN BY WALTER CRANE.] Heraldry, for instance, while shields of arms, crests, and mottoes, are in themselves excellent material for embroidery, as units of embroidered pattern. The principles of the disposition and countercharge of colour in heraldry, and the methods of its display and treatment in form as exemplified in the heraldic design of the best periods--say, from the twelfth to the fifteenth century--will be found full of useful lessons. A repeating pattern of leaves or flowers in a hanging is pleasantly enriched and varied by the introduction of heraldic badges or shields at intervals, the emphatic concentrated colour and accent of the heraldry contrasting with the less formal, open, but evenly dispersed design with its recurring units and counterbalancing curves which form the main field of the hanging. Interesting heraldic devices for such purposes may be found in every locality, either of family, civic, or general historic interest, our village churches being generally valuable treasuries from this point of view. Where it is desired to restrict colour in embroidery to two or three tints, and restricted colour is generally suitable to simple decorative purposes with corresponding simplicity of design, it is safe to follow the principle of complementary colours in nature. Red and green, blue and orange, brown and yellow, and so on, but, of course, this would leave an immense range of choice of actual tint of any one colour open. Your red, for instance, might be salmon pink or deep crimson, your green that of the first lime shoots in spring to the metallic bronze of the holly leaf; your blue might be that of larkspur or the turquoise of the palest forget-me-not, while your orange might be that of the ripe fruit or the tint of faded beech-leaf. Tasteful work, however, may be done in two or three shades of the same colour. The choice of tint for the embroidery must depend largely upon the tint and material of the ground, and also upon the material in which the work itself is to be carried out--silk, cotton thread, or crewels. Whether, however, for designs which entirely cover the ground, or for the lightest open floral pattern, linen seems the material on which the best results are produced. NOTES ON EARLY ITALIAN GESSO WORK NOTES ON EARLY ITALIAN GESSO WORK The charming varieties of decoration in relief by means of modelled gesso and stucco which attained to such richness and beauty in the hands of Italian artists in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, are traceable to very early origins, and come down from Graeco-Roman and Roman times, and probably had a still earlier existence in the East, since decoration in raised gesso was long practised by the Persians and the Arabs, and plaster-work goes back to the ancient Egyptians, who also used gesso grounds for the painting and gilding of their mummy cases. Existing examples of Roman and Pompeian relief work belong mostly to the first century B.C., and are of the nature of architectural enrichments, being chiefly mural and ceiling decorations, worked in plaster and stucco, _in situ_. Many of these are very delicate and show the influence of Greek feeling in design and treatment, such, for instance, as those from the ceilings of the tombs on the Via Latina at Rome, which in their simple panelled treatment, enclosing groups of finely modelled figures seem to be the forerunners of the rich and delicate gesso relief work, stamped, or modelled with the brush, which the Italians used with such tact in the decoration of caskets, marriage coffers, and other furniture in the early renascence period. Mr. Millar in his comprehensive work on "Plastering" speaks of a very fine example of gesso work as existing in the old cathedral church at Coire, a box which is said to be as old as the ninth century. It is entirely covered with gesso, on which a design in relief has been roughly scrolled. The gesso has been polished so as to give the appearance of ivory, and he further says, "at the corners, where it has got chipped off, the ends of the linen can be seen which has evidently been put next the wood, as Cennino Cennini advises." Cennino, indeed, in his very interesting "Trattato" (which was translated by Mrs. Merrifield in 1844, for the first time into English, and recently, more accurately and completely, by Mrs. Herringham) gives very full and ample accounts of the methods in use in his time in painting and the allied arts, and gives recipes, also, both for making and working gesso. He lays great stress on the care necessary in preparing grounds on wood both for painting and raised work, and in advocating the use of "linen cloth, old, fine, and white, and free from all grease," writes "take your best size, cut or tear large or small strips of this linen, soak these in the size, and spread them with your hands over the surface of the panel; remove the seams, and spread the strips out with the palms of the hands, and leave them to dry for two days." He further enjoined one to "remember it is best to use size when the weather is dry and windy. Size is stronger in the winter than in summer, and in winter gilding must be done in damp and rainy weather." Then--Chapter 115--he proceeds to describe the process of laying on the ground of gesso over the linen. His "gesso grosso" used for the ground, is burnt gypsum or what we know as plaster of paris. The same, well-slaked, he uses for finer grounds, and also for working in relief upon such grounds. In Chapter 116 Cennino describes how to prepare gesso sottile (slaked plaster of paris). The plaster, he says, "must be well purified, and kept moist in a large tub for at least a month; renew the water every day until it (the plaster) almost rots, and is completely slaked, and all fiery heat goes out of it, and it becomes as soft as silk." This gesso is afterwards dried in cakes and Cennino speaks of it in this form as "sold by the druggists to our painters," and that "it is used for grounding, for gilding, for _working in relief_, and other fine works." These cakes were scraped or soaked and ground to powder and mixed with size for using as grounds and for relief work, as occasion required (Chapters 117, 119). In speaking further on (Chapter 124) of "how works in relief are executed on panels with gesso sottile," he says, "take a little of the gesso on the point of the brush (the brush must be of minever, and the hairs fine and rather long), and with that quickly raise whatever figures you wish to make in relief; and if you raise any foliage, draw the design previously, like the figures, and be careful not to relieve too many things, or confusedly, for the clearer you make your foliage ornaments, the better you will be able to display the ingraining with stamps and they can be better burnished with the stone." He describes (Chapter 125) also methods of casting relief work, "to adorn some parts of the picture" which shows he is thinking of gesso enrichments in painting, so much used by the early painters. Cennino is said to have been living in Padua in the year 1398. His treatise shows the care and patience necessary to good workmanship in the various arts and crafts he describes, and throws much light upon the methods of the artist craftsman of his time, and is of particular value and interest as touching the subjects of tempera painting, gilding, and, incidentally, of gesso-relief decoration, to the ornamental effect of which both the former are important contributors. Now there are several distinct varieties of gesso work. Firstly we have gesso relief used to adorn and enrich painted panels, or as an adjunct to decorative painting. Of this there are many instances: a notable one may be cited in the frescoes of Pinturrichio in the Appartamenti Borgia in the Vatican at Rome where the paintings are heightened by gilded parts in relief, such as weapons and ornaments, embroidery or robes, and even architectural mouldings. The late Mr. Spencer Stanhope revived this union of gilded gesso with decorative painting, as in his work in the chapel at Marlborough College. Other examples may be found in our National Gallery. The superb collection of Italian gesso work in the Victoria and Albert Museum, unrivalled anywhere, from which, by the courtesy of the late Mr. Skinner, who was Sir C. Purdon Clarke's successor in the directorship,[9] I am enabled to give my illustrations, may be referred to as furnishing examples of every variety of treatment in the craft, as well as of the taste and invention and richness of early Italian decorative design. [Illustration: MARRIAGE COFFER, NO. 5804--1859 (VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM).] As an adjunct to painting gilded gesso was frequently used burnished and enriched with stamped or punctured patterns (_granare_), often in the form of nimbi around the heads of saints and angels in devotional works, and in backgrounds. Cennino (Chapter 142) speaks of this method and gives directions in it. The Marriage Coffer from the Museum, No. 5804--1859, illustrates this treatment and is a good example of its highly decorative effect. The front panel shows a very rich and interesting design of figures in fifteenth century Florentine costume, heightened with gilded parts in gesso having small punctured patterns upon it, which give sparkle and variety to the gold. This method seems to have been continued for several centuries in Florence. I have an alms-dish of early seventeenth century date, the centre of which is treated in this way with punctured or hollow pin-head patterns impressed upon a gilded gesso ground. This method, it may be noted, has lately been revived by Mrs. Adrian Stokes in association with tempera painting. [Illustration: ITALIAN CASSONE, NO. 317--1894 (VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM).] Stamped work, again, mentioned by Cennino, is another distinct method in gesso decoration. Of this a very beautiful example is the early fourteenth-century Italian cassone (No. 317--1894). This cassone is decorated with figures of knights and ladies on horseback, in hawking and hunting array, each figure being silhouetted in clear profile in a separate square panel, in white, upon a black or a red ground, alternately. These spaces or panels are divided horizontally by bands of running ornament in relief, and, vertically by bands of thin wrought iron foliated at the edges which form protecting and strengthening bands for the chest. The stamps from which these figures were produced must have been most delicately cut. They are full of fine detail and charming in design. It is not quite clear how they could have been so cleanly stamped upon the ground, unless perhaps, the edges and outlines were carefully gone round and cleared afterwards, or the paste in which they were stamped, perhaps being slow in setting and more or less elastic, might have allowed of their being stamped cleanly out of the material separately and applied to the gesso ground or the chest afterwards.[10] In design these figures (on the cassone illustrated) are characterized by a certain graceful severity, almost Greek-like in its ornamental restraint, yet in the delicate invention and richness of the decorative details of the costumes and housings of the horses they are oriental in treatment. It has often been said that human figures cannot be repeated with satisfactory decorative effect, but this cassone is surely a striking instance to the contrary, as the recurring effect of these delicately silhouetted and slightly formalized figures and horses is extremely refined and beautiful. [Illustration: SHIELD IN GILDED GESSO, NO. 3--1865 (VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM).] We might be able to discover examples of gesso decoration in which stamped work or moulded work was used for repeating parts, and freehand work for other parts. In the Museum examples the majority seem to have been worked directly with a free hand. There is a fine example of how gesso lends itself to a bold heraldic treatment in the Museum collection (No. 3--1865), a tournament shield on which a griffin, sable, is emblazoned on a field, or. The sable griffin in bold relief is not only a fine heraldic beast, but is decoratively spaced and relieved upon the gold field, the richness of which is greatly enhanced by the fine raised diaper pattern worked all over it in effective ornamental contrast to the bolder relief and treatment of the charge. It is possible stamps may have been used for the diaper of the field. The work belongs to the second half of the fifteenth century and is from the Palazzo Guadagni, Florence. [Illustration: FRONT OF CASSONE IN GILDED GESSO, NO. 727--1884 (VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM)] One of the charms of gesso work in ornamental effect is the softened, floated, or half melted look given to the forms which take the lustre of gilding so agreeably. This character no doubt is given by the use of the brush in floating or dropping on the forms of the ornament. In No. 727--1884 of the Museum collection a particularly rich and dignified ornamental effect is produced by the contrasting allied elements of the figure reliefs in the large lozenge-shaped enclosures, with the rich gilded formal diaper of the heraldic sphinx, or human-headed lion, which, in close repetition, forms the diaper on the main field of the decoration. The raised work in this example has the softened molten or beaten character above spoken of. The marriage coffer (No. 718--1884) is an instance of purely ornamental treatment in raised and gilded gesso on wood, consisting mainly of foliated scroll forms characteristic of the early Italian Renascence work, and here again the raised patterns have the soft rich look, as if the ornament had been squeezed or floated upon the surface of the wood, somewhat in the way in which confectioners squeeze sugar ornaments upon cakes. Sugar, by the way was an occasional ingredient in the preparation of gesso, as Cennino mentions. [Illustration: MARRIAGE COFFER, NO. 718--1884 (VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM).] [Illustration: MARRIAGE COFFER, NO. 247--1894 (VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM).] No. 247--1894, is a marriage coffer of walnut which has a symmetrically and formally planned scheme of raised decoration in gesso upon its front which suggests an earlier ornamental origin than the actual date of its production, perhaps, given as the end of the fourteenth century, as it resembles in character the textile patterns of the thirteenth century or earlier. The treatment of the gesso relief work is peculiar, and it appears as if an extremely softened, even and almost flattened effect had been aimed at, without any special emphasis on particular parts. [Illustration: MARRIAGE COFFER, NO. 58--1867 (VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM).] The rich encrusted effect of another treatment of gesso decoration characteristic of later fifteenth century work is shown in the beautiful coffer, No. 58--1867, the painted shields of arms being in ornamental contrast. Here we have an instance of the use of painting to relieve gesso decoration, as distinct from the use of gesso work to enrich the effect in painting. Gesso decoration was also finely and freely used for small caskets and other objects and with delightful results, as the rich Museum collection again demonstrates. [Illustration: COFFER, NO. 9--1890 (VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM).] The coffret, No. 9--1890, is an interesting instance of this adaptability of gesso and the extraordinary variety and richness of effect obtainable; almost emulating carved work in the bolder parts of its relief, and yet with a softness and richness of its own. The designs are singularly interesting and spirited, and the whole work fully deserves the encomium suggested by its motto (in Lombardic letters on the lid) "Onesta e bella." [Illustration: GESSO BOX, NO. 5757--1859 (VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM).] In No. 5757--1859 we have another good example of gesso decoration on a small scale, and its rich ornate effect in a well-balanced distribution of ornament adapted to a circular form, showing the fine sense of scale and quantity in ornament which distinguishes Italian work of this period--the first half of the fifteenth century. [Illustration: FRONT OF A COFFER, NO. 7830--1861 (VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM).] Finally, in my last example (No. 7830--1861), the panel of a coffer belonging to the early sixteenth century, we see another use and treatment of gesso--to soften and enrich the effect of woodcarving and to make a good surface for gilding. The figures here are carved in bold relief and overlaid with a coating of gesso. All carved work to be gilded was treated in this way with gesso, which greatly softens the effect, giving a smooth surface for the gilding and increases its richness, especially when done over Armenian bole, which we may see was used under the gilding of these raised gesso ornaments generally--another method which is being revived with the general revival of the forgotten arts of design and handicraft in our own time. NOTE.--With reference to the early use of gesso, the extremely interesting and remarkable recent discoveries of Prof. Flinders Petrie in Egypt in the shape of mummies of the Roman period of the first century A.D., in addition to the light they throw on antique portrait painting, show that gilded gesso enrichment over linen was freely used at that period, some of the masks being moulded, and the ornament apparently stamped, the toes of each mummy being modelled and gilded and burnished, and the wrappings relieved with gilded buttons of gesso. [Footnote 9: Before the appointment of Sir Cecil Smith.] [Footnote 10: Cennino describes a method of cutting stamps in _stone_ (Chapter 170) to be used as moulds for figures to be applied to the decoration of chests or coffers, but he speaks of beating tin into these moulds and forming the figures in this way, afterwards backing them or filling them in with gesso grosso, cutting them out and sticking them on the chest with glue, gilding them and adding colour and varnish.] NOTES ON THE TREATMENT OF ANIMALS IN ART NOTES ON THE TREATMENT OF ANIMALS IN ART Looking back over the vast field of historic art it is obvious that the representation of animals has occupied a very important position--even the prehistoric cave-men display their artistic instinct in animal draughtsmanship, and in that alone, and their naturalistic scratched and incised outlines have set down for us in unerring characterization, the forms of the mastodon, reindeer, and other animals of the primitive hunter. Judging from these relics it would seem as if naturalistic sketching preceded systematic ornamental or decorative treatment of animals in design such as distinguishes the art of the ancient civilizations of the East. [Illustration: Egyptian treatment of birds. from hieroglyphics of the 18^{th} Dynasty. Tombs of the kings. Thebes.] Long before such systematization as we find in ancient Egyptian art, no doubt the power of depicting animals became important in the tribal state, when it was necessary for each tribe to have their distinguishing totem, and to be able to establish their identity or respectability by unmistakable portraits, if not of their ancestors, at least of their protecting animal deities and symbolic progenitors. Nature worship, which became elaborated in a symbolic religious system under the ancient Egyptians, under the conditions of mural and glyptic art led to that severe and dignified formalism combined with essential characterization in the treatment of birds and animals which has never been surpassed and which have given splendid types for the mural painter and sculptor for all time. Heavier and more formal and architectural in their sculptural treatment of symbolic animals, such as the winged bulls which form essential architectural features, the Assyrians, when they came to the treatment of actual scenes of life (such as the lion-hunts of their kings, carved in low relief on the walls of their palaces,) showed a freer and more naturalistic feeling which breaks through a prevailing formalism and convention sometimes with almost startling power, as in the celebrated wounded lioness of the Nineveh slabs in the British Museum. [Illustration: Lion from Assyrian Bas-relief.] [Illustration: Persian Lion from the frieze at Susa (Perrot & chipiez)] [Illustration: Lion from a Theban bas-relief. (Perrot & chipiez)] There is a considerable resemblance in treatment between the Assyrian lion in sculpture and the lion of ancient Persia as he appears at the palace of Susa, though, heightened with enamel, the latter acquires a certain decorative and distinctive ferocity. A lion from a Theban bas-relief shows the simpler and more abstract treatment of Egyptian art. This Perso-Assyrian type of lion might almost be called a central Asian type, and is curiously perpetuated in the well-known supporters of the pillar over the gate of Mycenæ. In fact the later Greek lion shows marked traces of his descent from his Asian prototypes. The influence of the same decorative formalism, more especially of the mane and hirsute appendages, is indeed traceable through Byzantine times, from the bronze lion of St. Mark to the heraldic lions of the middle ages. The same influence is seen again in the remarkable group of lions forming the capital of a column discovered at Sarnath near Benares in India, associated with many other sculptures of Graeco-Buddhist origin. [Illustration: Græco-Buddhist Group of Lions carved in marble forming summit of a column excavated at Sarnath n^r. Benares] For perfect monumental treatment of horses, when truthful action and vitality are perfectly united with linear rhythm and decorative effect, we must still turn to the pan-athenaic frieze--despite the opinion of the Yorkshire horse-dealer who pronounced them "only damned galloways, not worth ten pounds apiece!" They remain full of life and movement and as examples of most delicate relief sculpture governed by ornamental feeling. [Illustration: Animal forms from early Greek pottery] I should just like to mention, while speaking of Greek art, the practice of the early vase painter, who, frequently using animals as his main decorative motive, had a system by which he was able to harmonize many different kinds in, say, a running border, or succession of borders. This was done partly through the influence of the brush and partly by the recognition of typical resemblances even in apparently diverse forms. The basis of unity was the oval or ovoid shape of the bodies of all animals and birds. The vase painter with his ornamental purpose in view exaggerated this resemblance, governing his individual shapes by a sort of invisible volute-like curves, he gained a rhythmic decorative effect without loss of identity in his forms. With the development of heraldry in mediaeval times we come upon a world of spirited and vividly decorative design in which the forms of animals play a very important part. A very instructive study might be made of the mediaeval heraldic lion alone. The heraldic designer had to be emphatic in his forms, and distinct though simple in characterization. As with the Greek vase painter, profile best served his purpose, and effective silhouette became all important. When the lion is "passant regardant" in mediaeval heraldry the full face has a curiously human character, as in the arms of Prince John at Eltham which Mr. G. W. Eve gives in his "Heraldry as Art." [Illustration: The Lion in English heraldry. Arms of Prince John of Eltham, Westminster Abbey.] Among the finest examples of the treatment of animals in decorative art of an heraldic and symbolic character are the designs of the twelfth and thirteenth-century textiles, in the celebrated Sicilian silks, or those of Lucca of the fourteenth century. In these fabrics the animal forms are used with the greatest ornamental effect, the conditions of the repeat of the pattern and the exigences of the loom being essential, and, frankly acknowledged, contribute to the character and beauty of the result. It has always been the frank and workmanlike acceptance of the necessary conditions of the materials and methods of production, which, while defining the character of the treatment, gives both character and beauty to decorative art, and we find this especially true in regard to the treatment of animal forms in all kinds of design. [Illustration: SICILIAN SILK, THIRTEENTH CENTURY (FISHBACH).] [Illustration: SICILIAN SILK, THIRTEENTH CENTURY (FISHBACH).] [Illustration: SICILIAN SILK, THIRTEENTH CENTURY (FISHBACH).] The pursuit of superficial imitation in modern times, the pictorial aim which includes atmospheric effect and the representation of values, textures, and surfaces, extending its influence over all the arts of design has done much to destroy the dignity, the character, and the decorative reserve of ancient and mediaeval design in the treatment of animals; the so-called naturalistic aim producing palpably absurd effects in sculpture and in heraldry, for instance. With the modern revival of design and knowledge of the handicrafts this mistake has been largely corrected. Artists have discovered the peculiar qualities proper to different materials and processes and their value as means of expression in design is much more generally understood and acknowledged, while fresh study of nature has helped, with these, to make a fresh and appropriate convention in the treatment of animals possible. The Japanese have taught us that marvellous fidelity to nature may be united with decorative effect in the treatment of animals--especially birds and fishes, and that certain facts of structure and surface or colour may become, under skilful treatment, brilliant parts of a design--as the scales of a fish in inlays of pearl, or in lacquer: the plumage of a bird in silk embroidery, or the system of structure of the feathers expressed in the delicate lines of cloisonné enamel. Examples of Chinese art might be referred to also for excellence in the same qualities united with more decorative reserve and dignity. [Illustration: FROM THE "HUNDRED BIRDS" OF BARI.] [Illustration: Peacock bracket. Man Mandir Palace. Gwalior.] I have not mentioned Indian art, except the example at Sarnath, which, at least, as regards the Hindu side abounds with examples of the decorative treatment of animals, the temples being frequently a mass of animal life in carving, continuous courses being formed of elephants, horses, and bulls in succession. The peacock, too, being a sacred bird, constantly appears. At the old palace of Man Mandir at Gwalior, Central India, I saw a carved stone bracket in which a peacock had been very effectively treated for its constructive purpose: and in the south, at Tanjore, I saw the splendid bird, in the quick, with tail like a sweeping robe, perched upon the sacred colossal bull which, carved in black stone (or marble, darkened with successive libations of votive oil) reposes in the court of the great temple, and whose living prototype might easily be found drawing an ox-cart in the town. [Illustration: Elephant bracket Man Mandir Palace Gwalior] At Gwalior, too, I noted a treatment of the elephant in a carved stone bracket in the old palace of Man Mandir, which in structure recalled the wondrous columns of the temple at Steerungum at Trichinopoly in the south, though in the latter case the subject is mainly the horseman, but the resemblance is in the arrangement which seems characteristic of Indian (Hindu) carving. At the Guest House, Gwalior, also, elephants' heads were treated ingeniously as the corbels supporting balconies. It was modern work, but evidently influenced by the carvings in the old palace above mentioned. There was an abundance of floral carving and geometric pierced work in this Guest House, besides, extremely skilful and beautiful in detail, showing that the modern Hindu architectural carver had by no means lost his cunning. This, of course, was a native state. [Illustration: Elephant corbels Guest House Gwalior] One almost wonders that golden images of favourite race-horses are not set up in--well, some of our public places, for it cannot be said that there is no animal worship in our own country, though the votive offerings in art usually take the form of sporting prints, or paintings of fat stock with straight backs and short horns. [Illustration: ELEPHANT CORBELS, GUEST HOUSE, GWALIOR.] Animal painting was once an honoured and prosperous career in England, and prints after Landseer covered a considerable acreage in the early Victorian epoch. Do not his lions still support Nelson in Trafalgar Square, and perhaps afford some protection to unpopular speakers on that historic plinth? I think, however, most of us would prefer the little lion which was modelled by Alfred Stevens, both as a dignified representation of our National Totem and as an example of native artistic style and treatment. [Illustration: Lion by Alfred Stevens, formerly part of the outer iron railing of the British Museum.] MODERN ASPECTS OF LIFE AND THE SENSE OF BEAUTY [Illustration] MODERN ASPECTS OF LIFE AND THE SENSE OF BEAUTY That modern social and economic conditions tend to destroy beauty in the outward aspects of human life and nature: the thesis, thus stated, would seem almost a self-evident proposition; yet I am by no means sure that sensitiveness to beauty--or to its absence--in our daily surroundings is so very common (or even that there is a common understanding as to the idea of beauty) that it would obtain general assent without further explanation; and as I have undertaken to open the case for the prosecution, if I may so term it, I will try to put before you my reasons and conclusions on the matter. My first witness shall be London, as London is typical and focusses most of the effects of modern social and economic conditions. Now, we hear a great deal of the beauty of London, but probably those who talk of her beauty are really thinking of certain beauty spots or the picturesqueness of certain favoured localities where the Thames and the parks come in. Vast as London is, most of us really live for the most part in a comparatively small London. Outside our usual haunts lies a vast unknown region, of which indeed occasional glimpses are obtained on being obliged to travel across or through the desert of the multi-county-city. Those whose London is bounded on the west by Kensington Gardens and on the east by Mayfair, do not figure to themselves Clerkenwell or Ratcliffe Highway, Bethnal Green or Bow, and would not care to embrace the vast new suburbs spreading over the green fields in every direction, or even to notice the comparatively select slums in the shadow of Belgravian mansions. Supposing we approached our metropolis by any of the great railway lines, there is nothing to indicate that we are entering the greatest and wealthiest city in the world. We pass rows and rows of mean dwellings--yellow brick boxes with blue slate lids--crowded close to the railway in many places, with squalid little backyards. We fly over narrow streets, and complex webs and networks of railway lines, and thread our way through telegraph and telephone wires, myriad smoking chimney-pots, steaming, throbbing works of all kinds, sky signs, and the wonders of the parti-coloured poster hoardings--which pursue one into the station itself, flaring on the reluctant and jaded sight with ever-increasing importunity and iteration, until one recalls the philosopher who remarked "Strange that the world should need so much pressing to accept such apparently obvious advantages!" Inside the station, however large, all sense of architectural proportion is lost by the strident labels of all sorts and sizes, and banal devices on every scale and in every variety of crude colour, stuck, like huge postage stamps, wherever likely to catch the eye. The same thing meets us in the streets: in the busier commercial quarters, too, it is a common device to hang the name of the firm in gigantic gilt letters all over the windows and upper stories of the shops; while the shops themselves become huge warehouses of goods, protected by sheets of plate glass, upon the edges of which apparently rest vast superstructures of flats and offices, playfully pinned together by telegraph poles, and hung with a black spider's web of wires, as if to catch any soaring ideas of better things that might escape the _melée_ of the street. In the streets a vast crowd of all sorts, sizes and conditions is perpetually hurrying to and fro, presenting the sharpest contrasts in appearance and bearing. Here the spruce and prosperous business man, there the ragged cadger, the club idler, and the out-o'-work; there the lady in her luxurious carriage or motor, in purple and fine linen, and there the wretched seller of matches. Modern street traffic, too, is of the most mixed and bewildering kind, and the already too perilous London streets have been made much more so by the motor in its various forms of van and 'bus, business or private car. The aspect of a London street during one of the frequent traffic blocks is certainly extraordinary, so variously sorted and sized are the vehicles, wedged in an apparently inextricable jumble, while the railways and tubes burrowed underground only add fresh streams of humanity to the traffic, instead of relieving it. Yet it has been principally to relieve the congested traffic of London that the great changes have been made which have practically transformed the town, sweeping away historic buildings and relics of the past, and giving a general impression of rapid scene-shifting to our streets. The most costly and tempting wares are displayed in the shops in clothing, food, and all the necessities of life, as well as fantastic luxuries and superfluities in the greatest profusion--"things that nobody wants made to give to people who have no use for them"--yet, necessities or not, removed only by the thickness of the plate-glass from the famished eyes of penury and want. The shops, too, are not workshops. The goods appear in the windows as if by magic. Their producers are hidden away in distant factories, working like parts of a machine upon portions of wholes which perhaps they never see complete. Turning to the residential quarters, we see ostentation and luxury on the one hand, and cheap imitation, pretentiousness, or meanness and squalor on the other. We see the aforesaid brick boxes packed together, which have ruined the aspect of most of our towns: we have the pretentious suburban villa, with its visitors' and servants' bells; we have the stucco-porticoed town "mansion," with its squeezy hall and umbrella stand; or we have the "desirable" flat, nearer to heaven, like the cell of a cliff-dweller, where the modern citizen seeks seclusion in populous caravansaries which throw every street out of scale where they rear their Babel-like heads. I have not spoken of the gloom of older-fashioned residential quarters, frigid in their respectability, which, whatever centres of light and leading they may conceal, seem outwardly to turn the cold shoulder to ordinary humanity, or peep distrustfully at a wicked world through their fanlights. Many of the features I have described are found also in most modern cities in different degrees, and are still more evident in the United States, where there is nothing ancient to stem the tide of modern--shall we say progress? It is only fair to note, however, that there is a movement in New York, in which leading architects and artists are joining with municipal reformers, for the preservation of beauty in the better ordering of street improvements, the laying out of public places, and the general recognition of the social importance of harmony and pleasant effect in cities, which has lately found expression in schemes of town-planning and garden cities and suburbs in this country. Turning from the aspects of their houses to the humans who inhabit them--take modern dress in our search for the beautiful! Well, national if not distinctive costume--except of the working and sporting sort, court dress, collegiate and municipal robes, and uniforms--has practically disappeared, and, apart from working dress in working hours, one type of ceremonial, or full dress is common to the people at large, and that of the plainest kind--with whatever differences and niceties of cut and taste in detail--I mean the type for men, of course. Among the undisputed rights of women the liberty to dress as she pleases, even under recognized types for set occasions, and with constant variety and change of style, is not a little important, and it is a liberty that has very striking effects upon the aspects of modern life we are considering. It is true, this liberty may be checked by the decrees of eminent _modistes_, and limited by the opinion of Mrs. Grundy, or the frank criticism of the boy in the street; and it is even more than probable that the exigencies of trade have something to do with it also. It is, however, too important an element in the _ensemble_ of life to be ignored or undervalued in any way, as women's dress affords one of the few opportunities of indulging in the joy of colour that is left to civilization. Men suffer the tyranny of the tall silk hat as the outward and visible sign of respectability--surely a far more obvious one nowadays than Carlyle's "gig." "Gigmanity" has become top-hat-manity. The "stove-pipe" is the crown of the modern king--financier--the business man--_He_ "who must be obeyed." I understand it is still as much as a city clerk's place is worth for him to appear in any other head-gear. Ladies, too, encourage it, with the black-frock coat and the rest of the funereally festive attire of modern correct mankind. I suppose the garb is considered to act as an effective foil to the feast of colour indulged in by the ladies, and that it may act as a sort of black framing to fair pictures--black commas, semi-colons, or full-stops, agreeably punctuating passages of delicate colour! The worst of it is that the beauty of woman's dress, when it happens to follow or revive a fashion with great possibilities of beauty, as at present, seems to be a matter almost of accident, and entirely at the mercy of the mode (or the trade?)--here to-day and gone to-morrow; and, alas, lovely woman, our only hope for variety in colour and form in modern life, in her determination to descend into the industrial and professional arena and compete commercially with men, not unfrequently shows a tendency to take a leaf out of her rival's tailor's pattern-book, and to adopt or adapt more or less of the features of modern man's prosaic, though possibly convenient and durable, but certainly summary and unromantic attire. Well, I think, on the whole, the pictures which modern life in London or any great capital discloses may be striking in their contrasts, vivid in their suggestions, dramatic or tragic in their aspects--anything or everything, in fact, _except_ beautiful; except, of course, in so far as accidental effects of light and atmosphere are beautiful, mainly, perhaps, because they disguise or transfigure actually unlovely form and substance. The essential qualities of beauty being harmony, proportion, balance, simplicity, charm of form and colour, can we expect to find much of it in conditions which make life a mere scramble for existence for the greater part of mankind? Bellamy, in his "Looking Backward," gives a striking and succinct image of modern social and economic conditions in his illustration or allegory of the coach and horses. The coach is Capitalism. It carries a minority, but even these struggle for a seat, and to maintain their position, frequently falling off, when they either go under altogether, or must help to pull the coach with the majority toiling in the traces of commercial competition. However these conditions may, among individuals, be softened by human kindness, or some of their aspects modified by artistic effort, they do not change the cruelty or injustice of the system, or its brutal and ugly aspects in the main. But if modern civilization is only tolerable in proportion to the number and facility of the means of escape from it, perhaps we may find at least the beauty of the country and of wild nature unimpaired? Do we? We may escape the town by train or motor--running the risk in either case of a smash--but we cannot escape commercial enterprise. The very trees and houses sprout with business cards, and the landscape along some of our principal railway lines seems owned by the vendors of drugs. Turning away our eyes from such annoyances, commercial enterprise, again, has us in all sorts of alluring announcements of all sorts and sizes in innumerable newspapers and magazines, which, like paper kites, can only maintain their position by extensive tails. The tail--that is, the advertisement sheets--keeps the kite flying--and the serial tale keeps the advertisers going, perhaps, also. Anyhow, the gentle reader is obliged to take his news and views, social or political, sandwiched or flavoured with very various and unsought and unwanted condiments, pictorial or otherwise. Thus, public attention is diverted and--nobody minds! But it is in these insidious ways that that repose or detachment of mind favourable to the sense of beauty is destroyed, and thus, to put it in another way, we are in danger of losing our lives, or the best that life can give, in getting our living--or, well, perhaps it might be true to say in some cases, a substantial percentage on our investments. In obedience, too, to the requirements of the great god Trade, whole districts of our fair country are blighted and blackened, and whole populations are made dependent upon mechanical, monotonous, and often dangerous toil to support the international commercial race for the precarious world-market. Under the same desperate compulsion of commercial competition, agriculture declines, and the country side is deserted. The old country life, with its festivals and picturesque customs, has disappeared. Old houses, churches, and cottages have tumbled into ruin, or have suffered worse destruction by a process of smartening up called "restoration." The people have crowded into the overcrowded towns, increasing the competition for employment, the chances of which are lessened by the very industry of the workers themselves, and so our great cities blindly become huger, more dangerous, and generally unlovely, losing, too, by degrees their relics of historic interest and romance they once possessed. Even in the art-world, and among the very cultivators of beauty we detect the canker of commercialism. The compulsion of the market rules supply and demand, and the dealer becomes more and more dominant. The idea of the shop dominates picture shows, and painters become almost as specialized as men of science, while genius, or even ordinary talent, requires as much puffing as a patent medicine. Everyone must have his trade label, and woe to the artist who experiments, or discovers capacities in himself for other things than his label covers. Every new and sincere movement in art has been in direct protest and conflict with the prevailing conditions, and has measured its progress by its degree of success in counteracting them, and, in some sense, producing new conditions. The remarkable revival of the handicrafts, or arts and crafts movement, of late years may be quoted as an instance; but it is a world within a world; a minority producing for a minority; although the movement has done valuable work even as a protest, and has raised the banner of handwork and its beauty in an age of machine industry. Other notable movements of a protesting, protective, or mitigating nature are at work in the form of societies for the protection of ancient buildings, for the preservation of historic spots and the beauty of natural scenery, for the abolition or abatement of the smoke nuisance, for checking the abuses of public advertisement, for the increase of parks and open spaces, and for spreading the love of art among the people. Indeed, it would seem as if the welfare of humanity and the prospects of a tolerable life under modern conditions were handed over to such societies, since it does not seem to be anybody's business to attend to what should be everybody's business, and we have not even a minister to look after such interests. The very existence of such societies, however, is a proof of the danger and destruction to which beauty is exposed under modern conditions. Social conditions are the outcome of economic conditions. In all ages it has been the system under which property is held--the ownership of the means of production and exchange--which has decided the forms of social life. The expansion of capital and the power of the financier are essentially modern developments, as also is unrestricted commercial competition, though this seems to lead to monopoly--a heretofore unexpected climax. Modern existence in such circumstances becomes an unequal race or scramble for money, place, power, or mere employment. The social (or rather _un_social) pressure which results really causes those sordid aspects, pretences, aggressions, and brutal contrasts we deplore. Private ownership is constantly opposed to public interest. The habit of regarding everything from the narrow point of view of money value and immediate profit as the determining factors in all transactions obscures larger issues and stultifies collective action for the public good. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury of public opinion, perhaps I have said enough to support the case of beauty against modern social and economic conditions. I do not ask for damages--they are incalculable. She stands before you, a pathetic figure, obscured in shreds and patches, driven from pillar to post, disinherited, a casual, and obliged to beg her bread, who should be a welcome and an honoured guest in every city and country, and in every house, bearing the lamp of art and bringing comfort and joy to all. A SHORT SURVEY OF THE ART OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY WITH SOME NOTES ON RECENT DEVELOPMENTS [Illustration] A SHORT SURVEY OF THE ART OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, CHIEFLY IN ENGLAND, WITH SOME NOTES ON RECENT DEVELOPMENTS A hundred years is but an arbitrary division of time, and yet one cannot help investing the centuries with a sort of personality as they pass, each distinguished by certain characteristics, particular movements, and habits of thought as well as of life and its aspects, and above all by the spirit and forms of the art to which they have given birth. If we could summon a typical figure with proper accessories to illustrate each epoch we should get a vivid if somewhat symbolical idea of the varying phases of thought and art, and the passing fashions in taste which the past has witnessed. Few centuries, perhaps, would be more difficult to comprehend in a single figure than the nineteenth, displaying as it does in the course of its history so many diversities--revolutions we might say--in artistic development. In its early years, inheriting its taste and fashions from the eighteenth century, when handicraft was still the principal means for the production of things of both use and adornment, the nineteenth century has witnessed a complete revolution in commercial and industrial conditions, with the development of the factory system, competition, and the demands of the world-market. It has seen the great machine industries take the place of the former minute subdivision of labour, and in the process of both subdivision of labour and the development of machine industry all forms of production have been affected. The former local centres of supply have disappeared with self-dependent homesteads and village industries, and with the decline of handicraft traditions of design and construction have been in this country well-nigh completely broken, except in some trades, such as the cartwright's and the wheelwright's and the harness maker's. We still see in our beautiful country wagons the chamfers and ogee forms in the woodwork and the gay painting of mediaeval times, and our noble shire horses are often brave with bright brass ornaments which perpetuate traditional patterns, moulded or pierced; while the descendants of Wayland Smith still ply their trade at the village forge, though mainly limited to horseshoes. But machine industry and the factory and production for profit rather than for use, having nearly extinguished all sense of art and individual taste in the useful arts which contribute to the comfort and decoration of the home, in the later years of the century, seem to have evoked, by the mere force of reaction and revulsion of feeling, that remarkable revival of decorative design and handicraft which has distinguished its closing years, under the influence of which many beautiful crafts have been successfully recovered and practised with success, while trade itself has not been slow to derive new ideas from the Arts and Crafts movement. The main principles inspiring the promoters of this movement have been the unity of the arts allied with and controlled by architecture, and the due acknowledgement of the artistic responsibility of the designer and craftsman. With regard to the architecture of the nineteenth century we may see nearly every past fashion of its history revived in turn, until some of our eclectic architects seem to have evolved something like a characteristic domestic style, at least, characteristically mixed in its constructive and decorative features, but certainly adapted to modern requirements. The classical forms in building, which attained a certain heaviness and Dutch plainness under the Georges, underwent a transformation with the revival of Greek and Roman taste in the Empire period. From that time onward classical columns and pilasters and classical details of varying proportions became embedded, as it were, in our domestic architecture, and as a consequence the more-or-less-Doric portico still dominates large residential districts of London. Their columned ranks, however, have latterly been greatly broken in some quarters by the cheerful red brick fronts and white sashes of the Queen Anne revival, which have, in some instances, in response to the demand for "residential flats," even got upon stilts and nod at us from the many-gabled top stories of the modern caravansary. Street architecture in later Victorian days became a masquerade in building materials, since the design of the façade bears little or no relation to the hidden structure of steel framing by which our many-storied piles are held together, while, apparently, when there are shops on the ground floor the whole mass has the effect of playfully reposing upon the edges of great sheets of plate glass. The use of terra-cotta, or cut-brick enrichments have been a welcome relief from the doleful gentility of the white brick, or the depressing gray stucco which has cast a peculiar gloom over some respectable neighbourhoods. In church architecture the Gothic revivalists have carried all before them. At one period of the nineteenth century, indeed, when the restoring zeal was at its height and nothing was acceptable but something "early English," there was considerable reason to fear that the architects would leave nothing behind them! But we have had really distinguished work from men like Butterfield (the architect of All Saints, Margaret Street), William Burges, and J. D. Sedding, while domestic architecture both in town and country has been developed on new lines by Mr. Norman Shaw, Mr. Philip Webb, and their able followers of the younger generation. In sculpture we may trace an analogous line of development, from the severe, graceful, but somewhat cold classical style of Flaxman and the more dramatic Canova, or the sentiment of Thorvaldsen, freezing into the later classicism of Gibson on the one hand, or breaking out into the realisms and trivialities of the modern Italian School. In England, inspired by the study of nature and cultivation of style chiefly under the influence of the works of Phidias and the Florentine masters of the fifteenth century, a school of considerable distinction and force has arisen. We had one, at least, really great master in Alfred Stevens standing almost alone as a modern expositor of renascence traditions. He has been succeeded by men of taste and refinement like the late Onslow Ford, or the accomplishment, beauty of design, and vigour of expression of the late Harry Bates, not to mention living exponents of sculpture quite as distinguished. Among the younger school the continental influence of Meunier and of Rodin may be noted. To continue our rapid and necessarily imperfect survey, in the field of painting, again, the course of development through changes of feeling and aim is even more emphatically marked, as might be expected from that most sensitive and impressionable of the arts. The domination of the older Academic traditions in artistic education and practice was only broken fitfully in the first quarter of the century by such meteoric influences as that of William Blake, who with his vivid and inspired vision of a world of spiritual, imaginative, and symbolic beauty was in open revolt against the classical coldness and the conscious prettinesses and pretences of his time in art, as well as against the prosaic calculating spirit of a commercial epoch. Sir Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough as well as Hogarth left their mark on the methods in English painting and raised a standard of workmanship in the eighteenth century which has not since been approached in the same direction, though many charming artists in the figure and landscape, such as George Morland, succeeded them; while later we have the anecdotic and incident pictures of David Wilkie which established a characteristic British type. The remarkable work of J. M. W. Turner is perhaps more characteristic of the first half of the nineteenth century than that of any other English painter. Trained in the restricted and reserved methods of the early landscape school learned from Italy and France, with extraordinary industry and facility as a draughtsman, and a keen sense of composition, his development under different influences, from the classical landscape school of Claude Lorraine and Nicolas Poussin to the romantic feeling of Titian and Salvator Rosa, or the quiet pathos and precision of touch of the Dutch masters, and above all of the close and constant observation of nature in all her varying moods, and in nearly all European countries, may be seen in the unrivalled record of work he has left, and in the splendid collection in the National Gallery. Turner seems to express the general movement of the half-century's life and moods of thought more completely than any other artist. Classical, romantic, mythological, naturalistic, impressionistic, in turn; from the serene atmosphere, lucent skies, and deep umbrage of classical landscapes, with their nymphs and shepherds, we may follow the course of his mind to the "Rain, Steam, and Speed" of the Great Western Railway. It is a wide reach, but Turner's art illuminates the smoke and the stir and stress of the industrial and revolutionary nineteenth century, like a rainbow spanning a stormy sky. And what of its last fifty years? They have seen the rise, formation and decline of the pre-Raphaelite School. That strong and earnest movement emanating from a small group of enthusiastic young painters, seeking sincerity of expression with thoroughness of workmanship and profound study of nature. The names of Holman Hunt, J. E. Millais, D. G. Rossetti and Ford Madox Brown and Frederick Sandys will always be associated with this important epoch in English painting. Their works have exercised a potent influence far beyond their own immediate circle, and have affected many different developments, forming the root and stem as it were of many different branches. To this source (whether as reactive or related influences) we may trace back the two chief and vital distinctive directions into which modern painting may be broadly divided--impressionism on the one hand and the pursuit of decorative beauty tinged with poetic feeling and romance on the other, this latter being allied with a further important movement concerned with the revival of design and the artistic handicrafts, known as the Arts and Crafts movement. With this the names of William Morris and Burne-Jones will always be associated, and they both link hands with the original group of the pre-Raphaelites. Among later influences upon art generally that of the Japanese cannot be left out of account as its effects have been considerable in many directions and may be said to have had an enormous influence upon the art of Whistler. Despite, however, the marvellous skill of Japanese craftsmanship, owing to the fantastic spirit of their design, and the absence of the steadying and controlling influence of stone construction in their architecture, their art has had more effect upon our impressionistic school than upon our arts and craftsmen, and it is rather by the work of the latter type and the movement it represents that the art of the close of the last century is more distinctively characterized. The study of Japanese art, however, leads us back to its source in the graver and more serious art of China, where its prototypes may be found in nobler forms. The opening of the twentieth century has brought great changes--changes in the aspects of life, changes in the temper of the nation. Action and reaction which govern the world, also influence the world of thought and of art. The pendulum of taste swings between the classic and the romantic moods and modes. It has of late swung again towards the classical side and manifests itself, as regards decoration, in the vogue of plain white walls, classical columns and pilasters and cornices, and an almost puritan fear of any other kind of ornament. When colour and pattern _are_ indulged in they mostly show a reversion to the fashions of the early Victorian age of French origin or pre-Morrisian types. What was once denounced as hideous has now become old fashioned enough to be found historically interesting. In painting, what might be termed a cult of the ugly, indeed, seems to have fascinated many of our vigorous artists. This may be the result of a reaction against early Victorian prettiness, and quasi-classical elegance. There has also been a decadent influence at work in our latter-day art. This also manifested itself in that strange decorative disease known as "L'Art Nouveau," which some writers have actually asserted was the offspring of what properly considered was really its antithesis--the Morris school of decoration. Some of the forms of "L'Art Nouveau" may have been the result of the translation into continental modes of some kinds of British, or rather Scottish, design, initiated by certain designers of the Glasgow school, and it is in this direction, I think, that we should be more likely to discover its true genesis. To father it on the Morris school is much as if one were to say that impressionism was a development of the pre-Raphaelite movement, whereas it was a reaction. The followers of both schools, no doubt, sought to restate natural fact or phase, but on totally different principles and in absolutely opposed terms of art. With the passing of the impressionist masters, again, we see a counter movement in what are called the "post impressionists." Here, again, principles, methods of conception, observation, selection, and execution are totally different. There are many different individualities, and their works are so diverse that it can hardly be considered a concerted movement in painting, though, regarded collectively, it appears to be a reaction against previously accepted canons or standards in art. Yet curiously enough there are suggestions of the influence of early Byzantine work and of Roman mosaic in the work of some of these painters, the mosaic method of producing form and colour by the juxtaposition of small tesserae or cubes, being actually followed as closely as possible in some instances, by laying on paint in small squares or parallelograms. By such means a certain effect of vibrating light is obtained, but it seems rather a misapplication of the method, and would be more satisfactory to work in actual mosaic and for the artist to avail himself of the decorative beauty which the conditions of working in that material would give. The movement, so far as it is sincere, appears to be a reflex in art of the feeling which is apt to possess members of a civilized community occasionally--the feeling which urges a man to break away from the restraints and formalities, as well as the comforts and luxuries of modern life, and seek a return to nature or the bed-rock of existence in the backwoods, or some primitive country, where a simple life is possible. It also reflects a view which has a certain influence among educationalists--a desire to realize and to possess the unprejudiced unprepossessed attitude of a child's mind and its outlook and vision of nature and life. There is a charm in the _naïveté_ of primitive art of all kinds which is akin to the charm we often find in children's drawings. In seeking to cultivate artificially such a mental attitude and its expression in art, however, there is the danger of affectation, and even the sincerest efforts in that direction may give the impression of being affected; also, when, as is nearly always the case in our time, the question of art becomes hopelessly mixed up with the question of commercialism, and personal interests, and crossed by waves of fashionable caprice, like the wind blowing where it listeth, it becomes exceedingly difficult to discover the proverbial "hair" which "perhaps divides the false and the true." Another point to be noted is this, that whereas the trend of impressionism in art has been towards the opposite pole to conscious and formal design, among some of the painters of the newer school there appears to be a feeling towards its recovery to some extent, at least, there is evidence of the desire to regard a picture as a pattern of colour which necessarily involves some sort of arrangement. This may be some indication of a return to sanity and a desire to restore the art of painting as an art of design. But over and above all these movements and varieties the desire for something antique seems to be dominant. The old masters eclipse the moderns in painting; and in decoration and furniture, if genuine old work is not to be had, the closest imitation is in demand, and the tone of time must, if possible, be anticipated in counterfeit. Mr. Hardcastle, in "She Stoops to Conquer," would be quite in fashion with his old house and everything old in it. Apart from the trade interests no doubt concerned, this love of antiquity growing side by side with the most rapid development of mechanical invention and the consequent transformation of the aspects and habits of life, is a curious fact and seems to show, so far as it is genuine, the growth of an unsatisfied historic sense or feeling for romance, which at one time seemed threatened with extinction in a utilitarian world. This taste for antiquity in all things, however, is often very artificial in its manifestations, and does not lead to any keener appreciation of good contemporary art, but rather encourages the simulation of past styles than original invention, which does not seem quite healthy. Another recent development is the taste for pageantry. This is in itself another indication of the revival of the love of romance and antiquity, perhaps, and may to some extent have also encouraged that revival. Certainly in pageantry we have a popular and picturesque means of vivifying past history, and encouraging a knowledge of and pride in the story of their own country among our people which could hardly be gained from the study of books or pictures alone. Historic episodes arranged in dramatic form enacted by living men and women, with all the vivid effect of life and movement, and heightened by all the resources of costume and heraldry and accessories proper to each period, the scenes, too, taking place in the open air, with green swards, noble trees, and the wide sky for proscenium leave an ineffaceable impression upon the eyes and minds of the spectators. But what is wanted is a wider appeal. We might make the pageant a means of centralizing and unifying national life. We should not be content to limit such shows to a means of raising money for charitable objects, or as an expensive amusement for the few; we should aim at making our pageants free public spectacles in which the people themselves should co-operate. Mr. Frank Henson and Mr. Frank Lascelles have done and are doing excellent work in this direction. Every town might have its commemorative processions in celebration of certain important local historic events, especially such as illustrate the growth of the great structure of English Freedom. If we consider the amount of artistic and archaeological knowledge, the training and discipline involved, the opportunities for personal distinction, and the cultivation of the sense of beauty in the externals of life, we have in the pageant a very important educational factor of far-reaching influence, and a powerful means of unifying public sentiment and public spirit, and fostering the national character. ART AND THE COMMONWEAL AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT ARMSTRONG COLLEGE TO THE STUDENTS OF THE SCHOOL OF ART [Illustration] ART AND THE COMMONWEAL AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT ARMSTRONG COLLEGE, NEWCASTLE, TO THE STUDENTS OF THE SCHOOL OF ART Art in our time is regarded from many different points of view--for instance, (1) as an accessory in general education--generally some way after the fact; or (2) as the servant or slave of commerce and industry; or (3) as a polite amusement for persons of leisure; or (4) as a profession or means of livelihood; (5) as a luxury only for persons of wealth and leisure; or (6) as an investment or speculation; or (7) as a necessity of life and its indispensable accompaniment and means of record and expression. Art may be, and indeed actually is, each and all of these at the present moment, but, apart from economic and other considerations, the latter is the larger and truer view of the function of art, and it necessarily, too, includes the first, or educational value, which cannot be over estimated. The education of the eye is second to none in importance if we consider it fully in all its bearings, but this is far from being generally sufficiently realized (or ugliness might come to be considered a crime), and as the first avenue of human intelligence--though the mouth perhaps might make out a case for priority, its interests are singularly neglected. It is true we have the words "unsightly" and "eyesore," which seem to recognize that the eye is capable of being affronted or distressed or even wounded by hideous objects; this perhaps is something, but for all that the eye has to be a very tolerant organ in these days. The best test of power or accuracy of observation is drawing, and power of drawing is the basis of all art, which might in all its varieties be described as different kinds or degrees of drawing; what is painting but drawing in colour and tone? What is modelling but drawing in relief or in three dimensions? What is weaving pattern but drawing in textile? And so with each artistic craft by means of which beautiful form and colour is created, each after its manner is a method of drawing, and, as a matter of fact, each is actually based on a drawing as a preliminary stage of its existence. Great, then, is drawing. It has now taken a place in our ordinary educational course as a "compulsory subject" although it must be said that amid the innumerable subjects with which the modern student is expected to be crammed a very small proportion of time is generally allowed for its pursuit--a pursuit indeed which generally ends in catching it like a mouse, by the tail, for it appears that about two hours a week is the time spent in the drawing classes of some colleges. This does not seem to give much chance to either teacher or student of drawing! Nevertheless, as one who has examined the results of such drawing, a certain power of simple definition of form in an abstract way appears to be acquired,--the capacity, varying a good deal, to give in simple bold chalk outline the salient characteristics of some common object, or living form, such as a piece of pottery, a flower, a bird, a fish. Even regarded merely as an aid to the comprehension of an object or subject, drawing is obviously of the greatest practical use. In the newer methods of teaching to read the word is accompanied by the pictured object, for mere brain-puzzling has no place in any national educational system. It has been said that the _worst_ drawing of an object gives a clearer idea of it than the best verbal description. That seems rather rough on literature! But there is a good deal of truth in it. It is just this definiteness of statement in a drawing which makes it so valuable an exponent of form and detail, whereby its services become indispensable in demonstration and description, and therefore invaluable to all teachers. If anyone can draw an object in ground-plan, in elevation, in longitudinal and transverse section, and give its appearance in silhouette and in light and shade, he will not only learn all about the form, character and construction of the thing, but will be able to impart his knowledge to others. To begin with, then, from the purely practical point of view and regarded as an aid in education, the chief aim in the study of drawing is to acquire knowledge of form and fact and the power of describing or demonstrating them. We cannot therefore be too definite and need not be afraid of being hard, even from the art-student's point of view. Studies should be studies, thorough and searching. But drawing, pursued as an introduction to the world of art, may lead the student on through a course of practically endless evolution and development, as he perceives that it is indeed a language of a most sensitive and varied kind, of many styles and methods, which, though beginning with simple statements of fact and form, may become in gifted hands an instrument of the most powerful or delicate feeling and an exponent of character and a vehicle of the imagination, having a rhythm and beauty peculiar to itself. Consider the amount of beauty that has been expressed by means of outline alone, from early Egyptian work to the exquisite figures of the Greek vase painter, or to the flowers and birds of Japanese artists. In these instances, as in all the best, drawing is united with design,--only another kind of drawing. We happen to have the words Drawing and Design in our language, and they signify distinct things, because of course there is drawing which may be simply copying or transcript, and there is drawing allied to invention and imagination, drawing with the mind, with ideas as well as with the eye and hand, which becomes design. I heard of an artist endeavouring to define design the other day, and he said. "Well, you make _a think_, and then you draw a line round it." It is certainly thought that makes the difference. When we come to composition we perceive that line has a further function and significance, and it becomes an important factor in that harmonizing, unifying process which is involved in making a design of any kind. This is not merely an indulgence in idle or aimless fancy, but is the outcome, over and above its imaginative quality, of meeting certain conditions, such as the object and purpose of the work, its material, and the necessities of its production. There is a certain logic, too, in the language of line which the designer is bound to observe, and he soon sees that in committing himself to a particular form or system of line in his design of composition that form cannot stand alone but has to be counterbalanced, led up to, and allied with corresponding lines and forms, or perhaps emphasized by contrasts. Now in pictorial composition or anything of that nature, a design is complete in itself, the plain surface-panel canvas, or paper it covers, determines its proportions and definite limits and the only necessary technical considerations resolve themselves into the necessity of unity with itself and suitability to the process employed. But whereas the pictorial artist or picture painter carries his own work through to completion, is designer and craftsman in one; in short, the designer for some industrial purpose, unless he is his own craftsman, must make his design also a working drawing to conform to certain strict technical conditions, such as the nature of the material and the method of reproduction, certain limits of size and number of colours to be used and so forth. His work is not complete in itself, but is a draft for a process of manufacture, and depends for its ultimate success, beyond what beauty it may possess, upon the completeness with which the technical requirements have been met and upon the co-operative labour of perhaps a multitude of craftsmen. With the establishment of modern competitive capitalistic commerce and industry, the factory system, division of labour, and machinery, designer and craftsman have been widely separated, to the detriment of both. Shops are no longer workshops, but only _dépôts_ for the display of the finished products of industry, so that the public remain largely in ignorance of how and where and under what conditions things are made. Even building, which was said to be the only craft carried on under the public eye, is now largely a mysterious process developed behind hoardings and posters. As to machinery, I do not deny that it has its uses or that wonderful (and sometimes fearful) things have been produced; the commercial output is prodigious, in fact, modern existence has come to depend upon machinery in nearly every direction, but the machines themselves remain as a rule far more wonderful things than the things they produce, and the less machinery has to do with art the better. Machinery has been called "labour-saving," but the immediate result of its introduction has been to throw people out of work--labour-saving in the sense of taking their work from them, or the bread out of their mouths. Profit-making being the real object of modern manufacture, the cheapening of the cost of production becomes more important than human lives. Everything appears to be sacrificed to the Moloch of Trade, which, according to our public men, is the _one_ object of a nation's life. Yet trade on the competitive system is devouring itself--or being devoured by monopoly, which again devours the people. There seems some danger of humanity being considered to exist for trade and not trade for the service of humanity. The old idea of a self-supporting country producing the necessities of life for its own use seems only appreciated by Socialists. These thoughts bring one to that aspect of art I spoke of at the outset, as the servant or slave of commerce and industry. Until the revival of design and handicraft in this country during the last twenty-five or thirty years, decorative design, despite a few distinguished artists, such as Alfred Stevens, might certainly be described as the slave of commerce, and even now the revivers of design and handicraft are not altogether free from the danger of being devoured by commercial methods. However, a protest has been made, the hand and the brain have asserted themselves; a new standard in the decorative arts has been set up, and since the time of William Morris and his group of pioneers, many English artists and craftsmen have shown that they have successfully revived and can do beautiful work in many forgotten crafts. In founding the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society we desired to give opportunities of personal distinction for artistic work in design and craftsmanship, to put designers and craftsmen in the same position as other artists, such as painters and sculptors, before the public in this respect by giving the names of all responsible executants of a work. Here, again, trade interests and competitive commerce have been against us, although commerce has not been slow to imitate or adapt some of the ideas in taste and design discovered in our exhibitions. However, the movement has spread all over the country, Arts and Crafts Societies and Exhibitions flourish everywhere, and the art schools of the country have been largely reorganized and craft classes established in connection with design. After many years' work some of us think that so remarkable a movement might attain something like national recognition, and its progress or permanence not be left to depend upon the efforts of a few hard-working artists, with ever-diminishing opportunities for exhibition, in the absence of a suitable building. Painting and sculpture, and in a lesser degree architecture, are officially recognized and housed rent free at Burlington House. Why should the decorative arts have nowhere to lay their heads? After all, it is these arts, intimately connected as they are with a people's daily life and well-being, that may be said to be really of more immediate consequence than what are called the Fine Arts. Though, personally, I do not admit the justice of the distinction usually accepted between _Fine_ and Decorative or Industrial Art. Art is a language--of many dialects it may be, but its greatness must not be measured by inches, or the power or beauty of its thoughts and conceptions determined by the material or method of their expression. The spirit of art, imagination, romance, and the sense of beauty may inspire the smaller accessories of life as they may the larger. It is not a question of size or quantity, it is a question of quality. As regards the art schools of the country, both state-aided and municipal, whatever their shortcomings, it is only fair to say that they have been from their establishment the only means, outside the efforts of individual artists, of maintaining a standard of artistic taste and accomplishment in decorative art, as distinct from the influences of trade and fashion. It has often been made a reproach that they have not been in closer touch and association with the industries of the country, but schools of art and technology cannot be turned into factories with the sole object of supplying the immediate demands of ephemeral fashion--often trivial and vulgar. This would only end in the raising of a crop of narrow specialists, incapable of producing more than one sort of thing, to be exploited by commerce, and unemployed when the boom was over. The business of a school of art is to train capable designers and craftsmen, competent both to practise and to teach. The progress, both in taste and accomplishment, shown by the works exhibited every year in the national competition under the auspices, first of the old Science and Art Department and now of the Board of Education at South Kensington, is most remarkable and striking, especially to one who can look back twenty or thirty years. Yet we are still without a proper building in which to show these works, which are generally housed in temporary sheds in an out-of-the-way corner, and consequently attract little public attention. Turning now to the more theoretical side of art, and regarding its general purport and social influence, it would appear as though every age--one might almost say each generation--demanded a different interpretation of life and nature, being inspired by different ideals; for the forms of art depend upon the aims and ideals in the mind of artists, who are but children of their age and reflect its thought and sentiment. Pictorial art being the most popular because more intimate, direct, and immediately concerned with the aspects of life, is perhaps more sensitive to such changes of thought and sentiment than other forms of art. This accounts in a great measure for the constantly-shifting point of view of the painter in dealing with the aspects of nature, for instance, if we compare the work of one age, or one school with another, or examine the differences of treatment by different individual artists. Whereas religion, and the beauty and splendour of life have of old largely inspired painters, nowadays it seems as if the interest was centred upon the wonder and dramatic variety of the world, the aspects of life in different countries, vivid and instantaneous presentment, individual impressions, snap-shots of nature. No doubt the photograph has had a great influence both upon painters and the public. The public eye must be largely influenced by the photograph, but the photograph in the hands of some of its professors has lately taken to imitate the effects and methods of artists. So that it is turn and turn about. The object of painting however is not _illusion_, otherwise, in the presence of the cinematograph and its marvellous living and moving transcripts from nature, as presented in the fascinating picture theatres, painting would have no chance, for even colour is sometimes given. But, however wonderful, it is scientific mechanism and not art. The true province of painting is untouched, our national galleries have not lost their attraction, and are not old masters more valuable than ever? The very illusory powers of photography serve to define the true sphere of art, which is a product of the human mind as well as of the eye and hand. There is another form of pictorial appeal which has, owing to the association of art with commercial enterprise, attained such vast proportions as to count as a popular education of the eye--for good or for evil. I mean the pictorial poster, which might be said to be the most original flourishing and vigorous type of popular art existing, and the only popular form of mural painting. Its too frequent banality and vulgarity are to be deplored, but to a great extent they are inseparable from the conditions of the existence of the poster; but undoubtedly there is a great amount of artistic ability employed in these designs, which often show, too, the great resources of modern colour-printing. It is part of the wastefulness of our system that so much skill, talent, and labour should be spent on such ephemeral purposes and placed in such incongruous positions and injurious juxtapositions, often appearing in the mass as a sort of sticking-plaster of varied colour upon the doleful face of a dingy street. The same ability under different influences and inspired by different ideals might serve to make eloquent the bare walls of our schools and public buildings with painted histories and legends of our country and race, which might foster the public spirit of our future citizens. Every town should have its history painted in its Town Hall--as Manchester has done in that wonderful series of mural pictures by Madox Brown. There might be competitions in schemes of decoration and mural design of this sort among the students of the local art schools. Is this an ideal? Well, after all, the great thing is to _have_ an ideal, an ideal, too, may be of enormous practical value, for it is capable of inspiring men to accomplish great works which they would never have touched without such a stimulus. Every great work, every great achievement in art, in social service--in all human effort, has been the result of an ideal in the mind, a vision, a lamp, a torch that has lighted the path that has enabled its bearer to clear away often apparently insuperable difficulties and attain the goal. Nor is the possession of an ideal less necessary to a people--the nation collectively--than it is to the individual if real progress is to be made. From ideals in art we are led to ideals in life and to the greatest art of all--_The art of Life_. An ideal of national life which would give purpose and impetus and unity to all social efforts at amelioration, something beyond the strife of parties, personal jealousies, and parliamentary man[oe]uvres. Such an ideal may be found in that growing conception of the new age we are entering of _a true co-operative commonwealth_, when the public good, being the main motive, all things that add to the beauty, health, dignity, and comfort of our cities, would be considered as of the first importance, and when, while our ancient history and monuments should be preserved, natural growth and expansion should not be impeded; a state wherein every citizen, every man and woman would find a useful and congenial sphere of work, and each and all would be prepared to do their part in the service of the community, secure of a place at life's table, when friendly emulation should take the place of cut-throat competition; when every mother and every child would be cared for, and there would be ample provision for old age. Labour being so organized that there would be neither overwork nor unemployment, while there remained abundant leisure for the cultivation of the arts and sciences and the pleasures of life--poverty being unknown, and disease conquered by knowledge and enforcement of the laws of health; death itself faced with calmness or fearlessly met at need in the service or defence of the community. THE APOTHEOSIS OF "THE BUTTERFLY" [Illustration] THE APOTHEOSIS OF "THE BUTTERFLY"[11] The world, it has been said, takes a man at his own valuation, and, certainly it seems to have accepted even Whistler, at last, at his own by no means modest estimate, and in the commercial sense, indeed, to have considerably exceeded it. It is true that Whistler had, as an original artist, to pass through the usual stages of neglect and contumely. It is only the common experience of what is called genius, albeit varied and complicated in his case by his combative and whimsical personality. What a pity it is that there are no means of obtaining a just and sober estimate of an artist's powers (as well as a sympathetic one) except by the long wait necessary for the verdict of that Court of Final Appeal--Time. At present the system seems to be, in the case of any one who shows individuality or independence in art, at first to ridicule, underrate, or abuse. If the innovator survives this process--well, the impression gains ground that there must be something in him, and, if he can only struggle on long enough, and keep his head above water, the tide may turn in his favour--even to such an extent, sometimes, as to carry the genius on the top of it to quite the other extreme of laudatory appreciation, which may land him eventually in almost as dangerous a position, as regards his artistic safety, as that in which he was first discovered. Between the bitterness of his enemies and the extravagant eulogies of his friends, it becomes almost as difficult for an artist to find his real latitude and longitude as for a ship in a fog. Still more so for other navigators on critical seas anxious to take his true bearings. Well, "The Butterfly" is caught at last! We have him in Mr. and Mrs. Pennell's two sumptuous volumes, pinned down, as it were, in a glass case, his natural history fully accounted for, both as an artist and as a man. We can study the Whistlerian genius in its various stages, from caterpillar to chrysalis, up to when it flutters gaily over everybody and everything in the garden of life--a butterfly with the sting of a wasp! [Illustration: PORTRAIT STUDY OF WHISTLER BY HIMSELF. (From a black and white drawing.)] The authors have indeed, in a literary sense, adopted the pre-Raphaelite methods, to which in art they appear to be opposed, in painting their literary portrait of the great Impressionist. No one will doubt the patience, care, and zeal with which they have carried out the work, or the devoted loyalty of spirit in which what was evidently regarded as a sacred trust has been fulfilled; but in their natural anxiety to give full relief to the portrait of their hero and idol, the authors have not always been able to be fair to some of his contemporaries or predecessors, or to other forms of art than those which he practised, and they are apt to become a little extravagant in their terms. To assert, for instance, that Whistler was "the greatest artist and most remarkable personality of the nineteenth century" is a little "tall"; but no doubt the authors did not wish, any more than Mr. Wedmore, to "understate." The insertion of the little words _one of_ in the above-quoted sentence would have been advisable, considering the number of remarkable personalities and artists the nineteenth century produced. This presentation of Whistler dominating and overtopping everybody reminds one of the method of the mural artists of ancient Egypt, who, in order to glorify their kings and impress beholders with his powers, represented the monarch as a gigantic figure clutching a handful of diminutive enemies trembling in his grasp, while he flourishes his sword over their heads. It is, perhaps, one of "life's little ironies" that Whistler, who maintained in his "Ten o'clock" philosophy that the artist, like the unexpected, always "happens," and who took a purely individualistic view of artistic history should be at last fully accounted for on evolutionary principles. It seems strange that he, who apparently held that artists occurred accidentally here and there in the history of the world--like very sparing currants in a suet pudding, the pudding, or public, being always of the same materials, equally "stodgy," indifferent, or ignorant as to art--that Whistler, who might almost be described as the artist of accident, should be portrayed in minute detail under the glare of the limelight, and shown in relation to, and accounted for by, his heredity and environment. A member of a most respectable family (like "The Newcomes") hailing originally from the Islanders he professed to hate, we may trace the origins of his personal characteristics, the germs of his development and the foundations of his art. His mastery in etching, for instance (perhaps destined to be considered the strongest and most enduring side of his art), had its roots in the technical experience and training of the United States Coast Survey. It is to be regretted that it was not found possible to include later illustrations of his etched plates in the book, as, with the exception of the pastels and water colours and the earlier pictures, the reproductions generally lose much of the charm, with the colour, of the originals, and most of their atmosphere. Whistler in himself furnishes another illustration of the different side of his nature an artist often presents in his serious work from that usually perceived in him, by the world in general, as a man. If nothing of his self-assertive, combative, caustic and whimsical personality had been known, such traits could hardly have been suspected in the possessor of the refined taste, the delicate justness of tone, the somewhat austere and restrained decorative sense combined with a certain poetic vagueness, which generally characterize his works. The work of Whistler at different periods of his life also illustrates the curious fact that artists of the most pronounced individuality of style and method often show how strongly they may become influenced by the work of others. What Whistler's art would have been had he never seen the work of Courbet, of Velasquez, of Fantin, of Albert Moore, and of the Japanese, who can say? The power of assimilation itself may be an attribute of genius, and it is not so much what he may have absorbed, or from what source he may have derived suggestions, as what use an artist makes of his derivations that really matters. The first time I saw Whistler's work was in the old rooms of the Royal Academy when that Institution shared the Gallery in Trafalgar Square with the National Collection, and the old masters and the moderns were next-door neighbours. There was a certain obscure den opening out of a passage between two of the principal picture galleries, named the Octagon Room, almost as dark as a cellar, but it was here that Whistler's early and wonderful etchings of the Thames side first saw the light--such as it was! in the sixties. I well remember, too, his early pictures, which also first appeared in the Royal Academy exhibitions in the Trafalgar Square rooms. The quiet power, rich tone, and distinction of "At the Piano," in 1860; the picture of a rocky seashore with a figure of a fisher-girl lying on the sand ("The Coast of Brittany," 1862), "skyed," if I remember rightly, which, Mr. Pennell says, "might have been signed by Courbet"; the lady in a Japanese robe painting a blue pot ("The Lange Leizen--of the Six Marks," 1864); I recall the striking effect of these works among the commonplaces of the usual mixed exhibition. They struck new notes. I also remember the "Wapping," "The Thames in Ice," "The Music Room," and "The Little White Girl," all of which were exhibited at the Royal Academy in the early sixties. These impressed me more than any other, or later, of Whistler's works. All the above-mentioned early pictures are reproduced in Mr. and Mrs. Pennell's book, and, to my mind, they still hold their place as the strongest and most interesting of the works of the artist in painting. [Illustration: [_T. R. Annan and Sons, photo_ "THE THAMES IN ICE."] Later, too, visitors to the winter exhibitions of oil pictures at the Dudley Gallery were surprised by certain "Nocturnes," visions of the Thames in misty twilight with shadowy bridges and ghostly figures and gliding barges, illuminated by twinkling golden lights; these were set in moulded frames of unusual refinement, in green and other tones of gold to suit the key of colour in the picture, and painted on the flat with decorative patterns of a Japanese character in dull blue, including a mysterious unit of pattern or mark, afterwards known as "The Butterfly," and used as a signature upon all Whistler's works. Then there was a "one man show" in a gallery in Pall Mall (No. 48), opposite Marlborough House, in which "Old Battersea Bridge, Nocturne in blue and gold" loomed large, I remember, and the town was surprised by something fresh in the decorative arrangement of the exhibition, yellow and gray predominating, if I remember rightly, relieved with blue pots and palms. This is mentioned in the Life at p. 179. Then came the famous "Peacock Room" in Prince's Gate, which chiefly sustains Whistler's repute as what one may call a practical decorator. It is to be deplored that the room itself was not more beautiful in structure and arrangement, cut up as it was with fidgetty details, with pendants from the ceiling and shelves for china. Still, of course, the business of a decorator is to adapt his scheme to the place decorated, and certainly this was done quite thoroughly by Whistler, and the blue and gold scheme was worked out very consistently and ingeniously upon the theme of the peacock. It seems rather pitiful to read of the miserable squabbles over the money, and the personalities and petty spite, however seasoned with the wit of the artist, which seemed to raise a cloud of dust around every transaction in which Whistler was concerned. A little later, at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1877, he is in the limelight again, and this time is fallen foul of by John Ruskin. Much as one may owe to that great writer, and while, however biassed or occasionally mistaken, the wholesome and ennobling influence of his work on the whole must be acknowledged, there could be no justification for his very injudicious and uncritical pronouncement upon that nocturne of Whistler's, but it only meant that Ruskin, as might be supposed, was utterly out of sympathy with that form of art, and did not understand it. Yet great as was the provocation, it would surely have been more dignified for the artist attacked to have let the words recoil upon the writer, and to have confidently awaited the verdict of time, rather than to have dragged the matter into a law-court to be made game of by counsel, judge, and jury, an utterly incompetent tribunal to form any serious opinion upon a question of art. [Illustration: PANELS FROM THE PEACOCK ROOM.] One feels, however, to a nature like Whistler's, the sort of notoriety which such situations give to the principals had a distinct attraction, added to the fighting instinct which possessed him. From this time onward this attraction seems to have grown more and more powerful and to have influenced the life and work of the artist in anything but a fortunate way, and it becomes fatiguing to follow the course of the continual brawls in which he was involved. He was a conspicuous figure at the Grosvenor Gallery private views in the early days, with his white lock and his long wand, but I never got further than a slight acquaintance with him, personally, which may have been as much my fault (or misfortune) as his. When we come to his "Ten o'clock," in which Whistler gives us his philosophy of art, we find his views, characteristically, intensely individualistic. Period, traditions, gradual evolution in art and artists, are nothing to him. It is always the "one man show," a purely personal view of art, from the first etcher on a cave-bone to Rembrandt. The artist is always an accident. His predecessors or his contemporaries are nothing. Heredity and environment, economic and social conditions, are of no account. Race or country don't matter. The inspiration of symbol and story is ignored or despised as "literary." The unifying and ennobling influence of architecture, the co-operation of the crafts, the associated chain of human endeavour and experiment in the arts, which link the ages together, and find their highest expression in great public monuments, do not interest him apparently. "Art happened." This is as much as to say one is only concerned with the flower, and the roots, the soil from which it springs or the evolution of the plant itself are matters of no account! Thus the individualistic artist kicks away the ladder by which he arrived and expects the stage to be cleared for him. Ah, well, "Ten o'clock" suited the hour, the audience, and the man. It would be too much to expect brilliant artists and witty inventors of _bons mots_, or butterflies to be profound philosophers as well. In many ways Whistler, though distinctly a decorative artist, was the complete antithesis of William Morris. Mr. Pennell makes a true remark in his book in speaking of Whistler's ideas in decoration when he says (p. 221, vol. i): "Colour for him (Whistler), was as much decoration as pattern was for William Morris." One would be inclined however to qualify this by saying that Whistler's main principle in decoration, in which he showed a fine taste, was by _tones_ of colour; especially was he successful in the choice of pale delicate tones. Whistler appeals to one as a great craftsman in _tone_, rather than as a colourist. As a painter his most distinctive and original works will always be his "nocturnes," and, of his portraits (which, however, he often treated as landscapes) his fame seems likely chiefly to rest upon those of his Mother and Carlyle. The picture of Whistler himself, of his character as a man, which this book reveals--in spite of some relieving touches--is not an attractive one. One can only feel sorry that so genuine an artist was so consumed by his own opinion of himself, and wasted so much time and energy in litigation, and that he could stoop to be professor of "the gentle art of making enemies" or glory in the distinction of being a past-master in the craft of losing friends. Still, he fought the Philistines. Mr. and Mrs. Pennell's book is admirably done and well illustrated, and it appears moreover in a form--clad in an arrangement of brown, yellow, and gold--such as might have been approved by its fastidious subject. The book is peppered with Whistler's smart repartees and sayings; of the latter the following dictum strikes me as remarkably true and sound: "Poverty may induce industry, but it does not produce the fine flower of painting. The test is not poverty, it's money. Give a painter money and see what he will do: if he does not paint his work is well lost to the world." [Footnote 11: "The Life of J. McNeill Whistler," by E. R. and J. Pennell, in two volumes, illustrated. London: William Heinemann, 1908.] INDEX (Note: The Page number is the link to the reference. 123^x indicates that the reference is only in the Footnote; 123,^x indicates that the reference is also in the Footnote). Ancient Buildings, Society for the Protection of, 42, 43, 217. Animals, treatment of, in art, 185-204. Architecture, modern domestic, 48; arts allied to, 125-146; of the nineteenth century, 225-227. Art education, 56, 57, 107-110, 114, 115, 242-245, 250. Art, study and practice of, 105-122; of the nineteenth century, 223-237. "Art Nouveau, L'," 232. Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, the, 28, 67, 68, 70, 71, 95, 96, 230, 248, 249. Art Workers' Guild, the, 59, 60, 70, 93. Assyrian art, animals in, 187, 188, 190. Athens, architecture of, 126. Ball, John, 41. Bates, Harry, 61, 228. Bell, R. Anning, 134. Bellamy, Edward, his "Looking Backward," 10, 11, 214. Benson, Frank, 236. Binyon, Laurence, 65. Birmingham, St. Philip's, 29. Blake, William, 228. Bokhara, embroidery from, 154, 155. Brangwyn, Frank, 92. Brown, Ford Madox, 17, 28, 92, 230, 253. Brown, Prof. Frederick, 92. Bullen, Wentworth, 25. Burges, William, 50, 51, 227. Burne-Jones, Sir Edward, 15, 25, 26, 28, 36, 37, 61, 230. Burne-Jones, Lady, 29. Butterfield, William, 227. Cambridge, Jesus College, 28. Canova, Antonio, 227. Carlisle, Earl of, 15. Carlyle, Thomas, 21, 40, 213. Cennini, Cennino, his "Trattato," 164-176. Century Guild, the, 67. Chinese art, 63, 65, 231. City and Guilds of London Institute, the, 67. Clausen, George, 69, 92. Clay, modelling in, 145. Cleveland, Ohio, mosaic floor for bank at, 132. Cobden-Sanderson, T. J., 28^2, 34. Coire, gesso work at, 164. Courbet, Gustave, 264, 265. Cowper, F. Cadogan, 78^4. Crane, Walter, his designs for "The Glittering Plain," 36; associated with the proposal for a National Exhibition of the Arts, 69; President of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, 95; design in mosaic for a bank at Cleveland, 132. Cretan embroideries, 152, 153. Darius, frieze from palace of, 139. Day, Lewis F., 59. Dearle, H., 25. Drawing, study of, 242-245. Dress, modern, 212-214. Dressler, Conrad, 139. "Earthly Paradise, The," 7, 8, 16; projected illustrated edition, 37. Eastlake, C. L., his "Hints on Household Taste," 53. Edinburgh, Art Congress at (1889), 29, 74. Egyptian art, animals in, 185-188, 190; mummies, use of gesso on, 182. Embroidery, colour and its treatment, 149-159. Eve, G. W., 192. Flaxman, John, 227. Florence, Riccardi Chapel, 141. Forbes, Stanhope, 92. Ford, Onslow, 227. Furse, Charles, 92. Gainsborough, Thomas, 228. Gallia Placida, Mausoleum of, 133. Gesso work, early Italian, 136, 137, 141, 163-182. Gibson, John, 227. Gilbert, Alfred, 61. Giotto, 140. Glasgow School, the, 232. Glass, stained, 28, 29, 144. "Glittering Plain, The," 36. Gozzoli, Benozzo, 141. Greek art, animals in, 190-192. Grosvenor Gallery, the, 65, 71, 268, 270. Gwalior, stone carvings of animals at, 198, 200-203. Hammersmith Socialist Society, 27, 28,^2. "Hobby Horse, The," 67. Hogarth, William, 228. Hokusai, 63. Holiday, Mr. and Mrs. Henry, 134. Home Arts and Industries Association, the, 67. Hooper, W. H., 36. Horne, Herbert P., 67. Horniman Museum, mosaic design on the, 134. Houses of Parliament, frescoes in the, 78^4. Hughes, Arthur, 17. Hunt, Holman, 49, 69, 230. Indian art, animals in, 189, 190, 198, 200-203. Israels, Joseph, 91. Jackson, John, 108^5. Japanese art, influence of, 63-65, 231; treatment of animals in, 198, 199. Kelmscott House, 27, 28,^2. Kelmscott Press, the, 5, 29, 34-36. Landseer, Sir Edwin, 203. Lascelles, Frank, 236. La Thangue, H. H., 92. Leighton, Lord, 61. Leverett, Arthur, 36. Liebermann, Max, 91. Lindsay, Sir Coutts, 65. Liverpool, Art Congress at (1888), 73, 74. London, aspect of, 207-214; architecture of, 226. London County Council, its technical schools, 68, 69. Magnus, Sir Philip, 67. Magnússon, Professor, 16. Manchester, frescoes in the Town Hall, 253. Marlborough College Chapel, decoration of, 168. Merton Abbey, 25, 27, 28,^2. Meunier, Constantin, 91, 228. Michael Angelo, 141. Micklethwaite, J. T., 132. Millais, Sir J. E., 230. Millar, W., his "Plastering," 164. Millet, François, 91. Moody, T. W., 63, 138. Moore, Albert, 61, 264. More, Sir Thomas, 41. Morgan, William de, 55, 139. Morland, George, 228. Morris, Miss May, 36. Morris, William, 3-43, 51, 230, 271; his Socialism, 5, 7-14, 36-41; visit to Iceland, 16; and the artistic revival, 16-20, 54, 93-95, 232, 248; his birth and education, 21, 22; experiments in dyeing, 24; weaving, 24-26; painted glass, 28, 29; his MS. of Omar Khayyám, 29-33; the Kelmscott Press, 5, 29, 34-36; illustrations for "Cupid and Psyche," 37; founds the Society for Protection of Ancient Buildings, 42; his appreciation of humour, 44,^3. Morris and Co., 15, 17, 27, 28, 54. Mosaic, marble, 129-132; glass, 132-134; pebble, 134, 135. Murray, Fairfax, 29, 36. Mycenae, Cyclopean gate of, 126, 190. National Association for the Advancement of Art, the, 29, 73, 74. National Exhibition of the Arts, proposed, 69. New English Art Club, the, 69. "News from Nowhere," 5, 10, 11. New York, improvement of, 211, 212. Nineveh, wall sculptures of, 126, 188. Northern Art Workers' Guild, the, 60. "Omar Khayyám," illuminated by Morris, 29-33. Oxford, Exeter College, 26; Christ Church, 28. Pageants, 236. Parthenon, the, 126. Peacock Room, the, 266. Pennell, Mr. and Mrs., their "Life of Whistler," 259-272,^11. Petrie, W. M. Flinders, 182. Philadelphia, art-teaching in, 107; mosaic altar-piece in, 134. Photography, influence of, 252. Pinturrichio, 141, 166. Pisa, Campo Santo, 141. Pistoia, 140. Plaster work, decorated, 135, 136. Poster, the modern, 111, 252, 253. Post-impressionists, the, 233. Pracatic (Bohemia), sgraffito designs at, 137, 138. Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, the, 48, 230. Pugin, Augustus W. N., 50. Raphael, 136. Ravenna, mosaics at, 133. Repoussé work, 127-130. Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 228. Ricardo, Halsey, 89, 139. Richardson, H. H., 29. Richmond, Sir W. B., 134. Robbia ware, 140. Rodin, Auguste, 228. Rome, baths of Caracalla, 129-131; New American Church, 134; tombs in the Via Latina, 136, 163; Appartimenti Borgia, 141; Sistine Chapel, 141, 166, 168. Rossetti, D. G., 16, 28, 49, 230. Royal Academy, the, 60-62, 69, 70, 95, 249. Royal School of Art Needlework, the, 67. Ruskin, John, 5, 21, 50, 93, 268. St. Paul's, decoration of, 134. Sandys, Frederick, 230. Sarnath, sculptured lions found at, 189, 190. School of Art Woodcarving, the, 67. Sedding, J. D., 227. Sgraffito, 137, 138. Shaw, Henry, 50; his "Glazier's Book," 144,^8. Shaw, Norman, 51, 227. Sicilian silks, 194-197. Siena, frescoes in the town hall, 141. "Sigurd the Volsung," 7, 16. Smith, Catteson, 36. Socialism, Morris and, 5, 7-14, 37-42; its inspiration in art, 83-101. Society of Arts, the, 73, 74. Solomon's temple, 127. Stanhope, Spencer, 168. Stevens, Alfred, 63, 203, 204, 227, 248. Stokes, Mr. Adrian, 170. Street, George Edmund, 21. Sumner, Heywood, 138. Sykes, Godfrey, 63. Tadd, Liberty, 107,^5-109. Technical Schools, 68, 69, 114, 115. Thorvaldsen, Bertel, 227. Tiles, use of, as decoration, 138, 139. Town-planning Exhibition, the, 61. Tuke, H. S., 92. Turner, J. M. W., 229. Van der Meer, Jan, 139. Walker, Emery, 34. Watts, G. F., 61, 78^4. Webb, Philip, 15, 16, 17, 51, 227. Whistler, J. M., 64, 231; his "Life," 259,^11-272. Wolfe, Miss Catherine, 29. Wrought Iron Work, 144, 145. [Illustration] BOOKS FOR COLLECTORS UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME _Post 8vo, with numerous Illustrations_ HOW TO LOOK AT PICTURES. By R. C. WITT, M.A. Sixth Edition. With 40 Illustrations. 5_s._ net. "A better gift for people who are dimly 'fond of pictures,' but who regret that 'they know nothing about them,' could not be found."--_Spectator._ HOW TO UNDERSTAND SCULPTURE. A Handbook for the Amateur. By MARGARET THOMAS. With 40 Full-page Illustrations, and Photogravure Frontispiece. 6_s._ net. HOW TO IDENTIFY PORTRAIT MINIATURES. By G. C. WILLIAMSON, LITT.D. With Chapters on How to Paint Miniatures, by ALYN WILLIAMS, R.B.A., A.R.C.A. Third Edition. With 40 plates illustrating upwards of 70 miniatures. 6_s._ net. "Contains much valuable information for the collector of examples of this form of art. 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With 40 Illustrations and Photogravure Frontispiece _Large Post 8vo. 3s. 6d. net each_ "The series is of high value and great promise, ... evidently being carried out conscientiously, and without the sparing of pains or labour."--_Magazine of Art._ "Dr. Williamson is editing the 'Great Masters' series with singular success and good fortune."--_Academy._ _Volumes on the following Masters are now ready_: BOTTICELLI. BRUNELLESCHI. CORREGGIO. CARLO CRIVELLI. DELLA ROBBIA. DEL SARTO. DONATELLO. FRANCIA. GAUDENZIO FERRARI. GERARD DOU. GIORGIONE. GIOTTO. FRANS HALS. LEONARDO DA VINCI. LUINI. MANTEGNA. MEMLINC. MICHAEL ANGELO. PERUGINO (P. VANUCCI). PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA. PINTORICCHIO. RAPHAEL. REMBRANDT. RUBENS. SIGNORELLI. SODOMA. TINTORETTO (JACOPO ROBUSTI). VAN DYCK. VELASQUEZ. WATTEAU. WILKIE. _A detailed and Illustrated Catalogue of the Series will be sent on application._ LONDON: G. BELL AND SONS, LTD. YORK HOUSE, PORTUGAL STREET, W.C. Transcriber's Note: _ _ indicates italic text. = = indicates bold text. ^ indicates a superscript. Missing or damaged punctuation has been repaired. Both hyphenated and un-hyphenated variants of some words appear in this book. All have been retained. The author has used UK-English variants of some words (e.g. 'colour', etc., not 'color', etc.), and some older spellings. Illustrations that interrupt a paragraph have been moved to a more convenient position nearby, between paragraphs, and closer to their descriptive text. The text in the Omar Khayyám illustrations appears to be missing some end-punctuation, or it is partially hidden by the design. It seems to have been a hand-written copy, by the author (William Morris), of the Fitzgerald translation of Omar Khayyám. As it is hand-written, it has not been amended to the Fitzgerald translation. Page 25 and Index: 'Wentworth Buller' is mentioned on Page 25; 'Bullen, Wentworth, 25.' is the entry in the Index. The transcriber cannot find which spelling is correct, so both have been retained. Page 54: 'Hebblewhite' corrected to 'Hepplewhite'. "... and Chippendale, Sheraton, and Hepplewhite...." Pages 59-60: 'In fact, since artists more or less concerned with decoration had increased, owing to the revived activity and demand arising for design of all kinds.' This sentence does not make sense. 'since' may be extraneous. Page 72: 'For in spite the immense activity and industry, the independent artists in design and handicraft were but few,...' should probably read either: 'For despite the immense activity and industry,...' or 'For in spite of the immense activity and industry,...' OED gives: spite, n. & v.t. 1. ... (in) ~ of, notwithstanding. So 'in' may be optional, but 'of' seems to be needed. The transcriber has chosen to correct 'in spite' to 'in spite of'. In other places, the author has used brief notes rather than grammatically correct prose. These appear to have been hasty jottings, and have been retained. Page 75: 'fatigueing' corrected to 'fatiguing'. "We have no word-symbols for defining those delicate shades of difference so important to the artist, and to be perpetually qualifying is fatiguing." Page 78, Footnote 4: 'Cooper' corrected to 'Cowper'. (Reference: Wikipedia) "... by some of our ablest men of the younger school, such as Mr. Payne and Mr. Cadogan Cowper,...". The Index entry is correct. Page 174: 'droping' corrected to 'dropping'. "by the use of the brush in floating or dropping on the forms of the ornament." Page 241: 'intance' corrected to 'instance'. "... different points of view--for instance, (1) as an accessory...." 
47917	----	Transcriber's Note: Italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and bold text by =equal signs=. THE OLD FURNITURE BOOK [Illustration: HALL IN KING HOOPER HOUSE. _Danvers Mass._] THE OLD FURNITURE BOOK WITH A SKETCH OF PAST DAYS AND WAYS BY N. HUDSON MOORE AUTHOR OF "THE OLD CHINA BOOK" _With one hundred and twelve illustrations_ _Second Edition_ [Illustration] NEW YORK FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY PUBLISHERS Copyright, 1903, BY FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY _All Rights Reserved_ _Published in October, 1903_ "TO A LADY WHO SHALL BE NAMED LATER." ILLUSTRATIONS Frontispiece--Hall in "King Hooper" House, Danvers, Mass. CHAPTER I FIGURE 1. Old Oak Bedstead 2. Olive-Wood Chest 3. Old Oak Chest 4. Chest with One Drawer 5. Oak Chest on Frame (English) 6. Spanish Leather Chair 7. Turned Chair with Leather Cover 8. English Chair (1680) Italian Chair (Same Period) 9. Cane Chair, Flemish Style 10. Turned and Carved Arm-Chair CHAPTER II 11. Dutch Furniture, called "Queen Anne" 12. Carved Kas 13. Marquetry Chairs 14. Screen, Cradle, and Church Stool 15. Ebony Cabinet 16. Bed Chair 17. Marquetry Desk CHAPTER III 18. Kitchen, Wayside Inn, Sudbury, Mass. 19. Chippendale Chairs 20. Chippendale Chair 21. Carved Cedar Table 22. Chippendale Chairs 23. Chippendale Candle, Tea and Music Stands 24. Chippendale Card-Table 25. Chippendale Marble-Topped Table 26. Chippendale Chair-Backs and Mirror-Frame CHAPTER IV 27. Room in Whipple House, Ipswich, Mass. 28. Chippendale, Sheraton, and Hepplewhite Chairs 29. Adam Chairs 30. Hepplewhite Chairs 31. Hepplewhite Card-Table 32. Hepplewhite Settees 33. Sheraton Chairs 34. Sheraton Desk 35. Sideboard 36. Sofa, Sheraton Style 37. Sheraton Sideboard 38. Sheraton Sideboard 39. Empire Sofa 40. Empire Sofa 41. Pier-Table 42. Empire Sideboard 43. Empire Work-Table CHAPTER V 44. Kitchen at Deerfield, Mass. 45. William Penn's Table 46. Rush-Bottomed Chairs 47. Connecticut Chest 48. Mahogany Desk 49. Corner Cupboard 50. Banquet-Room, Independence Hall, Philadelphia 51. Windsor Chairs 52. Wall-Paper 53. Bed at Concord, Mass. 54. Bed at Mount Vernon 55. Bed at Somerville, N. J. 56. Carved Oak Bedstead CHAPTER VI 57. Room in Whipple House, Ipswich, Mass. 58. Carved and Gilded and Mahogany Mirror-Frames 59. Mahogany Desk and Chest of Drawers 60. Combined Bookcase and Desk 61. Field Bed 62. Low Four-Post Bed 63. French Bed 64. Highboy 65. Corner Cupboard 66. Inlaid and Lacquered Table and Chair 67. Lacquered Table 68. Mahogany Bureau 69. American-Made Chairs 70. American-Made Rosewood Card Table CHAPTER VII 71. Bedroom of Anne of Austria at Fontainebleau 72. Bed of Louis XIV at Versailles 73. Chairs of the Period of Louis XIV 74. Tapestry Furniture 75. Commodes of the Time of Louis XV 76. Garderobe Period of Louis XV 77. Bedroom of Marie Antoinette at the Little Trianon 78. Chairs and Table of Louis XVI Style 79. Encoignure, Period of Louis XVI 80. Bed of Josephine at Fontainebleau 81. Bed of Napoleon at Grand Trianon 82. Room at Fontainebleau with Historic Table 83. Empire Reading and Writing Desk CHAPTER VIII 84. Organ in St. Michael's Church, Charleston, S. C. 85. Spinet 86. Harpsichord 87. Cristofori Piano 88. Harp 89. Bass Viol 90. Glass Harmonica 91. Geib Piano 92. Nuns Piano 93. Upright Piano CHAPTER IX 94. Tall-Case Clocks, English 95. Three Centuries of Clocks.--Lantern, Portable, and Willard or Banjo Clocks 96. Tall-Case Clocks, English and American 97. Mantel Clocks CHAPTER X 98. Kitchen of Whipple House, Ipswich, Mass. 99. Handles, Escutcheons, etc. 100. Feet CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. OLD OAK, OLD LEATHER, TURKEY WORK, ETC. 1 II. DUTCH FURNITURE 28 III. CHIPPENDALE 48 IV. ADAM, SHERATON, EMPIRE 73 V. COLONIAL AND LATER PERIODS 95 VI. COLONIAL AND LATER PERIODS--_Continued_ 128 VII. FRENCH FURNITURE 148 VIII. MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS 173 IX. CLOCKS 197 X. HANDLES, FEET, STUFFS, ETC. 222 INDEX 237 THE OLD FURNITURE BOOK. CHAPTER I. OLD OAK, OLD LEATHER, TURKEY WORK, ETC. With the revival of interest in all "antiques," which is so widely spread at this time, any of us who chance to own an old piece of furniture feel an added degree of affection for it if we can give it an approximate date and assign it to a maker or a country. There is much good old furniture in the United States, chiefly of Spanish, Dutch and English make, though there are constant importations of other makes, notably French, since it is recognized on all sides that Americans are becoming the collectors of the world. Our public museums are gradually filling with works of art presented by broad-minded citizens, while the private galleries are rich and increasing every day. To keep pace with these possessions, furniture from old palaces and manor-houses is being hauled forth and set up again in our New World homes. Indeed, whole interiors have been removed from ancient dwellings, and the superb carvings of other days become the ornaments of modern houses, like the gilded oak panels from the Hotel Montmorency which were built into the Deacon House in Boston, or like Mrs. Gardiner's Venetian carved wood which decorates her palace in the Boston Fens. Oak panelling, like everything else, passed through various periods and styles. In Queen Elizabeth's time the panels were carried to within about two feet of the cornice; then, after some years, there came a division into lower and upper panelling, the upper beginning at about the height of the back of a chair from the floor. Pictures became more common, and they were frequently let into the upper panelling, and then it was discarded altogether, only the lower half or dado being retained. This, too, after some years, became old-fashioned, and the board known as skirting, or base-board, was all that was left of the handsome sheathing which extended from the floor almost to the ceiling. This old oak panelling was entirely without polish or varnish of any kind, and grew with years and dust almost black in colour. Sometimes it was inlaid with other woods, and often it was made for the rooms where it was placed. Where the panels are carved, they are generally bought in that state and set in plain framework by the household joiner. If, however, the frame is carved and the panels plain, they were made to suit the taste and purse of the owner of the mansion. Oak panelling took the place of the arras, tapestry hangings, and crude woodwork of earlier times. Of course it was adopted by the rich and luxurious, for it rendered more air-tight the draughty buildings. [Illustration: Figure 1. OLD OAK BEDSTEAD.] The oldest furniture was made of oak, more or less carved, whether of Spanish, Italian, Dutch, or English make. The multiplication of objects which we consider necessary as "furnishings" were pleasingly absent, and chests used as receptacles for clothes or linens, for seats by day and beds by night, with a few beds also of carved oak, and tables, made up the chief articles of domestic use. Even the very word "furniture" itself is of obscure origin and was used formerly, as now, to describe the fittings of houses, churches, and other buildings. There are a few terms applied to furniture referring either to its decoration or process of manufacture with which it is well to become acquainted. They are given here in the order of their importance. _Veneering_ is the process of coating common wood with slices of rare and costly woods fastened down with glue by screw presses made to fit the surface to be covered. It was first used in the reign of William and Mary, in the last decade of the seventeenth century. Until that time furniture had been made of solid wood. Veneer of this early period, particularly burr-walnut veneer, was about one sixteenth of an inch thick, and was sometimes applied to oak. Chippendale, Hepplewhite, and Sheraton used mahogany and satin-wood both solid and for veneers. When used as veneers they were all hand-cut, as they are in all high-class furniture to-day. It was not till the late Georgian period that machinery for cutting veneer was first used, and slices were produced one thirty-second of an inch in thickness. Most of the cheaper kinds of modern furniture are veneered. _Marquetry_ is veneer of different woods, forming a mosaic of ornamental designs. In the early days of the art, figure subjects, architectural designs, and interiors were often represented in this manner. _Rococo_, made up from two French words meaning rock and shells, _roequaille et coquaille_, is a florid style of ornamentation which was in vogue in the latter part of the eighteenth century. _Buhl_, or _Boulle_, is inlaid work with tortoise-shell or metals in arabesques or cartouches. It derived its name from Boule, a French wood-carver who brought it to its highest perfection. _Ormolu_ refers to designs in brass mounted upon the surface of the wood. This metal was given an exceedingly brilliant colour by the use of less zinc and more copper than is commonly used in the composition of brass, and was sometimes still further made bright by the use of varnish and lacquer. _Baroque._ This word, which was derived from the Portuguese _baroco_, meant originally a large irregular pearl. At first the term was used only by jewellers, but it gradually became technically applied to describe a kind of ornament which became popular on furniture early in the nineteenth century, after the rage for the classic had passed. It consisted of a wealth of ornament lavished in an unmeaning manner merely for display; and scrolls, curves, and designs from leaves were used to cover pieces, making them lack beauty and that grace which comes from pure and simple lines. _Lacquer_ is coloured or opaque varnish applied to metallic objects as well as wood. The name is obtained from "resin lac," the material which is used as the base of all lacquers. In the East Indies the whole surface of wooden objects, large and small, is covered with bright-coloured lacquers. The Japanese lacquers are the finest that are made. They excel in the variety and exquisite perfection of this style of work, and under their skilful manipulation it becomes one of the choicest forms of decorative art. The most highly prized lacquer is on a gold ground, some specimens of which reached Europe in the time of Louis XV. _Japanning._ This style of treating wood and metal derives its name from the fact of its being an imitation of the famous lacquering of Japan, although the latter is prepared with entirely different materials and processes, and is in every way much more durable, brilliant, and beautiful than any European "Japan work." This latter process is done in clear transparent varnishes, or in black or colours, but the black japan is the most common. By japanning a very brilliant polished surface may be secured, which is more durable than ordinary painted or varnished work. It is usually applied to small articles of wood, to clock-faces, papier-maché, etc. _Joined_ furniture. All the parts are joined by mortise and tenon, no nails or glue being used. This method prevents the parts from warping or springing, as so much of the modern machine-made furniture does. Figure 1 shows an ancient carved-oak bed of the time of Queen Elizabeth, with grotesque carvings on the headboard in Renaissance style, which is said to have been introduced into England by Holbein. This bed has an interesting history. It belongs to the Herricks of Beaumanor Park, and came to them from Professor Babington, of St. John's College, Cambridge, England. He inherited it from his father, whose ancestors kept the "Blue Boar" inn at Leicester, where Richard III slept the night before the battle of Bosworth Field, in August, 1485. This has always been called "King Richard's Bed," and many learned antiquaries have waxed eloquent for and against this assumption. Mr. Henry Shaw, author of "Specimens of Early Furniture," published in 1836, says it is a good specimen of the modern four-poster of Elizabeth's time, the more ancient beds being without foot-posts. In fact the earlier beds were mere couches. As more luxury was demanded they grew larger, counterpanes were made of the richest materials, gorgeously embroidered with the arms and badges of their owners, and from their great cost and imperishable character descended from one generation to another. They provided employment, too, for the lady of the castle and her bower maidens, who had no end of leisure which had to be filled in some way, and which dragged along for many a long year, broken only by the chance visit of a wandering hawker or my lord's return from the wars. Hollingbourne Manor, in Kent, is one of the old mansions still standing which was built in Queen Elizabeth's time. The manor was originally owned by Sir Thomas Culpeper, and his initials appear in many places about the house. In the great hall the fireplace has an iron back with the initials "T. C." and the date 1683 wrought in it. The present owner, Mr. Gerald Arbuthnot, has preserved the old-time atmosphere as much as possible, and in connection with home-made tapestry the "needle-room" is especially interesting. In that room the four Ladies Culpeper, daughters of that John, Lord Culpeper, who was exiled for his devotion to King Charles, spent so much of their time making tapestry that one of the sisters became blind from the effects of her close application. Among the pieces of the handiwork of the four sisters preserved is a magnificent altar-cloth which they presented to the parish church. For two centuries and a half a needle left by the fingers of the worker remained sticking in the corner of the cloth, but it was stolen about two years ago by some one of a party of antiquarians visiting the Manor. [Illustration: Figure 2. OLIVE-WOOD CHEST.] In Mr. Shaw's book already quoted are many items concerning these great and handsome beds, which were often the finest pieces of furniture in the castle or manor, and from the safe seclusion of which the king or great lord received the homage of his vassals. The bed and bedstead were sometimes classed separately, but in many inventories the former word covers the bedstead and all its furnishings. The fittings of the bed were well in keeping with the fine carved woodwork, and were of softest feathers or down. Sheets of linen, and rugs or blankets of fine wool, were covered by a cloth woven of samite, damask, or heavy with gold threads. Richard, Earl of Arundel, in 1392, left to Philippa, his second wife,-- --"a blue bed marked with my arms and the arms of my late wife, also the hangings of the hall, which were lately made in London, of blue tapestry with red roses, with the arms of my sons, the Earl Marshall, Lord Charlton, and Mons. Willm. Beauchamp; to my son Richard, a standing bed called "Clove"; also a bed of silk embroidered with the arms of Arundel and Warren quarterly; to my dear son Thomas, my blue bed of silk embroidered with greffins; to my daughter Margaret my blue bed." Not many earls had so great a store of worldly goods. In 1434 Joanne, Lady Bergavenny, devises-- --"a bed of gold swans, with tapettar of green tapestry, with bunches and flowers of diverse colours; and two pair of sheets of Raynes; a pair of fustian, six pairs of other sheets; six pairs of blankets; six mattrasses; six pillows; and with cushions and bancoves that longen with the bed aforesaid." This was only one bed of six specified by this lady, several being of velvet, silk, and one of "bande kyn," a rich and splendid stuff of gold thread and silk, still farther enriched with embroidery. Before the cloth spread or counterpane the covering was of fur. It was also the fashion in these primitive times to name the beds, like that specified "Clove" in the Earl of Arundel's inventory, sometimes with the names of flowers, sometimes with those of the planets or of birds. The beds were surmounted with testers or canopies of rich silk edged with fringes, and suspended from the rafters of the room by silk cords. There were side-curtains also, and much carving on the headboard, while the foot-posts, as we have said, are wanting in the earliest beds, prior to the year 1500. Mr. Shaw goes on to say that there are very few beds still extant which date before Elizabethan times, and that the most ancient he met with was of the time of Henry VIII., and belonged to a clergyman of Blackheath who bought it out of an old manor-house. The posts and back are elaborately carved in Gothic style, but the cornice is missing. Of Elizabethan times there are several noted beds extant, the finest of them being known as the "Great Bed of Ware" mentioned by Shakespeare in "Twelfth Night." It is seven feet high and ten feet square. There is one in the South Kensington Museum, London, more richly carved than the one we show, and having in addition a carved foot-board. This bed is dated 1593. [Illustration: Figure 3. OLD OAK CHEST.] The curtains and hangings which have in our day become mere ornaments were during the Elizabethan period most necessary. Windows unglazed, and rude walls unplastered, or at best hung with tapestry, permitted drafts to wander through the sleeping-rooms, so that the curtains were closely drawn at night for actual protection. At best in many a castle or dwelling of the wealthy but one bed would be found, and that belonged to the lord and lady, the rest of the family taking their rest on rugs or cushions bestowed on the floor, or on chests or settees, or even on tables. There are also found, though rarely, oak tables of this period, or perhaps a little later, heavily carved along the sides, and with ponderous turned legs and plain stout braces. These tables, perhaps the earliest approach to a sideboard, are so long that they have six legs, the top seldom being less than twelve feet in length. One we refer to was found recently in an old barn in England, where it had lain since the neighbouring manor-house had been pulled down in 1760. While its condition was good,--that is, needing no restoring,--it had become nearly black and almost fossilized from exposure. It is now used as a sideboard by the vicar of the parish who found it in its lowly estate, and on it stand pewter and plate, also antiques from the neighbourhood. Such treasures can seldom be found here, certainly not any that have lain concealed since 1760. After the Elizabethan period the next one of importance may be called Jacobean. James I. encouraged his people to use chairs instead of stools. It was not long before settles, lounges, and "scrowled chairs," the latter inlaid with coloured woods, crowded out the stools of former days, and the idea of enriching the useful became the interest of the skilled workman, and utility was no longer the measure of value. Stools, to be sure, were still used, but they had heavy cushions of brocade, or worked stuff, or velvet, and were hung around with a rich fringe and with gimp, fastened with fancy nails. The arm-chairs of this period, a fashion introduced from Venice, had the legs in a curved X shape across the front, and chairs are still extant which were used by James I. himself. These chairs, which are all somewhat similar in design, were rendered still more comfortable by a loose cushion which could be adapted to the inclination of the sitter. The bedsteads of the period were also smothered in draperies, the tester trimmed with rows upon rows of fringe, the head-boards, carved and gilded, being about the only woodwork allowed to show. As we have said, the earliest wood used, at least in northern England, seems to have been oak. At the close of the sixteenth century there was furniture decorated with inlays of different coloured woods, marbles, agate, or lapis lazuli. Ivory carved and inlaid, carved and gilded wood, metals and tortoise-shell, were used also in making the sumptuous furniture of the Renaissance. The greatest elegance of form and detail was observed during this century, and it declined noticeably all over Europe, during the seventeenth century. The framework became heavy and bulky and the details coarse. Silver furniture made in Spain and Italy was used in the courts of the French and English kings. Then came the carved and gilded furniture which received its greatest perfection in Italy, though it was made throughout Europe till late in the eighteenth century. [Illustration: Figure 4. CHEST WITH ONE DRAWER.] Second only to the bed in importance as an item of household furnishing was the chest, a seat by day, a bed by night, and a storehouse of valuables always. It usually stood at the foot of the bed, possibly so that it could not be pilfered at night without the owner's knowledge. Some chests, heavily made, provided with locks and bound with iron, held all the worldly wealth of the owner, as well as his papers and deeds. Before the time of James I. bills of exchange were not used, and the actual coin passed in all transactions. Italy was the first country to establish banks, the money-dealers of Florence practising banking as early as the thirteenth century. Holland followed their example, and in 1609 the Bank of Amsterdam was founded, but kept in its coffers the actual coin paid in, being merely a repository for safe keeping. England had no bank until the seventeenth century, when this business was undertaken by the goldsmiths of London. The Bank of England was not founded until 1694. It can be easily seen how necessary a part of the household goods a stout chest for valuables was, especially in remote parts of the country, where access to the cities was not easy. Not alone in houses was the chest a necessary article; one or more were a part of every church's furniture, and in them were kept the vestments, church linen, the plate, and other valuables. There is a lawsuit mentioned in the Court Records of New Amsterdam, where one of two sisters living at Jericho, Long Island, about 1647, sues a neighbour for coming into their house and breaking into her chest, which was in her bedroom, and stealing from it several measures of wheat which were stored therein, as well as some coins which were in the till. The wearing-apparel of the family also was kept in these chests, and for years before her marriage the daughter of the house was employed in filling one up with linen spun and woven through all the different processes from the flax, the size and fullness of the chest often proving quite a factor in the marriage negotiations. The chests of the Jacobean time, enriched with mouldings, panellings, and drop ornaments, are by no means unknown in America. They are furnished with drawers, cupboards, and then drawers above, making them massive and useful pieces of furniture. They stand upon large round legs, and the handles to drawers and cupboards are drops. In Italy marriage chests were beautifully painted, often by famous masters, and sometimes gilded as well. In Holland the chests were carved or inlaid; and many of these, owing to the commercial relations between England and Holland, found their way into the former country and thence to America, in addition to those brought directly from the Low Countries. Chests were used as trunks by travelers long before Shakespeare's time, and he makes a chest play an important part in "Cymbeline." In the early days of the American colonies, when the settlers sent back to England for comforts not procurable in America, these were generally despatched in chests for safe keeping and to preserve their contents. The following letter shows a lady's desire to get hold of her property which had been unduly detained. Lady Moody was a member in 1643 of the Colony of Massachusetts, but, "being taken with the error of denying baptism to infants, was dealt with by many of the elders," As she persisted in her "error" she was persuaded by friends, in order to avoid further trouble, to move to the New Netherlands. This she did, and it is noted by the Rev. Thomas Cobbett, of Lynn, that "Lady Moody is to sitt down on Long Island, from under civil and church watch, among the Dutch." [Illustration: Figure 5. OAK CHEST ON FRAME. _English._] Later she became a warm friend of the younger Winthrop, and many letters passed between them. The following was written in 1649: "Wurthi Sur: My respective love to you, remembering and acknowledging your many kindnesses and respect to me. I have written divers lines to you, but I doubt you have not received it. At present being in haste I can not unlay myselfe, but my request is y^t you will be pleased by this note, if in your wisdom you see not a convenienter opertunity to send me those things y^t Mr Throgmorton bought for me, and I understand are with you, for I am in great need of y^e, together with Mark Lucas's chest and other things. "So, with my respective love to you and your wife and Mrs Locke remembered, hoping you and they with your children are in helth, I rest; committing you to y^e protection of y^e Almighty. Pray remember my necessity in this thing. DEBORAH MOODY." Chests are to be found in the well-settled as well as in out-of-the-way corners, and of Dutch, English, and American make. The Dutch, broadly speaking, are more common in the neighbourhood of New York, Albany, and other places settled by these pioneers from Holland, while the English-made ones, many of them, are to be found in New England, and scattered over the Eastern States as well, since in the past year I have seen two fine ones, both found in the western part of New York State. The very earliest chests which were among the effects of our first settlers are very plain affairs, hardly more than boxes mounted on simple sawed legs. They were all furnished with locks, and generally with rude handles, and we can well conceive the motley array of household and personal "stuff" which came over in them. Elder Brewster's chest is in the Memorial Hall at Plymouth, and is just such a plain box on legs as has been described. Though there were many oak chests undoubtedly brought over during these early years, there were also many of pine, and, being plain and cheap receptacles, more easily damaged than if of harder wood, they gave way to better and more ornate pieces as soon as the family fortunes warranted it. In Flanders were made many fronts of chests only, quite elaborately carved, and sent to England, there to be fitted with the other parts. Among the guilds the chest-makers bore an important part, as chests, particularly of churches, were sometimes fastened with two locks, and the lock plates were often very highly and handsomely wrought. Of later years chests of every degree of elegance and beauty have found their way to America; some covered with carving of the florid style of the Renaissance, some still showing traces of the fine gilding with which they were covered. Even some of historic interest are owned here, such as the carved chest of olive-wood said to have belonged to the Stuarts, and brought to this country by a member of the family who fled to Virginia after the beheading of Charles I. It remained in the possession of a family named Stuart till recently, and was bought by its present owner, Miss C. F. Marsh, of Clermont-on-the-James. This chest, though restored as to its feet, is remarkable on account of the decorations on the inside of its lid, which are unusual in that place, and from the fact that they are done in burnt work as well as carving. A portrait of James I. occupies the centre, and there are carved panels on either side depicting the "Judgment of Solomon." On the top of the lid the arms of the Stuarts are burnt in, while the front is decorated with panels of castles and warriors, and above the middle panel are the British lions supporting the royal arms. This chest is about six feet in length, twenty-four inches high, and twenty-two inches wide. The plantation on which it was found belonged to Captain John Smith in 1610. Its real value was quite unknown to those who possessed it. It was sold at auction, and was bought by a German farmer for a feed-box, on account of its strength. He carted it home, and was so satisfied with his bargain that he was quite unwilling to sell. It is made of eight-inch planks of olive-wood, cut several centuries ago in Palestine. Nor is this the only chest of this description in the country. In Memorial Hall, Philadelphia, is one very similar to it (Figure 2), but in a perfect state of preservation, with the original ball feet and more ornate twisted wrought-iron handles. The style of decoration on the two chests is quite similar, they are both made of olive-wood, but the wrought-iron handles are much handsomer on the Philadelphia chest than on the Stuart one. It has, however, no carving on the inside of the lid; the four panels of carving are enclosed with a moulding; but the lions rampant are very well done, and there are figures in cavalier costume on the panels. While, of course, elegant chests like these are most uncommon, it is the less ornate specimens which prove the most interesting, because there is more likelihood of our becoming possessed of them. Figure 3 represents a good specimen of one of these early chests. It is of English make, entirely of oak, the boards of the bottom being as heavy and solid as lead. The top is a heavy plank of oak with a fine grain. The chest is panelled within and has one till. The lock is modern, and some nails have been driven to hold the chest together, for the back legs as well as the sides are worm-eaten. This chest is three feet nine inches long, twenty-eight inches high, and twenty inches wide, and is in good condition save for the nails. Its date is about the last quarter of the seventeenth century. It was found in New York State and belongs to Mr. W. M. Hoyt of Rochester. While oak and pine were the most common materials for these chests, olive-wood was sometimes used, as we have seen, and sometimes the panels were of cedar, and the ornaments of some of the softer woods, like pine or maple, coloured and stained to imitate ebony. American walnut came into use late in the seventeenth century, but, although used in furniture and popular as a veneer, it was not used for chests. Cypress wood was also in demand as a material for chests, the aromatic smell keeping off the pest of housekeepers, the moth. In summer time the heavy woollen tapestries and woollen clothes of the family were stowed away, and the former, at least, from their cost and the labour expended upon them, had to be carefully protected. [Illustration: Figure 6. SPANISH LEATHER CHAIR.] The roughest sort of a chest was called a "standard," and in it were packed the more perishable movables and furniture; and in moving from one residence to another these standards were carried by pack-horses or on rude carts. Chinese chests of teak-wood, lacquer, or cedar are very rarely met with, though you will sometimes see them in old homes in England, where some ancestor of the family followed the sea. The inventory of the estate of Colonel Francis Epes, of Henrico County, Virginia, dated October 1, 1678, is a long and varied one. The first article recorded is "One foure foot chest of drawers seder Sprinkled new, but damnified £1-10.0." Further along are mentioned-- --"one middle size calve skin truncke with drawers. One old leather truncke with lock and key ... one old middle size chest with lock and key. One small old chest with lock and key. Two other old chests without keys and one without hinges." Quite a number of chests and trunks for one family when it is noted that they had chests of drawers also. When the Rev. Samuel Sewall, so well-known from his voluminous diary, returned from a trip to England in 1689, he brought with him on the ship "America" a trunk for each of his three children, with their names and the dates of their births carved thereon. Presumably these trunks did not come over empty. He brought also a sea-chest, a barrel of books, a large trunk marked H. S. with nails, two smaller trunks, a deal box of linen, a small case of liquors, and a great case of bottles. He slept on a feather bed laid above a straw bed on the voyage, and was comfortably covered with a bedquilt. American oak was used, however, in many American-made chests. Some of the early chests, particularly those found in the United States, stand flat on the ground. Others have legs, sometimes formed by the continuation of the stiles, as those parts of the chests are called which hold the panels on the sides. The two boards which occupy the top and bottom of the sides and back and front are called the rails. The upper rails in some of the chests of early make have a row of carving on them which adds still further to the beauty of the chest, and in some instances the stiles are also carved. Ordinarily, however, the stiles are plain or with but a slight moulding, and the rails are quite plain. Geometric patterns in arched, diamond, or square form were early employed, each maker copying industriously the patterns used by other makers and only occasionally having the originality to design for himself. After the legs formed by the continuation of the stiles came legs made in the shape of great balls such as were used on much Dutch furniture and were copied by the English makers. The great Dutch _kas_, or chest, was a very large and ornamental piece of furniture, carved, painted, or decorated in marquetry. Such pieces are unusual now, most of them having been gathered in by collectors or museums, the Dutch towns along the Hudson, as well as Albany and Schenectady, having been pretty well picked over. The evolution of the bureau from the chest is an interesting study, and shows plainly the different periods through which the useful and homely "kist" passed before it emerged into such an ornamental thing as the carved and decorated highboy. The first step in its upward career was taken when a drawer was added below the chest proper. This came as early as the last half of the seventeenth century, those chests belonging to the first half being without drawers. Sometimes this single drawer was divided, and the very earliest specimens had the runners on which the drawers moved on the sides, and not on the bottom, as came later. The sides of the drawer were hollowed out in a groove, and a stout runner was affixed to the side of the chest. Such a chest is shown in Figure 4. With the appearance of drawers came a difference in ornamentation, and mouldings in great variety were used, beading and turned drops also coming in for use. These patterns were merely the familiar mouldings used in wainscots and panellings put to the purpose of adorning the chests. The early chests without drawers ran in the neighbourhood of five feet long and twenty-four inches high. As the drawers were added, the chests naturally rose in height, and to prevent their becoming too bulky they decreased in length. A nice example of one of these early oak chests, mounted on turned legs and with curved strainers, is shown in Figure 5. It is in a fine state of preservation and has the original brass escutcheons. It was evidently intended as a receptacle for valuables, as both drawer and chest are made to lock. It belongs to the Waring Galleries, London. Two drawers followed one, the chest portion still retaining its prominence, and in this simple way the chest of drawers grew from the box-like affair of 1600 and later. By 1710 chests were looked upon as "old," and so advertised for sale, although they continued to be made until the middle of the eighteenth century. They were too useful to be abandoned by a people who were obliged to be often on the move, and who needed some stout receptacle in which to carry their household and personal goods. There are chests which are peculiar to certain localities, notably in New England, which were doubtless made by a single cabinet-maker, his workmen and apprentices. They are almost entirely confined to these localities, and are therefore of less interest to the collector in general than such pieces as are more widely distributed. Under this head comes that style of receptacle known as the Hadley Chest, and the Connecticut chest shown in Chapter V. The Dutch chests were often of pine, painted, only the choicest ones being of walnut. One inventory records a "chest brought from Havanna,"--probably Spanish. After matters became a little less anxious for the early settlers, personal comfort began to be thought of more, and such colonists as had brought no chairs began to send for them to England or have them made in America. Every ship from England took out fresh comforts, and the dignitaries of the colonies had substantial household gear. Tables, chairs, beds, and carpets,--these latter not for floors, but for use as table-covers,--are mentioned with great frequency in the inventories, and the settlers' house, albeit many of them boasted of but four rooms, had more than a modest degree of luxury. [Illustration: Figure 7. TURNED CHAIR WITH LEATHER COVER.] The New Haven Colony--as indeed did all the Colonies--had, as her chief officers, men used to the best that England afforded, and the following inventory speaks for itself. John Haynes, governor of Connecticut, in 1653 left an estate at Hartford valued at £1,400. In his hall, one of the most esteemed parts of the house at this period, were,-- 5 leather and 4 flag-bottomed chairs 1 table and 3 joined stools 1 tin hanging candlestick 7 cushions 1 firelock musket 1 matchlock do. 1 carbine 1 rapier 1 pr. cob-irons 1 iron back 1 gilded looking-glass 1 smoothing-iron --the whole valued at £8 13_s._ 10_d._ The parlor had velvet chairs and stools, also Turkey-wrought chairs, and a green cloth carpet valued at £1 10_s._ There were also curtains of say, curtain rods and "vallants," many napkins, as these were necessary from lack of forks, and much Holland bed and table linen. There were many chests and "lean-to" or livery cupboards. "The men's chamber," had "a bedstead with two flock beds; one feather boulster, one flock do.; one blanket; one coverlet." His best rooms had feather beds. In the cellar were many brewing-vessels and wooden-ware, while the kitchen had a complete "garnish" of pewter, but not a single piece of crockery. Brass candlesticks, iron possnets and porringers, and the useful brass warming-pan were here also. Theophilus Eaton, also governor of Connecticut, left in 1657 an inventory of goods of even greater value. Even earlier than this, rich furniture was imported by those who could afford it, and in 1645 a Mistress Lake, sister-in-law of Governor Winthrop the younger, sent to England for the furnishings for her daughter's new house. There were many items in the list, and among them were only one-- --"bedsteede of carven oak; 2 armed cheares with fine rushe bottums; three large & three small silvern spoons, & 6 of horne." As late as 1755 "armed cheares" were highly esteemed, and Joseph Allison, of Albany, N. Y., bequeathed two to his second son, a walking-cane to his firstborn, and to his youngest son some clothes. Chairs, stools, and cushions are mentioned in many inventories as being covered with "set work;" this was heavy woolen tapestry much after the fashion of Oriental rugs, and most durable. It is rather unusual to find no mention of leather chairs in inventories, for they were used in America late in 1600, and chairs covered with "redd lether," as well as with Spanish leather, are of frequent occurrence. Lion Gardiner was one of the chief proprietors of Easthampton, L. I., in 1653, where he passed the last ten years of his life "rummaging old papers" and in other peaceful pursuits. The inventory of his estate is set out fully and seems scant enough. 2 Great Bookes several bookes 4 Great cheirs 15 peeces of pewter 13 peeces of hollow pewter 4 porringers & 4 saucers 5 pewter spoons A stubing how A broad how A little how Horses Cattle Swine Clothing Bedding 2 pastry boards Cooking utensils A cickell A cheese press A churn It was this same Lion Gardiner who, after the Pequot War, bought from the Indians the island Monchonock, embracing thirty-five acres of hill and dale. The price paid was a large black dog, a gun, some powder and shot, a few Dutch blankets. This is the place which we know to-day as Gardiner's Island. The "great cheirs" mentioned in the inventory were, no doubt, either Turkey-work or leather, and seem to be the only articles of this kind of furniture possessed by him. [Illustration: Figure 8. ENGLISH CHAIR. _C. 1680_] [Illustration: ITALIAN CHAIR. _Same Period._] In 1638, in London, a man named Christopher took out a patent for decorating leather, which somewhat reduced its cost. Up to this time all leather was imported from Spain or Holland. Figure 6 is a fine example of a Portuguese or Spanish leather chair, as they were variously called, and shows well the splendid and ornamental leather as well as the rich carving seen particularly on the front brace. The leather is fastened to the frame with large brass nails, and that part of the oak frame which is exposed is turned work. On many of these chairs there are three little metal ornaments on the curved top. In this example two are lost. Besides the carving on the front brace, a pattern which was often adopted and copied by English and Dutch cabinet-makers, this chair shows well that form of foot which came to be known as the "Spanish foot." It is seen on all makes of furniture, and with some variations of form, but always turns out at the base, and has the grooved work so conspicuous in Figure 6. There is no doubt that this was an exceedingly popular style of chair, for there are many examples almost exactly like this in many collections. This particular one is in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Another style of leather chair is shown in Figure 7, and its solidity is a great contrast to the Spanish chair previously shown. The woodwork is turned, and the heavy underbracing shaped, while the second bracing is a feature peculiar to this chair itself. The date of this piece is probably about 1650, or a little later,--about the same date as similar turned pieces which are covered with Turkey work. The leather on the seat is so old and worn that it seems as if it had never been renewed, while the back is much fresher and looks comparatively new. The seat of this chair is so high from the floor that a footstool was a necessity, and in the old inventories the item of "low stools," or "foot-banks" appears with some frequency. This chair is of about the same period as the Spanish leather chairs. Many leather chairs are found in the United States, both North and South, and are probably of English make. Some inventories mention them as "old," as early as 1667, and many were in use in different parts of the country. But while most of our early New England colonists were grappling with the serious business of life, almost content if they could scrape together enough to eat and to wear, and a substantial roof to cover them, in England life was taking a more ornamental aspect. Charles II., indolent and fond of luxury, came to the throne in 1660. Two years later he married Catherine of Braganza, a Portuguese princess, and both of them introduced a more elegant style of living; his French and her Spanish training leading them to require more comforts than had hitherto been known in England. [Illustration: Figure 9. CANE CHAIR, FLEMISH STYLE.] Among other things which were exported from Holland was cane furniture of a superior quality. It became very much the fashion, and was in Spanish or Flemish styles, both of which were copied or adapted by English cabinet-makers. Some of this furniture found its way to America, and there are pieces to be found showing all three styles, Flemish, Spanish, and English adaptation. In Figure 8 is shown an example of the English treatment of the Spanish style, at least as to foot; while the flat underbrace is English, the curved back and bandy leg are quite Dutch. The carving on the top is very beautiful, and the knees of the front legs carved, not with the usual shell, but with heads, and below these an oval with moulding. This chair is in the South Kensington Museum, London, and dates from about 1680. The wood is walnut, and the scrolls and foliage on the back stand out in high relief; the seat, originally as now, is covered with a rich brocade, with fine brass nails and a fringe. The second chair is one of about the same period, of very beautifully carved oak, and not restored. The arms are missing, but show the places where they originally were. It has lost its feet, but the exquisite carving on the underbrace and top is still quite intact and quite Italian in style. This chair is at the Waring Galleries, London. A very splendid example of the Flemish treatment of the same style is shown in Figure 9, the oak woodwork being carved and turned, and the foot turning out in true Flemish style. The date of the chairs shown in both Figures 8 and 9 is prior to 1700. The wealthy people of Charles II.'s time all indulged in these chairs. Before that period stools had been in general use, and only the master, mistress, or guest of honour occupied the few chairs possessed in a household. In New England centres like Salem, Boston, or New Haven, even before the time of Charles II., there was in some of the houses comfort as we understand it. Mr. George Lamberton, of the New Haven Colony, sailed in 1646 to England upon business in the "Great Ship." She was never heard from again, and her loss crippled the little colony almost beyond belief. Mr. Lamberton's inventory shows a variety of items. He had as many as eighty napkins; bedding and table, chimney and board cloths in proportion; feather and down beds with their accompanying hangings. These with more than a dozen cushions to make soft the stiff chairs and settles, silver plate, four chests, ten boxes and trunks, eleven chairs, five stools, and three tables, both round and square, made up comfortable furnishings for a house with probably not more than four rooms. The colonists were not only "plain people," but there were those who came, shortly after the first settlement, who brought with them the household goods and clothes to which they had been accustomed. The "Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth" tells not only of the stress of living and the struggle with Indians and forest creatures. There was time to reprehend the frivolities of women's wear, and the pastor's wife was the chief offender in the matter of over-gay apparel. She was a young widow when Mr. Johnson married her, and brought goodly estate and personal belongings to her second husband. She continued to wear the clothes she had brought with her, and the chief exceptions were taken to the cork-soled shoes she wore, and the whalebone in the bodice and sleeves of her gown. Both the pastor and his wife seem to have been more than reasonable, since they were willing to reform the cut of their garments as far as they could "without spoiling of them." [Illustration: Figure 10. TURNED AND CARVED ARM CHAIR] While the general habit of the Puritans was to keep their houses and apparel extremely plain, yet here and there among them bits of comfort and elegance would crop out. Among the stiff and straight-backed chairs, one with stuffing would be found, while in the more luxurious and easy-going South they were not so rare. The covering probably was "sett work or Turkey work;" but then, too, brocade ones were found, and such a chair as is shown in Figure 10 would be an ornament in any home. It is a fine example of walnut-wood, turned and carved with bannister back and stuffed seat. The covering has been restored, but is of a pattern which was of the period. The out-turned Flemish foot is more ball-like in shape than is often seen, but it has the bowed knees which are so familiar. Yet, if the chairs were none too comfortable, there were few families in any of the settlements that did not own at least one feather bed. If not feathers, then "flock beds" were used, that is chopped rags, or feathers and flock mixed, or, as a last resort, the down from the brown soft, cat-tails which grew plentifully in every marsh was utilized instead of more costly material. CHAPTER II. DUTCH FURNITURE. Miss Singleton, in her exhaustive book "Furniture of Our Forefathers," says that probably the first pieces of furniture that were landed on the shores of the Hudson came in the ship _Fortune_, and were brought by Hendrich Christiansen, of Cleep, who founded a little settlement of four houses and thirty persons in 1615. A little later came the _Tiger_, _The Little Fox_, and the _Nightingale_, all bringing colonists and their household furniture. The early Dutch settlers were better fitted to start an infant colony than their New England brothers. The Dutch were ever colonizers and knew just how to plan and prepare a settlement. The trouble with the Indians was not so constant as it was with the New England colonies, although on one occasion New Amsterdam was almost wiped out. On the whole, the Dutch seem to have treated the Indians more wisely, buying the lands of them and having the purchase further confirmed by grants. In New Amsterdam the settlers were comfortably fixed, comparatively speaking, long before the New England colonists were, for they had a sawmill in operation as early as 1627, the machinery for which had been sent from Holland, and which was worked by wind-power. [Illustration: Figure 11. DUTCH FURNITURE, CALLED "QUEEN ANNE".] The Dutch settled at Albany and its neighbourhood and around Schenectady, as well as those at New Amsterdam, had many creature comforts. In 1643 Albany was a colony of about one hundred persons living in about thirty rough board houses. By 1689 the number of inhabitants had increased to 700 and the houses to 150. During the next ten years the improvements were rapid and wonderful; gardens grew, filled with flowers and fruit; the class of houses improved; wealthy merchants came to such a rich market (of furs chiefly); and the Dutch city grew apace, and the fine beaver-skins which were so plenty bought luxuries for the pioneers. That luxury is not too strong a word to use is shown by the splendid carved kas shown in Figure 12, which now belongs to the Albany Historical Society, and is a piece of furniture which may date back as far as the last quarter of the seventeenth century. It is made of walnut, and stands over eight feet high, with cupboard and shelves. While this chest was of unusual beauty, there was a certain solidity and ponderous character observable in most of the Dutch furniture. It is characteristic of the people themselves and is noted in everything belonging to them. Their very ships had long, high-sounding names, _The Angel Gabriel_, _The Van Rensselaer Arms_, _King David_, _Queen Esther_, _King Solomon_, _The Great Christopher_, _The Crowned Sea-Bears_, and brought in their flat hulks fine goods from all quarters. [Illustration: Figure 12. CARVED KAS.] The dress of the portly Dutch _vrouw_ was in unison with her cleanliness and love of thrift, for her gown--whether of cloth, or her very bettermost one of silk--was cut short enough to well clear the ground, and showed her shoes with shining buckles, and her bright-coloured stockings, often clocked with her favorite flower, the tulip. The hair was drawn back from the brow, smoothed and flattened and covered with a cap which, among the wealthy, was bordered with Flanders lace, and in any case was fluted, plaited, and snowy white. The practical education which the Dutch women always obtained in their own country sharpened their judgment, and the laws which permitted her to hold real estate and carry on business in her own name, even if a married woman, gave her an added independence. It was no unusual thing for women to engage in business on their own account and to carry it on without the aid or interference of the men of the family. At home in the Low Countries, the women had sold at the market, beside the produce of the gardens and poultry yards, the products of their own industry as well,--laces, linen, cloth of wool, etc., and as early as 1656 they sought and obtained permission to hold their market in the new country as they had in the old. Curaçao provided for them many luxuries, such as "lemons, parrots, and paroquettes," besides a variety of liquors. The women grew flax in their own door-yards for the finest linen, and every house had its spinning-wheel. Hospitality was dispensed at these homes, supper being a favorite meal, and as "early to bed and early to rise" was a national motto the guests were expected to come early and to leave early also,--nine o'clock verging on riotous dissipation. Madam Steenwych was noted for her suppers, which were more substantial than the waffles and tea which was the usual menu. In 1664, after her husband's death, she married Dominie Selyns. At this time she had in her living-room twelve Russia leather chairs, two easy-chairs with silver lace, one cupboard of fine French nut-wood, one round and one square table, one cabinet, thirteen pictures, one dressing-box, cushions, and curtains. Her chairs with silver lace may have well been like the handsome pair of marquetry ones shown in Figure 13. The seat of the side chair is entirely gone, but the arm-chair yet retains a portion of its cover of wool plush, no doubt the original one, since some of the stuffing protrudes, and it is dried sea-kale instead of hair. The wood is maple with an inlay of satin-wood. These chairs belong to the Museum connected with Cooper Institute, New York, which is being carefully gathered by the Misses Hewitt. Property had become valuable, and loss had been sustained by fire, so in August, 1658, 250 leather fire-buckets for public use were ordered from Holland, together with hooks and ladders. In addition each household was required to have a certain number of buckets of their own, which were to be kept hanging under the back stoop. In 1686 a rich Dutch burgher in New Amsterdam owned a house of eight rooms over cellars filled, no doubt, with choice liquors and schnapps, and the rooms above set out with chairs and tables, cabinets, cupboards and a "great looking-glass." Ornaments were there, too,--alabaster images and nineteen gaily decorated porcelain dishes. Nor was the house suffered to want for thorough cleansing, as there were thirteen scrubbing and thirty-one rubbing brushes, twenty-four pounds of Spanish soap, and seven other brushes. With an increase of prosperity our Dutch housewives lost no whit of their notions of cleanliness, for here is a housecleaning described, presumably by a victim, a hundred years later. "The husband gone, the ceremony begins. The walls are stripped of their furniture; paintings, prints, and looking-glasses lie in huddled heaps about the floors; the curtains are torn from their testers, the beds crammed into windows; chairs and tables, bedsteads and cradles crowd the yard; and the garden fence bends beneath the weight of carpets, blankets, cloth cloaks, old coats, under-petticoats, and ragged breeches. This ceremony completed, and the house thoroughly evacuated, the next operation is to smear the walls and ceilings with brushes dipped into a solution of lime called whitewash; to pour buckets of water over the floor and scratch all the partitions and wainscots with hard brushes charged with soft soap and stone-cutter's sand." Even these thrifty pioneers did not all accrue many goods, for 1707, when Hellegonda De Kay, of New York, came to make her will, she was obliged to leave her "entire worldly estate" to one daughter. It consisted of one Indian slave. The Dutch wife had an equal interest with her husband in disposing of household goods and furniture. She was always consulted, and sometimes she even signed the will with her husband. The wives of the English settlers, whether Quaker or Puritan, did not have the rights of their Dutch sisters in the ownership of household goods. The wife's dowry passed into her husband's hands at marriage, and remained there until his death, as the inventory of the estate of Alexander Allyn of Hartford, Conn., who died in 1708, testifies. "_Estate that deceased had with his wife Elizabeth in marriage (now left to her)._" "One round table; bed with furnishings; chest of drawers; two trunks; a box; books; earthenware; glasses; pewter platters; plates; bason; porringers; cups; spoons; tinware; a fork; trenchers; four chairs; nine pounds in silver money; table-cloths; napkins; towels; a looking-glass; a chest; a silver salt; porringer; wine-cup and spoon; a brass pot; an iron pot; two brass skillets and hooks." The following extract from a will drawn in 1759 by a man eighty years old shows the Friend's point of view as to whom the household stuff belonged. He wills to his wife as long as she liveth, unless she marries again (she was seventy years old at the time), "two good feather beds and full furniture, and all my negro bedding; and all my grain, either growing or cut, or in store at the time of my decease; and all my flax and wool, and yarn and new cloth and cattle hides, leather, and soap, and meat, and all other provisions which I have in store in my house, either meat or drink, and all my negro men and one of my negro women, such of them as she shall choose, and my negro girl named Priss; and if I should chance to dye when I have cattle a-fatting my wife shall have them for the provision of herself and family, at my wife's disposal." No doubt the feather beds and "negro bedding," as well as the "new cloth," had been made by the patient fingers of this wife of fifty years' standing; but she must forfeit all this fruit of her labour should she marry again. The Dutch system seems preferable. In another inventory, that of Charles Mott, also a Long Island Quaker, dated 1740, the eldest son has the house and homestead, "together with the negro boy Jack and one feather bed." The sole provision for his wife was "four pounds a year" to be paid to her by the eldest son "so long as she remains my widow." He seems to have put a premium on her filling his place, and that quickly. Possibly our Dutch settlers were more notable house wives than their sisters in New England or the South. In the latter region the mistress did not contribute with her own hands to the cleanliness of her home, but she had onerous duties in overlooking the work of sometimes over a hundred negroes, seeing to their food, clothes, and shelter. Our New England wives were still suffering from Indian depredations, and the young housewives whose doors were driven thick with nails to repel the deadly tomahawk, as Mistress David Chapin's was at Chicopee in 1705, would probably not have risked her "goods" out of doors, as did the Dutch housewives at Albany. [Illustration: Figure 13. MARQUETRY CHAIRS.] The Dutch kitchen utensils seem numerous and varied. Possets, pans, jack-spits, strainers and skillets were seen in inventories as well as the more familiar pots and kettles. The prosperous Dutch at home had sent out and brought back many a rich argosy, and silks and tissues, porcelains and lacquers, carved ivory and fantastic carved wood, spices and plants had been brought to Holland and found their way to America. There were many ships unloaded at New York filled with spoils from the East, which were eagerly bought up. There was a variety of moneys current,--beaver-skins; wampum; Spanish pistoles, worth 17_s._ 6_d._; Arabian chequins at 10_s._; "pieces of eight" (as the Spanish reals were called), which, if they weighed 16 pennyweight (except those of Peru) passed for 5_s._; and French crowns worth 5_s._ Peruvian pieces of eight and Dutch dollars were valued at 4_s._, and all English coin passed "as it goes in England." These were the values in 1705, but they varied somewhat, the currency being inflated by one governor, though his act created such a disturbance that he was obliged to withdraw it. The Long Island Dutch seem to have had less rich belongings than those up the Hudson and about Albany. Around Jamaica and Hempstead were stout clapboard and shingle houses, but the inventories are not lavish. Daniel Denton, writing in 1670 "A Brief Description of New York," says this about his dearly loved Hempstead. "May you should see the woods and Fields so curiously bedeckt with Roses and an innumerable multitude of delightful Flowers not only pleasing to the eye but smell. That you may behold Nature contending with Art and striving to equal if not excel many gardens in England." But he has little to say about the way of living, except that it is "godly." The records of New Amsterdam, which are so wonderfully complete, show what a valuable assistant to these first settlers was the powerful West India Company. By 1633 there were five stone houses containing the Company's workshops; and as the land near at hand was poor,--"scrubby" the Dutch farmers called it,--they spread out to the neighbouring New Jersey, Long Island, Gowanus, and East River shores and from 1636 to 1640 were busy with their settlements. By 1651 New Amsterdam was prosperous enough to have a brick house so good and well built as to be worth 5,195 florins (about $2,100 of our money). In 1649 Adam Roelantsen, a general factotum of the West India Company, whose name constantly appears in the town records, (as he was unfortunately addicted to strong waters, and under these conditions was very quarrelsome and aggressive,) owned the following house. It was a clapboard structure covered with a reed roof, and eighteen by thirty feet in size. It stood gable end toward the street, and at the front door was the usual "portal" with its wooden seats. Outside of the frame the chimney of squared timber was carried up, while within the fireplace had a mantelpiece and the living room had "fifty-one leaves of wainscot." There was a bedstead or state-bed built in, but of the movables no record is left. In reading these old records it is noticed that matters moved quickly; not much time was spent in grief and repining; and to illustrate we give the experience of one woman whose career does not seem to have excited any comment among her contemporaries. In 1685 William Cox married a young woman named Sarah Bradley, who had come from England with her father and brothers to settle in New Amsterdam. She was said to have been handsome and dashing, and certainly she needed spirit to carry her through her subsequent career. Four years after her marriage her husband met with the following accident, thus described by a political opponent. "Mr. Cox, to show his fine clothes, undertook to goe to Amboy to proclaime the King, who, coming whome againe, was fairely drowned, which accident startled our commanders here very much; there is a good rich widdow left. The manner of his being drowned was comeing on board a cannow from Capt Cornelis' Point at Staten Islands, goeing into the boate, slipt down betwixt the cannow and the boate, the water not being above his chin, but very muddy, stuck fast in, and, striving to get out, bobbing his head under, receaved to much water in. They brought him ashore with life in him, but all would not fetch him againe." The good rich "widdow" whom he left soon changed her loneliness for the pleasures of married life, this time with Mr. John Oort. He, too, made a brief stay, for by May 16, 1691, the widow Sarah Oort had the necessary license under colonial law for her marriage to no less a person than Captain William Kidd. They lived comfortably in a house left by Sarah's first husband, Mr. Cox (who left her with an estate of several thousand pounds) till Captain Kidd set out on his notable voyage in the "Adventure." The goods which Mrs. Oort had at the time of her marriage to Captain Kidd were the following: fifty-four chairs, of Turkey work and double and single nailed; five tables with their carpets (covers); four curtained beds with their outfits; three chests of drawers; two dressing-boxes; a desk; four looking-glasses; two stands; a screen; a clock; andirons; fire-irons; fenders; chafing-dishes; (3) candlesticks of silver, brass, pewter, and tin; leather fire-buckets; over one hundred ounces of silver plate; and a dozen glasses. The screen, no doubt, was such a one as is shown in the same figure, No. 14, as the Dutch cradle, which was used for many years in the Pruyn family, of Albany. The third object in the picture is what is known as a church stool, and was useful in keeping the good _vrouw's_ feet off the cold floors. This stool is painted black and is dated 1702. There is a lurid picture of the Last Judgment painted on it, and also a verse in Dutch, which reads as follows: "The judgment of God is now at hand. There is still time; let us separate the pious from the wicked and entreat God for the joy of heaven." All these articles are now at the rooms of the Historical Society, Albany. William Kidd was executed in May, 1701, and, nothing daunted by her matrimonial ventures, Sarah took as her fourth husband, in 1703, Christopher Rousby, a man of considerable influence in the colony. She lived until 1745, and left surviving her four children. While the houses were rough, some with but two rooms, yet articles even of luxury were there and offered for sale. As early as 1654 a casket inlaid with ebony was sold and brought thirty beavers and nineteen guilders. Cornelis Barentsen sued Cristina Capoens in 1656 for payment for a bed he sold her, payment to be made in fourteen days. The price was six beavers (about $57.00), which Cristina seemed unable to pay, but which payment was ordered by the court. In June, 1666, the administrators of the estate of the late Jan Ryerson sold some "beasts" (horses, calves, and hogs), as well as furniture at public sale. "The payment for the beasts, also the bed, bolsters, and pillows," was to be made in "whole merchantable beavers, or otherwise in good strung seewant, beavers' price, at twenty-four guilders the beaver." Here is the inventory of a bride who was married at New Amsterdam in 1691, and although her husband was a man of consideration and some wealth it was deemed of sufficient importance to record. "A half-worn bed; one pillow; two cushions of ticking, with feathers; one rug; four sheets; four cushion-covers; two iron pots; three pewter dishes; one pewter basin; one iron roster; one schuryn spoon; two cowes about five years old; one case or cupboard, one table." August 31, 1694, Jan Becker's inventory entered at Albany, New York, showed a long list. Besides abundant household goods he had-- "A silver spoon; 3 pr. gold buttons; 5 doz. & 10 silver buttons for shirts; & 2 silver scnuffies." [Illustration: Figure 14. DUTCH SCREEN, CRADLE AND CHURCH STOOL.] It is not difficult to picture in the mind how these old Dutch houses looked when the living-room was made snug and warm of a winter's evening. At various places along the Hudson and on Long Island there are still standing some of these old, low-ceiled, wooden houses, with sloping roof and great chimney. The furniture was generally of oak (particularly if it had been brought from home) and carved. The most important objects in the room are the mantelpiece and the bed, the former of carved wood, its ornate character significant of the wealth of the owner, and its size seldom less than the height of the room. The bed was frequently built in the room, a sort of bunk, hung with curtains often of bright chintz, though, judging from the inventories, "purple calico" curtains were immensely popular, just as this same fabric is beloved to-day by the pretty maid-servants one sees tripping through the quaint old streets of Holland. There were stools; not many chairs; tables, one or two; each with its bright carpet or cover; racks on the wall for what delft the mistress had; and below it the treasured spoons. In the great kas, which took up a large portion of the room, was the linen, covers for tables, side-tables, shelves, etc., and all the napkins and choice belongings of the housewife. If this kas was carved oak it sometimes stood on a frame; sometimes it had ponderous locks. If it was painted or inlaid wood it might reach nearly to the floor, and then stand upon large ball feet. Some of these kas were so large and heavy that it was almost impossible to move them, and there is the record of one _vrouw_ who upon moving from Flatbush was obliged to abandon hers, leaving it behind her and selling it for £25: In the Van Rensselaer family is a marriage kas which goes back to the beginning of the eighteenth century. It was imported from Holland by the parents of Katherine Van Brugh, who wished their only daughter to have everything that money could buy, and during her early years it was being filled with linen and household goods woven under her father's roof. It was no light task to fill this great chest, for it stood seven feet high and proportionally wide. It is of carved oak, has many drawers and receptacles, and will hold the silver and finery of the mistress, while there are secret drawers for "duccatoons and jacobuses." The keyhole is concealed under a movable cover of carved wood, which looks like a part of the carving when dropped in place. The ponderous key is of iron and has many wards. If the family was quite well to do and owned a good stock of clothes, there would be one or more smaller cases, or chests, in which these were stored away. Much furniture was made here by Dutch workmen, who followed the fashions of their native land. They found abundant material, and more was brought into the country,--in devious ways sometimes, but still it came. The court records for New Amsterdam for 1644 report a bark, _Croisie_, of Biscay, which was brought into the harbour as a prize by the ship _La Garce_, being laden with sugar, tobacco, and ebony. The claim of the master of the _La Garce_ was granted, and the goods sold. Nearly always there was a little silver,--spoons, mugs, and a salt-cellar; and, as years passed on, much coin was beaten by some member of the family (for there were many Dutch silversmiths) into tankards,--splendid heavy vessels, capable of holding a quart, with cover and thumb-piece, and showing the marks of the mallet on the bottom and inside, for all of these pieces of plate were hand-made. Waiters and massive bowls were seen in nearly every family of easy circumstances, and they scarcely ever went out of the family, as it was a matter of pride to retain them. Much of this fine old plate is treasured to-day by descendants of its former owners. It has survived better than the furniture, indestructible as that seemed. In 1739 Lowrens Claesen, of Schenectady, had, among other property, a gold seal ring and a silver cup marked "L. V. V." Myndert Fredricksen of Albany County, New York, blacksmith, left in 1703 a great silver tankard, a church book with silver clasps and chains, and a silver tumbler marked "M. F." A blacksmith in those days meant a worker in iron, and this one must have been prosperous, for he owned his house and land, and furniture as well as silver. But even if silver were lacking there were brass skillets and warming-pans, and pewter was the ordinary table furniture, which was scoured to a polish little short of silver. One or two pieces of brightly decorated Delft ware was the crowning glory of the housewife's treasures, and far too precious for every-day use. So holes were drilled in the edge, and a stout cord passed through, so that it could be hung upon the wall. There was, of course, a clock also, and leather chairs. Nicholas Van Rensselaer, of Albany, who died in 1679, was a wealthy and important member of the colony of Albany. His house had two beds, two looking-glasses, two chests of drawers, two tables, one of oak and one of nut-wood; also a table of pine, as well as six stools of the same; a sleeping-bunk or built-in bed, over twenty pictures, a desk, and, of course, brushes and kitchen utensils. These goods were disposed of through four rooms. Not only were all the necessaries abundant, but some very elegant furniture came in with almost every ship, and even before 1700, ebony chairs, boxes and cabinets are mentioned in the inventories; but such splendid pieces as the cabinet shown in Figure 15, with carved panels in the doors, and carved twisted legs, were only occasionally to be met with. The doors conceal shelves, and above are two drawers with drop handles. There are pieces similar to this to be found in the United States in private houses as well as in museums. This cabinet belongs to the Waring Galleries, London. Children slept in trundle beds, which during the day were pushed under the large bed, often a four-post bedstead when not the sleeping-bunk. One thing was found in every house, rich or poor, and this was some means for striking fire. Tinder and steel, with scorched linen, were an indispensable part of every household. Sometimes it was necessary to borrow coals from a neighbour, and there were stringent town laws ordering that "fire shall always be covered when carried from house to house." In the "Court Records of New Amsterdam" one of the earliest laws regulated the carrying about of hot coals, and several Dutch _vrouws_ were hauled to court for breaking them. [Illustration: Figure 15. EBONY CABINET.] The furniture in these houses was by no means all of Dutch or domestic make. They had what they were able to get, and among painted kas and inlaid chests would be Spanish chairs or stools, and English walnut beds with serge hangings, folding tables and Turkey-work chairs. Before the close of the seventeenth century there came direct to New York Dutch ships from the Orient, or from the Low Countries themselves, loaded with rich goods, among which was much furniture. Styles had begun to change a little; the Dutch were absorbing ideas from the Chinese and copying and adapting forms and decorations. Beautiful lacquer work was coming in, and splendid inlaid or marquetry work; not any more in two colours, as was the earliest style, but in a variety of colours and in divers patterns, and standing upon bandy legs with ball and claw, or what is known as the Dutch foot, instead of the straight or turned leg. The inventories show how far East Indian goods were coming in, and there is frequent mention of "East India baskets," boxes, trunks, and even cabinets. The most usual woods were black walnut, white oak and nut-wood, which was hickory. Occasionally pieces were made of olive-wood, or of pine-wood painted black. Ebony was used for inlay and for adornment for frames. Looking-glasses were mentioned in nearly every list, the earliest coming from Venice. By 1670 looking-glass was manufactured at Lambeth, England, in the Duke of Buckingham's works, and was not now so costly as to be seen only among the wealthy. The cupboards were no longer uniformly made with solid doors, but glass was introduced, so that the family wealth of silver and china could be easily seen. By 1727 mahogany is mentioned occasionally in the inventories, and it could be bought by those who were wealthy enough to afford it. Probably the Spaniards were the earliest users of mahogany, followed by the Dutch and English. Furniture made of this wood is known to have existed in New York prior to 1700, and in Philadelphia a little later. The old Spanish mahogany was a rich, dark, heavy wood, susceptible of a high polish. It darkened with age and was not stained. The new mahogany, at least that which comes from Mexico, is of a light, more yellow colour, and requires staining, as age does not darken it. It is light in weight. The mere lifting of a piece enables one to judge whether it is made from Spanish wood. The carpets referred to in nearly every inventory were not floor-coverings, but table-covers,--small rugs, no doubt, but far too precious to be worn out by rough-shod feet walking over them. The floors were scoured white, and were strewn with sand which showed the artistic capacity of mistress or maid in the way it had patterns drawn in it by broom-handle or pointed stick. It was not until the middle of the century that carpets became at all common, and even then they are mentioned in the inventories as very choice possessions. There were "flowered carpets," "Scotch ditto," "rich and beautiful Turkey carpets," and Persian carpets also. The colonists traded with Hamburg and Holland for "duck, checquered linen, oznaburgs, cordage, and tea,"--goods appreciated by the housewife, and which she could not make. [Illustration: Figure 16. BED CHAIR.] The festivities indulged in by the Dutch settlers were generally connected with the table; they played backgammon, or bowls when the weather was fine and they could go out of doors. The cards they used numbered seventy-three to the pack, and there was no queen, her place being supplied by a cavalier who was attended by a hired man, and they both supported the king. Cards were not popular, however, except among the English settlers, and they followed the home fashions. After English rule had been dominant in the little city of New Amsterdam for nearly fifty years the larger number of the families was still Dutch, as a collection of wills made at that period testifies. What would be now domains worthy a prince--farms lying in Nassau Island, as Long Island was then called, vast tracts in New Jersey, and thousands of acres between New York and Albany--were divided by these wills. Such names as Killian Van Rensselaer, second lord of the manor; Harmanus Rutgers, Philip Schuyler, Van Cortlandt, Provoost, etc., are signed to these documents but it is in the minor wills that we find the records of the lives of the main body of the people. A feather bed, one or more slaves, and the family Bible are the bequests usually first specified, the Bibles in some cases being very massive and ponderous affairs. Jarminaye Sieurs, widow, 1709, bequeaths to her daughter her Bible with silver clasps, in addition to her gold rings and one half of her clothes. A grand-daughter, Hilley Veghten, gets a "silver cup with two ears," and other grandchildren, bearing such interesting names as Reynier, Simesse, and Gretie Veghten, get a silver spoon each. In 1711 a fond mother leaves to her daughter "the red and white worsted and linen stockings," besides two pillows, two coverlids, a bed and furniture. A Hempstead yeoman is very careful to stipulate that his daughter shall have-- "one feather bed, an iron pot, six plates, three platters, two basins, one drinking pot and one cupboard worth £3, and six chairs, six sheep, and one table." The price of the cupboard being specified shows that it was held in great estimation, and it must have been a handsome piece of furniture. Only very occasionally do we find a record in the inventories of a "bed chair," yet such were sometimes found here early in the eighteenth century. One is shown in Figure 16. It is carved on the top and inlaid, and covered with woollen plush,--not the original covering, which no doubt was Turkey work. Two hinges are shown on the front rail; the back lets down, and a leg unfolds to support it; while the legs and arms coming together make the centre firm. This unusual piece is at the Museum connected with the Cooper Institute, is of nut-wood or maple inlaid with tulip-wood, with bandy legs and the well-known Dutch feet. The Dutch settlers had other elegances which are more rarely met with, such as walnut kas or chests, inlaid with plaques, or rather small saucers and plates of Oriental china. These were tall, with doors opening their whole length, and stood on the great ball feet which are so familiar. One such cabinet is in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, and another is owned by Mrs. Pruyn of Albany. In the former example the plaques display flowers and birds in various colours; in the latter are plain blue and white. [Illustration: Figure 17. MARQUETRY DESK.] Of later manufacture were pieces of rich marquetry in vari-coloured exotic woods upon mahogany. The heavy foot was replaced by others, still turning out, to be sure, in the Flemish fashion, but very ornate and beautiful, and still further embellished with ornaments in gilt. Such a piece, massive in shape, but enriched with much ornament, is shown in the desk depicted in Figure 17. It was never made for any of the humbler houses of the Dutch settlers, but such a piece was worthy to stand in the study of a wealthy patroon or to belong to some "lord of the manor." This particular desk, a very perfect example of its class, belongs to the Waring Galleries, London. CHAPTER III. CHIPPENDALE. In studying the various periods into which different makes of furniture may be divided, the accentuating of one point, say of ornaments or the structural peculiarities, is noted, not as being sharply defined, but as being a gradual growth. Chippendale did not originate at first. Indeed, he hardly adapted, for the East India trade had brought to market Chinese designs which he used, and French furniture was so popular that he copied bodily in his book such designs as pleased him, although the term "French chairs," as employed at this time, referred to their being upholstered and not to the style or decoration. Thomas Johnson published a book about the middle of the eighteenth century, in which was a medley of French, Gothic and Chinese designs, many of which have a strong family likeness to Chippendale's. There was also Matthias Lock, who began to publish his books as early as 1740, dedicated to such "nobility as would stand for him." These books included one on Pier Frames, Girandoles, Tables, etc., also, one on Ornaments and Sconces, all of which were characteristic of what was considered desirable at this time, and which style Chippendale followed too. Ince & Mayhew published what they called a "Universal System of Household Furnishing." They made many designs, over three hundred, and not only set forth the fine taste in which they were conceived, but gave the workmen directions for executing them. They positively ran wild on "Chinese taste," their fretwork and combination of Chinese and Gothic being perfectly extravagant. Like Chippendale they designed terms, or as we should call them pedestals, for busts, toilet-tables, bookcases, many mirror-frames, and chairs most intricate in their carved backs, with ribbon-work, scrolls, and elaborate patterns in brass nails. [Illustration: Figure 18. KITCHEN, WAYSIDE INN, SUDBURY, MASS. ] What were known as "overdoors" were very carefully designed by Chippendale, Ince & Mayhew, Robert Manwaring, and later by the Adam Brothers. These overdoors were the wood or leadwork into which glass was set, to go above front doors. William Halfpenny, carpenter and architect, as he called himself, published many works on Furniture, Temples, Garden Seats, Windows, Doors, Obelisks, etc., beginning in 1719. Among the many books are these two, "Twenty New Designs of Chinese Lattice and Other Works for Staircases, Gates, Failings, etc.," and also, "Chinese and Gothic Architecture." So fond were the Halfpennys (for the son was later associated with the father) of Chinese work that they seldom missed an opportunity of putting in a Chinese figure. On their ceilings, above the chimney-pieces--everywhere that decoration could be crowded in,--one is apt to find a Chinese mandarin with pigtail and umbrella. The originality of Chippendale soon spoke for itself. He worked in so many styles, and has so grown in estimation, that his name is made to cover the greatest variety of designs. When he first came before the public his work met with much adverse criticism. Isaac Ware, a contemporary, writes of him thus: "It is our misfortune at this time to see an unmeaning scrawl of C's inverted and looped together, taking the place of Greek and Roman elegance even in our most expensive decorations." But the early extravagances of his designs were soon modified, and even they were touched with a grace which made them pleasing to the eye while wholly extravagant. His better and more familiar work is to-day the model upon which cabinet-workers rely, no one having arisen who can improve on his designs. Thousands of pieces of furniture are called by his name, both in this country and England, which were not even contemporary with this maker and bear no resemblance either to his designs or to work known to be his. About the time that Chippendale came on the field (1750) it had become the custom for architects and designers to publish catalogues of their designs. Thomas Chippendale, a progressive business man, was not behind his contemporaries, so in 1754 he published his catalogue, which he called "The Gentleman's and Cabinet-Maker's Director." It was a very successful publication, passed through several editions, and brought him added name and fame. It sold for £3 13_s._ 6_d._, and had fine copper-plate engravings. The title page of Chippendale's "Director," specifies designs for the following pieces of furniture: "Chairs, Sofas, Beds and Couches, China-Tables, Bason-Tables and Tea-Kettle Stands, Frames for Marble Slabs, Bureau-Dressing-Tables, and Library-Tables, Library Bookcases, Organ Cases for Private Rooms or Churches, Desks and Bookcases, Dressing and Writing-Tables with Bookcases, Toilets, Cabinets, and Clothes-Presses. China-Cases, China-Shelves, and Book-Shelves, Candle-Stands and Terms for Busts, Stands for China Jars and Pedestals, Cisterns for Water, Lanthorns, and Chandeliers, Fire-Screens, Brackets and Clock-Cases, Pier-Glasses and Table-Frames, Girandoles Chimney-Pieces and Picture-Frames, Stove-Grates, Boarders, Frets, Chinese-Railing and Brass-Work for Furniture." [Illustration: Figure 19. CHIPPENDALE CHAIRS] At this period the best room or "saloon" was wainscotted chair high, and the remainder prepared for wall-paper, or battened for hangings of silk or tapestry. Chippendale drew many beautiful designs, which he calls "borders for paper-hangings," and which were used as finishings at the top of the paper. Some of them were also employed as patterns for carving, or work in stucco painted and gilded. It must be remembered that Chippendale was par excellence a carver of wood, and so we find him working almost exclusively in "solid mahogany," as we have come to call it, which wood had been introduced into England about the time of Raleigh (1595), though it was not used to any extent as a material for furniture until about twenty-five years before Chippendale published his book. Indeed it seems to have been used in America for this purpose quite as soon as in England, although there are in that country a few detached pieces of mahogany furniture made late in 1600, showing that some wood had been imported before Raleigh caused it to be brought in more freely, along with "tabac" and the potato, which latter vegetable was first grown at Sir Walter's estate called "Youghal," near Cork, Ireland. Sir Walter did not use the new wood in his own beautiful house, but had splendidly carved oak chimney-pieces and furniture made by men whom he brought from Flanders for that purpose. At the time Chippendale published his book he was about forty years old, as it is generally supposed that he was born about 1710. Worcester is given as the place of his birth, and authorities state that other members of his family practiced the art of wood-carving before him, but the information about his early history is very scant. His shop was in St. Martin's Lane, London, and he employed as many as a hundred men, so it is rather strange that more authentic specimens of his handiwork have not survived. While mahogany was the wood which he used chiefly for his furniture, he employed a close-set pine for carving many of the beautiful floriated mirror-frames for which he was so justly celebrated. Scrolls, flower and leaves, falling water, and a particular bird of his own fancy, with a long and prominent beak, were employed in the decoration of these mirrors, which were richly gilded, the ornament being entirely of wood without the addition of porcelain plaques or metal work, which was such a feature of the French furniture of this period, the influence of which is noticeable in many of Chippendale's designs. It is true that he did not carry out some of his designs, notably such pieces as the state beds, etc., after the style of Louis XV. One glance at the "Director" will show how impossible these beds were. The top, supported on posts, rises like Ossa upon Pelion piled, with layers or terraces of carved figures of children, rock-work, and everything else, the whole crowned by groups consisting of several figures and animals. [Illustration: Figure 20. CHIPPENDALE CHAIR.] His designs for bedposts show the French influence, being fluted and wreathed with flowers. Many stand flat on the ground without ornamental feet, and are plain on top to support a canopy or tester. Most successful of all the furniture designed by this maker are the chairs, many of them decorated with graceful scroll-work and delicate garlands of flowers, though the styles with which we are most familiar are massive, heavy pieces with carving upon them, and either with or without solid underbraces. A unique piece is shown in Figure 20. This chair is thought to have been imported into this country about 1760, but I should suppose it to be a very much earlier example of Chippendale's work, while he was still content to copy, for the front legs show the bear's paw while the rear ones are the familiar Dutch foot. It belongs to the South Carolina College, at Columbia, S. C. and was given to it by General Preston about 1850. In his letter of presentation he calls it "the quasi throne of the Colonial Governors of South Carolina," but beyond this its history is unknown. This chair is of solid mahogany as most of these chairs were, and shows about the edges of the carving traces of the chisel-marks, a not at all unusual feature in these old hand-carved pieces. The splat (_i. e._ the central part of the back) is plainly pierced. The term "cabriole", which we apply now to the leg, in Chippendale's time referred to a chair having a stuffed back. It has generally been supposed that Chippendale was the originator of the ball-and-claw foot, which is of two varieties, but he copied this style of decoration directly from the Dutch. The foot in this chair is what is known as the "bear's paw", so called from the fur which is rudely carved above the foot. The other style being the "bird's claw." The chairs with cabriole legs were called bandy or bow-legged when they first came into use, about 1700, which is also about the time that easy-chairs were first used in bedrooms. Up to that date chairs had been rather severe and of the nature of stools and settles. As writing became better learned there was a demand for dainty and ornamental desks for ladies' use, as well as library desks for men, and bookcases were also needed. In Chippendale's book, "The Gentleman's and Cabinet-Maker's Director", while there are designs given for every imaginable piece of furniture, there is not a single illustration of the ball-and-claw or hoof foot; yet it is known by authentic pieces, coming down as late as 1780, and preserved in the South Kensington Museum, London, that such work was done by him. Further than this, we are used to consider mahogany as pre-eminently the wood he worked in, yet in this same guide this wood is mentioned by him but once. "Six designs of chairs for Halls, Passages, or Summer-houses. They may be made either of mahogany or any other wood, and painted, and have commonly wooden seats." All this fine solid mahogany furniture made by Chippendale, and by which his name is so firmly perpetuated, was regarded by him as merely commercial work. What he really took a pride in was very fussy, covered with upholstery, with an abundance of carving and gilding, and even metal work on the exposed parts. Rosewood was used by him also, with elaborate carving which was sometimes embellished with gilt, or, in cases where great elegance was demanded, by brass, copper, or silver mounts richly chased. He turned out many pieces of soft wood japanned or painted, and decorated also with gilt and colours. Little of this furniture ever came to America. It was made to order for the nobility and gentry, and its immense cost rendered it possible only for the very wealthy. Among the two hundred copper-plate designs given in Chippendale's book, quite a large portion of them are in what is known as "Chinese taste," which had taken the world of fashion by storm. Sir William Chambers, who had travelled in China, is given the credit for having introduced this style into furniture and decoration, which was further adapted by Chippendale and other makers, but it was already known before Chambers's day. Both Chambers and Robert Adam, the best architects of their day, were Scotchmen. Chambers was born in 1726, and from his earliest years had a love for the sea. This induced him to make a voyage to Canton, where he made innumerable notes and sketches of furniture, buildings, and gardens, which he made full use of later. In 1759 he published his book "The Decorative Part of Civil Architecture," which was most successful. He was appointed drawing-master to the Prince of Wales, afterward George III., and managed to retain the royal favor for the rest of his life. He not only designed many houses for wealthy patrons and altered many others, but he was afterward appointed landscape gardener at Kew, and knighted. The older Chinese furniture which one sees in Europe dates from the eighteenth century, and was made for and imported by the Dutch; hence the medley of styles. Elaborate bedsteads, tables, and cabinets were decorated with ivory figures in relief. There is furniture of this description in the United States, splendidly carved out of cedar and decorated with hundreds of tiny figures of men and women carved from ivory and set on. Such a piece is shown in Figure 21, the original of which is at Memorial Hall, Philadelphia. Not only was Chinese furniture in wood and wicker brought from the Orient, but the Dutch, whom we have come to look upon as ready imitators, followed Oriental styles not only in furniture but in pottery as well. Chippendale specifies nine of his designs for chairs in Chinese style as proper for a lady's dressing-room, especially if it were hung with an India paper. They were likewise recommended for Chinese temples. These chairs commonly have cane bottoms with loose cushions, but if required may be stuffed and have brass nails. As early as 1711 Addison comments on the motley confusion heaped up in a lady's library, where there were few books but "Munkies, Mandarins, and Scaramouches" without end; and to keep these ornaments in countenance was also furniture made after Chinese designs. [Illustration: Figure 21. CARVED CEDAR TABLE.] Besides these styles Chippendale also used a modification of the Gothic, notably in such places as the doors of cabinets, or the doors and the tops of bookcases. Horace Walpole, in his little Gothic villa at Strawberry Hill, had awakened a still further taste for a revival of Gothic designs; and everybody, to be in the mode, had their cabinet doors and bookcases with embattled tops and Gothic tracery. Of all the styles Chippendale adopted and adapted, this one left the least enduring trace. More successful were his bookcases based on Louis XV. style. They are of mahogany and have the rococo ornaments peculiar to this style. This work shows off gilding admirably. These bookcases with drawers and desk, as well as the bureaus, were used in bedrooms which were often boudoirs and studies as well. So a receptacle which could be quickly locked was quite necessary. In Chippendale's catalogue are directions given for many small articles which were much in demand and highly fashionable when the book was written, but for which the present day and generation has no use. Such were the charming little tea-caddies with brass handles and locks, stands for candles, or china jars or animals with which the drawing-rooms of those days were crowded. There were also carved brackets, decorated with the bird we have spoken of before, and exquisite foliated designs making graceful adornments for any room, and often neglected in sales where other and better-known examples of this period bring fabulous prices. When carved in pine these brackets are always gilded, but occasionally they may be obtained in walnut and mahogany. The designs for such pieces are largely original with Chippendale, for their use had just become needed, and we must remember besides that it was Chippendale's misfortune to live in a transition period, and that the rococo which preceded him, and by which his first work was influenced, died very hard. Indeed his first style might be called rococo, and the designs swelled and bulged, were covered with meaningless and fantastic ornament, and ran riot through all styles and countries. It had for its chief merit the fact that it was executed with great delicacy and beauty and had a grace about it which was always pleasing. The two sides of a design are seldom alike, and the merit of such pieces is due purely to the skill of the carver. Yet it was under his skilful hand that later the beauty of simplicity was once more proved, and he sought classic models for his inspiration. Speaking himself of designs for French chairs he says, "for greater variety the feet and elbows are different." The moulding around the bottom of the edge of the rails also comes under his consideration, and he mentions Spanish leather or damask as good material for covering chairs. He it was who exemplified the principle that each part of a piece of furniture should be adapted to its use, and that overloading an article with ornament did not necessarily add to its beauty. After his rococo period came the rage for Chinese designs, and lastly the plain and solid style with which we are familiar. Two very handsome chairs are shown in Figure 22, the side chair showing an abundance of exquisite carving on the knees and in the splat. It is wonderful what variety he encompassed working in the small space and confined shape of this part of a chair. It will be observed that in all the chairs shown no two splats are alike. [Illustration: Figure 22. CHIPPENDALE CHAIRS.] All the construction of the Chippendale furniture of the last period is remarkably solid and of the first order, and the wood is of a dark and rich mahogany. The best pieces of this period are those in which the originality of the designer had full play, and when he was not influenced by either the French or Oriental taste. The furniture of this period, fine and free in design, was well adapted to the fashions and mode of life of the people for whom it was made. He retained the roomy character of the Dutch furniture, which was needed for the style of dress affected by both sexes. The Spanish furniture of oak, with cane work or leather, introduced by Catherine of Braganza, was not the only innovation brought to England by that lady, for Evelyn says in his "Diary" for May 30, 1662, "The Queene ariv'd with a traine of Portuguese ladies in their monstrous fardingals or guard-infantas ... Her Majesty in the same habit, her foretop long and curiously turn'd aside." In the next forty years fashions changed,--they changed slowly in those days,--and among other things laid at the door of "Good Queen Anne" may be added the hoop-skirt. Flowered and damask gowns were worn over it, and in the "Spectator" of 1712 a number of gowns are advertised for sale, all the property of Mr. Peter Paggen, of Love Lane, near Eastcheap, London. Among them is an "Isabella-coloured kincob gown, flowered with green and gold; a purple and gold Atlas gown with a scarlet and gold Atlas petticoat edged with silver." A little later in the century a lady's gown was all ruffles and flounces, in fact "every part of the garment was in curl, and caused a lady of fashion to look like one of those animals which in the country we call a Friesland hen." The reigns of the first two Georges had Hogarth for their illustrator, and in the set of drawings called "Marriage à la Mode" we see the hoods, skirts without trains, unruffled and often accompanied by a sack, or something between a cloak and a gown, and called a mantua. During the reign of George I. there was no queen to set the fashion, so it changed little. In 1735 Caroline, queen of George II. on the king's birthday appeared in a "beautiful suit made of silk of the produce of Georgia, and the same was acknowledged to excel that of any other country." The ladies who accompanied her wore flowered silks of various colours, of a large pattern, but mostly with a white ground, with wide short sleeves and short petticoats. These gowns were often pinned up behind in fantastic fashion, and generally quite narrow. It was also _à la mode_ to wear gold or silver nets on the petticoats, and to face and guard the robes with them and even to wear them on sleeves. Lady Harcourt, a famous beauty of Caroline's court, wore on one occasion a "white ground rich silk, embossed with gold and silver, and fine coloured flowers of a large pattern." What we know as a morning-gown they called, in the middle of the eighteenth century a nightgown, and we read of a "garnet-coloured lustring nightgown with a tobine stripe of green and white, trimmed with floss of the same colour and lined with straw-coloured lutestring." A gay garment truly. These were the styles in vogue when Chippendale began to design and make furniture for his patrons, whom he desired to see among the most fashionable. While the ladies were so gay, the gentlemen were quite as elegant, with three-cornered hats, wigs and patches, embroidered waistcoats, with stiffened skirts to their coats, knee-breeches, silk stockings, and snuff-boxes. Such modish people could not bestow themselves comfortably in chairs with arms, so chairs without arms, and tabourets, as they were called, were quite necessary for comfort. The fashionable ailment of the day, for men at least was gout, and we find designs for "gouty stools," in which the top could be raised or lowered as best suited the needs of the patient. His designs for sofas made these articles of great size; they ran from six feet nine inches to ten feet long. His ideas as to decoration seem amusing, for he mentions that the carvings on the sofa should be emblematic of Watchfulness, Assiduity, and Rest. Wine-coolers for which Chippendale made many designs, sometimes had brass bands around them which had the effect of making them look very heavy and clumsy. Coolers of this style were round or oval, but some of better design were oblong or square. Numbers of beautiful little tea-tables, or tea-poys, as they were often called, were also made by Chippendale, and what he called in his book of designs "candle stands" were no doubt sometimes put to this use, though their height--he says they should run from three feet six inches to four feet six inches, rendered the taller ones awkward. Figure 23 shows a very beautiful example of one of these stands richly carved. The post is three feet seven and a half inches high, and the hexagonal top has a standing rim of very delicate carving. The little tea-stand next to it has also a slight rim, and some carving on the pedestal and feet. The music-stand is not a usual piece, and has a cupboard and drawer to contain the sheets. All three pieces are of mahogany and belong to the collection at Memorial Hall, Philadelphia. Many of these tables or stands made their way to America, for tea-drinking was a great resource for the ladies. As early as 1720 Bohea tea was selling at Philadelphia for thirty shillings a pound. Its great cost prohibited its common use, and it was not until much later that it became common, so the greatest treat that could be offered to a neighbour was a drink of tea, particularly if the proud housewife could serve it out of a tiny porcelain cup without a handle, such cups being almost as great a rarity as the tea. The little rim which set up above the edge of the table was intended to prevent the tea furniture from falling off. These tables are occasionally seen in America in their simpler forms. There are special ones made to order for customers by Chippendale, which are seldom allowed to leave the families for which they were originally made. There are two such tea-tables made in "Chinese taste" with fretwork legs, sides to the table, and the little standing rim to protect the china. One of these tables was made for the great-grandmother of the present owner, by Chippendale, and has come down in a state of perfect preservation. It is held in England, is thirty-nine and three-eighths inches high, the top is thirty-two by twenty-one and five-eighths inches. Chippendale, in his book, gives very elaborate directions for preparing the wood from which this fretwork carving was to be made. In order to have it as strong as possible he advises the use of three thin sheets of wood glued together, the grain to run in opposite directions, and the fret carving to be made in this. He particularly recommends this use of glued wood for such pieces as China-Cases, which were largely fretwork with pagodas on top and hanging ornaments at the sides. [Illustration: Figure 23. CHIPPENDALE CANDLE, TEA AND MUSIC STANDS.] Card-tables were also made in great varieties and numbers by this same maker, and his graceful designs were copied by other and less well-known makers, so that these tables, at least in "Chippendale style," are not uncommon. His card-tables were of two styles, with leaves which folded together on top when not in use, and a plain oblong table without leaves. As card-playing was one of the most fashionable pursuits of the day in England, which fashion was followed with becoming promptitude by us. It is seen that many of these tables were needed to accommodate the gay world. Those most esteemed were the kind with leaves, which could seat a larger party than the oblong ones, and which, when not in use, could be folded together and set against the wall. Both styles, when made by Chippendale, were decorated only with carving. During the last half of the eighteenth century there were probably few families who did not own at least one card-table. Gambling at cards had always been an amusement at courts, and there were many games in vogue. Ombre had been introduced in the previous century by Catherine of Braganza, and quadrille was another favorite game of hers. Pepys under date of February 17, 1666-7, alludes to the fact that Catherine played not only on week days but on Sundays as well. "This evening, going to the Queene's side to see the ladies, I did find the Queene, the Duchesse of York, and another or two at cards, with the room full of great ladies and men, which I was amazed at to see of a Sunday, having not believed it, but contrarily, flatly denied the same a little while since to my cosen Roger Pepys." The next reign, that of James II., saw basset introduced, and it retained its popularity through several reigns and was still the mode when Queen Anne occupied the throne. It broke "into her hours by day as well as by night," and the drain on the privy purse was excessive, for the queen was a good loser. The Cocoa-Tree Club, at No. 64 St. James Street, London, was, during Queen Anne's reign, a regular gambling-den. Walpole says: "Within this week there has been a cast at hazard at the Cocoa-Tree, the difference of which amounted to £180,000." By George II.'s reign cards were universal. The preface to the "Court Gamster" says: "Gaming has become so much the fashion that he who in company should be ignorant of the games in vogue would be reckoned low-bred and hardly fit for conversation." The Princess Amelia Sophia, daughter of George II., was an inveterate snuff-taker as well as gambler. Horace Walpole, who was often invited to make one at her card parties, has left many graphic pictures of her. At Bath the card-tables were one of the chief attractions, and the sums of money staked during a single night seem prodigious. But of all the Georges, George IV. had the most reckless propensities. Before he was twenty-one years old he had lost £800,000, one of his boon companions being that confirmed gamester, Charles James Fox. Almack's was a famous gambling-club, opened in 1764. The gamesters began by pulling off their velvet and embroidered coats, putting on frieze garments, and pulling leather sleeves over their lace ruffles. High-crowned, broad-brimmed straw hats were worn to shade their eyes from the light, to keep their hair from being tumbled, and perhaps to conceal their emotions. [Illustration: Figure 24. CHIPPENDALE CARD-TABLE.] George II. was still on the throne when Chippendale published his "Director," and in such a gambling age it is no wonder that he made many card-tables in order to please his patrons. Not alone at court were they in demand, but one has only to read such transcripts of the times as Jane Austen's or Miss Burney's novels to find that nearly every country family sat down of an evening to a quiet hand at cards. Following at a distance, but as well as they were able, the fashions set at court, Americans too played cards, and Chippendale's tables were sent across the ocean and were copied by colonial cabinet-makers, who by this time had become very successful workers themselves. Contemporary letters, which describe the propensity of the ladies to play loo all day as well as all night were, no doubt, too extravagant. On the great plantations at the South, gambling was said to be a favorite diversion, and piquet, écarté, faro, hazard, and basset were played, as well as less exciting games. Besides the tables with plain polished surfaces, some were covered with a green cloth. Others had pockets to hold the counters, which were old silver Spanish pieces or were made of mother-of-pearl. These tables were valued highly, the early ones being walnut, the later mahogany. In some of the inventories already quoted mention is made of various styles of playing-cards which were imported by the gross, as well as "pearl fish," which were the fashionable counters. In Figure 24 a very beautiful Chippendale card-table is shown. It is of mahogany, richly carved on the knees, and with a heavy carved moulding. It is unusual in having five legs, one of which moves out to support the second half of the top. The feet are ball-and-claw, and within the lid is lined with cloth, has depressions for counters, and also four flat panels, one at each corner, where the candlesticks stood. It belongs to Miss Sarah Frost, Rochester, N. Y., and has been in her family over 100 years. Most of Chippendale's furniture presents certain characteristics that are easily mastered. First may be mentioned the ball-and-claw foot, and the cabriole leg which he adopted from the Dutch, and which he used so freely before he introduced the straight leg. Then the backs of his chairs are quite distinctive, whether the splats run up and down, or become cross-braces, or are elaborated into very ornamental ribbon-work. The top bar is generally extended on each end into what, for a better name, we will call "ears." Chippendale never used inlay on any of his pieces, preferring to produce the decoration by carving. In his very ornate carvings we have mentioned the long-billed bird, the falling-water effect, and the familiar ribbon-work which is often introduced into backs with such good effect. There are a number of patterns for carving shown in the designs in his book, and used by him over and over again, with which we have become well acquainted. Little carved bands were quite universally employed to decorate the rims of his card-tables, and in his fine chairs the front bar of the seat often had a shell or other ornament carved upon it. The very finest chairs by this maker are seldom found in America, though furniture was imported freely. In Smith's "History of New York" for the year 1756, two years after Chippendale published his work, there is the following statement: [Illustration: Figure 25. CHIPPENDALE MARBLE-TOPPED TABLE.] "In the City of New York, through our intercourse with Europeans, we follow the London fashions, though by the time we adopt them they become disused in England. Our affluence during the late French war introduced a degree of luxury in tables, dress, and furniture with which we were before unacquainted. But still we are not so gay a people as our neighbours at Boston, and several Southern colonies." This is the first time possibly that the descendants of the Pilgrims have gone on record as a "gay people." When the seats of Chippendale's pieces are stuffed, it will be noticed that the material is usually drawn over the rails, and sometimes adorned with gilt-headed nails set in a pattern or straight. See Figure 19. He says in his catalogue that he considers this the handsomer fashion; but in some cases, where the seats were covered with set work or crewel work, they were set in the wooden frame. There are two such chairs made by Chippendale and given by the fourth Duke of Marlborough in 1790 to an ancestor of the present owner. The seats of these ribbon-backed chairs were worked by the famous Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, and are still in a fresh and blooming state of preservation. These arm-chairs are very handsomely carved, and rest on large ball-and-claw feet. The carving is not confined to the knee alone, but runs down the leg to the end of the claw. These are owned in England. That quantities of this furniture are changing hands all the time is evident from reading the records of sales which go on at all the large auction rooms in Europe. It is safe to say that fully half of it comes to America, and that it is possible to buy here choice specimens of the works of all the famous cabinet-makers. Even the well-known Battle Abbey has been despoiled, and while much of the furniture was Flemish and German, and not of particularly good quality, there were also some pieces of both Chippendale and Adam Bros., the latter being represented by several mirrors. Chippendale chairs of undoubted authenticity bring easily at these sales $200 each, while one of distinctly inferior quality sold for $335, owing to the authenticity of its history. At a sale of furniture held within the year at Christie's, in London, a genuine surprise was furnished when a set of mahogany Chippendale chairs brought $5,225. A few weeks later two chairs, apparently out of the same set, appeared at another sale, also at Christie's and about an hour before the sale they were withdrawn. These chairs, says the catalogue, were given by a lady to the vicar and church wardens of a parish church in Lincolnshire. The lady died, and her executors held that they were lent, not given, and the sale was stopped until the rightful ownership should be established by law. But there was also in the catalogue still another chair which was said to belong to the same set, yet which was of a different wood and more boldly carved. This chair brought but a little more than $100. The removal of the two previously mentioned chairs from the sale, and the whole mystery which surrounds them, has given rise to wild rumours, and all kinds of reports are circulated which makes one very cautious about buying at auctions. In fact catalogues at auctions are little to be relied on, as one will often find pieces heavy with inlay, or of undoubted American make, boldly marked Chippendale, while Sheraton is made to shoulder the baldest imitations of his style and design. It must always be a matter of regret that furniture-makers so rarely signed their work. If they had realized that individual specimens would bring as much as fine paintings, they would not have left their work clouded with an uncertain pedigree. [Illustration: Figure 26. CHIPPENDALE CHAIR-BACKS AND MIRROR-FRAME] Chippendale did not make sideboards. He made side or serving-tables but the sideboard was a later growth, due largely to three cabinet-makers who succeeded Chippendale,--Shearer, Hepplewhite, and Sheraton, all of whom, like Chippendale, published catalogues of their designs. The nearest approach which Chippendale made to a sideboard was a table with a shallow drawer for linen. He did not make any of those pieces of furniture with drawers and cupboards which are so often called by his name. It may be seen that on Chippendale's title-page he refers to "frames for marble slabs." These were generally tables,--side or serving tables we should call them,--and they were elaborately carved on legs and edges. Nor were they unknown in this country, for inventories as early as the middle of the eighteenth century refer to sideboard tables with marble tops, as well as marble-topped parlor tables. In Figure 25 is shown an unusually elegant marble-topped parlor table. The profuse carving is in Chippendale's very best style, not flamboyant, but elegant and graceful. On each of the long sides is a grotesque mask, and the legs, carved over the knees with shells and flowers in low relief, end in a ball-and-paw, the hair on the foot being most delicately carved. The wood is dark, rich mahogany; the marble top is of brown tint with light veinings. This fine piece is at Memorial Hall, Philadelphia. To sum up, then, briefly, Chippendale's peculiarities may be expressed as follows: He used the ball-and-claw foot with the cabriole leg: this was succeeded by the straight leg. The tops of his chairs are almost invariably prolonged into little ear-like ornaments. He never used inlay on his furniture. He used carving as ornament, generally worked in solid mahogany for his larger pieces, and in a close-set pine which was gilded for his smaller and ornamental pieces. Many of the gold-frame looking-glasses have the glass pane divided by delicate ornament or pilasters. This was to save expense, as in this way several small panes of glass could be used instead of one large and more costly one. The glass made in England was in very thin plates, and the bevel was ground by hand, so that it followed every twist and turn in the convolutions of the frame which rested on it. Strength, beauty, and adaptability to the use for which the piece was made, were the watchwords for Chippendale's most characteristic furniture. It is true that during the early years of his work there was a large demand for everything French, to which he catered, yet he in time reversed this and caused the attention of the world to be drawn to England as the centre from which could be obtained the best designs in furniture. While Chippendale sought for his effects largely in his use of carving and gilding, although we find little of this latter work in the pieces seen in America, he also took the greatest pains to select brilliant and elegant brocades, wrought stuffs, and hand-worked material for the upholstered parts of his furniture. Nor did he neglect brass nails as a means of brightening up a piece, though both Hepplewhite and Sheraton used them more than he did. None of the furniture which we so fondly ascribed to his name is from the designs figured in his book, his use of brilliant metal mounts is practically unknown among us. He himself admired the beautiful Louis XIV ribbon ornament which he lavished on so many chair backs, and he says "If I may speak without vanity, they are the best I have ever seen, or perhaps have ever been made." Like his fellow-craftsmen, Chippendale made cases for tall clocks, and some of them are odd and not in the least graceful or beautiful. One will have for ornament on the extreme top a crowing cock, life size, and rampant, the base on which he stands being a mass of ugly carving. Another has what might be called a sunburst, with a star in its midst; others have allegorical figures. His designs for mantel clocks were much prettier and in better taste everyway. He used walnut as well as mahogany for the cases, and sometimes Chinese panels, or panels painted with nymphs and goddesses, called in "French taste," were inserted. These decorations served, besides, to ornament the fire-screens which were popular pieces of furniture. He made designs for chimney-pieces or "over-mantels." These were filled in with glass. Chippendale says: "Chimney-pieces require great care in the execution. The embossments must be very bold, the foliage neatly laid down, and the whole properly relieved. The top may be gilt, as likewise some other ornamental parts." Knowing the sturdy, plain characteristics of Chippendale's furniture as we see it, this constant reference to gilt and the mass of over-decoration seems quite out of place. His beds were called Canopy beds, Chinese beds, Dome beds, Gothic beds with flat testers, Field beds, Tent beds, Sofa beds with canopies, and the usual high four-posters. Many beautiful clothes-presses were made by Chippendale, either chest like affairs on four legs, or having drawers below and wardrobe above, some of these latter bearing a strong resemblance to the French pieces from which they were copied. Scant mention is made of Chippendale, in contemporary literature, but he has the distinction accorded to but few of having a large class of furniture design called by his name, instead of being designated by the period in which it was made. Mr. Clouston, in his book on "Chippendale Furniture" says that there were two Chippendales, father and son, and alludes to the author of the "Director" as "the elder Mr. Chippendale". The son, like many sons of great men, seems to have lost his identity in the reputation which has been gradually gathering about his father's name. He seems to have produced nothing of moment, and the family has sunk again into the obscurity from which one man had the genius to raise it. CHAPTER IV. ADAM, SHERATON, EMPIRE. The increased market offered to English merchants in the colonies, now more prosperous, produced in quick succession several cabinet-makers who worked in a different style from Chippendale, and made much very handsome furniture. Robert and James Adam, by training and profession architects, turned their attention to furniture which would be appropriate in rooms of Greek or Roman style. Their designs were all on classic lines, and were beautifully painted besides by the popular artists of the day, like Angelica Kauffmann and Pergolese, who, like Alma Tadema in our day, did not hesitate to expend their art upon fine pieces of furniture. The Adam brothers introduced the use of composition ornaments coloured and gilded, which were really a revival of the Italian process of "gesso," and which they had learned during their years of study in Italy. They designed many mantelpieces, also decorated in classic style, and had a decided influence in moulding the taste of their contemporaries and successors. Satin-wood was introduced by them, or at least at this period, and was used for inlaying as well as for the manufacture of whole pieces of furniture. Most of it, when used as the wood of the entire piece, is decorated with medallions of marquetry of some darker wood, as tulip, rosewood, or mahogany. The Adam brothers did not make any furniture themselves, but had it made by popular makers under their personal direction. In Figure 29 are shown three chairs of Adam design. The side chair retains its original covering of a heavy wool plush, with classic figures stamped in it of wreaths and maces. Its covering was also designed by Adam. This chair and the arm-chair like it are very delicately carved in low relief with a small leaf pattern. The legs are fluted and end in a form of spade-foot. The arm-chair on the top is very richly carved, and the entire woodwork is gilded. The covering has been restored. These three chairs are in the Museum connected with Cooper Institute. In 1764 Robert Adam published his book dedicated to George III., and illustrated with most elaborate engravings by Bartolozzi and other fashionable engravers. For this graceful act Robert Adam was appointed architect to the king, and his rise was rapid and brilliant. James Adam had now completed his studies and was taken into partnership by his brother. In 1773 they began to publish engravings of their architectural works in serial parts. They continued to issue these until 1778, when the entire work was published under the title of "Works in Architecture by Robert and James Adam Esquires." It contains quite as many designs for furniture as some of the so-called furniture catalogues. While the outlines of the furniture are very graceful and delicate, their beauty is much increased by the skilful and artistic paintings of Angelica Kauffmann and Zucchi by which they are embellished. Pergolese was brought from Italy to add still further to the beauty of their work. John Flaxman, at this time creating lovely classic designs in various kinds of wares for Wedgwood, also contributed to their success, and many of his plaques and panels were set in their furniture to its further adornment. They were used not only in satin-wood, but in other furniture as well which was painted in the same colours as the Wedgwood ware. Whole rooms, walls, ceiling, and furniture were coloured to match, even the harpsichord and candle-stands being painted and decorated with Wedgwood plaques. Of the second book, furniture designs fill one volume, mirrors another, and girandoles a third. [Illustration: Figure 27. ROOM IN WHIPPLE HOUSE, IPSWICH, MASS.] [Illustration: Figure 28. CHIPPENDALE, SHERATON, AND HEPPLEWHITE CHAIRS.] Robert Adam showed wonderful skill and aptitude in adapting classic forms to modern taste, and his pieces are never overloaded with ornament, but retain simple, graceful lines. He never considered any detail too small for his minute attention. Besides designing the woodwork of his furniture he also drew the patterns for the stuffs to cover them; even the little silk cushions on the arms of the chairs had the same care bestowed on them as the backs and seat. When he designed a bed, the counterpane to go on it was also made under his direction or designed by him. A little bag to hang on a lady's arm was not too slight an object to be made beautiful by his artistic hand. He paid the greatest attention to having the covering for upholstered furniture appropriate to the style of chair it went on, but he allowed himself great latitude in gilding, and, as we have already said, in painting his furniture in colours. He also gave variety to his tables by the use of coloured marble tops. The Adam brothers designed some of the interior fittings for "Strawberry Hill." They also built Colzean Castle, designed Alnwick Castle, and many other splendid homes. Thomas Shearer is a name not often heard in America, yet the book, "The London Cabinet-Maker's Book of Prices," published in 1788, contained many beautiful designs by him. This work provided more for the cabinet-maker himself than for the gentleman, to whom most of the previous works of this nature had been dedicated. There were many members of the London Cabinet-Maker's Society, but only three made the illustrations to the book,--Thomas Shearer, Hepplewhite, and a man named Casement, who furnished but two. Now, when there are so many banks and safe-deposit companies, we do not feel the need of secret drawers and repositories for storing our valuables. They were quite necessary a hundred years or more ago and much ingenuity was expended in concealing them from curious or prying eyes. We are also wont to consider recent times and conditions responsible for such shams and mockeries as folding beds, and articles of furniture that are not what they seem. In these early books of designs are not only folding beds, press-beds, and library bedsteads, but folding washstands and toilet-tables, as well as tables, toilets, and bureaus which concealed the mattress and bed furniture by day. Some of these pieces were most elaborate and had intricate machinery to work them. A graceful, classical urn of wood, touched on the right spot, would open and disclose a basin and ewer, while a writing-table could be unfolded into a lady's dressing-table with folding glasses, and boxes for the necessary powder, pomatum, brushes and pins. [Illustration: Figure 29. ADAM CHAIRS.] [Illustration: Figure 30. HEPPLEWHITE CHAIRS.] To Thomas Shearer we are indebted for that useful article, the sideboard, which has assumed such a variety of forms, and among his designs were dressing, card, and tea-tables, of many styles, and various desks, but he designed no chairs. Many of his pieces bear a close resemblance to those of Sheraton. Between the severity of the latest period of Chippendale and the dainty designs of Sheraton, Shearer and Hepplewhite find their place, though neither of them ever approached in beauty of design, or in popularity, Chippendale who preceded them or Sheraton who succeeded them. A. Hepplewhite's book, "The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Guide, or Repository of Designs for Every Article of Household Furniture in the Newest and Most Approved Taste," was published in 1789 and contained three hundred designs for pieces of furniture which have been so often copied that they have grown familiar to us. His chairs are extremely pretty, but, unlike those of Chippendale, who sought solidity and careful construction, Hepplewhite's chairs were so faulty and fragile in construction that they broke easily. Up to this time the splat had joined the back of the chair and served to make it much stronger, but Hepplewhite never brought it down to the seat, usually having it curved and joining the side rails three or four inches above the seat. There are more pieces of Hepplewhite furniture in America than one is aware of. His chairs are by no means uncommon, and are very easily recognized by their peculiar backs. His tables, with the delicate inlay and slender tapering legs, as also his sideboards, are frequently called by the name of his great successor, Sheraton, and even in England the two makers are frequently confused. He had a specialty of his own,--that of japanned or lacquered furniture, and the patterns he most frequently employed were fruit and flowers on a black ground. Paintings such as these were taught to young ladies as an accomplishment at school, and no doubt many of them tried their "prentice" hands on some nice old mahogany piece as soon as they got home. Hepplewhite had another peculiarity in his preference for using a circle or some portion of it in his designs. On looking over his "Guide" one will notice that a half circle was often used as the design for a sideboard, or table to be set against the wall. His small tables are nearly always round or a broad oval, and his chair-backs follow the same shape, so did his girandoles and tea-trays. For a central ornament to his chair backs he frequently carved three Prince's feathers, or drooping ears of wheat, neither of which design is particularly pleasing. Besides the circular he used also the shield-shaped back. In Figure 30 are shown three of his characteristic chairs. The one on the left has the Prince's feathers, and all of them show the slender leg which in two of them ends in the spade-foot. The dining-tables of this period, before the days of the extension table, had round, square, or octagonal tops, supported on a column which rested on a plinth having several carved feet. There were a number of variations of the arrangement of feet. In order to accommodate a large party several of these tables could be placed together, and when not in use could be placed against the wall to serve as side-tables. His easy chairs--and he made many of these, large and comfortable--he covered entirely with upholstery, no woodwork showing but the legs. (See Figure 56). [Illustration: Figure 31. HEPPLEWHITE CARD-TABLE.] In the Hepplewhite and Shearer pieces the noticeable feature of decoration is the inlay, often of two or three coloured woods and in a variety of designs. Many kinds of wood were employed at this time in inlay or marquetry work, besides all the familiar ones Shearer mentions,--"tulip, rose, snake, panella," etc., and later lilac-wood also was used. The husk pattern was very popular at this period for an inlay pattern, and Wedgwood also used it frequently in his splendid jasper pottery. It resembles the husks of oats when ripe, the spreading of the two halves allowing the pattern to be used over and over again. In Shearer's work, as well as Hepplewhite's, a slender tapering leg is much in use, inlaid down about half its length, often with satin-wood or holly, and sometimes with ebony as well. Many of the sideboards made in America were on English models, and they are veneered on pine, the back and drawers being made of this same wood. There are many variations of shape,--what are known as serpentine and swell fronts being quite usual, the handles being the oval ones which are so common on all varieties of pieces with drawers, and there is also a fan-shaped piece of inlay which will frequently be seen. The position of this is not always the same, it may be found in the corners of closets, and long bottle-drawers, or it may be inserted as a sort of brace between the bottom of the sideboard and the legs. Hepplewhite was very fond of inlaying a band of holly or satin-wood around the legs of his pieces, three or four inches from the ground. It will be found on his sideboards, card-tables and desks, and is generally about an inch wide. His book was one of the most valuable ever given to English cabinet-makers. His individuality of shape is always pleasing, even if he did not concern himself about making his furniture structurally correct. He claims, and indeed with absolute correctness, "to unite elegance with utility and blend the useful with the agreeable." In Figure 31 is shown one of a pair of card-tables, Hepplewhite design, made of mahogany and inlaid with ebony and satin-wood. They belong to Mr. William M. Hoyt of Rochester, N. Y. Like Adam, Hepplewhite made great use of satin-wood for whole pieces of furniture. He used his well-known and characteristic shapes in chair-backs and little sofas, cabinets and workstands, table stands, harpsichord cases, and commodes. Satin-wood had been but recently introduced from the East Indies and was instantly popular. Even mantelpieces were made of it, to match the furniture, and there was a fancy to have the drawing-rooms and boudoirs very light and elegant. Clothes had shrunk in dimensions, no more hoops and farthingales embarrassed their wearers, the stiffness was banished from coat-tails, and consequently the furniture had shrunk too. Chairs were small and narrow, and window-seats, made in abundance by Hepplewhite, were deservedly popular, and the coverings were in accord with the gaiety of the woodwork. Figure 32 shows two Hepplewhite settees with shield-shaped backs. The upper one is of mahogany with low relief carvings on the tops, and the lower of satin-wood, with cane seat and the woodwork beautifully painted. The elegance of this painted satin-wood has long been admired. Unfortunately it has caught the popular taste, and it is now reproduced in such large quantities that it is freely offered for sale by dealers in our large cities. The pieces shown in our illustration are both fine specimens of the original maker and are owned by the Waring Galleries, London. [Illustration: Figure 32. HEPPLEWHITE SETTEES.] [Illustration: Figure 33. SHERATON CHAIRS.] It was no longer necessary to make the legs of chairs of such stout proportions, and as the bodies of the chairs were lighter so the legs dwindled exceedingly and were given only a semblance of solidity by the use of the "spade-foot" so much affected by Hepplewhite. Their appearance of fragility was farther enhanced by groovings and flutings, but they are always pretty. Although his characteristic chairs have shield-shaped or oval backs, he gives in his book eighteen designs of bannister-backed chairs, to be carried out in mahogany. The general dimensions given by Hepplewhite for his chairs are as follows: "Width in front, 20 inches; depth of seat, 17 inches; height of seat frame, 17 inches; total height, about 37 inches." He gives most definite directions about coverings. Mahogany chairs should have the seats of horsehair, plain, striped, checkered, etc., according to taste; or cane bottoms with cushions which should be covered with the same material as the bed and window curtains. He was fond of the "Duchess," which consisted of two Barjeer or arm-chairs with a stool between them, all three pieces fitting together at pleasure and making a lounge from six to eight feet long. His press-beds vary little in appearance from wardrobes, but it was in smaller and daintier pieces that his particular talent found play. His knife-boxes are extremely elegant, particularly when in urn shape with a rod in the centre to prevent the top of the urn from being removed. All the handles and knobs on his larger pieces of furniture are round, but on sideboards frequently oval, his double chests of drawers have either French or block feet. Tripod reading-desks, urn-stands, beautiful tea-trays, caddies and tea-chests are richly inlaid or painted. We find him not only making very ornate and richly inlaid card-tables, but "Pembroke tables" as well, with either round or square tops. Such tables have leaves, but, instead of the legs moving out to support the leaves, small arms come out from the table-frame. His writing-tables and desks have tambour tops, that is strips of wood pasted on cloth, so that they roll back into receptacles provided for them, and are filled with secret drawers and flat cupboards for deeds or papers. Among his other small pieces which are distinguished by their grace are dressing-glasses, shaving-tables with glasses and without, "bason" stands, designs for brackets, fire-screens, wash-hand-stands, cornices, lamps, girandoles, and looking-glasses. His larger designs show dressing-tables and bureaus with curved and swell fronts, beds, four-posters, and field-beds with very graceful sweeps and much variety of design. His stuffed furniture is comfortable in the extreme, and the tall easy chairs with cheek pieces must have been well calculated to protect from searching draughts. Many of these easy chairs found their way to America, and as their cost was not extortionate moderate homes enjoyed them as well as wealthy ones. After the Revolution, in all the seaboard towns and the more settled places near cities, there was a still greater call for all styles and luxuries popular in England. Indeed the former Colonies presented very curious and marked contrasts, being, as it is tersely put, "rolling in wealth or dirt poor." In Philadelphia there had been much style and "gentility" for many years. The English officers had, no doubt, brought some comforts with them, and they found others awaiting them. Major Andrés letter describing supper at the "Mischianza," May 18, 1778, gives a vivid picture of the festivities of the times. [Illustration: Figure 34. SHERATON DESK.] --"At twelve, supper was announced, and the large folding-doors being suddenly thrown open discovered a magnificent salon of 210 feet long by 40 feet wide, and 22 in height, with three alcoves on each side which served for sideboards. Fifty-six large pier-glasses ornamented with green silk artificial flowers and ribbands; one hundred branches with three lights in each trimmed in the same manner as the mirrors; eighteen lustres each with twenty-four lights suspended from the ceiling and ornamented as the branches. Three hundred wax tapers disposed along the supper-tables, four hundred and thirty covers, twelve hundred dishes, twenty-four black slaves in Oriental dresses with silver-collars and bracelets ranged in two lines, and bending to the ground as the General Howe and the Admiral appeared together." All the lustres, mirrors, etc., with which the room was adorned, were borrowed, says Watson, from the townsfolk, and all were returned uninjured. Eighty-four families kept carriages in 1772, and writing as late as 1802, Dr. Michaud calls Philadelphia-- --"At present the largest, the handsomest, and the most populous city of the United States. The streets are paved, and are provided with broad bricked footways. Pumps, placed on each side of them at about one hundred yards from each other, supply an abundance of water." Dolly Madison, writing in 1791 of the fashions of the day in Philadelphia, says: "Very long trains are worn, and they are festooned up with loops and bobbin and small covered buttons, the same as the dress. The hats are quite a different shape from what they used to be. The bonnets are all open on the top, through which the hair is passed, either up or down as you fancy, though latterly they wear it more up than down; it is quite out of fashion to frizz or curl the hair." Salem, in Massachusetts, with her vessels touching at every port, was already becoming known for her luxury, her teak-wood as well as her mahogany furniture, her china and plate. Enough of these still remain to show her importance and the elegance of her homes. But there was another side to this picture. Here is the description of the home of a settler away from any of the large centres, Charles Rich, of Vermont, member of Congress, began housekeeping as late as 1791. All his household possessions were valued at $66.00. He writes: "I constructed at the mill a number of household articles of furniture which have been in daily use from that time to the present." The newest styles were of small importance in such surroundings as these, and luxuries passed slowly along pioneer roads; yet every ship coming to American ports brought furniture, stuffs, plate, and china to tempt the wealth of those who could afford them, and among such were pieces made by Sheraton, the fashionable cabinet-maker who came on the scene late enough to profit by the designs of his predecessors. Indeed he is most frankly pleased with his own skill and artistic taste, and in his long preface sets forth the merits of his own book and discredits all those before him. He considers his book much superior because he gives drawings in perspective. Much of the book is a very dry dissertation on geometry. Its second half gives descriptions of furniture, of the various styles, and the uses of the pieces. He says in his Introduction: [Illustration: Figure 35. SIDEBOARD.] [Illustration: Figure 36. SOFA, SHERATON STYLE.] "The design of this part of the Book is intended to exhibit the present taste of furniture, and at the same time give the workman some assistance in the manufacturing part of it." Sheraton's early furniture is distinguished by great elegance of design, fine construction, and graceful ornament. (See Figure 33.) The legs of his pieces are slender and straight, as distinguished from the cabriole leg, but are generally enriched with flutings, and they taper pleasingly to the foot. While he uses carving, it is generally applied in low relief and does not interfere with the lines of construction. His preference is, like Hepplewhite's, for ornamenting with inlay of woods of different colours and decorating with brass. The fine proportions of his early furniture, the simple shapes clearly defined, and its structural beauty where each part is doing its work, render it admirable in every way. A simple desk of Sheraton pattern is given in Figure 34. It is of mahogany, and the doors of the upper part open, revealing pigeon-holes and drawers. The flat top over the drawers opens out on rests, making a broad, flat desk top. The brasses and key-scutcheons are original, and the moulding of the drawers overlaps. After 1793 Sheraton made little furniture, but gave his time chiefly to writing his furniture books. For the patterns used in his inlay he had recourse to classic models for his inspiration, like the Adam brothers, who had done much to popularize this simplicity of design. Sheraton used urns, rosettes, festoons, scrolls, and pendant flowers as his favorite decorations. The simple curves of which many of these are composed lent themselves admirably to inlay, and the harmony of the colours of the woods gave a grace to this form of ornament and suits it exactly to the furniture on which it finds a place. Sheraton wrote several works on furniture and upholstery. The first one published in 1791, was "The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Drawing Book." This was followed by "Designs for Household Furniture" in 1804, and he had not completed his "Cabinet-Maker, Upholsterer, and General Artist's Encyclopedia" in 1807. He gave directions for making, among other things, folding-beds, washstands, card-tables, sideboards, and many other pieces. He frequently employed the lyre as a design for his chair-backs, as well as supports for tables. In chairs it often has strings of brass; on the tables it takes heavier and more substantial form. Sheraton's beds seem almost as impossible as Chippendale's. He, too, made alcove, sofa, or couch beds. He also gave designs for "summer beds" made in two compartments (we should call them "twin beds,") but both are included under a frame or canopy, and the whole affair is very cumbersome and heavy. His chairs, tables, and sideboards are the pieces by which we know him best and in which he is most admirable. He says himself, in regard to drawing-room chairs, that many are finished in white and gold, or that the ornaments may be japanned, but that the French finish them in mahogany with gilt mouldings. Sheraton made very dainty designs for tripod stands, fire-screens and ladies' desks, with tambour doors. Also "bason"-stands with tambour doors and writing-desks with curved cylinder tops, which tops fell into the space behind the pigeon-holes and drawers. Wash-hand tables had also these curved cylinder tops, and all furniture which was put to toilet purposes was so arranged that it would look like something else, and transform a bedroom into a boudoir. These cylinder-topped pieces were designed as early as 1792. [Illustration: Figure 37. SHERATON SIDEBOARD.] In furniture, as in art, there are no absolutely abrupt changes, but one style is overshadowed by another as Chippendale gradually overcame the rococo and stood for an individual style. Hepplewhite influenced Sheraton very much, although the latter declares in one of his books, published two years later than Hepplewhite's, that the latter's designs have become quite antiquated. Such a piece of furniture is seen in the sideboard-table or sideboard given in Figure 35. It was undoubtedly made by one of these two men, and it is difficult to decide which. The form of foot is more common to Hepplewhite than to Sheraton, and the inlaid border of satin-wood is wider than he was wont to use. The brass rail at the back was used to support silver or porcelain dishes. The handles are original and the wood mahogany. This handsome piece belongs to the Waring Galleries, London. Horsehair was used for covering by both makers, and in both cases gilt-headed nails put in a festoon were used to fasten it down. Sheraton's first style was much the most pleasing. It was distinguished by a delicacy and an elegance which were entirely lost in his later designs, which were so strongly influenced by the Empire style. The first illustration in his "Cabinet Maker's and Upholsterer's Book" is what he calls a "Universal table," to be made of mahogany, and which at will may be converted into a dining-table, or, by pulling out a drawer, discover all the compartments necessary for storing kitchen condiments, such as sugar and spices, etc. The sofa depicted in Figure 36 shows this merging into Empire style, for the legs are heavier than those we are accustomed to, and the carved pineapple appears on the arm instead of the more delicate carving seen on earlier chairs and sofas. The covering is hair-cloth fastened down with brass nails. This sofa stood for many years in the Old Manse at Concord, Mass. It belonged to the Rev. Ezra Ripley, who came to Concord as pastor in 1778. Times were unsettled and currency was depreciated, so that when his salary of five hundred and fifty pounds was paid it was found to be worth just forty pounds. To make up this deficiency Dr. Ripley did a man's work in the fields. For years he laboured at tilling the ground at least three days in a week and sometimes even more. He was an ardent man, and from his moral worth was often known as "Holy Ripley." This sofa, uneasy as it looks to modern eyes, perhaps seemed luxurious to him after a day at the plough. The cover which it wears is said to be the original one, and if this is true its condition is so good that I fear the sofa was kept permanently in the "south parlor" or the "north parlor," as the best room was called in those days, and the good man was given nothing easier to rest on than a wooden Windsor chair, or a straight-backed rush-bottomed one, or perhaps the kitchen settle. [Illustration: Figure 38. SHERATON SIDEBOARD.] With the introduction and extended use of the sideboard came several articles to be used in connection with it, to which Sheraton turned his attention. Among these may be mentioned knife and spoon-boxes, which were of several different designs. Sheraton apparently did not make these knife-boxes himself, but only designed them, for he says, "As these cases are not made in regular cabinet shops it may be of service to mention where they may be executed in the best taste by one who makes it his main business, i. e. John Lane, No. 44, St. Martin's-le-Grand, London." Two pretty ones, as well as two wine-coolers, are shown on the sideboard in Figure 37. This sideboard has two little closets with tambour doors at the bottom, and deep wine-drawers on the sides. There is the brass rail similar to the one in Figure 35. This piece belongs to the Waring Galleries, London. One of the handsomest knife-boxes is an urn-shaped one which has been noted as made also by Hepplewhite. It is wrought in mahogany, the veneer made in pie-shaped pieces, each bit being outlined with a delicate line of hollywood. The knives were held in a perforated rack inside, with the handles up, and a pair of these boxes on either end of the sideboard made a very ornamental finish. Another shape also in vogue was more box-like in shape, the cover sloping toward the front. Not only knives, but spoons also, were held in the racks with which the interior was fitted; and as these latter were put in bowls up, the cases, when open, showed to excellent advantage the worldly wealth of the household, and were ornamental besides. Sometimes the covers of these boxes set back flat against a portion of the top, and made a tray on which could be placed silver cups, mugs, posset-pots, ewers, or any pieces of table silver of moderate size. Then there were the wine-boxes, or wine-coolers as they were often called, handsome massive boxes of wood, generally mahogany, or whatever wood the sideboard was made of. They stood beneath it, or, if the sideboard was low, at one side. The usual number of bottles they contained was from four to a dozen. General Washington's wine-box has room for eighteen bottles. There are still a dozen of the original bottles in it, holding a gallon each. We should call them decanters, for they are of handsome cut glass. There is a letter from General Washington to Colonel Hamilton in the possession of Major Church of Rochester, N. Y., presenting him with a wine-cooler, "holding six bottles ... one of four which I imported during my term of governmental administration." A more usual style of sideboard, Sheraton pattern, is that given in Figure 38. This handsome and useful piece of furniture had its counterparts in many of the stately old houses from the Carolinas up. It is of the swell-front type and has five deep drawers and a closet. The wood is mahogany and without inlay. This sideboard is at the Whipple House, Ipswich, Mass. [Illustration: Figure 39. EMPIRE SOFA.] [Illustration: Figure 40. EMPIRE SOFA.] After the French Revolution of 1790 furniture became markedly different. Greek models were chosen once more; the tripod became a favorite support. Mahogany was freely used, but so were coarse woods, in which case they were carved and profusely gilded. The most valuable book, for cabinet-makers, on "Empire" furniture, was published by the architects Percier and Fontaine in 1809. It was not filled with fanciful designs merely, as we have seen was the case with some of the catalogues of English makers, but every design shown in it had been carried out before it was published. Many of the drawings were adapted from classic models preserved in the Vatican. In many ways this style has not much to recommend it. It is apt to be heavy and stiff, particularly when made by English makers. The French decorated it with exquisite forms in metal (treated in another chapter), but the English contented themselves with cast brass. It was far preferable under the manipulation of American cabinet-makers, who restricted the use of brass and allowed the handsome woods to show themselves to the best advantage. The Dutch, who also were not behind hand in the adoption of this and Napoleonic style, made tables, secretaries, chairs, etc., severe and regular in form, but enriched with their admirable marquetry, and with heads and feet of animals sparingly used. Sheraton and Shearer were swept along by the tide of fashion and drew Empire designs. Gillow, the inventor of the extension-table, whose firm was established as early as 1800, made many fine designs and had orders from the best patrons. His firm is still carried on under the same name. In 1808 George Smith was made "Upholder Extraordinary to H. R. H., the Prince of Wales." He published a book, of course, having a hundred and fifty-eight designs. They included bedsteads, tables, chairs, bookcases and commodes, and other articles of furniture copied from the French, like escritoires, jardinières, chiffonièrs, showing how the fancy for French things was increasing. He gives very definite rules as to how and when to use various woods. --"Mahogany, when used in houses of consequence, should be confined to the parlour and bed-chamber floors. "In furniture for these apartments the less inlay of other woods, the more chaste will be the style of work. If the wood be of a fine compact and bright quality, the ornaments may be carved clean in the mahogany. Where it may be requisite to make out panelling by inlay of lines, let these be of brass or ebony. "In drawing-rooms, boudoirs, ante-rooms, East and West India satin-wood, rosewood, tulip-wood, and the other varieties of woods brought from the East, may be used. With satin and light-coloured woods the decorations may be of ebony or rosewood; with rosewood let the decorations be ormolu and the inlay of brass." Figure 39 shows a handsome sofa of carved mahogany, Empire style, before it had arrived at its heaviest stage. The carving is extremely handsome, both rails of seat and back being decorated with dolphins. The foot is of the bear shape, and the arms are graceful in curve. This piece is of English make. While we miss in the late Empire styles--say from 1810 to 1825--much of the lightness and grace which had been contributed by the carving and inlay which were so freely used in the preceding period, yet there was a solidity and massive dignity which was not without a certain charm. Then, too, these pieces were generally veneered, and in them the beautiful grain of the mahogany, which was the favorite wood, showed to greatest advantage. The sofa in Figure 40 is such a piece. It is of unusual length, the top of the arm is stuffed, thus doing away with "squabs," as the cushions which were used on sofas, long and narrow, were called. The wood, which is largely shown, is of that dark rich hue inclined to red, with veining many shades darker, and it is in a fine state of preservation. This piece belongs to Anthony Killgore, Esq., Flemington, N. J. [Illustration: Figure 41. PIER-TABLE.] [Illustration: Figure 42. EMPIRE SIDEBOARD.] To about the same period does the pier-table belong (Figure 41), which is not usual in design, because of the third pier which starts from a circular shelf in the middle of the base. The swan piers at each end are very graceful, and the handsome grain of the mahogany is shown to great advantage. This piece belongs to the Misses Killgore, of Flemington, N. J., as does the sideboard shown in Figure 42. The doors of the lower part, with the fan, are solid mahogany, the carving on the legs and ornamental scrolls is fine. The middle of the top is raised to permit the insertion of a looking-glass, and the capitals at the tops of the pillars are of fine brass-work. Above the middle drawer, a shelf draws out for use in serving meals. The whole sideboard sets back on a little shelf above the bear's feet, a feature not unusual in the finer boards of this period. The surroundings of this fine old piece of furniture are in keeping with its importance, the china showing above it on the wall being the Staffordshire blue made during the first quarter of the nineteenth century, while the mirror directly above it is of equal age. Environment has a great deal to do with bringing out the true beauties of this stately old furniture. It must be surrounded with objects of approximate age and of equal dignity, otherwise it looks as unseemly as an ancient dame with a pink rose in her hair. The work-table shown in Figure 43 belongs to the same period, but of a little earlier date than the last pieces shown. The legs are richly carved, as is the central pillar. This also belongs to the Misses Killgore. Not many pieces of such solidity were required in a room, and in those days overloading did not stand for elegance. In 1800, when the spacious Tayloe house in Washington was built, the furniture of the great drawing-room was a set of ash, sixteen pieces. There were twelve chairs with chintz cushions, and two card-tables; there were also a centre table and one upholstered couch, and a settee, but not one so-called easy-chair. Much furniture like that shown in Figures 40-43, is to be found in the old houses of such places as Cherry Valley, N. Y., where there is little changing about, and furniture has descended from one generation to another and still stands in its old familiar home. [Illustration: Figure 43. EMPIRE WORK-TABLE.] CHAPTER V. COLONIAL AND LATER PERIODS. Under the broad head of Colonial Furniture may really be classed all the "movables and chattels" which belonged to the early settlers, while to be entirely correct, this characterization belongs only to such furniture as was brought in or made before 1776. As the pioneers came from many lands, so many different kinds of furniture will be included in the list. We must begin at the South, with the melancholy little plantation at Jamestown. Through evil times the feeble colony struggled, harassed by poverty, disease, savage foes, and internal dissensions. There in 1607 were planted the first beginnings of the settlements which were in three hundred years to cover a continent. Traces of the little colony have almost disappeared now by the action of the James River, high tide covering the brick foundations of the ancient buildings. Walking along the shore one may find little red and white clay pipes, in smoking which, filled with the fragrant weed, the pioneers forgot their woes. Glass beads striped like gooseberries, to take the eyes of the Indians in barter, pieces of water-soaked brick from these toil-built houses, and even traces of the days of Smith, sword-hilts, bits of armour, balls, etc., and--more pathetic mementos of Jamestown's trials--human bones and coffin-handles. Yet in 1639, thirty-two years after the foundation of the colony, there were in Maryland some planters called "rich," who measured their worldly goods by their value in tobacco, the raising of which weed had proved their only salvation. The laws regarding its cultivation, particularly in Massachusetts, were very stringent. It was only to be grown as medicine and used privately. It was considered a more harmful indulgence than liquor, and the "Creature called Tobacko" was hemmed and hedged about with rules and restrictions. It circumvented them all, was planted and grown, and finally became a commodity of much value and a medium of exchange. About ninety years later we find an item which shows how universal had become its use. The will of May Bickley, attorney general of the province of New York, filed April 27, 1724, directs that he "wishes to be buried without pipes and tobacco as is usual." [Illustration: Figure 44. KITCHEN AT DEERFIELD, MASS.] To Maryland and Virginia were transplanted almost bodily rich homes from the mother country, filled with the luxuries to which their occupants had been accustomed. It has been said that many of the grand old homes in the South were built of "English brick." While this is true in the letter, it is entirely misleading to the reader in general. The bricks were not brought from England, because at that time there were few ships afloat capable of bearing any such quantity as would have been necessary for a house of any considerable size. Mr. McCrady, in his "History of South Carolina," has taken considerable pains to explain how this error arose. The historic Miles Brewton house, now called the Pringle house built about 1770 in the city of Charleston, is one of the best known houses in the State. It was used as military headquarters during both the Revolutionary and the Civil wars. It has been computed, by actual measurement, that the house contains 1,278,720 bricks. Each of these weighs eight pounds, the whole amounting to 4,566 tons. No vessels then afloat could carry more than 500 tons, so it would have taken nine of such vessels to bring over the bricks for this house alone. Josiah Quincy says in his Journal that this house cost about $50,000, which sum would hardly have covered the expense of so many vessels from London. Mr. McCrady's solution is that there were two styles of brick made, one, large and heavy, known as "English" the other called "Dutch" which were very small. There were, however, bricks brought from England, for the prices of brick, both of British and New England make, were fixed by statute. As early as 1662 brickmakers and bricklayers were paid by each thousand bricks made and laid by them. The first material brought into Virginia for building purposes was in 1607, for the use of George Percy. Brickmakers were twice advertised for in 1610, and joiners were at work on the furniture needed for the new homes. The houses late in the seventeenth century were by no means so large as one would expect. Six or eight rooms was the usual size, and many had even fewer. The house of Cornelius Lloyd, whose estate was valued at 131,044 pounds of tobacco, contained a chamber and hall and a kitchen with loft and dairy. The windows were often but sliding panels, but in houses of any pretensions glass was used. In 1684 Colonel Byrd sent to London for 400 feet of glass, with drawn lead and solder in proportion. Robert Beverly, Sr., one of the richest men in the Virginia colony prior to the opening of the eighteenth century, had in his dining-hall one oval and one folding table, a leather couch, two chests, a chest of drawers and fifteen Russia-leather chairs, value £9 9_s._ His supply of table linen was abundant, and the table-ware was pewter, with wooden trenchers and some earthenware. Richard Hobbs, of Rappahannock, who died in 1667, owned, among much household stuff, but a single fork, John Frison, of Henrico County had one of tortoise-shell. Robert Dudley, of Middlesex County who died in 1700, had several forks made of horn. To show some of the luxuries for sale in Virginia prior to 1670 the inventory of the store of John Frison, mentioned above, is given. "Holland night-caps; muslin neck-cloths; silk-fringed gloves; silver shoe-buckles; embroidered Holland waistcoats; 2 doz. pr. white gloves; 1 lace cap; 7 lace shirts; 9 lace ruffles; holster-caps of scarlet embroidered with silver and gold; gold and silver hat-bands; a parcel of silver lace; and a feathered velvet cap." There were also many valuable furs. Mrs. Diggs, widow of the governor of Virginia, died in 1699. She was a person of much consequence in the colony, and her inventory is interesting on that account. In her hall parlour were-- --"5 Spanish tables; 2 green and two Turkey-worked carpets; 9 Turkey-worked chairs, and 11 with arrows woven on the seats; 1 embroidered and 1 Turkey-worked couch; 5 pictures (valued at five shillings); 2 pairs of brass andirons; 3 pr. old tongs; and 1 clock." [Illustration: Figure 45. WILLIAM PENN'S TABLE.] Not only did English ships bring on every voyage the best that England afforded, but Dutch traders, too, crowded in with their own goods, and others besides from the East. The inventories mention "Dutch cases", and "Dutch turned chairs", before 1680; and as these rich planters had tobacco to trade, they obtained all the luxuries to be had. It is seen that New England had her rich and prosperous men also, and some fine homes were built as early as 1639. Figure 27, shows a room in the famous old Whipple House, Ipswich, Mass., built about 1642. The solidity of these houses is exemplified by the beams, with their finely moulded edges. The furniture is both interesting and beautiful, one of the most attractive pieces being the desk made on Sheraton lines which stands on the right-hand side. A handsome bookcase and desk fill the corner, and a little Pembroke table holds much glass. The picture (Figure 44) shows a typical New England kitchen in Colonial times. It has been arranged in the Deerfield Memorial Hall, and all the furniture and utensils shown herein were gathered in the neighbourhood. These primitive homes did not have mantelpieces as a rule, but the heavy wooden beam fashioned with an axe was called the mantel-tree. The one shown here did duty for a hundred and sixty-eight years. The wide chimney-piece could easily accomodate the small children of the family sitting on billets of wood, while the elders were comfortable on the settle with its high backboard. It has a convenient candle-bracket which could be adjusted to suit the reader, and if more light were needed the candle-stand was convenient. The back of this settle is sixty inches high, more than is usual. It was owned by Jacob Rich, who settled in the neighbourhood of Deerfield, Mass., in 1777. A famous house was known as the "Old Stone House" at Guilford, Conn., while at Boston, Salem, Danvers, Dedham, and Dorchester was built many a sturdy dwelling still standing to show with what solidity these pioneers did their work. In the earliest days of the Colony's struggles too much luxury was not deemed good for those battling with the wilderness. Governor Winthrop writes with some gratification in 1630 of the burning up of some fine table linen, brought by a "godly woman of the Church of Boston" from London, and of which she was very proud. "But it pleased God that the loss of this linen did her much good, both in taking off her heart from worldly comforts, and in preparing her for a far greater affliction by the untimely death of her husband, who was slain not long after at Isle of Providence." Yet in 1647, when he married the widow Coytemore, he seems to have had no hesitation in accepting with her a rich dowry, her share of the estate of her former husband, and valued at £640 1_s_ 8_d_. Among the items were such frivolities as "a silver girdle and a silk iacket." There must have been also other choice garments in the many chests and trunks enumerated. One of these chests is specified as "spruce." The widow had a brave stock of pewter, worth £135, and among other goods unusual at this period were, "1 chest of drawers £1 a copp. furnace £1 10_s._ A parcel of cheney platters and soucers £1 2 flaskets A bedstead, trundle bed with ropes and mats." [Illustration: Figure 46. RUSH-BOTTOMED CHAIRS.] It is a matter of wonder how the governor reconciled his conscience to the silver girdle and "iacket," for in 1634 the Massachusetts General Court had particularly prohibited the wearing of either "gold or silver girdles, hattbands, belts, ruffs, and beaver hatts." Also they forbade the purchase of "any appell, either wollen, silke, or lynnen with any lace on it, silver golde, silke or threed." They were only allowed one "slash" on each sleeve and one on the back. These rules were operative for many years, for in Salem, in 1653, a man is haled before the court for excess "in bootes, rebonds, gould, and silver lace." In Newbury, Mass., in 1653, two women were brought before the court for wearing "a silk hood and scarfe," but both were discharged for proving their husbands were worth over £100. John Hutchin's wife was also discharged "upon testimony of her being brought up above the ordinary ranke." These items show that both rank and property were saving grace even among the Puritans, and no doubt Mrs. Winthrop escaped censure under this rule. Boston, about 1650, had houses partly of brick and partly of stone, as well as plainer wooden ones. In 1640 John Davys built for William Rix, a weaver, a house "16 feet long and 14 feet wide, with a chamber floare finished with summer and ioysts." There was also a cellar, the walls were covered with clapboards, and the chimney was made of hewn timber, daubed. The whole house cost £21. This was a typical house of a workingman, and must have required little furniture besides the loom to fill it. The fine houses with ample halls and large rooms were but the forerunners of that comfortable style we call by the name Colonial. But they were precious things when once built, and it is by no means uncommon to find them parcelled out to different relatives. In 1658 John Greene of Warwick, R. I., gives to his beloved wife-- --"a large hall and chimni with a little chamber adjoining to the hall, as also a large chamber with a little chamber within y^t, with a large garret and with a little dary room which buttes against ye oule house during her life; also half ye orchard." It seems as if this bequest might have been open to different interpretations among the heirs. He does not specify if he left the "goods" which were in the hall and rooms,--quite important items. The widow Francis Killburn's house at Hartford, whose estate in 1650 was valued at £349, had in her hall "tables, formes, chaires, stools, and benches," all valued at £1. Mr. Palfrey says in his "History of New England" that Whitfield's house at Guilford, Mass., built in 1639, is the oldest house standing now in New England. There were three stone houses built at Guilford this same year, and it is now asserted that there are quite a number of houses still standing which were built before that of Whitfield. The Barker house at Pembroke, Mass., built in 1628, is said to be the most ancient. The walls of the Whitfield house are of stone; it is two stories high with garret, and the timber is oak. There are two secret closets which were found by removing a board in the attic. This house was ample and commodious, and the household furnishings were of corresponding value. [Illustration: Figure 47. CONNECTICUT CHEST.] In the colonies during the seventeenth century the doublet was worn by women as well as by men. Men wore it over a sleeved waistcoat. The sleeves were elaborately slashed and embroidered. There were falling bands at the neck for those who wished, while the sedately inclined wore white linen collars. Trunk hose were used, and shoes plainly tied or with rosettes. A beaver or felt hat was a necessary adjunct, and all those who could afford it wore gloves, embroidered if possible. These gloves had gauntlets, worked or fringed, and such an important item of dress were the gloves that in 1645 the glovers petitioned the Council to prevent the export of undressed goat-skins. In many inventories the item of leather breeches appears, and in connection with them the comment "half wore out." Henry Webb, of Boston, who died in 1660, left an estate much of which descended to Harvard College. His wearing-apparel was unusually limited for a man of means. In women's inventories the most important item is always linen or plate, a "ring with a diamond" valued at eight shillings being an unusual piece of luxury belonging to Mistress Anne Hibbins in 1656. The best articles which New England exported, and for which England was most greedy, were masts, thirty-three to thirty-five inches in diameter, selling for from £95 to £115 each. These and salt fish proved of more value to the colonies than any other commodity possessed at that time. Much of the furniture of the old homes has disappeared. Some is still retained by the descendants of its original owners, and there are other pieces now gathered in museums, nearly every city endeavouring to retain the mementos of her early history. By 1700 Philadelphia was quite a flourishing town. The life of the country magnates was elegant and dignified. Many rich men had both town and country houses complete in every detail. Before the Pennsylvania Colony was five years old, (the grant was given March 24, 1681) William Penn had set the example of having a town and country house, the latter being completed in 1685. He owned a coach and a calash, and had, besides, a fine barge with oars-men who rowed him between his house and Philadelphia. Fairfield, the home of the Norris family, was finished in 1717, and was at that time the most beautiful home in Philadelphia. The sashes for the windows and most of the interior woodwork was imported from England, as was the furniture. The hall was considered wonderfully elegant, being paved with marble. There were substantial houses of brick, the latter of which were home-made, and many artizans of all trades, Dutch as well as English, were coming over. William Penn wrote to his agent of such a one, and said that he was to be set to work making wainscot and tables and chairs, as Penn himself was to bring much furniture with him. His house in Bucks County was of brick, two stories and a half high, and was comfortably filled with furniture, some, as we see, made before he arrived, but most of which he brought with him. There was much silver plate, pewter dishes, cisterns, etc., beds, tables, stands and chairs. In the best parlour were two tables, one great cane chair, four small cane chairs, one couch, and many cushions of divers materials. The great hall where they dined had "one long table, two forms, and six chairs." The dining-room was a later development, and not until the eighteenth century was well advanced do we find rooms so called in even the better class of houses. Figure 45 shows an oak table, of what is called the thousand-legged pattern. It belongs to Mrs. B. H. Oliver, of Chester, Pa., and has an interesting history. It is circular in shape, five feet in diameter, and is in good order. It is said to be part of the furniture brought to America by William Penn, from whom it descended to the Bradfords, a well-known Philadelphia family of printers. It was given by them to a young clerk in their office, named McGowan. In 1849 it came into the possession of Mrs. Oliver's father, and when he died he bequeathed it to his son, Dr. John Hepburn, of Warren, Pa., who gave it to his sister, Mrs. Oliver. [Illustration: Figure 48. MAHOGANY DESK.] This style of table dates to the first half of the seventeenth century, as may be seen by the drawer which all these early tables had. The brass handle is a late addition, and the drawer has about it the overlapping edge, this style immediately succeeding the drawers with mouldings like those shown in the chest on frame in Figure 5. The legs fold together, fitting into the lower braces, and the leaves drop. This make of table was always considered of value, so we find them selling at Philadelphia in 1705 at £2; at Boston, 1699, at £2; in 1690 at Salem, "a round, black walnut table, £2 5_s_." Such a table as this was used by Sir William Johnson, so potent a factor in the settlement of the Mohawk Valley. His table is of mahogany, the leaves drop on hinges, and it has one more leg on each side than our example. It is oval in shape instead of round, six feet six inches long, and five feet eleven inches in its shortest diameter. In 1776 this table was confiscated, and was bought by the Hon. John Taylor. His descendents have lent it to the Albany Historical Society. The social life in Philadelphia in Revolutionary times was easy and agreeable, consisting of the original Quaker families and another class connected with the government, and these two gave the tone to society. The pleasures of the table were the only luxuries which the sedate Quakers allowed themselves, and the city was famous for the quality of its Madeira and French wines, and the wonderful cooking of West India turtle. In 1778 differences in rank were strongly marked. The labourer wore his leather breeches, checkered shirt, and neat's-hide shoes. The queue or club was still worn by men of fashion; so were rich broadcloth coats of every colour except scarlet, which was seen only on the "backs of soldiers, Carolinians, and dancing-masters." Winthrop Sargent, a Philadelphian himself, writing of this time, says: "Silver tankards and china punch-bowls were evidences of prosperity, as were the small mirrors in wooden frames, and the mahogany tea-boards that are still sometimes met with in the lumber-rooms of old-time houses. Glass tumblers were rarely seen, a dipper for the punch-bowl, or gourd or cup for the water-pail supplied those who did not have recourse to the vessel itself." This latter statement seems hardly compatible with "elegance," but there were certainly great extremes to be met with even in the Capitol City, as Philadelphia was at that time. [Illustration: Figure 49. CORNER CUPBOARD.] When it became fashionable to have tables round or oval, it was no longer possible to use forms or settles at them. So chairs took their place, and we notice with greater frequency in the inventories "sets" of chairs, six, twelve, and occasionally twenty-four. These early chairs, straight-backed (Figure 46), with rush or bass bottoms, or of carved wood or leather, were hard to sit upon, so cushions were provided in large numbers and of varying degrees of elegance. These rush-bottomed chairs with turned wood frames remained in use for many years. They were made with different degrees of elaboration, one of the two in Figure 46 showing a more ornamental banister back (_i. e._, the vertical slats) than the other. These two chairs have seen much service, but are uncommonly well preserved, and belong to Mr. William M. Hoyt, of Rochester, N. Y. They were frequently painted dark green, a fashion said to have come to us from Holland. As chairs grew more comfortable the decrease in the number of cushions is very marked. With the increase in comfort in household belongings a corresponding increase in the elegance of dress was visible. There was a "court circle" in America as well as in England. Broadway, as early as 1700, presented a brilliant sight at church time. Lord Bellomont was governor, and Colonel Bayard and his wife were citizens of wealth and importance. On such an occasion as church-going, on a fine spring morning, Mrs. Bayard wore no bonnet, but a "frontage", a sort of head-dress of rows of muslin stiffened with wire. She also wore a "steenkirk", or voluminous necktie, which fell over her bodice. The skirt of her purple and gold atlas gown was cut away to show her black velvet petticoat edged with two silver orrices, and short enough to show her green silk stockings and fine embroidered shoes. Her hair was powdered and her kerchief scented with rosewater. The furniture in use at this time has been already shown in Chapter I. Oak chairs, leather chairs, and those of cane are all mentioned. We find entries of "12 cane chairs with black frames" (1712); "6 Spanish leather chairs" (1703); "one fine chest of drawers," of maple (1703); "a fine chest of drawers of olive and walnut wood" (1705) and other similar items. Furniture was now being made in the Colonies in quite large quantities, and New England was actively engaged in the furniture business, which employed many cabinet-makers. Salem had James Symond as early as 1714, and others, with each succeeding year. Lynn had John Davis by 1703, and Marblehead, which was expected to become a great commercial centre, had at least a dozen more or less celebrated between 1729 and 1780. Figure 47 is an example of home-made furniture. It is known to collectors as the Connecticut chest, because this design is found only in that vicinity. Quite a number of such chests are in existance, all bearing the same pattern carved on the panels. They are of oak, often with pine tops, backs, and bottoms. The one shown has the top of oak; the turned drops and ornaments are of pine stained black; its height is 40 inches, width 48 inches, and breadth 22 inches. It is at Deerfield, Mass. In the eighteenth century ministers were often glad to turn their hands to some work which would eke out their slender stipends. We have seen how Mr. Ripley of Concord increased his. The Rev. Theophilus Pickering, of Salem, in 1724, made furniture. Pieces are still in existance which he made, sturdy and in good order, showing that he put his best work and best wood into this business, as he put his best thought into his pulpit labour. [Illustration: Figure 50. BANQUET-ROOM, INDEPENDENCE HALL, PHILADELPHIA.] The woods used by these cabinet-makers embrace all kinds, walnut, maple, cherry, nut-wood (hickory), poplar, ash, and pine. American dealers imported mahogany also in quantities, and it was for sale in planks as well as made up into furniture. "New York Gazette and Weekly Mercury" for 1774 published the following advertisements. "To be sold by Leonard Kip, A quantity of New Beef by the barrel, Honey by the barrel or half barrel, Albany boards and planks, Highland butter in firkins and European Goods. Which he will sell very low for cash or short credit, at his store in Dock Street opposite Mr. Gerardus Duyckinck's." The following also appeared in many issues of the paper. "Mahogany Furniture, 3 elegant desks & book cases, 1 chest upon chest of drawers, 1 lady's dressing-chest & bookcase, 3 desks & 1 pr. card tables, 2 setts of chairs, 3 dining-tables & 5 breakfast tables, 1 clock-case furnished with a good plain 8 day clock, Sundry stands, etc. The above articles are well made and most of them are of wood of the first quality and will be sold as low as any furniture of equal value in the city by Willett & Pearsey, cabinet & chair-makers, at the sign of the clothes-press nearly opposite the Oswego Market, at the end of Maiden Lane." In Philadelphia, renowned for its manufacture of household goods, the trade was so large and important that the "Journeyman's Cabinet & Chair-maker's Philadelphia Book of Prices" was issued. In a second edition (1795) are given the prices of many local furniture-makers, such as: "A plain mahogany high-post bedstead £1. 4_s._ 6_d_. "A plain sofa 6 ft. long, with 6 legs, fast back & no low rails. £1. 8_s._ 0_d_." The desk shown in Figure 48 is a piece found at Bedford Springs, Pa., a place which was known as a "resort" as early as 1778, and had houses with plastered walls, quite an unusual luxury in country regions, though as these Springs were frequented by the fashionable society of Philadelphia and New York, who went for the waters, special effort was used to make the place attractive. The desk is mahogany and solid, not veneered. It has a roll-top of the style made by Sheraton, which falls back behind the drawers and cupboards. The brasses are new, and the lid has been restored; otherwise the desk is as it was made. It stood for many years in one of the little outside houses near the main hotel, and when, a number of years ago, a visitor asked to buy it, the proprietor told him the piece was known as "Jimmy Buchanan's desk." Mr. Buchanan was in the habit of spending his summers at Bedford Springs and always occupied the room where this desk was. In 1857, when as President Buchanan he arrived at Bedford, the proprietors in his honour had refurnished his room. They were congratulating themselves that the President would be gratified at what they had done for him, when he suddenly came into the room and demanded in a rage what had become of the desk. If it was not forthcoming he would go elsewhere. He could use it, he said, to write on, and then the drawers were roomy and just suited him for his clean shirts. It is needless to say that the desk was brought down from the garret, and was never removed from the room when President Buchanan visited there. [Illustration: Figure 51. WINDSOR CHAIRS.] The desk is in company suited to its age, the larger powder-horn hanging above it being a veteran also. It is seventeen inches long and ten inches broad at the largest end. It bears the following inscription cut in quaint old letters on lines drawn so that they should go straight: "This is William Norton's Horn made at Qubeck y^e 10 day of Aprill 1776. I powder with my Brother Ball we wound them all that in Our way may chance to fall." The smaller horn bears the date 1810, and the two swords were used in the General Training days of the first quarter of the nineteenth century. All these relics belong to Anthony Killgore, Esq., of Flemington, N. J. During the first quarter of the eighteenth century, and even a little earlier, houses were built with wainscoting and panelling, and it was the fashion to build into walls cupboards for the display of china and plate. Frequently they were placed in the corner of the room, and were either with or without doors. Such a cupboard was called a "beaufait," which was sometimes shortened to "bofet," or "buffet," according to the taste of the owner. Figure 49 shows a specimen. The house from which this beaufait came was built in 1696 in Vernon Place, Boston, Mass., by William Clough. Two years later he sold it, and it passed through several hands by inheritance and sale till in 1758 it was bought by Captain Vernon, who with various members of his family held it for seventy-five years. The cherub's heads which ornament the cupboard are somewhat unusual on a piece of furniture of this kind, and it has also a very handsome shell at the top. It is now at the Old State House, Boston. Mention is also made in many inventories of "Court cupboards," and "livery cupboards." The former were light movable shelves, making a kind of sideboard, and used to display plate and porcelain. A livery cupboard was somewhat similar. It had usually but three shelves and stood upon four legs. It sometimes had a drawer for linen, but no doors. Mugs and cups were hung from the bottom of the shelves, and a ewer stood below. These were put in what was called the dining-parlour, a stately room on the second floor never used to dine in. (See Figure 50 showing the banquet room at Independence Hall, Philadelphia, with the beautiful moulding, wainscot, and over-mantel which were seen in handsome houses in the middle of the eighteenth century.) It was many years before the dining-room was set apart for meals. At first only a screen gave privacy, but gradually the dining-room grew in favour. The early dining-rooms held beds, as well as the parlours, they being given to guests on account of the warmth. Joint stools were there, and Flanders chests, in which the mistress often rummaged, so that the guest should see the goodly store of clothes and linen owned by the family. As was the custom in England, many wealthy men had their furniture made to order, often in their own houses, where the cabinet-makers came and worked. Sometimes they imported their own woods, as in the case of Mr. Champlin, a merchant of Newport, R. I., who brought home with him in 1762, from a voyage in the West Indies, some logs of mahogany, from which he had several pieces of furniture made. Watson, in his "Annals of New York," says that the use of what was foreign and modish was noted earlier in New York before the Revolution than elsewhere. "They earlier used carpets, wall-papers, foreign milliners, dress-makers, Windsor chairs, glass utensils, jewelry, dentistry, watches, umbrellas, stage-playbills, etc. Windsor chairs were advertised in 1768 as made and sold by William Gautier in New York. He also had high-backed, low-backed, sack-backed chairs and settees, and dining and low chairs. A pair of Windsor chairs are shown in Figure 51. [Illustration: Figure 52. WALL-PAPER.] Carriages were imported in 1766 from Dublin, as also men to keep them in repair. They were landaus, curricles, sedans, and even sleighs with gildings, carvings, and japan to suit. In 1774 there was advertised for sale "A handsome Riding Chair with full set of harness," and an announcement was made that there was "To be sold a Genteel Post-chaise." The carpets referred to above were imported ones, Turkey and Scotch. "Persian and plat carpeting" was offered for sale in 1761 by H. Van Vleck. A later advertisement announced: "There will be sold at Public Auction, April 7, 1777, Two very handsome Turkey carpets." Rag carpets were used as early as 1660, and private families who could afford it owned their own looms. Sometimes those who wished extra elegance bought the yarn and paid for the weaving. In 1761, "Pennsylvania Stoves newly invented, both round and square, to be sold by Peter Clopper" were advertised in the "New York Gazette." These were, no doubt, what became known as Franklin stoves. This same year were also advertised wall-papers by quite a number of firms in various cities: "A variety of paper-hangings imported from London." "Flowered papers," "printed papers," and "printed papers for hanging rooms," were imported as early as 1752. Figure 52 shows the fashionable wall-paper of about this period. It is in the Cowles House, Deerfield, Mass., and is in an excellent state of preservation. The sofa below is of the late Sheraton or early Empire, similar to the one belonging to Rev. Mr. Ripley and shown in Figure 36. Some wall-paper of equal elaboration is shown in the Frontispiece, which gives the hallway of the famous "King Hooper House," built at Danvers, Mass., now occupied by Francis Peabody, Esq. Wall-paper, however, was not very generally used,--just why one cannot tell, but some of the gaily flowered papers were used for window-shades. Curtains for windows and beds were at this time very popular, and it was the fashion of the time to have the window- and bed-curtains alike. The materials were very numerous and their names have a most unfamiliar sound. There was perpetuana, Kitterminster, serge, darnick (a coarse damask,) silke darnick, camlet, mohair, fustian, seersucker, camac or camoca, bancour, red and green paly-(vertical stripes of equal size,) printed calico, checked and striped linen, India and Patma chintzes, corded dimities, harrateen, lutestring, moreens of all colours, fine French chintzes, Pompadour chintzes, "fine laylock and fancy callicoes," and "muzlins." There were bed-cords, and fringes to edge and trim all these materials, and the bed in full dress was a very ornamental affair. Beds varied in size and height in quite a remarkable degree. The one shown in Figure 53 has a very wide reputation, and is now to be seen at the rooms of the Antiquarian Society, Concord, Mass. It is of mahogany, with bandy legs and ball-and-claw feet. The curtains are the original ones that came with the bed and are worn in many places. They are very curious showing agricultural scenes and domestic animals in large numbers. These curtains were not intended to be drawn, but to hang permanently in place, and there were to be inner curtains of "muzlin" or "callico" to draw and keep out drafts. One peculiarity of this bed is its extreme narrowness; it is intended for a double bed and yet its width is only four feet, it was included in the wedding outfit of Miss Martha Tufts, who was married at Concord in 1774. The cabriole leg and style of curtain lead to the supposition that the piece is Dutch. [Illustration: Figure 53. BED AT CONCORD, MASS.] In February, 1768, Miss Harriott Pinckney was married to Daniel Horry in "Charles Town," South Carolina. This was one of twelve weddings that took place that year, all the bridegrooms being wealthy rice-planters. The furniture to fill the houses of these rich couples was all brought from England, and the beds were lofty mahogany ones, four-posters with tester, canopy, curtains, and valances complete. The large heavy posts for all twelve beds were said to be alike, and were carved with rice-stalks, the heavy clustering heads forming the capitals. So tall were these beds that steps were necessary to climb into them, and the ones belonging to Mrs. Horry were in existence a few years ago. In the "History and Present State of Virginia," 1705, is the following paragraph relating to the homes: --"The private buildings are of late very much improved; several Gentlemen having built themselves large Brick Houses of many Rooms on a floor and several stories high, as also some Stone-Houses; but they don't covet to make them lofty having extent enough of Ground to build upon. They always contrive to have large rooms that they may be cool in Summer. Of late they have made their Stories much higher than formerly, and their windows large and sasht with Cristal Glass, and within they adorn their apartments with rich furniture." The eighteenth century was rightly called the Golden Age of Virginia. The planter in his manor-house, surrounded by his family, served by a vast army of retainers, was like a feudal patriarch, though his rule was milder. On the plantation itself were produced all the necessaries of life; it was a little community in itself. Wool was woven into clothing, flax was spun, shoes were made, and blacksmithing done. Luxuries such as books, wines, silks, laces, and the more elegant household plenishings were brought to the very wharf from London in the planters' own ships in return for tobacco. The writer previously quoted goes on to say, about the people themselves: --"They are such abominable ill husbands that, though their country be overrun with wood, yet they have all their wooden ware from England, their cabinets, chairs, tables, stools, chests, boxes, cart-wheels, and all other things, even so much as their bowls and birchen brooms, to the eternal reproach of their laziness." Although Beverly calls himself an "Inhabitant of Virginia", it is curious that he was not aware that the southern colonies were interdicted by special act of legislature from trading with the Dutch or English colonies. "Wooden ware" is especially mentioned as being subject to "imposicon." [Illustration: Figure 54. BED AT MOUNT VERNON.] A typical bed of the last quarter of the eighteenth century is shown in Figure 54. This bed belonged to George Washington, and is in his bedroom at Mount Vernon. It is said to be the one he used in his last illness. Unlike the bed shown in Figure 53, this bed is of unusual proportions, being nearly as wide as it is long. The small table between the doors shows an excellent example of the Dutch foot. Upon it stands a small dressing-glass, so much in use at this period, of very handsome black and gold lacquer. Whenever General Washington had the opportunity he added to the furniture and appointments of Mount Vernon. Belvoir, the home of the Fairfax family, was one of the most splendid of the mansions on the Potomac. In 1774 its contents were sold at auction, and Colonel George Washington bought goods to the value of £200 sterling. Among the most important lots were the following: "1 mahogany shaving desk, 1 settee bed and furniture (£13), 4 mahogany chairs, 1 chamber carpet, 1 oval glass with gilt frame, 1 mahogany chest and drawers in Mrs. Fairfax's chamber, (£12. 10s) 1 mahogany sideboard, (£12. 5_s._) 1 mahogany cistern and stand, 1 mahogany voider, 1 desk and 1 knife tray, 12 chairs & 3 window curtains from dining room (£31), 1 mahogany wash desk, (£1. 2_s._ 6_d._)." Among the smaller articles were several pairs of andirons, tongs and shovels, bellows, brushes, toasting-forks, and "1 hot rache in cellar," with many blankets, 19 coverlids, pillows, bolsters, bottles and pickle-pots, wine-glasses and pewter water-plates. There were also two tables, one "a mahogany spider-make tea-table, £1 11_s._" and "1 mahogany table £11," showing that articles of this wood obtained good values even then. The list of the goods in all of the rooms of Belvoir is far too long to be given here, but in the dressing-room connected with Colonel Fairfax's bedroom were "1 oval glass in burnished gold, (£5 10_s._), 1 mahogany shaving-table, 1 mahogany desk (£16 16_s._), 4 chairs and covers, 1 mahogany settee bedstead, Saxon green, covers for same, 1 mahogany Pembroke table, dogs, shovel, tongs and fender." It is also a matter of interest to see of what books a library consisted among people who were considered to have a literary bent and to be extensive readers. There is nothing "light" about it, and would to-day be accounted very dull reading. Batavia Illustrated London Magazine, 7 vols. Parkinson's Herbal Knoll's History of the Turkish Empire Coke's Institutes of the Laws of England, 3 vol. England's Recovery Laws of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay Laws of Merchants Laws of Virginia Complete Clerk and Conveyancer Hawkin's Pleas of the Crown Gunnel's Offences of the Realm of England Ainsworth's English and Latin Dictionary Haine's Dictionary of Arts and Sciences Blackmore's Prince Arthur History of the Twelve Cæsars by Suetonius John Calvin's Institution of Religion Fuller's Church History from its Rise Locke on the Human Understanding Hughes's Natural History of Barbadoes A New Body of Geography Croope's Law Reports Heylin's Cosmography, in 4 vols. Collection of Voyages and Travels Political Discourses by Henry, Earl of Monmouth Wooten's State of Christendom Hobart's Law Reports Johnson's Excellency or Monarchical Government Latin and French Dictionary Langley's Pomona, or Gardening A Political Piece Strada's History of the Low Country Wars Spanish and English Dictionary Latin Bible A Poem on Death Judgement & Hell Knox's Martyrology Jacob's Law Dictionary Chamberlayne's Great Britain Laws of His Majesty's Plantations. [Illustration: Figure 55. BED AT SOMERVILLE, N. J.] A bed showing better the handsome solid posts is given in Figure 55. This is also associated with the Father of his Country, for it is in the house at Somerville, N. J., occupied by him as headquarters during one of his campaigns in the Revolutionary War. In Chapter I a "bedsteade of carven oak" was referred to as having been sent for to England by Mrs. Lake, as a wedding-present for her daughter. It could hardly have been such a very splendid piece of furniture as that shown in Figure 56, with its coat of arms on the headboard, and the two beautiful foot-posts. The draperies were intended to cover the two head-posts, so that they were left plain. The old easy-chair standing beside the bed has unfortunately lost its feet, but they were the well-known ball-and-claw pattern generally seen on this style of chair, which was well calculated to keep off swirling draughts from the head and back of the occupant. These chairs were popular for a century or more, and were made not only by English cabinet-makers like Chippendale and Hepplewhite, but by the Dutch and Flemish makers as well. They all have the bandy leg, but the Dutch foot is sometimes used instead of the ball-and-claw. But all the luxury and elegance were not absorbed by the South and New York. Boston kept well to the front. In 1700 Andrew Faneuil, Huguenot, came to Boston and engaged in business. His brother was in this country, too, and, he dying not long after, Andrew assumed the care of, and took into business with himself, first one and then a second nephew. They were merchants and the following entries of consignments, taken from their old ledgers, which are still in existence, show the nature of their business. Besides crapes, poplins, lawns, and silks, they had for sale durants and duroys, osnaburgs, camblets, narrow, double and cherry, with ingrains, silk druggets and calamancoes. They also imported dishes, pans, and kettles, "wooden lanthorns and tin ditto" (1725). Nor did they neglect to provide amusement for their fellow townsmen, for they imported "one-half gross man-in-the-moon cards." Among other goods in this same invoice were "1 chest muskets and one large pair looking-glasses." Andrew Faneuil died in 1738, and his favourite nephew and chief heir, Peter Faneuil, did not hesitate, on account of the cost, to have an elaborate and seemly funeral. Three thousand pairs of gloves were distributed, and later two hundred mourning-rings were given to intimate friends. Peter Faneuil, now a wealthy young man by inheritance as well as by his own exertions, lived in the old house with his maiden sister. This same year, 1738, he sends to London for "a handsome chariot with two setts of harness," and a coachman warranted to remain sober. A few months later he writes for china and glass from England, for table-cloths and napkins from France, and he sends for silver spoons, "forks with three prongs," all to have upon them the Faneuil crest. "Let them be very neat and handsome," says he. The next order is for silver candlesticks and a punch-bowl of silver holding two gallons, also to be decorated with the family crest. His clothes were also a matter of concern, and he sends to London a pattern of a piece of Duncy, orders buttons of the newest fashion to match it, of mohair silk, and knee-straps. Nor is he less scrupulous about his sister's affairs, and sent all the way back to London six pairs of stockings which had been sent of worsted instead of "3 pairs thread hose, and 1 pair Galous hose, and 2 pair of thread ditto." [Illustration: Figure 56. CARVED OAK BEDSTEAD.] Boston at this time (1738) seems to have had some luxuries demanded by New York, for an order comes to Peter Faneuil to send there "a dozen red Turkey or Morocker leather chairs." One of these easy-chairs cost £14 14_s._ In 1742 Peter Faneuil gave to the city of Boston the hall called by his name. It was built of home-made brick (Salem had a brick-kiln as early as 1629), but the glass in the windows was brought from England in Mr. Faneuil's own ships. The first furnishings bought by the selectmen for Faneuil Hall were "two pairs of brass candlesticks with steel snuffers, and a poker, for the town's use." Peter Faneuil's inventory, filed in 1742, contains items under 158 heads, and makes quite a volume of manuscript. It includes not only his and his uncle's gatherings in the way of household goods, but the contents of warehouses, cellar, coach-house, and stables. The house was handsomely furnished. In the best room were, "12 carved vineered chairs & couch, £105; 1 pier glass, £100." Other costly articles were, "1 buffet with parcel of china delph & glass, £199." There were, besides,-- --"1 chimney glass and arms; 1 marble table; 1 large Turkey carpet; 1 compleat brass sett, hearth-dogs, tongs, shovel, and bellows; 1 copper tea-table; cups, saucers, tea-pot, stand, bowl and sugar-dish; 3 alabaster bowls and stands; 1 large oval mahogany table, 12 plain walnut-frame leather-bottom chairs; 1 prospect of Boston, 2 landskips on copper, and the Temple of Solomon." The "Great Centre Hall" must have made a quaint appearance, since here hung the fire apparatus; "1 large entry lantern; 12 baggs and buckets, and books £50." The sleeping-rooms were handsomely equipped, and each was furnished with its appropriate colour. The list includes: "1 harrateen bed, bedstead and window curtains, matrass and two green silk quilts and feather-bed, £65 3 scones with arms 1 bureau, 1 table, 1 pr. brass-faced dogs, 1 fire-shovel, tongs bellows, and one Turkey carpet, £107" Peter Faneuil's own room was not lacking in comforts, as is shown by the enumeration of: --"1 silver-hilted sword, 1 pair of pistols and 1 powder-flask, £15; 1 case 6 razors, bone penknife, strap, 2 bottles, looking-glass tipt with silver; yellow mohair bed-counterpane, feather-bed, bolster, 2 false pillows, false curtains, 6 chairs, 1 great chair, 2 stools, window curtains," etc. The furnishings of this room, exclusive of the small-arms, was valued at £245. He had "6 lignum-vitæ chocolate-cups lined with silver", which were probably Dutch, for among the goods of Sara Van der Vulgen, of Schenectady, at about this same period, was a great "saler" or salt-cellar, made of lignum-vitæ, bound with silver and standing on three little silver feet. In Mr. Faneuil's kitchen were many utensils of copper, pots, pans, and kettles, together with an "engine and cistern." He had many jewels, 1,400 ounces of plate, including a shaving-basin worth £40. There were silver snuff-boxes, seven gold rings, and "chrystall buttons set in gold." Just before he died he sent to London for "six gross of the very best London King Henry's cards", for his store no doubt, for cards were becoming more popular among the descendants of the Puritans than they had been. In 1729 Governor Burnet, of New York and Massachusetts, died, leaving behind him a long list of valuable personal goods. He owned as many as seventy chairs and twelve tables. The chairs were of mahogany and walnut, with leather or bass bottoms, and one easy-chair was covered with silk. Twenty-four chairs had seats of red leather, a noble set, and there are two chairs now in the Yale University Library which belonged to Governor Burnet, and which are of the exact style of what we call Chippendale. They were made more than twenty-five years before the "Director" was published, but are made of mahogany with richly carved knees, ball-and-claw feet, with carved and ornamentally pierced splats, handsome upper rail curved and ending in the little ears before mentioned. In all the inventories of wealthy and poor alike there is mention of candlesticks, sconces, girandoles, etc. The "entry lanthorns," as well as the perforated tin ones, were made to hold bits of candles and lamps are few and far between. It was not till 1783 that the flat-wick lamp was invented, the lamps before that time being pewter and glass, with small, round, string wicks, burning whale oil. When the question of lighting was so difficult, it is no wonder that the pioneers were in the habit of going to bed at dark and rising with the sun. The bayberry or candleberry was of recognized value, and the laws of Brookhaven, as early as 1687, forbade the gathering of the berries before September 15, under a penalty of a fine of fifteen shillings. Candlewood, as pine knots were called, was burned in the fireplace on long winter evenings. The manufacture of home-made candles was one of the tests by which the careful housewife was distinguished, dozens of candles being made and laid away in the candle-box. In 1753, in the "New York Gazette," were advertised "Green mould candles for sale, at the Old Slip Market." The old moulds, generally of tin, were passed around among neighbours in country districts and villages. "Dipping" candles was a trying business, and required skill and experience on the part of the dipper. Lustres holding many candles were used on festive occasions, and four or six lights were often set in branches on either side of mirrors. Many candlesticks with cut-glass prisms are still to be found, and betty-lamps, crude little metal lamps, were often used for bedrooms or in sick-rooms. "Glass lamps and chamber lamps" were advertised as early as 1759, and "fine large lamps at 20 shilling each" in 1752. Candle-screens, "red, green, gilt and black japanned candlesticks with snuffers and extinguishers", were on sale in 1773, and no card-table was complete without at least a pair of tall massive candlesticks of Sheffield plate. By 1760 the newspapers contain advertisements of what are really luxuries. James Gilliland, dealer in earthen, delf, and glass in Wall street, New York, has the following named articles: "Enamelled and cabbage teapots [Wedgwood, no doubt], cut and ground glass decanters, tumblers, punch and wine glasses." The fair sex is by no means forgotten, and even during the stress of the great struggle for freedom her appearance is considered. Many times the following announcement appears: "The Venetian Paste so well-known to the ladies for enameling the Hands, neck and face of a lovely white" is for sale by Hugh Gaine, printer. Nesbit Deane offers hats "to exceed in fineness, cut, colour, and cock." He also has "Ladies' white riding hats." "Goods for the approaching season" are duly set forth in the spring advertisements, and "Sagothies, Hairbine, white silk embroidered and tambour with gold shades" are recommended for waistcoats. There was also to be bought "gold and silver vellum lace, gold and silver bullion fringe, silk sashes and hat feathers for the gentlemen of the militia and army." "Spittlefield corded tabbey, peneaffcoes and peling sattens" were to be had in all colours for ladies' use, while "Prunells and Oxford crape" were provided for the "Rev'd clergy." The servant question was a burning issue even at that time, and there are quantities of rewards offered for runaway slaves and apprentices. Some desperate householder advertised in March, 1777: "WANTED. A cook, black or white, male or female. Such a person will meet with good encouragement by applying to Hugh Gaine, printer." Those who did not wish to be annoyed by the labour of housekeeping could be accommodated with "Diet and Lodging," also, by applying to Hugh Gaine, printer. Other advertisements read: [1761] "Morrison, peruke maker from London, dresses ladies and gentlemen's hair in the politest taste. He has a choice parcel of human, horse, and goat's hairs to dispose of." [1768] "James Daniel, wig-maker and hairdresser also operates on the teeth, a business so necessary in this city." Wigs were an important feature in the costume of the men. They were subject to tax and were a good source of revenue. The Treasurer of the Colony of New York, as early as 1732, reported that he had received from the tax on wigs the sum of £9 17_s._ 6_d_. This tax was called-- --"a wise and prudent measure, because it was the fashion for even young boys to conceal their own hair under large and spacious wigs. To repress a custom so absurd, or to make a source of revenue has been the object of the legislature." So we paid, and gladly, for our wigs, even though visiting Englishmen spoke of us thus: "The people, both in town and country, are sober, industrious, and hospitable, though intent upon gain." All travellers mention our hospitality. Prince de Broglie writes in 1782: "M. de la Luzerne took me to tea at Mrs. Morris, wife of the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States. Her house is small, but well ordered and neat, the doors and tables of superb well-polished mahogany, the locks and andirons of polished brass, the cups arranged symetrically, the mistress of the house good-looking and very grey." Mrs. Morris was considered to have one of the handsomest houses in Philadelphia, and it was not at all the mode to display one's own hair if it had turned grey, so the fact of Mrs. Morris doing so seems to have impressed the volatile Frenchman. Another traveller, Captain Laurence Butler, writes from Westmoreland, Virginia, in 1784, to Mrs. Craddock, an Englishwoman, as follows: "When balls are given, which is very frequent, the company stay all night (not as in your country), for every gentleman has ten or fifteen beds, which is sufficient for the ladies, and the men shift for themselves." These beds were the high four-posters, carved and draped, and ten or fifteen seems a liberal allowance for every household. One Alexander Mackraby, visiting Philadelphia in 1768, before the Revolution, writes home: "I could hardly find myself out this morning in a most elegant crimson silk damask bed." Poor indeed was the householder who did not manage to have one "feder bed," or one of flock, or something soft, and there were always pillows, bolster, coverlids, and blankets, though sometimes, judging from the inventories, the owners did not care particularly about sheets. CHAPTER VI. COLONIAL AND LATER PERIODS--_Continued_. We have seen by the middle of the century, 1750, how many comforts were obtainable at the large centres, and how many cabinet-makers were at work in the Colonies. About 1756 the ways and people are described thus: "New York is one of the most social places on the continent. The men collect themselves into weekly evening clubs. The ladies in winter are frequently entertained either at concerts of musick or assemblies, and make a very good appearance. They are comely and dress well, and scarce any of them have distorted shapes. Tinctured with a Dutch education they manage their families with becoming parsimony, good providence, and singular neatness." Twenty-five years later the British officers quartered in New York made life there very gay. Fox-hunting was practiced till 1781, and was advertised in the "Royal Gazette" as taking place on Ascot Heath, in Brooklyn. Horse-racing took place on Hempstead Plains, Long Island, for life in general was a full copy of what was going on in England. The "New York Gazette" of June 4, 1770, tells us that-- --"a Great Horse-Race was run off on Hempstead Plains for a considerable wager, which engaged the attention of so many in the city that upward of seventy chairs and chaises were carried over the ferry from hence, and a far greater number of horses, so that it was thought that the number of Horses on the Plains at the Races far exceeded a thousand." [Illustration: Figure 57. ROOM IN WHIPPLE HOUSE, IPSWICH, MASS.] [Illustration: Figure 58. CARVED AND GILDED MIRROR FRAME.] [Illustration: MAHOGANY MIRROR FRAME WITH BRASS ORNAMENTS.] The comparatively peaceful sport of horse-racing was not the only one indulged in. Bull-baiting was not at all unusual. The posters for this amusement were headed "Pro Bono Publico," and in the "New York Mercury" for August, 1774, John Cornell announces that there will be "a Bull Baited on Town Hill at 3 o'clock every Thursday during the season." Town Hill was Columbia Street, near Cranberry Street, Brooklyn Heights. On March 24, 1777, in the "New York Mercury" was the following advertisement: "On Thursday At the Theatre in John St. On next Thursday evening will be performed a Tragedy called Venice Preserved. With an Occasional Prologue. To which will be added a Farce called 'The Lying Valet.' The Characters by the Gentlemen of the Army and Navy." As for clothes, of course the people followed the English styles, and copies of such magazines as "The Maccaroni Magazine or Monthly Intelligence of the Fashions & Diversions," found their way to America. Here is an extract from the issue October, 1772: "Hats are rising behind and falling before. The blazing gold loop and full-moon button is now totally exploded, and succeeded by a single narrow looping, broad hatband, and pin's-head button. In full dress the three buttons zigzag with the foretop à la Grecque. Roses are entirely confined to Cheapside, and bags are increasing daily. The late stunting of coats having promoted the growth of skirts, the pockets are capable of holding conveniently a tolerable-sized muslin handkerchief and smelling bottle. Shoes are decreased in heels two inches, and cut like a butter-boat to show the clocks of the stockings." "The Magazine a la Mode, or Fashionable Miscellany," particularly adapted to the People of both Sexes, and calculated to convey early and useful information to those who are in any way concerned in furnishing articles of Dress, either in "Town or Country," appeared in 1777. From one of these useful repositories we learn under date of 1786 that grass-green was the fashionable colour for gentlemen's suits, that the hair was dressed à la Taureau, and that watch-keys were remarkable for size and weight. In 1760, pattern-books published in London were to be found in America for the benefit of native cabinet-makers, as the following advertisement duly sets forth: "John Rivington of Hanover Square has for sale many books for cabinet makers, joiners, etc., and calls particular attention to a new work called Household Furniture for the year 1760, by a society of Upholsterers, Cabinet-makers, etc., containing upwards of 180 Designs consisting of Tea-Tables, Dressing, Card, Writing, Library and Slab tables, Chairs, Stools, Couches, Trays, Chests, Tea-Kettles, Bureaus, Beds, Ornamental Bed Posts, Cornishes, Brackets, Fire-Screens, Desk and Book Cases, Sconces, Chimney-Pieces, Girandoles, Lanthorns, etc., with scales." Not a paper but had advertisements of furniture offered for sale. Thus in 1774 we find: "To be sold at private sale a large black walnut cupboard with a set of Delft, a large pier looking-glass, one pair of sconces, 3 large gilt frame pictures, and sundry other articles." In the same number of the "Weekly Mercury," and in many succeeding issues appears the following notice: "A scheme for the disposal of a large quantity of silver-plated furniture by lottery. The owner is a Philadelphian." [Illustration: Figure 59. MAHOGANY DESK AND CHEST OF DRAWERS.] In Figure 58 are shown two looking-glasses of styles that were fashionable about the middle of the eighteenth century. One of them is dated 1749, of mahogany handsomely carved, and further embellished with ornaments of chiselled brass, a beading of it being next to the glass. It rests upon two mirror-knobs, which were screwed into the walls to support looking-glasses, and the collection of which is such a pleasing hobby to-day. The central ornament on the top is missing. The other glass is of carved wood gilded, and is now in Memorial Hall, Philadelphia. It hung for many years in the fine old house "Belmont," and is of the very finest style. The broken-arch cornice is finished with rosettes, and the central ornament is not the usual urn, but something more ornate. There are constant notices of mahogany for sale, such as: "A cargo of fine mahogany for sale by Anthony Van Dam, Jan'y 17, 1774." In May of the same year John Morton advertises-- --"the largest and most elegant assortment of mahogany or gilt oval looking-glass frames ever imported in this city." William Melbourn advertises also, in 1774, over a hundred items, among them are the following, showing that "small wares" were easily to be obtained: "White and green ivory table and desert knives and forks. Ditto with silver caps and ferrils. Ditto black ebony with caps and ferrils. Also Black horn, camwood, centre-bone split buck, sham stag table knives and forks. Carving and oyster knives. Neat mahogany and fish skin knife boxes. Mahogany and fish skin razor cases. Plated coffee pots and spoons. Mahogany tea chests. Merry Andrew, Harry, and Mogul's playing cards, Pearl and ivory fish and counters, Mustard and Marrow spoons." In Memorial Hall, Philadelphia, is a set of table knives with green ivory handles, like those advertised in the first item, and looking at the end of the blades we can no longer doubt that the use of two-pronged forks was supplemented by a dexterous manipulation of the knife-blades. Writing-desks or scrutoirs, or desks and bookcases, or even desks fitted into the drawers of a bureau, had become pieces of furniture that were found in every well-to-do home. In Figure 59 is shown one of the early styles of make, about the middle of the eighteenth century. This particular desk was brought from England, is of mahogany, and is in good condition except that the front feet have been restored. It still has the original brasses and the overlapping drawers. It has several secret drawers where during the Revolution the private documents of the owner were concealed. During the Civil War its secret drawers were again in use, and effectually concealed papers of value. It has never passed out of the possession of the family whose ancestors brought it over, and it belongs to Miss Hite, of Waynesboro, Va. The two-drawer chest beside it is of a much earlier period. The mouldings make the chest part resemble two drawers, but the top opens as is usual. The handles on the desk are of the shape used so much by Hepplewhite on his bureaus and sideboards, while those on the chest are an earlier form of the well-known willow pattern of brasses and are fastened in by wires. The earliest patterns of handles were the knob and drop, which were used on furniture before 1700. These were succeeded by others which were fastened in by wire, and these again were replaced by handles which were affixed with nut and screw. On page 224 are shown the different styles of handles, and their approximate dates. The chest is of mahogany, with bracket foot. This is a most unusual and interesting piece. [Illustration: Figure 60. COMBINED BOOK CASE AND DESK.] At the time of the Revolution there was comfort generally in most of the large cities at least. In 1776 there were sent to Cold Spring, for the use of the army, the following: "2 Mah'y tables, 6 Rush Bottom chairs, 4 Mah'y Rush Bottoms, and 2 small bedsteads, a kitchen table, a new case of bottles, a Coffee Mill, Brass Scales and Waights, 2 Kitchen Tramels, 2 pickel Tubs and 2 Wash Tubs, an Iron hooped Pail and a soap barrel mostly full of soap and the Ticke of a Stra bed. Value £20." The works at Cold Spring were destroyed, and the goods were never used, but the Government's strong-box paid for them. Cornelis Van Santvoordt, who lived at Esopus, near Kingston, N. Y., when it was burned by the British October 16, 1777, put in a claim for damages for £54 17_s._ 3_d_. a large variety of goods, as may be seen from the following list: "1 Fether bed Holl'd Tick, 1 Boulster, 1 Pillow, 1 Coverlin to bed 14 0 0 1 Bedsted 20_s._--1 Green Rug 55_s._ 3 15 0 2 large Rose Blanckets 1 8 0 1 large lookinglass 6 0 0 2 chaina Teapots 16 0 8 Burnt China Chocolate Cups 10 0 ½ Doz Teacups and Saucers 14 0 4 tea plates 4 0 2 large Cream Couler sauce cups 4 0 ½ doz blew chaina plates 6 0 ½ " cream couler " 2 6 1 dining-table black cherry wood 1 4 0 1 Teble larg 1 0 0 1 large Copper Kittle 3 13 9 1 Brass Kittle 1 12 0 6 Flat back chairs 1 16 0 1 Holland cubberd neatly adorned with Waxwork 10 0 0 1 Barrel soap 1 12 0 3 Wine Canters 6 0 4 " glasses 6 0 1 chest wt. Clothing and linen 1 10 0 1 " " Sundry books & 1 large Dutch Bible 3 0 0 1 large Kibbe, 1 Sermon book some of the others Divinity & some History 1 12 0 1 New Spinning Weale 1 12 0 12 pictures w't Glass over 18 0 1 larg Knot Bowl Cost 1 4 2 " " " " 2 0 2 beds with Straw 2 10 2 fine worked Baskets 16 0 1 Tapend Water Crane 6 0 -------- 54 17 3 This inventory is somewhat unusual from the number of "Chaina" articles enumerated, and among all the items there are but six chairs and not a stool. This claim, with many others, is recorded in the "New York Records of the Revolution," and it was paid out of the "strong-box." This box was not a mythical object at all, but a veritable chest. Gerard Bancker was State Treasurer for twenty years. During the Revolution the iron chest moved about from one place to another like the Continental Congress, and the Treasurer went with it. According to a custom of the times Mr. Bancker took the chest with him when he retired from office. His family kept it for a hundred years, but with many other relics it was sold in Philadelphia, in 1898, by one of his descendants. [Illustration: Figure 61. FIELD BED.] [Illustration: Figure 62. LOW FOUR-POST BED.] There were various patterns of combinations of desks and bookcases, and of desks and bureaus. There were the high, wide ones of Chippendale or Sheraton, that would almost fill one side of a room. There were small ones with desk below and shelves above, and occasionally there were such great ones as that shown in Figure 60. This piece of furniture is so tall and massive that it could not have been accommodated in any save a large house. It is over eight feet tall and five feet three inches wide. It is of a light mahogany, with pillars of Empire style and very handsome brasses. The lid of the desk folds back on itself and below it is a drawer and cupboard. The handsomest things about the bookcase are the glass doors with Gothic tracery. The date of this piece is about the first decade of the nineteenth century. The four legs on the front are of unusual elegance. It belongs to the Historical Society at Albany. Quite as interesting as the inventories of property left by will are some old records in the State Library, New Jersey, called a "Record of the Damages done by the British and their adherents to the Inhabitants of Middlesex Co., New Jersey." This contains the inventories made by six hundred and fifty persons who suffered from the depredations of the plundering Hessians and the English soldiery. The lists extend over the years from 1776 to 1782 inclusive, but the worst mischief was done in the time from December, 1776, to June, 1777. There were eighteen hundred horses taken, and these form a single item. That the settlers were good livers the following inventory of one patriot shows. He lost-- --"4 hogsheads of cider, ½ pipe of madeira, 10 gallons brandy, 7 gallons Jamaica brandy, ½ barrel cherry Rum, barrel Porter." The inventory does not state his business, but we trust from appearances that he kept a "public." Another list reads: "Three cupboards of Dutch make as good as new, also three large Bibles 1 Dutch and 2 English." David Harriott, of Middlesex County, was completely stripped by the enemy. Among many items were-- "a set of Homespun curtains wove with damask flowers, one ditto of white in large damask flowers, and one ditto of double dimons." Napkins, quilts, bedspreads, and sheets, as well as large-flowered damask table-cloths and linen covers testify to the industry of the women of the family. The good wife lost her long gowns and short gowns, her "shifts of 500 linen," handkerchiefs of gauze, lawn, and linen, aprons of new flowered lawn, fine linen and homespun, 3 caps of cambric and lawn, all new, and even two bibs for a child. They took all of David's clothes and his silver teaspoons and buckles, smashed his windows and doors, broke down his partitions, drove off his cattle, and did not leave him so much as "a bed, a piggin, a trammel, or a gridiron." Jacob Hyer was another sufferer. His house must have been one of considerable size and well furnished. There are many items, among them-- --"5 fluted brass candlesticks, 2 pr. common ditto, 1 doz. iron ditto, 10 pr. snuffers; 11 feather beds with bolsters and pillows, etc." [Illustration: Figure 63. FRENCH BED.] The enemy left him nothing, even taking his "Iron chain for Smoke Jack." Much of the furniture listed in these inventories was evidently of American make, for the woods mentioned are bilstead, gum pine, walnut, cherry, or red cedar. The last was the favorite. "Bilstead" was maple. The beds were chiefly of three styles, field beds, high four-posters with testers and valance, and low four-posters, with an occasional "English" or "French" bed. There were beds much plainer than the carved ones we so much admire, but in any case the bed was the most valuable household possession, as it had always been. In 1640 William Southmead's house in Gloucester, Mass., is valued at £8, and his feather-bed, bedstead, and appurtenances at the same sum. In 1628 a pair of sheets was furnished to each Massachusetts Bay Colonist. Linen and flannel sheets were the ones in use. After spinning became universal and flax abundant, homespun sheets abounded,--"20 and 1 pr." is not an unusual number; and where there were several daughters whose chests had to be filled, the number was many times greater. Table linen also was of domestic manufacture. One of the fashionable patterns of beds shown in the English books imported into the Colonies, and made by American cabinet-makers, was known as the "field bed." The one shown in Figure 61 is in the Whipple House, Ipswich, and is draped with the netting curtains, heavily dotted and fringed, which were customary in its day. Early in 1700 there was an auction sale of Governor Cornbury's effects in New York, and the following advertisement concerning them: "A fine yellow Camblet bed lined with silk and trimmed with fine lace, which came from London. One fine field bedstead and curtains. Some blue cloth lately come from London for liveries and some broad gold lace. A very fine medecine chest with a great variety of valuable medecines. A parcel of sweetmeats and jelly glasses. A case of 12 knives and 12 forks with silver handles. A large iron fireplace and iron bars all to be seen at the Fort. It seemed as if the field bed had been made here, as it is specified that several of the other articles came from London. "The Journeyman's Cabinet & Chair-makers Philadelphia Book of Prices" gives in 1795 the price of a mahogany field bed, with sloped roof, at £1 7_s._, while one of poplar, with the roof sloped each way, cost but one pound. The carving of the posts was of course extra and was to be paid for according to time. Each inch that the bed was longer than six feet and wider than four feet was to be charged for at the rate of two pence per inch. This may be the reason why many of the beds were so narrow. It is often stated that the field bed was in use for a few years only, about the middle of the 18th Century, while in fact it was here, imported and of domestic make for fully one hundred years, and I am by no means sure that Governor Cornbury's was among the earliest. [Illustration: Figure 64. HIGHBOY.] Great attention was paid to the draping and arranging of the curtains, valances, and testers of the high four-posters. Heavy materials of silk and woollen were used, as well as cotton stuffs. Men paid great attention to the colourings of their bed furniture, as we have seen in several inventories, and Horace Walpole chose for his own bed at Strawberry Hill purple cloth lined with white satin, and bunches of feathers on the tester. Hepplewhite spent much pains on the details of his beds, and recommended that the valance be made very full, in which case it was called the "petticoat valance." There were also elaborate details for tying back the curtains and trimming them with gimp and fringe. The bed-drapings, even in early days, were often very valuable. Col. Francis Epes, of Henrico Co., Va., has in his inventory dated October 1, 1678: "One large new feather bed with camlett curtains and double vallins lind with yellow silke, bolster, pillow, counterpane, Rodds and hooks tops and stands, 1 curtaine and some Fringe damnified £24 5_s._ 0_d_." The low-post bed was also a very handsome piece of furniture, and in many cases the post was surmounted by a pineapple, like the example shown in Figure 62. This bed has passed through a career of violent contrasts, and it is only within a year that the four posts were rescued from a barn, where they afforded convenient roosts for poultry. The side and head and foot boards had passed entirely out of sight, no doubt in some moment of stress they had fed the family cooking-stove. The missing parts have been restored in solid mahogany, and it makes a very handsome piece of furniture. It belongs to Mr. William M. Hoyt, of Rochester, N. Y. The acanthus leaves on the lower parts of the legs are unusually handsome. The posts are 63 inches high, and the brass drops which conceal the screw-holes have been restored from a bed of the same period. An unusually elegant example of the French bed is the one given in Figure 63. This bed is of rosewood, with legs of splendidly carved dolphins, and on the side rails and rolling ends are very rich ormolu decorations cut from solid brass. The medallions directly over the legs show Fame blowing her trumpet, and the rams' heads terminating the head and foot boards where they rest upon the wood above the stars are solid brass also. This bed has been many years in this country, and stood in the bridal chamber or guest-room of the old Van Rensselaer Manor House at Albany, N. Y. This room was situated on the ground floor to the right of the front door. A most necessary piece of furniture which every housekeeper endeavoured to own was some form of "highboy," as it has come to be called, or a chest-on chest of drawers. Figure 64 depicts a fair example of the highest style of perfection to which these articles reached. Few are found more ornate than this. The wood is mahogany, and is richly carved on the knees, with the upper and lower drawers ornamented with shell and scrolls. The escutcheons and handles are original, and the only defect is the loss of the two ornaments which decorated either side of the top. The date of this chest of drawers is anywhere from 1750 to about 1780, the overlapping drawers making it more likely to approximate the earlier date. Belonging to about the same period is the corner cupboard shown in Figure 65. This is of cherry, with the broken arch-cornice and Gothic door. It has turned posts with rosettes which Sheraton often used, and the cupboard doors overlap and are panelled. The back of the cupboard is of pine, as are the shelves. The wood is a rich dark colour and unpolished. Similar pieces, though not exactly in this form, are to be met with in Virginia and are doubtless of native manufacture. [Illustration: Figure 65. CORNER CUPBOARD.] [Illustration: Figure 66. INLAID AND LACQUERED TABLE AND CHAIR.] American makers used not only mahogany, cedar, ash, elm, pine, maple, cherry, poplar, and walnut, but could inlay with "King, tulip, rose, purple, snake, zebra, Alexandria, panella, yew, and maple." There were cabinet-makers in every town, and many of them put out as handsome work as their contemporaries in London. In Chapter V mention has been made of the cabinet-makers of the eighteenth century, but furniture was made in the Colonies even before that. The native joiners began to work as early as 1622, for Phineas Pratt, of Weymouth, Mass., was what we now call a cabinet-maker, and before 1700 Boston had at least 25 cabinet-makers whose names appear in various records. We have also spoken of Connecticut chests, and their manufacture somewhere in that State. There is also another style known as the Hadley chest. Mr. Lockwood, in his fine work on furniture, places the date of these chests as ranging from 1690 to 1720. They come in one-, two-, and three-drawer patterns, varying in height from 32½ inches in one-drawer size to 46 inches for the three-drawer style. The peculiarity of these chests is their decoration, their shape being similar to other chests of the same period. In addition to being carved they are stained as well,--red, mulberry, and black being the colours chosen. On the central panel of the front the initials of the owner were usually roughly carved; the decoration of the chest, confined to the front, being a rude vine, while the sides are panelled. The top, body of drawers, and back of chest are always pine, the thrifty New England craftsman saving his hardwood for places where it would show. There is a very fine specimen of these Hadley chests in the Museum at Deerfield, Mass. Several more are in collections gathered in Massachusetts or adjoining States. The black-stained pine ornaments do not always mark a piece as of domestic manufacture, for pear-wood was used by the Dutch, and even occasionally by the English, stained black to imitate ebony, which was always more or less costly. After 1725 there was considerable travel by merchants, and to a small extent by others bent on pleasure. Inns became of importance, and brought in good incomes to their owners. Abel Chapin kept a tavern at Chicopee, Mass., in 1730, and some few leaves of his account-book still remain. The records of the bar are the most numerous entries, and he sold there "Rhum & Cyder", bowls of punch and mugs of flip, and sometimes "Shugar, seed-corne, salt, and molasses." When this prosperous innkeeper died he left personal property valued at £400, and his real estate was worth £1,300. There were six hundred items mentioned in his inventory among the household furnishings, including iron, pewter, and brass ware with some china and glass. There is also special mention of "36 linen sheets, sixteen blankets, eleven woolen sheets, 6 table cloths and 21 towels." The inventory of his wardrobe shows richness for those days, and justifies his mother's statement that she had one son who was too rich. The inventory begins with: "2 Great Cotes, 1 srait Body Cote, 1 pare lether Britches, 1 pare shues, 4 pare pumps, 1 hat, a black Velvet Vest, 1 pare Velvet Britches, 9 pare hose, 4 fine shirts, 6 common shirts, shoe Buckles." His brother, a bachelor, died in 1747, and also had much worldly geer. He had "cotes and jackets of Camlet, serge and Broadcloth", and "some shirts, some more shirts, and some fine shirts." [Illustration: Figure 67. LACQUERED TABLE.] [Illustration: Figure 68. MAHOGANY BUREAU.] There was no longer such great stress for the necessaries of life, in the Connecticut Valley at least, though there was still hardship and danger a plenty. Game and wild fowl abounded in the woods, and the rivers were full of fish. There is on record a single catch in one night of 6,000 shad and 90 salmon, six men being at work. Each householder was required to keep at least three sheep, and these, with the fields of flax, supplied bedding and clothing. The Wayside Inn, South Sudbury, Mass., is still standing to show what a handsome and hospitable dwelling one of these old-fashioned inns was. In Figure 18, is shown the old dining-room, looking to-day pretty much as it did a century ago. On the left is a handsome lowboy with carving, and from the little alcove on the right many a steaming glass of flip or negus was served to cold and weary travellers. The dining-room was the centre of hospitality in the later Colonial days, as the kitchen had been in the earlier period. There was no handsomer or more hospitable entertainer than John Hancock, of Boston. In September, 1778, he gave a dinner to Count D'Estaing, the French Admiral, and his officers and other dignitaries. There was such a large company that the spacious ball-room at the Hancock House was not large enough, so Faneuil Hall was engaged for the occasion. All contemporary accounts agree that it was a very splendid affair and went off with great _éclat_. The following amusing glimpse behind the scenes shows Mr. Hancock's anxiety about the provisions for this same dinner. "MONDAY NOON, 30 Aug. 1778. DEAR SIR--The Phillistines are coming upon me on Wednesday next at Dinner. To be Serious, the Ambassador, etc., etc., are to dine with me on Wednesday, and I have nothing to give them, nor from the present prospect of our Market do I see that I shall be able to get anything in Town. I must beg the fav^r of you to Recommend to my man Harry where he can get some chickens, Ducks, Geese, Hams, Partridges, Mutton or anything that will save my reputation in a dinner, and by all means some Butter. Be so good as to help me and you will much oblige me. Is there any good Mellons or Peaches or any good fruit near you? Your advice to Harry will much oblige me. Excuse me, I am very troublesome. Can I get a good Turkey? I walked in Town to-day. I dine on board the French Frigate to-morrow, so you see how I have Recovered. God bless you. If you see anything good at Providence, do Buy it for me. "I am Your Real Friend "JOHN HANCOCK." Apparently the friend came to his assistance. The appearance of the company must have been very gay, for bright apparel was not confined to ladies alone. Seven years later James Bowdoin, the Governor of Massachusetts (1785) on a review day at Cambridge, wore a grey wig, cocked hat, white broadcloth coat and vest, red small-clothes, and black-silk stockings. Thomas Jefferson wore a white coat and red breeches. The ladies were looked out for also, and-- "a neat assortment of women's and children's stays, also hoops and quilted coats, also men's and women's shoes from England" were advertised in the "New York Mercury." As early as 1761 Mr. H. Levy offered for sale Hyson tea, coffee and chocolate, and English-made shoes. The "New York Gazette" of May 15, 1789, describes a gown of the prevailing mode as follows: "A plain but celestial blue satin gown over a white satin petticoat. Over the neck was worn a large Italian gauze handkerchief. Head-dress a pouf of gauze in form of a globe, the head-piece of which was made of white satin having a double wing which was trimmed with a wreath of roses. The hair was dressed in detached curls and a floating chignon." At this same period in winter weather the gentlemen wore muffs of bearskin with knots of scarlet ribbon, while the hats of the ladies were so immense that it was suggested that a larger style of umbrella be invented so as to protect them. [Illustration: Figure 69. AMERICAN-MADE CHAIRS.] From 1750 the decoration of the fireplace became of importance, and marble chimney-fronts, blue and white tiles, and beautifully variegated marble hearths in different colours are freely advertised. Carved and open-work mahogany mantelpieces could be had by 1765, and elegant grates and Bath Stoves are imported from England. Fire-dogs or andirons of many patterns are advertised for sale. In Figure 57, there will be seen in the fireplace a pair representing marching soldiers. We have seen in many inventories how the elegances of the East crept in among stouter and more practical goods. In Figure 66 are shown two fine examples of Oriental lacquer-work ornamented with gold and inlaid with mother-of-pearl flowers. The chair is lacquered on some exceedingly light and porous wood, and has a cane seat. The table, which is of a very ornate design, has a heavy base to prevent its tipping over. Both belong to the Erastus Corning Estate, and are now at the Albany Historical Society Rooms. Music-stands were also made of lacquered wood and decorated with gilt patterns and mother-of-pearl. Another very beautiful example of lacquer-work is shown in Figure 67. This is gold lacquer on black and special attention should be given to the Oriental rendering of the pillar and claw feet of the table. The carving is very fine, the dragon's head in which each foot terminates being quite a work of art. The vase which stands on the table is Sèvres, made under Napoleon's direction as a gift to the Emperor of Russia. It never reached its destination; for Napoleon himself went to Russia, and his mission was not to give, but to take. The vase was secured in Paris by Mr. William Bayard, and presented by him to his brother-in-law, General Stephen Van Rensselaer, the eighth patroon of Rensselaerwick. Bureaus with flat tops, upon which stood either lacquered or wooden dressing-glasses, were in use during the latter part of the eighteenth and in the early part of the nineteenth centuries. Sometimes the glasses were attached to the bureau itself, which then had an extra set of small drawers above the larger ones, set back so as to leave a shelf in front of them. Such a piece of a very ornate character is shown in Figure 68. It is of mahogany with gilt mountings of very beautiful design on the pillars of the front. The drawer which swells out has on it a splendid Empire gilt ornament. Above this the rail across the front is painted black and has a pattern in gold upon it. The curved supports to the mirror are carved and then painted with gold, as is the mirror-frame itself. The handles are glass, with bosses of gilt, completing an unusually handsome piece of furniture. The glass handles place the date of this bureau as not earlier than 1820. [Illustration: Figure 70. AMERICAN-MADE ROSEWOOD CARD-TABLE.] The work of domestic furniture-makers has often been referred to in this work, and in Figure 69 are given examples of three chairs, all of them mahogany, the two on the left being in Sheraton style, and the one on the right rather later, and coming under the head of Empire. The latter has the curved back and legs which were very popular, and a very distinctively American touch in the finely carved eagle which ornaments the cross-bar of the back. All three chairs are well carved, and the panelled back of the middle one has a thread of brass moulding. The carved design is adapted from some well-known patterns by Sheraton. The one on the extreme left has some very delicate carving above the three arrows. In the little open panel are a bow and quiver quite out of proportion, in their size, to the large, heavy arrows below it. All three chairs had the covering nailed down with brass nails in the popular style, and the middle one still has the original stuff. American cabinet-makers also excelled in making and carving very beautiful rosewood furniture which was held in high estimation down to the middle of the century. A piece of such work is shown in the handsomely carved card-table represented in Figure 70. The legs are gracefully curved and embellished with fine carving. The top turns, and then opens, a circular portion of the center being covered with cloth. Within the frame the table is finished with handsome curled maple, and has numerous little compartments for holding cards and counters. This specimen belongs to Miss Sarah Frost, of Rochester, N. Y. CHAPTER VII. FRENCH FURNITURE. The glory of the French Renaissance had begun to wane when Louis XIII. came to the throne in 1614, and by the time of his death in 1643 it had become hardly more than a tradition. Its strongest period had been during that century which embraced the reigns of five sovereigns, Francis I., and II., and Henry II., III., and IV. This was from 1515 to 1610, and, of all monarchs who held the throne of France, Francis I., who sat upon it thirty-two years, did more for it in raising the standard of art than had been done by his predecessors in a century, though Henry II. and Henry IV. had made their reigns notable. [Illustration: Figure 71. BEDROOM OF ANNE OF AUSTRIA AT FONTAINEBLEAU.] Rich, ambitious to have France as great in art as Italy, Francis was a liberal patron, and invited to Paris, the centre of all literature and art in France, painters, sculptors, and architects. Italy had difficulties to contend with from the fact that she was divided into many small principalities and dominated by many schools. Florence, Milan, Sienna, Naples,--each had their distinctive styles; but in France the court of Francis was the pivot upon which all the arts turned. He built that series of chateaus which remain among the wonders of the world,--Chambord, Chenonceau, and Fontainebleau. He left traces of his taste on mediæval Amboise, remodelled the Louvre, and finished the restoration of Blois which had been begun by Louis XII. The throes through which France has passed has swept away some of her choicest historic monuments, but Fontainebleau remains a true example of French Renaissance. With this fine old palace are connected some of the most critical moments of French history. In one of its rooms was signed the revocation of the Edict of Nantes; Condé was murdered here in the library, or Gallery of Diana. On the great curved staircase Napoleon bade adieu to what remained of the Old Guard before he went to Elba, and on a little table in one of the six rooms which might be called the suite of the First Empire, extending back of the gallery of Francis I. he signed his act of abdication. The decorations of this palace are superb, the very flower of the French Renaissance. Oak, carved and gilded, wainscots the walls in many of the rooms, but in the chamber of Anne of Austria, shown in Figure 71, the wainscoting consists of carved panels framed in marbles, and above them carved figures stand out from the painted walls, which are divided by oak mouldings into sections, while a beautiful carved cornice of scallop-shells on a gold ground surrounds the room. The French, as no other nation has ever done, set in a fitting shrine the beautiful furniture which they made; the decoration of walls, doors, ceilings, and fireplace always playing an important part in the whole scheme. The French "style," a word on which Lady Dilke strongly insists in her great work on "French Furniture of the XVIII Century," was unmistakably impressed on all they attempted. The woodwork was lighter and more openly carved than Italian work of the same period. Even when made by Italian workmen who swarmed to the French court under promise of abundant employment and rich emolument, the work was imbued with the French spirit and an elegance with which even Italy could not vie. The noble appreciation which had grown up in France was fostered by Louis XIV. when he came to the throne, not so much for art's sake as for his own aggrandizement, and to make his court the most elegant in the world. Louis contemned the style of elegance and luxury begun in an earlier reign, and artists of even superior merit were set to work to make beautiful the homes of those uncrowned queens on whom the "Grand Monarch" lavished such immense sums of money. Versailles was enriched, the lovely gardens planned by Le Notre, with their superb flower beds and fountains, the "green carpet" of turf down which the monarch loved to walk, were all made with enormous outlay of money. The hotels and buildings at Versailles set apart for the service of the king and his attendants were numbered by hundreds. There were the royal stables, the new hotel of the Governor of Versailles, the green rooms of the actors who performed at the palace, the hotel of the keeper of the wardrobe, the hotel of the guardsmen, the English garden, the riding-school, the king's icehouses, the houses of the body-guard, and so on. Street after street was filled with these buildings, besides those devoted to falconry, boar-hunting, the kennels, the little stables, and those filled with shops, vegetable gardens, etc., and in addition that great habitation occupied by more than two thousand persons, with other buildings called "Louises" where the king assigned temporary or permanent lodgings. The great stables built in 1682 and costing 3,000,000 francs are some of the few buildings left to show the magnificence of old Versailles. They were so ample and beautiful that under the direction of the great Louis himself they served sometimes as a ball-room, sometimes as a theatre, and more often as a circus for the princes. [Illustration: Figure 72. BED OF LOUIS XIV AT VERSAILLES.] There is a bound volume extant, bearing the name of Mansart, in which the cost of the palace is given at 153,000,000 francs. This was but the casket itself without any of its furnishings. Louis preferred to live in the open air, and the gardens were merely outdoor drawing-rooms, where people conversed and exchanged the compliments of the day. Round his person the king loved to group his retinue, and down the broad staircases of the gardens sixty ladies with hoopskirts measuring twenty-four feet in circumference could move easily. On the outskirts were a swarm of courtiers and servants in uniforms, costumes, and liveries as brilliant as the rainbow. Consider the life of one of these courtiers under the reign of Louis XIV. Here is the routine of the Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Master of the Hounds: --"He never missed the king's rising or retiring, both changes of dress every day, the hunts and promenades likewise every day, for ten years in succession. Never sleeping away from the place where the king rested, not able to stay away all night, and yet obliged to dine away from court." Even after the court etiquette became more stiff and precise, and the formal manners arranged by Louis and Madame de Maintenon were in daily practice, the smaller details of life remained as elegant as possible. Hoopskirts of such size as has been mentioned were too enormous for chairs, so a sort of stool without arms or back became a necessary article of furniture. One sofa, two arm-chairs, and nine stools were a proper proportion for a set to furnish a room, and these were stiffly set about the walls, leaving the middle of the room quite bare. In Figure 72 is shown part of the bedroom of Louis XIV. at Versailles, with the elaborate decorations which were lavished on that palace, and the furniture which accompanied it. Tapestry-covered chairs and hangings of the richest embroidery were all in harmony with the splendid walls. The tall bronze girandoles were Cupids supporting branches of flowers in ormolu to hold candles. Over the doors were portraits or mirrors surmounted by carved and gilt figures with garlands of flowers. The decorated Boulle cabinet on the right is very different in its lines from those articles as seen in the succeeding reign, when everything assumed a lighter air. The curtains to the bed could completely enfold it, and to their sheltering depths the great Louis is said to have retired before removing his wig. The chairs shown in Figure 73 are of this period, the one upon the right retaining its original covering, the woodwork being carved and gilt. The cane chair on the left is of walnut, and the one in the centre, carved and gilt, is a French adaptation of a Flemish design. [Illustration: Figure 73. CHAIRS OF THE PERIOD OF LOUIS XIV.] It is difficult to re-people one of these splendid rooms and consider a period when, as M. Taine says, "life was wholly operatic." The grandee lived in a state of luxury and grandeur. His trappings were as magnificent as he could make them, and his household was filled with military as well as civil appointments, approaching as nearly to that of the king as possible. The king must have a stable, so at Versailles were 1,875 horses, 217 vehicles, and 1,458 men who were clothed in liveries costing 540,000 francs a year. This is but a single item in the great total considered under fifty or sixty heads. To wait on the king himself, 198 persons were required; some fetched his mall and balls; some combed his hair; others watched his dogs; and there were those who tied his necktie after it had been properly folded. Some there were whose sole business it was to stand in a corner which was not to be left empty. The policy which prescribed the custom at court was all for ostentatious display. St. Simon says: "He (Louis XIV.) was pleased to see a display of dress, table, equipages, buildings, and play; these afforded him opportunities for entering into conversation with people. The contagion had spread from the court into the provinces and to the armies, where people of any position were esteemed only according to their table and magnificence." Louis had so dominated the whole court life that he had brought his courtiers to believe that the main thing in life for layman and churchman, and for women and men alike, was to be at all hours and in every place under the king's eye and within reach of his voice. With all this army of personal attendants to feed, clothe, and shelter, the repairs to houses and furniture represented immense sums yearly, and many establishments were taken under royal patronage in order to command their products and to reduce the expenditures. The history of French furniture is quite closely connected with the history of tapestry, for after a time it was used as a covering. Francis I., who appreciated the value of this textile as an ornament as well as a covering for his walls, and unwilling to buy all his pieces from the skilful looms of Flanders, started a factory in 1531 at Fontainebleau. In 1603 a new factory was started at Paris, under royal patronage, in the workshop of a family of dyers named Gobelin. The first workers were Flemish weavers who were brought over to teach the craft to Frenchmen. Louis XIV. protected the factory through the mediumship of that great financier, Colbert, who appointed Le Brun, the artist, director of the works. In 1667 the factory became the property of the Crown, and most artistic and elegant productions were made. Not only in France did the Gobelins find patronage, but in England as well their work was in great demand. Evelyn writes in the last years of the reign of Charles II.: --"Here I saw the new fabriq of French tapisstry; for designe, tendernesse of worke, and incomparable imitationn of the best paintings beyond anything I ever beheld. Some pieces had Versailles, St. Germain's, and other palaces of the French King, with huntings, figures, and landskips, exotiq fowls, and all to the life rarely don." The golden age of Louis XIV. saw also the golden age of tapestry, for it was during his reign that the proud and royal factory at Aubusson was at its highest estate. The tapestries sent out from this factory were not mere imitations as close as possible of painted pictures. The limitations of the process were ever considered, and the number of gradations in every tint was limited so that the dangers of unequal fading reached their lowest point. The beautiful borders which surrounded the central picture were designed and executed with the same care that was bestowed on the centre, and formed a part of the whole that could ill be spared. [Illustration: BEAUVAIS, LOUIS XVI.] [Illustration: GOBELIN, LOUIS XIV.] [Illustration: AUBUSSON, LOUIS XIV.] [Illustration: Figure 74. TAPESTRY FURNITURE.] The tapestries worked late in the seventeenth century and early in the eighteenth, before the spirit of commercialism had been suffered to encroach on what up to that time had been carefully fostered art work, were all examples of great beauty and merit. In 1694, Louis having lost interest in the manufactory, and Colbert and Le Brun being dead, the works at the Gobelins' factories declined, and they became financially embarrassed. Still the great name was in high esteem, and its more than national reputation was retained. The splendid works which had been sent out from the loom, "The Triumph of Alexander," "The History of the King," "The Elements," and "The Seasons," were no longer in demand. Fontaine's fables and "The Adventures of Don Quixote" took the place of the more dignified designs, and at last sets of chair-backs and sofa covers were woven where previously historic subjects of heroic size had been demanded. Every year there were "_Chancelleries_" made,--series of hangings adorned with the royal arms, which the king gave to his chancellors. "The Adventures of Don Quixote" consisted of a set of from twenty to twenty-eight pieces, and so pleased the public taste that sets were being continually woven from 1723 till the times of the Revolution. They were varied by the different colours of the background, and also by having different borders, some of them designed by artists like Lemaire the younger, and of great beauty. By 1736 the manufactory once more received assistance and patronage from the Crown, and famous old models were renewed, and two new sets, from "The Story of Esther," and "The Story of Medea and Jason," were designed. About the middle of the century came the fatal desire to copy paintings as they came from the hand of the artist, and the traditions which had governed the labor of the tapestry-worker for centuries were thrown aside. In vain the workmen protested: good taste and the principles of decoration were sacrificed, and the artist triumphed. The only check to the artist's exactions was the immense cost of production, for the painter was totally ignorant of the practical difficulties which had to be overcome in carrying out his designs; and as the tapestry-workers were paid by the piece they could no longer calculate or limit the cost of execution. The Beauvais tapestries were long granted superior excellence in flower forms, trees, etc., and for figures also, and they held to the styles in which they excelled. But the Gobelins after 1740 no longer did work which was not fashionable and profitable. In 1755 Boucher, the well-known artist, was appointed director of the Gobelins, and, like his predecessors, believed in simulating, as far as possible the painter's art. There is tragedy in the history of the devoted band of workers who, ill-paid, and not sufficiently recognized, laboured at the looms and in the dye-house to carry out the artist's ideas. One of them Quimiset, a chemist of undoubted ability, committed suicide. Neilson and Audran were both ruined financially; and yet these servants of the crown were not allowed to leave Paris to better their fortunes. [Illustration: Figure 75. COMMODES OF THE TIME OF LOUIS XV.] The Gobelins began to produce tapestry for furniture only during the last half of the eighteenth century. This work was undertaken in hopes of financial profit, for the competition of woven and embroidered stuffs from England, as well as the novelty of English paper-hangings, had crippled them excessively. The very first pieces made were for four chairs and a sofa, in 1748. These furniture tapestries became immediately popular. Screens, seat, sofa and chair backs, showing scenes, figures, ribbon-work, and garlands brought up the failing fortune of Gobelin and made Beauvais wealthy. From this latter factory came those coverings, with designs after Boucher, set in wooden frames of the richest carving and gilt. The cost of these works was as great as brocade and velvet, and crowded out the embroiderers, who in turn aimed, with the means at their command, to rival the efforts of the tapestry-workers. Then came that most sumptuous combination of painting with embroidery, and in 1743 the Duc de Luynes describes a new set of furniture for the queen's bedroom. "It is of white gros de Tours, embroidered and painted, and is quite complete, consisting of the bed, its hangings, the fauteuils, and curtains." During the Revolution, in 1793, a bonfire was made in the courtyard of the Gobelin factory, and a set of hangings with designs of "The Visit of Louis XIV. to the Gobelins," several _portieres_, and a set of "_Chancelleries_" were burned. On another visit the cartoons of Raphael were destroyed, those of "Esther" and "Medea" thrown out, and everything with a tendency toward aristocracy discarded. The terms "Beauvais," "Aubusson," etc., do not give their names to any particular style of tapestry. The various factories wove according to their requirements, and used silk, woolen, silver and gold thread as the design called for it. In Figure 74 are given examples of work from these famous establishments. The Louis XIV. screen is a silk panel, the pattern being Flora, surrounded by Cupids and wreaths and garlands of flowers. The design is by Berain, and was made at the Gobelins; the frame is richly carved and gilt. The Louis XVI. chair is covered with Beauvais tapestry--baskets of flowers and scrolls. The lovely tints are hardly faded, or they have so faded in harmony that it resembles the changing hues of mother-of-pearl. The wooden frame is carved and gilded, a fit setting for the beautiful tapestry. The sofa and chair are but two of a set, the other pieces being nine more chairs. These are of the Louis XIV. period and are covered with Aubusson tapestry,--crimson peonies on a pale-green ground. The bow leg and carved knees are similar to those shown in Figure 73, and, like the one on the right in that illustration are gilded. At a recent sale held in Paris, when the great collection of Madame Lelong was dispersed, the prices obtained for these old tapestries, whether wall-coverings or on furniture, were absolutely astonishing. A screen with four panels of Beauvais tapestry illustrating La Fontaine's fables brought $3,700. One seat, of carved and gilded wood, covered with a piece of Beauvais, brought $2,000, and four chairs in carved and gilded wood with Beauvais tapestry coverings brought $41,000. These prices, while sensational, give some idea of the esteem in which these antiques are held. The tapestry covered pieces shown belong to the Waring Galleries, London. [Illustration: Figure 76. GARDEROBE, PERIOD OF LOUIS XV.] The best-known name of any one man who worked in furniture during the splendid reign of Louis XIV. was of André-Charles Boulle, b. 1642, d. 1732. The superb marquetry work he made, composed of brass, ivory, tortoise-shell, gold, and a choice selection of woods from India, Brazil, and other tropical countries, took the fancy of the king by reason of its sumptuous nature. Boulle was given an apartment in the Louvre and for his great master the celebrated _ébéniste_ composed his choicest work. A cabinet of this work can be seen in Figure 72 to the right of the bed. In 1672 Louis XIV. had made Boulle engraver-in-ordinary of the royal seals. The patent conferring this appointment calls Boulle "architect, painter, carver in mosaic, artist in cabinet work, chaser, inlayer, and designer of figures." The most important works of Boulle which records show were at Versailles, like those he executed for foreign princes, have disappeared. His workshops and studios were of vast extent; he employed many workmen, and consulted for his models a priceless collections of drawings, medals, and gems, comprising drawings by Raphael, and that "manuscript journal kept by Rubens during his travels in Italy and elsewhere, which contained his notes and studies in painting and sculpture, copiously illustrated by pen-and-ink sketches." In "French Furniture of the XVIII Century," by Lady Dilke, this priceless collection belonging to Boulle is described at length, and also the immense loss to which this worker was subjected when, in 1720, his entire warehouses and shops were burned down. Boulle was an old man at this time, and for the rest of his life ill-fortune followed him, and he died wretchedly poor, leaving nothing but debts which for years he had been forced to put off by every variety of makeshift. His four sons, one of whom bore his father's name, never accomplished works of such elegance and solidity as those of their father. They, too, had endless misfortune, were ejected from the apartment in the Louvre which had descended to them from their father, and died, as he did, in poverty and misery. Yet the splendid and showy style of furniture to which Boulle gave his name remained in fashion and was made during the whole of the eighteenth century. After the death of the younger Boulles, pupils who had studied with their father and themselves carried on the work, and of course there were imitators as well. Boulle did not invent this style of decoration, for ebony cabinets ornamented with tortoise-shell and copper were known in France long before Boulle was born. He simply perfected the method of making it. Nor did he confine himself to this particular style of marquetry, for he made works, mentioned in his catalogue, of wood inlaid with other woods of various colours and ornamented with bronze mounts. [Illustration: Figure 77. BEDROOM OF MARIE ANTOINETTE AT THE LITTLE TRIANON.] Under the Regency, fashions changed, not only in manners and clothes, but even in furniture and belongings as well, though this latter change came slowly. The Duc d'Orleans and his daughter, the Duchesse de Berri, conducted entertainments of so scandalous a nature that even the French public was horrified; and gaming, which under Louis XIV. had risen to prodigious extremes, became more furious still, and, possessing all classes of society, spread ruin everywhere. The use of looking-glasses for ornaments had become very much the vogue during the period of Louis XIV.'s reign. They were introduced into walls opposite windows, and in places where reflection would carry out the idea of windows. The court beauties, both male and female, had the walls of their bathrooms lined with them, and the frames in which they were set were lavishly carved and gilded. While Boulle's is associated with the reign of Louis XIV., with the Regency the name of Charles Cressent rose to eminence. His work was much like that of Boulle in character, but he gradually gave more importance to the mounts of metal as a means of ornament, and used less marquetry. He not only used floral forms for these metal decorations, but modelled beautiful little groups of Cupids or Loves with garlands and roses, and these ornaments were applied directly to the rosewood frames of wardrobe or cabinet, whichever was chosen for such embellishment. Nor was he content with such charming subjects only, for he modelled children swinging a monkey, or monkeys swinging themselves, or dancing a tight rope, and invested even these grotesques with style and charm. With the reign of Louis XV. even more sumptuous surroundings were desired. At Fontainebleau the luxury was unparalleled, and when the king held a reception, at which there were both cards and dancing, the spectacle, according to records left in the copious memoirs of the times, was one of sumptuous elegance. Four or five hundred guests surrounded the tables where cards and cavagnole were played. Hanging from the ceiling painted with Cupids garlanded with flowers, were many blazing chandeliers, their brilliancy reflected a thousand times in the tall mirrors. Everything was flooded with light,--the painted walls, the rich gilding, the diamonds sparkling on white necks and in the hair of the women, whose dresses gleamed with gold, silver, pearls, and artificial flowers and fruits, all in the most gorgeous hues. The men were almost as gay. Their hair was powdered, curled, and dressed. Their coats of sky-blue, rose, peach, pearl or puce-colored satin, velvet, or brocade, were embroidered with silks and gold, and ornamented with ruffles and cravats of lace. The dress of a man, with his jewelled sword, shoulder-knots with diamond tags, and buckles of brilliants on shoe and knee, might have cost a small fortune. Gold and silver thread made stiff and costly, stuffs already rich in themselves, while the money lavished on lace had no limit. When a princess of France married it was no uncommon thing for the laces on her bedspreads and linens to reach the sum of $100,000. The frills on her personal linen added $25,000 more. The ruffle on a handkerchief was cheap at $50, and a laced nightcap might easily double that. All this elaboration of elegance had fitting surroundings, and the case was worthy of its contents. [Illustration: Figure 78. CHAIRS AND TABLE OF LOUIS XVI STYLE.] Like his predecessor, Louis XV. lavished vast sums on buildings, and Madame de Pompadour, an uncrowned queen, spent millions more. The Hotel d'Evreux, begun in 1718, was many years later finished under her personal direction. She had the virtue of being a liberal patron of the arts and an encourager of artistic merit wherever she found it. Her taste, her sincere love for art, enabled her at least to secure works of absolute perfection, and during the twenty years of her reign it was mainly her fostering guidance which developed so many of the applied arts. She not only assumed the direction of work at her chateaus and hotels, but she encouraged the manufactory of the beautiful porcelain of Sèvres; she assisted engravers, and essayed to learn the art herself; and by taste, natural and acquired, she was looked upon by the group of artists of her time as a final court of appeal in all critical matters. Her successors were no less extravagant, but they lacked her exquisite and artistic judgment, which amounted almost to genius. It was during this period of Louis XV. that the evolution of chests of drawers, writing-tables, and cabinets--that is chests upon trestle-work--was accomplished. The ornament changed constantly, but the form of the articles remained much the same. The changes wrought in Paris affected the country slowly, and provincial artists working at the period of Louis XV. might have been using the models that had been popular in a previous reign. In Figure 75 are depicted rosewood commodes with curved fronts and ends, handsomely decorated with ormulu work in leaves and scrolls. A French clock of the period, with ormolu mounts, stands on the marble top of one, and on the other is one of black and gold lacquer, with very choice water-gilt mounts. In this period the names of the Caffieri, father and two sons, who were workers in metal, became famous. They executed bronze mounts for furniture like those on the commodes shown in Figure 75, a style which they may be said to have created and by their genius rendered popular. The mounting on these pieces is very simple, and takes the subservient place that ornament always should. But in some of the work executed by the Caffieri the wood became merely the vehicle on which a wealth of ornament was hung. They made not only mounts for furniture, but girandoles, branch-lights, mounts for vases and clocks, and chandeliers--working in bronze and silver as well as in brass. This taste for metal mounts was carried to an extreme, even pieces of richly carved furniture being further ornamented with chiselled brass. It is an item of interest that the monument to General Montgomery which is placed on that side of St. Paul's Chapel, New York city, which faces Broadway, should have been designed and executed by Caffier in Paris in 1777. The General was buried first in Quebec, and afterward removed to New York by act of Congress. In Figure 76 is given what is called a _garderobe_, that is wardrobe, with a basket of flowers at the top, this and the two bunches of flowers at the tops of the doors being in ormolu. [Illustration: Figure 79. ENCOIGNURE, PERIOD OF LOUIS XVI.] Even as early as the middle of the previous century there had been imitators of the splendid lacquer-work of the Orient. By 1723 the three Martin Brothers, Julien, Robert, and Simon-Etienne, had become quite famous for their use of a transparent varnish, which, as "master painters and varnishers," they had perfected in their business. They pushed their trade, and by 1748 were under national protection, so popular had their wares become. In 1742 they perfected a certain green varnish which was immensely popular, and for which they had many orders, some of them from the king himself. They never excelled as painters, but the beauty of this famous green ground, powdered with gold, is very charming. Very little of this famous work remains, a few fire-screens and some splendid coaches, with some small boxes for snuff or patches, are all that exist. But in these small pieces like the boxes, which were considered worthy of gold and jewelled mounts, we can see this famous work to the best advantage. There were ribbings, stripings, waves, and flecks which gleam wonderfully through the varnish. Sometimes there are a few flowers or a Cupid scattered on the surface, but usually, when the green ground was employed, no decoration was considered necessary. With the death of Robert Martin in 1765 the skill necessary to continue this work was lost, and this charming style of decoration dropped back merely to a trade, and "Vernis-Martin" became hardly more than a name. Among the other great workers of this period were Oeben, whose marquetry in coloured woods was of extreme elegance, and Riesener, who began to execute his beautiful pieces of furniture under Louis XV. in what is known as his earlier style, but who finally created the straight-legged types of Louis XVI. style with which his name became associated. In the work which he did for Marie Antoinette at the Little Trianon in 1777, the pure Louis XVI. style is carried out. The earlier pieces, delivered as early as 1771, still betray the influence of a previous period. In Figure 77 is shown the bedroom of Marie Antoinette at the Little Trianon. Here we see the later style set by Riesener, with the straight carved legs, the woodwork being painted and gilded. The silk factories at Lyons were no longer as well patronized as they had been, and to revive interest in them new furniture was ordered for the queen, to be upholstered in brocade, and with curtains and hangings to match. Everything in these rooms breathes of dainty elegance,--the carvings of the mantelpiece, the walls decorated with garlands of flowers and Cupids, even the metal mounts, chiselled wreaths and rosettes, were wrought with the beauty and finish of goldsmith's work. In the small chair by the bedside is seen a style with gilt framework and embroidered cushions, a kind of covering which was always in demand. In 1770 two coaches were sent to Vienna for Marie Antoinette. The work of the embroiderer was selected to embellish their interiors, and the description of them is given by Bachaumont: "They were two berlins, much larger than usual, but yet not so large as those of the king. One is lined with rose velvet and the Four Seasons are embroidered on the largest cushions, with all the attributes of a festival. The other is lined with blue velvet, and on the cushions of this are worked the Four Elements. There is not a touch of painting about them, but the work of the artist is so perfect and finished that each one is a complete work of art." [Illustration: Figure 80. BED OF JOSEPHINE AT FONTAINEBLEAU.] The name of the embroider was Treaumau, and so celebrated did the beauty of these royal cushions make him that he received large orders, the most important being one from Madam de Berri for a _vis-à-vis_. The two berlins for Marie Antoinette were placed on exhibition before they were sent to her, and constituted an event of the day. The three pieces shown in Figure 78 are pure types of Louis XVI. style. They are at the Cooper Institute, New York. The chair on the right has its original embroidered cover, and the straight carved leg so much in evidence. All three pieces are entirely gilt wherever the woodwork shows. The top of the table is marble. The chair to the left is very prettily carved with a torch and bow and arrows, according to the conceit of the times, when everything was to be joyous and gay, all suffering and sorrow being resolutely thrust out of sight. Rose, blue, and gold were the colours affected, nothing sombre being allowed. The whole life was careless and without responsibility. The letters of the day, Saint-Beuve, Comte de Tilly, Duc de Lauzun, and Madam d'Oberkirk, draw graphic pictures of the life of pleasure. The Duc de Lauzun says that one of his mother's lackeys, who could read and write tolerably well, was made his tutor. "They gave me the most fashionable teachers besides, but M. Roche (the tutor) was not qualified to arrange their lessons, nor to qualify me to benefit by them. I was, moreover, like all the children of my age and station, dressed in the handsomest clothes to go out, and naked and dying with hunger in the house." This was not through unkindness, but because of dissipation and carelessness, all the time and attention being given elsewhere. Even in the last days of the _ancien régime_ little boys had their hair powdered and dressed in ringlets and curls. They wore a sword, carried a chapeau under the arm, wore laces and frills, and coats with cuffs heavy with gold lace. The small girls were their mothers in miniature. At six one of them would present her hand for a little dandy to kiss, her little figure would be squeezed into a stiff corset, her huge hoop-skirt supported a skirt of brocade enwreathed with garlands of flowers. On her head was a structure of false curls, puffs, knots, and ribbons, held on by pins and topped with plumes; and if she was pale they would put rouge on her face. By force of habit and instruction she bore herself like a mature woman. Her most important instructor was the dancing-master, her never-ending study deportment. In the eighteenth century drawing-room women were queens. They prescribed the law and fashion in all things. There was no situation, however delicate, that they did not save through tact and politeness. This was the time when first Watteau, and later Lancret and Fragonard, painted the _Fêtes galantes_, when pretty picnics and dancing in a woody dell were great diversions. It was an idealized life of the brilliant world of France which early in the eighteenth century Watteau painted. Scattered all through the land were sumptuous dwellings of the rich, upon which fortunes were lavished. Beaus and belles alike dressed themselves _à la Watteau_. He became the lover's poet, a painter of an ideal pastoral which hardly existed, but to which his hand gave beauty and value. This was one side. On the other, besides heavy taxation, poor crops, flood, famine, and the devastation of war, there was always the pest. This terrible contagious fever, with the smallpox, was a scourge to the people. Hundreds fell victims to these twin plagues, for the usual treatment was copious bleeding. [Illustration: Figure 81. BED OF NAPOLEON AT GRAND TRIANON.] But the court, while it might suffer at times from sickness and death, never allowed itself to think of such things. It amused itself with balls and masques, plays, and even with blindman's-buff. The gardens at Versailles were always in gala dress, and at night musicians played among the trees, and thousands of lights sparkled among the flowers. Fifty years later they played at simplicity too, these great ladies and elegant cavaliers, laying aside the silks and brocades of which a surfeit had wearied them, and wearing picturesque gowns of simple material and cut. Marie Antoinette herself set the example in her retreat at Little Trianon, with the muslin gown and fichu crowned with a straw hat, in which she ran across the gardens. Beneath all this elegance, amiability, and extravagance the Revolution seethed and boiled and finally overran and destroyed. Till almost the very end extravagance increased, and in Figure 79 is shown an encoignure, or corner cupboard with commode below, and cabinet above, of the most elaborate inlaid work, with very rich ormolu mounts. This work is by David de Luneville, and is a marvel of the intricacy of inlaying, many different woods being used in that jumble of ornament which forms the decoration of the door in the cabinet. At each intersection of the lattice work inlay is a little rosette. The divisions of the lower part have an edging of satin-wood, which in the centre panel is made more ornate with an inlay of ebony. This piece is at the Waring Galleries, London. The new conditions in France wrought changes in every detail of life. Simplicity, so called, was becoming the watchword, and once more antique models were sought for forms and decorations. Under the Empire the style was much less graceful, the lines coarser, and the elaboration of ornament heavy. Could anything be less pleasing than Josephine's bed at Fontainebleau, shown in Figure 80? It is one of the few unsightly things in that beautiful palace, where are now gathered so many works of art. The bedstead is covered with heavy chiselled ornaments in brass, and surmounted by a canopy held on pillars. This canopy is partly of carved wood and partly of embroidered satin. There are strings of gold beads hanging from this satin, and in addition heavy satin curtains very richly embroidered. These are edged with a long and clumsy fringe. The whole room is in keeping with the bed, for the floor is covered with a carpet bearing the imperial insignia all over it, and the hangings on the walls have countless spots in lieu of a pattern. It was at Fontainebleau that the sentence of divorce was passed on Josephine, and it seems possible that the sleepless nights which the poor lady endured must have been rendered more miserable by the unlovely character of her surroundings. It is with pleasure that one turns to Figure 81, showing the bed of the great Emperor himself, at Grand Trianon, Versailles. It is a good example of the best Empire work, and is mahogany ornamented with ormolu mounts in classic style. [Illustration: Figure 82. ROOM AT FONTAINEBLEAU, WITH HISTORIC TABLE.] It was now the fashion to decry the furniture or costumes which had prevailed during the latter half of the eighteenth century, and to seek the Athenian models for gowns and furniture. Nor were these models used in their simple shapes, but transformed into quite other guise by the touch of French hands. Marquetry was no longer considered good taste, and David the painter was largely responsible for much of the theatrical effect which was noted both in costume and household belongings. After the fall of the monarchy, sales had been held, and what had not been destroyed had been sold. It was now necessary to fill again the palaces that had been denuded, and Percier, the architect, and Joseph Desmalter, the cabinet-maker, were the men chosen to do it. Desmalter is responsible for the use of mahogany commodes embellished with bronze and gilt like those which flank the bed in Figure 81. After the expedition to Egypt, Sphynx figures were introduced in bronze or brass to uphold tables and as arms for chairs. These, however, did not become popular, and soon were replaced by classic heads. In Figure 82 is shown a room in Fontainebleau furnished in Empire style. The imperial N may be seen on the corners of the console tables and on the commode. The walls are covered with damask woven in geometric forms, and the rooms once so light and brilliant with their dainty arabesques and flowers, Cupids and birds on the ceilings, are now dark and severe. The splendid chandelier of Venetian glass is the sole reminder of a previous reign. The only piece of furniture in the room which is absolutely plain is the small mahogany table in the foreground. Upon this Napoleon signed his abdication. In one of the rooms adjoining the leave-taking between Josephine and Napoleon occurred, after which he went to St. Cloud and she to Malmaison. The commode shows as well as anything the marked change which took place in the styles under the Empire. The graceful curves of front and sides are gone; the feet are stumpy, and so short that the pleasing proportion between the parts is quite lost. The constant repetition of the laurel-wreath on chairs, walls, mantelpieces and furniture is very monotonous, and we miss the graceful curves of the acanthus and celery leaves. In Figure 83 is a mahogany reading and writing desk combined. The brass ornaments are beautifully chiselled, and, though some are lost, enough remain to show what a splendid piece of furniture it once was. They partake, in their delicacy, of the metal work of the previous century, particularly the escutcheons and the groups of flowers and musical instruments which are on the tops of the side pillars. The desk top lifts up, and inside there are pigeon-holes and drawers finished in satin-wood. The hole in the rail above the doors is not a keyhole, but in it fits a handle by which the whole upper part of the desk is raised on an iron rod so as to suit the height of who-ever uses it. This piece is at the Museum of the Cooper Institute. The rage for furniture in Empire style was not confined to France alone, but crossed the channel to England, where it became even less attractive, and was also used by our own cabinet-makers, as has been shown in previous chapters. The changes in the styles of French furniture, like those which took place in England in the same century (the eighteenth), were not any more definitely marked. One period overlapped another, certain characteristics were retained and put to new uses, so that a perfect style was arrived at only after years of growth. [Illustration: Figure 83. EMPIRE READING AND WRITING DESK.] With the name of Louis XIV. is associated the furniture of Boulle, with its wealth of wonderful inlay. The metal mount in its most correct and elegant form marks the period of Louis XV. The reign of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette shows the change from the graceful curves of leg and construction lines to straight lines and less generous proportions, while the use of the metal mount is brought to the greatest extreme. The beauty of form taken from leaf and shell, wrought in metal and placed on the lines of fine construction which had marked the epoch of Louis XV., ran wild under the workers in the next era, and the fancy for overlaying with costly ornament blinded the eyes to the poor shapes employed, which were inspired by a search among classic forms. Even the severest form may become vulgar when overloaded with ornament, and with the reign of Louis XV. passed the production of some of the finest furniture ever made. What was poor under Louis XVI. became poorer yet under the Napoleonic era, and the men employed, instead of drawing from the choice models which still remained, still farther debased what in previous times had risen to the dignity of high art. CHAPTER VIII. MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS. The evolution of the piano from the clavichord occupied the attention of musicians for over three hundred years, or from 1404, when the earliest record occurs, to 1720, when Cristofori's piano was completed in Florence. The next instrument in the upward development after the clavichord was the virginal, a parallelogram in shape, with a projecting keyboard. Then came the spinet. The earliest of these now in existence is in Paris, and was made at Verona in 1523. By 1703 two Englishmen, Thomas and John Hitchcock, father and son, had made a great advance in the construction of spinets, giving them a wide compass of five octavos from G to G. It was not until about 1660, after the restoration of the Stuarts, that the name "harpsichord" was given to the long wing-shaped instrument, similar to our grand piano, which had hitherto been called _clavecembalo_ in Italy, _flügel_ in Germany, and _clavecin_ in France. Early in the sixteenth century the progressive Dutch had put into use double keyboards and stops. These were imported into England, and to John Haward is due the credit for the idea of pedals for the harpsichord. This was in 1676. This Haward was a fashionable instrument-maker in the days of the lively Pepys, who mentions him several times. Thus in April, 1668, he records: --"Took Aldgate Street in my way, and then did call upon one Haward, who makes virginals, and there did like of a little espinette, and will have him finish it for me; for I had a mind to a small harpsicon, but this takes up less room." The little espinette took some time to finish; for in July he says: --"while I to buy my espinette, which I did now agree for, and did at Haward's meet with Mr. Thacker, and heard him play on the harpsicon so as I never heard man before, I think." On the 15th of July the bargain is concluded; for he states, under that date: "At noon is brought home the espinette I bought the other day of Haward; cost me £5." A few days later he combines business with pleasure, for he notes: "To buy a rest for my espinette at the ironmonger's by Holborn Conduit, where the fair pretty woman is, that I have lately observed there." Figure 85 shows a very beautiful spinet made by Domenico di Pesaro, in Italy, in 1661. The instrument can be taken from its outer case, is of cedar wood, has a projecting keyboard, and is decorated with ivory studs. The outer case is very handsome, decorated with _gesso_ work, (which was so much copied by Robert Adam after his return from Italy) this work being gold on a pale-green ground. The decoration on the inside of the cover is a boating scene, the keys are of light wood, the sharps being black. The instrument, triangular in shape, rests on three richly carved and gilt legs, and is four feet eight inches long, by nineteen inches wide. It looks very tiny, even beside a "baby grand." The beauty and enrichment of the cases in which these instruments were placed shows with what care and reverence they were regarded. Harpsichords varied much in having one, two, or occasionally three banks of keys, and being placed in upright cases, the covers of which opened like a bookcase, or in a horizontal case, as in the one shown in Figure 86. Each of the three banks of keys has a compass of five octaves, from F to F. The entire case is gilt Louis XV. style, decorated with elaborate carvings and with paintings of flowers and figures in medallions and borders. On the outside of the cover is the coat of arms of the Strozzi family. The name of the maker is engraved on an ivory plate above the keyboards, and reads-- VICENTIUS SODI FLORENTIUS FECIT. ANNO DOMINI 1779. The length of the case is seven feet; it is three feet wide, and nearly ten inches deep. The harpsichord held its own for fifty years after the invention of the pianoforte, for Bartolommeo Cristofori published his invention as early as 1711, although he did not perfect his piano till 1720. His action has the escapement, without which there can be no vibrating note, and the "check," which was an all-important step toward repeating notes. There are preserved at Potsdam, Germany, three pianos which belonged to Frederick the Great, and which were made by Silberman, who exactly copied the action as well as the structure of Cristofori's invention. In Figure 87 is shown the first piano made by Cristofori. Above the front board is the following inscription: BARTHOLOMÆUS DE CHRISTOPHORIS PATAVINUS INVENTOR FACIERAT FLORENTIÆ MDCCXX This instrument, as well as the two previously shown, belong to the collection of musical instruments given by Mrs. Crosby Brown to the Metropolitan Museum, New York. [Illustration: Figure 84. ORGAN IN ST. MICHAEL'S CHURCH, CHARLESTON, S. C.] This crude instrument bears testimony to years of patient endeavour. Like so many old and valuable treasures this one was harboured many years for sentimental reasons only, and because it had been given to an only daughter by her father. The story of the discovery of its value came about as follows, as told in a letter by Signor Martelli, to whose mother the piano belonged. "For the sake of economy during the time that Florence was the capital of Italy, we rented the first floor of our house, No. 3, Via del Melarancio, and occupied the second floor. In 1872 Signora Martelli (my mother) again changed her apartments from the second to the first floor, and at the moment the transfer of our furniture was taking place from one floor to the other, Prof. Cosimo Conti, a scholar and intimate friend of ours, came to visit us. The professor, who was in close correspondence with Cavaliere L. Puliti, who was spending a great deal of his time in trying to discover the origin of the piano, discovered on it to his great surprise an inscription which attested that it had been made by Bartolomeo Christofori. He immediately informed Cavaliere L. Puliti of this fact, and he came at once to examine it. Then it was ascertained that it was one of the rarest and most valuable pianos in existence. We sent at once for a tuner and had it put into good condition." The piano was bought by Signora Martelli's father, about 1819, from the Grand Ducal Palace at Siena, at an auction sale, held by order of the Minister of the Household, of all such things as he considered worthless and of no use. The piano was shuffled out of the Ducal Palace, much as some of our interesting relics have been shuffled out of the White House, and offered at auction.[1] [Footnote 1: The writer has seen a very beautiful carved and gilt round mirror, once the property of Dolly Madison, which was bought at a sale of White House furniture for twenty-five dollars.] The Christofori piano has a case of cedar, which is painted black on the outside. It stands on three clumsy turned legs. The keys are light-wood naturals and black sharps. The ivory knobs on the side blocks may be withdrawn, and the action removed from the case. There are two strings to each note, and the length of the instrument is seven feet seven and a half inches. It is three feet three inches wide at the front and nine and a half inches deep. Keyed instruments at first found little favor in the ears of the Italians, who much preferred the violin with its "singing voice" and its superior capacity for expression. Yet they contributed much to the early history of this branch of the art, though the Germans cultivated more highly these instruments, which were, in their first state, very defective in producing melody. It was Domenico Scarlatti who laid the foundation of modern music for keyed instruments, and his music for the harpsichord was not confined to fugues and fantasias, as was most of the harpsichord music of early times. The real centre, however, in the line of progress for music for this instrument proved to be Germany, and Graun, Hasse, and John Christian Bach all wrote for the harpsichord. In America some of the first instruments to come into use were small organs. They are mentioned as early as 1711. Although large church organs, with three rows of keys and pedals, were in use in Europe by the opening of the sixteenth century, it was long before they were found here. [Illustration: Figure 85. SPINET.] The rivalry which church music seems to inspire in the breasts of those who render it has long existed, and extends even to those who make the instruments. The following story from "Hawkin's History of Music" bears out this statement. "Bernard Smith, or more properly Schmidt, a native of Germany, came to England with his nephews Gerard and Bernard, and to distinguish him from them obtained the name of 'Father Smith.' He was the rival of Harris from France and built an organ at Whitehall too precipitately, to gain the start of them, as they had arrived nearly at the same time in England. Emulation was powerfully exerted. Dallans joined Smith, but died in 1672, and Renatus Harris, son of the elder Harris, made great improvements. The contest became still warmer. The citizens of London, profiting by the rivalship of these excellent artists, erected organs in their churches; and the city, the court, and even the lawyers were divided in judgment as to the superiority. In order to decide the matter, the famous contest took place in the Temple Church upon their respective organs, played by eminent performers, before eminent judges, one of whom was the too celebrated Jeffreys. Blow & Purcell played for Smith, and Lully, organist to Queen Catharine, for Harris. In the course of the contest Harris challenged Father Smith to make, by a given time, the additional stops of the vox humana, the cremona or viol stop, the double courtel or bass flute, etc., which was accepted, and each exerted his abilities to the utmost. Jeffreys at length decided in favor of Smith, and Harris's organ was withdrawn. Father Smith maintained his reputation and was appointed organ-builder to Queen Anne. Harris went to Bristol." In the first half of the eighteenth century the salaries paid to organists were small indeed, and it was customary for them to add to their modest stipend in various ways. In Charleston, S. C., in 1739, the organist taught the art of psalmody. A dozen years before this the organist at King's Chapel, Boston, Mass., taught dancing. Mr. Drake, in his "History of Boston," says that King's Chapel was enlarged and rebuilt in 1713, and an organ was presented by Mr. Thomas Brattle. In 1756 the King's Chapel Society imported a new organ from London, and the old one was sold to St. Paul's Church, Newburyport. It was used there for eighty years, and then sold to St. John's Church, Portsmouth, N. H. The original pipes and wind-chest remain to-day in perfect condition. The second church organ in New England was one in a case of English oak, presented by Bishop Berkeley to Trinity Church, Newport, R. I., in 1733. It had twenty-three gilded pipes and was fourteen and a half feet high, eight feet front, and eight feet deep. It was made by Richard Bridge, London. This organ was used for a hundred and eleven years by Trinity Church, till 1844, and after a sojourn of a few years in Brooklyn, N. Y., it was bought for a church in Portsmouth, R. I., where it still is, in excellent condition. South Carolina, with her riches and her close communication with England, had abundant masters to teach not only the more elementary branches, but accomplishments as well. By 1774 there were two hundred persons in the colony engaged in teaching, and according to advertisements a knowledge of English, Latin, and Greek could be obtained at any time after 1712. French and music were constantly taught after 1733. Lessons on the harpsichord, spinet, violin, violoncello, guitar, and flute were all to be had after 1733, and the boys could be perfected in fencing and the girls in needlework before the middle of the century. By 1734 a dancing-school was opened at Charleston, and in 1760 Nicholas Valois gives notice that he still receives pupils in dancing, and that he has received "40 of the newest country dances, jiggs, rigadoons, etc., from London, which he proposes to teach." [Illustration: Figure 86. HARPSICHORD.] In 1752 the vestry of St. Phillip's Church, Charleston, sent to London for an organist. The parish guaranteed him £50 sterling. He was to have the privilege of teaching the harpsichord or spinet, which would add 150 guineas more per annum, and also to have "benefits of concerts which his obliging behaviour to the gentlemen and ladies of the place may amount to 300 or 400 guineas more." The years between 1728 and 1763 were a time of unprecedented prosperity in South Carolina. The luxuries of the day were within reach of modest fortunes, and British modes and manners were eagerly followed. Josiah Quincy, in describing his visit to "Charles Town" in 1774, speaks of the famous St. Cecilia Society, which began as a musical club, all the performers being amateurs. He writes: "The music was good, the two bass viols and French horns were grand. There were upwards of two hundred and fifty ladies present and it was called no great number. In loftiness of head-dress these ladies stoop to the daughters of the North; in richness of dress surpass them. The gentlemen, many of them dressed with richness and elegance--uncommon with us; many with swords on." The Carolinians travelled often to England. They were lively and expensive in their dress, and an Englishman visiting Charleston in 1782 writes home that it "was the pleasantest and politest as it is one of the richest cities in all America." The charming old city still retains its two first recommendations, though, alas, the riches have flown. In 1768 the organ seen in Figure 84, was imported from England for St. Michael's Church, Charleston. Within a little frame on one side of the organ is an inscription as follows. JNO SNETZLER FECIT, LONDONI, 1767. This inscription was found on one of the pipes of the organ when it was taken down during the bombardment of Charleston in the Civil War. At this time the organ was stored away in the Sunday-school room of St. Paul's Church, Radcliffeboro, for safe keeping. This is said to be the largest old church organ in the country, and this church probably had the first surpliced choir of boys. They are mentioned in the vestry books as early as 1794. The photograph of this organ was procured through the courtesy of Mr. Charles N. Beesley, of Charleston. [Illustration: Figure 87. CRISTOFORI PIANO.] In the homes in various parts of the country, besides the virginal, were found the hand lyre, large and small fiddle, the recorder, flute, and hautboy. Some of these were imported, some were home-made. The first church organ built in New England was made for Christ Church, Boston, by Thomas Johnson, in 1752, and indeed by this time music in churches was pretty general all over the country. The puritans, with their hatred of anything secular, or, as it seems now, of anything that could ornament or beautify this none too joyous stay on earth, condemned music. In his "History of Music in New England", Mr. Hood says that before 1690 music was mostly written in psalm-books, the number of tunes rarely exceeding five or six. At the beginning of the eighteenth century New England congregations were rarely able to sing more than three or four tunes, and even these were sung by the doleful process of "lining out". The deacon would read one line of a psalm, and the congregation would sing it. Then he would read the next, and so on. About 1720 an effort was made to improve this method of singing, but it met with violent opposition. Some of the objections advanced were that "it grieved good men and caused them to behave disorderly;" that it was "Quakerish and Popish"; that "the names of the notes were blasphemous;" etc. Yet after a while the congregations were soothed by the publication of several "Letters of Pacification", written by ministers, and some books were published like that of the Rev. Thomas Walter of Roxbury, Mass., entitled: "The Grounds and Rules of Musick Explained. Or, An Introduction to the Art of Singing by Note Fitted to the Meanest Capacity By Thomas Walter, A.M. Recommended by Several Ministers, 'Let everything that hath truth praise the Lord.' Ps. 150. 6. Boston." Singing-Schools for the instruction of the young were opened, and music, the only science allowed, crept into the church. "The Newport Mercury" for January 8, 1770, contains the following: "The Public are hereby informed That a Singing-School will be opened at Mr. Bradford's Schoolhouse next Thursday evening by a Person who has taught the various Branches of Psalmody in the Provinces of New York, Massachusetts Bay and Connecticut and those Gentlemen and Ladies who have an inclination to improve in this Excellent Art may expect all that Care and Dilligence which is necessary to their being rightly instructed in the same." William Tuckey of New York was a schoolmaster in that city about 1753, and taught singing to children. In 1766 the trustees of Trinity Church paid him £15 for performing the music for the opening of St. Paul's Chapel in New York. By 1775 choir singing had become more general, and the old system of lining out was dying, but dying hard. In several parishes the singers, male and female, were requested to sit in the gallery and "carry on the singing in public worship." Many anecdotes are given in Dr. Ritter's "Music in America", showing how the choir, once called into being, soon became a thorn in the ministers flesh, sometimes being rebuked from the pulpit, and in retaliation refusing to sing. That the music was bad goes without saying, for the singers were ill-trained under incompetent teachers, and the music was often incorrect. Dr. Ritter gives the proportion of women voices to men as about twenty to one hundred and thirteen. The proposition to let women sing the air was not to be considered for a moment, since men had a "prescriptive right to lead, and women were forbidden to take the first part in song or any other religious service." [Illustration: Figure 88. HARP.] S. Howe published in 1804 the "Farmer's Evening Entertainment", and in it gives directions for beating time: "To beat crotchets in common Time, let the fingers fall on the table six inches, then bring the heel of the hand down gently, then raising it a little higher, throw open the fingers to begin the next bar. For triple Time, let the fingers fall on the table, then the heel of the hand, then raise the whole hand six inches, keeping the fingers straight, which fills the bar." But while religious music was undergoing violent changes, secular music was having a more peaceful time, and instrument-builders were becoming more numerous and successful. In 1774, in the "New York Gazette" is this advertisement. "John Shybli, Organ-builder at Mr. Samuel Princes' Cabinet- makers in Horse-and-Cart St. New York. Makes, repairs and tunes all sorts of organs, harpsichords and Fortepianos, on the most reasonable terms. N. B. He has now ready for sale one neat chamber organ, one hammer spinet, one common spinet. Mr. Samuel Blyth of Salem, Mass., made "spinnetts" (they spelled them with two n's in those days) and then gave instruction upon them. He did not require cash payment either, as witness the following bill, now in the possession of Mr. Henry Brooks, author of "Olden-Time Music." Mrs. Margaret Barton to Sam Blyth Dr. To making a spinnett for her daughter Supra Cr. £18 0 0 By 34 oz 1¾ dwt of Old silver a. 6. pr. oz. £10 4 11 By cash to Ballance £7 15 1 -------- £18 0 0. Salem 7th Feb'y 1786 Rec'd payment Sam^l Blyth At Mount Vernon is still to be seen the harpsichord bought for Nellie Custis by General Washington. In 1798, writing to a young friend at Philadelphia, she says: "I am not very industrious, but I work a little, read a little, play on the harpsichord, and find my time fully taken up with daily employments." There is an old song given in "Historic Landmarks of Maryland and Virginia" as being one which Nellie Custis used to sing, accompanying herself on the harpsichord. We wonder who selected for her. "THE TRAVELER AT THE WIDOW'S GATE. "A traveler stop't at a widow's Gate, She kept an Inn and he wanted to bait; She kept an Inn and he wanted to bait; But the widow she slighted her guest, But the widow she slighted her guest, For when nature was forming an ugly race, She certainly moulded the traveler's face As a sample for all the rest, as a sample for all the rest. The chambermaid's sides they were ready to crack When she saw his queer nose and the hump on his back; A hump isn't handsome, no doubt; And though t'is confessed the prejudice goes Very strongly in favor of wearing a nose, A nose shouldn't look like a snout. A bag full of gold on the table he laid, 'T had a wondrous effect on the widow and maid, And they quickly grew marvelous civil; The money immediately altered the case, They were charmed with his hump and his snout and his face, Though he still might have frightened the devil. He paid like a prince, gave the widow a smack, And flop'd on his horse at the door like a sack, While the landlady, touching his chin, Said, 'Sir, should you travel this country again, I heartily hope that the sweetest of men Will stop at the widow's to drink.'" The names of some other popular songs of this period were "The White Cockade," "Irish Howl," "Hessian Camp," "Nancy of the Mill," "Every Inch a Soldier," "When Nichola First to Court Began," "Baron Steuben's March," "Sweet Village of the Valley," "King of Sweden's March," etc. The Revolutionary echoes seemed to be still reverberating. [Illustration: Figure 89. BASS VIOL.] In the "Domestic Life of Thomas Jefferson" there is a description given of Monticello, which he built in 1770-1772, and a diagram of the lower rooms showing where each piece of furniture stood. It seems very sparsely fitted out, yet it had a great reputation for elegance. The house was but a story and a half high, and on the ground floor was a great hall, drawing-room, dining-room, tea-room, sitting-room, and two bedrooms besides the one occupied by Jefferson himself. In this latter room was a couch upon which Jefferson rested when studying, a dressing-table and mirror, a chair near the wall, and beside it a small bookcase. There was no closet, so in one corner was a rack upon which his clothes where hung. The chief ornament to the drawing-room was his daughter's, Mrs. Randolph's, harpsichord. Standing about were many busts, of Alexander of Russia, Hamilton, Voltaire, Turgot, and Napoleon, and portraits of Washington, Adams, Franklin, Madison, etc. The house was at least abundantly furnished with chairs, for Jefferson himself leaves an inventory which states that there were 36 of mahogany and 44 of gold leaf. Of small tea and card tables there were 13. In the dining-room, well toward its centre, stood Jefferson's chair and a candle-stand. His particular hobby was blooded horses, and he used only the finest Virginia stock. This same harpsichord was, as early as 1785, in Jefferson's thoughts, and he writes to his daughter, Polly, from France, that she shall be taught to play on it, as well as to draw and dance, to read and talk French, "and such other things as will make you more worthy of the love of your friends." Even in remote places like Monticello, where everything had to be transported by cart, or at Johnson Hall, Sir John Johnson's home in the Mohawk valley, harpsichords, as well as other expensive luxuries, were to be found. Sir John's harpsichord was confiscated by the government in December, 1777, at the same time with the table which is now at the Historical Rooms in Albany. While musical instruments are only rarely mentioned in the inventories of the great body of the people, yet we have seen that they were here both of domestic manufacture and imported. Thomas Harrison, organist of Trinity Church, advertises in the "New York Mercury" for 1761 that he has "harpsichords and spinets imported and for sale." The harp was not so often seen as other instruments, on account both of the great cost of the instrument and of the difficulty of tuning it. It was not until 1720 that the pedal harp was invented by a Bavarian named Hochbrücker. By means of the pedal working a small plate set with projecting pins, the performer was able to raise the pitch of each string a semitone. The mechanism was concealed in the front pillar, and each note was affected in all its octaves. Erard made farther improvements. The harp shown in Figure 88 is in the Metropolitan Museum, New York. It is a very handsome one, painted blue, and resting on four claw feet. The pillar is fluted, and the ornaments, three medallions of dancing girls, with wreaths below, are executed in brass. It has forty-two strings of gut and seven pedals. It was made by Naderman, Paris, France, late in the eighteenth century. Naderman perfected the action of the first pedal harp invented by Hochbrücker. In the South Kensington Museum, London, England, is a harp which belonged to the ill-fated Marie Antoinette; it also was made by Naderman in 1780. [Illustration: Figure 90. GLASS HARMONICA.] The harp in its various forms is an instrument of great antiquity. The Greeks and Romans, ever alive to the possibilities of everything that tended to grace and beauty, admired this instrument not only for its sweet sound but for its pleasing form. We must look to Egypt for the origin of the harp, as there are representations in their picture writings of stringed instruments of a bow-form that support the idea that the first conception of a harp was drawn from the tense string of a warrior's bow. This very primitive instrument was borne on the performer's shoulder and played horizontally. Between this crude instrument and the splendid vertical harps shown in the frescoes of the time of Rameses III., painted more than three thousand years ago, there is a chain of pictures showing so many varieties of forms that the growth from the bow-form into the triangular harp is explained. The Assyrians, like the Egyptians, had harps without a front pillar, but differing from them in using sound-holes, and having the sound body uppermost. We assign to King David the harp, but mediæval artists more frequently depicted him with the psaltery, a horizontal stringed instrument, the parent of the piano. The harp has always been the instrument of the Celtic race, and harpists were held in peculiar veneration. For many a long year harpists traveled from one castle to another, sure always of a welcome and seat in a warm corner. In return they not only amused the company with their songs, but brought the news, and isolated and remote families often heard from the outer world by such uncertain means as these. For centuries the English harpers were protected in many ways, and no one has taken advantage of such a picturesque class with the skill of Sir Walter Scott. The most renowned one he introduced as a character was Blondel de Nesle, in the "Talisman," that wonderful picture of the days of the Crusades. The first greeting to the youth when he appeared at Richard's camp shows the estimation in which these knights of the harp were held. "Blondel de Nesle!" Richard exclaimed joyfully "welcome from Cyprus, my king of minstrels! Welcome to the King of England, who rates not his own dignity more highly than he does thine.... And what news, my gentle master, from the land of the lyre? Anything fresh from the trouveurs of Provence? Anything from the minstrels of merry Normandy? Above all, hast thou thyself been busy?" It is also said that Richard Coeur de Lion's place of confinement in Germany on his return from the Holy Land was discovered when Blondel sung beneath the Tower Tenebreuse a tenson which they had jointly composed, and to which the king replied. Edward I. and his Queen were fond of music and encouraged musicians, as the following entries in their accounts of the household expenditures show: "To Melioro, the harper of Sir John Mantravers, for playing on the harp when the king was bled, twenty shillings; likewise to Walter Luvel, the harper of Chichester, whom the King found playing on his harp before the tomb of St. Richard at Chichester Cathedral, six shillings and eight pence." Henry V. was a performer on the harp at an early age, and his wife, Catherine of Valois, shared his taste, as an entry in the Issue Rolls reads: "By the hands of William Menston was paid £8 13_s_ 4_d_, for two new harps purchased for King Henry and Queen Catherine." These harps were tuned with a key like the more modern instruments, and the player improvised his words to suit the taste of the company in which he found himself. Harpists were employed much at courts, and in 1666 Pepys says that for want of pay to the household-- --"many of the musique are ready to starve, they being five years behind hand for wages; nay, Evens, the famous man upon the Harp, having not his equal in the world, did the other day die for mere want, and was fain to be buried at the almes of the parish, and carried to his grave in the dark at night without one linke, but that Mr. Hingston met it by chance, and did give 12_d._ to buy two or three links." At the present day, though at no instrument does a graceful woman look more graceful, solo performers are very rare; but in the orchestra the harp has an important place on account of its tone, such composers as Gounod, Berlioz, Liszt, and Wagner using it freely in their scores. In this country there are only occasional references in the old papers to it, and an advertisement by Signor Pucci in 1815 that he gives concerts on the "Fashionable and much admired King David's Pedal Harp", seems to be an effort to introduce it to the notice of music-lovers of the day. [Illustration: Figure 91. GEIB PIANO.] Madame Malibran, who achieved such a success in opera in New York about 1825, used to accompany herself on the harp when she sang in response to an encore. But it can never be considered a popular instrument. In Dwight's "History of Music in Boston", he says that at the beginning of the nineteenth century the population of Boston numbered about six thousand families, and that not fifty pianos could be found. Only a few of Boston's churches had organs, while those in country parishes were, almost without exception, without them. The use of instruments had crept slowly into the choir, and if they had a flute and a bass viol they considered they did well. Very often a clarinet usurped the place of the flute. The bass viol was, however, the most popular instrument, and when, some years later, concerts began to be given, and musical societies formed, the bass viol was lugged about, notwithstanding its ponderous size, and duly performed its part in the accompaniment. The bass viol shown in Figure 89 is an interesting one. It was made by Deacon Justin Hitchcock, and used by him in the choir of the Congregational Church, Deerfield, Mass., in 1778. Both it and the pitch-pipe used by him as leader of the choir are now resting silent in Memorial Hall. Deacon Justin did not confine his musical performances to psalmody and the accompanying of hymns. Like all the Deerfield men of that day he was a fighter, as who should not be who was brought up among those silent hills which had seen so much of "ye barbarous enemy" and knew the tales of French invasion? The stories of warfare and captivity were still fresh in the minds of the people of Deerfield when Deacon Justin responded to the Lexington alarm. His fife it was that inspired the weary Deerfield minute-men to press on to Boston to meet the British. Nor was this the only campaign in which he played a part, for he never wearied of displaying the trophies captured after the disastrous experience of Burgoyne, when, harrassed and in flight, he abandoned his baggage. [Illustration: Figure 92. NUNS PIANO.] A very similar bass-viol, but of German manufacture, was played during the latter part of the eighteenth century in a church in Stonington, Connecticut. The sisters of the Hospital General in Montreal, before the conquest of Canada, imported several of these instruments from France for use in the convent choir. So they must have been played upon by women sometimes. An instrument that is interesting rather than handsome is the glass harmonica shown in Figure 90. It has thirty-five bowls or glasses arranged on a central rod. Some of the glasses are now missing, but originally it had a compass of three octaves. The case is three feet nine and a half inches long, and one foot four and three quarters inches wide. The interest in this class of instruments arises from the fact that it was invented by Benjamin Franklin. It has about as much capacity for producing music as the "musical glasses". One of these latter instruments consists of twenty-four glasses closely resembling finger-bowls and standing in a wooden table-like case. They are partially filled with water, and the performer produces notes by rubbing on the rim with the finger. They were occasionally to be met with, and date about the first decade, possibly a little later, of the nineteenth century. There is one in a perfect condition in Rochester, N. Y. The case is of handsome mahogany, and the instrument belongs to Mrs. James McKown. Up to 1760 pianos were made in the wing shape, like the harpsichords, but at that date a man named Zumpe made a square one. By 1800 there were a number of makers in New York, and they turned out many very handsome instruments. Astor, Broadwood, and Clementi were three great makers in London, and sent many pianos over here. There is a slender-legged, fragile, Clementi piano in Memorial Hall, Deerfield, which was given by a father to his daughter. The story still clings to it that he sold a house in order to buy it for her. John Geib, and his sons, John H., Adam, and William, were among the best-known early makers of pianofortes. They opened a shop in Maiden Lane as early as 1807, and advertised not only pianos of their own manufacture, built on a new plan, but those of London makers as well. They held this shop in Maiden Lane, with a brief interruption of one year, till 1828, when W. Geib moved up to the corner of 11th Street and Third Avenue. It was from this establishment that he sold the handsome piano shown in Figure 91, which is now at the Historical Rooms, Albany. The name-plate over the keyboard has the following inscription. "W. GEIB, THIRD AVENUE, CORNER 11TH ST. NEW YORK. MANUFACTURER OF CABINET, GRAND, HARMONIC, AND SQUARE PIANO FORTES, CHURCH AND CHAMBER ORGANS." This piano is mahogany inlaid, and has a handsome brass moulding and brass ornamental bands at the tops of the legs. It has six legs and a pedal, and the top of the lid has a small rest for the music. The stool, very richly carved with pillar and claw feet, belongs to an earlier period than the piano, this shape dating from about 1810-20. [Illustration: Figure 93. UPRIGHT PIANO.] Indeed, from its ornamentation, the stool would seem to go more fittingly with the very elegant piano shown in Figure 92. This is of rosewood, and was made by Robert and William Nuns, and sold by Du Bois and Stodard, New York. It was probably made about 1823-25, for in pattern of carving, moulding, drawers for music, etc., it is very similar to the pianos made at this time by the Geib Brothers. At the top of each leg is a richly engraved band of brass, and rosette, to conceal the place where the pin held the leg to the instrument. The drawer knobs were doubtless brass also, for these are not the original ones. The panel above the keyboard is beautifully painted in metallic lustre, and has two carved panels besides, over velvet. The legs are boldly carved with the acanthus leaf, and everything about the piano is as elegant as possible. By the time these last two instruments were made music had taken a decided advance. Musical societies were organized in all the large cities; there were the Handel and Haydn Society; the New York Philharmonic Society; the New York Choral Society; Beethoven Society of Portland, Maine; Philadelphia Musical Fund; Harmonic Society of Baltimore, and equally flourishing musical organizations in several cities of the South, notably New Orleans and Charleston. Music-dealers all over the country advertised their wares; there were instruction-books and sheet music to be had:-- --"Overtures, battles, sonatas, duets for four hands, airs with variations, rondos, songs, glees, catches, sacred songs, original Scotch airs, little ballads, marches, waltzes, dances, and Mozart's songs." In view of the selection of good music that could be obtained, it is amusing to know how popular were such ditties as "Mary's Tears," "Apollo, thy Treasure," and "Sweet Little Ann," written by Shaw, the blind singer of Providence. They seem hardly an advance upon "Bid Me, When Forty Winters," "Little Sally's Wooden Ware," and the "Comic Irish song 'Boston News'" which were used as concert selections a quarter of a century earlier. In Figure 93 is shown an upright piano made by Julius Fiot, Philadelphia, in 1827. The heavy veneered Empire curved posts are noticeable, and an extra old-fashioned appearance is given to it by the movable candle-brackets fastened to either side. In the upper part were little silk curtains to cover the mechanism, and their arrangement does not seem to have been particularly neat. This was a very early example of the upright shape, and is now in Memorial Hall, Philadelphia. CHAPTER IX. CLOCKS. Contrivances for the measurement of time are of such antiquity that the first such implement is wrapped in the mysteries of a forgotten past. Before any mechanical form had been invented by which the rate of motion of a staff or pointer was made to indicate the lapse of time, the shadow of the sun in his apparent daily progress was used to mark the passing hours. A gnomon or pin erected so as to throw its traveling shadow across a graduated arc constitutes a dial. This was the earliest form. The subject of sun-dials has been most exhaustively treated by Mrs. Gatty in her "Book of Sun-Dials", and later in our own country by Mrs. Earle. In England and Scotland many dials may still be found standing in old-fashioned gardens where they have marked the flight of time for hundreds of years. Many more dials, vertical ones, are to be found on the walls of public buildings, sometimes on churches, and on country houses as well. Not only stationary dials, but portable ones also, of silver and gold, were made and were long in use. Some of these are to be seen in various museums over the country, but most of them seem to have disappeared. George Washington owned a portable dial, and had a stationary one placed near his front door at Mt. Vernon. In some of the famous old gardens of the South that still survive, echoes of their former glory, the sun-dial yet holds its accustomed place. In the very heart of New York city there is to-day a sun-dial; not one person in a hundred that passes knows that it is there, nor would scarcely one person in fifty know what it was. It stands on the lawn of Grace Church rectory, on Broadway, near Tenth Street. This spot of green in a wilderness of brick and stone refreshes the eye of many a hurrying pedestrian, and the dial marks the flight of the hours as sharply as if it stood in a country wilderness, amid birds and flowers. The sun-dial was an important part of every great garden in early times. One was set up at Whitehall, England, in the sixteenth century. "In a garden joining to this palace there is a Jet d'eau, with a sun-dial, which, while strangers looking at, a quantity of water forced by a wheel, which the gardiner turns at a distance, through a number of little pipes, plentifully sprinkles those that are standing around." William Lawson, writing in 1618 a book on "A New Orchard and Garden", gives the directions about laying it out. "And in some corner (or more) a true Dyall or clock, and some Anticke works, and especially silver sounding Musique, mixt instruments and voyces, gracing all the rest; How will you be rapt with delight?" In 1821 William Cobbett wrote his "Rural Rides". In one of them he discourses of a visit to Moor Park, once the seat of Sir William Temple, whose heart, enclosed in a silver box, was said to have been buried in 1698 beneath his sun-dial. But Cobbett casts a doubt upon this time-honored legend by declaring that it was beneath a garden seat that the silver box was buried. Charles Lamb, in his essay "The Old Benchers of the Inner Temple", discourses lovingly of the sun-dial. "It spoke of moderate labours, of pleasures not protracted after sunset, of temperance, and good hours." The dials made out of herbs and flowers come in for a special share of his commendation. How much more the dial induces meditation than the clock, but how very much lost we should be, these bustling times, if we had to depend upon one of these delightful but irresponsible "antiques" which say to you quite distinctly, "I mark only sunny hours." [Illustration: Figure 94. TALL-CASE CLOCKS. _English._ DANIEL QUARE, _maker_. 1690. J. HARRISON, _maker_. 1715.] In an inventory of the property of William Bennett, East Greenwich, Rhode Island, who died in 1753, among other articles were mentioned "warming-pan, pewter, sun-dial, book, debts, £10." After the dial came the clepsydra, a sort of clock, which measured time by the graduated flow of some liquid, like water, through a small aperture. While the hour-glass was not known in England till 886, it had been used in Rome long before; but inventions traveled slowly in those days. The hour-glass remained long in use, even after the invention of clocks, and while we know it chiefly as marking the period of agony of some unwilling victim at the piano, it was used even later than the noon mark on the window-ledge, which may be seen to-day on some of the old houses still standing. A writer in the "Gentlemen's Magazine" for 1746 says that he was present on an occasion when a grave-digger was at work in Clerkenwell Fields. "He had dug pretty deep, and was come to a coffin which had lain so long that it was quite rotten, and the plate so eaten with rust that he could not read anything of the inscription. In clearing away the old wood the grave-digger found an hour-glass close to the left side of the skull, with sand still in it. Being a lover of antiquity, I bought it of him, and have since learned from some antiquarians that it was an ancient custom to put an hour-glass in the coffin to show that the sands of life were run." The origin of clockwork is involved in great obscurity, though there are statements by many writers that clocks were in use as early as the ninth century. By 1288 a clock was placed in the Old Palace Yard, London, and remained there till the reign of Queen Elizabeth. In 1292 a clock was placed on Canterbury Cathedral, and in 1368 a striking clock was erected at Westminster. By 1500, clocks were used in private houses, and watches were introduced. In 1368 three Dutch clockmakers were invited to come to England to teach the business to native workers, though "Dutch clocks" and their makers were held in contempt some years later. There was a clock put into the tower of Hampton Court Palace in 1540 by a maker whose initials were "N. O.", all that posterity knows of him. It was the oldest clock in England that kept fairly good time. In 1575 George Gaver, "serjeant painter" as his title runs, had a sum of money allowed him for "painting the great dial at Hampton Court Palace, containing hours of day and night, and the course of sun and moon." In 1649 a striking part was added. By 1711 it was found that the clock had not been running as correctly as it should, owing to the fact that some careless or ignorant workman had removed some important parts of the works. After this discovery it was left neglected for many years, and finally lost its hands. It was in this condition in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, when G. P. R. James wrote a poem entitled "Old Clock Without Hands at Hampton Court." In 1835 the old works were removed, and a set of works put in which had been made in 1690 by Villiamy, for a clock in the Queen's Palace, St. James' Park. As this clock was not powerful enough to drive the astronomical works, these were put away. In 1880 this old clock was also removed, sold for old brass, and a brand-new clock substituted. It seems a pity that one of the earliest clocks known should have been destroyed. It was not till 1639 that Galileo published his discovery of the isochronous property of the pendulum, which was eight years after the incorporation of the London Clockmakers Company. Not only did this company train workers for clockmaking, but they also inspected clocks brought into England, and rejected those which they deemed unworthy. Richard Harris is said to have been the man who first connected the pendulum with clockwork movement, about 1641, and Harris's method was improved by Huyghens, so that by 1658 very trustworthy time-keepers were in use. Mr. Lockwood in his book on "Colonial Furniture," says that the first clock mentioned in the Massachusetts Colony was found in Boston in 1638, but in Lechford's note-book it is said that Joseph Stratton had of his brother in 1628 a clock and a watch. In 1640 Henry Parks, of Hartford, left a clock by will to the church. The first clock in New Haven belonged to John Davenport, who died in 1670. E. Needham, of Lynn, Mass., died in 1677. She left an estate valued at £1,117. The barn, land, out-houses and dwelling house were valued at £400. This included a "range of ston wall fensing." Her silver watch, spoons, and other plate were worth £5. She had a striking clock, another watch, and a "larum that does not strike." These early clocks were probably like the ones shown in Figure 95. They were called "lantern," "chamber", or "birdcage" clocks. The lantern clock shown is of the pattern known as the "dolphin fret," on account of the ornamentation above the dial, which is made by two dolphins with crossed tails. This clock was made by Thomas Tompion, of London, a famous maker, who lived in the last half of the seventeenth century and died in 1713. He was clockmaker to Charles II., and was held in high esteem, as may be gathered from the fact that he was buried in Westminster Abbey, where his tomb may still be seen. Tompion was called the "Father of English Clockmaking", and has left a more enduring fame than any of his contemporaries. He had been a blacksmith, and before his time watches as well as clocks had been of rude construction, and the watch of Charles I., which is still preserved, has a catgut string instead of a chain. Indeed watches of that construction were in use for a long time after the chain was invented. Very curiously, through some of the strange chances which govern inanimate as well as animate things, this very watch has found at least a temporary home in this country. [Illustration: _Lantern Clock._ 1600-1650] [Illustration: _Portable Clocks._ 1700-1725] [Illustration: _Willard or Banjo Clock._ 1800-1825] [Illustration: Figure 95. THREE CENTURIES OF CLOCKS.] When Oliver Cromwell obtained his great victory over Charles II., and drove the enemy from hedge to hedge till they finally took refuge in the city of Worcester, there were seven thousand prisoners and great spoils, among the latter the royal carriage in which the king had been carried. In the carriage was this watch, which was used by Charles II. as it had been by his father Charles I. It had been made for the latter in 1640, and after more than two centuries of vicissitudes still ticks bravely on. It is of the earliest pattern of watches, made entirely by hand and of great size, as it measures four and a half inches in diameter, and is an inch and a half thick. The case is very handsome, of pierced silver in a pattern of flowers and leaves, and has three winding-holes on the back,--one for winding the works, one for the alarm, and one for the striking attachment, which consists of a small silver bell within the perforated case. It has but one hand to mark the time and goes thirty-six hours. There is an outer case into which the watch may be slipped, made of copper with a leather cover studded with silver. The watch was kept by Cromwell himself for many years, but after the Restoration it fell into the hands of Joseph Kipling, of Overstone House, North Hants, England, a relative of Rudyard Kipling. Joseph Kipling was also an ancestor of Mr. Wilfred Powell, British consul at the port of Philadelphia, and present owner of the watch. Robert Hooker invented the double balance in 1658, and Tompion completed it in 1675, and made a watch which he presented to Charles II. Two others were made and sent to the Dauphin of France, where Huyghens had obtained a patent for spiral-spring watches. This idea was not original with him, but was obtained from a man named Oldenburg. It is allowed, however, that it is Huyghens who first made those watches which went without strings or chains. Barlow, in the reign of James II. is said to have discovered the method of making striking watches, but, Quare's being judged superior by the Privy Council, Barlow did not get a patent. Tompion's watches were in great demand for a long time, owing to their being large and well made, the wheels being of well-hammered brass. Three most eminent watchmakers of this time were Tompion, who died in 1713; Daniel Quare, who succeeded him and died in 1725; and George Graham, who followed Quare and died in 1775. They all belonged to the Society of Friends. Watches cannot claim the antiquity of clocks, but they can be traced as far back as the fourteenth century. In shape they were like an egg, and Nuremburg claims their earliest manufacture. Although it is said that they were introduced into England in 1577, yet it is certain that Henry VIII. had a watch, and in 1572 the Earl of Leicester presented to Queen Elizabeth-- --"one amlet or shakell of golde, all over fairly garnished with small diamandes, and fower and one smaller pieces, fully garnished with like diamandes and hanging thereat a round clocke fullie garnished with diamandes and an appendant hanging thereat." They were so unusual that they were worn ostentatiously round the neck hanging to a chain. In an old play called "A Mad World, My Masters!", one of the characters says "Ah, by my troth, sir, besides a jewel and a jewel's fellow, a good fair watch that hung about my neck." When Malvolio was telling over the agreeable ways in which he would occupy himself after his marriage with Olivia, he says, "I frown the while, and perchance wind up my watch or play with some rich jewel." Watches called "strikers" were known in Ben Jonson's time, for he says in his "Staple of News" "'T strikes! One, two, Three, four, five, six. Enough, enough, dear watch. Thy pulse hath beat enough. Now stop and rest." Watches were in use so rarely in the early times of James I. that it was deemed a cause of suspicion when in 1605 one was found upon the person of Guy Vaux. By 1638 they were more common, and in a comedy of that year called "The Antipodes" it is complained that-- "--every clerk can carry The time of day in his pocket." The prices of these first time-keepers must have been high, but there are no records of them left. In 1643 the sum of £4 was paid to redeem a watch taken from a nobleman in battle. In 1661 there was advertised as lost-- --"a round watch of reasonable size, showing the day of the month, age of the moon, and tides, upon the upper plate. Thomas Alcock fecit." The redoubtable Pepys's curiosity extended to watches, and he writes in his diary, December 22, 1665: "I to my Lord Brouncker's, and there spent the evening by my desire in seeing his Lordship open to pieces and make up again his watch, thereby being taught what I never knew before; and it is a thing very well worth my having seen, and am mightily pleased and satisfied with it." The English became such famous watchmakers that in 1698 an act was passed to compel makers to place their names upon those they made, in order that discreditable ones might not be passed for English. Among the possessions of the English Crown is a watch which was found about 1770 in Bruce Castle, Scotland. On the dial plate is written "Robertus B. Rex Scotorum", and over the face is a shield of convex horn instead of glass. Robert Bruce began his reign in 1305 and died in 1328, long before watches were supposed to be known in England. The case of this watch is of silver in a raised pattern on a ground of blue enamel. Striking watches were highly esteemed. When Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough died in 1744 she left a will covering six skins of parchment, and she designated the disposal of "manors, parsonages, rectories, advowsons, messuages, lands, tenements, tithes, and hereditaments", in half a dozen counties. She also specified many of her jewels, and among them is her "striking watch which formerly belonged to Lady Sutherland." The lantern style of clock before mentioned was not original with Tompion, but had been used in England from the beginning of the seventeenth century. They ran by weights, and the clock had to be affixed to a bracket or shelf in order to give room for the weights to hang. In the clock in Figure 95 the cords and weights have been removed. The faces of these clocks always stood out beyond the frame, and were of beautifully engraved or etched brass, as may be seen in the figure. The single hand showed only the fifths of the hour and the hours. The small dial in the centre was to set the alarm, which struck the bell, but in some of them the hours were struck also. The portable or table clock came into use early in 1600, and one of them shown in Figure 95 has the oval top to the dial which was not in use till the last part of the seventeenth century. These were the common house clocks of the period and were easily carried about. Some found their way to America, and as they were well made, with brass works, they are still able to give correct time. This style of clock was made for many years, and was manufactured in substantially the same way, late in the eighteenth century, by such famous makers as Isaac Fox and Joseph Rose. Samuel Pepys, who recorded everything that was going on in London, in July 28th, 1660, has this entry. "To Westminster, and there met Mr. Henson, who had formerly had the brave clock that went with bullets, (which is now taken away from him by the King, it being his goods)." In the "Gentlemen's Magazine" for 1785 is the following comment on this statement of Pepys. "Some clocks are still made with a small ball, or bullet on an inclined plane, which turns every minute." The King's clocks probably dropped bullets. Gainsborough, the painter, had a brother who was a dissenting minister at Henley-on-Thames and possessed a strong genius for mechanics. He invented a clock of very peculiar construction, which after his death was deposited in the British Museum. It told the hour by a little bell, and was kept in motion by a leaden bullet which dropped, from a spiral reservoir at the top of the clock, into a little ivory bucket. This was so contrived as to discharge it at the bottom, and by means of a counterweight was carried up to the top of the clock, where it received another bullet, which was discharged as the former. This seems to have been an attempt at perpetual motion. Catherine of Braganza was responsible for introducing many luxuries to the English world. Pepys makes this mention of her clock in 1664. "Mr. Pierce showed me the Queen's [the Portuguese Princess, wife of Charles II] bed-chamber ... and her holy water at her head as she sleeps, with a clock by her bedside, wherein a lamp burns that tells her the time of the night at any time." Pepys speaks again in 1667 of going to see-- --"a piece of clocke-worke made by an Englishman--indeed very good, wherein all the several states of man's age to one hundred years old, is shown very pretty and solemne." Besides the dolphin fret shown on the Tompion clock in Figure 95 there were other patterns, perhaps the earliest being what is called the "heraldic fret", which was a coat-of-arms with scroll-work on either side. This was not used after 1650, so any clocks bearing this pattern belong to the first half of the seventeenth century. It was early seen that to be accurate a clock must have some contrivance to keep it going while it is being wound. In the old-fashioned house clocks which were wound by merely pulling a string, and in which one such winding served both for the going and striking parts, this was done by using what was called the endless chain of Huyghens, which consists of a chain or string with ends joined together, passing over two pulleys which are placed on the arbors of the great wheels, and which have both spikes and deep grooves in them to prevent the chain from slipping off. To the best clocks in England it was usual to apply the gridiron pendulum of Harrison or the mercurial pendulum of Graham. The length of the pendulum of most clocks made before 1800 was 39 inches; that is, after the long pendulum came into use at all. The earliest were called "bob pendulums", which swung so far at the sides that it was often necessary to cut slits in the sides of the case, if it was hung inside, for it was as frequently hung outside. Many clocks which started with bob pendulums were changed to those having long ones, which about 1680 came very much into fashion. In Mr. Charles Britten's various books on clocks and clockmaking he has gathered together all the minute particulars which are obtainable on this subject, and which are of chief interest to collectors of clocks. Most people are content with one clock, particularly if it be of the "grandfather" variety. The term "clock" was only applied to the bell upon which the hour was rung till well into the fourteenth century, and as late as the time of James I. clocks were known as horologes. Even at the present day the old term has clung to the church-tower time-piece in some of the least-traveled parts of England, and in the quaint and lovely little town of Wells the Cathedral clock is called the "horologe." There are long-case clocks made by Tompion to be found in this country; for of course all the first clocks were of English make. The earliest long-case clocks were made by William Clement about 1680, and within the same year Tompion was making them too. The peculiarities of these first clocks are quite marked and easily distinguished, for the dials were square, and the top of the case lifted off to permit of winding. An early and handsome specimen of such a clock is seen in Figure 94. This clock was made in the latter part of the seventeenth century by Daniel Quare, the successor of Thomas Tompion. It is a one-year clock and is at Hampton Court Palace. The dial face is square, and the top lifts off. The case is very handsomely carved and has some very handsome figures on the top. The second clock shown in Figure 94 is in a black and gold lacquered case, and was made by J. Harrison in 1715. It is at the Guildhall Museum, London. This shows the carved top of the dial face which became universally adopted. The most important part of one of these clocks is the pendulum, for the long case was brought into use solely for the pendulum, as mechanism had not been invented to permit it to swing in a confined space. The first long-case clocks were comparatively small in size, and during the reign of William III., when everything Dutch was in fashion, the cases were ornamented with marquetry in beautiful patterns and variously coloured woods. Sometimes this was made even richer by inlay of mother-of-pearl, and there were cases also of splendid lacquer-work, gold on black grounds, like that in Figure 94, some of which found their way to America and are either museum specimens or treasured in private collections. There are many clocks with English works housed in Dutch cases, but this is understandable from the fact that so many Dutch cabinet-makers were settled in London. Besides the square face to the dial of these early clocks there were peculiarities of the case as well. On either side of the upper part of the case there were carved spiral pillars, like those we find in old chairs of the same period. These were occasionally finished off by carved or gilt pilasters, and on some choice specimens, notably of Tompion's clocks, there are pillars at the back also. This style of pillar was used also in Queen Anne's time. The clocks might stand flat on the floor or be raised an inch or two on a short foot. The long doors had mouldings, corresponding to the period of their manufacture, and many had a piece of glass or a bull's-eye let into the wood, so that the motion of the pendulum could be seen. Some of the most distinguishing marks on these clocks are the hour circles. Before the minute hand came into use the double circles seen in the mantle clocks were in use. Between them the hour is divided into quarters, the half hour being shown by a longer stroke, or an ornament like a fleur-de-lys. When the minute hand came into use, besides the double circle containing the numerals denoting the hours, and the smaller figures showing the minutes, there were on the outer edge marks or divisions to denote the quarter hours, the device being a cross or a dagger. The dial faces were beautifully embellished with engraving, those of the William III. and Queen Anne periods being very rich. Not only were the faces brass, but there were to be found silvered faces also, ornamented with ormolu mounts of figures and scrolls in brass. All the space on the dial was utilized; on the extreme edge a border of leaves, or herring-bone pattern was placed, and the whole interior of the hour-ring was engraved or etched with flowers, scrolls, or set patterns, and even the winding-holes had their set of circles around each. Of the seventeenth-century clocks the earliest had their makers' names put into Latin and engraved straight across the bottom of the dial, and quite concealed when the wooden hood of the case was in place. Later it was engraved on the lower half of the circle between the figures seven and five. These two styles were only in use very early, for about 1750 name-plates were first used, and then makers used their own taste in the matter, sometimes omitting the name entirely and substituting some motto like "Tempus Fugit" "Tempus edax rerum", and even such lengthy mottoes as the following; "Slow comes the hour; its passing speed how great; Waiting to seize it,--vigilantly wait!" Edward East was another well-known early English maker, and some clocks in splendid cases came from his hand by 1690 and earlier. Joseph Knibb and James Clowes were other popular makers about 1700. James Lownes made handsome clocks by 1705 and usually inserted glass in their doors. The corners of the dials bear devices which also point to the age of the clock. On the dials which came from the best makers till just before the close of the seventeenth century, the ornaments were cherubs' heads. Then the patterns of the spandrels, as these ornaments were called, altered, and a head set in more or less elaborate scroll-work, generally of brass, handsomely chased and often gilded, was used. After this, in the early eighteenth century, came two Cupids holding up a crown with a surrounding of scroll-work. The clock on the left in Figure 96 has this fret, two cherubs holding a crown, at the four corners of the brass face. They do not show very plainly in the illustration, which also does not do justice to the splendid marquetry with which the mahogany case is inlaid. Across the dial face is Monks, Prescot and the clock is in perfect order. The second clock is quite as interesting. It has a fine mahogany inlaid case, the face is painted on wood, the works are wooden also, and it is wound by pulling up the weights by hand. The ornaments which originally decorated the top are missing, but otherwise it is perfect and is in admirable condition. Its period is about 1800. This clock belongs to Dr. George W. Goler, of Rochester, N. Y., and the one previously described to Mr. William M. Hoyt, also of Rochester. [Illustration: _American Clock._ 1790-1800.] [Illustration: _English Clock._ 1720-1740.] [Illustration: Figure 96. TALL-CASE CLOCKS.] A crown with crossed sceptres and foliage were also used in the spandrels. Later in the century the passion for rococo ornament seized the clockmakers too, and during the reign of George III. these ornaments degenerated very greatly, and were cast brass, often not even touched with a graver's tool. Christopher Gould was making clocks in 1715, and by 1745 Richard Vick's works were put into so-called Chippendale cases. There is such a clock now at Windsor Castle. All clocks before the eighteenth century had straight tops. An arched top was added, in which could be placed a register for the equation of time. On some of the latest clocks by Tompion, dated about 1709, four years before his death, such an arch is found. It is considered greatly to improve the appearance of the face of the clock, and it was utilized for decoration if not for a time register. Name-plates were put there, and a handsome dolphin was engraved or mounted on the dial on either side of the name-plate. A fine specimen of such a clock made by John Carmichael, Greenock, Scotland, and put in a mahogany case, has been owned by a family now living in Rochester, N. Y., for over one hundred and fifty years. The clock is in good order, with the original brass works, and has a small plate on the dial to indicate the day of the month. The face is silvered and etched handsomely. During the last half of the eighteenth century there was a great demand for moving figures to be placed in this arched top. Ships in motion, Father Time, etc., were always popular subjects, as well as painted disks showing the moon in her various phases. The moving figures were preferred by Dutch makers, who excelled at this species of work. The English makers, however, used the painted moon-disks the most. The French, with their taste for the ornamental and elegant, never liked the square-faced clocks. They preferred the small clocks in ebony or alabaster casings with ormolu mounts. Julien Le Roy was a very famous French clockmaker, whose works were mounted in florid style, sometimes in cases of kingwood, with inlay of lighter woods, or in ebony. Lepante made clocks dating from about 1750, and these were always in the best style and elegant taste. Few of such clocks found their way to America on account of their great cost. By the last quarter of the eighteenth century watches and clocks were quite common in the colonies, where they were also made. In the "Mercury" for May 2, 1774, not only were clocks offered for sale, but "watches neat and plain, gold, silver, shagreen, and metal. Some engraved and enamelled with devices new and elegant; also the first in this country of the small new-fashioned watches the circumference of a British shilling. John Sinnet removed to the Main St. called the Fly, next house to the corner of Beekman's slip, the sign of the dial against the wall." In this same year Basil Francis offers; "£1 reward for any information of a man who did in a fraudulent manner obtain one pinchbeck watch with a single case, winds up in the face, the hole where the key goes a little flowered." There were even higher rewards offered at this time for the return of lost watches, probably not "pinchbeck," for a "military gentleman offers £5 for the return of his watch and no questions asked." The English officers made the winter of 1778-9 very gay in New York, quite rivaling Philadelphia, and set the fashion, which was esteemed very polite, of wearing two watches. The Quaker City considered this custom ridiculous. Eli Terry, of Windsor, Conn., was one of the first clockmakers in the United States, though James Harrison began to manufacture at Waterbury, Conn., as early as 1790. The first clock he made was entered in his books, "January 1, 1791, at £3 12_s._ 8_d_". Yet clocks were made even earlier than this, for in 1783 the Assembly of Connecticut awarded a patent for fourteen years to Benjamin Hanks, of Litchfield, Conn., for a self-winding clock. It was to wind itself by the help of air. In East Windsor, Conn., Daniel Burnap carried on the manufacture of brass clocks. William Tenny was one of the earliest makers of brass work clocks in the United States, and worked at Nine Corners, Dutchess Co., N. Y. Eli Terry made wooden works for his clocks, although he had been instructed in his business by Daniel Burnap, who used brass as well as wooden works, and made tall-case clocks with long pendulums. These clocks were by no means cheap, ranging from $18 to $48, the more expensive ones having a brass dial, a dial for seconds, the moon's phases, and a better case. Terry's wooden-work clocks were well made and were good time keepers, and were distributed all over New England by peddlers. In 1807 Terry undertook to make five hundred clocks; this overstocked the market, and he was forced to reduce the price from $25 to $15, and then to $10. Before 1800 the best-known clockmakers in the United States were Daniel Burnap, Silas Merriam, Thomas Harland, Timothy Peck, and James Harrison, all of Connecticut. From 1806 to 1815 the number of clockmakers largely increased, and Seth Thomas, Silas Hoadley, Herman Clark, and Asa Hopkins were some of the best-known men engaged in the making. In 1814 Terry invented what was called the "short-shelf clock," in which, by a change of arrangement and smaller weights, the pendulum being brought forward and greatly shortened and the weights being carried and run on each side, the whole was reduced to a more compact form. Clock and case were sold for a moderate sum. These clocks, like the tall-case ones, were made with wooden wheels, but after the introduction of rolled brass, machinery was invented by which blank wheels could be struck out with a die, the teeth afterward cut by machinery, and the brass-wheel clocks made cheaper than the wooden. This was about 1837. The next improvement was substituting springs for weights. This had been done in Europe for two hundred years, but only with the most costly parlour clocks, and the springs were equal to the best watch-springs. Many kinds of cheaper springs had been tried without success, till a superior steel spring was invented in the United States, and the springs thus produced have for many years been sold at a price compatible with cheap clocks. The wooden pendulum covered with gold leaf, which is one of the characteristics of a regulator clock, was invented by Silas B. Terry, a son of Eli. America has long taken a leading place in the making of clocks, and that desire to have the biggest and best which is characteristic of the youngest nation has influenced clockmaking. For many years England prided herself on having the largest clock in the world. It is on the Houses of Parliament, London, and is known as the Westminster clock. Its dial faces measure 22 feet 6 inches in diameter. A larger one, however, has been erected during the past few years in Minneapolis, Minn., by an American clockmaker. These dial faces measure 22 feet 8 inches in diameter, and the Westminster clock has receded to second place. Among extraordinary clocks which have from time to time been invented, none is more curious than that made in 1767 by David Rittenhouse, of Philadelphia. It has six dials; on the main one there are four hands which indicate seconds, minutes, hours, and days, giving one day more to February in leap year. Phases of the moon are also shown. The second dial shows the movements of planets about the sun; the third, the moon revolving about the earth; the fourth, the movements of Saturn; the fifth whether sun time is fast or slow with meridian time; while the sixth gives the combination of chimes which sound quarter hours, a choice of any one of ten tunes being played by pressing a knob on the dial. It is not often in the United States that there is a record of any piece of furniture staying in the same place for twenty-five, much less one hundred years. Yet in Westernville, Oneida Co., N. Y., there is an old "grandfather's" clock ticking away, which with the new year of 1903 is said to have stood in its present position a hundred years. The home which holds this venerable time-piece was built by General William Floyd, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and the old house has weathered the storms as well as the clock. Built in the centre of a ten-thousand-acre tract of land acquired from the Indians in 1788, the lands have gradually been sold, but four hundred acres still remain surrounding the old homestead. The old mansion is well preserved, and there have been no changes beyond necessary repairs. It is of Colonial architecture, and its interior furnishings form a feast for the lovers of the antique. There are some rare pieces of furniture imported from England over a century ago. The house belongs to the widow of Admiral Sicard, and was left her by her father, the grandson of General Floyd. Of the tall-case clocks there were many to be found all over the South, in some instances case and all being brought from England, while in others, as was often done, the case was made by the local cabinet-maker. Many such clocks have, within recent years, found their way into Newport, R. I., which is quite a paradise for the antiquarian. The history of these old clocks is strange. During the Civil War the negroes appropriated many articles from the manor houses which had been deserted, or partially sacked or burned, and carried them to their cabins. Among such loot were many clocks, but they were too tall to get into the cabin doors or to stand upright afterward. So they were cut down, generally at the base, for the ornamental tops, particularly if there were brass ornaments on the top, appealed to their new owners. A dealer from Newport heard of them, and went to Virginia, buying all of these sawed off clocks he could find. He took them home, had the cases restored, and sold them all for good prices. [Illustration: Figure 97. MANTEL CLOCKS.] One of the most famous names in the history of clockmaking in America is that of Willard, and to a certain style of clock this name has been applied. There were at least four clockmakers by this name, Simon, Aaron, Benjamin, and Simon Jr. It is supposed to be the latter who made the style of clock also known as "banjo," although Mr. Lockwood considers there is great doubt on the subject. One of these clocks is shown in Figure 95. They had no striking machinery, and often varied as to the lower part, occasionally being furnished with a brass ornament. This one has a view of Mt. Vernon, and belonged to the late Mr. Alfred Hosmer, of Concord, Mass. These clocks were made during the first twenty years of the nineteenth century. The works are of brass and generally of excellent make. In 1802 "Willard of Boston," who was, no doubt, Benjamin, who had workshops at Roxbury and Grafton as well as in Boston, took out a patent for his timepieces. At this same period Terry began business on a larger scale and by water-power. In 1814 he introduced the shelf or mantel-clock, which he patented in 1816. Three of this style of clock are shown in Figure 97. All are in good condition and are still running. They belong to Mr. William M. Hoyt, of Rochester, N. Y. The central clock is a very handsome one of mahogany, with a carved case. The ornament on the top is an eagle, and the posts are leaves bound with a rope. The face of Washington painted on the glass is much better than those portraits usually are, and loses much in the reproduction. This clock was made by Ephraim Downs, of Bristol, Conn. The clock on the left, made by Chauncey Ives, is also a Bristol one, for Connecticut early obtained and has always retained an eminence in the clock business. It has an ornamental case with handsomely carved pineapples on top, and a swan-necked cornice. The one on the right, with claw feet, has a very handsome decoration of painted patterns on a black ground. On the inner part of the case is pasted a paper which reads as follows: "PATENT CLOCKS PATENTED BY ELI TERRY AND MADE AND SOLD BY SETH THOMAS PLYMOUTH MASS. WARRANTED IF WELL USED." The faces of all three are painted on tin, the two Bristol clocks having ornamentation of gold in the corners. These clocks all date from 1815-20, but the one by Seth Thomas may be a trifle earlier. A more modern clock than any of the foregoing, yet one of interest, nevertheless, is one in the commandant's office in the Navy Yard, Brooklyn. This old clock, which, although fifty-four years old, is not only in good running order, but practically furnishes the official time for the yard, occupies a prominent position in the outer office of Rear-Admiral Barker's suite. Its dial is about the same size as those seen in the clocks of to-day that keep the official time, but it is operated by a spring instead of weights. Its mahogany case is handsomely carved, and its brass hands shine in a way that shows the care that it receives. The following inscription, revealing the age of the clock, appears on the case: PRESENTED TO THE U. S. FRIGATE BRANDYWINE, BY THE CREW, 1849. No one in the yard knows how the old clock got there,--it probably drifted there, as have so many other waifs and strays. At noon every day it is set by official time received from the Naval Observatory in Washington, and most of the other clocks in the yard depend upon this reliable time-piece which has come down from the frigate "Brandywine." The collecting of clocks is a fad which few people indulge in. Yet there are those who own ten or a dozen timepieces, and who like to have them in running order. The old Dutch clocks, while looking very well, are notoriously ill-regulated time-keepers. A collector took a prize lately acquired to an old German clock-repairer who seemed more learned in the ways of ancient clocks than many a more pretentious maker. The clock did not come home when it was promised, and the owner went to see what was the matter. She found her old clockmaker diligently studying a little German volume with a title which read something like this, "Thirteen Hundred Reasons why a Clock in Perfect Order Won't Run." CHAPTER X. HANDLES, FEET, STUFFS, ETC. In the manufacture of furniture at one time or another nearly every variety of wood has been used, if not for the body of the frame, then for its enrichment, and every quarter of the globe has been laid under contribution. The island of Borneo yielded Amboyna wood, with its beautiful mottlings and curlings, and a very splendid cabinet was made of it for the ill-fated Marie Antoinette by the famous cabinet-maker of her day, Riesener. Ceylon, held by the Dutch as a colony from the middle of the seventeenth century until nearly the nineteenth, produced splendid ebony which was used for whole pieces of furniture as well as for decoration. The French term _ébéniste_, or worker in ebony, was given to the French makers of fine work. To what abundant usage oak, walnut, and mahogany was put we know. Rosewood, too, was another of the choicer materials. Satin-wood, with its brilliant colour; tulip-wood, more showy still; kingwood, dark and rich; zebra wood, with its black and white effect, as well as leopard and partridge woods,--were all in use before 1800. There were, besides, cherry, yew, pear, walnut, cedar, fir, olive, beech, sycamore, cypress, chestnut for timber work, poplar, acacia, with limewood and boxwood for carving. [Illustration: Figure 98. KITCHEN OF WHIPPLE HOUSE, IPSWICH, MASS.] For furniture which was to be painted and gilded common deal was used. In America hickory (nut-wood, as it was called), was very popular among the native workers, and all the other woods were gradually imported, except those used for inlaying, an art never much practiced by American cabinet makers. After the first leather coverings of cured bull-hide there followed Spanish or Cordova leather, Turkey-work, cane, rush, tapestry, brocade, woollen plush, etc., as styles altered from time to time and luxury increased. In an earlier chapter mention has been made of stuffs that were in use in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries for bed and window curtains, draperies and upholstery. Besides all the varieties of English goods, large importations came from East India of such unfamiliar materials, as bejurapants bafts, gorgorans, mulmuls, jainwars, sallampores, and many others. Miss Singleton in her "Furniture of Our Forefathers," gives a list of eighty different stuffs, seersuckers being the only familiar name among them. Presumably some of these were imported here, and Boston merchants before 1725 advertised linceys and flowered serges, bangalls, shalloons, Persians and fustian, kersey, silk crêpes, cherry derry and grass. Worsted, or hair plush, plain or striped hair-cloth, damask, furniture dimities, moreen, harrateen and tammy were all to be bought in the larger cities. Nor were these goods by any means cheap. Harrateen cost about four dollars a yard in the middle of the eighteenth century, and a set of curtains of this same material was valued at $210. Other goods were in proportion; some bedsteads without beds coming as high as $100. But, once acquired, these household goods were valuable assets and passed from one generation to another, often mentioned with great particularity by will. There are various small details which are of assistance in determining the approximate period of a piece of furniture, and none of greater value than the handles. The different styles of these, particularly of brass, are quite definite. The earliest of them is the drop handle, shown in Figure 99, and also on the old oak chest depicted in Figure 5. The escutcheons were similar, and the material of the drops on some chests of drawers was iron, but brass was more commonly seen, and was either hollow or solid. After the drop handles followed bail handles of a primitive type, the handles being fastened in with wires. These handles also were of brass and were sometimes engraved. The shape of these handles and escutcheons is known as willow, and appears later in a much more ornate form. See Figures 56, 57 and 59. By this time the handles were fastened by screw and nut. By the latter half of the eighteenth century there were in addition to the elaborate willow brasses (see Figure 64), oval ones of various styles. This shape was much affected by Hepplewhite on his sideboards, and by Sheraton in his earlier style (see Figures 35 and 38). There was a handle starting from two small plates, either round or oval, frequently seen on swell-front bureaus and desks of 1780 and thereabouts. One is shown in Figure 99. Beginning at the top of the page the various handles in use in the eighteenth century are shown in the order of their appearance. [Illustration: _Drop Handle._ 1675-1720] [Illustration: _Early Willow Pattern._ 1720-1760] [Illustration: _Bail Handle._ 1760-1785] [Illustration: _Pressed Brass oval._ 1780-1810] [Illustration: _Rosette and Ring._ 1790-1820] [Illustration: _Inset Ring. Rosette._ 1800-1820] [Illustration: Figure 99. HANDLES, ESCUTCHEONS, etc.] There was also a round handle with a ring lying close within it (Figure 37); and when the Empire style was in favour a rosette with a ring was used on sideboards, bureaus, writing-tables, etc. See Figures 42 and 60. The rosette with a ring was not the only Empire style, but there were round knob handles of brass (Figure 37), glass (Figure 38), and brass with medallions of china or enamel. The glass ones, either transparent or opalescent, were held in great esteem, though they are extremely ugly on pieces of dark furniture on which they were usually mounted. In many cases they have been removed, and wooden knobs substituted; yet if one desires an Empire piece to look as it did when made, it will be necessary to hunt out, if possible, a set of these knobs to put on it. This is not so difficult a matter as might be imagined; for even if the handles come from divers places they will generally match, as there was small variety in the patterns used. There was a great demand for these opal glass rosettes. Very large ones held back the window curtains, smaller ones were used to support the mirrors, besides those on the furniture. About this same time (1820) those fine handles which are so eagerly sought for to-day made their appearance. They were china or enamel set in brass, and the patterns on the china were often portraits of famous men like Washington, Franklin, Clinton, and Jefferson. When mounted on a piece of furniture like a small work-table, which had only two drawers, the four patriots named would make a set. There were also fancy heads, and sometimes tiny figures, but these were not so popular. Brass was put to many other uses, ornamental as well as useful, and wine-coolers of heavy mahogany were set off with bands of it, and smaller articles, like pipkins, were either made or bound with it. Narrow thread-like bands of brass were used for purposes of inlay and in the lyre-back chairs the strings were brass, as well as the accompanying ornaments. Brass has always been a valuable commodity in English manufactures, and in the reign of Henry VIII. Parliament passed an act prohibiting, under severe penalties, the export of brass, which prohibition was not withdrawn till as recently as 1799. In 1721 over thirty thousand persons were employed in brass-founding in Birmingham, England, and the business has grown until it has become the industrial feature of that city. The handles of both French and Dutch furniture were extremely ornate, consisting of scrolls and leaves, many of them of great beauty and delicacy, particularly when made of water-gilt or of etched brass. For the benefit of local cabinet-makers brass handles, escutcheons, and false keyholes were imported and on sale in America. By 1770 many cabinet-makers were manufacturing very handsome furniture of mahogany, cedar, or cherry, requiring handsome brasses to go with them. A cabinet-maker of Newburyport, R. I., had in his shop at the time of his death in 1773 much furniture completed and some still unfinished. He also had several thousand feet of costly timber, sixty brass handles valued at more than one pound, desk brasses, fifty-four escutcheons, and old brasses, locks, and screws as well. For bookcase and cabinet doors he had panes of glass, most of it in sheets measuring 5 × 7 inches, which was the size commonly used in windows at that time. Although glass had been made in this country for a long time we find "Bristol crown window-glass" advertised for sale in 1771 in sizes as large as 9 × 12 inches. Besides these brasses of English manufacture, we find another merchant advertising "three dozen Dutch rings and escutcheons at three shillings a dozen." Handles came at various prices, fifteen, twelve, and eight shillings a dozen, according to pattern and finish. The escutcheons were at proportionate prices, eleven and eight shillings a dozen, but locks came high, a fine-ward desk-lock bringing a guinea. On much furniture, particularly that enriched with inlay, ivory escutcheons were used, and sometimes those of holly or other wood used in the inlay were set in. These were in use during the last years of the eighteenth century, and can be found in connection with various styles of handles. At the "Smith's Fly" were many metal-workers who sold ironware and goods for cabinet-makers. At the sign of the "Cross Daggers," Thomas Brown, as early as 1745, had many metal furnishings on hand. There were latches and bolts for doors and locks for chests, drawers, and cabinets. He had polished brass handles, locks, escutcheons, and handsome brass locks for parlours. Ring-drops, tea-chest furniture, knobs and knockers for street doors, curtain-rings and chafing-dishes were advertised in 1750, and casters and handles and escutcheons of the newest fashion were to be found in 1751, with brass chair nails. A few years later double and single spring chest-locks could be bought, and these were sold by the same merchant who imported-- --"choice India and Japan gilded Tea Tables, square Dressing ditto, of which sort none were ever seen in America before." The rate to be charged for putting on these brasses was set down in "The Journeymen's Cabinet and Chair-makers Philadelphia Book of Prices," 1795, mentioned before. Common castors cost 2½_d_ each, and 1_d_ extra for letting in the plate; a set of sockets "when the legs are tapered, to fit in, per set," 1_s_ 2_d_. Iron or brass rollers were 8½_d_ per pair. Fitting on a box lock was 1_s_ 4_d_, while a patent lock came extra and cost 2_s_. Lifting handles could be put on for 1_s_ 4_d_ per pair. Letting in an escutcheon was 2½_d_ for each one, and letting in plates for rods in the tops of sideboards were 8_d_ for each plate. Ivory escutcheons cost 10_d_ each, and those of holly just half that. If a person chose to have his furniture made on the premises it was an easy matter, for many cabinet-makers worked in this way, and the furniture could be built to suit exactly the prospective owner's taste and the place it was to occupy. None of the furniture made in America and little that was imported here, had the superb handles and escutcheons which were put on French and Dutch pieces. These mounts were executed and designed by artists, and made a decidedly beautiful addition to the furniture. Another distinctive feature of old furniture is the foot, which in many cases points to period and country as well as if the piece was dated. After the turned chairs with their heavy lines and clumsy construction, the furniture which was gradually finding its way from Spain and Holland seemed very beautiful. The Flemish foot, so called, turns outward, and is found on very early chairs enriched with carving and having cane, rush, or turkey-work seats. This style belongs to the last quarter of the seventeenth century. (For illustrations see Figure 100.) Chairs of this same period also came from Spain and Portugal, being covered with the splendid leather of Cordova, which has now a world-wide reputation. The woodwork of the frames was handsome enough to correspond with the leather. These frames were carved, and the foot turned out like the Flemish, but it was of quite a different shape and fluted (see Figure 100). This Spanish foot retained its popularity a long time, appearing on many varieties of chairs almost as late as 1750. It was associated with cane, rush, leather, and stuff bottoms, was seen on arm and side chairs with slatted backs, and backs of cane and leather. Sometimes on the "roundabout chairs," as those having a square seat set with one angle pointed forward were called (see Figure 57), only the front foot was in Spanish style, the others being turned knobs which accorded with the turned legs and rails. Even on some of the so-called Queen Anne chairs with spoon backs, a modified form of Spanish foot was to be found, but this eventually gave way to the familiar ball-and-claw cabriole leg, or the regular Dutch foot (see Figure 11). It is curious that the cabriole leg with ball-and-claw foot was seen on pieces of furniture like both the high and low chests of drawers before it was used on chairs (see Figure 57), and the earliest of these Queen Anne chairs had the bandy leg with the plain Dutch foot. This foot is used with the solid splat and the spoon-shaped back with rounded ends to the top. Chippendale, in his earliest work, began to use the models then in vogue, and, with the bandy leg which was found only on the two front legs of chairs, used also a modified Dutch foot. Very soon he used instead the ball-and-claw foot, with or without the underbrace, and with the more ornamental foot the splat became pierced and carved and very ornate and rich. The later straight legged Chippendale chair (see Chapter III) came into favour, with or without underbraces, and late in the eighteenth century the other great cabinet-makers came along, each with his distinctive styles and characteristics. The first of these is Hepplewhite, who never achieved the success of Chippendale, who preceded him, nor of Sheraton, who succeeded him, yet whose work is often very beautiful. He did not, of course confine himself to any one style of foot or leg, yet on many of his chairs, tables, and sideboards he used what is called the "spade foot." This was varied in many ways, but the most common form is shown in Figure 100. Both Hepplewhite and Sheraton, as well as the other makers of the eighteenth century, used a variety of shapes of feet, for bureaus, desks, bookcases, and other pieces which were in no way distinctive. Each maker used the bracket foot as suited him best, adding curves to suit his fancy or the exigencies of the case, or inlay or even carving. A plain bracket foot is shown in Figure 100. The French foot (Fig. 100) is more ornate and slender, and comes on chests of drawers, bureaus, etc. Inlay is very often used for its decoration, and it adds a graceful line to the piece it is used on, which is always of choice wood inlaid or painted. [Illustration: _Flemish._] [Illustration: _Spanish._] [Illustration: _Dutch._] [Illustration: _Dutch._] [Illustration: _Chippendale._] [Illustration: _Bracket._] [Illustration: _French Foot._] [Illustration: _Hepplewhite, or Spade._] [Illustration: _Sheraton._] [Illustration: _English Empire._] [Illustration: _Pillar and Claw._] [Illustration: Figure 100. FEET.] The tapering fluted foot which we associate with Sheraton is also shown in Figure 100. Under his treatment it was nearly always decorated, either inlaid or carved, or sometimes both. Although we are most familiar with Sheraton style furniture in mahogany, he made much other furniture besides, as the following description of drawing-room chairs shows: "These drawing-room chairs are finished in white and gold, or the ornaments may be japanned, but the French finish them in mahogany with gilt mouldings. The figures in the tablets above the front rails are on French printed silk or satin, sewed onto the stuffing with borders round them. The seat and back are of the same kind, as is the ornamented tablet at the top of the chair. The top rail is pannelled, a small gold bead mitred round, and the printed silk pasted on. Chairs of this kind have an effect which far exceeds any conception we can have of them from an uncoloured engraving, or even a coloured one." This does not seem like the furniture we know as "Sheraton", yet in his books are many similar descriptions. After Sheraton gave up manufacturing furniture, and wrote only books of descriptions and patterns, France had passed through the throes of the Revolution, when the old _régime_ was swept away. Napoleon had been proclaimed First Consul, and then, in 1802, confirmed for life, and took under his charge even such minor details as furniture and dress. The styles arranged to suit his whim found an echo in England. The English Empire, both at its best and worse estate, could boast of nothing better than a feeble imitation of the antique, while the French Empire was at least an expression of the conquests and successes of one man. Thomas Hope was perhaps the best exponent of this style in England, and he industriously mingled emblems of the gods and goddesses, Phrygian caps and Roman fasces, Greek amphoræ, and fabulous animals on the furniture which he designed. In Figure 100 is shown one side of a chair designed by him, as also an Empire pillar-and-claw leg, as rendered by American cabinet-makers. Less ornate and ambitious, the American treatment of this period is preferable, for the chief use to which they put brass and bronze, the too-abundant use of which was so characteristic of this style, was to tip columns or pillars, and, to some extent, the feet of tables. The best old furniture which is to be found in the United States is of this period, which was succeeded by what may be denominated the black-walnut age, the chief characteristic of which was abundant coarse carving. Our cabinet-makers were very successful in their treatment of mahogany, both solid and veneered. The latter work has never been excelled, and shows its perfection by the good condition in which much of this furniture, seventy and eighty years old, is found to-day. The smaller affairs of life which go to make up the sum of necessaries were woefully wanting in the households of pioneers who battled with the American wilderness. The importance of the iron pot, weighing thirty or forty pounds, which descended by will through three or four generations, has already been pointed out. Pewter and brass ware were equally esteemed, and pewter, while by no means expensive, was not so plentiful but that many people managed with a small supply. Pewter spoons bent and broke, and a substitute, at least in the Connecticut Valley, was a small clam-shell set in a cleft stick. However much pewter was owned, whenever the Revolutionary heroes called for bullets, what there was was cheerfully run into those missiles of war, and there were many "bees" held all through the Colonies where bullets were run, and wooden trenchers were whittled out by the young lads to take the place of the sacrificed pewter. This wooden ware later was smoothed down by the women of the household with broken glass, and polished with sand made of powdered limestone. Some of these wooden articles, made of maple, poplar or apple-wood, have descended to show with what simple appliances our ancestors were content. How simple were their pleasures the records of the time show. In fact, anything so enlivening as a hanging was looked upon as sport for a holiday. The first State's prison was opened in 1797 at the foot of Tenth Street, New York city. It was in use for thirty years, till the structure at Sing Sing superseded it. Grant Thorburn, referring to a man who was reprieved through the efforts of the Society of Friends, writes as follows: "One day I went up to the park to see a man hung. After gazing two hours at the gallows, the sheriff announced a reprieve. I must own I was disappointed." Though amusements and pleasures were few, even such as came along could not well be enjoyed if the weather were stormy, and in Washington's diary the entry for November 29, 1789, is, "Being very snowy, not a single person appeared at the Levee." Clothes could not be risked; they were too valuable to be subjected to bad weather. Romalls, amens, casserillias, and ribdilures were high-sounding but perishable. Even while luxury was considered, health was neglected in many ways, such valuable adjuncts as tooth-brushes not being in use until about 1782. Many advertisements appear in the papers of men who combined several vocations, dentistry being one of them, and in 1789 General Washington, after much pain during the summer, went into the hands of John Greenwood, dentist, of 56 William Street, New York, who made him a set of "sea-horse teeth". This had been a very trying summer, and one newspaper has it that "raw rum has been found exceeding pernicious in this extreme," and something lighter, like a "Bishop" or "Lawn sleeves" was recommended, and study of a book published in England called "Oxford Night-caps" was suggested as furnishing recipes for various healthful beverages though it was added that the rum had better be omitted, "as it is very intoxicating, and therefore pernicious." The President's guests could choose from among Madeira, claret, champagne, sherry, arrack, spirits, brandy, cordials, porter, beer, and cider, yet, with it all, unseemly intoxication seems to have been the exception. Domestic discipline in New York was enforced on servants, whether bound or free, by means of an official who was stationed at the calaboose on the common, and who, for a fee of one shilling, gave a thorough whipping. Education was fostered and colleges throve. By 1760 the records state that the "King's College (Columbia) buildings were so far completed that the officers and students began to lodge and mess therein." This was in accordance with the terms of the charter, which further provided that the students were to wear caps and gowns and to be within the gates at a certain hour. The plan of education, like our belongings, was copied from England, and our college was, in the most material parts, to be like Queen's College, Oxford. The tuition fee when General Washington entered his step-son, John Parke Custis, there, was five pounds per annum, with room-rent four pounds, and board at the rate of eleven shillings weekly. The late Andrew P. Peabody, writing of college life at Harvard in 1820, says: "Coal, just then coming into use, had hardly found its way into college. The student's rooms, several of the recitation-rooms as well were heated by open fires. Friction matches, which according to Faraday were the most useful invention in our age, were not yet." He says that the feather-bed was a valuable asset (this article had held its own for centuries), but that ten dollars would have covered the other contents of a student's room. It had no carpet, and a pine bedstead, a washstand, table and desk, and three or four chairs were all it contained, besides a cannon-ball to be heated on extra-cold nights, and rolled down stairs on warm ones, "at such time as might most nearly bisect a proctor's night's sleep." Our maternal great-great-grandmothers must have had little leisure to spare from the duties that occupied their time. Yet many of them had still-rooms where they not only compounded the medicaments whereby many a family was raised from infancy, but where they made extracts and essences as well. They made, too, from the flowers and herbs that grew in their gardens, pomander-balls, which were used instead of vinaigrettes, the outer case being of silver or gold, and often as large as an orange. Those whose stock of trinkets did not boast one of these metal cases used the rind of an orange, the inside being carefully extracted, and a sponge with vinegar and spices being inserted in its place. Rose-balls made of leaves beaten to pulp, mixed with sweet spices, and rolled into a ball, soon became hard, resembling the rosaries made in the south of France. When held in the hand they became very fragrant from its warmth. Simpler than any of these was a rosy apple stuck full of cloves and giving out a fragrance years after the apple had lost all appearance or consistency of being a fruit, and awakening in the mind an image of her who made it in some quiet garden long ago. Like an antique spice-ball, all this old furniture that we have passed in review has an aroma of its own compounded by the hand that built it, the person that owned it, and the scenes that it has lived through. Many a sober old chair could discourse of experiences ranging from grave to gay, from lively to severe, and every one of these antiques, whether a treasured heirloom or a reclaimed derelict, has a charm that is not easily excelled. INDEX. "A Brief Description of New York", 35 Adam Brothers, 49, 68, 73, 74, 75, 80, 85 Adam, Robert, 55, 73, 74, 75, 175, James 73, 74 Addison, 56 Advertisements, 124, 125, 129, 137, 138, 144, 205, 214, 215, 228 Albany, City of, 22, 28, 29, 45 Albany Historical Society, 29, 37, 105, 135, 145, 194 Allyn, Alexander, 32 Almacks, 64 Amboise, 148 Amboyna wood, 222 Amelia Sophia, Princess, 64 André, Major, 83 "Annals of New York," Watson, 112 Anne of Austria, 149 Antiquarian Society, Concord, Mass., 114 Aubusson, 154, 158 Auction Sales, 67, 68 Ball-and-Claw, 53, 66, 70, 119, 123, 229, 230 Bancker, Gerard, 134 Bank of England, 11 Barjeer, 81 Baroque, 4 Bartolozzi, 74 Bass viol, 192, 193 Battle Abbey, 68 Bayard, Colonel and Mrs., 107 "Bear's Paw", 53, 54 Beaufait, 111 Beaumanor Park, 5 Beauvais, 156, 158, 159 Beaver skins, 38 Beds: 7, 38, 114, 115, 116, 118, 119, 126, 127, 133, 137, 138, 139, 169, 170, 223, 224 Canopy, 72 Chinese, 72 Dome, 72 Elizabethan, 8 English, 137 Field, 72, 137, 138 French, 137, 139 Flock, 27 Folding, 76 Gothic, 72 High four post, 72, 137 Low four post, 137, 139 Press, 81 Sofa, 72, 86 Summer, 86 Tent, 72 Bed-curtains, 9, 114, 137, 138, 139, 223 Bedsteads, 7, 56, 170 Bedford springs, 109, 110 Bellomont, Lord, 107 Belvoir, 117 Bergavenny, Lady Joanne, 7 Beverly, Robert, 98, 116 Bibles, 45 Bills of exchange, 11 "Bird's claw", 54 Block foot, 82 Blois, 149 Blondel de Nesle, 190 "Blue Boar Inn", 5 Bookcases, 57 Book of Sun-Dials, 197 Boston, 100, 101, 119, 121, 141 Boston Museum of Fine Arts, 23 Boucher, 156, 157 Boulle, 4 Boulle, André, Charles, 159, 160, 161, Sons 160 Bowdoin, James, 144 Bracket foot, 132, 230 Bradley, Sarah, 36 Brass, 226 Brasses, 226, 227, 228 Bricks English, 96, 97 Dutch, 97 New England, 97, 121 Brickmakers, 97 Britten, Charles, 209 British Museum, 207 Broglie, Prince de, 126 Buchanan, President, 110 Bull-baiting, 129 Bureau, 19 Burnet, Governor, 123 Butler, Captain Lawrence, 126 Byrd, Colonel, 97 Cabinet, 42 Makers, 137, 140, 141, 146, 147, 226, 227, 232 "Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer, and General Artists Encyclopedia, By T. Sheraton", 86, 88 Cabriole, 53, 66, 70, 229 Caffieri, 163, 164 Cane furniture, 24, 59 Candles, 123, 124 Candlewood, 123 Cards, Dutch, 44, 45 English, 122 Card tables, 63, 80 Carpets, 44, 113 Carriages, 113 Casement, 76 Castors, 228 Catherine of Braganza, 24, 59, 63, 208 Cedar, 56 Chairs, 22, 123, 134, 187, 229, 230 French, 48, 58 Hepplewhite, 77 Leather, 23 Russia Leather, 98 Rush bottom, 106 Sets of, 106 Spanish, 23, 229 Windsor, 88, 112, 113 Chambers, Sir William, 55 Chambord, 148 "Chancelleries", 155, 157 Chapin, Abel, 142 Chapin, Mistress David, 34 Charles I, 15, 202, 203. II, 24, 25, 26, 154, 202, 203 Charleston, 96, 180, 181, 182, 195 Chenonceau, 148 Chests, 11-21, 40, 112, 132, 141, 163 Chicopee, 34 "Chinese and Gothic Architecture", 49 Chinese designs, 48, 58 Furniture, 55, 56 Style, 43, 48, 56 Taste, 49, 55, 62 Chippendale, 48-72, 77, 86, 87, 119, 123, 135, 213, 230 Ornaments, 52, 57, 58, 66, 69 Choir singing, 184 Clavichord, 174 Clement, William, 209 Clepsydra, 199 Clocks, 71, 163, 197-221, 200 Banjo, 219 Brass works, 215 French, 214 Lantern, 202 Long case, 209, 218 Mantel, 219 Mottoes, 212 Price of, 215, 216 Springs, 216 Wooden works, 216 Clockmakers Burnap, Daniel, 215 Carmichael, John, 213 Clark, Herman, 216 Clement, William, 209 Clowes, James, 212 Downs, Ephraim, 220 Fox, Isaac, 207 Francis, Basil, 215 Gould, Christopher, 213 Graham, George, 204 Hanks, Benjamin, 215 Harland, Thomas, 216 Harris, Richard, 201 Harrison, J., 210 Hoadley, Silas, 216 Hopkins, Asa, 216 Huyghens, 203 Ives, Chauncey, 220 Knibb, Joseph, 212 Lepante, 214 Le Roy, Julien, 214 Lownes, James, 212 Merriman, Silas, 216 Monks, 213 "N. O.", 200 Peck, Timothy, 216 Quare, Daniel, 204 Rittenhouse, David, 217 Rose, Joseph, 207 Tenny, William, 215 Terry, Silas B., 217 Terry, Eli, 215 Thomas, Seth, 216 Tompion, Thomas, 202 Vick, Richard, 213 Villiamy, 201 Willard, Simon, Aaron, Benjamin, Simon, Jr., 219 Cocoa-Tree Club, 64 Colbert, 154, 155 Cold Spring, 133 "Colonial Furniture", 201 Colonial furniture, 95-148 Colonial houses, 101 Connecticut chest, 20, 108, 141 Continental Congress, 134 Cooper Institute Museum, 31, 46, 74, 167, 172 Cornbury, Governor, 137, 138 Costume, 29, 59, 60, 100-103, 106, 107, 120, 129, 136, 142, 144, 145, 151-153, 162, 167-169, 233 Counters, 65 "Court Records of New Amsterdam", 11, 42 Cowles House, 113 Cox, William, 36 Coytemore, Widow, 100 Cressent, Charles, 161 Cristofori, 174, 176, 177 Cromwell, Oliver, 202, 203 Culpeper, Thomas, 6 Cupboards, 43, 46, 111, 136, 140 Curaçao, 30 Current moneys, 34 Curtains, 114, 223 "Cymbeline", 12 Danvers, 100 David, 170 Dedham, 100 Deerfield Memorial Hall, 99, 108, 141, 192, 193 Denton, Daniel, 35 Desks, 132, 135 "Designs for Household Furniture" T. Sheraton, 86 Desmalter, Joseph, 171 D'Estaing, Count, 143 Diggs, Mrs., 98 Dilke, Lady, 149, 159 Dining-rooms, 112 Dining-tables, 78 Domestic discipline, 234 "Domestic Life of Thomas Jefferson", 186 Dorchester, 100 Drinks, 234 Drop handles, 42 "Duchess", 81 Dudley, Robert, 98 Dutch Cards, 44, 45 Chests, 46 Costume, 29 Foot, 229, 230 Furniture, 18, 28-47, 56, 59, 91, 99 Silver, 45 Silversmiths, 40, 41 Utensils, 34 Wills, 32 Earl of Arundel, Richard, 7 Eaton, Theophilus, 21 Easy chairs, 54, 82 East India, 48, 80, 223 Ébénisté, 222 Ebony, 43 Embroidery, 166 Empire furniture, 90, 91 Empire style, 88, 92, 135, 146, 170, 171, 172, 225, 231, 232 England, 112, 145, 197, 199, 206, 218 Epes, Colonel Francis, 17, 139 Escutcheons, 224, 226, 227, 228 Esopus, 133 Evelyn's Diary, 59, 154 "Fairfield", 104 Faneuil, Andrew, 119, 120 Faneuil, Hall, 121, 143 Faneuil, Peter, 120, 121, 122 Feet, 228, 229 Fiot, Julius, 196 Fire-buckets, 31 Fireplace, 145 Flaxman, John, 75 Flemish foot, 228, 229 Flemish Style, 25 Flock beds, 27 Fontainebleau, 148, 149, 154, 161, 169, 170, 171 Foot-bank, 24 Forks, 98, 120, 132 Fox, Charles James, 64 Fox-hunting, 128 France, 148-150, 154, 168, 169, 231 Francis I, 148, 149, 154. II, 148 French chairs, 48, 58 Court, 150 Foot, 82, 230 Furniture, 52, 148-173 Revolution, 90, 157, 169 Taste, 59, 71 "French Furniture of the XVIII Century", 149, 159 "Fret", heraldic, 208 Fretwork, 62 Frigate Brandywine, 221 Frison, John, 98 Frost, Miss Sarah, 66, 147 "Furniture of Our Forefathers", 28, 223 Gaine, Hugh, 124, 125 Galileo, 201 Gambling, 63-65, 162 Gardiner, Lion, 22 Gatty, Mrs., 197 Gautier, William, 112, 113 Geib, John & Sons, 194, 195 "Gentleman's Magazine", 199, 207 George I, 60 II, 60, 64, 65 III, 55, 74, 213 IV, 64 "Gesso", 73, 175 Gillow, 91 Glass, 226, 227 Gnomon, 197 Gobelin, 154-157 Goler, George W., 213 Graham, George, 204 Grand Trianon, 170 "Great Bed of Ware", 8 Greek and Roman Style, 73 Guildford, 100, 102 Guildhall Museum, 210 Hadley Chest, 20, 141 Halfpenny, William, 49 Hancock, John, 143, 144 Hampton Court Palace, 210 Handles, 132, 140, 146, 222-236 Bail, 224 Brass, 226 China, 225 Drop, 224 Glass, 225 Rosette, 225 Watergilt, 226 Willow, 224 Harmonica, 193 Harps, 188, 189, 190, 191 Harpists, 190, 191 Harpsichord, 174, 176, 185, 187, 188, 193 Harris, Richard, 201 Harvard College, 103 Haward, John, 174 "Hawkin's History of Music", 179 Haynes, John, 21 Hempstead, 35, 45 Plains, 128 Henrico County, 98, 139 Hepplewhite, 69, 71, 76-80, 85, 87, 119, 132, 138, 224 Hessians, 135 "Highboy", 140 "History of Boston." Drake, 179 "History of Music in Boston." Dwight, 191 "History of Music in New England." Hood, 182 "History of New England." Palfrey, 102 "History of New York." Smith, 66, 67 "History of South Carolina." McCrady, 96 "History and Present State of Virginia.", 115 "Historic Landmarks of Maryland and Virginia.", 185 Hitchcock, Deacon Justin, 192 Hitchcock, Thomas and John, 174 Hobbs, Richard, 98 Hochbrücker, 188 Hogarth, 59 Hollingbourne Manor, 6 Hooker, Robert, 203 Hope, Thomas, 231 Horologe, 209 Horse-racing, 128, 129 Hotel Montmorency, 1 Hour-glass, 199, 200 Hoyt, William M., 80, 107, 139, 213, 219 Ince & Mayhew, 48, 49 Independence Hall, Philadelphia, 112 Inns, 142 Inventories, 17, 21, 22, 26, 32, 33, 37, 38, 41, 45, 98, 100, 102, 103, 105, 108, 109, 117, 122, 123, 133-136, 139, 142, 187 Italian Work, 150 Italy, 148 Jacobean Furniture, 9, 10, 12 James I., 9, 11, 15, 205 II., 64 Jamestown, 95 Japanning, 5 Jefferson, Thomas, 48, 186 Joined Work, 5 Johnson, Thomas, 48 Johnson Hall, 187 Josephine, Empress, 169, 170, 171 "Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth", 26 "Journeyman's Cabinet and Chair-Makers Philadelphia Book of Prices", 109 Kauffmann, Angelica, 73, 74 Kidd, Captain William, 37 Killgore, A., 92 Misses, 93, 111 King's Chapel, 179, 180 King's College, 234, 235 King David, 189 "King Hooper House", 114 "King Richard's Bed", 6 Knife-boxes, 82, 89 Kitchen Utensils, 122 Lacquer, 4, 145, 210 Lady Joanne Bergavenny, 7 Lady Moody, 13 Lake, Mrs., 21, 119 Lamb, Charles, 199 Lamberton, George, 26 Lamps, 123, 124 Lanterns, 120 Le Brun, 154, 155 Lemaire, 156 Le Notre, 150 "Letters of Pacification", 183 Library, 118 Lignum-vitæ, 122 "Lining-out", 182, 183 Little Trianon, 165, 169 Lloyd, Cornelius, 97 Lock, Matthias, 48 Lockwood, 141, 201, 219 London, 97, 120, 122, 141 London Cabinet-Maker's Society, 76 London Clock-Maker's Company, 201 Long Island, 45 Long Island Dutch, 34 Looking Glasses, 43, 70 Louis XII., 149 XIII., 148 XIV., 71, 150-155, 157-159, 161, 172 XV., 52, 57, 161-163, 165, 172, 173, 176 XVI., 158, 165, 167, 172, 173 Louvre, 148, 160 "Lowboy", 143 Luynes, Duc de, 157 Madison, Dolly, 84 Mahogany, 43, 44, 51, 54, 58, 61, 81, 84, 86, 90, 91, 109, 117, 123, 132, 138, 140, 172, 232 Maintenon, Madame de, 151 Manwaring, Robert, 49 Mansart, 151 Marie Antoinette, 165, 166, 169, 172, 188, 222 Marlborough, Duke and Duchess, 67 Marquetry, 3, 46 Martin Brothers, 164, 165 Maryland, 96 Massachusett's General Court, 101 Memorial Hall, Philadelphia, 15, 56, 61, 70, 196 Metal mounts, 55, 139, 146, 163-167, 171-173, 211 Metropolitan Museum, New York, 46, 177, 188 "Mischianza", 83 Michaud, Doctor, 83 Monticello, 186, 187 Montgomery, General, 164 Morris, Mrs., 126 Moulding, 19 Mount Vernon, 116, 117, 185, 197, 219 Mott, Charles, 33 "Music in America." Ritter, 184 Musical glasses, 193 Musical Instruments, 174-196 Musical Societies, 195 Naderman, 188 Napoleon, 146, 149, 170, 171, 231 Napoleonic style, 91 New Amsterdam, 28, 31, 35, 36, 45 Court records of, 11, 42 Newbury, 101 New England, 26, 28, 99, 103, 108, 141, 180 New Haven Colony, 20, 26, 201 New Jersey, State Library, 135 New York, City of, 32, 34, 44, 45, 126, 128, 198, 215 "New York Gazette and Weekly Mercury", 109, 113, 129, 144 "New York Records of the Revolution", 134 Newport, 218, 219 Nutwood, 31, 223 Oak, American, 18 English, 10 Spanish, 59 Oeben, 165 "Old Manse", 88 "Old Palace Yard", 200, 201 Old Songs, 185, 186, 195 "Old State House", Boston, 111 "Old Stone House", 100 "Olden-Time Music", Brooks, 185 Olive-wood, 14, 15 Oliver, Mrs. B. H., 105 Oort, John, 36 Organs, 178-182, 184, 191 Organists, 179, 181 Ormolu, 4, 163, 164, 169, 211 "Overdoors", 49 "Over-mantels", 71 Panelling, oak, 2 Peabody, A. P., 235 Pembroke Tables, 82 Pendulum, 208-211, 215, 217 Penn, William, 104, 105 Pennsylvania, 104 "Pennsylvania Stoves", 113 Pepys's Diary, 63, 175, 191, 205, 207, 208 Percier & Fontaine, 90 Percy, George, 97 Pergolese, 73, 74 Pesaro, Domenico di, 175 Pewter, 232, 233 Philadelphia, 83, 84, 103, 106, 109, 112, 126, 127, 134, 215, 217 Piano, 174, 176-178, 191, 193-196 Pickering, Rev. Theophilus, 108 Pomander Balls, 235, 236 Pompadour, Madame de, 162 Pratt, Phineas, 141 Pringle House, 96 Psaltery, 189 Quare, Daniel, 204, 210 Queen Anne, 59, 64, 211, 229 Queen Caroline, 60 Queen Catherine, 63 Quincy, Josiah, 97, 181 Rails, 18 Raleigh, Sir W., 51 Rappahannock, 98 "Record of the Damages done by the British," etc., 135 Regency, 160, 161 Renaissance, French, 148, 149 Furniture, 10, 14 Revolution, 82, 97, 127, 132, 133 Rich, Charles, 84 Richard Coeur de Lion, 190 Riesener, 165, 166, 222 Ripley, Rev. Ezra, 88, 108, 114 Rittenhouse, David, 217 Rochefoucauld, Duc de La, 151 Rococo, 3 Roelantsen, Adam, 35 Rosewood, 54, 147 Salem, 84, 108, 121 Santvoordt, Cornelis Van, 133 Satin-wood, 73, 80, 81 Schenectady, 28 "Set-work.", 22, 27 Sèvres, 146, 163 Sewall, Rev. Samuel, 17 Shaw, Henry, 6, 8 Shearer, Thomas, 69, 76-78, 91 Sheets, 137 Sheraton, Thomas, 69, 71, 77, 78, 84-91, 99, 113, 140, 146, 147, 224, 230, 231 " foot, 85 Sideboards, 69, 77, 78, 86, 90 Silver Furniture, 10 Singleton, Miss, 28 Singing-schools, 183 Sleeping-bunk, 42 Smith, George, 91 Smith, Captain John, 15, 95 South Carolina, 180, 181 South Carolina College, 53 South Kensington Museum, 8, 25, 54, 188 "Spade-foot", 74, 81, 230 Spandrels, 212, 213 Spanish chairs, 23 Foot, 23, 229 Leather, 22, 23, 223 Style, 25, 229 "Specimens of Early Furniture", 6 "Spectator", 59 Spinet, 174, 175, 185 Splat, 53, 58, 66, 77, 123, 229, 230 St. Cecilia Society, 181 St. Martin's Lane, 52 St. Paul's Chapel, 164, 183 St. Philip's Church, 181 St. Simon, 153 Staffordshire, 93 Steenwych, Madam, 30 Stiles, 18 Stillrooms, 235 Stools, 10 Stoves, 145 Strawberry Hill, 56, 75, 138 "Strong-box", 134 Stuarts, 15 "Style" French, 149 Sun-dials, 197, 199 Table, old oak, 9 Tadema, Alma, 73 Taine, M., 152 Tapestry, 154, 159 Tayloe House, 94 Tea, 62, 144 Caddies, 57 Tables, 61, 62 Temple, Sir William, 198, 199 Terry, Eli and Silas, 215, 220 Testers, 8 "The Cabinet-Maker & Upholsterer's Guide, or Repository of Designs for Every Article of Household Furniture, etc." By A. Hepplewhite, 77, 78 "The Cabinet-Maker & Upholsterer's Drawing Book.", By T. Sheraton, 86 "The Decorative Part of Civil Architecture", 55 "The Gentlemen's & Cabinet-Maker's Director", 50, 52, 54, 65, 72, 123 "The Journeyman's Cabinet and Chair-Makers Philadelphia Book of Prices", 138, 228 "The London Cabinet-Maker's Book of Prices", 76 "The Maccaroni Magazine or Monthly Intelligence of the Fashions & Diversions", 129 "The Magazine a la Mode, or Fashionable Miscellany", 129 Tinder and Steel, 42 Tobacco, 96 Tompion, Thomas, 202, 208, 211, 213 Trundle-bed, 42 "Turkey-work", 23 Turned-wood work, 24 "Twenty New Designs of Chinese Lattice and other Works for Staircases, Gates, Pailings, etc.", 49 "Universal System of Household Furnishing", 48 Upholstery stuffs, 223 Van Rensselaer, 40, 41, 45, 140, 146 Vatican, 91 Veneering, 3 Venetian paste, 124 Vernis-Martin, 164, 165 Versailles, 150-153, 159, 168, 170, 171 Virginal, 174 Virginia, 96-98, 115, 116, 126, 140, 185, 219 Wainscot, 51, 111, 112, 149 Wall papers, 113, 114, 157 Walpole, Horace, 56, 64, 138 Wardrobes, 72, 164 Ware, Isaac, 50 Waring Galleries, London, 19, 25, 42, 47, 81, 87, 89, 159, 169 Washington, D. C., 94 Washington, General, 90, 116, 117, 197, 220, 233, 234 Watches, 200-202, 206 Watches, striking, 206 Watteau, 168 Wayside Inn, 143 Wedgwood, Josiah, 75, 124 West India Company, 35 West Indies, 112 Weymouth, 141 Whipple House, 90, 99, 137 Whitfield's House, 102 Wigs, 125 William III., 211 Willards, Simon, Aaron, Benjamin, Simon, Jr., 219 Wine coolers, 61, 89, 90 Winthrop, Governor, 100 " Mrs., 101 "Wooden ware", 117, 233 Woods, 108, 136, 137, 141, 222, 223, 226 Worcester, 52 "Works in Architecture by Robert and James Adam, Esquires", 74 Yale University Library, 123 Youghal, 51 Zucchi, 74 
47040	----	CHATS ON OLD COPPER AND BRASS BOOKS FOR COLLECTORS _With Frontispieces and many Illustrations._ CHATS ON ENGLISH CHINA. By Arthur Hayden. CHATS ON OLD FURNITURE. By Arthur Hayden. CHATS ON OLD PRINTS. (How to collect and value Old Engravings.) By Arthur Hayden. CHATS ON COSTUME. By G. Woolliscroft Rhead. CHATS ON OLD LACE AND NEEDLEWORK. By E. L. Lowes. CHATS ON ORIENTAL CHINA. By J. F. Blacker. CHATS ON OLD MINIATURES. By J. J. Foster, F.S.A. CHATS ON ENGLISH EARTHENWARE. (Companion volume to "Chats on English China.") By Arthur Hayden. CHATS ON AUTOGRAPHS. By A. M. Broadley. CHATS ON PEWTER. By H. J. L. I. Massé, M.A. CHATS ON POSTAGE STAMPS. By Fred. J. Melville. CHATS ON OLD JEWELLERY AND TRINKETS. By MacIver Percival. CHATS ON COTTAGE AND FARMHOUSE FURNITURE. (Companion volume to "Chats on Old Furniture.") By Arthur Hayden. CHATS ON OLD COINS. By Fred. W. Burgess. CHATS ON OLD COPPER AND BRASS. By Fred. W. Burgess. CHATS ON HOUSEHOLD CURIOS. By Fred. W. Burgess. CHATS ON OLD SILVER. By Arthur Hayden. CHATS ON JAPANESE PRINTS. By Arthur Davison Ficke. CHATS ON MILITARY CURIOS. By Stanley C. Johnson. CHATS ON OLD CLOCKS AND WATCHES. By Arthur Hayden. CHATS ON ROYAL COPENHAGEN PORCELAIN. By Arthur Hayden. CHATS ON OLD SHEFFIELD PLATE. (Companion volume to "Chats on Old Silver.") By Arthur Hayden. CHATS ON OLD ENGLISH DRAWINGS. By Randall Davies. CHATS ON WEDGWOOD WARE. By Harry Barnard. BYE PATHS OF CURIO COLLECTING. By Arthur Hayden. With Frontispiece and 72 Full page Illustrations. LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN, LTD. NEW YORK: F. A. STOKES COMPANY. [Illustration: FIG. 1.--FINE COPPER EWER. (_In the Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington._)] CHATS ON OLD COPPER AND BRASS BY FRED. W. BURGESS AUTHOR OF "CHATS ON OLD COINS," ETC. WITH FRONTISPIECE AND ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS AND WASH DRAWINGS T. FISHER UNWIN LTD LONDON: ADELPHI TERRACE _First Published 1914_ _Second Impression 1925_ (_All rights reserved_) PREFACE The collection of old metal may at first sight appear a somewhat unattractive hobby; a moment's reflection, however, brings to mind the wonderful art treasures of metal in our museums, gathered together from many parts of the world; not necessarily of the precious metals, for many of the most cunningly contrived objects of antiquarian research are of copper in one or more of its numerous forms of alloy. Copper is the basis of so many alloys of which metallic curios are formed, that in its combination with other metals it gives the collector an almost inexhaustible field of research. It was the metal of the ancients, which in combination with tin gave them that useful metal with which to fashion weapons of offence and defence, and later, as the Bronze Age advanced, utilitarian objects of household economy. Collectors find the Age of Metals unfolding as they arrange their collections with orderly sequence, and thereby trace the progress of artificers throughout the periods which have intervened since the first bronze celt was moulded to the present day. Although this is the Age of Iron and the numerous materials which metallurgical research and scientific skill have produced, copper, and brass in its varied forms, are still prominent, and the almost inexhaustible supply of copper with which Nature has provided us is still being drawn from. In this work the curios and artistic objects of use and ornament which have come down to us, contributed by craftsmen of many ages and of many countries, are passed in review. The object of so doing has been to awaken still greater interest--if that is possible--in the collection of copper and brass, and to preserve to futurity metal objects from which the utilitarian purpose of their manufacture is fast waning--if not already gone. Although the rarest and most costly objects are to be found in museums and the galleries of the wealthy, there are many still in the homes of the people, and there are many who seek and obtain pleasure and delight from the collection of the curious and the beautiful who cannot afford the unique specimens which are so costly. To such this book should appeal, for the descriptions and the illustrations have been drawn from many sources, and their selection has by no means been confined to the rarer types. The illustrations are reproductions of photographs which have been willingly furnished by owners of collections and museum authorities. A large number, too, have been specially drawn for this work by my daughter, Miss Ethel Burgess. I gratefully acknowledge the kindness of those who have allowed me to make use of objects in their collections. I would especially bear testimony to the courtesy of the Directors of the British Museum who have authorized their printers, The University Press, Oxford, to furnish blocks of some of the most interesting metal objects in the Galleries. The Director of the Victoria and Albert Museum has granted facilities for the reproduction of some of the beautiful metal-work at South Kensington. My thanks are especially due to Mr. Guy Laking, M.V.O., F.S.A., who, although in the midst of the removal of the London Museum from Kensington Palace to its new home at Stafford House, has kindly supplied several photographs of scarce metal objects. Special drawings have been made of several representative objects in the Guildhall Museum, through the courtesy of the Curator. Permission has been granted to reproduce photographs and illustrations of objects in several of the more important provincial Museums, and in several instances some very interesting information has been given by the Curators. Among others I should like to give the names of Mr. F. R. Rowley, Curator of the Royal Albert Memorial Museum at Exeter; Mr. T. Sheppard, F.G.S., F.S.A.Scot., Curator of the Municipal Museum, Hull; Dr. Hoyle, Director of the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff; Mr. J. A. Charlton Deas, F.R.Hist.S., Director of the Museum and Art Gallery, Sunderland; Mr. Thos. Midgley, F.R.Met.S., Chadwick Museum, Bolton; Mr. R. Rathbun, Assistant Secretary of the United States National Museum, Washington; and the Town Clerk of Winchester. I am further indebted to Messrs. Glendining & Co., Ltd., who have given me permission to reproduce some beautiful Oriental metal-work which has recently passed under the hammer in their London Galleries; also to Messrs. Herbert Benham & Co., for a drawing of the copper ball and cross of St. Paul's; and to Mr. Amor, of St. James's, S.W., The Edward Gallery, of King Street, S.W., and Mr. Chas. Wayte, of Edenbridge, who have given me photographs of rare pieces of art metal-work. I have endeavoured to refrain from technicalities or dry descriptions; but some of the chapters have necessarily a touch of the workshop and the foundry about them. I can assure my readers, however, that the "metallic ring" is inseparable from copper and brass, and that the pleasures of possession will be added to by the better understanding it will impart to those who collect and admire similar objects to those referred to in this work. FRED. W. BURGESS. LONDON, 1914. CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE 7 GLOSSARY 23 CHAPTER I THE METAL AND ITS ALLOYS 35 Ancient bronze--The bronzes of Greece, Rome, and Eastern nations--Copper for enamels--The brass of commerce--Bell metal--The sources of copper--The making of brass--Copper as an alloy--The characteristics of metal. CHAPTER II THE HUNTING GROUND 51 In buried cities--Turned up by the plough--Among Saxon and Norman remains--In hidden chambers--In local museums--Dealers' shops--The engraver's art. CHAPTER III PREHISTORIC BRONZES. 63 The dawn of progress--London relics--The beauty of ancient art--The useful bronzes, the prototypes of later brasses--The forger at work. CHAPTER IV GREEK AND ROMAN CURIOS 77 Grecian bronzes--Relics of Roman occupation--Interesting toilet requisites--Artificial lighting--Statues and monuments--Romano-British art--A well-staged exhibit. CHAPTER V MEDIÆVAL ANTIQUITIES 93 Domestic brasswork--Metal signs and badges--Ornamental trinkets--Arms and armour. CHAPTER VI LATER METAL-WORK 111 The influence of the Guilds--Architectural metal-work--The door knocker--Interior metal-work. CHAPTER VII CHURCH BRASSWORK 133 Candlesticks--Altar brasses--Metal architectural ornament--Memorial brasses. CHAPTER VIII DOMESTIC UTENSILS 153 The kitchen--The houseplace--Chimney and other ornaments--Classified arrangement. CHAPTER IX CANDLESTICKS AND LAMPS 193 Fire-making apparatus--Candles and candlesticks--Oil lamps and lanterns. CHAPTER X BELLS AND BELL-METAL CASTINGS 215 The founders' secrets--Great bells of historic fame--The uses of bells--Old mortars. CHAPTER XI CIVIC EMBLEMS AND WEIGHTS AND MEASURES 229 The ancient horn--The badge of office--Weighing instruments--Measures in Exeter Museum--Our standards. CHAPTER XII BRONZES AND THEIR REPLICAS 247 Early figure modelling--Statues in public places--Replicas in miniature. CHAPTER XIII ORIENTAL BRONZES AND BRASSES 261 Countries of origin--How some Oriental curios are derived--A wealth of metal on view--Various Indian wares--Chinese and Japanese art. CHAPTER XIV IDOLS AND TEMPLE RELICS 289 Varied shrines and many idols--Indian idols--Temple vases and ornaments. CHAPTER XV NATIVE METAL-WORK 303 Outside influences--Benin bronzes--Other African curios. CHAPTER XVI CONTINENTAL COPPER AND BRASS 313 Italian bronzes--French art--Dutch brasswork--German metal-work. CHAPTER XVII SUNDIALS, CLOCKS, AND BRASS INSTRUMENTS 327 The mystery of dialling--Some old dials--Antique clocks--Old watches--The weather--Scientific instruments. CHAPTER XVIII ENAMELS ON COPPER 347 Processes of enamelling--Chinese and Japanese enamels--British enamels. CHAPTER XIX MISCELLANEOUS METAL CURIOS 361 Tobacco-boxes and pipe-stoppers--Snuff-boxes--Handles and handle-plates--Horse-trappings--War relics--Tiny curios--Replicas. CHAPTER XX WRINKLES FOR COLLECTORS 385 Cleaning copper and brass--Lacquering metal--Polishing brass--Restoring antique finishes--Using the burnisher--Brass rubbings. INDEX 395 ILLUSTRATIONS FIG. 1. FINE COPPER EWER _Frontispiece_ PAGE 2. (1) BRONZE BUCKLER FROM THE THAMES VALLEY 39 3. (2) ANOTHER BUCKLER FROM ABERYSTWYTH 39 4. PART OF THE HOARD OF IMPLEMENTS OF THE LATE BRONZE AGE, FOUND IN KING'S CO., IRELAND 55 5. (1) BRONZE CALDRON 67 6. (2) URN OF THE LATER BRONZE AGE 67 7. BRONZE SAUCEPAN WITH FOLIATED HANDLE 85 8. EWER OF HAMMERED COPPER 85 9. LAMP OF CAST BRONZE 85 10. LAMP OF BRASS INLAID WITH COPPER 85 11. BRASS AQUAMANILE (SEVENTEENTH CENTURY) 99 12. BRASS _COUVRE DE FEU_, A RARE EARLY PIECE 113 13. COPPER VANE ON BILLINGSGATE FISH MARKET 119 14. THE CITY DRAGON AS A WEATHER-VANE 119 15. COPPER COCK VANE, ONE OF FOUR ON SMITHFIELD MARKET 119 16. BRONZE KNOCKER OF THE ARMORIAL TYPE 129 17. BRASS DROP KNOCKER IN THE FORM OF A DOLPHIN 129 18. BRASS WELL BUCKET 129 19. CURIOUS DOUBLE CANDLESTICK 135 20. VENETIAN CANDELABRUM (ONE OF A PAIR) 141 21. BRONZE INCENSE BURNER AND INCENSE BOAT 145 22. THE COPPER-GILT CROSS ON ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL 149 23. SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY ROOM IN THE LONDON MUSEUM 157 24. BRONZE CALDRON IN TRINITY HOSPITAL, LEICESTER 161 25. SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY BRASS PAN 165 26. BRASS TRIPOD POT 165 27. CALDRON OF CAST BRASS 165 28. BRASS COOKING VESSEL WITH CURVED HANDLE 165 29. SKILLET (BRASS), THE HANDLE OF WHICH IS ENGRAVED WITH THE MOTTO "PITTY THE PORE" 169 30 AND 31. BRONZE COOKING VESSELS, ATTRIBUTED TO THE BEGINNING OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 169 32 AND 33. COPPER WATER JUG AND WATER POT 173 34. COPPER WATER JUG AND COVER 173 35. BRASS TWO-HANDLED WATER VESSEL 173 36. A FINELY-PIERCED BRASS TRIVET, DATED 1668 177 37. BRASS-TOPPED TRIVET, WITH ADDITIONAL LEG STAY 177 38. BRASS-TOPPED TRIVET, WITH TURNED WOOD HANDLE 177 39. COPPER HELMET-SHAPED COAL-BOX 181 40. BRASS FOOT-WARMER WITH BAIL HANDLE 185 41 AND 42. EARLY BRASS OR BRONZE HAND-WARMER, SHOWN OPEN AND CLOSED 185 43 AND 44. BRASS CHIMNEY ORNAMENTS (ONE EACH OF PAIRS) 189 45. BRASS HORSE, A CHIMNEY OR HOB-GRATE ORNAMENT 189 46. A TWO-TUBE CANDLE MOULD 197 47. TWO TYPES OF EARLY PRICKET CANDLESTICKS 197 48. PAIR OF CANDELABRUM OF EARLY TYPE (CENTRAL FIGURE) AND TWO OLD OIL LAMPS 201 49. GROUP OF RARE CANDLESTICKS, ALMS-DISH, AND EWERS 205 50. EARLY BRONZE LAMP 209 51. OLD BRASS LANTERN 213 52. BELL CAST BY JOHN PENNINGTON AT EXETER IN 1670 223 53. GROUP OF BELL-METAL MORTARS 223 54. AN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FLAGSTAFF HEAD OF BRASS, ORIGINALLY GILT 233 55. THE WINCHESTER MOOT HORN 233 56. THE WINCHESTER BUSHEL (STANDARD MEASURE) 237 57. OLD MEASURES BASED ON THE WINCHESTER STANDARD 237 58. A PINT MEASURE OF THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH 243 59. A WINCHESTER PINT OF THE DAYS OF QUEEN ANNE 243 60. OLD FRENCH WEIGHTS 243 61. BRONZE TIGER, BY ANTOINE LOUIS BARYE 251 62. BRONZE LION, BY BARYE 255 63. BRONZE STAG, BY BARYE 259 64. COFFEE-POT OF HAMMERED COPPER FROM SYRIA 265 65. SARACENIC DECORATED BRASS BASIN 269 66. JAPANESE KETTLE (_YUWAKASHI_) 275 67. PAIR OF VASES OF RED-BROWN COPPER, RELIEVED WITH BLACK LAC, FROM MORADABAD 275 68. BRONZE FIGURE (ONE OF A PAIR) INLAID WITH SILVER AND GOLD 285 69. AMIDA (INDIAN IDOL) 291 70. A "BLUE" TARA (INDIAN IDOL) 291 71. AMITAYUS (INDIAN IDOL) 291 72. VAJRA DHARMA (INDIAN IDOL) 291 73. AMITAYUS (INDIAN IDOL) 291 74. JAPANESE PRICKET CANDLESTICK IN THE FORM OF CRANE AND TORTOISE 295 75. JAPANESE RITUAL VASE 299 76. SMALL TWO-HANDLED RITUAL VASE 299 77. CIRCULAR VASE ON STAND 299 78. BRONZE OVIFORM EWER 315 79. BRASS EWER WITH ARTISTIC HANDLE 315 80. DUTCH ORNAMENTAL BRASS CISTERN 323 81. FRENCH EWER OR TANKARD WITH FANCY HANDLE 323 82. FRENCH EWER WITH GROTESQUE MOUTH (SIXTEENTH CENTURY) 323 83. EARLY DIALS--ON THE LEFT AN ARMILLARY DIAL; IN THE CENTRE PILLAR DIAL; AND ON THE RIGHT A RING DIAL 331 84. CURIOUS OLD MICROSCOPE, MADE IN 1780 331 85. ENGRAVED POCKET CLOCK 337 86. A HANDSOME BRONZE BAROMETER 343 87. BOWL OF THE MING PERIOD 353 88. BOX OF PEKIN ENAMEL 353 89. MING BOWL 353 90. FINE ALTAR SET OF CLOISONNÉ ENAMELS (CH'IEN LUNG PERIOD) 359 91. COLLECTION OF BRASS AMULETS (HARNESS BRASSES) 371 GLOSSARY GLOSSARY =Astrolabe.=--The astrolabe is an instrument which was largely used in taking the altitude of the sun or stars at sea. It was well known to the Greeks, and takes its names from two Greek words, meaning _a star_ and _to take_. Perfected by the Arabs, the instrument was introduced into Europe about the tenth century. It is said that the most famous examples are to be seen in the museums at Madrid and Florence. There is one in the British Museum, which was made for Henry, Prince of Wales, in 1574. =Barrow.=--Mounds in which bronze celts, knives, spear-heads, and food receptacles are found along with the remains of chieftains and others of the prehistoric peoples once inhabiting this country. The term "barrow" originally denoted a "little hill." Round barrows are the most common form, although some are oval and some of the "long barrow" type. The methods of burial differed, but in most instances implements of stone or bronze as well as vessels of pottery and some trinkets belonging to the dead were usually placed near to the body. =Betel-Nut Boxes.=--The beautifully ornate boxes, chiefly found in India, made for holding the betel-nut and the shell lime used by the natives who chew the leaves and nut of the areca palm. =Bidri Metal.=--The metal objects known as bidri are made of an alloy of copper-zinc and lead, damascened with silver, showing a peculiarly striking contrast in black and white. The villages round Lucknow are famous for this curious and effective inlaid metal work. =Brass.=--An alloy of copper and zinc. Early brass was copper mixed with calamine melted in a crucible. The ancient form of alloyed metal employed by the Romans was copper and tin, which, although frequently termed "brass" is more correctly defined as bronze (see Bronze). The greater the proportion of zinc the lighter the colour; but the addition of an extra quantity of zinc reduced the tenacity and ductility of the metal. =Brasses.=--The term brasses is applied (in antiquarian and curio metallurgy) to the monumental brasses which as early as the first half of the thirteenth century replaced the older effigies, such as those of the Crusaders, which may be seen in the Temple Church, in London. The brasses, of which many rubbings have been taken, include the large brasses, covering nearly the whole of their tomb flag, and the small brasses on which were engraved emblems, escutcheons, and inscriptions, inset into large slabs of marble or stone, ornamenting rather than constituting the covering of tombs. =Brazier.=--Primarily a pan for holding burning coals. The brazier was in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries a domestic appliance for keeping hot dishes for the table, some very interesting examples of an ornamental character, doubtless used for that purpose, being referred to in Chapter VIII. The brazier, so called to-day, is a tripod open fire chiefly used out of doors in some open space. =Bronze.=--The bronze of the ancients consisted chiefly of pure copper and an alloy of tin. In those very early days the compounding and mixing of the metals must have been done largely by experience and "rule of thumb." It was before the days of metallurgical research and before the chemistry of metals was understood. As yet there was no formula. Curiously enough the proper nomenclature of metals has never been formulated, and "bronze" is the term still applied in a very haphazard way to various alloys. Quite recently a very able lecture was delivered by Dr. Rosenhain, of the National Physical Laboratory, on the "Nomenclature of Alloys" at a meeting of the Birmingham Section of the Institute of Metals. Every one, he told us, described metals "at his own sweet will," and for the most part by misleading terms. He suggested in reference to copper-bronze alloys that "copper-zinc" might denote an alloy with more copper than zinc in it, and "zinc-copper" when the former metal was present in a greater degree. He thought "tin-copper" would serve as a fairly wide definition of modern bronze. In such bronzes aluminium is now generally added. Other scientists have suggested the definition of bronze by chemical numerals, thereby indicating their contents with more exactitude. At present, however, the term bronze is very elastic. =Buckler.=--The old English name _bocler_ denoted a shield with a boss. It was worn on the left arm; used in the Middle Ages to parry blows rather than intended to act as a cover for the body like the larger and more cumbrous shields. =Chattie or Chatty.=--A porous earthenware vessel used in India for cooling water and other purposes. =Chaufferette.=--A spherical metal vessel in the interior of which was a small chain, from which was suspended a cup in which could be placed a piece of red-hot metal or charcoal. It was usually a hand-warmer; some chaufferettes, however, were larger, almost like small stoves. The name is derived from a table stove or small furnace, literally a cylindrical box of sheet-iron, the word coming from the French _chauffer_, to heat. =Circe-Perdu Process.=--The Japanese have been wonderfully clever in their manipulation of metals, especially considering the very primitive appliances they used in the early days. Some of their most remarkably intricate bronzes were fashioned and modelled in wax, delicately tooled, hardened a little, and then covered over with layers of fine clay until the mould became strong enough. The clay mould when dried was heated until the wax ran out, leaving a smooth and beautifully finished mould in which the bronze metal could be poured, the clay being broken away when it was cold. Great skill and at the same time much patience were needed to produce such charming effects. The bronzes of old Japan were frequently inlaid with fine and delicate tracery in silver and gold. Up to comparatively recent times beautifully modelled ornaments were fashioned by such laborious processes, and even now by more modern methods much labour is expended on their production. =Counters.=--Counters have been used in card games from quite early times. They were frequently of engraved metal. In the reign of James I., we are told by Horace Walpole, one Nicholas Hilliard was licensed for twelve years to engrave card counters on which was the Royal portrait. In later reigns similar counters were so engraved. Those of the time of Queen Anne bore a great resemblance to the obverse of the then current coins. Sets of counters were frequently supplied in metal boxes, the exteriors of which were often decorated by engravings. It should be clearly understood that metal card-counters--old and modern--are quite distinct from commercial counters or jettons. =Couvre de Feu.=--The French term, literally, cover of the fire, became the name of the metal shield or cover with which the fire was shut down in the days of the Norman kings. From the same root term the English curfew is derived. It was the curfew bell that sounded the signal for the _couvre de feu_ to be brought out and lights and fires to be extinguished. These metal plates, so frequently engraved all over, are among the rarities of domestic curios (see p. 113). =Damascene.=--The process of inlaying steel or other metal work with silver or gold beaten into the incised metal. To damascene (also spelled damasken) was a process first emanating from Damascus--hence its name. =Dialling.=--A dial plate is made by fixing to a flat surface a stile or gnomon, which forms with the horizon an angle equal to the latitude of the place in which it is to be used. When the gnomon is in position a line is drawn upon the surface of the plate so that the shadow of the stile falls exactly upon it at noonday, the plane through the stile and the sun coinciding with the meridian. It cannot be too clearly understood by users of old sundials that dial plates used in any other latitude than that for which they were constructed must necessarily be inaccurate. =Ember Tongs.=--These little tongs were formerly used to take up the hot embers from among the ashes of a dying fire. They were constantly in use in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, many being decorative, the handles often being fashioned to serve the purpose of a pipe stopper. =Enamels.=--The enamels applied to copper or brass are glass coloured with oxides of metals, producing blue, green, violet, red, and other shades. These when fused adhere to the metal surface and are very lasting. Various processes have been adopted, especially in the fine arts. The principal older processes are champlevé, cloisonné, and Limoges. In the first named the spaces to be filled in with enamels are cut into the metal foundation; then, when the enamels have been fired, they are rubbed down and polished. The cloisonné process, chiefly practised in the East, consists of small cells or cloisons formed of wire filled with the requisite colours. Limoges enamels, the finest period of which is placed in the sixteenth century, were formed by a ground of enamel painted over, chiefly with classical subjects. Opaque enamels on, usually, a convex copper disc or plate, were the work of later craftsmen. At Battersea and Bilston in England, towards the close of the eighteenth century, many small boxes and trinkets (see p. 356) were produced. The enamels of recent date applied to utilitarian objects and cooking vessels are seldom fixed upon a ground-work of copper--iron or steel being the usual base. In jewelry and small trinkets enamelling on copper is still practised, many such objects being of Oriental origin. =Fibula.=--A small brooch or buckle. Many of the beautifully fashioned fibulæ have been found among the remains of Roman London, a large number being on view in the Guildhall Museum. =Gipciere.=--A kind of pouch formerly worn at the girdle, an early type of purse. The name is sometimes spelled _gipser_. =Hookah.=--The name given to the bottle through which tobacco smoke is passed. In smoking with a hookah the smoke is cooled by being made to pass through water. =Latten.=--The name is primarily derived from the nature of the material--thin sheets. The brass or latten brass was formerly used chiefly for making church utensils. Black latten consists of milled sheets of brass, composed of copper and zinc; roll latten, of metal polished on both sides; and white latten of brass and tin. =Meander.=--A term applied to the decorations on Japanese and other bronzes. To wind, to twist, meandering like the winding river Maeander, in Phrygia, from which the proverbial term is derived. =Mirrors of Bronze.=--The bronze mirrors of the Romans were given their reflective power by using an alloy of antimony and lead, a combined metal which took a highly reflective polish; the backs, handles, and frames were of bronze. =Mortars.=--Mortars such as those referred to on p. 226 with accompanying pestles, were commonly in domestic use from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. In later years they were employed chiefly in the preparation of drugs, but more recently they have been superseded by the modern way of preparing spices and other compounds by machinery. The form of the vessel may be described as an inverted bell, the substances therein being pounded or rubbed with the pestle. =Patina.=--A term expressive of the colour or encrustation which is imparted to works of art by age. It is used chiefly in reference to the beautiful green formation which covers ancient bronzes, shading from light green to deep brown. This crustation consists of basic copper carbonate, the result of exposure to the air. It is chiefly found on bronzes, the alloy of which is mostly of tin and very little zinc. The patina or patine is also the name given by the Romans to a shallow basin used for domestic purposes. =Pilgrims' Signs.=--The symbols or signs worn by pilgrims when visiting one or other of the famous shrines in this country in mediæval days were distinct from the crests or badges of wealthy patrons which were at one time worn pretty generally as indicating on whose service the journey they were making was being performed. Pilgrims' signs were worn on the outward journey chiefly as protective amulets; on the return journey mostly as proof of the pilgrimage, such signs being purchased at or near the shrines to which homage had been paid. The chief shrines in this country were those of St. Thomas à Becket at Canterbury, and Walsingham Priory in Norfolk, where Our Lady of Walsingham was held in high repute. =Weather-Vane.=--The vane denotes any flat surface attached to an axis and moved by the wind, usually applied to some elevated object for the purpose of telling which way the wind blows. A strip of metal cut to some fanciful form and placed upon a perpendicular axis around which it moves easily. I THE METAL AND ITS ALLOYS CHAPTER I THE METAL AND ITS ALLOYS Ancient bronze--The bronzes of Greece, Rome, and Eastern nations--Copper for enamels--The brass of commerce--Bell metal--The sources of copper--The making of brass--Copper as an alloy--The characteristics of metals. The coppersmith has taken a prominent place among the craftsmen of all nations, and at all periods, and in not a few instances he has been acknowledged as an artist of no mean order. The material upon which he has worked has been copper and its alloys and compounds. From this metal have been produced many valuable antiques, and among the work of the coppersmith of more recent days there are objects of intense interest and of great beauty. In this work many collectable objects have been classified, and in the different groups of metal-work referred to attention is drawn to these beautiful and sometimes quaint reminders of past generations, and also to some of the most notable non-collectable metal-work which may be seen and admired in museums and art galleries, and to a few of the copper monuments, memorials, and historic relics which are gazed at by the curious, oftentimes without thought of the materials of which they are composed. Ancient Bronze. The raw material, copper, smelted and beaten or poured from a crucible into moulds, was in more ancient times used in its unalloyed purity--and it is still used in that state. It was, however, soon discovered that copper might be improved for many purposes by mixing with it other metals possessing different properties. The prehistoric peoples who lived in Britain, and in other countries within reach, soon added tin, which was found in Cornwall quite near to the surface, and was from early times sold to Phoenician traders, thereby producing bronze. It is of this metal that most of the much valued curios of the so-called Bronze Age are made. Those who fashioned them were clever manipulators of the alloyed metal, and by processes now little understood were able to temper tools and weapons and to give them keen-cutting edges. Our museums are full of spear-heads, celts, axes, and palstaves of bronze, which were cast in moulds of stone cut to the required shapes by those primitive workers in metal, who used simple crucibles in which it was melted. [Illustration: FIG. 2 (1).--BRONZE BUCKLER FROM THE THAMES VALLEY. FIG. 3 (2).--ANOTHER BUCKLER FROM ABERYSTWYTH. (_In the British Museum._)] The prehistoric bronzes, some examples of which are referred to in another chapter, are the earliest collectable curios formed of metal. They include implements of war and of the chase and some domestic utensils and cooking vessels. To these useful objects must be added ornaments and trinkets of bronze, so many of which have been found in the barrows and burying-places of prehistoric races. The knowledge of bronze appears to have been widespread. It was understood by those who dwelt in this country, by the inhabitants of European countries, by Eastern nations, and by the Egyptians, who left such wonderful monuments behind them, giving evidence that they knew how to impart a knife-like edge to their tools of bronze. Bronzes of Greece and Rome and Eastern Nations. The ancient bronze of prehistoric days must not be confused with the metals or compounds of copper and its alloys which enabled the Greeks to produce such wonderful statues. They learned to impart hardness to copper, and wrought much delicate handiwork, much of which has perished; but enough has been spared to confirm classic history and to enable us to realize something of their conceptions of the old gods and personified hopes and aspirations. In like manner the wonderful bronzes of China and Old Japan were wrought; the metal-worker's art in those countries goes back many centuries. Some of the more delicately chiselled figures and groups were first modelled in wax upon an iron core, the mould being then formed of soft clay. When the clay was baked the wax melted, and running away through prepared outlets, left a smooth cavity into which the bronze was afterwards poured. When the metal was cold the clay would easily be broken away, and the object, at the moulding of which we often marvel, made perfect. In course of time such bronzes have been coated over with a beautiful patina of green, that natural finish which age can alone impart. It is in that state so many of the bronzes of Grecian sculptors are found, and it is covered with patina of many delightful shades that we buy the metallic curios from China and Japan. Copper for Enamels. In the days when so many beautiful ecclesiastical ornaments were fashioned, copper was the foundation used by mediæval artists as the base of their exquisite enamels. These beautiful objects are especially referred to in Chapter XVIII, where reference is also made to the enamels of Eastern countries, in the making of which brass was frequently used as the foundation. Copper has been found suitable as the groundwork upon which super-finishes have given that superiority and attractiveness associated with many of the fine arts. It was suitable for gilding over and for decorating with precious stones. Copper was also frequently used by painters, its smooth surface being regarded as an excellent material on which to work. As an example, some of the religious pictures, especially miniatures, were painted on copper, instead of on wood panels. The Brass of Commerce. Many speak of brass as a metal apart from copper, yet the brass of commerce, worked up in many forms, is only a composite metal of which copper is the basis. The popularity of pure copper as the material from which household utensils and many constructional objects of use and ornament were made in the past continued unabated until metallurgical chemists discovered how, by using an alloy of zinc, the metal we call brass could be cast, rolled, and otherwise manipulated. Among the advantages claimed for brass is that it has a harder surface and is more resisting than copper. From the days of Queen Elizabeth onward it was much favoured for domestic vessels, and even at the present time it is used to some extent; there has, however, always been a concurrent use of copper. Bell Metal and Other Alloys. There is yet another important alloy, which from its chief use takes the name of bell-metal; its companion alloy is gun-metal. In the mixing of these metals special alloys are aimed at according to the object in view, that is to say, the ingredients vary, but, broadly defined, the copper and its alloy tin used in bell-metal are in the proportion of three to one. The metal was in the past used for those much employed articles of commercial and domestic use, mortars, in addition to the founding of bells. Bell-metal was also the material of which weights and measures (especially the standards kept in many of the old cities) were chiefly made (see illustrations and references thereto in Chapters X and XI). The Sources from which Copper is Derived. Copper seems to have been very widely distributed all over the world, a fact that has contributed to its general use. At one time a local metal employed in a pure state and in conjunction with alloys, chiefly where it was mined, it is now brought to the metal-founder from other parts of the world. Although vast quantities of copper are now imported into England, it was from British mines that the supply was drawn in days gone by. The Britons understood its use, no doubt finding it out by accident, just as the natives of many other countries have done. Copper, as evidenced by the marvellous Benin bronzes, was known in Central Africa long ago. The mines at Mansfield, in Germany, are the oldest in Europe, and there workers have been digging up copper for seven centuries. The collector of old metal objects naturally takes the greater interest in well authenticated specimens known to have been fashioned in districts once famous for their copper mines. Unfortunately, the Cornish mines produce little ore now. When the Romans worked them they obtained copper quite near to the surface; but such easily mined ores have long been cleared. Copper smelting was carried on in Cumberland and Northumberland in days gone by. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries copper was smelted in Yorkshire and Lancashire. Then we read of the reopening of old Cornish mines and of furnaces being erected in Bristol. The mines of Anglesea are less known, although they were once very active. South Wales has for many years past been closely identified with copper smelting, and rolling mills were established in Swansea as early as 1720; and although the better knowledge of metallic chemistry enables manufacturers to produce copper more economically than in days gone by, the old principle of crushing, calcining, roasting, and washing the ore, although improved by modern machinery, is still adhered to. As with many other industries, the invention of the steam-engine was a boon to the owners of copper mines in Cornwall, many being flooded towards the end of the eighteenth century. With the steam-engine to work them, pumps were put in operation, mines were cleared, and for a time at any rate ore was procured and renewed activity was visible in many British centres. In those days many of the things we now regard as curios were being made. As with many other raw materials the value of copper steadily advanced, for as trade and commerce grew, immense quantities were used up for sheathing ships' bottoms, roofing buildings, for engravers' plates, and for the rolls used in the printing of calicoes. Other sources of supply have been found, for the chain extending from Land's End to Dartmoor no longer serves. The famous Parys Mines are no more, and it is from foreign countries the supply comes. Some of our Colonies have proved rich in ores, such, for instance, as South Australia, where it is said an early settler examining the burrow of a wombat found the green mineral, that incident leading to the opening of mines yielding vast quantities of copper ore. The Making of Brass. The brass of commerce, rolled in sheets, drawn in rods and wire, and cast in ingots ready for the founder, is, as it has been stated, a composite metal, very well suited to many purposes. During the sixteenth century much progress was made in metal-founding. The Worshipful Company of Founders was busy. Many "battery" works were set up in England, and there brass was hammered or battered into shape. Thus brass-workers were engaged in making useful pots and pans, now in their much worn state eagerly sought after by the collector. Some worked with the ladle and crucible, others with the hammer and anvil or wood block. The earlier brass was composed of copper mixed with calamine melted in a crucible, a process which continued until the more modern form of melting metallic zinc with copper was understood. Champion's process, by which this newer method was carried out, was kept secret for some time, but about the middle of the eighteenth century it was generally understood and the process of stamping brass became a common one in the Birmingham district. Copper as an Alloy. Copper, the base of so many alloys, has itself been found a useful alloy of most workable metals, not only in modern times but in years gone by. It is one of the best hardening agents in aluminium, the newer metal which is to some extent displacing copper and brass cooking pots and much ornamental metal-work. According to an expert, aluminium is tasteless, and possesses all the advantages of copper without its drawbacks. That being so, perhaps even vessels of brass, such as may still be seen in kitchens, may soon become obsolete and pass shortly into the rôle of the museum curio. Incidentally it may be mentioned that aluminium is not altogether a new metal, neither is its use confined to civilized countries, where metallurgists have proved its advantages; for the natives of the Philippines, Borneo, and other islands in the Pacific have long used it as an independent metal, and also for the purposes of ornamenting other materials. Many of the copper and brass curios brought into this country, the products of native smiths, working far from civilized lands, are partly made of aluminium, alloyed chiefly with native copper. The natives of Borneo melt it in fireclay crucibles over a coke fire, and are very clever at producing some remarkably fine pieces of metal-work, using different metals for the same object; thus some of their daggers have brass hilts and aluminium blades. The metal-worker has frequently introduced aluminium in the decoration of copper and brass gongs, some of the older examples from Japan being extremely decorative. The Characteristics of the Metals. Some collectors very wisely follow up their researches after new treasures by investigating the methods of their production, and they even visit modern works where similar methods, although more advanced, are going on. Very interesting indeed is it to watch the molten metal as it is mixed and poured into moulds and made into pigs. To see the great rolling mills through which the bars are passed, and to watch the hammering and drawing by the steam-hammer and powerful machinery, is an education which enhances the interest there is in the possession of finished goods--old and new. It is said the brassfounder's requirements to-day are much the same as they have always been, although perhaps there are more iron moulds used and greater care is taken in their preparation. The mould must have a good surface and be composed of the right kind of iron. The best metal for the purpose appears to be one high in silica and low in combined carbon, thus securing a soft iron which will not crack when the molten metal strikes it. The science of metals is constantly being added to, and the research of chemists of recent years has done much towards improving the skill of present-day artists, most of whom, however, readily give praise to the almost intuitive skill of the artists of olden time. The fashioning of copper and brass follows the preparation of the metal; there are many reasons why copper and its compounds and alloys have been so generally employed, one of the principal being that the ductility of copper has made it welcome wherever the hammer has been brought into play. The possibility of hammering out brass and copper, and especially the latter, is seen in the extreme fineness to which copper wire can be drawn. Hood uses the similitude when speaking of how travel improves the mind, and tells of the gradual narrowing of copper and brass as they become finer and finer, likening those who have not travelled to the narrowed metal. Collectors of curios show characteristic traits, twofold in application. There are some who get more broad-minded the farther they travel, the more museums they inspect, and the wider their knowledge of the antiquities they admire. Others, specialists for the most part, get into very narrow grooves, confining their hobbies to some one class of goods, not always the most interesting in public estimation; then they wonder how it is that their hobbies are not appreciated by their friends! Surely the greatest delight is in a representative collection, such as the hobby under review, which shows all the possibilities of copper and brass in their varied treatment. In the examples which have come down to us from the Ancients, in those schemes of decoration which mark clearly the work of the artists of some one country or period, and in those general collectable objects which have been brought together from everywhere, there is a liberal education: "Some minds improve by travel; others, rather, Resemble copper wire, or brass, Which gets the narrower by going farther." II THE HUNTING GROUND CHAPTER II THE HUNTING GROUND In buried cities--Turned up by the plough--Among Saxon and Norman remains--In hidden chambers--In local museums--Dealers' shops--The engraver's art. The multiplicity of collectable objects needed to supply collectors makes the uninitiated wonder where all these antiques come from. Countless numbers of beautiful objects have found their way into the melting-pot in the past, and what once was old has in some new form become once more a useful article, in its turn to be discarded and perhaps melted up and recast. In Buried Cities. The curios which have been preserved for centuries beneath the soil are often of priceless value, telling of the habits of peoples of whom history has told us little. Celts, knives, spear-heads, and food receptacles are discovered on the sites of prehistoric camping-grounds. The delicately tooled bronzes from buried cities like Pompeii and Herculaneum come to us with almost a living force in this twentieth century. As we gaze at the wonderful beauty of their forms and the charming patina of green with which they are covered, we can almost imagine what they looked like in the hands of patrons of art in the far-off times when they were first fashioned. Our own country is full of ruins of ancient cities far below the present roadways. When the Romans built Bath it was in a hollow much deeper than the level of the modern city, and it is in these lower levels that relics of Roman Bath are found. There is a ring of sadness in the desolation of such ancient cities as Verulamium, Cirencester, Kenchester, and similarly deserted locations where modern excavations have been going on recently. It seems curious how the very sites of such once famous places have been lost, but not strange when we remember that more recently occupied towns are but grass mounds--to-day explorers are cutting into the turf-covered mounds of Old Sarum to ascertain where its chief buildings stood. The finds on these ancient sites are varied; many of them are metallic, and although of trifling intrinsic value are prized as being authentic curios. [Illustration: FIG. 4.--PART OF THE HOARD OF IMPLEMENTS OF THE LATE BRONZE AGE, FOUND IN KING'S CO., IRELAND. (_In the British Museum._)] Turned up by the Plough. The plough has played an important part in history, and collectors owe much to that useful implement. It has been the means of bringing to light many vessels which have been buried for centuries, for although land has been ploughed many seasons, a deeper ploughshare or more frequent ploughing on the same spot has brought nearer to the surface a copper vessel or an earthen jar, full of antiquarian interest. The field and the forest, and even the deserted mines, have brought to collectors of old metal many interesting relics. Until quite recently there was an old bronze caldron on view in the window of a dealer in antiques in Chester. It was the prototype of many similar vessels that have been made in later days in different parts of the country, the model on which the more modern pots or camp-kettles of the gipsies and the three-legged pots commonly suspended over the cottage hearth, until comparatively modern times, have been fashioned. It is worthy of note that the principle adopted by those early metal-workers is still observed in the more scientific construction of cooking vessels to-day. The form of the caldron was such that by applying heat under the centre the flames spread and leapt up the sides, curling as they travelled, following the lines fashioned by the coppersmiths, and heating the contents of the vessel equally. Such ancient caldrons, sometimes much worn and at others in fairly good condition, have been preserved by Mother Earth until discovered in modern times. Among Saxon and Norman Remains. The Saxons and Normans used metal, and the brawny arms of the smiths, and later the founders, fashioned the cooking-pots made in their day. Many metal curios, much battered by fallen masonry, have been found among the ruins of Norman castles and in some cases of the still earlier Saxon dwellings. The discoveries of curios of those periods are by no means frequent, and it would appear as if we must now be content with storing carefully those relics already discovered. Modern restorations and excavations have brought many valuable antiquities to light, and authorities have been very careful to preserve them in county or local museums. In Hidden Chambers. The splendour of mediæval days when feasting in the great hall of the baron or overlord has been revealed by many noted finds. The great kitchens of those mansions were full of copper and brass, and it is from such supplies that many of the best authenticated specimens have come. Some are historical; even bronze caldrons and more modest-looking saucepans have been made to the order of some mediæval chieftain or baron. The life of the common people of this country varied little between the days of the Norman Conquest and those of the Tudor sovereigns who held court in the houses of the nobility. The dress, costume, and rough splendour of the Elizabethan age had its effect, however, on the homes of courtiers and eventually of the common people. When the stormy times of the Civil War came there was a rude breaking up of the old order of things, and in Cromwellian days some preparation for the new which was to come. After the battlefield came the destruction of stronghold and mansion by order of the Parliament. Some escaped, and within the last century not a few domestic curios have been found during the restoration and rebuilding of old houses dating from the time of the Commonwealth. Priests' cells and secret chambers, sliding panels and concealed cupboards, and other hidden places were the rule rather than the exception at the time of the Civil War. In some of these long-forgotten places of concealment some very interesting domestic objects in copper and brass have been found during rebuilding and restoration. In Local Museums. It is a moot point whether the frequent change in the ownership of curios which goes on every day, as evidenced by the auction sales, stirs up the curiosity of the collector and awakens his interest in his hobby to a greater extent than when such curios are placed on view in local museums. The fact remains that, notwithstanding the constant circulation of curios, many find a permanent home in museums. Not only do the national collections in the British Museum, and the Victoria and Albert Museum at South Kensington grow rapidly, but in almost every town of note there are local and great district museums. This latter class is instanced in the Welsh National Museum at Cardiff. There are two typical local museums in London--the Guildhall Museum and the London Museum, which has just found a new home at Stafford House. These museums stimulate local collectors, but they do not contribute to their collections. As places of reference they are invaluable, for the wider spread knowledge of antiques secured by the objects shown prevents amateurs from falling into traps and consequently becoming disheartened. Dealers' Shops. The shops of dealers supplement the auction-rooms. They are partly fed from them and partly by the persistent search ever going on for objects in which their owners have little interest and are willing to part with for a consideration--not always the "top price." The greater popularity of curio-hunting has caused a vigorous search of attic and cellar at the instance of dealers as well as collectors. Even the palaces of kings and queens and the houses of the nobility have been ransacked, and treasures from an artistic point of view, as well as from a utilitarian, have been brought to light and the dust of many years wiped away. Many delightful examples of the coppersmith's art were until recently condemned by the travelling tinker as being no longer repairable, with the natural consequence that, their value as antiques being unknown, they were eventually sold for an "old song." Those pioneers of collecting who had time on their hands and foresaw an accruing value of even old metal went about from town to town examining the marine stores and visiting villages and farmhouses in search of anything old and curious. To-day there are few genuine antiques without some one to value them. Nearly every collection belongs to an appreciative owner, and when curios change hands it is generally at a premium instead of at "a bargain price." Hitherto reference has been made chiefly to metal curios of British make, and to those objects with which Englishmen have become familiar. The collector, however, is cosmopolitan in his aims, and cheerfully searches the world over for objects of interest. His curios come from the Far East, from Central Africa, and from all parts of Europe, and to some extent from the American continents. There have been many methods of producing metal-work, yet native workers in all countries have had but two processes upon which they have based their plans, and it is from the smiths who hammered copper and brass into shape, and in later days stamped it, and the founder who cast the metal in moulds, that all our curios come. The Engraver's Art. This outline of the hunting-ground of the collector would be incomplete without some mention of the products of the graver's tool which has produced so many works of art. The much prized mezzotints, stipples, and line engravings are pictures for the most part printed from copper plates. The metal rolled in sheets and planished becomes a work of art in itself when covered with those beautiful pictures so cleverly wrought upon the metal by the light touch of the graver. Perhaps one of the most interesting uses to which copper has been put is that of executing beautiful miniatures--tiny pictures, portraits, and emblematic designs such as were used by traders on their stationery in years gone by. The copper-plate engraver has left his mark, too, in the beautifully quaint and very valued early issues of postage-stamps, some of which were printed from copper plates. Just as copper plays an important part in the production of postage-stamps and pictures, so copper in conjunction with its alloys is the common metal of currency. Some of the most valuable metallic curios are the ancient coins which have been dug up from where they have been buried for centuries, or discovered in some hidden chamber. Such little objects of copper or bronze have an antiquarian value far beyond either their artistic beauty or their age warrants being associated with them. Collectors of metals know the value of some of the historic commemorative medallions in bronze, and heroes and warriors show their appreciation of one of the commoner metals in the value they set upon the simple Maltese cross inscribed "For Valour," for the Victoria Cross is more coveted than any naval or military award the Sovereign of these realms can bestow. Its owners regard it as a precious relic, and the reluctance of those left behind to part with it is seen in the large sum which has to be paid for one of these simple bronze crosses when it comes in the market. III PREHISTORIC BRONZES CHAPTER III PREHISTORIC BRONZES The dawn of progress--London relics--The beauty of ancient art--The useful bronzes, the prototypes of later brasses--The forger at work. As it has already been intimated, our older metal curios come to us from the Bronze Age. In the relics of that period, in which the British Museum is so rich, we are able to mark the great difference that must have existed between the people who lived the "simple life" in the Stone Age, and those who understood how to make and how to use implements of bronze. Metal must have revolutionized the habits of the people, fostered development, and marked progress as the Age advanced; for with metal appliances there were greater possibilities, and from the fact that while some used bronze others were content with flint, it would appear that then, perhaps, more than at any other time, the more advanced were sharply separated from those who, possessing lesser intelligence and possibly fewer opportunities, stayed behind. The Dawn of Progress. The more advanced Britons and the men of the later Bronze Age in other countries improved the patterns of their tools, the basis of which was found in flint implements, which in the later Neolithic period had become more varied. Even then they had hammer, saw, chisel, borer, spear or javelin, and arrow-point. They had also a variety of knives; some of curious sickle-like forms. There are weapons of war and weapons of defence, and some obviously used for the more peaceful arts and domestic purposes. As the collector secures specimens of the rarer types of bronze and metal objects coming to us from those far-off days, we read the story of the evolution of the race, and can picture in our minds the onward march. [Illustration: FIG. 5 (1).--BRONZE CALDRON; AND FIG. 6 (2).--URN OF THE LATER BRONZE AGE. (_In the British Museum._)] The Romans did not find the ancient Britons quite savages, and we sigh with regret when we think of the numberless relics of priceless value--of bronze and of even more precious metals--which existed then, but which have perished long ago. The melting-pot has been a terribly fierce enemy to the collector of copper and brass, and it is really wonderful how many rare objects of the Bronze Age remain--prehistoric only in that we have no authentic records of the happenings of that period. We have, however, abundant evidence of the importance of that Age in the bronzes preserved to us for so long by Mother Earth, and now carefully tended by museum curators and private collectors. Among the fine examples we possess in our national collections are the ornamental bucklers of which some have been found in Wales and other places. That represented in Fig. 2 (1) came from the Thames Valley, and Fig. 3 (2) from the peat bogs near Aberystwyth; both may be seen in the British Museum. Some exceptional hoards have been found in Ireland, notably the bronzes which were discovered in 1825 in a part of Whigsborough, called Derreens, in King's Co. It is surmised that although the land is now boggy the soil was at one time under cultivation, and from indications it would appear as if the bronzefounder had worked on the spot. In Fig. 4 several representative implements found in that hoard are pictured; their descriptions are as follows: Fig. 4 (1 and 3), palstaves; (5, 6, and 7), daggers; (2) a pear-shaped bell; (4 and 8) curved trumpets, all specimens of the latter part of the Bronze Age or of the beginning of the Iron Age. Many fine bronze vessels, chiefly without feet, have been found in Ireland. The two examples shown in Figs. 5 and 6 represent the way in which they were made, especially Fig. 5 (1), in which the riveting of the plates will be observed. Fig. 6 (2) has been designated an urn. Both of these late bronzes are in the British Museum, along with other Irish finds. In the same collection there is a trumpet of horn with rings or bands of studs, the mouthpiece being at the side. It is a curious relic of an Irish musician, found some years ago at Drimoleague, Co. Cork. London Relics. London has been the site of an important camp, town, or city ever since man lived in the marshes and upon the banks of Old Father Thames, and among the finds in the neighbourhood have been relics of every period of British civilization; and as a natural consequence London possesses representative collections of the Bronze Age, as well as of later periods. Collectors have many opportunities of buying, as well as of inspecting prehistoric bronzes in museums and in less important private collections. Some of these antiquities are of good form and possess a beauty of their own. The vivid green, relieved with deeper shades, with which age has painted these ancient relics gives them a peculiar charm, and it would be vandalism indeed to attempt to "clean" the celts and knives which antiquaries handle with such veneration and care. The Beauty of Ancient Art. During the last few years more attention has been given to the beauty of the workmanship of the early objects of brass and copper relics of prehistoric peoples, especially of the people who inhabited this country in pre-Roman days. The London museums contain very representative examples. To many the Guildhall Museum is of special interest, in that every object there has been found within the confines of the City of London. There are implements of the chase and of war and peace. For instance, in the cases containing weapons which may have been used for defence against wild animals, as well as for aggressive campaigns, there are bronze celts, some socketed with loops, side by side with a very fine tool and two small lumps of copper, which were discovered near the celt. These latter represent the unfinished material ready for the crucible and for the alloy which was to turn them into a bronze of special hardness. In the same case there are leaf-shaped swords and daggers of rapier form. There are also spear-heads of slender shapes with sockets extending near to the point of the weapon; and spear shaft-sockets of bronze, some of which were found in Fetter Lane. Of the late Celtic period there are examples of personal objects, and it may be noted that duplicates of similar antiquities to those deposited in the Museum are on sale in a great number of shops in London, and now and then quite important parcels of these interesting metallic mementoes of peoples unknown come under the hammer. Such trinkets include bronze fibulæ, some enamelled, others of plain metal. A very beautiful specimen terminating with a roughly formed snake's head was found on the Thames bank near Hammersmith, on the site of reputed pile dwellings, some little time ago. In the same locality a bronze bowl and a mount were found soon afterwards. From the river near Battersea came a bronze shield, specially interesting in that it was decorated with enamelled ornaments. Horse-bits with enamelled rosettes have also been found in London. Perhaps one of the most interesting relics of that early age was a British helmet of copper, also decorated with enamels, found near Waterloo Bridge. In the Guildhall Museum there is a brooch made with a bow and pin in one piece, and quite a number of other styles of bronze fibulæ. There are bronze hairpins, too, some of the heads being decorated. There are Celtic tweezers, armlets of bronze, and many rings. To the inquisitive who like to inquire into the processes of making things and to their sources, the remains of ancient workshops represented by lumps of copper, strips of bronze, and objects partly formed, are of special interest. There are bows, showing another advance in civilization. There are spoons, too, of circular form, hammered into shape. It has been said that bowls and spoons are the earliest signs of domesticity and civilization. Our ancestors, who lived on the seashore, made use of large shells, which gave them the cue to the fashioning of a shallow dish, which eventually became a bowl. The wings of the valves of the oyster and the pecten may have given the suggestion of a handle to a primitive spoon. Ethnologists have said that the broken cocoanut in the South Seas was the bowl of the primitive tribes, and from it vessels in clay were moulded. The Useful Bronzes, the Prototypes of Later Brasses. The beautiful bronzes of the later part of the Bronze Age include objects showing the gradual development and progress of the race. Not only are the weapons those likely to be used in defence against attacks from wild animals rather than for aggressive purposes, and the domestic bronzes of more civilized forms, but there are in addition implements of husbandry. In Ireland some very pronounced sickles and reaping-hooks have been found. There are also musical instruments and sounding horns, among them curved trumpets of bronze. Many interesting although isolated finds have been made, such as a curious bronze or brass bucket with corrugated flutes, which was found at Weybridge, in Surrey, experts placing it among the relics of the early Iron Age. From Faversham, in Kent, many bronze mirrors have been secured, some of them being very ornamental, the backs being engraved all over. In the North of England several interesting finds have been made, too. Some of especial value were discovered in Heathery Burn Cave, Co. Durham; they consisted of domestic utensils which were probably used at the extreme end of the Bronze Age. Among frequent finds is the patera or drinking-bowl, which must, of course, be distinguished from the patine, which was a flat dish with a raised rim, used for serving up meat or fish. Indeed, it would appear that some of the peoples who dwelt in those far-off ages of which we have no written history were more advanced in civilization and in the arts and crafts than we usually realize. Modern research has revealed much that was hitherto unknown, and scientists, explorers, and antiquaries now hold the ancients in much greater respect than formerly--they no longer regard them as "savages," although they may class them with the "barbarians" of more modern Europe. Professor Petrie, the famous Egyptologist, when speaking on his wonderful researches some little time ago, said mankind had had a long past. That past leads to the present, and without a knowledge of the present and to some extent of the intermediate ages we cannot fully understand the past. It is the curios of antiquity which help us, and lead up by slow degrees to the present; this is understood by the curio-hunter, and realized more and more as he goes further into the past of nations. The curios of the Bronze Age are not limited in locality. They are found in continents far removed from Western civilization, for in the remains of ancient Peruvians there are tools of bronze belonging to their far-off past. The Incas were not only adepts at working the precious metals with tools of bronze, but they were clever workers of other raw materials. They possessed beautiful textiles of cotton and wool and were noted agriculturists, having implements of tillage made of bronze. The Forger at Work. A warning note is often sounded by those who have paid dearly for their experience. It is needed, for there are many pitfalls for the unwary, especially in his researches among the relics of the Bronze Age and periods which have been much copied by the makers of modern antiques. It is worthy of note that in the middle of the nineteenth century several Birmingham firms in making bronzed inkstands, bracket lights, candelabra, and figures supporting lamps, copied the antique very closely, one noted firm announcing on their trade circulars that their designs were "according to Greek, Roman, and Gothic ornaments." Examples of such comparatively modern work, when discovered tarnished and neglected, may sometimes have a close resemblance to real antiques, and even the curios of still greater antiquity--especially Egyptian curiosities--have been much forged. The forger--or, as he would prefer to be called, the maker of replicas--is still at work. IV GREEK AND ROMAN CURIOS CHAPTER IV GREEK AND ROMAN CURIOS Grecian bronzes--Relics of Roman occupation--Interesting toilet requisites--Artificial lighting--Statues and monuments--Romano-British art--A well staged exhibit. It is from the curios in metal and the antiquities in stone which have been discovered, chiefly in comparatively recent years, that we are able to read with understanding the allusions made by classic writers to domestic life as it was in ancient Greece and Rome. The records of the art of Greece become more real when we have gazed upon the beautiful and graceful statues and the furniture of the palace and domain for which the artists and metal-workers of those days were so justly celebrated. Even the public school boy takes a greater interest in his studies when he recognizes in the furnishings of his home antiquities from Greece or those lands in which that once powerful nation founded colonies. Grecian Bronzes. In the modern replicas of antiques, and in the fashioning of the common household bronzes of the present day, the craftsman, perhaps unconsciously, gains inspiration from the older race of artists in metals. Indeed, the nearer the workman adheres to the form of the statues and domestic decorative metal-work of the ancients, the more likely he is to succeed in imparting refinement to the modern home. Ancient Greece was the nursery of art and the training ground of the athlete and of the model who served as the type of the goddesses whose perfect forms and attributes were regarded as worthy of the divinities her sons and daughters worshipped. Most of the metal objects coming to us from classic days are of bronze, toned and patinated. Images of the gods and goddesses worshipped by the ancient Greeks were to be found in every house. Wealthy patrons employed the artist in metal to produce idols and appointments for the numerous temples they built. It was the worship of many pagan deities that found work for many craftsmen. The very multiplicity of the gods served the purposes of trade, hence the supporters of pagan practices and worship found in the metal-workers and artists who wrought such things powerful allies. We read in Biblical accounts of that day that the introduction of Christianity caused no small stir amongst them, and incited Demetrius, the silversmith, and others to rise up against the "new religion," which gave no immediate promises of employment of metal-workers to compensate them for the loss of trade in idols. It was thus that so much that is beautiful when regarded as merely artistic bronze figures was made. Among the favourite deities whose emblematic bronzes have been preserved to us are Diana, Venus, Mercury, and Hercules. They rank with the gods of brass of the heathen, and according to their classic beauty are admired with the idols of metal from India and Africa (see Chapter XIV). In all these treasures from the old world, little known or understood now, there is a blend of the decorative and artistic and the more utilitarian objects of the household. The slaves of the old families often lived luxurious lives, although the goodwill of their patrons and owners might be fickle. They had their duties, and the metal objects they handled and often skilfully manipulated are still preserved in our museums. These were often fashioned with the same grace as the statues which adorned porticoes and halls. The ornamental objects of Greek workmanship include useful braziers or bronze tripods which gave heat and also served as purifiers; for into their round brass dishes were thrown perfumes to correct the smell of the coals and charcoal, which were then held to be injurious. Such braziers were also used by the Romans, and even in the Middle Ages were not uncommon, pepper and cloves being then burned for fragrance. Relics of Roman Occupation. Although many beautiful objects have been imported into this country by collectors and dealers bought in Rome itself, and in Italian and other continental cities where Roman remains have been found, it is the relics of the Roman occupation in Britain which take first place in our estimation among the valued curios of that great nation. These have been found in many places, often quite unexpectedly. Modern London, like modern Rome, stands in part on ruins of an older city. Hence it is that when foundations are being dug and excavations to some 15 to 20 feet are made, relics of Roman London and of Saxon and early Norman buildings which were built in subsequent ages upon the older ruins come to light. It is amidst these ruins and the debris of old architecture that metal curiosities are often found. Copper and brass have not perished to the same extent as iron and more corrosive metals. In London, Bath, Chester, and cities which were famous many centuries ago, the earliest metal curiosities are unearthed. But many of the most valued have been found where least expected, for it must be remembered that even the sites of many old cities have been lost, and green fields now cover the old foundations. It is a little disappointing at first, when a collection of Roman antiquities is under examination, to find that they bear a striking resemblance to modern appliances--especially is that so in the cooking utensils. Most of these early vessels are of bronze; some, however, are of pure copper, mostly covered over with green patina. The useful seems to have predominated over the ornamental; possibly it is that the more substantial cooking-pots and pans have remained, although lighter and more ornamental objects have perished. The pots and saucepans are indeed remarkably like those which are now used for similar purposes. This has been remarked by many who have had to do with the uncovering of long buried ruins. A writer describing a Roman kitchen attached to the villa of a patrician family of note in the Republican era before Augustus assumed the purple, which had been uncovered in Rome, said, "The culinary utensils found there are much like our own, made of brass, some of them dipped or plated over with silver." They consisted of kettles with feet, with a dome-shaped opening under them, a hollow cylinder which entered into the kettle base so that the fire could penetrate it. Many of these utensils, whilst possessing great strength and lasting qualities, were not altogether plain, for they were covered with foliated ornament like the saucepan illustrated in Fig. 7. The saucepans without handles were something like a caldron on feet; many, however, were fitted with bail handles, by which they could be hung over the fire by the aid of a tripod. The metal of which these early vessels were made varied, for although some were of bronze, some were made of a yellowish brass, like one found in London near Ludgate. The Guildhall Museum is the best place to find a thoroughly representative collection of Roman metal-work. In the cases there are curious saucer-like bowls with and without handles, many spoons of bronze, and a variety of ladles, some of which have long and narrow bowls; and there are some culinary strainers, not unlike the modern colander. There are many ewers and some bowls or basins of bronze. In Fig. 8 is shown a ewer of hammered copper, the handle having at the time it was made, or at some later period, been strengthened with brass wire, which is in part flattened and stamped with medallions giving the vessel an exceedingly ornamental appearance. This curious piece is to be seen in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Among the more important kitchen accessories which have been discovered on the sites of Roman towns are bronze scales not unlike miniatures of the steelyards once common in England, and still used by butchers. Then there are brass gridirons, dripping-pans, and cups of bronze. There are also copper pails for cooling wine, and in a few instances bronze stands for the wine amphoræ. It is almost impossible to point out the sites which are likely to yield the explorer the best results, neither is it possible to locate the town where metal-work has been found to the greatest extent, for all old camping-grounds and towns once occupied by Roman troops or residential cities during Roman occupation contain what has been thrown away as useless or has been buried accidentally. The collector is delighted with the many little objects which can be bought, trifling matters when seen separately, but very interesting when collectively displayed. [Illustration: FIG. 7.--BRONZE SAUCEPAN WITH FOLIATED HANDLE.] [Illustration: FIG. 8.--EWER OF HAMMERED COPPER.] [Illustration: FIG. 9.--LAMP OF CAST BRONZE.] [Illustration: FIG. 10.--LAMP OF BRASS INLAID WITH COPPER.] Interesting Toilet Requisites. During excavations on the site of the National Safe Deposit Company's premises in Walbrook quite a number of beautifully formed small objects were found. Indeed, such curios (by no means uncommonly met with on sale in curio shops) are very numerous, and include toilet implements, armlets of twisted copper wire, finger rings of bronze, dress fasteners, pins, fibulæ, tweezers, key rings, bodkins, and needles. The looking-glass is of course a modern invention, but Greek and Roman maidens learned the art of finishing their toilet in the reflective "glass" of the shining pool, and later by the aid of mirrors of highly polished metal made by the craftsmen of Rome; some of which have been preserved. The surface to which this reflective polish was given was of copper alloyed with antimony and lead. Such mirrors were sometimes hung to the girdle, a custom not unknown to Shakespeare, who frequently makes mention of it. Artificial Lighting. Artificial light has been a necessity to man ever since primeval days. The whole story of the discovery of fire-making and the light it gave is an enchanting romance. The contrivances for procuring and lighting a fire and for the betterment of artificial light have been many, and throughout the ages they have received perhaps greater attention by the inventor than any other requirement of the race. Of all the curios of the period under review none have been more prolific than those associated with artificial light. The lamps of ancient Rome, of beautiful bronze and brass, contrasted with the clay or terra-cotta lamps of cruder forms which have been found in such quantities. Their chased patterns were often modelled on the earlier Greek vases, so many of which are to be seen in the British Museum among the rarities of the metal collector. No collection of copper and brass would be complete without examples of the arts and crafts of Rome, so beautifully exemplified in the charming lamps to be carried in the hand, to stand on pedestals, and for suspension from the ceiling. There was something in their ornamentation which carried them beyond the works of the utilitarian maker. A celebrated historian, referring to the lights of ancient Rome, speaks of their matchless grace and simplicity, and says, "They afford traces of decoration showing an elevation in the ornamentation of common articles of every-day use." The Roman lamp of bronze was carried everywhere the conquering armies went, and in Roman settlements in France, Italy, and in Northern Africa, as well as in Britain, the native artificers in copper and bronze saw in them designs to be imitated; and after the Empire of Rome had fallen, the models which emanated from the Imperial city served as the designs for lamps in many countries centuries afterwards. The illustrations shown in Figs. 9 and 10 represent bronze lamps--the former, Fig. 9, is cast, and is an early example; Fig. 10, however, is of a later period, and it is made of brass inlaid with copper. The examples found in this and other countries may be divided into two groups, those distinctly Roman and of early date and those of the days when the Christian religion was recognized by the Emperors and the State. These latter are known by the decorations upon them. Statues and Monuments. Reference has already been made to the beautiful statuettes of Greece. There are others, to many grand in their conceptions, the work of Roman modellers, many representing Apollo, Hercules, Mars, and Mercury having been found. In the British Museum there are some wonderfully striking heads of several of the Emperors, and other men whose portraits have been handed on to us in monuments of stone, and upon coins and medallions, the die-sinkers of which so faithfully portrayed the men they pictured. The names of many of the most famous artists are known, and collectors rejoice over fresh examples of their handiwork. It is, however, the general characteristics of the Roman worker in metal as a whole that connoisseurs recognize and appreciate, and the true connoisseur is always searching for some greater artist's work than he has hitherto been familiar with. He is on the look-out for the very best among art treasures. An amusing story has been told of a modern manufacturer who was very fond of inserting in his advertisements paragraphs calling attention to his modern works of art, which he said were "acknowledged by connoisseurs to be the best." "Father," said his little boy one day, "what do you mean by a connoisseur?" "A connoisseur, my boy," answered the manufacturer of copper goods, "is an eminent authority--an authority, in short, who admits that _our_ goods are the best." We are apt to look upon the beautiful brass grilles and copper lock-plates of mediæval days as the earliest examples of these metals in lock-making, the earliest locks found on old doors and muniment chests being chiefly of iron. But when we go back to still earlier times and examine the relics of Roman London, we find key-rings and keys of bronze, some very ornamental, too. One beautiful little key found near All Hallows Church has a bow terminating in a small spur. Another bronze key found near St. Swithin's, in Cannon Street, has a ridged annular bow, with a short square stem. Other keys are equally decorative; the locks, too, are in many instances ornamental, although in design and workmanship they fall short of the pinnacle of fame reached by the lockmakers in later Gothic times. Romano-British Art. Many readers in searching for curios of the Romano-British period in this country will recall the fact that the ancient Britons possessed bronze; and doubtless we should be doing an injustice to the more enlightened dwellers in Britain before Roman occupation, and contemporary with it, if we did not admit that possibly some of the relics of that period now dubbed Roman belonged to those more entitled to our regard, for Albion was their native land. On the Thames Embankment, facing the Houses of Parliament, there is that famous bronze group perpetuating the memory of the British Queen Boadicea in her war chariot. The Romans made their famous paved roads as they pushed their outposts and line of camps farther north and west. The wheels of many British war chariots were made of, or hooped with, brass, and possibly the brass or bronze wheels, such as are represented in that group on the Embankment once covered by the flowing river, may have rattled over the roads made by the conquerors; such chariots, with their appointments of bronze and ornamental horse trappings, showed much skill in their fashioning. A poet gives voice to their use in the following lines: "On the bright axle turns the bidden wheel Of sounding brass, the polish'd axle steel." A Well Staged Exhibit. It is scarcely necessary to remind readers that there is a peculiar attraction in a well staged exhibit--public or private. A case of Roman and still earlier bronzes may be made attractive by an arrangement giving a gradation of subject and inclusive of the plainer types with the more delicately formed ornamental trinkets. A very fine example of how to arrange such a collection is seen in one of the rooms in Stafford House, the new home of the London Museum. The entire collection, representative of various periods of the Roman occupation of Britain, so carefully mounted, is worthy of close inspection. It includes many rare pieces, one being an early Roman lamp, which was found in Greenwich and is said to be unique among London curios. Indeed, it is probable that none so fine, nor of exactly the same design, has been found in England. This we are able to reproduce (see Fig. 50). The newly arranged London Museum is likely to be a rendezvous of Londoners and their friends from the country, for not only are there early antiquities in copper and brass, but many fascinating curios arranged in historical sequence, showing the development in metal-work as it was fashioned by London smiths and founders, and the progress made by other craftsmen as kings and queens came and went and the London as we know it to-day was being evolved. V MEDIÆVAL ANTIQUITIES CHAPTER V MEDIÆVAL ANTIQUITIES Domestic brasswork--Metal signs and badges--Ornamental trinkets--Arms and armour. As the collector of copper and brass assembles his treasures and arranges them according to the different periods in which they were made, it is always the household utensils which predominate. As time goes on their number increases and the ornamental blends with the useful; but the increase in the variety is only in proportion to the gradual extension of the number of other household curios of contemporary dates. The period under review, for convenience termed mediæval, extends in actual fact from the rougher days of the Norman sovereigns to those when bluff King Hal held court and Elizabeth made so many "grand tours" among the country seats of her people. At the beginning of this period the furniture of even the nobility and wealthy ecclesiastics was very scanty, and when the proud barons moved from one castle to another they carried with them all their household furnishings, even their more treasured culinary utensils of copper and brass. They stowed them away along with their jewels and their other belongings in oak coffers, which in the earliest days were made so that they could be carried on poles by retainers. "In oaken coffers I have stuffed my crowns, In cypress chests my arras counterpoints, Pewter and brass, and all things that belong To house or housekeeping." _The Taming of the Shrew._ Domestic Brasswork. In mediæval days the metal-work was "home made," that is to say, it was the work of retainers and those who were employed upon an estate. The old smiths not only worked in iron but wrought copper and brass, and the founders were building up a reputation; and their chief men were laying down rules for the guidance of the craftsmen. The influence exerted upon the metal-work of this country by the trade guilds of London is referred to in Chapter VI. In their prosperity no doubt the kitchens of the once powerful guilds were filled with cooking vessels indicative of the feasts held by the freemen of the different crafts. Some may say there are still evidences of such feasts; but most of the cooking vessels of early days perished in the Great Fire, although doubtless there are relics of a later period to be found in the kitchens and cellars of the Guildhall and some of the lesser halls. Some of the companies, if they have lost their treasures, still possess records which are helpful to the antiquary, and we naturally turn to the parchments and books of the Worshipful Company of Founders, and there, appropriately enough, it is written that at one time they had jurisdiction over the manufacture of candlesticks, buckles, spurs, stirrups, straps, lavers, pots, ewers, and basins of brass and latten. The mark of the mystery was early made a ewer, a ewer and two candlesticks being given to the Founders in 1590, when they obtained a grant of arms; the motto they adopted was: "God is the only Founder." The foundries of the craftsmen, workers, and casters of brass, latten, and kindred alloys in London were chiefly in and near Lothbury, among their most noted products being candlesticks and spice mortars--two staples which have become nearly obsolete, although none would say that the founding of metal is as yet an obsolete craft. Thus it is change and development are seen everywhere in production. The chief privileges of the Founders have gone, although they still take some little part in the stamping of weights and measures; but that, too, has become a Government duty. The Founders have some interesting pieces of plate, but not much copper. Their best example of their own craft is the ancient poor-box of copper which was presented to the Company by Mr. Stephen Pilchard in 1653, the year in which he was Upper Warden. The feeding of man has always been the first duty of those who took charge of domestic arrangements, and we can readily understand that the caldron or cooking-pot was the earliest vessel. Its use may be regarded as universal, for it is found to have existed everywhere (see Chapter VIII). In mediæval England the feasting of the poor and the feeding of scores of retainers in the baronial halls and in the great ecclesiastical buildings, where hospitality and charity were rife, necessitated immense boiling-pots. Some of those referred to under "Domestic Utensils" (Chapter VIII) seem to some too large for practical purposes. It may, however, be pointed out that there are many large cooking-pots in use even at the present time; and copper caldrons of large size are used in hospitals and infirmaries. Quite recently there appeared in the public Press photographs of a well-known Countess making an Irish stew at Liberty Hall, Dublin, stirring round the contents with a wooden stirrer and lading out bowlfuls of soup with a metal scoop; it was food for the sufferers through the strike at that time going on in Dublin. It is thus that the poor of all ages have been fed. As kitchen operations were confined to lesser areas and smaller vessels were needed by individual families when patriarchal systems were broken up, they were but replicas in miniature of the larger caldrons and vessels which had become too large. [Illustration: FIG. 11.--BRASS AQUAMANILE (SEVENTEENTH CENTURY). (_In the British Museum._)] It is wisely said, "Fingers were made before spoons," a fact true enough, but as time went on and the habits and customs of men and women became less rough, although as yet hardly refined, a need sprang up for utensils for personal use. Hitherto cooking forks and spoons were used in the kitchen, but the hunting-knife mostly served at table. It is true spoons were in use in very early times and even by the common people. At first of iron or wood, afterwards made of brass and latten, they are found wherever there are remains of mediæval dwellings. A Scotchman is said to have declared that "the discovery of hot broth was an epoch in the evolution of man, and that as the ladle is to the pot so is the spoon to the bowl." Such brass ewers and basins, known as aquamaniles, mostly of bronze (one of Continental make is illustrated in Fig. 11) were used for the purpose of washing the hands, over which the water was poured. They were used in connection with bowls. Another type of laving ewer is that of the gemellions, made in pairs, one portion being held under a person's hands while water was poured out of the spouted bowl. Gemellions seem to have been the somewhat clumsy prototypes of the more convenient jug and bowl of later days. The use of ewers and basin was very necessary both before and after meals when knives and spoons were little used and it was no uncommon thing for two persons to eat out of one dish. In mediæval days even domestic articles were frequently decorated, for English and European metal-workers had caught the figure work of the Oriental school. Their ornament took the form of hunting and battle scenes. Sometimes patrons were eulogized, and flattering inscriptions covered the objects wrought for them by their servile dependents. In Fig. 18 there is shown a bucket or bath vessel now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, rather an unusual piece of early metal-work and an interesting mediæval curio. Not long ago a similar bucket was dug up in the neighbourhood of Weybridge. We are apt to regard with disdain what we term the grandmotherly legislation which tampers with the liberty of the subject. The present day, however, is not alone remarkable for regulations by which the home life of the nation is controlled. The Norman law which ordered "lights out" when curfew rang cut short the "overtime" of the worker of that day. So stringent was the enforcement of that law that not a glimmer of light must be seen after the appointed time. To darken or extinguish the dying fire on the hearth the _couvre de feu_ became a feature. Such covers of well authenticated antiquity are rare; the one illustrated in Fig. 12 is a well-preserved example now in the Bolton Museum. Metal Signs and Badges. In the early days when serfdom had not long ceased and the retainers of the nobles had not won their full freedom or independence, signs and symbols of their allegiance to some chief or overlord were plentiful. The Crusaders brought back with them signs, amulets, and various objects which they wore with more or less superstitious belief. The pilgrims to the most noted shrines in this country followed suit, and all these various purposes and mediæval customs have furnished the curio-hunter with many delightful reminders of the "good old days" when superstition and almost idolatry were rife. Old Father Thames has preserved many of them for centuries, and twentieth-century collectors are richer thereby. In the Guildhall Museum in London there is a very complete and representative collection of pilgrims' signs. Although many of them are made of a soft metal, there are others of good copper and brass. At one time they must have been very plentiful, for very prolific have the finds been in the neighbourhood of London Bridge and in and around Southwark. These signs or badges were secured and worn by the pilgrims who set out to the chief shrines, notably that of St. Thomas à Becket at Canterbury. Chaucer in his _Canterbury Tales_ has told that there were many traders in pilgrim signs in Canterbury city, so that all were enabled to possess themselves of such symbols, many of which they threw upon the shrine, and others retained them as talismans against danger on the return journey. The pilgrims wore a variety of emblems--the more devout, it is said, preferred the cross; others carried with them on their journey little metal figures of St. George, St. Katherine, St. Christopher, or other saint with his or her symbol. St. Agnes was represented by a lamb, St. John by an eagle, and St. Dorothy by a basket of fruit. Perhaps the most favoured sign purchased in Canterbury was an equestrian figure of St. Thomas à Becket. Some of the emblems were worn as protectors against evil, and such signs were almost invariably on horse trappings; indeed, such amulets have been perpetuated almost up to the present day. There are several circular discs in the museum referred to, said to date from the twelfth century, upon these are embossed two horned animals; another badge of a little later date, in copper, has upon it a shield of arms surrounded by three mythical dragons; it was found in Ludgate Hill. Yet another on which is a shield charged with seven stars, said to be of fourteenth-century workmanship, was found some time ago on the site of the old General Post Office in St Martin's-le-Grand. The retainers of noblemen wore private badges by which they were known; these were mostly of brass or bronze, and sometimes they were gilded. They were frequently worn when on a journey as a passport. Such badges in the form of circles and lozenges were usually furnished with a loop for suspension, and became well known. They served a similar purpose to the distinctive livery of later days. Ornamental Trinkets. The household ornaments, trinkets, and little articles of personal adornment which have been preserved tell not only of female vanity but of masculine love of ornament. It would appear that the use of bronze lingered on for centuries after it had nominally been displaced by brass; especially was that the case in decorative objects and metal ornament. The metals known as bronze, copper, and brass are, however, much intermixed in their use. The objects which can be collected include brooches, rings, pins, needles, bodkins, and thimbles of brass. Buckles are very numerous, and varied in form; some are heart-shaped, others have ends cut out to form a trefoil and are decorated with a pierced fleur-de-lis. The story of the pin, the smallest and yet the most used metal object preserved, is very interesting. At one time it was made by hand from brass wire, the head being twisted round and round until it had the appearance of a solid knob. The Pinners were in years gone by an important guild, and in 1376 returned two men to the Common Council of London. In the reign of Henry VII an Act of Parliament was passed compelling the Pinners to solder fast to the shank the head of the pin, and directing that the pin itself should be "smooth, rounded, filed, and sharpened." Very laborious indeed must have been the making of pins in those days. There were pins, however, of an earlier date, for it is recorded that on one occasion when the men of Athens had gone out to battle only one returned. He was met by an infuriated mob of women, who were so enraged at the loss of their husbands that Herodotus tells us they pulled the pins out from their garments and stabbed him to death. There were bronze pins in Rome, too, and we are told that even the safety-pin of to-day is by no means new, for among the collectable objects in brass are prehistoric safety-pins. Half a century ago, when little girls went to school they carried with them the inevitable pin poppet, some of which receptacles for pins and other similar sundries were of wood, but many were brass; some met with among old metal curios are quite handsomely decorated. Another indispensable object is the button, so many of which are of metal, many decorative, some inscribed, and others ornamented with portraits. There are little brass sleeve-links, worn in Tudor days, to be met with, and some curious brass studs which were worn by men in the shirt fronts of the early Georgian period. There are clasps of purses and books and casket mounts of brass, some of which date back to the fifteenth century. The older mounts of purses, so-called, would be more correctly described as the mounts of gipcieres; the gipciere was a kind of pouch formerly worn at the girdle; the name is also spelled _gipser_: "A _gipser_ all of silk Hung at his girdle white as morné silk." Chaucer. Sometimes the mounts were inscribed with mottoes; one found in Brooks' Wharf, London, believed to be of fourteenth-century workmanship, is inscribed "CREATOREM CELI ET TERRE ET IN IESVM." Other objects in brass are girdle ends, some of which are shaped like acorns and others are of ivy-leaf design. Among ornamental bronzes which can be worn, and in larger sizes hung upon the wall, there are plaques, many of the earliest being copied from antique gems. Plaquettes in bronze were common in the sixteenth century. Arms and Armour. A volume might well be taken up with describing mediæval arms and armour. It is true iron and steel are the chief metals in the making of weapons, but brass and bronze are closely allied with some of the armaments of war. Many of the small mediæval cannon were of brass, and not a few of the guns, or "hand cannon," were of that metal. In the days of Elizabeth the musketeer carried, in addition to an unwieldy weapon, his flask of powder, touch-box, and burning match. The match-box was a tube of copper pierced with small holes, and in it the lighted match could be conveyed safely. The powder-horn was at first of real horn, but in time it became a copper flask. Many of the old flasks were exceedingly ornate, and were often ornamented with hunting scenes worked up in repoussé on the copper sides. The spur-makers were important craftsmen in early days, and under the name of the Guild of Loriners ranked with the City companies. It is true that the spur rowels of six, eight, or even twelve points were generally of iron, but the collector of metal finds many interesting specimens made entirely of brass. One pair of spurs in the reign of Henry VIII consist of fourteen brass points, the neck of the rowel being shaped like a peacock and embossed with brass rosettes. Our finest collection of armour and of ceremonial metal-work--that splendid collection which dates from quite early times, finding its greatest strength and massive grandeur in late mediæval days and its artistic ornament in the richly damascened armour of lesser weight of the Stuarts--is rightly housed in that greatest of English strongholds, the Tower of London. It is there that the antiquary and the archæologist love to wander, and in the vast recesses of those dungeons and prison-like towers read history. There is an abundance of metal everywhere. Guns and cannon and mortars of historic fame lie about in the open. The Bloody Tower, nearly opposite the Traitors' Gate, the Middle Tower, the Byward Tower, and many others of equal interest may be seen. To some the Regalia with its crowns, swords, and sceptres of state, ampulla, spoon, salt-cellars, maces, and orders of merit, are the greatest attraction. The curio collector, however, finds his way to the museum and admires and perhaps envies the quaint and curious guns, powder-horns, and trophies of war. He is in the midst of the England of the Middle Ages, with its jousts and tournaments, shut out by the thick walls of the White Tower from the hurry and bustle of the traffic and commerce of the twentieth century. The magnificent armour in Hertford House--the Wallace collection--is a delight to those who love to see in arms and armour the perfection of beauty of ornament and decoration. There are splendid suits which look as bright as the day when they were new. The half-suit of armour of Italian workmanship made for Alfonso II, Duke of Ferrara, inlaid and damascened with gold and silver, is said to be the finest in Europe. The staging of this splendid collection was carried out by Mr. Guy Laking, the Keeper of the King's Armour and Custodian of the London Museum. A fitting conclusion to this chapter is, surely, a tribute to the armourers and founders and smiths of the Middle Ages, who worked so conscientiously and made their work lasting. It has retained its beauty and much of its ancient finish, notwithstanding atmospheric influences; indeed, some of it gained added beauty by oxidation. VI LATER METAL-WORK [Illustration: FIG. 12.--BRASS _COUVRE DE FEU_, A RARE EARLY PIECE.] (_In the Chadwick Museum, Bolton._) CHAPTER VI LATER METAL-WORK The influence of the Guilds--Architectural metal-work--The door knocker--Interior metal-work. In all branches of art there seems to be a break between the earlier mediæval and the later art which was the outcome to some extent of the great Renaissance or revival which swept over the Continent of Europe and brought with it such a change in everything appertaining to the beautiful. Whilst mediæval metal-workers produced grand examples full of design and ornament, influenced by the touch with Eastern nations which the Crusaders gave them, the later smiths and founders gradually evolved styles of their own, more English to our ideas. The Renaissance with its wealth of ornament did not so much apply to copper and brass as it did to the metal-work of the smith who forged that which was beautiful and ornate in iron on his anvil. Yet some of those florid designs were reproduced by the brassfounder. After the Restoration the art treasures which had been destroyed during the Commonwealth were replaced, as evidenced by the Regalia in the Tower, where there is so much silver-gilt and gold plate which represents the more decorative art of that period. In that famous collection of national Regalia, symbols of office, and vessels used on rare occasions, there is the alms-dish used for the distribution of the King's doles on Maundy Thursday. It bears the Royal cipher of William and Mary, and contrasts with the other plate in that it is remarkably plain, typical in its decoration with the earlier metal-work of the days of Queen Anne and those years which immediately followed her reign. When we walk through some of the once select, although now not much used, thoroughfares in London and admire the stately old houses which may be seen still in some of the Metropolitan squares, especially in the open thoroughfare known as Queen Anne's Gate, we are inclined to wonder whether after all "Queen Anne is dead." That hackneyed expression used in a humorous sense at times is certainly not true in so far as the remarkable developments in building operations and the characteristic decorations of Queen Anne's day live still not only in the old houses which are still undisturbed, but in the designs and characteristic patterns which were then adopted by metal-workers and others, their beauty and grace being recognized to such an extent that they are to-day among the much copied antiques. The Influence of the Guilds. It may be convenient here to refer to the influence of the old City guilds, which for so long a time acted beneficially, keeping the craftsmen of their day up to the mark, maintaining the purity of metal and other materials used, and encouraging and fostering the attainment of the highest skill in artistic workmanship. The City Companies have long ceased to exercise active control over individual craftsmen; some would say that trade unions have taken their place, and others would point to the altered conditions of manufacture and of trade which exist now. None can deny, however, that the influence of those early pioneers is still felt, and the basis which they laid down as the art of the later period of English craftsmanship, amongst which we find the greater number of our collectable curios, remains to-day the foundation on which modern developments are built up. The Braziers' Company was once an important guild in connection with metal. Many years ago the Braziers joined the Armourers, claiming, however, a monopoly of all copper and brasswork. By an Authority received from James II the members of the Braziers' Company were granted the right to search and prove all copper and brasswork wrought with a hammer within the City of London. It is said that their Charter is still in force, although their rights and privileges are now sinecures. Few members of the old City companies have now any direct connection with the crafts with which their names are associated. They exist, however, and use some of the funds at their disposal for the encouragement and development of the modern crafts which have evolved from the older foundations with which they were associated. Now and then important exhibitions are held at which examples of the old and the new are shown, not always redounding to the credit of the antique. Some few years ago a very interesting competitive exhibition was held at Ironmongers' Hall at the instigation of the Worshipful Company of Founders, by whom prizes were given for artistic metal-work made by living craftsmen who had studied antique metal-work and had caught somewhat of the spirit of the old artists in copper and brass. The competition was keen and many of the exhibits very beautiful. The winner of the first prize had modelled a goat from life. The second prize went to the modeller of a calf which was cast in bronze; the third prize being awarded for a splendidly modelled lioness. In another division prizes were given for bells; the first prize was awarded to the founder of a church bell cast in loam, and the second prize to the designer and founder of a bell on which were exceedingly well-modelled representations of the Resurrection. In all these examples the influence of the antique was very conspicuous. [Illustration: FIG. 13.--COPPER VANE ON BILLINGSGATE FISH MARKET.] [Illustration: FIG. 14.--THE CITY DRAGON AS A WEATHER-VANE.] [Illustration: FIG. 15.--COPPER COCK VANE, ONE OF FOUR ON SMITHFIELD MARKET.] The impetus which has been given to modern copper smithing by the Arts and Crafts Society through its exhibitions has given quite a different conception of the art from that which was formerly held. Instead of being a common craft, working in copper and brass has become one of the fine arts, a hobby much practised, and the results appreciated. The late William Morris, at one time President of the Society, and Walter Crane, artists of no mean order, exerted a great influence on the work of exhibitors. They have raised the tone of the work done by amateurs and have been the means of guiding modern workers in these metals in their efforts to reproduce the antique. Curios and antiques have served a double purpose associated with crafts such as those under review, as they give the present-day artist the foundations upon which to work. They give them evidence of styles and designs which have prevailed in the past and models upon which to build the art of the future. Briefly, among the best works of to-day fashioned on the arts and crafts of the coppersmiths of old are the beautiful metal dogs and fire-hearth appointments. There are the copper grilles, exquisite in design and useful for many purposes; copper lanterns and brass lamps of great variety; copper candlesticks, as well as the beaten metal candelabra and electroliers, also overmantel panels and beaten copper roundels, all worthy objects for the craftsmen of the present day to follow. Perhaps the most elaborate productions based on the antique are the ecclesiastical brasses of which there is ample choice in the old brasswork in so many cathedrals and parish churches. Architectural Metal-Work. Many years ago architects not only designed the main fabric and supervised the building of houses, such as those incidentally referred to being erected in the days of Queen Anne, but they were deeply interested in the metal-work which acted as exterior ornamentation, and to a large extent contributed to the beauty of their architectural designs. After the Great Fire of London swept away so much of the ancient residential portion of the old city, and took with it the Gothic and early mediæval churches, there was a great revival in building operations. Sir Christopher Wren and his fellow-workers put up more than sixty new churches within the City, and although to some extent the contour of the old streets was observed, the newer buildings must have presented an astonishing transformation scene, for from the few old relics left of London before the Fire we can form some slight idea of what the City must have looked like then. The collector of copper and brass takes an interest in metal-work other than that which he can collect, and admires works of art with which the architects of olden times enriched their chief buildings. It is true a considerable portion of the exterior metal-work attached to the freehold, and of the gates and palasades surrounding the more important erections, are of iron. There are enough examples of copper-work, however, to show us the skill of the old craftsmen who worked on years after the Charter granted by James II to the Braziers' Company had become a dead letter. One of the most conspicuous and at the same time decorative examples of copper-work on the loftier buildings is found in the weather-vanes, which were sometimes gilt, at others painted. In the earlier days the emblems selected had some bearing on the ownership of the building or the purposes for which it was to be used. There were well-known rules, too, governing the type of weather-vane. These are recognizable in the older examples. They have been neglected, however, in later years, and the nondescript designs chosen by builders and modelled according to the whim of the designer at the present day show little regard for the principles laid down by those early builders and metal-workers. The etiquette of the weather-vane was simple enough to observe. On towers, castles, and secular buildings a banner was the correct device, whereas on ecclesiastical edifices it was the barn-door fowl. It is said by an old authority that the cock was the emblem of clerical vigilance, not unassociated with the Biblical story of St. Peter; others more sceptical as to the origin tell us that the large tail of the barn-door fowl was well suited to turn truly to the wind. From these simple principles evolved established rules which ordered that the coat-of-arms or crest of the owner of a building should be incorporated in the design of the weather-vane, and on ecclesiastical buildings the symbol of the patron saint was to take the place of the weather-cock. As typical examples to be seen in London streets the weather-vanes on the four turrets of the White Tower of the Tower fly the Royal Arms in the form of miniature Royal Standards. In Tudor days the emblem was usually represented sitting on a slender pedestal, carrying an upright rod on which the flag or decorated plate of metal which acted as the weather-vane was attached. In the accompanying illustrations three types of symbolical weather-vanes are shown. Fig. 13 represents one of the copper vanes on Billingsgate Fish Market, symbolical of the occupation of those who frequent that famous mart. In Fig. 14 is seen the fabled dragon of the City of London, and in Fig. 15 the copper cock vane, one of the four fixed over Smithfield Market. There are many ecclesiastical emblems visible during a morning stroll through the streets of London. Among those readily seen are the key vane on St. Peter's, Cornhill, and the emblematic gridiron on St. Lawrence's Church. On St. Michael's Church, Queenhithe, there is a copper ship, the hull of which holds just one bushel of grain. This vane is interesting in that the emblem has reference to Queenhithe, once a famous wharf, rather than to the patron saint. The Hithe is interesting in its old associations, in that the tolls of that wharf were given to Queen Eleanor by Henry II as pin money, subsequent queens of England collecting the revenue for their personal use. The grasshopper on the Royal Exchange is the same vane that surmounted the more ancient building which preceded the one now standing. The grasshopper was the crest of Sir Thomas Gresham, by whom the first Exchange was built in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. This vane, also of copper, is fully 11 ft. in length, and in miniature was reproduced as the sign of the banking house in Lombard Street kept by Sir Thomas Gresham. The Door Knocker. The common door knocker, essentially a piece of metal associated to-day with utilitarian purposes, is not without romantic associations. It has been a much collected object; easily detached, too, for it is said that many of the old knockers, or rappers as they were formerly called, which a few years ago could be bought quite cheaply from the marine store dealers, had been surreptitiously purloined by thieves, who for the sake of a few coppers had taken some risk even on a dark night. Some old houses are still rich in antiquarian door knockers, before the days of front door bells and electric pushes more a necessity than they are now. Their use was by no means confined to private houses, on which they figured in a variety of forms, but among the earlier examples are ponderous knockers of copper and brass, once regarded as an essential feature on the great oaken doors of cathedrals and churches and other important buildings. In the days when the precincts of certain ecclesiastical edifices were sanctuary, the knocker was the goal sought by the criminal offender who rushed to obtain the protection of sanctuary. One of the most famous historical knockers which has been copied by modern founders, and is seen in collections of so-called antiques and in use as a modern replica on room doors in twentieth-century houses, is the famous knocker which did service for so many years on the Sanctuary door of Durham Cathedral. It is a relic of great antiquity, having been placed on the door prior to the reign of King Stephen. Detailing its use as sanctuary a contemporary monk wrote: "Hereupon their leader violently and repeatedly struck the brass rings which hang outside the door." According to the "rights" of Durham all the churchyard and all the circuit thereof was sanctuary for all manner of men whatever their offences had been. It will be remembered that in olden time, still perpetuated by its name, there was sanctuary just outside the Abbey of Westminster, the right being retained even after the dissolution of the monasteries in 1540. There were similar places of refuge for criminals at the Minories, Whitefriars, and the old Mint in Southwark. The Durham knocker, around which some interest centres, was in the form of an animal's head, in which are now two empty eye-sockets, behind which it is said lights were placed, although it is probable that they may have been filled with crystal balls. The brass lion knocker of Brazenose College, Oxford, has won some notoriety, and has been much copied. The legends regarding its ancient association with the College, and the migration of the students to Stamford in 1334, and the subsequent return of the knocker to Oxford after it had been in other hands for many years, vary, and are not altogether borne out by proven facts. The brass-nosed knocker does not appear to have given the name to the College, notwithstanding the very generally accepted belief. Indeed, according to several authorities the name originated in the words _bracinum_, malt, and _house_, a brew-house having been incorporated in the older buildings. The old knocker, however, is still regarded as historic. Few collectors of old copper and brass can hope to possess such historical relics, nor yet are they likely to secure any of the massive knockers, some of which are to be seen in the Victoria and Albert Museum at South Kensington. They can, however, readily obtain brass knockers dating from the reign of Queen Anne, and especially the ornate knockers of Georgian times, many of them bearing traces of the Adams' style and of Chippendale influence. Some knockers are peculiar in that the design is not always apparent. In Fig. 16 is shown a fine knocker of the much favoured armorial style, and in Fig. 17 is given a drop knocker in the form of a dolphin. Some of the knockers, repeated in great numbers in certain districts, are essentially local, such as a hook and worm pattern, which took its origin in a Sussex village. It was the invention of a local smith, an admirer of Izaac Walton, who it is said frequently passed his smithy door on his way to a fishing stream. Technically described by a fisherman, this knocker is said to be "a lobworm of buxom proportions dangling from a hook." There are others, equally interesting examples, to be met with in out-of-the-way places. One of the advantages of collecting these common objects in brass and other metals is that they can still be made to serve a useful purpose on room doors, although the rat-tat of the larger specimens is sometimes startling. "Shut, shut the door, good John! fatigued, I said; Tie up the _knocker_; say I'm sick, I'm dead." Pope. Interior Metal-Work. The collectable brasses (other than domestic kitchen brass and copper-work which is dealt with in Chapter VIII) belonging to the later period of art, and chiefly associated with the builder's furnishing and cabinetmaker's craft, include quite a variety of interesting objects. In the days before Victorian times, when art almost died out, the coppersmith and the brazier produced some beautiful objects for the ornamentation and furnishing of the home, many of which have been handed down to us, and form valuable additions to a collection of metal. This period, as it has been already intimated, has been very much copied, especially just before the artists of the later Edwardian days struck out new lines and founded a school which has been called that of the "nouvre art." Now and then there have been attempts to blend the old with the new, and the collector of the genuine antique desiring purity of style in his specimens should not neglect any opportunities he may have of examining and comparing the various styles. The arrangements for lighting and heating houses were until quite recently inefficient. There was, however, still greater neglect in providing for the comfort of the attenders at churches, which were frequently cold and chilly. Attempts were made by individuals to remedy this, and among the curios associated with heating purposes are hand-warmers and foot-warmers. The earlier types of hand-warmers, or chaufferettes, were spherical metal boxes or balls, in the interior of which, by an arrangement of chains or rings, a cup containing a red-hot ball of metal or a piece of charcoal could be retained in an upright position. These portable warming stoves were also used in many houses and on many occasions. Reference is made to such warmers in Chapter XV, where a Dutch foot-warmer is illustrated. It is said that it was a common practice years ago for a servant man or maid to follow a lady when attending church, carrying a charcoal burner and placing it upon the floor at the lady's feet, then gracefully retiring into some less conspicuous part of the building until the service was over. In the days when streets were badly lighted lanterns were commonly hung outside houses and in entrance halls, some reference to the more portable types being given in Chapter IX. [Illustration: FIG. 16.--BRONZE KNOCKER OF THE ARMORIAL TYPE.] [Illustration: FIG. 17.--BRASS DROP KNOCKER IN THE FORM OF A DOLPHIN.] [Illustration: FIG. 18.--BRASS WELL BUCKET.] The metal-work of the interior, such as lock plates, hinges, and door knobs, was frequently of brass, and very ornate some of these quaint old fittings are. Perhaps the most interesting are those which were much used on the more portable sideboards, corner cupboards, and chests. It would appear that the extravagance in design reached its height when Chippendale's influence extended to the metal ornaments on the furniture, as well as to the scrollwork and carving of the woodwork. Some of this metal-work gives evidence of Chinese influence, or as it was then called, Chinese taste, shown in the introduction of the mandarin and the fakir, Oriental landscapes, palanquins, and Chinese trees and flowers, even in English metal-work. The collector of such things finds a wealth of brass in even escutcheons and handle plates (see Chapter XIX). There is some very rich brasswork in the frames of the old banner screens, made of beautiful needlework panels, over which so much time must have been spent. A remarkably fine banner holder in the Victoria and Albert Museum is typical of many others. We have only to look round the house and imagine how it looked a century ago to discover that the collectable objects of copper and brass, even when domestic utensils and curios have been removed, included many other objects besides those referred to which may be secured by careful and persistent search among the old shops and builders' odds and ends. VII CHURCH BRASSWORK [Illustration: FIG. 19.--CURIOUS DOUBLE CANDLESTICK. (_In the Victoria and Albert Museum._)] CHAPTER VII CHURCH BRASSWORK Candlesticks--Altar brasses--Metal architectural ornament--Memorial brasses. The admirer of metal-work finds examples of the early brassworker's art in ecclesiastical edifices. Although in years gone by there has been spoiliation in many churches, and some of the most valued objects in sacred buildings have been taken for secular uses, there are still many treasured relics which are almost unique specimens of the metal-worker's art. It is a wonder so much has been preserved, for too enthusiastic authorities have often displaced the old and substituted newer objects of no antiquarian value. In the past in restoration work much that would have now been venerated as antique has been destroyed. The collector cannot be advised to bring pressure to bear on the ecclesiastical authorities in order that he may obtain such curios for his museum. Oftentimes the brasses in themselves would present no special interest. It is rather in their associations that the antiquary sees much to admire, and to strip brasses from the wall or memorial tablets from tombs is vandalism and sacrilege which cannot be encouraged. There is, however, a peculiar beauty in the metal-work which may be seen and admired in old churches, and the massive grandeur of grilles, railings, and gallery fronts add to the beauty of such buildings as a whole. In addition to these architectural brasses there are many portable antiques, ornate and historical. Ecclesiastical brasses may be divided into two groups. First, there are those which have been consecrated to religious purposes, including the sacred vessels of the altar and the metal symbols used in Divine worship, and then there are the metal objects which serve the purpose of ornament and to some extent utility. Among the more decorative pieces of the first group are processional crosses, many of which are very beautiful, in some cases being ornamented with precious stones and enamels. Then there are the crosses on the altar, if anything still more decorative, for in fashioning them, especially for use in connection with the old Gothic cathedrals and churches in this country and on the Continent in mediæval days, the artists concentrated their best endeavours to produce metal-work worthy of the sacred purpose for which it was to be used. Some of the bishops' and archbishops' crooks in the earlier days were made of ivory; then metal-work, richly chased and jewelled, came into vogue, and latterly some of the crooks are fine examples of the metal-workers' art. Candlesticks. The ornaments of the altar in Christian churches are for the most part simple in design. There are, however, many varieties of candlesticks, varying in size and degree from the larger ones which hold the Communion candles to the decorative seven-branched candelabra of light and tasteful design. The more important specimens are the massive candlesticks which are used in the chancel and in some of the larger cathedrals in other parts of the building. Such ecclesiastical bronzes are seldom obtainable, although there are some fine examples in the Victoria and Albert Museum in this country, and in the chief Continental museums. The donors of such objects spared no expense, and the modellers and founders treated such work very elaborately. Flemish and Spanish churches are especially rich in large candlesticks, and many of the Continental cathedrals possess wonderful examples. The prominence which has been given to candlesticks in public worship dates back to a period long before the foundation of the Christian Church, for the seven-branched candlestick was an important feature in the Jewish ceremonial. When the Roman conquerors took possession of Jerusalem, among the treasures taken from the Temple on the sack of the city, they carried away the golden candlesticks from the altar. So important was this sacred trophy that it was represented on the triumphal arch of Titus, preserving to the artists of the future its general characteristics of design. The great bronze candlesticks in St Paul's Cathedral and in other English churches are to be admired but not collected; nevertheless there are some fine candlesticks in bronze and of polished brass offered for sale in the curio shops, and from time to time brought under the hammer in the London auction rooms. The illustration given in Fig. 19 is a remarkable example which may be seen in the Victoria and Albert Museum. A fine Venetian bronze candelabrum (one of a pair), now in a private collection, is shown in Fig. 20. Altar Brasses. Most of the church plate so-called was of pewter and silver in early times; in more modern days of silver, and sometimes of metal plated with silver. There are, however, examples of metal chalices of bronze, some of which have been found in Ireland. The altar brasses in pre-Reformation days included brass censers and incense vessels, very interesting examples of which are now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, being illustrated in Fig. 21. Of vases and other decorative altar brasses there are many. Some, probably, took their origin in older customs and were symbolical; the vases nowadays are for the most part used as receptacles for flowers. [Illustration: FIG. 20.--VENETIAN CANDELABRUM (ONE OF A PAIR).] Bordering on the secular vessels, yet associated with the altar, there are the alms-dishes, of which there are a great number in private collections of metal. They are mostly of brass, some quite plain, others engraved and highly ornamental. Some little time ago there was a special display of alms-dishes, two-score or more in number, exhibited at the Kelvingrove Exhibition at Glasgow. Some were covered over with scriptural pictorial designs, among the favourite being those illustrating the old story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden; the episode of Samson and the lion; and the visit of the two spies to the Promised Land, returning carrying a large bunch of grapes. Such alms-dishes vary in size, seldom less than 12 in. in diameter, but ranging up to 20 in. Sometimes the collector is puzzled to find what he may regard as inappropriate mottoes on church vessels. On the other hand, it is not an uncommon thing to meet with religious devices or pious mottoes on platters and bowls which were obviously used as domestic vessels. This fact is explained in that at one time there was but little difference between secular and ecclesiastical plate, and the vessels were often used indiscriminately for church purposes and for the use of the household. Metal Architectural Ornament. The lectern is frequently of bronze or brass. The eagle with spread wings or other designs adopted by the metal-workers gave the artist plenty of scope. The altar rail and in a few instances the metal screen and grille are composed of elaborately chased brass or copper-work, sometimes cast, at others hammered. Perhaps one of the greatest achievements of the coppersmith in connection with church metal-work is the ball and cross of St. Paul's, surmounting the great dome. It was made in the year 1821 by Benham and Froud, an old firm of coppersmiths. An illustration of this gigantic piece of work is given in Fig. 22. When viewed from beneath few would imagine that the cross, although so high up, is 30 ft. in height, and that its weight is upwards of one and a half tons. The occasional gilding of this triumph of the coppersmith's art is in itself a costly procedure. Memorial Brasses. The visitor to the country church, as well as the larger cathedral, finds much antiquarian interest in the tombs and monuments, and in the memorial tablets of the illustrious dead the history of their lives may often be read. In the older tombs the work of the sculptors in marble is frequently enriched by the addition of appropriate tablets of brass, sometimes inlaid with enamels. One of the most noted tombs is that in the centre of the chapel of Henry VII. in Westminster Abbey, the tomb itself being closely guarded by the massive railings, which are of brass. The visitor to that chapel notes with interest the brass stall plates so rich in enamels, on which are the arms and crests of the knights who in times past occupied those stalls and hung their banners over them. [Illustration: FIG. 21.--BRONZE INCENSE BURNER AND INCENSE BOAT. (_In the Victoria and Albert Museum._)] It may be contended that tombs and monuments cannot be collected, but those who visit such places may fill their notebooks with interesting data, and they may carry away with them accurate records and rubbings of the monumental tablets and the brasses on the tombs (for instructions how to take rubbings, see Wrinkles, p. 393). Such rubbings of old brasses can be kept in a portfolio or mounted and hung upon walls. They form a record, too, of the engraver's art, which was modified and altered to suit the change which went on in architectural design and to some extent in social and religious customs. The variety of brasses is seen when a good collection of rubbings is classified and arranged according to style, period, or locality. Some districts yield prolific returns. Throughout the counties of Gloucester, Somerset, and Norfolk many may be obtained, the more interesting specimens being secured from tombs dating from the thirteenth to the seventeenth century. From such a series armorial representation as it became less real and of smaller importance can be traced. The costumes of the period, too, are very clearly shown, for in such a collection of brasses the value of armour in war is seen to change. In the earlier examples there is the chain mail of the cross-legged knights as seen on the early brasses of the Crusaders, the mediæval armour of the Middle Ages when it had reached its strength, and the brasses of the Stuart days when the ornamental armour of that period had to a large extent lost its utility. The ecclesiastical brasses on the tombs of bishops and other church dignitaries show the change which took place very gradually in the vestments worn, and indicate the alteration in ecclesiastical ritual in the cathedrals and churches at the time of the Reformation. The dissolution of the monasteries and the sacrilege which took place in the dismantled churches and religious houses caused valuable relics to be sold for old metal, and it was then that many old monuments and tombs lost their brasses. The influence of book knowledge and the change which came about in the style of script after the introduction of the printing-press is seen in the evolution of the lettering on church brasses. Indeed, in some of the older ones the form of the letters is the only indication left of the date of their engraving. [Illustration: FIG. 22.--THE COPPER-GILT CROSS ON ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL.] The engraver's art progressed with the art of the period in which he lived, and in a collection of rubbings may be seen the gradual training of the eye and hand until from meaningless pictures without background or perspective the artist was able to engrave on metal a beautifully realistic picture of the subject he had chosen. As a guide to a few indications of the period to which brasses belong, it may be mentioned that the decorative canopies on monumental brasses belong chiefly to the ornate period of art. The embattled canopies and the change to the decorative Gothic tell of the progress in ecclesiastical architecture until it reached its height between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, later brasses telling of its gradual decadence. Of the variety of subject it would be impossible to refer, for at all ages there have been many who would fit into niches between the extremes of the early fighting men amidst the nobles and knights who fell in battle, and those who apparently lived all their lives in the peaceful rural surroundings of some quiet English village, dying within sight of the old church where they had worshipped, and where they were eventually buried. "When some proud son of man returns to earth, Unknown to glory, but upheld by birth, The sculptor's art exhausts the pomp of woe, And storied urns record who rests below; When all is done, upon the tomb is seen, Not what he was, but what he should have been." Byron. VIII DOMESTIC UTENSILS CHAPTER VIII DOMESTIC UTENSILS The kitchen--The houseplace--Chimney and other ornaments--Classified arrangement. A collection of metal-work representative of domestic utensils as they were fashioned in very early times, and as they were made in days so far forgotten as to render the common objects of daily use curios, is regarded, probably, as the most important branch of copper and brass, from a collector's standpoint. The collector may be content with gathering together a few examples of old domestic metal-work and using them as ornamental reminders of olden time, decorating his entrance hall or rooms furnished after the antique with the objects he gathers together, or he may arrange them as in a museum gallery. The display of curios is at all times a matter of taste, but it is one of some importance, especially in a branch of collecting so conspicuous as copper and brass. We can scarcely conceive of any real pleasure being derived from such a hobby, or of such specimens being appreciated by one's friends, when specimens so obviously out of place are shown in a modern dining-room or drawing-room furnished in nouvre art. The Keeper of the London Museum, now transferred to Stafford House from Kensington Palace, has very appropriately arranged the antiquities of London in their proper historical and chronological sequence, and has grouped them so that the reference they bear to contemporary surroundings can be understood by those who see them for the first time. The photograph which we reproduce in Fig. 23 represents a corner in a well made up seventeenth-century room, in which has been gathered together some beautiful old oak furniture of that period. It is panelled with oak which has been procured from old London houses of contemporary date; the doorway is a genuine antique from Bromley-by-Bow, adding to the appearance of the room, for its hinges and lock furniture are splendid examples of the brasswork of that period. Some pieces of Cromwellian armour, prominent among which are variously ornamented helmets and breastplates, are arranged round the upper portion of the room. Over an old oak chest is a beautiful brass skimmer, and on the wall a seventeenth-century brass bed-warmer, with engraved cover. On the sideboard is a huge key and a brass mortar. The lock furniture and the drop handle on the sideboard, which are of brass, are worthy of note. On the other side of the room there is a fine brass trivet standing in front of the hearth, on which are andirons, and logs ready for the firing; close by is a quaint old candlestick. Undoubtedly curios displayed in such a way interest and instruct those who see them, and a room so furnished enthuses collectors with the desire to secure other objects of an appropriate character; this in itself is an advantage in that a representative collection is of more general interest than one containing many objects of a similar character. [Illustration: FIG. 23.--SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY ROOM IN THE LONDON MUSEUM.] The Kitchen. Kitchen utensils and domestic appliances which the housewife of olden time deemed necessary are of peculiar interest in that they help us to recall the habits and customs of former generations. It is not always easy to arrange a model kitchen in that there are many old utensils of copper and brass which must have been used side by side as periods overlapped, although some have a much older origin than others. It is said that the kitchens of well-stocked old family mansions still yield some curios when thoroughly examined, and that it is not at all an uncommon thing to find there utensils the object of which has almost been forgotten. They are relics of an older day, and utensils which a modern cook would not deign to use. Such discoveries, however, are few and far between, for the melting-pot and the cupidity of those anxious to clear unnecessary encumbrances and perhaps make a little towards refurnishing, has left but few objects of interest in the kitchen. It is, however, there and in the old houseplace that we may look for something of interest. Some will go on using old vessels long after newer utensils have taken their place in the more advanced households, and there are some cooks who use successfully saucepans and kettles of almost antique pattern which the student of the cook's art in the modern schools of cookery would find difficult to manipulate. They have been taught how to make tasty dishes with aluminium vessels and enamelled pans, whereas heavy and clumsy brass and copper utensils served their grandparents. The cook's art is appreciated to-day as it was in the past, and at all periods the domestic workshop has been surrounded with a halo of romance. Shakespeare has rendered the caldron of olden time memorable in "Macbeth." Of the caldron boiling in the dark cave he makes the witches cry: "Double, double toil and trouble, Fire, burn; and caldron bubble." [Illustration: FIG. 24.--BRONZE CALDRON. (_In Trinity Hospital, Leicester._)] The cooking-pot is the sustainer of life, in that it gives strength to the weary and to the starving. To the poor dumb creatures, however, it is the end of life, and in savagery human life has been sacrificed to the gluttony of fellow-men. Wonderful stories are at times told of great feasts and of the magnificence of the kitchens of olden time, where the vessels and the cooking-pots were of extravagant size, making up, perhaps, for the fewer culinary utensils, for in early days the furnishings of the kitchen were few in number although massive and strong. Many of the baronial halls of the Middle Ages, and the homes of wealthy landowners in more recent days, have been the scene of great feasts. Merrie England rejoiced on such occasions when the roasting-jack and the spit contributed to the success of the feast, and the caldron or cooking-pot boiled upon the open hearth. In some old kitchens there are preserved ponderous bronze and copper pots, some so large that we can scarcely imagine that they were made for actual use. In the hall of Trinity Hospital at Leicester there is preserved a large caldron of bell metal, holding upwards of sixty gallons, which has been used as the cooking-pot of the institution from its foundation until quite recent times. This quaint old relic, now venerated as a curio, is locally called the Duke of Lancaster's porridge-pot, for it is said that it was made to the order of Henry, Duke of Lancaster, in 1331 (see Fig. 24). Not far removed from the corner where the old metal pot is shown to visitors there is a massive nutmeg-grater, a kitchen relic of olden time, which on the occasion of one of her visits to Leicester Queen Elizabeth presented to the hospital. Many old castles have relics of the feast to show visitors, and others no doubt could produce equally interesting examples of the coppersmiths' or the founders' art were they to search the vaults and cellars where disused metal-work was in years gone by stowed away. Visitors to Warwick Castle are familiar with "Guy's punchbowl," the remarkable metal caldron which is nearly twice the size of that attributed to the Duke of Lancaster, for it weighs, along with a fork said to have been used to handle the meat, 807 lb. Most of these old vessels were cast, but some copper-work was hammered by hand, and those which have been preserved to us testify to the brawny arm of the smith and the strength of his blow when by hammer and hand he wrought them. Such copper caldrons were often made in two or more parts, and having been shaped on the block, were afterwards riveted together. It is puzzling at times to understand local and trade terms in that they frequently differ from the commonly accepted names of cooking vessels. Thus, these wrought caldrons or pots were frequently designated tripod kettles. A very fine example of such a wrought copper kettle was recovered a short time ago from Whittlesey Mere and is now in the Peterborough Museum. A century or more ago the Mere was famous in Huntingdonshire and many water parties were held there. The kettle recently found is thought to have been a relic of those events, and to have been used on the margin of the lake. The fine caldron of cast brass illustrated in Fig. 27 was found during excavations in Water Lane, in London. It is peculiar in that it has two-eared handles and projecting feet. It is very substantial, and may be regarded as typical of the early metal caldrons, several of which have been found in London. Another cooking vessel, smaller in size, having a curved handle and being in good preservation, a domestic relic of the seventeenth century, which was dug up in Milton Street, Cripplegate, is illustrated in Fig. 28. [Illustration: FIG. 25.--SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY BRASS PAN. FIG. 26.--BRASS TRIPOD POT.] [Illustration: FIG. 27.--CALDRON OF CAST BRASS. FIG. 28.--BRASS COOKING VESSEL WITH CURVED HANDLE.] Reference has been made to the baronial halls, and to the numerous relics which have been lost to futurity. There are, however, some well-known castles where, although the kitchens have been replenished from time to time, the older forms of cooking vessels have been perpetuated. Until recent days the kitchen arrangements at Windsor Castle remained much as they had been for many years previous, and even now copper and brass retain a favoured position and are very much in evidence. Windsor has been the scene of much feasting, and many great State events have put a strain even upon the domestic resources of that famous Royal residence. The great kitchen of the castle is supplemented by a vegetable kitchen, a green kitchen, and a scullery, and around these rooms there is a bright array of copper pans and cooking utensils, mostly bearing the monogram of George IV, for it was in his reign that many new culinary appointments were added. These vessels, large and small, were in constant use during the reign of Queen Victoria. Her late Majesty was averse to change. In her days oak out of Windsor Forest was burned in the grate, and the spits and roasting-jacks and other kitchen accessories were in keeping with the copper and brass pans and kettles. Great changes have been made since the accession of George V, for Queen Mary supervises the management of the Royal kitchens, and many modern cooking vessels have been substituted for older ones. The collector of copper and brass culinary utensils has seldom an opportunity of adding the large bronze caldrons and relics of Royal kitchens to his collection. He has to be content with exploring lesser domains, and securing wherever possible the smaller cooking vessels of days gone by. These are frequently quite as interesting as those of larger size, and there is a wealth of copper still lying dormant in antique shops, and in some instances in the scrap-heaps of the old metal dealer. Without going any further back the saucepans of the seventeenth century well reward the discoverer of such relics. That century was a time when pious mottoes were carved upon the lintel beam and when old coffers and other pieces of massive oak were decorated with such sentiments. The brassfounders followed suit and ornamented pots and pans, and enriched them with mottoes just as they cast such inscriptions on bells and mortars. Two very interesting seventeenth-century vessels are illustrated on p. 165. One of these, Fig. 25, was discovered some years ago in Fetter Lane, and is now in the Guildhall Museum. The other, Fig. 26, is a tripod pot, the handle of which has a loop near the bowl. It is probably of early seventeenth or late sixteenth-century workmanship. The brass skillet of seventeenth-century make, illustrated in Fig. 29, may be seen by the curious in the British Museum. There is no uncertainty about its date, for it is marked 1684, and along the handle is the quaint motto "Pitty the Pore." Collectors may be reminded that inscriptions are sometimes stamped; at others engraved, and they are frequently met with on quite unimportant vessels. The metal used for such utensils was chiefly of brass, but often of latten, an alloy in which there was an admixture of zinc, or of tin in what was known as white latten. As it has been stated already, brass came into vogue late in the sixteenth century, and soon became popular for kitchen utensils; latten, however, was a favourite alloy for spoons and the smaller objects, especially for porringers for mulling wine. Concurrent with the use of copper and its modern alloys bronze appears to have been used in this country even as late as the beginning of the seventeenth century, the cooking vessels illustrated in Figs. 30 and 31 being bronze of this late type. [Illustration: FIG. 29.--SKILLET (BRASS), THE HANDLE OF WHICH IS ENGRAVED WITH THE MOTTO "PITTY THE PORE."] [Illustration: FIGS. 30 AND 31.--BRONZE COOKING VESSELS, ATTRIBUTED TO THE BEGINNING OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. (_In the British Museum._)] The skillet, which continued a favourite vessel, commonly called a saucepan, originally had three short-curved feet, and the handle was curved, too. It was a development of a still earlier cooking vessel; its prototype of the sixteenth century having a globular body with short-curved feet, and frequently two handles. The twentieth-century collector, accustomed as he is to machine-and factory-made goods of uniform finish and of regular shapes, is apt to be a little bit disappointed with the copper curios roughly made and badly formed. It would appear as if most of the collectable copper goods were made after the days when the old guilds so carefully controlled the making of copper and latten in Lothbury. When their power of control waned, craftsmen who had been employed by guild members worked for themselves, and there was but little supervision over the metal wares made by the coppersmith, who was often a retailer of his own wares. When the hardware dealer or copper man became an established trader in the eighteenth century he would employ a journeyman coppersmith in his little workshop, who would fashion the utensils with a hammer on a wooden block, and afterwards planish them by hand as he thought fit. In the making of such goods there was great irregularity, and the dealer and his customer, too, were dependent upon the whim of the craftsman. That was before the days of machine-made goods. Instead of the brass or copper being pressed and stamped by machinery and carefully finished the utensils were made in a rough and ready way on the wooden block, and simply hammered in the rounded cavities which had been made in it. Saucepans, stewpans, and jelly moulds were beaten into shape, and then hollowed and dished. It is said it was a healthful trade, for many of the old coppersmiths had passed their threescore years and ten shaping kettles and deftly fashioning from a sheet of brass even quite ornamental domestic articles of utility; they would decorate by hand a brass chestnut roaster with no other tools but a small hammer and a punch, and with the same simple instruments they would work a fancy pattern on the lid of a warming-pan. Some coppersmiths won fame in the fashioning of furnace-pans, better known as washing coppers, and others would undertake the roofing of houses and churches. One notable firm in London, whose copper saucepans and cooking-pots had been sold for a hundred years or more, achieved the zenith of their fame when they produced that enormous piece of copper-work, the ball and cross of St. Paul's Cathedral, which is referred to and illustrated in another chapter. [Illustration: FIGS. 32 AND 33.--COPPER WATER JUG AND WATER POT.] [Illustration: FIG. 34.--COPPER WATER JUG AND COVER. FIG. 35.--BRASS TWO-HANDLED WATER VESSEL.] There is yet another reason given why so many of the old copper pots and pans are irregular in shape and are often fitted with apparently unsuitable handles. It is that most of these old vessels at one time or another have undergone repairs, and were frequently treated by unskilled workmen. Among the street cries of London one of the oldest was: "Any pots or pans to mend?" The travelling tinker was a repairing coppersmith, too, and much of his time was occupied in mending the copper and brass cooking utensils used at the farmhouses and in the villages through which he passed. His methods of dealing with the vessels entrusted to him for repairs were not always the best, as museum relics testify. Drinking cups, tankards, and flagons constitute another very important section of collectable curios. They were, however, chiefly made of pewter in the days before glass and earthenware became general. Some were undoubtedly of copper. This metal, however, was chiefly used for large jugs in which water and other liquids were carried. Water vessels vary in shape, although certain characteristics are frequently noticeable. The typical English-made jug and water vessel, such as those shown in Figs. 32, 33, 34, and 35, are very graceful in shape, the handles being light and very suitable. They make remarkably welcome additions to a collection of metal, and are appropriate ornaments on an old oak sideboard. The Houseplace. It is not a far remove from the kitchen to the houseplace, and it is there that some of the more decorative brasswork of eighteenth-century workmanship is chiefly to be found. Just as copper and brass formed a prominent feature in the equipment of the kitchen, so in the old houseplace they were considered the best for ornamental purposes. The polishing of the metal-work throughout the house in the good old days must have been a considerable item in the duties of domestic servants, but no doubt it well repaid the labour, for from the old ornaments and usable curios of the houseplace which have come into the hands of collectors, especially when housed in a reconstructed eighteenth-century room, the effect is excellent. The metal-work of the best parlour was not so extensive, although there were many beautifully polished coal-vases and fender frets. Indeed, in both rooms mentioned the chief attraction would appear to have centred on the fireplace. [Illustration: FIG. 36.--A FINELY-PIERCED BRASS TRIVET, DATED 1668.] [Illustration: FIG. 37.--BRASS-TOPPED TRIVET, WITH ADDITIONAL LEG STAY. FIG. 38.--BRASS-TOPPED TRIVET, WITH TURNED WOOD HANDLE.] The story of the evolution of the grate and the hearth and its appointments is of extreme interest. The grate itself was at times ornate with polished brass beads and canopies. The older type of fireplace was mostly fitted with iron appointments, but even when andirons were upon the hearth and logs of timber crackled as they blazed up the wide old chimney, the dogs or chief ornaments of the hearth were often of brass or bronze. When hob-grates and registers came in fashion, ormolu and brass ornament contrasted with polished steel. A typical parlour hob-grate of the eighteenth century would be ornate with brasses on the hobs, a pierced brass fender on the stone slab, and a polished brass ashes pan in front of the bars to hide the cinders. The trivet or revolving stool, small or large, was in the fender or on the hearth, and massive fire brasses (not irons) filled the empty spaces. The brass trivet, revived in modern times, was originally a three-legged stool made of metal, on which a kettle or similar vessel could be placed near to the fire. The convenience of being able to put the trivet stool quite close up to the bars suggested to the maker of such things the addition of hooks by which the trivet could be hung upon the bar, thereby bringing it nearer to the heat. In later years the trivet developed a handle for the convenience of moving it about, and especially of hanging it upon the bars, and in the latest completed form with turned wood handle, iron legs, and brass fretted top, the trivet was regarded as an essential accompaniment to the fire-grate. From the three-legged stool with hooks or handle there came a minor development in the form of a light portable trivet without legs, which could only be used when hung on the bars. These varieties presented the worker in brass with an excellent opportunity of showing his decorative skill, and brass trivet tops soon became very ornamental. Fig. 36 represents a finely-pierced brass trivet, with tall legs and pointed feet and a turned wood handle. On the top of a baluster-shaped device, supported by dolphins, Atlas is represented bearing on his shoulders the globe. The date of the trivet is 1668, and on the top is also engraved the owner's monogram. Another very interesting example comes from Derbyshire, and is shown in Fig. 38. Yet another example is given in Fig. 37, this being a more elaborate design. In the centre of the plate an eagle is represented with outstretched wings. The construction of this trivet is somewhat unusual in that it is strengthened with a cross-bar; the feet are of spear-head shape. All three examples are to be seen at South Kensington. There have been many modern replicas of the beautiful old brass helmet-shaped coal-boxes so common half a century ago. The earlier types varied somewhat in shape, but always preserved their helmet-like form, as illustrated in the example shown in Fig. 39. In the days when these coal-boxes were fashionable, miniature pipkins were sold for drawing-room use, and a little later oblong and oval boxes of polished brass and copper were in common use; in some places the brass log boxes taking their place, especially where wood was plentiful. [Illustration: FIG. 39.--COPPER HELMET-SHAPED COAL-BOX.] It is probable no domestic utensil or appliance has gained greater notoriety than the copper and brass warming-pan, which so long held an honoured place in the chimney corner. It was used nightly in winter for warming beds in the often large and chilly rooms, both in the homes of the wealthy and of the middle classes. One of these pans is represented in Fig. 23 on the wall of the seventeenth-century room already mentioned as being on view in the London Museum. Another very handsome warming-pan, which is in the Victoria and Albert Museum, is very exceptional in style. Many of the earlier examples are dated, and sometimes engraved or embossed with pious or loyal sentiments, as was the custom of the times. The Royal Albert Memorial Museum at Exeter contains several interesting warming-pans; one, which is dated on the lid 1622, is engraved: "I.R. GOD SAVE KING JAMES"; another, with an iron handle, is of still earlier date, being stamped 1616 on the lid. Brass foot-warmers were at one time in regular use; a very fine example, shown in Fig. 40, is of octagonal shape, covered with repoussé decoration, and fitted with a folding bail handle, facilitating its removal from place to place. There have been many copper foot-warmers, carriage warmers, and the like used in days before modern heating arrangements were known. Some years ago little copper muff-warmers were sold in the shops; but they were of no great novelty, for as far back as the seventeenth century what were known as warming boxes were made for keeping the hands warm on journeys when travelling by the very cold and draughty stage coaches. These curious little boxes of brass or copper were heated with a removable mass of iron, which could be lifted out of the box, which hinged in the centre, by means of an iron hook; just in the same way the old box irons were operated. In Figs. 41 and 42 one of these early boxes, which may be seen in the Guildhall Museum, is illustrated. Thus in olden time the comfort of travellers was attained. The old inns were welcome retreats after a stormy journey by road, and the older inns of the coaching days often contain many interesting relics of the days when the copper and brass objects we now call curious and old were new. Those objects referred to in the previous paragraphs by no means exhaust the list of houseplace curios in metal, but they may serve to point out the great interest which attaches to even common objects of everyday use when a few years have passed by and changes have been brought about in everyday usages. [Illustration: FIG. 40.--BRASS FOOT-WARMER WITH BAIL HANDLE. (_In the Victoria and Albert Museum._)] [Illustration: FIGS. 41 AND 42.--EARLY BRASS OR BRONZE HAND-WARMER, SHOWN OPEN AND CLOSED. (_In the Guildhall Museum._)] Chimney and other Ornaments. As it has been intimated already, the fireplace was a centre of attraction in all old houses. It was customary on a winter's night to draw up close to the fire, and in so doing it was only natural that the chimney piece and those objects which rested thereon would be constantly looked at. This probably gave makers the cue when designing ornamental brasswork which could be used as household decoration. The ornaments of those days were substantial, and the chimney ornaments solid and lasting. It was a common thing to see a row of brass figures or pairs of brass ornaments on the chimney-piece. Such designs as those shown in Figs. 43 and 44 were popular. Our illustrations represent one only of each fashion; the pairs, however, were usually designed opposite hands, looking to right and left. Such ornaments were seen on the kitchen mantelpieces of the well-to-do and on the hob-grates of the houseplaces of the middle classes. This was the prevailing custom from fifty to seventy years ago, and still earlier similar ornaments, cruder in design, evidently modelled after the style of the Bow pottery figures, were in use. In Lancashire and in the manufacturing districts of the Black Country brass ornaments of similar and more modern types have always been favoured, and they are still sold as ornaments to well-to-do artisans and mechanics. The modern castings are rougher and not so decorative or beautifully designed as the tooled castings of earlier days. The peacock was a favourite bird and shared with the pheasant popularity. These designs are easily recognizable among the genuine antiques. There were larger animals, too, such as the horse, an example of which is given in Fig. 45. This favourite beast of burden was oftentimes represented as a dray horse; in more sporting circles as a hack or a hunter. In agricultural districts the wagoner, the huntsman, and dogs and hounds were chiefly favoured. They were generally set on a base or plinth, an exceptionally good country brass of the earlier type representing a shepherd with his typical crook. Little statuettes represented politicians and historical and even allegorical figures. Among the portrait brasses Napoleon was a favourite subject in the days when his name was familiar in every household. Izaac Walton, the exponent of the gentle art, was often modelled in brass, and even Robinson Crusoe and his man Friday formed the subject of a rare group. The Continents of America, Africa, and Asia are rare and interesting allegorical groups. Other brasses show traces of Chippendale influence, especially those in miniature which represent familiar household objects, among which are wonderful little models of circular tables and of the oval loo tables, like those then seen in the best parlour. There are also miniature brass trivets and stools and models of grandfather chairs. Brass ornaments such as those described are not altogether confined to chimney ornaments, for on a larger scale they were frequently used on the old hob-grates, the polished brass or copper contrasting with the shining blacklead put on with plenty of elbow grease. They were used, too, as door porters and also as sideboard ornaments. The ornaments of the early nineteenth century in metal were, however, almost entirely associated with utilitarian purposes, the artist decorating the commoner objects, giving special attention to the repoussé work and engraving on those portions which would be in view when the dustpan, warming-pan, hearth brush, or other object was hung up. Classified Arrangement. [Illustration: FIGS. 43 AND 44.--BRASS CHIMNEY ORNAMENTS (ONE EACH OF PAIRS).] [Illustration: FIG. 45.--BRASS HORSE, A CHIMNEY OR HOB-GRATE ORNAMENT.] In addition to those articles mentioned in the foregoing paragraphs there are many domestic utensils highly decorative, such as candlesticks and lighting apparatus, referred to in other chapters in this volume. These all come under the special notice of the collector of copper and brasswork who turns his attention to domestic antiques. Such collectable objects as already suggested should be arranged in a room furnished in similar style to that prevailing at a time when these metal curios were in daily use. If such a room is not available an alternative method is to arrange the domestic curios so that by comparison the progress made by makers as each succeeding generation came and went can be seen and appreciated. Incidentally that method is very interesting in that it reveals the periods at which art was uppermost, and indicates those times when the utility of domestic copper and brass was in the ascendant rather than their ornate appearance. Popular taste was followed by the maker at all times, and the more progressive manufacturers were ever on the look-out for some slight improvement either in design or decoration--seldom, however, making any radical change--so that the progress in metal-work was one of development slowly unfolded. IX CANDLESTICKS AND LAMPS CHAPTER IX CANDLESTICKS AND LAMPS Fire-making apparatus--Candles and candlesticks--Oil lamps and lanterns. Artificial light and heat were among the first scientific discoveries of primeval man. To harness the forces of Nature was undoubtedly a great achievement, and at first would be viewed with alarm. The fire which had been kindled from natural causes would be looked upon with awe by the cave men or the dwellers in the forest. When they saw it dying down they would very naturally make some effort to keep the fire burning by adding fresh fuel. The time would come, however, when lighting a fire by artificial means would be resorted to; and the methods adopted in those far-off days involved the use of primitive contrivances, some of which are described on the next page. The fire burning under the camp kettle would in course of time suggest a flaming torch, which could be carried about at will; and from the torch, which burned all too quickly, came the discovery of oil lamps and the candle. At first this was only a rushlight, used side by side with the cresset torch; and then in later days came lamps and lanterns. Fire-making Apparatus. The collector of copper and brass looks with regret on the early fire-making apparatus in that iron was the chief metal employed. Nevertheless there are some objects associated with fire-making manufactured in brass. There are some well-known collectors who have specialized on fire-making appliances and early lamps. Among fire-making appliances are those of the percussion type, commencing with iron pyrites, flint, steel, and tinder. Some of the earlier tinder boxes were made of brass, although the majority were of wood and tin; many of the pistol-action tinder boxes which immediately followed the earlier form were furnished with stands and candle-sockets, being used for the purpose of lighting an early candle. Some of the brass candle-stands and candle-sockets are beautifully engraved, and many of the contrivances which were fired by the priming of gunpowder, the flash igniting the tinder, are highly ornamental. That method, of course, marked an advance. There are pistol-action tinder boxes from Japan, highly ornamental, the cases being pierced and in some instances decorated with raised silver and copper relief. From China and Central Asia come tinder pouches, many of them having decorative brass mounts, some being gilt on copper. Tinder was often carried about in tubes of brass and copper, some of the best examples being very elaborately engraved. In some small compartments are found; these were intended for the flint and steel. A later type of mechanical fire-making appliance, introduced by Richard Lorentz, in 1807, took the form of a patented compression tube or fire syringe, the piston of which was of brass. Chemical methods of lighting fires and striking lights have been tried with more or less success, and among the collectable curios are relics of these early attempts to produce fire and light by scientific methods. The collector, while welcoming every curious object, has generally to rely upon the objects which were in common use and made in larger quantities. Of these commonly used appliances, however, there are many varieties, and of the more perfected forms of lighting requisites there is an abundant choice. [Illustration: FIG. 46.--A TWO-TUBE CANDLE MOULD.] [Illustration: FIG. 47.--TWO TYPES OF EARLY PRICKET CANDLESTICKS.] Candles and Candlesticks. Many are the legends and stories of the days when the flickering light of a candle threw shadows across the ceiling and partly lighted and partly obscured the table and floor. Ghostly, too, they seemed as the embers of the fire died on the hearth. The provision of artificial light for use during the long winter evenings has always been one of the domestic cares, and the women of the household were in early days mindful of the coming winter during the summer and autumn months. Among their domestic duties was that of gathering and drying rushes and dipping them in fat. The primitive rushlights gave an uncertain glimmer, and the moulding of candles with cotton wicks would be welcomed as an advance. Candles were home-made until comparatively modern times, and the candle mould was an essential in every household. It was frequently of brass, and varied in size and in the number of moulds, the one shown in Fig. 46 having only two tubes. While the custom of making candles at home continued long in country districts, in towns candle-making became a trade, and, as was the custom in those days, the moulders of candles assembled together in certain well-known thoroughfares. In London, Candlewick Street, the name of which has since been corrupted into Cannon Street, was their rendezvous. The store of candles for immediate use was kept close at hand in the candle box, placed against the wall in some convenient position. The boxes were of wood and japanned tin; others were of brass, some being very ornamental and covered over with engravings. Such candle boxes are to be found in the curio shops; several fine examples may frequently be seen near St. James's Park Station in London, where there are several curio dealers who specialize on old copper and brass, the neighbourhood being quite a happy hunting ground for the collector of metal. [Illustration: FIG. 48.--CANDELABRUM OF EARLY TYPE (CENTRAL FIGURE), AND TWO OIL LAMPS. (_In Washington Museum._)] The evolution of the candlestick was slow at first. The old rushlight-holders were made by the country smith, and very clumsy they were on their heavy wooden stands. The first idea seems to have been to stick the candle on a spike, oftentimes such spikes being placed conveniently on the wall. Then came the "sticks" on stands which could be moved about the room, in some cases with a sliding holder, the height of which could be regulated. Gradually, however, the candlestick for table use and the candlestick with the dished base, which became common as the type of the chamber candlestick, came into being. With the progress made and the general acceptance of the two types, the pillar candlestick and the chamber candlestick, the artist in metal began to turn his attention to perfecting their forms and decorating them. Many remarkable candlesticks in bronze are met with among ecclesiastical brasses, some of which are referred to in Chapter VII. Of the domestic candlesticks there are many early examples, some with beautifully twisted columns and later fluted examples. The pricket candlestick--that is, a candlestick with a spike on which a candle was firmly placed--eventually gave way to the more convenient socket, and a flange at the top of the column held any candle grease which might run down the sides of the candle. The pricket candlesticks of early twelfth-century make illustrated in Fig. 47 may be referred to as examples of the pricket form, their chief attractions being found in the richly enamelled decoration. In Fig. 48 we are able to illustrate a very interesting candelabrum now in the National Museum at Washington City. It is made up literally of two candlesticks attached to a very simple pillar bracket on which they slide up and down, the addition of a metal reflector suggesting later developments in candlesticks and lamps. In the later days both brass and silver candlesticks, especially the tall lights used on mantelpiece or on sideboard, were ornamented in keeping with the plate of the period, and were eventually classed among the more decorative appointments of the home. When candles were made of tallow the wicks burned black and charred and a constant snuffing was necessary. This brought about the use of snuffers of polished steel and of brass, and a little later of snuffer trays, the snuffers and their accompanying trays forming a most interesting addition to the collection of metal. Candlesticks are still used, but the candles are of superior quality and burn steady and bright. Some are very decorative, too, especially the painted candlesticks which with their ornamental shades are attached to pianos, and are used as wall lights or as additional lights upon the table. The days of brass candlesticks, snuffers, and trays have, however, long been numbered, and most of these relics of old-world lights have passed into the region of curios. Here and there they may be seen in their once accustomed place, but more as ornament than for actual use. In a well-known hotel, at one time an old coaching house famous for its copper and brass wares, the candlesticks in those early days a necessity are now placed in pairs on the bedroom mantelpieces as mementoes of the past. They are not intended for use, for the electric switch is at hand, and the newer light has taken the place of the wax candle (see Fig. 49). [Illustration: FIG. 49.--GROUP OF RARE CANDLESTICKS, ALMS-DISH, AND EWERS. (_In the Victoria and Albert Museum._)] The lines which some years ago were printed in connection with a concert given in aid of the Glasgow Candlemakers and Tallow workers are appropriate: "The light of other days is faded, The reign of tallow's past; Magnesium and the limelight Have vanquished 'dips' at last. And the old lamplighter, too, Must shortly disappear, Making way for electric light, With its garish flash so 'queer.'" Oil Lamps and Lanterns. Much might be written of oil lamps and lanterns, of which there are many interesting curios. They are varied, too, for they cover a large field reaching from almost prehistoric times to the present day. Many lamps of metal and bronze have survived and are found in our museums side by side with the still earlier examples of terra-cotta and crude pottery. There is a very interesting collection of early lamps in the Guildhall Museum, one of the most attractive examples being a Roman lamp of bronze, a portion of the central oil space being covered. The bronze lamp illustrated in Fig. 50 which may be seen in the London Museum, is claimed by the authorities to be unique in London finds, and is probably the finest example of a Roman lamp discovered in England. The collector finds his most interesting examples in lamps which have been made in this country the outcome of the candle and of the candle lamp which was gradually evolved. Many of these early candle lamps were adaptations of old candlesticks; it would appear that the idea of enclosing a candle in a horn lantern and thereby securing greater steadiness on account of its being protected from the wind and draughts, which had already been adopted, suggested a glass cup or protection to the candle on the table. It is quite likely that the first experiments were made with a broken cup of porcelain with the bottom knocked out, for the earliest examples seem to have taken that form, the cup-like vessels being gradually confined more and more at the top and the bottom. The idea of a candle-clock occurred to seventeenth-century candlestick makers, who marked the edges of the lamp on the framework so that as the candles burned low they marked the hours. The burning would be more or less irregular, but the marks on the candle-clocks would be some guide, and served their purpose in days when the time of day was of less moment than it is now. Oil, which had early been the chief lighting medium, was once more in the ascendant when in the eighteenth century oil lamps gradually took the place of candles. Fig. 48 represents a handsome pair of old oil lamps, their beautifully shaped vase containers being reminiscent of the urns and vases at that time ornamenting the mahogany sideboard. It is said that many such lamps were made in England and sent over to America before the War of Independence, and that in the homesteads of the old plantations such relics have been treasured. The examples shown in the accompanying illustrations are now in the United States National Museum at Washington. In the days when the watchman called the time of the night street-lighting was unknown. Lanterns were carried in the hand and the links-boys were in attendance. [Illustration: FIG. 50.--EARLY BRONZE LAMP. (_The London Museum, Stafford House._)] In Fig 51 is shown a brass lantern (open and closed) which is now the property of the Sunderland Public Libraries and Art Gallery Committee, a very interesting specimen of an eighteenth-century collapsible lantern of brass and horn. It measures 6-1/4 in. high and is 3-3/8 in. square. Such lanterns were very common in the eighteenth century, and indeed in still more recent times in country places where they were very necessary before country roads were improved and rural thoroughfares lighted. We must, however, fain pass over street-lighting for the lanterns which have been copied so many times in more recent days. _Apropos_ of lanterns of copper carried by the wary traveller and of the copper lightning conductor on the church steeple, an indispensable feature still, the following lines are quoted: "In the olden time, along the street, A glimmering lantern led the feet When on a midnight stroll; But now we catch, when night is night, A piece of lightning from the sky And stick it on a pole." [Illustration: FIG. 51.--OLD BRASS LANTERN. (_In the Sunderland Museum._)] X BELLS AND BELL-METAL CASTINGS CHAPTER X BELLS AND BELL-METAL CASTINGS The founders' secrets--Great bells of historic fame--The uses of bells--Old mortars. The metal of which bells are made differs only from that used for other copper wares in its alloy. The ancients, however, made many mysteries about the constituents of the metal by which they were able to produce such beautiful notes and musical sounds. The modern bellfounder uses about 75 parts of copper and 25 parts of tin, varying it sometimes by a mixture of zinc and lead, and in that he differs little from the bellfounder of old, except that the older craftsman made a secret of his alloy and sometimes added a small quantity of other metals. The theory is that a large percentage of copper gives a deep tone, whereas the greater addition of zinc and tin gives a sharper ring. The Founders' Secrets. A knowledge of metals and of their qualities is a desirable accomplishment which all metal-workers and founders should possess, and it was doubtless because some of the early bellfounders intuitively, or as the result of accidental experiment, discovered the true properties of the alloys they used that they were able to excel in the craft. There are secrets associated with the mixing of the metal, too, especially that of heating the molten metal to the correct temperature at the most critical moment of running it into the mould. Much depends also upon tuning the bells by turning and reducing their thicknesses at the right place in the bell's cone. The accuracy of such details is essential, otherwise those mellow sounds for which many of the old bells are noted would be absent. It is true that the rich mellowness and musical notes so noticeable in some peals are due to some extent to age, the exact influence of which is not fully understood. The bellfounder has always regarded his work from a lofty standard, and has recorded the accomplishment of any great work by the inscriptions he has caused to be cast upon the surface of the bell. Such data is often accompanied by the name and trademark of the founder, the Bellfounders' arms being frequently added. Sometimes such inscriptions are dated; at others the lettering is sufficient to denote the date of the work. The making of great bells was always regarded as an event of some importance. Most of those which have obtained historic fame have either been associated with some public use or have been cast for ecclesiastical purposes. Such events were often attended by kings and queens and great ecclesiastics, who threw into the melting-pot contributions of silver and gold, inscriptions upon the bells themselves often recording the special object of their manufacture. The difficulties in the way of casting bells a distance away from the tower where they were to be hung often induced the founders to cast them on the spot; indeed, as late as 1762 the clock bell of Canterbury was recast in the Cathedral yard. Great Bells of Historic Fame. There are many great bells of historic fame, and others which have gained notoriety from their great size. The claim to the possession of the largest bell was formerly made by the Chinese, but the palm is usually accorded to the Great Bell of Moscow, which measures 19 ft. in height and 64 ft. in circumference. In our own country there are the Great Bell of St. Paul's, weighing five tons; "Great Tom" of Lincoln, of similar weight; "Peter" of York, weighing ten tons; and "Big Ben" of Westminster, scaling fourteen tons. Some old churches and cathedrals are noted more for their beautiful chimes than for the size and weight of their larger bells. At Mechlin there are forty-four bells in the carillon, and in Antwerp Cathedral the chimes are played on sixty-five bells, the oldest in the set, named "Horrida," being dated 1316, but the bell which is said to be the best loved of all by the ringers is stamped "Carolas," having been given by Charles V. There are bells of lesser size which have gained popularity, some from their former associations; others perhaps, more so because of their present location or ownership. Sometimes bells have been removed from old churches and after having changed hands several times have found a resting-place in the possession of laymen; often in museums, it is true, but not always so: as an instance there is the fine old bell in the possession of the Grocers' Company, cast in 1463 for the Church of All Hallows, Staining, where it hung for many years. The bell illustrated in Fig. 52, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, is of more recent date, having been cast in Exeter in 1670 by John Pennington. Bells have frequently been brought to this country as trophies of war. At the Tower there are several fine examples of Eastern workmanship, and there are others now in the United Service Museum at Whitehall. The Uses of Bells. The older bells have seen varied service; they have been hung in church towers and in public places; they have sounded the note of alarm, and given the signal for historic assemblies; they have rung the death-knell of illustrious persons, and in rural England have summoned many generations of worshippers to Divine Service. The bells, the loud clanging of which can be heard afar, are, however, the outcome of a gradual process of development. The evolution from the handbell to the turret bell was doubtless slow. The simple handbell in its early stages was only a slight advance beyond the bells hung round the necks of the leaders of the flock, which were made by the village smith. Such primitive, and not always musical, bells were used from the earliest times to summon servants and workers in the field and tenderers of the flock. The practice dates from Biblical days, for it was an early Eastern custom for sheiks and patriarchs from their tent doors to summon their followers, or give the danger signal, by means of a bell. Bible records tell of bells of gold suspended from the robes of priests, and of their use in temple worship. From that time onward they have been associated with religious ceremonials. In later times the early Christians employed bells of copper and brass and consecrated them to their use. Thus musical peals, rung collectively or individually, have sounded for all kinds of sacred rites. The bell--a mere handbell--was soon fixed over a doorway, or in some convenient place where it could with greater ease be rung by a cord. Then came the suggestion of larger bells, afterwards covered over, and finally hung in steeple or tower, like the campanile (a tower separated from the church) so often met with in Italy. The church bell is said to have been introduced here by Paulinus, the Bishop of Mona, in A.D. 400. The next record of importance is the historical account of the Venerable Bede, who describes bells hung in towers--that was in A.D. 670. Some two hundred years after Bede's days a peal was rung for the first time in England, in the Abbey of Crowland. The pioneers of bell-ringing upon bells tuned in harmony were the ringers who produced such charming results with the bells of King's College, Cambridge. The bells of churches were rung for ecclesiastical and for national and parochial purposes. There was the vesper bell for evensong, and there was the curfew bell which rang in obedience to the "lights out" enactments of Norman days (see _Couvre de feu_, p. 113). Of the minor uses of bells there are many. In Tudor days small bells were familiar objects in hunting. They formed part of the equipment of the hawk or falcon. Of these we read in Shakespeare's works--of the "'larum bell and of sweet bells jangled out of tune." In _Othello_ there is a record of the "snorting citizen with his bell." [Illustration: FIG. 52.--BELL CAST BY JOHN PENNINGTON AT EXETER IN 1670.] [Illustration: FIG. 53.--GROUP OF BELL-METAL MORTARS. (_In the British Museum._)] Bellmen were the heralds of news in country towns, and the importance of their office was made clear by the "Oyez! Oyez!" by which they prefixed their tale. The ancient watchman clanged his bell and the light in the lantern slung at his waist flickered as he sounded the call. This is mentioned in an old ballad, the first verse of which reads: "Time, master, calls your bellman to his task, To see your doors and windows are all fast." Numerous examples of curious bells are to be seen in our museums. In the Welsh Museum at Cardiff there is an old Celtic bell from Llangwynodl, shown side by side with an electrotype of the famous bell of St. Patrick. There is rather a sad note in the story of the fate of the old division bell of the Irish House of Commons, which, when the Parliament was abolished, was sold for use in a Dublin theatre as a call bell, eventually to be resold as old metal. That curio would at this juncture have been regarded as an historical relic of some value. The restoration of bells sometimes leads to mistakes when it is found that the inscriptions upon them appear to indicate an older date than would be judged to be correct from their appearance. Of such restoration work an instance may be given of the peal of twelve bells recently placed in the tower of St. Mary's Church, which has become the cathedral of the new diocese of Chelmsford. The bells were dedicated in the presence of ringers from a large number of towns and villages in Essex, a county noted for its bell-towers and bells. The peal of ten replaces one cast in 1777, and the old inscriptions have been placed on the new bells. One reads: "Tho' much against us may be said, To speak for ourselves we are not afraid." Perhaps one of the most pleasing thoughts associated with bells is that their earliest use has been perpetuated throughout the ages. The sheep bell hung round the neck of the bellwether in Eastern lands sounding so sweetly in the days of the Psalmist of old, finds its replica on the downlands of the Southern counties and on Salisbury Plain to-day, for there and in many other parts of rural England the tinkling jingle of the sheep bells may be heard. Bells are not without their rivals, for gongs have been used in Eastern countries for years, and now they are popular elsewhere. They were originally a disc of beaten metal with upturned rim, although in some countries they took the place of drums in warfare, as well as playing a part in religious services. The circular gong is associated with China, Japan, and Java. The Burmese gong is of triangular form, and by way of contrast is made of polished metal, whereas those of the first-mentioned countries usually show hammer marks. Many of the old gongs were exceedingly musical, and when struck with a leather-covered wooden mallet were capable of producing a variety of sounds. Gongs old and new vary in size and, consequently, in depth of tone and volume of sound. Among the Eastern curios there are some highly decorative examples, especially among the smaller table gongs, the stands of which were often enriched by decorative ornament with inlays and enamels. Old Mortars. On account of being made of the same kind of alloy, bronze mortars are referred to in this chapter. They were usually cast by the bellfounders from the metal they used for bells, and many of them when struck give forth sonorous and deep-toned sounds. These mortars were moulded and often decorated with fanciful designs, frequently with the arms or initials of the prospective owners, others being dated. Those shown in Fig. 53 are representative types. Many of the early mortars appear to have been imported into this country. The Dutch founders made many in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, some being especially handsome and of large size. Others still more ornate were of Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish origin. In course of time the use of bell-metal was discarded, and brass mortars, cast and afterwards turned in a lathe, came into vogue. These gradually became little used, and when pestles and mortars were needed in the domestic kitchen, more modern types of marble and composition were introduced. To-day, these once necessary domestic appliances are relegated to the chimney-piece as honoured ornaments in the kitchen; the older and more valuable bell-metal mortars being given more prominent positions upon sideboard or cabinet. Such is the story of the bellfounders, whose art remains among modern crafts. XI CIVIC EMBLEMS AND WEIGHTS AND MEASURES CHAPTER XI CIVIC EMBLEMS AND WEIGHTS AND MEASURES The ancient horn--The badge of office--Weighing instruments--Measures in Exeter Museum--Our standards. The sounding of brass and the tinkling of cymbals have heralded in many State pageants. Civic pomp and splendour have been enriched by brilliant uniforms, and the sunlight has flashed on many a thrilling event in national history. In the relics of former glories we find emblems of the doings of the past, and amidst ruined buildings or those halls now shorn of much of their former grandeur--their original purpose forgotten, or, perchance, misunderstood--the collector seeks symbols of office and hoards them when found as mere curios. In this chapter such civic emblems and prosaic weights and measures are grouped. A curious combination some may think. Very appropriate, however, when we note the close connection which once existed between those old corporations and guilds who rejoiced in emblems of office and enjoyed the custody of standards of weights and measures, fulfilling the duties which had been thrust upon them by powers and authorities only too willing to depute to private bodies necessary work for which they had no equipment and no organization. The Ancient Horn. Civil authority and even State control could, in days gone by, only be sustained by plenty of pomp and show. The populace were awed by giant insignia and much parade of power to enforce the authority held. In days before there were newspapers to make announcements, and no printing presses to print posters and proclamations, the calling of a public meeting at which declarations could be made or decisions arrived at, was a matter of no small importance. The sounding horn had been used from primitive times to call together the people, and the gatherings of the folk mote were heralded in and assembled by a loud blast on the "moot horn." The moot or meeting of the people of a village or hamlet began in Anglo-Saxon times, when such assemblies were held in the open air. Later came the moot hall, which preceded the guildhall of days when traders and merchants were incorporated into fraternal guilds. The horn was the signal for calling such assemblies commonly in use in old towns, and such relics of the past are now preserved with care--emblems of altered times to those who are familiar with them. In Fig. 55 is shown the moot horn of Winchester, a beautiful example of ancient metal-work. There is a similar horn at Dover, which is sounded still according to custom at the election of the mayor. [Illustration: FIG. 54.--AN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FLAGSTAFF HEAD OF BRASS, ORIGINALLY GILT.] [Illustration: FIG. 55.--THE WINCHESTER MOOT HORN. (_In the Guildhall Museum, Winchester._)] The moot horn is not quite lost in modern procedure, for the heralds march in Royal processions and precede the proclamation of regal and civic state as of yore, on those rare occasions calling a halt from everyday occupations by the trumpet's blast. The Badge of Office. The mace is with us to-day as the chief emblem of office. Without it no civil gathering of importance in London would be complete, and when robbed of its presence no law can be enacted at Westminster. The "bauble" Cromwell caused to be removed was a symbol of historic and ancient fame, deep-rooted in the minds of even stern Puritans. It had to be banished ere the Parliament was dissolved! The mace is truly the lineal and direct sign of power and authority, for it was the ancient battle-axe which could deal the deadly blow that was first held up before the sovereign, and in brass or gilt the tawdry symbol took its place and has ever since retained its significance. In lesser degree the staff or stave of office has remained an ensign of authority. The heads of such staves are often decorative and surmounted by some appropriate emblem or well-known sign of office. The flagstaff head shown in Fig. 54 is of eighteenth-century date; its very beautiful openwork ornament was probably of gilt. It is an excellent example of English workmanship of that period. Weighing Instruments. The Founders' Company exercised an oversight over weighing instruments and weights and had difficulties to contend with, for there were many irregularities and not a few differences in the standards used in various localities. The scales of traders of olden time were far from accurate, and there was abundant need of standard weights and measures such as were kept in some of the old country towns. Winchester and Exeter are two places where care has been taken of the old standards, and in both of these towns ancient standards may be seen. Similar standards formerly kept in other towns have been scattered, and not infrequently old specimens--obviously standards from the inscriptions upon them--are met with in private collections. [Illustration: FIG. 56.--THE WINCHESTER BUSHEL (STANDARD MEASURE).] [Illustration: FIG. 57.--OLD MEASURES BASED ON THE WINCHESTER STANDARD. (_Sketched by permission of the Corporation of the City of Winchester._)] Those now in the Winchester Museum extend over a considerable period, ranging in antiquity from the reign of Henry III to Elizabeth. The original bushel which became the standard on which other measures were based is still preserved in Winchester. In the reign of Henry VII, one William Nele was commissioned to make further copies, on which the sum of fifty pounds was expended. The transaction was recorded in the State papers of 1486 as follows: "To William Nele, gunn founder and brasier of London, upon makyng of diverse measures and weights accordinge to the olde Standarde of Englande, to be sent into several shires and cities of Englande, accordinge to the King's commandment, and by the advice of the Counsaal at diverse tymes." The ancient bronze bushel of great historic interest is illustrated in Fig. 56. Among the other standards kept with the "bushel" in the Winchester Museum are those shown in Fig. 57--all measures based on similar standards. Tudor examples are also still in the possession of the local authorities at Norwich, Salisbury, Northampton, Southampton, and Exeter. Fig. 58 is another example of a pint measure, dated 1601, the crowned initials "E.R." upon it, of course, indicating "ELIZABETH REGINA." A later Winchester pint, dated 1704, is shown in Fig. 59. Measures in Exeter Museum. When it was enacted in the reign of Henry VII that certain towns should hold copies of the ancient standards, Exeter was the city chosen wherein were deposited the standards for the Shire of Devon. They are now on view in the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter, supplemented by other standards legalized by Queen Elizabeth, and by more recent copies of authorized standards. There are five standards, dated 1799, consisting of the Winchester bushel, peck, and half-peck, and standard coal measure of peck and half-peck. A bronze standard of the time of William and Mary is engraved "FOR THE CITTY AND COVNTY OF EXON 1689;" and a standard gallon, embossed with crown and monogram, is engraved "E.R. ELIZABETH REGINA, 1601;". There are also standard wine measures; one engraved on one side "CITY OF EXETER 1797" and on the reverse "HALF PINT. WINE," and another on the reverse, "GILL. WINE." An exceptionally interesting piece is a standard ale gallon of the time of the Commonwealth, engraved "AN ALE GALLON SIZED AND SEALED IN THE TOWER OF LONDON BY ME JOHN REYNOLDS OF THE MYNT. ANO. 1653." Among the standard weights included in this interesting exhibit is a 14 lb. bronze weight of the time of Henry VII, embossed with portcullis and rose, and engraved "HENRIC SEPTIM." It was found some years ago among old metal at a store in Exeter, the manner of its discovery indicating the possibility of further finds of a similar nature in other towns. The little Troy weights are exceptionally well preserved; the weights according to their engraving are 32 oz., 64 oz., 128 oz., and 256 oz. On the largest specimen the legend runs: "ANO. DO. EL. REG. XXX. 1588." and on the upper edge, "CCLVI.", the smaller weights being similarly indicated. These were all used as the standards at Exeter until the year 1824. Another interesting specimen is the standard yard and ell bed used in Exeter for testing the rods used as cloth measures, the groove on the standard on the engraved side being one yard, that on the reverse one ell (=45 inches). The inscription on the standard yard reads: "CIVITAS EXON CHRISTOPHER COKE ESQ. MAYOR. WILLIAM BOLITHO RECEIVER 1693." In the same museum there are also six brass stamping blocks formerly in use at the Exeter Custom House in connection with old Exeter trades. Mediæval London yields the collector many choice pieces. Beautiful little scale beams of bronze and brass have been found in or near London Wall. Scales of antiquity, too, have sometimes been in the possession of old families for centuries almost without their knowing or appreciating their value. Not long ago some beautiful little scales made of brass, which must have been made more than two hundred years ago, were picked up on an old barrow where the man who bought "odd things" had it for sale and thought it to be one of the almost valueless curios in the remains of sundries he had bought from the caretaker of an empty house. In the Guildhall Museum there are scales and weights of types usual in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries. One of these is decorated with a band of stars, another of triangular shape is stamped with a merchant's mark--that also was found on the site of London Wall. Another remarkably interesting curio is an octagonal weight evidently answering the purpose of a baker's weight, and perhaps as an advertisement, too, for it is engraved, "WEIGHT OF A QUARTERN LOAF, SOLD BY JAMES BULL, 124, LEADENHALL STREET." Our Standards. [Illustration: FIG. 58.--A PINT MEASURE OF THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH. FIG. 59.--A WINCHESTER PINT OF THE DAYS OF QUEEN ANNE.] [Illustration: FIG 60.--OLD FRENCH WEIGHTS. (_In the British Museum._)] In this connection it may be pointed out that a very pleasing collection can inexpensively be made out of old money changers' weights, both English and foreign. They were chiefly used with the pocket scales at one time carried about by traders as a precaution against the numerous clipped and light-weight coins in circulation. Among these little weights are those which were used for testing what are now obsolete gold coins, such as angel, guinea, half-guinea, and seven-shilling piece. Some of the old Roman bell weights are interesting; they took their shape from more ancient weights in the form of a pagan deity, probably Mercury, who was looked upon as a god of scales and weights. In some collections larger Continental weights are met with; those illustrated in Fig. 60 representing three French weights preserved in the British Museum. When examining old weights and measures we often wonder at the origin of such curious tables of weight formulated on somewhat perplexing standards, ridiculed as long obsolete by supporters of the metric systems. They would sweep them away; but to do so would snap one more link with the historic past, and perhaps cause us to forget the very simple origin of so many of our so-called complicated systems, the outcome of a slowly developing commerce--very different now to the days when our standards were formulated. The baseline of our weights and measures is to be found in a single grain of corn, such as would seem to be Nature's gift--the staff of life! It was a natural standard for agriculturists, who would be the first to use it, to adopt. Not only was the grain of corn the standard of measurement and weight, but a given number gave the weight value to the penny sterling. The grain retained its prominent position in our calculations long after standards had been fixed, for in the reign of Henry VII it was enacted that the bushel measure should contain eight gallons of wheat, and that the gallon should weigh eight pounds, the pound to be of twelve ounces Troy, each ounce equal to twenty silver pennies, every one of which should be of weight equivalent to thirty-two grains of dry wheat. It will be remembered that a still earlier standard--that of the Roman Empire--was based on barleycorns, of which there were twenty-four to the ounce, a measurement adopted at Troyes, in France, having been brought from Cairo during the Crusades. Thus in this simple story we see the origin of Troy weight which in after years was used concurrently with the later _avoirdupois_ (goods by weight), the standard adopted for heavy wares. XII BRONZES AND THEIR REPLICAS CHAPTER XII BRONZES AND THEIR REPLICAS Early figure modelling--Statues in public places--Replicas in miniature. The art of sculpture was practised by the ancients, and long before the beautiful bronzes for which the artists of Greece and Rome were famous carvers of wood, and sculptors of stone and marble, had cut inscribed, and fashioned human figures, animals, and fabulous creatures according to their whims and fancies. In moulds cut in stone the early casters in metal produced the objects which we roughly class as bronze, and they are preserved to-day as reminders of those who lived before history was written. When the early Bronze Age had passed away and the use of iron was understood, the art of sculpture in stone was practised by the Egyptians and by other Eastern nations. Then came the beautiful metal-work of Ancient Greece; the statues, trophies, and groups, produced in those days when Greece excelled in the fine arts, have acquired a fame which has never been exceeded by sculptors or workers in metals in modern days. The Italians of a later period showed their religious emotions in the metallic works of art they produced in early mediæval days; and still later French modellers have excelled in human expression. Many of the great works of the old masters in bronze are unique, and they are retained as great treasures in the national museums where they have found lasting homes. For the benefit of connoisseurs of art many of the great works have been copied, and in the Victoria and Albert Museum at South Kensington and in other places there are replicas in metal and in other materials, faithful copies of the original bronzes which are so rare. The educational value of a gallery of ancient art, whether expressed in marble, bronze, stone, or other materials, is considerable; it not only tends to the appreciation of modern art as represented by the statues and monuments in our parks and gardens, and in those smaller works which adorn public buildings and private mansions, but it leads to the appreciation of the lesser replicas of great works, such as artistic groups, figures, and bronzes which have been copied in miniature. Many of the most important works of the modeller and caster of bronze groups and figures are familiar to students of art and collectors of curios, in that so many of these important studies have been reproduced or copied; sometimes the copies are equally as beautiful as the original, although on a smaller scale, and many of them have quite an antique appearance, for they are by no means modern, such works of art having been reproduced very many years ago. [Illustration: FIG. 61.--BRONZE TIGER, BY ANTOINE LOUIS BARYE.] Early Figure Modelling. The human figure in its most perfectly known form was early made the model from which artists sculptured stone and moulded figures. Even some of the crude attempts of native races have evidently been intended to represent human beings with whom they associated or races they held in fear, but they were not always successful. Bronze statues cast in moulds were known in Egypt, and throughout later periods most of the civilized races have employed methods by which they have been able with more or less accuracy to reproduce in other substances of a more lasting character the perishable flesh and blood of the human race. In a similar way the personified deities have been perpetuated in bronze and many of them are simply idolized humanity. Sometimes these statues have been very large, far beyond what is generally known as life-size. It must be remembered, however, that many of these colossal statues when raised to a great height are by no means out of proportion to the buildings on which they were placed, and assumed a normal size when viewed from below. It is said that one of the most striking colossal figures was that of Minerva, crowning the summit of the Acropolis. The largest statue seems to be that of Nero, which rose 150 ft. In more modern times statues have been brought down to normal size. Visitors to Rome, however, recognise what a wonderful achievement it must have been to place that immense statue of St. Peter in position. The artists of old were indeed clever, and not only have they justly been accorded fame for the size and beautiful proportions of their statues, but many of the ancient bronzes have gained their greatest notoriety from the great beauty with which the sculptors must have idealized their models. Many of the antiques are almost perfect in form, and we are forced to wonder what kind of men and women their models were. Classic Models. The classic bronzes were almost invariably conceptions drawn from imagination, but the beautiful forms of the athletes and Greek maidens helped the artist in his estimate of the deities he personified. In those bronzes we see the magic touch of the master hand, and perhaps of the belief in the mystic attributes so cleverly designed. Thus we have figures of Hercules, Mars, Venus, and many others, which can be copied, and now and then by some stroke of good luck a genuine antique is added to the collector's museum. Statues in Public Places. [Illustration: FIG. 62.--BRONZE LION, BY BARYE.] During the last half-century simple statues erected to the memories of noted politicians and military men in public parks, streets, and open places, have been added to by more realistic groups. It would be beyond the scope of this work to attempt categorical descriptions of such bronzes to be seen in the public places of our great cities, and it would be still more difficult to rightly classify them either in their order of merit or of the appropriateness of their selection. It seems justly fit that those who have been associated with the metallic art should be commemorated in copper and brass. To Pittsburg belongs the honour of having remembered the father of the art of hammering into shape the metals. In that city, on a massive pedestal, stands a colossal bronze figure of Tubal Cain, who, in his brief life's history given in Genesis, is spoken of as an "artificer in brass." He fittingly heads the list of metallurgists and scientists, to many of whom monuments have been erected. The use of bronze in monuments is not confined to figures of great men, for bronze and brass ornament often adds to the magnificence of a national memorial. As examples of the use of bronze for that purpose mention may be made of the bronze lions, after Landseer, at the four corners of Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square. The use of bronze, as adding to the adornment or appearance of an antiquity in stone, is exemplified in the two bronze sphinxes at the base of Cleopatra's Needle on the Thames Embankment. The bronzes of comparatively modern days are mostly the work of the founder, cast after the sculptor has done his work. Some of the early examples of Etruscan and Egyptian art consisted of bronze or brass hammered into form by hand, or made of plates riveted together. Others appear to have been beaten or embossed into high relief in a mould. Some of the cleverest castings of bronze, however, are found in the work of Eastern nations, the best examples being idols and temple ornaments (see Chapter XIV). Replicas in Miniature. The so-called miniatures range from important reproductions for household and gallery ornament to the quite miniature bronzes which adorn the mantelpiece or cabinet. Many of the statues and groups of ancient and modern forms have been copied. There is, however, another school of art which to many is very attractive. Just as pictures of animal life are appreciated by many, so the sculptures and bronzes of well-known animal artists have been justly appreciated. In France there are the works of Antoine Louis Barye, who was born in Paris in 1795. It is said that Barye discovered his real bent from watching the wild beasts in the Jardin des Plantes. Some of his great works were exhibited early in the nineteenth century, and his beautiful models have been much copied. Three of the most popular are shown in Figs. 61, 62, and 63. There is the tiger which he exhibited in 1830, and the lion and the beautifully formed stag. Such works of art are worthy of a place in any collection of metal, for they represent an important French school. Of men who have made names for themselves there are many whose statues are found in private collections. A very favourite one is that of Robert Burns, whose colossal statue was erected at Ayr on the occasion of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the poet's birth. Burns is reported to have said on his deathbed: "They'll think mair o' me a hundred years after I am dead," a truism none will deny. [Illustration: FIG. 63.--BRONZE STAG, BY BARYE.] XIII ORIENTAL BRONZES AND BRASSES CHAPTER XIII ORIENTAL BRONZES AND BRASSES Countries of origin--How some Oriental curios are derived--A wealth of metal on view--Various Indian wares--Chinese and Japanese art. Under the somewhat generic term "Oriental" we class those numerous bronzes and other art treasures which come to us from the East and the Far East. Early in the mediæval days Eastern influence dominated the craftsmen of Europe, and many of those who took part in the Crusades, and later in adventurous journeys into the northern part of Africa, bordering upon the Great Sea, brought back to their Western homes curios which were undoubtedly Oriental in their design. Countries of Origin. A collection of copper and brass to be at all representative must be varied and cosmopolitan in selection. Such a collection should include vessels of utility and ornamental objects which show the aims of the artist who designed them. Incidentally, too, such objects exhibit the sameness of purpose existing in many lands; although the methods of domestic procedure and the ways of living vary until their common origin is scarcely recognizable. In such a collection of domestic curios the influence of Saracenic art is seen in the ewers and basins and similar vessels which come from the lands where the wild Arab tribes lived for centuries in an almost barbarous state on the edge of the Syrian desert. Many of these quaint hammered copper vessels are of barbaric beauty, such as, for instance, the coffee-pot shown in Fig. 64 and the basin in Fig. 65. There are some pleasing customs savouring of patriarchal days still practised by Arab races. Such, for instance, when the sheik has finished his morning meal he throws a stone into his brass or copper coffee-pot as a sign to his followers to strike camp. "Awake, for morning, in the bowl of night, Has flung the stone which puts the stars to flight, And, ho! the hunter of the East has caught the Sultan's turritt in a noose of light." [Illustration: FIG. 64.--COFFEE-POT OF HAMMERED COPPER FROM SYRIA.] The Arab metal-work is generally covered over with characteristic designs and distinctive styles. Equally characteristic is the finely engraved ornament on many small brass objects made by Arab craftsmen. This is exemplified in the small and beautifully engraved brass writing boxes which were once a feature among the educated scribes of Arab fame. One such case is to be seen in the British Museum, the work of Mahmud, son of Souker, of Bagdad, made in 1281. The style is said by experts to combine the art motives of Mesapotamia and Egypt, which in the thirteenth century very naturally met in Syria. Another distinctive style is noticeable in the art of the metal-workers of the Mameluke dynasty of Egypt; their arabesques showed more realistic foliage than the Arab decorations of an earlier date. Antiquaries always turn quite naturally to Egypt, that land with such a great past, when seeking for inspiration from the great monuments which are masterpieces of art--in bronze and stone. These they find there it is true, but the more important pieces of metal-work of that early period are found in Assyria, from whence came ponderous gates of brass, covered with the remains of delicate tracery and inscriptions. Such works of ancient art are rightly given places of prominence in our museums; the private collector, however, is generally content with the lesser bronze antiquities of Egypt which he can _collect_. These include mirrors and many small articles for the toilet and some delightful domestic bronzes. Among them are charming little ewers with long projecting spouts and curiously wrought curved handles ornamented with masks and shells. The curios which reach us from Cairo are mostly in strict accordance with Egyptian characteristics. The earlier examples are representative of the art of Northern Egypt as it was expressed by the metal-workers between the thirteenth and eighteenth centuries, throughout which there does not appear to have been any great divergence of style, although when objects known to have been made during the earlier part of that period, and others fashioned during the later, the progress and development, although it had been slow, is very noticeable. There are also some traces of outside influences. In Fig. 10 there is an early lamp of brass in the form of a bird, inlaid with copper, an example placed in the thirteenth century. Quite different is the late example (eighteenth century) given in Fig. 64, which is a coffee-pot with a bucket handle and another small handle at the back; the spout is roughly worked with corrugations and quatrefoils, on the five bosses being the marks adopted by the owner of the shop in Cairo where it was used. Reference has already been made to the influence of Saracenic art upon metal-workers in places where the Saracens came in contact with the craftsmen. As indicative of this feature the fine large brass basin illustrated in Fig. 65 is shown. Some portions of the bowl have evidently been filled in with silver. There are other objects such as bowls, dishes, and ewers showing similar decorations, many of which may be seen along with this example in the Victoria and Albert Museum. The Saracens seem to have had some influence upon what are usually regarded as European articles; thus in a collection of old bronze mortars there are sometimes examples from countries in the South of Europe which show in their designs these characteristics. The mortar had, of course, a very general use, and was needed everywhere in days when so many compounds were prepared by hand labour. [Illustration: FIG. 65.--SARACENIC DECORATED BRASS BASIN. (_In the Victoria and Albert Museum._)] Persian art is peculiarly specialistic in its treatment. The designs used by the metal-workers in that country from quite early days were emblematic and of an all-over conventional type, often interwoven with scenes. Even many of the common vessels, like bowls and covers and saucers of brass, are cleverly chased with hunting scenes and floral attributes, many of the cups being covered with arabesque ornament. Some of the brass egg-shaped hooker bases are chased in relief; the mounts of the rose-water ewers--which are often of china, with metal linings for holding ice--are frequently decorative. In many instances the vessels are ornamented with coloured inlays, giving them peculiar colour effects. Damascus--always an important seat of metal-work--has supplied collectors from many countries with the beautifully incised ornament produced by filling in the cut spaces with fine gold or silver wire beaten into the brass and then polished. So important has this mode of giving relief become that damascened metal stands alone as an art, seen at its best in the wonderful armour of the later period, when the utility of plate armour was giving way to the ornament which embellished the State armour--the "dress suits" of the regimentals of the Stuart days. How some Oriental Curios are Derived. It is useful at times to consider how the curios we collect have gradually accumulated, and thus to ascertain how they have been secured in the past; and from that we are enabled to form some estimate of further supplies, for the law of supply and demand regulates to some extent the market value of curios; it has something to do with the direction taken by curio-hunters. Many curios have come into this country as the result of war and loot. Wars in the Far East have served the collector, and many choice bits of metal-work have changed hands at nominal sums after the return of troops employed in minor wars and punitive expeditions. Our vast Indian Empire, however, supplies many beautiful objects in metal, both ancient and of comparatively recent days, but even those are so quaint and so unlike the common objects of British make with which we are familiar that they are welcomed and find a fitting place among antique copper and brass. To understand the curios which may be bought in Eastern bazaars, and more conveniently in the numerous stores and shops where Indian curios are sold, it is well to become acquainted with a really good representative collection, such as that which may be examined in the Indian Museum at South Kensington. In several galleries, arranged in cases according to the districts from which the specimens have been gathered, are to be found metal-work ranging from the sixteenth century to the present day. Although some of these are exceptional pieces, by far the larger number are helpful to the collector of even modest means in that they represent Indian curios which may be collected at trifling cost. Such objects, however, are unfortunately too often intermixed with modern castings and copies offered unblushingly by the dealer to the unwary. Among such curios from Indian bazaars, purchased by travellers to the less frequented districts, are very many cooking utensils. Some of these, although not very old, are quaint and unlike modern European vessels, for the native cooks have been slow to accept any change in their methods of cooking and do not take kindly to the use of Western types of culinary appliances. The Indian cook clings tenaciously to copper vessels, and notwithstanding attempts to introduce vessels of tin, aluminium, and enamelled ware, the old "chattie" is again and again brought out in preference. Most of the vessels are of primitive types, but they serve the purpose and the material is good and lasting. The native workers understand the requirements of Indian men and women, and can shape and hammer together just what they have for generations regarded as "the best." Clever indeed have been the native braziers in the past--and they still are--for they possess in addition to knowledge of coppersmithing an excellent knowledge of the composition and working qualities of the materials they employ. They understand something of the chemistry of metals, and are careful when melting copper in the furnace or over the fire not to overheat it, or to allow the metal to perish in processes of manufacture. A Wealth of Metal on View. The collection of Asiatic metal-work where specimens from different countries, made at various periods, can be compared is, _par excellence_, that in the Indian Museum (the best examples of richly wrought damascened armour and arms are found in the Wallace Collection and at the Tower). The visitor on entering is at once absorbed in admiring Indian curiosities, especially the products of native craftsmen. In the vestibule are many remarkable exhibits, the work of Nepal metal-workers. Most of them were gifts to King George and Queen Mary when they visited India on the occasion of the great Coronation Durbar at Delhi. Some of the larger pieces were the gift of the Maharajah and Prime Minister of Nepal. Very wonderful is their workmanship, especially that of the brass groups so true to life. One of these represents a hunting elephant, fully equipped, with attendants; others, too, are associated with sports and hunting scenes. There are emblems of demons and the evil spirits which are so fully believed in by native dwellers on the borders of the forest. Temple vessels are abundant, and among them are monsters and other fabulous creatures, and numbers of masks, notably those representing the fierce Dragpo fiend Tamdin (see Chapter XIV). There are some fine temple sets, and two magnificent conventional lions (temple guardians). There is also a very interesting brass group of natives occupied in various ways, one, for instance, carrying a package on his shoulder illustrating the method of relieving the weight of the bundle by a forehead strap, by which means natives are enabled to sustain the strain. [Illustration: FIG. 66.--JAPANESE KETTLE (_YUWAKASHI_).] [Illustration: FIG. 67.--PAIR OF VASES OF RED-BROWN COPPER, RELIEVED WITH BLACK LAC, FROM MORADABAD. (_In the author's collection._)] So intricate are many of these cleverly modelled groups that it is not always easy to understand how they have been cast. Especially remarkable is the founding of the figure groups produced by the natives of the Patan district of Nepal. In most cases they accomplished their task by the _circe perdu_ process (see Glossary), which enables them to cast even the most delicate groups. Some very interesting wares in metal are obtained from Moradabad; they are smooth and beautifully finished, made of brass, and partly tinned. The more decorative pieces are of the early nineteenth century, and include such objects as plates, water-jars, tumblers, and sugar-pots and covers. From Lucknow some fine trays are secured; and many beautiful brass ewers, bowls, and basins have been obtained from Haidarabad, where not only comparatively modern but early eighteenth-century brasswork is to be found. Some of these have a pleasing effect when polished, the design or pattern upon them being inlaid with copper on a brass foundation and then polished. Various Indian Wares. There is an Indian ware known as _bidri_, beautifully damascened in gold on a brass and copper base, chiefly made in the villages round Lucknow and Deccan from the seventeenth century onwards. The peculiarity of these objects is that they are distinctly black and white, the metal consisting of an alloy of zinc, copper, and lead afterwards damascened with silver which is finally blackened by pickling. A favourite curio is a Betel-nut box and cover; there are also spice boxes and objects intended for the base of a water-pipe. Many of the choice curios from Kashmir in Northern India are mostly of a dark red-brown copper, and are frequently incised and inlaid with lac. Among them are domestic vessels, the most commonly met with being the coffee-pot (_Kafijosh_). In one famous collection there is a curious boat-shaped alms-bowl of copper, chased with a running ornament, a design frequently employed in the eighteenth century. There are some interesting Mogul brasses, among which are washhand basins. In these, too, the decorations are frequently filled in with black lac. Very different are the brass and copper objects from the Punjab. Some of pure copper are inlaid with black lac, others are of copper-gilt, looking in the sunlight like burnished gold. Some are of brass; among the older objects of special interest being charcoal burners of fine brass with dome-shaped covers. From the Punjab come copper toilet boxes, which are usually fitted with locks terminating in the form of a conventional lotus. One of the most curious treasures in the Indian Museum secured from that district is a "black" cup, made of a metal composed of quicksilver and copper, a metallic compound supposed to give a digestive virtue to any liquid drank out of it. The variety of metal objects from Nepal is considerable. There are articles of home decoration and usefulness, including charming toilet sundries. Among the lamps are many weird forms, a favourite being a lamp designed like a peacock's tail supported by a lion. There are inkpots of symbolical forms with figures of Ganasa, the Hindoo god of wisdom. There are also many decorative water-bottles and vases and beautifully formed tazzas; as well as charming toilet boxes with raised diaper ornament and conventional patterns. From Madras come bowls and water-bottles and many delightful trinket boxes, some shaped like fishes, others of bird-like forms. Some of these were intended for use as receptacles for antimony salve, which is so much used in India for the eyes. Among the more modern curios made during the latter half of the nineteenth century are spun and turned brasswork, especially vases and bowls. Travancore is also famous for its artists in metal, and especially for their beautiful decorative brass pots with curious spouts and drinking cups. The little bullock bells are characteristic of many parts of India, some being prettily ornamented and of sweet tinkling sounds. From Southern India there are Betel-nut cutters of unusual forms, and quite a variety of metal bowls, some being shaped like a pumpkin. From the same district come highly decorative copper plaques and brass salvers as well as water vessels. The lamps from India are of equal interest to those met with among the antiquities of similar types from other countries. Those of more recent date, the work of baptized natives, have for the chief ornament emblems of the Christian religion instead of those associated with idol worship; although in some instances the cross is flanked on either side with the sun and moon, reminding us of the more ancient pagan religions. Many parts of India are noted for beautiful inlaid lac, much of which is extremely decorative; the vases illustrated in Fig. 67 came from Moradabad; they are of red-brown copper relieved with black lac. Haidarabad is also noted for such wares, in some instances red as well as black lac being used in the decorations, which are chiefly of conventional form. The brasswork of Benares is well known, and it is still one of the most important features in present-day Oriental bazaars and shops. The modern work, however, rarely comes up to the old, for in olden time great care was taken in producing varied forms and correct ornament in decoration, the chief features of the Benares brasswork being the series of ten incarnations of Vishnu, represented so often on trays, bowls, and smaller vessels, such, for instance, as spice boxes and perfume holders, and receptacles for pulverized sandal-wood. The native princes of India have always been accustomed to State ceremonial, and among the curious objects from that country are symbols of office, some of the maces being beautifully damascened with gold. The ceremonial and State swords formerly carried by the princes are museum curios of value, especially those around which the memories of historical events cluster, such as the gauntlet-sword of brass, the hilt in the form of a tiger's head, which formerly belonged to Ruggoneth Sookul, who saved Captain Gordon's life during the Indian Mutiny in 1857. As it has been suggested wars with Oriental potentates and the annexation of lands which had previously been under British protection have from time to time enriched national as well as private collections. Many of the trophies of war are unique and do not exist in duplicate. In the Indian Museum there are many such objects, notably the one-time regalia of the Kings of Burma; at South Kensington, too, there is a massive bowl of brass on which is engraved in picture characters the story of the history of China as related by Confucius, and transcribed by his pupil Tso, five hundred years before the Christian era. Lamaistic temple curios are referred to in another chapter. These, however, do not exhaust the metal-work from Thibet. Indeed, many of the minor objects, especially those of a domestic character, are very pleasing. The vessels used in making tea in Thibet differ from those in China--the home of tea-drinking--in that the process of preparing "the cup that cheers but not inebriates" is different. The ladies of Thibet take the tea-leaves and grind them dry until they are of the consistency of a fine powder, using a brass mortar for the purpose. They then put the powdered tea into a kettle, and allow it to boil for about five minutes. The liquid is afterwards poured through a strainer into a tea-urn, and a little butter and barley flour are added. This compound, after being vigorously churned up, is poured from the urn of wrought copper into teapots, where it is allowed to settle before it is served up in small brass bowls. Ladles are used for the purpose of taking the tea from the urn, for it has no tap, being simply a two-handled jar with a cover. Some interesting curios are derived from Ceylon, especially those utensils made by the Sinhalese, who, it will be remembered, emigrated there from Bengal in the sixth century. The chief copper-workers in the island are the Veddahs, an aboriginal tribe of the interior closely allied to the Sinhalese. Their work includes copper and brass on which is very beautiful repoussé decoration. Buddhist influence has always been strong in Ceylon, and it is conspicuous in much of the decoration of the more important metal-work. Ceylon casters have turned out some fine bells and many heavy bronze lamps. The lesser objects, which are varied, include brass boxes in which the lime for Betel chewing was kept. Some of these are circular, and others are pear-shaped, many being incised and inlaid with the more precious metals. Betel-nut cutters, similar to those from other parts of India, are among the collectable curios, those from Ceylon being especially interesting, for they frequently take the form of animals or of winged flying females. The objects enumerated do not by any means exhaust the metal curios from India and Ceylon, but they are among the chief features observable in a large collection, in the gathering together of which many small trinkets and perhaps unique sundries will be secured. Chinese and Japanese Art. To many the curios from China and Japan are more familiar than those from India and British Asiatic possessions. The pottery and porcelain of China have long been used in this country, and during recent years other objects of a curious and antiquarian nature have been imported in large quantities from both these ancient countries. In shops and bazaars the metallic wares of China and Japan have been much popularized too. That China has a great past and possessed a civilization hundreds of years before similar conditions appertained in Europe is well known. Collectors of the antique go back in their search after specimens of bronze and other metals to those produced by the artists of China in the Han Dynasty, which dates from B.C. 216. In records of that period, concurrent with accounts of pottery, there are well authenticated details of the metal cooking vessels then in common use. There were utilitarian bronzes and many beautiful vases, some of almost the same designs as the concurrent pottery. There were cooking utensils not at all unlike the mediæval bronze pots of modern Europe; their handles, however, were more decorative, often taking the form of a dragon's head. The feet of these ancient cooking-pots were often like lions' claws or eagles' talons. Among other relics of that period are quadrangular wine jars, some of the rarer types being decorated with fishes, in the drawing of which the Chinese artists of the Han Dynasty were very clever. They used such decorations appropriately, too for this was the ornament they chose on fish kettles. A peculiarity of the metal-work of the Han period was the dark red copper which seems to have been used concurrently with bronze. When we note that some of the pottery was beautifully formed we can quite understand that the bronzes were equally well shaped, for the metal-workers would not be behind the potters in their craftmanship. Some of the rarer bronze tazzas are also well shaped and have been carefully moulded. The chief curios coming into the hands of collectors are of a somewhat later date than the Han Dynasty; but China moves on slowly, and there does not appear to have been much advance or change for many centuries. The metal-work made during what we term mediæval days in Europe was often copied from familiar objects made of other materials. There is a bronze vase made in the Sung Dynasty, fashioned in imitation of an old jar tied up with rope, the ring handles being technically described as "conventional heads applique"; this vessel measures 14-1/4 in. diameter at the shoulder and stands 9-1/2 in. high. It is difficult to trace where such pieces come from; it is, however, well known that many have been looted from the temples; others, probably imitating older examples, are mainly of nineteenth-century workmanship. [Illustration: FIG. 68.--BRONZE FIGURE (ONE OF A PAIR) INLAID WITH SILVER AND GOLD. (_In the author's collection._)] The metal-work which comes from Japan has reached us in great variety. There has been no need for the traveller or collector to search the island for curios to bring over to this country, for the commercial instincts of a new race of Japanese merchants have poured out a wealth of antiques, collected from the native villages; with these and modern imitations they have gladly supplied the demand of the Western world. In this way attention has been called to the products of that country where craftsmen have gone on hammering copper and brass, and inlaying the metal in highly decorated patterns in silver and gold for so many years. Reference has already been made to the rare temple pieces and sets which have been looted or purchased from Asiatic countries, so many of which are of rare cloissonné enamels. Some of these of Japanese origin are mentioned in Chapter XIV. Of the minor bronzes, replicas of temple relics, there are many beautiful koros or incense burners. Other bronzes serve the purpose of ornament in the Western countries to which they have found their way. In Fig. 68 is shown a beautiful bronze. The sacred carp is inlaid with gold and silver and is exceptionally well finished. The pair, of which it is one, came from Japan about thirty years ago, and are of much finer workmanship than many of the more modern replicas. Household requisites as well as ornamental treasures have been made with care by hammer and engraving tool into things of beauty as well as usefulness. The household requirements of the Japanese are limited in number, but in the entertainment of her friends the Japanese lady is able to cause envy among her Western sisters because of the beauty of her kettles and brazier. The kettle shown in Fig. 66 is one of a toilet set of hammered brass, engraved with badges and foliage. It was probably produced early in the nineteenth century, before Western commercial ideas began to invade the workshops of Old Japan. In conjunction with such kettles (the Japanese name of a kettle is _yuwakashi_) metal bowls were used, the water being poured over the hands of the fair Japanese and her guests by attendants, who also held the bowl to catch the dropping water. In Old Japan there was much patience as well as skill, and the methods adopted by the artists of those days would be too tedious and expensive now when the merchants buy and sell and compete in Western markets. The processes by which the beautiful bronze objects were moulded took time, and the incising and inlays could never be paid for in proper proportion to the labour expended on them. The metals of which Japanese bronzes were made consisted of curious alloys, the composition of which was long kept a secret. One of their finest brasses is known as _sinchu_, consisting of ten parts of copper and five of zinc. Another very beautiful copper is called _shadko_, in which splendid hues are imparted by the treatment of acids; in this alloy there is one part of gold to ten of copper, to which is attributable the splendid colouring of the so-called bronze. Older methods, however, are gradually giving way to more economic production on Western plans and formulæ, so that in time perhaps the Eastern and Oriental influence and characteristics of Asiatic bronzes, so charming and so much appreciated by collectors, may diminish if not disappear altogether. XIV IDOLS AND TEMPLE RELICS [Illustration: INDIAN IDOLS. FIG. 69.--AMIDA. FIG. 70.--A "BLUE" TARA. FIG. 71.--AMITAYUS. FIG. 72.--VAJRA DHARMA. FIG. 73.--AMITAYUS.] CHAPTER XIV IDOLS AND TEMPLE RELICS Varied shrines and many idols--Indian idols--Temple vases and ornaments. There are some who hold it to be a wicked thing to loot the temple of a heathen deity, and regard it as sacrilege to ruthlessly tear down the idol from its shrine. Others glory in an opportunity of proving the powerlessness of the man-created idol to save the temple from ruin and desecration. Yet there are many who recognize in these idols of wood, stone, and metal, emblems and symbols of ancient faiths in which there may be a greater reality, and, for all we can tell, potency, to those who look beyond the mere shrine, than appears at first sight. Notwithstanding all that, the multiplicity of gods and the number of so-called deities make many sceptical about the worship of their devotees, and there are few who feel much compunction when adding such objects as metal idols to their curios--when they are able to secure them honestly. Varied Shrines and Many Idols. Needless to say the faiths of those who worship "unknown gods," from whatever source they may have come, differ. The very uncertainty of the religions, which admit of varied deities, has fostered the increase of ceremonies and the change in rites, which, added to local folk-lore and myths which have gained in the telling, have caused new idols to be set up. It was so in pagan Greece and Rome, and it is the same in some parts of the world to-day. To these causes we may attribute the number of idols of different types, or the same idols represented with other attributes, which the collector of metal meets with. There is a strange fascination about the stories of pagan and heathen deities and their influence over men, and to obtain the full interest and delight from such a specialized collection the collector must become a student of Eastern and other religions and priestcraft. The temples in which religious rites have been, and in some instances are still, observed, vary in importance just as the associations around the cathedrals and ruined abbeys in our own land differ from those almost absent in the more recently erected churches. The wealthy Indian, not unnaturally, employed artificers in brass to make models of the great shrines, and some of these rare works of metallic art are to be seen in the Indian Museum. Several are of eighteenth-century workmanship, among them beautifully modelled temples of Krishna. Incidentally it may be mentioned that secular buildings have been reproduced too; notably there is a very fine model of the Palace of the Winds at Jaypore, Rajputana, which was presented by the Maharajah of Jaypore. [Illustration: FIG. 74.--JAPANESE PRICKET CANDLESTICK IN THE FORM OF CRANE AND TORTOISE. (_In the Victoria and Albert Museum._)] Some may regard the collection of idols as a curious hobby; others possibly see in them only art treasures to be valued for their intrinsic worth, for many idols are enriched with precious stones and jewels and are overlaid with gold and silver. Such objects occupy a different place from the cruder idols of wood and stone, cut and carved by savage races. We can well understand that the refined worker in metals spared no pains to make his idol or fetish beautiful and something to be admired. Indian Idols. Of Indian idols there are many: Buddha is so widely held in esteem that it is no wonder that so many representations, varying in size, have been produced. The favourite position, known as the "Witness" attitude, is that with which collectors are most familiar. Indian idols are of many forms, among the commoner varieties being those of Vishnu, Lakshmi the wife of Vishnu, and Siva. Many images of copper, afterwards gilt, come from Thibet and Nepal. The curiosities associated with the Lamaist worship have become familiar of late years. One of the representations of Amida, holding in her hand the teppattsu, is shown in Fig. 69. A "blue" Tara is illustrated in Fig. 70; Amitayus is shown in Fig. 71; and Fig. 72 represents Vajra Dharma holding the dorge. In Fig. 73 Amitayus is again shown holding the reliquary and wearing a jewelled collar. An interesting Lamaist altar ornament is a copper skull bowl, used as a receptacle for the sacred beer or wine of life. There are also Thibetian holy water jugs, beautifully inlaid with silver. In the Victoria and Albert Museum may be seen a colossal Buddha (Daibutsu) of sixteenth-century workmanship, which came from a Japanese temple. Appropriately placed close to it is a massive pair of lanterns of bronze, which were originally a gift to the temple of Miyoshino-tenjin by the feudal lord of the district. Most of these temple relics--idols and ornaments--were made of a special alloy known in Japan as _Kara kane_, which means Chinese metal, from which it may be inferred that this alloy was known and employed in China before it came into general use in Japan. Temple Vases and Ornaments. The mystical beliefs of China are chiefly Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism, to which should be added ancestor worship, and in connection with all of them there are special objects of veneration, which we group together under the somewhat generic term of "temple relics." [Illustration: FIG. 75.--JAPANESE RITUAL VASE. FIG. 76.--SMALL TWO-HANDLED RITUAL VASE. FIG. 77.--CIRCULAR VASE ON STAND.] From Japan as well as China we get many fine temple sets. Whence come they? some may ask. Perhaps they have been discarded because they have been replaced with newer or more elaborate ornaments, although they may have been obtained through the cupidity of some of the temple attendants. From whatever sources they came there are numerous examples in the London curio-shops and in our museums. The crane and tortoise have long been held in veneration in Japan. The tortoise especially is frequently found on old Chinese pottery and metal-work, as well as being fashioned in Corea and Japan. In Fig. 74 there is a Japanese pricket candlestick, in the form of a crane and tortoise, of eighteenth-century workmanship, and it evidently formed one of a set of five altar pieces. Some of the altar sets gave special prominence to two flower vases as part of the set, of somewhat later style of decoration to Fig. 90; it was probably made early in the nineteenth century. This vase was formerly used in a set in which a figure of Buddha occupied the centre. It was a common practice to hang over the Buddhist altars lamps, many of which are to be seen in our museums. In Fig. 75 is shown a Japanese ritual vase, intended for wine (_hu_); it is of square shape, with cover of Kwei and dragon pattern, animal feet and bosses on the shoulders, and bird-shaped arris on the lid, the inside of which is inscribed with twelve characters; the patina of this vessel ranges from deep brown to bright malachite-green. Fig. 76 is a smaller ritual vessel, with two handles at the shoulder and one meander band and knob. The vase shown in Fig. 77, with dragon handles, a beautifully patinated specimen, shading from brown to red with green accretions, is a ritual _tsui_ or vase for offering corn. These remarkable relics formed part of a large collection dispersed recently at a well-known London salesroom. Now and then less important pieces come under the hammer, and it is by no means difficult to secure for a small outlay an excellent representative collection of these deeply interesting objects associated with idol worship. XV NATIVE METAL-WORK CHAPTER XV NATIVE METAL-WORK Outside influences--Benin bronzes--Other African curios. There are few collections of copper and brass without a fair sprinkling of curiously formed and often crude objects which we class under the generic term "native curios." There is much that is of extreme interest in the work of the smiths and founders of races possessing but little apparent touch with civilized nations; for such metal objects are true guides to the state of the advancement of the peoples of the countries from which such curios come. We delight in the art of early Eastern nations, and find much to admire in the almost barbaric ornament of Asiatic metal-workers of mediæval and even later days, as counted by the progress made by European artists at contemporary dates. The marvellous skill with which the natives of India and other Asiatic countries incised and inlaid their metal wares has already been pointed out. There is, however, an especial charm about the metal-work of nations we are apt to class as "savage," or at least untutored, if not uncivilized. And we would not have it otherwise, for it is from these curios--metal and of other materials--that we are enabled to trace the influences of other countries with whom those races or tribes have had dealings in the past. We are to some extent able from these antiquities to connect the links in the chain of nations, and from the characteristics of their art (?) to settle their origin and affinity to other races. Outside Influences. The Ethnological Gallery of the British Museum is one of the finest instructors. The silent exhibits tell the observant man or woman, boy or girl, much that cannot be learned from book knowledge. In the cases in that gallery are many objects fashioned by peoples who until recently were in their Stone Age, and had no knowledge of the outer world. There are some who from the curios--old and new--have apparently, until taught their use by travellers and traders from the far-off West, never discovered the value of metals. Some of the native races--not a few of them fellow-subjects of the Empire--as yet prefer wood, stone, and crude pottery vessels and utensils to metal, judging from the very limited use of the few brass or copper objects they possess, those few, probably, being imported. The ethnology of the race is traced in these relics, especially in the really old ones. In a few instances by way of contrast, metal objects, although so limited, are conspicuous. They are chiefly confined to the native countries brought under the influence of more advanced peoples; as instanced by the work of the Sinhalese, the natives of Ceylon, who early came into touch with the metal-workers of India. Another native race by their wealth of rare metallic curios, the art of producing which they have lost, are shown to be a people with a past; thus it is with the tribes of Southern Nigeria in and around Benin City. On the occasion of its capture by the British in 1897, it was found to possess a remarkable store of wonderful bronzes, evidently of the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries. In these and other native curios the collector revels, and in their study finds history, geography, and even the folk-lore of nations revealed; for in such curios there are stories in brass of social life, religious functions, ceremonies, and sacrifices. The Benin Bronzes. A few years ago very many bronzes (nearly pure copper) were sold under the hammer. They were looted from Benin City during the war which ended in the country in and around the city being taken by the British troops, and eventually incorporated in Southern Nigeria. These wonderful bronzes throw a light upon the history of that country, and tell of a powerful nation far advanced in the art of modelling and casting metals long before they had come into close touch with Western influence. This remarkable people who possessed so much wealth in copper and in ivory have long gone; their descendants or the tribes occupying their city have no knowledge of the craft, and apparently retained these relics of barbaric splendour with silent awe. The entire series of bronze panels from which the figures so cleverly stand out in bold relief, must have presented a wonderful sight to the British soldiers as they entered Benin. The collection in the British Museum was sent home to this country by Sir Ralph Moor, K.C.M.G., H.M. Commissioner and Consul-General for the Niger Coast Protectorate. It is impossible to describe their beauty or the details of the elaborate modelling of the dress, arms, and costumes of the Benin king and his chiefs and officers as they existed in the sixteenth century. There is a model of the king's house, his attendant guards, high officials, a sword-bearer, and another bearing a ceremonial axe. Some of the bronzes represent musicians playing various instruments, and others performing all kinds of functions. The bronze panels of fishes and animals are very lifelike, especially bulls, crocodiles, and the heads of oxen, even the twisted cords with which the animals were tethered being correctly modelled. The bronzes representing Europeans are exceptionally valuable in that from the costumes portrayed the date of those bronzes has been fixed, approximately. The matchlocks and flint-guns are reproduced with the greatest exactitude, as also the Egyptian figures, copied presumably from the remains of Ancient Egypt, with which these metal-workers were evidently familiar. In addition to the panels of copper, which show marks of how they were attached to the walls, were bronze masks or warriors' heads which served as stands for the splendidly carved tusks of ivory also discovered when the expedition visited that country. There are many minor objects in bronze which show that this remarkable civilization, now lost, was far advanced in the arts. As it has been suggested Benin relics are not entirely confined to museum specimens, and collectors are not without opportunities of securing pieces. Many of the early tribes of Africa had knowledge of metal-working, although some have lost or neglected to practice it. Other African Curios. Some metal curios were included in the trophies brought to this country at the time of the Ashanti Expedition, among the rare regal metal-work being an old brass vase, with repoussé decorations and a copper dragon handle. It was discovered behind the house of King Prempeh's aunt, who had been acting as Regent. Another curio discovered in the same district was a brass box containing gold dust. Bells, too, have been brought from Ashanti; one in the British Museum is the executioner's bell, which was rang prior to an execution. There are many bronzes from Southern Nigeria, especially some curious ornaments worn by the women. Some of these are veritable antiques and were found buried; many are finely patinated and heavy. Some of the bangles are beautifully formed and highly decorated with inlaid enamels. Some very interesting brass castings come from Lagos, not at all unlike the Benin modelling, except that they are in brass instead of pure copper. They include figures of natives, some on horseback, others in the act of shooting with guns. There are brass staves of office carried as symbols of authority by the messengers of the Oshogbo, a native secret society; and there are spoons, knives and other domestic sundries, as well as armlets and anklets of copper and brass. From north-east Central Africa we get a little metal-work, some of the head-dress ornaments being enriched with circular brass plates, on which are repoussé decorations. Among the curios from this district in the British Museum are several exceptional pieces, one being a head-dress or helmet of brass with circular brass ornaments. The knives used in ceremonials are often very handsome. There is a fine executioner's knife from north-east Central Africa, with brass studs all over the wood handle. Another chief's knife, which came from near the Stanley Falls, is decorated with strips of copper and brass. The metal castings from Central Sudan, representing ostriches, giraffes, and camels, are cleverly done, and with bangles and anklets make up an interesting group. It is curious how valuable finds are sometimes made many miles from the locality where the object was made. It is the same in our own country, for we dig and find a bronze from ancient Rome, brought over by the conquering armies of the Romans when Britain was brought under the Imperial sway. Our armies have probably left relics behind them in the past as in the present, for it is no uncommon thing for reminders of the Crusaders and others to be found even in Africa. One of the most remarkable finds was a large bronze jug and cover now in the British Museum; on it are the arms of Richard II of England, and two mottoes in Lombardic letters: "HE THAT WILL NOT SPARE WHEN HE MAY, HE SHALL NOT SPEND WHEN HE WOULD" is one; the other reads: "DEEM THE BEST IN EVERY DOUBT TILL THE TRUTH BE TRIED OUT." This splendid jug was found in Ashanti; the date of its manufacture was about A.D. 1400. The South African curios in brass are very limited; they consist chiefly of collars and armlets worn by the women of Basutoland and Bechuanaland, and by the Kaffir women who have also girdles of brass cleverly formed. Although by no means numerous and of limited variety, a few objects of native workmanship are worth securing if only to compare the way in which natural ingenuity has at different times helped the craftsman and enabled him to work even metals without any instructions from nations more advanced in their use. XVI CONTINENTAL COPPER AND BRASS [Illustration: FIG. 78.--BRONZE OVIFORM EWER.] [Illustration: FIG. 79.--BRASS EWER WITH ARTISTIC HANDLE.] CHAPTER XVI CONTINENTAL COPPER AND BRASS Italian bronzes--French art--Dutch brasswork--German metal-work. The Italian renaissance in art exercised such a wide influence upon manufactured goods in this and other countries that the collector of antiques naturally turns to the achievements of the artists in metal who worked in Florence and Rome for the highest ideals he can seek. In this he is not disappointed, for just as the connoisseur of ancient art finds his delight in the bronzes of Greece and Rome, the collector of more modern art sees grace and beauty combined with skilful grouping in Italian craftsmanship. European influence has been brought to bear upon the metal-work of the world at different times, but it has not always come from the same country. At different periods the metal-workers of certain localities appear to have made their peculiar characteristics take precedence of others. In most of the European countries quite distinct styles and even unique treatment of metals have been noticeable; so much so that our museums to-day contain groups of metal-work having little or no affinity to one another, although coming, perhaps, from towns not far removed in point of geographical position. The collector recognizes as distinct the bronzes of Italy; the screens, candlesticks, and ecclesiastical metal-work of Spain; the beaten bronze, champlevé enamels, and the decorative brass of the Empire period of France; the eighteenth-century Dutch brasswork; the metal forged and cast in Germany, and the decorative copper and brass of Turkey showing such distinctly Oriental influence in Saracenic touch. To study all these rival styles at their best the collector, however large his private collection, must perforce visit either one of the more important Continental museums or the Victoria and Albert Museum at South Kensington, where so many cases are filled with Continental works of art in gold, silver, and the baser metals. Local museums rarely possess a selection large enough for comparative purposes. The loan exhibits from the national collection, carefully selected as representative specimens, are very helpful, and many such loan cases strengthen local exhibits and add interest to them. In the United States of America public museums are well arranged with the view of showing the metal-work of different countries at varied periods, and many of them are peculiarly rich in exhibits of domestic metal-work which was taken over in the early days from Europe. As a guide to curators and others wishful to secure the right kind of exhibits it may be useful to mention the contents of a case on view at a South coast town public library recently. There were some beautiful Italian bronzes of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, a damascened candlestick from Venice, a Florentine statuette, a handsome cabinet handle chased with foliated ornament, a bronze mask of Pan, a table lamp stand with winged lions at the base, and a handsome ewer, the body of which was ornamented with foliage, around it figures representing the triumph of Bacchus, a typical seventeenth-century specimen. Among the minor objects in that case were vases from many countries, door knockers, and a few examples of Dutch metal-work, decorative and artistic. Italian Bronzes. The metal-workers from the sixth to the tenth centuries, when so many decorative bronzes were being made for St. Peter's and Italian churches, derived their inspirations from Byzantium, hence those early works were often inlaid with silver and gold, and were quite different from those of later date. Art developed, and gradually a more distinctive character was given to the bronze gates and candelabra which were made with such consummate skill. One of the greatest triumphs of that period was the great candelabrum in Milan Cathedral, wrought in the thirteenth century. Its height is 14 ft., and it has seven branches for candles, the stem being supported by four winged dragons. It is one mass of marvellous scrollwork, relieved by the introduction of figures, each one of which is perfect in itself--a study of expression and character. Casts of these remarkable pieces of metal-work may be seen at South Kensington. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the Florentine artists worked. It was then that statues in bronze were sculptured by Verrocchio, Donatello, and others. A century later the wonderful candlesticks in the Certosa, near Pavia, and in the cathedral at Padua, were made. It was about that time that Venetian metal-workers were fashioning so much that was beautiful in domestic utensils and the minor church ornaments. From that time onward collectable brasses were made, and after long years of use they passed into the category of antiques, rendered beautiful by their artistic merits, and possibly by the touch of age. Even then there was an Oriental look about many of the designs, but it seldom intrudes, and does not spoil the effect of the forms and style so clearly Venetian. Such vessels were chiefly made for the then wealthy merchants of the city, and often their arms were incorporated into the design. Fig. 78 is a bronze oviform ewer made in Venice about 1530. Another beautiful vase is shown in Fig. 79. Other objects much favoured were candlesticks, hand-warmers, and perfume sprinklers, to which must be added the more strictly utilitarian. The Spanish metal-workers do not appear to have developed a very well-defined school of metallic art of their own. They were especially noted for their highly ornamental jewellery; in the common metals they were influenced by Italy, and to some extent Germany. It is said that the finest piece of work accomplished in the country was the great sixteenth-century candelabrum or _tenebrarium_ in Seville Cathedral, the work of Bart. Morel in 1562. French Art. Connoisseurs of the fine arts naturally regard enamels of Limoges as the greatest achievements of the country (see Chapter XVIII). There is, however, much to admire in the early unadorned metal-work, especially that made in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries--effigies in beaten copper, some portions of which were usually adorned by coloured "champlevé" enamel. They were afterwards desired by Englishmen, and some good examples of "imported" effigies are to be seen, a notable example being one on the tomb of William de Valence in Westminster Abbey, erected about 1296. Of domestic metal-work there are not many early pieces. In Fig. 82 is shown a cup or ewer of brass with artistic handle and spout ornamented with a grotesque mouth; the date assigned to it is 1570. It may be seen in the Victoria and Albert Museum, where also is deposited a fine seventeenth-century ewer or tankard with plain cylindrical body and a deep and long spout with fancy handle (see Fig. 81). There is also a trumpet of brass, dated 1738, in the same gallery; it has upon it the owner's monogram, "S.M.A.," ensigned with a count's coronet and crest. Dutch Brasswork. The brasswork from Holland, largely imported into this country at the commencement of the eighteenth century, although decorative, cannot be claimed as artistic. Most of the objects are strictly utilitarian, and the ornament stiff and formal; they were hammered by hand, an effective finish being made by small punches, repoussé work being occasionally added. Fig. 80, which represents one of the larger pieces, illustrates a highly ornamental cistern with cover and tap. Its shape is semicircular, a dome-shaped back acting as a hanger; that as well as the perforated grille under the cistern being ornamented. The chief ornament consists of star devices, the points of which are united together by curved lines composed of small straight indentations. In the Victoria and Albert Museum there is a Dutch foot-warmer, the sides of which are ornamented with repoussé panels of flowers and circular bosses; in the centre of the top, which is slightly curved, is a medallion engraved "I.W.H.M. 1733," surrounded by open-work decoration and floral scrolls arranged in geometrical patterns, on either side of which are birds. [Illustration: FIG. 80.--DUTCH ORNAMENTAL BRASS CISTERN.] [Illustration: FIG. 81.--FRENCH EWER OR TANKARD WITH FANCY HANDLE. FIG. 82.--FRENCH EWER WITH GROTESQUE MOUTH (SIXTEENTH CENTURY).] The brass milkcans used by modern milk sellers, and the beautifully ornamented churns and milk perambulators seen in some neighbourhoods, are not altogether new or the outcome of modern advertisement. In Holland brass ornament has been used on tinware for many years, and some very quaint old milkcans and dairy utensils in shining polished brass are met with by collectors who visit Holland. The milkcans of that country, or perhaps more correctly large bowls, in which milk and cream are served have double handles, and make extremely handsome flower-bowls or fern-pots on the table, although perhaps collectors would consider such a desecration an improper use for a genuine antique. Many of the chestnut roasters, skimmers, and brass chimney ornaments used in England in the eighteenth century came from Holland. The artists of that country were famous for the characteristic Dutch scenes engraved on their metal-work, just as they were for their tiles with quaint windmills and pictures of peasants in native costume on them. So famous has the collection of these brasses become that much modern metal-work, copies of genuine antiques, has been sent over for sale in London curio-shops. Some of these reproductions are excellent copies; others are "too new" and would scarcely deceive the amateur. Caution should be observed, especially when buying "old time" fire-brasses, knockers and trivets. German Metal-Work. Curios, as well as modern antiques "made in Germany," are not always labelled as such; there is, however, a distinctly German look about old metal-work from that country. Elaborate and massive with its wealth of floral embellishment, some of the German metal-work of early days stands out conspicuously. Some elaborate cast bronze gates and door furniture enriched the churches of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Augsburg and Nuremberg have always been famous centres for artistic metal work, and in those towns many objects large and small have been made. Among minor works are the very handsome lock plates and cases. The shapes of domestic utensils, especially of ewers, were very quaint. There is a German aquamanile or ewer in the form of an animal, embodying a lion and stag, along with several others equally as curious, in the British Museum. Nuremberg contributes to our national collection a variety of hand wash-basins in brass; the earlier examples being richly ornamented with engravings typifying different virtues and vices; St. George, the patron saint of England, also figures on some pieces. Turkish metal-work includes copper ewers, chased and decorated with enamels, mostly with handles and spouts, some of the sets or pairs consisting of ewer (_ibrik_) and basin (_tisht_). These copper vessels are sometimes embossed with scale ornaments. There are braziers and some vessels of bulbous form, mostly of bronze, and now and then Turkish collapsible lanterns of brass with pierced decorations are met with. XVII SUNDIALS, CLOCKS, AND BRASS INSTRUMENTS CHAPTER XVII SUNDIALS, CLOCKS, AND BRASS INSTRUMENTS The mystery of dialling--Some old dials--Antique clocks--Old watches--The weather--Scientific instruments. The modern man can scarcely realize what it must have been in this England of ours when clouds obscured the sun, and thick mists drew a veil over the shadow cast by the gnomon, before clocks were known. The time of day was of less importance when the sundial on the church tower, or on a pillar erected at some convenient place, had to be consulted, when the sun shone it is true, but even then many must have inwardly fretted and rebelled against the uncertainty. Reader, have you ever spent a day away from public clocks in the country when the sky was overcast _without a watch in your pocket_? If not, do it now, and the result will be startling. It will create a sympathetic touch with the past, and bring vividly to mind the trials of patience which had to be endured when under such conditions inscriptions on dials were read, but no clear line marked the onward march of Sol. The Mystery of Dialling. Dialling is a science which few except experts understand now; the antiquary takes little note of it as he gazes upon the old dial plate and makes out the inscription upon it. The collector gladly buys the brass dial with its quaint lettering and division marks without even knowing where it came from, or what kind of stone column or pillar it originally capped. Yet there is far more interest in an old sundial installed in a modern garden amidst reconstructed old-world surroundings when the origin of the relic is known. We have no record of the type of sundial referred to in Isaiah xxxviii, 8: "Behold, I will bring again the shadow of the degrees which is gone down on the _sun-dial_ of Ahaz, ten degrees backward." There are, however, records of the sundial of the Chaldean astronomer Perosus, who lived about 340 B.C. It consisted of a hollow hemisphere placed with its rim horizontal, having a head or globule fixed so that as long as the sun shone above the horizon the shadow of the head fell on the inside of the hemisphere. In more recent days the making and fixing of the dial with its gnomon was carried out on fixed principles, and there is now no difficulty about such an installation provided that the same astronomical conditions are observed. (For rules governing dialling, see Glossary.) [Illustration: FIG. 83.--EARLY DIALS--ON THE LEFT AN ARMILLARY DIAL; IN THE CENTRE PILLAR DIAL; AND ON THE RIGHT A RING DIAL. (_In the British Museum._)] [Illustration: FIG. 84.--CURIOUS OLD MICROSCOPE, MADE IN 1780. (_In the Municipal Museum, Hull._)] Some Old Dials. The pattern known as the garden dial is that commonly met with (for the large dials once fixed on church towers and in public places rarely come into the market); and the old dial plates seen in curio-shops have come from such pillars. Charles Dickens had a fine old sundial in his garden at Gad's Hill Place, and it has often been copied. The globe dial, set on suitable pillars, has been made frequently for modern antique gardens. An enterprising maker of dials purchased the beautiful balustrades of old Kew Bridge when it was removed a few years ago, and capping them with replicas of old dials--in some cases with genuine antiques--produced excellent examples of the old type of garden sundial. Similar dials, more imposing in size, are met with in curious and yet very suitable places by motorists, cyclists, and others when touring in the country. A charming Elizabethan relic is the stone bridge across the River Wye in the village of Wilton, near Ross. On the north wall of the parapet is a stone pillar surmounted by a sundial having four faces--an interesting landmark and often admired; and when the sun shines on it the traveller invariably pulls out his watch and compares it with the shadow of the gnomon. There were once many famous dials _in situ_ in London; most of them are gone; there are some, however, readily seen, like the noted pillar dial in the Temple and that on the front of one of the old buildings in Lincoln's Inn. Of other forms of dials, the eccentricities of the horologists they might be called, there are the "goblet" dials in the form of a cup, the hour-lines being engraved on the interior; pillar dials which are cylinders with movable gnomons; the quadrant, in the use of which the altitude of the sun is taken through pierced sights, the time being shown on curved hour-lines by means of a plumb-line hanging from the angle; and the ring dials, which were very popular in England down to the year 1800. In Fig. 83 are shown earlier dials of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. On the left there is an armillary dial by F. Culpeper, of London. In the middle there is a pillar dial dated 1567, and on the right of the figure a ring dial made by Humphrey Cole in 1575, all three important types. Perhaps one of the chief delights of the study of sundial plates is to read and make out the different mottoes and legends on them--most of them relating to the flight of time, some alluding to man's duties which, when neglected, can never be made up, for "Time and tide wait for no man." Another type of dial is the portable one, in which form dials or pocket clocks, as they were sometimes called, can be collected--and they are generally of brass, some being very decorative. Antique Clocks. There is no intermediate stage between the general use of clocks and watches and sundials, for their use overlaps. We have but to look at many an old church tower on which is to be seen the dial still operative--for sun and gnomon fail not--and the clock which has told the time for many years. Both were probably working before pocket clocks or watches became general and timepieces were to be found on the mantelpiece or sideboard. Brass was used from the commencement of clockmaking for wheels and dials; and wonderfully, too, the early clockmakers cut and carved the metal into the required form and gauged the works with accuracy. Some may be familiar with that wonderful astronomical clock in Wimborne Minster, made in 1220 by Peter Lightfoot, a monk of Glastonbury, who also constructed a clock for Wells Cathedral. In it, according to the early belief that the sun, moon, and stars revolved round the earth, the sun travels its appointed circuit every twenty-four hours, and by its position marks the time. In the evolution of the clock there have been many marked stages. The clock when first devised was a great stride from the sundial, the beautiful plates of which have already been described. Progress followed, and in a century or two clocks with wheels and complicated mechanism, which when once set going and wound up periodically told the time with exactitude, enabled the populace to know the time of day even when the sun was not shining. That was the age of decorative art, and many of the brass plates and dials were magnificent in their engravings, glorious in their beautiful old fretwork, and rich in brass cherubims and emblems of Old Father Time. Moving figures were in the early days regarded as ideal attractions in clocks. The two old figures which strike the hour and go through some quaint evolutions over the clock which for many years has been a great attraction in Cheapside, are typical of the figures which in miniature might have been seen playing on brass gongs and chiming bells in many towns in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. They were in abundance in Norwich and towns in the eastern counties, seeming to reflect the old Flemish cities on the Continent, where they are even now fairly common. Collectors are very enthusiastic in their search for genuine "Cromwell" or lantern clocks. A few years ago they might have been found discarded on the old metal rubbish-heaps of the clockmaker. To-day these clocks, all brass in their construction, are polished bright, set going once more, and treated with care; good specimens changing hands for sums varying from eight to fifteen pounds. Originally they were usually placed on a bracket, over which was often a wooden hood to protect the clock. Then came a hinged glass door, and in that we have the origin of the "grandfather" with enlarged dial and rich oak or mahogany case reaching down to the ground. [Illustration: FIG. 85.--ENGRAVED POCKET CLOCK.] Those who wish to study the beautiful dials and engraved faces of clocks and watches in order that they may realize the difference in the products of makers during the last few centuries, should visit the splendid collection in the Guildhall Museum, loaned by the Clockmakers' Company. The work of the old clockmakers was that of the very best. It was made to last, and the metal they chose for their operations appears to have been very suitable for the purpose. In evidence of the lasting quality of old brass works, a well-known writer has put forward the interesting story of a chamber clock presented by Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn on their wedding day. It found its way into the Strawberry Hill collection of Horace Walpole, and at the famous sale of those interesting curios and souvenirs of great persons that noted minister had gathered together, it was purchased for £100 by the late Queen Victoria. Harrison Ainsworth says: "This token of endless affection remains the same after three centuries; but four years after it was given, the object of Henry's eternal love was sacrificed on the scaffold. The clock still goes, but surely it should have been stopped for ever when Anne Boleyn died!" The advent of table clocks came with the discovery of the use of a mainspring by the Nuremberg clockmakers in the sixteenth century. In the British Museum there is a clock in the form of a ship made for the Emperor Rudolph II in 1581. There are many other fine examples of curiously designed clocks, including a water clock by Finchet, of Cheapside, and a French astronomical clock with astrolabe, and others with automatic figures on view there, as well as very remarkable types in the collection of clock dials and watches given to the Museum by the late Mr. Octavius Morgan. The early clocks, the dials of which were of brass, had only one finger, for the minute-hand was not known until 1670, and the second finger a much later invention. In Fig. 85 is a typical example of a brass engraved watch clock face and dial, which has a perforated hinged cover and is exceptionally well engraved. Old Watches. Watches were costly in the days when so much time was expended on their manufacture. Those were the days of good workmanship in which watchmakers excelled. They put much labour into the ornamentation of the works, "watch-clocks," and dial plates, so many of which were beautifully engraved, tooled with great skill, and cleverly perforated. The dials were in early days unprotected, hence the need of a case, often of brass, and when made of some other material were frequently ornamented with brass inlay. It was not until the middle of the seventeenth century that glass or crystal covers were invented; that was about the time, too, when the enamelling of dials came into vogue. The pocket watch brought with it fobs, chains, and watch-keys or winders, mostly of brass, which should not be overlooked. In a representative collection there are crank keys similar to large clock winders, but, of course, made in miniature. Then after various developments brass and Pinchbeck fob keys came into vogue, and later still ornamental keys with and without the addition of stones, the majority being made in brass. A number of these little objects can still be collected quite cheaply, and nicely mounted make a very interesting addition to the more ornamental side of brass metal-work. Forecasting the Weather. The weather has found men a subject for discussion and given them opportunities of speaking a pleasant word of comradeship when meeting in the country or in town. To comment upon its fickleness has become as common a mode of salutation as passing the time of day. The topic is an ancient one and the interest in it has been sustained, for to gauge the coming changes has taken the attention of men from the earliest times. To study the fleeting cloud, to note the coming storm by the direction of the wind, or to notice the damp in the air as the mist rises and is wafted over the fields, has always been a favourite occupation. It was so before the day of barometers and scientific instruments, and it is equally so by those who prefer the pronouncement of the weather prophet rather than the barometer gauge. Galileo is said to have invented the thermometer, but it was his pupil Torricelli, who discovered the barometer. His townsmen in Faenza, in the north of Italy, some years ago erected a monument to his memory, putting up the biggest barometer known. In common with other scientific instruments the barometer has afforded opportunities to the worker in metal and to the art designer, for like the clock case it has been made a thing of beauty as well as one of use. The very remarkable barometer illustrated in Fig. 86 is an elaborate work of the brassfounder and exceedingly ornate. It is a very exceptional piece, but there are other barometers of considerable beauty in the hands of collectors of old bronze and metal-work. Some of the old scientific instruments are very clumsy looking when compared with modern workmanship. About them it is true there is a quaint beauty and a silent tribute to the skill and ingenuity of early inventors, those who were but groping, perhaps blindly, in the initial stages of an undeveloped science. Scientists always take a delight in the instruments which their predecessors have used, and when they realize by comparison the difficulties the early pioneers had to contend with on account of the inefficient instruments in their possession they wonder at the advance that particular science made in their day. In Fig. 84 we illustrate a curious old microscope and case, made about the year 1780. It is on a mahogany stand, in which is a drawer containing four magnifying powers. It formerly belonged to a Mr. Charles Sherborne and is now in the Hull Museum, where, as the connecting link between the older type and the modern, there is another interesting microscope made some fifty or sixty years ago. The engineer, mechanic, and scientist find much pleasure in the curios which were associated with their professions in former days, and delight in the possession of "old brass" which seems to bring them nearer to the great men who years ago laid the foundations on which present-day advance has been built. [Illustration: FIG. 86.--A HANDSOME BRONZE BAROMETER.] Engineers have been very skilful in creating models of engines and machinery with which they have been familiar, and in reproducing in miniature replicas of noted engines which have been used for practical purposes. These little models, some of which were made more than a hundred years ago, in days when steam power was but in its infancy, have been very valuable to engineers to-day, in that they provide them with actual models of old-time engines, the details of construction of which might otherwise have been lost. In one of the museums at South Kensington there are many of these scientific and mechanical models in brass, some of them working on the penny-in-the-slot principle, so that visitors can by the expenditure of a few coppers set in motion any machine they are interested in, and so judge of the actual effects of old-time inventions as illustrated by models which have been made to scale. In addition to working models of large objects there are some remarkably small models which are stored and treasured by collectors. Some are so small and minute, although perfect in every detail, that it is difficult to understand how the worker in brass even if he had been a jeweller and accustomed to fashion the settings of small stones could so accurately have produced such tiny machines. It is said that the smallest engine in the world, a beautiful piece of metal-work, owned by an American collector, stands on a ten-cent piece! Yet remarkable as it may seem, when connected with an electric power cable of very small calibre the engine starts off as if it were a full-size horizontal engine. The chief materials used in the construction are copper and brass, although the band of the fly-wheel is of solid gold. So small is this little engine that its measurements are all taken in sixty-fourths of an inch. Thus the diameter of the fly-wheel, practically the largest piece of mechanism in the construction of the engine, is 28/64 in., and the fly-wheel band only 7/64 in. The valve rod is only 1/64 in., and the outside diameter of the cylinder 12/64 in.; completed, standing on the small coin referred to, the engine weighs 3 dwt., a truly remarkable work of metallic art. XVIII ENAMELS ON COPPER CHAPTER XVIII ENAMELS ON COPPER Processes of enamelling--Chinese and Japanese enamels--British enamels. Copper has been used frequently as the most suitable metal to coat over with enamels, to be afterwards fired or fixed. Even the ancients discovered the art of colouring the metal-work they had wrought by the aid of different enamels more or less translucent. Such substances were used in varied forms, often as paste, filling up incised designs, the workmen in some cases rubbing them down smooth when fixed, in others firing them by heat or simply heating until they ran smoothly over the surface of the metal to which they adhered. The enamels which are to be obtained vary in substance, the beauty of their workmanship, and in their rarity and curio values. They cover the entire period of known art and although such enamels are widely distributed, the art of enamelling having been practised in almost all countries where art has flourished, some have won greater fame than others, many of these rare types being easily distinguished by characteristic forms, colours, or designs. Among the earlier exponents of enamelling were the Egyptians, the early Greeks, and to some extent the Romans. It would appear that enamelling was understood, too, in England, and was early practised as a British art, but it soon died out, to be restored again in this country under more favourable circumstances in the greater renaissance of mediæval art. The enamels which have attained such great fame, and which are so keenly appreciated by connoisseurs, are those made at Limoges in Southern France, and again to a lesser extent in Italy and the Rhenish Provinces. Two beautiful examples of twelfth-century pricket candlesticks, now in the British Museum, are of that early form which, except for ecclesiastical purposes, soon gave way to the socket candlestick, a more convenient form for domestic use. Processes of Enamelling. The basis of most of the enamels on copper is a fusible silicate, or colourless glass mixed with metallic oxides, reduced to a fine powder, which is applied according to the skill of the artist. The metal, with the enamel powder upon it, is then fired until it is melted and adheres to the metal. The different treatments help the expert to distinguish the period when a specimen under investigation was made, and to some extent the place of its manufacture. There is the translucent enamel, which shows up the design through the vitreous matter, a method originally adopted in Italy. Another process was that of applying different colours over an incised pattern, the figures or pictures being usually engraved in low relief. Coarser lines of engraving were used on the copper basis of the early enamels made at Limoges. Those of somewhat later date may be distinguished by the surface-painted enamels adopted in the later style, which flourished until about 1630. In this process dark enamel for the shadows was placed over the metal plate, the picture being painted in white with some portions in colour; a thin enamel surface was then given and the whole fired. The later surface-painted enamels were for the most part copies of well-known paintings or engravings, the colour or enamel being afterwards fixed by firing. In the process of enamelling known as champlevé the design was cut into the metal, the pattern or incisions made filled with colours, the enamels being then fused; the basis was nearly always of copper. The cloisonné enamel was generally on a brass basis, and as in the more recent examples from China and Japan, the cloisons or tiny cells of metal were filled with the right and appropriate colours; afterwards subjected to heat. In some cases the metal foundation is in the centre and cloisons or cells formed on either side of it. There is something about the _old_ enamels of this type besides the wear and tear of centuries which distinguishes them from the more modern, which, generally speaking, are more brilliant in colouring, cruder and sharper in design, and without that beautiful tone which is so pleasing in the antique. Chinese and Japanese Enamels. The rarer examples of Chinese art date back to the beginning of the Ming period in 1368, continuing until its close in 1643. The charm of these early examples is at once recognizable when they are compared with others of a later date. Fig. 87 represents a large Ming bowl florally decorated in rich red, yellow, and white on a background of cobalt blue outside and turquoise blue within. Quite a different style of decoration is shown in Fig. 88; the design of butterflies and gourd-vine tracery being carried out in Pekin enamels in five colours. This remarkably fine box, so charmingly formed, contains a set of nine sweetmeat dishes, each one bordered with bats of cobalt blue on a lighter blue ground, on the cover of the outer box being the Shu monogram. Another splendid piece, represented in Fig. 89, is typical of a different style of decoration. This fine bowl, also of the Ming period, is florally enamelled, the inside showing the pattern outlined by wire cloisons upon a white ground, the flowers being worked in five colours. This bowl, which is four inches high, is represented in the illustration as standing on a beautifully carved stand of about equal height. These choice pieces are illustrated by the courtesy of Messrs. Glendining & Co., Ltd., at whose well-known London auction rooms they recently changed hands. The second great period of Chinese art is that of the Ching Dynasty, which commenced in 1644 and extended until more recent times. While to some extent the art and the decorative effect of that period was inferior to that of to-day, when judged from the present-day standard of modern art, there was a rare beauty about the old designs. The enamels of the Ching Dynasty were carefully prepared and placed, and the colouring soft and yet rich. The preparation of coloured matter by experts of that period when the best ceramics of China were made, has always been a subject of admiration and wonder to the potters and enamellers of more recent years. Examples of these charming wares are not exceptionally rare, among the collectable pieces being cups and bowls, exquisitely designed kettles, tiers of boxes, water vessels, round and oblong dishes, and incense burners. Some of the bowls with covers are of quaint forms, a favourite one being that of a peach. Vases of which the base is enamel are often further enriched by ornaments of copper-gilt. Among the rarer little curios seen in a representative collection may be mentioned small water droppers, mostly made in the eighteenth century. [Illustration: FIG. 87.--BOWL OF THE MING PERIOD. FIG. 89.--MING BOWL. FIG. 88.--BOX OF PEKIN ENAMEL.] The Ch'ien Lung period which followed extended from 1736 to 1796, and included many candlesticks and altar pieces as well as braziers, some of the copper vessels being practically encrusted with enamels, some of the finer ornamentation being attached to the ground-work as additional or supplementary decorative effects. As in the earlier periods much labour was expended on the production of the many fine temple sets which were presented to such uses. The exceptionally fine altar set wrought in cloisonné enamels, illustrated in Fig. 90, is of the Ch'ien Lung period, and consists of a beautifully designed koro, supported on legs in the form of tigers' heads, two candlesticks 18 in. high, and a pair of vases. The style of decoration is very rich, being turquoise blue ground on which are floral designs in red, green, dark blue, yellow, and other bright colours. The pieces stand on brass-gilt foundations, which rest on carved wooden stands, the set forming an extremely interesting group, typical of the highest art of the Ch'ien Lung period. There are many richly ornamented and extremely valuable specimens of more recent date admired by connoisseurs of art in the galleries and curio-shops; but however beautiful they are the collector of the older curios appraises their values from a modern commercial standpoint, and does not view them as he would antiques. British Enamels. It was not until the art of enamelling had been perfected at Lillè and other places on the Continent of Europe, that an attempt was made to produce similar trinkets and a few more important pieces, such as candlesticks and inkstands, in this country. The works established at Battersea by Mr. S. T. Janssen about the middle of the eighteenth century soon gained notoriety, and it was not long before the enamels made there were eagerly sought after. In addition to those articles mentioned, they consisted chiefly of tea-canisters, snuff-boxes, spirit labels, and patchboxes, the copper being coated over with an opaque white enamel, which was coloured over and then decorated with floral and other designs. Rose tint afterwards became one of the favourite ground colours at Battersea. Among the rarer examples may be classed inkstands and writing-table appointments. The inkstands usually include an ink-container, a pen-box, and a sand or pounce pot, for Battersea enamel inkstands were made before blotting-paper was invented, and the wet ink, chiefly applied with a quill pen, was dusted over with pounce to prevent blotting, and when dry the surplus was dusted off. The collector finds much to interest in the little patchboxes of enamel, of which there were many varieties. They remained useful when the fashion of wearing patches declined, for then they came in handy for cosmetics, salves, and pomades. These curious little boxes were frequently given by admirers and friends, as may be imagined from the mottoes and sentimental inscriptions upon them. Among the commoner varieties seen in a collection are little oval boxes on which are pictured two love-birds, sometimes accompanied by a bird's nest. Others will have imitations of needlework pictures, such as the fair ones worked in those days. Sometimes a little church is seen in the distance, and in the foreground a boy and girl exchanging love-tokens. "This gift is small, but love is all," is a favourite motto. "Virtue fair, manners sweet, Together in my fair one meet," are two oft-quoted lines, and another favourite verse is: "If you, my dear, Accept of this, Reward the giver With a kiss." Some boxes, however, have evidently been the gifts of those who could only claim "friendship" or acquaintance with the recipient, for they bear such sentiments as "A token of my respect," "Accept this as a token of my esteem," and "Esteem the giver." Some appear to have been made for sale as place souvenirs, for they are inscribed "A trifle from Bath," or other town where they had been procured. Battersea portrait placques were made between 1750 and 1760, among the favourite subjects being the then Prince of Wales (afterwards George IV), the Duke of Cumberland, and statesmen, among whom Horace Walpole was evidently one of the most popular. English enamellers in other places, such as Bilston, attained some fame, but the Battersea works held their own, and not only produced the trinket boxes and other toilet-table appointments referred to, but many useful sundries, such as spirit and wine labels, little trays, and the like. None of these, although beautiful indeed, equalled the French enamels in the delicate miniature paintings and scenes such as those produced by the celebrated French painter, Petitot, who gave much attention to the decoration of exquisite toilet boxes and trinket trays. [Illustration: FIG. 90.--FINE ALTAR SET OF CLOISONNÉ ENAMELS (CH'IEN LUNG PERIOD).] XIX MISCELLANEOUS METAL CURIOS CHAPTER XIX MISCELLANEOUS METAL CURIOS Tobacco-boxes and pipe-stoppers--Snuff-boxes--Handles and Handle-plates--Horse trappings--War relics--Tiny curios--Replicas. The collectable curios in metal include many which cannot be classified. They are isolated specimens of copper and brasswork representing some special household utensil or workshop appliance which, in the course of time, has become obsolete or has been superseded by more modern contrivances of other materials. Copper was almost exclusively used in works where acids and other chemicals prevented the use of iron until enamelled wares, aluminium, and zinc were available; but such workshop appliances are not usually very attractive, and seldom come within the scope of the collector except as museum specimens. Among the various sundry objects of interest, those mentioned in the following paragraphs are worthy of notice, especially as many of them are quite inexpensive, and can readily be obtained from curio-shops and occasionally picked up cheaply from cottages and farmhouses in out-of-the-way places. Tobacco-boxes and Pipe-stoppers. Smokers' sundries include many objects in brass, especially boxes for storing tobacco. Most of the larger receptacles for the storage of tobacco were in olden time of lead or pewter, or, in more recent times, of japanned tin, followed in the present day by pottery and wood. The small boxes in the days before rubber pouches were known were nearly always of brass or other metal, such boxes being often elaborately ornamented. Dutch metal-workers produced some very decorative boxes in the seventeenth century. In some instances the sides are made of copper and the covers or lids of brass, the two metals in contrast presenting a very pleasing appearance. Several of these boxes are to be seen in the Guildhall Museum; on one there is the representation of a bear-pit, on another scriptural subjects, a third being more appropriately covered with tavern scenes. Needless to say, Dutch artists were then--as they have been in after years--famous for their scenic views. The engravers appear to have divided their favours between religious pictures and rural scenes. Battles, too, came in for a share of the engraver's skill, and such pictures are noticeable on many of the larger boxes, some of which possibly were not used as tobacco-boxes. The picture scenes were continued until the close of the eighteenth century, and in some instances a few years in the next. Then there came a time of undecorated metal-work, and the engraving, if any, was stiff and formal. Ornamental borders came into vogue, and the more elaborate boxes were engraved with the crests or monograms of their owners. Some show portraits, such as an eighteenth-century box on which is a portrait of Frederick the Great. The metal-work so freely imported into this country in the reign of William and Mary, and on into the times of George III, of course included many tobacco-boxes, but there are other pieces of those periods, the uses of which are uncertain; some of the long, narrow boxes were probably made for spectacle-cases, and others as cases or boxes for the money-changers' and traders' scales (see Chapter XI). Ash-trays of copper and brass, among the fanciful smokers' requisites of the present day, are by no means novel, for among the antiques in metal are found curious copper bowls with inverted feet and wooden handles which were used by smokers in the days when "churchwarden" pipes were mostly smoked; they were known as smokers' ashes pans. Tobacco-stoppers of metal are of early date, and seem to have been regarded by metal-workers as peculiarly suitable objects on which to display skill in modelling and even engraving. An authentic record of their use in Restoration days is met with in a will referring to a bequest of Boscobel relics: "The owner of an old oak box, dated 1660, mentioned it as the 'one in which was a brass tobacco-stopper.'" Of these curious and interesting stoppers there are many varieties. Under Dutch influence some striking characters were portrayed as the ornamental heads of these pieces. In the days of William and Mary they were chiefly cast, and afterwards tooled and even engraved. James II was chosen as the model of many; and stoppers with his bust as the handle were, it is said, treasured by Jacobean admirers. The human hand in which is seen a "churchwarden" pipe is a favourite type; pugilists, too, figured, and others typified familiar objects of local fame, even animals, birds, and domestic utensils serving the purpose of the designer. In recent days "Punch" has appeared, and among the modern replicas of "early types" (_sic_) to be seen in the shops are sets of Dickens's characters as tobacco-stoppers. Snuff-boxes. There are some of the so-called tobacco-boxes which no doubt were in reality used only for snuff in the days when snuff was taken in larger quantities than it is to-day. A collection of snuff-boxes includes many varieties, among which are some of metal. Some of the boxes made of wood and of shagreen are decorated with tiny brass studs, producing a very pleasing effect. The snuff-boxes were shaped according to popular fancy, and some of the more eccentric patterns were local in their use. In Scotland the curled-shaped mull was a favourite. In connection with snuff-taking it must be remembered that in the earlier days snuff as prepared now was little known. Those addicted to the habit had to prepare their own snuff. For that purpose there came into vogue snuff-rasps of iron enclosed in cases, which, although they were in some instances of boxwood or carved pearwood, were now and then of metal. Incidentally this early home preparation of the snuff produced from a small plug or twist of tobacco gave rise to the popular trader's sign of the "Crown and Rasp" over a tobacco shop. As intimated in another chapter, many of the tobacco and snuff-boxes served a dual purpose, and not infrequently formed part of the tinder box, an essential in early days. Handles and Handle-plates. The condition of the metal-work upon old furniture and other curios is a factor in its beauty and in its value too. The handles and handle-plates should be of the same period as the antique, and hinges, lock-plates, handles and their plates, ball feet and castors should be _en suite_. Indeed, it is better to substantiate a well-made reproduction rather than to admit the use of a later style. The want of harmony in the "brass furniture" of antiques, although all portions appear old, is somewhat puzzling at times. It is explainable in that in early Victorian days when much that was then old was repaired the village shopkeeper and even the cabinet-maker had little regard for the preservation of the old style. To restore meant to them to repair, and where necessary to introduce the _then_ prevailing materials notwithstanding their obvious inappropriateness. Fortunately, dealers in antiques and restorers have acquired nowadays a genuine love of their work, and have learned how best to please their clients; many of them having quite a store of odd handles and fittings for the curio-hunter and would-be amateur restorer to choose from. To be quite certain about getting a suitable style for the restoration or repairs of old furniture it is desirable to know something of the appropriate styles. The drop handle is a foreign importation, for it is said to have come from Japan, being first seen in this country in the Oriental lacquer cabinets brought here in the seventeenth century. Such handles were at first pear-shaped, but they soon became larger and of a type more adapted for drawers and the heavier furniture then in use. Much hand labour was expended upon their manufacture; even in the latter part of the eighteenth century they were filed up by hand. The earliest form of brass handle-plate was the smooth and shiny "willow brass," the edges of which were filed and shaped by hand. Later they were distinguished from the newer styles as "Queen Ann brasses." The handles were fastened to the plates with brass-headed screw bolts (in the commoner types the "plates" were dispensed with). Chippendale and his followers used an adaptation of the willow brass, placing over the plain plate a fretwork grille or ornamental plate of thin brass. Then came the bail handle and the oval plate with beaded ornamentation, adopted by Hepplewhite and Adams. In the meantime, however, the drop and the bail were made in a fancy design in keeping with Chippendale "shells" and ornament. The rosette and ring handle of the year 1800 and onwards is a feature to be noticed, the round plate being pierced in the centre instead of at the sides as in the bail handle. The ring which formed the handle hung from the central screw. This got over the difficulty of the necessary groove in which the old bail handle had fallen, and allowed for a deeper projection and more ornamental stamping. Such handles were in vogue in the Empire period. There were heavier handles, too, which often took the form of a lion's head instead of an ornamental pattern, the ring hanging from the mouth of the lion, these being often miniature replicas of the brass door knocker. These beautiful handles and the delightful brass knockers which were used on furniture and doors concurrently gave way to the ugly handles of the Victorian age, when wood and glass knobs reigned supreme. It was a sad picture of the decadence of popular taste, for there can be no question as to the more artistic and ornamental decorativeness of the brassfounder's art over that of the wood-turner as exemplified by the products of the nineteenth century. At the time when the different styles in furniture decoration influenced brasswork, including handles, knobs, lock-plates, and hinges, a gradual change was going on in the castors used on furniture. The square legs required a square-socketed castor; then came the cabrioles or brass collars to the castors, very ornamental and suitable to the style of the shaped legs of mahogany furniture ornamented by carving and curiously turned. The runners of the castors were chiefly of brass and generally very substantial. The brass wheels held sway until the invention of the vitrified bowl, which seemed to harmonize better with Victorian mahogany. In restoration work the collector should see to it that the castors used are in keeping with the furniture, for if no genuine antiques are available there are modern replicas of all the styles. Horse Trappings. Horse harness is heavily loaded with brass bands, buckles, chains, and "trappings," many of the latter appearing to be quite superfluous and unnecessary. It would seem that the fanciful frets of perforated brass were introduced from purely artistic motives. That, however, is not quite correct, for even the brass ornaments of to-day are chiefly replicas of more ancient trappings, and although their forms may have deviated somewhat, the ancient idea is quite recognizable, and agriculturists and stablemen still demand their retention. Such brasses, which now make up so entertaining a collection, have meanings; indeed, in the earlier examples the designs are true to well-understood symbols which may or may not in their use have a beneficial influence. To the superstitious they are not merely trappings; they are charms of real purpose (see Fig. 91). [Illustration: FIG. 91.--COLLECTION OF BRASS AMULETS (HARNESS BRASSES). (_In the possession of Mr. Chas. Wayte, of Edenbridge._)] In all parts of the country there is a lingering superstition which aids and abets the continuance of the use of amulets. Indeed, the very general belief in the protective value of symbols, the true history and origin of which may have been forgotten, is truly astonishing. One of the most remarkable indications that old fables and beliefs, antedating in their origin the introduction of the Christian religion in this country, have a hold still on rural districts, is seen in the brass harness trappings used by all classes alike. Years ago the makers of harness fashioned their brasses with care, and the artists who engraved them and cut them out of solid plates of metal laboured long and tediously in producing exact replicas of similar ornaments which had been used from time immemorial. They rarely deviated from the emblems they copied to any material extent, although new designs were at times added, based possibly on some specific local emblem which was then gaining notoriety. Then came the less expensive processes of reproduction by casting and stamping, which multiplied the designs and very often made them grotesque in the eyes of experts and those who had been accustomed to realize and understand a true meaning in the designs they had been familiar with. The ornamental brasses which hung in rows round horses' necks, and conspicuously on the foreheads or chests of the animals, deemed inseparable from a set of harness in olden times, were regarded as charms, protective against danger, accident, and, in wilder times, perils unknown to-day. These very pleasing objects in brass, which look so handsome when polished and arranged on a cloth-covered shield in the harness-room, or, perchance, framed as a trophy for the hall or gun-room, are so varied, and yet for the most part quite distinct, that it is said nearly two hundred designs are collectable. A complete set of brasses, as worn by one horse properly harnessed, includes the face brass already mentioned as the chief ornament on the forehead, ear-brasses hanging behind the ears, three brasses on each side of the shoulders, and ten martingale (a strap passing from the horse's girth between his forelegs) brasses for the breast. To trace their purport and hence their forms it may be pointed out that they are associated with the folk-lore of the districts where they were originally used, and were chiefly intended to keep off the "Evil Eye" or calamity. They go back a long way into the past, and are nearly all attributable to symbols understood by the Saxons, early British, and still older races. Their modern exponents are the gypsies, and strange as it may seem, most of them are either Buddhist, Egyptian, or Moorish. The genuine antiques include such well-known emblems as the crescent, the symbol brought back, it is said, by the Crusaders from Eastern lands. The crescent moon, like the horseshoe brass, is valued. There are others showing the radiated sun's rays indicating the sun worship of our ancestors. Conspicuous among the floral emblems may be noticed the iris; the lotus of Egypt is a common emblem, often enclosed in a crescent-like form, occasionally met with in a shield-like frame. There are the bull's head with horns and the horse of the Saxon banner, both essentially English types. Then there are clubs and diamonds, hearts and spades, and many heathen symbols. In a few instances brasses in the shape of crosses are met with, but these are rare; possibly they were introduced in the days of the Canterbury pilgrims. In this connection may be related a pretty story of the good luck associated with the horseshoe, which comes from Russia, where peasants used to paint a picture of the Virgin Mary with a golden halo round her head outside their doors to protect them from harm. The snows and the rains washed off the paint, but left the more lasting gilding in the shape of the horseshoe. Hence it is said the superstitious legend of the protective power or good luck of the symbolical horseshoe, or the crescent moon, is spread all the world over. Another legend tells us how the Greeks and Romans gave the world the crescent moon as an emblem of good luck, so many thousands of replicas of which have been fashioned in brass and used as horse trappings by horsemen of all races. The crescent moon was to those nations the symbol of their loyalty to the huntress Diana, the goddess they worshipped as a protector under many varied conditions. An exceptionally fine early brass of crescent form is seen in South Kensington, where there are other early specimens pointing to the ancient and very general acceptance of the belief in the potency of symbolical horse trappings as talismans against evil and dangers of the road, happily unknown now. Almost as common is the brass fashioned like the sun god, whose face was so often looked upon with awe by the ancients. Side by side with these pagan symbols the emblems adapted by pilgrims in days when Christianity had been made the religion of the race can be seen to-day, still adorning the breast of the horse. The amulet or charm is not altogether banished at the present day. It has been worn at the watch chain, round the neck, on a bangle, and suspended from the chatelaine or the girdle. The greater use of the road by motorist and cyclist has once more brought into prominence the amulet or mascot, carried in front of the rider. The river-girl places a mascot on the prow of her boat, and the aviator screws his mascot into position "for luck." Why this should be done we cannot tell; the general belief is in some mysterious advantage from the presence of the mascot--an accepted theory by the sceptical man who shakes his head and secretly marvels at the folly of the belief. Strange to say many of the present-day mascots in brass--and that is the favourite metal--are modelled upon amulets such as we have referred to as finding their origin in pagan faiths. There are others used by motorists, such as "Cæsar," the late King Edward's dog, the "Chantecler," and the stag's head, which have no mystic meanings; on the other hand, the most favoured are such brasses as the "star and cresent" and the "rising sun" of pagan worship of our ancestors, and "Mercury" the Greek god. The brass mascot used in every form, large and small, by motorists and worn by many others so extensively is the "Swastika" of Buddhist fame, traceable in its varied form to Egyptian and other early nations. These mascots in brass, made in thousands to-day, are brass curios in the making; possibly in a century or so they may be classed with the oldest brass amulets described in this chapter, and so add to the metal relics to be collected by future curio-hunters! Copper Sheathing and Nails. Copper sheathing has been used by boat-builders and made to serve a useful purpose, protecting the ship's bottom and resisting the action of salt water. Oftentimes this valuable material--costly when new--has been used over again when vessels have been broken up, and not infrequently it is put to curious uses in old seaport towns. Visitors to an old-world village built on the side of a hill near the sea in North Cornwall, have looked with admiration upon two remarkable gateposts in front of a cottage house, and admired their quaint carvings. These relics in oak were once the ends of seats in a neighbouring parish church; but either to preserve them from injury from the village children or to give them a longer life as they would be exposed to the weather, the upper portions have been sheathed with copper from the bottom of some broken-up wreck, and large copper nails keep the casing in place. Copper and brass nails have been used for ornament as well as to resist acids and other metal-destroying chemicals. Old furniture is evidence of this; for at one time the leather covers to the chairs were almost invariably fixed by round-headed brass studs, which from that use became known in the trade as "chair nails." Such nails were used to ornament brass bellows and other domestic utensils. They were also used to "decorate" the skin-covered trunks which our ancestors took with them on their rare journeys of pleasure or business, when they travelled by the mail-coach or less expensive stage wagon. Nails of brass have been used and are still sometimes used for sadder purposes, for they are a feature in the ornament of cloth-covered coffins. That of King Edward VI was decorated (_sic_) with upwards of two thousand brass nails with gilt heads. War Relics. What wonderful antiquities are sometimes found among scraps! Years of neglect cause indifference to the contents of a scrapheap, and we read occasionally of the dispersal of relics among which, unknown to either sellers or buyers, there may be antiquities of more than passing interest if their original ownership could only be traced, for in the personal relics of great warriors in our national museums there clings a halo of hero-worship, and what to many would be considered fictitious values are attached to such curios. A few years ago the relics from the battlefield of Waterloo, which had for some time past been accumulated in a modest looking building at the foot of the Lion Mound, were dispersed. There were upwards of three thousand pieces, including helmets of brass, plates of shining metal, innumerable buttons and ornaments belonging to different French regiments, including officers' regimentals, and some relics of the British and Prussian armies. In old curio-shops many metal relics of battlefields are offered for sale, but they have little or no interest to the buyer, simply because their identity with their original owners has been lost. It is of the greatest importance to future generations of collectors that all records relating to known curios should be chronicled, and that even private collectors should hand on to their successors adequate descriptions which may have been verbally given them, so that private as well as national relics may be identified and the monetary value in such curios increased. Even a brass plate on an old gun, bearing the name of a great man, makes it a relic worth securing, whereas had the identity of ownership been missing the weapon would be of little or no value. A visit to the United Service Museum at Westminster is full of interest. There is an abundance of personal relics there--not many of brass, it is true--many of which are of special interest. Perhaps the one of greatest historical fame is the much battered copper bugle on which it is said the signal was given for the fatal charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava, resulting so disastrously to that famous regiment. There are some curious trophies of brass, too, which have been brought home by our troops; one known as "Jingling Johnny" is of special interest. Tiny Curios. At one time there was quite a rage for miniatures in metal-work. Artists in copper and brass vied with one another in working microscopically. They were very fond of making use of some recognized piece of metal, the size, weight, and substance of which was well understood by the public; hence the difficulties of manipulating the works of art they produced would be realized. Thus, out of a copper farthing, a worker in metal would with very tiny hammers and a still smaller soldering-iron and miniature blow-pipe, fashion a complete copper teakettle with a tiny spout out of which liquid could be poured, a loose lid, a correctly formed knob, and a beautifully shaped handle. Another would make a similar kettle out of a similar piece of metal, and leave some portion of the farthing, perhaps the date, uninjured as the central ornament on the side of the kettle, or on the top of the handle; others would add a stand, like the then fashionable toddy-kettles and stands. In a similar way other little domestic utensils were made by the worker in copper, who used watchmakers' hammers and tools such as jewellers employed in the setting of precious stones. A collector at one time had in his possession a beautifully shaped coffee boiler of the type used on the open fire when coffee was boiled and afterwards allowed to stand on the hob for some time before it was deemed sufficiently brewed. Another charming miniature novelty was a brass stool, perforated, and made to revolve just as the larger toasting stool once common in every fireplace. Fenders and fire-brasses were favourite objects for miniature metal ornaments, and the way in which the skilled worker manipulated the copper "sheets" hammered out by hand from small coins showed mastery of the craft and great patience. Such little objects were frequently displayed on the "parlour" table under a glass shade, the woodworker being sometimes requisitioned to make a stand, possibly a canopied top, on which to show off to the best advantage these tiny ornaments. In the same way the engraver of brass and copper worked under a strong lens, and sought to produce whole texts of Scripture and quite long inscriptions on an almost impossibly small surface. These little pieces of metal were worn as charms, and similar objects were displayed as trophies. Many of our readers have seen no doubt the whole of the Lord's Prayer or the Ten Commandments engraved on a threepenny-piece or a copper farthing. It is said such microscopic engraving took its rise in the reign of Charles II when Thomas Simon, a noted engraver of the Mint, engraved in double lines on his famous "Petition Crown" a petition to the king. Specimens of the crown are very rare, and are regarded as the scarcest treasures in a numismatic cabinet. Replicas. In conclusion, it may be pointed out that there is no branch of curio collecting which has such a close and intimate touch with modern art as that of copper and brass. The tools with which the ancient coppersmiths wrought and fashioned their most beautiful works are still used by the coppersmiths of to-day, for although in the eyes of some the traces of machine-stamped or pressed ornament in the so-called reproductions of the antiques are noticeable blemishes, there are few distinguishing marks between the old and the new. Those modern artists who specialize in providing those who furnish their houses in antique style with replicas of the domestic copper-work of a century or two ago, are very careful to produce their "modern antique" by the use of tools which produce precisely similar effects to the hammered-by-hand copper-work of days gone by. In the production of such work the repoussé enrichments are wrought by hand, the anvil still holding sway in the modern coppersmith's shop. Rarely is soldering used, the parts being riveted together. In many cases although jardinieres and other vessels have the appearance of being cast in a mould they are really hollowed up under the rim by hammer and block, and are without seam or joining. They are fashioned exactly the same way as the beaten work of old. Collectors may be warned against these modern reproductions in that they should be careful to pay a modern price for a modern antique. The styles reproduced are chiefly those of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, particularly those of the Elizabethan and Cromwellian periods. Thus electroliers are made to match antique furniture, the difference being that instead of holding electric bulbs the antique would have been fashioned for candles or oil lamps. Many of the modern reproductions of copper panels used for letting into mantelpieces are designs, carefully copied, taken from old baronial halls. The very grates of ormolu and brass and the canopies of hammered copper and brass are being made to-day by the same firms who manufactured the metal-work designed by the Adam Brothers, and who in the eighteenth century had already become famous as makers of coal stoves and hob-grates. Then, again, in the utilitarian reproductions of to-day there are the copper and brass fender kerbs, reproducing the eighteenth-century fenders without their bottom plates, and for use with them the modern manufacturer makes fire-dogs and fire-brasses of antique styles. Even the builder's brasswork for ornamenting the interiors of houses, such as finger-plates and door handles, are exact copies of the old door-plates and lock-plates found on doors and cupboards in existing houses built in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and in their designs and processes of manufacture it is difficult to distinguish the genuine antique from the modern replica. Again, the buyer of such things is warned against the unscrupulous dealer who fills his windows with brass and copper-work, almost hot from the Birmingham foundry, and labels it "Antique." Not long ago some of the shop windows were filled with chestnut roasters in brass, with beautifully designed trivets, with door knockers innumerable, and with even pipe-stoppers and tobacco-boxes, all quite recently made in the Black Country. Yet all these objects, sold as modern by the honest dealer, have been and are still not infrequently palmed off as antique, for they have the finish which age in former years was wont to impart, and in design and style they are correct reproductions of the genuine antique. The collection of metal has a peculiar charm, for the objects are so numerous and the different alloys produce such a pleasing variety of colour and appearance. The value of such curios is now more fully recognized than formerly, for greater prominence is being given to them in museums, where in those which have been re-arranged recently such objects may be seen with labels on which their uses are fully described and explained. XX WRINKLES FOR COLLECTORS CHAPTER XX WRINKLES FOR COLLECTORS Cleaning copper and brass--Lacquering metal--Polishing brass--Restoring antique finishes--Using the burnisher--Brass rubbings. The collector has frequently to decide whether he will entrust the repair of some much battered curio to a local workman or undertake the rôle of an amateur worker and repairer of copper or brass. There are many who prefer the latter course; unless the antique needs expert skill, and then, if a valuable specimen, it should be sent to one whose professional knowledge will enable him to carry out its restoration without injury. There are, however, many minor matters which, with a few simple tools, and recipes which can be prepared quite easily, the collector can very satisfactorily accomplish. Before attempting to clean or repair old copper and brass curios or those objects which are made all or in part of either of them or of any of their alloys, it is well to know something of the constituents of the metals usually met with. First on the list comes ancient bronzes composed mainly of copper and tin on no accepted formula, but generally in the proportion of about three to one. Modern statuary bronze is made in several proportions; one compound is given by an authority as copper, 83 parts; tin, 5 parts; zinc, 10 parts; and lead, 2 parts; and by another as copper, 91 parts; tin, 9 parts. Bronze ornaments are mostly copper, 80 parts; tin, 3 parts; zinc, 15 parts; and lead, 2 parts. Gongs are of copper, 80 parts; and tin, 20 parts--some Oriental alloys have a little silver added. The ormolu of the brassfounder, used extensively by French metal-workers, has more copper and less zinc than brass. Red brass consists of copper, 25 parts; zinc, 5 parts; and bismuth, 1 part. Yellow brass is made of copper, 35 parts; and zinc, 15 parts. Pinchbeck metal, of which watchcases and jewellery have been made, consists of copper, 10 parts; and of zinc, 2 parts. Antimony imparts a rich red to copper. * * * * * In the following paragraphs some very useful "wrinkles" are given: Cleaning Copper and Brass. It is scarcely necessary to warn the collector against over cleaning, for to rub light bronzes which age has toned or encrusted with a beautiful patina would be vandalism indeed. Yet there are many objects which require attention when they arrive from the auction mart or curio-shop. Ancient bronzes should be washed in soap and water with soft brush or flannel--not scrubbed--and then dried in hot sawdust. If any polishing is necessary, a chamois leather or an old silk handkerchief will be sufficient. The green patina or verdigris of antique metals should _not_ be removed nor its colouring spoiled with cleaning. Copper vessels, however, do very frequently require cleaning. When they have turned a bluish green--not the much admired patina--they may be cleaned by making a paste of well powdered chalk and methylated spirit. This preparation should be rubbed on and then left until the spirit has evaporated and the chalk is quite dry, at which stage it can be removed and the copper polished with crocus powder or fine chalk. Owing to long neglect there are some metal curios which cannot be thoroughly cleansed without a powerful solvent. A weak solution of oxalic acid may be safely applied with a piece of woollen material; it will remove the tarnish, and then, after well washing, the metal can be polished with fine chalk or whiting. When the brass is spotted with damp but not too deeply marked, chalk and spirits of turpentine will generally effect the purpose just as well. Another recipe formerly much favoured by housewives in the days when copper vessels were much in evidence, is to rub them over with half a lemon dipped in salt; then after washing polish with a soft cloth. This is a useful recipe in that it does not injure an antique appearance or patina, but it will remove stains. A somewhat more powerful preparation for metal-work is a cleaning paste made as follows: oxalic acid, 1 oz.; rotten stone, 6 oz; gum arabic, 1/2 oz.; sweet oil, 1 oz.; and then add as much water as necessary. The following recipe is given for the benefit of advanced collectors who wish to avail themselves of modern methods. Such will no doubt delight in experimenting on the cleansing of newly acquired curios with a cleaning preparation operated by an electric current. Caustic soda, 1/2 lb.; sal soda, 1/2 lb.; resin, 1/4 oz.; and water, 1 gallon; 4 to 8 volts and a current density of 12 amps. The greater the density of the current the quicker the cleaning is performed. A temperature of 120 Fahr. is recommended. Lacquering Metal. When it is desired to lacquer or coat over metal to prevent any future oxidation (not commonly desired by collectors of antiques) the copper or brass article should be pickled for several hours in aqua fortis diluted with water. The acid will rot away a certain portion of the tarnished surface and leave the metal bright. The article should then be put into bran and well shaken until quite dry. It is then ready to be cleaned, and, if desired, polished bright. Old brasswork may be relacquered by the amateur with a little experience, practice, and care. First of all it must be cleaned. The liquid which is best suited to the purpose may be made of a strong lye of wood ashes boiled and strengthened with soap lees. This will fetch the old lacquer off. The article should then be dipped in aqua fortis and water to take off the dirt, and immediately removed and cleansed with clean water, and then when dried it is ready to be lacquered. There are two processes in simple lacquering, which may be defined as cold and hot. The cold lacquer is the application of a preparation of brass lacquer, which can be purchased from any oil-shop, chemist, or metal dealer, put on with a camelhair-brush like varnish, and immediately placed in an oven or a hot stove, and exposed to the heat for a few minutes until the lacquer is quite firm and set. A gas-oven such as those in common use in so many kitchens nowadays answers the purpose very well. The second method is the application of lacquer after the article has been heated. The heating may be done in a gas-oven, or by the application of a flat-iron such as is used by laundresses. Then lacquer should be applied hot, and if the object lacquered has cooled in the process heat should again be applied as in the first process. It should be clearly understood that cleaning and relacquering old brass and copper-work should be done with very great care and with a full appreciation of the curio value of old finish, and of the marks and evidences of age which are so dear to the collector. The pickling of brasswork in acid and subsequent lacquering should only be resorted to when it is absolutely necessary to effect such restoration, and to make the objects sufficiently presentable so that they may be included in a cabinet or exhibited in the collection of metal curios; for the possession of old copper and brass is nothing without the opportunity of showing it. There are some specialists who devote their attention to the restoration and bronzing of mediæval and early ecclesiastical work. It may on occasion be necessary to consult such a firm before attempting anything which would savour of vandalism and rob the present-day possessor and curio-hunter of the future of what might eventually become a rare antiquity. Polishing Brass. It may at times be necessary to polish parts of curios which have been subjected to rough wear and are, therefore, badly scratched. A very fine file will remove scratches; fine emery will then make the surface quite smooth, after which it can be polished with rotten stone and oil, some adding a little turpentine. Restoring Antique Finishes. There are many beautiful antiques which have been subjected to rough usage or through some accident have had the oxidation rubbed off in parts. To clean such an antique so as to secure uniformity of appearance would be a mistake. It is better to "restore" the finish and imitate that which age has imparted. The solution required is 60 gr. nitrate of silver and 2-1/2 oz. water, mixed with a solution of 60 gr. nitrate of copper and 2-1/2 oz. water. After the solution has been applied to the parts the object should be heated in a gas-oven until it is sufficiently dark coloured. Some time ago an expert in Indian antiques, bronzes, and metal-work published in _The Times of India_ an account of how Oriental bronze and brass which had been soiled and scratched by time and climatic conditions might be restored. The writer went on to describe how the great secret of restoring the dull half-green and half-brown shades had been revealed to him. The remedy he propounded was simple in the extreme. It was that the statue should be washed in beer, which should not be rubbed off but allowed to dry on. Using the Burnisher. The amateur restorer may frequently with advantage acquire a knowledge of the burnisher, and thereby add much to the beauty of the metal. Those who have watched an old coppersmith planishing copper-work, and have noticed the very primitive materials used, will have learnt to realize the value of "elbow grease." Crocus powder with oil and soft rags works wonders, and will often bring up the original finish just as the coppersmith converts the rough dull polish of the metal sheets he has fashioned into domestic copper ware and shining pots and pans. Brass Rubbings. Rubbings of church and memorial brasses referred to in Chapter VII may be taken with heel-ball, which is a compound of beeswax, and plain white paper. When the brass has been evenly rubbed all over the picture is complete and ready for mounting. It should then be cut out and pasted on a prepared surface of fine canvas or calico, thus giving the rubbing an appearance like tapestry. It can be touched up in colours, if there is any heraldic enamelled work on the original. It can then be sized and stretched on a frame ready for hanging on a wall. INDEX INDEX African curios, 309-311 Alms-dishes, 140-143 Altar brasses, 142-143 Amulets, 33, 373-375 Ancient art, 70-72 Ancient bronze, 38-41 Aquamaniles, 101, 326 Arab influence, 267 Architectural metal-work, 121-124 Arms and armour, 106-109 Art influence, 128 Ashanti curios, 309 Ash-trays, 365 Astrolabes, 25 Badges of metal, 102 Ball and cross of St. Paul's, 143-144 Barometer of bronze, 341 Barrows, ancient, 25 Bath, 56 Battersea enamels, 31, 357 Bell founding, 43 Bell-metal, 43, 217-219 Bells, 217-226, 282, 309 Benares brasswork, 280 Benin bronzes, 307-309 Betel-nut boxes, 26, 278, 282 Betel-nut cutters, 279 Bidri ware, 26, 277 Bilston enamels, 31 Boadicea, Queen, 91 Boiling-pots, 98-101 Bowls, 84 Brass (of commerce), 42-43 Brass instruments, 340-345 Brass making, 45-46 Brass rubbings, 393 Brasses, 26 Brazier, 26 Braziers' Company, 117 British Museum exhibits, 59, 65, 168, 309, 326, 350, 356, 357 Bronze, 27 Bronze Age, 38, 66 Bronze alloys, 27 Bronze celts, 25 Bronze implements, 69 Bronze knives, 25 Bronze reaping-hooks, 72 Bronze saucepans, 283 Bronzes and their replicas, 249-258 Bronzes, Greek, 79-81 Bucklers, bronze, 28, 69 Buckles, 105 Bullock bells, 279 Burnishing metal, 293 Caldrons, 83, 160, 164 Candle clock, 208 Candles, 199-204 Candlesticks, 139, 140, 195-211, 301, 350 Card counters, 29 Central Africa, curios from, 310, 311 Champlevé enamel, 30 Chaufferette, 28, 128 Chatties, 28 Chimney ornaments, 184-188 Chinese bronzes, 41, 42, 283-288 Chinese enamels, 352-355 Chinese influence on art, 131 Church brasswork, 137-151 _Circe-perdu_ process, 28, 277 Cirencester curios, 54 Cisterns and taps, 322 City guilds, 116-121 Civic emblems, 231-235 Classic bronzes, 254 Classified arrangement, 188-191 Cleaning copper and brass, 388-390 Clockmakers' Company's collection, 336 Clocks, 329, 334-339 Cloisonné enamels, 30 Coffee-pots, 264, 268 Continental copper and brass, 317-326 Cooking-pots, 160 Copper as alloy, 44-47 Copper mining, 44, 45 Copper pans, 167 Copper sheathing, 377 Coppersmith, the, 37 Counters of brass, 29 _Couvre de feu_, 29, 102 Cromwell clocks, 336 Crusaders' effigies, 26 Crusaders' relics, 311 Cups, 271 Curfew, 29 Daggers, bronze, 69 Damascened metals, 29, 277 Dialling, 30 Domestic brasswork, 96-102 Domestic utensils, 155-191 Door knockers, 124-127 Drinking cups, 175 Dutch brasswork, 321 Dutch influence, 264 Egyptian bronzes, 267 Ember tongs, 30 Enamels, 30, 42 Enamels on copper, 349-358 Engraving on copper, 61 Exeter Museum exhibits, 183, 239 Ewers, 277 Fibulæ, 31, 71 Fire-making apparatus, 87, 196-199 Flagons, 175 Flagstaff head, 235 Foot-warmers, 183, 322 Forgeries, 74 Founders, 217-219 Founders, Worshipful Company of, 46, 97, 118, 236 French art, 321 Gemellions, 101 German metal-work, 325, 326 Gipcieres, 31, 106 Greek bronzes, 41, 42, 249 Greek curios, 79-92 Guildhall Museum exhibits, 83, 96, 103, 168, 183, 241, 364 Guild of Loriners, 107 Hand basins, 326 Handles and handle-plates, 367 Hand-warmers, 28, 128 Historic bells, 219, 220 Hob-grates, 178 Hooker bases, 31, 271 Horns, 232 Horse trappings, 370-371 Houseplace, the contents of, 175-184 Hull Museum exhibits, 342 Idols, 80, 293-298 Indian bronzes, 272 Indian Museum exhibits, 274-280, 294 Indian vessels, 28 Inkstands, 357 Italian bronzes, 319 Japanese bronzes, 41, 42 Japanese enamels, 352-356 Japanese metals, 28 Kaffir bangles and girdles, 311 Kashmir curios, 278 Kettles, 83-87, 380 Kitchen utensils, 159-175 Knockers, 368 Lacquering metal, 390-392 Lagos brasses, 309 Lamaistic temple relics, 281, 297 Lamps, 88, 92, 195-211, 278, 279, 282 Lanterns, 207-211 Later metal-work, 115-132 Latten, 31 Limoges enamels, 30, 321, 350 Local museums, 59 Lock plates, 131 Log boxes, 180 London Museum exhibits, 59, 70, 71, 91, 180, 207 London relics, 69, 70 Lucknow curios, 26, 277 Mace, 235 Mansfield mines, 44 Maundy alms-dish, 116 Mediæval antiquities, 95-109 Memorial brasses, 144-151 Metal and its alloys, 37-49 Microscopes, 342 Microscopic engravings, 381 Milk cans, 322 Miniature bronzes and models, 257, 258, 345 Miscellaneous metal curios, 363, 384 Mirrors, 32, 73, 87, 267 Monumental brasses, 26 Moradabad brasswork, 280 Mortars, 32, 226, 268 Muff-warmers, 183 National Museum, Washington, 203 Native metal-work, 305-311 Nepal metal-work, 274, 278 Nomenclature of metals, 27 Norman remains, 57 Nuremberg clocks, 339 Nutmeg graters, 163 Oil lamps, 207-211 Opaque enamels, 31 Oriental bronzes, 265-288 Patchboxes, 350 Patera, 73 Patina, 32 Patine, 32 Persian metal-work, 271 Pilgrims' signs, 32, 103 Pins, 105 Pipe-stoppers, 30, 364 Pipkins, 180 Pocket clocks, 334 Polishing brass, 392 Porridge-pots, 163 Portrait placques, 358 Pots and pans, 168 Prehistoric bronzes, 65-75 Pricket candlesticks, 203 Processes of enamelling, 350-351 Replicas, 381-383 Restoring antiques, 392 Ritual vases, 301 Roasting-jacks, 160, 167 Roman bronzes, 41, 249 Roman curios, 79-92 Romano-British art, 90-91 Rushlight holders, 200 Saracenic influence, 264 Saucepans, 83, 172 Saxon remains, 57 Scales, 241 Sinhalese metal-work, 282 Skillets, 170 Snuff-boxes, 350, 366 Snuffers, 204 Snuff-rasps, 366 Sources of metals, 43, 44 South African curios, 311 Spanish metal-work, 319 Spectacle cases, 365 Spice-boxes, 278 Spirit labels, 356 Spits, 160 Spurs, 107 Stafford House exhibits, 59 Standard measures, 236, 239 Standard weights, 240 Statues, 89 Statuettes, 187 Sundials, 30, 329-334 Tankards, 175 Temple vases, 298-301 Thibet tea-urns, 281 Tinder-boxes, 196 Tobacco-boxes, 364 Toilet requisites, 86 Tower of London exhibits, 107 Trinkets, 104-106 Trivets, 179 Trumpets, 69, 321 Turkish metal-work, 226 United Service Museum exhibits, 220, 379 United States National Museum, 210 Verulamium curios, 54 Victoria & Albert Museum exhibits, 59, 84, 101, 126, 131, 139, 180, 183, 220, 250, 268, 298, 318, 321, 342, 375 Wallace collection exhibits, 109 Warming-pans, 180, 183 Watches, 339 Watchmen's lanterns, 208, 211 Water jars, 227 Weather-vanes, 33, 123 Weighing instruments, 236-239 Weights and measures, 242-245 Welsh National Museum exhibits, 59 Winchester bushel, 236 Winchester moot horn, 232 Winchester Museum exhibits, 236 Wrinkles for collectors, 387-393 Writing boxes, 264 UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, LONDON AND WOKING Transcriber's Notes Minor punctuation errors have been corrected. There are a few inconsistent hyphens, and these have been left as printed. In the list of the books in series "CHATS ON OLD MINIATURES. By J. J. Foster, F.S A" has been changed to "F.S.A." p83. "like one round" changed to "found." The illustration and it's companion blank page (p243 and 244) appear between p241 and 242 in the Internet Archive scan from which this text has been derived. It has been moved to the correct place. p287. A single occurrence of cloissoné has been changed to cloissonné, the spelling found in the rest of the text. p397. (Index) "Boadicea, Queen, 99-91" changed to "Boadicea, Queen, 91." 
26151	----	THE TAPESTRY BOOK BY HELEN CHURCHILL CANDEE AUTHOR OF "DECORATIVE STYLES AND PERIODS" _WITH FOUR PLATES IN COLOUR AND NINETY-NINE ILLUSTRATIONS IN BLACK-AND-WHITE_ NEW YORK FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY MCMXII [Illustration: HERSE AND MERCURY Renaissance Brussels Tapestry, Italian Cartoon. W. de Pannemaker, weaver. Collection of George Blumenthal, Esq., New York] _Copyright, 1912, by_ FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY _All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages, including the Scandinavian_ _October, 1912_ TO TWO CERTAIN BYZANTINE MADONNAS AND THEIR OWNERS AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT Modesty so dominates the staff in art museums that I am requested not to make mention of those officers who have helped me with friendly courtesy and efficiency. To the officers and assistants at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the Print Department in the Library of Congress in Washington, indebtedness is here publicly acknowledged with the regret that I may not speak of individuals. Photographs of tapestries are credited to Messrs. A. Giraudon, Paris; J. Laurent, Madrid; Alinari, Florence; Wm. Baumgarten, and Albert Herter, New York, and to those private collectors whose names are mentioned on the plates. H. C. C. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I A FOREWORD 1 II ANTIQUITY 15 III MODERN AWAKENING 25 IV FRANCE AND FLANDERS, 15TH CENTURY 32 V HIGH GOTHIC 51 VI RENAISSANCE INFLUENCE 64 VII RENAISSANCE TO RUBENS 72 VIII ITALY, 15TH THROUGH 17TH CENTURIES 81 IX FRANCE 90 X THE GOBELINS FACTORY 105 XI THE GOBELINS FACTORY (_Continued_) 117 XII THE GOBELINS FACTORY (_Continued_) 126 XIII THE GOBELINS FACTORY (_Continued_) 135 XIV BEAUVAIS 145 XV AUBUSSON 154 XVI SAVONNERIE 159 XVII MORTLAKE 163 XVIII IDENTIFICATIONS 172 XIX IDENTIFICATIONS (_Continued_) 186 XX BORDERS 201 XXI TAPESTRY MARKS 216 XXII HOW IT IS MADE 226 XXIII THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY 241 XXIV TO-DAY 249 BEST PERIODS AND THEIR DATES 265 INDEX 267 ILLUSTRATIONS HERSE AND MERCURY (_Coloured Plate_) _Frontispiece_ Renaissance Brussels Tapestry, Italian Cartoon. W. de Pannemaker, weaver. Collection of George Blumenthal, Esq., New York FACING PAGE CHINESE TAPESTRY 14 Chien Lung Period COPTIC TAPESTRY 15 About 300 A. D. COPTIC TAPESTRY 16 Boston Museum of Fine Arts COPTIC TAPESTRY 17 Boston Museum of Fine Arts TAPESTRY FOUND IN GRAVES IN PERU 18 Date prior to Sixteenth Century THE SACRAMENTS (_Coloured Plate_) 34 Arras Tapestry, about 1430. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York THE SACRAMENTS 38 Arras Tapestry, about 1430 THE SACRAMENTS 39 Arras Tapestry, about 1430 FIFTEENTH CENTURY, FRENCH TAPESTRY 40 Boston Museum of Fine Arts THE LIFE OF CHRIST 41 Flemish Tapestry, second half of Fifteenth Century. Boston Museum of Fine Arts LA BAILLÉE DES ROSES 42 French Tapestry, about 1450. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York FIFTEENTH CENTURY MILLEFLEUR WITH ARMS 43 Cathedral of Troyes THE LADY AND THE UNICORN 44 French Tapestry, Fifteenth Century. Musée de Cluny, Paris THE LADY AND THE UNICORN 45 French Tapestry, Fifteenth Century. Musée de Cluny, Paris THE SACK OF JERUSALEM (DETAIL) 46 Burgundian Tapestry, about 1450. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York SCENES FROM THE LIFE OF CHRIST, WITH ARMORIAL SHIELDS 48 Flemish Tapestry, Fifteenth Century. Institute of Art, Chicago HISTORY OF THE VIRGIN 49 Angers Cathedral DAVID AND BATHSHEBA 50 German Tapestry, about 1450 FLEMISH TAPESTRY. ABOUT 1500 51 Collection of Alfred W. Hoyt, Esq. DAVID AND BATHSHEBA 52 Flemish Tapestry, late Fifteenth Century HISTORY OF ST. STEPHEN 53 Arras Tapestry, Fifteenth Century VERDURE 54 French Gothic Tapestry "ECCE HOMO" 55 Brussels Tapestry, about 1520. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York ALLEGORICAL SUBJECT 56 Flemish Tapestry, about 1500. Collection of Alfred W. Hoyt, Esq. CROSSING THE RED SEA 57 Brussels Tapestry, about 1500. Boston Museum of Fine Arts THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN 58 Flemish Tapestry, about 1510. Collection of J. Pierpont Morgan, Esq., New York FLEMISH TAPESTRY, END OF FIFTEENTH CENTURY 60 Collection of Martin A. Ryerson, Esq., Chicago. Formerly in the Spitzer Collection THE HOLY FAMILY 61 Flemish Tapestry, end of Fifteenth Century. Collection of Martin A. Ryerson, Esq., Chicago. Formerly in the Spitzer Collection CONQUEST OF TUNIS BY CHARLES V (DETAIL) 62 Cartoon by Jan Vermeyen. Woven by Pannemaker. Royal Collection at Madrid DEATH OF ANANIAS.--FROM ACTS OF THE APOSTLES BY RAPHAEL 64 From the Palace of Madrid THE STORY OF REBECCA 65 Brussels Tapestry, Sixteenth Century. Collection of Arthur Astor Carey, Esq., Boston THE CREATION 66 Flemish Tapestry. Italian Cartoon, Sixteenth Century THE ORIGINAL SIN 67 Flemish Tapestry. Italian Cartoon, Sixteenth Century MELEAGER AND ATALANTA 68 Flemish design, second half of Seventeenth Century. Woven in Paris workshops by Charles de Comans PUNIC WAR SERIES 69 Brussels Tapestry. Sixteenth Century. Collection of Arthur Astor Carey, Esq., Boston EPISODE IN THE LIFE OF CÆSAR 70 Flemish Tapestry. Sixteenth Century. Gallery of the Arazzi, Florence WILD BOAR HUNT 71 Flemish Cartoon and Weaving, Sixteenth Century. Gallery of the Arazzi, Florence VERTUMNUS AND POMONA 72 First half of Sixteenth Century. Royal Collection of Madrid VERTUMNUS AND POMONA 73 First half of Sixteenth Century. Royal Collection of Madrid VERTUMNUS AND POMONA 74 First half of Sixteenth Century. Royal Collection of Madrid VERTUMNUS AND POMONA 75 First half of Sixteenth Century. Royal Collection of Madrid TAPESTRIES FOR HEAD AND SIDE OF BED 76 Renaissance designs. Royal Collection of Madrid THE STORY OF REBECCA 77 Brussels Tapestry. Sixteenth Century. Collection of Arthur Astor Carey, Esq., Boston BRUSSELS TAPESTRY. LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 78 Weaver, Jacques Geubels. Institute of Art, Chicago MEETING OF ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA 79 Brussels Tapestry. Woven by Gerard van den Strecken. Cartoon attributed to Rubens THE ANNUNCIATION (_Coloured Plate_) 82 Italian Tapestry. Fifteenth Century. Collection of Martin A. Ryerson, Esq., Chicago ITALIAN TAPESTRY, MIDDLE OF SIXTEENTH CENTURY 84 Cartoon by Bacchiacca. Woven by Nicholas Karcher ITALIAN TAPESTRY. MIDDLE OF SIXTEENTH CENTURY 85 Cartoon by Bacchiacca. Woven by G. Rost ITALIAN VERDURE. SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 86 THE FINDING OF MOSES 90 Gobelins, Seventeenth Century. Cartoon after Poussin. The Louvre Museum TRIUMPH OF JUNO 91 Gobelins under Louis XIV TRIUMPH OF THE GODS (DETAIL) 94 Gobelins, Seventeenth Century TRIUMPH OF THE GODS (DETAIL) 95 Gobelins Tapestry GOBELINS BORDER (DETAIL) SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 98 CHILDREN GARDENING 99 After Charles Lebrun. Gobelins, Seventeenth Century. Château Henri Quatre, Pau CHILDREN GARDENING 102 After Charles Lebrun. Gobelins, Seventeenth Century. Château Henri Quatre, Pau GOBELINS GROTESQUE 103 Musée des Arts Decoratifs, Paris GOBELINS TAPESTRY, AFTER LEBRUN, EPOCH LOUIS XIV 104 Collection of Wm. Baumgarten, Esq., New York THE VILLAGE FÊTE 105 Gobelins Tapestry after Teniers DESIGN BY RUBENS 110 DESIGN BY RUBENS 111 DESIGN BY RUBENS 112 GOBELINS TAPESTRY. DESIGN BY RUBENS 113 Royal Collection, Madrid LOUIS XIV VISITING THE GOBELINS FACTORY 114 Gobelins Tapestry, Epoch Louis XIV GOBELINS TAPESTRY. TIME OF LOUIS XV 126 HUNTS OF LOUIS XV 130 Gobelins, G. Audran after Cartoon by Oudry ESTHER AND AHASUERUS SERIES 131 Gobelins, about 1730. Cartoon by J. F. de Troy; G. Audran, weaver CUPID AND PSYCHE 132 Gobelins Tapestry. Eighteenth Century. Design by Coypel PORTRAIT OF CATHERINE OF RUSSIA 133 Gobelins under Louis XVI. CHAIR OF TAPESTRY. STYLE OF LOUIS XV 136 GOBELINS TAPESTRY (DETAIL) CRAMOISÉE. STYLE LOUIS XV 137 HENRI IV BEFORE PARIS 146 Beauvais Tapestry, Seventeenth Century. Design by Vincent HENRI IV AND GABRIELLE D'ESTRÉES 147 Design by Vincent BEAUVAIS TAPESTRY. EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 148 Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York BEAUVAIS TAPESTRY. TIME OF LOUIS XVI 149 Collection of Wm. Baumgarten, Esq., New York BEAUVAIS TAPESTRY. TIME OF LOUIS XIV 150 BEAUVAIS TAPESTRY 152 CHAIR COVERING 153 Beauvais Tapestry. First Empire SAVONNERIE. PORTRAIT SUPPOSABLY OF LOUIS XV 162 Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York VULCAN AND VENUS SERIES. MORTLAKE 163 Collection of Philip Hiss, Esq., New York VULCAN AND VENUS SERIES. MORTLAKE 168 Collection of Philip Hiss, Esq., New York VULCAN AND VENUS SERIES. MORTLAKE 169 Collection of Philip Hiss, Esq., New York THE EXPULSION OF VULCAN FROM OLYMPUS (_Coloured Plate_) 170 WEAVER AT WORK ON LOW LOOM. HERTER STUDIO 228 SEWING AND REPAIR DEPARTMENT. BAUMGARTEN ATELIERS 229 BAUMGARTEN TAPESTRY. LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY 230 BAUMGARTEN TAPESTRY. MODERN CARTOON 231 BAUMGARTEN TAPESTRY. MODERN CARTOON 234 BAYEUX TAPESTRY. (DETAIL) 1066 242 BAYEUX TAPESTRY. (DETAIL) 1066 243 BAYEUX TAPESTRY. (DETAIL) 1066 244 MODERN AMERICAN TAPESTRY, LOUIS XV INSPIRATION 250 MODERN AMERICAN TAPESTRY FROM FRENCH INSPIRATION 251 GOBELINS TAPESTRY. LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY 252 Luxembourg, Paris GOBELINS TAPESTRY. LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY 253 Pantheon, Paris THE ADORATION 256 Merton Abbey Tapestry. Figures by Burne-Jones DAVID INSTRUCTING SOLOMON IN THE BUILDING OF THE TEMPLE 257 Merton Abbey Tapestry. Burne-Jones, Artist TRUTH BLINDFOLDED 258 Merton Abbey Tapestry. Byram Shaw, Artist THE PASSING OF VENUS 260 Merton Abbey Tapestry. Cartoon by Burne-Jones ANGELI LAUDANTES 261 Merton Abbey Tapestry AMERICAN (BAUMGARTEN) TAPESTRY COPIED FROM THE GOTHIC 262 DRYADS AND FAUNS 263 From Herter Looms, New York, 1910 THE TAPESTRY BOOK CHAPTER I A FOREWORD The commercial fact that tapestries have immeasurably increased in value within the last five years, would have little interest were it not that this increase is the direct result of America's awakened appreciation of this form of art. It has come about in these latter days that tapestries are considered a necessity in the luxurious and elegant homes which are multiplying all over our land. And the enormous demand thus made on the supply, has sent the prices for rare bits into a dizzy altitude, and has made even the less perfect pieces seem scarce and desirable. The opinion of two shrewd men of different types is interesting as bearing on the subject of tapestries. One with tastes fully cultivated says impressively, "Buy good old tapestries whenever you see them, for there are no more." The other says bluffly, "Tapestries? You can't touch 'em. The prices have gone way out of sight, and are going higher every day." The latter knows but one view, the commercial, yet both are right, and these two views are at the bottom of the present keen interest in tapestries in our country. Outside of this, Europe has collections which we never can equal, and that thought alone is enough to make us snatch eagerly at any opportunity to secure a piece. We may begin with our ambition set on museum treasures, but we can come happily down to the friendly fragments that fit our private purses and the wall-space by the inglenook. Tapestries are not to be bought lightly, as one buys a summer coat, to throw aside at the change of taste or circumstance. They demand more of the buyer than mere money; they demand that loving understanding and intimate appreciation that exists between human friends. A profound knowledge of tapestries benefits in two ways, by giving the keenest pleasure, and by providing the collector--or the purchaser of a single piece--with a self-protection that is proof against fraud, unconscious or deliberate. The first step toward buying must be a bit of pleasant study which shall serve in the nature of self-defence. Not by books alone, however, shall this subject be approached, but by happy jaunts to sympathetic museums, both at home and abroad, by moments snatched from the touch-and-go talk of afternoon tea in some friend's salon or library, or by strolling visits to dealers. These object lessons supplement the book, as a study of entomology is enlivened by a chase for butterflies in the flowery meads of June, or as botany is made endurable by lying on a bank of violets. All work and no play not only makes Jack a dull boy, but makes dull reading the book he has in hand. The tale of tapestry itself carries us back to the unfathomable East which has a trick at dates, making the Christian Era a modern epoch, and making of us but a newly-sprung civilisation in the history of the old grey world. After showing us that the East pre-empted originality for all time, the history of tapestry lightly lifts us over a few centuries and throws us into the romance of Gothic days, then trails us along through increasing European civilisation up to the great awakening, the Renaissance. Then it loiters in the pleasant ways of the kings of France during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, and finally falls upon modern effort, not limited to Europe now, but nesting also in the New World which is especially our own. Tapestry, according to the interpretation of the word used in this book, is a pictured cloth, woven by an artist or a talented craftsman, in which the design is an integral part of the fabric, and not an embroidery stitched on a basic tissue. With this flat statement the review of tapestries from antiquity until our time may be read without fear of mistaking the term. THE LOOM The looms on which tapestries are made are such as have been known as long as the history of man is known, but we have come to call them high-warp and low-warp, or as the French have it, _haute lisse_ and _basse lisse_. In the celebrated periods of weaving the high loom has been the one in use, and to it is accredited a power almost mysterious; yet the work of the two styles of loom are not distinguishable by the weave alone, and it is true that the low-warp looms were used in France when the manufacture of tapestries was permanently established by the Crown about 1600. So difficult is it to determine the work of the two looms that weavers themselves could not distinguish without the aid of a red thread which they at one time wove in the border. Yet because the years of the highest perfection in tapestries have been when the high loom was in vogue, some peculiar power is supposed to reside within it. That the high movements of the fine arts have been contemporary with perfection in tapestries, seems not to be taken into consideration. NECESSARY FRENCH TERMS French terms belong so much to the art of tapestry weaving that it is hard to find their English equivalent. Tapestries of _verdure_ and of _personnages_ describe the two general classes, the former being any charming mass of greenery, from the Gothic _millefleurs_, and curling leaves with animals beneath, to the lovely landscapes of sophisticated park and garden which made Beauvais famous in the Eighteenth Century. _Tapisseries des personnages_ have, as the name implies, the human figure as the prominent part of the design. The shuttle or bobbin of the high loom is called a _broche_, and that of the low loom a _flute_. Weavers throughout Europe, whether in the Low Countries or in France, were called _tapissiers_, and this term was so liberal as to need explaining. WORKERS' FUNCTIONS The tapestry factory was under the guidance of a director; under him were the various persons required for the work. Each tapestry woven had a directing artist, as the design was of primary importance. This man had the power to select the silks and wools for the work, that they might suit his eye as to colour. But there was also a _chef d'atelier_ who was an artist weaver, and he directed this matter and all others when the artist of the cartoons was not present. Under him were the tapissiers who did the actual weaving, and under these, again, were the apprentices, who began as boys and served three years before being allowed to try their hands at a "'prentice job" or essay at finished work. WEAVERS The word weaver means so little in these days that it is necessary to consider what were the conditions exacted of the weavers of tapestries in the time of tapestry's highest perfection. A tapissier was an artist with whom a loom took place of an easel, and whose brush was a shuttle, and whose colour-medium was thread instead of paints. This places him on a higher plane than that of mere weaver, and makes the term tapissier seem fitter. Much liberty was given him in copying designs and choosing colours. In the Middle Ages, when the Gothic style prevailed, the master-weaver needed often no other cartoon for his work than his own sketches enlarged from the miniatures found in the luxurious missals of the day. These historic books were the luxuries of kings, were kept with the plate and jewels, so precious were considered their exquisitely painted scenes in miniature. From them the master-weaver drew largely for such designs as _The Seven Deadly Sins_ and other "morality" subjects. Master-weavers were many in the best years of tapestry weaving; indeed, a man must have attained the dignity and ability of that position before being able to produce those marvels of skill which were woven between 1475 and 1575 in Flanders, France and Italy. Their aids, the apprentices, pique the fancy, as Puck harnessed to labour might do. They were probably as mischievous, as shirking, as exasperating as boys have ever known how to be, but those little unwilling slaves of art in the Middle Ages make an appeal to the imagination more vivid than that of the shabby lunch-box boy of to-day. DYERS Accessory to the weavers, and almost as important, were the dyers who prepared the thread for use. The conscientiousness of their work cries out for recognition when the threads they dyed are almost unaltered in colour after five hundred years of exposure to their enemies, light and air. Dye stuffs were precious in those days, and so costly that even threads of gold and silver (which in general were supplied by the client ordering the tapestry) hardly exceeded in value certain dyed wools and silk. All of these workers, from director down to apprenticed lad, were bound by the guild to do or not do, according to its infinite code, to the end that the art of tapestry-making be held to the highest standards. The laws of the guilds make interesting reading. The guild prevailed all over Europe and regulated all crafts. In Florence even to-day evidences of its power are on every side, and the Guildhall in London attests its existence there. Moreover, the greatest artists belonged to the guilds, uniting themselves usually by work of the goldsmith, as Benvenuto Cellini so quaintly describes in his naïve autobiography. GUILDS It was these same protective laws of the guilds that in the end crippled the hand of the weaver. The laws grew too many to comply with, in justice to talent, and talent with clipped wings could no longer soar. At the most brilliant period of tapestry production Flanders was to the fore. All Europe was appreciating and demanding the unequalled products of her ateliers. It was but human to want to keep the excellence, to build a wall of restrictions around her especial craft that would prevent rivals, and at the same time to press the ateliers to execute all the orders that piled in toward the middle of the Sixteenth Century. But although the guilds could make wise laws and enforce them, it could not execute in haste and retain the standard of excellence. And thus came the gradual decay of the art in Brussels, a decay which guild-laws had no power to arrest. GOTHIC PERIOD The first period in tapestries which interests--except the remnants of Egyptian and aboriginal work--is that of the Middle Ages, the early Gothic, because that is when the art became a considerable one in Europe. It is a time of romance, of chivalry, of deep religious feeling, and yet seems like the childhood of modernity. Is it the fault of crudity in pictorial art, or the fault of romances that we look upon those distant people as more elemental than we, and thus feel for them the indulgent compassion that a child excites? However it is, theirs is to us a simple time of primitive emotion and romance, and the tapestries they have left us encourage the whim. The time of Gothic perfection in tapestry-making is included in the few years lying between 1475 and 1520. Life was at that time getting less difficult, and art had time to develop. It was no longer left to monks and lonely ladies, in convent and castle, but was the serious consideration of royalty and nobility. No need to dwell on the story of modern art, except as it affects the art of tapestry weaving. With the improvement of drawing that came in these years, a greater excellence of weave was required to translate properly the meaning of the artist. The human face which had hitherto been either blank or distorted in expression, now required a treatment that should convey its subtlest shades of expression. Gifted weavers rose to the task, became almost inspired in the use of their medium, and produced such works of their art as have never been equalled in any age. These are the tapestries that grip the heart, that cause a _frisson_ of joy to the beholder. And these are the tapestries we buy, if kind chance allows. If they cannot be ours to live with, then away to the museum in all haste and often, to feast upon their beauties. RENAISSANCE That great usurper, the Renaissance, came creeping up to the North where the tapestry looms were weaving fairy webs. Pope Pius X wanted tapestries, those of the marvellous Flemish weave. But he wanted those of the new style of drawing, not the sweet restraint and finished refinement of the Gothic. Raphael's cartoons were sent to Brussels' workshops, and thus was the North inoculated with the Renaissance, and thus began the second phase of the supreme excellency of Flemish tapestries. It was the Renaissance expressing itself in the wondrous textile art. The weavers were already perfect in their work, no change of drawing could perplex them. But to their deftness with their medium was now added the rich invention of the Italian artists of the Renaissance, at the period of perfection when restraint and delicacy were still dominant notes. It was the overworking of the craft that led to its decadence. Toward the end of the Sixteenth Century the extraordinary period of Brussels perfection had passed. But tapestry played too important a part in the life and luxury of those far-away centuries for its production to be allowed to languish. The magnificence of every great man, whether pope, king or dilettante, was ill-expressed before his fellows if he were not constantly surrounded by the storied cloths that were the indispensable accessories of wealth and glory. Palaces and castles were hung with them, the tents of military encampments were made gorgeous with their richness, and no joust nor city procession was conceivable without their colours flaunting in the sun as background to plumed knights and fair ladies. Venice looked to them to brighten her historic stones on days of carnival, and Paris spread them to welcome kings. FRANCE When, therefore, Brussels no longer supplied the tissues of her former excellence, opportunity came for some other centre to rise. The next important producer was Paris, and in Paris the art has consistently stayed. Other brief periods of perfection have been attained elsewhere, but Paris once establishing the art, has never let it drop, not even in our own day--but that is not to be considered at this moment. Divers reigns of divers kings, notably that of Henri IV, fostered the weaving of tapestry and brought it to an interesting stage of development, after which Louis XIV established the Gobelins. From that time on for a hundred years France was without a rival, for the decadent work of Brussels could not be counted as such. Although the work of Italy in the Seventeenth Century has its admirers, it is guilty of the faults of all of Italy's art during the dominance of Bernini's ideals. AMERICAN INTEREST America is too late on the field to enter the game of antiquity. We have no history of this wonderful textile art to tell. But ours is the power to acquire the lovely examples of the marvellous historied hangings of other times and of those nations which were our forebears before the New World was discovered. And we are acquiring them from every corner of Europe where they may have been hiding in old château or forgotten chest. To the museums go the most marvellous examples given or lent by those altruistic collectors who wish to share their treasures with a hungry public. But to the mellow atmosphere of private homes come the greater part of the tapestries. To buy them wisely, a smattering of their history is a requisite. Within the brief compass of this book is to be found the points important for the amateur, but for a profounder study he must turn to those huge volumes in French which omit no details. Not entirely by books can he learn. Association with the objects loved, counts infinitely more in coming to an understanding. Happy he who can make of tapestries the _raison d'être_ for a few months' loitering in Europe, and can ravish the eye and intoxicate the imagination with the storied cloths found hanging in England, in France, in Spain, in Italy, in Sweden, and learn from them the fascinating tales of other men's lives in other men's times. Then, when the tour is finished and a modest tapestry is hung at home, it represents to its instructed owner the concentrated tale of all he has seen and learned. In the weave he sees the ancient craftsman sitting at his loom. In the pattern is the drawing of the artist of the day, in the colours, the dyes most rare and costly; in the metal, the gold and silver of a duke or prince; and in the tale told by the figures he reads a romance of chivalry or history, which has the glamour given by the haze of distant time to human action. To enter a house where tapestries abound, is to feel oneself welcomed even before the host appears. The bending verdure invites, the animated figures welcome, and at once the atmosphere of elegance and cordiality envelopes the happy visitor. To live in a house abundantly hung with old tapestries, to live there day by day, makes of labour a pleasure and of leisure a delight. It is no small satisfaction in our work-a-day life to live amidst beauty, to be sure that every time the eyes are raised from the labour of writing or sewing--or of bridge whist, if you like--they encounter something worthy and lovely. In the big living-room of the home, when the hours come in which the family gathers, on a rainy morning, or on any afternoon when the shadows grow grim outside and the afternoon tea-tray is brought in whispering its discreet tune of friendly communion, the tapestries on the walls seem to gather closer, to enfold in loving embrace the sheltered group, to promise protection and to augment brotherly love. In the dining-room the glorious company assembles, so that he who eats therein, attends a feast on Olympus, even though the dyspeptic's fast be his lot. If the eyes gaze on Coypel's gracious ladies, under fruit and roses, with adolescent gods adoring, what matters if the palate is chastised? In a dining-room soft-hung with piquant scenes, even buttermilk and dog-biscuit, burnt canvasback and cold Burgundy lose half their bitterness. When night is well started in its flight, perhaps one only, one lover of the silence and the solitude, loath to give away to soft sleep the quiet hours, this one remains behind when all the others have flown bedward, and to him the neighbouring tapestries speak a various language. From the easy chair he sees the firelight play on the verdure with the effect of a summer breeze, the gracious foliage all astir. The figures in this enchanted wood are set in motion and imagination brings them into the life of the moment, makes of them sympathetic playmates coaxing one to love, as they do, the land of romance. Before their imperturbable jocundity what bad humour can exist? All the old songs of mock pastoral times come singing in the ears, "It happened on a day, in the merry month of May," "Shepherds all and maidens fair," "It was a lover and his lass," "Phoebus arise, and paint the skies," _et cetera_. Animated by the fire, in the silence of the winter night the loving horde gathers and ministers to the mind afflicted with much hard practicality and the strain of keeping up with modern inexorable times. This sweet procession on the walls, thanks be to lovely art, needs no keeping up with, merely asks to scatter joy and to soften the asperities of a too arduous day. All the way up the staircase in the house of tapestries are dainty bits of _millefleurs_, that Gothic invention for transferring a block of the spring woods from under the trees into a man-made edifice. It may have a deep indigo background or a dull red--like the shades of moss or like last year's fallen leaves--but over it all is abundantly sprinkled dainty bluebells, anemones, daisies, all the spring beauties in joyous self-assertion and happy mingling. With such flowery guides to mark the way the path to slumberland is followed. Once within the bedroom, the poppies of the hangings spread drowsy influence, and the happy sleeper passes into unconsciousness, passes through the flowered border of the ancient square, into the scene beyond, becomes one of those storied persons in the enchanted land and lives with them in jousts and tourneys or in _fêtes champêtres_ at lovely châteaux. The magic spell of the house of tapestries has fallen like the dew from heaven to bless the striver in our modern life of exigency and fatigue. [Illustration: CHINESE TAPESTRY Chien Lung Period] [Illustration: COPTIC TAPESTRY About 300 A. D.] CHAPTER II ANTIQUITY Egypt and China, India and Persia, seem made to take the conceit from upstart nations like those of Europe and our own toddling America. Directly we scratch the surface and look for the beginning of applied arts, the lead takes us inevitably to the oldest civilisation. It would seem that in a study of fabrics which are made in modern Europe, it were enough to find their roots in the mediæval shades of the dark ages; but no, back we must go to the beginning of history where man leaped from the ambling dinosaur, which then modestly became extinct, and looking upon the lands of the Nile and the Yangtsi-kiang found them good, and proceeded to pre-empt all the ground of applied arts, so that from that time forward all the nations of the earth were and are obliged to acknowledge that there is nothing new under the sun. In the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is a bit of tapestry, Coptic, that period where Greek and Egyptian drawing were intermixed, a woman's head adorned with much vanity of head-dress, woven two or three centuries after Christ. (Plate facing page 15.) In the Boston Museum of Fine Arts are other rare specimens of this same time. (Plates facing pages 16 and 17.) Looking further back, an ancient decoration shows Penelope at her high loom, four hundred years before the Christian era; and one, still older, shows the Egyptians weaving similarly three thousand years before that epoch. It is not altogether thrilling to read that civilised people of ancient times wove fabrics for dress and decoration, but it certainly is interesting to learn that they were masters of an art which we carelessly attribute to Europe of six centuries back, and to find that the weaving apparatus and the mode of work were almost identical. The Coptic tapestry of the Third Century is woven in the same manner as the tapestries that come to us from Europe as the flower of comparatively recent times, and its dyes and treatment of shading are identical with the Gothic times. Penelope's loom as pictured on an ancient vase, is the same in principle as the modern high-warp loom, although lacking a bit in convenience to the weaver; and so we can easily imagine the lovely lady at work on her famous web, "playing for time," during Ulysses' absence, when she sat up o' nights undoing her lovely stint of the day. And the Egyptian loom shown in ancient pictures--that is even more modern than Penelope's, although it was set up three thousand years before, a last guide-post on the backward way to the misty land called prehistoric. But as there is really little interest except for the archeologist in digging so far into the past for an art that has left us but traditions and museum fragments, let us skim but lightly the surface of this time, only picking up the glistening facts that attract the mind's eye, so that we may quickly reach the enchanted land of more recent times which yet appear antique to the modern. [Illustration: COPTIC TAPESTRY Boston Museum of Fine Arts] [Illustration: COPTIC TAPESTRY Boston Museum of Fine Arts] There are those to whom reading the Bible was a forced task during childhood, a class which slipped the labour as soon as years gave liberty of choice. There are others who have always turned as naturally to its accounts of grand ceremony and terrible battles as to the accounts of Cæsar, Coeur de Lion, Charlemagne. But in either case, whatever the reason for the eye to absorb these pages of ancient Hebrew history, the impression is gained of superb pomp. And always concerned with it are descriptions of details, lovingly impressed, as though the chronicler was sure of the interest of his audience. In this enumeration, decorative textiles always played a part. Such textiles as they were exceed in extravagance of material any that we know of European production, for in many cases they were woven entirely of gold and silver, and even set with jewels. These gorgeous fabrics shone like suns on the magnificent pomp of priest and ruler, and declared the wealth and power of the nation. They departed from the original intention of protecting shivering humanity from chill draughts or from close and cold association with the stones of architectural construction, and became a luxury of the eye, a source of bewilderment to the fancy and a lively intoxication to those who--irrespective of class, or of century--love to compute display in coin. But, dipping into the history of one ancient country after another, it is easy to see that the usual fabric for hanging was woven of wool, of cotton and of silk, and carried the design in the weaving. Babylon the great, Egypt under the Pharaohs, Greece in its heroic times, Rome under the Emperors--not omitting China and India of the Far East--these countries of ancient peoples all knew the arts of dyeing and weaving, of using the materials that we employ, and of introducing figures symbolic, geometric, or realistic into the weaving. Beyond a doubt the high loom has been known to man since prehistoric times. It may be discouraging to those who like to feel that tapestry properly belongs to Europe only,--Europe of the last six centuries--to find that the art has been sifted down through the ages; but in reality it is but one more link between us and the centuries past, the human touch that revivifies history, that unites humanity. People of the past wear a haze about them, are immovable and rigid as their pictured representations. The Assyrian is to us a huge man of impossible beard, the Egyptian is a lean angle fixed in posture, the Greek is eternally posed for the sculptor. But once we can find that these people were not forever transfixed to frieze, but were as simple, as industrious, as human as we, the kinship is established, and through their veins begins to flow the stream that is common to all humanity. These people felt the same need for elegantly covering the walls of their homes that we in this country of new homes feel, and the craftsmen led much the same lives as do craftsmen of to-day. Even in the matter of expense, of money which purchasers were willing to spend for woven decorative fabrics, we see no novelty in the high prices of to-day, the Twentieth Century. _The Mantle of Alcisthenes_ is celebrated for having been bought by the Carthaginians for the equal of a hundred thousand dollars. [Illustration: TAPESTRY FOUND IN GRAVES IN PERU Date prior to Sixteenth Century] Thus we connect ourselves with the remote past in making a continuous history. But as the purpose of this book is to assist the owner of tapestries to understand the story of his hangings and to enable the purchaser or collector to identify tapestries on his own knowledge instead of through the prejudiced statements of the salesman, it is useless to dwell long upon the fabrics that we can only see through exercise of the imagination or in disintegrated fragments in museums. Then away with Circe and her leisure hours of weaving, with Helen and her heroic canvas, and the army of grandiose Biblical folk, and let us come westward into Europe in short review of the textiles called tapestry which were produced from the early Christian centuries to the time of the Crusades, and thus will we approach more modern times. So far as known, high-warp weaving was not universally used in Europe in the first part of the Middle Ages. Whether plain or figured, most of the fabrics of that time that have come down to us for hangings or for clothing, are woven, with the decorative pattern executed by the needle on woven cloth. In Persia and neighbouring states, however, the high-warp loom was used.[1] Europe in the Middle Ages was a place so savage, so devastated by war and by neighbouring malice, that to consider it is to hear the clash of steel, to feel the pangs of hunger, to experience the fearsome chill of dungeons or moated castles. It was a time when those who could huddle in fortresses mayhap died natural deaths, but those who lived in the world were killed as a matter of course. Man was man's enemy and to be killed on sight. In such gay times of carnage, art is dead. Men there were who drew designs and executed them, for the _luxe_ of the eye is ever demanding, but the designs were timid and stunted and came far from the field of art. Fabrics were made and worn, no doubt, but when looms were like to be destroyed and the weavers with them, scant attention was given to refinements. By the time the Tenth Century was reached matters had improved. We come into the light of records. It is positively known that the town of Saumur, down in the lovely country below Tours, became the destination of a quantity of wall-hangings, carpets, curtains, and seat covers woven of wool. This was by order of the third Abbot Robert of the Monastery of St. Florent, one of those vigorous, progressive men whose initiative inspires a host. It is recorded that he also ordered two pieces of tapestry executed, not of wool exclusively, but with silk introduced, and in these the figures of the designs were the beasts that were then favourites in decoration and that still showed the influence of Oriental drawing. Before enumerating other authentic examples of early tapestries it is well to speak of the reason for their being invariably associated with the church. The impression left by history is that folk of those days must have been universally religious when not cutting each other in bits with bloody cutlass. The reason is, of course, that when poor crushed humanity began to revive from the devastating onslaughts of fierce Northern barbarians, it was with a timid huddling in monasteries, for there was found immunity from attack. The lord of the castle was forced to go to war or to resist attack in his castle, but the monastery was exempt from whatever conscription the times imposed, and frocked friars were always on hand were defence needed. Thus it came about that monasteries became treasure-houses, the only safe ones, were built strong, were sufficiently manned, and therefore were the safe-deposit of whatever articles of concentrated value the great lord of the Middle Ages might accumulate. Many tapestries thus deposited became gifts to the institution which gave them asylum. The arts and crafts of the Middle Ages were in the hands of the monasteries, monks and friars being the only persons with safety and leisure. Weaving fell naturally to them to execute as an art. In the castles, necessary weaving for the family was done by the women, as on every great lord's domains were artisans for all crafts; and great ladies emulated Penelope and Helen of old in passing their hours of patience and anxiety with fabricating gorgeous cloths. But these are exceptional, and deal with such grand ladies as Queen Matilda, who with her maidens embroidered (not wove) the Bayeux Tapestry, and with the Duchess Gonnor, wife of Richard First, who embroidered for the church of Notre Dame at Rouen a history of the Virgin and Saints.[2] To the monasteries must be given the honour of preserving this as many other arts, and of stimulating the laity which had wealth and power to present to religious institutions the best products of the day. The subjects executed inside the monastery were perforce religious, many revelling in the horrors of martyrology, and those intended as gifts or those ordered by the clergy were religious in subject for the sake of appropriateness. It is interesting to note the sweet childlike attitude of all lower Europe toward the church in these years, a sort of infantile way of leaving everything in its hands, all knowledge, all wisdom, all power. It was not even necessary to read or write, as the clergy conveniently concerned themselves with literacy. As late as the beginning of the Fifteenth Century Philip the Hardy, the great Duke of Burgundy, in ordering a tapestry, signed the order, not with his autograph, for he could not, but with his mark, for he, too, left pen-work to the clerks of the church. That pile of concentrated royal history, the old abbey of St. Denis, received, late in the Tenth Century, one of the evidences of royal patronage that every abbey must have envied. It was a woven representation of the world, as scientists of that day imagined our half-discovered planet, and was presented by Queen Adelaide, the wife of Hugh Capet, whose descendants reigned for three hundred years.[3] While dealing with records rather than with objects on which the eye can gaze and the hand can rest, note must be made of an order of a Count of Poitou, William V, to a factory for tapestries then existing in Poitiers, showing that the art of weaving had in that spot jumped the monastery walls in 1025.[4] The order was for a large hanging with subjects taken from the Scriptures, but given the then modern touch by introducing portraits of kings and emperors and their favourite animals transfixed in ways peculiar to the nature of the day. A century later, another Abbot of St. Florent in Saumur had hangings made important enough to be recorded. One of these represented the four and twenty elders of the Apocalypse with musical instruments, and other subjects taken from the Revelation of John. This subject was one of unending interest to the artists of that time who seemed to find in its depicting a serving of both God and imagination. Among the few tapestries of this period, those of the Cathedral at Halberstadt must be mentioned, partly by way of conscientious chronicling, partly that the interested traveller may, as he travels, know where to find the rare specimens of the hobby he is pursuing. This is a high-warp tapestry which authorities variously place as the product of the Eleventh or the Twelfth Centuries. Entirely regardless of its age, it has for us the charm of the craft of hands long vanished, and of primitive art in all its simplicity of artifice. The subject is religious--could hardly have been otherwise in those monastic days--and for church decoration, and to fit the space they were woven to occupy, each of the two parts was but three and a half feet high although more than fourteen yards long. Each important event recorded in history has its expression in the material product of its time, and this is one of the charms of studying the liberal arts. Tapestry more than almost any other handicraft has left us a pictured history of events in a time when records were scarce. The effect of the Crusades was noticeable in the impetus it gave to tapestry, not only by bringing Europe into fresh contact with Oriental design but by increasing the desire for luxurious stuffs. The returning crusaders--what traveller's tales did they not tell of the fabrics of the great Oriental sovereigns and their subjects, the soft rugs, the tent coverings, the gorgeous raiment; and these tales they illustrated with what fragments they could port in their travellers' packs. Here lay inspiration for a continent. FOOTNOTES: [1] Eugene Müntz, "History of Tapestry." [2] Jubinal, "Recherches," Vol. I. [3] F. Michel, "Recherches." [4] Jubinal, "Recherches." CHAPTER III MODERN AWAKENING In the Fourteenth Century, tapestry, the high-warp product, began to play an important part in the refinements of the day. We have seen the tendency of the past time to embellish and soften churches and monastic institutions with hangings. Records mostly in clerical Latin, speak of these as curtains for doorways, dossers for covering seats, and the backs of benches, and baldachins, as well as carpets for use on the floor. Subjects were ecclesiastic, as the favourite Apocalypse; or classic, like that of the Quedlimburg hanging which fantastically represents the marriage of Mercury and Philology. But in the Thirteenth Century the political situation had improved and men no longer slept in armour and women no longer were prepared to thrust all household valuables into a coffer on notice that the enemy was approaching over the plains or up the rocks. Therefore, homes began to be a little less rude in their comforts. Stone walls were very much the rule inside as well as out, but it became convenient then to cover their grim asperities with the woven draperies, the remains of which so interest us to-day, and which we in our accession of luxuriousness would add to the already gently finished apartments. To put ourselves back into one of those castle homes we are to imagine a room of stone walls, fitted with big iron hooks, on which hung pictured tapestry which reached all around, even covering the doors in its completeness. To admit of passing in and out the door a slit was made, or two tapestries joined at this spot. Set Gothic furniture scantily about such a room, a coffer or two, some high-backed chairs, a generous table, and there is a room which the art of to-day with its multiple ingenuity cannot surpass for beauty and repose. But such a room gave opportunity for other matters in the Thirteenth Century. Customs were less polite and morals more primitive. Important people desiring important information were given to the spying and eavesdropping which now has passed out of polite fashion. And those ancient rooms favoured the intriguer, for the hangings were suspended a foot or two away from the wall, and a man or a woman, for that matter, might easily slip behind and witness conversations to which the listener had not been invited. So it was customary on occasions of intimate and secret converse lightly to thrust a sharpened blade behind the curtains. If, as in the case in "Hamlet," the sword pierced a human quarry, so much the worse for the listener who thus gained death and lost its dignity. Before leaving this ancient chamber it is well to impress ourselves with the interesting fact that tapestries were originally meant to be suspended loosely, liberally, from the upper edge only, and to fall in folds or gentle undulations, thus gaining in decorative value and elegance. This practice had an important effect on the design, and also gave an appearance of movement to human figures and to foliage, as each swayed in light folds. When considering tapestries of the Thirteenth Century we are only contemplating the stones of history, for the actual products of the looms of that time are not for us; they are all gathered into museums, public or ecclesiastic. The same might be said of tapestries of the Fourteenth Century, and almost of the Fifteenth. But those old times are so full of romance, that their history is worth our toying with. It adds infinite joy to the possessing of old tapestries, and converts museum visits into a keen chase for the elusive but fascinating figures of the past. Let us then absorb willingly one or two dry facts. High-warp tapestry we have traced lightly from Egypt through Greece and Rome and, almost losing the thread in the Middle Ages, have seen it rising a virile industry, nursed in monasteries. It was when the stirrings of artistic life were commencing under the Van Eycks in the North and under Giotto and the Tuscans in the South that the weaving of tapestries reached a high standard of production and from that time until the Nineteenth Century has been an important artistic craft. The Thirteenth Century saw it started, the Fourteenth saw the beginnings of important factories, and the Fifteenth bloomed into full productions and beauty of the style we call Gothic. In these early times of the close of the Thirteenth Century and the beginning of the Fourteenth, the best known high-warp factories were centred in northern and midland provinces of France and Flanders, Paris and Arras being the towns most famed for their productions. As these were able to supply the rest of Europe, the skilled technique was lost otherwheres, so that later, when Italy, Germany and England wished to catch up again their ancient work, they were obliged to ask instruction of the Franco-Flemish high-warp workers.[5] It is not possible in the light of history for either Paris or Arras to claim the invention of so nearly a prehistoric art as that of high-warp tapestry, and there is much discussion as to which of these cities should be given the honour of superiority and priority in the work of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries. Factories existed at both places and each had its rules of manufacture which regulated the workman and stimulated its excellence. The factories at Paris, however, were more given to producing copies of carpets brought from the East by returning crusaders, and these were intended for floors. The craftsmen were sometimes alluded to as _tapissiers Sarrazinois_, named, as is easily seen, after the Saracens who played so large a part in the adventurous voyages of the day. But in Paris in 1302, by instigation of the Provost Pierre le Jumeau, there were associated with these tapissiers or workmen, ten others, for the purpose of making high-warp tapestry, and these were bound with all sorts of oaths not to depart from the strict manner of proceeding in this valued handicraft. Indeed, the Articles of Faith, nor the Vows of the Rosicrucians, could not be more inviolable than the promises demanded of the early tapestry workers. In some cases--notably a factory of Brussels, Brabant, in the Sixteenth Century--there were frightful penalties attendant upon the breaking of these vows, like the loss of an ear or even of a hand. The records of the undertaking of the Provost Pierre le Jumeau in introducing the high-warp (_haute lisse_) workers into the factory where Sarrazinois and other fabrics were produced, means only that the improvement had begun, but not that Paris had never before practised an art so ancient. The name of Nicolas Bataille is one of the earliest which we can surround with those props of records that please the searcher for exact detail.[6] He was both manufacturer and merchant and was a man of Paris in the reign of Charles VI, a king who patronised him so well that the workshops of Paris benefited largely. The king's brother becoming envious, tried to equal him in personal magnificence and gave orders almost as large as those of the king. Philip the Hardy, uncle of the king, also employed this designer whose importance has not lessened in the descent of the centuries. What makes Bataille of special interest to us is that we cannot only read of him in fascinating chronicles as well as dry histories, but we can ourselves see his wondrous works. In the cathedral at Angers hangs a tapestry executed by him; it is a part of the _Apocalypse_ (favourite subject) drawn by Dourdin, who was artist of the cartoons as well as artist to Charles V. In those days the weaver occupied much the same place in relation to the cartoonist as the etcher does now to the painter. That is to say, that because the drawing was his inspiration, the weaver was none the less an artist of originality and talent. These celebrated hangings at Angers, although commenced in 1376 for Louis of Anjou, were not completed in all the series until 1490, therefore Bataille's work was on the first ones, finished on Christmas, 1379. The design includes imposing figures, each seated on a Gothic throne reading and meditating. The larger scenes are topped with charming figures of angels in primitive skies of the "twisted ribbon" style of cloud, angels whose duty and whose joy is to trump eternally and float in defiance of natural laws of gravitation. The museum at the Gobelins factory in Paris shows to wondering eyes the other authentic example of late Fourteenth Century high-warp tapestry, as woven in the early Paris workshops. It portrays with a lovely naïve simplicity _The Presentation in the Temple_. This with the pieces of the _Apocalypse_ at Angers are all that are positively known to have come from the Paris workshops of the late Fourteenth Century. History steps in with an event that crushed the industry in Paris. Just when design and execution were at their highest excellence, and production was prolific, political events began to annihilate the trade. The English King, Henry V, crossed the Channel and occupied Paris in 1422. Thus, under the oppression of the invaders, the art of tapestry was discouraged and fell by the way, not to rise lustily again in Paris for two hundred years. FOOTNOTES: [5] Eugene Müntz, "La Tapisserie." [6] For extensive reading see Guiffrey, "Nicolas Bataille, tapissier parisien," and "L'Histoire General de la Tapisserie," the section called "Les Tapisseries Francaises." CHAPTER IV FIFTEENTH CENTURY IN FRANCE AND FLANDERS Whether Arras began as early as Paris is a question better left unsettled if only for the sake of furnishing a subject of happy controversy between the champions of the two opinions. But certain it is that with fewer distractions to disturb her craftsmen, and under the stimulus of certain ducal and royal patrons, Arras succeeded in advancing the art more than did her celebrated neighbour. It was Arras, too, that gave the name to the fabric, a name which appears in England as arras and in Italy as arazzo, as though there was no other parent-region for the much-needed and much-prized stuffs than the busy Flemish town. Among the early records is found proof that in 1311, a countess of the province of Artois, of which Arras was the capital, bought a figured cloth in that city, and two years later ordered various works in high warp.[7] It is she who became ruler of the province. To patronise the busy town of her own domains, Arras, she ordered from there the hangings that were its specialty. Paris also shared her patronage. She took as husband Otho, Count of Burgundy, and set his great family the fashion in the way of patronising the tapestry looms. It was in the time of Charles V of France, that the Burgundian duke Philip, called the Hardy, began to patronise conspicuously the Arras factories. In 1393, as de Barante delightfully chronicles, the gorgeous equipments of this duke were more than amazing when he went to arrange peace with the English at Lelingien.[8] The town chosen for the pourparlers, wherein assembled the English dukes, Lancaster and Gloucester and their attendants, as well as the cortége attending the Duke of Burgundy, was a poor little village ruined by wars. The conferences were held by these superb old fighters and statesmen in an ancient thatched chapel. To make it presentable and worthy of the nobles, it was covered with tapestries which entirely hid the ruined walls. The subject of the superb pieces was a series of battles, which made the Duke of Lancaster whimsically critical of a subject ill-chosen for a peace conference, he suggesting that it were better to have represented "_la Passion de notre Seigneur_." Not satisfied with having the meeting place a gorgeous and luxurious temple, this Philip, Duke of Burgundy, demonstrated his magnificence in his own tent, which was made of wooden planks entirely covered with "toiles peintes" (authorities state that tapestries with personages were thus described), and was in form of a château flanked with towers. As a means of pleasing the English dukes and the principal envoys, Philip gave to them superb gifts of tapestries, the beautiful tapestries of Flanders such as were made only in the territory of the duke. It is interesting to note this authentic account of the importation of certain Arras tapestries into England. Subjects at this time introduced, besides Bible people, figures of Clovis and of Charlemagne. Two hangings represented, the one _The Seven Cardinal Vices_, with their conspicuous royal exponents in the shape of seven vicious kings and emperors; the other, _The Seven Cardinal Virtues_, with the royalties who had been their notable exponents. Here is a frank criticism on the lives of kings which smacks of latter-day democracy. All these tapestries were enriched with gold of Cyprus, as gold threads were called. This same magnificent Philip the Hardy, had other treaties to make later on, and seeing how much his tapestries were appreciated, continued to make presents of them. One time it was the Duke of Brittany who had to be propitiated, all in the interests of peace, peace being a quality much sought and but little experienced at this time in France. Perhaps this especial Burgundian duke had a bit of self-interest in his desire for amity with the English, for he was lord of the Comité of Artois (including Arras) and this was a district which, because of its heavy commerce with England, might favour that country. A large part of that commerce was wool for tapestry weaving, wool which came from the _prés salés_ of Kent, where to-day are seen the same meadows, salt with ocean spray and breezes, whereon flocks are grazing now as of old--but this time more for mutton chops than for tapestry wools. [Illustration: THE SACRAMENTS Arras Tapestry, about 1430. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York] The history of the Dukes of Burgundy, because their patronage was so stimulating to the factories of Flanders, leads us to recall the horrors of the war with Bajazet, the terrible Sultan of Turkey, and the way in which this cool monster bartered human lives for human luxuries. It was when the flower of France (1396) invaded his country and was in the power of his hand, that he had the brave company of nobles pass in review before his royal couch that he might see them mutilated to the death. Three or four only he retained alive, then sent one of these, the Sire de Helly, back to his France with _parole d'honneur_ to return--to amass, first, as big a ransom as could be raised; this, if in the Turk's demanding eyes it appeared sufficient, he would accept in exchange for the remaining unhappy nobles. Added to the money which de Helly was able to collect, were superb tapestries of Arras contributed by the Burgundian duke, Philip the Hardy. It was argued that of these luxurious hangings, Bajazet had none, for the looms of his country had not the craft to make tapestries of personages. Cloth of gold and of silver, considered an extreme elegance in France, they argued was no rarity to the terrible Turk, for it was from Damascus in his part of the world that this precious fabric came most plentifully. So de Helly took Arras tapestries into Turkey, a suite representing the history of Alexander the Great, and the avaricious monarch was persuaded by reason of this and other ransom to let his prisoners free.[9] After the death of Philip the Hardy in 1404, his accumulated luxuries had to be sold to help pay his fabulous debts. To this end his son sold, among other things, his superb tapestries, and thus they became distributed in Paris. And yet John without Fear, who succeeded Philip, continued to stimulate the Arras weavers. In 1409 he ordered five big hangings representing his victories of Liége, all battle subjects.[10] Philip the Good was the next head of the Burgundian house, and he it was who assisted in the sumptuous preparations for the entry of the king, Louis XI, into Paris. The king himself could scarcely equal in magnificence this much-jewelled duke, whose splendour was a matter of excitement to the populace. People ran to see him in the streets or to the church, to feast their eyes on his cortége, his mounted escort of a hundred knights who were themselves dukes, princes and other nobles. His house, in the old quarter of Paris, where we are wont to wander with a Baedeker veiled, was the wonder of all who were permitted to view its interior. Here he had brought his magnificent Arras tapestries and among them the set of the _History of Gideon_, which he had had made in honour of the order of the Golden Fleece founded by him at Bruges, in 1429, for, he said, the tale of Gideon was more appropriate to the Fleece than the tale of Jason, who had not kept his trust--a bit of unconventionalism appreciable even at this distance of time. Charles le Téméraire--the Bold or rather the foolhardy--how he used and lost his tapestries is of interest to us, because his possessions fell into a place where we can see them by taking a little trouble. Some of them are among the treasures in the museum at Nancy and at Berne in Switzerland. How they got there is in itself a matter of history, the history of a war between Burgundy and Switzerland. Like all the line of these half-barbaric, picturesque dukes, Charles could not disassociate himself from magnificence, which in those days took the place of comfort. When making war, he endeavoured to have his camp lodgment as near as possible reproduce the elegance of his home. In his campaign against Switzerland, his tent was entirely hung with the most magnificent of tapestries. After foolhardy onslaughts on a people whose strength he miscalculated, he lost his battles, his life--and his tapestries. And this is how certain Burgundian tapestries hang in the cathedral at Berne, and in the museums at Nancy.[11] The simple Swiss mountaineers, accustomed more to expediency than to luxury, are said to have been entirely ignorant of the value of their spoils of war. Tapestries they had never seen, nor had they the experienced eye to discern their beauties; but cloth, thick woollen cloth, that would protect shivering man from the cold, was a commodity most useful; so, many of the fine products of the high-warp looms that had augmented the pride of their noble possessor, found their way into shops and were sold to the Swiss populace in any desired length, according to bourgeois household needs, a length for a warm bed-cover, or a square for a table; and thus disappeared so many that we are thankful for the few whole hangings of that time which are ours to inspect, and which represent the best work of the day both from Arras and from Brussels, which was then (about 1476) beginning to produce. There is a special and local reason why we should be interested in the products of the high-warp tapestries in the time of the greatest power of the Dukes of Burgundy. It is that we can have the happy experience of studying, in our own country, a set of these hangings, and this without going farther than to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where repose the set called _The Sacraments_. (Plates facing pages 34, 38 and 39.) There are in all seven pieces, although the grounds are well taken that the set originally included one more. They represent the four Sacraments of Baptism, Marriage, Confirmation and Extreme Unction, first by a series of ideal representations, then by the everyday ceremonies of the time--the time of Joan of Arc. Thus we have the early Fifteenth Century folk unveiled to us in their ideals and in their practicality. The one shows them to be religionists of a high order, the other reveals a sumptuous and elegant scale of living belonging to the nobility who made resplendent those early times. [Illustration: THE SACRAMENTS Arras Tapestry, about 1430] [Illustration: THE SACRAMENTS Arras Tapestry, about 1430] The drawing is full of simplicity and honesty, the composition limited to a few individuals, each one having its place of importance. In this, the early work differed from the later, which multiplied figures until whole groups counted no more than individuals. The background is a field of conventionalised fleur-de-lis of so large a pattern as not to interfere with the details thrown against it. Scenes are divided by slender Gothic columns, and other architectural features are tessellated floors and a sketchy sort of brick-work that appears wherever a limit-line is needed. It is the charming naïveté of its drawing that delights. Border there is none, but its lack is never felt, for the pictures are of such interest that the eye needs no barrier to keep it from wandering. Whatever border is found is a varying structure of architecture and of lettering and of the happy flowers of Gothic times which thrust their charm into all possible and impossible places. The dress, in the suite of ideals, is created by the imagining of the artist, admixed with the fashion of the day; but in scenes portraying life of the moment, we are given an interesting idea of how a bride à la mode was arrayed, in what manner a gay young lord dressed himself on his wedding morning, and how a young mother draped her proud brocade. The colouring is that of ancient stained glass, simple, rich, the gamut of colours limited, but the manner of their combining is infinite in its power to please. The conscientiousness of the ancient dyer lives after him through the centuries, and the fresh ruby-colour, the golden yellow of the large-figured brocades, glow almost as richly now as they did when the Burgundian dukes were marching up and down the land from the Mediterranean, east of France, to the coast of Flanders, carrying with them the woven pictures of their ideals, their religion and their conquests. The weave is smooth and even, speaking for the work of the tapissier or weaver, although time has distorted the faces beyond the lines of absolute beauty; and hatching accomplishes the shading. The repairer has been at work on this valuable set, not the intelligent restorer, but the frank bungler who has not hesitated to turn certain pieces wrong side out, nor to set in large sections obviously cut from another tapestry. It is surmised that the set contained one more piece--it would be regrettable, indeed, if that missing square had been cut up for repairs. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York owns these tapestries through the altruistic generosity of J. Pierpont Morgan, Esq. They are the most interesting primitive work which are on public view in our country, and awake to enthusiasm even the most insensate dullard, who has a half hour to stand before them and realise all they mean in art, in morals and in history. To the lives of the Prophets and Saints we can always turn; from the romance of men and women we can never turn away. And so when a Gothic tapestry is found that frankly omits Biblical folk and gives us a true picture of men and women of the almost impenetrable time back of the fifteen hundreds, tells us what they wore, in what manner they comported themselves, that tapestry has a sure and peculiar value. The surviving art of the Middle Ages smacks strong of saints, paints at full length the people of Moses' time, but unhappily gives only a bust of their contemporaries. [Illustration: FIFTEENTH CENTURY FRENCH TAPESTRY Boston Museum of Fine Arts] [Illustration: THE LIFE OF CHRIST Flemish Tapestry, second half of Fifteenth Century. Boston Museum of Fine Arts] Hangings portraying secular subjects were less often woven than those of religion and morals, but also the former have less lustily outlived the centuries, owing to the habit of tearing them from the suspending hooks and packing them about from château to château, to soften surroundings for the wandering visitor. Thus it comes that we have little tapestried record of a time when knights and ladies and ill-assorted attributes walked hand in hand, a time of chivalry and cruelty, of roses and war, of sumptuousness and crudity, of privation and indulgence, of simplicity and deceit. If prowling among old books has tempted the hand to take from the shelves one of those quaint luxuries known as a "Book of Hours," there before the eye lies the spirit of that age in decoration and design. There, too, lies much of the old spirit of morality--that, whether genuine or affected, was bound to be expressed. Morality had a vogue in those days, was a _sine qua non_ of fashion. That famous amateur Jean, duc de Berry, uncle of Charles VI of France, had such a book, "Les Très Riches Heures"; one was possessed by that gifted Milanese lady whom Ludovico Sforza put out of the line of Lombardy's throne. The wonderful Gothic ingenuousness lies in their careful paintings, the ingenuousness where virtue is expressed by beauty, and vice by ugliness, and where, with delightful seriousness, standing figures overtop the houses they occupy--the same people, the same battlements, we have seen on the early tapestries. Weavers must surely have consulted the lovely books of Gothic miniature, so like is the spirit of the designs to that in the Gothic fabrics. "The beauties of Agnes Sorel were represented on the wool," says Jubinal, "and she herself gave a superb and magnificent tapestry to the church at Loches," but this quaint student is doubtful if the lovely _amante du roi_ actually gave the tapestries that set forth her own beauties, which beauty all can see in the quiet marble as she lies sleeping with her spaniel curled up at her lovely feet in the big château on the Loire. By means of a rare set bought by the Rogers Fund for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, we can see, if not the actual tapestries of fair Agnes Sorel, at least those of the same epoch and manner. This set is called _The Baillée des Roses_ and comprises three pieces, fragments one is inclined to call them, seeing the mutilations of the ages. (Plate facing page 42.) They were woven probably before 1450, probably in France, undoubtedly from French drawings, for the hand and eye of the artist were evidently under the influence of the celebrated miniaturist, Jean Fouquet of Tours. Childlike is the charm of this careful artist of olden times, childlike is his simplicity, his honesty, his care to retain the fundamental virtues of a good little boy who lives to the tune of Eternal Verities. These three tapestries of the Roses illustrate so well so many things characteristic of their day, that it is not time lost to study them with an eye to all their points. There is the weave, the wool, the introduction of metal threads, the colour scale; all these besides the design and the story it tells. The tapestries represent a custom of France in the time when Charles VII, the Indolent (and likewise through Jeanne d'Arc, the victorious) had as his favourite the fascinating Agnes Sorel. During the late spring, when the roses of France are in fullest flower, various peers of France had as political duty to present to each member of the Parliament a rose when the members answered in response to roll call. [Illustration: LA BAILLÉE DES ROSES French Tapestry, about 1450. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York] [Illustration: FIFTEENTH CENTURY MILLEFLEUR WITH ARMS Cathedral of Troyes] The great chamber where the body met was for the occasion transformed into a bower; vines and sprays of roses covered all the grim walls, as the straying vines in the tapestry reveal. The host of the day, who might be a foreign prince or cardinal, or one of the "children of France," began the day with giving a great breakfast which took place in the several chambers. During the feast the noble host paid a courtly visit to each chamber, accompanied by a servitor who bore a huge salver on which were the flowers and souvenirs to be presented. The air was sweet with blossoms and pungent herbs, music penetrated from the halls outside as the man of conspicuous elegance played mock humility and served all with the dainty tribute of a fragrant tender rose. This part of the ceremony over, the company moved on to the great audience chamber, where mass was said. Our tapestries show the figures of ladies and gentlemen present at this pretty ceremony--too pretty to associate with desperate Jeanne d'Arc, who at that very time was rousing France to war to throw off the foreign yoke. The ladies fair and masters bold are intensely human little people, for the most part paired off in couples as men and women have been wont to pair in gardens since Eden's time. They are dressed in their best, that is evident, and by their distant, courteous manners show good society. The faces of the ladies are childlike, dutiful; those of the men more determined, after the manner of men. But the interest of the set centres in the tableau wherein are but three figures, those of two men and a woman. Here lies a piquant romance. Who is she, the grand and gracious lady, bending like a lily stalk among the roses, with a man on either side? A token is being exchanged between her and the supplicant at her right. He, wholly elegant, half afraid, bends the knee and fixes her with a regard into which his whole soul is thrown. She, fair lady, is inclining, yet withdrawing, eyes of fear and modesty cast down. Yet whatever of temerity the faces tell, the hands are carrying out a comedy. Hid in the shadow of a copious hat, which the gentleman extends, lurks a rose; proffered by the lady's hand is a token--fair exchange, indeed, of lover's symbols--provided the strong, hard man to the left of the lady has himself no right of command over her and her favours. Thus might one dream on forever over history's sweets and romance's gallantries. It is across the sea, in the sympathetic Museum of Cluny that the beauty of early French work is exquisitely demonstrated. The set of _The Lady and the Unicorn_ is one of infinite charm. (Plates facing pages 44 and 45.) In its enchanted wood lives a noble lady tall and fair, lithe, young and elegant, with attendant maid and two faithful, fabulous beasts that uphold the standards of maidenhood. A simple circle denotes the boundary of the enchanted land wherein she dwells, a park with noble trees and lovely flowers, among which disport the little animals that associate themselves with mankind. For four centuries these hangings have delighted the eye of man, and are perhaps more than ever appreciated now. Certain it is that the art student's easel is often set before them for copying the quaint design and soft colour. [Illustration: THE LADY AND THE UNICORN French Tapestry, Fifteenth Century. Musée de Cluny, Paris] [Illustration: THE LADY AND THE UNICORN French Tapestry, Fifteenth Century. Musée de Cluny, Paris] As the early worker in wools could not forget the beauties of earth, the foreground of many Gothic tapestries is sprinkled with the loved common flowers of every day, of the field and wood. This is one of the charming touches in early tapestry, these little flowers that thrust themselves with captivating inappropriateness into every sort of scene. The grave and awesome figures in the _Apocalypse_ find them at their feet, and in scenes of battle they adorn the sanguinary sod and twinkle between fierce combatants. Occasionally a weaver goes mad about them and refuses to produce anything else but lily-bells newly sprung in June, cowslips and daisies pied, rosemary and rue, and all these in decorous courtesy on a deep, dark background like twilight on a bank or moonlight in a dell--and lo, we have the marvellous bit of nature-painting called _millefleurs_. A Burgundian tapestry that has come to this country to add to our increasing riches, is the large hanging known as _The Sack of Jerusalem_. (Plate facing page 46.) Almost more than any other it revivifies the ancient times of Philip the Hardy, John without Fear, and Charles the Bold, when these dukes, who were monarchs in all but name, were leading lives that make our own Twentieth Century fretting seem but the unrest of aspens. Such hangings as this, _The Sack of Jerusalem_, were those that the great Burgundian dukes had hung about their tents in battle, their castles in peace, their façades and bridges in fêtes. The subject chosen hints religion, but shouts bloodshed and battle. Those who like to feel the texture of old tapestries would find this soft and pliable, and in wondrous state of preservation. Its colours are warm and fresh, adhering to red-browns and brown-reds and a general mellow tone differing from the sharp stained-glass contrasts noticed in _The Sacraments_. Costumes show a naïve compromise between those the artist knew in his own time and those he guessed to appertain to the year of our Lord 70, when the scene depicted was actually occurring. The tapestry resembles in many ways the famous tapestries of the Duke of Devonshire which are known as the Hardwick Hall tapestries. In drawing it is similar, in massing, in the placing of spots of interest. This large hanging is a part of the collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The Boston Museum of Fine Arts exhibits a primitive hanging which is probably woven in France, Northern France, at the end of the Fifteenth Century. (Plate facing page 40.) It represents, in two panels, the power of the church to drive out demons and to confound the heathen. Fault can be found with its crudity of drawing and weave, but tapestries of this epoch can hold a position of interest in spite of faults. [Illustration: THE SACK OF JERUSALEM (DETAIL) Burgundian Tapestry, about 1450. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York] A fine piece at the same museum is the long, narrow hanging representing scenes from the life of Christ, with a scene from Paradise to start the drama. (Plate facing page 41.) This tapestry, which is of great beauty, is subdivided into four panels by slender columns suggesting a springing arch which the cloth was too low to carry. All the pretty Gothic signs are here. The simple flowers upspringing, the Gothic lettering, the panelling, and a narrow border of such design as suggests rose-windows or other lace-like carving. Here is noticeable, too, the sumptuous brocades in figures far too large for the human form to wear, figures which diminished greatly a very few decades later. The Institute of Art, Chicago, possesses an interesting piece of the period showing another treatment of a similar subject. (Plate facing page 48.) In this the columns are omitted, the planes are increased, and there is an entire absence of the triptych or altar-piece style of drawing which we associate with the primitive artists in painting. We have seen in this slight review that Paris was in a fair way to cover the castle walls and floors of noble lords with her high loom and _sarrazinois_ products, when the English occupation ruined the prosperity of the weaver's guild. Arras supplied the enormous demand for tapestries through Europe, and made a lasting fame. But this little city, too, had to go down before the hard conditions of the Conqueror. Louis XI, in 1477, possessed himself of the town after the death of the last-famed Burgundian duke, Charles the Bold, and under his eccentric persecutions the guild of weavers scattered. He saw too late his mistake. But other towns benefited by it, towns whither the tapissiers fled with their art. There had also been much trouble between the last Duke of Burgundy and his Flemish cities. His extravagances and expeditions led him to make extraordinary demands upon one town and another for funds, and even to make war upon them, as at Liége, the battles of which conflict were perpetuated in tapestries. Let us trust that no Liégois weaver was forced to the humiliation of weaving this set. This disposition to work to his own ultimate undoing was encouraged in the duke, wherever possible, by the crafty Louis XI, who had his own reasons for wishing the downfall of so powerful a neighbour. And thus it came that Arras, the great tapestry centre, was at first weakened, then destroyed by the capture of the town by Louis XI immediately after the tragic death of the duke in 1477. Thus everything was favourable to the Brussels factories, which began to produce those marvels of workmanship that force from the world the sincerest admiration. It is frankly asserted that toward the end of the century, or more accurately, during the reigns of Charles VIII and Louis XII (1483-1515), tapestry attained a degree of perfection which has never been surpassed. [Illustration: SCENES FROM THE LIFE OF CHRIST, WITH ARMORIAL SHIELDS Flemish Tapestry, Fifteenth Century. Institute of Art, Chicago] [Illustration: HISTORY OF THE VIRGIN Angers Cathedral] We have a very clear idea of what use to make of tapestries in these days--to hang them in a part of the house where they will be much seen and much protected, on an important wall-space where their figures become the friend of daily life, or the bosky shades of their verdure invite to revery. They are extended flat against the wall, or even framed, that not one stroke of the artist's pencil or one flash of the weaver's shuttle be hid. But, many were their uses and grand were their purposes in the days when high-warp and low-warp weaving was the important industry of whole provinces. Palaces and castles were hung with them, but apart from this was the sumptuous use of a reserve of hangings for outdoor fêtes and celebrations of all sorts. These were the great opportunities for all to exhibit their possessions and to make a street look almost as elegant and habitable as the grandest chamber of the king. On the occasion of the entry of a certain queen into Paris, all the way from Porte St. Denis to the Cathedral of Notre Dame was hung with such specimens of the weaver's art as would make the heart of the modern amateur throb wildly. They were hung from windows, draped across the fronts of the houses, and fluttered their bright colours in the face of an illuminating sun that yet had no power to fade the conscientious work of the craftsman. The high lights of silk in the weave, and the enrichment of gold and silver in the pattern caught and held the sunbeams. In all the cavalcade of mounted knights and ladies, there was the flashing of arms, the gleam of jewelled bridles, the flaunting of rich stuffs, all with a background of unsurpassed blending of colour and texture. The bridge over the Seine leading to Notre Dame, its ramparts were entirely concealed, its asperities softened, by the tapestries which hung over its sides, making the passage over the river like the approach to a throne, the luxury of kings combined with the beauty of the flowing river, the blue sky, the tender green of the trees. Indeed, it was so lovely a sight that the king himself was not content to see it from his honoured but restricted post, but needs must doff his crown--monarchs wore them in those fairy days--and fling a leg over a gentleman's charger, behind its owner, and thus ride double to see the sights. So great was his eagerness to enjoy all the display that he got a smart reproof from an officer of ceremonies for trespassing.[12] When Louis XI was the young king, and had not yet developed the taste for bloodshed and torture that as a crafty fox he used later to the horror of his nation, he, too, had similar festivals with similar decorations. On one occasion the Pont des Changes was made the chief point in the royal progress through the streets of Paris. The bridge was hung with superb tapestries of great size, from end to end, and the king rode to it on a white charger, his trappings set with turquoise, with a gorgeous canopy supported over his head. Just as he reached the bridge the air became full of the music of singing birds, twenty-five hundred of them at that moment released, and all fluttering, darting, singing amid the gorgeous scene to tickle the fancy of a king. [Illustration: DAVID AND BATHSHEBA German Tapestry, about 1450] [Illustration: FLEMISH TAPESTRY. ABOUT 1500 Collection of Alfred W. Hoyt, Esq.] FOOTNOTES: [7] Canon de Haisnes, "La Tapisserie." [8] M. de Barante, "Histoire des Ducs de Bourgogne." [9] Froissart, manuscript of the library of Dijon. [10] De Barante, "Histoire." [11] See M. Pinchart, "Roger van der Weyden et les Tapisseries de Berne." [12] Enguerrand de Monstrelet, "Chronicles." CHAPTER V HIGH GOTHIC The wonderful time of the Burgundian dukes is gone; Charles le Téméraire leaves the world at Nancy, where the pitying have set up a cross in memory of his unkingly death, and where the lover of things Gothic may wander down a certain way to the exquisite portico of the Ducal Palace and, entering, find the Gothic room where the duke's precious tapestries are hung. In this sympathetic atmosphere one may dream away hours in sheer joy of association with these shadowy hosts of the past, the relentless slayers in the battle scenes, relentless moralists in the religious subjects--for morality plays had a parallel in the morality tapestry, issuing such rigid warnings to those who make merry as is seen in _The Condemnation of Suppers and Banquets_, _The Reward of Virtue_, _The Triumph of Right_, _The Horrors of the Seven Deadly Sins_, all of which were popular subjects for the weaver. With the artists who might be called primitives we have almost finished in the end of the Fifteenth Century. The simplicity of the very early weavers passed. They were content with comparatively few figures, and these so strongly treated that in composition one scarce took on more importance than another. When Arras and other Flemish towns, as well as Paris and certain French towns, developed the industry and employed more ambitious artists, the designs became more crowded, and the tendency was to multiply figures in an effort to crowd as many as possible into the space. When architecture appeared in the design, towers and battlements were crowded with peeping heads in delightful lack of proportion, and forests of spears springing from platoons of soldiers, filled almost the entire height of the cloth. The naïve fashion still existed of dressing the characters of an ancient Biblical or classic drama in costumes which were the mode of the weaver's time, disregarding the epoch in which the characters actually lived. An adherence to the childlike drawing of the early workers continues noticeable in their quaint way of putting many scenes on one tapestry. Interiors are readily managed, by dividing--as in _The Sacraments_ set in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York--with slender Gothic columns, than which nothing could be prettier, especially when framed in at the top with the Gothic arch. In outdoor scenes the frank disregard of the probable adds the charm of audacity. Side by side with a scene of carnage, a field of blood with victims lying prone, is inserted an island of flowers whereon youths and dogs are pleasantly sporting; and adjoining that may be another section cunningly introduced where a martyred woman is enveloped in flames which spring from the ground around her as naturally as grass in springtime. [Illustration: DAVID AND BATHSHEBA Flemish Tapestry, late Fifteenth Century] [Illustration: HISTORY OF ST. STEPHEN Arras Tapestry, Fifteenth Century] And flowers, flowers everywhere. Those little blossoms of the Gothic with their perennial beauty, they are one of the smiles of that far time that shed cheer through the centuries. They are not the grandiose affairs of the Renaissance whose voluptuous development contains the arrogant assurance of beauty matured. They do not crown a column or trail themselves in foliated scrolls; but are just as Nature meant them to be, unaffected bits of colour and grace, upspringing from the sod. In the cathedral at Berne is a happy example of the use of these sweet flowers, as they appear at the feet of the sacred group, and as they carry the eye into the sky by means of the feathery branches like fern-fronds which tops the scene; but we find them nearer home, in almost every Gothic tapestry. It was about the end of the last Crusade when Italy began to produce the inspired artists who broke the bonds of Byzantine traditions and turned back to the inspiration of all art, which is Nature. Giotto, tending his sheep, began to draw pictures of things as he saw them, Savonarola awoke the conscience, Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio--a string of names to conjure with--all roused the intellect. The dawn of the Renaissance flushed Europe with the life of civilisation. But before the wonderful development of art through the reversion to classic lines, came a high perfection of the style called Gothic, and with that we are pleased to deal first. It is so full of beauty to the eye and interest to the intellect that sometimes we must be dragged away from it to regard the softer lines of later art, with the ingratitude and reluctance of childhood when torn from its fairy tales to read of real people in the commonplace of every day. We are now in the time when the perfection of production was reached in the tapestries we call Gothic. Artists had grown more certain of their touch in colour and design, and weavers worked with such conscientious care as is now almost unknown, and produced a quality of tapestry superior to that of their forebears. The Fifteenth Century and the first few years of the Sixteenth were spent in perfecting the style of the preceding century, and so great was the perfection reached, that it was impossible to develop further on those lines. It must not be supposed from their importance that Brussels and Bruges were the sole towns of weavers. There were many high-warp looms, and low-warp as well, in many towns in Flanders and France, and there were also beginnings in Spain, England and Germany. Italy came later. The superb set in the Cluny Museum in Paris, _The Lady and the Unicorn_, than which nothing could be lovelier in poetic feeling as well as in technique, is accorded to French looms. But as it is impossible in a cursory survey to mention all, the two most important cities are dwelt upon because it is from them that the greatest amount of the best product emanated. Tapestries could not well decline with the fortunes of a town, for they were a heavy article of commerce at the time when Louis XI attacked Arras. Trade was made across the Channel, whence came the best wool for their manufacture; they were bought by the French monarchs and nobility; many drifted to Genoa and Italy, to be sold by the active merchants of the times to whoever could buy. When, therefore, Arras was crushed, her able workmen flew to other centres of production, principally in Flanders, notably to Bruges and Brussels, and helped to bring these places into their high position. [Illustration: VERDURE French Gothic Tapestry] [Illustration: "ECCE HOMO" Brussels Tapestry, about 1520. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York] Stories of kings and their magnificence breathe ever of romance, but kings could not be magnificent were it not for the labour of the conscientious common people, those who go daily to their task, asking nothing better than to live their little span in humble endeavour. The weavers, the tapissiers of that far-away time in Flanders are intensely appealing now when their beautiful work hangs before us to-day. They send us a friendly message down through the centuries. It is this makes us inquire a bit into the conditions of their lives, and so we find them scattered through the country north of France working with single-hearted devotion toward the perfection of their art. That they arrived there, we know by such tapestries as are left us of their time. Bruges was the home of a movement in art similar to that occurring in Italy. Old traditions of painting were being thrown aside--the revolution even attacking the painter's medium, tempera, which was criticised, discarded and replaced by oil on the palettes. Memling, the brothers Van Eyck, were painting things as they saw them, not as rules prescribed. Bernard Van Orley was at work with bold originality. It were strange if this Northern school of painters had not influenced all art near by. It is to these men that Brussels owes the beauty of her tapestries in that apogee of Gothic art which immediately preceded the introduction of the Renaissance from Italy. Cartoons or drawings for tapestries took on the rules of composition of these talented and original men. Easily distinguishable is the strong influence of the religious feeling, the fidelity to standards of the church. When a rich townsman wished to express his praise or gratitude to God, he ordered for the church an altar-piece or dainty gilded Gothic carving to frame the painted panels of careful execution. When Jean de Rome executed a cartoon, he treated it in much the same way; built up an airy Gothic structure and filled the spaces with pretty pictures. The so-called Mazarin tapestry of Mr. Morgan's shows this treatment at its best. Unhappily, the atelier of Jean de Rome or Jan von Room is too sketchily portrayed in the book of the past; its records are faint and elusive. We only hear now and then an interested allusion, a suggestion that this or that beautiful specimen of work has come from his atelier. Cartoons at the beginning of the Sixteenth Century were not all divided into their different scenes by Gothic column and arch. In much of the fine work there was no division except a natural one, for the picture began to develop the modern scheme of treating but one scene in one picture. Although this might be filled with many groups, yet all formed a harmonious whole. The practice then fell into disuse of repeating the same individual many times in one picture. A good example of the change and improvement in drawing which assisted in making Brussels' supremacy and in bringing Gothic art to perfection, is the fine hanging in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. (Plate facing page 57.) It depicts with beautiful naïveté and much realism the discomfiture of Pharaoh and his army floundering in the Red Sea, while the serene and elegant children of Israel contemplate their distress with well-bred calm from the flowery banks of an orderly park. [Illustration: ALLEGORICAL SUBJECT Flemish Tapestry, about 1500. Collection of Alfred W. Hoyt, Esq.] [Illustration: CROSSING THE RED SEA Brussels Tapestry, about 1500. Boston Museum of Fine Arts] This tapestry illustrates so many of the important features of work during the first period of Brussels' supremacy that it is to be lingered over, dissected and tasted like a dessert of nuts and wine. Should one speak first of the cartoon or of the weave, of the artist or of the craftsmen? If it is to be the tapissier, then to him all credit, for in this and similar work he has reached a care in execution and a talent in translation that are inspired. Such quantity of detail, so many human faces with their varying expressions, could only be woven by the most adroit tapissier. The drawing shows, first, one scene of many groups but a sole interest, with none but probable divisions. Much grace and freedom is shown in the attitudes of the persons on the shore, and strenuous effort and despair among the engulfed soldiers. Extreme attention to detail, the making one part as finished as another, even to the least detail, is noticeable. The exaggerated patterns of the stuffs observable in earlier work is absent, and a sense of proportion is displayed in dress ornament. The free movement of men and beasts, and the variety of facial expression all show the immense strides made in drawing and the perfection attained in this brilliant period. It was a time when the artist perfected the old style and presaged the new, the years before the Renaissance had left its cradle and marched over Europe. This perfection of the Gothic ideal has a purity and simplicity that can never fail to appeal to all who feel that sincerity is the basic principle of art as it is of character. The style of Quentin Matsys, of the Van Eycks, was the mode at the end of the Fifteenth Century and the beginning of the Sixteenth, and after all this lapse of time it seems to us a sweet and natural expression of admirable human attributes. In the new wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the labels of certain exhibits, purchases and loans allude briefly to "studio of Jean de Rome." It is an allusion which especially interests us, as our country now holds examples of this atelier which make us wish to know more about its master. He was a designer in the marvellous transition period of about 1500, when art trembled between the restraint of ecclesiastic Gothic and the voluptuous freedom of the Renaissance; hesitated between the conventions of religion and the abandonment to luxury, to indulgence of the senses. It is the fashion to regard periods of transition as times of decadence, of false standards of hybrid production, but at least they are full of deepest interest to the student of design who finds in the tremulous dawn of the new idea a flush which beautifies the last years of the old method. [Illustration: THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN Flemish Tapestry, about 1510. Collection of J. Pierpont Morgan, Esq., New York] Attributed to this newly unearthed studio of Jean de Rome hangs a marvellous tapestry in the new wing alluded to, one which deserves repeated visits. (Plate facing page 58.) Indeed, to see it once creates the desire to see it again, so beautiful is it in drawing and so exquisite in colour and weave. It is suggested that Quentin Matsys is responsible for the drawing, and it is known that only Bruges or Brussels could produce such perfection of textile. Indeed, Jean de Rome is by some authorities spoken of as Jean de Brussels, for it is there that he worked long and well, assisting to produce those wonders of textile art that have never been surpassed, not even by the Gobelins factory in the Seventeenth Century. The tapestry in the Metropolitan Museum is now the property of J. Pierpont Morgan, Esq., but began life as the treasure of the King and Queen of Spain who, at the time when Brussels was producing its best, were sitting firmly on a throne but just wrested from the Saracenic occupancy. Spain, while unable to establish famous and enduring tapestry factories of her own, yet was known always as a lavish buyer. Later, Cardinal Mazarin, with his trained Italian eye, detected at once the value of the tapestry and became possessed of it, counting it among his best treasures of art. It is a woven representation of the triptych, so favourite in the time of the Van Eycks, and is almost as rich with gold as those ancient altar decorations. The tapestry is variously called _The Kingdom of Heaven_, and _The Adoration of the Eternal Father_ and is the most beautiful and important of its kind in America. Fortunate they who can go to the museum to see it--only less fortunate than those who can go to see it many times. In the private collection of Martin A. Ryerson, Esq., of Chicago, are three examples of great perfection. They belonged to the celebrated art collection of Baron Spitzer, which fact, apart from their beauty, gives them renown. The first of these (plate facing page 60) is an appearance of Christ to the Magdalen after the Entombment, and is Flemish work of late in the Fifteenth Century. It is woven in silk and gold with infinite skill. With exquisite patience the weaver has brought out the crowded detail in the distance; indeed, it is this background, stretching away to the far sky, past the Tomb, beyond towns and plains of fruited trees to yet more cities set on a hill, that constitutes the greatest charm of the picture, and which must have brought hours of happy toil to the inspired weaver. The second tapestry of Mr. Ryerson's three pieces is also Flemish of the late Fifteenth Century. (Plate facing page 61.) This small group of the Holy Family shows at its best the conscientious work of the time, a time wherein man regarded labour as a means of worshipping his God. The subject is treated by both artist and weaver with that loving care which approaches religion. The holy three are all engaged in holding bunches of grapes, while the Child symbolically spills their juice into a chalice. Other symbols are found in the book and the cross-surmounted globe. A background of flat drapery throws into beautiful relief the inspired faces of the group. Behind this stretches the miniature landscape, but the foreground is unfretted by detail, abounding in the repose of the simple surfaces of the garments of Mother and Child. By a subtle trick of line, St. Joseph is separated from the holier pair. The border is the familiar well-balanced Gothic composition of flower, fruit, and leaf, all placed as though by the hand of Nature. The materials used are silk and gold, but one might well add that the soul of the weaver also entered into the fabric. [Illustration: FLEMISH TAPESTRY, END OF FIFTEENTH CENTURY Collection of Martin A. Ryerson, Esq., Chicago. Formerly in the Spitzer Collection] [Illustration: THE HOLY FAMILY Flemish Tapestry, end of Fifteenth Century. Collection of Martin A. Ryerson, Esq., Chicago. Formerly in the Spitzer Collection] The third piece from the Spitzer collection bears all those marks of exquisite beauty with which Italy was teeming in the Fifteenth Century. (Colour plate facing page 82.) Weavers from Brussels went down into Italy and worked under the direction of Italian artists who drew the designs. Andrea Mantegna was one of these. The patron of the industry was the powerful Gonzaga family. This tapestry of _The Annunciation_ which Mr. Ryerson is so fortunate as to hang in his collection, is decorated with the arms of the Gonzaga family. The border of veined marble, the altar of mosaics and fine relief, the architecture of the outlying baptistry, the wreathed angel, all speak of Italy in that lovely moment when the Gothic had not been entirely abandoned and the Renaissance was but an opening bud. The highest work of painter and weaver--artists both--continued through thirty or forty years. Pity it is, the time had not been long enough for more remains of it to have come to us than those that scantily supply museums. After the Gothic perfection came the great change made in Flanders by the introduction of the Renaissance. It came through the excellence of the weavers. It was not the worth of the artists that brought Brussels its greatest fame, but the humbler work of its tapissiers. Their lives, their endeavours counted more in textile art than did the Flemish school of painting. No such weavers existed in all the world. They were bound together as a guild, had restrictions and regulations of their own that would shame a trades union of to-day, and in change of politics had scant consideration from new powers. But in the end they were the ones to bring fame to the Brussels workshops. In 1528 they were banded together by organisation, and from that time on their work is easily followed and identified. It was in that year that a law was made compelling weavers--and allowing weavers--to incorporate into the encompassing galloon of the tapestry the Brussels Brabant mark of two B's with a shield between. And it was about this time and later that the celebrated family of weavers named Pannemaker came into prominence through the talent of Wilhelm de Pannemaker, he who accompanied the Emperor Charles V on his expedition to Tunis. This expedition flaunts itself in the set of tapestries now in Madrid. (Plate facing page 62.) The emperor seems, from our point of view, to have done it all with dramatic forethought. There was his special artist on the spot, Jan Vermeyen, to draw the superb cartoons, and accompanying him was Wilhelm de Pannemaker, the ablest weaver of his day, to set the loom and thrust the shuttle. Granada was the place selected for the weaving, and the finest of wool was set aside for it, besides lavish amounts of silk, and pounds of silver and gold. In three years, by the help of eighty workmen, Pannemaker completed his colossal task. Such was the master-weaver of the Sixteenth Century. [Illustration: CONQUEST OF TUNIS BY CHARLES V (DETAIL) Cartoon by Jan Vermeyen. Woven by Pannemaker. Royal Collection at Madrid] As for Pannemaker's imperial patron, John Addington Symonds discriminatingly says of him: "Like a gale sweeping across a forest of trees in blossom, and bearing their fertilising pollen to far distant trees, the storm of Charles Fifth's army carried far and wide through Europe the productive energy of the Renaissance." CHAPTER VI RENAISSANCE INFLUENCE Brussels in 1515, with her workmen at the zenith of their perfection, was given the order to weave the set of the _Acts of the Apostles_ for the Pope to hang in the Sistine Chapel. (Plate facing page 64.) The cartoons were by the great Raphael. Not only did he draw the splendid scenes, but with his exquisite invention elaborated the borders. Thus was set in the midst of the Brussels ateliers a pattern for the new art that was to retire the nice perfection of the previous school of restraint. From that time, all was regulated by new standards. Before considering the change that came to designs in tapestry, it is necessary that both mind and eye should be literally savants in the Gothic. Without this the greatest point in classifying and distinguishing is missed. The dainty grace of the verdure and flowers, the exquisite models of the architectural details, the honest, simple scheme of colour, all these are distinguishing marks, but to them is added the still greater one of the figures and their grouping. In the very early work, these are few in number, all equally accented in size and finish, but later the laws of perspective are better understood, and subordinates to the subject are drawn smaller. This gives opportunity for increase in the number of personages, and for the introduction of the horses and dogs and little wild animals that cause a childish thrill of delight wherever they are encountered, so like are they to the species that haunt childhood's fairyland. [Illustration: DEATH OF ANANIAS.--FROM ACTS OF THE APOSTLES BY RAPHAEL From the Palace of Madrid] [Illustration: THE STORY OF REBECCA Brussels Tapestry. Sixteenth Century. Collection of Arthur Astor Carey, Esq., Boston] Indeed, the Gothic tapestries more than any other existing pictures take us back to that epoch of our lives when we lived in romance, when the Sleeping Beauty hid in just such towers, when the prince rode such a horse and appeared an elegant young knight. The inscrutable mystery of those folk of other days is like the inscrutable mystery of that childhood time, the Mediæval time of the imagination, and those of us who remember its joys gaze silent and happy in the tapestry room of the Ducal Palace at Nancy, or in Mary's Chamber at Holyrood, or in any place whatever where hang the magic pictured cloths. When the highest development of a style is reached a change is sure to come. It may be a degeneration, or it may be the introduction of a new style through some great artistic impulse either native or introduced by contact with an outside influence. Fortunately, the Gothic passed through no pallid process of deterioration. The examples that nest comfortably in the museums of the world or in the homes of certain fortunate owners, do not contain marks of decadence--only of transition. It is a style that was replaced, but not one that died the death of decadence. It is with reluctance that one who loves the Gothic will leave it for the more recent art of the Renaissance. Its charm is one that embodies chasteness, grace, and simplicity, one that is so exquisitely finished, and so individual that the mind and eye rest lovingly upon its decorative expressions. It is averred that the introduction of the revived styles of Greece and Rome into France destroyed an art superior. One is inclined to this opinion in studying a tapestry of the highest Gothic expression, a finished product of the artist and the craftsman, both having given to its execution their honest labour and highest skill. Unhappily it is often, with the tapestry lover, a case similar to that of the penniless boy before the bakeshop window--you may look, but you may not have,--for not often are tapestries such as these for sale. Only among the experienced dealer-collectors is one fortunate enough to find these rare remnants of the past which for colour, design and texture are unsurpassed. But the Gothic was bound to give way as a fashion in design. Politics of Europe were at work, and men were more easily moving about from one country to another. The cities of the various provinces over which the Burgundian dukes had ruled were prevented by natural causes, from being united. Arras, Ghent, Liége instead of forming a solidarity, were separate units of interest. This made the subjugation of one or the other an easy matter to the tyrant who oppressed. As Arras declined under the misrule of Charles le Téméraire (whose possessions at one time outlined the whole northern and eastern border of France) Brussels came into the highest prominence as a source of the finest tapestries. [Illustration: THE CREATION Flemish Tapestry. Italian Cartoon, Sixteenth Century] [Illustration: THE ORIGINAL SIN Flemish Tapestry. Italian Cartoon, Sixteenth Century] The great change in tapestries that now occurs is the same that altered all European art and decoration and architecture. Indeed it cannot be limited to these evidences alone, for it affected literature, politics, religion, every intellectual evidence. Man was breaking his bonds and becoming freed for centuries to come. The time was well-named for the new birth. Like another Birth of long ago, it occurred in the South, and its influence gradually spread over the entire civilised world. The Renaissance, starting in Italy, gradually flushed the whole of Europe with its glory. Artists could not be restrained. Throbbing with poetry to be expressed, they threw off design after design of inspired beauty and flooded the world with them. The legitimate field of painting was not large enough for their teeming originality which pre-empted also the field of decorative design as well. Many painters apprenticed themselves to goldsmiths and silversmiths to become yet more cunning in the art of minute design, and the guilds of Florence held the names best known in the fine arts. Tapestry weaving seems a natural expression in the North, the impulsive supplying of a local need. Possibly Italy felt no such need throughout the Middle Ages. However that may be, when her artists composed designs for woven pictures there were no permanent artisans at home of sufficient skill to weave them. But up in the North, craftsmen were able to produce work of such brilliant and perfect execution that the great artists of Italy were inspired to draw cartoons. And so it came, that to make sure of having their drawings translated into wool and silk with proper artistic feeling, the cartoons of Raphael were bundled off by trusty carriers to the ateliers of Flanders. Thus Italy got her tapestries of the Renaissance, and thus Flanders acquired by inoculation the rich art of the Renaissance. The direct cause of the change in Flemish style of tapestries was in this way brought about by the Renaissance of Italy. New rules of drawing were dominating. Changes were slower when travelling was difficult, and the average of literacy was low; but gradually there came creeping up to Brussels cartoon after cartoon in the new method, for her skilled workmen to transpose into wool and silk and metal, "thread of Arras," and "gold and silver of Cyprus." Italy had the artists, Brussels had the craftsmen--what happier combination could be made than the union of these two? Thus was the great change brought about in tapestries, and this union is the great fact to be borne in mind about the difference between the Gothic tapestries and those which so quickly succeeded them. From now on the old method is abandoned, not only in Brussels, but everywhere that the high-warp looms are set up. The "art nouveau" of that day influenced every brush and pencil. The great crowding of serried hosts on a single field disappeared, and fewer but perfect figures played their parts on the woven surface. Wherever architectural details, such as porticoes or columns, were introduced, these dropped the old designs of "pointed" style or battlements, and took on the classic or the high Renaissance that ornaments the façade of Pavia's Certosa. One by one the wildwood flowers receded before the advance of civilisation, very much as those in the veritable land are wont to do, and their place was taken by a verdure as rich as the South could produce, with heavy foliage and massive blossoms. [Illustration: MELEAGER AND ATALANTA Flemish design, second half of Seventeenth Century. Woven in Paris workshops by Charles de Comans] [Illustration: PUNIC WAR SERIES Brussels Tapestry. Sixteenth Century. Collection of Arthur Astor Carey, Esq., Boston] It is impossible to overestimate the importance to Brussels of the animating experience and distinguished commission of executing the set of tapestries for the Sistine Chapel after cartoons by Raffaelo Sanzio. The date is one to tie to (1515) and the influence of the work was far-reaching. The Gothic method could no longer continue. The Renaissance spread its influence, established its standards and introduced that wave of productiveness which always followed its introduction. There are many who doubt the superiority of the voluptuous art of the high Renaissance. There are those who prefer (perhaps for reasons of sentiment) the early Gothic, and many more who love far better the sweet purity of the early Renaissance. Before us Raphael presents his full figures replete with action, rich with broad, open curves in nudity, and magnificent with lines of flowing drapery. To him be accorded all due honour; but, if it is the privilege of the artist's spirit to wander still on earth, he must find his particular post-mortem punishment in viewing the deplorable school of exaggeration which his example founded. Who would not prefer one of the chaste tapestries of perfected Gothic to one of those which followed Raphael, imitating none of his virtues, exaggerating his faults? It is these followers, the virilities of whose false art is as that of weeds, who have come almost to our own day and who have succeeded in spoiling the historical aspect of the New Testament for many an imaginative Sunday-school attendant by giving us Bible folk in swarthy undress, in lunatic beards and in unwearable drapings. These terrible persons, descendants of Raphael's art, can never stir a human sympathy. Just here a word must be said of the workmen, the weavers of Brussels. For them certain fixed rules were made, but also they were allowed much liberty in execution. The artist might draw the big cartoons and thus become the governing influence, but much of the choice of colour and thread was left to the weaver. This made of him a more important factor in the composition than a mere artisan; he was, in fact, an artist, must needs be, to execute a work of such sublimity as the Raphael set. And as a weaver, his patience was without limit. Thread by thread, the warp was set, and thread by thread the woof was woven and coerced into place by the relentless comb of the weaver. Perhaps a man might make a square foot, by a week of close application; but "how much" mattered nothing--it was "how well" that counted. Haste is disassociable from labour of our day; we might produce--or reproduce--tapestries as good as the old, but some one is in haste for the hanging, and excellency goes by the board. The weaver of those days of perfection was content to be a weaver, felt his ambition gratified if his work was good. [Illustration: EPISODE IN THE LIFE OF CÆSAR Flemish Tapestry. Sixteenth Century. Gallery of the Arazzi, Florence] [Illustration: WILD BOAR HUNT Flemish Cartoon and Weaving, Sixteenth Century. Gallery of the Arazzi, Florence] Peter van Aelst was the master chosen to execute the Raphael tapestries, and the pieces were finished in three or four years. Those who think present-day prices high, should think on the fact that Pope Leo X paid $130,000 for the execution of the tapestries, which in 1515 counted for more than now. Raphael received $1,000 each for the cartoons, almost all of which are now guarded in England. The tapestries after a varied history are resting safely in the Vatican, a wonder to the visitor. When Van Aelst had finished his magnificent work, the tapestries were sent to Rome. Those who go now to the Sistine Chapel to gaze upon Michael Angelo's painted ceiling, and the panelled sidewalls of Botticelli and other cotemporary artists, are more than intoxicated with the feast. But fancy what the scene must have been when Pope Leo X summoned his gorgeous guard and cardinals around him in this chapel enriched also with the splendour of these unparalleled hangings. And thus it came that Italy held the first place--almost the only place--in design, and Brussels led in manufacture. In 1528 appeared a mark on Brussels' tapestries which distinguished them from that time on. Prior to that their works, except in certain authenticated instances, are not always distinguishable from those of other looms--of which many existed in many towns. The mark alluded to is the famous one of two large B's on either side of a shield or scutcheon. This was woven into a plain band on the border, and the penalty for its misuse was the no small one of the loss of the right hand--the death of the culprit as a weaver. This mark and its laws were intended to discourage fraud, to promote perfection and to conserve a high reputation for weavers as well as for dealers. CHAPTER VII RENAISSANCE TO RUBENS When the Raphael cartoons first came to Brussels the new method was a little difficult for the tapissier. His hand had been accustomed to another manner. He had, too, been allowed much liberty in his translations--if one may so call the art of reproducing a painted model on the loom. He might change at will the colour of a drapery, even the position of a figure, and, most interesting fact, he had on hand a supply of stock figures that he might use at will, making for himself suitable combination. The figures of Adam and Eve gave a certain cachet to hangings not entirely secular and these were slipped in when a space needed filling. There were also certain lovely ladies who might at one time play the rôle of attendant at a feast _al fresco_, at another time a character in an allegory. The weaver's hand was a little conventional when he began to execute the Raphael cartoons, but during the three years required for their execution he lost all restriction and was ready for the freer manner. [Illustration: VERTUMNUS AND POMONA First half of Sixteenth Century. Royal Collection of Madrid] [Illustration: VERTUMNUS AND POMONA First half of Sixteenth Century. Royal Collection of Madrid] It must not be supposed the Flemish artists were content to let the Italians entirely usurp them in the drawing of cartoons. The lovely refinement of the Bruges school having been thrust aside, the Fleming tried his hand at the freer method, not imitating its classicism but giving his themes a broader treatment. The Northern temperament failed to grasp the spirit of the South, and figures grew gross and loose in the exaggerated drawing. Borders, however, show no such deterioration; the attention to detail to which the old school was accustomed was here continued and with good effect. No stronger evidence is needed than some of these half savage portrayals of life in the Sixteenth Century to declare the classic method an exotic in Flanders. But with the passing of the old Gothic method, there was little need for other cartoonists than the Italian, so infinitely able and prolific were they. Andrea del Sarto, Titian, Paolo Veronese, Giulio Romano, these are among the artists whose work went up to Brussels workshops and to other able looms of the day. We can fancy the fair face of Andrea's wife being lovingly caressed by the weaver's fingers in his work; we can imagine the beauties of Titian, the sumptuousness of Veronese's feasts, and the fat materialism of Giulio Romano's heavy cherubs, all contributing to the most beautiful of textile arts. Still earlier, Mantegna supplied a series of idealised Pompeian figures exquisitely composed, set in a lacy fancy of airy architectural detail, in which he idealised all the gods of Olympus. Each fair young goddess, each strong and perfect god, stood in its particular niche and indicated its _penchant_ by a tripod, a peacock, an apple or a caduceus, as clue to the proper name. Such airy beauty, such dainty conception, makes of the gods rulers of æsthetics, if not of fate. This series of Mantegna was the inspiration two centuries later of the _Triumphs of the Gods_, and similar hangings of the newly-formed Gobelins. Giulio Romano drew, among other cartoons, a set of _Children Playing_, which were the inspiration later at the Gobelins for Lebrun's _Enfants Jardiniers_. As classic treatment was the mode in the Sixteenth Century, so classic subject most appealed. The loves and adventures of gods and heroes gave stories for an infinite number of sets. As it was the fashion to fill a room with a series, not with miscellaneous and contrasting bits, several tapestries similar in subject and treatment were a necessity. The gods were carried through their adventures in varying composition, but the borders in all the set were uniform in style and measurement. In those prolific days, when ideas were crowding fast for expression, the border gave just the outlet necessary for the superfluous designs of the artist. He was wont to plot it off into squares with such architectonic fineness as Mina da Fiesole might have used, and to make of each of these a picture or a figure so perfect that in itself it would have sufficient composition for an entire tapestry. All honour to such artists, but let us never once forget that without the skill and talent of the master-weaver these beauties would never have come down to us. [Illustration: VERTUMNUS AND POMONA First half of Sixteenth Century. Royal Collection of Madrid] [Illustration: VERTUMNUS AND POMONA First half of Sixteenth Century. Royal Collection of Madrid] The collection of George Blumenthal, Esquire, of New York, contains as beautiful examples of Sixteenth Century composition and weaving as could be imagined. Two of these were found in Spain--the country which has ever hoarded her stores of marvellous tapestries. They represent the story of _Mercury_. (Frontispiece.) The cartoon is Italian, and so perfect is its drawing, so rich in invention is the exquisite border, that the name of Raphael is half-breathed by the thrilled observer. But if the artist is not yet certainly identified, the name of the weaver is certain, for on the galloon he has left his sign. It is none other than the celebrated Wilhelm de Pannemaker. In addition to this is the shield and double B of the Brussels workshop, which after 1528 was a requirement on all tapestries beyond a certain small size. In 1544 the Emperor Charles V made a law that the mark or name of the weaver and the mark of his town must be put in the border. It was this same Pannemaker of the Blumenthal tapestries who wove in Spain the _Conquest of Tunis_ for Charles V. (Plate facing page 62.) Mr. Blumenthal's tapestries must have carried with them some such contract for fine materials as that which attended the execution of the _Tunis_ set, so superb are they in quality. Indeed, gold is so lavishly used that the border seems entirely made of it, except for the delicate figures resting thereon. It is used, too, in an unusual manner, four threads being thrown together to make more resplendent the weave. The beauty of the cartoon as a picture, the decorative value of the broad surfaces of figured stuffs, the marvellous execution of the weaver, all make the value of these tapestries incalculable to the student and the lover of decorative art. Mr. Blumenthal has graciously placed them on exhibition in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Fortunate they who can absorb their beauty. That treasure-house in Madrid which belongs to the royal family contains a set which bears the same ear-marks as the Blumenthal tapestries. It is the set called _The Loves of Vertumnus and Pomona_. (Plates facing pages 72, 73, 74 and 75.) Here is the same manner of dress, the same virility, the same fulness of decoration. Yet the Mercury is drawn with finer art. The delight in perfected detail belonging to the Italian school of artists resulted in an arrangement of _grotesques_. Who knows that the goldsmith's trade was not responsible for these tiny fantastics, as so many artists began as apprentices to workers in gold and silver? This evidence of talented invention must be observed, for it set the fashion for many a later tapestry, notably the _Grotesque Months_ of the Seventeenth Century. Mingled with verdure and fruit, it is seen in work of the Eighteenth Century. But in its original expression is it the most talented. There we find that intellectual plan of design, that building of a perfect whole from a subtle combination of absolutely irreconcilable and even fabulous objects. Yet all is done with such beguiling art that both mind and eye are piqued and pleased with the impossible blending of realism and imagination. Bacchiacca drew a filigree of attenuated fancies, threw them on a ground of single delicate colour, and sent them for weave to the celebrated masters, John Rost and Nicholas Karcher. (Plates facing pages 84 and 85.) These men at that time (1550) had set their Flemish looms in Italy. [Illustration: TAPESTRIES FOR HEAD AND SIDE OF BED Renaissance designs. Royal Collection of Madrid] [Illustration: THE STORY OF REBECCA Brussels Tapestry. Sixteenth Century. Collection of Arthur Astor Carey, Esq., Boston] And so it came that the Renaissance swept all before it in the world of tapestry. More than that, with the increase of culture and of wealth, with the increased mingling of the peoples of Europe after the raid of Charles V into Italy, the demand for tapestries enormously increased. They were wanted for furnishing of homes, they were wanted as gifts--to brides, to monarchs, to ambassadors. And they were wanted for splendid decoration in public festivals. They had passed beyond the stage of rarity and had become almost as much a matter of course as clothing. Brussels being in the ascendency as a producer, the world looked to her for their supply, and thereby came trouble. More orders came than it was possible to fill. The temptation was not resisted to accept more work than could be executed, for commercialism has ever a hold. The result was a driving haste. The director of the ateliers forced his weavers to quick production. This could mean but one thing, the lessening of care in every department. Gradually it came about that expedition in a tapissier, the ability to weave quickly, was as great a desideratum as fine work. Various other expedients were resorted to beside the Sixteenth Century equivalent of "Step lively." Large tapestries were not set on a single loom, but were woven in sections, cunningly united when finished. In this manner more men could be impressed into the manufacture of a single piece. A wicked practice was introduced of painting or dyeing certain woven parts in which the colours had been ill-selected. All these things resulted in constantly increasing restrictions by the guild of tapissiers and by order of royal patrons. But fraud is hard to suppress when the animus of the perpetrator is wrong. Laws were made to stop one fault after another, until in the end the weavers were so hampered by regulations that work was robbed of all enthusiasm or originality. It was at this time that Brussels adopted the low-warp loom. In other words, after a brilliant period of prolific and beautiful production, Brussels began to show signs of deterioration. Her hour of triumph was past. It had been more brilliant than any preceding, and later times were never able to touch the same note of purity coupled with perfection. The reason for the decline is known, but reasons are of scant interest in the face of the deplorable fact of decadence. The Italian method of drawing cartoons was adopted by the Flemish cartoonists at this time, but as it was an adoption and not a natural expression of inborn talent, it fell short of the high standard of the Renaissance. But that is not to say that we of to-day are not ready to worship the fruit of the Italian graft on Flemish talent. A tapestry belonging to the Institute of Art in Chicago well represents this hybrid expression of drawing. (Plate facing page 78.) The principal figures are inspired by such as are seen in the _Mercury_ of Mr. Blumenthal's collection, or the _Vertumnus and Pomona_ series, but there the artist stopped and wandered off into his traditional Flemish landscape with proper Flemings in the background dressed in the fashion of the artist's day. [Illustration: BRUSSELS TAPESTRY. LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY Weaver, Jacques Geubels. Institute of Art, Chicago] [Illustration: MEETING OF ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA Brussels Tapestry. Woven by Gerard van den Strecken. Cartoon attributed to Rubens] The border was evidently inspired by Raphael's classic figures and arabesques, but the column of design is naïvely broken by the far perspective of a formal garden. The Italian cartoonist would have built his border, figure and arabesque, one above another like a fantastic column (_vide_ Mr. Blumenthal's _Mercury_ border). The Fleming saw the intricacy, the multiplied detail, but missed the intellectual harmony. But, such trifles apart, the Flemish examples of this style that have come to us are thrilling in their beauty of colour, and borders such as this are an infinite joy. This tapestry was woven about the last quarter of the Sixteenth Century by a weaver named Jacques Geubels of Brussels, who was employed by Carlier, a merchant of Antwerp. As the fruit of the Renaissance graft on Flanders coarsened and deteriorated, a new influence arose in the Low Countries, one that was bound to submerge all others. Rubens appeared and spread his great decorative surfaces before eyes that were tired of hybrid design. This great scene-painter introduced into all Europe a new method in his voluptuous, vigorous work, a method especially adapted to tapestry weaving. It is not for us to quarrel with the art of so great a master. The critics of painting scarce do that; but in the lesser art of tapestry the change brought about by his cartoons was not a happy one. His great dramatic scenes required to be copied directly from the canvas, no liberty of line or colour could be allowed the weaver. In times past, the tapissier--with talent almost as great as that of the cartoonist--altered at his discretion. Even he to whom the Raphael cartoons were entrusted changed here and there the work of the master. But now he was expected to copy without license for change. In other words, the time was arriving when tapestries were changing from decorative fabrics into paintings in wool. It takes courage to avow a distaste for the newer method, seeing what rare and beautiful hangings it has produced. But after a study of the purely decorative hangings of Gothic and Renaissance work, how forced and false seem the later gods. The value of the tapestries is enormous, they are the work of eminent men--but the heart turns away from them and revels again in the Primitives and the Italians of the Cinque Cento. Repining is of little avail. The mode changes and tastes must change with it. If the gradual decadence after the Renaissance was deplorable, it was well that a Rubens rose in vigour to set a new and vital copy. To meet new needs, more tones of colour and yet more, were required by the weaver, and thus came about the making of woven pictures. As one picture is worth many pages of description, it were well to observe the examples given (plate facing page 79) of the superb set of _Antony and Cleopatra_, a series of designs attributed to Rubens, executed in Brussels by Gerard van den Strecken. This set is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. CHAPTER VIII ITALY FIFTEENTH THROUGH SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES The history of tapestry in Italy is the story of the great families, their romances and achievements. These families were those which furnished rulers of provinces--kings, almost--which supplied popes as well, and folk who thought a powerful man's pleasurable duty was to interest himself seriously in the arts. With the fine arts all held within her hand, it was but logical that Italy should herself begin to produce the tapestries she was importing from the land of the barbarians as those beyond her northern borders were arrogantly called. First among the records is found the name of the Gonzaga family which called important Flemish weavers down to Mantua, and there wove designs of Mantegna, in the highest day of their factory's production, about 1450. Duke Frederick of Urbino is one of the early Italian patrons of tapestry whose name is made unforgettable in this connexion by the product of the factory he established toward the end of the Fifteenth Century, at his court in the little duchy which included only the space reaching from the Apennines to the Adriatic and from Rimini to Ancona. The chief work of this factory was the _History of Troy_ which cost the generous and enthusiastic duke a hundred thousand dollars. The great d'Este family was one to follow persistently the art, possibly because it habited the northern part of the peninsula and was therefore nearer Flanders, but more probably because the great Duke of Ferrara was animated by that superb pride of race that chafes at rivalry; this, added to a wish to encourage art, and the lust of possession which characterised the great men of that day. It was the middle of the Sixteenth Century that Ercole II, the head of the d'Este family, revived at Ferrara the factory of his family which had suffered from the wars. The master-weavers were brought from Flanders, not only to produce tapestries almost unequalled for technical perfection, but to instruct local weavers. These two important weavers were Nicholas and John Karcher or Carcher as it is sometimes spelled, names of great renown--for a weaver might be almost as well known and as highly esteemed as the artist of the cartoons in those days when artisan's labour had not been despised by even the great Leonardo. The foremost artist of the Ferrara works was chosen from that city, Battista Dosso, but also active as designer was the Fleming, Lucas Cornelisz. In Dosso's work is seen that exquisite and dainty touch that characterises the artists of Northern Italy in their most perfect period, before voluptuous masses and heavy scroll-like curves prevailed even in the drawing of the human figure. [Illustration: THE ANNUNCIATION Italian Tapestry. Fifteenth Century. Collection of Martin A. Ryerson, Esq., Chicago] The House of Este had a part to play in the visit of the Emperor Charles V when he elected to be crowned with Lombardy's Iron Crown, in 1530, at Bologna instead of in the cathedral at Monza where the relic has its home. "Crowns run after me; I do not run after them," he said, with the arrogance of success. At this reception at Bologna we catch a glimpse of the brilliant Isabella d'Este amid all the magnificence of the occasion. It takes very little imagination to picture the effect of the public square at Bologna--the same buildings that stand to-day--the square of the Palazzo Publico and the Cathedral--to fancy these all hung with the immense woven pictures with high lights of silk and gold glowing in the sun, and through this magnificent scene the procession of mounted guards, of beautiful ladies, of church dignitaries, with Charles V as the central object of pomp, wearing as a clasp to the cope of state the great diamond found on the field of Marat after the defeat of the Duke of Burgundy. The members of the House of Este were there with their courts and their protégés, their artists and their literati, as well as with their display of riches and gaiety. The manufactory at Ferrara was now allowed to sell to the public, so great was its success, and to it is owed the first impetus given to the weaving in Italy and the production of some of the finest hangings which time has left for us to enjoy to-day. It is a sad commentary on man's lust of novelty that the factory at Ferrara was ultimately abandoned by reason of the introduction into the country of the brilliant metal-illuminated leathers of Cordova. The factory's life was comprised within the space of the years 1534 to 1597, the years in which lived Ercole II and Alfonso II, the two dukes of the House of Este who established and continued it. It was but little wonder that the great family of the Medici looked with envious eyes on any innovation or success which distinguished a family which so nearly approached in importance its own. When Ercole d'Este had fully proved the perfection of his new industry, the weaving of tapestry, one of the Medici established for himself a factory whereby he, too, might produce this form of art, not only for the furtherance of the art, but to supply his own insatiable desires for possession. The _Arazzeria Medicea_ was the direct result of the jealousy of Cosimo I, Grand Duke of Tuscany, 1537-1574. It was established in Florence with a success to be anticipated under such powerful protection, and it endured until that patronage was removed by the extinction of the family in 1737. It was to be expected that the artists employed were those of note, yet in the general result, outside of delicate grotesques, the drawing is more or less the far-away echo of greater masters whose faults are reproduced, but whose inspiration is not obtainable. After Michael Angelo, came a passion for over-delineation of over-developed muscles; after Raphael--came the debased followers of his favourite pupil, Giulio Romano, who had himself seized all there was of the carnal in Raphael's genius. But if there is something to be desired in the composition and line of the cartoons of the Florentine factory, there is nothing lacking in the consummate skill of the weavers. [Illustration: ITALIAN TAPESTRY. MIDDLE OF SIXTEENTH CENTURY Cartoon by Bacchiacca. Woven by Nicholas Karcher] [Illustration: ITALIAN TAPESTRY. MIDDLE OF SIXTEENTH CENTURY Cartoon by Bacchiacca. Woven by G. Rost] The same Nicholas Karcher who set the standard in the d'Este works, gave of his wonderful skill to the Florentines, and with him was associated John Rost. These were both from Flanders, and although trade regulations for tapestry workers did not exist in Italy, Duke Cosimo granted each of these men a sufficient salary, a habitat, as well as permission to work for outsiders, and in addition paid them for all work executed for himself. The subjects for the set of tapestries had entirely left the old method of pious interpretation and of mediæval allegory and revelled in pictured tales of the Scriptures and of the gods and heroes of mystical Parnassus and of bellicose Greece, not forgetting those dainty exquisite impossibilities called grotesques. It was about the time of the death of Cosimo I (1574), the founder of the Medicean factory, that a new and unfortunate influence came into the directorship of the designs. This was the appointment of Stradano or Johan van der Straaten, to give his Flemish name, as dominating artist. He was a man without fine artistic feeling, one of those whose eye delighted in the exaggerations of decadence rather than in the restraint of perfect art. He was inspired, not by past perfection of the Italians among whom he came to live, but by those of the decline, and on this he grafted a bit of Northern philistinism. His brush was unfortunately prolific, and at this time the fine examples of weaving set by Rost and Karcher had been replaced by quicker methods so that after 1600 the tapestries poured out were lamentably inferior. Florentine tapestry had at this time much pretence, much vulgar display in its drawing, missing the fine virtues of the time when Cosimo I dictated its taste, the fine virtues of "grace, gaiety and reflectiveness." Leo X, the great Medicean pope, was elected in 1513, he who ordered the great Raphael set of the _Acts of the Apostles_, but it was before the establishment of important looms in Italy, so to Flanders and Van Aelst are due the glory of first producing this series which afterward was repeated many times, in the great looms of Europe. Leo X emulated in the patronage of the arts his father Lorenzo, well-named Magnificent. What Lorenzo did in Florence, Leo X endeavoured to do in Rome; make of his time and of his city the highest expression of culture. His record, however, is so mixed with the corruption of the time that its golden glory is half-dimmed. It was from the licentiousness of cardinals and the wanton revels of the Vatican in Leo's time that young Luther the "barbarian" fled with horror to nail up his theses on the doors of the churches in Wittenberg. The history of tapestry in Italy at the Seventeenth Century was all in the hands of the great families. Italy was not united under a single royal head, but was a heterogeneous mass of dukedoms, of foreign invaders, with the popes as the head of all. But Italy had experienced a time of papal corruption, which had, as its effect, wars of disintegration, the retarding of that unity of state which has only recently been accomplished. State patronage for the factories was not known, that steady beneficent influence, changeless through changing reigns. Popes and great families regulated art in all its manifestations, and who shall say that envy and rivalry did not act for its advancement. [Illustration: ITALIAN VERDURE. SEVENTEENTH CENTURY] The desire to imitate the cultivation and elegance of Italy was what made returning invaders carry the Renaissance into the rest of Europe; and in a lesser degree the process was reversed when, in the Seventeenth Century, a cardinal of the House of Barberini visited France and, on viewing in the royal residences a superb display of tapestries, his envy and ambition were aroused to the extent of emulation. He could not, with all his power, possess himself of the hangings that he saw, but he could, and did, arrange to supply himself generously from another source. He was the powerful Francesco Barberini, the son of the pope's brother (Pope Urban VIII, 1623-1644), and it was he who established the Barberini Library and built from the ruins of Rome's amphitheatres and baths the great palace which to-day still dominates the street winding up to its aristocratic elegance. It was to adorn this palace that Cardinal Francesco established ateliers and looms and set artists and weavers to work. This tapestry factory is of especial interest to America, for some of its chief hangings have come to rest with us. _The Mysteries of the Life and Death of Jesus Christ_, one set is called, and is the property of the Cathedral of St. John, the Divine, in New York, donated by Mrs. Clarke. Cardinal Francesco Barberini chose as his artists those of the school of Pietro di Cortona with Giovanni Francesco Romanelli as the head master. The director of the factory was Giacomo della Riviera allied with M. Wauters, the Fleming.[13] The former was especially concerned with the pieces now owned by the Cathedral of St. John, the Divine, in New York, and which are signed with his name. Romanelli was the artist of the cartoons, and his fame is almost too well known to dwell upon. His portrait, in tapestry, hangs in the Louvre, for in Paris he gained much fame at the Court of Louis XIV, where he painted portraits of the Grand Monarch, who never wearied of seeing his own magnificence fixed on canvas. It was the hard fate of the Barberini family to lose power and wealth after the death of their powerful member, Pope Urban VIII, in 1644. Their wealth and influence were the shining mark for the arrows of envy, so it was to be expected that when the next pope, Innocent X, was elected, they were robbed of riches and driven out of the country into France. This ended for a time the work of the tapestry factory, but later the family returned and work was resumed to the extent of weaving a superb series picturing scenes especially connected with the glory of the family, and entitled _History of Urban VIII_. Although Italy is growing daily in power and riches under her new policy of political unity, there were dreary years of heavy expense and light income for many of her famous families, and it was during such an era that the Barberini family consented to let their tapestries pass out from the doors of the palace they were woven to decorate. In 1889, the late Charles M. Ffoulke, Esq., became the possessor of all the Barberini hangings, and added them to his famous collection. Thus through the enterprise and the fine artistic appreciation of Mr. Ffoulke, is America able to enjoy the best expression of Italian tapestry of the Seventeenth Century. The part that Venice ever played in the history of tapestry is the splendid one of consumer. In her Oriental magnificence she exhibited in palace and pageant the superb products of labour which others had executed. Without tapestries her big stone palaces would have lacked the note of soft luxury, without coloured hangings her balconies would have been but dull settings for languid ladies, and her water-parades would have missed the wondrous colour that the Venetian loves. Yet to her rich market flowed the product of Europe in such exhaustless stream that she became connoisseur-consumer only, nor felt the need of serious producing. Workshops there were, from time to time, but they were as easily abandoned as they were initiated, and they have left little either to history or to museums. Venice was, in the Sixteenth Century, not only a buyer of tapestries for her own use, but one of the largest markets for the sale of hangings to all Europe. Men and monarchs from all Christendom went there to purchase. The same may be said of Genoa, so that although these two cities had occasional unimportant looms, their position was that of middleman--vendors of the works of others. In addition to this they were repairers and had ateliers for restoring, even in those days. FOOTNOTE: [13] E. Müntz, "La Tapisserie." CHAPTER IX FRANCE WORKING UP TO GOBELINS FACTORY In following the great sweep of tapestry production we arrive now in France, there to stay until the Revolution. The early beginnings were there, briefly rivalling Arras, but Arras, as we have seen, caught up the industry with greater zeal and became the ever-famous leader of the Fifteenth Century, ceding to Brussels in the Sixteenth Century, whence the high point of perfection was carried to Paris and caused the establishment of the Gobelins. The English development under James I, we defer for a later considering. Francis I stands, an over-dressed, ever ambitious figure, at the beginning of things modern in French art. He still smacks of the Middle Ages in many a custom, many a habit of thought; his men clank in armour, in his châteaux lurk the suggestion of the fortress, and his common people are sunk in a dark and hopeless oppression. Yet he himself darts about Europe with a springing gait and an elegant manner, the type of the strong aristocrat dispensing alike arts of war and arts of the Renaissance. Was it his visits, bellicose though they were, to Italy and Spain, that turned his observant eye to the luxury of woven story and made him desire that France should produce the same? The Sforza Castle at Milan had walls enough of tapestry, the pageants of Leonardo da Vinci, organised at royal command of the lovely Beatrice d'Este, displayed the wealth of woven beauty over which Francis had time to deliberate in those bad hours after the battle at Milan's noted neighbour, Pavia. [Illustration: THE FINDING OF MOSES Gobelins, Seventeenth Century. Cartoon after Poussin. The Louvre Museum] [Illustration: TRIUMPH OF JUNO Gobelins under Louis XIV.] The attention of Francis was also turned much to Spain through envy of that extraordinary man of luck and ability, the Emperor Charles V, and from whom he made abortive and sullen efforts to wrest Germany, Italy, anything he could get. In his imprisonment in Madrid, Francis had time in plenty on which to think of many things, and why not on the wonderful tapestries of which Spain has always had a collection to make envious the rest of Europe. He might forget his two poor little boys who were left as hostages on his release, but he forgot not whatever contributes to the pleasure of life. That peculiarity was one which was yielding luscious fruit, however, for Francis was the bearer of the torch of the Renaissance which was to illumine France with the same fire that flashed and glowed over Italy. This is a fact to remember in regard to the class of designs of his own and succeeding periods in France. How he got his ideas we can reasonably trace, and the result of them was that he established a royal tapestry factory in beautiful Fontainebleau, which lies hid in grateful shade, stretching to flowered fields but a reasonable distance from the distractions of Paris. It pleased Francis--and perhaps the beautiful Diane de Poitiers and Duchesse d'Étampes--to critique plays in that tiny gem of a theatre at the palace, or to feed the carp in the pool; but also it gave him pleasure to wander into the rooms where the high-warp looms lifted their utilitarian lengths and artists played at magic with the wools. Alas, one cannot dress this patronage of art with too much of disinterestedness, for these marvellous weavings were for the adornment of the apartments of the very persons who caused their productions. The grand idea of state ateliers had not yet come to bless the industry. For this reason the factory at Fontainebleau outlasted the reign of its founder, Francis I, but a short time. Nevertheless, examples of its works are still to be seen and are of great beauty, notably those at the Museum of the Gobelins in Paris. That a series called the _History of Diana_ was produced is but natural, considering the puissance at court of the famous Diane de Poitiers. When Francis' son, Henri II, enfeebled in constitution by the Spanish confinement, inherited the throne, it was but natural that he should neglect the indulgences of his father and prefer those of his own. The Fontainebleau factory strung its looms and copied its cartoons and produced, too, certain hangings for Henri's wife, the terrible Catherine de Medici, on which her vicious eyes rested in forming her horrid plots; but Henri had ambitions of his own, small ambitions beside those which had to do with jealousy of Charles Quint. He let the factory of Francis I languish, but carried on the art under his own name and fame. To give his infant industry a home he looked about Paris and decided upon the Hôpital de la Trinité, an institution where asylum was found for the orphans of the city who seem, in the light of the general brutality of the time, to have been even in more need of a home than the parentless child of modern civilisation. A part of the scheme was to employ in the works such children as were sufficiently mature and clever to work and to learn at least the auxiliary details of a craft that is also an art. In this way the sixty or so of the orphans of La Trinité were given a means of earning a livelihood. Among them was one whose name became renowned. This was Maurice du Bourg, whose tapestries surpassed all others of his time in this factory--an important factory, as being one of the group that later was merged into the Gobelins. It must be remembered in identifying French tapestries of this kind that things Gothic had been vanquished by the new fashion of things Renaissance, and that all models were Italian. Giulio Romano and his school of followers were the mode in France, not only in drawing, but in the revival of classic subject. This condition in the art world found expression in a set of tapestries from the factory of La Trinité that are sufficiently celebrated to be set down in the memory with an underscoring. This set was composed of fifteen pieces illustrating in sweeping design and gorgeous colouring the _History of Mausolus and Artemisia_. Intense local and personal interest was given to the set by making an open secret of the fact that by Artemisia, the Queen of Halicarnassus, was meant the widowed Queen of France, Catherine de Medici, who adored posing as the most famous of widows and adding ancient glory to her living importance. To this _History_ French writers accord the important place of inspirer of a distinctively French Renaissance. The weaver being Maurice du Bourg, the chief of the factory of La Trinité, the artists were Henri Lerambert and Antoine Carron, but the set has been many times copied in various factories, and Artemisia has symbolised in turn two other widowed queens of France. Into the throne of France climbed wearily a feeble youth always under the influence of his mother, Catherine de Medici; and then it was filled by two other incapable and final Orleans monarchs, until at last by virtue of inheritance and sword, it became the seat of that grand and faulty Henri IV, King of Navarre. By fighting he got his place, and the habit being strong upon him, he was in eternal conflict. Some there be who are developed by sympathy, but Henri IV was developed by opposition, and thus it was that although opposed in the matter by his Prime Minister, Sully, he established factories for the weaving of tapestries in both high and low warps. With the desire to see the arts of peace instead of evidences of war throughout his kingdom just rescued from conflict, he took all means to set his people in the ways of pleasing industry. The indefatigable Sully was plucking the royal sleeve to follow the path of the plough, to see man's salvation, material and moral, in the ways of agriculture. But Henri favoured townspeople as well as country people, and with the Edict of Nantes, releasing from the bondage of terror a large number of workers, he showed much industry in encouraging tapestry factories in and near Paris, and as these all lead to Gobelins we will consider them. [Illustration: TRIUMPH OF THE GODS (DETAIL) Gobelins, Seventeenth Century] [Illustration: TRIUMPH OF THE GODS (DETAIL) Gobelins Tapestry] Henri IV, notwithstanding his Prime Minister Sully's opposition to what he considered a favouring of vicious luxury, began to occupy himself in tapestry factories as early in his reign as his people could rise from the wounds of war. Taking his movements chronologically we will begin with his establishment in 1597 (eight years after this first Bourbon took the throne) of a high-warp industry in the house of the Jesuits in the Faubourg St. Antoine, associating here Du Bourg of La Trinité and Laurent, equally renowned, and the composer of the St. Merri tapestries.[14] Flemish workers in Paris were at this same time, about 1601, encouraged by the king and under protection of his steward. These Flemings were the nucleus of a great industry, for it was over them that two famous masters governed, namely, François de la Planche and Marc Comans or Coomans. In 1607 Henri IV established the looms which these men were called upon to direct. These two Flemings, great in their art, were men of family and of some means, for their first venture in the manufacture of tapestry was a private enterprise like any of to-day. They looked to themselves to produce the money for the support of the industry. Combining qualities of both the artist and the business man, they took on apprentices and also established looms in the provinces (notably Tours and Amiens) where commercialism was as prominent as in modern methods; that is to say, that by turning off a lot of cheaper work for smaller purses, a quick and ready market was found which supplied the money necessary for the production of those finer works of art which are left to delight us to-day. This manner of procedure of De la Planche and Comans has an interest far deeper than the mere financial venture of the men of the early Seventeenth Century, because it forces upon us the fact that at that time, and earlier, no state ateliers existed. It was Henri IV who first saw the wisdom of using the public purse in advancing this industry. He established Du Bourg in the Louvre. With Henri Laurent he was placed in the Tuileries, in 1607, and that atelier lasted until the ministry of Colbert in the reign of Louis XIV. In about 1627 the great De la Planche died and his son, Raphael, established ateliers of his own in the Faubourg St. Germain, turning out from his looms productions which were of sufficient excellence to be confused with those of his father's most profitable factory. Chronologically this fact belongs later, so we return to the influence of Henri IV and the master gentleman tapissiers, De la Planche and Comans. The very name of the old palace, Les Tournelles, calls up a crowd of pictures: the death of Henri II at the tournament in honour of the marriage of his son with Marie Stuart, the subsequent razing of this ancient home of kings by Catherine de Medici, and its reconstruction in its present form by Henri IV. It is here that Richelieu honoured the brief reign of Louis XIII by a statue, and it is here that Madame de Sevigné was born. But more to our purpose, it was here that, in 1607, Henri IV cast his kingly eye when establishing a certain tapestry factory. It was here he placed as directors the celebrated Comans and De la Planche. It happened in time, that the looms of Les Tournelles were moved to the Faubourg St. Marceau and these two men came in time to direct these and all other looms under royal patronage. Examples are not wanting in museums of French work of this time, showing the development of the art and the progress that France was making under Henri IV, whose energy without limit, and whose interests without number, would to-day have given him the epithet of strenuous. Under his reign we see the activity that so easily led France up to the point where all that was needed was the assembling of the factories under the direction of one great master. The factories flourishing under Henri IV were La Trinité, the Louvre, the Savonnerie, the Faubourg St. Marceau and one in the Tuileries. But it needed the power of Louis XIV to tie all together in the strength of unity. The assassin Ravaillac, fanatically muttering through the streets of Paris, alternately hiding and swaggering throughout the loveliest month of May, when he thrust his murderous dagger through the royal coach, not only gave a death blow to Henri IV, but to many of these industries that the king had cherished for his people against the opposition of his prime minister. The tale of tapestry is like a vine hanging on a frame of history, and frequent allusion therefore must be made to the tales of kings and their ministers. As it is not always a monarch, but often the power behind the throne that rules, we see the force of Richelieu surging behind the reign of the suppressed Louis XIII, whose rule followed that of the regretted Henri IV. The master of the then new Palais-Royal had minor interests of his own, apart from his generous plots of ruin for the Protestants, for all the French nobility, and for the House of Austria to which the queen belonged. Luxurious surroundings were a necessity to this man, refined in the arts of cruelty and of living. It was no wonder that under him tapestry weaving was not allowed to die, but was fostered until that day when the Grand Monarch would organise and perfect. In 1643, Louis XIV came to the throne under the guidance of Anne of Austria, but it was many years before he was able to make his influence appreciable. Meanwhile, however, others were fostering the elegant industry. It was as early as 1647 that two celebrated tapestry weavers came to Paris from Italy. They were Pierre Lefèvre or Lefebvre and his son Jean. The first of these was the chief of a factory in Florence, whither he presently returned. Jean Lefebvre stayed in Paris, won his way all the better for being released from parental rule, and in time received the great honour of being appointed one of the directors of the Gobelins, when that factory was finally organised as an institution of the state. [Illustration: GOBELINS BORDER (DETAIL) SEVENTEENTH CENTURY] [Illustration: CHILDREN GARDENING After Charles Lebrun. Gobelins, Seventeenth Century. Château Henri Quatre, Pau] During the regency of Louis XIV there were also factories outside of Paris. The high-warp looms of Tours were of such notable importance that the great Richelieu placed here an order for tapestries of great splendour with which to soften his hours of ease. Rheims Cathedral still harbours the fine hangings which were woven for the place they now adorn, an unusual circumstance in the world of tapestry. These hangings (_The Story of Christ_) were woven at Rheims, where the factory existed well known throughout the first half of the Seventeenth Century. The church had previously ordered tapestries from another town executed by one Daniel Pepersack, and so highly approved was his work that he was made director of the Rheims factory.[15] A factory which lasted but a few years, yet has for us a special interest, is that of Maincy, founded in 1658. It is here that we hear of the great Colbert and of Lebrun, whose names are synonymous with prosperity of the Gobelins. For the factory at Maincy, Lebrun made cartoons of great beauty, notably that of _The Hunt of Meleager_, which now hangs in the Gobelins Museum in Paris. Louis Blamard was the director of the workmen, who were Flemish, and who were afterwards called to Paris to operate the looms of the newly-formed Gobelins, and the reason of the transference forms a part of the history of the great people of that day. Richelieu in dying had passed over his power to Mazarin, who had used it with every cruelty possible to the day. He had coveted riches and elegance and had possessed himself of them; had collected in his palace the most beautiful works of art of his day or those of a previous time. After Mazarin came Foucquet, the great, the iconoclastic, the unfortunate. It was at Foucquet's estate of Vaux near Maincy that this tapestry factory of short duration was established and soon destroyed. The powerful Superintendent of Finance, with his eye for the beautiful and desire for the luxury of kings, built for himself such a château as only the magnificence of that time produced. It was situated far enough from Paris to escape any sort of ennui, and was surrounded by gardens most marvellous, within a beauteous park. It lay, when finished, like a jewel on the fair bosom of France. The great superintendent conceived the idea of pleasing the young king, Louis XIV, by inviting the court for a wondrous fête in its lovely enclosure. Foucquet was a man of the world, and of the court, knew how to please man's lighter side, and how to use social position for his own ends. France calls him a "dilapidateur," but when his power and incidentally the revenues of state, were laid out to produce a day of pleasure for king and court, his taste and ability showed such a fête as could scarce be surpassed even in those days of artistic fêtes champêtres. The great gardens were brought into use in all the beauty of flower and vine, of lawn and bosquet, of terrace and fountain. When the guests arrived, weary of town life, they were turned loose in the enchanting place like birds uncaged, and to the beauty of Nature was added that of folk as gaily dressed as the flowers. The king was invited to inspect it all for his pleasure, asked to feast in the gardens, and to repose in the splendid château. He was young then, in the early twenties, and luxury was younger then than now, so he was pleased to spend the time in almost childish enjoyments. A play _al fresco_ was almost a necessity to a royal garden party, which was no affair of an hour like ours in the busy to-day, but extended the livelong day and evening. Molière was ready with his sparkling satires at the king's caprice, and into the garden danced the players before an audience to whom vaudeville and _café chantant_ were exclusively a royal novelty arranged for their delectation. It is easy to see the elegant young king and his court in the setting of a sophisticated out-of-doors, wandering on grassy paths, lingering under arches of roses, plucking a flower to nest beside a smiling face, stopping where servants--obsequious adepts, they were then--supplied dainty things to eat and drink. Madame de Sevigné was there, she of the observant eye, an eye much occupied at this time with the figure of Superintendent Foucquet, the host of this glorious occasion. This gracious lady lacked none of the appearance of frivolity, coiffed in curls, draped in lace and soft silks, but her mind was deeply occupied with the signs of the times. All the elegance of the château, all the seductive beauty of terrace, garden, and bosquet, all the piquant surprises of play and pyrotechnics, what were they? Simply the disinterested effort of a subject to give pleasure to His Majesty, the King. There were those present who had long envied Foucquet, with his ever-increasing power and wealth, his ability to patronise the arts, to collect, and even to establish his tapestry looms like a king, for his own palace and for gifts. This grand fête in the lovely month of June did more than shower pleasure, more than gratify the lust of the eye. In effect, it was a gathering of exquisite beauties and charming men, lost in light-hearted play; in reality, it proved to be an incitive to envy and malice, and a means to ruin. Among the observant guests at this wondrous fête champêtre was Colbert, young, ambitious, keen. He was not slow to see the holes in Foucquet's fabric, nor were others. And so, whispers came to the king. Foucquet's downfall is the old story of envy, man trying to climb by ruining his superiors, hating those whose magnificence approaches their own. Foucquet's unequalled entertainment of the king was made to count as naught. Louis, even before leaving for Paris, had begun to ask whence came the money that purchased this wide fertile estate stretching to the vision's limit, the money that built the château of regal splendour, the money that paid for the prodigal pleasures of that day of delights? Foucquet thought to have gained the confidence and admiration of the king. But, on leaving, Louis said coldly, "We shall scarce dare ask you to our poor palace, seeing the superior luxury to which you are accustomed." A fearful cut, but only a straw to the fate which followed, the investigations into the affairs of Superintendent Foucquet. His arrest and his conviction followed and then the eighteen dreary years of imprisonment terminating only with the superintendent's life. Madame de Sevigné saw him in the beginning, wept for her hero, but after a while she, too, fell away from his weary years. [Illustration: CHILDREN GARDENING After Charles Lebrun. Gobelins, Seventeenth Century. Château Henri Quatre, Pau] [Illustration: GOBELINS GROTESQUE Musée des Arts Decoratifs, Paris] With his arrest came the end of the glories of the Château of Vaux near Maincy, and so, too, came an end to the factory where so fine results had been obtained in tapestry weaving. Yet the effort was not in vain, for some of the tapestries remain and the factory was the school where certain celebrated men were trained. It may easily have been that Louis XIV discovered on that day at Vaux the excellence of Lebrun whom he made director at the Gobelins in Paris when they were but newly formed. Foucquet, wasting in prison, had many hours in which to think on this and on the advancement of the very man who had been keenest in running him to cover, the great Colbert. It was well for France, it was well for the artistic industry whose history occupies our attention, that these things happened; but we, nevertheless, feel a weakness towards the man of genius and energy caged and fretted by prison bars, for he had shown initiative and daring, qualities of which the world has ever need. Foucquet's factory lasted three years. It was directed by Louis Blamard or Blammaert of Oudenarde, and employed a weaver named Jean Zègre, who came from the works at Enghien, works sufficiently known to be remarked. Lebrun composed here and fell under the influence of Rubens, an influence that pervaded the grandiose art of the day. The earliest works of Lebrun, three pieces, were later used to complete a set of Rubens' _History of Constantine_. _The Muses_ was a set by Lebrun, also composed for the Château of Vaux. The charm of this set is a matter for admiration even now when, alas, all is destroyed but a few fragments. The disgrace of Foucquet was the last determining cause of the establishment of the Gobelins factory under Louis XIV, an act which after this brief review of Paris factories (and an allusion to sporadic cases outside of Paris) we are in position at last to consider. Pursuit of knowledge in regard to the Gobelins factory leads us through ways the most flowery and ways the most stormy, through sunshine and through the dark, right up to our own times. [Illustration: GOBELINS TAPESTRY, AFTER LEBRUN, EPOCH LOUIS XIV Collection of Wm. Baumgarten, Esq., New York] [Illustration: THE VILLAGE FÊTE Gobelins Tapestry after Teniers] FOOTNOTES: [14] For the facts here cited see E. Müntz, "Histoire de la Tapisserie," and Jules Guiffrey, "Les Gobelins." [15] See Loriquet, "Les Tapisseries de Notre Dame de Rheims." CHAPTER X THE GOBELINS FACTORY, 1662 Colbert saw the wisdom of taking direction for the king, Louis XIV, of the looms of Foucquet's château. Travel being difficult enough to make desirable the concentration of points of interest, Colbert transferred the looms of Vaux to Paris. To do this he had first to find a habitat, and what so suitable as the Hotel des Gobelins, a collection of buildings on the edge of Paris by which ran a little brook called the Bièvre. The Sieur Leleu was then the owner, and the sale of the buildings was made on June 6, 1662. This was the beginning only of the purchase, for Louis XIV added adjoining houses for the various uses of the large industries he had in mind, for the development of arts and crafts of all sorts, and for the lodging of the workers. The story of the original occupants of the premises is almost too well known to recount. The simple tale of the conscientious "dyers in scarlet" is told on the marble plaque at the present entry into the collection of buildings still standing, still open to visitors. It is a tale with a moral, an obvious simple moral with no need of Alice's Duchess to point it out, and it smacks strong of the honesty of a labour to which we owe so much. Late in the Fifteenth Century the brothers Gobelin came to the city of Paris to follow their trade, which was dyeing, and their ambition, which was to produce a scarlet dye like that they had seen flaunting in the glowing city of Venice. The trick of the trade in those days was to find a water of such quality that dyes took to it kindly. The tiny river, or rather brook, called the Bièvre, which ran softly down towards the Seine had the required qualities, and by its murmuring descent, Jean and Philibert pitched the tents of their fortune. They succeeded, too, so well that we hear of their descendants in later centuries as having become gentlemen, not of property only, but of cultivation, and far removed from trades or bartering. Their name is ever famous, for it tells not only the story of the two original dyers, but of their subsequent efforts in weaving, and finally it has come to mean the finest modern product of the hand loom. Just as Arras gave the name to tapestry in the Fourteenth Century, so the Gobelins has given it to the time of Louis XIV, even down to our own day--more especially in Europe, where the word tapestry is far less used than here. The tablet now at the Gobelins--let us re-read it, for in some hasty visit to the Latin Quarter we may have overlooked it. Translated freely it reads, "Jean and Philibert Gobelin, merchant dyers in scarlet, who have left their name to this quarter of Paris and to the manufacture of tapestries, had here their atelier, on the banks of the Bièvre, at the end of the Fifteenth Century." Another inscription takes a great leap in time, skips over the centuries when France was not in the lead in this art, and recommences with the awakening strength under the wise care of Henri IV. It reads: "April 1601. Marc Comans and François de la Planche, Flemish tapestry weavers, installed their ateliers on the banks of the Bièvre." "September 1667, Colbert established in the buildings of the Gobelins the manufacture of the furniture (_meubles_) of the Crown, under the direction of Charles Lebrun." The tablet omits the date that is fixed in our mind as that of the beginning of the modern tapestry industry in France, the year 1662, but that is only because it deals with a date of more general importance, the time when the Gobelins was made a manufactory of all sorts of gracious products for the luxury of palaces and châteaux, not tapestries alone, but superb furniture, and metal work, inlay, mounting of porcelains and all that goes to furnish the home of fortunate men. In that year of 1667 was instituted the ateliers supported by the state, not dependent upon the commercialism of the workers. This made possible the development of such men as Boulle with his superb furniture, of Riesner with his marquetry, of Caffieri with his marvels in metal to decorate all _meubles_, even vases, which were then coming from China in their beauty of solid glaze or eccentric ornament. Here lies the great secret of the success of Louis XIV in these matters, with the coffers of the Crown he rewarded the artists above the necessity of mere living, and freed each one for the best expression of his own especial art. The day of individual financial venture was gone. The tapestry masters of other times had both to work and to worry. They had to be artists and at the same time commercial men, a chimerical combination. The expense of maintaining a tapestry factory was an incalculable burden. A man could not set up a loom, a single one, as an artist sets up an easel, and in solitude produce his woven work of art. Other matters go to the making of a tapestry than weaving, matters which have to do with cartoons for the design, dyes, wools, threads, etc.; so that many hands must be employed, and these must all be paid. The apprentice system helped much, but even so, the master of the atelier was responsible for his finances and must look for a market for his goods. What a relief it was when the king took all this responsibility from the shoulders and said to the artists and artisans, "Art for Art's sake," or whatever was the equivalent shibboleth of that day. Here was comfort assured for the worker, with a housing in the Gobelins, or in that big asylum, the Louvre, where an apartment was the reward of virtue. And now was a market assured for a man's work, a royal market, with the king as its chief, and his favourites following close. The ateliers scattered about Paris were allied in spirit, were all the result of the encouragement of preceding monarchs, but it remained for Le Grand Monarque to gather all together and form a state solidarity. Kings must have credit, even though others do the work. It was the labour of the able Colbert to organise this factory. He was in favour then. It was after his acuteness had helped in deposing the splendid brigand Foucquet, and his power was serving France well, so well that he brought about his head the inevitable jealousy which finally threw him, too, into unmerited disgrace. Colbert, then, although a Minister of State, head of the Army of France, and a few other things, had the fate of the Gobelins in his hand. As the ablest is he who chooses best his aids, Colbert looked among his countrymen for the proper director of the newly-organised institution. He selected Charles Lebrun. The very name seems enough, in itself. It is the concrete expression of ability, not only as an artist, but as a leader of artists, a director, an assembler, a blender. He called to the Gobelins, as addition to those already there, the apprentices from La Trinité, the weavers from the Faubourg St. Germain, and from the Louvre. He established three ateliers of high-warp under Jean Jans, Jean Lefebvre and Henri Laurent; also two ateliers of low-warp under Jean Delacroix and Jean-Baptiste Mozin. When charged with the decoration of Versailles he had under his direction fifty artists of differing scopes, which alone would show his power of assembling and leading, of blending and ordering. Workers at the Gobelins numbered as many as two hundred fifty, and apprentices were legion. Ten or twelve important artists composed the designs for tapestries, yet the mind of Lebrun is seen to dominate all; his genius was their inspiration. It was he whose influence pervaded the decorative art of the day. More than any others in that grand age he influenced the tone of the artistic work. We may say it was the king, we may have styles named for the king, but it was Lebrun who made them what they were. The spirit of the time was there, monarch and man made that, but it was Lebrun who had the talent to express it in art. It was a time when France was fully awake, more fully awake than Italy who had, in fact, commenced the somnolence of her art; she was strong with that brutal force that is recently up from savagery, and she took her grandeur seriously. At least that was the attitude of the king. No lightness, no effervescing cynical humour ever disturbed the heavy splendour of his pose. And this grand pose of the king, Lebrun expressed in the heavy sumptuousness of decoration. The tapestries of that time show the mood of the day in subject, in border and in colour. All is superb, grandiose. Rubens, although not of France, dominated Europe with his magnificence of style, a style suited to the time, expressing force rather than refinement, yet with a splendid decorative value in the art we are considering. Flanders looked to him for inspiration, and his lead was everywhere followed. His virile work had power to inspire, to transmit enthusiasm to others, and thus he was responsible for much of the improvement in decorative art, the re-establishment of that art upon an intellectual basis. Designs from his hands were full, splendid and self-assertive; harmony and proportion were there. A study of the _Antony and Cleopatra_ series and of the plates given in this volume will establish and verify this. [Illustration: DESIGN BY RUBENS] [Illustration: DESIGN BY RUBENS] Lebrun's century was the same as that of Rubens, but the former had the fine feeling for art of the Latin, who knows that its first province is to please. A comparison between the two men must not be carried too far, for Rubens was essentially a painter, attacking the field of decoration only with the overflow of imagination, while Lebrun's life and talent were wholly directed in the way of beautifying palaces and châteaux. Yet Rubens' work gave a fresh impulse to tapestry weaving in Brussels while Lebrun was inspiring it in France. Lebrun had, then, to direct the talent and the labour of an army of artists and artisans, and to keep them working in harmony. It was no mean task, for one artist alone was not left to compose an entire picture, but each was taken for his specialty. One artist drew the figures, another the animals, another the trees, and another the architecture; but it was the director, Lebrun, who composed and harmonised the whole. Thus, although the number of tapestries actually composed by him is few, it was his great mind that ordered the work of others. He was the leader of the orchestra, the others were the instruments he controlled. It was while at Vaux that Lebrun had more time for his own composition. He there produced a series called _Les Renommés_, masterpieces of pure decorative composition. These were designed as portières for the Château of Maincy. They came to be models for the Gobelins, and were woven to hang at royal doors, the doors of Foucquet being at this time dressed with iron bars. The Gobelins wove seventy-two sets after this beautiful model which had made Lebrun's début as an artist. Foucquet had given him a more pretentious work; it was to complete a suite, the _History of Constantine_, after Raphael. Rubens had given a fresh flush of popularity to this subject, which again became the mode. The _History of Meleager_ was begun at Vaux and finished at the Gobelins. Later, Vaux forgotten, or at least a thing of the past, Lebrun's decorative genius found expression in the series called _The Months_ or _The Royal Residences_, of which there were twelve hangings. In these last the scheme is the perfection of decoration, with the subject well subdued, yet so subtly placed that notwithstanding its modesty, the eye promptly seeks it. The castle in the distance, the motive holding aloft the sign of the Zodiac, are seen even before the splendid columns and the foliage of the middle-ground. Such a hanging has power to play pretty tricks with the imagination of him who gazes upon it. The columns, smooth and solid, declare him at once to be in a place of luxury. Beyond the foreground's columns, but near enough for touching, are trees to make a pleasant shade, and beyond, in the far distance, is the château set in fair gardens, even the château where the lovely Louise de la Vallière held her court until conscience drove her to the convent. The set of most renown, woven under Lebrun's generalship, was that splendid advertisement of the king's magnificence known as the _History of the King_. Louis demanded above all else that he should appear splendidly before men. He was jealous of the magnificence of all kings and emperors, whether living or dead. Even Solomon's glory was not to typify greater than his. With this end in view, pomp was his pleasure, ceremony was his gratification. Add to these an insatiable vanity that knows not the disintegrating assaults of a sense of humour, and we have a man to be fed on profound adulation. [Illustration: DESIGN BY RUBENS] [Illustration: GOBELINS TAPESTRY. DESIGN BY RUBENS Royal Collection, Madrid] The subjects for the _History of the King_ were chosen from official solemnities during the first twelve years of his reign. Lebrun's task, into which he threw his whole soul, was to celebrate the power and the glory of his master, to show the king in perpetual picture as the greatest living personage, and to still his fears with regard to long defunct royal rivals. His life as a man was pictured, his marriage, his treaties with other nations, and his actions as a soldier in the various battles or military conquests. In the latter affairs he had not even been present, but poet's license was given where the glorification of the king was concerned. The flattery that surrounds a king thus gave him reason to think that his persecutions in the Palatinate and his constant warfare were greatly to his glory. It is the tapestry in this set that is called _Visit of Louis XIV to the Gobelins_ that interests us strongly, as being delightfully pertinent to our subject. The picture shows the king in chary indulgence standing just within the court of the Royal Factory, while eager masters of arts and crafts strenuously heap before him their masterpieces. (Plate facing page 114.) The borders of these sumptuous hangings are to be enjoyed when the original set can be seen, for the borders are Lebrun's special care. The three pieces added late in the reign are drawn with different borders, and no stronger example of deteriorating change can be given, the change in the composition of the border which took place after the passing of Lebrun. The pieces in the set of the _Life of the King_ numbered forty; with the addition of the later ones, forty-three. They were repeated many times in the succeeding years, but on low-warp, reduced in size, and without the superb decorative border which was composed by Lebrun's own hand for the original series. François de la Meulen was Lebrun's able coadjutor in the direction of this famous set. Eight artists accustomed to the work were charged with the cartoons, but Lebrun headed it all. It is interesting to note that the temptation to sport in the fields of pure decoration, led him into the personal composition of the border. These borders are the very acme of perfection in decoration, full of strength, of grace, and of purity. They suggest the classic, yet are full of the warm blood of the hour; they are Greek, yet they are French, and they foreshadow the centuries of beautiful design which France supplies to the world. The colouring of these tapestries seems to us strong, but it is not a strength of tone that offends, rather it adds force to the subject. The charge is made that in this suite the deplorable change had taken place which lifted tapestries from their original intent and made of them paintings in wool. That change certainly did come later, as we shall see and deplore, but at present the colours kept comparatively low in number. The proof of this was that only seventy-nine tones were discoverable when the Gobelins factory in recent years examined this hanging for the purposes of reproducing it. [Illustration: LOUIS XIV VISITING THE GOBELINS FACTORY Gobelins Tapestry, Epoch Louis XIV] Lebrun's task in this series seems to us far more simple in point of picturesqueness than it did to him, for the affairs of the time were those depicted. They were the events of the moment, and the personages taking part in them were given in recognisable portraiture. Figure a tapestry of to-day depicting the laying of a cornerstone by our National President, every one in modern dress, every face a portrait, and Lebrun's task appears in a new light. Yet he was able to accomplish it in a way which gratified the overfed vanity of Louis and which more than gratifies the art lover of to-day. The set called the _History of Alexander_ is one of Lebrun's famous works. In subject it departs from the affairs of the time of the Sun King, to portray the Greek Conqueror, to whom Louis liked to be compared. For us the classic dress is less piquant than the gorgeous toilettes of France in the Seventeenth Century, and the battle of the Granicus is less engaging than scenes from the life of Louis XIV. But this is a famous set, and paintings of the same may be found in the Louvre. Originally the tapestries were but five, but the larger ones having been divided into three each, the number is increased. The Gobelins factory wove several sets, and, the model becoming popular, it was copied many times in Brussels and elsewhere, often with distressing alterations in drawing, in border, and in colour. There were other suites produced at the Gobelins at this wonderful time of co-operation between Colbert, the minister, and Lebrun, the artist. Colbert, in his wisdom of state economy, had repaired the ravages of the previous ministry, and had the coffers full for the government's necessities and the king's indulgences. Well for the liberal arts, that he counted these among the matters to be fostered in this wonderful time, which rises like a mountain ridge between feudal savagery and modern civilisation. But Colbert, powerful as was his position, had yet to suffer by reason of the despotism of the absolute monarch who ruled every one within borders of bleeding France. Louis began, before youth had left him, the terrible persecution of the people in the name of religion, and established also an indulgent left-hand court. The prodigious expenditures for these were bound to be liquidated by Colbert. Faithful to his master, he produced the money. The charm of royalty surrounded Louis, he was idealised by a people proud of his position as the most magnificent monarch of Europe; but Colbert was denounced as a tax collector and a persecutor, yet suffered in silence, if he might protect his king. Before he died, Louvois had undermined his credit even with the king, and his funeral at night, to avoid a mob, was a pathetic fact. France has now reinstated him, say modern men--but that is the irony of fate. CHAPTER XI THE GOBELINS FACTORY (_Continued_) Colbert died most inopportunely in 1684 and was succeeded by his enemy, and for that matter, the enemy of France, the man of jealousy and cruelty, Louvois. He had long hated Colbert for his success, counting as an affront to himself Colbert's marvellous establishment of a navy which he felt rivalled in importance the army, over which the direction was his own. On finding Colbert's baton in his hand, it was but human to strike with it as much as to direct, and one of his blows fell upon the head of the Gobelins, Lebrun. Thus history is woven into tapestry. Lebrun was not at once deposed; first his magnificent wings were clipped, so that his flights into artistic originality were curtailed. This petty persecution had a benumbing effect. New models were not encouraged. Strangely enough, the scenes that glorified the king were no longer reproduced, nor those of antique kings like Alexander, whose greatness Louis was supposed to rival. It is not possible to tell the story of tapestry without telling the story of the times, for the lesser acts are but the result of the greater. There are matters in the life of Louis XIV that are inseparable from our account. These are the associating of his life with that of the three women whom he exalted far higher than his queen, Marie Thérèse, the well-known, much-vaunted mesdames, de la Vallière, de Montespan and de Maintenon. Even before the death of Colbert, Louvois, with his army, had encouraged the religious persecutions and wars of the king, and shortly after, the widow of the poet Scarron became the royal spouse. Relentless, indeed, were the persecutions then. It was in the same year of the marriage that Louis revoked the Edict of Nantes, through the hand of the weak Le Tellier, an action which gave Louvois ample excuse for depleting the state coffers. Making military expense an excuse, he turned his blighting hand toward the Gobelins and restricted the director, Lebrun, even to denying him the golden threads so necessary for the production of the sumptuous tapestries. And so for a time the productions of the looms lacked their accustomed elegance. Under Madame de Maintenon, the spirit of a morose religion pervaded the court. All France was suffering under it, and in its name unbelievable horrors were perpetrated in every province. Paris was not too well informed of these to interfere with bourgeois life, but at court the hypocritical soul of Madame de Maintenon made self-righteousness a virtue. An almost laughable result of this pious rectitude was a certain order given at the Gobelins. Madame de Maintenon had thrust her leading nose between the doors of the factory and had scented outraged modesty in the reproduction there of the tapestries woven from models of Raphael, Giulio Romano and the classicists, cartoons in great favour after the hampering of Lebrun's imagination. The naked gods from Olympus must be clothed, said this pious and modest lady. This was very well for her rôle, as her influence over the king lay deep-rooted in her pose of heavy virtue; but at the Gobelins, the tapestry-makers must have laughed long and loud at the prudery which they were set to further by actually weaving pictured garments and setting them into the hangings where the lithe limbs of Apollo, and Venus' lovely curves, had been cut away. The hanging called _The Judgment of Paris_ is one of those altered to suit the refinement of the times. Louvois' dominance lasted as long as Lebrun, so the genius of the latter never reasserted itself in the factory. Two methods of supply for designs came in vogue, and mark the time. One was to turn to the old masters of Italy's high Renaissance for drawings. This brought a quantity of drawings of fables and myths into use, so that palace walls were decorated with Greek gods instead of modern ones. Raphael, as a master in decoration, was carefully copied, also other men of his school. The second source of cartoons was chosen by Louvois, who searched among previous works for the most celebrated tapestries and had them copied without change. Thus came the Gobelins to reproduce hangings that had not originated in their ateliers. All this traces the change that came from the clipping of Lebrun's wings of genius. Identification marks they are, when old tapestries come our way. Pierre Mignard succeeded Lebrun as director of the Gobelins after the death of the greatest genius of decoration in modern times. Lebrun had seen such prosperity of tapestry weaving that eight hundred workers had scarcely been enough to supply the tapestries ordered. When Mignard came for his five years of direction, things had mightily changed, and he did nothing to revive or encourage the work. He owed his appointment entirely to Louvois, whose protégé he had long been. The same year, 1691, saw the death of them both. Until 1688 the factory was at its best time of productiveness, reaching the perfection of modern drawing in its cartoons, and, in its weaving, equalling the manner of Brussels in the early Sixteenth Century. From then on began the decline, for the reasons so forcibly written on pages of history. The French king's ambition to conquer, his animosity--jealousy, if you will--toward Holland, his unceasing conflict with England, added to his fierce attacks on religionists, especially in the Palatinate--all these things required the most stupendous expenditures. The Mississippi was now discovered, the English colonists were in conflict with the French, here in America, and the New World was becoming too desirable a possession for Louis to be willing to cede his share without a struggle; and thus came the expense of fighting the English in that far land which was at least thirty days' sail away. Perhaps Mignard worked against odds too great for even a strong director. Such drains on the state treasury as were made by the self-indulgent court, and by the political necessities, demanded not only depriving the Gobelins of proper expensive materials, but in the department of furniture and ornaments, demanded also the establishment of a sinister melting pot, a hungry mouth that devoured the precious metals already made more precious by the artistic hands of the gold-working artists. Mignard's futile work was finished by his demise in 1695. Such was then the pitiable conditions at the Gobelins that it was not considered worth while to fill his place. Thus ended the first period of that beautiful conception, art sustained by the state, artists relieved from all care except that of expressing beauty. The ateliers were closed; the weavers had to seek other means of gaining their living. The busy Gobelins, a very Paradise of workers, an establishment which felt itself the pride of Paris and the pet of the king, full of merry apprentices and able masters, this happy solidarity fell under neglect. The courtyards were lonely; the Bièvre rippled by unused; the buildings were silent and deserted. Some of the workers were happy enough to be taken in at Beauvais, some returned to Flanders, but many were at the miserable necessity of dropping their loved professions and of joining the royal troops, for which the relentless ambition of the king had such large and terrible use. The time when the factory remained inactive were the dolorous years from 1694 to 1697. It was in the latter year that peace was signed in the Holland town of Ryswick, which ended at least one of Louis' bloody oppressions, the fierce attacks in the Palatinate. The place of Colbert was never filled, so far as the Gobelins was concerned. Louvois had not its interests in his hard hands, nor had his immediate followers in state administrations up to 1708, which included Mansard (of the roofs) and the flippity courtesan, the Duc d'Antin. But power was later given to Jules Robert de Cotte to raise the fallen Gobelins by his own wise direction, assisted by his father's political co-operation (1699-1735). Once again can we smile in thinking of the factory where the wares of beauty were produced. Of course, the artists flocked to the centre, eager to express themselves. The one most interesting to us was Claude Audran. Others there were who contributed adorable designs and helped build up the most exquisite expressions of modern art, but, alas, their modesty was such that their names are scarce known in connexion with the art they vivified. The aged Louis was ending his forceful reign in increasing weakness, deserted at the finish by all but the rigid de Maintenon; and four-year-old Louis, the grandson of the Grand Dauphin, was succeeding under the direction of the Regent of Orleans. New monarchs, new styles, the rule was; for the newly-crowned must have his waves of flattery curling about the foot of the throne. Louis XIV, the Grand Monarque, lived to his pose of heavy magnificence even in the furnishing and decorating of the apartments where he ruled as king and where he lived as man. Sumptuous splendour, expressed in heavy design, in deep colouring, with much red and gold, these were the order of the day, and best expressed the reign. But with Philip as regent, and the young king but a baby, a gayer mood must creep into the articles of beauty with which man self-indulgently decorates his surroundings. Pomp of a heavy sort had no place in the regent's heart. He saw life lightly, and liked to foster the belief that a man might make of it a pretty play. Thus, given so good excuse for a new school of decoration, Claude Audran snatched up his talented brush and put down his dainty inspirations with unfaltering delicacy of touch. He wrote upon his canvas poems in life, symphonies in colour, created a whole world of tasteful fancy, a world whose entire intent was to please. He left the heavy ways of pomp and revelled in a world where roses bloom and ribbons flutter, where clouds are strong to support the svelte deity upon them, and where the rudest architecture is but an airy trellis. The classic, the Greek, he never forgot. It was ever his inspiration, his alphabet with which he wrote the spirit of his composition, but it was a classic thought played upon with the most talented of variations. Pure Greek was too cold and chaste for the temper of the time in which he lived and worked and of which he was the creature; and so his classic foundation was graced with curves, with colour, with artful abandon, and all the charming fripperies of one of the most exquisite periods of decoration. Gods and goddesses were a necessary part of such compositions, and a continual playing among amorini, but such deities lived not upon Olympus, nor anywhere outside France of the Eighteenth Century. The heavy human forms made popular by the inflation of the Seventeenth Century were banished to some dark haven reserved for by-gone modes, and these new gods were exquisite as fairies while voluptuous as courtesans. They were all caught young and set, while still adolescent and slender, in suitable niches of delicate surroundings. The talent of Audran, not content with figures alone, was lavishly expended on those ingenious decorative designs which formed the frame and setting of the figures, the airy world in which they lived and in the borders that confined the whole. Only a study of tapestries or their photographs can show the radical depth of the change from the styles prevailing under the influence of Madame de Maintenon to those produced by Audran and his school under the regence. The difference in character of the two dominations is the very evident cause. It is as though the severe moral pose of de Maintenon had suppressed a whole Pandora's box of loves and graces who, when the lid was lifted by the Regent, flew, a happy crew, to fix themselves in dainty decorative effect, trailing with them their complement of accessory flowers, butterflies, clouds and tempered grotesques. Philippe d'Orleans, under the influence of the corrupt cleverness of Cardinal du Bois, celebrated the few years of his regency by bankrupting France with John Law's financial fallacies (this was the time of the South Sea Bubble and the Mississippi scheme) and by returning to Spain her princess as unsuited for the boy king's mate--with war as the natural result of that insult. But he also let artists have their way, and the style that they supplied him, shows a talented invention unsurpassed. Audran we will place at the top, but only to fix a name, for there was a whole army of men composing the tapestry designs that so delighted the people of those days and that have gone on thrilling their beholders for two hundred years, and which distinguish French designs from all others--which give them that indefinable quality of grace and softness that we denominate French. Wizards in design were the artists who developed it and those who continue it in our own times. CHAPTER XII THE GOBELINS FACTORY (_Continued_) Audran had in his studio André Watteau, whose very name spells sophisticated pastorals of exceeding loveliness. Watteau worked with Audran when he was producing his most inspired set of tapestry, on which we must dwell for a bit for pure pleasure. This set is called the _Portières des Dieux_. That they were portières, only door-hangings, is a fact too important to be slipped by. It denotes one of the greatest changes in tapestries when the size of a hanging comes down from twenty or thirty feet to the dimensions of a doorway. It speaks a great change in interiors, and sets tapestries on a new plane. Later on, they are still further diminished. But the sadness of noting this change is routed by the thrills of pleasure given by the exquisite design, colour and weave. The _Portières of the Gods_ was, then, a series of eight small hangings, four typifying the seasons and four the elements, with an appropriate Olympian forming the central point of interest and the excuse for an entourage of thrilling and graceful versatility. This set has been copied so many times that even the most expert must fail in trying to identify the date of reproduction. Two hundred and thirty times this set is known to have been reproduced, and such talented weavers were given the task as Jans and Lefebvre. [Illustration: GOBELINS TAPESTRY. TIME OF LOUIS XV] In this exquisite period, which might be called the adolescence of the style Louis XV, Audran and his collaborators produced another marvellous and inspired set of portières. These were executed for the Grand Dauphin, to decorate his room in the château at Meudon, and were called the _Grotesque Months in Bands_. The most self-sufficient of pens would falter at a description of design so exquisite, which is arranged in three panels with a deity in each, a composition of extraordinary grace above and below them, and a bordering band of losenge or diaper, on which is set the royal double L and the significant dolphin who gave his name to kings' sons. The exquisite art of Audran and of the regence cannot be better seen than in this set of tapestries which was woven but once at the royal factory, although repeated many times elsewhere with the border altered, Audran's being too personal for other chambers than that of the prince for whom it was composed. Recently copies have been made without border. The name of the artist, Charles Coypel, must not be overlooked, for it was he who composed the celebrated suite of _Don Quixote_. Twenty-eight pieces composed the series, and they were drawn with that exquisite combination of romantic scenes and fields of pure decorative design that characterised the charm of the regence. In the centre of each piece (small pieces compared to those of Louis XIV) was a scene like a painting representing an incident from the adventure of the humorously pathetic Spanish wanderer; and this was surrounded with so much of refined decoration as to make it appear but a medallion on the whole surface. This set was so important as to be repeated many times and occupied the factory of the Gobelins from 1718 to 1794. Charles Coypel was but twenty when he composed the first design for this suite. Each year thereafter he added a new design, not supplying the last one until 1751. But, while all honour is due Coypel, Audran and Le Maire and their collaborators must be remembered as having composed the borders, the pure decorative work which expresses the tender style of transition, the suggestive period of early spring that later matured into the fulsome Rococo. America is enriched by five of these exquisite pieces through Mr. Morgan's recent purchase. But while artists were producing purity in art, those in political power were, with ever-increasing effect, plunging morals into the mud. Philippe, the Regent, died, the corrupt Duke of Bourbon took the place of minister, and poor Louis XV was still but thirteen years old, and unavoidably influenced by the lives of those around him. Even the Gobelins was under the hand of the shallow Duke d'Antin. Yet even when the king matured and became himself a power for corruption, the artists of the Gobelins reflected only beauty and light. It is to their credit. It is an ungrateful task to pick flaws with a period so firmly enthroned in the affections as that of the regence and the early years of the reign of Louis XV. The beauties of its pure decoration lead us into Elysian fields that are but reluctantly left behind. But the designs and tapestry weavers of that time left us two distinct classes of production, and to be learned in such matters, the amateur contemplates both. This second style is ungrateful because it trains us away from art, delicate and ingenious, and plants us before enormous woven paintings. Now it never had been the intention of tapestry to replace painting. Whenever it leaned that way a deterioration was evident. It was by the lure of this fallacy that Brussels lost her pre-eminence. It was through this that the number of tones was increased from the twenty or more of Arras to the twenty thousand of the Gobelins. It was through this that the true mission of tapestry was lost, which was the mission of supplying a soft, undulating lining to the habitat of man, and flashes of colour for his pageants. Under Louis XIV the pictures came thick and fast, as we have seen, but in deep-toned, simple colour-scheme. Now, with the De Cottes as directors at the Gobelins, and with a new reign begun, more pictures were called for. The splendid _History of the King_ of Louis XIV could not be forgotten; the history of his successor must be similarly represented, and what could this be but a series of woven paintings. The flower of the time was an exquisitely complicated decoration on a small scale. The larger expression was not spontaneous. Louis XV, poor boy, was not old enough to have had many events outside the nursery, so it took imagination--perhaps that of the elegant profligate, Duke d'Antin--to suggest an occasion of appropriate splendour and significance. The official reception of the Turkish ambassador in 1721 was the subject chosen, and under the direction of Charles Parrocel became a superb work, full of court magnificence of the day and a valuable portrayal to us of the boyhood of the king. The same type of big picture was continued in the series of _Hunts of Louis XV_, lovely forest scenes wherein much unsportsmanlike elegance displays itself in the persons of noble courtiers. The Duc d'Antin favoured these and they were reproduced until 1745. It is probable that the Bible fell into neglect in those days, too heavy a volume for pointed, perfumed fingers accustomed to no books at all. Bossuet, Voltaire, were they not obliged to set to the sonorous music of their voices the reforming and satirical attacks on manners and morals of the aristocrats at a time when books lay all unread? But at the Gobelins ateliers the Bible, wiped clean of dust, was much consulted for inspiration in cartoons. Charles Coypel dipped into the Old Testament, and Jouvenet into the New, with the result of several suites of tapestries of great elegance--all of which might much better have been painted on canvas and framed. Charles Coypel, the talented member of a talented family of painters, also made popular the heroine _Armide_, who seemed almost to come of the Bible, since Tasso had set her in his Christian _Jerusalem Delivered_. The seductive palace and entrancing gardens where Renaud was kept a prisoner, gave opportunity for fine drawing in this set. [Illustration: HUNTS OF LOUIS XV Gobelins, G. Audran after Cartoon by Oudry] [Illustration: ESTHER AND AHASUERUS SERIES Gobelins, about 1730. Cartoon by J. F. de Troy; G. Audran, weaver] The Iliad of Homer came in for its share of consideration at the hands of Antoine and Charles Coypel, who made of it a set of five scenes. It was Romanelli, the Italian, who painted a similar set, a hundred years before, for Cardinal Barberini, which set came to America in the Ffoulke collection. After the death, in 1730, of the Duke d'Antin, that interesting son of Madame de Montespan, several directors had the management of the Gobelins in hand, the Count of Vignory and the Count of Angivillier being the most important prior to the Revolution. These were men who held the purse-strings of the state, and could thereby foster or crush a state institution, but the direction of the Gobelins itself, as a factory, was in the hands of architects, beginning with the able De Cotte. As the factory had many ateliers, these were each directed by painters, among whom appear such interesting men of talent as Oudry, Boucher, Hallé. Although d'Antin was dead when it commenced, he is accredited with having inspired and ordered the important hanging known as the _History of Esther_. (Plate facing page 131.) The first piece, from cartoons by Jean François de Troy, was sent to the weavers in 1737, and the last piece, which was painted in Rome, was finished in 1742. This set shows as ably as any can, the magnificent style of production of the period. It had from the beginning an immense popularity and was copied many times. Even now it is a favourite subject for those whose perverted taste leads them into the dubious art of copying tapestry in paints on cloth. The serious accusation against this set, which in composition seems much like the tableaux in grand opera, is that it invades the art of painting. And that is the fault of woven art at that period. The decline in tapestry in Paris began when both weavers and painters struggled for the same results, the weavers quite forgetting the strength and beauty that were peculiar to their art alone. This fault cannot be laid to the weavers only, who numbered such men as Neilson the able Scot, and Cozette, who, with wondrous touch, wove the set of _Don Quixote_; nor were the artists at fault, for they included such men as Audran and Boucher. No, it was the director who blighted and subverted talent, and the vitiated public taste that shifted restlessly and demanded novelty. The novelty that came in large hangings was a suppressing of the delicate subjects that delight the imagination by their playful grace, their association of human life with all that is gaily exquisite. The mode was for leaving the land of idealised mythology, for discarding the flowers, the scrolls, the happy loves and charming crew that lived among them, and for plunging into Roman history, real and ugly, enwrapped in drapings too full, cumbered with forced accessory, or into such mythology as is represented in _Cupid and Psyche_. (Plate facing page 132.) The _History of Esther_ illustrates the loss of imagination sustained by the border which had come to be a mere woven imitation, in shades of brown and yellow, of a carved and gilded, wooden frame. At the close of the reign of Louis XV, borders were frankly abandoned altogether. Compare this state of things with the days when Audran and Coypel were producing the sets of _The Seasons_, _The Months_, and _Don Quixote_. It is aridness compared to talented invention. [Illustration: CUPID AND PSYCHE Gobelins Tapestry. Eighteenth Century. Design by Coypel] [Illustration: PORTRAIT OF CATHERINE OF RUSSIA Gobelins under Louis XVI.] The top note of the imitation of painting was struck when the Gobelins set the task of becoming a portrait maker. (Plate facing page 133.) The work was done, it was bound to be, as royalty backed the demand. Portraits were woven of Louis XV (to be seen now at Versailles), and his queen, of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, and others less well known. A better scheme for limiting the talent of the weaver could not have been suggested by his most ingenious enemy. He was a man of talent or his art had not reached so high, and as such must be untrammelled; but here was given him a work where personal discretion was not allowed, where he must copy tone for tone, shade by shade, the myriad indefinite blendings of the brush. It is this practice, pursued to its end, that has made of the tapestry weaver a mere part of a machine, and tapestry-making a lost art, to remain in obscurity until weavers return to the time before the French decadence. The temper of those who hold in their hands the direction of the people, these are the determining causes of the products of that age. If d'Angivillier was responsible for displacing a transcendent art with a false one, if he routed a dainty mythology and its accessories with the heavy effort and paraphernalia of the Romans, on whom shall we place the entirely supportable responsibility of diminishing tapestries from noble draperies down to mere furniture coverings? The result came happily, with much fluttering of fans, dropping of handkerchiefs, with powder, patches, intrigues, naughty sports, and a general necessity for a gay company to divide itself into groups of four or two--a lady and a cavalier, forsooth--the inevitable man and maid. In the time of the preceding king, Louis XIV, the court lived in masses. Life was a pageant, a grand one, moving in slow dignity of gorgeous crowds, but a pageant on which beat the fierce light of a throne jealous of its grandeur. No chance was here for sweet escape and no chance for light communing. But all that saw a change. The needs of the lighter court and the lighter people, were for reminders that life is a merry dance in which partners change often, and sitting-out a figure with one of them is part of the game. Perhaps the huge apartments were not to the taste of Regent Philippe, and certainly they were not convenient to the life of the king when he came to man's estate. So, down came the ceiling's height, and closer drew the walls, until the model of the Petit Trianon was reached and considered the ideal--if that were not indeed the miniature Swiss Cottage. What place had an acre of tapestry in these little rooms? How could yards of undulating colour hang over walls that were already overlaid with the most exquisite low relief in wood that has ever been carved this side of the Renaissance in Italy? No place for it whatever. So, out with it--the fashions have changed. But there was the furniture. That, too, was smaller than hitherto. But this was the day of artists skilled in small design, and they must fill the need. CHAPTER XIII THE GOBELINS FACTORY (_Continued_) And so it came about that tapestry fell from the walls, shrunk like a pricked balloon and landed in miniature on chairs, sofas and screens. How felt the artists about this domesticating of their art? We are not told of the wry face they made when, with ideals in their souls, they were set to compose chair-seats for the Pompadour. Her preference was for Boucher. Perhaps his revenge showed itself by treating the bourgeoise courtisane to a bit of coarseness now and then, slyly hid in dainties. The artist, Louis Tessier, appeased himself by composing for furniture a design of simple bouquets of flowers thrown on a damask background; but, with such surety of hand, such elegance, are these ornaments designed and composed, that he who but runs past them must feel the power of their exquisite beauty. In this manufacture of small pieces the Gobelins factory unhappily put itself on the same footing as Beauvais and much confusion of the products has since resulted. The dignity of the art was lowered when the size and purpose of tapestries were reduced to mere furniture coverings. The age of Louis XV, looked at decoratively, was an age of miniature, and the reign that followed was the same. When small chambers came into vogue, furniture diminished to suit them, and not only were walls too small for tapestries to hang on, but chairs, sofas and screens offered less space than ever before for woven designs, now preciously fine in quality and minutiæ. Tapestry weaving now entered the region of fancy-work for the drawing-room's idle hour, and we see even the king himself, lounging idly among his favourite companions, working at a tiny loom, his latest pretty toy. Compare this trifling with the attitude of Henri IV and Louis XIV toward tapestry weaving, and we have the situation in a nutshell. Louis XV passed from the scene, likewise the charming bits of immorality who danced through his reign. However much we may disapprove their manner of life, we are ever glad that their taste sanctioned--more than that--urged, the production of a decorative style almost unsurpassed. To the artists belong the glory, but times were such that an artist must die of suppression if those in power refuse to patronise his art. So we are glad that Antoinette Poisson appreciated art, and that Jeanne Verbernier made of it a serious consideration, for, what was liked by La Pompadour and Du Barry must needs be favoured by the king. When Louis XVI came to the throne, the return to antiquity for inspiration had already begun, but did not fully develop until later on, when David became court painter under Napoleon. Yet the tonic note of decoration was classic. Designs were still small and details were from Greek inspiration. As tapestries were still but furniture coverings, this was not to be regretted, for nothing could be better suited to small spaces, nor could drawing be more exquisitely pure and chaste than when copied from Greek detail. [Illustration: CHAIR OF TAPESTRY. STYLE OF LOUIS XV] [Illustration: GOBELINS TAPESTRY (DETAIL) CRAMOISÉE. STYLE LOUIS XV] Count d'Angivillier kept the Gobelins factory from all originality, sanctioned only the small wares for original work, and forced a slavish copying of paintings for the larger pieces. It is not deniable that some beautiful hangings were produced, but the sad result is that pieces of so many tones lose in value year by year, through the gentle, inexorable touch of time; and, more deplorable yet, the ambition and the originality of the master-weavers was deprived of its very life-blood, and in time was utterly atrophied. In the time of Louis XVI, when Marie Antoinette was in the flower of her inconsiderate elegance, the note of the day was for art to be small, but perfect; the worth of a work of art was determined by its size--in inverse ratio. It was a time lively and intellectual and frivolous, and its art was the reflection of its desire for concentrated completeness. In the reign of Louis XVI ripened, not the art of Louis XIV, but the political situation whose seeds he had planted. The idea of revolution which started in the little-considered American colonies, took hold of the thinkers of France, even to the king of little power. But instead of being a theory of remedy for important men to discuss, it acted as a fire-brand thrown among the inflammable, long-oppressed Third Estate--with results deplorable to the art which occupies our attention. The Gobelins was already suffering at the début of the Revolution. Its management had been relegated to men more or less incapable; its art standards had been forced lower and lower. Added to that its operatives were engaged at lessened rates and often had to whistle for their pay at that. The contractors asked for nothing better than to be engaged as masters of ateliers at fixed rates. Then came the full force of the Revolution with such deplorable and tragic results for the Gobelins. In the madness of the time the workers here were not exempt from the terrible call of Robespierre. The almoner of the factory was arrested, and at the end of two months not even a record existed of his execution, which took place among the daily feasts of La Guillotine. A high-warp weaver named Mangelschot met the same fate. Jean Audran, once contractor for high-warp, then placed at the head of the factory, was arrested, but escaped with imprisonment only. During his absence he was replaced as head by Augustin Belle, whose respect for the Republic and for his head made him curry favour with the mob in a manner most deplorable. He caused the destruction by fire of many and many a superb tapestry at the Gobelins, giving as his reason that they contained emblems of royalty, reminders of the hated race of kings. The amateur can almost weep in thinking of this ruthless waste of beauty. It was a celebrated bonfire that was built in the courtyard of the Gobelins when, by order of the Committee on Selection, all things offensive to an over-sensitive republican irritability were heaped for the holocaust. As the Gobelins was instituted by a king, patronised by kings, its works made in the main for palaces and pageants after the taste of kings, it was only too easy to find tapestries meet for a fire that had as object the destruction of articles displaying monarchical power. During the four horrid years when terror reigned, the workers at the Gobelins continued under a constant threat of a cessation of work. Not only was their pay irregular, but it was often given in paper that had sadly depreciated in value. Then the decision was made to sell certain valuable tapestries and pay expenses from this source of revenue. But, alas, in those troublous times, who had heart or purse to acquire works of art. A whole skin and food to sustain it, were the serious objects of life. Under the Directory, funds were scarce in bleeding France, and all sorts of ways were used to raise them. In the past times when Louis XIV had by relentless extravagance and wars depleted the purse, he caused the patiently wrought precious metals to be melted into bullion. Why not now resort to a similar method? So thought a minister of one of the Two Chambers, and suggested the burning of certain tapestries of the royal collection in order that the gold and silver used in their weaving might be converted into metal. Sixty pieces, the most superb specimens of a king's collection, were transported to the court of La Monnaie, and there burned to the last thread the wondrous work of hundreds of talented artists and artisans. The very smoke must have rolled out in pictures. The money gained was considerable, 60,000 livres, showing how richly endowed with metal threads were these sumptuous hangings. The commission sitting by, judicial, dispassionate, presided with cold dignity over the sacrifice, and pronounced it good. A hundred workers only remained at the Gobelins which had once been a happy hive of more than eight times that number, and these were constrained to follow orders most objectionable and restrictive. Models to copy were chosen by a jury of art, and such were its prejudices that but little of interest remained. Ancient religious suites, and royal ones were disapproved. New orders consisted of portraits. But if we thought it a prostitution of the art to weave portraits of Louis XV in royal costume, or Marie Antoinette in the loveliness of her queenly fripperies, what can be said of the low estate of a factory which must give out a portrait of Marat or Lepelletier, even though the great David painted the design to be copied. The hundred men at the Gobelins must have worked but sadly and desultorily over such scant and distasteful commissioning. There were works upon the looms when the Commission began inspecting the works of art to see if they were proper stuff for the newly-made Republic to nurse upon. In September, 1794, they found and condemned twelve large pieces on the looms unfinished, and on which work was immediately suspended. Of three hundred and twenty-one models examined, which were the property of the factory, one hundred and twenty were rejected. In fact, only twenty were designated as truly fit for production, not falling under the epithets "anti-republican, fanatic or insufficient." The latter description was applied to all those exquisite fantasies of art that make the periods Louis XV and Louis XVI a source of transcendent delight to the lover of dainty intellectual design, and include particularly the work of Boucher. The mental and moral workings of the commission on art may be tested by quoting from their own findings on the _Siege of Calais_, a hanging by Berthélemy, depicting an event of the Fourteenth Century. This is what the temper of the times induced the Commission--among whom were artists too--to say: "Subject regarded as contrary to republican ideas; the pardon accorded to the people of Calais was given by a tyrant through the tears and supplications of the queen and child of a despot. Rejected. In consequence the tapestry will be arrested in its execution." The models allowed in this benumbing period were those of hunting scenes, and antique groups such as the _Muses_, or scenes from the life of Achilles. A vicious system of pay was added to the vicious system of art restriction. And so fell the Gobelins, to revive in such small manner as was accorded it in the Nineteenth Century. Its great work was done. It had lifted up an art which through inflation or barrenness Brussels had let train on the ground like a fallen flag, and it had given to France the glory of acquiring the highest period of perfection. To France came the inspiration of gathering the industry under the paternal care of the government, of relieving it from the exigencies of private enterprise which must of necessity fluctuate, of keeping the art in dignified prosperity, and of devoting to its uses the highest talent of both art and industry. The Revolution and the Directory both hesitated to kill an institution that had brought such glory to France, that had placed her above all the world in tapestry producing. But what deliberate intent did not accomplish, came near being a fact through scant rations. Operators at the Gobelins were irregularly paid, and the public purse found onerous the burden of support. But with the coming of Napoleon the personal note was struck again. A man was at the head, a man whose ambition invaded even the field of decoration. The Emperor would not be in the least degree inferior in splendour to the most magnificent of the hereditary kings of France. The Gobelins had been their glory, it should add to his. Louis David was the painter of the court, he whose head was ever turned over his shoulder toward ancient Greece and Rome, who not only preferred that source of inspiration, but who realised the flattery implied to the Emperor by using the designs of the countries he had conquered. It was a graceful reminder of the trophies of war. So David not only painted Josephine as a lady of Pompeii elongated on a Greek lounge, but he set the classic style for the Gobelins factory when Napoleon gave to the looms his imperial patronage. It was David who had found favour with Revolutionary France by his untiring efforts to produce a style differing fundamentally from the style of kings, when kings and their ways were unpopular. Technical exactness, with classic motives, characterises his decorative work for the Gobelins. The Emperor was hot for throne-room fittings that spoke only of himself and of the empire he had built. David made the designs, beautiful, chaste, as his invention ever was, and dotted them with the inevitable bees and eagles. Percier, the artist, helped with the painting, but the throne itself was David's and shows his talent in the floating Victory of the back and the conventionalised wreaths of the seat. The whole set, important enough to mention, embraced eight arm chairs and six smaller ones, besides two dozen classic seats of a kingly pattern, and screens for fire and draughts, all with a red background on which was woven in gold the pattern of wreaths and branches of laurel and oak. The Emperor made the Gobelins his especial care. He committed it to the discretion of no one, but was himself the director, and allowed no loom to set up its patterns unsanctioned by his order. Even his campaigns left this order operative. Is it to his credit as a genius, or his discredit as a tyrant, that the chiefs of the Gobelins had to follow him almost into battle to get permission to weave a new hanging? Portraits were woven--but let us not dwell on that. That portraits were woven at the Gobelins (portraits as such, not the resemblance of one figure out of a mass to some great personage) brings ever a sigh of regret. It is like the evidence of senility in some grand statesman who has outlived his vigour. It is like the portrait of your friend done in butter, or the White House at Washington done in a paste of destroyed banknotes. In other words, there is no excuse for it while paint and canvas exist. Napoleon's own portrait was made in full length twice, and in bust ten times. The Empress was pictured at full length and in bust, and the young King of Rome came in for one portrait. The summit of bad art seemed reached when it was proposed to copy in wool a painting of portrait busts, carved in marble. This work was happily unfinished when the empire gave place to the next form of government. It is unthinkable that Napoleon would not want his reign glorified in manner like to that of hereditary kings with pictured episodes, the conquests of his life, dramatic, superb. David the court painter, supplied his canvas _Napoleon Crossing the Alps_, and others followed. Copying paintings was the order at the Gobelins, remember, and that kind of work was done with infinite skill. Numbers of grand scenes were planned, some set up on the looms, but the great part were not done at all. Napoleon's triumph was full but brief; the years of his reign were few. He interrupted work on large hangings by his impatience to have the throne-room furniture ready for the reception of Europe's kings and ambassadors. And when the time came that another man received in that room, the big series of hangings which were to picture his reign, even as the _Life of the King_ pictured that of Louis XIV, were scarcely begun. CHAPTER XIV BEAUVAIS Another name to conjure with, after Gobelins is Beauvais. In general it means to us squares of beautiful foliage,--foliage graceful, acceptably coloured, and of a pre-Raphaelite neatness. But it is not limited to that class of work, nor yet to the chair-coverings for which the factory of Beauvais is so justly celebrated. This factory has woven even the magnificent series of Raphael, the designs without which the Sistine Chapel was considered incomplete. But this is anticipating, and an inquiry into how these things came about is a pleasure too great to miss. The factory at Beauvais was founded by Colbert, under Louis XIV, in 1664. In that respect it resembles the Gobelins factory, but there existed an enormous difference which had to do with the entire fate of the enterprise. The Gobelins was founded for the king; Beauvais was founded for commerce. The Gobelins was royally conceived as a source of supply for palaces and châteaux of royalty and royalty's friends. Beauvais was intended to supply with tapestry any persons who cared to buy them, to the end that profit (if profit there were) should be to the good of the country. So the factory was founded at Beauvais as being convenient to Paris, although it was not known as a place where the industry had flourished hitherto, notwithstanding the old tapestries still in the cathedral which are accorded a local origin in the first half of the Sixteenth Century. And the king granted it letters patent, and large sums of money to start the enterprise, which had to be given a building, and men to manage it and to work therein, and materials to work with, in fact, the duplicate in less degree of the appropriations for the Gobelins, except that the furniture department was omitted. The idea was practically the same as that in the mind of the paternal Henri IV when he united the scattered factories with royal interest and patronage, but with always the large end in view of benefiting his people financially, as well as in the province of art. With our modern republican views we can criticise the disinterestedness of a monarch who maintains a factory at enormous public expense exclusively for the indulgence of kings. And yet, it seems impossible to make both an artistic and commercial success of a tapestry factory--at least this is the conclusion to which one is forced in a study of the Beauvais factory. Louis Hinart was the man appointed to construct the buildings and to stock them, and the royal appropriation therefor, was 60,000 livres. He was to engage a hundred workers for the first year, more to be added; and special prizes were temptingly offered for workmen coming from other countries, and to the contractor for each tapestry sold for exportation. [Illustration: HENRI IV BEFORE PARIS Beauvais Tapestry, Seventeenth Century. Design by Vincent] [Illustration: HENRI IV AND GABRIELLE D'ESTRÉES Design by Vincent] Thus was trade to be encouraged, and the venture put on its feet commercially. But alas, the factory was not a success. Tapestries were woven, hundreds of them, and they delight us now wherever we can find them, whether low warp or high, whether large pieces with figures or smaller pieces almost entirely verdure of an entrancing kind. But the orders for large hangings, the heavy patronage from outside France, was of the imagination only, and the verdures for home consumption did not meet the expenses of the factory. After twenty years of struggle, Hinart was completely ruined and ceded the direction of the factory to a Fleming of Tournai, Philip Béhagle. As most of the workers were Flemish, this was probably not disagreeable to them. Béhagle, more energetic than Hinart, with a gift for initiative, set the high-warp looms to work with extraordinary activity. As though he would rival the great Gobelins itself, he reproduced the most ambitious of pieces, the Raphael series, _Acts of the Apostles_, and a long list of ponderous groups wherein oversized gods disport themselves in a heavy setting of architecture and voluminous draperies. He also produced some contemporary battle scenes which are now in the royal collection of Sweden. Not content with copying, Béhagle set up a school of design in the factory, realising that the base of all decorative art was design. Le Pape was the artist set over it. From this grew many of the lovely smaller patterns which have made the factory famous. Its garlands have ever been inspired, and its work on borders is of exquisite conception and execution. It is considered a great fact in the history of the factory that the king paid it a visit in 1686; that he paraded and rested his important person under the shade of the living verdure in its garden. But it seems more to the point that Béhagle made for it a success both artistic and commercial, and this continued as long as he had breath. Also was it a feather in his cap that at the time when the Gobelins factory was sighing and dying for lack of funds, the provincial factory of Beauvais not only remained prosperous, but opened its doors to many of the starving operatives from the Gobelins ateliers, thus saving them from the horrid fate of joining the Dragonades, as some of their fellows had done. But the followers of the able Béhagle had not his capability. After his twenty years of prosperity the factory languished under the direction of his widow and sons, and that of the brothers Filleul, and Micou, up to the time when the Regent Philip was fumbling the reigns of government, and when everything but scepticism and Les Precieuses was sinking into feeble disintegration. The factory became a financial failure from which the regent had not power to lift it. Again we see the name of the son of Madame de Montespan, the Duke d'Antin, who was at this time director of buildings for the crown and in this capacity had the power of choosing the directors of both the Gobelins and Beauvais. The place of director at Beauvais was empty; d'Antin must have the credit of filling it wisely with the painter Jean-Baptiste Oudry. He was a man endowed with the sort of energy we are apt to consider modern and American. He already occupied a high place in the Gobelins, and retained it, too, while he lifted Beauvais from the Slough of Despond, and carried it to its most brilliant flowering. [Illustration: BEAUVAIS TAPESTRY. EIGHTEENTH CENTURY Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York] [Illustration: BEAUVAIS TAPESTRY. TIME OF LOUIS XVI Collection of Wm. Baumgarten, Esq., New York] It is only as the history of a factory touches us that we are interested in its changes. The result of Oudry's direction is one that we see so frequently in a small way that it is agreeable to recognise its cause. Oudry was pre-eminently a painter of animals. Add to this the tendency to draw cartoons in suites and the demand for furniture coverings, and at once we have the _raison d'être_ of the design seen over and over again nowadays on old tapestried chairs, the designs picturing the _Fables of La Fontaine_. These were the especial work of Oudry who composed them, who put into them his best work as animal painter, and who set them on the looms of Beauvais many times. They had a success immediate. They became the fashion of the day, and the pride of the factory. If the artist had drawn with inspiration, the weavers copied with a fidelity little short of talent. So it is not surprising that a set of sofa and chairs on which these tapestries are displayed brings now an average of a thousand dollars a piece, even though the furniture frames are not excessively rich. Beauvais set the fashion for this suite, but as success has imitators who hope for success, many factories both in and out of France copied this series. How shall we know the true from the false? By that sixth sense that has its origin in a taste at once instinctive and cultivated. Oudry drew hangings for the small panelled spaces of the walls, to accompany this set of _Fables_. He also painted scenes from Molière's comedies, which at least show him master of the human figure as well as of the lines of animals. We are now, it must be remembered, in the time of Louis XV, the time of beautiful gaiety and light sarcasm, of epigramme, and miniature, and of all that declared itself _multum in parvo_. Therefore it was that even wall-hangings were reduced in size and polished, so to speak, to a perfection most admirable. Paintings were copied, actually copied, on the looms, but however much the fact may be deplored that tapestry had wandered far from its original days of grand simplicity, it were unjust not to recognise the exquisite perfection of the manner in vogue in the middle of the Eighteenth Century, and of the perfection of the craftsman. The pieces of Beauvais that are accessible to us are indeed charming to live with, especially the verdures of Oudry on which he left the trace of his talent, never omitting the characteristic fox or dog, or ducks, or pheasants that give vital interest to a peep into the enchanted woodland. At the same time the factory of Aubusson, and looms in Flanders, were throwing upon the market a quantity of verdures, of which the amateur must beware. Oudry verdures or outdoor scenes are but few in model, and beautifully woven. [Illustration: BEAUVAIS TAPESTRY. TIME OF LOUIS XIV] In the prosperity of Beauvais, ambition carried Oudry into a gay rivalry with the Gobelins. Charles Coypel had gained fame by a set of hangings in which scenes were taken from Don Quixote. Oudry asked himself why he should not rival them at Beauvais. The result was a similar series, but composed by Charles Natoire, the artist who had drawn a set of _Antony and Cleopatra_ for the Gobelins. The same idea extended to the furniture coverings which ran to this design as well as to the _Fables_. Thus originated a set familiar to those of us nowadays who covet and who buy the rare old bits that the niggard hand of the past accords to the seeker after the ancient. Exquisite indeed are the hangings by the great interpreter of the spirit of his time, François Boucher. His designs broke from the limit of the Gobelins, and were woven at Beauvais with the care and skill required for proper interpretation of his land of mythology. Such flushed skies of light, such clean, soft trees waving against them and such human elegance and beauty grouped beneath, have seldom been reproduced in tapestry, and almost make one wonder if, after all, the weavers of the Eighteenth Century were not right in copying a finished painting rather than in interpreting a decorative cartoon. But such thoughts border on heresy and schism; away with them. Casanova, Leprince, and a host of others are tacked onto the list of artists who painted models. We can no longer call them cartoons, so changed is the mode for Beauvais. But Oudry and Boucher are pre-eminent. To the former, who was director as well as artist, is attributed the fame of the factory and the resulting commercial success. The factory had a house for selling its wares under the very nose of the Gobelins; had another in the enemy's country, Leipzig. And kings were the patrons of these, as we know through the royal collections in Italy, and Stockholm, where the King of Sweden was an important collector. It was in 1755 that Beauvais found itself without the support of its leaders. Both Oudry and his partner in business matters, Besnier, had died. And we are well on toward the time when kingly support was a feeble and uncertain quantity. The factory lacked the inspiration and patronage to continue its importance. In a few years more fell the blight of the Revolution. The factory was closed. It re-opened again under new conditions, but its brilliant period was past. Will the conditions recur that can again elevate to its former state of perfection this factory that has given such keen delight, whose ancient works are so prized by the amateur? It has given us thrilling examples of the highly developed taste of tapestry weaving of the Eighteenth Century, it has left us lovable designs in miniature. We repulse the thought that these things are all of the past. The factory still lives. Will not the Twentieth Century see a restoration of its former prestige? If it were only for the reproduction of the sets of furniture of the style known as Louis XVI, the Beauvais loom would have sufficient reason for existing at the present day. Scenes from Don Quixote, however, and the pictured fables of La Fontaine which we see on old chairs, seem to need age to ripen them. These sets, when made new, shown in all the freshness and unsoiled colour, and unworn wool, and unfaded silk do not give pleasure. [Illustration: BEAUVAIS TAPESTRY] [Illustration: CHAIR COVERING Beauvais Tapestry. First Empire] But the familiar garlands and scrolls adapted from the Greek, that were woven for the court of Marie Antoinette, these are ever old and ever new, like all things vital. On a background of solid colour, pale and tawny, is curved the foliated scroll to reach the length of a sofa, and with this is associated garlands or sprays of flowers that any flower-lover would worship. Nothing more graceful nor more tasteful could be conceived, and by such work is the Beauvais factory best known, and on such lines might it well continue. CHAPTER XV AUBUSSON Perhaps because of certain old and elegant carpets lying under-foot in the glow and shadows of old drawing-rooms that we love, the name of Aubusson is one of interesting meaning. And yet history of tapestry weaving at Aubusson lacks the importance that gilds the Gobelins and Beauvais. It just escaped that _sine qua non_, the dower of a king's favour. But let us be chronological, and not anticipate. If antiquity is the thing, Aubusson claims it. There is in the town this interesting tradition that when the invincible Charles Martel beat the enemies of Christianity and hammered out the word peace with his sword-blade, a lot of the subdued Saracens from Spain remained in the neighbourhood. It was at Poitiers in 732 that the final blow was given to show the hordes of North Africa that while a part of Spain might be theirs, they must stop below the Pyrenees. When swords are put by, the empty hand turns to its accustomed crafts of peace. Poitiers is a weary journey from Africa if the land ways are hostile, and all to be traversed afoot. Rather than return, the conquered Saracens stayed, so runs the legend of Aubusson, and quite naturally fell into their home-craft of weaving. They had a pretty gift indeed to bestow, for at that time, as in ages before, the world's best fabrics came from the luxurious East. And so the Saracens, defeated at Poitiers by Charles Martel, wandered to nearby Aubusson, wove their cloths and gave the town the chance to set its earliest looms at a date far back in the past. The centuries went on, however, without much left in the way of history-fabric or woven fabric until we approach the time when tapestry-history begins all over France, like sparse flowers glowing here and there in the early spring wood. When the Great Louis, with Colbert at his sumptuous side, was by way of patronising magnificently those arts which contributed to his own splendour, he set his all-seeing eye upon Aubusson, and thought to make it a royal factory. He was far from establishing it--that was more than accomplished already, not so much by the legendary Saracens as by the busy populace who had as early as 1637 as many as two thousand workers. Going back a little farther we find a record of four tapestries woven there for Rheims. It was, perhaps, this very prosperity, this ability to stand alone that made Louis and Colbert think it worth while to patronise the works at Aubusson. But it must be said that at this time (1664) the factory was deteriorating. Tapestry works are as sensitive as the veriest exotic, and without the proper conditions fail and fade. The wrong matter here was primarily the cartoons, which were of the poorest. No artist controlled them, and the workers strayed far from the copy set long before. Added to that, the wool was of coarse, harsh quality and the dyeing was badly done. All three faults remediable, thought the two chief forces in the kingdom. So Louis XIV announced to the sixteen hundred weavers of Aubusson that he would give their works the conspicuous privilege of taking on the name of the Royal Manufactory at Aubusson. And, moreover, he declared his wish to send them an artist to draw worthily, and a master of the important craft of dyeing fast and lovely colours. Colbert drew up a series of articles and stipulations, long papers of rules and restrictions which were considered a necessary part of fine tapestry weaving. These papers are tiresome to read--the constitution of many a nation or a state is far less verbose. They give the impression that the craft of tapestry weaving is beset with every sort of small deceit, so protection must be the arrangement between master and worker, and between the factory and the great outside world, lying in wait to tear with avaricious claws any fabric, woven or written, that this document leaves unprotected. You get, too, the impression that weavers took themselves a little too seriously. There must have been other arts and crafts in the world than theirs, but if so these men of long documents ignored it. Aubusson, then, took heart at the encouragement of the king and his prime minister, enjoyed their fine new title to flaunt before the world which lacked it, pored over their new Articles of Faith, and awaited the new artist and the new alchemist of colours. But Louis XIV was a busy man, and Paris presented enough activity to consume all his hours but the scant group he allowed himself for sleep. So Aubusson was forgot. Wars and pleasures both ravaged the royal purse, and no money was left for indulgences to a tapestry factory lying leagues distant from Paris and the satisfying Gobelins. Then came the agitation of religious conflict during which Louis XIV was persuaded, coerced, nagged into the condition of mind which made him put pen to the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the document that is ever playing about the fortunes of tapestry weaving. This was in 1685. Aubusson had struggled along on hope for twenty years, under its epithet Royal, but now it had to lose its best workers to the number of two hundred. The Protestants had ever been among the best workers in Louis' kingdom, and by his prejudice he lost them. Germany received some of the fugitives, notably, Pierre Mercier. Near Aubusson were Felletin and Bellegarde, the three towns forming the little group of factories of La Marche. When the king's act brought disaster to Aubusson, her two neighbours suffered equally. There was also another reason for a sagging of prosperity. Beauvais was rapidly gaining in size and importance under the patronage of the king and the wise rule of its administrators. Beauvais with her high- and low-warp looms, her artists from Paris and her privilege to sell in the open market, lured from Aubusson the patronage that might have kept her strong. Thus things went on to the end of the Seventeenth Century and the first quarter of the Eighteenth. Then in 1731 came deliverers in the persons of the painters, Jean Joseph du Mons and Pierre de Montezert, and an able dyer who aided them. Prosperity began anew. Not the prosperity of the first half of the Seventeenth Century, which was its best period, but a strong, healthy productiveness which has lasted ever since. Two articles of faith it adheres to--that the looms shall be invariably low, and that the threads of the warp shall be of wool and wool only. Large quantities of strong-colour verdures from La Marche and notably from Aubusson are offered to the buyer throughout France. They are as easily adapted to the wood panels of a modern dining-room as is stuff by the yard, the pattern being merely a mass of trees divisible almost anywhere. The colour scheme is often worked out in blues instead of greens; a narrow border is on undisturbed pieces, and the reverse of the tapestry is as full of loose threads as the back of a cashmere rug. For the most part these fragments are the work of the Eighteenth Century. Older ones, with warmer colours introduced bring much higher prices. CHAPTER XVI SAVONNERIE Those who hold by the letter, leave out the velvety product of La Savonnerie from the aristocratic society of hangings woven in the classic stitch of the Gobelins. They have reason. Yet, because the weave is one we often see in galleries, also on furniture both old and new, it is as well not to ignore its productions in lofty silence. Besides, it is rather interesting, this little branch of an exotic industry that tried to run along beside the greater and more artistic. It never has tried to be much higher than a man's feet, has been content for the most part to soften and brighten floors that before its coming were left in the cold bareness of tile or parquet. It crept up to the backs and seats of chairs, and into panelled screens a little later on, but never has it had much vogue on the walls. When we go back to its beginnings we come flat against the Far East, as is usual. The history of the fabric which is woven with a pile like that of heavy wool velvet, and which is called Savonnerie, runs parallel to the long story of tapestry proper, but to make its scant details one short concrete chronicle it is best to put them all together. From the East, then, came the idea of weaving in that style of which only the people of the East were masters. Oriental rugs as such were not attempted in either colour or design, but one of the rug stitches was copied. We have to run back to the time of Henri IV, a pleasing time to turn to with its demonstration of how much a powerful king loved the welfare of his people. When he interested himself in tapestry, one of the three important existing factories was stationed in the Louvre. This was primarily for the hangings properly called tapestry, but in the same place were looms for the production of work "after the fashion of Turkey." Sometimes it was called work of "long wool" (_longue laine_) and sometimes also "_a la façon de Perse, ou du Levant_," as well as "of the fashion of Turkey,"--all names giving credit to the East from whence the stitch came by means of crusades, invasions and other storied movements of the people of a dim past. How long ago this stitch came, is as uncertain as most things in the Middle Ages. We know how persistently the cultivated venturesome East overflowed Eastern Europe, and how religious Europe thrust itself into the East, and on these broad bases we plant our imaginings. Away back in Burgundian times there are traces of the use of this velvet stitch. Tapestries of Germany also woven in the Fifteenth Century, use this stitch to heighten the effect of details. But the formation of an actual industry properly set down in history and dignified by the name of its directors, comes in the very first years of the Seventeenth Century when Henri IV of France was living up to his high ideals. Pierre Dupont is the name to remember in this connexion. He is styled the inventor of the velvet pile in tapestry, but it were better to call him the adaptor. The name of Savonnerie came from the building in which the first looms were set up, an old soap factory, and thus the velvet pile bears the misnomer of the Savonnerie. Pierre Dupont (whose book "La Stromaturgie" might be consulted by the book-lover) was one of the enthusiasts included by Henri IV along with the best high-and low-warp masters of France at that time. Being placed under royal patronage, the Savonnerie style of weaving acquired a dignity which it has ever had trouble in retaining for the simple reason that the legitimate place for its products seems to be the floor. The Gobelins factory finally absorbed the Savonnerie, but that was after it had been established in the Louvre. Pierre Dupont who was director of tapestry works under Henri IV even goes so far as to vaunt the works of French production over those of "La Turquie." The taste of the day was doubtless far better pleased with the French colour and drawing than with the designs of the East. At any rate, this pretty wool velvet found such favour with kings that even Louis XIV encouraged its continuance, gathering it under the roof of the all-embracing Gobelins. A large royal order embraced ninety-two pieces, intended to cover the Grand Galerie of the Louvre. Many of these pieces are preserved to-day and are conserved by the State. If Savonnerie has never produced much that is noteworthy in the line of art, at least it has given us many pretty bits of an endearing softness, bits which cover a chair or panel a screen, to the delight of both eye and touch. The softness of the weave makes it especially appropriate to furniture of the age of luxurious interiors which is represented by the styles of Louis XV and Louis XVI. Portraits in this style of weave were executed at a time when portraits were considered improved by translation into wool, but except as curiosities they are scarcely successful. An example hangs in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. (Plate facing page 162.) In the Gobelins factory of to-day are four looms for the manufacture of Savonnerie. [Illustration: SAVONNERIE. PORTRAIT SUPPOSABLY OF LOUIS XV Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York] [Illustration: VULCAN AND VENUS SERIES. MORTLAKE Collection of Philip Hiss, Esq., New York] CHAPTER XVII MORTLAKE 1619-1703 The three great epochs of tapestry weaving, with their three localities which are roughly classed as Arras in the Fifteenth Century, Brussels in the Sixteenth Century, and Paris in the Seventeenth, had, as a matter of course, many tributary looms. It is not supposable that a craft so simple, when it is limited to unambitious productions, should not be followed by hundreds of modest people whose highest wish was to earn a living by providing the market with what was then considered as much a necessity as chairs and tables. To take a little retrospective journey through Europe and linger among these obscurer weavers would be delectable pastime for the leisurely, and for the enthusiast. But we are all more or less in a hurry, and incline toward a courier who will point out the important spots without having to hunt for them. Artois had not only Arras; Flanders had not only Brussels; France had not only the State ateliers of Paris and Beauvais; but all these countries had smaller centres of production. The tapestries from some of these we are able to identify, even to weave a little history about them. These products are recognisable through much study of marks and details and much digging in learned foreign books, where careful records are kept--a congenial business for the antiquary. But even though we may neglect in the main the lesser factories, there is one great development which must have full notice. It is the important English venture known as Mortlake. Sully, standing at the elbow of Henri IV of France, called James I of England the wisest fool in Europe. A part of his wisdom was the encouraging in his own kingdom the royal craft of tapestry-making. To this end he followed the example set by that grand Henri of Navarre, and gave the crown's aid to establish and maintain works for tapestry production. The elegance of the Stuart came to the front, desiring gratification; but craftiness had a hand in the matter, too. After the introduction of Italian luxury into England by Henry VIII, and the continuance of art's revival through the brilliant period of Elizabeth, it is not supposable that no tapestry looms existed throughout the length and breadth of the land at the time that James came down from Scotland. They were there; documents prove it. But they were not of such condition as pleased the fastidious son of Marie Stuart, who needs must import his weavers and his artists. And therein was shown his craftiness, for he had coaxed secretly from Flanders fifty expert weavers before the canny Dutch knew their talented material was thus being filched away. Every weaver was bound to secrecy, lest the Low Countries, knowing the value of her clever workmen, put a ban upon their going before the English king had his full quota for the new venture. Wandering about old London, one can identify now the place where the king's factory had habitat. The buildings stood where now we find Queen's Court Passage, and near by, at Victoria Terrace, was the house set aside for the limners or artists who drew and painted for the works. To copy Henri IV in his success was dominant in the mind of James I. To the able Sir Francis Crane he gave the place of director of the works, and made with him a contract similar to that made with François de la Planche and Marc Comans in Paris by their king. If to James I is owed the initial establishment, to Crane is owed all else at that time. It was in 1619 that the works were founded and Sir Francis took charge. He was a gentleman born, was much seen at Court, had ambitions of his own, too, and was cultivated in many ways of mind and taste. Besides all this, he had a head for business and an enthusiasm rampant, which could meet any discouragement--and needed this faculty later, too. The king then gave him the management of the venture, started him with the royal favour, which was as good as a fortune, with a building for the looms, with imported workers who knew the tricks of the trade, and with a pretty sum of money to boot. Prudence was born with the enterprise; so the men from the Low Countries were advised to become naturalised to make them more likely to stay, and to bring other workers over, Walloons, malcontents, religious fugitives, or whatever, so long as the hands were skilful. Down in Kent, they say those cottages were built for weavers,--those lovable nests of big timbers, curved gables and small leaded panes which we are so keen to restore and live in these days. To swell the number of workers, and to have an eye for the future, there must be apprentices. The king looked about among the city's "hospitals" and saw many goodly boys living at crown expense, with no specified occupation during their adolescence. These he put as apprentices, for a term of seven years, to work under the fifty Flemish leaders. They were happy if they fell under the care of Philip de Maecht, he of Flanders, who had wandered down to Paris and served under De la Planche and Comans, and now had been enticed to the new Mortlake. He has left his visible mark on tapestries of his production--his monogram, P.D.M. (Plate facing page 70.) A designer for the factory, one who lived there, was an inseparable part of it. And thus it came that Francis Clein (or Cleyn) was permanently established. He came from Denmark, but had taken an enlightening journey to Italy, and had a fine equipment for the work, which he carried on until 1658. His name is on several tapestries now existing. Even kings tire of their fulfilled wishes. James wanted royal tapestry works, yet, when they were an established fact, he wearied of the drafts on his purse for their support. It was the old story of unfulfilled obligations, of a royal purse plucked at by too many vital interests to spend freely on art. And Sir Francis Crane bore the brunt of the troubles. Contracts with the king counted but lightly in face of his enthusiasm. He continued the work, paid his men the best he could, and let the king's debt to him stand unsued. In a few years--a very few, as it was then but 1623--he was obliged to petition the king. His private fortune was gone by the board, the workmen were clamouring for wages past due, and the factory trembled. Then it was the Prince of Wales showed the value of his interest in the tapestries that were demonstrating the artistic enterprise of England. The Italian taste was the ultimate note in England as well as elsewhere--the Italy of the Renaissance; and from Italy the prince had ordered paintings and drawings. What was more to the purpose at this hour of leanness, he ordered paid by the crown a bill of seven hundred pounds, which covered their expense. The king, unwillingly,--for needs pressed on all sides--paid also Sir Francis Crane in part for moneys he had expended, but left him struggling against the hard conditions of a ruined private purse and a thin royal one. At this juncture, 1625, James I died, and his son reigned in his stead. The Prince of Wales was now become that beribboned, picturesque, French-spirited monarch, whose figure on Whitehall eternally protests his tragic death. As Charles I, he had the power to foster the elegant industry which now grew and flowered to a degree that brought satisfaction then, and which yields a harvest of delight in our own times. Sir Francis Crane was at last to get the reward of enthusiasm and fidelity. Too much reward, said the envious, who tried in all ways, fair and foul, to drive him from what was now a lucrative and conspicuous post. The money he had advanced the factory came back to him, and more also. Ever a well-known figure at court, he now even aspired to closer relations with royalty, and built a magnificent country home, which was large enough to accommodate a visiting court. He even persuaded the king to visit the Mortlake factory, that the royal presence might enhance the value of art in the occult way known only to the subjects of kings. Debts from the crown were not always paid in clinking coin, but often in grants of land, and by these grants Sir Francis Crane became rich. But the prosperity of Crane was not worth our recording were it not that it evidenced the prosperity of Mortlake. From the death of James I in 1625 for a period of ten years, the factory flowered and fruited. Its productions were of the very finest that have ever been produced in any country. The reasons for this superiority were evident. First of all, Mortlake was the pet of the king; next, Crane was an able and devoted minister of its affairs; its artistic inspiration came from the home of the highest art--Italy--and its weavers were from that locality of sage and able weavers--Flanders. Add to this, tapestries were the fashion. Every man of wealth and importance felt them a necessary chattel to his elegance. And add to this, too, that Mortlake had almost a clean field. It was nearly without rival in fine tapestry-making at that time. Brussels had declined, and the Gobelins was not formed in its inspired combination. [Illustration: VULCAN AND VENUS SERIES. MORTLAKE Collection of Philip Hiss, Esq., New York] [Illustration: VULCAN AND VENUS SERIES. MORTLAKE Collection of Philip Hiss, Esq., New York] Besides this, were not the materials for the industry found best within the confines of the kingdom? What sheep in all the world produced such even, lustrous wool as the muttons huddling or wandering on the undulating _prés salés_ of Kent; and was not wool, par excellence, the ideal material for picture-weaving, better than silk or glittering gold? The hangings made then were superb. Thanks to destiny, we have some left on which to lavish our enthusiasm. The cartoons preferred came from Italy's great dead masters. First was Raphael. The Mortlake would try its hand at nothing less than the great series made to finish and soften the decoration of the Sistine Chapel. And so the _Acts of the Apostles_ were woven, and in such manner as was worthy of them. They can be seen now in the Garde Meuble. Van Dyck, the great Hollander, made court painter to the king, drew borders for them, and was proud to do it, too. Van Dyck's other work here was a portrait of Sir Francis Crane and one of himself. Rubens likewise associated his great decorative genius with the factory and gave to it his suite of six designs for the _Story of Achilles_. Cleyn, the Mortlake art-director, furnished a _History of Hero and Leander_, which found home among the marvellous tapestries of the King of Sweden. There were other classic subjects, and the months as well, but of especial interest to us is the _Story of Vulcan_. Several pieces of this series have been lent to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, by their owners, Mrs. von Zedlitz, and Philip Hiss, Esq. Thus, without going far from home, thousands have been able to see these delightful examples of the highest period of England's tapestry production. The series was woven for Charles I when he was Prince of Wales, from cartoons by Francis Cleyn, and woven by the master, Philip de Maecht. The borders are especially interesting, and carry the emblematic three feathers of the prince, as well as his monogram, in Mrs. von Zedlitz's example, _The Expulsion of Vulcan_. (Coloured plate facing page 170.) It was this same series of _Vulcan_ that was used as a text by Crane's enemy to prove to the king, in 1630, that Crane was profiting unduly and dishonestly from the land grants given him in payment for arrears. The plaintiff speaks of this set as being "the foundation of all good tapestries in England." We are fortunate in having pieces from it in America. Only by actual contact with the tapestry itself can the beauty of the colour and the work be known. We well believe the superior quality of the English wool when it lies before us in smooth expanse of subtle colour. And as for even weaving, it is there unsurpassed. Every inch declares the talent and patience of the craftsman. As for colour, it is on a low scale that makes blues seem like remembrance of the sea, and reds like faint flushings planned in warm contrast, while over all is thrown a veil of delicate mist that may be of years, or may have been done with intent, but is there to give poetic value to the whole of the artist's scheme. [Illustration: THE EXPULSION OF VULCAN FROM OLYMPUS] Sir Francis Crane died in 1636, and Captain Richard Crane succeeded him. And then began the decline of a factory which should have lived to save us deep regret. This second Crane could not carry on the work, and besought the king to relieve him by taking over the factory, which was thenceforth known as King's Works. But civil wars came on in 1642 and other matters were more urgent than the production of works of art. So evil days fell upon the weavers. Then came the black day when Charles was beheaded. The Commonwealth, to do it justice, tried to keep alive the industry. They put at its head a nobleman, Sir Gilbert Pickering, and, to inspire the workers, brought a new model for design. They went to Hampton Court and took from there _The Triumph of Cæsar_, by Mantegna, to serve as new models. Some hope, too, lay in the weavers of the hour, clever Hollanders taken prisoners in the war; and all this while Cleyn directed. But there were too many circumstances in the way, too many hard knocks of fate. People were too poor to buy good tapestries, and loose-woven, cheaper ones were heavily imported--to the amount of $500,000 yearly--from France and the Low Countries. Anti-Catholic feeling displayed hatred toward the able Catholic weavers, who were forced out of the country by proclamation. The sad end of this story is that in 1702 a petition was placed before the king asking permission to discontinue the Mortlake works. It was granted in 1703, and thus ended the English royal venture in England. CHAPTER XVIII IDENTIFICATIONS Identifying tapestries is like playing a game, like the solving of a piquant problem, like pursuing the elusive snark. I know of no keener pleasure than that of standing before a tapestry for the first time and giving its name and history from one's own knowledge, and not from a museum catalogue or a friend's recital. The latter sources of information may be faulty, but your own you can trust, for by delightful association with tapestries and their literature you have become expert. The catalogue is to be read, the friend is to be heard, in all humility, because these supply points that one may not know; but, who shall not say that an intensely human gratification is experienced when the owner of a tapestry with the Brussels mark tells you that it is a Gobelins, or one with the _History of Alexander_ tells you it is the only set of that series ever woven, and you know better. The first thing that strikes the eye and the intelligence is the drawing, the general school to which it belongs. There is matter for placing the piece in its right class. It might be said to place it in its right century or quarter century, but that tapestries were so often repeated in later times, the cartoon having no copyright and therefore open to all countries in all centuries. Next, then, to fix it better, comes a study of the border, for therein lies many a secret of identity, and borders were of the epoch in which the weaving was done, even though the cartoon for the centre came from an earlier time. Last, as a finishing touch, come the marks in the galloon. This is put last because so often they are absent, and so often unknown, the sign of some ancient weaver lost in the mists of years, although a well-known mark so instantly identifies, that study of other details is secondary. But under these three generalising heads comes all the knowledge of the savant, for the truth about tapestries is most elusive. Knowledge is to be gained only by a lover of the objects, a lover willing to spend long hours in association with his love, prowling among collections, comparing, handling, studying designs, discerning colours, searching for details, and indulging withal a nice feeling for textures, a vision that feels them even without touch of the hand. If the study of design has not given a keen scent for the vague quality which we call "feeling," the eye would better be trained still further, for herein lies the secret of success in difficult places, and not only that, but if he have not this sense he is deprived of one of the most subtile thrills that the arts can excite. But this sense is not a matter of untrained intuition. It is the flower of erudition, the flame from a full heart, or whatever dainty thing you choose to call it. It has its origin primarily in keen observation of the various important schools of design that have interested the world for centuries. We unconsciously augment it even in following the side-path of history in this modest volume. Our studies here are but those of a summer morn or a winter eve, yet they are in vain if they have not set up a measuring standard or two within the mind. GOTHIC DRAWING First, and dearest to the lover of designs, comes the Gothic, the style practised by those conscientious romantic children-in-art, the Primitives. Their characteristics in tapestry are much the same as in painting, as in sculpture; for, weavers, painters, book-makers, sculptors, were all expressing the same matter, all following the same fashion. Therefore, to one's help comes any and every work of the primitive artists. Making allowance for the difference in medium, the same religious feeling is seen in the Burgundian set of _The Sacraments_ in the Metropolitan Museum of Arts, New York, as is found in stone carving of the time which decorated churches and tombs. The figures in the Gothic tapestries show a dignified restraint, a solemnity of pose, recalling the deadly seriousness with which children play the game of grown-ups. The artists of that day had to keep to their traditions; to express without over-expression, was their difficult task (as it is ours), but they had behind them the rigidity of the Byzantine and Early Christian, so that every free line, every vigorous pose or energetic action, was forging ahead into a new country, a voyage of adventure for the daring artist. Quite another affair was this from modern restraint which consists in pruning down the voluptuous lines following the too high Renaissance. Faces are serious, but not animated. Dress reveals charming matter concerning stuffs and modes in that far time. But apart from these characteristics is the one great feature of the arrangement of the figures, almost without perspective. And therein lies one immense superiority of the ancient designs of tapestries over the modern as pure decorative fabric. Men and women are placed with their accessories of furniture or architecture all in the foreground, and each man has as many cubits to his stature as his neighbour, not being dwarfed for perspective, but only for modesty, as in the case of the Lady's companion in the _Unicorn_ series--but that series is of a later Gothic time than the early works of Arras. A noticeable feature is that the centre of vision is placed high on the tapestry. The eye must look to the top to find all the strength of the design. The lower part is covered with the sweeping robes or finished figures of the folk who are playing their silent parts for the delight of the eye. This covers well the space with large and simple motive. No recourse is had to such artifice as distant lands seen in perspective, nor angles of rooms, but all is flat, brought frankly into intimate association with the room that is lived in, so that these people of other days seem really to enter into our very presence, to thrust vitally their quaint selves into our company. This feature of simple flatness is in so great contrast to later methods of drawing that one becomes keenly conscious of it, and deeply satisfied with its beauty. The purpose of decoration and of furnishing seems to be most adequately met when the attention is retained within the chamber and not led out of it by trick of background nor lure of perspective, no matter how enticing are the distant landscapes or how noble the far palace of royalty. Thus the Primitives struck a more intimately human note than the artists of later and more sophisticated times. The more archaic the tapestry, the simpler the motive, is the rule. The early weavers of Arras and of France were telling stories as naturally as possible, perhaps because the ways of their times were simple, and brushed aside all filigree with a directness almost brutal; but also, perhaps, because technique was not highly developed, either in him who drew with a pencil or him who copied that drawing in threads of silk and wool and gold. Whatever the cause, we can but rejoice at the result, which, alas, is shown to us by but lamentably few remnants outside of museums. These very archaic simple pieces are, for the most part, work of the latter part of the Fourteenth Century and the first part of the Fifteenth, and as the history of tapestry shows, were almost invariably woven in France or in Flanders. At the end of the time mentioned, designs, while retaining much the same characteristics already described, became more ambitious, more complicated, and introduced many scenes into one piece. This is easily proved by a comparison of the illustration of _The Baillée des Roses_, or _The Sacraments_, with _The Sack of Jerusalem_, all in the Metropolitan Museum. The idea in the earliest Gothic cartoons--if the word may be allowed here, was to make a single picture, a unified group. Into the later cartoons came the fashion of multiplying these groups on one field, so that a tapestry had many points of interest, many scenes where tragedies or comedies were being enacted. Ingenious were the ways of the early artist to accomplish the separation between the various scenes, which were sometimes divided merely by their own attitudes, as folk dispose themselves in groups in a large drawing-room; and sometimes were divided by natural obstructions, like brooks and trees, or by columns. Later yet, all the antique eccentricities passed away, and the laws of perspective and balance were fully developed in an art which has an unspeakable charm. All the things that modern art has decreed as crude or childish has passed away, and the sweet flower of the Gothic perfection unfolded its exquisite beauty. This Gothic perfection was the Golden Age of tapestry. ARCHITECTURAL DETAIL The use of architecture in the old Gothic designs makes a pleasing necessity of fastening our attention upon it. In the very oldest drawing the sole use is to separate one scene from another, in the same hanging. For this purpose slender columns are used. It is intensely interesting to note that these are the same variety of column that meets us on every delightful prowl among old relics of North Europe, relics of the days when man's highest and holiest energy expressed itself at last in the cathedral. Those slender stems of the northern Gothic are verily the stems of plants or of aspiring young trees, strong when grouped, dainty when alone, and forming a refined division for the various scenes in a picture. It must be confessed that in the medium of aged wool they sometimes totter with the effect of imminent fall, but that they do not fall, only inspires the illusion that they belong to the marvellous age of fairy-tale and fancy. The careful observer takes a keen look at these columns as a clue to dates. The shape of the shaft, whether round or hectagonal, the ornament on the capitals, are indications. It is not easy to know how long after a design is adopted its use continues, but it is entirely a simple matter to know that a tapestry bearing a capital designed in 1500 could not have been made prior to that time. The columns, later on, took on a different character. They lifted slender shafts more ornamented. It is as though the restless men of Europe had come up from the South and had brought with them reminiscences of those tender models which shadowed the art of the Saracens, the art which flavoured so much the art of Southern Europe. The columns of many a cloister in Italy bear just such lines of ornament, including the time when the brothers Cosmati were illuminating the pattern with their rich mosaic. Then, later still, the columns burst into the exquisite bloom of the early Renaissance, their character profoundly different, but their use the same, that of dividing scenes from one another on the same woven picture. But as any allusion to the Renaissance seems to thrust us far out onto a radiant plain, let us scamper back into the mysterious wood of the Gothic and pick up a few more of its indicative pebbles, even as did Hans and Gretel of fairyland. A use of Gothic architectural detail gives a religious look to tapestry, quite other than the later introduction of castles. These castle strongholds of the Middle Ages wasted no daintiness of construction, nor favoured light ornament, nor dainty hand. They were, par excellence, places of defence against the frequent enemy; so, in bastion and tower they were piled in curving masses around the scenes of the later Gothic tapestries. Even more, they began to play an important part in the _mise en scène_, and were drawn on tiny scale as habitations of the actors in the play who thrust heads from windows no larger than their throats, or who gathered in gigantic groups on disproportioned tessellated roofs. Occasionally a lovely lady in distress is seen in fine raiment praying high Heaven for deliverance from the top of a feudal pile not half as high as her stately figure. Laws of proportion are quite lost in this naïve way of telling a story, and one wonders whether the wise old artist of other times, with his rigid solemnity was heroically overcoming difficulties of traditional technique, or whether he was smiling at the infantile taste of his wealthy patrons. The past fashion in history was to record only the lives and expressions of those great in power. The artist is ever the servant of such, but may he not have had his own private thoughts, unpurchaseable, unsold, and therefore only for our divining. There must have been a sense of humour then as now, and twinkling eyes with which to see it. GOTHIC FLOWERS Always, in studying a Gothic tapestry, we find flowers. The flowers of nature, they are, a simple nature at that, and never to be thought of in the same day as the gorgeous, expansive, proud flowers of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century decoration. Those splendid later blossoms flaunt their richness with assured swagger and demand of man his homage, quite forgetting it is the flower's best part to give. Botticelli had not outgrown the Gothic flowers when he sprinkled them on the ambient air and floating robe of his chaste and dreamy _Venus_, nor when he set them about the elastic tripping feet of the _Spring_. He knew their simple power, and so do we. Scarce a Gothic tapestry is complete without them, happily for those bent on identification, for rarely can one discover them without the same thrill that accompanies the discovery of the first violets and snowdrops in the awakening woods. The old weavers set them low in the picture, used them as space-fillers wherever space lay happily before them, and they never exaggerated their size, a virtue of which the full Renaissance cannot boast. They are the simplest sort of flowers, the corolla of petals turning as frankly toward the observer as the sunflower turns toward her god, and little bells hanging as regularly as a chime. These are their characteristics, easily recognisable and expressing the unsophisticated charm of the creations of honest childish hands. Irrelevancy is theirs, too. They spring from stones or pavement as well as from turf or garden, and thus express the more ardently their love for man and for close association with him. When they are seen after this manner, it is sure that the early men have set them, just as Shakespeare, at the same epoch, set violets blue and daisies pied, cowslip, rosemary "for remembrance," and other familiar dainties, in the grim foundation stones of his tragedies. A comparison of the different hangings available to the amateur, or of the pictured examples given in this book, will reveal more than can be well set down with the pen. The use of flowers in the set of _The Baillée des Roses_ is exceptional, in that here the flowers form a harmonious decorative scheme and are at the same time an important part of the story which is pictured. In other earliest examples they playfully peep within the limits of the hanging. Important use is, however, made of them in that altogether entrancing set of _The Lady and the Unicorn_, where they indicate the beauties of a fascinating park in which the delicate lady and her attendant led a wondrous life guarded by two beasts as fabulous as faithful, and the whole region of leaves and petals but serving as a paradise for delectable white rabbits and piquant monkeys. Could any modern indicate by sophistry of brush or brain so intoxicating a fairyland, so gracious a field of dear delights? COSTUMES A minute study of all the details of costume and accessories is one of the measuring sticks with which we count the years of a tapestry's life. This applies more particularly to the work prior to the Renaissance, to the time when all characters were dressed in the mode of the day--another evidence of that ingenuousness that delights us who have passed the period where it is possible. As we have noted before, a costume cannot be used before its time, so, as much as anything can, the study of its details prevents us from going too far back with its date. When one has reached the point of identifying a Gothic tapestry to where the exact decade is questioned, the century having been ascertained, a careful study of costumes outside the region of tapestries is necessary. This leads one into a department all by itself and means delightful hours in libraries poring over illustrated books on costume. It means to learn in what manner our gods and heroes of fact and fancy habited themselves, how Berengaria wore her head-dress and Jehane de Bourgogne her brocades, and how the eternally various sleeve differed in its fashioning for both men and women. Head-dresses were of such size and variety that they form a study in themselves, and dates have been fixed by these alone. The turban in its evolution is an interesting study, and makes one wonder if that, too, did not wander north from the Moorish occupancy of Spain and the wave of inspiration which flowed unceasingly from the Orient in the years when Europe created little without inspiration from outside. A patriarchal bearded man in sacerdotal robes of costly elegance seriously impresses his fellows all through the Gothic tapestries, and his rival is a swaggering, important person, clean-shaven, in full brocaded skirt, fur-bound, whose attitude declares him royal or near it. The first of these is the model nowadays for stage kings, and even a woman's toilet must vaunt itself to get notice beside his gorgeous array. He wears about his waist a jewelled girdle of great splendour, and on his head some impressive matter of either jewels or draping. His face is usually full-bearded, but even when smooth, youth is not expressed upon him. Youths of the same time are more _débonnaire_, are springing about, clean-faced, clad in short, belted pelisse, showing sprightly legs equally ready to step quickly towards a lovely lady or to a field of battle. Soldiers--let a woman hesitate to speak of their dress and arms in any tone but that of self-depreciating humility. Suffice it to say that in the early work they wore the armour of the time, whether the scene depicted were an event of history cotemporaneous, or of the time of Moses. Fashions in dress changed with deliberation then, and it is to the arms carried by the men that we must sometimes look for exactness of date. LETTERING The presence of letters is often noticed in hangings of the Fourteenth, Fifteenth and early Sixteenth Centuries. It was a fashion eminently satisfactory, a great assistance to the observer. It helped tell the story, and, as these old pictures had always a story to tell, it was entirely excusable--at least, so it seems to one who has stood confounded before a modern painting without a catalogue or other indication as to the why of certain agitated figures. The lettering was, in the older Gothic, explicit and unstinted, in double or quadruple lines, in which case it counts as decoration banded across top or bottom. Again, it is as trifling as a word or two affixed to the persons of the play to designate them. This lettering may be French or Latin. EARLY BACKGROUNDS Backgrounds of the early Fifteenth Century deal much in conventionalised, flat patterns, but fifty or sixty years later, when figures began to be more crowded, there was but little space left unoccupied by the participants in the allegory, and this was filled by the artifices of architecture or herbage that formed the divisions into the various scenes. Later the designing artists decided to let into the picture the light of distant fields and skies, and thus was introduced the suggestion of space outside the limit of the canvas. LATER DRAWING After the Gothic drawing, came the avalanche of the Renaissance. That altered all. The Italian taste took precedence, and from that time on the cartoons of tapestries represent modern art, trailing through its various fashions or modes of the hour. The purest Renaissance is direct from the Italian artist, in tapestry as well as in painting, but it is interesting to see the maladroitness of the Flemish hand when left to draw cartoons for himself after the new manner. After the Renaissance came exaggeration and lack of sincerity; then the improvement of the Seventeenth Century, notably in France, and after that the dainty fancies of the Eighteenth Century, and here we are dealing with art so modern that it needs no elucidation. The drawing in tapestries is a subject as fascinating as it is inexhaustible, but, however much one may read on it, nothing equals actual association with as many tapestries as are available, for the eye must be trained by vision and not by intellectual process alone. CHAPTER XIX IDENTIFICATIONS (_Continued_) If the amateur can have the fortune to see in the same hour a tapestry of the early Fifteenth Century, and one a hundred years later, and then one about 1550, from Brussels, drawn by an Italian artist, he has before him an exposition of tapestry weaving in its golden age when it sweeps through its greatest periods and phases to marvellous perfection. The earliest example gives acquaintance with that almost fabled time of the Gothic primitives in art; the second shows the highest development of that art under the influence of civilisation, and the third shows the obsession of the new art of the Renaissance. It is, perhaps, superfluous to say that after the revival of classic art the power of producing spontaneous Gothic was lost forever. From that time on, every drawing has had certain characteristics, certain sophistications that the artist cannot escape except in a deliberate copy. Modern art, we call it. In tapestry it began with a freedom of drawing in figures, and an adoption of classic ornament and architecture. In this connexion it is interesting to note the introduction of Greek or Roman detail in the columns that divide the scenes, to see saints gathered by temples of classic form instead of Gothic. If Renaissance details appear in a hanging called Gothic, it is easy to see that the piece was woven after Europe was infected with modern art, and this is an assistance in placing dates; at least, it checks the tendency to slip back too far in antiquity, a tendency of which we in a new country are entirely guilty. Lest too long a lingering on the subject of design become wearisome, a mention of later designs is made briefly. The simplicity of the early Renaissance, the perfection of the high Renaissance, are both shown in tapestry as well as in paintings, and so, too, is exemplified the inflation that ended in tiresome exuberance. After the fruit was ripe it fell into decay. After Sixteenth Century perfection, Seventeenth Century designs fell of their own overweight, figures were too exaggerated, draperies billowed out as in a perpetual gale, architecture and landscapes were too important, and tapestries became frankly pictures to attract the attention. To this class of design belong all those monstrosities which reflected and distorted the art of Raphael, and which have been intimately associated with Scriptural subjects down to our own times. After Raphael, Rubens. Familiarity with this heroic painter is the key to placing all the magnificent designs similar to the set of _Antony and Cleopatra_ (Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York). Then came the easily recognisable designs of the French ateliers of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. These are so frequently brought before us as to seem almost like products of our own day. The earlier ones seem (as ever) the purer art, the less sensual, appealing to the more impersonal side of man, dealing in battles and in classic subjects. Later, the drawings, becoming more directly personal, in the time of Louis XIV portrayed events in the _Life of the King_; in the next reign, slipping into the pleasures of the _Royal Hunts_, from which the descent was easy into depicting nothing higher than the soft loveliness of the fantastic life of the time as led by those of high estate. From Lebrun to Watteau one can trace the gradual seductive decline, where heroic ideal lowers softly in alluring decadence into a mere tickling of the senses. And at this time the productions of great tapestries stopped. Before leaving the review of drawing or design, it is well to recall that the fleeting fashions of the day usually set the models, not in the manner of treatment which we have been considering broadly, but in the subject of designs. For example, the tendency to religious and morality subjects in the Gothic, the love for Greek gods and heroes in the Renaissance, the glorification of kings and warriors at all times, and the portrayal of royal pleasures in modern times. The months of the year were woven in innumerable designs and formed an endless theme for artists' ingenuity during and after the Renaissance. BORDERS It is but natural that, with the expansion in drawing, the freedom given the pencil, imagination leaped outside the pictured scene and worked fantastically on the border, and it is to the border that we turn for many a mark of identification. The subject being a full one, it has longer consideration in a separate chapter. First there is the simple outlying tape, then the designed border. The early Gothic was but a narrow line of flowers and berries; the later more sophisticated Gothic enlarged and elaborated this same motive without introducing another. The blossoms grew larger, the fruit fuller and the modest cluster of berries was crowded by pears, apples and larger fruit, until a general air of full luxury was given. The design was at first kept neatly within bordering lines of tape, but later, overleaped them with a flaunting leaf or mutinous flower. Ribbons appeared early, then came fragmentary glimpses of dainty columns which gave nice reasons for the erect upstanding of so heavy a decoration. These all were Gothic, but what came after shows the riotous imagination of the Renaissance. It seemed in that fruitful time, space itself were not large enough to hold the designs within the artist's brain. Certainly no corner of a tapestry could be left unfilled, and not that alone, but filled with perfect pictures instead of with a simple repeated scheme of decoration. It was in this rich time of production that the borders of tapestries grew to exceeding width, and were divided into squares, each square containing a scene. These scenes were often of sufficient importance in composition to serve as models for the centre of a tapestry, each one of them, which thought gives a little idea of the fertility of the artists in that untired period. It was the delight of the great Raphael himself to expend his talent on the border of his cartoons. From this artist others took their cue with varying skill, but with fine effect, and with unlimited interest to us. Those who run have time to remark only the great central picture in a hanging; but, to those who live with it, this added line of exquisite panorama is an unceasing delight for the contemplative hours of solitude. From this rich departure from Gothic simplicity the artists grew into the same fulness of design that ended in decadence. The border became almost obnoxious in its inflated importance and from voluptuous elegance changed to coarse overweight; and by these signs we know the early inspired work from its rank and monstrous aftergrowth in the Eighteenth Century. A quick glance at the plates showing the work of tapestry's next highwater mark, the hundred years of the Gobelins' best work, illustrates the difference between that time and others, and shows also the gradual drop into the border which is merely a woven representation of a gilded wood frame to enclose the woven picture as a painted one would be framed. The plate of _Esther and Ahasuerus_ illustrates this sort of border in the unmistakable lines of Louis XV ornament. POINT OF INTEREST Allusion has been made to the placing of the point of interest in a tapestry, but this is a matter to be studied by much exercise of the eye. Perhaps the amateur knows already much about it, an unconscious knowledge, and needs only to be directed to his own store of observations. As much as anything this change of design depended on the uses the varying civilisation made of the hangings. So much interest lies in this that I find myself ever prone to recapitulate the very human facts of the past; the lining of rude stone walls and the forming of interior doors, which was the office of the early tapestries, and the loose full draping of the same; then the gradual increase of luxury in the finish of dwellings themselves, until tapestries were a decoration only; and then the minimising of grandeur under Louis XV when everything fell into miniature and tapestries were demanded only in small pieces that could be applied to screens or chairs--a prostitution of art to the royal demand for prettiness. Keeping these general ideas of the uses of tapestries in mind, it is easy to reason out the course of the point of interest in the design. The Gothic aim was to make warm and comfortable the austere apartment; the Renaissance sought to produce big decorative pictures to hang in place of frescoes; and the French idea--beginning with that same ideal--fell at last into the production of something that should accompany the other arts in making minutely ornate the home of man. Therefore, the Gothic artist placed the point of interest high; the artists of the Renaissance followed the rules of modern painting (even to the point of becoming academic); and the last good period of the Gobelins dropped into miniature and decoration. COLOURS Colours we have not yet considered, in this chapter of review for identification's sake. They follow the same line, have the same history, and this makes the beauty, the logic and the consistency of our work, the work of tracing to their source the products of other men and other times. Colours in the early Gothic--of what do they remind one so strongly as of the marvels of old stained glass, that rich, pure kaleidoscope which has lived so long in the atmosphere of incense ascending from censer and from heart. The same scale, rich and simple, unafraid of unshaded colour, characterise both glass and tapestry. The dyeing of colours in those days was a religion, a religion that believed in holding fast to the forefathers' tenets. Red was known to be a goodly colour, and blue an honest one; yellow was to conjure with, and brown to shade; but beyond twelve or perhaps twenty colours, the dyer never ventured. To these he gave the hours of his life, with these he subjugated the white of Kentish wool, and gave it honest and soft into the hand of the artist-weaver who, we must add, should have been thankful for this brief gamut. To say the least, we of to-day are grateful, for to this we owe the effect of cathedral glass seen in old tapestries like that of _The Sacraments_. The Renaissance having more sophisticated tales to tell, a higher intellectual development to portray, demanded a longer scale of colour, so more were introduced to paint in wool the pictures of the artists. At first we see them pure and true, then muddy, uncertain, until a dull confusion comes, and the hanging is depressing. When, at the last, it came that a tapestry was but a painting in wool, with as many thousand differently united threads as would reproduce the shading of brush-blended paint, the whole thing fell of its own weight, and we of to-day value less the unlimited pains of the elaborate dyer and weaver than we do the simpler work. The reason is plain. Time fades a little even the securest dyes, and that little is just enough to reduce to flat monotones a work in which perhaps sixty thousand tones are set in subtle shading. HAUTE LISSE The worker on tapestries, the modern restorer--to whom be much honour--finds a sign of identification in the handling of old tapestries that is scarcely within the province of the amateur, but is worth mentioning. It is the black tracing on the warp with which high-warp weavers assist their work of copying the artist's cartoon. Where this is present, the work is of the prized haute lisse or high-warp manufacture, instead of the basse lisse or low-warp. But the latter is not to be spoken of disparagingly, for in the admirable time of French production about the time of the formation of the Gobelins, low-warp work was almost as well executed as high-warp, and as much valued. Brussels made her fame by haute-lisse, but in France the low-warp was dubbed "_á la façon de Flandres_"; and as Flanders stood for perfection, the weavers did their best to make the low-warp production approach in excellence the famed work of the ateliers to the north, which had formerly so prospered. To find this black line is to establish the fact that the tapestry was woven on a high-warp loom, if nothing more. But that in itself means, as is explained in the chapter on looms and _modus operandi_, that a superior sort of weaver, an artist-artisan, did the work, and that he had enormous difficulties to overcome in his patient task. A black outline woven in the fabric is one which artists prior to the Seventeenth Century used to give greater strength to figures. It was the habit thus to trace the entire human form, to lift it clearly from its background, after the "poster" manner of to-day. It is as though a dark pencil had outlined each figure. This practice stopped in later years, and is not seen at all in the softer methods of the Gobelins. THE WEAVE The materials of tapestries we know to be invariably wool, silk and metal threads, yet the weaving of these varies with the talent of the craftsman. The manner of the oldest weavers was to produce a fabric not too thick, flexible rather--for was it not meant to hang in folds?--and of an engagingly even surface. It was not too fine, yet had none of the looseness associated with the coarse, hurried work of later and degenerate times. It was more like the even fabric we associate with machine work, yet as unlike that as palpitating flesh is like a graven image. It was the logical production of honest workmen who counted time well spent if spent in taking pains. This ability, to take detail as a religion, has left us the precious relics of the exquisite period immediately before the Italian artists had their way in Brussels. Notice the weave here. See the pattern of the fabrics worn by the personages of high estate. You could almost pluck it from the tapestry, shake out its folds, measure it flat, by the yard, and find its delicate, intelligent pattern neat and unbroken. Wonderful weaver, magic hands, infinite pains, were those to produce such an effect on our sated modern vision, all with a few threads of silk and wool and gold. Then there is the human face--it takes an artist to describe the various faces with their beauty of modelling, their infinite variety of type, their subtlety of expression. You can almost see the flushing of the capillaries under the translucent skin, so fine are the mediums of silk and wool under the magic handling of the talented weavers in brilliant epochs. Not a detail in one of these older canvases of the highest Gothic development has been neglected. The modern places his point of interest, and, knowing the observer's eye is to obediently linger there, he splashes the rest of his drawing into careless subserviency. But these careful older drawings showed in every inch of their execution a conscience that might put the Puritan to shame. Note, even, the ring that is being handed to the lady in the Mazarin tapestry of Mr. Morgan's (if yours is the happy chance to see it). It was not sufficient for the weaver that it be a ring, but it must be a ring set with a jewel, and that jewel must be the one celebrated ever for its value; so in the canvas glows a carefully rounded spot of pigeon-blood. This exquisitely fine weaving of the period which trembled between the Gothic and the Renaissance made possible the execution of the later work--and yet, and yet, who shall say that the later is the superior work? Vaunted as it is, one turns to it because one must, but with entire fidelity of heart for the preceding manner. In the high period of Brussels production, when the Renaissance was well established there, through the cartoons of the Italian artists, it is interesting to note the richness given to surfaces solidly filled in with gold by throwing the thread in groups of four. The light is thus caught and reflected, almost as though from a heap of cut topaz. This characterises the tapestries of the _Mercury_ series in the Blumenthal collection. Naturally, the evenness of the weaving has much to do with the value of the piece--otherwise the pains of the old weavers would have been futile. The surface smooth, free from lumps or ridges, strong with the even strength of well-matched threads, this is the beauty that characterises the best work this side of the Fifteenth Century. It is the especial prerogative of the merchant to touch with his own hands a great number of tapestries. It is by this handling of the fabric that he acquires a skill in determining the make of many a tapestry. There is an indefinable quality about certain wools, and about the manner of their weaving that is only revealed by the touch. Not all hands are wise to detect, but only those of the sympathetic lover of the materials they handle--and I have found many such among the merchant collector. But even he finds identification a task as difficult as it is interesting, and spends hours of thought and research before arriving at a conclusion--and even then will retract on new evidence. COPIES There are certain pitfalls into which one may so easily fall that they must never be out of mind. The worst of these, the pit which has the most engaging and innocent entrance, is that of the copy, the modern tapestry copied from the old a few decades ago. It is easy to find by reference to the huge volumes of French writers on tapestry just when certain sets of cartoons were first woven. Take, for example, the _Acts of the Apostles_ by Raphael; Brussels, 1519, is the authentic date. But after that the Mortlake factory in England wove a set, and others followed. This instance is too historic to be entirely typical, but there are others less known. It was the habit of factories that possessed a valuable set of cartoons to repeat the production of these in their own factory, and also to make some arrangement whereby other factories could also produce the same set of hangings. In the evil days that fell upon Brussels after her apogee, copying her own works took the place of new matters. Also, in the French factories in their prime, the same set was repeated on the same looms and on different ones, _vide_ _The Months_, _The Royal Residences_, _History of Alexander_, etc., and the gorgeous _Life of Marie de Medici_. If these notable examples were copied it is safe to conclude that many others were. The study of marks is left for another chapter, for, by this time, even the enthusiast is wearying. There seems so much to learn in this matter of investigating and identifying, and, after all, everything is uncertain. One looks about at identified pieces in museums and private collections, even among the dealers, and the discouraging thought comes that other people can tell at a glance. But this is very far from being true. Even the savant studies long and investigates much before he gives a positive classification of a piece that is not "pedigreed." Here is a Flemish piece, here is a French, he will declare, and for the life of you you cannot see the ear-marks that tell the ancestry. And so in all humility you ask, "How can you tell with a glance of the eye?" But he does not. No one can do that in every case. He must spend days at it, reflecting, reading, handling, if the piece is evidently one of value. He will show you, perhaps, as an honest dealer-collector showed me, a set of five fine pieces which he could not identify at all. "The weave," said he, "is Mortlake, the design in part German, these are Italian _putti_--yet when all is told, I put down the work as an Eighteenth Century copy of decadent Renaissance. But I am far from sure." If a dealer, surrounded by experienced helpers, can thus be nonplussed, there is little cause for humiliation on the part of the amateur who hesitates. It is not expected that one can know at a glance whether a piece of work was executed in France, or in Flanders at a given epoch. But the more difficult the work of identification, the keener the zest of the hunt. It is then that one calls into requisition all the knowledge of art that the individual has been unconsciously accumulating all the years of his life. The applied arts reflect the art feeling of the age to which they belong, and the diluted influence of the great artists directs them. This is true of drawing and of colour. History has ever its reflection on arts and crafts, but perhaps it has in tapestry its most intentional record. It is a forced and deliberate piece of egoism when a monarch or a conqueror has a huge picture drawn exhibiting his grandeur in battle or his elegance at home. In some hangings modesty limits to the border of an imaginary and decorative scene the monogram of the heroine of history for whose apartments the tapestry was woven. And so history is given a grace, a delicate meaning, a warm interest, which is one of the side-gardens of delight that show from the long path of identification study. This little book has as its aim the gentle purpose of pointing the way to a knowledge that shall be a guide in knowing gold from--not from dross, that is too simple, but gold from gold-plating let us say, for the mad lover of tapestries will not admit that any hand-woven tapestry is on the low level of dross. Any work which human hands have touched and lingered on in execution is deserving of the respect of the modern whose life must of necessity be lived in hasty execution. Every chapter, then, is but a caution or a counsel, and this one but a briefer statement of the same matter. If onto the fringe of the main thought hangs much of history, it is history inseparable from it, for history of nations gives the history of great men, and these regulate the doings of all the lesser ones below them. Identification, pure and simple, is for the rapt lover of art who pursues his game in museums and has his quiet delights that others little dream of. But in general, to the practical yet cultivated American, it is a means to expend wisely the derided dollars that we impress upon other nations to the artistic enrichment of our own country. CHAPTER XX BORDERS If the artists of tapestries had never drawn nor ever woven anything but the borders that frame them, we would have in that department alone sufficient matter for happy investigation and acutely refined pleasure. I even go so far as to think that in certain epochs the border is the whole matter, and the main design is but an enlargement of one of the many motives of which it is composed. But that is in one particularly rich era, and in good time we shall arrive at its joys. First then--for the orderly mind grows stubborn and confused at any beginning that begins in the middle--we must hark back to the earliest tapestries. Tracing the growth of the border is a pleasant pastime, a game of history in which amorini, grotesques and nymphs are the personages, and garlands of flowers their perpetual accessories, but first comes the time when there were no borders, the Middle Ages. There were none, according to modern parlance, but it was usual to edge each hanging with a tape of monotone, a woven galloon of quiet hue, which had two purposes; one, to finish neatly the work, as the housewife hems a napkin; the other, to provide space of simple material for hanging on rude hooks the big pictured surface. This latter consideration was one of no small importance, as we can readily see by sending the thought back to the time when tapestries led a very different life (so human they seem in their association with men that the expression must be allowed) from that of to-day, when they are secured to stretchers, or lined, or even framed behind glass like an easel painting. In those other times of romance and chivalry a great man's tapestries were always en route. Like their owner, they were continually going on long marches, nor were they allowed to rest long in one place. From the familiar castle walls they were taken down to line the next habitat of their owner, and that might be the castle of some other lord, or it might be the tent of an encampment. Again, it might be that an open-air exposition for a pageant, was the temporary use. The tapestries thus bundled about, forever hung and unhung on hooks well or ill-spaced, handled roughly by unknowing varlets or dull soldiers, these tapestries suffered much, even to the point of dilapidation, and thus arose the need for a tape border, and thus it happens also that the relics of that time are found mainly among the religious pieces. These last found safe asylum within convent walls or in the sombre quiet of cathedral shades, and like all who dwell within such precincts were protected from contact with a rude world. One day, sitting solitary at his wools, it occurred to the weaver of the early Fifteenth Century to spill some of his flowers out upon the dark galloon that edged his work. The effect was charming. He experimented further, went into the enchanted wood of such a design as that of _The Lady and the Unicorn_ to pluck more flowers, and of them wove a solid garland, symmetrical, strong, with which to frame the picture. To keep from confounding this with the airy bells and starry corollas of the tender inspiring blossoms of the work, he made them bolder, trained them to their service in solid symmetric mass, and edged the whole, both sides, with the accustomed two-inch line of solid rich maroon or blue. It is easy to see the process of mind. For a long time there had been gropings, the feeling that some sort of border was needed, a division line between the world of reality and the world of fable. Examine the Arras work and see to what tricks the artist had recourse. The architectural resource of columns, for example; where he could do so, the artist decoyed one to the margin. Thus he slipped in a frame, and broke none of the canons of his art, and no more beautiful frame could have been devised, as we see by following up the development and use of the column. Once out from its position in the edge of the picture into its post in the border, it never stops in its beauty of growth until it reaches such perfection as is seen in the twisted and garlanded columns which flank the Rubens series, and those superb shafts in _The Royal Residences_ of Lebrun at the Gobelins under Louis XIV. The other trick of framing in his subject which was open to the Arras weaver whom we call Gothic, was to set verses, long lines of print in French or Latin at top or bottom. But his first real legitimate border was made of the same flowers and leaves that made graceful the finials and capitals of Gothic carving. Small clustered fruit, like grapes or berries, came naturally mixed with these, as Nature herself gives both fruit and flowers upon the earth in one fair month. Simplicity was the thing, and a continued turning to Nature, not as to a cult like a latter-day nature-student, but as a child to its mother, or a hart to the water brook. As even in a border, stayed between two lines of solid-coloured galloon, flowers and fruit do not stand forever upright without help, the weaver gave probability to his abundant mass by tying it here and there with a knot of ribbon and letting the ribbon flaunt itself as ribbons have ever done to the delight of the eye that loves a truant. By this time--crawling over the top of the Fourteen Hundreds--the border had grown wider, had left its meagre allowance of three or four inches, and was fast acquiring a foot in width. This meant more detail, a broader design, coarser flowers, bigger fruit, and these spraying over the galloon, and all but invading the picture. It was all in the way of development. The simplicity of former times was lost, but design was groping for the great change, the change of the Renaissance. The border tells quickly when it dawned, and when its light put out all candles like a glorious sun--not forgetting that some of those candles would better have been left burning. By this time Brussels was the centre of manufacture and the cartoonist had come to influence all weavings. Just as carpenters and masons, who were the planners and builders of our forefathers' homes, have now to submit to the domination of the _École des Beaux Arts_ graduates, so the man at the loom came under the direction of Italian artists. And even the border was not left to the mind of the weaver, but was carefully and consistently planned by the artist to accompany his greater work, if greater it was. Raphael himself set that fashion. He was a born decorator, and in laying out the borders of his tapestries unbridled his wonderful invention and let it produce as many harmonies as could be crowded into miniature. He set the fashion of dividing the border into as many sections as symmetry would allow, dividing them so daintily that the eye scarce notes the division, so purely is it of the intellect. In the border for the _Acts of the Apostles_, this style of treatment is the one he preferred. This set has no copy in America, but an almost unrivalled example of this style of border is in the private collection of George Blumenthal, Esq., the _Herse and Mercury_.[16] Here picture follows picture in charming succession, in that purity and perfection of design with which the early Renaissance delights us. The classic note set by the subject of the hanging is never forgotten, but on this key is played a varied harmony of line and colour. For dainty invention, this sort of border reaches a very high expression of art. If Raphael set the fashion, others at least were not slow in seizing the new idea and from that time on, until a period much later--that of the Gobelins under Louis XV--it was the fashion to introduce great and distracting interest into the border. Even the little galloon became a twist of two ribbons around a repeated flower, or a small reciprocal pattern, so covetous was design of all plain spaces. Lesser artists than Raphael also divided the border into squares and oblongs, and with charming effect. The sides were built up after the same fashion, but instead of the delicate architectural divisions he affected, partitions were made with massed fruit and flowers, vines and trellises. The scenes were surprisingly dramatic, Flemish artists showing a preference for such Biblical reminders as Samson with his head being shorn in Delilah's lap, while Philistines just beyond waited the enervating result of the barber's work; or, any of the loves and conflicts of the Greek myths was used. The colouring--too much cannot be seen of the warm, delicate blendings. There is always the look of a flowerbed at dawn, before Chanticleer's second call has brought the sun to sharpen outlines, before dreams and night-mist have altogether quitted the place. Plenty of warm wood colours are there, of lake blues, of smothered reds. Precious they are to the eye, these scenes, but hard to find now except in bits which some dealer has preserved by framing in a screen or in the carved enclosure of some nut-wood chair. For a time borders continued thus, all marked off without conscious effort, into countless delicious scenes. Then a change begins. After perfection, must come something less until the wave rises again. If in Raphael's time the border claimed a two-foot strip for its imaginings, it was slow in coming narrower again, and need required that it be filled. But here is where the variance lay: Raphael had so much to say that he begged space in which to portray it; his imitators had so much space to fill that their heavy imagination bungled clumsily in the effort. They filled it, then, with a heterogeneous mass of foliage, fruit and flowers, trained occasionally to make a bower for a woman, a stand for a warrior, but all out of scale, never keeping to any standard, and lost absolutely in unintelligent confusion. The Flemings in their decadence did this, and the Italians in the Seventeenth Century did more, they introduced all manner of cartouche. The cartouche plays an important part in the boasting of great families and the sycophancy of those who cater to men of high estate, for it served as a field whereon to blazon the arms of the patron, who doubtless felt as man has from all time, that he must indeed be great whose symbols or initials are permanently affixed to art or architecture. The cartouche came to divide the border into medallions, to apportion space for the various motives; but with a far less subtle art than that of the older men who traced their airy arbours and trailed their dainty vines and set their delicate grotesques, in a manner half playful and wholly charming. But when the cartouche appeared, what is the effect? It is as though a boxful of old brooches had been at hand and these were set, symmetrically balanced, around the frame, and the spaces between filled with miscellaneous ornament on a scale of sumptuous size. Confusing, this, and a far cry from harmony. Yet, such are the seductions of tapestry in colour and texture, and so caressing is the hand of time, that these borders of the Seventeenth Century given us by Italy and Flanders, are full of interest and beauty. The very bombast of them gives joy. Who can stand before the Barberini set, _The Mysteries of the Life and Death of Jesus Christ_, bequeathed to the Cathedral of St. John, the Divine, in New York, by Mrs. Clarke, without being more than pleased to recognise in the border the indefatigable Barberini bee? We are human enough to glance at the pictures of sacred scenes as on a tale that is told, but that potent insect makes us at once acquainted with a family of renown, puts us on a friendly footing with a great cardinal of the house, reminds us of sundry wanderings of our own in Rome; and then, suddenly flashes from its wings a memory of the great conqueror of Europe, who after the Italian campaign, set this bee among his own personal symbols and called it Napoleonic. Yes, these things interest us enormously, personally, for they pique imagination and help memory to fit together neatly the wandering bits of history's jigsaw puzzle. Besides this, they help the work of identifying old tapestries, a pleasure so keen that every sense is enlivened thereby. When decorative design deserts the Greek example, it strays on dangerous ground, unless Nature is the model. The Italians of the Seventeenth Century, tired of forever imitating and copying, lost all their refinement in the effort to originate. Grossness, sensuality took the place of fine purity in border designs. Inflation, so to speak, replaced inspiration. Amorini--the word can hardly be used without suggesting the gay babes who tumble deliciously among Correggio's clouds or who snatch flowers in ways of grace, on every sort of decoration. In these later drawings, these tapestry borders of say 1650, they are monsters of distortion, and resemble not at all the rosy child we know in the flesh. They are overfed, self-indulgent, steeped in the wisdom of a corrupt and licentious experience. I cannot feel that anyone should like them, except as curiosities of a past century. Heavy swags of fruit, searching for larger things, changed to pumpkins, melons, in the gross fashion of enlarged designs for borders. Almost they fell of their own weight. Cornucopias spilled out, each one, the harvest of an acre. And thus paucity of imagination was replaced by increase in the size of each object used in filling up the border's allotted space. After this riot had continued long enough in its inebriety, the corrective came through the influence of Rubens in the North and of Lebrun in France. These two geniuses knew how to gather into their control the art strength of their age, and to train it into intellectual results. Mere bulk, mere space-filling, had to give way under the mind force of these two men, who by their superb invention gave new standards to decorative art in Flanders and in France. Drawings were made in scale again, and designs were built in harmony, constructed not merely to catch the eye, but to gratify the logical mind. The day was for the grandiose in borders. The petite and _mignonne_ of Raphael's grotesques was no longer suited to the people, or, to put it otherwise, the people were not such as seek expression in refinement, for all art is but the visible evidence of a state of mind or soul. The wish to be sumptuous and superb, then, was a force, and so the art expressed it, but in a way that holds our admiration. A stroll in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, shows us better than words the perfection of design at this grandiose era. There one sees _Antony and Cleopatra_ of Rubens--probably. On these hangings the border has all the evidences of genius. If there were no picture at all to enclose, if there were but this decorative frame, a superb inspiration would be flaunted. From substantial urns at right and left, springs the design at the sides which mounts higher and higher, design on design, but always with probability. That is the secret of its beauty, its probability, yet we are cheated all the time and like it. No vase of fruit could ever uphold a cupid's frolic, nor could an emblematic bird support a chalice, yet the artist makes it seem so. Note how he hangs his swags, and swings his amorini, from the horizontal borders. He first sets a good strong architectural moulding of classic egg-and-dart, and leaf, and into this able motive thrusts hooks and rings. From these solid facts he hangs his happy weight of fruit and flower and peachy flesh. Nothing could be more simple, nothing could be more logical. The cartouche at the top, he had no choice but to put it there, to hold the title of the picture, and at the bottom came a tiny landscape to balance. So much for fashion well executed. Colours were reformed, too, at this time, for we are now at the era when tapestry had its last run of best days, that is to say, at the time when France began her wondrous ascendency under Louis XIV. In Italy colours had grown garish. Too much light in that country of the sun, flooded and over-coloured its pictured scenes. Tints were too strong, masses of blue and yellow and red glared all in tones purely bright. They may have suited the twilight of the church, the gloom of a palace closed in narrow streets, but they scourge the modern eye as does a blasting light. The Gothic days gave borders the deep soft tones of serious mood; the Renaissance played on a daintier scale; the Seventeenth Century rushed into too frank a palette. It remained for Rubens and Lebrun to find a scheme both rich and subdued, to bring back the taste errant. Here let me note a peculiarity of colour, noticeable in work of Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century borders. The colour tone varies in different pieces of the same set, and this is not the result of fading, but was done by deliberate intent, one side border being light and another dark, or one entire border being lighter than others of the same set. Lest in speaking of borders, too much reference might be made to the history of tapestry in general, I have left out Simon Vouet and Henri Lerambert as inspired composers of the frame which enclosed their cartoons; but it is well to say briefly that these men at least had not followed false gods, and were not guilty of the flagrant offence to taste that put a smirch on Italian art. These are the men who preceded the establishment of State ateliers under Louis XIV and who made productive the reign of Henri IV. If Rubens kept to a style of large detail, that was a popular one and had many followers in a grandiose age. Lebrun in borders harked back to the classics of Greece and Rome, thus restoring the exquisite quality of delicacy associated with a thousand designs of amphoræ, foliated scrolls and light grotesques. But he expressed himself more individually and daringly in the series called _The Months_ and _The Royal Residences_. This set is so celebrated, so delectable, so grateful to the eye of the tapestry lover, that familiarity with it must be assumed. You recollect it, once you have seen no more than a photograph of one of its squares. But it cannot be pertinent here, for it has no important border, say you. No, rather it is all border. Look what the cunning artist has done. His problem was to picture twelve country houses. To his mind it must have seemed like converting a room into an architect's office, to hang it full of buildings. But genius came to the front, his wonderful feeling for decoration, and lo, he filled his canvas with glorious foreground, full of things man lives with; columns, the size appropriate to the salon they are placed in; urns, peacocks, all the ante-terrace frippery of the grand age, arranged in the foreground. Garlands are fresh hung on the columns as though our decorator had but just posed them, and beyond are clustered trees--with a small opening for a vista. Way off in the light-bathed distance stands the faithfully drawn château, but here, here where the observer stands, is all elegance and grace and welcome shade, and close friendship with luxury. This work of Lebrun's is then the epitome of border. Greater than this hath no man done, to make a tapestry all border which yet so intensified the value of the small central design, that not even the royal patron, jealous of his own conspicuousness, discovered that art had replaced display. After that a great change came. As the picture ever regulates the border, that change was but logical. After the "Sun King" came the regency of the effeminate Philippe, whom the Queen Mother had kept more like a court page than a man. Artists lapped over from the previous reign, and these were encouraged to develop the smaller, daintier, more effeminate designs that had already begun to assert their charm. Borders took on the new method. And as small space was needed for the curves and shells and latticed bands, the border narrower grew. Like Alice, after the potent dose, the border shrank and shrank, until in time it became a gold frame, like the _encadrement_ of any easel picture. And that, too, was logical, for tapestries became at this time like painted pictures, and lost their original significance of undulating hangings. The well-known motives of the Louis XV decoration rippled around the edge of the tapestry, woven in shades of yellow silk and imitated well the carved and gilded wood of other frames, those of chairs and screens and paintings. There are those who deplore the mode, but at least it seems appropriate to the style of picture it encloses. And here let us consider a moment this matter of appropriateness. So far we have thought only of tapestries and their borders as inseparable, and as composed at the same time. But, alas, this is the ideal; the fact is that in the habit which weavers had of repeating their sets when a model proved a favourite among patrons, led them into providing variety by setting up a different border around the drawing. As this reproducing, this copying of old cartoons was sometimes done one or two hundred years after the original was drawn, we find an anachronism most disagreeable to one who has an orderly mind, who hates to see a telephone in a Venus' shell, for instance. The whole thing is thrown out of key. It is as though your old family portrait of the Colonial Governor was framed in "art nouveau." The big men, the almost divine Raphael, and later Rubens, felt so keenly the necessity of harmony between picture and frame, that they were not above drawing their own borders, and it is evident they delighted in the work. But Raphael's cartoons went not only to Brussels, but elsewhere, and somehow the borders got left behind; and thus we see his celebrated suite of _Acts of the Apostles_ with a different entourage in the Madrid set from what it bears in Rome. There is another matter, and this has to do with commerce more than art. An old tapestry is of such value that mere association with it adds to the market price of newer work. So it is that sometimes a whole border is cut off and transferred to an inferior tapestry, and the tapestry thus denuded is surrounded with a border woven nowadays in some atelier of repairs, copied from an old design. Let such desecrators beware. The border of a tapestry must appertain, must be an integral part of the whole design for the sake of artistic harmony. FOOTNOTE: [16] Frontispiece. CHAPTER XXI TAPESTRY MARKS Regardless of what a man's longing for fame may have been in the Middle Ages, he let his works pass into the world without a sign upon them that portrayed their author. This is as true of the lesser arts as of the greater. It was not the fashion in the days of Giotto, nor of Raphael, to sign a painting in vermillion with a flourished underscore. The artist was content to sink individuality in the general good, to work for art's sake, not for personal fame. This was true of the lesser artists who wove or directed the weaving of the tapestries called Gothic, not only through the time of the simple earnest primitives, but through the brilliant high development of that style as shown at the studio of Jean de Rome, of the Brussels ateliers, through the years lying between the close of the Fifteenth Century and the Raphael invasion. Even that important event brought no consequence of that sort. The freemasonry among celebrities in those days showed its perfection by this very lack of signed work. Everybody knew the man by his works, and the works by their excellence. Tapestry marks were non-existent as a system until the Brussels edict of 1528 made them compulsory in that town. Documents and history have been less unkind to those early workers, and to those of us who like to feel the thrill of human brotherhood as it connects the artist and craftsman centuries dead with our own strife for the ideal. Nicolas Bataille in 1379 cannot remain unknown since the publishing of certain documents concerning his Christmas task of the _Apocalypse_, and there are scores of known master weavers reaching up through the ages to the time when marks began. The Brussels mark was the first. It was a simple and appropriate composition, a shield flanked with two letters B. These were capitals or not. One was reversed or not, with little arbitrariness, for the mark was legible and unmistakable in any case, even though the weaver took great liberties--as he sometimes did. The place for this mark was the galloon, and it was usually executed in a lighter colour, but a single tone. [Illustration: BRUSSELS] So much for the town mark, which has a score or more of variations. In addition to this was the mark of the weaver or of the merchant who gave the commission. A pity it was thus to confound the two, to give such confusion between a gifted craftsman and a mere dealer. One was giving the years of his life and the cunning of his hand to the work, while the other did but please a rich or royal patron with his wares. But so it was, and we can but study over the symbols and glean at least that the tapestry was considered a worthy one, reached the high standard of the day, or it would have had no mark at all. For it was thus that the marks were first adopted. They were for the protection of every one against fraud. High perfection made Brussels famous, but fame brought with it such a rush of patronage that only by lessening the quality of productions could orders be filled in such hot haste. Tricks of the trade grew and prospered; there were tricks of dyeing after a tapestry was finished, in case the flesh tints or other light shades were not pleasing. There was a trick of dividing a large square into strips so that several looms might work upon it at once. And there was all manner of slighting in the weave, in the use of the comb which makes close the fabric, in the setting of the warp to make a less than usual number of threads to the inch. In fact, men tricked men as much in those days as in our own. The fame of the city's industry was in danger. It was the province of the guild of tapestry-makers to protect it against its own evils. Thus, in 1528, a few years after the weaving of the Raphael tapestries, the law was made that all tapestries should bear the Brussels mark and that of the weaver or the client. Small tapestries were exempt, but at that time small tapestries were not frequent, or were simple verdures, and, charming as they are, they lacked the same intellectual effort of composition. The Brussels guild stipulated the size at which the tapestry should be marked. It was given at six ells, a Flemish ell being about 27½ inches. Therefore, a tapestry under approximately thirteen feet might escape the order. But that was the day of large tapestries, the day of the Italian cartoonists, and important pieces reached that measure. The guild of the tapissiers in Brussels, once started on restrictions, drew article after article, until it seemed that manacles were put on the masters' hands. To these restrictions the decadence of Brussels is ascribed, but that were like laying a criminal's fault to the laws of the country. Primarily must have been the desire to shirk, the intent to do questionable work. And behind that must have been a basic cause. Possibly it was one of those which we are apt to consider modern, that is, the desire to turn effort into the coin of the realm. All of the enormous quantity of orders received by Brussels in the days of her highest prosperity could not have been accepted had not the master of the ateliers pressed his underlings to highest speed. Speed meant deterioration in quality of work, and so Brussels tried by laws to prevent this lamentable result, and to protect the fair fame of the symbol woven in the bordering galloon. The other sign which accompanied the town mark, of the two letters B, should have had excellent results, the personal mark of the weaver that his work might be known. In spite of this spur to personal pride, the standard lessened in a few years, but not until certain weavers had won a fame that thrills even at this distance. Unfortunately, a great client was considered as important as a weaver, and it was often his arbitrary sign that was woven. And sometimes a dealer, wishing glory through his dealings, ordered his sign in the galloon. And thus comes a long array of signs which are not identifiable always. In general, one or two initials were introduced into these symbols, which were fanciful designs that any idle pencil might draw, but in the lapse of years it is not possible to know which able weaver or what great purveyor to royalty the letter A or B or C may have signified. Happily the light of Wilhelm de Pannemaker could not be hid even by piling centuries upon it. His works were of such a nature that, like those of Van Aelst, who had no mark, they would always be known for their historic association. In illustration, there is his set of the _Conquest of Tunis_ (plate facing page 62), woven under circumstances of interest. Even without a mark, it would still be known that the master weaver of Brussels (whom all acknowledged Pannemaker to be) set up his looms, so many that it must have seemed to the folk of Granada that a new industry had come to live among them. And it is a matter of Spanish history that the great Emperor Charles V carried in his train the court artist, Van Orley, that his exploits be pictured for the gratification of himself and posterity. But Wilhelm de Pannemaker lived and worked in the time of marks, so his tapestries bear his sign in addition to the Brussels mark. Of symbols he had as many as nine or ten, but all of the same general character, taking as their main motive the W and the P of his name. [Illustration: WILHELM DE PANNEMAKER] Incorporated into his sign, as into many others of the period, was a mark resembling a figure 4. Tradition has it that when this four was reversed, the tapestry was not for a private client, but for a dealer. One set of the _Vertumnus and Pomona_ at Madrid (plates facing pages 72, 73, 74, 75) bears De Pannemaker's mark, while others have a conglomerate pencilling. The sign of Jacques Geubels is, like W. de Pannemaker's, made up of his initials combined with fantastic lines which doubtless were full of meaning to their inventor, little as they convey to us. The example of Jacques Geubels' weaving given in the plate is from the Chicago Institute of Art. His time was late Sixteenth Century. The _Acts of the Apostles_ of Raphael, the first set, was woven by Peter van Aelst without a mark, but the set at Madrid bears the marks of several Brussels weavers, some attributed to Nicolas Leyniers. The desirability of distinguishing tapestries by marks in the galloon appealed to other weaving centres, and the method of Brussels found favour outside that town. Presently Bruges adopted a sign similar to that of her neighbour, by adding to the double B and shield a small b traversed by a crown. [Illustration: JACQUES GEUBELS] [Illustration: NICOLAS LEYNIERS] [Illustration: BRUGES] In Oudenarde, that town of wonderful verdures, the weavers, as though by trick of modesty, often avoided such clues to identity as a woven letter might be, and adopted signs. However significant and famous they may have been in the Sixteenth Century, they mean little now. The town mark with which these were combined was distinctly a striped shield with decoration like antennæ. [Illustration: OUDENARDE] Enghien is one of the tapestry towns of which we are gradually becoming aware. Its products have not always been recognised, but of late more interest is taken in this tributary to the great stream of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. The famous Peter or Pierre van Aelst, selected from all of Flanders' able craftsmen to work for Raphael and the Pope, was born in this little town, wove here and, more yet, was known as Pierre of Enghien. Yet it is the larger town of Brussels which wore his laurels. [Illustration: ENGHIEN] The Enghien town marks are an easy adaptation of the arms of the place, and the weavers' marks are generally monograms. Weavers' marks, after playing about the eccentricities of cipher, changed in the Seventeenth Century to easily read initials, sometimes interlaced, sometimes apart. Later on it became the mode to weave the entire name. An example of these is the two letters C of Charles de Comans on the galloon of _Meleager and Atalanta_ (plate facing page 68); and the name G. V. D. Strecken in the _Antony and Cleopatra_ (plate facing page 79). Other countries than Flanders were wise in their generation, and placed the marks that are so welcome to the eye of the modern who seeks to know all the secrets of the tapestry before him. In the Seventeenth Century, when Paris was gathering her scattered decorative force for later demonstration at the Gobelins, the city had a pretty mark for its own, a simple fleur-de-lis and the initial P, and the initials of the weaver. [Illustration: PARIS] [Illustration: ALEX. DE COMANS] [Illustration: CHARLES DE COMANS] That Jean Lefèvre, who with his father Pierre was imported into Italy to set the mode of able weaving for the Florentines, had a sign unmistakable on the Gobelins tapestries of the _History of the King_. (Plate facing page 114.) It was a simple monogram or union of his initials. In the Eighteenth Century the Gobelins took the fleur-de-lis of Paris, and its own initial letter G. The modern Gobelins' marks combined the G with an implement of the craft, a _broche_ and a straying thread. [Illustration: JEAN LEFÈVRE] [Illustration: GOBELINS, 18TH CENTURY] [Illustration: GOBELINS, MODERN] In Italy, in the middle of the Sixteenth Century, we find the able Flemings, Nicholas Karcher and John Rost, using their personal marks after the manner of their country. Karcher thus signed his marvellously executed grotesques of Bacchiacca which hang in the gallery of tapestries in Florence. (Plates facing pages 48 and 49.) John Rost's fancy led him to pun upon his name by illustrating a fowl roasting on the spit. Karcher had a little different mark in the Ferrara looms, where he went at the call of the d'Este Duke. [Illustration: KARCHER, FLORENCE] [Illustration: JOHN ROST] [Illustration: KARCHER, FERRARA] The Florence factory made a mark of its own, refreshingly simple, avoiding all of the cabalistic intricacies that are so often made meaningless by the passing of the years, and which were affected by the early Brussels weavers. The mark found on Florence tapestries is the famous Florentine lily, and the initial of the town. The mark of Pierre Lefèvre, when weaving here, was a combination of letters. [Illustration: PIERRE LEFÈVRE, FLORENCE] [Illustration: MORTLAKE] When the Mortlake factory was established in England, the date was sufficiently late, 1619, for marking to be considered a necessity. The factory mark was a simple shield quartered by means of a cross thrown thereon. Sir Francis Crane contented himself with a simple F. C., one a-top the other, as his identification. Philip de Maecht, he whose family went from Holland to England as tapissiers, directed at Mortlake the weaving of a part of the celebrated _Vulcan_ and _Venus_ series, and his monogram can be seen on _The Expulsion of Vulcan from Olympus_ (coloured plate facing page 170), owned by Mrs. A. von Zedlitz, as well as in the other rare _Vulcan_ pieces owned by Philip Hiss, Esq. This same Philip de Maecht worked under De Comans in Paris, he having been decoyed thence by the wise organisers of Mortlake. [Illustration: SIR FRANCIS CRANE] [Illustration: PHILIP DE MAECHT] The marks on tapestries are as numerous as the marks on china or silver, and the absence of marks confronts the hunter of signs with baffling blankness, as is the case of many very old wares, whether china, silver or tapestries. Also, late work of poor quality is unmarked. Having thus disposed of the situation, it remains to identify the marks when they exist. The exhaustive works of the French writers must be consulted for this pleasure. There are hundreds of known signs, but there exist also many unidentified signs, yet the presence of a sign of any kind is a keen joy to the owner of a hanging which displays it. [Illustration: TOURNAY] [Illustration: LILLE] CHAPTER XXII HOW IT IS MADE Wanting to see the wheels go 'round is a desire not limited to babes. We, with our minds stocked with the history and romance of tapestry, yet want to know just how it is made in every particular, just how the loom works, how the threads are placed. It seems that there must be some obscure and occult secret hidden within the looms that work such magic, and we want to pluck it out, lay it in the sunlight and dissect its intricacies. Well, then, let us enter a tapestry factory and see what is there. But it is safe to forecast the final deduction--which must ever be that the god of patience is here omnipotent. Talent there must be, but even that is without avail if patience lacks. The factory for tapestries seems, then, little like a factory. The belt and wheel, the throb and haste are not there. The whole place seems like a quiet school, where tasks are done in silence broken by an occasional voice or two. It is a place where every one seems bent on accomplishing a brave amount of fancy-work; a kindergarten, if you like, for grown-ups. Within are many departments of labour. The looms are the thing, of course, so must be considered first, although much preparing is done before their work can be begun. The looms are classic in their method, in their simplicity. They have scarcely changed since the days when Solomon built his Temple and draped it with such gorgeous hangings that even the inspired writers digress to emphasise their richness with long descriptions that could not possibly have assisted the cause of their religion. The stitch made by the modern loom is the same as that made by the looms of the furthermost-back Egyptian, by the Greeks, by the Chinese, of primitive peoples everywhere, by the people of the East in the familiar Khelim rugs, and by the aborigines of the two Americas. There is nothing new, nothing obscure about it, being a simple weaving of warp and woof. Penelope's loom was the same almost as that in use to-day at the Gobelins factory in Paris. Archeologists have discovered pictures of the ancient Egyptian loom, and of Penelope's, and there is but little change from the times of these ladies to our days. The fact is, the work is hand-work, must always be so, and the loom is but a tool for its working, a tool which keeps in place the threads set by hand. That is why tapestry must always be valuable and original and no more possible to copy by machine than is a painting. High warp and low warp are the terms so often used as to seem a shibboleth. _Haute lisse_ and _basse lisse_ are their French equivalents. They describe the two kinds of looms, the former signifying the loom which stands upright, or high; the latter indicating the loom which is extended horizontally or low. On the high loom, the instrument which holds the thread is called the _broche_, and on the low loom it is called the _flute_. The stitch produced by the two is the same. The manner of producing it varies in convenience to the operators, the low-warp being the easier, or at least the more convenient and therefore the quicker method. The cynic is ever ready to say that the tyrant living within a man declares only for those things which represent great sacrifice of time and effort on the part of other men. Perhaps it is true, and that therein lies the preference of the connoisseur in tapestry for the works of the high-warp loom. Even the wisest experts cannot always tell by an examination of a fabric, on which sort of loom it was woven, high warp or low, other evidence being excluded. The high loom has, then, the threads of its warp hung like a weighted veil, from the top of the loom to the floor, with a huge wooden roller to receive the finished fabric at the bottom and one at the top for the yet unneeded threads. Each thread of the warp is caught by a loop, which in turn is fastened to a movable bar, and by means of this the worker is able to advance or withdraw the alternate threads for the casting of the _broche_ or _flute_, which is the shuttle. Behind the veil of the warp sits the weaver--_tissier_ or _tapissier_--with his supply of coloured thread; back of him is the cartoon he is copying. He can only see his work by means of a little mirror the other side of his warp, which reflects it. The only indulgence that convenience accords him is a tracing on the white threads of the warp, a copy of the picture he is weaving. Thus stands the prisoner of art, sentenced to hard labour, but with the heart-swelling joy of creating, to lighten his task. [Illustration: WEAVER AT WORK ON LOW LOOM. HERTER STUDIO] [Illustration: SEWING AND REPAIR DEPARTMENT. BAUMGARTEN ATELIERS] High-warp looms were those that made famous the tapestries of Arras in the Fifteenth Century, of Brussels in the Sixteenth, and of Paris in the Seventeenth, therefore it is not strange that they are worshipped as having a resident, mysterious power. To-day, the age of practicality, they scarcely exist outside the old Gobelins in Paris. But this is not the day of tapestry weaving. A shuttle, thrown by machine, goes all the width of the fabric, back and forth. The _flute_ or _broche_, which is the shuttle of the tapestry weaver, flies only as far as it is desired to thrust it, to finish the figure on which its especial colour is required. Thus, a leaf, a detail of any small sort, may mount higher and higher on the warp, to its completion, before other adjacent parts are attempted. The effect of this is to leave open slits, petty gashes in the fabric, running lengthwise of the warp, and these are all united later with the needle, in the hands of the women who thus finish the pieces. Unused colours wound on the hundreds of flutes are dropped at the demand of the pattern, left in a rich confusion of shades to be resumed by the workmen at will; but the threads are not severed, if the colour is to be used again soon. Low-warp work is the same except for the weaver's position in relation to his work. Instead of the warp like a thin wall before his face, on which he seems to play as on one side of a harp, the warp is extended before him as a table. It is easy to see how much more convenient is this method. The wooden rollers are the same, one for the yet unused length of warp, the other for the finished fabric, and over one of these rollers the worker leans, protected from its hostile hardness by a pillow. The pattern lies below, just beneath the warp, and easily seen through it, not the mere tracing as on the threads of the high-warp loom, but the coloured cartoon, so that shades may be followed as well as lines. It sometimes happens, however, in copying a valuable old tapestry, that a black and white drawing only is placed under the warp while the original is suspended behind the weavers, who look to it for colour suggestion. In low-warp the worker has the privilege of laying his flutes on top the work, the flutes not at the moment in use, and there they lie in convenient mass ready to resume for the figure abandoned for another. If the right hand thrusts the flute, it is the duty of the left to see that the alternate and the limiting threads of the warp are properly lifted. First comes a pressure of the foot on a long, lath-like pedal which is attached to the bar holding in turn the loops which pass around alternate threads. That pressure lifts the threads, and the fingers of the left hand, deft and agile, limit and select those which the flute shall cover with its coloured woof. After the casting of a thread, or of a group of threads, the weaver picks up a comb of steel or of ivory, and packs hard the woof, one line against another, to make the fabric firm and even in the weaving. [Illustration: BAUMGARTEN TAPESTRY. LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY] [Illustration: BAUMGARTEN TAPESTRY. MODERN CARTOON] Such then is the simple process of the looms, far simpler seen than described and yet depending absolutely for its beauty on the talent and patience of gifted workers. It is as simple as the alphabet, yet as complicated as the dictionary. Patient years of apprenticeship must a man spend before he can become a good weaver, and then must he give the best years of his life to becoming perfect in the craft. But if the work is exacting, at least it is agreeable, almost lovable, and in delightful contrast to the labour of those who but tend machines driven by power. And if the art of tapestry weaving is almost a lost one to-day, at least the weavers can find in history much matter for pride. It is no mean ambition to follow the profession of conscientious Nicolas Bataille, of the able Pannemaker, of La Planche and Comans, of Tessier, Cozette, and a hundred others of family and fame. Much preparation is necessary before the loom can be set going. First is the design, the cartoon. There we are in the department of the artist, and must talk in whispers. Raphael belongs there, and Leonardo; and Rubens, Teniers, Lebrun, Boucher and David, train us through the past centuries into our own. But the cartoon of to-day is not so sacred a matter, and we may speak of it frankly--regretfully, too. Cartoons hang all over the walls of the tapestry factory, so much property for the setting of future scenes, and besides, they make a decoration which alone would lift the tapestry factory into the regions of art and class it among ateliers, instead of factories. The cartoons are painted, however, where the artist will, in his own studio or in one provided for the purpose by the director, as in the case of the Baumgarten works. They have the look of special designs. They are not done in the manner of a painting to be hung on a wall. Their brushwork is smooth and broad, dividing lines well distinguished by marked contrasts in colour to make possible their translation into the language of silk and wool. After the cartoon is ready, comes the warp. That is set with the closeness agreed upon. Naturally, the smaller the thread of the warp, the closer is it set, the more threads to the inch, and thus comes fine fabric. Coarser warp means fewer threads to the inch, quicker work for the weaver and less value to the tapestry. From ten to twenty threads to the inch carries the limits of coarseness and fineness. In fine weaving, a weaver will accomplish but a square foot a week. Think of that, you who wonder at the price of tapestries ordered for the new drawing-room. The warp comes to the factory all in big hanks of even thread. Nowadays it is usually of cotton, although they contend at the Gobelins that wool warp is preferable, for it gives the finished fabric a lightness and flexibility that the heavier, stiffer cotton destroys. Setting the warp is a matter of patience and precision, and we will leave the workman with it, to make it the whole length of the tapestry to be woven, and to fasten the loops of thread around each _chaîne_ and to fasten those in turn, alternating, to the bar by means of which they may be shifted to make the in-and-out of the weaving. Then after choosing the colours, the weaving begins. It is like nothing so much as a piece of fancy-work. If it were not for the cumbersome loom, I am sure ladies would emulate the king who wove for amusement, and would make chair-pieces on the summer veranda. But before the silks and wools go to the weaving they are treated to a beauty-bath in the dye-room. Hanks of wool and skeins of silk are but neutral matters, coming to the factory devoid of individuality, mere pale, soft bulk. A room apart, somewhere away from the studio of design and the rooms where the looms stand stolid, is a laboratory of dyes, a place which looks like a farmhouse kitchen on preserving day. You sniff the air as you go in, the air that is swaying long bunches of pendulous colour, and it smells warm and moist and full of the suggestions of magic. Over a big cauldron two men are bending, stirring a witches' broth to charm man's eye. One of the wooden paddles brings up a mass from the heavy liquid. It is silk, glistening rich, of the colour of melted rubies. Upstairs the looms are making it into a damask background onto which are thrown the garlands Boucher drew and Tessier loved to work. Dainties fished up from another cauldron are strung along a line to dry, soft wool and shining silk, all in shades of grapes, of asters, of heliotropes, telling their manifest destiny. And beyond, are great bunches of colour, red which mounts a quivering scale to salmon pink, blue which sails into tempered gray, greens dancing to the note of the forest. It is a nature's workshop, a laboratory where the rainbow serves, apprenticed. Jars, stone jars, little kegs, all ugly enough, are standing against the wall. But uncover one, touch the thick dark stuff within, and feast your eye on the colour left on a curious finger-tip. You are close to the cochineal, to indigo, and all the wonderful alchemy of colour. Aniline? Not a bit of the treacherous stuff. It takes the eye, but it is a fickle friend. They say a mordant has been found to stay the flight of its lovely colours. Perhaps; it may be. But what weaver of tapestry would be willing to confide his labour to the care of a dye that has not known the test of ages? Aniline dye, says the director of a tapestry factory, may last twenty years--but twenty years is nothing in the life of a tapestry. Over in Paris, at the Gobelins, a master rules as chemist of the dyes, with the dignity of a special laboratory for making them. In America, with no government assuming the expense, the dyes are bought in such form that only expert dyers can use them in the few factories which exist. But no new hazards are taken. The matter is too serious. Economy in dyes brings too great disaster to contemplate. It is only too true that a man, several men, may labour a year to produce a perfect work, and that all the labour may be ruined by an ephemeral dye, by the escape of tones skilfully laid. Let commerce cheat in some other way, if it must, but not in this. Let the dye be honest, as enduring as the colours imprisoned in gems. [Illustration: BAUMGARTEN TAPESTRY. MODERN CARTOON] It is a modern economy. The ancients knew not of it, and were willing to spend any amount on colours. More than that a port, or a nation, was willing to rest its fame on a single colour. Purple of Tyre, red of Turkey, yellow of China, are terms familiar through the ages, and think not these colours were to be had for the asking. They brought prices which we do not pay now even in this age of money. The brothers Gobelins--their fame originally rested on their ambition to be "dyers of scarlet," that being an ultimate test of skill. It is a serious matter, that of dyeing wools and silks for tapestries, and one which the directors conduct within the walls of the tapestry factory. The Gobelins uses for its reds, cochineal or the roots of the madder; for blue, indigo and Prussian blue; for yellow, the vegetable colour extracted from gaude. In America there is a specialist in dyes: Miss Charlotte Pendleton, who gives her entire attention to rediscovering the dyes of the ancients, the dyes that made a city's fame. It is owing to her conscientious work that the tapestry repairers of museums can find appropriate threads. It is interesting to trace the differing gamut of colour through the ages. Old dyes produced, old weavers needed, but twenty tones for the old work. Tapestries of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries were as simple in scale as stained glass, and as honest. Flesh tints were neutral by contrast to the splendid reds, honest yellows and rich greens. Colours meant something, then, too; had a sentimental language all their own. When white predominated, purity was implied; black was mortification of the flesh; livid yellow was tribulation; red, charity; green, meditation. An examination of the colours in the series which depicts the life of Louis XIV, reveals a use of but seventy-nine colours. So up to that time, great honesty of dye, and fine decorative effect were preserved. The shades were produced by two little tricks open as the day, hatching being one, the other, winding two shades on the same broche or shuttle. Hatching, as we know, is merely a penman's trick, of shading with lines of light and dark. It was when they began to paint the lily, in the days of pretty corruption, that the whole matter of dyeing changed. In the Eighteenth Century when the Regent Philip, and then La Pompadour, set the mode, things greatly altered. When big decorative effects were no more, the stimulating effect of deep strong colour was considered vulgar, and, only the suave sweetness of Boucher, Nattier, Fragonard, were admired. Every one played a pretty part, all life was a theatre of gay comedy, or a flattered miniature. So, as we have seen, new times and new modes caused the Gobelins to copy paintings instead of to interpret cartoons--and there lay the destruction of their art. Instead of four-score tones, the dyers hung on their lines tens and tens of thousands. And the weavers wove them all into their fabric-painting, with the result that when the light lay on them long, the delicate shades faded and with them was lost the meaning of the design. And that is why the Gobelins of the older time are worth more as decoration than those of the later. We are doing a little better nowadays. There is a limit to the tones, and in all new work a decided tendency to abandon the copying of brush-shading in favour of a more restricted gamut of colour. By this means the future worker may regain the lost charm of the simple old pieces of work. Another room in the factory of tapestry interests those who like to see the creation of things. It is one of the prettiest rooms of all, and is more than ever like a kindergarten for grown-ups. Or, if you like, it is a chamber in a feudal castle where the women gather when the men are gone to war. Here the workers are all girls and women, each bending over a large embroidery frame supported at a convenient level from the floor. On one frame is a long flowered border with cartouches in the strong rich colours of Louis XIV. On another a sofa-seat copied from Boucher. They are both new, but like all work fresh from the loom are full of the open slits left in the process of weaving, a necessity of the changing colours and the requirements of the drawing. All these little slits, varying from half an inch to several inches in length, must be sewed with strong, careful stitches before the tapestry can be considered complete. On other frames are stretched old tapestries for repairs. At the Gobelins as many as forty women are thus employed. The malapropos deduction springs here that the demand for repaired old work is greater than that for new in the famous factory, for only six or eight weavers are there occupied. Repairing is almost an art in itself. The emperor established a small school at Berlin for training girls in this trade. The studio of the late Mr. Ffoulke in Florence kept twenty or thirty girls occupied. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has a repair studio under a graduate of the Berlin school. The factories of Baumgarten and of Herter, in New York, also conduct repairs; and the museum at Boston as well. We cannot make old tapestries, but we can restore and preserve them by skilled labour in special ateliers. Restoration by the needle is the only perfect restoration, and this is as yet but little done here, although the method is so well known in Europe. We deplore the quicker way, to use the loom for weaving large sections of border or large bits which have gone into hopeless shreds, or have disappeared altogether by reason of the bitter years when tapestries had fallen into neglect. But the quicker way is the poorer, with these great claimants for time. The woven figures are relentless in this, that they claim of the living man a lion's share of his precious days. His reward is that they outlast him. Food for cynics lies there. The careful worker looks close and sees the warp exposed like fiddle strings here and there. She matches the colour of silk and wool to the elusive shades and covers stitch by stitch the bare threads, in perfect imitation of the loom's way. Sometimes the warp is gone. Then the work tests the best skill. The threads, the _chaîne_, must be picked up, one by one, and united invisibly to the new, and then the pattern woven over with the needle. It happens that large holes remain to be filled entirely, the pattern matched, the design caught or imagined from some other part of the fabric. That takes skill indeed. But it is done, and so well, that the repairer is called not that, but a restorer. The two factories in New York, the Baumgarten and Herter ateliers, have certain employés always busy with repairs and restorations. Given even a fragment, the rest is supplied to make a perfect whole, in these studios where the manner of the old workers is so closely studied. For big repairs a drawing is made, a cartoon on the same principle as that of large cartoons, in colours, these following the old. Then it remains for the weaver to set his loom with the corresponding number of threads, that the new fabric may match the old in fineness. Then, too, comes the test of matching colours, a test that almost never discovers a worker equal to its exactions. That is as often as not the fault of the dyer who has supplied colours too fresh. It is the repairs done by the needle that give the best effect, although such restorations are costly and slow. Old repairs on old tapestries have been made, in some instances, very long ago. It often happens, in old sets, that a great piece of another tapestry has been roughly set in, like the knee-patches of a farm boy. The object has been merely to fill the hole, not to match colour scheme or figure. And these patches are by the judicious restorer taken out and their place carefully filled with the needle. Moths, say some, do not devour old tapestries. The reason given is that the ancient wool is so desiccated as to be no longer nutritious. A pretty argument, but not to be trusted, for I have seen moths comfortably browsing on a Burgundian hanging, keeping house and raising families on such precious stuff. Commerce demands that tricks shall be played in the repair room, but not such great ones that serious corruption will result. The coarse verdures of the Eighteenth Century that were thrown lightly off the looms with transient interest are sought now for coverings to antique chairs. To give the unbroken greens more charm, an occasional bird is snipped from a worn branch where he has long and mutely reposed, and is posed anew on the centre of a back or seat. It is the part of the repairer to see that he looks at home in his new surroundings. If metal threads have not been spoken of in this chapter on _modus operandi_, it is because metal is so little used since the time of Louis XV as to warrant omitting it. And the little that appears seems very different from the "gold of Cyprus" that made gorgeous and valuable the tapestries of Arras, of Brussels and of old Paris. CHAPTER XXIII THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY A. D. 1066 So long as one word continues to have more than one meaning, civilised man will continue to gain false impressions. The word tapestry suffers as much as any other--witness the attempt made for hundreds of years among all nations to set apart a word that shall be used only to designate the hand-woven pictured hangings and coverings discussed in this book; arras, gobelins, _toile peinte_, etc. In English, tapestry may mean almost any decorative stuff, and so comes it that we speak of the wonderful hanging which gives name to this chapter as the tapestry of Bayeux (plates facing pages 242, 243 and 244), when it is in reality an embroidery. But so much is it confused with true tapestry, and so poignantly does it interest the Anglo-Saxon that we will introduce it here, even while acknowledging its extraneous character. To begin with, then, we say frankly that it is not a tapestry; that it has no place in this book. And then we will trail its length through a short review of its history and its interest as a human document of the first order. In itself it is a strip of holland--brown, heavy linen cloth, measuring in length about two hundred and thirty-one feet, and in width, nineteen and two-thirds inches--remarkable dimensions which are accounted for in the neatest way. The hanging was used in the cathedral of the little French city of Bayeux, draped entirely around the nave of the Norman Cathedral, which space it exactly covered. This indicates to archeologists the original purpose of the hanging. On the brown linen is embroidered in coloured wools a panoramic succession of incidents, with border top and bottom. The colours are but eight, two shades each of green and blue, with yellow, dove-colour, red and brown. This, in brief, is the great Bayeux tapestry. But its threads breathe history; its stitches sing romance; and we who love to touch humorously the spirits of brothers who lived so long ago, find here the matter that humanly unites the Eleventh Century with the Twentieth. The subject is the conquest of England by William the Conqueror in 1066. That is fixed beyond a doubt, so that the precious cloth cannot trail its ends any further back into antiquity than that event. However, even the most insatiable antiquarian of European specialties is smilingly content with such a date. Legend has it that Queen Matilda, the wife of the conqueror, executed the work as an evidence of the devotion and adulation that were his due and her pleasure: There are lovely pictures in the mind of Matilda in the safety of the chambers of the old castle at Caen, directing each day a corps of lovely ladies in the task of their historic embroidery, each one sewing into the fabric her own secret thoughts of lover or husband absent on the great Conqueror's business. In absence of direct testimony to the contrary, why not let us believe this which comes as near truth as any legend may, and fits the case most pleasantly? [Illustration: BAYEUX TAPESTRY (DETAIL), 1066] [Illustration: BAYEUX TAPESTRY (DETAIL), 1066] The history it portrays in all its seventy-odd yards is easy enough to verify. That is like working out a puzzle with the key in hand. But the history of this keenly interesting embroidery is not so easy. The records are niggardly. Inventories record it in 1369 and 1476. In an inventory of the Bishop of Bayeux it is mentioned in 1563. About this time it was in ecclesiastical hands and used for decorating the nave of the Bayeux Cathedral. Then the world forgot it. How the world rediscovered that which was never lost is interesting matter. Here is the story: In 1724 an antiquarian found a drawing of about ten yards long, taken from the tapestry. Here, said he and his fellow sages, is the drawing of some wonderful, ancient work of art, most probably a frieze or other decoration carved in wood or stone. Naturally, the desire was to find such a monument. But no one could remember such a carving in any church or castle. Father Montfaucon, of Saint Maur, with interest intelligent, wrote to the prior of St. Vigor's at Bayeux, and received the most satisfactory reply, that the drawing represented not a carving but a hanging in possession of his church, and associated with many yards more of the same cloth. So all this time the wonderful relic had lain safe in Bayeux, and never was lost, but only forgotten by outsiders. The rediscovery, so-called, aroused much comment, and England declared the cloth the noblest monument of her history. It was in use at that time, and after, once a year. It was hung around the cathedral nave on St. John's Day, and left for eight days that all the people might see it. The fact that it was not religious in subject, that it could not possibly be interpreted otherwise than as a secular history, makes remarkable its place in the cathedral. This is explained by the suggestion that while Bishop Odo established that precedent, all others but followed without thought. Since 1724 the world outside of Bayeux has never forgotten this panorama of a past age, and its history is known from that time on. The Revolution of France had its effect even on this treasure; or would have had if the clergy had not been sufficiently capable to defend it. It was hidden in the depositories of the cathedral until the storm was over. It seems there was no treasure in Europe unknown to Napoleon. He commanded in 1803 that the Bayeux tapestry, of which he had heard so much, be brought to the National Museum for his inspection. The playwrights of Paris seized on the pictured cloth as material for their imagination, and, refusing to take seriously the crude figures, wrote humorously of Matilda eternally at work over her ridiculous task, surrounded with simple ladies equally blind to art and nature. It is only too easy to let humour play about the ill-drawn figures. They must be taken grandly serious, or ridicule will thrust tongue in cheek. It is to these French plays of 1804 that we owe the firmness of the tradition that Queen Matilda in 1066 worked the embroidery. [Illustration: BAYEUX TAPESTRY (DETAIL), 1066] Napoleon returned the cloth to Bayeux, not to the church, but to the Hotel de Ville, in which manner it became the property of the civil authorities, instead of the ecclesiastic. It was rolled on cylinders, that by an easy mechanism it might be seen by visitors. But the fabric suffered much by the handling of a curious public. Even the most enlightened and considerate hands can break threads which time has played with for eight centuries. It was decided, therefore, to give the ancient _toile fatiguée_ a quiet, permanent home. For this purpose a museum was built, and about 1835 the great Bayeux tapestry was carefully installed behind glass, its full length extended on the walls for all to see who journey thither and who ring the guardian's bell at the courtyard's handsome portico. Once since then, once only, has the venerable fabric left its cabinet. This was at the time of the Prussians when, in 1871, France trembled for even her most intimate and special treasures. The tapestry was taken from its case, rolled with care and placed in a zinc cylinder, hermetically sealed. Then it was placed far from harm; but exactly where, is a secret that the guardians of the tapestry do well to conserve. There might be another trouble, and asylum needed for the treasure in the future. The pictures of the great embroidery are such as a child might draw, for crudeness; but the archeologist knows how to read into them a thousand vital points. History helps out, too, with the story of Harold, moustached like the proper Englishman of to-day, taking a commission from William, riding gaily out on a gentleman's errand, not a warrior's. This is shown by the falcon on his wrist, that wonderful bird of the Middle Ages that marked the gentleman by his associations, marked the high-born man on an errand of peace or pleasure. In these travelling days, no sooner do we land in Normandy than Mount St. Michael looms up as a happy pilgrimage. So to the same religious refuge Harold went on the pictured cloth, crossed the adjacent river in peril, and--how pleasingly does the past leap up and tap the present--he floundered in the quicksands that surround the Mount, and about which the driver of your carriage across the _passerelle_ will tell you recent tales of similar flounderings. And when in Brittany, who does not go to tumbley-down Dinan to see its ancient gates and walls, its palaces of Queen Anne, its lurching crowd of houses? It is thither that Harold, made of threads of ancient wool, sped and gave battle after the manner of his time. Another link to make us love this relic of the olden time: It is the star, the star so great that the space of the picture is all too small to place it; so the excited hands of the embroiderers set it outside the limit, in the border. It flames over false Harold's head and he remembers sombrely that it is an omen of a change of rule. He is king now, has usurped a throne, has had himself crowned. But for how long is he monarch, with this flaming menace burning into his courage? The year finishing saw the prophecy fulfilled by the coming of the conqueror. It was this section of the tapestry that, when it came to Paris, had power to startle Napoleon, ever superstitious, ever ready to read signs. The star over Harold's head reminded him of the possible brevity of his own eminence. The star that blazed in 1066--we have found it. It was not imaginary. Behold how prettily the bits of history fit together, even though we go far afield to find those bits. This one comes from China. Records were better kept there in those times than in Christian Europe; and the Chinese astronomers write of a star appearing April 2, 1066, which was seen first in the early morning sky, then after a time disappeared to reappear in the evening sky, with a flaming tail, most agreeably sensational. It was Halley's comet, the same that we watched in 1910 with no superstitious fear at all for princes nor for powers. But it is interesting to know that our modern comet was recorded in China in the Eleventh Century, and has its portrait on the Bayeux tapestry, and that it frightened the great Harold into a fit of guilty conscience. The archeologist gives reason for the faith that is in him concerning the Bayeux tapestry by reading the language of its details, such as the style of arms used by its preposterous soldiers; by gestures; by groupings of its figures; and we are only too glad to believe his wondrous deductions. There are in all fifteen hundred and twelve figures in this celebrated cloth, if one includes birds, beasts, boats, _et cetera_, with the men; and amidst all this elongated crowd is but one woman. Queen Matilda, left at home for months, immured with her ladies, probably had quite enough of women to refrain easily from portraying them. Needless to say, this one embroidered lady interests poignantly the archeologist. Most of the animals are in the border--active little beasts who make a running accompaniment to the tale they adorn. This excepts the very wonderful horses ridden by knights of action. Scenes of the pictured history of William's conquest are divided one from the other by trees. Possibly the archeologist sees in these evidences of extinct varieties, for not in all this round, green world do trees grow like unto those of the Bayeux tapestry. They are dream trees from the gardens of the Hesperides, and set in useful decoration to divide event from event and to give sensations to the student of the tree in ornament. Such is the Bayeux tapestry, which, as was conscientiously forewarned, is not a tapestry at all, but the most interesting embroidery of Europe. CHAPTER XXIV TO-DAY The making of inspired tapestry does not belong to to-day. The _amour propre_ suffers a distinct pain in this acknowledgment. It were far more agreeable to foster the feeling that this age is in advance of any other, that we are at the front of the world's progress. So we are in many matters, but those matters are all bent toward one thing--making haste. Economy of time occupies the attention of scientist, inventor, labourer. Yet a lavish expenditure of time is the one thing the perfect tapestry inexorably demands, and that is the fundamental reason why it cannot now enter a brilliant period of production like those of the past. It is not that one atelier cannot find enough weavers to devote their lives to sober, leisurely production; it is that the stimulating effect is gone, of a craft eagerly pursued in various centres, where guilds may be formed, where healthy rivalry spurs to excellence, where the world of the fine arts is also vitally concerned. The great hangings of the past were the natural expression of decoration in those days, the natural demand of pomp, of splendour and of comfort. As in all things great and small, the act is but the visible expression of an inward impulse, and we of to-day have not the spirit that expresses itself in the reverent building of cathedrals, or in the inspired composition of tapestries. This is to be entirely distinguished from appreciation. That gift we have, and it is momentarily increasing. To be entirely commercial, which view is of course not the right one, one need only watch the reports of sales at home and abroad to see what this latter-day appreciation means in pelf. In England a tapestry was recently unearthed and identified as one of the series of seven woven for Cardinal Woolsey. It is not of extraordinary size, but was woven in the interesting years hovering above and below the century mark of 1500. The time was when public favour spoke for the upholding of morality with a conspicuousness which could be called Puritanism, were the anachronism possible. Pointing a moral was the fundamental excuse for pictorial art. This tapestry represents one of _The Seven Deadly Sins_. Hampton Court displays the three other known pieces of the series, and he who harbours this most recent discovery has paid $33,000 for the privilege. But that is a tiny sum compared to the price that rumour accredits Mr. Morgan with paying for _The Adoration of the Eternal Father_ (called also _The Kingdom of Heaven_). And this is topped by $750,000 paid for a Boucher set of five pieces. One might continue to enumerate the sales where enormous sums are laid down in appreciation of the men whose excellence of work we cannot achieve, but these sums paid only show with pathetic discouragement the completeness with which the spirit of commercialism has replaced the spirit of art, at least in the expression of art that occupies our attention. [Illustration: MODERN AMERICAN TAPESTRY, LOUIS XV INSPIRATION] [Illustration: MODERN AMERICAN TAPESTRY FROM FRENCH INSPIRATION] If, then, this is not an age of production, but of appreciation, it, too, has its natural expression. First it is the acquiring at any sacrifice of the ancient hangings wherever they are found; and after that it is their restoration and preservation. This is the reason for recent high prices and the reason, too, for the establishment of ateliers of repair, which are found in all large centres in Europe as well as wherever any important museum exists in America. It would not be possible nor profitable to dwell on the tapestry repair shops of Europe. They have always been; the industry is one that has existed since the Burgundian dukes tore holes in their magnificent tapestries by dragging them over the face of Europe, and since Henry the Eighth, in eager imitation of the continentals, established in the royal household a supervisor of tapestry repairs. Paris is full of repairers, and in the little streets on the other side of the Seine old women sit in doorways on a sunny day, defeating the efforts of time to destroy the loved _toiles peintes_. But this haphazard repair, done on the knee, as a garment might be mended, is not comparable to the careful, exact work of the restorer at her frame. One ranks as woman's natural task of nine stitches, while the other is the work of intelligent patience and skilled endeavour. Wherever looms are set up, a department of repair is the logical accompaniment. As every tapestry taken from the loom appears punctured with tiny slits, places left open in the weaving, and as all of these need careful sewing before the tapestry is finished, a corps of needlewomen is a part of a loom's equipment. This is true in all but the ateliers of the Merton Abbey factory, of which we shall speak later. Apart from repairs, what is being done in the present day? So little that historians of the future are going to find scant pickings for their record. FRANCE The Gobelins factory being the last one to make a permanent contribution to art, the impulse is to ask what it is doing now. That is easily answered, but there is no man so optimistic that he can find therein matter for hope. France is commendably determined not to let the great industry die. It would seem a loss of ancient glory to shut down the Gobelins. Yet why does it live? It lives because a body of men have the patriotic pride to keep it alive. But as for its products, they are without inspiration, without beauty to the eye trained to higher expressions of art. The Gobelins to-day is almost purely a museum, not only in the treasures it exposes in its collection of ancient "toiles," but because here is preserved the use of the high-warp loom, and the same method of manufacture as in other and better times. A crowd of interested folk drift in and out between the portals, survey the Pavilion of Louis XIV and the court, the garden and the stream, then, turning inside, the modern surveys the work of the ancient, the remnants of time. And no less curious and no less remote do the old tapestries seem than the atelier where the high looms rear their cylinders and mute men play their colour harmonies on the warp. It all seems of other times; it all seems dead. And it is a dead art. [Illustration: GOBELINS TAPESTRY. LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY Luxembourg, Paris] [Illustration: GOBELINS TAPESTRY. LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY Pantheon, Paris] The tapestries on the looms are garish, crude, modern art in its cheapest expression; or else they are brilliant-hued copies of time-softened paintings that were never meant to be translated into wool and silk. The looms are always busy, nevertheless. There is always preserved a staff of officers, the director, the chemist of dyes, and all that; and the tapissiers are careful workmen, with perfection, not haste, in view. The State directs the work, the State pays for it, the State consumes the products. That is the Republic's way of continuing the craft that was the serious pleasure of kings. But there is now no personal element to give it the vital touch. There is no Gabrielle d'Estrées, nor Henri IV; no Medici, no Louis XIV, no Pompadour. All is impersonal, uninspired. Men who have worked in the deadening influence of the Gobelins declare that the factory cannot last much longer. But it is improbable that France--Republican France, that holds with bourgeois tenacity to aristocratic evidences--will abandon this, her expensive toy, her inheritance of the time of kings. In the time of the Second Empire it was the fashion to copy, at the Gobelins, the portraits of celebrated personages executed by Winterhalter. The exquisite portrait of the beautiful Empress Eugénie by this delectable court painter has a delicacy and grace that is all unhurt by contrast with more modern schools of painting. But fancy the texture of the lovely flesh copied in the medium of woven threads, no matter how delicately dyed and skilfully wrought. Painting is one art, tapestry-making is entirely another. But that is just where the fault lay and continued, the inability of the Gobelins ateliers to understand that the two must not be confused. The same false idea that caused Winterhalter's portraits to be copied, gave to the modern tapissiers the paintings of the high Renaissance to reproduce. Titian's most celebrated works were set up on the loom, as for example the beautiful fancy known as _Sacred and Profane Love_, which perplexes the loiterer of to-day in the Villa Borghese. Other paintings copied were Raphael's _Transfiguration_, Guido René's _Aurora_, Andrea del Sarto's _Charity_. There were many more, but this list gives sufficiently well the condition of inspiration at the Gobelins up to the third quarter of the Nineteenth Century. Paul Baudry appeared at about this time striking a clear pure note of delicate decoration. The few panels that he drew for the Gobelins charm the eye with happy reminiscences of Lebrun, of Claude Audran, a potpourri of petals fallen from the roses of yesterday mixed with the spices of to-day. But if the work of this talented artist illustrates anything, it is the change in the uses of tapestries. The modern ones are made to be framed, as flat as the wall against which they are secured. In a word, they take the place of frescoes. The pleasure of touching a mobile fabric is lost. A fold in such a dainty piece would break its beauty. Almost must a woven panel of our day fit the panel it fills as exactly as the wood-work of a room fits its dimensions. The Nineteenth Century at the Gobelins was finished by mistakenly copying Ghirlandajo, Correggio, others of their time. In the beginning of this century, the spirit of pure decoration again became animated. Instead of copying old painters, the Gobelins began to copy old cartoons. The effect of this is to increase the responsibility of the weaver, and with responsibility comes strength. The models of Boucher, and the _Grotesques_ of Italian Renaissance drawing are given even now to the weavers as a training in both taste and skill. But better than all is the present wisdom of the Gobelins, which has directly faced the fact that it were better to copy the tapestries of old excellence than to copy paintings of no matter what altitude of art. Modern cartoons are used, as we know, commanded for various public buildings in France, but the copying of old tapestries exercises a far happier influence on the weavers. If this is not an age of creation in art, at least it need not be an age of false gods, notwithstanding the seriousness given to distortions of the Matisse and post-impressionist school. A careful copying of old tapestries--and in this case old means those of the high periods of perfection--has led to a result from which much may be expected. This is the enormous reduction in the number of tones used. Gothic tapestries of stained glass effect had a restricted range of colour. By this brief gamut the weaver made his own gradations of colour, and the passage from light to shadow, by hatching, which was in effect but a weaving of alternating lines of two colours, much as an artist in pen-and-ink draws parallel lines for shading. Tapestries thus woven resist well the attacks of light and time. To sum up the present attitude of the Gobelins, then, is to say that the director of to-day encourages the education of taste in the weavers by encouraging them to copy old tapestries instead of paintings old or new, and in a reduction of the number of the tones employed. The talent of an artist is thus made necessary to the tapissier, for shadings are left to him to accomplish by his own skill instead of by recourse to the forty thousand shades that are stored on the shelves of the store-room. The manufactory at Beauvais, being also under the State, is associated with the greater factory in the glance at modern conditions. Both factories weave primarily for the State. Both factories keep alive an ancient industry, and both have permission to sell their precious wares to the private client. That such sales are rarely made is due to the indifference of the State, which stipulates that its own work shall have first place on the looms, that only when a loom is idle may it be used for a private patron. The length of time, therefore, that must elapse before an order is executed--two or three years, perhaps--is a tiresome condition that very few will accept. [Illustration: THE ADORATION Merton Abbey Tapestry. Figures by Burne-Jones] [Illustration: DAVID INSTRUCTING SOLOMON IN THE BUILDING OF THE TEMPLE Merton Abbey Tapestry. Burne-Jones, Artist] Beauvais, with its low-warp looms, is more celebrated for its small pieces of work than for large hangings. The tendency toward the latter ended some time ago, and in our time Beauvais makes mainly those exquisite coverings for seats and screens that give the beholder a thrill of artistic joy and a determination to possess something similar. The models of Béhagle, Oudry, Charron are copied with fidelity to their loveliness, and it is these that after a few years of wear on furniture take on that mellowness which long association with human hands alone can give. It is scarcely necessary to say that antique furniture tapestry is rare; its use has been too hard to withstand the years. Therefore, we may with joy and the complacency of good taste acquire new coverings of the Don Quixote or Æsop's Fables designs for our latter-day furniture or for the fine old pieces from which the original tapestries have vanished. ENGLAND The chapter on Mortlake looms shows what was accomplished by deliberate importation of an art coveted but not indigenous. It is interesting to compare this with England's entirely modern and self-made craft of the last thirty years. I allude to the tapestry factory established by William Morris and called Merton Abbey. Mr. Morris preferred the word arras as attached to his weavings, tapestry having sometimes the odious modern meaning of machine-made figured stuffs for any sort of furniture covering. But as Arras did not invent the high-warp hand-loom, nor did the Saracens, nor the Egyptians, it is but quibbling to give it arbitrarily the name of any particular locale. It seems that enough can never be said about the versatility of William Morris and the strong flood of beauty in design that he sent rippling over arid ground. It were enough had he accomplished only the work in tapestry. It is not too strong a statement that he produced at Merton Abbey the only modern tapestries that fill the primary requirements of tapestries. How did he happen upon it in these latter days? By worshipping the old hangings of the Gothic perfection, by finding the very soul of them, of their designers and of their craftsmen; then, letting that soul enter his, he set his fingers reverently to work to learn, as well, the secret of the ancient workman. It was as early as 1885 that he began; was cartoonist, dyer, tapissier, all, for the experiment, which was a small square of verdure after the manner of the Gothic, curling big acanthus leaves about a softened rose, a mingling of greens of ocean and shady reds. Perhaps it was no great matter in the way of tapestry, but it was to Morris like the discovery of a new continent to the navigator. His was the time of a so-called æsthetic school in England. Watts, Rossetti and Burne-Jones were harking back to antiquity for inspiration. Morris associated with him the latter, who drew wondrous figures of maids and men and angels, figures filled with the devout spirit of the time when religion was paramount, and perfect with the art of to-day. The romance of _The Holy Grail_ gave happy theme for the work, and three beautiful tapestries made the set. _The Adoration of the Magi_ was another, made for Exeter College, Oxford. Sir Edward Burne-Jones designed all these wondrous pictures, and the wisdom of Morris decreed that the _Grail_ series should not be oft repeated. The first figure tapestry woven on the looms was a fancy drawn by Walter Crane, called _The Goose Girl_. [Illustration: TRUTH BLINDFOLDED Merton Abbey Tapestry. Byram Shaw, Artist] The most enchantingly mediæval and most modernly perfect piece is by Burne-Jones, called _David Instructing Solomon in the Building of the Temple_. (Plate facing page 257.) In this the time of Gothic beauty lives again. Planes are repeated, figures are massed, detail is clear and impressive, yet modern laws of drawing concentrate the interest on the central action as strongly as though all else were subservient. _The Passing of Venus_ was Burne-Jones' last cartoon for Merton Abbey looms. (Plate facing page 260.) Although a critique of the art of this great painter would be out of place in a book on the applied arts, at least it is allowable to express the conviction that more beautiful, more fitting designs for tapestry it would be difficult to imagine. Modern work of this sort has produced nothing that approaches them, preserving as they do the sincerity and reverence of a simple people, the ideality of a conscientious age, yet softening all technical faults with modern finish. An unhappy fact is that this tapestry, which was considered by the Merton Abbey works as its _chef d'oeuvre_, was destroyed by fire in the Brussels Exhibition of 1910. Alas for tapestry weaving of to-day, the usual modern cartoon is a staring anachronism, and a conglomerate of modes. An "art nouveau" lady poses in a Gothic setting, a Thayer angel stands in a Boucher entourage, and both eye and intelligence are revolted. The master craftsman and artist, William Morris, alone has known how to produce acceptable modern work from modern cartoons. Other examples are _Angeli Laudantes_, and _The Adoration_. (Plates facing pages 261 and 256.) A false note is sometimes struck, even in this factory of wondrous taste. In _Truth Blindfolded_ (plate facing page 258), Mr. Byram Shaw has drawn the central figure as Cabanel might have done a decade ago, while every other figure in the group might have been done by some hand dead these four hundred years. Morris' manner of procedure differed little from that of the decorator Lebrun, although his work was a private enterprise and in no way to be compared with the royal factory of a rich king. Burne-Jones drew the figures; H. Dearle, a pupil, and Philip Webb drew backgrounds and animals, but Morris held in his own hands the arrangement of all. It was as though a gardener brought in a sheaf of cut roses and the master hand arranged them. Mr. Dearle directed some compositions with skill and talent. With the passing of William Morris an inevitable change is visible in the cartoons. The Gothic note is not continued, nor the atmosphere of sanctity, which is its usual accompaniment. A tapestry of 1908 from the design of _The Chace_ by Heyward Sumner suggests long hours with the Flemish landscapists of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, with a jarring note of Pan dragged in by the ears to huddle under foliage obviously introduced for this purpose. [Illustration: THE PASSING OF VENUS Merton Abbey Tapestry. Cartoon by Burne-Jones] [Illustration: ANGELI LAUDANTES Merton Abbey Tapestry] But criticism of this aberration cannot hurt the wondrous inspired work directed by Morris, and which it were well for a beauty-loving world to have often repeated. Unhappily, the Merton Abbey works are bound not to repeat the superb series of the _Grail_. The entire set has been woven twice, and three pieces of it a third time--and there it ends. This is well for the value of the tapestries, but is it not a providence too thrifty when the public is considered? In ages to come, perhaps, other looms will repeat, and our times will glow with the fame thereof. Before leaving the subject of the Merton Abbey tapestries, it is interesting to note a technical change in the weaving. By intertwisting the threads of the chain or warp at the back, a way is found to avoid the slits in weaving that are left to be sewn together with the needle in all old work. This method has been proved the stronger of the two. The strain of hanging proves too great for the strength of the stitches, and on many a tapestry appear gaping wounds which call for yet more stitching. But in the new method the fabric leaves the loom intact. The determination of William Morris to catch old secrets by fitting his feet into old footsteps, led him to employ only the loom of the best weavers in the ancient long ago. The high-warp loom is the only one in use at the Merton Abbey works. AMERICA America makes heavy demands for tapestries, but the art of producing them is not indigenous here. We are not without looms, however. The first piece of tapestry woven in America--to please the ethnologist we will grant that it was woven by Zuñi or Toltec or other aborigine. But the fabric approaching that of Arras or Gobelins, was woven in New York, in 1893, in the looms of the late William Baumgarten. It is preserved as a curiosity, as being the first. It is a chair seat woven after the designs popular with Louis XV and his court, a plain background of solid colour on which is thrown a floral ornament. The loom was a small affair of the low-warp type, and was operated by a Frenchman who came to this country for the purpose of starting the craft on new soil. The sequence to this small beginning was the establishment of tapestry ateliers at Williamsbridge, a suburb of New York. Like the Gobelins factory, this was located in an old building on the banks of a little stream, the Bronx. Workmen were imported, some from Aubusson, who knew the craft; these took apprentices, as of old, and trained them for the work. The looms were all of the low-warp pattern. It may be of interest to those who like figures, to know that the work of the Baumgarten atelier averages in price about sixty dollars a square yard. Perhaps this will help a little in deciding whether or not the price is reasonable when a dealer seductively spreads his ancient wares. Modern cartoons of the Baumgarten factory lack the charm of the old designs, but the adaptations and copies of ancient pieces are particularly happy. No better execution could be wished for. The factory has increased its looms to the number of twenty-two, and has its regular corps of tapissiers, dyers, repairers, etc. Nowhere is the life of the weaver so nearly like that of his prototype in the golden age of tapestry. The colony on the Bronx is like a bit of old Europe set intact on American soil. [Illustration: AMERICAN (BAUMGARTEN) TAPESTRY COPIED FROM THE GOTHIC] [Illustration: DRYADS AND FAUNS From Herter Looms, New York, 1910] It is odd that New York should have more tapestry looms at work than has Paris. The Baumgarten looms exceed in number the present Gobelins, and the Herter looms add many more. The ateliers of Albert Herter are in the busiest part of New York, and here are woven by hand many fabrics of varying degrees of excellence. It is not Mr. Herter's intention to produce only fine wall hangings, but to supply as well floor coverings "a la façon de Perse," as the ancient documents had it, and to make it possible for persons of taste, but not necessarily fortune, to have hand-woven portières of artistic value. Apart from this commendable aim, the Herter looms are also given to making copies of the antique in the finest of weaving, and to producing certain original pieces expressing the decorative spirit of our day. Besides this, the work is distinguished by certain combinations of antique and modern style that confuse the seeker after purity of style. That the effect is pleasing must be acknowledged as illustrated in the plate showing a tapestry for the country house of Mrs. E. H. Harriman. (Plate facing page 263.) It is not easy in a review of tapestry weaving of to-day to find any great encouragement. These are times of commerce more than of art. If art can be made profitable commercially, well and good. If not, it starves in a garret along with the artist. If the demand for modern tapestries was large enough, the art would flourish--perhaps. But it is not a large demand, for many reasons, chief among which is the incontrovertible one that the modern work is seldom pleasing. The whole world is occupied with science and commerce, and art does not create under their influence as in more ideal times. What can the trained eye and the cultivated taste do other than turn back to the products of other days? We have artists in our own country whose qualities would make of them marvellous composers of cartoons. The imagination and execution of Maxfield Parrish, for example, added to his richness of colouring, would be translatable in wool under the hands of an artist-weaver. And the designs which take the name of "poster" and are characterised by strength, simplicity and few tones, why would they not give the same crispness of detail that constitutes one of the charms of Gothic work? Perhaps the factories existent in America will work out this line of thought, combine it with honesty of material and labour, and give us the honour of prominence in an ancient art's revival. FINIS BEST PERIODS AND THEIR DATES EARLIEST TAPESTRY LOOMS Prehistoric EUROPEAN EARLY ATTEMPTS Twelfth To Fourteenth Centuries ARRAS AND BURGUNDIAN TAPESTRY Early Fifteenth Century GOTHIC PERFECTION, FLANDERS About Fifteen Hundred GOTHIC PERFECTION, FRANCE About Fifteen Hundred ITALIAN FACTORIES Fifteenth Century RAPHAEL CARTOONS IN FLANDERS 1515-1519 RENAISSANCE PERFECTION, FLANDERS 1515 To Second Half of Century BRUSSELS MARK 1528 FLEMISH DECADENCE End of Sixteenth Century FRENCH RISE End of Sixteenth Century FRENCH ORGANISATION 1597, Reign of Henri IV ENGLISH SUPREMACY, MORTLAKE ESTABLISHED 1619 ESTABLISHMENT OF GOBELINS 1662, Reign of Louis XIV BEST HEROIC PERIOD OF GOBELINS Last Half of Seventeenth Century BEST DECORATIVE PERIOD OF GOBELINS Middle of Eighteenth Century DECADENCE OF GOBELINS End of Eighteenth Century RECENT TIMES, ENGLAND, WM. MORRIS End of Nineteenth Century RECENT TIMES, AMERICA End of Nineteenth Century INDEX Abbot Robert, 20. _Achilles, Story of_, 169. Adelaide, Queen, 22. _Adoration of the Eternal Father, The_, 59, 250, 260. _Adoration of the Magi, The_, 258. _Acts of the Apostles_, 64, 86, 147, 169, 197, 205, 214, 221. _Alcisthenes, Mantle of_, 19. _Alexander, History of_, 115, 172, 197. Alfonso II (d'Este), 83. America, 261-264. American interest, 10. Amorini, 209. Andrea del Sarto, 73. _Angeli Laudantes_, 260. Angers, 29, 30. Angivillier, Count of, 131, 133, 137. _Annunciation, The_, 61. Antin, Duke d', 128, 130, 131, 148. _Antony and Cleopatra_, 80, 110, 151, 187, 210, 222. _Apocalypse_, 23, 25, 30, 45, 217. Apprentices, 5. Architectural detail, 177-179. _Armide_, 130. Arras, 28, 32, 34, 38, 47, 48, 51, 54, 66, 90, 106, 129, 163, 176, 203, 229. Arazzeria Medicea, 84. Artemisia, 93, 94. Artois, 32, 34, 163. Aubusson, 150, 152-158. Audran, Claude, 122-124, 126-128, 132. Audran, Jean, 138. _Aurora_, 254. Babylon, 18. Bacchiacca, 76, 223. Backgrounds, 185. _Baillée des Roses_, 42, 176, 181. Bajazet, 35. Barberini, 87, 88, 131, 208. Basse lisse, 3, 193, 227. Bataille, Nicolas, 29, 30, 217. Baudry, Paul, 254. Baumgarten, 232, 238, 239, 262. Bayeux Tapestry, 21, 241-248. Beauvais, 4, 121, 135, 145-153, 154, 163, 256. Beaux Art, École des, 204. Béhagle, Philip, 147, 148, 257. Belle, Augustin, 138. Bellegarde, 157. Berne, Cathedral of, 37, 53. Bernini, 10. Berthélemy, 141. Besnier, 152. Bible, influence of, 130. Bièvre, 105, 106, 107. Blamard, Louis, 99, 103. Blumenthal collection, 74, 75, 78, 196, 205. Bobbin, 4. _Book of Hours_, 41. Borders, 132, 147, 158, 169, 170, 172, 173, 188-190, 201-215. Boston Museum of Fine Arts, 15, 46, 56, 238. Botticelli, 180. Boucher, 131, 132, 135, 141, 151. Boulle, 107. Bourg, Maurice du, 93, 94, 95, 96. Broche, 4, 223, 227, 228, 229. Bruges, 54, 55, 221. Brussels, 7, 9, 10, 29, 38, 48, 54, 55, 57, 64, 66, 68-72, 76, 78, 90, 111, 129, 141, 163, 194, 197, 216, 218, 219, 221, 229. Brussels Mark, 217. Burgundian tapestry, 37, 45, 160, 174. Burgundy, Dukes of, 22, 33, 34, 36, 38, 39, 46, 47, 48, 51. Burne-Jones, 258, 259. Caffieri, 107. Carron, Antoine, 94. Carthaginians, 19. Cartoons, 56, 151, 155, 173, 176, 231, 255. Cartouche, 207. Casanova, 151. Cellini, Benvenuto, 7. _Charity_, 254. Charles I, 167, 168, 170, 171. Charles V, 32. Charles V, Emperor, 62, 75, 82, 83, 220. Charles VI, 29. Charles VII, 42. Charles VIII, 48. Charles le Téméraire, 36, 45, 47, 51, 66. Chef d'atelier, 5. Chicago Institute of Art, 47, 78, 221. China, 18. Circe, 19. Clein, or Cleyn, Francis, 166, 169, 170, 171. Cluny Museum of Paris, 44, 54. Colbert, 99, 102, 103, 107, 108, 109, 116, 117, 118, 121, 145, 155, 156. Colours, 191-193, 210, 211, 233-236. Comans, Charles de, 222. Comans, or Coomans, Marc, 95-97, 107, 165, 166, 231. _Condemnation of Suppers and Banquets, The_, 51. _Conquest of Tunis_, 75, 220. _Constantine, History of_, 112. Copies, 197-200. Coptic, 15, 16. Cornelisz, Lucas, 82. Correggio, 209. Cortona, Pietro di, 87. Cosimo I, Duke of Tuscany, 84, 85. Cosmati brothers, 178. Costumes, 181-183. Cotte, Jules Robert de, 122, 129, 131. Coypel, Antoine, 130. Coypel, Charles, 12, 127, 128, 130, 132, 150. Cozette, 132. Crane, Richard, 171. Crane, Sir Francis, 165, 167, 168, 170, 171, 223. Crane, Walter, 259. Crusades, 19, 24. _Cupid and Psyche_, 132. David, 136, 140, 142, 143, 144. _David Instructing Solomon, etc._, 259. Dearle, H., 260. Delacroix, Jean, 109. Devonshire, Duke of, 46. _Diana, History of_, 92. Directing artist, 5. Director, 4. Directory, 139, 142. _Don Quixote_, 127, 132, 133, 152. Dosso, Battista, 82. Dourdin, 30. Ducal Palace at Nancy, tapestry room of, 51, 65. Du Mons, Jean Joseph, 158. Dupont, Pierre, 161. Dye, scarlet, of the Gobelin brothers, 106. Dyes, 6, 218, 233, 234. Dyes at Aubusson, 156. Edward the Confessor, 260. Egypt, 18, 27. Egyptian drawing, 15. Egyptian loom, 16. Egyptian weaving, 16. Egyptian work, 7. Eighteenth Century, 76, 123, 152, 158, 180, 185, 187, 190, 211, 222, 236, 257-261. Eleventh Century, 23. Elizabeth, Queen, 164. _Enfants Jardiniers_, 74. Enghien, 103, 221, 222. England, 54, 223. Ercole II (d'Este), 82-84. Este, d', 82-84, 91, 223. _Esther and Ahasuerus_, 190. Europe, 18, 19. _Fables of La Fontaine_, 149-152. Felletin, 157. Ferrara, 82, 83, 223. Ffoulke collection, 88, 89, 131. Fifteenth Century, 22, 27, 46, 51, 54, 58, 81, 106, 160, 163, 176, 183, 184, 196, 202. Filleul, 148. Flanders, 6, 7, 28, 54, 68, 110, 121, 150, 163, 169, 176, 208. Flemish tapestry, 9, 79. Fleur-de-lis, use of, 38, 222. Florence factory, 223. Flowers, use of, 52, 180, 181. Flute, 4, 227, 228, 229. Fontainebleau, 91, 92. Foucquet, 100-105. Fouquet, Jean, 42. Fourteenth Century, 25, 27, 30, 106, 176, 183. France, 10, 28, 54, 90, 110, 163, 176, 252-257. Francis I, 90, 91. French terms, 4. Furniture, 133, 134, 135, 146, 149, 152, 159, 162. Galloon, 173, 201, 204, 219, 221. Genoa, 89. Germany, 54, 160. Geubels, Jacques, 79, 221. Ghent, 66. Giotto, 27, 216. Giulio Romano, 73, 74, 84, 93, 118. Gobelin, Jean and Philibert, 105, 106. Gobelins, 10, 30, 90, 93, 99, 103-107, 109, 111, 112, 115-122, 128-131, 133, 135, 137-145, 154, 159, 161, 162, 203, 205, 222, 236, 252. Gobelins Museum (Paris), 92, 99, 252. Gold, use of, 6. Gonnor (Duchess), 21. Gonzaga, 61, 81. _Goose Girl, The_, 259. Gothic border, 60, 61. Gothic columns, use of, 39, 52, 177, 178. Gothic drawing, 174-177. Gothic flowers, 180, 181. Gothic period, 7, 8, 16, 52, 69, 188, 192. Gothic style, 5, 27, 53, 66. Greece, 18, 27. Greek drawing, 15. Greek influence, 186. _Grotesque Months_, 76, 127. Guildhall, 7. Guilds, 6, 7. Halberstadt, Cathedral at, 23. Hallé, 131. Hardwick Hall tapestries, 46. Harriman, Mrs. E. H., 263. Haute lisse, 3, 193, 194, 227. Helen, 19, 21. Helly, 35. Henri II, 92. Henri IV, 10, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 107, 146, 160, 161, 164, 165, 212. Henry V, 31. Henry VIII, 164, 251. _Hero and Leander, History of_, 169. _Herse and Mercury_, 205. Herter, 238, 239, 263. High-loom, 15, 18. High-warp, 3, 16, 19, 27, 29, 95, 109, 157, 193, 227, 228, 229. Hinart, Louis, 146, 147. Hiss, Philip, 170, 224. _History of Alexander_, 115, 172, 197. _History of Constantine_, 112. _History of Esther_, 131, 132. _History of Gideon_, 36. _History of Hero and Leander_, 169. _History of Meleager_, 112. _History of the King_, 112, 113, 129, 222. _Holy Grail, The_, 258. _Horrors of the Seven Deadly Sins, The_, 51. _Hunt of Meleager_, 99. _Hunts of Louis XV_, 130, 188. Identifications, 172-200. Iliad, influence of, 130. India, 18. Italy, 6, 10, 54, 71, 81, 86, 110, 152, 168, 208, 223. James I, 164-167. Jans, Jean, 109, 126. John, Revelation of, 23. John without Fear, 36, 45. Jouvenet, 130. _Judgment of Paris, The_, 119. Jumeau, Pierre le, 28, 29. Karcher, John, 82. Karcher, Nicholas, 76, 82, 84, 85, 223. _Kingdom of Heaven, The_, 59. King's Works, 171. _Lady and the Unicorn, The_, 44, 54, 175, 181, 203. Lancaster, Duke of, 33. La Marche, 157, 158. La Planche, Raphael de, 96, 165, 166. Laurent, Henri, 95, 96, 109. Lebrun, 74, 99, 103, 104, 107, 109-120, 188, 203, 209, 211, 212, 213. Lefèvre (or Lefebvre), 98, 109, 126, 222, 223. Leipzig, 152. Leleu, 105. Leo X, Pope, 70, 71, 86. Leonardo da Vinci, 90. Le Pape, 147. Leprince, 151. Lerambert, Henri, 94, 211. Lettering, 183-184, 203. Leyniers, Nicolas, 221. Liége, tapestries of, 48. _Life of Marie de Medici_, 197. _Life of the King_, 114, 144, 188. Lisse, 3, 193. Loches, church of, 41. London, 165. "Long wool" (_longue laine_), 160. Looms, 3, 226-230. Lorenzo the Magnificent, 86. Louis XI, 36, 47, 48, 50, 54. Louis XII, 48. Louis XIII, 98. Louis XIV, 10, 97-107, 117, 118, 122, 129, 145, 155-157, 161, 188, 203, 211, 212. Louis XV, 127, 128, 129, 132, 133, 135, 136, 150, 162, 191, 205, 213. Louis XVI, 133, 136, 137, 152, 162. Louvois, 116-121. Louvre, 97, 108, 109, 115, 160, 161. _Loves of the Gods_, 132. Low-warp, 3, 78, 109, 114, 147, 157, 158, 193, 227, 228, 230. Maecht, Philip de, 166, 170, 223, 224. Maincy, factory of. _See_ Vaux. Maintenon, Mme. de, 118, 122, 124. Mangelschot, 138. Mantegna, Andrea, 61, 73, 81, 171. Manufactory, Royal (Aubusson), 156. Marie Antoinette, 133, 137, 152. _Marie de Medici, Life of_, 197. Marie Thérèse, 118. Marks, 216-224. Martel, Charles, 154, 155. Mary's Chamber at Holyrood, 65. Master-weaver, 6. Matilda (Queen), 21, 242, 245. _Mausolus and Artemisia_, 93. Mazarin, Cardinal, 59, 100. Mazarin tapestry, 56, 196. Medici, 84, 92, 94. _Meleager and Atalanta_, 222. Memling, 55. Mercier, Pierre, 157. _Mercury_, 75, 76, 78, 196. Merton Abbey, 252, 257-261. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 15, 40, 42, 46, 52, 58, 59, 76, 80, 162, 170, 174, 176, 187, 210, 238. Meulen, François de la, 114. Michael Angelo, 84. Micou, 148. Middle Ages, 5, 6, 7, 19, 21, 27, 42, 201. Mignard, Pierre, 119, 120, 121. Millefleurs, 4, 13. Missals, 5. Monasteries, influence of, 21, 22. Montespan, Mme. de, 118, 131, 148. Montezert, Pierre de, 158. _Months, The_, 112, 133, 197, 212. Morgan, J. P., 40, 56, 59, 128, 196, 250. Morris, William, 257-261. Mortlake, 163-171, 197, 223. Mozin, Jean Baptiste, 109. _Muses_, 104, 141. Museums, Boston Fine Arts, 15, 46, 56, 238; Chicago Institute of Art, 47, 78, 221; Cluny, 44, 54; Gobelins (Paris), 92, 99, 252; Metropolitan (New York), 15, 40, 42, 52, 58, 59, 76, 80, 162, 170, 174, 176, 187, 210, 238; Nancy, 37. _Mysteries of the Life and Death of Jesus Christ, The_, 87, 208. Nancy, Museum of, 37. Nantes, Edict of; its effect, 95, 118, 157. Napoleon, 136, 142, 143, 144, 208. _Napoleon Crossing the Alps_, 144. Natoire, Charles, 151. Neilson, 132. Nineteenth Century, 255. Notre Dame, 21. Otho, Count of Burgundy, 32. Oudenarde, 221. Oudry, 131, 148-152, 257. Pannemaker, Wilhelm de, 62, 75, 220. Paris, 10, 28, 29, 30, 47, 51, 90, 98, 132, 163, 222, 229. Parrish, Maxfield, 264. Parrocel, Charles, 130. _Passing of Venus, The_, 259. Pendleton, Charlotte, 235. Penelope, 15, 16, 21, 227. Pepersack, Daniel, 99. Percier, 143. "_Perse, à la façon de, ou du Levant_," 160. Persia, 19. Personages, 4. Perspective, 175-177. Pharaohs, 18, 57. Philip the Good, 36. Philip the Hardy, 22, 29, 33, 34, 35, 45. Philippe (Regent), 122, 128, 134, 148, 236. Pickering, Sir Gilbert, 171. Pius X, Pope, 9. Planche, François de la, 95, 96, 97, 107. Poitiers, 23, 154, 155. Poitou, Count of, 23. _Portières des Dieux_, 126. Portraits, 133, 140, 143, 162, 253. _Presentation in the Temple, The_, 30. Quedlimburg Hanging, 25. Quentin Matsys, 58, 59. Raphael, 9, 64, 67, 69, 70, 71, 79, 84, 118, 119, 145, 169, 187, 189, 205, 207, 214, 216, 221. Ravaillac, 97. Renaissance, influence of, 9, 53, 61, 67, 68, 69, 70, 77, 78, 174, 178, 182, 184, 186, 187, 188, 189, 191, 192. _Renommés, Les_, 111. Repairs, 237-240. Revolution, French, 137, 138, 139, 140, 142, 152. _Reward of Virtue, The_, 51. Rheims, 99, 155. Richelieu, 99. Riesner, 107. Riviera, Giacomo della, 87. Rococo, 128. Roman influence, 186. Romanelli, 87, 88, 130. Romano, Giulio, 73, 74, 84, 93, 118. Rome, 18, 27. Rome, Jean de, or Jan von Room, 56, 58, 59, 216. Rost, John, 76, 84, 85, 223. Rouen, 21. Royal Collection, Madrid, 187. _Royal Hunts, The_, 130, 188. _Royal Residences, The_, 112, 197, 203, 212. Rubens, 79, 104, 110, 111, 112, 169, 187, 209, 210, 211, 214. Ryerson collection, 59, 60, 61. Ryswick, Peace of, 121. _Sack of Jerusalem, The_, 45, 176. _Sacraments, The_, 38, 46, 52, 174, 176, 192. _Sacred and Profane Love_, 254. St. Denis, abbey of, 22. St. Florent, Abbot of, 23. St. Germain, 109. St. John the Divine, Cathedral of, 87, 88, 208. St. Marceau, 97. St. Merri, 95. Saracens, 28, 154, 155, 178. Sarrazinois, 28, 29, 47. Saumur, 20. Savonnerie, 97, 159-162. _Seasons, The_, 132. _Seven Cardinal Virtues, The_, 34. _Seven Cardinal Vices, The_, 34. _Seven Deadly Sins, The_, 6, 250. Seventeenth Century, 10, 76, 86, 96, 99, 123, 158, 160, 163, 180, 185, 187, 194, 207, 208, 211. Sevigné, Mme. de, 101, 103. Sforza Castle, 90. Shaw, Byram, 260. Shuttle, 4. _Siege of Calais_, 141. Silver, use of, 6. Sixteenth Century, 29, 54, 56, 58, 62, 73, 74, 79, 163, 183, 187, 221, 223. Sorel, Agnes, 41. Spain, 54. Spitzer, collection of Baron, 59, 60, 61. _Spring_, 180. Stockholm, 152. _Story of Christ, The_, 99. "Stromaturgie, La," 161. Stradano, 85. Sully, 94, 95, 164. Sumner, Howard, 260. Tapissiers, 4, 5, 228. Tenth Century, 20, 22. Tessier, Louis, 135. Thirteenth Century, 25, 26, 27, 28. Titian, 73. Tournelles, 96, 97. Tours, 99. _Transfiguration, The_, 254. "Très Riches Heures, Les," 41. Trinité, Hôpital de la, 92, 93, 95, 97, 109. _Triumph of Cæsar, The_, 171. _Triumph of Right, The_, 51. _Triumphs of the Gods_, 74. _Troy, History of_, 81. Troy, J. F. de, 131. _Truth Blindfolded_, 260. Tuileries, 97. Tuscans, 27. Twelfth Century, 23, 28. Urban VIII, History of, 88. Urbino, Duke Frederick of, 81. Vallière, Mme. de la, 118. Van Aelst, 70, 71, 86, 220, 221, 222. Van den Strecken, Gerard, 80, 222. Van der Straaten, Johan, 85. Van Dyck, 169. Van Eycks, 27, 55, 58. Van Orley, Bernard, 55, 220. Vaux, factory of, 99, 103, 105, 111, 112. Venice, 10, 89. _Venus_, 180. Verdure, 4, 158, 222. Vermeyen, Jan, 62. Veronese, Paolo, 73. Versailles, 109. _Vertumnus and Pomona, The Loves of_, 76, 78, 220. Vignory, Count of, 131. _Virgin and Saints_, 21. _Visit of Louis XIV to the Gobelins_, 113. Von Zedlitz, Anna, 170, 224. Vouet, Simon, 211. _Vulcan, The Expulsion of_, 170, 224. _Vulcan, Story of_, 169. Warp, 232. Watteau, André, 126, 188. Wauters, 87. Weave, 194-196. Weavers, 5. Webb, Philip, 260. William the Conqueror, 242. Williamsbridge, 262. Winterhalter, 253. Woolsey, Cardinal, 250. Zègre, Jean, 103. Transcriber's Note Minor typographic errors of spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have been repaired. Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved as printed. The following errors in facing page number references have been repaired: Page 61--plate reference to page 81 amended to 82. Page 76--plate references for the "Vertumnus and Pomona" series amended from 39 through 42 to 72 through 75. 
46779	----	[Illustration: WEDGWOOD PORTLAND VASE] POTTERY AND PORCELAIN, _FROM EARLY TIMES DOWN TO THE PHILADELPHIA EXHIBITION OF 1876_. BY CHARLES WYLLYS ELLIOTT. WITH ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY-FIVE ILLUSTRATIONS, AND THE MORE IMPORTANT MARKS AND MONOGRAMS. NEW YORK: D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 549 & 551 BROADWAY. 1878. COPYRIGHT BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 1877. PREFACE. What we have attempted has been to gather and present, in a way to be easily understood, the most important facts respecting "Pottery and Porcelain." The study of this interesting subject has for more than a century been constant in Europe, and notably so during the last twenty-five years. A correct knowledge of it may now almost be called a liberal education. In the United States something has been done; and the public mind is now asking, "What is it that makes 'pottery and porcelain' so attractive to scholars, statesmen, women, and wits?" In some degree we have answered this question. My part of the work has been to gather where I could such historical and technical facts and such illustrations as seemed most valuable, not only to the student but to the collector. Many of these came from Europe, of course, where since Queen Anne's day the love of "old china" has at times risen to enthusiasm. But I have drawn from our own collections whenever it has been possible. In the preparation and engraving of the illustrations I hope the judicious critic, as well as the judicious public, will give due credit to the publishers and their artists, who, it seems to me, deserve great praise for having so well done what they have undertaken to do. Permit me to say a word for _collectors_. Busy men who are making railways and coal-pits, under the pleasing illusion that they are developing the country more than the rest of us, are apt to think a man with any hobby except that of making money is wasting his time. I would like to remind the reader that there are a few--many of them young men and young women too--who have money enough for all reasonable wants, and who do not care to waste time and life in getting _more_ money, for which they have no special uses; these persons find a perennial occupation in the study, the comparison, the purchasing, the collecting, of all that will illustrate their subject of study--their hobby. Around this subject of pottery and porcelain may be grouped, if one so pleases, all the habits, the wants, the inventions, the growths, of human society. Some have yet a notion that the study of the politics and the fightings of man is most important; others, how man came to be an Arminian or an Augustinian; others, whether the sun is or is not gradually cooling down, and must finally cease to be, or whether, on the contrary, its flames are fed by the self-sacrificing stars. Without detracting from their labors, I beg leave to say that my great hobby or central fact being the _home_, I hold that whatever makes that interesting, beautiful, or useful, is, or should be, interesting, beautiful, and useful, to all the world. I believe that what we call politics, or government, is only valuable in that it helps to create and to protect desirable homes; all the rest--all the speeches, and processions, and crownings, and court-balls, and receptions, and dinners--are "leather and prunella." Therefore I believe the "art of living" is first and foremost; to know how to make _this_ life comfortable and beautiful is all-important. Yet there is not a teacher of this great art in all the land, although "professors" are legion. We may well ask, when we go to a house: "What have they there to tell us--what to show us? What have they collected to interest, to please, to instruct?" If a person has only many bonds bearing coupons locked up in his safe--delightful as the fact may be to him--what pleasure or satisfaction is that to us? But if in that house are gathered all the interesting examples of any growth of Nature or of Art, what a pleasure to go there!--they may be beetles, or butterflies, or stones, or shells, or silvers, or porcelains. I thank God that here is a man who can and does collect--one who does care for something which I too care for. I wish, therefore, that every young man and young woman would get a _hobby_ early in life to which he or she can at any time devote some spare time and spare money. _Ennui_, the demon who afflicts the idle, is thus exorcised, and vice loses its charming power. The collector, too, does not waste his money. There is not a collection of pictures or of minerals, of birds or of butterflies, of chinas or of books, of armor or of gems, of laces or of tapestries, if made with ordinary care and knowledge, but is worth more--often ten times or fifty times more--than it has cost. Even in a pecuniary way, therefore, the hobby is productive; and the collection is not only as interesting, but it is as good as gold. OUR COLLECTIONS.--Of collections of porcelain and pottery one must of course look for great exhibitions to the museums of Europe--such as the Kensington Museum, in London; the Cluny, in Paris; the Green Vaults, in Dresden; the Oriental, at Leyden--and to private collections, such as the Rothschilds have made at London and at Paris, to Lady Schreiber's, and many more, in England. What are accessible to us are the private collections of some of our own people. In New York, Mr. WILLIAM C. PRIME's collection is quite large, numbering some four thousand pieces. It is particularly devoted to the porcelains of Europe, and is an excellent collection. In it are some four or five complete dinner-services of old Dresden and Sèvres porcelain, and many single pieces which rank high. Mr. S. P. AVERY's collection of Oriental porcelains is the most complete we have, and is very rich in all the departments, especially the Chinese. His pieces of "celestial blue" number more than any other single collection in this country. In the Loan Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art have been exhibited many examples from Mr. Prime's collection of porcelains, and about five hundred pieces of Oriental ware from Mr. Avery's, of nearly every distinctive style made in China and Japan in their best times. The collection of Mr. ROBERT HOE, Jr., is extremely choice in its admirable specimens of Oriental porcelain. Its egg-shells, crackles, and "celestial blues," are not to be excelled. In this collection are also examples of other styles, among them some of the best of old Dresden. Mr. W. L. ANDREWS, of New York, has a very choice collection of Oriental porcelain, probably the best in the country, and, containing the most of the "rose-back" and other "egg-shell." Mr. EDWARD CUNNINGHAM, of Milton, Massachusetts, has many superb vases, some of them of great size, obtained by himself in China. In Albany, Mr. J. V. L. PRUYN has several complete dinner-services of Sèvres porcelain, made for King Louis Philippe, one large service of Lowestoft, and many other individual and interesting specimens. Some of his examples of Sèvres painting cannot be surpassed. He has also a small breakfast-service of "celestial blue," mounted in silver, which is excellent. In Boston, Mr. G. W. WALES's collection is very varied and rich. He has excellent examples of Oriental and of European porcelains, and some perfect pieces of "celestial blue." Many of his best specimens are on loan in the Boston Art Museum. Mrs. ANSON BURLINGAME's collection of Chinese porcelain, at Cambridge, made while in China, is not large, but it has in it some of the best examples of the "green," the "celestial blue," the "rose," and the "chrysanthemum." Some of these have been exhibited in the Loan Collection in Boston. Dr. F. W. LEWIS and Mr. E. S. CLARKE, of Philadelphia, have small and good collections, particularly devoted to Oriental porcelains. Mr. W. S. VAUX and Dr. LEWIS have made interesting exhibitions of the pottery of Greece and of Italy. Mr. JOSEPH A. CLAY, of Philadelphia, has a small and valuable collection of early Peruvian pottery, of the period before the Spanish Conquest. There is also a varied collection of South and North American Indian pottery in the Peabody Museum at Cambridge. There may be, and probably are, in the United States many interesting collections of which I know nothing. I am told that Mr. WALTERS, of Baltimore, and Mr. PROBASCO, of Cincinnati, both have many very rare and valuable pieces; but, I regret to say, I have had no opportunity of seeing them. I do not doubt that the love for these fine works of man's hand will grow, that more and more small collections will be begun, and that time will make them large and valuable and interesting. A word of caution may be said to guard against imitations, which abound in Europe. I hear now that the Chinese and Japanese are learning, all too quickly, our Christian ways of counterfeiting, and are likely to better the instruction. In conclusion, I implore our people not to fill their houses with imitations of old things--not even when the antiques are good is it desirable to encourage porcelain-painters in that sort of thing: when it comes to copying antiquity which is _poor_, it is inexcusable; and when we reach the _counterfeiting_ of the antique, it smacks of baseness. For this sort of thing we, the public, are responsible. The painter paints what will sell. No gentleman or lady should consent to be shabby, or to help other people along that facile road. Let us keep our eyes open to any and all _new_ work which is good, and especially to all which shows originality and courage on the part of modelers or of painters. Let us moderns admire the good in the Orientals, but let us worship our _own_ gods, and dare and do for ourselves. As far as practicable, I have in these pages pointed to examples, and have illustrated by such as are owned in this country; so that many persons who wish to examine these interesting works of fictile art may see them for themselves. The public collections are of course all open; and I am glad to say that private collectors seem willing and ready to open their collections to students as much as possible. It is human and pleasant to wish that others should enjoy what we enjoy. _Marks_, and especially upon porcelain, are not the most important thing; but still they are important, and to many are most satisfactory. I have therefore included in this volume all the prominent ones; so that the book will be found useful not only to the collector at home, but also to him who travels abroad. The traveler who has a wise hobby gets a thousand times more pleasure from his travels than he who has no purpose except change of place and aimless movement. I suggest to the man who has none to try "pottery and porcelain." As to _prices_ of porcelain, etc., I have given those paid at actual sales whenever I could find them; they will be of service to buyers and collectors, as something of a guide to what they may safely pay. _Books_ which may be referred to, and especially such as may be found in some of our public libraries, are given at the end of the volume. I hope the public will buy this book, and also good pottery and porcelain. _C. W. E._ CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. UNGLAZED POTTERY. The Pottery of the Stone Age.--The Lacustrine Dwellings.--Vases of the Bronze Age.--Peruvian Pottery.--Mexican Pottery.--Pottery of Western Mounds.--The Cesnola Collections.--Roman Pottery.--Saxon and Scandinavian Pottery.--The Pottery of Ancient Gaul--of Ancient Germany.....PAGE 13 CHAPTER II. UNGLAZED POTTERY.--THE GREEK VASE. Palaces of Homer's Heroes.--The Ceramicus at Athens.--Egyptian Pottery.--Etruscan Tombs.--Good and Bad Vases.--Age of Vases.--Various Styles.--The Archaic Style.--The Fine Style.--Beauty a Birthright.--Aspasia's House.--Names of Vases.--The Cup of Arcesilaus.--Number of Extant Vases.--Their Uses.--The Greek Houses.--Greek Women.--Greek Men.--The Hetairai.--Etruscan Vases.....29 CHAPTER III. UNGLAZED POTTERY AT THE GREAT EXHIBITION OF 1876. Unglazed Water-Colors.--Clay Sketches.--Japanese Clay Figures.--Spanish Pots.--Italian Peasant Pottery.--Egyptian.--Turkish.--Mexican.--Watcombe Terra-cotta.--Copenhagen Pottery.....63 CHAPTER IV. GLAZED POTTERY.--GRÈS DE FLANDRE, FRENCH, GERMAN, ETC. Definition of Glaze.--Varnish.--Enamel in Egypt, Babylon.--The Arabs and the Moors.--Grès de Flandre.--Cologne, Regensburg, Baireuth, Neuwied, Grenzhausen, Coblentz.--Holland.--Beauvais.--Flanders.--Apostle-Mugs. --Graybeards.--"Bellarmines."--"Pottle-Pots."--Modern Work.--Doulton Stone-ware.--Early German Stone-ware at Breslau.--Hirschvogel. --Nuremberg.....69 CHAPTER V. GLAZED POTTERY.--MOORISH, PERSIAN, RHODIAN, ETC., ETC. The Arabs in Spain.--Cordova, Granada, Seville.--Enamel and Lustres.--Hispano-Moresque.--The Alhambra.--Tiles.--Vase of the Alhambra.--Malaga.--Majorca and Maiolica.--Rhodian Pottery.--Damascus Pottery.--Persian and Arabic Pottery.--Persian Porcelain.--Persian and Arabic Tiles.....81 CHAPTER VI. GLAZED POTTERY.--ITALIAN MAIOLICAS. The Word Maiolica, or Majolica.--Italian Renaissance.--The Dark Ages.--The Crusades.--The Mezza-Maiolica.--The True Maiolica.--Luca della Robbia.--Urbino.--Xanto and Fontana.--Raffaelesque Ware.--Mr. Fortnum.--Prices to-day.--Gubbio.--Maestro Giorgio.--The Lustres.--Castel-Durante.--Faenza.--The Sgraffito.--Forli, Venice, Castelli, etc.--Castellani.--Maiolicas at the Centennial.....95 CHAPTER VII. FRENCH FAIENCE.--PALISSY WARE, AND HENRI-DEUX WARE. Bernard Palissy.--The Catholics and the Huguenots.--Saintes.--Figurines.--The Centennial Exhibition.--Prices.--Henri-Deux--where made--when.--Copies at Philadelphia.--List of Pieces extant, and Prices.....123 CHAPTER VIII. FRENCH FAIENCE.--NEVERS, ROUEN, BEAUVAIS, ETC. Number of Manufactories.--Their Rise and Decline.--Nevers.--Prices.--Beauvais.--Rouen.--Moustiers.--Strasbourg, or Haguenau.--Marseilles.--Sarreguemines.--Sinceny, Nancy, Creil, Montpellier.--Paris.--Paris to-day.--Limoges.--Deck.....138 CHAPTER IX. DUTCH DELFT AND ENGLISH EARTHEN-WARE. Delft, Number of Fabriques.--Haarlem.--Paste.--Great Painters.--Violins.--Tea-Services.--A Dutch Stable.--Broeck Dutch Tiles.--England.--Queen Elizabeth.--Pepys's Diary.--Brown Stone-ware.--The Tyg.--Lambeth Pottery.--Fulham Pottery.--Elers.--Elizabethan Pottery.--Stoke-upon-Trent.--Josiah Wedgwood.--Cheapness.--Queen's-ware. --Jasper-ware.--Flaxman.--Cameos.--Basalt.--The Portland Vase.--Prices.....153 CHAPTER X. THE PORCELAIN OF CHINA. Difficulties.--The Porcelain Tower at Nanking.--First Making of Porcelain.--Kaolin and Pe-tun-tse.--Marco Polo.--Portuguese Importation.--The City of King-te-chin.--Jacquemart's Groups.--Symbolic Decoration.--Inscriptions.--The Ming Period.--The Celestial Blue.--The Celadons.--Reticulated Cups.--The Crackle.--Various Periods.--Individualism. --Marks and Dates.....175 CHAPTER XI. THE PORCELAIN OF JAPAN. Corean Porcelain.--Katosiro-ouye-mon.--The Province of Idsoumi.--Styles prevailing in Japan.--Marks.--Japanese Blue.--Indian Porcelain.--Dutch East India Company.--Egg-shell and Crackle.--Mandarin China.--Kaga Ware.--Satsuma Ware.--Japanese Art.--The Philadelphia Exhibition.....210 CHAPTER XII. THE PORCELAINS OF CENTRAL EUROPE--DRESDEN, BERLIN, HÖCHST, ETC. Dresden China.--Porcelain in Europe.--The Alchemists.--Augustus II.--Böttger.--Tschirnhaus.--Experiments.--Kaolin discovered.--Höroldt and Kändler.--Fine Art, or Decorative Art.--Lindenir.--Angelica Kauffmann.--Rococo-Work.--Collectors.--Marcolini.--Prices.--Marks.--Berlin. --The Seven Years' War.--Frederick the Great.--Prices.--Marks.--Vienna. --Stenzel.--Maria Theresa.--Lamprecht.--Prices.--Marks.--Hungary.--Herend. --Fischer.--Marks.--Höchst, or Mayence.--Ringler.--Marks.--Frankenthal, or Bavarian.--Carl Theodor.--Melchior.--Prices.--Marks.--Fürstenburg, or Brunswick.--Von Lang.--Prices.--Marks.--Nymphenburg.--Heintzmann and Lindemann.--Prices.--Marks.--Ludwigsburg, or Kronenburg.--Fulda. --Hesse-Cassel.--Switzerland.--Marks.....229 CHAPTER XIII. THE PORCELAIN OF FRANCE--ST.-CLOUD, CHANTILLY, SÈVRES, ETC. Hard and Soft Porcelain.--Discovery of Kaolin.--St.-Cloud.--_Pâte Tendre._--Marks.--Rouen.--Small Manufactories.--Marks of same.--Chantilly.--Scéaux-Penthièvre.--Niderviller.--Marks.--Limoges. --Sèvres.--Flower-Work.--Hard Porcelain, _Pâte Dure_.--The Grand Monarque. --Florid Taste.--Boucher.--Vieux Sèvres.--Three Vases.--Greek Vases.--Prices at Bernal Sale.--Chemists.--Colors used.--Collections.--Art Museums.--Alexandra Brongniart.--Marks and Dates.....253 CHAPTER XIV. THE PORCELAINS OF SOUTHERN EUROPE--ITALY, SPAIN, ETC. Florentine, or Medicean.--Is it a True Porcelain?--The House of Medici.--Marks.--Doccia Porcelain.--The MarquisGinori.--Beccheroni.--Present Work.--Marks.--Venice.--Vezzi.--Cozzi.--Marks.--Turin.--Gioanetti.--Marks. --Nove.--Terraglia.--Marks.--Capo di Monte.--Naples.--In Relief.--Marks.--Spanish Porcelain.--Buen Retiro.--Marks.--Portugal.....274 CHAPTER XV. THE PORCELAINS OF ENGLAND. Bow.--Chelsea.--Derby.--Chelsea-Derby.--Lowestoft.--Worcester.--Chamberlains. --Plymouth.--Bristol.--Pinxton.--Nantgaraw.--Swansea.--Turners.--Coalport. --Coalbrookdale.--Herculaneum.--Shelton, New Hall.--Rockingham.--Spode, Copeland.--Place.--Daniell.--Minton.--Prices and Marks.....288 CHAPTER XVI. THE PORCELAINS OF NORTHERN EUROPE. Holland and Belgium.--Oriental Trade.--Weesp.--Marks.--Loosdrecht.--Amstel, Old and New.--Marks.--The Hague.--Marks.--Lille.--Mark.--Tournay.--Marks.--Sweden.--Gustavus Adolphus and Charles XII.--Marieberg.--Rörstrand.--Marks.--Denmark. --Copenhagen.--Marks.--Russia.--Peter the Great.--Catherine II.--Marks. --Tver.--Gardner.--Moscow.--Popoff.--Gulena.--Mark.--Poland.--Korzec.....319 CHAPTER XVII. POTTERY AND PORCELAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. The First Porcelain made here.--Bonnin and Morris.--Franklin Institute.--William Ellis Tucker.--Tucker and Hemphill.--Thomas Tucker.--General Tyndale.--Porcelain of T. C. Smith and Sons.--Early Advertisements.--Josiah Wedgwood.--Lord Sheffield's Report.--Alexander Hamilton's Report.--History of Norwich.--Samuel Dennis, New Haven.--Isaac Hanford, Hartford.--Gallatin's Report.--The "Washington Pitchers."--Lyman and Fenton, Vermont.--Rouse and Turner, New Jersey.--Potteries at Trenton.--In Ohio.--The Centennial Exhibition.....331 POTTERY AND PORCELAIN. CHAPTER I. UNGLAZED POTTERY. The Pottery of the Stone Age.--The Lacustrine Dwellings.--Vases of the Bronze Age.--Peruvian Pottery.--Mexican Pottery.--Pottery of Western Mounds.--The Cesnola Collections.--Roman Pottery.--Saxon and Scandinavian Pottery.--The Pottery of Ancient Gaul--of Ancient Germany. [Illustration: FIG. 1.--_Bowl of the Stone Age._] So ancient is the potter's art that it may be said to have begun with the beginnings of man. A belief exists still in Silesia that there is a mountain out of which cups and jugs spring spontaneously, as the mushrooms shoot from the moist soil of the plains. Interwoven, then, as pottery is with the history of the race, having relations daily and hourly with man's universal and greatest vocation--the preparation of the food which supports and continues _life_--it has had and will have an interest as vital as it is wide-spread. [Illustration: FIG. 2.--_Vase of the Stone Age._] [Illustration: FIG. 3.--_Vase of the Bronze Age._] MAN A COOKING ANIMAL.--Man is the only cooking animal, so far as I know. It is easy to believe that archaic man, when he began to evolve from the animal state, at once began to invent, and that, after he had discovered the uses of fire, the first need was of vessels which could be used upon the fire to seethe and boil. And what do we find? THE REINDEER AGE--THE STONE AGE.--Of prehistoric times, when the reindeer roved free over Europe, even to the shores of the Mediterranean, in the Stone age, even when man lived in caves and was only able to fashion things with stones, a few pots have been found, showing how early his wants led him to fashion things of clay. [Illustration: FIG. 4.--_Vase of the Bronze Age._] The LACUSTRINE DWELLINGS of the Stone Age have given up a few traces of men. The remains of lake-dwellers have been found mostly in Switzerland, but somewhat in Ireland and Scotland. These reveal a people who built their huts for safety upon piles or upon fascines anchored in the small lakes. A variety of interesting things, consisting of spear-heads, knives, hatchets, etc., have been found, some of flint, some of bone, and some of bronze. Among these, which pertain to our subject, are a few pots of clay, which have survived the gnawing tooth of Time. [Illustration: FIG. 5.--_Bronze Age._] In Figs. 1 and 2 are to be seen two of these. They are coarse and clumsy, and are of blackish-gray clay, hardened in the sun or in an insufficient fire. They are not turned upon a wheel, but show marks of the fingers impressed in the soft clay. Yet we cannot but be struck with the faint attempt at decoration to be seen on the foot of one of them, even in that era of savageness. [Illustration: FIG. 6.--_Bronze Age._] [Illustration: FIG. 7.--_Bronze Age._] The BRONZE AGE yields up pottery which does not yet show the invention of the potter's wheel. The work is still moulded by the hand, but the clay is better, and the forms begin to show clear indications of a sense of proportion and a considerable degree of choice. The shapes are in greater variety, and some of them certainly are good. Of the five examples (Figs. 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7) none are very bad, and two (Figs. 3 and 4), if not three, are excellent. [Illustration: FIG. 8.--_Peruvian._] [Illustration: FIG. 9.--_Peruvian._] The pointed bottom appears here as it does in the early forms of the Greek amphora; and, as the illustrations show, this involves a necessity for a further invention in the tripods upon which they rest. I have seen no explanation of this more difficult construction, and can think of none. It is certainly no easier to make the pointed than the flat bottom, and it certainly is not so useful. Why, then, was it so common? I can only suppose that when _first_ made the point was intended to be thrust into the ground; but the moment they had hit upon the flat bottom, that moment the point, I should fancy, would have been abandoned; but it evidently was not. Perhaps they loved the _old_ as some of us do, not because it was good, but _because it was old_. Who can tell? [Illustration: FIG. 10.--_Ancient Peru._] [Illustration: FIG. 11.--_Ancient Peru._] [Illustration: FIG. 12.--_Ancient Peru._] How early the varied decoration showed itself we cannot know, but in many examples of early fictile work, the meander, the chevron or saw-tooth, and the fret, now called the Greek fret, are sure to appear--and among the most diverse and distant nations; so, too, the forms and the uses of the vessels. [Illustration: FIG. 13.--_Ancient Peru._] Do not these things show that man develops everywhere along a corresponding line? They have not copied from one another, but a like want has produced a similar result in all. [Illustration: FIG. 14.--_Ancient Peru._] [Illustration: FIG. 15.--_Ancient Peru._] As we approach the historic ages, we find among the Egyptians, the Mexicans, the Peruvians, the Greeks, the Assyrians, the Romans, the Gauls, the Germans, the use of the potter's wheel, one of the earliest machines made by man. Of the Egyptian and Greek pottery I shall have something to say in a chapter upon the "_Greek Vase_." [Illustration: FIG. 16.--_Roman Cup._] The MEXICAN pottery, sometimes called _Aztec_, is usually of reddish clay, and the vessels are almost identical in form and decoration with those of the Peruvians, which will appear in their place. They are of great variety, and must have been made in large numbers. The Mexicans also made grotesques and idols of clay, which are usually hideous, and are intended to be; for the gods of evil were those they feared and worshiped most. These potteries are of unglazed clay, as are all those we are now treating. [Illustration: FIG. 17.--_Roman Vase._] The civilizations which organized themselves in Mexico have always been an interesting and curious study. When Cortez and his conquering, gold-seeking white men reached the high lands of the beautiful interior (1517), they found the splendid city of Mexico, built over and along the shores of the inland lake, and stretching toward the foot-hills which protect it from unfriendly winds. Here the Aztecs had organized society. They had succeeded to the Toltecs, a prosperous, industrious, and probably a peaceful people--a people coming from the warmer South, and unable to cope with the more hardy Aztecs, who came down from the North. [Illustration: FIG. 18.--_Roman Vase found at London._] These Aztecs had not only developed the arts of architecture and painting, as well as most of the mechanic arts; they had also reached to a literature, to laws, to a religion most elaborate and splendid; and they had not neglected to conquer and tax surrounding tribes, and make them pay tribute, as all the "great" white nations of the world have done. But all their civilizations, laws, religions, arts, were swept into ruin by the conquering hand of Cortez and his successors. And what have we now in Mexico? What has come of the destruction of the great Indian races there? What but greed, anarchy, cruelty, ruin? It would be a curious speculation now to picture what that country--the most beautiful and most bountiful--might now be in the hands of its own people, and with a government which could protect life and make labor safe. As it is, its life and its art give us nothing to look at or to enjoy. Must man always destroy first in order that he may build up, and then be himself destroyed? No remains have come to us of glazed pottery belonging to these times; and it is probable that, their wants being fewer, their climate milder, and their food simpler, invention was not so much on the alert as it might have been in a colder and harsher climate. That these races were for some unknown reason superior to those living farther to the north, none will doubt when they know what they accomplished as compared with the Indians of the United States. The PERUVIANS were the most cultivated and comfortable nation upon the Western Continent when Pizarro (1531) invaded, and, I may say, destroyed them. Indeed, when we read the accounts given of them by the Spanish writers themselves, we have only another proof that what we call "carrying to other peoples the blessings of civilization and Christianity" means rather the cursing them with cruelty and greed. [Illustration: FIG. 19.--_Vase. Pottery of Ancient Gaul._] A large collection of their pottery was shown at the United States Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876, and there is a sufficient and most interesting exhibit of it in the Peabody Museum at Harvard in Cambridge. In this collection, also, are to be found many examples of like unglazed pottery found in the Western mounds of the United States by Professors Shaler and Carr, who for some years have been engaged in researches in Kentucky and at other points in the West. Upon some examples of this American pottery (Figs. 8 to 15) are to be seen decorations in color, mostly red, black, and brown; and it would seem impossible that these colors should have lasted through so many centuries, if they were not fixed by fire, and therefore were mineral. [Illustration: FIG. 20.--_Pottery of Ancient Gaul._] The decorations, too, were somewhat varied, but in none which I have seen do they go beyond the elementary styles already mentioned. The production of idols and fantastic vases, animals and grotesques, must have been extensive, as so many of these have already been found; indicating that they must have been common in their day. Examples of this fantastic decoration and modeling are seen in Figs. 12 to 15--and in Fig. 14 is an approach to portraiture. In one (Fig. 15) is seen the double-bellied bottle, so much in use in China and Japan. The twin-bottles seen in Figs. 8 and 9 are good examples of a fancy which evidently pleased potter and people in those "good old Peruvian times." A most singular fact is mentioned by Demmin, that on one of their _casseroles_ the handle is clearly the phallus, symbol of life, found on Egyptian sculptures, and once worshiped. One curious fact is asserted by the French _savants_,[1] that there is abundant evidence to show that through a long succession of years, perhaps three thousand, the character of these American potteries grew less and less pure and simple, and more and more debased and vulgar; which one can well believe, when we see everywhere that whole nations, some of them calling themselves civilized, have gone the same road, downward from the good to the bad, and not upward toward the true and the beautiful. [Illustration: FIG. 21.--_Ancient Gaul._] The opening of the CESNOLA collections, at the New York Museum of Arts, shows us a vast number of early potteries which are as yet hardly classified or understood. Many of them bear marks of Assyrian or of Phoenician inspiration; and among them are rude vessels closely resembling those of Peru, and also many grotesque forms of vases and animals, such as mark the early attempts at Art in other nations. That collection should be examined by those who are interested in this subject. The hand-book published by the Museum is full of condensed information, and should be carefully preserved. The pottery of the ROMANS went wherever their armies went. Thus it is found in France, in England, in Germany, in Spain, etc., etc. This Roman pottery has been found where excavations have been made, in Italy, in France, in England, along the Rhine, and in other places. It is distinguished as being more heavy and clumsy in form than that made in Greece, and the color of the clay is red, lighter or darker. The best of the Roman ware is often called _Samian_, because it was supposed to resemble that made at Samos in Greece, though it is quite different. The finest pieces approach to the color of sealing-wax, and have a lustre thin and brilliant, which has given rise to some dispute whether or not it is the result of an applied mineral varnish, or whether it is the product of careful hand-friction, developed and perfected by a high heat. The varnish, if such, is so thin that it has not been possible to analyze and decide upon it. [Illustration: FIG. 22.--_Ancient Gaul._] This red Samian or Roman much resembles the polished red ware made to-day in Egypt--of which a collection was shown in the recent Philadelphia Exhibition, and this bore no varnish. One thing remarked as to this Roman pottery is, that it is never decorated with designs or ornaments in one or more colors. The decoration is sometimes incised, but more often is in relief. This is curious, too, as those master-potters, the Greeks, used colors in their designs. These pieces are to be seen in the museums of Paris, London, and elsewhere. The example engraved (Fig. 16) is a cup on which the decoration is in relief, and the fillets and bands are carefully moulded on the potter's wheel. Figs. 17 and 18 were found in excavations made in 1845 in the city of London, and are excellent examples of this pottery. They are now in the Museum of Geology at London. Fig. 17 is a sort of vase, or perhaps a drinking-cup, and is ornamented with the head of an animal. It is described as of "a pale red with a darkish-brown varnish." Fig. 18 is called the "Cup of Samos," resembling so much as it does the work made at Samos. While these pieces were found in the earth beneath the city of London, many others have been found elsewhere; and much is believed to have been made at the old Anglo-Roman town of Caistre, in England, where remains of many furnaces have been unearthed. [Illustration: FIG. 23.--_Ancient Gaul._] Roman pottery has been found on the banks of the Rhine, near Bonn, Coblentz, Mayence, in Baden, etc., etc.; in France, at Auvergne, and at other points. This finer work is supposed to date about the first century of our era. It is classed by M. Demmin as being made at Arezzo, the ancient Aretium, in Tuscany. COMMONER styles of Roman pottery were made, and many examples of these have been found of a coarser clay, and varying in color, gray, black, and yellow, or light paleish red; sometimes with a black or brown varnish. These were doubtless made for the common uses of the kitchen. The drinking-cups of this pottery often bore inscriptions, such as _Ave_, welcome; _Vivas_, live; _Bibe_, drink; _Vive, bibe multum_, live and drink much, etc. [Illustration: FIG. 24.--_Ancient German._] Pottery was undoubtedly made by the Saxons, the Scandinavians, the Gauls, and the Germans, before the coming of Roman armies and Roman potters. Of these early remains examples have been found in the _barrows_ of England, and in other excavations. M. Cleuziou published a work in 1872, "La Poterie Gauloise,"[2] warmly and strenuously claiming for the Gauls an art and a pottery before the coming of the all-grasping Romans; who, he asserts, not only stole their country, but also have claimed to be their benefactors and civilizers when they were not. I cannot, of course, discuss the question here. The engravings given (Figs. 19, 20, 21, 22, 23) are quoted by M. Figuier, from whom I take them, as examples of this early and curious work. Some of these certainly seem to indicate an inspiration original and quite different from what we see among the Romans. Later, and after the coming of the Romans, there were produced in Gaul vases and other articles, which may well be called "_Gallo-Romaine_," or _Gallic-Roman_. [Illustration: FIG. 25.--_German Pottery._] [Illustration: FIG. 26.--_German Pottery._] The GERMAN potters also produced at a very early day large quantities of pottery, which has a character of its own. That it must have been very extensively made and used is evident from the many specimens exhumed in various parts of Germany; in such numbers, indeed, that the peasantry have a profound belief they are the work of the dwarfs, and that they sprout spontaneously like mushrooms, as I have said. The examples we present are more simple than most of the Roman work, and the decoration is more severe. (Figs. 24, 25, 26.) Pots, vases, and children's toys, are also found in tombs in various parts of Germany, some of which show decided marks of art. In some of these are found the ashes of the dead, in others bones broken up, and so preserved. CHAPTER II. UNGLAZED POTTERY.--THE GREEK VASE. Palaces of Homer's Heroes.--The Ceramicus at Athens.--Egyptian Pottery.--Etruscan Tombs.--Good and Bad Vases.--Age of Vases.--Various Styles.--The Archaic Style.--The Fine Style.--Beauty a Birthright.--Aspasia's House.--Names of Vases.--The Cup of Arcesilaus.--Number of Extant Vases.--Their Uses.--The Greek Houses.--Greek Women.--Greek Men.--The Hetairai.--Etruscan Vases. The GREEK VASE has come to be a synonym for beauty of form. Not that every Greek vase is perfect--by no means--but that the Greeks had come to feel and were able to express perfection of form in it as it had not been done before, and as it has not been better done since. [Illustration: FIG. 27.--_Egyptian Kylix._] So much interest hangs around this expression of the potter's art, that we give more space to the subject than to many other branches of the art. Keeping this perfection in mind, the manner of life of those Greeks, out of which the Greek vase grew, becomes of value, and is indeed of most interest. How did the Greeks live, and why was the Greek vase made? That the finest houses or palaces of the chiefs of the Heroic or Homeric period were larger, and more marked by barbaric splendor, than were the dwellings of the great in the days of Pericles, is admitted. We give from Mr. Bryant's translation of the Iliad a brief description of Hector's return to Troy from the battle-field: "And now had Hector reached the Scean gates And beechen tree. Around him flocked the wives And daughters of the Trojans eagerly; Tidings of sons and brothers they required, And friends and husbands. He admonished all Duly to importune the gods in prayer, For woe he said was near to many a one." He passed onward in search of Andromache: "And then he came to Priam's noble hall, A palace built with graceful porticoes, And fifty chambers near each other walled With polished stone, the rooms of Priam's sons, And of their wives; and opposite to these Twelve chambers for his daughters, also near Each other; and with polished marble walls, The sleeping-rooms of Priam's sons-in-law And their unblemished consorts. There he met His gentle mother on her way to seek Her fairest child Laodice." That the description is glorified, we need not doubt, for that is the province of poetry; and poor is the poet who does not see the beauty through the squalor, the sunshine through the cloud. The Greek house of the time of Pericles was much smaller and less splendid than this. It is a curious fact to know that most of what remains to us of the _living_ Greeks and Egyptians has been saved for us by the dead. Not a complete house of the living exists; while those of the dead have been unearthed not only in Greece, but in parts of Italy, which in many places was colonized by Greeks, and in which Greek customs and Greek art had a strong hold. [Illustration: FIG. 28.--_Egyptian Bottle, Side and Front View._] The Egyptians honored their dead, the Greeks honored their dead, and the Romans honored their dead. Let them have our thanks; for, because of that, things of interest and beauty are left to us. In their tombs have been found gold-work, jewels, manuscripts, vases: all of which tell their stories of the way men lived, how they worked, what they sought; all of which show us that man then was the same as man is now--if you pricked him he bled, if you tickled him he laughed. We are apt to think that the Past was ignorant, brutal, savage. Have we, boastful as we are, made porcelain better than the Chinese? Have we made vases more beautiful than the Greeks? Poetry more musical? In the far past man was savage, brutal, ignorant; and there is in man still the latent tiger. In the civilization of which we boast, there exist in all great cities, side by side with luxury and splendor, poverty, wretchedness, squalor, brutality. In the days of Pericles, in those days when the Amphora and the Temple reached their most perfect development, the influences of Art and Poetry were most potent upon that small democratic oligarchy which possessed Athens and tyrannized over Greece. Then the tiger lay down in the midst of a wonderful wealth of architecture, sculpture, poetry, eloquence, painting (we suppose), and pottery. Then a whole district of the city to the northwest of the Acropolis and the Areopagus was occupied by the shops of the potter and the painter, and was known as the CERAMICUS, or _Keramicus_, as it now is often spelled. From that centre went out into all the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea thousands upon thousands of those vases and pots which were made and decorated there, and from whose pictures we have drawn much of our knowledge of Greek life, art, manners, and dress. [Illustration: FIG. 29.--_Egyptian Vase._] In this high time of ART lay the seeds of corruption and death. The Athenian Greek became critical, refined, weak, luxurious, corrupt, base; and then he went to decay. In some tombs (Fig. 30) opened in Italy, the body is found lying at length in the middle, and about it stand perfect vases, love-offerings of friends: were they once filled with perfumes upon which the spirit of the dead was wafted away? We place flowers in the graves of our lovely ones, and, beautiful as they are, they vanish with the dead. But the Greek vase remains to us after the lapse of two thousand years. [Illustration: FIG. 30.--_Tomb found in the Environs of Naples._] When the Greeks--how early--began to fashion their fine work is not surely known; but pottery of theirs exists dating as far back as 700 B. C. Behind them were the Assyrians and the Egyptians, both nations great in war and great in the arts of peace. The remains we have of both show the Egyptians to have been the masters, with whom began those arts which grew and bore fruit in Assyria and in Greece. But the art of the Egyptians seems never to have reached the lightness, the delicacy, the exquisite beauty of line, which yet glorify the fictile art of Greece. Older than the oldest writings of the Hebrews, older than Homer, is the potter's wheel; through all history it has been the friend and companion of man; its products are part of his daily life; and delicate, brittle as they are, they have proved more enduring than the Pyramids. [Illustration: FIG. 31.--_The Archaic Period._] Nearly all the pieces of pottery found in Egypt belong to those things which went into the daily uses of life. Most of them are of common clay, with common forms, and rude finish; and they seem to have been of all shapes and designed for many purposes. Great casks, vases, pots for oil, for grain, for meats, for wines, for drugs, for lamps; children's marbles, checkers, toys, rings, amulets, bottles, etc., etc., are among the many things shaped by the potter in Egypt. Of those things made for ornamental purposes, there still exist some vases which approach the simple beauty of the Greek; of which we give one as pictured by Wilkinson in his work upon the antiquities of Egypt. Fig. 27 is an _Egyptian kylix_ or _drinking-cup_. It much resembles the Greek kylix or cylix, except that the foot is less perfect. [Illustration: FIG. 32.--_The Departure of Achilles, from Vase in the Louvre._] The highly-ornamented bottle (Fig. 28, _aryballos_) is another thing made purely for purposes of luxury, which Potiphar's wife used to hold her dainty perfumes--perfumes which, we may easily believe, would add to her dangerous charms. It is modeled from the African calabash, which was the first vessel used there for carrying water. Form and decoration are both perfect in this small bottle. [Illustration: FIG. 33.--_Kylix, of an Early Form._] We add a figure of very ancient Egyptian pottery, an early example of the efforts of that people at the human figure in clay. It is made to serve the purposes of a vase, whether for religious uses or other we do not know (Fig. 29). [Illustration: FIG. 34.--_Kylix, Finer Form._] The terra-cotta earthenware vases and cups of the Greek and Etruscan potters, by universal consent, have come to be accepted as the most beautiful and satisfactory. That they were thus perfect from the start, and always so, no one need maintain; but that from Greece and from many parts of it should have come such a vast number of vessels, nearly all of which are beyond criticism, is what no one can fully explain. Whence came the inspiration, the perception of beauty, which made the ordinary potter an artist, no man can tell. It is not possible that the men who worked at the potter's wheel in Athens, or in Samos, or in Crete, were "educated," as we say it, to such a fine sense of the beautiful. We, with all the education we can put into our people, do not equal them. We can no more explain this than we can tell how such a wonderful growth of beautiful cathedrals shot up into life in France in what we call the "Middle Ages." Nor was this perfection only to be found among the potters who worked in Greece. It brought forth works fit for gods in Cyrenaica, on the northern coast of Africa, in great abundance; of which farther on we give an example in the _Cup of Arcesilaus_. The wandering potters who went into Italy, and there produced those beautiful vases, were Greeks. We have been in the habit of calling them "Etruscan vases," because they have been found in largest numbers and in most perfect preservation in Etruria. But it is now well known that the real Etruscan potters never reached the same technical skill, or had any such eye for form, as was common among the Greeks. [Illustration: FIG. 35.--_Greek Rhyton, in the Louvre._] I have mentioned the tombs--that many of the finest Greek vases have been found in those of Italy, and particularly in the part once called Etruria. In Fig. 30 is shown one of these tombs discovered near Naples. In it may be seen the remains of the body, with vases of various shapes standing or hanging on the wall. Most of the vases found with the dead in Greece were buried in the soil, and are thus less perfect than those found in Italy. [Illustration: FIG. 36.--_Greek Amphora, Panathenaic._] GOOD AND BAD.--While, then, we can exalt the Greek vase to a foremost place in the perfection of form, let us say that there are very many Greek vases and pots which are _bad_, _common_, _vulgar_. So that no buyer, no student, must admire with his eyes shut. Hardly any considerable collection is without these bad things. Therefore, whoever seizes upon a Greek vase with the belief that it is beautiful because it is Greek, may wake some day to dash his god to pieces as false. [Illustration: FIG. 37.--_Amphora, from the Louvre._] Let us guard, too, against another chance for disappointment. Nearly all the best vases extant have lain for centuries underground; they have lost the freshness and fineness of their polish; their coloring is often defaced; they are, perhaps, scratched or chipped. Seeing these rather dilapidated examples of the fictile art with eyes of extravagant expectation, one may feel disappointment or disgust. But let him look on till he sees and feels the subtile springing lines which shot from the brain of the potter, and inspired his hand to shape the vase. [Illustration: FIG. 38.--_Amphora._] As to the age of the Greek vases there are some evidences. The Greek poet Pindar, who lived between 520 and 440 B. C., describes the amphoræ, those painted vases which were given as prizes at the Panathenaic festivals (see Fig. 36), and they are spoken of by Aristophanes, Strabo, and others.[3] Many attempts have been made to classify the works of the Greek potters, and the result is of some value, though a considerable degree of vagueness must attach to such as cannot be fixed by any signature or by the subject. Demmin,[4] Brongniart,[5] Birch, and others, have attempted classifications. We give here a sketch of that of the last as, on the whole, the most simple and probable; the writer follows Gerhard: 1. The "Ancient" or "Archaic" style, from B. C. 700 to 450. 2. The "Fine Style" from B. C. 450 to 328. The best were during the time of Phidias. 3. The Decadence, from B. C. 228 to the end of the Social Wars, B. C. 87. This includes all made in Italy down to the time of Augustus, at which period most of the towns and works in "Magna Græcia" and the south of Italy had been destroyed. To the first or Archaic period are attributed the vases with yellow ground, having brown and maroon figures, mostly hatchings, flowers, or rude representations of animals, such as the goat, the pig, the stork, etc., etc. Whenever the human figure appears on the vases of this period it is shorter and less graceful than that on later work. The next period is likely to show the figures in yellow upon black ground; the designs here are more beautiful; the subjects are mythological, historical, and poetical, and the human figures often have the grace and beauty which mark the best period of Grecian art. The Decadence is marked by coarser work, less purity of form, and grosser and clumsier designs. The paste or clay at times approaches the hardness of "terra-cotta;" at others it is so soft as to be scratched with a knife, and is easily broken. Its color varies: the earlier or Archaic period is mostly of a pale lemon-color; the clay used at Athens and Melos was a pale red; and in the best period of Greece the color becomes a warm orange; while those found in Italy usually called Etruscan are always of a dull, rather pale, red. Upon these grounds figures were painted in black, brown, yellow, and red. [Illustration: FIG. 39.--_Amphora._] Perspective those true artists did not strive after. The Greeks sketched in their designs in clean lines, and colored them with flat color, touching the muscles and articulations here and there to bring out more fully the action; but to rival the painter upon his canvas, that was not attempted upon pottery. It seems desirable to give some notion, as well as can be done in black-and-white, of what the earlier vases were like; and we, therefore, transcribe here some examples given by Birch, which show, not only the style of the decoration, but the forms, of the Archaic period (see Fig. 31). The animals shown are rude and clumsy, and are arranged in bands, which are sown with flower-shapes without order or meaning. The forms, too, of the pots themselves, especially the two largest, are wholly lacking in that fine, subtile grace which marks them during the time of the "Fine Style." That the Art of Greece was not born full-grown and perfect like the goddess Minerva is certain; but that it grew and grew fast to its perfectness in that most keen and cunning Greek brain is also certain. The time of the "Fine Style" was the time of Pericles, of Aspasia, of Æschylus, of Phidias; the time when the most beautiful of the beautiful Greek temples was built on the Acropolis sacred to Minerva; when sculpture, painting, poetry, and architecture, reached their height; when the human form and the human face arrived at such a divine beauty as they had never reached since the days of paradise, and have not again reached. In this wonderful time the Greek vase was born into its perfect form. Some peculiarities of the old or Archaic style, after it passed the simple method of decoration already described, and when it began to treat the human figure, are thus specified by Mr. Birch: "The faces of the females are white to indicate superior delicacy of complexion, and the pupils of their eyes, which are more elongated than those of the male figures, are red. The eyes of the men are engraved and of a form inclining to oval, the pupils circular. The eyes of the women are sometimes made like those of men, especially on those vases on which the faces are colored black upon a white ground. The forms are rather full and muscular, the noses long, the eyes oblique and in profile, the pupil as if seen in front, the extremities long and not carefully finished, the outlines rigid, the attitudes _à plomb_, the knees and elbows rectangular, the draperies stiff, and describing perpendicular, angular, and precise oval lines. The faces are generally in profile, full faces being very rare." We quote again as to the work upon the Fine style: "In this the figures are still red, and the black grounds are occasionally very dark and lustrous. The ornaments are in white, and so are the letters. The figures have lost that hardness which at first characterized them; the eyes are no longer represented oblique and in profile; the extremities are finished with greater care, the chin and nose are more rounded, and [Illustration: FIG. 40.--_Krater (Vase Campanienne), from the Louvre._] have lost the extreme elongation of the earlier school. The limbs are fuller and thicker, the faces noble, the hair of the head and beard treated with greater breadth and mass, as in the style of the painter Zeuxis, who gave more flesh to his figures, in order to make them appear of greater breadth and more grandiose, adopting the ideas of Homer, who represents even his females of large proportions. The great charm of these designs is the beauty of the composition and the more perfect proportion of the figures. The head is oval, three-quarters of which are comprised from the chin to the ear, thus affording a guide to its proportions, which are far superior to those of the previous figures. The disproportionate shape of the limbs disappears, and the countenance assumes its natural form and expression. The folds of the drapery, too, are freer, and the attitudes have lost their ancient rigidity. The figures are generally large, and arranged in groups of two or three on each side, occupying about two-thirds of the height of the vase." The design we have given to illustrate in some degree the "Fine Style" is the "Departure of Achilles" (Fig. 32), taken from a vase in the Louvre. In our modern time it has come to pass that men worship strength, power, words, gold, brass--everything but beauty. They care little to have beautiful things about them, less to be beautiful themselves, to create beautiful children, or to do beautiful work. And what is the result? Often they are as unlovely in their souls as in their persons; and so, while we boast of great cities, and long railways, and amazing cotton-mills, we boast not of beautiful men who make beautiful work. Perfection tends to perfection, and ugliness to ugliness. Therefore, let the perfect man and the perfect woman marry, that thus we may have the perfect race once more. To bring this to pass we must insist upon perfect form and perfect decoration in all things about us; we must know beauty and value it. One step to this great end is to study the Greek vase. The next step is to make every home a temple of art. What can we not believe of such a house as that of Aspasia in Athens, when she was virtually the wife of Pericles in the best period of Greece? That it was graced surely by works of divinest beauty; that these exquisite vases which we are praising stood upon her shelves, graced her pedestals, and adorned the corners specially made for their reception. We may believe that the potters themselves presented their beautiful work to the most distinguished woman of all Greece; that the victor in the Panathenaic games should ask a place for his prize in the atmosphere of light and learning which surrounded this remarkable woman. The shapes and uses of the Greek vases, cups, jugs, etc., etc., are many. We mention here those most known as follows: for holding oil, wine, etc., etc., _amphora_, _pelice_, _stamnos_; for carrying water, etc., _hydria_, _kalpis_, or _calpis_; for mixing wine and water, etc., _krater_, _oxybaphon_, _kelebe_; for pouring water, wine, etc., _oenochoe_, _cruche_, or _kruche_, _olpe_, _prochoos_; for cups and drinking-vessels, _cylix_, or _kylix_, _kantharos_, _kyathos_, _rhyton_, _skyphos_, _phiale_, etc., etc.; for perfumes, ointments, etc., _lekythos_, or _lecythos_, _alabastron_, _cotyle_, or _kotyle_, _aryballos_, etc. [Illustration: FIG. 4.--_Hydria._] The vases most known are these: The _amphora_ (Figs. 36, 37, 38, 39), a name applied to vases with two handles, sometimes with a pointed base to thrust into the ground or to be set into a tripod; great numbers of these exist, and in various shapes, some of which will appear in our illustrations. The _amphoræ_ were used to hold wine, oil, wheat, and a great variety of other articles. The _hydria_ (Figs. 41 and 42) and _kalpis_ were used to carry water. The former has one handle. The _krater_ or _crater_ (Fig. 40) was a large, open-mouthed vessel used for mixing wine with water. The _cruche_ (Fig. 43) and _oeochoe_ were jugs or pitchers used to pour liquids at the symposia. The _kylix_ or _cylix_ (Figs. 33 and 34), the _rhyton_ (Fig. 35), and the _kyathos_, were drinking-cups used at feasts. The _lekythos_, and _kotyle_ and _alabastron_, were used for perfumes, pomatums, and other such luxuries for the bath and the toilet; and we may believe, from the number of these found, that woman in those antique days was careful to enhance her charms. [Illustration: FIG. 42.--_Hydria._] We give two examples of the cylix or kylix used for a drinking-cup, which always carried two handles. The first (Fig. 33) is of the earliest period, and is more severe than the last. It is ornamented with the Greek fret, with zigzags or chevrons, etc., etc., of simple design. The other (Fig. 34) is more graceful and finished in form, and has a more elaborate design, which, however, seems to me quite behind the work found on the cups of the "Fine Style." [Illustration: FIG. 43.--_Vase for Libations._] We give some particulars of the Greek vases, mostly from the collections of the Louvre at Paris. Some of the AMPHORÆ were designed for particular uses; as, for example, for prizes to the victors of the public games (Fig. 36). The fashion which prevails with us of giving cups for prizes at our races, etc. (usually pieces of silver), is a fashion which began with the Greeks, and has continued till to-day. Sometimes these vases were filled with oil made from the olive blessed by Minerva. We may well believe such amphoræ so won were highly valued; and this will explain the curious history of the one now in the Museum of the Louvre. In 1827 this good find came to light: "They recently found at Capoue the vase given to the victor at the athletic games at Athens in the year 332 before Christ. Beside the vase lay the skeleton of the victor, the Athenian himself, as was supposed. The vase is of clay covered with paintings, showing upon one side the goddess Pallas Athene (Fig. 36) launching a javelin; on the other side is a group of wrestlers, a young man who is a looker-on, a judge, and an old man holding a wand. At the top is found the name of the ruler of Athens in the year 332 B. C., and the words '_Prize given at Athens_.'" The victor is vanquished, his name and fame are forgot, but the vase is perfect after the lapse of twenty-two centuries. The vase next presented (Fig. 37) is an amphora decorated with equestrian figures, marked by that archaic stiffness which some value. Its height is put by Figuier at thirty-seven centimetres--about fifteen inches. The color is yellowish; it is shaped with much care; the black varnish is brilliant, and is laid upon the yellow body; the outlines are incised to limit the figures; and the parts in relief are of a rusty red and unpolished. The great amphora (Fig. 38) is in the Louvre Museum, and is one of the most perfect known. We see this form, as well as many others of the Greek amphora, in all modern work. The clay is yellowish, and is covered with a deep black. The figures are reserved on the yellow and are well brought out by the black. The simplicity and dignity of this vase can hardly be excelled, and they are in striking contrast with the over-decorated things, so many of which have been made at Sèvres and Meissen. The great virtue of reticence was known and observed among the Greek artists. The next (Fig. 39) is of a more uncommon form than the others, in its swelling out at the base. The handles, too, are rare, and the twisting together at the top quite peculiar. The great vase KRATER (Fig. 40), called "Campanienne," is some fifteen inches in height, and is perfect in form and decoration. The figures are painted in black upon its surface. They have been found in great numbers in various parts of Italy. The hydria (Figs. 41 and 42) is a water-jug; another term which is used for the same vessel is _kalpis_, but the latter has two handles. These vary much in form, decoration, and beauty. The one (Fig. 41) has a black ground with red figures; the other (Fig. 42) is just the reverse. [Illustration: FIG. 44.--_Lekythos._] The _cruche_ or vase shown in Fig. 43 is supposed to have been used for libations when sacrifices were made to the gods. The neck and mouth are peculiar. This example has a red body covered with a black varnish, the designs showing the red. The LEKYTHOS is a sort of cylindrical amphora, with a straight neck and a single handle. This beautiful vase was made to contain perfumes and unguents, which were largely in use. The figure (44) here given is a perfect example of this delicate vase, and is painted with colored clays, which are fixed to the body of the vase by heat, and are, therefore, indestructible. [Illustration: FIG. 45.--_Pot for Infusion._] A pot for infusion (Fig. 45) is easily understood. It is a Greek ancestor to our teapot, and is marked by that elegance of form which appears in much of the work of the Grecian potters. The curious cup (Fig. 46) called a COUTHON is about eight inches in diameter. Our illustration shows at A the top of the cup with the open centre, while at B and C may be seen the peculiar involuted form. Just what uses this could have been put to does not appear. It is more an object of curiosity and gracefulness than of use. Just in what way such a pot can have been turned is not plain to the uninitiated soul. The CUP OF ARCESILAUS (shown in Figs. 47 and 48) is one of the most graceful and beautiful things which has come down to us from the Greeks. It is supposed to date back to the time of Pindar, some 500 years before Christ. The cup is now to be seen in the collection of the Rue de Richelieu in Paris; it was found in Etruria, but was made by a potter of Cyrene. It is discovered that at this African city was a great pottery for the making of Greek vases, out of which have come some of the most perfect found; among them this one. So far had the art and culture of the Greeks spread even then. The cup is about thirteen inches in diameter. Its name comes from the King of Cyrenaica, whose glories were sung by Pindar. The clay is very fine, and is of a delicate red; and this has been almost hidden by a black which appears solidly at the handles and foot. The design is put on with a colored clay or _engobe_ of a yellowish-white, which is fixed by the fire; and it is believed that it must have passed through the furnace some three times. The picture (Fig. 48) is curious and interesting. The king is shown sitting on the deck of a vessel afloat, holding his sceptre. Before him his servants are weighing baskets of merchandise, and below the deck others are seen carrying away the baskets into the hold. Now, what is this they are weighing and carrying away? [Illustration: FIG. 46.--_A Couthon._] M. de Witte, in making his catalogue, decides that the Greek word near the manager who is pointing to the scales means _silphium_ or _asafoetida_: the most odious of flavors to us, but one which still provokes delicious titillations in some Orientals. Altogether, we get a glimpse of life in this early Pindaric time; we see that a king then was not a mere figure-head, but a real king who oversaw his cargoes, and probably loved asafoetida, and was fond of making money, as some of our sovereigns are to-day. The _number_ of these vases, cups, etc., now existing in Europe is very great--at least 20,000, and some experts make the number as high as 70,000. The best-known collections are--at Naples in the Museo Borbonico, 2,000; in the Vatican at Rome, 1,000; at Florence, 700; at Turin, 500; at Vienna, 300; at Berlin, 1,690; at Munich, 1,700; at Dresden, 200; at Carlsruhe, 200; at Paris, the Louvre, 1,500; Bibliothèque Nationale, 500; at London, British Museum, 2,600. There are also a great many in private collections throughout the world. What the keen and artistic mind wants to know is, not only what fine work was done by the Greeks, but why they did it--what, indeed, made that life more beautiful than any we find in all the earlier histories of man. Through the wrecks and convulsions of time this crowd of delicate, perishable things still exists; what vast numbers must have been made and destroyed in the varying populations of Greece, Rome, Tyre, Carthage, and wherever Grecian civilizations and tastes made their way, it is not easy for the mind to compass. And we must remember that these things we now describe were not in every man's hand; they were in a good degree for the rich and well-to-do. No slave (and slaves then abounded) used a _kylix_ from which to drink his wine, nor an _oenochoe_ from which to pour it. That vases and cups were used and made especially as tokens of affection to be placed in the tombs, we know; that they were fashioned and painted for prizes at the Panathenaic games of Greece, we know; and that they were used in many ways in the symposia and feasts, we also know; and the numbers made must have been nigh countless. No satisfactory explanation of this profusion has so far been hit upon. The potteries, of course, must have been many; for Brongniart cites in Greece proper twelve now known cities where vases were made; in Italy, some fourteen; and we know, also, that they were made in most [Illustration: FIG. 47.--_Cup of Arcesilaus, View of the Outside._] of the colonies where Greek customs stamped themselves. The demand for all this product was, of course, equal to the supply. While we know that Greek civilizations had reached a high place, and that man, physically and intellectually, had come nigh to perfection, _woman_ had not kept pace with him. The home then was not what we now make it, or attempt to, a temple in which all of comfort, all of luxury, all of beauty, are gathered. The Greek house, even in Athens, was rarely, large; the principal _salons_ for the feasts were used only by men, for the ladies of the house did not appear at those times. The women's apartments were more secluded, and were not used for show; we should not, therefore, expect them to be _filled_ with objects of art and ornament, though they would not, of course, be excluded. That there should be, as we have shown there was, a great production of articles devoted to the tastes of the fairer sex is easy to understand, and for them, as well as for men, were made the beautiful _lekythoi_, the _alabastron_, and other articles, for perfumes, for the toilet, and the bath; for these we can account. The life of the married woman was not then passed in public and out-of-doors as it now has come to be; she was not the central or only or principal figure around which society revolved; nor did the social or intellectual, the artistic or literary life find its centre or its applause with her. That she frequented the theatres with men is not believed, though she had her own opportunities for the indulgence of this taste; and it seems probable that some representations--as the tragedies--were open for both men and women. Her life partook of the seclusion which stamped the Asiatic courts. She had many duties and occupations; for the wife, with her maidens or her slaves, not only must prepare and serve the food, she must also spin and weave and make the garments for her household. [Illustration: FIG. 48.--_Cup of Arcesilaus, View of the Inside._] The care and education of children, the supervision of the house and the slaves, the production of stuffs and garments, of perfumes and unguents, gave necessary occupations in great profusion, and such as would alleviate _ennui_--such as would put amusements into a second rather than a first place in her heart. But the truth is that her life was so dull, so devoid of exciting cares, that many women, and among them some of the most beautiful, most witty, and most cultivated of Greece, preferred the seductive and exciting dangers of the life of the _hetaira_ to the safe and frigid respectability and dullness of the married wife. [Illustration: FIG. 49.--_Etruscan Vase._] That dress was a matter of important thought with woman there also, is beyond doubt; and the textures of the _chitons_ and _himations_, the proper colors of their bands and their girdles, caused much perplexity to the beautiful Greek maiden, as they have to the beautiful American of to-day. But the Greek seems to have escaped one great misery and mystery--_her fashions did not change_; no staff of designing men was working with swift brain, hand, and pencil, in Athens or Corinth, to perplex her delicate mind with fashion-books, thus forcing her into exquisite torture, and keeping her there. The pictures upon the vases continuing through many centuries, show no very marked changes in dress. Was woman, then, supremely happy? Who can say! Besides dress, there can be no question, from the large numbers of perfume-bottles and vases of clay, as well as from the quantity of those of glass found by Cesnola in his excavations, that a very great degree of luxury, if not of dandyism, was reached by the women as well as the men in that "good old day of Greece." We know something of the luxury, the lavish daintiness of Alcibiades and his friends, but very little of that of their wives. There was, however, an evil thing in Greece, and one which the Greek wife felt strongly, keenly--it was the _hetairai_, the _demi-monde_ of the great cities. Nowhere except in England and America has the virtue of married woman been held at so extreme and exalted a height, nowhere has its sale been lowered to such a depth, as in Athens. Among the _hetairai_ of Athens and Corinth were found the most beautiful, the most brilliant, and the most highly-cultivated women of Greece; to them every attraction was of inestimable value, and whatever would charm men was to be sought and seized. That among them were women of great mental gifts, of much political knowledge, of highly-cultivated artistic perceptions, we have every reason to believe; that the _hetairai_ made their houses as attractive as possible we may also believe; and in them, we do not doubt, were found some of the best examples of the art of Greece outside the temples and the gymnasia. Here we may suppose that the fine vases found appreciative recipients, as well as appreciative admirers among men. That all who sold their charms were what we term "abandoned" is not true; they did not so consider themselves, and were not so esteemed among the men or women of Greece; that some of them, many of them, became so, is beyond doubt true. But among them some (how many who can tell?) were cultivated, interesting, able, there is no doubt; and that they continued so. It was long the fashion to suppose and to say that the poetess Sappho, and the politician Aspasia, were courtesans, which hardly any man will now maintain. As to the former less is known, but Aspasia, though not legally married to Pericles (as she could not be), was virtually his wife and partner through all his life, in his schemes for governing, exalting, and beautifying Athens. Her house then was the most beautiful, the most complete, and the most attractive, in Athens; and to it resorted the most noted statesmen, rhetoricians, philosophers, wits, and artists, of that most remarkable city and time. [Illustration: FIG. 50.--_Etruscan Vase._] It is a misfortune to us that no Greek house of the time of [Illustration: FIG. 51.--_Etruscan Vase._] Pericles, the perfect day of a most remarkable and highly-æsthetic civilization, remains; either its stone-walls, or in pictures on its temple-walls or on its vases. The great catastrophe which overwhelmed Herculaneum and Pompeii has secured to us the means of knowing how the luxurious Roman lived in those little seaside cities eighteen hundred years ago; a time when Cæsar was hardly dead, and Jesus almost unknown. Every house in Athens and in Corinth, in Samos and in Melos, has been swept away by the besom of war or the feathered wing of Time. We know what we do know from the verses of the poets or the allusions of the playwrights, and that is all; but from these we gather that the house or home was a place rather for the woman than for the man; that in it the woman, though not exactly a prisoner as in the harems of the Asiatic kings, was expected to stay and to find "her sphere." The porter sat at the door of the house, and when the woman walked forth she went accompanied by her slave, and it was known for what she went. The life of the Greek man was essentially and in his best hours outside his own house. By the Greek man we now mean the upper or more wealthy classes; all these had their work done by slaves. He went forth in the early morning to visit the theatres, where he was entertained with the dramas of Æschylus, of Euripides, of Aristophanes; he breakfasted; he visited the markets; he went to the bath; to the hairdresser; he conversed in the porticoes; he frequented the gymnasia, where he could talk or listen, where he could exercise and enjoy his body, where beautiful bodies and philosophic tongues found free play and ample room. Everything of politics, of poetry, of art, of scandal, was a delight to the keen and active intellect of the Greek; as in St. Paul's day, he was eager to hear or see some new thing: and when such a ruler as Pericles had grasped the purse and the sword, and had gathered together in the small city of Athens all the sculptures, all the poetry, all the eloquence, all the pictures, all the vases, to adorn and glorify it, the Greek man may be said--using our expressive American phrase--"to have had a good time!"--as good as he has been able yet to see in the long history of the race. [Illustration: FIG. 52.--_Etruscan Vase._] Knowing as much as we do of the life of the Greek man and the Greek woman, need we be surprised that the rather sharp-tempered Xantippe, wife of that delightful vagabond and philosopher, Socrates--he who puzzled the too conscious sophists and pleased the simpler people, who loved the true and hated the false; he who lived for wisdom and not for power; who cared much for mind and less for money; who basked in the sunshine of the porticoes and pined in the shadows of his own house--need we be surprised that this wife of his was driven to go forth at times to seek her vagrant lord in the throng of the market-place or the excitements of the Academy, and to lead him thence to the place of his wife and children? Need we be surprised that her speech was then unmelodious, unconjugal, and that she became a sport and by-word for the wicked wits of that brilliant city? [Illustration: FIG. 53.--_Etruscan Vase._] But with his faults Socrates had the great virtues of serenity and patience, always indispensable in the married man, at least. If the vases had only preserved for us the portraits of Xantippe and Socrates, or even of the room they lived in, how much would we thank them! As to the _pictures_ upon the vases, the best of them seem to be copied or adapted by the vase-painters from pictures of the best artists of Greece, made to illustrate the worship or the doings of the gods, the great deeds of the heroes, the feats at games, the triumphs at the feasts, etc., etc. Many of these are but carelessly, even poorly, put upon the vases; the _best_ are those we must look for to admire, to enjoy, and to emulate. The _tub of Diogenes_, there is reason to believe, was a great earthen vase or pot--the PITHOS. These were built up of clay by the Greeks by hand around a frame, and were afterward baked. As they sometimes reached the dimensions of over three feet in diameter and six or seven feet in height, it is plain that they could not be turned upon the potter's wheel. It is easy, too, to understand what an excellent shelter such a pot would make for such a cynical philosopher as Diogenes, who needed a very cheap rent. But if a wicked boy _should_ throw a cruel stone some fine evening, striking the pot in a weak spot, the rent might end in a convulsion and ruin. ETRUSCAN VASES.--The "_Etruscan vase_" not being what we have here described and figured as the "Greek vase," it remains to say briefly that the vases and pots made by the Etruscans before the coming of the Greek potters were quite different; ruder and less fine in form and in decoration. Indeed, it is not likely that the painted vase found in Italy, known as the Greek vase, was ever the work of the Etruscan workmen. The Etruscan pottery was thicker, less ornamental, and it indicates a different race and lower æsthetic development. In the Museum of Art at Boston is now placed a collection of Etruscan work which is said to be unique in this country as well as in England. In this are a number of vases which are ornamented with heads and figures in relief, not sharp and fine; these are wholly covered with a black color. A few which are painted are quite different and inferior to the work of the Greeks. The collection was secured in Italy by Mr. J. J. Dixwell, who has been so good as to present it to the museum. Figs. 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, are examples of some of the vases in the Museum of the Louvre, which present the general style and character of this work; they show clearly how much the real Etruscan vase differs from the true Greek vase. CHAPTER III. UNGLAZED POTTERY AT THE GREAT EXHIBITION OF 1876. Unglazed Water-Colors.--Clay Sketches.--Japanese Clay Figures.--Spanish Pots.--Italian Peasant Pottery.--Egyptian.--Turkish.--Mexican.--Watcombe Terra-cotta.--Copenhagen Pottery. The reports of the judges have not yet appeared, so that we do not and cannot know what their awards may be. But as so many persons who saw and judged for themselves may never see these reports, it may therefore serve to remind them of many things there if I put down here my own notes of what I saw and admired. My notes do not cover the whole ground, by any means, but I think they touch upon the best examples of the unglazed work, of which, however, the quantity in no degree equaled that of the glazed pottery or faience; and, indeed, it could not, because for most of the uses of life it is valueless. The glazed pots are of course much stronger, and, for household uses, have almost entirely supplanted the other. Unglazed pots and pans are still in common domestic use, but they have a glaze on the _inside_ which renders them capable of holding liquids. Unglazed vessels are much used along the shores of the Mediterranean for the purpose of cooling water, the percolation and evaporation from the surface bringing the water to a delicious coolness, which is grateful to the parched palate; indeed, it is much more wholesome than the intense coldness created by the use of ice. Many a dyspeptic stomach with us would gladden if refreshed with the crisp water produced by the Spanish or Egyptian coolers, which are now made feverish with the icy American draughts poured into them. In Paris are still made many small figures in unglazed clay, some of which are full of artistic effects; they are sketches in clay, and are valuable when they are such. A great many are made at some of the potteries in England, which are useless as works of art, and are useful only as cheap decorations. Some of them are well moulded, and are pleasing. I noticed none of these at the Exhibition, though it is likely they were represented there. A very fine example of this sort of unglazed figure-work was to be seen in a case in the Japanese collection sent by Kiriu Kosko Kuwaisha. It was a much higher class of work than the Peruvian, of which an illustration is given at page 19, and in its way could hardly be excelled. The figure was about twelve inches high, and seemed to be an intense embodiment of Japanese jollity; its half-shut eyes, lolling tongue, and relaxed figure, told the story perfectly. My Japanese guide, philosopher, and friend, did not consider it in any way a god, though it was so like the Chinese Poutai, god of content, that one wondered. If it indeed had been a domestic god, our keen Japanese gentleman would not have been likely to urge that view to us, who have less regard for other people's gods even than for our own. Not far from the Japanese exhibit was to be seen in the Spanish collection a pyramid of unglazed pottery, nearly or quite all of a light-buff color. It had this value, that it was such as is in use to-day in the houses of the common people; and that is about all we can say for it. The whole of it has been bought for the Pennsylvania School of Art. Why they should want a hundred pieces of this work one may well be at a loss to know, unless it is true that to own what nobody else has is always a pleasure. Throughout the southern countries of Europe, in Spain, France, Italy, Greece, Turkey, and on the southern shores of the Mediterranean, this kind of pottery is made and used, and in some cases it has much merit in its forms; when decorated, it often reaches a _naïve_ and fascinating kind of art. Some very pretty, simple, and original pieces of this sort of pottery have been brought to us from time to time from Naples, though I have never seen any for sale. I learn from one of the Castellanis that in many places of Italy this sort of work is made to-day, much of it for decorative purposes. At some of them vases and other vessels which are distinctly traditions derived from the Greek potters of a thousand years ago are still made; at others are made pots and vases, cups and _bénitiers_, which have sprung out of the simple artistic feeling of the potters themselves, and which have that flavor of genuineness which cannot be too much encouraged. The tendency everywhere is to _copy_ something; let us, as far as we can, buy the real and disparage the copy. A hundred pieces of this peasant pottery were sent me a few years ago, but they were wrecked upon the "vexed Bermoöthes," and are lying at the bottom of the sea. A few pieces of a light-gray body in the Egyptian collection were excellent both in form and in their many-colored decoration. These pieces were like, but better than, most of that which comes out from Africa through Tangier, of which we saw none in the Main Building, but learned that there was a collection in the Tunisian Building. Many good pieces of this barbaric pottery are in the country, though most of the specimens are glazed. These Egyptian pots have this vast merit, that they have come from the personal wants and the depths of the moral consciousness of the Egyptians themselves; from potters who know no language, no country, and no art, but their own; and therefore they are in no way imitations of what has been done in France, or England, or Boston. The dark-red terra-cotta ware from Egypt was mostly in small pieces, but was excellent in its modeling and finish; and it was satisfactory to see that it was much bought by our people. This clay, with its polished surface, is peculiar to Egypt; at least we see it nowhere else. This red Egyptian ware, is much like the red Roman ware often called Samian, which has been spoken of in a preceding chapter. Some larger pieces have been brought by private parties from Egypt, which have much merit in form, as well as in incised decoration. The Turks sent a few examples of their simple pottery, some of it unglazed, and some covered with a deep-green glaze, which were simply what they pretended to be. Their polychrome decoration was also good, but not so good as the Egyptian. Mexico, too, sent a small collection of this sort of work, which [Illustration: FIG. 54.--_Danish Pottery._] smacked yet of the Aztec races, but too little of it to be of much use. A few glazed pots painted in the native fashion were excellent, and were bought up quickly, because they suggested Montezuma and his brown people, who have been wholly consumed by the greedy whites. The belief of Señor Alejandro Cassarin, the potter or dealer who sent from Mexico, evidently was that this native spontaneous pottery, which doubtless is yet to be found, in out-of-the-way places, is not a thing to be proud of--at least, it is not to be sent to us; that what we want is a very poor imitation of European porcelain. Nor is such a delusion his alone. Of terra-cotta work in red and in buff there was a good show, mainly from England and Denmark. The clay, the modeling, and the finish, were quite perfect in many of these. The Watcombe people, in England, had already reached perfection in the color and texture of their clay; and the Greek vases, as well as jugs, ewers, and a variety of things--their own designs--could not have been bettered some three years ago. They were then satisfied to insure a simplicity which touched perfection. In their exhibit at Philadelphia it was clear that they are no longer satisfied with this, or that a jaded taste needs excitement. The work sent us constantly says, "We are trying to do something new and surprising, if nothing better than before." The principal novelty was the combining of two colors of clay in the same pot; as, for example, a lighter body with a darker red for the handles, mouldings, and ornaments. Dignity and repose were thus lost, and no new pleasure was supplied. We felt sure that this would not last. And then, when bands of color or polychrome decoration are used on the fine red clay, they nearly always do harm; and the inevitable tendency to overdo cannot be restrained. Their modeled figures seemed to have neither the delicacy of the parian nor the sketchy freedom of some of the French designers. The color of the clay and the finish of the Watcombe terra-cotta vases are superior to any I have ever seen. Some years ago the Copenhagen potters made a very considerable success in their revival of the Greek vase, both plain and painted in black, with Greek figures of horses, warriors, women, etc. (Fig. 54). These have had for the last ten years a large sale; and as we cannot have the real Greek vases because of their scarcity and price, it is well to have some examples so well copied as these are. But there is a limit to one's capacity for copies of Greek vases, and it seems positive that we have reached it. We hope so. Ipsen's widow sent us some of the yellow vases and pots, most delicately and delightfully painted with the lotus and other Egyptian designs, which for subtilty of color and precision of touch cannot be surpassed. These we were glad to see our people buying, and not the other. Among much that was commonplace, there were many examples of good work in the department of unglazed pottery. It would have been a great satisfaction to have met with more which showed _courage_ and _freshness_ of design. While the public are not so responsive to these as one could wish, there is still enough to encourage potters and designers in this direction, if they will only believe it. CHAPTER IV. GLAZED POTTERY.--GRÈS DE FLANDRE, FRENCH, GERMAN, ETC. Definition of Glaze.--Varnish.--Enamel in Egypt, Babylon.--The Arabs and the Moors.--Grès de Flandre.--Cologne, Regensburg, Baireuth, Neuwied, Grenzhausen, Coblentz.--Holland.--Beauvais.--Flanders.--Apostle-Mugs. --Graybeards.--"Bellarmines."--"Pottle-Pots."--Modern Work.--Doulton Stone-ware.--Early German Stone-ware at Breslau.--Hirschvogel.--Nuremberg. Before saying anything about the various styles of glazed pottery, it may be well to give the definitions of glaze, as presented by Marryatt, thus: "GLAZE (_Glauçure_, _Vernis_, Fr.).--The composition used for coating pottery is composed chiefly of lead and silex. That for porcelain is analogous to flint-glass (whence the derivation _glassing_ or _glazing_). In fact, this term may be applied to any substance that covers the surface of the piece; as, for instance, that produced by the decomposition of salt on stone-ware. M. Brongniart classes the different kinds of glazing, or vitreous substances with which pottery is covered when finished, into three kinds: "'_Varnish._--Every vitrifiable substance, transparent and plumbiferous, which melts at low temperature, generally inferior to that required for the baking of the paste: common pottery, fine earthen-ware. "'_Enamel._--A vitrifiable substance, opaque, generally stanniferous (tin): majolica and common earthen-ware. "'_Couverte._--A vitrifiable substance, earthy, which melts at a high temperature equal to that of the baking of the paste: hard porcelain, some stone-wares....' "The mark caused by the absence of glaze is very apparent in Oriental porcelain, the bottom edge being rough and sandy. This defective appearance is obviated in Europe by supporting the piece upon a tripod with very small points (_prenettes_, Fr.). The three ugly marks upon old Chelsea china are caused by the clumsy tripod which was employed." The use of glaze and of tin to form the glaze or enamel seems to have been known to the Chinese beyond the time when Occidental records were kept. It appears, according to Sir Gardiner Wilkinson and Mr. Samuel Birch, that very early indeed the Egyptian potters knew the use of the siliceous glaze, composed of sand and potash or soda; and also that small sepulchral figures have been found, coated with enamels made from oxides of tin or copper, dating as far back as the sixth dynasty (B. C. 3703). In the museums of Europe are preserved tiles and bricks taken from the temples or palaces of Egypt and Babylon, and they must have been largely used long before our historical time. These glazed bricks are supposed to date back twenty-five hundred years before our era. Mr. Birch, in his "History of Ancient Pottery," says that the use of these bricks was probably learned by the Assyrians from the Egyptians, "who at a very early period had inlaid in this manner the chamber of the Pyramid at Saqquara." He says: "The glazed or enameled bricks from Nimrúd are of the usual kiln-dried kind, measuring thirteen and a half inches square, and about four and a half inches thick. They were laid in rows horizontally above the slates of sculpture of the Mosul marble, and seem to have been employed in the construction of cornices. They are glazed on one of the narrow sides or edges only, having on this edge various patterns, chiefly of an architectural nature, such as guilloche or chain ornaments, bands of palmettes or helices, and fleurettes or flowers of many petals. The colors employed were blue, black, yellow, red, and white. The glaze, which is much decomposed, easily exfoliates, and the colors have lost much of their freshness. It would appear that patterns of tolerably large size were executed in this manner, each brick having its appropriate portion enameled upon it.... Another brick, found by Mr. Layard in the earliest palace of Nimrúd, has an horizontal line of inscription in arrow-headed characters of a darker color, and with square heads like nails. Its tenor was of the usual purport: 'This is the great palace of "Asar-aden-pal."' Bricks of this glazed kind were found chiefly in the space between the great bulls which flanked the entrances of the chambers. From Nimrúd were also brought corbels of blue faience, or what has been called porcelain, the under part modeled to represent the five fingers of the hand." This much is given to show how the glaze was applied to pottery by the nations of that very early time. Where they got their knowledge--whether they discovered it for themselves in their search into the secrets of Nature, or whether they derived it from the great world of life which lay beyond in the far East--we do not and cannot know. But why this so valuable knowledge was not applied universally by those acute peoples to the utensils of every-day life, and to all which we now call "artistic pottery," remains a curious question. That it was applied to some things, we know; for small vases, toys, marbles, etc., etc., have been found among the Egyptian tombs coated with this enamel; but most of the pottery found in Egypt is without glaze, which would indicate that what was in ordinary daily use was unglazed. Examples of this enameled ware are to be seen in the British and other museums of Europe. Coming to the Greeks, it is singular that nothing of this enamel-glaze is found. The inference is, that they had not the knowledge of it, and that the art must have been lost; for surely so valuable and beautiful an art, if known, must have been applied by so æsthetic a people as the Greeks to the uses of life. Upon the Greek vases, of which so many examples remain, there appears sometimes to have been used a very thin and very transparent varnish; but this does not seem to have been a glaze made either of glass, or of lead, or of tin. If it was a varnish, and not a polish, the probabilities point to its being a thin wash of soda or potash. This varnish served to protect the painting, but did not prevent the percolation of water. The Greek methods prevailed among the Romans. Among the great numbers of potters, and the vast production of pottery, the Romans seem not to have used the glaze. All that remains of their work, found in Gaul, in Britain, and in other parts of Europe, is the unglazed ware. The Arabs and the Moors brought into Europe a knowledge of the stanniferous (tin) glaze, as has been explained more fully elsewhere. To this keen and most energetic civilization Europe owes its beginnings in the arts of pottery, as well as in many other things. The value of the glaze in all the arts of life cannot be estimated. When the only cooking-utensils were those made of unglazed pottery, the cooking was of the simplest, if not most insufficient, character. Indeed, at that time it is not likely that meat was cooked in the pot at all. In addition to this, the difficulty of making unglazed vessels capable of holding wine, oil, etc., without wasting them slowly, must have forbidden those things being kept to such a time as to insure perfection, not to mention the inevitable loss. It is likely that such unglazed pots were then painted on the inside with some resinous substance which in a degree met the difficulty, but which, at the same time, imparted a flavor to the wine which we cannot believe to have been delicious. Between China and the Spanish Moors exist a wide gap and centuries of time, in which glazed pottery and porcelain intended for the uses of domestic life seem to have been unknown. And this, too, was among the Greeks, the Phoenicians, the Romans--nations eager for every good thing, astute, keen, grasping. Among the remains of Roman art have been found a few pieces of pottery upon which are traces of the use of a glaze; but, if it was used at all, it seems to have been almost an accident--not at all as with us, to complete and perfect the work. To the Moors and the Moorish civilization of Spain, Europe owes the knowledge or the introduction of this most valuable art, which has enabled her to reach such perfection in the making of fictile ware as we now see and enjoy. Not only has the glaze (and enamel) given great strength to pottery, and increased its use to an infinite variety: it has also enabled most nations, beginning with the Chinese, to add to its beauty, and, indeed, to develop or create a method of artistic expression which is peculiar and most interesting. This subject will be treated more fully, in the progress of this work, in a chapter upon decorating porcelain and pottery. After the work of the Moors in Spain, which will be treated in a separate chapter, one of the earliest applications of the glaze in Europe was upon a hard sort of _stone-ware_ made at various places along the Rhine, and in Flanders and Germany. It has come to be known under a generic title of GRÈS DE FLANDRE, while but little of it was really made in Flanders. A great centre of its manufacture and sale, as early as the 1300's of our era, was at Cologne; and a more fit name for it would be Grès de Cologne; still, the usual name is the one the world knows it by. The body or paste of which this is composed differs from the faiences or earthen-wares of which we write. It is harder, heavier, and much more durable. The commoner kinds are made so by a considerable mixture of siliceous sand; while in the finer kinds, known as Grès de Flandre, there are mixed with the paste other clays, such as _terre de pipe_ and _kaolin_. This hard and heavy body has long been used for common stone-ware jugs and pots made for every-day use. In China it was and is still used as a body for vases and dishes, which received a covering or "engobe," and upon that an artistic finish--such as the crackle-vases, and many others. The glaze upon what we know as Grès de Flandre was made by using in the furnace common salt; the fumes of which, combining with the fused silex, resulted in what is termed the _salt-glaze_. This requires a high degree of heat, in which no colors will stay except the blue of cobalt, a brown, and a violet. The Grès de Flandre, of which we give two illustrations (Figs. 55 and 56), is now well known under that name. Its color is a liquid gray, and its decoration is made with the blue of cobalt. Some pieces of this ware are highly and beautifully decorated, as is seen on the fine fountain now in the museum of the Louvre (Fig. 55). Most of the figures and reliefs are made with moulds, which have a quaint interest; they were cut in wood, carefully, often with considerable artistic expression. The best work of this sort was made in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and is mostly German. [Illustration: FIG. 55.--_Grès de Flandre Fountain, Musée du Louvre._] There were factories at Cologne, at Regensburg, at Baireuth, at Neuwied, at Grenzhausen, at Coblentz, and at other places along the Rhine. The same work was also made in Holland, in Flanders, and in Beauvais. Many pieces of this style of work were decorated with figures of saints, and other sacred emblems. Some pieces, such as salt-cellars, inkstands, and candlesticks, were carefully modeled by hand, and have thus an added interest. I know of but few pieces of this work in our museums, while those of Europe have made special attempts to secure examples of it; for it has a peculiar character of its own, and in many cases is delicious in color and most quaint and artistic in its forms and decoration. Often coats-of-arms are found impressed upon tankards and bottles and flagons of this work, and most of these are German. They were evidently reproduced from the moulds, and sold to others than the persons whose arms they bore. [Illustration: FIG. 56.--_Pilgrim-shaped Grès Bottle, in the British Museum._] The making of this ware was undoubtedly one step by which Böttcher at last succeeded in making true porcelain at Dresden. Fig. 56 is a pilgrim-bottle, bought at the Bernal sale by the British Museum for eighteen pounds. At Baireuth were made, in the 1600's, some very curious mugs, called _Apostle-Mugs_, because the figures of the twelve apostles were worked in relief around the cup. The clay was a dark-brown, but the dresses of the figures and the inscriptions were painted in colors. Mr. Frederick J. Betts, of New York, has one of these interesting bits of work; they are now hardly ever offered for sale. [Illustration: FIG. 57.--_Brown Graybeard or Bellarmine._] The _Graybeards_, or _Longbeards_, or _Bellarmines_, were made largely in the Low Countries for their own uses, and were exported to England. We give an illustration (Fig. 57) of one in Mr. Prime's collection. There is also an excellent one, I believe, in possession of Dr. Breck, of Springfield, Massachusetts. These were intended for use, and usually carried from one quart to three gallons. They were always in brown--at least I have seen none in the gray; but their decoration was sometimes touched with the violet-color. They are a very handsome and decorative bottle. The name of "Bellarmine" was given them because, in the sixteenth century, when these bottles were made and used, the Cardinal Bellarmin was sent into the Low Countries to counteract the movements of the pernicious Reformers then so zealously at work there. He was cordially hated by the Protestants, and received from them his due share of contumely. Having a short stature and a large stomach, like the Longbeard bottles, and, as they said, holding like them much vinous or other liquor, they soon called the bottle a Bellarmine, which name it bears to this day--so that, indeed, it may be said, the bottle has immortalized the man. These bottles were largely in use on the Continent and in England all through Shakespeare's time, and one was dug up on the site of the "Boar's Head at Eastcheap." The "pottle-pot," as the bottle was then called, held about two quarts. In one of the old English plays, Clodpate says: "Uds-buds, my head begins to turn round; but let's into the house. 'Tis dark, we'll have one Bellarmine more, and then Bonus Nocius." Sometimes these Graybeards were handsomely mounted, and came to be ranked high among the household gods. An inventory of the Duke of Burgundy, made in 1467, speaks of one of them as being decorated with silver and gold: "Ung hault _Goblet de Terre_ ouvré et chiqueté à ung visaige d'un heremite, garny au dessus et au dessoubs d'argent doré, et le couvercle aussi d'argent doré." Upon the Rhine these stone pots are still made for common uses, and largely; the same sort of clay is also extensively converted into seltzer-water bottles. Near Coblentz are several potteries devoted to this sort of work. At these places, since the great desire for interesting pottery has sprung up, some very fair copies of the old _grès_ have been made. At first they were made with considerable care, and then had _some_ value, showing us, as they did, what this very quaint and very original pottery was; and they were of value, as we could not have the originals. But now there is no restraint, and they are turned out by the ship-load in a slovenly style, and are to be seen in every shop-window. Fortunately, they do not pretend to be the _real_ thing; and, fortunately, they will have but a short existence, as they do not grow out of any true want or true use. DOULTON STONE-WARE.--On the other hand has sprung up at Lambeth, England, in the potteries of the Doultons, stone-ware which is true, original, artistic, and delightful. This is the same paste as the [Illustration: FIG. 58.--_Doulton Ware._] _grès_; but, instead of imitating that, a scale and a variety of colors have been developed which the old _grès_ could not at all touch. By means of thousands of experiments and much scientific knowledge, colors have been found which will bear the heat, and some of the results attained there of color alone are gratifying. No pains or cost have been spared by the Messrs. Doulton to bring about the best work. Artists have been employed--indeed, have been created--to invent and to bring forth works novel in design and color; and they have done it. We cannot but welcome their work with open hands and open hearts; and we have reason to believe that the public has welcomed it with open purses. A very fine exhibition of this work was made at the United States Centennial Festival at Philadelphia, which attracted much and deserved praise. Among the artists early engaged were some ladies named Barlow, I think, who did excellent work. One of them etched in the wet clay groups of animals which were spirited and fascinating; the other, I believe, did flowers and plants. These ladies went to _work_, and thus solved the "woman question," so far as it concerned themselves. Their work was much valued by collectors as far back as five or six years. Besides this style, many decorated vases, bottles, jugs, cups, etc., etc., have been made, of which examples will be seen in our illustration (Fig. 58). Not only have great variety and beauty of form been reached, but the methods of decoration are equally varied. One of the most elaborate is in the use of beads in lines or singly, so as to produce a jeweled effect, often very brilliant and very finished; this is in danger of being carried to excess. So many pieces of their work have been brought to the United States, that those interested can see them for themselves, and will need no further description. EARLY GERMAN GLAZED POTTERY.--Before leaving this subject a few words may be said upon the early German work in pottery. We know but little of the history of the German or Teutonic tribes before the time of Cæsar; but it was found then that here existed strong, handsome, vigorous races, who had reached an unexpected degree of civilization. They had brilliant arms and armor; they respected woman, and honored old age. In the museums are found examples of the early German unglazed pottery, so much like that found in Egypt, in Gaul, in Peru, and in most other parts of the globe, examples of which are shown in our first chapter upon unglazed pottery. Just when they began to use the glaze for the finishing and protection of pottery, we do not know. But it is known that it was in use there some two hundred years before it had been applied in Italy in the 1400's A. D. There are evidences sufficient to prove that the use of enamel, in which tin was an element, was known in Germany as early as the thirteenth century. The most famous piece of this early glazed pottery is to be seen in the Church of the Cross, at Breslau, Prussian Silesia. It is a great monument of pottery, built in honor of the founder of the church, Henry IV. of Silesia. He lies at length, the size of life, wearing his armor and his crown, and with a sword in the right hand, a shield in the left. Around the sarcophagus upon which he lies are twenty-one figures in bass-relief, the whole executed in the style of the earliest German-Gothic. Upon the monument is an inscription, saying that Henry IV. died on the night of St. John, in 1290, etc., etc. This does not prove that the monument was executed then; but there are other proofs that it was made about that time, in the dress, etc., etc. The name most conspicuous among the early potters of Germany is Hirschvogel, who worked at Nuremberg, and who, indeed, founded potteries there which continued through the century. He was born in 1441, and died in 1525. He appears to have been a painter upon glass, but from that went to the production of glazed pottery. Large plaques in bass-relief exist of this work, and also artistic earthen-ware stoves, some of which are elaborately and beautifully modeled. Examples of these, as well as pots, cruches, etc., etc., are to be seen in the museum at Nuremberg. The work of the German potters appears to have been finished with the glaze earlier than that of any others of Europe, except that of the Moors, in Spain. CHAPTER V. GLAZED POTTERY.--MOORISH, PERSIAN, RHODIAN, ETC., ETC. The Arabs in Spain.--Cordova, Granada, Seville.--Enamel and Lustres.--Hispano-Moresque.--The Alhambra.--Tiles.--Vase of the Alhambra.--Malaga.--Majorca and Maiolica.--Rhodian Pottery.--Damascus Pottery.--Persian and Arabic Pottery.--Persian Porcelain.--Persian and Arabic Tiles. Before giving some particulars of the interesting examples of pottery which have come to us from the Arabs and the Moors of Spain, it may be well to devote a few moments to the people themselves. I have thought it well to group under one head a number of their productions, because they are peculiar, and because they seem to have sprung from one centre, or to have grown up under a corresponding sense of the beautiful, so different from that of other peoples. Beginning with the pottery of the Spanish Moors, now called _Hispano-Moresque_, and which is the latest, we run backward to the _Rhodian_, the _Arabic_, the _Damascene_, and the _Persian_. From what examples I have been able to see of these, they certainly show a strong family likeness in their colors, their designs, and their clays. It is hardly to be supposed that this grew out of their religion, or that the fervid soul of Mohammed fired the souls of his followers with that striking and low-toned and intense and subtile harmony of blues, greens, and browns, which is so often seen on their tiles and dishes. It is more likely that, beginning somewhere, the Arabian potters carried with them wherever they went their colors and their secrets; and that what was desired in Persia, or Damascus, or Cairo, must be desired wherever the "followers of the faithful" were found; and thus they went to work to produce these various fictile wares which are now so much sought for. One of the most curious, most interesting, and most picturesque episodes in modern history is that of the Moors in Spain. From the year 712 to the time of the discovery of America, in 1492, these Moslems held possession of the finest parts of Spain, including the cities of Cordova, Granada, and Seville. Of these, Cordova and Seville are older than the Romans. In the first century they were fought over by Cæsar and Pompey, but were not destroyed. The shores of Spain were visited by the ships of Tyre, and afterward by the Greeks; but these came as traders, rather than as conquerors. The old inhabitants, the Iberians, were brave and determined; but they could not organize, could not resist the invading arms of Rome, which swept over the world under the leadership of some one able and daring leader. Then came in the Vandals and the Goths. They swarmed down upon Italy, and into Spain, where they became strong and great. As we read history, we see almost nothing but one long, fierce, destructive fight, and we wonder that there could have been any art, any learning, any kindness, in the world; for every man's hand was against every man, and the chief vocation of great men was to rob and enslave other men. So it has been, so it is now; the forms change, the fact remains. We have our feudal barons to-day. But how came the Moors--the Arabs, rather--in Spain? Briefly this may be answered: The amazing, almost miraculous power with which _Mohammed the Promised_ had inspired the Arabian race led them forth to conquer and convert. They went east and they went west, until they stretched along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea and reached the Pillars of Hercules. Could the narrow strait stop their way? They passed over it like dry land, and spread their victorious bands over the southern part of the peninsula, and possessed themselves of the lovely lands of Andalusia, Estremadura, Castile, and even penetrated to the cold and savage mountains of Navarre. What were these Moors? Were they savage beasts, cruel robbers? They appear to have brought into Spain not only Art, but the arts, sciences, learning, literature. Under the strong and able rule of Abderrahman III. (912 to 961), agriculture, science, trade, and decent living, throve as they never yet had done in Spain. During the five or six centuries in which the Moors held the land, it is easy to believe that Spain enjoyed a greater measure of worldly prosperity than before or since. In this time Cordova, the seat of the caliphate, grew to have a population of a million souls; it had three hundred mosques and nine hundred baths. Its greatest mosque, begun in 786, shone with four thousand silver lamps, and its dome was raised aloft on twelve hundred slender pillars. The city of Granada was built, and upon the sides of its mountain sprang into being the fairy fortress and palace of the _Alhambra_. Its halls, its courts, its galleries, its arabesques, its fretwork, its fountains, even in their ruin, tell us of the power of this singular people. In Seville, too, the _Alcazar_ and the _Giralda_ even now bear beautiful witness to their art, their skill, their industry. There seems little question now that the Moorish potters brought with them into Spain the arts which the Persian or Arabian potters knew, not only for the preparing the clays, but that they also had the secret for making the _stanniferous enamel_, or glaze, into which the use of tin enters. They also applied to the decoration of their wares certain _lustres_, which Demmin says were produced by the fumes of bismuth, of antimony, or of arsenic. It is not probable that gold was a component part of these lustres. Just when the Moors went to work to make their tiles and their lustred dishes, we do not know. But as ornamental tiles--_azulejos_--were used to decorate their walls, we conclude that the production began almost at once. These tiles were not only used in bands or strips on the walls; they were also used as pavements, and the floors of the Alhambra were glittering with them, some few of which still remain there. Mr. Ford's description of them, thus quoted by Marryat, says: "Moorish very fine, and most ancient; surface plain, painted and enameled blue; the elaborate designs in gold lustre. The inscription on the shield is the well-known motto of the Mussulman founders of the palace of Granada: 'There is no conqueror but God.' The date of its manufacture may be placed about 1300." [Illustration: FIG. 59.--_From the Alhambra._] Our engraving of one of these tiles (Fig. 59) gives a good representation of the design, but it cannot, of course, express the color. No one can fail to see how far away it is from the commonplace and the ordinary geometric patterns into which the dull man invariably falls; no one can fail to be struck with the simple intricacy which interests, we cannot tell why. Another remarkable piece of their work is _The Vase of the Alhambra_ (Fig. 60), one of the most beautiful and most interesting vases anywhere known. This is sometimes called "La Jarra," and is figured in Owen Jones's "Alhambra," where will be found much more that is worthy of attention. This is supposed to have been made about 1320. I take the description from Marryat's work: "It is of earthen-ware; the ground white, the ornaments either blue of two shades, or of that gold or copper lustre so often found in Spanish and Italian pottery. This beautiful specimen of Moorish workmanship, which is four feet three inches in height, was discovered, with another similar to it, beneath the pavement of the Alhambra, and is said to have been filled with gold. It was copied in 1842, at the manufactory of Sèvres, from drawings made in Spain by Dauzats." It has since been copied by Deck, of Paris. [Illustration: FIG. 60.--_The Vase of the Alhambra._] _Malaga_ was probably the place where the best of the Moorish work was made, and there the manufacture continued for centuries. At Valencia faiences were afterward largely produced, as they are still. The examples of Moorish dishes remaining are marked by a peculiar _lustre_, which I have mentioned, which is either a lighter or a darker yellow, and sometimes of a deep coppery color. [Illustration: FIG. 61.--_Hispano-Moresque Plate._] A very fine example of this golden lustred ware is in the collection of Mr. Wales, at Boston, through whose kindness I am enabled to present the accompanying illustration (Fig. 61). It is now, I think, hung in the loan collection of the Museum of Arts at Boston, with many other of his valuable and interesting pieces. That any pieces of this work should yet be in existence may excite our surprise. The struggle between the Christians and the Moslems for the possession of the government and the religion of Spain went on through the centuries. Yet through all these troubled centuries these Moors found time to build great cities, and to create those beautiful examples of their peculiar architecture which are so satisfactory even in ruin. They also did more to encourage learning and the arts than any other nation of Europe; so that their schools and their scholars became renowned the world over, and were flocked to by Christian students. In due time internal dissensions weakened them; then they went to ruin, and at last were driven out of Spain by the combined Christians. Then it was that the bitterness of war was intensified with the hatreds of religion; and then it was that a war of destruction was waged, not only against the persons of the "vile Moslems," but against all their works; so that nothing should remain to tell the story of their hated supremacy and their hated religion. Then it was that the Moorish potters of Malaga and Valencia were slaughtered or expelled, and then, too, their handiwork went with them into wholesale destruction. In this wreck and ruin, it is singular that the mosques, those finest monuments of the arts and the industry of the Moors, were spared. These remain, and a few examples of their pottery, of which we have striven to give some idea, though faint. One thing seems to be admitted on all hands, viz.: that to the Moors of Spain Europe owes either the invention or the introduction of siliceous or glass-glazed wares, and that from that date begins all improvements in fictile work; that directly from it came the potteries of the Balearic Islands, and that from Majorca came not only the names into Italy, but in all probability the potters or their secrets, which resulted in the production, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, of the wares now so famous under the name of _Majolica_, or, as it is now spelled, MAIOLICA, of which we shall have something to say further on. RHODIAN POTTERY.--Pursuing this subject eastward, we find traces of a lustred pottery on the island of _Sicily_, believed to be the work of Arabic potters. Still farther eastward, upon the island of Rhodes, have been found many plates and dishes, now classed as _Rhodian_, sometimes as _Persian_, and sometimes as _Damascus_ ware. The styles of this work, their colors and their designs, seem to group them together, and it is difficult to separate them in any consistent way. The first I saw of these were hung on the walls of the house of Mr. Frederick Leighton, the distinguished artist of London. While following his art on the island of Rhodes, he had heard that some pottery of this sort was now and then to be found on the island; the pieces he saw were very bold and striking, and tradition there said that they were the work of Persian potters, who, as prisoners, had centuries before been placed on the island. Finding clay to their hands, they went to work at their trade, and, with little doubt, practised it diligently through a long time, and handed it down to their children. Whatever was the truth of the tradition, a search among the poor people of the island unearthed many pieces of the ware, which Mr. Leighton brought with him to London. This was repeated on a second visit, until now this private collection is probably one of the best in England. Upon his second return, Mr. Leighton told me he found in London, for sale, plates and dishes of the same character and coloring which were said to have been brought around from Persia; so that, whatever may have been the origin of this ware, whether Rhodes, Persia, or Damascus, the product was almost the same. Mr. Fortnum, in his "Hand-Book upon Maiolica," says: "The paste varies in quality more than in kind, being of a gray-white color and sandy consistence, analogous to that of the Persian wares. The decoration is more generally rich in color, the ground white, blue, turquoise, tobacco-color, and lilac, sometimes covered with scale-work, with panels of Oriental form or leafage, large sprays of flowers, particularly roses, tulips, hyacinths, carnations, etc., the colors used being a rich blue, turquoise, green, purple, yellow, red, black. The forms are elegant: large bowls on raised feet; flasks or bottles bulb-shaped with elongated necks; pear-shaped jugs with cylindrical necks and loop-handle; circular dishes or plates with deep centres, etc. An interesting example of the highest quality of this ware is in the writer's possession, and is described and figured in color in vol. xlii. of the 'Archæologia.' It is a hanging-lamp made for and obtained from the Mosque of Omar at Jerusalem, signed and dated June, 1549. "Two leading varieties are known in collections: namely, _Damascus proper_; known by its evenness of surface and rich glaze with subdued but harmonious coloring, certain tones of which are peculiar to this variety; for example, a dull lilac or purple, replacing the embossed red so conspicuous on the Rhodian, and used against blue, which is of two or three shades, the turquoise being frequently placed against the darker tone; a sage green is also characteristic. The dishes of this variety usually have the outer edge shaped in alternating ogee. "This kind is much more uncommon than the other, RHODIAN or LINDUS, to which the greater number of pieces known in collections as 'Persian ware' belong. It is to Mr. Salzmann that we owe the discovery of the remains of ancient furnaces at Lindus, in the island of Rhodes, from the old palaces of which he collected numerous examples. This variety, although extremely beautiful, is generally coarser than the former, and the decoration more marked and brilliant. A bright-red pigment, so thickly laid on as to stand out in relief upon the surface of the piece, is very characteristic and in many cases is a color of great beauty; the predominant decoration of the plates consists of two or three sprays of roses, pinks, hyacinths, and tulips, and leaves, sometimes tied together at the stem and spreading over the entire surface of the piece in graceful lines; the border frequently of black and blue scroll-work. Ships, birds, and animals, are also depicted; and a shield-of-arms occurs on some pieces." A few of these striking Rhodian plates are to be seen in America; and I here engrave one (Fig. 62) from Mr. W. C. Prime's collection, which is an excellent example. It shows a group of flowers starting from a point, the central stalk being that of a purple hyacinth. This method of grouping was a favorite one with these painters. These plates vary in price in Europe from fifteen to seventy-five dollars each. Of the DAMASCUS pottery little can be said, because little is known. From time to time plates and dishes are purchased there and brought to us, which possess the general character already described as Rhodian, but are thought to have a delicacy and fineness not found in that pottery. A very handsome example is in Mr. Wales's collection, which bears a little gilding, and which, perhaps, may be classed as of Damascus. [Illustration: FIG. 62.--_Persian and Rhodian Pottery._] Of PERSIAN and ARABIC pottery it is impossible, in the vagueness existing with respect to it, to do more than make a few suggestions. We cannot do better than to read what Mr. Fortnum has gathered with regard to this ware: "We do not derive any information from M. de Rochchouart on the subject of the lustred wares, except in his description of the tiles of the Mosque of Natinz of the twelfth century; nor do we learn anything of that variety of creamy white pottery having the sides pierced through the paste, but filled with the translucent glaze, and which is believed to be the Gombr[=o]n ware of Horace Walpole's day. But he gives interesting information on the subject of the tiles used for decoration, of which the finest are those mentioned above; those of Ispahan and of the period of Shah Abbas being also admirable for their exquisite design. "The Persian glazed pottery known to us may be divided into: "_A._ Wares, generally highly baked, and sometimes semi-translucent. Paste, fine and rather thin, decorated with ruby, brown, and coppery lustre, on dark-blue and creamy-white ground. "_B._ Wares, of fine paste, highly baked, semi-translucent, of creamy color and rich, clear glaze, running into tears beneath the piece of a pale sea-green tint. Its characteristic decoration consisting of holes pierced through the paste, and filled in with the transparent glaze: the raised centres, etc., are bordered with a chocolate brown or blue leafage, slightly used. This is supposed to be the Gombr[=o]n ware. "_C._ Wares, frequently of fine paste, and highly baked to semi-transparency: the ground white; decoration of plants and animals, sometimes after the Chinese, in bright cobalt blue, the outlines frequently drawn in manganese; some pieces with reliefs and imitation Chinese marks also occur; this variety is perhaps more recent than the others." This description may apply rather to a sort of semi or imperfect _porcelain_ of Persian manufacture, as to the reality of which there has been and is much doubt, rather than to the peculiar class of faience of which we have been writing. As to the _porcelain_ or hard faience of PERSIA, here and there are to be met with singular examples, which, because of a peculiar style of painting, combined with a certain coarseness or imperfectness of paste, have usually been relegated to the less dexterous potters of Persia. That pottery has been made in Persia, far back in the dimness of the Dark Ages, there seems to be no doubt; just what it was remains a doubt; because even then a sort of commerce, probably by sea and land, existed with China, and thence came porcelains of various qualities and many designs. We are apt to believe that, until our day, there were few "cakes and ale"--little art, or only coarse fabrics. Whereas fine and admirable work of many sorts, and especially in porcelain and pottery, had reached perfection before our European or Western civilization began. Out of China came porcelain to Persia; out of Persia and Phoenicia came pottery to us. Of the Persian porcelain, or hard pottery, a single example is to be seen in Mr. Avery's collection, now in the Museum of Art at New York. It was bought at the Vienna Exhibition from Prince _Ehtezad-es-Saltenet_, uncle to the Shah of Persia, and we may suppose it, therefore, to have about it the true flavor of genuineness. It is a bowl of rather coarse ware, approaching to the hardness, if not the translucency, of porcelain; it is painted with blue of a common color, and with a not very interesting design; and is valuable as an example of the probable work of Persian potters. But there exist many pieces of pottery besides these, which have usually been called Persian because of their peculiarities of design and of coloring. Some of these approach closely to the work already designated as Rhodian or Damascene. In the upper plate of Fig. 62, from Mr. Prime's collection, is shown one of these, which the owner is inclined to believe may be Persian and not Rhodian. So also the painted faience egg (Fig. 62), obtained by him from a lamp in a mosque of the Holy Land. The face and the coloring do certainly impress one with a Persian faith, though it may not be easy to explain the reason why. In my possession is a sweetmeat-pot covered with an "engobe" or "slip," upon which are boldly painted in colors flowers and leaves; these last are peculiar in shape, and are by some believed to be Persian work--I doubt it, but it is possible. We have a few words to say of the Persian or Arabic TILES. These have been found inlaid upon the walls of mosques and palaces and tombs in Damascus, in Cairo, in Ispahan. As far back as the palmy days of Babylon and Assyria, these enameled or glazed bricks or tiles were used to decorate the walls of their buildings; and that is about all we know. These bricks remain; for, of all the works of man, the brick is seemingly imperishable. It is also certain that upon some of these bricks or tiles is found a glaze or enamel made with the use of tin; so that what is now called _stanniferous_ enamel was known at that early day, and long before it was used in Italy by _Luca della Robbia_, who at one time was supposed to have invented it. The example here given (Fig. 63) is a very beautiful plaque, made up of many pieces, and is remarkable for the splendor of its color, rather than for any perfectness of design. It is interesting, however, as showing the dresses of the cavaliers of the Persian court. [Illustration: FIG. 63.--_Persian Plaque._] In the walls of Damascus, of Jerusalem, and of Cairo, these tiles were imbedded for ornamental and decorative purposes, and from them they have been gathered by those good people called "collectors." In Fig. 62 is an engraving of one in Mr. Prime's collection, which gives simply the lines, but wholly fails to give the magic and mystery of color which endues it with beauty. This cannot be described, nor can it be pictured; the combinations of blues are too subtile for the palette of the painter; they have been sublimated in the fiery heats of the furnace. A few of these tiles are in possession of Mr. Prime and of Mr. Wales; and a very fine collection is now in the house of Mr. Leighton, of London, of which I have spoken. He has had them imbedded in the walls of his halls, which they tinge with their peculiar and pensive light. CHAPTER VI. GLAZED POTTERY.--ITALIAN MAIOLICAS. The Word Maiolica, or Majolica.--Italian Renaissance.--The Dark Ages.--The Crusades.--The Mezza-Maiolica.--The True Maiolica.--Luca della Robbia.--Urbino.--Xanto and Fontana.--Raffaelesque Ware.--Mr. Fortnum.--Prices to-day.--Gubbio.--Maestro Giorgio.--The Lustres.--Castel-Durante.--Faenza.--The Sgraffito.--Forli, Venice, Castelli, etc.--Castellani.--Maiolicas at the Centennial. The term MAIOLICA, or _Majolica_, as has been often explained, came from the island of Majorca, whence came to Italy, in the twelfth century, some of those peculiar potteries already described under the name of _Hispano-Moresque_. The Balearic Islands, lying in such convenient proximity to the mainland, were then possessed by the active and enterprising Moors--that most daring and doing race, who had planted the standard of the Prophet in Southern Europe. From these convenient islands they could organize pleasant surprises upon the coasts of Italy, and gratify themselves with much plunder. While human nature can bear and does bear much marauding, there comes a time when endurance ceases to be a virtue, and then--war ensues. Such a time had come in the twelfth century, when the Pisans, and their friends along the Italian coasts, determined to plunder, rather than be plundered; and then they pounced upon the hated Moors of the islands, and turned the tables upon them. It is believed that, among the spoils carried away to Italy, were many pieces of the peculiar wares made by the Moors in these islands as well as in Spain. That these examples, and some of the potters themselves, were carried away to the Italian coast, is most likely; and that the Italians, always a people with quick sensibilities, and a ready perception of the beautiful, if not of the good or the true, at once saw that here was a manufacture ready to their hands, which combined use and beauty, as their own did not. At any rate, it was during the most vivid period of the _Italian Renaissance_ (1350 to 1600) that the production of the highly-decorated fictile work, known as Maiolica, sprang up, culminated, and went to decay. Through the centuries called the Dark Ages, art and literature had not died; their fires were kept bright in the monkish cell, where some Alcuin, in England or in France, traced with painful pen the lives of the saints, or the romaunts of the Lady; and touched their illuminated margins with those exquisite colors which feed the eye with a pleasant surprise now, when centuries have passed, and books lie about our feet as thick as leaves in Vallambrosa's vales. During this dark time art and literature flourished among the Saracens along the African coast, and grew into splendor in the halls of Cordova and Seville. But a day was at hand when Peter the Hermit made his pilgrimage to the "Holy City" (1093), and came back to preach his fiery crusades against the abominations with which the Moslems defiled the sepulchre of the Lord. Then through some two centuries Europe was converted into religious camps, from which streamed out toward Jerusalem the armies of the Cross--the Crusaders--and that Oriental world was thus mingled in a great warlike confusion with the Occidental world of Europe. How does all this touch upon the small matter of Italian maiolicas, of which I treat? Thus: these religious wars made Venice, Leghorn, and Genoa, into great centres of commercial activity, and into them flowed wealth, as well as every kind of merchandise and manufacture known in the East. The people of these small kingdoms grew rich, and vastly so. The Dandolos, the Dorias, the Medicis, founded princely families, and became patrons of learning and art. Then, too, the Church grew great, all-powerful, and rich; for the fervor of piety, which fired all hearts, sought expression not only in shedding its blood to rescue the holy places, it poured in of its earnings or plunderings rivers of wealth to enrich the coffers of the Church. The popes, the cardinals, the bishops, grew great, not so much in religious truth, but more in lands, in castles, in gold, and in goods. Thus every prelate and every patriarch became a prince, with gold to give, and favors to bestow. Then they became, all through Italy, patrons of art and fosterers of learning. We see in this the spring out of which flowed the "Renaissance" of literature and the arts, and which resulted in the architecture, the painting, the poetry, the maiolicas, and the luxury, of that new Italian life. The term _maiolica_, in its generic sense, means what _delft_ does in Holland, _faience_ in France, and _earthen-ware_ in England. All are soft pottery, covered with an opaque glaze called enamel. The term was once applied only to the lustred wares of Spain and Italy; but now it has come to mean such dishes--ewers, vases, etc., etc.--as were made in Italy during the period of the Renaissance, which have an expression of art, and can be termed decorative; perhaps it goes still further, for the druggists' pots (Fig. 64), then much in use, and which may perhaps be classed wholly with the useful, are not excluded; for upon some of these much decoration was put. The word also carries a subdivision called _mezza-maiolica_. [Illustration: FIG. 64.--_Druggist's Pot._] MEZZA-MAIOLICA.--We cannot attempt to give a history of all the potteries which sprang into being in Italy during this time; it would be both difficult and useless. Of course, we know that many existed, and must have existed even from the days of the Roman dominion. But, under the influences mentioned, they took on a new life. Not only had striking examples come to the Italians from the Moors of Majorca, but beyond question many others had reached them from time to time from the East. Common and unglazed potteries gave place to the better sorts; and a vast stride was taken when the vessel came to be protected by a glaze made with the use first of lead (_plumbiferous_), and then of tin (_stanniferous_). The Italian writers assert that the use of lead--the _plumbiferous glaze_--was applied in Urbino as early as 1300. Why need we doubt it? At Pesaro it reached its perfection about 1540. The common earthen or red ware of the country was dipped into a _slip_ or "_engobe_" of white clay; then it was dried or baked; then painted, and afterward covered with a thin skin of lead-glaze, which was fixed with the fire. The colors used in decorating these pieces were few, being mostly yellows, greens, blues, and black. This lead-glaze was soft, but it had a sort of metallic, iridescent lustre, which is one of its peculiarities and beauties. It is almost useless to attempt with the engraving to express fully the characteristics of this ware; the colors we cannot give. One piece (Fig. 65) will serve to show the kind of design often used, which bears unquestioned testimony to its Moorish parentage. This finer work seems to have been made about 1500 to 1550, and at Pesaro. The TRUE MAIOLICA is that which is covered with a glaze made with the oxide of tin and siliceous sand. This _stanniferous glaze_ or enamel takes the place of the "slip" or "engobe," and covers the potter's clay with a clear white enamel, upon which the colors can be laid. The avidity with which the new art was seized upon in Italy by dukes and priests, by workmen and artists, we can hardly comprehend. It would seem that the whole Italian world then rushed into every form of art and literature with an eagerness only to be explained by a desire to make good the Lost Ages--often called the "Dark Ages." Furnaces and potters sprang out of the ground, and almost every good town sooner or later had its "botega." Of these we may mention as among the most noted: Urbino, Gubbio, Pesaro, Castel-Durante, Faenza, Forli, Caffagiolo, Siena, Deruta, Venice, Castelli, besides many others. [Illustration: FIG. 65.--_Mezza-Maiolica._] Before giving some particulars of these manufactures, it may be well to refer to a name which seems to take precedence of others among the artists in ceramic work in Italy. This man was LUCA DELLA ROBBIA, born in the year 1400. M. Ritter says of him: "He was a sculptor first, and a potter afterward. An artist of the highest power, he was inspired with all the marvelous æsthetic force and subtilty and fertility of his age and of his country. He was not satisfied, as other sculptors are, with form-beauty alone, but cast about to add to his moulded figures the further beauties of coloring and surface-texture. He no doubt well knew the wares of the Moors of Spain, and probably was acquainted with the secret of the tin-glaze already used by the Italian potters. It is needless to assume, as most writers do, that he discovered tin-glazes for himself; but he at any rate adopted the process, and he has left us bass-reliefs and even life-sized statues covered with a fine stanniferous polychrome-glaze, which are among the wonders of Italian Renaissance art, and which to this day are, in their way, unsurpassed triumphs of skill." The portrait (Fig. 66) which we give shows him to be among the strong and able men, who might not only stand before kings, but might be a king himself. [Illustration: FIG. 66.--_Portrait of Luca della Robbia._] There are but few pieces of his work in this country--so far as I know, only these: one a Virgin and Child, in possession of Mr. Prime, of New York; the other now in the loan collection of the Art-Museum at New York, the property of Mrs. Robert M. Grinnell. It is thus described: "The child Jesus lies on a mass of green grass. White lilies with yellow stamens spring up behind him. The Virgin kneels; above her two winged cherub heads, and two arms stretched down hold a crown over her head. On the crown, yellow and blue spots." From the description, the reader will not be likely to rank this among works of the finest art. These works were produced to meet the religious wants of the time and people, and were in great demand. But to-day, for other than religious reasons, they sell for twenty times the prices they then did. In Fig. 67 is to be seen a _retable_, now in the Museum of the Louvre, which is probably among the best examples of his style of work. These bass-reliefs were at first done with white figures on a blue ground; subsequently other colors were introduced, such as greens, browns, and yellows. His four sons and a nephew carried on the same styles of work, but failed to improve upon their master. From the two or three pieces of the work which I have seen, I could value them as examples in the history of ceramics; as _works of art_, for myself not at all. Italian writers naturally wish to claim for Luca della Robbia all possible merit, and particularly that he discovered and first applied in Europe (outside of Spain) the enamel made from tin; thus raising him to a high rank as a discoverer and originator, as well as an artist. Much discussion and speculation has been indulged in, which is, however, of but little interest to us, and probably less to Della Robbia himself. What he did do, and for which he deserved praise, was, that he seems to have worked at the new business he had taken up with honesty and persistency; that he was patient and painstaking. These are always good. He was merchant enough to make what then would sell; that is, works for the ornamentation of churches and altars, one of which we have illustrated. He was successful, and that was a satisfaction to him as it is to us. He made, besides altar-pieces, rondels and squares to be set into walls, upon which were masks, scrolls, fruit, flowers, buds, etc., etc.; and these were sometimes white, and sometimes enameled with various colors. His nephew Andrea followed his lead, but did not improve upon his master; and _his_ four sons, Giovanni, Luca, Ambrosio, and Girolamo, continued to make the same description of reliefs, but greatly inferior to those of the first Della Robbia. [Illustration: FIG. 67.--_Altar-Piece, by Luca della Robbia, in the Museum of the Louvre._] URBINO.--The Dukes of Urbino were foremost in encouraging and developing the maiolica work of Italy; and around them, as a sort of centre, the ceramic art seems to have gathered. I give from Mr. Fortnum's book a brief account, which may interest many. Having had whatever good could be derived from the great and valuable collections of the Kensington Museum, and being a man of keen perceptions and sound judgment, whatever he writes deserves respect. He says: "In 1443 what had been but an unimportant mountain fief was erected into a duchy, and the house of Montefeltro ruled a fair territory in the person of the infamous Oddantonio, the first Duke of Urbino. On his violent death in 1444, Federigo, his illegitimate brother, succeeded to the dukedom. Of enlightened mind, as well as of martial capacity, he developed the native capabilities of the country, and gathered about him at the court of Urbino the science and learning of the period. He built a noble castellated palace at Urbino, for the embellishment of which he invited the leading artists of the day. A patron of all art, and a great collector, he encouraged the manufacture of the maiolica wares which flourished under his reign. On his death, in 1482, his son Guidobaldo I. continued his father's patronage to the ceramic artists of the duchy, although much occupied in the Italian wars consequent on the French invasion by Charles VIII. Passeri states that fine maiolica (by which he means that covered with the tin-enamel) was introduced into Pesaro in 1500; and there is some reason to believe that the new process came from Tuscany. It differed materially in composition and manufacture from the 'mezza-maiolica' wares, to which it was very superior, and was known as 'porcellana,' a name applied at that period in Italy to the choicer description of enameled earthen-ware. Passeri also states that in the inventory of the ducal palaces a large quantity of painted 'maiolica' vases were included under this name. The superior whiteness of the enamel, more nearly approaching to that of Oriental porcelain, was probably the reason for its adoption; but we must not confound the term as used in this sense with its technical meaning in reference to a decorative design known as 'a porcellana.'" These famous manufactories of maiolica at Urbino, Gubbio, Pesaro, and Castel-Durante, sprang into life about the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth centuries. That of Urbino perhaps took the lead, being so directly under the patronage of the dukes. The two most distinguished artists here were _Francisco Xanto Avelli da Rovigo_ and _Orazio Fontana_; they are commonly spoken of as "_Xanto_" and "_Fontana_." Besides these were Battista Franco and Raffaelle del Calle, among the best painters upon maiolica. During the time of these artists many elaborate pictures were painted by them upon the vases and plates of Urbino. Following the mezza-maiolica, the work at first showed much of the Oriental character of design, and the lustred surfaces were continued. But soon ambition seized them, and they transferred to the surface of the clay elaborate scriptural, historical, and allegorical subjects. Original designs were made to some extent; but to a larger extent the great pictures of the great masters were seized upon--such as Raffaelle's "Triumph of Galatea," and other works of the same sort. The engravings of Marc Antonio and of Albert Dürer, then just at hand, gave easy aid; and with such helps, with a rich and art-loving public to encourage them, we can see how the production should flourish. The vase (Fig. 68) is a good example of one of their best works. These fine pieces were used as presents by grandees to grandees, and by princes to princes. Pieces and sets were painted expressly as gifts for lovers, for espoused persons, for safe deliveries; as marks of favor, and as persuasives for favors to come. Then grew up a large production of plates painted expressly for lovers, upon which the portrait of the lady was painted; in many cases, I am sure, with unnecessary ugliness, but with a sufficiently lovely motto to atone in some degree for the injury, no doubt unwittingly done--such as "diva" or "paragon di tutti." These are known as _amatorii_, and are much prized. In Fig. 69 we give one of these amatorii, and one of the most pleasing; some are of supreme ugliness. This one is dedicated to _Vanna Bella_--the beautiful Vanna; and in its time was more beautiful than now, for it was the inspiration of love. Among the fancies indulged in upon the amatorii plates and jugs are mentioned such as these: On one, we have two hands clasped over a fire; and above, a golden heart pierced by two darts. On another, a heart transfixed with a sword and an arrow over a burning flame, bedewed with tears falling from two eyes placed above. [Illustration: FIG. 68.--_Maiolica Vase, David and Bath-sheba._] On a saucer is a youth kissing a lady, and giving her a flower--_Dulce est amare_. On another is a greyhound with a heart in its mouth--_Per mento di mia fè in te_, etc. All of these are sufficiently youthful and sentimental to meet the wants of the valentine-makers of to-day. But the subjects of paintings were not all either divine or historical or amatory. Many subjects painted from the old mythology had a too palpable quality which we more fastidious people might call coarse, if not roughly vulgar; and such subjects do not heighten the pleasure we expect to find in examining these works. The "_Raffaelle ware_," as it is sometimes called in England, had a quality of design which is peculiar, and therefore an example of it may be of service here (Fig. 70). The combination of scrolls, masks, Cupids, flowers, buds, etc., which marks this style of work, is found more or less to pervade much of the ornamentation of what is known as Italian Renaissance. [Illustration: FIG. 69.--_Example of Amatorii._] It has sometimes been said that Raffaelle himself painted upon the maiolica, but it is not proved; and the finest pieces were not made until after his death. It is true that many of his pictures were copied or adapted by the maiolica-painters for their own uses; and it is also asserted that some of his pupils painted upon the clay. Marryat states that the engraver _Marc Antonio_--good prints of whose works now sell to collectors for enormous prices, beautiful specimens of which have been shown in the famous collection of Mr. Rose, of London--was in the height of his powers when the brilliant young painter Raffaelle was in the full command of his; and that the engraver lived in the house of the painter, worked with him under his own eye, and was influenced by his inspirations. We cannot wonder, therefore, that the finest results were thus produced. But it is not to be believed that either of them worked upon the clay. Copies of their pictures were painted upon the maiolica by other hands, and vastly inferior ones to theirs. [Illustration: FIG. 70.--_Raffaelle Ware._] What is known as Raffaelle, or Raffaellesque maiolica, are not those pieces which carry copies of Raffaelle's pictures, but those, like the example seen in Fig. 70, which are ornamented with arabesques, chimeras, scrolls, etc. Of the painting of Xanto, a competent critic, Mr. J. C. Robinson, thus writes: "Xanto's works may be considered to represent perfectly the 'Majoliche istoriate,' and he certainly had a talent for the arrangement of his works in composition, nearly all his subjects being 'pasticci;' the various figures or groups introduced being the invention of other artists copied with adroit variations over and over again, and made to do duty in the most widely different characters. As an original artist--if, indeed, he can be so considered--he may be classed with the more mannered of the scholars of Raffaelle. His designs are generally from classical or mythological subjects. Xanto's execution, although dexterous, is monotonous and mechanical; his scale of coloring is crude and positive, full of violent oppositions, the only merit, if merit it be, being that of a certain force and brightness of aspect; in every other respect his coloring is commonplace, not to say disagreeable even; blue, crude opaque yellow, and orange tints, and bright verdigris green, are the dominant hues, and are scattered over the pieces in full, unbroken masses, the yellow especially meeting the eye at the first glance. In the unsigned pieces, before 1531, the glaze is better and more transparent, the execution more delicate, and the outline more hard and black, than in the later specimens. Some of Xanto's wares are profusely enriched with metallic lustres, including the beautiful ruby tint; these specimens, however, form but a small, percentage of the entire number of his works extant. This class of piece is, moreover, interesting from the fact that the iridescent colors were obviously not of Xanto's own production, but that, on the contrary, they were applied to his wares by Mo. Giorgio, and the supposed continuers of Giorgio's 'fabrique' in Gubbio. Many pieces are extant which, in addition to Xanto's own signature, nearly always written in dark-blue or olive tint, are likewise signed with the monogram 'N' of the Giorgio school in the lustre-tint; and one specimen, at least, has been observed which, though painted by Xanto, has been signed in the lustre-tint by Maestro Giorgio himself." At this time there came to Urbino some artists who took the name of _Fontana_, whose works have a great fame--when known; their name originally is believed to have been Pellipario. These brothers appear to have founded a factory or "botega" of their own at Urbino, where they did much work which reached a high reputation. But little of it, however, is surely known; for these painters, like most of the maiolica-painters, but rarely signed their pieces. "With regard to the Fontana family, chiefs among Italian ceramic artists, we quote from the notice by Mr. Robinson appended to the Soulages catalogue. He tells us that 'the celebrity of one member of this family has been long established by common consent. Orazio Fontana has always occupied the highest place in the scanty list of maiolica artists, although at the same time nothing was definitely known of his works. Unlike their contemporary Xanto, the Fontana seem but rarely to have signed their productions, and consequently their reputation as yet rests almost entirely on tradition, on incidental notices in writings which date back to the age in which they flourished, and on facts extracted at a recent period from local records. No connected account of this family has as yet been attempted, although the materials are somewhat less scanty than usual. There can be no doubt that a considerable proportion of the products of the Fontana "boteghe" is still extant, and that future observations will throw light on much that is now obscure in the history of this notable race of industrial artists. Orazio Fontana, whose renown seems to have completely eclipsed that of the other members of his family, and, in fact, of all the other Urbinese artists, is first mentioned by Baldi, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, in his eulogy of the state of Urbino pronounced before Duke Francesco Maria II.... From documents cited by Raffaelli, it is established beyond doubt that the original family name was _Pellipario_, of Castel-Durante, Fontana being an adopted surname; and it is not immaterial to observe that down to the latest mention of any one of the family (in 1605) they are invariably described as of Castel-Durante.... The Fontana were undoubtedly manufacturers as well as artists, i.e., they were the proprietors of "vaserie." Of the first Nicola, as we have only a brief incidental notice, nothing positive can be affirmed; but with respect to his son Guido we have the testimony both of works still extant and of contemporary documents. We know, also, that Guido's son Orazio also had a manufactory of his own, and the fact is established that between 1565 and 1571 there were two distinct Fontana manufactories--those of father and son. What became of Orazio's establishment after his death, whether continued by his brother Camillo or reunited to that of the father, there is no evidence to show. With respect to the remaining members of the family, our information is of the scantiest kind. Camillo, who was inferior in reputation as a painter only to his elder brother, appears to have been invited to Ferrara by Duke Alfonso II., and to have introduced the maiolica-manufacture into that city. Of Nicola, the third (?) son, we have only incidental mention in a legal document, showing that he was alive in the year 1570. Guido, son of Camillo, lived till 1605; and of Flaminio, who may either have been son of Camillo or of Nicola, Dennistoun's vague notice asserting his settlement in Florence is all I have been able to collect. No signed pieces of Camillo, Flaminio, Nicola the second, or Guido the second, have as yet been observed. "'A considerable proportion of the Fontana maiolica is doubtless still extant; and it is desirable to endeavor to identify the works of the individual members of the family, without which the mere knowledge of their existence is of very little moment; but this is no easy task; although specimens from the hands of one or other of them are to be undoubtedly found in almost every collection, the work of comparison and collation has as yet been scarcely attempted. The similarity of style and technical characteristics of the several artists, moreover, working, as they did, with the same colors on the same quality of enamel-ground, and doubtless in intimate communication with each other, resolves itself into such a strong family resemblance that it will require the most minute and careful observation, unremittingly continued, ere the authorship of the several specimens can be determined with anything like certainty. The evidence of signed specimens is, of course, the most to be relied on, and is indeed indispensable in giving the clew to complete identification in the first instance; but in the case of the Fontana family a difficulty presents itself which should be noticed in the outset. This difficulty arises in determining the authorship of the pieces signed "_Fatto in botega_," etc.--a mode of signature, in fact, which proves very little in determining individual characteristics, inasmuch as apparently nearly all the works so inscribed are painted by other hands than that of the proprietor of the Vaseria. In cases, however, in which the artist has actually signed or initialed pieces with his own name, of course no such difficulty exists, but the certainty acquired by this positive evidence is as yet confined in the case of the Fontana family to their greatest name, Orazio.'" With regard to the artistic quality of this work, I will quote the criticism of a competent judge, Mr. Fortnum, as upon the general question I have a few words to say further on; for it is unfortunately true that too many buy for the name, and not the merit. He says: "The celebrated vases made for the _spezieria_ of the duke were produced at the Fontana fabrique, and subsequently presented to the Santa Casa at Loreto, where many of them are still preserved. Those shown to the writer on his visit to that celebrated shrine some few years since did not strike him as being of such extraordinary beauty and great artistic excellence as the high-flown eulogy bestowed upon them by some writers would have led him to expect. The majority of the pieces are drug-pots of a not unusual form, but all or nearly all of them are 'istoriati,' instead of being, as is generally the case, simply decorated with 'trofei,' 'foglie,' 'grotesche,' the more usual and less costly ornamentation. Some of the pieces have serpent-handles, mask-spouts, etc., but he vainly looked for the magnificent vases of unsurpassed beauty; nor, indeed, did he see anything equal to the shaped pieces preserved in the Bargello at Florence. The work of the well-known hands of the Fontana fabrique is clearly recognizable, and several pieces are probably by Orazio. Some, more important, preserved in a low press, were finer examples. We have said that the pieces individually are not so striking, but, taken as a whole, it is a very remarkable service, said to have originally numbered three hundred and eighty vases, all painted with subjects after the designs of Battista Franco, Giulio Romano, Angelo, and Raffaelle; and, as the work of one private artistic pottery in the comparatively remote capital of a small duchy, it bears no slight testimony to the extraordinary development of every branch of art-industry in the various districts of Italy during the sixteenth century." At the period of which we write, Italy had become the leading nation of Europe in all that pertained to literature and the arts; her painters, sculptors, and poets, had thrown over her people and history a glory, or rather a glamour, which was but the iridescence which whispered of decay. Within a century all had sunk into insignificance and palsy. To-day the world visits Italy to see with curious eyes what she _has_ been, not what she is. The art and the maiolica which she now produces are but copies, and too often bad copies, of that past. The manufactories of _Ginori_ at Florence, and of _Giustiniani_ at Naples, make much good work; but, so far as I have seen, they blindly copy the shapes, the colors, and the decoration, of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and attempt nothing more. And the pity is that we, who buy to-day, seem to _want_ only those! In our pursuit of art it may be well to remember that no nation can be created by "art," and none can be saved by it. When it is enlisted only in copying the past, it means feebleness and decay. From about the year 1500 to 1560 is counted the "fine period" of maiolica-painting, when the painters of whom I have spoken were transferring the compositions of such artists as Raffaelle, Giulio Romano, and Parmegiano, to the clay. These have always had a great value, and always will. The prices vary as the fashion varies. I find at the Bernal sale, in 1856, the prices quoted range from five to one hundred and twenty pounds, since which time they have enormously increased, so that Marryat quotes one piece at eight hundred and eighty pounds; and a beautiful ruby-lustred dish of _Gubbio_ maiolica, exhibited in Sir Richard Wallace's collection at Bethnal Green, _was said_ to have cost forty thousand dollars, which one easily doubts. The most extreme prices were and are paid for the elaborate figure-pieces copied from the works of Raphael and others. When to these are added the brilliant lustres of Gubbio, we have all that maiolica can show. When the fabric began to decline in quality, the elaborate figure-painting rapidly went out of use, and arabesques of all kinds, conceits of all kinds--birds, boys, monsters, anything--came in to vary the decoration: these could be done by inferior painters; and the decline of maiolica was as sudden as its rise had been rapid. GUBBIO.--I have spoken of a beautiful plate, brilliant with its ruby-lustre, exhibited at Bethnal Green in the collection of Sir Richard Wallace. The work done at this small town of Gubbio is noted for its _lustres_; for, while other maiolicas also were decorated with these exquisite flashings of color, these had a marked superiority. The paintings applied there, like those at Urbino, Castel-Durante, and the other "botegas," were in considerable variety, including sacred, profane, and historical subjects; the beauty and the value of these colored lustres were soon discovered. To one man the especial honor has been given of making them, whether he was the discoverer or not. He is known as _Maestro Giorgio Andreoli_, usually called "Maestro Giorgio." He was not only a painter and designer, but he early saw and seized upon the magical art of imparting an added beauty by the use of what is termed _lustre_. It was applied before his day by the Moors of Spain and Majorca, and also by the potters at Pesaro. But Giorgio seems to have produced results finer than any; and one, the ruby-color, seems to be identified with him. Besides the ruby, he used, with great effect, gold, silver, and copper lustres; and not only were these applied to the paintings done under his eye, but works from other factories were sent to him to be endued with this subtile charm. I cannot do better than to give here the results of Mr. Fortnum's careful study of this subject: "Chiefly under the direction of one man, it would seem that the produce of the Gubbio furnaces was for the most part of a special nature; namely, a decoration of the pieces with the lustre-pigments, producing those brilliant metallic-ruby, golden, and opalescent tints which vary in every piece, and which assume almost every color of the rainbow as they reflect the light directed at varying angles upon their surface. That the Gubbio ware was of a special nature, and produced only at a few fabriques almost exclusively devoted to that class of decoration, is to be reasonably inferred from Piccolpasso's statement, who, speaking of the application of the maiolica-pigments, says, '_Non ch'io ne abbia mai fatto ne men veduto fare._' He was the maestro of an important botega at Castel-Durante, one of the largest and most productive of the Umbrian manufactories, within a few miles, also, of those of Urbino, with which he must have been intimately acquainted and in frequent correspondence. That he, in the middle of the sixteenth century, when all these works were at the highest period of their development, should be able to state that he had not only never applied or even witnessed the process of application of these lustrous enrichments, is, we think, a convincing proof that they were never adopted at either of those seats of the manufacture of enameled pottery. Although much modified and improved, lustre-colors were not invented by Italian artists, but were derived from the potters of the East, probably from the Moors of Sicily, of Spain, or of Majorca. Hence (we once more repeat) the name 'majolica' was originally applied only to wares having the lustre enrichment; but, since the decline of the manufacture, the term has been more generally given: all varieties of Italian enameled pottery being usually, though wrongly, known as 'maiolica.' "That some of these early _bacili_, so well known, and apparently the work of one artist, were made at Pesaro, whence the secret and probably the artist passed to Gubbio, is far from improbable. The reason for this emigration is not known, but it may be surmised that the large quantity of broom and other brush-wood necessary for the reducing process of the reverberatory furnace in which this lustre was produced might have been more abundantly supplied by the hills of Gubbio than in the vicinity of the larger city on the coast. That the process of producing these metallic effects was costly, we gather from Piccolpasso's statement that sometimes not more than six pieces out of a hundred succeeded in the firing. "The fame of the Gubbio wares is associated almost entirely with one name, that of Giorgio Andreoli. We learn from the Marchese Brancaleoni that this artist was the son of Pietro, of a 'Castello' called 'Judeo,' in the diocese of Pavia; and that, accompanied by his brother Salimbene, he went to Gubbio in the second half of the fifteenth century. He appears to have left and again returned thither in 1492, accompanied by his younger brother Giovanni. They were enrolled as citizens on the 23d of May, 1498, on pain of forfeiting five hundred ducats if they left the city in which they engaged to continue practising their ceramic art. Patronized by the dukes of Urbino, Giorgio was made 'castellano' of Gubbio. Passeri states that the family was noble in Pavia. It is not known why or when he was created a 'Maestro'--a title prized even more than nobility--but it is to be presumed that it took place at the time of his enrollment as a citizen, his name with the title 'Maestro' first appearing on a document dated that same year, 1498. Piccolpasso states that maiolica-painters were considered noble by profession. The family of Andreoli and the 'Casa' still exist in Gubbio, and it was asserted by his descendant, Girolamo Andreoli, who died some forty years since, that political motives induced their emigration from Pavia. "Maestro Giorgio was an artist by profession, not only as a draughtsman, but as a modeler; and, being familiar with the enameled terra-cottas of Luca della Robbia, is said to have executed with his own hands and in their manner large altar-pieces. We were once disposed to think that great confusion existed in respect to these altar-pieces in _rilievo_, and were inclined to the belief that, although some of the smaller lustred-works may have been modeled by Giorgio, the larger altar-pieces were really only imported by him. Judging from the most important which we have been able to examine, the 'Madonna del Rosario,' portions of which are in the museum at Frankfort-on-the-Main, it seemed to approach more nearly to the work of some member of the Della Robbia family. This fine work is in part glazed, and in part colored in distemper on the unglazed terra-cotta, in which respect it precisely agrees with works known to have been executed by Andrea della Robbia, assisted by his sons. There are no signs of the application of the lustre-colors to any portion of the work, but this might be accounted for by the great risk of failure in the firing, particularly to pieces of such large size and in high-relief. Be this as it may, from a further consideration of the style of this work and the record of others, some of which are heightened with the lustre-colors, and the fact stated by the Marchese Brancaleoni that a receipt for an altar-piece is still preserved in the archives of Gubbio, we are inclined to think that history must be correct in attributing these important works in ceramic sculpture to Maestro Giorgio Andreoli. If they were his unassisted work, he deserves as high a place among the modelers of his period as he is acknowledged to have among artistic potters. "Maestro Giorgio's manner of decoration consists of foliated scrolls and other ornaments terminating in dolphins, eagles, and human heads, trophies, masks, etc.; in the drawing of which he exhibited considerable power, with great facility of invention. These 'grotesche' differ materially from those of Urbino and Faenza, approaching more to the style of some of the Castel-Durante designs. In the drawing of figures, and of the nude, Giorgio cannot be ranked as an artist of the first class. From 1519 his signature, greatly varied, occurs through succeeding years. It would be useless to repeat the many varieties, several of which will be seen in the large catalogue and among the marks on specimens in other collections. We believe that to whim or accident may be ascribed those changes that have tasked the ingenuity of connoisseurs to read as other names. His finer and more important pieces were generally signed in full, 'Maestro Giorgio da Ugubio,' with the year, and sometimes the day of the month." It may be said that the secret of this ruby-lustre was soon lost, and has not been fully recovered; although admirable pieces are now made in England. It is impossible to convey in any engraving the subtile beauty imparted by these lustres; it seems to me that this is by far the finest and most fascinating quality of the maiolicas. Of the work made at CASTEL-DURANTE but little need be said in addition to what has been written upon the general subject of Italian maiolica. This was a small town in the neighborhood of Urbino; which town since then has been dignified with the name of Urbania, after Pope Urban VIII. At Castel-Durante pottery was made long before it reached the name and fame of maiolica. Through a book left by a potter of the place, named Piccolpasso, it is perhaps better known than by the maiolica made there. This manuscript book, which he illustrated with pen-and-ink drawings, gives some account of the wares produced there. I believe the book is now the property of the Kensington Museum at London. There are some few signed examples of the maiolica of Castel-Durante in the collections of England and of the Continent. I know of none in the United States. Of a piece owned by Mrs. H. T. Hope, of England, Mr. Robinson says in his enthusiastic way, "In the design and execution of the painting, splendor of color, and perfection of enamel-glaze, this magnificent piece is a triumph of the art." The ware made here is said to be recognized by "a pale buff-colored paste, and great richness and purity of the glaze." Still none but an expert--a person who has made these productions a study--could distinguish them from those made at some other Italian factories. FAENZA.--Under the name of _Faenza_, an old town of Roman Italy, all sorts of waifs and strays which have no other home are likely to be classed. Its productions have no such peculiarities as mark those of Urbino, Gubbio, and some other Italian "botegas." But for the antiquity and extent of its potteries, and also because it seems to have given the name "_faience_" to all earthen-ware pottery made in France, it has a certain importance. I therefore give a single extract from what Mr. Fortnum has written about it. As there are a considerable number of these druggist's pots (see Fig. 64) in this country, the matter may be of interest. He writes: "From an early period Faenza seems to have produced a large number of electuary-pots and pharmacy-bottles; a pair are in the Hôtel Cluny, one bearing the name FAENZA, the other 1500. Many of these vases are decorated in the style known as _a quartiere_, being divided into compartments, painted in bright yellow, etc., on dark blue, with foliated and other ornament, and usually having a medallion with profile head or subject on one side, under which the name of the drug in Gothic lettering is inscribed on a ribbon. A curious example is in the British Museum: a large flask-shaped bottle of dark-blue ground with yellow leafage and with twisted handles, upon the medallion of which is represented a bear clasping a column, with the inscription, '_et sarrimo boni amici_,' allusive, in all probability, to the reconciliation of the rival houses of Orsini and Colonna in 1517. "We would here refer to the frequent occurrence on these vases, as occasionally upon other pieces, of pharmaceutical and ecclesiastical signs, letters, etc., surmounted by the archiepiscopal cross and other emblems which we believe have reference to the uses of monastic and private pharmacies for which the services were made, and not to be confounded, as has been too frequently the case, with the marks of _boteghe_ or of the painters of the piece. These emblems have no other value to us than the clew which they might afford to patient investigation of the locality and brotherhood of the conventual establishment to which they may have belonged, and among the archives of which may be recorded the date and the fabrique by which they were furnished. But what are of far greater interest are those admirable early pieces, painted by ceramic artists of the first rank, who, beyond a rare monogram or date, have left no record of their place or name; and whose highly-prized works, for their authors are several, are jealously guarded in our public and private museums. Some of these, with reasonable probability, are believed to have been executed at Faenza. Several examples are preserved, of an early character, perhaps the work of one hand, who marked them on the back with a large 'M' crossed by a paraph. They are usually plateaux with raised centre, on which is a portrait-head, or shallow dishes with flat border. Variations of the letter 'F' are found on pieces, some of which are fairly ascribable to this fabrique; but we need not point out the fact that many other localities of the manufacture can claim the same for their initial letter, and that the characteristics and technical qualities of the pieces themselves are a necessary test. "Later in the sixteenth century, when subject-painting, covering the whole surface of the piece, was in general fashion (_istoriata_), the unsigned works produced at Faenza are difficult to distinguish from those of other fabriques. Some examples exist in collections, as one in the Louvre, with the subject of a cavalry-skirmish, and inscribed, '_1561 in Faenca_;' but we have no knowledge of their painters, and even the occurrence of the name of that city is but rarely met with. Her wares are usually richly ornamented on the back with imbrication, as was the manner of Manara, or with concentric lines of blue, yellow, and orange. "Of the pottery produced at Faenza during the seventeenth and the last century we have but little record. Some pharmacy-vases are mentioned by M. Jacquemart, signed 'Andrea Pantales Pingit, 1616,' but the signature does not appear to be accompanied by the name of that city. In 1639 Francesco Vicchij was the proprietor of the most important fabrique. "A modern establishment professes to occupy the premises of the ancient Casa Pirota, where we have seen fairly good reproductions of the ordinary _sopra azzuro_ plates of the old botega; but these are but weak imitations, and the glory of Faentine ceramic art must be looked for in museums." The "SGRAFFIATO" wares of Italy do not come under the head of maiolica. The term is used to designate work where the design is scratched or incised upon the clay; and in Italy, often upon a white clay laid over a darker clay, so that the design shows through the lighter "slip" or "engobe," as the covering is called. Of _Forli_, _Venice_, _Castelli_, or _Abruzzi_, and the many other manufactories of maiolica, it will be almost useless to write here. We have few, if any, examples of the work in this country; and without examples it is difficult to make the subject interesting. I have not attempted to give any "marks" of maiolica, for two reasons: one, that we have so little opportunity for purchasing that the knowledge of the marks, such as they are, would be almost wholly useless; and, second, these marks are of little use anywhere. Few of the painters were in the habit of marking their work; and, when they did, their marks seem to have had no uniformity, and were varied in many whimsical ways. Those who wish to buy pieces of maiolica, unless they have made the matter a study, will hardly do it without consulting a person of experience; and a person of experience will not be guided solely by the marks. It can do no harm to say that admirable counterfeits are now made, both in Italy and in France (probably also in Germany), of the finest of the old maiolicas, design, color, and all complete. Even judicious chippings of edges and mild cracks are added to please the exacting connoisseurs. Any person, therefore, who is looking for the best specimens of "genuine old" maiolicas, at the _smallest prices_, will be fairly and fully met in the shops of the Continent. [Illustration: FIG. 71.--_From the Kensington Collection._] With regard to some of the most celebrated maiolica, I have quoted the judgments of two most competent writers as to the beauties of two of the most famous artists. It is far from being high praise. I venture to say, in addition, that much, very much, of what I have had the opportunity to see, strikes me forcibly as being crude and poor in color, bad in drawing, uninteresting in design, and wretched in clay and in glaze. Not that there are not good and beautiful works among the maiolicas; but it seems to me they are few. Besides this, I believe the great maiolica-painters, such as Xanto and Giorgio, were wholly wrong in attempting to transfer to pottery the pictures of Raffaelle and Giulio Romano; at least, they can be but very poor representations of the pictures themselves, and therefore unjust to their models, and useless to us as examples of high art. We copy here (Fig. 71), from Mr. Fortnum, one of the elaborate figure-pieces of maiolica in the Kensington collection; which, as it seems to us, is a striking proof of what has just been said. In the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts at Boston are to be seen ten or twelve plates, bowls, etc., which give a fair exhibition of the work of the sixteenth-century painters. Some of these are attributed to the best masters, the Fontana and Xanto, and one has the mark of Xanto. The large and varied collection of Italian maiolicas brought to the Philadelphia Exhibition in 1876 is now (May, 1877) to be seen in the rooms of the Metropolitan Museum of Art at New York, and it offers an excellent opportunity for examining and studying these styles of fictile work. WHAT IS DOING IN ITALY NOW.--A very large show of Italian maiolica of to-day was made at the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia in 1876. What did we find there? Hundreds of imitations. Italy especially has been devoting herself with great industry to reproductions of the vases, ewers, tazzas, plaques, dishes, and so on, of the past; and some very fair ones were sent from Pesaro, Rome, and Faenza. The vases and ewers bearing figure-pieces or mythological pictures had a certain quality peculiar to this style of work which at first may excite distaste rather than desire, but after a time may induce a mild sort of assent; more, we believe, from the low and quiet tones and harmonies of color than from any marked excellence of either the form of the vase or the painted subject. The two names most conspicuous as potters in Italy now--_Ginori_ at Florence, and _Giustiniani_ at Naples--did not appear among the exhibitors, so far as we know. Of Ginori's work we give a fine example in Fig. 71_a_. But if draughtsmen and artists so good would only give us their pictures of the life of Italy to-day as they so well could do--of the peasants and their donkeys, their vine-dressing and wine-making, their fishing, their cooking, their street-work in its thousand varieties! That they could, and do not; that they continue on and on with the stupid round of copy after copy in all departments of art, may mean that the good public who have money to spend want these copies, and therefore potters and painters sink from the clear air of invention and originality into the dull inanities of copying. [Illustration: FIG. 71 _a_.--_Maiolica Vase, by Ginori._] CHAPTER VII. FRENCH FAIENCE.--PALISSY WARE, AND HENRI-DEUX WARE. Bernard Palissy.--The Catholics and the Huguenots.--Saintes.--Figurines.--The Centennial Exhibition.--Prices.--Henri-Deux--where made--when.--Copies at Philadelphia.--List of Pieces extant, and Prices. Bernard Palissy.--Over the name and fame of Palissy hangs an aureola of glory. He was a potter, and he learned his trade through much perseverance and much suffering. But, more than that, he was a Protestant in the days of the Leaguers, when to be a Protestant in France meant to persecute or to be persecuted; and it meant also peril and probable death. Palissy was born about 1510, and died in 1590. He lived, therefore, through the times of the bitter and cruel wars of the Huguenots and the Catholics, when political and religious and social intrigues divided the nobility of France into factions, which were not only ready to, but did, rend each other's throats. He lived--he, a Protestant--through the wholesale butcheries of St. Bartholomew (1572), when it is asserted that from twenty to one hundred thousand Protestants were slaughtered in the kingdom of France in cold blood. Palissy was one of those Protestants, was known as one, and he was not slaughtered. From this fact has come a good part of his glory, as a few words may serve to explain. For a long time the struggle for power between the Catholic party and the Huguenot party had raged, with varying fortunes, when both sides pillaged and persecuted, and true religion was driven to the wall, or fled from France. At last the Catholic party, under the lead of the Duke of Guise, secured the preëminence, and in due time--in 1559--severe edicts were issued against the Protestants. Palissy was not safe; but by that time he had acquired reputation as a potter, and had made pieces of his rustic ware for the king and for members of the court. He was known to the king; and the queen-mother, Catherine de' Medicis, brought him to Paris, established his furnaces in the grounds of the Tuileries, made him a servant of the king, and so saved him for the time from the persecutions which swept away his brethren. It must be remembered that those were days in which many men _believed_--believed that their truth or faith was the only thing to save them from the eternal fires of hell. Palissy was one of those earnest, intense, narrow natures who believed their faith was the only true faith for man. All the influence of the queen, the persuasions of the priests, and even the appeals of the king, could not shake him. Palissy has written his own story, and it has the interest of romance and the fervor of faith. When he was eighty years old he was thrown into the Bastile, with other stanch Huguenots, because of his faith. The king, Henry III., is reported to have said: "My good friend, you have now been five-and-forty years in the service of my mother and myself; we have allowed you to retain your religion in the midst of fire and slaughter. Now I am so hard pressed by the Guises and my own people, that I am constrained to deliver you up into the hands of your enemies, and to-morrow you will be burned unless you are converted." Inflexible to the last, the old man is reported to have answered the king in this wise: "Sire, I am ready to resign my life for the glory of God. You have told me several times that you pity me; and I in my turn pity you, who have used the words '_I am constrained_.' It was not spoken like a king, sire; and these are words which neither you nor those who constrain you, the Guisards and all your people, will ever be able to make me utter, for I know how to die." The whole world admires pluck; and that, we cannot doubt, marked the character of the man. We need only to look at his face (Fig. 72) to believe that he might have said those words. And those who came after him, inheriting in a degree the hatred of the Catholics which he enjoyed, have not allowed the words nor the fame of the man to die. But he was not put to death; he lingered out his last year in the prisons of the Bastile, and then departed. The story he left behind him, of his own struggles and sufferings in seeking and finding the arts of the potter, has been intensified by his admirers; they have added to its intrinsic interest by telling of his patience, his endurance, his suffering, and his final success--that which can be imparted by the glow of admiring souls, who see in him a hero such as they would themselves wish to be, but are not. [Illustration: FIG. 72.--_Bernard Palissy._] That story is briefly this: He was born poor, but he had patience, industry, and an aspiring nature. He studied, he learned, he sought; he became something of a draughtsman, a painter, a surveyor, a writer. Glass-painting may be said to have been his occupation, or one of them; and, in following this, he came quickly into sympathy with cognate arts. We can well believe, therefore, that when he saw a beautifully-enameled cup--whether one of those now so famous as the _Henri-Deux_ ware, or whether one of those already made at Nuremberg by _Hirschvogel_ (probably the latter)--we can well believe that it inspired his soul with enthusiasm, and held him with the tenacity we know to have marked his character. From that day he was possessed; he had a mastering thought: it was to discover the secrets of this art, and to apply them to the production of like ware in France, where it was not known. With little or no knowledge of chemistry, with none of pottery, he set himself to the task. He worked persistently, indefatigably, but darkly, ignorantly, wastefully, and at last only reached a half-success. He did this, too, by sacrificing largely of his own life for sixteen years, and, more than that, as he has himself told the story, by the hard and almost cruel sacrifice of the decent comforts of life of his wife and family. He borrowed the money of his friends and neighbors to conduct his experiments; he burned his tables and chairs to heat his furnaces; he could not pay his assistants; he could bear the tears and reproaches of his wife and his friends, and did so for years; and all this for what some persons call the "glorious result" of discovering a glaze for pottery--which had already been known and was in full practice at Nuremberg, only a hundred miles from him! If, as is stated by Demmin, he did himself visit Nuremberg to see and learn what was there being done, his course becomes still more inexplicable and unpraiseworthy. And what makes the matter still more curious is that, after all, he did not succeed in discovering or applying the stanniferous enamel; for M. Demmin states positively that his glaze was the plumbiferous glaze, and not the stanniferous. Quoting his words, he says: "On ne rencontre pas la moindre parcelle d'émail stannifère, blanc ou autres, sur les poteries attribuées à ce maître. Le _blanc_ est une terre blanchâtre qui, couverte d'un vernis incolore, conserve sa blancheur." If, therefore, it may be questioned whether the object of discovering a stanniferous glaze was worthy the sacrifice of sixteen years of his own life, as well as of the peace and comfort of his friends and family; and if, after all, he did not discover it; and if, besides that, he might have obtained it from Hirschvogel without all this tribulation, and did not--we may well be at a loss to understand the high praise which in some quarters has been lavished on Palissy; and for myself I am not willing to continue it. Martyrdom is usually a very poor business, and the cause of good pottery certainly does not demand it. [Illustration: FIG. 73.--_Large Oval Dish, from the Museum of the Louvre._] The work begun at _Saintes_ about 1535, and afterward carried on at Paris, is marked by peculiarities which for a long time were supposed to be confined to the wares of Palissy. These were the use of shells, lizards, snakes, fish, frogs, insects, and plants, in high-relief upon the surface of his plates and dishes. This will be shown in the example we give (Fig. 73), which is one of the finest pieces of this work extant, now in the museum of the Louvre. And even this is now believed by some competent experts to be of modern manufacture. These natural objects were modeled with considerable care, and colored to represent the real things, so that they have a value to the naturalist as well as to the potter. [Illustration: FIG. 74.--_Palissy Dish._] As works of ceramic art, can we accord them a high rank, or can we get much satisfaction in their contemplation? Can we accept them as _art_ at all? Admit them to be clever imitations--and that is all, it seems to me, we can do--and they fall to the place of prettiness, and rank with wax-flowers and alabaster-apples. [Illustration: FIG. 75.--_A Basket, by Palissy, in the Kensington Museum._] It is quite certain that work of this sort was done by many potters after Palissy, if not by his contemporaries; and collectors have been induced to pay great prices for things alleged to be the work of Palissy which are now known not to have been made by him. In addition to this, the world is full of counterfeits of this sort of thing which out-Palissy Palissy; and the extravagant prices once paid for counterfeits cannot now be obtained for what are known to be genuine. [Illustration: FIG. 76.--_Perpendicular View, showing the Marguerites on the Edge._] The other two examples shown in Figs. 74, 75, and 76, differ from the first; and it may be doubted whether these are not to be attributed to some other potter than Palissy. The cornucopia on Fig. 74 was a favorite decoration at Rouen, and might readily enough find a place there. This style of work, being made in moulds, can be easily and cheaply reproduced. At one time a large number of _figurines_, such as "The Nurse" and others, were attributed to Palissy, notwithstanding that the dresses, and in some cases the persons, did not exist until after the time of Palissy; but it is now asserted that there is nothing at all to prove that Palissy ever made this style of work. A great number of examples may be seen of so-called "Palissy" in the Kensington Museum at London and in the Louvre at Paris. But they nowhere hold the high places they once did, nor do they bring the prices they once did. In the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia of 1876 a great variety of this sort of work was shown, made by the clever potters of the day in Europe. [Illustration: FIG. 77.--_Palissy Jug, from the Museum of the Louvre._] A very large sale has been found within the last twenty years for imitations of Palissy ware, and these have been made with great skill by Barbizôt and Aviso, of France, and by Minton, of England; indeed, some of these seem much better than any I have seen supposed to be the genuine thing. The virtues most needed are, of course, patience and a keen faculty of imitation--art in any good sense is not essential. The sales of Palissy ware at the Bernal sale were not at the high figures they afterward reached. The prices ran from seven to one hundred and sixty-two pounds, the latter price having been paid for a circular dish twelve and a half inches in diameter, which, having been broken into pieces and mended, was bought by the Baron Rothschild. We give, in Fig. 77, another style of work--a very beautiful jug in the collection of the Louvre. It is there placed among the works of Bernard Palissy; and there are various other pieces of like work so catalogued in the public and private collections of Europe. But there are doubts as to these, which in some minds approach to certainty--doubts whether Palissy himself worked at all with the human form. It is well known that he was a naturalist, a geologist, a scientist, but it is not certain that he was an artist in this direction. Some students assert distinctly that he was not; and it seems most probable that he was not a modeler of the human figure. As work like this, shown in the last illustration, has for so long a period been attributed to him, it has seemed desirable to give an example of it in our pages. That it is work of his time, if not made by him or under his direction, is not questioned. HENRI-DEUX WARE: FAIENCE D'OIRON.--This unique earthen-ware for years perplexed the lovers of pottery. It seemed to appear from Touraine and La Vendée, and only here and there a piece. It was so peculiar, so different from any and all the known styles, that no one could decide whence it came or by whom it was made. The impression--and it was only an impression--seemed to be that it must have come out of Italy, and that Benvenuto Cellini was as likely as any one to have had to do with its designs or execution; and this simply because he was known to have stamped his peculiar taste upon works which might be classed with this only in expressing the finer forms and decorations of the Italian Renaissance. A few pieces only of this ware came to light from time to time, but they were eagerly seized upon, and they gave rise to much speculation. Why there should be so few, and why no traces of like ware were found in other directions, remained for a time a mystery. But it was solved. I quote here from a paper by Mr. Ritter, which sums up what is now known upon the subject; he writes with the knowledge and appreciation of a practical potter: "It was so late as the year 1839 that M. André Pottier, a French writer on art, first announced to the world the existence of the singular species of pottery now known as 'Henri-Deux' ware. He gave it as his opinion that it was the production of Florentine artists working in France. Until thus brought to the knowledge of connoisseurs, the very existence of this exquisite ware had been forgotten. It soon, however, became famous. Every corner of Europe was ransacked for specimens of it. Dukes, princes, and millionaires, contended with the heads of national museums for the few pieces still to be found. No ware ever yet became so costly; for every hundred pounds that a rare piece of Sèvres or maiolica will fetch, the 'Henri-Deux' will bring its thousand. As yet only about fifty pieces have come to light; and of these fifty more than one-half have found their way into the galleries of our wealthier English amateurs. "Those who see a specimen of this rare and precious pottery for the first time are apt to be extremely disappointed. They see a vase, or a ewer, or a candlestick, of fantastic shape, covered with a thin, greenish-yellow glaze, the coloring not by any means brilliant, and the surface seemingly inlaid and incrusted with the innumerable details of a most elaborate ornamentation, made out in quiet browns, blacks, and sad neutral tints. Nothing is less striking to a casual or an ignorant observer--nothing in the whole range of decorative art so absolutely exquisite in design and effect to the cultivated appreciation of a connoisseur in Renaissance-work. "No sooner was the ware discovered than speculations began as to its maker, its date, and the locality of its fabrication. On no single point did the ten or twelve French writers on the subject come to an agreement, and a certain amount of unsolved mystery still attaches to all these points. There is no so-called 'potter's mark' on any of the pieces except one, and this solitary mark is not recognizable as that of any known potter. It may be tortured into a monogram, or assumed to be a device, at the pleasure of those who form their various theories on the origin of the ware. "The pieces are decorated with the arms of French royal and noble families. One piece has on it the salamander surrounded by flames, the device of Francis I. of France; and very many out of the fifty bear the well-known monogram of Henry II. worked into the ornamentation of the surface--a circumstance which has given the ware its name. The date is, therefore, more or less fixed to the short period between 1540 and 1560, or twenty years. As to the nationality of the artist, the best authorities join in thinking he must have been a Frenchman, because the work is essentially of the style of the somewhat distinctive French Renaissance then prevailing. The precise locality of its production could only be inferred to be somewhere in Touraine, because a majority of the pieces can be traced as coming from that province. "Such was the mystery which hung about all connected with this curious ware--a mystery which not a little enhanced the interest taken in it, and perhaps the estimation in which it was held. "This mystery is now, to a great extent, cleared up. "At the court of King Francis lived a widow lady of high birth, named Hélène de Hangest. Her husband had been governor of the king, and Grand-Master of France. She was herself an artist, and a collection of drawings by her of considerable artistic merit is preserved. They are portraits of the celebrities of the period. She was in favor at court; the king himself composed a rhymed motto to each of her portraits, and some of these verses are written in his own hand. It is established that Hélène de Hangest set up a pottery at her Château of Oiron, and that Francis Charpentier, a potter, was in her employ. To his hand, under the auspices of the Châtelaine of Oiron, is due the famous ware of 'Henri-Deux.' "Mr. J. C. Robinson gives it as his opinion that the technical merit of the 'Henri-Deux' ware is very small. With due deference to Mr. Robinson, who, as a rule, writes well and learnedly upon this and cognate matters, we do not think he would say this if he had been able to appreciate the subject from a potter's point of view. The _body_ of the 'Henri-Deux' ware is of admirable texture and quality; the mode in which the various clays are incorporated into the substance of the pieces without shrinking or expansion, the clearness, thinness, and smoothness of the glaze--which, by-the-way, is plumbiferous--all these things are so many marvels of skillful manipulation, and fill the mind of a practical potter with admiration." These curious and interesting facts were brought to light by the researches of a French _savant_, M. B. Fillon, about 1862. [Illustration: FIG. 78.--_Henri-Deux Faience Vase._] It appears that this ware was not made for sale, and that it was not sold, but was made for presents, and therefore was produced only in small quantities. The clay itself is what the French term _terre de pipe_, and what we know as pipe-clay--a white, delicate, and very light clay. The inlaying, or the incised lines which are filled with colored clays, are most delicately cut, and so much resemble work done by book-binders that some persons have suggested that they were made with the tools used in the bookbinder's trade. At any rate, one should give these pieces a close look, for any thoroughly good piece of work is a source of supreme satisfaction. Admirable copies have been made of some pieces of this work by an artist named Toft, which were exhibited at Philadelphia in 1876 by Minton, of England. [Illustration: FIG. 79.--_Henri-Deux Salt-cellar._] We give, in Figs. 78 and 79, two examples, more to exhibit something of the forms and conceits indulged in than to show the delicacy and precision of the work, which are perfect. Fig. 78 is termed a _biberon_; it is but seven inches high. "The upper part is white, the ornaments yellow; and the lower part black, with white ornaments. On the shield underneath the spout are the three crescents interlaced." Fig. 79 is a salt-cellar. After the decease of Madame Hélène de Hangest, who was the widow of Arthur Gouffier, a gentleman of rank, the manufacture of this peculiar ware was continued at the Château d'Oiron by her son, Claude Gouffier; but the production was still limited, and it is doubtful if any pieces were ever sold. It is therefore of great rarity and of corresponding money-value, only fifty-three specimens of it being known to exist. The interest in these pieces is such now that many persons may like to know where they are and what they are thought to be worth. I transcribe from Chaffers as follows: In England there are twenty-six pieces: ---------------------+----------------------------+==> | | DESCRIPTION. | Owner. | | | ---------------------+----------------------------+==> 1. Large ewer | H. Magniac | 2. " " | Sir Anthony de Rothschild | 3. " " | " " | 4. Candlestick | " " | 5. Hanap | " " | 6. Tazza | " " | 7. Cover of a cup | " " | 8. Bouquetière | " " | 9. Candlestick | Andrew Fontaine | 10. Biberon | " " | 11. Salt-cellar | " " | 12. Biberon | Baron Lionel de Rothschild | 13. Salt-cellar | " " | 14. Tazza | Duke of Hamilton | 15. Salt-cellar | " " | 16. " " | George Field, Esq. | 17. Part of ewer | H. T. Hope | 18. Small ewer | " " | 19. " " | M. T. Smith | 20. Biberon | J. Malcolm | 21. Salt-cellar | South Kensington Museum | 22. Tazza and cover | " " | 23. Tazza | " " | 24. Candlestick | " " | 25. Salver | " " | 26. Salt-cellar | " " | ---------------------+----------------------------+==> ---------------------+--------------------------------+-------+---------- | | | DESCRIPTION. | Whence obtained. | Cost. | Estimated | | | Value. ---------------------+--------------------------------+-------+---------- 1. Large ewer | Odiot sale, 1842 | £96 | £1,500 2. " " | Strawberry Hill, 1842 | 20 | 1,200 3. " " | De Monville collection | 140 | 1,200 4. Candlestick | Préaux sale, 1850 | 208 | 1,000 5. Hanap | De Bruge sale, 1849 | 20 | 500 6. Tazza | Préaux sale, 1850 | 44 | 500 7. Cover of a cup | Unknown | | 150 8. Bouquetière | Bought of a curé at Tours | 48 | 800 9. Candlestick | Bought a century ago | | 1,000 10. Biberon | " " | | 800 11. Salt-cellar | " " | | 500 12. Biberon | Bought of Madame Delaunay | | 800 13. Salt-cellar | Strawberry Hill, 1842 | 21 | 300 14. Tazza | Préaux sale, '50; Rattier, '59 | 280 | 500 15. Salt-cellar | " " | 80 | 300 16. " " | ... | | 300 17. Part of ewer | De Bruge sale, 1849 | 16 | 300 18. Small ewer | " " | 20 | 600 19. " " | Bought as Palissy | | 600 20. Biberon | Pourtalès sale, 1865 | 1,100 | 1,100 21. Salt-cellar | Soltykoff, 1861, to Napier | 268 | 300 22. Tazza and cover | " " | 450 | 500 23. Tazza | Poitiers, 50 s., Delange | 180 | 180 24. Candlestick | De Norzy sale | 640 | 750 25. Salver | Espoulart, 1857 | 180 | 400 26. Salt-cellar | Addington collection | 300 | 300 ---------------------+--------------------------------+-------+---------- In France there are twenty-six pieces: --------------------+--------------------------+==> | | DESCRIPTION. | Owner. | | | --------------------+--------------------------+==> 27. Tazza | Le Duc d'Uzes | 28. Cover of cup | " " | 29. Pilgrim's bottle| " " | 30. Tazza and cover | M. Hutteau d'Origny | 31. " " | Musée de Cluny | 32. Salt-cellar | Baron A. de Rothschild | 33. Jug or canette | " " | 34. Small ewer | " " | 35. Candlestick | Baron G. de Rothschild | 36 Hanap | " " | 37. Tazza | Baron James de Rothschild| 38. Biberon | Museum of the Louvre | 39. Salt-cellar | " " | 40. " " | " " | 41. " " | " " | 42. Tazza | " " | 43. Salt-cellar | " " | 44. Tazza | " " | 45. " | Sèvres Museum | 46. Cover of cup | " " | 47. Salt-cellar | Madame d'Yvon | 48. " " | Comte de Tussau | 49. " " | " " | 50. " " | " " | 51. Cover of tazza. | M. B. Delessert | 52. Biberon | | --------------------+--------------------------+==> --------------------+-----------------------------+-------+---------- | | | DESCRIPTION. | Whence obtained. | Cost. | Estimated | | | Value. --------------------+-----------------------------+-------+---------- 27. Tazza | | | £500 28. Cover of cup | | | 150 29. Pilgrim's bottle| | | 800 30. Tazza and cover | | | 500 31. " " | Bought by M. Thoré in 1798 | £20 | 500 32. Salt-cellar | | | 300 33. Jug or canette | Bought by Strauss, £600 | 800 | 1,000 34. Small ewer | Préaux sale, 1850 | 44 | 500 35. Candlestick | | | £1,000 36 Hanap | | | 500 37. Tazza | South of France, 1860 | £480 | 500 38. Biberon | Sauvageot, from Tours | | 800 39. Salt-cellar | Sauvageot, from Lehrié, 1824| 5 | 300 40. " " | Sauvageot, from Troyes | | 300 41. " " | " " | | 300 42. Tazza | Sauvageot, bo't as Palissy | 8 | 500 43. Salt-cellar | Revoil collection, 1828 | | 300 44. Tazza | " " | | 500 45. " | | | 500 46. Cover of cup | | | 150 47. Salt-cellar | | | 300 48. " " | | | 300 49. " " | | | 300 50. " " | | | 300 51. Cover of tazza. | South of France, by Rutter. | 4 | 150 52. Biberon | | | --------------------+-----------------------------+-------+---------- In Russia, one piece: --------------------+---------------------------+==> DESCRIPTION. | Owner. | | | --------------------+---------------------------+==> 53. Biberon. | Prince Galitzin | --------------------+---------------------------+==> --------------------+------------------------------+-------+---------- DESCRIPTION. | Whence obtained. | Cost. | Estimated | | | Value. --------------------+------------------------------+-------+---------- 53. Biberon. | Préaux sale, 1850 | £100 | £800 --------------------+------------------------------+-------+---------- CHAPTER VIII. FRENCH FAIENCE.--NEVERS, ROUEN, BEAUVAIS, ETC. Number of Manufactories.--Their Rise and Decline.--Nevers.--Prices.--Beauvais.--Rouen.--Moustiers.--Strasbourg, or Haguenau.--Marseilles.--Sarreguemines.--Sinceny, Nancy, Creil, Montpellier.--Paris.--Paris to-day.--Limoges.--Deck. Of French faiences, the _Palissy_ ware and the _Henri-Deux_ have been already treated. I now propose to give some account of the most prominent among the very large number of potteries which, in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, sprang up in various parts of France. Mr. Chaffers, in his work upon "Pottery," etc., enumerates one hundred and sixty-five factories which in 1790 petitioned the National Assembly that they might not be ruined by the floods of cheap pottery then being sent in from England; and this was not the whole number in France. Great skill and much good taste have been expended upon the faiences of France, and some of the work rises into the region of art. Much of that found in collections and museums is of this kind. But it should not be forgotten that the great purpose and business of those manufactories was the production of dishes, plates, and services, for the table--for the uses of life. And in this direction the production in France was very large and profitable, until the time when, as said above, the introduction of cheap wares from England ruined the makers. These disastrous changes and whimseys of trade, disagreeable as they may be to the masters and the workmen who are ruined, do give a certain zest and variety to human history; they relieve life from the monotony and dullness which usually attends upon unbroken prosperity. As some of the _doctrinaires_ tell us, they are really blessings--often very much in disguise; at least, they seem so to those who are the immediate sufferers. Nearly the whole of the French potteries went down about the period of the great Revolution, from the effects of the wares introduced from England, and the troubles growing out of the political disorders. Within this last quarter of a century a noted revival has come to this most interesting industry, of which some notice will be made hereafter. It is the fine examples of the work of the older potteries which collectors are desirous to get. _Marks_ are often found upon pieces of the faiences of France, the delft of Holland, etc.; but I do not reproduce them here, partly because they are much less important than those on the porcelains, and partly because we should have almost no occasion for their use. NEVERS.--It is supposed that at Nevers was made the first enameled pottery in France, in the days of Catherine de' Medicis. M. Broc de Ségange, in his work "La Faïence, les Faïenciers et les Émailleurs de Nevers,"[6] traces the beginning of the work to an Italian named _Conrad_, who probably came to France with the queen, and was naturalized in 1578. He and his brothers began the manufacture about that time. Another famous potter there was _Pierre Custode_. It was inevitable that the early faience of Nevers should bear a likeness to that which had grown up so rapidly in Italy, and had impressed itself so vividly upon the artistic mind of Europe. But it was not an imitation. We have little if any examples of this work in our country, and I give Marryat's brief distinction: "The Nevers pottery differs in many points from its Italian original. The outlines of the figures are traced in violet, the flesh in yellow. The red color is seldom used, but a copper-green is peculiar to this ware. Blue and yellow are the predominating colors, separated by a line of white. The sea is represented by undulating lines of blue, in the style of Orazio Fontana, and the Urbino school. The lips of the ewers are in the form of leaves, the handles in that of dragons." [Illustration: FIG 80.--_Faïences of Nevers._] Demmin separates the work done here into four styles or periods, as follows: "1. The Italian, 1602 to 1670. "2. The Persian, about 1640. "3. The Chinese and Dutch, 1640 to 1750. "4. The popular and patriotic, about 1789." The examples shown (Fig. 80) are of the later periods, and partake of a general character which prevailed at other manufactories of the periods in France. The colors during the Persian period were often effective, and the lapis-lazuli blue was rich. A very great quantity of plates, vases, dishes, etc., was made, many of them rude and cheap, during the time of the French Revolution, which were decorated with revolutionary emblems, pictures of the destruction of the Bastile, with the liberty-cap, and with patriotic cries, such as "_Liberté, égalité, ou mort!_" and "_Vive le roi citoyen!_" At the beginning of the eighteenth century there were twelve manufactories, or "_fabriques_," in full blast at Nevers. At the present time there is a very considerable production of faience at Nevers, much of which is only the imitations or reproductions of that made in the earlier centuries. Nothing of special interest, so far as I know, was shown at the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia. At the Bernal sale was "No. 1981: A pair of bottles of Nevers ware, light blue, spirally fluted with dark-blue flowers; twelve inches high. Eleven pounds.--_J. S. Forbes, Esq._" BEAUVAIS.--How early pottery was made at Beauvais is not certainly known; one of the earliest notices is of a pot of Charles VI. in 1399, "Un godet de terre de Beauvais, garny d'argent;" and Rabelais mentions this work more than once, in this way, "Une salière de terre; et ung goubelet de Beauvoys," etc. Various pieces of this very quaint and interesting pottery are extant in the museums of Europe. The great plate we illustrate is in the Imperial Library at Paris, and bears the date of 1511 (Fig. 81). It is of fine paste, and is about seventeen inches in diameter. Its ornaments are in relief, and are the arms of France and of Brittany at that period. Many elaborate and decorative pieces were made here, and some of them were designed and were used for presents to distinguished personages who visited the city. Not only were these works of luxury made, but large quantities of household work were manufactured for the uses of France; and there was a very considerable export of it to England. [Illustration: FIG. 81.--_Beauvais Pottery._] ROUEN.--One of the most extensive productions of pottery in France began at Rouen as early as 1542; and after 1640 were made here many large and highly-decorated pieces, of which we give some illustrations. Just when work of this kind was first produced does not clearly appear; but a very considerable number of fabriques were established in this city, and many men and women were employed. There is no question that at one time the potteries of Delft had a considerable influence upon the work at Rouen, and much that was then made [Illustration: FIG. 82.--_Rouen Faience._] showed traces of imitation. Pieces of large size were produced, such as fountains, vases, busts, figures and figurines, and even mantel-pieces. Work was done for the table, some of which holds high rank. When Louis XIV. sent his silver to be minted in 1713, to pay for his extravagant wars, he had it replaced by a service made at Rouen. Some pieces in the Sèvres Museum, marked with the _fleur-de-lis_, may have belonged to this. [Illustration: FIG. 83.--_Rouen Faience._] Many of the rich and the noble followed his example, and the result was that a marvelous impulse was given to the increase and the perfection of the faiences at Rouen. Before the final closing of the works, about 1789 or 1790, some eighteen extensive fabriques were in active work. The variety of articles made at Rouen was very great, ranging from salt-cellars and candlesticks to mantel-pieces and stoves. [Illustration: FIG. 84.--_Rouen Faience._] The paste of the Rouen faience is stronger than that of Delft, and the pieces I have seen show a reddish clay through the breaks of the enamel. Many of the paintings indicate much taste and skill. It seems to me that this work is marked by more originality, and by a finer perception of the fit and the beautiful, than any other French pottery. The pieces shown in Figs. 82 and 83, as far as engravings can do it, prove this. They do not show the variety and the richness of color which distinguish much of the best work. The early Rouen work, in a considerable degree following the Delft, was painted, as some suppose, by men brought from there. Imitations of the Chinese at one time were in vogue; and a good deal of work was done in blue--_en camaïeu_--in one color only. But the colored or polychrome Rouen is most distinctive, most brilliant, and most desired. One of the styles most sought for is termed _à la corne_, showing cornucopias combined with flowers and birds. It is very effective. The example engraved is a beautiful plate from Mr. Wales's collection at Boston (Fig. 84). Many pieces of this ware are in existence, and they are found in all the museums and in many private collections of Europe. Mrs. Moses Ives, at Providence, has some perfect examples, gathered by her from old houses in Rhode Island. Her belief is, that they got into Rhode Island from ships captured by privateers and brought into Newport, where their cargoes were sold and scattered. It seems probable. MOUSTIERS.--Within the last twenty-five years the faience of Moustiers has been separated from that of other places in France, into which it had once been merged. The little town in the department of the _Lower Alps_ seems to have had a fabrique as early as 1686, when the records mention the name of _Antoine Clerissy_ as _maître fayensier_. Two other names are known as master-potters of that town--_Olery_ and _Roux_. All these made ornamental work of an excellent class, some of which is much valued. Three styles of decoration are assigned to these potters. The earliest is recognized as being painted in blue camaieu (in one color), with subjects--hunting-scenes, escutcheons and armorial bearings, country-scenes, figures of the time of Louis XIV., etc. Most of these are assigned to Clerissy. The second style runs from about 1700 to 1745. "The specimens of this period are better known to amateurs, and not so rare; they are also decorated in blue camaieu, with highly-finished and gracefully-interlaced patterns, among which are Cupids, satyrs and nymphs, terminal figures, garlands of flowers, masks, etc.; and canopies resting on consoles, or brackets, from which hangs drapery bordered or framed with foliage and hatched spaces; mythological personages, vases of flowers, and other designs, being frequently introduced; the centre subjects are classical or _champêtre_ figures in costume of the time, sometimes coats-of-arms. Some of the faience of this period is painted in cobalt-blue in the Chinese style, which M. Davillier attributes to Pol Roux, and refers to a similar plate in the Sèvres collection bearing the arms of _le grand Colbert_." In this style there is evidently a following of the maiolicas of Italy in what is known as the Raffaelesque ware. But that was never, I believe, painted in blue. [Illustration: FIG. 85.--_Faience of Moustiers._] The third style, running from 1745 to 1789, is almost always painted in polychrome; the colors are blue, brown, yellow, green, and violet. Garlands of flowers, fruits, and foliage, are used. Mythological subjects also appear--Cupids, medallions, gods and goddesses, etc. To this class apparently belongs our illustration (Fig. 85). Some of these ornamental pieces are well painted, and latterly have been much sought for, but they do not rank with the work of Nevers or Rouen. At the time of the French Revolution there was a large industry in pottery at Moustiers--some twelve fabriques being in full activity. Nearly all have disappeared,[7] and the town has dwindled into one-third its former size. STRASBOURG, OR HAGUENAU.--The beginnings of a faience fabrique here were probably about 1721. _Hannong_ was a potter, who came to the town from Germany and established himself at Haguenau, near to or a part of Strasbourg. This had been a German city until Louis XIV. clutched it and made it French and Catholic. In 1870 the Germans took it back, and are now converting it to German and Protestant. The faience made here has never taken so high a place as that made at the other fabriques I have mentioned. But some of the decorated pieces--vases especially--were of good form and pleasing coloring. The most common painting was roses and flowers, in a free, bold, and rather rough style. Sometimes this has been confounded with delft; but it is quite different. It more resembles the pottery made at Marseilles. Some of the marks on the faience are like those on the porcelain which was made here for a short time; these were an "H." or "P. H." combined, indicating the maker's name--_Hannong_. The MARSEILLES potteries were in full activity at the beginning of the 1700's--a single piece exists which is marked 1697. In the middle of this century the number of fabriques had increased to some twelve, employing about two hundred and fifty workmen. All have gone down. The faience made here followed that of Moustiers for its best work, and that of Strasbourg for the more common. The flower-painting done here is said to be distinct from that of Strasbourg, in that the flowers are perceptibly raised by the paint; while in that of Strasbourg the painting is melted into the glaze. A very pleasing style of classic vases, made here in the time of Louis XV., are painted in camaieu rose-color, the wreaths and ornaments often being in relief. At SARREGUEMINES, in the Moselle country, very beautiful faience was made in the last century--about 1775--some of which was highly finished in the lathe. Work was made there, too, with white figures on blue and colored grounds, much resembling the jasper ware made by Wedgwood. There is an extensive pottery now at work at Sarreguemines, in which great quantities of domestic pottery are made for the market. At SINCENY, NANCY, CREIL, MONTPELLIER, and many other small places, potteries were at work in the last century; few, if any, of which continued beyond the great Revolution. PARIS, too, had many small fabriques of faience, but none of them reached much importance. The name of _Briot_ is yet kept in mind. TO-DAY (1876) France has burst into a great blossoming, not only of porcelain, but of decorative faience. In Paris, _Collinot_ has made a style of relief-enamel, in imitation of _cloisonné_, which is rich and effective in color, and often very beautiful; many have followed him. BARBIZÔT has made and is making the imitations of Palissy better than Palissy himself. BRIANCHON has made and perfected a lustrous ware like mother-of-pearl, which he calls "_Nacre_;" it is pretty and fanciful, and is very like what is made in Ireland, and called _Belleek_. DURAND RUEL had, in his exhibitions in 1875, some of the most superb and richly-colored faience-vases I have ever seen; but the name of their manufacturer was not made known. LAURIN, CHAPELET, and some other artists at Bourg-la-Reine, struck out a style of faience-painting about the same time--1874 to 1875--which, for richness and mystery of color, freedom and force of design, and for _delicious_ treatment--if I may call it so--has rarely been surpassed. It is original, and different from anything the Orientals have done, and quite as good. [Illustration: FIG. 86.--_Limoges Faience._] The HAVILANDS, at Limoges, have gone on with this work, and have not let it falter; their exhibition at Philadelphia in 1876 was excellent. I venture to include my notes made at the Exhibition: But, in the way of earthen-ware, nothing in the French or English exhibits is at all equal to the vases, bottles, etc., shown by Haviland, from Limoges. These, we were told frankly and with all desire to [Illustration: FIG. 87.--_Limoges Faience._] give the artists their due share, were modeled by Lindencher and painted by Lafon (we hope we have their names right). The forms of the pots and the relief-modelings are bold, unconventional, and excellent. The artist has studied Nature, and art also, but not to copy. This is true too of Lafon, whose lavish and daring use of color is remarkable. Nothing is niggled or petty, as in this kind of work nothing should be. As examples of real art, they are equal to the best work of China and Japan; and a true man would wish rather a hundred such vases as the Pennsylvania Industrial Museum has bought, than one of those great vases from Sèvres which stand in the French picture-gallery. This is the same kind of art-work which for a few years has been done by Chapelet and a little band of artists near Paris, some of which has been brought to Boston by the Household Art Company, and has had a tedious sale. These painters are artists in color. Bold and strange as the work is, nothing is glaring, showy, bright, or flashy; throughout there is that reserve which indicates strength and creates confidence. I give also some illustrations of their work, which in a faint degree exhibit its excellence. The color cannot be expressed (Figs. 86 and 87). DECK, of Paris, should not be forgotten. I believe he is an Alsatian; he, his brother, and sister, are all fine specimens of the German-French; they have been at work since 1859 in producing some of the most beautiful things to be made; and the work done there now sells at high prices. T. Deck is himself an artist; but many others are engaged there in making flower, figure, and other paintings. Their exhibitions at London have attracted much attention, and their productions have been quickly sold. No doubt other artists are to-day engaged at Paris in this fascinating work, which is attracting so much attention, and feeding well the desire for the useful and the beautiful. Great establishments, with hundreds of workmen, are now in full activity at _Nevers_, at _Gien_, at _Nancy_, producing wares at low prices, which have much merit, and for every-day uses are good. Mostly they follow the old designs, and attempt little else. As they do not pretend that these are anything more than that, and as the prices are very reasonable, they reach a great sale. CHAPTER IX. DUTCH DELFT AND ENGLISH EARTHEN-WARE. Delft, Number of Fabriques.--Haarlem.--Paste.--Great Painters.--Violins.--Tea-Services.--A Dutch Stable.--Broeck Dutch Tiles.--England.--Queen Elizabeth.--Pepys's Diary.--Brown Stone-ware.--The Tyg.--Lambeth Pottery.--Fulham Pottery.--Elers.--Elizabethan Pottery.--Stoke-upon-Trent.--Josiah Wedgwood.--Cheapness.--Queen's-ware.--Jasper-ware.--Flaxman. --Cameos.--Basalt.--The Portland Vase.--Prices. There was a day (about 1650) when the Dutch town of Delft had fifty manufactories of earthen-ware, and employed in them over seven thousand people. To-day she has but one--if even that--and the work done there has sunk into insignificance. To those who are fond of change, of excitement, this will be a pleasant fact to know; it goes to show that Macaulay's prophecy, that the coming New-Zealander will sit on the piers of London Bridge in the "good time that is coming," and moralize over the ruins of London, may come true--pleasanter for the New Zealand _savant_ than for the English statesman! Haydn's "Dictionary of Dates" states that pottery was made at Delft as early as 1310; and there are records of its importation from there into England in the time of King Henry IV. (1399 to 1413). The great industry was undoubtedly stimulated by the close knowledge of Japanese and Oriental porcelains which the Dutch merchants at a very early day and for so long a time had access to; which they brought to Holland in such large quantities, and which by them were distributed over Europe. But the cost of these was, of course, very considerable for those times; and the discovery of good clays in Holland gave the Dutch every facility for engaging in the manufacture, which they had the wit to seize and the skill to develop; so that they were able to make earthen-ware of good quality, with creditable ornamentation, at comparatively small prices. The Dutch were then the great "traders" of the world. They soon sent this pottery far and wide, into Germany, France, and England; and they got much money for it. Holland grew rich. Haarlem was also a centre for this industry; but it made less impression there than at Delft, and went down sooner; so that but little is known of it. The _paste_ of the Delft, or at least some of it, is of a fine quality, so that it was worked quite thin, and yet preserved sufficient strength for use. To make this, a good deal of pains and skill was applied to it before it went to the deft hand of the modeler. Of course, the great production at Delft was for the uses of the table, and its work did much to effect a revolution in the household-art of the table. Before this production the plates and dishes of the common people were of wood or "tre;" often only a square bit of board upon which the meat could be laid and cut. The better-off people had plates of pewter, and kings and princes indulged in those of silver. Boitet, writing in 1667 of Delft, says: "One of the principal branches of industry at present consists in the manufacture of a kind of porcelain[8] which nowhere in Europe is made of such fine quality and so cheap. For some years, indeed, porcelain has been manufactured in Saxony, and also at some places in France. The former is finer than that made at Delft, but more expensive likewise, and therefore not much in general use; whereas the Delft porcelain, on account of its more moderate price, is more salable; and it is sent not alone to most places in Europe, but even to Asia also. The clay of which it is made comes from the neighborhood of Maestricht, and is purified in Delft by divers processes. Besides larger articles for general use, complete services are made here, ornamented with escutcheons, as they may be desired, beautifully gilt and painted, almost equal to the East Indian in transparency, and surpassing such in the painting. Many persons of property have such sets with their escutcheons made here, which then pass for Japan or Chinese porcelain." We must receive M. Boitet's judgment that the Delft "_surpassed_ the East Indian (or Chinese) in the painting" with many grains of allowance. Still, when it is known that many services were painted with landscapes after Berghem, and that William Vandervelde, Van der Meer, and Jan Steen, painted some of the ware themselves, we may easily believe that many pieces of delft had a character of their own, which gave it a very high rank. I have myself never seen such pieces of these, and hardly know where to look for them. Marryat says that in the Sèvres Museum is a large dish, in the centre of which is a landscape, with animals and figures after Berghem, which is one of the finest examples known; and that other fine pieces are in the Japan Museum at Dresden. Some of these finest pieces are (or were) in the collection of M. Demmin at Paris; one of them is a portrait of Jan Steen himself about twenty-five or thirty years of age, with flowing light hair covered with a cap or bonnet. Of the paintings upon delft by Van der Meer, Demmin enumerates a number; among which the "Head of a Woman," a "Landscape," and a "View of Delft," are at the Hague; the "Porch at Delft, upon which 'le Taciturne' was assassinated," is in the Museum at Amsterdam; and a variety of portraits, landscapes, city views, etc., are in private collections. Demmin describes a very elaborately-painted picture upon delft tiles in the Gallery Suermondt at Aix-la-Chapelle, containing a country-house, a figure of a woman, a well and a person drawing water from it, a pigeon, a tree, and the sunlight shooting through it and touching the walls of the house here and there. This very elaborate picture, so well and minutely painted, has been attributed both to Ruysdael and to Hobbema; it is now ascribed to Van der Meer. This is work which will bring any price, because it is so difficult and so uncommon; but it is not what I should value upon delft or porcelain. It can never be _so good_ as upon canvas; it is much more difficult to make it, and a small accident ruins it past repair. It is not "decorating china;" it is simply trying to make a picture with materials unsuited for the purpose; and its only merit is that it shows difficulties overcome. It is precisely the same in principle as the mosaics. It would have been idiotic for Raffaelle to have made the Dresden Madonna in mosaic or on porcelain. [Illustration: FIG. 88.--_Delft._] In the decorative work of the Delft potters it seems to me the things to desire are the fine plates and dishes painted, as many of them are, with luminous blues almost equal to the celestial blues of China, such as we see in Fig. 88; and the vases, the flagons, the cups and mugs, in every style and shape; the same things in polychrome, with those bold groups of flowers, equal in their way to the work of the Orientals. Besides, there are the figures of peasants, etc.; also their cows and horses, which have a quaint interest not easily explained. The Dutch potters ran into many things, such as small foot-stoves, barbers' basins, casters, salt-cellars, etc. About much of the good delft is that same quaint, countrified beauty of which I have spoken. It is good, because it is real and native to the people and its painters. When they left this and went to imitating the Chinese and the Japanese, their work seems to me almost worthless; because it was an _imitation_, and it was _inferior_. In one of the largest workshops, or fabriques, a custom prevailed that one should read portions of the Bible, which all might hear and all might discuss. This was a time when religious heat was fervent; when the great questions of church direction and free thought were rife; when Catholic and Protestant often went from the assault of the tongue to that with the arquebuse. This practice no doubt made good Protestants, but also without doubt poor potters. The most curious pieces of delft known are four _violins_, still extant, very carefully made and very carefully painted. One is (or was) in the museum at Rouen, one at the Conservatoire at Paris, the third in the collection of M. Demmin, and the fourth in a private collection at Utrecht. The story still lives that these four violins were made by the master-modelers for marriage-gifts to the four daughters of the master of the fabrique, about to marry four young potters; and that the music for the dance was drawn from them. It was a pretty conceit. Some elaborate dinner-services were made at Delft, which required much skill and much work. The covers of the dishes were modeled in the likeness of birds or fish, indicating whatever was to be served in them; these were painted carefully to imitate Nature, so that the guest, in seeing the table, would know if it were a turkey, a pheasant, a ptarmigan--whatever luxury had been provided for his delectation. TEA-SERVICES.--It is possible there are persons who believe that tea has always been known, and that the lovely tea-services out of which, we sometimes drink it have existed from the time of Noah and the Deluge; not so. Pepys, in his "Diary," speaks of it in 1661 as "a China drink of which I had never drunk before." And at that time it sold in England at fifty or sixty shillings a pound--an enormous price. Tea and coffee pots were first brought to Holland from China, and do not appear earlier than about 1700; so that those which came over in the Mayflower and the Half-Moon and the Ark must have been made by Elder Brewster and Henry Hudson and Leonard Calvert from the "depths of their moral consciousness." Tea, we must remember, was not drunk in England earlier than about 1660, and then but rarely; and coffee was introduced into England about 1637. Teapots have from time to time been a collector's fancy, and persons have again and again got together four or five hundred, of all patterns and decorations. Nothing would be more pleasing in this way at the afternoon tea, when every guest should have each his own service, and every one beautiful. That the use of delft-ware for ornament throughout Holland was great is evident from the number of decorated plates and vases, many of large size, and many showing a careful style of painting; these are now constantly coming from that country, and they are not counterfeits. Most of them certainly are rudely but effectively painted, and are very decorative. Upon a farm, not far from Amsterdam, the cows during the summer season being upon the pastures, I found the stables carefully cleansed and whitewashed, and the stalls and walls hung with large and gayly-painted plates and plaques; and some pieces of brass-work were added to impart a desired brilliancy. Nearly every house, great and small, in the palmy days of Holland had more or less decorative delft-ware hung upon its walls and placed upon its mantel-pieces; many of these have been carefully treasured up, and they are the stores from which the world now makes its drafts. A favorite decoration was a garniture for the mantel-shelf, consisting of three covered and two uncovered vases, such as are seen in Fig. 89. They are often painted in blue alone, which for a long time was the prevailing color, and which sometimes nearly equaled the best blues of China. The ones here figured are of an excellent blue, and show a religious subject--the Virgin, Child, and St. John. The variety of decoration was great; but mostly of birds, flowers, fruit, and other objects of Nature. [Illustration: FIG 89.--_Delft._] Afterward these, as well as plates, dishes, mugs, etc., were painted with many colors; and some of these were quite rude and garish, to suit a low and garish taste. But, as decoratives, these too have a certain value. At the small village of Broeck, some seven miles from Amsterdam, there was in 1870 a very nice collection of delft for sale, among which were a dozen or more large plates of the best blue. It was the collection of a woman who had for a long time been a dealer there. The town of Broeck, as most know, has been a point to visit; it was at one time the cleanest spot in the known world, no horse or cow or other animal being permitted in its streets. In those days it was a sort of country-seat for the rich Amsterdam merchants. It is changed now. The _marks_ upon delft are mostly those of the individual painters, and may be found in considerable variety in Demmin's more elaborate work. [Illustration: FIG. 90.--_Delft Plate._] Fig. 90 is a good representation of the bold painting of the Delft workmen. These great plates, when standing on shelves or fastened to the wall, produce a striking and pleasing effect. They are now much sought for; and the high-class work brings high prices, though not such prices as the Italian maiolicas. TILES were made from an early period in Holland, and during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in great quantities. They were used to decorate fireplaces, stoves, walls, hearths, etc. The blue and brown Scripture-tiles were made in great numbers, and found a wide and ready sale. They are rude, quaint, and interesting--are not _art_ at all, but whimsical expressions of a religious sentiment. They are still made in Holland almost identical in design and feeling with those produced three hundred years ago. ENGLISH POTTERY OR EARTHEN-WARE. Very primitive unglazed pottery was made in England by the Britons and Saxons before the days of written history. Some account is given, in the chapter upon "Unglazed Pottery," of the red Roman unglazed ware found in London and elsewhere, which, beyond any reasonable doubt, was made largely in England. An account of the use and production of glazed pottery in England will be in place here. Down to the times even of Queen Elizabeth (1558 to 1603) we know that trenchers of wood, and cups and bottles of wood as well as of leather (these were called "black jacks"), were in common use even in good houses. As late as 1663, Pepys, in his most entertaining "Diary," says that at the lord-mayor's feast meats were served on wooden dishes, and were eaten off trenchers. The common dishes in Queen Elizabeth's housekeeping were of wood; while those for the queen's table were of silver, or possibly of pewter. These silver and pewter services prevailed on the tables of the wealthy till some time after the introduction of porcelain from China, and delft from Holland, which came in in considerable quantities about 1650 and later. The first glazed ware made in England seems to have been the brown stone-ware, which, Chaffers says, was in use down to about 1680, and mostly in the shape of pitchers, jugs, and bottles. It did not at first come into use for table-dishes. After this dishes were made of coarse and gritty clay, not at all equal to the delft-ware, upon which a lead-glaze was used of a greenish or dark-yellowish color. This lead or plumbiferous glaze continued in use for a long time; but when it was _first_ used in England seems unknown. Salt-glaze was used in Staffordshire in 1680. One of the earliest attempts at "fancy" in English pottery is to be seen in the drinking-cup called a "_tyg_," which has three handles, intended for three friends; so that each could drink from his own lip in succession. Mugs with two and four handles were also made. At LAMBETH it is believed that some Dutch potters made earthenware resembling delft as early as 1650. A patent was granted to some potters by the name of Van Hamme in 1676. Various pieces of glazed pottery with English designs remain, bearing dates from 1642 down to 1682, which it is thought were made here. At FULHAM stone-ware of a fine quality seems to have been made by a Mr. Dwight as early as 1671. This, in the accounts of the day, was sometimes called "_porcellane_." There is reason to believe that a good degree of advance was reached here, and that the work approached that made at Cologne, now called "Grès de Flanders." Figures and busts were also made here, a few of which are still extant. Two gentlemen named ELERS, who came to England with William of Orange, were clever men, and one of them was a chemist. They discovered clay at Bradwell, and established a pottery there, where for a time they produced good ware from the red clay. But curious eyes were at work to discover their processes, and one Astbury, pretending to be a half-witted fellow, succeeded in doing it; and then their business was ruined and broken up. From Paul Elers descended the wife of Richard Lovel Edgeworth, whose daughter is known as Maria Edgeworth. A white salt-glazed stone-ware was made in Staffordshire about 1700, which has been called "Elizabethan." This often had designs made from a mould applied to the surface. STOKE-UPON-TRENT, in Staffordshire, very early became a centre for potter's work, as it is to-day; the country there for miles being a string of villages, filled with furnaces and the houses of potters. It is not my purpose to attempt a detailed history of the immense pottery industries which have been developed in and about Staffordshire--potteries which, for variety and extent, have never been equaled, unless perhaps in China. There is, however, one potter, whose life and work have had a distinguished influence upon the potteries of England, to whom some space must be given; he is JOSIAH WEDGWOOD. Born in 1730 at Burslem, he came from an ancestry of potters, and he breathed the air of the potteries, so that he may be said to have been a born potter. He was one of thirteen children; he grew up with the small amount of school education then in vogue in that part of England--especially among his class of _workers_--and was apprenticed to a potter when he was but fourteen years old. The English nation has in these latter days gone into a sort of frenzy upon the subject of school education, having got the impression that that will enable them to compete with or excel all the nations of the world. This I believe to be a mistake. I may, I think, fairly point to Germany, whose commissioner at the American Exhibition writes home that the productions of Germany are marked by lack of taste, lack of thoroughness, and lack of honesty; in other words, Germany, with the most thorough system of common-school education, is distinguished for the "cheap and nasty" in her work. What was it, then, I may ask at this point, which made Josiah Wedgwood, this unschooled boy, the most able and successful potter of England, and perhaps of all the world? I attempt to answer it by stating my belief _that he was not living for riches, but for excellence_. He worked all his life to combine the useful with the beautiful more and more perfectly; and in a surprising degree he succeeded. This was not because of his intellectual ability, but because of his sense of _honor_. The world has gone into a craze for intellect--not at all for _honesty_. I mean by honesty not a sickly sort of conscientiousness, which often hinders; but honesty of intention, showing itself in work. To illustrate my meaning, I may say that my own experience has been that the larger part of mankind are quite willing to "shab" a thing--to do it poorly--provided it will sell, and give them their wages. This, it seems to me, was just what made Wedgwood what he was; he could not do that. All the work of his I have seen was done as well as it could be done. I do not mean that all his designs were good or his decorations faultless; but, as it was, it _was as well done as he could do it_. [Illustration: FIG. 91.--_Portrait of Wedgwood._] It seems to me that in his portrait (Fig. 91) a good deal of this robust, manly, honorable character is to be traced. I like to think that the face here, as in many cases, is a sort of promise of the man. I cannot do better than to quote, from one of Wedgwood's catalogues, his own words, which are better than any sermon, better than much "burnt-offering and sacrifice;" which phrase of the prophet shows that there were shabby fellows then, even in the days of God's Jews. I quote: "A competition for cheapness, and not for excellence of workmanship, is the most frequent and certain cause of the rapid decay and entire destruction of arts and manufactures. "The desire of selling much in a little time, without respect to the taste or quality of the goods, leads manufacturers and merchants to ruin the reputation of the articles which they make and deal in; and while those who buy, for the sake of a fallacious saving, prefer mediocrity to excellence, it will be impossible for them either to improve or keep up the quality of their works. "All works of art must bear a price in proportion to the skill, the taste, the time, the expense, and the risk, attending the invention and execution of them. Those pieces that for these reasons bear the highest price, and which those who are not accustomed to consider the real difficulty and expense of making fine things are apt to call dear, are, when justly estimated, the cheapest articles that can be purchased; and such are generally attended with much less profit to the artist than those that everybody calls cheap. "Beautiful forms and compositions are not to be made by chance; and they never were made nor can be made in any kind at small expense; but the proprietors of this manufactory have the satisfaction of knowing, by a careful comparison, that the prices of many of their ornaments are much lower than, and all of them as low as, those of any other ornamental works in Europe of equal quality and risk, notwithstanding the high price of labor in England; and they are determined to give up the making of any article rather than to degrade it." From all this is it not evident that Wedgwood too found his world full of _shabby buyers_? I think so; and that has been the misfortune of others. While the buyers are apt to vituperate the workmen, in too many cases _they_ are the culprits. Few will dispute it, that nearly all the manufacturing and trading world has been sliding downward into shabbiness since Wedgwood's day; and few will dispute it, that the _mania_ to "buy cheap and sell dear" always did and always will debase any people. It is not my purpose to give any detailed history of the life and doings of Wedgwood. All who are enough interested will find these in his "Life," by Llewellynn Jewitt, and in that by Miss Meteyard, both of which are full, and are profusely illustrated. What I can do here is to call attention to some of the most distinctive things accomplished by this great potter. Almost from the first, Wedgwood perceived or felt that there were good and bad both in form and decoration; and he set to work to secure perfection in both. While all his life he wished to make, and did make, vases and other works for purely ornamental and artistic purposes, in which the expression of beauty alone was sought, he had that practical sense which taught him to apply his skill and his perception first to the production and improvement of earthen-ware which came into the daily uses of life. Out of this came his "queen's-ware," which soon had such a reputation for form and quality that it went in large quantities all over the trading world. From this it should be known that Wedgwood made the money with which he carried forward those investigations and experiments which at last culminated in his finest works of fictile art. It may as well be said here that even _his_ art-work made him no money, although many of his pieces were reproduced. The fifty copies of the "Portland Vase"--of which more hereafter, and which sold for fifty guineas each--cost him more than he got for them. It is best to say this, because some men and women think that artists are sure to become rich. No man should attempt to be an artist with such an expectation; for, while here and there one is caught on the wave of fashion and borne onward to fortune, the number of these is few. No artist must expect a _speedy_ recognition for good work. Wedgwood would not have been Wedgwood had he not had a foundation for his art-work in his "queen's-ware." Upon this ware a word of explanation may be desirable. He early brought this every-day ware to great perfection, not only of form, but of paste and glaze. It was not painted, but was of a creamy white; and, being at such a small price, it went into very wide use. Having sent some pieces of it as a present to Queen Charlotte, she was induced to order a complete table-service, and to request that it might be called "queen's-ware" thenceforth, as it is to this day. This service was painted in the best style then in vogue by the two chief artists at the works, _Thomas Daniell_ and _Daniel Steele_. One of the most remarkable dinner-services made by Wedgwood was for the Empress Catharine II. of Russia, for her palace near St. Petersburg called _Grenouillière_. It is thus described by Chaffers: "This splendid service was commenced in April, 1773, and had upward of twelve hundred views of the seats of noblemen and gentlemen in England, and a green frog was painted underneath each piece. The form chosen was the royal pattern, and was made of the ordinary cream-color ware, with a delicate saffron-tint. The views were in purple camaieu, bordered with a gadroon pattern in Indian-ink, and round the edge a running wreath of mauve flowers and green leaves. The two services for dinner and dessert consisted of nine hundred and fifty-two pieces, had twelve hundred and forty-four enamel views, which cost, on an average, twenty-one shillings each, the borders and frogs to each about fifteen shillings more; making the entire cost, with fifty-one pounds eight shillings and fourpence for the cream-ware itself, a total of twenty-three hundred and fifty-nine pounds two shillings and one penny, without calculating many extras. The price ultimately paid by the empress was stated to be three thousand pounds. In June, 1774, the service was sufficiently completed to exhibit at the new rooms in Portland House, Greek Street, Soho, No. 12, where it remained on show for nearly two months. The empress showed it to Lord Malmesbury when he visited the Grenouillière in 1779." I may refer here also to his partnership with Mr. Bentley as another of the important elements of his success. Bentley was a man with capital, and also a man with an artistic sense; and he coöperated heartily with Wedgwood in a desire for thorough work, for excellence, and for profit. The artistic work for which Wedgwood is so distinguished is what the pottery collector is most interested in. This, as Wedgwood himself has said of all good work, was not the result of chance. From the first he used his _own_ brains and those of others. He studied whatever he could find to improve his profession, and became something of a chemist; so that the values of clays and silex, and the composition and use of metallic oxides for coloring them, grew to be an art in themselves in his hands. The work upon which Wedgwood applied his inventions and his art may be classified in this way: 1. Queen's-ware, for the table. 2. Terra-cotta, to represent porphyry, granite, etc. 3. Basalt, or black Egyptian. 4. White biscuit. 5. Bamboo, cream-colored biscuit. 6. Jasper, or onyx. 7. A hard porcelain biscuit, for chemists, etc. He conceived that he could produce a paste or body so fine, compact, and homogeneous, as to be finished without a glaze, and, at the same time, be susceptible of receiving color in purity and perfection throughout this body. This he succeeded in doing, and this is what is now known over all the world as Wedgwood's jasper, or onyx. This is the ware upon which he afterward applied the cameo ornaments in white upon a ground or body of various tints--blues, sage-green, and purple. At first the color permeated the whole paste; afterward it was applied on the surface only by means of a "dip." This was begun about the year 1776, and went onward till the end of his life. It is of interest for us to know how the beautiful cameo ornaments used on this ware were obtained. The enthusiasm and the sense of honor which inspired Wedgwood gave him access soon to the best people and the best collections in England. In the collections of Sir William Hamilton, and others, were the exquisite intaglios found in the antique art-work of Egypt, Greece, and Rome. Wedgwood took most careful and delicate impressions of these, and from these his careful and delicate cameos were formed. Not only did he draw thus from the ancients, he also enlisted the best designers and workmen wherever he could find them, and among these the most distinguished was the sculptor Flaxman. It may interest the rising sculptor to know that Flaxman's price for designs made for Wedgwood was a half-guinea each. At this time he was a young man struggling into recognition; and he was glad of the opportunity, as well as of the money, which Wedgwood gave him. His designs all bear unmistakable indications of Greek inspiration, and he has been called an "English Greek." Miss Meteyard, in her "Life of Wedgwood," quotes a number of the bills paid to Flaxman. One in 1775 runs thus: "A pair of vases, one with a satyr, the other with a triton-handle, three guineas; bass-reliefs of the Muses and Apollo, Hercules and the lion, Hercules and the boar, Hercules and Cerberus, Bacchus and Ariadne, Jupiter, Juno, Minerva, Justice and Hope--for each of these he received ten shillings and sixpence; table of the four seasons, two pounds and two shillings," etc. Flaxman modeled, too, a goodly number of busts of distinguished persons. Models and designs were also procured from artists in Italy, many of which were made under the supervision of Flaxman while he was studying and working there. Of this jasper was made a great variety of objects, besides vases and tea-services. Of the last we engrave portions of one in possession of Mr. Wales, of Boston, which is as near perfection as any work of this kind can be (Fig. 92). [Illustration: FIG. 92.--_Old Wedgwood._] This jasper-ware was used in many ways, as the following list will indicate. It shows something of the variety of art-work made by Wedgwood: 1. Cameos and intaglios. 2. Bass-reliefs, medallions, and tablets. 3. Kings and illustrious persons of Asia, Egypt, Greece, etc. 4. Busts of kings, emperors, popes, etc., down to modern times. 5. Heads of poets, painters, divines, etc. 6. Busts, statuettes, animals, etc. 7. Lamps and candelabra. 8. Ornamental vases and antique vases. 9. Painted Etruscan (Greek) vases, etc. So great was the production of the cameos and antique ornaments, and so greatly were they used as articles of jewelry, for settings in furniture, etc., that over two thousand different moulds and designs were made. We engrave here one of these small cameos, which, however, fails to convey a full sense of the delicate character of the work (Fig. 93). They reached almost the perfection of gems. [Illustration: FIG. 93.--_Wedgwood Cameo._] [Illustration: FIG. 94.--_Teapot._] Fig. 94, a teapot, which is not remarkable for beauty of form or execution, is given as an example of the work done by the English potters before Wedgwood's day, to meet the ordinary wants of common life. It should be kept in mind, in estimating Wedgwood's character, that he combined, in an eminent degree, the _artistic_ and the _commercial_ faculties, and thus was able to produce results of a striking kind. Like Shakespeare, he was omnivorous, and browsed wherever the pastures were sweet. All food was good which could be turned into delectable milk. Some of the most perfect of Wedgwood's work was made in the black _basalt_; which, however, lacks the brilliancy that colors gave to the jasper-ware. The example engraved (Fig. 95) is from Mr. Wales's collection. [Illustration: FIG. 95.--_Wedgwood Basalt._] In 1787 the most celebrated vase of antiquity, called the "Barberini Vase," and now the "Portland Vase," was to be sold by auction. Wedgwood was inspired with a desire to possess it; probably with the intention of making copies. He kept bidding upon it, but his competitor was the Duchess of Portland, who also was inspired with the desire of ownership. Finally, when the price had reached eighteen hundred guineas, she sent Wedgwood word that he should have the _loan_ of the vase, if he would withdraw his competition. It was so agreed; and Wedgwood set to work. He paid Webber five hundred guineas to make the model, for he was not allowed to make a mould. He then produced fifty copies (some say fewer) in his jasper-ware, the body being black, with a tinge of blue; the reliefs being in white. It was as nearly a perfect reproduction as could be made by the hand of man. As I have said, the cost of these was more than the price received. This remarkable piece of antiquity is now in the British Museum. It was once shown to a crazed man, who, with a blow of his stick, broke it into a dozen pieces. It is, however, thoroughly repaired. The original vase is nine and three-fourths inches high and twenty-one and three-fourths inches in circumference. Wedgwood's reproduction of it was pronounced by the best judges to be faultless. It was exhibited at all the principal courts of Europe by his son in 1791. The moulds are still in existence, and other copies have frequently been made by Wedgwood's successors, but they are not equal to the first in finish. We give a photograph of this celebrated vase as a frontispiece. Miss Meteyard gives the following account of this renowned vase: "The original vase is supposed to have been manufactured in the glass-works of Alexandria at their best period. Brought thence to Rome, it was used as a receptacle for the ashes of the funeral-pyre, as it was found inclosed in a sarcophagus of excellent workmanship, and this in a sepulchral chamber beneath a mound of earth called Monte del Grano, about three miles from Rome, on the road to ancient Tusculum. The discovery was made between the years 1623 and 1644, during the pontificate of Urban VIII. (Barberini). An inscription on the sarcophagus, which was otherwise covered with fine bass-reliefs, showed it to have been dedicated to the memory of the Emperor Alexander Severus, and his mother, Julia Mammæa, both of whom were killed in the year 235, during the revolt in Germany. The vase, ten inches in height, was deposited in the library of the Barberini family, and the sarcophagus in the museum of the capital. The material of which the former is composed was, by Montfauçon and others, conjectured to be a precious stone, but Wedgwood's examination proved it to be formed of glass; the ground being a dark blue, so nearly approaching black as to appear to be of that color, except when held in a strong light. The white bass-reliefs are of glass or paste, the material having been fused on in a mass, and then cut out by the skill and patience of the gem-engraver. The subjects of these bass-reliefs, as also the age and place of production of the vase, are points so wholly unknown as to be open to conjecture and criticism. With respect to the first, critics have differed. They have been generally considered to bear reference to the Eleusinian mysteries; but one of the most learned critics of our own day, whose works on 'Gems' are known to every artist, scholar, and man of taste, considers that one of the group represents Peleus approaching Thetis. At best, the vase must ever remain what Erasmus Darwin termed it, 'Portland's mystic urn.' Wedgwood valued the copy represented at two hundred pounds." I must say for myself that, having seen the original--now in the British Museum, where it is most jealously guarded--I cannot but admire the careful and beautiful cutting of the figures in the designs which surround the body; but I did not when I saw it, nor do I now, think the form of the vase in any degree equal to the best of the Greek or Etruscan vases. Wedgwood's life was an active and a productive one. He learned how to live, not from books, not in schools, but in doing the work his hands found to do. He was born a potter, he remained a potter, and he died a potter. He did not esteem his occupation a thing to be dropped as soon as possible, that he might be something else; or, as many persons are apt to do, that he might do nothing. Work, to him, was not only honorable, it was _necessary_. The old notion, that work was a curse, never entered his sound head. It is an honorable thing that his merits were recognized while he lived; for this is rare in the heat and hurry and competition of this day of ours. Before he died, in 1795, he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society, and of the Society of Antiquaries; and was recognized by a large number of people as a thorough worker and an able man. Since his death, honors have descended on his head. His "Life" has been carefully written by Mr. Jewitt and by Miss Meteyard; and Mr. Gladstone, England's ablest man, has spoken with generous and discriminating praise of him and his works. In many private collections, as well as in all public ones, these works are prized; and not the least interesting and valuable of these collections is that of Mr. Gladstone, now loaned to the city of Liverpool. The prices which fine pieces of Wedgwood's work have sold for will be seen in the following, from a sale of Mrs. Brett's, in England, in 1864: Plaques, white on blue ground, "Virgil reciting before Augustus," 7-1/2 by 18 inches £44 Five groups, infant bacchanals, 5 by 23 inches 64 Basin, with Cupids and figures 10 At a sale of De la Rue's, in 1866: Pair of two-handled seaux, with satyrs, gnomes, etc. £39 18_s._ Dish, nautilus-shell 9 10_s._ Large bowl on foot, with boys, festoons, etc. 27 6_s._ Busts in black-ware sold as follows: De Witt £17 17_s._ Seneca 15 Bacon 10 10_s._ Venus 15 15_s._ Cato 9 10_s._ At Mr. Marryat's sale: A black tazza supported on three figures, 11 inches £6 10_s._ A pair of black vases and covers, with white figures in cameo, 12 inches 46 A black lamp, with red figures 2 10_s._ A granite vase, with handles, gilt ornaments, etc., 9 inches 4 4_s._ A watch-stand, with Cupid in relief in white, on sage-green ground, 6 inches 8 A candlestick, in form of a tree, with Cupids ditto, 11 inches, 16 Staffordshire now smokes for miles with the fires of her kilns, and vast quantities of wares are produced. Within the last twenty-five years a growing desire has been felt to bestow upon these articles of every-day use some grace of form and some decoration of art; and in both the English and the French pottery of to-day beauty and use are combined. CHAPTER X. THE PORCELAIN OF CHINA Difficulties.--The Porcelain Tower at Nanking.--First Making of Porcelain.--Kaolin and Pe-tun-tse.--Marco Polo.--Portuguese Importation.--The City of King-te-chin.--Jacquemart's Groups.--Symbolic Decoration.--Inscriptions.--The Ming Period.--The Celestial Blue.--The Celadons.--Reticulated Cups.--The Crackle.--Various Periods.--Individualism.--Marks and Dates. No people and no civilization have been or are still of greater interest than those of the "Flowery Kingdom;" and, spite of much study and careful investigation, of none are we less certain than of these. Through thousands of years a peculiar people have developed a peculiar social system--most striking, most distinct, and, in its way, as complete as any other, even if compared with ours, of which we loudly boast. And now this singular people--a people who have grown into a population of four hundred millions, having their barriers broken down by the guns and rams of England, so that trade should enter--are themselves coming out to do the work of the world cheaper than any others can do it. We see them in Batavia, in Siam, in Singapore, in great numbers, as workers, as brokers, as merchants, as manufacturers, and now they are flowing a steady tide into California; and who can say where the flood will reach, where it will stop, and whom it will submerge? No other question of such importance now presses upon us as this. But here we have to deal only with one of the most perfect and most beautiful of industries--one which seems to have had its rise and its culmination with this strange people. What we know of it we can hardly be said to _know_. The Chinese have always kept their own secrets, and have not cared to convert us to their methods, or to cater to our ways. We therefore gather, here and there, a scrap of information upon the subject of porcelains; we get, when we can, examples of their work; we try to learn something of their processes; but, after all, can only submit what we gather with some misgivings as to the absolute truth. We do not know how to spell their names in our letters, and they vary infinitely; so too the inscriptions upon their plates and dishes vary with the knowledge and the fancy of the translator. Of course, we approximate to the truth, but not more; for no two Chinese quite agree as to what this most flexible writing may mean. As to dates on the pieces, some certainty seems to have been reached; and such is valuable. I have added to this article _marks_ and dates as now understood by the best authorities in England, and as arranged by Mr. A. W. Franks, who is the latest writer upon the subject. The knowledge of these helps the student, and is valuable to the collector. [Illustration: FIG. 96.--_Pou-tai, "The God of Content."_] The opening cut (Fig. 96) in our chapter shows the Chinese god Pou-tai--the "God of Content." He is described as "corpulent, his chest uncovered, mounted upon or leaning on the wine-skin which holds his terrestrial goods; his face, with half-closed eyes, beaming with an eternal laugh." His image, done in porcelain, is found in the workshops of China, where men wish more than they can obtain; he allays, perhaps, but does not quench. This image would be most useful--at least, most suggestive--if it could be set up in every _bourse_ of the Western world. [Illustration: FIG. 97.--_The Porcelain Tower at Nanking._] The Nanking Tower (Fig. 97) once stood near the city of Nanking, from which city much of our finest porcelain comes. It was built with bricks or pottery, the face of which was coated with a dip or slip of porcelain; and the whole thing was valuable and interesting as a monument of the potter's art. It is now razed to the ground, the last destruction being that of the Taiping rebels. The history of pottery is in a good degree the history of man. All nations have done something in this way, from the rude clay pots of the barbarians, through the gayly-painted dishes of the incipient civilization, up to the culmination of the art, when perfection seems to have been reached in China through the centuries extending up to the sixteenth. This manufacture, which reached in China and Japan to the point of finest art, has not been surpassed by any civilized race, if equaled. I am unable to do anything but admire a people whose workmen did and liked to do such fine and faithful work, and found such large patronage for it; and it seems a ludicrous and stupid judgment for us, who admire and pay for the sculptures of Mr. Mills and Miss Ream, to call those peoples barbarians! Are they not justified in calling _us_ "outside barbarians?" This chapter will treat briefly upon these Oriental productions, and I hope no apology is needed. Three thousand years (2697 B. C.) before our Christian era these Chinese were great potters, had reached to a high point in form and decoration; and porcelain, the finest pottery, began to be made some two hundred years before our era. At that time our ancestors were in a state of gross, if not beastly, barbarism; while _they_ showed skill, taste, refinement, in this and in other ways. As late as the seventeenth century cups and trenchers of "honest tre," or wood, were used in the best castles of England, and the dishes were often square bits of board; and down even to a much later day the fingers were used to carry the meat to the mouth. Some two hundred years, then, before Christ, it appears that the Chinese had discovered and applied to the making of porcelain two fine clays, one called _kaolin_, and the other _pe-tun-tse_; the first is a decayed feldspar; combined, these clays produce the fine semi-transparent body which we call china or porcelain. All china, then, has in a greater or less degree this quality of translucency. It appears, therefore, that most of the Canton ware brought to us is not porcelain at all, but simply a kind of stone or earthen ware, coated with an enamel or "slip," which sometimes may contain porcelain. So, too, the most beautiful Satsuma ware from Japan is not porcelain, but a fine sort of pottery or earthen-ware, the decoration of which is most marked and harmonious. For more than two thousand years the "heathen Chinee" has been working at the production of porcelain--and apparently most intelligently and skillfully. He has accomplished this: 1. The materials used are selected with the greatest care. 2. They are combined, and ground, and mixed, with consummate knowledge. 3. The articles desired are turned and modeled with great precision and dexterity, oftentimes with the keenest perception of beauty of line. 4. The decorations exhibit an exquisite feeling as to value and harmony of color, and freedom of design. This combination of knowledge, skill, and taste, the Chinese were the first to combine in pottery and porcelain, and they have not been excelled. To those who are ignorant, it seems a very paltry thing to make a dinner-plate; but to make a perfect one requires most of the best faculties of man. Ignorant and foolish people hold the china-lovers in contempt; we reciprocate: we believe that the man who does not perceive and enjoy all this beautiful handiwork is willfully ignorant or pitiably stupid: he has our pity and our prayers. Traces of porcelain are found in the ancient tombs and among the mummies of Egypt, in the form of small bottles as here shown (Fig. 98). Just what was their use or significance we do not know; but some think they prove that intercourse existed between those countries in very early days. Marco Polo visited China in the latter half of the thirteenth century, and he told of the great factories for the production of porcelain there; and how certain kinds of earth were collected, and, after being exposed to air and rains for thirty or forty years, were then fit to be made into cups and bowls. Great quantities were sold in the city. "For a Venetian groat you may purchase eight porcelain cups." Beginning of course with useful articles simply, this manufacture progressed until pots and vases and dishes were made for purely decorative purposes. [Illustration: FIG. 98.--_Porcelain Bottle, from Egyptian Tomb._] As porcelain was introduced into Europe by the Portuguese about the year 1518, we are obliged to pierce into the dimness of the past with the aid of the Chinese themselves. M. Julien,[9] a Frenchman, has compiled from the Chinese writings mostly all we know, some parts of which may come into this chapter. Jacquemart, Marryat, Chaffers, Demmin, and others, have drawn from him. As early as the Tchoin dynasty (about 583) fine qualities were produced, and the court of the emperors demanded it. Artists began to appear, and rare and rarer qualities were made. We find that different styles were sought for and were held in highest esteem; that "the Tsin held the blue china in high estimation;" the Soni or Sui (581 to 618) gave the preference to green. The Thang dynasty (618 to 907) required that it should be white; and in 621 Ho made porcelain for the emperor of a white ground, "brilliant as jade;" while the Emperor Tchi-tsong (954 to 959) gave his family name to a beautiful blue, the most highly esteemed of all the ancient porcelains of China.[10] How fine this was we cannot know, as it is not likely that any piece of it exists with us, even if among the Chinese. The production grew, until in 1369 in the city of King-te-chin, according to the statement of Father d'Entrecolles, it was estimated at a million pieces a year. A vast and varied industry in making china was carried forward here, down even to the present times, when the Taiping rebels (who we are told were _Christians_) completely destroyed it. From the accounts, mostly of the French missionaries, it seems that while the three thousand furnaces at King-te-chin baked the porcelain which was modeled there, it was taken to Nanking and Canton to be decorated; and, as far as we know, the painting of Nanking was superior to that of Canton. King-te-chin is swept away, and Nanking is almost destroyed; so that we can expect no more fine art-work in porcelain from China. It is likely, however, that much decoration was done at the great city of King-te-chin; but what we know now as "the celestial" or Nanking blue was probably done at Nanking; of this more will be said in the progress of this chapter. It is impossible here to dwell upon or to know much of the various descriptions of china made down to the period of the Ming dynasty (1368 to 1649). Upon the productions of this period the Chinese collectors and antiquaries place the highest value--in many cases much greater even than is now given to them in Europe. Some examples of this period are to be seen in Europe and a few in America. One of our commissioners, who met the Chinese and Japanese at the Vienna Exposition, was told by them that they were purchasing choice pieces of porcelain, intending to take them back to their countries, where they are more valuable than in Europe: for, from the earliest days, it seems that both the Chinese and Japanese have been keen critics and lovers of this most fascinating work. Jacquemart and others have attempted to arrange the decorated work into groups as follows: The ARCHAIC--of which perhaps none exists. The CHRYSANTHEMO-PÆONIENNE. The FAMILLE-VERT, or GREEN. The FAMILLE-ROSE, or PINK. Besides these are many sub-varieties. These groups indicate the style of decoration of which we shall attempt to give some sketches, although, as they want color, they must necessarily be faint. The chrysanthemo-pæonienne exhibits the use in various ways of the chrysanthemum and peony. We give here examples to show the style of decoration, as far as we are able to do it without color. [Illustration: FIG. 99.--_Pot from Mrs. Burlingame's Collection._] Fig. 99 is a pot from Mrs. Burlingame's collection. It stands about twenty inches high, and is a fine example of the early style of work. The paste and glaze are not so good as in the rose family, but still all is excellent. The chrysanthemums are yellow, red, and black. This work is no doubt very old. We give (Fig. 100) a sketch of a small snuff-bottle from the same collection, drawn the real size. It is a perfect piece of work: the paste [Illustration: FIG. 100.--_From Mrs. Burlingame's Collection._] [Illustration: FIG. 101.--_From Mrs. Burlingame's Collection._] is a fine white; the overturned preserve-pot is a clear lemon-yellow, with a little color in the rings; the grasshopper is alive and is brilliant with greens, blacks, and blues. The stopper is a bit of purple amethyst. It is so _complete_ that it fills the mind with satisfaction, more thorough than the sight of St. Peter's can give. [Illustration: FIG. 102.--_Chinese Vase._] [Illustration: FIG. 103.--_From Miss Wyman's Collection._] The _famille-vert_, or green, is so called because a clear, brilliant green is the only or prevailing color. The plate here shown (Fig. 101) is also from Mrs. Burlingame's collection. The paste is a brilliant white, the glaze perfect; and the dragons, in green, have all that freedom and fancy for which the early Chinese artists were remarkable. The vase, Fig. 102, also belonging to the green-family, from Jacquemart, is a beautiful example of this style of work. The figures are most deftly drawn and colored. The subject we suppose to be historical. [Illustration: FIG. 104.--_From Mr. Wales's Collection._] The _famille-rose_, or red, describes a group where the rose and ruby colors are the distinguishing ones. This fine color is produced from gold. Nearly all of this work shows the color in low-relief. Three very fine examples are given of this rose-family. Fig. 103 is an octagon plate, with an exquisitely flowered and diapered border, from the collection of Miss Wyman, of Cambridge. Figs. 104 and 105 are equally good, from Mr. Wales's collection. In this class rank the delicate egg-shell cups and saucers with "rose-backs," in which Mr. Andrews's collection at New York is so rich. In these three divisions is contained much of the very best productions of China. The chrysanthemum and peony decoration was probably most in use, and was made in greater quantities than any. Some of the older pieces of this show the chrysanthemum in black (Fig. 99), as well as in other colors. The body of this group is not so fine as the two later descriptions, but the decoration is full of beauty and variety. In the green and rose groups, the paste, the decoration, and the coloring, reached perfection; and it is impossible to surpass the best work of these classes. [Illustration: FIG. 105.--_From Mr. Wales's Collection._] But in all this work there is no imitation, no absolute copying of the flower, the bud, the landscape, the lady. The Chinese were fond of a symbolic or fabulous decoration. The engraving (Fig. 106) pictures a conflict going on between the spirits or demons of the water and the air; it is most free and effective. This vase belongs to the collection of Mrs. Burlingame. I saw in England a small blue vase, at Mr. Talbert's, upon which was shown the Trinity (three figures) in a sort of balcony in the sky; beneath them was a sea of fire, out of which appeared the dragon or devil spitting venom at the Godhead, one of which was warding it off with a drawn sword. It was curious, if not true, and showed their notions of European beliefs, obtained, no doubt, from the early missionaries. The Dog of Fo is one of the sacred symbolic animals, and was placed at the thresholds of temples to defend them from harm. [Illustration: FIG. 106.--_From Mrs. Burlingame's Collection._] He has feet armed with claws, a great grinning face full of teeth, a curly mane, and might be supposed to be modeled, by an Oriental fancy, from the lion. Sometimes this creature has been described as a chimera. The fong-hoang also is sometimes pictured. This is a strange and immortal bird, which descends from the regions of highest heaven to bless mankind. It bears a fleshy head, soft silky feathers about its neck, the body ending with a tail combining the feathers of the peacock and the argus pheasant. In very early centuries this bird was the symbol of royalty. Other symbolic and sacred creatures are often pictured, among them the kylin, which was believed to foretell good fortune. "Its body is covered with scales; its branched head represents that of the dragon; its four delicate feet are terminated by cloven hoofs, resembling those of a stag; it is so gentle and benevolent, notwithstanding its formidable aspect, that it avoids, in its light step, to tread under foot the smallest worm."[11] The dragon, symbol there of empire and power, is thus described: "It is the largest of reptiles with feet and scales; it can make itself dark or luminous, subtile and thin, or heavy and thick; can shorten or lengthen itself at pleasure. In the spring it rises to the skies, in the autumn it plunges into the water. There are the scaly dragon, the winged dragon, the horned and the hornless dragon, and the dragon rolled within itself, which has not yet taken its flight into the upper regions."[12] The example (Fig. 101) shows this dragon as pictured by the Chinese. The dragon is shown with five claws, for the imperial household; four claws, for a lower rank in China; while in Japan the creature is usually figured with but three claws. He appears to have been accepted as the symbol of power, much as the lion has been with Occidental nations. The white stag, the axis deer, and the crane, express longevity; the mandarin duck, affection. Symbolism also prevailed in the uses of colors and of flowers. Green and vermilion upon the walls of a house belonged only to the emperors. The primary colors were applied in this way: Red belonged to fire; Black to water; Green to wood; White to metal; Earth was represented by a square; Fire by a circle; Water by a dragon; Mountains by a hind. Pots and vases were made for special occupations, such as those for soldiers, governors, writers, etc. Jacquemart describes a bowl in his collection: "It is a cup of 'the learned;' at the bottom is seen the author, seated under a fir-tree, in deep meditation; his _ssé_, placed near him, permits him to modulate the songs he may have composed. On the exterior we see the scholar, with his elbows on the table, surrounded by his literary treasures. He reflects, and from his forehead, which he leans on his hand, issues a stroke which unrolls into a vast phylactery, upon which the painter has traced various scenes of the drama to which his genius is giving birth." In Mr. Avery's collection is an admirable example of this cup. Vases, figures, etc., were made for religious uses, and upon the household altars were placed vases for burning perfumes, cups and bowls for wine, images of Fo and other representative deities. Use was, at the beginning, the motive for the production of all fictile dishes; and china was at first, and it has always been, made for the purposes of the table. Twelve small dishes of fine porcelain were presented to Mrs. Burlingame while at Peking; and the high compliment was enhanced by the fact that they were sent to her unwashed after they had been eaten from by the Chinese owner. The paste and glaze are excellent, and the decoration of the outsides exquisite; but the insides show painting of a much commoner type. A gift of this kind is considered the height of courtesy in China, where the visitor is treated as a friend. In Chinese houses are found decorative pieces of the highest excellence and value. It is no uncommon thing for a piece of rare china to sell for a thousand dollars there. Many of them bear inscriptions, such as: "A precious thing to offer;" "Splendid, like the gold of the house of Jade;" "I am the friend of Yu-Tchouen." The chrysanthemo-pæonienne, the customary decoration, while most in use, is, so far as I know, never seen on dinner-services sent to us. I may ask attention to a characteristic of all the best Oriental art: _it is not imitative_--not absolutely a copy. The artist seizes the _spirit_, the action, the color, of a bird or flower, and, by a few fine, keen strokes, fastens them upon the china. No attempt is made to display a botanical or ornithological specimen. All is free, bold, effective--a sketch, but not a slovenly one. It is not easy for words to explain this. Now, the methods of the Occidental and civilized peoples, as we call them, are the reverse of this. At Sèvres and Dresden, for example, is to be seen the most elaborate, careful, and detailed penciling or imitation of a flower, or a face, or a landscape, requiring extreme and persistent attention and labor. This is copying--the _spirit_ is rarely seized; the other is art, and is certainly the highest and the most satisfactory. The Oriental feels; The Occidental reasons. The Oriental perceives and creates; The Occidental criticises and copies. Herein lies a supreme difference, sufficient to explain why so much of the Oriental china touches the imagination, and why the European china so rarely does. The Oriental leads us away out of the region of the real and the commonplace, into a state of ideal and spiritual-sensuous art. He is never without body, the real part, the base of all life and art; but he has glorified it by a display of the fine and subtile essence which may be called its soul. This is not always so. Often he is most clumsy and rude in form, and common in decoration; but, when he is an _artist_, he is the finest we know of. It is probable that the Chinese had some blue equivalent to cobalt [Illustration: FIG. 107.--_From Mrs. Burlingame's Collection._] from an early day, but the real cobalt blue was introduced into China from Europe during the Ming period (about 1500). They at once seized it, and from it was produced that charming variety known as the "heavenly" or "celestial" blue; the glaze, the clay, and the color, are all perfect; and it certainly deserves its name of heavenly. A mania for it has existed, and continues to exist, in Europe. One of the finest collections in England--that of Mr. Rossetti, the poet--was recently sold. In America, Mr. Avery and Mr. Hoe, of New York, Mr. Wales, of Boston, and Mrs. Burlingame, of Cambridge, have many beautiful examples. Fine pieces of this blue sell for from twenty-five to [Illustration: FIG. 108.--_Celestial Blue Teapot._] [Illustration: FIG. 109.--_Celestial Blue Snuff-Bottle._] five hundred dollars. The color varies from light to dark; some collectors choose one, some the other. Some pieces are known as the "six-mark," and many attach an added value to this evidence; but it does not seem to indicate greater perfection: many of the finest pieces I have seen have no potter's mark. Within the last twenty-five years a very active desire for these fine blues has broken out in England, which does not abate. It has not been so keen in France, and prices have not there gone so high. [Illustration: FIG. 110.--_Pot in Boston Art Museum._] This celestial blue was painted at Nanking, and is a wholly different thing from the ordinary Canton blue of trade. It is probable that some of this blue dates back to the Ming dynasty. The color was mostly painted under the glaze. This luminous blue is nothing like the turquoise, which also the Chinese carried to great perfection. The turquoise was produced from copper, the celestial from cobalt. The pieces Figs. 107, 108, and 109 are excellent examples of the celestial blue. Fig. 107 is a large vase of Mrs. Burlingame's, and has the stately palm which is much used in this color. The vase is some eighteen inches high. Fig. 108 is a delicately-formed teapot, with exquisite glaze and paste, the blue showing in the reserves and along the handle and spout. It was given to the writer by a gentleman in Holland. Fig. 109 is a most dainty bit, a small snuff-bottle. There are some few others in this country--two of them, mounted in silver, belong to Mr. Schlesinger, of Boston. [Illustration: FIG. 111.--_Incense-Pot, from Mr. Avery's Collection._] The Art-Museum of Boston has now two exquisite pots of turquoise blue, bought at the sale of Mr. Heard's collection for some six hundred dollars. We picture one of these to show the form, and the dragon which finishes the top (Fig. 110). The dragon is in dark red, the pot in turquoise blue; but this blue has another and a rare quality: it is covered all over with delicate spots or dots of the same color, what is called "soufflé"--this is said to be produced by blowing the color through a fine screen or gauze on to the clay. The sea-greens (_céladons_) are among the rarest Chinese colors, and some pieces are thought to be among the oldest--dating back possibly one thousand years. The violets and crimsons are also rare and beautiful; they are almost always applied to vases and bottles; and are often flamed, splashed, or clouded. The imperial yellow, some pieces of which are in the Green Vaults at Dresden, was never sold; it was made only for the royal family of Peking. I have not seen it, but it is described as a very clear and beautiful citron-color. Marryat mentions two pieces in Mr. Beckford's collection as having been sold for their weight in gold; they would now sell for ten times that. The small incense-pot (Fig. 111) is from Mr. Avery's collection. It is a very pure lemon-yellow, and is quaint in form and peculiar in every way. Nothing can be better here than the condensed information prepared for his catalogue by Mr. A. W. Franks. It is as follows: "The tints are very numerous; we find, for instance, sea-green or _céladon_, yellow, red, blue, purple, brown, black, and several variegated hues. These glazes owe their color to various metallic oxides, of which an account may be found in the 'History of King-te-chin,' book vi., section xi. The exact tint must be in some measure due to the amount of firing which the vase has undergone, and the mottlings and other variations of color which they present must have been to a certain extent accidental. "Among these simple colors the first place must be assigned to the bluish or sea-green tint, termed by the French _céladon_. It is probably of considerable antiquity; and it is remarkable that the earliest specimen of porcelain that can now be referred to as having been brought to England before the Reformation--the cup of Archbishop Warham, at New College, Oxford--is of this kind. By the Persians and Turks it is termed _mertebani_, and it is much valued by them as a detector of poisonous food. Specimens of this porcelain were sent to Lorenzo de' Medici, in 1487, by the Sultan of Egypt. It owes its preservation, no doubt, to its great thickness. The surface is sometimes covered with impressed or engraved patterns filled in with the glaze. "Yellow glazed porcelain is much valued by collectors, owing to the supposed scarcity of specimens of this color, it being the imperial color of the reigning dynasty. Many of them, however, bear dates of the Ming dynasty, when the imperial color was green, and can therefore have no relation to the emperor. "The red glaze is of considerable antiquity; some of the vases made under the Sung dynasty at Tsing-cheou are mentioned as resembling chiseled red jade. One tint, the _sang de boeuf_ of French collectors, is much valued in China. Occasionally portions of red glazed vases appear purple, owing probably to a different chemical condition of the coloring-matter in those parts. "Blue glazes must have come into use in very early times, as blue is stated to have been the color of the vases of the Tsin dynasty (A. D. 265 to 419). The tints appear to have varied greatly, one of the most celebrated being the blue of the sky after rain, which was the tint selected for the palace use by the Emperor Chi-tsung (954 to 959). "The purple glaze is another beautiful variety. Specimens of this color are mentioned as early as the Sung dynasty (900 to 1279). The brown and coffee-colored glazes do not appear to be very ancient, as Père d'Entrecolles, writing in 1712, mentions them as recent inventions. "A brilliant black glaze is by no means common, excepting where it is used in combination with gilding, and is probably not very ancient, as a brilliant black is said to have been invented under the reign of the Emperor Keen-lung (1736 to 1795). "The variegated and mottled glazes may properly be included under this head, as they owe their appearance not so much to a difference in the coloring-matter as in the mode in which it is applied. They are called by the French _flambé_, and were no doubt originally accidentally produced. According to Père d'Entrecolles (second letter, section xi.), such vases are called _Yao pien_, or transmutation-vases. "It is probable that many of the specimens which are covered with single glazes are of a coarse ware--rather a kind of stone-ware than true porcelain. Some of the glazes have been applied at a somewhat lower temperature, called by the French _demi-grand feu_." Porcelain-painting is done in two ways: under the glaze directly on the clay, or upon the glaze. Most of it is upon the glaze, into which it is melted by a mild heat. To show to the uninitiated what time, talent, and labor, are applied to pottery and porcelain, it may be well to state that fine work requires many firings, and that the delicate teacup, which fools hardly look at, passes through some seventy hands to reach its perfectness! In some eyes a big thing (even if ugly) is admirable; a small thing, however beautiful, is contemptible. In the eye of God is anything small, anything large? ENAMELING is a style of glaze mostly applied to a stronger, more opaque body, often not porcelain at all. The enamel, which is made from oxide of tin, may be applied in masses of color upon the glaze so as to produce the effect of slight relief, or cameo. Much of it is beautiful, but it often lacks the fineness and preciousness of china. Of the EGG-SHELL china most have seen excellent examples brought from Japan, where it is now made. The cups are turned down to an extreme thinness, almost to that of thick writing-paper, before the last glaze is applied. The oldest egg-shell was a pure white; later, flowers in colors were applied. [Illustration: FIG. 112.--_Grains-of-Rice Pot._] The "reticulated" cups are very curious and interesting; the inner cup for holding the tea is surrounded by another pierced through its side with a variety of designs. It is difficult to see how these could have been baked together without fusing and fastening them. The "grains-of-rice" cups are made by cutting the design through the body, which spaces are then filled with a translucent glaze; the cut spaces show when held up to the light, and resemble in most cases grains of rice. The engraving (Fig. 112) represents a pot in Mr. Avery's collection. Just when the "crackle" decoration was applied cannot well be known, but it was in vogue in the beginning of the Ming dynasty. It seems that the purity of the paste was greater during this period than later, and that the colors, therefore, became more brilliant. "Crackle" china has long been prized, and much sought for, especially the best specimens. This ware shows a network of veins covering the whole piece, the lines of which are sometimes filled with a color such as brown, black, green, etc. It remains a mystery to us how this effect is produced, though it is still made. Marryat seems to believe that the crackle is produced in the glaze, and possibly by subjecting it, when heated, to sudden cold, which causes the contraction and crackle; a close examination shows that the crackles are in the body itself, and are afterward covered with the glaze. This decoration is curious rather than beautiful. The crackles vary in size from a half-inch to a very fine network; and this last is most valued. Mr. Franks gives the following as the result of his investigations: "This is one of the most peculiar productions of the art of the Chinese potter, and has not been successfully imitated elsewhere. Occasionally European pieces assume a crackled appearance, but this has not been intentionally produced, and has been subsequent to the baking. "There is a considerable variety in the colored glazes which are thus crackled. Some colors, such as turquoise-blue and apple-green, seem nearly always to assume a crackled appearance; others, such as the reds, are rarely affected. The color chiefly selected is a grayish white; the forms are archaic, and with ornaments in dark brown, occasionally gilt. The crackled appearance, though now always artificial, doubtless owes its origin in the first instance to accident, and at an early period. Some of the vases of the Sung dynasty (A. D. 960 to 1270) are noticed as being crackled. The productions of the two brothers Chang, who lived under that dynasty, were distinguished by one being crackled and the other not. Crackled vases were called 'Tsui-khi-yao,' under the southern Sung dynasty (1127 to 1279), and are thus described in the 'History of King-te-chin:' 'The clay employed was coarse and compact, the vases were thick and heavy; some were of a rice-white, others pale blue. They used to take some Hoa-chi (steatite), powder it, and mix it with the glaze. The vases exhibited cracks running in every direction, as though broken into a thousand pieces. The cracks were rubbed over with Indian-ink or a red color, and the superfluity removed. Then was seen a network of charming veins, red or black, imitating the cracks of ice. There were also vases on which blue flowers were painted on the crackled ground.' [Illustration: FIG. 113.--_Crackle Vase._] "A different mode of making the crackles is described in another Chinese work, and is as follows: 'After covering the vases with glaze, they are exposed to a very hot sun, and, when they have become hot, they are plunged into cold water for a moment. On being baked, they appear covered with innumerable cracks.' The way in which the size of the crackle is regulated seems to be indicated in one of the receipts for making crackle-vases, given in the 'History of King-te-chin' (page 214), from which we learn that the material of the glaze was to be finely or coarsely washed, according to the size of the crackle required. "The difference between the paste and the thick glaze is well illustrated by fragments of ancient vases, some of which are exhibited. The interior is of a coarse paste, nearly resembling stone-ware, and of a buff or even pale-red color. This is coated on both sides with a white material, in which alone the crackles appear. This illustrates a passage in the 'History of King-te-chin,' where porcelain is spoken of as having red bones. Such vases would not be transparent." [Illustration: FIG. 114.--_From Mr. Avery's Collection._] The Japanese now produce a crackle under the glaze, and also a very fine crackle in the glaze itself; which last is probably much the easiest to do. Fig. 113, copied from M. Jacquemart's work, represents a rather clumsily-shaped vase with the larger crackle, which is less prized. Fig. 114 is finely crackled, and is most subtile in form. It is in Mr. Avery's collection. At the end of this chapter will be found some of the most important _marks_ for dates, etc. These few are used by the Chinese as symbolic: [Illustration: _Pearl._] [Illustration: _Sonorous Stone._] The _Pearl_ is the symbol of talent, and was sometimes used to mark pieces intended for poets and literary men; the _Sonorous Stone_ was for high judicial functionaries; the _Tablet of Honor_ for men in official positions; the _Sacred Axe_ for warriors; the "Cockscomb" promised longevity; and the "Outang or Leaf," the "Shell," the "Precious Articles," had each a significance, and often indicate pieces of china intended as presents or as expressions of honor. [Illustration: _Tablet of Honor._] [Illustration: _Sacred Axe._] [Illustration: _Cockscomb (flower)._] [Illustration: _Outang._] [Illustration: _Shell._] [Illustration: _Precious Articles._] It is probable that many of the best examples of Chinese porcelain date from the Ming dynasty, some of which are to be found in our public and private collections. The history of the manufacture there since that time is thus summed up by Mr. Franks: "The troubles of the later emperors of the Ming dynasty, who succeeded one another rapidly, and were constantly at war with the Tartars, probably caused the porcelain-works to fall into decay; we hear, at any rate, nothing of their productions, nor have any dated specimens been seen. "With the accession of the Tsing dynasty of Tartars, still occupying the throne of China, a new period of activity commenced. Under Kang-he, the second emperor of the dynasty (1661 to 1722), a great impulse was given to the ceramic arts. The long and peaceful reign of this emperor, extending to sixty-one years, his great understanding, and the assistance perhaps of the Jesuit missionaries, led to many improvements in the porcelain-manufacture, and to the introduction of several new colors. It is probably to this reign that we may refer most of the old specimens of Chinese porcelain that are to be seen in collections, even when they bear earlier dates. The wares made under his successor, Yung-ching (1723 to 1736), do not appear to have been remarkable. "The fourth emperor, Keen-lung (1736 to 1795), reigned for sixty years, when he abdicated. A large quantity of fine china was made during his long reign, much of it exhibiting very rich and minute decoration. Under his successors the manufacture appears again to have diminished in excellence; and the destruction caused by the rebellion of the Taipings not only greatly interfered with the extent of production, but caused the downfall of the most celebrated of the fabrics--that of King-te-chin. "As we have already said, however, the native accounts do not furnish much information that can be rendered available; but they show very clearly that at all times the porcelain-makers were in the habit of copying the works of their predecessors, and instances are given where they have even succeeded in imposing upon the best judges of their own country. "The places at which manufactories of porcelain have existed or still exist in China are very numerous, no less than fifty-seven being recorded in the 'History of King-te-chin.' They extend to thirteen of the eighteen provinces into which the country is divided, but are especially numerous in Honan, Chihkiang, and Kiangsi, probably owing to the presence of the materials for the manufacture in these provinces. The following is a summary: Chihli 5 Keang-nan 5 Shansi 5 Shantung 2 Honan 13 Shensi 4 Kansuh 1 Chihkiang 8 Kiangsi 8 Szechuen 1 Fokien 2 Kwangtung 1 Hoonan 2 "Of all these manufactories, the most famous appears to be that of King-te-chin, in the province of Kiangsi. It has long been the site of a fabrique, as in A. D. 583 the then emperor ordered the inhabitants of the district now called King-te-chin to send him porcelain vases. The old name was Chang-nan-chin, and the present one was assumed in the period King-te (A. D. 1004 to 1007), whence its name. In 1712 Père d'Entrecolles states that there were three thousand porcelain furnaces in this town, which found employment for an immense multitude of people. The manufactory has suffered severely, as we have already stated, during the rebellion of the Taipings. "Porcelain is termed by the Chinese _Yao_, a name which seems to have been brought into use at the commencement of the Tang dynasty (A. D. 618), before which it had been called _Tao_. The word 'porcelain' is European, possibly Italian, and is supposed to have been derived from the similarity of the glazed surface to that of the cowrie-shell (_porcellana_), which itself took its name from its form (_porcella_, a little pig). Marco Polo employs the word in both senses. In French mediæval inventories the word '_pourcelaine_' is often found, and evidently denoted a substance which could be sculptured. M. de Laborde has collected a number of quotations, in the valuable 'Glossaire' appended to his catalogue, of the enamels in the Louvre, and has come to the conclusion that mother-of-pearl was intended; it will, however, be safer to consider that the word was used for any kind of shell, the cowrie and other shells being as well, or even better, adapted for carving than mother-of-pearl. In later inventories the word seems to have been used both for shell and Oriental porcelain. "The claim of greatest antiquity that has been hitherto put forward for specimens found out of the limits of the Celestial Empire have been in favor of the little Chinese bottles, which were stated by Rossellini and others to have been found in undisturbed Egyptian tombs, dating from not less than 1800 years B. C. This claim has, however, been disallowed. The bottles are of good white porcelain, painted in colors, and bearing inscriptions. Now, we have seen that the Chinese themselves do not claim a greater antiquity for the invention of porcelain than between B. C. 206 and A. D. 87. Color-painting must have been introduced at a much later date. The inscriptions are in the grass-character, which was not invented till B. C. 48, and contain passages from poems which were not written till the eighth century of our era. They are, in fact, identical with snuff-bottles still for sale in China. Their introduction, therefore, into Egyptian tombs must have been due to the fraud of Arab workmen. The whole subject has been gone into by M. Stanislas Julien, in the preface to the 'History of King-te-chin,' as well as by others. "The next claim has been made on behalf of the _murrhine_ vases of the ancients, which are described as 'cooked in Parthian fires.' Now, it is probable that, at the commencement of our era, Chinese porcelain was not far advanced beyond pottery or stone-ware, and little superior to the so-called Egyptian porcelain. No fragments of Chinese vases have been found with Greek or Roman antiquities, nor of imitations of them in other materials, so as to correspond with the false murrhine of the ancients. It is therefore far more probable, as has been suggested by Mr. Nesbitt, in his notes on the 'History of Glass-making,' that the murrhine vases were made of agates and other hard stones, of which the colors had been modified in the East by heating and staining. The false murrhines would then be the glass bowls imitating hard stones, but with various strange tints not to be found in natural stones. "In 1171 we first find any distinct mention of porcelain out of China. In that year Saladin sent to Nur-ed-din various presents, among which were forty pieces of Chinese porcelain. "Marco Polo, traveling in 1280, visited one of the sites of the porcelain manufacture, and mentions that it was exported all over the world. It is probable that he may have been the means of calling the attention of his countrymen to this production of the far East. Many other notices from travelers of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries might be cited. It was probably through Egypt that it reached Europe; at any rate, a present of porcelain vases was sent by the Sultan of Egypt, in 1487, to Lorenzo de' Medici. To the Portuguese is no doubt due the first direct importation of Chinese wares into Europe, in which they were followed by the various India companies of Holland, England, France, Sweden, etc. "It may be convenient shortly to describe the mode of making porcelain in China, as derived from the letters of Père d'Entrecolles (1712 to 1722), and the 'History of King-te-chin,' in which M. Julien has reproduced the Chinese plates illustrating the processes. "Porcelain in China is usually formed of two materials: the one, termed in Chinese _Pe-tun-tse_, is a white, fusible material--a mixture of feldspar and quartz, obtained from a pounded rock by repeated washing, and formed into cakes or bricks, whence its Chinese name, 'white-clay bricks;' the other, termed Kaolin from its locality, is infusible, being a hydrated silicate of alumina, derived from the decomposed feldspar of granite; this is also formed into cakes. These two materials, having been thoroughly cleansed, are kneaded together in varying proportions, and form a clay ready for the potter. The wet clay is turned on the wheel or potter's table, and, after passing through the hands of several workmen, who add handles and other accessories made in moulds, smooth the surface, etc., the vessel is put out to dry, the foot still remaining a solid mass; any decoration in blue, or other colors which require to be highly fired, is then added. The glaze is next applied, either by dipping, or by blowing it on with a tube. This strengthens the vessel sufficiently to enable the workmen to fashion the foot on the wheel, and to inscribe any mark; this being likewise coated with glaze, the vessel is ready for the furnace. The pieces of porcelain are packed in clay seggars to protect them from injury, and placed according to the degree of heat which each specimen requires. The furnace is then lighted, the entrance walled up, and it is kept supplied with wood during a night and a day, when it is allowed to cool and the porcelain removed. If enamel-colors are to be applied, it then passes into the hands of the painters, who are very numerous, and each confined to his own special detail; any gilding or silvering is added at this stage. It is then baked again, at a much lower temperature, in a small muffle or an open furnace. It should be mentioned that the glaze is formed of Pe-tun-tse, mixed with fern-ashes and lime, but other materials are occasionally used; for instance, Hwa-chi (steatite) is employed, sometimes mixed with the glaze, as well as sometimes with the paste of the porcelain. Any colors which will bear to be highly fired, and are required to cover the whole surface, are mixed with the glaze before it is applied. "There is considerable difficulty in distinguishing glazed vases of Chinese pottery from true porcelain, as the colored glaze in many cases conceals the material, and the thickness prevents their being translucent--a distinguishing quality of porcelain. The substance of many of the vases is coarse, sometimes gray or even red, and such as would, in European fabriques, be termed stone-ware. By Chinese writers, however, no distinction seems to be made, and even enamels on copper are included in the term they use for porcelain. It has, therefore, been thought best to class together glazed Chinese pottery and porcelain, though some of the specimens are undoubtedly stone-ware." The key to Oriental decoration may be expressed by the word _individualism_. The artist did draw from the "depths of his moral consciousness," and did not copy blindly. He seems to have expressed what he _felt_, rather than what he saw. His perception and arrangement of color seem to have been inspired, not learned. He is daring; he does not hesitate to hang his ladies in a balcony up in the air above the procession passing beneath, as may be seen in a very ancient vase belonging to Mrs. Gridley Bryant, of Boston; he does not fear to put blue leaves to his trees, or to make a green horse; his butterfly is as large as a man, if he wishes to show a figure or a mass of color; his boats are smaller than the passenger, if that suits his fancy; he attempts little perspective, and it is, we may say, impossible on a china bowl; symmetry he abhors; pairs do not exist. What is the result? We see it in the porcelain of China and Japan, the shawls and carpets of India, the pottery of the Persians and the Moors, the architecture of Karnak and the Alhambra, all of which are satisfying to the eye and to the taste. I believe they had no schools of art; they were not _taught_ to do what some one else had done, to copy a master or to copy Nature, or to think symmetry beauty, or the circle the perfect line. The artist was, as he ought to be, a law to himself; he saw what _he_ saw, and felt what _he_ felt, and he expressed these in his own way; not in Titian's way, or Rembrandt's way, or Giorgione's way. There is, therefore, a freedom, a freshness, an _abandon_ about this work that we find nowhere else, and a charm which never tires. We are intellectualists rather than artists; and, moreover, we are ruined by cheap and incompetent criticism, the whole gospel of which is, "Always condemn, never praise." Too much writing _about_ art and too little doing it, is the fashion of to-day; and he who does least finds most fault with him who creates. The artist is the creator, the critic the destroyer; and yet the last values himself most! The "third estate" did not rule in China. If _we_ are to have a true and high artistic expression, our artists, must dare; and we must allow them to dare; we must encourage rather than discourage. We must, above all, get rid of the base old notion that head-work is divine and "gentlemanly," hand-work ignoble and vulgar: both are divine, and when the two are combined we shall see the finest possible man--an _artist_, whether he works with paint, marble, wood, clay, or metal. MARKS, ETC.--The following copies of marks, as translated by Mr. Franks, will be found useful: [Illustration: 1. A. D. 1721.] [Illustration: 2. A. D. 1078 to 1086.] [Illustration: 3. A. D. 1368 to 1399.] [Illustration: 4. A. D. 1403 to 1425.] [Illustration: 5. A. D. 1426 to 1436.] [Illustration: 6. A. D. 1465 to 1488.] [Illustration: 7. A. D. 1465 to 1488.] [Illustration: 8. A. D. 1488 to 1506.] [Illustration: 9. A. D. 1506 to 1522.] [Illustration: 10. A. D. 1522 to 1567.] [Illustration: 11. A. D. 1567 to 1573.] [Illustration: 12. A. D. 1573 to 1620.] [Illustration: 13. A. D. 1644 to 1661.] [Illustration: 14. A. D. 1661 to 1722.] [Illustration: 15. A. D. 1723 to 1736.] [Illustration: 16. A. D. 1736 to 1795.] [Illustration: 17. A. D. 1796 to 1821.] [Illustration: 18. A. D. 1821 to 1851.] [Illustration: 19. A. D. 1851 to 1862.] [Illustration: 20. A. D. 1862 to 1875.] [Illustration: 21. A. D. 1875.] [Illustration: 22. A. D. 1004 to 1097.] [Illustration: 23. A. D. 1403 to 1425.] [Illustration: 24. A. D. 1426 to 1436.] [Illustration: 25. A. D. 1723 to 1736.] [Illustration: 26. A. D. 1736 to 1795.] [Illustration: 27. A. D. 1736 to 1795.] [Illustration: 28. A. D. 1796 to 1821.] [Illustration: 29. A. D. 1821 to 1851.] [Illustration: 30. A. D. 1851 to 1862.] [Illustration: 31. A. D. 1862 to 1875.] CHAPTER XI. THE PORCELAIN OF JAPAN. Corean Porcelain.--Katosiro-ouye-mon.--The Province of Idsoumi.--Styles prevailing in Japan.--Marks.--Japanese Blue.--Indian Porcelain.--Dutch East India Company.--Egg-shell and Crackle.--Mandarin China.--Kaga Ware.--Satsuma Ware.--Japanese Art.--The Philadelphia Exhibition. Of porcelains from the island of Corea but little is known, and all our statements are made with doubt. It is believed by some that from Corea came the first porcelain-makers into Japan. In New York, Mr. Hoe and Mr. Avery have each pieces which are peculiar, being bolder in decoration and cruder in color than the Chinese or Japanese, but which may have been made in Japan. So, too, with Persian porcelain: there is about it much vagueness and uncertainty. There seems to be testimony to prove that porcelain was made in that country. In India, too, it has been now and then asserted that porcelain was made. But, as the Chinese and Japanese had much trade with those nations, and as they certainly did work from designs sent from other countries, it is most reasonable to believe that what some persons have supposed was Indian or Persian was really Chinese porcelain. Japanese porcelain is a more difficult subject for study than the Chinese, owing to this circumstance: About the year 1211 or 1212, a Japanese artist crossed over to China, to study the processes by means of which the Chinese had reached such surprising excellence. His name, according to Dr. Hoffman, was Katosiro-ouye-mon. Through him the art received in Japan a new impulse, new knowledge, new methods. It may be of service to us to know that the wonderful perfection achieved by the Japanese in this art was due not only to the skill of her artists, but also, and more, to the fact that the government gave direct, persistent, and liberal pecuniary aid to the industry. Genius will, of course, work its miracles; but, if we in the United States are to reach excellence in art-work, it will be, must be, only fitful and short-lived, if it is to depend upon individual effort or chance patronage: only by means of the persistent and intelligent fostering of a state, whose life is perennial, can the greatest things be accomplished. There are fanatics who hold to free trade in poetry, invention, art, patent-right, copyright. No doubt they mean well, but the nation may beware of them. The art-museums now being established cannot fail to do good; but they will fall lamentably short of their aims if they are not directly and powerfully aided by the state. To illustrate this, let me refer to the fine collections known as the Kensington Museum and the British Museum, in England. Both are the creations of the state, and both have been generously treated. It would have taken a hundred or a thousand years of individual contributions to accomplish what the Kensington Museum has done in twenty. Already, it is a great and noble school--teaching by example--of _art applied to the uses of life_; and already it has placed some of the manufacturers of England in the first place of the world. I wish, then, to repeat that the work which Katosiro did would not have been done--could not have been done--by his own individual effort. He not only added vastly to the satisfaction and delight and riches of his own people, but he has given us cause to bless the Government of Japan for the satisfaction and delight we, too, are enabled to draw from his work. Pennsylvania is taking the lead here. With a keen perception and a profound wisdom, that State, I am told, has united with the city of Philadelphia to found and maintain a school of applied art, which cannot fail to be an incalculable good to the industries and the happiness of her people. Depending upon individual contributions, Boston and New York must struggle far behind, and finally dwindle away. We need, in every great industrial centre, a "Council on Instruction," which shall provide models of art-work, and teaching enough to make these models plain to industrial seekers. We have tried free schools, free trade, free press, and no one is happy. I pray we may for a century fairly and fully try household art: that is the art which shall make the home the most attractive place on this footstool of heaven. In this work all sects and sexes may unite. Every man and woman can and will agree that his or her home shall be a page from the book of paradise; one on which they can write, and one from which all may read. According to the best authorities we are able to get, we conclude that the Japanese have from the earliest days been great potters, and that the Chinese discovery of porcelain was carried to Japan probably in the century before our era. It appears from the researches of Dr. Hoffman, of Holland, that in 662 a Buddhist monk introduced the secrets of translucent porcelain into the province of Idsoumi, and a village then became famous as _To-ki-moura_, "village for making porcelain." In the year 859 the two provinces of Idsoumi and Kavatsi went into a violent quarrel over a mountain which contained clay and firewood. But the vast wants of such a tasteful and teeming people as the Japanese advanced this most useful and beautiful industry until the time of Katosiro (in the 1200's), when it went forward to perfection, and rivaled or excelled the best work of China. In later years the great centre of porcelain-production has been the island of Kiushiu. Upon the Idsoumi-yoma (or Mountain of Springs), where was found the kaolinic clay, Dr. Hoffman numbers some five-and-twenty shops famous for porcelains. From the recent work of Messrs. Audesley and Bowes, it seems that the province of Hizen has produced the finest examples of Japanese porcelain. The first number of this work has just reached us, and gives great promise. The authors are Mr. George Ashdown Audesley, architect, and James Lord Bowes, President of the Liverpool Art Club. No work upon the ceramic art has appeared superior to this, especially in its decorations. [Illustration: FIG. 115.--_Japanese Vase._] While the fine, delicate perception and touch of the Japanese have given an added grace and finish to most of their work, as a whole their porcelain may be said to be a following (rather than a copying) of the Chinese: in China porcelain was indigenous; in Japan it was an importation. In China, then, we shall find more original invention and greater variety; in Japan, more finish. The best work of Japan is often superior in the paste and in the glaze to the Chinese. As to classification, it is found that the two styles of China porcelain called "The Chrysanthemo-Pæonienne" and "The Famille-Rose" are the two which most prevail in Japan; and it is not easy to distinguish the fine work of the one country from that of the other. In the rose family is to be found much of the best work of Japan. In Figs. 115 and 116 are two good examples of this work. The "Famille-Vert," or green, was not made there. [Illustration: FIG. 116.--_Tea-Caddy._] We cannot do better than to quote from Jacquemart: "A radical difference separates the two countries as regards drawing. At Niphon the figures, though affected, and too much resembling each other not to be the produce of 'pouncing,' have a simple grace and softness, the evident reflex of Oriental manners. Certainly, it is not an imitation of Nature; it is not art, such as we understand it, with its complex qualities; but it is a dreamy act, a first manifestation of thought under form. A scene of frequent occurrence represents two women standing, one upon a rose, the other upon a leaf, and thus floating upon the waves in an aureole of clouds: the first, elegantly attired, holds a sceptre; the second is her attendant, and carries a basket of flowers passed through a kind of lance or instrument for ploughing. According to the indications of the Japanese Pantheon, it is the goddess of the seas or patroness of fishermen. It matters little which it may be; but, by the modest grace of the attitude, the easy elegance of the draperies, this painting approaches the graceful vellums of our artists of the middle ages. The birds and plants partake of these merits, and are truthfully drawn, the details most delicately rendered. Nothing is more beautiful than these venerated silver pheasants, the proud-looking cocks perched upon the rocks or lost among the flowers; nothing more charming than certain crested blackbirds with rose-colored breasts, and other passerine birds of beautiful plumage." While it is true that the Japanese flower-painting approaches nearer to Nature than the Chinese, it does not seem correct to say that it approaches to, or is, a copy of Nature. It is difficult to see anything which is not treated freely and strongly rather than naturally. Some of the decorations peculiar to Japan may be mentioned as follows: The kiri, or flower of the paulownia. The imperial _three_-clawed dragon. The noble bird. The sacred tortoise. The pine, the bamboo, and The crane. The crane and the tortoise are emblems of longevity. Two marks were the official signs of the Mikado: first, the kiri-mon, or flower of the paulownia; and, second, the guik-mon, or chrysanthemum; while to the temporal prince, or Siogoun, belonged the three-leaved mallow. [Illustration: _Kiri-mon._] [Illustration: _Guik-mon._] [Illustration: _Three-leaved Mallow._] The vase here given (Fig. 117), from Mr. Avery's collection in the New York Museum of Art, is a good illustration of the way the Japanese used natural forms artistically rather than naturally. [Illustration: FIG. 117.--_From Mr. Avery's Collection._] The description is as follows: "VASE, of elegant form, a ground of white, a branch of a tree in violet color running around the body, from which depend the fruit and flowers of the peach of longevity in rich colors. Storks delicately outlined in black, their bodies being filled in with dead-white enamel, peck at the fruit or blossoms, or disport through the air. The neck is ornamented with a band of yellow, scrolls, fruit, bats, and _honorific_ designs." [Illustration: FIG. 118.--_From Mr. Avery's Collection._] We give in Fig. 118 a bottle of square form painted delicately on each side with groups of figures, most likely representing incidents in Japanese history. It is a fine example from Mr. Avery's collection. The colors are green, blue, and yellow, and are very rich and harmonious. A style of decoration found among the Japanese rather than the Chinese might be described as a sort of medallion-painting: the round spaces are distributed over the pot regardless of symmetry, and the effect is charming. Fig. 119 shows one of these, belonging to Mrs. Rockwell, of Boston. It is modern work, and, while not expensive, is very satisfactory. An impression prevails that it is very creditable to pay dear for and to own antique work--not so modern work. But, if we are to do any good ourselves, we must believe in our own modern work when we can, and be glad to buy and pay for it. Also, we must praise our artists. Let us do so, and let us not forget that what is old and good now was once _new_ and good; none the less good because it was new. [Illustration: FIG. 119.--_From Mrs. Rockwell's Collection._] The Japanese blue is exquisite, certainly, but it lacks the deep vivid brilliancy of the Nanking. It is believed that the blue is applied over the glaze, and it has a melting softness which is most pleasing. Many of these pieces bear the six marks, as with the Chinese. Another blue, which is a deep or mazarin color incorrectly called "celestial," is quite a different thing, but very choice and beautiful. The color is applied as an enamel, and in relief, and with wonderful skill. I have never seen any pieces of this which were supposed to date far back; and it is certain that it is among the fine productions of to-day, but none the less beautiful for that. A porcelain with very marked decoration and coloring has been somewhat of a puzzle, and has been called Indian, being so very distinct from anything produced in China. Jacquemart thus describes it: "A particular decoration which we call variegated-leaved is very brilliant, and might have found grace even in the eyes of the Puritan Wagenaar. The principal subject is a group of pointed leaves, some in blue under the glaze; others of a pale green, or of a pink and yellow enameled; at the base of the tuft expands a large ornamental flower, with notched pink petals lined with yellow; the heart, forming a centre, is yellow or greenish streaked with pink; notwithstanding the indentations which overload it, it is easy to recognize the flower as an anona or custard-apple. The leaves would lead one to suppose them, by their form and size, to be those of a chestnut-tree, while their color recalls the tricolor plane-tree so beloved by the Orientals, and which decks itself with tufts, varying from light green to red, passing through the intermediary tints. Behind these leaves, and upon the edge of the pieces, appear light and delicate small enameled flowers of iron-red, yellow, rose, or blue." (Fig. 120.) This porcelain was made in Japan, and was brought by the Dutch into Europe at a time when their trade was so great. The Dutch East India Company was formed in 1602. In the year 1664, forty-four thousand nine hundred and forty-three pieces of rare porcelain were carried into Holland from Japan, and sixteen thousand five hundred and eighty pieces of the same work were sent from Batavia. In some way not known, this peculiar work has been called "Indian." I found two pieces of it in Holland, one of which is in Mr. Wales's collection, and one piece, my own, is figured here. It is not easy to see anything more perfect. The Japanese have excelled also in the production of "crackle," also of the "egg-shell" porcelain, neither of which differs enough from the Chinese to need description. [Illustration: FIG. 120.--_Japanese Variegated-leaved Porcelain._] In the loan collection at New York is to be seen a crackled bottle, which has broad bands running around it, that are not crackled. More remarkable than this is a crackle vase belonging to Mr. H. Dwight Williams, which contains reclining figures delicately painted, that are not crackled. Technical skill can go no further, it would seem. The Japanese lacquer far exceeds anything made in China, and is among the most beautiful of human work. We know but little of the processes of its manufacture, and only introduce it here because the Japanese have applied it to the decoration of porcelain. Very charming and surprising effects are produced. The lacquer is laid on as a varnish made from some vegetable gum or gums, but in what way or how applied we know not. It is exceedingly hard and durable, and takes a variety of colors exquisitely. It is applied mostly to wood, sometimes to porcelain. Mr. George James, of Nahant, has a very fine porcelain figure which is finished with lacquer. "_Cloisonné_" work applied to porcelain has been made in Japan. How the delicate metal lines can be fastened to the surface of the porcelain, and how the vitrifiable colors can be melted into the spaces with such perfection, can never fail to surprise. To see such perfect and delicate workmanship is a satisfaction: what pleasure must the artist himself not enjoy! The "mandarin china" (Fig. 121), as it is termed, was made in Japan rather than in China. This term is applied to such vases and pieces as bear the figures of mandarins wearing the toque or cap topped with the button which marks their grade. It appears that the Thsing conquerors, when they overcame the Ming dynasty in China, attempted to efface the old customs and dress, and among other things they ordered was the adoption of the toque or cap. Hence, to protest against their conquerors, no such designs appear on the old Chinese porcelain; but only on the Japanese, which was carried to China and sold.[13] This variety is not to be confounded with a gayly-colored kind of heavy porcelain made in China, which often goes under the name of mandarin. On this Japanese mandarin-ware, gilding is likely to be found, and indeed the Japanese were much more inclined to its use than the Chinese. European and Christian subjects were sometimes painted upon the Japanese porcelain to meet the wants of the Dutch exporters. In the Metropolitan Museum of Art at New York are some of these pieces belonging to Mr. Avery's collection: one has a portrait of Luther; another has the baptism of Christ, another a Dutch landscape with figures. They are most curious, and upon the Scripture subjects hangs a tale: [Illustration: FIG. 121.--_Mandarin China._] As early as 1534 we know that the Portuguese had established a trade with Japan, and, with the aggressive spirit of all Occidentals, had attempted to introduce their religion into Japan, against the usages and prejudices of the Japanese, which were potent then. They pushed it to an irritating point, and it is asserted that their meddling with the decorations in the porcelain factories at last led to their expulsion, and to the massacre and destruction of some forty thousand of their Christian converts in 1641. The Dutch then persuaded the Japanese to allow them the privileges of trade, which they held for some two hundred years; and it is through them that most of our fine examples have been brought to Europe and here. [Illustration: FIG. 122.--_Example of Old Satsuma Ware._] Besides the porcelain productions of Japan are two varieties of pottery or faience, which are remarkable for richness of color and decoration: the one is called "KAGA WARE," the other "SATSUMA," from the districts where they are produced. Most of the Kaga ware brought to us is of a thick, heavy body, and colored with a dark sort of Indian-red, touched with lines of gilding. Some of the finer specimens, however, like the vases shown in the recent work of Messrs. Audesley and Bowes, are in polychrome, and very beautiful. The Satsuma faience is made of a rich, creamy paste, and is thicker than most porcelain; but it is delicious in tone and delightful in decoration. There are a few pieces in this country; and more, but not large quantities, in Europe. Some of the finest pieces I have seen are in the collection of the eminent English artist, Mr. Frederick Leighton, whose house, as well as works, can only give pleasure. [Illustration: FIG. 123.--_Example of Modern Satsuma Ware._] The old Satsuma has peculiarities which, added to its rarity, make it exceedingly valuable and desirable. Fig. 122 is one of the pieces pictured in the Audesley-Bowes book, as an example of the old Satsuma, and is very curious in form. The modern Satsuma is much of it very beautiful, but of course it commands no such prices as the older. Most of it shows the glaze broken throughout into a most delicate network of crackle, which is peculiar and interesting. The small teapot here shown is not only perfect in tone, glaze, and decoration, but also in form. It is modern work, and was imported by Mr. Briggs, of Boston. (Fig. 123.) Mr. Franks thus writes: "The princes of Satsuma have founded a manufactory from which have issued some very remarkable products, much esteemed by collectors; the paste is of a pale yellowish tint, not unlike Wedgwood's queen's-ware in color, and is slightly crackled; over this are thrown sprays of plants, with rich diapered borders, the effect of which is enhanced by the delicacy of the colors and the richness of the gilding. This ware is probably not very ancient. Mr. A. B. Mitford has informed me that he does not remember seeing any specimens more than fifty years old, and that the oldest were undecorated. "Another beautiful ware is that made near Kioto, in which the colors are much stronger, and the paste of a darker tint. Some of the specimens seem to be of considerable antiquity. "At Kutani (the Nine Valleys), in the province of Kaga, is made another fine ware, some of which appears to be porcelain. The most characteristic products of this factory are bowls and dishes decorated only in red with gilding. "Another peculiar fabric has produced very thin teapots of a gray stone-ware, showing the marks of the workman's hands. Mr. Mitford has furnished me with the following note respecting them: 'For some thirty years past a man named Banko Insetzu, of Kuana, in the province of Isé, has been famous for producing a curious kind of pottery, which, being finished off with the finger and thumb before being subjected to the fire, shows the lines of the skin of the hand upon its surface. No teapots equal those of Banko for producing a delicate infusion of tea, and all lovers of tea patronize them; they are fragile to a degree, the paste being as thin as a wafer.'" The peach, or, as the Japanese term it, the "peach of longevity," is a favorite decoration with the Japanese; we can appreciate its value, as one of the finest fruits of our temperate zone. We give here (Fig. 124) a teapot showing the fruit with some of the leaves. This is copied from Jacquemart; but the curious may see a better example at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, from Mr. Avery's Oriental collection. Japanese art is still more marked than the Chinese in that it is as free and yet more delicate. The artist clearly was a close observer of Nature, and saw and felt its infinite variety; saw, too, that Nature was never square, or round, or double. Nothing in Nature need duplicate any other thing. We Occidentals have delighted in the use of-- The square, The circle, and Of pairs, or a symmetrical arrangement of ornament, or of columns, or openings. We have also found a crude satisfaction in the use of strong, glaring colors. We have delighted to _copy_ and to tell a common story in a common way in our decorations. I believe this is wholly wrong. The Japanese artist never uses the square, or the circle, or the pair. Nor does he use crude and glaring colors; always the most subtile and fascinating shades and vanishing tints. He _suggests_ the story; he never tells it as Watteau did. [Illustration: FIG. 124.--_Teapot with Peach Decoration._] A pair of vases belonging to Mrs. James, of Cambridge, have a picture of a gentleman and lady, above whose heads is seen a canopy or roof. The meaning is thus explained by a Japanese gentleman of this day, who was in Boston: The figures represented are a nobleman and his wife, one of the five hundred families of the _flowery class_; they are dressed in the ancient costume of Japan, now no longer worn. The part of a tent or pavilion indicates that they are out-of-doors, at a picnic; the white blossoms of the cherry which surround them show a favorite tree in Japan; the color of this vase and the kind of crackle prove its age. All is suggested; the imagination is spoken to, not the intellect; the artist feels, and makes us feel. We are forcing ourselves and our civilization upon the Japanese who do not want us, and we curse them. We have attacked the simplicity of their lives, we shall increase their immorality, and we shall degrade their art. Twenty years hence, artistic and patient work will have disappeared from among them. Good work has almost disappeared from among us, as well as from Europe: we do all in a hurry, all for cheapness, all for money. The artist, the workman, delight no more in _perfect work_, which is Godlike. "Progress," they tell us, requires us to force the Japanese to trade with us. It is a much-abused word; in the hands of plunderers and traders it means only--"You shall give us the opportunity to cheat you." We have demanded that, and have succeeded; but we shall be none the better for it, and the Japanese will be the worse. They will learn, do learn fast, to cheat back; and already we see signs of it in their demoralized productions. They are already making copies--counterfeits of some of the high-priced porcelains of China--and putting on these the marks intended to deceive. Fools say, "Trade is a blessing;" wise men, "It is oftener a curse." Honest, faithful production _is_ a blessing; juggling, barter, _is_ always a curse. In the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia the Japanese had the largest and the finest exhibit of porcelain. We were told by the officials that there are at Hizen some five factories of fictile wares; at Kioto, ten; at Owari, three; at Kaga, five; at Satsuma, one; at Banko, one; and at Tokio (Yedo), forty-three. This last statement was a surprise, but it was reiterated. The porcelains of Hizen rank first, and the exhibit from there was the largest. The two great vases, some eight feet high, of lacquer or porcelain, were the largest pieces of potter's work we had ever seen, and they seemed cheap at twenty-five hundred dollars. In the middle part of the two great cases were two small tea-sets of some five pieces each, which were the finest of porcelain in all particulars, and yet no one bought them at one hundred and thirty dollars each; not even the Philadelphia Museum, which showed a marvelous skill in selecting the best. There were also quite a number of excellent pots and vases, from which Mr. Brown secured a very desirable pair, sage-green with white bands containing grotesque designs. It was to be expected that the Chinese and the Japanese, if they made an exhibit at all, would take the places of honor. This they have done for quantity, and the Japanese do so for quality also. The Owari porcelain is mostly the blue. The body or paste seemed clear, but there was a want of good form and superiority of coloring and decoration. Some excellent and striking pieces could be found here. But, so far as one visit could reveal, there was nothing equal to the old six-mark blue. The Kioto is a faience of a weaker body than the Satsuma, and running more to a lemon-yellow. Its decoration is marked by a certain delicacy which in small articles is good, but which in large ones lacks strength. Shimzi, of Kioto, had a case of good pieces. Meyagama, of Yokohama, had some delightful porcelain vases, decorated in relief with butterflies, plants, etc., which, it is satisfactory to know, were bought by our New York friends. The case of old wares shown by Kiriu Kosho Kuwaisha, from Tokio, contained a collection which had a kind of mysterious fascination even to us "outside barbarians," which we suppose might have become an intense desire to possess, could we have known anything about them. CHAPTER XII. THE PORCELAINS OF CENTRAL EUROPE--DRESDEN, BERLIN, HÖCHST, ETC. Dresden China.--Porcelain in Europe.--The Alchemists.--Augustus II.--Böttger.--Tschirnhaus.--Experiments.--Kaolin discovered.--Höroldt and Kändler.--Fine Art, or Decorative Art.--Lindenir.--Angelica Kauffmann.--Rococo-Work.--Collectors.--Marcolini.--Prices.--Marks. --Berlin.--The Seven Years' War.--Frederick the Great.--Prices. --Marks.--Vienna.--Stenzel.--Maria Theresa.--Lamprecht.--Prices. --Marks.--Hungary.--Herend.--Fischer.--Marks.--Höchst, or Mayence. --Ringler.--Marks.--Frankenthal, or Bavarian.--Carl Theodor.--Melchior. --Prices.--Marks.--Fürstenburg, or Brunswick.--Von Lang.--Prices.--Marks. --Nymphenburg.--Heintzmann and Lindemann.--Prices.--Marks.--Ludwigsburg, or Kronenburg.--Fulda.--Hesse-Cassel.--Switzerland.--Marks. In this chapter I wish to give some comprehensive account of the famous porcelain of Dresden, which in Europe first came into prominence, and kept its place for so long a time. With this the other manufactories of Central and Eastern Europe will be grouped, for convenience rather than for the purposes of classification. We will take a comprehensive survey of-- 1. Dresden, Meissen, or Saxony (it has all these names). 2. Berlin, or Prussian. 3. Vienna and Hungary. 4. Höchst, or Mayence. 5. Fürstenburg, or Brunswick. 6. Frankenthal, or the Palatinate. 7. Nymphenburg. 8. Kronenburg. 9. Fulda. 10. Limbach. 11. Switzerland, etc. We are apt to think that the mental force of Europe, down to very recent days quite into the last century, was directed almost wholly to the science and the practice of war. A great force certainly was so exhausted; but there was also, after the Renaissance (A. D. 1200 to 1300), a powerful stream turned upon literature, science, art, and religion. The alchemists, in their searchings for the secret of happiness--for the changing of baser things to gold--in their hunt for the fountain of perennial youth, were all chemists; and out of their (what we are pleased to term) "visionary notions" came many discoveries most curious and valuable to man. When, in 1518, the Portuguese introduced fine Oriental porcelains into Europe, and, after them, the Dutch brought by ship-loads the beautiful productions of China and Japan, they were spread over Europe like water passing its dikes. Every king, every noble, every man of taste, was touched as by a fairy wand, and became inspired with a desire of possession, and also with a wish to create such articles of use and beauty. But the secrets of porcelain were locked in the souls of those keen Orientals, who would not part with their knowledge. Still the chemists, the alchemists, of Europe were at work, peering with curious eyes into the composition of the most exquisite of fictile ware. The paste, the glaze, the ornament--all were of profound interest. Pottery of various kinds had been made in Europe from the earliest times, but no porcelain. How could the superior European compete with or equal the inferior Mongol? A hard question. For a long time it has been believed that the earliest European production of porcelain was in Saxony, about the years 1710 to 1715. But within a late period it has been found that porcelain--soft paste--was discovered and made in Florence as far back as 1575 to 1587, under the direction and patronage of Francesco I. (de' Medici), the Grand-duke of Tuscany. No great quantities were made, and but few pieces of it exist now, of which we may treat hereafter. The porcelain of Dresden is also called Saxon and Meissen; Dresden being the capital of Saxony, and Meissen the village, some twelve miles from Dresden, where the factories are established. How were they established, and why? Augustus II., Elector of Saxony, and afterward by election King of Poland, born in 1670, was a man of expensive habits and luxurious tastes. While a young man he visited Italy and other countries, always indulging these tastes by the purchase of pictures and other works of art. The beautiful porcelains of China and Japan, then rare in Europe, interested him, and he became of course a collector; and so he continued through his luxurious and troublesome life. That I cannot write; it may only be said that he combined with Peter the Great and with Denmark to drive out and keep out of his part of Europe that enterprising and indefatigable fighter, Charles XII. of Sweden, and was himself utterly routed and driven from Poland in 1704. He still retained the throne of Saxony, to which his son succeeded. This elector inherited the tastes and habits of his father, and continued to encourage and support the manufactory of porcelain at Meissen, until, entangling himself with Maria Theresa of Austria in an alliance against Frederick the Great, that restless and irresistible king overran his country, and for a time destroyed the production of porcelain in Saxony (A. D. 1756). In 1706 it appears that a Prussian named Böttger, an apothecary's clerk, in danger of persecution as an alchemist, fled to Dresden for safety. The elector, believing or hoping that he knew the secret of making gold, sent for him, anxious to learn the secret, which Böttger denied that he possessed. The elector thought it best, nevertheless, to put him in charge, for safe-keeping, of his alchemist Tschirnhaus; and with him he worked on, seeking to discover the "philosopher's stone." That he did not discover--few have done so--but, in mixing clays and preparing crucibles, it so chanced that a hard and semi-vitreous pottery was produced, which at once excited attention and sharpened invention. Was it porcelain, or could it be worked into porcelain? From that day Böttger's whole thought and ingenuity were at work to produce porcelain; the philosopher's stone was forgotten, and he and Tschirnhaus worked at their new problem. While the character of Böttger does not bear careful inspection, there is no question that he was a keen, dexterous, and daring man. The picture we have of him indicates a man of executive force (Fig. 125). [Illustration: FIG. 125.--_Johann Friedrich Böttger._] In 1708 some ware was produced by him and Tschirnhaus which approached the characters of Oriental porcelain, but it was not white or translucent. A teapot of this ware in red unglazed, and one in black glazed, are in the valuable collection of W. C. Prime, Esq., of New York (Fig. 126, the two tall teapots on the right and left). This was not white, nor was it true, porcelain. In 1710, however, they succeeded in making white porcelain of an inferior quality; it was "thick and muddy." Nothing as yet was perfect. What they lacked was the two fine materials known to the Chinese as kaolin and pe-tun-tse. Kaolin is a native clay, the result of decayed feldspar. It is found in Europe at Aue in Saxony, near St.-Yrieix-la-Perche in France, in Cornwall in England, and in Delaware in America. Pe-tun-tse is a siliceous stone found in China, and in Cornwall, England, is known as a granite. This last melts at a lower heat, and a mixture of kaolin is essential to give strength and hardness to the work. Oriental china (and all true porcelain) has the quality of hardness, and, when held up to the light, of translucency. European porcelains are known as hard and soft, the _pâte dure_ and _pâte tendre_ of the French. The Dresden china is hard. [Illustration: FIG. 126.--_Dresden._] In 1710 Böttger had not succeeded in making perfect porcelain. He had not yet the perfect clay. But the clay was found; and this, too, was accidental--so we now term it: once, a happy discovery was called "providential." The discovery came at the right moment. It seems that a rich iron-master of Saxony, when riding one day (1711), saw that his horse's feet were held with tenacity in a soft white clay. It struck him that this white clay might be dried and made into hair-powder, then greatly in use. He tried it; it succeeded, and large quantities were sold. The hair-dresser of Böttger used it, and, when Böttger found it was heavy and a mineral, he at once applied it to the production of porcelain. "Eureka!" the secret was found! It was kaolin, the great clay--the body or bones of porcelain. Doubt fled. Courage was assured. Augustus at once built the great factory at Meissen, and in 1715 enough porcelain was produced to be offered for sale at the fair of Leipsic. The first ware made was white, and this was ornamented with vine-leaves and grapes in low-relief, or was pierced through the sides or borders. It is doubtful whether any of this white was sold, most of it being disposed of as presents. The first color used was blue, probably in imitation of the Nanking ware. Böttger, who appears to have been a sort of artistic scamp, died in 1719, at the age of thirty-seven, a victim of his own vices; but his work was carried onward by others. The news of this successful discovery spread, like fire on a prairie, throughout Europe, and every device was resorted to to get at the secrets, which were closely guarded at Meissen. Every director and officer was monthly sworn to secrecy; every workman had before his eyes, "Be secret to death!" and it was well known that any traitor would be punished with imprisonment, or worse. The works were continued, after the death of Böttger, under Höroldt's direction; and it was during this time that the decorations swung clear of Oriental imitation. Painting in colors, and gilding, were employed; vases, dishes, services, were made; delicate copies of paintings were produced; also birds, insects, animals, flowers, etc. A sculptor named Kändler was employed from 1731 to 1763, and under him figures of many sorts were produced, some of them still quite famous--"The Tailor and his Wife" riding on goats, figures of the Carnival of Venice, figurines of Cupids, of lawyers, doctors, and many professions and trades. He also modeled animals and birds, the twelve Apostles, of life-size, etc. Chaffers quotes from the _London Magazine_ of 1753: "This fabric, which brings annually great sums of money into the country, is daily increasing in reputation, and is carried to all the courts of Europe. Even the Turks come from Constantinople to purchase it, and the rarest pieces that are made are carried thither to embellish the grand-seignior's and his great officers' houses and seraglios." Let us quote further from the same: "The sets of porcelain for tea, coffee, or chocolate, may be had for fifteen to sixty guineas. There is one particular kind from which they will abate nothing of one hundred guineas the set; this is a double porcelain, not made at once, but a second layer added to the first form, resembling a honey-comb on the outside, which is of a pale-brown color, the _letts_ or cavities being all painted, as well as the bottoms of the insides of the cups and dishes. This, as all other sorts, may be had painted with landscapes and figures, birds, insects, fruits, flowers: the first being the dearer; the latter, the best executed, being almost equal to Nature in beauty and liveliness of the colors. The grounds of all these different sorts of porcelain are various, some being painted on white, others on pink; some in compartments, others without. The spaces between are sometimes of a white, yellow, or pea-green color; or the whole ground is white, with running flowers. This sort and the pea-green in compartments are the newest made and in the most elegant taste." Table-services at this time cost from one hundred to one thousand guineas each, according to the number of pieces and the elaborateness of the decoration. The figure-pieces, some fifteen inches high, were sold at from sixteen to twenty guineas; and the smaller figurines, five or six inches high, for as many pounds. These Dresden figures of this early period now sell for very high prices, and are much sought for, as are also the figure-pieces of the Höchst and Chelsea factories. But let us ask ourselves, "Why should we pay such great prices for work which, as _art_, has but a reflected value?" I am sure that no great sculptor will apply his best work to china, or to any material which is so liable to be spoiled in the baking, and to one which, after all, is not suited to what we term high or fine art. These figures are of value, of course, as illustrations of the possibilities, and also as historical illustrations, of the growth and development of the fictile art. No man will wish to have an Ariadne in china made by an excellent artist, if he can have the same work of the same artist in marble. We have the same feeling in regard to a fine painting: would any one wish to exchange the Dresden Madonna of Raphael on the canvas for a perfect copy in mosaic, or in the most exquisite Gobelin tapestry? None. And yet the mosaic or the tapestry has cost ten times more of human labor. The artificialities of life come to be supreme at times, and the human mind, in some stages of development, loses all sense of what is good or bad, in an exaggerated appreciation of what is difficult or uncommon; and, in many cases, a fashion or whim of the hour rides down a sound judgment. Among the more intellectual peoples this prevails. Assuming that the Orientals are races who perceive or feel, rather than reason--while the reverse of this is true of Europeans and Americans--we find our art often losing its way, which that of the Orientals seldom does. The natural or instinctive soul, by its native sense, is guided in matters of color and decoration more truly than we who attempt to reason out these things. Now, applying this to the facts of fictile art, we find that the Chinese and Japanese never attempted figure-work in porcelain, except in some few cases of burlesques, or of animals and birds. Their work was applied to that which comes into the uses of life--for the table first and mostly; after that for vases, which became works of pure ornament, but yet behind which lay the motive of _use_. In all this, it seems to me, the Orientals were right, and the Saxons wrong. I believe, then, that the best and purest art will be found in porcelain when applied to the decoration of dinner and tea services, of vases, and of articles which do not attempt to rival sculpture or high art; and those may reach perfection, while the porcelain sculptures will not. I believe, too, that the best style of decoration for porcelain is not imitative, but suggestive--that is, an elaborate and careful _copy_ of a flower or a figure upon the clay is not so appropriate or so satisfactory as a free translation of the sentiment of the flower or the figure, which suggests it to the soul rather than tickles the eye. It is not appropriate, so it seems to me, that a delicate painting of a beautiful girl should be made on the dinner-plate upon which you are to put your squash or your pudding; such delicate penciling should be devoted to art pure and simple--to "fine art," as it is called. Such paintings on china cannot be put to use; they are too costly, and therefore they fail to be either useful art or fine art. Now, the tendency of European porcelain-decoration is always in this "fine-art" direction, and is always false; that of Oriental porcelain is always in the useful-art direction, and therefore true. The pure white porcelain of Meissen was not at first sold, but was reserved for the king's use, or for presents to distinguished personages. In later times it was sold, and is still; and the pieces so disposed of have a _scratch_ cut across the _mark_, to indicate that they were not painted in the factory. The works at Meissen grew in importance and in public favor up to the time of the Seven Years' War (1756 to 1763), when Frederick the Great overran Saxony, broke up the Meissen factory, and removed the workmen to Berlin, where he established the Prussian potteries, which afterward came to be of great consequence. An English merchant visited the works at Meissen in 1750, and found "about seven hundred men employed, most of whom have not above ten German crowns a month, and the highest wages are forty, so that the annual expense is not estimated above eighty thousand crowns. This manufactory being entirely for the king's account, he sells yearly to the value of one hundred and fifty thousand crowns, and sometimes two hundred thousand crowns (thirty-five thousand pounds sterling[14]), besides the magnificent presents he occasionally makes, and the great quantity he preserves for his own use." The best period of Dresden production is estimated as being from about 1730 to 1756. During this period the works of Kändler were made, and also the paintings of Lindenir, which are much valued. In Fig. 126 is to be seen a fine plate with a pierced border, in the centre of which are painted birds, in the style introduced by Lindenir. The other pieces shown in Fig. 126 are excellent examples of good Meissen porcelain; the cup and saucer, showing Cupids, is most delicately and elaborately painted. Among those who painted somewhat upon the Dresden china was Angelica Kauffmann, whose figures are pervaded with a certain grace and refinement always charming. [Illustration: FIG. 127.--_Dresden._] Fig. 127 shows some choice small pieces from Mr. Wales's collection The centre flower-dish is very finely painted with birds, and the meandering lip, intended to confine the flowers, is peculiar. The two cups and saucers on the right are very richly gilded, the compartments containing delicate flower-painting. The cup and saucer on the left is one of the best examples of the Marcolini period; the gilded edges are exquisitely done, and the flowers, painted in tender browns and greens--not in high colors or in the colors of Nature--are charming. Many pieces of the old Dresden porcelain (and of modern work [Illustration: FIG. 128.--_Dresden Vase._] also) are elaborately decorated with rococo scrolls and flower-work in relief, applied upon candelabra, chandeliers, vases, cups, etc. Unsympathetic buyers will be apt to seize upon these pieces, and they are most common in ordinary collections; but they are very far from being the best or the most interesting. This style of work was introduced and practised by Kändler (1731 to 1763) at the period when the best works were produced; but this style of work is not itself the best, though it may be the most costly. In Fig. 128 we present one of the most elaborate and magnificent examples of this excessive decoration. Nothing is spared; the painting is most delicate, the flowers most intricate, the figures all most perfectly modeled; and yet upon one it produces satiety. It is overdone. Like an overdressed woman, we have lost the divine creation in her clothes. [Illustration: FIG. 129.--_Dresden._] In Fig. 129 may be seen a style of Dresden work which has had much popularity; it is costly, for it shows great difficulties well surmounted. But do you care for it as you would for a fine plate or an ample punch-bowl? It is a candelabrum sold at the Bernal collection, and is thus described: "A pair of superb candelabra, each formed of a female draped figure bearing scroll-branches for five lights, seated on pedestals, round which Cupids are supporting shields-of-arms. These magnificent objects of decoration are twenty-four inches high." The price was two hundred and thirty-one pounds sterling (eleven hundred and fifty-five dollars). It may not be amiss to hint to incipient collectors that not all Dresden porcelain is equally beautiful or desirable--which is true of the paintings of Raphael or Murillo--and that every collector should consider the intrinsic excellence of each piece, rather than the mark or name of the factory. The productions of the Dresden factory have continued down to the present time, but the periods of greatest excellence have been from 1731 to 1756, and from 1763 to 1814. In 1796 Count Marcolini was made director, and under him was produced some of the finest flower-painting; he also introduced the classic shapes and decorations into the vases; which style of decoration came into wide fashion during the days of Napoleon I., who was an imitator of Cæsar, and of the work of Cæsar's day. Some idea of the values of pieces of Dresden china may be of use, and I take a few from the great Bernal sale made in London in 1855: A scalloped cup and saucer, with minute landscapes £ 1 14_s._ $8 50 A pair of cups and saucers, with buildings on gold ground 7 7_s._ 36 75 A coffee-pot, crimson ground, with landscape 9 5_s._ 46 00 A small oval pierced tray, with two figures in green; and a small coffee-pot, with figures after Watteau, 19 8_s._ 6_d._ 100 00 Marks for Dresden porcelain: [Illustration: _Augustus Rex, 1709 to 1712._] [Illustration: _The Caduceus, about 1712 to 1720._] [Illustration: _Böttger, about 1718._] [Illustration: _Böttger, about 1718._] [Illustration: _Imitation of Oriental, about 1718._] [Illustration: _Höroldt, manager, about 1720._] [Illustration: _About 1726._] [Illustration: _About 1730._] [Illustration: _About 1739._] [Illustration: _Bruhl, manager, about 1750._] [Illustration: _Bruhl, manager, about 1750._] [Illustration: _Meissen Porzellan-Manufactur._] [Illustration: _Early Mark._] [Illustration: _About 1750._] [Illustration: _Königlichen Porzellan-Manufactur._] [Illustration: _About 1770._] [Illustration: _Marcolini, manager, about 1796._] [Illustration: _A small engraved cut across the swords was placed on white pieces for sale. When there are_ TWO _engraved cuts, it means the pieces are not wholly perfect_. ] The crossed swords are still used. We often meet with pieces of Dresden china which have an engraved cut or scratch across the swords, which indicates, as before said, that the pieces have been _painted_ outside the factory. The beds of fine clay in Saxony are much deteriorated; and the productions at Meissen no longer hold so high a place as they once did. BERLIN PORCELAIN--HARD PASTE.--It was not until 1751 that attempts were made to produce porcelain in Prussia. This was a private enterprise undertaken by a Mr. Wegeley. The _Gentleman's Magazine_ of 1753 spoke of him in this way: "There has been discovered here at Berlin the whole art of making china-ware, without any particular kind of earth, from a kind of stone which is common enough everywhere," etc. Wegeley worked on for eight years, but could not make the production pay, and abandoned it; when it was taken up by a banker named Gottskowski (1762), who, having capital, pushed it toward success. In 1763 the establishment was bought by Frederick the Great, who made it a royal manufactory, and forced a success. [Illustration: FIG. 130.--_Berlin Porcelain._] When Frederick took Dresden, the porcelain-works at Meissen were temporarily suspended. He had an eye to understand the value of the porcelain industries, and he took measures to grace his capital and increase the wealth of Prussia by establishing a great manufactory at Berlin. He carried off from Meissen some of the best examples of the porcelain collection, transported to Berlin tons of the fine clay, and borrowed the best workmen and the most distinguished artists for his new factory; among these the names of Meyer, Klipsel, and Böhme, are mentioned. The Berlin productions soon rose into fame and obtained a wide circulation. Not only did the king spread the work abroad by means of exquisite presents; he also took measures at home to secure a market. He ordered that no Jew should marry until he had provided himself a sufficient outfit of porcelain from the royal manufactory. Now, the Jew does not like to waste his money, and he at once sought a market for the wares he had been forced to buy. All this advertised and spread abroad the excellent work. During the collapse of Meissen, Russia became a large customer for Berlin; and its finished and elegant dinner-services went into her palaces and mansions. The best work of Berlin equals the best work of Dresden; its paste is more creamy, and some of its painters were not excelled. A favorite decoration at Berlin was the small Watteau figure-pieces, painted in medallions or reserves. Its examples of pierced or open-worked border plates are excellent. In Fig. 130 are two examples of these, from Mr. Prime's collection, which are perfectly painted in the naturalistic way. So, too, is the tureen, which has finely-modeled heads for handles, which yet are unsatisfactory. This is one piece of a large dinner-service. Berlin porcelain ranks high, and good specimens bring good prices. Two factories continue to produce fine porcelain--one at Berlin, and one at Charlottenberg, which was founded in 1790--and both are under the direction of the state. The Berlin factory grew to such importance in the last century that it employed seven hundred workmen. The prices paid for some pieces of Berlin porcelain at the Bernal sale were as follows: A Berlin coffee-pot, with river-scene and landscape £5 $25 00 A plate, with Salmacis and Hermaphroditus, gold border, 13 10_s._ 67 00 A cup and saucer, deep blue, with female busts in red, on gold ground 4 10_s._ 22 00 A cup and saucer, with pink festoon border and exotic birds 1 10_s._ 7 50 A cup, cover, and stand, pink, with black medallions of the Princess de Lamballe and her cipher 5 15_s._ 29 00 Marks of Berlin porcelain: [Illustration: _This indicates Wegeley, and was in use about 1751 to 1761._] [Illustration: _The globe and cross-mark are found on a few pieces, about 1830._] [Illustration: _The mark of the sceptre was afterward used in various forms._] [Illustration: 1833.] [Illustration: _Another form of sceptre._] [Illustration: _Sometimes these are painted over the sceptre._] Since 1833 the mark has been a double eagle, surrounded by the words "_Porzellan-Manufactur, Königl._" The mark of Charlottenburg has been the double eagle crowned, holding a sceptre in one hand, a globe in the other. VIENNA PORCELAIN--HARD PASTE.--The Vienna manufactory was started about 1717 to 1720, and was a private enterprise. The principal man was Stenzel, who had escaped from Meissen, and was warmly welcomed at Vienna. He possessed the Meissen secrets, and was able to give character and value to the Vienna ware. The early examples were thicker and coarser than that of Dresden, and the paste was grayer and less pure. It was not till 1744, when Maria Theresa purchased the works, that Vienna porcelain rose to its best estate. This beautiful and capable woman for a long time was a prominent figure in the politics of Europe. Her father, the Emperor Charles VI. of Hapsburg, during his life secured to her the succession of the Austrian throne, by an agreement with the other powers called the "Pragmatic Sanction," which, however, proved a treacherous security, so that wars and rumors of wars followed her. The porcelain-works were, however, not neglected, and the patronage of the court, and the fashion the courtiers made, secured a good success; so that, in 1785, more than five hundred workmen were employed. Not only were the products largely used in Austria, but there came a great demand from Turkey. The first work was, of course, a following of Dresden. The best painters possible were engaged, and animals, landscapes, and figures, were applied. [Illustration: FIG. 131.--_Vienna and Herend Porcelain._] About 1796 a painter named Lamprecht painted excellent animals, and his pieces bear his name; they are rare. Some of the other painters were Perger, Furstler, Wech, and Varsanni. Nigg was a painter of rare flower-pieces. The Turkish demand caused the production at Vienna, and also in Hungary, of what may be called Oriental or Asiatic styles of decorations. Figures, of course, gave way to arabesques--for no true Moslem copies the human figure--and more and richer colors were used. The best work was made during the latter part of the last century, when a style of decoration of burnished gold in relief upon dead gold was used, which is now much prized. The work went on, with varying success and at great cost, till 1856, when it was given up. Some of the pieces at the Bernal sale were as follows: A plate with green border and white stars, with flowers £2 2_s._ $10 50 One with brown and gold border, with flowers 1 1_s._ 5 00 A plate with lilac border, and friezes, from gems in Indian-ink 37 16_s._ 189 00 A cup and saucer, beautifully painted, with Venus and Cupid, after Sir Joshua Reynolds 8 15_s._ 44 00 The teapot and cup and saucer in Fig. 131 are Vienna work, and are excellent examples both of paste and coloring. The three lower pieces in Fig. 131 are _Hungarian_; the bowl and sugar-bowl are highly colored, and are very Oriental in both color and decoration. The plate with fish is a direct imitation of the Chinese. Marks for Vienna porcelain: [Illustration: _This shield varies in shape and size. It has been in use since 1744._] HUNGARY.--Toward the end of the last century a porcelain-factory was at work in Herend, at which porcelain of an Oriental character and much richness was made. This was doubtless intended for the Turkish and Asiatic markets. A piece bought in Ispahan, as Oriental, is now pronounced to be Herend, and was purchased by the South Kensington Museum in 1863. Some pieces figured on the lower line of the engraving (Fig. 131) show the Oriental character of the decorations, but not the bright and rich colors. The word "Herend" is found impressed on the ware; sometimes in incised letters. In 1839 Fischer established a porcelain-manufactory, which, I believe, is still at work. Sometimes he used the shield of the arms of Austria for a mark, and at others his own initials, =MF= (Morris Fischer), combined. HÖCHST (OR MAYENCE) PORCELAIN--HARD PASTE.--Mayence, or Mainz, was once a small state or duchy, presided over by the elector, who was archbishop of the state. Pottery had been made there for many years; and at last, in 1740, an escaped workman from Vienna, named Ringler, taught them the secrets of porcelain. He seems to have been a man of force--one who worked for excellence--and under his direction some of the best porcelain was made. When the manufactory became a state establishment, the services of an artist named Melchior were secured as modeler and decorator. He was one of those rare men who have an innate sense of the beauties of form and proportion, which study had made more keen and true. His figures and small groups rank highest of any for their spirit, grace, and delicacy, and command to-day extreme prices. The letter "M" is engraved on the bottom of many of Melchior's productions, in addition to the wheel, or wheel and crown, which was the common mark for the factory. The vases and table-ware partake of the general character of the Dresden, which led all the rest; it had a good sale, and, being never produced in great quantities, the pieces are not now very common. They are desired in all good collections, and the prices are high. One day, when Ringler had taken too much wine, his workmen stole from his pocket the secret for mixing the paste, and from this many of the smaller manufactories of Germany took their start. The factory was destroyed by the French in 1794. The mark of the Höchst ware was a wheel, with or without the crown. [Illustration: _The wheel was sometimes in gold, then in red, then in blue. Demmin thinks these indicate their respective periods since 1720._] FRANKENTHAL, (OR BAVARIAN) PORCELAIN--HARD PASTE.--Hannong, a Strasburg potter, having discovered the secret of porcelain, and being forbidden to use it in France, sought work in the palatinate at a town called Frankenthal in the year 1754. Soon after this, Ringler, who had had the care of the works at Höchst, having had his secrets stolen, left that place in disgust, and offered his services to Hannong at Frankenthal, and was gladly received. Together they at once brought their productions to a point of great excellence; and when, in 1761, the Elector Palatine, Carl Theodor, purchased the works, and made them a state establishment, they grew into great fame. Melchior, whose figures had made the work of Höchst so famous, was induced to come to Frankenthal, where his skill and taste were made most useful. Examples of this porcelain are much sought for. The excellence of the work declined afterward; and about the year 1800, the country being overrun by French armies, the works were ruined and the tools were sold. The prices at the Bernal sale were about the same as the best Dresden. We give some form-marks supposed to belong to Frankenthal: [Illustration: _Crest of the Palatinate._] [Illustration: _Mark of Joseph Adam Hannong._] [Illustration: _The Crown._] The first, the crest of the palatinate, was used from 1755 to 1761. PH combined, sometimes found on this porcelain, marks the work of Hannong. The crown, with the letters C. T. (Carl Theodor), indicates the late period from 1762 to 1798. FÜRSTENBURG (OR BRUNSWICK) PORCELAIN.--The interest excited by the production of porcelain at Dresden, Vienna, and Höchst, inspired many of the rulers of states with a desire to establish manufactories of the beautiful wares in their own dominions; among whom was Charles, Duke of Brunswick (1750). One of the Höchst workmen was secured to superintend the works at Fürstenburg; but he soon died, when Baron von Lang was placed in charge. He was an accomplished chemist, and his skill, with the funds put at his disposal by the duke, enabled him to produce work equal in decoration to that at Dresden, though the paste is not considered so fine. Fine vases, groups, and dinner and tea services, were the result, which are now much prized. At the Bernal sale a Fürstenburg cup, cover, and stand, painted with flowers and surmounted by a flame, sold for six pounds ten shillings sterling (thirty-two dollars). The mark is a cursive letter _F_ more or less rudely done in blue. [Illustration: FIG. 132.--_Fürstenberg._] In Fig. 132 is seen a basket from Mr. Wales's collection, made at Fürstenburg, which is carefully modeled, though it bears very little decoration. NYMPHENBURG, in Bavaria, had a small porcelain-manufactory as early as 1746 or 1747, but it seems to have had only a fitful and uncertain existence until after the death of Carl Theodor, when the Frankenthal workmen were taken to Nymphenburg, carrying with them skill, taste, and knowledge. The manufactory received many favors, and much good work was done. Among the known artists employed were Heintzmann, who painted landscapes; Adler, who did the figures; and Lindemann. Some of the white pieces made at Nymphenburg bear the impressed stamp of the factory, and painters' marks also, when decorated outside the walls of the manufactory. The establishment is said to be still in existence. Nymphenburg was once a royal palace, a few miles from Munich. At the Bernal sale some pieces sold as follows: A Nymphenburg basin with an elaborate painting of a battle, in Indian-ink £10 $50 00 A cup and saucer with figures, in Indian-ink and gold 2 10 00 A basin with figures and scrolls, in Indian-ink and gold 2 12_s._ 6_d._ 13 00 A basin with medallions in Indian-ink, figures in colors, and gold scrolls 14 70 00 A basin with three landscapes 4 20 00 The marks of the Nymphenburg are-- [Illustration: _The shield of the arms of Bavaria. A section of this was sometimes used._] [Illustration: _The double triangle, with numerals and letters._] Besides these more important manufactories of porcelain were a number of less note, which sprang up during this period of active interest; such as those of _Ludwigsburg_, or _Kronenburg_, _Fulda_, _Hesse-Cassel_, etc. In THURINGIA, also, were a number of small establishments, many of which produced fine work. Marks of Ludwigsburg, or Kronenburg: [Illustration: _From 1758._] [Illustration: _Sometimes without the crown._] Mark of Fulda, in Hesse (1763 to 1780): [Illustration: _Signifying the Prince of Fulda._] Marks of Limbach, in Saxe-Meiningen (about 1760): [Illustration: _Sometimes this was a script L._] [Illustration: _Another mark._] In SWITZERLAND, at Nyon and at Zurich, small factories went to work, whose productions are sought for by collectors; but they do not reach the importance of the leading German establishments. The manufactory at Nyon (1712) had sometimes a fish, and sometimes a painter's name in script-letters, as _Guide_, or _G_. [Illustration: _Nyon-mark._] [Illustration: _The mark of Zurich_ (1755).] CHAPTER XIII. THE PORCELAIN OF FRANCE--ST.-CLOUD, CHANTILLY, SÈVRES, ETC. Hard and Soft Porcelain.--Discovery of Kaolin.--St.-Cloud.--_Pâte Tendre._--Marks.--Rouen.--Small Manufactories.--Marks of same.--Chantilly.--Sceaux-Penthièvre.--Niderviller.--Marks. --Limoges.--Sèvres.--Flower-Work.--Hard Porcelain, _Pâte Dure_. --The Grand Monarque.--Florid Taste.--Boucher.--Vieux Sèvres.--Three Vases.--Greek Vases.--Prices at Bernal Sale.--Chemists.--Colors used.--Collections.--Art Museums. --Alexandre Brongniart.--Marks and Dates. The porcelain of Sèvres is probably better known than any other by name, if not by sight. The production has been steadily under the protection of the state since 1760, when the crown became sole owner of the works. Time, thought, skill, talent, ingenuity, and money, have been spent upon this work unceasingly for more than a century; and some of the most elaborate, most finished, and most costly pieces of porcelain which the world has anywhere seen, have come out of the small town of Sèvres. Kings, nobles, poets, painters, have recognized the beauty and value of this work, and have given of their strength to help it onward toward perfection. The history of the manufactory at Sèvres might fill a book: here we are limited to a brief space, which may suffice for most readers. Some experts hold that _true_ porcelain is only what is known as hard porcelain, called _pâte dure_ by the French. Such is always the porcelain of China and Japan; such is that of Dresden and the centre of Europe. This hard porcelain has always the two qualities of hardness and translucency. We have elsewhere explained to what these qualities are due, and how and when they were brought to perfection in Europe, first at Dresden or Meissen (see Dresden porcelain). France lacked the peculiar clay necessary for making hard porcelain till the year 1765, when chance discovered the magic earth at St.-Yrieix; after which time its manufacture was brought to a high pitch of excellence at Sèvres. The soft porcelain, or _pâte tendre_, can be made without the admixture of the clay called by the Chinese _kaolin_. It has the quality of translucency, but lacks hardness and strength. It melts at a lower heat, and, while very delicate and beautiful, it is not so enduring as the _pâte dure_. Experts can distinguish the two at sight; but there are some signs which will help the uninitiated. The soft porcelain is likely to be more creamy, and softer to the eye and touch, than the hard; the painting blends more into the glaze; the bottoms of the pieces or the rims are covered with the glaze; while, in the hard porcelain, these rims, from standing on the sanded floor of the furnaces, show no glaze. The painting on the hard porcelain is likely to be sharper, and more on the surface, than that on the soft, into which it seems to melt. ST.-CLOUD.--Before the discovery of kaolin in Europe, as early as 1695, soft porcelain, or _pâte tendre_, was made at St.-Cloud in great variety and of considerable excellence; and the story of French porcelain, begun there, may be divided into two parts: 1. Soft porcelain, begun at St.-Cloud in 1695, continued there, and afterward at Chantilly; then at Vincennes, in 1745; still later at Sèvres, in 1756. The production of soft porcelain, or _pâte tendre_, continued at Sèvres, in company with that of the _pâte dure_, until 1804. 2. The hard porcelain, or _pâte dure_ of the French; which was made after the discovery of the kaolin of St.-Yrieix, at Sèvres. Marks used at St.-Cloud: [Illustration: _The mark of the Sun._] [Illustration: _Another one._] [Illustration: _The fleur-de-lis, sometimes impressed._] [Illustration: _This mark indicated the factory and the name of the director (Trou) from_ 1730 to 1762.] The early porcelain made at St.-Cloud is said to have been quite coarse and unsatisfactory. Examples of it are very scarce. That made later was better, but a long way behind what was made afterward at Sèvres. At ROUEN, in France, porcelain appears to have been made, but it never proceeded so far as to be a business. At MENECY-VILLEROY, about 1735, soft paste was made; and later there were various limited efforts at Brancas-Lauraguais, at Arras, at Vincennes, at Boulogne, at Étoilles, at Bourg-la-Reine, at Clignancourt, at Orleans, at Luneville, at Bordeaux, at Valenciennes, at Limoges, at Sarreguemines, at Strasbourg; at Paris, a great number, some of the products of which are still in existence. We give the marks of some of the most important. Marks of Clignancourt: [Illustration: _A windmill in blue._] [Illustration: _Another form._] [Illustration: _This varies a good deal_ (1775).] [Illustration: _Monograms of Louis Stanislas Xavier, Count de Provence._] [Illustration: _Porcelaine de Monsieur_ (1780).] Marks of Orleans: [Illustration: _A label_ (_lambel d'Orléans_).] [Illustration: _A label_ (_lambel d'Orléans_).] [Illustration: _A label_ (_lambel d'Orléans_).] [Illustration: _Monogram of Benoist le Brun, the director._] [Illustration: _Monogram of Benoist le Brun, the director._] Marks of Valenciennes: [Illustration: _The letter V, for Valenciennes, combined with L, the name of the wife of the director._ ] [Illustration: _The letter V, for Valenciennes, combined with L, the name of the wife of the director._ ] [Illustration: _The letter V, for Valenciennes, combined with L, the name of the wife of the director._ ] Marks of Strasbourg: [Illustration: _Either of these marks indicates the name of Hannong, the founder._] Mark of Marseilles: [Illustration: _This letter indicates M. Robert, the founder_ (1766).] The PARIS marks are so manifold that the student must refer to some manual of marks, such as are mentioned in the list of books at the end of the volume. Besides the smaller factories first mentioned, a few words may be well upon some factories whose productions are now and then offered for sale. CHANTILLY.--As early as 1725 this factory produced a great variety of articles of soft paste, which were and are highly esteemed. A design used there--a small blue flower upon the white--called _Barbeau_, was much in fashion. The workmen at Chantilly were afterward engaged at Vincennes. The mark is a hunting-horn, sometimes impressed, sometimes painted on. [Illustration: _Hunting-horn._] SCEAUX (sometimes Sceaux-Penthièvre) was a small factory near Paris, begun in 1750, where, for some twenty or thirty years, very delicate soft-paste porcelain was made. The marks were sometimes the letters S X or S P, and the anchor. [Illustration: _Sceaux-Penthièvre_ (_about_ 1750 to 1760).] [Illustration: _The anchor in blue_ (1751 to 1792).] At NIDERVILLER, near Strasbourg, in 1760, a factory was established by Baron de Beyerlé, which afterward (about 1780) went into the possession of General de Custine, whose head was cut off during the French Revolution. Both soft and hard porcelain were made here, and some of the biscuit figures are of great excellence. The marks most known are these; but the letter _N_ in script is sometimes found on pieces of this work. Marks of Niderviller: [Illustration: _Baron de Beyerlé, the founder_ (1760).] [Illustration: _General de Custine_ (1786).] [Illustration: _Another variety._] [Illustration: _Monogram of F. C. Lanfray, director._] [Illustration: _Lanfray, director._] At LIMOGES, in 1773, soft porcelain was made; later, hard paste was made. The old mark was =C. D.= At the present time a number of factories are busily at work there, among which is that of Haviland and Company, whose faience will be mentioned elsewhere. SÈVRES.--We cannot to-day appreciate the enthusiasm which existed at this period (1750) in France, as well as in many other states of Europe, upon the subject of porcelain manufacture. Among royal and noble people it was peculiarly strong. The kings of France were always open to the projects of experts, who promised to produce wonderful results; and, in 1745, when the company was formed to produce porcelain at Vincennes, the king, Louis XV., contributed to the capital the sum of one hundred thousand livres. Madame de Pompadour, at this period the most beautiful woman and the most influential personage in France, was an eager patron of the ceramic arts, and gave all her influence to promote their development; the queen, too, was greatly interested; we may be sure that all good courtiers followed their lead. About this time (1740 to 1750) a wonderful production of porcelain flowers was in vogue at Vincennes, and the most elaborate work was done there, so that two bouquets made for the king and dauphine cost them the great sum of three thousand livres (francs) each; which was a great deal more than three thousand francs is now. A single order given by the king amounted to the sum of eight hundred thousand livres. This attempt to _imitate_ flowers in colored porcelain we now consider foolish, as well as false art; and very properly it has passed away as one of the whimsies of the time. Some of these flowers, such as double ranunculuses, orange-flowers, anemones, etc., still remain, wonders of fictile work, in the Musée Céramique, at Sèvres. But the porcelain-works at St.-Cloud and Vincennes, the _avant couriers_ of Sèvres, produced many other and more legitimate objects of use as well as art. The dinner and tea services made here were most elaborate and costly; one made for the Empress of Russia was decorated with paintings of antique cameos, and the cost was some three hundred and sixty thousand livres, a vast sum surely. At certain seasons the courtiers were expected to purchase the work of the royal factory, and presents were sent hither and thither; so that for a time the manufactory not only enjoyed the favor of the king, but also the sunshine of the court. In 1748 a superb vase was made and presented to the queen. It stood on a bronze pedestal, and was about three feet high. The marvelous part of it was the great bouquet it contained, which consisted of four hundred and eighty porcelain flowers exquisitely modeled and colored after Nature. The mark used at Vincennes will be given with those of Sèvres. In 1756 the porcelain-works of Vincennes were removed to Sèvres, and from that period everything possible was concentrated there; and in 1759 or 1760 the whole came under the control and direction of the king. We see, therefore, how out of the efforts at St.-Cloud and Chantilly and Vincennes the works at Sèvres at last grew up. All was now combined at Sèvres. The production of hard porcelain at this period had become a matter of importance; for it was well known that at Dresden most finished work of this kind had for a long time been made. Soft porcelain, though equally or more beautiful, was difficult to make, was then expensive, and lacked the strength and durability of the hard. Hard porcelain or _pâte dure_, was the one thing desired. But this could not be made without the peculiar clay called kaolin, which the Saxons had, but which they would not allow the French to get. This was not obtained, as has been said, till 1765, and from that time Sèvres entered upon a period of production which has had no equal in Europe. The buildings were ample, the gardens were pleasant, and the interest in the production of the royal works may be appreciated from the fact that the king, accompanied by Madame de Pompadour, made weekly visits, to see that all went well. And all did go will. No money was wanting; artists of the highest rank were enlisted; skilled men of every kind contributed their knowledge and keenness to bring the delicate work to perfection. Madame de Pompadour, herself an artist in her way, not only came weekly to enjoy the work of others, but she often applied her own hands to making designs, or to touching or perfecting what fine thing might be going forward. Under such stimulus as this it was inevitable that every modeler, every artist, every colorist, should be inspired to do his best. They were patronized by royal hands which disposed of all the glory and wealth of France. Painters having a wonderful technical skill were eagerly engaged, and much of the work done has the merit--not the highest one, certainly--of being most delicately and elaborately penciled. No work of this kind ever has surpassed what was done on the vases, teacups, écuelles, etc., made at Sèvres. The variety of decoration upon these elaborate pieces was great, comprising among others, birds, flowers in wreaths and garlands, and bouquets, landscapes, figures, arabesques, Cupids, emblems, cameos, masks, miniatures, Watteau pictures, children, pastoral subjects, Chinese and Japanese imitations, butterflies, medallions, sea-pieces, insects, etc.: the whole of Nature and art was ransacked for interesting and attractive material. Almost or quite all of this may be characterized as most clever imitation, exquisitely painted. Even the artists who were inspired by love of Oriental work seem to have imitated or copied that; they did not learn by it how to express Occidental life and growth, in their own individual way, and with that piquant fresh touch which marks so much of the best Oriental work. Nevertheless, it is exquisite, and conveys a sense of satisfaction and completeness because of that, even to those who do not approve of it as the best decorative art. It is safe to say that the Grand Monarque, Louis XIV., was the greatest affliction which the kingdom of France was ever called upon to endure. His reign was unfortunately long--1643 to 1715. It was marked by a false splendor of success, by luxury such as the world had not seen since the days of the decline and fall of Rome, by the most venal public service except that which his successor permitted, by the most unblushing corruption in private life, among men and women both; and by a general degradation of all the standards of frugality, sincerity, honor, and nobleness, in public and in private life. Was it possible for art to escape this contamination? Impossible! The florid and foolish taste of the perruquier prevails everywhere, in architecture, in painting, in sculpture, in dress; all is tainted with the showy and the shallow. The flowing scroll appears in all its splendor, decoration is piled in meaningless profusion, and talent and taste, heart, mind, hand, and gold, are lavished in folly and vice, which finally culminated in the social and political Revolution of Louis XVI., when king and noble, lord and lady, went under in a sanguinary flood of anarchy and ruin. Could the taste and the art which prevailed at Sèvres escape this? It could not, and it did not. While, therefore, we cannot but admire the care, the pains, the skill, of the workmen and the artists, let us not be misled by the false glamour of that time, so as to learn to love or to imitate their florid and extravagant tastes in architecture, in furniture, in dress, or in porcelain. Chaffers, in his work upon "Pottery and Porcelain," gives the private marks of some one hundred and twenty-six painters, who were employed at Sèvres before 1800, and quite a number who have painted there since. Among these are some who reached a European reputation: of these _Boucher_ is perhaps most famous; his medallions are sought for, and highly valued. [Illustration: FIG. 133.--_Enameled Sèvres Vase, called "Vase Genicault."_] A distinction is sometimes made between old Sèvres and modern Sèvres. The old--_vieux Sèvres_--comes down to the year 1800; after that it is designated as modern, for convenience. It does not intend to exalt one and condemn the other, as too many now are apt to think, the truth being that equally good work has been done since that time as before it. Indeed, within this year I have seen some pieces of Sèvres painting, such as I fancy have never been done there before, and which can hardly be excelled; in which the artist ceases to be a copyist, abandons himself to the imagination, and produces work which gratifies the highest faculty. Somebody, then, has broken away from traditions and academic rules. Not only were the early painters ranked as artists, but designers and modelers of vases and other pieces had high rank and high pay, so much so that their names were and are attached to their productions; as, for example, vase Clodion, vase Duplessis, vase Falconnet, etc. I may say here that elaborate and beautiful as many of them certainly are, the Sèvres vases, inspired as they too often are by that expression of art so acceptable to Louis XIV. and XV., are so decorated, scrolled, and worked, that they create a sense of surfeit in many minds. In Figs. 133, 134, and 135, we have three excellent examples of this work which may really be called _magnificent_. They have all the qualities which characterize the elaborate work of Sèvres. The size and elaborateness of these force them into the collections of emperors and kings, and here and there into the fine museums of the world, where they are to be seen of all men. Fig. 133 is a superb covered vase, enameled most elaborately and exquisitely, in the best of what may be termed a Renaissance decoration, which had its birth in Italy. The masks and floating figures suggest a delicate reminiscence of Pompeii and the luxury and decadence of those Greek Romans, which there reached a full development, and which remain to us when all of Rome is in ruin, preserved by the ashes of Vesuvius through these nineteen centuries. The vase, Fig. 134, is the largest of all, reaching some forty inches in height. Fig. 135 shows us a superb vase, called "_Cuve ovale Ducereau_." In this vase the artist has closely approximated to the _form_ of some of the old Greek vases, but the decoration is more striking and elaborate. [Illustration: FIG. 134.--_Sèvres Vase, called Vase Etrusque Carafe._] A perception of this excessive ornamentation came to somebody about the year 1785, for in that year Louis XVI. bought from M. Denon a collection of Greek vases, "to serve as models of pure and simple forms, and thus change the exaggerated, exuberant contours given to porcelain in the preceding reign." [Illustration: FIG. 135.--_Sèvres Vase, called "Cuve Ovale Ducereau."_] The wonderful virtue of simplicity which the Greeks at their best fully valued, seems to have fled from France during the times of Louis XIV. and XV. This, in a degree, was restored by the purer and better tastes of the time of Louis XVI., when there was a reaction toward the classic in both literature and art. In Fig. 136 we have engraved a vase of the time of Louis XVI., which indicates the improvements made at that time, both in form and decoration. It approaches the classic forms of Greece, and is a step away from that excessive and meretricious decoration which marked the times of Louis XIV. and XV. It was sold at the Bernal sale, and is thus described: "A magnificent centre vase and cover, _gros bleu_, with upright handles of foliage, a festoon of leaves, raised gilt, encircling the vase and falling over the handles, the lower part fluted with pendant lines of leaves; in the centre is a most exquisite painting of a peasant and two girls gathering cherries, a donkey with panniers filled with cherries at their side, a group of flowers on the reverse--on square plinth, eighteen inches high. Sold to the Marquis of Hertford for eight hundred and seventy-one pounds ten shillings sterling (four thousand three hundred and fifty-five dollars). [Illustration: FIG. 136.--_Sèvres Vase._] I have spoken of the many styles of painting applied at Sèvres, and also of the great carefulness and elaborateness of the modeling. Another skilled body of men was called upon to contribute toward the perfection at which they all aimed; these were the _chemists_. To devise, to combine, and to adapt many and more and more beautiful colors than any in use, which could be applied to porcelain and would stand supreme heat, required the aid of science. This the chemists gave; and the result has been such rich, such subtile, such brilliant colors as no other manufactory has reached. Some of these colors have become well and widely known under the following names: _Bleu de roi_, made from cobalt; a deep lapis lazuli, sometimes veined and sown with gold. _Gros bleu_, a deeper color of the same. _Bleu céleste_, a turquoise blue, from copper. _Rose Pompadour_, improperly called _Rose du Barri_ in England. _Violet pensée_, a rare and beautiful violet. _Jonquille_, a rich canary. _Vert pomme_, a delicious apple-green. _Vert pré_, a bright grass-green. _Rouge de fer_, a brilliant red. These are among the most famous colors used to cover the ground or body of the finest vases, the reserved spaces being filled with the rarest paintings. In addition to these perfect colors, gilding of the heaviest kind was used--often too freely. To glorify the work still more, what are termed _jewels_ were applied in rows, or singly, of many colors; but pearls and rubies were most in use. The _rose Pompadour_, or _rose du Barri_, has, within the last twenty years, become most in vogue, so that at the Bernal sale, in 1856, a pair of vases of this color, painted with groups of Cupids in medallions, was purchased by the Marquis of Bath at eighteen hundred and fifty guineas. An English collector, of moderate views, told me he proposed to purchase a pair of vases of this color, some twelve inches high, at a sale at Christie's, some five years since, if he could do so for, say, one hundred pounds sterling. The first bid was one thousand pounds, and they were knocked down at sixteen hundred and fifty guineas. The variety and splendor of these _vases de luxe_ are great. They are to be seen in most of the collections of Europe, and, to some extent, in America; but their great cost, and the fact that they are so rarely offered for sale here, make them quite uncommon in the United States. Visitors to Europe should see those in the Kensington Museum, and in private galleries; such as that of M. Rothschild, whose collection is worth _millions_. [Illustration: FIG. 137.--_Sèvres._] It is a singular thing that during that fearful tempest known as the French Revolution, when almost everything which had a suspicion of royalty or luxury was swept away, the works at Sèvres were not destroyed, but were carefully guarded and supported by the republican Directory. Besides these "articles of luxury," the Sèvres works have always made a large number of services for household use, which, however, must always be costly. Some of these are in this country; also a good many single pieces, particularly from the collections of Louis Philippe, which were large, and which were scattered at the time of the Revolution of 1848. Quite a goodly number were in the sale of Mr. Lyons's collection, in 1876. Some of these dinner-services were of course very elaborate and some intended for royal houses were finished in the rich and heavy colors, such as the _bleu de roi_, which for myself I would never desire; but most of them were decorated with edges of very rich gold, and bands or bouquets of flowers painted on the white. [Illustration: FIG. 138.--_Sèvres, White and Gold._] In Fig. 137 we present some pieces from a handsome service belonging to W. C. Prime, Esq., of New York. The forms as well as the decoration are perfect; the dark bands are a rich yellow, and the edges are finished with heavy gold leafage and lines. This is a large and complete set. The single plate shown in the picture, containing the portrait of Montaigne, of course does not belong to the service. It is an admirable piece of the miniature work done at Sèvres, and must find its place as a picture does on the walls of the house. Plates, however, as valuable as this should have the protection of a frame. Fig. 138 is from a part of a tea or breakfast service belonging to the collection of George W. Wales, Esq., of Boston. It is clear and brilliant, being wholly of white and gold, and is really surprisingly attractive, partly from its simplicity, and more from its perfectness. Some of the finest pieces of Sèvres porcelain in our country are to be found in the collections I have already mentioned. There are also fine examples in possession of Mr. Barlow, Mr. Belmont, and Mr. Matthews, of New York; of Dr. Mitchell, and other connoisseurs, at Philadelphia. Mr. J. V. L. Pruyn, of Albany, has one large and beautiful dinner-service of the white and gold Sèvres, and one made for Louis Philippe, having bands in colors. In his collection are two plates jeweled--one bearing the portrait of the Princess Lamballe, painted by Le Guay; and the other, that of Gabrielle d'Estrées--which are of the highest class. The knowledge of and love for good examples of fine porcelain are on the increase, and no doubt in a few years we shall be able to see and enjoy fine work, without the disagreeable experience of crossing the implacable ocean. Our art-museums will also give to thousands the opportunity of seeing and studying these things which no private collections can so well do. The name of ALEXANDRE BRONGNIART (Fig. 139) is now identified with the best period of Sèvres porcelain, and its high reputation and great success are due more to him than to any one man. Not only did he aim for excellence himself, he also insisted that others should do likewise. He gave tone and character to what was done there. Nothing having any flaw or blemish was allowed to go from the works; and in that way the standard was kept high in the minds of artists and workmen as well as in those of amateurs. Prices, too, were kept at such a point that more and more could be attempted and accomplished. To Brongniart is due the _Musée Céramique_ at Sèvres. In this museum are examples of all or nearly all the famous work ever done there, as well as a great number of examples of both porcelain and faience made elsewhere. This museum is still receiving constant additions. Before his appointment Brongniart was ranked as a _savant_ in other branches. He was known among the most eminent of geologists, and in conjunction with Cuvier he made a careful examination of the geology of the neighborhood of Paris, and wrote upon it a learned essay. He was also a student of chemistry, and this knowledge was most valuable after he became director at Sèvres. For some fifty years after 1800 he held that post, and during the time he gave his soul to the work he had in hand; he encouraged the mature and he brought forward the young. His work "Traité des Arts Céramiques" is most valuable, and is looked upon as an authority to-day. [Illustration: FIG. 139.--_Portrait of Alexandre Brongniart._] Since his day the works have been in careful and competent hands, and admirable porcelain is still produced in many styles. MARKS.--The Vincennes mark used from 1745 to 1753 was the interlaced L's without any inclosed letter, like the first mark of Sèvres. Beginning at 1753 the Sèvres mark was the interlaced L's inclosing the letter A. The marks at Sèvres changed many times, so that it is necessary to give quite a list of them as well as a table showing how the letters of the alphabet indicate the year when the piece was made. The following table will help to explain the use of the letters of the alphabet when placed in the interlaced L's: A 1753 B 1754 C 1755 D 1756 E 1757 F 1758 G 1759 H 1760 I 1761 J 1762 K 1763 L 1764 M 1765 N 1766 O 1767 P 1768 Q 1769 R 1770 S 1771 T 1772 U 1773 V 1774 X 1775 Y 1776 Z 1777 AA 1778 BB 1779 CC 1780 DD 1781 EE 1782 FF 1783 GG 1784 HH 1785 II 1786 JJ 1787 KK 1788 LL 1789 MM 1790 NN 1791 OO 1792 PP 1793 QQ 1794 RR 1795 T9* 1801 X* 1802 11* 1803 --\\-- 1804 /|\ 1805 ==:== 1806 7 1807 8 1808 9 1809 10 1810 o.z. (onze) 1811 d.z. (douze) 1812 t.z. (treize) 1813 q.z. (quatorze) 1814 q.n. (quinze) 1815 s.z. (seize) 1816 d.-s. (dix-sept) 1817 18 1818 19 1819 Etc., etc. [Illustration: _A comet was sometimes used as a mark in the year 1769._] Marks used at Sèvres: [Illustration: _The royal period, sometimes with a crown (1753)._] [Illustration: _Hard paste first made (1768)._ _Republic (1792 to 1798)._] [Illustration: _Republic (1792)._] [Illustration: _Consular period (1803)._] [Illustration: _Imperial manufactory (1804 to 1809)._] [Illustration: _Imperial manufactory (1810 to 1814)._] [Illustration: _Louis XVIII., and the year (1814 to 1824)._] [Illustration: _Charles X. (1824 to 1829)._] [Illustration: _On plain ware (1829 and 1830)._] [Illustration: _On decorated ware (1829 and 1830)._] [Illustration: _Louis Philippe (August to December, 1830)._] [Illustration: _Louis Philippe (1831 to November, 1834)._] [Illustration: _Louis Philippe (November, 1834, to July, 1845)._] [Illustration: _Louis Philippe (1837)._] [Illustration: _Louis Philippe (1845 to 1848)._] [Illustration: _On white porcelain (1833 to present time)._] [Illustration: _Republic (1848 to 1851)._] [Illustration: _Napoleon III., emperor (1852)._] [Illustration: _Napoleon III., emperor (1854 and after)._] [Illustration: _Present mark--the cut shows pieces sold in the white (1861)._ ] CHAPTER XIV. THE PORCELAINS OF SOUTHERN EUROPE--ITALY, SPAIN, ETC. Florentine, or Medicean.--Is it a True Porcelain?--The House of Medici.--Marks.--Doccia Porcelain.--The Marquis Ginori.--Beccheroni.--Present Work.--Marks.--Venice.--Vezzi.--Cozzi.--Marks.--Turin. --Gioanetti.--Marks.--Nove.--Terraglia.--Marks.--Capo di Monte.--Naples.--In Relief.--Marks.--Spanish Porcelain.--Buen Retiro.--Marks.--Portugal. Florentine (or Medicean) Porcelain.--In the time of the 1700's, after the discovery of kaolin in Saxony, kings and princes were eager to signalize themselves by establishing porcelain-works in their states, and upon these they spent much money. It has come to light within a few years that the merchant-princes of the house of Medici enlisted in the same cause, and were the _first_ to establish a porcelain-factory in Europe; this discovery, made by Dr. Foresi, of Florence, has been confirmed by various others. The question only is, "Is it porcelain?" Mr. J. C. Robinson, a distinguished English writer, says: "A discovery of some curiosity and interest in connection with the history of the manufacture of porcelain in Southern Europe has recently been made by the acumen of Dr. Foresi, of Florence, and which has the effect of antedating the manufacture by at least a century. Before this discovery the fabrique at St.-Cloud, in France, was the earliest that could be authenticated. This was about the year 1695; but the facts now brought forward prove the existence of a factory for the manufacture of a true porcelain at Florence, under the patronage of the Grand-duke Francis I., about the years 1580 to 1590. For some time the doctor had observed a peculiar ancient porcelain of a fine body and glaze, and covered with an arabesque ornament in blue, which, while it generally resembled Oriental porcelain, showed unmistakable features of European design. It was also marked in a peculiar manner, and, as one mark consisted of the well-known pellets of the Medici family arms, he was induced to search the records of the house, and, to his surprise, found--what had been overlooked by all historians of the potter's art--that the duke above named had attached to his well-known laboratory in the Boboli Gardens a small manufactory of porcelain. By continuing his researches he at last exhumed a manuscript from the Magliabecchian Library, which had been compiled by some person employed by the duke, and which also detailed the facts connected with the composition of the ware." This manufacture continued from 1575 to 1587. THE MEDICI.--The history of this remarkable family of the Medici can never fail to interest. Roscoe has presented it well in his "Life of Lorenzo the Magnificent," etc. The origin of the family is very vague; but the fact is well known that the founder of its greatness was Giovanni de' Medici (he died 1429), who, instead of grasping states and principalities with one hand, while the other held the glittering sword, as had for so long a time been the fashion, seized upon the great trade which then had sprung up between the Occident and the Orient, and which became vast and profitable in the hands of the merchants of Florence, Genoa, and Venice. This trade poured ducats into his coffers like the flow of a river, and when he died he left vast stores of gold to his sons Cosmo and Lorenzo. Cosmo, instead of degenerating into a "rich man's son," went on with the work which his father had begun; but he conducted it as a great man should, not as a great miser would. This was true of his successors, who continued to be merchants and bankers, even after they had come to be grand-dukes and rulers of the Florentine state. This wealth was used, of course, to push their own fortunes and ambitions, but it was used in a ducal way, not only in the building of palaces and galleries, but in the encouragement of the arts and of letters, all of which increased his own glory, while it ministered to the magnificence of the state. The Medici had ceased to be merchants long before the time of Francis, but it is easy to believe that the traditions of his family ran in his veins, and that he should have been ready to attempt the production of porcelain in his city, when the love for it and the desire for it had grown to be an influence in Europe, as it had in the seventeenth century. Nineteen specimens only are known of this earliest porcelain, and these are in the hands of museums and of private collectors. Examples may be seen in the Sèvres and Kensington Museums. It seems that the best quality was made for the family of the founder, and this bears the mark of six pellets, each with a letter and one with a _fleur-de-lis_. These letters, F. M. M. E. D. II., mean _Franciscus Medici Magnus Etruriæ Dux Secundus_. [Illustration: FIG. 140.--_Medicean Porcelain._] We engrave here (Fig. 140) a beautiful _bocca_, or pitcher, fifteen inches high, of this porcelain, which is in the collection of the Baron de Rothschild. The decoration resembles the style of maiolica known as Raffaelesque; the body is white and the painting of a light blue. The handle is a crown, formed by uniting those of the Medici and of Austria. The less beautiful pieces are described as "coarse, opaque, and of a bluish gray, the glaze thick and vitreous." This china was something between hard and soft. Whether this production of Italy is really porcelain, is open to doubt. M. Demmin, who is certainly entitled to great consideration, denies it very plainly. He states that the vase exhibited by M. Rothschild, in 1865, showed a break at the neck, and that the body was not porcelain, but a white clay--_terre de pipe_. He states, also, that the five pieces in the museum of Sèvres are not translucid, and have no signs such as mark the _pâte tendre_ of France or Italy. English writers choose to class this under the head of porcelain, which seems, at least, to be very questionable. The two marks are: [Illustration: _The Duomo of Florence and the six pellets of the Medici._] DOCCIA (near Florence)--HARD AND SOFT PASTE.--In the beginning of the last century there existed in the north of Italy families who had inherited wealth and honor, and who still retained their vigor. They may not have been many, but among them the Ginori were numbered. Italy has been living in the luminous glories of the art of the Renaissance these five centuries, and the light, as it seems to us, grows dim rather than glowing. Neither painting, sculpture, nor architecture, seems to-day to have more than a thin flavor of that past, when Church and state, noble and simple, combined to welcome the advent of a new artist. The production of porcelain belongs to the later time; but it certainly, in a limited way, shows signs of life and of originality more than any art of the later time, except, perhaps, music. To-day it is not so. The productions of the south--Capo di Monte--I have elsewhere spoken of as not being servile imitations of anything, and as possessing much merit and originality. Of the productions at Doccia I have seen none, and the descriptions in books do not enable me to form any judgment. Of the maiolicas of Italy, now being reproduced largely at Doccia, I shall write hereafter. The Marquis Ginori founded a manufactory near Florence in 1735, which is in a flourishing condition to-day. Inspired with the desire to produce work of a high character, he spared neither trouble nor cost, and sent a ship to China to procure there the clays which had secured the Chinese porcelain its peculiar character and its great excellence. Not only were services for the table and other articles for social use produced by the workmen and artists under the direction of the marquis, but almost immediately they were engaged in the production of statues and groups, in great variety, and some of which were half the size of life; many were modeled from fine work of the Greek sculptors. The paste is said to have been of a high grade, but the glaze was then lacking in the finest effects of the Chinese potters. Having seen none of it, I am unable to say more than that. A pair of vases from this factory, in Walpole's collection at Strawberry Hill, are described as "vases with blue and white oblique flutes; they are of coarse workmanship, although the form is good." Forsyth, an English traveler who visited the factory in 1802, speaks of the works and the work very disparagingly, and says the latter was then much inferior to that of England, as it doubtless was. In 1821, when the Capo di Monte factory, at Naples, was discontinued, the moulds were bought and taken to the Doccia works, and are still owned there. The peculiar work in relief, which will be spoken of under the head of "Capo di Monte," is now made there, and is sold in considerable quantities, and often for the genuine Capo di Monte, from which, of course, it is not easy to distinguish it. Marryat states that this was made at Doccia, in the last century, probably from moulds procured then at Naples. Sèvres shapes and designs were imitated at Doccia, and a large production is now going on of the maiolica vases and dishes of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which are sold all over Europe and in America. In Paris are produced copies of these, not only in design, but also with marks to indicate age, intended to deceive the unwary. We do not believe this of the works at Doccia. Still, one can but regret that the public demand for these copies should be so great as to forbid original work there. The artist most praised is Beccheroni, and his painting of miniatures is spoken of as "exquisite." Baldassini and Tuppi are also mentioned in terms of high praise. A note in Marryat's volume says: "The manufactory now employs two thousand persons. Attached to the establishment are a fine park and farm, schools for the children, an academy of music for the workmen, a savings-bank, and everything that can be devised to promote the moral improvement of its occupants. In the chapel annexed are monuments in porcelain of the deceased marquises; and in the adjacent parochial church the high altar, _torchères_, candlesticks, ciborium, etc., are all in porcelain--an offering of the Ginori family." Some of the ware made here is stamped _Ginori_; others bear some one of the following three marks. [Illustration: _Doccia marks._] VENICE--HARD AND SOFT PASTE.--Pottery had been made at Venice from an early day, at least as far back as 1515. But, after the production of true porcelain at Dresden, it seems that a rich merchant of Venice, named Vezzi, in company with some others, engaged in the production of porcelain there, getting his clay from Saxony. Various articles were made, and their production probably continued till about 1740. But it was not a success, owing, besides other causes, to the fact that the clay had to be transported so far. It could not, of course, compete with the works at Dresden. Some few examples of this exist, but very few. The mark of Vezzi's factory was the letters, painted or stamped, Ven^A, a contraction for Venezia. Later, about 1753, a German named Hewelcke made some attempts at Venice, with no practical result. _Cozzi's_ productions were of more importance. Chaffers quotes from an official report as follows: "Concerning the manufactory of Japanese porcelain, it was commenced only in 1765, your excellencies were eye-witnesses of its rapid progress and therefore deservedly protected and assisted him. He now works with three furnaces, and has erected a fourth, a very large one, for the manufacture of dishes. He has constantly in his employ forty-five workmen, including the six apprentices whom he has undertaken to educate, and from the date of his privilege, in August, 1765, down to the middle of December, 1766, has disposed of sixteen thousand ducats' worth of manufactured goods, etc., so that it may be fairly inferred that he will yet continue to make greater progress both in quantity and quality." At these works, for about fifty years, a great variety was made, such as vases, statuettes, both white and colored, plates, dishes, services, etc. The imitations of Chinese work were so good as to deceive many. The designs of Dresden, Sèvres, and the English workmen, were also produced here with great skill. Some excellent vases made at Venice are to be found in the collections in Europe. In New York, Mr. Barlow and Mr. Prime have some pieces which may be of Venice, or they may be of Chelsea, as the paste and the mark are almost identical. The marks of the Vezzi and the Cozzi wares are as follows: [Illustration: _Marks of the Vezzi and the Cozzi wares. The anchor-mark was used at Chelsea._] At TURIN and Treviso porcelain was made in the last century; as to the latter but little is to be said. Some pieces are known, upon which is the mark G. A. F. F. and the name _Treviso_ in script. Near Turin, at Vineuf, a manufactory was established about 1770 by a physician named Gioanetti. "It was noted for its fine grain and the whiteness of its glaze," says Chaffers; while Marryat says, "The glaze, however, is wavy and yellowish." It was sometimes marked with a simple +, at others with a =V= under the cross, and again as shown here: [Illustration: _Meaning Vineuf, Dr. Gioanetti._] NOVE--HARD PASTE.--Porcelain seems to have been attempted at Nove, near Bassano, in Italy, about 1752, by a man named Antonibon, who with his son afterward continued it till 1781 or later. Some elaborate pieces were made here, one of which we have taken from Marryat's book, because it seems to possess, what so few do, excellence and originality. It is in the Reynolds collection in England, and is some twenty-seven and a half inches high--a superb piece of work (Fig. 141). The business passed into other hands, and after 1800 it gradually went to decay. In 1825 it was revived by some descendants of the first Antonibon, who struggled on for ten years, but they could not sustain themselves against the capital, the clay, the brains, and skill of Saxony and Sèvres. They still make there, as they always did, maiolica, fine and common, and _terraglia_ faience, in considerable quantities and of much excellence, called in France _terre de pipe_. This _terraglia_, it may be said, is a sort of demi-porcelain, being made of a mixture of the true porcelain clay and the native potter's clay. It is susceptible of great precision of modeling and of a high finish, and some beautiful work has been done in it in Italy. [Illustration: FIG. 141.--_Nove Porcelain Vase._] The marks of Nove were usually a star or asterisk, with six rays; sometimes the letter N, or the word NOVE, was added. [Illustration: _Marks of Nove._] CAPO DI MONTE--SOFT PASTE.--This beautiful porcelain was made first at Naples in 1736, under the direct patronage of the king, Charles IV., afterward Charles III. of Spain. The king was an enthusiast, and sometimes worked in the factory himself, and under this inspiration it is not surprising that excellent work was done. But, besides this, very common services and figures were made later, many of which bear the mark of the _fleur-de-lis_, so that all Capo di Monte is not equally good or equally valuable. And the same may be said of the productions of any man or any manufactory. A letter written to Lord Chatham in 1760 says of this King Charles: "He is particularly fond of the china-manufacture at Capo di Monte. During a fair held annually in the square before his palace at Naples, there is a shop solely for the sale of a part of this china, and a note was daily brought to the king of what was sold, together with the names of those who bought; and it is said he looked often favorably upon the persons who made any purchases." [Illustration: FIG. 142.--_Capo di Monte._] The king, being of a Spanish family, succeeded to the crown of Spain in 1759, when he carried with him many of the workmen and his own tastes, and established there the manufactory of _Buen Retiro_, of which is a brief account hereafter. After his departure the factory languished, lacking his interested inspiration. The marked originality of the Capo di Monte porcelain is the _designs in relief_ which were impressed upon the plaques, and also upon teacups, vases, etc. These were very delicately and carefully _stippled_ in colors, and this distinguishes them from imitations and reproductions which have been made in great numbers at Florence, and which are sold at very much smaller prices. [Illustration: FIG. 143.--_Capo di Monte._] Not only were these articles in relief and of great beauty made here, but also very excellent, creamy, soft porcelain painted on the flat, and exquisitely painted, too. The specimens I have seen have a character of their own, which has the great merit of being indigenous and not an imitation. The tea-services, of which we now and then see single pieces, are lovely. [Illustration: FIG. 144.--_Capo di Monte._] Mr. Prime has some excellent pieces, of both styles; as has Mr. Wales, from whose collection we have engraved our illustrations. The three pieces marked Fig. 142, 143, and 144, are painted on the glaze, and are exquisite both for design and color. The single vase (Fig. 145) has two bands, most delicately modeled and painted in relief. [Illustration: FIG. 145.--_Capo di Monte._] Work was continued with more or less success until 1821, when the moulds were sold to the Doccia manufactory, at Florence; but after 1780 hard paste was made at this factory, under the patronage of King Ferdinand. The marks used are here given; the earliest was a ruder form of _fleur-de-lis_. This _fleur-de-lis_ mark was also used at Madrid, and, as the work was almost identical, it is not easy to distinguish them. Demmin says the marks on the hard porcelain were a crown, under which were sometimes the locked letters RE or FK. Marks of Capo di Monte: [Illustration: _About 1786._] [Illustration: _About 1759._] [Illustration: _About 1759._] [Illustration: _Ferdinandus Rex (1780)._] [Illustration: FIG. 146.--_Buen Retiro._] SPANISH PORCELAIN--BUEN RETIRO.--When Charles III. came to the throne of Spain in 1759, from Naples he brought with him many of the workmen and much of the skill which had produced the beautiful china at Naples. These he established near his palace of _El Buen Retiro_, at Madrid, and here his experiments and the manufacture were carried on with great secrecy and much care. A letter from Spain, written in 1777, quoted by Marryat, says: "In the gardens of Buen Retiro the monarch has established a china manufactory, which strangers have not hitherto been permitted to examine. It is undoubtedly intended that experiments shall be secretly made, and the manufacture brought to some perfection before it be exposed to the eyes of the curious. Its productions are to be seen nowhere except in the palace of the sovereign, or in some Italian courts, to which they have been sent as presents," etc. During the Napoleonic wars, when Spain was overrun with troops, the factory was destroyed (1812), and it has not been restored. The single illustration (Fig. 146) is a very beautiful small vase, from Mr. Wales's collection. It is exquisitely painted, and closely resembles the porcelain of Capo di Monte. Marks supposed to have been used at Buen Retiro: [Illustration: _The same as Ludwigsburg._] [Illustration: _The same as Capo di Monte._] [Illustration] Some porcelain has been, and I believe still is, made at Alcora. In PORTUGAL, at Oporto, porcelain has been made since 1790, of no supreme qualities. It is rather singular that the people who first introduced the fine porcelains of China and Japan into Europe, who, for some two centuries, had almost uninterrupted control of the commerce, who brought it by ship-loads to all the countries of Europe, should apparently have had less interest in the subject than any other, should have less of it to show to-day than most others, should have made less effort to produce it in the past, and should be doing almost nothing to-day. But countries, like men, have their manhood and their dotage, and then they pass out of the active life of the world: such seems to be the condition of Portugal to-day. CHAPTER XV. THE PORCELAINS OF ENGLAND. Bow.--Chelsea.--Derby.--Chelsea-Derby.--Lowestoft.--Worcester. --Chamberlains.--Plymouth.--Bristol.--Pinxton.--Nantgaraw.--Swansea. --Turners.--Coalport.--Coalbrookdale.--Herculaneum.--Shelton, New Hall.--Rockingham.--Spode, Copeland.--Place.--Daniell.--Minton. --Prices and Marks. In England, following the discovery and production of porcelain in Saxony, there sprang up a very wide interest in the art. It was not an interest which enlisted all classes there--as, indeed, it did not anywhere in Europe; but among persons of taste and wealth it became of such importance as to be a "fashion." The discovery of kaolin-clay in Saxony stimulated enterprising men to seek for it elsewhere. There is much doubt yet, and there has been a vast amount of time spent upon the question in England, as to when and where the production of china first took place in that country. It is not for me, here in America, to make any attempts to solve it. What I may do is to try to present to our own people, in some compact and readable form, what Marryat, Chaffers, and others in England, have arrived at after much patient research and comparison. Some of the most useful and most important works on pottery and porcelain--of which enough have been written to form a library of themselves--will be mentioned at the end of this book; for in all of them much is to be found of value to those who care to go into this curious and interesting branch of art-production more fully than any one volume will enable them to do. From these facts--that many of the manufactories in England had but a short career; and that the work produced, in many cases, had no marks, or had a great variety of marks; that in some cases but little work was made, and that of that little much has disappeared--a surprising interest has come to be attached to that which remains; and in some cases surprising prices have been paid for it, and are now paid. It is for these reasons, rather than for its intrinsic beauty, that most English porcelain is so eagerly desired. It is not generally remarkable for perfection of form or of paste, or for originality or beauty of color and ornament; but in some cases all of these are to be found. The early paste of the older factories, such as Bow and Chelsea, is considered inferior to the best Chinese and Japanese, and to the early Dresden and Sèvres. Afterward the paste was greatly improved, until now that made at the porcelain-works at Worcester, and at some other of the English factories, is not surpassed anywhere. It seems to me that the English modelers have not cultivated that sense of perfection of form and grace of line which was so wonderful in Greece, and in which the French modelers excel the English. It may be that the desire for strength, which seems to inspire most English porcelain, has demanded the sacrifice of that delicacy, thinness, and niceness, which have for a long time prevailed in France. But the English porcelain is noted for its strength and wearing quality; it is certainly superior in this respect to most of the French work. Whoever has interest enough in the subject should visit, when in England, the porcelain-works at Worcester, now conducted by Mr. Binns. Here he can see all the processes going on, by means of which the teacup and the dinner-plate are brought to perfection. It is not a simple matter. Several kinds of clays are to be got together--some from England; some, perhaps, from elsewhere. These are ground to such an impalpable fineness that they are floated away in water, and are allowed to settle into tanks, from which, when in the right condition, they are taken to the moulder for use. The collecting, the mixing, the grinding of these clays is the result of much brain and hand work--a great deal more than most men are obliged to use in getting into Congress or Parliament, or in writing a book. As the dexterous potter moulds upon his wheel the forms of the Greek amphora or the Chinese teacup, they seem to spring under his hand as if touched by the fairy's wand. I think no one can see this work grow without a feeling of surprised pleasure; and, after witnessing it, no one can fail to have a greater satisfaction at seeing and using the various objects of use and beauty, to be found now in every house--a satisfaction increased by knowledge. Even in the ordinary mug or jug which costs a sixpence, are often to be detected great knowledge, much art. We do not give the workman half his due when we fail to feel how much we owe to him. An eye to see the beautiful, the good, the true, is to be prayed for. When the turner and modeler has perfected his pot, it has to go through its firings, glazings, paintings, until it comes to us a perfected work, which we too often hardly look at. It is only a jug! There is more than the money's worth in every good piece of cabinet-work, iron-work, woven fabric, etc.; for with every honest workman's hand goes a part of his soul: he gives it willingly, gladly. BOW--SOFT PASTE.--The small village of Stratford-le-Bow, in Middlesex, now, I think, a part of London, is believed to be the place where a china-factory was first established in England, and some suppose it may have been as early as 1730, though 1744 is the earliest authentic date mentioned. Mr. Chaffers[15] says--and it has some interest to us Americans, as perhaps showing whence the old and great England drew its first porcelain life--"William Cookeworthy, of Plymouth, writing to a friend in 1745, says: 'I had lately with me the person who has discovered the _china-earth_. He had with him several samples of the china-ware, which I think were equal to the Asiatic. It was found on the back of Virginia, where he was in quest of mines; and having read Du Halde, he discovered both the _petunze_ and _kaolin_. It is this latter earth which he says is essential to the success of the manufacture. He is gone for a cargo of it, having bought from the Indians the whole country where it rises. They can import it for thirteen pounds sterling the ton,'" etc. It seems probable or possible that this earth was used to some extent in the earlier productions at Bow, as it is mentioned in the application of the company for patents, and as it appears that some hard porcelain is found among the earlier examples existing, in which this kaolin was perhaps used--called by the natives "unaker." The enterprise at Bow was purely a private one, originating with Edward Heylin, a merchant, and Thomas Frye, a painter. Unlike the works at Meissen, Sèvres, and indeed many others on the Continent, none of the factories in England had the assistance of the Government. The Bow works were afterward carried on by Crowther and Weatherby. In the British Museum is a large punch-bowl, made at Bow and painted by Thomas Craft, which is accompanied with his certificate. This statement shows that the works at Bow at that time (1760) had become extensive, if not profitable, for he mentions, "They employed there three hundred persons; about ninety painters (of whom I was one), and about two hundred turners, throwers, etc." The examples existing, and recently-discovered documents, go to show that the paste or body at Bow was not of supreme excellence, and not at all equal to that made on the Continent at that time. The painting was in a variety of designs, as appears by some memorandum-books, still existing: "Blue Newark pattern," "sets of blue teas," "a dinner-service," "blue and pale as you please." Tea-sets were evidently much made, and "white bud-sprigs," "sprigged tea-sets," and "Dresden sprigs," are mentioned. While all the first work at Bow was hand-painted, it appears that later, about 1756, printed or transfer work was used there; this, of course, secured cheaper sets. A great variety and number of figures, such as shepherdesses, birds, animals, hunters, Chinese figures, etc., were made at Bow as well as at Chelsea, which, of course, have been much sought for, and have sold at high prices. Though these figures are not desirable as pieces of _sculpture_, many of them are interesting as showing the dresses of the day, especially such figures as Woodward the actor, and Mistress Kitty Clive, who were modeled at Bow. Much confusion exists as to what is Bow and what is Chelsea, as the styles of work run much together. Many pieces of each factory bore no mark. Some of the best-known marks will be given at the end of this account; but it may be well to say that the incised triangle, which for a long time was supposed to be a sure indication of Bow, is now placed with Chelsea. Some pieces marked "New Canton" are known to be Bow. It is curious to note that he who would be a good salesman in those "good old times," must do what salesmen in these later and baser times are sometimes tempted to do. Let me explain. Mr. Bowcocke was a manager or salesman at Bow, and he kept a note-book, in which are written down his doings with Mrs. McNally, a good customer of the wares: _Oct. 16._--Bought a china figure for Mrs. McNally 4_s._ Painting " " 1_s._ 3_d._ Treating Mrs. McNally, wine 1_s._ Went to see her home from the play 1_s._ Paid 2_d._ If that were the only transaction, think of it! Sales 5_s._ 3_d._ Expenses of same 2_s._ 4_d._ Not lucrative to the Bow salesman! The Bow works continued with varied success until about 1775 to 1776, when the moulds, implements, etc., were sold to Mr. Duesbury, who transferred and merged all into the greater works at Derby. (_See_ DERBY.) Marks on Bow porcelain: [Illustration: _These are found on some pieces._] [Illustration: _Positions vary._] [Illustration: _The triangle now is given to Chelsea, possibly to Derby, not to Bow._] [Illustration] [Illustration] CHELSEA--SOFT PASTE.--The porcelain-works at Chelsea, near London, were begun before the year 1747, by some workmen brought from Burslem and elsewhere; a little later, in 1748 to 1749, they were more firmly established, under the direction of a foreigner named Sprimont, or Spremont. The works were carried on by him until about the year 1769, when they were advertised for sale, and he retired from the business. Some very expensive, elaborate, and beautiful vases were made by him, of which two in the possession of Earl Dudley are said to be hardly surpassed by anything made at Dresden or Sèvres. The price paid for one of them, in 1868, was two thousand pounds sterling. The first work made seems to have been in imitation of Chinese porcelain, and it is doubtful if much original designing was done at Chelsea. Chaffers says: "The fine vases in the French style, in imitation of Sèvres, with gros bleu, crimson, turquoise, and apple-green, were made from about 1760 to 1765." The illustration given (Fig. 147) is one of their most highly-decorated vases, and is unquestionably brilliant. But it has the vice, as it seems to me, of over-decoration; there is no restraint, none of the delicacy of true art. The form, too, lacks perfectness in many ways. The want of invention or original design in England would seem to indicate that porcelain was not a natural or spontaneous art there. In France and in Saxony, on the contrary, while much of the taste is questionable, and some of it bad, many original and peculiar works were designed and executed. This was not the case in England; and, indeed, excepting Wedgwood, we can hardly point to any conspicuous examples of creative power. Here the god of Trade comes in, for it _pays better_ to copy than to create. [Illustration: FIG. 147.--_Fine Chelsea Vase._] About 1769 the Chelsea works went into the hands of Duesbury, of Derby, who carried them on in connection with his Derby works until about 1784, when all were transferred to Derby. The paste or body used at Chelsea was so soft and tender that it was nearly valueless for works of use. It was therefore confined to articles of beauty and luxury, such as vases, bowls, dishes, cups, and tea-services; also to figures in great variety, like those made at Bow. These are much, sought for, and command high prices. They have been counterfeited to some extent. One very curious incident is quoted by Marryat, from Faulkner's "History of Chelsea:" "Mr. H. Stephens was told by the foreman of the china-factory (then in the workhouse of St. Luke's, Middlesex), that Dr. Johnson had conceived a notion that he was capable of improving on the manufacture of china." He visited the factory with his house-keeper, had access to the various mixing-rooms, made his own composition, had them baked, etc., but always "completely failed." The doctor retired in disgust. That the brain of the purblind, the prejudiced, the arrogant British philosopher should have thought of many things, and should have believed himself capable of any and all things, is not surprising; but the sight of him in a porcelain-factory might well enough have originated the stories in history of "the bull in a china-shop." One might be pardoned for paying a "good penny" for a teacup modeled by the dexterous hands of Dr. Johnson. Another curious fact which may interest and encourage us in these "trading-times" is, that the proprietors of the Chelsea works were then obliged to protest and petition against the smuggling of French and Dresden porcelain into England _for sale_ in quantities, under the cover of the ministers' privilege to import for their own use. So, if all the men in the days of our fathers were brave, they certainly were not all honest. At the sale of the Bernal[16] collection, in 1855, some Chelsea china sold as follows: A pair of beautiful globular scalloped vases and covers, deep blue, painted with exotic buds, with pierced borders and covers of the highest quality £110 5_s._ A cup and saucer, with festoons in raised white (chipped) 1 1_s._ Another, with flowers and crimson drapery edges 3 A beautiful two-handled cup and saucer, with medallions of Cupids in pink, and striped gold sides 21 Mr. Marryat mentions the sale of some "Chelsea" in 1865: At Lord Cardogan's sale, a pair of vases, painted with exotic buds on gold ground 60 guineas. A two-handled vase, open-work back and cover painted with flowers, on a gold ground, seventeen inches high 250 guineas. A fine figure of a female holding a branch, a lion at her feet, penciled in gold 100 guineas. Fifteen plates of old Chelsea, blue and gold, fetched £150 There are but few examples of Bow and Chelsea in this country. Mr. Prime, and Mr. Barlow, of New York, I am told, have some pieces. Mr. Wales has a bowl, and cup and saucer, in very rich, warm colors, being designs from china, which are no doubt Chelsea, and excellent work. They are shown in Fig. 148, on the right-hand corner, but this cannot, of course, give any idea of the fine coloring. [Illustration: FIG. 148.--_English Porcelain._] Marks of Chelsea porcelain: [Illustration] DERBY--SOFT PASTE.--The Derby china--and the "Crown Derby," now most known--was famous in its day--from about 1750 to the end of the century--and from Derby, in England, it was sold to a very wide extent over Europe. Specimens are met with in Holland, Italy, Spain, etc. The factory was established by William Duesbury, and was, after his death, carried on by his son; by a Mr. Reeve, who married the widow; and, in 1815, it went into the possession of Robert Bloor. The works were not finally closed till 1848. Duesbury, who purchased the moulds and property of both the Bow and the Chelsea factories, carried on the works at Derby and at Chelsea for some time; and much of the porcelain made at that time is called Chelsea-Derby. The early mark of the Derby was a capital D, and the Chelsea-Derby mark is the same D, with the Chelsea anchor in its middle. The crown with the anchor, or with crossed lines and dots, and sometimes with the D under it, was used after the patronage of George III. had been extended to the works (about 1777), and is now most commonly found upon the best work of this factory. After 1815 "Bloor's" name is found upon the work. During the best portion of Duesbury's time, dinner, dessert, breakfast, and tea services, of great richness and splendor, were made; and at that time the patronage of nobility and gentry was more generous than it had been to any other English factory. Duesbury carried to great perfection the combination of a rich blue with gold, not only in his vases, urns, etc., but also as edges to his dinner and tea services. "He has brought the gold and blue to a degree of beauty never before obtained in England, and the drawing and coloring of the flowers are truly elegant," writes a tourist in 1777. In the examples I have had an opportunity of seeing, this is true; but one is obliged to feel in this, as in almost all the fine china of England, a lack of perfection and delicacy in form and modeling. Groups and figures were made in great variety and number at Derby, upon which no splendor or expense of gold and color was spared. These are found in nearly all the good collections of England and the Continent. At this time--the end of the last century--it was much the fashion for ladies to paint, for their own use and for gifts, single pieces, and indeed whole sets; and the white china of Derby was often sold for that purpose. These amateur productions occasionally find their way into the shops, and naturally perplex the collector. Duesbury's prices were not high. In an invoice extant we find: Pair of knotting figures, finely enameled and gilt £2 2_s._ Twenty-four dessert-plates, in medallions and grapes, each 13_s._ Three large punch-bowls, painted, ye allusion of stag-hunting, hare-hunting, and fishing; each 42_s._ Great care was taken that nothing but perfect work went from, the factory; this kept the character of the Derby works high. But it filled their shops with many "seconds." When Mr. Bloor came into possession, of the factory, these seconds were sold by auction in various parts of England; and this greatly injured the name and fame of "Derby," from which it did not recover. The Bernal sale records of Chelsea-Derby and Derby: Five old Derby plates, with Cupids in pink and flower borders £9 Three of Derby-Chelsea, with bases and deep-blue borders 2 12_s._ 6_d._ A two-handled cup, cover, and saucer, with landscapes and roses on a yellow ground 17 6_s._ 6_d._ None of these were the best work, and brought but corresponding prices. Marks used on Derby porcelain: [Illustration: _Duesbury (1756)._] [Illustration: _Derby-Chelsea (1770)._] [Illustration: _First in lilac, then in red._] [Illustration: _Crown Derby (1780)._] [Illustration: _Sometimes D is in old English--D (1780)._] [Illustration: _Imitation of Sèvres (1798)._] [Illustration: _Imitation of Chinese._] [Illustration: _Probably workman's mark._] [Illustration: _Sometimes in oval (about 1830)._] LOWESTOFT--SOFT AND MOSTLY HARD PASTE.--Much uncertainty, discussion, and perplexity, have prevailed concerning the porcelain made at Lowestoft, on the eastern coast of England, near Yarmouth. About 1756, as is agreed to by both Marryat and Chaffers, a gentleman named Luson attempted a manufactory of pottery and porcelain there, which was not successful. Shortly after another was attempted, which for a time succeeded well; in this Mr. Robert Browne was the principal man. Pottery and porcelain were made here in great variety and in considerable quantities--much of it for exportation, and especially for the Turkish markets; and some of it appears to have been marked with a crescent, like that made at Worcester. But, as a rule, no marks, either of the factory or the painter, were used at Lowestoft. Not only was pottery, or earthenware, made here, but the early porcelain was soft ware. Mr. Chaffers states that, about 1775, hard paste was made there in close imitation of Chinese. He states, also, that some of the heavier pieces, like tureens and punch-bowls, had a sort of uneven surface, as if it had been patted into shape by the hand or a tool. This patted or uneven surface is a defect; but as this is found also in heavy pieces of porcelain, which are Chinese beyond question, it ceases to be a distinguishing mark of Lowestoft work--if, indeed, it is a mark of it at all, which one may be permitted still to doubt. Some of the work reached great perfection, and the egg-shell cups, etc., made there are said to be equal to any others made in Europe. Among the peculiar decorations were hares' heads for handles, fruits for knobs of covers, doubled handles to mugs, braided or crossed, which are asserted to be quite distinct from Oriental designs. "Another striking variety is the fan and feather pattern, in imitation of _Capo di Monte_, painted in purple, blue, and red, in the form of basins and ewers. Many of these vases are elaborately painted, with diaper-work in gold, and colors, and escutcheons of flowers, and small landscapes. Among all the flowers and exquisite floral patterns the rose predominates, and it is remarkable how easily the peculiar touch of the artist--whose name was Rose--can be detected. Another style of decoration peculiar to Lowestoft is a rococo scroll or running border of flowers, slightly raised upon the plain surface in opaque white enamel." In the collection of Mr. J. V. L. Pruyn, at Albany, is quite a large dinner-service with the rose-decoration, which we can easily believe to be true Lowestoft. The colors are not brilliant, nor is the glaze perfect. The paste lacks the whiteness of the best Chinese, and is lighter than any true Chinese porcelain I have seen. Some persons in this country think that many or most of the dinner and tea services ordered in the United States during the last century, and which it was supposed were made in China, really came from Lowestoft through Liverpool or Bristol; among them those sets which bore initials in a sort of shield, and were finished on the edges with a deep-blue band studded with gold stars. It seems certain that this kind of decoration was done at Lowestoft; it is equally certain that it was also done in China, from designs sent out there. I have myself some pieces so decorated, which were imported direct from China to New Haven about the end of the last century. [Illustration: FIG. 149.--_Lowestoft Porcelain._] The perplexity and discussion existing as to the hard-paste porcelain made at Lowestoft have been increased by the statements made by Mr. Marryat and Mr. Jewett, in England, that much white undecorated porcelain was imported into Lowestoft from China, and was painted in England. Some of the forms and decorations made at Lowestoft are so like those made in China that it has been almost impossible to distinguish them. To a person not interested, this will seem a matter of the very slightest consequence; to a china-fancier quite the contrary. Sydney Smith, you will remember, said it was strange, but quite true, that "there were persons living who spoke disrespectfully of the equator, but we should bear with them and pity them." This advice we must apply to those who care nothing about porcelain. Mr. Chaffers, in his work, "Marks and Monograms on Pottery and Porcelain," presents very strong and varied testimony to show that no white porcelain was imported from China and painted at Lowestoft; that the hard paste made at Lowestoft is quite different, and not so hard as that made in China, and need not be confounded with it. My own belief is that much of what is called "Lowestoft," both in England and in the United States, was made in China. We engrave (Fig. 149) a pretty tea-service from Mr. Wales's collection, which will recall to many of our readers what they have seen on their grandmothers' tables any time in this century. It is a style of decoration which was done at Lowestoft, and also in China. No marks were used on the Lowestoft. [Illustration: FIG. 150.--_Lowestoft Plate._] The next illustration (Fig. 150), from the collection of John V. L. Pruyn, Esq., of Albany, is characteristic as showing the use of the rose at Lowestoft. No better example of it probably exists in this country. The paste is peculiar, and not like much which is called Lowestoft. The plate is sixteen and a half inches in diameter, the colors are good, and the painting is carefully done. WORCESTER--SOFT PASTE.--At Worcester, in the year 1751, the Worcester Porcelain Company was formed, which has continued from that day to this. Dr. Wall, a physician and chemist, has the credit of being the originator of this the largest and most enduring of English porcelain-works. The clergy of the cathedral were greatly interested, and had much to do with the success of the company. In the beginning, it seems, there was a large production of tea and breakfast services for domestic use; and much of this was like the Chinese blue and white, copied from Oriental designs. Afterward a trade sprung up with Turkey, and much china was made for that market. Many of the early marks, and particularly upon the Oriental designs, were copies of those found upon pieces of Chinese porcelain; among which the square seal-mark (given further on) is most often met with. The crescent, which is a well-known Worcester mark, most likely came into use when the production of porcelain for the Saracen markets became an important business. It is curious to note how very large a demand for fine china came from Turkey at that day, and it exists still. It is now some four years ago that I found, in Holland, a large selection of high-priced china had just been made for Constantinople, and I was told then that there was always a good demand there, and at good prices. The Turk is not altogether abominable, though he is a most disturbing quantity in the politics of Europe (1876 to 1878). The blue, so much in use in the early decoration, was not a good color, being inclined toward black; but afterward this was greatly improved--approaching the fine cobalt color, though it never reached the exquisite "celestial blue" of Nanking. A very large production at Worcester was in making copies of vases and other work done at Dresden, upon which birds, insects, and flowers, were painted with great care; so much so that, if the paste were not different, it might not be easy to distinguish them from the Dresden. The crossed swords and caduceus (see Dresden marks) were also used as marks on these. It is quite clear that those things which imitated what other nations did, sold best at that time in England; and this, more than poverty of invention, we may suppose induced those excellent English artists to copy rather than create. Chaffers mentions the following as the most noted painters at Worcester: Pennington, figures; Astle, flowers; Davis, exotic birds; Webster, landscapes and flowers; Barber, shells; Brewer, landscapes; Baxter, Lowe, and Cole, figure-subjects; Billingsly, flowers. [Illustration: FIG. 151.--_Royal Worcester Porcelain._] Printing in black upon the porcelain was practised at Worcester to a considerable extent; and mugs with pictures of Frederick the Great seem to have been popular at that day, and are much sought for now. The portraits of George II. and III. were also in demand, as well as many others. The flower-painting upon this, as upon all other European porcelain, was naturalistic--copied, as nearly as possible, from Nature. Good as much of it is beyond question, it fails to give to most persons the gratification which comes from the Oriental treatment. The last is decoration, the first is imitation. [Illustration: FIG. 152.--_Worcester and Spode Porcelain._] The rich dark blues, lighted up with much gilding, is a characteristic of some of the best Worcester work, as well as that made at Derby. Without reaching the fine translucency of the Dresden and Sèvres paste or body, that at Worcester was a great advance upon the other English factories, inasmuch as it was strong and durable; and the glaze was also better; it did not "_craze_"--shoot into cracks--like much of that made at Derby. In 1783 the works went into the possession of the Messrs. Flight. In 1793 they were carried on by Flight and Barr. In 1840 they were controlled by Chamberlain; and at the present time (1876) they are in charge of Mr. K. W. Binns, who employs a great force, and produces much excellent work, and some which may be called exquisite. His imitations of Limoges enamels and Chinese ivory-work are perfect; as it seems to me, quite too good. I should like to see such perfection applied to genuine work and to original design. He has also made a specialty of reproducing curious examples of Japanese, Chinese, and Corean porcelain, sometimes identically and sometimes in modified forms. We engrave (Fig. 151) a fine example of the latter from the collection of Messrs. Tiffany and Company, of New York. Among our illustrations (see Fig. 148) are two plates containing portraits of Sir Isaac Newton and Albert Dürer. The colors are red, brown, and gold; also a teacup and saucer, most delightfully and richly painted. These are in the possession of G. W. Wales, Esq., of Boston. In Fig. 152 is a teapot in rich blue and gold, part of a set belonging to Mr. W. C. Prime. This has the mark + of Bristol, but, as it is soft paste, it is probably Worcester. Marks of Worcester porcelain: [Illustration: _Worcester crescent (1755)._] [Illustration: _Used down to 1793._] [Illustration: _Used by Dr. Wall._] [Illustration: _Imitation Chinese._] [Illustration: _Imitation Oriental._] [Illustration: _Imitation Oriental._] [Illustration: _Imitation Dresden._] [Illustration: _Imitation Dresden._] [Illustration: _Imitation Dresden._] [Illustration: _Messrs. Flight (1783 to 1788)._] [Illustration: _Flight and Barr (1793 to 1807)._] [Illustration: _Barr (1793 to 1803)._] [Illustration: _Barr, Flight and Barr (1807 to 1818)._] The marks used at the present time at Worcester (1876) are as follows: [Illustration: _In use since 1852._] [Illustration: _In use since 1857._] CHAMBERLAIN'S--WORCESTER.--In 1786 Robert and Humphrey Chamberlain began a porcelain-factory at Worcester. Robert had learned the business in the old Worcester works, and was an accomplished man. Some splendidly-decorated porcelain was made by them; and a breakfast-set, made for Lord Nelson, is quite famous. Pieces of it are found in collections. The Chamberlains employed the best painters, and paid high wages. Their expensive work was made rich with much gold. A dessert-service in the possession of Mr. W. C. Prime, of New York, shows this, and is brilliant and effective. We engrave one of the plates (Fig. 152). The birds are tropical, and fine in color, and the plants are bordered with gold. The Chamberlains' factories are now incorporated with the "Worcester Company," under the charge of Mr. Binns. The Chamberlains' first mark was the name "Chamberlain," written with a brush in a running hand. Afterward a stamp was used, containing a crown and the names "Chamberlain and Company," and Worcester. Then the names simply of CHAMBERLAIN, WORCESTER. Marks of Chamberlain porcelain: [Illustration] [Illustration] [Illustration] PLYMOUTH--HARD PORCELAIN.--The first true or hard-paste porcelain made in England was made by William Cookworthy, who, being greatly interested in porcelain-making, established a factory at Plymouth about 1760. He seems to have discovered the true kaolin clays in Cornwall, the beds from which so much of the English clays are now taken. He took out patents for "a kind of porcelain newly invented, composed of Moorstone or growan, and growan clay," found in Devon and Cornwall. He advertised for painters, and a Frenchman named Soqui seems to have been very skillful. Bone, also, was one of his best painters. The ware made was perfect hard porcelain, but it was much more costly than the ordinary soft porcelain of England, and could not compete with it for price. Many of the pieces were warped or crazed in the strong heat necessarily used, and the loss in this way was great. Besides this, the good public did not care to pay high for what then had no prestige, and was really no more beautiful than the soft-paste porcelain of England. As the _first_ hard-paste porcelain made in England, and as but little of it was made, it is now valued by china-collectors, and it sells for high prices. Some highly-finished dinner and tea services made there, like the Nanking blue, are excellent, and are much valued. Vases and other pieces painted in colors, with birds and other highly-colored designs, were also produced in the same styles as those made on the Continent. Figures, also, then much in fashion, were modeled here, like those made at Chelsea and elsewhere. Cookworthy spent much money, and made none, and he came to his end. At last, in 1774, he sold his interests and patents to Champion, of Bristol, and the work ceased. The mark used was the sign of the planet Jupiter--very nearly the figure _4_. It was somewhat varied. Marks used on Plymouth porcelain: [Illustration: Marks used on Plymouth porcelain] BRISTOL--HARD PASTE.--The production at Bristol grew out of that at Plymouth, of which we have given a brief account. Richard Champion, merchant, of Bristol, was a man of much activity and ability. He took up the making of porcelain with eagerness, and is said to have produced both soft and hard china at his factory. The hard paste was used after his purchase of the patents, etc., of the Plymouth factory in 1774. Besides some very indifferent porcelain, some very beautiful work was made at Bristol; and for two or three years there was much activity there. But Champion, having no technical knowledge or skill, and but insufficient capital, soon failed, and the work ceased in 1777. He emigrated to South Carolina, where he died in 1791. So little of this Bristol hard porcelain was made that it now brings great prices. Blue and white tea and dessert services, in the style of the Chinese, were made there, as were many articles decorated with flowers. Walpole mentions, in his list of prices, "a cup and saucer, white, with green festoons of flowers, of Bristol porcelain." Marryat refers to a fine tea and coffee service made for Edmund Burke in 1774, who presented it to a Mrs. Smith, who had entertained him during his election. He says: "The china is rich in gilding, the design elegant, and the execution good." Mrs. James, of Cambridge, has one or two cups and saucers of blue hard paste marked with the + in gold--not in blue, which was the usual mark of Bristol; but there is little doubt that these are true Bristol. Marks found on Bristol porcelain: [Illustration: _About 1773._] [Illustration: _Imitation of Oriental._] [Illustration] [Illustration] [Illustration: _The cross is impressed._] [Illustration: _Crossed swords of Dresden._] [Illustration: _Supposed to be the name of Tebo, a modeler._] PINXTON, DERBYSHIRE--SOFT PASTE.--About 1793 to 1794 a small manufactory of porcelain was started at Pinxton by John Coke and William Billingsly. This last had been a practical potter and an excellent painter of flowers at Derby. He had some secrets for mixing his paste, which secured great translucency, but it was very tender, and easily damaged or destroyed in the kiln. This peculiar paste made by him at Pinxton, afterward at Nantgarw or Nantgarow, and at Swansea, breaks with a granulated fracture, and is quite different in this respect from any other. A favorite decoration was what was termed the "French sprig," composed of forget-me-nots and gold sprigs scattered over the plate. Flowers and landscapes also were painted, and the dishes were usually finished with a blue or a gold edge. No marks were used, though a letter P is sometimes attributed to this factory. NANTGARW--HARD PORCELAIN.--This porcelain-factory in Glamorganshire was started in 1813 by the same Billingsly. He made a clear and beautiful paste, and his productions, whether made at Pinxton, Nantgarw, or Swansea, are highly valued. The mark was nearly always NANTGARW, impressed. SWANSEA.--Earthen-ware was made at Swansea as early as 1750 in considerable quantities. But it was not till near the end of the century that porcelain was produced there by Messrs. Haines and Company. The porcelain subsequently made (about 1814, and later) is now much prized. About 1820 the Swansea works were purchased by Mr. Rose, and all was concentrated at Coalport. Both at Nantgarw and Swansea very free and finely-colored roses appear on the work, probably done by Billingsly. But little of either of these factories exists. Marks used on Swansea porcelain: [Illustration] [Illustration] [Illustration] [Illustration] TURNER (THOMAS) erected a porcelain-factory at Caughley, near Bridgnorth, in 1775. The Caughley works were commenced in 1751 by Mr. Browne, of Caughley Hall, in a small way, for earthen-ware, and reached little distinction until they came into the hands of Turner. Turner made excellent porcelain, and has the credit of introducing the famous "Willow-pattern"--copied from the Nanking blue; also the "blue Dragon"--into England. The principal marks are as follows. Marks of Caughley and of Turner: [Illustration: _Used in 1750._] [Illustration: _Used in 1772._] [Illustration: _Used by Rose in 1799._] [Illustration: _Various Marks._] COALPORT, IN COLEBROOK DALE, SHROPSHIRE.--Works were established here by Mr. John Rose, about 1780 to 1790. The Caughley works were subsequently incorporated with these, as were the Swansea and Nantgarw works. The factory is still in operation at Coalport, where fine porcelain is produced. Marks used at Coalport: [Illustration: _About 1787._] HERCULANEUM.--This pottery was established near Liverpool in 1790, by Richard Abbey; about 1796 it went into the hands of Messrs. Worthington, Humble, and Holland. Porcelain was made here, though earthen-ware was the principal production. On nearly all the porcelain the name "Herculaneum" is either printed or stamped. The works ceased wholly about the year 1841, having passed through a number of hands. The site is now occupied by the Herculaneum Dock, at Liverpool. SHELTON, OR NEW HALL--HARD PASTE.--A small factory of porcelain grew up at Shelton, out of the wreck of Champion's works at Bristol. Champion appears to have sold his patents and good-will to a partnership of potters about 1777, and Champion himself became their superintendent for a time at Tunstall. Afterward the works were removed to the New Hall, at Shelton. The work done was hard paste, and much like that made at Bristol, the same workmen and processes being employed. At first hard porcelain was made, which was stamped with an "N." After 1810 soft paste was used, and the mark then was "New Hall," in a circle. The factory went out of existence in 1825. ROCKINGHAM.--Some admirable porcelain was made at the Swinton pottery, under the patronage of the Marquis of Rockingham, upon whose estate the factory stood. About 1807 the works went into the hands of the two Bramelds, who made porcelain of the best description, sparing no pains or cost to bring it to perfection. Of course, they could make no money--it is not easy when one gives more than one gets. Some of the pieces of "Rockingham" rank as high as any made in England. Specimens are rare in England, and I know of none in this country. The works ceased in 1842. The mark was a griffin, the Rockingham crest: [Illustration] SPODE.--Some of the richest and most beautiful English porcelain I have ever seen is marked "Spode." A tea-set, in Fig. 152 (cup and saucer, and sugar-bowl), is perfect in form, paste, and decoration; the bands are in high colors, and the flowers, which appear black in the engraving, are of a subtile blue. The sugar-bowl on the right, in the same plate (Fig. 152), is highly and richly colored. No black-and-white print can give anything of the splendor of color of some pieces of Spode I saw in England, or of the piece here figured, which is from Mr. Prime's collection. There seems to have been no fashion or "rage" for this delightful work in England--just why, it is not easy to explain; consequently, prices have not risen beyond the means of ordinary mortals. The first "'Siah Spode" worked as an apprentice with Mr. Whieldon, of Fenton, in 1749, at 2_s._ 3_d._ or 2_s._ 6_d._ per week, "if he deserved it." When he became his own man, in 1754, he got 7_s._ 6_d._ per week--quite a different wages-tale from what is now told at Worcester. His son, Josiah Spode, began the porcelain fabric about the year 1800, at Stoke, under the firm-name of Spode, Son, and Copeland. He is said to have introduced _bones_ into the paste--now in general use in soft porcelain. In 1833 the works were purchased by Alderman W. T. Copeland. In 1843 the firm-name was Copeland and Garrett. Afterward, Alderman Copeland alone was again the proprietor. His mark was two crossed C's, with the name Copeland beneath: [Illustration] The works are now conducted under the name of W. T. Copeland and Sons, and the mark is nearly the same, the only difference being that the crossed C's are ornamented. The Copelands are noted for the excellence of the style and finish of their higher grades of porcelain, in which they are surpassed by no other English house. One of their specialties is jeweled porcelain, in which jewels are represented by colored enamels with fine effect. We give an example of this in Fig. 153, from the collection of Messrs. Tiffany and Company. Mr. FRANCIS PLACE, a gentleman of Yorkshire, made porcelain late in the 1600's or early in the 1700's. A few examples of it only are known to exist, and it probably was made rather as an experiment, and did not reach a commercial circulation. H. and R. DANIELL, of Stoke and Shelton, made fine porcelain and stoneware as early as 1826. Some of this porcelain is highly praised by Chaffers. It is doubtful if we have any of it in the United States. WEDGWOODS.--The old house of Wedgwood, founded by Josiah--of whom I speak in another place--is still in active service, and has in these later years produced porcelain of great excellence. MINTON'S works, at Stoke-upon-Trent, are now very extensive. Not only is porcelain made there in great variety, but earthen-ware and tiles largely. The factory was established in 1791, by Thomas Minton. Some of the most elaborate pieces of porcelain-work are now made there. The mark is "Minton," stamped on the pieces. [Illustration: FIG. 153.--_Copeland's Jeweled Porcelain._] Among the principal artists in the Messrs. Mintons' employ is M. Solon, formerly of Sèvres, who has produced some exquisite vases in _pâte-sur-pâte_--a method which consists in working, upon a dark body or paste, designs in a white or lighter paste. This, being semi-transparent, admits of delicate shading and modeling. This fascinating and finished style of work originated, so far as we know, in France, where some admirable pieces have been made, more perfect even than those by M. Solon. The vases by him, which were exhibited in Philadelphia in 1876, and which were sold to Sir Richard Wallace for six hundred guineas, have a deep olive-green body, upon which the figures seem floating, as if they had just appeared from the dark, or might at any moment sink into it. The mystery and strength of color no one can fathom or explain, nor can one at all put into words the ineffable satisfaction which one receives from such work as this. It is gratifying to know that two pairs of these vases were bought in this country--one by the Philadelphia Industrial Museum, and one by Henry Gibson, Esq., of that city. The example which we engrave (Fig. 154) is from the collection of Messrs. Tiffany and Company, of New York. The ground is a luminous blue, the figures in a delicate white. Although M. Solon has transferred his labors to England, he must be regarded as the outcome rather of the French than of the English soil. [Illustration: FIG. 154.--_Vase in Pâte-sur-Pâte, by Solon._] Another feature of the Minton productions is the imitation of _cloisonné_ work, using porcelain instead of metal, and painting on it with colors mixed with opaque enamels, as is practised also in China. We give a fine representation in Fig. 155. The technical excellence of the modern English porcelain is very great, but it is not remarkable for originality of design. The tea and dinner services shown at the Philadelphia Exhibition were great in number, variety, and excellence. We give illustrations of some pieces made by Messrs. Brown-Westhead, Moore and Company (Figs. 156 and 157), which were satisfactory. [Illustration: FIG. 155.--_Bottle, in Cloisonné._] Messrs. Bromfield and Son also had some excellent examples of dinner-porcelain. The excellence of the paste and the finish were notable in all of the displays by the many English exhibitors. In such an exhibition one looks, of course, for pieces made specially to catch the eye and excite surprise, which might be called the gymnastics of art; and one is usually gratified. The exhibition was rich with them, and, of course, they demanded attention, and achieved their purpose. [Illustration: FIG. 156.--_Porcelain of Brown-Westhead, Moore and Company._] [Illustration: FIG. 157.--_Porcelain of Brown-Westhead, Moore and Company._] The largest and most varied exhibition was made by Messrs. Daniells and Son, of London; and they had collected their work from many potters, some of them among the most distinguished of England at the present time. CHAPTER XVI. THE PORCELAINS OF NORTHERN EUROPE. Holland and Belgium.--Oriental Trade.--Weesp.--Marks.--Loosdrecht.--Amstel, Old and New.--Marks.--The Hague.--Marks.--Lille.--Mark.--Tournay. --Marks.--Sweden.--Gustavus Adolphus and Charles XII.--Marieberg.--Rörstrand.--Marks.--Denmark.--Copenhagen. --Marks.--Russia.--Peter the Great.--Catherine II.--Marks.--Tver.--Gardner.--Moscow.--Popoff.--Gulena. --Mark.--Poland.--Korzec. Holland AND BELGIUM.--It may be said that long before Holland attempted the production of porcelain she had been making faience or earthen-ware, which is now well known under the name of delft, of which I have given a condensed account elsewhere. When one remembers that Holland has long winters and cool summers; that her people have not only had to fight their fellow-men, but have had to snatch from the cruel sea a considerable portion of what is now dry land; that she has had to build two hundred miles of broad and strong dikes, and to see that they are always strong and safe; and, added to this, has had to draw forth from the soil and the sea the food to feed her millions--when one remembers these things, one well may wonder that there has grown up there such a love for art as has produced the most interesting school of painters in all the world; that all over this hollow land are well-built cities and most comfortable houses, and that in these houses are probably more fine porcelains and curious clocks, pictures, and tapestries, than in any other land, one wonders still more. The two secrets which help to explain this singular success are these: This necessary warfare with Nature has made a hardy, a patient, and a frugal people. Not only has this people conquered and subdued the _land_--it has also conquered and subdued the _sea_, and has drawn stores of wealth from both. So it has come to pass that one hundred thousand men were engaged, in the last century, in the fisheries, and a common saw was that "the foundations of Amsterdam were laid on herring-bones." But these fisheries created a class of men who were ready to rove the ocean in search of good or gold. Her daring navigators soon followed Vasco da Gama around the Cape of Good Hope, and in due time succeeded to the trade of the East, which she held for over two centuries, and out of which she gained untold wealth; with which she built cities and castles and churches; with which she paid artists; with which she stocked her houses with the finest porcelains of the East. Thus, from that early day, a great love for fine porcelain has existed in the "Low Countries"--what we now know as Holland and Belgium. At the present time no field bears a better yield for the gleaner who seeks fine examples of old porcelain, and especially of the Oriental, than these countries. Thousands upon thousands of porcelains were imported into Holland after the year 1640, whence they were distributed over Europe. But Holland could not hold her monopoly of trade; France and England sought to grasp it, too, and England succeeded. During the last century England has steadily drawn the trade of the East to herself, and Holland has lost what England has gained. In the many changes consequent upon this, many stores of good porcelain gathered in Holland have gradually come to be sold to persons who wanted them more than the Dutch did. Out of this great trade with the Orientals it is easy to see that the Dutch should come to be connoisseurs and lovers of porcelain. It is also easy to see that a sufficient interest should spring up there, after the discovery of true porcelain at Dresden, to induce persons to attempt the manufacture in Holland. This was stimulated during the Seven Years' War, when the works at Meissen (Dresden) were closed, and for a time broken up. Then in Holland, as well as in other countries of Europe, there was an opportunity. The love for porcelain had grown great after the discoveries at Dresden, and the demand for it was vastly increased. The disturbances in Saxony, amounting to prohibition of the manufacture, gave other countries a possible chance to compete with the advantages of Saxony, which otherwise were overwhelming. Still, in Holland no great commercial success was reached. In none of these northern countries has the making of fine porcelain been an assured success. This is owing to many causes, among which we may point to-- 1. The genius of the people does not impel them. 2. The clay and the wood and the coal are not at their doors. 3. Other nations have taken the lead and driven them from the markets of the world, sometimes from their own. In the Low Countries we may mention as places where the manufacture was attempted--with, however, only a fictile life: Weesp, Loosdrecht, Arnheim, Amsterdam, Amstel--old and new--The Hague, Tournay, Brussels, Luxemburg, Lille (now in France). WEESP--HARD PASTE.--The first effort was made at Weesp, not far from Amsterdam, about 1764, during the Seven Years' War. For a short time, until 1771, fine and white porcelain was made here, but not in great quantities, and the attempt was not a commercial success. The marks were: [Illustration] At LOOSDRECHT (HARD PASTE), not far from Utrecht, De Moll began a small factory in 1772. He made a fine quality of china, closely following the Dresden. It had but a short existence. His mark was "M o L.," meaning _Manufactur oude Loosdrecht_. AMSTEL (_Oude_), near Amsterdam, made the next essay (1782), and produced good porcelain; but it could not hold its own against that which the English were now sending forth into the markets of the world--patriotism was not equal to cope with cheapness. The mark was the letters A and D combined, in script. At NEW AMSTEL, nearer to Amsterdam, the attempt was also made, which continued through 1808 to 1810, when it too died. The mark here was also in script. Marks used at Amsterdam: [Illustration] [Illustration: FIG. 158.--_Porcelain of The Hague._] At THE HAGUE, about 1775, both hard and soft porcelain was made, and of great excellence. More was done here than at Amsterdam, and the work was of superior quality. Some of the painting was excellent--equal to that done at Dresden. Tea and dinner services of great beauty were made, which are now and then to be bought in Europe. The examples shown in Fig. 158 are a plate, and cup and saucer, from Mr. Wales's collection. The mark was a stork holding a fish, the symbol of the town. [Illustration] At LILLE (SOFT PORCELAIN), Sieurs Dorez and Pelissier, uncle and nephew, were granted privileges for making porcelain as early as 1711, and this with that at St.-Cloud were the only factories at that time in Europe. But little is known of this ware, except that it resembled that made at St.-Cloud, and that it had no distinctive mark. Hard porcelain was afterward made there (1784) by one Durot, which showed great excellence, the decoration being mostly flowers and gold. These pieces are quite rare. The mark was a crowned dolphin. [Illustration] At TOURNAY (DOORNICK) soft-paste porcelain was made in 1750, and a very large business was done at one time, as many as two hundred workmen being employed in 1762. Chaffers says this factory is still at work, and that _pâte tendre_ is still made there, which is in close imitation of that once made at Sèvres. The mark of the tower is sometimes referred to Tournay, and sometimes to the porcelain made at Vincennes. It is in doubt. The other mark in gold indicates best; in blue or red, second-best. The marks "To" and "Ty" are supposed to be old marks of Tournay. The marks used: [Illustration] SWEDEN.--That the coldest and most savage country of Europe should be rich in anything except men and women is strange. And is it? According to the standards of England or America, we may say, No. And yet travelers tell us that in the towns and on the country estates are houses rich with works of art, and filled with books. So far as these go they indicate wealth and leisure. But the best sign of a prosperous people is not pictures; neither is it books. Is it not that more than one-half her people own their lands and raise the food they eat? Is it not that the greedy cormorant called "Trade" has not shut up most of her people in those Bastiles called factories, and thus degraded body and soul to the verge of, if not into, the gulf of pauperism and vice? This helps to explain the general well-being which is still to be found in those northern countries of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark; but it does not _fully_ explain whence came the first flow of wealth and the first gatherings of art into Sweden. I believe they came from the great and successful wars of Gustavus Adolphus and Charles XII. By no possibility can war be careful of the rights of man. War is intended to hurt, to exhaust, to consume other nations. War not only takes food and munitions in the conquered country; it takes whatever it wants and can take, whether of necessaries, luxuries, gold, or art. War, we know, enabled the first and great Napoleon to enrich his palaces and the museums of Paris with the finest works of art found in the countries he overran. War, I do not doubt, brought into Sweden the beginnings of those collections which now count many of the fine pictures of Guido and Raphael, of Teniers and Douw. Frugality and general well-doing have done the rest; so that all through the south of Sweden, and less in Norway, are to be found delightful houses and cultivated people. But neither Sweden nor Norway has made Art the first business or first glory of life; and well for her that they have not. This is the ornament and finish of the structure, not its body or soul. We do not look, therefore, to find here any such institutions as those of Meissen or Sèvres. [Illustration: FIG. 159.--_Marieberg Porcelain and Faience._] At MARIEBERG, near Stockholm, in 1759, porcelain of a good quality was made, and continued to be made in a small way for some twenty years. Before this, faience or pottery was made there, and at Rörstrand, as early as 1727. Some good examples were at the Exhibition at Philadelphia in 1876. Of the work of Marieberg I know of none in this country, except that in Mr. Wales's collection, at Boston, consisting of some small porcelain custard-cups and a very beautiful faience vase, both of which we have had engraved (Fig. 159). The mark used: [Illustration: _The three crowns and the letters MB are sometimes followed by the private marks of the painters, as in the above._ ] [Illustration: FIG. 160.--_Porcelain of Denmark._] DENMARK.--Porcelain, it is believed, was made at Copenhagen as early as 1760; but it did not continue for a long time. Few specimens of this early work are believed to exist. A hard-paste factory was begun in 1772, by Müller, who, with the aid of the Baron von Lang, made a company, by which the capital was raised. It did not pay, and in 1775 it became a royal factory, and the Government paid its annual deficit. Excellent work was made here, the great aim being to equal the production at Dresden. It was up-hill work and a costly whim. Within a short time (1876) the works are said to have gone into private hands, who are prosecuting the business with vigor and skill. Certainly a very creditable display was made by some three or four firms of Copenhagen at the Philadelphia Exhibition in 1876. In faience and terra-cotta they have arrived at great excellence. The Greek vase has been there revived, and copied with much precision. Seipsius and Ruch are mentioned by Marryat as the leading painters at the royal works at Copenhagen in the last century. Our illustration, from Mr. Wales's collection, is good work, and follows the lead of the Dresden painters (Fig. 160). In the "Manual of Marks," by Hooper and Phillips, are two marks--given here--but the "three wavy lines" is the mark almost universally known. They indicate the waters of the Sound and Great and Little Belts. [Illustration] RUSSIAN PORCELAIN--HARD PASTE.--When Peter Alexeyevitch, called Peter the Great--that shrewd savage--undertook to make his kingdom a power in Europe, he soon saw that he must create among his people wants which then did not exist. In 1697 he made his first pilgrimage to the dock-yards of Saardam and the quays of London, to see for himself what those nations did to make themselves rich and strong, feared if not loved. He found ships, trade, factories. He went back to his barbarians, and forced them to build a new port--St. Petersburg (1703); set them to work to make dock-yards, to build ships, to organize factories; he forced upon them new wants and new industries. If he did not make them happier, he certainly made them stronger. He organized them, combined them, so that they moved at his own powerful will. His successors, following his example, have made Russia the second power of Europe. When, in 1716, Peter visited Paris, he carried back to his capital great store of works of art--not that he cared for works of art, but his savage shrewdness told him these were the things which the growing and grasping nations of Western Europe valued; and so he would have them, too. But Art has had but an imitative life in Russia, even to this present time. Now, her silversmiths, and at least one artist, a worker of bronze named Lanceray, have made such exquisite work, and shown it at the Philadelphia Exhibition in 1876, that one begins to believe that Art in this savage Russia may not forever be content to copy what some one else has done. As to porcelain, Russia has not done much, but yet something. The Government of Russia, inspired, like the rest, after the success at Dresden, with the desire to produce fine works, at once made efforts to secure the services of accomplished men to establish a porcelain-manufactory. This appears to have been done in the year 1744, by the Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, when good porcelain was produced, probably in small amount. In 1765, however, the Empress Catherine II., with her accustomed restless energy, threw herself into the competition. She enlarged the works and secured whatever was possible of artists and workmen, and produced some of the finest porcelains of Europe. The clays used appear to have been wholly Russian, and her market was mostly with the rich nobility of her own kingdom. Still the china-fanciers of all Europe, then even more eager than now, purchased the Russian work; and it is found in good collections, though but little of it is offered for sale. M. Demmin quotes from a Russian work of 1773: "Il existe une fabrique de porcelaine, située sur la Néva, route de Schlüsselburg, à quatorze versts de Pétersbourg. Elle fabrique des porcelaines tellement belles et fines, qu'elles ne le cèdent en rien à la porcelaine de Saxe, soit pour la blancheur et la finesse de l'émail, soit pour la beauté du décor. Sa blancheur est même supérieure à celle de Meissen. Le directeur, l'inspecteur, tous les maîtres et ouvriers sont à la solde de la cour," etc. The porcelain has a fine glaze, the paste being hard and slightly bluish; the decorations usually highly finished in the styles prevailing at Dresden. [Illustration: FIG. 161.--_Russian Porcelain._] The piece shown in Fig. 161 is a teapot, of superior glaze and finish, from Mr. Wales's collection; the handle and spout are peculiar, finishing, as they do, with the neck and head of a bird, ending at the base of the spout in a small wing-decoration. The paste, the glaze, and the painting of the teapot and the cup and saucer are excellent. The Russian marks most used are: [Illustration: _A mark in blue, supposed to be an early one._] [Illustration: _The Empress Catherine II.'s mark (1762 to 1796)._] [Illustration: _The Emperor Paul's mark (1796 to 1801)._] [Illustration: _The Emperor Alexander I.'s mark (1801 to 1825)._] [Illustration: _The Emperor Nicholas's mark (1825 to 1855)._] [Illustration: _The mark now is a crown, with the letter A in script, Alexander II._] TVER.--About 1787 an Englishman named Gardner made some porcelain at Tver, of which so little is to be obtained that it is hardly known in collections. His mark seems to have been [illustration: symbol], the monogram in Russian letters of A. Gardner, and sometimes the full name in Russian characters. MOSCOW.--In 1830 some porcelain was made at Moscow by A. Popoff, a piece of which is in the South Kensington Museum, marked with his name in Russian characters. There seems also to have been porcelain made at Moscow by M. Gulena, of which little is known. His mark was the initial letters of Fabrica Gospodina, and his own name, in Russian characters. [Illustration] POLAND.--At Korzec, in Poland, in 1803, a Frenchman named Mérault, from Sèvres, made porcelain for a few years, probably in small quantity; and a mark upon some pieces of his is a triangle containing an eye. CHAPTER XVII. POTTERY AND PORCELAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. The First Porcelain made here.--Bonnin and Morris.--Franklin Institute.--William Ellis Tucker.--Tucker and Hemphill.--Thomas Tucker.--General Tyndale.--Porcelain of T. C. Smith and Sons.--Early Advertisements.--Josiah Wedgwood.--Lord Sheffield's Report.--Alexander Hamilton's Report.--History of Norwich.--Samuel Dennis, New Haven.--Isaac Hanford, Hartford.--Gallatin's Report.--The "Washington Pitchers."--Lyman and Fenton, Vermont.--Rouse and Turner, New Jersey.--Potteries at Trenton.--In Ohio.--The Centennial Exhibition. Doubts have been expressed whether PORCELAIN was made in the United States as early as 1770; though there was no question as to the existence of the true china-clays, and that Wedgwood and other potters in England knew of them and had used them. More, they were fearful that they would be put to use in this country, to the injury of their trade. The investigations of Charles Henry Hart, Esq., of Philadelphia, seem to remove the doubt as to the making of porcelain in that city as early as 1769 or 1770. Looking over the newspapers, he finds, under date of December 29, 1769, an advertisement as follows: "NEW CHINA-WARE.--Notwithstanding the various difficulties and disadvantages which usually attend the introduction of any important manufacture into a new country, the proprietors of the china-works now erecting in Southwark have the pleasure to acquaint the public that they have proved to a certainty that the clays of America are productive of as good PORCELAIN as any heretofore manufactured at the famous factory in Bow, near London," etc. Subsequently other advertisements appeared for apprentices, etc., signed by G. Bonnin and G. A. Morris. This would seem conclusive. Mr. Hart also states that some specimens of the work then made are deposited in the Franklin Institute of his city. It is not likely that the work reached a commercial success, or that it was long continued. Subsequently porcelain was made and decorated in that city by Messrs. Tucker and Hemphill, as will clearly appear from the following communications. Mr. Thomas Tucker prepared for the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, in 1868, this brief statement: "William Ellis Tucker, my brother, was the first to make porcelain in the United States. My father, Benjamin Tucker, had a china-store in Market Street, in the city of Philadelphia, in the year 1816. He built a kiln for William in the yard back of the store, where he painted in the white china, and burnt it on in the kiln, which gave him a taste for that kind of work. "After that he commenced experimenting with the different kinds of clays, to see if he could not make the ware. He succeeded in making a very good opaque ware, called 'queen's-ware.' He then commenced experimenting with feldspar and kaolin to make porcelain, and, after much labor, he succeeded in making a few small articles of very good porcelain. He then obtained the old water-works at the northwest corner of Schuylkill Front and Chestnut Streets, where he erected a large glazing-kiln, enameling-kiln, mills, etc. "He burnt kiln after kiln, with very poor success. The glazing would crack and the body would blister; and, besides, we discovered that we had a man who placed the ware in the kiln, who was employed by some interested parties in England to impede our success. "Most of the handles were found in the bottom of the seggars[17] after the kiln was burnt. We could not account for it until a deaf-and-dumb man in our employment detected him running his knife around each handle as he placed them in the kiln. "At another time every piece of china had to be broken before it could be taken out of the seggar. We always washed the round O's--the article in which the china was placed in the kiln--with silex, but this man had washed them with feldspar, which, of course, melted, and fastened every article to the bottom; but William discharged him, and we got over that difficulty. "In the year 1827 my brother received a silver medal from the Franklin Institute of Pennsylvania, and in 1831 received one from the Institute in New York. In 1828 I commenced to learn the different branches of the business. "On the 22d of August, 1832, my brother William died. Some time before, he connected himself with the late Judge Hemphill. They purchased the property at the southwest corner of Schuylkill Sixth and Chestnut Streets, where they built a large store-house and factory, which they filled with porcelain. After the death of my brother, Judge Hemphill and myself continued the working of porcelain for some years, until he sold out his interest to a company of Eastern gentlemen; but, being unfortunate in their other operations, they were not able to give the porcelain attention. In the year 1837 I undertook to carry it on alone, and did so for about one year, making a large quantity of very fine porcelain, many pieces of which I still have. "The gilding and painting are now as perfect as when first done." Mr. Tucker presented at this time a piece of the work, which is now in the collection at Philadelphia. In addition to this I give a communication from General Hector Tyndale, which adds confirmation to the above: "About the years 1760 to 1770 potteries were established in the United States--notably at Philadelphia--of which few records now remain. But they attracted the attention of the English potters, as may be seen by a letter from Josiah Wedgwood (page 367, Meteyard's 'Life of Wedgwood,' London, 1865), wherein he expressed apprehension of the effect of these upon British 'trade and prosperity.' "Porcelain-works, to which Mr. Elliott alludes, were established in Philadelphia (corner of Schuylkill Sixth and Chestnut Streets) about the year 1830, Judge Hemphill being among the most prominent of the founders of them. The wares made were of very good, and, in some respects, of excellent qualities. The products were white and decorated table and tea services, and decorative wares. The 'body' was very good, being hard, dense, tough, and translucent, quite vitreous, with sharp and clear ring, and withstanding great and rapid changes of temperature. In appearance it somewhat resembled the French (Limoges) porcelain of that day, and, in durability and use, that of Berlin, and quite equal to either. The glaze was good, and well adapted to receive colors. The forms were copies of the French and English of the time, and these were almost always bad. The ornamentation was generally poorly copied from the English or French, or, if original, was decidedly worse. English, French, and German artisans were imported, but whatever skill these may have had was soon lost, owing perhaps to the want of comparative and competitive productions, and also to the want of taste among the general buyers and the public. So far as ornament was concerned, and a knowledge of æsthetic rules or a prevailing _sense_ of beauty and fitness were involved, this attempt at manufacture was premature. These works continued, with a diminishing success, for several years; and the founders, who lost much money in the establishment, deserve much credit for their serious and wellnigh successful effort. "At present there are porcelain-works near New York--at Greenpoint, and perhaps elsewhere--making very good and enduring wares, of excellent 'body' and glaze, but of coarse and inartistic form and ornament." The porcelain-factory last spoken of is that of T. C. Smith and Sons, which, at the Centennial Exhibition, made a creditable display. Through the courtesy of Mr. Prime, editor of the "Hand-Book of the New York Museum of Art," I am able to give some extracts essential to this brief history: "When Delft pottery began to be used for table and household purposes in England, it is probable that small quantities found their way to this country, but neither crockery nor porcelain took the place of pewter and wood on American tables, and the importations increased but slowly with the increase of population and wealth. Wooden trenchers, pewter dishes, mugs, water-pitchers, etc., continued in general use until the present century. By an examination of early newspapers we are enabled to learn much of the character of the table-furniture which dealers advertised for sale, and these were probably alike in all parts of the country. We find pewter always prominent. In the _New Haven Gazette_ of September 30, 1784, a druggist advertises Wedgwood mortars and pestles. In the same paper, October 21st, a dealer advertises 'blue and white stone-ware, consisting of butter-pots, jars, and cans;' also 'quart, pint, and half-pint water-flasks; matted ditto; spaw ditto; Bristol ditto.' In the same paper, November 25th, a dealer advertises 'queen's-ware in small crates, well assorted,' which had been imported direct to New Haven; and, December 2d, he advertises 'English china cups and saucers.' On November 4, 1784, the same dealer advertised 'a large assortment of coarse stone-ware in crates, large round bottles holding nearly two quarts, in small, convenient hampers, and quart, pint, and half-pint flasks,' with a discount to those who buy large quantities. This last advertisement may refer to wares made in America. In 1785 we find advertised 'Nottingham, queen's, china, and glass ware.' 'Nottingham ware' had long been a popular name in England for brown potteries, originally made at Nottingham, and the name continued in use here until a very recent date. "Bricks and ruder forms of pottery were made in New England in the eighteenth, and possibly in the seventeenth, century. Investigations in progress may elicit information now wanting on this subject. Josiah Wedgwood, in a letter written in 1765, speaks of a pottery then projected in the Carolinas of whose work he had great apprehensions, and seems to desire some government interference to prevent the colonies from making their own pottery and thus injuring the home business. Before the end of the eighteenth century many potteries were established in various parts of the country, but, so far as is now known, no articles were produced except the ordinary coarser kinds of household utensils. "'A Brief Examination of Lord Sheffield's Observations on the Commerce of the United States,' by Matthew Carey, was printed in successive numbers of the _American Museum_, in 1791, and was collected in a volume, printed the same year at Philadelphia, with a supplementary note on 'The Present State of American Manufactures,' etc. On pages 126 and 127 he has the following observations: 'Manufactures of glass, of earthen-ware, and of stone, mixed with clay, are all in an infant state. From the quantity and variety of the materials which must have been deposited by Nature in so extensive a region as the United States, from the abundance of fuel which they contain, from the expense of importation, and loss by fracture, which falls on glass and earthen wares, from the simplicity of many of these manufactures, and from the great consumption of them, impressions of surprise at this state of them, and a firm persuasion that they will receive the early attention of foreign or American capitalists, are at one produced. Coarse tiles, and bricks of an excellent quality, potter's wares, all in quantities beyond the home consumption, a few ordinary vessels and utensils of stone mixed with clay, some mustard and snuff bottles, a few flasks or flagons, a small quantity of sheet-glass and of vessels for family use, generally of the inferior kinds, are all that are now made.' "Hamilton's return of exports of the United States from August, 1789, to September, 1790, printed in the appendix to Carey's book, gives, for earthen and glass ware, nineteen hundred and ninety dollars. "In Miss Caulkins's 'History of Norwich,' Chapter XLIX., it is stated that in 1796 'a pottery for the manufacture of stone-ware was established at Bean Hill, which continued in operation far into the present century, seldom, however, employing more than four or five hands.' In Morse's 'Gazetteer,' 1797, we read, under Norwich, that the inhabitants manufacture 'stone and earthen ware.' In the _Norwich_ (Connecticut) _Gazette_, September 15, 1796, we find this advertisement of a pottery, which appears to have been in operation by a Mr. Lathrop prior to 1796, and is, without doubt, the one referred to by Miss Caulkins and Dr. Morse: "'C. POTTS & SON, informs the Public, that they have lately established a Manufactory of EARTHEN WARE at the shop formerly improved by Mr. Charles Lathrop, where all kinds of said Ware is made and sold, either in large or small quantities, and warranted good.' "A memorial of Samuel Dennis, dated New Haven, October 9, 1789, to the General Assembly of Connecticut, shows 'that he is acquainted with the potter's business, and is about to erect a stone-pottery; and there is in this country a plenty of clay which he presumes of the same kind with that from which the queen's-ware of Staffordshire is usually made; and that he wishes to erect a pottery for the purpose of manufacturing the finer kinds of ware usually made in Staffordshire, particularly the queen's-ware,' and he asks the aid of the State in founding the works. His memorial was negatived, and it does not appear whether he went on with his project. "Isaac Hanford, of Hartford, Connecticut, took out a patent, January 20, 1800, for a new method of making bricks, tiles, and pottery-ware in general, and of discharging the moulds. Nothing further is known of his work; but coarse pottery has, from the beginning of the century, been made in Hartford. Prior to 1800 a pottery was in existence at Stonington, Connecticut, managed by Adam States, who was succeeded in the business, after 1804, by his sons, Adam and Joseph. They made jugs, butter-pots, jars of all sizes, and some small wares with handles, uniformly of soft pottery, usually gray in color, with salt-glaze. Contemporary with this was a pottery at Norwalk, Connecticut, which made red wares of soft pottery in many forms. We learn from a lady, whose memory extends back to 1804, that it made jars and pots of all sizes, teapots, mugs, and large milk-pans, then in common use among the farmers in Connecticut, glazed with a lead-glaze, the color deep red with flashes of black, probably caused by smoke in the firing. Other potteries produced wares similar to the Stonington and Norwalk. "From a report of the Secretary of the Treasury (Mr. Gallatin), made in 1810, it appears that the exports of 'coarse earthen-ware' exceeded the imports. In this report the secretary says that progress has been made in the manufacture of 'queen's and other earthen ware,' and that 'a sufficient quantity of the coarser species of pottery was made everywhere. Four manufactories of a finer kind had lately been established which made ware resembling that of Staffordshire.' Dr. Dwight, in his 'Travels' (1822), after quoting the above, states that he had gained access to the reports from Massachusetts and Connecticut, upon which the secretary's report had been founded, and gives among the manufactures of Connecticut for the year, potteries, twelve; 'value of earthen and stone ware, thirty thousand seven hundred and forty dollars;' and for Massachusetts, 'earthen-ware, eighteen thousand seven hundred dollars.' "Before the end of the last century direct trade had been established between the United States and China, and Oriental porcelain began to make its appearance in America. The English trade increased rapidly in the early part of the present century, and English manufacturers had begun to decorate pottery with American subjects for the American market. Porcelain seems to have been decorated at Lowestoft with American designs, for special orders, before 1800. "From 1810 to 1830 great quantities of English pottery, especially blue and white wares, were imported. Much of this was decorated with American views, buildings, landscapes, and pictures of public events, the principal exporters in England being J. and R. Clews, of Cobridge, and the Ridgways, of Shelton." [Illustration: FIG. 162.--_The "Washington Pitchers."_] The "Washington Pitchers" were made at this period by the English potters, and were shipped here and sold in great numbers. They are now much prized, but are not uncommon. Few of them have any merit as works of art, being intended only to please the patriotic sentiment of the country. The smaller one of our illustration (Fig. 162) contains the best picture of Washington of any I have seen painted upon porcelain, and is really an excellent engraving after Stuart's great picture. It is said to have been made in England, by order of a Philadelphia dealer, in 1801. Both of these pitchers are in the Historical Society of Philadelphia. The larger one is more patriotic and less artistic. Around the portrait are entwined the names of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Vermont, Kentucky--fifteen States, and fifteen stars. On the front is the eagle, and the patriotic Latin, _E pluribus unum_. Also the name of the owner, James Taylor, M. D. On the other side, in an oval, is some poetry, made in England for our use, as follows: "As he tills your rich glebe the old peasant shall tell, While his bosom with Liberty glows, How your WARREN expired, how MONTGOMERY fell, And how WASHINGTON humbled your foes." The _intentions_ of the poet we may accept as good, even if slightly mercenary. One more brief extract will complete this history: "In 1847 a factory was established in Bennington, Vermont, by Messrs. Lyman and Fenton, and continued in operation till about 1860. Pottery was made in various forms, with good enamel; bisque or Parian wares were produced, and soft-paste porcelain of good quality, well decorated. So far as is at present known, this was the first American factory which has attempted to make figures of men and animals. A peculiar enamel seems to have been patented by Mr. Fenton, of this firm, which was used on some of the pottery. The impressed mark on pottery of this class was arranged in a circle, 'Lyman, Fenton and Co., Fenton's Enamel, Patented 1849, Bennington, Vermont.' "Some time prior to 1829 a factory was established in Jersey City, New Jersey, by persons not now known (said to be French), which made porcelain. No mark was used, but we are indebted to Messrs. Rouse and Turner, the present proprietors, for fragments of the porcelain made prior to 1829, which is hard paste of fair quality. The enterprise was not successful, and in 1829 David Henderson and Co. bought the works, and carried them on under the name of the American Pottery Company. They made white and brown potteries, decorating the former with prints, and the latter with colored enamels and raised work; and also a translucent pottery, which is apparently a natural soft-paste porcelain. Their mark was 'American Pottery Company, Jersey City, New Jersey,' in a circle, stamped in the paste. They executed work for druggists and other dealers in New York, printing labels on their jars, boxes, etc. A favorite pattern was a brown pottery pitcher, the handle a hound, the surface covered with a raised representation of a hunt. It was made in various sizes, and is still produced, with a changed form of the same decoration. In 1855 Messrs. Rouse and Turner became proprietors of the factory, and have since carried it on with much success, producing granite, Rockingham, and stone wares, plain and decorated, for table and general use. They use clay obtained from Woodbridge, New Jersey, and another clay from Bath, South Carolina; and occasionally a clay from Glen Cove, Long Island, which contains silex. Their stone-wares are made by the mixing of certain clays, without the addition of other substances. They use no mark on their fabrics. "Important works are now in operation at Baltimore, Maryland, and at Trenton, New Jersey, making varieties of pottery, plain and decorated, and stone-wares of excellent quality." At the Exhibition at Philadelphia good exhibitions were made by Messrs. Otto and Brewer, Mercer Pottery Company, James Moses and Isaac Davis, of Trenton; also by Laughlin Brothers, of East Liverpool, Ohio. Some twenty firms, mostly from Trenton, were collected in the southeast corner of the Main Building, where they made a creditable display of what is known as the "white granite" ware, so useful and so detestable; thick, that it may resist the hostility of the Milesian maiden, clumsy because of that, without color or decoration of any kind, and cheap: can we expect or demand much? Looking more carefully, we found in Otto and Brewer's exhibit a modeler named Broome, who had made some base-ball players which were full of life and spirit; also some unglazed vases which had excellence of form and precision of modeling and decoration, showing that good things may be done here. In Fig. 163 we show one of the Parian vases designed by Broome, who only needs encouragement to develop into excellence. James Moses, too, had some white-and-gold work which was good. Isaac Davis, one of these granite-potters, had ventured to turn his cups with a sense of good form, and with a thin lip from which one might drink without being reminded of the horse-trough; he must beware lest it should not pay! [Illustration: FIG. 163.--_Parian Vase._] Laughlin Brothers, of Ohio, had a good show of the same kind of wares, and they had also a decorated dinner-set which was good. They had more than this, in that they promised us something. They are using feldspars, kaolins, clays, silexes, from various parts of the United States, and believe we have the best and the greatest variety to be found in any country; but besides these a new clay or mineral, as they think, has been found in Missouri, which promises to be of infinite value. It is cheap, is easily ground and mixed, and imparts to the body a creamy softness and a beauty which add much to the production. That this is true was shown in some of the cups made with it. Moreover, as Mr. Laughlin states, several of the best porcelain-makers of Europe are seriously contemplating the propriety of establishing themselves on this shore of the sea, and putting to use these kaolinic treasures. And why not? With cheap clays, cheap fuels, cheap foods, may we not begin to supply ourselves, if not some of the rest of the world, with the finest productions of the potter's wheel? And it would seem a good thing for us to do. APPENDIX. BOOKS UPON POTTERY AND PORCELAIN. The following synopsis of works on "pottery and porcelain," for which we are indebted to Mr. G. W. Wales, will be found useful and interesting: GENERAL HISTORICAL TREATISES.--Jacquemart, "History of the Ceramic Art"--a descriptive philosophical study of the pottery of all ages and nations, profusely illustrated in aquatint and woodcut, and containing one thousand marks and monograms; Semper, "Der Stil in den Künsten," in the second volume treats of ceramics, and is a well-illustrated, comprehensive, and useful hand-book; Mareschal, "La Faïence Populaire au 18me Siècle," has one hundred and twelve colored plates, mostly of French and Delft porcelain; Maze, "Recherches sur la Céramique" is illustrated by photographs, and has a list of marks and monograms; Burty, "Chefs-d'OEuvre des Arts Industriels," gives a popular account of ceramics, well illustrated (there is a translation by Chaffers); Stallknecht's papers on "Artistic Pottery and Porcelain" give also an account of the articles in the Vienna Exposition of 1875; Treadwell's "Manual" is a brief popular work; Hall, "Bric-à-brac Hunter." One of the best works in English is Marryat's "History," well illustrated, in colors. So also is Graesse's "Guide de l'Amateur," a very complete collection, in fac-simile, of marks and monograms. Chaffers's "Keramic Gallery," besides historical notices and descriptions, gives several hundred photographs of rare and curious specimens of these arts. Besides these works, devoted especially to ceramics, it will be well to refer to the following, selected out of many books treating generally of the arts of the middle ages, most of them illustrated in the best style, in which may be found chapters or short treatises on pottery and porcelain, with admirable illustrations adapted for use as designs for decoration: Sommerard's "Arts au Moyen Âge," plates; Villemin, "Monumens Français;" Lenoir, "Musée des Monumens Français;" Lacroix, "Arts of the Middle Ages;" Louandre, "Arts Somptuaires;" "Instrumenta Ecclesiastica;" Racinet, "L'Ornement Polychrome;" Jones, "Grammar of Ornament;" Bedford, "Treasury of Ornamental Art;" Newbery, "Gleanings from Ornamental Art;" Chenavard, "Album de l'Ornamentiste;" "Tradesman's Book of Ornamental Designs;" Wyatt, "Industrial Arts of the Nineteenth Century;" Durand, "Recueil et Parallèles des Edifices de tout Genre;" South Kensington Museum, "Industrial Arts;" "Photographs from the British Museum;" Labarte, "Arts Industriels au Moyen Âge;" Zahn, "Ornamentmalerei." MANUFACTURE.--The following books treat more particularly of the processes of manufacture of pottery and porcelain, only incidentally touching the artistic history. They are mostly in French, viz.: Brongniart, "Traité des Arts Céramiques," two volumes of text and one of plates. This is well illustrated, and cited by all writers on the subject as high authority. Figuier, in the first volume of the "Merveilles de l'Industrie," which treats both sides of the subject, is very fully illustrated as regards both the manufacture and the art-history of glass, pottery, and porcelain. Other briefer treatises are those by Guillery, Bastenaire-Daudenart, Boyer, and a treatise on pottery (Paris, 1772), in volume ii. of the "Description des Arts et Métiers." In English: Tomlinson's "Brief History," from the "Encyclopædia Britannica;" and Arnoux, in volume iii. of Bevans's "British Manufacturing Industries." See also Turgau, "Les Grandes Usines de France," for history of the Sèvres porcelain; Denistoun, "Dukes of Urbino," volume iii., page 382, for an account of the manufacture of maiolica in the duchy of Urbino; Rosina, "Memoria sulle Stoviglie," on manufacture of utensils and analysis of clays in the Lombardo-Venetian territory. The following books give some practical instructions on painting, enameling, etc.: Tilton, "Designs and Instructions for decorating Pottery;" Snell, "Practical Instructions;" "Art Recreations;" Gessart, "Art of Enameling;" Sutherland, "Practical Guide;" Reboulleau. MARKS AND MONOGRAMS.--Chaffers's "Marks and Monograms," which contains also an historical essay on English pottery, with illustrations; also his "Collector's Hand-book"--a concisely-arranged volume of fac-similes of marks, a supplement to the work just named; Mareschal, "Iconographie de la Faïence"--a dictionary of ceramic artists and marks, with colored illustrations of the different styles; Hooper and Phillips, "Manual"--a dictionary of easy reference; Demmin, "Guide de l'Amateur de Faïences" (two volumes)--a comprehensive, illustrated work of high authority; Bohn's "Guide to Knowledge of Pottery and Porcelain," containing also a priced catalogue of the Bernal collection, and an essay; Maze, "Recherches," illustrated by photographs; Meteyard's "Wedgwood Hand-book"--a thorough history of this exquisite ware. See also a work by the same author, for admirable photographs of Wedgwood's principal works, and Fortnum's "Catalogue of Maiolica." The following books treat of the history of pottery and porcelain of different countries and periods: ENGLAND.--For a sketch of the art of pottery in England, see the introductory chapters of volume i. of Eliza Meteyard's "Life of Josiah Wedgwood;" her "Wedgwood Hand-book," which gives marks, monograms, priced catalogues, and a glossary of technical terms. The same author has recently (1876) published "Wedgwood and his Works," admirably illustrated with photographs of his more important works; also "Wedgwood Memorial," likewise beautifully illustrated. Prefixed to Chaffers's "Marks and Monograms" is an Essay on the Vasa Fictilia of England;" Jewitt's "Life of Wedgwood" contains also a "History of the Early Potteries of Staffordshire," well illustrated; Haslem's "Old Derby China," illustrated in color, gives a full account of this ware and of the principal workmen, with marks and price-lists; Binns's "Century of Potting in Worcester" gives in an appendix a sketch of Celtic, Roman, and Mediæval pottery in Worcestershire. See also "Wedgwood, an Address by W. E. Gladstone" (1863); Boyer, "Traité sur l'Origine, les Progrès et l'État actuel des Manufactures de Porcelaine et de Faïence en Angleterre"--one of the excellent Roret manuals of arts and trades. FRANCE.--Mareschal, "Faïence Populaire au 18me Siècle," with one hundred and twelve finely-colored plates, mostly of French and Delft ware (Paris, 1872); Pottier, "Histoire de la Faïence de Rouen" (1870), two volumes, quarto--an elaborate and finely-illustrated treatise; Pouy, "Les Faïences d'Origine Picarde" (1872), with colored plates and marks; Forestié, "Les Anciennes Faienceries de Montauban," and other places in the department of Tarn-et-Garonne. On the pottery of the Gauls, see Du Cleuzion, "Poterie Gauloise." A publication by the Arundel Society gives fine photographs of twenty examples of "Henri-Deux ware" from the South Kensington Museum. ITALY, GERMANY, SPAIN, ETC.--On "maiolica," see the history by Passeri, treating of the products of Pesaro and Urbino, and of the works of Giorgio da Gubbio. On "maiolica and Italian faience," see the splendidly-illustrated works by Delange and Sauzay, "Monographe de l'OEuvre de Bernard Palissy" (Paris, 1872); and the "Recueil de Faïences Italiennes" of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries (Paris, 1869), by Delanges, Darcel, and Bornemann. Fortnum's "Maiolica;" also his "Catalogue of Maiolica, Hispano-Moresco, Persian, Damascus, and Rhodian wares in the South Kensington Museum," finely illustrated in color, and giving marks and monograms; "Centennial Exposition Catalogue of the Castellani Collection;" Beckwith's "Majolica and Fayence" (New York, 1877) is a concise and useful general treatise on ceramics, containing much information in small space, with numerous photo-engraved illustrations; Drake's "Notes on Venetian Ceramics;" Riaño, "Catalogue of Art Objects of Spanish Production in the South Kensington Museum;" De Jorio, "Galleria de' Vasi, Real Museo Borbonico;" "Le Secret des Vraies Porcelaines de la Chine et de Saxe" (1752); Robinson, "Catalogue of the Soulages Collection." Asselineau, "Meubles et Objets divers du Moyen Âge" gives specimens of Palissy and Flemish ware. Lazari, "Notizie della raccolta Correr di Venezia." ORIENTAL AND SAVAGE RACES.--Alabaster, "Chinese Art Objects in South Kensington Museum;" Audsley and Bowes, "Keramic Art," now in course of publication, splendidly illustrated with colored plates by Racinet; Jarves, "Glimpse at the Art of Japan;" Schweinfurth, "Artes Africanæ;" Hartt, "Manufacture of Pottery among Savage Races." On the _cloisonné_ enamels of China, see appendix to Julien's "Industries de l'Empire Chinois." On "Chinese porcelain decoration," consult "Owen Jones's Examples of Chinese Ornament," giving one hundred fine colored plates, from examples at South Kensington. TILES.--Nichols's "Examples of Decorative Tiles, in fac-simile, chiefly in Original Size;" chapter entitled "Céramique," by Riocreux and Jacquemart, in volume iv. of Lacroix's "Moyen Âge et la Renaissance," which contains a bibliography of ceramics. ANCIENT POTTERY.--Birch's "History of Ancient Pottery" treats of Assyrian, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Etruscan, Celtic, Teutonic, and Scandinavian pottery, and is fully illustrated. It contains also a list of the principal collections of ancient pottery. One of the best works is Millingen's "Ancient Unedited Monuments," giving excellent colored illustrations of painted Greek vases. Other valuable works are those of Inghirami, "Pitture di Vasi Etrusche," four volumes quarto, with fine outlines of Greek vase-decoration, some in color; a very beautifully-illustrated work (in color) is that of the Count of Syracuse, "Notizia dei Vasi dipinti rinvenuti a Cuma;" see also Lucien Bonaparte's "Museum Étrusque;" Donati, "Della Maniera d'interpretare le Pitture ne' Vasi fittili antichi;" "Description of the Ancient Terra-Cottas in the British Museum," illustrated by line-engravings; Stackelberg, "Die Gräber der Hellenen," giving plates of urns, vases, bass-reliefs, etc.; Dumont, "Inscriptions Céramiques de Grèce;" Fabroni, "Vasi fittili aretini;" Kramer, "Ueber den Styl und die Herkunft der bemalten griechischen Thongefässe;" De Sanctis, "Vasi antichi della Collezione Hamilton," with outline illustrations; G. Gerhard, "Vases Grecs relatifs aux Mystères," outline illustrations; Gerhard, "Etruskische und kampanische Vasenbilder" (Berlin, 1843), with finely-colored illustrations of vases; Gerhard, "Auserlesene griechische Vasenbilder" (Berlin, 1856), two volumes text, two volumes plates, quarto, also admirably illustrated; Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge, part iii., "Fictile Vases;" Schliemann, "Trojanische Alterthümer;" "British Museum Catalogue of Greek and Etruscan Vases," with outlines; "Catalogue of the St. Petersburg Imperial Collection of Vases in the Ermitage," with sixteen plates of outlines; Inghirami, "Etrusco Museo Chinsino," copperplate outlines; "Engravings of Ancient Vases in the Collection of Sir William Hamilton" (Naples, 1791), three volumes folio. On Egyptian pottery consult Wilkinson's "Ancient Egyptians;" and the splendid illustrated volumes of Champollion, Lepsius, and Belzoni, for illustrations from the monuments. BIOGRAPHY.--Jouveaux, "Histoire de trois Potiers Celèbres," biographical sketches of Palissy, Wedgwood, and Böttger; "Lessons from Noble Lives" (Palissy); see C. C. Perkins's "Tuscan Sculptors," volume i., for a chapter on "Luca della Robbia," also in Vasari; Vasari, volume xiii., page 72, "Vita di Battista Franco." For a list of books of reference on "ceramics," see Chaffers's "Marks and Monograms." INDEX. A PAGE Abbey, Richard, Potter, 312 Abderrahman III., 83 African Pottery, 65 Alabastron, 47 _A la corne_, 146 Alchemists, The, 230 Alcora Porcelain, 287 Alexander Severus, Emperor, 172 Alhambra, The, 83 ---- Vase of the, 84 Amateur Painters, 298 Amatorii, 104 American Pottery, 23 Amphora, 18, 40, 46 Amstel Porcelain, 321 Andreoli, Maestro Giorgio, 113 Andrews, W. L., 185 Antonibon, Potter, 281 Apostle Mugs, 75 Arabic Pottery, 90 Arabs of Spain, The, 72, 81 Arcesilaus, Cup of, 51 Archaic Man, 14 ---- Style, 41 Arezzo, 27 Art in Decoration, 236 ---- Japanese, 225 ---- Oriental, Character of, 190, 206 Aryballos, 35, 46 Aspasia, House of, 45, 58 Assyrians, Glazed Ware of, 70 Athenian Prize-Vase, 49 Augustus II., Elector of Saxony, 231 Avery, S.P., 92. 189, 195, 200, 210, 216, 222 Aztec Civilization, 21 B Baireuth, 75 Baldassini, Painter, 279 Balearic Islands, 95 Bamboo, Wedgwood's, 168 Banko Ware, 225 Barberini Vase, 171 Barbizôt, M., 149 Barlow, S. L. M., 270, 296 Basalt, Wedgwood's, 168, 171 Bavarian Porcelain, 249 Beauvais Pottery, 141 Beccheroni, Painter, 279 Beckford, Mr., 195 Belgium, 319 Bellarmine, Cardinal, 76 Bellarmins, 76 Belleek, 149 Belmont, A., 270 Bennington Potteries, 339 Bentley, Mr., 167 Berlin Porcelain, 242 Bernal Sale, The, 131, 141, 240, 244, 247, 250, 251, 295, 298 Betts, F. J., 76 Billingsly, Potter, 310 Binns, R. W., Potter, 289, 306 Birch, Mr., 41, 70 Bloor, Potter, 297 Blue, Celestial, 181, 193 ---- Cobalt, 190 ---- Dragon Decoration, 311 ---- Japanese, 218 Bonnin, Potter, 331 Boston Museum of Arts, 86 Böttger, J., 231 Boucher, Painter, 261 Bow and Chelsea, Confusion between, 292 ---- Porcelain, 290 Bramelds, The, Potters, 313 Breslau, Pottery Monument in, 80 Brianchon, M., 149 Bricks, Glazed, 70 Bristol Porcelain, 309 British Museum, 211 Broeck, Village of, 159 Bromfield and Son, Potters, 317 Brongniart, Alexandre, 41, 270 Bronze Age, 16 Brown-Westhead, Moore and Co., Potters, 317 Brunswick Porcelain, 249 Bryant, Mr., 30 Buen Retiro Porcelain, 286 Burke, Edmund, 309 Burlingame, Mrs. Anson, 182, 184, 186, 189 C Caistre, 26 Calle, Raffaelle del, 104 Calpis, 46 Cameos, Wedgwood's, 168 Campanienne Vase, 49 Cantheros, 46 Capo di Monte Porcelain, 282 Carl Theodor, Elector Palatine, 249 Castel-Durante, 116 Catherine II. of Russia, 166 Caughley Porcelain, 311 Caulkins's History of Norwich, 336 _Céladon_, The Color, 195 Celestial-Blue Porcelain, 181, 193 Centennial Exhibition, 22, 25, 63, 130, 227, 340 Ceramicus, The, 32 Cesnola Collection, 24 Chaffers, G. W., 136, 161, 235, 290, 299, 302 Chamberlain, Potter, 307 Champion, Potter, 309 Chantilly Porcelain, 257 Chapelet, M., 149 Charles, Duke of Brunswick, 250 Charles IV., King, 283 Charlotte, Queen, 166 Charlottenburg, 244 Cheap Work, 164 Chelsea Porcelain, 293 China, Egg-shell, 197, 220 ---- Mandarin, 221 Chinese Porcelain, 175 Classification of Greek Pottery, 41 Clay Figures, 63 Clays, American, 340 ---- Cornwall, 308 Clerissy, Antoine, 146 Cleuziou, M., 27 Cloisonné Work, 221, 316 Coalport Porcelain, 312 Coblentz, 77 Coffee-pots, 158 Coke, Potter, 310 Collections of Pottery, 53 Collinot, M., 149 Colors, Chemical, 266 Connecticut Potteries, Early, 338 Conrad, 139 Content, The God of, 176 Cooking Animal, Man a, 14 Cookworthy, Potter, 308 Copelands, The, Potters, 313 Copenhagen Porcelain, 326 Corean Porcelain, 210 Cornwall Clays, 308 Cortez, 20 Cotyle, 46 Counterfeit Chinese Porcelain, 300 Counterfeit Maiolica, 119 ---- Porcelain, 227 Couthon, 51 Couverte, 69 Cozzi, Potter, 280 Crackle, 197, 219 Craft, Painter, 291 Crater, 47 Cruche, 47 Crusades, Effects of, 96 Cup of Arcesilaus, 51 ---- of Samos, 26 Custode, Pierre, 139 Cyathos, 46 Cylix, 47 Cyrenaica, 37 Cyrene, 51 D Damascus Pottery, 89 Daniell, H. and R., Potters, 314 Daniell, Thomas, Painter, 166 Daniells and Son, Potters, 318 Danish Pottery, 67 Dark Ages, The, 96 Decadence Style, 41 Deck, M., 152 Decoration, Early, 18, 23 ---- Japanese, 215 ---- Sèvres, 260 ---- Symbolic, 186 Delft, 97, 153 Della Robbia, Andrea, 101 ---- Luca, 93, 99 Demmin, M., 41, 126, 155, 328 Denmark, Porcelain of, 326 Dennis, Potter, 336 Derby Porcelain, 297 Dinner-Service, Remarkable, 166 Dinner-Services, Delft, 157 Diogenes, Tub of, 62 Dixwell, J. J., 62 Doccia Porcelain, 277 Dog of Fo, The, 187 Doulton Stone-ware, 77 Dragon, The, 188 Dresden Figure-pieces, 235 ---- Porcelain, 230 Dress, Greek, 56 Drinking-Cups, Inscriptions on, 27 Druggists' Pots, 117 Duesbury, Potter, 294, 297 Dutch Pottery, 153 ---- Trade with Japan, 223 Dwight, Dr., 337 E Earthen-ware, 97 ---- English, 161 Edgeworth, Maria, 162 Egg-shell China, 197 Egyptian Art, 33 ---- Red Ware, 65 ---- Tombs, Porcelain in, 179, 203 ---- Water-Colors, 63 ---- Glazed Ware of, 70 Elers, Messrs., 162 Elizabethan Ware, 162 Elizabeth Petrovna, Empress, 328 Enamel, 69 Enameling, 197 _En camaïeu_, 146 England, Porcelains of, 288 ---- Want of Invention in, 293 English Pottery, 67, 161 Engobe, 52, 73, 98 Entrecolles, Père d', 205 Etruscan Vases, 37, 62 Exhibition, Philadelphia, 22, 25, 63 F Factories, Japanese Porcelain, 227 Faenza, 117 Faience, 97, 117 ---- d'Oiron, 131 Faience, Japanese, 223 Figuier, M., 28 Figures, Porcelain, 283, 291, 308, 339 Figurines attributed to Palissy, 129 Fine Style, The, 41 Fischer, Potter, 247 Flandre, Grès de, 73 Flaxman, 168 Fleur-de-Lis Mark, 283, 286 Flight and Barr, Potters, 306 Florentine Porcelain, 274 Flowers, Porcelain, 258 Fong-hoang, The, 187 Fontana Family, 108 ---- Orazio, 104, 109 Foresi, Dr., 274 Fortnum, Mr., 88 France, Porcelain of, 253 Franco, Battista, 104 Frankenthal Porcelain, 249 Franks, A. W., 195, 201, 207 Frederick the Great, 231 Free-Trade Fanaticism, 211 French Faience, 138 French Sprig Decoration, 310 Fulham Pottery, 162 Fürstenburg Porcelain, 249 Furstler, Painter, 246 G Gallatin, Secretary, 337 Gallic Pottery, 28 Gardner, Potter, 330 German Pottery, 28, 74 ---- Glazed Pottery, 78 ---- Tribes, The, 78 ---- Work, Lack of Taste in, 163 Gibson, Henry, Mr., 316 Ginori, Factory of, 112 ---- The, 277 Gioanetti, Potter, 281 Giorgio, Maestro, 113 Giustiniani, Factory of, 112 Gladstone, Mr., 173 Glaze, Definition of, 69 ---- Value of, 72 Glazed Bricks, 70 ---- Pottery, 78, 81 Glazes in Porcelain, 195 Gouffier, Claude, 135 Grains-of-rice Cups, 197 Granada, 83 Graybeards, 76 Greek Dress, 56 ---- Fret, 18, 47 ---- House, The, 30, 54 ---- Man, The, 60 ---- Pottery, Classification of, 41 ---- Vase, The, 29 ---- Vases, Varnish of, 71 ---- Woman, The, 54 Greenpoint Porcelain, 334 Grès de Flandre, 73 Grinnell, Mrs. R. M., 100 Gubbio Maiolica, 112, 113 Gulena, 330 H Haarlem, 154 Hague, Porcelain of The, 322 Haguenau Pottery, 148 Haines and Co., Potters, 311 Hanford, Potter, 337 Hangest, Madame Hélène de, 133 Hannong, Potter, 148, 249 Hart, Charles Henry, 331 Hartford Pottery, 337 Haviland, Messrs, 150 Heard, Mr., 194 Henderson and Co., Potters, 340 Henri-Deux Ware, 131, 136 Henry III. of France, 124 Herculaneum, 59 ---- Porcelain, 312 Herend Porcelain, 247 Hetairai, The, 57 Hewelcke, Potter, 280 Hirschvogel, 80 Hispano-Moresque Ware, 86 Hizen, Porcelains of, 228 Höchst Porcelain, 248 Hoe, Robert, Jr., 191, 210 Holland, 319 Holland, Importation of Porcelain to, 219 Homer's Heroes, Palaces of, 30 Höroldt, 234 House, The Greek, 30, 54 Huguenots, 123 Hungarian Porcelain, 247 Hydria, 47 I Idols, Mexican, 20 Italian Maiolicas at the Philadelphia Exhibition, 121 Italian Porcelain, 274 ---- Renaissance, 96 Ives, Mrs. Moses, 146 J Japanese Art, 214, 225 ---- Figures, 64 ---- Porcelain, 210 Jasper, Wedgwood's, 168 Jewels in Decoration, 267 Jewett, Mr., 173 Johnson, Dr., 295 Julia Mammæa, 172 K Kaga Ware, 223, 228 Kalpis, 47 Kändler, 234 Kantharos, 46 Kaolin, 78, 178, 205, 232, 234 Katosiro-ouyi-mon, 210 Kauffmann, Angelica, 238 Kelebe, 46 Kensington Museum, 211 Keramicus, The, 32 King-te-Chin, City of, 180, 203 Kioto Ware, 225, 228 Korzic Porcelain, 330 Kotyle, 47 Krater, 47 Kruche, 47 Kyathos, 47 Kylin, The, 188 Kylix, 47 L Lacquer, Japanese, 220 Lacustrine Dwellings, 15 Lafon, M., 151 Lake-Dwellers, 15 Lambeth Pottery, 162 Lamprecht, Painter, 246 Lanceray, Bronze-founder, 328 Lang, Baron von, 327 Laughlin Brothers, Potters, 342 Laurin, M., 149 Layard, 70 Leighton, Frederick, 88, 94, 224 Lekythos, 47, 50 Lille Porcelain, 323 Limoges Porcelain, 258 ---- Pottery, 150 Lindencher, M., 151 Lindus Pottery, 89 Longbeards, 76 Louis Philippe, 269 Louis XIV, 143, 261 Lowestoft Porcelain, 299 Luson, Potter, 299 Lustres, 83, 114, 116 Lyman and Fenton, Potters, 339 Lyons, Mr., 269 M Madrid Porcelain, 286 Maiolica, 87, 95, 97 Majorca, 87 Malaga, 85 Man, The Greek, 60 Mandarin China, 221 Marcolini, Count, 241 Marco Polo, 179, 204 Maria Theresa, 245 Marks, Alcora, 287 ---- Amstel, 322 ---- Berlin, 245 ---- Bow, 292 ---- Bristol, 310 ---- Capo di Monte, 286 ---- Caughley, 311 ---- Chamberlain's, 308 ---- Chantilly, 257 ---- Chelsea, 297 ---- Chinese, 207 ---- Clignancourt, 255 ---- Copeland, 314 ---- Copenhagen, 327 ---- on Delft, 160 ---- Derby, 299 ---- Dresden, 241 ---- Frankenthal, 249 ---- Fulda, 252 ---- Fürstenburg, 250 ---- Höchst, 248 ---- Japanese Symbolic, 215 ---- Kronenburg, 251 ---- Lille, 323 ---- Limbach, 252 ---- Limoges, 258 ---- Ludwigsburg, 251 ---- Maiolica, 119 ---- Marieberg, 326 ---- Marseilles, 256 ---- Moscow, 330 ---- Nantgarw, 310 ---- New Hall, 312 ---- Niderviller, 257 ---- Nove, 282 ---- Nymphenburg, 251 ---- Nyon, 252 ---- Orleans, 256 ---- Paris, 257 ---- Plymouth, 309 ---- Porcelain, 325 ---- Rockingham, 313 ---- Russian, 329 ---- Sceaux-Penthièvre, 257 ---- Sèvres, 272 ---- St.-Cloud, 254 ---- Strasbourg, 256 ---- Swansea, 311 ---- Symbolic, 200 ---- The Hague, 323 ---- Tournay, 324 ---- Turin, 281 ---- Turner, 311 ---- Valenciennes, 256 ---- of Vezzi and Cozzi, 280 ---- Vienna, 247 ---- Vincennes, 271 ---- Weesp, 321 ---- Worcester, 306 ---- Zurich, 252 Marryat, Mr., 155, 174, 301 Marseilles Pottery, 148 Massachusetts Potteries, Early, 338 Matthews, Mr., 270 Mayence Porcelain, 248 Medicean Porcelain, 274 Medici, Lorenzo de', 195, 204 ---- The, 275 Meissen Porcelain, 230 Melchior, Painter, 249 Menecy-Villeroy Porcelain, 255 Meteyard, Miss, 168, 172 Metropolitan Museum of Art, 24, 120, 384 Mexican Pottery, 20, 66 Mezza-Maiolica, 98 Mintons, The, Potters, 314 Mitchell, Dr., 270 Monument of Pottery, 80 Moorish Pottery, 72 Moors in Spain, 82 Morris, Potter, 331 Moscow Porcelain, 330 Mosque of Omar, 89 Mounds, Western, 22 Moustiers Pottery, 146 Müller, Potter, 327 Murrhine Vases, Ancient, 204 Musée Céramique at Sèvres, 270 Museum of Arts, Boston, 86, 120 N _Nacre_, 149 Nanking-Blue Porcelain, 181 Nanking Tower, 177 Nantgarw Porcelain, 310 Naples, Pottery from, 64 Napoleon I., 324 Nelson, Lord, 307 Nevers Faience, 139 New Hall Porcelain, 312 New Jersey Potteries, Early, 340 Niderviller Porcelain, 257 Nigg, Painter, 246 Nimrúd, Palace at, 70 Northern Europe, Porcelains of, 319 Norwalk Pottery, 337 Norwich Pottery, 336 Nottingham Ware, 335 Nove Porcelain, 281 Nymphenburg Porcelain, 250 O OEnochoe, 47 Olery, Maître, 146 Olpe, 46 Omar, Mosque of, 89 Onyx, Wedgwood's, 168 Oporto Porcelain, 287 Oriental Art, Character of, 190, 206, 236 Ornaments of Delft-ware, 158 Owari Porcelain, 228 Oxybaphon, 46 P Painters, Amateur, 298 ---- at Worcester, 304 Palaces of Homer's Heroes, 30 Palissy, Bernard, 123 Panathenaic Festival, 149 _Pâte dure_, 233, 253 _Pâte tendre_, 233, 253 _Pâte-sur-pâte_, 315 Peabody Museum, 22 Peach Decoration, Japanese, 225 Pelice, 45 Pellipario Family, 109 Pepys's Diary, 158, 161 Perger, Painter, 246 Pericles, 58 Persian Pottery, 90 Peruvian Pottery, 22 Pesaro, 98 Peter the Great, 327 ---- the Hermit, 96 Pe-tun-tse, 178, 205, 233 Phallus, 23 Pharmaceutical Emblems, 118 Phiale, 46 Philadelphia Art School, 211 ---- Exhibition, 22, 25, 63, 130, 227, 340 ---- Industrial Museum, 316 ---- Porcelain, 331 Piccolpasso, Book of, 116 Pindar, 40 Pinxton Porcelain, 310 Pipe Clay, 134 Pithos, 62 Pizarro, 22 Place, Francis, Potter, 314 Plumbiferous Glaze, 98, 161 Plymouth Porcelain, 308 Poland, Porcelain of, 330 Pompadour, Madame de, 258 Pompeii, 59 Popoff, Potter, 330 Porcelain Biscuit, Wedgwood's, 168 Porcelain, _Céladon_, 195 ---- of Central Europe, 229 ---- of China, 175 ---- Chrysanthemo-Pæonienne, 182 ---- Colors of, 180, 194 ---- Discovery of, 178 ---- Earliest European, 230 ---- in Egyptian Tombs, 179, 203 ---- of England, 288 ---- Famille-rose, 185 ---- Famille-vert, 184 ---- Flowers, 258 ---- of France, 253 ---- Imperial Yellow, 195 ---- Importation of Chinese, 204 ---- Japanese, 210, 227 ---- Manufacture, Sites of, 202 ---- Manufacture in China, 201 ---- Mode of making in China, 205 ---- of Northern Europe, 319 ---- Painting, 196 ---- Origin of Word, 203 ---- of Southern Europe, 274 ---- Styles of Japanese, 214 ---- Tower at Nanking, 177 ---- of the United States, 331 ---- Variegated-leaved, 219 ---- Varieties of Chinese, 181 Portland Vase, 171 Portuguese Trade with Japan, 222 Potteries, Greek, 53 Potter's Art, Antiquity of, 13 ---- Wheel, 19, 34 Pottery, Chinese, 178 ---- Monument of, 80 Pottier, M. André, 132 Pottle-pot, 77 Poutai, Chinese God, 64, 176 Prices of Henri-Deux Ware, 136 ---- of Wedgwood Ware, 174 Prime, William C., 76, 89, 92, 100, 282, 244, 285, 287, 296, 306, 307, 334 Prizes for Victors, 48 Prize Vase, Athenian, 49 Prochoos, 46 Protestant Persecutions in France, 123 Pruyn, J. V. L., 270, 300, 302 Q Queen Elizabeth's Housekeeping, 161 Queen's Ware, Wedgwood's, 166 R Raffaelle Ware, 106 Reindeer Age, 15 Reticulated Cups, 197 Rhode Island, Rouen Pottery in, 146 Rhodian Pottery, 87 Rhyton, 47 Ringler, Potter, 249 Ritter, 99 Robinson, Mr. J. C., 133 Rockingham Porcelain, 312 Rockwell, Mrs., 218 Roman Pottery, 124, 27, 161 Rörstrand, 325 Rose, John, Potter, 312 Rose, Painter, 300 Rothschild, Baron, 267, 276 Rouen Pottery, 142, 255 Rouse and Turner, Potters, 340 Roux, Maître, 146 Rovigo, Francisco Xanto Avelli da, 104, 108 Ruch, Painter, 327 Ruel, Durand, M., 149 Russia, Porcelain of, 327 S Saladin, Porcelain sent by, 204 Salt-glaze, 73, 162 Salzmann, Mr., 89 Samian Ware, 25 Samos, Cup of, 26 Sappho, 57 Sarcophagus of Pottery, 80 Sarreguemines Pottery, 149 Satsuma Ware, 224, 228 Saxon Porcelain, 230 Sceaux-Penthièvre, 257 ---- Marks, 257 School Education, 163 Ségange, M. Broc de, 139 Seipsius, Painter, 327 Sèvres Marks, 273 ---- Porcelain, 258 Sgraffiato Ware, 119 Sheffield, Lord, 335 Shelton Porcelain, 312 Simplicity, Greek, 265 Six-mark Porcelain, 192 Skyphos, 46 Slip, 98 Smith and Sons, Potters, 334 Socrates, 61 Solon, Painter, 315 Spanish Pottery, 64 Spode, Josiah, Potter, 313 ---- Porcelain, 313 Sprimont, Potter, 293 Staffordshire Potteries, 174 Stamnos, 45 Stanniferous Glaze, 72, 83, 93, 98 States, Potter, 337 St.-Cloud Porcelain, 254 Steel, Daniel, 166 Steen, Jan, 155 Stenzel, 245 Stoke-upon-Trent, 162 Stone Age, 15 Stone-ware, 161 Stonington Pottery, 337 St. Petersburg, 327 Strasbourg Pottery, 148 Stratford-le-Bow, 290 Swansea Porcelain, 311 Sweden, Porcelain of, 324 Symbolic Animals, Chinese, 187 ---- Colors, Chinese, 188 ---- Marks, 200 T Table-Furniture, Early American, 334 Taiping Rebels, 178, 181 Tea and Teapots, 158 Tea-Services, Delft, 157 Terra-Cotta, Wedgwood's, 167 Terraglia Faience, 281 _Terre de Pipe_, 73, 134 Tiffany and Co., 306, 316 Tiles, Dutch, 160 ---- Moorish, 83 ---- Persian or Arabic, 92 Toltecs, 21 Tombs, Egyptian, 71 ---- Relics from, 31 Tournay Porcelain, 323 Trenton Potteries, 341 Treviso Porcelain, 281 Tripods, 70 Tschirnhaus, 231 Tucker and Hemphill, Potters, 332 Tuppi, Painter, 279 Turin Porcelain, 281 Turkey, Porcelain sold in, 246, 299, 303 Turkish Pottery, 65 Turner, Thomas, Potter, 311 Turquoise-Blue Porcelain, 193 Tver Porcelain, 330 Tyg, 162 U Unglazed Pottery, 63 United States, Pottery and Porcelain of the, 331 Urban VIII., Pope, 172 Urbino, 102 V Valencia, 86 Van der Meer, 155 Vandervelde, William, 155 Variegated-leaved Porcelain, 219 Varnish, 69 Varsanni, Painter, 246 Vase, Alhambra, 84 ---- Etruscan, 62 ---- Great Numbers of, 53 ---- Greek, 29 ---- Pictures on, 61 ---- Sèvres, 263 Venice Porcelain, 279 Vermont Potteries, Early, 339 Vezzi, Potter, 279 Vienna Exposition, 181 ---- Porcelain, 245 Vincennes Porcelain, 259 Violins, Delft, 157 Virginia Clays, 290 W Wales, George W., 90, 94, 146, 185, 238, 269, 285, 296, 302, 306, 326 Wall, Dr., 303 Wallace, Sir Richard, 112, 315 Washington Pitchers, 338 Watcombe Pottery, 67 Water-Coolers, 63 Wech, Painter, 246 Wedgwood, Josiah, 163, 333 Wedgwoods, The, Potters, 314 Wedgwood Ware, Prices of, 174 Weesp Porcelain, 321 Wegeley, Mr., 242 Wheel, Potter's, 19 Wilkinson, Sir Gardiner, 70 Williams, H. 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[3] Birch's "History of Ancient Pottery." [4] "Guide de l'Amateur de Faïences et Porcelaines." [5] "Traité des Arts céramiques." [6] Published at Nevers in 1863. [7] Demmin says that MM. Jauffret et Mouton are at work there still. [8] Earthen-ware. [9] "Histoire de la Porcelaine Chinoise." [10] Marryat, "Pottery and Porcelain." [11] Jacquemart. [12] From a Chinese dictionary quoted by Jacquemart. [13] This mandarin porcelain Mr. A. W. Franks, the latest writer on the subject, believes was made in China; and thus he differs from Jacquemart. [14] The crown thus becomes three shillings and sixpence sterling. [15] "Marks and Monographs of Pottery and Porcelain," G. W. Chaffers. [16] Bohn's Catalogue. [17] An article made of fire-clay, to place the china in when being burnt. * * * * * Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber: and and that time=> and that time {pg 7} Louis Phillippe=> Louis Philippe, {pg 269} 
47823	----	file was produced from images available at the Posner Memorial Collection (http://posner.library.cmu.edu/Posner/)) Transcriber's Note: 1) Page 91 contains a footnote, however there is no associated marker. The footnote has been left in place, with a note to this effect. 2) A letter following ^ is superscripted. Where more than one letter is superscripted, each is preceded by the ^ symbol. 3) [.A] = dot above A [h.] = dot below h [=a] = macron above a 4) [Symbol: cross pattée] (also known as a "cross pattee", "cross patty", "cross formée" or "cross formy" or in German "Tatzenkreuz") is a type of cross that has arms which are narrow at the center, and broader at the perimeter. The name comes from the fact that the shape of each arm of the cross was thought to resemble a paw (French patte). * * * * * JEWELLERY BY H. CLIFFORD SMITH, M.A. [Illustration: The Connoisseur's Library] NEW YORK: G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS LONDON: METHUEN & CO. 1908 [Illustration: _PLATE I_ SIXTEENTH-CENTURY PENDENT JEWELS OF ENAMELLED GOLD] CONTENTS PAGE LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS, ix PREFACE, xxxiii INTRODUCTION, xxxvii EARLY JEWELLERY CHAPTER I. EGYPTIAN JEWELLERY, 1 PHOENICIAN JEWELLERY, 7 " II. GREEK JEWELLERY, 11 " III. ETRUSCAN JEWELLERY, 20 " IV. ROMAN JEWELLERY, 27 " V. BYZANTINE JEWELLERY, 33 " VI. PREHISTORIC (CELTIC) JEWELLERY, 39 ROMANO-BRITISH JEWELLERY, 44 " VII. THE BARBARIC JEWELLERY OF EUROPE (THE GREAT MIGRATIONS), 49 " VIII. ANGLO-SAXON JEWELLERY (FIFTH TO SEVENTH CENTURIES), MEROVINGIAN JEWELLERY, 56 " IX. LATE ANGLO-SAXON JEWELLERY (SEVENTH TO NINTH CENTURIES), 65 " X. THE CELTIC BROOCH, 75 THE JEWELLERY OF THE MIDDLE AGES (TENTH TO FIFTEENTH CENTURIES) CHAPTER XI. MEDIÆVAL JEWELLERY (INTRODUCTION), 80 " XII. MEDIÆVAL ENGLAND, 91 " XIII. THE MYSTERY OF PRECIOUS STONES, 99 " XIV. HEAD-ORNAMENTS, 105 NECKLACES, 113 " XV. PENDANTS, ROSARIES, AND POMANDERS, 118 " XVI. BROOCHES--THE RING-BROOCH, 127 " XVII. BROOCHES (_contd._)--PECTORALS, 135 " XVIII. RINGS AND BRACELETS, 147 " XIX. BELTS AND GIRDLES, 159 RENAISSANCE JEWELLERY CHAPTER XX. ITALY, FIFTEENTH CENTURY, 166 " XXI. SIXTEENTH-CENTURY JEWELLERY (GENERAL), 177 " ITALY, SIXTEENTH CENTURY, 183 " XXII. GERMANY, THE LOW COUNTRIES, HUNGARY, 187 " XXIII. FRANCE--SPAIN, 199 " XXIV. ENGLAND (HENRY VIII--ELIZABETH), 206 " XXV. HEAD-ORNAMENTS, ENSEIGNES, AIGRETTES, HAIR-PINS, EARRINGS, 222 " XXVI. NECKLACES, NECK-CHAINS, AND COLLARS, 236 " XXVII. NECK-PENDANTS, 242 " XXIX. GIRDLES AND GIRDLE PENDANTS (MIRRORS, BOOKS, WATCHES, SCENT-CASES, AND POMANDERS), 270 LATER AND MODERN JEWELLERY CHAPTER XXX. SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY JEWELLERY (GENERAL), 276 " XXXI. SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY JEWELLERY (_contd._), 290 ENGLAND, SEVENTEENTH CENTURY, 299 " XXXII. EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY JEWELLERY, 307 " XXXIII. NINETEENTH-CENTURY JEWELLERY --THE MODERN REVIVAL, 325 " XXXIV. PEASANT JEWELLERY, 341 " XXXV. JEWELLERY IN PICTURES, 348 " XXXVI. FRAUDS AND FORGERIES, 355 " XXXVII. MEMENTO MORI, 363 BIBLIOGRAPHY, 371 INDEX, 381 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS B. M. = British Museum. V. and A. M. = Victoria and Albert Museum. _A page-number appended to a description indicates place of reference in the text._ I. SIXTEENTH-CENTURY PENDENT JEWELS OF ENAMELLED GOLD _Frontispiece_ 1. Pendant in the form of a Triton. Italian. (Marquess of Clanricarde.) _p. 249._ 2. Pendant in form of a winged dragon. Spanish. _p. 249._ (Louvre.) II. PHOENICIAN JEWELLERY _p. 8._ 1-8. From Cyprus and Sardinia. (B. M.) 1-4. Four gold earrings. _p. 9._ 1. Chrysalis form. 2-3. A pair: birds perched above a bushel of grain. 4. Long oval ring terminating with a cross. 5-6. Two necklaces with pendent heads in the Egyptian style, from Tharros in Sardinia. _p. 10._ 5. Beads of glass and gold. 6. Carnelian bugles. 7-8. Two seal pendants of silver, set with sard scarabs. 9. Ibero-Phoenician stone bust, known as the "Lady of Elché." _p. 9._ (Louvre.) (_Photo, Giraudon._) III. EARLY GREEK JEWELLERY _p. 12._ 1. Three gold plates or discs from Mycenæ. _p. 11._ (National Museum, Athens.) 2-7. Gold ornaments of the Mycenæan period. _p. 12._ (B. M.) 2. Pendant from Ægina: figure in Egyptian costume grasping geese. 3. Plaque from Kameiros: winged goddess, with two lions in the round, and owls at the top. 4. Diadem of spiral ornament, from Enkomi (Salamis), Cyprus. 5-6. Pair of leech-shaped earrings, from Enkomi. 7. Pendent pomegranate of granulated gold, from Enkomi. IV. GREEK JEWELLERY (EARRINGS, NECKLACE AND HAIR-PIN). (B. M.) _p. 16._ 1-3. Three earrings. _p. 15._ 1. Head of a goat with garnet eye. 2. Pendent Cupids and Victories (Kyme, in Æolis). 3. Eros with a jug (Crete). 4. Gold necklace with pendent tassels in form of pomegranates (Kyme). 5. Pair of gold earrings set with garnets and emeralds, connected by a plaited chain. (Tyszkiewicz Collection.) 6. Gold pin from Paphos, Cyprus. _p. 17._ V. GREEK JEWELLERY (CROWN, NECKLACES, BRACELET, RINGS). (B. M.) _p. 18._ 1. Gold crown from Magna Græcia, second century B.C. (Tyszkiewicz Collection.) _p. 17._ 2. Necklace with enamelled rosettes and filigree. (Blacas Collection.) 3. Enamelled gold necklace from Melos. _p. 17._ 4. Gold bracelet with bulls' heads. (Blacas Collection.) 5. Four rings. 1. Gold, demon with Sphynx and panther (early Ionic). 2. Silver, surmounted by gold fly (Cyprus). _p. 10._ 3. Gold, engraved with figures of Aphrodite and Eros. 4. Gold, with busts of Serapis and Isis (Græco-Roman). VI. ETRUSCAN JEWELLERY (PINS, NECKLACES, EARRINGS). (B. M.) _p. 22._ 1. Hair pins and balls of granulated gold, from Etruria. 2. Primitive necklace of amber, gold, and electrum, from Præneste. _p. 24._ 3. Necklace hung with pendent vases and heads of Io. 4. Necklace with pendent head of a faun. _p. 24._ 5. Chain with pendent head of a negro. _p. 24._ 6. Necklace of plasma and gold beads, with basalt amulet pendant. _p. 25._ 7-8. Earrings. _p. 23._ 7. Saddle-shaped, with fine granulation. 8. Pendent cock in white enamel. VII. ETRUSCAN JEWELLERY (BROOCHES, DIADEM, BRACELET, RINGS). (B. M.) _p. 24._ 1. Early fibula from Cervetri, surmounted with figures of lions. _p. 25._ 2. Gold diadem of ivy leaves and berries. _p. 23._ 3. Fibula from Tuscana, with meander pattern in fine granulation. 4. Early bracelet from Cervetri, with minute granular work. _p. 25._ 5-8. Four rings. 1. Bezel mounted with intaglio, gold border with tendril pattern (Chiusi). 2. Cartouche with figures of shepherd and dog (Chiusi). 3. Intaglio bezel supported by lions. _p. 25._ 4. Large oval bezel bordered with dolphins and waves (Bolsena). _p. 26._ VIII. ROMAN JEWELLERY _p. 30._ 1-6. (B. M.) 1. Gold necklace set with garnets, and a pendant in form of a butterfly. 2. Gold necklace, with a pendent aureus of Domitian. _p. 30._ 3. Gold hair-pin from Tarentum surmounted by a figure of Aphrodite. _p. 28._ 4-6. Three gold rings. _pp. 31-32._ 4. Serpent form. 5. Open-worked, set with a nicolo intaglio--a mask of a Satyr. 6. Eye-shaped, with open-work shoulders, set with a nicolo. 7-15. (V. and A. M.) 7-10. Earrings. _pp. 28-29._ 7. Porphyry drop. 8. Two pearls (_crotalia_) suspended from yoke. 9. Basket of fruit set with garnet, a carnelian bead, and an emerald pendant. 10. Large hook set with sapphire, an emerald below, and three pearl drops. 11. Gold bracelet in form of a serpent. _p. 30._ 12-15. Four rings. 12. Gold: tragic mask in high relief. 13. Gold: quintuple, set with two sapphires and three garnets. 14. Gold: raised open-work bezel set with a sapphire and a chrysoprase. 15. Gilt bronze: bust of Serapis in relief. _p. 32._ IX. BYZANTINE JEWELLERY, AND ENAMELLED JEWELLERY IN THE BYZANTINE STYLE _p. 36._ 1-7 and 9-11. (B. M.) 8. (V. and A. M.) 1-2. Pair of gold loop earrings: a cross patée between two peacocks confronted. About seventh century. _p. 35._ 3. Gold pectoral cross with a text from Galatians vi. 14. Eleventh century. _p. 36._ 4-5. Pair of gold and enamelled loop earrings. Twelfth century. _p. 35._ 6. Nielloed gold wedding ring: Christ and the Virgin blessing a bride and bridegroom. About tenth century. 7. Engraved gold signet ring. About fifth century. 8. Beresford-Hope cross: cloisonné enamel. About eighth century. _p. 36._ 9. The Castellani brooch: portrait in cloisonné enamel. North Italian, seventh century. _p. 70._ 10. Gold inscribed key ring. Fourth century. _p. 37._ 11. Townley brooch. Probably Rhenish work, with Byzantine cloisonné enamels. Tenth or eleventh century. _p. 70._ X. PREHISTORIC GOLD ORNAMENTS OF THE BRITISH ISLES (B. M.) _p. 40._ 1. Ring, found at Bormer, near Falmer, Sussex. 2. Plaited ring, found near Waterford, Ireland. 3. "Ring Money" of gold and silver, found at Rustington, Sussex. 4. Torque fastened by a ring, found at Boyton, Suffolk. 5. Disc, found at Castle Treasure, near Douglas, Co. Cork. 6. Dress fastener, found at Crif Keran Castle, Co. Armagh. 7. Bracelet, found at Bexley, Kent. XI. ANGLO-SAXON AND ROMANO-BRITISH BROOCHES, ETC. (B. M.) _p. 60._ 1-5. Anglo-Saxon inlaid jewellery. 1. Gold brooch, from Sarre, Kent. _p. 61._ 2. Silver brooch, from Faversham, Kent. _p. 60._ 3. Gold pendant, from Faversham. _p. 58._ 4. Bronze brooch, from Wingham, Kent. _p. 60._ 5. Gold brooch, from Abingdon, Berks. _p. 61_, note. 6-7. Romano-British brooches. 6. Bronze brooch set with slices of Roman millefiori glass, from Pont-y-Saison, near Chepstow, Mon. _p. 46._ 7. Enamelled bronze brooch, found in London. (Hastings Collection.) _p. 46._ XII. ANGLO-SAXON AND FRANKISH JEWELLERY (FIFTH TO SEVENTH CENTURIES) _p. 62._ 1-6. (B. M.) 1. Gold necklace with garnets, from Desborough, Northants. _p. 74._ 2. Gold bracteate, from Ash, near Sandwich, Kent. _p. 59._ 3. Saucer-shaped brooch, bronze gilt, from East Shefford, Berks. _p. 61._ 4. Square-headed brooch, from Chessell Down, Isle of Wight. _p. 62._ 5. Cruciform brooch, bronze gilt, from Sleaford, Lincs. _p. 61._ 6. Inlaid and jewelled gold buckle, from Taplow, Bucks. _p. 63._ 7. "Radiated" brooch of silver, enriched with gold and inlay of garnets. The back inscribed with the name UFFILA. Seventh century. From Wittislingen on the Danube. 6½ inches long. _p. 62._ (Bavarian National Museum, Munich.) XIII. LATE ANGLO-SAXON JEWELLERY (SEVENTH TO NINTH CENTURIES) _p. 68._ 1-2. The Alfred Jewel. _pp. 68-69._ (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.) 3. St. Cuthbert's cross. _p. 68._ (Durham Cathedral.) 4. Dowgate Hill brooch: cloisonné enamel and pearls. _p. 69._ (B. M.) 5. Ethelwulf's ring. _p. 72._ (B. M.) 6. Nielloed gold ring with two bezels, found in the Nene, near Peterborough. _p. 72._ (B. M.) 7. Ethelswith's ring. _p. 72._ (B. M.) 8. Gold ring, found in Garrick Street, London. (B. M.) 9. Alhstan's ring. _p. 71._ (V. and A. M.) 10. Nielloed gold ring. _p. 73._ (Lord Fitzhardinge.) 11. Silver ring found in the Thames at Chelsea. _p. 73._ (V. and A. M.) XIV. THE TARA BROOCH. _p. 78._ (Collection of the Royal Irish Academy, National Museum, Dublin.) XV. THE JEWELS OF WILLIAM OF WYKEHAM. NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD. _p. 96._ 1. Monogram of the Virgin: gold, enamelled, and set with rubies, emeralds and pearls. 2. Silver-gilt decorations of the mitre: comprising two quatrefoils set with turquoises, two rosettes set with pastes, and hinged bands of brasse-taille enamel set with pearls and crystals. English, late fourteenth century. _pp. 96-98._ XVI. ANTIQUE CAMEOS IN MEDIÆVAL SETTINGS. _p. 102._ 1. The Jewel of St. Hilary. _p. 103._ (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.) 2. The Schaffhausen onyx. _p. 104._ 3. The cameo of Charles V of France. _p. 103._ (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.) (_Photo, Giraudon._) XVII. MEDIÆVAL HEAD-ORNAMENTS. _p. 110._ 1-4. Pilgrims' signs of lead. _p. 110._ (B. M.) 1. Head of St. Thomas with swords, within a cusped border. 2. Ampulla for blood of St. Thomas. 3. St. George within a border. 4. Head of St. John the Baptist. 5-8. Retainers' badges of lead. _p. 110._ (B. M.) 5. Hart lodged (Richard II). 6. Crowned ostrich feather (Duke of Norfolk). 7. Rose and fetterlock (Edward IV). 8. Collared hound (Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury). 9. Silver-gilt crown or circlet, set with pearls and coloured pastes. French, fourteenth century. _p. 106._ (Musée du Cinquantenaire, Brussels.) 10-12. Three fifteenth-century gold enseignes. 10. Antique onyx cameo, outer frame set with rubies. Spanish. _p. 111._ (V. and A. M.) 11. "Pelican in her Piety," set with a ruby and diamond. Flemish (found in the Meuse). _p. 111._ (B. M.) 12. Figure of a dromedary in white enamel in frame set with pearls. Flemish. _p. 146._ (Museo Nazionale, Florence.) (_Photo, Alinari._) XVIII. MEDIÆVAL PENDANTS (RELIQUARIES, ETC.) _p. 120._ 1. Silver reliquary set with crystal. German, fifteenth century. _p. 121._ (Bavarian National Museum, Munich.) 2. Silver-gilt reliquary, from the treasury of Enger, near Herford, in Westphalia. Fifteenth century. (Kunstgewerbe Museum, Berlin.) 3. Silver-gilt pomander opening into four sections. German, about 1480. _p. 126._ (Bavarian National Museum, Munich.) 4. Gold Reliquary of Charlemagne, containing a fragment of the True Cross. German, ninth (?) century _p. 118._ 5. "Reliquary of St. Louis," gold, enriched with translucent enamels, containing a thorn from the Crown of Thorns. French, fourteenth century. _p. 119._ (B. M.) 6. Gold bracelet. German, twelfth century. _p. 157._ (Bavarian National Museum, Munich.) XIX. MEDIÆVAL PENDANTS _p. 124._ 1. Silver-gilt pendant containing figures of saints and angels, surmounted by the Virgin and Child. German, fifteenth century. _p. 120._ (Bavarian National Museum, Munich). 2-3, 5-8, and 10. German fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. (V. and A. M.) 2. Coronation of the Virgin, silver gilt. 3. _Agnus Dei_, silver gilt. Inscribed: IECUC (JESUS) MARIA JOHANNES ANNUS (AGNUS). On the back: JESUS MAIRA (MARIA) JOHANNES MARIA HILF. _p. 122._ 4. Nielloed pendant, silver gilt: with the Annunciation on one side, and the sacred monogram on the other. Italian, fifteenth century. _p. 173._ (V. and A. M.) 5. St. Sebastian, silver gilt. 6. The Crucifixion, silver gilt. 7. Figures of four saints, silver gilt. 8. Gold cross, set with rubies and pearls. Fifteenth century. 9. The Devil of Temptation, silver gilt. Flemish or German, fifteenth century. _p. 120._ (Mrs. Percy Macquoid.) 10. Rosary of boxwood, with emblems of the Passion in silver. _p. 124._ XX. MEDIÆVAL BROOCHES (RING-BROOCHES, ETC.) _p. 130._ 1-6. GOLD RING-BROOCHES (_fermails_). 1. Set with pearls and precious stones, and with four bosses of animals. Fourteenth century. _p. 129._ (B. M.) 2. Enamelled blue and white, and inscribed with a text from St. Luke iv. 30. French, fourteenth century. _p. 130._ (Museo Nazionale, Florence.) (_Photo, Alinari._) 3. Set with rubies and sapphires, the back nielloed. French, thirteenth century. _p. 130._ (V. and A. M.) 4. Heart-shaped, inscribed. French, fifteenth century. _p. 139._ (V. and A. M.) 5. Circular: inscribed, and set with two rubies and four small emeralds. English (from Enniscorthy Abbey), fourteenth century. (B. M.) 6. Set with rubies and emeralds. French, thirteenth century. _p. 130._ (Museo Nazionale, Florence.) (_Photo, Alinari._) 7. Silver-gilt brooch in form of St. Christopher. English (from Kingston-on-Thames), fifteenth century. _p. 142._ (B. M.) 8-12. FLEMISH-BURGUNDIAN GOLD BROOCHES (_nouches_). Fifteenth century. 8. Two standing figures, enamelled, and set with a ruby, diamond, and pearls. _p. 146._ (Imperial Art Collections, Vienna.) 9. Seated female figure with golden rays behind: enamelled and set with pearls. _p. 144._ (Essen Treasury.) 10-12. Brooches found in the Meuse. _p. 143._ (B. M.) 10. Enamelled and set with a ruby and diamond. 11. A female figure, set with a sapphire, diamond, and three rubies. 12. Set with a ruby amidst foliage, with traces of enamel. XXI. MEDIÆVAL SCOTTISH BROOCHES. THE GLENLYON AND LOCH BUY BROOCHES. (B. M.) _p. 132._ 1. The Glenlyon brooch. Silver gilt, set with amethysts, pearls, and rock crystal: the back inscribed. Fifteenth century. _p. 132._ 2. The Loch Buy brooch. Silver, set with rock crystal and pearls. About 1500. _p. 133._ XXII. MEDIÆVAL BROOCHES (PECTORALS AND MORSE) _p. 136._ 1. The "Eagle Fibula"; gold and cloisonné enamel. Early twelfth century. _p. 135._ (Mainz Museum.) 2. Gold brooch in form of an eagle, set with emeralds, lapis-lazuli, a sapphire, and a ruby. Thirteenth century. _p. 136._ (Baron von Heyl.) From an etching in _Kunstgewerbe-Blatt_, III. (By permission of the artist, Prof. P. Halm, of Munich.) 3. Silver-gilt morse, made in 1484 for Albert von Letelin, Canon of Minden, by the goldsmith Reinecke van Dressche of Minden. _p. 139._ (Kunstgewerbe Museum, Berlin.) XXIII. MEDIÆVAL AND LATER RINGS _p. 148._ 1-2. Episcopal rings of William of Wykeham. Fourteenth century. (New College, Oxford.) 1. Gold set with a ruby. _p. 149._ 2. Silver gilt, with representation of the crucifixion, set with a crystal. 3. Gold, episcopal, set with a sapphire. English, fourteenth century. (V. and A. M.) 4-5. The Coventry ring (two views). Gold, engraved with the five wounds of Christ and their names. English, about 1457. _p. 150._ (B. M.) 6. The Godstow Priory ring: a gold love-ring, with legends and forget-me-nots. English, fifteenth century. _p. 150._ 7. Gold, episcopal, projecting bezel set with a sapphire. French, fourteenth century. (V. and A. M.) 8. Gold, episcopal, of complex design, set with a sapphire. Italian, fifteenth century. (V. and A. M.) 9. Silver, set with a toadstone. German, sixteenth century. _p. 151._ (V. and A. M.) 10. "Papal" ring. Gilt metal with cardinal's hat and crossed keys. On shoulders Virgin and Child and Saint. Inscription on hoop: EPISC. LUGDUN--Cardinal de Bourbon (?), Archbishop of Lyons, 1466-1488. Italian, fifteenth century. _p. 148._ (V. and A. M.) 11. Antique gem in red jasper, set in gold Italian mount of the fourteenth century, inscribed: S. FR. DE COLUMPNA. _p. 154._ (V. and A. M.) 12. Gold, set with a wolf's tooth, and inscribed with the charm motto: +BURO+BERTO+BERNETO+CONSUMMATUM EST. English, fourteenth century. _p. 152._ (V. and A. M.) 13. Gold ornamental ring, chased, enamelled, and set with emeralds. Italian, sixteenth century. (B. M.) 14. Gold signet ring with the arms of Mortimer. English, seventeenth century. (V. and A. M.) 15. Silver-gilt wedding ring, set with two teeth. North German, seventeenth century. _p. 262._ (V. and A. M.) 16. Fede ring, nielloed silver. Italian, fifteenth century. _p. 173_ (V. and A. M.) 17. Ornamental ring of silver gilt, set with a foiled crystal. German, sixteenth century. _p. 356._ (V. and A. M.) 18. The Percy signet. Gold. Inscribed: "NOW YS THUS." From Towton Field, W. R., Yorks. English, fifteenth century. _p. 153._ (B. M.) 19. Ornamental ring of silver gilt, with stag and foliage in open-work. German, late fifteenth century. (V. and A. M.) 20. Gimmel rings, enamelled gold. German, sixteenth century. _p. 261._ (B. M.) XXIV. PICTURE, KNOWN AS THE "LEGEND OF ST. ELOY AND ST. GODEBERTA," REPRESENTING THE INTERIOR OF A GOLDSMITH'S SHOP IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. By PETRUS CHRISTUS, OF BRUGES. _p. 155._ (Baron A. Oppenheim, of Cologne) _p. 156._ XXV. FIFTEENTH-CENTURY PENDANTS, ETC. (ITALIAN AND FLEMISH) _p. 170._ 1. The "Felicini" jewel, by Francia. Reproduced from a picture in the Bologna Gallery. _p. 170._ 2. Enamelled gold pendant, figured with the Annunciation. Italian, fifteenth century. _p. 173._ (Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan.) 3. Pendent jewel of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, set with three rubies ("the Brethren"), a diamond, and four pearls. _p. 209._ 4. Two silver-gilt girdle-plates, with figures of Samson and St. Michael. Flemish, fifteenth century. _p. 163._ (Herr James Simon, of Berlin.) XXVI. DESIGNS FOR JEWELLERY BY DÜRER AND HOLBEIN. (B. M.) _p. 190._ 1. Drawings for two ring-shaped pendent whistles by Dürer. _p. 190._ 2-3. Etchings for (2) a buckle and buckle-plate and (3) a girdle-end, by Hollar, from lost originals by Dürer. _p. 191._ 4-9. Drawings by Holbein. _p. 212._ 4. Jewelled pendant: a monogram of the letters R and E. 5. A pendant of open goldwork with ribbon ornament; a diamond in the centre, surrounded by six pearls, and a pearl below. 6. Pendant formed in a monogram of the letters H and I. 7-8. Two pendants each formed of two stones, one above the other, set in goldwork, with three pearls below. 9. Pendant: a bust of a woman holding before her a large stone, on which are the words _Well Laydi Well_. XXVII. DESIGNS FOR JEWELLERY by SOLIS, WOEIRIOT, HORNIC, AND BROSAMER _p. 194._ 1-2. Engravings for pendants by Virgil Solis. _p. 194._ (B. M.) 3. Engraving for a pendant by Pierre Woeiriot, dated 1555. _p. 201_ (B. M.) 4-6. Engravings for pendants by Erasmus Hornick: Neptune and Amphitrite, and St. George and the Dragon. _p. 194._ (B. M.) 7. Drawing for pendent whistle by Han Brosamer, fitted with toothpick, etc. _pp. 193, 250._ (Mr. Max Rosenheim.) XXVIII. RENAISSANCE JEWELLERY OF ENAMELLED GOLD. (His Majesty the King) _p. 218._ 1. Painted enamel back of a "lesser George" of the Garter, belonging to Charles II. English, seventeenth century. _p. 292._ 2. Enamelled gold enseigne, with figures of St. George and the Dragon. Venetian, sixteenth century. _p. 224._ 3. Enamelled gold pendant, with figures of Apollo and Daphne: inscribed: DAPHNEM PHEBVS AMAT, etc. Italian, sixteenth century. 4. The Lennox or Darnley Jewel. Scottish, sixteenth century. _pp. 217 and 257._ 5. Miniature case of enamelled gold, open-worked and set with diamonds and rubies. English, late sixteenth or early seventeenth century. It contains a lock of hair of Charles I taken from his coffin. _p. 257._ From the _Connoisseur_ (1903). By permission of Mr. J. T. Herbert Baily. XXIX. RENAISSANCE ENSEIGNES OF ENAMELLED GOLD _p. 226._ 1. Head of John the Baptist on a charger. Italian, sixteenth century. _p. 226._ (V. and A. M.) 2. Bust of Helen. Italian, sixteenth century. (Poldi-Pezzoli Museum, Milan.) 3. Battle scene. Italian, sixteenth century. _p. 225._ (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.) 4. Head of a negro in agate. German, sixteenth century. _p. 228._ (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.) 5. Leda and the Swan. By Cellini. _p. 228._ (Antiken Kabinet, Vienna.) 6. Cameo bust of Nero on sardonyx, in enamelled mount set with diamonds and rubies. French, sixteenth century. (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.) (Photo, Giraudon.) 7. Cameo of Diana on sardonyx in enamelled setting. French, sixteenth century. (B. M.) 8. Onyx cameo, winged female head in enamelled setting. French, sixteenth century. (B. M.) XXX. HAT-ORNAMENTS (AIGRETTES, ETC.). LATE SIXTEENTH AND EARLY SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES _p. 230._ 1. Two coloured drawings for jewelled aigrettes. By Arnold Lulls, jeweller to James I. _pp. 231 and 302-3._ (V. and A. M.) 2. Gold enseigne of Sir Francis Drake: enamelled and set with diamonds, rubies, and opals. _p. 230._ See also Plate XXXIV, 3. (Sir F. Fuller-Eliott-Drake.) 3. Socket for an aigrette, enamelled gold set with rubies: initials D. M.--Dorothea Maria, wife of Otto Henry, Count Palatine of Neuburg. _pp. 230-1._ (Bavarian National Museum, Munich.) 4. Enamelled gold aigrette set with emeralds, pearls, etc. S. German, early seventeenth century. (Formerly the property of Sir T. D. Gibson Carmichael.) XXXI. GERMAN AND FRENCH RENAISSANCE PENDENTS _p. 244._ 1. Necklace and pendant of enamelled gold set with diamonds, rubies, and pearls. German, late sixteenth century. (Lady Rothschild.) 2. Pendant of enamelled gold. In the centre a table-cut emerald with a triangular emerald above. French, sixteenth century. (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.) 3. Gold pendant: on the front two raised shields of arms; on the back the initials D. A. German, about 1530. _p. 248._ (V. and A. M.) 4. Cameo bust of a woman, the head carnelian, with amethyst drapery, jewelled gold crown; gold background and black enamelled frame. German, sixteenth century. (His Majesty the King.) 5. Pendant in the shape of a Sphynx. The body formed of a large baroque pearl. Head, breast, and arms are flesh-coloured enamel; the claw opaque white with gold scales; the tail green, set with diamonds. On the breast is a ruby. The base mounted with a row of diamonds on white enamel, the creatures at each end being green. The chains, of white enamel set with diamonds, hang from a ruby, from which is suspended a heart-shaped pearl. German, late sixteenth century. (Lady Rothschild.) 6. Portrait cameo in agate. Gold mount enamelled black and white and set with four rubies and two diamonds, with a pendent pearl. The portrait (unidentified) is represented on a contemporary medal by a north Italian artist. The mount, French, sixteenth century. (Bibliothèque Nationale Paris.) 7. Gold pomander case: enriched with brilliant blue, red, and translucent green enamel, and opaque white. Set with rubies and pendent pearls, German, late sixteenth century. (Lady Rothschild.) XXXII. THREE PENDENT JEWELS _p. 246._ Gold, enriched with polychrome enamels, set with precious stones and hung with pearls. German, about 1600. (Lady Rothschild.) XXXIII. PENDENT JEWELS BY HANS COLLAERT, ETC. _p. 248._ 1. Enamelled gold pendant: in centre a figure of Charity with three children, on each side a pilaster set with diamonds and rubies alternately, with a cupid above, and beyond each pilaster a figure of Faith on one side and Fortitude on the other. German, sixteenth century. (B. M., Waddesdon Bequest.) 2. Design for a pendant by Hans Collaert (1581). _p. 196._ (Mr. Max Rosenheim.) 3. Pendant in the style of Collaert: enamelled gold, in the form of a ship, with figures of Antony and Cleopatra. _pp. 197, 247._ (Mr. Charles Wertheimer.) XXXIV. RENAISSANCE PENDANTS, ETC., OF GOLD, ENAMELLED AND JEWELLED. SPANISH (1-2) AND ENGLISH (3-6). _p. 254._ 1-2. SPANISH PENDANTS, LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. From the Treasury of the Virgen del Pilar, Saragossa. 1. Jewel in form of a parrot: translucent green enamel, the breast set with a hyacinth. _p. 249._ 2. Jewel of enamelled gold: a dog standing on a scroll, set with diamonds, rubies, and an emerald. (V. and A. M.) 3-4. THE DRAKE JEWELS: presented to Sir Francis Drake by Queen Elizabeth. 3. Enseigne of enamelled gold set with diamonds, rubies, and opals; the centre ruby engraved with the Queen's orb and cross. _p. 230._ 4. Enamelled gold pendant, containing a miniature of Elizabeth by Hilliard. _p. 253._ (Sir F. Fuller-Eliott-Drake.) 5-6. THE ARMADA JEWEL. Believed to have been presented by Queen Elizabeth to Sir Francis Walsingham. Possibly the work of Nicholas Hilliard. 5. Front: Gold bust of the Queen. 6. Back: Ark resting peacefully on troubled waves. Inside: Miniature of Elizabeth by Hilliard. _p. 255._ (Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan.) XXXV. ELIZABETHAN JEWELLERY _p. 256._ 1. The Phoenix Jewel. _p. 255._ (B. M.) 2. Drake pendant in the form of a ship. _p. 253._ (Lord Fitzhardinge.) 3. Pendent miniature case, with carved medallion in mother-of-pearl. _p. 256._ (Poldi-Pezzoli Museum, Milan.) 4. The Barbor Jewel. _p. 254._ (V. and A. M.) 5. The Hunsdon Armlet. _p. 265-6._ (Lord Fitzhardinge.) 6. Onyx cameo in gold mount, presented to Queen Elizabeth by Archbishop Parker. (Described in _Arch. Journ._ Vol. XIX.) (Mr. G. E. Lloyd Baker.) 7. Edward VI's Prayer Book. _p. 274._ (Lord Fitzhardinge.) XXXVI. RENAISSANCE AND LATER RINGS. (V. and A. M.) _p. 262._ 1. Gold wedding ring: open-work hands (_fede_), inscribed within: QVOD DEVS CONIVNVIT HOMO NON SEPARET. Florentine, sixteenth century. _p. 262._ 2. Jewish wedding ring of enamelled gold. Italian, sixteenth century. _p. 262._ 3. Gold wedding ring, set with rose diamond between enamelled hands. English, dated 1706. _p. 321._ 4. Gold, set with a pointed diamond. English, seventeenth century. _p. 260._ 5. Jewish wedding ring of enamelled gold in form of a temple. German, sixteenth century. _p. 262._ 6. Enamelled gold, set with a diamond. Italian, sixteenth century. 7. Enamelled gold, figure of Cupid with a garnet on the breast. Seventeenth century. 8. Gold, set with a miniature portrait of James Stuart, the Old Chevalier. 9. Giardinetti ring: a basket of flowers composed of diamonds, rubies, and emeralds. English, eighteenth century. _p. 295._ 10. Giardinetti: set with diamonds and rubies in the form of a vase of flowers. English, late seventeenth century. _p. 295._ 11. Memorial: chased with death's head in white enamel, and having diamond eyes. English, seventeenth century. _p. 367._ 12. Memorial: with enamelled skull. Inscribed: BEHOLD THE ENDE. (Said to have belonged to Charles I.) _p. 366._ 13. Memorial: bezel enclosing painted female figure, bearing inscription: NOT LOST BUT GONE BEFORE. English, dated 1788. _p. 369._ 14. Memorial: bezel enclosing funereal urn in hair and gold. English, dated 1781. _p. 369._ XXXVII. RENAISSANCE BRACELETS _p. 266._ 1. Gold bracelet of circular fluted links with enamelled clasp. German, late sixteenth century. _p. 266._ (V. and A. M.) 2. Bracelet of enamelled gold. French, seventeenth century. _p. 294._ (V. and A. M.) 3-4. Bracelet of Diana of Poitiers, enamelled gold, set with cameos. _p. 266._ (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.) (Photo, Giraudon.) 5. Gold bracelet of Otto Henry, Count Palatine of Neuburg (d. 1604), with his wife's initials-- D M P B R G H Z W V T (Dorothea Maria Pfalzgräfin bei Rhein geborne Herzogin zu Wirtemberg und Tek.) Compare _p. 230._ (Bavarian National Museum, Munich.) XXXVIII. RENAISSANCE GIRDLES _p. 272._ 1. Italian, fifteenth-century girdle of gold tissue with gilt metal mounts. _p. 163._ (V. and A. M.) 2. Silver gilt chain girdle. German, late sixteenth century. (Mrs. Percy Macquoid.) 3. Nuremberg girdle of leather, with silver-gilt mounts. Seventeenth century. _p. 272._ (V. and A. M.) XXXIX. ENGRAVED DESIGNS FOR JEWELLERY BY DANIEL MIGNOT. _p. 280._ (Mr. Max Rosenheim.) _p. 280._ XL. ENGRAVED DESIGNS FOR JEWELLERY BY GILLES LÉGARÉ AND PAUL BIRCKENHULTZ _p. 282._ 1-2. Designs for pendants, seals, and rings; from Gilles Légaré's _Livre des Ouvrages d'Orfévrerie_. _p. 282._ (B. M.) 3. Seal in the style of Légaré. The upper part gold with painted enamel; below, engraved on steel, the Royal Arms of the Stuarts, with bâton sinister, of Anne Fitz Roy (b. 1661, d. 1721, married 1674, Lord Dacre, created Earl of Sussex), daughter of Barbara Villiers, Duchess of Cleveland, and Charles II. (Col. Croft Lyons.) 4. Design for a pendant by Paul Birckenhultz. _pp. 280-1._ (Mr. Max Rosenheim.) XLI. ENGRAVED PATTERNS FOR JEWELLERY, AND ENAMELLED JEWELS EXECUTED FROM SIMILAR DESIGNS. LATE SIXTEENTH AND EARLY SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES _p. 284._ 1. Design for enamelled jewellery by Hans Hensel, of Sagan (1599). _p. 284._ (Mr. Max Rosenheim.) 2. Gold ring set with flat heart-shaped garnet: design on shoulders reserved in gold on white enamel. Early seventeenth century. _p. 295._ (B. M.) 3. Design for jewellery in champlevé enamel, by Guillaume de la Quewellerie, of Amsterdam (1611). _p. 284._ (V. and A. M.) 4. Gold ring: the shoulders enamelled in the champlevé manner with design in black and white. Late sixteenth century. (V. and A. M.) 5. Design for an enamelled ring by Hans van Ghemert (1585). _p. 284._ (V. and A. M.) 6. Design for enamel-work by Jean Toutin (1619). _p. 285._ (Mr. Max Rosenheim.) 7. The Lyte Jewel, containing a portrait of James I by Isaac Oliver. Reverse side, with "silhouette" pattern in gold and ruby champlevé enamel on white ground. English, about 1610. _pp. 303-4._ (B. M., Waddesdon Bequest.) (Enamel-work of identical design occurs on the back of a miniature-case, containing a portrait of Charles I by Peter Oliver, dated 1626, in the collection of Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan.) 8. Design for enamel-work in the "niello" or "silhouette" manner, by Stephanus Carteron (1615). _p. 285._ (Mr. Max Rosenheim.) XLII. SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY ENAMELLED PENDANTS, ETC. _p. 290._ 1. Gold pendant, containing an onyx cameo surrounded by ribbon-work and flowers of coloured enamel, set with rose diamonds. French. (Mr. Jeffery Whitehead.) 2-3. Pair of earrings _en suite_ formed of a hand holding a bow and bunch of flowers. 4. Pendant: an interlaced monogram of turquoise enamel suspended from a crown-shaped ornament, enamelled and set with diamonds. French. (Mr. Jeffery Whitehead.) 5. Gold pendant of variegated enamel (translucent and opaque) in form of a basket filled with fruit, with flowers above, and a bird on the top. (H. C. S.) 6. Small aigrette of silver in form of a bunch of flowers springing from a vase, set with rose diamonds, and bearing traces of enamel. (H. C. S.) XLIII. SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY ENAMELLED MINIATURE-CASES, LOCKETS, ETC. _p. 292._ [A]1. Gold miniature-case by Jean Toutin: the design reserved in gold on a ground of black enamel. _p. 293._ (Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan.) 2. Gold miniature-case, translucent green enamel, with pattern in white, from a design by Pierre Firens. _p. 293._ (V. and A. M., Dyce Collection.) [A]3. Gold miniature-case of translucent green enamel (_émail en résille_) with "pea-pod" design in green and red; enclosing miniature of Charles II by Samuel Cooper. _p. 293._ (Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan.) [A]4. Crystal reliquary mounted in enamelled gold and set with a plaque of _verre églomisé_. Spanish, about 1600. _p. 203._ (Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan.) [A]5. Gold locket of purple enamel with floral design in white, yellow, and green on gold (_émail en résille_). French. (Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan.) 6. Pendant, set with a cameo of Lucrezia de' Medici in open-work floral border of painted enamel. French. _p. 292._ (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.) [A]7. Gold miniature-case of open-work design enamelled in green, blue, and white; containing a miniature of James I. English. (Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan.) 8. Gold locket with painted ("Louis-Treize") enamel of various colours in relief on blue ground. English. _p. 293._ (Mrs. B. Spring-Rice.) [A] Reproduced by permission of Dr. Williamson, acting on behalf of Mr. J. Pierpoint Morgan. Copyright reserved. XLIV. RINGS, SLIDES, AND PENDANTS (CHIEFLY MEMORIAL). SEVENTEENTH AND EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES _p. 294._ 1. Memorial ring, black enamel: set with crystal over a skull and cross-bones; dated 1740. 2. Gold memorial locket with faceted crystal enclosing hair; inscribed behind: "_Of such is the Kingdom of God_." English, late seventeenth century. _p. 368._ 3. Memorial ring, black enamel; dated 1777. 4. Memorial ring, white enamel; dated 1739. 5. Memorial ring, white enamel; dated 1793. 6. Memorial ring, black enamel; set with faceted crystal enclosing minute pattern in gold wire. English, early eighteenth century. (1--6--H. C. S.) 7. Back of a gold slide: painted enamel with initials E. J. beneath a coronet. (Viscount Falkland.) 8. Gold ring: open-work floral pattern in painted enamel; inscribed with a posy. _p. 295._ (Viscount Falkland.) 9. Silver locket surrounded by pearls, with faceted crystal enclosing monogram in gold wire. English, late seventeenth century. _p. 368._ (Mrs. Stewart King.) 10-14. Memorial slides, with various devices and initials in gold wire over hair or ribbed silk beneath faceted crystal. English, late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. _p. 368._ (Mr. Jeffery Whitehead.) 15. Gold pendant set with an antique Roman cameo in open-work floral border of painted enamel. English, seventeenth century. _p. 292._ (His Majesty the King.) 16. "Memento Mori" jewel of enamelled gold; inscribed round the sides: "_Through the resurrection of Christe we be all sanctified_." English, about 1600. _p. 365._ (V. and A. M.) 17. Gold pendant set with a cameo of Lucius Verus, in border of "pea-pod" ornament. From a design by Pierre Marchant. French, early seventeenth century. _p. 292._ (B. M.) XLV. PAGE FROM THE LEDGER OF SIR FRANCIS CHILD, JEWELLER TO WILLIAM III. About 1674. Preserved at Child's Bank, No. 1 Fleet Street, London, E. C. _p. 306._ (By permission of Mr. F. G. Hilton Price.) _p. 304._ XLVI. EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY JEWELLERY, FRENCH AND ENGLISH _p. 316._ 1-3. Pendant, and two earrings _en suite_ containing paintings _en grisaille_ on mother-of-pearl, in gold frames set with rubies, diamonds, and strings of pearls. French, Louis XVI. (Mr. Jeffery Whitehead.) 4. Rosette-shaped brooch pavé with white paste of fine quality. English, early eighteenth century. (Col. Croft Lyons.) 5-6. Pair of _girandole_ earrings with paste sapphires. Formerly the property of Madame du Barry. French, Louis XV. _p. 217._ (Lady Monckton.) 7. Necklet and pendant of pink paste and marcasite. English, about 1760. (Col. Croft Lyons.) XLVII. EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY NECKLACES, ETC. (Mr. Jeffery Whitehead) _p. 320._ 1. Necklet and pendant of paste in silver setting. English. 2-3. Pair of oval memorial clasps containing _grisaille_ paintings within pearl borders. English. _p. 369._ 4. Necklace of cut steel with Wedgwood cameos in white on blue. English. LXVIII. EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY CHATELAINES (Mr. Jeffery Whitehead) _p. 322._ 1. Chatelaine (equipage) of cut steel mounted with Wedgwood ware in white cameo on blue jasper ground, hung with a watch and two watch keys. English, about 1780. 2. Chatelaine (equipage) of gold formed of a hook with five pendants--a scissor-case, two thimble or scent cases, and two needle or bodkin cases. French, Louis XV. _p. 323._ 3. Oval memorial clasp of blue enamel with minute design in carved ivory and pearl work, mounted in paste frame. English. _p. 369._ XLIX. EMPIRE HEAD-ORNAMENTS _p. 326._ 1. Empire tiara of rose diamonds set in silver, on gold mounts. (Mrs. Kirby.) 2. Empire head-ornament (_bandeau_) of gold, enriched with blue enamel, and set with twenty-five carnelian intaglios. Formerly the property of the Empress Josephine. (Mr. M. G. Lloyd Baker.) 3. Empire comb _en suite_ set with four carnelian intaglios. (Mr. M. G. Lloyd Baker.) L. EARLY NINETEENTH-CENTURY JEWELLERY _p. 328._ 1-2. Pair of earrings in form of baskets of flowers, enamelled, and set with turquoises and pearls. (Mr. Jeffery Whitehead.) 3-4. Pair of bracelet clasps of beaded goldwork set with various coloured stones, with Crown and Royal cypher in enamel. Formerly the property of Queen Charlotte. (Mr. Jeffery Whitehead.) 5. Necklace and pendent cross, with brooch and earrings _en suite_: of beaded gold and filigree, set with pink topazes and pearls. English. (Lady Ramsay.) 6. Necklace, with brooch and earring _en suite_, of coloured gold set with amethysts and pearls. English. (Lady Ramsay.) LI. BUCKLES AND NECKLACES. LATE EIGHTEENTH AND EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURIES _p. 330._ 1-2. Pair of steel buckles partly plated with silver. Signed W. Hipkins. _p. 315._ (H. C. S.) 3. Girdle-clasp of faceted steel. English (Birmingham), late eighteenth century. _p. 315._ (V. and A. M.) 4. Gold shoe-buckle. English, eighteenth century. _p. 322._ (V. and A. M.) 5. Silver girdle-buckle. English, eighteenth century. (H. C. S.) 6. Silver shoe-buckle. English, eighteenth century. (H. C. S.) 7. Necklace of delicate gold filigree enriched with blue enamel and set with sapphire pastes. Early nineteenth century. (Mrs. Holman Hunt.) 8. Necklace of cast iron mounted with gold: the oval plaques, in open-work, alternately a spray of flowers and a figure subject in the style of an antique gem. Prussia (Berlin), early nineteenth century. _p. 330._ (V. and A. M.) LII. MODERN FRENCH JEWELLERY. (V. and A. M.) _p. 338._ 1. Enamelled gold brooch. By Georges Fouquet. 2. Neck-ornament (_plaque de collier_): carved horn, set with pink baroque pearls. By René Lalique. 3. Pin for the hair, gold, set with opals and diamonds. By Gaston Laffitte. 4. Gold pendant set with diamonds and an opal, and enriched with open-work translucent enamel in high relief. By Comte du Suau de la Croix. 5. Enamelled gold pendant, set with diamonds, opals, and emeralds. By G. Gautrain. LIII. SPANISH, PORTUGUESE, FLEMISH, AND FRENCH PEASANT JEWELLERY, ETC. _p. 342._ 1. Bow-shaped breast-ornament of gold set with emeralds, and having large emerald pendant. Spanish, seventeenth century. _p. 204._ (Mrs. Close.) 2. Earring of gold filigree hung with pendants. Portuguese. _p. 347._ (Lady Cook, Viscondessa de Monserrate.) 3. Gold pendant set with rose diamonds mounted on silver rosettes. Flemish, eighteenth century. _p. 345._ (H. C. S.) 4. Silver cross set with crystals. French (Normandy). _p. 342._ (H. C. S.) 5. Pendent badge of brass, enamelled black, white, and blue, containing a crowned monogram of the Virgin. Spanish (Barcelona), seventeenth century. _p. 204._ (H. C. S.) LIV. "ADRIATIC" JEWELLERY. _p. 346._ 1. Pendant in form of a ship, enriched with coloured enamels and hung with clusters of pearls. (Mr. Jeffery Whitehead.) 2. Ship pendant of gold filigree hung with pearls. (Mr. Jeffery Whitehead.) 3-4. Pair of enamelled earrings hung with clusters of pearls. (Mr. Jeffery Whitehead.) 5. Long earring of gold filigree mounted and hung with pearls. (Mr. Jeffery Whitehead.) 6-8. Pendant and pair of earrings, of gold filigree enriched with coloured enamels. From the Island of Patmos. (Mr. Cecil H. Smith.) ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT Safety-pin xli Romano-British brooch or fibula with bilateral spring xlii Brooch formed of double spiral discs of concentric wire ("Spectacle" fibula) xlii Celtic brooch xliii Ring-brooch (Tomb of Queen Berengaria of Navarre, wife of Richard Coeur de Lion, at Le Mans) xliii Buckle, with buckle-plate and tag. German, about 1490. (Victoria and Albert Museum) xlvi Bronze fibula. (Ireland) xlvii Collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece, made in 1432 by John Peutin, of Bruges, jeweller to Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy. (From the portrait of Baldwin de Lannoy by John van Eyck at Berlin) 90 Interior of a jeweller's shop. From _Kreuterbuch_. (Frankfort, 1536) 98 Gold ring engraved and enamelled with figures of the Virgin and Child and St. John the Evangelist. Scottish, fifteenth century. (Nat. Museum of Antiquities, Edinburgh) 104 Necklace worn by the daughter of Tommaso Portinari in Van der Goes' triptych in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence 117 Pomander. From _Kreuterbuch_. (Frankfort, 1569) 126 A mediæval lapidary. From _Ortus Sanitatis_. (Strasburg, about 1497) 134 Mantle clasp (portion) on effigy of Henry IV. (Canterbury Cathedral) 140 Brooch of the Virgin in Lochner's "Dombild." (Cologne Cathedral) 145 English gold ring, fifteenth century. Engraved with the "Annunciation," and the words _en bon an_. (Mr. E. Richardson-Cox) 150 French gold ring, fourteenth century. (Louvre) 154 A goldsmith in his workshop. From _Hortus Sanitatis_. (Strasburg, 1536) 158 "Luckenbooth" brooch of silver. (Nat. Museum of Antiquities, Edinburgh) 165 Pendant worn by one of the Three Graces in Botticelli's "Primavera." 169 Jewel, in Ghirlandaio's portrait of Giovanna Tornabuoni 170 Brooch worn by the Virgin on fifteenth-century Florentine picture (No. 296, National Gallery, London) 174 A fifteenth-century jeweller. From _Ortus Sanitatis_. (Strasburg, about 1497) 176 Design for a pendent whistle by Hans Brosamer 198 Design for a pendant by Hans Brosamer 205 Earring, from Portrait of a Lady by Sodoma. (Frankfort Gallery) 233 Design for a pendant by Jacques Androuet Ducerceau 241 The Penruddock Jewel 252 Triple rings set with pointed diamonds. Device of Cosimo de' Medici. From Paolo Giovio's _Dialogo dell' imprese_. (Figured in Botticelli's "Pallas" in the Pitti Gallery) 260 Rings on a roll of parchment. From _Kreuterbuch_. (Frankfort, 1536) 263 Design for a bracelet by Jacques Androuet Ducerceau 269 Jean Toutin in his workshop, firing an enamelled jewel 289 Design for a pendent miniature-frame by Pierre Marchant 306 PREFACE The term Jewellery is used generally in a very wide sense, and it has been necessary to impose certain limitations upon its meaning for the purpose of the present work. Jewellery may be defined as comprising various objects adapted to personal ornament, precious in themselves or rendered precious by their workmanship. The jewel worn as a personal ornament may be merely decorative, such as the aigrette or the pendant, or it may be useful as well as ornamental, such as the brooch or the girdle. Gems and precious stones are not jewels, in the present sense, until the jeweller's skill has wrought and set them. This definition will be found to correspond with the term _minuteria_ adopted by Italian writers on the goldsmith's art for objects in precious materials employed for the adornment of the person, as distinct from _grosseria_--those fashioned for household use or ornament. With the exception of a chapter dealing with Egyptian jewellery, I have confined myself solely to Europe. The work falls into four main divisions. The first deals with the jewellery worn during classical times, and until the ninth century of our era. The second treats of the jewels of the Middle Ages. The third is devoted to the jewels of the Renaissance, and the fourth includes those of subsequent times. In the chapters dealing with Renaissance and later jewellery I have endeavoured to utilise the valuable evidence, hitherto generally overlooked or neglected, which may be derived from the engraved designs and working drawings of jewellers, from personal inventories, and from pictures by the old masters. Perhaps too generous a share of attention has been bestowed on English work; but this may be pardoned when it is remembered that the previous literature of jewellery has been almost entirely from the pens of French and German writers. While fully appreciating the importance and interest of the recent revival of artistic jewellery, I have not thought it necessary, in a book intended mainly for the connoisseur, to give more than a rapid review of the main features of the modern movement, with a brief mention of some prominent craftsmen therein employed. For similar reasons no general account is given of the processes of manufacturing articles of jewellery, though references are made to technical methods when they serve to explain points of artistic importance. Assistance has been supplied by numerous works. The largest debt is due to the learned art historian Ferdinand Luthmer, whose standard work _Gold und Silber_ has afforded most important aid. From Rücklin's _Schmuckbuch_ I have constantly derived instruction; and Fontenay's _Bijoux anciens et modernes_ has been a storehouse of information. Other books which have been of service are included in the Bibliography. It is now my duty and pleasure to express my obligations to all those whose unvarying kindness has facilitated my researches. Special thanks are due: to Lady Rothschild, who has presented me with photographs, specially taken for the purpose, of some of her choicest jewels; to Lady Fuller-Eliott-Drake, who at considerable personal inconvenience brought the Drake jewels to London; to Mr. Jeffery Whitehead, who despatched for my use a number of jewels from his collection; to Mr. Max Rosenheim, who, besides placing at my disposal his unrivalled series of engraved designs for jewellery, has read through and corrected the portion of the subject dealing with engraved ornament; to Sir John Evans, K.C.B., who has guided me personally through his splendid collections of early jewellery; and to Dr. Williamson, for assisting me in many ways, and for the loan, on behalf of Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, of copyright photographs of the finest enamelled miniature-cases from his catalogue of Mr. Morgan's collection, with leave to describe and reproduce such of them as I might select for this volume. Among those who have favoured me with permission to publish the treasures in their possession I must gratefully mention Lady Cook (Viscondessa de Monserrate), Lady Ramsay, Lady Monckton, Mrs. Holman Hunt, Mrs. Percy Macquoid, the Marquess of Clanricarde, Viscount Falkland, and Lord Fitzhardinge; also Herr James Simon, of Berlin, and Lieut.-Col. G. B. Croft Lyons, who have presented me with photographs of their jewels. Thanks are also due to Dr. Kitchin, Dean of Durham, for the photograph of St. Cuthbert's Cross; to Dr. Spooner, Warden of New College, for permission and aid in photographing the New College jewels; to Dr. J. Anderson, Director of the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland, for the loan of blocks of two jewels in the Edinburgh Museum; to Mr. F. G. Hilton Price, who enabled me to photograph the old ledgers in Child's Bank; and to Mr. J. T. Herbert Baily, for leave to reproduce illustrations to my articles on the King's gems and jewels at Windsor Castle in the "Connoisseur" (1902-3). The names of many others, who have kindly lent me jewels or photographs, will be found, attached to the individual objects, in the List of Illustrations. I would especially thank, amongst others, the following officers of the Continental museums who have generously presented me with photographs of articles of jewellery in the collections under their charge, or have aided me with their advice:--Sir Henry Angst, K.C.M.G., British Consul-General for Switzerland, late Director of the Zurich Museum; M. E. van Overloop, Conservator of the Royal Museums, Brussels; Dr. Lindenschmidt, Director of the Mainz Museum; Dr. Hermann J. Hermann, Keeper of the Imperial Art Collections, Vienna; Dr. Wilhelm Behncke, late of the Kunstgewerbe Museum, Berlin; Dr. H. Graf, Director of the Bavarian National Museum, Munich; Dr. L. Curtius, of the Antiquarium, Munich; and M. J. de Foville, of the Cabinet des Médailles, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. Grateful acknowledgment is also due to the officers of the British Museum for the help they have given me, particularly to Mr. Cyril Davenport for numerous valuable suggestions. To my colleagues in the Victoria and Albert Museum I owe cordial thanks for much encouragement and help, particularly to Mr. A. Van de Put for his aid in reading through the proofs of this volume; and above all to Mr. Martin Hardie, A.R.E., who, besides executing the pen-drawings which illustrate the text, has assisted me in various ways, and throughout the whole course of the present work has favoured me with constant advice and suggestions. H. CLIFFORD SMITH INTRODUCTION The love of ornament prompted by vanity is inherent in the human race. A most primitive instinct of human beings is to make their persons more beautiful, more imposing, or more striking by ornamentation. This inclination is as old as dress itself, nay, perhaps, dates even further back. For there are tribes to whom climate and civilisation have not yet suggested the necessity of clothing the body, but who nevertheless possess ornaments of some degree of development. From the rudest of beginnings up to the last refinements of art, jewelled ornaments have ever the same purpose in view--to give prominence to individual parts of the body by means of glittering, beautiful objects which involuntarily draw the eye of the spectator in the desired direction. Jewellery is not only worn with the purpose of attracting attention and setting off the beauty of the person, but satisfies the desire, not less deep-rooted in humanity, of establishing a distinctive mark of rank and dignity. In fact the wearing of certain kinds of ornaments has at times been fixed by legislation. Among savages, and races not far removed from barbarism, it may be observed that the love of ornament is chiefly characteristic of men. As civilisation advances it is displayed more and more by women alone. Yet even a century ago, among the most civilised nations of Europe, the "beaux" and "macaronis" adorned themselves with jewellery of all kinds. To-day, however, it is confined, and with greater propriety, almost entirely to women. Desirous always of pleasing, the gentle sex has ever sought to add to its charms by adorning itself with jewels. Two methods of dealing with the history of the present subject present themselves. One method consists in taking individual classes of jewellery, tracing their complete development, and following the changes they undergo during the various periods of civilisation. By the other--the historical method--all types of jewellery in existence at a particular time are examined side by side within the historical period to which they belong. The general changes that take place at one epoch find an echo in every piece of jewellery that belongs to that epoch. The different classes of jewellery during every period all bear a distinct relationship of style. For instance, the changes which take place in the aspect of the necklace at a particular epoch will be found to occur at the same time in that of the bracelet and girdle. But there may exist the widest divergence in style and idea between a particular piece of jewellery and its successor of a subsequent period. For these reasons an historical and chronological mode of treatment has been adopted, which will allow more completeness of observation, and fuller and more scientific investigation of style and craftmanship. Certain difficulties are nevertheless encountered, because periods and fashions naturally overlap. This is particularly the case in times when communication was not easy; since some people would cling to an old form of jewellery, while others, more travelled or more fashionably minded, would prefer a new. In proceeding towards a systematic classification of personal ornaments it may be advisable, instead of dealing with the separate ornaments of each period according to their relative importance or prominence, to follow a simpler and more natural plan. Thus, the ornaments dealt with in each succeeding epoch will in every case be those worn: (1) on the head--diadems, tiaras, aigrettes, hair-pins, jewels for the hat and cap, and earrings; (2) on the neck--necklaces and neck-chains hung with numerous varieties of pendants; (3) on the breast--brooches, clasps, buttons; (4) on the limbs--armlets, anklets, bracelets, rings; and (5) on the body and waist--girdles and their various attachments, chatelaines, and miscellaneous pendent ornaments, such as pomanders, scent-cases, rosaries, etc. A few preliminary words may be said respecting the evolution of some of the various ornaments employed on the different parts of the body. The custom of decorating the head with jewelled ornaments was probably suggested by the natural idea of encircling it with flowers in token of joy or triumph. The use of diadems was in early times generally reserved for those of noble birth. From the fillets employed for binding the hair, developed circlets, which with the addition of precious stones assumed the dignity of crowns. The use of earrings as personal ornaments seems to have originated in the East, where they have always been in favour. Earrings formed an important article of jewellery during the classical ages, but they were not commonly worn again in Europe until the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. At the present moment fashion does not decree their general use. The necklace--one of the most primitive of ornaments--is worn either close round the throat, loosely round the neck, or low down upon the breast. Occasionally, as among savage peoples, it takes the form of a ring; but as a rule it is formed either of a simple cord, or a chain formed by the appropriate linking together of rings, perforated discs, or pierced balls. Artistic effects are produced by a regular alternation of these details, as well as by the tapering of the chain from the middle towards the ends. Neck-chains with symbolic elements are those worn as orders and as signs of dignity. The necklace may be further ornamented by a row of pendants, or more generally a single pendent ornament. The pendant thus employed has become, perhaps, the most beautiful of all articles of adornment. It occupies a conspicuous position upon the person, and possibly for this reason has evoked the greatest skill and refinement of the jeweller's art. Its varieties are manifold--from the primitive charm, and the symbolic ornaments of the Middle Ages, to the elaborate pendant, for the most part purely decorative, dating from Renaissance times. Next comes the important group of ornaments worn chiefly on the breast, comprising brooches, clasps and pins, employed for fastening the dress. All have their origin in the simple pin. To this class belongs the hair-pin, of which the most handsome and varied examples are to be found in ancient work. Unlike modern hair-pins which are provided with two points, they have a single cylindrical or slightly conical stem, pointed at one end, and terminated at the other with a knob or some other finial. A simple pin for the dress was uncommon in antiquity, and its general use for this purpose belongs to comparatively recent times. Its place was always taken, especially in early periods, by a brooch--an outcome of the pin--which supplied the want of buttons. The brooch, an ornament of very considerable importance, can be traced down from the earliest civilisation, and is a valuable criterion in questions of ethnic movements. The story, however, of the growth of each of the different classes into which primitive brooches may be divided, the periods at which these ornaments made their appearance, and the deductions of ethnographical interest that may be drawn therefrom, must of necessity lie outside the scope of the present work. [Illustration: Safety pin.] All brooches, as has been said, originated from the simple pin, which itself was preceded by and probably derived from a thorn. At an early period this pin, after having been passed through the garment, was for greater security bent up, and its point caught behind the head. Later, in order that the point might be held more securely in the catch, the pin was given a complete turn, which produced the spring, as seen in the common form of our modern safety-pin. Thus constructed, the brooch, though in one piece, may be said to consist of four parts; (_a_) the acus or pin; (_b_) the spring or hinge; (_c_) the catch or locking apparatus, which forms the sheath of the pin; and (_d_) the bow or back--the framework uniting the spring with the catch. [Illustration: Romano-British brooch or fibula with bilateral spring.] From this primitive safety-pin, which is the foundation form of all brooches with a catch, developed the numerous varieties and patterns of the brooch or fibula of succeeding ages. Amongst these is the Roman fibula, which instead of being made of one piece of metal, is of two pieces--the bow and the acus. The pin here works on a hinge--the result of gradually extending the coils of the spring symmetrically on each side of the pin into what is known as the double-twisted or bilateral spring, and placing a bar through the coils thus made. From the brooch hinged in this manner originated the Roman provincial fibula of the #T#-shaped type common in France and Britain, and later the cruciform brooch of Anglo-Saxon times. The brooch with with a hinge was exclusively used until the revival of the "safety pin" with a spring, patented as a new invention in the nineteenth century. [Illustration: Brooch formed of double spiral discs of concentric wire ("Spectacle" fibula.)] In addition to the above brooches or fibulæ (group 1)--all developments of the safety-pin type--there are three other large groups of brooches: (2) the circular disc type; (3) the penannular or Celtic brooch; and (4) the ring-brooch. The first of these--the type generally worn at the present day--may be described as a flat disc fitted with a hinged pin. In cemeteries belonging to the Early Iron Age in Southern Europe circular plates have been found fitted with a pin. These plates appear[1] to have been developed by the conversion of a primitive disc of spiral concentric wire into a circular plate. From the brooch of this type sprang the circular brooch of the Roman period, often inlaid with enamel, as well as the splendid circular brooches of Anglo-Saxon times, and all other disc-shaped brooches. In all early periods, and even in Roman times, the bow or safety-pin type of brooch was commoner than the disc and also more practical, as it offered room for the gathered folds of the garment. In modern times the disc-shaped brooch fitted with a hinged or sometimes with a spring pin has been principally used. [1] Ridgeway (W.), _Early Age of Greece_, p. 437. [Illustration: Celtic brooch.] [Illustration: Ring-brooch (Tomb of Queen Berengaria of Navarre, wife of Richard Coeur de Lion, at Le Mans).] The two remaining groups of brooches--(3) the Celtic brooch and (4) the ring-brooch--are both developments of the simple pin in combination with a ring--in the former case penannular and in the latter annular. The Celtic brooch, with penannular ring and long pin, is apparently the result of fitting a pin to a prehistoric form of fastening for the dress--a penannular ring terminating with knobs, known as a mammillary fibula. The ring-brooch with complete ring, and pin of the same length as the diameter of the ring, which was popular in mediæval times, is the outcome of fitting a complete ring of wire to a pin to prevent the head of the pin from slipping through the material--which ring in course of time became the more important member. It is improbable that the Celtic brooch originated in the same way, from the union of a long pin with a small ring. Nor is it likely that these two forms of brooches were evolved the one out of the other by the shortening or lengthening of the pins. As a matter of fact the two appear to have arisen independently side by side. Bracelets and armlets may be considered together, for though the bracelet is properly only a decoration for the wrist, the term has become descriptive of any ornament worn upon the arm. The bracelet, together with the necklace, were the earliest ornaments used for the decoration of mankind. Amongst savage tribes both were worn in some form or another--the necklace as an ornament pure and simple, but the bracelet serving frequently a practical purpose, sometimes as a shield for the arm in combat, sometimes covered with spikes, and used for offensive purposes. While used universally by women in the form of a band, closed, or open on one side, or else in the shape of a spiral, or fashioned like a chain, the bracelet has been worn from the earliest times in the East by men also, especially by princes as one of the insignia of royalty, and by distinguished persons in general. Of all jewels the simplest and at the same time perhaps the most interesting and important is the finger ring. It is universally employed as an article of personal ornament, and has been worn by both sexes at almost all times, and in nearly every country. Sometimes it is an object of use as the signet ring, or a token of dignity as the bishop's ring. Sometimes it has a symbolical significance, as the wedding-ring. Sometimes it is purely ornamental. Most finger rings may be said to be formed of two parts--the circular portion which surrounds the finger, known as the hoop or shank, and the enlarged or upper portion which is called the bezel. This latter term, applied to the upper side of the ring, which is broadened to receive an ornament of some kind, generally a stone, seems to have originally designated the basil or projecting flange, that retained the stone in its setting. The term _collet_, also used for the whole top including the stone or seal, is similarly derived from the flange or collet in which the stone is set. From its box-like shape this part of the ring is also called the _chaton_. [Illustration: Buckle, with buckle-plate and tag. German, about 1490. (Victoria and Albert Museum.)] The belt or girdle was worn round the waist by men as a means of suspending weapons, by women sometimes merely as an ornament, and generally by both sexes for the practical purpose of confining the clothing. It is commonly formed of a band of leather or textile material. The part as a rule which receives particular attention is the fastening. This is either in the form of a clasp, or more often a buckle. The clasp consists of two parts, generally symmetrical, one of which can be hooked into the other. The buckle, another combination of a ring with a pin, is similar to the mediæval ring-brooch, but differs from it in that while the pin of the brooch pierces the material twice, that of the buckle pierces it only once. It may be described as a rectangular or curved rim having one or more hinged pins or spikes attached on one side of it or on a bar across its centre, and long enough to rest upon the opposite side. The buckle is made fast to one end of the girdle; whilst the other end, drawn through on the principle of a slip knot, is kept fast by pushing the point of the pin or tongue through a hole made in the material of the girdle. The girdle is attached by means of sewing a fold of it round the bar or round one side of the rim of the buckle. As a great strain was put upon the doubling of the leather or stuff, this soonest gave way. Consequently a plate of metal was passed round the bar or edge of the buckle, and the two portions of it received the end of the strap between them. The whole was then made fast with rivets. The plate is known as the buckle-plate. One end of the girdle being thus furnished, the other was frequently made to terminate with a metal chape to enable it to pass easily through the ring of the buckle in the process of buckling and unbuckling. This chape is known also as the _mordant_. The chief point of the girdle to be decorated was the buckle-plate, which was often in one piece with the buckle, or hinged to it. The _mordant_ or tag was commonly decorated too, while ornaments of metal of similar design, sometimes jewelled, were applied at regular intervals to the strap or band of the girdle. In later years the girdle often took the form of a chain, on which, as in the case of chains for the neck and wrists, artistic effects were produced by a regular sequence of links. Fastened by a clasp, it was worn by women chiefly as an ornament, or to carry small objects for personal use. For the latter purpose it was subsequently supplanted by the chatelaine. [Illustration: Bronze fibula (Ireland).] JEWELLERY EARLY JEWELLERY CHAPTER I EGYPTIAN AND PHOENICIAN JEWELLERY Most of the forms met with among the jewellery of the civilised nations of later times are found represented in the ornaments of the Egyptians. It is fortunate that important specimens of all descriptions of these have come down to our days. This we owe to the elaborate care which the Egyptians bestowed on the preservation of the dead, and to the strict observance of funeral rites, which induced them to dress and ornament their mummies with a view to future comfort both in the grave and in the after life. The ornaments, however, buried with the dead were frequently mere models of what were worn in life, and the pains taken in making these depended on the sums expended by the friends of the deceased after his death. While those who were possessed of means and were scrupulous in their last duties to the dead purchased ornaments of the best workmanship and of the most costly materials, others who were unable or unwilling to incur expense in providing such objects were contented with glass pastes instead of precious stones, and glazed pottery instead of gold. With the exception of many finger rings worn by both sexes and some female ornaments, the greater number of jewels discovered in the tombs are of inferior quality and value to those which the deceased had worn when living. A peculiarity of the jewellery of the Egyptians is that, in addition to its actual purpose, it generally possesses something of the allegorical and emblematic signification, for which their mythology offered plentiful material. Among the emblems or figures of objects which symbolise or suggest the qualities of deities, the most favourite is the _scarab_ or beetle, type of the god _Khepera_. The use of scarabs in burial had reference to the resurrection of the dead and immortality. Other important emblems include the _uza_ or _utchat_, the symbolic eye--the eye of _Horus_, the hawk-god; the cobra snake, the _uræus_--emblem of divine and royal sovereignty; the _tet_, the four-barred emblem of stability, endurance, and lastingness; the human-headed hawk, emblem of the soul. These and many others, as well as figures from the animal world, were worn as ornaments, and especially as amulets to bring good fortune or to ward off evil. Colour plays an important part in Egyptian jewellery. This love of colour was displayed in the use of glazed ware, incorrectly termed porcelain, but properly a faience, much employed for all articles, as necklaces, scarabs, and rings, and particularly for the various kinds of amulets which were largely worn as personal ornaments. The most usual and beautiful was the cupreous glaze of a blue or apple-green colour; yellow, violet, red, and white are also met with, but less frequently, and chiefly at later periods. But colour showed itself above all in the surface decoration of jewellery, produced by the application of coloured stones and the imitation of these inserted in cells of gold prepared for them. The chief materials employed for the purpose were lapis-lazuli, turquoise, root of emerald or green felspar, jasper, and obsidian, besides various opaque glasses imitating them. With the exception of enamel upon metal, which is only found in Egypt in quite late periods, the Egyptians appear to have been acquainted with all the processes of jewellery now in use. Chasing and engraving they preferred to all other modes of ornamenting metal-work, as these methods enhanced the beauty of their jewels while retaining a level surface. They were also highly skilled in soldering and in the art of repoussé work. The great malleability of gold enabled them to overlay ornaments of silver, bronze, and even stone with thin leaves of this metal; while ornaments were also composed entirely of plates of gold of extreme thinness. In articles where frequent repetition occurs, for instance, in necklaces, patterns were produced by pressure in moulds, and then soldered together. Examples of jewellery furnished by the Egyptian tombs are to be found in the museums of almost every country. Undoubtedly the finest collection is in the Viceregal Museum of Egyptian Antiquities at Cairo. It contains jewels of the earliest dynasties, very few of which are to be found outside it. Dating from the great Theban dynasties, the eighteenth and nineteenth, when the jeweller's art reached its highest level, are many beautiful examples, notably the famous set of jewels discovered in the tomb of Queen [.A][=a]h-[h.]etep (1600 B.C.). Fine collections are also preserved in the British Museum, in Berlin, Munich, and in the Louvre. Following the sequence of ornaments from the head downwards, mention must first be made of diadems or frontlets. These were composed either of ring ornaments, set with precious stones and strung in a variety of ways, which hung down over the temples, or of gold bands ornamented in cloisonné inlay with the favourite allegorical representations of animals in various arrangements. In the case of royal personages there is a uræus in front. Among all Oriental nations of antiquity of whom we have any accurate knowledge, earrings have always been in general use by both sexes; but as far as can be judged from monuments, these ornaments appear in Egypt to have been worn by women alone. M. Fontenay[2] claims that the holes visible in the ears of statues of Rameses II--such as the colossal head in the British Museum, cast from the original in the temple of Ipsamboul--have been pierced for earrings. But even so, earrings had probably only a sacerdotal or sacred significance, and were worn by the sovereign only, and on very exceptional occasions. Earrings, however, found very little favour even among women until what in Egyptian chronology are comparatively late times. Those that do occur are of the simplest kind, formed of a ring-shaped hook for piercing the lobe of the ear, hung with a blossom-shaped or symbolical pendant. Large penannular rings of various materials were occasionally employed as ear ornaments; the opening in them enabling them to be fitted on to the upper part of the ear. [2] Fontenay (E.), _Les bijoux anciens et modernes_, p. 98. Necklaces appear to have played a very prominent part in Egyptian ornaments. No tomb seems to be without them, and the wall paintings also prove their very general use. Most frequent is a chain consisting of various materials strung together, generally with a large drop or figure in the centre, and pendent motives introduced at definite intervals. The latter, of every imaginable variety of design, occur in rhythmical alternation, and are occasionally introduced between two rows of beads. The peculiarly severe and regular decorations of the Egyptians--more particularly the various charming adaptations of open and closed lotus flowers--are here found in the finest forms of application. Especially is this shown on the ornament called the _usekh_ collar, which figures on every mummy and mummy case. Formed of rows, generally of cylinder-shaped beads with pendants, strung together and gathered up at either end to the head of a lion or hawk or to a lotus flower, this collar or breast decoration covered the shoulders and chest, and is found in that position on the mummy, attached frequently to the winding-sheet. One of the most important Egyptian ornaments is the _pectoral_, which, as its name implies, was worn on the breast, suspended by a ribbon or chain. In all probability it formed a portion of the everyday costume of men and women, but its symbolism points to its chief use as a mortuary ornament, and it is found on almost every mummy. Pectorals are usually in the form of a _pylon_ or shrine, in the middle of which is often a scarab, the emblem of transformation and immortality, adored by the goddesses _Isis_ or _Nephthys_. These ornaments were made of metal--rarely gold, more often gilded bronze--and very frequently of alabaster, steatite, and basalt sometimes glazed, and of earthenware always glazed. In the Cairo Museum is a pectoral of pure gold inlaid with carnelian, lapis-lazuli and turquoises, which was found at Dashûr in 1894 in the tomb of the Princess Set-Hathor (twelfth dynasty). Discovered at the same time was a pectoral having at the top a vulture with outspread wings and below the name of Usertsen III supported on either side by hawk-headed sphinxes. The open-work pectoral of Queen [.A][=a]h-[h.]etep, of solid gold, also at Cairo, is one of the most beautiful of all specimens of Egyptian jewellery. Another golden pectoral, found in the tomb of Kh[=a]-em-uas, son of Rameses II, is in the Louvre. Somewhat similar to the pectorals are jewels in the shape of conventional hawks. As emblems of the soul, they are found placed upon the breast of the mummy. The finest are made of pure gold decorated with cloisons shaped according to the natural formations of the body and wings of the bird. The talons grasp a pair of signet rings. Allied to these are ornaments known as _ægides_, which were occasionally also worn on the breast. A very beautiful specimen, the _ægis of Bast_, is in the Louvre. Sculptures and paintings represent bracelets by bands of red or blue colour on the arms, and show that the Egyptians wore four--one on the wrist and one above the elbow of each arm. Some of the earliest are composed of glass and gold beads threaded so as to form various patterns. The more solid forms of bracelet are ornamented with inlaid work. Rings for the arms, as well as the ankles, are generally of plain gold--both solid and hollow--sometimes bordered with plaited chain-work. Bracelets of thick and occasionally twisted wire, found as early as the twelfth dynasty, usually have the ends beaten out into a thin wire, which is lapped round the opposite shank so as to slip easily over the wrist. Bracelets in the form of serpents belong to the Ptolemaic and early Roman periods. The commonest ornament is the finger ring. The ring was not only an ornament, but an actual necessity, since it served as a signet, the owner's emblem or badge being engraved either on the metal of the ring or on a scarab or other stone set in it. There are three main types of Egyptian rings. The first and simplest, composed of a seal stone with a ring attached, is formed of a hoop with flattened ends, each pierced, which grasp the scarab. Through a hole made in the scarab was run a wire, the ends of which, passing through the extremities of the ring, were wound several times round it. The revolving scarab exhibited its back when worn on the finger and the engraved side when necessary to use it as a seal. The general outline of the ring is like a stirrup, a form which of course varied in accordance with the size of the scarab. In a second type of ring the swivel disappears, and the ring is in one piece. Its outline retains the stirrup form, but the inside of the hoop is round and fits closely to the finger. Of this type are rings, dating from the eighteenth to the twentieth dynasty, formed of two hoops united at the top and having the names and titles of the owner deeply sunk in hieroglyphics on oblong gold bezels. A third type, almost circular in outline, is of similar form to the signet-ring of the present day. In addition to those which were actually worn in life, are models of real rings employed solely for funeral purposes to ornament the fingers of the wooden model hands which were placed on the coffins of mummies of the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties. The model rings are made of faience with fine glazes of blue, green, and other colours, with various devices, incuse or in intaglio, upon the bezels, which are generally of oval form. PHOENICIAN JEWELLERY As the inventors of methods and the creators of models which exercised a widespread influence in the development of subsequent types of ornaments, Egypt, and in a lesser degree Assyria also, occupies a position of considerable importance. The chief agents in the spreading of these methods and models were the Phoenicians, the first and foremost navigators of the ancient world, who imported jewels among other articles of trade, into Italy and into the islands and mainland of Greece. Not by nature creative, but always copying those nations with whom in their wanderings they came in touch, the Phoenicians produced a native jewellery of composite type in which there is a perpetual mixture of Egyptian and Assyrian forms. As they had imitated Egypt and Assyria, so they began to imitate Greece as soon as they came into contact with her. The Greeks in return made great use at first of this composite style, but subsequently shook off its influence and incorporated it only after many modifications into their own developed art. The amphora--a form of ornament in goldsmith's work which can be traced to Assyria--is one among many motives borrowed by the Phoenicians, and transmitted by them to Greece. From Egypt the Phoenicians acquired a high degree of technical skill and mastery over materials. This finish was transmitted to the finest Greek jewellery, and to the personal ornaments of the early Etruscans. The art of soldering gold to gold, which was known in Egypt at an early period, was greatly perfected and developed by the Phoenicians; and it is generally believed that they were the inventors of the process of decorating jewellery by granulation, that is by affixing to the surface minute globules of gold--a process which attained its perfection in the skilful hands of the Etruscan goldsmiths. The jewellery of the Phoenicians must be sought for from one end of the Mediterranean to the other, rather than in Phoenicia itself. It occurs chiefly in their settlements on the shores and islands of the Eastern Mediterranean, at Sardinia, Crete, and Rhodes, and on the southern coasts of Asia Minor, but the best and most numerous specimens have been found in Cyprus. In addition to the actual ornaments, special value attaches also to Phoenician sculptures, principally busts, both from Phoenicia itself and from its colonies, owing to the care with which personal ornaments and details of dress are represented. Several striking examples of these are preserved in the galleries set apart for Cyprian and Phoenician antiquities in the British Museum. The most famous of similar works, which include the sculptures from the "Cerro de los Santos," near Yecla in the province of Albacete in Spain, now in the museum at Madrid, is the remarkable stone bust of a woman in the Louvre, known as the "Lady of Elché," from a town of that name in the province of Alicante, where it was discovered in 1897 (Pl. II, 9). The majestic character of this figure, its sumptuous coiffure with clusters of tassels suspended by ten chains, the wheel-like discs cover the ears, the triple row of necklaces with their urn-shaped pendants--all unite to produce an effect unequalled by any known statue of antiquity. Especially noticeable among these ornaments is the diadem which encircles the forehead and hangs down from each side in long pendants upon the shoulders. With this may be compared the chains hung at the ends of the golden fillet at Berlin, discovered by Schliemann at the pre-Mycenæan city of Hissarlik in the Troad, the ornate tasselled appendages at St. Petersburg, found with the famous Greek diadems in the tombs of the Crimea, and the elaborate head ornaments with pendent ends worn by Algerian women at the present day. The Phoenicians, as seen also by their sculptures, were addicted to the barbaric practice of piercing the upper parts of the ears, as well as the lobes, and attaching to them rings bearing drop-shaped pendants. Rings were also attached to the hair on each side of the face. They consist of a double twist which could be run through a curl of the hair, and are ornamented at one end with a lion's or gryphon's head. Of ordinary earrings worn by the Phoenicians the simplest is a plain ring. In the majority of cases the simple ring was converted into a hook and served to suspend various ornaments, of which baskets or bushels with grain in them afforded favourite motives. Examples of earrings of this kind, from Tharros in Sardinia, are in the British Museum. [Illustration: _PLATE II_ PHOENICIAN JEWELLERY] Statues, like the Lady of Elché, show that Phoenician women wore three or four necklaces at the same time, one above the other; these vary in the size of their elements, from the small beads about the throat, to the large acorn-shaped pendants which hang low upon the breast. They display a striking admixture of Greek and Egyptian motives. Gold beads are often intermixed with small carnelian and onyx bugles, to which hang amphoræ formed alternately of gold or crystal. The Phoenicians were particularly skilled in the manufacture of glass: occasionally the sole materials of their necklaces are beads of glass. A necklace from Tharros in Sardinia, now in the British Museum, is formed of beads of glass and gold; of its three pendants, the centre one is the head of a woman with Egyptian coiffure, and the two others lotus flowers. Finger rings are of all materials--gold, silver, bronze, and even glass. They are usually set with a scarab or scaraboid, fixed or revolving on a pivot. Silver is less common than gold; but in the British Museum is a ring of almost pure Greek workmanship from Cyprus which is entirely of silver, save for an exquisitely modelled golden fly that rests on the bezel. CHAPTER II GREEK JEWELLERY Before dealing with Greek jewellery of the classic period some reference must be made to the primitive and archaic ornaments that preceded it. The period and phase of Greek culture to which the primitive ornaments belong is known widely as "Mycenæan"--a title it owes to the discoveries made at Mycenæ, where in 1876 Schliemann brought to light the famous gold treasure now preserved in the National Museum at Athens. A characteristic motive of the decoration of these objects is the use of spiral patterns almost identical with those employed on Celtic ornaments. Besides these and other primitive exhibitions of decorative skill, we find representations of naturalistic animal forms, such as cuttlefish, starfish, butterflies, and other creatures. These are displayed in repoussé patterns worked in low relief. Among the most notable objects are a number of gold crowns usually in the form of elongated oval plates ornamented with fine work chiefly in the shape of rosettes and spirals. Most numerous are the gold plates intended to be fastened to the dress. They are ornamented with spirals and radiating lines, with the above-mentioned animal forms, or with leaves showing the veins clearly marked (Pl. III, 1). Specially worthy of note also are the finger rings with the designs sunk into the oval surface of the bezel. Ornaments of this same epoch, like those in the British Museum from Ialysos in Rhodes, and Enkomi in Cyprus, have been discovered throughout the whole Ægean district. They are likewise mainly in the form of gold plates used for sepulchral purposes, ornamented with embossed patterns impressed from stone moulds. Some of them are enriched with fine granulation. This particular process, however, which abounds in Etruscan work, is more frequent on Greek ornaments of the archaic epoch, which dates roughly from about the seventh or eighth century B.C. The types of these, generally semi-Oriental in character, show the influence of Phoenician art, with its traces of Egyptian and Assyrian feeling. Lions and winged bulls on some objects betray the Assyrian style; the treatment of the human figure displays on others the influence of Egypt. Among the best examples of this Græco-Phoenician jewellery are those found at Kameiros in Rhodes, and now in the Louvre and the British Museum. Between these and the fourth-century jewels from the Crimea to be described next, the only known Greek jewels are the quasi-Oriental ones from the tombs of Cyprus, which belong to about the fifth century. The jewellery of ancient Greece, which requires more detailed consideration, is that worn from the close of the fifth century onwards. The jewellery of the Greeks at this epoch was, like all their other works of art, of surpassing excellence. Gold was wrought with a skill which showed how well the artist appreciated the beauty of its colour and its distinctive qualities of ductility and malleability. The Greek craftsman was ever careful to keep the material in strict subordination to the workmanship, and not to allow its intrinsic worth so to dominate his productions as to obscure his artistic intention. The Greek goldsmiths excelled in the processes of repoussé, chasing, engraving, and of intaglio cutting on metal, and brought to great perfection the art of soldering small objects on to thin surfaces and joining together the thinnest metal plates. [Illustration: _PLATE III_ EARLY GREEK JEWELLERY] Granulated work, in which they were rivalled by the Etruscans alone, the Greeks practised with success, but preferred filigree ornamentation, that is the use of fine threads of gold twisted upon the surface with very delicate effect. Precious stones were very rarely used in the finest work, though on many of the post-Alexandrine jewels, stones such as garnets were frequently employed. Colour was obtained by a sparing use of enamel. The value of Greek jewellery lies in the use of gold and the artistic development of this single material. The minuteness of jewellery did not lead the Greeks to despise it as a field of labour. Whatever designs they borrowed from others the Greeks made their own and reproduced in a form peculiar to themselves. In other respects they went straight to nature, choosing simple motives of fruit, flowers, and foliage, united with a careful imitation of animal forms and of the human body. The objects we have to consider fall into two classes, according as they are either substantial articles for use or ornament in daily life, or mere flimsy imitations of them made only to be buried with the dead. As in the case of other nations of antiquity, the demands of Greek piety were satisfied if the dead were adorned with jewels made cheaply of leaves of stamped or bracteate gold. This course was followed mainly for the purpose of lessening expense; but it served also to obviate the chance of tombs being rifled by tomb-robbers or _tymborychoi_, who practised a profession which was common in ancient times and offered large and certain profits. Jewels simply and entirely funereal occupy a prominent position in every public and private collection of Greek jewellery. The rarity of jewels for actual use may be further explained by the fact that articles of that kind would only be associated with the grave of a person of wealth and distinction, and that the more important graves were the first prey of robbers. The almost complete absence of specimens of jewellery from the mainland of Greece is due to those acts of pillage which continually took place at localities well known as cemeteries. Only in tombs concealed by their environment, or lost to sight in semi-barbarous countries, have sufficient ornaments been found for us to form an estimate of the perfection which this branch of the industrial arts then attained. The chief sources of these discoveries have been the Crimea, the Greek islands, the west coast of Asia Minor, and Southern Italy--known in ancient times as Magna Græcia. Of these districts by far the most important was that on the northern shore of the Black Sea, called formerly the Tauric Chersonese and now the Crimea, where in close proximity to the warlike Scythian tribes a Greek colony had settled as early as the sixth century before our era. Excavations made also in the adjacent peninsula of Taman have revealed numerous articles of gold, all belonging to the latter half of the century. The wealth of gold on the shores of the Black Sea, which is the basis of the early Greek legends of the Golden Fleece, had attracted merchant adventurers at an early date. And the Greek goldsmiths who settled there forwarded their productions both to their mother-country and to the neighbouring lands of the barbarians. Excavations undertaken by the Russian Government near Kertch, the ancient Pantikapaion, gave rise to an important discovery in 1831, when the opening of the celebrated tumulus Koul-Oba revealed a magnificent display of Greek jewellery. These treasures, and others which the enterprise of the Russian Government has brought to light, are preserved at St. Petersburg in the Museum of the Hermitage. Italy, less systematically ravaged than Greece, has proved exceedingly rich in finds of antique jewellery. Except for a few scattered fragments from Greece proper and the other sources mentioned above, public and private cabinets, outside Russia, are made up almost exclusively of the results of excavations in the burial-places of Magna Græcia. In no ornament did the Greek jeweller exhibit his fertility of invention to a greater degree than in the variety and beauty of the forms given to earrings. They divide naturally into two classes. The first, the earlier, are ring-shaped, of two halves formed in a mould and united together. They terminate at one end with a human head--like that of a Mænad in a specimen in the British Museum--or more usually with the head of a lion, bull, or some other animal. To the second class belong those attached to the ear by a hook masked by a rosette or disc. From this hang one or more pendants of a variety of designs. In rare instances these consist of beads hung to little chains; but the logical sense of the ancients preferred for the purpose things that might be imagined as floating, such as a little figure of Eros, or a tiny Victory bearing a wreath. The place on the ring where the pendant is attached is almost invariably made prominent by a saucer-shaped rosette, a mask, or similar object ornamented with fine threads of gold. Opaque enamel, of white, blue, or green, is sometimes found applied thinly to the surface of the metal. Many earrings are of the most complicated design. When the ear-pendant was confined to a ring with a crescent-shaped lower part, this ornament would produce no effect except when the wearer was seen in profile. In order to make the ornament visible from the front, the idea suggested itself to hang the crescent ring on to a smaller one. Wonderfully well executed are some of the later Greek earrings in which small figures are attached directly to the hook which is inserted into the ear. Among these are figures of Eros playing a musical instrument or holding a jug as if pouring a libation. By the amplification of the appendages we find the simpler earrings assume such an immense increase in dimension as to make it impossible that they were attached to the lobe of the ear. It may be assumed that they were fastened to the diadem or frontlet, or to a plaited tress of hair, and hung over the ear, or more to the front over the temples. Naturally this species of ornament, owing to its weight and the many separate pieces of which it was made, would prevent the wearer from making any rapid movements, but was adapted to a slow and dignified pace in walking. It would also have the additional motive of increasing the commanding appearance of the individual. A splendid pair of head appendages of this character discovered at Kertch are now at St. Petersburg. They are composed of two large medallions representing the head of Athene, whose helmet is adorned with sphinxes and gryphons. From these are suspended several rows of amphora-shaped ornaments covered with fine filigree decoration. The decorating of the head with wreaths was a very common practice among the ancients on festive occasions of every description. The wreaths with which the dead were adorned for burial, made in imitation of natural leaves, form a large portion of funereal jewellery. One of the most famous of this species, found in 1813 at Armento (S. Italy), and purchased about 1826 by Ludwig I, King of Bavaria, from Countess Lipona (formerly Queen of Naples and wife of Joachim Murat) is now in the Antiquarium at Munich. Here the wreath, formed of roses, narcissus, myrtle and oak leaves, is enlivened by small figures of genii, while on the top is placed a statue with an inscription underneath it. This splendid specimen was probably employed for votive purposes. Dating from the third century B.C., and also from Magna Græcia, is the gold crown in the British Museum which was acquired from the collection of Count Tyszkiewicz in 1898 (Pl. V, 1). Being of more solid construction, though excessively light and elegant, this, and similarly elaborate crowns in the Louvre, were probably worn by ladies of high rank. [Illustration: _PLATE IV_ GREEK JEWELLERY (EARRINGS, NECKLACE AND HAIR-PIN)] In addition to these diadems composed of many minute parts, the simplest and probably the most usual form is that of a flat band increasing in breadth towards the middle, and ending there sometimes in a blunt point marked by a palmette. Pins that served the purpose of fastening up and decorating the hair vary in style, their heads being formed sometimes of flowers, and sometimes of animals or human figures, resembling those employed as pendants to earrings. Probably the most important is the handsome pin in the British Museum from Paphos in Cyprus (Pl. IV, 6). The head, surmounted with a bead of Egyptian porcelain with a pearl above, is in the form of a capital of a column. At the four corners are projecting heads of bulls, and between these are open cups or flowers, towards which four doves with outstretched wings bend as if to drink. Typical necklaces of the best period consist of a chain about three-eighths of an inch in width, of closely plaited gold wire. From this are suspended numerous smaller chains, masked at the top by small rosettes and hung below with vases, spindle-shaped pieces, or a rhythmical combination of other ornaments covered with fine filigree. The British Museum possesses several superb necklaces. To the finest one, found in the island of Melos, colour is added by means of green and blue enamel (Pl. V, 3). Bracelets and armlets, which are rarer than necklaces, are of three forms: a fine plaited chain, like that of the necklaces, united by a clasp in the form of a knot; repoussé plaques hinged together; and a circlet of beaten gold of more solid construction. The primary object of the finger ring was its use as a convenient method of carrying the engraved stone which was to serve as a signet. Hence in early times more attention was paid to the engraving of the gem set in the ring than to its mounting. Many early rings are entirely of gold and made generally of one piece, with a large flat bezel engraved like a gem. A great number of them, though apparently solid, are hollow, and formed of gold leaf punched into shape and then filled up with mastic to preserve the form. The ornamental rings of the later Greeks have been found chiefly in the luxurious colonies of Magna Græcia. One of the most charming designs is in the shape of a serpent which coils itself many times round the finger, with its head and tail lying along the finger. It is worthy of remark that though a number of Greek rings are in existence, never in Greek art, as in Etruscan and Roman, do we find any representation of the human figure with rings on the fingers. In earlier times simple pins formed of gold wire appear to have been often employed to fasten the dress. Bow-shaped brooches were also worn, but few gold brooches are met with except those belonging to the later Greek ornaments. These are characterised by a small arched bow and a long sheath for the point of the pin decorated with designs in fine filigree. The goldsmith's art is much more limited in its application to girdles than to head or neck ornaments; and yet, as is well known, girdles formed an important item in the dress of men and women. The girdle over which the long tunic hung in deep folds was often of simple cords with tassels affixed to the ends: thus Homer speaks of Hera as wearing a "zone from which a hundred tassels hang." Girdles appear to have been mainly of soft ligaments, which probably, with the increase of luxury, were adorned with gold ornamentations. It is remarkable, at all events, that those species of gold ornament that can certainly be recognised as girdles are obvious imitations of textile fabrics. [Illustration: _PLATE V_ GREEK JEWELLERY (CROWN, NECKLACES, BRACELET, RINGS)] Corresponding to the ornaments found at Mycenæ which were employed by the primitive Greeks for decorating their garments are thin plates of gold, termed _bracteæ_, pierced with small holes, which served the later Greeks for similar purpose. They are repoussé, and have clearly been stamped with dies, for the designs on them show constant repetition. They are of various sizes and shapes, and it is evident that some were meant to be worn as single ornaments, while others, sewn on in lines, formed regular borders or designs on the robes. It is possible that, like the ball-shaped buttons met with in many fanciful formations, some of more solid construction served the purpose of clasps that drew together the dress at intervals along the arm, and acted as fastenings at the neck or on the shoulder. Some attachments of this kind in the form of round discs, with their gold surface richly ornamented with filigree and also with enamel, may have been actual brooches and have had hinged pins affixed below. CHAPTER III ETRUSCAN JEWELLERY The Etruscans appear to have had a peculiar passion for jewellery. Even in early times, when the excessive use of personal ornament was considered a mark of effeminacy, they were famed for their jewels. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, speaking of the Sabines, says that "they wore bracelets on their left arms, and rings, for they were a gold-wearing nation, and not less effeminate than the Etruscans." Like most other nations of antiquity, the Etruscans dedicated to the service of the dead costly articles of adornment which they had worn when living; though the greater number of these jewels are flimsy objects made for mortuary purposes. On Etruscan sarcophagi the men have torques about their necks, while the women have sometimes torques, sometimes necklaces, long earrings, and bracelets, and both sexes have many rings on their fingers. Though systematically rifled in former times, Etruscan tombs have yet preserved to the present day a large number of jewels, sufficient to prove that the possibilities of gold were never more thoroughly grasped than by the Etruscans. Their earlier jewellery--for the later is much coarser--shows extraordinary fineness and elaboration of workmanship. They possessed a peculiar art of fusing and joining metals by the use of solvents unknown to us, which rendered invisible the traces of solder. Surface decoration was produced by the interweaving of extremely delicate threads of gold, by a sparing use of enamel, and particularly by the soldering together of particles or globules of gold of such minuteness and equality as to be scarcely perceptible to the naked eye. Animal or human forms were skilfully executed in relief by repoussé, or produced in the round with the assistance of solder. But the chief characteristic of their jewellery, and that which mainly distinguishes it from the Greek, is its ornamentation with grains of gold of microscopic size. The method of decorating the surface of gold with fine granules, which is usually termed granulation, is one which was in favour among all ancient gold workers in the countries bordering on the Mediterranean. The "pulvisculus aureus," as it was called in Italy, came into common use towards the close of the Mycenæan Age, at a time when the Phoenicians were making their influence felt in Cyprus, Sardinia, and Etruria, where examples of this method of gold working particularly abound. We are probably right in assuming that this granulated work was indigenous to the Eastern Mediterranean, and that, as it has been found upon jewels of undoubted Phoenician origin, the Phoenicians were not uninstrumental in disseminating it along their trade routes. Cellini, in his description of the process of granulation in his _Trattato dell' Oreficeria_, speaks of each grain being made separately and soldered on, a technique probably practised by the ancient jewellers. But in the case of the minutest Etruscan work, it is not improbable that the grains--at first natural, though subsequently artificial--were sprinkled like dust over the parts of the surface which had to be covered. This fine granulation belongs only to the early and best Etruscan jewels. Larger grains were used for later work. It is remarkable that the secrets of the old Etruscan goldsmiths have never been wholly recovered in Europe. That the art of granulation, though mentioned by Cellini, was not generally practised by the goldsmiths of the Renaissance is evident from the examples of their work that have survived. In recent years attempts have been made to revive the art; but as the well-known productions of Castellani the elder, with his Alessandro the connoisseur and Augusto, and of Carlo Giuliano, are connected with the later history of jewellery, further reference will be made to them subsequently. As might be expected, important collections of Etruscan jewellery are preserved in museums close to the sites where the objects themselves have been discovered. One of the most extensive of such collections is that in the museum of the Vatican, which was brought together by Pope Gregory XVI from the districts which till 1870 formed part of the papal domain. The British Museum, the Louvre, and the museums of Berlin and Munich all contain a large number of ornaments from the old cemeteries of the Etruscan races. The earliest Etruscan jewellery coincides roughly with Greek work of the late Mycenæan period, and betrays, from the religious symbols expressed on it, a marked Oriental or Egyptian influence. At a somewhat later date, that is from about 500 to 300 B.C., it is evident that the Etruscans largely followed Greek models, or imported from Greece, especially from Ionia, some of the finest artists in the precious metals. Etruscan jewellery can then be divided into three distinct styles: the primitive, somewhat Oriental in character, and of fine but not artistically attractive work; the later, when the primitive art had been subjected to Hellenic influence and produced work of the highest artistic and technical excellence; and the latest style, in which Greek art, still followed, but in a vulgarised form, results in ornaments noticeable for their size and coarseness of execution. [Illustration: _PLATE VI_ ETRUSCAN JEWELLERY (PINS, NECKLACES, EARRINGS)] The Etruscans appear to have paid particular attention to the decoration of the head. Following a custom in vogue throughout Greece, men as well as women adorned themselves with fillets; while women also wore highly ornate hair-pins, with heads shaped like balls, acorns, and pomegranates, decorated in granulation. Many of these pins must have served to fix the diadems and fillets for which the Etruscans appear to have had an especial liking. The latter are composed for the most part of the foliage of myrtle, ivy, and oak, in accordance with the symbolical ideas attached to these leaves. The greater number are of plate of gold, so thin and fragile that they can only have been employed as sepulchral ornaments--like the wreath of ivy leaves and berries of thin gold still encircling the bronze helmet from Vulci in the Room of Greek and Roman Life in the British Museum, and a similar wreath of bracteate gold around a conical bronze helmet in the Salle des Bijoux Antiques of the Louvre. Earrings of the finest period bear a striking similarity to Greek ornaments of the same date. The first type is penannular in shape, one end terminating in the head of a bull or lion, and the other in a point which pierces the ear. To this ring is next attached a pendant. In the third type the hook which pierces the ear is hidden by a rosette or disc from which hang tassel-shaped appendages, and in the middle between them small animals enamelled white, such as the geese, swans, and cocks in the British Museum, and the peacocks and doves in the Campana Collection in the Louvre. Earrings of another class are saddle-shaped, formed like an imperfect cylinder, one end of which is closed by an open-work rose cap, which completely enclosed the lobe of the wearer's ear. The latest Etruscan earrings, of pendant form, are mostly of great size and in the shape of convex bosses. In examining the very primitive necklaces and other ornaments that have been discovered in various tombs in Italy, especially in Etruria and Latium, the extraordinary abundance of amber at once attracts attention. The amber of this ancient jewellery of Italy has accessories, sometimes of gold, and more frequently of silver, or else of an alloy of gold and silver termed _electrum_. A noteworthy early necklace of these materials found at Præneste, and now in the British Museum, is composed of amber cylinders, and pendent vases alternately of amber and electrum (Pl. VI, 2). Though the majority of Etruscan necklaces aim at largeness of display, some are as delicate and refined as the best Greek ornaments. From a round plaited chain in the British Museum hangs a single ornament--the mask of a faun whose hair, eyebrows, and wavy beard are worked with fine granulation; another pendant is a negro's head on which the granules are disposed with exquisite skill to represent the short woolly hair (Pl. VI, 5). Finer even than either of these--and a remarkable example of the combination of the two processes of filigree and granulation--is a neck pendant in the form of a mask of Dionysos (Bacchus) in the Campana Collection in the Louvre. On this the curls of hair over the forehead are represented by filigree spirals, while the beard is worked entirely in the granulated method. A large number of necklaces have evidently been produced simply for sepulchral purposes, for they are composed, like the majority of crowns, of the thinnest bracteate gold in the shape of rosettes and studs strung together. The chief characteristic of Etruscan necklaces is their ornamentation with pendent _bullæ_. The bulla, from the Latin word meaning a bubble, was usually made of two concave plates of gold fastened together so as to form a globe--lentoid or vase-shaped-within which an amulet was contained. In Etruscan art both men and women are represented wearing necklaces and even bracelets formed of bullæ. Occasionally, instead of a bulla, is some such object as the tooth or claw of an animal or a small primitive flint arrow-head, which served as an amulet. [Illustration: _PLATE VII_ ETRUSCAN JEWELLERY (BROOCHES, DIADEM, BRACELET, RINGS)] Of bracelets of primitive work are a famous pair in the British Museum, which were discovered in a tomb at Cervetri (Cære). They are composed of thin plates of gold measuring 8 inches in length by 2¼ inches in width, divided into six sections, ornamented with scenes thoroughly Assyrian in character, indicated by lines of microscopic granulations (Pl. VII, 4). Etruscan fibulæ of gold are generally formed of a short arc-shaped bow and a long sheath for the pin decorated with minute granular work. Upon the upper surface are often rows of small models of animals. Upon the sheath of a large early fibula found at Cervetri (Cære), and now in the British Museum, is a double row of twenty-four standing lions (Pl. VII, 1). The bow of the later fibulæ is sometimes in the form of a single figure, as that of a crouching lion. A considerable number of small fibulæ of this type appear to have been worn in rows down the seam of the dress. Two series of these, the one numbering twenty-one and the other thirty-nine, both found in a tomb at Vulci, are in the Louvre. The Etruscans appear to have had a special love for rings; every finger, including the thumb, was covered with them, and a considerable number have been discovered in the tombs. The majority are composed of scarabs mounted much in the same style as those of the Egyptians. One of the finest Etruscan rings in the British Museum is formed by two lions, whose bodies make up the shank, their heads and fore-paws and supporting a bezel in filigree which holds the signet stone--a small scarabæus charged with a lion regardant. Another remarkable class of Etruscan rings has large oval bezels measuring upwards of an inch and a half across. These are set with an engraved gem, and have wide borders ornamented with various designs. An example in the British Museum shows a pattern formed of dolphins and waves. CHAPTER IV ROMAN JEWELLERY The foundation of the designs of Roman jewellery is to be found among the ornaments of the ancient Latin and Etruscan races which Rome subdued. That there is considerable resemblance also between Roman and Greek jewellery is natural, for the Romans, having plundered first Sicily and Southern Italy, and then Greece itself, induced Greek workmen with more refined instincts than their own to eke out a precarious living as providers of luxurious ornaments. It is worthy of remark that, owing to various causes, Greek and Etruscan jewellery has survived in considerably greater quantity than has that from the much more luxurious times of the Roman Empire. It is customary to associate Roman jewellery with a degree of luxury which has not been surpassed in ancient or modern times. Roman moralists, satirists, and comic poets refer again and again to the extravagance of their own day. The first named, from a sombre point of view, condemn the present to the advantage of the past; and the others, with a distorted view, study exceptional cases, and take social monstrosities as being faithful representations of the whole of society. Under the Republic nearly all ornaments were worn for official purposes, and the wearing of precious stones was prohibited except in rings; but in imperial times they were worn in lavish profusion, and successive emperors, by a series of sumptuary laws, attempted to check the progress of this extravagance. Many instances might be quoted of excessive luxury in the use of precious stones, like that of the lady described by Pliny, who at a simple betrothal ceremony was covered with pearls and emeralds from head to foot. Yet Roman luxury was not without its parallel in later ages. For in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries we read how at court the women carried their whole fortunes in a single dress. Further, as far as can be judged, the personal ornaments of the ancients were for the most part subject to much less frequent change of fashion than is inevitable under the social conditions of more modern times. With regard to ornaments of the head, diadems and fillets were much worn. Ladies of the Roman Empire dressed their hair in the most elaborate manner, and adorned it with pearls, precious stones, and other ornaments. For fixing their head-dresses, and for arranging the hair, they made use of long hair-pins. A gold specimen preserved in the British Museum is upwards of eight inches in length; it has an octagonal shaft crowned with a Corinthian capital, on which stands a figure of Aphrodite (Pl. VIII, 3). Pearls were in particular favour as ornaments for the ears. Introduced into Rome about the time of Sulla, pearls were imported in large quantities during the Roman domination of Egypt. In Vespasian's time Pliny, referring to earrings, says: "They seek for pearls at the bottom of the Red Sea, and search the bowels of the earth for emeralds to decorate their ears." Perfect spherical pearls of delicate whiteness were termed _uniones_ (i.e. unique), since no two were found exactly alike. Pear-shaped pearls, called _elenchi_, were prized as suitable for terminating the pendant, and were sometimes placed two or three together for this purpose. Thus worn, they were entitled _crotalia_ (rattles), from the sound produced as they clashed together. "Two pearls beside each other," Seneca complains, "with a third on the top now go to a single pendant. The extravagant fools probably think their husbands are not sufficiently plagued without their having two or three heritages hanging down from their ears." Earrings with single pendants were called _stalagmia_. It is especially to be noticed that the shapes of all ancient jewellery and ornaments, particularly those of the Romans, were in a great measure decided by a belief in their magical efficiency. The wearing of amulets was most frequent among the Romans of all classes. They were generally enclosed in a _bulla_, and suspended from the neck. A remarkable specimen of a _bulla_, found at Herculaneum, and presented by the Court of Naples to the Empress Josephine, is now in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. The lentoid-shaped _bulla_ was worn almost entirely by children, but other pendants, shaped like pendent vases, or in the form of a square or cylindrical box, were a not unusual ornament of the necklace of Roman ladies. They probably always possessed a symbolical meaning. The simple neck-chain, whether supplied with the appendage or not, was called a _monile_; the luxury of latter times doubled or trebled the rows of chains. These were often of finely plaited gold or else of links. Other necklaces were composed of mounted precious stones, the fashion for which appears to date from the Oriental conquests of Pompey in the first century B.C. Vast quantities of precious stones were brought into Rome at that date; for the treasury of Mithridates, captured at Talaura, contained, besides many other precious objects, "jewels for the breast and neck all set with gems." The Romans also wore necklaces (_monilia baccata_) composed of beads of various materials, both precious stones and glass, of many colours and various shapes. Amber was largely employed for the purpose, and held in high estimation by Roman ladies, who regarded it not only as an ornament, but as a talisman for protection against danger, especially witchcraft. Amber in which small insects were enclosed was particularly prized: "the price," says Pliny, "of a small figure in it, however diminutive, exceeds that of a living healthy slave." Both cameos and large intaglios were in frequent use as pendent ornaments, and in the most recent pieces of Roman jewellery imperial gold coins were employed for rings, bracelets, and especially for pendants to necklaces. For the latter purpose they are not infrequently found set in _opus interrasile_--the open-work characteristic of late Roman jewellery. The best example of cameos and coins mounted thus is a necklace in the Cabinet des Médailles at Paris.[3] [3] Babelon (E. C. F.), _Catalogue des camées antiques de la Bib. Nat._ (No. 367), p. 199. In the case of bracelets (_armillæ_) which were favourite ornaments among the Romans, two kinds have to be noticed. The first, termed _dextrocherium_, was meant to be worn round the right wrist, and follows the same rules of formation as the necklace, but no pendent motives are introduced. Other bracelets are formed of two rounded halves of solid character, hinged, and closed by a snap. The second kind of bracelet or armlet, worn on the upper arm, was the _brachiale_ or _torques brachialis_; another was the _spinther_, which kept its place on the arm by its own elasticity. The difference, however, between the different Latin terms for the armlet is somewhat obscure. Originally of pure gold, bracelets were subsequently set with precious stones and engraved gems, and, like the specimen in the Imperial Cabinet at Vienna, with coins dating from the third century A.D. The serpent form appears to have been a favourite one among Roman ladies, and a fine pair of armlets of this design are in the Victoria and Albert Museum (Pl. VIII, 11). [Illustration: _PLATE VIII_ ROMAN JEWELLERY] The Romans appear to have been more extravagant in their rings than any other people. Very few ornamental rings are earlier in date than the time of the Empire, when the passion for gold rings adorned with precious stones and engraved gems seems to have pervaded all classes; and it reached such extravagance that Martial speaks of a man who wore six on every finger, and recommends another who had one of monstrous size to wear it on his leg instead of his hand. Some individuals, we learn, had different sets of rings for summer and winter, those for the latter season being too heavy for hot weather. Their weight was sometimes very great, and it is not to be wondered that complaint was made of their liability to slip off when the finger was greasy at a meal. Even until the latest times the ring retained its original purpose as a means of distinction or of recognition, and was used by its wearer to impress his seal on documents and private property. It continued also to be associated with the idea of power and privilege especially bestowed upon the individual. Thus the Roman paterfamilias wore on his finger a ring with a small key attached. Every Roman appears to have chosen at pleasure the subject or device for his signet--a portrait of a friend or an ancestor, or some subject from poetry or mythology. Each of these devices became associated with a particular person, and served, like the coat-of-arms of later centuries, as a mark of identification. The commonest variety of ring is formed of a plain band of gold which widens and thickens towards the bezel, and is set with a small stone. The latter is generally engraved, but is often quite plain. The similarity of the convex sardonyx to an eye often struck the ancients, and may account for this stone being frequently found unengraved in rings, and set in a collet, itself shaped into the form of a human eye. Such rings were no doubt worn as amulets. Rings containing stones set in this manner have sometimes a flattened hoop and open-work shoulders. Other distinctly ornamental rings, known by the Romans as _polypsephi_, are formed of two or more rings united together. A large number of Roman rings are of bronze, and the key rings referred to are, with a very few exceptions, of this material. Iron and bronze rings were not infrequently gilded. Such rings, according to Pliny, were called Samothracian. Rings in the form of snakes were very popular, as were those shaped like a Herculean knot. Like other articles of jewellery, rings are sometimes set with gold coins of the late Empire. A few ornamental rings have high pyramidal bezels which were sometimes hollow, and were made to contain poison. Hannibal killed himself with a dose of poison which he carried about with him in his ring; so did the officer in charge of the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus. "Being arrested," says Pliny, "he broke the stone of his ring between his teeth and expired on the spot." CHAPTER V BYZANTINE JEWELLERY The peculiar interest of Byzantine jewellery lies, not only in its own composite nature, but in the great influence it exercised on European ornaments during the greater part of the Middle Ages. Byzantine jewellery is the result of a compromise between Oriental and Western influences. It retains the craftsmanship of ancient Rome and the dignity of classical traditions modified by Christian ideas, and to these it unites the skill in patient and exuberant decoration in which the Oriental workman excels. The new era, inaugurated in 330 A.D. by the transfer by Constantine of the seat of empire to the old colony of Byzantium, was marked at first by a retention of the Greek and Latin influences; but the quantities of pearls and precious stones that passed through Constantinople, the highway of commerce between Europe and the East, soon rendered the workmen of the Empire susceptible to the magnificence of Oriental decoration. Owing to the irruption of Oriental ideas in the sixth century consequent on the sack of Antioch by the Persians and the conquests of Belisarius, splendour of material began to supersede the refinement of classical times. This tendency is admirably displayed on the rich mosaics of the period, especially those in the church of San Vitale at Ravenna in Italy, which represent the Emperor Justinian and his wife Theodora. The Empress and her attendants are clothed in robes stiffened with gold and set with precious stones; pearls, rubies, and emeralds encircle her neck and shoulders, and, entirely covering her head, hang down from the temples in rich festoons upon the breast. Justinian also has a diadem upon his head, and a purple and gold embroidered mantle fastened with a monstrous fibula hung with triple pendants. The outbreak of iconoclasm in the eighth century had its influence on jewellery in causing the banishment of forms ornamented with the proscribed figures. But the iconoclastic movement was also of very great importance, since many goldsmiths driven from their country by the decrees of Leo III established themselves in Italy, Germany, and Gaul, carrying with them the processes and designs of Byzantine art. The restoration of images by Basil the Macedonian in the ninth century opened an important period of revival of industry and art, which lasted until the sack of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204. The active overland trade with India which had been kept up for many years, with no small influence on the ornaments of the West, was much augmented; while the commercial relations with Persia were maintained. It was during the period from the tenth century onwards that the influence of Byzantine art was most strongly felt in the West, owing to the connection which was established between the German court and Constantinople, through the marriage of the Emperor Otho II with the Byzantine Princess Theophano, daughter of Romanus, in 972. A considerable proportion of Byzantine ornaments, as shown by the mosaics, consisted of gems sewn upon the dress. Actual specimens of jewellery are naturally of considerable rarity. The British Museum contains a small but representative collection.[4] They show a difference from the jewels of classical times chiefly in the substitution of coarse repoussé and open-work--the _opus interrasile_ of later Roman work--for fine filigree and granulation; yet filigree was employed with skill, and exercised a considerable influence on the work of European craftsmen. In general form the ornaments of the Lower Empire retained the character of ancient work, but added to it fresh designs to suit the change of religion with its accompanying symbolism. Enamel and coloured stones, employed with a reserve in antique ornaments, now formed the chief artistic aspect of jewellery. Cloisonné inlay, that is to say the incrustation of glass or garnet in cells, was made use of, but cloisonné enamel was preferred. In the majority of ornaments, however, precious stones appear to have predominated.[5] [4] Dalton (O. M.), _Catalogue of early Christian antiquities in the British Museum_. 1901. [5] Cunynghame (H. H.), _European enamels,_ p. 40. As ornaments for the head, wreaths were worn, especially upon festal occasions. From the earliest Christian times the bride and bridegroom at their wedding wore, as in some countries at the present day, crowns of gold, silver, green leaves, or flowers, which were afterwards returned to the church. Early Byzantine earrings naturally follow the Roman patterns. Some take the form of a penannular wire loop holding a thimble-shaped cage of filigree, the flat end of which is closed, and has in the centre a setting for a precious stone. The majority of Byzantine earrings are, however, of a peculiar design. The most usual type, from the sixth century onwards, is crescent-shaped, formed of gold repoussé and open-worked in the form of a cross patée within a circle, supported on either side by peacocks confronted. Dating from the finest period, i.e. about the twelfth century, is a pair of earrings in the British Museum, in the shape of a segment of a circle, ornamented on both sides with figures of birds in blue, green, and white cloisonné enamel. Upon the outer border of each segment are pearls fixed upon radiating pins, alternating with pyramids of pellets; on the inner is a disc decorated with similar enamels. The cross is naturally the most favourite of pendants; yet this symbol does not appear to have been commonly worn on the person till about the fifth century. Among the most interesting pectoral crosses in the British Museum is one inscribed with a text from Galatians VI. 14; upon its arms and lower part are rings for pendent gems, and in the centre the setting for a stone. Another cross, ornamented with nielloed[6] figures of our Lord, the Virgin, and two angels or military saints, has the name of its owner inscribed at the back. Both date from about the tenth or eleventh century. One of the finest and the best known of such ornaments is the gold and enamelled pectoral cross in the Victoria and Albert Museum, known as the Beresford-Hope Cross. This remarkable specimen of Byzantine jewellery, dating from about the eighth century, is formed of two cruciform plates of gold, hinged so as to form a reliquary, and set in a silver-gilt frame of later workmanship than the cross itself. The figures upon it, executed in translucent cloisonné enamel, represent on one part the Saviour on the cross, with busts of the Virgin and St. John on either side, and on the other a full-length figure of the Virgin and the heads of four saints (Pl. IX, 8). Jewellery ornamented in this manner is of great rarity; being executed nearly always upon pure gold, it has seldom escaped the crucible. [6] Niello: a composition of lead, silver, sulphur, and borax. Judging from the mosaics, as, for example, the portraits of Justinian in the churches of San Vitale and Sant' Apollinare Nuovo at Ravenna, brooches of the circular type appear to have been generally worn. Their chief characteristic was the presence of three chains set with jewels attached to them by loops. Coins, as in Roman times, were frequently mounted as brooches in a beaded or open-work edging. Bow-shaped brooches were worn, but not after the sixth century. Three inscribed examples of the fourth century, one of them of gold, are in the British Museum. [Illustration: _PLATE IX_ BYZANTINE JEWELLERY, AND ENAMELLED JEWELLERY IN THE BYZANTINE STYLE] Similar in workmanship to the crescent-shaped earrings described above, and of about the same date, is a remarkable gold bracelet in the Franks Bequest. It is formed of an open-work hoop decorated with swans and peacocks enclosed in scrolls issuing from a vase. A circular medallion with a repoussé bust of the Virgin forms the clasp. Finger rings have survived in greater numbers than other Byzantine ornaments. The majority are figured with the beautiful symbolism of the Christian belief. Some are set with engraved gems, but on most the design is produced by the more simple process of engraving the metal of which the ring is composed. In early Christian times rings were often offered as presents, and were engraved with expressions of good-will towards the recipient, whose name is sometimes mentioned. The British Museum contains a somewhat extensive collection of these rare objects in gold. Bronze, often gilded, is naturally the commoner material. Silver appears to have been scarcely ever employed. The interest of the majority of Byzantine rings arises rather from the subjects with which they are associated, than from the quality of their workmanship. There is, however, in the British Museum a very beautiful example of pierced gold work in the form of a key ring with projecting tongue, of a kind much used in Roman times, which opened the lock by lifting a latch. Upon the front of a wide hoop are the words _Accipe dulcis_, in letters reserved in metal in a pierced ground. The remainder of the hoop is divided into compartments, each containing one letter of the inscription _Multis annis_. Above the inscription, in front, is a rectangular projection, perhaps for insertion into a lock. It is finely pierced with a design in the form of Greek crosses (Pl. IX, 10). The sack of Constantinople by the French and Venetians dealt the death-blow to Byzantine art. Until well into the thirteenth century the Byzantine goldsmiths continued to exercise an important influence on their contemporaries, and transmitted to the artists of mediæval Europe such of the processes and designs of antique art as they had preserved. Their intercourse was closest with Russia, whose jewellery for centuries, even up to the present day, has followed the designs of the old Byzantine workmen. CHAPTER VI PREHISTORIC (CELTIC) JEWELLERY ROMANO-BRITISH JEWELLERY The early ornaments of the greater part of Europe remained until late times entirely untouched by the culture prevalent in Italy and Greece. Though of great archæological importance, as revealing successive stages of culture, they do not at the present demand very detailed consideration. The decoration of the earliest jewellery of Europe--that of the Bronze Age, which dates roughly from about a thousand years before the Christian era--is by means of spiral and zigzag patterns. Ornaments have free endings, bent in spiral, snail-shell coils. The earliest were cast, though the hammer was used towards the close of the period; solder was unknown, and rivets alone employed. Gold and bronze were the only metals employed, the latter being sometimes gilt by means of thin gold plates, while amber is often found used as a jewel. Some idea of these early ornaments can be formed from the discoveries of objects worn by the ancient inhabitants of the British Isles. They are, however, not very numerous or important until after the Bronze Age, and until the Early Iron Age--known in England as the Late Celtic period--is reached. The ornaments of the Britons--that is to say the Brythons or iron-using Celts--before they became subject to Rome are somewhat rare, for few objects of value were buried in graves. Such as have been found comprise bronze pins, brooches, torques, and bracelets; beads of amber, jet, bone, and glass, and bracelets also of jet. Golden ornaments, like those laid bare by Schliemann at Mycenæ, concealed either as votive offerings or for the sake of security, have been brought to light from time to time, occasionally in England and more frequently in Ireland. Celtic literature and legend are full of references to these golden ornaments, and classical writers often make mention of them. The simplest types of gold ornaments discovered in England are rings formed of a rounded bar of equal thickness throughout, bent into a circular form, and the extremities left disunited. Their material is gold, so pure and flexible that the rings can be easily opened to be linked into a chain or strung upon a thin gold wire. They were very probably employed for barter, and are generally known as "ring-money." Other rings, crescent-shaped, with ends tapering towards their extremities, may have served both as ornaments and substitutes for money. Others, again, are of gold wire shaped into a sort of rope, or else formed of a simple bar twisted in an ornamental manner. It has been suggested that the simple penannular rings were nose-ornaments, and when linked or strung together were worn as necklaces; also that the more decorative rings were earrings. But it is quite impossible to determine their actual use as personal ornaments. Massive torques employed by the Celts for the purpose of adorning the neck are occasionally found of pure gold. They consist of a long piece of metal twisted and turned into the form of a circle, with its ends either terminating in a knob, or doubled back in the form of a short hook, or swelling out into cup-like terminations. Some are formed of a square bar of gold twisted spirally, others of a flat bar twisted in a lighter manner, or of more than one bar twisted together. [Illustration: _PLATE X_ PREHISTORIC GOLD ORNAMENTS OF THE BRITISH ISLES] Gold ornaments for the arms, known by the term _armillæ_, are sometimes of the same thickness throughout. It is more usual to find them plain, though twisted work was also applied to them. The majority have dilated ends, or ends slightly concave. With others, again, these cavities assume the form of a cup so expanded as to present the appearance of a trumpet or the calyx of a large flower. On ornaments somewhat resembling the latter the dilated extremities are flat plates, while the connecting part, diminutive in proportion to their exaggerated size, is striated longitudinally. These objects are usually described as dress-fasteners, but the exact purpose for which they were employed is still a matter of doubt. Advanced skill in the art of enamelling is one of the most notable features of the Late Celtic period, which itself extended from the prehistoric Age of Iron and over the period of the Roman occupation. This enamel, executed by the champlevé process on copper and bronze, served for the decoration of massive bronze penannular bracelets, and for bronze pins with wheel-shaped heads. In addition to brooches--all of the safety-pin type--of an immense variety of design, other primitive bronze ornaments, usually of the spiral form characteristic of Celtic work, include torques, armlets, and anklets. The torques are mostly penannular and have enlarged terminals; the armlets are often complete rings. For the most extensive representation of the prehistoric gold ornaments of the British Isles one must look, not to England whose inhabitants generally assumed the types of ornament in use among their Roman conquerors, but to Ireland, where the Celtic traditions were continued, and which has revealed vast hoards of golden treasure. In Celtic England during the Bronze and Early Iron Ages the majority of personal ornaments are of bronze; in Ireland, however, at the same periods the greater number are of gold. The objects belonging to the Royal Irish Academy in the Dublin Museum--perhaps the largest collection in Europe of prehistoric gold ornaments--represent merely a fraction of what, during the last few hundred years, has been discovered and consigned to the crucible. Usually described as head-ornaments are certain crescent or moon-shaped plates of thin gold, generally decorated with engraved designs in parallel lines, with angular lines between them, and having their extremities formed into small flat circular discs. These gold _lunettes_ or _lunulæ_ are considered to have been worn upright on the head and held in position by the terminal plates set behind the ears,[7] but they were very probably worn round the neck. The finest at Dublin is of pure gold, weighing upwards of sixteen ounces, and is richly ornamented with rows of conical studs. [7] Wilde (W. R.), _Cat. of antiquities of gold_, p. 12. Torques are the most frequent of ancient Irish ornaments. The largest known, over 5 feet long and upwards of 27 ounces in weight, is supposed to have been worn over the shoulder and across the breast. It is the property of the Royal Irish Academy. In addition to torques and gorgets, neck-ornaments were also formed of beads of gold, and some of these have been found accompanied by beads of amber. Besides torque-shaped armlets, are bracelets composed of perfect rings; but the penannular type, terminating mostly with bulbous or cup-like ends, is commonest. A considerable number of the prehistoric dress-fasteners, known as _mammillary fibulæ_, have been discovered in Ireland. A slight enlargement of the ends of the penannular ring develops into a cup-like expansion, which increases to such a size that the ring becomes simply the connecting link between the terminations. The latter when flat are generally plain, and when cup-shaped are often highly ornamented. The finest of these fibulæ at Dublin is 8-3/8 inches long, and is of the extraordinary weight of 33 ounces. Among other gold ornaments are certain circular flat plates of thin gold, usually about 2¼ inches in diameter, somewhat similar to the plates discovered at Mycenæ, in that they were evidently employed for sewing upon the dress. In the middle of the plates are small holes as if for attachment. As regards "ring-money," and similar rings employed possibly as ornaments for the ears or fingers, nothing more need be said, as they usually follow the designs of those in use among the Celts of Britain. In a country like Ireland, which is famed for its golden treasures, many strange stories of discoveries have been recorded, yet few have excited greater interest than the now famous Limavady treasure, which in the year 1896 was ploughed up at Broighter, near Limavady, in the county of Londonderry, in a field not far from the shores of Lough Foyle. This hoard--probably the most important which has ever been unearthed of objects of this period--has been fully described by Dr. A. J. Evans in Vol. LV of _Archæologia_. It includes the following personal ornaments: two gold chains, a torque formed of thick twisted wires, and collar of very remarkable workmanship. This collar consists of a hollow cylinder formed of two plates soldered together, and fastened at the end by a #T#-shaped projection and slot. The ornament is repoussé work, in the trumpet pattern of the Late Celtic period. The style of work upon these ornaments, particularly that of the collar, associates them with an artistic period which probably dates from the first century A.D. The year following its discovery the whole find was purchased by the British Museum, where its presence at once figured as "another injustice to Ireland"; while through the Press and in Parliament numerous attempts were made to obtain its removal to Dublin. The Irish claimed it as treasure-trove and maintained that its legal home was the National Museum at Dublin. The British Museum authorities replied that Dublin had missed an opportunity of obtaining it in open market, while they themselves, having acquired it in the ordinary course of business, were precluded by statute from parting with it. They further contended that the ornaments were not necessarily of Irish workmanship, but might with equal likelihood have been produced in Britain. Thus for several years the dispute dragged on, until in the summer of 1903 the case came up in the Chancery Division of the Courts of Law (Attorney-General _v._ Trustees of British Museum. _The Times Law Reports_, XIX, p. 555.) Notwithstanding the ingenious defence of the British Museum, judgment was given that the ornaments were treasure-trove, and by virtue of the Prerogative Royal must be surrendered to the King. They were accordingly delivered to the Crown authorities and presented to the Irish National Museum by His Majesty. ROMANO-BRITISH Whatever races settled under the banner of Rome, they accepted unreservedly its ornaments, dress and manners, as well as its language and its laws. Hence the jewellery which dates from the Roman occupation of Britain (i.e. from about 43 A.D. to about 410 A.D.) follows for the most part the Italian designs, and at the same time differs but little from that brought to light among the remains of Roman colonisation elsewhere. The majority of Romano-British personal ornaments are of bronze--in most cases probably once gilt. Comparatively few objects of gold have been found. Among the articles of female adornment that occur in the greatest abundance are pins, which were used for fixing the hair in a knot behind the head, though some may have been employed as dress-pins. They range from 3 to 9 inches in length, and have heads of various designs, terminating in some instances in a bust or in a figure. The majority are of bone, many are of bronze, and a few are composed of coloured glass or jet. A few necklaces of gold and bronze have been found, but by far the greater number appear to have been composed of beads of glass--in the manufacture of which the Romans displayed remarkable skill. These necklaces differ considerably in form and colour. The commonest beads are spherical and pierced with a large hole. They are usually of one colour, generally blue, but some are of compound colours exquisitely blended, and a few have a serpentine ornament fused into the glass. Beads of amber, pearls, and glazed earthenware have also been found. A characteristic of Roman jewels executed in Britain is their ornamentation with enamels. The metal employed is generally bronze, the surface of which is ornamented by the champlevé process; that is to say, it is incised or grooved out (though sometimes stamped or cast) in such a manner as to leave floral or geometrical patterns in relief, and into the sunk spaces thus formed are fused opaque enamels, principally red, yellow, green, blue, and white. This enamelling is generally found upon brooches both of the circular and of the bow-shaped type. The fronts of the circular brooches are flat, or raised like a shield into several compartments of different colours. The pin, which is hidden, moves freely on a pivot, and its point is held by a catch. The finest specimen, discovered in London, was formerly in the collection of Lord Hastings, from whom it was acquired by the British Museum. It is a circular flat plaque, the pattern on which consists of four quatrefoils with blue centres on a red ground, and four small circles of yellow enamel between them. In the centre is the revolving figure of a dolphin (Pl. XI, 7). Brooches enamelled in a somewhat similar manner have been found in France at Mont Beuvray, near Autun, and are preserved in the Musée des Antiquités Nationales at St. Germain.[8] [8] Bulliot (J. G.), _Fouilles de Mont Beuvray (ancienne Bibracte) de 1867 à 1895_. 1899. Quite different are certain ornaments set with slices cut from rods of millefiori glass, which were executed for the most part during the decline of the Roman power. One of the most elaborate is a brooch found at Pont-y-Saison, near Chepstow, Monmouthshire, in 1861, and preserved among other Romano-British antiquities in the British Museum. It has an elaborate pattern of chequered squares of red, white, and blue (Pl. XI, 6). Brooches of the Gallo-Roman and early Merovingian period appear to have been also decorated in this manner. Of bow-shaped brooches, or fibulæ, there exists a considerable number of varieties. Among these we may distinguish the #T#-shaped fibula with long cylindrical head, and a wide flat bow with sunk designs filled with enamel. In another variety the bow passes through a horizontal disc in its centre and assumes a form resembling a tassel. Another common variety is the crossbow form, either with a spiral or hinged head. In many Roman fibulæ the pin works on a hinge, but in the variety known as the harp-shaped, the sheath of the pin is filled in with a triangular plate, pierced or solid, and the head is slightly expanded to suit the coils of a spring. In addition to the more formal types of brooches, many fancy devices, probably of Celtic origin, appear to have been in vogue among the Roman colonists of Great Britain. These are in the shape of birds, fish, and all kinds of animals, brilliant with various coloured enamels, which are often so disposed as to indicate the spots or markings of the animals. A remarkable series of brooches of this kind is in the possession of Sir John Evans. Bracelets and armlets, usually of bronze, have survived in large numbers. They consist generally of a simple narrow ring, such as could be slipped over the wrist. Some are pennanular with tapering ends, others are closed with a hook and eye, while a few have their ends so twisted together that they can slide over one another and so be taken on and off. Armlets of glass, chiefly of a deep transparent blue, have also been found. Most of the varieties of finger rings already recorded appear to have been worn in Britain. The extent of the Roman civilisation can be measured by the number of engraved stones enclosed in their settings or found apart, the majority of which must have been executed by lapidaries on the spot. Many articles, such as rings, armlets, beads, buttons, and amulets, were formed of jet or Kimmeridge shale, turned on a lathe. In the Island of Purbeck round flat pieces of jet have been found pierced with holes, which are clearly refuse pieces of the turner--the nuclei of rings and other articles. This material appears to be the same as that termed by Pliny _gigates_. According to him, it was supposed to possess the virtue of driving away serpents; and personal ornaments made of it were particularly prized. There seems little doubt that the use of ornaments of Kimmeridge coal or shale by the Romano-Britons was nothing more than a survival of the Neolithic or Stone Age. "Great Britain," writes M. Fontenay in 1887, with reference to the ancient practice of wearing ornaments of jet, "remains faithful to its early customs; for at the present day English ladies delight in adorning themselves with jet jewellery." Fashion changes rapidly, but it will be long, one hopes, before it again decrees the general use of ornaments of this unattractive material. CHAPTER VII BARBARIC JEWELLERY OF EUROPE (THE GREAT MIGRATIONS) During the period of the great migrations, when hordes of barbarians swept like waves across Europe over the tracks of Roman civilisation, all traces of classical art rapidly vanished, save in Constantinople, which remained, as it were, a corner of the antique world. The forms of classical jewellery in natural course either totally disappeared or underwent a complete transformation, and there appeared instead a new process for the decoration of personal ornament, which in earlier times was practically unknown, save to the goldsmiths of ancient Egypt. Just as the desire to imitate precious stones led to the introduction of enamel, so the Gothic nations who hailed from the south-east corner of Europe brought into jewellery the Oriental love for colour. Coloured stones, usually garnets, or red glass, cut in slices, were inlaid on a metal surface, or were placed side by side, separated only by intervening strips of metal. This process of inlay or incrustation is of great importance, since almost every species of jewellery in Europe from the third till about the eighth century is thus decorated. The Goths invented no new jewellery, but adapted a style which had long been in existence. And though the forms of their jewellery may be due to the growth of local traditions, its decoration is clearly the result of influences connected in some way with the East. Originating, as it doubtless did, in Persia or in the further East, this process of inlay was adopted by the Gothic nations during the earlier centuries of the Christian era, and made its first appearance among them in the districts of the Caucasus and in the Crimea. From thence it passed to the Lombards in Italy, to the Burgundians in Austria and Switzerland, the Visigoths in Spain, the Merovingians in Gaul, the earlier Scandinavians in Denmark; and by the Saxon tribes in Northern Germany it was carried to England, where it attained its highest perfection in the superb circular brooches that have been brought to light in Kent. By the discovery of specimens of Asiatic and Germanic jewellery ornamented in this manner, the path of the migratory tribes can thus be traced right across the Continent. Yet for the reason that conditions of property and nationality became altered from one generation to another, the question to which of the nations numerous pieces of jewellery are to be ascribed, is difficult to solve. They are often connected with misunderstood Hellenistic and Asiatic traditions, while at the same time showing workmanship with barbaric ideas of form. There are, as has been pointed out,[9] two very distinct forms of inlay, one of which is possibly the outcome of the other. One has been termed _plate inlaying_, the other _cloisonné inlaying_. The first is represented in the east of Europe by the fibulæ and gorget in the celebrated treasure of Petrossa, and in the west by the crown of Svinthila in the equally famous treasure of Guarrazar. In these objects a gold plate is pierced, and into the holes thus formed stones are fixed by mastic, and supported from behind by a second plate of gold. This form of inlaying seems to merge naturally into the other, for at a certain point it may have occurred to the goldsmith to abandon the continuous upper sheet of metal and to cut it into strips to be placed edgewise between the stones. Thus appeared the second form of inlaying, in the cloisonné manner. It is represented in its journey from the East by the "Oxus treasure." In Europe it is illustrated by numerous specimens of Teutonic jewellery from Southern Europe, by the ornaments discovered in the tomb of Childeric I, and finally by the splendid Anglo-Saxon jewellery from the Kentish cemeteries. Numbers of articles of jewellery dating from the fifth century until the general introduction of Christianity have been discovered in various localities in Europe. But the above-mentioned hoards of treasure demand special consideration, as being, not only the most characteristic examples of the methods of inlay, but also types of the utmost luxury of the period in the way of personal ornaments. Beyond these no general account of European jewellery need here be given, since excavations in the Anglo-Saxon graves have revealed examples of jewellery which may be taken as fairly representative of the articles then in use upon the Continent as well. [9] _Archæologia_, LVIII, p. 240, 1902. A description may now be given of some of the principal and most typical of these European treasure-hoards, dating from what are known as the "Dark Ages." But attention must first be drawn to the important Asiatic treasure found near the River Oxus, in Bactria, in 1877. This "Oxus treasure,"[10] belonging for the most part to the fourth century B.C., seems to supply the missing link in the chain of evidence which unites the ornamentation of European jewellery with clearly defined Oriental methods. The chief articles of jewellery in the hoard are two massive penannular bracelets of gold, one in the British Museum, the other at South Kensington. They are ornamented at each end with a winged monster or gryphon in full relief. The surface of the wings and necks of the figures is covered with gold cloisons, once set with coloured stones or pastes. The form and decoration of these and the other articles of the treasure in the Franks Bequest in the British Museum seem to indicate the Persian origin of this inlaid work. [10] Dalton (O. M.), _The treasure of the Oxus, 1905._ The "treasure of Petrossa," dating from the fourth century A.D., contains some of the earliest examples of inlaid jewellery in Europe. Few treasures of which record has been preserved are equal to it in archæological interest. It was discovered in 1837 by peasants on the banks of a tributary of the Danube, near the village of Petrossa, about sixty miles from Bucharest. Much of it was broken up shortly after its discovery. What remained was seized by the Government and conveyed to the Museum of Antiquities at Bucharest, where it is now preserved. The treasure includes a gold torque with hooked ends, like the Celtic torques from the British Isles; a crescent-shaped collar or gorget of gold with its surface pierced in the manner of plate inlay, and set with garnets and other stones; three bird-shaped fibulæ; and a larger ornament, also in the shape of a bird, intended probably as a breast-plate. The heads and necks of the birds are inlaid in the cloisonné manner; their lower parts are ornamented with plate inlay.[11] [11] A remarkable book descriptive of this treasure has been published by Professor Odobesco, of the University of Bucharest, in which the whole process of inlaying is discussed at considerable length. The same subject has been treated with the most minute care by the well-known art historian, M. Charles de Linas. Dating from the Merovingian period are the treasures of King Childeric I in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris. The founder of the Merovingian dynasty died in 481, and was buried at Tournai, in Languedoc, surrounded by his treasures and robes of state. In the year 1653, when all memory of the place of his interment had perished, a labourer accidentally uncovered the royal grave and brought to light the treasure it contained. The regalia consisted of a sword, a bracelet, fibulæ, buckles, about three hundred gold bees--the decoration of a mantle--and a signet-ring of gold. This ring was not set with a gem, but had its oval gold bezel engraved with a full-faced bust holding a spear. It bore the legend CHILDIRICI REGIS. On the night of November 5, 1831, the Bibliothèque was broken into by burglars. An alarm being given, they fled, and threw their spoil, which included, amongst other objects, Childeric's regalia, into the Seine. The river was dredged, and a great part of the treasure was recovered. The ring, however, was never found; but its design is preserved in Chiflet's _Anastasis Childerici I_, while the signet itself has been reconstructed from an impression of the seal in wax, found in the Bodleian Library in a copy of Chiflet's work, once the property of the great antiquary, Francis Douce. Except on this jewel, the traditional surface decoration of Teutonic jewellery is admirably represented. Every item of the treasure is inlaid with thin slices of garnet or red glass, arranged in the cloisonné manner between gold partitions.[12] [12] Abbé Cochet, _Le tombeau de Childéric I^e^r_, 1859. The most wonderful, probably, of all treasures-trove is the famous "treasure of Guarrazar," discovered in 1858 at a place called La Fuente de Guarrazar, near Toledo.[13] It included eleven crowns of pure gold set with precious stones. The peasants who unearthed the treasure broke up the crowns and divided the spoil. But the story of the discovery became known; and having been pieced together, most of the crowns were conveyed to the Musée Cluny at Paris, and the remainder placed in the Real Armería at Madrid. The most important of those at Madrid is the crown of King Svinthila (621-631). Its surface is pierced with holes arranged in rose-shaped patterns, and set with large pearls and cabochon sapphires. From the lower rim hangs a fringe of letters set in the cloisonné manner with red glass paste, suspended by chains. The letters form the inscription SVINTILANUS REX OFFERET. The chief crown in the treasure at Paris is that of King Reccesvinthus (649-672). It consists of a broad circle of gold, 8 inches in diameter, mounted with thirty huge Oriental pearls and thirty large sapphires, all set in high collets and separated by pierced open-work. The margins are bands of cloisonné work with inlays of red glass. Suspended below by twenty-four chains are letters of gold inlaid like the borders forming the words [Symbol: cross pattée] RECCESVINTHUS REX OFFERET. Attached to each letter is a square collet hung with a pear-shaped sapphire. The crown is suspended by four chains from a foliated ornament encircled with pendent pearls and sapphires, and surmounted by a capital of rock crystal. A massive cross 4¼ inches long and 2½ inches wide hangs below the crown. It is set with eight enormous pearls and six large and brilliant sapphires, the latter mounted in high open bezels. From its foot and limbs hang three paste imitations of emeralds, with pear-shaped sapphires below. The combination of the pure gold with the violet sapphires and the somewhat faded lustre of the pearls produces an exceedingly harmonious effect of colour. [13] Lasteyrie (F. de), _Description du trésor de Guarrazar_, 1860. The majority of these crowns were votive offerings to a church, to be hung above the altar; the larger ones may have been actually used at coronations, and afterwards suspended in some consecrated building and the dedicatory inscriptions attached in remembrance of the ceremony. They certainly appear to be native work of the Spanish Visigoths, executed under the influence of the style prevailing in the Eastern Empire. At a date not long after their production, the use of this particular species of decoration of jewellery, owing probably to the revival of the art of enamelling, rapidly declined in western Europe; and though it continued to be practised in the East, it had virtually disappeared at the close of the Merovingian period--by about the year 800, when Charlemagne was crowned Emperor of the West. CHAPTER VIII ANGLO-SAXON JEWELLERY (FIFTH TO SEVENTH CENTURY)--MEROVINGIAN JEWELLERY Upon the invasion of Britain by the Teutonic races in the fifth century personal ornaments lost their Roman character, and assumed a peculiar type which betrays the impress of a fresh nationality on design and workmanship. A near alliance by origin and geographical position existed between the Jutes, Angles, and other kindred tribes commonly known as the Saxons, who settled in Britain, and the Franks, who stationed themselves in Gaul. The ornaments of all these tribes bear on this account a close similarity. Hence Anglo-Saxon jewels may for the most part be taken as representative of all the rest; and the only contemporary Merovingian ornaments to be noticed will be those that differ from the Anglo-Saxon types. In England as well as in France this remarkable group of jewellery belongs to the period which immediately followed the extinction of the Roman power in both countries, and extends from the fifth to the middle of the seventh century. Personal ornaments in England were the last in Europe to receive a characteristic species of surface decoration: for Kent and the Isle of Wight form the extreme limit of the geographical area in which jewellery ornamented with cloisonné inlay has been found. The process attained here the highest point of excellence. Anglo-Saxon jewellery occupies an exceedingly important position in the history of the goldsmith's art. Its beauty lies in its delicate goldwork and peculiarly harmonious blending of colours. So remarkable is the fertility of fancy with which each jewel is adorned, that scarcely any two are exactly identical in ornamentation. However complicated the system of knotwork, and however frequently the same form might require filling in, each workman appears to have been eager to express his own individuality, and to originate some fresh method of treatment or new variety of design. In common with other Teutonic nations, the Anglo-Saxons were peculiarly fond of personal ornaments. They held in high esteem both the smith--the producer of weapons--and the goldsmith who manufactured the rings and bracelets employed as rewards of valour. A passage in the "Exeter Book," which dilates on the various stations in life and the capacities required for them, refers thus to the goldsmith: "For one a wondrous skill in goldsmith's art is provided: full oft he decorates and well adorns a powerful king's nobles, and he to him gives broad land in recompense." The graves or barrows of our Anglo-Saxon ancestors have proved singularly prolific in personal ornaments. Extensive cemeteries have been discovered in the midland, eastern and southern counties, and particularly upon the downs of Kent, Sussex, and the Isle of Wight. The barrows of Kent have revealed personal ornaments of greater wealth and refinement than those of any other parts. The majority of Anglo-Saxon pins were no doubt employed for fastening up the hair. They often have as a head the figure of a bird or grotesque animal, ornamented with garnets, like similar pins from the Continent. One of the best, which comes from the Faversham graves in Kent, is in the Gibbs Bequest, now in the British Museum. It is of silver, formerly gilt; its upper part is flat and in the form of a bird set with cut garnets. Gothic tribes had a great predilection for the bird as a decorative subject.[14] [14] De Baye (J.), _The industrial arts of the Anglo-Saxons_, p. 45. A certain number of earrings have been found, but they are not common. They are generally a ring of silver wire, plain, or twisted into a spiral form, and hung sometimes with beads of coloured glass or clay. The earrings worn by the Franks during the contemporary Merovingian period are of a type unrepresented in Anglo-Saxon jewellery. They differ in size, but are nearly all of the same pattern, and have a plain hoop. One end is pointed to pierce the ear, and on the other end is a polygonal metal cube, each side of which is set with a slice of garnet or red glass. Anglo-Saxon necklaces are composed of beads of many varieties. The commonest, of glass, of numerous colours and shapes, are very similar to the Roman beads. Beads of amethystine quartz, probably of Transylvanian or German origin, and particularly beads of amber from the Baltic, are found strung on necklaces, or were hung singly from the neck. When one remembers the superstitious respect which was universally paid to precious stones, and especially to amber, in early times, it is probable that these were regarded as amulets. The more sumptuous necklaces, which must have been worn by ladies of rank, are composed of gold beads or of precious stones in delicate settings of twisted or beaded gold. The pendent ornaments hung to the necklaces are very beautiful. Some are formed of large, finely coloured garnets cut into triangle or pear shapes and mounted in gold. Others, generally circular, are of pure gold worked in interlaced or vermiculated patterns and set with precious stones. A striking group of pendants is formed of coins of foreign origin, Roman or Byzantine, or rude copies of them made in England by Anglo-Saxon goldsmiths. In the British Museum is an elaborate necklace of glass and terra-cotta beads with pendent gold coins of the seventh century, which was found, together with a splendid brooch, at Sarre, in Kent. Three of the pendants are coins of Emperors of the East--Mauricius and Heraclius--and the fourth is a coin of Chlotaire II of France. The central pendant, also circular, is ornamented with a section from a rod of Roman millefiori glass set in gold. Besides coins--the frequent use of which in late Roman jewellery has already been noticed--there exists a well-known class of personal ornaments known as _nummi bracteati_, bracteate coins, and sometimes as "spangle money." They are thin discs of metal stamped in a die, so that the design appears in relief on the face and incuse on the back. They are generally of gold, have a beaded edging, and are supplied with loops, also of gold, for suspension. Fibulæ or brooches are the most numerous of all Anglo-Saxon ornaments. They are remarkable both for their beauty and their excellence of workmanship. Probably more than one was usually worn; and four or five have been found in the same grave on different parts of the body. The different types of brooches from various districts of England are sufficiently clearly marked to permit their classification as the ornaments of distinct peoples. For the present purpose it is convenient to divide them into three main classes, each class consisting, naturally, of many varieties. (1) Circular jewelled brooches found among the remains of the Kentish Saxons, and of the Jutes of the Isle of Wight. (2) Brooches of the sunk or concave circular type worn by the Saxons of Berks, Oxford, and Gloucestershire. (3) Cruciform brooches--a type of the elongated form of brooch. They are peculiar to the Angles who formed the population of Mercia, East Anglia, and Northumbria. (1) The circular jewelled brooches found in the cemeteries of Kent and sometimes in the Isle of Wight, but scarcely ever in other parts of England, may be subdivided again into three classes. The first of these, and the most numerous, is composed of a single piece of metal decorated with chased work and set with jewels. The second group comprises those formed of a disc of bronze or silver, decorated with a disc of gold foil covered with inlaid cells forming triangles and circles, with three bosses grouped round a central boss. This type is rarer than the first, and is often of great beauty. The third group, the finest and rarest, is distinguished by being formed of two plates of metal joined by a band round the edges, the upper part being prepared in the cloisonné manner for the reception of stones or pastes, while the pin or _acus_ is fixed to the lower. Brooches of this type, in which the stones, mostly garnets, are set upon hatched gold foil between delicate gold cloisons, represent at its utmost perfection the process of inlaying already described. Three of the finest circular jewelled brooches are: the Kingston brooch in the Mayer Collection at Liverpool, the Abingdon brooch in the Ashmolean Museum, and the Sarre brooch in the British Museum. The first, which is certainly the most beautiful, is 3-3/16 inches in diameter. The front is divided into compartments subdivided into cells of various forms, enriched with vermicular gold, with turquoises and with garnets laid upon gold foil. Concentric circles which surround a central boss are treated alternately in coloured stones and worked gold.[15] The Abingdon brooch is divided into four compartments, each decorated with interlaced gold wire, and mounted with a boss of ivory, horn or shell, with a fifth boss in the centre of the brooch. The rest of the ground is decorated with garnets upon hatched gold foil.[16] The Sarre brooch, 2-5/8 inches in width, is ornamented in a similar manner, and has a large central and four smaller bosses composed of a substance resembling ivory, set with carbuncles[17] (Pl. XI, 1). [15] Faussett (B.), _Inventorium sepulchrale_, p. 78, Pl. 1. [16] _Arch. Journal_, IV, p. 253. Another similar brooch from Abingdon is in the British Museum. See Akerman (J. Y.), _Remains of pagan Saxondom_, Pl. iii. [17] _Archæologia Cantiana_, II, Pl. iii. [Illustration: _PLATE XI_ ANGLO-SAXON AND ROMANO-BRITISH BROOCHES, ETC.] (2) The next main class of brooches comprises the concave circular, known also as the cupelliform or saucer-shaped, found in the West Saxon cemeteries. They are of bronze or copper, thickly gilt, and very rarely decorated with jewels. They have a plain edge, and a centre covered with interlaced and other ornamental patterns. (3) Cruciform brooches form the last and most widely distributed group. They have trefoil or cruciform tops; but must not be held to have any connection with Christianity because they approach the form of a cross, for they are found in purely pagan graves. Some varieties are found in other parts of England besides Mercia, East Anglia, and Northumbria, but they are rare in Kent. These cruciform Anglian brooches are of cast bronze, generally gilt, but sometimes plated with silver. They are often of enormous size, and covered with rude and elaborate patterns such as are found upon early Scandinavian objects. Since the patterns were added after the brooches were cast, it happens that, though forms are frequently identical, decorations differ on nearly every specimen. With the rarest exception, they are never garnished with precious stones. This kind of brooch appears to have been evolved about the fourth century. There are other brooches somewhat of the same form, but not usually found in England. Amongst these is a type which, instead of having a trefoil ornament at the top, is square-headed. Though not unknown in France and Germany, brooches of this design are chiefly Scandinavian. An important series of both of the types last mentioned is preserved in the British Museum; while the fine collection belonging to Sir John Evans contains many splendid specimens. Another variety is known as the "radiated" brooch, from the fact that its upper part, which is rectangular or semicircular, is ornamented with obtuse rays. The finest example of this type, and the largest known (it measures 6¼ inches), is in the Bavarian National Museum at Munich. It dates from about the sixth century; and was found in a rock tomb near Wittislingen on the Danube in 1881. It is silver, gilt upon the upper side, enriched with a cloisonné inlay of garnets in a variety of patterns, and further ornamented with interlaced gold filigree (Pl. XII, 7). A Latin inscription on the under side contains the name UFFILA. Radiated brooches, which Mr. Roach Smith[18] considers to be prior in point of date to all other Anglo-Saxon types, extend over the greater part of Europe. But they are rare in England, though a few have been found in Kent and are preserved among the Gibbs Bequest. [18] _Catalogue of Anglo-Saxon antiquities_, p. xv. There is yet another type of Anglo-Saxon brooch, annular in shape. It consists of a plain ring, with a pin travelling round it attached to a small cylinder. This annular brooch is comparatively rare in Saxon times. Its interest lies in the fact that it is the parent of a much more important brooch worn throughout the Middle Ages. In common with all primitive peoples, the Saxons held rings in less esteem than other ornaments. The few that have been found are simple bronze hoops. Rings were more frequent, however, among the Merovingians. The chief feature in Merovingian rings, which are often of gold, is that the bezel is for the most part large and circular. It is either roughly engraved in the manner of Childeric's signet, or else is ornamented with cloisonné inlay. Other rings have a high projecting bezel. [Illustration: _PLATE XII_ ANGLO-SAXON AND FRANKISH JEWELLERY (5TH-7TH CENTURIES)] Buckles of gold, silver, and bronze, used to fasten the belt or girdle, or employed on some other part of the dress, are particularly abundant in Kentish graves. They vary considerably, many being of particularly good design, set with garnets and ornamented with gold filigree. The largest examples can be assigned to the girdles of men, the smallest and richest to those of women. Some of the best are in the Gibbs Bequest. One of the finest examples of Anglo-Saxon jewellery is the magnificent gold buckle discovered in a grave near Taplow, Bucks, and now in the British Museum. The base of the tongue and the oval ring are inlaid with glass pastes upon gold foil; while the buckle plate, enriched with three garnets, is bordered with many graduated rows of finely twisted gold wire, and has its centre filled with a sort of vermiculated pattern upon repoussé ground (Pl. XII, 6). Women's graves have generally yielded a number of objects of personal use as well as of adornment. Articles of toilet, such as tweezers, etc., are found by the side of the skeleton, and resemble the modern chatelaine. There exist, in addition, curious bronze pendants sometimes shaped like a pot-hook, which, found in pairs near the waists of female skeletons, are known generally as girdle-hangers. Their exact purpose was for a long time a mystery, but archæologists are now mostly of the opinion that they were fastenings for bags or purses suspended from the girdle. With the exception of the brooch-pin, which is always made of iron, Anglo-Saxon jewellery is almost invariably composed of gold, silver, or of some alloy, and is very rarely of iron like the buckles found in the Frankish cemeteries. These iron buckles, owing to the perishable nature of their material are often much disfigured by rust, but many are sufficiently well preserved to exhibit a beautiful and elaborate inlay of silver, sometimes accompanied by gold. Many examples of them are preserved in the museums of France and Germany. Some are of extraordinary size. The buckle and plate alone of one in the museum at Berne measures no less than 8-5/8 by 4½ inches and half an inch in thickness. Buckles of this kind have never been found in England. CHAPTER IX LATE ANGLO-SAXON JEWELLERY (SEVENTH TO NINTH CENTURY) After the landing of St. Augustine in 597 and the baptism of Ethelbert, King of Kent, the conversion of the upper classes in England appears to have been rapid, and by the third decade of the seventh century the greater part of the country had accepted Christianity. Old customs, however, with regard to burial and the adornment of the corpse, were slow in disappearing, and even as late as the time of Charlemagne (742-814) we hear of orders being issued that the Saxons were no longer to follow the pagan mode of burial, but to inter their dead in consecrated ground. The general abandonment of the custom of burying ornaments with the dead is responsible for the small number of the later Anglo-Saxon jewels now extant. But the few examples surviving from the period which terminated at the Norman Conquest are of exceptional merit. There can be no doubt that the introduction of Christianity produced a profound change in the character of personal ornaments. New forms and methods, due to closer association with the Continent, were introduced into the goldsmith's productions by the Church, which at the same time fostered the splendid traditions of the older English jewellers. The characteristic of the finest pieces of Saxon jewellery of the Christian period is their ornamentation by means of cloisonné enamel. It has already been noticed that Anglo-Saxon jewels were decorated with gold wires, some twisted or beaded, or rolled up and plaited together, and soldered on to a thin gold plate; while others were flattened into strips forming compartments, which were filled with pieces of garnet or coloured glass cut to shape. When the spaces between strips, so disposed as to make up the outlines of figures or ornament, were filled with enamel paste and fired, the result was enamel of the cloisonné type. This cloisonné enamel naturally resulted as soon as the Saxon jeweller had mastered the art of fusing vitreous colours upon metal. From whom did he learn this art? Was enamelling introduced by the followers of Augustine from Rome or Byzantium, or did the Irish missionaries bring afresh into England an art of which the Celts were past masters? The question is one that cannot be answered; but it is not without interest to note the great influence of the Irish craftsmen on the art productions of the time. A remarkable development of goldsmiths' work in Ireland succeeded the introduction of Christianity. Enamel was largely employed in the decoration of early objects of ecclesiastical metal-work, and attained perfection in the translucent cloisonné enamel of the Tara brooch and the Ardagh chalice. The far-reaching influence and extraordinary activity of the Irish missionaries, many of them no doubt skilled goldsmiths, are well known. "Irish missionaries laboured among the Picts of the Highlands and among the Frisians of the northern seas. An Irish missionary, Columban, founded monasteries in Burgundy and the Apennines. The canton of St. Gall still commemorates in its name another Irish missionary."[19] The processes of their artistic metal-work must have made themselves felt wherever these Irish missionaries penetrated. The wandering scholars and artists of Ireland left both their books and their art-apprentices in England, as they had left them along the Rhine and the Danube. At Glastonbury, St. Dunstan, the patron saint of English smiths, lingered as a youth among the books with which the Irish missionaries had endowed the monastery, and associated doubtless with the monastic craftsmen who had learned the arts of their Celtic predecessors. [19] Green (J. R.), _Short history of the English People_ (1875 ed.), p. 21. Every priest was trained in some handicraft, and many monks became excellent goldsmiths. St. Dunstan (924-988), like St. Eloi of France (588-659), at once a goldsmith and a royal minister, himself worked in the precious metals; and he appears to have been a jeweller as well, for we find in old inventories, entries of finger rings described as the productions of the great prelate. In the Wardrobe Account of Edward I, in 1299 (_Liber Quotidianus_, p. 348), is "Unus anulus auri cum saphiro qui fuit de fabrica Sancti Dunstani ut credebatur"; and in the inventory of that mediæval fop, Piers Gaveston, 1313 (Rymer, _Foedera_, II, i. p. 203), is: "Un anel d'or, à un saphir, lequel seint Dunstan forga de ses mayns." The artistic traditions of the old Saxon jewellers became almost the sole property of the clergy; and the Venerable Bede, writing at the commencement of the eighth century, alluding to the monastic jewellers of his day, describes how "a skilled gold-worker, wishing to do some admirable work, collects, wherever he can, remarkable and precious stones to be placed among the gold and silver, as well to show his skill as for the beauty of the work." The description of these stones as "chiefly of a ruddy or aerial colour" would seem to indicate that garnets and turquoises had not even then been entirely supplanted by enamels. Certain it is that the earlier Christian jewels retained for a time the technique of those of pagan Saxondom. For example, the gold cross of St. Cuthbert (d. 687), discovered in his tomb in Durham Cathedral in 1827 and now preserved in the Cathedral Library, is inlaid with garnets in the cloisonné manner (Pl. XIII, 3). The internecine wars of the Saxons and the early ravages of the Norsemen, from which England was delivered by Alfred during the ninth century, can have left the country little repose for the cultivation of the jeweller's art. Yet, in spite of the unhappy condition of England, the art, judging from inscribed jewels noticed hereafter, was still practised, and needed only some presiding genius to awaken it to new life. There is little reason to doubt that jewellery was among the foremost of the arts which Alfred is known to have encouraged; indeed, his interest in such work is asserted by a well-sustained tradition. And if the world-famed jewel to be described is, as seems probable, to be associated with Alfred of Wessex, he must then have personally supervised the production of other contemporary jewels. The Alfred jewel, the finest example left of Anglo-Saxon craftsmanship, and the most famous of all English jewels, is preserved in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. It was found in 1693 at Newton (or Petherton) Park, three miles from the Isle of Athelney, Somerset, whither Alfred had fled from the Danes in the year 878, and was presented to the museum in 1718 by Thomas Palmer, grandson of Colonel Nathaniel Palmer, near whose estate it was found. The jewel is 2 inches long, 1-1/5 wide, and half an inch in thickness. It somewhat resembles a battledore in shape; it is flat front and back, while the other parts of its surface are rounded. The obverse is of rock crystal, beneath which is a plaque of semi-transparent cloisonné enamel of blue, white, green, and brown, representing the figure of a man. Upon the reverse is an engraved gold plate. The smaller end of the oval is prolonged into the form of a boar's head, from the snout of which projects a hollow socket. Around the sloping sides of the jewel, from left to right, runs the legend AELFRED MEC HEHT GEWYRCAN (_Alfred ordered me to be made_), in gold letters, exquisitely chiselled in open-work upon the band which encircles the enamel and its crystal covering. The whole of the goldwork is beautifully executed in filigree and granulation (Pl. XIII, 1, 2). [Illustration: _PLATE XIII_ LATE ANGLO-SAXON JEWELLERY (7TH-9TH CENTURIES)] There is considerable doubt as to the actual use of this precious jewel. Professor Earle has placed it among the category of personal ornaments, and holds that it was executed under the personal supervision of Alfred the Great, and formed the central ornament of his helmet or crown.[20] The enamelled figure is probably intended for that of Christ, represented, as is frequently done in early ecclesiastical art, holding two sceptres. The gold setting of the jewel, it is generally agreed, was made in England, and in the opinion of many the enamel is of native origin.[21] [20] _The Alfred Jewel_, p. 45. 1901. Others consider that the jewel was the head of a book-marker or pointer. [21] M. Molinier (_Histoire générale des arts appliqués à l'industrie_, IV, p. 93) is of the opinion that the enamel is English, and not, as some hold, of Byzantine origin. See also _Victoria County History of Somerset_, I, p. 376. 1906. Somewhat similar in shape to the Alfred jewel, and probably employed for the same purpose, is a jewel known as the Minster Lovel jewel, which was found half a century ago in a village of that name near Oxford, and is now preserved in the Ashmolean Museum. It is 1¼ inches in length, circular above, with a projecting socket below. The upper part is ornamented with a cross-shaped design in cloisonné enamel. Another remarkable jewel, preserved in the British Museum, is termed the Dowgate brooch, or the Roach Smith nouche (or brooch), in memory of the learned and energetic antiquary whose property it once was. The brooch was found near Dowgate Hill in Thames Street, London, in 1839. It is composed of a circular enamel representing a full-faced head and bust, enclosed in a border of rich gold filigree covered with beaded ornament and set at equal distances with four pearls. The fine cloisons of the enamel work are arranged so as to mark the outlines of the face, a crown upon the head, and the folds of the drapery of a mantle or tunic. The dress is classical in appearance, and seems to be fastened on the right shoulder[22] (Pl. XIII, 4). [22] _Archæologia_, XXIX, p. 70, Pl. x. Two other enamelled brooches of the same kind of workmanship, also in the British Museum, are the Townley brooch, also known as the Hamilton brooch, which is said to have been found in Scotland, and the Castellani brooch, formerly in the collection of Signor Castellani, and stated to have been found at Canosa, Italy (Pl. IX, 9, 11). The latter brooch is set with a circular enamel representing the bust of a royal personage wearing large earrings, and upon the front of the dress a circular brooch with three pendants hanging below it. At the lower part of the gold and enamel frame of the Castellani brooch itself are three loops, which must have held pendants exactly similar to those attached to the brooch worn by the enamelled figure. Pendants of this kind are represented, as has been seen, on the Ravenna mosaics, and appear to be characteristic of Byzantine brooches. And it is probable that this, as well as the Townley brooch, as explained in the _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries_ (2nd Series, Vol. XX, p. 64), is of Continental origin. Though similar in some respects to the other enamelled jewels, these two brooches differ considerably from them. "These differences," says a recent writer, "seem to accentuate the difficulty of tracing the origin of this enamelled work. It may well be that some of it was executed in this country by the craftsmen in the employ of King Alfred; but it may fairly be assumed that on the journeys to Rome and elsewhere, undertaken by Ethelwulf, Alfred, and Ethelswitha, they and their suites would acquire jewellery of this class, which must have been comparatively common in Rome, and in other important centres at that time."[23] [23] _Catalogue of the Alfred the Great millenary exhibition in the British Museum. 1901._ The rings dating from the time of pagan Saxondom are few and unimportant; those, on the other hand, that belong to this later period, though rare, are more numerous, and are of considerable historical and artistic interest. It is somewhat curious that the finest date almost exclusively from the ninth century, and that most of them are inscribed. It is to this fact, doubtless, that they owe their preservation. No Anglo-Saxon rings, as far as we are aware, are ornamented with enamel. Many are enriched with inlays of niello. Gold rings thus inlaid sometimes have the appearance of having been enamelled, for the niello seems to have a bluish tinge, but this may be due, as Mr. Davenport suggests (_Anglo-Saxon Review_, Vol. V), to some optical effect caused by the yellow gold. The most important inscribed Saxon rings, three in number, are historical relics of the highest order. They belonged respectively to Alhstan, Bishop of Sherborne (824-867); Ethelwulf, King of Wessex (836-858), father of Alfred the Great; and Ethelswith, Queen of Mercia, and sister to King Alfred. The ring of Alhstan, at once the earliest episcopal finger ring and the first in chronological order of these inscribed gold rings, was found in 1753 at Llys-fæn, in the county of Carnarvonshire. It was one of the chief treasures of the famous collection of finger rings formed by the late Edmund Waterton, and is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum. The initials of its owner are inscribed in niello upon four circular compartments, separated by four lozenge-shaped compartments also inlaid with niello (Pl. XIII, 9). The most famous of all English rings--"une pièce excessivement précieuse," says M. Fontenay, "par son originalité et son caractère"--is that of Ethelwulf, King of Wessex. It is in the form of a bishop's mitre with only one peak, and bears the inscription ETHELVVLF Rx, above which are two peacocks pecking at a tree. The legend and subject are reserved in gold upon a nielloed ground. The ring was picked up in its present bent condition in 1780 by a labourer in a field at Laverstoke, near Salisbury, where it had been pressed out of a cart-rut. It is now in the British Museum (Pl. XIII, 5). The third of this remarkable series of inscribed rings is that of Ethelswith, Queen of Mercia, daughter of Ethelwulf. It has a circular bezel, in the middle of which is a rude representation of an _Agnus Dei_ engraved in relief with a background of niello. The inner side of the bezel is incised with the inscription [Symbol: cross pattée] EATHELSVITH REGNA. This beautiful ring was found near Aberford, in Yorkshire, about the year 1870, and came into the possession of Sir A. W. Franks, who bequeathed it to the British Museum (Pl. XIII, 7). Several other Saxon rings are preserved in the British Museum. Among them is one with a plain hoop and beaded edges, bearing around it in gold letters on a nielloed ground an inscription recording the name of the owner, Ethred, and the maker Eanred. It was found in Lancashire, and bequeathed to the museum by Sir Hans Sloane in 1753. Another ring (found near Peterborough in the River Nene) is peculiar for having two bezels opposite each other. Both sides of the hoop and each bezel are engraved with interlaced designs inlaid with niello. The bezels are each flanked by three small beads of gold--a characteristic ornamentation of a certain class of Teutonic and Merovingian rings, termed by the French _bagues à trois grains_. In the Victoria and Albert Museum is a silver ring of unusual form. It has an oval bezel 1¼ inches in length, engraved with convoluted ornament in five divisions, the centre being filled with a serpent-headed monster. It was found in the Thames at Chelsea in 1856. A type of ring which occurs more than once is formed of a hoop, which widens gradually into a large oval bezel ornamented with bands of rich plaited goldwork. One of these rings, found at Bossington, near Stockbridge, is in the Ashmolean Museum. It has in the centre a male portrait surrounded by the inscription, NOMEN EHLLA FID IN XPO (My name is Ella; my faith is in Christ). More remarkable, perhaps, than any of the above, on account of the peculiar beauty of its workmanship, is a gold ring in the possession of Lord Fitzhardinge, and preserved, together with the Hunsdon jewels, at Berkeley Castle. It has a large bezel of quatrefoil form. In the centre is a raised circular boss ornamented with a cross or wheel-shaped design in beaded gold. Radiating from this centre are four heads of monsters, inlaid with thin lines of niello, and having projecting eyes formed of dots of dark blue and dark brown glass or enamel. The hoop of the ring, of considerable girth, is hexagonal in section. At the junction of its ends at the back of the bezel, immediately behind the monsters' ears, it is finished with a graduated wire of filigree, terminating with three small balls. The ring dates from about the tenth century. Nothing is known concerning its discovery. It is probably Saxon, but may be of Irish origin (Pl. XIII, 10). Beyond these finger rings and the enamelled jewellery, we possess few other examples of later Saxon ornaments; yet there exist a small number, which, though executed somewhat after the manner of the older jewels, probably belong to this later period of Saxon art. Among such ornaments is a necklace from Desborough, Northants, and now in the British Museum. It is formed of beads of spirally coiled gold wire. Circular pendants, having one side convex and the other flat, alternate with gold pendants of various shapes and sizes, set with garnets. From the centre of the necklace hangs a cross (Pl. XII, 1). One other ornament in the British Museum, particularly worthy of attention, is a beautiful set of three ornamental pins of silver gilt, which were found in the River Witham, near Lincoln. The three pins have heads in the shape of circular discs, and are connected together by two oblong pieces of metal with a ring at each end. The pins average four inches in length. The interlaced ornament on their circular heads (described in detail in the _Reliquary_, 2nd Series, Vol. X, p. 52), is arranged in four panels separated by radial divisions. The penannular brooch, known as the Celtic brooch, so common in other parts of the British Isles about this period, has rarely been found in England. A few examples occur in close proximity to undoubted Anglo-Saxon remains, but they are confined mostly to the north of England. Its extreme rarity leads one naturally to the conclusion that it found but little favour in England. In Scotland and Ireland, however, where it was almost universally worn, this type of brooch attained, as will shortly be shown, the highest degree of excellence both in design and workmanship. CHAPTER X THE CELTIC BROOCH In order to understand the condition of the arts in the more remote parts of the British Isles, subsequent to the introduction of Christianity towards the middle of the fifth century, one must remember the situation created by the invasions of the Teutonic tribes, whereby nearly the whole of northern and western Europe relapsed into paganism, while Ireland and the western highlands of Scotland alone remained faithful to the Christian Church. During the earlier centuries of this period, the designs and processes of the Celtic crafts, nurtured in these parts of the British Isles by the Church, undisturbed by invaders, and free from outside influences, were brought to a state of high perfection. The introduction of Christianity into Ireland by St. Patrick, who doubtless brought with him European craftsmen, had greatly encouraged the production of metal-work; and though changes in design resulted, the spiral patterns characteristic of Celtic art were retained for a considerable length of time--longer in fact than in any other quarters. It is unfortunate, however, that while a number of objects of early Christian art from Ireland and the Scottish highlands have survived, there is scarcely a single article of jewellery which is prior in date to about the ninth century A.D. The chief personal ornaments belonging to this later period, i.e. the ninth century onwards, are a number of remarkable objects known as Celtic brooches. The Celtic brooch, as far as its origin and development are concerned, shows no kinship with the bow or disc-shaped brooches already described, though, like them, it probably originated among the primitive Celts of the Danubian region. One theory derives its evolution from what is known as a ring-pin, that is a simple pin, the head of which, primarily solid, was afterwards pierced and fitted with a ring, which in course of time increased in size and became highly ornamented. Another theory traces the Celtic brooch from a combination of a long pin with the ancient dress fasteners--penannular rings furnished with knobs--such as are found in prehistoric graves, and are even now worn by the natives of West Africa. This penannular brooch has been found not only in Scotland and Ireland, but as far east as Livonia, and is actually still in use in Algeria at the present day. Its peculiarity consists in the great size of its pin--one in the British Museum measures 22½ inches--the length of the pin being supposed to have corresponded to the rank of its owner.[24] In some of the earlier forms the ring is of the same breadth all round, and merely cut across in one place for the passage of the pin. But as a rule this penannular ring terminates in knobs, and when the pin which travels round the ring has pierced the portions of the garments it is intended to unite, the ring is pushed a little to one side and prevented by the terminal knobs from becoming unloosened.[25] [24] _Proc. Soc. Antiq._, 2nd Series, XIX, p. 304. Such long stout pins could only have served to fasten coarse, loosely woven fabrics. [25] J. R. Allen (_Celtic Art_, p. 219) describes the exact function of this brooch, and illustrates its use in ancient and modern times. (See also _Reliquary_, 2nd Series, I, p. 162. 1894.) The developments in the form of this brooch show its evolution from a penannular to an annular ring. In some--probably the earliest--examples, the ring and the head of the pin terminate in bulbous knobs, or in spherical ends ornamented with Celtic designs and animals' heads. In others the ends of the rings and the pin-heads are broadened, in order to provide space for an elaborate surface decoration of interlaced work and zoomorphic and anthropomorphic designs similar to those upon the Irish manuscripts. Finally, the opening is closed and the ring becomes annular. The finest examples of these brooches are preserved in the museum of the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin, the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland in Edinburgh, and the British Museum. Among the earliest--which are not, however, prior to the later Anglo-Saxon period, and make their appearance about the ninth century--are those with a plain penannular ring, formed of a solid cylindrical rod of silver, terminating with bulbous knobs furnished with expansions, and often covered with a peculiar prickly ornamentation like thistle-heads. Specimens of this style of brooch have been found in Ireland, Scotland, and in the north of England. The simplest of the silver penannular brooches with discoidal terminations in the museum at Edinburgh is one from Croy in Inverness-shire. It has ends expanding into circular discs with amber settings. The most elaborate, one of two known as the Cadboll brooches, found at Rogart in Sutherlandshire, has four raised heads of birds, two upon the circumference of each disc, and two upon the ring. The collection in the Royal Irish Academy contains several splendid brooches of a similar type, notably the Kilmainham brooch from Kilmainham, Co. Dublin, the surface of which is ornamented with compartments of thin plates of gold tooled with interlaced patterns. The terminations of the penannular ring soon become so expanded that they fill up exactly half the ring. Upon these flattened plaques, which have just space enough between them for the pin to pass, a serpent or dragon form is a frequent ornament, as well as the intertwined triple ornament, or _triquetra_, while the surface is set at intervals with bosses of amber. The most remarkable examples of this type are the University brooch in the collection of Trinity College, Dublin, and the Clarendon brooch found in Co. Kilkenny, and now in the museum of the Royal Irish Academy. The main characteristic of the Celtic brooch is that it is penannular, that is, its ring has an opening, if not real, at least apparent, between its two ends. For even when the narrow opening left between the enlarged ends is closed by a bar, or is finally closed altogether, the flattened plaques are ornamentally treated as if they were still disunited. Of this class of brooches with continuous rings there have survived two world-famed examples, one from Ireland and the other from Scotland. The first of these, known as the Tara brooch, was found in 1850 on the seashore near Bettystown, Co. Louth, and received the title of "Tara" on account of its beauty, and after the celebrated hill of that name. It is composed of white bronze thickly gilded. The ring and expanded head of the pin are divided into a number of panels ornamented with examples of nearly every technical process, being enriched with enamel-work, niello, and inlaid stones; while the metal is hammered, chased, and engraved, and filigreed with extraordinary delicacy. The enamels, of the cloisonné kind, have been made separately and mounted like gems. Attached to the brooch on one side is a finely plaited chain; a similar chain upon the other side has been lost. The reverse of the brooch is unadorned with settings, but decorated with a divergent spiral ornament known as the Celtic trumpet pattern, executed with very great perfection. The probable date of this extraordinary jewel is the tenth century. It is now the chief treasure of the museum of the Royal Irish Academy, for which it was bought in 1867 for the sum of £200. [Illustration: _PLATE XIV_ THE TARA BROOCH (NATIONAL MUSEUM, DUBLIN)] The finest after the Tara brooch, and the most famous of Scottish brooches, is known as the Hunterston brooch. It was found in 1826 on the estate of Mr. Robert Hunter, of West Kilbride, Ayrshire, and is now in the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland. It is somewhat similar to the Tara brooch, and of the same gilt metal, but rather less ornate, and unprovided with enamels, glass pastes, or chain. Its main ornamentation consists of varieties of interlaced work in fine gold filigree, of singularly beautiful design and of remarkable execution. The back is decorated with the trumpet pattern, and engraved with Runic characters. The presence of the trumpet pattern upon the backs of these two famous brooches determines their date as prior to the eleventh century; for the old Celtic pattern disappears from brooches and from most Irish and all Scottish metal-work after the year 1000 A.D., and is succeeded by varieties of interlaced work and zoomorphic designs.[26] The later Celtic brooches differ besides in form, for the pin is longer in proportion to the size of the ring, and its head is hinged upon a constriction of the ring, which itself becomes partly filled up. [26] Anderson (J.), _Scotland in early Christian times_, 2nd Series. 1881. The Celtic brooch is distinct in itself, and does not merge into any other form. It disappears entirely about the thirteenth century, and is succeeded by a totally different type of brooch, which belongs to the ornaments of the later Middle Ages. THE JEWELLERY OF THE MIDDLE AGES (TENTH TO FIFTEENTH CENTURIES) CHAPTER XI MEDIÆVAL JEWELLERY INTRODUCTION To the student of jewellery the Middle Ages offer far greater problems than the periods of classic antiquity. The main reason for this is to be found in the fact that throughout mediæval and later periods ornaments were more closely associated with dress, and dress itself became subject to the most marked changes and constant divergences of fashion. In the days of antiquity, so far as our knowledge goes, the idea of fashion, in the present sense of the term, did not exist. But in the Middle Ages, as Luthmer points out, it becomes an important factor in the history of civilisation. The duration of each prevalent fashion tended to become shorter and shorter, and the new mode was usually an absolute contrast to the preceding one. Though ornaments, owing to their higher material value, did not alter with each successive change in dress, nevertheless they underwent rapid variations of style. The custom of burying objects in graves, which continued for a considerable time after the introduction of Christianity, affords a tolerably clear idea of the various ornaments worn during the earlier periods of the Middle Ages. Coming to a later period, from the time of the first Crusade onwards, discoveries in the graves are extremely rare, and one has to look in many directions for information respecting the articles then in use. Though there seems to have been an immense production of personal ornaments throughout the whole of Europe, their intrinsic value has been too great to allow of their preservation; and the artistic qualities of those that have survived cause one to regret all the more the wholesale destruction that must have occurred. The jewels of the period are, in fact, so few in number, and furnish such striking varieties, that it is impossible to give an exhaustive synopsis of the different changes that took place in their form. The utmost that can be attempted is to take single characteristic pieces and allow them to stand as types of the whole epoch. Personal ornaments at this time began to have a wider significance than that of being merely decorations pleasant to the eye. Their material value comes more in the foreground. They began to form the nucleus of family and household treasures. The uncertain conditions of life made it desirable for the individual to have his most precious possessions in a portable form. An unfortunate war or royal displeasure might cost a prince or baron his land or his castles; but his movable goods, consisting of precious stones and gold and silver ornaments, were not so easily exposed to the vagaries of his superiors. Thus the numerous inventories of household goods that have come down from those times show an astounding increase in the matter of jewels and treasures among the great and lesser grandees, both secular and ecclesiastical; while there is a corresponding advance at the same time in craftsmanship. To this change in the significance of ornaments is to be attributed their rarity in graves. Jewellery had, in fact, assumed the character of money passed from hand to hand, and was constantly, so to speak, recoined; for even if held in steadfast possession it had to submit to changes of fashion and undergo frequent resetting.[27] Particularly was this the case at the period of the Renaissance, when almost everything Gothic was remodelled. [27] Luthmer (F.), _Gold und Silber_, p. 50. Tombs, then, supply little or no information; and for the present purpose one may make shift to use the chance descriptions of romancers, and such pictorial representations of jewellery as are presented by effigies on brasses, tombstones, and other monumental sculpture, and also by illuminated manuscripts. Monumental effigies show a number of accurately executed personal ornaments, which, belonging as they do mainly to sovereigns and individuals of wealth and distinction, may be taken as the highest types of those then worn. The miniatures and decorations of manuscripts executed towards the end of the period under review also afford considerable assistance; for illuminators were intensely fond of introducing jewels among the plants, flowers, birds, and butterflies minutely depicted on ornamental borders. The inventories of personal effects made for various purposes, and often full of graphic details, throughout the whole of the period supply absolutely trustworthy evidence as to contemporary ornaments. Pictures, which are among the chief sources of information, are not at one's disposal until towards the termination of this epoch, but such as were produced during the later Gothic style, particularly in Italy, Germany, and the Low Countries, furnish numerous examples of jewellery painted with loving care and minute detail. Even from these sources of information, however, one could form but an inadequate idea of the precise character of mediæval jewellery. But, while the various reasons mentioned have resulted in the general destruction of articles made for secular use, among precious objects consecrated to religious uses a small number of personal ornaments have been preserved. This may be due, perhaps, to the sanctity of the places containing them, or perhaps to the precautions of their guardians, who have hidden them in time of trouble. They have survived many and strange vicissitudes, and their safety is now secured by a new-created archæological value, in place of the religious devotion which was their former guardian. In the treasury--an edifice attached to the church--there was kept in early times, among the vestments and plate used in its services, a vast collection of reliquaries and jewels gradually brought together, and preserved as memorials of the piety of the faithful. In numerous cases the treasury must have constituted a veritable museum, exhibiting examples of jewellery of each successive style. Some idea can be formed of the immense scope, as well as of the magnificence of its contents, from the early inventories which archæologists of recent years have taken pains to gather together and publish. The relative abundance of jewellery of Merovingian and Frankish times, and the great rarity of jewellery from the ninth century onwards, are phenomena observable in every museum. The reason for this lies in the fact that until the time of Charlemagne (742-814) the dead were buried with their weapons and with every article of jewellery. The Emperor forbade this mainly as a heathen practice, but largely because he saw the disadvantage of so many costly objects being withdrawn from circulation, with consequent loss to the national resources. This almost complete absence of examples renders it difficult to estimate precisely the style of ornaments then in use. But as far as can be judged, Byzantine influence seems to have affected all forms of jewellery. It is known, at all events, that until about the twelfth century active commercial transactions between France and Germany on the one hand, and Byzantium on the other, were carried on by way of Venice. Not only did Byzantine workmen settle in the great seaport of the Adriatic, but imitations of work from the Eastern Roman provinces were probably made there at an early date by native artists. Such traffic appears to have been particularly active during the Carlovingian period; while the close friendship of Charlemagne with Haroun al-Raschid, the celebrated caliph of the Saracens, renders it further probable that models of Oriental art abounded in the West in the ninth century. These were not merely confined to articles of jewellery and other goldsmith's productions, but included also sumptuous dress materials interwoven with threads of gold, embroideries studded with gems and pearls, and other objects which the splendour of the rulers of the West and the princes of the Church borrowed from the magnificence prevalent in the East and at the Byzantine Court.[28] [28] Luthmer, _op. cit._, p. 72. The Eastern influence which during the fourth and fifth centuries had come westwards by way of Byzantium, and had acquired new power owing to the sovereignty of the Arabs in Spain and Sicily during the eighth and ninth centuries, increased considerably at the time of the Crusades. The knights and princes of the West brought back not only impressions of culture from Syria and Palestine, but also actual specimens of gold ornaments and precious stones. There then began an invasion of skilled workmen from the towns of Asia Minor, and a regular importation of such treasures by the merchants of the Italian republics, to wit, Venice, Genoa, and Pisa, who, under the banner of the Cross, re-established their trade with the East.[29] [29] _Ibid._, p. 50. Until about the twelfth century ornaments followed for the most part the style of those in use in the Eastern Roman provinces. Some were adorned with cloisonné enamel introduced from Byzantium, and first executed by Continental workmen about the eighth century. Cloisonné, however, was, in turn, abandoned for champlevé enamel, the manufacture of which upon the Lower Rhine had been encouraged by the Church, through the instrumentality of the Greek monks. By the beginning of the twelfth century, the West seems to have become lastingly independent of the East, even with regard to its ornaments, as may be inferred from various remarkable productions in gold and silver, and particularly in gilded copper adorned with champlevé enamel, such as shrines and other sacred objects. Many of these are still preserved in the ecclesiastical treasuries of Germany, while museums at home and abroad all possess beautiful examples. Though the personal ornaments of this period are now almost entirely lost to us in the original, there has yet been preserved a treasure of inestimable value in the form of a technological manual handed down from the Middle Ages. The work referred to is the famous treatise of Theophilus entitled _Schedula Diversarum Artium_, which describes the technical processes of almost all the industrial arts cultivated eight centuries ago--the treatise being written shortly before the year 1100.[30] After describing his workshop, Theophilus mentions his tools, and proceeds to describe minutely the various processes necessary for the metal-worker to understand; and shows how the goldsmith was required to be at the same time a modeller, sculptor, smelter, enameller, jewel-mounter, and inlay-worker. Altogether, to judge from the directions there given, more especially those relating to the technical work of the goldsmiths, these _Schedulæ_ would seem to reflect the ancient knowledge and practices of Byzantine workmen, of which, however, the goldsmiths of the twelfth century appear to have become completely independent. [30] Ilg (A.), _Theophilus Presbyter_, p. xliii. The perfection of artistic work attained by the monasteries led to the production of sumptuous objects to meet the requirements of the Church in connection with its services, while costly shrines were made to contain the numerous relics brought home by pilgrims from the Holy Land. During the period of the Romanesque and early Gothic styles personal ornaments became objects of lesser importance than articles for ecclesiastical use.[31] The enamel-work for the decoration of ornaments was mostly executed at Limoges, which was then rising to importance as the chief centre for the production of enamels. The process employed was champlevé, generally upon copper. Such ornaments as buckles, and brooches or morses, for the belts of knights or the vestments of ecclesiastics, were produced in considerable numbers at Limoges, and found their way all over the north-west of Europe. The trade-guilds of Limoges were probably more active in this kind of enamel than those situated upon the banks of the Rhine, whose work seems to have been devoted principally to shrines and objects for the use of the Church. Ornaments of the above types were executed during the greater part of the twelfth century and throughout the thirteenth, but their manufacture ceased in the century following, when Limoges was sacked by the Black Prince. [31] Cunynghame (H. H.), _European enamels_, p. 69. From the beginning of the thirteenth century a change takes place with the appearance of the Gothic style. Forms become slighter and more elegant, and exhibit greater delicacy and detail in their workmanship. Hitherto goldsmith's work, however beautiful from the cumulative effect of precious stones and enamels, was little more than conventional, nay, almost barbaric, in its representations of the human figure; but the revival in the art of figure sculpture led to a considerable use being made of the human figure executed in full relief. Just as in the Romanesque period, so during the time when Gothic art reigned supreme, architecture left its impress on every work of art; and jewellery and other goldsmith's work, as well as ivories, seals, and even shoes, were ornamented with the designs of Gothic architecture and with pierced open-work patterns, like the window tracery of the great cathedrals--termed "Paul's windows" by the masses. Improved skill in design and workmanship became incompatible with the retention of the older and coarser enamel-work, and without relinquishing a medium which by the brilliancy of its colouring was eminently suited to the works of the goldsmith, the thirteenth-century craftsman obtained the desired result by the use of translucent enamel upon metal, usually silver, chased and modelled in low relief. The beauty of this _basse-taille_ enamel, producing, as it were, transparent pictures, enabled the artist frequently to dispense with coloured gems, and retain only pearls, whose delicate hues harmonised better with his work. Occasionally, however, pearls, precious stones, and translucent enamels were employed together with brilliant effect. Gothic ornaments of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries show a peculiar love for figurative and architectural motives which exhibit astonishing technique and beauty of form. Towards the middle of the fourteenth century there came into use enamel on full relief (_émail en ronde bosse_). In the inventories of the time, where it is frequently mentioned, this enamel, usually opaque white, is termed _émail en blanc_. So charming was the contrast of white, marble-like figures by the side of gold, bright coloured stones, and polychrome enamels, that for upwards of three centuries goldsmiths continued to apply this species of enamel to jewels. It was particularly characteristic of the fifteenth century. Several brooches ornamented with it will be referred to later (p. 143); but the most remarkable example of its use is the wonderful votive jewel of French workmanship termed "Das Goldene Rössel," in the treasury of the abbey church of Altoetting, in Bavaria, which dates from about 1400.[32] The minute repoussé figures on sixteenth-century jewels were usually coated with white enamel; and jewellery _émaillée de blanc_ is often alluded to in inventories. This species of enamel was discarded in the seventeenth century, when figures in relief went out of fashion for jewellery. [32] _Kunstdenkmale des Königreiches Bayern_, I, iii, p. 2364. 1903. Though towards the close of the Middle Ages the art of cutting precious stones and even diamonds was certainly practised, yet it is to be observed that throughout the whole period jewellery is set as a rule with stones _en cabochon_, i.e. with their surfaces rounded and polished in a convex shape, but not faceted. The stone treated thus preserves its own character and individuality; and much of the charm of early jewellery is due to this very fact. From the middle of the thirteenth century enamel in general, though applied to jewels of commoner kinds, is chiefly limited to the more sumptuous ornaments of the clergy. But with the beginning of the fourteenth century the delight in jewellery enriched with enamels and precious stones is again revealed in the costumes of the laity. At the French Court of John II (_le Bon_, d. 1364) and Charles V (d. 1380), where the princes of the royal blood strove to outrival one another in luxurious display, personal adornments attained an extraordinary degree of splendour, and were worn to an excess of ostentation.[33] [33] Some estimate of their magnificence and extent may be obtained by means of contemporary inventories. The most remarkable inventory is perhaps that of John's eldest son, Charles V--"the Wise"--drawn up in 1379 and published by J. Labarte. Scarcely less remarkable are the jewel inventories of his three other sons, Louis Duke of Anjou, John Duke of Berry, and Philip (le Hardi) Duke of Burgundy, which have been published respectively by L. de Laborde, J. Guiffrey, and B. Prost. This extravagance of fashion declined for a time owing to the wars with England, but attained its full development in the dress of the Burgundian Court. The splendour of the Burgundian dukes, outshining that of their feudal lieges the kings of France, and casting into the shade the rude grandeur of the German emperors, gave a new impetus to the use of articles for personal decoration, and for a time set the fashion for every country of northern Europe in all matters of style as well as of ornament. Outside of Italy, which perhaps excelled in point of culture, the Court of the dukes of Burgundy during the fifteenth century was the richest and most luxurious in all Europe. The sway of this powerful House extended over the Low Countries, whose ports after Venice were the centres of Oriental commerce and whose inland towns, such as Arras, Brussels, and Ghent, vied with one another in weaving the products of the East into all manner of rich stuffs. Not only silks, but pearls and precious stones of all descriptions, found an entrance through the great port of Bruges; and hardly a garment is depicted by the Flemish masters which, particularly in the case of the ecclesiastics, is not thick-sewn with Oriental pearls and stones. A survey of records containing descriptions of personal property,[34] and an examination of contemporary pictures--always the most fascinating document in regard to personal ornament--reveal a widespread luxury. Not only at Court, but in the everyday life of street and mart, costumes formed of magnificent stuffs were habitually worn, which required to be set off by jewels of an equally rich description. The warmth of the Italian climate demanded no such wealth of apparel as was essential to comfort in the more northerly countries; hence profusion of personal ornament was less generally indulged in throughout Italy during the same period. This special love of jewellery and consequent taste and skill acquired by the goldsmiths was shared by the painters of the day. With a high degree of finish and brilliancy, they introduced into their pictures faithful representations of all the rich ornaments then in vogue. Unfortunately actual examples of the splendid jewels of this time are now of the utmost rarity, but such as have survived, chiefly in the form of rich enamelled brooches, reflect in their execution the technical perfection and in their design the whole-hearted realism which display themselves to the full in the paintings of the early Flemish school. [34] Several inventories of the contents of the Burgundian treasury have been preserved. Lists of the magnificent jewels of two of the most powerful and wealthy, those of Philip the Good (1396-1467) and his son Charles the Bold (1433-1477) have been published by Laborde in his _Ducs de Bourgogne_, Pt. 2, Vol. II. [Illustration: Collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece, made in 1432 by John Peutin of Bruges, jeweller to Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy. (From the portrait of Baldwin de Lannoy by John van Eyck at Berlin.)] CHAPTER XII MEDIÆVAL ENGLAND A few brooches and finger rings are almost the only surviving examples of English jewellery of the eleventh to the fifteenth centuries. Yet there is evidence from existing records of an abundance of the most beautiful objects as accumulated in the ecclesiastical treasuries, and the great shrines, like that of St. Thomas of Canterbury, or of Our Lady of Walsingham Priory, which not even the Santa Casa at Loreto, or the shrine of St. James at Compostella, could surpass in renown, or equal in the reception of rich and costly gifts. Vast quantities of jewelled objects, which must have been in great part native productions, have also been tabulated in the inventories of our monarchs, princes, guilds, and corporations. Judging from extant examples of English painted glass, sculpture, and particularly embroidery, some estimate can be formed of the high quality of the goldsmiths' work, which was scarcely excelled in the Middle Ages by that of any other country in Europe. The English goldsmiths, in fact, after the Norman Conquest seem to have lost none of the skill which is displayed on their earlier productions. [TN: no footnote marker in the text for this footnote] De Mély and Bishop, _Bibliographie générale des inventaires imprimés_, 1892-95. A love of finery seems to have characterised the Court of William the Conqueror and his successors. The jewellery of the ladies became exceedingly extravagant, and is bitterly inveighed against by the religious satirists. Neckam, an Anglo-Latin poet, towards the close of the twelfth century, accuses them of covering themselves with gold and gems and of perforating their ears in order to hang them with jewels. Henry I had the tastes of a collector. That he collected gems is known from a letter written by a prior of Worcester to Edmer, Anselm's biographer, in which he suggests that for money Henry might be persuaded to part with some pearls.[35] King John was greatly attached to his jewels, and their loss in the Wash is commonly supposed to have hastened his death. The record is preserved concerning the loss on an earlier occasion of certain of his precious stones "which we are wont to wear round our neck." The stones must have been credited with miraculous powers, for their finder was very liberally rewarded.[36] Henry III, one of the most indigent of monarchs, made such extravagant presents of jewellery to his wife, that he was afterwards obliged to pawn not only his regalia, but a considerable portion of the jewels and precious stones accumulated at the shrine of Edward the Confessor at Westminster Abbey. [35] Bateson (M.), _Mediæval England_, p. 13. [36] _Ibid._, p. 148. Dating first from about this period are a number of inventories of personal ornaments; and it is by a perusal of the inventories of the most wealthy, and particularly those of sovereign princes, that an estimate can be obtained of the nature of every type of ornament in use at the period, in its most elaborate form. Among the earliest and most important royal inventories that have been published are those preserved in the Wardrobe Account (_Liber Quotidianus_) of Edward I, for the year 1299.[37] The jewels (_jocalia_) include a large number of morses or clasps (_firmacula_) given by the king to bishops, and restored after their deaths, and similar objects offered by the king or queen to various shrines; while among other jewels are brooches or nouches (noucheæ), many rings (_anuli_), a pendant (_pendulum_), belt (_zona_), bracelet (_braccale_), and baldrick (_baudre_). About this time masses of precious stones, the spoils of the Crusades, began to find their way into this country, and to be employed for "broidering" or sewing upon the garments. Edward II and his extravagant favourites, such as the worthless Piers Gaveston, loaded themselves with precious stones. Lists of jewels belonging to Gaveston on his attainder in 1313,[38] and to the king in 1324, show the magnificence of their ornaments, and the vast sums at which they were valued. The king's jewels,[39] described in considerable detail, are inventoried under the following headings: (_a_) Stones and other objects, (_b_) Crowns of gold and silver, including _cercles_ and _chapeletz_, (_c_) Brooches (_fermails_) of gold, (_d_) _Fleures de liz_, (_e_) Rings (_anelx_) of gold, (_f_) Girdles (_ceintres_) and diadems (_tressoures_). From this time onward there is an increase of such documents and of wills, and also of sumptuary laws specially connected with personal ornaments. [37] Published by the Society of Antiquaries in 1789. pp. 332-353. [38] Rymer, _Foedera_, II, 1, pp. 203-205. [39] _Kalendars and Inventories of the Exchequer_, III, p. 137. The brilliant reign of Edward III[40] was favourable to the full display of jewellery. New luxuries were imported in great abundance, and there was hardly a lady of position who had not in her possession some portion of the spoils of plate and jewels from cities beyond the sea; while those who, like the Knight of Chaucer, had been at Alexandra "when it was won," returned with cloth of gold, velvets, and precious stones. In the thirty-seventh year of this reign (1363) the Parliament held at Westminster enacted several sumptuary laws against the extravagant use of personal adornment. These state what costume is suited to the various degrees of rank and income, and are of value for the information they supply on the prevailing fashions in jewellery. Restrictions of this kind, re-enacted from time to time, and apparently of little effect, seem to have been intended not so much to prevent the gratification of an instinctive desire for bravery and splendour, as to make different classes proclaim their rank and station by their dress. [40] See list of his jewels in _Inventories of the Exchequer_, III, p. 166, and his Great Wardrobe Accounts (_Archæologia_, XXXI, p. 55). Chaucer in the Prologue of his _Canterbury Tales_ affords in a charming manner additional information about the personal ornaments of the different grades of English society of his time. He gives detailed description of the brooch of the yeoman and the nun, and pictures the merchant with his richly clasped shoes, the squire with short knife and gypcière (purse) at his girdle, the carpenter's wife with her collar fastened by a brooch as "broad as the boss of a buckler," and various tradesmen who, in spite of sumptuary laws, wore pouches, girdles, and knives of silver:-- Hir knives were ychaped not with bras But all with silver wrought ful clene and wel Hir girdeles and hir pouches every del. The passion for personal ornaments, or "bravouries" as they were termed, reached its zenith in England during the reign of the elegant and unfortunate Richard II, whose courtiers outvied one another in such extravagances. An anonymous writer of the period quoted by Camden in his _Remaines concerning Britain_ speaks of hoods, even those worn by men of moderate means, as commonly set with gold and precious stones, while "their girdles are of gold and silver, some of them worth twenty marks." The king, in constant want of money, was obliged on several occasions to deposit the royal jewels with the Corporation of London as security for loans, and detailed lists of the objects selected for the purpose are preserved in the inventories of the Exchequer, and among the city archives. In spite of attempted restrictions, and notwithstanding the disastrous Wars of the Roses, immense demands appear to have been made upon the productive powers of the jewellers throughout the whole of the fifteenth century. The remarkable list of Henry IV's jewels in the inventories of the Exchequer, and the most important of royal English inventories of the Middle Ages, that taken after the death of Henry V in 1422 (_Rotuli Parliamentorum_, IV, pp. 214-241), serve to show that until the end of the century, which may serve as the termination of the period, extraordinary extravagance in the style and nature of ornaments as well as of costume was the order of the day. Every one who had acquired wealth, or even a modest competence only, displayed a magnificence far beyond his means. It was a time when wealth was required in a compact and tangible form. Owners did not hesitate to melt down their jewels when desirous of employing them for other purposes. The change of taste which shortly came about tended towards similar destruction; while the Wars of the Roses involved the breaking up of much that was most sumptuous in material and beautiful in workmanship. * * * Throughout the whole of the Christian Middle Ages the highest efforts of the goldsmith were directed to the enrichment of the Church and the adornment of its ministers, and the magnificence which the ritual of the Church fostered found expression in the jewelled ornaments of ecclesiastic vestments. In Norman times ecclesiastical jewellery was extremely luxurious and costly, and the illuminations of the period show the cope and chasuble richly bordered with precious stones. St. Thomas à Becket wore an extraordinary profusion of jewels, and descriptions are preserved of the magnificence of his own person and of his attendants during a progress he once made through the streets of Paris. Innocent III, memorable in this country as the Pope to whom the pusillanimous John surrendered his crown, is recorded to have commented on the richness of the costumes and ornaments of the English clergy, with a hint at the possibility of extracting further sums for the increase of the papal revenue. The early inventories all record the splendour of the vestments used in public worship, and show how pearls, precious stones, and even ancient cameos, all rendered more beautiful by exquisite settings, were employed for their enrichment. No bishop, indeed, was suitably equipped without a precious mitre with delicate goldsmith's work and inlaid gems, without a splendid morse or brooch to fasten his cope, and without a ring, set with an antique gem or a stone _en cabochon_, to wear over his embroidered glove. Of all these rich ornaments scarcely any examples have survived save a number of rings recovered from the graves of ecclesiastics. All the more precious, therefore, are the jewelled ornaments bequeathed in 1404 by William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester, to New College, Oxford, where they are still preserved as relics of its munificent founder. These unique examples of mediæval jewellery date from the closing years of the fourteenth century--the period of transition from Decorated to Perpendicular architecture: a time when Gothic art had reached its climax; and not only the architect, but the painter and the goldsmith were still devoting their utmost efforts on behalf of the Church, the centre of the whole mediæval system. [Illustration: _PLATE XV_ WILLIAM OF WYKEHAM'S JEWELS NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD] The New College jewels originally decorated William of Wykeham's precious mitre (_mitra pretiosa_). Portions of the groundwork of the mitre sewn with seed pearls, and its original case of _cuir bouilli_ or boiled leather, stamped with fleurs-de-lis and bound with iron straps, are still preserved in the College. Among the jewelled fragments are hinged bands of silver gilt, formed of plates of basse-taille enamel representing animals and grotesques, which alternate with settings of dark blue pastes and white crystals surrounded by radiating pearls. These bands probably went round the lower part of the mitre, and also perhaps ran up the middle of it, before and behind. The crests of the mitre were edged with strips of exquisitely chased crocketing in gold. The other fragments include two rosettes of beautifully executed Gothic foliation set with white crystals, together with two quatrefoils in silver gilt and a cruciform gold ornament set with turquoises. The chief treasure of the New College collection is an exquisite gold jewel, a monogram of the Blessed Virgin, the patron saint of the "College of St. Mary of Winton in Oxford." It is a crowned Lombardic M; and might be the rich capital of some mediæval manuscript, with its gorgeous colouring faithfully translated into gold, enamel, pearls, and precious stones. In the open parts of the letter are figures of the Virgin and the Angel of the Annunciation in full relief, the angel's wings being covered with enamel of translucent green. The space above the head of each figure is occupied with delicate architectural work of open cuspings. In the centre of the jewel is a large ruby in the form of a vase, from which spring three lilies with white enamelled blossoms. On each side of the vase are three small emeralds. Remarkable taste is shown in the arrangement of the precious stones: fine emeralds and rubies, _en cabochon_, mounted alternately in raised settings round the jewel. Two stones, a ruby on the left and an emerald on the right, are missing. The rest of the mountings are Oriental pearls somewhat discoloured by age (Pl. XV, 1). It is generally considered that the jewel adorned and occupied a central place on the mitre, and its dimensions (2 by 2¼ inches) render its employment in that position probable. As, however, there are no indications of such an ornament on contemporary representations of mitres, and above all on the mitre figured on the founder's own tomb at Winchester, there remains the possibility of the jewel having been employed as a brooch or nouche on some other part of the vestment. This remarkable jewel stands quite alone in point of excellence. It goes far to justify the contention that English jewellers at this period, as well as in Saxon times, equalled, if they did not outstrip, the craftsmen of other nations in the successful cultivation of the goldsmith's art. [Illustration: Interior of a jeweller's shop. From _Kreuterbuch_ (Frankfort, 1536).] CHAPTER XIII THE MYSTERY OF PRECIOUS STONES One of the most curious and interesting facts in connection with the jewellery of the Middle Ages is the peculiar respect which seems to have been paid to precious stones. "In a scientific age," says Mr. Paton, "it is difficult to apprehend and sympathise with the state of mind which endowed natural objects with the properties of charms and fetiches. Before it was the habit to trace phenomena to natural causes, faith in occult powers was strong, and credulity exercised a marked influence on the habits and actions of the people."[41] Precious stones, on account of the mystery and romance attaching to most things of Eastern origin, had long attracted to themselves a superstitious reverence; so that their choice and arrangement, which appear to us merely arbitrary nowadays, had in the Middle Ages a distinct meaning consecrated by traditions dating back from very ancient times. Every stone, like those which enriched the breast-plate of the High Priest, and those which in St. John's vision formed the foundations of the Heavenly Jerusalem, was supposed to possess special powers and virtues. Abundant proof of this is exhibited in the mediæval inventories, where the beauty or rarity of a stone counted for infinitely less in the estimation of its value than the reputed talismanic virtue, such as the toadstone, for example, was supposed to possess. The mediæval literature of precious stones,[42] wherein is expounded their medicinal virtues or their supernatural powers in baffling evil spirits, is based on a classical poem of about the fourth century A.D., entitled _Lithica_, which claims to be a statement of their magic properties made by the seer Theodamas to the poet Orpheus. Similar belief in the virtues of precious stones was still in existence in the sixteenth century, and finds an exponent in Camillus Leonardus, physician to Cæsar Borgia, in his work entitled _Speculum Lapidum_, published at Venice in 1502. Even as late as the following century the use of precious stones as charms was more than half sanctioned by the learned, and in his _Natural History_ Bacon lays it down as credible that "precious stones may work by consent upon the spirits of men to comfort and exhilarate them." The learned lawyer and philosopher, indeed, was not in this much superior to the plain and simple folk who still imagined that every precious stone had some mystic value communicable to the wearer. About the same time De Boot, or Boethius, the learned physician to the Emperor Rudolf II, published his famous Lapidary, which Mr. C. W. King recommends as a work worthy of especial study for the properties of stones, and mentions how it "draws a distinction that curiously illustrates the struggle then going on between traditional superstition and common sense."[43] [41] Paton (J.), _Scottish national memorials_, p. 337. [42] The foremost interpreter of their mysteries in the Middle Ages was Marbode, Bishop of Rennes (1095-1123), in his _De Lapidibus Pretiosis Enchiridion_. [43] King, _Precious stones_, p. 12. Treatises on precious stones frequently find a place in sixteenth-century Herbals, and are often accompanied by very spirited woodcuts representing the working of precious stones and the process of adapting them to personal ornaments, together with designs of actual articles of jewellery in which they are set. Two of the finest books of the kind are--an _Ortus Sanitatis_ (Strasburg, _circa_ 1497), and a _Kreuterbuch_ printed at Frankfort in 1536. With the advance of Christianity the representation of the subjects of pagan mythology was forbidden by law; but the old ideas were retained for many years, and small objects like cameos or intaglios were carried about concealed upon the person. Later on, when all knowledge of classical art had sunk into oblivion, such stones became prized not only for the subjects engraved on them, which their mediæval owner seldom understood, but also for the fact that they were supposed to possess special talismanic virtues. The majority of these gems were mounted as rings or as seals of secular and ecclesiastical personages of rank. Preserved among the Harleian MSS. in the British Museum is a thirteenth-century MS. (quoted by Mr. Wright in _Archæologia_, Vol. XXX), which contains instructions for the wearing of various stones, and for the composition of the different metals of the rings in which they were to be set. A proof of the firm establishment of the Romans in Britain is afforded by the number of their gems brought to light in mediæval times; while the decay of the art of gem-engraving in the Middle Ages is shown by the fact that the Harleian MS. always refers to these gems as objects "to be found and not made.... A stone engraved in one manner you should suspend about the neck, as it enables you to find treasures, the impression in wax of another stone will cause men to speak well of you." The engraving of a dove with a branch of olive in its mouth should be mounted in a silver ring, and another gem should be placed in a ring of lead. From these and similar writings it is clear that one of the objects aimed at by the mediæval authors was to define the different virtues of the sigils engraved upon precious stones. Such ideas, not previously unknown, as, for example among the Gnostics, were no doubt stimulated by the Crusades, whereby the study of alchemy and the interest in Oriental mysteries became spread throughout Europe. Leonardus, as late as the sixteenth century, observes that stones "if engraved by a skilful person or under some particular influence, will receive a certain virtue.... But if the effect intended by the figure engraved be the same as that produced by the natural quality of the stone, its virtue will be doubled, and its efficacy augmented." We see thus that the talismanic ideas respecting precious stones were attached as much to their engraving as to the stones themselves. Owing to the complete decline of the glyptic art in the Middle Ages, antique cameos and intaglios, on account of some fancied assimilation in subject or idea to Christian symbolism, were occasionally used for devout subjects. Together with the general ignorance of classical art, and the consequent attempts that were made to give the pagan representation upon antique gems a Christian signification--frequently in a very forced and curious manner--there appears to have been a certain appreciation of their beauty. When small relics, such as particles of the wood of the cross, or larger relics, as bones of the saints, were enclosed either in portable reliquaries or in costly shrines, such receptacles were not infrequently encrusted with ancient cameos and intaglios, as representing the very choicest objects which the fervent devotion of the age could select for this sacred purpose. The Shrine of the Three Kings at Cologne[44] and the Treasure of Conques[45] are still enriched with many fine examples of the gem-engraver's art, and the magnificent gold shrine of Edward the Confessor in Westminster Abbey, long since despoiled, was formerly mounted with numerous cameos, all probably antique.[46] [44] Bock (F.), _Das heilige Köln._ _Schatzkammer des Kölner Domes_, p. 27. [45] The Abbey of Conques, near Rodez, in the Department of Aveyron. See Darcel (A.) _Trésor de Conques_, p. 66. [46] Rock (D.), _Church of our fathers_, III. 1, p. 393. [Illustration: _PLATE XVI_ ANTIQUE CAMEOS IN MEDIÆVAL SETTINGS] The history of the glyptic art has been sufficiently encroached upon here to demonstrate the prominent place occupied by antique gems in the personal ornaments of the Middle Ages. Their use for signet rings will be referred to again; but attention must be drawn to the three most remarkable examples of their application to other articles of jewellery--the Jewel of St. Hilary and the Cameo of Charles V in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris, and the Schaffhausen Onyx, preserved among the archives of the town of Schaffhausen in Switzerland (Pl. XVI). The Jewel of St. Hilary contains a fine cameo head in profile of the Emperor Augustus on a sardonyx. It is enclosed in a frame of silver gilt set with large rubies, sapphires, and pearls. The jewel was formerly employed as a pectoral or breast-ornament upon a silver reliquary bust of St. Hilary preserved in the Treasury of St. Denis. On the dispersal of the Treasury in 1791, the jewel was removed to the Bibliothèque Nationale. The framework dates from the twelfth century. It measures 3½ by 2½ inches.[47] The Cameo of Charles V of France, a sardonyx of three layers, dating from Imperial Roman times, represents a full length figure of Jupiter. It is mounted in the gold frame in which it was presented to the Treasury at Chartres by the King. Such prophylactic verses[48] as are found frequently side by side upon amulets and in cabalistic formulæ of the Middle Ages, are inscribed round its edge on a ground of blue and red enamel, together with the opening words of St. John's Gospel, which were supposed to serve as a protection, particularly against demons and thunder. The figure of Jupiter with the eagle probably passed for a representation of the evangelist. At the lower part is a crowned escutcheon bearing the arms of France, and on the crown is an inscription recording the presentation of the jewel by Charles V in the year 1367.[49] This beautiful example of French jewellery of the fourteenth century is 6 inches in length and 3 in width. [47] Babelon (E. C. F.), _Catalogue des camées de la Bib. Nat._, p. 107. [48] _St. Luke,_ IV. 30; and _St. John_, VIII. 2. [49] Babelon, _op. cit._, p. 1. Of slightly later date than the Jewel of St. Hilary, and of far more elaborate workmanship, though perhaps less well known on account of its somewhat remote situation, is the Schaffhausen Onyx. The stone, a fine sardonyx, is a Roman cameo of a female figure carrying a cornucopia and caduceus, and intended to represent Peace. Its setting, a superb specimen of mediæval goldwork, is mounted with figures of eagles and lions, chased in full relief and arranged in regular order between high bezels set with garnets, sapphires, pearls, and turquoises. The outside measurement of the jewel is 6 by 5 inches, and that of the stone 3½ by 3.[50] [50] For a full description of this jewel, see a monograph by J. J. Oeri, entitled _Der Onyx von Schaffhausen._ The large part played by superstition in the ornaments of the Middle Ages need not be further enlarged on. The virtues of charms were not only associated with gems and precious stones; for mystic letters, cabalistic inscriptions, and other devices were among the chief features of mediæval jewellery. Such devices lingered long after the Renaissance of learning had partially dispelled the mysticism of the Middle Ages; while similar superstitions in respect to precious stones are even now not entirely extinct, in spite of the assurances of modern science. [Illustration: Gold ring engraved and enamelled with figures of the Virgin and Child and St. John the Evangelist. Scottish, fifteenth century (Nat. Mus. of Antiq., Edinburgh).] CHAPTER XIV MEDIÆVAL HEAD-ORNAMENTS AND NECKLACES Head-ornaments from the tenth to the sixteenth century belong for the most part rather to the general history of costume than to that of jewellery proper; and it will be unnecessary to follow those extravagances of fashion which, especially during the fifteenth century, were presented by the head-dress of women. More germane to the subject are the fillets, bands, and chaplets worn throughout the Middle Ages by women when their heads were uncovered, and during a more limited period by men also. The original form of these was a ribbon, which encircled the brow, held back the hair from the face, and adjusted the veil; while wreaths, either of natural flowers or of plain gold, were a frequent decoration for young women. Hence the bands or chaplets, which took their motives from those more simple ornaments, were made either wholly of metal (_cercles_), or of gold flowers sewn upon an embroidered band (described in inventories as _chapeletz_), both forms being enriched with pearls and precious stones. The fillet later on became a heavy band composed of separate pieces of metal joined by hinges, and showed such close resemblance to the broad belts of the knights, that in the inventory of Edward II, quoted above, _tressoures_ and _ceintures_ are entered together under one heading. The wearing of such head-ornaments was not confined exclusively to the nobility, for the receipt of a sale of jewels by Agnes Chalke, spicer of London, to a certain John of Cambridge in 1363, includes a "coronal of gold, wrought with stones, that is to say, with rubyes, saphirs, emeralds, and pearls."[51] Exquisite circlets set with these gems are worn by the choir of singing and music-making angels on the wings of the Van Eycks' famous "Ghent Altar-piece" in the Berlin Museum. The fillet, whether a complete circle or hinged, received about the fourteenth century additional enrichments in the form of trefoils, fleurs-de-lis, crosses, and foliations, erected on cuspings upon its upper edge. A simple but charming example of a circlet, dating from the fourteenth century, is preserved in the Musée du Cinquantenaire at Brussels. It is of silver gilt, formed of hinged plaques, each mounted with from three to four collets set with pearls, and with pastes in imitation of precious stones, while additional ornaments in the form of fleurs-de-lis are fixed erect upon it (Pl. XVII, 9). [51] Riley (H. T.), _Memorials of London_, p. 313. From the diadem of this character originated the coronets worn by those of high or noble rank; the use of these, amid the ceremonies of later courts, crystallised into a system of class privilege. Such diadems or coronets approach the form of the regal crown, which in England, as early as the eleventh century, was enriched with rays and floriations. The regal crown, with which we are not immediately concerned,[52] by the addition of arches, was converted about the fifteenth century into what is technically known as the "close" crown. [52] No attempt will here be made to enumerate the various forms of crowns and coronets. A general outline of the subject is set forth in chapter XXVI of Mr. Fox-Davies' _Art of Heraldry_. Round the helmets of knights in the fifteenth century ornamental wreaths called _orles_ were worn; these, originally composed of two bands of silk twisted together were afterwards richly jewelled. One of the most famous of jewelled hats was that of Charles the Bold, thickly encrusted with huge pearls and precious stones, which was captured by the Swiss after his death at the battle of Nancy in 1477.[53] [53] Lambecius, _Bib. Caes. Vindobon._, II, p. 516; Laborde, _Ducs de Bourgogne_, Pt. 2, II, p. 113, no. 3100. Of female ornaments of the same period it need only be stated that the elaborate head-dresses, such as the _cornette_, _escoffion_, and _henin_--it is sometimes difficult to imagine how women had sufficient strength to keep them balanced on their heads--were profusely adorned with pearls, gold spangles, and precious stones, and in some cases with crowns or crown-shaped combs of elaborate goldwork enriched with gems. The Italians, with more refined taste, seem, as will be observed (p. 171), to have escaped from such extravagances sooner than the rest of Europe, and to have been content for the most part with a simple _bandeau_ encircling the forehead. Among the most interesting varieties of personal ornaments in the Middle Ages are certain jewels or brooches worn in the hat and known as _enseignes_. From the lead signs or ornaments worn by pilgrims there was gradually evolved a special class of jewels on which the great artists of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries exercised their utmost skill, and which at the present day are among the most highly prized of all early articles of personal jewellery. Rivers near large cities have supplied us with much of the knowledge we possess of the manners and habits of those who in former times dwelt upon their banks. Whenever dredging or digging disturbs the beds of such rivers, objects of antiquity, which seem to have gravitated there, are sure to be discovered. The municipal museum of many a city of ancient foundation preserves choice works of antiquity recovered from its river's bed. Among the most remarkable objects brought to light in this manner are certain curious mediæval ornaments, which belong to the age that has bequeathed exceedingly few examples of articles for personal use. The ornaments referred to are the small badges or signs of lead, given or sold, as tokens, to mediæval pilgrims to the shrines of saints or martyrs, and known as "Pilgrims' Signs." They were obtained from the attendants at shrines and exhibitions of relics, who kept ready a large variety bearing the effigy or device of some particular saint, or the symbol that had reference to his acts of worship. Each sign or token was pierced with holes, or more frequently had a pin cast in one piece with it, making it available as a brooch. It was thus fastened to the hat or other portion of the pilgrim's dress as a testimony of his having visited the particular shrine indicated by the token. These badges, which date from about the thirteenth to the fifteenth century, were manufactured at the churches or monasteries to which pilgrimages were made. Moulds for casting them are preserved in the British Museum and the Guildhall Museum; and a forge was found at Walsingham Priory where the sacristan melted the metals employed for their manufacture.[54] [54] Several writers on Pilgrims' Signs state that a furnace destined for the same purpose may still be seen in an upper chamber in Canterbury Cathedral. Inquiry on the spot has failed to confirm the truth of this statement. The furnace in question has been used solely for the purpose of casting leadwork for repairing the roof. The badges were probably made somewhere in the Cathedral precints. It will be outside the present purpose to enumerate all the varieties of form assumed by these interesting and historically most valuable objects. Important collections of them are preserved in the British Museum and Guildhall Museum in London, and in the Musée Cluny, Paris (Pl. XVII, 1-4). In England the most popular relics were those of Our Lady of Walsingham Priory, and particularly those of St. Thomas of Canterbury, whose signs, according to a statement of Giraldus Cambrensis, were worn as early as the twelfth century. The anonymous author of the supplement to Chaucer's _Canterbury Tales_ speaks of the purchase of signs by Chaucer's party on the occasion of their pilgrimage to Canterbury, and remarks that on their departure from the Cathedral "they sett their signys upon their hedes, and som upon their capp." And Erasmus, in his _Colloquy of the pilgrimage for religion's sake_, notes that pilgrims were "covered on every side with images of tin and lead." Judging from the number and variety of the badges relating to the murdered archbishop, Becket, his shrine must have enjoyed a widespread popularity, though the scallop-shell of St. James of Compostella was perhaps more universally recognised as a pilgrim's sign than any other. These signs or _signacula_ were worn not only on a pilgrimage, but also formed a customary decoration for the hat. Some, even in early times, perhaps as early as the thirteenth century, though partaking of a religious character, do not seem to have had reference to any particular shrine, and referred simply to incidents in popular religious legends. Others were merely symbols or emblems; yet, like the majority of mediæval trinkets, they nearly all displayed religious motives and were supposed to possess talismanic powers. Louis XI, the cruel and superstitious King of France, commonly wore such signs, particularly those of the celebrated Notre-Dame d'Embrun, stuck round his hat; and on a visit to Henry, King of Castile, he wore, so Philip de Comines informs us, a very old hat with leaden images upon it. It is very evident that we have here the origin of the hat-ornaments or _enseignes_ of gold and silver, and enriched with precious stones and enamels, which, coming first into use in the fifteenth century, became extremely popular in the sixteenth, and were worn on almost every man's hat, and sometimes on those of women, until the middle of the seventeenth century. Like those obtained at the shrines, they bore at first the figure of a saint--generally a patron saint--or a figure of the Virgin. Of signs such as these, some came to represent the actual badge of the wearer or of some one to whom he was affectionately attached, while others took the form of badges of livery, and were worn in the hats of the retainers of great families. Philip de Comines records that Lord Bourchier, Governor of Calais, 1470, wore a ragged staff of gold upon his bonnet. This was the badge of the Earl of Warwick, and all his attendants had ragged staves likewise. A leaden enseigne of a bear and ragged staff (the House of Warwick), a crowned ostrich feather (Duke of Norfolk), a hound (Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury), and a dolphin (badge of the Dauphin--afterwards Louis XI--and his faction, the Armagnacs), together with others of a similar nature, are in the British Museum (Pl. XVII, 5-8). The badges of the Kings of England were employed in the same manner: and among the British Museum collection is a hart lodged--the badge of Richard II, and in the Guildhall a broom-pod (_genista_) of the Plantagenets, and a crown of fleurs-de-lis--the badge of Henry V. A considerable number of small shield-shaped bronze and copper pendants, enamelled with coats of arms, and having a ring above for suspension, seem also to have served as badges. There is the possibility that some were worn by the servants of nobility as enseignes upon the hat, or perhaps on the left arm or breast. But the majority appear to have been employed for the decoration of horse-harness.[55] [55] Compare, An "Esmail d'Arragon," by A. Van de Put (_Burlington Magazine_, VIII, p. 421, 1906; X, p. 261, 1907). [Illustration: _PLATE XVII_ MEDIÆVAL HEAD-ORNAMENTS] Mediæval hat-badges of gold are of extreme rarity. The Franks Bequest in the British Museum contains a choice example. It is a fifteenth-century Flemish jewel of gold, representing a "pelican in her piety" standing upon a scroll, and set with a ruby and a small pointed diamond (Pl. XVII, 11). In the Victoria and Albert Museum is a circular gold enseigne of open-work enriched with Gothic foliations. The outer rim is set with seven small rubies. In the centre is an antique onyx cameo representing a lion. It is Spanish work of the second half of the fifteenth century (Pl. XVII, 10). These two jewels are clearly hat-ornaments; but it is often difficult to distinguish between a brooch or _nouche_ intended to be worn upon the dress and a hat-brooch, though the latter can, as a rule, be distinguished by its form or by its subject. The enseigne was sometimes employed like a brooch for fastening a plume decoration, but as a rule served as an independent ornament, and appears on the paintings, sculpture, and tapestry of the fifteenth century attached to the side of the head-gear. It became a jewel of still greater importance in the sixteenth century, and will be further dealt with among the jewellery of the Renaissance. The talismanic properties associated with the _signacula_ procured at the shrines were extended to many objects of base metal, as brooches and finger-rings, which had been placed in contact with relics of saints, or blessed at their shrines. Brooches and rings also of gold and silver bear talismanic inscriptions. A common inscription is the names of the Three Kings--as on the Glenlyon brooch--which originated in pilgrimages to the shrine of the Kings of the East in the church of Sant' Eustorgio at Milan, or more probably to that in Cologne Cathedral. The names of the "Three Kings of Collein" were considered to be a charm against epilepsy or the "falling sickness." Many personal ornaments of base metal, however, are quite unconnected with any religious practice or with pilgrims' signs; for objects of pewter are often merely replicas of more precious jewels in gold and silver, and must have been worn by the poorer classes. The fact that several are plated or washed with silver shows that they were intended to pass for the real objects. Yet they are of considerable importance, since we find among them types of ornaments which do not exist in the precious metals. It may be suggested that some were made as models for real articles of jewellery; but we are, unfortunately, not in possession of evidence (such as can be produced in connection with the jewellery of the Renaissance) which can offer any likelihood that this is actually the case with these mediæval ornaments. EARRINGS Though common in the Merovingian and Carlovingian epoch, earrings appear to have been worn only to a limited extent, and that at the commencement of the period at present under discussion. Pendants formed of quadrilateral prisms set on each side with cabochon garnets and hung with small strings of garnet beads are attached to the ears of the tenth-century figure of St. Foy in the treasury at Conques; though it is not impossible that these, like many of the gems that adorn the statue, may be of earlier workmanship. That the Byzantine style of earring, of crescent form, was worn during the eleventh and twelfth centuries is evident from a twelfth-century bronze ewer, in the shape of a head of a woman, of Flemish work, in the Museum of Budapest.[56] Earrings, however, enjoyed no great popularity during the Middle Ages, and the cause of this must be traced to the fashion which prescribed for women a style of coiffure by which the hair fell down at the sides, or was covered by a veil, which would have effectively hidden any ornaments for the ear. It was only at the end of the fourteenth century that fashion again allowed the hair to be worn high. Pendent rings of gold for ladies' ears are mentioned in the _Roman de la Rose_, and statues occasionally exhibit short earrings, pearls attached to the lobe of the ear, or stones in the form of drops. Earrings, indeed, did not come into very common use until the close of the fifteenth or the beginning of the sixteenth century. [56] Figured in _Exposition de Budapest, 1884, Chefs-d'oeuvre d'orfévrerie_, I, Pl. I. There is a reproduction of this remarkable specimen of _Dinanderie_ in the Victoria and Albert Museum. NECKLACES AND COLLARS The custom of wearing necklaces and neck-chains was much more limited during the Middle Ages than it had been in antiquity and at the time of the great migrations. Women's necklaces can hardly be proved to have been in general use before the end of the fourteenth century, and during the Middle Ages seldom attained the exaggerated style they exhibited at the period of the Renaissance. They consisted mostly of plaited cords of gold wire, and probably of single or double chains of pearls. These originally encircled the throat, but at a later date were worn more upon the breast. Though many forms of personal ornament are mentioned in early wills and inventories, we rarely meet with a reference to the necklace until the fourteenth century; nor is it pictured on monumental effigies or brasses until the beginning of the century following. If worn at all prior to this date, it must simply have served the purpose of supporting pendants of various forms known as _pentacols_. These neck-chains, or collars as they were termed, soon began to receive additional enrichment, and the inventories of the fifteenth century contain frequent descriptions of necklets adorned with enamels and precious stones. Eleanor, Countess of Arundel (1455), bequeathed to her daughter "a golden collar for the neck, with a jewel set with precious stones hanging thereat." The fashion for rich necklaces was especially in vogue at the luxurious Court of the Dukes of Burgundy; nor had the Court of Richard II been behindhand in the display of this species of ornament, for the magnificent wedding presents of his wife, Isabella of France, included a collar of gold set with precious stones of immense value. The word _carcanet_ seems to have come into use about this time for rich necklaces of precious stones, and to have been applied a little later to the bands of jewels commonly entwined in ladies' hair. Though never so generally worn as in the sixteenth century, a considerable number of these jewelled ornaments are represented in the exquisite paintings of the fifteenth century. One of the most elaborate of all is the superb gold necklet, brilliantly enamelled with small and many-coloured flowers, shown on the portrait of Maria, wife of Pierantonio Baroncelli, in the Uffizi Gallery at Florence, by an unknown Flemish painter of the latter part of the fifteenth century. Close by, in the same gallery, is Van der Goes' celebrated triptych, presented to the Spedale di Santa Maria Nuova by Tommaso Portinari, agent of the Medici in Bruges. Upon the right wing is Maria, wife of the donor, with her daughter. The former wears a magnificent necklace of exquisite design, its interlacing goldwork shaped into the form of roses enamelled red, white, and blue, each set respectively with a sapphire, a ruby, and a large pearl. The latter is adorned with a necklace composed of a double row of pearls connected by oval jewelled ornaments; beneath is hung a trefoil-shaped pendant set with rubies, to which is attached a large drop-pearl (p. 117). A precisely similar ornament is seen in another work by Van der Goes, painted about 1473--the well-known portrait of Margaret, queen of James III of Scotland, now at Holyrood.[57] This picture was probably executed in Flanders from material supplied by the donor, and the artist appears to have adorned Queen Margaret with the same beautiful necklace, probably of Florentine workmanship, which he had seen round the neck of Signorina Portinari. [57] Shaw (H.), _Dresses and decorations_, Pl. 60. Jane Shore, the beautiful and unfortunate mistress of Edward IV, and wife of the rich jeweller of Lombard Street, is represented in her two portraits, one at King's College, Cambridge, and the other at Eton, wearing elaborate necklaces. Around her throat are two strings of pearls, with a necklet below of circular pieces of Gothic pattern, supporting a lozenge-shaped pendant of similar design adorned with pearls. Among sculptured representations of the necklet the most interesting is that on the monument of Sir John Crosby (d. 1475) and his wife in St. Helen's Church, Bishopsgate, where the latter wears a very handsome necklace of roses, to which is attached a cluster of three roses with three pendants below. Sir John's collar is somewhat similarly formed of rosette-shaped ornaments. An early instance of a heavy neck-chain of gold, worn upon the breast, is to be seen upon the famous tapestry, considered to represent Henry VI and his Queen, in St. Mary's Hall, Coventry. Collars of extraordinary richness seem to have been worn by Henry IV; for among the miscellaneous documents preserved at St. Paul's Cathedral[58] is a list of various jewels set with diamonds both large and small, with balas rubies, sapphires, and clusters of pearls, which were to be employed for making collars for the king and queen. The Inventories of the Exchequer contain frequent reference to what is termed the _Iklyngton Coler_. This magnificent collar, which was frequently pawned by Henry VI, was enriched with four rubies, four large sapphires, thirty-two great pearls, and fifty-three pearls of a lesser sort.[59] [58] _Hist. MSS. Comm._, IX, p. 56. [59] _Kalendars and Inventories_, II, p. 165, etc. In addition to the purely ornamental necklaces, collars or chains of "livery"--bearing the heraldic devices of the day--were assumed by various royal and noble families, and were bestowed as marks of favour or friendship on persons of various ranks, and both sexes, who wore them as badges of adherence to those families. An instance of the bestowal of a chain of this kind occurred in 1477 after the siege of Quesnoy by Louis XI, who, witnessing a great feat of gallantry on the part of Raoul de Lannoy, is reported to have placed on his neck a chain of great value, and to have thus wittily addressed him: "Mon ami, vous êtes trop furieux en un combat; il faut vous _enchaîner_, car je ne veux point vous perdre, désirant me servir encore de vous plusieurs fois." Richard II, as shown by the Earl of Pembroke's remarkable picture of that monarch at Wilton, wore, in addition to his device the white hart, a collar of broom-pods. Henry IV employed the well-known collar of SS, derived from his father John of Gaunt. The collar of Edward IV was composed of two of his badges, the sun in its splendour, and the white rose; while a third, the white lion of March, was added as a pendant. Richard III retained the Yorkist collar, substituting for the lion pendant a boar.[60] Private family collars were also worn, and an early instance of one occurs in the brass of Thomas Lord Berkeley (1417) in the church of Wootton-under-Edge, Gloucestershire; the band round the neck being charged with mermaids, the badge of the Berkeleys. [60] _Archæologia_, XXXIX, p. 264. The SS collar is the best known of all. It is composed of the letter S in gold repeated indefinitely, either fixed on velvet or some material, or forming the links of a chain. The letters are generally united by knots; they sometimes terminate with portcullises and have a pendent rose. The collar is still worn by the Lord Chief Justice, the Lord Mayor of London, and the chief heralds--that belonging to the Lord Mayor being an original and beautiful example of English jewellery of the sixteenth century. Despite all that has been written upon the SS collar no conclusive explanation has been offered as to its origin and meaning.[61] Several representations of livery collars appear upon monumental effigies of the latter half of the fifteenth century, and there is frequent mention of them in the inventories of the same period, but, with the exception of the SS collar, they are not met with at all in the sixteenth century. [61] Mr. Hartshorne (_Arch. Journ._, XXXIX, p. 366) considers the origin of the letters SS--_par excellence_ the "crux antiquariorum," he terms it--to lie between the words Seneschallus, Souverayne, and Sanctus, and of these he appears to be in favour of the first. [Illustration: Necklace worn by the daughter of Tommaso Portinari in Van der Goes' triptych in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence.] CHAPTER XV MEDIÆVAL PENDANTS, ROSARIES, AND POMANDERS The wearing of religious emblems in the form of pendants by the Christians of the Middle Ages was possibly, in the first place, the unconscious perpetuation of pagan superstition. The demand for a convenient mode of carrying a reliquary may account in some degree for the use of necklaces in early times. Relics of the saints and of the Passion of our Lord were most eagerly sought after by mediæval Christendom, and whenever a relic of unusual importance was obtained, all the resources of the art of the time were employed to give it a worthy setting. The most famous of early pendent reliquaries was that worn by the Emperor Charlemagne, which contained relics from the Crown of Thorns and the True Cross, presented to him by Haroun al-Raschid. The reliquary was buried with him in 814, and found at the opening of his tomb at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1169. In 1804 it was given to the Emperor Napoleon by the clergy of Aix, and was afterwards the property of Napoleon III; but it disappeared during the troublous times that terminated the Second Empire. The relics were enclosed under a large sapphire magnificently set in gold and precious stones[62] (Pl. XVIII, 4). Another historical relic of the early Middle Ages was the enamelled gold cross suspended from a chain, which was stolen from the tomb of Edward the Confessor in Westminster Abbey in 1685 and given to James II. It was only lost sight of in the early part of the nineteenth century.[63] [62] See _Jahrbücher des Vereins von Alterthumsfreunden in Rheinlande_, XXXIX, p. 272. Bonn, 1866. [63] Wall (J. C.), _Tombs of the Kings of England_, p. 197. _Evelyn's Diary_, Sept. 16, 1685. Portable reliquaries in former times were often made of two plates of rock crystal or other transparent stones hinged together so as to form a box. An exquisite example of this style of ornament, and one of the most remarkable mediæval jewels, is the so-called reliquary of St. Louis in the British Museum. It is of gold, set with two large bean-shaped amethysts which act as covers to an inner case with a lid, enclosing what purports to be a spike from the Crown of Thorns. The back of this receptacle, as well as the insides of the covers, is enriched with minute translucent enamels representing the Crucifixion and other scenes from the Passion and the life of Christ (Pl. XVIII, 5). The jewel is said to have been given by St. Louis (who bought the Crown of Thorns from Baldwin, King of Jerusalem) to a king of Aragon, but the style of the work is somewhat later than the time of St. Louis, and dates from about the year 1310. It was formerly in the collection of Baron Pichon, and was presented to the British Museum by Mr. George Salting in 1902. The pendent ornaments of the Middle Ages not only served as receptacles for relics but also took the form of crosses, medallions, votive tablets, and monograms. Though these do not attain the same importance as the pendants of the Renaissance, their extraordinary variety is proved by the inventories of the thirteenth to the fifteenth century, while their beauty is attested by the few examples that have fortunately been preserved. Small votive tablets, that is to say diptychs or triptychs with hinged wings, were exceedingly popular as personal ornaments, judging by their frequent occurrence in the inventories under the title of _tableau_ or _tabulet_. They were suspended from the girdle or neck-chain. Some are painted with delicate translucent enamels, others contain figures in high relief wrought in metal, or carvings in boxwood of minute dimensions. The last are generally Flemish, while the others of which there are several splendid examples in the Victoria and Albert Museum, are mostly of French or of English workmanship. A very remarkable silver-gilt pendant in the form of the Devil of temptation, with the forbidden fruit in one hand and a crozier, signifying power, in the other, is shown on Plate XIX, 9. It is Burgundian work of the second half of the fifteenth century, and is the property of Mrs. Percy Macquoid. An interesting class of pendants is formed by a somewhat extensive series of silver and silver-gilt ornaments produced by German craftsmen of the fifteenth century. The National Museum at Munich, where several fine examples of this kind are preserved, possesses one of more than ordinary interest. It is of silver-gilt, about five inches in length, composed of elaborate Gothic tracery, in shape not unlike the tall Gothic tabernacles of South Germany, of which that by Adam Kraft in St. Lawrence's Church at Nuremberg is perhaps the finest example. A niche on each of its four sides contains the figure of a saint and above, half hidden among the tracery, are four female figures. The jewel is surmounted by the Virgin and Child, and has three rings above for suspension and one below (Pl. XIX, 1). Other examples of South German goldsmith's work of the fifteenth and early sixteenth century take the form of small pendent charms picturing some religious theme. The figure of a saint was naturally a favourite subject, since it was supposed to possess special prophylactic powers. The variety of the subjects thus represented can be admirably judged from an important series of such pendants at South Kensington. In addition to these, which are mostly of cast silver, other pendants of the same period include silver plaques, nielloed, engraved, or in relief; and likewise fine cameos or reliefs of mother-of-pearl, and carvings in ivory and wood, set in coronets of silver-gilt. [Illustration: _PLATE XVIII_ MEDIÆVAL PENDANTS (RELIQUARIES, ETC.)] Mediæval neck-pendants were, as has been observed, known as _pentacols_. In the inventory of Edward III in 1339[64] we find a pentacol composed of a large Scotch pearl (_perle d'Escoce_) and an image of Our Lady in enamel; and "_un pentacol dor od. iiij. petites ameraldes et iiij. petites rubies environ, et une camahue en mylieu_." In mediæval inventories and wills the Latin word _monile_ signified not only a necklace, but jewels hung at the neck. The same term was also employed for the morse, particularly when the latter had a ring for suspension. Many pendants generally provided with quatrefoil rings, come from South Germany (like one shown on Plate XVIII, 1) and especially from Bohemia--there is a good collection of them in the cathedral treasury of Prague.[65] The majority are silver-gilt, and set with a plaque of mother-of-pearl or crystal, and are usually hollow, to contain relics. The term _monile_ was further applied to brooches or _nouches_; and the nouches described in such detail in the English inventories of the fifteenth century, which will be mentioned later when the subject of brooches is dealt with, may in part have been employed as ornaments for the necklace. [64] _Kalendars_ etc., III, pp. 185, 188. [65] Podlaha (A.), and Sittler (E.), _Der Domschatz in Prag_, pp. 113-132. 1903. Various _monilia_ or pendants, containing small relics, verses from the Bible, the names of Christ or the Virgin written upon vellum or upon metal, and perhaps also ancient magic spells--all possessing the virtues of talismans, were worn by chains or cords round the neck, and in some instances very likely hidden under the upper garment. The early Church, in many an edict, declared itself against this form of superstition, yet such pendants or phylacteries--a term applied to any amulet worn about the person against evil of all kinds--appear to have been extensively used. Another and popular pendant from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century, which is frequently cited in inventories, but now rarely met with, takes the form of a small circular box or capsule bearing in front an _Agnus Dei_ in niello or repoussé, surrounded by a corded edging. Such boxes were intended for the preservation of a roundel of wax moulded from the remains of the Paschal candle at Rome with an impression of the sacred Lamb, and blessed by the Pope for distribution to the faithful. The cases, of silver-gilt, have occasionally a covering of transparent horn on the back and front. An example of this kind, of fifteenth-century German workmanship, is in the Victoria and Albert Museum (Pl. XIX, 3). The wax it contains bears the name of Pope Urban VI (1378-1389). An original stamp of bronze, of Italian origin, dating from the fourteenth century, which was used for making these wax impressions, is preserved in the British Museum along with other moulds for casting medals and small articles of jewellery. In addition to the precious and semi-precious stones already mentioned, other objects, accounted specially efficacious for certain purposes, were worn. The _peres de eagle_, also called _ætites_, supposed to be found in the nest of the eagle, were particularly valuable during childbirth. _Glossopetræ_, the fossilised teeth of certain kinds of shark, which passed as serpents' teeth, were much used, as well as primitive arrowheads. They were hung round the neck of infants in the belief that they assisted dentition and kept off frights. Of great value also was the bezoar stone, which, like glossopetræ, at one time occupied a prominent place in pharmacopoeia. Coral, which has always been popular, is first mentioned in English wills and inventories in the fourteenth century. It was used for rosaries, and, above all, as a charm--a ring of gold or silver being attached to its stalk. The Romans tied little branches of it round their children's necks to ward off the evil eye; and the infant Saviour in many an early Italian picture is represented wearing a piece of coral in a similar manner.[66] [66] A relic of this superstition still exists in the coral baubles hung with bells, with which infants are aided in cutting their teeth. A fear of poison, common for centuries in royal courts, was responsible for the custom of testing meats and drinks by methods founded upon certain ancient and groundless beliefs. In order to neutralise or detect the presence of poison, certain objects were placed in contact with food or were dipped into liquids. The touching-pieces (_tousches_) or proofs (_espreuves_) employed for the purpose, and considered especially efficacious against poison, were toadstones, glossopetræ, serpentine, jasper, agate and particularly the unicorn's horn. What was foisted upon the credulous public as the horn of the fabled animal was in reality the horn or tusk of a fish--the narwhal or sea-unicorn of the northern seas. Being an object of very great value, the horn was only occasionally kept entire, like the one preserved to this day at New College, Oxford. It was more usually cut into pieces and used as "proofs." An angry unicorne in his full career Charge with too swift foot a jeweller That watched him for the treasure of his brow, And ere he could get shelter of a tree, Nail him with his rich antler to the earth.[67] [67] Quoted from Bussy d'Amboise (1607) by Malone, commenting on the passage, "Unicorns may be betray'd with trees" (_Julius Cæsar_, II, i). These and other objects, when worn upon the person, as was generally the practice, were mounted at one end, or surrounded by a claw-like band of silver. Another object which occupied an important position in the Middle Ages and often received special attention at the hands of the goldsmith was the rosary. It was suspended occasionally from the neck, but was more often worn upon the wrist, at the girdle, or attached to a finger ring, and was formed of a string of beads of various sizes and materials representing Aves, Paternosters, and Glorias: each bead receiving the name of the prayer it represented. The rosary, as at the present day, was divided into decades of Aves, each decade being preceded by a Paternoster and followed by a Gloria. The materials of which they were composed are well illustrated in the inventory[68] of the jewels belonging to Adam Ledyard, a London jeweller in 1381. It includes: "4 sets of paternosters of white amber; 16 sets of paternosters of amber; 5 sets of paternosters of coral and geet [jet]; 6 sets of aves of geet, and paternosters of silver-gilt; 38 sets of aves of geet, with gaudees of silver-gilt; 14 sets of aves of blue glass, with paternosters of silver-gilt; 28 sets of paternosters of geet; 15 sets of paternosters of mazer; and 5 sets of paternosters of white bone for children." [68] Riley (H. T.), _Memorials of London and London life_, p. 455. The makers of these beads were termed paternosterers; and Paternoster Row and Ave Maria Lane were so called from the "turners of beads" who resided there. In Paris, as early as the thirteenth century, the commerce in rosaries was a most flourishing one, and it was customary there to divide the makers or dealers in these articles into three categories--paternosterers of bone and horn, of coral and mother-of-pearl, and of amber and jet. In England the rosary makers do not seem to have been so specialised. [Illustration: _PLATE XIX_ MEDIÆVAL PENDANTS] The larger beads were sometimes of gold, silver, and silver-gilt, of open-work, beautifully chased and engraved, and of boxwood and ivory exquisitely carved. The "gaudees" or "gauds" in the above quotation, the ornaments or trinkets attached to the rosary, were commonly in the form of a crucifix, while the small German charms mentioned above (p. 120) were mostly employed for the same purpose. Of the spherical-shaped gauds or nuts pendent to the rosary, called in French _grains de chapelet_ and known in Germany as _Betnüsse_, many fine examples exist in boxwood. They have often an open-work case which opens with a hinge, and displays two hemispheres filled with a number of carved figures of minute proportions. Among the many forms assumed by mediæval pendants were those of fruits--generally apples or pears. These fruit-shaped pendants, containing either figures or relics, were exceedingly popular. They were carried in the purse or attached to the rosary or to the girdle, or in the case of men, were hung from the neck by a cord or chain; and were constructed so as to be opened during devotions. One of the most remarkable examples is in the Waddesdon Bequest at the British Museum.[69] [69] Read (C. H.), _Catalogue of the Waddesdon Bequest_, No. 231. The use of perfumes prevailed at all periods of the Middle Ages. They were enclosed in various receptacles, and especially in those shaped like a pear or apple. These pendent scent cases or _pomanders_, worn like other pendants of the same form, were in general use throughout the whole of the period extending from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century. Pomander in early inventories is often spelt _pomeambre_, indicating its derivation from _pomme d'ambre_, a perfume apple or ball; the word _pomme_ being used for any object resembling an apple in shape, and _ambre_[70] for perfume in general. Primarily the pomander seems often to have designated a ball composed of various highly scented substances which served the purpose both of counteracting the smells which must have been particularly general and offensive in olden days, and also of protecting against infection. It was enclosed in a rich metal case, opening across the centre, and perforated so as to allow the scent to escape. The title "pomander"--originally meaning simply a scent or perfume ball--was given to the case which contained it. In many instances, the perfumes, instead of being mixed together into a ball, were placed in the pomander case each in a separate compartment, the lids of which are found inscribed with the names of the contents. These compartments, varying in number from four to as many as sixteen, are formed like segments of an orange. They are hinged below, and united at the top by a screw or pin, which being removed, allows the segments to open out (Pl. XVIII, 3). [70] Probably abbreviated from ambregis (ambergris), the well-known odoriferous substance, so called from its resemblance to grey amber. It was the most highly prized of all perfumes in mediæval times; and though its use is now almost entirely confined to perfumery, it formerly also occupied no inconsiderable place in pharmacy. [Illustration: Pomander. From _Kreuterbuch_ (Frankfort, 1569).] CHAPTER XVI MEDIÆVAL BROOCHES--THE RING-BROOCH The brooches or fibulæ hitherto considered have been constructed either with a spring pin or _acus_, which was held in its place by a hook or catch, or with a hinged acus, which, having pierced the material, was fixed similarly by a catch, and prevented by the weight of the garment from becoming unloosened. The term _fibula_, generally employed by archæologists to denote all early brooches, has so far been applied only to the dress-fasteners of classical times; and though the word brooch (from the French _broche_, meaning a spit) was not introduced into England until after the Norman Conquest, it is for the sake of clearness used here to describe what are generally known among Anglo-Saxon ornaments as fibulæ. In later Roman times, and among the Irish and Anglo-Saxons, the ring-brooch was sometimes formed with an opening on one side, and the pin or acus, which was not hinged, but moved freely to any part of the ring, having been passed through the tissue, was brought through this opening. The ring was then turned till the pin rested upon its rim. At the time of the Norman Conquest the opening of the brooch is closed, the ring becomes flat and has a pin of the same length as its diameter. Instead of running loosely, the pin is hinged upon a constriction of the ring and it either traverses the tissue which has been brought through the latter, or a band is passed over it from beneath the sides of the ring. When the portions of the garment thus connected are drawn back, the pin falls across the front of the ring and is held securely in its place. This ring-brooch was known as the _fermail_ (Latin _firmaculum_, signifying a clasp)--a term employed both in old French and old English inventories. The ring-brooch was worn by both sexes. It appears on the monumental effigy of Richard Coeur de Lion at Rouen, on that of Berengaria his queen at Le Mans, and on several of the thirteenth-century sculptures on the west front of Wells Cathedral. It served to gather up the fulness of the surcoat on the breast of the knight, as shown by the effigy, known as that of William Mareschel the Elder, Earl of Pembroke, in the Temple Church; but was generally used to close the opening in the robes at the throat of either sex and is seen thus on many effigies of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.[71] [71] _Arch. Journ._, III, p. 76. Among the few examples of mediæval jewellery that have survived, brooches and finger rings predominate. Brooches differ slightly according to the nationality to which they belong: those of English origin forming of themselves a class of considerable variety and extent. The earliest were circles of small diameter and narrow frame, either plain, or decorated with simple designs. Mystic words and letters were subsequently added; but as the brooch became larger, amatory mottoes took their place. Religious formulæ were also employed, particularly in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, when the brooch reached its full development. The various inscriptions and designs engraved on mediæval brooches are of great interest. The majority of inscriptions are mottoes in French, such as were frequently employed as posies upon rings and other love-gifts. An inscription which occurs more than once is IO . SVI . ICI . EN . LIEV . DAMI. Another _chanson_, reading thus in modern French--_Je suis ici, à toi voici_, is found on several brooches in the British Museum. The dainty Prioress, Madame Eglentine, in the prologue of Chaucer's _Canterbury Tales_ wore-- ... a broche of gold ful shene, On whiche was first y-written a crouned A, And after, _Amor vincit omnia_. The popularity of this last motto on the personal ornaments of the Middle Ages may be attributed to its supposed influence as a love-charm. A considerable number of legends are of a religious character, with allusions to the Virgin and Saviour while a few are talismanic, and contain inscriptions such as the names of the Kings of the East. Ring-brooches, though generally circular, show a variety of other shapes, such as hearts, trefoils, lozenges, etc. A heart-shaped brooch of fine workmanship in chased and engraved gold is in the Victoria and Albert Museum. It appears to be French and of the fifteenth century. Upon its back is the inscription--_Nostre et tout ditz a vostre [d]esir._ The brooches worn by the wealthy are often magnificent examples of jewellery, enriched with gems set in delicate goldwork. A number of the existing brooches are of such diminutive size--less than half an inch in diameter--that they could only have been employed for fastening the very thinnest tissue. The larger gold ring-brooches, of fine workmanship and set with precious stones, are of great rarity. In the British Museum are several choice specimens: the finest, formerly in the Londesborough Collection, dates from the fourteenth century. It is mounted with pearls, cabochon sapphires and emeralds, arranged in a variety of settings, and further enriched with four bosses carved and pierced in the forms of dragons and cockatrices. A remarkable brooch of the thirteenth century, also from a well-known collection, that of Baron Pichon, is preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum. It is a circular gold ring two inches in diameter, enriched with four sapphires and six rubies in high cone-like settings formed of simple sheets of metal wrapped round the stones. The bases of these collets are hidden on the inner side by an encircling wreath of vine leaves delicately cut and stamped in gold. The back is ornamented with a leaf design in niello. There is a somewhat similar brooch, though only a fragment, in the Gem Room of the British Museum. A gold brooch also dating from the thirteenth century, and, like the majority, of French workmanship, is in the Carrand Collection in the Museo Nazionale (Bargello), Florence. This fine example, formerly in the Debruge Collection, is decorated with exquisite Gothic foliage in naturalistic style, and with figures of two lions in full relief. It is set with two large rubies and four small emeralds. In the same collection is an extremely interesting brooch, likewise French, and of the fourteenth century. A flat ring of gold 1¼ inches in diameter is ornamented with concentric rings of enamel, the two outer being blue and the inner white. Upon the latter, in letters reserved in the gold, is the inscription IESUS AUTEM TRAISIENS PER MED.,[72] which occurs also on the cameo of Charles V at Paris, and was held by those who bore it to possess a prophylactic virtue. The brooch is further ornamented with four vernicles[73] engraved with exquisite feeling at equal distances upon its surface (Pl. XX, 2). [72] St. Luke, IV. 30. [73] A Veronica, or Face of our Lord, frequently figured on hat-ornaments. Thus: "A vernicle hadde he sewed upon his cappe" (Chaucer, _Canterbury Tales_, l. 688). This jewel may perhaps have been a hat-brooch. [Illustration: _PLATE XX_ MEDIÆVAL BROOCHES (RING-BROOCHES, ETC.)] Though comparatively many existing brooches are of gold, a great quantity were formerly produced not only in silver, but in baser metals, such as iron, copper, and lead or pewter. How large was the demand for brooches of these materials can be gauged from a French writer of the thirteenth century, Jean de Garlande, a poet and grammarian, who in his Latin vocabulary refers to brooch-makers as a special class of craftsmen, who, apart from goldsmiths, were sufficiently numerous to bear the title of _fermailleurs_[74]--makers of fermails. To about the end of the fifteenth century belongs a satirical poem printed in London with the title _Cocke Lorelles Bote_, where "latten workers and broche makers" are specially mentioned among the London crafts or trades. The manufacture of the finest brooches, however, was always reserved for the goldsmiths--a fact indicated by the quartering of brooches on the arms of the Goldsmiths' Company. [74] Sometimes called (by metathesis) _fremailleurs_. There would be no justification for any general reference to mediæval ring-brooches that omitted to give some account of those worn in Scotland. Brooches formed an indispensable accessory to the Highland dress of both sexes, in that they served to fix upon the shoulder an invariable article of clothing of the Highlanders--the Scottish plaid. In the latest development of the Scottish brooch of the Celtic type, the pin, as has been observed, is hinged upon the ring, and after piercing the garment is held in its place by a catch at the back of the brooch. Upon the introduction of the ring-brooch with a pin equal to the diameter of the ring, this mode of fastening was only in very few cases retained, and preference in general was given to the English manner of adjustment. The earliest form of the Scottish ring-brooch, which dates from about the thirteenth century, is a flattened circular ring, upon which talismanic inscriptions in Latin, generally of a religious character, almost invariably appear. These, together with some traces of Gothic design, last throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. After this period the knowledge of Latin seems to decrease, for it is rendered so barbarously on the sixteenth-century brooches as to be almost unintelligible. On the later brooches the decoration is purely ornamental, with interlaced work and foliaceous scrolls, and brooches of this type, on which the character of an earlier period is retained, were made as late as the eighteenth century. The designs of the silver brooches were produced by engraving accompanied by niello work; those of the brass brooches usually by engraving alone. The National Museum of Antiquities at Edinburgh possesses a large and important collection of Scottish brooches, while a few Highland families have preserved for many generations massive silver brooches of elaborate workmanship. Formerly in the possession of the Campbells of Glenlyon, and now in the British Museum, is a brooch known as the Glenlyon brooch. It dates from about the fifteenth century. It is about 3½ inches in width, and is formed of a flat ring set with pearls on tall cone-shaped turrets, alternating with crystals and pieces of amethyst. Across the centre is a richly decorated bar, upon which rest the points of two pins attached to the edge of the ring. On the back of the brooch, in black-letter, is the favourite inscription of mediæval amulets: CASPAR . MELCHIOR . BALTAZAR . CONSUMATUM . The last word, the declaration of the dying Saviour, "It is finished," was often inscribed upon brooches and other ornaments of the Middle Ages, as were likewise the Angelic Salutation, the _titulus_ I.N.R.I., and other so-called _caracts_, all of which were considered to possess some talismanic efficacy. [Illustration: _PLATE XXI_ MEDIÆVAL SCOTTISH BROOCHES (THE GLENLYON AND LOCH BUY BROOCHES)] In many cases the open space in the middle of the ring, as in modern brooches, was filled up, and in the early examples was sometimes occupied by a turret-like ornamentation set with a crystal, while obelisks rising from the ring of the brooch were set with polished stones such as cairngorms (still popular on Scottish jewellery), or with Scottish pearls. The finest examples of this type of brooch are known as the "brooch of Lorn," the "Ugadale brooch," and the "Loch Buy brooch." The brooch of Lorn, still in the possession of the lineal descendants of the Macdougals of Lorn, dates from the fifteenth century. It consists of a disc of silver 4½ inches in diameter, enriched with filigree. In the centre is a raised capsule crowned with a large rock crystal, and round the ring of the brooch a circle of eight obelisks. The Ugadale brooch, the property of the Macneals of Firfergus, is of somewhat similar nature, save that the turrets, eight in number, are towards the centre of the brooch and arranged close round the raised crystal. The Loch Buy brooch, of more elaborate workmanship, is likewise surmounted by a cabochon crystal on a raised dais. On the ring, within a low border, are ten tall turrets, each surmounted with a Scottish pearl. This famous brooch, long in the possession of the Macleans of Loch Buy in the Isle of Mull, came later into the collection of Ralph Bernal, one of the first and most eminent of latter-day connoisseurs, at whose sale in 1855 it was purchased by the British Museum. In addition to the Highland circular brooches, a considerable number in the shape of hearts have been found in Scotland, sometimes surmounted with a crown, and in a few instances set with jewels (p. 165). They were mostly love-tokens and betrothal gifts, and many of them bear on the reverse the word LOVE. Brooches of this form are known as "Luckenbooth" brooches, from their having been commonly sold in the Luckenbooths, the street stalls around St. Giles' Church on the High Street, Edinburgh. The use of the word Luckenbooth calls to mind the fact that the goldsmiths of Paris also worked and dwelt in booths, which as late as the fourteenth century were situated on the Pont du Change and the Pont Nôtre Dame. In this connection it is worth noticing that in England, as well as in France and Scotland, the working goldsmiths, like the followers of other trades, occupied distinct quarters by themselves, and they had in London one part of the Chepe set apart for them to dwell and trade in. The custom of the various crafts thus confining themselves to particular quarters, which is of remote antiquity, greatly facilitated the formation and government of trade guilds. [Illustration: A mediæval lapidary. From _Ortus Sanitatis_ (Strasburg, about 1497).] CHAPTER XVII MEDIÆVAL BROOCHES (_continued_)--PECTORALS Another species of brooch peculiar to the Middle Ages is the pectoral, an article for fastening on to the middle of the breast. It is similar to our modern brooch, but differs in that it did not always serve to hold the dress together. In earlier centuries it was often sewn on the garment, and was only occasionally supplied with a pin. It was worn by both sexes, as well as by ecclesiastics, who appear to have borne in mind the chief ornament worn by the Jewish High Priest. The earliest and most remarkable example of this class is the great gold pectoral--the Eagle Fibula it is termed--found in 1880 at Mainz--that ancient and historical Rhenish city, known in former times from its commercial prosperity as "Goldene Mainz," which has proved extraordinarily rich in discoveries dating from classical and early mediæval periods. This famous jewel, both on account of its size (4 by 3-5/8 inches) and good state of preservation, probably deserves to rank first among all golden ornaments that have come down to us from the early Middle Ages. "Its composition," says Herr Luthmer, "is extremely clear and conscious. An eagle, of heraldic form, it is true, but not with any of that unnatural emaciation peculiar to the later style of heraldry, fills the inner circle of a flat ring of stamped gold enriched with beaded filigree, which at its upper end--in order to give space for the head of the bird--is not closed, but connected by a curve in the circle of wire. The eight flowers inserted in the open-work of the ring, as well as the whole form of the eagle with the exception of the claws, are filled with cloisonné enamel which unfortunately has disappeared from the body of the eagle, where only the punctured outlines of the feathers are perceptible upon the plate of gold. Otherwise the enamel, made of translucent green and blue, turquoise-blue, white and yellow, has been preserved in all its freshness."[75] This pectoral dates from the commencement of the twelfth century, and is one of the chief treasures in the rich collection of antiquities preserved in the Mainz Museum. [75] Luthmer, _op. cit._, p. 74. Jewels of this species and of this period are of the utmost rarity. Another very beautiful example was discovered at Mainz just five years after the Eagle Fibula, and is now in the collection of Baron von Heyl zu Herrnsheim at Worms. It is formed of repoussé gold, and represents an eagle standing upon a branch rolled up at both ends. A fine sapphire occupies the middle of the breast, in the centre of the wings are emeralds, the tail is set with lapis-lazuli, and the eye of the bird with a small ruby. This exquisite jewel dates from the early part of the thirteenth century. It measures 2-1/8 inches in height and 1-5/8 inches in width.[76] The most remarkable among jewels of about the same date (the twelfth century) are the splendid antique cameos already described--the Cameo of St. Hilary in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, and the Schaffhausen Onyx--both of which were originally employed as pectorals or brooches. [76] _Kunstgewerbe-Blatt_, III, p. 21, 1887. [Illustration: _PLATE XXII_ MEDIÆVAL BROOCHES (PECTORALS AND MORSE)] A few brooches are attached, as was once the jewel of St. Hilary, as _ex voto_ on the breast of reliquary figures, like that of St. Foy at Conques, which still exhibits an ornament of this kind. A brooch or fermail (for this latter term is not confined to the ring-brooch), 1¾ inches in diameter, which once formed part of the ancient jewels of the French Crown, is in the Galerie d'Apollon of the Louvre.[77] Two exceedingly fine brooches of about the end of the twelfth century, found at Mainz in 1896 and now in the treasury of the cathedral, are described by Dr. Schneider in the _Jahrbuch der Königlich Preussischen Kunstsammlungen_ (Vol. XVIII); and a pectoral or brooch of a similar form, a large stone in the centre, surrounded by smaller ones--to take only one among many examples--is represented on the twelfth-century statue of a queen, probably intended for the Queen of Sheba, from the west portal of the church of Our Lady of Corbeil, and now at Saint-Denis. [77] Barbet de Jouy, _Gemmes et joyaux de la couronne_, Pl. XI. In the case of original jewels of this kind, it is not always easy to determine whether they were articles of adornment for the clergy or the laity, and though those for ecclesiastical use probably predominate, it is only when they contain the figured representation of some religious subject that they can with certainty be identified as cope-clasps or _morses_, the French equivalent for which is _mors de chape_. Morses were frequently of extraordinary size. Monumental brasses and tombstones, especially in Germany, exhibit many examples. Adalbert of Saxony, who was administrator of the archbishopric of Mainz, and died in 1484, is represented on his tombstone in the cathedral with one measuring more than 7 inches across. Existing examples vary from 5 to 7 inches in breadth. The jewellers of the Middle Ages delighted in lavishing their utmost taste and skill on morses, which were of a variety of shapes, and were composed of every material. Some were enriched with precious stones, including ancient cameos, and others rendered attractive with coloured enamels. Several lists of English morses are preserved. In the inventory of Sarum,[78] of the year 1222, gold, silver, and jewelled morses, _firmacula_, _pectoralia_, or _monilia_ (as they were variously termed in the Middle Ages) are described at length; in that of St. Paul's,[79] drawn up in 1295, there are no less than twenty-eight; while the inventory of jewels (_jocalia_) preserved in York Minster[80] in 1500 includes an extraordinarily rich collection of these ornaments. [78] Rock, _op. cit._, III, iii, p. 101. [79] Dugdale, _History of St. Paul's Cathedral_ (1818 ed.), p. 310. [80] _Fabric Rolls of York Minster_ (Surtees Society), p. 222. Though some were clearly made fast to one side of the garment, and were hitched to the other by hooks, or by a pin, like a brooch, they were not always employed to unite the two sides, but were sometimes used simply as a decoration upon the front of the vestment, and perhaps hung there by a chain round the neck.[81] Examples to be found in many museums are pierced with holes, or have loops behind them, showing that they were sewn to the vestment with purely decorative purpose. [81] Compare p. 121. From the close of the twelfth century champlevé enamel upon copper was much employed for the decoration of morses. In the fourteenth century champlevé was largely superseded by transparent enamel on silver relief (_basse-taille_), many of the finest specimens of which were produced in Italy. Two fine morses displaying this species of work are preserved; the one in the British Museum[82] and the other at South Kensington. [82] Shaw, _Decorative arts of the Middle Ages_, Pl. 7. The use of ancient cameos as personal ornaments has already been mentioned; and there is in the British Museum a mediæval intaglio, the finest of its kind, which was used as a morse. It is known as the Crystal of Lothair, since it was made, in all probability, for Lothair II, King of the Franks from 855 to 869. It is a lenticular plaque of rock crystal, 4½ inches in diameter, engraved in intaglio,[83] with the history of Susanna.[84] [83] It is intended, however, to be looked at from the reverse side through the crystal--when the device appears like a cameo. [84] _Archæologia_, LIX, p. 25. Public collections at home and abroad possess a variety of examples of Gothic morses of exquisite design. One of the most remarkable of German workmanship of the fourteenth century is in the Musée Cluny at Paris;[85] while among the finest German jewels of the fifteenth century must be ranked a morse of beautiful execution in the Victoria and Albert Museum.[86] Other noteworthy examples are, three in the treasury of the cathedral of Aix-la-Chapelle, one of them[87] containing a representation of the Annunciation--a subject which, judging from the inventories, appears to have been a very favourite one for the purpose, particularly in England. Three more are in Paris: one--the beautiful morse of St. Louis--in the Galerie d'Apollon,[88] a second in the Rothschild Bequest[89] in the Louvre, and a third in the Dutuit Bequest.[90] In the Kunstgewerbe Museum at Berlin is a silver-gilt morse which was made in the year 1484 for Albert von Letelen, canon of Minden, by the goldsmith Reinecke van Dressche of Minden. It is a circular disc 5½ inches in diameter, filled with three elaborate Gothic tabernacles, each containing a figure. Entirely symmetrical in composition, it follows a design commonly found on the seals of the same date (Pl. XXII, 3). [85] Figured by Shaw, _Dresses and decorations_, Pl. 88, where it is erroneously described as the clasp of the Emperor Charles V. [86] Pollen, _Gold and silversmith's work in the S. Kensington Museum_, p. 98. [87] Beissel, _Kunstschätze des Aachener Kaiserdomes_, Pl. XIII. [88] Barbet de Jouy, _op. cit._, Pl. X. [89] Molinier, _Donation de Adolphe de Rothschild_, Pl. XIX. [90] Giraud, _Les arts du métal_, Pl. VII. An excellent idea of the extraordinary beauty of the morses in use at the close of the Middle Ages can be obtained from fifteenth-century paintings, particularly of the Flemish school. Few of the latter can surpass what is one of its finest examples in the National Gallery--Gerard David's beautiful picture of the "Canon and his Patron Saints," in which are displayed, in almost all their pristine freshness, some of the most magnificent representations of the jeweller's art. Besides these pectorals, which sometimes served a practical, but often a purely decorative purpose, there were various other ornaments that acted as clasps (_agrafes_). These _agrafes_ are similar to those still made use of in our day, working on a system of a hook fitting into a loop. Clasps for mantles were sometimes made of massive loops fastened on either side of the border of the mantle, like parts of a hinge, which could be clasped by a pin being thrust through them, or by a cord or strap. [Illustration: Mantle clasp (portion) on effigy of Henry IV (Canterbury Cathedral).] A heavy ornamental mantle was often worn by both sexes over the dress. It was open in front, and displayed the dress underneath. Upon its opposite edges were fixed two ornamental rosettes or lozenges, connected by cords terminating in tassels, or by a band across the breast. In the case of ceremonious attire this band was of metal, profusely jewelled, while the ornamental pieces or clasps at each end were of elaborate goldwork set with precious stones. On the monumental effigy of Henry IV in the Chapel of St. Thomas à Becket, at Canterbury Cathedral, the cloak is secured by a rich band fastened at each end by diamond-shaped clasps of fine design. Henry's Queen, Joanna of Navarre, who lies beside him, has clasps of almost the same form, fixed near the shoulders, and united by a simple band. Somewhat similar ornaments, rosette-shaped, can be seen on the effigy of Anne of Bohemia, first wife of Richard II, in Westminster Abbey. Since the pectoral is sometimes worn together with these clasps, it is evident that it often had nothing to do with closing the mantle; but when a pin is attached behind, and it is employed for secular purposes, it assumes the ordinary type of the modern brooch. The English word for this smaller and secular variety of morse, which is distinct from the fermail or ring-brooch, was _nouch_.[91] It was also called _ouch_, by misdivision of _a_ nouch as _an_ ouch, and was variously spelt _nuche_, _nowche_, _owche_, etc. That the nouch is the actual English equivalent to the morse or pectoral is proved by a will dated 1400,[92] in which among the jewels bequeathed to the shrine of the Head of St. William of York was "unum monile, Anglicè nouche auri, cum uno saphire in medio, et j. dyamand desuper, et circumpositum cum pereles et emeraudes." Nouches were attached to the front of the garment, but were occasionally worn upon the shoulder. On the effigy of Henry II, at Fontevraud, and on that of Henry III[93] in the Chapel of Edward the Confessor at Westminster Abbey, the mantle in each case is fastened upon the right shoulder with a brooch of this kind. [91] Probably a corruption of the Latin words _nusca_, _nuxa_, a brooch or _fibula_ (_Prompt. Parv._, p. 359). [92] _Testamenta Eboracensia_ (Surtees Society), I, p. 267. [93] This effigy, and that of Anne of Bohemia, and of Henry IV and his Queen, may be studied from reproductions in the National Portrait Gallery. It would be an almost impossible task to describe all the motives selected for the English brooches of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, their numerous compositions of human figures and animals of all sorts, and the various stones with which they were set. The old inventories give endless descriptions, but hardly any actual examples, apart from the ring-brooches and William of Wykeham's magnificent nouch at New College, have survived. In the British Museum is a silver-gilt brooch in form of St. Christopher leaning on his staff and bearing the infant Saviour on his shoulder. It is of fifteenth-century workmanship, 2¾ inches long, and was found at Kingston-on-Thames (Pl. XX, 7). This brooch is of peculiar interest, since in the _Canterbury Tales_ that worn by the "Yeman" is described as "A Crystofre on his brest of silvyr shene." Brooches and nouches, mentioned frequently in the English inventories of the fourteenth century, became even more numerous and elaborate in the century following. Foreign influence, strong at this period, left its imprint upon all works of art; and the most extensive commerce was carried on with Flanders, which was then the workshop of the world. Yet though the following descriptions of brooches drawn from the inventory of Henry IV in the Inventories of the Exchequer[94] show a striking similarity to the continental jewels of the same date, there is no reason to suppose that these were not actually produced in England by English workmen. Five nouches, probably very similar in form to the splendid jewel at New College, Oxford, and dating approximately from the same period, are thus recorded: "Item v. nouches de letres M apparellez de perles et diverses peres de petit value." Other brooches exhibit a variety of forms: "Item i. g^ant nouche dun griffon seisant un deyme ove i. saphir en my lieu iij. baleys et vi. grosses perles"; "Item i. nouche [dor] ove i. damoysell es blancz flours portant i. papingey en la mayn apparellez ove i. baleys iij. saphis iij. troches de perles ove trois diamantz contrifaitz." Similarly enriched jewels have for their subjects: "i. enfant dor et i. blanc deime enaymellez"; "i. damoisell et i. unicorn [dor]"; and "un damoisell seant en un solaill." Finally we meet with the following entry: "Item i. nouche d'un aungell blanc tenant en sa mayn un saphir feble garnisez de vi. perles enterfoiles." [94] _Kalendars and Inventories of the Exchequer_, III. p. 344, etc. Of all the immense wealth of jewellery of the Dukes of Burgundy in the fifteenth century almost every vestige has disappeared, and the public museums of the Continent are practically destitute of Flemish-Burgundian jewellery of this date. Yet the British Museum, through the generosity of the late Sir A. W. Franks, is in fortunate possession of several exquisite examples, which were dredged a few years ago from the bed of the River Meuse. The most remarkable is a gold brooch of delicate workmanship, the centre of which is occupied by a female figure: a garland encircles her head, a flower set with a small triangular diamond adorns her breast, while her hands hold in front a large faceted sapphire. Around, in the midst of foliage, are three cabochon rubies, and the settings of other stones and pearls which have disappeared (Pl. XX, 11). The form of this jewel is peculiarly interesting in comparison with the above-quoted _aungell tenant en sa mayn un saphir_ of the inventory of Henry IV. A smaller circular brooch of similar _fabrique_ has a diamond above and a pale ruby below, and is encircled by radiating buds of flowers, the centre of each bud being formed of a ball of white enamel. Of the few examples of jewels of similar character that exist at the present day upon the Continent, there is in the treasury of the Collegiate Church of Essen in Rhenish Prussia, amongst several fine objects of the goldsmith's art, a remarkable and comparatively unknown collection of enamelled jewels of the fifteenth century.[95] Each of the sixteen objects of the series possesses what appears to be a characteristic of most jewels of this date--that is to say, it is enclosed by an encircling wreath-like ornament of the naturalistic late Gothic style formed of a circular tube of gold to which are affixed leaves of stamped gold, enamelled and enriched with pearls. The centres of the jewels are occupied by a variety of motives. Seven are of a purely formal composition, enriched with small white flowers, the stalks of which, covered with green enamel, resemble with their interlacing design the necklace worn by Maria Portinari in the Van der Goes triptych at Florence. The remaining and more elaborate jewels contain enamelled figures of men and animals executed with extraordinary minuteness and vivacity. The finest, and on the whole the best preserved, has in the centre a female figure in full relief clothed in a white robe and long green cloak and a head-dress in the form of leaves. She is seated in a field sewn with flowers in the manner of the pictures of the period, and behind are golden rays[96] (Pl. XX, 9). The figure upon another jewel has a somewhat similar background. Her robe is white, and her head-dress and the edges of her wing-like sleeves red. In front of both figures is a small cluster of precious stones. Though all the objects in this remarkable collection are of about the same date, they differ sufficiently to make it clear that, like the treasures from Saragossa, they owe their presence here to the devotion of perhaps more than one wealthy person to a highly revered shrine. In spite of the fact that the majority are considerably damaged, they are yet eloquent proofs of the magnificent style of living at the period of their production, and valuable examples of the ornaments of the Middle Ages of which no other collection possesses so large and choice a variety. [95] _Revue de l'art chrétien_, 1887, p. 276; and Humann (G.), _Die Kunstwerke der Münster-Kirche zu Essen_, Pl. 62. [96] Compare this jewel with "_un damoisell seant en un solaill_" in Henry IV's inventory. In date one is disposed to place these brooches (or nouches, as they would be termed in old English inventories) in the first half of the fifteenth century--at least as far as the figured pieces are concerned, for jewellery in pictures of the second half of the century is mostly formed of pearls and precious stones alone. Jewelled brooches of this kind ornamented with figures in relief are particularly well represented in the works of the older German painters and above all those of Stephan Lochner (d. 1451), in whose masterpiece in Cologne Cathedral, known as the "Dombild," the Virgin is seen wearing on her breast a brooch ornamented with clusters of pearls and the figure of a seated maiden, with a unicorn resting one foot on her lap.[97] In another celebrated picture by Master Stephan--the "Virgin of the Rose-Arbour," in the Cologne Museum--the same subject is represented on the _mandorla_, or almond-shaped, brooch which closes the Virgin's robe; while in a third picture by him in the Episcopal Museum of the same city--a picture which, like the rest, bears traces of Flemish influence--the Virgin's brooch or morse is ornamented with a female figure seated, full face, after the manner of the British Museum and Essen brooches.[98] [97] Compare Henry IV's "_i. damoisell et i. unicorn_." [98] The same motive is figured on a morse shown on the left wing of a picture in the Cologne Museum known as the "Sippenaltar" (by the _Meister der heiligen Sippe_), dating from the end of the fifteenth century. The jewel is worn by S. Nicasius. It is trefoil in shape, and decorated with the figure of an angel, full face, holding a large stone in front. [Illustration: Brooch of the Virgin in Lochner's "Dombild" (Cologne Cathedral).] Such is the extraordinary quality and extreme rarity of jewels of this type that attention must be drawn to yet two more examples: one in the Imperial Collections at Vienna, and the other in the Carrand Collection in the Bargello at Florence. The former is a jewel of quite remarkable character. Within the usual circle of gold wire is a pair of lovers standing side by side each holding the end of a wreath. The figures, dressed in Burgundian costume of the fifteenth century and enamelled with various colours, breathe the spirit of the mediæval _amourette_ as represented upon ivory mirror-cases and jewel-caskets and in miniatures of the twelfth to the sixteenth century. Between them is a triangular diamond set like the example in the British Museum, and below it a pale cabochon ruby. Around are five pearls (Pl. XX, 8).[99] The jewel at Florence (2 inches in diameter) has a border of green enamelled leaves set with pearls, and in the centre a finely modelled figure of a dromedary in white enamel. This brooch, which is in splendid condition, was perhaps intended to be worn, as were some other of these pieces, as an _enseigne_ on the hat or cap (Pl. XVII, 12). [99] This jewel once formed part of the treasure of the House of Burgundy, and came into the Imperial Collections through the marriage of Mary of Burgundy with the Emperor Maximilian I. Whatever may have been their nationality, a glance at each, from those in the British Museum to the one last described, is sufficient to determine the identity of their source of inspiration. All bear the stamp of the Flemish-Burgundian art, which throughout the fifteenth century dominated the creations of the goldsmiths, as well as the sculptors, miniaturists, and tapestry workers, of the entire west of Europe. Every one of these brooches is worthy of the most careful examination, particularly by the craftsman of the present day, for unlike the ornaments of more ancient times, they possess qualities which render them peculiarly appropriate to the circumstances of our later civilisation. In the refinement and simplicity of their arrangement and design these mediæval examples of the jeweller's art transcend many of the greatly admired and more famous jewels of the Renaissance. CHAPTER XVIII MEDIÆVAL RINGS AND BRACELETS Of all classes of mediæval jewellery finger rings have been preserved in the greatest number. Among the various causes that have contributed to this result must be reckoned their very general use in former times, their comparatively small value, which often saved them from the melting-pot and the fact that they were almost the only articles of value usually buried with the dead. As regards the use and form of the finger ring during the Middle Ages, we find that it retains in the main its primitive symbolical character, being employed as an emblem rather than an ornament, to signify the investiture of office, the binding of the nuptial bond, and especially as a signet. Though the occurrence of numerous rings without a seal or other mark proves their general acceptance as purely ornamental articles, so deeply was the spirit of the age imbued with leanings towards the mysterious and the occult, that nearly every ring is an _annulus vertuosus_, supposed to be endowed with some talismanic or sanative efficacy. For convenience sake mediæval rings may be separated into four main divisions: (1) ecclesiastical and devotional rings; (2) charm rings; (3) love and marriage rings; and (4) ornamental rings, including signets. Rings have always been looked upon with favour by the Church; they were worn regularly by the higher clergy, and formed part of their ecclesiastical insignia. The British Museum, by the bequest of Mr. Octavius Morgan, possesses an important collection of gilt bronze finger rings of enormous size, each set with a foiled glass or crystal. Most of them bear on the hoop symbols of the four evangelists, the Ox, Lion, Angel, and Eagle, as well as the triple crown and crossed keys with the arms of various popes, and sometimes those of contemporary rulers, mostly of the fifteenth century. These so-called papal rings, of which other examples, and duplicates, exist, are believed to have been presented or sent by popes or cardinals as emblems of investiture when conferring an office or dignity (Pl. XXIII, 10). A jewelled ring was always worn by a bishop, and was an essential part of his costume when pontificating. It was specially made for him, and usually went with him to the grave. Hence it happens that many of these rings have survived, and are preserved both in museums--the collection in the Franks Bequest in the British Museum being the most extensive--and in the cathedrals where they have been found.[100] In the earliest times bishops usually wore engraved rings for use as signets, but they seem to have had a large jewelled one as well for ceremonial use. According to the instructions of Pope Innocent III in 1194, the episcopal ring was to be of solid gold set with a precious stone on which nothing was to be cut; hence the thirteenth-century rings are at times somewhat rudely fashioned, with the shape of the bezel adapted to the gem just as it was found, its surface merely being polished. Among the stones usually chosen for the purpose were the ruby indicating glory, the sapphire purity, the emerald tranquillity and happiness, and crystal simplicity. Antique gems in earlier times were also worn, and on some rings an inscription is added to give a Christian name to the pagan figure; but others were merely regarded as ornaments without meaning, like one dating from the twelfth century in the Waterton Collection, which bears a Roman cameo in plasma of a female head in high relief; or like the curious example found in the coffin of Seffrid, Bishop of Chichester (d. 1151), in which is mounted a Gnostic intaglio. The most usual form of ring, and one which seems to have been reserved chiefly for bishops, is of a pointed or stirrup shape. It is commonly found set with a small sapphire, more rarely with an emerald, and sometimes, as in William of Wykeham's ring at New College, with a ruby (Pl. XXIII, 1). The fashion for this type appears to have lasted from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century. [100] Amongst others there are three in each of the cathedrals of Chichester, York, Winchester, and Durham, and two at Hereford (_Archæologia_, XLV, p. 404). [Illustration: _PLATE XXIII_ MEDIÆVAL AND LATER RINGS] The episcopal ring was formerly worn on the right hand, but is placed at the present day upon the annular finger--the third finger of the left hand. Not more than one episcopal ring is now worn, but on sepulchral effigies and early pictures bishops are represented with three or four rings on the right hand, not infrequently upon the second joint of the fingers, and also upon the thumb. They were generally worn over the gloves, the backs of which were ornamented in addition with a large jewel. These rings were often, therefore, of considerable size, so that when worn without a glove a guard-ring was necessary to prevent their falling off.[101] Mitred abbots were allowed to wear the ring; by others it might be worn, but not during the celebration of the Mass. The use of a ring was forbidden to the lower clergy. [101] Waterton (E.), "Episcopal rings" (_Arch. Journ._, XX, p. 224), 1863. Among the rings to be classed under the heading of religious or devotional rings, the most important are the so-called iconographic rings, that is, those which have on the bezels, or on the shoulders, which are generally grooved or fluted, figures of the Virgin and Child, or of patron saints. They are nearly all of the same style of workmanship and date almost exclusively from the fifteenth century. They are peculiar to England and Scotland. Several examples are preserved in the National Museum of Antiquities at Edinburgh (p. 104), and others in the three great English ring collections. [Illustration: English gold ring, fifteenth century. Engraved with the "Annunciation," and the words _en bon an_.] Devotional rings of the same date, and mostly of English workmanship, have broad hoops, some engraved with sacred monograms, some with holy names such as JESUS and MARIA, and others with the names of the Three Kings, spelt in all manner of ways. Two exquisite English gold rings of this kind, dating from the first half of the fifteenth century, are in the British Museum. One, found at Coventry in 1802, is engraved with the five wounds of Christ, together with the legends describing them, and on the inside an inscription containing the names of the Three Kings of Cologne (Pl. XXIII, 4, 5).[102] The other ring was dug up at Godstow Priory, near Oxford, and is of small diameter, suited for a lady's finger, but has a broad hoop engraved with sacred figures. It appears to have been employed as a love ring, for within the hoop is an inscription which runs thus: "_Most in mynd and yn myn herrt. Lothest from you fer to departt_"[103] (Pl. XXIII, 6). [102] _Archæologia_, XVIII, p. 306. [103] _Arch. Journ._, XX, p. 195. Another form of religious or devotional ring which was sometimes used in place of the ordinary rosary of beads was the decade ring. This was so called from its usually having at intervals round the hoop ten knobs which were used for repeating ten Aves, and a head or bezel for the Paternoster. Finger rings, to an even greater extent than any other species of mediæval jewellery, were designed to act as talismans or amulets; and they served, more than any other purpose, that of charms. Their virtue was imparted sometimes by the stone, and sometimes by the device, inscription, or magical letters engraved upon them. The mystic virtues attributed to stones as well as to engraved gems during the Middle Ages has been frequently alluded to. Among the different stones (like the sapphire, for instance, the very word for which implies protection against drunkenness) carried in the bezel of the ring, which were supposed to make the wearer proof against evil influences, the most valued was the toadstone (Pl. XXIII, 9). It was supposed to be found in the head of a toad, but is in reality the fossil palatal tooth of a species of fish--the ray. A toadstone--also known as crapaudine and batrachites--in a ring was said to indicate the presence of poison by perspiring and changing colour. Toadstones were much sought after, and were highly prized, even in Shakespeare's day. Sweet are the uses of adversity; Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head. (_As you like it_, II, 1.) Ben Jonson alludes to the custom of wearing the stone in rings:-- Were you enamour'd on his copper rings, His saffron jewel, with the toad-stone in't? (_Volpone_, II, 5.) In addition to the stones already mentioned, greatly valued was the Turkey-stone or turquoise, as the "Compassionate turcoyse, which doth tell, By looking pale, the wearer is not well." (Donne, _Anatomie of the World_.) It was his turquoise ring which Shylock would not have lost "for a wilderness of monkeys." The use of charm rings seems to have been not uncommon in early times. It was one of the articles of impeachment against Hubert de Burgh, the great justiciar of Henry III, that whereas the King had in his treasury a ring which rendered the wearer invincible in battle, his minister furtively removed the same and bestowed it upon Llewellyn of Wales. As charm rings, too, must be reckoned those which enclosed small relics. But rings so used seem for the most part to have been worn attached by a ribbon or chain to the neck, and not on the finger. Since such highly valued objects as charmed stones could only be obtained by a few, cabalistic inscriptions often took their place. Many of the devotional rings with the names Jesus, Mary, and Joseph engraved on them, were used as a preservative against the plague; but the most popular inscription was, as has been seen, the names of the Three Kings of the East, which were a powerful charm against peril by travel and sudden death. Such rings were worn against the cramp. There were also caract rings of superstitious use, which bore charms in the form of inscriptions, such as ANANIZAPTA. Many other rings of this class have cabalistic names and strange barbaric words and combinations utterly unintelligible. The _fyancel_ or wedding ring appears to be of Roman origin, and was usually given at the betrothal as a pledge of the engagement. Two forms of these rings are the "gimmel" and the "posy" rings. Gimmel rings (French, _jumelle_, a twin) are composed of two hoops forming, when closed, one ring, and so constructed as to play when open one within the other. They are of two sorts: those which are either plain or set with precious stones, and those which have the device of the _fede_ or two right hands joined. Inscriptions or mottoes, as a rule in Norman-French, are to be found on rings of the fourteenth, and more frequently on those of the fifteenth century. They were called "chansons" and also "resons" or "reasons," and later, poesies, posies, or posys. These love inscriptions, generally engraved on the outside of the ring (though placed inside in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries) are for the most part the same as those found on the brooches of the time, inscriptions such as _Je suis ici en lieu d'ami_, and the like, being of frequent occurrence. More rarely the motto is in English, as on the beautiful iconographic gold ring in the British Museum. New Year's Day among the Romans was a _dies faustus_ and objects of jewellery were usually among the presents which it was the custom to exchange on that occasion. In the Middle Ages also the advent of the New Year was celebrated by the bestowal of presents. Among these _estrennes_ jewellery was a prominent item, and on the rings of the period (like the one figured on p. 150) the inscription, _en bon an_ frequently occurs. A very extensive group of mediæval finger rings is formed by signets. These are marked with some device, such as an animal, a bird, a tree, or any other object, so that they could be easily recognised; hence they were often given as credentials to a messenger. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries rings of silver, and occasionally of gold, occur, with a crest or coat-of-arms, or with devices in the form of initials, and certain arbitrary signs called merchants' marks, which were used by merchants and others not entitled to armorial bearings. Piers Plowman speaks of "merchantes merkes ymedeled in glasse." Such rings were often worn on the thumb. Though armorial signets were worn in Italy as early as the fourteenth century, they were not common in England till the commencement of the sixteenth. Somewhat similar are certain devotional signet rings of silver or base metal engraved with an initial--generally the letter I surmounted by a coronet. The I is probably the initial of the Saviour's name, such rings being worn from a belief in the efficacy of holy names as preservatives from evil. In connection with the mediæval use of ancient engraved stones, the fashion of wearing Roman intaglios in rings has already been noticed. Upon the metal setting around these gems a legend in Latin was often engraved; the most usual inscription being SIGILLUM SECRETI, SIGILLUM MEUM, or the word SIGILLUM, followed by the name of the owner (Pl. XXIII, 11). Rings which have the appearance of being purely ornamental were worn throughout the Middle Ages in considerable numbers both by men and women; yet at the same time it must ever be borne in mind that the stones set in them had probably in the eyes of the possessors a value quite independent of their use as ornaments. In the Gold Ornament Room of the British Museum is a collection of five English rings of silver of the twelfth century. They are of small intrinsic value, but of considerable interest as authenticated examples of ornamental rings of the period; for with the exception of those found on the fingers of prelates, the date of early rings is sometimes difficult to determine. The rings were dug up at Lark Hill, near Worcester, in 1854, together with upwards of two hundred pennies of Henry II. They probably date, therefore, from about the end of the century.[104] [104] _Archæologia_, XXXVI, p. 200. [Illustration: French gold ring, fourteenth century (Louvre).] The peculiarity of many of the richer ornamental rings of this period is the tendency to place the stone upon a high case or stalk, so that the bezel is raised considerably above the hand. A curious example, dating from the fourteenth century, is in the Sauvageot Collection in the Galerie d'Apollon of the Louvre. It shows two dragons' heads issuing from crown-shaped ornaments supporting a sapphire in a high collet. In the fifteenth century a large number of rings appear to have been habitually worn; and on the monument of Lady Stafford in Bromsgrove Church, Worcestershire (1450), every finger but the last one on the right hand is decorated with a ring. In many of the Flemish pictures of the same date we find ornamental rings set with table-cut or cabochon stones. The form of these is admirably represented in the portrait of a goldsmith, ascribed to Gerard David, in the Royal Gallery at Vienna. In his right hand he holds one ring, and in the left a short roll of parchment, on which are placed four more. The rings are somewhat massive, and thicken towards the bezel, where they are mounted with table-cut stones within plain claw settings. In the same gallery is John van Eyck's portrait, dated 1436, of John De Leeuw, jeweller to Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy. He holds between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand a gold ring set with a small cabochon stone. This notice of mediæval finger rings may be concluded by drawing attention to a picture which, in view of the jewellery of the Middle Ages, is one of the most fascinating of all the productions of the Flemish school. The panel in question, the property of Baron A. Oppenheim, of Cologne, represents the legend of St. Godeberta and St. Eloy. It was painted in the year 1449 for the corporation of goldsmiths of Antwerp by Petrus Christus, who flourished in the first half of the fifteenth century, and died at Bruges about 1472. Appropriately enough, the patron saint of goldsmiths is figured in his shop; and the picture thus affords us a singularly interesting and attractive representation of the interior of a jeweller's shop in the middle of the fifteenth century with every detail of its glittering contents. St. Eloy or Eligius, whose figure, for all we know, may be the portrait of some well-known jeweller of the day, is seen seated at the goldsmith's bench, beside which stand Dagobert, King of France, and St. Godeberta. He is employed in weighing the ring with which the King seeks to espouse the Virgin Saint; but instead, so the legend runs, of giving her the engagement ring, he slipped on her finger a ruby ring, mystically espousing her to Christ. The King wears, pinned to the front of his black chaperon, a brooch or enseigne, set with a ruby surrounded by four pearls and having a pendent drop. Round his neck is a curb chain of alternate plain and beaded links, from which hangs a jewel formed of two lions _affrontés_. Godeberta's head-dress, or _escoffion_, is of embroidered gold sewn with pearls. The pendant of her neck-chain, hidden by the bodice, lies between the breasts. Very carefully rendered is each item of the choice collection of objects that forms the goldsmith's stock-in-trade, exhibited on a stall covered with white linen on the left hand of the goldsmith-saint. Below is a box of rings, some plain, some mounted, ranged along three rolls of parchment. Beside them lie large pearls and precious stones, and seed pearls sorted in a shell by themselves. Behind, against the back, rest a branch of coral and oblong pieces of rock crystal and of opaque stone of porphyry-red. Above, on a piece of dark cloth, hang three splendid jewels--a pendant and two brooches, and next to them a pair of tooth-like pendants, probably glossopetræ. From the shelf on the top is suspended a string of red, amber, and pale blue rosary beads, and in the middle a girdle end of brown leather with buckle and mounts of gilded metal. The remainder of the collection, formed of various vessels, comprises a crystal cylinder set with gold and precious stones and a mounted cocoanut cup; and on the upper shelf a covered cup and a couple of tall flagons of silver parcel-gilt. This remarkable picture at once brings to mind that strangely interesting series of interiors afterwards produced by Quentin Matsys and Marinus van Romerswael, representing money-changers, bankers, or usurers busily engaged in counting up or weighing coins scattered before them on a table, upon which also sometimes lie a handsome ring or two, a richly jewelled pendant, or unset precious stones and pearls. [Illustration: _PLATE XXIV_ PICTURE, KNOWN AS THE "LEGEND OF ST. ELOY AND ST. GODEBERTA," REPRESENTING THE INTERIOR OF A GOLDSMITH'S SHOP IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY BY PETRUS CHRISTUS OF BRUGES] BRACELETS Bracelets were as little in vogue as earrings during the Middle Ages, and remarks made concerning the latter apply also to bracelets, in that they only appear as the lingering traces of Byzantine fashions which, until the commencement of the twelfth century, made themselves strongly felt throughout the whole of Europe. In the National Museum at Munich is a gold armlet formed of two hinged halves covered with filigree and beaded ornament. Its outer rims are of twisted gold, and within are bands of fine plaited wire. It is adorned with bosses of filigree alternating with pyramidal projections. The origin of this fine ornament is unknown, but it probably dates from about the eleventh or twelfth century (Pl. XVIII, 6). The National Museum of Buda-Pesth contains a pair of very similar armlets. In connection with these ornaments the persistence of tradition in goldsmith's work is curiously seen, since armlets closely resembling the earlier examples are made and worn in Cairo at the present day. During the latter part of the Middle Ages it appears to have been a common practice for ladies to wear rosaries or chaplets of beads upon their wrists as bracelets. With these exceptions, the long sleeves that were worn throughout the greater part of the Middle Ages did not favour the use of an ornament that demanded the bare skin as a foundation. Ornamental circlets round the upper arm, which are not infrequently met with in pictures, must be regarded as gold-embroidered edgings or bands. It is true they were frequently set with pearls, stones, and decorations in gold, but as they were sewn upon the sleeves they have no actual claim to the name of armlets. Armlets or bracelets appear to have been worn to a certain extent towards the close of the fifteenth century, but to have been reserved chiefly for summer wear. "If the bracelets we ordered months ago are not here till the summer is over and we no longer wear our arms bare, they will be of no use." So, about 1491, says Mrs. Ady, wrote the famous Isabella d'Este, Marchioness of Mantua, to the skilled goldsmith, Ercole Fedeli, of Ferrara, who had failed to execute her order punctually. The dilatoriness of the same artist on another occasion kept the marchioness waiting four years for a pair of silver bracelets, and they would never, she declared, have been finished in her lifetime if Duke Alfonso had not thrown him into the Castello dungeon.[105] [105] Cartwright (J.), _Isabella d'Este_, I, p. 73. Though there are other references to the use of bracelets in the fifteenth century, it was not until about the middle of the century following that this species of ornament came into general use. [Illustration: A goldsmith in his workshop. From _Hortus Sanitatis_ (Strasburg, 1536).] CHAPTER XIX MEDIÆVAL BELTS AND GIRDLES The girdle or _ceinture_ of elaborate workmanship formed no inconsiderable part of the jewellery of the wealthy in the Middle Ages. Though actual examples are extremely rare, there is scarcely an effigy or picture from the thirteenth century to the beginning of the sixteenth which does not supply us with some varied form of this indispensable article; while the wills and inventories of the period often contain descriptions of girdles of extraordinary richness. By the poor, too, the girdle was habitually worn, but with them it frequently dwindled down to a few metal knobs sewn on to leather or on to coarse cloth. In addition to the upper girdle for fastening round the waist, a lower girdle was worn, both as an ornament and as a belt for the sword. It was a broad and sometimes stiff band which loosely encircled the body about the hips, and in the case of male attire was sometimes attached to the lower border of the tunic, with which it converged. Of the narrower and more pliable species of girdle, the portions reserved for special enrichment were the ends, one of which terminated in the buckle, and the other in the pendant or _mordant_. Some account of the buckle and of its plate, to which the strap of the girdle is attached, has already been given in the Introduction. Always a favourite field in former times for the display of the jeweller's art, it was likewise richly adorned by the goldsmiths of the later Middle Ages. At the other end of the girdle was a metal attachment or chape which gave it consistency where it was most required. This girdle end, which hung down and was known as the tag or pendant, was decorated with various designs frequently of an architectural character and sometimes set with precious stones; but whenever such decorations projected beyond the sides of the strap the buckle was made wider in like manner, and if tassels and other ornaments were added they were always of such size that they could pass easily through the buckle. The metal shape thus covering the end of the belt was also called the _mordant_ (of the same derivation as the word morse), especially if in the absence of a buckle it was so constructed as to hook on to a clasp to facilitate securing the belt round the person. The mordant often forms with the buckle-plate a single design, its decorated front being either as large as the plate, or of such a shape as to form with it a regular figure. From the twelfth century, when from sepulchral monuments[106] we obtain our first information respecting the girdle, until the seventeenth, we nearly always find that the end, when passed through the buckle, was twisted round the waist-strap and hung down in front, in the case of men about twelve inches and with women almost to the ground. But when, instead of a buckle, a clasp formed of a central stud or rosette was employed, either the end of the girdle itself hung down, or an additional chain was attached at the point of junction. To this was sometimes suspended a pomander-box, tablets, or a pendent reliquary. This mode, however, of suspending such objects did not come generally into vogue till the time of the Renaissance, and when worn in the earlier period at the girdle they were hung at the side from a hook, somewhat like a chatelaine. [106] Many admirable representations of girdles are figured in Stothard's _Monumental effigies of Great Britain_. The girdle itself was usually about two yards in length, and consisted of a strap of stamped leather, or a band of material with a firm foundation, upon which were set button-shaped decorations at regular intervals. This was known as the studded girdle (_ceinture ferrée_). Among the wealthy the studs were composed of the precious metals, against which the sumptuary laws both at home and abroad (of little effect it would seem) contained special prohibitions. The studs upon the girdles of the poor were generally of the alloy of brass and tin called latten or laton, and the term "pearled with latoun" is mentioned in the _Canterbury Tales_. There is still in existence in the City of London the Girdlers' Company, which is of great antiquity. By a charter granted them by Edward III in 1327 it was forbidden to the girdlers to "garnish any girdle of silk, wool, leather or linen thread, with any inferior metal than latten, copper, iron, and steel, and if any girdles were garnished with lead pewter, or tin, the same should be burned, and the workmen punished for their false work."[107] In spite of this prohibition girdles appear to have been frequently mounted with the baser metals, and a considerable number with mountings of pewter have been discovered. Their ordinance, as did that of latoners or workers in latten, likewise forbade girdlers from interfering with the trade of the goldsmiths by mounting girdles or garters with gold or silver; and that if a girdler wished to _harness_ his goods with either of the precious metals he was obliged to employ a goldsmith. In 1376 a girdler of the City of London was accused of "having secretly made in his chamber a certain girdle that was harnessed with silver." Upon being brought before the justices he pleaded that his offence was a light one compared with the more serious fraud of plating with silver objects of base metal. He was dismissed with a warning. Subsequently he was convicted of the very fraud he himself had mentioned, and punished with a heavy fine.[108] The work of the English goldsmiths in the adornment of girdles appears to have been well known and recognised upon the Continent, and an inventory of the jewels of the Duke and Duchess of Orleans in 1408 mentions a girdle of rich goldwork set with pearls and sapphires "_de la façon d'Angleterre_." [107] Riley (H. T.), _Memorials of London and London life_, p. 154. [108] Riley, _op. cit._, p. 399. The mediæval girdle, seldom as in later times in the form of a chain, but generally composed of leather, was sometimes ornamented in the most costly manner. In the inventory of Edward II is "a girdle in the old style [probably filigree-work] set with letters of pearls: the buckle and mordant enamelled with escutcheons of the arms of England and others."[109] In the expenses of the Great Wardrobe of Edward III[110] there occurs an entry of 304 dozens of silver buckles, and a similar number of pendants, while his jewels deposited in the Treasury included many complete girdles enriched with enamels and precious stones.[111] From the many fifteenth-century girdles of extraordinary richness described in the inventories, the following, the property of Henry IV, may be selected as an example: "Item, a girdle of black silk, of gold, garnished with various stones. With 28 bars[112] of gold, 13 of which are set with 13 balasses, and 4 pearls at the corners, and 14 bars, each enamelled with various flowers, and on each 4 pearls. Set on the buckle is one balas, 10 large and 6 small pearls. On the pendant one balas, 8 large and 5 small pearls." [109] _Inventories of the Exchequer_, III, p. 142. [110] _Archæologia_, XXXI, p. 55. [111] _Inventories, etc._, III, pp. 174, 184. [112] These bars of metal were attached vertically at intervals to the belt or girdle to maintain the rigidity of the material. The word _bar_ (corresponding to the French _clou_) was subsequently applied to all such attachments, which were sometimes perforated to allow the tongue of the buckle to pass through them (Way, _Prompt. parv._, p. 24). This entry probably refers to the broader and richer kind of girdle, known as the military belt (_cingulum_);[113] a similar belt being also worn by women. It was generally employed by men, as was sometimes the narrow girdle, for the purpose of hanging the sword. This belt, frequently composed of silk or gold tissue, seems to have come into general use about the fourteenth century, and was worn round the hips. It was often furnished with a buckle and mordant, but was more usually united by a clasp, which at times was made very prominent, and assumed excessive dimensions. Girdles and belts in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries were sometimes studded with medallions of Limoges enamel. There is in the Victoria and Albert Museum a beautiful fifteenth-century Italian belt of gold tissue (Pl. XXXVIII, 1). Its buckle, studs, and other ornaments are of gilt metal, and the broad buckle-plate is enriched with niello work, bearing the legend _Virtus vin_[_cit_]. Two silver-gilt plates from a Gothic girdle of Flemish work of the fifteenth century are in the possession of Herr James Simon, of Berlin. Each plate is almost square, and measures 1¾ by 1½ inches. The centres are sunk: within one is a figure of Samson and the Lion, and in the other a figure on horseback, probably St. George or St. Michael. The figures, in full relief and delicately modelled, are each surrounded by pearls and blossoms, the groundwork being covered with bright green enamel, on which are small dots of white enamel capped with red. The plates are ornamented at each corner with chased Gothic foliage, and have hinges at the sides to unite them to other similar sections, of which the complete girdle was, perhaps, originally composed (Pl. XXV, 4). [113] Hartshorne (A.), "Swordbelts of the Middle Ages" (_Arch. Journ._, XLVIII, p. 320). Of frequent occurrence in old English wills is the word _demysent_ (or _demysens_), which refers to the little girdles worn by women: they were known in France as _demi-ceints_ or _demi-ceintures_. Another species of girdle was called the _baldrick_--derived from the French _baudrier_; the _baudroier_ being the currier who prepared skins for the purpose. The term baldric or baudric, sometimes applied to the military belt worn round the waist, was generally employed for a belt worn over one shoulder, across the breast, and under the opposite arm.[114] It was often of a rich description and set with precious stones, and in early times was occasionally hung with little bells.[115] [114] Way, _Prompt. parv._, p. 27, n. 2. [115] There is the possibility that bells were worn as amulets, though not necessarily intended as such by their wearers. "Le son de l'airain," like the tinkling ornaments of the daughters of Zion (Isa. III. 18), was thought to have a prophylactic virtue. The double-tail mermaids of silver still worn in Naples as charms against the evil eye are always hung with little bells (Elworthy, _The evil eye_, p. 368). Among the girdles in the possession of Henry IV[116] one is garnished with heads of stags and small pearls, and another with ostrich plumes and little golden bells. Others, mostly of stuff, are garnished with various flowers, mostly roses, or with ivy leaves, and the majority are hung with little bells. In addition to such enrichments, which included also coats-of-arms, girdles bore inscriptions, engraved on the buckle-plate, or formed of letters sewn upon the band. These latter were often of an amatory or of a superstitious character; for, like other articles of mediæval jewellery, the girdle, on account of the stones, etc., set upon it, was frequently considered endowed with talismanic properties. Chaucer in his adaptation of the older "Roman de la Rose" describes the rich jewelled girdle, worn by one of the emblematical characters in the Garden of Love. It was set with stones evidently valued for their mystic properties. [116] _Inventories of the Exchequer_, III, p. 337. Richesse a girdle had upon, The bokell of it was of a ston, Of vertue grete, and mokell of might. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The mordaunt wrought in noble wyse, Was of a stone full precious, That was so fine and vertuous, That whole a man it couth make Of palasey and of totheake. Attached directly to the girdle or suspended from it by a hook or chain was a purse or pouch called either a _gipcière_, _aulmonière_, or _escarcelle_, which was made of velvet, silk, or stamped leather. The gipcière (also written _gypcyre_) is mentioned most frequently in early documents, where it is often described as being enriched with embroidery, and set with pearls and precious stones. Like the aulmonière and escarcelle, it was worn from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century hung from a loop at the right side of the girdle. The heads or clasps of the finest purses were of beautiful workmanship, of silver, bronze, or iron, damascened, or exquisitely chiselled. For ordinary use these heads--known as gipcière _beams_--as well as the mounts or frames of the purses, were made of brass or latten; and judging from the number that has been found and preserved, in the Guildhall Museum, for instance, their use must have been very general in mediæval times. [Illustration: "Luckenbooth" brooch of silver (Nat. Mus. of Antiquities, Edinburgh).] RENAISSANCE JEWELLERY CHAPTER XX ITALY, FIFTEENTH CENTURY The history of Renaissance jewellery in general may be approached by reviewing the condition of Italian jewellery in the fifteenth century. In the foregoing outline of European jewellery to the end of the fifteenth century--which has served as an approximate date for the termination of the mediæval epoch--practically no reference has been made to Italy. One need only examine the general style of Italian painting, architecture, and sculpture of the Quattrocento, to see how far apart the art of Italy stands from that of the rest of Europe. Italian jewellery certainly merits the great reputation it has always possessed. Nor is this surprising, considering the prominent part played by the goldsmiths in the renaissance of artistic taste--by these craftsmen who, in the highest sense artists, were the first to break the fetters of tradition, and yield to those impulses that sought a wider field for the gratification of their creative instinct. Hence the history of the jeweller's art in Italy at the period of the Quattrocento largely resolves itself into the biographies of those master sculptors and painters, who worked first as goldsmiths and jewellers, and throughout their careers remained ever mindful of their original trade. Venice, which in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was the wealthiest city and the principal port in Europe, though rivalled in the former century by Bruges and by Antwerp in the latter, encouraged the use of luxurious jewellery, as did the great cities of the north. But Florence undoubtedly took the lead as an artistic centre, judging alone by the artists she produced. The paintings of the Venetian school (the work of Crivelli, for instance), and those of the schools of Tuscany, etc., reveal the exquisite beauty of ecclesiastical jewellery, and of the ornaments with which men, no less than women, loved to deck their persons. Nearly every painter possessed an insight into the mysteries of the goldsmith's craft, and represented his subject, whatever it might be, with careful attention to its jewelled accessories. The great merchants of opulent and artistic cities, such as Siena, Milan, and others, besides Venice and Florence, delighted in rich jewels; and the masters of the schools of painting which had their centres in these towns have preserved in glowing pigment a faithful record of these delicate works of art, on which the eminent jewellers of the day lavished their skill and ingenuity. The great superiority and beauty of the personal ornaments revealed to us in this manner must first of all be ascribed to that awakening to the full joy of life that was so characteristic a feature of the Renaissance. The rapture of spring ran hot in men's veins. Life was an uninterrupted succession of revelry and gaiety, amid splendour of colouring and glitter of gold. The goldsmith emerges from the subordinate state he occupied in the mediæval guild, and attains fame as a free artist, whose duty was to minister personally to the luxurious tastes of those who played a part in the gorgeous pageant of the new epoch. The goldsmiths included among their ranks great master craftsmen, whose perfection of technical skill seemed to find satisfaction only in overcoming the greatest problems that their art could offer. Vasari tells of the very close connection and almost constant intercourse that existed between the goldsmiths and the painters. Indeed, nearly every artist, before applying himself to painting, architecture, or sculpture, began with the study of the goldsmith's craft, and "passed the years of his apprenticeship in the technical details of an industry that then supplied the strictest method of design."[117] [117] Symonds (J. A.), _Renaissance in Italy--The Fine Arts_, p. 91. The names of several artists of the Renaissance have been handed down who are specially recorded as having worked at jewellery. One of the earliest of those who began their career in the goldsmith's workshops is Ghiberti (b. 1378), who throughout life remained faithful to that species of work. His jewellery is specially extolled by Vasari. Following upon Ghiberti were two great jewellers, Tommaso (commonly called Maso) di Finiguerra and Antonio Pollaiuolo; the former famous for his nielli, the latter for his enamel-work upon relief. Pollaiuolo's love for jewel-forms in his paintings (executed together with his brother Piero) is seen not only in the Annunciation at Berlin, but in the group of SS. Eustace, James, and Vincent in the Uffizi, and the portrait of Simonetta Vespucci at Chantilly. Born in 1435, a few years after Pollaiuolo, Andrea del Verrocchio resembled in the peculiar versatility of his genius, others of these typical artists of the Middle or High Renaissance--the Epoch of the Goldsmith it has been termed. A jeweller whose influence in his own day was greater, and whose fame almost equalled that of Cellini, was Ambrogio Foppa, called Caradosso, who was born about 1446 at Milan. He worked first in the service of Ludovico Sforza, and afterwards at Rome, where he died as late as the year 1530. He seems to have been skilled in every branch of the goldsmith's art, and especially excelled in making little medallions of gold, enriched with figures in high relief and covered with enamels, which were worn as enseignes in the hat or hair. His work in this direction is highly extolled by Cellini, and his skill in enamelling specially mentioned by Vasari. Among the artists of the end of the fifteenth century who, after being goldsmiths and jewellers, became celebrated as painters must be mentioned Botticelli (1444-1510), Domenico del Ghirlandaio (1449-1494), and Francia (1450-1517). Ghirlandaio is commonly referred to as a maker of the jewelled coronals (_ghirlande_), popular with the unmarried and newly wedded ladies of Florence. It is probable that he did produce this class of work in early life; but his name seems to have been borne by several members of his family, for in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries a goldsmith was often familiarly termed "Ghirlandaio," as one of his chief occupations was the manufacture of the rich head-ornaments then so much in vogue. [Illustration: Pendant worn by one of The Three Graces in Botticelli's "Primavera."] Though Ghirlandaio does not fill his pictures with dainty details like the intricate settings which Botticelli devised for the neck-pendants of the Graces in his "Primavera," yet he invariably pays careful regard to the representation of jewelled accessories. Such may be seen in the well-known portrait of Giovanna Tornabuoni (1488), belonging to Mr. Pierpont Morgan (formerly in the Kann Collection). She has two jewels: one, worn on her breast, is formed of a ruby in claw setting with a small beryl above, and hung with three pendent pearls; the other, specially introduced into the picture and lying beside her in a recess, is composed of a cluster of stones--a ruby surrounded by two pearls and three beryls--beautifully set, and surmounted by a winged dragon with a sapphire over its head. Resting upon a table in the foreground of another picture--a curious panel in the possession of Mr. George Salting--representing Costanza de' Medici, are several pins, three rings on a roll of parchment, and a pendant hung with three pearls and set with a large and a small sapphire. In the Pitti Gallery is a portrait, not by Domenico, but by his son Ridolfo Ghirlandaio, which may be here alluded to owing to the special interest of its subject. The portrait is that of a jeweller holding in his hand and gazing intently at what is presumably one of his own creations--a richly enamelled jewel fashioned in the form of a "pelican in its piety." [Illustration: Jewel, in Ghirlandaio's portrait of Giovanna Tornabuoni.] Concerning the jewellery of the great goldsmith of Bologna, Francesco Raibolini, called Francia, a considerable amount of information has been preserved. Born in 1450, he passed the best part of his life as a goldsmith, and not till he was upwards of forty did he abandon the goldsmith's art for that of the painter.[118] One of Francia's finest paintings is the "Felicini" altar-piece in the Bologna Gallery, executed in 1484 by commission of Messer Bartolomeo Felicini for the church of S. Maria della Misericordia in that city. Among the many splendid gifts this famous church had received was a jewel which the records say was set by Francia himself. Its beauty was held in such esteem, that by desire of the chapter the artist introduced it into his picture, where it can be seen hanging over the head of the Madonna. Its centre is occupied by a fine amethyst, and is bordered by deep blood-crimson enamel, with pearls at the angles. So carefully is every detail of this jewel painted, that a modern goldsmith has found no difficulty in copying it with absolute exactness[119] (Pl. XXV, 1). [118] Williamson (G. C.), _Francia_, pp. 2, 3, 21, 38. [119] For a photograph of this jewel, and for the information respecting it and the other works of this artist, I am indebted to the kindness of Dr. Williamson. [Illustration: _PLATE XXV_ FIFTEENTH-CENTURY PENDANTS, ETC. (ITALIAN AND FLEMISH)] The last of the great jewellers of the Quattrocento was Michelagnolo di Viviano, who worked at Florence under the patronage of Lorenzo and Giuliano de' Medici. He was the earliest instructor of the greatest goldsmith and jeweller of the late Renaissance, Benvenuto Cellini, in whose _Treatise_ and _Life_ he is spoken of with the highest praise. From actual examples we obtain but slight information of the Italian ornaments of the fifteenth century; but that there is a distinct alteration in the style of jewellery between the Quattrocento and the Cinquecento, the pictures of these great artistic periods offer abundant proofs. This difference is particularly noticeable in ornaments for the head. During the fifteenth century we find the forehead heightened, and the space thus obtained emphasised by a single jewel placed at the top of the brow. This form of ornament is admirably shown in Piero della Francesca's "Nativity" in the National Gallery, and particularly in his "Madonna and Child," with saints and angels, and with the donor, Federigo of Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, in the Brera, Milan. The parts of these two pictures most characteristic of the artist are the figures of the angels, who wear jewels executed with extraordinary brilliancy--compositions of pearls in delicate goldwork enriched with blue enamel. Precious stones and jewels were often sewn, at regular intervals, all round the band of ribbon or galloon that encircled the head, as seen in a portrait in the Ambrosiana, Milan, ascribed to Ambrogio da Predis, and considered to be that of Beatrice d' Este; but it is more usual to find in the centre of the brow an isolated jewel, held by a narrow ribbon or silken cord, knotted at the back of the head--as in Caroto's portrait of the Duchess Elizabeth Gonzaga in the Uffizi, who wears on the forehead a jewelled scorpion, emblem of logic. This head-ornament is known as the _ferronnière_; and the origin of its title is somewhat peculiar. There is in the Louvre an attractive and greatly admired portrait of a lady, with her hair held in place by black cord supporting a diamond in the middle of the forehead. For many years the portrait was entitled "La Belle Ferronnière," having been erroneously considered to be that of the blacksmith's wife (ferronnière) whose beauty enthralled Francis I in his declining years. It is now generally held to be a portrait of Lucrezia Crivelli, mistress of Ludovico Moro, Duke of Milan. The name of the painter is a matter of dispute, though the work is still ascribed, as it has long been, to Leonardo da Vinci. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, when the Romantic movement was at its height, a similar ornament was revived, and received its present name under a misconception of the subject of the picture. In the sixteenth century this simple ornament is abandoned, and it was the painter's task to depict magnificent coiffures like those of Veronese's ladies, sprinkled with jewels and entwined with ropes of pearls. As regards the ornaments for the neck, the changes of fashion in the two periods and the artistic mode of expressing the fashion demanded a different style of jewellery. The slender neck which is displayed in the portraits of the earlier period required lighter ornaments than did the massive forms of the later. "The artist no longer trifled with single gems, hanging on a thread, but painted a solid chain, and the light, close-fitting necklace becomes pendent and heavy."[120] The distinct refinement exhibited in Italy in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries did not demand a great profusion or variety of jewellery. As the pendent ornament for the neck-chain, a simple jewel formed by one stone in the centre and smaller stones or four pearls around seems in most cases to have been sufficient. Circular pendants of niello-work surrounded by silver-gilt bands of corded ornament were much in use, and a small number, dating from about 1460 to 1530, have survived. They sometimes bear a religious subject (Pl. XIX, 4). But not infrequently the head of a lady is represented in profile, generally with a flower under her nose; and it is possible that these were worn by men as a pledge of affection from their lady-love. Finger rings with somewhat similar designs were also worn (Pl. XXIII, 16). [120] Wölfflin (H.), _The art of the Italian Renaissance_, p. 234. Beyond a small number of objects of this description, very few examples of Italian Quattrocento jewellery have escaped the crucible. The change of taste even between the early and the full Renaissance was sufficient to cause their destruction. Among surviving jewels of this century is a very beautiful gold and enamel pendant in the collection of Mr. Pierpont Morgan. It is circular in form, and was probably intended as a reliquary. Upon the front is an Annunciation in high relief. The garment of the Virgin is enriched with red and blue, and that of the angel with red and white enamel; the chequered base being of translucent green. Around is a border of leaves and flowers enamelled red and white. The open-work back consists of a central rosette, surrounded by interlacing curves, and edged with a delicate wreath (Pl. XXV, 2). It remains to draw attention, by means of a beautiful representation of jewellery in painting, to an example of the style of brooch worn in Florence in the latter part of the fifteenth century. The picture referred to is that of the Virgin and Child (No. 296) in the National Gallery. It is apparently the work of Verrocchio, Pollaiuolo, or one of the goldsmith-painters of whom we have spoken; for the minute execution of the ornaments would seem to denote the hand of an artist who had practised the goldsmith's and jeweller's art. The brooch that serves as a fastening for the Virgin's cloak--the same being represented on that of one of the angels--is of most charming design. It has in the centre a table-cut ruby, around which are set four pearls between ornaments in the form of blackberries, surrounded by an outer border of blackberry leaves. So carefully is the jewel drawn that every detail can bear close inspection. A peculiar point of interest is that the pearls, each of which is set in a couple of crutch-like clasps, appear to correspond to the "perles à potences" frequently mentioned in the contemporary jewel inventories of the Dukes of Burgundy. [Illustration: Brooch worn by the Virgin in fifteenth-century Florentine picture (No. 296, National Gallery, London).] Some measure of compensation for the unfortunate lack of actual examples of Italian Quattrocento jewellery is obtained, apart from their representation in pictures, by the very remarkable use that was made of jewel forms for the marginal decoration of manuscripts. Such enrichments of the borders of missals, etc., by means of painted jewel ornaments, would seem to be but the direct outcome of the system whereby most of the painters, sculptors, architects, and no less eminent miniaturists received their first instruction in art in the workshops of the goldsmiths. It is certain from their quality that the jewels represented in manuscripts, generally in their natural size, are the work of artists well acquainted with the jeweller's art, whose eyes were further impressed by the embroidered edgings of ecclesiastical vestments enriched with jewel ornaments and sewn with pearls and precious stones. In painting with corresponding luxury the border decorations of church missals, the miniaturists have obviously not drawn on their imagination, or constructed jewel forms in a mere haphazard manner. The individual pieces, often complete jewels, are just such as might at the time have been found on the shelves of some goldsmith's workshop. Among the most skilful of such reproductions of jewels are those in the celebrated choir books of the cathedral of Siena, particularly the pages painted by Liberale di Giacomo da Verona, who worked at Siena from the year 1466. An examination of these illuminations reveals Liberale as an artist thoroughly conversant with the jeweller's craft: so that his work, together with that of his followers, such as the Florentine Giovanni di Giuliano Boccardi, the Dominican Fra Eustachio, Litti di Filippo Corbizi, Monte di Giovanni, Antonio di Girolamo, the famous Attavante, and the various miniaturists of King Mathias Corvinus of Hungary, apart from its charming execution, constitutes a veritable storehouse of information respecting the ornaments of the period. Particularly fine examples of jewelled and enamelled decorations are also contained in choir books in the cathedral of Florence, missals in the Barberini Palace, Rome, a Bible of Mathias Corvinus in the Vatican Library, several books in the Brera at Milan, and the fine Glockendon missal (_circa_ 1540) in the Town Library at Nuremberg. More important perhaps than all is the Grimani Breviary, now in the Library of St. Mark's, Venice. The ornamentation of this famous work, the product of a Flemish artist of the final years of the fifteenth century, displays a northern naturalism favourable to the striking representation of jewel forms, and serves to illustrate the close and active relationship then existing between the Flemish and Italian goldsmiths.[121] [121] The whole of this magnificent work has been reproduced by Sijthoff, of Leyden, under the direction of Scato de Vries and Dr. S. Morpurgo. [Illustration: A fifteenth-century jeweller. From _Ortus Sanitatis_ (Strasburg, about 1497).] CHAPTER XXI SIXTEENTH-CENTURY JEWELLERY (GENERAL) ITALY, SIXTEENTH CENTURY Great ostentation and external splendour were the chief features of the Renaissance. So, if the jewellery of this time appears to us more magnificent than that of any other, this superiority is but an indirect result of the intermediate causes which find a place in all that is included under the term Renaissance. In enumerating certain characteristics that distinguish sixteenth-century jewellery from that of other epochs, the enormous quantity used may first of all be noted. A general increase in wealth had taken place, but in the comparative rarity of opportunity for investments, it was still customary to keep gold and precious stones secreted,[122] or, as was more generally done, make them into ornaments of small compass and easily convertible into hard cash. [122] This tendency is as common as ever in the East, particularly among high-class natives of India, on account of the prevailing belief that the only safe way to invest money is to purchase precious stones and similar articles of intrinsic or sterling value. (See _Nineteenth Century_, LVIII, p. 290, 1905, "The origin of money from ornament.") Coupling this with the magnificent style of living during the Renaissance, we need feel less surprise at the extraordinary abundance of jewellery which we read of in contemporary chronicles, and find represented in the utmost variety on the portraits of the period. Men of solid reputation and serious disposition seem, equally with women, to have fallen victims to the reigning passion for jewellery. If we are at first inclined to wonder at the number of Cinquecento jewels that have survived, we can more readily understand that they represent the merest fraction of what formerly existed, when we take into consideration all the risks of destruction such fragile and precious objects have undergone--objects by their nature the very first to disappear. Monetary pressure caused by war, the division of property, and many other events were fraught with danger to objects in the precious metals. Change of taste, almost as rapid as that in dress, which has caused the last fashion but one to be the least of all desired, necessitated the repeated refashioning of jewellery. Notwithstanding their perfection, the exquisite productions of the sixteenth century were unable to resist the fatal influence of fashion, and were largely broken up towards the termination of the seventeenth century, when brilliant enamels and artistically wrought gold were less in request, and the precious metals became entirely subservient to the stones, for which they acted simply as settings. On the other hand, their small size, which has rendered them easy to conceal, accounts for the preservation of some examples, while mere chance, or perhaps an historical association, oft-times solely traditional, has saved others from destruction. The finest productions of the artificers of antiquity transcend in abstract beauty of design everything, perhaps, that has since been produced. Those of the mediæval craftsmen possess a charm and beauty impossible to deny, and a peculiar _naïveté_ and ingenuousness of their own, to be looked for in vain elsewhere. It must be acknowledged, however, that the jewels of the Renaissance, the receptacle of every variety of adornment by way of precious stones, pearls, and enamels that the goldsmith could devise in order to enrich them, are in their own manner incomparable. It may be that some err so far on the side of over-elaboration that they lose the balance and dignity of harmonious design, but the majority possess qualities rarely found in combination save at this remarkable period--a richness of form, boldness of conception, and extraordinary refinement of technique. There is no species of technical work, whether it was a case of hammering, chasing, or casting, or, above all, enamelling, that was not then brought to perfection. But the splendours of the Renaissance must not blind us to the efforts of the preceding age; for thorough though the change was from the style of Gothic art, the jewellers of the Renaissance were deeply indebted to the mediæval traditions which they had by their side to aid them in developing their artistic conceptions. Another noticeable point with regard to the jewellery of this period is its astonishing variety. Its decline, and reduction to a monotonous repetition of design, coincides with the disappearance of those artists who possessed the universality of a man like Cellini, and with the division of labour characteristic of modern art and industry. In addition to the enormous quantity used, a distinctive feature of Renaissance ornaments is the preference shown for colour. The placing together of bright-coloured gems with delicately worked gold invariably enriched with polychrome enamels is the fundamental motive of the jewellery of the period. So admirable was the craftsman's taste that each jewel forms in itself a scheme perfect in design and colour, and the rubies, emeralds, and sapphires introduced for the sake of their colour values, serve the composition as a whole without overwhelming it; while the diamond, which comprised almost the sole material of the jewellery of later times, was used only for purposes of contrast. It cannot be said that precious stones had entirely forfeited their mediæval reputation at the period of the revival; but as jewellery was beginning to assume generally the character of mere ornament, the stones which enriched it were naturally chosen rather with an eye to their decorative qualities than for any fancied virtues they might be considered to possess. One of the charms of this old jewellery lies in the setting of its stones, which are mostly table-cut, and fixed in square pyramidal collets. The usual process of setting was to rub the upper edges of the closed and box-like collet over the setting edge of the stone, and occasionally to lay over this an additional ornament in imitation of claws. This manner of beating up or pressing the edges of the collet over the faceted sides of the stone is extremely pleasing, for the stone, with its colour thrown up by a foil or _paillon_, harmonises admirably with the somewhat irregular frame of gold that surrounds it. The art of enamelling, especially where figures are represented in full relief, attains the highest point of perfection. Even when enamels cover the various parts of jewels in a wondrous harmony of colour, the artists of the period contrived with extraordinary tact to leave small portions in gold: the hair of the figures, manes of horses, armour, weapons--glittering points that enhance the beauty of the whole. Translucent and opaque enamels are found side by side employed in different modes with astounding assurance. Extensive use was made of opaque white enamel, always by way of contrast; a favourite device being to enrich with it the edges of tendrils in the form of minute beads, each no larger than a pin's head. It is the desire for harmony and beauty of execution, rather than for display of wealth, that characterises the best productions of the Renaissance, whose true value lies not in their intrinsic, but in their real artistic worth. The whole of every jewel, back as well as front, is finished and enamelled with the same exquisite care. What little material value these jewels possessed when their form and design was destroyed and their beautiful devices obliterated is well illustrated by Brantôme's story of the jewels of the Countess of Châteaubriand. This lady had been supplanted in the affections of Francis I by another--the future Duchess of Estampes--who persuaded the King to claim all the fine jewels he had bestowed on his former mistress. The value of these lay chiefly in their beautiful designs and devices, so on receiving the demand, she melted them all down, and returned them to him converted into golden ingots. The splendid love of life which finds expression in every production of Renaissance art exercises a pervading influence over its jewellery, and determines the subjects to be represented. All the larger objects, and indeed every object which is not of a purely decorative pattern, is given to the depicting of a subject. Throughout the finest period of jewellery, goldsmith's work was closely associated with sculpture; and the human figure, or figures of animals either real or imaginary, wrought in relief or executed in the round, find a place on almost every jewelled composition. The subjects, largely chosen from among the new circle of ideas opened up by the literature of the Renaissance, reveal wide knowledge of classical mythology, romance, and poetic legends, as well as remarkable adaptive genius. Nor are subjects from the Old and New Testaments excluded; though fanciful groups--in one case a representation of some theological virtue, and in another some sacred allegory--are more popular. The symbolical figures of the Middle Ages, as the unicorn and the "pelican in her piety," with sea monsters and fantastic men and beasts, are of frequent occurrence. Subjects such as these, and many others suggested by the fertile mind of the Renaissance jeweller and the artist who drew his designs, are so numerous that space would fail were one to attempt to enumerate even a tithe of those met with on jewels of the Cinquecento. Notwithstanding its subjects, we find in the jewellery of the Renaissance, beyond what tradition had preserved, no direct influence resulting from the study of the ornaments of the ancients, though the awakened interest of Italy in the antique cannot but have been accompanied by some acquaintance with the productions of her early goldsmiths. There appears, however, to have been no attempt to base the jewels of the period on the forms of ancient ornaments, to imitate the beaded work of the Etruscans or the goldwork of ancient Greece or Rome. Yet Renaissance design of the sixteenth century, with its arabesques and scrollwork (best represented by Raphael's famous arabesques in the Loggia of the Vatican) seems to have been in the main inspired by antique designs, such as the frescoes discovered at Rome in 1506, in the Baths of Petus--the so-called grottos, from which was derived, as Cellini explains, the term grotesque. The newly developed design, a combination of figures, masks, flowers, fruits, and various other details, applicable as it was to every branch of art, was peculiarly adapted to jewellery, and was quickly seized upon by the jewellers, who employed it for ornaments of a purely decorative formation, or for the framework or backgrounds of the exquisite figured compositions then so much in vogue. The real difficulty that confronts one in dealing with the jewellery of the sixteenth century lies not in the inability to obtain the necessary material examples, but in expressing a definite opinion as to their nationality and origin; and this difficulty the best informed and most experienced connoisseurs are the first to confess. The utmost, therefore, that one can hope to do, without attempting in every case to arrive at accurate conclusions, is to indicate, as far as possible, such means as may be of assistance in ascribing a nationality, not to all, but to at least the majority of Renaissance ornaments. ITALY, SIXTEENTH CENTURY Italian jewellery of the sixteenth century presents what is probably one of the most difficult problems in the whole history of the art. In the fifteenth century the almost complete absence of examples necessitates recourse mainly to pictures; but Italian pictures of the sixteenth century are of comparatively small assistance, from the fact that Italian painters of that period mostly neglected the preciosity of style and delicacy of perception that studied the gleam and shimmer on jewels and such-like objects. The bright blending of beautiful colours had to give way to strong shadows and skilful effects of perspective. There exists, on the other hand, an abundance of material in the form of actual specimens of Cinquecento jewellery, but owing to the far-reaching influence of the Renaissance style of ornament a decision as to their precise provenance is a matter of the utmost difficulty. The great popularity of one of the central figures of the late Renaissance--Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1572)--has for many years caused the finest examples to be attributed to him or to his school, often with complete disregard of their design, which can be traced in many cases to another source. It is unnecessary to give a biographical account of the famous Florentine goldsmith, for his life may best be studied in his own memoirs. More to the present purpose is it to attempt to estimate the real position that Cellini should occupy, especially with regard to such examples of jewellery as have come down to the present day. Upon the question of Cellini the artistic world has long been divided into two camps. The majority of those who have previously dealt with the subject have considered it sufficient to sum up the whole history of the jeweller's art of the sixteenth century under the name of this one artist, and to attribute everything important to him. The lively and singularly attractive narrative of his own life and adventures contains such candid glorification of himself and his work, that the temptation is strong to follow the majority, and, unmindful of his contemporaries, to associate with him, as he himself has done, the finest jewellery of the whole Renaissance. Eugène Plon, for example, Cellini's chief exponent, in his magnificent work, _Benvenuto Cellini, Orfèvre, Médailleur, Sculpteur_ (1883), though eminently just, and on the whole fair in his attributions, cannot disguise an evident desire to ascribe to the Florentine goldsmith, or at any rate to his school, not only several jewels which might conceivably be associated with Cellini, but also several others of more doubtful origin. Among these is the important group of jewels in the Rothschild Collection in the British Museum, known as the Waddesdon Bequest, the real origin of all of which is held by those best entitled to judge to be incontestably German. Cellini's critics, on the other hand, sceptical, and in the main dispassionate, have placed him under a more searching light, and despoiled him of the halo with which his own memoirs have encircled him. He remains, however, an excellent and many-sided artist, thoroughly versed in all the technicalities of his craft, and one who without doubt strongly influenced his contemporaries. Admirable goldsmith and jeweller as he certainly was, he is entitled to the highest distinction, but not so much on account of the references in his _Vita_ and _Trattati_ to his own productions, as for his lucid treatment of technical questions. "Artists," says Mr. Symonds, "who aspire to immortality should shun the precious metals." Despite all that has been said respecting such jewels as the _Leda and the Swan_ at Vienna (Pl. XXIX, 5), the _Chariot of Apollo_ at Chantilly, and the mountings of the two cameos, the _Four Cæsars_ and the _Centaur and the Bacchic Genii_ in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris, which have, with some degree of likelihood, been attributed to Cellini, the only quite authenticated example of his work as a goldsmith is the famous golden salt-cellar at Vienna. This object when looked at from the goldsmith's point of view, in the matter of fineness of workmanship and skill in execution, is seen to possess particular characteristics which should be sufficient to prevent the attribution to Cellini of other contemporary work, created by jewellers who clearly drew their inspiration from entirely different sources. In endeavouring to affix a nationality to existing jewels, the only really serviceable landmarks are those furnished by the collections of engraved designs by German and French masters of ornament; and when these are compared with the contemporary work just spoken of, the common origin of nearly all becomes at once evident. Bearing in mind the skill and fame of the Italian goldsmiths, not only of Cellini, but of his contemporaries, such as Girolamo del Prato, Giovanni da Ferenzuola, Luca Agnolo, and Piero, Giovanni, and Romalo del Tovaloccio, the reason why the vast majority of extant jewels should follow German designs is difficult to understand. An authority no less reliable than Sir A. W. Franks has expressed an opinion that the designs of Dürer, Aldegrever, and other German artists were extensively used in Italy.[123] Italian goldsmiths did not produce any such examples of engraved ornament for jewellery as did their confrères in Germany, France, and Flanders; but the current knowledge we possess of the art of the period renders it at least unlikely that the individuality which is the key-note of all the productions of the Italian Renaissance would have countenanced there, in Italy, the use of extraneous ready-made designs. Certainly artists of the stamp of Cellini would not have used them. One is forced nevertheless to acknowledge the possibility of minor Italian craftsmen having executed jewels from German engravings. The international character visible on so many art objects of the time must be attributed in no small degree to the circulation of such designs in almost all the workshops of Europe. [123] _Proc. Soc. Antiq._, XIV, p. 180. A reason for the many difficulties that arise in connection with this particular question seems to lie in the fact that for causes unexplained the jewellery of the first half of the sixteenth century, whether Italian, German, or of other nationality, has almost all vanished, and that examples met with at the present day belong chiefly to the second half of that century. While acknowledging the existence of a fair number of jewels whose authorship cannot be otherwise than Italian, and without denying the possibility of the survival of examples of jewellery even from the hand of Cellini himself, a protest must be raised against the practice, hitherto so common, of describing _every_ jewel of the sixteenth century as Italian, and of coupling _every_ high-class object of this description with the magic name of Cellini. CHAPTER XXII THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY GERMANY, THE LOW COUNTRIES, HUNGARY Though introduced early into Germany, the style of the Italian Renaissance made its way but slowly in a country where the ideas of the Middle Ages long held possession of people's minds. It was not till after about 1515, when the spread of books and engravings quickened its general acceptance, that the new movement gained ground there. The German goldsmiths, when once they had cast aside the Gothic style, seized upon Renaissance ornament with such avidity that by the second half of the sixteenth century they had acquired a widespread fame, and would seem by their richness of invention to have completely cast into the shade the Italian jewellers of their own day. From an early period there had been a steady flow of artists leaving Germany to study in the great Italian ateliers. The principal of these, and one who influenced his countrymen more than any, was Albert Dürer, who showed in the engravings produced after his journey to Italy a perfect apprehension of Italian design. As it travelled northward, Renaissance ornament increased in freedom from classic rule, and in the hands of the later draughtsmen and engravers who executed patterns for the goldsmiths, it lost much of its original purity, and assumed a mixed style, composed of strap and ribbon work, cartouches, and intricate complications of architectural members; while the industrious affectation of the jewellers of the day for manipulative difficulties led to the production of ornaments whose effect is sometimes marred by over-elaboration of detail. In addition to other circumstances, we must remember that the greater wealth of the middle classes was a powerful factor in the increasing production of jewellery. The goldsmiths consequently occupied an important position; and that there was a great demand for their services is proved by the fact that patterns for jewellery executed on their behalf by the foremost engravers of the day form no unimportant part of the engraved work produced by these artists. In Germany, as elsewhere, success in trade resulted in a demand for objects of luxury. The city of Augsburg, situated on a great trade route, early attained to a height of commercial prosperity, while Munich, and especially Nuremberg, not far distant, flourished to an equal degree. Under the stimulating patronage of wealthy families, such as the Fugger family of Augsburg, articles of jewellery of every kind were produced in abundance, and throughout the sixteenth century found their way over nearly the whole of Europe. In addition to these three cities, Prague during the last few years of the sixteenth and the commencement of the seventeenth century was likewise a centre for the manufacture of an immense amount of enamelled jewellery. This industry, carried on with considerable activity owing to the influence of the Archduke Ferdinand of Tirol (1520-1595), brother of Maximilian II, was most flourishing in the time of the Emperor Rudolph II (1552-1612), King of Hungary and Bohemia, under whose patronage several remarkable specimens of German goldsmith's work now at Vienna were executed, such as the Austrian Imperial Crown, made in the year 1602. The epoch of about forty years that terminated at the death of Rudolph II in 1612, and known as the Rudolphine period, witnessed the production, mainly in Southern Germany, of the greater part of the enamelled jewellery now extant. Renaissance jewellery, as we speak of it, may be said to have almost ceased after that period, at a date which coincided with the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War in Germany, and the Civil War in England. Its proximity to Italy rendered Augsburg more quickly subject to the influence of the Italian style than Nuremberg and Munich, though by the middle of the sixteenth century the whole of Southern Germany followed the style of decoration of the Italian masters so thoroughly, that it is difficult to assign a large proportion of the ornaments of the period to either nation, since the distinguishing feature of the hall-mark finds no place on jewellery, as on other objects in the precious metals. It is true that the extraordinary development of cartouche and strap ornament on German work, as on that of the Netherlands, serves in many cases to distinguish it from the Italian, yet there is sufficient similarity in details of ornamentation, in masks and figures, as well as in the method of enamel-work and the setting of gems, to account for the divergence of opinion that exists as to the provenance of all the jewels of the period. Such is the glamour that surrounds Italian art, that it has been the custom to assign every fine jewel of the Renaissance to Italy; but a careful examination of existing examples has left us convinced that by far the greater number of them are not Italian, but of German origin, and belong to the second half of the sixteenth century and the early years of the seventeenth. Portraits, alone, by such German painters as Wolgemut, Strigel, Burgkmair, Altdorfer, Hans Baldung Grien, Lucas Cranach, and Bartholomäus Bruyn, show that by the very commencement of the sixteenth century the wealth of the merchant princes of Southern Germany resulted in an even greater display of jewellery than was indulged in by the Italians. Various other considerations contribute to this conviction. First and foremost is the question of the designs from which the jewellers drew their ideas. A certain number of original drawings for jewellery by German artists exist. Of these there are examples of the work of the two greatest, namely Dürer (1471-1528) and Holbein (1497-1543). To Holbein's drawings, which were executed in England, detailed reference is made in a later chapter. In his designs for jewellery, as in all else, Dürer, the son of a goldsmith and descended from one on his mother's side, maintains a high standard of excellence. His drawings (as catalogued by Lippmann) include the following: (1) _In the Kunsthalle, Bremen_. Three sketches for pendent whistles, where the sound-producing part is formed of a ball with a hole in it, into which the air is carried by a pipe. In two cases the ball is held in the mouth of a lion, and in the third in the beak of a cock. The animals stand each on a curved pipe, and have a ring above for suspension (L. 124). (2) _In the British Museum_. Two sketches for ring-shaped pendants--apparently whistles (Pl. XXVI, 1). In both cases is air blown from a mouthpiece half-way round the ring into a ball held in an animal's mouth (L. 252). (3) _In the possession of Herr von Feder, Karlsruhe_. Four designs for brooches and clasps, richly ornamented (L. 433-435, and 437). Two of these sketches (L. 433 and 437) and several others (the whereabouts of the originals of which is not known) were etched by Wenzel Hollar in the seventeenth century, and are enumerated in Parthey's catalogue of Hollar's works. The etchings after the two known originals are numbered 2565 and 2561. The other jewels etched by Hollar from Dürer's designs are the following: (1) A pendant in the form of St. George and the Dragon within a laurel wreath, with a ring above and below (P. 165). (2) A girdle-end formed of two dolphins with a chain attached (P. 2559). (3) A buckle and buckle-plate--the buckle formed of two dolphins, the plate ornamented with two cornucopiæ (P. 2560). (4) A round scent-case or pomander (P. 2567). In addition are miscellaneous designs for ornaments, erroneously considered to be patterns for embroidery (P. 2562-3-4 and 2566). A charming representation of a pendent jewel is seen in Dürer's woodcut of the Emperor Maximilian's Triumphal Arch suspended from the Imperial Crown held by the figure of Genius. [Illustration: _PLATE XXVI_ DESIGNS FOR JEWELLERY BY DÜRER AND HOLBEIN] Following Dürer there appeared a number of goldsmiths who, with the spread of the new style over Europe, were prepared to perform the task of remodelling personal ornaments in accordance with the taste of the day. The most ingenious of them, together with some artists of distinction, engraved with great fertility of imagination, for those who were not capable of design, patterns for goldsmith's work and jewellery. A large demand was made on the productive faculties of these engravers, who included among their ranks not only the best artists, termed from the usual small size of their productions "the little masters," but many other designers of goldsmith's ornament; and from their works, multiplied by means of engraving, the numerous craftsmen who worked in gold, enamel, and precious stones, drew their subjects and ideas. On the question of the production of jewellery from such engraved designs, it is interesting to note the several points of similarity that exist in the procedure of the ornamentists of the sixteenth century and that of the English furniture-designers of the eighteenth. In both cases the original producers of the designs were practical craftsmen, who certainly executed objects after their published patterns; while the patterns themselves were employed extensively as models. In both cases, too, it is quite evident that in a number of instances fanciful designs were produced which were never carried out. Hence one can readily understand the difficulties that are encountered in attempting to determine the provenance of such small and portable objects as personal jewels, the engraved designs for which were in like manner widely distributed. But there is the strong probability, after all, that the greater number of jewels, after engraved designs of German origin, were executed in, or not very far distant from the locality in which the designs originated. If designs are considered insufficient for the identification of jewels, there exists a means much more certain, and one which should surely prevent the attribution to Italians of jewels unquestionably the work of German craftsmen. It may be remembered that Cellini in his _Trattati_, in dealing with the goldsmith's art, advised jewellers to preserve castings in lead of their works in gold and silver. In many cases Cellini's recommendation has been literally carried out, and a considerable number of proofs struck by German jewellers of details of their jewels have fortunately come down to us. The Bavarian National Museum at Munich contains a highly important collection of these leaden casts, being a complete series used by a family of gold and silver workers in Augsburg for upwards of 250 years (from about 1550 to 1800). The jewellers of Augsburg were among the first in Europe, and these models of their productions, bearing strong traces of the influence of contemporary ornamentists, correspond in many details with original jewels dating from those times. Examples of these lead models for jewellery exist in other collections, such as the Historical Museum at Basle. Of the same material but of infinitely higher artistic importance, are the lead models by the hand of Peter Flötner of Nuremberg. In addition to engraved designs, Flötner executed models for goldsmiths, carved in stone and boxwood. From these--of which original examples have survived--casts (so-called plaquettes) were made in lead, which were used as patterns for craftsmen in the same manner as engravings of ornament. Flötner's models, though issued mainly for workers in gold and silver plate, were employed also by the jewellers, and exercised considerable influence on their productions. Few engraved designs for jewellery are prior in date to the year 1550, though nearly all the prominent painter-engravers delighted in exercising their inventive faculty in this direction. One or two plates of pendants by Brosamer, and a buckle and whistle by Aldegrever, represent almost the sole engravings of the kind before Virgil Solis--the first to devise a more ambitious series of jewels. Amongst the earliest is the _Kunstbüchlein_[124] or pattern book for goldsmith's work, by Hans Brosamer (about 1480-1554). These woodcuts, which are singularly attractive, are of a transitional character, with traces of Gothic design. They include two pages of pendants composed of stones between leafwork grouped round a central ornament and hung with pear-shaped pearls. One pendant consists of a niche between pillars--a similar style of ornament to that adopted by Androuet Ducerceau, and the first assignable instance, says Herr Lichtwark,[125] of the use of architecture in German jewellery of this time, though this same motive was frequently represented later on by Erasmus Hornick and Mignot. Three other pendants are in the form of whistles for wearing on the neck-chain. In an engraving for a whistle of a similar kind by Aldegrever (1502-1558), the lower part is formed of a case containing an ear-pick and a knife for the finger-nails. Except for this design (which finds a place in the background of his engraving of the pair of folding pocket-spoons of the year 1539), Aldegrever's only example of jewellery is the remarkable Gothic girdle-buckle with its buckle-plate and tag (dated 1537). The characteristic fig-leaf ornament of the early German Renaissance is better represented here than on any other engraving of the period. [124] Reproduced by Quaritch in 1897 from a copy now in the possession of Mr. Max Rosenheim. [125] Lichtwark (A.), _Der Ornamentstich der deutschen Frührenaissance_, p. 111. More modern in style is Mathias Zundt (1498-1586), whose compositions (dated 1551-1554) are carried out with great fineness. Zundt lived at Nuremberg, his great contemporaries, Virgil Solis and Erasmus Hornick being natives of the same city. It was to Virgil Solis (1514-1562), one of the most skilful and prolific of the German _Klein-Meister_, that the jewellers and other craftsmen of the day owed their finest inspirations. Virgil Solis's beautiful series of pendants are executed with great charm and delicacy. They bear the character of a transition from the graceful foliage of the early to the full Renaissance, with its fanciful architectural forms, its scroll ornament, arabesques, animals, and grotesque human masks and figures (Pl. XXVII, 1, 2). Erasmus Hornick likewise exercised a potent influence on the jewellery of the time. He engraved in 1562 a series of pendants, chains, and other jewels of the most delicate execution (Pl. XXVII, 4-6). The pendants in form of an architectural niche with the subject placed in the centre, are the prototype of all the jewels of this kind which we meet with subsequently in the prints of the Flemish engraver Collaert. [Illustration: _PLATE XXVII_ DESIGNS FOR JEWELLERY BY SOLIS, WOEIRIOT, HORNICK, AND BROSAMER] While many important engravings were being issued for the benefit of the jewellers of Nuremberg, a great quantity of jewellery was produced at Munich under the patronage of the Dukes of Bavaria. Duke Albert V had as court painter a skilful miniaturist, Hans Mielich (1516-1573), whom he employed to paint in the form of an inventory exact copies in miniature of his jewels and those of his wife, Anne of Austria, preserved in his treasury. In addition to these drawings, now in the Royal Library at Munich, are a number of others, which came into the possession of Dr. von Hefner-Alteneck, and on his death in 1904 were purchased for the sum of £2,500 for the Bavarian National Museum.[126] Though the majority of these drawings for jewellery, in themselves works of extraordinary beauty, were copies of objects then already in existence, the presence of jewels similar to Mielich's designs leads to the supposition that this artist exercised a strong influence on the jewellers of his day, and that a number of jewels were also executed at the command of the Duke from original sketches of his. None of the actual objects depicted by Mielich have survived, save a large gold chain set with pearls, rubies, and emeralds, which corresponds, particularly in its rich enamel-work, to one of the drawings lately added to the National Museum. This chain is known as the collar of the Order of St. George. The size and quality of its stones and the great beauty of the enamelled settings render it, without doubt, the finest article of its kind in existence. It is preserved in the Royal Treasury (Schatzkammer) at Munich, together with a number of other objects of the same type. [126] Most of Mielich's works have been reproduced by Hefner-Alteneck in his _Deutsche Goldschmiede-Werke des 16^t^e^n Jahrhunderts_. The last decades of the sixteenth century saw the appearance of a new species of ornamental design, whose chief advocate, Theodor de Bry (1528-1598), of Liège, with his sons Johann Theodor and Johann Israel, settled in Frankfort-on-the-Main about 1560. It is a rich and varied surface decoration, often of white upon a black ground, composed of scroll ornament richly set with flowers, fruit, grotesques, and figures of animals, the whole being charmingly designed, and engraved with great brilliancy of touch. In addition to his more famous knife-handles, de Bry executed several engravings for clasps, buckles, and metal attachments to girdles. For the counterpart of the artistic style of de Bry one must look to the Low Countries and particularly to the work of the engraver Hans Collaert (1540-1622), of Antwerp, who developed remarkable fertility in the production of patterns for jewellery. Collaert's designs require special attention, because of the tendency, elaborated largely by him and other engravers of the school of Antwerp, towards exuberant cartouche ornaments with a mixture of extravagant and loosely arranged strap-work, and stud -or boss-work. This style, full of grotesques and arabesques, pervaded the work of every craftsman of the day, and dealt a final blow to any further development of pure Renaissance ornament. Collaert's chief series of pendants, eleven in number, published in 1581 under the title _Monilium bullarum inauriumque artificiosissimæ icones_, are probably the best known of all designs for jewellery of this epoch. One of these engravings, in particular, has been several times reproduced. It is a large pendant hung from a cartouche and surmounted by a figure of Orpheus with a lyre, with two seated female figures. The rest of the jewel is made up of scroll ornaments and bracket-shaped terminal figures, and is hung with three drop pearls. This pendant is of peculiar interest in connection with its bearing on what has already been said with regard to the attributions given to Cinquecento jewellery. Two striking instances of misapplied attributions of this kind may be quoted. In one[127] work the engraving in question is described as: "Pendant par Benvenuto Cellini (Musée de Florence)"; and in another[128] as: "Gehänge in der Bibliothèque nationale zu Paris nach seinem [Cellini's] Model gearbeitet!" [127] Jannettaz, _Diamant et pierres précieuses_, p. 423. [128] Bucher, _Geschichte der technischen Künste_, II, p. 307. It has been usual--while acknowledging the great influence of these engravings on the jewellery of the time--to doubt whether jewels exist which have been executed in exact imitation of them. To show that such designs were actually followed, we may point to a jewel figured by Herr Luthmer in his catalogue of Baron Karl von Rothschild's collection at Frankfort-on-the-Main, which follows in every detail the particular engraving by Collaert just mentioned as having been ascribed to Cellini. Collaert's influence was considerable in his day, and his compositions circulated not only in Flanders, but also in Germany and other prominent jewel-producing centres. Jewels are repeatedly met with, which, though they do not follow in every detail Collaert's published designs, are obviously inspired by them. A very notable example of such is a jewel, to be referred to subsequently (p. 247), in form of a gondola containing figures of Antony and Cleopatra, which was sold by auction in London for a very large sum a year or two ago. With Collaert were several minor designers of jewellery, such as Abraham de Bruyn (1538-after 1600), among whose engravings are seventeen models for pendants and portions of jewels in the style of the admirable French jeweller-engraver Etienne Delaune. Other Dutch and Flemish engravers of ornament belong more to the seventeenth century, and will be dealt with later. At the furthest corner of Germany from Flanders was the ancient kingdom of Hungary, where jewellery was employed in almost Oriental profusion. The native costume is luxurious even at the present day, and in olden times the nobility made a practice of attaching to it a great part of their fortunes in the form of precious stones, which, in enamelled settings of button-shape, termed "boglars," were sewn on, or were mounted in aigrettes, or set in girdles or dagger-sheaths. Independent jewels enriched with enamel-work in the Renaissance taste were produced, too, in considerable quantity. Fine examples of the latter are preserved in the museum at Buda-Pesth; while to the exhibition held there in 1884 Cinquecento jewellery of great beauty and wealth was lent by noble Hungarian families. All these display striking similarity to the jewels executed at Augsburg, Prague, and elsewhere in the latter part of the sixteenth and the early years of the seventeenth century. In addition to those which betray the influence of foreign styles, there are jewels of native work, whose surface is enriched with the so-called _Draht-Email_. This "filigree-enamel," which was executed from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century in Hungary and throughout the valley of the Danube, is composed of bright opaque colours fired between cloisons or partitions composed of twisted wire. [Illustration: Design for a pendent whistle by Hans Brosamer.] CHAPTER XXIII THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY FRANCE--SPAIN The campaigns of Charles VIII and Louis XII in Italy, and the patronage of Italian artists by Cardinal d'Amboise, brought a knowledge of Renaissance art into France. France was the first nation to adopt the style of ornament to which Italy had given birth, and at the very outset of the sixteenth century Italian influence made itself felt. From the reign of Francis I to that of Charles IX, French jewellery was closely modelled on the Italian, while many Italian jewellers took up their abode in France, and among them Cellini, who resided in Paris from 1540 to 1545. Not since the days of Charles V had France witnessed such profusion of jewellery as was indulged in by the splendour-loving Francis I who exceeded even Henry VIII and Pope Paul III--two other great collectors of the day--in gathering together jewels and precious stones. We hear much of the jewellery of the day from Rabelais, who speaks of the rosaries, girdle-ornaments, rings, gold chains, jewelled necklaces and of the various kinds of precious stones worn both in articles of jewellery and scattered in profusion over the dress. An incident of considerable interest is recorded to have taken place in the time of Francis I in connection with a supposed abuse of enamel on the part of the jewellers. The king's attention was drawn to the fact that when jewellery enamelled with opaque enamels, which were considered to weigh heavier than the clear ones, came to be realised, the enamel was so much pure loss. So, in spite of a protest by some of the leading goldsmiths, who declared that the proper execution of the majority of articles of jewellery was impossible without opaque enamel, an ordinance was passed in 1540 forbidding its use. After three years, however, the king relented, and again permitted the jewellers the full exercise of the resources of their art, provided there was no superfluous excess in the use of enamel. Under the last Valois kings, Charles IX and Henry III, the production of jewellery in France, as elsewhere, was greater than at almost any other period. Vivid descriptions of the rich jewellery of this time are furnished by the chronicler Brantôme. Actual articles of French Renaissance jewellery are, it must be confessed, of great rarity. Almost the only extant specimens are the wonderful mounted cameos in the Cabinet des Médailles of the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris, the majority of which are presumably of French origin. From comparison of these with contemporary designs, the distinguishing features of the French jewellery of the time appear to be--a cartouche-shaped frame with comparatively unbroken outline, enriched with scroll ornament and occasionally with human figures and grotesques, a slight use of open-work, and the general employment of a central ornament. Like the Germans, the French had excellent masters, who engraved models for jewellery of great beauty of design. The following are the chief _maîtres ornemanistes_ who flourished in the sixteenth century:--Jean Duvet, known also as the Master of the Unicorn, born at Langres in 1485 and died about 1562, was goldsmith to Francis I and Henry II. His designs for small objects of personal use in the form of scrolls, flowers, and foliage, intended for execution in enamel, are among the earliest engravings in _taille-douce_ produced for the purpose. Jacques Androuet Ducerceau (about 1510-about 1585) worked chiefly at Orleans. His numerous engravings in the form of cartouches with rolled and voluted frames show the type of design mainly employed for pendants. His actual models for jewellery, numbering upwards of fifty, comprise clasps and brooches, and many pendants, including earrings (pp. 241 and 269). After Androuet Ducerceau, the most famous jeweller of this time was Etienne Delaune, called Stephanus (1518-1595). He is said to have worked under Cellini during the latter's residence in Paris. In 1573 he moved to Strasburg, where the greater part of his work was produced. A "little master" par excellence, he engraved with extraordinary delicacy a number of exquisite designs for jewellery. Two of his engravings of slightly different design, both dated 1576, represent the interior of goldsmiths' workshops, and are of particular interest in illustrating the practice of the goldsmith's art and the equipment of the workshop at this period. Designs for jewellery are the most interesting of the engravings of René Boyvin (1530-1598), of Angers. He appears to have been influenced by the Italian artists of Fontainebleau, and his plates of jewel-ornament, engraved with great skill in the style of Il Rosso, show considerable ingenuity and fancy in the combination of faceted stones and large pearls with human and fantastic figures. More influential perhaps than any of the designs of the time are those of Pierre Woeiriot of Lorraine, who was born in 1532 and died after 1589. In 1555 Woeiriot settled at Lyons, where he produced a large number of engravings for jewellery. These, showing the greatest variety of design, include numerous patterns for rings, a dozen earrings, and ten pendent ornaments (Pl. XXVII, 3). These masterpieces of engraving and composition were published at Lyons in 1555 and 1561. Spain occupies a peculiar place with respect to its Renaissance jewellery. In the sixteenth century the Spanish Peninsula was perhaps the richest part of the civilised world. Even at a time when universal luxury in personal ornaments reigned, Spain made itself an object of note by its extraordinary display in this direction. The union under the same dominion of three of the most powerful countries of Europe coincident with the newly developed wealth of America resulted in a desire among all classes for a more luxurious style of living and for more sumptuous ornaments. The natural instinct of wealthy and cultured individuals to surround themselves with the choicest productions of the fine arts led to the importation of the best of such objects from other countries and of the first foreign craftsmen of the day. Juan de Arphe, "the Spanish Cellini," himself of German extraction, devoted much attention to the naturalisation of Renaissance forms. Other jewellers also remained in so large a measure dependent on foreign influence, at first of Italian types, and then of the designs of French, German, and Flemish engravers of ornament, that it is often hard to arrive at a decision as to the precise provenance of their productions. But just as other works of art, the product of different countries, are stamped with certain indefinable characteristics, which in general circumstances may at once be detected, so jewels of Spanish origin betray the influence of national temperament in their composition and design. The series of drawings by Barcelona jewellers published by Davillier in his _Recherches sur l'Orfèvrerie en Espagne_, bear sufficient evidence of this native spirit. Nevertheless, the majority of the surviving examples of the Renaissance jewellery of Spain approach at times very near to those of Germany. And there can be little doubt that the Nuremberg and Augsburg jewels which, as has been shown, were in vogue not only all over Germany, but in France and England and the Low Countries, were imported and imitated, as Davillier says, by the goldsmiths of Spain. The most important Spanish jewels of the sixteenth century are in the form of enamelled pendants. Of these the Victoria and Albert Museum possesses a collection, excelled by that of no other public museum, which acquired at the sale in 1870 of the treasures of the sanctuary of the Virgen del Pilar at Saragossa. A species of pendant which in Spain above all places has always been popular was the reliquary. It assumed numerous shapes; and among the many kinds of adornment it received were small panels of painted glass commonly known as _verres églomisés_. This so-called _verre églomisé_, which had been handed down from antiquity and was used in the Middle Ages, was brought to high perfection at the Renaissance. Adopted from Italy, where it was also employed for jewellery, it met with considerable favour in Spain in the sixteenth century (Pl. XLIII, 4). The process employed in its production consisted in covering the under side of a plate of glass or rock crystal with gold leaf. On this were traced the outlines of the design intended to be reserved in gold, and the remainder of the gold was then removed. In the painting which followed, the finest details, the high lights, the shadows and flesh tints were first executed. Then came in successive applications, transparent varnishes of different colours and thicknesses, in accordance with the value of the tones desired. Small pieces of silver leaf were applied to certain parts to reflect the light and heighten the effect; and the whole was finally backed with a sheet of metal.[129] [129] _La collection Spitzer_, III, p. 53. Verre églomisé appears to take its name from one Glomy, a French craftsman of the eighteenth century, who produced a special black and gold varnish which he applied to the back of glass. In a similar way his countrymen the Martins gave their name to the varnish of their invention. Verre églomisé, a somewhat unsatisfactory title, which came first into use in the latter part of the century, and was wrongly applied to paintings under glass of a similar order, has been retained ever since. A peculiar and characteristic species of pendent ornament, numbers of which were produced in the seventeenth century chiefly at Barcelona, are certain badges worn by members of religious corporations. They are of open-worked gilt brass enriched with white, black, and blue opaque enamels fused into recesses stamped in the surface of the metal. These badges, which are either triangular, oval, square, or oblong in shape, are formed of two parts--a frame surrounded with rayed patterns, and a central portion ornamented with various designs (Pl. LIII, 5). Among the latter designs are crowned monograms of Christ or the Virgin, with emblems such as palm leaves, and the device of a nail and the letter S interlaced--a rebus for "Esclavo." Fitted in the back is usually a miniature under crystal. In point of technique these enamelled badges offer an interesting comparison with the well-known English enamels of the same date applied mainly to objects such as candlesticks and fire-dogs. Pendent badges of the same designs exist in gold. The collection of Señor de Osma at Madrid contains several examples. To the seventeenth century belong also the characteristic "lazos" or bow-shaped jewels worn as breast-ornaments, made of open-work gold set with emeralds, and occasionally with other stones (Pl. LIII, 1). Of the same style are rings, also set with emeralds, and particularly long earrings, which have always been popular in Spain. The backs of these jewels are engraved with floral designs. The greater part of the Spanish jewellery of the time is set with emeralds, which were acquired in quantities from Peru. Spain has always had a great reputation for these stones, which when of fine quality are still alluded to as "old Spanish emeralds." Emeralds are always subject to flaws and rarely free from them. The emeralds set in Spanish jewellery, though usually full of feathers, are nevertheless of great decorative value. Further reference will be made to Spanish work of the seventeenth century when the jewels of that period are dealt with. The earlier Hispano-Moresque jewellery is of considerable rarity. It is often enriched with opaque enamel fired between cloisons formed of twisted wire. From the union of Moorish and Renaissance forms developed the Spanish peasant jewellery, usually fashioned of stout silver filigree parcel-gilt. [Illustration: Design for a pendant by Hans Brosamer.] CHAPTER XXIV ENGLAND, SIXTEENTH CENTURY (HENRY VIII--ELIZABETH--MARY STUART) With the accession of Henry VIII a new period opens in the history of the jeweller's art. The spirit of the revival, which had previously affected only the Court, began to spread rapidly throughout the community, under the influence of the example set by the great jewellers of Italy. The King inherited an enormous treasury, and the display of jewellery on his own person and on that of his Court was prodigious. We are indebted to the Venetian ambassador, Giustinian, for the following graphic description of the King's personal adornment a year or two after his accession-- "He wore a cap of crimson velvet, in the French fashion, and the brim was looped up all round with lacets and gold enamelled tags.... Very close round his neck he had a gold collar, from which there hung a rough-cut diamond, the size of the largest walnut I ever saw, and to this was suspended a most beautiful and very large round pearl. His mantle was of purple velvet lined with white satin, the sleeves open, with a train more than four Venetian yards long. This mantle was girt in front like a gown, with a thick gold cord, from which there hung large golden acorns like those suspended from a cardinal's hat; over this mantle was a very handsome gold collar, with a pendent St. George entirely of diamonds. Beneath the mantle he wore a pouch of cloth of gold, which covered a dagger; and his fingers were one mass of jewelled rings."[130] [130] Brewer (J. S.), _Henry VIII_, I, p. 10. Many a lively and detailed picture has been left us by the chronicler and lawyer, Edward Hall, of the equipage and adornment of Henry VIII on his coronation and at the court entertainments, and particularly of the famous meeting of the Cloth of Gold, where, in their insane desire to outshine each other, the English and French nobles entered into boundless extravagance in dress, and so loaded themselves with jewellery, that, in the words of Du Bellay, "they carried the price of woodland, water-mill, and pasture on their backs." Many are the elaborate descriptions of entertainments and pageants by the chroniclers Leland, Holinshed, and Stowe, in which rich jewellery figures; but Hall's Chronicle, the most minute in its accounts of contemporary fashions, teems with references to "Gold Smithe's woorke" and to the wealth of precious stones broidered on the garments. The passion for personal ornaments ran such riot that even foreign critics inveighed against Englishmen for their extravagance. This love of jewellery was largely due to foreign fashions, which hitherto discountenanced, were growing popular at Court, in consequence of the increasing communication with the Continent. From the commencement of Henry's reign merchants and craftsmen from abroad swarmed in numbers into London, and Hall, who shared the characteristic English antipathy to all things foreign, gives an instance of an invasion by these alien artificers. It was on the occasion of a magnificent embassy from France in 1518 in connection with the betrothal of the Princess Mary to the Dauphin that there came, he says, "a great number of rascals and pedlars and jewellers, and brought over divers merchantize uncustomed, all under the color of trussery [baggage] of the ambassadors." In accordance with the system of his predecessors in pursuit of their own personal interests, Henry VIII extended his protection to the foreigner, while the example of the French Court, the rivalry with Francis I, and the foreign proclivities of Wolsey and Cromwell induced him to patronise extensively foreign jewellers and merchants in precious stones. Occasionally Henry was a sufferer in his transactions with sharp Italian dealers; and Cellini relates a story of how a Milanese jeweller counterfeited an emerald so cleverly that he managed to palm off the same for a genuine stone on the sovereign of "those beasts of Englishmen," as he elsewhere terms them, for 9000 golden scudi. And all this happened, because the purchaser--who was no less a person than the King of England--put rather more faith in the jeweller than he ought to have done. The fraud was not found out till several years after. A considerable number of the foreign craftsmen patronised by the King were Italians; but in jewellery the French influence seems to have predominated--judging by the frequent mention of jewels of "Paris work," and by the fact that the majority of the jewellers mentioned in the "King's Book of Payments,"[131] bear French names. Among those of foreign extraction the following were the most prominent: Robert Amadas, John Cryspyn, Allart Ploumyer, Jehan Lange, Cornelius Hays, Baptist Leman, John Cavalcant, John Baptista de Consolavera, Guillim Honyson, Alexander of Brussels, John of Utrecht, and John (Hans) of Antwerp. The mention, however, of such names as John Angell, Morgan Fenwolf (a Welshman), John Freeman, John Twiselton, Thomas Exmewe, Nicolas Worley, John Monday, and William Davy indicates the English nationality of several of the royal jewellers--though it is well to remember the common tendency of the time to Anglicise foreign names. [131] _Letters and Papers of Henry VIII_, II, p. 1441, etc.; III, p. 1533, etc. Throughout the first half of his reign Henry placed huge orders in the hands of these craftsmen, but advancing years and an exhausted treasury appear to have somewhat diminished his expenditure on personal ornaments. Some interesting correspondence between the above-mentioned Jehan Lange, a jeweller of Paris, and certain of his native townsmen has been preserved.[132] "The King," he writes in 1537, referring to certain jewelled garments he had submitted to His Majesty, "was very glad to see such riches. He said he was too old to wear such things, but he has offered 4000 cr." To Allart Ploumyer he writes: "The King always makes good cheer, but he has grown cold, and we have not quite sold everything; for the gentlemen have spent their money in the war." "I find the King," he says in another place, "disinclined to buy, for he has told me he has no more money, and it has cost him a great deal to make war." [132] _Letters and Papers_, XII, No. 47. In spite of Lange's complaints, it was only just before his death that Henry VIII acquired a famous and magnificent historical jewel, the great pendant of Charles the Bold, last Duke of Burgundy.[133] In its centre was set the wonderful diamond--a deep pyramid five-eighths of an inch square at the base--believed to be the first on which Louis de Berghem tried his newly invented method of cutting. Around it were set three balas rubies, styled from their equality in size and weight the "Three Brothers," which, owing to their fine quality, were set open, without the foil with which stones were then usually backed. Between these were four enormous pearls (Pl. XXV, 3). According to the universal custom of his day, the Duke, accompanied by all his treasure when campaigning, carried this jewel with him, partly to have it constantly under his personal supervision, and partly because of the magic properties then attributed to precious stones. Captured by a common soldier from his tent after his memorable defeat at the battle of Granson in 1475, the pendant came into the possession of the magistrates of Berne, and from them was purchased by Jacob Fugger, of the opulent merchant family of Augsburg, whose son, after keeping it for several years, disposed of it to Henry VIII. Fifty years later the jewel was still intact, and in James I's inventory of the crown jewels in 1603, it is thus described:[134] "A fayre Flower,[135] with three greate ballaces, in the myddest a greate pointed dyamonde, and three greate perles fixed, with a fayre greate perle pendaunte, called _the Brethren_." The last we hear of this famous jewel is in 1623, when it is described in the same words in the list of jewels removed from the Tower by James I, and handed over to his jeweller Heriot to be refashioned for the use of Charles and Buckingham on their visit to Spain. That it was then remounted is evident from the King's letter to his son, in which he says: "I send for your wearing the Three Brethren, that you knowe full well, but newlie sette." [133] Lambecius, _Bibliotheca Cæsarea Vindobonensi_, II, p. 512. [134] _Kalendars and Inventories of the Exchequer_, II, p. 304. [135] That pendants were termed "flowers" is clear from W. Thomas's _Italian Grammar_ (1548), where a _fermaglio_ is defined as "the hangeing owche, or _flowre_ that women use to tye at the chayne or lace that they weare about their neckes" (_Way, Prompt. parv._, p. 359, n. 3). About the year 1536 the great painter Hans Holbein, who had come to England several years previously, entered into the service of Henry VIII, and it was between that date and his death in 1543 that he executed those masterpieces of design for jewellery which will ever stand as a landmark in the history of the subject. There is no evidence to show that Holbein himself worked in the precious metals. But brought up under similar influences as had moulded the great Italian artists of the Renaissance, Ghiberti, Pollaiuolo, Verrocchio, Francia, and Ghirlandaio, who combined the arts of painting, architecture, and sculpture with the jeweller's craft, he had been well grounded in the limitations of his materials, and knew how far the draughtsman could display his skill in this direction. The most important of Holbein's designs for jewellery are preserved in the British Museum, to which they were bequeathed by Sir Hans Sloane in 1753. The collection, originally mounted in a quarto volume, termed Holbein's London Sketch-book, is now remounted and systematically arranged. The designs, comprising 179 separate items, are for the most part drawn with a pen with black ink, and then some slight touches of brown put in for the shadows. Several of the designs have the ground blackened, the ornaments being left in white. Some of the jewels, entirely coloured and often touched up with gold, are designed for enamelling in high relief; some are perhaps designed for execution in niello, though it is not improbable that these were intended to be ornamented with black champlevé enamel. The most attractive are the patterns for jewels enriched with precious stones and enamels, the majority of which were for neck pendants intended to hang from a chain, ribbon, or silken cord, itself sometimes shown in the drawing (Pl. XXVI). The design of a few of these pendants is based upon the prevailing custom of wearing initials of the name either in embroidery or in pure gold attached to the garments. Some curious instances of this fashion are recorded by Hall, particularly in his graphic account of what took place at a masque given by Henry VIII at his palace at Westminster. Upon the King's invitation to divide the rich garments of the maskers sewn with letters of "fine and massy gold in bullyon as thicke as they might be," which generally went as largess to the ladies, a rabble of citizens, who were allowed to look on, broke in, and "ranne to the Kyng and stripped hym into his hosen and dublet, and all his compaignions in like wyse. Syr Thomas Knevet stode on a stage, and for all his defence he lost his apparell. The ladies like wyse were spoyled, wherfore the Kynges garde came sodenly, and put the people backe, or els it was supposed more inconvenience had ensued." So pure was the gold of which these letters were composed that it is recorded subsequently that a "shipeman of London who caught certayn letters sould them to a goldsmyth for £3. 14. 8"--quite a considerable sum in those days. In the same way jewelled initials were also frequently worn in the form of pendants and a jewelled B can be seen hanging from the neck of Anne Boleyn in her portrait in the National Portrait Gallery. Holbein's drawings contain several beautiful instances of this type of design, generally completed with three pendent pearls. One of them has a monogram of the initials R and E in chased and engraved gold set at the four corners with two rubies, an emerald, and a diamond. Another has the letters H and I (probably for Henry and Jane Seymour) with an emerald in the centre; and a somewhat similar jewel, formed of the sacred monogram, is worn by Jane Seymour in her portrait by Holbein at Vienna. The designs for the larger pendants, mostly circular or lozenge-shaped, are set with sapphires, diamonds, rubies, and pearls, and terminate with large pear-shaped pearls. The spaces between the stones are filled with chased or enamelled arrangements of scroll or leaf work. The smaller jewels, which might also have been worn as enseignes or badges on the hat, or as brooches, are of open goldwork with leaf or ribbon ornament set with stones and pearls. They include a very beautiful design of a half-length figure of a lady in the costume of the period holding between her hands a large stone, upon which is the inscription WELL LAYDI WELL (Pl. XXVI, 9). The fifteenth-century traditions seem to have influenced Holbein in the design of this jewel, which at once calls to mind the Flemish-Burgundian brooches (an example of which, in the British Museum, has already been mentioned) ornamented with similar figures, full-faced, and holding a large stone before them. The jewels actually executed from these designs were probably the work of Hans of Antwerp, known as John Anwarpe.[136] He was a friend of Holbein, and one of the witnesses of his will; and his portrait, painted by Holbein, is now at Windsor. Hans of Antwerp appears to have settled in London about 1514, having perhaps been induced to do so by Thomas Cromwell, who in early life resided for a time in Antwerp as secretary to the English merchants there. It was presumably Cromwell who, as "Master of the King's Jewel House," was instrumental in procuring for him the post of the King's goldsmith. His name occurs several times in Cromwell's accounts, and it was in accordance with the latter's "ryght hartye commendations" that he obtained the freedom of the Goldsmiths' Company of London. The chief duty of the King's goldsmith was to supply the New Year's gifts (_estrennes_), so popular at that time. These usually took the form of personal ornaments, and it seems likely that Holbein's famous sketches were specially designed for this purpose. [136] His family name was Van der Gow or Van der Goes. See L. Cust, _Burlington Magazine_, VIII, p. 356. ELIZABETH--MARY STUART However remarkable the Court of Henry VIII was for its profusion of jewellery, that of Queen Elizabeth, who inherited the Tudor love for display, was still more extravagant. Throughout her reign--a period marked also upon the Continent for its prolific production of jewellery--the fashion set by the jewel-loving Queen for a superabundance of finery maintained its sway. The country suddenly becoming wealthy, was tempted, like one not born to riches, to use the whole in outward show, and this display was rendered comparatively easy by the influx of gold and precious stones after the Spanish conquests in America. Numerous portraits of courtiers and court ladies afford ample evidence of the prevailing fashions in jewellery, while the portraits of the Queen herself, all overburdened with ornaments, are too well known to need detailed description.[137] "There is not a single portrait of her," says Walpole, "that one can call beautiful. The profusion of ornaments with which they are loaded are marks of her continual fondness for dress, while they entirely exclude all grace, and leave no more room for a painter's genius than if he had been employed to copy an Indian idol, totally composed of hands and necklaces. A pale Roman nose, a head of hair loaded with crowns and powdered with diamonds, a vast ruff, a vaster fardingale, a bushel of pearls, are features by which every body knows at once the pictures of Queen Elizabeth." [137] An enormous number of these exist. A catalogue of them has been drawn up by Mr. F. M. O'Donoghue, of the British Museum. An excellent description of the jewellery of Elizabeth towards the close of her brilliant reign is given by Paul Hentzner, who visited England in 1598: "The Queen had in her ears two pearls with very rich drops; she wore false hair and that red; upon her head she had a small crown; her bosom was uncovered, and she had on a necklace of exceedingly fine jewels. She was dressed in white silk, bordered with pearls of the size of beans, and over it a mantle of black silk shot with silver threads; her train was very long. Instead of a chain, she had an oblong collar of gold and jewels." To a courtier who knelt to her, "after pulling off her glove, she gave her right hand to kiss, sparkling with rings and jewels." The best of all representations of that "bright occidental Star" is her faded waxwork effigy, still to be seen in Westminster Abbey--no other than the one which on the 28th of April, 1603, was carried on her coffin to the Abbey. It shows the veritable passion Elizabeth possessed for pearls. Her stomacher is encrusted with large Roman pearls, while strings of pearls hang round her throat and neck. Her earrings are circular pearl and ruby medallions, with huge pear-shaped pearl pendants. Full of detail are the records of costly "juelles" that have come down to us, particularly in the list, preserved in the British Museum,[138] of the New Year's gifts presented to the Queen, from the fourteenth to the thirty-sixth year of her reign. The practice of exchanging presents on New Year's Day attained extraordinary proportions at the Court of Elizabeth, and was supplemented by birthday presents, which, as Her Majesty's weakness for jewellery was well known, took for the most part the form of personal ornaments of every kind. The very accurate accounts that were kept by the officers of the Queen's wardrobe of every item in her enormous store of jewellery is witnessed by a number of curious entries in her wardrobe-book of losses of jewellery sustained by Her Majesty.[139] [138] British Museum. MSS. No. 4827. [139] Strickland, _Queens of England_, IV, pp. 262, 416. In addition to numerous inventories and wills full of information concerning the jewellery of the period, we have at our service, as in Roman times, the works of social satirists, such as _The Anatomie of Abuses_, by Philip Stubbes (1583), and Bishop Hall's poetical satires of 1597, to which we are indebted for many valuable details. In accepting these it is well to bear in mind the common tendency of every age to ridicule its own fashions; yet, in spite of Puritan narrowness, and the exaggerated indignation of the satirist, it is manifest that extraordinary luxury and extravagance in dress and jewellery were prevalent not only at Court, but among all classes of the community. Of greater importance, however, than the information to be gleaned from pictorial and literary sources is that derived from the actual jewels themselves, a considerable number of which, through all the changes and chances of more than three centuries, have been handed down still practically intact, and retaining the chief feature of their decoration--their exquisite enamel. Shakespeare, while appreciating the charm of its harmonious combination of colours, recognised, it appears, the delicacy of this beautiful medium, when in the _Comedy of Errors_ he makes Adriana say:-- I see the jewel best enamelled Will lose his beauty; yet the gold bides still, That others touch, and often touching will Wear gold. The New Learning, which made itself felt in England during the reign of Henry VII, began at this time to exercise a direct influence on the choice of the designs of jewels and on the arrangement of their ornamentation. As witnesses of the intellectual revival, they often took emblematic forms, bearing in exquisite enamel-work fancy mottoes and devices, generally obscure in their interpretation, and intended to express the sentiments of their wearers, or those of donors, regarding the presumed state of mind of their recipients. The passion for these reached its height in the golden days of Good Queen Bess, when it became the fashion for the bejewelled gallants who fluttered like a swarm of glittering insects around her to display their wit and ingenuity in devising jewelled emblems as fit presents to the Virgin Queen. Thus in the list of costly articles of jewellery offered to Elizabeth, we meet with the present, made in Christmas week 1581, by some courtiers disguised as maskers, of a jewel in the form of "a flower of golde, garnished with sparcks of diamonds, rubyes, and ophales, with an agathe of her Majestis phisnamy and a perle pendante, with devices painted in it." The love for strange devices and enigmatical mottoes was fostered by the spirit of an age that witnessed the production of Lyly's _Euphues_ and Spenser's _Faerie Queene_; while Elizabeth's colossal vanity prompted the dedication to her of highly laudatory mottoes, like the inscription on a jewel belonging to Mr. Pierpont Morgan: HEI MIHI QUOD TANTO VIRTUS PERFUSA DECORE NON HABET ETERNOS INVIOLATA DIES. Few of the jewels of this stirring period display a more charming symbolism than those produced after the defeat and destruction of the Spanish Armada, whereon England is figured as an ark floating securely and tranquilly on a troubled sea, surrounded by the motto, SAEVAS TRANQUILLA PER UNDAS. The most remarkable of these Armada jewels is Mr. Pierpont Morgan's, just mentioned, and another of the same class in the Poldi-Pezzoli Museum, Milan. A jewel more characteristic of the period than any other, and an historical relic of singular interest, is that _chef d'oeuvre_ of inventive genius--the Lennox or Darnley jewel, the property of His Majesty the King. It is covered inside and out with the most elaborate symbolism, and contains altogether no less than twenty-eight emblems and six mottoes (Pl. XXVIII, 4). Internal evidence proves this remarkable jewel to have been made by order of Lady Margaret Douglas, mother of Henry Darnley, in memory of her husband, Matthew Stuart, Earl of Lennox, who was killed in 1571. Among many other examples of Elizabethan jewellery, there stand out above the rest a certain number to which, besides their high artistic excellence, is attached the additional interest of historical associations. To this class belong the following important jewels: the Berkeley heirlooms, belonging to Lord Fitzhardinge; the Drake jewels, the property of Sir Francis Fuller-Eliott-Drake; the Wild Jewel (Miss Wild); the Barbor Jewel (Victoria and Albert Museum); and the Phoenix Jewel (Sloane Collection, British Museum). Public and private collections likewise contain a considerable number of enamelled miniature cases furnished with loops for suspension, and cameos set with jewelled and enamelled mountings of the period. The Berkeley heirlooms, among which is the Anglo-Saxon ring already mentioned, include the Hunsdon Onyx, the Drake pendant in form of a ship, Edward VI's Prayer Book, and a crystal armlet. These exquisite jewels, according to tradition, were presented by Queen Elizabeth to her cousin Henry Carey, Lord Hunsdon, who died in 1596. They then passed to his son George, the second Baron Hunsdon, who so highly valued them, that he bequeathed them on his death, in 1603, to his wife, and afterwards to his only daughter Elizabeth, with strict injunctions to transmit the same to her posterity, to be preserved (according to the actual terms of his will) "Soe longe as the conscience of my heires shall have grace and honestie to perform my will, for that I esteeme them right jeweles, and monumentes worthie to be kept for theire beautie, rareness, and that for monie they are not to be matched, nor the like yet knowen to be founde in this realme." The jewels mentioned, which came into the Berkeley family through the marriage of the above-named Elizabeth Carey with Lord Berkeley, are still preserved at Berkeley Castle. [Illustration: _PLATE XXVIII_ RENAISSANCE JEWELLERY OF ENAMELLED GOLD (THE PROPERTY OF HIS MAJESTY THE KING)] Further reference to these and other remarkable Elizabethan jewels will be given when the special species of ornaments to which they belong is being dealt with. There is one jewel of this date, however, which, though it no longer exists, is of particular interest from the fact that it is specially mentioned in the famous inventory of Charles I's collection drawn up by Abraham Van der Doort in 1639.[140] This golden jewel, we learn, was round, and hung with a small pendent pearl; one side was enamelled with a representation of the battle of Bosworth Field, and the other with the red and white roses of Lancaster and York upon a green ground. Within were four miniatures, Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward VI, and Queen Mary. The miniatures are still preserved at Windsor Castle, but shorn of their enamelled case, which has long since disappeared. The jewel was bought by the King, so Van der Doort tells us, from "young Hilliard," son of the famous miniaturist Nicholas Hilliard, who, besides painting the miniatures, probably also executed the enamel-work upon the jewel itself. Hilliard, like the artists of the Renaissance already cited, had been brought up as a goldsmith and jeweller, and, as we see by the inscription which he placed round his own portrait, held an appointment as goldsmith at Elizabeth's Court; while his knowledge and love of jewellery are admirably displayed in his miniatures, in which every jewel is painted with faultless accuracy and care. [140] Vertue (G.), _Catalogue of the collection of Charles I_, p. 47. The mention of Hilliard introduces to our notice the other creators of the beautiful jewellery of the period. English work continued to be influenced by the Continent; and engraved designs for jewellery by the Frenchmen Ducerceau and Woeiriot, and by the eminent goldsmith and engraver Theodor de Bry, who himself worked in London in 1587 and the two following years, must have been well known and imitated in England. In spite of this, however, it would appear that Englishmen were no longer actually dependent for their jewellery upon foreigners. The latter ceased to hold the virtual monopoly they had once enjoyed; and their place was taken by a number of native craftsmen. Among these, the following were the most prominent: Dericke Anthony, Affabel Partridge, Peter Trender, and Nicolas Herrick--elder brother of William Herrick, James I's jeweller, and father of Robert Herrick the poet. During the latter years of her reign Hugh Kayle and his partner Sir Richard Martin supplied the Queen with jewels as New Year's gifts and presents to ambassadors amounting to upwards of £12,000. Enough has been said to demonstrate that the reign of Elizabeth, fertile in great events, was productive of much important jewellery, whose charm, excellence, and historic interest have, up to the present, by no means received the attention they deserve. And it may be stated, without prejudice, that jewels of the period which bear a clear stamp of English origin compare favourably, nay even advantageously, with the productions of contemporary jewellers of the Continent. * * * The jewels of the unhappy Mary Stuart form a subject of peculiar interest. Like her jealous rival Queen Elizabeth, Mary was most lavish in her display of jewellery. In addition to the crown jewels she had a profusion of personal ornaments, her own private property. Her inventories, published by the Bannatyne Club (1863), furnish many a vivid description of the splendid objects which, during the course of her turbulent life, she bestowed on her friends or lost under stress of circumstances. They have further acquired quite an historical celebrity "from the frequency with which they were claimed by their unfortunate mistress in her appeals for mercy and justice during her long captivity, and the rapacity with which her royal jailer and other enemies sought or retained possession of these glittering spoils." It is impossible here to enter into details respecting the many beautiful things recorded in her inventories, or the strange vicissitudes that they underwent. Their dispersal would seem to have begun with her infatuated passion for Bothwell. The number of jewels she lavished on him when they parted on Carberry Hill, those she distributed as personal gifts, and others that served in the various emergencies in which the unfortunate Queen found herself, afford some idea of the extraordinary quantity of precious articles in her possession. A few of Mary's actual jewels, such as the Duke of Norfolk's rosary and jewelled necklace, the Duke of Portland's jewelled cameo, and the Penicuik jewel, have been preserved to our own day. Along with the historical documents must rank the Leven and Melville portrait--the brilliant centre-piece of Mr. Andrew Lang's _Portraits and Jewels of Mary Stuart_. As far as jewellery in general is concerned, this portrait may be said to merit greater consideration than any picture of its own or of other times, in that it displays a complete parure of contemporary jewellery, each item of which is entered and described in detail in the personal inventories of the individual it represents. CHAPTER XXV RENAISSANCE HEAD-ORNAMENTS (ENSEIGNES, AIGRETTES, HAIR-PINS, EARRINGS) The origin of the ornaments for the hat or cap, known generally as enseignes, has been mentioned in dealing with the jewellery of the Middle Ages. At the period of the Renaissance, the enseigne--the "bijou par excellence" it has been termed--was above all the recipient of the very highest workmanship, and formed the subject of varied designs of the most ingenious character. By the beginning of the fifteenth century fashion had already turned hat-badges almost entirely into articles of adornment, and judging by that worn by King Dagobert in Petrus Christus's picture of 1449, and, amongst many other portraits, by that of Richard III in the National Portrait Gallery, these jewels were composed of goldsmith's work, enamelled, and set with precious stones. In the sixteenth century the majority of enseignes seem always to have borne some figured design; and Cellini, referring to the year 1525, says: "It was the custom at that epoch to wear little golden medals, upon which every nobleman or man of quality had some device or fancy of his own engraved; and these were worn in the cap." For a considerable time the earlier religious badges sold at places of pilgrimage continued to be worn. Though enseignes very frequently bore some religious representation, or the figure or emblem of some patron saint, they ended, like other articles primarily religious, by becoming purely secular, and took the forms of devices of a fanciful or even humorous character. Every one from the highest rank downwards had his personal _devise_ or _impresa_, or more often a series of them. It was worn as an emblem--an ingenious expression of some conceit of the wearer, the outcome of his peculiar frame of mind. It usually contained some obscure meaning, the sense of which, half hidden and half revealed, was intended to afford some play for the ingenuity of the observer. The love of the time for expressing things by riddles led to the publication of sets of emblems, like those of Alciatus, which had imitators in all directions. Every one, in fact, tried his hand at these "toys of the imagination." Numbers of enseignes are mentioned in the inventories, and male portraits very commonly exhibit this form of decoration. Women also wore them upon the hat or in the hair, but not until about the middle of the sixteenth century. The hat was turned up so as to show the lining, and the badge was usually placed under the rim, at the side, and somewhat to the front of the hat. Some of these medallions are furnished with a pin, like a brooch; but as the majority have loops at the edge, or are pierced with holes for the purpose of sewing them to the head-dress, they can as a rule be distinguished from ordinary brooches. Pendants of the same form as those hung from neck-chains also appear occasionally as enseignes upon the hat. In England, during the sixteenth century, brooches, owches, or nowches, as they were often called, were extensively worn in caps and hats[141] as men's jewels in particular; and besides these there were jewelled hat-bands richly decorated with precious stones. The chronicler Hall mentions that on one occasion, in 1513, Henry VIII wore a hat called a "chapeau montabyn" which was adorned with a rich band or coronal, and had in addition an enseigne, for "y^e folde of the chapeau was lined with crimsyn saten; and on y^t a riche brooch withe y^e image of sainct George." An enamelled brooch of this design modelled in full relief with the figure of St. George and the dragon, with the Princess Sabra in the background, is preserved amongst the exceedingly interesting series of jewels in His Majesty's collection at Windsor Castle. It is of gold, finely chased, brilliantly modelled, and surrounded with an open wire balustrade enamelled green. This brooch, traditionally believed to have been worn by Henry VIII, is known as the Holbein George; but internal evidences tend to prove the unlikelihood of Holbein having had any hand in its construction. It appears to be of Venetian origin--though not without some traces of German influence--and to date from the first few years of the sixteenth century (Pl. XXVIII, 2). [141] "He gave me a jewel the other day, and now he has beat it out of my hat" (_Timon of Athens_, Act iii.) "Honour's a good brooch to wear in a man's hat at all times" (Ben Jonson, _Poetaster_). "And his hat turned up, with a silver clasp on his leer side" (Ben Jonson, _Tale of a Tub_). There exist several other jewels, the majority of them hat-ornaments, executed in this so-called "gold wire" enamel,[142] of the same exquisite and rare style of workmanship, and all possessing a singular likeness to that at Windsor, both in the patterns of the dresses worn by the figures represented on them, and in general treatment, particularly of the hair of the figures, which is formed of ringlets of spiral twisted gold wire. Among other examples are two in the Salting Collection, another which was lately in the collection of Sir T. Gibson Carmichael,[143] and a fourth in the Cabinet des Antiques in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. [142] Bonnaffé (E.), _La collection Spitzer_, III, p. 134. [143] Burlington Fine Arts Club, _Catalogue of enamels_, 1897. The wide range of subjects chosen for hat-ornaments can best be judged from the lists of "bonnets" in Henry VIII's possession in the years 1526 and 1530, enriched with a variety of brooches.[144] [144] _Letters and Papers of Henry VIII_, IV, Nos. 1907 and 6789. Representations of enseignes in pictures are too frequent to permit of any attempt to enumerate them. It is impossible, however, to refrain from drawing attention to the fine male portraits of Bartolommeo Veneto, an artist of marked individuality of character, who worked at Venice from about 1505 to 1530. He appears to have delighted in painting with peculiar care the beautiful enseignes worn by his sitters--attractive jewels enamelled in _ronde bosse_, and contemporary with the Windsor "George" and its fellows. The examples of his work that display such ornaments in the most striking manner are in the following collections: Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; Dorchester House, London; the Crespi Gallery, Milan; the collection of Baron Tucher at Vienna; and the National Gallery, Rome.[145] [145] _L'Arte_, II, p. 432, 1899. One of the most exquisite jewels of the Renaissance is a medallion of enamelled gold numbered 5583 in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris. It is oval, and in a space of 2 by 2-3/16 inches contains a composition of no less than twelve men and eight horses in high relief, representing a battle. Horsemen and foot-soldiers in antique armour are engaged in furious combat, and many have fallen. One horseman carries a banneret which flies in the wind. The background is enamelled green, and the figures, delicately modelled, are white, save for their armour and weapons, which are reserved in the gold. The frame of the jewel is furnished with four loops, which clearly explain its use (Pl. XXIX, 2). Its design offers an interesting comparison with two cameos (Nos. 643 and 644), themselves fanciful renderings of the subject of another cameo (No. 645), and an intaglio, the work of Matteo del Nassaro, in the same collection, both undoubtedly inspired by the famous painting after Raphael, known as the Battle of Constantine at the Milvian Bridge (A.D. 312), in the so-called Gallery of Constantine in the Vatican. Among the jewels in the public collections in London, which on account of their design or form were presumably intended to be worn in the hat or cap, there are several noteworthy examples. The Wallace Collection contains a circular gold enseigne, repoussé, chased, and partly enamelled, with a representation of Judith carrying the head of Holofernes. It is probably Italian. In the Waddesdon Bequest at the British Museum is an oval badge enamelled in relief with the Judgment of Paris. It is of the same minute style of work as that of the "Battle-Piece," and is of striking similarity to a drawing by Hans Mielich, in the Royal Library, Munich.[146] [146] Hefner-Alteneck (J. H. von), _Deutsche Goldschmiede-Werke des 16^t^e^n Jahrhunderts_, Pl. 12. An enseigne in the Victoria and Albert Museum--perhaps the most beautiful of all, and probably the work of a Florentine goldsmith--represents the head of John the Baptist on a charger. The _caput Johannis in disco_, a favourite subject in mediæval art both in painting and sculpture, was also popular for personal ornaments. This symbol of the Precursor was no doubt phylacteric, for the efficacy of his intercession was most highly esteemed against epilepsy and other disorders. The enseigne in question, contemporary with one described as a "St. John's head in a dish" in Henry VIII's possession in 1530, is of gold, one and five-eighths of an inch in diameter, and shaped like a circular dish. It has a corded edge, and round the rim, in pierced and raised letters, now only partially enamelled, are the following words: NON · SUREXSIT · INTER · NATOS · MULIERUM. The sunk centre is covered with translucent ruby enamel, and in the middle is the head of the saint in gold and white enamel. The head is delicately modelled, and such care has the artist displayed in its execution that he has shown above the eyebrow the gash which Herodias, according to the legend,[147] on receiving the head from Salome, inflicted on it with a pin from her hair, or with a knife seized from the table where the feast had taken place (Pl. XXIX, 1). [147] This legend is the subject of a striking picture by Quentin Matsys (itself rich in representation of jewellery), which forms the left wing of the magnificent "Deposition" (No. 245), in the Antwerp Museum. A famous relic, the skull of the saint in Amiens Cathedral, exhibits a hole over the eyebrow. [Illustration: _PLATE XXIX_ RENAISSANCE ENSEIGNES] All the four enseignes last mentioned are examples of the method of executing these ornaments described in Cellini's famous treatise[148] on the goldsmith's art, where he extols the goldsmith Caradosso as a craftsman skilled above all others in their production. The work is repoussé; the St. John's head being also worked into full relief by this process, and then applied to the dish. Such repoussé figures were frequently attached to an independent background formed of lapis-lazuli, agate, or some other precious substance. [148] _I trattati dell' oreficeria._ Ed. Milanesi, 1857. Chapter on Minuteria. The revival of the art of gem-engraving led to a large demand for cameos--themselves more suitable for decorative purposes than intaglios--as personal ornaments. "It was much the custom of that time," says Vasari, writing of the gem-engraver Matteo del Nassaro, "to wear cameos and other jewels of similar kind round the neck and in the cap." Matteo produced many admirable cameos for use as enseignes for Francis I and the nobles of his Court, almost every one of whom carried on their persons some example of his work. On jewels of this kind parts of the figures were occasionally executed in cameo, and the remainder in gold, chased and enamelled; but more frequently figures were worked entirely in hard material, and then, in accordance with the artistic taste of the time, enclosed in borders, enriched with enamel and jewel-work of the most exquisite variety of design. Unhappy vicissitudes, like those which the gems at Florence have undergone,[149] have in course of time despoiled many a cameo of its rich setting. Yet in the great public gem collections of London, Paris, Vienna, St. Petersburg, Berlin, Munich, and Dresden, as well as in the cabinets of private collectors, are to be found a number of beautiful examples of the jeweller's art at its best period, which have been preserved on account of the cameos they served to adorn. [149] In the night of December 17th, 1860, the Galleria delle Gemme of the Uffizi was entered by thieves, who carried off a large number of gems and jewels. Most of the gems were recovered, but nearly all robbed of their settings. All the jewels were lost (Gotti, A., _Le Gallerie di Firenze_, pp. 229 and 388). The finest enseigne that displays cameo and enamelled gold worked together in combination is Cellini's exquisite "Leda and the Swan," in the Münz-und-Antiken-Kabinet at Vienna. The head and the torso of the figure of Leda is in cameo--the latter being an antique fragment; the remainder of the jewel is of gold, enriched with enamels, diamonds, and rubies. This is considered to be the actual jewel executed by Cellini at Rome about 1524 for the Gonfalonier Gabriele Cesarini[150] (Pl. XXIX, 5). [150] Kenner (F.), _Cameen und Modelle des XVI. Jahrhunderts_, p. 27 (_Jahrbuch der Kunsthistor. Sammlungen des Kaiserhauses, IV_), 1886. By far the most extensive collection of mounted cameos is preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris. The majority of these jewels which follow the cartouche form are presumably of French fabrique, though a decision as to their precise provenance is here, as ever, a matter of considerable difficulty. Among brooches or medallions for the hat, whose purpose is clearly indicated by the presence of a pin or holes for attachment, the most noticeable are four, numbered respectively 595, 465, 513, and 1002. The first, bearing the head of a negro in agate, encircled with a band of rubies, has an outer border of open scrollwork, of white, heightened with red enamel. On each side and below is a table diamond; and above, a crown set with triangular faceted diamonds (Pl. XXIX, 4). Lack of space precludes detailed reference to the other three _enseignes de chaperon_. They are equally attractive, both on account of their design and the high quality of their workmanship. Those unable to afford such costly ornaments wore hat-brooches or medallions in cheaper materials, either bronze or copper. These were cast or stamped, and not, like the more magnificent enseignes of gold, executed by the repoussé process. The work of the earlier medallists was produced by means of casting, the medallions being afterwards delicately chased. From the beginning of the sixteenth century, medallists, who, it may be remembered, were mostly jewellers and gem-engravers as well, executed engraved dies, from which their medallions were struck instead of cast. The majority of smaller medallions so generally worn as hat-badges were multiplied by the newer process of stamping, and pierced with holes for attachment to the head-dress. They were afterwards gilded and occasionally enriched with enamel. Further information about the cheaper class of enseignes is met with in Bernard Palissy's _Art de la terre_, according to which the enamellers of Limoges, owing to competition, had to supply figured hat-badges at _trois sols la douzaine_. "Which badges were so well worked and their enamels so well melted over the copper that no picture could be prettier." Brooches of even cheaper materials are alluded to by Shakespeare in _Love's Labour's Lost_, when Biron and Dumain, ridiculing Holofernes, who acts as Judas in the pageant of the Nine Worthies, exclaim:-- _Biron._ Saint George's half-cheek in a brooch. _Dumain._ Ay, and in a brooch of lead. _Biron._ Ay, and worn in the cap of a tooth-drawer. The fashion for enseignes lasted until about the second quarter of the seventeenth century. During this later period they were generally worn in the hats of persons of wealth and distinction, in the form of a cluster of precious stones[151] (Pl. XXXIV, 3); while the enseignes with figured compositions appear to have fallen into disuse. The remarkable letter addressed by James I to Charles and Buckingham in Spain, in 1623, deals chiefly with jewelled hat-brooches of this kind (p. 300). Hat-bands richly jewelled were likewise worn; and among the jewels sent to Spain for the use of the Prince was a magnificent hat-band "garnished with 20 diamonds set in buttons of gold in manner of Spanish work." It was made up of the following stones, representing every mode of cutting employed at the time: 8 four-square table diamonds, 2 six-square table diamonds, 2 eight-square table diamonds, 2 four-square table diamonds cut with facets, 2 large pointed diamonds, 1 fair heart diamond, and 3 triangle diamonds.[152] [151] A jewelled enseigne known as the "Star Jewel," once the property of Sir Francis Drake, belongs to Sir F. Fuller-Eliott-Drake. It is enriched with translucent red enamel, and has rubies set in the rays, with opals and diamonds interspersed in the border, round an engraved ruby in the centre. It has four loops behind for attaching to the hat. [152] _Archæologia_, XXI, p. 152. AIGRETTES At the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century an aigrette was often worn in the hat, a jewelled brooch being employed to hold it. The latter was sometimes in the form of a pipe or socket into which the stems of the feathers were inserted. A fine example of this class of ornament, discovered at Lauingen in the coffin of Otto Henry, Count Palatine of Neuburg (d. 1604), is now preserved with the rest of the jewels of the same family in the Bavarian National Museum at Munich. It is in the shape of a heart open-worked and enriched with enamel, and has in the centre the letters D.M.--initials of his wife Dorothea Maria--set with rubies. Behind is a tube for the reception of an aigrette of herons' feathers (Pl. XXX, 3). [Illustration: _PLATE XXX_ JEWELLED HAT-ORNAMENTS, (AIGRETTES, ETC.) LATE SIXTEENTH AND EARLY SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES] Though never in general use, feathers with settings mounted with precious stones and attached by jewelled brooches were worn long before this date; and Charles the Bold's hat--_chapeau montauban_--(Lambecius, _Bib. Caes. Vindobon._, II, p. 516) was enriched with feathers of this description magnificently jewelled. About the commencement of the seventeenth century the feather aigrette was often replaced by one of precious stones. A jewel of this form is in the Waddesdon Bequest. It is 3½ inches in height, and formed of five plumes--three jewelled with rubies and diamonds and the others enamelled white--rising from an open-worked ornament in the form of military trophies, enamelled and set with four diamonds. A design for an aigrette of almost exactly the same style may be seen among the engravings for jewellery by the Augsburg goldsmith Daniel Mignot. The engravings of Paul Birckenhultz (_c._ 1617) likewise contain designs for similar ornaments. These jewelled aigrettes were much in fashion in England at the time of James I, and a "feather jewel" or "jewel of gold in fashion of a feather, set with diamonds," is mentioned several times in the royal accounts. The finely executed drawings for jewellery in the Victoria and Albert Museum by Arnold Lulls, jeweller to James I, include four coloured designs for jewelled aigrettes (Pl. XXX, 1). They are provided with short, stout pins, and set with rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and diamonds, arranged in the most tasteful manner, and are evidently intended to be further enriched with enamel. Other jewelled aigrettes in favour in the seventeenth century were composed solely of precious stones. Reference will be made to these in a later chapter dealing with the ornaments of that period. HAIR-PINS Besides the enseigne worn occasionally by ladies, the jewelled aigrettes of more frequent use, and the gold circlets set with precious stones, more elaborate forms of head-decoration were employed. Though these were often entwined with ropes of pearls and sprinkled with precious stones, they belong rather to costume proper. There remain, however, hair-pins, of which we obtain a certain amount of information from the inventories, and from the few actual specimens that still remain. Hair-pins, like other articles of Renaissance jewellery, are remarkable for their variety of design, particularly as far as the heads of the pins are concerned. In the Germanic Museum at Nuremberg are several hair-pins with heads variously ornamented, one of them being in the form of a small enamelled hand. The shaft of the pin is often flat, open-worked and enamelled; occasionally the head is attached to it by a ring and hangs loosely from it. A gold enamelled hair-pin is among the jewels of Princess Amalia Hedwig (d. 1607), the contents of whose coffin, opened in the eighteenth century with those of the Counts Palatine of Neuburg at Lauingen, are now in the Bavarian National Museum. This pin has a small open rosette hanging loosely from it set with five diamonds and five pendent pearls. Contemporary portraits show how these pins were worn, and in a portrait of a young woman by Peter Moreelse in the Rotterdam Gallery, just such a pin is seen thrust in under the close-fitting lace cap so that the pendent head rests upon the forehead. In the inventories of the time hair-pins are termed _bodkins_; and among Queen Elizabeth's New Year's gifts are several of these richly decorated bodkins. Thus: "A bodkyn of golde, garnished at the ende with four smale diamondes and a smale rubye, with a crown of ophales, and a very smale perle pendant peare fashone." "A bodkin of golde, with a flower thearat, garnished with smale rubyes and ophals on one side." "A bodkinne of silver, with a little ostridg of gold, pendant, enamuled, and two waspes of golde lose enamuled." In the inventory of jewels of Anne, Duchess of Somerset, second wife of the Protector Somerset (1587), is "a bodkynne of golde, with clawes in the ende, inamyled blacke." EARRINGS The fashion of wearing the hair over the ears, which, as we have seen, completely banished earrings from among the ornaments of the Middle Ages, greatly checked their use during the sixteenth century. In Italian pictures one finds here and there some traces of them, but compared with the profusion of other ornaments, their almost complete absence is somewhat surprising. The most remarkable instance of their use is the beautiful portrait of a lady by Sodoma, or by Parmigianino, in the Städel Institute at Frankfort, where are seen elaborate earrings of open-work scroll pattern with three pendent pearls. They measure upwards of two and a half inches in length. The so-called Fornarina in the Tribuna of the Uffizi wears a small gold pendant in the form of an amphora attached to a simple ring; while in the portrait by Angelo Bronzino in the Pitti Gallery, supposed to be that of Bianca Cappello (1548-87), wife of Francesco de' Medici, the lobe of the ear is pierced twice, and the two rings placed in it support a pendant formed of two pearls mounted in gold, with three hanging pearls below. [Illustration: Earring, from Portrait of a Lady by Sodoma (Frankfort Gallery).] In the second half of the sixteenth century, with the altered mode of wearing the hair, earrings, though still rare in pictures, appear to have come more into fashion, and the prints of Woeiriot, Collaert, Birckenhultz, and other engravers of the day, as well as a number of examples in the various museums, show the types then in use. English portraits of the first half of the sixteenth century do not exhibit these ornaments, but when they appear later on, as in the numerous portraits of Queen Elizabeth, they are usually in the form of pear-shaped pearl drops. Mary Queen of Scots appears to have generally worn earrings, judging by the inventory of her jewels in 1561,[153] which contains a very large number, including the following: "Deux pendans doreille faictz en facon de croix de Hierusalem esmaillez de blanc--Deux petis pendans doreille garniz de deux petittes perles de facon de doubles ames--Deux petis pendans doreille dor emplis de senteure." [153] _Inuentaires de la Royne Descosse Douairiere de France_ (published by the Bannatyne Club), p. 87. The use of earrings, curiously enough, was not confined to women, and we find men, even the sedatest, wearing them. "Women," says Philip Stubbes in his _Anatomie of Abuses_ (1583), "are so far bewitched as they are not ashamed to make holes in their ears, whereat they hang rings, and other jewels of gold and precious stones; but this," he adds, "is not so much frequented among women as among men." This custom appears to have originated in Spain, where the use of earrings was pretty general among both sexes, and as the result of Spanish influence was introduced into France at the luxurious Court of Henry III. The fashion subsequently came to England, where it was generally affected by the courtiers of Elizabeth and James I, as is clear from contemporary male portraits, where an earring is worn, as a rule, in one ear only. Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset, is seen in the National Portrait Gallery wearing a ruby earring; while the Duke of Buckingham was particularly noticeable for the splendour of his diamond earrings. Commenting on the degeneracy of his contemporaries, Holinshed in his _Chronicle_ (1577) observes: "Some lusty courtiers also and gentlemen of courage do wear either rings of gold, stones, or pearl in their ears, whereby they imagine the workmanship of God to be not a little amended." In a splendour-loving time one might expect to find such ornaments among courtiers, but that earrings were worn also by men of action and men of parts is evident from the portraits of Shakespeare, Sir Walter Raleigh, and the Earl of Southampton. The use of earrings among men continued to the time of Charles I, and in Lenton's _Young Gallant's Whirligigg_ (1629) a fop is described with-- Haire's curl'd, eares pearl'd, with Bristows[154] brave and bright, Bought for true Diamonds in his false sight. [154] Crystal quartz found in the Clifton limestone, and known as Bristol diamonds. King Charles himself followed the general fashion and hung a large pearl in his left ear. This he wore even on the scaffold, where he took it from his ear and gave it to a faithful follower. It is still preserved, and is now owned by the Duke of Portland. It is pear-shaped, about five-eighths of an inch long, and mounted with a gold top, and a hook to pass through the ear. Earrings, together with similar luxuries, vanished at the time of the Protectorate; men are not seen wearing them after the Restoration, though they are still in use among certain classes on account of their supposed value as preservatives against affections of the eyes. CHAPTER XXVI RENAISSANCE NECKLACES, NECK-CHAINS, AND COLLARS Necklaces or neck-chains worn by both sexes are a prominent feature in Renaissance jewellery. Just as in primitive times the neck was encircled by a torque, so at this later period it was the custom to carry heavy chains of pure gold, which were worn in different ways, either round the throat, or else upon the shoulders and low down over the breast. Sometimes one long chain was wound several times round the neck so that the uppermost row closely encircled the throat. Not satisfied with one, women in particular occasionally wore as many as half a dozen chains of different design covering the body from neck to waist. From the fifteenth until the middle of the seventeenth century neck-chains were a frequent adjunct to male costume, and allusion is made to them in Barclay's _Ship of Fools_ (printed by Pynson in 1508):-- Some theyr neckes charged with colers, and chaynes As golden withtthes: theyr fyngers ful of rynges: Theyr neckes naked: almoste vnto the raynes; Theyr sleues blasinge lyke to a Cranys wynges. Men's necklaces, apart from the chains and collars of distinction belonging to particular orders or guilds, seem to have been mostly of pure gold, and in the reign of Henry VIII the fashion of wearing them was carried to a most unreasonable excess. Hall speaks of the "nombre of chaynes of golde and bauderickes both massy and grate" worn at the Field of the Cloth of Gold, and of the "marveilous treasor of golde" thus displayed. References to the extraordinary dimensions of these chains show that they must have been extremely inconvenient to wear. Henry VIII's Book of Payments records the payment in 1511 of £199 to the goldsmith Roy for a chain of gold weighing no less than 98 ounces. This is actually surpassed in Elizabeth's time, when Her Majesty received as a New Year's gift in 1588 "one cheine of golde, weing one hundred threescore and one ounce." Queen Mary had a heavy chain of gold made by her jeweller, Robert Raynes, out of the angels received as New Year's gifts;[155] and the curious custom of converting bullion into chains is further exemplified in the case of Sir Thomas Gresham, the bulk of whose wealth on his death in 1579 was found to consist of gold chains. [155] Nichols (J.), _Illustrations of the manners and expenses of ancient times in England_, Pt. III, p. 26. Pictures without number exhibit these ponderous neck-ornaments, while contemporary wills teem with references to them. That they were very much worn in Shakespeare's time would be apparent had we no other authority than his frequent allusion to them, as for instance in the _Comedy of Errors_, where there is a great ado about a chain. Indeed, no gentleman was considered properly equipped unless he had his chain of gold upon his shoulders. With regard to their form, it seems that chains which appear as though made of plaited wire, and were known in mediæval times, remained still in use. But the majority of chains are composed of rounded links of various designs. They are usually of great length, so as to encircle the neck and shoulders several times. Extraordinarily common though such chains must have been, but few examples have survived, and the reason for this must be that, composed of pure metal, they went direct to the melting-pot as soon as they became unfashionable. Yet owing to peculiar circumstances some still exist. In the Germanic Museum at Nuremberg are preserved several examples dating from the first quarter of the seventeenth century. These formerly belonged to the Holtzendorff family, and were buried during the Thirty Years' War, at Pinnow in North Germany, where they were unearthed a few years ago.[156] Two gold chains dating from about the middle of the same century are preserved in the Ashmolean Museum. They were presented to Elias Ashmole: the one 29 inches long, formed of thirty-two open-work quatrefoil links, by Christian V, King of Denmark, and the other, of circular links, by the Elector of Brandenburg in 1680, on the publication of the _History of the Order of the Garter_. The custom of presenting chains of gold was as common then, it is to be observed, as in the most ancient times. John Williams, jeweller of James I, was paid sums amounting to upwards of £13,000 for chains of gold given by the King to divers ambassadors. [156] Nuremberg: Germanisches Museum. _Mitteilungen_, 1894, p. 73. These heavy linked or twisted chains were worn principally by men, but not exclusively, as is clear from numerous early portraits--those, for instance, by the German painters Bernard Strigel and Lucas Cranach, whose ladies (as in the portrait by Cranach in the National Gallery) almost invariably have massive gold chains. Though generally composed of metal rings, men's chains, especially those worn by men of high rank, were occasionally composed of cylinders or plaques linked together and enriched with enamel and precious stones. Such jewelled collars were, however, chiefly reserved for women. Henry VIII's numerous portraits generally show him adorned with magnificent collars set with pearls and precious stones; and it is recorded that on the occasion of his attending St. Paul's at the proclamation of peace in 1515 he wore a collar thickly studded with the finest carbuncles, as large as walnuts. Amongst the numerous collars mentioned in his inventory of 1526 is a "carkayne of hearts, with a hand at each end, holding a device of a goodly balasse garnished with five pearls and three diamonds, and a hanging pearl."[157] [157] _Letters and Papers_, IV, No. 1907. The jewelled neck-chain worn by women, and composed of strings of precious stones, "ropes of pearls", or of jewelled and enamelled sections, is often represented in pictures as being gathered in a festoon at the breast and hanging in loops at each side as low as the waist. A chain of gold of this character--one amongst many similar presented by the Earl of Leicester to Queen Elizabeth--was "made like a pair of beads, containing eight long pieces, garnished with small diamonds, and four score and one smaller pieces, fully garnished with like diamonds." Besides the chains or collars worn round the neck and upon the shoulders, there were the actual necklets worn round the throat, and often only distinguishable from the collar proper by their length (Pl. XXXI, 1). These necklaces, or carcanets, which almost invariably had as a central ornament an elaborate pendent jewel, are figured in such profusion in sixteenth-century portraits, particularly by the painters of the German school, that it is needless to mention particular examples. In Henry VIII's time they were worn in great abundance. The King loaded his wives with sumptuous jewels, and encircled their throats--on which the axe was eventually to fall--with jewelled and enamelled necklaces. The "carkyonetts" of Queen Elizabeth, of which she received an immense number, were equally magnificent. A New Year's gift in 1587 was a "carkyonett of golde, like halfe moones, garnished with sparcks of rubyes and diamonds pendant, and one rowe of seede perles."[158] [158] Nichols, _Progresses of Queen Elizabeth_, II, p. 498. The forms of the necklaces and jewelled neck-chains differ so much that the reader must be referred to the various collections of this country and the Continent. Occasionally necklaces of chain formation or of plaited wire are set with stones, but of more frequent occurrence are those where every single link shows a special development of a bijou kind. In the Renaissance necklace every link is for the most part treated as a symmetrical composition, either cartouche-shaped or of pendent form. Hence it happens that in collections, as Herr Luthmer suggests,[159] single links of this kind may occasionally be found incorrectly classified under the title of "pendants." Those in existence display a variety of very remarkable formations, for seldom are the links exactly alike: generally a large and a small motive are arranged alternately--a larger and more richly decorated central link being inserted into the middle of the chain for the purpose of supporting or introducing the rich pendent jewel. To this type belongs one of the most noteworthy necklaces in existence, which now forms part of the Adolphe Rothschild Bequest in the Louvre. It is of gold set with pearls and precious stones, and is composed of twenty-two open-work links and a pendant, all enamelled in relief, the eleven larger links and the pendant containing each in separate compositions a story from the history of the Passion. The groups of figures are of wonderful execution, and in spite of their minute proportions are singularly expressive, being worked in a delicate and at the same time most resolute manner. When exhibited by the Countess of Mount Charles at the Jewellery Exhibition at South Kensington in 1872, the jewel was thus referred to: "This superb specimen of Italian Cinquecento work has been attributed to Benvenuto Cellini, and is at least as good as anything extant known to be by his hand." This cautious observation need not disconcert one; for the jewel is too closely allied in style and workmanship to the jewellery of South Germany of the second half of the sixteenth century to permit of such attribution. Nevertheless it must certainly be reckoned among the most elaborate examples of Cinquecento jewellery that have come down to us. [159] Luthmer, _Gold und Silber_, p. 100. The great display of necklaces and long neck-chains ceased about the middle of the seventeenth century. In common with other similar objects they entirely disappeared in England during the Protectorate; nor were they ever worn again in any greater profusion than they are at the present day. [Illustration: Design for a pendant by Jacques Androuet Ducerceau.] CHAPTER XXVII RENAISSANCE NECK-PENDANTS The necklaces, collars, or neck-chains which have just been spoken of as noticeable features in Renaissance decoration served the purpose of suspending a species of ornament even more peculiarly characteristic of the period--the pendant. This was hung either to the necklet, or to the neck-chain that fell upon the breast. Among all classes of Renaissance jewellery, and indeed of the jewellery of all time, this neck-pendant certainly deserves the first place, not only on account of the predominating part it played among the other ornaments of the period, but also on account of the great number of examples we possess of it, and the variety of forms which it exhibits. Throughout the Middle Ages almost every pendant worn at the neck (_pent-à-col_) bore a religious signification, but towards the close of the fifteenth or the beginning of the sixteenth century the pendant seems to have lost much of its religious character, and became mainly an object of decoration. That even in the sixteenth century it did not entirely serve a decorative purpose is shown by a number of portraits dating from the first half of the century, where the termination of the neck-chain is hidden beneath a square-cut bodice. What the object was which was thus concealed is uncertain. It was very possibly a reliquary, or perhaps a cross; for crosses form a very large proportion of Renaissance pendants existing at the present day. Apart from crosses, the majority of Renaissance pendants represent a figured subject of some description, while compositions entirely of precious stones appear to be less common--at least in the second half of the sixteenth century, to which the greater number of these jewels belong. Holbein's designs for pendants, on the other hand, were composed, it may be remembered, mainly of precious stones. From this we may infer that jewels having as a central ornament a single precious stone, or a gem surrounded by stones, and a regular contour, generally antedate those with figured compositions within uneven or broken borders. This of course applies to jewels which exhibit distinctly a back and front, and not to those formed of a single figure in the round, which are often difficult to date, though extant examples belong mostly to the latter half of the century. It is to be noticed that the majority of pendants are suspended by two, or sometimes three, richly jewelled and enamelled chains, connected above by a cartouche similarly enriched. While sixteenth-century pendants display on their front the art of the goldsmith-enameller in its full perfection, the reverse likewise exhibits artistic work in engraving as well as enamelling. It is likewise worthy of remark that Renaissance pendants are almost invariably enriched with pendent pearls. Of the immense number of subjects represented on these jewels we have already spoken in the introduction to the jewellery of the period. For pendants formed of single figures executed in the round, the whole of ancient or mediæval imagery--with its figures of Pan or of wood-nymphs, centaurs, tritons, or mermen; nereids, mermaids or sirens; hippocamps, unicorns, dragons, and other creatures, real as well as fabulous, of the earth, air, or sea--was revived, or else transformed to suit the fancy of the Renaissance jeweller. The formation of many of these was frequently suggested by a monster pearl, unsuitable for ordinary jewellery on account of its baroque or misshapen form, introduced in a wonderfully skilful manner into the body or breast of a figure, which was completed in enamelled goldwork. In such adaptations the German jewellers, who seem to have revelled in technical difficulties, displayed extraordinary ingenuity. Among groups of several figures employed as subjects for representation, generally within a frame of ornamental design, scenes from ancient mythology predominate, the Judgment of Paris being a very favourite theme. But Christian allegories are not excluded: besides the frequent representation of Charity with her two children or her symbol the pelican, we find Faith, Hope, and Fortitude; St. George and the Dragon or St. Michael are also frequently met with; while amongst scriptural subjects of the Old and New Testaments or the Apocrypha, the Annunciation is perhaps the most popular. [Illustration: _PLATE XXXI_ GERMAN AND FRENCH RENAISSANCE PENDANTS] The majority of the pendants of this class show a rich and uneven outline broken by tendrils often enriched with small dots of enamel, by projecting wings of birds or amorini, by strapwork and other ornament. Occasionally a "Charity" or an "Annunciation" is placed in an architectural niche, but the architectural device is not infrequently limited to a horizontal beam formed of a row of table-cut stones and two obelisks of the same construction forming the ends to the right and left (Pl. XXXIII, 1). It is only in the smaller examples of pendants that we find the design lying flat on a plane. Generally the jewel is fashioned in relief by means of two, three, or even four superimposed planes formed of open-work plates arranged in such a manner that the lower parts are seen through openings in the upper. These are fastened together by rivets sometimes three-eighths of an inch long, and the upper field of the jewel, on which are groups of enamelled figures, is set with stones in very large pyramidal collets, so that the whole composition is increased to a considerable height. Collections contain frequent examples of this class of pendant (Pl. XXXII). One of the most elaborate, of Augsburg work dating from the end of the sixteenth century, is in the Adolphe Rothschild Bequest in the Louvre. In the centre is an enamelled group representing the Annunciation, within an architectural framework set with diamonds, rubies, and pendent pearls. The jewel, which is suspended by triple chains from an enamelled cartouche, measures in its total length 5¼ inches. It was formerly in the Debruge-Duménil Collection. Similarly large open-work pendants, enriched with enamels, precious stones, and pendent pearls, are shown attached by a ribbon to the left breast in three portraits dated 1609, representing the Princesses Elizabeth, Hedwig, and Dorothea of Brunswick, Nos. 458, 460, and 461 in the Hampton Court Gallery. Of pendants containing groups of small enamelled figures there seems to have been an enormous production in Southern Germany towards the close of the sixteenth century, particularly in the workshops of Munich and Augsburg. These pieces, which are very charming, are greatly sought after by collectors, and are among the most highly prized of all objects of virtu at the present day. Their workmanship is extraordinarily elaborate; though not a few of them, it must be confessed, are overloaded with detail, and somewhat unsatisfactory in composition. With the revival of the glyptic art, cameos begin to play a prominent part in jewellery. A considerable number of cameos in the great gem collections, set in exquisite jewelled and enamelled mounts, are provided with loops for use as pendants.[160] Numerous gems, splendidly mounted as pendants, are to be found in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris (Pl. XXXI, 6); and in the British Museum are a few fine examples from the Carlisle Collection. Of extant pendants having as a centre-piece a figured subject, either cut in cameo or of repoussé work enamelled, the majority show uneven contours, generally of broken strapwork, after the manner of the German ornamentists, though not a few of those of oval shape have frames with smooth outlines. Many, on the other hand, follow the cartouche design in form of shields with upturned edges. These figure chiefly in the designs of the French _maîtres ornemanistes_, Androuet Ducerceau and Woeiriot. The doubling of the frame characteristic of the French cartouches, and the broken contours of the German pendants, which allow of a variety of intertwinings and traversings, offer a favourite field for the display of the jeweller's art in the application of polychrome enamels. [160] Davenport, _Cameos_, 1900. [Illustration: _PLATE XXXII_ ENAMELLED GOLD PENDANTS SET WITH PEARLS AND PRECIOUS STONES GERMAN, ABOUT 1600 (THE PROPERTY OF LADY ROTHSCHILD)] The "nef," or model of a ship, was of frequent use as an article of table plate. Pendent jewels likewise take the form of a small ship completely equipped,[161] suspended by chains, and hung with pearls. In this style of jewel, which is perhaps of Venetian origin, the crescent-shaped caravel or carvel, open and without a deck, but built up high at the prow and stern, with forecastle and cabin, and large ship's lantern, is often adhered to; but the design is not infrequently somewhat conventional. Many of the best-known collections contain examples of these "nef" or "navette" pendants. Their probable Adriatic origin is evinced by the several specimens exhibited, together with jewels from the Greek Islands, in the Franks Bequest in the British Museum. The Victoria and Albert Museum contains a choice example from the Spitzer Collection. It carries three masts, five sails, a lantern, and a high poop and stern. The rigging is of twisted gold wire, and the hull covered with an imbricated pattern in translucent blue, red, and green, and opaque white enamels. A variety to this form is presented by a remarkable piece in the museum at Vienna. It represents a barque manned by two rowers; while at the prow and stern are mandoline players who entertain two passengers seated beneath the framework awning such as was in use on the gondolas of the time. The whole is enriched with polychrome enamels. The figures are in full relief, and the boat, hung by three chains, is further set with diamonds and rubies. We may estimate the extraordinary value attached to such objects at the present day by the fact that a jewel very similar to this last was sold at Messrs. Christie's Rooms in the autumn of 1903 for no less a sum than £6,500. The hull of this jewel is identical with that at Vienna, but figures of Antony and Cleopatra, finely executed, though somewhat out of proportion to the rest, here take the place of the couple beneath the awning; while instead of being hung by chains (as is suitable to this form of pendant) the jewel is backed by a composition of scroll- and strap-work, characteristic of German and Flemish work of the second half of the sixteenth century. A comparison with contemporary designs clearly associates these two objects with the well-known set of engravings for pendent jewels published by Hans Collaert at Antwerp in 1581 (Pl. XXXIII). Another version of this jewel is in the Bavarian National Museum, Munich. The figures are the same as on the Vienna jewel, but the vessel is in the form of a fish. [161] Cf. "Une petite nef d'or, estoffée de tout son appareil" (Invent. of Mary, dau. of Charles the Bold of Burgundy, and wife of Maximilian I. Lille: _Archives du Nord_, VIII, p. 171.) Just as the great gem cabinets preserve pendants whose jewel-work is confined to richly decorated frames, so there exist a considerable number of mounted medals, which must be looked for in collections of coins and medals, among which they are classed on account of the presumed preponderating importance of their centre-pieces. These pendent gold medals (_Gnadenmedaillen_), with beautiful jewelled and enamelled mounts, occasionally hung with pearls and suspended by chains from ornate cartouches, were much in favour in Germany in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and were given by noble personages, whose portraits were figured on them, as presents and as marks of special distinction. Many examples, as is to be expected, are to be found in the coin cabinets of Munich and Berlin; while others are preserved in the more important public and private collections of jewellery. These medallions, as was natural, were frequently made in duplicate, and the Waddesdon Bequest, and the Salting and Pierpont Morgan collections each contain a jewel, dated 1612, of Maximilian, Archduke of Austria (1558-1620), in an open-worked border of enamelled scrolls interrupted by four shields of arms, and suspended by three chains, united above by an oval escutcheon with the arms of Austria on one side and the cross of the Teutonic order on the other. The Victoria and Albert Museum has an enamel-mounted medal of Albert VI, Duke of Bavaria (1584-1666), a facsimile of which, hung with a single instead of trilobed pearl, is in the Munich cabinet. Many of the motives connected with pendants denote associations which appear inexplicable, until it is understood that no small number of them, like the pendent medals, were gifts from princes, the so-called "faveurs" granted in recognition of services rendered. Among the princely gifts we must class that large group of pendants which consist only of one letter or a monogram in an ornamental frame or in open-work, sometimes composed entirely of precious stones. Of these the Victoria and Albert Museum possesses a fine early example in form of a square tablet of gold set with pearls, bearing on one side two enamelled shields of arms, and on the other the initials DA, in a frame formed of bracket-shaped terminal figures and human masks. It is of German work of about the year 1530 (Pl. XXXI, 3). Distinct from these princely monograms are those employed for religious purposes, particularly the monograms of Christ and the Virgin. [Illustration: _PLATE XXXIII_ PENDENT JEWELS BY HANS COLLAERT, ETC.] Probably the finest example of the numerous pendants in the form of a single figure, particularly of those whose formation is suggested by a large baroque pearl, is the triton or merman jewel in the possession of Lord Clanricarde. The figure, whose body is made of a single pearl, with head and arms of white enamel and tail of brilliant yellow, green, and blue, wields a jaw-bone in the right hand, and an enamelled satyr's mask as a shield in the left. This magnificent Italian jewel was brought from India by Lord Canning. Pendants of somewhat similar character, often representing a mermaid holding a comb in one hand and a mirror in the other, are to be found in the Vienna, Windsor, Waddesdon, and other collections. They are almost invariably of German workmanship. Amongst many other jewels of similar formation the most important is a pendant in the form of a dragon in the Galerie d'Apollon of the Louvre. The modelling and general form of this jewel is very fine, and its enamel-work, chiefly of white and light blue, in the design of circles and chevrons, especially on the wings, is most admirable. It is Spanish work of the highest quality, and was bequeathed by Baron Davillier, who procured it in Spain (_Frontispiece_). Of other animal forms are those of a lion, a dromedary, a dog (termed a talbot) (Pl. XXXIV, 2), and a fish; birds include, besides a dove (the symbol of the Holy Ghost), eagles, cocks, parrots, and pelicans. Fine examples of the two latter are at South Kensington from the Treasury at Saragossa: one is mounted with a large hyacinth in front[162] (Pl. XXXIV, 1), the other is represented plucking at a blood-red carbuncle set in her breast. [162] Cf. "A juell of golde, wherein is a parret hanging" (New Year's gifts to Queen Elizabeth, 1578-9). Among miscellaneous pendants worn in Renaissance times attached to the neck-chain mention must be made of whistles. These (like the "bo'sons pipe" of to-day) were formed, as has been shown (p. 190), of a pipe or tube, sometimes in the form of a pistol, through which the air is carried into a hole in a ball, thus producing the sound. Whistles of this kind were designed by Dürer and Brosamer, and they are shown suspended at the neck in the engraved portraits of William, Duke of Juliers, and of John of Leyden by Aldegrever, in the portrait of a man by Lucis Cranach the elder (1472-1553) in the Louvre, and in portraits of the Margrave Philibert of Baden (1549) by Hans Schöpfer the elder at Munich and Nuremberg. Silver whistles of somewhat similar construction, ornamented with a mermaid or siren, or with a lion or sea-horse, were frequently worn also as charms in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. They are usually hung with little bells, possibly for the purpose of averting the evil eye--the "mal'occhio" or "jettatura" it is termed in Italy. Examples are preserved in the Cluny, Nuremberg, and South Kensington museums. In Aldegrever's design for a whistle, of the year 1539, the lower part is formed of a case containing small articles for toilet purposes. Such articles, in the shape of toothpicks and ear-picks, often richly gemmed and enamelled, were very commonly worn hanging from a fine gold chain or thread about the neck. Elaborate toothpicks are occasionally seen in pictures, as in the Venetian portrait of a young man in the National Gallery of Ireland. Their owners are sometimes shown affectionately toying with them. Judging by the frequency with which they are met with in inventories, they must have been extremely popular. A few quotations may be given. Thus: Henry VIII (1530). "Two gold toothpicks with H and E--A gold toothpick and an ear-pick, with a chain; and two other toothpicks, one with a ruby and a pearl, and the other with a ruby and a diamond--Two gold whistles."[163] Queen Elizabeth amongst her New Year's gifts received the following:--1573-4: "Six smale tothe-picks of golde. Geven by Mrs. Snowe, one of them lost by her Majestie." 1574-5: "An eare-picke of golde enamuled, garnished with sparcks of rubyes, blue saphirs, and seede perle." 1576-7: "A tothe and eare-picke of golde, being a dolphin enamuled, with a perle pendaunte, 16 small rubyes being but sparcks, and 5 sparcks of dyamonds."[164] Most of the important collections of Cinquecento jewellery contain specimens of these magnificent toothpicks. The form is often that of a mermaid or merman. The body is constructed of a baroque pearl; the tail terminates in a point. Designs for a couple of jewels of this kind were published by Erasmus Hornick of Nuremberg in 1562. In the Cluny Museum (Wasset Bequest) is a silver-gilt pendant, an ear- and toothpick combined, one end being an ear-, the other a toothpick. It is ornamented in the centre with clasped hands and hung with a pearl, and is German work of the sixteenth century. [163] Henry VIII, _Letters and Papers_, IV, No. 6789. [164] Nichols, _Progresses of Q. Elizabeth_, I, pp. 380, 412; II, p. 52. In addition to the museums already mentioned (namely, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Vienna Museum, the Rothschild and Davillier Bequests in the Louvre, and the coin or gem collections of London, Paris, Berlin, and Munich), numbers of pendants, in immense variety of form, are to be found in all the well-known collections. The Waddesdon Bequest in the British Museum contains, perhaps, the largest series; while the Wallace Collection, the Prussian Crown Treasury at Berlin, the Bavarian Crown Treasury at Munich, and the Green Vaults at Dresden, all possess a great number of examples. * * * Several English pendants of the Renaissance claim attention for their rare beauty and historical importance. Of the pendants of the time of Henry VIII we obtain a tolerably accurate idea from contemporary portraits, and from Holbein's inimitable series of drawings. The earliest existing example, which, so far as can be ascertained, dates from the Holbein period, is known as the Penruddock Jewel. It is believed to have been presented in 1544 by Queen Catherine Parr to Sir George Penruddock of Compton Chamberlayne, and Anne his wife. It is triangular in shape, and set with a large cabochon sapphire surrounded by rubies and diamonds in open-work enamel setting. This remarkable jewel is shown on a portrait of Sir George Penruddock by Lucas de Heere in possession of its owner, Mr. Charles Penruddock, at Compton Chamberlayne, Wiltshire. [Illustration: The Penruddock Jewel.] The majority of English sixteenth-century pendants extant date from the Elizabethan period, and are almost all more or less associated with the Virgin Queen. The ingenuity displayed in devising curious forms for these ornaments can best be judged from the lists of the Queen's own jewels. A few of these may be mentioned: "A juell of golde, being a catt, and myce playing with her.--One greene frog, the back of emeraldes, smale and greate, and a pendaunte emeralde, and a smale cheyne of golde to hang by.--A juell of golde, being an anker." Another "being a dolfyn," another "two snakes wounde together," others take the form of a horse-shoe, a swan, and a rainbow. The "nef" jewel, of which we have spoken, was also a favourite one. In the Queen's inventory are a number of entries of this class of pendant, and among them: "A jeuel of golde, being a shippe, sett with a table dyamonde, of fyve sparcks of dyamondes, and a smale perle pendaunte.--A juell, being a ship of mother-of-perle, garneshed with small rubys, and 3 small diamonds." One of the chief treasures among the Hunsdon heirlooms at Berkeley Castle is a pendant of this form, a present to Elizabeth from Sir Francis Drake, and given by her to Lord Hunsdon. It is supposed to represent the famous _Golden Hind_, the ship in which Drake sailed round the world. The hull, which is of ebony, is set with a table diamond; the masts and rigging of gold are enriched with blue, white, green, and black opaque enamels, and set with seed pearls. In the ship is a seated figure of Victory blowing a horn, and behind is a cherub crowning her with a wreath. The small boat suspended below is enamelled blue (Pl. XXXV, 2). A jewel also associated with Sir Francis Drake, and perhaps the most important of all Elizabethan pendants, is preserved, with other relics of the great navigator, at Nutwell Court, Devon. It is set in front with a fine Renaissance cameo in Oriental sardonyx, representing two heads--a negro in the upper and dark layer, and a classical head in the light layer of the stone. Behind is a miniature by Hilliard of Elizabeth, dated 1575. The border, of most admirable work, is richly enamelled in red, yellow, blue, and green, interspersed with diamonds and rubies. Beneath is a cluster pendant of pearls, to which is attached a very fine drop pearl (Pl. XXXIV, 4). This magnificent jewel was presented to Sir Francis Drake by Queen Elizabeth in 1579, and in his portrait by Zucchero (now belonging, together with the jewel, to his descendant Sir F. Fuller-Eliott-Drake) he is represented wearing it suspended from the neck by a red and gold cord, over a silk scarf, also a present from the Queen. The cluster of pearls, as on the Drake Jewel, was a favourite form of ornament for Renaissance pendants. In the National Portrait Gallery is a portrait of Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk (father of Lady Jane Grey), wearing a George of the Order of the Garter, below which is hung a pearl cluster and a large pear-shaped pearl attached. A similar pendant, like a bunch of grapes, serves to enrich another fine jewel of this time--the Barbor Jewel in the Victoria and Albert Museum. In the centre of this jewel is a beautifully cut cameo portrait in sardonyx of Queen Elizabeth in a frame of translucent blue and green on opaque white enamel, set alternately with rubies and table diamonds. According to a family tradition, Mr. William Barbor, who had been condemned to be burned at the stake in Smithfield for his religion, had this jewel made to commemorate his deliverance through the death of Queen Mary and the accession of Elizabeth (Pl. XXXV, 4). The Museum at South Kensington exhibits another pendant of the same period, the property of Miss Wild. It is of gold, of open scrollwork, enamelled, and set with rubies and diamonds, and with pearl drops. It has in the centre a turquoise cameo of Queen Elizabeth. The sheen of the pearls with the rich red of the foiled rubies and the dark lustre of the diamonds in their old irregular setting, combine with the lightness and delicacy of the goldwork touched with coloured enamel to render this little pendant one of the most attractive objects of its kind in existence. In addition to its artistic beauty, the jewel is of interest from the tradition that it was given as a christening present by Queen Elizabeth to its first owner, by whose descendants it has been preserved to the present day. [Illustration: _PLATE XXXIV_ RENAISSANCE PENDANTS, ETC., OF GOLD, ENAMELLED AND JEWELLED SPANISH (1-2) AND ENGLISH (3-6)] Amongst other examples in that important group of jewels which were apparently intended either as special rewards to naval officers or simply as complimentary presents from the Queen to Court favourites, the finest are the Phoenix Jewel in the British Museum, a jewel belonging to Mr. Pierpont Morgan, and one in the Poldi-Pezzoli Museum, Milan. The Phoenix Jewel, bequeathed to the British Museum by Sir Hans Sloane in 1753, has as a central ornament a gold bust of Queen Elizabeth cut from a gold medal known as the Phoenix Badge of the year 1574, bearing on the reverse the device of a phoenix amid flames. It is enclosed in an enamelled wreath set on both sides with red, white, and variegated roses symbolising the union of the Houses of York and Lancaster. The roses, of translucent red and opaque white enamel, and the leaves, of translucent green on engraved ground, are attached to stalks covered with lighter green opaque enamel (Pl. XXXV, 1). The workmanship of this jewel is extremely fine, and on a level in point of excellence with the Eliott-Drake pendant and with Mr. Pierpont Morgan's Armada Jewel. Of the last-named--a splendid production of an English goldsmith of the Elizabethan period--it is impossible to speak with adequate praise. Like the Phoenix Jewel, it is modelled upon a contemporary medal, though in an entirely different style. Upon the front is a profile bust of Queen Elizabeth from the Personal or Garter badge of 1582, upon an enamelled ground of aventurine blue, inscribed with the royal title. The opposite side forms a locket containing a miniature of Elizabeth by Hilliard dated 1580, and covered with a lid enamelled with translucent colours--on the outside with the Ark and the motto SAEVAS TRANQUILLA PER UNDAS (as on the "Naval Award Medal" of 1588), and on the inside with the Tudor rose and a laudatory Latin motto--the same as appears round the reverse of the Phoenix Badge of 1574, which refers to Elizabeth with a regret "that virtue endued with so much beauty should not uninjured enjoy perpetual life." The jewel is bordered by strapwork _à jour_ of opaque blue and white enamel set with table diamonds and rubies. This exquisite object, which is in the highest possible state of preservation, and retains its fine enamel entirely uninjured, was sold at Messrs. Christie's in July, 1902, for the large sum of £5,250 (Pl. XXXIV, 5, 6). The third jewel of this class, also undoubtedly English, is in the Poldi-Pezzoli Museum at Milan. It has in the centre a mother-of-pearl medallion with the Ark carved in low relief, of the same design as on the Morgan Jewel and the 1588 medal, surrounded by the like inscription--SAEVAS TRANQVILA PER VNDAS--in gold on white enamel, and encircled by a band of table-cut rubies. The edge is enamelled with translucent red and green, and opaque white enamel (Pl. XXXV, 3). The Ark floating tranquilly amid violent waves is emblematic of the fortunes of England, or possibly of Elizabeth, who, according to the legend PER TOT DISCRIMINA RERUM which appears on the back of the jewel, had sailed triumphantly through many dangers. No account of this important object has previously been published, nor has its nationality up to the present been noticed, or at any rate recorded. The front opens on a hinge, and shows that the pendant was intended as a miniature case--though the miniature is missing. In the times of Elizabeth and her successor miniature cases were among the most important of pendent jewels. Quite a number have survived, chiefly on account of the miniatures they enclose. Contemporary portraits show the manner in which they were worn. In the catalogue of Charles I's collections a miniature of Queen Elizabeth is thus described: "Queen Elizabeth ... very richly adorned with gold and pearls, and a picture-box hanging at her right breast." Such "picture boxes," with backs elaborately enamelled by the champlevé method, leaving only thin outlines of gold of scroll design, and hinged fronts of open-work, enamelled and set with precious stones, are among the presents which appear to have been frequently conferred as marks of recognition on favourite courtiers or subjects. It is impossible to enumerate all the various examples in public and private collections. The Victoria and Albert Museum possesses one of the best, and a beautiful specimen is preserved at Windsor Castle[165] (Pl. XXVIII, 5). A description of a third jewel of the kind, the "Lyte Jewel," will be given subsequently (p. 303). [165] See _Connoisseur_, V, p. 80. _The gems and jewels at Windsor Castle_, by H. Clifford Smith. [Illustration: _PLATE XXXV_ ELIZABETHAN JEWELLERY] Besides the enamelled and jewelled pendants there are various medals (some of which have been alluded to) suspended by a ring or chain and worn as badges by those who were personally attached to the Queen; and to the time of James I belong numerous references to medals of gold with the "King's Majestie's phisnomy" on them, mostly the work of his goldsmith, John Williams, and presented to various foreigners in official positions. Space does not permit of detailed description of the wonderful Lennox or Darnley Jewel at Windsor Castle, purchased by Queen Victoria at the sale of Horace Walpole's collection at Strawberry Hill in 1842 (Pl. XXVIII, 4). The jewel has been fully described by Mr. Tytler and Mr. Albert Way.[166] [166] Way(A.), _Cat. of antiquities and historical Scottish relics, Edinburgh, 1859_, p. 163. See also _Connoisseur, loc. cit._ It has been impossible here to convey an adequate idea of all the various specimens of sixteenth-century pendants that exist at the present day. Attention has been drawn to a few of the most striking examples which stand out above the rest, either by reason of the beauty of their design or the superlative excellence of their workmanship, or by reason of their unique historical interest. While indicating the great public collections where these things are preserved, it must be left to amateurs to discover and appreciate for themselves, as they are bound to do, what, owing to exigencies of space, we are precluded from referring to in detail. CHAPTER XXVIII RENAISSANCE RINGS, BRACELETS, AND BROOCHES The splendour-loving sixteenth century far surpassed the Middle Ages in the use of the finger ring. No other ornament of the Renaissance attained such richness and profusion. In sixteenth and seventeenth century portraits rings are represented in such quantities that the hands appear overburdened with them; while the number entered in the old inventories is astounding. Yet it is well to remember that the word _bague_, which we translate a ring, was a general term for all pendent jewels--though not infrequently a distinction in the lists is drawn between _bague à mettre aux oreilles_ (an earring), _bague à pendre_ (a pendant), and _bague à mettre au doigt_. The extraordinary abundance of finger rings in use at the time may best be judged by a list in the inventory of Henry VIII of the year 1530, which contains no less than 234. Of the large number of Renaissance rings that have survived to the present day most are of a purely ornamental character; and though many others are of interest on account of their emblematic or historical associations, those which display artistic work require the chief consideration. Out of all the rings that simply served the purpose of decoration, there are very few whose nationality can be easily determined. If it is difficult in the case of pendants and similar ornaments to come to a decision with regard to the question of provenance, it is even more so where rings are concerned. Pictures of the period, as has been said, represent persons with their hands heavily loaded with rings, which are worn upon all the fingers, the thumb included. Every finger-joint up to the very nail is covered with them, and they are worn, as by the ancient Romans, even upon the knuckles. The great projection of the rings' bezels would have rendered the use of gloves impossible, were it not, as we know from pictures, for the custom of placing the rings outside the gloves, and also for the somewhat ugly fashion of slitting the fingers of the gloves, in order that they might be worn with greater comfort, and allow the rings themselves to be displayed. In a portrait of a lady by Lucas Cranach in the National Gallery, rings are worn both over and beneath the gloves, every finger and the thumbs having two or three. The rings under the gloves appear on the top of the second knuckle of every finger, and are visible through the _crevés_ made in the gloves at these points. In other pictures by this artist, such as that entitled "Judith" at Vienna, and in the works of his contemporaries in Germany, the same slashed gloves are to be seen. Men's gloves, too, like their doublets, were slashed, as is clear from the engraved portrait of Duke William of Juliers, by Aldegrever. Bishop Hall (_Satires_, III, iv) refers thus to the current fashion:-- Nor can good Myson wear on his left hond, A signet ring of Bristol diamond,[167] But he must cut his glove to show his pride, That his trim jewel might be better spy'd. [167] See note, p. 235. The tendency of placing the stone in a very high bezel was a tradition from the Middle Ages, where a preference had always been shown for the stone being so set. The ornamental rings of the Renaissance followed a uniform outline as far as their bezels and settings were concerned. They contained, as a rule, one stone only, backed by a foil or _paillon_, and set in a box-like collet, square and pyramidal, and closed behind. The gold was rubbed over the setting edge of the stone, and the four side surfaces then decorated in a variety of ways by the application of enamel, and sometimes overlaid with an additional ornamentation in imitation of claws. The stone itself, usually table-cut, was frequently a ruby. [Illustration: Triple rings set with pointed diamonds. Device of Cosimo de' Medici. (Figured in Botticelli's "Pallas" in the Pitti Gallery.)] One peculiar variety of ring, known from the early part of the fifteenth century, is deserving of note. Its design was founded upon the natural octahedrite shape of the diamond, and was distinguished by a very high bezel, which received one half of the octahedron and allowed the other to project upwards. Rings set thus with pointed diamonds were in high favour until the middle of the seventeenth century, and were employed for writing upon glass--a practice which appears to have been much in vogue. The most characteristic examples of the _diamante in punta_ were those adopted by the Medici as their device. Three diamond rings interlaced were employed by Cosimo (d. 1464); Piero took one diamond ring held in the claw of a falcon; Lorenzo continued the device of the ring, in which he placed three feathers. The best-known representations of these three devices are figured in Paolo Giovio's _Dialogo dell' imprese_. In addition to the case for the stone, the sides or "shoulders" of the ring which held it were the subject of special artistic development. They took the form of small figures, winged creature, masks, and other ornaments in relief and richly enamelled; while for smooth surfaces champlevé enamel was employed in a variety of designs. So extraordinarily elaborate is the work on some of these rings that it would almost seem as if they were produced rather as examples of the skill of the craftsman than as objects for actual use. Several old portraits exhibit rings strung upon men's necklaces, or hung from a thin cord round the neck. A portrait by Mabuse, in the Berlin Gallery, shows a ring worn thus, and in two portraits by Lucas Cranach--one at Weimar, representing Johann Friedrich of Saxony attired as a bridegroom, and the other at Dresden, of the Elector Johann the Constant of Saxony (1526)--rings are hung similarly round the neck. Rings were also worn in the hat. A particularly striking example of this fashion is seen in the portrait of Bernhard III, Margrave of Baden, 1515, by Hans Baldung Grien, in the Pinakothek, Munich. Around his cap is fixed a thick wire-shaped band of gold, with a strip of cloth wound spirally round it. The latter serves to fix at regular intervals four gold rings, three of them set with cabochon stones and the fourth with a pointed diamond. A similar kind of decoration is alluded to in Gabriel Harvey's _Letter Book_, 1574 (Camden Society, 1884, p. 145), where a servant is mentioned carrying to a maiden an enamelled posy ring which his master had worn sewn upon his hat. The rings worn thus were in many cases betrothal or engagement rings; but those that served this purpose generally assumed special forms, and were among the most ingenious productions of the time. They were composed of twin or double hoops, and known as gimmel rings. The outer side of the two hoops was convex and elaborately ornamented, while the inner side was flat and often bore some inscription. The two hoops were wrought so exactly alike, that, together with the stones, they appeared to be one ring, yet could be separated, and the one hung from the other. Their bezels were occasionally formed of clasped hands. Ordinary one-hoop rings also bore the same design and were known as "fede" rings. Another kind of betrothal or engagement ring was the "posy" or "poesie" ring, generally of simple form, with a verse, a name, or a motto engraved inside it. The posy ring, suitably inscribed, was also used as a wedding-ring. The simple posy ring belongs, however, chiefly to the seventeenth century. The elaborate betrothal ring seems to have been employed at this time as a wedding-ring as well. It was reserved for modern times to give the wedding-ring its smooth, convenient, but artistically unimportant form. Widely distributed among the North German peasantry are certain peculiar wedding-rings, which, as a rule, contain a couple of the heart-shaped milk-teeth of the young roe-buck, with a small lock from which hang two keys--a symbol which perhaps not inaptly indicates the union of two pure hearts. Dating from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but wholly different from the Renaissance form of ring, and very large and elaborate, are the Jewish wedding-rings, which were used only at the ceremony and then preserved by the family. They are composed of a broad band adorned with filigree (probably in keeping with some ancient Oriental tradition) arranged in bosses and rosettes and enriched with light blue, light green, and other enamel. In place of a bezel there is often the model of a building with high gabled roofs and enamelled tile, pierced by windows, and having movable weathercocks on the apex; an inscription in Hebrew characters on the shank contains the motto "Good star." [Illustration: _PLATE XXXVI_ RENAISSANCE AND LATER RINGS] It was the custom to arrange finger rings upon a rod when not in use or when exposed for exhibition in the jeweller's shop, and in paintings it is no uncommon thing to see a line of rings of various patterns run on what appears to be a roll of parchment; as in the annexed illustration--a cut from a Herbal published at Frankfort in 1536. Rings arranged thus may be seen in Ghirlandaio's portrait of Costanza de' Medici, belonging to Mr. Salting; in the "Legend of St. Godeberta" by Petrus Christus; in Gerard David's portrait of a goldsmith at Vienna; in the "Banker and his Wife" by Quentin Matsys in the Louvre, and in similar pictures where a jeweller or a banker is represented. [Illustration: Rings on a roll of parchment. From _Kreuterbuch_ (Frankfort, 1536).] In Henry VIII's inventory of 1527 we find: "Upon a finger-stall, seven rings, one a ruby, another an emerald, and a turquoise, another a table diamond, another a triangular diamond, another a rocky diamond"; also in 1530: "A roll with thirty-nine Paris rings, with small stones." In the Duke of Newcastle's comedy _The Country Captain_ (1649) mention is made of an extravagant person "who makes his fingers like jewellers' cards to set rings upon." In the Pinakothek, Munich, is a most interesting picture by Paris Bordone representing a jeweller with a quantity of his treasures lying on a table before him. Every item is painted with extreme care. Twelve massive finger rings, arranged in three rows of four, are displayed in an oblong ring-box, just in the same manner as one might expect to find them in a jeweller's shop of the present day. A somewhat similar picture by Lorenzo Lotto, in the Kaufmann Collection in Berlin, represents a jeweller holding in his left hand a box full of rings and in his right a single specimen. By far the most attractive of the fine engravings of jewellery by Pierre Woeiriot of Lorraine is his beautiful set of rings published in 1561 under the title of _Livre d'aneaux d'orfévrerie_. M. Foulc, of Paris, is generally credited with the possession of the only complete set of these engravings. A perfect specimen of the work is, however, preserved in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, to which it was bequeathed by the well-known antiquary Francis Douce in 1834. It comprises forty plates, each containing one or more rings to the number of ninety-six, and furnishes striking examples of the taste and inventive genius then bestowed on these minute objects. Nevertheless, engravings can convey but small idea of the colour effect, and the wonderful charm that the actual rings possess. In order to fully appreciate them, one must visit the three great English collections of them now accessible to the public: the South Kensington Collection, containing the greater part of that formed by Edmund Waterton; the Drury Fortnum Collection in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; and above all, the collection in the British Museum, which includes the splendid series bequeathed by Sir A. W. Franks, in which were absorbed the Braybrooke, Londesborough, and some minor cabinets, together with the best from the Soden Smith Collection, as well as the choicest from the Pichon and from many foreign sales. BRACELETS The bracelet during this period plays a scarcely more prominent part than it did in the Middle Ages, and probably owing to the same reason; for in Renaissance times the fashion of leaving the arms bare was not in favour, and the long sleeves that fell over the hand were retained. A few examples presented by pictures lead to the supposition that bracelets consisted of beads of amber or jet separated by balls of gold, or of rows of cameos. Catarina Cornaro in her portrait by Titian in the Uffizi wears a bracelet upon her wrist over the sleeve, while the portrait of a lady by Cranach in the National Gallery shows that the sleeves were occasionally slashed at the wrists to exhibit the bracelets beneath them, just as were the fingers of gloves for the purpose of displaying rings. Inventories supply a certain amount of information concerning bracelets. Henry VIII in 1530 possessed seventeen, including one of "Paris work, with jacynths; and one with eight diamonds, eight rubies, fourteen pearls, and a diamond rose." Elizabeth received a large number of bracelets amongst her New Year's gifts. In the inventory of Mary Stuart's jewels are "Une paire de brasseletz garniz de cornaline lappines et agate et entredeux de doubles--Une aultre paire de brasseletz damatiste--Ung bracelet fait a facon de serpent." Others are formed, as were necklaces, of beads of filigree enclosing perfumes: "Deux braceletz dor percez a jour pleins de parfum--Une aultre paire dor a jour empliz de parfum." References to bracelets by writers of the period show that they were not infrequently worn as love tokens. Thus in Beaumont and Fletcher's _Cupid's Revenge_:-- Given ear-rings we will wear Bracelets of our lovers' hair, Which they on our arms shall twist With our names carv'd on our wrist. Also in Barnfield's _Affectionate Shepherd_ (1594):-- I would put amber bracelets on thy wrist, Crownlets of pearls about thy naked arms. Contemporary designs prove that bracelets followed the same elaborate forms as other articles of jewellery, as may be seen from the engraved designs of Ducerceau, and the _Livre de Bijouterie_ of René Boyvin of Angers (1530-1598). One of the most interesting bracelets--as far as actual specimens are concerned--is preserved at Berkeley Castle amongst the heirlooms bequeathed by George Carey, Lord Hunsdon, who died in 1603. It is of crystal and gold, 3¾ inches in diameter. The crystal, a complete circlet overlaid with open-work gold, is encrusted all round with rubies, and has at intervals four clusters of rubies around a sapphire (Pl. XXXV, 5). It is somewhat difficult to arrive at a decision as to the origin of this remarkable object. It seems to bear traces of Oriental influence in the setting of the stones, though the goldwork is of different quality from what one would expect to find in Indian work. If, like the "nef" jewel at Berkeley, this armlet is to be associated with Sir Francis Drake, it may well have been obtained by him as part of some Spanish spoil, in like manner to the "crystal bracelet set in gold" procured by Sir Matthew Morgan at the capture of Cadiz in 1596--Cadiz being then the staple town for all the trades of the Levant and of the Indies.[168] [168] _Calendar of State Papers_, Domestic, Aug., 1596. Bracelets formed of cameos are met with sometimes on portraits. The Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris preserves a pair of bracelets (Nos. 624 and 625) formed each of seven oval shell cameos representing figures of animals, enclosed in gold mounting enriched with blue enamel, and hinged together by a double chain ornamented with rosettes enamelled green. On the under side of the larger cameos which form the clasps are two interlacing C's within a wreath of palm and olive, enamelled green, and a barred S in blue enamel at each angle. These bracelets, of which the cameos as well as the mountings are of fine sixteenth-century work, have been traditionally associated with Diana of Poitiers. But the interlaced C's, according to M. Babelon, are in all probability the initials of some lady of the family of Harlay, from whom the bracelets were acquired by Louis XIV (Pl. XXXVII, 3, 4). [Illustration: _PLATE XXXVII_ RENAISSANCE BRACELETS] Bracelets, like necklaces, were not infrequently composed entirely of gold, with interwoven links, like mail-chains. A chain bracelet of this style, formed of circular fluted links, is in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Its clasp is enriched with a floral pattern in translucent champlevé enamel (Pl. XXXVII, 1). Three similar bracelets forming part of the Holtzendorff treasure from Pinnow (Ucker-Mark, N. Germany) are in the Germanic Museum, Nuremberg. They are composed of circular links, and have flat clasps like the bracelet just mentioned, ornamented with coats-of-arms in enamel. One of them bears the date 1612. BROOCHES One of the most important of ornaments throughout the Middle Ages was the brooch; but towards the end of the fifteenth century the mode of wearing garments changed, and the _côtehardi_ having replaced the mantle, brooches disappeared little by little, till in Renaissance times they were rarely employed, except as ornaments for the hat. It is true that sixteenth-century inventories contain an immense number of owches and brooches--Henry VIII had no less than 324--but nearly all these, the larger ones especially, were worn as enseignes upon the hat; while the smaller were employed not as dress fasteners, but simply as ornaments sewn or pinned at regular intervals upon the front of the dress or the borders of the sleeves. A single elaborate jewelled brooch is sometimes seen in pictures attached to the upper part of the sleeve. We see it thus on the figure of Arithmetic in Pinturicchio's famous fresco in the Appartamento Borgia of the Vatican, and later in English pictures, notably the well-known painting in Sherborne Castle, Dorset, representing Queen Elizabeth's procession in litter to Blackfriars in 1600, where the ladies of her retinue have jewels fastened to the sleeves of their right arms. The garments of this period were not fastened by means of brooches, but were closed with buttons or points, or with hooks and eyes. Sleeves were often held on by buttons to which the sleeve-loops or points were tied, while other portions of the clothing, especially if of leather and cumbersome to button, were secured with loops or hooks and eyes. The slashings of the dress were sometimes closed by buttons or pompoms formed of stones surrounded by pearls. Similar button-like ornaments, jewelled and richly enamelled, of which examples exist, were worn in rows all over the dress, but their delicate form and often irregular shape exclude the supposition that they were used as actual buttons. Of ornaments of this kind Mary Queen of Scots possessed a large number: thus--"Quatre vingtz bouttons dor esmaillez de blanc et noir garniz de chacune une perle." Others mentioned in her inventory are "à rose garniz de chacun trois perles"; others again are "percez à jour esmaillez de noir." These individual jewelled ornaments, which it was the practice to sew on the dress at regular intervals by way of trimming, may be treated as distinct from ornamentation which formed part of the actual costume, such as masses of pearls and precious stones, with which dresses were literally loaded. Individual jewels often took the form of the monogram, crest, or device of the owner, in pure gold richly decorated. A curious instance of this custom has already been alluded to in connection with what occurred during the masque given by Henry VIII at Westminster. The fashion for wearing ornaments in the form of jewelled initials was still in vogue on the quilted dresses of the time of James I. Anne of Denmark is represented in her portraits wearing them both on her ruff and in her hair, and a "jewel, in form of an A and two CC, sett with diamonds" and others of similar kind are to be found in the lists of jewels supplied to the Queen by George Heriot. Except occasionally for buttons, the chief means employed for fastening the garments was by _aigulets_ or _aglets_. These ornamental loops or eyelets, formed of cords terminating with goldsmith's work, were movable and were changed from one dress to another according to pleasure. They are seen in pictures hanging not only from slashes and various parts of the garments, but also from the cap; and Henry VIII is described as wearing a cap ornamented with gold enamelled tags. His daughter, the Princess Mary, was supplied in 1542 by her jeweller, Mabell, with two dozen pairs of _aglets_. Mary Stuart had a number, such as: "Soixante cinq esguillettes dor facon de cheuilles sans esmail," "Soixante une esguillettes dor et de perle esmaillez de rouge," and "Quatre vingtz dixhuict esguillette dor esmaillez de blanc et noir." Queen Elizabeth possessed several sets, of different colours and patterns--some gold enamelled white, some blue, others purple, and some enriched with pearls and precious stones. These jewelled aglets are now extremely rare, and are not represented in any public collection. [Illustration: Design of a bracelet by Jacques Androuet Ducerceau.] CHAPTER XXIX RENAISSANCE GIRDLES AND GIRDLE PENDANTS (MIRRORS, BOOKS, WATCHES, SCENT-CASES, AND POMANDERS) The girdle is an important ornament in the dress of the Renaissance. From the beginning of the sixteenth century it differs considerably from the mediæval pattern already discussed. In place of the stiff hoop about the hips, it was worn loosely across the body from above the right hip down towards the left thigh, where the upper garment was passed over it in a light fold. At this point was the clasp, from which hung numerous small articles necessary to the active housewife. Another style of wearing it, which appears to have been adopted for more sumptuous dress, was one where it more firmly encircled the body, and from a clasp in front, hung down in a long end, terminating in a special ornamental appendage--a scent-case or pomander. The common material was leather or stuff, such as was employed for men's girdles. The long and narrow thong of leather, termed _courroye_, was worn by all classes. Rows of such girdles are figured in the background of Jost Amman's well-known woodcut of the _ceinturier_ in his workshop, of the year 1594. The majority of Renaissance girdles, confined solely to female attire, were made entirely of silver or silver-gilt, and even of silvered or gilded bronze. They took the form of flat chains composed of links, generally with solid pieces in the shape of oblong plaques, of cast or chased work, introduced at regular intervals. The solid parts, particularly those that formed the clasps, were occasionally enriched with enamels, precious stones, or engraved gems. The majority of collections contain specimens of such girdles; but simpler kinds, composed entirely of ring-shaped links, which, judging from numerous Flemish, Dutch, and German portraits, must have been in very general use in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, are much less frequently met with. A good example of such, a chain in silver-gilt, of German work of the second half of the sixteenth century, is preserved in the Musée du Cinquantenaire at Brussels. It is formed of rounded grooved links. At one end is a rosette-shaped girdle plate set with a white crystal, and having a hook behind to catch into any link of the chain. The other end terminates in a pear-shaped pomander 3½ inches long, and divided for the reception of different cosmetics into two parts, united by a screw from below. A considerable number of girdles of leather or strips of material are found mounted after the mediæval style with buttons or studs, and instead of clasps, have buckles at one end, and at the other the pendants or chapes common in earlier times. It is not unusual to meet with girdles of Flemish or German work which, though dating from the latter part of the seventeenth century, are ornamented with Gothic patterns. The buckle and pendant (_mordant_), deeply pierced with open-work tracery of flamboyant design, are generally united by only a short thong, and are so overcharged with ornament that it is doubtful if they could have been of any practical use. Such objects appear in reality to be but specimens of their work submitted by girdlers who were desirous of obtaining admission to the Girdlers' Company. They serve to show how long-lived were Gothic traditions among the guilds. Examples in silver or bronze gilt are to be found in the Germanic Museum, Nuremberg, the Victoria and Albert Museum (No. 2304-'55), the Waddesdon Bequest (No. 226), dated 1680, the Wallace Collection (No. 783), dated 1709, and in many other public collections (Pl. XXXVIII, 3). A number of articles, both useful and ornamental, were suspended from the girdle. For practical purposes the housewife carried at her side, besides a knife, such objects as small scissors in a case, a purse, and also her keys. Cases or étuis for knives were attached either by silken cords or by chains. When cords were employed the cover of the étui was furnished with loops on each side through which the cords slid. Open quiver-like sheaths for knives hung by chains were often worn, in order to display the rich decoration of the knife-heads. [Illustration: _PLATE XXXVIII_ RENAISSANCE GIRDLES] The Italianate costume, such as is found in the type of "Vanity" in emblem books of the age, and which made its way everywhere, favoured the addition of many other accessories to the girdles, such as fans, gloves, looking-glasses, books, watches, scent-cases, and pomanders. Mirrors, besides being worn from the neck, formed, as did miniature-cases, a frequent pendant from the girdle. These were either in a frame of ivory or goldsmith's work, or inserted in the fan. Stubbes, the censor of the follies of his day, speaks of the looking-glasses which ladies carried with them "wheresoever they go." Etienne (Stephanus) Delaune has left eight engraved designs for hand mirrors of great beauty. Their handles terminate with small rings for attachment by a chain to the girdle. In the Louvre is an interesting pendent mirror-case, or rather back of a mirror, formed of an oval plaque of glass encrusted with designs in enamel on gold (_émail en résille sur verre_),[169] bearing the inscription "Grace dedans, le lis-ha." [169] Compare pp. 293 and 297. See Darcel (A.), _Notice sur émaux et de l'orfévrerie_ (Louvre), p. 81. See also Labarte (J.), _Les arts industriels_ (2nd ed., II, p. 136, 1873), "_L'émaillerie cloisonnée sur cristal_." Small books, mainly devotional, were also worn at the girdle. It appears to have been a common practice for ladies to carry such books, and in Lyly's _Euphues_ mention is made of "the English damoselles who have theyr bookes tyed to their gyrdles." Queen Elizabeth had several. Amongst the "juelles given to her Majestie at Newyere's-tyde," 1582, was "a litle boke of golde enamuled, garnished and furnished with smale diamondes and rubyes, with claspes, and all hanging at a chayne of golde." The inventory of the jewels of the Duchess of Somerset, widow of the Protector, in 1587, likewise contains "a booke of golde inamyled blacke." Two drawings for small pendent books intended to be executed in niello or black enamel appear amongst Holbein's designs for jewellery in the British Museum; and the Earl of Romney possesses a small manuscript Prayer Book in binding of enamelled gold of the same style. The most magnificent book-cover in existence, provided with loops for hanging by a chain to the girdle, is one preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum. It is of enamelled, repoussé gold, and has been ascribed to Cellini. Of less beauty, though of great interest as an example of English work, is the gold binding of a pendent Prayer Book in the British Museum. The subjects on the sides, raised and enamelled, are the Brazen Serpent, and the Judgment of Solomon, with English inscriptions around. It is said to be the work of George Heriot of Edinburgh;[170] and there is a tradition that it was worn by Queen Elizabeth. Whatever associations this object may have had with Elizabeth, there is better authority for such with regard to the small book of prayers, the property of Lord Fitzhardinge, and one of the Hunsdon heirlooms. This very interesting English jewel, measuring 2¼ by 2 inches, is of gold, inlaid with black enamel, with a rosette of white enamel at each corner. The centre of one cover is decorated with translucent red and green enamel, that of the other with a shell cameo. It contains the last prayer of King Edward VI in MS. written on vellum. The title runs: "The Prayer of Kynge Edward the VI which he made the vj of Julij, 1553, and the vij yere of his raigne, iij howres before his dethe, to him selfe, his eyes being closed, and thinkinge none had herd him, the xvj yere of his age." The book was worn by Queen Elizabeth at her girdle, and came into the Berkeley family through her cousin, Lord Hunsdon (Pl. XXXV, 7). [170] See p. 301. The Earl of Leicester, it is recorded, presented Queen Elizabeth on New Year's Day, 1581, with a long gold chain set with diamonds and "hanging thereat a rounde clocke fullie garnished with dyamonodes, and an appendante of diamondes hanging thearat." Though occasionally worn thus suspended from the neck-chain, watches appear to have been more frequently carried at the girdle--a position somewhat similar to that which they subsequently occupied upon the chatelaine. The honour of the invention of portable timepieces is probably due to Peter Henlein, of Nuremberg, in the last quarter of the fifteenth century, but it was not till a century later that they came into anything like general use. The cases, which received the same beautiful enrichment in the way of enamel-work and precious stones as was bestowed on other personal ornaments of the time, were made _à jour_ to emit the sound of the ticking and striking, and the lid was pierced with an aperture over each hour, through which the position of the hand might be seen. The makers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries endeavoured to vary as much as possible both the figure of the machine and the material in which it was placed. Not only square, oval, octagonal, and cruciform watches occur, but some in such fanciful shapes as death's-heads, books, shells, acorns, tulips, pears, etc; while rock crystal (to render the works visible) and other stones were often converted into cases. Oval watches, known as "Nuremberg eggs", are usually reckoned among the earliest, but this title was not given to watches till some time after their invention, and as a matter of fact, according to Dr. Rée (_Nürnberg_, p. 172), all egg-watches that have been preserved belong to the seventeenth century. In Hollar's set of plates of the Four Seasons, dated 1641, the lady representing Summer has on her left side depending from her girdle an object of this shape, apparently a watch. The most important pendent ornament to the girdle, from the present point of view, is the pomander, the early history of which has already been alluded to. Throughout the sixteenth, and until about the middle of the century following, the pomander formed an almost invariable adjunct to the girdle, and was occasionally, in the case of men, hung to the long and heavy chains worn at that period round the neck.[171] [171] I will have my pomander of most sweet smell, Also my chains of gold to hang about my necke. _Book of Robin Conscience_ (_circa_ 1600). Most of the pendants still termed pomanders were, as has been already noted, in reality cases for scents or different cosmetics; but from their fruit-like shape, though often innocent of the original pomander ball, they have retained the title, but solely, it would seem, in our own language[172] (Pl. XXXI, 7). [172] The only modern French word for the pomander is _cassolette_. In German and Italian there is a tendency to revive the old titles _Bisamapfel_ and _Oldano_. LATER AND MODERN JEWELLERY CHAPTER XXX SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY JEWELLERY (GENERAL) Through the whole jewellery of the late Renaissance there runs a gradual and profound change of taste. Slowly and by imperceptible stages the earlier style, with its minute enamelled figures in high relief, gives place to a desire for sparkling diamonds, and a pleasure in the glitter of faceted stones. In the sixteenth century, diamonds, rubies, and other stones played a comparatively insignificant part in jewellery, and were prized mainly for their decorative value, but during the course of the seventeenth century a more prominent rôle was gradually conceded to precious stones. Used singly at first, in table-cut form, to give a centre of interest or a note of colour, they came finally to be arranged in juxtaposition and long rows. A complete change was brought about in the whole character of jewellery by the prominence thus given to the precious stone--a position it has retained ever since. From the commencement of the seventeenth century Germany began to lose the position which, during the greater part of the century previous, she had occupied as a jewel-producing centre; while the Thirty Years' War, by handicapping her industries, caused the jewellers to seek employment elsewhere. It was mainly from France that the new ideas in the form of ornaments emanated. The French are fortunate in possessing separate words to distinguish different kinds of jewellery: _bijouterie_, a general term applied to all jewellery formed of gold, enamels, and precious stones; and _joaillerie_, used for jewellery composed of stones along with a minimum of metal-work. By the revolution of taste in the later days of the Renaissance the _joaillier_ gradually superseded the _bijoutier_; while the two crafts of the silversmith and the jeweller replaced the ancient craft of the goldsmith. Changes in the mode of wearing clothes, and in the materials employed for them, had an enormous influence on jewellery. In place of the velvet and brocade that prevailed during the Renaissance, damask came to be worn, together with an extravagant taste for lace and ribbons. The wearing of the silken stuffs that began to be issued from the factories of Lyons, and of the lace that formed their accompaniment, necessitated the use of ornaments more in keeping with these materials; with the result that the jewellery of the period assumed an open and lace-like character, suitable also for the display of precious stones. At first coloured stones were used--the ruby, sapphire, and the emerald; but soon the diamond held sole possession of the field. In Renaissance ornaments this latter gem played only a secondary part, and was employed solely for the sake of contrast, but it now appeared as the chief object in view, and formed the ornament by itself, all other parts of the jewel, the setting, and possible addition of other stones, being wholly subordinate to it. For the first general employment of the diamond in jewellery one must look back to the fifteenth century, to the invention of the art of cutting that stone, which is generally credited, in spite of Laborde's opinion to the contrary, to Louis de Berghem of Bruges in the year 1475. From that date until the beginning of the seventeenth century every diamond, as is seen both by jewels and their designs, was one of two forms: either the "point," a four-sided pyramid produced by polishing the faces of the native octahedral crystal of diamond and making them exactly true and regular; or the "table," in which the point of the crystal is reduced to a square or oblong plane, the opposite extremity being also in plane form, but of smaller extent, with sloping faceted edges. This simple cutting did so little to augment the brilliance of the diamond that the jewellers of the sixteenth century had to depend on the _tinctura_ or foiling of the stone, in which art Cellini in his treatise, with his characteristic appreciation of his own merits, tells us that he particularly excelled. The change of taste in the seventeenth century may be attributed to the opening up of the diamond fields of Golconda on the southern borders of the State of Hyderabad, at the beginning of that century, and to the enterprise of the French travellers, Tavernier, Chardin, and others, who, during their frequent voyages to Persia and India, dealt largely in precious stones. These travellers succeeded in establishing new commercial relations, which led to the introduction into Europe of abundance of precious stones and particularly diamonds; while the narratives of their journeys, furnishing more exact knowledge of the quality and value of the products of the East, attracted towards precious stones a new interest. Owing to the abundance of material imported from the East, the market for precious stones assumed an entirely different aspect; while the quantity and beauty of the material thus at their disposal spurred on the stone-cutters towards the improvement of their technique, until at the end of the century they arrived at the true cutting of the diamond. Besides the "point," which was but rarely used, the table-cut diamond alone was employed until the commencement of the seventeenth century. About that time there came into use the "rose," a half-crystal, flat at the base and with a convex top covered with a number of small facets. Stones faceted in this manner were at first mostly small and unimportant and cut very irregularly into four or six facets. Between the years 1641 and 1643, Cardinal Mazarin, a great lover of the diamond, is said to have encouraged the promotion of experiments by the Dutch lapidaries which led to the true "rose" cutting. Anyhow, a more systematic method of faceting in sixteen facets--the _taille en seize_--began to be employed about that time. This process, though it left much to be desired, was an immense improvement, and set forth the qualities of the stone in a way that had not been possible by the forms previously in use. "Roses," together with "tables," as the designs of Gilles Légaré and his contemporaries show, lasted until the invention of the "brilliant" at the commencement of the eighteenth century by the Venetian, Vincenzo Peruzzi, though rose cutting was popular for some time after, and is still used for certain stones. The "rose" leaped into fashion at its first appearance, and the taste for diamonds and other precious stones seems to have dominated under Louis XIII and Louis XIV, when they became the principal objects in jewellery. Gold was worked into the form of garlands, flowers, and all sorts of designs for the purpose of mounting precious stones and setting off their beauty. The enormous increase of luxury in this direction was entirely in keeping with the whole conception of an absolute monarchy as developed by Louis XIV, who made it the duty of the grandees of France and Spain to wear their whole property, in the form of glittering gems, and to carry the value of lands and forests upon their own and their wives' apparel when they appeared before the eyes of their sovereign. Though actual examples of the seventeenth-century jewellery are rare, at any rate in public collections, we can become acquainted with its characteristics by the numerous prints bequeathed by the goldsmiths and draughtsmen of the time. These prints, like those of the sixteenth century, were not invariably the work of their designers, since it was no uncommon practice for the master-goldsmith to have his designs multiplied for use in his own workshop, and for general circulation, by placing them in the hands of an engraver. As a rule the nationalities of existing jewels may be in some measure determined by means of the designs from which they were executed. But it is often difficult to make clear distinctions in this manner, owing to the continual artistic interchange which brought the fashions of one place to another, and caused the methods and ideas of the craftsmen to become common property. The bi-lingual inscriptions which one finds on the frontispieces of many of the pattern-books or sets of designs then published, prove that they were intended for international use. The first attempts to base the composition of the ornament exclusively upon the effect of stones arranged in definite forms, without granting the setting of the plastic metal any independent part, are found in some of the prints of Daniel Mignot, of the year 1590. Mignot, probably of French extraction, was a goldsmith of Augsburg, where between the years 1590 and 1616 he produced a number of highly important designs for jewellery, which form a link between the old and the newer styles. While following the artists of the late sixteenth century in the representation of figure designs in cartouche-shaped ornaments formed of flat strapwork curves characteristic of the older school, he presents engravings of pendants, earrings, and aigrettes, in which the stones are set in juxtaposition. [Illustration: _PLATE XXXIX_ ENGRAVED DESIGNS FOR JEWELLERY BY DANIEL MIGNOT] That the transition to the newer forms was slow, is shown in the works of the goldsmith-engraver of Amsterdam, whose models for pendants, signed with the initials P. R. K., and dated 1609 and 1617, are formed of elaborate open scrollwork of tendril design, almost destitute of stones. Exhibiting features more in keeping with those of Mignot are the designs of Paul Birckenhultz of Frankfort-on-the-Main (1617). They are of fine quality, and take the form of aigrettes and earrings set with precious stones and elaborate oval pendants terminating with pearls and ornamented with scroll ornaments intended for execution in enamel (Pl. XL, 4). Birckenhultz is the last of the German school of designers to model his work on the productions of the sixteenth-century masters. Henceforth one must look for designs chiefly to France, where an entirely new type of ornament for jewellery, such as is found in no other art production of the time, was brought into existence by endeavours to associate leaf patterns with a number of stones. Its characteristic is the use of a sort of pea-pod or husk ornament, termed _Schotenornamentik_ in German, and known generally by the French name of _genre cosse de pois_ (pea-pod style). In the designs of the time this formal ornament is largely employed for elaborate aigrettes; but owing to the jewels executed from such designs having been set with stones, the result has been that change of fashion has suffered scarcely a jewelled example to survive. As a consequence, the objects existing at the present day chiefly represent enamelled miniature-cases and pendants. The number and variety of engraved designs for this kind of ornament in the form of jewelled bouquets or palmettes, chiefly for aigrettes, dating from the first half of the seventeenth century is surprising, considering that it remained a comparatively short time in use. One of the chief advocates of this style is Pierre Marchant, who worked in Paris about 1623. His rare designs for aigrettes, and wreaths for the borders of pendants, are most graceful, and show a form of leaf ornament which is extremely happily adapted for materials in which the precious stone had to play a prominent part (p. 306). Another Frenchman who employed it is Pierre Labarre (1630), goldsmith to Louis XIV, who, together with a well-known jeweller, Julien Defontaine, had apartments in the Louvre. Amongst other French designers were Jacques Caillard (1627), Baltasar Lemersier (1626-1630), Claude Rivard (1592-1650), François Lefebure (1635-1661), and Gédéon Légaré (1615-1676), to whom as "orfévre-esmailleur," together with Pierre Bain, Louis XIV in 1671, on the suggestion of Colbert, granted quarters in the Louvre. Designs of the same nature were executed in Strasburg by P. Symony (1621) and Hans Mosbach (1626), and in Holland by Jacques Honervogt (1625). The foregrounds or bases of nearly all these engravings are remarkable for the landscapes and for the quaint and vigorous genre figures in the style of the painter-engraver, Jacques Callot, that enliven them. Of all the goldsmiths of the time the best known is Gilles Légaré of Chaumont-en-Bassigny, who was jeweller to Louis XIV, and worked in Paris about 1663. His series of designs, entitled _Livre des Ouvrages d'Orfévrerie_, is perhaps the most interesting of the kind produced during the seventeenth century. These fine compositions, when formed of precious stones, show knots and interlacings for clasps, pendants, and earrings, in which diamonds are fully displayed in rose-cut forms. As models for objects not composed entirely of stones, we find seals, rings, bracelets and chains decorated with ribbons and bows mingled with monograms, and emblems, such as death's-heads. Together with these appear tasteful arrangements for enamel-work in the form of natural flowers of great charm and delicacy. To these last reference will be made later. Contemporary with Légaré was the painter and engraver Balthazar Moncornet, who worked at Rouen and Paris. His book of designs, of which he was probably the inventor as well as engraver, entitled _Livre nouveau de toutes sortes d'ouvrages d'orfévries,_ was published about 1670[173]. The jewels, in the form of pendants, earrings, and brooches, are composed of stones set in various ways; the last plate is a miniature portrait of Louis XIV set as a brooch. All his designs are accompanied by garlands of natural flowers. [173] Reproduced by Quaritch in 1888. [Illustration: _PLATE XL_ DESIGNS FOR JEWELLERY BY GILLES LÉGARÉ AND PAUL BIRCKENHULTZ] Complete as was the change which was brought about owing to the prominence given to the precious stone, it must not be supposed that the enameller's art was by any means neglected. Though it cannot be compared with that in the best productions of the Renaissance, the enamel-work applied to seventeenth-century jewellery is, nevertheless, worthy of close attention. Enamel executed by the champlevé method was much employed. The technical process known as champlevé was performed in two ways. By one method the surface of the gold was simply incised with designs, and the grooves thus made filled with enamel. By another method only thin lines of the metal were reserved to form the design, and the remainder of the field cut out to receive the enamel. This latter system resembles in appearance the well-known cloisonné; but the metal strips that form the partitions between the enamel, instead of being inserted, are a solid part of the metal base. Commonly employed on jewellery from the middle of the sixteenth century, it remained in general favour, together with the simpler form of champlevé, till about the third decade of the seventeenth century, when it gave place to enamel-work of an entirely different kind. For jewellery intended to be carried out by this champlevé method, or on rare occasions to be covered with translucent enamels, we have at our service again a number of dated designs. These engravings, known as _Schwarzornamente_ or niello ornaments, are in the nature of silhouettes. The patterns, reserved in white upon a black ground, are composed of curves of flat and broken strapwork. The designs are occasionally for complete jewels, but most of them take the form of very small motives intended as patterns for the shoulders of finger rings, or for the borders, frames, or other details of jewels. Some engraved plates are made up entirely of such motives; on other plates they appear as details, either within a complete design or upon the field outside it. Germany and the Netherlands furnish the earliest examples of these. Several dating from the latter part of the sixteenth century are by "monogrammists," who signed their engravings with their initials, and whose names are mostly unknown--such as the German master A. C. of the year 1598. Among recognised engravers in this style are the following:--Of the German school: Arnold Jörg (1586-1596), Corvinianus Saur (1590-1597), the rare Hans Hensel of Sagan (1599), Daniel Hailler (1604), Jonas Bentzen (1615), and Daniel Mignot (1590) and P. Symony (1621), both of whom placed these motives on the field of their plates. Of the Netherlandish school is the well-known Michel Le Blon, called Blondus, goldsmith at the Court of Queen Christina of Sweden, who was born at Frankfort-on-the-Main in 1587 and died at Amsterdam in 1656. His designs in silhouette, the earliest of which, in the British Museum, is dated 1605,[174] were in great demand, and appear not only on knife-handles, but on oval and octagonal box-shaped pendants--presumably watch-cases. Also of the same school are: the rare master, Hans van Ghemert (1585), Hans de Bull (1590), the monogrammist P. R. K. (1609), and Guillaume de la Quewellerie of Amsterdam (1611-1635). In addition there is Giovanni Battista Costantini of Rome, who published his _Ornementi per lavorare Giorje_ in 1622 and 1625. [174] _Burlington Magazine_, VIII, p. 130, 1905. [Illustration: _PLATE XLI_ PATTERNS FOR JEWELLERY AND ENAMELLED JEWELS FROM SIMILAR DESIGNS] The French goldsmith-engravers, who produced designs in the "silhouette" manner intended for jewels that were to be enamelled by the champlevé method, include Jehan Vovert (1602), an anonymous engraver A. D. (1608), Jacques Hurtu (1614-1619), Stephanus Carteron of Châtillon (1615), Pierre Nolin (1620), and Jean Toutin (1619) and his son Henri (1628). The most important of these is the goldsmith and enameller Jean Toutin of Châteaudun, whose plates--six in number, dated 1618 and 1619--are filled with charming motives for watch-cases or lockets, to be carried out in enamel. They are ornamented with patterns reserved in white on black ground in the form of trailing leaves and tendrils, partly in the "pea-pod" style, and accompanied by lively genre figures in various attitudes. Perhaps the most attractive of these plates is that which represents a jeweller--probably Toutin himself--firing a jewel which he holds in the furnace by a pair of long tongs, while above is figured a model of the actual jewel--an octagonal box-like pendant (p. 289). Toutin, who appears to have been an experimenter in enamels, is entitled to distinction as the discoverer of a new process of using them. The process consisted in covering a plate of gold or copper with an opaque monochromatic enamel, on which designs were painted with colours, opaque and fusible, and of greater variety than had previously been employed. This method of enamel painting, extensively used for jewellery, proved to be peculiarly suitable to the representation of natural flowers which came into high favour about the same time. The employment of naturalistic flower designs, as displayed on the margins of manuscripts, was one of the features of late Gothic art. The same tendency with regard to flowers was manifested on the enamelled jewellery of the fifteenth century, the most striking example of which is the wonderful necklace seen on the Flemish portrait of Maria Baroncelli in the Uffizi Gallery. Renaissance ornaments on the whole did not favour naturalistic floral patterns, though flowers enamelled in full relief are occasionally found, as on the border of the Phoenix Jewel in the British Museum. The general return in the early part of the seventeenth century to flower designs for the decoration of jewellery is associated with a curious phase in the social history of the time that accompanied the deep interest then taken in flowers and horticulture. Among flowers, of which the Dutch have ever been enthusiastically fond, and never tired of growing and of painting, the most prominent position was occupied by the tulip. From about the year 1634 the cultivation of the tulip became a perfect craze in Holland, and "Tulipomania" like a violent epidemic seized upon all classes of the community. Gambling of an almost unparalleled nature was carried on in the bulbs, and the flower became fashionable everywhere. In the bouquets which the enamellers arranged with great taste, and painted with extraordinary skill, the tulip is always prominent. This and many other flowers, and occasionally fruits, were painted in the same manner as a picture, on an enamel ground of uniform colour--generally white, and sometimes pale blue, yellow, or black. Small plaques enamelled and painted thus are popularly known by the name of "Louis Treize" enamels, though the majority of them were produced after Louis XIII's death in 1643. About 1640 it became the custom occasionally to model the design in relief with a paste of white enamel, which was afterwards painted with vitreous colours according to nature. Towards the middle of the century the background of the flowers was pierced and cut away, so that every single flower, exquisitely modelled and coloured, stood out by itself. In addition to tulips of every variety, and hyacinths, sunflowers, and roses, all kinds of lilies were in favour, especially the tiger-lily, the "crown imperial," and different species of fritillaries, whose beautifully spotted or chequered blossoms were rendered in their natural colours with striking fidelity. Flowers executed in this realistic style for jewellery were arranged chiefly in garlands and festoons, in the manner of the wreaths painted by Jan Brueghel round several of Rubens' pictures, the flower pieces of such Dutch and Flemish painters as Jan de Heem, Van den Hecke, Daniel Seghers, and Van Thielen, and the wood carvings of Grinling Gibbons (himself Dutch by birth), which display the same remarkable realism. Among the goldsmiths and draughtsmen of the time who have left designs for jewels in painted enamel are the Germans Heinrich Raab and Johann Paulus Hauer, both goldsmiths of Nuremberg. Their engravings, with natural flower ornamentation very finely designed and executed, were published about 1650. They comprise crosses, étuis, scissor, watch, and scent cases, and pendants--star- and bow-shaped, and set each with a pendent pearl. Work in the same direction by the artists of the French school is of great importance. Gédéon Légaré, though he practised the pea-pod style, is the first to show a decided preference for natural flowers in his engravings, which date from about 1640. He is followed by three famous masters of flower ornament--Balthazar Moncornet, Gilles Légaré, and Jean Vauquer. Vauquer worked at Blois between 1670 and 1700, and like many other engravers of jewellers' designs, was a jeweller and enamel painter by profession. He was a pupil of Morlière of Orleans, who also worked at Blois. His fine plates of flowers and ornamental foliage, engraved after his own designs and entitled _Livre de fleurs propres pour orfévres et graveurs_, were published in 1680.[175] Vauquer was an enamel painter of pre-eminent ability, and one of the greatest exponents of the day of the art of representing natural flowers. [175] Reproduced by Quaritch in 1888. Of the designs of Moncornet (_c._ 1670) and Gilles Légaré (_c._ 1663) for jewelled ornaments we have already spoken. Moncornet, a great lover of flowers, accompanied his jewels by charming garlands. With him and Vauquer and Légaré must be associated the renowned enamel painter Jean Petitot (1607-1691), who was first an enameller of jewellery. So highly skilled was he as a painter of flower designs and foliage on rings and other ornaments, that on going over to England in 1635 he entered at once into the service of Charles I, where he brought to perfection his famous enamelled portraits. Several actual examples have survived of the enamel-work of Gilles Légaré, whose designs--the best-known of this time--reveal a charming feeling for natural flower ornaments. His _chef d'oeuvre_ is generally considered to be the garland of flowers painted in enamel in open-work relief that surrounds a miniature by Petitot of the Countess d'Olonne in the collection of Major Holford at Dorchester House. This splendid piece, on which the tints of the flowers are rendered with striking fidelity, was formerly in the collection of a great French connoisseur of the eighteenth century, P. J. Mariette. At his death it passed into the possession of Horace Walpole, who counted it as one of his special treasures. It joined the Dorchester House collection after the Strawberry Hill sale in 1842. If this magnificent enamel-work be by the hand of Légaré, and we may take Mariette's word for it that it is,[176] this clever craftsman must have worked for Petitot; for another very fine example of the same kind of work, a wreath of enamelled flowers finely modelled and painted, surrounds a miniature by Petitot in the possession of the Earl of Dartrey. [176] Mariette, _Abecedario_, IV, p. 133. To sum up the characteristic styles of seventeenth-century ornament which we have endeavoured to describe, the first feature is the general preference for precious stones, and especially diamonds, and the use of the "pea-pod" ornament for displaying them. From this style, practised by Marchant and many others, we pass, secondly, to the "Schwarzornamente" or "silhouette" designs of Le Blon and Toutin employed for champlevé enamel. Thirdly comes the development of naturalistic flower designs, and the application of these to the painted "Louis Treize" enamel evolved by Toutin, and perfected by Petitot, Vauquer, and Légaré. [Illustration: Jean Toutin in his workshop, firing an enamelled jewel.] CHAPTER XXXI SEVENTEENTH CENTURY JEWELLERY (_continued_) ENGLAND, SEVENTEENTH CENTURY The jewels of the seventeenth century, as has been observed, are comparatively rare in public collections. Unlike those of the Cinquecento, which find a more appropriate place in the museum or collector's cabinet, they are admirably adapted for personal use at the present day; but until the change of taste of the last few years in favour of old work, these attractive objects, owing to their being set with precious stones of intrinsic value, suffered cruelly at the hands of modern jewellers in the destructive process of resetting. Partly for this reason it is less easy than it was with the jewellery of the century previous to notify extant examples of all species of ornaments. Their main features, already described, lie in a preference for precious stones, and for a style of ornament which, at first formal, evolves into naturalistic flower designs in painted enamel. Widespread luxury accompanied the large importation of precious stones. Ladies made each new fête a pretext for greater extravagance and greater efforts to outshine their neighbours; and the ornament in which they seem above all to have delighted for the best display of their wealth of jewellery was the aigrette. This ornament, of which some mention has been made (p. 281), generally took the form of a bouquet of flowers on movable stalks, composed of clusters of precious stones in enamelled gold, accompanied sometimes by a jewelled knot, and was fixed in the hair on all occasions of ceremony. A large number of these bouquets are mentioned in the inventory of the French crown jewels of 1618. In default of actual examples we must rely on the designs which the jewellers of the day published for them, and also on contemporary portraits, which further illustrate a passing mode for plaiting strings of pearls through the hair. [Illustration: _PLATE XLII_ SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY ENAMELLED PENDANTS] Of earrings, on the other hand, a considerable number of examples have survived. French and English portraits show at first only a large pear-shaped pearl in each ear. In the second half of the century more elaborate earrings came into use. Spain, where these ornaments have always been popular, produced at the time a number of portraits exhibiting earrings of open-work set with coloured stones. They are in the form of a rosette or bow-shaped ornament hung with movable pendants. The engravings of Rivard (1646), Lefebure (1647), and Gilles Légaré (1663) include designs for earrings; those of the last-named being such voluminous jewels, hung with triple _briolettes_, _pendeloques_, or pearls, that they might easily be mistaken for neck pendants. The majority of earrings of this period, now existing, are of Spanish, Portuguese, or Italian origin. The general type of earring then in use is well shown in Rembrandt's portrait of Hendrickje Stoffels (about 1652), in the Louvre, where it takes the form of an elaborate pendant terminating with a big pearl drop. Necklaces of light open-work design are set with diamonds or coloured stones. These seldom have a special pendant; they were, in fact, fast disappearing to make room for rows of pearls. Jewelled pendants, often consisting of two or more mobile parts, were frequently attached to a velvet band that closely encircled the throat. More important pendants of this period are those which take the forms of mounted engraved gems or enamelled portraits, or else of miniature cases or lockets beautifully enamelled. The finest series of mounted gems is that in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris. Some of the mounts are executed in the "pea pod" style in open-work; others are ornamented with champlevé enamel, after the niello designs in the silhouette manner; others again are of natural flower designs in painted enamel. There is a noteworthy example at Paris of the pea-pod style--a cameo (No. 791) of Louis XIII as an infant. It is in an open-work frame of opaque enamel--black, dark green, and white--of about 1605, which bears a very close resemblance to one of the published designs of Pierre Marchant. In the Gem Room of the British Museum is a still finer example, and one of the most splendid jewels from the famous Marlborough Collection. It is of open-work, enamelled white and green: the husks or pods, set each with a small diamond, are in green, and the little pea ornaments issuing therefrom are in white enamel (Pl. XLIV, 17). The work dates from the first years of the seventeenth century. The gem it serves to enrich, a fine onyx cameo of Lucius Verus, is slightly earlier. The choicest example of painted enamel of flower design in open relief is certainly the mounting or frame of a magnificent pendant (No. 961) in the Bibliothèque Nationale, set with a cameo of Lucrezia de' Medici, wife of Alfonso II, Duke of Ferrara. This frame, quite unmatched for its taste and skill, is formed of a garland of flowers, open-worked, and enamelled in the utmost delicacy with white, pale yellow, and light green enamel, heightened with reddish touches (Pl. XLIII, 6). Among other jewels of the same style, of which there are quite a number, one may mention the setting of an antique Roman cameo (Pl. XLIV, 15), and the reverse of the onyx "George" of Charles II (Pl. XXVIII, 1) both English work, at Windsor Castle[177]. Besides the two beautiful examples of his work already noticed (p. 288), it is usual to associate with Gilles Légaré the frame of birds and flowers, enamelled black and white, that surrounds Petitot's portrait of Louis XIV in the Jones Collection at South Kensington. The designs of Vauquer, also, seem to have been followed in many similar kinds of enamelled jewels. [177] These are described in the _Connoiseur_, V, p. 243. [Illustration: _PLATE XLIII_ SEVENTEENTH CENTURY ENAMELLED MINIATURE CASES, LOCKETS, ETC.] The pendent miniature-cases or lockets of the seventeenth century are of great interest. The best example of those enriched with champlevé enamel is the Lyte Jewel (p. 303). The "pea-pod" style is well shown on the back of a miniature-case containing a female portrait by Peter Oliver (1601-1647) in the Dyce Collection at South Kensington (Pl. XLIII, 2). It is enamelled _en plein_ with translucent green on a ground of matted gold, with the pea-pod pattern in white, after an engraved design by the French ornamentist Pierre Firens (1605-1625). This same style of ornament is seen on a miniature-case _émaillé en résille sur verre_[178] belonging to Mr. Pierpont Morgan. Enamel-work after the silhouette engravings of the same period is represented by one of its principal exponents, Jean Toutin of Châteaudun (1618), on the front and back of a miniature-case (Plate XLIII, 1) in the possession of Mr. Pierpont Morgan, ornamented with designs _en genre cosse de pois_ reserved in gold on a ground of black enamel. Small plaques of "Louis Treize" enamel painted in natural colours on a monochrome ground were frequently employed for miniature-cases. A considerable number of these, of both French and German (Augsburg) work, exist. English work is rarer: an example, upon the cover of a miniature of Oliver Cromwell, painted with roses and leaves in natural colours on a white ground, is preserved in the University Galleries, Oxford. Enamelled flower designs modelled in relief, sometimes on open-work ground, in the manner of Vauquer and Légaré, are also found on lockets. An exquisite little example, inscribed "O.C. 1653," belongs to Mr. Max Rosenheim. It contains an enamelled miniature of Oliver Cromwell. [178] See pp. 273 and 297. Like the aigrette, an important jewel worn at this time was a breast ornament, termed a _Sévigné_, after the celebrated lady of that name. This ornament took the form of a bow or rosette of open-work, of foliated design, generally of silver, set with small diamond splinters. As the century advanced the work set with small stones and diamond sparks in substantial mounts was replaced by open-work jewels, known as "lazos" jewels, set with large flat stones, and ornaments formed of several pieces--an upper part of tied bow or knot shape and hung with pendants--all set with rose-cut stones. Much of this work, intended for the display of diamonds and various coloured stones in imitation of flowers, hails from Spain. It is admirably shown in Spanish portraits--those, for example, by Velasquez, Coello, etc; in the large series of Habsburg portraits preserved in the castle of Schönbrunn, in Austria; and in portraits of the Medici family by the painter Sustermans (1597-1681) in the Uffizi and Pitti galleries. It is here worthy of note that still in the seventeenth century we find elaborate ornamentation applied to the back of jewels--a notable feature in almost all jewellery of the finest craftsmanship. A plain surface on this part of the jewel was generally avoided by a charming use of the graver, or by means of small panels of painted enamel. Bracelets set with precious stones are generally of open-work of the same style as the necklaces. Of those executed in enamel there is a good French example at South Kensington (Plate XXXVII, 2). It is formed of six medallions, each containing a crowned cypher alternating with true-lover's knots. It may usefully be compared with Gilles Légaré's designs for bracelets and chains on Plate 8 of his _Livre des Ouvrages d'Orfévrerie_. [Illustration: _PLATE XLIV_ RINGS, SLIDES AND PENDANTS SEVENTEENTH AND EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES] The finger rings of the early seventeenth century, as far as one can judge from pictures, did not differ essentially from the late sixteenth-century types; in fact many of the ornamental rings usually ascribed to the sixteenth century really date from the first half of the seventeenth. The majority of small niello designs engraved at this period were patterns for the shoulders of rings, intended to be executed in enamel by the champlevé process (Pl. XLI). Henri, son of Jean Toutin, furnishes a couple of engravings for rings, of the year 1628, of which the whole outer surface of the hoop is covered with designs reserved in white on a black ground. De la Quewellerie of Amsterdam, 1635, has also left the designs for a finger ring in the same style. The love for "bouquets d'orfévrerie"--flower designs in coloured stones--finds expression, towards the end of the century, in the _giardinetti_ ring, the bezel of which is formed like a nosegay, a basket of flowers, or a bunch of flowers springing from a vase. These floral designs are of charming execution, and their coloured stones produce an extremely pleasing effect. Many of these rings are Italian, but there are several English examples at South Kensington (Pl. XXXVI, 9, 10). Painted enamels in flower patterns are found not only on the shoulders of rings, but covering the entire outer surface. Occasionally flowers enamelled _à jour_ occur, the hoop of the ring being hollow. Lord Falkland possesses a good example of one of these rings encircled with coloured flowers (Pl. XLIV, 8). The hollow space is filled with hair. Within the hoop is the posy _Difficulty sweetens enjoyment_. Mottoes or posies of this kind were occasionally engraved on mediæval rings and on those of the sixteenth century, but the majority of the large number of rings on which such mottoes occur belong to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Unlike the example just mentioned, these rings, with the motto engraved inside them, usually have plain hoops, and were used as engagement, and sometimes as wedding rings. The mottoes generally rhyme, but are not remarkable for poetic skill, and they are found constantly repeated. Numbers of the verses employed for the purpose are given in Jones's _Finger-Ring Lore_, and in an article published by Sir John Evans in _Longman's Magazine_ (1892). A few examples will suffice: _As God decreed so we agreed; God above increase our love; This take for my sake; The love is true I owe you; In thee my choice I do rejoice._ Posy rings, like mourning rings, to be referred to later, are almost exclusively English. As regards the ordinary ornamental ring of the period, it is to be observed that the diamond, which came so much to the front at this time, found a prominent place on it. Towards the close of the century, though enamel-work is still visible, the purpose of the ring, as at the present day, seems to have been nothing more than for displaying the diamond on the finger, so far as one may judge from some of Légaré's designs (Pl. XL, 2). The girdle in the seventeenth century was still an important ornament for ladies. The great portrait painters of the Low Countries present ladies wearing massive linked chains terminating in elaborate pomanders. Not infrequently the lady is shown, as in a picture by Gerard Douffet at Munich, holding the pomander in her hand. A fine pomander is seen in a portrait of a Flemish lady by Cornelis de Vos in the Wallace Collection, and one of extraordinary beauty is worn by a Dutch lady in a splendid picture by Frans Hals in the Cassel Gallery. Amongst the various seventeenth-century girdles to be found in public collections, without doubt the most remarkable are two examples, one in the Victoria and Albert Museum and the other in the Wallace Collection. They represent the species of enamel-work known as _émail en résille sur verre_, which was employed during the latter part of the sixteenth and the early seventeenth century for miniature and mirror cases--of which specimens in the Morgan Collection and the Louvre have already been noticed--and for the dials of watches. The girdle at South Kensington, of French work of the early seventeenth century, is formed of twenty-one oblong and slightly convex plates linked together by rosettes. These plates, of silver, are filled with glass paste, which is backed with coloured foils and inlaid with minute designs in translucent enamel on gold, representing hunting and other country scenes. The chain in the Wallace Collection, which might possibly have been worn as a neck-chain, is almost identical in subject and design, save that the oblong links number eighteen, while the rosettes uniting them are enamelled and set with garnets. The jewel which best represents the various kinds of decoration in the way of engraving and enamel-work applied to seventeenth-century ornaments is the watch. From the early part of the century the round form, more or less flat, which has been preserved from that time to the present day, began to be generally adopted for watches. All the different species of work employed on miniature-cases are found on watch dial-plates and cases. The interesting _cosse de pois_ ornament is represented in the British Museum on the dial-plate of a watch by D. Bouquet of London, of about 1630-1640. It is executed by the rare process just described--the pattern being inlaid on gold upon a ground of green glass or enamel. Another watch, by Vautier of Blois, has the centre of the dial enriched with translucent enamel in gold cloisons on opaque white. Among watches with richly decorated cases there is in the same collection another by Bouquet, beautifully enamelled with flowers in relief, of various colours and kinds, on a black ground encrusted with small diamonds. Besides the names already mentioned, the best-known enamellers of watch-cases from about 1680 to 1700 were the brothers Huault, or Huaud, of Geneva, who worked also at Berlin. No more examples need be given of the different species of enamel applied to seventeenth-century jewellery. Enough has been said to demonstrate the importance and attractiveness of the comparatively little-known enamel-work of this time. During the greater part of the seventeenth century the watch was simply hung by a chain to the girdle, as we see it on the two portraits (about 1645) of the wife of John Tradescant the younger in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. The elaborate chatelaines which attached the watch to women's girdles, and the chains which hung from the fob-pocket of men, belong rather to the eighteenth century; but they were already in use, and from them were suspended that most attractive article of jewellery, the seal, which was then beginning to take the place of the signet ring. Evelyn, in his _Mundus Muliebris_, or _Voyage to Marryland_ (1690), gives a rhyming catalogue of a lady's toilet, and alludes to the chatelaine:-- To which a bunch of onyxes, And many a golden seal there dangles, Mysterious cyphers, and new fangles. The designs of Légaré contain several charming pendent seals having their shanks or handles finely worked with monograms and other patterns (Pl. XL). Seals, however, together with the chatelaine and the rest of its accompaniments, will be spoken of later. There remain various pieces of jewellery, such as buckles, clasps, or brooches, which were sprinkled on different parts of the dress. Like the sévigné or breast ornament, they often take the form of a tied bow, and find a place on the arms and shoulders, and in rows down the front of the bodice and the skirt. In the latter part of the century jewelled buckles replaced the rosette of ribbons on the shoe. Thus again Evelyn speaks of:-- Diamond buckles too, For garters, and as rich for shoo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A manteau girdle, ruby buckle, And brilliant diamond rings for knuckle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A saphire bodkin for the hair, Or sparkling facet diamonds there: Then turquois, ruby, emrauld rings For fingers, and such petty things; As diamond pendants for the ears, Must needs be had, or two pearl pears, Pearl neck-lace, large and oriental, And diamond, and of amber pale. ENGLAND, SEVENTEENTH CENTURY In England in the time of James I, the love of personal ornament, among men as well as women, was even more widespread than before. King James, and also his Queen, who herself possessed a highly extravagant taste for jewellery, set a public example by their patronage of the jewellers; while the nobility outbid one another in lavish expenditure. John Chamberlain, an entertaining correspondent of the day, writes thus in 1608 to a friend unable to attend a masque: "Whatsoever the devise may be, and what success they may have in their dancing, yet you should be sure to have seen great riches in jewels, when one lady, and that under a baroness, is said to be furnished for better than a hundred thousand pounds; and the lady Arabella goes beyond her, and the Queen must not come behind." Contemporary chroniclers have left no descriptions that show precisely how the King's own person reflected the fashions in jewellery of his day, yet we know that he possessed an almost childish admiration for "bravery," as it then was termed, particularly such as was intended for the decoration of those about his person. A very curious instance of the King's interest in these matters is to be found in the elaborate instructions he issued concerning the despatch of a large consignment of jewels for the use of the Prince of Wales, and his favourite, Buckingham, on their memorable journey to Spain in 1623. In the spring of that year orders were given to several officers of State, and with them the jeweller Heriot, to repair to the Tower and make a selection of the finest jewels there--some fit for a woman, and others for the Prince to wear. Among them a "jewel called the Three Brothers, five or six faire jewels to be worn in men's hats, same to be of £6,000 or £7,000 value, and none under; the five pendent diamonds that were the Queen's, whether they remain upon a string or be made up upon a feather. If none of the Targett fashion for hats, the jewels to be broke up to make them."[179] [179] _Historical MSS. Commission_, IV, p. 286. To his son and favourite the King then addresses a letter, in which he tells them that he had been choosing "the jewells I am to send you, whereof my Babie is to present some to his Mistresse, and some of the best hee is to wear himselfe, and the next best hee will lend to my bastard brat [Buckingham] to wear." On their removal from the Tower the jewels are carefully inventoried, and Heriot is set to work to refashion them. After a fortnight's work he promises that they will be finished in a few days. So, on the 18th of March, "the jewels," we learn, "have been delivered." "Mr. Herriot is gone to assist in packing them, and has sat up day and night to get them completed."[180] [180] _Calendar of State Papers, Domestic_, March 18, 1623. The King then writes that he is sending for his "Babie's owin wearing ... the Three Brethren,[181] that you knowe full well, but newlie sette, and the Mirroure of Frawnce, the fellowe of the Portugall Dyamont, quhiche I wolde wishe you to weare alone in your hatte with a litle blakke feather." To his "sweete Gosseppe" he sends "a fair table dyamonde." "I have hung," he says, "a faire peare pearle to it for wearing in thy hatte or quhair thow pleasis."[182] [181] See p. 209. [182] Nichols, _Progresses of James I_, IV, p. 830. A complete list of the jewels removed from the Tower is given in _Archæologia_, XXI, p. 148. As the result of extensive transactions both with the Crown and the nobility the jewellers of the day seem to have reaped a rich harvest; and they attained to positions of eminence by adding banking to their more ancient art of working in the precious metals. Of the royal jewellers, George Heriot of Edinburgh--rendered immortal by Sir Walter Scott as "Jingling Geordie"--the founder of Heriot's Hospital, comes first to mind. Heriot received in 1597 a life appointment as jeweller to Queen Anne of Denmark, and in 1601 James made him his own jeweller. He followed the King to London, and in 1603, together with William Herrick and John Spilman, was appointed jeweller to the King, Queen, and Prince, at a yearly salary of £50. Immense sums of money were paid him both as interest on loans and for the jewels supplied to their Majesties, of which long lists have been preserved. Sir John Spilman, a German by birth and one of the chief jewellers of Queen Elizabeth, executed great quantities of jewellery at the royal commands; but Sir William Herrick seems to have obtained an even larger share of the royal patronage. Queen Anne of Denmark, who spent an enormous amount on personal ornaments, received £36,000 worth from him alone. "Queen Anne," writes a contemporary shortly after her death, "hath left a world of brave jewels behind; and although one Piers, an outlandish man, hath run away with many, she hath left all to the Prince [Charles] and none to the Queen of Bohemia [her daughter Elizabeth]." In fact, so many of her jewels were embezzled that scarcely a vestige remained, though Herrick produced the models of them and swore to their delivery.[183] The poet Robert Herrick, Sir William Herrick's nephew, was a jeweller-apprentice to his uncle for several years, and his early training seems to have left a strong impression on him, for his poems throughout betray a love and appreciation for jewels. Among other jewellers whose names occur in the State Papers, the following may be mentioned: Philip Jacobson, Arnold Lulls, John Acton, and John Williams--a maker of gold neck-chains and pendent medals. [183] Nichols, _op. cit._, III, p. 548. As far as the actual productions of the Jacobean jewellers are concerned we meet with comparatively few examples; this want, however, is supplied, to a certain extent, by means of a beautiful set of contemporary drawings for jewellery preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum--the work of Arnold Lulls, a jeweller whose name occurs several times in the royal accounts. In conjunction with Sir William Herrick, Lulls supplied the King in 1605, as New Year's gifts for the Royal Family, with jewels to the amount of £3,000. For a certain jewel of diamonds, with pearls pendent, and two dozen buttons supplied by him and Jacobson, and bestowed by His Majesty on the Queen at the Princess Mary's christening the same year, Lulls was paid £1,550.[184] [184] Devon (F.), _Issues of the Exchequer, James I_ (_Pell records_), p. 49. Lulls' designs, drawn in water-colours in a parchment book, number altogether forty-one. The majority, set with large table-cut stones and hung with huge pear-shaped drops, are for pendent ornaments, for wearing either on the neck-chain, or as earrings, or else upon the hat. Among the drawings are two designs for a "rope of round pearls, great and orient"--forty-seven in number--given to the Queen, and several designs for the above-mentioned diamond and pearl ornament given her in 1605; two drawings for Georges of the Order of the Garter given to Prince Henry; and designs for a large balas ruby with pearl pendant mentioned in an inventory of the Prince's jewels.[185] The remaining drawings include four of jewelled aigrettes set with diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and sapphires (Plate XXX, 1). These remarkable contemporary illustrations of English jewellery reveal the change then beginning to take place in the character of personal ornaments. Yet, though precious stones are much in evidence, in almost every case their settings are coloured, while the design of each jewel is completed with charming scrollwork enriched with polychrome enamels. [185] _Archæologia_, XV, p. 19. The finest Jacobean jewel in existence is the famous miniature-case known as the Lyte Jewel, now in the Waddesdon Bequest in the British Museum. Miniature-cases of gold elaborately enamelled, with hinged fronts often set with jewels, were as much in vogue as in Elizabeth's time; and records show that many precious "picture cases" of the kind were made for James I as presents to personal friends or to ambassadors. The cover of the Lyte Jewel is of open-work, filled with the letter R, with diamonds on the outside and brilliant enamel within. The back is a white enamelled plate with a design in fine gold lines and ruby enamel, the edge being enamelled alternately ruby colour and sapphire-blue. Within is a portrait of James I ascribed to Isaac Oliver. The first owner of the jewel was Mr. Thomas Lyte. This gentleman drew up a long pedigree of King James I's ancestry and presented it to the King, who was so much pleased with it that he rewarded Mr. Lyte with "his picture in gold, set with diamonds, with gracious thanks." The jewel passed from the Lyte family some generations ago into the hands of the Duke of Hamilton. At the dispersal of the Hamilton Palace collection it was bought for the sum of £2,835 by Baron Ferdinand Rothschild, who bequeathed it with his other art treasures to the British Museum. A contemporary portrait of Thomas Lyte, dated 1611, in the possession of Sir Henry Maxwell Lyte shows him wearing it suspended from a brown ribbon round his neck. The jewel is the same, save that the drop at the bottom, now a single pearl, was originally trilobed. This exquisite jewel was probably the work of one of the court jewellers mentioned above. The design on the back, which corresponds in style with engravings of Daniel Mignot and the other earlier designers in the "silhouette" manner, exemplifies the influence exercised by the ornamentists on all the jewellery of the period (Pl. XLI). Throughout the reign of Charles I ornaments in the same style as those portrayed in Lulls' drawings appear to have remained in use. All jewellery was largely influenced by the pattern-books issued from the goldsmith-engravers' shops of Germany, France and Flanders. Several jewellers themselves came over, as did the well-known Michel Le Blon, in the early part of the reign. In 1635 the famous goldsmith-enamellers Petitot and Bordier likewise visited England, and doubtless made their influence felt on the enamelled jewellery of the time. The period, on the whole, though it terminated disastrously for all the sumptuary arts, seems to have been a prolific one in the production of jewellery. The chief business was shared by the court jewellers--James Heriot (half-brother of George Heriot), Philip Jacobson, Thomas Simpson, John Acton, and William Terrey. Though he showered commissions on these jewellers, the King had commenced early in his reign the dispersal of the immense hoards of jewellery brought together by his predecessors; and by selling and pawning raised large sums of money, to make good the deficiencies caused by the rupture with Parliament. Subsequently, during the Civil War, to relieve his personal necessities, numbers of jewels were sold at home, and many more pawned and sent over to the dealers at Amsterdam, who broke them up for the intrinsic value of their gold and precious stones; while the remainder were put under the hammer by a commission appointed after the King's death to dispose of the works of art in the royal collection. [Illustration: _PLATE XLV_ PAGE FROM THE LEDGER OF SIR FRANCIS CHILD, JEWELLER TO WILLIAM III] The fact that all classes during the struggle parted with their valuables to assist their respective champions has rendered jewellery extremely rare. Women, and even little children, voluntarily sent their necklaces and brooches "for the King"; while Cromwell was assisted in the same manner. Great luxury in jewellery appears to have been associated with the Court of Charles II. The King himself bestowed magnificent presents on his mistresses. Amongst his jewellers was "that prince of goldsmiths," Sir Robert Vyner, who made the crown jewels. Later on King Charles had as court jeweller the celebrated French traveller and gem merchant Sir John Chardin, who settled in London with an immense collection of precious stones acquired in the East. Another eminent jeweller of the time was the banker Alderman Edward Backwell, whose old books, still preserved, are full of interesting accounts for jewels supplied during the Commonwealth and the reign of Charles II. The religious troubles which had led Chardin to quit France induced a number of other French jewellers, after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, to establish themselves in England. These foreign jewellers, like the army of craftsmen in every field that at all times swarmed into England, soon accustomed themselves to their environment and became as English as the English themselves. English work has ever had its own distinctive mark, for whatever the native craftsmen themselves borrowed they speedily made their own. The chief jeweller of the latter part of the century was Sir Francis Child--one of the founders of the great banking house that still bears his name. He was appointed court jeweller to William III in 1689, and supplied the King with a great quantity of jewellery. Much of this was intended as presents to ambassadors; for jewellery, it appears, played a very prominent part in the diplomatic affairs of the day. Even the most trifling negotiation cost the Exchequer an enormous amount in presents of this kind, while foreign envoys were likewise obliged to disburse large sums for the same purpose. Lists of these gifts and of other jewels are preserved in the ledgers of this ancient firm of goldsmith-bankers, and have been published by Mr. F. G. Hilton Price in _The Marygold by Temple Bar_. A set of drawings for jewels of about the year 1674 from Sir Francis Child's ledger, with particulars concerning them in the great goldsmith's own handwriting, is here reproduced (Pl. XLV). [Illustration: Design for a pendent miniature-frame by Pierre Marchant.] CHAPTER XXXII EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY JEWELLERY The jewellery that came into fashion towards the close of the seventeenth century and flourished during the greater part of the eighteenth follows the style known as "rococo." Rococo ornament with its assemblage of rich fantastic scrolls and crimped conventional shellwork wrought into irregular and indescribable forms, though overcharged and inorganic, yet possesses certain beauty and artistic quality. Like most objects in this style, rococo jewellery has a real decorative charm. But the title of baroque or rococo is really less adapted to jewellery than to other art productions of the time, for jewellery itself never indulged in the same extravagant use of this form of ornament. Except for slight changes in design, eighteenth-century jewellery, as far as its general form is concerned, does not at first display any marked variation from that of the previous century. A charming but somewhat superficial sentimentality expressed by means of pastoral subjects results in ornaments on which tokens of friendship are represented in all manner of forms. The naturalistic tendency in ornament is still strong, but is less striking than it was before, since feather, ribbon, and other conventional designs make their appearance, mingled with flowers and leaves. These rococo jewels, on account of the setting and arrangement of the precious stones which entirely govern their composition, are in their way masterpieces both technically and artistically. Unlike the earlier jewels, one cannot help regarding them rather more as accessories to costume than as independent works of art. The general character of the jewellery of the period with which we are now dealing may best be judged by a notable series of original designs in colour for such objects executed by the Santini family of Florence, and now preserved in the Library of the Victoria and Albert Museum. This remarkable collection comprises upwards of 382 separate designs, which are mostly constructed in a manner best calculated to show off the brilliant character and size of the stones and pearls, on which their effect mainly depends. A large proportion of the drawings take the form of what at this period constituted a parure, or set of jewels, composed of three items of similar design--a bow-shaped breast ornament hung with a cross, and a pair of earrings _en suite_. In place of the breast ornament is sometimes a V-shaped corsage in imitation of hooks and eyes or braidwork, set with various precious stones. The whole work shows that in the eighteenth century the stone cutter and stone setter had practically supplanted the artist in precious metals. In the metal-work of the settings--in most cases a matter of minor consideration--gold is employed for coloured stones and silver for diamonds. The general tendency is towards the rococo, but this type of ornament is here by no means strongly marked. In other directions, however, it is more apparent, and already in the seventeenth century we meet with traces of it in engraved designs for jewellery. The best work of this kind is that of Friedrich Jacob Morisson, a draughtsman and jeweller who worked at Vienna from about 1693 to 1697. He was one of the most popular jewellers of the day, and his plates, which are rich in motives for ornaments in precious stones and fine metal-work, found a wide circulation. They comprise aigrettes, earrings, brooches, pendants, bracelets, rings, étuis, and seals. Other Germans who have left designs in the same style are F. H. Bemmel (1700) of Nuremberg, D. Baumann (1695), Johann Heel (1637-1709), and J. F. Leopold (1700)--all of Augsburg. French designers led European taste in jewellery as in furniture, and published a number of important designs. The most remarkable are those of the master-goldsmith Jean Bourguet of Paris, whose models for earrings, pendants, and clasps, dated 1712 and 1723, are set with large faceted stones, and have their backs chased or enamelled with flower designs. His _Livre de Taille d'Épargne_ with designs for enamel-work published as models for jewellers' apprentices, contains amongst other patterns a series of twelve rings set with large faceted stones; beside each ring is a design for the enamel decoration of its shoulder: "Petits morceaux" he calls them, "de taille d'épargne facile à coppier." Contemporary with Bourguet was Pierre Bourdon, of Coulommiers en Brie, who worked at Paris. His designs, dated 1703, are for seals, scent cases, and watch covers of rococo work, and pendent medallions and miniature frames set with precious stones. Among other Parisian designers are the master-goldsmiths Briceau (1709), and Mondon (_c._ 1730-1760) whose _Livre de Pierreries, Pour la Parure des Dames_ contains patterns for earrings, brooches, and aigrettes set with brilliants, and for enamelled and jewelled watches. Of Italian designs for jewellery set with precious stones in the rococo style we may note those of G. B. Grondoni of Genoa, who worked at Brussels about 1715, Carlo Ciampoli (1710), and D. M. Albini, whose _Disegni moderni di gioiglieri_ were published in 1744. The publication in London of several series of designs proves that England was not far behind the Continent in the production of high-class personal ornaments. Among the most important pattern-books for jewellery, are those of Simon Gribelin, who was born in Paris in 1662, and worked chiefly in London, where he died in 1733. His work includes _A book of seuerall Ornaments inuented and ingraued by S. Gribelin, 1682_, and _A Book of Ornaments usefull to Jewellers_, etc., 1697. These were republished in 1704. Gribelin's productions were followed by those of J. B. Herbst, who issued in 1708 _A book of severall ornaments fit for Juweler, made by J. B. Herbst_, and in 1710 _A Book of Severall Juwelers work, ... Sold by Mr. Eymaker, Juweler in Earls Court drury lane London_. The patterns are chiefly for seals, and for breast ornaments and clasps set with rose-cut stones in rococo settings. About the same time similar pattern-books were published by J. Smith and Thomas Bowles. In 1736 appeared _A book of jeweller's work design'd by Thomas Flach in London_, engraved by J. Fessey. It contains designs for buckles, seals, watch-keys, a chatelaine with a watch and another with an étui, pendants and bow-shaped breast ornaments hung with drop pearls. In 1762 J. Guien published in London a _Livre de jouailleries--A book of Ornaments for Jewellers_, containing various designs in precious stones in the manner of Morisson and Grondoni. An isolated phenomenon in the midst of the universal love for precious stones that then dominated the productions of the jewellers, there stands out Johann Melchior Dinglinger, who carried the traditions of the sixteenth century far into the eighteenth. Born at Biberach, near Ulm, in 1665, Dinglinger worked first at Augsburg, and, having visited Italy, was summoned to Dresden in 1702 by Augustus II, Elector of Saxony, where he lived until his death in 1731. During these thirty years, aided by his brother Georg Friedrich (d. 1720) and his son Johann Melchior (1702-1762), he was employed as court jeweller to the Elector, whom he assisted in planning and arranging the Grüne Gewölbe at Dresden, which marvellous assemblage of precious objects contains the best examples of his work. All the processes of the Cinquecento craftsmen, of whose technique he possessed a fine knowledge, were employed by Dinglinger with wonderful care and exactitude--though his productions naturally betray in design the period of their execution. He exercised considerable influence on his contemporaries, more especially with regard to the revival of the art of enamelling in the second half of the century, when jewellery made a notable advance in the time of Louis XVI. A change in style was first experienced on the arrival in power of Madame de Pompadour, who led the way in that coquettish return to simple conditions of life which showed itself in the pastorals of the Louis Quinze epoch. It resulted in a preference for simple gold; this metal, coloured by alloys such as platinum and silver, and popular under the name of _à quatre couleurs_, being at most only set off by enamel painting. This later rococo period, as far as its technique is concerned, is one which has never been equalled either before or since. An event of importance in the history of jewellery, as of art generally, was the discovery in 1755 of the city of Pompeii, succeeding that in 1713 of Herculaneum, buried for centuries beneath the ashes of Vesuvius. The journeys of artists to Italy and to Naples, and the interest aroused thereby in ancient art, a weariness with the mannerism of rococo ornament, and the whim of fashion, gradually transformed jewellery like other decorative arts, and resulted in the classicism of the style of Louis XVI. Antique forms as they then were known showed themselves in a very charming manner in well-balanced jewels, where different coloured gold took the form of classical motives in the midst of ribbons, garlands, and the pastoral subjects dear to the previous epoch. Enamel returned into fashion, and accomplished its chief triumph with painting _en plein_ in fine transparent tones over _guilloché_ gold. In conjunction with the art of gem setting and cutting, and metal chasing, this species of enamel produced effects which were all the more surprising, seeing that it was often confined to the smallest of spaces. Among the first craftsmen who created, or followed the fashion, was the jeweller Lempereur. Some of his designs were published by his pupil Pouget the younger in 1762 and 1764, in a treatise entitled _Traité des pierres précieuses et de la manière de les employer en Parure_, the plates of which, mostly coloured, and representing models of jewellery of all kinds set with precious stones, were engraved by Mlle. Raimbau. Another pupil of Lempereur, August Duflos, published in 1760 a similar work entitled _Recueil de Dessins de Joaillerie_. Other French designers of jewellery at this time were: Maria, a jeweller of Paris, who issued about 1765 an important series of plates, thirty-five in number, of pendants, brooches, clasps, chatelaines, aigrettes, seals, rings, and buckles; P. Moreau (1740-1780) and J. B. Fay (1780-1790), both of Paris; and L. Van den Cruycen (1770) of Brussels. In 1770 was published in London by T. D. Saint _A new book of designs for jewellers' work_ containing eleven plates of ornaments of various kinds in the style of Pouget and Duflos. One of the last English jewellers of the old school was George Michael Moser (1707-1783), one of the founders of the Academy--like Fuseli, a Swiss by birth, and a native of Schaffhausen. He was originally a gold chaser--"the first in the kingdom," so Sir Joshua Reynolds described him; but when that mode of decorating jewellery was put aside in favour of enamels, he turned his attention to enamel compositions of emblematical figures, much in vogue for the costly watch-cases of the day, for chatelaines, necklaces, bracelets, and other personal ornaments. He succeeded so well in this class of work that the Queen patronised him, and he executed a considerable number of commissions for the King. Another eminent jeweller, who was likewise a painter and enameller, was Augustus Toussaint. He worked principally with his father, a noted jeweller of Denmark Street, Soho, and exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1775 to 1778, sending in both miniatures and enamels. He died between 1790 and 1800. Several of the fine open-work jewelled frames which held the choice miniatures of the day, were made in the workshop of Toussaint the elder, and on his death his son Augustus is said not only to have retained for his own use all the examples of these frames which were in stock, but to have continued to supply a few fellow-artists, with whom he was on terms of intimacy, with the celebrated Toussaint frames.[186] [186] Examples of these jewelled frames are preserved in Mr. Pierpont Morgan's collection of miniatures. For the information respecting them I am indebted to the kindness of Dr. Williamson, author of the catalogue of that collection. The excess of ornamentation and the desire for jewellery formed of precious stones had, since the seventeenth century, favoured the use of imitations. Rock crystal or quartz had long been employed to imitate diamonds. Forgeries and imitations which were intended to pass as precious stones will be spoken of in another place. But at this time even people of great wealth wore imitation jewels, such as certainly would not be worn by persons in a corresponding position nowadays. These made no profession of being real stones. They were recognised as imitations. The credit of the production of the first satisfactory substitute for the diamond is due to a German--Stras or Strass by name--who about 1758 established himself at Paris on the Quai des Orfévres, where he met with great success as a vendor of paste imitations of diamonds, which still bear his name. Competitors were not slow in making their appearance, and one Chéron also gave his name for a considerable time to the false diamonds that issued from his workshop. So large and flourishing did the industry in imitations become that in 1767 a corporation of _joailliers-faussetiers_ was established in Paris. Imitation pearls were likewise very largely worn; even ladies of high position did not disdain to wear them--"Un collier de perles fausses" occurs in the inventory of the jewels of Madame de Chamillart made on her death in 1731. False pearls first appeared in Paris about the time of Henry IV, the production of one named Jaquin, whose descendants carried on a large business in them in Paris till the middle of the eighteenth century. "So well have pearls been imitated," writes Pouget the younger, in 1762, "that most of those of fine Orient have found their way back from Europe to Asia, and are so rare in France that nowadays one scarcely sees any good specimens." Productions such as these were rendered necessary to satisfy the luxury which from the nobility had extended over the whole middle classes, and also on account of the strained condition of French finance. Étienne de Silhouette, Controller of Finance, endeavoured to cut down expenses, and issued in 1759 an invitation to the wealthy to bring in their jewels to be converted into cash for the benefit of the Treasury. Such attempts at economy, though rewarded only by ridicule, so that portraits henceforth executed in the commonest manner were _à la Silhouette_, yet met with this result, as Pouget observes, that since the time of M. de Silhouette marcasite had become very much the fashion in France. In Switzerland, too, since it was forbidden to wear diamonds, ladies, he tells us, wore no other ornaments than marcasite, and spent a good deal of care and money in the setting of it. The mineral known as marcasite, a word which was spelled in many ways, is a crystallised form of iron pyrites cut in facets like rose diamonds, and highly polished. It was used for a number of ornaments. Steel, likewise cut in facets, was similarly employed. Steel jewellery appears to have been invented in England, and from Birmingham, the centre of its manufacture, found its way all over Europe, reaching France by way of Holland. It was carried out largely by Boulton and Watt and other firms of Birmingham, Sheffield, and Wolverhampton. This steel jewellery, which was in high favour in the latter half of the eighteenth, continued to be worn until the second quarter of the nineteenth century, when it finally went out of fashion. Even after that, cut steel was still made at Birmingham, and the firm of Hipkins, one of the most prominent, continued for many years to supply the Court of Spain with buttons and buckles ornamented with it (Pl. LI, 1, 2). Steel was largely employed as mounts for the fictile cameos of Wedgwood, Tassie, Adams, and Turner, which were in considerable demand for rings, brooches and buttons. Mountings for these were also made in silver or Sheffield plate, principally the work of Thomas Law & Co., of Sheffield. In the latter part of the century England occupied a unique position with regard to the production of objects of this kind, which were eagerly sought for throughout the whole of the Continent. Another characteristic of the changed condition of the times was the use in jewellery, together with strass, false pearls, and marcasite, of various substitutes for gold. The best-known of these substitutes was "pinchbeck," so called after its inventor, Christopher Pinchbeck (d. 1732), a clock and watch maker, of Fleet Street. This pinchbeck gold was an alloy of copper and zinc. When fused together the metals assumed the colour of fine gold, and preserved for a time a bright and unoxidised surface, though in some cases objects thus fashioned received a washing of gold. Pinchbeck was much used for cheaper jewellery of all kinds. The larger articles made of this metal were chatelaines, snuff-boxes, and étuis, while watch-cases, miniature-frames, buckles, clasps, and so forth, are to be found for the most part ornamented in relief and carefully chased. These several articles to which pinchbeck was suited, went in those days by the name of "toys". The term "Toyman" was employed by Pinchbeck himself, but the title had, of course, no reference to what are now known as toys. In France and Germany a metal composition like gold, in imitation of pinchbeck, called _Similor_ or "goldshine," was produced, first by Renty, of Lille, about 1729, and subsequently improved by Leblanc, of Paris. But the name of the English inventor of the metal was well known in France, where it was retained in such forms as "pinsebeck" or "pinsbeck." * * * The head-ornament--the aigrette--was still an important jewel in the eighteenth century. Generally a kind of delicately formed bouquet of precious stone in very light setting, it continued long in fashion, together with strings of pearls among the hair. For a while the aigrette was set aside for bows, small birds, etc., made of precious stones mounted upon vibrating spiral wires which were then attached to the hair-pin. These went under the name of "wasps" or "butterflies." In the days of Marie Antoinette they were supplemented by hair-pins and aigrettes set entirely with diamonds, which about 1770 had almost entirely superseded coloured stones. Many designs for these head-ornaments were published by Pouget the younger and Duflos, the latter of whom complains in the preface to his work of the tendency shown in his day to do away with the admixture of coloured stones with diamonds; a proof that up to this date, in spite of the general preference for the diamond, taste had not yet learned to do without colour effect in jewellery. [Illustration: _PLATE XLVI_ EIGHTEENTH CENTURY JEWELLERY, FRENCH AND ENGLISH] Earrings, as has been noticed in reference to the Santini designs, were in particular favour at this period. The majority were composed of large faceted stones or of pearls, formed _girandole_ fashion--that is to say, of a large circular stone above, with three _briolettes_ or pear-shaped pendants below. A pair of earrings of this form, said to have belonged to Madame du Barry, are in possession of Lady Monckton. They are set each with four sapphire pastes of very fine quality; the three drop-pendants being separated from the upper stone by open spray-work of silver set with white pastes (Pl. XLVI, 5, 6). Similarly elaborate pendent earrings in seven sections composed of brilliants are seen in an original mezzotint portrait of Queen Charlotte by Thomas Frye (_c._ 1760). Drop-shaped pendants, mostly diamonds, were then very highly esteemed. Marie Antoinette had a pair of diamond earrings with stones of this form hanging from a perpendicular line of large brilliants. The designs of Ciampoli, Mondon, Guien, Pouget, Van den Cruycen, and Fay, all contain varieties of earrings, mostly _girandole_ fashion. For necklaces the engravings of these same designers supply many patterns. Like the _carcan_ of the fifteenth century, they are often in the form of a band about an inch in width, composed of precious stones--rubies, emeralds, pearls, and diamonds--in open-work, or attached to velvet. They are generally constructed so as to reach only half-way round the neck, the back part being a band of black velvet. Portraits of the time frequently exhibit ropes of pearls, and finally rows of large diamonds, like the renowned _collier_ of Marie Antoinette composed by the Court jewellers Boehmer and Bossange. Numerous circumstances connected with it, too lengthy to relate here, gave to the _affaire_ of the diamond necklace a world-wide celebrity, making it one of the chief events of the century. Though historically one of the world's most famous pieces of jewellery, the necklace itself, described in quaint but vivid language by Carlyle in his _Miscellanies_, calls for no special comment, being on the whole of comparatively small artistic importance. Its value--£90,000, a great sum for those days--lay in the size and quality of the brilliants and _pendeloques_ of which it was composed. A favourite point of adornment in female attire was still the breast, where, in the first part of the century, jewelled ornaments, or _sévignés_, in the form of bows and rosettes, hung with pendants and set with table-cut stones or rose diamonds, continued to be worn. Generally they assumed the _girandole_ shape hung with pear-shaped pendants. About 1770 a large bunch of flowers, or a bouquet-shaped ornament formed of precious stones, was worn in the breast. For the latter the jeweller Lempereur enjoyed a great reputation. Upon the stiff bodice, which came into fashion at the end of the seventeenth century, scope was afforded for a goodly use of ornament, and soon we find the corsage literally covered with jewels, in a manner similar to that in which the ladies of the Renaissance almost completely covered the upper part of their dresses with pendent chain-ornaments. At the time, however, of which we now speak the ornaments are single pieces mounted upon the dress and arranged symmetrically in the form of a jewelled "stomacher" or _devant de corsage_. The Santini drawings contain many examples of this kind of open framework composed of precious stones; and several interesting designs for the same are figured on Plates 16, 17, and 18 of Maria's _Livre de Dessins de Jouaillerie et de Bijouterie_. At this period also, when luxury reached its climax, even the _panier_ or tucked-up upper skirt had the whole of its exaggerated dimensions sprinkled with pieces of jewellery, so that of this time again it may be said that the ladies of the Court displayed the whole of their wealth, and often enough of their credit too, upon a single dress. Fashion endeavoured to fill a corresponding part in gentlemen's attire by adorning coat and waistcoat with buttons of artistic workmanship. To match the beautiful embroidered garments of the time, buttons were sewn with bugles, steel beads, or spangles; and many have survived which may be reckoned as real articles of jewellery. Every material and mode of decoration was applied to them. Occasionally we find buttons set with diamonds and other precious stones, but more often paste, or with odd natural stones such as agates, carnelians, marcasite, blood-stones, lapis-lazuli, or buttons of tortoise-shell, or of compositions such as Wedgwood ware, in frames of cut steel. Translucent blue glass or enamel, mounted or set with pearls, diamonds or pastes, and chased and coloured gold, were all fashionable. On the whole, cut steel was the most popular. A Birmingham craftsman by name of Heeley, who worked for Wedgwood about 1780, is recorded is being especially skilful at this class of work; while in France a certain Dauffe had almost a monopoly in the production of steel objects. Certainly some of the open-work steel buttons of the time--English as well as French--are jewels of a very high order. Bracelets were mostly formed of bands of velvet with oval clasps. The clasp was decorated in a variety of ways, and was very frequently fitted with a painted or enamelled miniature. The practice of wearing miniatures in this way seems to have been a common one, judging by the numerous advertisements inserted in the London _Public Advertiser_ about the middle of the century by "ingenious artists," willing on "reasonable terms to paint elegant portraits in miniature for bracelets, rings, etc." Madame de Chamillart had amongst other jewels "Un petit portrait en mignature en forme de bracelet garny de quatre diamants, monté en or." In fact, according to Fontenay, the terms _bracelet_ and _boîte à portrait_ had for a time practically the same meaning.[187] Cameos were sometimes employed as bracelet clasps, but not to the same extent as they were subsequently under the Empire. In the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris are two portrait cameos in sardonyx (Nos. 788 and 927) which served as the clasps of the bracelets of Madame de Pompadour, and were bequeathed by her to Louis XV in 1764. The work of the celebrated gem-engraver Jacques Guay, the one represents Henri IV, and the other, which is signed, Louis XV. The mounting of each, an admirable example of French jewel-work of the time, is formed of a circlet of emeralds arranged in the manner of a laurel wreath, and tied at intervals by cords of rose diamonds terminating above and below in knots. Among other decorations for bracelets, mention may be made of the celebrated enamels produced at Battersea between 1750 and 1775, very many of which, oval in shape, were set in gold frames so as to be easily mounted in bracelets. The productions of the rival establishment at Bilston, in Staffordshire, were similarly employed, and, like the former, were frequently worn as buttons. [187] _Les bijoux anciens et modernes_, p. 294. [Illustration: _PLATE XLVII_ EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY NECKLACES, ETC.] The finger ring in the eighteenth century was a particularly favourite jewel. That considerable attention was paid at the time to the design and decoration of the ring, may be judged from Bourguet's designs, which contain patterns for enamel-work intended for its enrichment. The beauty of the sentiments displayed on the rings of the time is nowhere more charmingly expressed than on an English wedding-ring at South Kensington, which is formed of two hands in white enamel, holding between the thumbs and first fingers a rose diamond in the shape of a heart set in silver and surmounted with a jewelled coronet. It bears the date 1706 (Pl. XXXVI, 3). Other rings of similar style have the bezel formed of two precious stones in the form of hearts united by a knot. Rings which served simply as souvenirs of affection were very popular. In addition to the plain gold ring engraved with a posy or motto, were rings containing a like sentiment read by means of the first letters of the stones with which they are set. The most typical ring of the period is perhaps the _marquise_ ring, which dates from the second half of the century. The bezel, which is oblong, and either oval or octagonal, is often of such size that it covers the whole joint of the finger. It is formed of a plaque of transparent blue glass on matted gold, surrounded with diamonds, and set either with a single diamond, or with several arranged at regular intervals, sometimes in the form of a bouquet. Often instead of diamonds are pastes and even marcasite. Of other varieties of rings of the time it is necessary only to mention those set with Wedgwood cameos, or with stones such as moss-agates, and a form of agate somewhat similar, but of lighter colour, called the mocha stone. Mourning and memorial rings, of which this period was so prolific, will be spoken of subsequently. An ornament that showed a peculiarly wide development throughout the eighteenth century was the shoe-buckle. Various kinds of buckles are recorded in the _Caution to the Public_, issued in 1733, in connection with his famous ware, by Edward, the son of Christopher Pinchbeck. They include the following: buckles for ladies' breasts, stock-buckles, shoe-buckles, knee-buckles, girdle-buckles. Of these the most important was the buckle worn on the shoes of every one--man woman, and child--attached to the latchet or strap passing over the instep. It assumed all sorts of forms and was made and enriched with every conceivable material. It is interesting to observe that in spite of the immense number produced, hardly any two pairs of buckles are precisely alike--this is shown in the case of the collection of Sir S. Ponsonby Fane, which contains upwards of four hundred specimens. Towards the last years of the century buckles began to be supplanted by shoe strings. During this period of transition many attempts were made to foster their use.[188] On tickets to public entertainments at the time one occasionally finds a notice that "Gentlemen cannot be admitted with shoe strings." The latter, however, won the day, and about the year 1800 shoe-buckles disappeared from use. [188] See _Connoisseur_, XII, p. 81. The chatelaine was perhaps the most characteristic of all eighteenth-century ornaments. It was exceedingly popular, and formed, it may be observed, a very favourite object of the time for a wedding present. It usually consisted of a shield with a stout hook, suspended from which were several chains united by another plate or shield which carried the watch. Besides this were two or more chains for holding the watch-key or seals. Extraordinary skill was exercised in the elaboration of chatelaines. The plaques, hinged or united by chains, withstood the incursion of the precious stone that dominated all other forms of jewellery, and afforded peculiar opportunities for the display of the art of the goldsmith in chased and repoussé metal-work enriched with exquisite enamels. The jeweller's whole artistic skill was thus exhibited, not only upon the shields, but upon the solid links of the chains and upon the various breloques hung therefrom. The chief of the latter was of course the watch. Its dial-plate was enriched with enamel, and chased and coloured gold: even the hands when made of gold showed a high degree of skilled workmanship within a very small space. The principal ornamental part was, however, the outer case; and it may be maintained that there was not any species of work connected with the goldsmith's art that was not displayed in its finest form upon watch-cases, more especially in the time of Louis XVI. [Illustration: _PLATE XLVIII_ EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY CHATELAINES] Beside the watch was hung the watch-key and seals, and all sorts of ornamental knick-knacks, as étuis and such-like. The elaborate chatelaine upon which nearly every conceivable kind of trinket could be attached, is the "equipage" thus described by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu in her fourth _Town Eclogue_:-- Behold this equipage by Mathers wrought With fifty guineas (a great pen'orth!) bought! See on the tooth-pick Mars and Cupid strive, And both the struggling figures seem to live. Upon the bottom see the Queen's bright face; A myrtle foliage round the thimble case; Jove, Jove himself does on the scissars shine, The metal and the workmanship divine. While women carried elaborate chatelaines, men hung from the watch in the fob-pocket bunches of seals which dangled beneath their embroidered waistcoats. Thus in _Monsieur à la Mode_, published about 1753, we read of-- A repeater by Graham, which the hours reveals; Almost overbalanced with nick-nacks and seals. It was the seal above all which experienced particular artistic development. Ever since the sixteenth century the seal had been worn in addition to the signet ring. Though hung perhaps like a pomander from a chain at the neck or from the girdle, the seal seems to have been but rarely displayed on the person until the general introduction in the early seventeenth century of the watch, to which for more than a couple of centuries it was a regular accompaniment. The majority of seventeenth-century seals are of silver with the arms engraved in the metal; others of steel are on swivels and have three faces; others, again, of gold set with stones engraved with heraldic devices, have finely worked shanks, occasionally enriched with delicate enamel-work. The gold seals of the eighteenth century, which are among the best examples extant of rococo jewellery, are of open-work in the form of scroll and shell patterns, of admirable design and workmanship. It is out of the question to attempt a description of the numerous attractive forms these pendent seals assumed, or the peculiar interest they possess from an heraldic point of view. About the year 1772 fashionable men carried a watch in each fob-pocket, from which hung bunches of seals and chains. From the custom set in England of introducing masculine fashions into dress, ladies likewise wore two watches, one on each side, together with rattling breloques, seals, and other appendages. In addition to the real watch with beautifully enamelled back which adorned the left side, they wore on the right what was called a _fausse montre_ or false watch. These false watches were, however, often little less costly than the genuine article, being made of gold and silver, with jewelled and enamelled backs. The front had either an imitation dial-plate, some fanciful device, or a pin-cushion. For those of less ample means the _fausse montre_ was made of gilt metal or even of coloured foils. CHAPTER XXXIII NINETEENTH-CENTURY JEWELLERY THE MODERN REVIVAL Jewellery of the nineteenth century presents a very variegated picture both as regards material and technique, as well as in the display of every conceivable style. It is not so much a particular character of its own that has marked the jewellery of each epoch of the century, as a peculiar form of reproduction or rather reconstruction of older styles of art, based for the most part on false traditions. The whole period was an eclectic one, and the majority of its productions--the result of nothing less than aimless hesitation and fruitless endeavour to revive the forms of the past--display at least doubtful taste. Throughout the greater part of the time France led the fashion, and every one of the political changes she underwent left its mark on her artistic productions. After the desolate epoch of the Revolution, under which the whole standard of jewellery was measurably lowered, a revival of something approaching luxury was experienced under the Directory. This was succeeded about the year 1800, owing to the stimulating dominance of the First Consul, by circumstances of real luxury. The period dating from Napoleon's accession to the Imperial Dignity four years later, till about 1814, was one of considerable importance in the history of jewellery. The severe and academic influence of the leading and most popular artist of the day, the painter David, and of his pupils, with their extravagant taste for the antique, was universally felt. Yet while the antique celebrated its triumph in all directions, the Empire failed to shake itself entirely free from eighteenth-century styles. As far indeed as jewellery was concerned, the classical revival cannot be said to have been altogether unhappy; for its ornaments are not without a certain charm. Like all else, they breathed the spirit of the past, and are not less formal and rigid than the other art productions of the period. It was under the short-lived reign of the associated kings, termed the Directory, that the taste for the antique first became thoroughly dominant. Jewellery of all kinds assumed classical forms. The few individuals who were fortunate enough to procure them wore ancient Greek and Roman jewels; the rest had to be content with facsimiles of objects discovered at Pompeii, or simple copies adapted from representations on early vase paintings, sculptures, or engraved gems. So exaggerated became the enthusiasm for the antique that, following the lead of Madame Tallien and Madame Récamier, the fashionables of the period adopted in its entirety, without regard for differences of climate, what they deemed to be classical costume, and appeared on public promenades in Paris with unstockinged feet in sandals that allowed them to exhibit jewels upon their toes. [Illustration: _PLATE XLIX_ EMPIRE HEAD-ORNAMENTS] The affected classicism of the Republic and First Empire stimulated the use of engraved gems. Far from cameos and the less decorative intaglios being considered out of place with fine precious stones, they often occupied positions of honour, surrounded and mounted occasionally with important diamonds. In the majority of cases, however, they were used alone and were made up into special ornaments by themselves. Antiques were worn when procurable, but the greater number of gems were of modern manufacture, carefully studied both as regards technique and style from ancient examples. Somewhat later, small mosaics, on which were figured classical subjects or buildings of ancient Rome, were also employed. These, together with cameos, generally on shell, were produced in quantities, particularly in Italy, where cameo cutters and mosaic workers still carry on a somewhat languishing trade in ornaments of this nature, Venice, Florence, and Rome sharing in the industry of mosaic jewellery; Rome, Naples, and the whole of Southern Italy in that of cameos. The production of both kinds of objects is now in a sterilised condition. They have entirely lost their earlier qualities, for the reason that they find but little favour and have ceased to be worn by the upper classes. Except during the height of the First Empire the fashion for engraved gems never took a very thorough hold. Ladies have seldom a taste for archæology. If a few, in accordance with the current idea, affected a sober and refined style of ornament, the majority soon wearied of the burden of cameos in the necklace and bracelet, and preferred sparkling stones to the delicate cutting of the gem. The general and instinctive preference for brilliant jewels did more than anything to kill the attempted employment of antique forms and designs. As regards technique, the metal-work of the early nineteenth century generally displayed considerable poverty of material. The gold, if not pinchbeck imitation, was usually thin, light, and of low quality, with simple designs in the form of clusters of grapes. Borders of leaves and flowers in the antique style were stamped and chased sometimes in open-work, with small rose-shaped ornaments applied. Granulated, beaded, and purled work was much employed, and the surface of the metal was often matted. Artistic effect in chased work was produced by the use of ornamental inlays, or rather overlays, of coloured gold. Actual jewel-work and settings, as a rule, displayed good quality of workmanship. The general tendency lay in the direction of the coloured stones popular in ancient times--the topaz, peridot, aquamarine, and amethyst; together with precious stones, such as emeralds, rubies, sapphires, and diamonds, and with pearls. The latter were generally reserved only for the most sumptuous ornaments, but were occasionally used in conjunction with jewels of less value. The stones most commonly used were carnelians, moss-agates, turquoises, garnets, pink and yellow topazes, as well as coral, mingled together. Wedgwood ware and its imitations, popular in the latter years of the eighteenth century, continued for some time to meet with favour, while paste jewellery was also worn to some extent. On every species of jewellery the taste for the antique was clearly visible. Ornaments for the head took the form of frontlets and diadems, hair-combs, hair-pins, triple chains, and strings of pearls. Earrings were in general use, together with necklaces, brooches, bracelets, rings, and girdles. The chief head-ornaments were wide metal combs, fixed in the hair in such a manner as to be visible from the front. The general form of the Empire comb, with its upright rows of pearls or coral, is well known, since a number of examples exist. At the same time frontlets or _tours de tête_ were worn on the upper part of the forehead and over the hair. These, enriched with pearls, cameos, or precious stones, took the form of broad bands or coronets. Another ornament, which did not, however, come into fashion till about 1820, was the _ferronnière_--a band round the head, with a jewel in the middle of the forehead. It was generally a fine gold chain, but might be made of velvet ribbon or silken cord, or strings of beads. The origin of its title has been given in connection with Italian jewellery of the fifteenth century. Cameos and moss-agates entered largely into the composition of necklaces as well as the various coloured stones mentioned above. Cameos often assumed considerable proportions. They were occasionally set with precious stones, and were linked together with fine chains. Bracelets were much worn, three on each arm: one on the upper part of the arm, a second just above the elbow, and a third upon the wrist. They were usually composed of a number of small chains, or even a band of velvet; while the clasp was formed by a cameo, or else an amethyst, peridot, or topaz set in stamped and pierced gold. Girdles for the most part were fashioned in the same manner as bracelets, with a large cameo on the clasp. [Illustration: _PLATE L_ EARLY NINETEENTH-CENTURY JEWELLERY] The pictures in the gallery at Versailles afford perhaps the best idea of ornaments in the Empire style; since jewellery is more clearly represented on French portraits than on any others of the time. Among the most striking of such portraits are those of Marie Pauline, Princess Borghese, by Lefèvre, of Caroline Buonaparte, Queen of Naples, by Madame Vigée-Lebrun, and of Madame Mère, by Gérard. The first has a high comb and bandeau, earrings, and girdle, all decorated with cameos, the second a parure of pearls and cameos, and the third a head-ornament mounted with a single large cameo. The coronation of Napoleon in 1804 furnished the painter David with the subject of a picture unrivalled in its kind--"Le Sacre de Napoleon I^e^r à Notre-Dame," which is exhibited in the Louvre. This grandiose production, besides being a truly epic rendering of a great historical event, serves as a valuable document in the history of jewellery, in that it represents jewellery of the most magnificent kind carried by Josephine, the princesses, and the ladies of honour. The Empress is shown wearing comb and diadem of precious stones, brilliant earrings, and a bracelet on the wrist formed of two rows of jewels united with a cameo. Her suite have, besides, necklaces and girdles mounted in several cases with cameos. Josephine herself possessed a perfect passion for engraved gems, and she actually induced Napoleon to have a number of antique cameos and intaglios removed from the gem collection in the Royal Library and made up into a complete parure of jewellery for her own use. A German speciality of the expiring Empire was the cast-iron jewellery, brought into favour largely on account of the prevailing scarcity of gold and silver. A foundry for its production was first set up in 1804 at Berlin, where articles of great fineness were cast in sand moulds. In the year 1813, the time of the rising against the Napoleonic usurpation, more than eleven thousand pieces of iron jewellery were turned out, and among them five thousand crosses of the new order of the Iron Cross. In that year appeared the well-known iron rings. During the War of Liberation, when every man joined the Prussian regiments to fight against the French, the patriotic ladies who remained behind laid at the Altar of the Fatherland their valuable jewels, which were melted down for the benefit of the national war-chest. For the articles thus surrendered they received in exchange from the Government iron finger rings bearing the words "Eingetauscht zum Wohle des Vaterlandes," or the famous inscription "Gold gab ich für Eisen." In addition to crosses and rings, other jewels, such as diadems, necklaces, brooches, and bracelets, were executed in cast iron, open-worked and in relief (Pl. LI, 8). Complete parures comprising a comb, necklace, earrings, and bracelets are not infrequently met with, and the name of the manufacturer, such as "Geiss, Berlin," etc., is sometimes found stamped on them. Most of the work is in the antique taste, and is occasionally adorned with classical heads in the manner of Wedgwood and Tassie. Considering the material and method of production, the fineness and lace-like delicacy of this iron jewellery is little less than marvellous. [Illustration: _PLATE LI_ BUCKLES AND NECKLACES LATE EIGHTEENTH AND EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURIES] Another kind of nineteenth-century ornament, particularly popular in the first half of the century, was hair jewellery. It was favoured possibly in some cases less by inclination than by that necessity which had originally led the way for the use of iron and other less valuable materials. Finger rings, bracelets, necklaces, and watch-chains were plaited of the hair of the departed, brooches and medallions mounted with it, and even ornamental landscapes constructed of strands of human hair. Hair was worn as a gift of affection from the living; but it was chiefly employed for mourning or memorial jewellery. It will be referred to again when mourning jewellery is dealt with. We enter about the year 1830 into the Romantic period--the days of the heroines of Balzac, the days when Byron and Ossian were _à la mode_, the days of a fancy chivalry and mediæval sentimentality, of Sir Walter Scott, and above all of the Gothic revival. Gothic motives, rampant in architecture, make their appearance also on bookbindings, furniture, and other things, and influence jewellery to a certain degree. Among the leaders of the movement so far as it affected jewellery were the goldsmiths Froment Meurice, and Robin, whose productions, executed in accordance with the Romantic taste, assumed the form of armoured knights, on foot, or fully equipped on horseback, lords and ladies in mediæval costume, and jewels which took the shape of compositions of a similar "elegant" nature. At this period cameos were still worn, but seldom of strictly classical character. Sentimental hair jewellery likewise continued, as did the iron jewellery. The latter, however, no longer displayed classical forms, but debased Gothic designs. Chains of various kinds were in considerable favour. They were usually looped up at intervals with circular or oblong plaques of thin and coloured gold set with small turquoises and garnets. With the development of machinery appeared thin goldwork, ornamented with stamped and pressed designs. Work of this kind, characteristic of its first decades, extended far into the nineteenth century. As far as men's jewellery is concerned there is little or nothing to chronicle. Strangely enough, the masculine delight in splendid jewels that had existed up to the end of the eighteenth century, came all at once to an end, along with that older world on the ruins of which Napoleon rose. Almost all that remained to them was the bunch of seals, often of considerable size, that hung by a silken cord from the fob. It is true that occasionally beaux and macaronis actually wore earrings. But these were not employed solely as ornaments, but largely as the result of a fanciful idea, still prevalent in certain quarters, of the value of such objects against diseases of the eye. Fashion next, about the middle of the century, harked back to rococo, and imitated the style of Louis XV. It was rococo of a kind, but lay as far from the eighteenth century as did Romantic Gothic from the Gothic of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Design for the most part was deplorably bad, defects in this direction being passed off under a glitter of stones. Instead of the close setting which had so long satisfied the jeweller, open setting for precious stones became universal. Countless old and valuable ornaments perished. The diamonds and other precious stones were picked out of them and transferred to newer settings, and the beautiful old metal-work was ruthlessly melted down. Many fine jewels during the course of the nineteenth century have likewise been spoiled and reduced in value by their owners attempting to adapt them to a prevailing fashion. Vast is the number of family treasures that have undergone the fate of remounting. It is to be hoped that the new-born interest in the beautiful work of earlier craftsmen may help to save what is left from the same sort of destruction that the ancient churches of our land have undergone as the result of ill-judged "restoration." THE MODERN REVIVAL Long prior to the developments that have taken place in recent years, attention had been attracted to the artistic qualities of gold and an impetus given to the manipulation of the simple material. It was early in the "sixties" that notice was first drawn to the gold jewellery then being executed in Rome, and the discoveries that had been effected in the working of the wrought metal by the firm of Castellani. The head of this famous family was the goldsmith Fortunato Pio Castellani, one of the best-known jewellers and dealers of his day. In 1814, at an early age, he started a business in Rome, which he developed about 1826 on the lines of the antique work. The process of production of the old granulated gold jewellery of the ancient Etruscans--that in which the surface is covered with minute grains of gold set with absolute regularity--had long been a puzzle and problem to jewellers. Castellani was deeply interested in the lost art, and searched Italy through to find some survival of it. At last in St. Angelo in Vado, a village of the Apennines, in the corner of the Umbrian Marches, he found a caste of local goldsmiths who had preserved it in what seemed to be an unbroken tradition. He transported some of them to Rome, and together with his sons Alessandro and Augusto succeeded in imitating the tiny golden grains of the Etruscans and soldering them on to the surface of jewels. The work he accomplished in this direction has become famous all the world over. In 1851 Fortunato retired, and on his death in 1865 his property was divided--Augusto retaining the business, Alessandro setting himself up as a collector and dealer. Augusto, born 1829, carried on the traditions of his father's atelier, and was afterwards promoted to the Directorship of the Capitoline Museum. Alessandro, the elder brother, was perhaps one of the most striking personalities of his age. Born in 1824, he first assisted his father; but his political opinions, which led him to take an active part in the revolutionary movement in Rome in 1848, and implicated him in the conspiracy of 1852, resulted in his imprisonment in the Castle of St. Angelo; but successfully feigning madness, he was liberated and sent out of the Pontifical States. He then proceeded to travel about exploiting the productions of the Casa Castellani. Gradually he devoted himself to archæological pursuits. His knowledge of these matters was profound, and he became the finest expert of his day. He was continually collecting, and dealt largely, his chief customers being the museums of Europe and America. The finest of the antique jewellery in the British Museum was purchased from him in 1872-1873. A few years before, in 1867, his unrivalled series of peasant ornaments, gathered together from all parts of Italy, was acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum, which also made large purchases at the sale that took place after his death in 1883. The art of filigree and granulation practised by Castellani was carried to still greater perfection by another Italian, Carlo Giuliano, who was largely indebted to the discoveries of his compatriot. Examples of his work, with that of Castellani, are in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Since his death, his business house in London has been continued by his sons. Another Italian who has surpassed both Castellani and Giuliano in the reproduction of the antique is Melillo of Naples. His jewellery, though "copied closely from ancient models, has a certain modern _cachet_" and is in fact "a translation of the most refined ancient art into modern language." An eminent English jeweller, whose name is worthy of record, was Robert Phillips of London, who died in 1881. He also came under the influence of Castellani. At the same time he was responsible for the production of some of the most original work executed in England during the Victorian era. A forerunner in France of the modern movement in artistic jewellery, and one entitled to a high place in the history of the art, was the goldsmith Lucien Falize (b. 1838), who was a partner with M. Bapst, crown jeweller of the Second Empire. He succeeded Bapst as official goldsmith to the French Government, and died in 1897. Another great French jeweller was Eugène Fontenay, author of the important history of jewellery, who died in 1885. Side by side with the improvement in taste which during the last few years has prompted people to preserve old jewellery, and a genuine love for its peculiar and indefinable attractions which has induced them to collect it, the present age has witnessed a truly remarkable revival in the artistic production of articles of personal ornament. The general awakening that has taken place in the industrial arts has nowhere made its influence more strongly felt than in respect to jewellery. Owing to the example set by the highest artistic spirits, which has affected even the ordinary productions of commerce, there has arisen a new school of jewellery, the residue of which, when the chaff of eccentricity on the one hand and coarse workmanship on the other is winnowed from it, consists in works which combine the charm and sense of appropriateness requisite to objects of personal adornment with qualities that mark them as individual works of art. The ornaments of the past reveal an elemental truth of art which it may be to the ultimate advantage of the decorative artificer of modern times to study and to imitate. They show, particularly in their most refined periods, that the simplest materials and the simplest modes of decoration can be associated with beauty of form and purity of design, and that the value of a personal ornament does not consist solely in the commercial cost of the materials, but rather in the artistic quality of its treatment. In the revival of the arts in the latter part of the nineteenth century the artistic styles of the past began to be carefully studied, and for the first time were brought together and exhibited as models. They have undoubtedly exercised a profound influence both on design and technique. It is well at the same time to remember that personal ornaments, as indeed all productions of former times, which are thus shown in museums, must not be reckoned with from one standpoint only. The intention of their public display is to afford material for instruction, investigation, and inspiration, for the craftsman, the student, and the "man in the street." Their function in this respect is not only to produce artists and craftsmen, or even connoisseurs, but to inspire the lay public with a love of beauty, and to induce a divine discontent with the ugliness with which it is surrounded. Though it is very well to use and reproduce the forms and motives of the past, an indefinite persistence in that attitude is liable to be construed as a confession of æsthetic sterility. But while empty revivals and false adaptations are to be rejected, the reckless race after originality, resulting in the eccentricity which is so rife in modern art, should especially be avoided. It is the desire for originality instead of a modest devotion to fine workmanship, "a love for the outrageous and the _bizarre_, and a lack of proportion, both in form and in choice of material," that has ruined much of the jewellery produced under the _Nouveau Art_ movement. If colour and form produced by a study of harmony and a limited appeal to nature could be united to elaboration and minuteness of finish, with symmetrical arrangements freed from purely mechanical detail of ornament; if more insight could be obtained into the spirit which produced those splendid fragments that have survived from the past, there would be a gradual return to a style of work wherein the inherent preciousness of material might be accompanied by a fuller appreciation of its artistic possibilities, and a way opened to the restoration of the art of the goldsmith to the honourable place it once held. Apart from matters of design the new movement has resulted in great changes in the artistic aspect of jewellery. In distinction to the tendency hitherto prevalent which bids the metal mounting of jewellery to be rendered almost invisible, the working of gold and silver has once again become a matter of some moment. A second change, due to the study of old models, has been the revival of enamelling--an art which offers many an opportunity for the exercise of the craftsman's taste and skill, and has once again resumed its proper position as handmaid to the goldsmith. A third change has been the wider choice and employment of stones. Till recent years only those stones that are reckoned as fine--the diamond, ruby, emerald, and sapphire--have been allowed a place in jewellery. Though their commercial value can never be set aside, precious stones are now valued, as they were in Renaissance times, for the sake of their decorative properties. The taste for colour effects in jewellery has resulted in the adoption of certain gems not very precious, yet sufficiently rare, while the artistic value of broken colour in gems is beginning to be appreciated in purely commercial productions. There is now a welcome tendency to use such stones as the aquamarine, peridot, zircon, topaz, tourmaline, chrysoprase, and others of beautiful colour and high decorative value. For a precious stone, as has been truly said, "is not beautiful because it is large, or costly, or extraordinary, but because of its colour, or its position in some decorative scheme." The present master of the jeweller's art is René Lalique of Paris, universally recognised as the greatest of modern artists in this class of the fine handicrafts. He possesses a perfect mastery over materials of all sorts, even of such as ivory, horn, and mother-of-pearl, and above all enamel, especially that in open settings. To his wonderful dexterity of technique he unites a fertile imagination and infinite resource of design in the direction of naturalistic forms, as flowers, winged insects, and human figures. The style of Lalique, freed entirely as it is from the forms of tradition, is carried out by several artists of individual talent, such as Lucien Gaillard, Gaston Laffitte, Georges Fouquet, Comte du Suau de la Croix, Vever, René Foy, and Louis Bonny. It has, in addition, hosts of imitators, whose productions are wrought with rare skill, but display, nevertheless, singular disregard of appropriateness and utility, and are further marred in many cases by eccentricities of design. Much original, if not always very attractive, work has been produced also in Germany and Austria since the full expansion of the _Nouveau Art_ movement about the year 1897. Among the first in Germany to display activity in the design and production of jewellery in the new style have been the artists Hirzel and Möhring, and Piloty of Munich. Van der Velde, Olbrich, and Schaper and J. H. Werner of Berlin have all obtained a reputation for their work in this direction. The movement has been fostered with success in the leading art schools, under the superintendence of Gnauth at Nuremberg, Hammer and Göss at Karlsruhe, Graff at Stuttgart and Dresden, and Luthmer at Frankfort. The chief centres in Germany for the production of jewellery are Pforzheim, Hanau, and Gmünd. The leading craftsmen of Pforzheim are Zerrenden, Fahrner, Friessler, and Stoffler; while Gmünd possesses the well-known jeweller Hermann Bauer. [Illustration: _PLATE LII_ MODERN FRENCH JEWELLERY] Among the leaders of the new art movement in Austria are the sculptor Gurschner, Dietrich, Prutscher, and Franz Hauptmann; while Elsa Unger, Anna Wagner, and Eugenie Munk have carried out distinctive work on the same lines. Belgium has produced some able craftsmen in the persons of Paul Dubois the sculptor, Ph. Wolfers, and Van Strydonck. The modern school of Denmark possesses the artists Slott-Möller, Bindesböll, Magnussen, and Bollin. England, the pioneer of the latter-day renaissance of the decorative arts, can boast of a number of craftsmen of distinction in artistic jewellery. Among the leaders of the movement whose style and individuality have secured them recognition are Mr. H. Wilson, Mr. Henry H. Cunynghame, Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Dawson, Mr. C. R. Ashbee, Mr. Harold Stabler, Mr. Edgar Simpson, Mr. Alexander Fisher, Mrs. Bethune, Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Gaskin, Mrs. Newman, Mrs. Traquair, Mrs. Hadaway, Mr. and Mrs. Partridge, and Mr. F. S. Robinson. One may also name H.H. Princess Louise Augusta of Schleswig-Holstein, and H.H. the Ranee of Sarawak, in addition to a number of others whose work has figured in exhibitions such as those held by the Arts and Crafts Society. The name of Mr. A. Lazenby Liberty, who has done much to foster new design in England, likewise deserves mention. Messrs. Tiffany of New York have shown how artistic design may be combined with fine and rare gems--the natural instinct for which will have to be gratified so long as jewellery is worn. A number of other firms both in England and France have in recent years displayed remarkable advance in this direction, also, as in the case of Messrs. Boucheron, in a skilful combination of coloured stones, as well as in a reserved use of enamel. A hopeful sign for the future of this refined art is the thoroughness with which it is taught in schools of art throughout the country, and the eagerness and success with which it is practised also by a number of gifted amateurs. The work produced, though far behind that of continental craftsmen in point of execution, avoids many of the extravagances of the "new art," and exhibits, for the most part, taste and reserve in design, and adaptability to ultimate uses. CHAPTER XXXIV PEASANT JEWELLERY Until the middle of the nineteenth century the peasants and natives of every country district of Europe wore modest gold and silver jewellery, of small pecuniary value, but of great artistic interest. A few years ago peasant jewellery was seldom sought for, and comparatively unknown; and collectors, better informed in other respects, did not think of saving it from the melting-pot. It is now, however, beginning to attract some of the attention it deserves. This old peasant jewellery has at the present day nearly all passed out of the hands of its original owners. The chief cause of its disappearance has been increased facilities for travelling, which resulted in jewellery fashioned wholesale in industrial centres being distributed to the remotest rural districts. The demands of the modern collector, and improvements in present-day taste among certain of the cultured classes, which have led to the adoption of old articles of jewellery for personal use, have also contributed to the disappearance of peasant jewellery in recent years. The wiles of the dealer have induced peasants to yield up heirlooms, which, handed down for generations, have escaped the fate of the jewels of the wealthy and more fashionable. The great museums of art and industry springing up everywhere, especially in Germany, have all obtained a generous share of the spoil, and have preserved it from what, until lately, would have been inevitable destruction. So completely in most parts has this old jewellery gone out of use among the peasantry, that hardly a trace remains of a once flourishing industry carried on by local craftsmen working on traditional lines, and untrammelled by the artistic fashion of the moment. Machines driven by steam power have crushed out of existence skill to make things by hand, and the cold and monotonous production of the artisan has taken the place of the old work, whose peculiarly attractive character is due to its expressing the fresh ideas and inspiration of the artist. The French peasant jewel _par excellence_ is the cross. It is suspended from the neck by a velvet ribbon, and varies in form according to localities. Its size is often in proportion to the social condition of the wearer. Sometimes it attains considerable dimensions. Fixed upon the velvet ribbon, and drawing it together just above the cross is a slide or _coulant_, in the form of a bow, rosette, or heart, and of the same style as the cross itself. In many provinces of France, such as Savoy, gold is reserved exclusively for married women--custom having it that all their jewels should be of that metal. Silver, on the other hand, is often employed solely for girls' jewellery, possibly because it is considered the natural symbol of virginal purity, just as in ancient times it was consecrated to the virgin goddess, Diana. [Illustration: _PLATE LIII_ SPANISH, PORTUGUESE, FLEMISH AND FRENCH PEASANT JEWELLERY, ETC.] The most interesting and perhaps the best-known French peasant jewellery is that of Normandy and the Auvergne. The chief Norman jewel is the cross. The most usual form is that which occurs in the districts round St. Lô and Caen. It is of silver, formed of five high bosses, four round and one pear-shaped, each set with a large foiled rock crystal (commonly known as _Diamant_, _Caillou_, or _Pierre d' Alençon_) cut and faceted in the brilliant shape, and further ornamented with sprays set with small crystals in rose form. The lower limb of the cross, _briolette_ or pear-shaped, is hinged, so as to render it less liable to get bent or broken in wear (Pl. LIII, 4). The spaces between the limbs are sometimes completely filled up with branched open-work set with small crystals. In the more northerly parts of France the cross is formed simply of large bosses set with crystals; but round about Rouen we meet with an abundance of spray-work. Other crosses of considerable size are formed of thin plates of pierced gold. The shape of the cross is indicated simply by crystal bosses, but its form is almost lost in the outline of the jewel. A favourite subject for representation on Rouennais jewellery is the _Saint Esprit_ or Holy Dove. Employed as a breast-ornament or pendant, the Dove is either in gold or silver, mounted with crystals, or coloured pastes set close together. It is suspended from an ornament of open knot design, with a rosette-shaped slide above. In its beak is a branch, spray, or bunch of grapes, generally of coloured pastes. Peasant jewellery ceased to be worn in Normandy about 1840, when native costume was given up. While Normandy relies chiefly on crystal quartz for its jewellery, the Auvergne can boast of a variety of gems, such as garnets, opals, spinels, and zircons, which are of frequent occurrence in the volcanic rock of Central France. The jewellery of Puy is mounted with cabochon stones in large high settings. Open-work circular pendants have a central boss with eight similar settings around. The _Saint Esprit_ is also a popular jewel, but in these parts the form of the Dove is not completely carried out, the jewel being composed merely of five pear-shaped bosses to indicate the wings, body, head, and tail of the bird. It is to be observed that the patterns of the jewels here alluded to are not entirely original inventions of the peasantry. As a matter of fact, they are often from precisely the same models as the jewellery in use in the seventeenth and early part of the eighteenth century, and are very similar in style to the large series of original designs in the National Art Library, South Kensington, executed about that time by the Santini family of Florence. Their technique is also traditional. This is shown by the presence on many of the peasant jewels of Southern France, as well as of other districts, of the painted enamel which came in about 1640, and continued in use for upwards of a century. While fashion has shifted scores of times since those days, types and styles of jewellery then set remained unchanged in these quarters until the great industrial revolution of the nineteenth century and the strange and universal decline of taste that accompanied it. Holland is one of the few countries that have retained their peasant jewellery. Not only is it displayed in abundance on festal occasions, such as weddings, but it is worn in everyday life by the well-to-do natives of the country districts. Much jewellery is employed in Zeeland. The country belles wear jutting out on either side of the lace cap curious corkscrew-like ornaments of gold, silver, or gilt metal, on which they hang pendants sometimes tipped with pearls. In the land of Goes a square gold ornament is pinned close to the face inside the lace halo that surrounds the head. Coral necklaces are worn, and jet ones for mourning. Boys have earrings and gold and silver buttons near the throat. The head-ornaments of North Holland and Utrecht consist of a broad thin band of gold or silver which encircles the skull and terminates at each end with the above-mentioned spiral ornaments. These bands are covered by a white muslin cap or by a cap decorated with coloured designs. The women of Gelderland display costly caps of gold beaten out to fit each individual head. In Overyssel the lace cap terminates with gold ornaments, and the coral necklace has clasps of gold filigree. Men and boys wear flat silver buttons on the coat and gold at the collar. At the waist is a pair of large hammered discs of silver. The natives of the fertile country of Friesland possess vast stores of jewellery, generally of gold set with diamonds. Very attractive peasant ornaments are still in use in Belgium. Long pendent crosses are worn, with earrings to match. They are of open-work floral and scroll designs, and are mounted with small rosettes set with rose diamonds--silver rosettes being applied to gold ornaments, gold to silver ones. The slide or _coulant_ above the cross here forms part of the pendant, and is not, as in France, attached by the ribbon worn with it. The heart (_Sacré Coeur_) is not worn above the cross, as in France, but is used as a distinct ornament, as a rule in silver only. These open-work heart pendants, commonly found between Antwerp and Malines, and rarely elsewhere, have an opening in the centre hung with a movable setting, and a hinged crown-shaped ornament above. Instead of a crown is sometimes a _flèche_, two quivers and a bow--a love token. Flemish jewels, unlike the French, are set entirely with rose diamonds. The peasant jewellery of Norway and Sweden is mainly of silver filigree. Precious stones do not take an important place in it. When used they are more often than not false, and are only sparingly applied for the sake of their colour. Particularly characteristic of almost all the ornaments of these parts are numerous small concave or saucer-like pieces of metal, highly polished, or small flat rings. They are suspended by links, particularly from the large circular buckle which is the chief article of jewellery. Most ornaments are circular in plan. Besides being executed in filigree, many of them are embossed or else cast--a style of work admirably displayed on the huge silver-gilt crowns worn by Scandinavian brides. The peasant ornaments of Germany present many varieties of design. Silver filigree of various kinds is employed for almost all of them. In the northern districts amber beads are naturally the commonest form of necklace, while hollow balls of silver are also worn strung together. Large flat hair-pins are used, the expanded heads of which are ornamented with raised filigree. Swiss and Tyrolese peasant jewellery is largely composed of garnets or garnet-coloured glass set in silver filigree. So numerous are the different types of Italian peasant jewels that it is impossible to mention them all. Every small district, nay, every township, seems to have possessed ornaments that differed in some detail from those of its neighbours. Many of them display reminiscences of the antique. Their manufacture follows--or did till quite recent years--the old methods; the natives of certain out-of-the-way districts in Umbria still working in very much the same manner as the ancient Etruscans. All ornaments are somewhat voluminous. The head is uncovered, and presents an extensive field for hair-ornaments. The Lombards have all sorts of hair-pins, often a couple of dozen, stuck in nimbus fashion, and through them crosswise is passed another pin with an oval head at each end. Earrings are likewise of considerable dimensions, but light in spite of their size. Their surfaces are very frequently set with seed pearls. The finest existing collection of Italian peasant jewellery is that in the Victoria and Albert Museum, purchased from Signor Castellani in 1867. Of great beauty is the jewellery of the shores of the Adriatic, and that of the Greek Islands, probably made by descendants of the Venetian goldsmiths, and commonly known by the title of "Adriatic" jewellery (Pl. LIV). It is of thin gold, on which are shallow cells filled with opaque enamels. Crescent-shaped earrings are formed of pendent parts hung with double pearls. Dating from the seventeenth century are elaborate and delicate pendants in the shape of fully rigged ships enriched with painted enamel and hung with clusters of pearls. Beautiful work of a similar nature was also produced in Sicily. [Illustration: _PLATE LIV_ "ADRIATIC" JEWELLERY] Hungarian and Spanish peasant ornaments have already been alluded to. In both these countries we find the native filigree enamel in sixteenth-century work, and painted enamel in that of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Spanish jewellery frequently takes the form of pendent reliquaries. It is usually of stout silver filigree, bearing traces of Moorish design. The Moorish style is also felt on Portuguese jewellery, which displays in addition a certain amount of what appears to be Indian influence. It is composed of gold filigree of very fine workmanship. Earrings and neck-chains are of such proportions that they reach respectively to the shoulders and the waist. In addition to the cross, star, heart, and crescent-shaped pendants are worn. A favourite form is one resembling an inverted artichoke. Openings are left in its surface, and within these spaces and on the edges of the jewel are hung little trembling pendants (Pl. LIII, 2). Portuguese jewellery of the eighteenth century, largely set with crystal, is admirably represented in the Museum of Fine Arts at Lisbon. CHAPTER XXXV JEWELLERY IN PICTURES One aspect of the present subject, more attractive perhaps than any other, is that which concerns the representation of personal ornaments in pictures. Scarcely as yet have pictures been fully appreciated from the point of view of their utility to antiquaries or the light they throw upon matters of historical inquiry. The important part which from the fifteenth century onwards they have played in connection with the subject of jewellery is sufficiently attested by the number of times they have already been referred to during the course of the present inquiry. The truth, reality, and accuracy of the artists' work has eminently contributed to the value of these pictures. A sympathetic way of seeing things and reproducing them and a fine feeling for naturalistic detail is characteristic of all the work of the painters of early times, when a strength of realism made its wholesome influence universally felt. Such works, while they display the grandeur and magnificence of former ages and point out the fashions and customs of our ancestors, show in detail not only the bright splendour of patterned draperies in many materials, but also the shimmer of goldsmith's work in the form of a variety of actual ornaments, now for the most part entirely lost. In this way they set before us details unnoticed by chroniclers, and convey clearer ideas than can be attained by reading the most elaborate descriptive inventories. The special capability of the early painters for representing articles of jewellery need merely be alluded to again, seeing the close connection already shown, that always existed between them and the goldsmiths, in whose workshops most of them passed their apprenticeship. Every jewelled ornament figured in their works is, in fact, designed with the full knowledge of a goldsmith versed in his craft. The artists of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries are notorious for the extreme and elaborate minuteness of their painting of jewels. In the portraits of the time careful accuracy in depicting ornaments was the duty, and evidently the delight, of the painter. In every early picture the various details of costume and jewellery are rendered with scrupulous care and refinement. Though placed in the most prominent and decorative positions, jewellery was never, in the best works, allowed to intrude or to occupy an exaggerated place in the composition. For however minutely defined these accessories may be, they are so fused into the general design that they are only apparent if one takes the trouble to look for them. In addition to recognised masterpieces, there exists a vast number of pictures obviously not by the first masters, which, though of only moderate quality, do not actually offend by their inferiority. These equally well serve to illustrate details of jewellery and dress. In a picture of the first order such details, of importance in themselves, sink into insignificance beside the splendid qualities of a work of art: in less important pictures the ornamental accessories are all in all. It would be of great value to students if all public collections that possess costumes and ornaments could bring together--as has been done with marked success in the Germanic Museum at Nuremberg--series of portraits specially chosen to illustrate these details, such portraits, like the actual articles of dress and jewellery, being, of course, old ones, not modern copies. We may state, in general, that jewels figured in portraits are to be relied upon as being the actual objects possessed by the persons represented. All the early painters displayed, as has been said, a special love for jewel forms. They not only took their beautiful models as they found them, but being themselves mostly masters of the jeweller's craft, they devoted much attention to the adornment and the arrangement of the jewels of their models. It may be urged that painters are apt to indulge their fancy by decorating their sitters with jewels they do not possess, introduced to improve the colour or arrangement of the picture, or introduced in accordance with orders, like those of the good Mrs. Primrose, who expressly desired the painter of her portrait to put in as many jewels as he could for the money, and "not to be too frugal of his diamonds in her stomacher and hair." It is unlikely, on the contrary, that any of the early painters departed from their usual methods of truth, reality, and accuracy; or, considering the elaborate detail with which they depicted jewellery, that they ever specially invented it for the portrait in which it occurs. It is much more probable that they worked from what they saw: for masters of painting have in all ages worked from models in preference to carrying out their own designs. An instance may be cited of the care which painters paid to the ornaments of their sitters. Preserved in the Archivio di Casa Gerini at Florence are certain unpublished documents[189] of the years 1579 to 1584 relating to the artist Alessandro Allori, in which is a list of the clothes and jewels that had been lent him from the wardrobe of the Grand Duchess, Bianca Cappello, when he was painting her portrait. [189] Kindly communicated by the late Sir Dominic Colnaghi. One or two of the peculiarities of artists in representing jewellery are worthy of being mentioned. It is to be observed that the presence or absence of gilding on jewellery often serves to distinguish between German and Flemish paintings. Holbein almost always employed gold upon golden objects; but in the works of Mabuse, so rich in elaborate detail, paint alone suffices to produce the effect. The artists of those days possessed a marvellous facility for imitating the brilliance of gold by colour alone. In examining the jewellery of sixteenth and seventeenth century portraits numbers of what appear to be black stones are frequently to be seen. These were evidently intended to represent diamonds. From early times, when the custom existed of improving, as it was considered, the colour of all stones by the use of foils, diamonds--the old stones of Golconda and Brazil, different in colour and quality from the diamonds of to-day--were usually backed with a black varnish composed of lamp-black and oil of mastic. This _tinctura_, or colouring of the diamond, which is alluded to by Cellini, would account for the intense and clear blacks and whites used by the artists of the time in depicting that precious stone. In the work of some of the finest painters of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, so masterly is the handling, that in the contemplation of broad effects one may fail to notice how much detail the artists were able to combine with such breadth. In fact the detail they displayed is hardly less precise than that of the earlier painters. Mr. Davies[190] has some interesting remarks to make on the different modes of depicting jewellery adopted by first-class painters--by the one who paints it in detail and the other who treats it with freedom. "The first paints you, touch by touch, his chains, his bracelets, his tiara, link by link, and gem by gem, with precision so great that if you called in a fairly capable goldsmith, of little or no intelligence, he would use them as a pattern and produce you an exact facsimile. The second obtains his result by summarized knowledge, letting his line lose itself and find itself again, a flash on a link, a sparkle on a gem suggesting all to the eye with a completeness which is fully as complete as the literal word for word translation of the other man. Call in a really intelligent goldsmith to this work and he would find it quite as easy as, or even easier than, the other to understand and reproduce from, but it would not do to make a tracing from, nor give as a pattern to one of his unintelligent apprentices." [190] Davies (G. S.), _Frans Hals_, p. 88. Very attractive and valuable guides to the jewellery of the early period are the early Flemish-Burgundian paintings (p. 90), and those of the Italian masters of the fifteenth century (p. 167). The most fertile of sixteenth-century pictures for the present purpose are the German (p. 189), as may be judged from Herr Luthmer's _Goldschmuck der Renaissance_, in which are reproduced in colours a number of specimens of jewellery figured in contemporary pictures. In the second half of the sixteenth century and the early part of the seventeenth, the painters of the Low Countries especially excelled in the delineation of jewel forms. Among these artists are Sir Antonio More, Peter Pourbus, Lucas de Heere, Zucchero, Marc Gheeraerts, D. Mytens, Van Somer, and Janssens. By these and by numerous followers of Holbein, many pictures were painted, and exist in England at the present day. The technique of the great Dutch and Flemish painters of the seventeenth century, even of such as Frans Hals, was not incompatible, as Mr. Davies has shown, with the clear representation of personal ornaments. The majority of pictures of the early part of the eighteenth century offer but slight indication of the jewellery of the time. The conventional style of portraiture which then found favour did not allow such individual characteristics as personal ornaments to obtain a place in the portrait. In the canons for painters laid down by C. A. Du Fresnoy of Paris, entitled _De arte graphica_, which ruled artists of the first half of the eighteenth century, it was particularly enjoined that "portraits should not be overladen with gold and jewels." "The portrait painters," as Reynolds expressed it in speaking of his predecessors as far back as Lely and Kneller, "had a set of postures (and ornaments too) which they applied to all persons indiscriminately." Seeing the reliance that may be placed on the jewellery figured in the portraits of earlier times, it is not unnatural to expect such detail to be of considerable service in art criticism. In the identification of a portrait much may rest on the identification of its jewels: for "a portrait," as Mr. Andrew Lang says, "with the jewels actually owned by the subject, if not 'the rose' (for it may be a copy of a lost original) has certainly been 'near the rose.'" But critics seldom think of examining the numerous extant royal and noble inventories and other documents such as wills containing lists of jewels, and of comparing the jewels described in them with those displayed in portraits. This method, neglected as a rule in criticism, has been employed by Mr. Lang with conspicuous success in his _Portraits and jewels of Mary Stuart_, and has served to identify the remarkable portrait of the Scottish Queen in the possession of Lord Leven and Melville. Interesting as it is when the jewels depicted in the portraits are identical with those described in their owners' inventories, it is even more so when the actual jewels thus represented have survived to the present day, such as is the case with the Penruddock Jewel shown in Lucas de Heere's portrait of Sir George Penruddock; the Drake Jewel in Zucchero's portrait of Sir Francis Drake; the Lyte Jewel in the portrait of Mr. Thomas Lyte; the earring of Charles I belonging to the Duke of Portland, shown in Van Dyck's portraits; and the earrings of Henrietta Maria in Lord Clifford's possession, shown in portraits of her painted by the same artist. CHAPTER XXXVI FRAUDS AND FORGERIES Owing to the important position that jewellery occupies in the domain of virtu, it is natural that it should receive particular attention at the hands of the fraudulent. On the question of frauds of jewellery we have to distinguish between forgeries--articles professing to be genuine ancient works of art--and counterfeits--imitations of real objects. Long before the forger, as we define him, set to work on the field of jewellery, there existed the business of the imitator of precious stones and precious metals--one of counterfeit rather than of forgery. The production of false gems dates from the time that precious stones first came to be generally worn as personal ornaments. The manufacture of imitations, intended in many cases to pass as real stones, was an important branch of the art of the famous glassworkers of antiquity. These glass gems, or pastes as they are termed, were largely set in rings to meet the tastes of the poorer classes; and are referred to by Pliny as the "glass gems from the rings of the multitude." Would-be smart individuals, also, are frequently satirised by Martial for wearing in their rings glass pastes which they attempted to pass off as real stones. At the same time coloured foils were placed as the backing to transparent stones, and were employed to give a full hue to inferior-coloured stones. Besides being employed for jewellery, precious stones were made use of by the mediæval embroiderers to increase the effect of the coloured materials and gold thread in the decoration of their robes. But when we bear in mind the accurate descriptions given by Theophilus in his _Diversarum Artium Schedula_ of the process of making false gems, it is only reasonable to assume that many of the so-called jewels were not in fact real gems, but imitations. Certain it is that in mediæval times the counterfeiting of precious stones was very largely carried on, while many accounts are preserved in early records of fines and other punishments inflicted on dishonest traders in gems who attempted to dispose of spurious stones, usually set in finger rings. In England and France during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries it was customary for the jewellers' guild of each town to have a rule prohibiting its members from setting paste gems in real gold or real gems in plated metal; from mounting Scottish pearls with those of the East; or mingling coloured glass, or false, with precious stones. As in earlier periods, a crystal or a colourless paste was made to imitate a coloured stone by backing it with a foil. At South Kensington an example exists, set in a gold ring of sixteenth-century German work (No. 1206-'03), of a white crystal, which is cut _en cabochon_ and backed with a red foil, and bears a striking resemblance to a carbuncle (Pl. XXIII, 17). Many books on precious stones, both old and new, give receipts for the manufacture of imitation gems, made of flint glass and coloured with oxides according to the originals they are intended to counterfeit. Apart from these are false gems produced with really fraudulent intent. Since imitation stones cannot resist the file, it is the practice, besides backing a crystal with coloured foil, to back a thin layer of genuine stone--intended to resist the test when examined for hardness--with a layer of glass coloured as required. Another process of fabrication consists of placing a layer of glass between two layers of true stone. The place of the join in the "triplet" is hidden by the collet of the setting, and the deceit can only be detected by unsetting the stone and soaking it in chloroform. Another means employed for changing and improving the colours of stones is by heat, for the colour of nearly all gems is affected by heating. Not pastes only but clear crystals have long been palmed off on the unwary for diamonds. Perhaps the best-known of these were crystals of quartz found in the Clifton limestone near Bristol, which went by the name of Bristol diamonds. They are alluded to as worn in the ears by the fop described in Lenton's _Young Gallant's Whirligigg_ (1629). Quartz crystals found in the tin mines of Cornwall, and similar stones from the neighbourhood of Harrogate, still known respectively as Cornish and Harrogate diamonds, were also much employed for jewellery from the sixteenth century. Transparent stones from various parts of the Continent are given the names of the localities in which they are found. In France, rock crystal, cut in rose or brilliant form, went generally by the name of _Pierre d' Alençon_ or _Caillou du Rhin_. Of the transparent glass paste termed Stras or Strass we have already spoken. Though an imitation, the paste of eighteenth-century jewellery does not necessarily belong to the category of frauds and counterfeits, since it possesses a certain originality of its own, and does not appear to have been generally worn with intent to deceive. False or mock pearls on the other hand seem in some way to be rather more associated with deception, though they also can be made to serve for decorative purposes entirely apart from any such intent. To reproduce the lustre or "orient" characteristic of oriental pearls, use is made in the fabrication of imitations of a pearly essence known as _essence d'orient_, obtained from the silvery scales on the underside of a fish called the bleak. Beads of blown glass slightly opalescent and treated with acid to produce an iridescent surface are coated internally with a film of the essence, and wax is then introduced to give the bead the desired weight. Other mock pearls are made up of a vitreous composition formed largely of the pearl essence. Their surface when burnished presents a fine lustre. These are generally termed Venetian pearls. Roman pearls are formed of external coatings produced by frequent dippings into a solution made of the pearliest parts of the oyster. From earliest times frauds have been committed in connection with the precious metals. The goldsmiths and jewellers of the Middle Ages were forbidden to work in base metal, to use false stones of glass, or to put coloured foil beneath real stones. They were further expressly forbidden to manufacture personal ornaments for secular use of gilt or silvered copper or brass. Documents in the archives of the City of London contain many references to the perpetration of fraud in passing off as real, objects of brass or latten that had been silvered or gilded. In 1369 a conviction and punishment by the pillory took place for selling to "divers persons rings and fermails of latten, of coloured gold and silver, as being made of real gold and silver, in deceit, and to the grievous loss, of the common people"; and in 1376 a workman was imprisoned for having silvered 240 buttons of latten, and thirty-four latten rims for gipcières, and having "maliciously purposed and imagined to sell the same for pure silver, in deceit of the people." From actual objects that have survived it would seem that the more heinous offence was not infrequently committed of plating with silver the baser metals of tin, lead, and pewter. The statutes of the goldsmiths ordained that no jeweller should sell any article of silver unless it was as fine as sterling, "nor sett it to sell before it be touched" with the leopard's head and maker's mark. But exceptions were always made in favour of small articles of jewellery "which could not reasonably bear the same touch." Such materials as _pinchbeck_ and _Similor_ and the plated objects of modern times hardly fall within the present category. Actual forgeries of personal ornaments can scarcely be said to have been committed until comparatively recent years--not, in fact, until the demand for specimens of old jewellery on the part of the antiquary and connoisseur rendered their reproduction profitable.[191] [191] Munro (R.), _Archæology and false antiquities_. Eudel (P.), _Le Truquage_, 1887. _Trucs et Truqueurs_, 1907. Owing to the high prices they command from collectors, or to various facilities afforded for their production and disposal, three classes of objects--Greek and Etruscan jewellery, mediæval rings, and enamelled pendants of the Renaissance--offer the strongest temptation to the forger; and he on his part displays such an amount of skill and ingenuity, that the fabrication of spurious antiquities of this kind may be said to have amounted almost to a fine art. The much sought after gold jewellery of Greece and Etruria has received more attention than any other, partly on account of the fact that gold is subject to but slight oxidisation; for the patina of age is lacking even on ancient examples. Setting aside the beautiful imitations by such artists as Castellani, father and sons, and later by Melillo and Giuliano--which clever reproductions are known to have been sometimes foisted upon collectors by unscrupulous dealers--a great deal of really false work made with the intent of passing for old has been produced in Italy--chiefly at Rome, Naples, and Florence. On the subject of such pseudo-antiques Count Tyszkiewicz has several good stories to tell in his _Memories of an Old Collector_. Of all objects of this kind, that which has claimed the largest share of public attention is the notorious "Tiara of Saitapharnes," which deceived several well-known authorities, and reposed for several years as a genuine antique in the Louvre, until the revelation in 1903 of the person of its ingenious author--a Russian Jew of Odessa. The disclosure of this remarkable fraud was the climax of a long series of forgeries of ancient Greek jewellery from Southern Russia, which, purporting to be recovered from the Greek tombs of Olbia and Kertch, long renowned for their wealth in such objects, were purchased by more than one well-known collector. So keenly has the forger pursued his evil course in this particular domain, that, apart from that preserved in museums and in the cabinets of collectors whose personal judgment is sound on such matters, M. Eudel goes so far as to say that the greater portion of the antique jewellery extant is of recent fabrication. Mediæval ornaments of all sorts are forged at the present day upon the Continent to a considerable extent, though less than are those of later times. One important centre of their production is Paris. Another, in earlier years in particular, was Frankfort, where visitors to watering-places on the Rhine have long been the victims of fraudulent vendors. Such mediæval objects, however well supported by a dealer's warranty of place and time of discovery, require, says Mr. King, to be examined by the amateur with a very suspicious and critical eye. Among other personal ornaments of this period that have received attention at the hands of the forger are the leaden badges known as pilgrims' signs. Many ingenious forgeries of the kind were produced about forty-five years ago, and purported to be brought to light by workmen engaged in excavations near the Thames in the City of London. These were in large part the work of two illiterate mud-rakers on the banks of the river; while articles of like kind were shortly afterwards made by two men known as "Billy and Charley," who manufactured a number of curious pendent medals of lead and "cock-metal."[192] The discovery in the Seine, about the same time, of many genuine pilgrims' signs led to the circulation also in France of a quantity of spurious objects of a similar nature. [192] _Archæological Journal_, XXI, p. 167. A collection of pseudo-antiques of the kind made at the ateliers of Messrs. Billy and Charley, Rosemary Lane, Tower Hill, is shown in the Cuming Museum, Walworth Road, London. Renaissance pendants, the prizes of the connoisseur, are favourite subjects for reproduction at the present day, for, unlike the earlier objects, they are not ill-adapted for personal use. Jewellery in the Cinquecento style has for several years past been made in large quantities at Vienna. These jewels are generally not in gold, like the works they profess to imitate, but in silver-gilt, and as a result their enamel is never of fine quality, their general appearance is not up to the standard of the old, and their workmanship is mostly very mechanical. Apart from these and similar works, made also in France and generally sold in jewellers' shops as modern productions, there are others which pretend to age. Though one seldom meets with examples that approach the best productions of the Renaissance, objects of the kind are occasionally imitated with such proficiency, that in collecting specimens of early jewellery in no instances is it necessary to exercise greater caution than in those of the Cinquecento. Fine jewellery of the eighteenth century, now almost equally sought after--watches, chatelaines, rings, and brooches--has been multiplied in quantities during recent years. As the brooches of this date are very often mounted with rose-cut diamonds, care has been taken to employ stones cut in this manner. Their settings generally distinguish the copies. Again, as M. Eudel points out, when fine old diamond-work has been sent to be reset, the jeweller preserves the old mounts, sets them with modern stones or pastes, and sells them as genuine old work. For the purpose of furthering the deception complete parures purporting to be seventeenth or eighteenth century work are offered for sale in genuine old leather or shagreen cases. A set of jewels may even be made for the special purpose of fitting such a case, or an entirely new case constructed, and treated in such a manner as to give it an appearance of age. CHAPTER XXXVII MEMENTO MORI "I will keep it, As they keep deaths' heads in rings, To cry _memento_ to me." The study of the various forms of personal ornament by means of which the memory of the dead or of death itself has been preserved by the living is one which offers a wide field for investigation. The Egyptians enforced the precept "_Memento Mori_" by introducing at their banquets a small coffin containing the image of a corpse which, according to Herodotus, was shown to each guest. In classical times skeletons were rarely represented, though one is sculptured on a tomb at Pompeii. The warning "_Memento Mori_" manifested itself in divers fashions in the Middle Ages, the most conspicuous being the famous "Dance of Death," which made its début in the fourteenth century, and was figured by Holbein in the sixteenth. Testimony of the desire of all to keep the warning constantly before the mind is borne by personal ornaments of various kinds displaying emblems of mortality. In order to arrive at the meaning of these crude emblems so often applied to objects of jewellery, regard should be paid to the feelings of the times that gave them birth. During the latter period of the Middle Ages the grim and ascetic contemplation of death caused the artists of that period to represent it as the devil, the father of sin, horned and cloven-hoofed, carrying off the sinful souls and forcing them into the mouth of hell. But when during the fifteenth century "printing excited men's imaginations, when the first discovery of the ancient classics roused their emulation and stimulated their unrest, when the Renaissance in art increased their eagerness to express their thoughts and multiplied their method of expression,"[193] and their conscience was turned to the latter end and the unseen world, then at length did death appear, no longer as the father of sin, but altered into a familiar and human personification. [193] Cook (T. A.), _The history of Rouen_, p. 293. Side by side with the strange vigour and extraordinary joy in life that marked the period, there existed a great contempt for the value of life and a gross familiarity with death. It was Death himself, according to the imagination of the sixteenth century, who, always at hand, clutched men of every age and condition by the sleeve and hurried them all unwillingly away. The emblems of death were always presented in close touch with the living. The forms they took--the skeleton, or simply the skull, or Death's head, with cross-bones--were rendered in the sixteenth century by both painter and sculptor; but it was reserved for the goldsmith--the sculptor and painter in one--to represent them on jewellery through the medium of the precious metals enriched with gems and coloured enamels. They figured on every kind of ornament. Brooches with enamelled skulls were fastened as enseignes upon the hat; golden jewels like funereal objects in shape of coffins holding enamelled skeletons hung from the neck; rosary beads, pomanders and watches in the form of human skulls were attached to the waist; and rings bearing Death's heads and other emblems were worn upon the fingers. A great impetus was given to the use of such articles of adornment by Diana of Poitiers when she became mistress of Henry II of France. She was then a widow in mourning; and the complaisant Court not only adopted her black and white as the fashionable colour, but covered their personal ornaments with emblems of death. Jewels of this description, it is clear, were not necessarily carried in remembrance of any special individual. With their legend "Memento Mori" they were simply reminders of Death in the abstract. As such they characterised exactly the temper of the time, and were quite commonly worn by the upper and middle classes, especially by those who affected a respectable gravity. At the time of which we now speak the personal badge or _devise_, an obscure expression of some particular conceit of its wearer, was at the height of fashion. In its elaboration the various emblems of death were largely put under contribution, their choice for the purpose being the outcome of the special disposition of those who adopted them. Perhaps the most notable instance of the representation of a badge of this kind is in Holbein's famous "Ambassadors," in the National Gallery. Here Jean de Dinteville, who stands on the left of the picture, wears a circular jewel formed of a white enamelled skull in a gold mount, pinned as an enseigne to the lower rim of his small black bonnet. Amongst sundry ornaments bearing mortuary devices, there is a good example at South Kensington--a _Memento Mori_ charm of enamelled gold in the form of a coffin containing a minutely articulated skeleton. It is English work of the Elizabethan period, and was found at Tor Abbey, Devonshire (Pl. XLIV, 16). No article of decoration has been more extensively used as a "Memento Mori" or for memorial purposes than the finger ring. The association of the ring is largely with affairs of the heart, and lovers are united with it. And since the form itself is emblematic of eternity, so by this same token of affection has the memory of departed friends been kept green. The sepulchral emblems referred to were not made use of for mediæval ornaments. But in the sixteenth century they were very frequent, especially on rings. One of the most remarkable specimens of the wonderful mastery over technical difficulties which stamps the goldsmith's work of this time is a "Memento Mori" ring of German work in the Waddesdon Bequest. Its bezel or top is in the form of a book, decorated at each corner with a diamond, emerald, sapphire, and ruby, with snakes and toads between them. In the centre is a death's head. The lid on opening discloses a recumbent figure with skull and hour-glass. On the shoulders of the ring, supporting the bezel, are figures of Adam and Eve representing The Fall and Expulsion from Eden. All the figures are enamelled in high relief, and though merely a fraction of an inch in size, are executed with extraordinary fidelity. A ring described as having belonged to Mary Stuart is in the possession of the Earl of Ilchester. Its bezel, composed of a large ruby cut in the form of a death's head and set with diamond eyes, is supported underneath by cross-bones in enamel. Woeiriot's beautiful collection of designs for rings, of the year 1561, contains a ring of this kind surmounted with a skull and cross-bones; and Gilles Légaré's _Recueil_ of a century later has an engraving of similar pattern (Pl. XL). English rings of the sixteenth century have a death's head carved in intaglio on carnelian, or sunk in the metal of the ring and sometimes filled with enamel. Around is the motto "Memento Mori," and similar expressions in Latin or in English (Pl. XXXVI, 12). A certain Agnes Hals whose will is dated 1554 bequeathed to her niece "my rynge of gold with the wepinge eie," and to her son "my rynge with the dead manes head." From the commencement of the seventeenth century Memento Mori rings begin to be worn also as memorials of the departed, and bequests of money were frequently made for their purchase. The decoration of many of the rings of this period is very curious. On some the death's head in its natural shape is beautifully formed in enamel, has small diamond eyes, and is supported on each side by skeletons bent along the hoop of the ring. The bezel of others is of crystal in the shape of a coffin, the lid of which on being removed discloses a skeleton. Widows on the death of their husbands sometimes converted their wedding rings into memorial rings. This was done by engraving outside an elongated skeleton, the bones of which were brought into prominence by a background of black enamel. Inside the memorial rings of the time was often a motto or posy, appropriate for the purpose, sometimes rhyming:-- Prepared be To follow me; or I restless live, yet hope to see That day of Christ, and then see thee. Rings of this kind, commonly known as mourning rings, were frequently given, together with gloves and hat-bands, to those who attended at funerals. They were inscribed, in addition to a posy, with the initials of the deceased and the date. Evelyn at his son's funeral in 1658 distributed a number of rings with the motto "Dominus abstulit." At Pepys' funeral upwards of a hundred and thirty rings were given to friends and relatives. Mention must be made, amongst other memorial jewellery, of the various objects worn in memory of Charles I. Most of these are finger rings containing a portrait of the ill-fated monarch, which were made and worn by Royalists after his execution. Some are so contrived that the portrait can only be discovered by opening a lid formed of a table diamond. They were doubtless used by those for whom devotion of the kind was dangerous. Other jewels worn in memory of the Royal Martyr were heart-shaped lockets, inscribed and decorated in a suitably funereal manner with skulls, cross-bones, and like emblems. An important group of ornaments, dating from the time of Charles II to that of Queen Anne, are those in the form of small memorial brooches, lockets, bracelet clasps, buttons, and slides with loops at the back for attachment to a velvet band. They are of considerable interest in that they represent almost the only surviving examples of English jewellery of the time. The Franks Bequest in the British Museum contains several specimens. They usually have letters in a fine filigree of gold entwined in a monogram, laid on a ground of crimson silk, and covered with a thick crystal set in gold. The gold filigree, which is of extraordinary delicacy, is often laid on braids of hair arranged in various designs, and accompanied by the skull and cross-bones. The crystal covering is sometimes cut in table form, but is more often rose-cut. The locket surrounded with pearls shown on Plate XLIV has on its surface no less than a hundred facets. Memorial rings of the same period have bezels with similar designs beneath a rose diamond or faceted crystal. Their hoops are mostly enamelled black on the shoulders. In the second quarter of the eighteenth century the mortuary emblems of skull and cross-bones in general disappear. The hoop of the ring is shaped in the form of a scroll or ribbon, and set with a small diamond, a coloured stone, or usually a white crystal. Around the hoop is inscribed in enamel the name and age of the deceased, and date of death. Black enamel was used for those who had been married; while white was employed for the unmarried--just as it was the practice at the funeral of an unmarried man or woman for the mourners and attendants to be clothed in white. Mourning jewellery was extremely popular in England towards the end of the eighteenth and in the early part of the nineteenth century. The variety of design in objects of the kind then in use, and the ingenuity displayed in their production, may well be judged from a collection numbering upwards of one hundred and fifty specimens in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Some mementoes of the deceased are simply miniature portraits, as well as cameos and silhouettes, the miniature sometimes taking the form of a single eye set round with pearls or diamonds. But in most cases it appears to have been the custom to wear in lockets, brooches, and rings microscopic devices--works of infinite patience and skill--wrought in hair, with initials and other designs cunningly worked in seed pearls. There were also, sometimes, paintings in _grisaille_ (Pl. XLVII, 2, 3). These often represented a lady in mourning garb weeping over a funeral urn, in the style of the ornament worn by Mr. Wemmick, the attorney's clerk in _Great Expectations_, of whom Dickens gives the following inimitable description: "I judged him to be a bachelor from the frayed condition of his linen, and he appeared to have sustained a good many bereavements; for he wore at least four mourning rings, besides a brooch representing a lady and a weeping willow at a tomb with an urn on it. I noticed, too, that several rings and seals hung at his watch chain, as if he were quite laden with remembrances of departed friends." Further on Mr. Wemmick himself describes his personal jewellery, and concludes by remarking: "I always take 'em. They're curiosities. And they're property. They may not be worth much, but, after all, they're property and portable.... My guiding-star always is, Get hold of portable property." The painted brooches backed with hair and set round with pearls form, as a matter of fact, very pretty jewels, in spite of the sombreness of their subject and the trivial sentimentality of their mottoes, which run in this vein: "Whose hair I wear--I loved most dear." Mourning jewellery was usually set with pearls, garnets, or more often jet. The last, until a short while ago, was in universal favour, and was fashioned into all sorts of ornaments. It fortunately now meets with but little demand. The same applies to hair jewellery, of human hair woven in many intricate plaitings into brooches, rings, bracelets, and chains. The brooches of about the "forties" have a broad border inscribed with the word "Memory," etc., in Gothic letters on black enamel, and in the centre a panel of plaited hair. 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W.). _Miscellanea graphica._ INDEX [.A][=a]h-[h.]etep, 3, 5 À Becket, Thomas. _See_ Thomas à Becket Aberford (Yorks), 72 Abingdon brooch, 60 Acorn-shaped pendants, Phoenician, 10 Acorn-shaped pendants, worn by Henry VIII, 206 Acton, John, 302, 304 _Acus_, xli, xlii, 60, 127 Adalbert of Saxony, 137 Adams (potter), 315 Adriatic, 83 " jewellery, 246, 347 Ægean, 12 Ægides, 6 _Aetites_, 122 Aglets, 268-9 _Agnus Dei_, 72, 122 Agnolo, Luca, 185 _Agrafes_, 140 Aigrettes, Hungarian, 198 " jewelled, 230, 231 " " sockets for, 230 " 17 cent., 230, 231, 281, 290, 291, 303 " 18 cent., 309, 312, 316, 317 _Aigulets_, 268 Aix-la-Chapelle, Treasury, 118, 139 Albacete, 9 Albert V, Duke of Bavaria, 194 " VI, Duke of Bavaria, 248 Albini, D. M., 309 Alciatus, A., 223 Aldegrever, H., 185, 193, 194, 250, 259 _Alençon, Pierre d'_, 343, 357 Alexandria, 93 Alfonso I, Duke of Ferrara, 158 " II, Duke of Ferrara, 292 Alfred the Great, 68, 69, 71 " Jewel, 68, 69 Algeria, Celtic brooch in, 76 Algerian women, head-ornaments of, 9 Alhstan, Bishop of Sherborne, 71 Alicante, 9 Allori, Alessandro, 350 Altdorfer, A., 189 Altoetting (Bavaria), 88 Amadas, Robert, 208 Ambassadors, jewellery given to, Eng., 17 cent., 306 Amber in Anglo-Saxon jewellery, 58 " in ancient Irish jewellery, 42 " in German peasant jewellery, 346 " in early Italian jewellery, 24 " in prehistoric jewellery, 39 " in Roman jewellery, 30 " in Romano-British jewellery, 45 Ambergris, 125 n. Amboise, Cardinal d', 199 Amethystine quartz, beads of, in Anglo-Saxon jewellery, 58 Amethysts, 19 cent., 328, 329 Amman, Jost, 270 _Amourette_, 146 Amphoræ, 8, 10 Amphora-shaped ornaments, Greek, 16 Amsterdam, Charles I's jewellery sent over to, 305 Amulets, Egyptian, 2 " Etruscan, 25 " medl., 103, 122, 132 " in medl. rings, 151 " Roman, 29, 32 " Romano-British, 47 _Ananizapta_, 152 Androuet Ducerceau, J., 201, 219, 241, 246, 265, 269 Angell, John, 208 Angles, 56 Anglo-Saxon jewellery, 51, 56-74 Ankles, rings for, 6 Ann Boleyn, Q. of England, 212 Anne of Austria, wife of Albert V, Duke of Bavaria, 195 " of Bohemia, Q. of England, 141 " of Denmark, Q. of England, 268, 301 Annunciation, on medl. morses, 139 " on Renaiss. pendants, 244-5 Anselm, 92 Anthony, Dericke, 220 Antioch, sack of, 33 Antonio di Girolamo, 175 Antwerp, corporation of goldsmiths, 155 " engravers of designs for jewellery, 196 " Hans of. _See_ Hans. " Museum, 227 n. " port of, 16 cent., 167 _Annulus vertuosus_, 147 Aphrodite, 28 Arabella Stuart, 299 Arabs in Spain and Sicily, 84 Ardagh chalice, 66 Ark on Elizabethan jewellery, 255, 256 Armada jewels, 217, 255 Armagnacs, badge of, 110 Armento, 16 _Armillæ_, ancient British, 41 " Roman, 30 Armlet, Hunsdon, 218 Armlets, xliv " ancient Irish, 42 " medl., 157-8 " Roman, 30 " Romano-British, 47 Arphe, Juan de, 202 Arrow heads, prehistoric, as charms, in Etruscan jewellery, 25 " " " medl. jewellery, 122 _Art Nouveau_, 337, 338 Arundel, Eleanor, Countess of, 113 Ashbee, C. R., 339 Ashmole, Elias, 238 Ashmolean Museum. _See_ Oxford Asia Minor, 8, 14 Assyria, 7, 8 Assyrian art, 12 Athelney, Isle of, 68 Athene, 16 Athens, National Museum, 11 Attavante, M., 175 Augsburg, goldsmiths, 192 " jewellery made at, 202, 203, 205 " in 16 cent., 180, 189, 198, 210 Augustine, St., 65, 66 Augustus, Emperor, cameo of, 103 " II, Elector of Saxony, 310, 311 _Aulmonière_, 165 Autun, Gallo-Roman enamelled jewellery found at, 46 Auvergne, peasant jewellery, 342-3 Babelon, E. C. F, 266 Bacchus, 24 Backwell, Edward, 305 Bacon, Sir F., 100 Bactria, 51 Baden, Margraves of, 250, 261 Badges, 116, 365 " for hats, medl., 107-12 " English, 16-17 cent., 257 " pendent, medl. 110 " " Spanish, 17 cent., 204 Bags, at girdles, Anglo-Saxon, 63 _Bague_, 258 _Bagues à trois grains_, 73 Bain, P., 282 Baldrick, 93, 164 Baldung, Hans. _See_ Grien Baldwin, K. of Jerusalem, 119 Baltic, amber from, in Anglo-Saxon jewellery, 58 Balzac, H. de, 331 _Bandeau_, French, 19 cent., 329 " Italian, 15 cent., 107 Bannatyne Club, 220 Bapst, G., 335 Barbarian tribes, migrations of, 49 Barbaric jewellery of Europe, 49-55 Barbor jewel, 218, 254 " William, 254 Barcelona, goldsmiths of, 202, 204 Barclay, A., 236 Baroncelli, Pierantonio, Maria, wife of, 114, 286 Barnfield, R., 265 Barrows, or graves, Anglo-Saxon, 57 Bars of girdles, medl., 162 n. Basalt, 5 Basil, xlv Basil the Macedonian, Emperor, 34 Basle, Historical Museum, 192 _Basse-taille_ enamel. _See_ Enamel Bast, 6 Batrachites, 151 Battersea enamel, 320 Bauer, Hermann, 339 Baumann, D., 309 Bavaria, Dukes of, 194, 248 Bavarian National Museum. _See_ Munich _Baudrier_, 164 Beaded work, 19 cent., 327 Beads, Anglo-Saxon, 58 " or balls of gold, on Anglo-Saxon rings, 73 " ancient British, 40 " " Irish, 42 " Egyptian, 4-6 " filigree, for perfumes, 265 " glass, Romano-British, 45 " jet, Romano-British, 47 " Phoenician, 10 " Roman, 29 " rosary, 124-5 Beatrice D'Este, Duchess of Milan, 172 _Beams_, of gypcières, 165 Beaumont and Fletcher (quoted), 265 Bede, The Venerable, 67 Bees, gold, jewelled, 53 Belgium, peasant jewellery, 345-6 Belisarius, 33 Bells, hung from medl. girdles, 164 " " Renaiss. pendants, 250 Belts, xlv, xlvi " Anglo-Saxon, 63 " medl., 159-65 " " resemblence to fillets, 105 " military, medl., 163-4 Bentzen, J., 284 Berengaria, of Navarre, Q. of England, xliii, 128 Beresford-Hope cross, 36 Berghem, Louis de, 209, 277 Berkeley Castle, 73, 218, 253, 265, 266 " Elizabeth, Lady, dau. of Lord Hunsdon, 218 " family, 274 " heirlooms, 218 " Thomas, Lord, 116 Berlin, Crown Treasury, 251 " iron jewellery made in, 330 " Museums, 3, 9, 139 " " pictures in, 90, 106, 168, 261 Bernal, Ralph, 133 Berne, 210 " Museum, 64 Bernhard III, Margrave of Baden, 261 Bettystown, Co. Louth, 78 _Betnüsse_, 125 Beuvray, Mont, near Autun, 46 Bezel, xlv Bezoar stone, 122 Bibracte, 46 n. _Bijouterie_, 277 "Billy and Charley," 360 Bilston enamel, 320 Bindesböll, T., 339 Birckenhultz, P., 231, 234, 281 Birds on Teutonic jewellery, 57, 58 " " Renaiss. pendants, 249 Birmingham, steelwork, 315, 319 _Bisamapfel_, 275 n. Black Sea, 14 Blondus. _See_ Le Blon. Boccardi, Giovanni di Guiliano, 175 Bodkins (hair-pins), Renaiss., 232, 233 Bodleian Library. _See_ Oxford. Boehmer, 318 Boethius, 100 "Boglars," 198 Bohemia, medl. pendants, 121 " Renaiss. jewellery, 188 _Boîte à portrait_, 320 Bollin, M., 339 Bologna, Church of S. Maria della Misericordia, 170 " Picture Gallery, 170 Bömmel, W. H., 309 Bonny, Louis, 338 Books, pendent to girdle, 272-4 Bordier, P., 304 Bordone, Paris, 263 Borghese, Marie Pauline, Princess, 329 Borgia, Cæsar, 100 Bossange, 318 Bossington (near Stockbridge), 73 Bosworth Jewel, 219 Bothwell, Earl of, 221 Botticelli, Sandro, 169 Boucheron, Messrs., 340 Boulton and Watt, 315 Bourchier, Lord, 110 Bouquet, D., 297 Bouquets, jewelled, 17 cent., 281, 290 " " on the breast, 18 cent., 318 _Bouquets d'orfévrerie_, 295 Bourdon, Pierre, 309 Bourguet, Jean, 309, 320 Bow, jewelled, on breast, 17 cent., 204, 294 " " " " 18 cent., 308, 318 Bow-shaped brooches, Romano-British, 46 Bowles, Thomas, 310 Boyvin, René, 201, 265 Bracelets, xliv " Byzantine, 37 " clasps, memorial, English, 17-18 cent., 368 " Egyptian, 6 " Etruscan, 25 " Greek, 10 " hair, 19 cent., 331 " ancient Irish, 42 " medl., 157-8 " Renaiss., 264-7 " " designs for, 265, 269 " Roman, 30 " Romano-British, 47 " 17 cent., 294 " 18 cent., 309, 313, 319, 320 " 19 cent., 329 _Brachiale_, 30 _Bracteæ_, Greek, 19 Bracteate coins, in Anglo-Saxon jewellery, 59 Bracteates, gold, 13 Brandenburg, Fred. William, Elector of, 238 Brantôme, 181, 200 "Bravery," 299 Braybrooke collection of rings, 264 Brazil diamonds, 351 Breast ornaments, medl., 135, etc. " 17 cent., 204, 294 " 18 cent., 308, 318 Bremen, Kunsthalle, 190 "Brethren," "The Three." _See_ "Brothers" Briceau, 309 _Briolettes_, 291, 317, 343 Bristol diamond, 259, 357 Britain, invasion of, by Teutonic races, 56 " Roman occupation of, 44 British Isles, prehistoric jewellery, 39 British Museum. _See_ London Britons, 39 _Broche_, 127 Broighter, near Limavady, 43 Bromsgrove Church, 154 Bronze Age, 39 " ornaments, British, 39, 41, 45 Bronzino, Angelo, 233 Brooches, xl-xliv " Anglo-Saxon, xlii, xliii, 50, 59-62, 70 " Byzantine, 36, 37, 70 " Celtic, xlii-xliv, 74-9, 131 " circular, xlii, xliv " cruciform, xlii, 61 " disc-shaped, xlii, xliii " Flemish-Burgundian, 15 cent., 143-6 " Greek, 18, 19 " hair, 19 cent., 331 " hat, 108. _See also_ Enseignes " by Holbein, 212 " Italian, 15 cent., 174 " Luckenbooth, 133-4, 165 " medl., 121, 127, 144 " " English, 93, 94 " " inscriptions on, 128-30 " " pectorals, 135-46 " memorial, English, 17-18 cent., 368 " penannular, xlii, xliii, 74-9 " radiated, 63 " Renaiss., 267 " ring-brooch, xlii, xliv, xlv, 62, 127-34 " Romano-British, 45-7 " safety-pins, xli-xliii, 41 " Scandinavian, 62 " Scottish, 131-4 " on sleeves, 267 " 17 cent., 298 " 18 cent., 309, 312 " _See also_ Fibulæ Brosamer, Hans, 193, 198, 205, 250 "Brothers," "The Three Brothers," 209, 210, 300 Brueghel, Jan, 287 Bruges, 89, 114, 277 " goldsmith's shop in, 15 cent., 155 " port of, 15 cent., 167 Brunswick, Dorothea, Elizabeth, and Hedwig, Princesses of, 245 Brussels, Musée du Cinquantenaire, 106, 271 " Alexander of, 208 Bruyn, Abraham de. _See_ De Bruyn " Bartholomäus, 189 Bry, Theodor de, 195, 196, 219 Brythons, 39 Bucharest, Museum of Antiquities, 52 Buckingham, George Villiers, Duke of, 210, 230, 235, 300 Buckle, xlv, xlvi " design for, by Aldegrever, 194 " " " " de Bry, 196 " " " " Dürer, 191 " -plate, xlvi, 159, 160 Buckles, Anglo-Saxon, 63 " medl., 159-60 " pinchbeck, 316 " shoe, 18 cent., 321 " steel, 315 " stock, 18 cent., 322 " Teutonic, 64 " 17 cent., 298 " 18 cent., 310, 312, 322 Buda-Pesth, National Museum, 112, 157, 198 Bugles, 10, 319 Bull, H. de. _See_ De Bull _Bullæ_, Etruscan, 24, 25 " Roman, 29 Bulliot, J. G., 46 n. Buonaparte, Caroline, Q. of Naples, 329 Burgh, Hebert de, 151 Burgkmair, H., 189 Burgundian Court, luxury of, 88-90 Burgundians (Gothic tribe), 50 Burgundy, Dukes of, 88-9, 114, 143 Bussy d'Amboise, 123 n. "Butterflies," 316 Buttons, jet, Romano-British, 47 " memorial, English 17-18 cent., 368 " Renaiss., 267-8 " steel, 315 " 18 cent., 319, 320 Byron, Lord, 331 Byzantine, cloisonné enamel, 66 " influence on medl. jewellery, 83-5, 157 " jewellery, 33-8 Byzantium, 33 C., A., 284 Cabalistic inscriptions on medl. rings, 152 Cabochon stones, 88, 96, 97 Cadboll brooches, 77 Cære, 25 Caillard, J., 282 _Caillou d' Alençon_, 343 " _du Rhin_, 357 Cairngorms, 133 Cairo, Museum, 3, 5 Callot, J., 282 Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, 225 " King's College, 115 Camden, W., 94 Cameos, antique, in medl. jewellery, 138 " in bracelets, Renaiss., 264, 266 " in bracelets, 18 cent., 320 " Elizabethan, 217-18 " medl. use of antique, 101-4 " in mourning jewellery, 369 " Renaiss., 226 " " enseignes, 227-8 " " pendants, 245-6 " Roman, 30 " 19 cent., 326-31 Campbells of Glenlyon, 132 Canning, Lord, 249 Canosa, 70 Canterbury Cathedral, 108 n., 109 " " Chapel of St. Thomas à Becket, 140 _Canterbury Tales_, 161, etc. Cappello, Bianca, 233, 350 _Caracts_, 132 Caract rings, 152 Caradosso, 168, 227 Caravel, or carvel, 246 Carberry Hill, 221 _Carcan_, 317 _Carcanets_, 114 " Renaiss., 239 Carlyle, T., 318 Carmichael, Sir T. D. Gibson, 224 Caroto, G., 172 Carrand Collection. _See_ Florence, Museo Nazionale Carteron, S., 205 Cassel Gallery, 296 _Cassolette_, 275 n. Castellani, 22, 346, 359 " Alessandro, 333, 334 " Augusto, 333, 334 " Fortunato Pio, 333, 334 " brooch, 70 Cast-iron jewellery, 19 cent., 330-1 Catherine Parr, Q. of England, 252 Caucasus, 50 Cavalcant, John, 208 _Ceinture_, 105, 159 " _ferrée_, 161 _Ceinturier_, 270 Cellini, B., 21, 22, 169, 171, 179, 183-6, 192, 196, 197, 199, 201, 202, 208, 222, 227, 228, 241, 273, 278, 351 Celtic brooch, 74, 75-9, 131 " jewellery, 11, 39 " Period (late), 39, 43 Celts, 40 _Cercles_, 93, 105 "Cerro de los Santos," 9 Cervetri, 25 Cesarini, Gabriele, 228 Chains, ancient Irish, 43 " Egyptian, 5 " Phoenician, 9 " neck, 19 cent., 331 Chains, worn round the neck. _See also_ Necklaces and Neck-chains Chalke, Agnes, 106 Chamberlain, John, 299 Chamillart, Mdme de, 314, 320 _Chansons_, 152 Chantilly, 168, 185 Chape of girdle, xlvi, 160, 271 _Chapeau montabyn (montauban)_, 224, 231 _Chapelet_, 125 _Chapeletz_, 93, 105 _Chaperon_, 156, 229 Chaplets, medl., 105 Chardin, Sir John, 278, 305 Charity, figure of, on Renaiss. pendants, 244 Charlemagne, 55, 65, 83, 84, 118 Charles I, K. of England, 210, 219, 230, 288, 300, 304, 305, 354 " I, K. of England, earrings of, 235, 354 " I, K. of England, memorial jewellery of, 367 " II, K. of England, 292, 305 " V, K. of France, 88, 199 " " " cameo of, 103, 130 " VIII, K. of France, 199 " IX " " 199, 200 " the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, 107, 209, 231 " the Great, Emperor of the West. _See_ Charlemagne Charlotte, Q. of England, 313, 317 Charms, 99-104, 111-120 Chartres, Treasury of, 103 Châteaubriand, Countess of, 181 Chatelaines, xlvii " Anglo-Saxon, 63 " medl., 161 " pinchbeck, 316 " 17 cent., 298 " 18 cent., 310, 312, 313, 322, 323 _Chaton_, xlv Chaucer, 93, 94, 109, 129, 130 n., 164 Chelsea, ring found at, 73 Chepstow, Monmouthshire, 46 Chéron, 314 Chiflet, J. J., 53 Child, Sir Francis, 305, 306 Child's Bank, 306 Childeric I, K. of the Franks, 51, 52, 53 " " ring of, 63 Chlotaire II, K. of the Franks, 59 Christian V, K. of Denmark, 238 Christianity, introduction of, change in jewellery owing to, 65, 66 " introduction of into Ireland, 75 Christie's Auction Rooms, 247, 256 Christina, Q. of Sweden, 284 Christopher, St., 142 Christus, Petrus, 155, 222, 263 Ciampoli, Carlo, 309, 317 _Cingulum_, 163 Circlets, xxxix " medl., 106 Clanricarde, Marquess of, 249 Clarendon brooch, 78 Clasps, xl " of girdle, xlv, xlvii " " medl., 160, 163 " of mantle, medl., 140, 141 " 17 cent., 298 " 18 cent., 310, 312 Clifford, Lord, 354 Cloth of Gold, Field of, 207, 237 Cloisonné enamel. _See_ Enamel " inlay, 3, 35, 50, 56 Coats-of-arms on rings, 31, 153 Cobra snake, 2 Coello, A. S., 294 Coiffure, Phoenician, 9 " _See also_ Head-ornaments Coins in Anglo-Saxon jewellery, 59 " in Byzantine jewellery, 36 " in Roman jewellery, 30, 32 Colbert, J. B., 282 Collar, gold, ancient Irish, 43 " of Order of Golden Fleece, 90 " of Lord Mayor of London, 117 " SS collar, 116-17 Collars, Egyptian, 5 " medl., 113-117 " _See also_ Necklaces Collaert, H., 194, 196, 197, 234, 247 _Collet_, xlv _Collier_ of Marie Antoinette, 318 Cologne Cathedral, 111, 145 Cologne, Episcopal museum, 145 " Wallraf-Richartz museum, 145 Columban, 66 Combs, Empire, 19 cent., 328 " jewelled, medl., 107 " 19 cent., 329 Comines, Philip de, 109, 110 Commonwealth, England, 305 Compostella, 109 " shrine of St. James, 91 Conques, 102, 137 " Treasury, 112, 137 Consolavera, J. B. de, 208 Constantine, 33, 226 Constantinople, 33, 34, 49 " foundation of, 33 " sack of, 38 Coral, in Dutch peasant jewellery, 345 " medl. use of, 123 " 19 cent., 328 Corbeil, Our Lady of, 137 Corbizi, Litti di Filippo, 175 Cornaro, Catarina, 264 _Cornette_, 107 Cornish diamonds, 357 Coronals, Italy, 15 cent., 169 " medl., 106 " round hat, 224 Coronets, 106 n. " medl., 106 " 19 cent., 328 Corsage, jewelled, 308 _Cosse de pois_ ornament, 281, 293, 297 Costantini, G. B., 284 _Côtehardi_, 267 _Coulant_, 342, 345 Counterfeit, 355 " stones sold to Henry VIII, 208 _Courroye_, 270 Coventry, St. Mary's Hall, 115 " ring, 150 Cramp, rings worn against, 152 Cranach, Lucas, 189, 238, 250, 259, 261, 264 Crapaudine, 151 Crete, 8 Crimea, 9, 12, 14, 50 Crivelli, Carlo, 167 " Lucrezia, 172 Cromwell, Oliver, 293, 294, 305 " Thomas, 208, 213 Crosby, Sir John, 115 Cross, pendent, Byzantine, 36 " " medl., 118 " " peasant, 342 " " Renaiss., 242-3 " the True, relics of, 118 " Visigothic (Guarrazar), 54 _Crotalia_, 28 Crown, Alfred Jewel, as ornament of a, 69 " of Thorns, relic of, 118, 119 Crowns, xxxix, 106 " Byzantine, 35 " Greek, 17 " Mycenæan, 11 " Scandinavian peasant, 346 " Visigothic, 53, 54 Croy, Celtic brooch from, 77 Crusaders, 34 Crusades, influence on jewellery, 101 " jewellery brought back from, 84, 93 Cryspyn, John, 208 Crystal, 313, 342, 343, 347, 356, 357 " of Lothair, 139 _Cuir bouilli_, 97 Cunynghame, H. H., 35, 86, 339 Cupreous glaze, 2 Cuthbert, St., 68 Cyprus, 8, 10, 12, 21 D., A., 285 Dagobert, K. of the Franks, 155, 222 Dalton, O. M., 34 n, 51 n. Dance of Death, 363 Danes, invasion of, 68 Danube, Irish missionaries on, 67 " valley, enamel-work, 198 Dark Ages, 51 Darnley, Henry, 217 " jewel, 217, 257 Dartrey, Earl of, 288 Dashûr, 5 Dauffe, 319 Dauphin, badge of, 110 Davenport, C. J. H. (quoted), 71 David, Gerard, 140, 155, 263 " J. L., 326, 329 Davies, G. S. (quoted), 351, 352 Davillier, Baron C., 202, 249 Davy, William, 208 Dawson, Nelson, 339 Death's head, 364-7 De Boot, A., 100 Debruge-Duménil collection, 130, 245 De Bruyn, Abraham, 197 De Bull, H., 284 Defontaine, J., 282 De Heem, Jan, 287 De Heere, Lucas, 252, 352 De la Quewellerie. _See_ La Quewellerie Delaune, Etienne, 197, 201, 272 De Leeuw, John, 155 _Demi-ceint_, or _demysent_, 164 Desborough (Northants), 74 _Devant de corsage_, 318 Devices, 223 " on Elizabethan jewellery, 216-7 " Renaiss., sewn to garments, 268 _Devise_, 223, 365 _Dextrocherium_, 30 Diadems, xxxix " Byzantine, 34 " Egyptian, 3 " Etruscan, 23 " Greek, 16, 17 " medl., 106 " " English, 93 " Phoenician, 9 " Roman, 28 " 19 cent., 328 _Diamant d' Alençon_, 343 Diamond, 276-9 " of Charles the Bold, 209 " earrings of Marie Antoinette, 317 " necklace of Marie Antoinette, 318 Diamonds, the brilliant, 279 " Bristol, 235, 259 and n. " cutting of, 230, 277-9 " false, 235, 313, 314, 357 " in pictures, 351 " the "point," 277, 278 " pointed, in rings, 260 " in Renaiss. jewellery, 179 " in rings, 17 cent., 296 " rose cut, 282, 310 " " in Flemish peasant jewellery, 345 " "roses," 278-9 " "table," 278-9 " _taille en seize_, 279 " use of, in early jewellery, 277 " in 18 cent. jewellery, 308, 319 Dickens, Charles (quoted), 369 Dietrich, 339 _Dinanderie_, 112 n. Dinglinger, George Friedrich, 310 " Johann Melchior, 310 " " " (junior), 311 Dinteville, Jean de, 365 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 20 Dionysos, 24 Diptychs, pendent, medl., 119-20 Directory, 325-6 Discs of gold. _See_ Plates of gold Dog (Talbot), on Renaiss. pendants, 249 "Dombild," 145 Dorchester House. _See_ London Douce, Francis, 53, 264 Douglas, Lady Margaret, 217 Douffet, Gerard, 296 Dove, symbol of Holy Ghost, 249 " in peasant jewellery, 343 Dowgate Hill brooch, 69 Dragon, Renaiss. pendant in form of, 249 Drake, Sir Francis, 253, 266, 354 " Sir F. Fuller-Eliott, 218, 230 n., 253 " jewels, 218, 230 n., 353 Drawings for jewellery by Barcelona goldsmiths, 202 Drawings for jewellery by Sir F. Child, 306 " " by Dürer, 190 " " by Holbein, 210-213 " " by Lulls, 302 " " by Mielich, 195 " " by the Santini family, 308 Drury Fortnum. _See_ Fortnum Dresden, Picture Gallery, 261 " Grüne Gewölbe, 251, 311 Dress, ornaments sewn on, ancient Irish, 43 " " " Renaiss., 268 Dress-fasteners, prehistoric, xliii " " ancient British, 41 Dressche, Reinecke van, 139 Du Barry, Madame, 317 Du Bellay, G., 207 Dublin, Irish National Museum, 42, 44, 77, 78 " National Gallery of Ireland, 250 " Royal Irish Academy, 42, 78 " Trinity College, 78 Dubois, Paul, 339 Ducerceau. _See_ Androuet Ducerceau Duflos, August, 312, 317 Du Fresnoy, C. A., 353 Dunstan, St., 67 Dürer, A., 185, 187, 190, 191, 250 Du Suau de la Croix, Comte, 338 Duvet, Jean, 200 "Eagle Fibula," 135 Eagle stones, 122 Eanred, 72 Earle, J., 69 Ear-picks, Renaiss., 250-1 Earrings, xxxix, xl " Anglo Saxon, 58 " ancient British, 40 " Byzantine, 35, 37 " " in Middle Ages, 112 " Egyptian, 4 " English, 16-17 cent., 234-5 " Etruscan, 23 " Frankish, 58 " Greek, 15, 16 " medl., 112, 113 " " English, 92 " worn by men, 234-5, 332 " Merovingian, 58 " Phoenician, 9 " Renaiss., 233-5 " Roman, 28-9 " 17 cent., 291 " 18 " 309, 317 " 19 " 328 East Anglia, 60 Edict of Nantes, 305 Edinburgh, High Street, 133 " St. Giles' Church, 133 " National Museum of Antiquities, 77, 132, 150, 165 Edmer, 92 Edward the Confessor, K. of England, 92, 102, 118 " I, K. of England, 67, 92 " II " 93, 162 " III " 93, 121, 161, 162 " IV " 115, 116 " VI " 218, 219 " " " Prayer Book of, 274 " VII " 217, 224 Effigies, sepulchral, jewellery on, 82 Eglentine, Prioress, jewel worn by, 129 Egyptian jewellery, 1-7, 49 Elché, "Lady of," 9, 10 Electrum, primitive Italy, 24 _Elenchi_, 28 Eligius, St. _See_ Eloy Elizabeth, Q. of Bohemia, 301 " " England, 213-20, 232, 234, 237, 239, 251-256, 265, 267, 269, 273, 301 " Gonzaga, Duchess of Urbino, 172 Eloy, or Eloi, St., 67, 155 Emeralds, Spanish, 205 Empire jewellery, 326 Enamel, 49 " Battersea, 320 " _basse-taille_, 87, 97, 138 " Bilston, 320 " Byzantine, 35 " Celtic, 41 " champlevé, English, 16 cent., 211 " " medl., 85, 138 " " Romano-British, 45 " " on rings, 17 cent., 295 " " Spanish, 17 cent., 204 " " 16-17 cent., 283 etc. " " 17 cent., 292 " cloisonné, 70, 136, 283 " " Anglo-Saxon, 66, 68 " " Byzantine, 35, 36 " " medl., 84 " " Tara brooch, 66, 78 " Egyptian, 3 " _émail en blanc_, 87 " _émail en résille sur verre_, 273, 293, 296 " _émail en ronde bosse_, 87, 225 " English 16 cent., 216 " " 18 " 313 " "filigree enamel," (_Draht-Email_), 198, 347 " French, 18 cent., 311, 312 " Gallo-Roman, 46 " "gold wire," 224 " Greek, 13, 15, 17 " Hispano-Moresque, 205 " Irish, 66, 78 " Limoges, medl., 86 " " Renaiss. for enseignes, 229 " "Louis Treize," 286, 289, 293 " medl., 84-88 " opaque, French, 16 cent., 199, 200 " painted, 346, 347 " " on peasant jewellery, 344, 347 " " 17 cent., 285, 292, 293, 295 " Renaiss., 180 " Romano-British, 45 " Toutin firing an, 285, 289 " transluscent, 17 cent., 283 " " 18 " 312 " " _See_ _Basse-taille_ " white, _émail en blanc_, 87 " 17 cent., general, 283, 298 " " on watches, 297 " 18 cent., 312 " 19 cent., revival of, 337 England, medl. jewellery, 91-98 " 16 cent. jewellery, 206-221 " 17 " " 299-306 " 18 " " 310 Engraved designs for jewellery, English, 18 cent., 310, 312 Engraved designs for jewellery, French, 16 cent., 200, 201 Engraved designs for jewellery, Flemish, 16 cent., 196, 197 Engraved designs for jewellery, German, 16 cent., 186-7, 191-4 Engraved designs for jewellery, 17 cent., 280-9, 291-8 Engraved designs for jewellery, 18 cent., 308-10, 312, 320 Engraved gems, antique, in medl. jewellery, 148, 153, 154 " " medl. use of, 101-4 " " in rings, Romano-British, 47 " " 16 cent., 227, 245 " " 19 cent., 326, 327 Enkomi, Cyprus, 12 Enseignes, 156, 169 " medl., 107-111, 146 " Renaiss., 222-230, 267 " with skulls, 364, 365 "Equipage," 323 Erasmus, D., 109 Eros, 15, 16 _Escarcelle_, 165 "Esclavo," 204 _Escoffion_, 107, 156 _Esguillettes_, 269 _Espreuves_, 123 Essen, Treasury of, 143 " medl. brooches at, 143-145 Essence d'orient, 358 Estampes, Duchess of, 181 Este, Beatrice d', Duchess of Milan. _See_ Beatrice " Isabella d', Marchioness of Mantua. _See_ Isabella _Estrennes_, 153, 213 Ethelbert, K. of Kent, 65 Ethelswith, 71 " ring of, 72 Ethelwulf, K. of Wessex, 71 " ring of, 72 Ethred, 72 Eton College, 115 Etruscan goldsmiths, 8 " jewellery, 20-26, 333 Étuis, Eng., 18 cent., 309, 310, 323 " pinchbeck, 316 " Renaiss., 272 Eudel, P., 360, 362 _Euphues_, 273 Eustachio, Fra, 175 Evans, A. J., 43 " Sir J., 47, 62, 296 Evelyn, John, 298, 299, 367 Evil Eye, 164, 250 "Exeter Book," 57 Exmewe, Thomas, 208 _Ex voto_, 136 Eyck, van, 106 " John van, 90, 155 Eyelets, Renaiss., 268 Eymaker, 310 _Façon d'Angleterre_, 162 Fahrner, T., 339 Faience, Egyptian, 2, 7 Falize, Lucien, 335 Falkland, Viscount, 295 Fane, Sir S. Ponsonby, 322 Fans, Renaiss., suspended to girdles, 272 Fashion, influence on jewellery, 28, 80, 178, 370 _Fausse montre_, 324 Faversham, 57 Fay, J. B., 312, 317 Feathers, jewelled, as aigrettes, 17 cent., 231 Feather jewel for hats, English, 17 cent., 300 Fedeli, Ercole, 158 Feder, von, 190 Federigo of Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, 171 "Felicini" altar-piece, 170 Felicini, Bartolomeo, 170 Felspar, green, 3 Fenwolf, Morgan, 208 Ferdinand of Tirol, Archduke, 188 Ferenzuola, Giovanni da, 185 _Fermail_, 93, 128, 131, 137, 141 _Fermailleurs_, 131 _Ferronnière_, 172, 328 Fessey, J., 310 Fibulæ, xlii, xliii, 127 " Anglo-Saxon, 59, 127 " Byzantine, 34 " Etruscan, 24 " Roman, xlii " Romano-British, xlii, 46 " "spectacle," xlii " _See also_ Brooches Field of Cloth of Gold, 207, 237 Filigree, 19 " Byzantine, 35 " " influence in Europe, 35 " Etruscan, 24 " gold, in Portuguese jewellery, 347 " gold, in 17 cent. memorial jewellery, 368 " Greek, 13, 16 " in Jewish wedding rings, 262 " silver, in German peasant jewellery, 346 Fillets, xxxix " Etruscan, 23 " medl., 105 " Phoenician, 9 " Roman, 28 Finger rings. _See_ Rings _Finger-ring Lore_, 296 Finiguerra, Tommaso (Maso), 168 Firens, P., 293 _Firmacula_, 92, 138 Fisher, Alexander, 339 Fitzhardinge, Lord, 73, 274 Flach, Thomas, 310 Flanders, influence of, in 15 cent., 142 Fleece, Golden, 24 " " Order of, 90 Flemish-Burgundian jewellery, 143-6, 213 Flemish brooches, 15 cent., 146 " paintings, jewellery in, 89-90 " peasant jewellery, 345 " Renaiss. " 196, 197 Fleurs-de-lis, 93, 106 Florence, 167 " Bargello. _See_ Museo Nazionale " Cathedral, 175 " Museo Nazionale (Bargello), 130 " Museo Nazionale (Bargello), Carrand collection, 145 " Pitti Gallery, 170, 233, 294 " Spedale di Santa Maria Nuova, 114 " Uffizi Gallery, 114, 117, 144, 168, 172, 264, 286, 294 " Uffizi Gallery, Galleria delle Gemme, 228 n. " 15 cent. jewellery, 174 Flötner, Peter, 193 _Flower_, pendant called, 210, 217 Flowers, natural, designs in jewellery, 283, 285-9 Fob-pocket, 298, 323, 324, 332 Foil, gold, Anglo-Saxon, 60 Foils for precious stones, 60-63, 180, 260, 351, 355, 356 Fontenay, E., 4, 48, 72, 320, 335 Fontevraud, 141 Foppa Ambrogio, called Caradosso, 168 Forgeries, 313, 355-62 Fornarina, 233 Fortnum collection. _See_ Oxford, Ashmolean Museum Foulc, E., 263 Fouquet, Georges, 338 Foy, René, 338 Foy, St., 112, 136, 137 Foyle, Lough, 43 France, barbaric jewellery, 56 " medl. jewellery, 88 " peasant jewellery, 342, 343 " Renaiss. jewellery, 199-201 " 17 cent. jewellery, 276 " 18 " " 309 " 19 " " 325 Francesca, Piero della, 171 Francia, F., 169, 170, 210 Francis I, K. of France, 172, 181, 199, 200, 208, 227 Frankfort-on-the-Main, 195 " Rothschild collection, 197 " Städel Institute, 233 Franks, the, 56 Franks, Sir A. W., 72, 185 " " _See also_ London, British Museum, Franks Bequest Frauds, 355-62 Freeman, John, 208 Friessler, L., 339 Fritillaries, painted on enamel, 287 Froment-Meurice, 331 Frontlets, Egyptian, 3 " Greek, 16 " 19 cent., 328 Fruit-shaped pendants, medl., 125 Frye, Thomas, 317 Fugger family, 188 " Jacob, 210 Fuller-Eliott-Drake. _See_ Drake Fuseli, H., 312 Gaillard, Lucien, 338 Gallo-Roman jewellery, 46 Garlande, Jean de, 131 Garnets, in Anglo-Saxon jewellery, 57, 58, 60, 61, 63, 67 " in barbaric jewellery, 49, 53 " in mourning jewellery, 370 " in Swiss peasant jewellery, 346 Garter, Order of, 254 " " pendent "George" of, 302 Gaudees (gauds), 124, 125 Gaskin, Arthur, 339 Gaul, 50 " invasion of by Teutonic races, 56 Gaveston, Piers, 67, 93 Geiss, 330 Gems, engraved, antique, in medl. jewellery, 148, 153, 154 " " in enseignes, 16 cent., 227 " " in girdles, 271 " " in pendants, 16 cent., 245 " " in pendants, 17 cent., 291, 292 " " 19 cent., 326-31 " sewn on dress, Byzantine, 34 " _See also_ Engraved gems George, St., enseigne of, 224, 225 "George," of the Order of Garter, 302 George III, K. of England, 313 _Genista_, 110 Gérard, F., Baron, 329 Gerini, Casa, 350 Germanic tribes, 50 Germany, peasant jewellery, 346 " 16 cent., jewellery, 187-96 " 17 cent., jewellery, 276 Gheeraerts, Marc, 352 Ghemert, H., van, 284 Ghent, 89 " altar piece by the Van Eycks, at, 106 Ghiberti, Lorenzo, 168, 210 Ghirlandaio, Domenico del, 169, 170, 210, 263 " Ridolfo del, 170 _Ghirlande_, 169 Gibbons, Grinling, 287 Gibbs Bequest. _See_ London, British Museum _Gigates_, 47 Giovio, Paolo, 260 _Gipcière_, 165 " _beams_, 165 Giraldus Cambrensis, 109 _Girandole_, 317, 318 Girdle, medl., in picture, 156 " -buckle, xlv, xlvi, 159, 160 " " design by Aldegrever, 194 " " " de Bry, 196 " " " Dürer, 190 " -buckles, 18 cent., 322 " -hangers, Anglo-Saxon, 63 Girdlers' Company of London. _See_ London Girdles, xlv, xlvi " Anglo-Saxon, 63 " Greek, 18 " medl., 159-65 " " England, 93, 94 " Renaiss., 270-2 " 17 cent., 296-7 " 19 cent., 329 Giuliano, Carlo, 22, 334, 359 Giustinian, S., 206 Glass, armlets, Romano-British, 47 " beads, Phoenician, 10 " " Roman, 29 " " Romano-British, 45 " diamond rings for writing on, 260 " Egyptian, 3, 6 " millefiori, in Anglo-Saxon jewellery, 59 " millefiori, in Romano-British jewellery, 46 " painted, in jewellery, "verre églomisé," 203-4 " paste, 1, 49, 52 Glastonbury, 67 Glenlyon brooch, 111, 132 Glockendon missal, 175 Glomy, 203 _Glossopetræ_, 122, 123, 156 Gloves, rings worn over, 149, 259 " slashing of, 259, 265 Gmünd, 339 _Gnadenmedaillen_, 248 Gnauth, 339 Gnostics, 101 Godberta, St., 155, 263 Godstow Priory ring, 150 Golconda, 278, 351 Gold, coloured, 311, 328 " imitation, 358, 359 Golden Fleece, 14 " " collar of, 90 " Hind, 253 "Goldshine," 316 Goldsmiths of Paris, medl., 134 " Company of London. _See_ London " workshops, interiors of, 98, 155, 156, 158, 176, 201 Gondola, pendent jewel, in form of, 197, 247 Gonzaga, Elizabeth, Duchess of Urbino. _See_ Elizabeth Gorget, from Petrossa, 52 Gorgets, ancient Irish, 42 Göss, 339 Gothic ornament, appearance of, 86 " nations, 49, 50 " revival, 19 cent., 331 " style, 19 cent., 332 Græco-Phoenician jewellery, 8 Graff, C., 339 _Grains de chapelet_, 125 Granulated gold, 327, 333 Granulation, Byzantine, 35 " Etruscan, 21, 24 " Greek, 12, 13 " Phoenician, 8 Granson, battle of, 210 Greek jewellery, 8, 11-19 " Islands, peasant jewellery, 246, 346 Green, J. R. (quoted), 66 Gregory XVI, Pope, 22 Gresham, Sir T., 237 Grey, Lady Jane, 254 Gribelin, Simon, 310 Grien, Hans Baldung, 189, 261 Grimani Breviary, 175 Grondoni, G. B., 309, 310 Guarrazar, 50, 53 Guay, J., 320 Guien, J., 310, 317 Guilds, goldsmiths', 134 " " rules against forgery, 356, 358, 359 _Guilloché_ gold, 312 Gurschner, G., 339 _Gypcière_, 94 Habsburg, family, 294 Hadaway, Mrs., 339 Hailler, D., 284 Hair, jewellery of, 368-70 " " 19 cent., 331 " ornaments for the, medl., 114 " " " Renaiss., 223 " " " 17 cent., 291 " " " 18 " 316 Hair-pins, xl, xli " Anglo-Saxon, 57 " Etruscan, 23 " German peasant, 346 " Greek, 17 " Renaiss., 232-3 " Roman, 28 " Romano-British, 45 " 18 cent., 316 " 19 " 328 Hall, Bishop, 259 " Edward, 207, 211, 224 Hals, Agnes, 366 " Frans, 296, 362 Hamilton brooch, 70 " Palace collection, 303 Hammer, 339 Hampton Court Gallery, 245 Hanau, 339 Hannibal, 32 Hans of Antwerp, 208, 213 Harlay, family, 266 Haroun al-Raschid, 84, 118 Harrogate diamonds, 357 Harvey, Gabriel, 261 Hastings, Lord, 46 Hat-badges. _See_ Enseignes " bands, jewelled, 224, 230 " ornaments, medl., 109 Hats, jewelled, medl., 107 " jewels on, English, 17 cent., 300, 301 " rings worn on, 261 Hauer, J. P., 287 Hauptmann, Franz, 339 Hays, Cornelius, 208 Head-appendages, Greek, 16 " dresses, Roman, 28 " ornaments, xxxix " " Dutch, 344 " " ancient Irish, 42 " " Italian, 15 cent., 171, 172 " " medl., 105-12 " " Renaiss., 232 " " 18 cent., 316 " " 19 " 328 Hearts, peasant jewels in form of, 342-5 Hecke, van den. _See_ Van den Hecke Heel, Johann, 309 Heeley, 319 Heem, Jan de. _See_ De Heem Hefner-Alteneck, J. H. von, 195 Hendrickje Stoffels, 191 _Henin_, 107 Henlein, Peter, 274 Henrietta Maria, Q. of England, earrings of, 354 Henry I, K. of England, 92 " II " 141 " III " 92, 141, 151 " IV " 95, 115, 116, 140, 142, 162, 164 " V " 95, 110 " VI " 115 " VII " 216, 219 " VIII " 199, 206-13, 219, 224, 225, 226, 237, 238, 250, 252, 258, 263, 265, 267, 268, 269 " II, K. of France, 200, 365 " III " 200, 234 " IV " 314, 320 " K. of Castile, 109 " Prince of Wales, son of James I, 302-3 Hentzner, Paul, 214 Hera, 19 Herbals, precious stones in, 100 n. Heraclius, Emperor, 59 Herbst, J. B., 310 Herculaneum, 29 " discovery of, 311 Herculean knot, rings shaped like, 32 Heriot, George, 268, 273, 300, 301, 304 " James, 210, 304 Heriot's Hospital, 301 Hermitage Museum. _See_ St. Petersburg Herodotus, 363 Herrick, Nicolas, 220 " Robert, 220, 302 " Sir William, 220, 301, 302 Heyl, Baron von, 136 Highland brooches, 131-3 Hilary, St., 104 " " jewel of, 103, 136 Hilliard, Nicholas, 219, 253, 255 Hipkins, W. and Co., 315 Hirzel, H. R. C., 338 Hispano-Moresque jewellery, 205 Hissarlik, 9 Holbein, Hans, the younger, 190, 210-13, 224, 243, 252, 273, 351, 352, 363, 365 Holford, Major, 288 Holinshed, R., 207, 235 Holland, peasant jewellery, 344-5 Hollar, W., 190, 275 Holtzendorff treasure, 267 " family, 238 Holy Land, jewellery brought back from, 84, 86 Holyrood, 115 Homer, 19 Honervogt, J., 282 Honyson, Guillim, 208 Hooks and loops, medl., 140 " " eyes, Renaiss., 268 Hoop (of ring), xlv Hornick, Erasmus, 193, 194, 251 Horus, 2 Huaud or Huault, 298 Hungary, 16 cent. jewellery, 197-8 " peasant jewellery, 347 Hunsdon, George Carey, Lord, 218, 265 " Henry Carey, Lord, 218, 253, 274 " jewels, 93, 218, 253, 274 Hunterston brooch, 79 Hurtu, J., 285 Hyderabad, 278 Ialysos, 12 Iconoclastic decrees, 34 _Iklyngton Coler_, 115 Ilchester, Earl of, 366 Il Rosso. _See_ Rosso _Impresa_, 223 Imitation diamonds, 313-14 " gold, 358, 359 " pearls, 314 " precious stones, 18 cent., 313 Imitations, 355-62 Incrustation (or inlay), process of, 49-55 Initials, jewelled, Renaiss., on garments, 268 " jewels in form of, 211-12 " pendants in form of, Renaiss., 248 Inlaid jewellery, 35, 49-55 " " Anglo-Saxon, 60 Innocent III, Pope, 96, 148 Intaglio cutting on gold, Greek, 13 " medl., 138 Intaglios, antique, in medl. jewellery, 102 " Renaiss., 227 " Roman, 30 " 19 cent., 326 Inventories, jewellery in, 82, 88-9, 92-6, 142, 215, 258, 263, 353 Ionia, 22 Ipsamboul (Abu Simbel), 4 Ireland, cloisonné enamel, 66 " introduction of Christianity into, 75 " prehistoric ornaments in, 40-4 Irish missionaries, their influence on Anglo-Saxon jewellery, 66, 67 Iron jewellery, 19 cent., 330, 331 " prehistoric, 39 Isabella d'Este, Marchioness of Mantua, 158 " of France, Q. of England, 114 Italian jewellery, 15 cent., 166-76 " " 16 " 183-6 " peasant jewellery, 334, 346 Jacobson, Philip, 302, 304 James I, K. of England, 210, 230, 231, 235, 238, 257, 268, 299, 300-4 " II " 119 " St., of Compostella, 109 Jane Seymour, Q. of England, 212 Janssens, C., 352 Jaquin, 314 Jet jewellery, 48 " medl., 124 " mourning jewellery, 370 " Romano-British, 45, 47 Jewish wedding rings. _See_ Rings "Jingling Geordie," 301 _Joaillerie_, 277 _Joailliers-faussetiers_, corporation of, 314 Joanna of Navarre, Q. of England, 141 _Jocalia_, 92, 138 John Anwarpe. _See_ Hans of Antwerp " of Cambridge, 106 " the Constant, Elector of Saxony, 261 " Frederick, Elector of Saxony, 261 " of Leyden, 250 " St., Baptist, head of, 226, 227 n. " " Evangelist, 36, 99, 103 " King of England, 92, 96 " II, King of France, 88 Jones, W., 296 Jonson, Ben, 151 Jörg, A., 284 Josephine, Empress, 29, 329-30 Juliers, William, Duke of. _See_ William Jupiter, cameo of, considered to represent St. John, 103 " Capitolinus, temple of, 32 Justinian, Emperor, 33, 34 Jutes, 56, 59 K., P. R., 280, 284 Kameiros, 12 Kann collection, 169 Karlsruhe, 190 Kaufmann collection, 263 Kayle, Hugh, 220 Kensington (South) Museum. _See_ London, Victoria and Albert Museum Kent, 60 Kentish cemeteries, 56, 57, 63 Kertch, 14, 16 " forged jewels, said to come from, 360 Kh[=a]-em-uas, 5 Khepera, 2 Kilbride, West, 79 Kilmainham brooch, 77 Kimmeridge shale, 47 King, C. W. (quoted), 100 Kings of the East, Three, 102, 111, 129, 132, 150, 152 Kingston brooch, 60 " -on-Thames, 142 _Klein-Meister_, 191-4 Kneller, Sir G., 353 Knives, Renaiss., suspended to girdles, 272 Knotwork, in Anglo-Saxon jewellery, 57 Koul-Oba, 14 Kraft, Adam, 120 _Kreuterbuch_, 100 n., 126 Labarre, P., 282 Laborde, L. de, 277 Laffitte, Gaston, 338 Lalique, René, 338 Lang, Andrew, 221, 353 Lange, Jehan, 208, 209 Latten, 161 La Quewellerie, G. de, 284, 295 Lannoy, Baldwin de, 90 " Raoul de, 116 Lapis-lazuli, 2, 136 Lark Hill, near Worcester, 154 Latium, 24 Laton, 161 Lauingen, 230, 232 Laverstoke, 72 Law, Thomas and Co., 315 "Lazos," 204, 294 Lead, medl. jewels of, 108-10, 131, 161 " models for jewellery, 192-3 Leblanc, 316 Le Blon, M., 284, 304 "_Leda and the Swan_," by Cellini, 185, 228 Ledyard, Adam, 124 Lefebure, F., 282, 291 Lefèvre, R., 329 Légaré, Gédéon, 282, 287 " Gilles, 279, 282, 287-9, 291, 293, 294, 296, 298, 366 Leicester, Robert Dudley, Earl of, 239, 274 Leland, J., 207 Lely, Sir P., 353 Leman, Baptist, 208 Le Mans, xliii, 128 Lemersier, B., 282 Lempereur, 312, 318 Lennox, Henry Stuart, Earl of, 217 " jewel, 217, 257 Lenton, F., 235, 357 Leo III, Emperor, 34 Leonardus, C., 100, 101 Leopold, J. F., 309 Letelen, Albert von, 139 Letters, jewels in form of, 211 " pendants in form of, Renaiss., 248 Leven and Melville, Earl of, 221, 353 Leyden, John of, 250 Liberale di Giacomo da Verona, 175 Liberation, German War of, 330 Liberty, A. Lazenby, 339 Lichtwark, A., 193 Limoges enamel, medl., 86 " enamelled enseignes made at, 229 Limavady treasure, 43 Lion's head on Egyptian jewellery, 5 " Phoenician jewellery, 9 Lions on archaic Greek jewellery, 12 Lipona, Countess, 16 Lippmann, F., 190 Lisbon, Museum of Fine Arts, 347 Linas, C. de, 52 n. "Little masters" (_Kleinmeister_), 191-6 Liverpool, Mayer collection, 60 Lively, 110, 116-7 _Livre de Taille d'Épargne_, 309 Llewellyn, 152 Llys-fæn, Carnarvonshire, 71 Loch Buy brooch, 133 Lochner, Stephan, 145 Lockets, memorial, Eng., 17-18 cent., 368 " 17 cent., 293 Lombard Street, 115 Lombards (Gothic tribe), 50 Lombardy, peasant jewellery, 346 London, British Museum, 3, 4, 8-10, 12, 17, 23-8, 34, 37, 44, 46, 51, 60, 63, 69, 72, 74, 76, 108, 119, 122, 129, 132, 133, 138, 190, 211, 273, 297 " British Museum, Franks Bequest, 37, 110, 145, 148, 246, 264, 368 " British Museum, Gibbs Bequest, 57, 62, 63 " British Museum, Waddesdon Bequest, 125, 184, 226, 231, 248, 272, 303, 366 " British Museum, Sloane collection, 218, 255 " British Museum, Gold Ornament Room, 154, 292 " British Museum, Carlisle collection, 246 " British Museum, Room of Greek and Roman Life, 23 " Cuming Museum, Walworth Road, 361 n. " Dorchester House, 225, 288 " Girdlers' Company, 161, 272 " Goldsmiths' Company, 131, 213 " Guildhall Museum, 108, 165 " National Gallery, 140, 171, 174, 238, 259, 264, 365 " National Portrait Gallery, 141 n., 212, 222, 235, 254 " Royal Academy, 312, 313 " St. Helen's Church, Bishopsgate, 115 " St. Paul's Cathedral, 115, 138 " South Kensington Museum Jewellery Exhibition, 1872, 241 " South Kensington Museum. _See_ London, Victoria and Albert Museum " Temple Church, 128 " Tower, 300 " Victoria and Albert Museum, 31, 36, 51, 72, 73, 120, 122, 129, 130, 138, 139, 163, 203, 218, 226, 231, 246, 248, 249, 254, 257, 266, 272, 273, 294, 296, 321, 334, 347, 356, 365, 369 " Victoria and Albert Museum, Art Library, 308, 344 " Victoria and Albert Museum, Dyce collection, 293 " Victoria and Albert Museum, Jones collection, 293 " Victoria and Albert Museum, Waterton collection, 149, 264 " Wallace collection, 226, 272, 296, 297 Londesborough collection, 129, 264 Loops (clasps), medl., 140 " Renaiss., 268 Lord Mayor of London, collar of, 117 Loreto, Santa Casa, 91 Lorn, brooch of, 133 Lothair II, K. of the Franks, 139 Lotto, Lorenzo, 263 Lotus flower, 4 Louis IX, St., K. of France, 119 " XI, K. of France, 109, 110, 116 " XII " 199 " XIII " 279, 286, 292 " XIV " 266, 279, 282, 293 " XV " 311, 320 " XVI " 311, 323 Louise Augusta, of Schleswig-Holstein, Princess, 339 Luckenbooth brooches, 133-4, 165 Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, 168, 172 Ludwig I, K. of Bavaria, 16 Lulls, Arnold, 231, 302, 304 Lunulæ, 42 Luthmer, F., xxxiv, 82, 135, 197, 240, 339, 352 Lyly, J., 217, 273 Lyons, 277 Lyte jewel, 257, 293, 303, 304, 354 " Sir H. Maxwell, 304 " Thomas, 303, 304, 354 Mabell, 269 Mabuse, 261, 351 Macdougals of Lorn, 133 Macleans of Loch Buy, 133 Macneals of Firfergus, 133 Macquoid, Mrs. Percy, 120 Madrid, Royal Armoury, 53 " Museum of Antiquities, 9 Mænad, 15 Magi. _See_ Kings of the East Magna Græcia, 14, 17, 18 Magnussen, E., 339 Mainz, 135-7 Mainz Cathedral, 137 " " Treasury, 137 " Museum, 136 _Maîtres ornemanistes_, 246 Malone, E., 123 n. Mammillary fibulæ, xliii, 42 Mantle clasps, medl., 140, 141 Manuscripts, representation of jewellery in, 82, 97, 174, 175, 176 Marbode, Bishop of Rennes, 100 n. Marcasite, 315, 319, 321 Marchant, Pierre, 281, 292, 306 Margaret, Q. of Scotland, 114-115 Maria, 312, 319 Marie Antoinette, Q. of France, 316, 317, 318 Mariette, P. J., 288 Martial, 31, 355 Martin, brothers, 204 " Sir Richard, 220 Mary, the Blessed Virgin, 36, 37 " " monogram of, 97, 204, 249 " of Burgundy, Empress, 146 n., 246 n. " daughter of James I, 302 " Q. of England, 207, 219, 237, 254, 269 " Q. of Scots, 220, 221, 234, 265, 268, 269, 353, 366 _Marygold by Temple Bar_, The, 306 Matsys, Quentin, 156, 227 n., 263 Mathias Corvinus, King of Hungary, 175 Mauricius, Emperor, 59 Mayer collection. _See_ Liverpool Maximilian, Archduke of Austria, 248 " I, Emperor, 191, 146 n. " II " 188 Mazarin, Cardinal, 279 Medallions on the hat, 229. _See also_ Enseignes Medals, pendent, Renaiss., 247-8 " " English, 257 Medici, family, 114, 260, 294 " " device of, 260 " Costanza de', 170, 263 " Cosimo de', 260 " Francesco de', 233 " Guiliano de', 171 " Lorenzo de', 171, 260 " Lucrezia de', 292 " Piero de', 260 Mediterranean, 8, 21 Melillo, 334, 359 Melos, 17 "Memento Mori," 363-70 Memorial jewellery, 321, 331 " rings, 364-70 Merchants' marks on rings, 153 Mermaids, pendants in form of, Renaiss., 249, 250, 251 " " hung with bells, 164 n. Merman, Renaiss. pendant in form of, 243, 249, 251 Merovingian dynasty, 52, 55 " jewellery, 46, 56 Merovingians, 50 Meuse, jewels found in, 143 Michelangelo di Viviano, 171 Mielich, Hans, 195, 226 Mignot, D., 193, 231, 280, 284, 304 Migrations of the Tribes, 49 Milan, Ambrosiana, 172 " Brera Gallery, 171 " Crespi Gallery, 225 " Poldi-Pezzoli Museum, 217, 255, 256 " S. Eustorgio, 111 " school of painting, 167 Millefiori glass in Anglo-Saxon jewellery, 59 " " in Romano-British jewellery, 46 Milvian Bridge, battle of, 226 Minden, 139 Miniature cases, 218 " " Elizabethan, 256 " " English, 17 cent., 303 " " 17 cent., 281, 293, 297 " frames, pinchbeck, 316 " " 17 cent., by Marchant, 306 " " jewelled, 18 cent., by Toussaint, 313 Miniatures in bracelets, 319-20 " memorial jewellery, 369 Minster Lovel jewel, 69 _Minuteria_, xxxiii, 227 n. "Mirror of France," 300 Mirror cases, medl. 146 " Renaiss., 272 " 17 cent., 297 Mithridates, 29 Mitres, jewels on, 97, 98 Mocha stone, 321 Models for jewellery in lead, 192-3 Möhring B., 338 Monckton, Lady, 317 Moncornet, B., 282, 287, 288 Monday, John, 208 Mondon, 309, 317 _Monilia baccata_, 29 " medl., 121, 138 " Roman, 29 Monograms, pendants in form of, 204, 212, 248, 249 " sewn on garments, 268 Monogrammists, 284 _Montauban_, 224, 231 Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley, 323 Monte di Giovanni, 175 Montefeltro, Federigo of, Duke of Urbino. _See_ Federigo Moorish influence on Portuguese peasant jewellery, 347 " influence on Spanish peasant jewellery, 205, 347 _Mordant_, xlvi, 159, 160, 162, 271 More, Sir Antonio, 352 Moreau, P., 312 Moreelse, Peter, 232 Morgan, Sir Matthew, 266 " Octavius, 148 " Pierpont, collection, 169, 173, 217, 248, 254, 256, 293, 297, 313 n. Morisson, F. J., 308, 310 Morlière (of Orleans), 287 _Mors de chape_, 137 Morses, 121, 137-40 Mosaic jewellery, 19 cent., 327 Mosaics, Byzantine, 33, 34, 36 Mosbach, H., 282 Moser, G. M., 312 Moss agates, 18 cent., 321 " 19 cent., 328-9 Mottoes on rings, 295-6 Moulds for casting jewellery, 108, 122 Mount Charles, Countess of, 240 Mourning jewellery, 331, 369, 370 " rings, 296, 364-70 Mummies, 1, 6 Munich, 194 " Antiquarium, 3, 16 " Bavarian National Museum, 62, 120, 157, 192, 195, 231, 232, 247 " Coin Cabinet, 248 " jewels made at, 245 " Pinakothek, 261, 263 " Royal Library, 195, 226 " Royal Treasury, 195, 251 " in 16 cent., 188, 189 Munk, Eugenie, 339 Murat, Joachim, 16 Museums, collections of jewellery in, 336 " portraits and jewels in, 349 Mycenæ, 11, 19, 40, 43 Mycenæan jewellery, 11 " period, 21, 22 Mytens, D., 352 Nail, Holy, 204 Nancy, battle of, 107 Nantes, Edict of, 305 Napoleon I, Emperor, 118, 325, 329, 332 " III " 118 Narwhal, 123 Nassaro, Matteo del, 226, 227 National Gallery, London. _See_ London, National Gallery "Navette" pendants, 246 Neckam, A., 92 Newman, Mrs., 339 Neck-chains, xl " medl., 113-17 " Renaiss., 236-41 Necklaces, xl, xliv " Anglo-Saxon, 58, 59, 74 " ancient British, 40 " Egyptian, 4 " Etruscan, 24 " Greek, 17 " hair, 19 cent., 331 " Italian, 15 cent., 172-3 " medl., 113-17, 121 " Phoenician, 10 " Renaiss., 236-42, 266, 285 " " perfumes worn in, 265 " rings worn on, 152, 261 " Roman, 29 " Romano-British, 45 " 17 cent., 291 " 18 " 313, 317, 318 " 19 " 328-31 Necklets, 113-17 " Renaiss., 239-40 Neck-ornaments, ancient Irish, 42 Nef, 246 " jewel, 252 Nene, 72 Neolithic Age, 47 Nephthys, 5 Neuburg, Amalia Hedwig of, 232 " Counts Palatine of, 232 " Dorothea Maria, wife of Otto Henry, Count of, 231 " Otto Henry, Count Palatine of, 230 Newcastle, William Cavendish, Duke of, 263 New College jewels, 96-8. _See also_ Oxford New Year's gifts, 153, 213, 215, 220, 265, 302 Niello, Anglo-Saxon, 71-3 " Byzantine, 36 " Italian, 15 cent., 163, 168, 173 " on medl. brooch, 130 " on Tara brooch, 78 "Niello" designs, engraved, 284, 295 Nolin, P., 285 Norfolk, Duke of, 221 " " badge of, 110 Norman Conquest, 65 Normandy, peasant jewellery, 342, 343 Norsemen, ravages of England, 68 Northumbria, 60 Norway, peasant jewellery, 345 Nose-ornaments, ancient British, 40 Nouches, 70, 93, 111, 121, 141, 142, 145, 223 _Nowche_ or _nuche_, 141, 223 _Nummi bracteati_, Anglo-Saxon, 59 "Nuremberg eggs," 275 Nuremberg, 194 " jewellery made at, 202 " Germanic Museum, 232, 238, 272, 349 " St. Lawrence's Church, 120 " Town Library, 175 " 16 cent., 188, 189 Nutwell Court, 253 Odobesco, A., 52 n. Olbia, forged jewels said to come from, 360 Olbrich, J. M., 338 _Oldano_, 275 n. Oliver, I., 303 " P., 293 Olonne, Countess d', 288 Oppenheim, Baron A., 155 _Opus interrasile_, Byzantine, 34, 35 " Roman, 30 Orleans, Duke and Duchess of (1408), 162 _Orles_, 106 Ornament engravings. _See_ Engraved designs for jewellery Orpheus, 100 Osma, J. G. de, 204 Ossian, 331 Otho II, Emperor, 34 _Ouch_ or _owche_, 141, 223. _See also_ Nouches Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, 29, 60, 68, 73, 238, 298 " Ashmolean Fortnum collection, 264 " Bodleian Library, 63, 264 " New College, 123, 142, 149 " University Galleries, 293 Oxus treasure, 51 _Paillons_, 180, 260 Palestine, jewellery brought back from, 84, 86 Palissy, Bernard, 229 Palmer, Col. N., 68 " Thomas, 68 _Panier_, 319 Pantikapaion, 14 Paphos, 17 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Cabinet des Médailles et Antiques, 30, 52, 53, 103, 185, 200, 225, 228, 245, 266, 292, 320, 330 " Dutuit collection, 139 " goldsmiths of, medl., 134 " Louvre, 3, 5, 6, 9, 12, 172, 272, 291, 297, 329 " " Campana collection, 23, 24 " " Davillier Bequest, 251 " " Galerie d'Apollon, 137, 139, 154, 249 " " Adolphe Rothschild Bequest, 139, 240, 245 " " Salle des Bijoux Antiques, 23 " " Sauvageot collection, 154 " Musée Cluny, 53, 108, 139, 250, 251 " Notre-Dame, 329 " Quai des Orfévres, 314 Parmigianino (Mazzuola), 233 Parrot, Renaiss. pendant in form of, 249 Parthey, G. F. C., 190-91 Partridge, Affabel, 220 " Mr. and Mrs., 339 Parure, 18 cent., 308 Pastes, 355-7 " imitating garnets, in Barbaric jewellery, 49-54 Paste jewellery, 18 cent., 314 " 19 " 328 Paternosterers, 124 Paton, J., 99 Patrick, St., 75 Pattern-books for jewellers, 17 cent., 280, 304 Pattern-books for jewellers, English, 18 cent., 310 Paul III, Pope, 199 "Paul's windows," 87 Peacocks, 35, 37 "Pea pod" ornament, 281, 289, 292, 293 Pearls, 314 " baroque, in Renaiss. pendants, 244 " " " toothpicks, 251 " in Byzantine jewellery, 33 " earrings, 234, 235, 291 " Q. Elizabeth's, 215 " false or mock, 314, 315, 357, 358 " pendent cluster, on jewels, 253 347 " pendent from Renaiss. jewels, 243 " _perles à potences_, 174 " ropes of, in the hair, 232, 316 " " as necklaces, 113, 239, 318 " "Roman," 358 " in Roman jewellery, 28 " Scottish, 121, 133, 356 " setting of, 15 cent., 174 " "Venetian," 358 " 19 cent., 328 Peasant jewellery, 341-7 " Dutch, 344-5 " Flemish, 345 " French, 342-4 " German, 346 " Hungarian, 197-8, 347 " Italian, 346 " Norwegian and Swedish, 345-6 " Portuguese, 347 " Spanish, 205, 347 _Pectoralia_, 138 Pectorals, Egyptian, 5 " medl., 135-46 Pembroke, Earl of, 116 Penannular brooch, xlii, xliii, 74 Pendants, xl " Anglo-Saxon, 58 " Egyptian, 5 " Etruscan, 24 " Flemish, 16 cent., 196 " girdle, medl., 159-60 " " Renaiss., 272, 275 " Italian, 15 cent., 169, 173 " medl., 118-26, 156 " Phoenician, 10 " Renaiss., 242-57 " " English, 212, 251-7 " " forgery of, 361 " " worn on hats, 223 " Roman, 29, 30 " 17 cent., 281, 291-4 " 18 " 309 _Pendeloques_, 291, 318 _Pendulum_, 93 Penicuik jewel, 221 Penruddock jewel, 252, 353 " Sir George, 353 _Pent-à-col_ (_pentacols_), 113, 121, 242 Pepys, S., 367 _Peres de eagle_, 122 Perfumes in bracelets, 265 " in earrings, 234 " in necklaces, 265 " in pomanders, medl. 125-6 " " Renaiss., 275 Persia, 33, 34, 50 Persian origin of inlaid jewellery, 52 Peru, emeralds from, 205 Peruzzi, Vincenzo, 279 Petitot, J., 288, 293, 304 Petrossa, treasure of, 50, 52 Peutin, John, 90 Pewter, jewels of, 111, 131, 161 Pforzheim, 339 Philibert, Margrave of Baden, 250 Philip "the Good," Duke of Burgundy, 89 n., 90, 155 Phoenicians, 21 Phoenicians jewellery, 7-10 Phoenix jewel, 218, 254, 255, 286 Phillips, Robert 335 Phylacteries, 122 Pichon, Baron, 119, 130, 264 "Picture-cases" (miniature-cases), English, 17 cent., 303 Pictures, jewellery in, 82, 329, 348-54 " Flemish jewellery in, 89, 90 " German jewellery in, 145, 189 " Italian, 15 cent., jewellery in, 167-76 " Italian, 16 cent., jewellery in, 183 " medl. necklaces in, 114-15 " " rings in, 155-6 _Pierre d' Alençon_, 343, 357 Piers Plowman, 153 Pilgrims' signs, 107-11, 222 " forgery of, 360-1 Piloty, 338 Pinchbeck, 315-16, 327, 359 " Christopher, 316, 321 " Edward, 321 Pinnow, 238, 267 Pins, xi-xli " Anglo-Saxon, 57, 74 " ancient British, 41 " Romano-British, 45 Pinturicchio, B. B., 267 Plaquettes, 193 Plate-inlaying, 50 Plates or discs of gold, 11 " " ancient Irish, 43 " " Mycenæan, 12 Platinum, 311 Pliny, 28, 30, 32, 47, 355 Plon, Eugène, 184 Ploumyer, Allart, 208, 209 Plume decoration on hat, 111 Points, Renaiss., 267-9 Poison, medl. tests for, 123 " in rings, 32 Poitiers, Diana of, 266, 364 Pollaiuolo, A., 168, 174, 210 " P., 168 _Polypsephi_ rings, 32 Pomander, design for, by Dürer, 191 " medl., 125-6, 160 " Renaiss., 270, 275 " in form of skulls, 364 " 17 cent., 296 _Pomeambre_, 125 Pompadour, Madame de, 311, 320 Pompeii, 311, 326, 363 Pompey, 29 Pompoms (buttons), Renaiss., 268 Pont-y-Saison, 46 Portinari, Tommaso, 114 " " daughter of, 114, 115, 117 " " Maria, wife of, 114, 144 Portland, Duke of, 221, 235, 354 Portraits, enamelled, as pendants, 17 cent., 292 " on bracelet clasps, 319-20 " on rings, Roman, 31 " " 18 cent., 320 "Portugal diamond," 300 Portugal, peasant jewellery, 347 Posy (posies), 128, 152, 262, 295, 296, 321 Pottery, glazed, 1 Pouches, medl., 165 Pouget, the younger, 312, 314, 317 Pourbus, Peter, 352 Prague, 188, 198 " Cathedral Treasury, 121 Præneste, 24 Prato, Girolamo del, 185 Prayer-books, enamelled gold, 218, 273, 274 Precious stones, imitation of, 355-8 " in modern jewellery, 337, 338 " setting of, in Renaiss. jewellery, 180, 260 " mystery of, 99-104 " 19 cent., 328 Predis, Ambrogio da, 172 Prerogative Royal, 44 Price, F. G. Hilton, 306 "Primavera," 169 "Primrose," Mrs., 350 Prutscher, O., 339 Ptolemaic jewellery, 6 "Pulvisculus aureus," 21 Purbeck, Island of, 47 Purled work, 19 cent., 327 Purses, Anglo-Saxon, 63 " medl., 165 Puy, peasant jewellery, 343 _Pylon_, 5 Pynson, R., 236 Pyrites, iron (marcasite), 315 Quartz, 313 " crystals, 357 Raab, H., 287 Rabelais, F., 199 Raibolini, Francesco. _See_ Francia Raimbau, Mlle., 312 Raleigh, Sir Walter, 235 Rameses II, 4, 5 Raphael, 182, 226 Ravenna, 33, 70 " Sant' Apollinare Nuovo, church of, 36 " San Vitale, church of, 33, 36 Raynes, Robert, 237 _Reasons_, 152 Récamier, Madame, 326 Reccesvinthus, 54 Red Sea, 28 Rée, P. J., 275 Relics, 102, 108, 111, 118, 125 " in rings, 152 Reliquaries, Byzantine, 36 " Italian, 15 cent., 173 " medl., 118-19, 121, 160 " Spanish, 203, 347 Rembrandt, 291 Renaiss. jewellery, its general characteristics, 177-183 Renty, 316 Repoussé work, 11 " Byzantine, 34 " Egyptian, 3 " Etruscan, 21 " Greek, 13 " Irish, 43 " Renaiss., 227 _Resons_, 152 Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 313, 353 Rhenish enamels, 85-6 Rhine, Irish missionaries on, 67 Rhodes, 12 Richard I, K. of England, xliii, 128 " II " 94, 110, 114, 116, 141 " III " 116, 222 Ring-brooch. _See_ Brooch Ring-money, 40, 43 Rings, xliv, xlv " Anglo-Saxon, 62, 71-3 " betrothal, 261-2 " ancient British, 40 " Byzantine, 37 " charm, 151-2 " with coins, Roman, 32 " with death's heads, 364 " decade, 150 " devotional, 149, 150, 152 " " signets, 153 " made by St. Dunstan, 67 " ecclesiastical, 147-9 " Egyptian, 2, 67 " engagement, 261-2, 296 " engraved designs for, 263, 264, 284, 295, 296 " episcopal, xlv, 148, 149 " Etruscan, 25, 26 " _fede_, 152, 261 " _fyancel_, 152 " giardinetti, 295 " gimmel, 152, 261 " Greek, 18 " with hair, 331 " worn on hats, 261 " iconographic, 149, 150 " of investiture, 148 " Italian, 15 cent., 170 " jet, 47 " Jewish, 262 " key-rings, Byzantine, 37 " " Roman, 31 " _marquise_, 321 " medl., 147-57 " " with antique gems, 96, 101, 103, 148-9, 153-4 " " with false stones, 356 " " forged, 360 " memento mori, 365-70 " memorial, 364-70 " mourning, 296, 321, 367 " Merovingian, 62, 73 " Mycenæan, 11 " worn on necklaces, 152, 261 " nielloed, Anglo-Saxon, 71-3 " " Italian, 15 cent., 173 " ornamental, xlv " " medl., 154-5 " " Renaiss., 258, 259 " " 17 cent., 295, 296 " papal, 148 " Phoenician, 10 " in pictures, 155-7, 261, 263, 295 " poison, 32 " _polypsephi_, Roman, 32 " posy, 152, 262, 295, 296, 321, 367 " with relics, 152 " religious, 149-50 " Renaiss., 258-64 " arranged along a roll of parchment, 155, 156, 170, 263 " Roman, 31 " Romano-British, 47 " Samothracian, 32 " in ancient sculpture, 18 " signets, xlv, 298 " " of Childeric I, 53, 63 " " Egyptian, 6 " " Greek, 18 " " medl., 153-154 " " Roman, 31 " " 17 cent., 298 " talismanic, 111 " Teutonic, _à trois grains_, 73 " wedding, xlv " " medl., 152 " " converted into memorial, 367 " " Jewish, 262 " " Renaiss., 262 " " 17 cent., 296 " " 18 cent., 321 " 17 cent., 295-6 " 18 cent., 309, 312, 320, 321 Rivard, C., 282, 291 Rivers, ornaments found in, 107 Roach Smith nouche, 69 Robin, 331 Robinson, F. S., 339 Rococo, 307, 308, 311, 324, 332 Rogart, 77 "Roman de la Rose," 113, 164 Roman jewellery, 27-32 Romano-British jewellery, 44-48 "Romantic" jewellery, 331 " style, 332 Romanus, Emperor, 34 Rome, Barberini Palace, 175 " Baths of Petus, 182 " Castle of St. Angelo, 334 " National Gallery, 225 " Vatican, 22 " " Appartamento Borgia, 267 " " Gallery of Constantine, 226 " " Library, 175 " " Loggie, 182 Romerswael, Marinus van, 156 Romney, Earl of, 273 Rosenheim, Max, 193 n., 294 "Rössel," "das goldene," 88 Rosso, Il, 201 Rosaries, 124-5, 156 " as bracelets, 157 Rosary beads in form of skulls, 364 Rosette, jewelled, on breast, 17 cent., 294 Rothschild, Baron F., 303 " Baron K., 197 Rotterdam Gallery, 232 Rouen, 128 " peasant jewellery, 343 Roy, 237 Rubens, P. P., 287 Rubies, 148, 260 " of Charles the Bold. _See_ Three Brothers Rudolf II, Emperor, 100, 188, 189 Rudolphine Period, 188 Runic characters on Hunterston brooch, 79 Russia, Byzantine jewellery in, 38 " Greek jewellery in, 14-16 Sabines, 20 Sabra, princess, 224 _Sacré Coeur_, 345 Safety-pins, xli-xliii, 41 Saint, T. D., 312 St. Angelo in Vado, 333 St. Denis Cathedral, 137 " " treasury, 103 _Saint Esprit_, 343 St. Germain, Musée des Antiquités Nationales, 46 St. Helen's Church, Bishopsgate. _See_ London St. Hilary, jewel of, 103 St. Paul's Cathedral. _See_ London St. Petersburg, Hermitage Museum, 9, 15, 16 Saitapharnes, tiara of, 360 Salting, George, 119, 176, 224, 248, 263 Santini family, drawings by, 308, 317, 318, 344 Sapphires, 54, 151 Saragossa, treasury of the Virgen del Pilar, 144, 203, 249 Sarawak, Ranee of, 339 Sardinia, 8, 9, 21 Sardonyx, 31 Sarre, 59 " brooch, 60 Sarum, 138 Saur, C., 284 Savoy, peasant jewellery, 342 Saxons 50, 56 Scandinavians, 50 Scarabs, 2, 5, 6, 10, 25 Scent-cases, 125-6, 275 Schaffhausen onyx, 103, 104, 136 Schaper, Hugo, 238 Schliemann, H., 11, 40 Schneider, F., 137 Schönbrunn, 294 Schöpfer, H. 250 _Schotenornamentik_, 281 _Schwarzornamente_, 283, 289 Scissors suspended to girdle, 272 Scorpion, jewelled, 172 Scotland, introduction of Christianity into, 75 " Celtic brooches, 75-9 " medl. brooches, 131-4 Scott, Sir Walter, 301, 331 Scythian tribes, 14 Seal stone, Egyptian, 6 Seals, medl., 139 " pendent, 17 cent., 298 " 18 cent., 309, 312, 322-4 " 19 " 332 Seffrid, Bishop of Chichester, 149 Seghers, D., 287 Seneca, 29 Serpent bracelet, Roman, 30 " ring, Greek, 18 Set-Hathor, 5 _Sévignés_, 294, 298, 318 Shagreen jewel-cases, 362 Shale, Kimmeridge, 47 Shakespeare, W., 151, 216, 229, 237 " portrait of, 235 Shank (of ring), xlv Sheffield plate, 315 " steelwork, 315 Sherborne Castle, 267 Ships, pendants in form of, 249, 252, 253, 347 Shoe-buckles, 299, 321, 322 " -strings, 322 Shoes, rosettes on, 299 Shore, Jane, 115 Shrines, jewels on, 91, 108 Sicily, 27 " Arabs in, 84 " peasant jewellery, 347 " Roman plunder of, 27 Siena Cathedral, 175 " school of painting, 167 _Signacula_, 109, 111 Signs of pilgrimage, 107 Silhouette, Etienne de, 314 " designs, 283, 284, 289, 304 " portraits, 314 Silhouettes in mourning jewellery, 369 Silver jewellery worn by virgins, 342 _Similor_, 316, 359 Simon, James, 163 Simpson, E., 339 " T., 304 "Sippenaltar," 145 n. Sirens, pendants in form of, 250 Skeletons, 363-7 Skulls, 364-6 Slashes in garments, 259, 265, 268-9 Slides, 342, 343 " memorial, English 17-18 cent., 368 Sloane, Sir Hans, 72, 211, 255 Slott-Möller, H., 339 Smith, C. Roach, 62, 69 " J., 310 " R. Soden, 264 Sodoma (Bazzi), 233 Solder, Egyptian, 3 " Etruscan, 20, 21 " Greek, 13 " Phoenician, 8 " prehistoric, 39 Solis, Virgil, 193, 194 Somerset, Alfred in, 68 " Anne, Duchess of, 233, 273 " Edward Seymour, Duke of, 233, 273 " Robert Carr, Earl of, 235 Southampton, Henry Wriothesley, Earl of, 235 South Kensington Museum. _See_ London, Victoria and Albert Museum Spain, Arabs in, 84 " Phoenician sculpture in, 9 " peasant jewellery, 347 " 16 cent. jewellery, 202-205 " 17 cent. jewellery, 294 "Spangle money," 59 Spenser, E., 217 Sphinxes, 5, 16 Spilman, Sir J., 301 _Spinther_, 30 Spiral ornament, 11 " " Celtic, 39, 75 Spitzer collection, 246 SS Collar, 116-17 Stabler, Harold, 339 Stafford, Lady, 154 _Stalagmia_, 29 Steatite, 5 Steel jewellery, 315, 319 Stephan, Master. _See_ Lochner Stephanus. _See_ Delaune, Etienne Stock-buckles, 322 Stoffels, Hendrickje, 291 Stoffler, W., 339 "Stomacher," 318, 350 Stone Age, 47 Stowe, J., 207 Stras or Strass, 314, 315, 357 Strawberry Hill, 257, 288 Strigel, Bernard, 189, 238 Stuart, Arabella, 299 " Henry, Earl of Lennox. _See_ Lennox Stubbes, Philip, 215, 234, 272 Studded girdle, 161 Suffolk, Henry Grey, Duke of, 254 Sulla, 28 Sumptuary laws, 27, 93, 94, 161 Sustermans, J., 294 Svinthila, 50, 54 Swans on Byzantine jewellery, 37 Sweden, peasant jewellery, 345 Switzerland, use of marcasite in 18 cent., 315 " peasant jewellery, 346 Symonds, J. A. (quoted), 168, 185 Symony, P., 282, 284 _Tableau_ or _tabulet_, 120 Tablets, votive, pendent, 119 Tag of girdle, xlvi, 160 Tags (aglets), 269 Talaura, 29 Talbot, 249 " Earl of Shrewsbury, badge of, 110 Talismans, 30, 99, 101, 109, 111, 121, 129, 132, 147, 151 Talismanic inscriptions on Scottish brooches, 111, 131 Tallien, Madame, 326 Taman, 14 Taplow buckle, 63 Tara brooch, 66, 78, 79 Tassels, Greek, 18 " of medl. clasps, 140 " Phoenician, 9 Tassie, J., 315, 330 Tauric Chersonese, 14 Tavernier, J. B., 278 Terrey, William, 304 _Tet_, 2 Teutonic jewellery, 51, 53 " nations, 56, 57 Tharros, 9, 10 Theban dynasties, 3 Theodamas, 100 Theodora, Empress, 33 Theophano, 34 Theophilus, 85, 356 Thirty Years' War, 189, 238, 276 Thomas à Becket, St., 91, 96, 109, 140 Three Brothers, jewel called, 209, 300 Three Kings of the East. _See_ Kings Tiara of Saitapharnes, 360 Tiffany, Messrs., 339 _Tinctura_, 278, 351 Titian, 264 _Titulus_, 132 Toadstones, 100, 123, 151 Toes, jewels on, 19 cent., 326 Tongue of buckle, xlvi Toothpicks, 250-1 Tor Abbey, Devonshire, 365 Tornabuoni, Giovanna, 169 Torque, from Petrossa, 52 _Torques bracchialis_, 30 Torques, 236 " ancient British, 40 " " Irish, 42, 43 Touching-pieces, 123 Tournai, 52 _Tours de tête_, 328 _Tousches_, 123 Toussaint, Augustus, 313 Toutin, H., 285, 295 " J., 285, 293, 295 " J., in his workshop, 289 Tovaloccio Piero, Giovanni and Romolo del, 185 Tower of London. _See_ London Townley brooch, 70 "Toys," "Toyman," 316 Tradescant, John, the younger, wife of, 298 Translucent enamel on relief. _See_ Enamel, _basse-taille_ Transylvania, 58 Traquair, Mrs., 339 Treasure hoards, 51 " Trove, 44 Treasuries, jewellery preserved in, 83 Trender, Peter, 220 _Tressoures_, 93, 105 "Triplet," 357 Triptychs, pendent, 119-20 _Triquetra_, 78 Triton, pendant in form of, 243, 249 Troad, 9 Trumpet pattern, Celtic, 43 " " on Tara brooch, 78, 79 Tucher, Baron, collection of, 225 "Tulipomania," 286 Tulips painted on enamel, 286 Turkey stone, 151 Turquoise, 3, 67, 151 Turner (potter), 315 Tuscany, schools of painting, 167 Twiselton, John, 208 _Tymborychoi_, 13 Tyrol, peasant jewellery, 346 Tyszkiewicz, Count, 17, 360 Tytler, P. Fraser, 257 Ucker-Mark (N. Germany), 267 Ugadale brooch, 133 Uffila brooch, 62 Uffizi Gallery. _See_ Florence Umbria, peasant jewellery, 346 Unger, Elsa, 339 Unicorn, Master of the, 200 Unicorn's horn, 123 Unicorns on medl. jewels, 145 " on Renaiss. jewels, 243 _Uniones_, 28 University brooch, 78 _Uræus_, 2 Urban VI, Pope, 122 Usekh collar, 5 Usertsen III, 5 Utrecht, John of, 208 _Uza_ or _utchat_, 2 Van den Hecke, J., 287 Van der Cruycen, L., 312, 317 " Doort, Abraham, 219 " Goes, H., 114, 117, 144 " Gow, J., 213 n. Van de Velde, H. C., 338 Van Dyck, A., 354 Van Somer, P., 352 Van Strydonck, L., 339 Van Thielen, J. P., 287 Vasari, G., 168, 227 Vatican. _See_ Rome Vauquer, J., 287-9, 293 Vautier, 297 Velasquez, 294 Venetian pendants, Renaiss., 246 Venetians, sack of Constantinople by, 38 Veneto (Veneziano), Bartolommeo, 225 Venice, Byzantine jewellery in, 83-84 " Library of St. Mark's, 175 " in Middle Ages, 89 " port of, 15-16 cent., 167 " school of painting, 167 Vermiculated patterns in gold, Anglo-Saxon, 63 Vernicles, 130 Veronese, Paolo, 172 Veronica, 130 n. _Verre églomisé_, 203-4 Verrocchio, Andrea del, 168, 174 210 Versailles, Picture Gallery, 329 Verus, Lucius, 292 Vespasian, 28 Vespucci, Simonetta, 168 Vesuvius, 311 Vever, 338 Victoria, Q. of England, 257 Vienna, Imperial Art Collections, 30, 145, 185, 247 " Imperial Art Collections, Antiken-Kabinet, 228 " Picture Gallery, 155, 212 " Treasury, 188 " jewellery in, 18 cent., 308 " reproductions made in, 361 Vigée-Lebrun, Madame, 329 Vinci, Leonardo da, 172 Virgin, The. _See_ Mary, the Blessed Virgin Visigoths, 50, 54 Vos, Cornelis de, 296 Vovert, J., 285 Vulci, 23, 24 Vyner, Sir Robert, 305 Waddesdon Bequest. _See_ London, British Museum Wagner, Anna, 339 Walpole, Horace, 214, 257, 288 Walsingham Priory, 91, 108 War of Liberation, German, 330 Wars of the Roses, 95 Warwick, Earls, badge of, 110 "Wasps," 316 Watches, 16 cent., 274 " 17 cent., 274, 275, 297-8 " 18 cent., 309, 323-4 " egg-shaped, 275 " false, 324 " in form of skulls, 364 Watch-cases, pinchbeck, 316 " " 18 cent., 313 " -chains, hair, 331 " -keys, 18 cent., 310, 322-3 Waterton, Edmund, 71, 149 n., 264 " collection. _See_ London, Victoria and Albert Museum Way, Albert, 257 Wedgwood, 315, 319, 321, 328, 330 Weimar, Picture Gallery, 261 Wells Cathedral, sculpture on, 128 Werner, J. H., 338 Westminster, 211, 268 " Abbey, 92, 102, 119, 141, 215 Whistles, pendent, 190, 193, 198, 250, 251 Wight, Isle of, 56, 57, 59, 60 Wild jewel, 218, 254 Wilde, W. R., 42 n. William I, K. of England, 91 " III " 306 " Duke of Juliers, 250, 259 " St., of York, 141 " of Wykeham. _See_ Wykeham Williams, John, 238, 257, 302 Wilson, H., 339 Wilton House, 116 Winchester Cathedral, 98, 148 Windsor Castle, 219, 224, 225, 249, 257, 292 Witham, 74 Wittislingen, 62 Woeiriot, Pierre, 201, 219, 234, 246, 263, 366 Wolfers, P., 339 Wolgemut, M., 189 Wolsey, T., Cardinal, 208 Wootton-under-Edge (Gloucestershire), 116 Worley, Nicolas, 208 Wreaths, Byzantine, 35 " Greek, 16 " medl., 105 Wright, T., 101 Wykeham, William of, Bishop of Winchester, 96-8, 142, 149 Yecla, 9 York Minster, 138 " " shrine of the head of St. William, 141 Zerrenden, F., 339 _Zona_, 93 Zucchero, F., 253, 352, 353 Zundt, Mathias, 194 PRINTED BY WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD. PLYMOUTH 
57009	----	generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) Transcriber's note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). Page numbers enclosed by curly braces (example: {25}) have been incorporated to facilitate the use of the Index. * * * * * HISTORY OF LACE [Illustration: ANNE, DAUGHTER OF SIR PETER VANLORE, KT., FIRST WIFE OF SIR CHARLES CÆSAR, KT., ABOUT 1614. The lace is probably Flemish, Sir Peter having come from Utrecht. From the picture the property of her descendant, Captain Cottrell-Dormer.] _Frontispiece._ HISTORY OF LACE BY MRS. BURY PALLISER ENTIRELY REVISED, RE-WRITTEN, AND ENLARGED UNDER THE EDITORSHIP OF M. JOURDAIN AND ALICE DRYDEN WITH 266 ILLUSTRATIONS NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1902 LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, DUKE STREET, STAMFORD STREET, S.E., AND GREAT WINDMILL STREET, W. PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION Nearly thirty years have elapsed since the third edition of the HISTORY OF LACE was published. As it is still the classical work on the subject, and many developments in the Art have taken place since 1875, it seemed desirable that a new and revised edition should be brought out. The present Revisers have fully felt the responsibility of correcting anything the late Mrs. Palliser wrote; they have therefore altered as little of the text as possible, except where modern research has shown a statement to be faulty. The chapters on Spain, Alençon and Argentan, and the Introductory chapter on Needlework, have been almost entirely rewritten. Much new matter has been added to Italy, England and Ireland, and the notices of Cretan and Sicilian lace, among others, are new. The original wood-cuts have been preserved with their designations as in the 1875 edition, which differ materially from the first two editions. Nearly a hundred new illustrations have been added, and several portraits to show different fashions of wearing lace. The Revisers wish to record their grateful thanks to those who have assisted them with information or lace for illustration; especially to Mrs. Hulton, Count Marcello and Cavaliere Michelangelo Jesurum in Venice, Contessa di Brazza and Contessa Cavazza in Italy, M. Destrée in Brussels, Mr. Arthur Blackborne, Salviati & Co., and the Director of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. M. JOURDAIN. ALICE DRYDEN. _London, September, 1901._ CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I.--NEEDLEWORK 1 II.--CUT-WORK 14 III.--LACE 26 IV.--ITALY.--VENICE--MILAN ("Milano la Grande")--FLORENCE--THE ABRUZZI--ROMAGNA--NAPLES--GENOA ("Genova La Superba")-- CANTU--SICILY 45 V.--GREECE--CRETE--TURKEY--MALTA 82 VI.--SPAIN--PORTUGAL 90 VII.--FLANDERS--BRUSSELS (BRABANT)--MECHLIN--ANTWERP--FLANDERS (WEST)--FLANDERS (EAST)--HAINAULT 109 VIII.--FRANCE TO LOUIS XIV. 139 IX.--LOUIS XIV. 150 X.--LOUIS XIV.--_continued_ 161 XI.--LOUIS XV. 171 XII.--LOUIS XVI. TO THE EMPIRE 179 XIII.--THE LACE MANUFACTURES OF FRANCE--ALENÇON (Dép. Orne), NORMANDY 188 XIV.--ARGENTAN (Dép. Orne) 202 XV.--ISLE DE FRANCE.--PARIS (Dép. Seine)--CHANTILLY (Dép. Oise) 209 XVI.--NORMANDY--SEINE INFÉRIEURE--CALVADOS--BRETAGNE 216 XVII.--VALENCIENNES (Dép. du Nord)--LILLE (Dép. du Nord)--ARRAS (Artois) (Dép. Pas-de-Calais)--BAILLEUL (Dép. du Nord) 230 XVIII.--AUVERGNE AND VÉLAY--LE PUY (Dép. Haute-Loire)--AURILLAC AND MURAT (Dép. Cantal) 242 XIX.--LIMOUSIN--LORRAINE--CHAMPAGNE--BURGUNDY--LYONNOIS-- ORLÉANOIS--BERRY--POITOU 250 XX.--HOLLAND, GERMANY, SWITZERLAND, AUSTRIA AND HUNGARY-- HOLLAND--SAXONY--GERMANY (NORTH AND SOUTH)--SWITZERLAND 258 XXI.--DENMARK--SWEDEN--RUSSIA 272 XXII.--ENGLAND TO QUEEN ELIZABETH 285 XXIII.--QUEEN ELIZABETH 299 XXIV.--JAMES I. TO THE RESTORATION.--JAMES I.--CHARLES I.-- THE COMMONWEALTH 315 XXV.--CHARLES II. TO THE HOUSE OF HANOVER.--CHARLES II.-- JAMES II.--WILLIAM III.--QUEEN ANNE 335 XXVI.--GEORGE I.--GEORGE II. 351 XXVII.--SMUGGLING 358 XXVIII.--GEORGE III. 363 XXIX.--THE LACE MANUFACTURES OF ENGLAND 371 XXX.--BEDFORDSHIRE--BUCKINGHAMSHIRE--NORTHAMPTONSHIRE--SUFFOLK 375 XXXI.--WILTSHIRE AND DORSETSHIRE 395 XXXII.--DEVONSHIRE--HONITON--TROLLY LACE--JAPAN 399 XXXIII.--SCOTLAND 418 XXXIV.--LACE MANUFACTURES OF SCOTLAND 428 XXXV.--IRELAND 435 XXXVI.--BOBBIN NET AND MACHINE-MADE LACE--BOBBIN NET--FRANCE-- BELGIUM--MACHINERY LACE 447 APPENDIX 459 GLOSSARY OF TERMS 503 INDEX 507 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE ANNE, DAUGHTER OF SIR PETER VANLORE, KT. _Frontispiece_ Gold Lace found in a barrow Fig. 1 4 ARGENTAN.--CIRCULAR BOBBIN RÉSEAU; VENETIAN NEEDLEPOINT PLATE I 12 ITALIAN BOBBIN RÉSEAU; SIX-POINTED STAR-MESHED BOBBIN RÉSEAU; BRUSSELS BOBBIN RÉSEAU; FOND CHANT OF CHANTILLY AND POINT DE PARIS; DETAILS OF BOBBIN RÉSEAU AND TOILE; DETAILS OF NEEDLE RÉSEAU AND BUTTONHOLE STITCHES PLATE II 14 Point Coupé Fig. 2 18 ALTAR OR TABLE-CLOTH OF FINE LINEN (PROBABLY ITALIAN) PLATE III 18 Laces Fig. 3 19 Elizabethan Sampler " 5 22 Impresa of Queen Margaret of Navarre " 4 23 Spider-work Figs. 6, 7 24 FAN MADE AT BURANO PLATE IV 24 ITALIAN PUNTO REALE " V 24 Grande Dantelle au Point devant l'Aiguille Fig. 8 28 Petite Dantelle Figs. 9-12 29 Passement au Fuseau Figs. 13, 14 30 Passement au Fuseau Fig. 15 31 Merletti a Piombini " 16 31 ITALIAN.--MODERN REPRODUCTION AT BURANO PLATE VI 32 HERALDIC (CARNIVAL LACE) " VII 32 Old Mechlin Fig. 17 35 ITALIAN, VENETIAN, FLAT NEEDLE-POINT LACE PLATE VIII 36 PORTION OF A BAND OF NEEDLE-POINT LACE " IX 36 Guipure Fig. 18 39 Tape Guipure " 19 40 ITALIAN.--POINT DE VENISE À LA ROSE PLATE X 44 ITALIAN.--POINT PLAT DE VENISE " XI 46 ITALIAN.--POINT DE VENISE À RÉSEAU " XII 48 Mermaid Lace Fig. 20 50 Reticella " 21 50 Punto a Gropo " 22 52 Gros Point de Venise " 23 52 Punto a Maglia " 24 53 Punto Tirato " 25 54 Point de Venise à Bredes Picotées " 26 54 Venise Point " 27 55 Gros Point de Venise " 28 56 Point de Venise " 29 56 Point Plat de Venise " 30 56 Point de Venise à Réseau " 31 58 Burano Point " 32 60 ITALIAN.--MODERN POINT DE BURANO PLATE XIII 60 ITALIAN.--MODERN REPRODUCTION AT BURANO " XIV 62 ITALIAN.--MILANESE, BOBBIN-MADE " XV 64 Reticella from Milan Fig. 33 65 ITALIAN.--VENETIAN, NEEDLE-MADE PLATE XVI 66 ITALIAN.--MILANESE, BOBBIN-MADE " XVII 66 Unfinished Drawn-work Fig. 34 69 CUSHION MADE AT THE SCHOOL PLATE XVIII 70 ITALY.--GROUP OF WORKERS AT BRAZZA SCHOOL " XIX 70 Genoa Point, Bobbin-made Fig. 35 74 Lace Pattern found in the Church at Santa Margherita " 36 76 ITALIAN.--BOBBIN TAPE WITH NEEDLE-MADE RÉSEAU PLATE XX 76 ITALIAN, GENOESE.--BORDER " XXI 76 Parchment Pattern used to cover a Book Fig. 37 77 Fringed Macramé " 38 80 ITALIAN.--OLD PEASANT LACES, BOBBIN-MADE PLATES XXII, XXIII 80 ITALIAN.--MODERN PEASANT LACE PLATE XXIV 80 Silk Gimp Lace Fig. 39 84 SICILIAN.--OLD DRAWN-WORK PLATE XXV 84 SOUTH ITALIAN " XXVI 84 Reticella, or Greek Lace Fig. 40 85 Loubeaux de Verdale " 41 88 ITALIAN, RAPALLO--MODERN PEASANT LACE PLATE XXVII 88 MALTESE.--MODERN BOBBIN-MADE " XXVIII 88 Bobbin Lace (Ceylon) Fig. 42 89 The Work Room (16th century engraving) " 43 91 Unfinished Work of a Spanish Nun " 44 94 SPANISH.--MODERN THREAD BOBBIN LACE PLATE XXIX 94 SPANISH, BLONDE.--WHITE SILK DARNING ON MACHINE NET " XXX 94 Unfinished Work of a Spanish Nun Fig. 45 95 " " " " 46 96 Old Spanish Pillow Lace " 47 100 PORTRAIT, DUCHESSE DE MONTPENSIER PLATE XXXI 100 JEWISH " XXXII 104 SPANISH " XXXIII 104 Bobbin Lace (Madeira) Fig. 48 106 " (Brazil) " 49 107 SPANISH.--PILLOW-MADE 19TH CENTURY PLATE XXXIV 108 PARAGUAY.--"NAUDUTI" " XXXV 108 Lace-making Fig. 50 110 FLEMISH.--PORTION OF BED-COVER PLATE XXXVI 110 Cap of Emperor Charles V. Fig. 51 112 Isabella Clara Eugenia, Daughter of Philip II. " 52 112 Mary, Queen of Hungary, Cuff " 53 113 Belgian Lace School " 54 114 Old Flemish Bobbin Lace " 55 114 Old Flemish.--Trolle Kant " 56 115 BRUSSELS.--POINT D'ANGLETERRE À BRIDES PLATE XXXVII 116 FLEMISH.--TAPE LACE, BOBBIN-MADE " XXXVIII 116 Brussels Needle-Point Fig. 57 118 " " " 58 120 Brussels.--Point à l'Aiguille " 58A 120 Old Brussels.--Point d'Angleterre " 59 122 " " " " 60 124 MECHLIN, 17TH AND 18TH CENTURY PLATE XXXIX 126 Mechlin.--Period Louis XVI. Fig. 61 127 Mechlin, formerly belonging to H.M. Queen Charlotte " 62 128 MECHLIN.--THREE SPECIMENS FROM VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM PLATE XL 128 A Lady of Antwerp Fig. 63 130 Antwerp Pot Lace " 64 130 Valenciennes Lace of Ypres " 65 132 FLEMISH.--FLAT SPANISH BOBBIN LACE PLATE XLI 132 FLEMISH.--GUIPURE DE FLANDRE " XLII 134 BELGIAN.--BOBBIN-MADE, BINCHE " XLIII 136 " " MARCHE " XLIV 136 DRAWN AND EMBROIDERED MUSLIN, FLEMISH " XLV 136 RUFF, EDGED WITH LACE " XLVI 142 BRUSSELS.--FLOUNCE, BOBBIN-MADE " XLVII 144 Cinq-Mars.--M. de Versailles Fig. 66 145 " .--After his portrait by Le Wain " 67 146 Lace Rose and Garter " 68 147 Young Lady's Apron, time of Henry III " 69 148 BRUSSELS.--BOBBIN-MADE, PERIOD LOUIS XIV. PLATE XLVIII 150 " .--POINT D'ANGLETERRE À RÉSEAU " XLIX 150 Anne of Austria Fig. 70 151 A Courtier of the Regency " 71 152 Canons of Louis XIV " 72 154 Chateau de Louvai " 73 156 CHENILLE RUN ON A BOBBIN-GROUND PLATE L 156 BRUSSELS.--BOBBIN-MADE " LI 156 Le Grand Bébé Fig. 74 162 Louvois, 1691 " 75 163 Madame de Maintenon " 76 164 Lady in Morning déshabille " 77 165 Le Grand Dauphin en Steinkerque " 78 168 Madame du Lude en Steinkerque " 79 168 Madame Palatine " 80 169 BRUSSELS.--MODERN POINT DE GAZE PLATE LII 170 Madame Sophie de France, 1782 Fig. 81 175 Madame Adélaide de France " 82 176 MADAME LOUISE DE FRANCE PLATE LIII 176 Madame Thérèse Fig. 83 177 Marie-Antoinette " 84 179 Madame Adélaide de France " 85 182 FRENCH.--BORDER OF POINT PLAT DE FRANCE PLATE LIV 188 Colbert, + 1683 Fig. 86 189 Venice Point " 87 191 FRENCH.--POINT D'ALENÇON PLATE LV 192 Argentella, or Point d'Alençon à Réseau Rosacé Fig. 88 194 Bed made for Napoleon I. " 89 197 Alençon Point à Petites Bredes " 90 200 Point d'Alençon, Louis XV. " 91 200 POINT D'ALENÇON. FLOUNCE PLATE LVI 202-3 Point d'Argentan Fig. 92 204 " " . Grande Bride ground " 93 206 FRENCH.--POINT D'ARGENTAN, 18TH CENTURY PLATE LVII 208 Point de Paris Fig. 94 210 Point de France " 95 210 FRENCH (OR DUTCH).--VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM PLATE LVIII 212 Chantilly Fig. 96 214 Cauchoise " 97 217 FRENCH, CHANTILLY.--FLOUNCE PLATE LIX 218 FRENCH, LE PUY.--BLACK SILK GUIPURE " LX 218 Petit Poussin, Dieppe Fig. 98 219 Ave Maria, Dieppe " 99 220 Point de Dieppe " 100 221 Dentelle à la Vierge " 101 222 Duc de Peuthièvre " 102 223 FRENCH.--BLONDE MALE, IN SPANISH STYLE PLATE LXI 226 Modern Black Lace of Bayeux Fig. 103 227 Point Colbert " 104 228 Valenciennes, 1650-1780 " 105 230 " Period, Louis XIV. " 106 232 " 17TH AND 18TH CENTURY PLATE LXII 232 " Fig. 107 234 Valenciennes Lappet " 108 234 Lille " 109 236 " " 110 238 Arras " 111 240 FRENCH, CAMBRAI PLATES LXIII, LXIV 246 FRENCH, LE PUY PLATE LXV 246 Point de Bourgogne Fig. 112 256 WILLIAM, PRINCE OF ORANGE PLATE LXVI 258 Dutch Bobbin Lace Fig. 113 260 Tomb of Barbara Uttmann " 114 261 Barbara Uttmann " 114A 262 SWISS, NEUCHATEL PLATE LXVII 264 GERMAN, NUREMBERG " LXVIII 264 ENGLISH, BUCKS " LXIX 264 HUNGARIAN.--BOBBIN LACE " LXX 268 AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN " LXXI 268 Shirt Collar of Christian IV. Fig. 115 273 Tönder Lace, Drawn Muslin " 116 274 RUSSIAN--NEEDLEPOINT; GERMAN--SAXON PLATE LXXII 276 RUSSIAN, OLD BOBBIN-MADE " LXXIII 276 RUSSIAN, BOBBIN-MADE IN THREAD PLATE LXXIV 280 Dalecarlian Lace Fig. 117 281 Collar of Gustavus Adolphus " 118 282 Russia, Bobbin-made, 19th Century " 119 284 CAP, FLEMISH OR GERMAN PLATE XXV 288 Fisher, Bishop of Rochester Fig. 120 292 ENGLISH.--CUTWORK AND NEEDLE-POINT PLATE LXXVI 292 ENGLISH.--DEVONSHIRE "TROLLY." " LXXVII 292 Fisher, Bishop of Rochester Fig. 121 293 MARIE DE LORRAINE PLATE LXXVIII 298 Queen Elizabeth's Smock Fig. 122 308 Christening Caps, Needle-made Brussels Figs. 123, 124 309 MARY SIDNEY, COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE PLATE LXXIX 316 HENRY WROTHESLEY, THIRD EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON " LXXX 320 Monument of Princess Sophia Fig. 125 321 " " " Mary " 126 322 Mary, Countess of Pembroke " 127 323 ELIZABETH, PRINCESS PALATINE PLATE LXXXI 326 Falling Collar of the 17th Century Fig. 128 327 Boots, Cuffs Figs. 129, 130 328 English Needle-made Lace Fig. 131 328 JAMES HARRINGTON PLATE LXXXII 332 JAMES, THE OLD PRETENDER, AND HIS SISTER, PRINCESS LOUISA PLATE LXXXIII 344 JOHN LAW, THE PARIS BANKER " LXXXIV 352 Ripon Fig. 132 373 ENGLISH, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE, BOBBIN LACE PLATE LXXXV 374 Buckinghamshire Trolly Fig. 133 381 " Point " 134 382 " " " 135 383 ENGLISH, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE, BOBBIN LACE PLATE LXXXVI 384 Old Flemish Fig. 136 385 Old Brussels " 137 385 "Run" Lace, Newport Pagnell " 138 386 English Point, Northampton " 139 386 "Baby" Lace, Northampton " 140 387 " " Beds " 141 387 " " Bucks " 142 387 Wire Ground, Northampton " 143 388 Valenciennes " " 144 388 Regency Point, Bedford " 145 389 Insertion, " " 146 389 Plaited Lace, " " 147 392 Raised Plait, " " 148 393 ENGLISH, SUFFOLK, BOBBIN LACE PLATE LXXXVII 394 English Needle-made Lace Fig. 149 396 HONITON WITH THE VRAI RÉSEAU PLATE LXXXVIII 402 Bone Lace from Cap, Devonshire Fig. 150 404 Monument of Bishop Stafford, Exeter Cathedral " 151 406 Monument of Lady Doddridge " " " 152 407 Honiton, sewn on plain pillow ground " 153 408 Old Devonshire " 154 408 Honiton Guipure " 155 410 Honeysuckle, Sprig of Modern Honiton " 156 411 Old Devonshire Point " 157 412 Lappet made by the late Mrs. Treadwin of Exeter " 158 412 Venetian Relief in Point " 159 414 ENGLISH.--DEVONSHIRE. FAN MADE AT BEER FOR THE PARIS EXHIBITION, 1900 PLATE LXXXIX 416 Sir Alexander Gibson Fig. 160 424 Scotch, Hamilton " 161 431 IRISH, YOUGHAL PLATE XC 436 IRISH, CARRICKMACROSS " XCI 442 IRISH, LIMERICK LACE " XCII 442 IRISH, CROCHET LACE " XCIII 446 Arms of the Framework Knitters' Company Fig. 162 447 The Lagetta, or Lace-bark Tree " 163 456 Metre P. Quinty Figs. 164, 165 460 Pattern Book, Augsburg " 166, 167 462 Augsburg Fig. 168 463 Le Pompe, 1559 " 169 473 Manner of Pricking Pattern " 170 486 Frankfort-on-the-Main, 1605 " 171 492 Monogram " 172 492 "Bavari," from "Ornamento nobile" of Lucretia Romana " 173 498 {1}HISTORY OF LACE. CHAPTER I. NEEDLEWORK. "As ladies wont To finger the fine needle and nyse thread."--_Faerie Queene._ The art of lace-making has from the earliest times been so interwoven with the art of needlework that it would be impossible to enter on the subject of the present work without giving some mention of the latter. With the Egyptians the art of embroidery was general, and at Beni Hassan figures are represented making a sort of net--"they that work in flax, and they that weave network."[1] Examples of elaborate netting have been found in Egyptian tombs, and mummy wrappings are ornamented with drawn-work, cut-work, and other open ornamentation. The outer tunics of the robes of state of important personages appear to be fashioned of network darned round the hem with gold and silver and coloured silks. Amasis, King of Egypt, according to Herodotus,[2] sent to Athene of Lindus a corslet with figures interwoven with gold and cotton, and to judge from a passage of Ezekiel, the Egyptians even embroidered the sails of their galleys which they exported to Tyre.[3] {2}The Jewish embroiderers, even in early times, seem to have carried their art to a high standard of execution. The curtains of the Tabernacle were of "fine twined linen wrought with needlework, and blue, and purple, and scarlet, with cherubims of cunning work."[4] Again, the robe of the ephod was of gold and blue and purple and scarlet, and fine twined linen, and in Isaiah we have mention of women's cauls and nets of checker-work. Aholiab is specially recorded as a cunning workman, and chief embroiderer in blue, and in purple, and in scarlet, and in fine linen,[5] and the description of the virtuous woman in the Proverbs, who "layeth her hands to the spindle" and clotheth herself in tapestry, and that of the king's daughter in the Psalms, who shall be "brought unto the king in a raiment of needlework," all plainly show how much the art was appreciated amongst the Jews.[6] Finally Josephus, in his _Wars of the Jews_, mentions the veil presented to the Temple by Herod (B.C. 19), a Babylonian curtain fifty cubits high, and sixteen broad, embroidered in blue and red, "of marvellous texture, representing the universe, the stars, and the elements." In the English Bible, _lace_ is frequently mentioned, but its meaning must be qualified by the reserve due to the use of such a word in James I.'s time. It is pretty evident that the translators used it to indicate a small cord, since lace for decoration would be more commonly known at that time as _purls_, _points_, or _cut-works_.[7] "Of lace amongst the Greeks we seem to have no evidence. Upon the well-known red and black vases are all kinds of figures clad in costumes which are bordered with ornamental patterns, but these were painted upon, woven into, or embroidered upon the fabric. They were not lace. Many centuries elapsed before a marked and elaborately ornamental character infused itself into twisted, plaited, or looped thread-work. During such a period the fashion of ornamenting borders of costumes and hangings existed, and underwent a few phases, as, for instance, in the Elgin marbles, where crimped {3}edges appear along the flowing Grecian dresses." Embroidered garments, cloaks, veils and cauls, and networks of gold are frequently mentioned in Homer and other early authors.[8] The countries of the Euphrates were renowned in classical times for the beauty of their embroidered and painted stuffs which they manufactured.[9] Nothing has come down to us of these Babylonian times, of which Greek and Latin writers extolled the magnificence; but we may form some idea, from the statues and figures engraved on cylinders, of what the weavers and embroiderers of this ancient time were capable.[10] A fine stone in the British Museum is engraved with the figure of a Babylonian king, Merodach-Idin-Abkey, in embroidered robes, which speak of the art as practised eleven hundred years B.C.[11] Josephus writes that the veils given by Herod for the Temple were of Babylonian work ([Greek: peplos babylônios])--the women excelling, according to Apollonius, in executing designs of varied colours. The Sidonian women brought by Paris to Troy embroidered veils of such rich work that Hecuba deemed them worthy of being offered to Athene; and Lucan speaks of the Sidonian veil worn by Cleopatra at a feast in her Alexandrine palace, in honour of Cæsar.[12] Phrygia was also renowned for its needlework, and from the shores of Phrygia Asiatic and Babylonian embroideries were shipped to Greece and Italy. The _toga picta_, worked with Phrygian embroidery, was worn by Roman generals at their triumphs and by the consuls when they celebrated the games; hence embroidery itself is styled "Phrygian,"[13] {4}and the Romans knew it under no other name (_opus Phrygianum_).[14] Gold needles and other working implements have been discovered in Scandinavian tumuli. In the _London Chronicle_ of 1767 will be found a curious account of the opening of a Scandinavian barrow near Wareham, in Dorsetshire. Within the hollow trunk of an oak were discovered many bones wrapped in a covering of deerskins neatly sewn together. There were also the remains of a piece of gold lace, four inches long and two and a half broad. This lace was black and much decayed, of the old lozenge pattern,[15] that most ancient and universal of all designs, again found depicted on the coats of ancient Danes, where the borders are edged with an open or net-work of the same pattern. [Illustration: Fig. 1. GOLD LACE FOUND IN A BARROW.] Passing to the first ages of the Christian era, we find the pontifical ornaments, the altar and liturgical cloths, and the draperies then in common use for hanging between the colonnades and porches of churches all worked with holy images and histories from the Holy Writ. Rich men chose sacred subjects to be embroidered on their dress, and one senator wore 600 figures worked upon his robes of state. Asterius, Bishop of Amasus, thunders against those Christians "who wore the Gospels upon their backs instead of in their hearts."[16] In the Middle Ages spinning and needlework were the occupation of women of all degrees. As early as the sixth {5}century the nuns in the diocese of St. Césaire, Bishop of Arles, were forbidden to embroider robes enriched with paintings, flowers, and precious stones. This prohibition, however, was not general. Near Ely, an Anglo-Saxon lady brought together a number of maidens to work for the monastery, and in the seventh century an Abbess of Bourges, St. Eustadiole, made vestments and enriched the altar with the work of her nuns. At the beginning of the ninth century St. Viborade, of St. Gall, worked coverings for the sacred books of the monastery, for it was the custom then to wrap in silk and carry in a linen cloth the Gospels used for the offices of the Church.[17] Judith of Bavaria, mother of Charles the Bold, stood sponsor for the Queen of Harold, King of Denmark, who came to Ingelheim to be baptised with all his family, and gave her a robe she had worked with her own hands and studded with precious stones. "Berthe aux grands pieds," the mother of Charlemagne, was celebrated for her skill in needlework,[18] "à ouvrer si com je vous dirai N'avoit meillor ouvriere de Tours jusqu'à Cambrai;" while Charlemagne[19]-- "Ses filles fist bien doctriner, Et aprendre keudre et filer." Queen Adelhaïs, wife of Hugh Capet (987-996), presented to the Church of St. Martin at Tours a cope, on the back of which she had embroidered the Deity, surrounded by seraphim and cherubim, the front being worked with an Adoration of the Lamb of God.[20] Long before the Conquest, Anglo-Saxon women were skilled with the needle, and gorgeous are the accounts of the gold-starred and scarlet-embroidered tunics and violet sacks worked by the nuns. St. Dunstan himself designed the ornaments of a stole worked by the hands of a noble Anglo-Saxon lady, Ethelwynne, and sat daily in her bower with her maidens, directing the work. The four daughters of {6}Edward the Elder are all praised for their needle's skill. Their father, says William of Malmesbury, had caused them in childhood "to give their whole attention to letters, and afterwards employed them in the labours of the distaff and the needle." In 800 Denbert, Bishop of Durham, granted the lease of a farm of 200 acres for life to an embroideress named Eanswitha for the charge of scouring, repairing, and renewing the vestments of the priests of his diocese.[21] The Anglo-Saxon Godric, Sheriff of Buckingham, granted to Alcuid half a hide of land as long as he should be sheriff on condition she taught his daughter the art of embroidery. In the tenth century Ælfleda, a high-born Saxon lady, offered to the church at Ely a curtain on which she had wrought the deeds of her husband, Brithnoth, slain by the Danes; and Edgitha, Queen of Edward the Confessor, was "perfect mistress of her needle." The famous Bayeux Tapestry or embroidery, said to have been worked by Matilda, wife of William the Conqueror, is of great historical interest.[22] It is, according to the chroniclers, "Une tente très longue et estroite de telle a broderies de ymages et escriptaux faisant représentation du Conquest de l'Angleterre"; a needle-wrought epic of the Norman Conquest, worked on a narrow band of stout linen over 200 feet long, and containing 1,255 figures worked on worsted threads.[23] Mr. Fowke gives the Abbé Rue's doubts as to the accepted period of the Bayeux tapestry, which he assigns to the Empress Matilda. Mr. Collingwood Bruce is of opinion that the work is coeval with the events it records, as the primitive furniture, buildings, etc., are all of the eleventh century. That the tapestry is not found in any catalogue before 1369 is only a piece of presumptive evidence against the earlier date, and must be weighed with the internal evidence in its favour. After the Battle of Hastings William of Normandy, on {7}his first appearance in public, clad himself in a richly-wrought cloak of Anglo-Saxon embroidery, and his secretary, William of Poictiers, states that "the English women are eminently skilful with the needle and in weaving." The excellence of the English work was maintained as time went on, and a proof of this is found in an anecdote preserved by Matthew of Paris.[24] "About this time (1246) the Lord Pope (Innocent IV.) having observed the ecclesiastical ornaments of some Englishmen, such as choristers' copes and mitres, were embroidered in gold thread after a very desirable fashion, asked where these works were made, and received in answer, in England. 'Then,' said the Pope, 'England is surely a garden of delights for us. It is truly a never-failing spring, and there, where many things abound, much may be extracted.' Accordingly, the same Lord Pope sent sacred and sealed briefs to nearly all the abbots of the Cistercian order established in England, requesting them to have forthwith forwarded to him those embroideries in gold which he preferred to all others, and with which he wished to adorn his chasuble and choral cope, as if these objects cost them nothing," an order which, adds the chronicler, "was sufficiently pleasing to the merchants, but the cause of many persons detesting him for his covetousness." Perhaps the finest examples of the _opus anglicanum_ extant are the cope and maniple of St. Cuthbert, taken from his coffin in the Cathedral of Durham, and now preserved in the Chapter library. One side of the maniple is of gold lace stitched on, worked apparently on a parchment pattern. The Syon Monastery cope, in the Victoria and Albert Museum, is an invaluable example of English needlework of the thirteenth century. "The greater portion of its design is worked in a chain-stitch (modern tambour or crochet), especially in the faces of the figures, where the stitch begins in the centre, say, of a cheek, and is then worked in a spiral, thus forming a series of circular lines. The texture so obtained is then, by means of a hot, small and round-knobbed iron, pressed into indentations at the centre of each spiral, and an effect of relief imparted to it. The general {8}practice was to work the draperies in feather-stitch (_opus plumarium_)."[25] In the tenth century the art of pictorial embroidery had become universally spread. The inventory of the Holy See (in 1293) mentions the embroideries of Florence, Milan, Lucca, France, England, Germany, and Spain, and throughout the Middle Ages embroidery was treated as a fine art, a serious branch of painting.[26] In France the fashion continued, as in England, of producing groups, figures and portraits, but a new development was given to floral and elaborate arabesque ornament.[27] It was the custom in feudal times[28] for knightly families to send their daughters to the castles of their suzerain lords, there to be trained to spin, weave and embroider under the eye of the lady châtelaine, a custom which, in the more primitive countries, continued even to the French Revolution. In the French romances these young ladies are termed "chambrières," in our English, simply "the maidens." Great ladies prided themselves upon the number of their attendants, and passed their mornings at work, their labours beguiled by singing the "chansons à toile," as the ballads written for those occasions were termed.[29] {9}In the wardrobe accounts of our kings appear constant entries of working materials purchased for the royal ladies.[30] There is preserved in the cathedral at Prague an altar-cloth of embroidery and cut-work worked by Anne of Bohemia, Queen of Richard II. During the Wars of the Roses, when a duke of the blood royal is related to have begged alms in the streets of the rich Flemish towns, ladies of rank, more fortunate in their education, gained, like the French emigrants of more modern days, their subsistence by the products of their needle.[31] Without wishing to detract from the industry of mediæval ladies, it must be owned that the swampy state of the country, the absence of all roads, save those to be traversed in the fine season by pack-horses, and the deficiency of all suitable outdoor amusement but that of hawking, caused them to while away their time within doors the best way they could. Not twenty years since, in the more remote provinces of France, a lady who quitted her house daily would be remarked on. "Elle sort beaucoup," folks would say, as though she were guilty of dissipation. So queens and great ladies sewed on. We hear much of works of adornment, more still of piety, when Katharine of Aragon appears on the scene. She had learned much in her youth from her mother, Queen Isabella, and had probably {10}assisted at those "trials" of needlework[32] established by that virtuous queen among the Spanish ladies:-- "Her days did pass In working with the needle curiously."[33] It is recorded how, when Wolsey, with the papal legate Campeggio, going to Bridewell, begged an audience of Queen Katharine, on the subject of her divorce, they found her at work, like Penelope of old, with her maids, and she came to them with a skein of red silk about her neck.[34] Queen Mary Tudor is supposed, by her admirers, to have followed the example of her illustrious mother, though all we find among the entries is a charge "to working materials for Jane the Fole, one shilling." No one would suspect Queen Elizabeth of solacing herself with the needle. Every woman, however, had to make one shirt in her lifetime, and the "Lady Elizabeth's grace," on the second anniversary of Prince Edward's birth, when only six years of age, presented her brother with a cambric smock wrought by her own hands. The works of Scotland's Mary, who early studied all female accomplishments under her governess, Lady Fleming, {11}are too well known to require notice. In her letters are constant demands for silk and other working materials wherewith to solace her long captivity. She had also studied under Catherine de Médicis, herself an unrivalled needlewoman, who had brought over in her train from Florence the designer for embroidery, Frederick Vinciolo. Assembling her daughters, Claude, Elizabeth and Margaret, with Mary Stuart, and her Guise cousins, "elle passoit," says Brantôme, "fort son temps les apres-disnées à besogner apres ses ouvrages de soye, où elle estoit tant parfaicte qu'il estoit possible."[35] The ability of Reine Margot[36] is sung by Ronsard, who exalts her as imitating Pallas in the art.[37] Many of the great houses in England are storehouses of old needlework. Hatfield, Penshurst, and Knole are all filled with the handiwork of their ladies. The Countess of Shrewsbury, better known as "Building Bess," Bess of Hardwick, found time to embroider furniture for her palaces, and her samplar patterns hang to this day on their walls. Needlework was the daily employment of the convent. As early as the fourteenth century[38] it was termed "nun's work"; and even now, in secluded parts of the kingdom, ancient lace is styled by that name.[39] Nor does the occupation appear to have been solely {12}confined to women. We find monks commended for their skill in embroidery,[40] and in the frontispieces of some of the early pattern books of the sixteenth century, men are represented working at frames, and these books are stated to have been written "for the profit of men as well as of women."[41] Many were composed by monks,[42] and in the library[43] of St. Geneviève at Paris, are several works of this class, inherited from the monastery of that name. As these books contain little or no letterpress, they could scarcely have been collected by the monks unless with a view to using them. At the dissolution of the monasteries, the ladies of the great Roman Catholic families came to the rescue. Of the widow of the ill-fated Earl of Arundel it is recorded: "Her gentlewomen and chambermaids she ever busied in works ordained for the service of the Church. She permitted none to be idle at any time."[44] Instructions in the art of embroidery were now at a premium. The old nuns had died out, and there were none to replace them. Mrs. Hutchinson, in her _Memoirs_, enumerates, among the eight tutors she had at seven years of age, one for needlework, while Hannah Senior, about the same period, entered the service of the Earl of Thomond, to teach his daughters the use of their needle, with the salary of £200 a year. The money, however, was never paid; so she petitions the Privy Council for leave to sue him.[45] When, in 1614, the King of Siam applied to King James for an English wife, a gentleman of "honourable parentage" offers his daughter, whom he describes of excellent parts for "music, her needle, and good discourse."[46] And these are the sole accomplishments he mentions. The bishops, however, shocked at the proceeding, interfered, and put an end to the projected alliance. [Illustration: PLATE I. ARGENTAN.--Showing buttonhole stitched réseau and "brides bouclées." CIRCULAR BOBBIN RÉSEAU.--Variety of Mechlin. VENETIAN NEEDLE-POINT. Portions of lace very much enlarged to show details of stitches.] [Illustration: VENETIAN NEEDLE-POINT.] {13}No ecclesiastical objection, however, was made to the epitaph of Catherine Sloper--she sleeps in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey, 1620:-- "Exquisite at her needle." Till a very late date, we have ample record of the esteem in which this art was held. In the days of the Commonwealth, Mrs. Walker is described to have been as well skilled in needlework "as if she had been brought up in a convent." She kept, however, a gentlewoman for teaching her daughters. Evelyn, again, praises the talent of his daughter, Mrs. Draper. "She had," writes he, "an extraordinary genius for whatever hands could do with a needle." The queen of Charles I. and the wives of the younger Stuarts seem to have changed the simple habits of their royal predecessors, for when Queen Mary, in her Dutch simplicity, sat for hours at the knotted fringe, her favourite employment, Bishop Burnet, her biographer, adds, "It was a strange thing to see a queen work for so many hours a day," and her homely habits formed a never-ending subject of ridicule for the wit of Sir Charles Sedley.[47] From the middle of the last century, or rather apparently from the French Revolution, the more artistic style of needlework and embroidery fell into decadence. The simplicity of male costume rendered it a less necessary adjunct to female or, indeed, male education. However, two of the greatest generals of the Republic, Hoche and Moreau, followed the employment of embroidering satin waistcoats long after they had entered the military service. We may look upon the art now as almost at an end. {14}CHAPTER II. CUT-WORK. "These workes belong chiefly to gentlewomen to passe away their time in vertuous exercises." "Et lors, sous vos lacis à mille fenestrages Raiseuls et poinct couppés et tous vos clairs ouvrages." --_Jean Godard_, 1588. It is from that open-work embroidery which in the sixteenth century came into such universal use that we must derive the origin of lace, and, in order to work out the subject, trace it through all its gradations. This embroidery, though comprising a wide variety of decoration, went by the general name of cut-work. The fashion of adorning linen has prevailed from the earliest times. Either the edges were worked with close embroidery--the threads drawn and fashioned with a needle in various forms--or the ends of the cloth unravelled and plaited with geometric precision. To judge from the description of the linen grave-clothes of St. Cuthbert,[48] as given by an eye-witness to his disinterment in the twelfth century, they were ornamented in a manner similar to that we have described. "There had been," says the chronicler, "put over him a sheet ... this sheet had a fringe of linen thread of a finger's length; upon its sides and ends were woven a border of projecting workmanship fabricated of the thread itself, bearing the figures of birds and beasts so arranged that between every two pairs there were interwoven among them the representation of a branching tree which divides the figures. This tree, so tastefully depicted, appears to be putting forth its leaves," etc. There can be no doubt that this sheet, for many centuries preserved in the cathedral church of Durham, was a specimen of cut-work, which, though later it came into general use, was, at an early period of our history, alone used for ecclesiastical purposes, and an art which was, till the dissolution of monasteries, looked upon as a church secret. [Illustration: PLATE II. ITALIAN BOBBIN RÉSEAU. SIX-POINTED STAR-MESHED BOBBIN RÉSEAU.--Variety of Valenciennes. BRUSSELS BOBBIN RÉSEAU. FOND CHANT OF CHANTILLY AND POINT DE PARIS. Valenciennes. Lille. Toilé. DETAILS OF BOBBIN RÉSEAU AND TOILÉ. Alençon réseau. DETAILS OF NEEDLE RÉSEAU AND BUTTONHOLE STITCHES. Portions of lace very much enlarged to show details of stitches.] _To face page 14._ {15}Though cut-work is mentioned in Hardyng's _Chronicle_,[49] when describing the luxury in King Richard II.'s reign, he says:-- "Cut werke was greate both in court and townes, Both in menes hoddis and also in their gownes," yet this oft-quoted passage, no more than that of Chaucer, in which he again accuses the priests of wearing gowns of scarlet and green colours ornamented with cut-work, can scarcely be received as evidence of this mode of decoration being in general use. The royal wardrobe accounts of that day contain no entries on the subject. It applies rather to the fashion of cutting out[50] pieces of velvet or other materials, and sewing them down to the garment with a braid like ladies' work of the present time. Such garments were in general use, as the inventories of mediæval times fully attest. The linen shirt or smock was the special object of adornment, and on the decoration of the collar and sleeves much time and ingenuity were expended. In the ancient ballad of "Lord Thomas,"[51] the fair Annette cries:-- "My maids, gae to my dressing-room, And dress me in my smock; The one half is o' the Holland fine, The other o' needlework." Chaucer, too, does not disdain to describe the embroidery of a lady's smock-- "White was her smocke, embrouded all before And eke behynde, on her colar aboute, Of cole blacke sylke, within and eke without." The sums expended on the decoration of this most necessary article of dress sadly excited the wrath of {16}Stubbes, who thus vents his indignation: "These shirtes (sometymes it happeneth) are wrought throughout with needlework of silke, and such like, and curiously stitched with open seame, and many other knackes besides, more than I can describe; in so much, I have heard of shirtes that have cost some ten shillynges, some twenty, some forty, some five pounds, some twenty nobles, and (which is horrible to heare) some ten pound a pece."[52] Up to the time of Henry VIII. the shirt was "pynched" or plaited-- "Come nere with your shirtes bordered and displayed, In foarme of surplois."[53] These,[54] with handkerchiefs,[55] sheets, and pillow-beres,[56] (pillow-cases), were embroidered with silks of various {17}colours, until the fashion gradually gave place to cut-work, which, in its turn, was superseded by lace. The description of the widow of John Whitcomb, a wealthy clothier of Newbury, in Henry VIII.'s reign, when she laid aside her weeds, is the first notice we have of cutwork being in general use. "She came," says the writer, "out of the kitchen in a fair train gown stuck full of silver pins, having a white cap upon her head, with cuts of curious needlework, the same an apron, white as the driven snow." We are now arrived at the Renaissance, a period when so close a union existed between the fine arts and manufactures; when the most trifling object of luxury, instead of being consigned to the vulgar taste of the mechanic, received from artists their most graceful inspirations. Embroidery profited by the general impulse, and books of designs were composed for that species which, under the general name of cut-work, formed the great employment for the women of the day. The volume most generally circulated, especially among the ladies of the French court, for whose use it was designed, is that of the Venetian Vinciolo, to whom some say, we know not on what authority, Catherine de Médicis granted, in 1585, the exclusive privilege of making and selling the _collerettes gaudronnées_[57] she had herself introduced. This work, which passed through many editions, dating from 1587 to 1623, is entitled, "Les singuliers et nouveaux pourtraicts et ouvrages de Lingerie. Servans de patrons à faire toutes sortes de poincts, couppé, Lacis & autres. Dedié à la Royne. Nouvellement inventez, au proffit et contentement des nobles Dames et Demoiselles & autres gentils esprits, amateurs d'un tel art. Par le Seigneur Federic de Vinciolo Venitien. A Paris. Par Jean le Clerc le jeune, etc., 1587." Two little figures, representing ladies in the costume of the period, with working-frames in their hands, decorate the title-page.[58] The work is in two books: the first of Point Coupé, or {18}rich geometric patterns, printed in white upon a black ground (Fig. 2); the second of Lacis, or subjects in squares (Fig. 3), with counted stitches, like the patterns for worsted-work of the present day--the designs, the seven planets, Neptune, and various squares, borders, etc. Vinciolo dedicates his book to Louise de Vaudemont, the neglected Queen of Henry III., whose portrait, with that of the king, is added to the later editions. Various other pattern-books had already been published. The earliest bearing a date is one printed at Cologne in 1527.[59] [Illustration: Fig. 2. POINT COUPÉ.--(Vinciolo.)] These books are scarce; being designed for patterns, and traced with a metal style, or pricked through, many perished in the using. They are much sought after by the collector as among the early specimens of wood-block printing. We give therefore in the Appendix a list of those we find recorded, or of which we have seen copies, observing that the greater number, though generally composed for one particular art, may be applied indifferently to any kind of ornamental work. PLATE III. [Illustration: Altar or Table Cloth of fine linen embroidered with gold thread, laid, and in satin stitches on both sides. The Cut out spaces are filled with white thread needle-point lace. The edging is alternated of white and gold thread needle-point lace. Probably Italian. Late sixteenth century.--Victoria and Albert Museum.] _To face page 18_ {19}Cut-work was made in several manners. The first consisted in arranging a network of threads upon a small frame, crossing and interlacing them into various complicated patterns. Beneath this network was gummed a piece of fine cloth, called quintain,[60] from the town in Brittany where it was made. Then, with a needle, the network was sewn to the quintain by edging round those parts of the pattern that were to remain thick. The last operation was to cut away the superfluous cloth; hence the name of cut-work. [Illustration: Fig. 3. LACIS.--(Vinciolo. _Edition_ 1588.) Ce Pelican contient en longueur 70 mailles et en hauteur 65.] {20}The author of the _Consolations aux Dames_, 1620, in addressing the ladies, thus specially alludes to the custom of working on quintain:-- "Vous n'employiez les soirs et les matins A façonner vos grotesques quaintains, O folle erreur--O despence excessive." Again, the pattern was made without any linen at all; threads, radiating at equal distances from one common centre, served as a framework to others which were united to them in squares, triangles, rosettes, and other geometric forms, worked over with button-hole stitch (_point noué_), forming in some parts open-work, in others a heavy compact embroidery. In this class may be placed the old conventual cut-work of Italy, generally termed Greek lace, and that of extraordinary fineness and beauty which is assigned to Venice. Distinct from all these geometric combinations was the lacis[61] of the sixteenth century, done on a network ground (_réseau_), identical with the _opus araneum_ or spider-work of continental writers, the "darned netting" or modern _filet brodé à reprises_ of the French embroiderers. The ground consisted of a network of square meshes, on which was worked the pattern, sometimes cut out of linen and appliqué,[62] but more usually darned with stitches like tapestry. This darning-work was easy of execution, and the stitches being regulated by counting the meshes,[63] effective geometric patterns could be produced. Altar-cloths, baptismal napkins, as well as bed coverlets and table-cloths, were decorated with these squares of net embroidery. In the Victoria and Albert Museum there are several {21}gracefully-designed borders to silk table-covers in this work, made both of white and coloured threads, and of silk of various shades. The ground, as we learn from a poem on lacis, affixed to the pattern-book of "Milour Mignerak,"[64] was made by beginning a single stitch, and increasing a stitch on each side until the required size was obtained. If a strip or long border was to be made, the netting was continued to its prescribed length, and then finished off by reducing a stitch on each side till it was decreased to one, as garden nets are made at the present day. This plain netted ground was called _réseau_, _rézel_, _rézeuil_,[65] and was much used for bed-curtains, vallances, etc. In the inventory of Mary Stuart, made at Fotheringay,[66] we find, "Le lict d'ouvrage à rezel"; and again, under the care of Jane Kennethee, the "Furniture of a bedd of network and Holland intermixed, not yet finished." When the _réseau_ was decorated with a pattern, it was termed _lacis_, or darned netting, the Italian _punto ricamato a maglia quadra_, and, combined with _point-coupé_, was much used for bed-furniture. It appears to have been much employed for church-work,[67] for the sacred emblems. The Lamb and the Pelican are frequently represented.[68] {22}In the inventory of Sir John Foskewe (modern Fortescue), Knight, time of Henry VIII., we find in the hall, "A hanging of green saye, bordered with darning." Queen Mary Stuart, previous to the birth of James I. (1560), made a will, which still exists,[69] with annotations in her own handwriting. After disposing of her jewels and objects of value, she concludes by bequeathing "tous mes ouvrages masches et collets aux 4 Maries, à Jean Stuart, et Marie Sunderland, et toutes les filles";--"masches,"[70] with _punti a maglia_, being among the numerous terms applied to this species of work. These "ouvrages masches" were doubtless the work of Queen Mary and her ladies. She had learned the art at the French court, where her sister-in-law, Reine Margot, herself also a prisoner for many life-long years, appears to have occupied herself in the same manner, for we find in her accounts,[71] "Pour des moulles et esguilles pour faire rezeuil la somme de iiii. L. tourn." And again, "Pour avoir monté une fraize neufve de reseul la somme de X. sols tourn." Catherine de Médicis had a bed draped with squares of reseuil or lacis, and it is recorded that "the girls and servants of her household consumed much time in making squares of reseuil." The inventory of her property and goods includes a coffer containing three hundred and eighty-one of such squares unmounted, whilst in another were found five hundred and thirty-eight squares, some worked with rosettes or with blossoms, and others with nosegays.[72] Though the work of Milour Mignerak, already quoted, is dedicated to the Trés-Chrestienne Reine de France et de Navarre, Marie de Médicis, and bears her cipher and arms, yet in the decorated frontispiece is a cushion with a piece of lacis in progress, the pattern a daisy looking at the sun, the favourite impresa of her predecessor, the divorced Marguerite, now, by royal ordinance, "Marguerite Reine, Duchesse de Valois." (Fig. 4.) [Illustration: Fig. 5. ELIZABETHAN SAMPLER.] _To face page 22._ {23}These pattern-books being high in price and difficult to procure, teachers of the art soon caused the various patterns to be reproduced in "samcloths,"[73] as samplars were then termed, and young ladies worked at them diligently as a proof of their competency in the arts of cut-work, lacis and réseuil, much as a dame-school child did her A B C in the country villages some years ago. Proud mothers caused these _chefs-d'oeuvre_ of their children to be framed and glazed; hence many have come down to us hoarded up in old families uninjured at the present time. (Fig. 5.) A most important specimen of lacis was exhibited at the Art International Exhibition of 1874, by Mrs. Hailstone, of Walton Hall, an altar frontal 14 feet by 4 feet, executed in point conté, representing eight scenes from the Passion of Christ, in all fifty-six figures, surrounded by Latin inscriptions. It is assumed to be of English workmanship. [Illustration: Fig. 4. IMPRESA OF QUEEN MARGARET OF NAVARRE IN LACIS.--(Mignerak.)] Some curious pieces of ancient lacis were also exhibited (_circ._ 1866) at the Museum of South Kensington by Dr. Bock, of Bonn. Among others, two specimens of coloured silk network, the one ornamented with small embroidered shields and crosses (Fig. 6), the other with the mediæval gammadion pattern (Fig. 7). In the same collection was a towel or altar-cloth of ancient German work--a coarse net ground, worked over with the lozenge pattern.[74] {24}But most artistic of all was a large ecclesiastical piece, some three yards in length. The design portrays the Apostles, with angels and saints. These two last-mentioned objects are of the sixteenth century. When used for altar-cloths, bed-curtains, or coverlets, to produce a greater effect it was the custom to alternate the lacis with squares of plain linen. "An apron set with many a dice Of needlework sae rare, Wove by nae hand, as ye may guess, Save that of Fairly fair." Ballad of Hardyknute. [Illustration: Fig. 6. "SPIDERWORK," THIRTEENTH CENTURY.--(Bock Coll. South Kensington Museum).] [Illustration: Fig. 7. "SPIDERWORK," FOURTEENTH CENTURY.--(Bock Coll. South Kensington Museum.)] This work formed the great delight of provincial ladies in France. Jean Godard, in his poem on the Glove,[75] alluding to this occupation, says:-- "Une femme gantée oeuvre en tapisserie En raizeaux deliez et toute lingerie Elle file--elle coud et fait passement De toutes les fassons...." The armorial shield of the family, coronets, monograms, the beasts of the Apocalypse, with fleurs-de-lys, sacrés coeurs, for the most part adorned those pieces destined for the use of the Church. If, on the other hand, intended for a pall, death's-heads, cross-bones and tears, with the sacramental cup, left no doubt of the destination of the article. PLATE IV. [Illustration: FAN MADE AT BURANO AND PRESENTED TO QUEEN ELENA OF ITALY ON HER MARRIAGE, 1896. Photo by the Burano School.] PLATE V. [Illustration: ITALIAN. PUNTO REALE.--Modern reproduction by the Society Æmilia Ars, Bologna. Photo by the Society.] _To face page 24._ {25}As late as 1850, a splendid cut-work pall still covered the coffins of the fishers when borne in procession through the streets of Dieppe. It is said to have been a votive offering worked by the hands of some lady saved from shipwreck, and presented as a memorial of her gratitude. In 1866, when present at a peasant's wedding in the church of St. Lo (Dép. Manche), the author observed that the "toile d'honneur," which is always held extended over the heads of the married pair while the priest pronounces the blessing, was of the finest cut-work, trimmed with lace. Both in the north and south of Europe the art still lingers on. Swedish housewives pierce and stitch the holiday collars of their husbands and sons, and careful ladies, drawing the threads of the fine linen sheets destined for the "guest-chamber," produce an ornament of geometric design. Scarce fifty years since, an expiring relic of this art might be sometimes seen on the white smock-frock of the English labourer, which, independent of elaborate stitching, was enriched with an insertion of cut-work, running from the collar to the shoulder crossways, like that we see decorating the surplices of the sixteenth century. Drawn-thread embroidery is another cognate work. The material in old drawn-work is usually loosely-woven linen. Certain threads were drawn out from the linen ground, and others left, upon and between which needlework was made. Its employment in the East dates from very early times, and withdrawing threads from a fabric is perhaps referred to in Lucan's _Pharsalia_:--[76] "Candida Sidonio perlucent pectora filo, Quod Nilotis acus compressum pectine Serum Solvit, et extenso laxavit stamina velo." "Her white breasts shine through the Sidonian fabric, which pressed down with the comb (or sley) of the Seres, the needle of the Nile workman has separated, and has loosened the warp by stretching out (or withdrawing) the weft." {26}CHAPTER III. LACE. "Je demandai de la dentelle: Voici le tulle de Bruxelles, La blonde, le point d'Alençon, Et la Maline, si légère; L'application d'Angleterre (Qui se fait à Paris, dit-on); Voici la guipure indigène, Et voici la Valenciennes, Le point d'esprit, et le point de Paris; Bref les dentelles Les plus nouvelles Que produisent tous les pays." _Le Palais des Dentelles_ (Rothomago). Lace[77] is defined as a plain or ornamental network, wrought of fine threads of gold, silver, silk, flax, or cotton, interwoven, to which may be added "poil de chèvre," and also the fibre of the aloe, employed by the peasants of Italy and Spain. The term _lacez_ rendered in the English translation of the Statutes[78] as "laces," implying braids, such as were used for uniting the different parts of the dress, appears long before lace, properly so called, came into use. The earlier laces, such as they were, were defined by the word "passament"[79]--a general term for gimps and braids, as well as for lace. Modern industry has separated these two classes of work, but their being formerly so confounded renders it difficult in historic researches to separate one from the other. The same confusion occurs in France, where the first lace was called _passement_, because it was applied to the same {27}use, to braid or lay flat over the coats and other garments. The lace trade was entirely in the hands of the "passementiers" of Paris, who were allowed to make all sorts of "passements de dentelle sur l'oreiller aux fuseaux, aux épingles, et à la main, d'or, d'argent, tant fin que faux, de soye, de fil blanc, et de couleur," etc. They therefore applied the same terms to their different products, whatever the material. The word _passement_ continued to be in use till the middle of the seventeenth century, it being specified as "passements aux fuseaux," "passements à l'aiguille"; only it was more specifically applied to lace without an edge. The term _dentelle_ is also of modern date, nor will it be found in the earlier French dictionaries.[80] It was not till fashion caused the passament to be made with a toothed edge that the expression of "passement dentelé" first appears. In the accounts of Henry II. of France, and his queen, we have frequent notices of "passement jaulne dantellé des deux costez,"[81] "passement de soye incarnat dentellé d'un costé,"[82] etc., etc., but no mention of the word "dentelle." It does, however, occur in an inventory of an earlier date, that of Marguerite de France, sister of Francis I., who, in 1545, paid the sum of VI. livres "pour soixante aulnes, fine dantelle de Florance pour mettre à des colletz."[83] After a lapse of twenty years and more, among the articles furnished to Mary Stuart in 1567, is "Une pacque de petite dentelle";[84] and this is the sole mention of the word in all her accounts. {28}We find like entries in the accounts of Henry IV.'s first queen.[85] Gradually the passement dentelé subsided into the modern dentelle. [Illustration: Fig. 8. GRANDE DANTELLE AU POINT DEVANT L'AIGUILLE.--(Montbéliard, 1598.)] It is in a pattern book, published at Montbéliard in 1598,[86] we first find designs for "dantelles." It contains {29}twenty patterns, of all sizes, "bien petites, petites" (Figs. 9, 10, 11, 12), "moyennes, et grosses" (Fig. 8). [Illustration: Fig. 9. PETITE DANTELLE.--(1598.)] [Illustration: Fig. 10. PETITE DANTELLE.--(1598.)] The word _dentelle_ seems now in general use; but Vecellio, in his _Corona_, 1592, has "opere a mazette," pillow lace, and Mignerak first gives the novelty of "passements au fuzeau," pillow lace (Fig. 13), for which Vinciolo, in his edition of 1623, also furnishes patterns (Figs. 14 and 15); and Parasoli, 1616, gives designs for "merli a piombini" (Fig. 16). [Illustration: Fig. 11. PETITE DANTELLE.--(1598.)] [Illustration: Fig. 12. PETITE DANTELLE.--(1598.)] In the inventory of Henrietta Maria, dated 1619,[87] appear a variety of laces, all qualified under the name of "passement"; and in that of the Maréchal La Motte, 1627, we find the term applied to every description of lace. {30}"Item, quatre paires de manchettes garnyes de passement, tant de Venise, Gennes, et de Malines."[88] Lace consists of two parts, the ground and the pattern. The plain ground is styled in French _entoilage_, on account of its containing the flower or ornament, which is called _toilé_, from the flat close texture resembling linen, and also from its being often made of that material or of muslin. [Illustration: Fig. 13. PASSEMENT AU FUSEAU.--(Mignerak, 1605.)] [Illustration: Fig. 14. PASSEMENT AU FUSEAU.--(Vinciolo, _Edition_ 1623.)] The honeycomb network or ground, in French _fond_, _champ_,[89] _réseau_, _treille_, is of various kinds: wire ground, Brussels ground, trolly ground, etc., _fond clair_, _fond double_, etc. {31}Some laces, points and guipures are not worked upon a ground; the flowers are connected by irregular threads overcast (buttonhole stitch), and sometimes worked over with pearl loops (picot). Such are the points of Venice and Spain and most of the guipures. To these uniting threads, called by our lace-makers "pearl ties"--old Randle Holme[90] styles them "coxcombs"--the Italians give the name of "legs," the French that of "brides."[91] [Illustration: Fig. 15. PASSEMENT AU FUSEAU.--(Vinciolo, _Edition_ 1623.)] [Illustration: Fig. 16. MERLETTI A PIOMBINI.--(Parasole, 1616.)] The flower, or ornamental pattern, is either made together with the ground, as in Valenciennes or Mechlin, or separately, and then either worked in or sewn on (appliqué), as in Brussels. The open-work stitches introduced into the pattern are called _modes_, _jours_; by our Devonshire workers, "fillings." All lace is terminated by two edges, the pearl, picot,[92] or couronne--a row of little points at equal distances, and the footing or _engrêlure_--a narrow lace, which serves to keep the stitches of the ground firm, and to sew the lace to the garment upon which it is to be worn. {32}Lace is divided into point and pillow (or more correctly bobbin) lace. The term pillow gives rise to misconceptions, as it is impossible to define the distinction between the "cushion" used for some needle-laces and the "pillow" of bobbin-lace. The first is made by the needle on a parchment pattern, and termed needle-point, _point à l'aiguille_, _punto in aco_. The word is sometimes incorrectly applied to pillow-lace, as point de Malines, point de Valenciennes, etc. Point also means a particular kind of stitch, as point de Paris,[93] point de neige, point d'esprit,[94] point à la Reine, point à carreaux, à chaînette, etc. "Cet homme est bien en points," was a term used to denote a person who wore rich laces.[95] The mention of point de neige recalls the quarrel of Gros René and Marinette, in the _Dépit Amoureux_[96] of Molière:-- "Ton beau galant de neige,[97] avec ta nonpareille, Il n'aura plus l'honneur d'être sur mon oreille." Gros René evidently returns to his mistress his point de neige nightcap. The manner of making bobbin lace on a pillow[98] need hardly be described. The "pillow"[99] is a round or oval board, stuffed so as to form a cushion, and placed upon the knees of the workwoman. On this pillow a stiff piece of parchment is fixed, with small holes pricked through to mark the pattern. Through these holes pins are stuck into the cushion. The threads with which the lace is formed are wound upon "bobbins," formerly bones,[100] now small round pieces of wood, about the size of a pencil, having round their upper ends a deep groove, so formed as to reduce the bobbin to a thin neck, on which the thread is wound, a separate bobbin being used for each thread. PLATE VI. [Illustration: ITALIAN.--Modern reproduction at Burano of Point de Venise à la feuille et la rose, of seventeenth century. Width, 8 in. Photo by the Burano School.] PLATE VII. [Illustration: Heraldic (carnival lace), was made in Italy. This appears to be a specimen, though the archaic pattern points to a German origin. The réseau is twisted and knotted. _Circ._ 1700. The Arms are those of a Bishop. Photo by A. Dryden from private collection.] _To face page_ 32. {33}By the twisting and crossing of these threads the ground of the lace is formed. The pattern or figure, technically called "gimp," is made by interweaving a thread much thicker than that forming the groundwork, according to the design pricked out on the parchment.[101] Such has been the pillow and the method of using it, with but slight variation, for more than three centuries. To avoid repetition, we propose giving a separate history of the manufacture in each country; but in order to furnish some general notion of the relative ages of lace, it may be as well to enumerate the kinds most in use when Colbert, by his establishment of the Points de France, in 1665, caused a general development of the lace manufacture throughout Europe. The laces known at that period were:-- 1. Point.--Principally made at Venice, Genoa, Brussels, and in Spain. 2. Bisette.--A narrow, coarse thread pillow lace of three qualities, made in the environs of Paris[102] by the peasant women, principally for their own use. Though proverbially of little value--"ce n'est que de la bisette"[103]--it formed an article of traffic with the mercers and lingères of the day. 3. Gueuse.--A thread lace, which owed to its simplicity {34}the name it bore. The ground was network, the flowers a loose, thick thread, worked in on the pillow. Gueuse was formerly an article of extensive consumption in France, but, from the beginning of the last century, little used save by the lower classes. Many old persons may still remember the term, "beggars' lace." 4. Campane.[104]--A white, narrow, fine, thread pillow edging, used to sew upon other laces, either to widen them, or to replace a worn-out picot or pearl. Campane lace was also made of gold, and of coloured silks, for trimming mantles, scarfs, etc. We find, in the Great Wardrobe Accounts of George I., 1714,[105] an entry of "Gold Campagne buttons." Evelyn, in his "Fop's Dictionary," 1690, gives, "Campane, a kind of narrow, pricked lace;" and in the "Ladies' Dictionary," 1694, it is described as "a kind of narrow lace, picked or scalloped."[106] In the Great Wardrobe Account of William III., 1688-9, we have "le poynt campanie tæniæ." 5. Mignonette.[107]--A light, fine, pillow lace, called blonde de fil,[108] also point de tulle, from the ground resembling that {35}fabric. It was made of Lille thread, bleached at Antwerp, of different widths, never exceeding two to three inches. The localities where it was manufactured were the environs of Paris, Lorraine, Auvergne, and Normandy.[109] It was also fabricated at Lille, Arras, and in Switzerland. This lace was article of considerable export, and at times in high favour, from its lightness and clear ground, for headdresses[110] and other trimmings. It frequently appears in the advertisements of the last century. In the _Scottish Advertiser_, 1769, we find enumerated among the stock-in-trade, "Mennuet and blonde lace." 6. Point double, also called point de Paris and point des champs: point double, because it required double the number of threads used in the single ground; des champs, from its being made in the country. 7. Valenciennes.--See Chapter XV. [Illustration: Fig. 17. OLD MECHLIN.] 8. Mechlin.--All the laces of Flanders, with the exception of those of Brussels and the point double, were known in commerce at this period under the general name of Mechlin. (Fig. 17.) 9. Gold lace. 10. Guipure. {36}GUIPURE. Guipure, says Savary, is a kind of lace or passement made of "cartisane" and twisted silk. Cartisane is a little strip of thin parchment or vellum, which was covered over with silk, gold, or silver thread, and formed the raised pattern. The silk twisted round a thick thread or cord was called guipure,[111] hence the whole work derived its name.[112] Guipure was made either with the needle or on the pillow like other lace, in various patterns, shades and colours, of different qualities and several widths. The narrowest guipures were called "Têtes de More."[113] The less cartisane in the guipure, the more it was esteemed, for cartisane was not durable, being only vellum covered over with silk. It was easily affected by the damp, shrivelled, would not wash, and the pattern was destroyed. Later, the parchment was replaced by a cotton material called canetille. Savary says that most of the guipures were made in the environs of Paris;[114] that formerly, he writes in 1720, great quantities were consumed in the kingdom; but since the fashion had passed away, they were mostly exported to Spain, Portugal, Germany, and the Spanish Indies, where they were much worn.[115] Guipure was made of silk, gold and silver; from its costliness, therefore, it was only worn by the rich. PLATE VIII. [Illustration: ITALIAN, VENETIAN, FLAT NEEDLE-POINT LACE. "PUNTO IN ARIA."--The design is held together by plain "brides." Date, _circ._ 1645. Width, 11-5/8 in. Victoria and Albert Museum.] PLATE IX. [Illustration: PORTION OF A BAND OF NEEDLE-POINT LACE REPRESENTING THE STORY OF JUDITH AND HOLOFERNES.--The work is believed to be Italian, made for a Portuguese, the inscription being in Portuguese. Date, _circ._ 1590. Width, 8 in. The property of Mr. Arthur Blackborne. Photo by A. Dryden.] _To face page 36._ {37}At the coronation of Henry II. the front of the high altar is described as of crimson velvet, enriched with "cuipure d'or"; and the ornaments, chasuble, and corporaliers of another altar as adorned with a "riche broderie de cuipure."[116] On the occasion of Henry's entry into Paris, the king wore over his armour a surcoat of cloth of silver ornamented with his ciphers and devices, and trimmed with "guippures d'argent."[117] In the reign of Henry III. the casaques of the pages were covered with guipures and passements, composed of as many colours as entered into the armorial bearings of their masters; and these silk guipures, of varied hues, added much to the brilliancy of their liveries.[118] Guipure seems to have been much worn by Mary Stuart. When the Queen was at Lochleven, Sir Robert Melville is related to have delivered to her a pair of white satin sleeves, edged with a double border of silver guipure; and, in the inventory of her clothes taken at the Abbey of Lillebourg,[119] 1561-2, we find numerous velvet and satin gowns trimmed with "gumpeures" of gold and silver.[120] It is singular that the word guipure is not to be found in our English inventories or wardrobe accounts, a circumstance which leads us to infer, though in opposition to higher authorities, that guipure was in England termed "parchment lace"--a not unnatural conclusion, since we know it was sometimes called "dentelle à cartisane,"[121] from the slips of parchment of which it was partly composed. Though Queen Mary would use the French term, it does not seem to have been adopted in England, whereas "parchment lace" is of frequent occurrence. From the Privy Purse Expenses of the Princess Mary,[122] we find she gives to Lady Calthorpe a pair of sleeves of "gold, {38}trimmed with parchment lace," a favourite donation of hers, it would appear, by the anecdote of Lady Jane Grey. "A great man's daughter," relates Strype[123] "(the Duke of Suffolk's daughter Jane), receiving from Lady Mary, before she was Queen, goodly apparel of tinsel, cloth of gold, and velvet, laid on with parchment lace of gold, when she saw it, said, 'What shall I do with it?' Mary said, 'Gentlewoman, wear it.' 'Nay,' quoth she, 'that were a shame to follow my Lady Mary against God's word, and leave my Lady Elizabeth, which followeth God's word.'" In the list of the Protestant refugees in England, 1563 to 1571,[124] among their trades, it is stated "some live by making matches of hempe stalks, and parchment lace." Again, Sir Robert Bowes, "once ambassador to Scotland," in his inventory, 1553, has "One cassock of wrought velvet with p'chment lace of gold."[125] "Parchment lace[126] of watchett and syllver at 7s. 8d. the ounce," appears also among the laces of Queen Elizabeth.[127] King Charles I. has his carpet bag trimmed with "broad parchment gold lace,"[128] his satin nightcaps with gold and silver parchment laces,[129] and even the bag and comb case "for his Majesty's barber" is decorated with "silver purle and parchment lace."[130] Again, Charles II. ornaments the seats on both sides the throne with silver parchment lace.[131] In many of the inventories circ. 1590, "sylke parchment lace" is noted down, and "red" and "green parchment lace," again, appear among the wares found "in y^e Shoppes."[132] But to return to the word guipure. In an inventory of the Church of the Oratoire, at Paris, of the seventeenth century, are veils for the host: one, "de {39}taffetas blanc garny d'une guipure"; the other, "de satin blanc à fleurs, avec une dentelle de guipure."[133] These guipures will have also been of silk. When the term was first transferred to the thread passements which are now called guipure, it is difficult to say, for we can find no trace of it so applied. Be that as it may, the thread guipures are of old date; many of the patterns bear the character of the rich ornamentation and capricious interlacings of the Renaissance; others, again, are "pur Louis Quatorze" (Fig. 18). The finest thread guipures were the produce of Flanders and Italy. They are most varied in their style. In some the bold flowing patterns are united by brides; in others by a coarse réseau, often circular, and called "round ground." [Illustration: Fig. 18. GUIPURE.--(Louis XIV.)] In that class called by the lace-makers "tape guipure," the outline of the flowers is formed by a pillow or handmade braid about the eighth of an inch in width (Fig. 19). {40}The term guipure is now so extensively applied it is difficult to give a limit to its meaning. We can only define it as lace where the flowers are either joined by "brides," or large coarse stitches, or lace that has no ground at all. The modern Honiton and Maltese are guipures, so is the Venetian point. [Illustration: Fig. 19. TAPE GUIPURE, BOBBIN-MADE.--(Genoa.)] Most of these laces are enumerated in a _jeu d'esprit_, entitled "La Révolte des Passemens," published at Paris in 1661.[134] {41}In consequence of a sumptuary edict against luxury in apparel, Mesdames les Broderies-- "Les Poinctes, Dentelles, Passemens Qui, par une vaine despence, Ruinoient aujourd'huy la France"-- meet, and concert measures for their common safety. Point de Gênes, with Point de Raguse, first address the company; next, Point de Venise, who seems to look on Raguse with a jealous eye, exclaims-- "Encore pour vous, Poinct de Raguse, Il est bon, crainte d'attentat, D'en vouloir perger un estat. Les gens aussy fins que vous estes Ne sont bons que, comme vous faites, Pour ruiner tous les estats. Et vous, Aurillac ou Venise, Si nous plions notre valise," what will be our fate? The other laces speak, in their turn, most despondently, till a "vieille broderie d'or," consoling them, talks of the vanity of this world:--"Who knows it better than I, who have dwelt in kings' houses?" One "grande dentelle d'Angleterre" now proposes they should all retire to a convent. To this the "Dentelles de Flandres" object; they would sooner be sewn at once to the bottom of a petticoat. Mesdames les Broderies resign themselves to become "ameublement;" the more devout of the party to appear as "devants d'autel;" those who feel too young to renounce the world and its vanities will seek refuge in the masquerade shops. "Dentelle noire d'Angleterre" lets herself out cheap to a fowler, as a net to catch woodcocks, for which she felt "assez propre" in her present predicament. The Points all resolve to retire to their own countries, save Aurillac, who fears she may be turned into a strainer "pour passer les fromages d'Auvergne," a smell insupportable to one who had revelled in civet and orange-flower. All were starting-- "Chacun, dissimulant sa rage, Doucement ploit son bagage, Resolu d'obéir au sort," when "Une pauvre malheureuse, Qu'on apelle, dit on, la Gueuse," {42}arrives, in a great rage, from a village in the environs of Paris. "She is not of high birth, but has her feelings all the same. She will never submit. She has no refuge--not even a place in the hospital. Let them follow her advice and 'elle engageoit sa chaînette,' she will replace them all in their former position." Next morn, the Points assemble. "Une grande Cravate[135] fanfaron" exclaims:-- "Il nous faut venger cet affront, Revoltons-nous, noble assemblée." A council of war ensues:-- "La dessus, le Poinct d'Alençon Ayant bien appris sa leçon Fit une fort belle harangue." Flanders now boasts how she had made two campaigns under Monsieur, as a cravat; another had learned the art of war under Turenne; a third was torn at the siege of Dunkirk. "Racontant des combats qu'ils ne virent jamais," one and all had figured at some siege or battle. "Qu'avons nous à redouter?" cries Dentelle d'Angleterre. No so, thinks Point de Gênes, "qui avoit le corps un peu gros." They all swear-- "Foy de Passement, Foy de Poincts et de Broderie, De Guipure et d'Orfévrerie, De Gueuse de toute façon," to declare open war, and to banish the Parliament. The Laces assemble at the fair of St. Germain, there to be reviewed by General Luxe. The muster-roll is called over by Colonel Sotte Depense. Dentelles de Moresse, Escadrons de Neige, Dentelles de Hâvre, Escrues, Soies noires, and Points d'Espagne, etc., march forth in warlike array, to conquer or to die. At the first approach of the artillery they all take to their heels, and are condemned by a council of war--the Points to be made into tinder, for the sole use of the King's Mousquetaires; the Laces to be converted into paper; the Dentelles, {43}Escrues, Gueuses, Passemens, and Silk Lace to be made into cordage and sent to the galleys; the Gold and Silver Laces, the original authors of the sedition, to be "burned alive." Finally, through the intercession of Love-- "Le petit dieu plein de finesse," they are again pardoned and restored to court favour. The poem is curious, as giving an account of the various kinds of lace, and as a specimen of the taste of the time, but the "ton précieux" of the Hôtel Rambouillet pervades throughout. The lace trade, up to this period, was entirely in the hands of pedlars, who carried their wares to the principal towns and large country-houses. "One Madame La Boord," says Evelyn, "a French peddling-woman, served Queen Katherine with petticoats, fans, and foreign laces." These hawkers attended the great fairs[136] of Europe, where all purchases were made.[137] Even as early as King Henry III.[138] we have a notice "to purchase robes at the fair of St. Ives, for the use of Richard our brother"; and in the dramas of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, we find constant allusion to these provincial markets:--[139] "Seven Pedlars' shops, nay all Sturbridge fair,[140] will Scarce furnish her."[141] {44}The custom of carrying lace from house to house still exists in Belgium, where at Spa and other places, colporteurs,[142] with packs similar to those borne by our pedlars, bring round to the visitors laces of great value, which they sell at cheaper rates than those exposed in the shops.[143] Many travellers, too, through the counties of Buckingham and Bedford, or the more southern regions of Devon, will still call to mind the inevitable lace box handed round for purchase by the waiter at the conclusion of the inn dinner; as well as the girls who, awaiting the arrival of each travelling carriage or postchaise, climbed up to the windows of the vehicle, rarely allowing the occupants to go their way until they had purchased some article of the wares so pertinaciously offered to their inspection. In Paris, the lace trade was the exclusive privilege of the passementiers.[144] PLATE X. [Illustration: ITALIAN. POINT DE VENISE À LA ROSE. Modern reproduction at Burano of seventeenth century lace. Width, 17 in. Photo by the Burano School.] _To face page 44._ {45}CHAPTER IV. ITALY. "It grazed on my shoulder, takes me away six parts of an Italian cut-work band I wore, cost me three pounds in the Exchange but three days before."--Ben Jonson--_Every Man Out of His Humour_,1599. "Ruffles well wrought and fine falling bands of Italian cut-work."--_Fair Maid of the Exchange_, 1627. The Italians claim the invention of point, or needle-made lace. It has been suggested they derived the art of fine needlework from the Greeks who took refuge in Italy from the troubles of the Lower Empire; and what further confirms its Byzantine origin is, that those very places which kept up the closest intercourse with the Greek Empire are the cities where point lace was earliest made and flourished to the greatest extent.[145] A modern Italian author,[146] on the other hand, asserts that the Italians learned embroidery from the Saracens of Sicily, as the Spaniards acquired the art from the Moors of Granada or Seville, and brings forward, as proof of his theory, that the word to embroider, both in Italian and Spanish,[147] is derived from the Arabic, and no similar word exists in any other European language.[148] This theory may apply to embroidery, but certainly not to lace; for with the exception of the Turkish crochet "oyah," and some darned netting and drawn-work which occur in Persian and Chinese tissues, there is nothing approaching to lace to be found on any article of oriental manufacture. {46}We proceed to show that evidences of the lace-fabric appear in Italy as early as the fifteenth century. In 1476, the Venetian Senate decreed that no Punto in Aria whatever, executed either in flax with a needle, or in silver or gold thread, should be used on the curtains or bed-linen in the city or provinces. Among the State archives of the ducal family of Este, which reigned in Ferrara for so many centuries, Count Gandini found mentioned in a Register of the Wardrobe, dated 1476 (A. C. 87), an order given for a felt hat "alla Borgognona," trimmed with a silver and silk gimp made with bobbins. Besides this, in the same document is noted (A. C. 96) a velvet seat with a canopy trimmed at the sides with a frill of gold and silver, made in squares, with bobbins. The Cavaliere Antonio Merli, in his interesting pamphlet on Italian lace,[149] mentions an account preserved in the Municipal Archives of Ferrara, dated 1469, as probably referring to lace;[150] but he more especially brings forward a document of the Sforza family, dated[151] 1493, in which the word _trina_ (under its ancient form "tarnete") constantly occurs,[152] together with bone and bobbin lace. PLATE XI [Illustration: ITALIAN. POINT PLAT DE VENISE. NEEDLE-POINT.--Seventeenth century. Length, 25 in.; width, 16 in. Victoria and Albert Museum.] _To face page 46._ {47}Again, the Florentine poet, Firenzuola, who wrote from 1520-30, composed an elegy upon a collar of raised point, made by the hand of his mistress. Cavaliere Merli cites, as the earliest known painting in which lace occurs, a majolica disc, after the style of the Della Robbia family, in which, surrounded by a wreath of fruit, is represented the half figure of a lady, dressed in a rich brocade, with a collar of white lace. The costume is of the fifteenth century; but as Luca della Robbia's descendants worked to a later period, the precise date of the work cannot be fixed. Evidences of white lace, or passement, are said to appear in the pictures of Carpaccio, in the gallery at Venice, and in another by the Gentile Bellini, where the dress of one of the ladies is trimmed round the neck with a white lace.[153] The date of this last painting is 1500. Lace was made throughout Italy mostly by the nuns,[154] and expressly for the service of the Church. Venice was celebrated for her points, while Genoa produced almost exclusively pillow-lace. The laces best known in the commercial world in the earlier periods were those of Venice, Milan, and Genoa. VENICE. Mrs. Termagant: "I'll spoil your point de Venise for you."--Shadwell, _Squire of Alsatia_. "Elle n'avoit point de mouchoir, Mais un riche et tres beau peignoir Des plus chers de point de Venise En negligeance elle avoit mise." _Les Combats_, etc., 1663. The Venetian galleys, at an early period, bore to England "apes, sweet wines," and other articles of luxury. They brought also the gold-work of "Luk," Florence, "Jeane," {48}and Venice.[155] In our early parliamentary records are many statutes on the subject. The Italians were in the habit of giving short lengths, gold thread of bad quality, and were guilty of sundry other peccadilloes, which greatly excited the wrath of the nation. The balance was not in England's favour. "Thei bare the gold out of this land And sowkethe the thrifte out of our hande As the waspe sowkethe the honey of the be." It was these cheating Venetians who first brought over their points into England. In Venice itself, extravagance in lace was restrained in 1542, by a sumptuary law, forbidding the metal laces embroidered in silk to be wider than _due dita_ (_i.e._, about two inches). This interference is highly Venetian, and was intended to protect the nobles and citizens from injuring themselves and setting a bad example. At the coronation of Richard III., "fringes of Venice," and "mantil laces of white silk and Venys gold" appear, and twenty years later Elizabeth of York disburses sundry sums for "gold of Venice" and "other necessaries."[156] The queen's accounts are less explicit than those of her royal predecessor; and though a lace is ordered for the king's mantle of the Garter, for which she paid sixteen shillings, the article may have been of home manufacture. From this time downwards appear occasional mention of partlets,[157] knit caul fashion, of Venice gold, and of white thread,[158] of billament lace of Venice, in silver and black silk.[159] It is not, however, till the reign of Elizabeth[160] that Italian cut-works and Venice lace came into general use. These points found their way into France about the same period, though we hear little of them. PLATE XII [Illustration: ITALIAN. POINT DE VENISE À RÉSEAU.--The upper ones are of yellow silk; a chalice veil, with dove and olive branch, and possibly an altar border. Probably late seventeenth century. The lower is thread, early eighteenth century. Width, 2 in. In private collections. Photos by A. Dryden.] _To face page 48._ {49}Of "point couppé" there is mention, and enough, in handkerchiefs for Madame Gabrielle, shirts for the king, and fraizes for La Reine Margot; but whether they be of Venice or worked in France, we are unenlightened. The works of Vinciolo[161] and others had already been widely circulated, and laces and point couppé now formed the favourite occupation of the ladies. Perhaps one of the earliest records of point de Venise will be found in a ridiculous historiette of Tallemant des Réaux, who, gossiping of a certain Madame de Puissieux,[162] writes: "On m'assuroit qu'elle mangeoit du point coupé. Alors les points de Gênes, de Raguse, ni d'Aurillac ni de Venise n'étoient point connus et on dit qu'au sermon elle mangea tout le derrière du collet d'un homme qui etoit assis devant elle." On what strange events hang the connecting threads of history! By 1626 foreign "dentelles et passements au fuseau" were declared contraband. France paying large sums of money to other countries for lace, the Government, by this ordinance, determined to remedy the evil. It was at this period that the points of Venice were in full use.[163] "To know the age and pedigrees Of points of Flanders and Venise"[164] would, in the latter case, have been more difficult, had it not been for the pattern-books so often quoted. The earliest points, as we already know, soon passed from the stiff formality of the "Gotico" into the flowing lines of the Renaissance, and into that fine patternless guipure which is, _par excellence_, called Point de Venise.[165] In the islands of the Lagune there still lingers a tale of the first origin of this most charming production. A sailor youth, bound for the Southern Seas, brought home to his betrothed a bunch of that pretty coralline (Fig. 20) known to the unlearned as the mermaid's lace.[166] The girl, a worker in points, struck by the graceful nature of the seaweed, with its small white knots united, as it were, by {50}a "bride," imitated it with her needle, and after several unsuccessful trials produced that delicate guipure which before long became the taste of all Europe. It would be difficult to enumerate the various kinds of lace produced by Venice in her palmy days. The Cavaliere Merli has endeavoured to classify them according to the names in the pattern-books with which Venice supplied the world, as well as with her points. Out of some sixty of these works, whose names have been collected, above one-third were published in Venice.[167] [Illustration: Fig. 20. MERMAID'S LACE.] 1. Punto a reticella.[168]--Made either by drawing the threads of the cloth, as in the samplar already given (Fig. 5), or by working the lace on a parchment pattern in buttonhole stitch (punto smerlo). (Fig. 21.) This point is identical with what is commonly called "Greek" lace. Under this head comes punto reale (the opposite of reticella), where the linen ground is left and the design cut out.[169] Punto di cartella or cordella (card-work) is similar in effect to reticella, but the button-holing is done entirely over a foundation made by sewing coarse thread and bits of parchment on to the design and covering them with button-hole stitch. [Illustration: Fig. 21. Reticella.] _To face page 50._ {51}2. Punto tagliato.[170]--Cut-work, already described. 3. Punto di Venezia. 4. Punto in aria.[171]--Worked on a parchment pattern, the flowers connected by brides: in modern parlance, Guipure. 5. Punto tagliato a fogliami.[172]--The richest and most complicated of all points, executed like the former, only with this difference, that all the outlines are in relief, formed by means of cottons placed inside to raise them. Sometimes they are in double and triple relief; an infinity of beautiful stitches are introduced into the flowers, which are surrounded by a pearl of geometric regularity, the pearls sometimes in scallops or "campané," as the French term it.[173] This is our Rose (raised) Venice point, the Gros Point de Venise, the Punto a relievo, so highly prized and so extensively used for albs, collerettes, berthes, and costly decoration. We give an example (Fig. 23) from a collar, preserved in the Musée de Cluny, once the property of a Venetian nobleman, worn only on state occasions. Two elaborate specimens were in the possession of Mr. Webb; one is a long narrow piece fringed at both ends, which may have served as a maniple (Fig. 26); the other, a "pale"[174] for the communion, he has given to the Victoria and Albert Museum. These two last are made of silk of the natural cream colour. Both silk and thread unbleached appear to have been greatly in favour. At Paris much lace of this colour has been disposed of by its owners since the revolutions in Italy.[175] Other varieties of so-called rose point are punto neve (point de neige), with its ground of starred threads resembling snowflakes, and the coral point, a small irregular pattern supposed to have been copied from coral. {52}6. Punto a gropo, or gropari.[176]--Groppo, or gruppo, signifies a knot, or tie, and in this lace the threads are knotted together, like the fringes of the Genoese macramè.[177] After this manner is made the trimming to the linen scarfs or cloths which the Roman peasants wear folded square over the head, and hanging down the back. (Fig. 22.) [Illustration: Fig. 22. PUNTO A GROPO (Knotted Point).] 7. Punto a maglia quadra.--Lacis; square netting,[178] the modano of the Tuscans. (Fig. 24.) [Illustration: Fig. 23. GROS POINT DE VENISE.--From the Collar of a Venetian Nobleman. Musée de Cluny, Paris. 16th century. N.B.--This drawing makes the work and design appear heavier than it is in reality. _To face page 52._] {53}This Tuscan sort was not generally embroidered; the pattern consists in knitting the meshes together in different shapes. It was much used for hangings of beds, and those curtains placed across the windows, called _stores_ by the French, and by the Italians, _stuora_.[179] 8. Burato.--The word means a stiff cloth or canvas (_toille clere_ of Taglienti, 1527), on which the pattern is embroidered, reducing it to a kind of rude lace. One of the pattern-books[180] is devoted exclusively to the teaching of this point. [Illustration: Fig. 24. PUNTO A MAGLIA (Lacis)] The needle-made laces fabricated at Burano will be noticed later. 9. Punto tirato--Drawn work.[181] Fig. 25 is a lace ground {54}made by drawing the threads of muslin (_fili tirati_).[182] The present specimen is simple in design, but some are very complicated and beautiful. The ordinance of Colbert must have inflicted a serious injury on the Venice lace trade, which, says Daru, "occupoit la population de la capitale." In _Britannia Languens_, a discourse upon trade, London, 1680,[183] it is said that the laces commonly called Points de Venise now come mostly from France, and amount to a vast sum yearly. Savary, speaking of the thread laces termed Venice point in the early part of the eighteenth century,[184] says, "The French no longer purchase these articles, having established themselves manufactures which rival those of the Adriatic." [Illustration: Fig. 25. PUNTO TIRATO (Drawn Lace).] Still the greater number of travellers[185] make a provision of points in their passage through Venice, and are usually cheated, writes a traveller about this period.[186] He recommends his friend, Mr. Claude Somebody, a French dealer, who probably paid him in ruffles for the advertisement. [Illustration: Fig. 26. POINT DE VENISE À BRIDES PICOTÉES.--Early 18th century. _To Face page 54._] {55}Our porte-bouquets and lace-trimmed nosegays are nothing new. On the occasion of the annual visit of the Doge to the Convent delle Vergini, the lady abbess with the novices received him in the parlour, and presented him with a nosegay of flowers placed in a handle of gold, and trimmed round with the finest lace that Venice could produce.[187] [Illustration: Fig. 27. VENICE POINT.] Fynes Moryson[188] is the earliest known traveller who alludes to the products of Venice. "Venetian ladies in general," he says, "wear a standing collar and ruffs close up to the chin; the unmarried tie their hair with gold and silver lace." Evidently the collars styled "bavari," for which Vecellio[189] gives patterns "all' usanza Veneziana," were {56}not yet in general vogue.[190] The Medici collars were supported by fine metal bars called "verghetti," which were so much in demand that the inhabitants of a whole quarter of Venice were engaged in their production, and the name which it still bears was given to it in consequence. [Illustration: Fig. 28. GROS POINT DE VENISE.--(First half of 17th century.)] [Illustration: Fig. 29. POINT DE VENISE.--End of 17th century.] [Illustration: Fig. 30. POINT PLAT DE VENISE.--Middle of 17th century. _To face page 56._] {57}Fifty years later, Evelyn speaks of the veils of glittering taffetas, worn by the Venetian ladies, to the corners of which hang broad but curious tassels of point laces. According to Zedler, an author who wrote about lace in 1742, the price of Venice point in high relief varied from one to nine ducats per Italian ell. The Venetians, unlike the Spaniards, thought much of their fine linen and the decorations pertaining to it. "La camicia preme assai più del giubbone," ran the proverb--"La chemise avant le pourpoint." Young nobles were not allowed to wear lace on their garments until they put on the robe, which they usually did at the age of five-and-twenty, on being admitted to the council.[191] Towards 1770, the Venice ladies themselves commenced to forsake the fabrics of their native islands; for on the marriage of the Doge's son, in that year, we read that, although the altar was decorated with the richest Venice point, the bride and her ladies wore their sleeves covered up to the shoulders with falls of the finest Brussels lace, and a tucker of the same material.[192] During the carnival, however, the people, both male and female, wore a camail, or hood of black lace, covering the chin up to the mouth, called a "bauta."[193] It was one of these old black lace hoods that Walpole describes Lady Mary Wortley Montagu as wearing at Florence, 1762, in place of a cap. _Point de Venise à réseau_ is chiefly distinguished by the conventional treatment of the flowers and ornament, and a general flat look of the work. The outlining thread or cordonnet is stitched to the edge of the pattern and worked in flatly. A minute border to the cordonnet of small meshes intervenes between it and the réseau, which is of square {58}meshes and always very fine. Whether the lace was derived from the Alençon, and was the result of an attempt to win back the custom the French manufacturers were taking away from Venice, or whether it was Alençon that imitated the Venetian réseau, is a moot point, but certain it is that the Venetian product surpassed in fineness both Alençon and Brussels. Its very delicacy has been its destruction, so that very few specimens of this lace survive. Plate XII. _Mezzo Punto_, or mixed Venetian guipure, was a mixed point lace, of which the scrolls and flowers were outlined in pillow-lace, or by a tape, and the designs filled in with needle fillings, and connected by pearled brides on a coarse needle-made réseau. This variety of lace was sometimes made of silk. In point de Venise, flat or raised, the pattern is always connected by an irregular network of pearled brides. Real brides connecting the flowers here and there hardly ever occur; and the number of picots attached to one single branch of the bride network never exceeds two. The elaborately ornamental detached brides and a multiplicity of picots are characteristic of "Spanish point" and early point de France. The old Burano laces were a coarser outcome of the point de Venise à réseau, and alone of all Venetian needle laces survived the dark days of the close of the eighteenth century. Some fine specimens of these were shown by M. Dupont d'Auberville in the International Exhibition, and Marini quotes from a document of the seventeenth century, in which, speaking of merletti, it is said that "these laces, styled 'punti in aria,' or di Burano, because the greater part of them were made in the country so called, are considered by Lannoni as more noble and of greater whiteness, and for excellency of design and perfect workmanship equal to those of Flanders, and in solidity superior." A new departure has been taken in modern times, in the making of hand-made laces at the island of Burano, near Venice, where a large number of girls were employed in the eighteenth century, both in the town and the convents, in making a point closely resembling that of Alençon. Here the art lingered on as late as 1845, when a superannuated nun of ninety, with whom Mrs. Dennistoun, of Dennistoun, conversed on the subject, said how in her younger days she and her companions employed their time in the fabric of "punto di Burano";[194] how it was ordered long beforehand for great marriages, and even then cost very dear. She showed specimens still tacked on paper: the ground is made right across the thread of the lace. [Illustration: Fig. 31. POINT DE VENISE À RÉSEAU.--Early 18th century. N.B.--Mrs. Palliser incorrectly described this as Brussels in her first Editions. _To face page 58._] {59}Burano point had not the extreme delicacy of the Venetian point à réseau or of Alençon, and the late Alençon patterns were copied. Though needle-made, it was worked on a pillow arranged with a cylinder for convenience of working. The unevenness of the thread gives the réseau a cloudy appearance, and the cordonnet is, like the Brussels needlepoint, of thread stitched round the outline instead of the Alençon button-hole stitch over horse-hair. The mesh of the réseau is square, as in Alençon. Fig. 32 is copied from a specimen purchased at Burano by the Cav. Merli, of the maker, an old woman known by the name of Cencia Scarpariola. In 1866, the industry was extinct, and the "Contrada del Pizzo," once the headquarters of the lace-makers, was a mystery to the natives, who could no longer account for the denomination. In the church is preserved a splendid series of altar-cloths of so-called Burano point in relief, and a fine _storiato_ piece, representing the mysteries of the Passion. "Venice point is now no more," writes Mrs. Palliser; "the sole relic of this far-famed trade is the coarse torchon lace, of the old lozenge pattern, offered by the peasant women of Palestrina to strangers on their arrival at hotels," the same fabric mentioned by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, when she speaks of "peddling women that come on pretext of selling pennyworths of lace." The formation of the school recently established there,[195] and the revival of the art of lace-making in Burano, arose out of the great distress which in 1872 overtook the island. The extraordinary severity of the winter that year rendered it impossible for the poor fishermen, who form the population {60}of the island, to follow their calling. So great was the distress at that time, while the lagoons were frozen, that the fishermen and their families were reduced to a state bordering on starvation, and for their relief contributions were made by all classes in Italy, including the Pope and the King. This charitable movement resulted in the collection of a fund of money, which sufficed to relieve the immediate distress and leave a surplus for the establishment of a local industry to increase the resources of the Burano population. [Illustration: Fig. 32. BURANO POINT.--(Late 18th century.)] PLATE XIII. [Illustration: ITALIAN. MODERN POINT DE BURANO. Marriage veil of Queen Elena of Italy. Much reduced. Length about 7 ft.; width seen about 4 ft. 6 in. Photo by the Burano School.] _To face page 60._ {61}Unfortunately, the industry at first fixed upon, namely, that of making fishermen's nets, gave no practical result, the fishermen being too poor to buy the nets. It was then that a suggestion was made by Signor Fambri that an effort should be made to revive the ancient industry of lace-making, and Princess Chigi-Giovanelli and the Countess Andriana Marcello were asked to interest themselves in, and to patronise, a school for this purpose. To this application these ladies yielded a ready assent, and at a late period Queen Margherita graciously consented to become the president of the institution. When Countess Marcello, who from that time was the life and soul of the undertaking, began to occupy herself with the foundation of the school, she found an old woman in Burano, Cencia Scarpariola, who preserved the traditions of the art of lace-making, and continued, despite her seventy years and upwards, to make Burano point. As she, however, did not understand the method of teaching her art, the assistance was secured of Madame Anne Bellorio d'Este, a very skilful and intelligent woman, for some time mistress of the girls' school at Burano, who in her leisure hours took lessons in lace-making of Cencia Scarpariola, and imparted her knowledge to eight pupils, who, in consideration of a small payment, were induced to learn to make lace. As the number of scholars increased, Madame Bellorio occupied herself exclusively in teaching lace-making, which she has continued to do with surprising results. Under Madame Bellorio's tuition, the school, which in 1872 consisted of eight pupils (who received a daily payment to induce them to attend), now, in 1897, numbers four hundred workers, paid, not by the day, but according to the work each performs. In Burano everything is extremely cheap, and a humble abode capable of accommodating a small family may be had for from six hundred to one thousand Italian lire. It is not a rare occurrence to find a young lace-worker saving her earnings in order to purchase her little dwelling, that she may take it as a dower to her husband. Nearly all the young men of Burano seek their wives from among the lace-women. The school's diploma of honour speaks of the economical importance of the lace-work "to the poor place of Burano," and "the benefit which the gentle industry {62}brings to the inhabitants of the interesting island, whose welfare, having passed through a series of undeserved trials, is due exclusively to the revival of it practised on a large scale." The lace made in the school is no longer confined, as in the origin it was, to Burano point, but laces of almost any design or model are now undertaken--point de Burano, point d'Alençon, point de Bruxelles, point d'Angleterre, point d'Argentan, rose point de Venise, Italian punto in aria, and Italian punto tagliato a fogliami. The school has been enriched by gifts of antique lace, and Queen Margherita gave the school permission to copy two magnificent specimens of Ecclesiastical lace--now Crown property--that had formerly belonged to Cardinal de Retz, and Pope Clement VII. (Rezzonico). In order the better to carry out the character of the different laces, the more apt and intelligent of these pupils, whose task it is to trace out in thread the design to be worked, have the advantage of being taught by professional artists. The four hundred lace-workers now employed are divided into seven sections, in order that each may continue in the same sort of work and, as much as possible, in the same class of lace. By this method each one becomes thoroughly proficient in her own special department, executes it with greater facility, and consequently earns more, and the school gets its work done better and cheaper. While Countess Marcello was working to re-establish the making of needle-point at Burano, Cav. Michelangelo Jesurum was re-organising the bobbin-lace industry at Pellestrina, a small fishing-town on the Lido. In 1864 the lace of Pellestrina might have been described as an inextricable labyrinth of threads with vaguely distinguishable lines and occasional holes. The lace was so imperfect, and made in such small quantities, that two women who went about selling it in Venice and the country round sufficed to dispose of all that was made. The pricked papers were prepared by an old peasant woman, who made them more and more imperfect at each repetition, losing gradually all trace of the original design. Cav. Jesurum, by a careful copying of the old designs, obtained valuable results, and founded a lace-school and a flourishing industry. About 1875 polychrome lace was introduced in Venice--bobbin-lace worked in colours with designs of flowers, fruits, leaves, arabesques, and animals, with the various tints and shading required. The women who make bobbin-lace now in Venice and in the islands amount to 3,000, but it is difficult to give an exact estimate of their numbers, as many of them are bone-workers, wives and daughters of fishermen, who combine the lace-making with their household duties, with mending of nets, and with field-work. PLATE XIV. [Illustration: ITALIAN.--Modern reproduction at Burano of the flounce now belonging to the Crown of Italy, formerly to Pope Clement XIII., Rezzonico, 1693-1769. Height, 24 in. Photo by the Burano School.] _To face page 62._ {63}MILAN ("MILANO LA GRANDE"). "Margaret: I saw the Duchess of Milan's gown that they praise so. "Hero: O that exceeds, they say. "Margaret: By my troth, it's but a night-gown in respect of yours; cloth o' gold and cuts, and laced with silver."--_Much Ado about Nothing_, iv. 1. One of the earliest records of Italian lace belongs to Milan, and occurs in an instrument of partition between the sisters Angela and Ippolita Sforza Visconti, dated 1493 (see VENICE). This document is of the highest interest as giving the inventory of an Italian wardrobe of the fifteenth century. In it, amidst a number of curious entries, are veils of good network, with cambric pillow-cases, linen sheets, mosquito curtains and various articles, worked _a reticella_ and _a groppi_, with the needle, bobbins, bones, and other different ways[196] mentioned in the pattern-books of the following century. Among other items we find, "Half of a bundle containing patterns for ladies' work."[197] Though the fabric of these fine points dates back for so many centuries, there is little notice of them elsewhere. {64}Henry VIII. is mentioned as wearing one short pair of hose of purple silk of Venice gold, woven like a caul, edged with a passamaine lace of purple silk and gold, worked at Milan.[198] In a wardrobe account of Lord Hay, gentleman of his Majesty's robes, 1606,[199] is noted down to James I., "One suit with cannons thereunto of silver lace, shadowed with silk Milan lace." Again, among the articles furnished against the "Queen's lying down," 1606, in the bills of the Lady Audrye Walsingham,[200] is an entry of "Lace, Milan fashion, for child's waistcoat." A French edict, dated March, 1613, against superfluity in dress, prohibiting the wearing of gold and silver embroidery, specially forbids the use of all "passement de Milan, ou façon de Milan" under a penalty of one thousand livres.[201] The expression "à point de Milan" occurs in the statutes of the passementiers of Paris.[202] "Les galons, passements et broderies, en or et en argent de Milan," says Savary,[203] were once celebrated. Lalande, who writes some years later, adds, the laces formerly were an object of commerce to the city, now they only fabricate those of an inferior quality.[204] Much was consumed by the Lombard peasants, the better sorts serving for ruffles of moderate price.[205] So opulent are the citizens, says a writer of the same epoch, that the lowest mechanics, blacksmiths and shoemakers, appear in gold stuff coats with ruffles of the finest point.[206] And when, in 1767, the Auvergne lace-makers petition for an exemption from the export duty on their fabrics, they state as a ground that the duty prevents them from competing abroad, especially at Cadiz, with the lace-makers of Piedmont, the Milanais, and Imperial Flanders. Milan must, therefore, have made lace extensively to a late period. PLATE XV. [Illustration: ITALIAN. MILANESE BOBBIN-MADE.--Late seventeenth century. Width, 12 in. Photo by A. Dryden from private collection.] _To face page 64._ {65}Fig. 33 is a specimen of what has been termed old Milan point, from the convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie, in that city. It is more often known as Greek lace. [Illustration: Fig. 33. RETICELLA FROM MILAN.] The so-called punti di Milano--points de Milan--were all bobbin-laces, which originated in Milan, and, though imitated by Genoa and Naples, remained unapproached in design and workmanship. After first making passements, Milan imitated the Venetian points, "a fogliami," in which the pattern has the appearance of woven linen, with à jours occasionally introduced to lighten portions of it. The design was at first connected with bars, but later, meshes (in the seventeenth century large meshes, and, still later, smaller {66}meshes) filled the ground. This réseau varies, but most frequently it has four plaited sides to a mesh, as in Valenciennes. Like other Italian laces, Milanese lace frequently has coats-of-arms or family badges woven in it, such as the Doge's horn, the baldachino (a special distinction accorded to Roman princes), the dogs of the Carrara family, and so on, to commemorate a marriage or some other important event in the family. This sort of lace was known as Carnival lace when made of Venetian point. Milan lace is now represented by Cantu, near Lake Como, where the making of white and black pillow-lace gives employment to many thousands of women. The torchon lace of the country is original, and in much request with the peasantry. In the underground chapel of San Carlo Borromeo, in Milan Cathedral, are preserved twenty-six "camicie," trimmed with flounces of the richest point, all more or less splendid, and worked in the convents of the city, but many of the contents of this sumptuous wardrobe have rotted away from the effects of the damp atmosphere. FLORENCE. Of Florence and its products we know but little, though the Elegy of Agnolo Firenzuola proves that ladies made raised point at an early period.[207] His expression "scolpì," carved, sculptured in basso rilievo, leaves no doubt upon the matter. PLATE XVI. [Illustration: ITALIAN, VENETIAN. NEEDLE-MADE.--Very raised and padded. First half of eighteenth century. Width, 3¼ in.] PLATE XVII. [Illustration: ITALIAN, MILANESE. BOBBIN-MADE.--Early eighteenth century. Width, 5¾ in. Photos by A. Dryden from private collections.] _To face page 63_ "This collar was sculptured by my lady {67} In bas reliefs such as Arachne And she who conquered her could ne'er excel. Look on that lovely foliage, like an Acanthus, Which o'er a wall its graceful branches trails. Look on those lovely flowers of purest white, Which, near the pods that open, hang in harmony. That little cord which binds each one about, How it projects! proving that she who wrought it Is very mistress of this art. How well distributed are all these points! See the equality of all those little buds Which rise like many fair proportioned hills, One like the other.... This hand-made lace, this open-work, Is all produced by her, this herring-bone, Which in the midst holds down a little cord, Was also made by her; all wrought by her." Henry VIII. granted to two Florentines the privilege of importing for three years' time all "manner of fringys and passements wrought with gold and silver or otherwise,"[208] an account of which will be found in the notice of that monarch's reign. Beyond this, and the statute already mentioned, passed at the "Sute of the Browderers" on account of the "deceyptful waight of the gold of Luk, Florence, Jeane, and Venice,"[209] there is no allusion to the lace of Florence in our English records. In France, as early as 1545, the sister of Francis I. purchases "soixante aulnes fine dantelle de Florence"[210] for her own use, and some years afterwards, 1582, the Queen of Navarre pays 17 écus 30 sols for 10 aulnes et demye of the same passement "faict à l'esguille à haulte dantelle pour mettre à des fraizes."[211] On the marriage of Elizabeth de France with Philip II. in 1559, purchases were made of "passements et de bisette, en fil blanc de Florence." Seeing the early date of these French accounts, it may be inferred that Catherine de Médicis first introduced, on her arrival as a bride, the Italian points of her own native city.[212] In Florence, in the fifteenth century, Savonarola, in his sermons (1484-1491), reproached the nuns with "devoting their time to the vain fabrication of gold laces with which to adorn the houses and persons of the rich." Ray mentions that people of quality sent their daughters {68}at eight years old to the Florentine nunneries to be instructed in all manner of women's work. Lace was also fabricated at Sienna, but it appears to have been the _lavoro di maglia_ or lacis, called by the Tuscans _modano ricamato_--embroidered network. Early in the last century two Genoese nuns, of the Convent Sta. Maria degli Angeli in Sienna, executed pillow laces and gold and silver embroidery of such surpassing beauty, that they are still carefully preserved and publicly exhibited on fête-days. One Francesca Bulgarini also instructed the schools in the making of lace of every kind, especially the Venetian reticella.[213] THE ABRUZZI. In the Abruzzi, and also the Province of the Marche, coarse laces are made. These are worked without any drawing, the rude design being made by skipping the pin-holes on a geometrically perforated card. The pattern is surrounded by a heavy thread, and composed of a close stitch worked between the meshes of a coarse net ground. This lace somewhat resembles Dalecarlian lace. In the eighteenth century fine pillow lace was also made in these provinces. The celebrated industry of Offida in the Marche has sunk into artistic degradation. ROMAGNA. Lace was made in many parts of Romagna. Besides the knotted lace already alluded to,[214] which is still made and worn by the peasants, the peasant women wore on their collerettes much lace of that large-flowered pattern and fancy ground, found alike in Flanders and on the headdresses of the Neapolitan and Calabrian peasants. Specimens of the lace of the province of Urbino resemble in pattern and texture the fine close lace on the collar of Christian IV., figured in our notice of Denmark. The workmanship is of great beauty. Reticella is made at Bologna, and was revived in January, 1900, by the Aemilia-Ars Co-operative Society. The designs are for the most part taken from old pattern-books, such as Parasole. {69}Fig. 34 represents a fragment of a piece of lace of great interest, communicated by the Countess Gigliucci. It is worked with the needle upon muslin, and only a few inches of the lace are finished. This incompleteness makes it the more valuable, as it enables us to trace the manner of its execution, all the threads being left hanging to its several parts. The Countess states that she found the work at a villa belonging to Count Gigliucci, near Fermo on the Adriatic, and it is supposed to have been executed by the Count's great-grandmother above 160 years ago--an exquisite specimen of "the needle's excellency." [Illustration: Fig. 34. UNFINISHED DRAWN-WORK.] Though the riches of our Lady of Loreto fill a volume in themselves,[215] and her image was fresh clad every day of the year, the account of her jewels and plate so overpower any mention of her laces, which were doubtless in accordance with {70}the rest of the wardrobe, that there is nothing to tell on the subject. The laces of the Vatican and the holy Conclave, mostly presents from crowned heads, are magnificent beyond all description. They are, however, constantly in the market, sold at the death of a Cardinal by his heirs, and often repurchased by some newly-elected prelate, each of whom on attaining a high ecclesiastical dignity is compelled to furnish himself with several sets. A lady[216] describing the ceremony of washing the feet by the Pope, writes, in 1771, "One of his cardinals brought him an apron[217] of old point with a broad border of Mechlin lace, and tied it with a white ribbon round his holiness's waist." In this guise protected, he performed the ceremony. Clement IX. was in the habit of making presents of Italian lace, at that period still prized in France, to Monsieur de Sorbière, with whom he had lived on terms of intimacy previous to his elevation. "He sends ruffles," cries the irritated Gaul, who looked for something more tangible, "to a man who never has a shirt."[218] NAPLES. When Davies, Barber Surgeon of London,[219] visited Naples in 1597, he writes, "Among the traffic of this city is lace of all sorts and garters." Fynes Moryson, his contemporary, declares "the Italians care not for foreign apparel, they have ruffles of Flanders linen wrought with Italian cut-work so much in use with us. They wear no lace in gold and silver, but black"; while Lassels says, all they care for is to keep a coach; their point de Venise and gold lace are all turned into horses and liveries.[220] PLATE XVIII. [Illustration: CUSHION MADE AT THE SCHOOL.--These coloured silk laces are reproductions of the sixteenth century. Size, 20 × 12 in.] PLATE XIX. [Illustration: ITALY.--Group of workers of the Brazza School, Torreano di Martignacco, Friuli, showing the different kinds of lacework done and pillows in use. Photos by Contessa di Brazza.] _To face page 70._ {71}Of this lace we find but scanty mention. In the tailor's bill of Sir Timothy Hutton, 1615, when a scholar at Cambridge, a charge is made for "four oz. and a half quarter and dram of Naples lace." And in the accounts of laces furnished for the marriage of the Princess Elizabeth to the Elector Palatine, 1612, is noted "narrow black Naples lace, purled on both sides." The principal fabric of lace was in the Island of Ischia. Vecellio, in 1590, mentions the ladies' sleeves being trimmed with very fine thread lace.[221] Ischia lace may still be met with, and serves for trimming toilets, table-covers, curtains, etc., consisting generally of a square netting ground, with the pattern embroidered. Black silk lace also used to be made in Ischia. Much torchon lace, of well-designed patterns, was also made, similar in style to that given in Fig. 40. Though no longer fabricated in the island, the women at Naples still make a coarse lace, which they sell about the streets.[222] The _punto di Napoli_ is a bobbin lace, resembling the punto di Milano, but distinguished from it by its much rounder mesh and coarser make. Towards the middle of the last century, many of the Italian sculptors adopted an atrocious system, only to be rivalled in bad taste by those of the Lower Empire, that of dressing the individuals they modelled in the costume of the period, the colours of the dress represented in varied marbles. In the villa of Prince Valguarnera, near Palermo, were some years since many of these strange productions with rich laces of coffee-coloured point, admirably chiselled, it must be owned, in giallo antico, the long flowing ruffles and head-*tires of the ladies being reproduced in white alabaster.[223] {72}GENOA ("GENOVA LA SUPERBA"). "Lost,--A rich needle work called Poynt Jean, a yard and a half long and half quarter broad."--_The Intelligencer_, Feb. 29, 1663. "Genoa, for points."--_Grand Tour._ 1756. The art of making gold thread, already known to the Etruscans, took a singular development in Italy during the fourteenth century. Genoa[224] first imitated the gold threads of Cyprus. Lucca followed in her wake, while Venice and Milan appear much later in the field. Gold of Jeane formed, as already mentioned, an item in our early statutes. The merchants mingled the pure gold with Spanish "laton," producing a sort of "faux galon," such as is used for theatrical purposes in the present day. They made also silver and gold lace out of drawn wire, after the fashion of those discovered, not long since, at Herculaneum. When Skippin visited Turin, in 1651, he described the manner of preparing the metal wire. The art maintained itself latest at Milan, but died out towards the end of the seventeenth century. Our earliest mention of Genoa lace is,[225] as usual, to be found in the Great Wardrobe Accounts of Queen Elizabeth, where laces of Jeane of black "serico satten," of colours,[226] and billement lace of Jeane silk, are noted down. They were, however, all of silk. It is not till after a lapse of nigh seventy years that first Point de Gênes appears mentioned in an ordinance,[227] and in the wardrobe of Mary de Médicis is enumerated, among other articles, a "mouchoir de point de Gennes frisé."[228] {73}Moryson, who visited the Republic in 1589, declares "the Genoese wear no lace or gardes." As late as 1597, writes Vulson de la Colombière,[229] "ni les points de Gennes, ni de Flandre n'etoient en usage." It was not before the middle of the seventeenth century that the points of Genoa were in general use throughout Europe. Handkerchiefs, aprons, collars,[230] seem rather to have found favour with the public than lace made by the yard. No better customer was found for these luxurious articles of adornment than the fair Madame de Puissieux, already cited for her singular taste in cut-work. "Elle étoit magnifique et ruina elle et ses enfans. On portoit en ce temps-la," writes St. Simon; "force points de Gênes qui étoient extrêmement chers; c'étoit la grande parure--et la parure de tout age: elle en mangea pour 100,000 ecus (£20,000) en une année, à ronger entre ses dents celle qu'elle avoit autour de sa tête et de ses bras."[231] "The Genoese utter a world of points of needlework," writes Lassels, at the end of the century, and throughout the eighteenth we hear constantly of the gold, silver and thread lace, as well as of the points of Genoa, being held in high estimation. Gold and silver lace was prohibited to be worn within the walls of the city, but they wear, writes Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, exceeding fine lace and linen.[232] Indeed, by the sumptuary laws of the Republic, the richest costume allowed to the ladies was black velvet trimmed with their home-made point. The _femmes bourgeoises_ still edge their aprons with point lace, and some of the elder women wear square linen veils trimmed with coarse lace.[233] {74}"That decayed city, Genoa, makes much lace, but inferior to that of Flanders," states Anderson in his _Origin of Commerce_, 1764. The Genoese wisely encouraged their own native manufacture, but it was now, however, chiefly for home consumption. Savary, speaking of the Genoa fabric, says: As regards France, these points have had the same lot as those of Venice--ruined by the act of prohibition. In 1840, there were only six lace-sellers in the city of Genoa. The women work in their own houses, receiving materials and patterns from the merchant who pays for their labour.[234] Lace, in Genoa, is called _pizzo_. _Punti in aco_ were not made in this city. The points of Genoa, so prized in the seventeenth century, were all the work of the pillow, _a piombini_,[235] or _a mazzetta_, as the Italians term it, of fine handspun thread brought from Lombardy. Silk was procured from Naples. Of this Lombardy thread were the magnificent collars of which we give an example (Fig. 35), and the fine guipures _à réseau_ which were fashioned into aprons and fichus. The old Genoa point still finds favour in the eyes of the clergy, and on fête days, either at Genoa or Savona, may be seen splendid lace decorating the _camicie_ of the ecclesiastics. The Ligurian or Genoese guipures have four entirely distinctive characters. The Hispano-Moresque (or Greek) point de Gênes frisé, the Vermicelli from Rapallo and Santa Margherita, a lace resembling Milanese lace with "brides," and a fourth kind, entirely different from these varieties, called _fugio_ (I fly), as it is very soft and airy. It is an adaptation of guipure-like ribbons of weaving, with open-work variations, held together by a very few bars. In all these laces, as in Neapolitan and Milanese lace, a crochet needle is used to join the bars and design by drawing one thread through a pin-hole in the lace and passing a free bobbin through the loop to draw the knot tight. [Illustration: Fig. 35. GENOA POINT, BOBBIN-MADE. From a collar in the possession of the Author. This is an elaborate specimen of Point de Gênes frisé--Italian merletti a piombini. The plaits almost invariably consist of four threads. _To face page 74._] {75}The lace manufacture extends along the coast from Albissola, on the Western Riviera, to Santa Margherita on the eastern. Santa Margherita and Rapallo are called by Luxada[236] the emporium of the lace industry of Genoa, and are still the greatest producers of pillow-lace on the coast. The workers are mostly the wives and daughters of the coral-fishers who support themselves by this occupation during the long and perilous voyages of their husbands. In the archives of the parochial church of Santa Margherita is preserved a book of accounts, in which mention is made, in the year 1592, of gifts to the church, old nets from the coral fishery, together with _pisetti_ (_pizzi_), the one a votive offering of some successful fishermen, the other the work of their wives or daughters, given in gratitude for the safe return of their relatives. There was also found an old worn parchment pattern for a kind of tape guipure (Fig. 36).[237] The manufacture, therefore, has existed in the province of Chiavari for many centuries. Much of this description of lace is assigned to Genoa. In these tape guipures the tape or braid was first made, and the ground worked in on the parchment either by the needle or on the pillow. The laces consist of white thread of various qualities, either for wear, church decoration, or for exportation to America. Later, this art gave place to the making of black blonde, in imitation of Chantilly, of which the centres in Italy are now Genoa and Cantu. In the year 1850 the lace-workers began to make guipures for France, and these now form their chief produce. The exportation is very great, and lace-making is the daily occupation, not only of the women, but of the ladies of the commune.[238] In 1862 Santa Margherita had 2,210 lace-workers: Rapallo, 1,494. The _maestri_, or overseers, receive all orders from the trade, and find hands to execute them. The silk and thread required for the lace is weighed out and given to the lace-makers, and the work when completed is re-weighed to see that it corresponds with that of the material given. The _maestri_ contrive to realise large fortunes, and become in time _signori_; not so the poor lace-makers, whose hardest day's gain seldom exceeds a franc and a half.[239] Embroidered lace is also made at Genoa. On a band of tulle are embroidered in darning-stitch flowers or small detached springs, and the ground is sometimes _semé_ with little embroidered dots. A coarse thread outlines the embroidery. {76}[Illustration: Fig. 36. LACE PATTERN FOUND IN THE CHURCH AT SANTA MARGHERITA (circ. 1592).] PLATE XX. [Illustration: ITALIAN. BOBBIN TAPE WITH NEEDLE-MADE RÉSEAU. Width, 8 in. Photo by A. Dryden.] PLATE XXI. [Illustration: ITALIAN, GENOESE. SCALLOPED BORDER OF UNBLEACHED THREADS, TWISTED AND PLAITED.--Sixteenth or seventeenth century. Width, 5 in. Victoria and Albert Museum.] _To face page 76._ {77}[Illustration: Fig. 37. PARCHMENT PATTERN USED TO COVER A BOOK, BEARING THE DATE 1577. (Reduced.)] The laces of Albissola,[240] near Savona, of black and white thread, or silk of different colours, were once an article of considerable exportation to the principal cities of Spain, Cadiz, Madrid and Seville. This industry was of early date. In many of the parochial churches of Albissola are specimens of the native fabric dating from 1600, the work of devout ladies; and parchment patterns drawn and pricked for pillow-lace, bearing the earlier date of 1577, have been found covering old law books, the property of a notary of Albissola. The designs (Fig. 37) are flowing, but poor, and have probably served for some shawl or apron, for it was a custom long handed down for the daughters of great nobles, previous {78}to their marriage, to select veils and shawls of this fabric, and, in the memory of an aged workwoman (1864), the last of these bridal veils was made for a lady of the Gentili family. Princes and lords of different provinces in Italy sent commissions to Albissola for these articles in the palmy days of the fabric, and four women would be employed at one pillow, with sixty dozen bobbins at a time.[241] The making of this lace formed an occupation by which women in moderate circumstances were willing to increase their incomes. Each of these ladies, called a _maestra_, had a number of workers under her, either at home or out. She supplied the patterns, pricked them herself, and paid her workwomen at the end of the week, each day's work being notched on a tally.[242] The women would earn from ten soldi to two lire a day. The last fine laces made at Albissola were bought up by the lace-merchants of Milan on the occasion of the coronation of Napoleon I. in that city.[243] Among the Alençon laces is illustrated a beautiful lappet sent from Genoa, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum.[244] The pattern is of the Louis Quinze period, and the lovely diapered ground recalls the mayflower of the Dresden and the oeil-de-perdrix of the Sèvres china of that time. It was supposed to be of Italian workmanship, though the very fine ground introduced in the _modes_ of the riband pattern is the true Alençon réseau stitch. M. Dupont Auberville claimed it for Alençon, asserting he had met with the same ground on point undoubtedly of that manufacture. He named it _réseau rosacé_. A considerable quantity of lace was formerly made from {79}the fibre of the aloe (filo d'erba spada)[245] by the peasants of Albissola, either of its natural cream colour or dyed black. This lace, however, like that fabricated in the neighbourhood of Barcelona, would not stand washing.[246] There exists a beautiful and ingenious work taught in the schools and convents along the Riviera. It is carried to a great perfection at Chiavari and also at the Albergo de' Poveri at Genoa. You see it in every stage. It is almost the first employment of the fingers which the poor children of either sex learn. This art is principally applied to the ornamenting of towels, termed Macramé,[247] a long fringe of thread being left at each end for the purpose of being knotted together in geometrical designs (Fig. 38). Macramé at the Albergo de' Poveri were formerly made with a plain plaited fringe, till in 1843, the Baroness A. d' Asti brought one from Rome, richly ornamented, which she left as a pattern. Marie Picchetti, a young girl, had the patience to unpick the fringe and discover the way it was made. A variety of designs are now executed, the more experienced inventing fresh patterns as they work. Some are applied to church purposes. Specimens of elaborate workmanship were in the Paris Exhibition of 1867. These richly-trimmed macramé form an item in the wedding trousseau of a Genoese lady, while the commoner sorts find a ready sale in the country, and are also exported to South America and California.[248] {80}CANTU. Cantu, a small town near Lake Como, is one of the greatest lace-producing centres in Italy. The lace industry was planted there in the sixteenth century by the nuns of the Benedictine order, and until fifty years ago was confined to simple and rude designs. During the latter half of the nineteenth century, however, the industry has been revived and the designs improved. Thousands of women throughout the province work at it and dispose of their lace independently to travelling merchants, or work under the direction of the Cantuese lace-merchants. The laces are all made with bobbins with both thread and silk. [Illustration: Fig. 38. FRINGED MACRAMÉ.--(Genoa.)] SICILY. Sicily was celebrated in olden times for its gold and metal laces, but this fabric has nearly died out. An attempt, however, is now being made to organise a revival of the lace industry as a means of support for the women of Palermo and other populous centres. PLATE XXII. [Illustration: ] PLATE XXIII. [Illustration: ITALIAN. OLD PEASANT LACES, BOBBIN MADE.--Actual size.] PLATE XXIV. [Illustration: ITALIAN. MODERN PEASANT BOBBIN LACE.--Made at the School at Asolo near Bassano, founded by Browning. Width about 4 in. Photo by A. Dryden.] _To face page 80._ {81}At Messina, embroidered net (lacis) was made, and bobbin-laces and the antique Sicilian drawn-work are now copied in the women's prison there. Torchon, a lace which is also made in Sicily, has no design worked upon the parchment. The peasant follows the dictates of her fancy, and forms combinations of webs and nets by skipping the holes pricked at regular intervals over the strip of parchment sewed upon the cushion or _ballon_.[249] There are other variations of old Italian laces and embroideries which have not been mentioned here on account of space; either they are not often met with--certainly not outside Italy--or in some cases they appear to be only local names for the well-known sorts. {82}CHAPTER V. GREECE. "Encor pour vous poincts de Raguse Il est bon, crainte d'attentat, D'en vouloir purger un Estat; Les gens aussi fins que vous estes Ne sont bons que comme vous faites Pour ruiner les Estats."--_La Révolte des Passemens._ We have already spoken of Greece as the cradle of embroidery, and in those islands which escaped the domination of the Turks, the art still lingered on. Cyprus, to which in after times Venice gave a queen, was renowned for its gold, its stuffs, and its needlework. As early as 1393, in an inventory of the Dukes of Burgundy, we find noted "un petit pourpoint de satin noir, et est la gorgerette de maille d'argent de Chippre"--a collar of silver network.[250] The peasants now make a coarse thread lace, and some fine specimens have recently been made in white silk, which were exhibited in the Cyprus Court of the Colonial and Indian Exhibition of 1886, and are now in the possession of the Victoria and Albert Museum. In our own country, in 1423, we have a statute touching the deceitful works of the embroiderers of gold and of silver of Cipre, which shall be forfeited to the king.[251] But the secret of these cunning works became, after a time, known throughout Europe. Of cut-works or laces from Cyprus[252] and the islands of the Grecian seas, there is no mention; but we hear much of a certain point known to the commerce of the seventeenth century as that of Ragusa, which, after an ephemeral existence, disappears from the scene. Of Ragusa, {83}says Anderson, "her citizens, though a Popish state, are manufacturers to a man." Ragusa, comparatively near the Montenegrin sea-board, and north-western coast of Greece, was, in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, one of the principal Adriatic ports belonging to the Venetian Republic. Certain it is that this little republic, closely allied with the Italian branches of the House of Austria, served them with its navy, and in return received from them protection. The commerce of Ragusa consisted in bearing the products of the Greek islands and Turkey to Venice, Ancona, and the kingdom of Naples;[253] hence it might be inferred that the fine productions of the Greek convents were first introduced into Italy by the merchants of Dalmatia, and received on that account the denomination of points de Raguse. When Venice had herself learned the art, these cut-works and laces were no longer in demand; but the fabric still continued, and found favour in its native isles, chiefly for ecclesiastical purposes, the dress of the islanders, and for grave-clothes. In our English statutes we have no allusion to the point de Raguse; in those of France[254] it appears twice. "Tallemant des Réaux"[255] and the "Révolte des Passemens"[256] both give it honourable notice. Judging from the lines addressed to it in the last-named _jeu d'esprit_, point de Raguse was of a more costly character, "faite pour ruiner les estats,"[257] than any of those other points present. If, however, from this period it did still form an article of commerce, we may infer that it appeared under the general appellation of point de Venise. Ragusa had affronted Louis Quatorze by its attachment to the Austro-Italian princes; he kicked out her ambassadors,[258] and if the name of the point was unpleasant, we may feel assured it was no longer permitted to offend the royal ears. {84}[Illustration: Fig. 39. SILK GIMP LACE.] Though no manufacture of thread lace is known at Ragusa, yet much gold and silver lace is made for ornamenting the bodices of the peasants. They still also fabricate a kind of silk lace or gimp, made of twisted threads of cotton covered with metal, which is sewn down the seams of the coats and the bodices of the peasantry. The specimen, illustrated in Fig. 39, may possibly be the old, long-lost point de Raguse. Its resemblance, with its looped edges, to the pattern given from _Le Pompe_,[259] published at Venice in 1557, is very remarkable. We have seen specimens from Italy and Turkey. PLATE XXV. [Illustration: SICILIAN. OLD DRAWN-WORK.--Height, 12 in. Photo by A. Dryden from Salviati & Co.'s Collection.] PLATE XXVI. [Illustration: SOUTH ITALIAN.--The upper one is seventeenth century Church lace--réseau of threads twisted into star-shaped meshes. The three lower are considered eighteenth century CRETAN. All pillow made of thread and silk. Widths: 2, 2½, 1¾, 3¾ in. Victoria and Albert Museum.] _To face page 84._ {85}The conventionally termed Greek lace is really the Italian _reticella_. "The designs of the earliest Greek laces were all geometrical, the oldest being simple outlines worked over ends or threads left after others had been drawn or cut. Next in date come the patterns which had the outlines further ornamented with half circles, triangles, or wheels. Later, open-work with thick stitches was produced." [Illustration: Fig. 40. RETICELLA, OR GREEK LACE.--(Zante.)] The principal seats of the manufacture were the Ionian Isles, Zante, Corfu, Venice, Naples, Rome, Florence and Milan. The Ionian Islands for many years belonged to Venice, which accounts for the similarity in the manufacture. Fig. 40 is from a specimen purchased in the Island of Zante. This lace was much in vogue in Naples for curtains, bed-hangings, and coverlets, and even formed a substitute for {86}tapestry. A room hung with bands of Greek lace, alternated with crimson or amber silk, has a most effective appearance. The church lace of the Ionian Isles was not appreciated by the natives, who were only too glad to dispose of it to the English officers in garrison at Corfu. "Much is still found in Cephalonia: the natives bring it on board the steamers for sale, black with age, and unpleasant to the senses. This is not to be wondered at when we consider that it is taken from the tombs, where for centuries it has adorned the grave-clothes of some defunct Ionian. This hunting the catacombs has now become a regular trade. It is said that much coarse lace of the same kind is still made in the islands, steeped either in coffee or some drug, and, when thus discoloured, sold as from the tombs" (1869). The Greek islands now fabricate lace from the fibre of the aloe, and a black lace similar to the Maltese. In Athens, and other parts of Greece proper, a white silk lace is made, mostly consumed by the Jewish Church. CRETE. Pillow-lace making in Crete would seem to have arisen in consequence of Venetian intercourse with the island. "The Cretan laces[260] were chiefly of silk, which seems to point to a cultivation of silk in the island, as well as to its importation from the neighbouring districts of Asia Minor, when laces were made there, at least one hundred years ago." In 1875, the South Kensington Museum acquired a collection of Cretan laces and embroideries, some of which (the white thread laces) bear distinct traces of Venetian influence, as, for example, those in which costumed figures are introduced. "As a rule, the motives of Cretan lace patterns are traceable to orderly arrangement and balance of simple geometric and symmetrical details, such as diamonds, triangles and quaint polygonal figures, which are displayed upon groundworks of small meshes. The workmanship is somewhat remarkable, especially that displayed in the making of the meshes for the grounds. Here we have an evidence of ability to twist and {87}plait threads as marked, almost as that shown by the lace-makers of Brussels and Mechlin. Whether the twisting and plaiting of threads to form the meshes in this Cretan lace was done with the help of pins or fine-pointed bones, may be a question difficult to solve." The patterns in the majority of the specimens are outlined with one, two, or three bright-coloured silken threads, which may have been worked in with the other threads as the _cordonnet_ in Mechlin. The numerous interlacements which this _cordonnet_ makes with the lace point also to the outline having perhaps been run in with a needle. TURKEY. "The Turks wear no lace or cut stuff," writes Moryson (1589), winding up with "neither do the women wear lace or cut-work on their shirts"; but a hundred and fifty years later fashions are changed in the East. The Grand Turk now issues sumptuary laws against the wearing gold lace "on clothes and elsewhere."[261] A fine white silk guipure is now made in modern Turkey at Smyrna and Rhodes, oriental in its style; this lace is formed with the needle or tambour hook. Lace or passementerie of similar workmanship, called "oyah" is also executed in colours representing flowers, fruits and foliage, standing out in high relief from the ground. Numerous specimens were in the International Exhibition of 1867. The point lace manufactured in the harems is little known and costly in price. It is said to be the only silk guipure made with the needle. Edgings of it resemble in workmanship Figs. 121 and 122. MALTA. The lace once made in Malta, indigenous to the island, was a coarse kind of Mechlin or Valenciennes of one arabesque pattern.[262] In 1833, Lady Hamilton Chichester {88}induced a woman named Ciglia to copy in white the lace of an old Greek coverlet. The Ciglia family from that time commenced the manufacture of the black and white silk guipures, so generally known under the name of Maltese lace. Much Maltese is made in the orphanage in the little adjacent island of Gozo. Malta has certainly the first claim to the invention of these fine guipures, which have since made the fortune of Auvergne, where they have been extensively manufactured at Le Puy, as well as by our own lace-makers of Bedfordshire and in the Irish schools. The black is made of Barcelona silk, the same used in Catalonia for the fabrication of the black blonde mantillas of the Spanish ladies. Fig. 41 represents the lace round the ecclesiastical robe of Hugues Loubeux de Verdale, Cardinal and Grand Master of the Knights of Malta, who died in 1595, and is buried in the church of St. John, where a magnificent tomb is erected to his memory. [Illustration: Fig. 41. LOUBEUX DE VERDALE.--(From the cast of his Tomb, Musée de Versailles.)] Pillow-laces made by women in Ceylon and Travancore, as well as elsewhere in India,[263] seem to owe more to the instruction of the Portuguese than to the Dutch or English. We mention it in this place because the specimens of thread pillow-lace from Point de Galle and Candy bear a striking resemblance to the Maltese. PLATE XXVII. [Illustration: ITALIAN, RAPALLO. MODERN PEASANT LACE, BOBBIN MADE, IN SILK.--Actual size.] PLATE XXVIII. [Illustration: MALTESE. MODERN, BOBBIN MADE IN SILK.--About two-thirds actual size. Photos by A. Dryden.] _To face page 88._ {89}[Illustration: Fig. 42. BOBBIN-LACE.--(Ceylon.)] The specimens of Indian pillow-laces, wrought with white and black threads, in the India Museum, are apparently made in single pieces, and not as in Honiton laces, by separate flowers, which are subsequently placed together for the ground to be worked in between them.[264] "A missionary taught a few Chinese women to make silk lace from the wild silk of this part of China," reports Consul Bullock from Chefoo (at the request of the Nottingham Chamber of Commerce), but the small quantity of lace so produced is sold to Europeans only. The Chinese do not care to buy it. Acting Consul Trotman also reported from Hangkow, that a large quantity of hand-made lace is made in the Roman Catholic orphanages there, but this was entirely for European consumption. White lace in China is not woven by the natives, for white and blue being the national mourning colours, and severe simplicity of dress being _de rigueur_ on these occasions, lace of these colours has no sale.[265] {90}CHAPTER VI. SPAIN. "Of Point d'Espagne a rich cornet, Two night rails and a scarf beset, With a large lace and collaret." --Evelyn, _Voyage to Marryland_. "Hat laced with gold Point d'Espagne."[266] --Wardrobe of a Pretty Fellow, _Roderick Random_. "The Count: 'Voglio una punta di Spagna, larga, massiccia, ben lavorata. Del disegno, della ricchezza, ma niente di luccicante."--Goldoni, _L'Avaro fastoso_. Spanish point, in its day, has been as celebrated as that of Flanders and Italy. Tradition declares Spain to have learned the art from Italy, whence she communicated it to Flanders, who, in return, taught Spain how to make pillow-lace. Though the dress of the Court, guided not by the impulse of fashion, but by sumptuary laws, gave little encouragement to the fabric, on the other hand, the numberless images of our Lady and other patron saints, dressed and redressed daily in the richest vestments, together with the albs of the priests and the decorations of the altars, caused an immense consumption of lace for ecclesiastical purposes. "Of so great value," says Beckford, "were the laces of these favoured Madonnas, that in 1787 the Marchioness of Cogalhudo, wife of the eldest son of the semi-royal race of Medino Coeli, was appointed Mistress of the Robes to our Lady of La Solidad, at Madrid, a much-coveted office." {91}[Illustration: Fig. 43. THE WORK-ROOM.--(From an engraving of the Sixteenth Century after Stradan.)] Point d'Espagne, in the usual sense of the word, signifies that gold or silver lace, sometimes embroidered in colours, so largely consumed in France during the earlier years of Louis XIV.'s reign. Ornaments made of plaited and twisted gold and silver threads were produced in Spain during the seventeenth century, and mention of them is to be found in the ordinances of that time. Towards the end of the century, Narciso Felin, author of a work published in Barcelona, quoted by M. Aubry, writes that, "edgings of all sorts of gold, silver, silk thread and aloe fibres are made at Barcelona with greater perfection than in Flanders." In the sixteenth century, Flanders was part of the Spanish dominions, and from Flanders Spain imported artistic goods, linen and lace included. Mr. A. S. Cole concludes from this that the Barcelona lace-making was more or less an imitation of that which had previously existed in Spanish Flanders. {92}Apart from this, the gold and silver lace of Cyprus, Venice, Lucca and Genoa preceded that from Flanders, and it appears that Spain was later in the field of artistic lace-making than either Italy, Flanders or France. Even the celebrity of the gold point d'Espagne is probably due more to the use of gold lace by Spanish grandees,[267] than to the production in Spain of gold lace. The name point d'Espagne was, I think, a commercial one, given to gold lace by French makers.[268] Dominique de Sera, in his _Livre de Lingerie_, published in 1584, especially mentions that many of the patterns of point couppé and passement given were collected by him during his travels in Spain; and in this he is probably correct, for as early as 1562, in the Great Wardrobe Account of Queen Elizabeth, we have noted down sixteen yards of black Spanish _laquei_ (lace) for ruffs, price 5s. The early pattern-books contain designs to be worked in gold and silver,[269] a manufacture said to have been carried on chiefly by the Jews,[270] as indeed it is in many parts of Europe at the present time; an idea which strengthens on finding that two years after the expulsion of that persecuted tribe from the country, in 1492, the most Catholic kings found it necessary to pass a law prohibiting the importation of gold lace from Lucca and Florence, except such as was necessary for ecclesiastical purposes. Mrs. Palliser was of opinion that thread lace was manufactured in Spain at this epoch, for, "in the cathedral of Granada is preserved a lace alb presented to the church by Ferdinand and Isabella, one of the few relics of ecclesiastical grandeur still extant in the country." The late Cardinal Wiseman stated to Mrs. Palliser that he had himself officiated in this vestment, which was valued at 10,000 {93}crowns. But the following passage from Señor Riano greatly affects the value of what would otherwise be a fact of importance adduced by Mrs. Palliser. "Notwithstanding the opinion of so competent an authority as Mrs. Palliser, I doubt the statement, finding no evidence to support it, that thread lace of a very fine or artistic kind was ever made in Spain, or exported as an article of commerce during early times. The lace alb which Mrs. Palliser mentions to prove this as existing at Granada, a gift of Ferdinand and Isabella in the fifteenth century, is Flemish lace of the seventeenth."[271] The sumptuous "Spanish point," the white thread heavy arabesque lace, was an Italian production originally. It was imported for the Spanish churches and then imitated in the convents by the nuns, but was little known to the commercial world of Europe until the dissolution of the Spanish monasteries[272] in 1830, when the most splendid specimens of nun's work came suddenly into the market; not only the heavy lace generally designated as "Spanish point," but pieces of the very finest description (like point de Venise), so exquisite as to have been the work only of those whose "time was not money," and whose devotion to the Church and to their favourite saints rendered this work a labour of love, when in plying their needles they called to mind its destination. Among the illustrations are some photographs received from Rome of some curious relics of old Spanish conventual work, parchment patterns with the lace in progress. They were found in the Convent of Jesù Bambino, and belonged to some Spanish nuns who, in bygone ages, taught the art to the novices. None of the present inmates can give further information respecting them. The work, like all point, was executed in separate pieces given out to the different nuns and then joined together by a more skilful hand. In Fig. 44 we see the pattern traced out by two threads fixed in their places by small stitches made at intervals by a needle and aloe[273] thread working from underneath. The réseau ground is alone worked in. We see the thread left as by Sister Felice Vittoria when she last plied her task. {94}Fig. 45 has the pearled ground, the pattern traced as in the other. Loops of a coarser thread are placed at the corners, either to fasten the parchment to a light frame, like a schoolboy's slate, or to attach it to a cushion. In Fig. 46 the pattern is just worked. [Illustration: Fig. 44. UNFINISHED WORK OF A SPANISH NUN.] PLATE XXIX. [Illustration: SPANISH. MODERN THREAD BOBBIN LACE MADE AT ALMAGRO.--Slightly reduced.] PLATE XXX. [Illustration: SPANISH, BLONDE. WHITE SILK DARNING ON MACHINE NET.--Nineteenth century. Much reduced. Photos by A. Dryden from private collections.] _To face page 94._ {95}A possible reference to lace is found in Father Fr. Marcos Antonio de Campos,[274] in his book, _Microscosmia y gobierno Universal del Hombre Crestiano_, when he writes, "I will not be silent, and fail to mention the time lost these last years in the manufacture of _cadenetas_, a work of thread combined with gold and silver; this extravagance and excess reached such a point that hundreds and thousands of ducats were spent in this work, in which, besides destroying the eyesight, wasting away the lives, and rendering consumptive the women who worked it, and preventing them from spending their time with more advantage to their souls, a few ounces of thread and years of time were wasted with so unsatisfactory a result. I ask myself, after the fancy has passed away, will the lady or gentleman find that the chemises that cost them fifty ducats, or the _basquina_ (petticoats) that cost them three hundred, are worth half their price?" [Illustration: Fig. 45. UNFINISHED WORK OF A SPANISH NUN.] "The most important of Spanish ordinances[275] relating to Spanish art and industry are those which appeared in the {96}fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in Toleda and Seville, both remarkable centres for all kinds of artistic productions. In neither of these, nor in the sixteenth and seventeenth century ordinances relating to Granada--another art-centre--is there any mention of lace. [Illustration: Fig. 46. UNFINISHED WORK OF A SPANISH NUN.] "In the laws which were passed by Ferdinand and Isabella at the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries, no mention is made of lace, though numerous {97}details of costumes are named. It will be seen from these remarks on Spanish lace that we give to Italy the credit of producing the artistic and valuable point lace, which unexpectedly came out of Spain after the dissolution of the monasteries." The ordinance of Philip III, against the wearing of lace, dated 1623, which enjoined "simples rabats, sans aucune invention de point couppé ou passement" for the men, with fraises and manchettes in like trim for the ladies, both too without starch,[276] and which extended to gold and silver lace, was suspended during the matrimonial visit of Prince Charles;[277] indeed, the Queen of Spain herself sent him, on his arrival at Madrid, ten trunks of richly-laced linen. The Prince had travelled incognito, and was supposed to be ill-provided. Whether the surmises of her Majesty were correct, we cannot presume to affirm; we only know that, on the occasion of the Spanish voyage, a charge of two dozen and a half laced shirts, at twelve shillings each, for the Prince's eight footmen, appears in the wardrobe accounts.[278] The best account of Spanish manners of the seventeenth century will be found in the already-mentioned _Letters of a Lady's Travels in Spain_. "Under the vertingale of black taffety," she writes, "they wear a dozen or more petticoats, one finer than the other, of rich stuffs trimmed with lace of gold and silver, to the girdle. They wear at all times a white garment called _sabenqua_; it is made of the finest English lace, and four ells in compass. I have seen some worth five or six hundred crowns;... so great is their vanity, they would rather have one of these lace _sabenquas_ than a dozen coarse ones;[279] and either lie in bed till it is washed, or dress themselves without any, which they frequently enough do." A number of portraits exist in the Spanish galleries, {98}especially by Velasquez and Carrêno, in which these extravagant costumes are fully portrayed, but in very few Spanish portraits of the seventeenth century does thread lace of the kind known to us as point d'Espagne, or de Venise ever appear. Describing her visit to the Princess of Monteleon, the author continues: "Her bed is of gold and green damask, lined with silver brocade, and trimmed with point de Spain.[280] Her sheets were laced round with an English lace, half an ell deep. The young Princess bade her maids bring in her wedding clothes. They brought in thirty silver baskets, so heavy, four women could carry only one basket; the linen and lace were not inferior to the rest." The writer continues to enumerate the garters, mantle, and even the curtains of the Princess's carriage, as trimmed with fine English thread, black and bone lace.[281] Judging from this account, Spain at that period received her "dentelles d'Angleterre" from the Low Countries. Spain was early celebrated for its silk,[282] which with its coloured embroidered laces, and its gold and silver points, have always enjoyed a certain reputation. Of the latter, during the seventeenth century, we have constant mention in the wardrobe accounts and books of fashion of the French court. The description of the celebrated gold bed at Versailles, the interior lacings of the carriages, the velvet and brocade coats and dresses, "chamarrés de point d'Espagne," the laces of gold and coloured silk, would alone fill a volume to themselves.[283] {99}Narciso Felin, writing in the seventeenth century,[284] says that at that time "edgings of all sorts of gold,[285] silver, silk, thread, and aloe, are made there with greater perfection than in Flanders." Campany, another old author, carries the number of lace-makers to 12,000. The Spaniards are said, nevertheless, in 1634, to have derived a great part of their laces from the Île de France, while the French, on their part, preferred those of Flanders.[286] That the lace import was considered excessive is evident by the tariff of 1667; the import duty of twenty-five reals per pound on lace was augmented to two hundred and fifty reals. Much point was introduced into Spain at this time by way of Antwerp to Cadiz, under the name of "puntos de mosquito e de transillas." Madame des Ursins, 1707, in a letter to Madame de Maintenon, ordering the layette of the Queen of Spain from Paris, writes: "If I were not afraid of offending those concerned in the purchase, in my avarice for the King of Spain's money, I would beg them to send a low-priced lace for the linen." {100}This gold point d'Espagne was much fabricated for home consumption. The oldest banner of the Inquisition--that of Valladolid--is described as bordered with real point d'Espagne, of a curious Gothic (geometric) design. At the Auto-da-fè, the grandees of Spain and officers of the Holy Office marched attired in cloaks, with black and white crosses, edged with this gold lace. Silver point d'Espagne was also worn on the uniform of the Maestranza, a body of nobility formed into an order of chivalry at Seville, Ronda, Valencia and Granada. Even the saints were rigged out, especially St. Anthony, at Valencia, whose laced costume, periwig and ruffles are described as "glorious." [Illustration: Fig. 47. OLD SPANISH PILLOW-LACE.] Point d'Espagne was likewise made in France, introduced by one Simon Châtelain, a Huguenot, about 1596, in return for which good services he received more protection than his advanced opinions warranted. Colbert, becoming minister in 1662, guaranteed to Simon his safety--a boon already refused to many by the intolerant spirit of the times. He died in 1675, having amassed a large fortune.[287] That the fabric prospered, the following entry in the wardrobe accounts of the Duke de Penthièvre, 1732, gives proof:[288] "Un bord de Point d'Espagne d'or de Paris, à fonds de réseau." "France," writes Anderson, "exports much lace into Spain." PLATE XXXI. [Illustration: PORTRAIT OF THE DUCHESSE DE MONTPENSIER, INFANTA OF SPAIN, SHOWING MANTILLA. Middle of nineteenth century. M. de Versailles.] _To face page 100._ {101}"The sumptuary law of 1723 has taken away," writes the author of two thick books on Spanish commerce, "all pretence for importing all sorts of point and lace of white and black silk which are not the manufactures of our kingdom. The Spaniards acted on Lord Verulam's policy--that foreign superfluities should be prohibited[289]--for by so doing you either banish them or gain the manufacture." But towards the middle of the eighteenth century there are notices of constant seizures of vessels bound from St. Malo to Cadiz, freighted with gold and silver lace. The _Eagle_, French vessel, taken by Captain Carr, in 1745, bore cases to the value of £150,000.[290] In 1789 we also read that the exports of lace from the port of Marseilles alone to Cadiz exceeded £500,000,[291] and the author of the _Apendice a la Educacion Popular_[292] states that "all the five qualities (of lace) come from foreign lands, and the greater varieties of coarser ones." Gold and silver lace were made at Barcelona, Talavera de la Reyna, Valencia and Seville. In 1808 that of Seville was flourishing. The gold is badly prepared, having a red cast. The manufacture of blonde is almost entirely confined to Catalonia, where it is made in many of the villages along the sea-coast, and especially in the city of Barcelona. In 1809 it gave employment to 12,000 persons, a number which in 1869 was augmented to 34,000. There are no large manufactories, and the trade is in the hands of women and children, who make it on their own account, and as they please.[293] Swinburne, who visited Spain in 1775, writes: "The women of the hamlets were busy with their bobbins making black lace, some of which, of the coarser kind, is spun out of the leaf of the aloe. It is curious, but of little use, for it grows mucilaginous with washing." He adds: "At Barcelona there is a great trade in thread lace."[294] Larruga, in his {102}_Memorias_,[295] mentions a manufacture of gold and silver lace which had been set up lately in Madrid, and in another place he[296] mentions lace made at La Mancha,[297] where "the industry of lace has existed at Almagro from time immemorial." Don Manuel Fernandez and Donna Rita Lambert, his wife, natives of Madrid, established in this town in 1766 a manufacture of silk and thread lace. This industry also existed at Granatula, Manzanares and other villages in La Mancha. At Zamora "lace and blonde were made in private houses." In _Sempere Historia del Lujo_[298] we find that in the ordinance issued in 1723 the "introduction of every sort of edgings or foreign laces was prohibited; the only kinds allowed were those made in the country." Cabanillas writes[299] that at Novelda a third part of the inhabitants made lace, and that "more than 2,000 among women and children worked at this industry, and the natives themselves hawked their wares about the country."[300] The laces of New Castile were exported to America, to which colonies, in 1723, the sumptuary laws were extended, as more necessary than in Spain, "many families having been ruined," says Ustariz, "by the great quantities of fine lace and gold stuffs they purchased of foreign manufacture, by which means Spanish America is drained of many millions of dollars."[301] A Spanish lace-maker does not earn on an average two reals (5d.) a day.[302] The national mantilla is, of course, the principal piece manufactured. Of the three kinds which, _de rigueur_, form the toilette of the Spanish lady, the first is composed of white blonde, a most unbecoming contrast to their sallow, olive complexion; this is only used on state occasions--birthdays, bull-fights, and Easter Mondays. The second is black {103}blonde, trimmed with a deep lace. The third, "mantilla de tiro," for ordinary wear, is made of black silk, trimmed with velvet. A Spanish woman's mantilla is held sacred by law, and cannot be seized for debt.[303] The silk employed for the lace is of a superior quality. Near Barcelona is a silk-spinning manufactory, whose products are specially used for the blondes of the country. Spanish silk laces do not equal in workmanship those of Bayeux and Chantilly, either in the firmness of the ground or regularity of the pattern. The annual produce of this industry scarcely amounts to £80,000.[304] Specimens of Barcelona white lace have been forwarded to us from Spain, bearing the dates of 1810, 1820, 1830 and 1840. Some have much resemblance to the fabric of Lille--clear hexagonal ground, with the pattern worked in one coarse thread; others are of a double ground, the designs flowers, bearing evidence of a Flemish origin.[305] Spain sent to the International Exhibitions, together with her black and white mantillas, fanciful laces gaily embroidered in coloured silks and gold thread--an ancient fabric lately revived, but constantly mentioned in the inventories of the French Court of the seventeenth century, and also by the lady whose letters we have already quoted. When describing a visit to Donna Teresa de Toledo, who received her in bed, she writes: "She had several little pillows tied with ribbons and trimmed with broad fine lace. She had 'lasses' all of flowers of point de Spain in silk and gold, which looked very pretty."[306] The finest specimen of Spanish work exhibited in 1862 {104}was a mantilla of white blonde, the ground a light guipure, the pattern, wreaths of flowers supported by Cupids. In the official report on Lace and Embroidery at the International Exhibition of that year, we read that "the manufacture of black and white Spanish lace shows considerable progress since 1851, both in respect of design and fabrication. The black mantillas vary in value from £4 to £50, and upwards of 20,000 persons are said to be employed in their manufacture." Before concluding our account of Spanish lace, we must allude to the "dentelles de Moresse," supposed by M. Francisque Michel[307] to be of Iberian origin, fabricated by the descendants of the Moors who remained in Spain and embraced Christianity. These points are named in the above-mentioned "Révolte des Passemens," where the author thus announces their arrival at the fair of St. Germain:-- "Il en vint que, le plus souvent. On disoit venir du Levant; Il en vint des bords de l'Ibère. Il en vint d'arriver n'agueres Des pays septentrionaux." What these points were it would be difficult to state. In the inventory of Henry VIII. is marked down, "a purle of morisco work." One of the pattern-books gives on its title-page-- "Dantique et Roboesque En comprenant aussi Moresque." A second speaks of "Moreschi et arabesche."[308] A third is entitled, "Un livre de moresque."[309] A fourth, "Un livre de feuillages entrelatz et ouvrages moresques."[310] All we can say on the subject is, that the making cloths of chequered lace formed for a time the favourite employment of Moorish maidens, and they are still to be purchased, yellow with age, in the African cities of Tangier and Tetuan. They may be distinguished from those worked by Christian fingers from the absence of all animals in the pattern, the representation of living creatures, either in painting, sculpture, or embroidery, being strictly forbidden by Mahommedan law. PLATE XXXII. [Illustration: JEWISH.--Made in Syria. The pattern is only modern Torchon, but the knotting stitch is their peculiar tradition. Same size.] PLATE XXXIII. [Illustration: SPANISH.--The upper one is a copy of Italian lace clumsily made. The lower is probably a "dentelle de Moresse." Widths about 3½ in. Photo by A. Dryden from Salviati & Co.'s Collection.] _To face page 104._ {105}PORTUGAL. Point lace was held in high estimation in Portugal. There was no regular manufacture; it formed the amusement of the nuns and a few women who worked at their own houses. The sumptuary law of 1749 put an end to all luxury among the laity. Even those who exposed such wares as laces in the streets were ordered to quit the town.[311] In 1729,[312] when Barbara, sister of Joseph, King of Portugal, at seventeen years of age, married Ferdinand, Prince of Spain, before quitting Lisbon, she repaired to the church of the Madre de Dios, on the Tagus, and there solemnly offered to the Virgin the jewels and a dress of the richest Portuguese point she had worn on the day of her espousals. This lace is described as most magnificent, and was for near a century exhibited under a glass case to admiring eyes, till, at the French occupation of the Peninsula, the Duchesse d'Abrantès, or one of the Imperial generals, is supposed to have made off with it.[313] When Lisbon arose from her ashes after the terrible earthquake of 1755, the Marquis de Pombal founded large manufactures of lace, which were carried on under his auspices. Wraxall, in his _Memoirs_, mentions having visited them. The fine points in relief of Italy and Spain were the result of such time and labour as to render them too costly for moderate means. Hence they were extensively counterfeited. The principal scroll of the pattern was formed by means of tape or linen cut out and sewn on, and the reliefs were produced by cords fixed and overcast after the work was finished, thus substituting linen and cords for parts of {106}the needlework. These counterfeit points were in France the occasion in 1669 of an ordinance. [Illustration: Fig. 48. BOBBIN-LACE.--(Madeira.)] The modern laces of Portugal and Madeira closely resemble those of Spain; the wider for flounces are of silk: much narrow lace is made after the fashion of Mechlin. Both Spain and Portugal enjoy a certain reputation for their imitation white Chantilly lace. A considerable quantity of coarse white lace, very effective in pattern, was formerly made in Lisbon and the environs;[314] this was chiefly exported, _viâ_ Cadiz, to South America. Both black and white are {107}extensively made in the peninsula of Peniche, north of Lisbon (Estremadura Province), and employ the whole female population. Children at four years of age are sent to the lace school, and are seated at _almofadas_ (pillows) proportioned to their height, on which they soon learn to manage the bobbins, sometimes sixty dozen or more, with great dexterity.[315] The nuns of Odivales were, till the dissolution of the monasteries, famed for their lace fabricated of the fibres of the aloe. [Illustration: Fig. 49. BOBBIN-LACE.--(Brazil.)] Pillow-lace was made at Madeira at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The coarse kind, a species of _dentelle torchon_, served for trimming pillow-cases and sheets--"seaming lace," as it was called (Fig. 49). Sometimes the threads of the linen were drawn out after the manner of cut-work; but the manufacture had entirely ceased until 1850 (circ.), when it was re-established by Mrs. Bayman.[316] {108}Brazil makes a coarse narrow pillow-lace for home consumption. The Republics of Central and South America show indications of lace-making, consisting chiefly of darned netting and drawn-work, the general characteristic of the lace of these countries. The lace-bordered handkerchiefs of Brazil, and the productions of Venezuela, with the borders of the linen trousers of the guachos, and the Creva lace of the blacks of the Province of Minas Geraes, are the finest specimens of drawn-work. The lace of Chili is of the old lozenge pattern, and men also appear to be employed on the work. In Paraguay there are two sorts of work--Nanduti or "toile d'arraignée," made in silk or thread by a needle on a cardboard pattern by the copper-coloured natives as an industry; also embroidery and drawn thread-work on linen, of which there are specimens in the Victoria and Albert Museum--all traditions of the European missionaries and traders who first colonised the country. PLATE XXXIV. [Illustration: SPANISH.--Pillow made nineteenth century. Réseau of two threads twisted and crossed. Slightly reduced.] PLATE XXXV [Illustration: PARAGUAY. "NANDUTI."--End of nineteenth century. Reduced rather over half. Photos by A. Dryden from private collections.] _To face page 108._ {109}CHAPTER VII. FLANDERS. "For lace, let Flanders bear away the belle." --Sir C. Hanbury Williams. "In French embroidery and in Flanders lace I'll spend the income of a treasurer's place." --_The Man of Taste_, Rev. W. Bramstone. Flanders and Italy together dispute the invention of lace. In many towns of the Low Countries are pictures of the fifteenth century, in which are portrayed personages adorned with lace,[317] and Baron Reiffenberg, a Belgian writer, asserts that lace cornettes, or caps, were worn in that country as early as the fourteenth century. As evidence for the early origin of pillow-lace in the Low Countries, Baron Reiffenberg mentions an altar-piece, attributed to Quentin Matsys (in a side chapel of the choir of St. Peter's, at Louvain), in which a girl is represented making lace with bobbins on a pillow with a drawer, similar to that now in use.[318] There exists a series of engravings after Martin de Vos (1580-85), giving the occupations of the seven ages of life: in the third,[319] assigned to _âge mûr_, is seen a girl, sitting with a pillow on her knees, making lace (Fig. 50). The occupation must have been then common, or the artist would scarcely have chosen it to characterise the habits of his country. Of the two paintings attributed to Matsys--that in St. Peter's, at Louvain, and that in Lierre, only the former is now assigned to the artist. Both pictures are said to be of the end of the fifteenth century or beginning of the sixteenth. {110}[Illustration: Fig. 50. LACE-MAKING.--(After Martin de Vos.)] The triptych at Louvain is reproduced and described in detail by Van Even in his work, _Louvain dans le passé et dans le présent_;[320] it consists of five panels, the centre panel representing "La famille de Sainte Anne"; but among all the figures none, however, appear to be engaged in making lace or, indeed, in any form of needlework. PLATE XXXVI. [Illustration: FLEMISH. PORTION OF BED COVER, BOBBIN-MADE.--First half of seventeenth century. This is said to have belonged to Philip IV. of Spain. Above the Austrian eagle and crown is the collar of the Golden Fleece. The workmanship is of great skill. Victoria and Albert Museum.] _To face page 110._ {111}It has been suggested that the "Lace-maker making lace with bobbins on a pillow with a drawer" (alluded to by Baron Reiffenberg) in the triptych is taken from the above-mentioned engravings by Nicholas de Bruyel and Assuerus van Londonzeel, after the drawings of Martin de Vos. The historian of the Duke of Burgundy[321] declares Charles the Bold to have lost his _dentelles_ at the battle of Granson, 1476; he does not state his authority. Probably they were gold or silver, for no other exist among his relics. In Vecellio's _Corona_ of 1593 and 1596 are two designs of geometrical lace--"ponto fiamengho" and "Manegetti di ponto Fiamengo," point de Flandre. In 1651, Jacob v. Eyck, a Flemish poet, sang the praises of lace-making in Latin verse. "Of many arts one surpasses all; the threads woven by the strange power of the hand, threads which the dropping spider would in vain attempt to imitate, and which Pallas would confess she had never known;" and a deal more in the same style.[322] The lace-manufacture of the Netherlands, as Baron Reiffenberg writes, has a glorious past. After exciting the jealousy of other European nations, in the sixteenth century, when every industrial art fled from the horrors of religious persecution, the lace fabric alone upheld itself, and by its prosperity saved Flanders from utter ruin. Every country of Northern Europe,[323] Germany, and England, has learned the art of lace-making from Flanders. After the establishment of the Points de France by Colbert, Flanders was alarmed at the number of lace-makers who emigrated, and passed an act, dated Brussels, December 26th, 1698, {112}threatening with punishment any who should suborn her workpeople. Lace-making forms an abundant source of national wealth to Belgium, and enables the people of its superannuated cities to support themselves, as it were, on female industry.[324] One-fourth of the whole population (150,000 women) were said to be thus engaged, in 1861. But a small number assemble in the ateliers; the majority work at home. The trade now flourishes as in the most palmy days of the Netherlands. [Illustration: Fig. 51. CAP OF THE EMPEROR CHARLES V.--(Musée de Cluny.) This engraving is not accurately drawn. The spaces contain birds and crosses, and not sprigs.] [Illustration: Fig. 52. ISABELLA CLARA EUGENIA, DAUGHTER OF PHILIP II., ARCHDUCHESS OF AUSTRIA, GOVERNESS OF THE NETHERLANDS.--Died 1633. _To face page 112._] {113}Lace forms a part of female education in Belgium. Charles V. commanded it to be taught in the schools and convents. Examples of the manufactures of his period may be seen in the cap said to be worn by him under his crown, and in the contemporary portrait of his sister Mary, Queen of Hungary. This cap, long preserved in the treasury of the bishop-princes of Basle, has now passed into the Musée de Cluny (Fig. 51). It is of fine linen; the imperial arms are embroidered in relief, alternate with designs in lacis of exquisite workmanship.[325] [Illustration: Fig. 53. MARY, QUEEN OF HUNGARY, GOVERNESS OF THE LOW COUNTRIES. +1558.--(From her portrait, Musée de Versailles.)] Queen Mary's cuffs (Fig. 53) are of the geometric pattern of the age, and we may presume, of Flanders make, as she was Governess of the Low Countries from 1530 till her death. The grand-daughter of Charles V., the Infanta Isabella, who brought the Low Countries as her dower,[326] appears in her portraits (Fig. 52) most resplendent in lace, and her ruff rivals in size those of our Queen Elizabeth, or Reine Margot. But to return to our subject. Of the lace schools there were nearly 900 in 1875, either in the convents or founded by private charity. At the age of five small girls commence {114}their apprenticeship; by ten they earn their maintenance; and it is a pretty sight, an "école dentellière," the children seated before their pillows, twisting their bobbins with wonderful dexterity. (Fig. 54.) [Illustration: Fig. 54. A BELGIAN LACE SCHOOL.] In a tract of the seventeenth century entitled, _England's Improvement by Sea and Land, to outdo the Dutch without Fighting_,[327] we have an amusing account of one of these establishments. "Joining to this spinning school is one for maids weaving bone lace, and in all towns there are schools according to the bigness and multitude of the children. I will show you how they are governed. First, there is a large room, and in the middle thereof a little box like a pulpit. Second, there are benches built about the room as they are in our playhouses. And in the box in the middle of the room the grand mistress, with a long white wand in her hand. If she observes any of them idle, she reaches them a tap, and if that will not do, she rings a bell, which, by a little cord, is attached to the box. She points out the offender, and she is taken into another room and chastised. And I believe this way of ordering the young women in Germany (Flanders) is one great cause that the German women have so little twit-twat,[328] and I am sure it will be as well were it so in England. There the children emulate the father--here they beggar him. Child," he winds up, "I charge you tell this to thy wyfe in bed, and it may be that she, understanding the benefit it will be to her and her children, will turn Dutchwoman and endeavour to save moneys." Notwithstanding this good advice, in 1768 England received from Flanders lace-work £250,000 to her disadvantage, as compared to her exports. [Illustration: Fig. 55. OLD FLEMISH BOBBIN LACE. _To face page 114._] {115}[Illustration: Fig. 56. OLD FLEMISH (Trolle Kant). The piece of lace from which this woodcut is taken has five or six different designs all joined together; probably patterns sent round for orders.] The old Flemish laces are of great beauty, some of varied grounds. Fig. 56 represents a description of lace called in the country "Trolle kant," a name which has been transferred to our own lace counties, where lace of a peculiar {116}make is styled Trolly, with a heavy cordonnet which is called gimp or Trolly. _Kant_ in Flemish is "lace." At one period much lace was smuggled into France from Belgium by means of dogs trained for the purpose. A dog was caressed and petted at home, fed on the fat of the land, then after a season sent across the frontier, where he was tied up, half-starved and ill-treated. The skin of a bigger dog was then fitted to his body, and the intervening space filled with lace. The dog was then allowed to escape and make his way home, where he was kindly welcomed with his contraband charge. These journeys were repeated till the French Custom House, getting scent, by degrees put an end to the traffic. Between 1820 and 1836 40,278 dogs were destroyed, a reward of three francs being given for each.[329] According to some authorities the earliest lace made in Flanders was of the kind known as Pillow Guipure. The pattern is made as of tape, in flowing Renaissance style, sometimes connected by brides, and sometimes altogether without brides, when the points of the pattern touch each other. In the specimens of this type of lace in the Victoria and Albert Museum there is apparently little in the laces by which the country of their origin may be identified. Sometimes they have been considered French, sometimes Flemish, and sometimes Italian. [See the specimens of tape-lace in the Catalogue of the lace in the Victoria and Albert Museum, p. 49, by A. S. Cole.] (Plate XXXVIII.) BRUSSELS (BRABANT). "More subtile web Arachne cannot spin."--Spenser. "From Lisle I came to Brussels, where most of the fine laces are made you see worn in England."--Lord Chesterfield, 1741. At what period the manufacture of Brussels lace commenced we are ignorant; but, judging from the earlier patterns, it may be placed at the beginning of the sixteenth century. The ancient churches of Brabant possess, it is said, many precious specimens, the gifts of munificent princes who have at all periods shown a predilection for Brussels lace, and in every way promoted its manufacture. In usage it is termed Point d'Angleterre, an error explained to us by history. PLATE XXXVII. [Illustration: BRUSSELS. POINT D'ANGLETERRE À BRIDES. CROWN OF A CAP.--Last half of seventeenth century. The property of Mr. Arthur Blackborne.] PLATE XXXVIII. [Illustration: FLEMISH. TAPE LACE, BOBBIN-MADE.--Seventeenth century. Photos by A. Dryden.] _To face page 116._ {117}In 1662 the English Parliament, alarmed at the sums of money expended on foreign point, and desirous to protect the English bone-lace manufacture, passed an Act prohibiting the importation of all foreign lace. The English lace-merchants, at a loss how to supply the Brussels point required at the court of Charles II., invited Flemish lace-makers to settle in England and there establish the manufacture. The scheme, however, was unsuccessful. England did not produce the necessary flax, and the lace made was of an inferior quality. The merchants therefore adopted a more simple expedient. Possessed of large capital, they bought up the choicest laces of the Brussels market, and then smuggling them over to England, sold them under the name of point d'Angleterre, or "English Point."[330] This fact is, curiously enough, corroborated in a second memorandum given by the Venetian ambassador to the English Court in 1695, already mentioned by an informant in London, who states that Venetian point is no longer in fashion, but "that called English point, which, you know, is not made here, but in Flanders, and only bears the name of English to distinguish it from the others." "Questo chiamato punto d'Inghilterra, si sappia che non si fa qui, ma in Fiandra, et porta solamente questo nome d'Inghilterra per distintione dagli altri." The account of the seizure made by the Marquis de Nesmond of a vessel laden with Flanders lace, bound for England, in 1678[331] will afford some idea of the extent to which this smuggling was carried on. The cargo comprised 744,953 ells of lace, without enumerating handkerchiefs, collars, fichus, aprons, petticoats, fans, gloves, etc., all of the same material. From this period "point de Bruxelles" became more and more unknown, and was at last effaced by "point d'Angleterre,"[332] a name it still retains.[333] On consulting, however, the English Royal Inventories of {118}the time, we find no mention of "English point." In France, on the other hand, the fashion books of the day[334] commend to the notice of the reader, "Corsets chamarrés de point d'Angleterre," with vests, gloves, and cravats trimmed with the same material. Among the effects of Madame de Simiane, dated 1681, were many articles of English point;[335] and Monseigneur the Archbishop of Bourges, who died some few years later, had two cambric toilettes trimmed with the same.[336] The finest Brussels lace can only be made in the city itself. Antwerp, Ghent, and other localities have in vain tried to compete with the capital. The little town of Binche, long of lace-making celebrity, has been the most successful. Binche, however, now only makes pillow flowers (point plat), and those of an inferior quality. When, in 1756, Mrs. Calderwood visited the Béguinage at Brussels, she wrote to a friend describing the lace-making. "A part of their work is grounding lace; the manufacture is very curious. One person works the flowers. They are all sold separate, and you will see a very pretty sprig, for which the worker only gets twelve sous. The masters who have all these people employed give them the thread to make them; this they do according to a pattern, and give them out to be grounded; after this they give them to a third hand, who 'hearts' all the flowers with the open work. That is what makes this lace so much dearer than the Mechlin, which is wrought all at once."[337] The thread used in Brussels lace is of extraordinary fineness. It is made of flax grown in Brabant, at Hal and Rebecq-Rognon.[338] The finest quality is spun in dark underground rooms, for contact with the dry air causes the thread to break, so fine is it as almost to escape the sight. The feel of the thread as it passes through the fingers is the surest guide. The thread-spinner closely examines every inch drawn from her distaff, and when any inequality occurs stops her wheel to repair the mischief. Every artificial help is given to the eye. A background of dark paper is placed to throw out the thread, and the room so arranged as to admit one single ray of light upon the work. The life of a Flemish thread-spinner is unhealthy, and her work requires the greatest skill; her wages are therefore proportionably high. [Illustration: Fig. 57. BRUSSELS NEEDLE-POINT. _To face page 118._] {119}It is the fineness of the thread which renders the real Brussels ground (_vrai réseau_, called in Flanders, "droschel") so costly.[339] The difficulty of procuring this fine thread at any cost prevented the art being established in other countries. We all know how, during the last fifty years of the bygone century, a mania existed in the United Kingdom for improving all sorts of manufactures. The Anti-Gallican Society gave prizes in London; Dublin and Edinburgh vied with their sister capital in patriotism. Every man would establish something to keep our native gold from crossing the water. Foreign travellers had their eyes open, and Lord Garden, a Scotch Lord of Session, who visited Brussels in 1787, thus writes to a countryman on the subject: "This day I bought you ruffles and some beautiful Brussels lace, the most light and costly of all manufactures. I had entertained, as I now suspect, a vain ambition to attempt the introduction of it into my humble parish in Scotland, but on inquiry I was discouraged. The thread is of so exquisite a fineness they cannot make it in this country. It is brought from Cambrai and Valenciennes in French Flanders, and five or six different artists are employed to form the nice part of this fabric, so that it is a complicated {120}art which cannot be transplanted without a passion as strong as mine for manufactures, and a purse much stronger. At Brussels, from one pound of flax alone they can manufacture to the value of £700 sterling." There were two kinds of ground used in Brussels lace, the bride and the réseau. The bride was first employed, but, even a century back,[340] had been discontinued, and was then only made to order. Nine ells of "Angleterre à bride" appear in the bills of Madame du Barry.[341] The lace so made was generally of most exquisite workmanship, as many magnificent specimens of "bas d'aube,"[342] now converted into flounces, attest. Sometimes bride and réseau were mixed.[343] In the inventories the description of ground is always minutely specified.[344] (See Plates XXXVII., XLVII., XLVIII., XLIX., LI.) [Illustration: Fig. 58. BRUSSELS NEEDLE-POINT. _To face page 120._] [Illustration: Fig. 58A. BRUSSELS. POINT À L'AIGUILLE.--Formerly belonged to H.M. Queen Charlotte. _To face page 120._] {121}The réseau was made in two ways,[345] by hand (à l'aiguille), and on the pillow (au fuseau). The needleground is worked from one flower to another, as in Fig. 44. The pillow is made in small strips of an inch in width, and from seven to forty-five inches long, joined together by a stitch long known to the lace-makers of Brussels and Bayeux only,[346] called "point de raccroc"--in English, "fine joining"--and consisting of a fresh stitch formed with a needle between the two pieces to be united. It requires the greatest nicety to join the segments of shawls and other large pieces. Since machine-made net has come into use the "vrai réseau" is rarely made, save for royal trousseaux (Figs. 57 and 58). There are two kinds of flowers: those made with the needle are called "point à l'aiguille"; those on the pillow, "point plat."[347] The best flowers are made in Brussels itself, where they have attained a perfection in the relief (point brodé) unequalled by those made in the surrounding villages and in Hainault. The last have one great fault. Coming soiled from the hands of the lace-makers, they have a reddish-yellow cast. In order to obviate this evil the workwoman, previous to sewing the flowers on the ground, places them in a packet of white lead and beats them with the hand, an operation injurious to the health of the lace-cleaner. It also causes the lace to turn black when laid in trunks or wardrobes in contact with flannel or other woollen tissues bleached with sulphur, which discolours the white lead. Bottles containing scent, the sea air, or a heated room, will produce the same disagreeable change, and the colour is with difficulty restored. This custom of powdering yellow lace is of old date. We read in 1782[348]: "On tolère en même temps les dentelles jaunes et fort sales, poudrez-les à blanc pour cacher leur vetusté, dut la fraude paroître, n'importe, vous avez des dentelles vous êtes bien dispensé de la propreté mais non du luxe." Mrs. Delany writes in 1734: "Your head and ruffles are being made up, but Brussels always look yellow;" and she was right, for flax thread soon returns to its natural "crêmée" hue. Yet, "How curled her hair, how clean her Brussels lace!" exclaims the poet.[349] Later, the taste for discoloured lace became general. The "Isabelle" or cream-coloured tint was found to be more becoming than a dazzling white, and our coquettish grandmothers, who prided themselves upon the colour of their point, when not satisfied with the richness of its hue, had their lace dipped in coffee. {122}In the old laces the plat flowers were worked in together with the ground. (Fig. 59.) Application lace was unknown to our ancestors.[350] The making of Brussels lace is so complicated that each process is, as before mentioned, assigned to a different hand, who works only at her special department. The first, termed-- 1. Drocheleuse (Flemish, drocheles), makes the vrai réseau. 2. Dentelière (kantwerkes), the footing. 3. Pointeuse (needlewerkes), the point à l'aiguille flowers. 4. Platteuse (platwerkes), makes the plat flowers. 5. Fonneuse (grondwerkes), is charged with the open work (jours) in the plat. 6. Jointeuse, or attacheuse (lashwerkes), unites the different sections of the ground together. 7. Striqueuse, or appliqueuse (strikes), is charged with the sewing (application) of the flowers upon the ground. The pattern is designed by the head of the fabric, who, having cut the parchment into pieces, hands it out ready pricked. The worker has no reflections to make, no combinations to study. The whole responsibility rests with the master, who selects the ground, chooses the thread, and alone knows the effect to be produced by the whole. The pattern of Brussels lace has always followed the fashion of the day. The most ancient is in the Gothic style (_Gothique pur_), its architectural ornaments resembling a pattern cut out in paper. This style was replaced by the flowing lines which prevailed till the end of the last century. (Fig. 60.) In its turn succeeded the _genre fleuri_ of the First Empire, an assemblage of flowers, sprigs, columns, wreaths, and petits semés, such as spots, crosses, stars, etc. In flowers, the palm and pyramidal forms predominated. Under the Restoration the flowery style remained in fashion, but the palms and pyramids became more rare. Since 1830 great changes have taken place in the patterns, which every year become more elegant and more artistic. [Illustration: Fig. 59. OLD BRUSSELS. (Point d'Angleterre. Bobbin-made, circ. 1750.) _To face page 122._] {123}The lace industry of Brussels is now divided into two branches, the making of detached sprigs, either point or pillow, for application upon the net ground, and the modern _point à l'aiguille gazée_, also called point de Venise, a needlework lace in which the flowers are made simultaneously with the ground, by means of the same thread, as in the old Brussels. It is made in small pieces, the joining concealed by small sprigs or leaves, after the manner of the old point, the same lace-worker executing the whole strip from beginning to end. Point gaze is now brought to the highest perfection, and the specimens in the Paris Exhibition of 1867 were remarkable for the precision of the work, the variety and richness of the "jours," and the clearness of the ground. _Brussels point à l'aiguille, point de gaze_, is the most filmy and delicate of all point lace. Its forms are not accentuated by a raised outline of button-hole stitching, as in point d'Alençon and point d'Argentan, but are simply outlined by a thread. The execution is more open and slight than in early lace, and part of the _toilé_ is made is close, part in open stitch, to give an appearance of shading. The style of the designs is naturalistic. (Plate LII.) "Point Duchesse" is a bobbin lace of fine quality, in which the sprigs resemble Honiton lace united by "brides." Duchesse is a modern name. The work less resembles the old Brussels laces than the "Guipure de Flandre," made at Bruges in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which was much used for cravats, being exceedingly rich and soft in effect. Bobbin lace is sometimes named point Plat; the word point in this case signifies the fine quality of the lace, and has nothing to do with the needle-point. Point Plat appliqué is the name given to Belgian bobbin-made sprigs which are afterwards applied to machine-made net. Bobbin lace is not now made in Brussels itself. Brussels was a favoured lace at the court of the First Empire.[351] When Napoleon and the Empress Marie Louise made their first public entry into the Belgian capital, they {124}gave large orders for albs of the richest point, destined as a present for the Pope. The city, on its part, offered to the Empress a collection of its finest lace, on vrai réseau, of marvellous beauty; also a curtain of Brussels point, emblematic of the birth of the King of Rome, with Cupids supporting the drapery of the cradle. After the battle of Waterloo, Monsieur Troyaux, a manufacturer at Brussels, stopped his lace fabric, and, having turned it into a hospital for forty English soldiers, furnished them with linen, as well as other necessaries, and the attendance of trained nurses. His humane conduct did not go unrewarded; he received a decoration from his sovereign, while his shop was daily crowded with English ladies, who then, and for years after, made a point of purchasing their laces at his establishment when passing through Brussels. Monsieur Troyaux made a large fortune and retired from business.[352] MECHLIN. "And if disputes of empire rise between Mechlin, the Queen of Lace, and Colberteen, 'Tis doubt, 'tis darkness! till suspended Fate Assumes her nod to close the grand debate." --Young, _Love of Fame_. "Now to another scene give place; Enter the Folks with silk and lace, Fresh matter for a world of chat Right Indian this, right Macklin that." --Swift, _Journal of a Modern Lady_. "Mechlin, the finest lace of all!" --Anderson, _Origin of Commerce_. "Rose: Pray, what may this lace be worth a yard? "Balance: Right Mechlin, by this light!" --Farquhar, _The Recruiting Officer_. [Illustration: Fig. 60. OLD BRUSSELS. (Point d'Angleterre. Formerly belonging to Queen Charlotte.) _To face page 124._] {125}Mechlin is the prettiest of laces, fine, transparent, and effective. It is made in one piece, on the pillow, with various fancy stitches introduced. Its distinguishing feature is the cordonnet or flat silky thread which outlines the pattern, and gives to this lace the character of embroidery (hence it is sometimes called Broderie de Malines[353]); and secondly, the hexagonal mesh of the réseau. "This is made of two threads twisted twice on four sides, and four threads plaited three times on the two other sides. Thus the plait is shorter and the mesh consequently smaller than that of Brussels lace." Mechlin was sometimes grounded with an ornamental réseau called _Fond de neige_, or _Oeil de perdrix_, and also with the six-pointed _Fond Chant_; but these varieties are not common. The earliest Mechlin has the _points d'esprit_, and is very rare. It was made at Mechlin, Antwerp, Lierre and Turnhout, but the manufacture has long been on the decline. In 1834 there were but eight houses where it was fabricated, but at a later date it appears to have partially revived. There was a fine collection of Mechlin lace in the Paris Exhibition of 1867 from Turnhout (Prov. Antwerp), and some other localities. Very little is now manufactured. It is difficult to trace the real point de Malines. Previous to 1665, as elsewhere stated, all Flanders laces, with some exceptions, were known to the French commercial world as "Malines." According to Savary, the laces of Ypres, Bruges, Dunkirk and Courtrai passed at Paris under that name--hence we have in the inventories of the time, "Malines à bride,"[354] as well as "Malines à rézeau."[355] The statute of Charles II. having placed a bar to the introduction of Flanders lace into England, Mechlin neither appears in the advertisements nor inventories of the time. We find mention of this fabric in France as early as Anne of Austria, who is described in the memoirs of Marion {126}de l'Orme as wearing a veil "en frizette de Malines."[356] Again, the Maréchal de la Motte, who died in 1657, has, noted in his inventory,[357] a pair of Mechlin ruffles. Regnard, who visited Flanders in 1681, writes from this city: "The common people here, as throughout all Flanders, occupy themselves in making the white lace known as Malines, and the Béguinage, the most considerable in the country, is supported by the work of the Béguines, in which they excel greatly."[358] When, in 1699, the English prohibition was removed, Mechlin lace became the grand fashion, and continued so during the succeeding century. Queen Mary anticipated the repeal by some years, for, in 1694, she purchased two yards of knotted fringe for her Mechlin ruffles,[359] which leads us to hope she had brought the lace with her from Holland; though, as early as 1699, we have advertised in the _London Gazette_, August 17th to 21st: "Lost from Barker's coach a deal box containing," among other articles, "a waistcoat and Holland shirt, both laced with Mecklin lace." Queen Anne purchased it largely; at least, she paid in 1713[360] £247 6s. 9d. for eighty-three yards, either to one Margaret Jolly or one Francis Dobson, "Millenario Regali"--the Royal Milliner, as he styles himself. George I. indulges in a "Macklin" cravat.[361] "It is impossible," says Savary about this time, "to imagine how much Mechlin lace is annually purchased by France and Holland, and in England it has always held the highest favour." Of the beau of 1727 it is said: "Right Macklin must twist round his bosom and wrists." PLATE XXXIX. [Illustration: MECHLIN.--Four specimens of seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Arranged by age, the oldest at the top. The upper one is the end of a lappet, the property of Mr. Arthur Blackborne. Width about 3½ in. Widths of smaller pieces, 1¾ in., lower 2½ in. Photos by A. Dryden.] _To face page 126._ {127}While Captain Figgins of the 67th, a dandy of the first water, is described, like the naval puppy of Smollett in _Roderick Random_, "his hair powdered with maréchal, a cambric shirt, his Malines lace dyed with coffee-grounds." Towards 1755 the fashion seems to have been on the decline in England. "All the town," writes Mr. Calderwood, "is full of convents; Mechlin lace is all made there; I saw a great deal, and very pretty and cheap. They talk of giving up the trade, as the English, upon whom they depended, have taken to the wearing of French blondes. The lace merchants employ the workers and all the town with lace. Though they gain but twopence halfpenny daily, it is a good worker who will finish a Flemish yard (28 inches) in a fortnight." [Illustration: Fig. 61. MECHLIN.--(Period Louis XVI.)] Mechlin is essentially a summer lace, not becoming in itself, but charming when worn over colour. It found great favour at the court of the Regent, as the inventories of the period attest. Much of this lace, judging from these accounts, was made in the style of the modern insertion, with an edging on both sides, "campané," and, being light in texture, was well adapted for the gathered trimmings, later termed[362] "quilles," now better known as "plissés à la {128}vieille."[363] Mechlin can never have been used as a "dentelle de grande toilette"; it served for coiffures de nuit, garnitures de corset, ruffles and cravats.[364] Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, describing an admirer, writes: "With eager beat his Mechlin cravat moves-- He loves, I whisper to myself, he loves!" [Illustration: Fig. 62. MECHLIN.--(Formerly belonging to H. M. Queen Charlotte.)] It was the favourite lace of Queen Charlotte (Fig. 62) and of the Princess Amelia. Napoleon I. was also a great admirer of this fabric, and when he first saw the light Gothic tracery of the cathedral spire of Antwerp, he exclaimed, "C'est comme de la dentelle de Malines." [Illustration: PLATE XL. MECHLIN.--Three specimens of last half of eighteenth century. Victoria and Albert Museum. Width, 5 in. Photos by A. Dryden from Mrs. Ellis' Collection. Width, 4 ½ in. Width, 4 in.] _To face page 123._ {129}ANTWERP. "At Antwerp, bought some ruffles of our agreeable landlady, and set out at 2 o'clock for Brussels."--_Tour_, by G. L., 1767. Before finishing our account of the laces of Brabant, we must touch upon the produce of Antwerp, which, though little differing from that of the adjoining towns, seems at one time to have been known in the commercial world.[365] In the year 1560 we have no mention of lace among the fabrics of Antwerp, at that period already flourishing, unless it be classed under the head of "mercery, fine and rare."[366] The cap, however, of an Antwerp lady[367] of that period is decorated with the fine lace of geometric pattern. (Fig. 63.) As early as 1698 the _Flying Postman_ advertises as follows: "Yesterday, was dropped between the Mitre Tavern and the corner of Princes-street, five yards and better of Antwerp lace, pinner breadth. One guinea reward." According to Savary, much lace without ground, "dentelle sans fond," a guipure of large flowers united by "brides," was fabricated in all the towns of Brabant for especial exportation to the Spanish Indies, where the "Gothic" taste continued in favour up to a very late period. These envoys {130}were expedited first to Cadiz, and there disposed of. In 1696, we find in a seizure made by Monsieur de la Bellière, on the high seas, "2181 pieces de dentelles grossières à l'Espagnole assorties."[368] (Plate XLI.) Since the cessation of this Spanish market, Antwerp lace would have disappeared from the scene had it not been for the attachment evinced by the old people for one pattern, which has been worn on their caps from generation to generation, generally known by the name of "pot lace" (potten kant). It is made in the Béguinages of three qualities, mostly "fond double." The pattern has always a vase (Fig. 64), varied according to fancy.[369] Antwerp now makes Brussels lace. [Illustration: Fig. 63. A LADY OF ANTWERP.--(Ob. 1598. After Crispin de Passe.)] One of the earliest pattern-books, that printed by Vorsterman[370]--the title in English--was published at Antwerp, but it only contains patterns for Spanish stitch and other embroidery--no lace. There is no date affixed to the title-page, which is ornamented with six woodcuts representing women, and one a man, working at frames. This work is most rare; the only copy known may be found in the Library of the Arsenal at Paris. [Illustration: Fig. 64. ANTWERP POT LACE (Potten Kant). _To face page 130._] {131}Turnhout, which with Antwerp and Mechlin form the three divisions of the modern province of Antwerp, seems to have largely manufactured lace up to the present century; as we find in 1803, out of forty lace thread and lace fabrics in the province, there were thirteen at Antwerp, twelve at Turnhout, and nine at Malines.[371] Turnhout now produces Mechlin. FLANDERS (WEST). The most important branch of the pillow-lace trade in Belgium is the manufacture of Valenciennes, which, having expired in its native city, has now spread over East and West Flanders. The art was originally imported into Flanders from French Hainault in the seventeenth century. As early as 1656, Ypres began to make Valenciennes lace. When, in 1684, a census was made by order of Louis XIV., there were only three forewomen[372] and sixty-three lace-makers. In 1850, there were from 20,000 to 22,000 in Ypres and its environs alone. The productions of Ypres are of the finest quality and most elaborate in their workmanship. On a piece not two inches wide, from 200 to 300 bobbins are employed, and for the larger widths as many as 800 or more are used on the same pillow. In the exhibition of 1867, one exhibited with the lace in progress had 1,200 bobbins,[373] while in the International Exhibition of 1874 there were no less than 8,000 bobbins on a Courtrai pillow used for making a parasol cover. The ground is in large clear squares, which admirably throws up the even tissue of the patterns. In these there was little variety until 1833, when a manufacturer[374] adopted a clear {132}wire ground with bold flowing designs, instead of the thick _treille_[375] and scanty flowers of the old laces. (Fig. 65.) The change was accepted by fashion, and the Valenciennes lace of Ypres has now attained a high degree of perfection. Courtrai has made great advances towards rivalling Ypres in its productions. [Illustration: Fig. 65. VALENCIENNES LACE OF YPRES.] Not a hundred years since, when the laces of Valenciennes prospered, those of Belgium were designated as "fausses Valenciennes." Belgium has now the monopoly to a commercial value of more than £800,000.[376] The other principal centres of the manufacture are Bruges, Courtrai, and Menin in West, Ghent and Alost in East, Flanders. When Peuchet wrote in the eighteenth century, he cites "les dentelles à l'instar de Valenciennes" of Courtrai as being in favour, and generally sought after both in England and France, while those of Bruges are merely alluded to as "passing for Mechlin." From this it may be inferred the tide had not then flowed so far north. The Valenciennes of Bruges, from its round ground, has never enjoyed a high reputation. PLATE XLI. [Illustration: FLEMISH. FLAT SPANISH BOBBIN LACE.--Made in Flanders. Seventeenth century. From a photo the property of A. Dryden.] _To face page 132._ {133}In forming the ground, the bobbins are only twisted twice, while in those of Ypres and Alost, the operation is performed four and five times.[377] The oftener the bobbins are twisted the clearer and more esteemed is the Valenciennes. The "guipure de Flandres" made at Bruges in "point plat" is now in high repute, and has proved from its low price a formidable rival to Honiton, which it resembles, but the workmanship is coarser and inferior than in the best Honiton. It is of a brilliant white, and composed of bobbin-made flowers united by _barettes_ or _brides à picot_. In the _L'Industrie Dentellière Belge_ (1860), it is stated that West Flanders has now 180 fabrics and 400 lace schools. Of these, 157 are the property of religious communities, and number upwards of 30,000 apprentices.[378] FLANDERS (EAST). No traveller has passed through the city of Ghent for the last hundred years without describing the Béguinage and its lace school. "The women," writes the author of the _Grand Tour_, 1756, "number nigh 5,000, go where they please, and employ their time in weaving lace." Savary cites the "fausses Valenciennes," which he declares to equal the real in beauty. "They are," continues he, "moins serrées, un peu moins solides, et un peu moins chères." The best account, however, we have of the Ghent manufactures is contained in a letter addressed to Sir John Sinclair by Mr. Hey Schoulthem in 1815. "The making of lace," he writes, "at the time the French entered the Low Countries, employed a considerable number of people of both sexes, and great activity prevailed in Ghent. The lace was chiefly for daily use; it was sold in Holland, France and England. A large quantity of 'sorted' laces of a peculiar quality were exported to Spain and the colonies. It is to be feared that, after an interruption of twenty years, this lucrative branch of commerce will be at an end: the changes of fashion have even reached the West Indian colonists, {134}whose favourite ornaments once consisted of Flemish laces[379] and fringes. These laces were mostly manufactured in the charitable institutions for poor girls, and by old women whose eyes did not permit them to execute a finer work. As for the young girls, the quality of these Spanish laces, and the facility of their execution, permitted the least skilful to work them with success, and proved a means of rendering them afterwards excellent workwomen. At present, the best market for our laces is in France; a few also are sent to England." He continues to state that, since the interruption of the commerce with Spain, to which Ghent formerly belonged, the art has been replaced by a trade in cotton; but that cotton-weaving spoils the hand of the lace-makers, and, if continued, would end by annihilating the lace manufacture.[380] Grammont and Enghien formerly manufactured a cheap white thread lace, now replaced by the making of laces of black silk. This industry was introduced towards 1840 by M. Lepage, and black silk and cotton-thread lace is now made at Grammont, Enghien, and Oudenarde in the southern part of Eastern Flanders. The lace of Grammont is remarkable for its regularity, the good quality of its silk, and its low price, but its grounds are coarse, and the patterns want relief and solidity, and the bobbins are more often twisted in making the ground, which deprives it of its elasticity. Grammont makes no small pieces, but shawls, dresses, etc., principally for the American market. The "industrie dentellière" of East Flanders is now most flourishing. In 1869 it boasted 200 fabrics directed by the laity, and 450 schools under the superintendence of the nuns. Even in the poor-houses (hospices) every woman capable of using a bobbin passes her day in lace-making. HAINAULT. The laces of Mons and those once known as "les figures de Chimay" both in the early part of the eighteenth century enjoyed a considerable reputation. Mrs. Palliser, on visiting Chimay in 1874, could find no traces of the manufacture beyond an aged lace-maker, an inmate of the hospice, who made black lace--"point de Paris"--and who said that until lately Brussels lace had also been made at Chimay. PLATE XLII. [Illustration: FLEMISH. GUIPURE DE FLANDRE, BOBBIN-MADE.--Seventeenth century. In the Musée Cinquantenaire, Brussels.] _To face page 134._ {135}The first Binche lace has the character of Flanders lace, so it has been supposed that the women who travelled from Ghent in the train of Mary of Burgundy, the daughter of Charles le Téméraire, created the taste for lace at Binche, and that the stay of the great ladies, on their visits to the royal lady of the manor, made the fortune of the lace-makers. Afterwards there was much traffic between the lace-workers of Brussels and Binche, and there is a great resemblance between the laces of the two towns. Sometimes the latter is less light, richer, and more complex in effect, and the design is closely sprinkled with open-work, the ground varied and contrasted. Binche was, as early as 1686, the subject of a royal edict, leading one to infer that the laces it produced were of some importance. In the said edict, the roads of Verviers, Gueuse, and Le Catelet, to those persons coming from Binche, are pronounced "faux passages."[381] Savary esteems the products of this little village. The same laces, he adds, are made in all the _monastères_ of the province, that are partly maintained by the gains. The lace is good, equal to that of Brabant and Flanders. The characteristic peculiarities of Binche are, that there is either no cordonnet at all outlining the pattern, or that the cordonnet is scarcely a thicker thread than that which makes the _toilé_.[382] The design itself is very indefinite, and is practically the same as the early Valenciennes laces. Varieties of the _fond de neige_ ground were used instead of the regular _réseau_ ground. Dentelle de Binche appears to have been much in vogue in the last century. It is mentioned in the inventory of the Duchesse de Modène,[383] daughter of the Regent, 1761; and in that of Mademoiselle de Charollais, 1758, who has a "couvrepied, mantelet, garniture de robe, jupon," etc., all of the same lace. In the _Misérables_ of Victor Hugo, the old grandfather routs out {136}from a cupboard "une ancienne garniture de guipure de Binche" for Cosette's wedding-dress.[384] The Binche application flowers have already been noticed. The lace industry of Binche will soon be only a memory. But before 1830 it "was a hive of lace-makers, and the bees of this hive earned so much money by making lace that their husbands could go and take a walk without a care for the morrow," as it is curiously phrased in an account of Binche and its lace. (Plate XLIII.) We have now named the great localities for lace-making throughout the Low Countries. Some few yet remain unmentioned. The needle-point of Liège should be mentioned among the Flanders laces. At the Cathedral of Liège there is still to be seen a flounce of an alb unequalled for the richness and variety of its design and its perfection. Liège in her days of ecclesiastical grandeur carried on the lace trade like the rest.[385] We read, in 1620, of "English Jesuitesses at Liège, who seem to care as much for politics as for lace-making."[386] An early pattern-book, that of Jean de Glen, a transcript of Vinciolo, was published in that city in 1597. It bears the mark of his printing-press--three acorns with the motto, "Cuique sua præmia," and is dedicated to Madame Loyse de Perez. He concludes a complimentary dedication to the lady with the lines:-- "Madame, dont l'esprit modestement subtil, Vigoureux, se délecte en toutes choses belles, Prenez de bonne part ces nouvelles modelles Que vous offre la main de ce maistre gentil." He states that he has travelled and brought back from Italy some patterns, without alluding to Vinciolo. At the end, in a chapter of good advice to young ladies, after exhorting them to "salutairement passer la journée, tant pour l'âme que pour le corps," he winds up that he is aware that other exercises, such as stretching the hands and feet, "se frotter un peu les points des bras," and combing the hair, are good for the health; that to wash the hands occasionally in cold water is both "civil et honnête," etc. [Illustration: PLATE XLIII. BINCHE.--Width, 2-1/8 in.] [Illustration: PLATE XLIV. BELGIAN, BOBBIN-MADE. MARCHE.--End of eighteenth century. In the Musée Cinquantenaire, Brussels.] BELGIAN, BOBBIN-MADE. PLATE XLV. [Illustration: DRAWN AND EMBROIDERED MUSLIN, resembling fine lace.--Flemish work. End of eighteenth century. Width, 2½ in., not including the modern heading. Photos by A. Dryden from private collections.] _To face page 136._ {137}"Dentelles de Liège, fines et grosses de toutes sortes," are mentioned with those of Lorraine and Du Comté (Franche-Comté) in the tariff fixed by a French edict of September 18th, 1664.[387] Mrs. Calderwood, who visited Liège in 1756, admires the point-edging to the surplices of the canons, which, she remarks, "have a very genteel appearance." The manufacture had declined at Liège, in 1802, when it is classed by the French Commissioners among the "fabriques moins considérables," and the lace-makers of the Rue Pierreuse, who made a "garniture étroite"--the "caïeteresses"[388]--had died out in 1881. The same work is now carried on at Laroche.[389] The lace products of St. Trond, in the province of Limburgh, appear by the report of the French Commission of 1803 to have been of some importance. Lace, they say, is made at St. Trond, where from 800 to 900 are so employed, either at their own homes or in the workshops of the lace-manufacturers. The laces resemble those of Brussels and Mechlin, and although they have a lesser reputation in commerce, several descriptions are made, and about 8,000 metres are produced of laces of first quality, fetching from twelve to fourteen francs the metre. These laces are chiefly made for exportation, and are sold mostly in Holland and at the Frankfort fairs. The report concludes by stating that the vicissitudes of war, in diminishing the demand for objects of luxury, has much injured the trade; and also suggests that some provisions should be made to stop the abuses arising from the bad faith of the lace-makers, who often sell the materials given them to work with.[390][391] {138}Many of the Belgian churches have lace among the _trésors d'église_. A great number of the convents also possess beautiful lace, for girls who have been educated in them often give their bridal lace, after their marriage, to the chapel of the convent. At Bruges, an ancient turreted house of the fifteenth century, the Gruuthus mansion, now restored, contains one of the finest collections of lace in the world--a collection of Flemish laces presented to the town by the Baroness Liedts. Bruges itself, and the country round, is full of lace-workers, some working in factories or _ateliers_ at the guipure de Flandres, others working at the coarse cheap torchon, sitting in the sun by the quiet canal-sides, or in the stone-cobbled lanes of the old city, where their house-door opens into a room as dark and narrow as a fox-earth, and leading a life so poor that English competition in the cheaper forms of lace is impossible. Within the last few years the immense development of the Belgian lace trade has overthrown the characteristic lace of each city. Lace, white and black, point and pillow, may at the present time be met with in every province of the now flourishing kingdom of Belgium.[392] {139}CHAPTER VIII. FRANCE TO LOUIS XIV. "Il est une déesse inconstante, incommode, Bizarre dans ses goûts, folle en ses ornements, Qui parait, fuit, revient, et renaît, en tout temps: Protée était son père, et son nom est la mode."--Voltaire. "To-day the French All clinquant, all in gold."--Shakespeare. To the Italian influences of the sixteenth century France owes the fashion for points coupés and lace.[393] It was under the Valois and the Médicis that the luxury of embroidery, laces of gold, silver, and thread, attained its greatest height, and point coupé was as much worn at that epoch, as were subsequently the points of Italy and Flanders. Ruffs and cuffs, according to Quicherat, first appeared in France in 1540. The ruff or fraise, as it was termed from its fancied resemblance to the caul[394] or frill of the calf, first {140}adopted by Henry II. to conceal a scar, continued in favour with his sons. The Queen-mother herself wore mourning from the day of the King's death; no decoration therefore appears upon her wire-mounted ruff,[395] but the fraises of her family and the _escadron volante_ are profusely trimmed with the geometric work of the period, and the making of laces and point coupé was the favourite employment of her court. It is recorded that the girls and servants of her household consumed much time in making squares of _réseuil_, and Catherine de Médicis had a bed draped with these squares of _réseuil_ or _lacis_. Catherine encouraged dress and extravagance, and sought by brilliant fêtes to turn people's minds from politics. In this she was little seconded either by her husband or gloomy son, King Charles; but Henry III. and his "mignons frisés et fraisés" were tricked out in garments of the brightest colours--toques and toquets, pearl necklaces and earrings. The ruff was the especial object of royal interest. With his own hand he used the poking-sticks and adjusted the plaits. "Gaudronneur des collets de sa femme" was the soubriquet bestowed on him by the satirists of the day.[396] By 1579 the ruffs of the French court had attained such an outrageous size, "un tiers d'aulne,"[397] in depth that the wearers could scarcely turn their heads.[398] "Both men and women wore them intolerably large, being a quarter of a yard deep and twelve lengths in a ruff," writes Stone. In London the fashion was termed the "French ruff"; in France, on the other hand, it was the "English monster." Blaise de Viginière describes them as "gadrooned like organ-pipes, contorted or crinkled like cabbages, and as big as the sails of a windmill." So absurd was the effect, the {141}journalist of Henry III.[399] declares "they looked like the head of John the Baptist in a charger." Nor could they eat so encumbered. It is told how Reine Margot one day, when seated at dinner, was compelled to send for a spoon with a handle two feet in length wherewith to eat her soup.[400] These monstrosities, "so stiffened that they cracked like paper,"[401] found little favour beyond the precincts of the Louvre. They were caricatured by the writers of the day; and when, in 1579, Henry III. appeared thus attired at the fair of St. Germain, he was met by a band of students decked out in large paper cuffs, shouting, "À la fraise on connoit le veau"--for which impertinence the King sent them to prison.[402] Suddenly, at the Court of Henry, the fraise gave way to the rabat, or turn-down collar.[403] In vain were sumptuary edicts issued against luxury.[404] The court set a bad example; and in 1577, at the meeting of the States of Blois, Henry wore on his own dress four thousand yards of pure gold lace. His successor, Henry IV., issued several fresh ordinances[405] against "clinquants [406] et dorures." Touching the last, Regnier, the satirist, writes:-- "A propos, on m'a dit Que contre les clinquants le roy faict un edict."[407] Better still, the King tried the effect of example: he wore a coat of grey cloth with a doublet of taffety, without either {142}trimming or lace--a piece of economy little appreciated by the public. His dress, says an author, "sentait des misères de la Ligue." Sully, anxious to emulate the simplicity of the King, laughed at those "qui portoient leurs moulins et leurs bois de haute futaie sur leurs dos."[408] "It is necessary," said he, "to rid ourselves of our neighbours' goods, which deluge the country." So he prohibited, under pain of corporal punishment, any more dealings with the Flemish merchants. But edicts failed to put down point coupé; Reine Margot, Madame Gabrielle, and Bassompierre were too strong for him. The Wardrobe Accounts of Henry's first queen are filled with entries of point coupé and "passements à l'aiguille";[409] and though Henry usually wore the silk-wrought shirts of the day,[410] we find in the inventory of his wife one entered as trimmed with cut-work.[411] Wraxall declares to have seen exhibited at a booth on the Boulevart de Bondy, the shirt worn by Henry when assassinated. "It is ornamented," he writes, "with a broad lace round the collar and breast. The two wounds inflicted by the assassin's knife are plainly visible."[412] PLATE XLVI. [Illustration: RUFF, EDGED WITH LACE.--In the Musée de Cluny, Paris.] _To face page 142._ {143}In the inventory[413] made at the death of Madame Gabrielle, the fair Duchesse de Beaufort, we find entered sleeves and towels of point couppé, with fine handkerchiefs, gifts of the King to be worn at court, of such an extraordinary value that Henry requires them to be straightway restored to him. In the same list appears the duchess's bed of ivory,[414] with hangings for the room of rézeuil.[415] The Chancellor Herault,[416] who died at the same period, was equally extravagant in his habits; while the shirts of the combatants in the duel between M. de Crequy and Don Philippe de Savoie are specially vaunted as "toutes garnies du plus fin et du plus riche point coupé qu'on eust pu trouver dans ce temps là, auquel le point de Gennes et de Flandres n'estoient pas en usage."[417] The enormous collarette, rising behind her head like a {144}fan, of Mary de Médicis, with its edgings of fine lace, are well known to the admirers of Rubens:-- "Cinq colets de dentelle haute de demy-piè L'un sur l'autre montez, qui ne vont qu'a moitié De celuys de dessus, car elle n'est pas leste, Si le premier ne passe une paulme la teste."[418] On the accession of Louis XIII, luxury knew no bounds. The Queen Regent was magnificent by nature, while Richelieu, anxious to hasten the ruin of the nobles, artfully encouraged their prodigality. But Mary was compelled to repress this taste for dress. The courtiers importuned her to increase their pensions, no longer sufficient for the exigencies of the day. The Queen, at her wits' end, published in 1613 a "Réglement pour les superfluités des habits," prohibiting all lace and embroidery.[419] France had early sent out books of patterns for cut-work and lace. That of Francisque Pelegrin was published at Paris in the reign of Francis I. Six were printed at Lyons alone. The four earlier have no date,[420] the two others bear those of 1549[421] and 1585.[422] It was to these first that Vinciolo so contemptuously alludes in his dedication, "Aux Benevolles Lecteurs," saying, "Si les premiers ouvrages que vous avez vus out engendré quelque fruit et utilité je m'assure que les miens en produiront davantage." Various editions of Vinciolo were printed at Paris from 1587 to 1623; the earlier dedicated to Queen Louise de Lorraine; a second to Catherine de Bourbon, sister of Henry IV.; the last to Anne of Austria. The _Pratique de Leguille de Milour M. Mignerak_ was published by the same printer, 1605; and we have another work, termed _Bèle Prerie_, also printed at Paris, bearing date 1601.[423] The points of Italy and Flanders now first appear at court, and the Church soon adopted the prevailing taste for the decoration of her altars and her prelates.[424] PLATE XLVII. [Illustration: BRUSSELS. FLOUNCE, BOBBIN-MADE.--Late seventeenth century. Given by Madame de Maintenon to Fénélon, Archbishop of Cambrai. Now in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Height, 2 ft. 2 in.] _To face page 146._ {145}The ruff is finally discarded and replaced by the "col rabattu," with its deep-scalloped border of point. The "manchettes à revers" are trimmed in the same manner, and the fashion even extends to the tops of the boots. Of these lace-trimmed boots the favourite, Cinq-Mars, left three hundred pairs at his death, 1642. From his portrait, after Lenain, which hangs in the Gallery of Versailles, we give one of these boots (Fig. 66), and his rich collerette of Point de Gênes (Fig. 67). [Illustration: Fig. 66. CINQ-MARS.--(M. de Versailles.)] The garters, now worn like a scarf round the knee, have the ends adorned with point. A large rosette of lace completes the costume of the epoch (Fig. 68). {146}Gold lace shared the favour of the thread fabric on gloves,[425] garters and shoes.[426] "De large taftas la jartière parée Aux bouts de demy-pied de dentelle dorée."[427] The cuffs, collars of the ladies either falling back or rising behind their shoulders in double tier, caps, aprons descending to their feet (Fig. 69), are also richly decorated with lace. [Illustration: Fig. 67. CINQ-MARS.--(After his portrait by Le Nain. M. de Versailles.)] The contemporary engravings of Abraham Bosse and Callot faithfully portray the fashions of this reign. In the Prodigal Son, of Abraham Bosse, the mother, waiting his {147}return, holds out to her repentant boy a collar trimmed with the richest point. The Foolish Virgins weep in lace-trimmed handkerchiefs, and the table-cloth of the rich man, as well as his dinner-napkins, are similarly adorned. Again, the Accouchée recovers in a cap of Italian point under a coverlet of the same. At the Retour de Baptême, point adorns the christening-dress of the child and the surplice of the priest. When, in 1615, Louis XIII. married Anne of Austria, the collerettes of the Queen-Mother were discarded--the reign of Italy was at an end--all was now à l'éspagnole and the court of Castile. [Illustration: Fig. 68. LACE ROSE AND GARTER.--(After Abraham Bosse.)] The prodigality of the nobles[428] having called down royal ordinances on their heads,[429] these new edicts bring forth {148}fresh satires, in which the author deplores the prohibition of cut-work and lace:-- "Ces points couppez, passemens et dentelles, Las! que venaient de l'Isle et de Bruxelles, Sont maintenant descriez, avilis, Et sans faveur gisent ensevelis;"[430] but "Pour vivre heureux et à la mode Il faut que chacun accommode Ses habits aux editz du roi." [Illustration: Fig. 69. YOUNG LADY'S APRON, TIME OF HENRY III.--(After Gaignières. Bib. Nat. Grav.)] Edict now follows on edict.[431] One known as the Code Michaud, entering into the most minute regulations for the toilet, especially excited the risibility of the people. It was never carried out. The caricatures of this period are admirable: one represents a young courtier fresh rigged in his {149}plain-bordered linen, according to the ordinance. His _valet de chambre_ is about to lock up his laced suit:-- "C'est avec regret que mon maître Quitte ses beaux habillemens Semés de riches passemens."[432] Another engraving of Abraham Bosse shows a lady of fashion with her lace discarded and dressed in plain linen cuffs and collar:-- "Quoique l'âge assez de beauté Pour asseurer sans vanité Qu'il n'est point de femme plus belle Il semble pourtant, à mes yeux, Qu'avec de l'or et la dantelle Je m'ajuste encore bien mieux." Alluding to the plain-bordered collars now ordered by the prohibition of 1639, the "Satyrique de la Court" sings:-- "Naguères l'on n'osoit hanter les damoiselles Que l'on n'eust le colet bien garni de dentelles; Maintenant on se rit et se moque de ceux là Qui desirent encore paroistre avec cela. Les fraises et colets à bord sont en usage, Sans faire mention de tous en dentellage." France at this time paying large sums to Italy and Flanders for lace, the wearing of it is altogether prohibited, under pain of confiscation and a fine of 6,000 livres.[433] The Queen-Mother, regardless of edicts, has over _passements d'or_ and all sorts of forbidden articles, "pour servir à la layette que sa majesté à envoyé en Angleterre."[434] Within scarce one year of each other passed away Marie de Médicis, Richelieu, and Louis XIII. The King's effigy was exposed on its "lit de parade vêtue d'une chemise de toile de Hollande avec de tres belles dantelles de point de Gennes au collet et aux manches."[435]--So say the chroniclers. {150}CHAPTER IX. LOUIS XIV. The courtiers of the Regency under Anne of Austria vied with the Frondeurs in extravagance. The latter, however, had the best of it. "La Fronde," writes Joly, "devint tellement à la mode qu'il n'y avoit rien de bien fait qu'on ne dist être de la Fronde. Les étoffes, les dentelles, etc., jusqu'au pain,--rien n'estoit ni bon, ni bien si n'estoit à la Fronde."[436] Nor was the Queen Regent herself less profuse in her indulgence in lace. She is represented in her portraits with a berthe of rich point, her beautiful hand encircled by a double-scalloped cuff (Fig. 70). The boot-tops had now reached an extravagant size. One writer compares them to the farthingales of the ladies, another to an inverted torch. The lords of the Regent's court filled up the apertures with two or three rows of Genoa point (Fig. 71). In 1653,[437] we find Mazarin, while engaged in the siege of a city, holding a grave correspondence with his secretary Colbert concerning the purchase of some points from Flanders, Venice, and Genoa. He considers it advisable to advance thirty or forty thousand livres "à ces achapts," adding, that by making the purchases in time he will derive great advantage in the price; but as he hopes the siege will soon be at an end, they may wait his arrival at Paris for his final decision.[438] PLATE XLVIII. [Illustration: BRUSSELS. BOBBIN-MADE.--Period Louis XIV., 1643-1715. In the Musée Cinquantenaire, Brussels.] PLATE XLIX. [Illustration: BRUSSELS. POINT D'ANGLETERRE À RÉSEAU.--Eighteenth century. Widths, 2 in. and 3½ in. Photo by A. Dryden.] _To face page 150._ {151}[Illustration: Fig. 70. ANNE OF AUSTRIA.--(M. de Versailles.)] Colbert again writes, November 25th, pressing his Eminence on account of the "quantité de mariages qui se feront l'hyver." A passage in Tallemant des Réaux would lead one to suppose these laces were destined as patterns for the improvement of French manufactures. "Per mostra di farne in Francia," as the Cardinal expressed himself. Certainly in the inventory of Mazarin[439] there are no mention of Italian points, no lace coverlets to his "Lict d'ange moire tabizée, couleur de rose chamarrée de {152}dentelles d'or et d'argent." We may almost imagine that the minister and his secretary combined were already meditating the establishment of Points de France. In this reign, fresh sumptuary ordinances are issued. That of November 27th, 1660, is the most important of all,[440] and is highly commended by Sganarelle in the "Ecole des Maris" of Molière which appeared the following year:-- "Oh! trois et quatre fois soit béni cet édit, Par qui des vêtemens le luxe est interdit; Les peines des maris ne seront pas si grandes, Et les femmes auront un frein à leurs demandes. Oh! que je sais au roi bon gré de ses décrets; Et que, pour le repos de ces mêmes maris, Je voudrais bien qu'on fit de la coquetterie Comme de la guipure et de la broderie." [Illustration: Fig. 71. A COURTIER OF THE REGENCY.--(After Abraham Bosse.)] This ordinance, after prohibiting all foreign "passemens, points de Gênes, points coupés," etc., or any French laces or passements exceeding an inch in width, allows the use of the "collerettes and manchettes" persons already possess for the space of one year, after which period they are only to be trimmed with a lace made in the kingdom, not exceeding an {153}inch in width. The ordinance then goes on to attack the "canons," which it states have been introduced into the kingdom, with "un excès de dépense insupportable, par la quantité de passemens, points de Venise et Gênes," with which they are loaded.[441] Their use of them is now entirely prohibited, unless made of plain linen or of the same stuff as the coat, without lace or any ornament. The lace-trimmed "canons" of Louis XIV., as represented in the picture of his interview with Philip IV., in the Island of Pheasants, previous to his marriage, 1660 (Fig. 72), give a good idea of these extravagant appendages. These "Canons à trois étages A leurs jambes faisoient d'ombrages."[442] And, what was worse, they would cost 7,000 livres a pair. "At the Court of France," writes Savinière, "people think nothing of buying rabats, manchettes, or canons to the value of 13,000 crowns."[443] These canons, with their accompanying rheingraves, which after the prohibition of Venice point were adorned with the new productions of France, suddenly disappeared. In 1682, the _Mercure_ announces, "Les canons et les rheingraves deviennent tout à fait hors de mode." At the marriage of the young King with the Infanta, 1660, black lace,[444] probably in compliment to the Spanish[445] {154}court, came into favour, the nobles of the King's suite wearing doublets of gold and silver brocade, "ornés," says the _Chronique_,[446] "de dentelles noires d'un point recherché."[447] The same writer, describing the noviciate of La Vallière at the Carmelites, writes, "Les dames portoient des robes de brocard d'or, d'argent, ou d'azur, par dessus lesquelles elles avoient jetées d'autres robes et dentelles noires transparentes."[448] Under Louis XIV., the gold and silver points of Spain and Aurillac rivalled the thread fabrics of Flanders and Italy; but towards the close of the century,[449] we are informed, they have fallen from fashion into the "domaine du vulgaire." The ordinance of 1660 had but little effect, for various others are issued in the following years with the oft-repeated prohibitions of the points of Genoa and Venice.[450] But edicts were of little avail. No royal command could compel people to substitute the coarse inferior laces of France[451] for the fine artistic productions of her sister countries. Colbert therefore wisely adopted another expedient. He determined to develop the lace-manufacture of France, and to produce fabrics which should rival the coveted points of Italy and Flanders, so that if fortunes were lavished upon these luxuries, at all events the money should not be sent out of the kingdom to procure them. He therefore applied to Monseigneur de Bonzy, Bishop of Béziers, then Ambassador at Venice, who replied that in Venice "all the convents and poor families make a living out of this lace-making." In another letter he writes to the minister, "Je vois que vous seriez bien aise d'establir dans le royaume la manufacture des points de Venise, ce qui se pourrait faire en envoyant d'icy quelques filles des meilleures ouvrières qui pussent instruire celles de France avec le temps."[452] [Illustration: Fig. 72. CANONS OF LOUIS XIV.--(M. de Versailles, 1660.) _To face page 154._] {155}Monseigneur de Bonzy's suggestion was accepted, and a few years later (1673) Colbert writes to M. le Comte d'Avaux, who succeeded M. de Bonzy as ambassador at Venice: "I have gladly received the collar of needlepoint lace worked in relief that you have sent me, and I find it very beautiful. I shall have it compared with those new laces being made by our own lace-makers, although I may tell you beforehand that as good specimens are now made in this kingdom."[453] Alençon, an old lace-making centre, was chosen as the seat of the new manufacture.[454] Favier-Duboulay writes to Colbert that, before the introduction of the new points de France, lace-making was to the peasants "une manne, et une vraie bénédiction du ciel, qui s'est espandue sur tout ce pays." The art had spread far and wide through the district about Alençon; children of seven years of age and aged men earned their daily bread by it, and the shepherdesses worked at their lace while herding their flocks. {156}[Illustration: Fig. 73. CHÂTEAU DE LONRAI, DÉP. ORNE.] M. Odolent Desnos gives the following account of the invention and establishment of point d'Alençon:--[455] "In 1665, at the recommendation of the Sieur Ruel, he (Colbert) selected a Madame Gilbert, a native of Alençon, already acquainted with the manner of making Venice point, and making her an advance of 50,000 crowns, established her at his château of Lonrai (Fig. 73), near Alençon, with thirty forewomen, whom he had, at great expense, caused to be brought over from Venice. In a short time Madame Gilbert arrived at Paris with the first specimens of her fabric. The king, inspired by Colbert with a desire to see the work, during supper at Versailles announced to his courtiers he had just established a manufacture of point more beautiful than that of Venice, and appointed a day when he would inspect the specimens. The laces were artistically arranged over the walls of a room hung with crimson damask, and shown to the best advantage. The king expressed himself delighted. He ordered a large sum to be given to Madame Gilbert, and desired that no other lace should appear at court except the new fabric, upon which he bestowed the name of point de France.[456] Scarcely had Louis retired than the courtiers eagerly stripped the room of its contents. The approval of the monarch was the fortune of Alençon: point de France adopted by court etiquette, the wearing of it became compulsory. All who had the privilege of the 'casaque bleue'--all who were received at Versailles or were attached to the royal household, could only appear, the ladies in trimmings and headdresses, the gentlemen in ruffles and cravats of the royal manufacture." PLATE L. [Illustration: CHENILLE RUN ON A BOBBIN GROUND.--Taken from an early eighteenth century Court dress, and typical of a French dress passementerie of that date. About half size.] PLATE LI. [Illustration: BRUSSELS. BOBBIN-MADE.--Early eighteenth century. Width, 3 in. Photos by A. Dryden from private collections.] _To face page 156._ {157}Unfortunately for this story, the Château de Lonrai came into the family of Colbert fourteen years after the establishment of the lace-industry at Alençon,[457] and the name of Gilbert is not found in any of the documents relating to the establishment of point de France, nor in the correspondence of Colbert.[458] An ordinance of August 5th, 1665, founded upon a large scale the manufacture of points de France,[459] with an exclusive privilege for ten years and a grant of 36,000 {158}francs. A company was formed,[460] its members rapidly increased, and in 1668 the capital amounted to 22,000 livres. Eight directors were appointed at salaries of 12,000 livres a year to conduct the manufacture, and the company held its sittings in the Hôtel de Beaufort at Paris. The first distribution of profits took place in October, 1669, amounting to fifty per cent. upon each share. In 1670 a fresh distribution took place, and 120,000 livres were divided among the shareholders. That of 1673 was still more considerable. In 1675 the ten years' privilege ceased, the money was returned, and the rest of the profits divided. Colbert likewise set up a fabric at the Château de Madrid, built by Francis I., on the Bois de Boulogne. Such was the origin of point lace in France. The difficulties met by Colbert in establishing his manufactories can only be estimated by reading his correspondence, in which there are no less than fifty letters on the subject. The apathy of the town authorities and the constant rebellions of the lace-workers who preferred their old stitch were incessant sources of trouble to him, but eventually Colbert's plan was crowned with success. He established a lucrative manufacture which brought large sums of money into the kingdom[461] instead of sending it out. Well might he say that[462] "Fashion was to France what the mines of Peru were to Spain."[463] {159}Boileau alludes to the success of the minister in his "Epistle to Louis XIV":-- "Et nos voisins frustrés de ces tributs serviles Que payait à leur art le luxe de nos villes."[464] The point de France supplanted that of Venice,[465] but its price confined its use to the rich, and when the wearing of lace became general those who could not afford so costly a production replaced it by the more moderate pillow-lace. This explains the great extension of the pillow-lace manufacture at this period--the production did not suffice for the demand. Encouraged by the success of the royal manufactures, lace fabrics started up in various towns in the kingdom. The number of lace-workers increased rapidly. Those of the towns being insufficient, they were sought for in the surrounding country, and each town became the {160}centre of a trade extending round it in a radius of several miles, the work being given out from the manufactory to be executed by the cottagers in their own homes.[466] {161}CHAPTER X. LOUIS XIV.--_continued_. "Tout change: la raison change aussi de méthode; Écrits, habillemens, systèmes: tout est mode." Racine fils, _Epître à Rousseau_. Point de France continued to be worn in the greatest profusion during the reign of Louis XIV. The King affected his new-born fabric much as monarchs of the present day do their tapestries and their porcelains. It decorated the Church and her ministers. Ladies offered "tours de chaire à l'église de la paroisse."[467] Albs, "garnies d'un grand point de France brodé antique";[468] altar-cloths trimmed with Argentan[469] appear in the church registers.[470] In a painting at Versailles, by Rigaud, representing the presentation of the Grand Dauphin to his royal father, 1668, the infant is enveloped in a mantle of the richest point (Fig. 74); and point de France was selected by royal command to trim the sheets of holland used at the ceremony of his "nomination."[471] At the marriage of the Prince de Conti and of Mademoiselle de Blois the toilette[472] presented {162}by the King was "garnie de point de France si haut qu'on ne voyait point de toile."[473] The valance, too, and the coverlet of the bed were of the same material.[474] In this luxury, however, England followed her sister kingdom, for we read in the _Royal Magazine_ of 1763 that on the baptism of the young prince, afterwards Duke of York, the company went to the council chamber at St. James's, where a splendid bed was set up for the Queen to sit on, the counterpane of which is described as of inimitable workmanship, the lace alone costing £3,783 sterling.[475] "What princes do themselves, they engage others to do," says Quintilian, and the words of the critic were, in this case, fully verified: jupes,[476] corsets, mantles, aprons with their bibs,[477] shoes,[478] gloves,[479] even the fans were now trimmed with point de France.[480] At the audience given by the Dauphine to the Siamese ambassadors, "à ses relevailles," she received them in a bed "presque tout couvert d'un tres beau point de France, sur lesquels on avoit mis des riches carreaux."[481] On the occasion of their visit to Versailles, Louis, proud of his fabric, presented the ambassadors with cravats and ruffles of the finest point.[482] These cravats were either worn of point, in one piece, or partly of muslin tied, with falling lace ends.[483] (Fig. 75.) [Illustration: Fig. 74. LE GRAND BÉBÉ. (M. de Versailles.) _To face page 162._] {163}In 1679 the king gave a fête at Marly to the élite of his brilliant court. When, at sunset, the ladies retired to repair their toilettes, previous to the ball, each found in her dressing-room a robe fresh and elegant, trimmed with point of the most exquisite texture, a present from that gallant monarch not yet termed "l'inamusable." Nor was the Veuve Scarron behind the rest. When, in 1674, she purchased the estate from which she afterwards derived her title of Maintenon, anxious to render it productive, she enticed Flemish workers from the frontier to establish a lace manufacture upon her newly-acquired marquisate. How the fabric succeeded history does not relate, but the costly laces depicted in her portraits (Fig. 76) have not the appearance of home manufacture. [Illustration: Fig. 75. LOUVOIS. 1691.--(From his statue by Girardon. M. de Versailles.)] Point lace-making became a favourite employment among ladies. We have many engravings of this reign; one, 1691, of a "fille de qualité" thus occupied, with the motto, "Apres {164}dîner vous travaillez au point." Another,[484] an engraving of Le Paultre, dated 1676, is entitled "Dame en Déshabille de Chambre" (Fig. 77). "La France est la tête du monde" (as regards fashion), says Victor Hugo, "cyclope dont Paris est l'oeil"; and writers of all ages seem to have been of the same opinion. It was about the year 1680 that the "Mode féconde en mille inventions, Monstre, prodige étrange et difforme," was suddenly exemplified in France. [Illustration: Fig. 76. MADAME DE MAINTENON.--(From her portrait. M. de Versailles.)] All readers of this great reign will recall to mind the story of the "Fontanges." How in the hurry of the chase the locks of the royal favourite burst from the ribbon that bound them--how the fair huntress, hurriedly tying the lace kerchief round her head, produced in one moment a coiffure so light, so artistic, that Louis XIV., enchanted, prayed her to retain it for that night at court. The lady obeyed the royal command. This mixture of lace and ribbon, now worn for the first time, caused a sensation, and the next day all {165}the ladies of the court appeared "coiffées à la Fontange." (See Madame du Lude, Fig. 79.) [Illustration: Fig. 77. A LADY IN MORNING DÉSHABILLE.--(From an engraving by Le Paultre. 1676.)] But this head-dress, with its tiers of point mounted on wires,[485] soon ceased to be artistic; it grew higher and higher. Poets and satirists attacked the fashion much as they did the high head-dresses of the Roman matrons more than a thousand years ago.[486] Of the extinction of this mode {166}we have various accounts, some asserting it to have been preached down by the clergy, as were the _hennins_ in the time of Charles VI.; but the most probable story is that which relates how, in October, 1699, Louis XIV. simply observed, "Cette coiffure lui paroissoit désagréable." The ladies worked all night, and next evening, at the Duchess of Burgundy's reception,[487] appeared for the first time in a low head-dress. Fashion,[488] which the author of the before-quoted _Consolation_ would call _pompeux_, was "aujourd'hui en reforme." Louis XIV. never appreciated the sacrifice; to the day of his death he persisted in saying, "J'ai eu beau crier contre les coiffures trop hautes." No one showed the slightest desire to lower them till one day there arrived "une inconnue, une guenille d'Angleterre" (Lady Sandwich, the English Ambassadress!!), "avec une petite coiffure basse--tout d'un coup, toutes les princesses vont d'une extrémité a l'autre."[489] Be the accusation true or not, the _Mercure_ of November, 1699, announces that "La hauteur des anciennes coiffures commence á paroître ridicule"; and St. Simon, in his _Memoirs_, satirises the fontange as a "structure of brass wire, ribbons, hair, and baubles of all sorts, about two feet high, which made a woman's face look as if it were in the middle of her body." In these days lace was not confined to Versailles and the Court.[490] "Le gentilhomme," writes Capefigue, "allait au feu en manchettes poudré à la maréchale, les eaux se senteur sur son mouchoir en point d'Angleterre, l'élégance n'a jamais fait tort au courage, et la politesse s'allie noblement à la bravoure." But war brings destruction to laces as well as finances, {167}and in 1690 the loyal and noble army was found in rags. Then writes Dangeau: "M. de Castanaga, à qui M. de Maine et M. de Luxembourg avoient demandé un passeport pour fair venir des dentelles à l'armée, a refusé le passeport, mais il a envoyé des marchands qui ont porté pour dix mille écus de dentelles, et après qu'on les eut achetées, les marchands s'en retournèrent sans vouloir prendre d'argent, disant qu'ils avoient cet ordre de M. de Castanaga." "J'avois une Steinkerque de Malines," writes the Abbé de Choisy, who always dressed in female attire. We hear a great deal about these Steinkirks at the end of the seventeenth century. It was a twisted lace necktie, and owed its origin to the battle of that name in 1692,[491] when the young French Princes of the Blood were suddenly ordered into action. Hastily tying their lace cravats--in peaceful times a most elaborate proceeding--they rushed to the charge, and gained the day. In honour of this event, both ladies and cavaliers wore their handkerchiefs knotted or twisted in this careless fashion. "Je trouve qu'en été le Steinkerque est commode, J'aime le falbala,[492] quoiqu'il soit critiqué," says somebody. Steinkirks became the rage, and held good for many years, worn alike in England[493] and France by the women and the men. Fig. 78 represents the Grand Dauphin in his "longue Steinkerque à replis tortueux";[494] Fig. 79 the Duchesse du Lude[495] in similar costume and high Fontange, both copied from prints of the time. We find constant mention now of the fashion of wearing a lace ruffle to the ladies' sleeves, concerning the wearing of which "à deux rangs," or "à trois rangs," there was much etiquette. The falbalas were not given up until after the Regency; the use of them was frequently carried to such an excess {168}that a caricaturist of that period drew a lady so enveloped in them that she "looked like a turkey shaking its feathers and spreading its comb." This caricature gave rise to a popular song called "La Dinde aux Falbalas"; but in despite of song and caricature, the flounce continued in popularity. "Les manches plates se font de deux tiers de tour, avec une dentelle de fil de point fort fin et fort haut. On nomme ces manches Engageantes."[496] This fashion, though introduced in 1688, continued in vogue till the French Revolution. We see them in the portrait of Madame Palatine, mother of the Regent (Fig. 80), and in that of Madame Sophie de France, daughter of Louis XV., taken in 1782 by Drouais. [Illustration: Fig. 78. LE GRAND DAUPHIN EN STEINKERQUE.] [Illustration: Fig. 79. MADAME DU LUDE EN STEINKERQUE. _To face page 168._] {169}[Illustration: Fig. 80. MADAME PALATINE (ELIZ. CHARLOTTE DE BAVIÈRE), DUCHESSE D'ORLÉANS. (By Rigaud. M. de Versailles.)] Before finishing with point de France, we must allude to the équipage de bain, in which this fabric formed a great item. As early as 1688, Madame de Maintenon presents Madame de Chevreuse with an "équipage de bain de point de France" of great magnificence. It consisted not only of a peignoir, but a broad flounce, which formed a valance round the bath itself. You can see them in old engravings of the day. Then there were the towels and the _descente_, all equally costly,[497] for the French ladies of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries admitted their _habitués_ not only to the _ruelle_,[498] but also to the bath-room.[499] In the latter case the bath {170}was _au lait_, _i.e._, clouded by the mixture of some essence. "Aux autres temps, autres moeurs." The "fameuse poupée" of the reign of Louis XIV. must not be forgotten. The custom of dressing up these great dolls originated in the salons of the Hôtel Rambouillet, where one, termed "la grande Pandore," at each change of fashion was exhibited "en grand tenue"; a second, the little Pandore, in morning _déshabille_. These dolls were sent to Vienna and Italy, charged with the finest laces France could produce. As late as 1764 we read in the _Espion Chinois_, "Il a débarqué à Douvres un grand nombre de poupées de hauteur naturelle habillées à la mode de Paris, afin que les dames de qualité puissent régler leurs goûts sur ces modèles."[500] Even when English ports were closed in war-time, a special permission was given for the entry of a large alabaster doll four feet high, the Grand Courrier de la Mode.[501] In the war of the First Empire this privilege was refused to our countrywomen; and from that time Englishwomen, deprived of all French aid for a whole generation, began to dress badly. Pitt has much to answer for. With this notice finishes our account of the reign of Louis XIV. PLATE LII. [Illustration: BRUSSELS. MODERN POINT DE GAZE.--Actual size. Photo by A. Dryden.] _To face page 170._ {171}CHAPTER XI. LOUIS XV. "Le luxe corrompt tout, et le riche qui en jouit, et le pauvre qui le convoite." --J. J. Rousseau. Louis XIV. is now dead, to the delight of a wearied nation: we enter on the Regency and times of Louis XV.--that age of "fourchettes," manchettes, and jabots--in which the butterfly abbés, "les porte-dentelles par excellence," played so conspicuous a part. The origin of the weeping ruffles, if Mercier[502] is to be credited, may be assigned to other causes than royal decree or the edicts of fashion. "Les grandes manchettes furent introduites par des fripons qui voulaient filouter au jeu et escamoter des cartes." It never answers to investigate too deeply the origin of a new invented mode,--sufficient to say, ruffles became a necessary adjunct to the toilet of every gentleman. So indispensable were they, the Parisians are accused of adopting the custom of wearing ruffles and no shirts. "Les Parisiens," writes Mercier, "achètent quatre ajustemens contre une chemise. Un beau Monsieur se met une chemise blanche tous les quinze jours. Il coud ses manchettes de dentelle sur une chemise sale," and powders over his point collar till it looks white.[503] This habit passed into a proverb. The Maréchal de Richelieu, who, though versed in astronomy, could not spell, said of himself, "Qu'on ne lui avoit pas fourni des chemises, mais qu'il avoit acheté des {172}manchettes."[504] This account tallies well with former accounts[505] and with a letter of Madame de Maintenon to the Princess des Ursins, 1710.[506] At this period it was the custom for grisettes to besiege the Paris hotels, bearing on their arms baskets decked out with ruffles and jabots of Malines, Angleterre, and point. What reader of Sterne will not recollect the lace-seller in his _Sentimental Journey_? The jabot and manchettes of points were the customary "cadeau de noces" of the bride to her intended for his wedding dress--a relic of which practice may be found in the embroidered wedding shirt furnished by the lady, in the North of Europe.[507] The sums expended in these articles would now appear fabulous. The Archbishop of Cambray[508] alone possessed four dozen pairs of ruffles, Malines, point, and Valenciennes. The Wardrobe Bills of the Duke de Penthièvre of 1738 make mention of little else. An ell and a quarter of lace was required for one pair of ruffles. A yard, minus 1/16, sufficed for the jabot.[509] There were manchettes de jour, manchettes tournantes,[510] and manchettes de nuit: these last-named were mostly of Valenciennes.[511] The {173}point d'Alençon ruffles of Buffon, which he always wore, even when writing, were exhibited in 1864 at Falaise, being carefully preserved in the family to whom they have descended. Even, if a contemporary writer may be credited, "Monsieur de Paris," the executioner, mounted the scaffold in a velvet suit, powdered, with point lace jabot and ruffles. "Les rubans, les miroirs, les dentelles sont trois choses sans lesquelles les François ne peuvent vivre. Le luxe démesuré a confondu le maître avec le valet,"[512] says an unknown writer, quoted by Dulaure.[513] The servants of the last century had on their state liveries lace equal in richness to that worn by their masters.[514] Of a Prussian gentleman, we read, "His valets, who according to the reigning tastes were the prettiest in the world, wore nothing but the most costly lace."[515] This custom was not confined, however, to France or the Continent. "Our very footmen," writes the angry _World_, "are adorned with gold and {174}silver bags and lace ruffles. The valet is only distinguished from his master by being better dressed;" while the _Connoisseur_ complains of "roast beef being banished from even 'down stairs,' because the powdered footmen will not touch it for fear of daubing their lace ruffles."[516] But the time, of all others, for a grand display of lace was at a visit to a Parisian lady on her "relevailles," or "uprising," as it was called, in the days of our third Edward. Reclining on a chaise longue, she is described as awaiting her visitors. Nothing is to be seen but the finest laces, arranged in artistic folds, and long bows of ribbon. An attendant stationed at the door asks of each new arrival, "Have you any perfumes?" She replies not, and passes on--an atmosphere of fragrance. The lady must not be spoken to, but, the usual compliments over, the visitors proceed to admire her lace. "Beautiful, exquisite!"--but, "Hist! speak low," and she who gave the caution is the first, in true French style, to speak the loudest.[517] Lace "garnitures de lit" were general among great people as early as 1696. The _Mercure_ speaks of "draps garnis d'une grande dentelle de point d'Angleterre." In 1738 writes the Duc de Luynes,[518] "Aujourd'hui Madame de Luynes s'est fait apporter les fournitures qu'elle avoit choisies pour la Reine, et qui regardent les dames d'honneur. Elles consistent en couvrepieds[519] garnis de dentelle pour le grand lit et pour les petits, en taies d'oreiller[520] garnies du {175}même point d'Angleterre, etc. Cette fourniture coûte environ 30,000 livres, quoique Madame de Luynes n'ait pas fait renouveler les beaux couvrepieds de la Reine." These garnitures were renewed every year, and Madame de Luynes inherited the old ones. [Illustration: Fig. 81. MADAME SOPHIE DE FRANCE, 1782, DAUGHTER OF LOUIS XV. By Drouais. M. de Versailles. (In this picture the hexagonal brides and heavy relief of Point d'Argentan are clearly to be seen.)] {176}[Illustration: Fig. 82. MADAME ADÉLAÏDE DE FRANCE, DAUGHTER OF LOUIS XV.--(M. de Versailles.)] Madame de Créquy, describing her visit to the Duchesse Douairière de La Ferté, says, when that lady received her, she was lying in a state bed, under a coverlet made of point de Venise in one piece. "I am persuaded," she adds, "that the trimming of her sheets, which were of point d'Argentan, were worth at least 40,000 écus."[521] To such a pitch had the taste for lace-trimmed linen attained, that when, in 1739, Madame, eldest daughter of Louis XV., espoused the Prince of Spain, the bill for these articles alone amounted to £25,000; and when Cardinal Fleury, a most economical prelate, saw the trousseau, he observed, "Qu'il croyait que c'etait pour marier toutes les sept Mesdames."[522] (Figs. 81, 82). Again, Swinburne writes from Paris:[523] "The trousseau of Mademoiselle de Matignon will cost 100,000 crowns (£25,000). The expense here of rigging[524] out a bride is equal to a handsome portion in England. Five thousand pounds' worth of lace, linen, etc., is a common thing among them." PLATE LIII. [Illustration: MADAME LOUISE DE FRANCE. Trimmings and tablier of Point d'Argentan. Painted by Nattier at the age of eleven, 1748. M. de Versailles.] _To face page 176._ {177}[Illustration: Fig. 83. MARIE THÉRÈSE ANT. RAPH., INFANTA OF SPAIN, FIRST WIFE OF LOUIS DAUPHIN, SON OF LOUIS XV. --By Tocqué. Dated 1748. M. de Versailles.] The masks worn by the ladies at this period were of black blonde lace[525] of the most exquisite fineness and design.[526] They were trimmed round the eyes, like those described by Scarron:-- "Dirai-je comme ces fantasques Qui portent dentelle à leurs masques, En chamarrent les trous des yeux, Croyant que le masque en est mieux." In the reign of Louis XV., point de France was rivalled {178}by the productions of Angleterre[527] and Malines. Argentan and Alençon (Fig. 83) were declared by fashion to be "dentelles d'hiver:" each lace now had its appointed season.[528] "On porte le point en hiver," says the Dictionary of the Academy. There was much etiquette, too, in the court of France, as regards lace, which was never worn in mourning. Dangeau chronicles, on the death of the Princess of Baden, "Le roi qui avoit repris les dentelles et les rubans d'or et d'argent, reprend demain le linge uni et les rubans unis aussi."[529] "Madame" thus describes the "petit deuil" of the Margrave of Anspach: "Avec des dentelles blanches sur le noir, du beau ruban bleu, à dentelles blanches et noires. C'etoit une parure magnifique."[530] {179}CHAPTER XII. LOUIS XVI. TO THE EMPIRE. "Proud Versailles! thy glory falls."--Pope. [Illustration: Fig. 84. MARIE-ANTOINETTE.--From a picture by Madame Le Brun. M. de Versailles.] In the reign of Louis XVI. society, tired out with ceremony and the stately manners of the old court, at last began to emancipate itself. Marie-Antoinette (Fig. 84) first gave the signal. Rid herself of the preaching of "Madame Etiquette" she could not on state occasions, so she did her best to amuse herself in private. The finest Indian muslin now supplanted the heavy points of the old court. Madame du Barry, in her _Memoirs_, mentions the purchase of Indian muslin so fine {180}that the piece did not weigh fifteen ounces, although sufficient to make four dresses. "The ladies looked," indignantly observed the Maréchale de Luxembourg, "in their muslin aprons and handkerchiefs like cooks and convent porters."[531] To signify her disapproval of this new-fangled custom, the Maréchale sent her grand-daughter, the Duchesse de Lauzun, an apron of sailcloth trimmed with fine point and six fichus of the same material similarly decorated. Tulle and marli[532] were much worn during the latter years of the Queen's life, and entries of tulle, marli, blondes, and embroidered linens occur over and over again in Madame Eloffe's accounts with the Queen. The richer ornamental laces were not worn, and one reads of items such as "a gauze fichu trimmed with white _prétention_." On leaving Versailles for the last time (October 6th, 1789), Marie Antoinette distributed among her suite all that remained of her fans and laces. The arrangement of the lace lappets was still preserved by rule. "Lappets to be pinned up"--lappets to be let down on grand occasions.[533] Later Madame de Staël, like a true _bas-bleu_--without speaking of her curtsey to Marie Antoinette, which was all wrong--on her first visit of ceremony to Madame de Polignac, in defiance of all etiquette, left her lace lappets in the carriage. The democratic spirit of the age now first creeps out in {181}the fashions. Among the rich _parures_ of Du Barry[534] we find "barbes à la paysanne"--everything now becomes "à coquille," "à papillon." Even the Queen's hairdresser, Léonard, "qui "Portait jusques au ciel l'audace de ses coiffures," did not venture to introduce much lace. The affected phraseology of the day is very "precious" in its absurdity. We read of the toilette of Mademoiselle Duthé in which she appeared at the opera. She wore a robe "soupirs étouffés," trimmed with "regrets superflus"; a point of "candeur parfaite, garnie en plaintes indiscrètes"; ribbons en "attentions marquées"; shoes "cheveux de la reine,"[535] embroidered with diamonds, "en coups perfides" and "venez-y-voir" in emeralds. Her hair "en sentiments soutenus," with a cap of "conquête assurée," trimmed with ribbons of "oeil abattu"; a "chat[536] sur le col," the colour of "gueux nouvellement arrivé," and upon her shoulders a Médicis "en bienséance," and her muff of "agitation momentanée." In the accounts of Mademoiselle Bertin, the Queen's milliner, known for her saying, "Il n'y a rien de nouveau dans ce monde que ce qui est oublié," we have little mention of lace.[537] {182}"Blond à fond d'Alençon semé à poix, à mouches," now usurps the place of the old points. Even one of the "grandes dames de la vieille cour," Madame Adélaïde de France herself, is represented in her picture by Madame Guiard with a spotted handkerchief, probably of blonde (Fig. 85). [Illustration: Fig. 85. MADAME ADÉLAÏDE DE FRANCE.--After a picture by Madame Guiard, dated 1787. M. de Versailles.] The Church alone protects the ancient fabrics. The lace of the Rohan family, almost hereditary Princes Archbishops of Strasburg, was of inestimable value. "We met," writes the Baroness de Oberkirch, "the cardinal coming out of his chapel dressed in a soutane of scarlet moire and rochet of English lace of inestimable value. When on great occasions he officiates at Versailles, he wears an alb of old lace 'en point à l'aiguille' of such beauty that his assistants were almost afraid to touch it. His arms and device are worked in a medallion above the large flowers. This alb is estimated at 100,000 livres. On the day of which I speak he wore the rochet of English lace, one of his least beautiful, as his {183}secretary, the Abbé Georget, told me."[538] On his elevation to the see of Bourges (1859), Monseigneur de La Tour d'Auvergne celebrated mass at Rome arrayed with all the sacerdotal ornaments of point d'Alençon of the finest workmanship. This lace descended to him from his uncle, Cardinal de La Tour d'Auvergne, who had inherited it from his mother, Madame d'Aumale, so well known as the friend of Madame de Maintenon. Under the first Empire, a complete suit of lace was offered to the prelate for sale, which had belonged to Marie-Antoinette. This lace is described as formed of squares of old point d'Angleterre or de Flandre, each representing a different subject. The beauty of the lace and its historic interest decided his Eminence to speak of it to his colleague, Cardinal de Bonald, and these two prelates united their resources, bought the lace, and divided it. But this extravagance and luxury were now soon to end. The years of '92 and '93 were approaching. The great nobility of France, who patronised the rich manufactures of the kingdom at the expense of a peasantry starving on estates they seldom if ever visited, were ere long outcasts in foreign countries. The French Revolution was fatal to the lace trade. For twelve years the manufacture almost ceased, and more than thirty different fabrics entirely disappeared.[539] Its merits were, however, recognised by the Etats Généraux in 1789, who, when previous to meeting they settled the costume of the three estates, decreed to the _noblesse_ a lace cravat. It was not until 1801, when Napoleon wished to "faire revenir le luxe," that we again find it chronicled in the annals of the day: "How charming Caroline Murat looked in her white mantelet of point de Bruxelles et sa robe garnie des mêmes dentelles," etc. The old laces were the work of years, and transmitted as heirlooms[540] from generation to generation. {184}They were often heavy and overloaded with ornament. The ancient style was now discarded and a lighter description introduced. By an improvement in the point de raccroc several sections of lace were joined together so as to form one large piece; thus ten workers could now produce in a month what had formerly been the work of years. Napoleon especially patronised the fabrics of Alençon, Brussels, and Chantilly. He endeavoured, too, without success, to raise that of Valenciennes. After the example of Louis XIV., he made the wearing of his two favourite points obligatory at the Court of the Tuileries, and it is to his protection these towns owe the preservation of their manufactures. The lace-makers spoke of the rich orders received from the imperial court as the most remarkable epoch in their industrial career. Never was the beauty and costliness of the laces made for the marriage of Marie-Louise yet surpassed. To reproduce them now would, estimates M. Aubry, cost above a million of francs. Napoleon was a great lover of lace: he admired it as a work of art, and was proud of the proficiency of his subjects. Mademoiselle d'Avrillion relates the following anecdote:--The Princess Pauline had given orders to the Empress Joséphine's lace-maker for a dress and various objects to the value of 30,000 francs. When the order was completed and the lace brought home, the Princess changed her mind and refused to take them. Madame Lesoeur, in despair, appealed to the Empress. She, thinking the price not unreasonable, considering the beauty of the points, showed them to Napoleon, and told him the circumstance. "I was in the room at the time," writes the authoress of the _Mémoires_. The Emperor examined minutely each carton, exclaiming at intervals, "Comme on travaille bien en France, je dois encourager un pareil commerce. Pauline a grand tort." He ended by paying the bill and distributing the laces among the ladies of the court.[541] Indeed, it may be said that never {185}was lace more in vogue than during the early days of the Empire. The morning costume of a French duchesse of that court is described in the following terms:--"Elle portait un peignoir brodé en mousseline garni d'une Angleterre très-belle, une fraise en point d'Angleterre. Sur sa tête la duchesse avait jeté en se levant une sorte de 'baigneuse,' comme nos mères l'auraient appelée, en point d'Angleterre, garnie de rubans de satin rose pâle."[542] The fair sister of Napoleon, the Princess Pauline Borghese, "s'est passionnée," as the term ran, "pour les dentelles."[543] That Napoleon's example was quickly followed by the _élégantes_ of the Directory, the following account, given to the brother of the author by an elderly lady who visited Paris during that very short period[544] when the English flocked to the Continent, of a ball at Madame Récamier's, to which she had an invitation, will testify. The First Consul was expected, and the _élite_ of Paris early thronged the _salons_ of the charming hostess, but where was Madame Récamier? "_Souffrante_," the murmur ran, retained to her bed by a sudden indisposition. She would, however, receive her guests _couchée_. The company passed to the bedroom of the lady, which, as still the custom in France, opened on one of the principal _salons_. There, in a gilded bed, lay Madame Récamier, the most beautiful woman in France. The bed-curtains were of the finest Brussels lace, bordered with garlands of honeysuckle, and lined with satin of the palest rose. The _couvrepied_ was of the same material; from the pillow of embroidered cambric fell "des flots de Valenciennes." The lady herself wore a _peignoir_ trimmed with the most exquisite English point. Never had she looked more lovely--never had she done the honours of her hotel more gracefully. And so she received Napoleon--so she received the heroes of that great empire. All admired her "fortitude," her _dévouement_, in thus sacrificing herself to society, and on the following day "tout Paris s'est fait inscrire chez elle." Never had such anxiety been expressed--never had woman gained such a triumph. {186}The Duchesse d'Abrantès, who married in the year 1800, describing her trousseau,[545] says she had "des mouchoirs, des jupons, des canezous du matin, des peignoirs de mousseline de l'Inde, des camisoles de nuit, des bonnets de nuit, des bonnets de matin, de toutes les couleurs, de toutes les formes, et tout cela brodé, garni de Valenciennes ou de Malines, ou de point d'Angleterre." In the corbeille de mariage, with the cachemires were "les voiles de point d'Angleterre, les garnitures de robes en point à l'aiguille, et en point de Bruxelles, ainsi qu'en blonde pour l'été. Il y avait aussi des robes de blonde blanche et de dentelle noire," etc. When they go to the Mairie, she describes her costume: "J'avais une robe de mousseline de l'Inde brodée au plumetis et en points à jour, comme c'était alors la mode. Cette robe était à queue, montante et avec de longues manches, le lé de devant entièrement brodé ainsi que le tour du corsage, le bout des manches, qu'on appelait alors amadis. La fraise était en magnifique point à l'aiguille, sur ma tête j'avais un bonnet en point de Bruxelles.... Au sommet du bonnet était attachée une petite couronne de fleurs d'oranger, d'où partait un long voile en point d'Angleterre qui tombait à mes pieds et dont je pouvais presque m'envelopper." Madame Junot winds up by saying that "Cette profusion de riches dentelles, si fines, si déliées ne semblaient être qu'un réseau nuageux autour de mon visage, où elles se jouaient dans les boucles de mes cheveux." Hamlet always used to appear on the stage in lace cravat and ruffles, and Talma, the French tragedian, was very proud of his wardrobe of lace. Dr. Doran relates of him that on one occasion, when stopped by the Belgian custom-house officers at the frontier, an official, turning over his wardrobe, his stage costumes, etc., contemptuously styled them "habits de Polichinelle." Talma, in a rage exclaimed, "Habits de Polichinelle! Why, the lace of my jabot and ruffles alone is worth fifty louis a yard, and I wear it on my private costume." "And must pay for it accordingly," added the official. "Punch's clothes might pass untaxed, but Monsieur Talma's lace owes duty to our king." Talma was forced to submit. The French lace manufacture felt the political events of {187}1813 to 1817, but experienced a more severe crisis in 1818, when bobbin net was first made in France. Fashion at once adopted the new material, and pillow lace was for a time discarded. For fifteen years lace encountered a fearful competition. The manufacturers were forced to lower their prices and diminish the produce. The marts of Europe were inundated with tulle; but happily a new channel for exportation was opened in the United States of North America. In time a reaction took place, and in 1834, with the exception of Alençon, all the other fabrics were once more in full activity.[546] But a cheaper class of lace had been introduced. In 1832-33 cotton thread first began to be substituted for flax.[547] The lace-makers readily adopted the change; they found cotton more elastic and less expensive. It gives, too, a brilliant appearance, and breaks less easily in the working. All manufacturers now use the Scotch cotton, with the exception of Alençon, some choice pieces of Brussels, and the finer qualities of Mechlin and Valenciennes. The difference is not to be detected by the eye; both materials wash equally well. We now turn to the various lace manufactures of France, taking each in its order. {188}CHAPTER XIII. THE LACE MANUFACTURES OF FRANCE. France is a lace-making, as well as a lace-wearing, country. Of the half a million of lace-makers in Europe, nearly a quarter of a million are estimated as belonging to France. Under the impulse of fashion and luxury, lace receives the stamp of the special style of each country. Italy furnished its points of Venice and Genoa. The Netherlands, its Brussels, Mechlin, and Valenciennes. Spain, its silk blondes. England, its Honiton. France, its sumptuous point d'Alençon, and its black lace of Bayeux and Chantilly. Now, each style is copied by every nation; and though France cannot compete with Belgium in the points of Brussels, or the Valenciennes of Ypres, she has no rival in her points of Alençon and her white blondes, or her black silk laces. To begin with Alençon, the only French lace not made on the pillow. ALENÇON (DÉP. ORNE), NORMANDY. "Alenchon est sous Sarthe assis, Il luic divise le pays."--_Romant de Rou._ We have already related how the manufacture of point lace was established by Colbert. The _entrepreneurs_ had found the lace industry flourishing at the time of the point de France. (Page 155.) PLATE LIV. [Illustration: FRENCH. Border of POINT PLAT DE FRANCE to a baptismal veil of embroidered muslin.--The orderly arrangement of the "brides" differs from the Venetian, and foreshadows the "grande maille picotée." In the Musée Cinquantenaire, Brussels.] _To face page 188._ {189}[Illustration: Fig. 86. COLBERT + 1683.--M. de Versailles.] Point d'Alençon is mentioned in the _Révolte des Passemens_, 1661, evidently as an advanced manufacture; but the monopoly of the privileged workmen--the new-comers--displeased the old workwomen, and Colbert[548] was too despotic in his orders prohibiting to make any kind of point except that of the royal manufactory, and made the people so indignant that they revolted. The intendant, Favier-Duboulay, writes to Colbert, August 1665, that one named Le Prevost, of this town, having given suspicion to the people that he was about to form an establishment of "ouvrages de fil," the women to the number of above a thousand assembled, and pursued him so that, if he had not managed to escape their fury, he would assuredly have suffered from their violence. "He took refuge with me," he writes, "and I with difficulty appeased the multitude by assuring them that they would not be deprived of the liberty of working. It is a fact that for many years the town of Alençon subsists only by means of these small works of lace: that the same people make and sell, and in years of scarcity they subsist only by this little industry, and that wishing to {190}take away their liberty, they were so incensed I had great difficulty in pacifying them." The Act, it appears, had come from the Parliament of Paris, but as Alençon is in Normandy, it was necessary to have the assent of the Parliament of Rouen. The remonstrance of the intendant (see his letter in Chap. IX., page 155) met with the attention it deserved. On September 14th following, after a meeting headed by Prevost and the Marquis de Pasax, intendant of the city, it was settled that after the king had found 200 girls, the rest were at liberty to work as they pleased; none had permission to make the fine point of the royal pattern, except those who worked for the manufactory; and all girls must show to the authorities the patterns they intended working, "so that the King shall be satisfied, and the people gain a livelihood." The "maîtresse dentellière," Catherine Marcq, writes to Colbert, November 30th, 1665, complaining of the obstinacy of the people, who prefer the old work. "Out of 8,000 women, we have got but 700, and I can only count on 250 who at least will have learnt to perfection the Venetian point, the remainder merely working a month and then leaving the establishment." The new points are duly chronicled.[549] In 1677 the _Mercure_ announces, "They make now many points de France without grounds, and 'picots en campannes' to all the five handkerchiefs. We have seen some with little flowers over the large, which might be styled 'flying flowers,' being only attached in the centre." In 1678 it says: "The last points de France have no brides, the fleurons are closer together. The flowers, which are in higher relief in the centre, and lower at the edges, are united by small stalks and flowers, which keep them in their places, instead of brides. The manner of disposing the branches, called 'ordonnances,' is of two kinds: the one is a twirling stalk, which throws out flowers; the other is regular--a centre flower, throwing out regular branches on each side." In October of the same year, the _Mercure_ says: {191}"There has been no change in the patterns," and it does not allude to them again. What can these be but Venice patterns? The flower upon flower--like "fleurs volante"--exactly answers to the point in high relief (Fig. 87). [Illustration: Fig. 87. VENICE POINT.--"Dentelle Volante."] A memoir drawn up in 1698 by M. de Pommereu[550] is the next mention we find of the fabric of Alençon. "The manufacture of the points de France is also," he says, "one of the most considerable in the country. This fabric began at Alençon, where most of the women and girls work at it, to the number of more than eight to nine hundred, without counting those in the country, which are in considerable numbers. It is a commerce of about 500,000 livres per annum. This point is called 'vilain'[551] in the country; the principal sale was in Paris during the war, but the demand increases very much since the peace, in consequence of its exportation to foreign countries." The number of lace-workers given by M. Pommereu appears small, but Alençon {192}manufacture was then on the decline. The death of its protector, Colbert (1683), and the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, which reduced the population one-third, the industrial families (qui faisaient le principal commerce) retiring to England and Scotland, the long wars of Louis XIV., and, finally, his death in 1715, all contributed to diminish its prosperity.[552] Savary, writing in 1726, mentions the manufacture of Alençon as not being so flourishing, but attributes it to the long wars of Louis XIV. He adds, "It still, however, maintains itself with some reputation at Alençon; the magnificence, or, if you like, the luxury of France, sufficing to keep it up even in war-time; but it flourishes principally in peace, in consequence of the large exports to foreign countries." Russia and Poland were its great marts: and before the Revolution, Poland estimates the annual value of the manufacture at 11,000,000 to 12,000,000 livres.[553] The workwomen earned from three sous to three livres per day. In 1680, in _Britannia Languens_, a discourse upon trade, it states that "the laces commonly called points de Venise now come mostly from France, and amount to a vast sum yearly." PLATE LV. [Illustration: FRENCH. POINT D'ALENÇON.--Eighteenth century. Period Louis XV. Needle-point lappet end and border. These show in combination the "Alençon," "réseau," and the "Argentan" hexagonal "brides." The ribands in the border show varieties of diaper pattern stitches similar to those in the "modes" of heavy Venetian points. Widths: lappet 4½ in., border 3½ in. Victoria and Albert Museum.] _To face page 192._ {193}Point d'Alençon is made entirely by hand, with a fine needle, upon a parchment pattern, in small pieces, afterwards united by invisible seams. There are twelve processes, including the design, each of which is executed by a special workwoman. These can again be subdivided, until the total number of processes is twenty or twenty-two.[554] The design, engraved upon a copper plate, is printed off in divisions upon pieces of parchment ten inches long, each numbered according to its order. Green parchment is now used, and has been in vogue since 1769, at which date it is noted in an inventory of Simon Geslin (April 13th, 1769). The worker is better able to detect any faults in her work than on white. The pattern is next pricked upon the parchment, which is stitched to a piece of very coarse linen folded double. The outline of the pattern is then formed by two flat threads, which are guided along the edge by the thumb of the left hand, and fixed by minute stitches passed, with another thread and needle, through the holes of the parchment. When the outline is finished, the work is given over to the "réseleuse" to make the ground, which is of two kinds, bride and réseau. The delicate réseau is worked backwards and forwards from the footing to the picot--of the bride, more hereafter. Besides the hexagonal bride ground, and the ground of meshes, there was another variety of grounding used in Alençon lace. "This ground consists of buttonhole-stitched skeleton hexagons, within each of which was worked a small solid hexagon connected with the surrounding figure by means of six little tyes or brides." Lace with this particular ground has been called Argentella.[555] In making the flowers of Alençon point, the worker supplies herself with a long needle and a fine thread; with these she works the "point noué" (buttonhole stitch) from left to right, and when arrived at the end of the flower, the thread is thrown back from the point of departure, and she works again from left to right over the thread. This gives a closeness and evenness to the work unequalled in any other point. Then follow the "modes," and other different operations, which completed, the threads which unite lace, {194}parchment and linen together, are cut with a sharp razor passed between the two folds of linen, any little defects repaired, and then remains the great work of uniting all these segments imperceptibly together. This task devolves upon the head of the fabric, and is one requiring the greatest nicety. An ordinary pair of men's ruffles would be divided into ten pieces; but when the order must be executed quickly, the subdivisions are even greater. The stitch by which these sections are worked is termed "assemblage," and differs from the "point de raccroc," where the segments are united by a fresh row of stitches. At Alençon they are joined by a seam, following as much as possible the outlines of the pattern. When finished, a steel instrument, called a picot, is passed into each flower, to polish it and remove any inequalities in its surface. The more primitive lobster-claw or a wolf's tooth was formerly used for the same purpose. Point d'Alençon is of a solidity which defies time and washing, and has been justly called the Queen of Lace. It is the only lace in which horsehair is introduced along the edge to give firmness and consistency to the cordonnet, rendered perhaps necessary to make the point stand up when exposed to wind, mounted on the towering fabrics then worn by the ladies. The objection to horsehair is that it shrinks in washing and draws up the flower from the ground. It is related of a collar made at Venice for Louis XIII. that the lace-workers, being unsuccessful in finding sufficiently fine horsehair, employed some of their own hair instead, in order to secure that marvellous delicacy of work which they aimed at producing. The specimen, says Lefébure, cost 250 golden écus (about sixty pounds). In 1761, a writer, describing the point de France, says that it does not arrive at the taste and delicacy of Brussels, its chief defect consisting in the thickness of the cordonnet, which thickens when put into water. The horsehair edge also draws up the ground, and makes the lace rigid and heavy. He likewise finds fault with the "modes" or fancy stitches of the Alençon, and states that much point is sent from there to Brussels to have the modes added, thereby giving it a borrowed beauty; but connoisseurs, he adds, easily detect the difference.[556] [Illustration: Fig. 88. ARGENTELLA, OR POINT D'ALENÇON À RÉSEAU ROSACÉ.--Period Louis XV. _To face page 194._] {195}When the points of Alençon and Argentan dropped their general designations of "points de France"[557] it is difficult to say. An eminent writer states the name was continued till the Revolution, but this is a mistake. The last inventory in which we have found mention of point de France is one of 1723,[558] while point d'Argentan is noted in 1738,[559] and point d'Alençon in 1741, where it is specified to be "à réseau."[560] In the accounts of Madame du Barry, no point d'Alençon is mentioned--always point à l'aiguille--and "needle point" is the name by which point d'Alençon was alone known in England during the last century. The purchases of needle point of Madame du Barry were most extensive. Sleeves (engageantes) and lappets for 8,400 livres; court ruffles at 1,100; a mantelet at 2,400; a veste at 6,500; a grande coëffe, 1,400; a garniture, 6,010, etc.[561] In the description of the Department of the Orne drawn up in 1801, it is stated, "Fifteen years back there were from 7,000 to 8,000 lace-workers at Alençon and its environs: the fabric of Argentan, whose productions are finer and more costly, had about 2,000." Almost all these lace-makers, some of whom made réseau, others the bride ground, passed into England, Spain, Italy, Germany, and the courts of the north, especially to Russia. These united fabrics produced to the annual value of at least 1,800,000 fr., and when they had extraordinary orders, such as "parures" for beds and other large works, it increased to 2,000,000 fr. (£80,000). But this commerce, subject to the variable empire of fashion, had declined one-half even before the Revolution. Now it is almost nothing, and cannot be estimated at more than 150,000 to 200,000 fr. per annum. "It supported three {196}cities and their territory, for that of Séez[562] bore its part. Some black laces are still made at Séez, but they are of little importance.--P.S. These laces have obtained a little favour at the last Leipsic fair."[563] The manufacture of Alençon was nearly extinct when the patronage of Napoleon caused it to return almost to its former prosperity. Among the orders executed for the Emperor on his marriage with the Empress Marie Louise, was a bed furniture of great richness. Tester, curtains, coverlet, pillow-cases. The principal subject represented the arms of the empire surrounded by bees. From its elaborate construction, point d'Alençon is seldom met with in pieces of large size; the amount of labour therefore expended on this bed must have been marvellous. Mrs. Palliser, when at Alençon, was so fortunate as to meet with a piece of the ground powdered with bees, bought from the ancient fabric of Mercier, at Lonray, when the stock many years back was sold off and dispersed (Fig. 89). The point d'Alençon bees are appliqué upon a pillow ground, "vrai réseau," executed probably at Brussels. Part of the "équipage" of the King of Rome excited the universal admiration of all beholders at the Paris Exhibition of 1855. Alençon again fell with the empire. No new workers were trained, the old ones died off, and as it requires so many hands to execute even the most simple lace, the manufacture again nearly died out. In vain the Duchesse d'Angoulême endeavoured to revive the fabric, and gave large orders herself; but point lace had been replaced by blonde, and the consumption was so small, it was resumed on a very confined scale. So low had it fallen in 1830, that there were only between 200 and 300 lace-workers, whose products did not exceed the value of 1,200 francs (£48). Again, in 1836, Baron Mercier, thinking by producing it a lower price to procure a more favourable sale, set up a lace school, and caused the girls to work the patterns on bobbin net, as bearing some resemblance to the old "point de bride," but fashion did not favour "point de bride," so the plan failed. In 1840 fresh attempts were made to revive the {197}manufacture. Two hundred aged women--all the lace-makers remaining of this once flourishing fabric--were collected and again set to work. A new class of patterns was introduced, and the manufacture once more returned to favour and prosperity. But the difficulties were great. The old point was made by an hereditary set of workers, trained from their earliest infancy to the one special work they were to follow for life. Now new workers had to be procured from other lace districts, already taught the ground peculiar to their fabrics. The consequence was, their fingers never could acquire the art of making the pure Alençon réseau. They made a good ground, certainly, but it was mixed with their own early traditions: as the Alençon workers say, "Elles bâtardisent les fonds." [Illustration: Fig. 89. BED MADE FOR NAPOLEON I.] In the Exhibition of 1851 were many fine specimens of {198}the revived manufacture. One flounce, which was valued at 22,000 francs, and had taken thirty-six women eighteen months to complete, afterwards appeared in the "corbeille de mariage" of the Empress Eugénie. In 1856 most magnificent orders were given for the imperial layette, a description of which is duly chronicled.[564] The young Prince was "voué au blanc"; white, therefore, was the prevailing colour in the layette. The curtains of the Imperial infant's cradle were of Mechlin, with Alençon coverlet lined with satin. The christening robe, mantle, and head-dress were all of Alençon; and the three _corbeilles_, bearing the imperial arms and cipher, were also covered with the same point. Twelve dozen embroidered frocks, each in itself a work of art, were all profusely trimmed with Alençon, as were also the aprons of the Imperial nurses. A costly work of Alençon point appeared in the Exhibition of 1855--a dress, purchased by the Emperor for 70,000 francs (£2,800), and presented by him to the Empress. A few observations remain to be made respecting the dates of the patterns of Alençon point, which, like those of other laces, will be found to correspond with the architectural style of decoration of the period. The "corbeilles de mariage" preserved in old families and contemporary portraits are our surest guides. In the eighteenth century the réseau ground was introduced, and soon became universally adopted. After carefully examining the engravings of the time, the collection of historical portraits at Versailles and other galleries, we find no traces of Point d'Alençon with the réseau or network ground in the time of Louis XIV. The laces are all of the Venetian character, à bride, and Colbert himself is depicted in a cravat of Italian design; while, on the other hand, the daughters of Louis XV. (Mesdames de France) and the "Filles du Régent" all wear rich points of Alençon and Argentan.[565] The earlier patterns of the eighteenth century are flowery and undulating[566] (Fig. 91), scarcely {199}begun, never ending, into which haphazard are introduced patterns of a finer ground, much as the medallions of Boucher or Vanloo were inserted in the gilded panellings of a room. Twined around them appear a variety of _jours_, filled up with patterns of endless variety, the whole wreathed and garlanded like the decoration of a theatre. Such was the taste of the day. "Après moi le déluge"; and the precept of the favourite was carried out in the style of design: an _insouciance_ and _laisser-aller_ typical of a people regardless of the morrow. Towards the latter end of the reign a change came over the national taste. It appears in the architecture and domestic decoration. As the cabriole legs of the chairs are replaced by the "pieds de daim," so the running patterns of the lace give place to compact and more stiff designs. The flowers are rigid and angular, of the style called _bizarre_, of almost conventional form. With Louis XVI. began the ground _semé_ with compact little bouquets, all intermixed with small patterns, spots (_pois_), fleurons, rosettes, and tears (_larmes_) (Fig. 90), which towards the end of the century entirely expel the bouquets from the ground. The semés continued during the Empire. This point came into the highest favour again during the Second Empire. Costly orders for trousseaux were given not only in France, but from Russia and other countries. One amounted to 150,000 francs (£6,000)--flounce, lappets and trimmings for the body, pocket-handkerchief, fan, parasol, all _en suite_, and, moreover, there were a certain number of metres of _aunage_, or border lace, for the layette. The making of point d'Alençon being so slow, it was impossible ever to execute it "to order" for this purpose. Great as is the beauty of the workmanship of Alençon, it was never able to compete with Brussels in one respect: its designs were seldom copied from nature, while the fabric of Brabant sent forth roses and honeysuckles of a correctness worthy of a Dutch painter. {200}This defect is now altered. The designs of the lace are admirable copies of natural flowers, intermixed with grasses and ferns, which give a variety to the form of the leaves. [Illustration: Fig. 90. ALENÇON POINT, À PETITES BRIDES.--Louis XVI.] [Illustration: Fig. 91. POINT D'ALENÇON.--Louis XV. period. _To face page 200._] {201}Alençon point is now successfully made at Burano near Venice, in Brussels, at Alençon itself, and at Bayeux, where the fabric was introduced, in 1855, by M. Auguste Lefébure, a manufacturer of that town. Departing from the old custom of assigning to each lace-maker a special branch of the work, the lace is here executed through all its stages by the same worker. Perhaps the finest example of point d'Alençon exhibited in 1867 was the produce of the Bayeux fabric; a dress consisting of two flounces, the pattern, flowers, and foliage of most artistic and harmonious design, relieved by the new introduction of shaded tints, giving to the lace the relief of a picture.[567] The ground (point à l'aiguille) was worked with the greatest smoothness and regularity, one of the great technical difficulties when such small pieces have to be joined together. The price of the dress was 85,000 francs (£3,400). It took forty women seven years to complete. In the Exhibition of 1889 in Paris, Alençon itself showed the best piece of lace that had taken 16,500 working days to make. {202}CHAPTER XIV. ARGENTAN (DÉP. ORNE). "Vous qui voulez d'Argentan faire conte, A sa grandeur arrêter ne faut; Petite elle est, mais en beauté surmonte Maintes cités, car rien ne lui defaut; Elle est assise en lieu plaisant et haut, De tout côtè à prairie, à campaigne, Un fleuve aussi, où maint poisson se baigne, Des bois épais, suffisans pour nourrir Biches et cerfs qui sont prompts à courir; Plus y trouvez, tant elle est bien garnie, Plus au besoin nature secourir Bon air, bon vin, et bonne compagnie!" --_Des Maisons._ 1517. The name of the little town of Argentan, whose points long rivalled those of Alençon, is familiar to English ears as connected with our Norman kings. Argentan is mentioned by old Robert Wace as sending its sons to the conquest of England.[568] It was here the mother of Henry II. retired in 1130; and the imperial eagle borne as the arms of the town is said to be a memorial of her long sojourn. Here the first Plantagenet held the "cour plénière," in which the invasion of Ireland was arranged; and it was here he uttered those rash words which prompted his adherents to leave Argentan to assassinate Thomas à Becket.[569] But, apart from historic recollections, Argentan is celebrated for its point lace. A "bureau" for points de France was established at Argentan at the same time as the bureau at Alençon (1665), and was also under the direction of Madame Raffy. In a letter dated November 23rd, 1665, she writes to Colbert: "Je suis très satisfaite de la publication à son de trompe d'un arrêt qui ordonne aux ouvrières d'Argentan de travailler uniquement pour la bureau de la manufacture royale." PLATE LVI. [Illustration: ] [Illustration: POINT D'ARGENTAN.--Modern reproduction at Burano of the flounce now belonging to the Crown of Italy, said formerly to have belonged to Paul de Gondy, Cardinal de Retz 1614-79. This is evidently wrong, as the design and execution is of fifty years later date, but it is a fine specimen of an ecclesiastical flounce. Height, 24 in. Photo by Burano School.] _Between pages 202 and 203._ {203}Point d'Argentan has been thought to be especially distinguished by its hexagonally-arranged brides; but this has also been noticed as a peculiarity of certain Venetian point laces. The bride ground, to which we have before alluded in the notice of Alençon, was of very elaborate construction, and consists of a large six-sided mesh, worked over with the buttonhole stitch. It was always printed on the parchment pattern, and the upper angle of the hexagon is pricked. After the hexagon is formed, by passing the needle and thread round the pins in a way too complicated to be worth explaining, the six sides are worked over with seven or eight buttonhole stitches in each side. The bride ground was consequently very strong. It was much affected in France; the réseau was more preferred abroad.[570] At the present time, it is usual to consider the point d'Alençon as a lace with a fine réseau, the mesh of which is more square than hexagonal in form, worked by looped stitches across horizontal lines of thread, with the flower or ornament worked in fine point stitches, closely resembling the gimp or ornament in the point de Venise à réseau, and outlined by a cordonnet of the finest buttonhole stitches worked over a horsehair or threads, while point d'Argentan is a lace with similar work as regards flower, ornament, and cordonnet, but with a hexagonal bride ground, each side of the hexagon being of the finest buttonhole stitchings. Regarding the date of the introduction of the réseau, the large hexagonal "grande bride" would appear to follow from the points de Venise, Argentan being named before Alençon à réseau. Madame Despierres, however, is of opinion that Argentan simplified the usual réseau by adopting the bride tortillé (_i.e._, twisting the threads round each mesh instead of the more arduous buttonhole stitching). Alençon would then {204}have copied back the petites brides of small hexagonal twisted or buttonholed meshes in Louis XVI.'s reign. To this again succeeded the looped réseau of very thick thread. With the view of showing that Alençon and Argentan were intimately connected the one with the other in the manufacture of lace, M. Dupont says that, whereas considerable mention has been made in various records of the establishment at Alençon of a lace factory, trace of such records with regard to Alençon cannot be found. A family of thread and linen dealers, by name Monthulay, are credited with the establishment of a branch manufactory or _succursale_ for lace at Argentan. The Monthulays, then, sowed Alençon seeds at Argentan, which developed into the so-called Argentan lace. In almost all respects it is the same as Alençon work.[571] The two towns, separated by some ten miles, had communications as frequent as those which passed between Alençon and the little village of Vimoutier, eighteen miles distant, where one workman in particular produced what is known as the true Alençon lace. If a work were made at Argentan, it was called Argentan, if at Alençon, Alençon, though both might have been produced from the same designs. In 1708, the manufacture had almost fallen to decay, when it was raised by one Sieur Mathieu Guyard, a merchant mercer at Paris, who states that "his ancestors and himself had for more than 120 years been occupied in fabricating black silk and white thread lace in the environs of Paris." He applies to the council of the king for permission to re-establish the fabric of Argentan and to employ workwomen to the number of 600. He asks for exemption from lodging soldiers, begs to have the royal arms placed over his door, and stipulates that Monthulay, his draughtsman and engraver, shall be exempted from all taxes except the capitation. The Arrêt obtained by Guyard is dated July 24th, 1708. [Illustration: Fig. 92. POINT D'ARGENTAN. _To face page 204._] {205}Guyard's children continued the fabric. Monthulay went over to another manufacturer, and was replaced in 1715 by Jacques James, who, in his turn, was succeeded by his daughter, and she took as her partner one Sieur De La Leu. Other manufactures set up in competition with Guyard's; among others that of Madame Wyriot, whose factor, Du Ponchel, was in open warfare with the rival house. The marriage of the Dauphin, in 1744, was a signal for open hostilities. Du Ponchel asserted that Mademoiselle James enticed away his workmen, and claimed protection, on the ground that he worked for the king and the court. But on the other side, "It is I," writes De La Leu to the intendant, on behalf of Mademoiselle James, "that supply the 'Chambre du Roi' for this year, by order of the Duke de Richelieu. I too have the honour of furnishing the 'Garderobe du Roi,' by order of the grand master, the Duke de La Rochefoucault. Besides which, I furnish the King and Queen of Spain, and at this present moment am supplying lace for the marriage of the Dauphin."[572] Du Ponchel rejoins, "that he had to execute two 'toilettes et leurs suites, nombre de bourgognes[573] et leurs suites' for the Queen, and also a cravat, all to be worn on the same occasion." Du Ponchel appears to have had the better interest with the controller-general; for the quarrel ended in a prohibition to the other manufacturers to molest the women working for Du Ponchel, though the Maison Guyard asked for reciprocity, and maintained that their opponents had suborned and carried off more than a hundred of their hands.[574] The number of lace-makers in the town of Argentan and its environs at this period amounted to nearly 1,200. In a list of 111 who worked for the Maison Guyard appear the {206}names of many of the good bourgeois families of the county of Alençon, and even some of noble birth, leading one to infer that making point lace was an occupation not disdained by ladies of poor but noble houses. De La Leu, who, by virtue of an ordinance, had set up a manufacture on his own account, applies, in 1745, to have 200 workwomen at Argentan, and 200 at Carrouges, delivered over to his factor, in order that he may execute works ordered for the King and the Dauphin for the approaching fêtes of Christmas. This time the magistrate resists. "I have been forced to admit," he writes to the intendant, "that the workmen cannot be transferred by force. We had an example when the layette of the Dauphin was being made. You then gave me the order to furnish a certain number of women who worked at these points to the late Sieur de Monthulay. A detachment of women and girls came to my house, with a female captain (capitaine femelle) at their head, and all with one accord declared that if forced to work they would make nothing but cobbling (bousillage). Partly by threats, and partly by entreaty, I succeeded in compelling about a dozen to go, but the Sieur de Monthulay was obliged to discharge them the next day.[575] I am therefore of opinion that the only way is for M. De La Leu to endeavour to get some of the workwomen to suborn others to work for him under the promise of higher wages than they can earn elsewhere. M. De La Leu agrees with me there is no other course to pursue; and I have promised him that, in case any appeal is made to me, I shall answer that things must be so, as the work is doing for the king." From this period we have scarcely any notices concerning the fabric of Argentan. In 1763 the widow Louvain endeavoured to establish at Mortagne (Orne) a manufacture of lace like that of Alençon and Argentan, and proposed to send workers from these two towns to teach the art gratuitously to the girls of Mortagne. We do not know what became of her project; but at the same period the Epoux Malbiche de Boislaunay applied for permission to establish an office at Argentan, with the ordinary exemptions, under the title of Royal Manufacture. The title and exemptions were refused. There were then (1763) at Argentan three manufactures of point de France, without counting the general hospital of St. Louis, in which it was made for the profit of the institution, and evidently with success; for in 1764, a widow Roger was in treaty with the hospital to teach her two daughters the fabrication of point d'Argentan. They were to be boarded, and give six years of their time. The fine on non-performance was 80 livres. In 1781, the Sieur Gravelle Desvallées made a fruitless application to establish a manufacture at Argentan; nor could even the children of the widow Wyriot obtain a renewal of the privilege granted to their mother.[576] Gravelle was ruined by the Revolution, and died in 1830. [Illustration: Fig. 93. POINT D'ARGENTAN.--Grande bride ground. Eighteenth century. _To face page 206._] {207}Arthur Young, in 1788, estimates the annual value of Argentan point at 500,000 livres. Taking these data, we may fix the reigns of Louis XV. and Louis XVI. as the period when point d'Argentan was at its highest prosperity. It appears in the inventories of the personages of that time; most largely in the accounts of Madame du Barry (from 1769 to 1773), who patronized Argentan equally with point d'Angleterre and point à l'aiguille. In 1772, she pays 5,740 francs for a complete garniture. Lappets, flounces, engageantes, collerettes, aunages, fichus, are all supplied to her of this costly fabric.[577] One spécialité in the Argentan point is the "bride picotée," a remnant, perhaps, of the early Venetian teaching. It consists of the six-sided button-hole bride, fringed with a little row of three or four picots or pearls round each side. It was also called "bride épinglée," because pins were pricked in the parchment pattern, to form these picots or boucles (loops) on; hence it was sometimes styled "bride bouclée."[578] {208}The "écaille de poisson" réseau was also much used at Alençon and Argentan. The manner of making "bride picotée" is entirely lost. Attempts were made to recover the art some years since (1869), and an old workwoman was found who had made it in her girlhood, but she proved incapable of bringing the stitch back to her memory, and the project was given up.[579] Point d'Argentan disappeared, and was re-established in 1708; but though a few specimens were produced at the Exhibition of Industry in 1808, the industry died out in 1810.[580] It was again revived with some success by M. M. Lefébure in 1874. In January 1874, with the assistance of the mayor, he made a search in the greniers of the Hôtel Dieu, and discovered three specimens of point d'Argentan in progress on the parchment patterns. One was of bold pattern with the "grande bride" ground, evidently a man's ruffle; the other had the barette or bride ground of point de France; the third picotée, showing that the three descriptions of lace were made contemporaneously at Argentan. The author of a little pamphlet on Argentan, M. Eugène[581] de Lonlay, remembers having seen in his youth in the Holy week, in the churches of St. Martin and St. Germain, the statues of the apostles covered from head to foot with this priceless point. Argentan is now much made at Burano. Plate LVI. illustrates one of their fine reproductions. PLATE LVII. [Illustration: FRENCH. POINT D'ARGENTAN.--Eighteenth century. Period Louis XV. Needle-point borders. Both these have the hexagonal ground of the genre "Argentan." The upper one is chiefly filled in with the "oeil de perdrix" or "réseau rosacé." Width, 3-3/8 in. The lower one has been pieced together. Width, 7 in. Victoria and Albert Museum.] _To face page 208._ {209}CHAPTER XV. ISLE DE FRANCE.--PARIS (DÉP. SEINE). "Quelle heure est-il? Passé midi. Qui vous l'a dit? Une petite souris. Que fait-elle? De la dentelle. Pour qui? La reine de Paris."--_Old Nursery Song._ Early in the seventeenth century, lace was extensively made in the environs of Paris, at Louvres, Gisors, Villiers-le-Bel, Montmorency, and other localities. Of this we have confirmation in a work[582] published 1634, in which, after commenting upon the sums of money spent in Flanders for "ouvrages et passemens,[583] tant de point couppé que d'autres," which the king had put a stop to by the sumptuary law of 1633, the author says:--"Pour empescher icelle despence, il y a toute l'Isle de France et autres lieux qui sont remplis de plus de dix mille familles dans lesquels les enfans de l'un et l'autre sexe, dès l'âge de dix ans ne sont instruits qu'à la manufacture desdits ouvrages, dont il s'en trouve d'aussi beaux et bien faits que ceux des étrangers; les Espagnols, qui le sçavent, ne s'en fournissent ailleurs." Who first founded the lace-making of the Isle de France it is difficult to say; a great part of it was in the hands of the Huguenots, leading us to suppose it formed one of the numerous "industries" introduced or encouraged by {210}Henry IV. and Sully. Point de Paris, mignonette, bisette, and other narrow cheap laces were made, and common guipures were also fabricated at St. Denis, Écouen, and Groslay. From 1665 to the French Revolution, the exigencies of fashion requiring a superior class of lace, the workwomen arrived gradually at making point of remarkable fineness and superior execution. The lappet (Fig. 94) is a good example of the delicacy of the fine point de Paris. The ground resembles the fond chant, the six-pointed star meshed réseau. [Illustration: Fig. 94. POINT DE PARIS.--Reduced.] [Illustration: Fig. 95. POINT DE FRANCE.--Bobbin lace. Seventeenth century. With portraits of Louis XIV. and Marie Thérèse. Mrs. Palliser gives this illustration the above designation in her last edition; in her former ones, that of Flemish lace. The lace has lately come into the possession of Mr. Arthur Blackborne. It appears to be Flemish work made for the French Queen. _To face page 210._] {211}Savary, who wrote in 1726, mentions how, in the Château de Madrid, there had long existed a manufacture of points de France.[584] A second fabric was established by the Comte de Marsan,[585] in Paris, towards the end of the same century. Having brought over from Brussels his nurse, named Dumont, with her four daughters, she asked him, as a reward for the care she had bestowed upon him in his infancy, to obtain for her the privilege of setting up in Paris a manufactory of point de France. Colbert granted the request: Dumont was established in the Faubourg St. Antoine--classic land of embroidery from early times--cited in the "Révolte des Passemens," "Telle Broderie qui n'avoit jamais esté plus loin que du Faubourg S. Antoine au Louvre." A "cent Suisse" of the king's was appointed as guard before the door of her house. In a short time Dumont had collected more than 200 girls, among whom were several of good birth, and made beautiful lace called point de France. Her fabric was next transferred to Rue Saint Sauveur, and subsequently to the Hôtel Saint-Chaumont, near the Porte St. Denis. Dumont afterwards went to Portugal, leaving her fabric under the direction of Mademoiselle de Marsan. But, adds the historian, as fashion and taste often change in France, people became tired of this point. It proved difficult to wash; the flowers had to be raised each time it was cleaned; it was thick and unbecoming to the face. Points d'Espagne were now made instead, with small flowers, which, being very fine, was more suitable for a lady's dress. Lastly, the taste for Mechlin lace coming in, the manufacture of Dumont was entirely given up.[586] In the time of Louis XIV. the commerce of lace was distributed in different localities of Paris, as we learn from the "Livre Commode"[587] already quoted. The gold laces, forming of themselves a special commerce, had their shops in the "rue des Bourdonnais (in which silk laces were especially sold) and the rue Sainte-Honoré, entre la place aux Chats et les piliers des Halles," while the rue Bétizy retained for itself the spécialité of selling "points et dentelles." The gold and silver laces of Paris, commonly known as points d'Espagne,[588] often embellished with pearls and other {212}ornaments, were for years renowned throughout all Europe; and, until the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, an object of great commerce to France. Its importance is shown by the sumptuary edicts of the seventeenth century forbidding its use, and also by its mention in the _Révolte des Passemens_. It was made on the pillow. Much was exported to Spain and the Indies. How those exiled workmen were received by the Protestant princes of Europe, and allowed to establish themselves in their dominions, to the loss of France and the enrichment of the lands of their adoption, will be told in due time, when we touch on the lace manufactures of Holland and Germany. (Plate LVIII.) Since 1784, little lace has been made in Paris itself, but a large number of lace-makers are employed in applying the flowers of Binche and Mirecourt upon the bobbin-net grounds. CHANTILLY (DÉP. OISE). "Dans sa pompe élégante admirez Chantilli, De héros en héros, d'âge en âge embelli." --Delille. _Les Jardins._ Although there long existed lace-makers in the environs of Paris, the establishment for which Chantilly was celebrated owes its formation to Catherine de Rohan, Duchesse de Longueville, who sent for workwomen from Dieppe and Havre to her château of Étrepagny, where she retired at the beginning of the seventeenth century, and established schools. The town of Chantilly, being the centre of a district of lace-makers, has given its name to the laces of the surrounding district, the trade being distributed over more than a hundred villages, the principal of which are Saint-Maximien, Viarmes, Méric, Luzarches, and Dammartin. The proximity to Paris, affording a ready sale for its productions, caused the manufacture to prosper, and the narrow laces which they first made--gueuse and point de Paris--were soon replaced by guipures, white thread, and black silk lace.[589] PLATE LVIII. [Illustration: FRENCH (OR DUTCH).--Borders of gold and silver thread and gimp lace. Eighteenth century. From the Treasury of St. Mary's Church, Dantzig. Widths: 1-1/8, 1¾ and 4¼ in. Victoria and Albert Museum.] _To face page 212._ {213}Some twenty years since there dwelt at Chantilly an elderly lady, grand-daughter of an old proprietor, who had in her possession one of the original pattern-books of the fabric, with autograph letters of Marie Antoinette, the Princess de Lamballe, and other ladies of the court, giving their orders and expressing their opinion on the laces produced. We find in the inventories of the last century, "coëffure de cour de dentelle de soye noire," "mantelet garni de dentelles noires," a "petite duchesse et une respectueuse," and other "coëffes," all of "dentelle de soye noire."[590] White blonde appears more sparingly. The Duchesse de Duras has "une paire de manchettes à trois rangs, deux fichus et deux paires de sabots en blonde."[591] The latter to wear, probably, with her "robe en singe." Du Barry purchases more largely.[592] See pages 181, 182, and 224. Fig. 96 is a specimen taken from the above-mentioned pattern-book; the flowers and ground are of the same silk, the flowers worked en grillé (see Chap. III., grillé), or open stitch, instead of the compact tissue of the "blondes mates," of the Spanish style. The cordonnet is a thicker silk strand, flat and untwisted. This is essentially "Chantilly lace." The fillings introduced into the flowers and other ornaments in Chantilly lace are mesh grounds of old date, which, according to the district where they were made, are called vitré, mariage, and cinq trous. Chantilly first created the black silk lace industry, and deservedly it retains her name, whether made there or in Calvados. Chantilly black lace has always been made of silk, but from its being a grenadine, not a shining silk, a common error prevails that it is of thread, whereas black thread lace has never been made {214}either at Chantilly or Bayeux. The distinguishing feature of this lace is the _fond chant_ (an abbreviation of Chantilly), the six-pointed star réseau, or, as it is better described, a diamond crossed by two horizontal threads. Chantilly fell with '93. Being considered a Royal fabric, and its productions made for the nobility alone, its unfortunate lace-workers became the victims of revolutionary fury, and all perished, with their patrons, on the scaffold. We hear no more of the manufacture until the Empire, a period during which Chantilly enjoyed its greatest prosperity. In 1805, white blonde became the rage in Paris, and the workwomen were chiefly employed in its fabrication. The Chantilly laces were then in high repute, and much exported, the black, especially, to Spain and her American colonies; no other manufactories could produce mantillas, scarfs, and other large pieces of such great beauty. It was then they made those rich large-patterned blondes called by the French "blondes mates," by the Spaniards "trapeada," the prevailing style since the First Empire. [Illustration: Fig. 96. CHANTILLY.--Reduced.--From one of the Order Books, temp. Louis XVI.] About 1835 black lace again came into vogue, and the lace-makers were at once set to work at making black silk laces with double ground, and afterwards they revived the hexagonal ground of the last century, called fond d'Alençon,[593] for the production of which they are celebrated. The lace industry has been driven away from Chantilly by the increase in the price of labour consequent on its vicinity to the capital. The lace manufacturers, unable to {215}pay such high salaries, retired to Gisors, where in 1851 there were from 8,000 to 9,000 lace-makers. They continued to make the finest lace some years longer at Chantilly; but now she has been supplanted by the laces of Calvados, Caen, and Bayeux, which are similar in material and in mode of fabrication. The generally so-called Chantilly shawls are the production of Bayeux. {216}CHAPTER XVI. NORMANDY. "Dangling thy hands like bobbins before thee." --Congreve, _Way of the World_. SEINE INFÉRIEURE. Lace forms an essential part of the costume of the Normandy peasants. The wondrous "Bourgoin,"[594] with its long lappets of rich lace, descended from generation to generation, but little varied from the cornettes of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (Fig. 97). The countrywomen wore their lace at all times, when it was not replaced by the cotton nightcap, without much regard to the general effect of their daily clothes. "Madame the hostess," writes a traveller in 1739, "made her appearance in long lappets of bone lace, with a sack of linsey wolsey." The manufactures of the Pays de Caux date from the beginning of the sixteenth century. It appears to have been the first centre in Normandy, as in 1661 Havre laces occur in the _Révolte des Passemens_. Lace-making was the principal occupation of the wives and daughters of the mariners and fishermen. In 1692, M. de Sainte-Aignan, governor of Havre, found it employed 20,000 women.[595] {217}[Illustration: Fig. 97. CAUCHOISE.--From an engraving of the eighteenth century.] It was in the province of Normandy, as comprised in its ancient extent, that the lace trade made the most rapid increase in the eighteenth century. From Arras to St. {218}Malo more than thirty centres of manufacture established themselves, imitating with success the laces of Mechlin; the guipures of Flanders; the fond clair, or single ground, then called point de Bruxelles; point de Paris; black thread laces, and also those guipures enriched with gold and silver, so much esteemed for church ornament. The manufactures of Havre, Honfleur, Bolbec, Eu, Fécamp, and Dieppe were most thriving. They made double and single grounds, guipure, and a kind of thick Valenciennes, such as is still made in the little town of Honfleur and its environs. In 1692 the number of lace-makers at Havre and its environs was not less than 22,000. Corneille,[596] 1707, declares the laces of Havre to be "très recherchées"; and in an engraving, 1688, representing a "marchande lingère en sa boutique,"[597] among the stock in trade, together with the points of Spain and England, are certain "cartons" labelled "Point du Havre." It appears also in the inventory of Colbert, who considered it worthy of trimming his pillow-cases and his camisoles;[598] and Madame de Simiane[599] had two "toilettes garnies de dentelle du Hâvre," with an "estuy à peigne," en suite. Next in rank to the points du Havre came the laces of Dieppe and its environs, which, says an early writer of the eighteenth century, rivalled the "industrie" of Argentan and Caen. The city of Dieppe alone, with its little colony of Saint-Nicolas-d'Aliermont (a village two leagues distant, inhabited by the descendants of a body of workmen who retired from the bombardment of Dieppe),[600] employed 4,000 lace-makers. A writer in 1761[601] says, "A constant trade is that of laces, which yield only in precision of design and fineness to those of Mechlin; but it has never been so considerable as it was at the end of the seventeenth century. Although it has slackened since about 1745 for the amount of its productions, which have diminished in value, it has not altogether fallen. As this work is the occupation of women and girls, a great number of whom have no other means of subsistence, there is also a large number of dealers who buy their laces, to send them into other parts of the kingdom, to Spain, and the islands of America. This trade is free, without any corporation; but those who make lace without being mercers cannot sell lace thread, the sale of which is very lucrative."[602] PLATE LIX. [Illustration: FRENCH, CHANTILLY. FLOUNCE, BLACK SILK, BOBBIN-MADE.--Much reduced.] PLATE LX. [Illustration: FRENCH, LE PUY. BLACK SILK GUIPURE, BOBBIN-MADE. Photos by A. Dryden from laces the property of Mr. Arthur Blackborne.] _To face page 218._ {219}[Illustration: Fig. 98. PETIT POUSSIN.--Dieppe.] About twenty years later we read, "The lace manufacture, which is very ancient, has much diminished since the points, embroidered muslins, and gauzes have gained the preference; yet good workers earn sufficient to live comfortably; but those who have not the requisite dexterity would do well to seek some other trade, as inferior lace-workers are unable to earn sufficient for a maintenance."[603] M. Feret writes in 1824,[604] "Dieppe laces are in little request; nevertheless there is a narrow kind, named 'poussin,' the habitual resource and work of the poor lace-makers of this town, and which recommends itself by its cheapness and pleasing effect when used as a trimming to collars and morning dresses. Strangers who visit our town make an ample provision of this lace" (Fig. 98). The lace-makers of Dieppe love to give their own {220}names to their different laces--vierge, Ave Maria, etc. (Fig. 99)--and the designation of Poussin (chicken) is given to the lace in question from the delicacy of its workmanship. Point de Dieppe (Fig. 100) much resembles Valenciennes, but is less complicated in its make. It requires much fewer bobbins, and whereas Valenciennes can only be made in lengths of eight inches without detaching the lace from the pillow, the Dieppe point is not taken off, but rolled.[605] It is now no longer made. In 1826 a lace school was established at Dieppe, under the direction of two sisters from the Convent of La Providence at Rouen, patronized by the Duchesse de Berri, the Queen of the French, and the Empress Eugénie. The exertions of the sisters have been most successful. In 1842 they received the gold medal for having, by the substitution of the Valenciennes for the old Dieppe stitch, introduced a new industry into the department. They make Valenciennes of every width, and are most expert in the square grounds of the Belgian Valenciennes, made entirely of flax thread, unmixed with cotton, and at most reasonable prices.[606] [Illustration: Fig. 99. AVE MARIA.--Dieppe.] A very pretty double-grounded old Normandy lace, greatly used for caps, was generally known under the name of "Dentelle à la Vierge" (Fig. 101). We find only one mention of a lace so designated, and that in the inventory made in 1785, after the death of Louis-Philippe, Duke of {221}Orleans, the father of Egalité, where in his chapel at Villers-Cotterets is noted, "Une aube en baptiste garnie en gros point de dentelle dite à la Vierge."[607] [Illustration: Fig. 100. POINT DE DIEPPE.--Bobbin-made.] The lace of Eu, resembling Valenciennes, was much esteemed. Located on the site of a royal château, the property of the Duc de Penthièvre, himself a most enthusiastic lover of fine point, as his wardrobe accounts testify, the {222}lace-makers received, no doubt, much patronage and encouragement from the seigneur of the domain. In the family picture by Vanloo, known as the "Tasse de Chocolat," containing portraits of the Duc de Penthièvre, his son, and the unfortunate Princesse de Lamballe, together with his daughter, soon to be Duchess of Orleans, the duke, who is holding in his hand a medal, enclosed in a case, wears a lace ruffle of Valenciennes pattern, probably the fabric of his own people (Fig. 102). [Illustration: Fig. 101. DENTELLE À LA VIERGE.] {223}Arthur Young, in 1788, states the wages of the lace-makers seldom exceed from seven or eight sous per day; some few, he adds, may earn fifteen. Previous to the Revolution, the lace made at Dieppe amounted to 400,000 francs annually. But Normandy experienced the shock of 1790. Dieppe had already suffered from the introduction of foreign lace when the Revolution broke out in all its fury. The points of Havre, with the fabrics of Pont-l'Evêque (Dép. Calvados), Harfleur, Eu, and more than ten other neighbouring towns, entirely disappeared. Those of Dieppe and Honfleur alone trailed on a precarious existence. [Illustration: Fig. 102. DUC DE PENTHIÈVRE.--Vanloo. M. de Versailles.] CALVADOS. The principal lace centres in the department of Calvados are Caen and Bayeux. From an early date both black and white thread laces were made, of which the former was most esteemed. It was not until 1745 that the blondes made their appearance. The first silk used for the new production was of its natural colour, "écrue," hence these laces were called "blondes."[608] {224}The blonde of the time of Marie Antoinette is a very light fabric with spots or outline threads of thicker silk forming a pattern. Later, in the time of the Empire, the Spanish style came into vogue. The eighteenth-century patterns were again copied at Caen in the middle of the nineteenth century. After a time silk was procured of a more suitable white, and those beautiful laces produced, which before long became of such commercial importance. A silk throwster, M. Duval, was in a great degree the originator of the success of the Caen blondes, having been the first to prepare those brilliant white silks which have made their reputation. The silk is procured from Bourg-Argental, in the Cevennes. The Caen workers made the Chantilly lace, "Grillé blanc," already described,[609] and also the "blonde de Caen," in which the flower is made with a different silk from that which forms the réseau and outlined with a thick silk strand. The réseau is of the Lille type, fond simple. It is this kind of blonde which is so successfully imitated at Calais. Lastly the "blonde mate," or Spanish, already mentioned. In no other place, except Chantilly, have the blondes attained so pure a white, such perfect workmanship, such lightness, such brilliancy as the "Blondes de Caen." They had great success in France, were extensively imported, and made the fortune of the surrounding country, where they were fabricated in every cottage. Not every woman can work at the white lace. Those who have what is locally termed the "haleine grasse," are obliged to confine themselves to black. In order to preserve purity of colour, the lace-makers work during the summer months in the open air, in winter in lofts over their cow-houses: warmed by the heat of the animals, they dispense with fire and its accompanying smoke.[610] Generally, it was only made in summer, and the black reserved for winter work. Peuchet speaks of white lace being made in Caen from the lowest price to twenty-five livres the ell.[611] According to Arthur Young, the earnings {225}of the blonde-workers were greater than those of Dieppe or Havre, a woman gaining daily from fifteen to thirty sous. The silk blonde trade did not suffer from the crisis of 1821 to '32: when the thread-lace-makers were reduced to the brink of ruin by the introduction of bobbin net, the demand for blonde, on the contrary, had a rapid increase, and Caen exported great quantities, by smuggling, to England. The blonde-makers earning twenty-five per cent. more than the thread-lace-makers, the province was in full prosperity. The competition with the machine-made blondes of Calais and Nottingham has caused the manufacture of the white blondes to be abandoned, and the Caen lace-makers have now confined themselves to making black lace. Caen also produces gold and silver blondes, mixed sometimes with pearls. In 1847 the laces of Caen alone employed more than 50,000 persons, or one-eighth of the whole population of Calvados. Bayeux formerly made only light thread laces--mignonette, and what Peuchet calls[612] "point de Marli." "On ne voit dans ces dentelles," he writes, "que du réseau de diverses espèces, du fond et une canetille à gros fil, qu'on conduit autour de ces fonds." Marli, styled in the Dictionary of Napoléon Landais a "tissu à jour en fil et en soie fabriqué sur le métier à faire de la gaze," was in fact the predecessor of tulle. It was invented about 1765,[613] and for twenty years had great success, and was much worn by Marie Antoinette. When the mesh ground with an edging of loops, which constituted this lace in the decadence of Louis XVI., had a pattern, it was pois, rosettes, or the spots of point d'esprit. In the _Tableau de Paris_, 1782, we read that Marli employed a great number of workpeople, "et l'on a vu des soldats valides et invalides faire le marli, le promener, l'offrir, et le vendre eux-mêmes. Des soldats faire le marli!" It was to this Marli, or large pieces of white thread net, that Bayeux owed its reputation. No other fabric could produce them at so low a price. Bayeux alone made albs, shawls, and other articles of large size, of thread lace. {226}Lace was first made at Bayeux in the convents and schools, under the direction of the nuns of "La Providence." The nuns were sent there at the end of the seventeenth century, to undertake the supervision of the work-room founded by the Canon Baucher, in the old church of S. George. In 1747 the Abbé Suhard de Loucelles provided additional rooms for them in a house in the Faubourg St. Loup, close by the church of Notre Dame de la Poterie. In a short time more than 400 young women were employed at the two sets of work-rooms, and in 1758 the aldermen of the town presented to the intendant of the province a pair of thread lace cuffs, which, according to the accounts of the municipality, cost 144 livres. It was not until 1740 that a commercial house was established by M. Clément; from which period the manufacture has rapidly increased, and is now one of the most important in France. The black laces of Caen, Bayeux, and Chantilly, are alike; the design and mode of fabrication being identical, it is almost impossible, for even the most experienced eye, to detect the difference. They are mostly composed of "piece goods," shawls, dresses, flounces, and veils, made in small strips, united by the stitch already alluded to, the _point de raccroc_, to the invention of which Calvados owes her prosperity. This stitch, invented by a lace-maker named Cahanet, admits of putting a number of hands on the same piece, whereas, under the old system, not more than two could work at the same time. A scarf, which would formerly have taken two women six months to complete, divided into segments, can now be finished by ten women in one. (Plate LIX.) About 1827, Madame Carpentier caused silk blonde again to be made for French consumption, the fabric having died out. Two years later she was succeeded by M. Auguste Lefébure, by whom the making of "blondes mates" for exportation was introduced with such success, that Caen, who had applied herself wholly to this manufacture, almost gave up the competition. Mantillas (Spanish, Havanese, and Mexican), in large quantities, were exported to Spain, Mexico and the Southern Seas, and were superior to those made in Catalonia. This manufacture requires the greatest care, as it is necessary to throw aside the French taste, and adopt the heavy, overcharged patterns appropriate to the costumes and fashions of the countries for which they are destined. These mantillas have served as models for the imitation made at Nottingham. (Plate LXI.) PLATE LXI. [Illustration: FRENCH. BLONDE MATE, IN SPANISH STYLE.--Nineteenth century. Photo by A. Dryden.] _To face page 226._ {227}[Illustration: Fig. 103. MODERN BLACK LACE OF BAYEUX.--Much reduced.] To the exertions of M. Lefébure is due the great improvement in the teaching of the lace schools. Formerly the apprentices were consigned to the care of some aged lace-maker, probably of deficient eyesight; he, on the contrary, {228}placed them under young and skilful forewomen, and the result has been the rising up of a generation of workers who have given to Bayeux a reputation superior to all in Calvados. It is the first fabric for large pieces of extra fine quality and rich designs; and as the point d'Alençon lace has also been introduced into the city, Bayeux excels equally at the pillow and the needle (Figs. 103 and 104). Messrs. Lefébure have also most successfully reproduced the Venetian point in high relief; the raised flowers are executed with great beauty and the picots rendered with great precision. The discovery of the way in which this complicated point lace was made has been the work of great patience. It is called "Point Colbert." See page 188. In 1851 there were in Calvados 60,000 lace-workers, spread along the sea-coast to Cherbourg, where the nuns of La Providence have an establishment. It is only by visiting the district that an adequate idea can be formed of the resources this work affords to the labouring classes, thousands of women deriving from it their sole means of subsistence.[614] Bayeux is now the centre for high-class lace-making in France. M. Lefébure considers that the fichus, mantillas, etc., that are made of fine white thread in the country round Bayeux have all the suppleness and softness which contribute to the charm of Mechlin lace, to which they have a close affinity. BRETAGNE. No record of lace-making occurs in Bretagne, though probably the Normandy manufacturers extended westward along the coast. At all events, the wearing of it was early adopted. [Illustration: Fig. 104. POINT COLBERT.--Venetian point in relief reproduced by M. Lefébure. _To face page 228._] {229}Embroidered tulle or point d'esprit was made in Brittany as in Denmark, and around Genoa, where its production still continues. Embroidered muslins with open-work lace stitches were also made in Brittany during the eighteenth century, and called Broderie des Indes, after the Indian muslin scarfs that were brought to Europe at that date, and set the fashion. There is a popular ballad of the province, 1587, on "Fontenelle le Ligueur," one of the most notorious partizans of the League in Bretagne. He has been entrapped at Paris, and while awaiting his doom, sends his page to his wife, with these words (we spare our readers the Breton dialect):-- "Page, mon page, petit page, va vite à Coadelan et dis à la pauvre héritière[615] de ne plus porter des dentelles. "De ne plus porter des dentelles, parce que son pauvre époux est en peine. Toi, rapporte-moi une chemise à mettre, et un drap pour m'ensevelir."[616] One singular custom prevails among the ancient families in Bretagne; a bride wears her lace-adorned dress but twice--once on her wedding-day, and only again at her death, when the corse lies in state for a few hours before its placing in the coffin. After the marriage ceremony the bride carefully folds away her dress[617] in linen of the finest homespun, intended for her winding sheet, and each year, on the anniversary of the wedding-day, fresh sprigs of lavender and rosemary are laid upon it until the day of mourning. {230}CHAPTER XVII. VALENCIENNES (DÉP. DU NORD). "Ils s'attachoient à considerer des tableaux de petit point de la manufacture de Valencienne qui representoient des fleurs, et comme ils les trouvoient parfaitement beaux, M. de Magelotte, leur hôte, vouloit les leur donner, mais ils ne les acceptèrent point."--1686. _Voyage des Ambassadeurs de Siam._ Part of the ancient province of Hainault, Valenciennes, together with Lille and Arras, is Flemish by birth, French only by conquest and treaty.[618] Its lace manufacture has been supposed to date from the fifteenth century, its first productions being attributed to Pierre Chauvin and Ignace Harent, who employed a three-thread twisted flax. This early date, however, is probably not correct. It is more probable that Valenciennes developed from and took the place of the lace-making foundation of Colbert at Le Quesnoy. The lace of Le Quesnoy is never mentioned after Louis XIV., whereas after that reign Valenciennes comes into notice. It reached its climax from 1725 to 1780, when there were from 3,000 to 4,000 lace-makers in the city alone. One of the finest known specimens of the earlier fabric is a lace-bordered alb,[619] belonging to the ladies of the Convent of the Visitation,[620] at Le Puy. The lace is 28 inches wide, consisting of three breadths, entirely of white thread, very fine, though thick. The solid pattern, which with its flowers and scrolls partakes of the character of the Renaissance, comes out well from the clear réseau ground. [Illustration: Fig. 105. VALENCIENNES.--1650-1730 _To face page 230._] {231}From 1780 downwards, fashion changed. The cheaper and lighter laces of Brussels, Lille, and Arras, obtained the preference over the costly and more substantial products of Valenciennes--les éternelles Valenciennes, as they were called--while the subsequent disappearance of ruffles from the costume of the men greatly added to the evil. Valenciennes fell with the monarchy. During the war of liberty, foreign occupation decimated its population, and the art became nearly lost. In 1790, the number of lace-workers had diminished to 250; and, though Napoleon used every effort to revive the manufacture, he was unsuccessful. In 1851 there were only two lace-makers remaining, and they both upwards of eighty years of age. The lace made in the city alone was termed "Vraie Valenciennes," and attained a perfection unrivalled by the productions of the villages beyond the walls. In the lace accounts of Madame du Barry we find constant mention of this term.[621] "Vraie Valenciennes" appears constantly in contradistinction to "bâtarde"[622] and "fausse," simply leading us to suppose that the last-mentioned appellations signify the laces fabricated in the neighbourhood. In support of this assertion, M. Dieudonné writes:[623] "This beautiful manufacture is so inherent in the place, that it is an established fact, if a piece of lace were begun at Valenciennes and finished outside the walls, the part which had not been made at Valenciennes would be visibly less beautiful and less perfect than the other, though continued by the same lace-maker with the same thread, and upon the same pillow."[624] {232}[Illustration: Fig. 106. VALENCIENNES.--Period Louis XIV.] PLATE LXII. [Illustration: VALENCIENNES.--Three specimens of seventeenth and eighteenth century. Arranged by age, the oldest at the top, which was made for a royal personage, with the initials E. P.; it is now the property of Mr. Arthur Blackborne. Widths of the middle and lower pieces 1½ and 2½ in. Photos by A. Dryden.] _To face page 232._ {233}The extinction of the fabric and its transfer to Belgium has been a great commercial loss to France. Valenciennes, being specially a "dentelle linge," is that of which the greatest quantity is consumed throughout the universe. Valenciennes lace is altogether made upon the pillow, with one kind of thread for the pattern and the ground (Fig. 106). No lace is so expensive to make, from the number of bobbins required, and the flax used was of the finest quality. The city-made lace was remarkable for the beauty of its ground, the richness of its design, and evenness of its tissue. Its mesh is square or diamond-shaped, and it has no twisted sides; all are closely plaited. The ornament is not picked out with a cordonnet, as is the case with Mechlin; but, like Mechlin, the ground went through various modifications, including the "fond de neige," before the réseau was finally fixed. From their solidity, "les belles et éternelles Valenciennes" became an heirloom in each family. A mother bequeathed them to her daughter as she would now her jewels or her furs.[625] The lace-makers worked in underground cellars, from four in the morning till eight at night, scarcely earning their tenpence a day. The pattern was the especial property of the manufacturer; it was at the option of the worker to pay for its use and retain her work, if not satisfied with the price she received. This lace was generally made by young girls; it did not accord with the habits of the "mère bourgeoise" either to abandon her household duties or to preserve the delicacy of hand requisite for the work. It may be inferred, also, that no eyes could support for a number of years the close confinement to a cellar: many of the women are said to have become almost blind previous to attaining the age of thirty. It was a great point when the whole piece was executed by the same lace-worker. "All by the same hand," we find entered in the bills of the lace-sellers of the time.[626] The labour of making "vraie Valenciennes" was so great that while the Lille lace-workers could produce from three to five ells a day, those of Valenciennes could not complete more than an inch and a half in the same time. Some lace-workers only made half an ell (24 inches) in a {234}year, and it took ten months, working fifteen hours a day, to finish a pair of men's ruffles--hence the costliness of the lace.[627] A pair of ruffles would amount to 4,000 livres, and the "barbes pleines,"[628] as a lady's cap was then termed, to 1,200 livres and upwards. [Illustration: Fig. 107. VALENCIENNES.] [Illustration: Fig. 108. VALENCIENNES LAPPET.--Period Louis XVI. _To face page 234._] {235}The Valenciennes of 1780 was of a quality far superior to any made in the present century. The réseau was fine and compact, the flower resembling cambric in its texture; the designs still betraying the Flemish origin of the fabric--tulips, carnations, iris, or anemones--such as we see in the old Flemish flower-pieces, true to nature, executed with Dutch exactness (Fig. 108). The city owed not its prosperity to the rich alone; the peasants themselves were great consumers of its produce. A woman laid by her earnings for years to purchase a "bonnet en vraie Valenciennes," some few of which still appear in the northern provinces of France at church festivals and holidays. These caps are formed of three pieces, "barbes, passe, et fond." The Norman women also loved to trim the huge fabric with which they overcharge their heads with a real Valenciennes; and even in the present day of "bon marché" a peasant woman will spend from 100 to 150 francs on a cap which is to last her for life. The last important piece made within the city walls was a head-dress of "vraie Valenciennes" presented by the city to the Duchesse de Nemours, on her marriage in 1840. It was furnished by Mademoiselle Ursule Glairo, herself an aged lady, who employed the few old lace-workers then living, with the patriotic wish of exhibiting the perfection of the ancient manufacture.[629] LILLE (DÉP. DU NORD). "Ces points couppés, passements et dentelles, Las! qui venoient de l'Isle et de Bruxelles." --_Consolation des Dames._ 1620. The fabrics of Lille and Arras are identical; both make white lace with single grounds (fond simple); but the productions of Lille are far superior to those of Arras in quality. The manufacture of the capital of French Flanders vies with those of the Netherlands in antiquity. As early as 1582 its lace-makers are described, at the entry of the Duke of Anjou into the city, "as wearing a special costume. A gown of striped stuff, with a cap of fine linen plaited in small flutes." A silver medal suspended from the neck by a black ribbon completed a dress which has descended to the nineteenth century.[630] The peace of Aix-la-Chapelle having transferred Lille to France, many of its artizans retired to {236}Ghent; they are described at that period as making both white and black lace.[631] The art, however, did not die out, for in 1713,[632] on the marriage of the Governor, young Boufflers, to Mademoiselle de Villeroi, the magistrates of Lille presented him with lace to the value of 4,000 livres.[633] [Illustration: Fig. 109. LILLE.] The beauty of the Lille lace is its ground, called "Point de Lille," or fond clair, "the finest, lightest, most {237}transparent, and best made of all grounds."[634] The work is simple, consisting of the ground, with a thick thread to mark the pattern[635] (Fig. 109). Instead of the sides of the mesh being plaited, as in Valenciennes, or partly plaited, partly twisted, as in Brussels and Mechlin, four of the sides are formed by twisting two threads round each other, and the remaining two sides by simple crossing of the threads over each other. In the eighteenth century more than two-thirds of the lace-making population of Europe made it under the name of mignonettes and blondes de fil. The "treille"[636] was finer in the last century; but in 1803 the price of thread having risen 30 per cent.,[637] the lace-makers, unwilling to raise the prices of their lace, adopted a larger treille, in order to diminish the quantity of thread required. The straight edge and stiff pattern of the old Lille lace is well known (Fig. 110). The laces of Lille, both black and white, have been much used in France: though Madame Junot speaks disparagingly of the fabric,[638] the light clear ground rendered them especially adapted for summer wear. They found great favour also in England, into which country one-third of the lace manufactured throughout the Département du Nord was smuggled in 1789.[639] The broad black Lille lace has always been specially admired, and was extensively used to trim the long silk mantles of the eighteenth century.[640] {238}In 1788 there were above 16,000 lace-makers at Lille, and it made 120,000 pieces[641] of lace, representing a value of more than £160,000. In 1851 the number of lace-makers was reduced to 1,600; it is still gradually diminishing, from the competition of the fabric of Mirecourt and the numerous other manufactures established at Lille, which offer more lucrative wages than can be obtained by lace-making. [Illustration: Fig. 110. LILLE.] The old straight-edged is no longer made, but the rose pattern of the Mechlin is adopted, and the style of that lace copied: the semé of little square dots (_points d'esprit_) on the ground--one of the characteristics of Lille lace--is still retained. In 1862 Mrs. Palliser saw at Lille a complete garniture of beautiful workmanship, ordered for a trousseau at Paris, but the commercial crisis and the revolutions of 1848 virtually put an end to the lace industry of Lille and Arras. {239}ARRAS (ARTOIS) (DÉP. PAS-DE-CALAIS). "Arras of ryche arraye, Fresh as floures in Maye."--Skelton. Arras, from the earliest ages, has been a working city. Her citizens were renowned for the tapestries which bore their name: the nuns of her convents excelled in all kinds of needlework. In the history of the Abbaye du Vivier,[642] we are told how the abbess, Madame Sainte, dite la Sauvage, set the sisters to work ornaments for the church:-- "Les filles dans l'ouvroir tous les jours assemblées N'y paroissent pas moins que l'Abbesse zelées, Celle cÿ d'une aiguille ajuste au petit point Un bel etuy d'autel que l'eglise n'a point, Broche d'or et de soÿe un voile de Calice; L'autre fait un tapis du point de haute lice, Dont elle fait un riche et precieux frontal; Une autre coud une aube, ou fait un corporal; Une autre une chasuble, ou chappe nompareille, Où l'or, l'argent, la soÿe, arrangés à merveille, Representant des saints vestus plus richement Que leur eclat n'auroit souffert de leur vivant; L'autre de son Carreau detachant la dentelle, En orne les surplis de quelque aube nouvelle." Again, among the first rules of the institution of the "Filles de Sainte-Agnès," in the same city, it is ordained that the girls "aprendront a filer ou coudre, faire passement, tapisseries ou choses semblables."[643] The Emperor Charles V. is said, however, to have first introduced the lace manufacture into Arras.[644] Arras was one of the seats of Colbert's manufactures, probably of the Flemish bobbin lace. It flourished in the eighteenth century, when, writes Arthur Young, in 1788, were made "coarse thread laces, which find a good market in England. The lace-workers earn from 12 to 15 sous." Peuchet corroborates this statement. "Arras," he says, {240}"fait beaucoup de mignonette et entoilage, dont on consomme boucoup en Angleterre." The fabric of Arras attained its climax during the Empire (1804 to 1812), since which period it has declined. In 1851 there were 8,000 lace-makers in a radius of eight miles round the city, their salary not exceeding 65 centimes a day. In 1881, however, the trade had enormously decreased, only one house making a speciality of the old patterns. The old Arras laces are now no more. [Illustration: Fig. 111. ARRAS.--Modern.] There is little, or, indeed, no variety in the pattern of Arras lace; for years it produced the same style and design. As a consequence of this, the lace-makers, from always executing the same pattern, acquired great rapidity. Though not so fine as that of Lille, the lace of Arras has three good qualities: it is very strong, firm to the touch, and perfectly white; hence the great demand for both home and foreign consumption, no other lace having this triple merit at so reasonable a price (Fig. 111). The gold lace of Arras appears also to have had a reputation. We find among the coronation expenses of George I. a charge for 354 yards of Arras lace "atrebaticæ lacinæ."[645] {241}BAILLEUL (DÉP. DU NORD). As already mentioned, up to 1790 the "vraie Valenciennes" was only made in the city of that name. The same lace manufactured at Lille, Bergues, Bailleul, Avesnes, Cassel, Armentières, as well as that of Belgium, was called "Fausses Valenciennes." "Armentières et Bailleul ne font que de la Valencienne fausse, dans tous les prix," writes Peuchet. "On nomme," states another author,[646] "fausses Valenciennes la dentelle de même espèce, inférieure en qualité, fabriquée moins serrée, dont le dessin est moins recherché et le toilé des fleurs moins marqué." Of such is the lace of Bailleul,[647] whose manufacture is the most ancient and most important, extending to Hazebrouck, Bergues, Cassel, and the surrounding villages.[648] Previous to 1830, Bailleul fabricated little besides straight edges for the Normandy market. In 1832 the scalloped edge was adopted, and from this period dates the progress and present prosperity of the manufacture. Its laces are not much esteemed in Paris. They have neither the finish nor lightness of the Belgian products, are soft to the touch, the mesh round, and the ground thick; but it is strong and cheap, and in general use for trimming lace. The lace, too, of Bailleul, is the whitest and cleanest Valenciennes made; hence it is much sought after, for exportation to America and India. The patterns are varied and in good taste; and there is every reason to expect that in due time it may attain the perfection, if not of the Valenciennes of Ypres, at least to that of Bruges, which city alone annually sends to France lace to the value of from £120,000 to £160,000. {242}CHAPTER XVIII. AUVERGNE AND VÉLAY. ---- LE PUY (DÉP. HAUTE-LOIRE). As early as the fifteenth century the countrywomen from the mountains of the Vélay would congregate together during the winter within the walls of the neighbouring cities, and there, forming themselves into companies, gain their subsistence by making coarse lace to ornament the albs of the priests, the rochets of the bishops, and the petticoats of ladies of quality. And very coarse and tasteless were these early products, to judge from the specimens which remain tacked on to faded altar-cloths, still to be met with in the province, a mixture of netting and darning without design. They also made what was termed "dentelles de menage" with the coarse thread they used for weaving their cloth. They edged their linen with it, and both bleached together in the wearing. The lace region of Central France, of which Le Puy is the centre, is considered to be the most ancient and considerable in France. It is distributed over the four departments,[649] and employs from 125,000 to 130,000 women. It forms the sole industry of the Haute-Loire, in which department alone are 70,000 lace-makers. The lace industry of Le Puy, like all others, has experienced various changes; it has had its trials[650] and its periods of great prosperity.[651] In the chronicles of Le Puy of the sixteenth century[652] we read that the merciers of Notre-Dame {243}des Anges "qui, suivant l'usage faisaient dans notre ville le commerce des passementeries, broderies, dentelles, etc., comptaient alors quarante boutiques, et qu'ils figurent avec enseignes et torches au premier rang dans les solennités religieuses." Judging from local documents, this manufacture has for more than two centuries back formed the chief occupation of the women of this province. It suffered from the sumptuary edicts of 1629, 1635 and 1639, and in 1640 threatened to be annihilated altogether. In the month of January of that year, the Seneschal of Le Puy published throughout the city a decree of the Parliament of Toulouse, which forbade, under pain of heavy fine, all persons of whatever sex, quality, or condition, to wear upon their vestments any lace "tant de soie que de fil blanc, ensemble passement, clinquant d'or ni d'argent fin ou faux;" thus by one ordinance annihilating the industry of the province. The reason for this absurd edict was twofold: first, in consequence of the large number of women employed in the lace trade, there was great difficulty in obtaining domestic servants; secondly, the general custom of wearing lace among all classes caused the shades of distinction between the high and low to disappear. These ordinances, as may be imagined, created great consternation throughout Le Puy. Father Régis, a Jesuit, who was then in the province, did his best to console the sufferers thus reduced to beggary by the caprice of Parliament. "Ayez confiance en Dieu," he said; "la dentelle ne perira pas." He set out to Toulouse, and by his remonstrances obtained a revocation of the edict. Nor did he rest satisfied with his good work. At his suggestion the Jesuits opened to the Auvergne laces a new market in Spain and the New World, which, until the year 1790, was the occasion of great prosperity to the province. The Jesuit Father, who died in December 1640, was later canonised for his good deeds; and under his new appellation of Saint François Régis, is still held in the greatest veneration by the women of Auvergne--as the patron saint of the lace-makers. Massillon, when bishop of Clermont (1717), greatly patronised the lace-makers of his diocese, and, anxious that the province should itself furnish the thread used in the manufacture, he purchased a quantity of spinning-wheels, which he distributed among the poor families of Beauregard, {244}the village in which the summer palace of the bishop, previous to the Revolution, was situated. The lace trade of this province frequently appears on the scene during the eighteenth century. In 1707 the manufacturers demand a remission of the import duties of 1664 as unfair,[653] and with success. Scarce ten years afterwards,[654] notwithstanding the privilege accorded, we again find them in trouble; whether their patterns did not advance with the fashions of the day, or the manufacturers deteriorated the quality of the thread--too often the effect of commercial prosperity--the shops were filled with lace, "propres, les unes pour l'Italie, d'autres pour les mers du Sud," which the merchants refused to buy. To remedy this bad state of affairs, the commissioners assembled at Montpelier coolly decide that the diocese should borrow 60,000 livres to purchase the dead stock, and so clear the market. After some arguments the lace was bought by the Sieur Jerphanion, Syndic of the diocese. Prosperity, however, was not restored, for in 1755 we again hear of a grant of 1,000 livres, payable in ten years by the States of Vélay, for the relief of the distressed lace-makers, and again a fresh demand for exemption of the export duty.[655] This is declared in a memorial of 1761 to be the chief cause of the distress, which memorial also states that, to employ the people in a more lucrative way, a manufacture of blondes and silk laces had been introduced. This distress is supposed to have been somewhat exaggerated by the merciers of Le Puy, whose profits must have been very considerable; the women, according to Arthur Young, earning only from four to eight sous daily. Peuchet, with his predecessor, Savary, and other writers on statistics, describe the manufacture of Le Puy as the most flourishing in France. "Her lace," writes Peuchet, "resembles greatly that of Flanders; much is consumed in the {245}French dominions, and a considerable quantity exported to Spain, Portugal, Germany, Italy and England. Much thread lace is also expedited by way of Cadiz to Peru and Mexico. The ladies of these countries trim their petticoats and other parts of their dress with such a profusion of lace as to render the consumption 'prodigieuse.'" "Les Anglois en donnent des commissions en contrebande pour l'Isthmus de Panama. Les Hollandois en demandent aussi et faisaient expédier à Cadiz à leur compte."[656] We read, however, after a time, that the taste for a finer description of lace having penetrated to Mexico and Peru, the commerce of Le Puy had fallen off, and that from that epoch the work-people had supported themselves by making blondes and black lace. The thread used in Auvergne comes from Haarlem, purchased either from the merchants of Rouen or Lyons. In the palmy days of Le Puy her lace-workers consumed annually to the amount of 400,000 livres. The laces made for exportation were of a cheap quality, varying from edgings of 30 sous to 45 livres the piece of 12 ells; of these the annual consumption amounted to 1,200,000 livres.[657] It may indeed be said that, with the exception of the period of the French Revolution to 1801, the lace trade of Le Puy has ever been prosperous. Formerly they only made at Le Puy laces which had each a distinctive name--ave, pater, chapelets, mie, serpent, bonnet, scie, etc. Le Puy now produces every description of lace, white and coloured, silk, thread, and worsted, blondes of all kinds, black of the finest grounds, application, double and single grounds; from gold and silver lace to edgings of a halfpenny a yard, and laces of goats' and Angora rabbits' hairs. In 1847 more than 5,000 women were employed in making Valenciennes. They have also succeeded in producing admirable needle-points, similar to the ancient Venetian. A dress of this lace, destined to adorn an image of the Virgin, was shown in the French Exhibition of 1855. {246}In 1848 commerce and trade languished, and a cheaper lace was produced, made of worsted, for shawls and trimmings. This lace was not long in fashion, but it re-appeared a few years later under the name of "lama," or "poil de chèvre," when it obtained a great success. The hair of the lama has never been used. Le Puy now offers to the market an infinite variety of lace, and by means of these novelties her laces successfully compete with those of Saxony, which alone can rival her in cheapness; but as the patterns of these last are copied from the laces of Le Puy and Mirecourt, they appear in the foreign, market after the originals. The finest collection of Auvergne lace in the International Exhibition (1867) was from the fabric of Crâponne (Haute-Loire),[658] established in 1830 by M. Théodore Falcon, to whom Le Puy is indebted for her "musée de dentelles," containing specimens of the lace of all countries and all ages, a most useful and instructive collection for the centre of a lace district. Le Puy has also a lace school, numbering a hundred pupils, and a school of design for lace patterns, founded in 1859.[659] AURILLAC AND MURAT (DÉP. CANTAL). "L'on fait à Orillac les dentelles quit ont vogue dans le royaume," writes, in 1670, the author of the _Délices de la France_.[660] The origin of the fabric is assigned to the fourteenth century, when a company of emigrants established themselves at Cuença and Valcameos, and nearly all the points of Aurillac were exported into Spain through this company. In 1688 there was sold on the Place at Marseilles annually to the amount of 350,000 livres of the products of Aurillac, with other fine laces of Auvergne.[661] In 1726 the produce was already reduced to 200,000 livres. The finest "points de France," writes Savary, were made at Aurillac and Murat, the former alone at one time producing to the annual value of 700,000 francs (£28,000), and giving occupation to from 3,000 to 4,000 lace-workers. [Illustration: PLATE LXIII. PLATE LXIV. FRENCH.--Two specimens bought in France as Cambrai. They are typical of Northern French laces that became naturalised in England after the French Revolution. Widths, 2½ and 3½ in. Photos by A. Dryden from private collection.] PLATE LXV. [Illustration: FRENCH. BOBBIN-MADE.--From the environs of Le Puy. Period Louis XIII.-Louis XIV. Now made and called Guipure de Cluny. In the Musée Cinquantenaire, Brussels.] _To face page 246_ {247}An attempt to establish a "bureau" for Colbert's new manufacture of points de France was at first opposed, as we read: "Les trois femmes envoyées par les entrepreneurs pour établir cette manufacture furent attaqués dans les rues d'Aurillac. Les ouvrières de cette ville leur disait 'qu'elles prouvaient s'en retourner, parce qu'elles savaient mieux travailler qu'elles.'"[662] The lace-makers would not give up what the intendant terms "the wretched old point," which M. Henri Duref, the historian of the Département de Cantal, describes, on the contrary, as consisting of rich flowered designs, such as may be seen by studying the portraits of many Auvergnat noblemen of the period. There are various letters on the subject in the Colbert Correspondence; and in the last from Colbert, 1670, he writes that the point d'Aurillac is improving, and there are 8,000 lace-women at work. It appears that he established at Aurillac a manufactory of lace where they made, upon "des dessins flamands modifiés," a special article, then named "point Colbert," and subsequently "point d'Aurillac." In the Convent of the Visitation at Le Puy is shown the lace-trimming of an alb, point d'Angleterre. It is 28 inches wide, of white thread, with brides picotées, of elegant scroll design. If, as tradition asserts, it was made in the country, it must be the produce of this manufactory. It appears that rich "passements," as they are still called in the country, of gold and silver were made long before the period of Colbert. We find abundant mention of them in the church inventories of the province, and in the museum are pieces of rich lace said to have belonged to Francis I. and his successors which, according to tradition, were the produce of Aurillac. They are not of wire, but consist of strips of metal twisted round the silk. In the inventory of the sacristy of the Benedictine monastery at St. Aligre, 1684, there is a great profusion of {248}lace. "Voile de brocard, fond d'or entouré d'un point d'Espagne d'or et argent;" another, "garni de dentelles d'or et argent, enrichi de perles fines"; "20 aubes à grandes dentelles, amicts, lavabos, surplis," etc., all "à grandes ou petites dentelles."[663] In the inventory of Massillon's chapel at Beauregard, 1742, are albs trimmed with "point d'Aurillac"; veils with "point d'Espagne or et argent."[664] Lacis was also made at Aurillac, and some specimens are still preserved among the old families there. The most interesting dates from the early seventeenth century, and belongs to the Chapel of Notre Dame at Thierzac, where Anne of Austria made a pilgrimage in 1631, and which, by the mutilated inscription on a piece of the work, would appear to refer to her. Mazarin held the Aurillac laces in high estimation, and they are frequently met with in the inventory of the effects he left on his death in 1660. Again, in the account of a masked ball, as given in the _Mercure Galant_ of 1679, these points find honourable mention. The Prince de Conti is described as wearing a "mante de point d'Aurillac or et argent." The Comte de Vermandois, a veste edged with the same; while Mademoiselle de Blois has "ses voiles de point d'Aurillac d'argent," and of the Duchesse de Mortemart it is said, "On voyait dessous ses plumes un voile de point d'Aurillac or et argent qui tomboit sur ses 'épaules.'" The Chevalier Colbert, who appeared in an African costume, had "des manches pendantes" of the same material. The same _Mercure_ of April, 1681, speaking of the dress of the men, says, "La plupart portent des garnitures d'une richesse qui empeschera que les particuliers ne les imitent, puisqu'elles reviennent à 50 louis. Ces garnitures sont de point d'Espagne ou d'Aurillac." From the above notices, as well as from the fact that the greater part of these laces were sent into Spain, it appears that point d'Aurillac was a rich gold and silver lace, similar to the point d'Espagne. The laces of Murat (Dép. Haute-Garonne) were "façon de {249}Malines et de Lille." They were also made at La Chaise Dieu, Alenches, and Verceilles. Those points were greatly esteemed, and purchased by the wholesale traders of Le Puy and Clermont, who distributed them over the kingdom through their colporteurs. The fabrics of Aurillac and Murat ended with the Revolution. The women, finding they could earn more as domestic servants in the neighbouring towns, on the restoration of order, never again returned to their ancient occupation. {250}CHAPTER XIX. LIMOUSIN. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a kind of pillow net (torchon entoilage, Mr. Ferguson calls it)[665] for women's sleeves was manufactured at Tulle (Corrèze) and also at Aurillac. From this circumstance many writers have derived tulle, the French name for bobbin net, from this town. M. Lefébure is of this opinion, and adduces in favour of it the fact that lace was made at Tulle in the eighteenth century, and that an account of 1775 mentions certain Mesdemoiselles Gantes as lace-makers in that town. The first dictionary in which the word "tulle" occurs is the French Encyclopædia of 1765, where we find, "Tulle, une espèce de dentelle commune mais plus ordinairement ce qu'on appelait entoilage."[666] Entoilage, as we have already shown, is the plain net ground upon which the pattern is worked[667] or a plain net used to widen points or laces, or worn as a plain border. In Louis XV.'s reign Madame de Mailly is described, after she had retired from the world, as "sans rouge, sans poudre, et, qui plus est, sans dentelles, attendu qu'elle ne portait plus que de l'entoilage à bord plat."[668] We read in the _Tableau de Paris_ how "Le tul, la gaz et le marli ont occupés cent mille mains." Tulle was made on the pillow in Germany before lace was introduced. If tulle derived its name from any town, it would more probably be from Toul, celebrated, as all others in Lorraine, for its embroidery; and as net resembles the stitches made in embroidery by separating the threads (hemstitch, etc.), it {251}may have taken its French name, Tulle, German Tüll, from the points de Tulle of the workwomen of the town of Toul, called in Latin Tullum, or Tullo.[669] LORRAINE. The lace[670] manufactures of Lorraine flourished in the seventeenth century. Mirecourt (Dép. Vosges) and the villages of its environs, extending to the department of Meurthe, was the great centre of this trade, which formed the sole occupation of the countrywomen. For some centuries the lace-workers employed only hempen thread, spun in the environs of Épinal, and especially at Châtel-sur-Moselle.[671] From this they produced a species of coarse guipure termed "passament," or, in the patois of the province, "peussemot."[672] As early as the seventeenth century they set aside this coarse article and soon produced a finer and more delicate lace with various patterns: they now made double ground and mignonette; and at Lunéville (Dép. Meurthe), "dentelles à l'instar de Flandre." In 1715 an edict of Duke Leopold regulates the manufacture at Mirecourt.[673] The lace was exported to Spain and the Indies. It found its way also to Holland, the German States, and England, where Randle Holme mentions "Points of Lorraine, without raisings."[674] The Lorraine laces were mostly known in commerce as {252}"Les dentelles de Saint-Mihiel," from the town of that name, one of the chief places of the fabric. These last-named laces were much esteemed on their first appearance. Previous to the union of Lorraine to France in 1766, there were scarcely 800 lace-makers in Mirecourt. The number amounted to nearly 25,000 in 1869.[675] Early in the nineteenth century the export trade gave place to more extensive dealings with France. "Point de Flandres" was then very much made, the patterns imported by travelling merchants journeying on their way to Switzerland. Anxious to produce novelty, the manufacturers of Mirecourt wisely sent for draughtsmen and changed the old patterns. Their success was complete. They soon became formidable rivals to Lille, Geneva, and the Val de Travers (Switzerland). Lille now lowered her prices, and the Swiss lace trade sank in the contest. Scarcely any but white lace is made; the patterns are varied and in excellent taste, the work similar to that of Lille and Arras. Some few years since the making of application flowers was attempted with success at Mirecourt, and though it has not yet attained the perfection of the Brussels sprigs, yet it daily improves, and bids fair to supply France with a production for which she now pays Belgium £120,000 annually. The Lorraine application possesses one advantage over those of Flanders, the flowers come from the hands of the lace-makers clean and white, and do not require bleaching.[676] The price, too, is most moderate. The production which of late years has been of the most commercial value is the Cluny lace, so called from the first patterns being copied from specimens of old lace in the Musée de Cluny. The immense success of this lace has been highly profitable to Mirecourt and Le Puy. {253}The wages of the 24,000 lace-workers averaging eightpence a day, their annual products are estimated at £120,000. Much of the Lorraine lace is consumed at Paris and in the interior of France; the rest is exported to America, the East Indies, and the different countries of Europe. CHAMPAGNE. The Ardennes lace was generally much esteemed, especially the "points de Sedan," which derived their name from the city where they were manufactured.[677] Not only were points made there, but, to infer from the Great Wardrobe Account of Charles I., the cut-work of Sedan had then reached our country, and was of great price. We find in one account[678] a charge for "six handsome Sedan and Italian collars of cut-work, and for 62 yards of needlework purl for six pairs of linen ruffs" the enormous sum of £116 6s. And again, in the last year of his reign, he has "six handsome Pultenarian Sedan collars of cut-work, with the same accompaniment of 72 yards of needlework purl" amounting to £106 16s.[679] What these Pultenarian collars may have been we cannot, at this distance of time, surmise; but the entries afford proof that the excellency of the Sedan cut-work was known in England. Rheims, Château-Thierry and Sedan are mentioned among the other towns in the ordinance establishing the points de France in 1665. In less than four months Rheims numbered a hundred and forty workers, consisting of Venetians and Flemings, with seven from Paris and the natives of the place. In 1669 the number had fallen to sixty, in consequence of the price demanded for their board and lodging. Their lace was remarkable for its whiteness. Lace was made in the seventeenth century at Sedan, Donchéry, Charleville, Mézières, Troyes and Sens. The thread manufacturers of Sedan furnished the material {254}necessary for all the lace-workers of Champagne. Much point de Sedan was made at Charleville, and the laces of this last-named town[680] were valued at from four up to fifty livres the ell, and even sometimes at a higher rate. The greater part of the produce was sold in Paris, the rest found a ready market in England, Holland, Germany, and Poland.[681] Pignariol de la Force, writing later, says the manufacture of points and laces at Sedan, formerly so flourishing, is now of little value.[682] Most of its lace-makers, being Protestants, emigrated after the Edict of Revocation. Château-Renaud and Mézières were chiefly employed in the manufacture of footings (_engrêlures_).[683] The laces of Donchéry were similar to those of Charleville, but made of the Holland thread. They were less esteemed than those of Sedan. A large quantity were exported to Italy and Portugal; some few found their way to England and Poland. Up to the Revolution Champagne employed from 5000 to 6000 lace-workers, and their annual products were estimated at 200,000 fr. During the twelve years of revolutionary anarchy, all the lace manufactures of this province disappeared. There are differences of opinion as to the exact character of Sedan lace. M. Séguin considers it to have been a lace inferior in design and workmanship to point de Venise à réseau. A single thread intervenes between the pattern and the réseau, instead of the overcast cordonnet of Alençon, and in other respects it resembles late Venetian needlepoint. Certain authorities in Brussels, again, claim the point de Sedan as a needle-made production of Brabant or Liège. M. Lefébure, on the other hand, considers it as an important variety of Alençon. "The floral devices in points de Sedan, which are somewhat large and heavy in execution, spring from bold scroll forms, and in between them are big meshes of the 'grande maille picotée' of the point de France. Instead of an even and slightly raised stitching along their contours, these big flowers are accentuated here and there in well chosen parts by raised stitching, worked somewhat {255}with the effect of vigorous touches of rather forced high lights in a picture. These recurrent little mounds of relief, as they may be called, are frequently introduced with admirable artistic result. The finest bishops' rochets which appear in the later portraits by Hyacinthe Rigaud and de Larguillière are of point de Sedan." It is possible that both types of lace mentioned--the heavy kind, and the lace with the réseau--are the productions of Sedan. BURGUNDY. Colbert was proprietor of the terre de Seignelay, three leagues from Auxerre, which caused him to interest himself in establishing manufactories, and especially that of point de France. In his Correspondence are twelve letters relating to this manufacture for 1667-74, but it did not succeed. At last, worn out, he says "the mayor and aldermen will not avail themselves of the means of prosperity I offer, so I will leave them to their bad conduct." Specimens of a beautifully fine well-finished lace, resembling old Mechlin, are often to be met with in Belgium (Fig. 112), bearing the traditional name of "point de Bourgogne," but no record remains of its manufacture. In the census taken in 1571, giving the names of all strangers in the City of London, three are cited as natives of Burgundy, knitters and makers of lace.[684] In the eighteenth century, a manufactory of Valenciennes was carried on in the hospital at Dijon, under the direction of the magistrates of the city. It fell towards the middle of the last century, and at the Revolution entirely disappeared.[685] "Les dentelles sont grosses," writes Savary, "mais il s'en débite beaucoup en Franche-Comté." {256}LYONNOIS. Lyons, from the thirteenth century, made gold and silver laces enriched with ornaments similar to those of Paris. The laces of St. Etienne resembled those of Valenciennes, and were much esteemed for their solidity. The finest productions were for men's ruffles, which they fabricated of exquisite beauty. A considerable quantity of blonde was made at Meran, a village in the neighbourhood of Beauvoisin, but the commerce had fallen off at the end of the last century. These blondes go by the familiar name of "bisettes." ORLÉANOIS. Colbert's attempts at establishing a manufactory of point de France at Montargis appear by his letters to have been unsuccessful. BERRY. Nor were the reports from Bourges more encouraging. POITOU. Lace was made at Loudun, one of Colbert's foundations, in the seventeenth century, but the fabric has always been common. "Mignonettes et dentelles à poignet de chemises, et de prix de toutes espèces," from one sol six deniers the ell, to forty sols the piece of twelve ells. Children began lace-making at a very early age. "Loudun fournit quelques dentelles communes," says the Government Reporter of 1803.[686] [Illustration: Fig. 112. POINT DE BOURGOGNE.--Bobbin-made. _To face page 256._] {257}Peuchet speaks of lace manufactories at Perpignan, Aix, Cahors, Bordeaux,[687] etc., but they do not appear to have been of any importance, and no longer exist.[688] {258}CHAPTER XX. HOLLAND, GERMANY, SWITZERLAND, AUSTRIA AND HUNGARY. ---- HOLLAND. "A country that draws fifty feet of water, In which men live as in the hold of nature, And when the sea does in them break, And drowns a province, does but spring a leak."--_Hudibras._ We know little of the early fabrics of this country. The laces of Holland, though made to a great extent, were overshadowed by the richer products of their Flemish neighbours. "The Netherlanders," writes Fynes Moryson, who visited Holland in 1589, "wear very little lace,[689] and no embroidery. Their gowns are mostly black, without lace or gards, and their neck-ruffs of very fine linen." We read how, in 1667, France had become the rival of Holland in the trade with Spain, Portugal and Italy; but she laid such high duties on foreign merchandise, the Dutch themselves set up manufactures of lace and other articles, and found a market for their produce even in France.[690] A few years later, the revocation of the Edict of Nantes[691] caused 4,000 lace-makers to leave the town of Alençon alone. Many took refuge in Holland, where, says a writer of the day, "they were treated like artists." Holland gained more than she lost by Louis XIV. The French refugees founded a manufactory of that point lace called "dentelle a la Reine"[692] in the Orphan House at Amsterdam.[693] PLATE LXVI. [Illustration: WILLIAM, PRINCE OF ORANGE, FATHER OF WILLIAM III., 1627-1650. School of Van Dyck. The collar is edged with Dutch lace. National Portrait Gallery. Photo by Walker and Cockerell.] _To face page 258._ {259}A few years later, another Huguenot, Zacharie Châtelain,[694] introduced into Holland the industry, at that time so important, of making gold and silver lace. The Dutch possessed one advantage over most other nations, especially over England, in her far-famed Haarlem[695] thread, once considered the best adapted for lace in the world. "No place bleaches flax," says a writer of the day,[696] "like the meer of Haarlem."[697] Still the points of Holland made little noise in the world. The Dutch strenuously forbade the entry of all foreign lace, and what they did not consume themselves they exported to Italy, where the market was often deficient.[698] Once alone in England we hear tell of a considerable parcel of Dutch lace seized between Deptford and London from the Rotterdam hoy. England, however, according to Anderson, in 1764, received in return for her products from Holland "fine lace, but the balance was in England's favour." In 1770 the Empress Queen (Marie Theresa) published a declaration prohibiting the importation of Dutch lace into any of her Imperial Majesty's hereditary dominions in Germany.[699] As in other matters, the Dutch carried their love of lace {260}to the extreme, tying up their knockers with rich point to announce the birth of an infant. A traveller who visited France in 1691, remarks of his hotel: "The warming-pans and brasses were not here muffled up in point and cut-work, after the manner of Holland, for there were no such things to be seen."[700] The Dutch lace most in use was thick, strong and serviceable (Fig. 113). That which has come under our notice resembles the fine close Valenciennes, having a pattern often of flowers or fruit strictly copied from nature. "The ladies wear," remarks Mrs. Calderwood, "very good lace mobs." The shirt worn by William the Silent when he fell by the assassin is still preserved at The Hague; it is trimmed with a lace of thick linen stitches, drawn and worked over in a style familiar to those acquainted with the earlier Dutch pictures. SAXONY. "Here unregarded lies the rich brocade, There Dresden lace in scatter'd heaps is laid; Here the gilt china vase bestrews the floor, While chidden Betty weeps without the door." --"Eclogue on the death of Shock, a pet lapdog." _Ladies' Magazine._ 1750. "His olive-tann'd complexion graces With little dabs of Dresden laces; While for the body Mounseer Puff Would think e'en dowlas fine enough." --_French Barber._ 1756. [Illustration: Fig. 113. DUTCH BOBBIN-LACE.--Eighteenth century. _To face page 260._] {261}[Illustration: Fig. 114. TOMB OF BARBARA UTTMANN, AT ANNABERG.] The honour of introducing pillow lace into Germany is accorded by tradition to Barbara Uttman. She was born in 1514, in the small town of Etterlein, which derives its name from her family. Her parents, burghers of Nuremburg, had removed to the Saxon Hartz Mountains, for the purpose of working some mines. Barbara Etterlein here married a rich master miner named Christopher Uttmann, of Annaberg. It is said that she learned lace-making from a native of Brabant, a Protestant, whom the cruelties of the Spaniards had driven from her country. Barbara had observed the mountain girls occupied in making a network for the miners to wear over their hair: she took great interest in the work, and, profiting by the experience derived from her Brabant teacher, succeeded in making her pupils produce first a fine knotted tricot, afterwards a kind of plain lace ground. In 1561, having procured aid from Flanders, she set up, in her own name of Barbara Uttmann, a workshop at Annaberg, and there began to make laces of various patterns. This branch of industry soon spread from the Bavarian frontier to Altenberg and Geissing, giving employment to 30,000 persons, and producing a revenue of 1,000,000 thalers. Barbara Uttmann died in 1575, leaving sixty-five children and grandchildren, thus realising a prophecy made previous to her marriage, that her descendants would equal in number the stitches of the first lace ground she had made: such prophecies were common in those days. She sleeps in the churchyard of Annaberg, near the old lime-tree. On her tomb (Fig. 114) is inscribed: "Here lies Barbara Uttmann, died 14 January, 1575, whose invention {262}of lace in the year 1561 made her the benefactress of the Erzgebirge." "An active mind, a skilful hand, Bring blessings down on the Fatherland." In the Green Vault at Dresden is preserved an ivory statuette of Barbara Uttmann, four and a half inches high, beautifully executed by Koehler, a jeweller of Dresden, who worked at the beginning of the eighteenth century. It is richly ornamented with enamels and precious stones, such figures (of which there are many in the Green Vault) being favourite articles for birthday and Christmas gifts. Previous to the eighteenth century the nets of Germany had already found a market in Paris.[701] "On vend," says the _Livre Commode des Adresses_ of 1692, "le treillis d'Allemagne en plusieurs boutiques de la rue Béthizy." "Dresden," says Anderson, "makes very fine lace," the truth of which is confirmed by nearly every traveller of the eighteenth century. We have reason to believe the so-called Dresden lace was the drawn-work described in Chapter II., and which was carried to great perfection. "Went to a shop at Spaw," writes Mrs. Calderwood, "and bought a pair of double Dresden ruffles, which are just like a sheaf, but not so open as yours, for two pounds two." "La broderie de Dresde est très connue et les ouvriers très habiles," says Savary. This drawn-work, for such it was, excited the emulation of other nations. The Anti-Gallican Society in 1753 leads the van, and awards three guineas as their second prize for ruffles of Saxony.[702] [Illustration: Fig. 114A. BARBARA UTTMANN, WHO INTRODUCED THE LACE MANUFACTURE INTO THE ERZGEBIRGE. From an ivory statuette by Koehler, Green Vault, Dresden. _To face page 262._] {263}Ireland, in 1755, gave a premium of £5 for the best imitation of "Dresden point," while the Edinburgh Society, following in the wake, a year later presents to Miss Jenny Dalrymple a gold medal for "the best imitation of Dresden work in a pair of ruffles." In the _Fool of Quality_,[703] and other works from 1760 to 1770, we have "Dresden aprons," "Dresden ruffles," showing that point to have been in high fashion. Wraxall, too, 1778, describes a Polish beauty as wearing "a broad Medicis of Dresden lace." As early as 1760 "Dresden work" is advertised as taught to young ladies in a boarding-school at Kelso,[704] together with "shell-work in grottoes, flowers, catgut, working lace on bobbins or wires, and other useful accomplishments." The lace of Saxony has sadly degenerated since the eighteenth century. The patterns are old and ungraceful, and the lace of inferior workmanship, but, owing to the low price of labour, they have the great advantage of cheapness, which enables them to compete with France in the American and Russian markets. In all parts of Germany there are some few men who make lace. On the Saxon side of the Erzgebirge many boys are employed, and during the winter season men of all ages work at the pillow; and it is observed that the lace made by men is firmer and of a superior quality to that of the women. The lace is a dentelle torchon of large pattern, much in the style of the old lace of Ischia.[705] The Saxon needle-lace of the present day is made in imitation of old Brussels, with small flowers on a réseau. Some is worked in coloured thread, and also black silk lace of the Chantilly type is made: of this the Erzgebirge is the chief centre. This lace is costly, and is sold at Dresden and other large towns of Germany, and particularly at Paris, where the dealers pass it off for old lace. This fabric employed, in 1851, 300 workers. A quantity of so-called Maltese lace is also made, but torchon predominates. The Museum for Art and Industry, opened at Vienna in 1865, contains several pattern-books of the sixteenth century, and in it has been exhibited a fine collection of ancient lace belonging to General von Hauslaub, Master-General of the Ordnance. {264}GERMANY (NORTH AND SOUTH). Germany in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was renowned for its lacis, cut-work, and embroidery with thread on net, of which there are several good examples in the Victoria and Albert Museum, together with specimens of early Flemish work from their colonies on the Elbe, established in the twelfth century by various German rulers. The work of these towns is of later date--of the fifteenth century--and has continued to the nineteenth century, when they made cambric caps, embroidered or ornamented with drawn-work, and edged with bobbin-made Tönder lace, in the style of eighteenth century Valenciennes. "Presque dans toutes sortes d'arts les plus habiles ouvriers, ainsi que les plus riches négociants, sont de la religion prétendue réformée," said the Chancellor d'Aguesseau;[706] and when his master, Louis XIV., whom he, in not too respectful terms, calls "le roi trop crédule," signed the Act of Revocation (1685), Europe was at once inundated with the most skilful workmen of France. Hamburg alone of the Hanse Towns received the wanderers. Lubec and Bremen, in defiance of the remonstrances of the Protestant princes, allowed no strangers to settle within their precincts. The emigrants soon established considerable manufactures of gold and silver lace, and also that now extinct fabric known under the name of Hamburg point.[707] Miss Knight, in her _Autobiography_, notes: "At Hamburg, just before we embarked, Nelson purchased a magnificent lace trimming for Lady Nelson, and a black lace cloak for another lady, who, he said, had been very attentive to his wife during his absence." On the very year of the Revocation, Frederic William, Elector of Brandenburg, anxious to attract the fugitive workmen to his dominions, issued from Potsdam an edict[708] in their favour. Crowds of French Protestants responded to the call, and before many years had passed Berlin alone boasted 450 lace manufactories.[709] Previous to this emigration she had none. These "mangeurs d'haricots," as the Prussians styled the emigrants, soon amassed large fortunes, and exported their laces to Poland and to Russia. The tables were turned. France, who formerly exported lace in large quantities to Germany, now received it from the hands of her exiled workmen, and in 1723 and 1734 we find "Arrêts du Conseil d'Etat," relative to the importation of German laces.[710] [Illustration: PLATE LXVII. SWISS.--From near Neûchatel. Early nineteenth century. Similar in make to Lille and some Devon lace.] [Illustration: PLATE LXVIII. GERMAN, NUREMBERG.--Used by the peasants on their caps. The cordonnet suggests a Mechlin influence, whilst the heavy réseau is reminiscent of some Antwerp and Flemish and Italian village laces of the end of the seventeenth century.] PLATE LXIX. [Illustration: ENGLISH, BUCKS.--A unique piece designed and made by the lace-makers for Queen Victoria in the early years of her reign; from her lady-in-waiting Emma, Lady Portman, it has descended to the present owner, Mrs. Lloyd Baker. The above is a complete section of the design, which is outlined with gold thread. Photos by A. Dryden from private collections.] _To face page 264._ {265}The Landgrave of Hesse also received the refugees, publishing an edict in their favour.[711] Two fabrics of fine point were established at Hanover.[712] Leipsic, Anspach,[713] Elberfeld, all profited by the migration. "On compte," writes Peuchet, "à Leipsig cinq fabriques de dentelles et de galon d'or et argent." A large colony settled at Halle, where they made "Hungarian" lace--"Point de Hongrie,"[714] a term more generally applied to a stitch in tapestry.[715] The word, however, does occasionally occur:-- "Your Hungerland[716] bands and Spanish quellio ruffs, Great Lords and Ladies, feasted to survey."[717] All these various fabrics were offsets of the Alençon trade. Fynes Moryson expresses surprise at the simplicity of the German costume--ruffs of coarse cloth, made at home. The Dantzickers, however, he adds, dress more richly. "Citizens' daughters of an inferior sort wear their hair woven with lace stitched up with a border of pearl. Citizens' wives wear much lace of silk on their petticoats." Dandyism began in Germany, says a writer,[718] about 1626, when the women first wore silver, which appeared very remarkable, and "at last indeed white lace." A century later luxury at the baths of Baden had reached an excess unparalleled in the {266}present day. The bath mantles, "équipage de bain," of both sexes are described as trimmed with the richest point, and after the bath were spread out ostentatiously as a show on the baths before the windows of the rooms. Lords and ladies, princesses and margraves, loitered up and down, passing judgment on the laces of each new arrival.[719] This love of dress, in some cases, extended too far, for Bishop Douglas[720] mentions how the Leipsic students "think it more honourable to beg, with a sword by their side, of all they meet than to gain their livelihood. I have often," he says, "given a few groschen to one finely powdered and dressed with sword and lace ruffles." Concerning the manufactures of the once opulent cities of Nuremburg and Augsburg we have no record. In the first-mentioned was published, in 1601, the model book, engraved on copper, of Sibmacher.[721] On the frontispiece is depicted a garden of the sixteenth century. From the branches of a tree hangs a label, informing the world "that she who loves the art of needlework, and desires to make herself skilful, can here have it in perfection, and she will acquire praise, honour, and reward." At the foot of the tree is seated a modest young lady yclept Industria; on the right a second, feather-fan in hand, called Ignavia--Idleness; on the left a respectable matron named Sofia--Wisdom. By way of a preface the three hold a dialogue, reviewing, in most flattering terms, the work. A museum was founded in 1865 at Nuremburg for works and objects connected with the lace manufacture and its history. It contains some interesting specimens of Nuremburg lace, the work of a certain Jungfrau Pickleman, in the year 1600, presented by the widow Pfarrer Michel, of Poppenreuth.[722] The lace is much of the Venetian character. One specimen has the figures of a knight and a lady, resembling the designs of Vecellio. The museum also possesses other curious examples of lace, together with a collection of books relative to the lace fabric. (Plate LXVIII.) "In the chapel of St. Egidius at Nuremburg," writes one {267}of our correspondents, "we were led to make inquiries concerning sundry ponderous-looking chairs, bearing some resemblance to confessionals, but wanting the side compartments for the penitents. We learned that they belonged to the several guilds (Innung), who had undertaken to collect money for the erection of a new church after the destruction of the old by fire. For this end the last members sworn in of every trade sat in their respective chairs at the church doors on every Sunday and holiday. The offerings were thrown into dishes placed on a raised stand on the right of the chair, or into the hollow in front. The devices of each trade were painted or embossed on circular plates, said to be of silver, on the back of each chair. One Handwerksstuhl in particular attracted our attention; it was that of the passmenterie-makers (in German, Portenmacher or Posamentier Handwerk), which, until the handicrafts became more divided, included the lace-makers. An elegant scroll-pattern in _rilievo_ surrounds the plate, surmounted by a cherub's head, and various designs, resembling those of the pattern-books, are embossed in a most finished style upon the plate, together with an inscription dated 1718." Misson, who visited Nuremberg in 1698, describes the dress of a newly-married pair as rich in the extreme--that of the bridegroom as black, "fort chargé de dentelles"; the bride as tricked out in the richest "dentelle antique," her petticoat trimmed with "des tresses d'or et de dentelle noire." In the Victoria and Albert Museum there are two women's ruffs from Nuremberg belonging to the latter part of the sixteenth or early seventeenth century, and embroidered in blue and black silk and white cotton, and edged with a coarse thread Mechlin lace with a large meshed irregular plaited réseau, probably late seventeenth century. Perhaps the finest collection of old German point is preserved, or rather was so, in 1840, in the palace of the ancient, but now extinct, Prince-Archbishops of Bamberg. Several more pattern-books were published in Germany. Among the most important is that printed at Augsburg, by John Schwartzenburg, 1534. It is printed in red, and the patterns, mostly borders, are of delicate and elegant design. (See APPENDIX.) Secondly comes one of later date, published by Sigismund Latomus at Frankfort-on-the-Main, 1605; and lastly, that {268}of "Metrepière Quinty, demor[=a]t dempre legl[=i]e de iii roies," a cul[=o]ge (Cologne), 1527. In Austria, writes Peuchet, "les dentelles de soie et de fil ne sont pas moins bien travaillées." Many of the Protestant lace-workers took refuge in the cities of Freyburg and Altenburg. There is a collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum of cuffs embroidered in satin stitch, and edged with bobbin-lace "torchon" of the peasants' work in Slavonia in the eighteenth century. The patterns resemble Cretan and Russian laces. There is a comparatively modern variety of lace made in Austria and Bohemia which resembles the old Italian bobbin-lace; the school where it is taught is under Government patronage. This industry was established as a means of relieving the distress of the Tyrol in 1850, and continues to flourish. Austria sent to the International Exhibition of 1874 specimens of needle-point and point plat made in the school of the Grand Duchess Sophie, and specimens of border laces in the style of the Auvergne laces were exhibited from the Erzgebirge and Bohemia. At the Paris Exhibition, Austria and Vienna both exhibited copies of old needle-point laces. At Laybach, in Austria, there was at one time a bobbin-lace factory which produced lace much esteemed in the eighteenth century. The collection of Hungarian peasant lace in the Victoria and Albert Museum collection contains specimens of coarse modern pillow-made lace, with rude floral designs worked in thick thread or yellow silk. The modern laces of Bohemia are tasteless in design. The fabric is of early date. "The Bohemian women," writes Moryson, "delight in black cloth with lace of bright colours." In the beginning of the nineteenth century upwards of 60,000 people, men, women and children, were occupied in the Bohemian Erzgebirge alone in lace-making. Since the introduction of the bobbin-net machine into Austria, 1831, the number has decreased. There were in 1862 scarcely 8,000 employed in the common laces, and about 4,000 on Valenciennes and points.[723] PLATE LXX. [Illustration: HUNGARIAN. BOBBIN LACE.--Latter half of nineteenth century. Widths, 6¼ and 2½ in. Victoria and Albert Museum.] PLATE LXXI. [Illustration: AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN, SOUTH SLAVONIAN. CUFF OF LINEN EMBROIDERED IN SATIN STITCH IN WHITE SILK. WHITE SILK BOBBIN LACE.--Eighteenth century. Width, 7½ in. Victoria and Albert Museum.] _To face page 268._ {269}SWITZERLAND. "Dans un vallon fort bien nommé Travers, S'élève un mont, vrai séjour des hivers."--_Voltaire._ In the Preface of the _Neues Modelbuch of Froschowern_, printed at Zurich (see APPENDIX), occurs the following:--"Amongst the different arts we must not forget one which has been followed in our country for twenty-five years. Lace-making was introduced in 1536 by merchants from Italy and Venice. Many women, seeing a means of livelihood in such work, quickly learned it, and reproduced lace with great skill. They first copied old patterns, but soon were enabled to invent new ones of great beauty. The industry spread itself about the country, and was carried to great perfection: it was found to be one specially suitable for women, and brought in good profits. In the beginning these laces were used solely for trimming chemises and shirts; soon afterwards collars, trimmings for cuffs, caps, and fronts and bodies of dresses, for napkins, sheets, pillow-cases and coverlets, etc., were made in lace. Very soon such work was in great demand, and became an article of great luxury. Gold thread was subsequently introduced into some of it, and raised its value considerably; but this latter sort was attended with the inconvenience that it was more difficult to clean and wash than laces made with flax threads only."[724] The above account is interesting, not only in its reference to Switzerland, but from its corroborative evidence of the Italian origin of lace. In 1572, one Symphorien Thelusson, a merchant of Lyons, having escaped from the massacre of St. Bartholomew, concealed himself in a bale of goods, in which he reached Geneva, and was hospitably received by the inhabitants. When, after the lapse of near a hundred and twenty years, crowds of French emigrants arrived in the city, driven from their homes on the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, a descendant of this same Thelusson took a body of 2,000 refugees into his service, and at once established a manufacture of lace.[725] The produce of this industry was smuggled {270}back into France, the goods conveyed across the Jura over passes known only to the bearers, by which they avoided the custom-house duties of Valence. "Every day," writes Jambonneau, himself a manufacturer, "they tell my wife what lace they want, and she takes their orders." Louis XIV. was furious.[726] Though lace-making employed many women in various parts of the country, who made a common description while tending their flocks in the mountains, Neufchâtel has always been the _chef-lieu_ of the trade. "In this town," says Savary, "they have carried their works to such a degree of perfection, as to rival the laces of Flanders, not only in beauty but in quality." We have ourselves seen in Switzerland guipures of fine workmanship that were made in the country, belonging to old families, in which they have remained as heirlooms; and have now in our possession a pair of lappets, made in the last century at Neufchâtel, of such exquisite beauty as not to be surpassed by the richest productions of Brussels. Formerly lace-making employed a large number of workwomen in the Val de Travers, where, during his sojourn at Moutiers, Jean-Jacques Rousseau tells us he amused himself in handling the bobbins. In 1780 the lace trade was an object of great profit to the country, producing laces valuing from 1 batz to upwards of 70 francs the ell, and exporting to the amount of 1,500,000 francs; on which the workwomen gained 800,000, averaging their labour at scarcely 8 sols per day. The villages of Fleurens and Connet were the centre of this once flourishing trade,[727] now ruined by competition with Mirecourt. In 1814 there were in the Neufchâtel district, 5628 lace-makers; in 1844 a few aged women alone remained. The modern laces of Neufchâtel resemble those of Lille, but are apt to wash thick. (Plate LXVII.) In 1840, a fabric of "point plat de Bruxelles dite de Genève" was established at Geneva. By the sumptuary laws of Zurich,[728] which were most {271}severe, women were especially forbidden to wear either blonde or thread lace, except upon their caps. This must have been a disadvantage to the native fabrics, "for Zurich," says Anderson, "makes much gold, silver, and thread lace." Several pattern-books for lace were published in Switzerland in the later years of the sixteenth century; one, without a date, but evidently printed at Zürich about 1540, by C. Froschowern, is entitled, _Nüw Modelbüch allerley Gattungen Däntel_, etc. Another one, entitled _New Model-buch_, printed by G. Strauben, 1593, at St. Gall, is but a reprint of the third book of Vecellio's _Corona_. Another, called also _Sehr Newe Model-Buch_, was published at Basle in 1599, at the printing-house of Ludwig Künigs. {272}CHAPTER XXI. DENMARK, SWEDEN AND RUSSIA. ---- DENMARK. "ERASTE.--Miss, how many parties have you been to this week? "LADY.--I do not frequent such places; but if you want to know how much lace I have made this fortnight, I might well tell you." --Holberg. _The Inconstant Lady._ "The far-famed lace of Tönder." "A certain kind of embroidery, or cut-work in linen, was much used in Denmark before lace came in from Brabant," writes Professor Thomsen. "This kind of work is still in use among the peasants, and you will often have observed it on their bed-clothes." The art of lace-making itself is supposed to have been first brought over by the fugitive monks at the Reformation, or to have been introduced by Queen Elizabeth,[729] sister of Charles V., and wife of Christian II., that good queen who, had her husband been more fortunate, would, says the chronicler, "have proved a second Dagmar to Denmark." Lace-making has never been practised as a means of livelihood throughout Denmark. It is only in the province of North Schleswig (or South Jutland, as it is also called) that a regular manufacture was established. It is here that King Christian IV. appears to have made his purchases; and while travelling in Schleswig, entries constantly occur in his journal book, from 1619 to 1625, such as, "Paid to a female lace-worker 28 rixdollars--71 specie to a lace-seller for lace for the use of the children," and many similar {273}notices.[730] It was one of those pieces of Tönder lace that King Christian sends to his Chamberlain, with an autograph letter, ordering him to cut out of it four collars of the same size and manner as Prince Ulrik's Spanish. They must contrive also to get two pairs of manchettes out of the same. In the museum of the palace at Rosenborg are still preserved some shirts of Christian IV., trimmed with Schleswig lace of great beauty (Fig. 115), and in his portrait, which hangs in Hampton Court Palace, the lace on his shirt is of similar texture. [Illustration: Fig. 115. SHIRT COLLAR OF CHRISTIAN IV.--(Castle of Rosenborg, Copenhagen.)] It was in the early part of this monarch's reign[731] that the celebrated Golden Horn, so long the chief treasure of the Scandinavian Museum at Copenhagen, was found by a young {274}lace-maker on her way to her work. She carried her prize to the king, and with the money he liberally bestowed upon her she was enabled, says tradition, to marry the object of her choice. The year 1647 was a great epoch in the lace-making of Jutland. A merchant named Steenbeck, taking a great interest in the fabric, engaged twelve persons from Dortmund, in Westphalia, to improve the trade, and settled them at Tönder, to teach the manufacture to both men and women, rich and poor. These twelve persons are described as aged men, with long beards, which, while making lace, they gathered into bags, to prevent the hair from becoming entangled among the bobbins. The manufacture soon made great progress under their guidance, and extended to the south-western part of Ribe, and to the island of Romö.[732] The lace was sold by means of "lace postmen," as they were termed, who carried their wares throughout all Scandinavia and parts of Germany. Christian IV. protected the native manufacture, and in the Act of 1643,[733] "lace and suchlike pinwork" are described as luxurious articles, not allowed to be imported of a higher value than five shillings and sixpence the Danish ell.[734] A later ordinance, 1683, mentions "white and black lace which are manufactured in this country," and grants permission to the nobility to wear them.[735] Christian IV. did not patronise foreign manufactures. "The King of Denmark," writes Moryson, "wears but little gold lace, and sends foreign apparel to the hangman to be disgraced, when brought in by gentlemen." [Illustration: Fig. 116. TÖNDER LACE, DRAWN MUSLIN.--Denmark, eighteenth century. Width 2¾ inches. Victoria and Albert Museum. _To face page 274._] {275}About the year 1712 the lace manufacture again was much improved by the arrival of a number of Brabant women, who accompanied the troops of King Frederick IV. on their return from the Netherlands,[736] and settled at Tönder. We have received from Jutland, through the kind exertions of Mr. Rudolf Bay, of Aalborg, a series of Tönder laces, taken from the pattern-books of the manufacturers. The earlier specimens are all of Flemish character. There is the old Flanders lace, with its Dutch flowers and double and trolly grounds in endless variety. The Brabant, with fine ground, the flowers and _jours_ well executed. Then follow the Mechlin grounds, the patterns worked with a coarse thread, in many, apparently, run in with the needle. There is also a good specimen of that description of drawn muslin lace, commonly known under the name of "Indian work," but which appears to have been very generally made in various manners. The leaves and flowers formed of the muslin are worked round with a cordonnet, by way of relief to the thick double ground (Fig. 116).[737] In the Scandinavian Museum at Copenhagen is a pair of lappets of drawn muslin, a fine specimen of this work. The modern laces are copied from French, Lille, and Saxon patterns; there are also imitations of the so-called Maltese. The Schleswig laces are all remarkable for their fine quality and excellent workmanship. Guipure, after the manner of the Venice points, was also fabricated. A fine specimen of this lace may be seen decorating the black velvet dress of the youthful daughter of Duke John of Holstein. She lies in her coffin within the mortuary chapel of her family, in the castle of Sonderborg. Lace was much used in burials in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when it really appears people were arrayed in more costly clothing than in their lives. The author of _Jutland and the Danish Islands_ has often seen mummies in the Danish churches exposed to view tricked out in points of great richness. The lace industry continued to increase in value till the beginning of the present century. The year 1801 may be considered its culminating point. At that period the number of peasants employed in Tönder and its neighbourhood alone was 20,000. Even little boys were taught to make lace till strong enough to work in the fields, and there was scarcely a house without a lace-maker, who would sit before her {276}cottage door, working from sunrise till midnight, singing the ballads handed down from their Brabant teachers.[738] "My late father,"[739] writes Mr. F. Wulff, of Brede, "who began the lace trade the end of the last century, first went on foot with his wares to Mecklenburg, Prussia and Hanover: we consigned lace to all parts of the world. Soon he could afford to buy a horse; and in his old age he calculated he had travelled on horseback more than 75,000 English miles, or thrice round the earth. In his youth the most durable and prettiest ground was the old Flemish, much used by the peasants in Germany. It was solid, and passed as an heirloom through several generations. Later, the fine needle ground came in, and lastly, the fond clair, or point de Lille, far less solid, but easier to work; hence the lace-makers became less skilful than of old." They had not many models, and the best workwomen were those who devoted their whole life to one special pattern. Few were found so persevering. One widow, however, is recorded who lived to the age of eighty and brought up seven children on the produce of a narrow edging, which she sold at sixpence a yard. Each pattern had its proper name--cock-eye, spider, lyre, chimney-pot, and feather. The rich farmers' wives sat at their pillows daily, causing their household duties to be performed by hired servants from North Jutland. Ladies also, a century and a half ago, made it their occupation, as the motto of our chapter, from the drama of Holberg, will show. And this continued till the fashion of "hvidsom"--white seaming--the cut-work already alluded to, was for a time revived. This work was, however, looked upon as _infra dig._ for the wives of functionaries and suchlike, in whom it was unbecoming to waste on such employment time that should be devoted to household matters. Our informant tells of a lady in the north who thus embroidered the christening robe of her child by stealth in the kitchen, fearing to be caught by her visitors--cookery had in those days precedence over embroidery. Among the hoards of this child, born 1755, was found a most exquisite collection of old Tönder lace, embracing all the varieties made by her mother and herself, from the thick Flemish to the finest needle-point. PLATE LXXII. [Illustration: RUSSIAN.--The upper piece of lace is needle-point "à brides picotées." Modern reproduction of a sixteenth century design. Width, 3-3/8 in. GERMAN. SAXON.--The lower piece bobbin-made by the peasants of the Erzgebirge. Nineteenth century. Width, 3¼ in. Victoria and Albert Museum.] PLATE LXXIII. [Illustration: RUSSIAN.--Old bobbin-made with coloured silk outlines. The property of Madame Pogosky. Photo by A. Dryden.] _To face page 276._ {277}The fashion of cut-work still prevails in Denmark, where collars and cuffs, decorated with stars, crosses, and other mediæval designs, are exposed in the shop-windows of Copenhagen for sale--the work of poor gentlewomen, who, by their needle, thus add a few dollars yearly to their income. From 1830 dates the decline of the Tönder lace. Cotton thread was introduced, and the quality of the fabric was deteriorated.[740] The lace schools were given up; and the flourishing state of agriculture rendered it no longer a profitable employment either for the boys or the women.[741] The trade passed, from the manufacturers into the hands of the hawkers and petty dealers, who were too poor to purchase the finer points. The "lace postmen" once more travelled from house to house with their little leathern boxes, offering these inferior wares for sale.[742] The art died out. In 1840 there were not more than six lace manufacturers in Schleswig. The old people, however, still believe in a good time coming. "I have in my day," said an aged woman, "sold point at four thalers an ell, sir; and though I may never do so again, my daughter will. The lace trade slumbers, but it does not die." SWEDEN. At a very early period the Scandinavian goldsmith had learned to draw out wires of gold and twine them round threads either of silk or flax--in fact to _guiper_ them. {278}Wadstena, where lies Queen Philippa of Lancaster, daughter of Henry IV., is celebrated for its lace. The art, according to tradition, was introduced among the nuns of the convent by St. Bridget on her return from Italy. Some even go so far as to say she wrote home to Wadstena, ordering lace from Rome; but, as St. Bridget died in 1335, we may be allowed to question the fact: certain it is, though, the funeral coif of the saint, as depicted in an ancient portrait, said to have been taken at Rome after death, is ornamented with a species of perforated needlework.[743] By the rules of the convent, the nuns of Wadstena were forbidden to touch either gold or silver, save in their netting and embroidery. There exists an old journal of the Kloster, called _Diarium Vadstenænse_, in which are, however, no allusions to the art; but the letters of a Wadstena nun to her lover _extra muros_, published from an old collection[744] of documents, somewhat help us in our researches. "I wish," she writes to her admirer, "I could send you a netted cap that I myself have made, but when Sister Karin Andersdotter saw that I mingled gold and silver thread in it, she said, 'You must surely have some beloved.' 'Do you think so?' I answered. 'Here in the Kloster, you may easily see if any of the brethren has such a cap, and I dare not send it by anyone to a sweetheart outside the walls.' 'You intend it for Axel Nilson,' answered Sister Karin. 'It is not for you to talk,' I replied. 'I have seen you net a long hood, and talk and prattle yourself with Brother Bertol.'" From netted caps of thread, worked in with gold and silver, the transition to lace is easy, and history tells that in the middle ages the Wadstena nuns "Knit their laces of {279}gold and silk." We may therefore suppose the art to have flourished in the convents at an early date. At the suppression of the monasteries, under Charles IX., a few of the nuns, too infirm to sail with their sisters for Poland, remained in Sweden. People took compassion on the outcasts, and gave them two rooms to dwell in, where they continued their occupation of making lace, and were able, for a season, to keep the secret of their art. After a time, however, lace-making became general throughout the town and neighbourhood, and was known to the laity previous to the dissolution of Wadstena--a favoured convent which survived the rest of the other monasteries of Sweden. "Send up," writes Gustaf Vasa, in a familiar letter[745] to his Queen Margaret, "the lace passement made for me by Anne, the smith's daughter, at Upsala; I want it: don't neglect this."[746] In an inventory of Ericksholm Castle, drawn up in 1548, are endless entries of "sheets seamed with cut-work, half worn-out sheets with open border of cut-work, towels with cut-work and with the king's and queen's arms in each corner, blue curtains with cut-work seams," etc. The style of Wadstena lace changed with the times and fashion of the national costume. Those made at present are of the single or double ground, both black and white, fine, but wanting in firmness. They also make much dentelle torchon, of the lozenge pattern, for trimming the bed-linen they so elaborately embroider in drawn-work. In 1830 the products in value amounted to 30,000 rixdollars. They were carried to every part of Sweden, and a small quantity even to foreign parts. One dealer alone, a Madame Hartruide, now sends her colporteurs hawking Wadstena lace round the country. The fabric, after much depression, has slightly increased of late years, having received much encouragement from her Majesty Queen {280}Louisa. Specimens of Wadstena lace--the only lace manufactory now existing in Sweden--were sent to the Great International Exhibition of 1862. Hölesom, or cut-work, is a favourite employment of Swedish women, and is generally taught in the schools.[747] At the various bathing-places you may see the young ladies working as industriously as if for their daily sustenance; they never purchase such articles of decoration, but entirely adorn their houses by the labours of their own hands. It was by a collar of this hölesom, worked in silk and gold, that young Gustaf Erikson was nearly betrayed when working as a labourer in the barn of Rankhytta, the property of his old college friend, Anders Petersen. A servant girl observed to her master, "The new farm-boy can be no peasant; for," says she, "his linen is far too fine, and I saw a collar wrought in silk and gold beneath his kirtle." Gold lace was much in vogue in the middle of the sixteenth century, and entries of it abound in the inventory of Gustavus Vasa and his youngest son, Magnus. In an inventory of Ericksholm, 1536, is a pair of laced sheets. It is the custom in Sweden to sew a broad border of seaming lace between the breadths of the sheets, sometimes wove in the linen. Directions, with patterns scarcely changed since the sixteenth century, may be found in the _Weaving Book_ published at Stockholm in 1828.[748] Towards the end of 1500 the term "passement" appears in general use, in an inventory of "Pontus de Gardia." In the neighbourhood of Wadstena old soldiers, as well as women, may be seen of a summer's evening sitting at the cottage doors making lace. Though no other lace manufactory can be said to exist in Sweden beyond that of Wadstena, still a coarse bobbin lace is made by the peasantry for home consumption. The author has received from the Countess Elizabeth Piper, late Grande Maîtresse to her Majesty the Queen of Sweden, specimens of coarse pillow laces, worked by the Scanian peasant women, which, she writes, "form a favourite occupation for the women of our province." PLATE LXXIV. [Illustration: RUSSIAN.--Part of a long border setting forth a Procession. Lacis and embroidery in silk. The lace is bobbin-made in thread. Réseau similar to Valenciennes. The Russian thread is good quality linen. Size of portion shown 18½ x 14 in. The property of Madame Pogosky. Photo by A. Dryden.] _To face page 280._ {281}Latterly this manufacture has been protected and the workwomen carefully directed. Far more curious are the laces made by the peasants of Dalecarlia, still retaining the patterns used in the rest of Europe two hundred years since. The broader[749] kinds, of which we give a woodcut (Fig. 117), are from Gaguef, that part of Dalecarlia where laces are mostly made and used. Married women wear them on their summer caps, much starched, as a shelter against the sun. Others, of an unbleached thread, are from Orsa. This lace is never washed, as it is considered an elegance to preserve this coffee-coloured tint. The firmness and solidity of these last laces are wonderful. [Illustration: Fig. 117. DALECARLIAN LACE.] The specimens from Rättwik are narrow "seaming" laces of the lozenge pattern. There is also a sort of plaiting used as a fringe, in the style of the Genoese macramè, from the ends of a small {282}sheet which the peasants spread over their pillows. No improvement takes place in the designs. The Dalecarlian women do not make a trade of lace-making, they merely work to supply their own wants.[750] Fig. 118 represents a lace collar worn by Gustavus Adolphus, a relic carefully preserved in the Northern Museum at Stockholm. On it is inscribed in Swedish: "This collar was worn by Gustaf Adolf, King of Sweden, and presented, together with his portrait, as a remembrance, in 1632, to Miss Jacobina Lauber, of Augsburg, because she was the most beautiful damsel present." In addition to this collar, there is preserved at the Royal Kladskammar at Stockholm a blood-stained shirt worn by Gustavus at the Battle of Dirschau, the collars and cuffs trimmed with lace of rich geometric pattern, the sleeves decorated with "seaming" lace. In an adjoining case of the same collection are some splendid altar-cloths of ancient raised Spanish point, said to have been worked by the Swedish nuns previous to the suppression of the monasteries. A small escutcheon constantly repeated on the pattern of the most ancient specimens has the semblance of a water-lily leaf, the emblem of the Stures, leading one to believe they may have been of Swedish fabric, for many ladies of that illustrious house sought shelter from troublous times within the walls of the lace-making convent of Wadstena. In the same cabinet is displayed, with others of more ordinary texture, a collar of raised Spanish guipure, worked by the Princesses Catherine and Marie, daughters of Duke Johan Adolf (brother of Charles X.). Though a creditable performance, yet it is far inferior to the lace of convent make. The making of this Spanish point formed a favourite amusement of the Swedish ladies of the seventeenth century: bed-hangings, coverlets, and toilets of their handiwork may still be found in the remote castles of the provinces. We have received the photograph of a flower from an old bed of Swedish lace--an heirloom in a Smaland castle of Count Trolle Bonde. [Illustration: Fig. 118. COLLAR OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. _To face page 282._] {283}RUSSIA. After his visit to Paris early in the eighteenth century, Peter the Great founded a manufacture of silk lace at Novgorod, which in the time of the Empress Elizabeth fell into decay. In the reign of Catherine II. there were twelve gold lace-makers at St. Petersburg, who were scarcely able to supply the demand. In Russia lace-making and embroidery go hand in hand, as in our early examples of embroidery, drawn-work, and cut-work combined. Lace-making was not a distinct industry; the peasants, especially in Eastern Russia, made it in their houses to decorate, in conjunction with embroidery, towels, table-linen, shirts, and even the household linen, for which purpose it was purchased direct from the peasants by the inhabitants of the towns. Many will have seen the Russian towels in the International Exhibition of 1874, and have admired their quaint design and bright colours, with the curious line of red and blue thread running through the pattern of the lace. Darned netting and drawn-work appear, as elsewhere, to have been their earliest productions. The lace is loosely wrought on the pillow, the work simple, and requiring few bobbins to execute the vermiculated pattern which is its characteristic (Fig. 119, and Plates LXXII.-IV.). The specimens vary very much in quality, but the patterns closely resemble one another, and are all of an oriental and barbaric character (Fig. 119). In Nardendal, near Abo, in Finland, the natives offer to strangers small petticoats and toys of lace--a relic of the time when a nunnery of Cistercians flourished in the place. Much of a simple design and coarse quality is made in Belev, Vologda, Riazan, Mzeresk. At Vologda a lace resembling torchon is made, with colours introduced, red, blue, and écru and white.[751] In some laces silks of various colours are employed. Pillow-lace has only been known in Russia for over a hundred years, and although the {284}lace produced is effective, it is coarse in texture and crude in pattern. Late in the nineteenth century the Czarina gave her patronage to a school founded at Moscow, where Venetian needle-point laces have been copied, using the finest English thread, and needle-laces made after old Russian designs of the sixteenth century,[752] called _Point de Moscou_. [Illustration: Fig. 119. RUSSIA.--Bobbin-made nineteenth century. _To face page 284._] {285}CHAPTER XXII. ENGLAND TO QUEEN ELIZABETH. "We weare most fantastical fashions than any nation under the sun doth, the French only excepted."--_Coryat's Crudities._ 1611. It would be a difficult matter for antiquaries to decide at what precise time lace, as we now define the word, first appears as an article of commerce in the annals of our country. As early as the reign of Edward III.,[753] the excessive luxury of veils, worn even by servant girls, excited the indignation of the Government, who, in an Act, dated 1363, forbade them to be worn of silk, or of any other material, "mes soulement de fil fait deinz le Roialme," for which veils no one was to pay more than the sum of tenpence. Of what stuff these thread veils were composed we have no record; probably they were a sort of network, similar to the caul of Queen Philippa, as we see represented on her tomb.[754] That a sort of crochet decoration used for edging was already made, we may infer from the monumental effigies of the day.[755] The purse of the carpenter is described, too, in Chaucer, as "purled with latoun," a kind of metal or wire lace, similar to that found at Herculaneum, and made in some parts of Europe to a recent period. M. Aubry refers to a commercial treaty of 1390, between England and the city of Bruges, as the earliest mention of lace. This said treaty we cannot find in Rymer, Dumont, {286}or anywhere else. We have, as before alluded to, constant edicts concerning the gold wires and threads of "Cipre, Venys, Luk, and Jeane," of embroideries and suchlike, but no distinct allusion to "lace."[756] According to Anderson, the first intimation of such an occupation being known in England is the complaint, made in 1454, by the women of the mystery of thread-working in London, in consequence of the importation of six foreign women, by which the manufacture of needlework[757] of thread and silk, not as yet understood, was introduced. These six women, probably Flemings, had brought over to England the cut-work or darning of the time, a work then unknown in this country. All authors, up to the present period, refer to the well-known Act of Edward IV.,[758] 1463, in which the entry of "laces, corses, ribans, fringes, de soie and de file, laces de file soie enfile," etc., are prohibited, as the first mention of "lace" in the public records. The English edition of the Foedera, as well as the statutes at large, freely translate these words as laces of thread, silk twined, laces of gold, etc.; and the various writers on commerce and manufactures have accepted the definition as "lace," without troubling themselves to examine the question.[759] Some even go so far as to refer to a MS. in the Harleian Library,[760] giving "directions for making many sorts of laces,[761] which were in fashion in the times of King Henry VI. {287}and Edward IV.," as a proof that lace was already well known, and formed the occupation of the "handcraftry"--as those who gained their livelihood by manual occupation were then termed--of the country. Now, the author has carefully examined this already quoted MS., in the principal letter of which is a damaged figure of a woman sitting and "making of lace," which is made by means of "bowys."[762] As regards the given directions, we defy anyone, save the most inveterate lover of crochet-work, to understand one word of its contents, beyond that it relates to some sort of twisted thread-work, and perhaps we might, in utter confusion of mind, have accepted the definition as given, had not another MS. of similar tenor, bearing date 1651, been also preserved in the British Museum.[763] This second MS. gives specimens of the laces, such as they were, stitched side by side with the directions, which at once establishes the fact that the laces of silk and gold, laces of thread, were nothing more than braids or cords--the laces used with tags, commonly called "poynts" (the "ferrets" of Anne of Austria)--for fastening the dresses, as well as for ornament, previous to the introduction of pins. In the Wardrobe Accounts of the time we have frequent notice of these "laces" and corses. "Laces de quir" (cuir) also appear in the Statutes,[764] which can only mean what we now term bootlaces, or something similar. {288}In the "Total of stuffs bought" for Edward IV.,[765] we have entries: "Laces made of ryban of sylk; two dozen laces, and a double lace of ryban"--"corses of sylk with laces and tassels of sylk," etc. Again, to Alice Claver, his sylkwoman, he pays for "two dozen laces and a double lace of sylk." These double laces of ribbon and silk were but plaited, a simple ornament still used by the peasant women in some countries of Europe. There must, however, be a beginning to everything, and these tag laces--some made round, others in zigzag, like the modern braids of ladies' work, others flat--in due course of time enriched with an edging, and a few stitches disposed according to rule, produced a rude lace; and these patterns, clumsy at first, were, after a season, improved upon. From the time of Edward IV. downwards, statute on apparel followed upon statute, renewed for a number of years, bearing always the same expression, and nothing more definite.[766] The Venetian galleys at an early period bore to England the gold work of "Luk," Florence, "Jeane" and Venice. In our early Parliamentary records are many statutes on the subject. It is not, however, till the reign of Henry VII. that, according to Anderson, "Gold and thread lace came from Florence, Venice, and Genoa, and became an article of commerce. An Act was then passed to prevent the buyers of such commodities from selling for a pound weight a packet which does not contain twelve ounces, and the inside of the said gold, silver, and thread lace was to be of equal greatness of thread and goodness of colour as the outside thereof."[767] The Italians were in the habit of giving short lengths, gold thread of bad quality, and were guilty of sundry other misdemeanours which greatly excited the wrath of the nation. The balance was not in England's favour. It was the cheating Venetians who first brought over their gold lace into England. PLATE LXXV. [Illustration: CAP. (FLEMISH OR GERMAN.)--The insertion is cut-work and needle-point. The lace is bobbin-made, and bears a resemblance to Plate XXVI., South Italian. Late seventeenth century. Length of lace about 12 in. Photo by A. Dryden from private collection.] _To face page 288._ {289}A warrant to the Keeper of the Great Wardrobe, in the eighteenth year of King Henry's reign,[768] contains an order for "a mauntel lace of blewe silk and Venys gold, to be delivered for the use of our right dere and well-beloved Cosyn the King of Romayne"--Maximilian, who was made Knight of the Garter.[769] If lace was really worn in the days of Henry VII., it was probably either of gold or silk, as one of the last Acts of that monarch's reign, by which all foreign lace is prohibited, and "those who have it in their possession may keep it and wear it till Pentecost,"[770] was issued rather for the protection of the silk-women of the country than for the advantage of the ever-complaining "workers of the mysteries of thread-work." On the 3rd of October, 1502, his Queen Elizabeth of York pays to one Master Bonner, at Langley, for laces, rybands, etc., 40s.; and again, in the same year, 38s. 7d. to Dame Margrette Cotton, for "hosyn, laces, sope, and other necessaries for the Lords Henry Courtenay, Edward, and the Lady Margrette, their sister." A considerable sum is also paid to Fryer Hercules for gold of Venys, gold of Danmarke, and making a lace for the King's mantell of the Garter.[771] It is towards the early part of Henry VIII.'s reign that the "Actes of Apparell"[772] first mention the novel luxury of shirts and partlets, "garded and pynched,"[773] in addition to clothes decorated in a similar manner, all of which are {290}forbidden to be worn by anyone under the degree of a knight.[774] In the year 1517 there had been a serious insurrection of the London apprentices against the numerous foreign tradesmen who already infested the land, which, followed up by the never-ending complaints of the workers of the mysteries of needlework, induced the king to ordain the wearing of such "myxte joyned garded or browdered"[775] articles of lynnen cloth be only allowed when the same be wrought within "this realm of England, Wales, Berwick, Calais, or the Marches."[776] The earliest record we find of laced linen is in the Inventory of Sir Thomas L'Estrange, of Hunstanton, County of Norfolk, 1519, where it is entered, "3 elles of Holland cloth, for a shirte for hym, 6 shillings," with "a yard of lace for hym, 8d." In a MS. called "The Boke of Curtasye"--a sort of treatise on etiquette, in which all grades of society are taught their duties--the chamberlain is commanded to provide for his master's uprising, a "clene shirte," bordered with lace and curiously adorned with needlework. The correspondence, too, of Honor. Lady Lisle, seized by Henry VIII.[777] as treasonous and dangerous to the State, embraces a hot correspondence with one Soeur Antoinette de Sevenges, a nun milliner of Dunkirk, on the important subject of nightcaps,[778] one half dozen of which, she complains, are far too wide behind, and not of the lozenge (cut) work pattern she had selected. The nightcaps were in consequence to be changed. Anne Basset, daughter of the said Lady Lisle, educated in a French convent, writes earnestly begging for an "edge {291}of perle[779] for her coif and a tablete (tablier) to ware." Her sister Mary, too, gratefully expresses her thanks to her mother, in the same year,[780] for the "laced gloves you sent me by bearer." Calais was still an English possession, and her products, like those of the Scotch Border fortresses, were held as such.[781] Lace still appears but sparingly on the scene. Among the Privy Purse expenses of the king in 1530,[782] we find five shillings and eightpence paid to Richard Cecyll,[783] Groom of the Robes, for eight pieces of "yelowe lace, bought for the King's Grace." We have, too, in the Harleian Inventory,[784] a coif laid over with passamyne of gold and silver. These "Acts of Apparell," as regards foreign imports, are, however, somewhat set aside towards the year 1546, when Henry grants a licence in favour of two Florentine merchants to export for three years' time, together with other matters, "all manner of fryngys and passements wrought with gold or silver, or otherwise, and all other new gentillesses of what facyon or value soever they may be, for the pleasure of our dearest wyeff the Queen, our nobles, gentlemen, and others."[785] The king, however, reserves to himself the first view of their merchandise, with the privilege of selecting anything he may please for his own private use, before their wares were hawked about the country. The said "dearest wyeff," from the date of the Act, must have been Katherine Parr; her predecessor, Katherine Howard, had for some four years slept headless in the vaults of the White Tower chapel. Of these "gentillesses" the king now began to avail himself. He selects "trunk sleeves of redd cloth of gold with cut-work;" knitted gloves of silk, and "handkerchers" edged with gold and silver; his towels are {292}of diaper, "with Stafford knots," or "knots and roses;" he has "coverpanes of fyne diaper of Adam and Eve garnished about with a narrow passamayne of Venice gold and silver; handkerchers of Holland, frynged with Venice gold, redd and white silk," others of "Flanders worke," and his shaving cloths trimmed in like fashion.[786] The merchandise of the two Florentines had found vast favour in the royal eyes. Though these articles were imported for "our dere wyeff's sake," beyond a "perle edging" to the coif of the Duchess of Suffolk, and a similar adornment to the tucker of Jane Seymour,[787] lace seems to have been little employed for female decoration during the reign of King Henry VIII. [Illustration: Fig. 120. FISHER, BISHOP OF ROCHESTER. + 1535. (M. de Versailles.)] That it was used for the adornment of the ministers of the Church we have ample evidence. M. Aubry states having seen in London lace belonging to Cardinal Wolsey. On this matter we have no information; but we know the surplices were ornamented round the neck, shoulders, and sleeves with "white work" and cut-work[788] at this period. The specimens we give (Figs. 120, 121) are from a portrait formerly in the Library of the Sorbonne, now transferred to Versailles, of Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, Cardinal Fisher as he is styled--his cardinal's hat arriving at Dover at the very moment the head that was to wear it had fallen at Tower Hill. PLATE LXXVI. [Illustration: ENGLISH. CUTWORK AND NEEDLE-POINT.--Cross said to have belonged to Cardinal Wolsey.] PLATE LXXVII. [Illustration: ENGLISH. DEVONSHIRE "TROLLY."--First part of nineteenth century. Photos by A. Dryden from private collection.] _To face page 292._ {293}About this time, too, lace gradually dawns upon us in the church inventories. Among the churchwardens' accounts of St. Mary-at-Hill, date 1554, we find entered a charge of 3s. for making "the Bishopp's (boy bishop) myter with stuff and lace."[789] The richly-laced corporax cloths and church linen are sent to be washed by the "Lady Ancress," an ecclesiastical washerwoman, who is paid by the churchwardens of St. Margaret's, Westminster, the sum of 8d.; this Lady Ancress, or Anchoress, being some worn-out old nun who, since the dissolution of the religious houses, eked out an existence by the art she had once practised within the walls of her convent. At the burial of King Edward VI., Sir Edward Waldgrave enters on his account a charge of fifty yards of gold passement lace for garnishing the pillars of the church. [Illustration: Fig. 121. FISHER, BISHOP OF ROCHESTER.--(M. de Versailles.)] The sumptuary laws of Henry VIII. were again renewed by Queen Mary:[790] in them ruffles made or wrought out of England, commonly called cut-work, are forbidden to anyone under the degree of a baron; while to women of a station beneath that of a knight's wife, all wreath lace or passement lace of gold and silver with sleeves, partlet or linen trimmed {294}with purles of gold and silver, or white-works, alias cut-works, etc., made beyond the sea, is strictly prohibited. These articles were, it seems, of Flemish origin, for among the New Year's Gifts presented to Queen Mary, 1556, we find enumerated as given by Lady Jane Seymour, "a fair smock of white work,[791] Flanders making." Lace, too, is now in more general use, for on the same auspicious occasion, Mrs. Penne, King Edward's nurse, gave "six handkerchers edged with passamayne of golde and silke."[792] Two years previous to these New Year's Gifts, Sir Thomas Wyatt is described as wearing, at his execution, "on his head a faire hat of velvet, with broad bone-work lace about it."[793] Lace now seems to be called indifferently purle, passamayne or bone-work, the two first-mentioned terms occurring most frequently. The origin of this last appellation is generally stated to have been derived from the custom of using sheep's trotters previous to the invention of wooden bobbins. Fuller so explains it, and the various dictionaries have followed his theory. The Devonshire lace-makers, on the other hand, deriving their knowledge from tradition, declare that when lace-making was first introduced into their county, pins,[794] so indispensable to their art, being then sold at a price far beyond their means, the lace-makers, mostly the wives of fishermen living along the coast, adopted the {295}bones of fish, which, pared and cut into regular lengths, fully answered as a substitute. This explanation would seem more probable than that of employing sheep's trotters for bobbins, which, as from 300 to 400 are often used at one time on a pillow, must have been both heavy and cumbersome. Even at the present day pins made from chicken bones continue to be employed in Spain; and bone pins are still used in Portugal.[795] Shakespeare, in _Twelfth-Night_, speaks of "The spinsters and the knitters in the sun, And the free maids that weave their threads with bone." "Bone" lace[796] constantly appears in the wardrobe accounts, while bobbin lace[797] is of less frequent occurrence. Among the New Year's Gifts presented to Queen Elizabeth, we have from the Lady Paget "a petticoat of cloth of gold stayned black and white, with a bone lace of gold and spangles, like the wayves of the sea"; a most astounding article, with other entries no less remarkable but too numerous to cite. {296}In the marriage accounts of Prince Charles[798] we have charged 150 yards of bone lace[799] for six extraordinary ruffs and twelve pairs of cuffs, against the projected Spanish marriage. The lace was at 9s. a yard. Sum total, £67 10s.[800] Bone lace is mentioned in the catalogue of King Charles I.'s pictures, drawn up by Vanderdort,[801] where James I. is described "without a hat, in a bone lace falling band."[802] Setting aside wardrobe accounts and inventories, the term constantly appears both in the literature and the plays of the seventeenth century. "Buy some quoifs, handkerchiefs, or very good bone lace, mistress?" cries the pert sempstress when she enters with her basket of wares, in Green's _Tu Quoque_,[803] showing it to have been at that time the usual designation. "You taught her to make shirts and bone lace," says someone in the _City Madam_.[804] Again, describing a thrifty wife, Loveless, in _The Scornful Lady_,[805] exclaims-- "She cuts cambric to a thread, weaves bone lace, and quilts balls admirably." The same term is used in the _Tatler_[806] and _Spectator_,[807] {297}and in the list of prizes given, in 1752, by the Society of Anti-Gallicans, we find, "Six pieces of bone lace for men's ruffles." It continued to be applied in the Acts of Parliament and notices relative to lace, nearly to the end of the eighteenth century.[808] After a time, the sheep's trotters or bones having been universally replaced by bobbins of turned box-wood, the term fell into disuse, though it is still retained in Belgium and Germany. From the reign of Queen Mary onwards, frequent mention is made of parchment lace (see pp. 297-298), a term most generally associated with gold and silver, otherwise we should consider it as merely referring to needle-made lace, which is worked on a parchment pattern. But to return to Queen Mary Tudor. We have among the "late Queen Mary's clothes" an entry of "compas"[809] lace; probably an early name for lace of geometric pattern. Open-work edging of gold and passamaine lace also occur; and on her gala robes lace of "Venys gold," as well as "vales of black network," a fabric to which her sister, Queen Elizabeth, was most partial; partlets,[810] dressings, shadowes, and pynners "de opere rete," appearing constantly in her accounts.[811] It was at this period, during the reign of Henry VIII. and Mary, a peculiar and universally prevalent fashion, varying in degrees of eccentricity and extravagance, to slash the garment so as to show glimpses of some contrasting underdress. Dresses thus slashed, or puffed, banded, "pinched," stiff with heavy gold and metal braid or embroidery, required but little additional adornment of lace.[812] The falling collar, which was worn in the early part of the sixteenth century, before the Elizabethan ruff (introduced from France about 1560), was, however, frequently edged with lace of geometric pattern. Early in the sixteenth century the dresses of the ladies {298}fitted closely to the figure, with long skirts open in front to display the underdress; and were made low and cut square about the neck. Sometimes, however, the dresses were worn high with short waists and a small falling collar. Somewhat later, when the dresses were made open at the girdle, a partlet--a kind of habit-shirt--was worn beneath them, and carried to the throat.[813] Entries of lace in the wardrobe accounts are, however, few and inconsiderable until the reign of Queen Elizabeth. PLATE LXXVIII. [Illustration: MARIE DE LORRAINE, 1515-1560. DAUGHTER OF DUC DE GUISE, MARRIED JAMES V. OF SCOTLAND, 1538. This picture was probably painted before she left France, by an unknown French artist. National Portrait Gallery. Photo by Walker and Cockerell.] _To face page 298._ {299}CHAPTER XXIII. QUEEN ELIZABETH. "By land and sea a Virgin Queen I reign, And spurn to dust both Antichrist and Spain."--Old Masque. "Tell me, Dorinda, why so gay? Why such embroidery, fringe and lace? Can any dresses find a way To stop the approaches of decay And mend a ruined face?"--Lord Dorset. Up to the present time our mention of lace, both in the Statutes and the Royal Wardrobe Accounts, has been but scanty. Suddenly, in the days of the Virgin Queen, both the Privy Expenses and the Inventories of New Year's Gifts overflow with notices of passaments, drawn-work, cut-work, crown lace,[814] bone lace for ruffs, Spanish chain, byas,[815] parchment, hollow,[816] billament,[817] and diamond {300}lace[818] in endless, and to us, we must own, most incomprehensible variety. The Surtees' _Wills and Inventories_ add to our list the laces Waborne[819] and many others. Lace was no longer confined to the court and high nobility, but, as these inventories show, it had already found its way into the general shops and stores of the provincial towns. In that of John Johnston, merchant, of Darlington, already cited, we have twelve yards of "loom" lace, value four shillings, black silk lace, "statute" lace, etc., all mixed up with entries of pepper, hornbooks, sugar-candy, and spangles. About the same date, in the inventory taken after the death of James Backhouse, of Kirby-in-Lonsdale, are found enumerated "In y^e great shoppe," thread lace at 16s. per gross; four dozen and four "pyrled" lace, four shillings; four quarterns of statching (stitching or seaming?) lace; lace edging; crown lace; hollow lace; copper lace; gold and silver chean (chain) lace, etc. This last-mentioned merchant's store appears to have been one of the best-furnished provincial shops of the period. That of John Farbeck, of Durham, mercer, taken thirty years later, adds to our list seventy-eight yards of velvet lace, coloured silk, chayne lace, "coorld" lace, petticoat lace, all cheek by jowl with Venys gold and turpentine. To follow the "stitches" and "works" quoted in the Wardrobe Accounts of Elizabeth--all made out in Latin, of which we sincerely trust, for the honour of Ascham, the {301}Queen herself was guiltless--would be but as the inventory of a haberdasher's shop. We have white stitch, "opus ret' alb," of which she had a kirtle, "pro le hemmynge et edginge" of which, with "laqueo coronat' de auro et arg'"--gold and silver crown lace--and "laqueo alb' lat' bon' operat' super oss'"--broad white lace worked upon bone--she pays the sum of 35s.[820] Then there is the Spanish stitch, already mentioned as introduced by Queen Katherine, and true stitch,[821] laid-work,[822] net-work, black-work,[823] white-work, and cut-work. Of chain-stitch we have many entries, such as Six caules of knot-work, worked with chain-stitch and bound "cum tapem" (tape), of sister's (nun's) thread.[824] A scarf of white stitch-work appears also among the New Year's Gifts. As regards the use, however, of these ornaments, the Queen stood no nonsense. Luxury for herself was quite a different affair from that of the people; for, on finding that the London apprentices had adopted the white stitching and garding as a decoration for their collars, she put a stop to all such finery by ordering[825] the first transgressor to be publicly whipped in the hall of his Company. Laid-work, which maybe answers to our modern plumetis, or simply signified a braid-work, adorned the royal garters, "Frauncie," which worked "cum laidwork," stitched and trimmed "in ambobus lateribus" with gold and silver lace, from which hung silver pendants, "tufted cum serico color," cost her Majesty thirty-three shillings the pair.[826] {302}The description of these right royal articles appears to have given as much trouble to describe as it does ourselves to translate the meaning of her accountant. The drawn-work, "opus tract'," seems to have been but a drawing of thread worked over silk. We have smocks thus wrought and decorated "cum lez ruffs et wrestbands."[827] In addition to the already enumerated laces of Queen Elizabeth are the bride laces of Coventry blue,[828] worn and given to the guests at weddings, mentioned in the _Masques_ of Ben Jonson:[829]-- "CLOD.--And I have lost, beside my purse, my best bride-lace I had at Joan Turnips' wedding. "FRANCES.--Ay, and I have lost my thimble and a skein of Coventry blue I had to work Gregory Litchfield a handkerchief." When the Queen visited Kenilworth in 1577, a Bridall took place for the pastime of her Majesty. "First," writes the Chancellor, "came all the lusty lads and bold bachelors of the parish, every wight with his blue bridesman's bride lace upon a braunch of green broom." What these bride laces exactly were we cannot now tell. They continued in fashion till the Puritans put down all festivals, ruined the {303}commerce of Coventry, and the fabric of blue thread ceased for ever. It was probably a showy kind of coarse trimming, like that implied by Mopsa in the _Winter's Tale_, when she says-- "You promised me a tawdry lace:"[830] articles which, judging from the song of Autolycus-- "Will you buy any tape, Or lace for your cape?" were already hawked about among the pedlars' wares throughout the country: one of the "many laces" mentioned by Shakespeare.[831] Dismissing, then, her stitches, her laces, and the 3,000 gowns she left in her wardrobe behind her--for, as Shakespeare says, "Fashion wears out more apparel than the man"[832]--we must confine ourselves to those articles immediately under our notice, cut-work, bone lace, and purle. Cut-work--"opus scissum," as it is termed by the Keeper of the Great Wardrobe--was used by Queen Elizabeth to the greatest extent. She wore it on her ruffs, "with lilies of the like, set with small seed pearl"; on her doublets, "flourished with squares of silver owes"; on her forepart of lawn, "flourished with silver and spangles";[833] on her {304}cushion-cloths,[834] her veils, her tooth-cloths,[835] her smocks and her nightcaps.[836] All nourished, spangled, and edged in a manner so stupendous as to defy description. It was dizened out in one of these last-named articles[837] that young Gilbert Talbot, son of Lord Shrewsbury, caught a sight of the Queen while walking in the tilt-yard. Queen Elizabeth at the window in her nightcap! What a goodly sight! That evening she gave Talbot a good flap on the forehead, and told her chamberlain how the youth had seen her "unready and in her night stuff," and how ashamed she was thereof. Cut-work first appears in the New Year's Offerings of 1577-8, where, among the most distinguished of the givers, we find the name of Sir Philip Sidney, who on one occasion offers to his royal mistress a suit of ruffs of cut-work, on another a smock--strange presents according to our modern ideas. We read, however, that the offering of the youthful hero gave no offence, but was most graciously received. Singular enough, there is no entry of cut-work in the Great Wardrobe Accounts before that of 1584-5, where there is a charge for mending, washing and starching a bodice and cuffs of good white lawn, worked in divers places with broad spaces of Italian cut-work, 20 shillings,[838] and another for the same operation to a veil of white cut-work trimmed with needlework lace.[839] Cut-work was probably still a rarity; and really, on reading the quantity offered to Elizabeth on each recurring new year, there was scarcely any necessity for her to purchase it herself. By the year 1586-7 the Queen's stock had apparently diminished. Now, for the first time, she invests the sum of sixty shillings in six yards of good ruff lawn, well worked, with cut-work, and edged with good white lace.[840] {305}From this date the Great Wardrobe Accounts swarm with entries such as a "sut' de lez ruffes de lawne," with spaces of "opere sciss',"[841] "un' caule de lawne alb' sciss' cum le edge," of similar work;[842] a "toga cum traine de opere sciss';"[843] all minutely detailed in the most excruciating gibberish. Sometimes the cut-work is of Italian[844] fabric, sometimes of Flanders;[845] the ruffs edged with bone lace,[846] needle lace,[847] or purle.[848] The needle lace is described as "curiously worked," "operat' cum acu curiose fact'," at 32s. the yard.[849] The dearest is specified as Italian.[850] We give a specimen (Coloured Plate XV.) of English workmanship, said to be of this period, which is very elaborate.[851] The thread used for lace is termed "filo soror," or nun's thread, such as was fabricated in the convents of Flanders and Italy.[852] If, however, Lydgate, in his ballad of "London Lackpenny," is an authority, that of Paris was most prized:-- "Another he taked me by his hand, Here is Paris thredde, the finest in the land." Queen Elizabeth was not patriotic; she got and wore her {306}bone lace from whom she could, and from all countries. If she did not patronize English manufacture, on the other hand, she did not encourage foreign artizans; for when, in 1572, the Flemish refugees desired an asylum in England, they were forcibly expelled from her shores. In the census of 1571, giving the names of all the strangers in the City of London,[853] including the two makers of Billament lace already cited, we have but four foreigners of the lace craft: one described as "Mary Jurdaine, widow, of the French nation, and maker of purled lace"; the other, the before-mentioned "Callys de Hove, of Burgundy."[854] Various Acts[855] were issued during the reign of Elizabeth in order to suppress the inordinate use of apparel. That of May, 1562,[856] though corrected by Cecil himself, less summary than that framed against the "white-work" of the apprentice boys, was of little or no avail. In 1568 a complaint was made to the Queen against the frauds practised by the "16 appointed waiters," in reference to the importation of haberdashery, etc., by which it appears that her Majesty was a loser of "5 or 600 l. by yere at least" in the customs on "parsement, cap rebone bone lace, cheyne lace," etc.,[857] but with what effect we know not. The annual import of these articles is therein stated at £10,000, an enormous increase since the year 1559, when, among the "necessary and unnecessary wares" brought into the port of London,[858] together with "babies" (dolls), "glasses to looke in," "glasses to drinke in," pottes, gingerbread, cabbages, and other matters, we find enumerated, "Laces of all sortes, £775 6s. 8d.," just one-half less than the more necessary, though less refined item of "eles fresh and salt."[859] In 1573 Elizabeth again endeavoured to suppress "the silk glittering with silver and gold lace," but in vain. {307}The Queen was a great lover of foreign novelties. All will call to mind how she overhauled the French finery of poor Mary Stuart[860] on its way to her prison, purloining and selecting for her own use any new-fashioned article she craved. We even find Cecil, on the sly, penning a letter to Sir Henry Norris, her Majesty's envoy to the court of France, "that the Queen's Majesty would fain have a tailor that has skill to make her apparel both after the French and Italian manner, and she thinketh you might use some means to obtain such one as suiteth the Queen without mentioning any manner of request in the Queen's Majesty's name." His lady wife is to get one privately, without the knowledge coming to the Queen Mother's ears, "as she does not want to be beholden to her." It is not to be wondered at, then, that the New Year's Gifts and Great Wardrobe Accounts[861] teem with entries of "doublets of peche satten all over covered with cut-work and lyned with a lace of Venyse gold,[862] kyrtells of white satten embroidered with purles of gold-like clouds, and layed round about with a bone lace of Venys gold."[863] This gold lace appears upon her petticoats everywhere varied by bone lace of Venys silver.[864] That the Queen drew much fine thread point from the same locality her portraits testify, especially that preserved in the royal gallery of Gripsholm, in Sweden, once the property of her ill-fated admirer, Eric XIV. She wears a ruff, cuffs, tucker, and apron of geometric lace, of exquisite fineness, stained of a pale citron colour, similar to the liquid invented by Mrs. Turner, of Overbury memory, or, maybe, adopted from the saffron-tinted smocks of the Irish, the wearing of which she herself had prohibited. We find among her entries laces of Jean[865] and Spanish lace; she did not even disdain bone lace of copper, and copper and silver {308}at 18d. the ounce.[866] Some of her furnishers are English. One Wylliam Bowll supplies the Queen with "lace of crowne purle."[867] Of her sylkwoman, Alice Mountague, she has bone lace wrought with silver and spangles, sold by the owner at nine shillings.[868] The Queen's smocks are entered as wrought with black work and edged with bone lace of gold of various kinds. We have ourselves seen a smock said to have been transmitted as an heirloom in one family from generation to generation.[869] It is of linen cloth embroidered in red silk, with her favourite pattern of oak-leaves and butterflies (Fig. 122). Many entries of these articles, besides that of Sir Philip Sidney's, appear among the New Year's Gifts.[870] [Illustration: Fig. 122. QUEEN ELIZABETH'S SMOCK.] It was then the custom for the sponsors to give {309}"christening shirts," with little bands and cuffs edged with laces of gold and various kinds--a relic of the ancient custom of presenting white clothes to the neophytes when converted to Christianity. The "bearing cloth,"[871] as the mantle used to cover the child when carried to baptism was called,[872] was also richly trimmed with lace and cut-work, and the Tree of Knowledge, the Holy Dove (Fig. 123), or the Flowerpot of the Annunciation (Fig. 124), was worked in "hollie-work" on the crown of the infant's cap or "biggin." [Illustration: Fig. 123.] [Illustration: Fig. 124.] CHRISTENING CAPS, NEEDLE-MADE BRUSSELS.--Eighteenth century. Aprons, too, of lace appeared in this reign. The Queen, as we have mentioned, wears one in her portrait at Gripsholm.[873] "Those aprons white, of finest thread, So choicelie tied, so dearly bought; So finely fringed, so nicely spread; So quaintly cut, so richly wrought," writes the author of _Pleasant Quippes for Upstart Gentlewomen_, {310}in 1596. The fashion continued to the end of the eighteenth century. Laced handkerchiefs now came into fashion. "Maydes and gentlewomen," writes Stowe, "gave to their favourites, as tokens of their love, little handkerchiefs of about three or four inches square, wrought round about," with a button at each corner.[874] The best were edged with a small gold lace. Gentlemen wore them in their hats as favours of their mistresses. Some cost sixpence, some twelvepence, and the richest sixteenpence. Of the difference between purles and true lace it is difficult now to decide. The former word is of frequent occurrence among the New Year's Gifts, where we have "sleeves covered all over with purle,"[875] and, in one case, the sleeves are offered unmade, with "a piece of purle upon a paper to edge them."[876] It was yet an article of great value and worthy almost of entail, for, in 1573, Elizabeth Sedgwicke, of Wathrape, widow, bequeaths to her daughter Lassells, of Walbron, "an edge of perlle for a remembrance, desirying her to give it to one of her daughters."[877] We now turn, before quitting the sixteenth century, to that most portentous of all fabrications--Queen Elizabeth's ruff. In the time of the Plantagenets Flemish tastes prevailed. With the Tudors, Katherine of Aragon, on her marriage with Prince Arthur, introduced the Spanish fashions, and the inventories from Henry VIII. downwards are filled with Spanish work, Spanish stitch, and so forth. Queen Elizabeth leant to the French and Italian modes, and during the Stuarts they were universally adopted. The ruff was first introduced into England about the reign of Philip and Mary. These sovereigns are both represented on the Great Seal of England with small ruffs about {311}their necks, and with diminutive ones of the same form encircling the wrists.[878] This Spanish ruff was not ornamented with lace. On the succession of Queen Elizabeth the ruff had increased to a large size, as we see portrayed on her Great Seal. The art of starching, though known to the manufacturers of Flanders, did not reach England until 1564, when the Queen first set up a coach. Her coachman, named Gwyllam Boenen, was a Dutchman; his wife understood the art of starching, a secret she seems exclusively to have possessed, and of which the Queen availed herself until the arrival, some time after, of Madame Dinghen van der Plasse, who, with her husband, came from Flanders "for their better safeties,"[879] and set up as a clear-starcher in London. "The most curious wives," says Stowe, "now made themselves ruffs of cambric, and sent them to Madame Dinghen to be starched, who charged high prices. After a time they made themselves ruffs of lawn, and thereupon arose a general scoff, or by-word, that shortly they would make their ruffs of spiders' webs." Mrs. Dinghen at last took their daughters as her pupils. Her usual terms were from four to five pounds for teaching them to starch, and one pound for the art of seething starch.[880] The nobility patronised her, but the commonalty looked on her as the evil one, and called her famous liquid "devil's broth." To keep the ruff erect, bewired[881] and starched though it be, was a troublesome affair--its falling a cause of agony to the wearer. "Not so close, thy breath will draw my ruff," exclaims the fop. The tools used in starching and fluting {312}ruffs were called setting-sticks, struts and poking-sticks: the two first were made of wood or bone, the poking-stick of iron, and heated in the fire. By this heated tool the fold acquired that accurate and seemly order which constituted the beauty of this very preposterous attire. It was about the year 1576, according to Stowe, the making of poking-sticks began. They figure in the expenses of Elizabeth, who, in 1592, pays to her blacksmith, one Thomas Larkin, "pro 2 de lez setting-stickes at 2s. 6d." the sum of 5s.[882] We have frequent allusion to the article in the plays of the day:--[883] "Your ruff must stand in print, and for that purpose, get poking-sticks with fair long handles, lest they scorch your hands."[884] Again, in _Laugh and Lie Down_--[885] "There she sat with her poking-stick, stiffening a fall." When the use of starch and poking-sticks had rendered the arrangement of a ruff easy, the size began rapidly to increase. "Both men and women wore them intolerably large, being a quarter of a yard deep, and twelve lengths in a ruff."[886] In London this fashion was termed the French ruff; in France, on the other hand, it was called "the English monster."[887] Queen Elizabeth wore hers higher and stiffer than anyone in Europe, save the Queen of Navarre, for she had a "yellow throat," and was desirous to conceal it.[888] Woe betide any fair lady of the court who dared let her white skin appear uncovered in the presence of majesty. Her ruffs were made of the finest cut-work, enriched with gold, silver, and even precious stones. Though she consumed endless yards of cut-work, purle, needlework lace, bone lace of gold, of silver, enriched with pearls, and bugles, {313}and spangles in the fabrication of the "three-piled ruff,"[889] she by no means extended such liberty to her subjects, for she selected grave citizens and placed them at every gate of the city to cut the ruffs if they exceeded the prescribed depth. These "pillars of pride" form a numerous item among the New Year's Gifts. Each lady seems to have racked her brain to invent some novelty as yet unheard of to gratify the Queen's vanity. On the new year 1559-60, the Countess of Worcester offers a ruff of lawn cut-work set with twenty small knots like mullets, garnished with small sparks of rubies and pearls.[890] The cut-work ruff is decorated or enriched with ornament of every description. Nothing could be too gorgeous or too extravagant.[891] Great was the wrath of old Philip Stubbes[892] at these monstrosities, which, standing out a quarter of a yard or more, "if Æolus with his blasts or Neptune with his stormes chaunce to hit upon the crazie bark or their bruised ruffes, then they goe flip flap in the winde like ragges that flew abroade, lying upon their shoulders like the dishclout of a slut. But wot ye what? the devill, as he, in the fulnesse of his malice, first invented these great ruffes," etc., with a great deal more, which, as it comes rather under the head of costume than lace, we omit, as foreign to our subject. Lace has always been made of human hair, and of this we have frequent mention in the expenses of Queen Elizabeth. We believe the invention to be far older than her reign, for there is frequent allusion to it in the early romaunces. In the _Chevalier aux ij Epées_ (MS. Bib. Nat.), a lady requires of King Ris that he should present her with a mantle fringed with the beards of nine conquered kings, and hemmed with that of King Arthur, who was yet to conquer. The mantle is to have "de sa barbe le tassel." {314}The entries of Elizabeth, however, are of a less heroic nature; and though we are well aware it was the custom of old ladies to weave into lace their silver-grey locks, and much as the fashion of hair bracelets and chains prevails, in Queen Elizabeth's case, setting aside all sentiment, we cannot help fancying the "laquei fact' de crine brayded cum lez risinge puffs,"[893] as well as the "devices fact' de crine similiter les scallop shells,"[894] to have been nothing more than "stuffings"--false additions, to swell the majesty of the royal "pirrywygge." That point tresse, as this hair-lace is called, was known in her day, we have evidence in the Chartley inventory of Mary Stuart, in which is mentioned, "Un petit quarré fait à point tresse ouvré par la vieille Comtesse de Lennox elle estant à la Tour"; a tribute of affection the old countess would scarcely have offered to her daughter-in-law had she regarded her as implicated in the murder of her son. The writer saw at Chantilly an aged lace-maker employed in making a lace ground of hair on the pillow, used, she was informed, by wig-makers to give the parting of the hair; but the fabric must be identical with the point tresse sent by the mother of Darnley to the Queen of Scots. Point tresse, when made out of the hair of aged people, is occasionally to be met with on the Continent, where, from its rarity, it fetches a high price. Some districts gained a reputation for their work, according to Turner:--"And Bedford's matrons wove their snowy locks." It may be detected by the glittering of the hair when held up to catch the sunbeams, or by frizzing when exposed to the test of fire, instead of blazing. With this mention of point tresse we conclude the reign of Queen Elizabeth. {315}CHAPTER XXIV. JAMES I. TO THE RESTORATION. ---- JAMES I. "Now up aloft I mount unto the Ruffe, Which into foolish mortals pride doth puffe; Yet Ruffe's antiquity is here but small: Within these eighty years not one at all. For the 8th Henry, as I understand, Was the first king that ever wore a Band, And but a falling band plaine with a hem, All other people knew no use of them." Taylor, "Water-Poet." 1640. The ruff single, double, three piled, and Dædalian,[895] to the delight of the satirists, retained its sway during the early days of King James I. It was the "commode" of the eighteenth--the crinoline of the nineteenth century. Every play teems with allusions to this monstrosity. One compares it to "A pinched lanthorn Which schoolboys made in winter;"[896] while a second[897] talks of a "Starched ruff, like a new pigeon-house." The lover, in the play of the _Antiquary_,[898] complains to his mistress in pathetic terms-- "Do you not remember how you fooled me, and set me to pin pleats in your ruff two hours together?" {316}Stubbes stood not alone in his anathemas. The dignitaries of the Church of England waxed wroth, and violent were their pulpit invectives. "Fashion," emphatically preached John King,[899] Bishop of London, "has brought in deep ruffs[900] and shallow ruffs, thick ruffs and thin ruffs, double ruffs and no ruffs. When the Judge of quick and dead shall appear, he will not know those who have so defaced the fashion he hath created." The Bishop of Exeter, too, Joseph Hall, a good man, but no prophet, little wotting how lace-making would furnish bread and comfort to the women of his own diocese for centuries to come, in a sermon preached at the Spitel, after a long vituperation against its profaneness, concludes with these words: "But if none of our persuasions can prevail, hear this, ye garish popinjays of our time, if ye will not be ashamed to clothe yourselves after this shameless fashion, Heaven shall clothe you with shame and confusion. Hear this, ye plaister-faced Jezabels, if ye will not leave your daubs and your washes, Heaven will one day wash them off with fire and brimstone." Whether these denunciations had the effect of lessening the ruffs we know not; probably it only rendered them more exaggerated. Of these offending adjuncts to the toilet of both sexes we have fine illustrations in the paintings of the day, as well as in the monuments of our cathedrals and churches.[901] They were composed of the finest geometric lace, such as we see portrayed in the works of Vinciolo and others. The artists of the day took particular pleasure in depicting them with the most exquisite minuteness. These ruffs must have proved expensive for the wearer, though in James I.'s time, as Ben Jonson has it, men thought little of "turning four or five hundred acres of their best land into two or three trunks of apparel."[902] According to the Wardrobe Accounts,[903] "twenty-five yards of fyne bone lace" was required to edge a ruff, without counting the ground, composed either of lace squares or cut-work. Queen Anne, his consort, pays £5 for her wrought ruff, for "shewing" which eighteen yards of fine lace are purchased at 5s. 8d.[904] PLATE LXXIX. [Illustration: MARY SIDNEY, COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE, IN 1614. 1555?--1621.--Probably by Marc Gheeraedts. National Portrait Gallery. Photo by Walker and Cockerell.] _To face page 316._ {317}The ruffs of the City ladye were kept downe by the old sumptuary law of Elizabeth. "See, now, that you have not your 'city ruff' on, Mistress Sue," says Mistress Simple in the _City Match_.[905] The Overbury murder (1613), and hanging of Mrs. Turner at Tyburn in 1615, are usually said, on the authority of Howel,[906] to have put an end to the fashion of yellow ruffs, but the following extracts show they were worn for some years later. As late as 1620 the yellow starch, supposed to give a rich hue to the lace and cut-work of which ruffs were "built," gave scandal to the clergy. The Dean of Westminster ordered no lady or gentleman wearing yellow ruffs to be admitted into any pew in his church; but finding this "ill taken," and the King "moved in it," he ate his own words, and declared it to be all a mistake.[907] This fashion, again, gave great offence even in France. Since the English[908] {318}alliance, writes the _Courtisane à la Mode_, 1625,[909] "cette mode Anglaise sera cause qu'il pourra advenir une cherté sur le safran qui fera que les Bretons et les Poitevins seront contraints de manger leur beurre blanc et non pas jaune, comme ils sont accoutumés." The Bishops, who first denounced the ruff, themselves held to the fashion long after it had been set aside by all other professions. Folks were not patriotic in their tastes, as in more modern days; they loved to go "as far as Paris to fetch over a fashion and come back again."[910] The lace of Flanders, with the costly points and cut-works of Italy,[911] now became the rage, and continued so for nigh two centuries. Ben Jonson speaks of the "ruffs and cuffs of Flanders,"[912] while Lord Bacon, indignant at the female caprice of the day, writes to Sir George Villiers:--"Our English dames are much given to the wearing of costly laces, and if they may be brought from Italy, or France, or Flanders, they are in much esteem; whereas, if like laces were made by the English, so much thread would make a yard of lace, being put into that manufacture, would be five times, or perhaps ten or twenty times the value."[913] But Bacon had far better have looked at home, for he had himself, when Chancellor, granted an exclusive patent to Sir Giles Mompesson, the original of Sir Giles Overreach, for the monopoly of the sale and manufacture of gold and silver thread, the abuses of which caused in part his fall.[914] James had half ruined the commerce of England by the granting of monopolies, which, says Sir John Culpepper, are "as numerous as the frogs of Egypt. They have got possession of our dwellings, they sip in our cups, they dip in our {319}dish. They sit by our fire. We find them in the dye-vat, wash-bowl, and powdering-tub, etc.; they have marked and sealed us from head to foot."[915] The bone-lace trade suffered alike with other handicrafts.[916] In 1606 James had already given a license to the Earl of Suffolk[917] for the import of gold and silver lace. In 1621, alarmed by the general complaints throughout the kingdom,[918] a proposition was made "for the erection of an Office of Pomp, to promote home manufactures," and to repress pride by levying taxes on all articles of luxury.[919] What became of the Pomp Office we cannot pretend to say: the following year we are somewhat taken aback by a petition[920] from two Dutchmen, of Dort, showing "that the manufacture of gold and silver thread, purle, etc., in England" was "a great waste of bullion," the said Dutchmen being, we may infer, of opinion that it was more to their advantage to import such articles themselves. After a lapse of three years the petition is granted.[921] In the midst of all this granting and rescinding of monopolies, we hear in the month of April, 1623, how the decay of the bone-lace trade at Great Marlow caused great poverty.[922] Though the laces of Flanders and Italy were much patronised by the court and high nobility, Queen Anne of Denmark appears to have given some protection to the fabrics of the country. Poor Queen Anne! When, on the news of Elizabeth's death, James hurried off to England, a correspondence took place between the King and the English Privy Council regarding the Queen's outfit, James considering, {320}and wisely--for the Scotch court was always out of elbows--that his wife's wardrobe was totally unfit to be produced in London. To remedy the deficiency, the Council forwarded to the Queen, by the hands of her newly-named ladies, a quantity of Elizabeth's old gowns and ruffs, wherewith to make a creditable appearance on her arrival in England. Elizabeth had died at the age of seventy, wizened, decayed, and yellow--Anne, young and comely, had but just attained her twenty-sixth year. The rage of the high-spirited dame knew no bounds; she stormed with indignation--wear the clothes she must, for there were no others--so in revenge she refused to appoint any of the ladies, save Lady Bedford, though nominated by the King, to serve about her person in England. On her arrival she bought a considerable quantity of linen, and as with the exception of one article,[923] purchased from a "French mann," her "nidell purle worke," her "white worke," her "small nidell worke," her "pece of lawin to bee a ruffe," with "eighteen yards of fine lace to shewe (sew) the ruffe," the "Great Bone" lace, and "Little Bone" lace were purchased at Winchester and Basing, towns bordering on the lace-making counties, leading us to infer them to have been of English manufacture.[924] The bill of laced linen purchased at the "Queen's lying down" on the birth of the Princess Sophia, in 1606, amounts to the sum of £614 5s. 8d.[925] In this we have no mention of any foreign-made laces. The child lived but three days. Her little monument, of cradle-form, with lace-trimmed coverlets and sheets (Fig. 125), stands close to the recumbent effigy of her sister Mary[926] (Fig. 126), with ruff, collar, and cap of geometric lace, in the north aisle of Henry VII.'s Chapel.[927] PLATE LXXX. [Illustration: HENRY WRIOTHESLEY, THIRD EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON, 1573-1624.--Probably painted in Holland about 1620, by Michiel Van Miereveldt. National Portrait Gallery. Photo by Walker and Cockerell.] _To face page 320._ {321}[Illustration: Fig. 125. MONUMENT OF THE PRINCESS SOPHIA. + 1606. FOURTH DAUGHTER OF JAMES I. (Westminster Abbey.)] After a time--epoch of the Spanish marriage[928]--the ruff {322}gave way to the "falling band," so familiar to us in the portraits of Rubens and Vandyke. "There is such a deal of pinning these ruffs, when a fine clean fall is worth them all," says the Malcontent. "If you should chance to take a nap in the afternoon, your falling band requires no poking-stick to recover it."[929] Cut-work still continued in high favour; it was worn on every article of linen, from the richly-wrought collar to the nightcap. The Medicean ruff or gorget of the Countess of Pembroke ("Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother"), with its elaborate border of swans (Fig. 127), is a good illustration of the fashion of her time. [Illustration: Fig. 126. MONUMENT OF THE PRINCESS MARY. + 1607. THIRD DAUGHTER OF JAMES I. (Westminster Abbey.)] Among the early entries of Prince Charles, we have four nightcaps of cut-work, £7,[930] for making two of which for his {323}Highness, garnished with gold and silver lace, Patrick Burke receives £15;[931] but these modest entries are quite put to shame by those of his royal father, who, for ten yards of needlework lace "pro le edginge" of his "galiriculis vulgo nightcaps," pays £16 13s. 4d.[932] Well might the Water-Poet exclaim-- "A nightcap is a garment of high state."[933] [Illustration: Fig. 127. MARY, COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE. + 1621. (From her portrait in Walpole's _Royal and Noble Authors_.)] When Queen Anne died, in 1619, we have an elaborate {324}account of her funeral,[934] and of the sum paid to Dorothy Speckart for dressing a hearse effigy with a large veil, wired and edged with peak lace and lawn, curiously cut in flowers, etc. Laced linen, however, was already discarded in mourning attire, for we find in the charges for the king's mourning ruffs, an edging at 14d. the piece is alone recorded.[935] Towards the end of James I.'s reign a singular custom came into fashion, brought in by the Puritan ladies, that of representing religious subjects, both in lace, cut-work, and embroidery, a fashion hitherto confined to church vestments. We find constant allusions to it in the dramatists of the day. Thus, in the _City Match_,[936] we read-- "She works religious petticoats, for flowers She'll make church histories. Her needle doth So sanctify my cushionets, besides My smock sleeves have such holy embroideries, And are so learned, that I fear in time All my apparel will be quoted by Some pious instructor." Again, in the _Custom of the Country_--[937] "Sure you should not be Without a neat historical shirt." {325}We find in a Scotch inventory[938] of the seventeenth century: "Of Holland scheittes ii pair, quhairof i pair schewit (sewed) with hollie work."[939] The entries of this reign, beyond the "hollie work," picked[940] and seaming[941] lace, contain little of any novelty; all articles of the toilet were characterised by a most reckless extravagance. "There is not a gentleman now in the fashion," says Peacham,[942] "whose band of Italian cut-work now standeth him not in the least three or four pounds. Yes, a semster in Holborn told me that there are of threescore pounds." We read how two-thirds of a woman's dower was often expended in the purchase of cut-work and Flanders lace. In the warrant of the Great Wardrobe for the marriage expenses of the ill-fated Princess Elizabeth, on which occasion it is recorded of poor Arabella Stuart, the "Lady Arabella, though still in the Tower, has shewn her joy by buying four new gowns, one of which cost £1,500,"[943] in addition to "gold cheine laze, silver spangled, silver looped, myllen bone lace, drawneworke poynte, black silk Naples lace," etc., all in the most astonishing quantity, we have the astounding entry of 1,692 ounces of silver bone lace.[944] No wonder, in {326}after days, the Princess caused so much anxiety to the Palatine's Privy Purse, Colonel Schomberg, who in vain implores her to have her linen and lace bought beforehand, and paid at every fair.[945] "You brought," he writes, "£3,000 worth of linen from England, and have bought £1,000 worth here," and yet "you are ill provided."[946] CHARLES I. "Embroider'd stockings, cut-work smocks and shirts." --Ben Jonson. Ruffs may literally be said to have gone out with James I. His son Charles is represented on the coins of the two first years of his reign in a stiff starched ruff;[947] in the fourth and fifth we see the ruff unstarched, falling down on his shoulders,[948] and afterwards, the falling band (Fig. 128) was generally adopted, and worn by all classes save the judges, who stuck to the ruff as a mark of dignity and decorum, till superseded by the peruke.[949] PLATE LXXXI. [Illustration: ELIZABETH, PRINCESS PALATINE, GRANDDAUGHTER OF JAMES I., 1618-1680.--Probably about 1638. By Gerard Honthorst. National Portrait Gallery. Photo by Walker and Cockerell.] _To face page 326._ {327}[Illustration: Fig. 128. FALLING COLLAR OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.--(After Abraham Bosse.)] Even loyal Oxford, conscientious to a hair's-breadth--always behind the rest of the world--when Whitelock, in 1635, addresses the Quarter Sessions arrayed in the new fashion, owned "one may speak as good sense in a falling band as in a ruff." The change did not, however, diminish the extravagance of the age. The bills for the King's lace and linen, which in the year 1625 amounted to £1,000, in course of time rose to £1,500.[950] Falling bands of Flanders bone lace and cut-work appear constantly in the accounts.[951] As the foreign materials are carefully specified (it was one of these articles, then a novelty, that Queen Anne of Denmark "bought of the French Mann"), we may infer much of the bobbin or bone lace to have been of home produce. As Ben Jonson says, "Rich apparel has strong virtues." It is, he adds, "the birdlime of fools." There was, indeed, no article of toilet at this period which was not encircled with lace--towels, sheets, shirts, caps, cushions, boots (Fig. 129), cuffs (Fig. 130)--and, as too often occurs in the case of excessive luxury, when the bills came in money was wanting to {328}discharge them, Julian Elliott, the royal lace merchant, seldom receiving more than half her account, and in 1630--nothing.[952] There were, as Shakespeare says, "Bonds entered into For gay apparel against the triumph day."[953] The quantity of needlework purl consumed on the king's hunting collars, "colares pro venatione," scarcely appears credible. One entry alone makes 994 yards for 12 collars and 24 pairs of cuffs.[954] Again, 600 yards of fine bone lace is charged for trimming the ruffs of the King's night-clothes.[955] [Illustration: Fig. 129. From an Engraving of Abraham Bosse.] [Illustration: Fig. 130. From an Engraving of Abraham Bosse.] The art of lace-making was now carried to great perfection in England; so much so, that the lease of twenty-one years, granted in 1627 to Dame Barbara Villiers, of the duties on gold and silver thread, became a terrible loss to the holder, who, in 1629, petitions for a discharge of £437 10s. arrears due to the Crown. The prayer is favourably received by the officers of the Customs, to whom it was referred, who answer they "conceive those duties will decay, for the invention of making Venice gold and silver lace within the kingdom is come to that perfection, that it will be made here more cheap than it can be brought from beyond seas."[956] The fancy for foreign articles still prevailed. "Among the goods brought in by Tristram Stephens," writes Sir John Hippisley, from Dover Castle, "are the bravest French bandes that ever I did see for ladies--they be fit for the Queen."[957] [Illustration: Fig. 131. ENGLISH NEEDLE-MADE LACE. _To face page 328._] {329}Gold lace was exported in considerable quantities to India in the days of James I.;[958] and now, in 1631, we find the "riband roses," edged with lace, notified among the articles allowed to be exported. These lace rosette-trimmed shoes were in vogue in the time of James I., and when first brought to that monarch he refused to adopt the fashion, asking, "If they wanted to make a ruffe-footed dove of him." They were afterwards worn in all the extravagance of the French court. (See France to Louis XIV.). Mr. Brooks, in his speech in the House of Commons against costly apparel (18 James I.), says, "Nowadays, the roses worn by Members of the House on their shoes are more than their father's apparel." Peacham speaks of "shoe ties, that goe under the name of roses, from thirty shillings to three, four, and five pounds the pair. Yea, a gallant of the time, not long since, paid thirty pounds for a pair.[959] Well might Taylor say they "Wear a farm in shoe-strings edged with gold, And spangled garters worth a copyhold." It was not till the year 1635 that an effort was made for {330}the protection of our home fabrics, "at the request and for the benefit of the makers of those goods in and near London, and other parts of the realm, now brought to great want and necessity, occasioned by the excessive importation of these foreign wares." Foreign "Purles, Cutworks, or Bone-laces, or any commodities laced or edged therewith," are strictly prohibited. Orders are also given that all purles, cut-works, and bone laces English made are to be taken to a house near the sign of the "Red Hart" in Fore Street, without Cripplegate, and there sealed by Thomas Smith or his deputy.[960] An Act the same year prohibits the use of "gold or silver purles" except manufactured in foreign parts, and especially forbids the melting down any coin of the realm. The manufacture of bone lace in England had now much improved, and was held in high estimation in France. We hear of Henrietta Maria sending ribbons, lace, and other fashions from England, in 1636, as a present to her sister-in-law, Anne of Austria;[961] while, in a letter dated February 7th, 1636, the Countess of Leicester writes to her husband, then in France, who had requested her to procure him some fine bone lace of English make:--"The present for the Queen of France I will be careful to provide, but it cannot be handsome for that proportion of money which you do mention; for these bone laces, if they be good, are dear, and I will send the best, for the honor of my nation and my own credit." Referring to the same demand, the Countess again writes to her lord, May 18th, 1637, Leicester House:--"All my present for the Queen of France is provided, which I have done with great care and some trouble; the expenses I cannot yet directly tell you, but I think it will be about £120, for the bone laces are extremely dear. I intend to {331}send it by Monsieur Ruvigny, for most of the things are of new fashion, and if I should keep them they would be less acceptable, for what is new now will quickly grow common, such things being sent over almost every week." We can have no better evidence of the improvement in the English lace manufacture than these two letters. An Act of 1638 for reforming abuses in the manufacture of lace, by which competent persons are appointed, whether natives or strangers, "who shall be of the Church of England," can scarcely have been advantageous to the community. Lace, since the Reformation, had disappeared from the garments of the Church. In the search warrants made after Jesuits and priests of the Roman faith, it now occasionally peeps out. In an inventory of goods seized at the house of some Jesuit priests at Clerkenwell, in 1627, we find--"One faire Alb of cambric, with needle worke purles about the skirts, necke, and bandes." Smuggling, too, had appeared upon the scene. In 1621 information is laid, how Nicholas Peeter, master of the "Greyhound, of Apsom," had landed at Dover sundry packets of cut-workes and bone laces without paying the Customs.[962] But the "Rebatoes, ribbands, cuffs, ruffs, falls, Scarfes, feathers, fans, maskes, muffs, laces, cauls,"[963] of King Charles's court were soon to disperse at the now outbreaking Revolution. The Herrn Maior Frau (Lady Mayoress), the noble English lady depicted by Hollar,[964] must now lay aside her whisk, edged with broad lace of needle point, and no longer hie to St. Martin's for lace:[965] she must content herself with a plain attire. "Sempsters with ruffs and cuffs, and quoifs and caules And falls,"[966] must be dismissed. Smocks of three pounds a-piece,[967] {332}wrought smocks,[968] are no longer worn by all--much less those "seam'd thro' with cutwork,"[969] or "lace to her smocks, broad seaming laces,"[970] which, groans one of the Puritan writers, "is horrible to think of." The ruff and cuffs of Flanders, gold lace cut-work and silver lace of curle,[971] needle point, and fine gartering with blown roses,[972] are now suppressed under Puritan rule. The "fop" whom Henry Fitz-Geoffrey describes as having "An attractive lace And whalebone bodies for the better grace," must now think twice before he wears it.[973] The officer, whom the poor soldier apostrophises as shining-- "One blaze of plate about you, which puts out Our eyes when we march 'gainst the sunne, and armes you Compleatly with your own gold lace, which is Laid on so thick, that your own trimmings doe Render you engine proof, without more arms"--[974] must no longer boast of "This shirt five times victorious I have fought under, And cut through squadrons of your curious Cut-work, As I will do through mine."[975] In the Roundhead army he will scarce deign to comb his cropped locks. All is now dingy, of a sad colour, soberly in character with the tone of the times. PLATE LXXXII. [Illustration: JAMES HARRINGTON, Author of "Oceana," 1611-1677. Between 1630-1640. By Gerard Honthorst. National Portrait Gallery. Photo by Walker and Cockerell.] _To face page 332._ {333}THE COMMONWEALTH. The rule of the Puritans was a sad time for lace-makers, as regards the middle and lower classes: every village festival, all amusement was put down, bride laces and Mayings--all were vanity. With respect to the upper classes, the Puritan ladies, as well as the men of birth, had no fancy for exchanging the rich dress of the Stuart Court for that of the Roundheads. Sir Thomas Fairfax, father of the General, is described as wearing a buff coat, richly ornamented with silver lace, his trunk hose trimmed with costly Flanders lace, his breastplate partly concealed by a falling collar of the same material. The foreign Ambassadors of the Parliament disdained the Puritan fashions. Lady Fanshaw describes her husband as wearing at the Court of Madrid, on some State occasion, "his linen very fine, laced with very rich Flanders lace."[976] Indeed, it was not till the arrival of the Spanish envoy, the first accredited to the Protectorate of Cromwell, that Harrison begged Colonel Hutchinson and Lord Warwick to set an example to other nations at the audience, and not appear in gold and silver lace. Colonel Hutchinson, though he saw no harm in a rich dress, yet not to appear offensive, came next day in a plain black suit, as did the other gentlemen, when, to the astonishment of all, Harrison appeared in a scarlet coat so laden with "clinquaint" and lace as to hide the material of which it was made, showing, remarks Mrs. Hutchinson, "his godly speeches were only made that he might appear braver above the rest in the eyes of the strangers." Nor did the mother of Cromwell lay aside these adornments. She wore a handkerchief, of which the broad point-lace alone could be seen, and her green velvet cardinal was edged with broad gold lace.[977] Cromwell himself, when once in power, became more particular in his dress; and if he lived as a Puritan, his body after death was more gorgeously attired than that of any deceased sovereign, with purple velvet, ermine, and the richest Flanders lace.[978] His effigy, {334}carved by one Symonds, was clad in a fine shirt of Holland, richly laced; he wore bands and cuffs of the same materials, and his clothes were covered with gold lace.[979] The more we read the more we feel convinced that the dislike manifested by the Puritan leaders to lace and other luxuries was but a political necessity, in order to follow the spirit of the age. As an illustration of this opinion we may cite that in the account of the disbursements of the Committee of Safety, 1660, a political _jeu d'esprit_ which preceded the Restoration, we find entered for Lady Lambert-- "Item, for seven new whisks lac'd with Flanders lace of the last Edition, each whisk is valued at fifty pound, £350." Followed up by-- "Six new Flanders lac'd smocks, £300." The whisk, as the gorget was now termed, was as great an object of extravagance to the women as was the falling band to the men. It continued in fashion during the reign of Charles II., and is often mentioned as lost or stolen among the advertisements in the public journals of the day. In the _Mercurius Publicus_, May 8th, 1662, we find: "A cambric whisk with Flanders lace, about a quarter of a yard broad, and a lace turning up about an inch broad, with a stock in the neck, and a strap hanging down before, was lost between the new Palace and Whitehall. Reward, 30_s_." Again, in _The Newes_, June 20th, 1664: "Lost, a Tiffany whisk, with a great lace down, and a little one up, large Flowers, and open Work, with a Roul for the head and Peak." {335}CHAPTER XXV. CHARLES II. TO THE HOUSE OF HANOVER. ---- CHARLES II. "The dangling knee-fringe, and the bib-cravat." --Dryden. _Prologue._ 1674. The taste for luxury only required the restoration of the Stuarts to burst out in full vigour. The following year Charles II. issued a proclamation[980] enforcing the Act of his father prohibiting the entry of foreign bone lace; but, far from acting as he preached, he purchases Flanders lace at eighteen shillings the yard, for the trimming of his fine lawn "collobium sindonis,"[981] a sort of surplice worn during the ceremony of the anointment at the coronation. The hand-spinners of gold wire, thread lace, and spangles of the City of London, no longer puritanically inclined, now speak out boldly. "Having heard a report the Parliament intend to pass an Act against the wearing of their manufacture, they hope it intends the reform, not the destruction of their craft, for by it many thousands would be ruined. Let every person," say they, "be prohibited from wearing gold, silver, and thread lace--that will encourage the gentry to do so."[982] In 1662 is passed an Act prohibiting the importation of foreign bone lace, cut-works, etc., setting forth, "Whereas many poor children have attained great dexterity in the {336}making thereof, the persons so employed have served most parts of the kingdom with bone lace, and for the carrying out of the same trade have caused much thread to be brought into the country, whereby the customs have been greatly advanced, until of late large quantities of bone lace, cut-work, etc., were brought into the kingdom and sold contrary to the former Statutes and the proclamation of November last; all such bone lace is to be forfeited, and a penalty of £100 paid by the offender."[983] This same Act only occasioned the more smuggling of lace from Flanders, for the point made in England had never attained the beauty of Brussels, and indeed, wherever fine lace is mentioned at this period it is always of foreign fabric. That Charles himself was of this opinion there can be no doubt, for in the very same year he grants to one John Eaton a license to import such quantities of lace "made beyond the seas, as may be for the wear of the Queen, our dear Mother the Queen, our dear brother James, Duke of York," and the rest of the royal family. The permission is softened down by the words, "And to the end the same may be patterns for the manufacture of these commodities here, notwithstanding the late Statute forbidding their importation."[984] Charles had evidently received his lessons in the school of Mazarin. As the galleries of the cardinal were filled with sculptures, paintings, and majolica--rich produce of Italian art, as patterns for France, "per mostra di farne in Francia"--so the king's "pilea nocturna," pillow-beres, cravats, were trimmed with the points of Venice[985] and Flanders, at the rate of £600 per annum, for the sake of improving the lace manufacture of England. The introduction of the flowing wig, with its long curls covering the shoulders, gave a final blow to the falling band; {337}the ends floating and tied in front could alone be visible. In time they diminished in size, and the remains are still seen in the laced bands of the lawyer, when in full dress, and the homely bordered cambric slips used by the clergy. The laced cravat now introduced continued in fashion until about the year 1735.[986] It was at its height when Pepys writes in his diary: "Lord's Day, Oct. 19, 1662. Put on my new lace band, and so neat it is that I am resolved my great expense shall be lace bands, and it will set off anything else the more." The band was edged with the broadest lace. In the _Newes_, January 7th, 1663, we find: "Lost, a laced band, the lace a quarter of a yard deep, and the band marked in the stock with a B." Mrs. Pepys--more thrifty soul--"wears her green petticoat of Florence satin, with white and black gimp lace of her own putting on (making), which is very pretty." The custom, already common in France, of ladies making their own lace, excites the ire of the writer of _Britannia Languens_, in his "Discourse upon Trade."[987] "The manufacture of linen,"[988] he says, "was once the huswifery of English ladies, gentlewomen, and other women;" now "the huswifery women of England employ themselves in making an ill sort of lace, which serves no national or natural necessity." The days of Puritan simplicity were at an end. "Instead of homespun coifs were seen Good pinners edged with Colberteen."[989] The laced cravat succeeded the falling collar. Lace handkerchiefs[990] were the fashion, and "Gloves laced and trimmed as fine as Nell's."[991] {338}Laced aprons, which even found their way to the homes of the Anglican clergy, and appear advertised as "Stolen from the vicarage house at Amersham in Oxfordshire: An apron of needlework lace, the middle being Network, another Apron laced with cut and slash lace."[992] The newspapers crowd with losses of lace, and rarer--finds.[993] They give us, however, no clue to the home manufacture. "A pasteboard box full of laced linen, and a little portmanteau with some white and grey Bone lace,"[994] would seem to signify a lace much made two hundred years ago, of which we have ourselves seen specimens from Dalecarlia, a sort of guipure, upon which the pattern is formed by the introduction of an unbleached thread, which comes out in full relief--a fancy more curious than pretty. The petticoats of the ladies of King Charles's court have received due honour at the hands of Pepys, whose prying eyes seem to have been everywhere. On May 21 of the same year he so complacently admired himself in his new lace band, he writes down: "My wife and I to my Lord's lodging; where she and I staid walking in White Hall Gardens. And in the Privy Garden saw the finest smocks and linnen petticoats of my Lady Castlemaine's, laced with rich lace at the bottom, that ever I saw; and it did me good to look at them." Speaking of the ladies' attire of this age, Evelyn says:-- "Another quilted white and red, With a broad Flanders lace below; Four pairs of bas de soye shot through {339} With silver; diamond buckles too, For garters, and as rich for shoe. Twice twelve day smocks of Holland fine, With cambric sleeves rich Point to joyn (For she despises Colbertine); Twelve more for night, all Flanders lac'd, Or else she'll think herself disgrac'd. The same her night gown must adorn, With two Point waistcoats for the morn; Of pocket mouchoirs, nose to drain, A dozen laced, a dozen plain; Three night gowns of rich Indian stuff; Four cushion-cloths are scarce enough Of Point and Flanders,"[995] etc. It is difficult now to ascertain what description of lace was that styled Colbertine.[996] It is constantly alluded to by the writers of the period. Randle Holme (1688) styles it, "A kind of open lace with a square grounding."[997] Evelyn himself, in his _Fop's Dictionary_ (1690), gives, "Colbertine, a lace resembling net-work of the fabric of Monsieur Colbert, superintendent of the French King's manufactures;" and the _Ladies' Dictionary_, 1694, repeats his definition. This is more incomprehensible still, point d'Alençon being the lace that can be specially styled of "the fabric" of Colbert, and Colbertine appears to have been a coarse production.[998] Swift talks of knowing "The difference between Rich Flanders lace and Colberteen."[999] Congreve makes Lady Westport say--[1000] "Go hang out an old Frisonier gorget with a yard of yellow Colberteen." And a traveller, in 1691,[1001] speaking of Paris, writes:--"You shall see here the finer sort of people flaunting it in tawdry gauze or Colbertine, a parcel of coarse staring ribbons; but ten of their holyday habits shall not amount to what a citizen's wife of London wears on her head every day." {340}JAMES II. The reign of James II., short and troubled, brought but little change in the fashion of the day; more prominence, however, was given to the lace cravats, which were worn loosely round the throat, and with their ends hanging down over the upper part of the vest. Charles II., in the last year of his reign, spends £20 12s. for a new cravat to be worn "on the birthday of his dear brother,"[1002] and James expends £29 upon one of Venice point to appear in on that of his queen. Frequent entries of lace for the attendants of the Chapel Royal form items in the Royal Wardrobe Accounts. Ruffles, night-rails, and cravats of point d'Espagne and de Venise now figure in Gazettes,[1003] but "Flanders lace is still in high estimation," writes somebody, in 1668, "and even fans are made of it." Then James II. fled, and years after we find him dying at St. Germains in--a laced nightcap. "This cap was called a 'toquet,' and put on when the king was in extremis, as a compliment to Louis XIV." "It was the court etiquette for all the Royals," writes Madame, in her _Memoirs_, "to die with a nightcap on." The toquet of King James may still be seen by the curious, adorning a wax model of the king's head, preserved as a relic in the Museum of Dunkirk.[1004] Out of mingled gratitude, we suppose, for the hospitality she had received at the French court, and the protection of the angels, which, she writes, "I experienced once when I {341}set fire to my lace night cornet, which was burned to the very head without singeing a single hair"--good Queen Mary of Modena, who shone so brightly in her days of adversity, died, _selon les règles_, coeffed in like fashion. With this notice we finish the St. Germains reign of King James the Second. WILLIAM III. "Long wigs, Steinkirk cravats." --Congreve. _Love for Love._ In William III.'s reign, the full shirt-sleeves, with their lace ruffles, were shown at the wrists, and the loose neckcloths had long pendent ends terminating in lace, if they were not entirely made of that material. The hat, too, was edged with gold lace, and for summer wear the gloves were edged with lace. Women's sleeves, at first short, wide and lace-edged, showing the delicate sleeves of the under garment, soon became tight, and were prolonged to the wrists, where they terminated in deep and wide upturned cuffs, whence drooped a profusion of lace lappets and ruffles. The hair, combed up, and with an inclination backwards from the forehead, was surmounted by a strata of ribbon and lace, sometimes intermingled with feathers, and a kerchief or scarf of some very light material was permitted to hang down to the waist, or below it. In 1698 the English Parliament passed another Act "for rendering the laws more effectual for preventing the importation of foreign Bone lace, Loom lace, Needlework Point, and Cutwork,"[1005] with a penalty of 20s. per yard, and forfeiture. This Act caused such excitement among the convents and béguinages of Flanders that the Government, at that time under the dominion of Spain, prohibited, by way of retaliation, the importation of English wool. In consequence of the general distress occasioned by this edict {342}among the woolstaplers of England, the Act prohibiting the importation of foreign lace into England was repealed,[1006] so far as related to the Spanish Low Countries. England was the loser by this Custom-House war.[1007] Dress, after the Revolution, partook of the stately sobriety of the House of Nassau, but lace was extensively worn. Queen Mary favoured that wonderful erection, already spoken of in our chapter on France,[1008] the tower or fontange, more generally called, certainly not from its convenience, the "commode," with its piled tiers of lace and ribbon, and the long hanging pinners, celebrated by Prior in his "Tale of the Widow and her Cat":-- "He scratch'd the maid, he stole the cream, He tore her best lac'd pinner." Their Flanders lace heads, with the engageantes[1009] or ruffles, and the dress covered with lace frills and flounces--"every part of the garment in curl"--caused a lady, says the _Spectator_, to resemble "a Friesland hen."[1010] Never yet were such sums expended on lace as in the days of William and Mary. The lace bill of the Queen, signed by Lady Derby, Mistress of the Robes, for the year 1694, amounts to the enormous sum of £1,918.[1011] Among the most extravagant entries we find:-- £. s. d. 21 yards of lace for 12 pillow beres, at 52s. 54 12 0 16 yards of lace for 2 toylights (toilets), at £12 192 0 0 24 yards for 6 handkerchiefs, at £4 10s. 108 0 0 30 yards for 6 night shifts, at 62s. 93 0 0 6 yards for 2 combing cloths, at £14 84 0 0 3½ yards for a combing cloth at £17 53 2 6 {343} 3-1/8 do. at £14 42 0 0 An apron of lace 17 0 0 None of the lace furnished by Mr. Bampton, thread lace provider and milliner to the court, for the Queen's engageantes and ruffles, however, seems to have exceeded £5 10_s_. the yard. There is little new in this account. The lace is entered as scalloped,[1012] ruffled, loopt: lace purle[1013] still lingers on; catgut, too, appears for the first time,[1014] as well as raised point[1015] and needlework.[1016] The Queen's pinners are mentioned as Mazzarined;[1017] some fashion named in honour of the once fair Hortense, who ended her exiled life in England. "What do you lack, ladies fair, Mazzarine hoods, Fontanges, girdles?"[1018] King William himself, early imbued with the Dutch taste for lace, exceeded, we may say, his wife in the extravagance of his lace bills; for though the lace account for 1690 is noted only at £1,603, it increases annually until the year 1695-6, when the entries amount to the astonishing sum of £2,459 19s.[1019] Among the items charged will be found:-- £. s. d. To six point cravats 158 0 0 To eight do. for hunting 85 0 0 54 yds. for 6 barbing cloths 270 0 0 63 yds. for 6 combing cloths 283 10 0 117 yards of "scissæ teniæ" (cut-work) for trimming 12 pockethandfs 485 14 3 78 yds. for 24 cravats, at £8 10s. 663 0 0 {344}In this right royal account of expenditure we find mention of "cockscombe laciniæ," of which the King consumes 344 yards.[1020] What this may be we cannot say, as it is described as "green and white"; otherwise we might have supposed it some kind of Venice point, the little pearl-edged raised patterns of which are designated by Randle Holme as "cockscombs." More coquet than a woman, we find an exchange effected with Henry Furness, "Mercatori," of various laces, purchased for his handkerchiefs and razor cloths, which, laid by during the two years of "lugubris" for his beloved consort, the Queen--during which period he had used razor cloths with broad hems and no lace--had become "obsolete"--quite out of fashion. To effect this exchange the King pays the sum of £178 12s. 6d., the lace purchased for the six new razor cloths amounting to £270. In the same page we find him, now out of mourning, expending £499 10s. for lace to trim his twenty-four new nightshirts, "indusiis nocturnis." With such royal patronage, no wonder the lace trade prospered, and that, within ten years of William's death, Defoe should quote the point lace of Blandford as selling at £30 the yard. PLATE LXXXIII. [Illustration: JAMES, THE OLD PRETENDER, 1688-1766, WITH HIS SISTER PRINCESS LOUISA, 1692-1712. In 1695. By Nicolas de Largillière. National Portrait Gallery. Photo by Walker and Cockerell.] _To face page 344._ {345}We have already told how the fashion of the laced Steinkirk found as much favour in England[1021] as in France. Many people still possess, among their family relics, long oval-shaped brooches of topaz or Bristol stones, and wonder what they were used for. These old-fashioned articles of jewellery were worn to fasten (when not passed through the button-hole) the lace Steinkirk, so prevalent not only among the nobility, but worn by all classes. If the dialogue between Sir Nicholas Dainty and Major-General Blunt, as given in Shadwell's play, be correct, the volunteers of King William's day were not behind the military in elegance:-- "SIR NICHOLAS.--I must make great haste, I shall ne'er get my Points and Laces done up time enough. "MAJ. GEN. B.--What say'st, young fellow? Points and Laces for camps? "SIR NICH.--Yes, Points and Laces; why, I carry two laundresses on purpose.... Would you have a gentleman go undress'd in a camp? Do you think I would see a camp if there was no dressing? Why, I have two campaign suits, one trimmed with Flanders lace, and the other with rich Point. "MAJ. GEN. B.--Campaign suits with lace and Point!"[1022] In Westminster Abbey, where, as somewhat disrespectfully, say the Brothers Popplewell,[1023] the images of William and Mary "Stand upright in a press, with their bodies made of wax, A globe and a wand in either hand and their robes upon their backs"-- the lace tucker and double sleeves of Queen Mary are of the finest raised Venice point, resembling Fig. 29; King William likewise wears a rich lace cravat and ruffles.[1024] In a memorandum (carta d'informazione) given to the Venetian ambassadors about to proceed to England, 1696, they are to be provided with very handsome collars of the finest Venetian point, which, it is added, is also the best present to make.[1025] Before concluding the subject of the lace-bearing heroes, we may as well state here that the English soldiers rivalled the cavaliers of France in the richness of their points till the extinction of hair-powder (the wearing of which in the army consumes, says some indignant writer, flour enough to feed 600,000 persons per annum), when the lace cravat was replaced by the stiff and cumbersome stock. Speaking of {346}these military dandies, writes the _World_: "Nor can I behold the lace and the waste of finery in their clothing but in the same light as the silver plates and ornaments on a coffin; indeed, I am apt to impute their going to battle so trimmed and adorned to the same reason a once fine lady painted her cheeks just before she expired, that she might not look frightful when she was dead." "To war the troops advance, Adorned and trim like females for the dance. Down sinks Lothario, sent by one dire blow, A well-dress'd hero to the shades below." As the justice's daughter says to her mamma, in Sheridan's _St. Patrick's Day_:-- "Dear; to think how the sweet fellows sleep on the ground, and fight in silk stockings and lace ruffles." Lace had now become an article worthy the attention of the light-fingered gentry. The jewels worn by our great-grandmothers of the eighteenth century, though mounted in the most exquisite taste, were for the most part false--Bristol or Alençon "diamonds," paste, or "Strass." Lace, on the other hand, was a sure commodity and easily disposed of. At the robbery of Lady Anderson's house in Red Lion Square during a fire, in 1700, the family of George Heneage, Esq., on a visit, are recorded to have lost--"A head with fine loopt lace, of very great value; a Flanders lace hood; a pair of double ruffles and tuckers; two laced aprons, one point, the other Flanders lace; and a large black lace scarf embroidered in gold." Again, at an opera row some years later, the number of caps, ruffles, and heads enumerated as stolen by the pickpockets is quite fabulous. So expert had they become, that when first the ladies took to wearing powdered wigs, they dexterously cut open the leather backs of the hack coaches and carried off wig, head and all, before the rifled occupant had the slightest idea of their attack.[1026] To remedy the evil, the police request all ladies for the future to sit with their backs to the horses.[1027] {347}QUEEN ANNE. "PARLEY.--Oh, Sir, there's the prettiest fashion lately come over! so airy, so French, and all that! The Pinners are double ruffled with twelve plaits of a side, and open all from the face; the hair is frizzled up all round head, and stands as stiff as a bodkin. Then the Favourites hang loose upon the temple with a languishing lock in the middle. Then the Caule is extremely wide, and over all is a Cornet rais'd very high and all the Lappets behind."--Farquhar. _Sir Harry Wildair._ Queen Anne, though less extravagant than her sister, was scarcely more patriotic. The point purchased for her coronation,[1028] though it cost but £64 13s. 9d., was of Flanders growth. The bill is made out to the royal laceman of King William's day, now Sir Henry Furnesse, knight and merchant. The Queen, too, in her gratitude, conferred a pension of £100 upon one Mrs. Abrahat, the royal clear-starcher; "because," writes the Duchess of Marlborough, "she had washed the Queen's heads for twenty pounds a year when she was princess." In 1706 Anne again repeals the Acts which prohibit Flanders lace, with the clear understanding that nothing be construed into allowing the importation of lace made in "the dominions of the French King";[1029] an edict in itself sufficient to bring the points of France into the highest fashion.[1030] "France," writes an essayist, "is the wardrobe of the world;" nay, "the English have so great an esteem for the workmanship of the French refugees, that hardly a thing vends without a Gallic name."[1031] To the refugees from Alençon and elsewhere, expelled by the cruel edict of Louis XIV., we owe the visible improvement of our laces in the eighteenth century. Up to the present time we have had mention only of {348}"Flanders lace" in general. In the reign of Queen Anne the points of "Macklin" and Brussels are first noted down in the Royal Wardrobe Accounts. In 1710 her Majesty pays for 26 yards of fine edged Brussels lace £151.[1032] "Mais, l'appétit vient en mangeant." The bill of Margareta Jolly, for the year 1712, for the furnishing of Mechlin and Brussels lace alone, amounts to the somewhat extravagant sum of £1,418 14_s_. Taking the average price of the "Lace chanter on Ludgate Hill," articles of daily use were costly enough. "One Brussels head is valued at £40; a grounded Brussels head, £30; one looped Brussels, £30." These objects, high as the price may seem, lasted a woman's life. People in the last century did not care for variety, they contented themselves with a few good articles; hence among the objects given in 1719, as necessary to a lady of fashion, we merely find:-- £ s. d. A French point or Flanders head and ruffles 80 0 0 A ditto handkerchief 10 0 0 A black French laced hood 5 5 0 When the Princess Mary, daughter of George II., married, she had but four fine laced Brussels heads, two loopt and two grounded, two extremely fine point ones, with ruffles and lappets, six French caps and ruffles.[1033] Two point lace cravats were considered as a full supply for any gentleman. Even young extravagant Lord Bedford, who, at eighteen years of age, found he could not spend less than £6,000 a year at Rome, when on the grand tour, only charges his mother, Rachel Lady Russell, with that number.[1034] The high commode,[1035] with its lace rising tier upon tier, which made the wits about town declare the ladies "carried Bow steeple upon their heads," of a sudden collapsed in Queen Anne's reign. It had shot up to a most extravagant height, "insomuch that the female part of our species were {349}much taller than the men. We appeared," says the _Spectator_,[1036] "as grasshoppers before them."[1037] In 1711 Anne forbade the entry of gold and silver lace,[1038] of which the consumption had become most preposterous,[1039] under pain of forfeiture and the fine of £100. Ladies wore even cherry-coloured stays trimmed with the forbidden fabric.[1040] The point of Spain had the preference over thread lace for state garments, heads and ruffles excepted; and as late as 1763, when the Dowager Lady Effingham was robbed of her coronation robes, among the wonderful finery detailed there is no mention of thread lace. The commerce of Flanders, notwithstanding the French taste, seemed now on a comfortable footing. "The Flander-kins," writes the _British Merchant_ in 1713, "are gone off from wool, which we have got, to lace and linen.... We have learned better, I hope, by our unsuccessful attempt to prohibit the Flanders laces, which made the Flemings retaliate upon us, and lessened our exportation of woollen manufactures by several £100,000 per annum."[1041] Men looked upon lace as a necessary article to their wives' equipment. Addison declares that when the China mania first came in, women exchanged their Flanders point for punch-bowls and mandarins, thus picking their husbands' pockets, who is often purchasing a huge china vase when he fancies that he is buying a fine head for his wife.[1042] Indeed, they could scarcely grumble, as a good wig cost from forty to fifty guineas--to say nothing of their own lace ties and {350}ruffles. Only an old antiquary like Sir Thomas Clayton could note down in his accounts:--"Lace and fal-lalls,[1043] and a large looking-glass to see her old ugly face in--frivolous expenses to please my proud lady." {351}CHAPTER XXVI. GEORGE I. AND II. ---- GEORGE I. "Wisdom with periwigs, with cassocks grace, Courage with swords, gentility with lace."--_Connoisseur._ The accession of the House of Hanover brought but little change either in the fashions or the fabrics. In 1717 the King published an edict regarding the hawking of lace, but the world was too much taken up with the Old Pretender and the court of St. Germains; the King, too, was often absent, preferring greatly his German dominions. We now hear a great deal of lace ruffles; they were worn long and falling. Lord Bolingbroke, who enraged Queen Anne by his untidy dress--"she supposed, forsooth, he would some day come to court in his nightcap"--is described as having his cravat of point lace, and his hands hidden by exaggerated ruffles of the same material. In good old Jacobite times, these weeping ruffles served as well to conceal notes--"poulets"--passed from one wary politician to another, as they did the French sharpers to juggle and cheat at cards. Lace continued the mania of the day. "Since your fantastical geers came in with wires, ribbons, and laces, and your furbelows with three hundred yards in a gown and petticoat, there has not been a good housewife in the nation,"[1044] writes an indignant dramatist. The lover was made to bribe the Abigail of his mistress with a piece of Flanders lace[1045]--an offering not to be resisted. Lace appeared {352}at baptisms,[1046] at marriages, as well as at burials, of which more hereafter--even at the Old Bailey, where one Miss Margaret Caroline Rudd, a beauty of the day, tried for forgery, quite moved her jurors to tears, and nigh gained her acquittal by the taste of her elegantly-laced stomacher, the lace robings of her dress, and single lace flounce, her long pendulous ruffles, hanging from the elbow, heard, fluttering in her agitation, by the court; but, in spite of these allurements, Margaret Caroline Rudd was hanged. Every woman, writes Swift,[1047] is "In choosing lace a critic nice, Knows to a groat the lowest price." Together, they "Of caps and ruffles hold the grave debate, As of their lives they would decide the fate." Again, he says:-- "And when you are among yourselves, how naturally, after the first compliments, do you entertain yourselves with the price and choice of lace, apply your hands to each other's lappets and ruffles, as if the whole business of your life and the public concern depended on the cut of your petticoats."[1048] Even wise Mrs. Elizabeth Montague, who wrote epistles about the ancients, and instead of going to a ball, sat at home and read Sophocles, exclaims to her sister--"Surely your heroic spirit will prefer a beau's hand in Brussels lace to a stubborn Scævola without an arm." PLATE LXXXIV. [Illustration: JOHN LAW, THE PARIS BANKER, Author of the Mississippi Scheme, 1671-1729.--In cravat of Point de France, between 1708-20. Painted by Belle. National Portrait Gallery. Photo by Walker and Cockerell.] _To face page 352._ {353}In the middle of the nineteenth century it was the fashion that no young lady should wear lace previous to her marriage. In the reign of George II. etiquette was different, for we find the Duchess of Portland presenting Mrs. Montague, then a girl, with a lace head and ruffles. Wrathfully do the satirists of the day rail against the expense of "The powder, patches, and the pins, The ribbon, jewels, and the rings, The lace, the paint, and warlike things That make up all their magazines,"[1049] and the consequent distress of the lace merchants, to whom ladies are indebted for thousands. After a drawing-room, in which the fair population appeared in "borrowed," _i.e._, unpaid lace,[1050] one of the chief lacemen became well-nigh bankrupt. Duns besieged the houses of the great:-- "By mercers, lacemen, mantua-makers press'd; But most for ready cash, for play distress'd, Where can she turn?"[1051] The _Connoisseur_, describing the reckless extravagance of one of these ladies, writes:--"The lady played till all her ready money was gone, staked her cap and lost it, afterwards her handkerchief. He then staked both cap and handkerchief against her tucker, which, to his pique, she gained." When enumerating the various causes of suicide, he proposes "that an annual bill or report should be made out, giving the different causes which have led to the act." Among others, in his proposed "Bill of Suicide," he gives French claret, French lace, French cooks, etc. The men, though scarcely coming up to the standard of Sir Courtly Nice,[1052] who has all his bands and linen made in Holland and washed at Haarlem, were just as extravagant as the ladies. {354}GEORGE II. "'How well this ribband's glass becomes your face,' She cries in rapture; 'then so sweet a lace! How charmingly you look!'" --Lady M. W. Montagu. _Town Eclogues._ For court and state occasions Brussels lace still held its sway. In the reign of George II. we read how, at the drawing-room of 1735, fine escalloped Brussels laced heads, triple ditto laced ruffles,[1053] lappets hooked up with diamond solitaires, found favour. At the next the ladies wore heads dressed English, _i.e._, bow of fine Brussels lace of exceeding rich patterns, with the same amount of laced ruffles and lappets. Gold flounces were also worn. Speaking of the passion for Brussels lace, Postlethwait indignantly observes:--"'Tis but a few years since England expended upon foreign lace and linen not less than two millions yearly. As lace in particular is the manufacture of nuns, our British ladies may as well endow monasteries as wear Flanders lace, for these Popish nuns are maintained by Protestant contributions."[1054] Patriotism, it would appear, did come into vogue in the year 1736, when at the marriage of Frederick, Prince of Wales, the bride is described as wearing a night-dress of superb lace, the bridegroom a cap of similar material. All the laces worn by the court on this occasion are announced to have been of English manufacture, with the exception of that of the Duke of Marlborough, who appeared in point d'Espagne. The bride, however, does not profit by this high example, for shortly after we read, in the _Memoirs of Madame Palatine_, of the secretary of Sir Luke Schaub being drugged at Paris by an impostor, and robbed of some money sent to defray the purchase of some French lace ruffles for the Princess of Wales. {355}It was of native-made laces, we may infer, Mrs. Delany writes in the same year:--"Thanks for your apron. Brussels nor Mechlin ever produced anything prettier." It appears somewhat strange that patriotism, as regards native manufactures, should have received an impulse during the reign of that most uninteresting though gallant little monarch, the second George of Brunswick.[1055] But patriotism has its evils, for, writes an essayist, "some ladies now squander away all their money in fine laces, because it sets a great many poor people to work."[1056] Ten years previous to the death of King George II. was founded, with a view to correct the prevalent taste for foreign manufactures,[1057] the Society of Anti-Gallicans, who held their quarterly meetings, and distributed prizes for bone, point lace, and other articles of English manufacture.[1058] This society, which continued in great activity for many years, proved most beneficial to the lace-making trade. It excited also a spirit of emulation among gentlewomen of the middle class, who were glad in the course of the year to add to a small income by making the finer kinds of needle-point, which, on account of their elaborate workmanship, could be produced only in foreign convents or by {356}persons whose maintenance did not entirely depend upon the work of their hands. Towards the year 1756 certain changes in the fashion of the day now again mark the period, for-- "Dress still varying, most to form confined, Shifts like the sands, the sport of every wind." "Long lappets, the horse-shoe cap, the Brussels head, and the prudish mob pinned under the chin, have all had their day," says the _Connoisseur_ in 1754. Now we have first mention of lace cardinals; trollopies or slammerkins[1059] come in at the same period, with treble ruffles to the cuffs; writers talk, too, of a "gentle dame in blonde lace," blonde being as yet a newly-introduced manufacture. Though history may only be all false,[1060] as Sir Robert Walpole said to that "cynic in lace ruffles," his son Horace, yet the newspapers are to be depended upon for the fashion of the day, or, as Lady Mary would say, "for what new whim adorns the ruffle."[1061] The lace apron,[1062] worn since the days of Queen Elizabeth, continued to hold its own till the end of the eighteenth century, though some considered it an appendage scarcely consistent with the dignity of polite society. The anecdote of Beau Nash, who held these articles in the strongest aversion, has been often related. "He absolutely excluded," says his biographer, "all who ventured to appear at the Assembly Room at Bath so attired. I have known him at a ball night strip the Duchess of Queensberry, and throw her apron on one of the hinder benches among the ladies' women, observing that none but Abigails appeared in white aprons; though that apron was of the costliest point, and cost two hundred guineas."[1063] {357}George II. did his best to promote the fabrics of his country, but at this period smuggling increased with fearful rapidity. It was a war to the knife between the revenue officer and society at large: all classes combined, town ladies of high degree with waiting-maids and the common sailor, to avoid the obnoxious duties and cheat the Government. To this subject we devote the following chapter. {358}CHAPTER XXVII. SMUGGLING. "May that mistaken taste be starv'd to reason, That does not think French fashions--English treason. Souse their cook's talent, and cut short their tailors; Wear your own lace; eat beef like Vernon's sailors." --Aaron Hill. 1754. We have had occasional mention of this kindly-looked-upon offence, in the carrying out of which many a reckless seaman paid the penalty of his life in the latter part of the eighteenth century. From 1700 downwards, though the edicts prohibiting the entry of Flanders lace were repealed, the points of France, Spain and Venice, with other fabrics of note, were still excluded from our ports. "England," writes Anderson,[1064] "brings home in a smuggling way from France much fine lace and other prohibited fopperies." Prohibition went for nothing; foreign lace ladies would have, and if they could not smuggle it themselves, the smuggler brought it to them. It was not till 1751 that the Customs appear to have used undue severity as regards the entries, prying into people's houses, and exercising a surveillance of so strict a nature as to render the chance to evade their watchfulness a very madness on the part of all degrees. In short, there was not a female within ten miles of a seaport, writes an essayist, that was in possession of a Mechlin lace cap or pinner but they examined her title to it. Lord Chesterfield, whose opinion that "dress is a very silly thing, but it is much more silly not to be dressed according to your station," was more than acted up to, referring to the strictness of the Customs, writes to his son {359}in 1751, when coming over on a short visit: "Bring only two or three of your laced shirts, and the rest plain ones." The revenue officers made frequent visits to the tailors' shops, and confiscated whatever articles they found of foreign manufacture. On January 19th, 1752, a considerable quantity of foreign lace, gold and silver, seized at a tailor's, who paid the penalty of £100, was publicly burnt.[1065] George III., who really from his coming to the throne endeavoured to protect English manufactures, ordered, in 1764, all the stuffs and laces worn at the marriage of his sister, the Princess Augusta, to the Duke of Brunswick, to be of English manufacture. To this decree the nobility paid little attention. Three days previous to the marriage a descent was made by the Customs on the court milliner of the day, and nearly the whole of the clothes, silver, gold stuffs and lace, carried off, to the dismay of the modiste, as well as of the ladies deprived of their finery. The disgusted French milliner retired with a fortune of £11,000 to Versailles, where she purchased a villa, which, in base ingratitude to the English court, she called "La Folie des Dames Anglaises." In May of the same year three wedding garments, together with a large seizure of French lace, weighing nearly 100 lbs., were burnt at Mr. Coxe's refinery, conformably to the Act of Parliament. The following birthday, warned by the foregoing mischances, the nobility appeared in clothes and laces entirely of British manufacture. Every paper tells how lace and ruffles of great value, sold on the previous day, had been seized in a hackney coach, between St. Paul's and Covent Garden; how a lady of rank was stopped in her chair and relieved of French lace to a large amount; or how a poor woman, carelessly picking a quartern loaf as she walked along, was arrested, and the loaf found to contain £200 worth of lace. Even ladies when walking had their black lace mittens cut off their hands, the officers supposing them to be of French manufacture; and lastly, a Turk's turban, of most Mameluke dimensions, was found, containing a stuffing of £90 worth of lace. Books, {360}bottles, babies, false-bottomed boxes, umbrellas, daily poured out their treasures to the lynx-eyed officers. In May, 1765, the lace-makers joined the procession of the silk-workers of Spitalfields to Westminster, bearing flags and banners, to which were attached long floating pieces of French lace, demanding of the Lords redress, and the total exclusion of foreign goods. On receiving an answer that it was too late, they must wait till next Session, the assemblage declared that they would not be put off by promises; they broke the Duke of Bedford's palings on their way home, and threatened to burn the premises of Mr. Carr, an obnoxious draper. At the next levée they once more assembled before St. James's, but, finding the dresses of the nobility to be all of right English stuff, retired satisfied, without further clamour. The papers of the year 1764 teem with accounts of seizures made by the Customs. Among the confiscated effects of a person of the highest quality are enumerated: "16 black à-la-mode cloaks, trimmed with lace; 44 French lace caps; 11 black laced handkerchiefs; 6 lace hats; 6 ditto aprons; 10 pairs of ruffles; 6 pairs of ladies' blonde ditto, and 25 gentlemen's." Eleven yards of edging and 6 pairs of ruffles are extracted from the pocket of the footman. Everybody smuggled. A gentleman attached to the Spanish Embassy is unloaded of 36 dozen shirts, with fine Dresden ruffles and jabots, and endless lace, in pieces, for ladies' wear. These articles had escaped the vigilance of the officers at Dover, but were seized on his arrival by the coach at Southwark. Though Prime Ministers in those days accepted bribes, the Custom-house officers seem to have done their duty.[1066] When the body of his Grace the Duke of Devonshire was brought over from France, where he died, the officers, to the anger of his servants, not content with opening and searching the coffin, poked the corpse with a stick to ascertain if it was a real body; but the trick of smuggling in coffins was too {361}old to be attempted. Forty years before, when a deceased clergyman was conveyed from the Low Countries for interment, the body of the corpse was found to have disappeared, and to have been replaced by Flanders lace of immense value--the head and hands and feet alone remaining. This discovery did not, however, prevent the High Sheriff of Westminster from running--and that successfully--£6,000 worth of French lace in the coffin of Bishop Atterbury,[1067] when his body was brought over from Calais for interment. Towards the close of the French war, in the nineteenth century, smuggling of lace again became more rife than ever. It was in vain the authorities stopped the travelling carriages on their road from seaport towns to London, rifled the baggage of the unfortunate passengers by the mail at Rochester and Canterbury; they were generally outwitted, though spies in the pay of the Customs were ever on the watch. Mrs. Palliser had in her possession a Brussels veil of great beauty, which narrowly escaped seizure. It belonged to a lady who was in the habit of accompanying her husband, for many years member for one of the Cinque Ports. The day after the election she was about to leave for London, somewhat nervous as to the fate of a Brussels veil she had purchased of a smuggler for a hundred guineas; when, at a dinner-party, it was announced that Lady Ellenborough, wife of the Lord Chief Justice, had been stopped near Dover, and a large quantity of valuable lace seized concealed in the lining of her carriage. Dismayed at the news, the lady imparted her trouble to a gentleman at her side, who immediately offered to take charge of the lace and convey it to London, remarking that "no one would suspect him, as he was a bachelor." Turning round suddenly, she observed one of the hired waiters to smile, and at once settling him to be a spy, she loudly accepted the offer; but that night, before going to bed, secretly caused the veil to be sewn up in the waistcoat of the newly-elected M.P., in such a manner that it filled the hollow of his back. Next morning they started, and reached London in safety, while her friend, who remained two days later, was stopped, and underwent {362}a rigorous but unsuccessful examination from the Customhouse officers. The free trade principles of the nineteenth century put a more effectual stop to smuggling than all the activity of revenue officers, spies, and informers, or even laws framed for the punishment of the offenders. {363}CHAPTER XXVIII. GEORGE III. "In clothes, cheap handsomeness doth bear the bell, Wisdome's a trimmer thing than shop e'er gave. Say not then, This with that lace will do well; But, This with my discretion will be brave. Much curiousnesse is a perpetual wooing, Nothing with labour, fully long a doing." --Herbert, "The Church Porch." In 1760 commences the reign of George III. The King was patriotic, and did his best to encourage the fabrics of his country. From the year 1761 various Acts were passed for the benefit of the lace-makers: the last, that of 1806, "increases the duties on foreign laces."[1068] Queen Charlotte, on her first landing in England, wore, in compliment to the subjects of her royal consort, a fly cap richly trimmed, with lappets of British lace, and a dress of similar manufacture. The Englishman, however, regardless of the Anti-Gallicans, preferred his "Macklin" and his Brussels to all the finest productions of Devonshire or Newport-Pagnel. Ruffles,[1069] according to the fashion of Tavistock Street and St. James's, in May, 1773, still continued long, dipped in the sauce alike by clown and cavalier.[1070] "The beau, A critic styled in point of dress, Harangues on fashion, point, and lace." {364}A man was known by his "points"; he collected lace, as, in these more athletic days, a gentleman prides himself on his pointers or his horses. We read in the journals of the time how, on the day after Lord George Gordon's riots, a report ran through London that the Earl of Effingham, having joined the rioters, had been mortally wounded, and his body thrown into the Thames. He had been recognised, folks declared, by his point lace ruffles.[1071] Mr. Damer, less known than his wife, the talented sculptor and friend of Horace Walpole, appeared three times a day in a new suit, and at his death[1072] left a wardrobe which sold for £15,000.[1073] Well might it have been said of him-- "We sacrifice to dress, till household joys And comforts cease. Dress drains our cellars dry, And keeps our larder bare; puts out our fires, And introduces hunger, frost, and woe, Where peace and hospitality might reign."[1074] There was "no difference between the nobleman and city 'prentice, except that the latter was sometimes the greater beau," writes the _Female Spectator_.[1075] "His hands must be covered with fine Brussels lace."[1076] Painters of the eighteenth century loved to adorn their portraits with the finest fabrics of Venice and Flanders; modern artists consider such decorations as far too much trouble. "Over the chimney-piece," writes one of the essayists, describing a citizen's country box, "was my friend's portrait, which was drawn bolt upright in a full-bottomed periwig, a laced cravat, with the fringed ends appearing through the button-hole (Steinkirk fashion). Indeed, one would almost wonder how and where people managed to afford so rich a selection of laces in their days, did it not call to mind the demand of the Vicaress of Wakefield 'to have as many pearls and diamonds put into her picture as could be given for the money.'" {365}Ruffles were equally worn by the ladies:--[1077] "Frizzle your elbows with ruffles sixteen; Furl off your lawn apron with flounces in rows."[1078] Indeed, if we may judge by the intellectual conversation overheard and accurately noted down by Miss Burney,[1079] at Miss Monckton's (Lady Cork) party, court ruffles were inconvenient to wear:-- "'You can't think how I am encumbered with these nasty ruffles,' said Mrs. Hampden. "'And I dined in them,' says the other. 'Only think!' "'Oh!' answered Mrs. Hampden, 'it really puts me out of spirits.'" Both ladies were dressed for a party at Cumberland House, and ill at ease in the costume prescribed by etiquette. About 1770 the sleeves of the ladies' dresses were tight on the upper arm, where they suddenly became very large, and, drooping at the elbow, they terminated in rich fringes of lace ruffles. A few years later the sleeves expanded from the shoulders till they became a succession of constantly enlarging ruffles and lappets, and again, before 1780, they became tight throughout, with small cuffs and no lace at the elbows, when they were worn with long gloves. Our history of English lace is now drawing to a close; but, before quitting the subject, we must, however, make some allusion to the custom prevalent here, as in all countries, of using lace as a decoration to grave-clothes. In the chapter devoted to Greece, we have mentioned how much lace is still taken from the tombs of the Ionian Islands, washed, mended, or, more often, as a proof of its authenticity, sold in a most disgusting state to the purchaser. The custom was prevalent at Malta, as the lines of Beaumont and Fletcher testify:-- "In her best habit, as the custom is, You know, in Malta, with all ceremonies, She's buried in the family monument, I' the temple of St. John."[1080] {366}At Palermo you may see the mummies thus adorned in the celebrated catacombs of the Capuchin convent.[1081] In Denmark,[1082] Sweden, and the north of Europe[1083] the custom was general. The mass of lace in the tomb of the once fair Aurora Königsmarck, at Quedlenburg, would in itself be a fortune. She sleeps clad in the richest point d'Angleterre, Malines, and guipure. Setting aside the jewels which still glitter around her parchment form, no daughter of Pharaoh was ever so richly swathed.[1084] In Spain it is related as the privilege of a grandee: all people of a lower rank are interred in the habit of some religious order.[1085] Taking the grave-clothes of St. Cuthbert as an example, we believe the same custom to have prevailed in England from the earliest times.[1086] {367}Mrs. Oldfield, the celebrated actress, who died in 1730, caused herself to be thus interred. The lines of Pope have long since immortalised the story:-- "Odious! in woollen! 'twould a saint provoke! (Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke.) No, let a charming chintz and Brussels lace Wrap my cold limbs, and shade my lifeless face; One would not, sure, be frightful when one's dead-- And--Betty--give this cheek a little red." "She was laid in her coffin," says her maid, "in a very fine Brussels lace head, a Holland shift with a tucker of double ruffles, and a pair of new kid gloves." Previous to her interment in Westminster Abbey she lay in state in the Jerusalem Chamber.[1087] For Mrs. Oldfield in her lifetime was a great judge of lace, and treasured a statuette of the Earl of Stratford, finely carved in ivory by Grinling Gibbons, more, it is supposed, for the beauty of its lace Vandyke collar[1088] than any other sentiment. In 1763 another instance is recorded in the _London Magazine_ of a young lady buried in her wedding clothes, point lace tucker, handkerchief, ruffles and apron; also a fine point lappet head. From this period we happily hear no more of such extravagances. Passing from interments and shrouds to more lively matters, we must quote the opinion of that Colossus of the eighteenth century, Dr. Johnson, who was too apt to talk on matters of taste and art, of which he was no competent judge. "A Brussels trimming," he declaims to Mrs. Piozzi, "is like bread sauce; it takes away the glow of colour from the gown, and gives you nothing instead of it: but sauce was invented to heighten the flavour of our food, and trimming is an ornament to the manteau or it is nothing."[1089] A man whose culinary ideas did not soar higher than bread sauce could scarcely pronounce on the relative effect and beauty of point lace. If England had leant towards the products of France, in {368}1788, an Anglomania ran riot at Paris. Ladies wore a cap of mixed lace, English and French, which they styled the "Union of France and England." On the appearance of the French Revolution, the classic style of dress--its India muslins and transparent gauzes--caused the ancient points to fall into neglect. From this time dates the decline of the lace fabric throughout Europe. Point still appeared at court and on state occasions, such as on the marriage of the Princess Caroline of Wales, 1795, but as an article of daily use it gradually disappeared from the wardrobes of all classes. A scrupulous feeling also arose in ladies' minds as to the propriety of wearing articles of so costly a nature, forgetting how many thousands of women gained a livelihood by its manufacture. Mrs. Hannah More, among the first, in her _Coelebs in Search of a Wife_, alludes to the frivolity of the taste, when the little child exclaiming "at the beautiful lace with which the frock of another was trimmed, and which she was sure her mamma had given her for being good," remarks, "A profitable and, doubtless, lasting and inseparable association was thus formed in the child's mind between lace and goodness." Whether in consequence of the French Revolution, or from the caprice of fashion, "real" lace--worse off than the passements and points of 1634, when in revolt--now underwent the most degrading vicissitudes. Indeed, so thoroughly was the taste for lace at this epoch gone by, that in many families collections of great value were, at the death of their respective owners, handed over as rubbish to the waiting maid.[1090] Many ladies recollect in their youth to have tricked out their dolls in the finest Alençon point, which would now sell at a price far beyond their purses. Among the few who, in England, unseduced by frippery blonde, never neglected to preserve their collections entire, was the Duchess of {369}Gloucester, whose lace was esteemed among the most magnificent in Europe. When the taste of the age again turned towards the rich fabrics of the preceding centuries, much lace, both black and white, was found in the country farm-houses, preserved as remembrances of deceased patrons by old family dependants. Sometimes the hoard had been forgotten, and was again routed out from old wardrobes and chests, where it had lain unheeded for years. Much was recovered from theatrical wardrobes and the masquerade shops, and the Church, no longer in its temporal glory, both in Italy, Spain and Germany, gladly parted with what, to them, was of small value compared with the high price given for it by amateurs. In Italy perhaps the finest fabrics of Milan, Genoa, and Venice had fared best, from the custom which prevailed of sewing up family lace in rolls of linen to ensure its preservation. After years of neglect lace became a "mania." In England the literary ladies were the first to take it up. Sydney Lady Morgan and Lady Stepney quarrelled weekly on the respective value and richness of their points. The former at one time commenced a history of the lace fabric, though what was the ultimate fate of the MS. the author is unable to state. The Countess of Blessington, at her death, left several chests filled with the finest antique lace of all descriptions. The "dames du grand monde," both in England and France, now began to wear lace. But, strange as it may seem, never at any period did they appear to so little advantage as during the counter-revolution of the lace period. Lace was the fashion, and wear it somehow they would, though that somehow often gave them an appearance, as the French say, _du dernier ridicule_, simply from an ignorance displayed in the manner of arranging it. That lace was old seemed sufficient to satisfy all parties. They covered their dresses with odds and ends of all fabrics, without attention either to date or texture. One English lady appeared at a ball given by the French Embassy at Rome, boasting that she wore on the tablier of her dress every description of lace, from point coupé of the fifteenth to Alençon of the eighteenth century. The Count of Syracuse was accustomed to say: "The English ladies buy a scrap {370}of lace as a souvenir of every town they pass through, till they reach Naples, then sew it on their dresses, and make one grande toilette of the whole to honour our first ball at the Academia Nobile." The taste for lace has again become universal, and the quality now produced renders it within the reach of all classes of society; and though by some the taste may be condemned, it gives employment to thousands and ten thousands of women, who find it more profitable and better adapted to their strength than the field labour which forms the occupation of the women in agricultural districts. To these last, in a general point of view, the lace-maker of our southern counties, who works at home in her own cottage, is superior, both in education, refinement, and morality:-- "Here the needle plies its busy task; The pattern grows, the well-depicted flower, Wrought patiently into the snowy lawn, Unfolds its bosom; buds, and leaves, and sprigs, And curling tendrils, gracefully dispos'd, Follow the nimble fingers of the fair-- A wreath that cannot fade, of flowers that blow With most success when all besides decay."[1091] {371}CHAPTER XXIX. THE LACE MANUFACTURERS OF ENGLAND. "Yon cottager, who weaves at her own door, Pillow and bobbins all her little store; Content though mean, and cheerful if not gay, Shuffling her threads about the livelong day: Just earns a scanty pittance, and at night Lies down secure, her heart and pocket light."--Cowper. The bone lace manufactures of England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries appear to have extended over a much wider area than they occupy in the present day. From Cambridge to the adjacent counties of Northampton and Hertfordshire, by Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, and Oxfordshire, the trade spread over the southern counties[1092] of Wiltshire, Somersetshire,[1093] Hampshire, and Dorset, to the more secluded valleys of Devon--the county which still sustains the ancient reputation of "English point"--terminating at Launceston, on the Cornish coast. Various offsets from these fabrics were established in Wales.[1094] Ripon,[1095] an isolated manufactory, represented the {372}lace industry of York; while the dependent islands of Man,[1096] Wight[1097] and Jersey,[1098] may be supposed to have derived their learning from the smugglers who frequented their coast, rather than from the teaching of the Protestant refugees[1099] who sought an asylum on the shores of Britain. Many of these fabrics now belong to the past, consigned to oblivion even in the very counties where they once flourished. In describing, therefore, the lace manufactures of the United Kingdom, we shall confine ourselves to those which still remain, alluding only slightly to such as were {373}once of note, and of which the existence is confirmed by the testimony of contemporary writers. The "women of the mystery of thread-working" would appear to have made lace in London,[1100] and of their complaints and grievances our public records bear goodly evidence. Of the products of their needle we know little or nothing. Various Flemings and Burgundians established themselves in the City; and though the emigrants, for the most part, betook themselves to the adjoining counties, the craft, till the end of the eighteenth century, may be said to have held fair commerce in the capital. [Illustration: Fig. 132. RIPON.] The London fabric can scarcely be looked upon as a staple trade in itself, mixed up as it was with lace-cleaning and lace-washing--an occupation first established by the ejected nuns.[1101] Much point, too, was made by poor gentlewomen, as the records of the Anti-Gallican Society testify. "A strange infatuation," says a writer of the eighteenth century, "prevailed in the capital for many years among the class called demi-fashionables of sending their daughters to convents in France for education, if that could be so termed which amounted to a learning to work in lace. The Revolution, however, put {374}an end to this practice." It is owing to this French education that the fine needle points were so extensively made in England; though this occupation, however, did not seem to belong to any one county in particular; for the reader who runs his eye over the proceedings of the Anti-Gallican Society will find prizes to have been awarded to gentlewomen from all parts--from the town of Leominster in Herefordshire to Broughton in Leicestershire, or Stourton in Gloucester.[1102] Needle point, in contradistinction to bone lace, was an occupation confined to no special locality. In 1764 the attention of the nobility seems to have been first directed towards the employment of the indigent poor, and, indeed, the better classes in the metropolis, in the making of bone lace and point;[1103] and in 1775, sanctioned by the patronage of Queen Charlotte, the Princesses, the Princess Amelia, and various members of the aristocracy, an institution was formed in Marylebone Lane, and also in James Street, Westminster, "for employing the female infants of the poor in the blond and black silk lace-making and thread laces." More than 300 girls attended the school. "They gave," says the _Annual Register_, "such a proof of their capacity that many who had not been there more than six months carried home to their parents from 5s. to 7s. a month, with expectation of getting more as they improve." From this time we hear no more of the making of lace, either point or bone, in the metropolis. PLATE LXXXV. [Illustration: ENGLISH, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE. BOBBIN LACE.--First half of nineteenth century. Widths: 3, 3, 3, 4 in. The property of Mrs. Ellis, The Vicarage, Much Wenlock.] _To face page 374._ {375}CHAPTER XXX. BEDFORDSHIRE, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE, AND NORTHAMPTONSHIRE.[1104] ---- BEDFORDSHIRE. "He wears a stuff whose thread is coarse and round But trimmed with curious lace."--Herbert. It would be a difficult matter now to determine when and by whom lace-making was first introduced into the counties of Bedfordshire and Buckingham. Authors, for the most part, have been glad to assign its introduction to the Flemings,[1105] a nation to whose successive emigrations England owes much of her manufacturing greatness. Originally the laces were of old, wavy, graceful Flemish designs. On the other hand, certain traditions handed down in the county villages of a good Queen who protected their craft, the annual festival of the workers--in the palmy days of the trade a matter of great moment--combined with the residence of that unhappy Queen, for the space of two years[1106] at her jointure manor of Ampthill,[1107] lead us rather to infer {376}that the art of lace-making, as it then existed, was first imparted to the peasantry of Bedfordshire, as a means of subsistence, through the charity of Queen Katherine of Aragon. In the chapter devoted to needlework we have already alluded to the proficiency of this Queen in all arts connected with the needle, to the "trials of needlework" established by her mother, Queen Isabella, at which she, as a girl, had assisted. It is related, also, that during her[1108] sojourn at Ampthill, "she passed her time, when not at her devotions, with her gentlewomen, working with her own hands something wrought in needlework, costly and artificially, which she intended for the honour of God to bestow on some of the churches."[1109] "The country people," continues her contemporary, "began to love her exceedingly. They visited her out of pure respect, and she received the tokens of regard they daily showed her most sweetly and graciously." The love borne by the peasantry to the Queen, the sympathy shown to her in her days of trouble and disgrace, most likely met with its reward; and we believe Katherine to have taught them an art which, aided no doubt by the later introduction of the pillow and the improvements of the refugees, has now, for the space of nigh three centuries, been the staple employment of the female population of Bedfordshire and the adjoining counties. Until the latter half of the nineteenth century--though, like all such festivals in the present age, gradually dying out--the lace-makers still held "Cattern's day,"[1110] November 25th, as the holiday of their craft, kept, they say, "in memory of good Queen Katherine, who, when the trade was dull, burnt all her lace and ordered new to be made. The ladies of the court {377}followed her example, and the fabric once more revived." "Ainsi s'écrit l'histoire"; and this garbled version may rest on as much foundation as most of the folk-lore current throughout the provinces. Speaking of Bedfordshire, Defoe writes: "Thro' the whole south part of this country, as far as the borders of Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire, the people are taken up with the manufacture of bone lace, in which they are wonderfully exercised and improved within these few years past"[1111]--probably since the arrival of the French settlers after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. At the same period the author of the _Magna Britannia_[1112] states that at Woburn "lace of a high price is made in considerable quantities." Savary and Peuchet both declare the town of Bedford alone to have contained 500 lace-workers. In 1863, as Mrs. Palliser wrote: "The lace schools of Bedfordshire are far more considerable than those in Devonshire. Four or five may frequently be found in the same village, numbering from twenty to thirty children each, and they are considered sufficiently important to be visited by Government inspectors. Their work is mostly purchased by large dealers, who make their arrangements with the instructress: the children are not bound for a term, as in the southern counties. Boys formerly attended the lace schools, but now they go at an early age to the fields." These lace-schools are now things of the past. In some cases, however, in the lace counties, the County Council Technical Education Committee have supplemented private efforts with grants for classes to teach the lace industry. The wages of a lace-worker average a shilling a day; under press of business, caused by the demand for some fashionable article, they sometimes rise to one shilling and sixpence. {378}BUCKINGHAMSHIRE. Though the first establishment of the fabric may have been in the sister county, the workers of Buckingham appear early to have gained the lion's share of public estimation for the produce of their pillows, and the manufacture flourished, till, suffering from the monopolies of James I., we read how--In the year 1623, April 8th, a petition was addressed from Great Marlow to the High Sheriff of Bucks, representing the distress of the people from "the bone-lace making being much decayed."[1113] Three years later, 1626, Sir Henry Borlase founds and endows the free school of Great Marlow for twenty-four boys to read, write, and cast accounts; and for twenty-four girls "to knit, spin, and make bone lace"; and here at Great Marlow the trade flourished, all English, and even French authors[1114] citing its "manufactures de dentelles au fuseau" as the staple produce of the town, and its surrounding villages, which sold lace, however, they pronounce as "inférieure à celle de Flandres." During the seventeenth century the trade continued to advance, and Fuller testifies to its once more prosperous condition in Bucks, towards the year 1640. "No handicrafts of note," he writes, "(save what are common to other countries) are used therein, except any will instance in bone lace, much thereof being made about Owldney, in this county, though more, I believe, in Devonshire, where we shall meet more properly therewith."[1115] Olney, as it is now written, a small market town, for many years the residence of Cowper, known by its twenty-four-arched bridge, now no more, "of wearisome but needful length" spanning the Ouse--Olney, together with the fellow towns of Newport-Pagnel and Aylesbury, are much quoted by the authorities of the last century, though, as is too often the case in books of travels and statistics, one writer copies from another the information derived from a preceding author. Defoe, however, who visited each county in detail, quotes "Ouldney as possessing a considerable manufacture of bone lace"; {379}while a letter from the poet Cowper to the Rev. John Newton, in 1780, enclosing a petition to Lord Dartmouth in favour of the lace-makers, declares that "hundreds in this little town are upon the point of starving, and that the most unremitting industry is barely sufficient to keep them from it." A distress caused, we may infer, by some caprice of fashion. "The lace manufacture is still carried on," says Lysons,[1116] "to a great extent in and about Olney, where veils and other lace of the finer sorts are made, and great fortunes are said to be acquired by the factors. Lace-making is in no part of the country so general as at Hanslape and in its immediate vicinity; but it prevails from fifteen to twenty miles round in every direction. At Hanslape not fewer than 800 out of a population of 1275 were employed in it in the year 1801. Children are put to the lace-schools at, or soon after, five years of age. At eleven or twelve years of age they are all able to maintain themselves without any assistance; both girls and boys are taught to make it, and some men when grown up follow no other employment; others, when out of work, find it a good resource, and can earn as much as the generality of day labourers. The lace made in Hanslape is from sixpence to two guineas a yard in value. It is calculated that from £8000 to £9000 net profit is annually brought into the parish by the lace manufacture." The bone lace of Stoney Stratford[1117] and Aylesbury are both quoted by Defoe, and the produce of the latter city is mentioned with praise. He writes: "Many of the poor here are employed in making lace for edgings, not much inferior to those from Flanders; but it is some pleasure to us to observe that the English are not the only nation in the world which admires foreign manufactures above its own, since the French, who gave fashions to most nations, buy and sell the finest laces at Paris under the name of 'dentelles d'Angleterre' or 'English laces.'"[1118] In the southern part of Buckinghamshire the hundreds of Burnham and Desborough were especially noted for the {380}art, the lace-workers producing handsome lace of the finest quality, and about the year 1680 lace-making was one of the principal employments in High Wycombe.[1119] But Newport-Pagnel, whether from its more central position, or being of greater commercial importance, is the town which receives most praise from all contemporary authors. "This town," says the _Magna Britannia_ in 1720, "is a sort of staple for bone lace, of which more is thought to be made here than any town in England; that commodity is brought to as great perfection almost as in Flanders." "Newport-Pagnel," writes Defoe, "carries on a great trade in bone lace, and the same manufacture employs all the neighbouring villages"; while Don Manuel Gonzales,[1120] in 1730, speaks of its lace as little inferior to that of Flanders, which assertion he may have probably copied from previous writers. {381}[Illustration: Fig. 133. BUCKINGHAMSHIRE TROLLY.] At one of the earliest meetings of the Anti-Gallican Society, 1752, Admiral Vernon in the chair, the first prize to the maker of the best piece of English bone lace was awarded to Mr. William Marriott, of Newport-Pagnel, Bucks. The principal lace-dealers in London were invited to give their opinion, and they allowed it to be the best ever made in England. Emboldened by this success, we read how, in 1761, Earl Temple, Lord Lieutenant of Bucks, having been requested by Richard Lowndes, Esq., one of the Knights of the Shire, on behalf of the lace-makers, to present to the King a pair of fine lace ruffles, made by Messrs. Milward and Company, at Newport-Pagnel, in the same county, his Majesty, after looking at them and asking many questions respecting this branch of trade, was most graciously pleased to express himself that the inclination of his own heart naturally led him to set a high value on every endeavour to further English manufactures, and whatever had such recommendation would be preferred by him to works of possibly higher perfection made in any other country.[1121] From this period Newport-Pagnel is cited as {382}one of the most noted towns in the kingdom for making bone lace.[1122] As in other places, much complaint was made of the unhealthy state of the lace-working population, and of the injury sustained by long sitting in the vitiated air of the cottages.[1123] [Illustration: Fig. 134. BUCKINGHAMSHIRE "POINT."] In Pennant's _Journey from Chester to London_ (in 1782), he notices in Towcester that, "this town is supported by the great concourse of passengers, and by a manufacture of lace, and a small one of silk stockings. The first was {383}imported from Flanders, and carried on with much success in this place, and still more in the neighbouring county" (Buckinghamshire). [Illustration: Fig. 135. BUCKINGHAMSHIRE "POINT."] At the end of the eighteenth century, the Revolution again drove many of the poorer French to seek refuge on our shores, as they had done a century before; and we find stated in the _Annual Register_ of 1794: "A number of ingenious French emigrants have found employment in Bucks, Bedfordshire, and the adjacent counties, in the manufacturing of lace, and it is expected, through the means of these artificers, considerable improvements will be introduced into the method of making English lace." Figs. 134 and 135 represent the "point" ground, which won the laces of the midland counties their reputation. (See NORTHAMPTONSHIRE for additional matter.) {384}NORTHAMPTONSHIRE. The laces of Northampton do not appear to have attracted the notice of the writers of the eighteenth century so much as those of the sister counties. Anderson mentions that Kettering has "a considerable trade in lace"; and Lysons, later, observes that lace is made at Cheney. Certainly, the productions of this county a century back were of exquisite beauty, as we can bear testimony from the specimens in a pattern-book inherited by Mr. Cardwell, the well-known lace merchant of Northampton, from his predecessor in the trade, which we have had an opportunity of examining. We have also received examples from various localities in Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire, and as there is much similarity in the products of the three counties, we shall, perhaps, better describe them by treating of them all collectively. The earliest English lace was naturally the old Flemish, the pattern wavy and graceful, the ground well executed. Fig. 136, which we select as an example, is a specimen we received, with many others, of old Newport-Pagnel lace, given by Mrs. Bell, of that town, where her family has been established from time immemorial. Mrs. Bell could carry these laces back to the year 1780, when they were bequeathed to her father by an aged relative who had long been in the lace trade. The packets remain for the most part entire. The custom of "storing" lace was common among the country-people. Next in antiquity is Fig. 137, a lace of Flemish design, with the fine Brussels ground. This is among the Northamptonshire laces already alluded to. Many of the early patterns appear to have been run or worked in with the needle on the net ground (Fig. 138). PLATE LXXXVI. [Illustration: ENGLISH, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE. BOBBIN LACE.--End of nineteenth century. Widths: 1¾, 5¼ and 2 in. Photo by A. Dryden from a private collection.] _To face page 384._ {385}In 1778, according to M'Culloch,[1124] was introduced the "point" ground, as it is locally termed, from which period dates the staple pillow lace trade of these counties. This ground is beautifully clear, the patterns well executed: we doubt if Fig. 139 could be surpassed in beauty by lace of any foreign manufacture. Much of this point ground was made by men. [Illustration: Fig. 136. OLD FLEMISH.--(Newport-Pagnel.)] [Illustration: Fig. 137. OLD BRUSSELS.--(Northampton.)] The principal branch of the lace trade was the making of "baby lace," as those narrow laces were called, most specially employed for the adorning of infants' caps (Figs. 140, 141, 142). The "point" ground was used, the patterns taken from those of Lille and Mechlin--hence the laces of Buckingham and Bedfordshire have often been styled "English Lille." Though the fashion in the mother-country passed away, the American ladies held to the trimmed infant's cap until the breaking out of the Civil War; and up to that date large quantities of "baby lace" were exported to America, the finer sorts varying from five shillings to seven shillings and sixpence a yard, still retaining their ancient name of "points." {386}[Illustration: Fig. 138. "RUN" LACE.--(Newport-Pagnel.)] Many other descriptions of grounds were made--wire (Fig. 143), double, and trolly, in every kind of quality and width. In the making of the finer sorts of edging as many as 200 threads would be employed. [Illustration: Fig. 139. ENGLISH "POINT."--(Northampton.)] On the breaking out of the war with France, the closing of our ports to French goods gave an impetus to the trade, and the manufacturers undertook to supply the English {387}market with lace similar to that of Normandy and the sea-coast villages of France; hence a sort of "fausse" Valenciennes, called the "French ground." But true Valenciennes was also fabricated so fine (Fig. 144) as to rival the products of French Hainault. It was made in considerable quantities, until the expertness of the smuggler and the cessation of the war caused it to be laid aside. [Illustration: Fig. 140. "BABY" LACE.--(Northampton.)] [Illustration: Fig. 141. "BABY" LACE.--(Beds.)] [Illustration: Fig. 142. "BABY" LACE.--(Bucks.)] One-third of the lace-workers of Northampton were {388}employed, previous to the introduction of machine-made net, in making quillings on the pillow. During the Regency, a "point" lace, with the "cloth" or "toilé" on the edge, for many years was in fashion, and, in compliment to the Prince, was named by the loyal manufacturers "Regency Point." It was a durable and handsome lace (Fig. 145). [Illustration: Fig. 143. WIRE GROUND.--(Northampton.)] Towards the year 1830, insertions found their way to the public taste (Fig. 146). Till the middle of the nineteenth century, in lace-making districts, almost the only schools were the lace schools--and there were several in most villages--where lace-making was the principal thing taught and a little reading added. I am indebted to Mrs. Roberts, formerly of Spratton, near Northampton, for the following description, which she kindly allows me to reprint. [Illustration: Fig. 144. VALENCIENNES.--(Northampton.)] {389}[Illustration: Fig. 145. REGENCY POINT.--(Bedford.)] [Illustration: Fig. 146. INSERTION.--(Bedford.)] "The following are the few particulars of the old lace school for which this village was at one time famous. Indeed, it may be borne in mind that, owing to the great interest taken in education by a former squire and a former vicar, Spratton fifty years ago was far ahead of its neighbours in the matter of education; and the Spratton school and Mr. Pridmore, the Spratton schoolmaster, with his somewhat strict discipline, were well known, not only to the children of Spratton, but to the boys and girls of most of the adjacent villages. But the lace school was, no doubt, a commercial institution, and I think it will be admitted that the hours were long and the work severe. The girls left the {390}day school at the age of eight years, and joined the lace school, and here the hours were from 6 A.M. to 6 P.M. in the summer, and from 8 A.M. to 8 P.M. in the winter. Half an hour was allowed for breakfast and for tea, and one hour for dinner, so that there were ten hours for actual work. The girls had to stick ten pins a minute, or six hundred an hour; and if at the end of the day they were five pins behind, they had to work for another hour. On Saturdays, however, they had a half-holiday, working only to the dinner-hour. They counted to themselves every pin they stuck, and at every fiftieth pin they called out the time, and the girls used to race each other as to who should call out first. "They paid twopence a week (or threepence in winter) for lights, and in return they received the money realised from the sale of the lace they made, and they could earn about sixpence a day. Pay-day was a great event; it came once a month. "In the evenings eighteen girls worked by one tallow candle, value one penny; the 'candle-stool' stood about as high as an ordinary table with four legs. In the middle of this was what was known as the 'pole-board,' with six holes in a circle and one in the centre. In the centre hole was a long stick with a socket for the candle at one end and peg-holes through the sides, so that it could be raised or lowered at will. In the other six holes were placed pieces of wood hollowed out like a cup, and into each of these was placed a bottle made of very thin glass and filled with water.[1125] These bottles acted as strong condensers or lenses, and the eighteen girls sat round the table, three to each bottle, their stools being upon different levels, the highest nearest the bottle, which threw the light down upon the work like a burning-glass. In the day-time as many as thirty girls, and sometimes boys, would work in a room about twelve feet square, with two windows, and in the winter they could have no fire for lack of room." The makers of the best laces would sit nearest the light, and so on in order of merit. A "down" in Northamptonshire is the parchment {391}pattern, generally about twelve inches long. In Buckinghamshire they have two "eachs" ten inches long, and putting one in front of the other, so work round the pillow, which to many commends itself as a better plan than having one "down" and moving the lace back on reaching the end of the "down." The pillow is a hard round cushion, stuffed with straw and well hammered to make it hard for the bobbins to rattle on. It is then covered with the butcher-blue "pillow-cloth" all over; a "lace cloth" of the same, for the lace to lie on, goes over the top; then follows the lace-paper to pin it in as made, covered with the "lacing," which is a strip of bright print. The "hinder" of blue linen covers up all behind, the "worker" keeping the parchment clean in front where the hands rest. A bobbin bag and scissors are then tied on one side and a pin-cushion on the top; a cloth "heller" is thrown over the whole when not used. The pins are fine brass ones made on purpose;[1126] the bobbins are of various sizes and makes--very fine for fine lace, heavier and twisted round with strips of brass for coarser laces and gimp for the threads, which are the tracing ones, dividing the different characters of patterns; some are of bone with words tattoed round in columns. The usual bobbin is plain turned wood, with coloured beads at the end for the necessary weight. The number varies from twenty to five hundred, according to the width of the pattern.[1127] {392}The Exhibition of 1851 gave a sudden impulse to the traders, and from that period the lace industry rapidly developed. At this time was introduced the Maltese guipures and the "plaited" laces, a variety grafted on the old Maltese (Fig. 147). Five years later appears the first specimen of the raised plait, now so thoroughly established in the market. At the time Queen Victoria's trousseau was made, in which only English lace was used, the prices paid were so enormous that men made lace in the fields. In those days the parchments on which the patterns were pricked were worth their weight in gold; many were extremely old and their owners were very jealous of others copying their patterns. But, of late years, we hear of so little store being set by these parchments that they were actually boiled down to make glue. [Illustration: Fig. 147. PLAITED LACE.--(Bedford.)] The decay which threatened almost total extinction of the industry belongs to the last twenty years. The contributory causes were several, chiefly the rapid development of machinery, which enabled large quantities to be sold at lower rates than the hand-workers could starve on, while the quality of the manufactured goods was good enough for the {393}large public that required lace to last but a short time. Foreign competition, the higher wages required by all, and the many new employments opening to women took away the young people from the villages. In 1874 more than thirty young lace-women left a village of four hundred inhabitants to seek work elsewhere. The old workers gave up making good laces and supplied the popular demand with Maltese, which grew more and more inferior both in design and quality of thread, and gradually the old workers died out and no new ones took their places. The Lace Association has been started with the object of stimulating and improving the local manufacture of pillow lace, of providing lace-workers with greater facilities for the sale of their work at more remunerative prices. Its aim is also to save the old designs of the "point" lace and discourage the coarse Maltese, to get new designs copied from old laces, and insist on only the best thread being used,[1128] and good workmanship, and finally, to bring the lace before the public, and send it direct from worker to the purchaser, thus enabling the former to get the full value, saving the large profits which the dealers, buying for the shopkeepers, intercept for their own advantage. [Illustration: Fig. 148. RAISED PLAIT.--Bedford.] Pillow lace was also made to some extent in Derbyshire. {394}SUFFOLK. Suffolk has produced bobbin-made laces of little artistic value. The patterns in most of the specimens in the Victoria and Albert Museum collection are derived from simple Mechlin, Lille, and Valenciennes patterns. "The make of the lace resembles that of Buckinghamshire laces, and that of the Norman laces of the present time. The entire collection displays varied combinations of six ways of twisting and plaiting thread."[1129] PLATE LXXXVII. [Illustration: ENGLISH, SUFFOLK. BOBBIN LACE.--Nineteenth century. Resembling inferior Buckinghamshire, also Normandy and Saxony laces. Victoria and Albert Museum.] _To face page 394._ {395}CHAPTER XXXI. WILTSHIRE AND DORSETSHIRE. From Wiltshire and Dorset, counties in the eighteenth century renowned for their lace, the trade has now passed away; a few workers may yet be found in the retired sea-side village of Charmouth, and these are diminishing fast. Of the Wiltshire manufactures we know but little, even from tradition, save that the art did once prevail. Peuchet alludes to it. When Sir Edward Hungerford attacked Wardour Castle in Wiltshire, Lady Arundel, describing the destruction of the leaden pipes by the soldiers, says, "They cut up the pipe and sold it, as these men's wives in North Wiltshire do bone lace, at sixpence a yard." One Mary Hurdle, of Marlborough, in the time of Charles II., tells us in her "Memoirs"[1130] that, being left an orphan, she was apprenticed by the chief magistrate to a maker of bone lace for eight years, and after that period of servitude she apprenticed herself for five years more. Again, at the time of the Great Plague, cautions are issued by the Mayor of Marlborough to all parents and masters how they send their children and servants to school or abroad in making bone lace or otherwise, in any public house, place, or school used for that purpose.[1131] In the proceedings of the Anti-Gallican Society it is recorded that the second prize for needle point ruffles was, in 1751, awarded to Mrs. Elizabeth Waterman, of the episcopal city of Salisbury. Such are the scanty notices we have been able to glean of the once flourishing lace trade in Wiltshire. {396}Dorset, on the other hand, holds a high place in the annals of lace-making, three separate towns, in their day--Blandford, Sherborne, and Lyme Regis--disputing the palm of excellence for their productions. Of Blandford the earliest mention we find is in Owen's _Magna Britannica_ of 1720, where he states: "The manufacture of this town was heretofore 'band-strings,' which were once risen to a good price, but now times hath brought both bands themselves and their strings out of use, and so the inhabitants have turned their hands to making straw works and bone lace, which perhaps may come to nothing, if the fickle humour of fashionmongers take to wearing Flanders lace." Only four years later Defoe writes of Blandford:--"This city is chiefly famous for making the finest bone lace in England, and where they showed us some so exquisitely fine as I think I never saw better in Flanders, France, or Italy, and which, they said, they rated above £30 sterling a yard; but it is most certain that they make exceeding rich lace in this county, such as no part of England can equal." In the edition of 1762, Defoe adds, "This was the state and trade of the town when I was there in my first journey; but on June 4, 1731, the whole town, except twenty-six houses, was consumed by fire, together with the church." Postlethwayt,[1132] Hutchins,[1133] Lysons, and Knight (_Imperial Cyclopædia_) all tell the same story. Peuchet cites the Blandford laces as "comparables à celles qu'on fait en Flandres (excepté Bruxelles), en France, et même dans les Etats de Venise"; and Anderson mentions Blandford as "a well-built town, surpassing all England in fine lace." More reliance is to be placed on the two last-named authorities than the former, who have evidently copied Defoe without troubling themselves to inquire more deeply into the matter. [Illustration: Fig. 149. ENGLISH NEEDLE-MADE LACE, REPRESENTING THE DEFEAT OF THE SPANISH ARMADA. _To face page 396._] {397}It is generally supposed that the trade gradually declined after the great fire of 1731, when it was replaced by the manufacture of buttons, and no record of its former existence can be found among the present inhabitants of the place.[1134] Fig. 149 represents a curious piece of lace, preserved as an heirloom in a family in Dorsetshire. It formerly belonged to Queen Charlotte, and, when purchased by the present owner, had a label attached to it, "Queen Elizabeth's lace," with the tradition that it was made in commemoration of the defeat of the Spanish Armada, as the ships, dolphins, and national emblems testify. At this we beg to demur, as no similar lace was made at that period; but we do not doubt its having been made in honour of that victory, for the building is decidedly old Tilbury Fort, familiar to all by the pencil of Stanfield. But the lace is point d'Argentan, as we see by the hexagonal "bride" ground and the workmanship of the pattern. None but the best lace-workers could have made it; it was probably the handiwork of some English lady, or the pattern, designed in England, may have been sent to Argentan to execute, perhaps as a present to Queen Charlotte. "Since the Reformation the clothing trade declined," writes Defoe, of Sherborne. "Before 1700, making buttons, haberdashery wares, and bone laces employed a great many hands"; which said piece of information is repeated word for word in the _Imperial Cyclopædia_. Other authors, such as Anderson, declare, at a far later date, Sherborne to carry on a good trade in lace, and how, up to 1780, much blonde, both white and black, and of various colours, was made there, of which a supply was sent to all markets. From the latter end of the eighteenth century, the lace trade of Sherborne declined, and gradually died out. The points of Lyme Regis rivalled, in the eighteenth century, those of Honiton and Blandford, and when the trade of the last-named town passed away, Lyme and Honiton laces held their own, side by side, in the London market. The fabric of Lyme Regis, for a period, came more before the public eye, for that old, deserted, and half-forgotten mercantile city, in the eighteenth century, once more raised its head as a fashionable watering-place. Prizes were awarded by the {398}Anti-Gallican Society[1135] to Miss Mary Channon, of Lyme Regis, and her fellow-townswoman, Miss Mary Ben, for ruffles of needle point and bone lace. The reputation of the fabric, too, of Lyme Regis reached even the court; and when Queen Charlotte first set foot on English ground, she wore a head and lappets of Dorset manufacture. Some years later a splendid lace dress was made for her Majesty by the workers of Lyme, which, says the annalist of our southern coast,[1136] gave great satisfaction at court. The makers of this costly product, however, received but fourpence a day for their work. The laces of Lyme, like all good articles, were expensive. A narrow piece set quite plain round an old woman's cap would cost four guineas, nor was five guineas a yard considered an exorbitant price. It was a favourite custom at Lyme for lovers to have their initials entwined and worked together on a piece of ornamental lace. The making of such expensive lace being scarcely found remunerative, the trade gradually expired; and when the order for the marriage lace of Queen Victoria reached the southern counties, not one lace-maker was to be found to aid in the work in the once flourishing town of Lyme Regis. {399}CHAPTER XXXII. DEVONSHIRE. "Bone lace and Cyder."--_Anderson._ "At Axminster, you may be furnished with fyne flax thread there spunne. At Honyton and Bradninch with bone lace much in request."--Westcote. HONITON. The lace industry found its way to Devonshire, if the generally-accepted theory be correct, by the Flemish refugees flying from the persecutions of the Duke of Alva. There is much probability to support the theory, and some names,[1137] of undoubted Flemish origin, appear among the entries of the church registers still preserved at Honiton, towards the latter end of the sixteenth century--names all handed down to their descendants in the present generation, and in these families the fabric has continued for a long lapse of years. On the other hand, if there had been any considerable number of Flemings in Devonshire, they would surely have founded a company of their Reformed Church, and no reference is found in the published books of the archives of the London Dutch Church of any such company in Devonshire, whereas references abound to places in the Eastern Counties and Midlands where Flemings were settled. Lace was made on the pillow in the Low Countries by the middle of the sixteenth century, so by the date of the Alva persecution (1568-77) the people might have learned it in sufficient numbers to start it wherever they set up their new home. Up to that date in England lace was made with the needle,[1138] {400}and it was not till we read of "bone-lace" that it may be taken to mean pillow-lace. The term "bone," according to Fuller, was applied from the custom of using sheep's trotters as bobbins. In Devonshire, however, the tradition is that, owing to the high price of pins, the lace-makers, being within reach of the sea, made use of fish-bones, and thus pillow-lace became "bone-lace." The term "bobbin" came into use soon afterwards, but was not so universal as "bone"; it occurs in the Wardrobe Accounts and Royal inventories (where one entry runs, "In ye shoppe, 4 oz. and ½ of Bobbing lace, 6s. 4d."). Although the earliest known MS.[1139] giving an account of the different towns in Devon makes no mention of lace, we find from it that Mrs. Minifie,[1140] one of the earliest-named lace-makers, was an Englishwoman. Queen Elizabeth was much addicted to the collecting and wearing of beautiful clothes; but no mention of English lace by name seems to occur in the inventories and accounts, and the earliest mention of Honiton lace is by Westcote, who, writing about 1620, speaks of "bone lace much in request" being made at Honiton and Bradninch; and again referring to Honiton. "Here," says he, "is made abundance of bone lace, a pretty toye now greatly in request; and therefore the town may say with merry Martial-- "In praise for toyes such as this Honiton second to none is." The oft-cited inscription let into a raised tombstone, near the wall of old Honiton church, together with Westcote, {401}prove the industry to have been well established in the reign of James I. The inscription runs-- "Here lyeth y^e body of James Rodge, of Honinton, in y^e County of Devonshire (Bonelace Siller, hath given unto the poore of Honinton P'ishe, the benyfitt of £100 for ever), who deceased y^e 27 of July A^o D^i 1617 AETATAE SVAE 50. Remember the Poore." There have been traditions that Rodge was a valet who accompanied his master abroad, and there learning the fine Flemish stitches, taught some Devonshire women on his return home, and was enabled to make a comfortable competence by their work, bequeathing a sum of money to the poor of Honiton; but it is more probable that he was an ordinary dealer. Westcote,[1141] who wrote about the year 1620, when noticing bone lace, does not speak of it as a new manufacture; the trade had already taken root and flourished, for, including the above-mentioned Rodge, the three earliest bone lace makers of the seventeenth century on record all at their decease bequeathed sums of money for the benefit of their indigent townspeople, viz., Mrs. Minifie,[1142] before mentioned, who died in 1617, and Thomas Humphrey, of Honiton, laceman, who willed in the year 1658 £20 towards the purchase of certain tenements, a notice of which benefaction is recorded on a painted board above the gallery of the old parish church. By this time English lace had advanced in public estimation. In the year 1660 a royal ordinance of France provided that a mark should be affixed to thread lace imported from England as well as on that of Flanders; and we have already told elsewhere how the Earl of Essex procures, through his countess, bone lace to a considerable amount as a present to Queen Anne of Austria. Speaking of bone lace, writes Fuller in his _Worthies_: "Much of this is made in and about Honyton, and weekly returned to London.... Modern is the use thereof in England, and that not exceeding the middle of the reign of {402}Queen Elizabeth. Let it not be condemned for a superfluous wearing because it doth neither hide, nor heat, seeing it doth adorn. Besides, though private persons pay for it, it stands the State in nothing; not expensive of bullion like other lace, costing nothing save a little thread descanted on by art and industry. Hereby many children, who otherwise would be burthensome to the parish, prove beneficial to their parents. Yea, many lame in their limbs and impotent in their arms, if able in their fingers, gain a livelihood thereby; not to say that it saveth some thousands of pounds yearly, formerly sent over seas to fetch lace from Flanders." The English were always ready to protect their own trades and manufactures, and various were the Acts passed to prohibit the importation of foreign lace, for the encouragement of home workers. In 1698 it was proposed to repeal the last preceding prohibition; and, from the text of a petition sent to the House of Commons, some interesting light is thrown on the extent of the trade at that time. "The making of Bone-lace has been an ancient Manufacture of England, and the Wisdom of our Parliaments all along thought it the Interest of this Kingdom to prohibit its Importation from Foreign Parts.... This has revived the said Languishing Manufacture, and there are now above one hundred thousand in England who get their living by it, and earn by mere Labour £500,000 a year, according to the lowest computation that can be made; and the Persons employed on it are, for the most part, Women and children who have no other means of Subsistence. The English are now arrived to make as good lace in Fineness and all other respects as any that is wrought in Flanders, and particularly since the last Act, so great an improvement is made that way that in Buckinghamshire, the highest prized lace they used to make was about eight shillings per yard, and now they make lace there of above thirty shillings per yard, and in Dorsetshire and Devonshire they now make lace worth six pound per yard.... "... The Lace Manufacture in England is the greatest, next to the woollen, and maintains a multitude of People, which otherwise the Parishes must, and that would soon prove a heavy burthen, even to those concerned in the Woollen Manufacture. On the Resolution, which shall be taken in this affair depends the Well-being, or ruin of numerous families in their Country. Many laws have been made to set our Poor on Work, and it is to be hoped none will be made to take away work from Multitudes who are already employed."[1143] PLATE LXXXVIII. [Illustration: ENGLISH, DEVONSHIRE. REPRODUCTIONS OF OLD HONITON WITH THE VRAI RÉSEAU.--Made under Mrs. Fowler's direction. Widths about 4 inches. Photo by A. Dryden.] _To face page 402._ {403}Even in 1655, when the variety of points furnished matter for a letter from the members of the Baptist Church assembled at Bridgewater, the "Beleeven men," unwilling to injure so nourishing a commerce, merely censure "points and more laces than are required on garments," and these they desired might be proceeded against "with all sweetness and tenderness and long-suffering."[1144] The conciliatory measures of the Puritans, maybe, affected the trade less than the doing of Lord Cambury and Lord Churchill's dragoons in the suppression of Monmouth's rebellion in 1680, by which time the lace-making art was carried on in many small country places in Devon. They pillaged the lace-makers right and left, and, when quartered at Colyton,[1145] these unruly soldiers broke into the house of one William Bard, a dealer in bone lace, and there stole merchandise to the amount of £325 17s. 9d.[1146] "The valuable manufactures of lace, for which the inhabitants of Devon have long been conspicuous, are extending now from Exmouth to Torbay,"[1147] writes Defoe in 1724. {404}These must, however, have received a check as regards the export trade, for, says Savary, who wrote about the same date, "Depuis qu'on imite les dentelles nommées point d'Angleterre en Flandres, Picardie et Champagne, on n'en tire plus de Londres pour la France." Great distress, too, is said to have existed among the Honiton lace-makers after the two great fires of 1756 and 1767. The second was of so devastating a character that the town had to be rebuilt. Shawe declares, writing at the end of the eighteenth century: "For its present condition Honiton is indebted to that dreadful fire which reduced three parts of it to ashes. The houses now wear a pleasing aspect, and the principal street, extending from east to west, is paved in a remarkable manner, forming a canal, well shouldered up on each side with pebbles and green turf, which holds a stream of clear water with a square dipping place opposite each door, a mark of cleanliness and convenience I never saw before." [Illustration: Fig. 150.] Three years previous to the Great Fire,[1148] among a number of premiums awarded by the Anti-Gallican Society for the encouragement of our lace trade, the first prize of fifteen guineas is bestowed upon Mrs. Lydia Maynard, of Honiton, "in token of six pairs of ladies' lappets of unprecedented beauty, exhibited by her." About this time we read {405}in Bowen's _Geography_[1149] that at Honiton: "the people are chiefly employed in the manufactory of lace, the broadest sort that is made in England, of which great quantities are sent to London." "It acquired," says Lysons, "some years since, the name of Bath Brussels lace." To give a precise description of the earliest Devonshire lace would now be impossible. The bone or bobbin lace at first consisted of a small and simple imitation of the beautiful Venetian geometrical cut-works and points, mere narrow strips made by coarse threads plaited and interlaced. They became wider and more elaborate as the workers gained experience. Specimens may be seen on two Devonshire monuments, though whether the lace of the district is imitated on the effigies is another matter; in any case similar patterns were probably made there at the time. One is on the monument of Lady Pole, in Colyton Church, where the lady's cape is edged with three rows of bone lace. The other, which is in excellent preservation, is on the recumbent effigy of Lady Doddridge (a member of the Bampfylde family) in Exeter Cathedral, her cuffs and tucker being adorned with geometric lace of a good pattern. Both belong to the first part of the seventeenth century. In the same Cathedral is the monument of Bishop Stafford.[1150] His collar appears to be of a net-work, embroidered in patterns of graceful design (Fig. 151). Belgium was noted for her linens and delicately spun flax. In consequence the Flemings soon departed from the style of their Italian masters, and made laces of their own fine threads. They worked out their own designs also, and being great gardeners and fond of flowers, it naturally came about that they composed devices of blossoms and foliage. {406}[Illustration: Fig. 151. MONUMENT OF BISHOP STAFFORD, EXETER CATHEDRAL.] These alterations in course of time found their way to England, there being much intercourse between their brethren here established and those remaining in Flanders. The lace continued to get finer and closer in texture, the flax thread being required so fine that it became necessary to spin it in damp underground cellars. That the workers in England could not compete successfully against the foreigner with their home-made threads we find over and over again. They also altered the Brussels designs, and instead of the beautiful "fillings" and open-work stitches, substituted heavy guipure bars. By this period "cordonnet" or "gimp" had come into use in Brussels lace. The "_vrai réseau_" or pillow-net ground, succeeded the "bride" about the end of the seventeenth century. This fashion enabled the flowers to be made separately and worked in with the net afterwards, or rather the net was worked into the flowers on the pillow. It was from the introduction of these separate sprigs that Honiton lace was able to compete with Brussels. The pattern in Fig. 153 is sewn on the plain pillow ground,[1151] which was very beautiful and regular, but very expensive. It was made of the finest thread procured from Antwerp, the market price of which, in 1790, was £70 per pound,[1152] and an old lace-maker told the author her father {407}had, during the war, paid a hundred guineas a pound to the smugglers for this highly-prized and then almost unattainable commodity. Nor were the lace-worker's gains less remunerative. She would receive as much as eighteen shillings a yard for the workmanship alone of a piece of this elaborate net, measuring scarce two inches in width;[1153] and one of the old lace-dealers showed Mrs. Treadwin a piece of ground eighteen inches square, for the making of which she was paid fifteen pounds shortly before the establishment of the machine net manufacture.[1154] The price of lace was proportionately high. A Honiton veil would often cost a hundred guineas. [Illustration: Fig. 152. MONUMENT OF LADY DODDRIDGE. + 1614. (Exeter Cathedral.)] The Flemish character of Fig. 158 is unmistakable. The {408}design of the flower vase resembles those of the old Angleterre à bride, and in execution this specimen may fairly warrant a comparison with the productions of Brabant. If really of English make, we should place its fabrication at the beginning of the eighteenth century, for it was long before the Devonshire lace-makers could rival in beauty the "cordonnet" of the Flemish workers. Fig. 154 is an example of the pattern worked in the favourite design of the butterfly and the acorn, already familiar to us in the old point d'Angleterre and in the smock of Queen Elizabeth. [Illustration: Fig. 153.] The American War had an evil effect upon the lace trade, and still worse was the French Revolution, which was followed by the fashion of classical dress. Lace became no longer necessary to a lady's wardrobe, and the demand for it declined to a serious extent for the workers. Worse than these, however, was the introduction of the machine net, the first factory being set up at Tiverton in 1815. Lysons writes shortly afterwards in 1822: "The manufactory of lace has much declined, although the lace still retains its superiority. Some years ago, at which time it was much patronised by the Royal family, the manufacturers of Honiton employed 2,400 hands in the town and in the neighbouring villages, but they do not now employ above 300." For twenty years the lace trade suffered the greatest depression, and the Honiton lace-workers, forsaking the designs of their forefathers, introduced a most hideous set of patterns, designed, as they said, "out of their own heads." "Turkey tails," "frying pans," "bullocks' hearts," and the most senseless sprigs and borderings took the place of the graceful compositions of the old school. Not a leaf, not a flower was copied from nature. Anxious to introduce a purer taste, Queen Adelaide, to whom a petition had been sent on behalf of the distressed lace-makers, gave the order for a dress to be made of Honiton sprigs,[1155] and commanded that the flowers should all be copied from nature. The order was executed by Mrs. Davey, of Honiton. The skirt was encircled with a wreath of elegantly designed sprigs, the initial of each flower forming the name of her Majesty.[1156] [Illustration: Fig. 154. OLD DEVONSHIRE. _To face page 408._] {409}The example of the Queen found new followers, and when, in the progress of time, the wedding lace was required for Queen Victoria, it was with difficulty the necessary number of workers could be obtained to make it. It was undertaken by Miss Jane Bidney, who caused the work to be executed in the small fishing hamlet of Beer[1157] and its environs. The dress cost £1,000. It was composed entirely of Honiton sprigs, connected on the pillow by a variety of open-work stitches; but the patterns were immediately destroyed, so it cannot be described. The bridal dresses of their Royal Highnesses the Princess Royal, the Princess Alice, and the Princess of Wales were all of Honiton point, the patterns consisting of the national flowers, the latter with prince's feathers intermixed with ferns, and introduced with the most happy effect. The application of Honiton sprigs upon bobbin net has been of late years almost entirely superseded by the modern guipure (Fig. 155). The sprigs, when made, are sewn upon a piece of blue paper, and then united either on the pillow by "cut-works" or "purlings," or else joined with the needle by various stitches--lacet point, réseau, cut-work, and buttonhole stitch (the most effective of all). Purling is made by the yard. The Honiton guipure has an original character almost unique. The large pieces surpass in richness and {410}perfection any lace of the same kind made in Belgium. The reliefs are embroidered with the greatest delicacy, and the beauty of the workmanship is exquisite; and whereas the guipure applications of Belgium require to be whitened with lead, the Honiton workers give up their lace in all its original brilliancy and whiteness.[1158] The fault in the Honiton lace has been its crowded and spiritless designs, but in these great improvement was manifested in the Exhibition of 1867. Captain Marryat took much pains during a residence at Sidmouth to procure for the lace-makers new patterns of flowers, insects, and other natural objects. The younger members of the community accepted with gratitude these new patterns, and one even reproduced a piece of braidwork in imitation of Spanish point, and also a collar from Vecellio's book, in a manner most creditable to her ingenuity. In consequence of this movement, some gentlemen connected with the Bath and West of England Society[1159] proposed that an exhibition should take place at the Annual Agricultural Show, held at Clifton, of Honiton lace, "designs strictly after nature." Prizes to the amount of £100 were given. The exhibition was most successful. Queen Victoria expressed a desire that the articles exhibited should be sent to Windsor for her inspection, and graciously commanded that two flounces with a corresponding length of trimming lace should be made for her. A design executed by Miss Cecilia Marryat having been approved of by her Majesty, the order for the lace was given to Mrs. Hayman, of Sidmouth. (Fig. 156 is from one of the honeysuckle sprigs selected.) [Illustration: Fig. 155. HONITON GUIPURE. _To face page 410._] {411}The Honiton lace-makers show great aptitude in imitating the Brussels designs, and[1160] through the efforts of Mrs. Treadwin have succeeded in reproducing the ancient lace in the most wonderful manner. Fig. 158 is a lappet in the Brussels style shown in the International Exhibition of 1874. Mrs. Treadwin produced admirable specimens after the pillow-made lace of Genoa and Flanders, and also a reproduction of the Venetian point in relief. [Illustration: Fig. 156. HONEYSUCKLE SPRIG OF MODERN HONITON.] A new branch of industry has lately opened to the Devonshire lace-maker--that of restoring or re-making old lace. The splendid mantles, tunics, and flounces which enrich the shop-windows of the great lace-dealers of London are mostly concocted from old fragments by the Devonshire lace-workers. It is curious to see the ingenuity they display in re-arranging the "old rags"--and such they are--sent from London for restoration. Carefully cutting out the {412}designs of the old work, they sew them upon a paper pattern of the shape required. The "modes," or fancy stitches, are dexterously restored, any deficient flower supplied, and the whole joined together on the pillow. [Illustration: Fig. 157. OLD DEVONSHIRE POINT.] TROLLY LACE. Trolly lace comes next in order. It was quite different from anything else made in Devonshire, and resembled many of the laces made in the midlands at the present time. It was made of coarse British thread, and with heavier and larger bobbins, and worked straight on round and round the pillow. The origin of "Trolly" was undoubtedly Flemish, but it is said to have reached Devonshire at the time of the French Revolution, through the Normandy peasants, driven by want of employment from their own country, where lace was a great industry during the eighteenth century. The origin of "trolly" is from the Flemish "Trolle Kant," where the design was outlined with a thick thread, or, possibly, it may be derived from a corruption of the French _toilé_, applied to distinguish a flat linen pattern from the ground or _treille_, a general term for a net ground. It is now almost extinct in Devonshire, remaining in the hands of the midland counties,[1161] where it more properly belongs.[1162] [Illustration: Fig. 158. LAPPET MADE BY THE LATE MRS. TREADWIN, OF EXETER, 1864. _To face page 412._] {413}Trolly lace was not the work of women alone. In the flourishing days of its manufacture, every boy, until he had attained the age of fifteen, and was competent to work in the fields, attended the lace schools daily.[1163] A lace-maker of Sidmouth, in 1869, had learned her craft at the village dame school,[1164] in company with many boys. The men, especially the sailor returned from sea, would again resume the employment of their boyhood, in their hours of leisure, and the labourer, seated at his pillow on a summer's evening, would add to his weekly gains. Mrs. Treadwin, in her younger days, saw some twenty-four men lace-makers in her native village of Woodbury, two of whom, Palmer by name, were still surviving in 1869, and one of these worked at his pillow so late as 1820. Captain Marryat also succeeded in finding out a man of sixty, one James Gooding, dweller in Salcombe parish, near Sidmouth, who had in his day been a lace-maker of some reputation. "I have made hundreds of yards in my time," he said, "both wide and narrow, but never worked regularly at my pillow after sixteen years of age." Delighted to exhibit the craft of his boyhood, he hunted out his patterns, {414}and, setting to work, produced a piece of trolly edging, which soon found a place in the albums of sundry lace-collecting ladies, the last specimen of man-worked lace likely to be fabricated in the county of Devon.[1165] The lace schools of this time were a great feature, there being many in every village, and as few other schools existed, boys in addition to the girls of the place attended and learnt the industry. The usual mode of procedure was this. The children commenced attending at the age of five to seven, and were apprenticed to the mistress for an average of two years, who sold all their work for her trouble: they then paid sixpence a week for a time and had their own lace, then threepence, and so on, according to the amount of teaching they still required. The young children went first from ten to twelve in the morning, to accustom them to work by degrees. At Honiton the full hours were from eight to eight in the summer and in the depth of winter, but in the spring and autumn less, on account of the light, as candles were begun only on September 3rd--Nutting day--till Shrovetide. The old rhyme runs:-- "Be the Shrovetide high or low, Out the candle we will blow." At Sidbury it was _de rigueur_ that directly a young girl married, however young, she wore a cap, but till then the lace-makers were famous for the beautiful dressing of their hair. When school began they stood up in a circle to read the "verses." If any of them read "jokily," they were given a penalty, and likewise for idleness--so much extra work. In nearly all schools they were taught reading from the Bible, and in some they learnt writing; but all these are now things of the past. [Illustration: Fig. 159. VENETIAN RELIEF IN POINT.--Reproduced by the late Mrs. Treadwin. _To face page 414._] {415}Speaking of the occupation of lace-making, Cooke, in his _Topography of Devon_, observes: "It has been humanely remarked as a melancholy consideration that so much health and comfort are sacrificed to the production of this beautiful though not necessary article of decoration. The sallow complexion, the weakly frame and the general appearance of languor and debility of the operatives, are sad and decisive proofs of the pernicious nature of the employment. The small unwholesome rooms in which numbers of these females, especially during their apprenticeship, are crowded together are great aggravations of the evil." He continues at some length, as indeed do many writers of the eighteenth century, to descant on this evil, but times are changed, sanitary laws and the love of fresh air have done much to remedy the mischief.[1166] The pillows, too, are raised higher than formerly, by which means the stooping, so injurious to health, is avoided. Old lace-makers will tell stories of the cruel severities practised on the children in the dame schools of their day--of the length of time they sat without daring to move from the pillow, of prolonged punishments imposed on idle apprentices, and other barbarities, but these are now tales of the past.[1167] Ever since the Great Exhibition of 1851 drew attention to the industry, different persons have been trying to encourage both better design and better manufacture, but {416}the majority of the people have sought a livelihood by meeting the extensive demand for cheap laces. Good patterns, good thread, and good work have been thrown aside, the workers and small dealers recking little of the fact that they themselves were ruining the trade as much as the competition of machinery and machine-made lace, and tarnishing the fair name of Honiton throughout the world, among those able to love and appreciate a beautiful art. Fortunately there are some to lead and direct in the right path, and all honour must be given to Mrs. Treadwin, who started reproducing old laces. She and her clever workers turned out the most exquisite copies of old Venetian rose point, Valenciennes, or Flemish. Her successor, Miss Herbert, carries it on; and while we have Mrs. Fowler and her school at Honiton, and Miss Radford at Sidmouth, it would be easier to say what the heads and hands of the Devon lace-workers could not do than to enumerate the many beautiful stitches and patterns they achieve; needlepoint or pillow, tape guipure or _vrai réseau_--there are able fingers to suit all tastes.[1168] Mrs. Fowler, of Honiton, has made a spirited attempt to teach some young people.[1169] She employs women and girls all the year round, who work under the Factory Acts. The girls are taught needlework in addition, and to put together the sprigs made by the out-workers, the arrangement of which requires great taste and careful superintendence. The County Council grants courses of lessons in various places, some for all ages, others for children.[1170] The Italian laces made at Beer is a new branch, established by Miss Bowdon, and ably carried on by Miss Audrey Trevelyan of Seaton. This Italian lace is made entirely on the pillow, and the way in which the women of Beer have picked up the stitches and mode of making speaks volumes for their skilfulness and adaptability. There are still a good number of workers left in this most picturesque village.[1171] PLATE LXXXIX. [Illustration: ENGLISH, DEVONSHIRE. MADE AT BEER FOR THE PARIS EXHIBITION OF 1900.--Miss A. Trevelyan adapted an Italian design to the old Honiton stitches.] _To face page 416._ {417}A beautiful county and a beautiful art have come down to us hand in hand. Let us do our best to prevent the one being marred and the other lost, and keep them both together to be a joy and a pleasure for all time. JAPAN. The versatile Japanese have copied the Honiton method of making bobbin lace. The Government have encouraged a school at Yokohama for pillow lace making, under the supervision of an English lady, where they turn out lace of a distinctive Japanese character. {418}CHAPTER XXXIII. SCOTLAND. "With the pearlin above her brow."--Old Scotch Song. "Pearlin-lace as fine as spiders' webs."--_Heart of Midlothian._ From her constant intercourse with France, lace must have been early known in Scotland. Of its use for ecclesiastical purposes, at a period when it was still unknown to the laity, we have evidence in the mutilated effigy of a crosiered ecclesiastic which once stood in a niche of the now ruined abbey church of Arbroath. The lace which adorns the robes of this figure is very elaborately and sharply chiselled, and when first discovered, still preserved some remains of the gold leaf with which it had been ornamented. In the Inventories of King James V. we find constant mention of "pasment" of gold and silver,[1172] as well as an entry of--"Ane gown of fresit clayth of gold, with pasment of perle of gold smyth wark lynit with cramasy sating."[1173] And we have other proofs,[1174] in addition to the testimony of Sir Walter Scott, as given in the Monastery,[1175] that pasments of gold and silver as well as "purle," were already in daily use during King James's reign. {419}Indeed, as early as 1575 the General Assembly of Scotland found necessary, as did the bishops in Denmark, to express its mind as to the style of dress befitting the clergy, and prohibit "all begares (gardes) of velvet on gown, hose, or coat, all superfluous cut-out work, all sewing on of pasments and laces." A parchment, too, found in the cabinet of the Countess of Mar,[1176] entitled "The Passement Bond," signed by the Duke of Lennox and other nobles, by which they engaged themselves to leave off wearing "passement," as a matter of expense and superfluity, shows that luxury in dress had early found its way into Scotland. Notwithstanding these entries, it was not until the arrival of Mary Stuart in her northern dominions that lace in all its varieties appears. The inventory of the Queen's effects in 1567, printed by the Bannatyne Club, gives entries of passements, guimpeure d'or, and guimpeure d'argent,[1177] with which her "robes de satin blanc et jaune" were "bordées" and "chamarées." Each style of embroidery and lace is designated by its special name. There is the "natte d'argent faite par entrelatz, passement d'or et d'argent fait à jour, chamarré de bisette,"[1178] etc. The word dentelle, as told elsewhere,[1179] occurs but once. We have also alluded to the will made by the Queen previous to the birth of James VI., and her bequest of her "ouvrages maschés."[1180] A relic of this expression is yet found in the word "mawsch," or "masch," as the pinking of silk and muslin is termed in Scotland, an advertisement of which {420}accomplishment "done here" was seen a few years ago in the shop-windows of the old town of Edinburgh. In the Palace of Holyrood is still exhibited a small basket lined with blue silk, and trimmed with a bone lace of rudely-spun flax, run on with a ribbon of the same colour, recorded to be an offering sent by Queen Elizabeth to her cousin previous to the birth of her godchild. Antiquaries assert the story to be a fable. Whether the lace be of the time or not, as a work of art it is of no credit to any country. How Queen Mary, in her youth, was instructed in the arts of point coupé and lacis, according to the works of Vinciolo, has been already related.[1181] Of her talents as a needlewoman there is ample proof in the numerous beds, screens, etc., treasured as relics in the houses of the nobles where she was held captive. She knitted head-dresses of gold "réseille," with cuffs and collars[1182] en suite,[1183] to say nothing of nightcaps, and sent them as presents to Elizabeth,[1184] all of which, we are told, the Queen received most graciously. Mary, in her early portraits as Dauphine of France, wears no thread lace. Much fine gold embroidered with passament enriches her dresses; her sleeves are of gold rézeuil. In those of a later date, like that taken when in Lochleven Castle, her veil is bordered with a narrow bone lace--as yet a rarity--may be one of the same noted in the Inventory of 1578, as "Fyve litell vaills of wovin rasour (réseau) of threde, ane meekle twa of thame, passmentit with perle and black silk."[1185] When the Queen of Scots ascended the scaffold "she wore {421}on her head," writes Burleigh's reporter, "a dressing of lawn edged with bone lace," and "a vest of lawn fastened to her caul," edged with the same material. This lace-edged veil was long preserved as a relic in the exiled Stuart family, until Cardinal York bequeathed it to Sir John Cox Hippisley. Miss Pigott[1186] describes it of "transparent zephyr gauze, with a light check or plaid pattern interwoven with gold; the form as that of a long scarf."[1187] Sir John, when exhibiting the veil at Baden, had the indiscretion to throw it over the Queen of Bavaria's head. The Queen shuddered at the omen, threw off the veil, and retired precipitately from the apartment, evidently in great alarm. "Cuttit out werk," collars of "hollie crisp," quaiffs of woven thread,[1188] cornettes of layn (linen) sewit with cuttit out werk of gold, wovin collars of threde, follow in quick succession. The cuttit out werk is mostly wrought in gold, silver, cramoisi, or black silk.[1189] The Queen's "towell claiths" are adorned in similar manner.[1190] The Chartley Inventory of 1568[1191] is rich in works of point coupé and rézeuil, in which are portrayed with the needle figures of birds, fishes, beasts, and flowers, "couppés chascune en son carré." The Queen exercised much ingenuity in her labours, varying the pattern according to her taste. In the list are noted fifty-two specimens of flowers designed after nature, "tirés au naturel;" 124 birds; as well as sixteen sorts of four-footed beasts, "entre lesquelles y ha un lyon assailant un sanglier;" with fifty-two fishes, all of {422}divers sorts--giving good proofs of the poor prisoner's industry. As to the designs after nature, with all respect to the memory of Queen Mary, the lions, cocks, and fishes of the sixteenth century which have come under our notice, require a student of mediæval needlework rather than a naturalist, to pronounce upon their identity. James VI. of Scotland, reared in a hotbed of Calvinism, had not the means, even if he had the inclination, to indulge in much luxury in dress. Certain necessary entries of braid pasmentis of gold, gold clinquant, braid pasmentis, cramoisi, for the ornamenting of clokkis, coittis, breikis, and roobes of the King, with "Twa unce and ane half pasmentis of gold and silver to werk the headis of the fokkis," made up the amount of expense sanctioned for the royal wedding;[1192] while 34 ells braid pasmentis of gold to trim a robe for "his Majesties darrest bedfellow the Quene for her coronation,"[1193] gives but a poor idea of the luxury of the Scottish court. Various enactments[1194] were passed during the reign of James VI. against "unnecessary sumptuousness in men's apparel," by which no one except noblemen, lords of session, prelates, etc., were allowed to wear silver or gold lace. Provosts were permitted to wear silk, but no lace pearlin or pasmenterie, only a "watling silk lace" on the seams.[1195] No one but the above same privileged persons were to have pearlin on their ruffles, sarkis, napkins, and sokkis, and that pearlin to be made in the kingdom of Scotland. This Act, dated 1621, is the first mention we have found of Scottish-made lace. James VI. having granted to one James Bannatyne of Leith a patent for the "importing of foraine pearlin" into the country, in consequence of the great complaint of the embroiderers in 1639, this patent is rescinded, and the King forbids the entry of all "foraine pearlin." The word lace does not exist in the Scotch language. "Pearlin" is the term used in old documents, defined in the {423}dictionaries to be "a species of lace made with thread." In the old Scotch songs it frequently occurs:--[1196] "Then, round the ring she dealt them ane by ane, Clean in her pearlin keck, and gown alane." --_Ross Helonora._ Again-- "We maun hae pearlins and mabbies and cocks, And some other things that ladies call smocks." As the latter articles may appear more familiar to the world in general than "kecks," and "mabbies," and "cocks," we may as well explain a "pearlin keck" to signify a linen cap with a lace border; a "mabbie," a mob; a "cock," or cock-up, no more eccentric head-dress than the lofty fontanges or commode of the eighteenth century. Again, in _Rob Roy_ we have the term "pearlin:" when Bailie Nicol Jarvie piteously pleads to his kinswoman, Helen Macgregor, he says-- "I hae been serviceable to Rob before now, forbye a set of pearlins I sent yoursell when you were gaun to be married." The recollection of these delicate attentions, however, has little effect on the Highland chieftainess, who threatens to have him chopped up, if ill befalls her lord, into as many square pieces as compose the Macgregor tartan, or throw him neck and heels into the Highland loch. Montrose, we read, sent his lace ruffles to be starched and dressed before they were sewn on the embroidered sark he had made only to wear at his execution. "Pearlin" was provided for him which cost £10 an ell. The close-fitting velvet cap, enriched with lace, appears in the seventeenth century to have been adopted by the lawyers of the Scotch courts. An example may be seen in the portrait of Sir Thomas Hope, Lord Advocate of Scotland, who died in 1646, which hangs in the Hall of the Advocates of Edinburgh. Another (Fig. 160) appears in the engraving of Sir Alexander Gibson, Bart., Lord Durie, one of the Lords of Session, who died two years previously. In 1672, when lace--"point lace made of {424}thread"--came under the ban of the Covenanters, with a penalty of "500 merks toties quoties," the wearing such vanities on liveries is strictly forbidden; servants, however, are allowed to wear out their masters' and mistresses' old clothes. In 1674, his Majesty, understanding that the manufacture of "pearlin and whyt lace made of thread (whereby many people gain their livelihood) was thereby much prejudiced and impaired, declares that from henceforth it shall be free to all and every person within this kingdom to wear 'whyt lace,' as well as the privileged persons above mentioned." Finding these exclusions of little or no avail, in January, 1685, the Act remits the wearing of lace, both native and foreign, to all folks living. [Illustration: Fig. 160. SIR ALEXANDER GIBSON, BART. (Lord Durie, Lord of Session. + 1644.)] The dead now came under the scrutiny of the Scotch Parliament, who order all lace or poynt, gold or silver, to be disused at interments, under the penalty of 300 pounds Scots.[1197] From the united effects of poverty, Covenanters and {425}legislation, after the departure of the court for England, luxury, small though it was, declined in Edinburgh. It was not till 1680, when James II., as Duke of York, accompanied by Mary of Modena and his "duteous" daughter Anne, visited the Scotch capital, that anything like gaiety or dress can be said to have surprised the strait-laced population. Dryden, sneering at the barbarism of the Scotch capital, writes, in the prologue to a play delivered at Oxford, referring to a portion of the troop that accompanied the court to Scotland-- "Laced linen there would be a dangerous thing; It might perhaps a new rebellion bring-- The Scot who wore it would be chosen king." The Highlander, however, when in full dress, did not disdain to adopt the falling band and ruffles of guipure or Flanders lace. The advertisements and inventories of the first years of the eighteenth century give us little reason to imagine any change had been effected in the homely habits of the people. At the marriage of a daughter of Thomas Smythe, of Methuen, in 1701, to Sir Thomas Moncrieffe, the bride had a head-suit and ruffles of cut-work which cost nearly six pounds ten shillings.[1198] Few and scanty advertisements of roups of "white thread lace" appear in the journals of the day.[1199] And in such a state matters continued till the Jacobites, {426}going and coming from St. Germains, introduced French fashions and luxuries as yet unheard of in the then aristocratic Canongate. It sounds strange to a traveller, as he wanders among these now deserted closes of Edinburgh, to read of the gay doings and of the grand people who, in the last century, dwelt within these poor-looking abodes. A difficult matter it must have been to the Jacobite beauties, whose hoop (from 1725-8) measured nine yards in circumference, to mount the narrow winding staircases of their dwellings; and this very difficulty gave rise to a luxury of underclothing almost unknown in England or elsewhere. Every lady wore a petticoat trimmed with the richest point lace. Nor was it only the jupe that was lace-trimmed. Besides "Twa lappets at her head, that flaunted gallantlie," ladies extended the luxury to finely-laced garters. In 1720 the bubble Company "for the trading in Flanders laces" appears advertised in the Scotch papers in large and attractive letters. We strongly doubt, however, it having gained any shareholders among the prudent population of Edinburgh. The prohibition of lace made in the dominions of the French king[1200] was a boon to the Jacobites, and many a lady, and gentleman too, became wondrous loyal to the exiled family, bribed by a packet from St. Germains. In the first year of George II., says the _Gazette_,[1201] a parcel of rich lace was secretly brought to the Duke of Devonshire, by a mistake in the similarity of the title. On being opened, hidden among the folds, was found a miniature portrait of the Pretender, set round with large diamonds. The packet was addressed to a noble lord high in office, one of the most zealous converts to loyalty.[1202] {427}Smuggling was universal in Scotland in the reigns of George I. and George II., for the people, unaccustomed to imposts, and regarding them as an unjust aggression upon their ancient liberties, made no scruple to elude the customs whenever it was possible so to do. It was smuggling that originated the Porteous riots of 1736; and in his description of the excited mob, Sir Walter Scott makes Miss Grizel Dalmahoy exclaim--"They have ta'en awa' our Parliament. They hae oppressed our trade. Our gentles will hardly allow that a Scots needle can sew ruffles on a sark or lace on an owerlay."[1203] {428}CHAPTER XXXIV. LACE MANUFACTURES OF SCOTLAND. "Sae put on your pearlins, Marion, And kirtle o' the cramasie."--Scottish Song. During the treasonable year of 1745 Scotland was far too occupied with her risings and executions to give much attention to her national industry. Up to that time considerable pains had been taken to improve the spinning of fine thread, prizes had been awarded, and the art taught in schools and other charitable institutions. It was not till the middle of the eighteenth century that Anne, Duchess of Hamilton, known to Society by tradition as "one of the beautiful Miss Gunnings," seeing lace-makers at work when travelling on the Continent, thought employment might be given to the women of her own country by introducing the art into Scotland. The Duchess therefore brought over women from France, and caused them to teach the girls in her schools how to make "bunt lace," as it was termed. Sir John Sinclair thus notices the fabric:--"A small manufacture of thread lace has long been carried on here. At an early period it was the occupation of a good many women, but, from the fluctuation of fashion, it has fallen greatly into disuse. Fashion again revived the demand, and the late Duchess of Hamilton, afterwards of Argyle, found still some lace-workers remaining, to whom her own demand, and that of those who followed her example, gave employment. To these her Grace added twelve orphan girls, who were clothed, maintained, and taught at her expense. Others learned the art, and while the demand lasted, the manufacture employed a good many hands. Though the number is again diminished, there are still above forty at the business, who {429}make handsome laces of different patterns, besides those who work occasionally for themselves or their friends. Perhaps, under the patronage of the present respectable duchess, the manufacture of Hamilton lace may again become as flourishing as ever."[1204] "The Duchess of Hamilton," says the _Edinburgh Amusement_ of 1752, "has ordered a home to be set up in Hamilton for the reception of twelve poor girls and a mistress. The girls are to be taken in at the age of seven, clothed, fed, taught to spin, make lace, etc., and dismissed at fourteen." The work of the fair Duchess throve, for, in 1754, we read how--"The Duchess of Hamilton has now the pleasure to see the good effects of her charity. Her Grace's small orphan family have, by spinning, gained a sum of money, and lately presented the Duke and Duchess with a double piece of Holland, and some suits of exceeding fine lace ruffles, of their own manufacture, which their Graces did them the honour to wear on the Duke's birthday, July 14, and which vied with anything worn on the occasion, though there was a splendid company present. The yarn of which the ruffles were made weighed only ten drops each hank."[1205] It was probably owing to the influence of this impulsive Irishwoman that, in the year 1754, was founded The Select Society of Edinburgh for encouraging the arts and manufactures of Scotland, headed by the Duke of Hamilton. This society was contemporary with the Anti-Gallican in England and the Dublin Society, though we believe, in this case, Dublin can claim precedence over the capital of North Britain. At a meeting of the society it was moved that "The annual importation of worked ruffles and of bone lace and edging into this country is considerable. By proper encouragement we might be supplied at home with these ornaments. It was therefore resolved-- "That a premium be assigned to all superior merit in such work; such a one as may be a mark of respect to women of fashion, and may also be of some solid advantage to those whose laudable industry contributes to their own support. {430}"For the best imitation of Dresden work, or a pair of men's ruffles, a prize of £5 5s. "For the best bone lace, not under twenty yards, £5 5s. The gainers of these two best articles may have the money or a gold medal, at their option." As may be supposed, the newly-founded fabric of the Duchess was not passed over by a society of which the Duke himself was the patron. In the year 1757 we have among the prizes adjudged one of two guineas to Anne Henderson, of Hamilton, "for the whitest and best and finest lace, commonly called Hamilton lace, not under two yards." A prize had already been offered in 1755,[1206] but, as stated the following year, "no lace was given in." Prizes continued in 1758 and 1759 to be given for the produce of Hamilton; in the last year to the value of four guineas.[1207] The early death of the Duke of Hamilton; and the second marriage of the Duchess, did not in any way impede the progress of Hamilton lace, for, as late as 1778, we read in Locke's _Essays on the Scotch Commerce_--"The lace manufactory, under the patronage of the amiable Duchess of Hamilton (now Argyle), goes on with success and spirit." With respect to the quality of this Hamilton lace, laudable as were the efforts of the Duchess, she succeeded in producing but a very coarse fabric. The specimens which have come under our notice are edgings of the commonest description, of a coarse thread, always of the lozenge pattern (Fig. 161); being strong and firm, it was used for nightcaps, never for dresses, and justified the description of a lady who described it as of little account, and spoke of it as "only Hamilton." It appears that the Edinburgh Society died a natural death about 1764, but, notwithstanding the untimely demise of this patriotic club, a strong impetus had been given to the {431}lace-makers of Scotland.[1208] Lace-making was introduced into the schools, and, what was better far, many daughters of the smaller gentry and scions of noble Jacobite houses, ruined by the catastrophe of 1745, either added to their incomes or supported themselves wholly by the making of the finer points. This custom seems to have been general, and, in alluding to it, Mrs. Calderwood speaks of the "helplessness" of the English women in comparison to the Scotch. In the journals of the day we have constant advertisements, informing the public of the advantages to be gained by the useful arts imparted to their offspring in their establishments, inserted by ladies of gentle blood--for the Scotchwomen of the last century no more disdained to employ themselves in the training of youth than does now a French dame de qualité to place herself at the head of the Sacré-Coeur, or some other convent devoted to educational purposes.[1209] [Illustration: Fig. 161. HAMILTON.] The entry of all foreign laces was excluded by law. The {432}Scotch nation of the Hanoverian persuasion were wrath at the frivolity of the Jacobite party. "£400,000 have been sent out of the country during the last year," writes the _Edinburgh Advertiser_ of 1764, "to support our exiled countrymen in France, where they learn nothing but folly and extravagance." English laces were not included in the prohibition. In 1763, that "neat shop near the Stinking Style, in the Lukenbooths," held by Mr. James Baillie, advertises "Trollies, English laces, and pearl edgings." Four years later, black silk lace and guipure are added to the stock, "mennuet," and very cheap bone lace.[1210] Great efforts, and with success, were made for the improvement of the thread manufacture, for the purchase of which article at Lille £200,000 were annually sent from Scotland to France. Badly-spun yarn was seized and burned by the stamp master; of this we have frequent mention.[1211] Peuchet, speaking of Scotland, says:--"Il s'est formé près d'Edinbourg une manufacture de fil de dentelle. On prétend que le fil de cette manufacture sert à faire des dentelles qui non-seulement égalent en beauté celles qui sont fabriquées avec le fil de l'étranger, mais encore les surpassent en durée. Cet avantage serait d'autant plus grand que l'importation de ce fil de l'étranger occasionne aux habitans de ce royaume une perte annuelle de £100,000."[1212] Whether about the year 1775 any change had taken place in the legislation of the customs of Scotland, and they had become regulated by English law, we cannot say, but suddenly constant advertisements of Brussels lace and fine point appear in the _Gazette_, and this at the very time Loch {433}was doing his best to stir up once more Scotch patriotism with regard to manufactures.[1213] The Scotch Foresters set the example at their meeting in 1766, and then--we hear nothing more on the matter. The _Weekly Magazine_ of 1776 strongly recommends the art of lace-making as one calculated to flourish in Scotland, young girls beginning to learn at eight years of age, adding: "The directors of the hospital of Glasgow have already sent twenty-three girls to be taught by Madame Puteau,[1214] a native of Lisle, now residing at Renfrew; you will find the lace of Renfrew cheaper, as good and as neat as those imported from Brussels, Lisle, and Antwerp." David Loch also mentions the success of the young Glasgow lace-makers, who made lace, he says, from 10d. to 4s. 6d. per yard. He adds: "It is a pleasure to see them at work. I saw them ten days ago." He recommends the managers of the Workhouse of the Canongate to adopt the same plan: adding, they need not send to Glasgow for teachers, as there are plenty at the Orphan Hospital at Edinburgh capable of undertaking the office. Of the lace fabricated at Glasgow we know nothing, save from an advertisement in the _Caledonian Mercury_ of 1778, where one William Smith, "Lace-maker," at the Greenhead, Glasgow, informs the public he has for some years "made and bleached candlewicks." Anderson and Loch did not agree on the subject of lace-making, the former considering it an unstable fabric, too easily affected by the caprices of fashion.[1215] {434}Be that as it may, the manufacture of thread for lace alone employed five hundred machines, each machine occupying thirty-six persons: the value of the thread produced annually £175,000. Loch adds, that in consequence of the cheapness of provisions, Scotland, as a country, is better adapted to lace-making than England. In consequence of Loch's remarks, his Majesty's Board of Trustees for the Fisheries and Manufactures, after asking a number of questions, determined to give proper encouragement and have mistresses for teaching the different kinds of lace made in England and France, and oblige them to take girls of the poorer class, some from the hospitals, and the mistress for five years to have the benefit of their work. A girl might earn from 10d. to 1s. per day. They gave a salary to an experienced person from Lisle for the purpose of teaching the making of thread; his wife to instruct in lace-making. With the records of 1788 end all mention of lace-making in Scotland.[1216] {435}CHAPTER XXXV. IRELAND. "The undoubted aptitude for lace-making of the women of Ireland."--_Juror's Report, International Exhibition._ 1862. "It is peculiarly interesting to note the various foreign influences which have done their part in the creation of Irish lace. Italian and Flemish, Greek, French and English, all have lent their aid."--A. Loyd. _The Queen_, Feb. 6th, 1897. Little is known of the early state of manufactures in Ireland, save that the art of needlework was held in high estimation. By the sumptuary laws of King Mogha Nuadhad, killed at the Battle of Maylean, A.D. 192, we learn that the value of a queen's raiment, should she bring a suitable dowry, ought to amount to the cost of six cows; but of what the said raiment consisted history is dark. The same record, however, informs us that the price of a mantle, wrought with the needle, should be "a young bullock or steer."[1217] This hooded mantle is described by Giraldus Cambrensis as composed of various pieces of cloth, striped, and worked in squares by the needle; maybe a species of cut-work. Morgan, who wrote in 1588, declares the saffron-tinted shirts of the Irish to contain from twenty to thirty ells of linen. No wonder they are described-- "With pleates on pleates they pleated are, As thick as pleates may lie."[1218] It was in such guise the Irish appeared at court before Queen Elizabeth,[1219] and from them the yellow starch of Mrs. Turner may have derived its origin. The Irish, however, {436}produced the dye not from saffron, but from a lichen gathered on the rocks. Be that as it may, the Government prohibited its use, and the shirts were reduced in quantity to six ells,[1220] for the making of which "new-fangled pair of Gally-cushes," _i.e._, English shirts, as we find by the Corporation Book of Kilkenny (1537), eighteenpence was charged if done with silk or cut-work. Ninepence extra was charged for every ounce of silk worked in. An Irish smock wrought with silk and gold was considered an object worthy of a king's wardrobe, as the inventory of King Edward IV.[1221] attests:--"Item, one Irishe smocke wrought with gold and silke." The Rebellion at an end, a friendly intercourse, as regards fashion, was kept up between the English and the Irish. The ruff of geometric design, falling band, and cravat of Flanders lace, all appeared in due succession. The Irish, always lovers of pomp and show, early used lace at the interments of the great, as appears from an anecdote related in a letter of Mr. O'Halloran:--"The late Lord Glandore told me," he writes, "that when a boy, under a spacious tomb in the ruined monastery at his seat, Ardfert Abbey (Co. Kerry), he perceived something white. He drew it forth, and it proved to be a shroud of Flanders lace, the covering of some person long deceased." In the beginning of the eighteenth century a patriotic feeling arose among the Irish, who joined hand in hand to encourage the productions of their own country. Swift was among the first to support the movement, and in a prologue he composed, in 1721, to a play acted for the benefit of the Irish weavers, he says:-- "Since waiting-women, like exacting jades, Hold up the prices of their old brocades, We'll dress in manufactures made at home." PLATE XC. [Illustration: IRISH, YOUGHAL.--Needle-point fan mount, made at the Presentation Convent, Youghal, for H.R.H. Princess Maud of Wales on her marriage, 1896. Width in centre 8½ in. Photo in Victoria and Albert Museum.] _To face page 436._ {437}Shortly afterwards, at a meeting, he proposed the following resolution:-- "That the ladies wear Irish manufactures. There is brought annually into this kingdom near £90,000 worth of silk, whereof the greater part is manufactured; £30,000 more is expended in muslin, holland, cambric, and calico. What the price of lace amounts to is not easy to be collected from the Custom-house book, being a kind of goods that, taking up little room, is easily run; but, considering the prodigious price of a woman's head-dress at ten, twelve, twenty pounds a yard, it must be very great." Though a club of patriots had been formed in Ireland since the beginning of the eighteenth century, called the Dublin Society, they were not incorporated by charter until the year 1749; hence many of their records are lost, and we are unable to ascertain the precise period at which they took upon themselves the encouragement of the bone lace trade in Ireland. From their _Transactions_ we learn that, so early as the year 1743, the annual value of the bone lace manufactured by the children of the workhouses of the city of Dublin amounted to £164 14s. 10½d.[1222] In consequence of this success, the society ordain that £34 2s. 6d. be given to the Lady Arabella Denny to distribute among the children, for their encouragement in making bone lace. Indeed, to such a pitch were the productions of the needle already brought in Ireland, that in the same year, 1743, the Dublin Society gave Robert Baker, of Rollin Street, Dublin, a prize of £10 for his imitation of Brussels lace ruffles, which are described as being most exquisite both in design and workmanship. This Brussels lace of Irish growth was much prized by the patriots.[1223] From this time the Dublin Society acted under their good genius, the Lady Arabella Denny. The prizes they awarded were liberal, and success attended their efforts. In 1755 we find a prize of £2 15s. 6d. awarded to {438}Susanna Hunt, of Fishamble Street, aged eleven, for a piece of lace most extraordinarily well wrought. Miss Elinor Brereton, of Raheenduff, Queen's County, for the best imitation of Brussels lace with the needle, £7. On the same occasion Miss Martha M'Cullow, of Cork Bridge, gains the prize of £5 for "Dresden point." Miss Mary Gibson has £2 for "Cheyne Lace,"[1224] of which we have scarcely heard mention since the days of Queen Elizabeth. Bone lace had never in any quantity been imported from England. In 1703 but 2,333 yards, valuing only £116 13s., or 1s. per yard, passed through the Irish Custom House. Ireland, like the rest of the United Kingdom, received her points either from France or Flanders. The thread used in the Irish fabric was derived from Hamburg, of which, in 1765, 2,573 lbs. were imported. It was in this same year the Irish club of young gentlemen refused, by unanimous consent, to toast or consider beautiful any lady who should wear French lace or indulge in foreign fopperies. During the two succeeding years the lace of various kinds exhibited by the workhouse children was greatly approved of, and the thanks of the Society offered to the Lady Arabella Denny.[1225] Prizes given to the children, to the amount of £34 2s. 6d.; the same for bone lace made by other manufacturers; and one half the sum is also to be applied to "thread lace made with knitting needles." A certain Mrs. Rachel Armstrong, of Inistioge (Co. Kilkenny), is also awarded a prize of £11 7s. 6d. "for having caused a considerable quantity of bone lace to be made by girls whom she has instructed and employed in the work." Among the premiums granted to "poor gentlewomen" we find: To Miss Jane Knox, for an apron of elegant pattern and curiously wrought, £6 16s. 6d., and silver medals to two ladies who, we suppose, are above {439}receiving money as a reward. The Society recommend that the bone lace made be exposed for sale in the warehouses of the Irish Silk Company. In consequence of the emulation excited among all classes, advertisements appear in the _Dublin News_ of ladies "very capable of instructing young misses in fine lace-making, needlework point, broderie en tambour, all in the genteelest taste." Lady Arabella stood not alone as a patroness of the art. In 1770 we read how "a considerable quantity of bone lace of extraordinary fineness and elegance of pattern, made at Castlebar in the Co. of Mayo, being produced to the Society, and it appearing that the manufacture of bone lace was founded, and is at present supported there by Lady Bingham, it was ordered that the sum of £25 be paid into the hands of her ladyship, to be disposed of in such encouragements as she shall judge will most effectually conduce to the carrying on and improvement of the said manufacture at Castlebar." The thanks of the Society are at the same time voted to her ladyship. In consequence of the large quantity fabricated, after the lapse of a few years the Society, in 1773, found themselves compelled to put some bounds to their liberality. No prizes are given for any lace exhibited at less than 11s. 4½d. the yard, and that only to those not resident in the city of Dublin or within five miles of it. Twenty per cent. will be given on the value of the lace, provided it shall not exceed £500 in value. The Society do not, however, withdraw the annual premium of £30 for the products of the "famishing children" of the city of Dublin workhouse,[1226] always directed by the indefatigable Lady Arabella Denny.[1227] From that period we hear no more of the Dublin Society and its prizes awarded for point, Dresden, Brussels, or bone lace. The manufacture of gold and silver lace having met with considerable success, the Irish Parliament, in 1778, gave it their protection by passing an Act prohibiting the entry of all such commodities either from England or foreign parts. {440}And now for forty years and more history is silent on the subject of lace-making by the "famishing children" of the Emerald Isle.[1228] No existing Irish lace industry is as old as the appliqué lace which has been made in the neighbourhood of Carrickmacross since the year 1820. The process of its manufacture is simple enough, for the pattern is cut from cambric and applied to net with point stitches. Many accounts have been given of its origin. Some assign its genesis to India or to Persia, while the Florentine historian, Vasari, claims the artist Botticelli as its inventor. In any case, there can be no doubt that vast quantities were produced in Italy from the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries. Such a specimen it was that Mrs. Grey Porter, wife of the then rector of Dunnamoyne, taught her servant, Anne Steadman, to copy, and also spread the art amongst the peasant women in the neighbourhood with such success that Miss Reid, of Rahans, gathered together the young women round Culloville and taught them to make lace on the same model. The girls flocked in from the surrounding districts to learn the work. It was, however, only dependent on private orders, and gradually suffered from over-production, and threatened to die out, until it was revived after the great famine of 1846. By Mr. Tristram Kennedy, the manager of the Bath estate, and Captain Morant, the agent of the Shirley estate, a vacant house was turned into a school, and this gave rise to the Bath and Shirley School, which has done so much to hand down this industry to the present day. Some samples of Brussels and guipure lace were brought to the school, where the teacher had them remodelled and placed in the hands of the best workers: and Carrickmacross became identified with some of the finest "guipure" that Ireland has produced.[1229] In the year 1829 the manufacture of Limerick tambour lace was first established in Ireland. Tambour work is of Eastern origin, and was known in China, Persia, India and {441}Turkey long before it spread to the United Kingdom. This work is still extensively carried on in the East, where it is much appreciated for its varied colours, as well as the labour expended upon it. Until the middle of the last century, tambour lace was unknown in Europe, with the exception of Turkey. It was about that time it was introduced into Saxony and Switzerland, but the knowledge of the art of making the lace did not reach England until 1820. Lace, in the strictest sense of the word, it cannot be termed. It is called tambour from the fact that the frame on which it is worked bears some resemblance to a drum-head or tambourine. On this is stretched a piece of Brussels or Nottingham net. A floss thread or cotton is then drawn by a hooked or tambour needle through the meshes of the net, and the design formed from a paper drawing which is placed before the worker. _Run_ lace is of a finer and lighter character. The pattern is formed on the net with finer thread, which is not drawn in with the tambour, but run in with the point needle. (This description of lace was made in Nottinghamshire during the eighteenth century, and appears to have been copied from foreign designs, chiefly from those of Lille.) It came into fashion after Nottingham machine net had made the work possible, and is still called by old people Nottingham lace. This fabric was first introduced into Ireland by one Charles Walker,[1230] a native of Oxfordshire, who brought over twenty-four girls as teachers, and commenced manufacturing at a place in Limerick called Mount Kennet. His goods were made entirely for one house in St. Paul's Churchyard, until that house became bankrupt in 1834, after which a traveller was sent through England, Scotland and Ireland to take orders. Her Excellency Lady Normanby, wife of the Lord Lieutenant, gave great encouragement to the fabric, causing dresses to be made, not only for herself, but also for Her Majesty the Queen of the {442}Belgians, and the Grand Duchess of Baden. The subsequent history of Limerick laces bears a close resemblance to that of the other Irish lace industries. Mr. Charles Walker died in 1842. Many of his workers returned to England;[1231] the stimulus of constant supervision was gone; old designs deteriorated from inferior copying, and new designs were not forthcoming. It was mainly due to the Convent of the Good Shepherd that this lace industry was saved from absolute extinction. Mrs. R. V. O'Brien has, however, done valuable service in its revival by her energy in establishing and maintaining the Limerick lace training school, which may be said to owe its origin to a lecture delivered by Mr. Alan S. Cole at the Limerick Chamber of Commerce in September, 1888, where photographs of ancient and modern lace and a loan collection of Limerick lace was shown. In this collection the work of the early days of Limerick, when the design was of the highest order, was contrasted with the more modern specimens.[1232] The first attempt to adapt the point de Venise to the necessities of the Irish people was made at Tynan, in Co. Armagh, on the borders of Tyrone. Mrs. Maclean, the wife of the Rev. William Maclean, then rector of the parish, was the owner of some old point de Venise, and she resolved to turn her collection to some practical use. The lace was examined and re-examined, until the secret workings underlying every stitch, every picot, every filling, and every relief, had been grasped and understood. Steps were taken in 1849 to teach the people this industry, and by 1851 a handsome flounce was ready, which was purchased by Lord John George Beresford, then Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland. It was exhibited at the great exhibition of that year in London, and attracted a large amount of attention, and brought many orders in its train. The business was thus considerably extended and enlarged, and the Primate and his nieces, Mrs. Eden and Mrs. Dunbar, did all they could to promote the sale of the work. The good fortune and prosperity of Tynan was, however, but of a temporary character. The Rev. William Maclean died in 1865, and, with his death, the local industry died out from want of supervision and organisation. PLATE XCI. [Illustration: IRISH, CARRICKMACROSS. INSERTION AND BORDER OF APPLIQUÉ LACE, made at the Bath and Shirley Schools. End of nineteenth century. Width of insertion, 6 in.; border, 9¼ in. Victoria and Albert Museum.] PLATE XCII. [Illustration: IRISH. LIMERICK LACE. TAMBOUR EMBROIDERY ON NET, made at Kinsale. End of nineteenth century. Width, 17 in. Victoria and Albert Museum.] _To face page 442._ {443}Irish point[1233] also owes its genesis to the failure of the potato crop in 1846, and its original inspiration was given by a piece of point de Milan which fell into the hands of Mother Mary Ann Smith, of the Presentation Convent at Youghal, Co. Cork. She there conceived the idea of setting up an industry for the children attending the convent school. She studied the lace which had come into her possession, examined the process by which it had been made, unravelled the threads one by one, and at last succeeded in mastering its many details. She then selected some of the convent children who had shown a taste for fine needlework, and taught them separately what she herself learned. The convent school was opened in 1852. The main characteristic of this lace is that it is worked entirely with the needle. Though Irish point lace owes its origin to Youghal Convent, its workers have done much to spread their art in other parts of Ireland, and in few districts more effectually than in the neighbourhood of Kenmare, Co. Kerry, where the late Mother Abbess O'Hagan introduced the industry into the Convent of the Poor Clares in 1861. The work is {444}based upon the same lines, though the Kenmare work claims as its speciality that it is entirely worked in linen thread, while at Youghal cotton is occasionally used. The Convent of the Poor Clares devote themselves chiefly to the production of flat point, appliqué, and guipure laces. Many other convents and lace centres in Ireland have had their teachers from Youghal and Kenmare. Flat point has been made for fifty years under the supervision of the Carmelite convent at New Ross, Co. Wexford, though the workers are now better known for their adaptation of Venetian rose point and the perfection to which they have brought their crochet than for their plain Irish point. For the first ten years the Carmelite nuns confined their attention to cut-work, flat point, and net lace. As the workers grew more expert, a heavy rose point was introduced. This style proved too heavy for the fashion; hence it was that, in 1865, the nuns turned their attention to finer work. It was about that time that a travelling Jewish pedlar called at the convent with a miscellaneous assortment of antique vestments, old books, and other curiosities, among which were some broken pieces of old rose point lace. The then Prioress, the late Mother Augustine Dalton, purchased the specimens from the Jew, as she realised that they would give her the opportunity she wanted of varying the quality of the lace, and making the design finer and lighter in the future than it had been in the past. For weeks and for months she devoted herself to the task of ripping up portions, stitch by stitch, until she had mastered every detail. From this time dates the production of that fine rose point for which the convent at New Ross has deservedly earned so high a reputation. This rose point has gone on increasing in fineness of quality and in beauty of design. The defects in the earlier specimens were mainly due to the want of artistic culture in the girls, who could neither appreciate nor render the graceful sweeps and curves, nor the branching stems. Irish crochet is another widespread national industry. Its main centres have been Cork in the South and Monaghan in the North of Ireland. The industry can be traced as far back as 1845, when the sisters of the Ursuline convent at Blackrock, Co. Cork, received £90 for the work done by the poor children in their schools. It may indeed be said that {445}the growth of this great industry spread from this centre; so much so, that within the space of a few years it formed part of the educational system of almost every convent in the land, and spread from the southern shores of Co. Cork to Wexford, to Monaghan and to Sligo. Cork City was itself the natural centre of the industry, which extended so far and wide through the country that some thirty years ago there were no less than 12,000 women in the neighbourhood of Cork engaged in making crochet, lace collars, and edgings after Spanish and Venetian patterns. On the outbreak of the Franco-German war a further impetus was given to the industry, when the supply of Continental laces was cut off. Several years of unique prosperity followed, until the competition of the machine-made work of Nottingham and Switzerland ousted the Irish crochet from the market. At the present there has been a reaction against the usurpation by machinery of the place that art ought to occupy, and the Cork work is now once more coming to the fore. As Cork has been the centre on the South, so is Clones in the North, and yet the industry which has for so many years done so much for the people of Monaghan owes its origin to the philanthropic efforts of Mrs. W. C. Roberts, of Thornton, Co. Kildare, who helped the poor to ward off the worst attacks of the famine of 1847 by the production of guipure and point de Venise crochet. After a few years of prosperity, the industry languished and disappeared from the neighbourhood, but twenty-four of the best-trained and most efficient of Mrs. Roberts's workers were sent out to other centres. One of these came to Mrs. Hand, the wife of the then Rector of Clones. This parish is the biggest in the county, and the poor from the surrounding mountains flocked down to learn the crochet; and knotted and lifted as well as ordinary guipure, Greek and Spanish, and also Jesuit lace[1234] has been produced with the crochet-needle in Clones, which still continues to be the most important centre of the industry. At the Killarney Presentation Convent at Newton Barry,[1235] and Cappoquin, drawn linen work in the style of {446}the Italian reticella, and at Parsonstown pillow laces of the same character as Honiton are made. In Ardee, a novel lace is made with braid and cord.[1236] The rose point lace is often called "Innishmacsaint" from the village in the county of Fermanagh where the industry was transplanted on the death of the Rev. W. Maclean, of Tynan, by his daughter, who went to live with her sister, Mrs. George Tottenham, the wife of the rector. What was Tynan's misfortune proved a boon to Innishmacsaint, and it became the chief centre of the Irish rose point industry. Both the heavier and finer kinds are made there. As at Tynan, the art of making the lace has been learnt by the unravelling and close examination of Venetian point. As in English work, some of the Irish is spoilt by the woolly cotton thread. Foreign lace likewise in these days suffers from the same fault. The workmanship at the present time can be so good that every effort ought to be made to use only fine silky linen thread. In Ireland, where flax can be grown, there should be no excuse for employing any other. PLATE XCIII. [Illustration: IRISH. CROCHET LACE.--End of nineteenth century. Width of cuff, 5 in.; length of plastron, 12 in. Victoria and Albert Museum.] _To face page 446._ {447}CHAPTER XXXVI. BOBBIN NET AND MACHINE-MADE LACE. [Illustration: Fig. 162. ARMS OF THE FRAME-WORK KNITTERS' COMPANY.] BOBBIN NET. A sketch of the history of lace would be incomplete without a few words on bobbin net and machine lace, manufactures which have risen to so much importance both in England and France, and have placed lace within the reach of all classes of society. The subject has been so ably treated by Mr. Felkin that we refer our readers to his excellent work for its full history.[1237] This manufacture has its epochs:-- 1768. Net first made by machinery. 1809. Invention of bobbin net. 1837. The Jacquard system applied to the bobbin net machine. It has been already told how Barbara Uttmann made a plain thread net in Germany three centuries before any attempt was made to produce it by machinery.[1238] This invention is usually assigned to Hammond, a stocking framework knitter of Nottingham, who, examining one day the broad lace on his wife's cap, thought he could {448}apply his machine to the production of a similar article.[1239] His attempt so far succeeded that, by means of the stocking-frame invented the previous century,[1240] he produced, 1768, not lace, but a kind of knitting, of running loops or stitches, like that afterwards known as "Brussels ground." In 1777, Else and Harvey introduced at Nottingham the "pin" or point net machine, so named because made on sharp pins or points. "Point net" was afterwards improved, and the "barleycorn" introduced: "square" and "spider net" appear in succession. But with all these improvements machinery had not yet arrived at producing a solid net, it was still only knitting, a single thread passing from one end of the frame to the other; and if a thread broke the work was unravelled; the threads, therefore, required to be gummed together, to give stiffness and solidity to the net. To remedy this evil, the warp or chain machine was invented, uniting the knitter's and the weaver's mechanism. Vandyke,[1241] a Flemish workman, and three Englishmen dispute the invention. This new machine was again improved and made "Mechlin net," from which the machine took its name. For forty years from Hammond's first attempt on the stocking-frame, endless efforts were made to arrive at imitating the ground of pillow lace, and there are few manufactures in which so much capital has been expended, and so much invention called forth. Each projector fancied {449}he had discovered the true stitch, and patents after patents were taken out, resulting mostly in disappointment. The machine for making "bobbin" net was invented by John Heathcoat, son of a farmer at Longwhatton (Leicestershire). After serving his apprenticeship he settled at Nottingham, and while occupied in putting together stocking and net machines, gave his attention to improving the Mechlin net frame.[1242] In 1809, in conjunction with Mr. Lacy, he took out a patent for fourteen years for his new and highly ingenious bobbin net machine, which he called Old Loughborough, after the town to which he then removed. "Bobbin net" was so named because the threads are wound upon bobbins.[1243] It was "twisted" instead of "looped" net. Heathcoat began by making net little more than an inch in width,[1244] and afterwards succeeded in producing it a yard wide. There are now machines which make it three yards and a half in width.[1245] In 1811 that vandal association called the Luddites[1246] entered his manufactory and destroyed twenty-seven of his machines, of the value of £8,000. Indignant at their conduct he removed to Tiverton,[1247] in Devonshire. {450}In 1818 the first power machines were put to work, and the year 1823 is memorable for the "bobbin net fever." Mr. Heathcoat's patent having expired, all Nottingham went mad. Everyone wished to make bobbin net. Numerous individuals, clergymen, lawyers, doctors, and others, readily embarked capital in so tempting a speculation. Prices fell in proportion as production increased; but the demand was immense, and the Nottingham lace frame became the organ of general supply, rivalling and supplanting in plain nets the most finished productions of France and the Netherlands.[1248] Dr. Ure says: "It was no uncommon thing for an artisan to leave his usual calling and betake himself to a lace frame, of which he was part proprietor, and realize, by working upon it, twenty, thirty, nay, even forty shillings a day. In consequence of such wonderful gains, Nottingham, with Loughborough and the adjoining villages, became the scene of an epidemic mania. Many, though nearly void of mechanical genius or the constructive talent, tormented themselves night and day with projects of bobbins, pushers, lockers, point-bars, and needles of every various form, till their minds got permanently bewildered. Several lost their senses altogether, and some, after cherishing visions of wealth as in the olden time of alchemy, finding their schemes abortive, sank into despair and committed suicide." Such is the history of the bobbin net[1249] invention in England.[1250] {451}We now pass on to FRANCE. "To the great trading nation, to the great manufacturing nation, no progress which any portion of the human race can make in knowledge, in taste for the conveniences of life, or in the wealth by which these conveniences are produced, can be matter of indifference."--Macaulay. Since the failure[1251] of Lee, in 1610, to introduce the stocking-frame into France, that country remained ignorant of a manufacture which was daily progressing in England, on whom she was dependent for stockings and for net. In 1778 Caillen attempted a kind of net "tricot dentelle," for which he obtained a gratuity from the Academy of £40, but his method did not succeed; it was, like the first efforts of our countrymen, only knitting. In 1784 Louis XVI. sent the Duke de Liancourt to England to study the improvements in the stocking and net machinery, and to bring back a frame. He was accompanied by Rhumbolt, who worked in a manufactory at Nottingham, and having acquired the art, returned to France. Monarchy had fallen, but the French Republic, 1793-4, granted Rhumbolt the sum of 110,000 francs (£4,400). The machine he brought with him was the point net.[1252] The cessation of all commercial intercourse prevented France from keeping pace with the improvements making in England; yet, singularly enough, at the beginning of the nineteenth century more net was manufactured in France than in England. At the time of the Peace of Amiens (1802) there were 2,000 frames in Lyons and Nîmes, while there were scarcely 1,200 in England; but the superiority of the English net was incontestable, so, to protect the national manufacture, Napoleon prohibited the importation. This of course increased its demand; the net was in request in proportion as it was prohibited. The best mart for Nottingham was the French market, so the Nottingham net trade took every means to pass their produce into France. {452}Hayne, one of the proprietors of the "barley-corn" net, had gone to Paris to make arrangements for smuggling it over, when the war broke out, and he was detained. Napoleon proposed that he should set up a machine in France; but he preferred continuing his illicit trade, which he carried on with great success until 1809, when his own agent informed against him, his goods were seized and burned, and having in one seizure lost £60,000 (1,500,000 fr.), he was completely ruined, and fled to England.[1253] The French manufacturers took out various patents for the improvement of their "Mechlin" machines, and one was taken, in 1809, for making a crossed net called "fond de glace"; but the same year Heathcoat producing the bobbin net machine, the inventors could not sustain the competition. Every attempt was made to get over bobbin net machines; but the export of English machinery was punished by transportation, and the Nottingham manufacturers established at their own expense a line of surveillance to prevent the bobbin net machines from going out. In spite of all these precautions, Cutts, an old workman of Heathcoat's, contrived to elude their vigilance, and, in 1815, to import a machine to Valenciennes, whence he removed it to Douai, where he entered into partnership with M. Thomassin. In 1816 they produced the first bobbin net dress made in France. It was embroidered by hand by a workwoman of Douai, and presented by the makers to the Duchesse d'Angoulême. About the end of the year 1816 James Clark introduced a machine into Calais, which he passed in pieces by means of some French sailors. These two were the first bobbin net machines set up in France. It is not within our limits to follow the Calais lace manufacturers through their progress; suffice it to say that it was in 1817 that the first bobbin net machine worked, concealed from all eyes, at Saint-Pierre-lez-Calais, now, if not the rival of Nottingham, at least the great {453}centre of the bobbin net and machinery lace manufactures in France.[1254] St. Quentin, Douai, Cambrai, Rouen, Caen, have all in turn been the seats of the tulle manufacture. Some of these fabrics are extinct; the others have a very limited trade compared with Saint-Pierre and Lyons. At Lyons silk net is mostly made.[1255] Dating from 1791, various patents have been taken out for its manufacture. These silk nets were embroidered at Condrieu (Rhône), and were (the black especially for veils and mantles) much esteemed, particularly in Spain. In 1825 the "tulle bobine grenadine," black and white, was brought out by M. Doguin, who afterwards used the fine silks, and invented that popular material first called "zephyr," since "illusion." His son, in 1838, brought out the "tulle Bruxelles." BELGIUM. In 1834[1256] eight bobbin net machines were set up in Brussels by Mr. Washer, for the purpose of making the double and triple twisted net, upon which the pillow flowers are sewn to produce the Brussels application lace. Mr. Washer devoted himself exclusively to the making of the extra fine mesh, training up workmen specially to this minute work. In a few years he succeeded in excelling the English manufacture; and this net, universally known as "Brussels net," has nearly superseded the expensive pillow ground, and has thereby materially decreased the price of Brussels lace. It is made of English cotton, stated, in the specimens exhibited in 1867, as costing £44 per pound. {454}MACHINERY LACE. "Qui sait si le métier à tulle ne sera pas un jour, en quelque sorte, un vrai coussin de dentellière, et les bobines de véritables fuseaux manoeuvrés par des mains mécaniques."--Aubry, in 1851. If England boasts the invention of bobbin net, to France must be assigned the application of the Jacquard system to the net-frame, and consequently the invention of machinery lace. Shawls and large pieces in "run lace," as it is termed, had previously been made after this manner at Nottingham and Derby. The pattern proposed to be "run in" is printed by means of engraved wood blocks on the ground, which, if white, is of cotton; if black, of silk. The ground is stretched on a frame; the "lace-runner" places her left hand under the net, and with the right works the pattern. The filling up of the interior is termed either "fining" or "open-working," as the original meshes of the net are brought to a smaller or larger size by the needle.[1257] In 1820 Symes, of Nottingham, invented a pattern which he called "Grecian" net. This was followed by the "spot," or "point d'esprit," and various other fancy nets--bullet-hole, tattings, and others. The Jacquard system had been used at Lyons with the Mechlin frame in 1823-4 for making patterned net and embroidered blondes. This suggested the possibility of applying the Jacquard cards to making lace, and in 1836 to 1838 Mr. Ferguson,[1258] by applying it to the circular bobbin net frame, brought out the black silk net called "dentelle de Cambrai," an imitation of Chantilly. The pattern was woven by the machine, the brodé or relief "run in." Various patents[1259] were immediately taken out in England and France. Nottingham and Saint-Pierre-lez-Calais rival {455}each other in the variety of their productions. At the International Exhibition of 1867 Nottingham exhibited Spanish laces, most faithful copies of the costly pillow-made Barcelona; imitations of Mechlin, the brodé and picot executed by hand; Brussels needle-point; Caen blondes, and Valenciennes rivalling those of Calais; also Cluny and the black laces of Chantilly and Mirecourt. The French, by adopting what is technically termed eight "motives," produce their lace of a finer make and more complex pattern. The Calais lace is an admirable copy of the square-grounded Valenciennes, and is the staple trade of the manufacture. Calais also produces blondes, black and white, silver and gold, the white nearly approaching in brilliancy and whiteness the famed productions of Caen, which, by their cheapness, they have expelled from competition. She also imitates the woollen laces of Le Puy, together with black and white laces innumerable. "Broadly speaking, lace-making by machinery is more nearly like the pillow lace-making process than that of needle-point. The machine continues to twist any desired threads around one another. In pillow lace-making, besides twisting, we have plaiting, and this plaiting has not been reproduced by the majority of lace machines. Quite recently, however, a French machine, called the 'Dentellière,' has been invented to do the plaiting. A description of this machine has been published in _La Nature_ (March 3rd, 1881). "Whilst the ordinary lace-making machine belongs to the family of weaving machines, the Dentellière more nearly resembles the pillow of a lace-worker with the threads arranged over the pillow. In general appearance it looks something like a large semicircular frame-work of iron--with thousands of threads from the outer semicircle converging to the centre, representing the table or pillow. Over this central table is the apparatus which holds the end threads side by side, and which regulates the plaiting of them. The cost of producing lace in this manner is said to be greater at present than by hand."[1260] {456}Almost every description of lace is now fabricated by machinery;[1261] and it is often no easy task, even for a practised eye, to detect the difference. Still, we must ever be of opinion that the most finished productions of the frame never possess the touch, the finish, or the beauty of the laces made by hand. The invention of machine-made lace has this peculiarity--it has not diminished the demand for the finer fabrics of the pillow and the needle. On the contrary, the rich have sought more eagerly than ever the exquisite works of Brussels and Alençon, since machinery has brought the wearing of lace within the reach of all classes of society. [Illustration: Fig. 163. THE LAGETTA, OR LACE-BARK TREE.] The inner bark of the Lagetta, or Lace-bark tree[1262] of Jamaica, may be separated into thin layers, and then into distinct meshes, bearing some resemblance to lace (Fig. 163). Of this material a cravat and ruffles were presented to King Charles II. by the Governor of Jamaica; and at the Exhibition of 1851 a dress of the same fibre was presented to Queen Victoria, which her Majesty was graciously pleased to accept. {457}Caterpillars have been made to spin lace veils by the ingenious contrivance of a gentleman of Munich.[1263] These veils are not strong, but surprisingly light--one, a yard square, would scarcely weigh five grains, whilst a patent net veil of the same size weighs 262. Asbestos has also been woven into lace: and a specimen of this mineral lace is, we have been told, in the Cabinet of Natural History at the Garden of Plants, Paris. {459}APPENDIX. _The Notes marked with an * show that the works referred to have been examined by the Author._[1264] 1. [Sidenote: 1527. _Cologne. P. Quentell._] Eyn new kunstlich boich, dair yn. C. vnd. xxxviij. figuren, monster ad' stalen befonden, wie man na der rechter art, Lauffer werck, Spansche stich, mit der nälen, vort vp der Ramen, vnd vp der laden, borden wirckenn sall, wilche stalen all etzo samen verbessert synt, vnd vyl kunstlicher gemacht, d[=a] dye eirsten, &c. Sere nutzlich allen wapen sticker, frauwen, ionfferen, vnd met ger, dair uns solch kunst lichtlich tzu leren. D Gedruckt tzu Collen vp dem Doemhoff dwrch Peter Quentell. Anno. M. D. XXXVJJ.[1265] Small 8vo, 22 ff., 42 plates. Title in Gothic letters; beneath, woodcuts representing women at work. On the back of the leaf, a large escutcheon, the three crowns of Cologne in chief; supporters, a lion and a griffin. Below, "O Foelix Colonia. 1527." The patterns consist of mediæval and arabesque borders, alphabets, etc., some on white, others on black grounds. Some with counted stitches. Quentell refers to a previous edition. Brunet and the Marquis d'Adda mention a copy, 1529, with the portrait of Charles V., and a second edition 1532. 2. [Sidenote: 1527. _Cologne. P. Quinty._] Liure noveau et subtil touchant lart et sci[=e]ce tant de brouderie fronssures, tapisseries c[=o]me aultres mestiers qu[=o] fait alesguille, soit au petit mestier, aultelisse ou sur toille clere, tresvtile et necessaire a toutes, gens usans des mestiers et ars {460}dessuld, ou semblables, ou il y ha C. et. xxxviij patrons de diuers ouvraiges faich per art et proportion. En primere a culoge (Cologne) par matrepiere quinty demor[=a]t denpre leglie de iii roies.[1266] The same cut as the preceding, with the arms of Cologne, which seems to have been engraved for a great Bible printed by Quentell, in 1527, and is no guide for the date. Figs. 164, 165. [Illustration: Fig. 164. METRE P. QUINTY.--Cologne, 1527.] [Illustration: Fig. 165. METRE P. QUINTY.--Cologne, 1527.] 3. [Sidenote: 1530. _Venice. A. Taglienti_] Opera nuova che insegna a le D[=o]ne a cuscire: a racc[=a]mare: e a disegnar a ciascuno: Et la ditta opera sara di grande utilita ad ogni artista: per esser il disegno ad ogniuno necessario: la qual e ititolata esempio di rac[=a]mi.[1267] 4to, 23 ff., 36 plates. Title in red Gothic letters; beneath four woodcuts representing women at work. Two pages of dedication to the ladies, by Giovanni Antonio Taglienti, in which he says his book is for the instruction of each "valorosa donna & tutte altre donzelle, con gli huomini insieme & fanciulli, liquali si dilettarano de imparar a disegnar, cuscir, & raccammar." {461}Then follows a most miscellaneous collection of what he terms, in his dedication, "fregi, frisi, tondi maravigliosi, groppi moreschi et arabeschi, ucelli volanti, fiori, lettere antique, maiuscoli, & le francesche," etc., three pages very much like the pictures in a child's spelling book, rounds (tondi) for cushions, and two pages representing hearts and scrolls; hearts transfixed, one with an arrow, another with a sword, a third torn open by two hands, motto on the scroll:-- "La virtù, al huomo sempre li resta Nè morte nol pò privar di questa." On the other page hearts transfixed by two arrows, with two eyes above: "Occhi piangete accompagnete il core. Inclita virtus." Then follow six pages of instructions, from which we learn the various stitches in which these wonderful patterns may be executed, "damaschino, rilevato, a filo, sopra punto, ingaseato, Ciprioto, croceato, pugliese, scritto, incroceato, in aere, fatto su la rate, a magliata, desfilato, & di racammo," to be sewn in various coloured silks, gold and silver thread, or black silk, for "collari di huomo & di donna, camisciole con pettorali, frisi di contorni di letti, entemelle di cuscini, frisi di alcun boccassino, & scufie," etc. On the last page, "Stampa in Vineggia per Giovan Antonio Tagliente & i Fratelli de Sabbio. 1530." Brunet gives an edition dated 1528. 4. [Sidenote: 1530. _Paris F. Pelegrin._] La fleur de la science de pourtraicture et patrons de broderie. Facon arabicque, et ytalique. Cum priviligio regis. Frontispiece. Title in Gothic letters. A large figure of Sol (?), with a yoke, his feet chained, a ball, maybe the Earth, at the end of the chain. In one hand he holds a scroll with the legend, "Exitus acta probat." Privilege of "Francoys par la grace de Dieu roy de France," to "Francisque pelegrin de Florence," to publish "ung livre de fueillages, entrelatz et ouvraiges moresques, et Damasquins," for six years. "D[=o]ne a bordeaulx le xvii. jour de Juing. L'an de grace mil cinq cens tr[=e]te Et de nostre regne le seiziesme." Ce present livre a este imprime a paris par jaques nyverd. Le iv. jour daoust. Lan de grace mil cinq c[=e]s xxx. Pour noble h[=o]me messire Francisque Pelegrin de florence. On les vend a paris En la grant rue sainct Anthoyne devant les tournelles. Au logis de monseigneur le comte de Carpes. Par messire Fr[=a]cisque pelegrin de florence.[1268] Small fol., 62 ff., 58 plates, consisting of graceful moresque patterns, no animals or natural objects represented. At plate 33, surrounded by arabesques, is an N, the initial of the printer. 5. [Sidenote: 1529. _Venice. N. Zoppino._] Esemplario di lavori: dove le tenere fanciulle & altre donne nobile potranno facilment imparare il modo & ordine di lavorare, cusire, racamare, & finalmente far tutte quelle gentillezze & lodevoli opere, le quali pò fare una donna virtuosa con laco in {462}mano, con li suoi compasse & misure. Vinezia, per Nicolo D'Aristotile detto Zoppino MDXXIX. 8vo.[1269] 46 plates. The Cav^{re} Merli quotes another edition, date 1530, in the possession of the Avvocato Francesco Pianesani, and another he believes of 1529. 6. [Sidenote: 1532. _Venice. N. Zoppino._] Convivio delle belle Donne, dove con li. Nuovi raccami, &c. In fine: Finisce il convivio delle, &c. Nuovamente stampato in Vinegia, per Nicolo d'Aristotile, detto Zoppino del mese d'Agosto. MDXXXII. In 4to, ff. 24.[1270] 7. [Sidenote: 1537. _Venice. N. Zoppino._] Gli universali de i belli Recami antichi, et moderni, ne i quali un pellegrino ingegno, si di huomo come di donna potra in questa nostra eta con l'ago vertuosamente esercitar si. Non ancora da alcuni dati altri inluce. Frontispiece, two ladies at work; dedication to "gli virtuosi Giovani et gentilissime Fanciulle." At the end styles himself "Nicolo d'Aristotile detto Zoppino." March, 1537. In 4to, ff. 25, printed on both sides.[1271] 8. [Sidenote: 1534. _Augsburg. Schartzemberger._] Ain New Formbüchlin bin ich gnandt Allen Künstlern noch unbekandt Sih mich (lieber kauffer) recht an, Findst drefftlich in diser kunff stan Sch[=o]n gschnierlet, geböglet, auf gladt, Und gold, auch sch[=o]n von premen stadt, Es gibt dir ain prem unb ain kledyt. Wenn mans recht aussainander schneydt, Das kanst schneyden auss der Ellen, Von Samat, Seyden, wie manss wolle, Ich mag braucht wern in allem landt, Wen man mich ers[=u]cht mit verstandt. (At the end.) Gedruckt in der Kaiserlichen Riechstatt, Augspurg, durch Johan Schartzemberger. Fomschneyder. 1534.[1272] Small obl., 20 ff., 38 plates. Frontispiece. Title in black Gothic letters, at the foot three subjects of women at work, printed in red. The patterns, consisting of graceful arabesque borders, are also in red (Figs. 166, 167, 168). [Illustration: Fig. 166. PATTERN BOOK.--Augsburg, 1534.] [Illustration: Fig. 167. PATTERN BOOK.--Augsburg, 1534.] _To face page 462._ {463}[Illustration: Fig. 168. AUGSBURG. 1534.] 9. [Sidenote: _N. D. Antwerp. W. Vorsterman._] A neawe treatys: as c[=o]cernynge the excellency of the nedle worcke spânisshe stitche and weavynge in the frame, very necessary to al theym wiche desyre the perfect knowledge of seamstry, quiltinge and brodry worke, côteinynge an cxxxviij figures or tables, so playnli made & set tout in portrature, the whiche is difficyll; and natôly for crafts m[=e] but also for gentlewem[=e] & and iôge damosels that therein may obtayne greater conynge delyte and pleasure. These books be to sell at Andwarp in the golden Unycorne at Will[=m] Vorstermans. Gheprent tot Antwerpen in die camerstrate in den gulden eenhoren bey Willem Vorsterman.[1273] 8vo, 24 ff., 46 plates. Title in Gothic letters, with figures. P. 1, dorso: Woodcut of a woman at work and a man sitting by her side. Patterns mediæval, small black squares, arabesques, etc. Vorsterman worked from 1514 to 1542.[1274] 10. [Sidenote: 1542. _Venice._] Giardinetto novo di punti tagliati et gropposi, per exercitio et ornamento delle donne. Ven. 1542, in 4to.[1275] {464}11. [Sidenote: 1543. _Venice._] Esemplare che insegna alle donne el modo di cucire. Venetia, 1543.[1276] 12. [Sidenote: 1544. _Venice._] Il Specchio di pensiere (_sic_), delle belle donne dove si vede varie sorti di punti, cioè, punti tagliati, gropposi, &c. Venetia, 1544. In 4to.[1277] 13. [Sidenote: 1544. _Venice._] Ornamento delle belle donne et virtuose: Opere in cui troverai varie sorti di frisi con li quali si potra ornar ciascun donna. Ven. 1544.[1278] 14. [Sidenote: 1546. _Paris. Gormont._] Le livre de moresques, tres utile et necessaire à tous orfevres, tailleurs, graveurs, painctres, tapissiers, brodeurs, lingieres et femmes qui besongnent de l'aiguille. Paris. Gormont, 1546. Fig. en bois.[1279] 15. [Sidenote: 1549. _Lyon. P. de Ste. Lucie._] La fleur des patrons de lingerie, a deux endroitz, a point croise, a point couche, et a point picque, en fil dor, fil darg[=e]t, & fil de soye, ou aultre en quelque ouvraige que ce soit, en comprenant lart de broderie et tissuterie. Imprimees a Lyon, en la maison de Pierre de saincte Lucie (dict le Prince, Pres nostre Dame de Confort).[1280] (At the end.) Imprimé à Lyon par Piarre de saincte Lucie, dict le Prince. 1549. 8vo, 12 ff., 21 plates. Frontispiece. Title in Gothic letters, with woodcuts representing people at work. Below, two women sitting at frames; above, two others; and between, a man with a frame in his hand. On each side a shield, one with crowned heart, on the other a lion, three fleurs de lys in chief. Patterns mediæval. At the end, the device of the printer, a mountain, on the top of which is a city against which a youth is placing his hand: motto, "Spero." At the foot of the mountain a cavern in which is seated a Fury. This device is engraved No. 616 in Silvestre, who gives 1530 to 1555 as the date of Pierre de Saincte Lucie. {465}16. [Sidenote: _N. D. Lyon. P. de Ste. Lucie._] Livre nouveau, dict patrons de lingerie, cest assavoir a deux endroitz, a point croise, point couche & point picque, en fil dor, dargent, de soye & autres, en quelque ouvrage que ce soit: comprenant lart de Broderie & Tissoterie. Imprimees a Lyon, chez Pierre de Saincte Lucie, pres nostre Dame de Confort.[1281] 8vo, 24 ff., 44 plates. Frontispiece. Title in Gothic letters; the same shields as the preceding; two women at work. Patterns mediæval. At the end the same device. The copy of the Arsenal is a different impression. Instead of "Imprimees," &c, we have, "On les vend," etc. 17. [Sidenote: _N. D. Lyon. P. de Ste. Lucia._] Patrons de diverses manieres Inventez tressubtilement Duysans a Brodeurs et Lingieres Et a ceusy lesquelz vrayement Veullent par bon entendement User Dantique, et Roboesque, Frize et Moderne proprement, En comprenant aussi Moresque. A tous massons, menuisiers, & verriers Feront prouffit ces pourtraictz largement Aux orpheures, et gentilz tapissiers A ieunes gens aussi semblablement Oublier point ne veuly auscunement C[=o]trepointiers & les tailleurs dymages Et tissotiers lesquelz pareillement Par ces patrons acquerront heritages. Imprimees a Lyon, par Pierre de Saincte Lucie, dict le Prince, pres nostre Dame de Confort.[1282] 8vo, 16 ff., 31 plates. Title in Gothic letters. Patterns mediæval. The copy at the Arsenal is a later impression. "On les vend a Lyon, par Pierre de saincte Lucie, en la maison du deffunct Prince, pres," etc. It has only 12 ff., and 23 plates. 18. [Sidenote: _N. D. Lyon. Le Prince._] Sensuyuent lis patrons de messire Antoine Belin, Reclus de sainct Martial de Lyon. Item plusieurs autres beaulx Patrons nouveaulx, qui out este inventez par Jeban Mayol Carme de Lyon. On les vend à Lyon, chez le Prince.[1283] {466}Small 8vo, 6 ff., 85 plates. Copy at the Arsenal has 12 ff. The same device of the printer in the frontispiece and at the end of the book. "Finis." One of the patterns represents St. Margaret holding the cross to a dragon, but in these four books the designs are copied from each other, and are many of them repetitions of Quinty. 19. [Sidenote: _N. D. Lyon. D. Celle._] Ce livre est plaisant et utile A gens qui besongnent de leguille Pour comprendre legèrement Damoyselle bourgoyse ou fille Femmes qui out l'esperit agille Ne scauroint faillir nullement Corrige est nouvellement Dung ho[=n]este ho[=m]e par bon zelle Son nom est Dominicque Celle Qui a tous lecteurs shumylie Domicille a en Italie. En Thoulouse a prins sa naissance. Mise il a son intelligence A lamender subtillement Taillé il est totallement Par Jehan coste de rue merciere A Lyon et consequemment Quatre vingtz fassons a vrayement Tous de differente maniere.[1284] 28 ff., 27 plates. Title in Gothic letters. Dedication to the Reader, in which it states the book is for the profit of "tant hommes que femmes." Patterns mediæval. At the end of the Preface, "Finis coronat opus." 20. [Sidenote: _N. D. Venice. G. A. Vavassore._] Esemplario di lavori: che insegna alle d[=o]ne il modo e ordine di lavorare: cusire: e racámare: e finalm[=e]te far tutte [=q]lle opere degne di memoria: lequale po fare una donna virtuosa con laco in mano. Et uno documento che insegna al c[=o]pratore accio sia ben servito.[1285] In 8vo, 25 ff., printed on both sides, 48 plates. Title in red Gothic characters, framed round by six woodcuts similar to that of Vorsterman; at the foot, "fiorio Vavasore fecit." Then follows the "Documento per el compratore," and an Address to Ladies and Readers, by "Giovandrea Vavassore detto Guadagnino," saying that he had already "fatti alcuni libri di esempli di diverse sorte." There is no date to this copy; but in the library of Prince Messimo, at Rome, is a copy dated Venice, 18 Feb., 1546, containing 50 plates; and Brunet quotes an edition, "Stampato in Vinezia, 1556;" Cav. Merli also possesses an edition of the same date. Mr. E. Arnold has also a copy with the same date. The patterns are mediæval, on black grounds, with counted stitches, a large flower pot, mermaid, Paschal lamb, and a double plate representing Orpheus playing to the beasts. {467}21. [Sidenote: _N. D. Venice. G. A. Vavassore._] Essemplario novo di pin di cento variate mostre di qualunque orte bellissime per cusire intitolato Fontana di gli essempli. Oblong 8vo. No date. 16 ff., 28 plates. In the frontispiece is a fountain with the motto, "Solicitudo est mater divitiarum," and on each side of the fountain-- "Donne donzelle ch Per farvi eterne alla. El cusir seguite Fonte venite." On the back of the frontispiece is the Dedication, headed, "Il Pelliciolo alla molta magnifica Madona Chiara Lipomana;" the page finished by a sonnet; in the last leaf, "Avviso alle virtuose donne et a qualunque lettore Giovanni Andrea Vavassore detto Guadagnino." Says he has "negli tempi passati fatto imprimere molto e varie sorte d'essemplari di mostre," etc. At the foot, "Nuovamente stampato."[1286] This work is also described by Count Cicognara with the same title, only with the date 1550. In the Bibliotheca Communitativa, Bologna, is a copy of the same date. In this last edition the author writes his name Valvassore. 22. [Sidenote: _N. D. Venice. G. A. Vavassore._] Vavassore Gio. Andrea. Opera nova Universal intitulata corona di ricammi; Dove le venerande donne e fanciulle: trovera[=n]o di varie opere [per] fare colari di camisiola & torni[=a][=e]nti di letti [=e]ternelle di cuscini boccasini schufioni: cordlli di piu sorte; et molte opere per rec[=a]matori [per] dipitore poreuesi: (_sic_) de lequale opere o vero esempli ciascuno le potra pore in opera sec[=o]do el suo bisogno: con gratia novamente stampata ne la inclita citta di vineggia per Giovanni Andrea Vavassore detto Guadagni[=o]. 36 pp., sm. 4to. 13 ff., 52 designs, none of which are repetitions of the preceding.[1287] 23. [Sidenote: _N. D. Venice. G. A. Vavassore._] Vavassore Gio. Andrea detto Guadagnino. Opera nova, etc. ... dove le venerande donne et fanciulle trovaranno di varie opere et molte opere per recamatori et per dipintori; etc. Nuovamente stampata, etc.[1288] Quite a different collection from the preceding. A little of everything in this volume. Zoan Andrea Vavassore was the pupil in drawing and engraving of Andrea Mantegna. Towards the beginning of the sixteenth century, he worked on his own account, and his engravings are much sought after. So greedy was he of gain as to obtain for him the name of Guadigno, in Venetian patois, "covetous." He lived to a great age. {468}24. [Sidenote: _N. D. A. Paganino._] Libro questo di rechami per el quale se impara in diversi modi l'ordine e il modo de recamare, cosa non mai più fatta n' è stata mostrata. By Alessandro Paganino.[1289] 20 plates, with a long explanation how these works are done. (Communicated by Prince Massimo.) 25. [Sidenote: _N. D. Paris Vve. Ruelle._] Patrons pour Brodeurs, Lingieres, Massons, Verriers, et autres gens d'esprit. A Paris. Pour la Veuve Jean Ruelle, rue S. Jacques, à l'enseigne Sainct Nicolas.[1290] 4to, 23 ff., 32 plates of mediæval designs. Ornamented title-page. 26. [Sidenote: 1548. _Venice. M. Pagan._] Il specchio di pensieri delle belle et virtudiose donne, dove si vede varie sorti di Punti, cioè punti tagliati, punti gropposi, punti in rede, et punti in Stuora. MDXLVIII. Stamp. in Venetia, per Mathio Pagan in frezzaria, in le case nove Tien per insegna la fede.[1291] 16 ff. 27. [Sidenote: 1551. _Venice. M. Pagan._] 1. L'honesto Essempio del vertuoso desiderio che hanno le donne di nobile ingegno circa lo imparare i punti tagliati e fogliami. In Venetia per Mathio Pagan in Frezaria al segno della Fedo, M.D.L.[1292] In the V. and A. Museum is a copy dated 1550. 28. [Sidenote: 1551. _Venice. M. Pagan._] Giardineto novo di Punti tagliati et gropposi, per esurcitio et ornamento delle donne. At the end, Venetia, Mathio Pagan in Frezzaria, in le case nove (tien per insegna della Fede) MDLI. Dedication, Alla signora Lucretia, Romana Mathio Pagan, salute.[1293] See also No. 38. 29. [Sidenote: 1554. _Dubois._] Variarum protractionum quas vulgo Maurusias vocant omnium antehac excusarum libellus longe copiasissimus pictoribus, aurifabris, polymilariis, barbaricariis variisque id genus {469}artificibus etiam acu operantibus utilissimus nuncque primen in lucem editus anno 1554. Balthazar Sylvius (Dubois) fecit. Jo. Theodoret, Jo. Israel de Bry excud.[1294] In 4to, ff. 23, copperplate. 30. [Sidenote: 1555. _Padua. Fra Hieronimo._] Triompho di Lavori a Fogliami de i quali si puo far ponti in aere; opera d' Fra Hieronimo da Cividal di Frioli, de l'Ordine de i Servi di Osservantia. Cum gratia et privileggio per anni xi.[1295] Obl. 4to, 14 ff., 22 pl. Ornamental title-page. On the top, a female seated in a triumphal car drawn by unicorns, with attendants. On each side of the title are women teaching children to work. P. 1, dorso. Dedication of the author, "Alla Magnifica & Illustre Signora Isabella Contessa Canossa," whose "Immortal Triompho" is represented in the above woodcut. Fra Hieronimo speaks of preparing "più alte e divine imprese." Then follow three pages of verses in terzette, and p. 3, dorso, the impresa of the printer, a lion rampant, holding a sword in his fore paws. Below, "In Padou per Jacobo Fabriano, ad instantia de Fra Hieronimo da Cividal di Frioli: de l'Ordine de i Servi di Osservantia 1555." 31. [Sidenote: 1556. _Venice. Torello._] Lucidario di ricami di Guiseppe Torello. Venezia, 1556. In 4to. 32. [Sidenote: 1556. _Strasburg. H. Hoffman._] New Modelbüch, allen Nägerin, unnd Sydenstickern sehr nutzlich zü branchë, vor nye in Druck aussgangen durch Hans Hoffman, Burger und formschneider zu Strassburg. At the end, Zu Strassburg Gedruckt am Kommarckt durch Jacob Frölich. 1556. 4to.[1296] 4to. A to G in fours. (28 leaves.) Title printed in red and black. On it a woodcut of two women, one engaged in embroidery, the other fringing her some stuff. The last leaf (Giiii.) has on the recto a woodcut of a woman at a frame, the verso blank. 33. [Sidenote: _N. D. Zurich. C. Froschover._] Nüw Modelbüch, allerley gattungen Däntelschnür, so diser zyt in hoch Tütschlanden geng und brüchig sind, zu underricht jren Leertöchteren unnd allen anderen schurwirckeren zu Zurych {470}und wo die sind, yetz nüwlich zübereit, und erstmals in truch verfergket durch R. M.[1297] No place or date, but as appears, both from the title and preface, to be printed at Zurich, by Christopher Froschover. The date probably from 1530 to 1540. 4to. Signatures A to F in fours. 24 leaves. On the title a woodcut of two women working at lace pillows. 34. [Sidenote: _N. D. Frankfort._] Modelbüch Welscher, Ober und Niderlandischer Arbait. Getruckt zü Franckfort. No date, but probably at least as early as 1530. 4to. Signatures A to D in fours. 20 leaves. Title enclosed in an elegant woodcut border. 35. [Sidenote: 1537. _Frankfort. C. Egenolffs._] Modelbüch, von erhabener unnd flacher Arbait, Auff der Ramen, Laden, und nach der Zale. Getruckt zu Franckfort, Bei Christian Egenolffs, Erben. The date, 1537, occurs on one of the patterns. 4to. AA to HH in fours. 32 leaves. Title in a woodcut border. 178 patterns. 36. [Sidenote: 1571. _Frankfort on the Mayn. N. Baseus._] New Modelbüch. Von allerhandt Art, Nehens und Stickens, jetzt mit viellerley Welscher Arbeyt, Mödel und Stahlen, allen Steinmetzen, Seidenstickern und Neterin, sehr nützlich und kunstlich, von newem zugericht. Getruckt zu Frankfurt am Mayn, 1571. Device and motto of Nicolas Baseus on title-page. Sm. 4to. (Library V. and A. Museum.) 37. [Sidenote: 1568. _Frankfort on the Mayn. N. Baseus._] Das new Modelbüch, &c. Franckfurt am Mayn, 1568, 4to. Printer, Nicholas Baseus, ff. 40. 38. [Sidenote: 1569. _Frankfort on the Mayn._] Modelbüch; Zweiter Theil: Franckfurt am Mayn, 1569. 4to, ff. 44. Nos. 36 and 37 are cited by the Marquis d'Adda. {471}39. [Sidenote: 1558. _Venice. M. Pagan._] La Gloria et l'honore de ponti tagliati et ponti in aere Venezia per Mathio Pagan in Frezzeria al segno della Fede. 1558.[1298] 16 plates. Dedicated to Vittoria Farnese, Duchess of Urbino. 40. [Sidenote: _N. D. Venice._] Il Monte. Opera nova di recami intitolata il monte, nella quale si ritrova varie, & diverse sorti di mostre, di punti in aiere, à fogliami. Dove le belle & virtuose Donne protranno fare ogni sorte di lavoro, accommodate alle vera forma misura & grandezza, che debbono essere ne mai piu per l'adietro da alcuno vedute. Opera non men bella che utile, & necessaria.[1299] Below, the impresa of the printer, an eagle with its young; motto, "Virtute parta sibi non tantum." In Venetia. 4to, 16 ff., 29 plates of bold scroll borders. 41. [Sidenote: 1559. _Venice. G. A. Bindoni._] Il Monte (libro secondo) Opera dove ogni bella donna potrà fare ogni sorte di lavori cioè colari, fazzoletti, maneghetti, avertadure (berthes), &c., in Venetia, 1560.[1300] Printer's mark and motto as No. 39: afterwards the dedication dated 1559, "à Vittoria da Cordova Gio. Ant. Bindoni," in which he states "Ho preso arditamente di presentarvi questo secondo Monte." 4to. ff. 16. 42. [Sidenote: 1558. _Venice._] Bellezze de recami et dessegni opera novo non men bella che utile, e necessaria et non più veduta in luce. Venezia, 1558.[1301] Ob. 4to. 20 plates of patterns. 43. [Sidenote: 1558. _Venice. I. Foresto._] Lo Splendore delle virtuose giovani con varie mostre di fogliami e punti in aere. Venezia. Per Iseppo Foresto in calle dell'acqua a S. Zulian all' insegno del Pellegrino, 1558.[1302] 16 plates. {472}44. [Sidenote: 1559. _Venice._] Trionfo di Virtù Libro novo da cucir, con fogliami, ponti a fili, ponti cruciati, &c. Venezia, 1559.[1303] 16 plates. 45. [Sidenote: _N. D._] Burato. Consisting of four leaves, with patterns of canvas (tela chiara), in squares, for works in "punta" of various widths, with instructions how to increase or diminish the patterns. See CUTWORK. On the back of the last page is printed in large characters, "P. Alex. Pag. (Paganinus). Benacensis F. Bena. V. V."[1304] 46. [Sidenote: _N. D._] Burato ... con nova maestria, gratiose donne, novo artificio vi apporto. A second edition without date. 4to, ff. 59; frontispiece, ladies at work, verso, Triumph of Fame. Four books of designs of great elegance and taste. The Marquis d'Adda assigns them to Vavassore. 47. [Sidenote: _N. D. A. Passerotti._] Passerotti Aurelio Pittore Bolognese dissegnatore e miniatore figlio di Bartolommeo Passerotti circa al 1560. Libro Primo di lavorieri alle molto illustre et virtuosissime gentildonne Bolognesi. Libro secondo alle molto magnifici et virtuosissimi signori.[1305] In fol. obl. 67 ff., including two dedications and a frontispiece. Designs for embroidery, etc., drawn with a pen. In the title-page of the first book is the device of a sunflower, "Non san questi occhi volgere altrove." 48. [Sidenote: 1557. _Venice._] Le Pompe. Opera nova di recami dove trovansi varie mostre di punto in aere. Venezia, 1557.[1306] Probably an earlier impression of the following. 4to, ff. 16. 49. [Sidenote: 1559.] Le Pompe, opera nova nella quale si ritrovano varie, & diverse sorti di mostre, per poter far Cordelle over Bindelle, d' Oro, di Seta, di Filo, overo di altra cosa di Dove le belle et virtuose donne potranno fare ogni sorte di lavoro, cioè merli di diverse sorte, Cavezzi, Colari, Maneghetti, & tutte quelle cose {473}che le piaceranno. Opera non men bella, che utile, & necessaria. E non più veduta in luce. 1559.[1307] Below, the same impresa of the eagle, as in "Il Monte," Nos. 39 and 40. 8vo, 16 ff., 30 plates. A great variety of borders and indented patterns (merli). (Fig. 169.) "Si vendeno alla Libraria della Gatta." [Illustration: Fig. 169. LE POMPE, 1559.] In the Cat. d'Estrées is noted, "Le Pompe, Opera nella quale si retrovano diverse sorti di mostse per poter far cordelle, Bindelle, d'oro di seta, di filo. 1559, fig." Probably the same work. 50. [Sidenote: 1560. _Venice._] Le Pompe, Libro secondo. Opera nuova nella quale si ritrovana varie e diverse sorti di Mostre, per poter fare Cordelle, ovver Bindelle, d'Oro, di Seta, di Filo, ovvero di altra cosa. Dove {474}le belle & virtuose Donne potranno far ogni sorte di lavoro, coèi Merli di diverse sorte, Cavezzi, Colari, Maneghetti & tutte quelle cose che li piaceno. Opera hon men bello che utile & necessaria e non più veduta in luce. Impresa of the printer, "Pegasus," and below, In "Venetia 1560." Obl. 8vo, 16 ff., 29 plates.[1308] Mrs. Stisted's copy is dated 1562, and there is one at Vienna, in the Imperial Library, of the same date. 51. [Sidenote: 1563. _Venice. J. Calepino._] Splendore delle virtuose giovani dove si contengono molte, & varie mostre a fogliami cio è punti in aere, et punti tagliati, bellissimi, & con tale arteficio, che li punti tagliati serveno alli punti in aere. Et da quella ch' è sopragasi far si possono, medesimamente molte altre. In Venetia Appresso Jeronimo Calepino, 1563.[1309] 8vo, 20 ff., 35 plates of scroll patterns in the style of "Il Monte." Dedication "Alla molto honorata M. Anzola ingegniera succera mia digniss." Francesco Calepino, wishing, he says, to "ristampare la presente opera," he dedicates it to her. In Bib. Melzi, Milan, a copy dated 1567. 52. [Sidenote: 1563. _Venice. J. Calepino._] Lucidario di recami, nel qual si contengono molte, & varie sorti di disegni. A punti in aere et punti tagliati, & a fogliami, & con figure & di più altre maniere, come al presente si usano non più venute in luce Per lequali ogni elevato ingegno potrà in diversi modi commodissimamente servirsi. In Venetia, Appresso Ieronimo Calepino, 1563.[1310] 8vo, 16 ff., 29 plates of flowing borders like the preceding. 53. [Sidenote: 1564. _Venice._] I Frutti opera nuova intitulata i frutti de i punti in stuora, a fogliami, nella quale si ritrova varie, et diverse sorti di mostre di ponti in Stuora, a fogliami, & punti in gasii & in punti in Trezola.[1311] Dove ogni bella et virtuosa donna potrà fare ogni sorte di lavoro, cioè fazoletti, colari, maneghetti, Merli, Frisi, Cavezzi, Intimelle, overo forelle, avertadure da camise, & altre sorti di lavori, come piu a pieno potrai vedere, ne mei per l' adietro d' alcun altro fatte & poste in luce. {475}Opera non men bella, che utile et necessaria a ciascuna virtuosa gentildonna. In Vinegia, 1564.[1312] Obl. 8vo, 16 ff., 30 plates of patterns either in dots or small squares. 54. [Sidenote: 1564. _Paris._] Patrons pour brodeurs, lingières, massons, verriers, et autres gens d'esperit; nouvellement imprimé, à Paris, rue Saint-Jacques, à la Queue-de Regnard M.DLXIIII.[1313] 55. [Sidenote: 1564. _Venice. D. de Franceschi._] Fede (Opere nova) intitulata: Dei Recami nella quale si contiene varie diverse sorte di mostre di punti scritto, tagliato, in Stuora, in Rede, &c. In Venetia, appresso Domenico de Franceschi in Frezzaria, all' insegna della Regina. M.DLVIII. In 4to, ff. 16. In his _Avis au Lecteur_, Franceschi alludes to three other works he had published, styled _La Regina_, _La Serena_, and _La Speranza_. 56. [Sidenote: 1564. _Venice. D. de Franceschi._] Serena opera nova di recami, nella quale si ritrova varie et diverse sorte di punti in stuora et punti a filo. In Venetia, Domenico di Franceschi. 1564. Obl. 4to, ff. 16. Nos. 55 and 56 cited by Marquis d'Adda. 57. [Sidenote: 1581. _Lyon. J. Ostans._] Le trésor des patrons, contenant diverses sortes de broderies et lingeries; pour coudre avec grande facilité et pour ouvrer en diverses sortes de piquer avec l'ésguille, pulveriser par dessus et faire ouvrages de toutes sortes de points &ct par Jean Ostans. Lyon, Ben. Rigaud. 1581, in 4-to.[1314] 58. [Sidenote: 1567. _Venice. J. Ostans._] Ostans Giovanni. La vera perfettione del disegno di varie sorti di Recami, et di cucire, &c. ... punti a fogliami punti tagliati punti a fili et rimessi punti in cruciati, punti a stuora, et ogni altra arte che dia opera a disegni. Fatta nuovamente per Gio. Ostans. Vittoria, con gratia et privilegio dell' Illus. {476}Senato Venetiano per anni.[1315] In Venetia appresso Gio. Ostans, 1567. 4to obl., 4 cahiers of 8 ff., 74 plates. Letter of Ostans to Lucretia Contarini; verso, an engraving of Lucretia Romana, surrounded by her women, signed Jose. Sal. (Joseph Salviati), who furnished the design, two sonnets, and Aves. A striking example of the borrowing between France and Italy in the sixteenth century, probably of the school of Fontainebleau. Grotesques like A. du Cerceau, scrolls after E. de Laulne, fresco of figures from G. Tory. Brunet describes a copy dated 1591. 59. [Sidenote: 1584. _Venice. Valvassore's heirs._] Ostans. La vera perfettione del desegno &ct. Venetia M.DLXXXIIII., presso gli heredi Valvassori e Gio. Dom. Micheli al segno dell' Ippogrifo. In 4to obl. (Cited by Marquis d'Adda.) 60. [Sidenote: 1582. _B. Tabin._] Neues Künstlicher, Modelbuch von allerhand artlichen und gerechten Mödeln, &c., bei B. Tabin.[1316] 61. [Sidenote: _Paris._ 1584. _D. de Sera._] Le livre de Lingerie, composé par Maistre Dominique de Sera, Italien, enseignant le noble & gentil art de l'esguille, pour besongner en tous points: utile & profitable à toutes Dames & Damoyselles, pour passer le temps, & euiter oysiveté. Nouvellement augmenté, & enrichi, de plusieurs excelents & divers patrons, tant du point coupé, raiseau, que passement, de l'invention de M. Jean Cousin, Peintre à Paris. A Paris. Chez Hierosme de Marnef, & la veufve de Guillaume Cauellat, au mont S. Hilaire à l'enseigne du Pelican. 1584. Avec privilege du Roy.[1317] In the Cat. d'Estrées; No. 8848, is _Livre de Pourtraicture de Jean Cousin_. Paris, 1637, in 4 fig. 4to, 28 ff., 51 plates of mediæval design. Frontispiece, three women and a child at work, on each side of the title a man and a woman at work under a trifoliated canopy. Privilege for three years to H. de Marnef, "juré libraire en l'Université de Paris." "L'auteur aux lecteurs." He takes his pen to portray what he has seen "en Italie, Espagne, Romanie, Allemagne, & autre païs, dont je ne fais aucune mention à cause de trop longue plexite," that he gives at {477}least eighty designs for the use and singular profit of many, "hommes tant que femmes." Below, "Finis coronat opus." Then follows a "Balade" of 28 lines. On the last page, the impresa of Cavellat, a pelican in its piety, "Mors in me vita in me." 62. [Sidenote: 1596. _G. Frano._] Frano Gio. Libro delle mostre da ceuser per le donne. 16 engravings on wood and 8 on copper. (Cited by Marquis d'Adda.) 63. [Sidenote: _Bologna. A. Parisini._] Danieli Bartholomeo Recamatore libro di diversi disegni per Collari, punti per Fazzoletti et Reticelle divarie sorte. Agostino Parisini forma in Bologna. 15 leaves obl. 8vo, entirely engraved au burin, towards the end of the sixteenth century.[1318] 64. [Sidenote: _N. D._] Ornamento delle belle et virtuose donne opera nova nella quale troverrai varie sorti di frisi, con li quali si potra ornar ciascuna donna, & ogni letti con ponti tagliato, ponti gropposi, & ogni altra sorte di ponti per fare quelle belle opere che si appartengono alle virtuose & lodevoli fanciulle. On a scutcheon, with 3 figures below, "Libro Primo." Lib. Victoria and Albert Museum. 65. [Sidenote: 1587. _Paris. 1st Edit. 1st Part. F. Vinciolo._] Les singuliers et nouveaux pourtraicts et ouvrages de Lingerie. Servans de patrons à faire toutes sortes de poincts, couppé, Lacis & autres. Dedie a la Royne. Nouvellement inventez, au proffit & c[=o]tentement, des nobles Dames & Damoiselles & autres gentils esprits, amateurs d'un tel art. Par le Seigneur Federic (_sic_) de Vinciolo Venitien. A Paris. Par Iean le Clerc le ieune, ruë Chartiere, au Chef Sainct Denis. 1587. Avec privilege du Roy.[1319] [Sidenote: _2nd Part._] Les singuliers et nouveaux pourtraicts et ouvrages de Lingerie ou est representé les sept planettes, & plusieurs autres figures & pourtraitz servans de patrons à faire de plusieurs sortes de Lacis. Nouvellement inventez, au proffit & c[=o]tentement des nobles Dames & Damoiselles & autres gentils esprits, amateurs d'un tel art. Par le Seigneur Federic de Vinciolo Venitien. A Paris. Par Iean le Clerc le ieune, ruë Chartiere, au Chef Sainct Denis. 1587. Avec privilege du Roi. (At the end.) Privilege for nine years to "Iean le Clerc le ieune, 'tailleur d'histoires,' à Paris," signed 27 June, 1587. "De l'Imprimerie de David le Clerc Rue Frementel à l'Estoille d'Or." {478}4to. The first part consists of 40 ff., 36 of patterns and 4 preliminary pages. P. 1. The title-page with decorated border, in which are two ladies at work. (See Title-page of this work.) P. 2. Dedication of "Le Seigneur Federic de Vinciolo aux Benevolles Lecteurs," in which he sets forth that several authors before him having published certain patterns for work that "les Seigneurs, Dames, & Damoyselles ont eu pour agréable," he, to show "la bonne volonté que je porte à la France, laquelle m'ayant été douce et favorable, depuis certain temps que j'ay quitté Venize, païs de ma nativité," wish to portray the present "pourtraicts d'ouvrages magnifiques tous differ[=e]s, & non encor usitez en cette c[=o]tree ni aultres, & que j'ay tenus cachés & inc[=o]gnus jusques à maintenant," feeling assured that if the first you had seen "on engendré quelque fruit & utilité, ceux cy en aporteront d'avantage," and if I see this my invention pleases you, I will "vous faire participer d'un aultre seconde bande d'ouvrages." P. 3. Dedication "A la Royne," Louise de Vaudemont, by Le Clerc, saying that having received from Italy some rare and singular patterns, and "ouvrages de l'ingerie & en ay[=a]t inv[=e]te quelques uns, selon mon petit sçavoir, j'ay pensé puis que ces choses là appartienent principallement aux Dames," that he cannot do better than present them to the Queen, as if these patterns are useful (as he hears some less perfect and more rudely sketched have served and profited before), they ought to be offered to her Majesty. Signed last day of May, 1587. P. 4. A sonnet. AUX DAMES ET DAMOISELLES. "L'un sefforce à gaigner le coeur des gr[=a]ds seigneurs Pour posséder enfin une exquise richesse, L'autre aspire aux Estats pour monter en altesse, Et l'autre par la guerre alléche les honneurs. Quand à moy, seulement pour chasser mes langueurs, Je me sen satisfait de vivre en petitesse, Et de faire si bien, qu'aux dames je délaisse Un grand contentement en mes graves labeurs. Prenez doncques en gré (mes Dames), je vous prie, Ces pourtrais ouvragez lesquelz je vous dédie, Pour tromper vos ennuis, et l'esprit employer. En ceste nouveauté, pourrés beaucoup apprendre, Et maistresses en fin en cest oeuvre vous rendre. Le travail est plaisant. Si grand est le loyer." "_Morir assidouamente per virtu,_ _Non morirè._" Then follow the 36 patterns set off in white on a black ground, viz., 20 "Ouvrages de point Couppé," the first plate with the double [Greek: ll], according to the fashion introduced by Francis I. of using Greek monograms, standing for Queen Louise. On the second page are two escutcheons, one of France, the other with the letter H for Henry III. Then follow eight "Passemens de point Couppé," which are succeeded by eight more "Ouvrages de point Couppé." Part 2, 24 ff. Same decorated frontispiece and 22 plates of subjects in squares for stitches like the German patterns of the present day. These consist of the Seven Planets, Sol, Luna, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn. Four in squares of various designs; two of Amorini shooting stags and birds; Neptune and the winds; an arabesque with impresa of a column with circle and double triangle; five borders and squares, and {479}two "bordures à carreaux," diamond-shaped meshes. The last page contains the Extract from the Privilege. This is the original edition of Vinciolo, of which we know but one copy existing--that in the Library at Rouen. It was followed the same year by two other editions, with alterations.[1320] 66. [Sidenote: 1587. _2nd Ed. 1st Part. F. Vinciolo._] Les singuliers et nouveaux pourtraicts pour les ouvrages de Lingerie. Nouvellement augmentez de plusieurs differens pourtraits servans de patrons à faire toutes sortes poincts couppé, Lacis, et autres reseau de poinct conté. Dedié à la Royne. Le tout inventé, au proffit & contentement des nobles Dames & Damoiselles & autres gentils esprits, amateurs d'un tel art. Par le Seigneur Federic de Vinciolo Venitien. A. Paris. Par Iean le Clerc le ieune, ruë Chartiere, au Chef Sainct Denis, pres le college de Coqueret. Avec privilege du Roy. 1587. [Sidenote: _2nd part._] Les singuliers et nouveaux pourtraicts pour les ouvrages de Lingerie ou avons augm[=e]té plusieurs nouveaux & differens portraitz de reseau, tout point conté, plusieurs nouvelles bordures et autres sortes differentes. Nouvellement inventez au proffit & c[=o]tentement des nobles Dames & Damoiselles & autres gentils esprits amateurs d'un tel art. Par le Seigneur Federick de Vinciolo Venitien. A Paris. Par Iean le Clerc le ieune, Ruë Chartiere, au Chef Sainct Denis, pres le college de Coqueret. Avec privilege du Roy. 1587.[1321] 1st Part, 40 ff. The same frontispiece, dedications, date, and sonnet, as the first, the same number of patterns, only the eight styled in the first "Passemens" are here all called, like the others, "Ouvrages" de point couppé. (See Fig. 4.) 2nd Part, 32 ff. This part has 30 patterns, comprising the 24 of the first edition, and six additional ones, consisting of squares and two hunting subjects. 67. [Sidenote: 1587. _3rd Edit. No. 1. Parts 1 and 2._] Les singuliers et nouveaux Pourtraicts, du Seigneur Federic de Vinciolo Venitien, pour toutes sortes d'ouvrages de Lingerie. Dedie a la Royne. Derechef et pour la troisieme fois augmentez Outre le reseau premier et le point couppé et lacis, de plusieurs beaux et differens portrais de reseau de point c[=o]té avec le nombre des mailles, choze non encor veue ni inventée. {480}A Paris. Par Iean le Clerc le ieune, ruë Chartiere, au Chef Sainct Denis, pres le College de Coqueret. Avec privilege du Roy. 1587.[1322] This must be the first impression of the third edition. [Sidenote: 1588. _3rd Edit. No. 2. 1st Part._] Les singuliers et nouveaux pourtraicts, du Seigneur Federic de Vinciolo Venitien, pour toutes sortes d'ouvrages de Lingerie. Dedié a la Royne. Derechef et pour la troisiesme fois augmentez, outre le reseau premier & le point couppé & lacis, de plusieurs beaux et differens portrais de reseau de point c[=o]té, avec le nombre des mailles, chose non encor veuë, ny inventée. A Paris. Par Iean le Clerc le ieune, au mont Saint Hilaire, du Chef Sainct Denis, pres le Clos Bruneau. Avec privilege du Roy. 1588.[1323] 68. [Sidenote: _2nd Part._] Les singuliers et nouveaux pourtraicts, du Seigneur Federic de Vinciolo Venitien, pour toutes sortes d'ouvrages de Lingerie. Dedié a la Royne. Derechef et pour la troisiesme fois augmentez, outre le reseau premier & le point couppé & lacis, de plusieurs beaux et differens portrais de reseau de point c[=o]té, avec le nombre des mailles, chose non encor veuë, ny inventée. A Paris. Par Iean le Clerc le ieune, au mont Saint Hilaire, au Chef Sainct Denis, pres le Clos Bruneau. Avec privilege du Roy. 1588.[1324] This must be subsequent to the Brussels impression, as Jean le Clerc has changed his address. In the third edition, dorso of pp. 1 and 2, we have the addition of portraits of Louise de Vaudemont and Henry III., with a complimentary stanza of four lines under each. In his Advertisement au lecteur, Vinciolo says that having promised, since the first impression of his book, to give a "nouvelle bande d'ouvrages," and not to disappoint certain ladies who have complained that he has not made "du reseau assez beau à leur fantaisie," I have wished for the third time to place before their eyes many new and different patterns of "reseau de point conté que j'ay cousus et attachez à la fin de mes premières figures," beneath which I have put the number and quantity of the stitches. Same dedication and sonnet as before. Privilege for nine years dated Paris, 25 May, 1587. "De l'Imprimerie de David le Clerc, ruë S. Jacques, au petit Bec, devant le College de Marmouttier." 1st Part, 40 ff., 36 plates, 27 of point couppé, two stomachers, and seven "Passemens" de point couppé; the same lettered "Ouvrages" as in the preceding impression. 2nd Part, 36 ff., 50 plates. The thirty already published in the second edition, after which follow the twenty additional of "reseau de point conté," announced in the Preface, consisting of "6 Quarrés, 2 Coins de {481}Mouchoir, 2 Bordures, 6 animals: Lion, Pelican, Unicorn, Stag, Peacock, and Griffon"; and the Four Seasons. "Déesse des fleurs, representant le Printemps," etc. These last twenty have the number of stitches given. (See Fig. 5.) On the last page is an escutcheon with the arms of France and Poland. 69. [Sidenote: 1588. _3rd Edit. No. 3. Parts 1 and 2._] A later impression still. Same title, date, portraits, dedication, and sonnet, only the Privilege is dated "ce douzième jour de Novembre 1587. De l'Imprimerie de David le Clerc, Rue S. Jaques, aux trois Mores."[1325] 34 ff. 30 plates, 1st part; 50 plates in 2nd. 70. [Sidenote: 1595. _3rd Edit. No. 4. Parts 1 and 2._] Les singuliers et nouveaux pourtraicts, du Seigneur Frederic de Vinciolo, Venitien, pour toutes sortes d'ouvrages de Lingerie. Dedie à la Royne Douairière de France. De Rechef et pour la troisiesme fois augmentez, outre le reseau premier & le point couppé & lacis, de plusieurs beaux & differens portrais de reseau de point c[=o]té, avec le nombre des mailles, chose non encore veuë ny inventée. A Paris. Par Iean le Clerc, ruë Saint Jean de Latran, à la Salemandre. Avec privilege du Roy. 1595.[1326] This impression is dedicated to Louise de Vaudemont, now "Reine Douairière," Henry III. having died in 1589. 71. [Sidenote: 1606. _3rd Edit. No 5. Parts 1 and 2._] The same title as that of 1595--differing only in date.[1327] Privilege for six years, "donné à Mantes, le 3 Juillet 1593." At the foot, "De l'Imprimerie de David le Clerc au Petit Corbeil 1606." The 1st part has 32 ff. and 36 plates; 32 "Ouvrages de poinct couppé," and 4 stomachers. The 2nd part 46 plates, same as those of 1588, only four less. On the last page the escutcheon of France and Navarre. 72. [Sidenote: 1589. _4th Edit. Turin. Parts 1 and 2._] Les singuliers et nouveaux pourtraicts, du Seigneur Federic de Vinciolo Venitien, pour toutes sortes d'ouvrages de Lingerie. Dedie a la Royne. Derechef et pour la quatrieme fois augmentez, outre le reseau premier et le point couppé et lacis, de plusieurs beaux et differens portrais de reseau de point conté, avec le nombre de mailles, chose non encore veue ni inventee. A Thurin. Par Eleazaro Thomysi. 1589.[1328] Described in Cat. Cicognara with the date 1658. The 1st part 44 ff. and 39 plates; the 2nd with 36 plates. {482}The editions of 1613 and 1623 are described in their chronological order. Nos. 64 and 71. That of 1603 we have not seen; but M. Leber states it to be equally rich with that of 1623. The copies of Vinciolo in the Bodleian bear the dates of 1588, 1603, and 1612. Baron Pichon has a copy of an impression of 1612. One at Bordeaux, in the Bib. de la Ville, is dated 1588. In a book sale at Antwerp, March, 1864, there was sold the following:-- Lot 528. _Livre de Patrons de Lingerie dediè a la Royne, nouvellement invente par le seign^r Frederic de Vinciolo, Venitien._ Paris, Jean le Clerc, 1598.--_Les singuliers et nouveaux pourtraicts pour toutes sortes d'ouvrages de Lingerie._ Paris, _Ibid._, 1598.--_Les secondes oeuvres et subtiles inventions de Lingerie._ Paris, _Ibid._, 1598.--_Nouveaux pourtraicts de Point coupé et Dantelles en petite moyenne et grande forme._ A. Montbeliard, Jacques Foillet, 1598. 4 tom. 1 vol. in-4. v. anc. fig. sur bois. It went for 440 francs to a Mr. Ross. We do not know the editions of 1598. As M. Leber observes, the various editions of Vinciolo, published by Le Clerc and his widow, from 1587 to 1623, and perhaps later, are only impressions more or less varied of the two distinct books, the one of point coupé, the other of lacis. The work of Vinciolo has been reprinted in several countries. In England it has been translated and published by Wolfe. (See No. 72.) At Liege, by Jean de Glen. (See No. 79.) Mr. Douce says that it was reprinted "at Strasburg, 1596, and at Basle, 1599, with a second part, which is rare, and sometimes contains a portrait by Gaultier of Catherine de Bourbon." In the Bib. Nat. (Grav. B. c. 22), a volume headed _Vinciolo (Federigo) Peintre Venitien et ses imitateurs_, contains, with "La pratique," etc., of Mignerak (See No. 93), a German copy of the "nouveaux pourtraits," the work printed by Ludwig Künigs, at Basle, 1599 (See No. 85); and a German work headed "Broderies sur filet," 50 plates engraved upon copper. 73. [Sidenote: 1591. _London. Wolf._] New and singular patternes and workes of Linnen. Serving for patternes to make all sortes of Lace edging and Cut-workes. Newly invented for the profite and contentment of Ladies, Gentlewomen, and others that are desirous of this Arte. London: Imprinted by J. Wolfe and Edward White, 1591.[1329] EPISTLE TO THE READER. Having framed a body of the best and rarest manner in true perfection of sundrie sortes of deuises or workes, as well for frame-workes as other needle-workes, I devised with all diligence and industrious studie to sattisfy the gentle mindes of vertuous women by bringing to light things never before as yet seene nor committed to print; All which devises are soe framed in due proportion as taking them in order, the one is formed or made by the other, and soe proceedeth forward; Whereby with more {483}ease they may be sewed and wrought in Cloth, and keeping true accompt of the threads, maintaine the bewtey of the worke. And more, who desyrith to bring the worke into a lesser forme, let them make the squares lesse. And if greater, then inlarge them, and so may you worke in divers sortes, either by stitch, pouncing, or pouldering upon the same as you please. Alsoe it is to be understood that these squares serve not onely for cut-workes, but alsoe for all other manner of seweing or stitching, noteing withall that they are made to keepe the work or deuise in good order and even proportion--And even if ye will that squares be greater, make of two, one, four, two, and soe they will be larger. And in this manner may you proceed in all. God prosper your desires. Then follows the dedication: To the Right Worshipful Gentlewoman, Mistress Susan Saltonstall, wife to the right Worshipfull Mr. Richard Saltonstall, Alderman of the City of London (afterwards Lord Mayor, and knighted in 1597). It being my chance (Right Worshipfull) to lighten upon certaine paternes of cut-worke and others brought out of Foreign Countries which have bin greatly accepted of by divers Ladies and Gentlewomen of sundrie nations and consequently of the common people; This seemed unto mee a sufficient instance and argument to bestowe likewise some paines for the publishing thereof, But being in suspense of the dedication two causes induced mee to imbolden myselfe to present it unto your acceptation and patronage: First because that rare devises and inventions are for the most part more agreeable and gratefuller accepted, than ordinarie and common things, although of great price and value, Secondlie because these workes belong chiefly to Gentlewomen for to passe away their time in vertuous exercises Wherefore to fit and accommodate the dedication aright to the contents and subject of the book I thought it not amisse to offer it unto your worship in token of thankfullness for so many benefites which I have received so bountifullie at your hands Assuring myselfe moreover that as these patternes will bring sufficient contentment and profite to all well-willers, that are desirous of this Arte, soe they shall for ever acknowledge themselves to be beholden chiefly unto you, being the chiefest occasion of the publishing and setting forthe thereof. And therefore uppon hope that you will take these inventions in good parte, which in time I am purposed (If God permit) to increase and augment with more paternes of worke. In the meantime I pray God give to your Worship a happie prosperous and long life with a full accomplishment of all your vertuous desires. Your worshipps most dutiful Servant and Kinsman, ADRIAN POYNTZ. 74. [Sidenote: 1591. _Bologna. T. Pasini._] Fiori di ricami nuovamente posti in luce ne i quali sono varii, et diversi dissegni di lavori; Come Merli, Bauari, Manichetti, & altre sorti di opere, che al presente sono in uso, utilissimi ad ogni stato di Donne. Seconda Impressione. Impresa of Mercury. Below-- In Bologna, per Giovanni Rossi. MDXCI. Ad instanza di Tomaso Pasini.[1330] {484}Obl. 8vo, 20 ff., 18 plates like Vecellio, one "bavaro." Dedicated by the author to "La Signora Silveria Rossi Ghisolieri." Mostly indented patterns on black grounds. 75. [Sidenote: 1591. _Venice. F. di Franceschi._] Prima Parte de' fiori, e disegni di varie sorti di Ricami moderni come merli, bavari, manichetti, & altri nobili lavori che al presente sono in uso. A figure of Peace. Below-- In Venetia, Appresso Francesco di Franceschi Senese all' insegna della Pace 1591.[1331] Obl. 8vo, 20 ff., 17 plates in the style of Vecellio. Dedication to "La Signora Gabriella Zeno Michele," signed "Di Venetia alli 19 di Marzo, 1591, Giovanbattista Ciotti." The last plate a figure of Fortune, with "Finis in Venetia 1591. Appresso Nicolo Moretti, ad instantia di Francesco di Franceschi." 76. [Sidenote: 1591. _Venice. F. di Franceschi._] La vera perfettione del disegno di varie sorti di ricami & di cucire ogni sorti de punti à foglami, punti tagliati, punti a fili & rimessi, punti incrociati, punti à stuoro & ogn' altre arte, che dia opera à disegni. E di nuovo aggiuntovi varie sorti di merli, e mostre, che al presente sono in uso & in pratica. Impresa of Peace differing from the preceding. In Venetia, Appresso Francesco di Franceschi Senese all' insegna della Pace. 1591.[1332] Obl. 8vo, 86 ff., 72 plates. Dedicated to "Signora Lucretia Contarini, per matrimonio Priula Nobile Gentildonna Venetiana," by Giovanni Ostans. A woodcut of Lucretia working with her maidens, signed Jose Sol. 1557. Patterns, Small Squares, Gorgets, Youth, Paris, Pyramus and Thisbe, Arabesques, Grotesques, and an Alphabet. On the last leaf, dorso, A. B. C. D. "tutte sono quaderni." A figure again of Peace, and "In Ven. 1590." 77. [Sidenote: 1592. _Venice. 1st Book. C. Vecellio._] Corona delle nobili et virtuose donne. Libro primo. Nel quale si dimostra in varij Dissegni, tutti le sorti di Mostre di punti tagliati, punti in aria, punti à Reticello, e d' ogni altra {485}sorte cosi per Freggi come per Merli, & Rosette, che con l' Aco si usano hoggidì per tutta l' Europa. Et molte delle quali Mostre possono servire anchora per Opere à Mazzette. Aggiuntivi in questa Quarta impressione molti bellissimi dissegni non mai più veduti. Then follows the printer's impresa of the stork and serpent. "Voluptatum et malorum effetuu dissipatio," with a lady at work on each side, and below-- Con privilegio. In Venetia, Appresso Cesare Vecellio in Frezzaria nelle Case de' Preti. 1592.[1333] Which is repeated in the 2nd and 3rd Books. Obl. 4to, 32 ff., 28 plates. Dedication of Vecellio "Alla Clarissima, et Illustrissima Signora, Viena Vendramina Nani, dignatissima Consorte dell' Illust^{amo} Sig. Polo Nani, il Procurator di S. Marco," in which he refers to his work on costume, and says that he dedicates this book to her for the delight she takes in these works and "in farne essercitar le donne di casa sua, ricetto delle piu virtuose giovani che hoggidì vivano in questa città." Signed: Venice, Jan. 20, 1591. Beautiful designs, among which are three corners for handkerchiefs, the last lettered: "Diverse inventioni p. cantoni dee fazoletti." On Plate 3, within a point coupé border, is a statue of Venus standing upon a tortoise, with other figures, and above, "Conviensi, che della Donna la bontà, & non la bellezza sia divulgata," and underneath:-- "Veneer io son, de le mirabil mani Del dotto Fidia d' un bel marmo finta. In me vedete atti gentili, e humani, Ch' esser dè Donna à gentilezza accinta. Io sopra una Testugine dimora, Perchè stia in Casa, e sia tacita ogn' hora." [Sidenote: _2nd Book._] Corona delle nobili et virtuose donne. Libro secondo. Nel quale si dimostra in varij Dissegni, tutte le sorti di Mostre de puute tagliati, punti in aria, punti à Reticello, e d' ogni altra sorte, cosi per Freggi, come per Merli, & Rosette, che con l' Aco si usano hoggidì per tutta l' Europa. Et molti delle quali Mostre possono servire anchora per Opere à Mazzette. Aggiuntivi in questa Quarta Impressione molti bellissimi dissegni non mai più veduti. Con Privilegio. In Venetia, Appresso Cesare Vecellio, in Frezzaria nelle Case de' Preti. 1592. 28 ff., 26 plates. The dedication of this and the next book, though differently worded, are addressed to the same lady as the first. This is dated Jan. 24, 1591. Among the patterns are two designs for handkerchiefs, and on the last plate a statue of Vesta, within a point coupé border. [Sidenote: _3rd Book._] Corono delle nobili et virtuose donne. Libro terzo. Nel {486}quale si dimostra in varii dissegni molte sorti di Mostri di Punti in Aria, Punti tagliati, Punti a reticello, and ancora di picciole; cosi per Freggi, come per Merli, & Rosette, che con l' Aco si usano hoggidi per tutta l'Europa. Con alcune altre inventione di Bavari all' usanza Venetiana. Opera nouva e non più in luce. Con privilegio. In Venetia Appresso Cesare Vecellio, stà in Frezzaria nelle Case de' Petri. 1592. Dedication dated June 15, 1591. Vecellio says he has added "alcune inventioni di bavari all' usanza nostra." In the copy (Bib. de l'Arsenal, 11,955 _bis_) are added instructions to transfer the patterns upon parchment without injuring the book. The last plate shows how to reduce the patterns and how to prick them (Fig. 170). This is sometimes given at the end of the first book instead of the third. 28 ff., 26 plates, two of bavari. [Illustration: Fig. 170. MANNER OF PRICKING THE PATTERN.--(Vecellio.)] On Pl. 27, woman with a torch and Cupid. At Pl. 28, in a point coupé border, is a fox holding the bust of a lady, the conceit of which is explained by the verses to be, that sense is better than beauty:-- "Trovò la Volpe d' un Scultore eletto Una testa sì ben formata, tale, Che sol le manca Spirito havresti detto, Tanto l' industria, e l' arteficio vale, La prende in man, poi dice; O che perfetto Capo, e gentil; ma voto è d' inteletto." 78. [Sidenote: 1594. _Venice. C. Vecellio._] Gioiello della corona per le nobili e virtuose donne. Libro quarto. Nel quale si dimostra altri nuovi bellissimi Dissegni di tutte le sorte di Mostre di Punti in Aria, Punti tagliati & Punti à Reticello; così per Freggi, come per Merli, & Rosette, che con l' Aco si usano hoggidì per tutta l' Europa. Et molte delle quali mostre possono servire anchora per opere à Mazzette Nuovament posto in luce con molte bellissime inventioni non mai più usate, nè vedute. Con privilegio. In Venetia, Appresso Cesare Vecellio, in Frezzaria nella Casa de i Preti. 1594. Same impresa of the stork and serpent. Dedicated to the Sign. Isabella Palavicina Lupi Marchesa di Soragana, dated "Venetia alli 20 Novembrio 1592." Cesare Vecellio. 30 plates.[1334] {487}Vecellio, author of the _Corona_ and _Gioiello_, also published a work on costume styled _Degli Habiti Antichi et Moderni_. _In Venezia_, 1590. _Presso Damian Zenero._ In the frontispiece is a salamander; on the last leaf a figure of Vesta. It has been reproduced by F. Didot, Paris. He was not, as is often incorrectly stated, a relation, or even of the same family as Titian. These are the earliest impressions we have had an opportunity of examining of Vecellio's works, which appear to have been widely circulated. The Bib. de l'Arsenal possesses two copies of the _Corona_ (No. 11,955), from which we have described. In the other (No. 11,155 _bis_), Book 1 "ultima," Book 2 "quarta," are both dated 1593; and Book 3 "nuovamente ristampata la quarta volta," 1592. The plates all the same. The Library of Rouen (No. 1,315) has a volume containing the _Corona_ and _Gioiello_. Book 1 "quarta Imp.," Book 2 "ultima," both dated 1594; and Book 3 "quinta," 1593. The _Gioiello_, 1593. In the Bodleian is a copy of the three books, date 1592; and another, date 1561, was in the possession of the late Mrs. Dennistoun of Dennistoun. At Venice, in the Doge's Library, is a volume containing the three books of the _Corona_ and the _Gioiello_, dated 1593. Mrs. Stisted, Bagni di Lucca, also possesses the three books of the Corona, dated 1597, and the Gioiello, 1592. At Bologna the Library has one volume, containing the first and second books only, evidently the original impressions. The titles are the same as the above, only to each is affixed, "Opera nuova e non più data in luce," and "Stampata per gli Hered' della Regina. 1591. An instantia di Cesare Vecellio, Stà in Frezzaria." The same Library also possesses a volume, with the three books of the _Corona_, the first and third "ottava," the second "quarta," and the _Gioiello_, "nuovamente posto in luce." All "In Venetia appresso gli heredi di Cesare Vecellio, in Frezzaria. 1608." At Vienna, in the new Museum for Art and Industry, is a copy of the five books, dated 1601.[1335] Cav. Merli cites from a copy of the four books, dated 1600. The various impressions, therefore, date from 1591 to 1608. We see these different parts, like those of Vinciolo and all these old collections, have been printed and reprinted independently of each other, since the third part was at its fifth impression in 1593, while the first, which ought to have preceded it, was only at its fourth in 1594.[1336] 79. [Sidenote: 1593. _St. Gall. G. Strauben._] New Model Buch darinnen allerley Gattung schöner Modeln der newen aussgeschitnen Arbeit auff Krägen, Hempter, Jakelet und dergleichen zu newen, so zuvor in Teutschlandt nicht gesehen. Allen thugentsamen Frawen und Jungkfrawen, Nätterinnen, auch allen audern so lust zu solcher kunstlichen Arbeit haben, sehr dienstlich. {488}Getruckt in uerlegung George Strauben, von S. Gallem, Anno 1593.[1337] _Translation._ New Patternbook, in which are all sorts of beautiful patterns of the new cutwork for collars, shirts, jackets, and such like, such as never before were seen in Germany. Most useful to all virtuous dames and such artistic works, very respectfully dedicated. Printed for the publisher, G. Strauben. A reprint of the third book of Vecellio's Corona. 80. [Sidenote: _N.D. Lindau am Bodensee._] Neu Model-Buch, darinnen allerley gattung schöner Modeln der neuen, etc. Probably a reprint of No. 79. 27 plates. 81. [Sidenote: 1597. _Liége. J. de Glen._] Les singuliers et nouveaux pourtraits, pour toutes sortes de lingeries de Jean de Glen, dediés à Madame Loyse de Perez; à Liége, chez Jean de Glen, l'an 1597.[1338] Obl. 4to, 39 plates, mostly borrowed from Vinciolo, as well as the title. 82. [Sidenote: 1596. _Florence. M. Florini._] Fior di Ricami nuovamente porti in luce. Fiorenze, 1596, ad instanza di Mattheo Florini. 4to obl., 24 plates and 2 leaves of text.[1339] 83. [Sidenote: 1603. _Siena. M. Florini._] Fiori di Ricami nuovamente porti in luce nei quali sono varie et diversi disegni di lavori, como merli, bavari, manichetti e altre sorte di opera. Siena, appresso Matteo Florini, 1603. 4to obl., 24 pages.[1340] 84. [Sidenote: 1603. _Siena. M. Florini._] Giojello, &c. Nel quale si di mostra altri novi bellissimi disegni di tutte le sorte, di mostre &c. ... di punti &c., cosi {489}per fregi come per merli et rosette che con l' aco si usanno hoggi di per tutte l' Europa. Opere a Mazzetto nuovamente posta in luce con motte bellissime inventioni non mai più usate ne vedute. In Siena, Matteo Florini MDCIII. 4to obl. (Cited by Marquis d'Adda.) 85. [Sidenote: 1597. _Nuremberg. B. Laimoxen._] Schön neues Modelbuch von allerley lüstigen Mödeln naczunehen zu würken un zu sticke; gemacht im Jar Ch. 1597, zu Nürmberg, bey Balthaser Laimoxen zu erfragen.[1341] _Translation._ Fine new Patternbook of all sorts of pleasant patterns for sewing, working, and embroidering: made in the year of Christ 1597, at Nurmberg: to be had of Balthasar Laimoxen. Obl. fol., 27 ff. 5 sheets, title-page, and poem, signed J. S. (Johann Sibmacher.) Mr. Gruner has communicated to us a work with the same title, dated 1591.[1342] 86. [Sidenote: 1598. _Montbéliard. J. Foillet._] Nouveaux pourctraicts de point coupé et dantelles en petite moyenne et grande forme nouvellement inventez & mis en lumiere Imprimé a Montbéliard par Jacques Foillet (|)|)xciix (1598).[1343] Small 4to, 82 ff., 78 plates. Frontispiece with borders composed of squares of point coupé. "Avertissement aux dames," of three pages, stating these works are all composed of "point devant l'esguille, de point en toille, en bouclages, & de cordonnages." The writer gives patterns of roses of all sizes, "very little, middling, large, and very large," with from one to nine _pertuis_, or openings, holes. Also Carreaux in different forms, and lastly _dantelles_. "Je n'ay voulu omettre de vous dire que pour faire des dantelles, il vous fault jetter un fil de la grandeur que desiré faire vos dantelles, & les cordonner, puis jetter les fils au dedans, qui fera tendre le cordon & lui donnera la forme carrée, ronde, ou telle forme que desires, ce qu'estant faict vous paracheverès facilement. Enoultre vous verrez qu'estant bien petites deviennent peu a peu bien grandes jusques a la fin. Elles vous enricheront & embelliront vos ouvrages en les applicant aux bords d'iceux." Directions, we confess, perfectly enigmatical to us. The author finishes by exhorting the ladies to imitate Minerva and Arachne, "qui ont acquis un grand renom, pour avoir (c[=o]me à l'envie l'une de l'autre) travaillé de l'esguille." The avertissement is followed by an "Exhortation aux jeunes filles." in verse, of 21 lines, beginning-- "Si nuisible est aux humains la paresse," etc. 40 patterns of "roses," of point coupé. {490}And 18 of "Carreaux," variously disposed. Then follow 20 patterns of lace, of "bien petites, petites, moyennes, & grosses," all "au point devant l'Esguille." (See Figs. 8 to 12.) At the end: "La fin courone l'oeuvre." This is the earliest pattern-book in which the word "dantelle" occurs. 87. [Sidenote: 1598. _Montbéliard. J. Foillet._] New Modelbuch darinnen allerley ausgeschnittene Arbeit, in kleiner, mittelmässiger und grosser form erst neulich erfunden. Allen tugenden Frawen vnnd Jungfrawen sehr nutzlich. Gedruckt zu Mumpelgarten durch Jacob Foillet, 1598.[1344] 88. [Sidenote: 1599. _Basle._] Fewrnew Modelbuch von allerhandt Künstlicher Arbeidt, nämlich Gestricht, Aussgezogen, Aussgeschnitten, Gewiefflet, Gesticht, Gewirckt, und Geneyt: von Wollen, Garn, Faden, oder Seyden: auff der Laden, und Sonderlich auff den Ramen, Jetzt Erstmals in Teutschlandt an Tag gebracht: Zu Ehren und Gl[=u]cklicher Zeitvetreibung allen dugentsamen Frawen, und Jungfrawen Nächerinen, auch allen andern, so lust zu solcher Kunstlicher Arbeit haben sehr dienstlich. Getruckt zu Basel. In verlegung Ludwig K[=u]nigs MDXCIX.[1345] Small obl., 33 ff., 32 plates. Frontispiece border of point coupé. Title in Gothic red and black. Patterns, mostly borders, number of stitches given, "Mit xxxxvii., Bengen," etc. "Ende dieses modelbuchs." 89. [Sidenote: 1601. _Paris._] Béle Prérie contenant divers caracters, et differentes sortes de lettres alphabetiques, à sçavoir lettres Romaines, de formes, lettres pour appliquer sur le reseuil ou lassis, et autres pour marquer sur toile et linges, par Pier. le Bé. Paris, 1601.[1346] In 4to obl. 90. [Sidenote: 1601. _Nuremberg. Sibmacher._] Modelbuch in Kupfer gemacht, Nürmberg, bei Michel Kuisner, 1601, by J. Sibmacher.[1347] 91. [Sidenote: 1604. _Nuremberg. J. Sibmacher._] Newes Modelbûch fûr Kûpfer gemacht, darinnen allerhand art newen Model von dem Mittel und Dick ausgeschniden duer {491}Arbeit auch andern kunstlichen Nahework zu gebrauchen mit Fluss fur druck verfertigt. Mit Röm. Kais. Maj trentich Nürmberg 1604.[1348] _Translation._ New book of patterns (on copper) in which are copied out all kinds of new patterns for thick and thin materials, to be used also in the making of other artistic needlework. Obl. 4to, 58 plates carefully engraved upon copper. Title-page surrounded by a richly ornamented border, with two figures, one sewing, the other at embroidery; also a second ornamented frontispiece, dedication to Maria Elizabeth, Electress Palatine, dated 1601. Nuremberg, J. Sibmacher, citizen and engraver. Then follow five pages of dialogue, given page 6, note 24, and 227. A printed title to the next plate. "The following pattern may be worked in several different ways, with a woven seam, a flat, round, or crossed Jew stitch."[1349] It is probably meant for cut-work made on thin materials. Then follow 58 leaves of patterns, the greater number of which have the number of rows written over each pattern. Pl. 38, with two patterns, is inscribed, "The following patterns are for thick cut-work." In the upper pattern, on the first leaf, are the arms of the Palatine; on the second, those of Juliers and Mark. 92. [Sidenote: 1600. _Venice. I. C. Parasole._] Pretiosa gemma delle virtuose donne dove si vedono bellissimi lavori di ponti in aria, reticella, di maglia e piombini disegnati da Isabella Catanea Parasole. E di nuovo dati in luce da Luchino Gargano con alcuni altri bellissimi lavori nuovamente inventati. Stampata in Venetia ad instantia di Luchino Gargano MDC.[1350] See also No. 99. 93. [Sidenote: _N. D._] Allerhand Model zum Stricken un Nähen.[1351] Obl. 4to, 64 plates. No date. 94. [Sidenote: 1604. _Padua. P. P. Fozzi._] A book of models for point coupé and embroidery, published at Padua, October 1st, 1604, by Pietro Paolo Fozzi. "Romano."[1352] 95. [Sidenote: 1605. _Frankfort on the Mayn. S. Latomus._] Schön newes Modelbuch von 500 schönen aussor wählten, Kunstlichen, so wol Italiähnischen, Frantzösischen, {492}Niederländischen, Engelländischen, als Teutschen Mödeln, Allen, Näher.... hstichern, &c., zu nutz. (_Some of the words are illegible._) Livre des Modelles fort utile à tous ceux qui besoignent à l'esguille. At the foot of last page recto is, "Franckfurt am Mayn, bey Sigismund Latomus, 1605."[1353] Small obl. 100 plates (Fig. 171), and coloured title-page with figures. [Illustration: Fig. 171. FRANKFORT-ON-THE-MAIN, 1605.] In the first plate is an escutcheon with this monogram (Fig. 172) surrounded with embroidery. [Illustration: Fig. 172. MONOGRAM.] In the Nuremberg copy it is at p. 83. 96. [Sidenote: 1607. _Frankfort on the Mayn. S. Latomus._] Schön newes Modelbuch, Von hundert vnd achtzig schönen kunstreichen vnd gerechten Mödeln, Teutsche vnd Welsche, welche auff mancherley Art können geneet werden, als mit Zopffnath, Creutz vnnd Judenstich, auch auff Laden zu wircken: Dessgleichen von ausserlesenen Zinnigen oder Spitzen. Allen Seydenstickern, Mödelwirckerin, Näderin, vnd solcher Arbeitgeflissenen Weibsbildern sehr dienstlich, vnd zu andern Mustern {493}anleytlich vnd verstendig. Franckfurt am Mayn, In Verlegung Sigismundi Latomi. M.D.C.VII.[1354] Small 4to obl. 180 patterns. Sheets A-O (the last has only 3 leaves). On the title-page are two ladies, one working at a pillow, the other at a frame; in the back-ground, other women employed at various works. Another copy dated 1629. Mr. Arnold and Mr. F. S. Ellis. 97. [Sidenote: 1605. _Paris. M. Mignerak._] La pratique de l'aiguille industrieuse du très excellent Milour Matthias Mignerak Anglois, ouvrier fort expert en toute sorte de lingerie ou sont tracez Divers compartimens de carrez tous differans en grandeur et invention avec les plus exquises bordures, desseins d'ordonnances qui se soient veux jusques à ce jourd'hui tant poetiques historiques, qu'au tres ouvrages de point de rebord. Ensemble Les nouvelles invencions Françoises pour ce qui est de devotion et contemplation. A la Tres-Chrestiene Roine de France et de Navarre. Avec privilege 1605 du Roy.[1355] A Paris, par Jean Leclerc, rue St.-Jean de Latran, à la Salamandre roialle. EXTRACT FROM "DISCOURS DU LACIS." "Ce chef d'oeuvre divin n'est pas à l'adventure Mais par art composé, par nombre, et par mesure; Il commence par un, et va multipliant Le nombre de ses trouz qu'un noeud va reliant, Sans perdre aucunement des nombres d'entresuitte, Croissant, et decroissant d'une mesme conduitte: Et ainsi qu'il commence il acheve par un, Du monde le principe et le terme commun. Si l'on veut sans faillir cet ouvrage parfaire, Il faut multiplier, adjouster, et soustraire: Il faut bien promptement assembler, et partir, Qui veut un beau Lacis inegal compartir. Mais se peut il trouver, souz la voute azurée, Chose plus justement en tous sens mesurée? Ouvrage ou il y ait tant de proportions, De figures, de traicts et de dimensions? D'un point premièrement une ligne l'on tire, Puis le filet courbé un cercle va descrire, Et du cercle noué se trouve le quarré Pour lequel retrouver tant d'esprits ont erré. De six mailles se faict une figure egale, De trois costez esgaux, pour forme pyramidale: Et l'ouvrage croissant, s'en forme promptement {494} Une autre dont les deux sont egaux seulement. Si l'on tire un des coings, se forme une figure. D'un triangle en tout sens, d'inegale mesure. Le moule plus tiré faict les angles pointuz, Et l'ouvrage estendu faict les angles obtuz. De mailles à la fin un beau quarré se faict, Composé de quarrez, tout egal, et parfaict, Quarré qui toutesfois se forme variable, Or en lozange, et or en figure de table. La bande de Lacis recouvert, à nos yeux, Est comme un beau pourtraict de l'escharpe des cieux, Dont chaque endroit ouvré nous represente un signe, Le milieu, les degrez de l'Eclyptique ligne; Le quarré, des vertus le symbole, et signal De science du livre et bonnet doctoral, Nous va representant l'Eglise et la Justice. La façon de lacer figure l'exercice D'enfiler une bague on bien l'art d'escrimer. . . . . . Le lacis recouvert sert de filet aux dames Pour les hommes suprendre et enlacer leurs ames, Elles en font collets, coiffures, et mouchoirs, Des tentures de lits, tauayoles, pignoirs, Et maint autre ornement dont elles les enlacent, C'est pourquoi en laçant les femmes ne se lassent." In 4to, 76 ff., 72 plates. Frontispiece: Two ladies, with frames in their hands, labelled "Diana" and "Pallas." On the top, an escutcheon per pale France and Medicis, supported by Cupids. Beneath, Cupids with distaff and winding reels. Between the sides of a pair of scissors is a cushion on which is extended a piece of lacis, a "marguerite" in progress. (See Fig. 6.) Above, "Petrus Firens fecit, I. le Clerc excud." Below, "A Paris par Jean le Clerc Rue St. Jean de Latran à la Salamandre royalle." Dedication of Jean le Clerc "A la royne," then Marie de Medicis, stating: "J'avois recouvré d'un personnage Anglois tres-expert en toute sorte de Lingerie;" but who this Milour Mignerak may be, history tells not. Then follows the "Discours du Lacis," a poem, of which we give an extract. The privilege is signed Aug. 2, 1605. The patterns consist of the Queen's arms and cypher, 4 Scripture subjects: Adam and Eve, the annunciation, Ecce Homo, and Magdalen; 4 Elements, 4 Seasons; Roman Charity, Lucretia, Venus, and "Pluye d'or;" 6 Arbes à fruit, 6 Pots à fleurs, 30 Carrés grands, moyens et petits; 6 Bordures, and, what is quite a novelty, 6 "Passements faits au fuseau." (See Fig. 13): the first mention of pillow lace in any of the French pattern-books. 98. [Sidenote: 1613. _Paris. F. Vinciolo._] Les secondes oeuvres, et subtiles inventions de Lingerie du Seigneur Federic de Vinçiolo Venitien; nouvellement augmenté de plusieurs carrez de point de rebort. Dediée à Madame, soeur unique du roy. Ou sont representees plusieurs figures de Reseau, nombres de Carrez et Bordures tous differents, le tout de poinct conté, avec autres sortes de Carrez de nouvelles inventions non encore vues. {495}A Paris. Par Jean le Clerc, rue sainct Jean de Latran, à la Salemandre, 1613. Avec privilege du Roy.[1356] A scarce and valuable volume, the fullest edition of the second part of Vinciolo's work. 4to, 68 ff., 61 plates. It contains a-- SONNET AUX DAMES & DAMOYSELLES. "Esprits rarement beaux qui fuyez la paresse, Je vous fais un present qui la pourra chasser, Quand vous desirez de gayement passer Vostre temps, et monstrer de vostre main l'adresse. Le present est utile et plein de gentillesse, Il monstre les moyens de bien entrelasser. Et faire au point couppé tout ce qu'on peut penser. Cet exercise plaist à Pallas la Deesse. Par ses enseignemens, avec l'esguille on fait Des fleurons, des oyseaux, en ouvrage parfait, Des chiffres et des noeuds, tels que l'amour desire. Aymez cet exercise, et vous y occupez, Et puis vous cognoistrez que sur les points couppez En diverses façons quelque portrait se tire." The author's address to the reader, and a Dedication to "Madame, soeur unique du roy" (Catherine de Bourbon, sister of Henry IV., married, 1599, to the Duc de Bar), signed by Le Clerc. On the second plates are her arms, a lozenge, France and Navarre with crown and cordelière, and the same lozenge also surmounts the decorated frontispiece, supported on either side by a genius (?) working at a frame and point coupé drapery. 7 Scripture subjects: The Salutation, St. Sacrement, Passion, Crucifixion, Adoration of the Kings, etc.; the number of the stitches given to each. 2 Stomachers, and various patterns of "carrez " and borders. 2 of "Point de rebort." At the end is the "Discours du Lacis," already printed by Mignerak. 99. [Sidenote: 1616. _Rome. E. C. Parasole._] Teatro delle nobili et virtuose donne, dove si rappresentano varij disegni di lavori novamente inventati et disegnati da Elisabetta Catanea Parasole Romana. Dedicata alla Serenissima Principessa Donna Elisabetta Borbona d' Austria, Principessa di Spagna, da E. C. Parasole. Data di Roma a di 5 Marzo 1616.[1357] Other editions, 1620, 1625, and 1636. The last is dedicated to the Grand Duchess of {496}Tuscany, and has the Medici and Della Rovere arms in the title-page. Obl. 4to, 47 ff., 46 plates (44 in Prince Massimo's copy) beautifully executed, the titles printed to each plate, as "Lavori di punti in aria, Merletti di ponti reticella, Merletti a piombini," etc. (See Fig. 15.) 100. [Sidenote: 1600. _Venice. I. C. Parasole._] Pretiosa gemme delle virtuose donne dore si vedono bellisimi lavori di ponto in aria, reticella, dimaglia e piombini disegnati da Isabella Catanea Parasole. E di nuovo dati in luce da Luchino Gargano con alcuni altri bellisimi lavori nuovamente inventate. Stampata in Venetea ad instantia de Luchino Gargano MDC.[1358] 101. [Sidenote: 1625. _Rome. I. C. Parasole._] Gemma pretiosa delle virtuose donne, dore si vedono bellisimi lavori de Ponti in Aria, Reticella, di Maglia, e Piombini disegnatida Isabella Catanea Parasole. In Rome, appreso Guliegno Facciotti, 1625. 102. [Sidenote: 1618. _Frankfort on the Mayn. D. Meyer._] Zierat Buch, von allerhandt Kutschnur, Schleyer deckel, Krägen, Leibgürtel, Passmenten, Händschug, Wehrgeheng und Schubenehen, Messerscheyden, Secklen, Früchten, Blumen und ands. mehr. Allen Perlenbefftern, Nederin, Lehrinngen und andern welche lust zu dieser Kunst tragen, sehr nützlich. Inn diese Format zusammen ordiniert und gsetzt durch Daniel Meyer Mahlern. 1ster Theil. Franckfuhrt am Mayn, bey Eberhardt Kusern zu finden. 11 ff., 9 plates. _Translation._ Decoration book of all sorts of Cords, Veil covers, Collars, Belts, Laces, Gloves, Shoulder knots, shoe-seams (?), Knife sheaths, Bags, Fruit, Flowers, and other things besides. Very useful to all Beadworkers, Seamstresses, Apprentices, and others, who take a pleasure or are fond of this art. Arranged and put into this form by D. M. M. 1st part. 103. [Sidenote: 1619. _Leipsic. A. Bretschneider._] New Modelb[)u]ch Darinnen allerley kunstliche Virsirung und Müster artiger Z[)u]ege und schöner Bl[)u]mmen zu zierlichen Ueberschlagen, Haupt Schurtz Schn[)u]ptüchern Hauben Handschuhen, Uhren (?) gehenzen, Kampfütern [)u]nd dergleichen auf Muhler naht und Seidenst[)u]cker arbeit gantz Kunstlich gemahlt {497}und vorgerissen, dergleichen sie bevorn noch nie in Druck ausgegangen. 16 Leipzicht 19. Inn Verleg[)u]ng Henning Grosseren, de J[)u]ngeren Andreas Bretschneider Mahller.[1359] _Translation._ New pattern-book, in which all sorts of artistic ornamentations and patterns of pretty stuffs and beautiful flowers for covers for Head, Aprons, and Pocket-handkerchiefs, Caps, Gloves, Clock cases, Comb Cases, and such like, artistically sketched from painter and silk embroiderer's work, and which have never before gone out of print. Small folio, 53 plates, and half a sheet of text, containing the dedication of the work to Madame Catherine von Dorstats, née Löser. There appear to be 3 plates wanting. 104. [Sidenote: 1624. _London._] A Schole House for the Needle. 1624.[1360] Obl. 4to. Was sold at the White Knight's sale for £3 15s. 105. [Sidenote: 1620. _Venice. Lugretia Romana._] Corona delle nobili et virtuose donne. Libro terzo. Nel quale si dimostra in varii dissegni tutte le sorti di Mostre di punti tagliati e punti in aria, punti Fiamenghi, punti a Retcello, e d' ogn' altra sorte, Cosi per Fregi, per merli e Rosette, che con Aco si viano hoggidi per lutta l'Europa. E molte delle quali Mostre porsono Serviri ancora per opera à Mozzete. Con le dichiarationi a le Mostre a' Lavori fatti da Lugretia Romana. In Venetia, appresso Allessandro de Vecchi, 1620.[1361] 27 ff., obl. 8vo. 106. [Sidenote: 1625. _Venice. Lugretia Romana._] Corona delle Nobili et Virtuose Donne, Libro primo, nel quale si dimostra in varij Dissegni tutte le sorti di Mostre di punti tagliati, punti in Aria, punti Fiamenghi, punti a Reticello, e d' ogni altre sorte, cosi per Freggi, per Merli, e Rosette, che con l' Aco si usano per tutta l'Europa. E molte delle quali Mostre possono servire ancora per opere a Mazzete. Con le dichiarazioni a le Mostre, a Lavori fatti da Lugretia Romana. In Venetia appresso Alessandro de Vecchi MDCXXV. Si vendono in Venetia al Ponte de' Baretteri alla libreria delle tre Rose.[1362] Lady Wilton, in her _Art of Needlework_, quotes a copy dated 1620. Obl. 4to, ff. 27. Portrait of Maria d'Aragon. {498}107. [Sidenote: _N. D. Venice. Lucretia Romana._] Ornamento nobile, per ogni gentil matrona, dove si contiene bavari, frisi d' infinita bellezza, lavori, per Linzuoli, Traverse, e Facuoli, Piena di Figure, Ninfe, Satiri, Grotesche, Fontane, Musiche, Caccie di Cervi, Uccelli, ed altri Animali. Con ponti in aria, fiamenghi, et tagliati, con Adornamenti bellissimi, da imperare, per ogni Virtuosa Donna, che si diletta di perfettamente cucire. Opera, per Pittori, Scultori, e disegnatori giovevole alle lor professioni, Fatta da Lucretia Romana, il quinto volume di Suoi lavori. Dedicato alle Virtuose donne, in Venetia.[1363] Fol., 20 plates. Frontispiece, in point coupé frame. A woman in classic attire is represented under a Doric porch, standing on a tortoise, symbol of a home-loving woman. (See No. 77.) She holds a ball of thread in her hand. Behind, on the left, are two women at work; on the right, a sculptor chiselling a statue of Minerva. The plates, which are rich and beautiful, are each accompanied by a short explanation, as "Degna de esser portata de ogni imperatrice;" "Hopera bellissima che per il piu il Signora Duchesa et altre Signore si servano per li suoi Lavori;" "Questa bellissima Rosette usano auco le gentildonne Venetiane da far traverse," etc. (Fig. 173.) The bavari are executed in three different stitches: punto d' aieri, p. flamingo, and p. tagliato. This author and Vecellio give Flemish patterns (punti Fiamenghi). They consist mostly of rosettes and stars (gotico). 108. [Sidenote: 1623. _Paris._] Les excellents eschantillons, patrons et modelles du Seigneur Federic de Vinciolo Venitien, pour apprendre à faire toutes sortes d'ouvrages de Lingerie, de Poinct couppé, grands et petits passements à jour, et dentelles exquises. Dediez à la Royne. A Paris. Chez la Veufve Jean le Clerc, ruë Sainct Jean de Latran, à la Salamandre Royalle. Avec Privilege du Roy, 1623.[1364] In 4to, 56 ff. The old frontispiece and same "Avertissement." Dedication to the Queen, Anne of Austria. The Goddess Pallas invented "les ouvrages de lingerie, le poinct couppé, les grands and petits passements à jour, toutes sortes de dentelles, tant pour se desennuyer que se parer, par l'artifice de ses ingenieuses mains. Araciné s'y adonna, and bien qu'inferieure se voulant comparer à elle & en venir à l'experience, mais sa presomption fut chastiée." Many illustrious ladies have delighted in this "honneste exercise." Fastrade and Constance, wives of the Emperor Charlemagne and of King Robert, "s'employèrent de cette manufacture, & de leurs ouvrages ornèrent les églises & les autels." This royal "mestier" has reached perfection through the works of Vinciolo. I reprint and again increase his work, which I dedicate to your Majesty, to whom I presume they will be agreeable; the subject of which it treats is "une invention de déesse & une occupation de Royne--vous estant autant Royne des vertus que vous l'estes de deux royaumes." Signed, "la Veufve de feu Iean le Clerc." Same sonnet. Privilege for six years, dated Paris, last day of March, 1623. 55 ff., 58 plates, 24 ouvrages de point couppé and 8 of "Passements au fuzeau" (see Figs. 14 and 15), and alphabet. [Illustration: Fig. 173. BAVARO DI PONTO D' AERE.--Con belissime figure ed altri flori. "BAVARI."--From _Ornamento mobile_ of Lucretia Romana. _To face page 498._] {499}109. A Schole Howse for the Needle. Teaching by sundry sortes of patterns and examples of different kindes, how to compose many faire workes; which being set in order and forme according to the skill and understanding of the workwoman will, no doubt, yield profit unto such as live by the needle and give good content to adorne the worthy. London printed in Shoe Lane at the "Faulcon" by Richard Shorleyker, 1632. TO THE READER. Gentle Reader, I would have you know that the Diversities of Examples which you shall find in this "Schoole-howse for the Needle" are only but patternes which serve but to helpe and inlarge your invention. But for the disposing of them into forme and order of Workes that I leave to your own skill and understanding. Whose ingenious and well practised wits will soe readily (I doubt not) compose them into such beautiful formes as will be able to give content, both to the workers and the wearers of them. And againe for your behoafe I have in the end of this booke made two scales or checker patternes which by enlarging or contracting into greater or lesser squares you may enlarge or make lesser any of the saide patternes and examples in the booke or any other whatever. VALE! And because I would not have any one mistaken in any of these patternes contayned in this Booke, for some peradventure will look to find workes set out in order as they should be wrought with the needle or florished upon the Tent, &c. But as I have said before in the beginning of this Booke, that, that is here published are only but diversitie of patternes, out of which the workwoman is to take her choice of one or more at her pleasure and so have them drawne out into forme and order of worke. Of which skill if it may be I would have serving-men (such as have time enough) to practice and be skilful in which will be quickly learned if they would, with a little patience applie their mindes to practise it. A quarter of the time that they spend in playing at cards, tables, quaffing and drinking would make them excellent in this knowledge especially such as are ingenious and indued with good wits, as for the most part all of them have; Againe it is a thing that no doubt would yield them both praise and profit, beside the pleasure and delight it would be unto them, and a good inducement to drawe on others of their own ranke and qualitie to the like practice and imitation. 110. [Sidenote: 1632. _London._] Here followeth certaine patternes of Cut-workes; and but once Printed before. Also sundry sorts of Spots, as Flowers, Birds, and Fishes, &c., and will fitly serve to be wrought, some {500}with Gould, some with Silke, and some with Gewell (_sic_) or otherwise at your pleasure. London; Pinted (_sic_) in Shoe-lane, at the signe of the Faulcon, by Richard Shorleyker. 1632.[1365] Obl. 4to. The copy in the Bodleian is probably due to the above. It has no date and varies in title: "Newly invented and never published before," with "crewell in coullers," etc.; and "Never but once published before." Printed by Rich. Shorleyker. 33 patterns and title. 111. [Sidenote: 1640.] The needles excellency, a new booke wherein are divers admirable workes wrought with the needle. Newly invented and cut in copper for the pleasure and profit of the industrious. Printed for James Boler, &c., 1640.[1366] "Beneath this title is a neat engraving of three ladies in a flower garden, under the names of Wisdom, Industrie, and Follie. Prefixed to the patterns are sundry poems in a commendation of the needle, and describing the characters of ladies who have been eminent for their skill in needlework, among whom are Queen Elizabeth and the Countess of Pembroke. These poems were composed by John Taylor, the Water Poet. It appears the work had gone through twelve impressions.... From the costume of a lady and gentleman in one of the patterns, it appears to have been originally published in the reign of James I."--(Douce.) From this description of the frontispiece, it seems to be copied from Sibmacher. "The Needle's Excellency, or a new Book of Patterns, with a poem by John Taylor, in Praise of the Needle." London, 1640. Obl. 4to, engraved title, and 28 plates of patterns. Sold, 1771, £6 17s. 6d. (Lowndes, _Bibliographer's Manual_. New edit., by H. Bohn). Another copy of the same date, marked 12th edition, is in the Library of King's College, Cambridge. It consists of title, four leaves with the poem, subscribed John Taylor, and 31 leaves of copper cuts of patterns. 112. [Sidenote: 1642 _Pistoja. P. A. Fortunato._] Le Pompe di Minerva, per le nobili e virtuose donne che con industriosa mano di trattenersi dilettano di far Rezze, maglia quadra, punti in aria, punti in tagliati, punti a reticello, cosi per fregio come per merletti e rosette di varie sorti, si come oggidi con l'aco di lavorar usati per tutto l'Europa, arrichite di bellissimi et vaghi intagli cavati da più celebri autori di tal professione. In Pistoja, per Piero A. Fortunato. In 8vo obl., dedicated to Caterina Giraldini, in Cellesi. August 20 1642.[1367] {501}113. [Sidenote: 1666. _Nuremberg._] Dass Neue Modelbuch von schönen Nädereyen, Ladengewerk und Soterleins arbeit. Ander theil. Nürnberg, bey Paulus Fürsten Kunsthändler. Obl. 4to, 3 sheets of text, 50 plates. Dedicated to the Princess Rosina Helena. Nürnberg, March 20, 1666.[1368] 114. In the Bib. Imp. (Gravures, L. h. 4. c.) is a vol. lettered "Guipure, gravures burin," containing a collection of patterns engraved on copper, 43 plates, four of which are double, pasted in the book, without title or date. Pomegranates, narcissus, lilies, carnations, most of them labelled "Kreutzstick, Frantzösischenstick, and Fadengewürck" (thread work), the number of stitches given, with Clocks (Zwickel) of stockings and other patterns. 115. [Sidenote: 1676. _Nuremberg. C. Gerharts._] Model Buch, dritter Theil von unterschiedlicher Vögeln, Blumen und Früchten &cte. Von und in Verlegung Rosina Helena Fürtin. Nürnberg, Christoff Gerharts, 1676. 4to obl., engraved title and printed list; 42 wood plates, 4 large. 116. [Sidenote: 1722. _Paris._] Methode pour faire une infinité de desseins differens, avec des carreaux mi-partis de deux couleurs par une ligne diagnonale ou observations du père Dominique Donat, religieux carme de la province de Touleuse sur une mémoire inserée dans l'histoire de l'Académie royale des sciences à Paris, l'année 1704, presenté par le Rev. Père Sebastien Truchet. Paris, 1722.[1369] 72 geometric squares, with directions how to make them useful to architects, painters, embroiderers, "tous ceux qui se servent de l'aiguille," and others. 117. [Sidenote: 1784. _Nuremberg and Leipzig. Christoph Weigel._] Neues Neta- und Strickbuch fur das schöne Geschlecht, worinnen allerhand Zierrathen, wie auch viele neue Zwickel, nebst Buchstaben und Zahlen, sowohl zum Nähen als Stricken in zierlichen Nissen und Mustern befindlich sind. Mit vielen Kupfertafeln. Nürnberg und Leipzig, der Christoph Weigel und Schneider. 1784.[1370] {502}118. [Sidenote: _N. D. Nuremberg. F. M. Helmin._] Continuation der kunst- und fleisz-übenden Nadel-Ergötzung oder des neu ersonnenen besondern Nehe-Buchs dritter Theil, worinnen fleiszige Liebhaberinnen deeser nöthig und nützlichen Wissenchaft, ihr kunstliches Nadel-Exercitium, beij unterschiedlich vorfallenden Belegenheiten zu haben allerhand noch nie vorgeko[=m]ene Muster zu Deso gebrauch, vorlegt und en die Hand gegeben werden von Fr. Margaretha Helmin, zu finden in Nürnberg bei Joh. Christoph Weigel. Nürnburg. No date.[1371] Oblong fol. 119. [Sidenote: _N. D. Nuremberg. J. Chr. Weigel._] Zierlich webende Minerva, oder neu erfundenes Kunst- und Bild-Buch der Weber- und Zeichner-Arbeit, worinnen treue Anweisung geschieht, wie man kunstlich wirken und schöne Arbeit verfertigen soll, von der vierschäfftigen an, bis auf zwey und dreissig-schafftige. Nurnberg (Johann Christoph Weigel). No date.[1372] 49 plates in sheets. {503}GLOSSARY OF TERMS. _Bars._ See _Brides_. _Bead Edge._ A simple heading for pillow lace. _Bobbins._ Small elongated wooden or bone reels on which the thread is wound for the purpose of lace-making. They are frequently ornamented with patterns pricked or stained, and polished. They are weighted with "gingles" or "jingles" (_i.e._, beads, coins, seals, seeds, or various articles). _Brides._ A small strip or connection (1) of threads overcast with buttonhole stitches, or (2) of twisted or plaited threads. It is used instead of a ground-work of net; the word is French, its English equivalent being _pearl-tie_. The French word is chiefly employed. _Brides ornées_ = brides ornamented with picots, loops, or pearls. _Buttonhole Stitch._ One of the chief stitches in needle-made lace; also known as _close stitch_, _Point noué_, and _Punto a Feston_. _Cartisane._ A strip of parchment or vellum covered with silk or gold or metal thread, used to form a pattern. _Close Stitch_ = Buttonhole stitch. _Cordonnet._ The outline to ornamental forms. The cordonnet consists (1) of a single thread, or (2) of several threads worked together to give the appearance of one large thread, or (3) of a thread or horsehair overcast with buttonhole stitches. In England called _gimp_. _Couronnes._ Ornaments to the cordonnet. When they ornament the raised cordonnet in the body of the pattern they are known as _fleurs volantes_. _Coxcombs_ = Bars. _Dentélé_ = Scalloped border. _Droschel._ Flemish word used in Belgium for net-ground made with bobbins. _Dressed Pillow._ A term used by bobbin-lace makers to intimate that all accessories necessary are in their proper positions.[1373] {504}_Edge._ There are two edges to lace; the outer, which in trimmings and flounces is either scalloped or ornamented with picots, and the _engrêlure_ or _footing_. _Engrêlure_ = Footing, or heading, of a lace, used to sew the lace on to the material it is to decorate. _Entoilage._ French term for a plain mesh ground or galloon.[1374] _Fil de Crin._ A thick or heavy outline or cordonnet.[1374] _Fil de Trace._ The name by which the outlines of needle-made laces are distinguished.[1374] _Fillings._ A word occasionally used for _modes_ or _jours_; fancy stitches employed to fill in enclosed spaces in needle-made and bobbin laces.[1374] _Flax._ Is composed of the filaments of the fibrous portion of _Linum usitatissimum_, an annual, native of Europe, and from it linen thread is spun. That of Flanders is the best for lace-making. _Fleurs Volantes._ See _Couronnes_. _Fond._ Identical with _champ_, _entoilage_, and _treille_. The groundwork of needle-point or bobbin lace as distinct from the toilé or pattern which it surrounds and supports. Grounds are divided into _fonds claires_, _brides claires_, and _brides ornées_. The _fond claires_ include the _Réseau_ or net-patterned grounds. _Fond de Neige_ is also known as _Oeil de Perdrix_. _Fond Simple._ Sometimes called _Point de Lille_; is the purest, lightest, and most transparent of all grounds. The sides of the meshes are not partly plaited as in Brussels and Mechlin, nor wholly plaited as in Valenciennes and Chioggia; but four of the sides are formed by twisting two threads round each other, and the remaining two sides by simply crossing of the threads over each other. [See _Grounds_.][1374] _Footing._ See _Engrêlure_. _Gimp._ The _pattern_ which rests on the ground or is held together by brides. The work should not, however be confounded with the material gimp, which was formerly called _guipure_. In Honiton and the Midlands, the word denotes the coarse glazed thread used to raise certain edges of the design.[1374] _Gingles._ A name given in Buckinghamshire, etc., to the bunches of coloured beads hung on to bobbins by means of brass wire, in order to give extra weight and so increase the tension of the threads.[1374] {505}_Groppo_ [Italian]. A knot or tie. _Grounds._ The grounds of laces are divided into two classes, one being called the _bride_, the other the _Réseau_. The _bride_ ground is formed with plain or ornamental bars, in order to connect the ornaments forming the pattern. The _Réseau_ ground is a net made with the needle or with bobbins, to connect the ornaments forming the pattern. _Guipure._ A lace-like trimming of twisted threads. The word is now used to loosely describe many laces of coarse pattern. _Guipure d'Art_ is the name given to modern darned netting.[1375] _Heading_ = _Footing_, _engrêlure_. _Jours._ Ornamental devices occurring in various parts of a piece of lace. The earliest forms of _jours_ may be seen in Venetian point lace, where they are introduced into the centre of a flower or other such device. [_Modes_ are identical with _jours_.] _Legs_ = Bars. _Mat_, or _Math_. The closely-plaited portions of flowers or leaves in bobbin-made lace; also the closely-worked portion of any lace.[1375] _Modes._ See _Jours_. _Oeil de Perdrix._ See _Fond_. _Orris._ A corruption of Arras. The term is now used to denote galloon for upholstering purposes. In the eighteenth century it was applied to laces of gold and silver.[1375] _Passement._ Until the seventeenth century, laces, bands, and gimps were called _passements à l'aiguille_; bobbin laces, _passements au fuseau_. At present the word denotes the pricked pattern on parchment upon which both needle-point and bobbin laces are worked. _Passementerie._ Now used for all kinds of fringes, ribbons, and gimp for dress trimmings. _Pearls_, or _Purls_ = _Bars_. _Pearl edge_, or _Purl edge_. A narrow thread edge of projecting loops used to sew upon lace as a finish to the edge.[1375] _Pearlin_, or _Pearling_ [Scotch]. Lace. _Picot._ Minute loops worked on to the edge of a _bride_ or _cordonnet_, or added as an enrichment to a flower--as in the case of rose point, in which _picots_ play an important part. {506}_Pillow Lace._ Lace made on the pillow, by twisting and plaiting threads. The French term is _dentelle au fuseau_. _Pizzo_ [Italian]. Lace. _Ply_ = A single untwisted thread. _Point Lace._ Lace made with the point of the needle. The French term is _Point à l'aiguille_. The term point has been misused to describe varieties of lace, such as _Point d'Angleterre_, _Point de Malines_, etc., which are laces made on the pillow, and not with the point of the needle. _Point de Raccroc._ A stitch used by lace-makers to join _réseau_ ground. _Point Noué_ = Buttonhole stitch. _Point Plat._ A French term for flat point executed without a raised cordonnet or outline cord.[1376] _Pricked._ The term used in pillow lace-making to denote the special marking out of the pattern upon parchment. _Pricker._ A short instrument used in bobbin lace to prick holes in the pattern to receive the pins.[1376] _Punto a Feston_ = Buttonhole stitch. _Purls_ = _Brides_. _Purlings_ = A stitch used in Honiton guipure to unite the bobbin-made sprigs.[1376] _Réseau._ Ground of small regular meshes made on the pillow in various manners, and made by the point of the needle in fewer and less elaborate manners. The French term, as here given, is generally used in preference to any English equivalent. _Réseau Rosacé._ See _Argentella_ (Ch. ARGENTAN). _Rouissage._ The process of steeping the flax preparatory to its being spun for lace-making. _Rezél_, _Reseuil._ See LACIS, Chap. II. _Runners._ The name by which the bobbins which work across a pattern in bobbin lace are known. _Sam cloth._ Old name for a sampler. {507}INDEX Aberdeen, qualifications of schoolmistress of, 431 n1209 Aberdein, Mrs. Frank, cited, 400 n1140 Abrahat, Mrs., pensioned by Queen Anne, 347 Abrantès, Duchesse d', 105, 128 n343, 185 n542, 186 and n545, 237 n638 Abruzzi, the, lace-making in, 68 Addison, cited, 349 Addo, Marquis d', 459 n1264 Adelaide, Queen, 409 and n1155, n1156 Adélaïde de France, 182 Adelhaïs, Queen (wife of Hugh Capet), 5 Agriculture, women employed in, lace-makers contrasted with, 370 Aquesseau, Chancellor d', quoted, 264 Alb lace, at Granada, 92 Albert, Archduke of Austria, 113 n326 ------ Museum (Exeter), tallies in, 78 n242 Albissola, lace manufacture at, 75, 77 and n240, 78, 79 and n246 Alcuid, embroidery taught by, 6 Alenches, 249 Alençon numbers of lace-workers at Chantilly and, (1851), 257 n688, refugees from, in 18th century, 347 --------, Duke d', 140 n395 -------- lace (see Point d'Alençon) Alice, Princess, bridal dress of, 409 Almagro, lace industry at, 102 and n297, 103 n305 Aloe thread, Florentine use of, 93 n273 ---- thread lace Greek, 86 Italian, 79 and n245 Portuguese, 107 Spanish, 91, 93, 99, 101 Alost Valenciennes, ground stitch of, 133 Altar-cloths, alternate designs on, 24 Bock collection, in, 23 Prague, at (by Anne of Bohemia), 9 Altar frontal in point conté, (Mrs. Hailstone's), 23 Altenburg, 268 Alva, Duke of, 366 n1085 Alvin, M., 480 n1322 Amelia, Princess, 128 America, impulse given to lace industry by U.S., 187 lace imported to, from-- Bailleul, 241 England (baby lace) 385 Grammont, 134 Italy, 75, 79 Mirecourt, 253 Portugal, 106 Saxony, 263 Spain, 102 Puritan lace-makers in, 372 n1099 war with, effect of, on lace trade, 408 Amsterdam, establishment of lace fabric at, 259 Anderson, quoted, 74, 83, 101, 124, 271,288, 371 n1093, 384, 396; cited, 264 n709, 265 n713, 286, 397 --------, Lady, robbery at house of, 346 Angoulême, Duchesse d', 196 Anne of Austria, influence of, on French fashions, 147, 150 Mechlin veil of, 125-126 and n356 pattern-book dedicated to, 144, 498 pilgrimage to Thierzac, 248 presents of English lace from Henrietta Maria to, 330 and n961, 401 ---- of Bohemia, Queen (wife of Richard II.), altar-cloth by, 9 ---- of Denmark, cost of lace of, 317 and n904, 320 and n925 Elizabeth's old clothes presented to, 320 English home industries encouraged by, 319 foreign lace purchased by, 327 funeral of, 325 and n934 ---- of England (Queen Anne) household management of, 174 n516 Mechlin lace of, 126 and n360 period of, 347-350 Anspach, 265 --------, Margrave of, 178 Anti-Gallican Society Edinburgh and Dublin Societies contemporaneous with, 429 prizes awarded by, 119, 262, 297, 355 and n1058, 374 and nn, 380, 395, 398, 404 records of, cited, 373 Antwerp book sale at (1864), 482 Brussels lace made at, 130 Mechlin lace made at, 125 -------- lace arrêt concerning (1688), 129 n365 Brussels lace compared with, 118 first mention of, 129 and n367 Spanish market for, 129-130 -------- lace-makers, in London (1618-1688), 129 n366 Anzola, M., 474 Application lace, 122; flowers, 252 Appliqueuse, work of, 122 Aprons, laced, 309 and n873, 338, 356 and n1062 Aranda, Madame d', 98 n280 Arbroath, effigy formerly in church of, 418 Ardee, braid and cord lace made at, 446 Ardfert Abbey, lace shroud found at, 436 Argentan, 202 and n569 -------- lace. _See_ Point d'Argentan Argentella, 78 n244, 193 and n555 Argentine of Dorset, 310 n877 Argyle, Duchess of. _See_ Hamilton Armada pattern lace of Queen Charlotte, 397 Armstrong, Mrs. Rachel, 438 Arnold, E., cited, 466, 469 n1286, 471 n1299 Arras early industries of, 239 gold lace of, 240 lace industry of, 238-240 lace of, compared with that of Lille, 235, 240; with that of Mirecourt, 252 number of lace workers (1851), 257 n688 Arundel, Countess of, 12 --------, Lady, quoted, 395 Assizes, Maiden, custom of presenting laced gloves at, 337 n991 Asti, Baroness A. d', 79 Athens, white silk lace of, 86 Atterbury, Bishop, lace smuggled in coffin of, 361 Auberville, M. Dupont, exhibits by, 58; cited, 78 Aubry, Felix, quoted, 132 n376, 160 n466, 228 n614, 231, 257 n688; cited, 184, 285, 292 Audiganne, A., cited, 228 n614 Augsburg, 266, 267 Augusta, Princess, marriage of, 359 Aumale, Madame d', 183 Aurillac, 154, 246-250 Austria Albert Archduke, 113 n326 Anne of. _See_ Anne lace of, 268 Auto-da-fè, lace worn at, 100 Auvergne ancient names preserved in, 246 n658 lace exhibited (1867), 246 Maltese guipures made in, 88 mignonette made in (1665), 35 number of lace-makers in (1851), 257 n688 petition of lace-makers in (1767), 64 thread used in, 245 --------, Mgr. de la Tour d', 183 Auvray, quoted, 224 n611 Avaux, M. le Comte d', 155 Avrillion, Mlle., 177 n526; cited, 184 n541 Axmouth, lace-workers of, 409 n1157 Aylesbury, lace industry of, 378, 379 Baby lace, 385 Babylon, embroidery of, 3 Backhouse, James, 300 Bacon, Lord, 318 Baden, Princess of, 178 Bailey's Dictionary, quoted, 303 n830 Bailleul, 241 and n647, 257 n688 Baillie, James, 432 Baker, Robert, 437 Baldachino in Italian lace, 66 "Ballad of Hardyknute" quoted, 24 Bamberg, collection of German Point at, 267 Bampton, Mr., 343 Bands Falling. _See_ Falling Bands Lawyers', 337 Bannatyne, James, 422 Baptism ceremony, excess of lace at, 352 n1046 Barante, M. de, cited, 111 Barbara, Princess of Portugal (1729), 105 Barbes, 168 n496, 180 and n533 ------ pleines, 234 and n627, n628 Barcelona, lace industry of, 91, 101 and n294, 103 n305 pillows used at, 103 n305 silk of, used in Maltese lace-making, 88; used for blondes, 103 Bard, William, 403 Barleycorn net, 448 Barry, Madame Du. _See_ du Barry Bars, Genoese lace joined by, 74, 75 n236 Baseus, N., 470 Basing, lace purchased at, by Anne of Denmark, 320 Basset, Anne, 290 ------, Mary, 291 Bassompierre, 142 Bath and West of England Society, 410 and n1159 Bath Brussels lace, 405 Baucher, Canon, 226 Bauta, 57 and n193 Bavari, 55 Bavaria, Queen of, 421 Bavière, Isabeau de, 139 n393 Bay, Rudolf, 274 Bayeux, black lace of, 214, 226 Chantilly shawls made at, 215 lace industry, establishment of, 226; Lefébure's development of, 228; number of lace-makers engaged in, 228 n614 mignonette made at (1665), 35 n109 point d'Alençon of, 200 point de Marli of, 225 and n613 point de raccroc of, 120 Spanish silk laces contrasted with those of, 103 Tapestry, 6 Bayman, Mrs., 107 Bayonne, linen work of (1679), 79 n248 Beale, Mrs., thefts from, 349 Bearing cloths, 309 and n871 Beau Nash on aprons, 356 Beaucaire, fair at, 43 n136 Beaufort, Duchesse of, edicts ignored by, 142; extracts from inventory of, 143 and n413, n414, n415. Beauharnais, Eugène, 123 n351 Beaumont and Fletcher, quoted, 292 n788, 296 and n805, 315 and n896, 324, 363 n1070, 365 Beauregard, 248 and n664 Becket, Thomas à, 202 and n569 Beckford, quoted, 90, 98 n280 Beckmann, quoted, 92 n267 Bedford, number of lace-makers in, 377 --------, Lady, 320 --------, Duke of, 360 --------, Lord, 348 Bedfordshire lace, 88, 375-377, 385 Beds, lace trimmings for, 27 n84, 98 and n280 Beer (Devon), lace-workers at, 409 and n1157, 416 n1169, 417 and n1171 Beggars' lace, 34 Béguinage, 126, 130, 133 "Bèle, Prerie," 144 Belev lace, 283 Belgium (See also Flanders and Brabant) lace industry (_See also_ Antwerp, Brussels etc.) application exported to France, annual value of, 252 centres of, before 1665, 44 n144 development of, 138 female education in, 112-113 guipures made by, 410 importance of, 112 and n324 numbers employed in (1861), 112 pillow lace. _See_ Valenciennes Valenciennes industry transferred to, 232 lace schools in, 113-115 linens and flax of, 405-407 pedlar lace-sellers in, 44 and n143 smuggling lace of, into France, 116 thread, fineness of, 119 n339 weaving of lace in fourteenth century in, 109 Bell, Mrs., old lace of, 384 Bellière, M. de la, 130 and n368 Bellini, lace in picture by, 47 Ben, Miss Mary, 398 Beni Hassan, figures at, 1 Beresford, Lord John George, 443 Berkeley, Bishop, quoted, 371 n1092 Berlin, number of lace fabrics in (_circ._ 1685), 264 Bernhardi, N. R., cited, 497 n1359 Berry lace industry, 256 Berthe (mother of Charlemagne), 5 Bertin, Mlle., 181 Bertini, Cav., 462 n1270 Bess of Hardwick, 11 Béziers, Bishop of, 154, 155 Bible printed by Quentell, 460 Bidney, Miss Jane, 409 Bigazzi, M., 468 n1293, 471 n1300 Billament lace, 48 and n159, 299 and n817 Binche, royal edict concerning, 135 and n381 ------ lace, 118, 135 and n383, 136, 212 Bindoni, G. A., 471 Bingham, Lady, 439 Bisette (bizette), 33 and n102, 210, 256 Bishops, denouncement of ruffs by, 316-317; ruffs worn by, 318 Black lace Caen fabric, 225 Caen, Bayeux and Chantilly, similarity of fabrics of, 226 Calvados, 223 Chantilly fabric, 212-215 and n584, 226 East Flanders fabric, 134 England, imported to, from Low Countries, 117 n330; fashion introduced into, 153 n444; Lille fabric popular in, 237 fond d'Alençon, ground, 214 France, fashion introduced into, 153-154 Le Puy fabric, 245 Liège fabric, 137 n391 Lille fabric, 236, 237 loom-made, 432 n1212 masks of, 177 Saxony fabric, 263 Turin, at court of, 153 n445 Blanche of Lancaster, 285 n755 Blandford, lace industry of, 344, 396 and nn, 397 n1134 Blessington, Countess of, lace collection of, 369 Blois, Mlle. de, 161-162 and n472 Blonde de fil, 34 and n108, 237 Blonde-workers, wages of, 225 Blondes Almagro, at, 102 n297 Barcelona silk used for, 103 Caen, of, 224 Catalonian, 102 England, introduction of manufacture into, in George II.'s time, 356; made at Sherborne, 397 French court, at, 182 Genoese manufacture of, 75 Le Puy, of, 245 Spanish, 103 n305 Vélay, of, 244 white, 214 Bobbin lace (_See also_ Pillow lace) Belgian, 123 bobbins used for, 296 n798 pillow lace a term for, 32 point duchesse, 123 royal inventories, mentioned in, 295 n797 value of, per oz. (Queen Elizabeth's time), 295 n797 ------ net English machine-made, 447-450 France, first made in, 187 Bobbins description of, 32, 33, 295 n795, 391 and n1127 Honiton, at, 415 n1166 long, used for bobbin lace, 296 n798 materials used for, 32, 74 n235 number of, 33 n101 Peniche, at, 106 n314 Bock, Dr., collection of, 23 and n74, 24 Boenen, G., 311 Bohemia, modern lace of, 262 Boileau, quoted, 159 Boislaunay, Epoux Malbiche de, 206 _Boke of Curtasye_, quoted, 290 Bolbec lace, 218 Bolingbroke, Lord, 351 Bologna, lace-making at, 68, 81 n248 Bonald, Cardinal de, 183 Bone, bobbins made of, 74 n235 ---- lace bobbin lace distinguished from, 296 n798 explanation of term, 400 ---- pins (_See also_ Bobbins), 295 n795 Bone-work, why so called, 294 Bonzy, Monseigneur de, 154-155 Books, parchment patterns on covers of, 77 Boot tops, 145, 150 Bordeaux fair, 43 n136 Borlase, Sir Henry, 378. Bosse, Abraham, engravings by, 146, 147, 149 Bottles used as light reflectors, 390 and n1125 Boufflers, Governor, 236. Bourbon, Catherine de, 144, 482, 494 --------, Duchesse de, extracts from the inventory of, 120 n344, 125 n354, 128 n364, 162 n475, 168 n496, 169 n497, 174 n519, 195 n560 Bourg-Argental, 224 Bourges, 5, 256 --------, Archbishop of, 118 and n336 Bourgogne, Duc de, 99 n283 Bowdon, Miss, 417 Bowen, Emanuel, quoted, 405 Bowes, Sir Robert, 38, 298 Bowie, J., 430 n1207 Bowll, William, 308. Boys as lace-makers, 263, 377, 413, 414 Brabant (_See also_ Belgium) lace-workers from, settled at Tönder, 274 point de Sedan, attributed to, 254 Brabant lace. _See_ Brussels, Mechlin, etc. Braid, lace a term used for, 26 ------ lace (Devonshire), 414 n1156 ------ and cord lace, 446. Braidwork, in imitation of Spanish point, 410 and n1159 Branscombe, lace-workers of, 409 n1138 Brazil, lace of, 108. Brazza, Contessa di, cited, 71 n222, 75 n237, 78 n244; quoted, 75 n236; lace school under direction of, 81 n248 Bremen, refusal of, to receive strangers, 264 Brennar, Mr., 442 n1232 Brereton, Miss Elinor, 438 Bretagne, 229 and n617 Bretschneider, A., 496 Briattes, Jean-Ph., 225 n613 Bribes of lace, 351 n1045 Bridal veils, 78 Bride ground. _See_ Argentan ground. ------ lace, 302 and n829 Brides definition of, 31 and n91 Milanese lace, in, 75 n237 Spanish point, in, 58 thread guipures, in, 39, 40 _vrai réseau_ the successor of, 406 Bridgewater Baptist Church, manifesto of, 403 and n1144 "Britannia Languens" (1680), cited, 54 and n183, 192 Brittany, 229 and n617 Brithnoth, exploits of, in embroidery, 6 Broderie des Indes, 229 -------- de Malines. _See_ Mechlin lace Brooks, Mr., speech of, quoted, 329. Brotherton, Mr., invention of lace loom by, 432 n1212 Brown, Rawdon, cited, 345 n1025 Bruce, Mr. Collingwood, cited, 6 Bruges collection of lace at, 138 export trade with France, value of, 241 guipure de Flandres of, 123, 133 Valenciennes made at, character of, 232 n624 Brunet, H., cited, 161 n472, 236 n633, 459, 461, 476; quoted, 466 Brunfaut, M. Duhayon, 131 and n374 Brussels lace Alençon, 200 application, rivalry of Mirecourt, 252 arrêt concerning (1688), 129 n365 branches of industry, 123 Brussels the only place for, 118 colour of, 121 compared with-- Alençon, 199; Binche, 135; Lille, 237; point de France, 194; St. Trond, 137; Saxony needle point, 263 Cretan mesh work compared with, 87 designing of, 122 English Court fashion for, in George II.'s time, 354 exported as "English point," 117 flowers of, 121 grounds of, 120; Mechlin ground distinguished from, 125 Honiton imitations of, 405, 406, 410 made at Antwerp, 130; at Chimay, 135 manufacture described, 31, 118, 119; titles of workers of various processes in, 122 Marie Louise, Empress, presented with, 124 patterns of, 122; date of earliest patterns, 116 point de Bruxelles. _See_ Point d'Angleterre popular establishment for English buyers, 124 price per pound, 119 n339; causes of high price, 118, 119; comparative cost of ground, 120; price of flounce of, 124 n352 thread used in, 118 and n338; fineness of 119 n339 value of, from one pound of flax, 120; intrinsic value of, 124 n352 veil of, presented to Empress Josephine, 123 n351; smuggled, 361 Venetian wear of, 57 and n192 -------- -lace-makers, point de raccroc of, 120 -------- net, 120 n345 Bruyel, Nicholas de, 111 Buckingham, Duchess of, 345 n1024 Buckinghamshire lace, 378-383; value of, 402 Buffon, ruffles of, 173 Bulgarini, Francesea, 68 and n213 Bullock, Consul, quoted, 89 Bunt lace, 428 Buoy, lace seized in, 360 n1066 Burano Alençon point made at, 62, 200 Argentan made at, 62, 208 English thread used at, 394 n1128 number of lace-workers at, 394 n1128 revival of lace industry at, 58-62 Burato, 53 Burgoigne, 205 n573, 216 n594 Burgundy, lace industry of, 255 and n684, n685; lace-makers from, in London, 373 --------, Duke of (Charles the Bold), 111 --------, Dukes of, inventory of, quoted, 82 --------, Duchess of, 167 n492 Burke, Patrick, 323 Burnet, Bishop, quoted, 13 Burnham (Buckinghamshire), lace industry of, 379 Burning of badly-spun yarn, 432 and n1211 Butterfly and acorn design, 308, 408 Byas, 299 and n815 Byzantine Empire, origin of lace traced to, 45 Cabanillas, cited, 102 Cadenetas, 95 Calderwood, Mrs., cited, 127, 431; quoted, 118 and n337, 137, 260; Dresden ruffles of, 262 Caen black lace of, 226 blonde lace of, patterns, 224; quality, 224; rise and fall of industry, 225 Chantilly industry outrivalled by, 215; Chantilly made at, 224 number of lace-makers employed in (1847), 225; (after 1848), 228 n614 price of lace of, 224 Cahanet, 226 Calais, machine-made blondes of, 225 Calepino, T., 474 Callot, engravings of, 146 Calthorpe, Lady, 37, 297 Calvados lace industry, 213, 223, 226, 228 and n614, 257 n688 Cambray, Archbishop of, 173 and n508 Cambrensis, Giraldus, cited, 435 Cambury, Lord, 403 Campan, Mme. de, 180 n533 Campane, 34 and n104, n106, 51 Campanner, 343 n1017 Campany, cited, 99 Campos, Father Fr. Marcos Antonio de, quoted, 95 Candy, thread lace from, 38 Canetille, 36 "Canons," 153 and n441 Canossa, Contessa, 469 Cant, Miss Anne, 430 n1207 Cantor Lectures on the Art of Lace-making, cited, 2 n7 Cantu, lace-making at, 66, 80 Capefigue, quoted, 166 Card-sharping aided by ruffles, 171, 351 Cardinals, 356 and n1059 Cardwell, Mr., 384 Carew, Sir G., 308 n870 Carpaccio, lace in pictures of, 47 Carpentier, Madame, 226 Carrêno, lace rare in paintings of, 98 Carrickmacross, lace industry at, 440 Carrouges, 206 Cartisan, 36 Cary, John, quoted, 849 n1325 Castanaga, M. de, 167 Castlebar, lace industry at, 439 Catalonia, blonde made at, 101; blonde mantillas of, 88, 226 Catgut lace, 343, 430 n1207 Catherine de Bourbon, 144, 482, 494 ---------- of Braganza, 43 n137 ---------- de Médecis, bed of, 22 bizette of, 33 n102 Florentine lace probably introduced into France by, 67 lace-making at court of, 140 and n395 needlework of, 11 Vinciolo patronised by, 11, 17 Cattern's Day, 376 Cauellat, Veuve, 476 Cavenne, Citoyen, 137 n390 Cayette, V. P., cited, 140 n397 Cecil, letter from, regarding French tailors, quoted, 307 Cecyll, Richard, 291 Celle, D., 466 Cephalonia, Ionian lace at, 86 Cerceau, A. du, 476 Ceylon, pillow-laces of, 88 Challus, Anne, 184 n540 Chambrières, 8 Champagne, lace industry of, 253-255 Chandos, infant daughter of Duke of, 352 n1046 --------, Lady, 294 n791, 297 n811, 307 n862, 308 n867 Channel Islands, lace industry in, 372 n1098 Channon, Miss Mary, 398 "Chansons a toile", 8 and n29 Chantilly number of lace-workers at Alençon and, (1851), 257 n688 point tresse made at, 314 ---------- lace black, 226 Caen manufacture of, 224 Genoese imitation of, 75 industry of, 212-215 Saxony lace compared with, 263 Spanish silk laces contrasted with, 103 Spanish and Portuguese imitation of, 106 Charles I. (England) Carisbrook clothing expenses of, 372 n1097 carpet bag trimmings of, 38, 298 extravagance of, 326, 327 and n950, 328 Great Wardrobe Account, quoted, 253 and n678, n679, 205 n612 marriage accounts, 296 period of, 326-332 picture catalogue of, cited, 296 -------- II. (England) Collobium sindonis of, 335 and n981 Flanders lace, importation of, prohibited by, 125 foreign lace imported by, 336 and n985 period of, 335-339 silver parchment lace of, 38, 298 and n841 --------, Prince (England), accounts of, cited, 322, 325 n940, n941 -------- V. (Belgium) cap of, 113 lace-making encouraged by, 113 portrait of, in Quentell's pattern book, 459 -------- VIII. (France), 139 n393 -------- IX. (Sweden), 279 -------- X., 143 n412 -------- the Bold, 111 Charleville lace, 183 n539, 254 and n680 Charlotte, Queen Armada pattern lace of, 397 British lace worn by, 363, 398 favourite lace of, 128 lace industry started by, 374 sponsor to children of aristocracy, 352 n1046 Charmouth, lace-workers at, 395 Charollais, Mlle. de, inventory of, quoted, 125 n353, 129 n364, 162 n475, 175 n520, 135 ruffles of, 233 n626 Chat, 181 and n536 Château de Madrid, lace factory at, 158, 210 and n584 -------- -Renaud lace, 254 -------- -Thierry, lace industry at, 157 n459, 253 Châtel-sur-Moselle, 251 and n671 Châtelain, Simon, 100 and n287 ----------, Zacharie, 259 Chaucer, quoted, 15 and n50 Chaumont, 251 n673 Chauvin, Pierre, 230 Cheney, lace industry at, 384 Chesterfield, Lord, quoted, 358 Cheveux de la reine, 181 and n535 Chevreuse, Madame de, 168 Cheyne lace, 438 Chiavari _Macramé_ of, 79 tape guipure of, 75 Chicago Exhibition. _See under_ Exhibitions Chichester, Lady Hamilton, 87 and n262 Chick, Mrs., 407 n1153 Chigi-Giovanelli, Princess, 61 Children as lace-makers, 103 n305, 107, 155, 209, 377, 438 Chili lace, 108 Chimay lace, 134-135 China drawn work of, 46 silk lace not in demand in, 89 ------, lace exchanged for, 349 Choïsy, Abbé de, 167 Christening shirts of Queen Elizabeth's reign, 308 and n872 Christian IV. of Denmark, 68, 272-274 Christina, Queen, 73 n230 Church of England appointment of parsons of, for reform of lace-making abuses, 331 inventories of, lace mentioned in, 293 ruffs worn by Bishops, 318; sermons against ruffs, 316 ------ of France, extravagance of prelates (Louis XVI.), 182-183 Churchill, Lord, 403 Cibber, Colley, cited, 344 n1021 Cicognara, Count, 467 and n1286 Ciglia family, Maltese lace made by, 88 Cinq Mars, boots and collarette of, 145 Ciprioto, 82 n252 Cistercians, 7 "City Match," quoted, 324 Clarke, Jane, 443 n1233 Claver, Alice, 288 Clayton, Sir Thomas, accounts of, quoted, 350 Clement VII., Pope, 62 -------- IX., Pope, 70 -------- X., Pope, 172 n505 Clément, M., 226 Clermont, Mlle. de, inventory of, quoted 128 n363, 195 n560, 207 n578 Clonard Abbey, effigy in, 437 n1222 Clones, lace and crochet industry of, 445 Cluny, Musée de, punto a relievo in, 51 ------ lace Le Puy Fabric, 246 n659 Mirecourt fabric, 252 Coccolia, lace school at, 81 n249 Cochon, cited, 256 n686 Cock (fontange), 423 ----, Hieronymus, 493 n1354 Cockscombes, 344 Code Michaud, 148 Coggeshall (Essex), lace made at, 441 n1230 Coigny, Duchesse de, 123 n351 "Col rabattu," 145 Colbert, Chevalier Aurillac lace of, 248 chief director of trade, 158 n461 death of, 192 development of lace industry by, 154; extract from letter to M. le Comte d'Avaux, 155 difficulties in establishing lace factories, 158 and n461, n462 fabrics attempted by, 255, 256 fabrics established by, at Arras, 239 and n644 Aurillac, 247 Château de Madrid, 158, 210 n584 Le Quesnoy, 230 Loudun, 256 Huguenots protected by, 100 inventory of, quoted, 218 n596, 259 n692 Mazarin, correspondence with, concerning lace, referred to, 150-151 ordinance of, 54 point d'Alençon established by, 188 points de France, established by, 33, 111 Raffy, Madame, letter from, quoted, 202 Colbertine, 337, 339 and n996, n997, n998 Colchester, complaints of, regarding foreign lace-makers, 324 n935 Cole, A. S. cited, 91-92 and n268, 446 n1236; quoted, 193 n555, 203 n570 Kinsale lace revival due to, 442 and n1232 Collaert, engraving by, 109 n319 Collars, hunting, 328 Collectors of lace, 364 Cologne pattern book, 268 Colombière, Vulson de la, quoted, 73, 149 and n435 Colporteurs, lace sold by, 44 and n142, n143 Colyton military thieves at, 403 tomb in church of, 403 n1145 Commode. _See_ Fontange Commonwealth, the, needlework in the time of, 13 Compas lace, 297 and n809 Compton, Lord, cited, 296 n800 Conclave, the holy, laces of, 70 Condé, Princesse de, inventory of, quoted, 125 n355, 161 n468, 168 n496, 169 n497, 174 n519, n520, 195 n558 Congreve, cited, 344 n1021; quoted, 339 Contarini, Lucretia, 476, 484 Conti, Prince de, marriage-toilette of, 161-162 and n472 point d'Aurillac cloak of, 248 Contrada del Pizzo, 59 Connet, lace trade at, 270. Cooke, quoted, 414 Copper lace (St. Martin's), 331 n965 Coral point, 51 Coralline, Point de Venise copied from, 49-50 Cordonnet, 87, 406, 408 Corfu, Greek lace made at, 85 Cork, crochet industry of, 444, 445 "Corona" of Vecellio. _See_ Vecellio Cotgrave, quoted, 33 n102, 36 n112 Cotton lace, 187 ------ weaving, at Ghent, 134 Couronne (picot), 31 and n92 Courtrai, flax grown at, 118 n338 -------- lace. _See under_ Valenciennes lace Cousin, Jean, 476 Couvin lace, 138 n392 Covenanters, sumptuary enactments of, 424 Coventry blue, 302 Cow-houses, lace worked in lofts over, 224 Cowper, quoted, 364, 370, 379 Coxcombs, 31 Cranfield, Sir Lyonell, cited, 324 n934 Crâponne fabric, 246 Cravat, laced introduction of, 337 origin of, 42 n135 stock the successor of, 345 Creaden, the Queen of, 437 n1223 Créquy, M. de, 143 ------, Madame de, quoted, 175 ------, Marquise de, quoted, 173 n511, 250 and n668 Crete, lace manufacture of, 86-87 Crochet, Irish, 444-445 -------- hook used in Genoese guipures, etc., 74 -------- needle, used in Punto di Rapallo, 75 n237 Cromwell, Oliver, dress of, 333, 334 Crown lace, 299 and n814 Croïy, Duc de, 366 n1083 Crusaders, art of lace-making, traced to, 45 n148 Cuença, 246 Cuipure (guipure), 37 Culpepper, Sir John, quoted, 318-319 Cunningham, quoted, 308 n866 Curragh point, 443 and n1233 Curtius, M., 143 and n412 "Custom of the Country" quoted, 324 Cut-work ecclesiastical use of, 15 Elizabeth's use of, 303-305 Italian, 325 James I.'s time, 322, 325 lace known as, 2 name explained, 19 pall of, used in Dieppe, 25 Ricci's "Last Supper" depicted in, 79 n248 smocks adorned with, 25 toile d'honneur of, use at St. Lo, 25 Cyprus, needlework of, 82 d'Abranthès, Duchesse, 105, 128 n343, 185 n542, 186 and n545, 237 n638 d'Addo, Marquis, 459 n1264, 467 n1287, n1288, 469 n1294, 470, 472, 475, 476 and n1315, 477 Daedalian ruffs, 315 and n895 Daimeries, Mme., quoted, 138 n392 Dalecarlian lace, 68, 281, 282, 338 Dalrymple, Miss Jenny, 263 Dalton, Mother Augustine, 444 Damer, Mr., 364 Dammartin lace, 212 Dangean, quoted, 167, 178 Dantelle (dentelle), first occurrence of word, 490 d'Aranda, Madame, 98 n280 Darned netting, 20, 21 Dartmouth, Lord, 379 Dauphin, ceremony at birth of, 162 n474 Davies, Barber Surgeon, quoted, 70 Davies' _Epigrams_ quoted, 323 n933 Davey, Mrs., 409 Dawson, Mrs., 446 n1235 de la Motte, Maréchal, 29, 126 and n357 de Lonlay, Eugène, cited, 208 de Staël, Madame, 180 Deaf and dumb, net lace used by, in Sardinia, 81 n248 Debts for lace, 353 and n1050. Decker, T., quoted, 315 n895 Defoe, quoted, 43 n140, 171 n503, 377 and n1111, 378, 379, 380 and n1119, 396, 397, 403; cited, 344 Delaney, Mrs., quoted, 120 n344, 121, 355; cited, 413 n1161 Denbert, Bishop of Durham, 6 Denmark cut-work of, 276, 277 embroidered tulle of, 229 grave-clothes, lace adorned in, 275, 366 and n1082 lace industry. (_See also_ Schleswig and Tönder) export trade, 274 n736 lace postmen, 274, 277 origin of, 272 protected by Christian IV., 274 quality of lace, 275 Wulff's revival of, 276 and n739 Dennistoun, Mrs., 58-59, 487 Denny, Lady Arabella, 437, 438 and n1225, 439 and n1227 Dentelière, work of, 122 Dentelle, definition of term, 27 and n80 -------- à la Reine, 259 and n692 -------- à la Vierge, 220 "Dépit Amoureux" quoted, 32 Derby Alice, Countess of, effigy of, 321 n927 ------, Lady, 342 ------ rib, 448 n1239 Derbyshire, pillow lace made in, 393 Derode, V., quoted, 236 n630, n633 Desborough, lace industry of, 379 Desmarquets, cited, 219 n603 Desmond, Countess of, 437 n1222 Desnos, Joseph Odolant, quoted, on establishment of point d'Alençon, 155 n455 ------, Odolent, quoted, on invention and establishment of point d'Alençon, 155-157 Despierres, Mme., quoted, 157 n457, n458, 159 n464, 195 n557, 204 n571, 307; cited, 192 n552, 203 d'Este, Madame Anne Bellorio, 61 family, auctions of, cited, 46 Devonshire bone pins used in, 294 lace of. _See_ Honiton, Trolly villages in, noted for lace-making in 1698, 403 n1143; those now engaged in, 403 n1147 ----------, Duke of, coffin of, searched for lace, 360 ----------, Duke of, Jacobite lace brought to, 426 Diamond lace, 299-300 and n818 "Diarium Vadstenoense" 278 Didot, F., 487 Dieppe cut-work, pall used in, 25 lace industry of, 218-220, 223 ------ lace, 183 n539 Dieudonné-- quoted, 225 n613, 231; cited 237 n639 Dijon, Valenciennes made at, 255 Dike, Ric. 319 n918 Dinant muslin-work, 138 n392 Dinghen, Madame, 311 Doddridge, Lady, effigy of, 405 Doge's horn in Italian laces, 66 Dogs as lace-smugglers, 116 and n329 Dolls dressed in French fashions, 170 and n500, n501 "Don Quixote," cited, 98 n281 Donat, Père, 501 Donchéry lace, 254 Doran, Dr., anecdote related by, 186 Dorsetshire lace, 396-398; value of, 402 Dorstats, Madame Catherine von, 497 Douairière de la Ferté, Duchesse, 175-176 Double ground, 386 Douce, Mrs., cited, 500 n1366 Douglas, Bp., letters of, quoted, 265 and n720 Dover, refugee lace-makers at, 324 n935 "Down," 390 Draper, Mrs., 13 Drawn-work, method of, 25 Sicilian, 81 South American, 188 wire, 72 Dresden lace, 262, 263, 430 and n1207 Drocheleuse, work of, 122 Droschel, 119 Drouais, 168 Dryden, quoted, 425 Du Barry, Madame accounts of, quoted, 34 n106, 120 and n341, n343, n344, 126 n356, 129 n364, 162 n475, 168 n496, 175 n520, 178 n529, 181 n534, 195, 207 and n577, 231 and n621, n622, 233 n625, n626 Indian muslin bought by, 179 inventories of, quoted, 213 n592, 250 n666, n667 Du Haillan, 142 n408 Dublin Society, The, 429, 437-439 Dubois, C., cited, 137 n389, 138 n392 ------, 468 Duchesse lace, 123 Dulaure, cited, 173 and n513 Dumont, manufactory of, 211 ------, Mlle., 105 n312 Dunbar, Mrs., 443 Dunkirk, James II.'s cap in Museum at, 340 and n1004 Duponchel (Du Ponchel), 205, 207 n576 Dupont, M., cited, 204 Duras, Duc de, 207 n577 ------, Duchesse de, 213 and n591 Duref Henri, cited, 247 Durham, St. Cuthbert's cope and maniple at, 7; his grave-clothes, 14, 15, 366 Durie, Lord, engraving of, 423 Dussen, B. v. d., cited, 133 and n378 Duthie, Mlle., 181 Duval, M., 224 Dysart, Countess of, 344 n991 "Each," 391 _Eagle_ (French vessel), seizure of, 101 Earnings and wages of lace-workers Alençon, 192 Arras (1788), 239; (1851), 240 Bedfordshire, 377 blonde-workers, 225 Denmark (1848), 277 n741 Devonshire, 414, 416 n1168; Honiton, 407 and n1153 Dorsetshire, 398 Flemish thread-spinners', 119 France, average (1851), 257 n688; their savings, 159 n464 Genoa, 77, 78 Mechlin, 127 Mirecourt, 252 n675, 253 Normandy, 223, 228 n614 Northamptonshire (Spratton), 390 Scotland, 434 Spain, 102 Switzerland, 270 Val, 233, 234 n627 Vélay, 244 Ypres Valenciennes, 131 n373 Eaton, John, 336 ------, Prestwick, letters from, cited, 98 n282 Ecclesiastical lace Athenian--for Jewish Church, 86 Burano school allowed to copy, 62 decline of, since the Reformation, 331 Greek, 83 Ionian, 86 Italian, 47 and n154 Katherine of Aragon's work of, 376 and n1108 Maltese, 88 Scotch, 418, 419 Spanish, 90, 92 washing of, 373 n1101 Ecouen lace, 210 n589 Eden, Mrs., 443 Edgithe, Queen, 6 Edict of Nantes, Revocation of effect on lace industry (France and other countries), 192, 212, 254, 258 settlement of fugitives in Germany, 264-265 Edinburgh Society for Encouraging the Arts and Manufactures of Scotland, 262, 263, 429, 430 and nn Edward the Elder, daughters of, 6 Edward III. pins for his daughter's trousseau, 294 n794 thread veils of time of, 285. Edward IV. Irish smock of, 436 wardrobe accounts of, quoted, 288 Edward VI., funeral lace of, 293 Effingham, Dowager Lady, 349 ----------, Earl of, 364 Egenolffs, C., 470 Egyptians (Ancient), embroidery of, 1 Ekenmark, cited, 280 n748 Elberfeld, 265 Eleanor of Austria, 262 n701 Elgin marbles, designs in, 3 Elizabeth, Princess (wife of Elector Palatine), 71, 325 ---------- of Austria (Elisabetta Borbona d'Austria), 495 ---------- of Bohemia, 294 n794 ---------- of Denmark, 272 ----------, Queen anecdote referring to, 38, 297 cost of lace for revels at court of, 308 n871 cut-work of, 303-305 false hair of, 314 and n894, n895 foreign tastes of, 305, 307, 310 Irish at court of, 435 laces of, 299-300; lace made from human hair, 313; Genoa and Spanish lace, 307; parchment lace, 298; cost of lace furnished to, 308 New Year's gifts to, 294 n791, 295, 303 n833, 304 n834, n835, n836, n837, 307 and n862, 308 n867, n870, 310 n875, n876 old clothes of, presented to Anne of Denmark, 320 presents to, from Mary Stuart, 420 and n1184; from the Baroness Aletti, 421 n1187 ruffs of, 310-313; 316 n901 skill of, in needlework, 500 smock made by, 10 and n32; smocks of, 308, 408 stocking-frame inventor discouraged by, 448 n1240 wardrobe accounts of, cited, 72; quoted, 92, 98 n282, 297 and n811, 299 and n814, n815, n816, n817, 300-301 and n820, n821, n824, n826, 302 and n827, 304 n834, n838, 307 and n861, n865, 309 n873, 311 n880, 312 n882, 314 n895, 372 n1098 ----------, reign of christening shirts and bearing cloths of, 308-309 habits of people in, 310 n877 importation of pins (annual) in, 294 n794 lace, use of, in, 300 laced handkerchiefs of, 310 and n874 measures against luxury of the people, 301 sumptuary laws, 306 and n855 value of lace and thread imported (1559 and 1568), 306 and n859 Venice lace of, 48 and n154 ---------- of York, Queen, 9 n30, 48, 289 Elliott, Julian, 328 Embroider, Italian and Spanish term for, 45 and n147 Embroidery Anglo-Saxon, 5-7 Babylonian, Sidonian and Phrygian, 3 and n13 drawn-thread work, 25 ecclesiastical, 4-7. Egyptian, 1 Greek, 2, 3 and n8 Jewish, 2 Spanish, 103 Embroidered lace, Genoese, 77 Engageantes, 168 Enghien lace, 134 "Engines" for lace-making, 324 n935 England (_for_ counties, towns, etc., _see their titles_) French fashions, method of obtaining, 170 frugality of nation, in Queen Elizabeth's reign, 310 n877 lace in account of (_See also_ names of sovereigns), 285 _et seq._ date of establishment of industry, 286-288; origin of, 111; centres of, before 1665, 44 n144; impossibility of competing with Belgium, 138 earliest mention of, 285 Flanders, trade with (1768), 115; Flemish lace. _See_ that title foreign, prohibited, 125, 289-290, 341, 347; imported, 245, 251, 288, 291 smuggling of. _See that title_ Protestant refugees in, trades of, 297-298 Reformation, decline of ecclesiastical lace since, 331 sumptuary laws. _See that title_ Vinciolo published in, 482 Engrêlure, 31, 168 n496 Entoilage, 30, 250 Épinal, 251 Equipage de bain, 168 Eric XIV. (Sweden), 307 Ericksholm, 280 ---------- Castle, 279 Erikson, Gustaf, 280 Erzgebirge lace, 263 Essex, Earl of, 401 Este, Madame Anne Belloris, d', 61 ---- family, archives of, cited, 46 Etrepagny lace, 213 n589 Eu lace, 183 n539, 218, 221-222 Eugénie, Empress, 198 Evans, Mrs., 308 n869 Evelyn, quoted, 13, 43, 168 n496, 338, 339; cited, 57 Exeter, Bishop of, 316 ------, Elizabeth, Duchess of, 285 n755 Exhibitions Chicago World's Fair Honiton lace at, 416 n1169 Italian lace at, 46 n150 Colonial and Indian Exhibition (1886), Cyprian lace at, 82 Industry, 1808, point d'Argentan at, 208 (1851), Alençon flounce at, 197-198; lace industry developed since, 392 (1855) (Paris) Alençon point dress at, 198 equipage of King of Rome at, 196 needle-point dress at, 245 (1859) (French). Report--cost of Brussels lace, 119 n339 (1862) (International) Spanish exhibits at, 103-104 threads, comparative fineness of, 119 n339 Wadstena lace at, 280 1867 (Paris) Alençon point dress at, 200 Burano laces at, 58 Honiton lace at, 410 macramé shown at, 79 Mechlin lace at, 125 oyah at, 87 point gaze at, 123 Valenciennes lace at, 131 and n373 1874 (International) Austrian lace at, 268 Brussels lappet at, 411 Russian towels at, 283 Valenciennes lace at, 131 1889, point d' Alençon at, 201 1900 (Paris), 268 Eyesight, effect of lace-making on, 112 n324 Fairfax, Sir Thomas, 333 Fairs, 43 and n136, n137, n140, 326 n945 Falbala, 167 and n492 Falcon, T., 246 Fallals, 350 and n1043 Falling bands, 321 n928, 322, 326, 327, 334, 336 Fambri, Signor, 61 "Fameuse poupée," 170 Fanciulle, 462 Fanshaw, Lady, quoted, 333 Farbeck, John, 300 Favier-Duboulay, correspondence of, with Colbert, re lace industry at Alençon, 155 and n454, 189 Feather-stitch, 8 Fécamp lace, 218 Félibien, D. M., quoted, 141 n402 Félice, G. de, quoted, 150 n437 Félin Narciso, quoted, 91, 99 Felkin, Mr., cited, 447 Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, 92, 93, 96 Feret quoted, 219 and n604 Ferguson, Mr., cited, 250 and n665 Fernandez, Don Manuel, 102 Ferrara archives of, quoted, 46 and n150 Venetian lace-worker at, 78 n243 Fielding quoted, 354 n1053 Filet brodé à reprises, 20 Fillesae, Marie, 157 n458 Fillings, 31 Filo di freta (_See also_ Aloe thread), 79 n245 Firenzuola cited, 46 n152, 47, 57 n172; quoted, 66 and n207 Fisher, Bishop, 292 Fitz-Geoffrey (Geffery), Henry, quoted, 317 n908, 332 Flanders emigration of lace-makers from, preventive legislation, 111-112; emigrants in London, 373; in Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire, 375 and n1105; in Devonshire, 399 and nn, 400 n1140; expelled from England (1572), 306 lace. _See_ Flemish lace. lace school in, description of, 114-115 Spanish imports of dentelles d'Angleterre from, 98 thread imported from, complaint regarding, 324 n935 water-glass reflectors used in, 390 n1125 --------, East, lace of, 133-134 --------, West lace workers of, 133 and n378 Valenciennes lace of. _See_ Valenciennes Flax age of, 259 n697 cotton substituted for, 187 spinning of, in damp cellars, 405 Fleming, Lady, 10 Flemish lace. (_See also_ Belgium _and_ Brabant) arrêt concerning (1688), 129 n365 Barcelona lace imitated from, 91, 99 black lace exported, 117 n330 cargo of smuggling vessel (1678), 117 coffin containing, 61 Danish imitation of, 275 England bribes for Jacobites in, 351 n1045 exportation to, prohibited, 125, 341 fashionable in, 318, 325, 327, 340 imitations in, 384, 404; Honiton reproductions, 411, 416 trade with (1768), 115 France, popularity in (Louis XIV.), 150; trade (seventeenth century), annual value of, in passemens, 209 n583; prohibited, 142 importance of industry of, 111 Liège, 136-137 "Malines," a term for, 125 origin of, 109 types of, 115-116 white work, 294 and n791 Flemish names in Colyton (Devon), 403 n1145 Fleurens, 270 Fleury, Cardinal, quoted, 176 Florence gold lace from, Spanish exclusion of, 92 Greek lace made at, 85 industrial schools in, lace work of, 81 n248 lace industry of, account of, 66-68; "fine dantelle de," 27 Le Puy, imports from, 245 n657 Florentine merchants, allowed to trade in England (circ. 1546), 291 Florini, M., 488 _Flying Postman_ advertisement in, 129 "Flys," 416 n1170 Foillet, J., 489, 490 Fonneuse, work of, 122 Fontange (Commode) "cock" the Scotch term for, 423 description of, 168 n486, 342, 350 n1043 extinction of mode, 166, 348 and n1035 story of, 164 Fontana, Lavinia, lace in picture by, 47 n153 Fontenay, lace, 212 n589 Fontenelle le Liqueur, 229 and n615 Fonthill, sale of lace at, 162 n475 Foote, quoted, 171 n503 Footing, 31, 168 n496 Forbes, Miss Betsey, 432 n1209 Forçade, M. de la, cited, 340 n1004 Force, P. de la, cited, 254 and n682 Foresto, I., 471 Fortunato, P. A., 500 Foskewe, Sir John, 22 _Four P's, The_, cited, 43 n139 Fournier, quoted, 209 n583 "Fourpenny Spot," 372 n1095 Fowke, Mr., cited, 6 and n23 Fowler, Mrs., lace school of, 416 and n1169 Fozzi, P. P., 491 France. _For_ districts, towns, etc., _see their titles_ bobbin net introduced into, 187 customs of French ladies, 168-170 états Généraux (1789), action of, regarding lace, 183 extravagant cost of lace ornaments (Louis XIV.), 153 Fairs in, 43 n136 Fashions fashion dolls, 170 and n500, n501 Italian influence on, 139 and n393 Louis XIV., under, 167 first appearance of lace in, 139 n393 First Empire Brussels lace at court of, 123 lace industry under, 184 morning costume under, 185 point d'Alençon patterns under, 199 and n566 Florentine lace used in (1545), 67 imports of lace from, to England, forbidden by Queen Anne, 347 Italian guipures exported to, 75 Italy, relations with (16th century), 476 lace industry in. _See_ French lace industry lace-makers from, brought to teach Scotch girls, 428 ladies, addiction of, to needlework, 9, 24; as lace-makers, 163 men as embroiderers in, 13 point d'Espagne consumed in, 90; made in, 100 points de Venise from, 54 Quintain named from Brittany town, 19 lace industry improved by, 383 refugees from, to Channel Islands, 372 n1098; to England, 324 n935 Revolution in, effect of, on lace trade, 183 and n539, 223, 249, 368, 408 Second Empire, point d'Alençon patterns under, 199 Spanish imports of lace from, 101 sumptuary laws in, 138 and n354, n355, 147 and n429, 149, 154 and n451 tariff (1664), Liège lace mentioned in, 137 war with, effect of, on English lace industry, 386, 387 yellow starch, attitude towards, 318 and n909 France and Navarre, Queen of, pattern book dedicated to, 493 Franceschi, Francesco di, 475, 484 Francis I. Aurillac lace of, 247 pattern book dedicated to, 461 Frankfort-on-the-Maine fair at, 43 n136, 326 n945 pattern book published at, 267 Frano, G., 477 Frederick, Prince of Wales, 354 ---------- IV., 274 ---------- William of Brandenburg, 264 French lace industry centres of, before 1665, 44 n144 cheap lace, 187 and n546 Colbert's development establishment and history of the company (1668-1675), 157-158 establishment of point d'Alençon, 155-157 immigration of Venetian workers, 159 n465 principal centres, 159 n464 pupils sent to Venice, 154-155 and n454 First Empire, under, 184 foreign trade Bruges, annual value of, with, 241; with Flanders, 209 n583; Valenciennes trade with Belgium, 132 n376 Germany, with, 265 prohibition of, with Flanders, 142 rivalry of Holland in, 258 smuggling from Belgium, 116; from Switzerland, 270 statistics regarding (18th century), 160 n466 number of lace-makers in (present day), 188; table of (1851), 257 n688 Paris lace-workers, confirmation of statutes of, 150 n437 pattern books, 144 and n420, n421, n422, n423 patterns imitated in Denmark, 275 pillow lace manufacture, extension of (17th century), 159 point d'Espagne, 100 Protestants prohibited from selling lace, 150 n437 varieties of lace made in (1665), 33-35 width of lace restricted, 152-153 Freyburg, 268 Freytag, G., quoted, 265 n718 Friesland hens, ladies likened to, 342 Frondeurs, extravagance of, 150 Froschover, Christopher, pattern book of, 271 Fugio lace, 74 Fuller, quoted, 378, 401 Furnesse, Sir Henry, 344, 347 Fuseaux, dentelle à, 32 n98 Gabrielle de Bourbon, 8 n28 ----------, Madame, 49, 142, 143 and n413, n414, n415 Gaguef lace, 281 _Gan, Le_, quoted, 24 Gantes, Mlles., 250 Garden, Lord, quoted, 119 Garnica, John de, 113 n325 Garnier, Joseph, cited, 255 n685 Garnitures de lit, 174 and n519, n520 Garters Queen Elizabeth's cost per pair, 301 trimmed with point, 145 Gaston, Duke of Orleans, 8 n27 Gaudronnées collerettes, 17 Geneva, rivalry of, with Mirecourt, 252 Genoa Albergo de' Poveri, macramé made at, 79 collars of, 74 earnings of lace-workers, 77, 78 embroidered lace of, 77; embroidered tulle, 229 gold work of, 47, 72 guipures of, 74 lace of Cardinal Mazarin's purchase of, 150, 151 Honiton reproduction of, 411 point de Gênes, 41, 42, 72, 73 and n230, 74 Queen Elizabeth's, 307 and n865 lace trade in, chiefly pillow, 47, 74; decline of, 74 silk work of, 72 sumptuary laws in, 73 Tessada, Signore, old lace of, 72 n225 Genoa, Duchess of, 78 n244 Gentili family, bridal veil made for, 78 Geometrical patterns cuffs of (Queen Mary's), 113 Cretan, 86 Greek lace, 20, 85 ruffs of, 316 Swedish, 25 Vecellio's, 111 Vinciolo's, 18 George I. Mechlin cravat of, 126 and n361 period of, 351-353 wardrobe account of, 240 and n645 ------ II., period of, 354-357 ------ III. English manufactures protected by, 359, 363 and n1068, 381 period of, 363-370 sponsor to children of aristocracy, 352 n1046 ------ IV., wardrobe of, 364 n1073 Geharts, C., 501 Germany fairs in, 43 n136, n140 guipures imported into, 36 lace imported into, 245, 251, 254 lace industry centres of, before 1665, 44 n144 export trade with France, 265 North and South Edict of Nantes Revocation--emigration of fugitives into, 264-265 religion of lace-workers, 264 sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, 264 Nuremberg (_See that title_) origin of, 111 pattern-books, 266-268 Saxony (_see that title_) luxury, outbreak of, 265-266 Geslin, Simon, 193 _Gespeldewerkte kant_, 32 n98 Ghent lace Brussels lace compared with, 118 manufacture of, 133-134 trade replaced by cotton-weaving, 134 Valenciennes made at Ghent, character of, 231 n624 Ghisolieri, La Signora Silveria Rossi, 484 Gibbons, Grinling, lace carvings of, 367 and n1088 Gibson, Sir Alexander, engraving of, 423 ------, Miss Mary, 438 Gigliucci, Countess, fragment of drawn work possessed by, 69 Gilbert, Madame, 155 and n455, 156, 157 and n458 Gimp Brussels lace, in, 406 method of making, 33 silk, at Ragusa, 84 Gioiello, 486 Giraldini, Catherina, 500 Gisors lace industry, 209, 213 n589, 215 Glairo, Mlle. U., 235 Glandore, Lord, 436 Glen, Jean de, 136, 482, 488 and n1338 ----, Miss, 431 n1209 Gloucester, Duchess of, lace collection of, 369 Gloves, laced, 337 and n991 Goats' hair lace, 245 Godard, Jean, quoted, 24, 146 n425 Goderonné, term explained, 17 n57 Godric, 6 Gohory, Anne, 183 n540 Golbertain (Colbertine), 339 n996 Golconda, King of, 322 n928, 329 and n958 Gold lace (_See also_ Aurillac lace) Arras, of, 240 England, imported to fifteenth-sixteenth centuries, 288, 289, 307 monopoly in, under James I., 318 prohibited, by Queen Anne, 349; by George II., 355 n1057; confiscation and burning of, 359 France, popularity in, 139, 141, 146, 154; of Paris, 211-212 Genoa, wearing prohibited in, 73 Hamburg, of, 264 Holland, introduction into, 259 India, imported into, 322 n928, 329 and n958 Ireland, importation to, prohibited, 439 Jewish manufacture of, 92 Lyons, of, 256 Ragusa, at, 84 Russia, of, 283 Scotland, wearing in, prohibited, 422 Sicily, of, 80 Spain, of, 92, 100-102, 248 Sweden, of, 280 Zurich, of, 271 ---- guipure work, Swedish, 277-278 ---- purles, 330 ---- thread duties on, leased to Dame Villiers, 328 Italian (fourteenth century), 72 ---- wire, protest by handspinners of, 335 Golden Horn, 273 Goldoni, cited, 57 n192 Goldsmith, quoted, 70 n218 Gomberdière, Marquis de la, quoted, 209 and n582 Gonzales, Don Manuel, cited, 380 and n1120, 403 n1146 Gooding, James, 413, 414 Gorget (whisk), 334 Gormont, 464 Goudronné, term explained, 17 n57 Gozo, Maltese lace made at, 88 Grafton, Duchess of, 344 n1021, 349 n1037 Gramite, 46 n150 Grammont lace, 134 Granada, lace alb in cathedral of, 92, 93 Granson, battle of, 111 Grave-clothes Duke of Alva's, 366 n1085 Ionian lace sold from, 86 lace decorations of, 365-367 St. Cuthbert's, 14, 15, 366 Gravelle, attempt to establish fabric by, 207 Great Marlow bone lace trade of, 319 lace school at, 378 Great Wardrobe Accounts, where kept, 299 n816 Greek lace. (_See also_ Cyprus _and_ Ragusa) Devonshire imitation of, 414 n1165 Italian cut-work so called, 20 Milan point, 65 reticella so called, 50, 85 Greeks (ancient), embroidery of, 2, 3 and n8 Green, quoted, 296 ------ silk lace, 291 n783 Greene, Mrs., quoted, 321 n926 Gremial, 70 n217 Grey, Lady Jane, anecdote of, 38, 297 Grillé, 30 n89 Gripsholm, portrait of Queen Elizabeth at, 307 Gropari (punto a gropo), 52 Gros point de Venise. _See_ Point de Venise, rose point ---- René, 32 Groslay lace, 210, 213 n589 Ground absent in certain laces, 31 kinds of, 30 round, 39 Gruner, Mr., cited, 476 n1316, 487 n1335, 489 Gruuthus mansion, collection at, 138 Gueuse, 33, 34, 41, 42 Guibray fair, 43 n136 Guipure Flemish, 123, 133 Genoese, 74 Honiton (modern), 409, 410 Maltese, 88 method of making, materials, uses, 35-40 modern, 39, 40 parchment lace probably English term for, 37-38 point de Venise, 49 tape, 39, 75 Turkish, 87 Gunning, Miss (Duchess of Hamilton), 425 n1199, 428, 429 Gurbert, cited, 219 n602 Gustavus Adolphus, 282 Gustaf Vasa, 279, 280 Guyard, Sieur Mathieu, 204-205 Guyenne, annual consumption of Le Puy lace in, 245 n657 Haag, cited, 265 n714, 269 n725 Haarlem thread, 216 n595, 223 n608, 245, 259 and n695, n697 Hailstone, Mrs., 23 Hainault, laces, 134 _et seq._; lace flowers, 121 Hair false, of Queen Elizabeth's time, 314 and nn fashion of wearing, 341 lace made from, 313; horse-hair used in Alençon, 194; goats'-hair and rabbits'-hair lace, 245 wigs, 336, 349 Hal, flax grown at, 118 Haliwell, quoted, 297 n809 Halle lace, 265 Hamburg point, 264 Hamilton, Anne, Duchess of (Miss Gunning), 425 n1199, 428, 429 --------, Lady Jane, 123 n351 Hamilton lace, 430 -------- net-work (modern), 434 n1216 Hamlet on the French stage, 186 Hammond, machine-net invented by, 447 Hand, Mrs., 445 Handkerchiefs, laced, 310 and n874, 337 Hangkow, lace made in, 89 Hanmer, Sir Thomas, 349 n1037 Hanover fabrics, 265 Hanslope lace industry, 380 n1119 Harefield church, sculptured lace on effigy in, 321 n927 Harent, Ignace, 230 Harrison, Major, rich dress of, 333 Hartruide, Madame, 279 Hartshorne, Albert, cited, 321 n927 Hatfield, old needlework at, 11 Hathaway family, embroidered bed linen of, 325 n941 Hauslaub, General von, 263 Havre lace, 183 n539, 217 n595, 218; number of lace-makers (1692), 216, 218 Hay, Lord, 64 Hayman, Mrs., 410 Head, R. E., quoted, 391 n1127 Headdresses (_See also_ Fontange) Louis XIV. styles, 164-166 mignonette lace used for, 35 prices of "heads," 348 Roman, 165 n486 "Heller," 391 Helmin, Fr. Margaretha, 502 Henderson, Anne, 430 Heneage, George, 346 Henrietta Maria inventory of, cited, 29 and n87, 146 n426 present from, to Anne of Austria, 330 and n961 Henry II. (England), 37, 202 and n569 -------- (France), introduces lace ruff, 139, 140 and n393, 262 n701 Henry III. (England), 37, 43; portrait in Pattern Book, 480 ---------- (France), 140 and n396, 141 Henry IV. (France) fashion dolls sent by, to Marie de Médicis, 170 n501 Isle of Paris industry, probable connection with, 210 measures of, against luxury of dress, 141-142 and n405 shirt worn by, when assassinated, 142-143 and n412 ------ VI., laces in fashion in time of, 286 and n761 ------ VII., lace of time of, 288, 289 and n772 ------ VIII. Act for the true making of pins, 294 n794 foreign lace allowed in England by, 67, 291 inventory of, cited, 372 n1098; quoted, 104 lace of, 64, 289, 291-292 and n772 sumptuary laws of, 436 and n1220 wardrobe account of, quoted, 289 and n768, n769 ------, Prince (1607), 296 n798 Herault, Chancellor, 143 and n416 Herbert, Miss, 416 Herbouville, cited, 131 n371 Herculaneum, drawn wire lace found at, 72 Hergosse, M. de, 177 n525 Hesse, Landgrave, French fugitives received by, 265 and n711 Hieronimo, Fra., 469 High Wycombe, lace industry of, 380 Hippisley, Sir John Cox, quoted, 329; veil bequeathed to, 421 Hispano-Moresque point de Gênes frisé, 74 Hoche, General, 13 Hoffmann, Hans, 469 Holcroft, Mr., 169 n499 Hölesom, 280 Holidays in Roman Catholic countries, 102 n302 Holland Dutch extravagance in lace, 260 Haarlem thread, advantage of, to, 259 and n695, n697 lace imported into, 251, 254 lace industry in, 258-260 and n689 rivalry with French lace trade, 258 Hollie work, 325 and n939 Hollow lace, 299 and n816 Holme, Randle, cited, 31, 344; quoted, 251, 296 n799, 339 Holstein, daughter of Duke John of, 275 Holyrood Palace, lace trimmed basket in, 420 Honfleur lace, 183 n539, 218 Honiton, lace school at, 414 -------- lace account of, 399-411 bobbins and pillows used in, 415 n1166 Bruges lace a rival to, 133 guipure, 40 Indian contrasted with, 89 Japanese imitations of, 417 point duchesse compared with, 123 -------- lace-makers, skill of, 417 n1171 Hope, Sir Thomas, portrait of, 423 Horsehair used in making Alençon, 194 Hôtel Rambouillet, dressed dolls of, 170 Hove, Callys de, 306 Howel's Letters, quoted, 317 n906 Hubert, Soeur, cited, 220 n606 Hugo, Victor, quoted, 135, 164; cited, 136 n384 Humphrey, Thomas, 401 Hungarian lace, 268 Hungerford, Sir Edward, 395 Hunt, Susanna, 438 Hurdle, Mary, 395 Hutchins, quoted, 396 n1133 Hutchinson, Colonel, 333 ----------, Mrs., Memoirs of, cited, 12 Hutton, Sir Timothy, 71 Iberian lace, 104 Ile de France. _See_ Isle de France India lace exported to, 241, 251, 253, 322 n928, 329 and n958 pillow-laces of, 88 and n263, 89 India Museum, pillow laces in, 89 Indian muslin, 179-180 ------ work of Denmark, 275 Innishmacsaint, 446 Innocent IV., Pope, 7 Inquisition, lace-trimmed banner of, 100 Insertion, 388 Ionian Isles lace manufacture of, 85 lace from tombs of, 365 Ipsden, Vicar of, MS. in possession of, 286 n761 Ireland Bath and Shirley School, 440 club against "foreign fopperies," 438 Dublin Society, the, 429, 437, 439 lace industry in, 436-446; Maltese guipures made in, 88; Irish point, 443 and n1233 prize offered by, for Dresden point, 262 sumptuary laws in, 435, 436 and n1220 yellow dye of, 307, 435, 436 Iron Mask, 166 n490 Isabella, Infanta, 113 --------, Princess (Sweden), 279 n746 "Isabelle" tint, 121 Ischia lace, 71, 263 and n705 Isle de France lace industry in centres of (17th century), 209 and n582, 210 Chantilly, 212-215 cheap laces, 210 Dumont's fabric, 211 Huguenots engaged in, 209 Spanish imports of lace from, 99 Israel, J., 469 Italians, dishonesty of, in lace trade (Henry VII.'s time), 48, 67, 288 Italy (_For_ towns, etc., _see their titles_) France, relations with, 16th century, 476 invention of lace claimed by, 109; of point lace, 45 lace imported by, 245, 251 n670 lace of (_See also_ Point _and_ Punto) centres of manufacture before 1665, 44 n144 England, fashionable in, 318; imitated in, 416 n1169, 417 Greek lace manufacture, centres of, 85 Points in relief of, counterfeits of, 105 Spanish point attributed to, 93, 97 lace schools of, 81 n249 revolutions in, lace seized during, 51 and n175 silk gimp specimens from, 85 Swiss lace from, origin of, 269 white thread made in, 49 n165 Jabot, 172 Jacobites, 425, 426 James I. gold purle manufacture prohibited by, 319 and n921 Great Wardrobe Account, 311 n878, 317 and n903, 318 nl7 Honiton lace industry in time of, 401 lace of, 64 monopolies granted by, 318-319, 378 period of, 315-326 ruffs under, 315-318 ------ II. Edinburgh visited by, 425 period of, 340 ------ V. (of Scotland), 372 n1098, 418 and n1172 ------ VI. (of Scotland), 422 and n1195 ------, Jacques, 205 Jane Seymour, 292 Japan, Honiton lace imitated in, 417 Jean lace. _See_ Genoa lace Jerphanion, Sieur, 244 Jersey, Isle of, lace industry of, 372 and n1097 Jesuit lace, 445 and n1234 Jesuits, inventory of, cited, 331 Jesurum, Cav. Michelangelo, 62 Jew stick, 491 and n1349 Jewellery of 18th century, 346 Jews Athenian lace used by, 86 embroidery of (ancient), 2 gold and silver lace made by, 92 and n270 Jingles of bobbins, 391 n1127 Johan Adolf, Prince, 282 Johnson, Dr., quoted, 367 Jointeuse, work of, 122 Jolly, Margareta, 348 Jonson, Ben, quoted, 43 n139, 302, 313 n890, 316 and n922, 318 n910, n912, 327 Josephine, Empress, 123 n351, 177 n526 Jours, 31 Judith of Bavaria, 5 Junius, Hadrianus, 114 n327 Junot, Madame. _See_ Abrantès, Duchesse d' Jurdaine, Mary, 306 Jutland lace industry, 274 Katherine of Aragon, Queen Bedfordshire lace-industry attributed to, 375 and n1106, n1107, 376 needlework of, 9, 10 and n32 portrait of, 129 n367 Spanish fashions introduced by 10 n32, 310 ----------, Queen (wife of Charles II.), 43 ---------- Parr, Queen, 10 n34 Keck, 423 Keller, Dr. Ferd, 270 n728 Kenmare, lace industry of, 443, 444 Kennedy, Tristram, 440 Kettering, lace industry of, 384 Killigrew, quoted, 318 n908 Kilravock, Mistress Margaret, daughter of the Baron of, 425 n1198 Kinsale, lace industry at, 422 n1187 Knight, cited, 396 ------, Miss, quoted, 264 Knole, old needlework at, 11 Knotted fringe, 13 and n47 -------- lace, 52, 68 Knox, Miss Jane, 438 Koehler, statuette by, 262 Königsmarck, Aurora, lace in tomb of, 366 La Boord, Madame, 43 La Chaise-Dieu, lace industry at, 249 "La Fontange," story of, 164 La Mancha, lace factory at, 102 La Motte, Maréchal, 29, 126 and n357 La Perrière, 155 n454, 157 n458 "La Providence" nuns, 226 La Vallière, 154, 464 n1280 Laborde, cited, 151 n438 Lace (_See also_ Old lace) Biblical meaning of term, 2 definition of term, 26 foreign equivalent of term, 26 n77 manufactures of, before 1665, 44 n144 parts of, 30 point and pillow, 32 ---- Association, aims of, 393 Laced handkerchiefs, 310 and n874 Lace-makers, ill-health of, 415 Lacis Aurillac, 248 book of (1587), 18 definition of, 20 and n61, 21 _Don Quixote_, mentioned in, 98 n281 German, 264 Punto a maglia quadra, 52 Sicilian, 81 Tuscan, 68 Ladies as lace-makers, 163, 337, 355, 373, 374 and n1103 Ladomie, M., cited, 170 n501 Laffemas, quoted, 209 n583 Laid work, 301 Laimoxen, Balthasar, 489 Lalande, cited, 64 Lalma, 246 Lamb represented in lace, 21 Lamballe, Princesse de, 213 Lappets. _See_ Barbe Larkin, Thomas, 312 Laroche, lace made at, 137 Larruga, cited, 101 Lassels, cited, 70; quoted, 73 Latomus, Sigismund, 267, 491, 492 Lauber, Miss Jacobina, 282 Laulne, E. de, 476 Launceston, lace-making at, 371 n1094 Laval, Geneviève, 183 n540 Laybach, 268 Le Prince, 465 Le Puy lace industry of cheap laces, 246 descriptions of lace of, 245 export trade, 245; value of annual export, 245 and n657 Haarlem thread used in, 245 import duties decreased, 244 and n653 numbers employed in, 242; (1851), 257 n688; in making Valenciennes, 245 sumptuary laws (seventeenth century), effect of, on, 243 lace schools of, 246 and n659 museum at, 246 Valenciennes lace at, 230 and n619 Le Quesnoy lace, 157 n459, 230 Lead, bobbins made of, 74 n235 Leber, M., cited, 487 n1336 Lee, Rev. William, 448 n1240 Lefébure, A. blondes mates exported by, 226 point d'Argentan revived by, 208 quoted, 75 n237, 155 n453, 158 n463, 159 n464, 194, 200; cited, 228, 250, 269 n724 teaching improved by, 227 Leicester, Countess of, 330 Leipsic, fair, 196 and n563; fabrics (1685), 265 Lennox, Countess of, 314 ------, Duke of, 419 and n1176 Léonard, 181 Lepage, M., 134 L'Estoille, P. de, quoted, 141 n399 L'Estrange, Sir Thomas, 290 _Letters of a Lady's Travels in Spain_, quoted, 97-98 Leu, Sieur de la, manufactory of, 205-206 Liedts, Baroness, 138 Liège lace account of industry, 136-137 point de Sedan, connected with, 254 price of (1701), 136 n386 Lierre Mechlin lace made at, 125 pictures in St. Gomar, 109 n317 Light reflectors, bottles used as, 390 and n1125 Liguria, guipures of, 74 Lille lace compared with Spanish lace, 103; with Arras, 235, 240; with Valenciennes, Brussels and Mechlin, 237 cost of thread, 237 and n637 England, popularity in, 237 and n640; Bedfordshire lace called "English Lille," 385 ground, 236-237 modern, 238 lace-industry antiquity of, 235 decline of, 238 dress of lace-makers, 235 and n630 French duty on lace (1761), 237 n635 mignonette made (1665), 35 numbers employed in (1723), 237 n640; (1788), 238, 257 n688 rivalry with Mirecourt, 252 value of (1788), 238 lace-workers, daily amount produced by, 233 thread, fineness of, 119 n339; price of, 192 n553, 237 and n637; export of, to Scotland, 432 Limerick lace, 440, 441 and n1230, 442 n1231, n1232; lace school, 442 Limousin, 250 Lincoln, maiden assize at, 338 n991 Linen embroidery of, 14 macramé, 79 and n248 Lisbon, lace factories at, 105 Lisle, Lady, 290 and n780 Loch, David, quoted, 433 and n1214; cited, 434 Locke, quoted, 430 Loisel, Franç., Phelyplaux, 125 n354, 174 n520 Lombard peasants, lace worn by, 64 London foreigners in (1571-1688), 129 n366, 299 n817, 306 and n853; complaint of women against introduction of foreign merchants, 286; complaints against foreign lace-makers, 324 n935 lace-making in, 373 ------, Bishop of, sermon by, against ruffs, quoted, 316 and n899 ------ _Chronicle_, cited, 4 ------ _Gazette_, quoted, 11 n39, 126 Long Island, lace-making by Protestant settlers in, 372 n1099 Lonlay, Eugène de, cited, 208 Lonrai (Lonray), lace factory at, 155 n455, 156 and n457; sale of stock, 196 ------, Marquise de, 157 n457 _Lord Thomas_ (ballad), quoted, 15 L'Orme, Marion de, quoted, 125 Lorraine, lace industry (_see also_ Mirecourt), 251 and n672, n673; Mignonette made (1665), 35; numbers employed (1851), 257 n688 --------, Queen Louise de, 144 Lost property, advertisements for, 337 and n990, 338 and n992, 342 n1010 Loucelles, Abbé Suhard de, 226 Loudun, 256 Louis XI., 139 n393 ------ XIII. collar made at Venice for, 194 death of, 149 Flemish conquests of, 230 and n618 luxury and fashions of time of, 144-147 ------ XIV. census of (1684), 131 cravats presented to ambassadors by, 163 death of, effect on Alençon industry, 192 fashions of reign of, 161 _et seq._ fête at Marly, 163 Flemish conquests of, 230 and n618 gold and silver lace of period of, 154 Paris lace commerce under, 211 sumptuary laws of, 152 ------ XV. Court of, 172 and n505 fashions under black lace masks, 177 jabots, 172-173 mourning, 178 relevailles of Parisian ladies, 174 ruffles, 171-173 point d'Alençon patterns under, 198-199 and n566 trousseau of eldest daughter of, 176 ------ XVI. fashions under, 179-181 phraseology of time of, 181 point d'Alençon patterns under, 199 and n566 ruffles of, 172 n508 Louisa, Queen (Sweden), 279 Louise de Vaudemont, Queen, 18, 478, 480 Louvain, pictures and altar piece at, 109, 110 and n317 --------, Widow, attempt of, to establish manufacture at Mortagne, 206 Louvres, lace-making at, 209 -------- en-Parisis lace, 212 n589 Lovat, Lady, 426 n1202 Low Countries. _See names of countries_ Lowndes, cited, 497 n1360, 500 --------, Richard, 380 Lubec, 264 Lucca, gold lace, 92 Lude, Duchesse de, 167 and n495 Luxada, cited, 75 Luxembourg, M. de, 167 ----------, Maréchale de, 180 Luynes, Duc de, Memoirs of, quoted, 174 and n518, 176 n522 Luzarches lace, 212 Lydgate, quoted, 305 Lygum Kloster, 274 n736, 276 n738 Lyme Regis, lace industry of, 396-398 Lyons lace, 256 Lysons, cited, 384, 396; quoted, 405, 408 Mabbie, 423 Macaulay, John, 439 n1227 McCulloch, cited, 384 ----------, E., cited, 224 n610 McCullow, Miss Martha, 438 Mache, 22 n70 Machine net, introduction of, 408 Machinery--"engines" of foreigners for lace-making, 324 n935 Maclean, Rev. William, 442, 443 McPherson, quoted, 112 n324 Macramé, 52, 79 and n247 Madden, Sir Fred., quoted, 297 n812 Madeira, laces of, 106, 107 and n316 Madras, Maltese-like lace made in, 88 n263 Madrid, lace factory at, 102 Magnus, Prince (Sweden), 280 Maidstone, complaints of, regarding imported Flemish thread, 324 n935 Mailly, Madame, 250 Maine, Madame de, 167 Maintenon, Madame de, 168, 183; letter to, quoted, 99; lace factory of, 163; letter from, quoted, 172 and n506 _Malcontent_, quoted, 322 Malines exhibition, voile de bénédiction at, 195 n561, 251 n674 -------- lace. _See_ Mechlin lace Malta, grave-clothes lace-trimmed at, 365 Maltese lace account of industry, 87 and n262, 88 Danish manufacture of, 275 English manufacture of, 392, 393, 414 n1165 Greek lace similar to, 86 Guipure, 40 Madeira manufacture of, 107 n316 Saxon manufacture of, 263 Man, Isle of, lace industry of, 372 and n1096 Manchester thread, 119 n339 Manchettes. _See_ Ruffles Manegetti di ponto Fiamengo, 111 Manilla grass thread-work, 89 n265 Mantegna, Andrea, 467 Mantillas, 226 Manzoni, Count, cited, 488 n1340 Mar, Countess of, 419 and n1176 Marcello, Countess Andriana, 61 Marche lace, 68, 138 n392 Marcq, Catherine de, 157 n458, 158 n460, 190 Mare, de la, cited, 148 n431, 152 n440 Margaret of Austria, 23 n74 Margherita, Queen of Italy, 61, 62 Margot, Reine, 11, 22, 49, 141, 142 Marguerite de France, 11 n36, 22, 27, 33 n102 Maria d'Aragon, portrait of, in pattern book, 497 ------ Elizabeth, Electress Palatine, 491 Marie Antoinette autograph letter, referred to, 213 fans and laces distributed by, 180 fashion at court of, 179-180 gazette of (1782), 181 n537 point de Marli worn by, 225 sale of lace of, 183 ------ Louise, Brussels lace presented to, 124; lace trousseau of, 184, 196 ------ Theresa, 259 and n699 Marnef, Hierosme de, 496 Marillac, Maréchal de, 147 n428, 265 n715 Marini, cited, 58 Marlborough, lace industry at, 395 Marli, 180 and n532 Marly, fête at, 163 Marriott, William, 380 Marryat, Captain, cited, 413; lace industry assisted by, 410 --------, Mrs., 500 n1365 --------, Miss Cecilia, 410 Marsan, Comte de, 210 and n585 ------, Mlle. de, 211 Mary, Princess, daughter of George II., 348 ---- I. accounts of, quoted, 297 gift of Spanish work to, 10 n32; Flanders work to, 294 interment of, 180 present to Lady Calthorpe, 297 ruffs of, 310 sumptuary laws, 293 ---- of Burgundy, 135 ----, Queen of Hungary, 113 ---- de Médicis collarette of, 143-144 death of, 149 fashion dolls sent to, 170 n501 pattern book dedicated to, 22, 494 point de Gennes of, 72 sumptuary law published by, 144 and n419; evaded by, 149 and n434 Mary of Modena, Queen, 341, 425 ---- II. fontange of, 342 knotted fringe worked by, 13 and n47 lace bills of, quoted, 168 n496 Mechlin ruffles of, 126 and n364 ---- Stuart dentelle of, 27 finery of, overhauled by Elizabeth, 307 and n860 guipures of, 37 and n120, 38 inventories of, cited, 21, 33 n102, 302 n828, 314, 325 n939, 372 n1098 needlework done by, 10, 11, 420, 421 ruff on effigy of, 316 n901 wardrobe of, 419 and n1177, 420 and n1182, 421 will of, 22 Masch (Mawsch) 22 and n70, 419 Massillon, encouragement of lace industry by, 243 Massimo, Prince, reference to library of, 466, 468 n1290, 495 n1357 Massinger, quoted, 265 n717, 296 and n804 Matignon, Mlle, de, 176 Matilda, Empress, Bayeux Tapestry ascribed to, 6 n22 --------, Queen, Bayeux Tapestry ascribed to, 6 and n23 Matsys, Quentin, 109, 110 Matthew of Paris, anecdote by, 7 Maximilian, King of the Romans, 289 Maynard, Mrs. Lydia, 404 Mayne, Jasper, quoted, 317 and n905, 324 and n936 Mazarin, Cardinal, 143 n412, 150, 151 and n439, 248 Mazzarine, 343 and n1017 Mechlin lace arrêt concerning (1688), 129 n365 "Broderie de Malines" a term for, 125 characteristic of, 31, 125 compared with Bayeux lace, 228; with Brussels, 118; with Cretan mesh work, 87; with Lille, 237; with point de Dieppe, 218; with St. Trond, 137; with Valenciennes, 233 decline of manufacture, 125 description of, 124-125 earliest references to, 125-126 English fashion for, 126 grounds in, 125 imperial layette (1856), in, 198 Lille, pattern adopted at, 238 points de France rivalled by, 177-178 Pope's apron bordered with, 70 Turnhout manufacture of, 125, 131 uses of, 127-128 varieties included by term (1665), 35 ---- net, 448 Medici collars, 56 Médicis family (_See also_ Katherine _and_ Mary), influence on fashions, 139 Melville, Sir Robert, 37 _Memoirs of Madame Palatine_, cited, 354 Men as lace workers Chili, 108 England, 392; south, 371 n1092; Northamptonshire, 385; Devonshire, 413, 414 France, 155 Madeira, 107 n316 Normandy (soldiers), 225 Saxony, 263 work of, compared with that of women, 263 Menin lace, 232 n624 Menzikoff, Prince, funeral of daughter of, 366 n1083 Meran blonde, 256 Mercier, Baron, lace school of, 196 ----, S., quoted, 121 and n348, 170 n500, 171 and n502 Méric lace, 212 Merli, Cav. Antonio, cited, 46 and n150, 47, 50, 462, 466, 468 n1291, n1292, 487 Merli à piombini, 32 n98 Mermaid's lace, 49 Meshes, Cretan skill in, 86 Messina, lace work at, 81 Metal laces, Sicilian, 86 Mexico, mantillas exported to, 226 Meyer, Daniel, 496 Mézières lace, 183 n539, 253, 254 Mezzo punto, 58 Michel, Francisque, cited, 104; quoted, 251 n669 ----, Pfarrer, 266 Michele, La Sig. Gabriella Zeno, 484 Middleton, quoted, 312 n884 Mignerak, Milour, pattern book of, 21, 22, 29, 493 Mignonette, 34 and n107, 35 and nn, 210, 237, 251 Milan Albissola lace bought for Napoleon I.'s coronation at, 78 Cantu the centre of lace of, 66 cathedral, lace camicie in underground chapel of, 66 early record of Italian lace belonging to, 63 Genoese lace contrasted with lace of, 75 n236 Greek lace made at, 85 Old Milan point, 65 punto di Napoli contrasted with point of, 71 réseau of points of, 66 wire lace industry at, 72 Milward & Co., 380 Minas Geraes, lace of, 108 Minifie, Mrs., 400 and n1140, 401 and n1142 Mirecourt lace, 212, 238, 251-253, 257 n688 Misson, F. M., cited, 54 n186; quoted, 267 Mitchell, Mr. and Mrs., advertisement of school of, 431 n1209 Modano, Tuscan, 52, 68 Modène, Duchess of inventory of, quoted, 120 n344, 121 n347, 128 n363, 135 and n383, 175 n520, 213 and n590 ruffles of, 233 Modes, 31 Molière, quoted, 152, 153 n442, 173 n515 Mompesson, Sir Giles, 318 and n914 Monaghan, crochet industry of, 444, 445 Moncrieffe, Sir Thomas, 425 Monks, needlework done by, 12 and n40 Mons lace, 134-135 "Monsieur de Paris," 173 Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley, 57, 59, 73; quoted, 128, 356 and n1061 Montague, Mrs. Elizabeth, quoted, 352 ---- R., account entry by, 335 n982 Montargis, 256 Montbéliard, pattern-book published at, 28 Montchrestien, cited, 209 n583 Monteagle, Lord, 10 n32 Monteleon, Princess of, 98 Monthulay, family, 204 ---- Sieur de, 205, 206 Montmorency, lace-making at, 209, 213 n589 Montrose, pearlin of, 423 Moorish lace, 104 Moors, Spanish lace-making attributed to, 45 Morant, Captain, 440 More, Mrs. Hannah, quoted, 368 Moreau, General, 13 Moretti, Nicolo, 484 Morgan, cited, 435 ---- Sydney, Lady, 369 Morges lace, 212 n589 Morin, M.A., cited, 220 n606 Mortagne, 206 Moryson, Agnes, quoted, 55, 70, 73, 87, 258, 265, 268, 274 Moscow, lace school at, 284 Motteville, Mme., quoted, 154 n447 Mountague, Alice, 308 Mourning, lace discarded in, in James I.'s time, 324 Murat, Caroline, 183 ---- laces, 248, 249 Mzeresk lace, 283 Nanduti, 108 Nani, Signora Viena Vendramina, 485 Nankin silk thread, 223 n608 Naples Greek lace made at, 85 lace from a palace at, 51 n175 lace of, 70-71; lace work of industrial school at, 83 n352 Napoleon bed made for, 196 favourite laces of, 128, 184 lace industry encouraged by, 123-124, 183-185, 196; attempt to revive Valenciennes, 231. Nardendal, custom of natives of, 283 National Gallery portraits, illustrations of ruffs in, 316 n901 Navarre, Queen of, accounts of, quoted, 67, 141 n406, 142 n409, n411 Needle lace (_See also_ Point à l'aiguille) Alençon known as "needle-point," 195 Irish, 443 method of making, 32 Queen Elizabeth's, 305 Nelson, Lord, anecdote of, 264 Nemours, Duchesse de, 235 Nesmond, Marquis de, 117 and n331 Netherlands. _See_ Flanders, Belgium, Holland _and_ Brabant Netting, 20, 21, 52; machine net, 408 Neufchâtel lace industry, 270 and n726 Neville, Mary, marriage clothes of, 291 n779 New Ross convent, lace made at, 444 Newport Pagnel lace, 375 n1105, 378, 382, 384 Newton, Rev. John, letter from Cowper to, 379 Nicholas, Edward, 329 n957 -------- Susanne, 329 n957 Nichols, quoted, 294 n791, 303 n833 Nicolas, Etienne, 160 n466 Night caps, 323 Noailles, Madame de, anecdote of, 180 n533 Normanby, Lady, 441 Normandy lace industry of. (_See also_ Calvados _and_ Dieppe) centres of, 216, 218 French Revolution, effect of, 223 mignonette made (1665), 35 numbers employed in different localities, 228 n614; (1851), 257 n688 value of, 228 n614 peasant women, Valenciennes bought by, 235 Norris, Sir Henry, 307 Northamptonshire lace, 384-393 Nosegays, lace trimmings for, 55 Nottingham lace, 441; Isle of Wight lace compared with, 372 n1097; machine-made blondes, 225; imitation mantillas, 227 Novgorod, fabric at, 283 Nuns, lace washed by, 373 and n1101 ---- as lace-makers Flanders, 354 Italy, 47 and n154; Burano, 58; Florence, 67, 68; Cantu, 80 Portugal, 105, 107 Spain, 93 Nuremberg, 266, 267 Oberkirch, Baroness de, extract from Memoires of, 182 O'Brien, Mrs. R. V., 442 O'Hagan, Mother Abbess, 443 O'Halloran, Mr., 436 Old lace indifference to, 368 and n1090 mania for, 369 restoration of, 411, 412 Oldfield, Mrs., 367 Olney, lace industry of, 378, 380 n1119 Opus tract, 302 Orfreys, 3 n13 Orléans, Duchesse d', quoted, 166 n489 -------- Dukes of, inventories of, quoted, 120 n342, n344, 221 and n607 Orléanois lace industry, 256 Orsa lace, 281 Ostans, Giovanni, 484 ------ Jean, 475 Oudenarde lace, 134 Our Lady of La Solidad, costly robes of, 90 --- ---- of Loreto, laces of, not described, 69 Overbury murder, 317 Oxford, opinion of, on falling bands, 326 ------ Countess of, 9 n31 Oyah (Turkish crochet), 45, 87 Pagan, Mathio, 468, 471 Paganino, Alessandro, 468 Paganinus, P. A., 472 Paget, Lady, 295 Pagodes, 168 n496 Paintings, earliest in which lace occurs, 47; lace in paintings of 18th century, 222, 364 Palatine, Count, 326 -------- Madame, 168; Memoires of, quoted, 178 Pale of rose point, 51 and n174 Palermo grave clothes at, 366 and n1081 sculptured lace in villa near, 71 Palestine, lace-making at, 59 and n195 Pandore, la grande, 170 Parasole, Elisabetta Catanea, 495 -------- Isabella Catanea, 491, 496 Parchment lace, 37 and n122, 38 and n126, n129, n131, 297, 298 Paris churches, lace of, 120 n342, 161 n467, n469 English laces in demand at (1788), 368, 379 exhibitions. _See under_ Exhibitions lace industry Binche and Mirecourt flowers applied at, 212 Bisette made (1665), 33 and n102 commerce of lace under Louis XIV, 211 and n587 Dumont's fabric, 211 factories round, 209 guipures made (1665), 36 and n114 mignonette made (1655), 35 numbers employed (1851), 257 n688 passementiers privileged in, 44 pattern books in, 12 and n43 Parisini, Agostino, 477 Partlet, 297 n810 Pasax, Marquis de, 190 Pasini, Tomaso, 483 Pasment in Scotland, 418 Pasolini, Countess, 81 n248 Passament (passement) definition of term, 26 and n79, 27 guipure a kind of, 36 references to, 27-29 "Passement Bond, The," 419 Passerotti, Aurelio, 472 Pattern-books Belgium Antwerp (n. d.), 130, 463 Liège (1597), 136, 488 cut-works, of (1591), 20 n62 earliest dated, 18; earliest known, 376 n1108 England London (1591), 482; (1624), 497; (1632), 499; (1640), 500 Northampton, 384 France Lyon (n. d.), 92 n269, 465, 466; (1549) 92 n269, 144, 464; (1581), 475 Mignerak's, 21, 22, 29, 144, 493 Montbéliard (1598), 28, 489, 490 Paris, in Bibliothèque Impériale, 12 n43; in St. Geneviève's library, 12; (n. d.), 468; (1530) 144, 461; (1546), 464; (1564), 475; (1584), 476; (1587), 17, 18, 477; (1587, 1588, 1595, 1606), 479-481; (1601), 20 n62, 490; (1605), 493; (1613), 494; (1623), 498; (1722), 501 Germany Augsburg (1534), 267, 462 Cologne (1527), 268, 459 Frankfort (n.d.), 470; (1537), 470 Frankfort-on-the-Maine (1568, 1569, 1571), 470; (1605), 267, 491; (1607), 492; (1618), 496 Leipsic (1619), 496 Lindau am Bodensee (n.d.), 488 Nuremberg (n.d.) 502; (1597), 489; (1601, 1604), 266, 490; (1666), 501; (1676), 501 Nuremberg and Leipzig, (1784), 501 Strasburg (1556), 469 gold and silver lace, of, 92 Italy Bologna (n.d.), 477; (1591), 483 Florence (1596), 488 Padua (1555), 469; (1604), 491 Pistoja (1642), 53 n181, 85, 92 n269, 500 Rome (1616), 495; (1625), 496 Siena (1603), 488 Turin (1589), 481 Venice (n.d.), 466, 471, 498; (1529), 461; (1530), 53 n179, 460; (1532), 462; (1537), 462; (1542), 463; (1543, 1544), 464; (1548), 53 n179, 468; (1551), 468; (1556), 469; (1557), 472; (1558), 471; (1559), 92 n269, 471, 472; (1560), 473; (1563), 474; (1564), 53 n179, 54 n182, 474, 475; (1567), 475; (1584), 476; (1591), 53 n179, 54 n182, 484; (1592) (Corona of Vecellio), 50 n167, 54 n182, 484; (1594), 486; (1600), 68, 491, 496; (1620 and 1625), 54 n182, 497 Samplars a substitute for, 22-23 Switzerland Basle (1599), 271, 490 St. Gall (1593), 271, 487 Zurich, 271, 469 unknown points in, 54 n182 Vienna Museum, in, 263 Pauline, Princess, 184, 185 Pays de Caux, 216 Peacham, quoted, 325, 329 Pearl (picot), 31 ------ ties, 31 Pearlin, 422, 423 Pedlars, lace trade carried on by, 43 and n139, 44 and n142, n143 Pelegrin, Francisque, pattern book of, 144, 461 Pelican represented in lace, 21 Pellestrina, revival of pillow lace at, 62 Pembroke, Countess of, 322, 500 Peniche bobbins used at, 106 n314 lace industry of, 107 and n315 Pennant, quoted, 382; cited, 431 n1208 Penne, Mrs., 294 Penshurst, old needlework at, 11 Penthièvre, Duc de Eu lace patronised by, 221 inventory of, quoted, 117 n333, 195 n549 wardrobe account of, quoted, 172 and n510, n511, 211 n588 Peplos, embroidery of, 3 n8 _Pepys' Diary_, quoted, 153 n444, 337, 338 Persia, drawn-work of, 45 Peru and Mexico, lace imported to, from Le Puy, 245 Perugia, Torchon made at, 81 n248 Peter the Great, 283 Petersen, Anders, 280 Petre, Madame, of Gefle, information supplied by, 282 n750 Peuchet, cited, 132, 224, 256, 265, 377, 395; quoted, 216 n595, 218 n600, 220 n605, 225, 237 n640, 239, 244, 245 and n657, 268, 396, 432 "Pharsalia" quoted, 25 Philip II. (Spain), 67, 310 ------ III. (Spain), 97 Philippa, Queen, 278, 285 and n754 Philippine Islands, Manilla grass threadwork of, 89 n265 Phrygians, embroidery of, 3 and n13 Pianesani, Francesco, 462 Picard, M., 490 n1346 Picchetti, Marie, 79 Pichon, Baron J., 482, 493 n1355, 495 n1356 Pickleman, Jungfrau, 266 Pickpockets, 346 Picot (pearl), 31 and n92 Pigott, Miss, quoted, 421 Pillows Barcelona, 103 n305 description of, 391 foreign names for, 32 n99 Honiton, 415 n1156 Pillow guipure, 116 ------ lace (bobbin lace) Austrian, 268 bobbin lace, so called 32 Ceylon, of, 88 foreign names for, 32 n98 France, extension of industry in (seventeenth century), 159; trade crisis (1818), 187; fabric at Château de Madrid, 210 n584; gold lace of Paris, 212; first mentioned in French pattern-books, 494 Genoese, 74 Germany, introduction into, 260 Madeira, at, 107 Mechlin. _See that title_ method of making, 32-33 origin of, 29, 109 Peniche, at, 107 Russian, 283 and n751 Spanish, 103 n305 Valenciennes. _See that title_ ------ net, 150 ------ -beres, 16 and n56 Pin net machine, 448 Pinheiro, Dona Maria Bordallo, letter from, quoted, 107 n315 Pins for lace-making, 391 and n1126; State papers concerning, 294 n794 Pinwork lace, 294 n794 Piper Countess Elizabeth, 280 Pisa, lace work of industrial school at, 81 n248 Pitt, French fashions excluded by, 170 Pizzo, 74 Plaited laces, 392 Platteuse, work of, 122 Plissés à la vieille, 127 Pluymers, Jean, 158 n460 Point (stitch), kinds of, 32 ------ lace invention of, claimed by Italy, 45 misuse of term, 32 varieties of, 33-35 ------ à l'aiguille, 121; gazée, 123. _See also_ Needle point ------ d'Alençon Argentella, 193 and n555 Bayeux manufacture of, 228 Burano manufacture of, 62 compared, with point d'Argentan, 203, 204 and n571; with Brussels, 194, 199; with Colbertine, 339; with point Gaze, 123; with Sedan lace, 254 dress of, purchased by Emperor Napoleon, 198 earliest use of name, 195 and n557, n558, n560 grounds in, 193 imperial layette of, 198 industry Argentan, connection with, 204 centres of, 200 decline of, causes for, 192 early account of, 188-189 Edict of Nantes, effect of revocation of, 258 establishment of, 155-157 and n455 export trade, 192 method of manufacture, 192-194 Napoleon's patronage of, 196 number of lace-workers (1698), 191; (1786), 195; (1788), 192 n552; (1830), 196 origin of, 111 n323 quality of lace-work, 159 n464, 187, 194 revival of, 155 and n454, 196-197 value of (1786 and 1801), 195; (1830), 196 invention and establishment of, 155-157 and n455 lappet of, from Genoa, 78 and n244 "nun's work," 11 n39 patterns, 190-191; dates of, 198-200; Venice patterns copied, 191 season for, 178 shaded tints introduced in, 201 and n567 specimens of, exhibited, 200, 201 time required in making, 198, 201 Venetian réseau, relation to, 58-59 "vilain," 191 n551 ------ d'Angleterre Angleterre à bride, 408 Aurillac manufacture of, 247 Burano manufacture of, 62 butterfly and acorn pattern in, 408 France, fashionable in, 118 and n336 history of, 117 and n332, and n333 point de France rivalled by, 178 ------ d'Argentan "Argentella" possibly a name for, 78 n244 Armada pattern lace worked in, 397 Burano manufacture of, 62 characteristic of, 207 compared, with point d'Alençon, 203, 204 and n571; with point gaze, 123; with Venetian lace, 203, 204 n571 description of, 203 ground in, 203 and n570, 204 n571, 207-208 industry Alençon, connection with, 204 embroidery, replaced by, 208 n580 Guyard's revival of, 204-205 number of lace workers (c. 1744), 205; (1786), 195 rival houses, 205 value, annual (1786 and 1801), 195; (1788), 207 reference to (1738), 195 and n559 season for, 178 ------ d'Aurillac. 154, 246-249 ------ de Bourgogne, 255 ------ de Brabant, 138 n392 ------ de Bruxelles. _See_ Point d'Angleterre ------ à carreaux, 32 ------ à chaînette, 32 ------ des champs (point de Paris), 35 ------ Colbert, 188 n548, 228 ------ coupé (couppé), 17-18, 49, 140 _et seq._ ------ de Dieppe. _See_ Dieppe ------ double (point de Paris), 35 ------ duchesse, 123 ------ d'Espagne. (_See also_ Gold lace) brides in, 58 definition of, 90 England, importation to, prohibited, 358; Honiton imitation of, 410 Irish imitation of, 443 n1233 point d'Aurillac compared with, 248 Portuguese laces compared with, 98, 106 Queen Elizabeth's, 307 references to, 98-99 n283, n285, 100, 103 n306, 354 ------ d'esprit, 32 and n94, 229 ------ de Flandre (_See also_ Flemish lace), 111, 144-145 ------ de France. (_See also_ Point d'Alençon) description of, made at Alençon, 190 designs in, 158 n463 équipage, de bain of, 168 falbalas of, 167 and n492 industry centres of, 157 n459, 159 n459, 210-211 and n584 Dumont, Mlle., foundress of, 105 n312 establishment and history of company, 157-158 and n459 Flanders, effect on, 111 method of working pattern in, 31 n91 ordinance of 1665, 157 and n459 rivals to, 177-178 popularity in France and England, 161-162 references to, 157 n459, 159 n464, 195 and n557, n558, n559, n560 ------ de Galle, thread lace from, 88 ------ Gaze, characteristics of, 123 ------ de Gênes (Genoa) collerette, 141 France, prohibited in, 148 n431, 154 and n451 history of, 72-73 and n230, 74 "Révolte des Passemens," mentioned in, 41,42 ------ de Hongrie, 265 ------ of Italy, first appearance in France, 144-145 ------ de Marli. _See under_ Bayeux, lace industry. ------ de Milan, Irish imitation of, 443 ------ de Moscow, 284 ------ de neige (punto neve), 32 and n97, 51 ------ de Paris, 32 and n93, 35, 210, 212 ------ plat, 105 n313, 118, 121 and n347, 122 and n350; appliqué, 123 ------ de raccroc, 120, 184, 226 ------ de Raguse, 41, 83 and n254, 84 ------ à la Reine, 32 ------ de Sedan. _See_ Sedan ------ tresse, 314 ------ de Venise Alençon imitations of, 191 characteristics, 123 England, importation to, prohibited, 358 France, prohibited in, 154 and n451 Guipure, 40 Irish imitation of, 442 Mary II., image of, shown wearing, 345 Mazarin's purchase of, 150, 151 Moscow imitations of, 284 origin of, 49-50 point à l'aiguille gazée so called, 123 point de Raguse so called, 83 resemblance of, to point d'Argentan, 203, 204 n591; to Le Puy lace, 245; to point de Sedan, 254 "Révolte des Passemens," mentioned in, 41 rose point (raised), 51 and n175, 62; price of, 57; Honiton reproduction of, 411, 416; Irish reproduction of, 443 n1233, 444 Spanish conventual lace compared with, 93 theft of, 105 and n313 ------ de Venise à réseau, 57, 58 Pointeuse, work of, 122 Points, lace known as, 2 Poitou, 256 Poking-sticks, 312 Poland Alençon, trade with, 192 and n553 point de Sedan imported to, 254 Pole, Lady, effigy of, 403 n1145, 405 Polignac, Madame de, 180 Polychrome lace, 62-63 Pomfret, Countess of, 99 n285 Pommereu, M. de, quoted, 191 and n550 Pomp office, 319 Pompadour, Madame de, 184 n540 _Pompe di Minerva, Le_, cited, 53 n181, 85, 92 n269 Ponchel, du. _See_ Duponchel Pont-l'Evêque lace, 183 n539 Ponthièvre, Duke de, 100 and n288 Ponto fiamengho, 111 Pontoppidan, quoted, 274 n736 Pontus de Gardia, 280 Pope, quoted, 367 ----, the, apron worn by, for feet-washing ceremony, 70 and n217 Popplewell Brothers, quoted, 345 Porlin, quoted, 306 n854 Porter, Mrs. Grey, 440 Portland, Duchess of, 353 Portugal American imports of lace from, 106 bone pins used in, 295 guipures exported to, 36 lace-making in, 105-107 and nn Le Puy, lace imported from, 245 sumptuary laws in, 105 Postlethwait, quoted, 354; cited, 396 Pot lace, 130 and n369 Potter, Amy, 366 n1086 Poussin lace, 219 Poyntz, Adrian, 482 Prague, altar-cloth at, 9 Pridmore, Mr., 389 Princess Royal, bridal dress of, 409 Prior, quoted, 342 Prison-made lace, 81 and n248 Protection to English-made laces, etc., by English sovereigns Charles I., 330 Charles II., 335 George III., 359, 363 and n1068 William III., 341 Puisieux lace, 212 n589 Puissieux, Madame de, 49 and n162, 73 Pultenarian collars, 253. Punto in aria (Burano point), 46, 51 and n171, 58, 62 Punto di cartella (cordella), 50 ------ a gropo, 52 ------ a maglia quadra (lacis), 52 ------ de mosquito e de transillas, 99 ------ di Napoli, 71 ------ neve (point de neige), 32 and n97, 51 ------ pugliese, 71 n222 ------ di Rapallo, 75 n237 ------ reale, 50 ------ a relievo (rose point--_See under_ Point de Venise) ------ a reticella, 50 and n168 ------ ricamento a maglia quadra, 21 ------ tagliato (cut-work), 51 ------ tagliato a fogliami, 51 and n172, 62 ------ tirato (drawn work), 53 and n181 ------ a Vermicelli, 75 n237 Purle lace, 310 and n875, n876, n877 Purling, 409 Purls, lace known as, 2 Puritans, lace industry under, in England, 332-334; in America, 372 n1099 Puteau, Madame, 433 and n1214 Queensberry, Duchess of, 356 Quentell, P., 459 Quicherat, 139 Quilles, 127, 168 n496 Quintain, 19 and n60, 20 Quinty, M., 268 ------, P., 459 Rabat, 141 and n403 Rabbits' hair, lace of 245. Radcliffe, Lady, 310 n875 Radford, Miss, lace school of, 416 and n1169 Raffy, Madame, 157 n458, 202 Ragusa, cut-works and laces of, 82-83 Rapallo, number of lace-workers at (1862), 76 Vermicelli lace from, 74, 75 and nn Ratcliff, Lady, 294 n791 Rättwik lace, 281 Ravenna, lace school near, 81 n248 Rawert, cited, 274 n732, 277 n741 Ray, cited, 67 Réaux, Tallemant des, quoted 49; cited, 83 Rebecq-Rognon, flax grown at, 118 Récamier, Madame, 185 Regency point, 388 Regnard, quoted, 126 and n358, 167 n494 Regnier, quoted, 141 Reid, Miss, 440 Reiffenberg, Baron, cited, 109 and n318 Relevailles of Parisian ladies, 174 Religious subjects in lace, etc, 324 Renaissance, cut-work of, 17 René, Maître, 140 n395 Renfrew, lace industry at, 433 Réseau (réseuil, rézel, rézeuil) Don Quixote, mentioned in, 98 n281 methods of making, 120-121 needle-made by hand, 406 n1151 nosacé, 78 specimens of rézeuil d'or, 23 n74 uses of, 21 Venetian, relation of, to Alençon, 58-59 Restoring of old lace, 411, 412 Reticella (Italian) designs in, 68 Irish imitation of, 446 Retz, Cardinal de, 62 Revel, grave-clothes in church at, 366 n1083 "Révolte des Passemens, La," quoted, 40 and n134, 43, 104; cited, 83, 188 Rheims lace, 253 Rhodes, silk guipure of, 87 Riano, J. F., quoted, 93 Riazan lace, 283 Riband roses, 329 and n959 Ricci, Sebastian, cut work shown in "Last Supper" of, 79 n248 Rich, B., quoted, 317 n908 Richard II., statutes of, 216 n597 -------- III., 48, 294 n794 Richelieu, Duke, 144, 149 ----------, Maréchal de, 171 Ripon, lace-making at, 371 and n1095 Riviera (_See also_ Albissola, Rapallo, Santa Margherita), lace manufacture of, 75, 79 and n245 _Rob Roy_ cited, 423 Roberts, Mrs., 445; account of lace school supplied by, 388-390 Robinson Crusoe, Flanders lace bought by, 134 n379 Rodge, James, 401 Roger, Widow, 207 Rohan, Catherine de, 212 ------ family, 182 Roland, cited, 36 n113 ------ de la Platière, quoted, 154 n451, 223 n608; cited, 245 n656 Romagna, lace-making in, 68 Romana, Lucretia, 498 ------, Lugretia, 497 Romans, embroidery used by, 3 and n13, 4 n14 Rome, Greek lace made at, 85 ----, King of, 196 Rondonneau, M., 152 n440 Rose point of Venice. _See under_ Point de Venise Rosenborg Palace Museum, 273 Rosina Helena, Princess, 501 Ross, Mr., 482 Rossi, Giovanni, 483 Roumanian embroidery, 71 n222 Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 270 Rowlands, quoted, 289 n773 Rudd, Margaret Caroline, 352 Rue, Abbé, cited, 6 Ruel, Sieur, 155 Ruelle, Veuve, 468 Ruff cut-work, of, 312-313 England, introduction into, 310 falling band the successor to, 326 France, in, 139-141 and n399 James I., under, 315-318 Medicean, 322 Nuremberg, 267 sermons against the, 316 starching and fluting of, 311-312 Ruffles fashion of, in George I.'s time, 351 ladies wearers of, 365 and n1077 long, in George III.'s time, 363 and n1070 making of, 194 origin of weeping, 171 Valenciennes industry affected by disappearance of, 231 Run lace, 441 Russell, Lady Rachel, 348 Russia embroidery of, 71 n222 lace imported to, from Alençon, 192, 199; from Saxony, 263 lace industry in, 283-284 Ruvigne, M., 331 Rymer, cited, 291 n785 Sabbio, Fratelli de, 461 Sabenqua, 97 Sabière, M. de, 172 n505 Saffron Walden fair, 43 n137 Sainte-Aignau, M. de, 216 Saint-Albin, Mgr. C. de, 173 and n508 St. Aligre, 247-248 and n663 Saint-Brice lace, 213 n589 St. Bridget, lace introduced into Sweden by, 278 and n743 St. Cuthbert cope and maniple of, 7 grave-clothes of, 14-15, 366 St. Denis lace, 210 St. Dunstan, embroideries designed by, 5 St. Eustadiole, 5 Saint François Régis, 243 St. Gervais, 207 n577 St. Giselle, 5 n18 St. Lawrence, Lady, 310 n876 St. Lo, cut-work toile d'honneur used at, 25 St. Louis, hospital at Argentan, 207 St. Margaret's, Westminster, lady ancress of, 293 St. Martin's lace, 331 n965 St. Mary at Hill, 293, 302 n828 Saint Maximien, lace of, 212 St. Nicholas, flax grown at, 118 n338 Saint-Pierre-les-Champs, lace of, 213 n589 St. Simon, quoted, 73, 166 St. Trond, lace industry of, 137 and n390, n391 Salcombe, male lace-maker at, 413 Saltonstall, Mistress Susan, 483 Salviati, Joseph, 476 Samcloths, 23 and n73 Samplars, 9 n30, 23 and n73 Sandford, cited, 285 n754 Sandwich, Lady, 166 Sta. Lucie, Pierre de, 464, 465 Santa Margherita number of lace-workers at (1862), 76 Vermicelli lace from, 74, 75 and nn Saracens, Italian lace-making attributed to, 45 Sarcelles lace, 213 n589 Sardinia deaf and dumb lace-workers in, 81 n248 Le Puy, annual value of lace brought from, 245 n657 Saule, Marchesa Barbaretta, 78 n244 Savary, quoted, 36 and n111, 54, 64, 126, 133, 255, 257 n687, 404; cited, 74, 118 n338, 125, 129, 135, 192, 210, 244, 246 n661, 247, 253 n677, 254 n681, n683, 262, 377 Savinière, quoted, 153 and n443 Savoie, Don Philippe, 143 Savona, 77 n240, 79 n246 Savonarola, quoted, 67 Saxony lace industry Barbara Uttman's work, 260-262 cheap lace of, 246 degeneration of, 263 Dresden lace, 262-263 modern, 263 numbers employed (sixteenth century), 261 patterns imitated in Denmark, 275 revenue from (sixteenth century), 261 treillis d'Allemagne, mention, of, in French inventories, 262 and n701 Scandinavian Museum, Copenhagen, 275 Scandinavians, lace work of, 4 Scarpariola, Cencia, 59, 61 Scarron, quoted, 177 --------, Veuve, 163 Schartzemberger, Johan, 462 Schleswig lace industry, quality of lace, 275; number of fabrics (1840), 277 ----------, North, lace of, 272, 273; districts of lace industry, 276 n738 "Schole House for the Needle, A," 499 Schomberg, Col., quoted, 326 and n946 Schools, Lace Devonshire, 414, 415 and n1167, 416 Italian, 81 n248 Spratton, 388, 390 Schoulthem, Mr. Hey, quoted, 133-134 and n380 Schwartzenburg, John, 267 Scotch servant on old lace, 368 n1090 Scotland lace manufacture of, 422, 425 n1199, 428-434 sumptuary laws in, 422 and n1195, 424 Scott, Sir Walter, quoted, 418 n1175, 427 and n1202 _Scottish Advertiser_ (1769), quoted, 35 Sculptured lace coloured marbles, in, 71 Harefield church, in, 321 n927 Seaming lace, 107, 325 n941, 332 Sedan lace, 183 n539, 253, 254 Sedgewicke, Elizabeth, 310 Sedley, Sir Charles, 13 and n47 Séez black laces, 196 and n562 Séguin, quoted, 113 n325, 139 n393; cited, 254 Select Society of Edinburgh, The, 429, 430 and nn _Sempere Historia del Lujo_, quoted, 102 Senior, Hannah, 12 Sera, Dominique de, cited, 92; Pattern Book of, 476 Sevenges, Madame de, 290 Sévigné, Madame de bequest to, 183 n540 quoted, 154 n448, 162 n477, 366 n1084 Seville lace, 101 Sewell, quoted, 294 n794 Seymour, Lady Jane, 294 Sforza family, documents of, cited, 46, 50 n168, 63, 74 n235 Shadwell, quoted, 343, 345 Shakespeare, laces mentioned by, 295, 303 and n831; quoted, 309 n871 _Shakespeare Memorial, A_, quoted, 325 n941 Shandowes, Lady. _See_ Chandos Shawe, quoted, 404 Sherborne, lace industry of, 396, 397 Sheridan, quoted, 346 Shirts adornments of, 15-16 Irish, 307, 435 Queen Elizabeth's present of, to her brother, 10 Spanish omission of, 97 n279 Shoes, lace rosette-trimmed, 329 Shrewsbury, Countess of, 11 Siam, King of (1614), 12 Sibmacher, 266, 490 Sicily, lace manufacture of, 80-81 Sicotière, Leon de la, 208 n579 Sidbury, lace school at, 414; lace lessons at, 416 n1170 Sidford, lace lessons at, 4l6 n34 Sidmouth, lace school at, 416 and n1169 Sidney, Sir Philip, 304 Sidonian embroidery, 3 Siena lace, 68 Silk guipure. _See_ Guipure ---- lace Almagro, at, 102 n297 Chinese, 89 Cretan, 86 Ragusa, at (gimp), 84 Watling, 422 Silver lace (_See also_ Aurillac lace) England, importation to, prohibited by, Queen Anne, 349; George II., 335 n993; confiscation and burning of foreign, 359 Hamburg, 264 Holland, introduction into, 259 India, exported to, 322 n928, 329 and n958 Ireland, exportation to, prohibited, 439 Large purchase of, by Lady Arabella Stuart, 325 Lyons, at, 256 Ragusa, at, 84 Scotland, wearing prohibited in, 422 Spanish, 100-102, 154, 211, 212 Zurich, 271 ------ net-work, collar of, 82 ------ purles, prohibition of English made, 330 330 ------ thread, duties on, leased to Dame Villiers, 328 Silvestre, cited, 463 n1274, 464 Simiane, Madame de English point belonging to, 118 and n335 inventory of, quoted, 153 n444, 218 and n599 Sinclair, Sir John, quoted, 133-134 and n380, 428 --------, Miss Katherine, 419 n1176 _Sir Courtly Nice_, cited, 353 and n1052 Skelton, quoted, 251 n669 Skippin, quoted, 49 n165, cited, 72 Slammerkins, 356 and n1059 Slavonian peasants' work, 268 Sleeves, 341, 365 Sloper, Catherine, epitaph on, 13 Smith, Mother Mary Anne, 443 Smocks adornments of, 15 labourers' cut-work insertion on, 25 Smuggling of lace, account of, 357-362; of point de Bruxelles, 117; in 1621, 331; in Charles II's time, 336; Isle of Man a centre for, 372; to Scotland, 427 ---------- of thread, 407 Smyrna, silk guipure of, 87 Smythe, Thomas, 425 Society of Anti-Gallicans. _See_ Anti-Gallican -------- of Polite Arts, 262 n702 Sol, José, 484 Soldiers lace made by, 225 rich laces of English, 345, 346 Sonderburg, vault of Schleswig-Holstein family at, 366 n1082 Sonnettes, 34 n104 Sophie de France, 168 ------, Grand Duchess, 268 Soragana, Marchesa di, 486 Sorbière, Mons. de, 70 Souche, Lady, 309 n870 South Kensington Museum, Cretan laces in, 86 Southey, quoted, 303 n830 Spacing lace, 325 n941 Spain America, lace exported to, 102 bone pins used in, 295 conventual lace work of, 93 earnings of lace-makers in, 102 embroidery of, 8 n28, 10 and n32 French fashions influenced by, 147 gold and silver lace, use and manufactures of, 100-102; imported to, 212 grave clothes of grandees in, 366 and n1085 guipures imported to, 36 holidays in, 102 n302 lace imported to, from-- Albissola, 77 Chantilly, 214 Dieppe, 219 Ghent, 133 Isle de France, 209 Le Puy, 245 and n657 Lorraine, 251 Marseilles, 101 Paris, 36, 212 Maestranza, the, uniforms of, 100 mantilla, kinds of, 102-103 and n305; mantillas exported to, 226 manufacture of lace in, centres of, before 1665, 44 n144 Moresse, dentelles de, 104 numbers of lace-makers in, 99, 101, 102 n294, n297, 104 point of. _See_ Point d'Espagne shirts frequently unworn in (1686), 97 n279 sumptuary laws of, 90, 97, 101 two kinds of lace made in, 103 n305 Spangles, 335; of bobbins, 391 n1127 Spanish-American colonies, Chantilly lace exported to, 214 -------- Indies, Brabant lace exported to, 129 guipures exported to, 36 Le Puy lace, annual consumption of, 245 n657 Spelle werk, 32 n98 Spenser, quoted, 303 n830 Spider net, 448 ------ -work, 20 Spiral design, 7 Spratton, lace school at, 388-390 Staël, Madame de, 180 Stafford, Bishop, monument of, 405 and n1150 Stair, Lord, 99 n285 Starch, yellow, 307, 317 and n906, 435 Starching, introduction of, into England, 311; tools used for fluting and, 311-312 Steadman, Anne, 440 Steenbeck, 274 Steinkirk lace, 167 and n491, 344 and n1021, 345, 364 Stephens, quoted, 302 n828 Stepney, Lady, 369 Sterne, cited, 172 Stisted, Mrs., cited, 474 and n1308, 487 Stock, lace cravat succeeded by, 345 Stockholm museums, lace in, 282 Stone, quoted, 140 Stoney Stratford, lace industry of, 375 n1105, 379 and n1117 Stothard, Mrs., quoted, 216 n594 Stowe, cited, 294 n793; quoted, 310, 311 and n879, 312 Strafford, statuette of Earl of, 367 Strasburg, Archbishops of. _See_ Rohan family. Stratford-upon-Avon, embroidered bed linen at, 325 n941 Strauben, George, 271, 487 Strickland, Miss, quoted, 420 n1184 Striqueuse, work of, 122 Strutt, Jedediah, 448 n1239 Strype, quoted, 38, 297 and n813 Stuart, Arabella, 325 ------, Mary, _See_ Mary Stuart Stubbes, quoted, 16, 313 and n892 Stuora, 53 and n179 Sturbridge fair, 43 and n140 Stures family, 282 Suffolk, Duchess, 292 --------, Earl of, 319 and n917, n918 --------, lace industry of, 394 Sully, 142, 210 Sumptuary laws Denmark, 274 and n733, n735 England, 285, 286, 288, 289, 290 and n776, 291, 293, 306 and n855, 319 France, 64, 141 and n404, n405, 144, 147 and n429, 148 and n431, 152, 154 and n450, 158 and n460, 212, 243 Genoa, 73 Ireland (192 A.D.), 435, 436 and n1220 Portugal, 105 "Révolte des Passemens, La," 40-43 Scotland, 422 and n1195, 424 Spain, 90, 97, 101 Turkey, 87 Venice, 48, 57, 79 n245 Zurich, 270 Sweden cut-work in, 25, 280 grave-clothes, lace adorned, 366 lace industry, bobbin lace of, 280 established at Wadstena, 278 growth of, 279 peasant lace work for home use, 281-282 Spanish point and guipure in museums, 282 sheets, laced, 280 Swift, quoted, 124, 339, 349 n1037, 352, 436 Swinburne, Thos. (1572), 301 n822 ---------- (1775), quoted, 101 ---------- (1786), quoted, 176 Switzerland, lace industry in, French refugees, settlement of, 269 mignonette made (1665), 35 Neufchâtel. _See that title_ origin of, 269 pattern books, 271 statistics of, 270 and n727 Zurich sumptuary laws, 270-271 Sylvius, Balthazar, 469 Syon Monastery cope, 7 Syracuse, Count of, quoted, 369 Tabin, B., 476 Taglienti, pattern-book of, 50 n168, 51 n171, 52 n176, n178, 53 n181, 71 n222, 82 n252, 460 Talavera de la Regna, lace made at, 101 Talbot, Gilbert, 304 Tallies, 78 and n154 Talma lace, 186 Talon, 158 n460 Tambour work, Hamilton, 434 n1216 Irish, 440, 441 and n1230, 442 n1231 oriental, 440, 441 Tape lace, 116, 414 n1165 Tapestry, Greek lace a substitute for, 85-86 Tarnete (trina), 46 _Tatler_, quoted, 296 n806 Tatting, Manilla grass, 89 n265 Tax-books, Genoese, cited, 72 n224 Taylor, John, quoted, 323 and n933, 329; cited 500 Temple, Earl, 380 Tessada, Signore, old lace of, 72 n225, 73 n232; cited, 76 n238 Têtes de More (de mort, de moire), 36 and n113 Thelusson, Symphorien, 269 Theodoret, J., 469 Thierzac, lacis at, 248 Thomond, Earl of, 12 Thomsen, Prof., quoted, 272 Thomysi, Eleazaro, 481 Thread, importance of using fine (_see also under_ Lille), 393 and n1104, 446 ------ lace Cyprian, 82 hand spinners of, protest by, 335 importation of, prohibited by George III., 355 n1047 Thynne, quoted, 298 n816 Tickell, quoted, 169 n497 Tighe, Mr., cited, 440 n1228 Tiverton, first machine net factory at, 408 Toilé, 30 and n89 Toile d'arraignée, Paraguayan, 108 Toledo, Donna Teresa de, 103 Tombs. _See_ Grave-clothes Tönder lace industry, 274, 275, 277 and n740, n742 Toquet, 340 Torchon Milanese, 66 prison-made at Perugia, 81 n248 Saxony fabric, 263 Sicilian, 81 Spanish, 102 n297 Torello, 469 Torteroli, Sig. Don Tommaso, 79 n246 Tory, G., 476 Tottenham, Mrs. George, 446 Toul, "tulle" probably derived from, 250-251 and n669 Tournantes, 168 n496 Tournay, flax grown at, 118 n338 Tours, cope presented to Church of St. Martin at, 5 Towcester, lace industry at, 382 Travancore, pillow-laces of, 88 Treadwin, Mrs. cited, 401 n1140, 407, 413 Honiton lace industry, efforts for, 410, 411, 416 Trevelyan, Miss Audrey, 417 Trezola, 474 n1311 Trina, 46 and n150, n152 Trolle Bonde, Count, 282 ------ kant, 115-116 Trollopies, 356 and n1059 Trolly ground, 386 ------ lace, 371 n1095, 412-414 Trotman, Acting Consul, cited, 89 Trousse, Mlle. de la, cited, 40 n134 Troyaux, Mons., 124 Tucker, Mrs. Marwood, 407 n1154 Tulle (town), manufactures of, 250 Tulle embroidered, 229 German manufacture of, 250 lace discarded in favour of, 187 Marie Antoinette, at Court of, 180 origin of name, 250 predecessor of, 225 Turkey oyah made in, 45, 87 silk gimp specimens from, 85 sumptuary laws in, 87 tambour work in, 441 Turn, 401 n1140 Turner, Mrs., yellow starch invented by, 307, 317 and n906, 435 Turnhout, Mechlin lace made at, 125; number of fabrics (1803), 131 Turin, fashion at Court of, 153 n445 Tuscan lacis, 52-53, 68 Tussaud, Madame, 143 n412 Twopenny, Mr. W., 286 n761 Tynan lace industry, 442, 443 Tyrol (Austrian) lace industry, 268 Udine, lace school at, 81 n248 Unbleached thread, pattern worked in, 338 Underclothing lace-trimmed, in Scotland, 426 United States. _See_ America Urbino, lace making in, 68 Urbino, Duchess, 471 Ursins, Madame des, 99, 172 Ustariz, quoted, 102 Uttman, Barbara, 260-262, 447 Val de Travers, rivalry with Mirecourt, 252, 270 Valcameos, 246 Valencia gold and silver lace made at, 101 saints' images decked in lace at, 100 Valenciennes Lace compared with Binche, 135; with Dutch, 260; with Eu lace, 221; with Isle of Man lace, 372 n1096; with Lille, 237; with Mechlin, 233; with point de Dieppe, 220; with Welsh lace, 371 n1094 cost of (1788), 234 and n627 fault of, 235 n629 Honiton reproduction of, 416 industry centres of, 132; after French Revolution, 231 n624; expense and labour in making, 233; cost of thread, 234 n627 decline of, 231 establishment of, date, 230 French Revolution, effect of, 183 n539 method of working pattern in, 31 numbers employed (18th century), 230; (1790 and 1851), 231; at Ypres (1684 and 1850), 131 period of highest merit, 234-235 time required in producing, 233-234 value of Belgium monopoly, 132 and n376 wages and conditions of work, 233 point a misnomer for, 32 réseau of, 66 varieties of Alost (ground stitch), 133 Bailleul, 241 Bohemia, 268 Bruges, 132-133 Courtrai, width of, 131 n373; compared with Ypres, 132; ground stitch, 133 n377; character of, 232 n624 Dijon, 255 fausses Valenciennes, manufactories of, 241, 387 Ghent (ground stitch), 133 n377 Le Puy, 230 and n619, 245 vrai Valenciennes, 231 and n624 Ypres, description of, 131, 231 n624; value of, 131 n373; ground and pattern, 131-133 Valentine de Milan, 139 n393 Valets, extravagance of, 173 and n514 Valguarnera, Prince, 71 Valladolid, lace-trimmed banner at, 100 Valois line, influence of, on French fashions, 139 _Valuables of Glenurquhy_, quoted, 325 and n938 Valvassore's heirs, pattern book of, 476 Van Even, Edward, cited, 110 n320 Van Eyck, Jacob, quoted, 111 and n322 Van Londonzeel, Assuerus, 111 Vandyke edges, origin of term, 448 n1241 Vatican, laces of, 70 Vavassore, Giovanni Andrea, 466, 467, 472 Vecellio cited, 71 and n221 Corona of, 8 n28, 29, 50 n167, 111, 484, 486 Veils, bridal, 78; English, fourteenth century, 285 Vélay lace industry (_See also_ Le Puy), fifteenth century, 242; 18th century, 244; thread used, 245 Venezuela, lace of, 108 Venice Billament lace of, 48 and n159 blonde, formerly made in, 59 n195 Brussels lace worn at, 57 and n192 Colbert, ordinance of, trade affected by, 54 collar made for Louis XIII. at, 194 emigration of workers restricted, 159 n465 English imports from, 43, 288, 307 n863, n864; prohibited, 358 fashion dolls at St. Mark's fair, 170 n501 frauds of lace-makers in, 48, 67, 288 gold work of, 288, 307 n863, n864 Greek lace made at, 85 Medici collars made at, 56 numbers employed on lace-making in, 63 Point of. _See_ Point de Venise polychrome lace, introduction of, 62-63 sumptuary laws in, 48, 57, 79 n245 Swiss lace from, origin of, 269 travellers' allusions to products of, 55, 57 varieties of lace supplied by, 50-53, 57-58 Verbruggen, 129 n367 Verceilles, 249 Verghetti, 56 Vermicelli lace, 74 Verney Papers, quoted, 319 n916 Verona, St. John, life of, executed in needlework at, 8 n26 Veronese, Paul, _macramé_ in picture, by, 79 n248 Verulam, Lord, 101 and n289 Viarmes lace, 212 Victoria, Queen Honiton lace flounces ordered by, 410 Isle of Wight lace patronised by, 372 n1097 State liveries of, 174 n516 trousseau of, 392, 409 Victoria and Albert Museum Alençon in, 193 n555 Bock exhibits in, 23 n74 Cyprian lace in, 82 Danish embroideries in, 275 Genoese lappet in, 78 and n244 German specimens in, 264; Nuremberg ruffs, 267 Hungarian peasant lace in, 268 Irish imitation Venetian point in, 443 n1233 lacis borders in, 20-21 Norwegian cut-work in, 280 n747 pale of rose point in, 51 Paraguayan drawn-work at, 108 pattern-books in, 467 n1287, 468, 470, 477, 488 n1337, 490 n1344, 497 n1361, 501 n1370, 502 n1371 Slavonian peasants' work in, 268 Suffolk laces in, 394 Syon Monastery cope in, 7 tape lace in, 116 Villemarqué, cited, 229 n616 Villiers, Dame Barbara, 328 --------, Sir Edward, 319 n918 --------, Sir George, 318 Villiers-le-Bel, lace-making at, 209, 213 n589 Vimoutier, 204 Vinciolo, Frederick Katharine de Médicis the patroness of, 11,17 pattern book of, 49, 136, 144, 477-482, 487, 494 Virginière, Blaise de, quoted, 140, 141 and n401 Vittoria, Sister Felice, 93 Volant, origin of name, 168 n496 Vologda lace, 283 Voltaire, quoted, 166 n490 Vorsterman, William, 180, 463 Vos, Martin de, engravings after, 106 and n268 Vrai réseau, bride succeeded by, 406 Vrillière, Mgr. de la, 162 n475 Waborne lace, 300 and n819 Wace, Robert, cited, 202 Wadstena lace industry, 278-280 Wages of lace-workers. _See_ Earnings Wakefield, quoted, 440 n1228 Waldgrave, Sir Edward, 293 Wales, lace-making in, 371 and n1094 ------, Princess of, 409 Walker, Charles, 441 and n1230, 442 Walpole, cited, 297 n808, 356 and n1060 Walsingham, 307 n860, 420 n1182 ----------, Lady Audrye, 64, 320 n925 Wareham, lace found in Scandinavian barrow near, 4 Warwick, Lord, 333 Warton, J., quoted, 121 and n349 Washing of ecclesiastical lace, 373 n1101 Waterloo, hospital for English wounded at, 124 Waterman, Mrs. Elizabeth, 395 Watling silk lace, 422 Watt, cited, 482 n1329 Weaving Book, 280 Webb, Mr., 51 Weber, cited, 280 n758 Weigel, Christoph, 501 ------, Joh. Christoph, 502 Weisse, C., cited, 259 n693, 264 n707 West Indies, Spanish lace sold in, 102 n294 Westcote, quoted, 400; cited, 401 Westminster procession of lace-makers to, 360 St. Margaret's, lace washing from, 373 n1101 ------------, Dean of, forbids yellow starch, 317 ------------ Abbey epitaph in cloisters of, 13 lace on images in, 316 n901, 345 Westphalia Jutland industry improved by workers from, 274 thread, fineness of, 119 n339 Whisks, 334 Whitcomb, John, widow of, 17 White, Edward, 482 ------ Knight's sale, 497 Wieselgren, H., cited, 493 n1354 Wight, Isle of, lace industry of, 372 and n1097 Wigs, cost of, 349 falling bands put out of fashion by, 336 Wilhelmina of Bayreuth, 99 n283 Willemin, cited, 475 n1313 William III., period of, 341-346 -------- of Malmesbury, quoted, 6 -------- of Normandy, 6-7 -------- of Poictiers, quoted, 7 -------- the Silent, 260 Willingham, Geo., letter to, cited, 98 n282 Wilton, Lady, cited, 497 Wiltshire and Dorsetshire lace, 395-398 Winchester, lace purchased at, by Anne of Denmark, 320 ----------, Lady Marquis of, 309 n870 Wire, gold and silver lace made from, 72 ---- ground, 386 Wiseman, Cardinal, lace alb used by, 92-93 Wolfe, I., 482 Wolsey, Cardinal, lace of, 292 Women, lace work of, compared with that of men, 263 Woodbury Maltese lace imitation made at, 414 n1165 men lace-makers at, 413 Woollen manufacture in England lace manufacture next to, in 1698, 402 loss to, from edict against Flanders lace 341, 342, 349 Worcester, Countess of, 313 Wotton, Sir Henry, 136 n385 Wraxall, cited, 105, 142; quoted, 263 Wulff, Jens, 276 and n739 Wyatt, Sir Thomas, 294 Wyriot, Madame, 205 Yarranton, Andrew, quoted, 114-115 and n327; cited 259 n696 Yemenis, M., cited, 488 n1339 Yokohama, lace school at, 417 Yorck lace, 138 n392 York, Cardinal, 421 Youghal Convent, lace-making at, 443, 444 Young, A., cited, 192 n552, 207, 223, 224, 244; quoted, 234 n627, 239 Ypres Valenciennes. _See under_ Valenciennes Yriarte, Charles, cited, 159 n465 Zante, Greek lace made at, 85 Zedler, cited, 57 Zoppino, Nicolo, 461, 462 Zouch, Lord, cited, 136 n385 Zurich, sumptuary laws of, 270 and n728 LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, DUKE STREET, STAMFORD STREET, S.E., AND 28, GREAT WINDMILL STREET. W. Notes [1] Wilkinson's _Ancient Egyptians_, vol. iii., p. 134. (See Illustration.) [2] Herodotus, ii. 182; iii. 47. [3] Ezekiel, who takes up the cry of lamentation for "Tyrus, situate at the entry of the sea," a merchant of the people for many isles, exclaims, "The merchants of Sheba, Asshur, and Chilmad were thy merchants. These were thy merchants in all sorts of things, in blue cloths and broidered works, and in chests of rich apparel." Another part of the same chapter mentions galley sails of fine linen "with broidered work from Egypt."--Ezekiel xxvii. [4] Exodus xxvi.; xxvii.; xxxiv. 2; Isaiah iii. 18; 1 Kings vii. 17. [5] Exodus xxxviii. 23. [6] Again, in the song of Deborah, the mother of Sisera says, "Have they not divided the prey?... to Sisera a prey of divers colours of needlework, of divers colours of needlework on both sides."--Judges v. 30. [7] Cantor Lectures on the Art of Lace-making. A. S. Cole (London, 1881). [8] At Athens the maidens who took part in the procession of the Panathenaea embroidered the veil or _peplos_ upon which the deeds of the goddess were embroidered. The sacred _peplos_ borne on the mast of a ship rolled on wheels in the Panathenaic festival "was destined for the sacred wooden idol, Athene Polias, which stood on the Erechtheus. This _peplos_ was a woven mantle renewed every five years. On the ground, which is described as dark violet, and also as saffron-coloured, was inwoven the battle of the gods and the giants." (See page 47, _British Museum Catalogue to the Sculptures of the Parthenon_.) [9] Pliny, _Hist. Nat._, viii. 74. "Colores diversos picturae intexere Babylon maxime celebravit et nomen imposuit." [10] Maspero, _The Dawn of Civilisation in Egypt and Chaldaea_ (ed. Prof. Sayce). [11] Lefébure, _Embroidery and Lace_ (trans. A. S. Cole). [12] Lucan, _Pharsalia_, Book X. [13] The Romans denominated such embroideries _phrygionae_, and the embroiderer _phrygio_. Golden embroideries were specified as _auriphrygium_. This word is the root of the French _orfroi_ (orfreys). [14] Mrs. Palliser quotes an extract from the author of _Letters from Italy_, who, speaking of the cabinet at Portici, mentions an elegant marble statue of Diana "dressed after the purple gowns worn by the Roman ladies; the garment is edged with a lace exactly resembling point; it is an inch and a half broad, and has been painted purple." By an Englishwoman (Mrs. Millar) in the years 1770 and 1771 (London, 1777). [15] Strutt. [16] Lefébure, _Embroidery and Lace_. [17] Mrs. Bury Palliser, "Embroidery," _Encyclopædia Britannica_. [18] St. Giselle, Berthe's sister, founded many convents in Aquitaine and Provence, and taught the nuns all manner of needlework (Lefébure, _Embroidery and Lace_). [19] _Chronique Rimée_, by Philippe Mouskés. [20] Lefébure, _Embroidery and Lace_. [21] Mrs. Palliser, "Embroidery," _Encyclopædia Britannica_. [22] It has been suggested that the embroidery was done by William's granddaughter, the Empress Matilda, widow in 1125 of Henry V., Emperor of Germany, and wife, by her second marriage, of Geoffrey, Count of Anjou (Lefébure). [23] Mr. Fowke states that the tradition which would make the tapestry the handiwork of Queen Matilda cannot be traced further back than 1803, when the tapestry was sent to Paris for exhibition. [24] Matt. Par., _Hist. Angl._, p. 473, Edit. Paris, 1644. [25] Mrs. Palliser, "Embroidery," _Encyclopædia Britannica_. [26] At Verona an artist took twenty-six years to execute in needlework the life of St. John, after the designs of Pollajuolo. [27] "Gaston, Duke of Orleans, established hot-houses and botanical gardens, which he filled with rare exotics to supply the needle with new forms and richer tints" (Lefébure). [28] We read, for instance, that Gabrielle de Bourbon, wife of Louis de la Trémouille, "jamais n'estoit oyseuse, mais s'employoit une partie de la journée en broderies et autres menus ouvrages appartenant à telles dames, et y occupoit ses demoyselles dont avoit bonne quantité, et de grosses, riches, et illustres maisons."--_Panegyric de Loys de la Trèmoille par Jean Bouchet._ Again Vecellio dedicates his "Corona" to Signora Nanni, not only on account of the pleasure she takes in works of the needle, but for "il diletto che prende in farne essercitar le donne de casa sua, ricetto delle più virtuose giovani che hoggidi vivono in questa città." "It is usual here," writes a lady from Madrid in 1679, "for good families to put their daughters to ladies, by whom they are employed to embroider in gold and silver, or various colours, or in silk, about the shift, neck, and hands." "I jor fist es chambre son pere, Une estole et i amict pere, De soie et d'or molt soutilment, Si i fait ententivement Mainte croisette et mainte estoile, Et dist ceste chancon à toile." --_Roman de la Violette._ "One day, seated in her father's room, she was skilfully working a stole and amict in silk and gold, and she was making in it, with great care, many a little cross and many a little star, singing all the while this _chanson à toile_." [30] In one of Edward I. we find a charge of eight shillings for silk bought for the embroidery work of Margaret, the King's daughter, and another for four ounces of silk, two hundred ounces of gold thread, a spindle, etc.--_Liber de Garderoba, 23 Edw. I._, Public Record Office. In one of Edward III. the sum of £2 7s. 2d. is expended in the purchase of gold thread, silk, etc., for his second daughter Joanna.--_Liber Garderobae, 12-16 Edw. III._, Public Record Office. Elizabeth of York worked much at her needle. In the account of her household, preserved in the Public Record Office, every page of which is signed by Queen Elizabeth herself, we find-- "To Evan Petreson joiner, for the stuff and making of 4 working stools for the Queen; price of the stool 16 pence--5s. 4d. "To Thomas Fissch, for an elne of linen cloth for a samplar for the queen, 8d." In the Inventory 4 Edward VI., 1552 (Harl. MSS. No. 1419), are entries of-- "Item, XII. samplars" (p. 419). "Item, one samplar of Normandie canvas, wrought with green and black silk" (p. 524). "A book of parchment containing diverses patternes" (p. 474), probably purchases for his sisters. [31] See, for instance, the interesting account of the Countess of Oxford, given by Miss Strickland in her _Life of Queen Elizabeth of York_. [32] These are alluded to in the dialogue between Industria and Ignavia, as given in Sibmacher's "Modelbuch," 1601 (French translation): "La vieille dame raconte l'histoire des concours de travail à l'aiguille chez les anciens Espagnols; comme Isabelle, femme de Ferdinand, a hautement estimé les travaux de l'aiguille." The "Spanish stitch," so often mentioned, was brought in by Katharine, on her marriage with Prince Arthur, in 1501. We have constantly in her wardrobe accounts sheets and pillow-beres, "wrought with Spanish work of black silk at the edge." In the Inventory of Lord Monteagle, 1523 (Public Record Office,) are "eight partlets, three garnished with gold, the rest with Spanish work." In 1556, among the New Year's gifts presented to Queen Mary Tudor, most of the smocks are "wrought with black silk, Spanish fashion." In the Great Wardrobe Accounts of Queen Elizabeth, 3 & 4, Public Record Office, we have "sixteen yards of Spanish work for ruffs." "Twelve tooth cloths, with the Spanish stitch, edged with gold and silver bone lace."--_Ibid._ Eliz. 5 & 6. The Spanish stitch appears in France with Henry II., 1557. "Pour la façon d'ung gaban avec ung grant collet chamarrez à l'Espaignolle de passement blanc," etc.--_Comptes de l'Argentier du Roy._ Archives Nat. K. K. 106. [33] Taylor, the Water Poet, _Katharine of Aragon_. [34] The industry of Henry's last queen was as great as that of his first. Specimens still exist at Sizergh Castle, Westmoreland, of Katharine Parr's needlework--a counterpane and a toilet cover. An astrologer, who cast her nativity, foretold she would be a queen; so when a child, on her mother requiring her to work, she would exclaim, "My hands are ordained to touch crowns and sceptres, not needles and spindles." [35] _Dames Illustres._ [36] The "Reine des Marguerites," the learned sister of Francis I., was not less accomplished with her needle, and entries for working materials appear in her accounts up to the year of her death, 1549. "Trois marcs d'or et d'argent fournis par Jehan Danes, pour servir aux ouvraiges de la dicte dame."--_Livre de dépenses de Marguerite d'Angoulême_, par le Comte de la Ferrière-Percy. Paris, 1862. "Elle addonoit son courage A faire maint bel ouvrage Dessus la toile, et encor A joindre la soye et l'or. Vous d'un pareil exercise Mariez par artifice Dessus la toile en maint trait L'or et la soie en pourtrait." --_Ode à la Royne de Navarre_, liv. ii., od. vii. [38] 1380. "Oeuvre de nonnain."--_Inventaire de Charles V._ [39] "My grandmother, who had other lace, called this" (some needlepoint) "nun's work."--_Extract from a letter from the Isle of Man_, 1862. "A butcher's wife showed Miss O---- a piece of Alençon point, which she called 'nun's work.'"--_Extract from a letter from Scotland_, 1863. 1698, May. In the _London Gazette_, in the advertisement of a sale by auction, among other "rich goods," we find "nun's work," but the term here probably applies to netting, for in the _Protestant Post Boy_ of March 15th, 1692, is advertised as lost "A nun's work purse wrought with gold thread." 1763. In the _Edinburgh Advertiser_ appears, "Imported from the Grand Canaries, into Scotland, nun's work." [40] As, for instance, "the imbrothering" of the monks of the monastery of Wolstrope, in Lincolnshire. [41] _Livre de Lingerie._ Dom. de Sera, 1581. "Donne, donzelle, con gli huomini."--Taglienti, 1530. Patterns which "les Seigneurs, Dames, et Damoiselles ont eu pour agréables."--Vinciolo, 1587. [42] Jehan Mayol, carme de Lyon; Fra Hieronimo, dell' Ordine dei Servi; Père Dominique, religieux carme, and others. [43] One in the Bibliothèque Impériale is from the "Monasterio St. Germani à Pratis." [44] He died in 1595. _Lives of the Earl and Countess of Arundel_, from the original MS. by the Duke of Norfolk. London, 1857. [45] P. R. O. Calendar of State Papers. Domestic. Charles I. Vol. clxix. 12. [46] P. R. O. Calendar of State Papers. Colonial. No. 789. [47] See his epigram, "The Royal Knotter," about the queen, "Who, when she rides in coach abroad Is always knotting threads." [48] Translated from the _Libellus de Admirandis beati Cuthberti Miraculis_ of Reginald, monk of Durham, by Rev. J. Rain. Durham, 1855. [49] _Chronicle of John Hardyng_, circ. 1470. [50] Temp. Rich. II. In their garments "so much pouncing of chesell to make holes, so much dragging (zigzagging) of sheers," etc.--_Good Parson_, Chaucer. [51] Percy, _Reliques of Ancient Poetry_, vol. iii. [52] _Anatomie of Abuses_, by Philip Stubbes, 1583. [53] _The Shyp of Folys of the Worlde_, translated out of Latin by Alex. Barclay, 1508. [54] The inventories of all nations abound in mention of these costly articles. The "smocks" of Katharine of Aragon "for to lay in," were wrought about the collar with gold and silk. Lord Monteagle, 1523, had "two fine smocks of cambric wrought with gold." (Inv. P. R. O.) Among the New Year's Gifts offered to Queen Mary Tudor by the Duchess of Somerset (1556), we find a smock wrought over with silk, and collar and ruffles of damask, gold purl, and silver. Again, in the household expenses of Marguerite de France, 1545, we find a charge of "4 livres 12 sols, pour une garniture de chemise ouvré de soye cramoisie pour madicte dame."--(Bib. Imp. MSS. Fonds François, 10,394.) About the same date (G. W. A. Eliz. 1 & 2, 1558-59) appear charges for lengthening one smocke of drawne work, 20s. Six white smockes edged with white needlework lace, 10s. To overcasting and edging 4 smockes of drawn work with ruffs, wristbands, and collars, three of them with black work, and three of them with red, etc. At the funeral of Henry II. of France, 1559, the effigy was described as attired in "une chemise de toile de Hollande, bordée au col et aux manches d'ouvraige fort excellent."--Godefroy, _Le Cérémonial de France_, 1610. [55] See FRANCE. [56] The pillow-bere has always been an object of luxury, a custom not yet extinct in France, where the "taies d'oreiller, brodées aux armes," and trimmed with a rich point, form an important feature in a modern trousseau. In the inventory of Margaret of Austria, the gentle governess of the Low Countries, are noted-- "Quatre toyes d'oraillers ouvrées d'or et de soye cramoysie et de verde. "Autres quatres toyes d'oraillers faites et ouvrées d'or et de soye bleu à losanges qui ont estées données à Madame par dom Diego de Cabrera."--_Corr. de l'Empereur Maximilien I. et de Marguerite d'Autriche_, par M. Leglay. Paris, 1839. Edward VI. has (Harl. MSS. 1419) "18 pillow-beres of hollande with brode seams of silk of sundry coloured needlework." And again, "One pillow-bere of fine hollande wrought with a brode seam of Venice gold and silver, and silk nedlework." And Lady Zouche presents Queen Elizabeth, as a New Year's gift, with "One pair of pillow-beares of Holland work, wrought with black silk drawne work."--Nichol's _Royal Progresses_. [57] _Goderonné_--_goudronné_, incorrectly derived from pitch (_goudron_), has no relation to stiffness or starch, but is used to designate the fluted pattern so much in vogue in the sixteenth century--the "gadrooned" edge of silversmiths. 1588. Il avait une fraise empesée et godronnée à gros godrons, au bout de laquelle il y avoit de belle et grande dentelle, les manchettes estoient goudronnées de mesme. [58] They are introduced into the Title page of this work. [59] See APPENDIX. [60] "Quintain, quintin, French lawne." Randle Cotgrave. _Dictionarie of the French and English tongues._ 1611. "26 virges de Kanting pro sudariis pro ille 47/8."--_G. W. A. Charles II._, 1683-4. [61] Lacis, espèce d'ouvrage de fil ou de soie fait en forme de filet ou de réseuil dont les brins étaient entre-lacez les uns dans les autres.--_Dict. d'Ant. Furetière_, 1684. [62] Béle Prerie contenant differentes sortes de lettres, etc., pour appliquer sur le réseuil ou lassis. Paris, 1601. See APPENDIX. [63] So, in the Epistle to the Reader, in a Pattern-book for Cut-works (London, J. Wolfe & Edward White, 1591), the author writes of his designs:-- "All which devises are soe framed in due proportion as taking them in order the one is formed or made by the other, and soe proceedeth forward; whereby with more ease they may be sewed and wrought in cloth, and keeping true accompt of the threads, maintaine the bewtey of the worke. And more, who desyreth to bring the work into a lesser forme, let them make the squares lesse. And if greater, then inlarge them, and so may you worke in divers sortes, either by stitch, pouncing or pouldering upon the same as you please. Alsoe it is to be understood that these squares serve not only for cut-workes, but alsoe for all other manner of seweing or stitching."--(See APPENDIX, No. 72). [64] _Pratique de l'aiguille industrieuse du très excellent Milour Matthias Mignerak_, etc. Paris, 1605. See APPENDIX. [65] The inventories of Charles de Bourbon, ob. 1613, with that of his wife, the Countess of Soissons, made after her death, 1644 (Bib. Nat. MSS. F. Fr. 11,426), alone prove how much this _réseuil_ was in vogue for furniture during the seventeenth century. "Item un pavilion de thoille de lin à bende de reseuil blang et noir faict par carel prisé, vi. l. t. (livres tournois). "Item quatre pentes de ciel de cotton blanc à carreaux. "Item trois pentes de ciel de thoille de lin à carreaux et raiseuil recouvert avec le dossier pareil estoffe, et petit carreau à point couppé garny de leur frange, le fonds du ciel de thoille de lin, trois custodes et une bonne grace et un drap pareille thoille de lin à bandes de reseuil recouvert ... prisé xviii. l. t."--_Inv. de Charles de Bourbon._ "Item une autre tapisserie de rezeuil de thoile blanche en huit pièces contenant ensemble vingt aulnes on environ sur deux aulnes trois quarts de haute. "Item une autre tenture de tapisserie de rézeau tout de leine (lin) appliquée sur de la toille blanche en sept pièces contenant dix-huit aulnes de cours sur trois aulnes de haute. "Item trois pantes, fonds de dossier, les deux fourreaux de piliers, la converture de parade, le tout en point couppé et toillé. "Item, une garniture de lict blanc, faict par carré d'ouvrage de poinct couppé, le tout garny avec la couverte de parade, prisé la somme de soixante livres tournois."--_Inv. de la Comtesse de Soissons._ [66] Dated 20 Feb., 1587. Now in the Record Office, Edinburgh. [67] 1781. "Dix-huit Pales de differentes grandeurs, tous de toile garnis tant de petite dentelle que de filet brodé."--_Inv. de l'Eglise de S. Gervais._ Arch. Nat. L.L. 654. [68] _Point and Pillow Lace_, by A. M. S. (London, 1899). [69] In the Record Office, Edinburgh. [70] "Mache, the Masches (meshes) or holes of a net between the thread and thread" (Cotgrave). [71] _Comptes de la Reine de Navarre_, 1577. Arch. Nat. K.K. 162. [72] _Inventory of Catherine de Médicis_, Bonaffé. [73] Randle Holme, in _The School Mistris Terms of Art for all her Ways of Sewing_, has "A Samcloth, vulgarly, a Samplar." [74] In the Bock collection, part of which has since been bought for the Victoria and Albert Museum, are specimens of "rézeuil d'or," or network with patterns worked in with gold thread and coloured silks. Such were the richly-wrought "serviettes sur filez d'or" of Margaret of Austria. "Autre servyette de Cabes (Cadiz) ouvrée d'or, d'argent sur fillez et bordée d'or et de gris. "Autre serviette à Cabes de soye grise et verde à ouvrage de fillez bordée d'une tresse de verd et gris."--Inventory already quoted. [75] "Le Gan," de Jean Godard, Parisien, 1588. [76] Descriptive Catalogue of the Collections of Tapestry and Embroidery in the South Kensington Museum (p. 5). [77] Lace. French, _dentelle_; German, _Spitzen_; Italian, _merletto_, _trina_; Genoa, _pizzo_; Spanish, _encaje_; Dutch, _kanten_. [78] Statute 3 Edw. IV. c. iii. [79] "Passement, a lace or lacing."--_Cotgrave_. [80] Not in those of Rob. Estienne, 1549; Frère de l'Aval, 1549; or Nicot, 1606. Cotgrave has, "Dentelle, small edging (and indented), bone-lace, or needlework." In Dict. de l'Académie, 1694, we find, "Dentelle, sorte de passement à jour et à mailles tres fines ainsi nommé parceque les premières qu'on fit etoient dentelées." [81] _Comptes de l'Argentier du Roi_, 1557.--Arch. Nat. K. K. 106. "Passement de fine soie noire dentelle d'un costé." "Passement blanc," "grise," also occur. [82] _Argenterie de la Reine_, 1556.--Arch. Nat. K. K. 118. [83] _Dépenses de la maison de Madame Marguerite de France, soeur du Roi._--Bib. Nat. MSS. F. Fr. 10,394, fol. 62. [84] "Plus de delivré une pacque de petite dentelle qui est estez cousu ensemble pour mettre sur les coutures des rideaux des ditz litz contenant 80 aunes."--Rec. Off., Edin. This custom of trimming the seams of bed-curtains with a lace indented on both sides was common throughout Europe. In the Chartley Inv. of Mary Stuart, 1586, one of the Vasquines (jackets) is described, "Autre de satin noir descouppée a descouppemie dentelés." [85] 1577. "Pour deux aulnes de passement d'argent a hautte dantelle pour mettre à ung renvers, au pris de soixante solz l'aulne. "Pour une aulne de dentelle pour faire deux cornettes pour servir à la dicte dame, quatre livres."--_Cptes. de la Reine de Navarre._ Arch. Nat. K. K. 162. [86] See APPENDIX. [87] "Petits et grands passements; id. à l'esguille; id. faict au mestier; id. de Flandres à poinctes; id. orangé à jour; id. de Flandres satiné;" with "reseuil, dantelles, grandes et petites, or, argent," etc.--_Inv. de Madame, soeur du Roi._ Arch. Nat. K. K. 234. So late as 1645, in the inventory of the church of St. Médard at Paris (Arch de l'Emp. L. L. 858), the word is used. We find, "Quatre tours de chaire de thoille baptiste, ung beau surplis pour le predicateur, six autres, cinq corporaulx," all "à grand passement." Also, "deux petits corporaulx à petit passement," and "trois tours de chaire garnyz de grand passement à dentelle." [88] _Inv. apres le decès de Mgr. le Maréchal de La Motte._--Bib. Nat. MSS. F. Fr. 11,426. [89] The French terms are more comprehensive:-- Champ, fond travaillé à jour. Toilé, fleurs entièrement remplies, formant un tissu sans jour. Grillé, grillage, plein. Also flowers--but distinguished from toilé by having little square spaces between the thread (_grillé_, grating), the work not being so compact. "On appelle couleuvre, une blond dont le toilé continue serpente entre deux rangs de grillage."--_Roland de la Platière_ (the Girondin). Art. Dentelle, _Encyclopédie Méthodique_. Paris, 1780. [90] _Storehouse of Armory and Blason._ 1688. [91] "Brides--petits tissus de fil qui servent à joindre les fleurs les unes avec les autres dans l'espèce de dentelle qu'on appelle Point de France, de Venise, de Malines."--_Dict de l'Académie._ [92] "Une robe et tablier, garnis d'une dentelle d'Angleterre à picot."--_Inv. de decès de la Duchesse de Bourbon._ Arch. Nat. X. 10,064. [93] "Une chemisette de toile d'hollande garnye de point de Paris."--_Inv. d'Anne d'Escoubleau, Baronne de Sourdis, veuve de François de Simiane._ 1681. Arch. Nat. M. M. 802. [94] "Cette dernière sorte de point se fait aux fuseaux."--_Dict. du P. Richelet._ Lyon. 1759. [95] _Dict. d'Ant. Furetière._ Augmenté par M. Basnage. La Haye, 1727. [96] 1656. [97] 1651. "Huit aulnes de toile commune garnies de neige."--_Inv. des emubles de la Sacristie de l'Oratoire de Jésus, à Paris._ Bib. Nat. MSS. F. Fr. 8621. "Neuf autres petites nappes; les deux premières de toile unie; la troisième à dentelle quallifié de neige."--_Ibid._ [98] French, _dentelle à fuseaux_; Italian, _merli a piombini_; Dutch, _gespeldewerkte kant_; Old Flemish, _spelle werk_. [99] French, _carreau_, _cousin_, _oreiller_; Italian, _tombolo_; Venice, _ballon_; Spanish, _mundillo_. [100] See Chapter XXIV. [101] The number of bobbins is generally equal to 50 to each square inch. If the lace be one inch wide, it will have 625 meshes in each square inch, or 22,500 in a yard. The work, therefore, goes on very slowly, though generally performed with the greatest dexterity. [102] At Gisors, Saint-Denis, Montmorency, and Villiers-le-Bel.--Savary, _Grand Dict. du Commerce_, 1720. Cotgrave gives, "Bisette, a plate (of gold, silver, or copper) wherewith some kinds of stuffes are stripped." Oudin, "Feuille ou paillette d'or ou d'argent." In these significations it frequently occurs. We find with numerous others: "1545. 55 sols pour une once bizette d'argent pour mectre à des colletz." "Six aulnes bizette de soie noire pour mettre sur une robbe, lv. s.," in the Accounts of Madame Marguerite de France. (Bib. Nat.) "1557. Bizette de soye incarnatte et jaulne pour chamarrer ung pourpoint de satin rouge" of Henry II.--_Cptes. de l'Argentier du Roi._ Arch. Nat. K. K. 106. "1579. Petite bizette d'or fin dentellez des deux costez pour servir à desmanches de satin cramoisy" of Catherine de Médicis.--_Trésorerie de la royne mère du roy._ Arch. Nat. K. K. 115. In the Chartley Inv. 1586, of Mary Stuart, is mentioned, "Un plotton de bisette noire." [103] _Dict. de l'Académie._ [104] Campane, from sonnette, clochette, même grêlot. "Les sonnettes dont on charge les habits pour ornement. Les festons qu'on met aux étoffes et aux dentelles."--_Oudin._ [105] Public Record Office. [106] In the last century it was much the fashion to trim the scalloped edges of a broader lace with a narrower, which was called to "campaner." 1720. "Une garniture de teste à trois pièces de dentelle d'Angleterre à raiseau, garni autour d'une campane à dents."--_Inv. de la Duchesse de Bourbon._ 1741. "Une paire de manches à trois rangs de Malines à raizeau campanée."--_Inv. de decès de Mademoiselle Marie Anne de Bourbon de Clermont._ Arch. Nat. X. 11,071. (Daughter of Mademoiselle de Nantes and Louis Duke de Bourbon.) "Une coëffure de Malines à raizeau à deux pièces campanée."--_Ibid._ In the lace bills of Madame du Barry, preserved in the Bib. Nat., are various entries of Angleterre et point à l'aiguille, "campanée des deux côtés" for ruffles, camisoles, etc. [107] 1759. "Huit palatines tant points que mignonettes."--_Inv. de decès de Louise Henriette de Bourbon-Conty, Princesse du Sang, Duchesse de Orléans._ Arch. Nat. X. 10,077. "Trente-vingt paires de manchettes, quatre coëffures, le tout tant de differents points qu'Angleterre, mignonettes que tulles."--_Ibid._ [108] 1758. "Une paire de manchettes à trois rangs de blonde de fil sur entoilage."--_Inv. de Mademoiselle Louise Anne de Bourbon Condé de Charollais_ (sister of Mademoiselle de Clermont). Arch. Nat. X. 10,076. 1761. "Fichus garnis à trois rangs de blonde de fil sur entoilage."--_Inv. de Charlotte Aglaë d'Orléans, Princesse du Sang, Duchesse de Modène_ (daughter of the Regent). 1789. Ruffles of blonde de fil appear also in the _Inv. de decès de Monseigneur le Duc de Duras_. Bib. Nat. MSS. F. Fr. 11,440. [109] Mostly at Bayeux. [110] "On employe aussi pour les coëffures de la mignonette, et on a tellement perfectionné cette dentelle, que estant peu de chose dans son commencement est devenue de consequence et même très chère, j'entends, la plus fine qu'on fait sur de beaux patrons."--_Le Mercure Galant_, 1699. [111] "Guiper. Tordre les fils pendans d'une frange par le moyen de l'instrument qu'on nomme guipoir, fer crochu d'un côté, et chargé de l'autre d'un petit morceau de plomb pour lui donner du poids."--Savary. [112] "Guipure. A grosse black thread covered or whipped about with silk."--Cotgrave. "Guipure. Manière de dentelle de soie où il y a des figures de rose ou d'autres fleurs, et qui sert à parer les jupes des dames.... Sa jupe est pleine de guipure."--_Dict. du P. Richelet._ 1759. [113] Roland. We cannot help thinking this a mistake. In the statutes of the Passementiers, we find mention of buttons "à têtes de mort," or would it rather be "tête de moire," from the black moire hoods (têtes) worn by the Italian women, which were often edged with a narrow guipure? [114] Les lieux en France où il se fait le plus de guipures, sont Saint-Denis-en-France, Villiers-le-Bel, Ecouën, Arcelles, Saint-Brice, Groslait, Montmorency, Tremblay, Villepinte, etc. [115] The sale of Guipures belonged to the master mercers, the workmanship to the passementiers boutonniers. We find in the _Livre Commode ou les Adresses de la Ville de Paris_ for 1692, that "Guipures et galons de soye se vendent sur le Petit Pont et rue aux Febvres, où l'on vend aussi des galons de livrées." [116] Godefroy. _Le Cérémonial de France_, 1610. _Sacre du Roy Henry II._, 1547. [117] In 1549. _Ibid._ [118] _Traité des Marques Nationales_, dar M. Beneton de Morange de Peyrins. Paris, 1739. [119] In the Record Office, Edinburgh. [120] Une robe de velours vert couverte de Broderies, gimpeures, et cordons d'or et d'argent, et bordée d'un passement de même. Une robe veluat cramoisi bandée de broderie de guimpeure d'argent. Une robe de satin blanc chamarrée de broderie faite de guimpeure d'or. Id. de satin jaune toute couverte de broderye gumpeure, etc. Robe de weloux noyr semée geynpeurs d'or. [121] _Dictionnaire de l'Académie._ [122] 1536-44. Sir Fred. Madden. 2 payr of sleeves whereof one of gold w^h p'chemene lace, etc. 2 prs. of sleves w^h pchmyn lase, 8/6. [123] _Ecclesiastical Memoirs_, iii. 2, 167. [124] State Papers, vol. 82, P. R. O. [125] Surtees' Society, Durham, "Wills and Inventories." [126] 1572. Thynne, in his _Debate between Pride and Lowliness_, describes a coat "layd upon with parchment lace withoute." [127] B. M. Add. MSS. No. 5751. [128] Roll. 1607. P. R. O. [129] _Ibid._ 1626. 11 nightcaps of coloured satin, laid on thick, with gold and silver parchment lace, 41. 9. 9. [130] Roll. 1630. [131] "Eidem pro novemdecem vir[=g] et di[=m] aureæ et argenteæ pergame[=n] laciniæ pondent sexdecim un[=c] 2/[dram] 1/[scruple] venet. ... pro consua[=t] ad ornan[=d] duas sedes utroque latere thronæ in domo Parliament."--_Gt. Ward. Acc._ Car. II. xxx. and xxxi. = 1678-9. In 1672-73 is an entry for "2 virgis teniæ pergame[=n]." [132] Surtees' "Inventories." [133] Bib. Nat. MSS. F. Fr. 8621. [134] _In the Recueil de pièces les plus agréables de ce temps, composées par divers autheurs._ Paris, chez Charles Sercy, MDCLXI. The poem is dedicated to Mademoiselle de la Trousse, cousin of Madame de Sévigné, and was probably written by one of her coterie. [135] The Cravates or Croates soldiers had a band of stuff round their throats to support an amulet they wore as a charm to protect them from sabre-cuts. What began in superstition ended in fashion. [136] These were, in France, Guibray, Beaucaire, and Bordeaux; in Germany, Frankfort; in Italy, Novi. [137] All articles of luxury were to be met with at the provincial fairs. When, in 1671, Catherine of Braganza, the Duchess of Richmond, and the Duke of Buckingham, visited Saffron Walden fair, the Queen asked for a pair of yellow stockings, and Sir Bernard Gascoyne, for a pair of gloves stitched with blue. [138] 10 Hen. III., Devon's _Issues of the Exchequer_. [139] "No lace-woman," says Ben Jonson, "that brings French masks and cut-works." That lace was sold by pedlars in the time of Henry VIII., we find from a play, "The Four P's," written in 1544, by John Heywood. Among the contents of a pedlar's box are given "lasses knotted," "laces round and flat for women's heads," "sleeve laces," etc. On opening the box of the murdered pedlar (_Fool of Quality_, 1766), "they found therein silk, linen, laces," etc. [140] Defoe describes Sturbridge fair as the greatest of all Europe. "Nor," says he, "are the fairs of Leipsig in Saxony, the Mart at Frankfort-on-the-Maine, or the fair of Nuremburg or Augsburg, any way comparable to this fair of Sturbridge." In 1423, the citizens of London and the suburbs being accused of sending works of "embroidery of gold, or silver, of Cipre, or of gold of Luk, togedre with Spanish Laton of insuffisant stuff to the fayres of Sturesbrugg, Ely, Oxenford, and Salisbury"--in fact, of palming off inferior goods for country use--"all such are forfeited."--_Rot. Parl._, 2 Hen. VI., nu. 49. [141] "Lingua, or the Combat of the Tongue." A Comedy. 1607. [142] This system of colporteurs dates from the early Greeks. They are termed both in Greek and Hebrew, "des voyageurs." [143] "She came to the house under the pretence of offering some lace, holland, and fine tea, remarkably cheap."--_Female Spectator._ 1757. [144] The centres of the lace manufacture before 1665 were:-- BELGIUM Brussels, Mechlin, Antwerp, Liége, Louvain, Binche, Bruges, Ghent, Ypres, Courtray, etc. FRANCE (Spread over more than ten Provinces)-- Artois Arras (Pas-de-Calais). French Flanders Lille, Valenciennes, Bailleul (Nord). Normandy Dieppe, Le Hâvre (Seine-Inférieure). Ile de France Paris and its environs. Auvergne Aurillac (Cantal). Velay Le Puy (Haute-Loire). Lorraine Mirecourt (Vosges). Burgundy Dijon (Côte-d'or). Champagne Charleville, Sedan (Ardennes). Lyonnais Lyon (Rhône). Poitou Loudun (Vienne). Languedoc Muret (Haute-Garonne). ITALY Genoa, Venice, Milan, Ragusa, etc. SPAIN La Mancha, and in Catalonia especially. GERMANY Saxony, Bohemia, Hungary, Denmark, and Principality of Gotha. ENGLAND Counties of Bedford, Bucks, Dorset, and Devon. [145] _Industrial Arts of the Nineteenth Century_, Digby Wyatt. [146] Francesco Nardi. _Sull' Origine dell' Arte del Ricamo._ Padova, 1839. [147] _Ricamare. Recamar._ [148] The traditions of the Low Countries also point to an Eastern origin, assigning the introduction of lace-making to the Crusaders, on their return from the Holy Land. [149] _Origine ed Uso delle Trine a filo di refe_ (thread), 1864. Privately printed. [150] 1469.--Io, Battista de Nicollo d'Andrea da Ferrara, debio avere per mia manifatura et reve per cuxere et candelle per inzirare.... It. per desgramitare e refilare e inzirare e ripezare e reapicare le gramite a camixi quatordece per li signori calonexi, et per li, mansonarij le qual gramite staxea malissimamente, p. che alcune persone le a guaste, Lire 1 10. It. per reve et p. candelle, L. 0 5. 1469.--I, Baptist de Nicollo of Andrea da Ferrara, having owing to me for my making, and thread to sew, and candles to wax.... Item, for untrimming and re-weaving and waxing and refixing and rejoining the trimmings of fourteen albs for the canons and attendants of the church, the which trimmings were in a very bad state, because some persons had spoiled them, L. 1 10. It. for thread and wax, L. 0 5. These trimmings (gramite), Cav. Merli thinks, were probably "trine." "At Chicago was exhibited the first kind of net used in Italy as lace on garments. It is made of a very fine linen or silk mesh, stiffened with wax and embroidered in silk thread. It was in use during the fourteenth century, and part of the fifteenth" (_Guide to New and Old Lace in Italy_, C. di Brazza, 1893). This is probably the gramite, or trimmings of the albs, mentioned in the account book formerly belonging to the Cathedral of Ferrara, and now preserved in the Municipal Archives of that city. [151] See MILAN. [152] _Trina_, like our word lace, is used in a general sense for braid or passement. Florio, in his Dictionary (_A Worlde of Words_, John Florio, London, 1598), gives _Trine_--cuts, snips, pincke worke on garments; and _Trinci_--gardings, fringings, lacings, etc., or other ornaments of garments. _Merlo_, _merletto_, are the more modern terms for lace. We find the first as early as the poet Firenzuola (see FLORENCE). It does not occur in any pattern book of an older date than the "Fiori da Ricami" of Pasini, and the two works of Francesco de' Franceschi, all printed in 1591. [153] The laces, both white and gold, depicted in the celebrated picture of the Visit of the Queen of Sheba to Solomon, by Lavinia Fontana, now in the Lambeccari Gallery, executed in the sixteenth century, prove that white lace was in general use in the Italian Courts at that epoch. [154] At present, if you show an Italian a piece of old lace, he will exclaim, "Opera di monache; roba di chiesa." [155] Statute 2, Henry VI., 1423. The first great treaty between the Venetians and Henry VII. was in 1507. [156] _Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth of York_, 1502. P. R. O. Also published by Sir H. Nicolas. [157] Inv. Henry VIII. [158] Gremio, when suing for Bianca, enumerates among his wealth in ivory coffers stuffed, "Turkey cushions bossed with pearl; valance of Venice gold in needlework."--_Taming of the Shrew._ [159] "One jerkyn of cloth of silver with long cuts down righte, bound with a billament lace of Venice silver and black silk."--_Robes of the late King_ (Edward VI.). [160] "A smock of cambrik wrought about the collar and sleeves with black silke; the ruffe wrought with Venice gold and edged with a small bone lace of Venice gold."--_Christmas Presents to the Queen_, by Sir G. Carew. "7 ounces of Venice 'laquei bone' of gold and black silk; lace ruff edged with Venice gold lace," etc. _G. W. A. Eliz., passim_, P. R. O. [161] 1587. [162] Madame de Puissieux died in 1677, at the age of eighty. [163] Venice points are not mentioned by name till the ordinance of 1654. See GREEK ISLANDS. [164] _Hudibras._ [165] Italy we believe to have furnished her own thread. "Fine white or nun's thread is made by the Augustine nuns of Crema, twisted after the same manner as the silk of Bolonia," writes Skippin, 1651. [166] _Halimedia opuntia_, Linn. [167] That most frequently met with is the Corona of Vecellio. See APPENDIX. [168] First mentioned in the Sforza Inventory, 1493 (see MILAN); not in the pattern-books till Vecellio, 1592; but Taglienti (1530) gives "su la rete," and "Il specchio di Pensieri" (1548), "purito in rede." [169] Plate V. [170] First given in the _Honesto Esempio_. 1550 and _passim_. [171] Mentioned by Taglienti (1530), and afterwards in the _Trionfo_ (1555), and _passim_. [172] Given in _Il Monte_, circ. 1550, but described by Firenzuola earlier. See FLORENCE. [173] See Chap. III., notes 104 and 106. [174] "Toile de la Pale."--A pasteboard about eight inches square, enclosed in cambric or lace, used to cover the paten when laid over the cup. [175] The whole furniture of a room taken from a palace at Naples, comprising curtains, and vallance of a bed, window curtains, toilet, etc., of straw-coloured laces, reticella, embroidered netting, etc.; the price asked was 18,000 francs = £720. There was also much of the rose point, and a handkerchief bordered with beautiful flat Venetian point of the same colour, forming part of a trousseau. 700 francs = £28. [176] Taglienti (1530) has _groppi_, _moreschi_, and _arabeschi_; and _Il Specchio_ (1548), _ponti gropposi_. See also the Sforza Inventory, 1493. [177] See GENOA. [178] Taglienti (1530) gives _a magliata_, Parasole (1600) _lavori di maglia_. [179] _Punti a stuora_ occur in _Il Specchio_ (1548), _I Frutti_ (1564), and in the _Vera Perfettione_ (1591) the word _stuora_ (modern, _stuoja_) means also a mat of plaited rushes, which some of these interlaced patterns may be intended to imitate. [180] _Burato._ See APPENDIX. [181] There are many patterns for this work in _Le Pompe di Minerva_, 1642. Taglienti (1530) has _desfilato_ among his _punti_. [182] Many other points are enumerated in the pattern-books, of which we know nothing, such as _gasii_ (_I Frutti_, 1564), _trezola_ (_Ibid_), _rimessi_ (_Vera Perfettione_, 1591), _opere a mazzette_ (Vecellio, 1591, and Lucretia Bomana, N.D.). [183] _Tracts on Trade of the Seventeenth Century_, published by MacCulloch, at the expense of Lord Monteagle. 1856. [184] Venice point forms a considerable item in the expenses of Charles II. and his brother James. [185] Venice noted "for needlework laces, called points."--_Travels Thro' Italy and France_, by J. Ray. 1738. [186] Misson, F. M., _Nouveau Voyage d'Italie_, 4me édition. La Haye, 1702. [187] _Origine delle Feste Veneziane_, da Giustina R. Michiel. Milano, 1829. [188] _An Itinerary, containing his Ten Yeeres Travel through Germany, Bohmerland, Switzerland, Netherland, Denmark, Poland, Italy, Turkey, France, England, Scotland, and Ireland._ Lond., 1617. [189] 1591. [190] See, in APPENDIX, designs for _bavari_ by Lucrezia. [191] The entry of the Venetian ambassador, Mocenigo, is described in the _Mercure Galant_, 1709:-- "Il avoit un rabat de point de Venise.... Sa robe de damas noir avec des grandes manches qui pendoient par derrière. Cette robe etoit garnie de dentelle noir." [192] _Letters from Italy._ So, in a play of Goldoni, who wrote in the middle of the last century, the lady has a Brussels (Angleterre) head-dress. Don Flaminio: "Mi par bellisima cotesto pizzo Barbara: E un punto d'Inghilterra che ha qualche merito."--_Gli Amori di Zelinda e Lindoro._ In Goldoni's plays all the ladies make lace on the pillow (_ballon_), so the art of making the needle Venice point was probably at an end. [193] "La plus belle dentelle noire fait l'espèce de camail qui, sous un chapeau noir emplumé, couvre leurs épaules et leur tête."--Madame du Boccage, 1735. _Lettres sur l'Italie._ "Quella specie de lungo capuocio di finissimo merlo pur nero, chiamato bauta."--Michiel. [194] "L'île de Burano où l'on fabrique les dentelles."--Quadri, _Huit Jours à Venise_. [195] _Technical History of Venetian Laces_, Urbani de Gheltof. Translated by Lady Layard. Venice, 1882. _Origines de la Dentelle de Venise et l'École de Burano._ Venice, 1897. Traditions of lace-making were kept alive in Venice, Cantu and Liguria during the first half of the nineteenth century by the manufacture of an inferior quality of _blonde_, once extensively made at Venice, which has since died out, owing to the revival in the production of thread-lace and guipures at Palestrina. [196] "Velleto (veil) uno d'oro filato. "Payro uno fodrete (pillow-case) di cambria lavorate a gugia (à l'aiguille). "Lenzuolo (sheet) uno di revo di tele (linen thread), cinque lavorato a punto. "Peza una de tarnete (trina) d'argento facte a stelle. "Lenzolo uno de tele, quatro lavorato a _radexelo_ (reticello). "Peze quatro de _radexela_ per mettere ad uno moscheto (zanzariere, mosquito curtain). "Tarneta una d'oro et seda negra facta da ossi (bones). "Pecto uno d'oro facto _a grupi_. "Lavoro uno de rechamo facto _a grupi_ dove era suso le pere de Madona Biancha. "Binda una lavorata a poncto de doii fuxi (two bobbins) per uno lenzolo."--_Instrumento di divizione tre le sorelle Angela ed Ippolita Sforza Visconti_, di Milano, 1493, Giorno di Giovedì, 12 Settembre. [197] "La mità de uno fagotto quale aveva dentro certi dissegni da lavorare le donne." [198] Harl. MS. No. 1419. [199] Roll. P. R. O. [200] P. R. O. [201] De la Mare, _Traité de la Police_. [202] "Statuts, Ordonnances et Reglemens de la Communauté des Maistres Passementiers, etc., de Paris, confirmez sur les anciens Statuts du 23 mars 1558." Paris, 1719. [203] _Grand Dictionnaire Universel du Commerce._ 1723. [204] _Voyage en Italie._ 1765. [205] Peuchet, J., _Dictionnaire Universel de la Géographie Commerçante._ Paris, An vii. = 1799. [206] _Letters from Italy_, by a lady. 1770. "Questo collar scolpì la donna mia De basso rilevar, ch' Aracne mai, E chi la vinse nol faria più bello. Mira quel bel fogliame, ch' un acanto Sembra, che sopra un mur vada carponi. Mira quei fior, ch' un candido ne cade Vicino al seme, apr' or la bocia l'altro. Quei cordiglin, che'l legan d'ognitorno, Come rilevan ben! mostrando ch' ella E' la vera maestra di quest' arte, Com ben compartiti son quei punti! Ve' come son ugual quei bottoncelli, Come s' alzano in guisa d'un bel colle L'un come l' altro!... Questi merli da man, questi trafori Fece pur ella, et questo punto a spina, Che mette in mezzo questo cordoncello, Ella il fe pure, ella lo fece." --_Elegia sopra un Collaretto_, Firenzuola (circ. 1520). [208] Rymer's _Foedera_ (38 Hen. VIII. = 1546). [209] 4 Hen. VII. = 1488-89. [210] _Compte des dépenses de la maison de Madame Marguerite de France, Soeur du Roi._--Bib. Nat. MSS. F. Fr. 10,394. [211] _Comptes de la Reine de Navarre._--Arch. Nat., K. K. 170. [212] In 1535. [213] She died in 1862. [214] See VENICE, 1. [215] _Inventaire du Trésor de N. D. de Lorette._--Bib. Nat. MSS. [216] _Letters from Italy._ [217] The _gremial_, or apron, placed on the lap of the Roman Catholic bishops when performing sacred functions in a sitting posture.--Pugin's _Glossary of Ecclesiastical Ornament_. [218] This reminds one of the lines of Goldsmith, in his poem, "The Haunch of Venison," the giving of venison to hungry poets who were in want of mutton; he says: "Such dainties to send them their health it would hurt; It's like sending them ruffles when wanting a shirt." [219] _A true Relation of the Travailes, and most miserable Captivitie of W. Davies._ Lond., 1614. [220] _An Italian Voyage, or a Complete Journey through Italy_, by Rich. Lassels, Gent. 2nd edit., Lond., 1698. A reprint, with additions by another hand, of the original edition. Paris, 1670. Lowndes' _Bibliographer's Manual_. Bohn's new edit. [221] "Portano alcune vesti di tela di lino sottile, lunghe fino in terra, con maniche larghe assai, attorno alle quali sono attaccati alcuni merletti lavorati di refe sottilissimo."--Habiti di donna dell' Isola d' Ischia. _Degli Habiti Antichi e Moderni di Diverse Parti del Mondo di Cesare Vecellio._ Venezia, 1590. [222] We have among the points given by Taglienti (1530), "pugliese." Lace is still made in Puglia and the other southern provinces of Naples and in Sicily. The Contessa di Brazza says that Punto Pugliese resembled Russian and Roumanian embroidery. [223] Brydone, _Tour through Sicily_. 1773. [224] From the tax-books preserved in the Archives of S. George, it appears that a tax upon gold thread of four danari upon every lira in value of the worked material was levied, which between 1411 and 1420 amounted to L. 73,387. From which period this industry rapidly declined, and the workers emigrated.--Merli. [225] Signore Tessada, the great lace fabricant of Genoa, carries back the manufacture of Italian lace as early as the year 1400, and forwarded to the author specimens which he declares to be of that date. [226] "Laqueo serico Jeano de coloribus, ad 5s. per doz." _G. W. A. Eliz._--16 & 17 and 19 & 20. P. R. O. [227] Dated 1639. [228] _Garderobe de feue Madame._ 1646. Bib. Nat. MSS. F. Fr. 11,426. [229] Le Vray Théatre d'Honneur et de Chevalerie. Paris, 1648. [230] Queen Christina is described by the Grande Mademoiselle, on the occasion of her visit, as wearing "au cou, un mouchoir de point de Gênes, noué avec un ruban couleur de feu."--_Mém. de Mademoiselle de Montpensier._ "Item, ung peignoir, tablier et cornette de toile baptiste garnie de point de Gênes."--1644. _Inv. de la Comtesse de Soissons._ "Un petit manteau brodé et son collet de point de Gênes."--_The Chevalier d'Albret._ "Linge, bijoux et points de Gênes."--Loret, _Muse Historique_. 1650. "Item, ung autre mouchoir de point de Gênes."--_Inv. du Maréchal de La Motte._ 1657. [231] _Mém._, t. xiv., p. 286. [232] Signore Tessada has in his possession a pair of gold lappets of very beautiful design, made at Genoa about the year 1700. [233] _Letters from Italy._ 1770. [234] Cavasco. _Statistique de Gênes._ 1840. [235] The bobbins appear to have been made in Italy of various materials. We have _Merletti a fusi_, in which case they are of wood. The Sforza inventory gives _a doii fuxi_, "two bobbins," then _a ossi_, "of bone," and, lastly, _a piombini_; and it is very certain that lead was used for bobbins in Italy. See PARASOLE (1600). [236] _Memorie Storiche di Santa Margherita._ Genoese pillow-laces are not made with the réseau, but joined by bars. Of Milan lace it is said, "It resembles Genoese pillow-lace in having the same scrolls and flowers formed by a ribbon in close stitch, with a _mesh_ or _tulle_ ground, whereas the Genoese lace is held together by bars."--C. di Brazza, _Old and New Lace in Italy_ (1893). [237] Lefébure writes, "A version of these Milanese laces has been produced by using tape for the scroll forms and flowers, and filling in the open portions between the tapes by needlework stitches." The C. di Brazza calls similar lace _Punto di Rapallo_ or _Liguria_, a lace formed by a ribbon or braid of close lace following the outline of the design with fancy gauze stitches made by knotting with a crochet needle. The special characteristic of this lace is that the braid is constantly thrown over what has gone before. The design is connected by brides. A modification, where the braid is very fine and narrow, and the turnings extremely complicated, and enriched by no fancy stitches between, is _Punto a Vermicelli_.--_Old and New Lace in Italy._ [238] Communicated by Sig. Gio. Tessada, Junr., of Genoa. [239] Gandolfi, _Considerazioni Agrario_. [240] A small borgo, about an hour's drive from Savona, on the road leading to Genoa. [241] Cav. Merli. [242] In the Albert Museum of Exeter are several of these tallies marked with the names of their owners--Bianca, Maria Crocera, and others. [243] "Many skilful lace-makers in Italy have for some time imitated the old laces and sold them as such to travellers. A Venetian lace-worker, now residing at Ferrara, can copy any old lace known" (Mrs. Palliser, 1864). [244] This lappet, 357-68, in the Victoria and Albert Museum collection, was described by Mrs. Palliser as "Argentella," and supposed to be of Genoese workmanship. "Formerly much of it was to be met with in the curiosity shops of that city, but now it is of rare occurrence. The Duchess of Genoa possesses a splendid flounce of the same lace, with the Doria eagle introduced into the pattern. It formerly belonged to the Marchesa Barbaretta Saule" (Mrs. Palliser, _History of Lace_, 1864). Contessa di Brazza suggests that Argentella was the Italian for Argentan. [245] Called by the people of the Riviera, _filo del baccalà di Castellaro_. Aloe fibre was formerly used for thread (Letter of Sig. C. G. Schiappapietra). It is also styled _filo di freta_ in the Venetian sumptuary ordinances. [246] The Author has to express her grateful thanks to Signore Don Tommaso Torteroli, librarian to the city of Savona, and the author of an interesting pamphlet (_Storia dei Merletti di Genova lavorati in Albissola_, Sinigaglia, 1863), for specimens of the ancient laces of Albissola, and many other valuable communications. [247] A word of Arabic derivation, used for denoting a fringe for trimming, whether cotton, thread, or silk. [248] This custom of ornamenting the ends of the threads of linen was from the earliest times common, and is still occasionally met with both in the north and south of Europe. "At Bayonne they make the finest of linen, some of which is made open like network, and the thread is finer than hair" (_Ingenious and Diverting Letters of a Lady's Travels in Spain_, London, 1679). There is a painting of the "Last Supper" at Hampton Court Palace, by Sebastian Ricci, in which the tablecloth is edged with cut-work; and in the great picture in the Louvre, by Paul Veronese, of the supper at the house of Simon the Canaanite, the ends of the tablecloth are likewise fringed and braided like the _macramé_. [249] LACE SCHOOLS IN ITALY.--At Coccolia, near Ravenna, Countess Pasolini founded a school on her property to teach and employ the peasant women and copy antique designs. Another more recently established school near Udine, in the province of Friuli, is under the direction of the Contessa di Brazza. Among charitable institutions which interest themselves in the lace industry are the Industrial School of SS. Ecce Homo at Naples, and San Ramiri at Pisa, which was originally founded by the Grand Dukes of Tuscany in the middle of the eighteenth century to teach weaving. This industry, and that of straw-plaiting, met with no success, and the school gradually developed into an industrial school in the modern sense. There are many schools on the same system in Florence, and one (San Pelegrino) at Bologna. At Sassari, in Sardinia, the deaf and dumb children in the great institution of the "Figlie di Maria" are taught to make net lace. Torchon and Brussels pillow lace is worked under the direction of the Sisters of Providence in the women's prison at Perugia. [250] Laborde, _Glossaire_. Paris, 1853. [251] Statute 2 Hen. VI., c. x., 1423. [252] Taglienti (1530) among his _punti_ gives _Ciprioto_ (an embroidery stitch). [253] _Description de Raguse_ (Bib. Nat. MSS., F.Fr. 10,772). [254] Points de Raguse--first mentioned in an Edict of January, 1654, by which the king raises for his own profit one quarter of the value of the "passems, dentelles, points coupez de Flandres, pointinars, points de Venise, de Raguse, de Gênes," etc. (_Recueil des Lois Françaises_). Again, the Ordinance of August, 1665, establishes the points de France, "en la manière des points qui se font à Venise, Gênes, Raguse, et autres pays étrangers," recited in the _Arrêt_ of Oct. 12th, 1666.--De Lamare, _Traité de la Police_. [255] See VENICE. [256] In 1661. [257] See head of chapter. [258] In 1667. [259] See APPENDIX. [260] _A Descriptive Catalogue of the Collections of Lace in the Victoria and Albert Museum_, by the late Mrs. Bury Palliser. Third edition, revised and enlarged by A. S. Cole. [261] _Edinburgh Advertiser_, 1764. [262] There is no corroboration of Mrs. Palliser's statement above that lace was ever made in Malta; if so, it would have been of the Genoese geometrical kind, of which Lady Hamilton Chichester adapted the designs and evolved what is now known as Maltese lace by the aid of workers imported from Genoa. The Maltese cross has been introduced into the designs as a distinguishing mark. [263] "A lace of similar character (Maltese) has also been made successfully in the missionary schools at Madras" (Mrs. Palliser). [264] Lefébure, _Embroidery and Lace_. [265] In the Philippine Islands the natives work Manilla grass into a sort of drawn thread-work or tatting. [266] 1756. _Point d'Espagne hats._--Connoisseur. [267] Beckmann, in his _History of Inventions_, says that "It was a fashion to give the name of Spanish to all kinds of novelties, such as Spanish flies, Spanish wax, Spanish green, Spanish grass, Spanish seed, and others." [268] A. S. Cole. "Cantor Lectures on the Art of Lace-Making." [269] _Livre Nouveau de Patrons_ and _Fleurs des Patrons_ give various stitches to be executed "en fil d'or, d'argent, de soie, et d'autres." Both printed at Lyons. The first has no date; the second, 1549. _Le Pompe_, Venezia, 1559, has "diversi sorti di mostre per poter far, d'oro, di sete, di filo," etc. [270] "Not many years since, a family at Cadiz, of Jewish extraction, still enjoyed the monopoly of manufacturing gold and silver lace."--_Letter from Spain_, 1863. _Merletto Polichrome_, or parti-coloured lace, was also invented and perfected by the Jews, and was made in silk of various colours, representing fruit and flowers. This industry has been revived in Venice, and carried to great perfection. [271] Senor J. F. Riano. _The Industrial Arts in Spain._--"Lace." [272] "Spain has 8,932 convents, containing 94,000 nuns and monks."--Townsend, J., _Journey Through Spain in the Years 1786 and 1787_. [273] The aloe thread is now used in Florence for sewing the straw-plait. [274] Barcelona, 1892, page 225, quoted by Signor J. F. Riano. Date of book 1592. [275] A. S. Cole, _Ancient Needle-point and Pillow-Lace_. [276] This ordinance even extended to foreign courts. We read in the Mercure _Galant_, 1679, of the Spanish ambassadress, "Elle etoit vestue de drap noir avec de la dentelle de soye; elle n'avait ni dentelle ni linge autour de sa gorge." [277] _Mercure François._ [278] They have also provided-- "14 ruffs & 14 pairs of cuffs laced, at 20s. £14 For lacing 8 hats for the footmen with silver parchment lace, at 3s. £1 4s." _Extraordinary Expenses of his Highness to Spain_, 1623. P. R. O. [279] Doctor Monçada, in 1660, and Osorio, in 1686, reckoned more than three millions of Spaniards who, though well dressed, wore no shirts.--_Townsend's Spain._ [280] Speaking of the apartment of Madame d'Aranda, Beckford writes: "Her bed was of the richest blue velvet, trimmed with point lace." [281] Our English translation of _Don Quixote_ has led some authors into adducing a passage as an evidence that the art of making bone lace was already known in Cervantes' day. "Sanchica," writes Theresa Pança to her husband, the newly-appointed Governor of Baratava, "makes bone lace, and gets eight maravedis a day, which she drops into a tin box to help towards household stuff. But now that she is a governor's daughter, you will give her a fortune, and she will not have to work for it." In referring to the original Spanish we find the words rendered bone lace are "puntas de randas," signifying works of lacis or réseuil--"ouvrage de lacis ou réseuil."--Oudin. _Trésor des Deux Langues Fr. et Esp._ (1660). [282] As early as the Great Wardrobe Account of Queen Elizabeth, 1587, P. R. O., we have a charge for bobbin lace of Spanish silk, "cum uñ tag," for the mantle, 10s. 8d. In a letter from Prestwick Eaton to Geo. Willingham, 1631, the writer sends 1000 reals (£25), and in return desires him to send, together with a mastiff dog, some black satin lace for a Spanish suit.--_State Papers, Domestic_, Car. I., P. R. O. [283] 1697. Marriage of Mademoiselle and the King of Spain. The Queen, says the _Mercure_, wore "une mante de point d'Espagne d'or, neuf aunes de long." 1698. Fête at Versailles on the marriage of the Duc de Bourgogne. "La Duchesse de Bourgogne pourtoit un petit tablier de point d'Espagne de mille pistoles."--_Galérie de l'ancienne Cour; ou Mém. des Règnes de Louis XIV. et Louis XV._, 1788. 1722. Ball at the Tuileries. "Tous les seigneurs etaient en habits de drap d'or ou d'argent garnis de points d'Espagne, avec des noeuds d'épaule, et tout l'ajustement à proportion. Les moindres etaient de velours, avec des points d'Espagne d'or et d'argent."--_Journal de Barbier_, 1718-62. 1722. "J'ai vu en même temps le carosse que le roi fait faire pour entrer dans Reims, il sera aussi d'une grande magnificence. Le dedans est tout garni d'un velours à ramage de points d'Espagne d'or."--_Ibid._ 1731. Speaking of her wedding-dress, Wilhelmina of Bayreuth, the witty sister of Frederick the Great, writes: "Ma robe étoit d'une étoffe d'or fort riche, avec un point d'Espagne d'or, et ma queue étoit de douze aunes de long."--_Mémoires._ 1751. Fête at Versailles on the birth of the Duc de Bourgogne. The coats of the "gens de cour, en étoffes d'or de grand prix ou en velours de tout couleurs, brodés d'or, ou garnis de point d'Espagne d'or."--_Journal de Barbier._ [284] _Fenix de Cataluña, compendio desus Antiguas Grandezas y Medio para Renovarlas_, Barcelona, 1683, p. 75. [285] In the reign of William and Mary, we find, in a lace-man's bill of the Queen, a charge for forty-seven yards of rich, broad, scalloped, embossed point de Spain; and her shoes are trimmed with gold and silver lace.--B. M., Add. MSS.; No. 5751. At the entry of Lord Stair into Paris, 1719, his servants' hats are described as laced with Spanish point, their sleeves laced with picked silver lace, and dented at the edge with lace.--_Edinburgh Courant._ In 1740, the Countess of Pomfret, speaking of the Princess Mary's wedding clothes, writes: "That for the wedding night is silver tissue, faced at the bottom before with pink-coloured satin, trimmed with silver point d'Espagne."--_Letters of the Countess of Hartford to the Countess of Pomfret_, 1740. [286] Marquis de la Gombardière, 1634, _Nouveau Réglement Général des Finances_, etc. [287] "Eighty children and grandchildren attended his funeral in defiance of the Edict of 19th Sept., 1664, and were heavily fined."--_La France Protestante_, par M. M. Haag. Paris, 1846-59. [288] Garderobe de S. A. S. Mgr. le Duc de Penthièvre. Arch. Nat. K. K. 390-1. [289] Lord Verulam on the treaty of commerce with the Emperor Maximilian. [290] _Gentleman's Magazine_, 1745. [291] Peyron, 1789. [292] Madrid, 1775. [293] _Itinéraire de l'Espagne_, Comte Alph. de Laborde, t. v. [294] Peuchet (_Dictionnaire Universel de la Géographie Commerçante_, An. vii. = 1799), speaking of Barcelona, says their laces are "façon de France," but inferior in beauty and quality. The fabrication is considerable, employing 2,000 women in the towns and villages east of Barcelona. They are sold in Castile, Andalusia, and principally in the Indies. [295] Madrid, 1788. Vol. ii, p. 149. [296] _Ibid._ Vol. xvii., p. 294. [297] "The manufacture of silk lace or blonde in Almagro occupies from 12,000 to 13,000 people" (Mrs. Palliser, 1869). Modern torchon laces are still made at Almagro to a very large extent (1901). [298] Madrid, 1788. [299] Madrid, 1797. [300] Senor Juan F. Riano, _The Industrial Arts in Spain_, "Lace" (London, 1879). [301] _Theory of Commerce_, from the Spanish of Don. Ger. de Ustariz (Lond., 1751). [302] When the holidays of the Roman Catholic church are deducted, the work-days of the people amount only to 260 in the course of the year--fifty less than in a Protestant country. [303] Ford, _Handbook of Spain_. [304] 1869. [305] "Now there are only two kinds of lace made in Spain; 'encaje de blonda,' mantillas, scarves, lace-ties, etc., in white and black; these are manufactured in Barcelona, on long pillows stuffed with long straw quite hard, covered with yellow or light blue linen. The lace is worked on a cardboard pattern, and with 'fuseaux' like the French torchon lace, the only difference being that the pillow is long and narrow and without the revolving cylinder in the centre, so that when making a long piece, or lace by the yard, the pins have to be taken out when you get to the bottom of the pillow, and the work removed to the top and continued. The mantillas, etc., are worked by pieces; that is to say, the border, flowers, and large designs, and are afterwards joined by the veil stitch. "The second is 'encaje de Almagro'--little children of six and seven years old are taught to make it."--_Letter from Spain_, 1901. [306] "On met de la dentelle brodée de couleur de points d'Espagne aux jupes"--_Mercure Galant._ [307] _Recherches sur le Commerce, la Fabrication et l'Usage des Etoffes de Soie, etc., pendant le Moyen Age._ Paris, 1839. [308] Taglienti, Venice, 1530. [309] Paris, 1546. [310] Pelegrin de Florence, Paris, 1530. [311] _Magazin de Londres_, 1749. [312] Mademoiselle Dumont, foundress of the point de France fabric, in the Rue St. Denis, quitted Paris after some years and retired to Portugal: whether she there introduced her art is more than the author can affirm. [313] It was probably a variety of point de Venise. A few years ago a specimen of point plat was exhibited in London with a Portuguese inscription and designs of figures in costumes of _circ._ 1600. See Plate IX. [314] The bobbins from Peniche, one of the few places in Portugal where pillow-lace is still made, are remarkably pretty. They are of ivory, agreeably mellowed by time and constant handling, and their slender tapering shafts and bulbous ends are decorated simply but tastefully with soft-tinted staining. In size they are small, measuring from three and a quarter to three and a half inches long, and these proportions are extremely good. Another variety of Peniche bobbin is made of dark brown, boldly-grained wood. The lace-makers work on a long cylindrical cushion--the _almofada_--fastened to a high, basket-work stand, light enough to be easily moved from place to place.--R. E. Head, "Some Notes on Lace-Bobbins," _The Reliquary_, July, 1900. [315] _The Queen_, August, 1872. "The places in Portugal where the lace industry is chiefly exercised are Peniche, Vianna do Castello, Setubal, a village in Algarve called Faro, and at the present time Lisbon, where, under the help and patronage of H. M. the Queen, a lace dépot has been instituted, in which I have worked for ten years, seeking to raise the Portuguese lace industry to an art. The designs being entirely my own original ones, I am trying to give them a character in unison with the general idea of the architecture throughout the country. I obtained gold medals for my work at the Exhibitions of 1894 at Antwerp and 1900 at Paris, besides others at Lisbon."--Letter from Dona Maria Bordallo Pinheiro, head of the Lace Industry Department at Lisbon, 1901. [316] "There are now seven families employed in the fabrication of Maltese lace, which is made almost entirely by men; the women occupy themselves in the open-work embroidery of muslin" (1869). [317] Those in the collegiate church of St. Peter's, at Louvain, and in the church of St. Gomar, at Lierre (Antwerp Prov.).--Aubry. [318] Baron Reiffenberg, in _Mémoires de l'Académie de Bruxelles_. 1820. [319] Engraved by Collaert. Bib. Nat. Grav. [320] _Louvain dans le passé et dans le présent, formation de la ville, événements memorables, territoire, topographie, institutions, monuments, oeuvres d'art_, page 330, by Edward van Even, published 1895. [321] M. de Barante. [322] It goes on: "For the maiden, seated at her work, plies her fingers rapidly, and flashes the smooth balls and thousand threads into the circle. Often she fastens with her hand the innumerable needles, to bring out the various figures of the pattern; often, again, she unfastens them; and in this her amusement makes as much profit as the man earns by the sweat of his brow; and no maiden ever complains at even of the length of the day. The issue is a fine web, open to the air with many an aperture, which feeds the pride of the whole globe; which encircles with its fine border cloaks and tuckers, and shows grandly round the throats and hands of kings; and, what is more surprising, this web is of the lightness of a feather, which in its price is too heavy for our purses. Go, ye men, inflamed with the desire of the Golden Fleece, endure so many dangers by land, so many at sea, whilst the woman, remaining in her Brabantine home, prepares Phrygian fleeces by peaceful assiduity."--_Jacobi Eyckii Antwerpiensis Urbium Belgicarum Centuria._ Antw. 1651. 1 vol., 4to. Bib. Royale, Brussels. [323] Alençon excepted. [324] It is said to destroy the eyesight. "I was told by a gentleman well acquainted with Flanders," says McPherson, "that they were generally almost blind before thirty years of age."--_History of Commerce_, 1785. [325] Together with the cap is preserved a parchment with this inscription: "Gorro que perteneccio à Carlos Quinto, emperad. Guarda lo, hijo mio, es memoria de Juhan de Garnica." ("Cap which belonged to the Emperor Charles V. Keep it, my son, in remembrance of John de Garnica"). J. de Garnica was treasurer to Philip II. Séguin, however, is of opinion that this cap belonged to one of Charles V.'s successors:-- "Ce bonnet ... a dû appartenir très certainement à un de ses successeurs (of Charles V.), à cause que ce bonnet se trouve coupé et encadré par un petit entre-deux de guipure au fuseau, façon point de Gênes, qui ne pouvait pas avoir été fait du temps de Charles Quint."--Séguin, _La Dentelle_. [326] Married, 1599, Albert, Archduke of Austria. [327] By Andrew Yarranton, Gent. London, 1677. A proposal to erect schools for teaching and improving the linen manufacture as they do "in Flanders and Holland, where little girls from six years old upwards learn to employ their fingers." Hadrianus Junius, a most learned writer, in his description of the Netherlands, highly extols the fine needlework and linen called cambric of the Belgian nuns, which in whiteness rivals the snow, in texture satin, and in price the sea-silk--Byssus, or beard of the Pinna. [328] An old term, still used in Scotland, for gossip, chatter. [329] These dogs were of large size, and able to carry from 22 to 26 lbs. They also conveyed tobacco. The Swiss dogs smuggle watches. [330] Black lace was also imported at this period from the Low Countries. Among the articles advertised as lost, in the _Newsman_ of May 26th, 1664, is, "A black lute-string gown with a black Flanders lace." [331] Mercure Galant. 1678. [332] "Le corsage et les manches étaient bordés d'une blanche et légère dentelle, sortie à coup sûr des meilleures manufactures d'Angleterre." [333] We have, however, one entry in the Wardrobe Accounts of the Duc de Penthièvre: "1738. Onze aunes d'Angleterre de Flandre." [334] _Mercure Galant._ 1678. [335] "Deux paires de manchettes et une cravatte de point d'Angleterre."--_Inventaire d'Anne d'Escoubleau, Baronne de Sourdis, veuve de François de Simiane._ Arch. Nat. M. M. 802. [336] _Inv. après le decès de Mgr. Mich. Philippine de la Vrillière, Patriarche, Archevêque de Bourges_, 1694. Bib. Nat. MSS. F. Fr. 11,426. "Une toilette et sa touaille avec un peignoir de point d'Angleterre."--_Inv. de decès de Mademoiselle de Charollais._ 1758. Arch. Nat. [337] _Mrs. Calderwood's Journey through Holland and Belgium_, 1756. Printed by the Maitland Club. [338] Flax is also cultivated solely for lace and cambric thread at St. Nicholas, Tournay, and Courtrai. The process of steeping (_rouissage_) principally takes place at Courtrai, the clearness of the waters of the Lys rendering them peculiarly fitted for the purpose. Savary states that fine thread was first spun at Mechlin. [339] It is often sold at £240 per lb., and in the Report of the French Exhibition of 1859 it is mentioned as high as £500 (25,000fr. the kilogramme). No wonder that so much thread is made by machinery, and that Scotch cotton thread is so generally used, except for the choicest laces. But machine-made thread has never attained the fineness of that made by hand. Of those in the Exhibition of 1862, the finest Lille was 800 leas (a technical term for a reel of 300 yards), the Brussels 600, the Manchester 700; whereas in Westphalia and Belgium hand-spun threads as fine as 800 to 1000 are spun for costly laces. The writer has seen specimens, in the Museum at Lille, equal to 1200 of machinery; but this industry is so poorly remunerated, that the number of skilful hand-spinners is fast diminishing. [340] _Dictionnaire du Citoyen._ 1761. [341] _Comptes de Madame du Barry._ Bib. Nat. MSS. F. Fr. 8157 and 8. [342] "Trois aubes de batiste garnies de grande dentelle de gros point d'Angleterre."--_Inv. des Meubles, etc., de Louis, Duc d'Orléans, decedé 4 fev. 1752._ (Son of the Regent.) Arch. Nat. X. 10,075. "Deux aubes de point d'Angleterre servant à Messieurs les curez. "Une autre aube à dentelle de gros point servant aussy à M. le curé."--_Inventaire et Description de l'Argenterie, Vermeil Doré, Ornemens, Linge, etc., appartenant à l'Oeuvre et Fabrique de l'église Saint-Merry à Paris._ 1714. Arch. Nat. L.L. 859. [343] "Une coëffure à une pièce d'Angleterre bride et réseau."--_Comptes de Madame du Barry._ "1 aune et quart d'Angleterre mêlé."--_Ibid._ [344] Mrs. Delany writes ("Corr.," vol. 2): The laces "I have pitched on for you are charming; it is grounded Brussels." "Deux tours de gorge à raiseau, un tour de camisolle à bride."--1720. _Inv. de la Duchesse de Bourbon._ Arch. Nat. X. 10,062-4. "Six peignoirs de toille fine garnis par en haut d'une vielle dentelle d'Angleterre à raiseau."--_Inv. de decès de Monsieur Philippe petit fils de France, Duc d'Orléans, Regent du Royaume, decedé 2 décembre, 1723._ Arch. Nat. X. 10,067. The "fond écaillé" often occurs. "Une coëffure à une pièce de point à l'écaille; "Une paire de manchettes de cour de point à raizeau, et deux devants de corps de point à brides à écailles."--1761. _Inv. de la Duchesse de Modène._ Arch. Nat. X. 10,082. "Deux barbes, rayon, et fond d'Angleterre superfin fond écaillé."--_Comptes de Madame du Barry._ See her _Angleterre_, Chap. XI. note 26. [345] To which machinery has added a third, the tulle or Brussels net. [346] The needleground is three times as expensive as the pillow, because the needle is passed four times into each mesh, whereas in the pillow it is not passed at all. [347] "Trois oreillers, l'un de toille blanche picquée garnis autour de chacun d'un point plat."--_Inv. de la Duchesse de Modène._ [348] _Tableau de Paris_, par S. Mercier. Amsterdam, 1782. [349] "Fashion." J. Warton. [350] Brussels lace-makers divide the plat into three parts, the "mat," the close part answering to the French _toilé_ (Chapter III.); _gaze au fuseau_, in which small interstices appear, French _grillé_, and the _jours_, or open work. [351] The veil presented by the city of Brussels to the Empress Josephine was sold in 1816 by Eugene Beauharnais to Lady Jane Hamilton. It is described to have been of such ample dimensions that, when placed on Lady Jane's head--who was upwards of six feet high--it trained on the ground. The texture of the réseau was exquisitely fine. In each corner was the imperial crown and cypher, encircled with wreaths of flowers. This _chef d'oeuvre_ passed into the possession of Lady Jane's daughter, the Duchesse de Coigny. [352] To afford an idea of the intrinsic value of Brussels lace, we give an estimate of the expense of a fine flounce (_volant_), of _vrai réseau mélangé_ (point and plat), 12 metres long by 35 centimetres wide (13¼ yards by 14 inches)-- Fr. Cost of the plat 1,885.75 Needle-point 5,000 Open-work, _jours_ (_fonnage_) 390 Appliqué (_stricage_) 800 Ground (_réseau_) 2,782 Footing (_engrêlure_) 1.27 --------- Total 10,859.02 --------- = £434 7 6 Equals £36 3s. 9d. the metre, and the selling price would be about £50 16s., which would make the flounces amount to £609 12s. [353] "Une paire de manchettes de dentelle de Malines brodée." "Quatre bonnets de nuit garnis de Malines brodée."--_Inv. de decès de Mademoiselle de Charollais._ 1758. [354] _Inv. de la Duchesse de Bourbon._ 1720. "1704. Deux fichus garnis de dentelle de Malines à bride ou rézeau. "Une cravatte avec les manchettes de point de Malines à bride. "Deux autres cravattes de dentelle de Malines à rézeau et trois paires de manchettes de pareille dentelle."--_Inv. de Franç. Phelypeaux Loisel._ Bib. Nat. MSS. F. Fr. 11,459. [355] _Inv. de decès de Madame Anne, Palatine de Bavière, Princesse de Condé._ 1723. Arch. de Nat. X. 10,065. [356] In the accounts of Madame du Barry, we have "Malines bâtarde à bordure." [357] _Inv. après le decès de Mgr. le Maréchal de la Motte._ Bib. Nat. MSS. F. Fr. 11,426. "Quatre paires de manchettes garnyes de passement tant de Venise, Gennes, et de Malines." [358] _Voyage en Flandre._ 1681. [359] B. M. Add. MSS. No. 5751. [360] Gr. Ward. Acc. P. R. O. [361] _Ibid._ [362] "On chamarre les jupes en quiles de dentelles plissées."--_Mercure Galant._ 1678. "Un volant dentelle d'Angleterre plissée."--_Extraordinaire du Mercure. Quartier d'Esté._ 1678. [363] "1741. Une coiffure de nuit de Malines à raizeau campanée de deux pièces. "Une paire de manches de Malines brodée a raizeau campanée, un tour de gorge, et une garniture de corset."--_Inv. de Mademoiselle de Clermont._ "1761. Une paire de manches de Malines bridés non campanée, tour de gorge, et garniture de corset."--_Inv. de la Duchesse de Modène._ [364] "1720. Une garniture de teste à trois pièces de dentelle de Malines à bride. "Deux peignoirs de toile d'Hollande garnis de dentelle, l'une d'Angleterre à bride et l'autre de Maline à raiseau."--_Inv. de la Duchesse de Bourbon._ "1750. Une dormeuse de Malines."--_Inv. de Mademoiselle de Charollais._ "1770. 5½ grande hauteur de Malines pour une paire de manchettes, 264 francs. "1 au. jabot pour le tour de gorge, 16. "5 au. ¼ Malines pour garnir 3 chemises au nègre à 12 fr." (The wretch Zamor who denounced her.)--_Comptes de Madame du Barry._ "1788. 6 tayes d'oreiller garnies de Malines."--_Etat de ce qui a été fourni pour le renouvellement de Mgr. le Dauphin._ Arch. Nat. K. 505, No. 20. "1792. 2 tayes d'oreillier garnis de maline."--_Notes du linge du çi-devant Roi. Ibid._ No. 8. "1792. 24 fichus de batiste garnis de Maline. "2 taye d'orilier garnis de Maline."--_Renouvellement de M. le Duc. de Normandie. Ibid._ [365] An Arrêt, dated 14 Aug., 1688, requires that "toutes les dentelles de fil d'Anvers, Bruxelles, Malines et autres lieux de la Flandre Espagnolle," shall enter only by Rousselars and Condé, and pay a duty of 40 livres per lb.--Arch. Nat. _Coll. Rondonneau._ [366] In the list of foreign Protestants resident in England, 1618 to 1688, we find in London, Aldersgate Ward, Jacob Johnson, born at Antwerp, lace-maker, and Antony du Veal, lace-weaver, born in Turny (Tournay). [367] This portrait has been engraved by Verbruggen, who gives it as that of Catherine of Aragon. [368] _Mercure Galant_, 1696. [369] The flower-pot was a symbol of the Annunciation. In the early representations of the appearance of the Angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary, lilies are placed either in his hand, or set as an accessory in a vase. As Romanism declined, the angel disappeared, and the lily pot became a vase of flowers; subsequently the Virgin was omitted, and there remained only the vase of flowers. [370] See APPENDIX. [371] _Tableau Statistique du Dép. des Deux-Nèthes_, par le Citoyen Herbouville. An X. = 1802. [372] Their names are given: Veuves Mesele, Papegay, and Turck. [373] Ypres Valenciennes was exhibited at £80 (the metre). The lace-maker, working twelve hours a day, could scarcely produce one-third of an inch a week. It would take her twelve years to complete a length of six or seven metres, her daily earnings averaging two to three francs. Ypres makes the widest Valenciennes of any manufacture except Courtrai, whence was exhibited a half shawl (pointe) of Valenciennes. [374] M. Duhayon Brunfaut, of Ypres. [375] _Treille_ is the general term for the ground (_réseau_) throughout Belgium and the Dép. du Nord. [376] France alone buys of Belgium more Valenciennes than all the other countries united; upwards of 12 millions of francs (£480,000).--Aubry. [377] At Ghent two turns and a half, and at Courtrai three and a half. Each town has its own peculiar stitch. [378] _L'Industrie Dentellière Belge_, par B. v. d. Dussen, Bruxelles, 1860. [379] Robinson Crusoe, when at Lisbon, sends "some Flanders lace of a good value" as a present to the wife and daughter of his partner in the Brazils. [380] _Answer to Sir John Sinclair_, by Mr. H. Schoulthem, concerning the manufactures of Ghent. 1815. [381] Arch. de Nat., Coll. Rondonneau. [382] _Point and Pillow Lace_, A. M. S. London, 1899. [383] "Une paire de manchettes de cour de dentelle de Binche; "Trois paires de manchettes à trois rangs de dentelle de Binche; "Deux fichus de mousseline bordées de dentelle de Binche; "Deux devants de corps de dentelle de Binche."--Arch. de Nat. X., 10,082. [384] "M. Victor Hugo told the Author he had, in his younger days, seen Binch guipure of great beauty."--Mrs. Palliser, 1869. [385] Letter of Sir Henry Wotton to Lord Zouch.--State Papers, Domestic, Jas. I., P. R. O. [386] In the _Bulletin de l'Institut Archéologique_, Liègois XVIII., 1885, is a copy of a contract dated January 23rd, 1634, whereby a lace-maker of Liège, Barbe Bonneville, undertakes for 25 florins, current money, to teach a young girl lace-making. Again, in the copy of a Namur Act of November, 1701, a merchant of Namur orders from a Liègois "3 pieces of needle-made lace called Venice point," to sell at the rate of 5½ florins, 4½ florins, and one écu respectively. [387] Arch. de Nat., Coll. Rondonneau. [388] "Caïeteresses," from _caïets_, bobbins. [389] _Exposition de Liège_, par Chanoine Dubois, 1881. [390] _Statistique du dép. de la Meuse-Inf._, par le Citoyen Cavenne. An. X. [391] Liège in the seventeenth century numbered 1600 workers, and produced black and white laces which it exported to England, Germany and France. The rich clergy of the country also bought a large quantity. At the time of the Exhibition held there in 1881 the fabric had so declined that it was impossible to find a single piece of lace that had been made in the town. [392] _Fil tiré_, drawn and embroidered muslin-work so fine as to be classed with lace, was made in Dinant in the religious communities of the city and the "pays" of Dinant before the French Revolution. At Marche lace with flowers worked directly on the réseau is made, and the lace of Yorck is also imitated--a lace characterised by additions worked on to the lace, giving relief to the flowers.--_Exposition de Liège_, par Chanoine Dubois, 1881. The list of Belgian laces also includes "Les points de Brabant, plus mats, et plus remplis que les points de Flandres; les differentes dentelles de fantaisie, non classées, puis les grosses dentelles de Couvin, en soie noire, qui servaient jadis à garnir les pelisses des femmes de l'Entre Sambre-et-Meuse."--_La Dentelle de Belgique_, par Mme. Daimeries, 1893. [393] Italian fashions appeared early in France. Isabeau de Bavière, wearer of the oriental _hennin_, and Valentine de Milan, first introduced the rich tissues of Italy. Louis XI. sent for workmen from Milan, Venice, and Pistoja, to whom he granted various privileges, which Charles VIII. confirmed. Lace, according to Séguin, first appears in a portrait of Henri II. at Versailles, a portrait painted in the latter years of his reign. "Les deux portraits de Francois I^{er} qui sont au Louvre n'en laissent pas soupçonner l'usage de son temps. Aucun des autres portraits historiques qui y sont, non plus que ceux des galeries de Versailles de la même époque, n'en attestent l'existence, et le premier où on la découvre est un portrait de Henri II à Versailles, qui a dû être peint vers les dernières années de son règne. Le col, brodé d'entrelacs de couleur, est bordé d'une petite dentelle bien simple et bien modeste. Nous possédons des portraits authentiques antérieurs au milieu du XVI^e siècle, des specimens incontestés des costumes qui ont précédé cette époque, aucun de ces nombreux témoins n'atteste son existence. "Il faut reconnaître que l'origine de la dentelle n'est pas antérieure au milieu du XVI^e siècle."--Séguin, _La Dentelle_. Paris, 1875. [394] In Ulpian Fulwell's _Interlude_, 1568, Nichol Newfangle says-- "I learn to make gowns with long sleeves and wings, I learn to make ruffs like calves' chitterlings." [395] The Queen was accused by her enemies of having, by the aid of Maître René, "empoisonneur en titre," terminated the life of Queen Jeanne de Navarre, in 1571, by a perfumed ruff (not gloves--_Description de la Vie de Catherine de Médicis_); and her favourite son, the Duke d'Alençon, was said, cir. 1575, to have tried to suborn a valet to take away the life of his brother Henry by scratching him in the back of his neck with a poisoned pin when fastening his fraise. [396] _Satyre Menippée._ Paris, 1593. [397] _Chronologie Novenaire_, Vict. P. Cayet. [398] "S'ils se tournoient, chacun se reculoit, crainte de gater leurs fraizes."--_Satyre Menippée._ "Le col ne se tourne à leur aise Dans le long reply de leur fraise." --_Vertus et Propriétés des Mignons_, 1576. [399] "Ces beaux mignons portoient ... leur fraizes de chemise de toute d'atour empesez et longues d'un demi-pied, de façon qu'à voir leurs testes dessus leurs fraizes, il sembloit que ce fut le chef de Saint Jean dans un plat."--_Journal de Henri III._, Pierre de l'Estoille. [400] _Perroniana._ Cologne, 1691. [401] "Goudronnées en tuyaux d'orgue, fraisées en choux crépus, et grandes comme des meules de moulin."--_Blaise de Viginière._ "La fraize veaudelisée à six étages."--_La Mode qui Court._ Paris, n.d. [402] "Appelez par les Espagnols 'lechuguillas' ou petites laitues, à cause du rapport de ces gaudrons repliées avec les fraisures de la laitue."--_Histoire de la Ville de Paris_, D. Mich. Félibien. [403] "1575. Le roy alloit tous les jours faire ses aumônes et ses prières en grande devotion, laissant ses chemises à grands goderons, dont il estoit auparavant si curieux, pour en prendre à collet renversé a l'Italienne."--_Journal de Henri III._, Pierre de l'Estoille. [404] No less than ten were sent forth by the Valois kings, from 1549 to 1583. [405] These were dated 1594, 1600, 1601, and 1606. [406] Copper used instead of gold thread for embroidery or lace. The term was equally applied to false silver thread. "1582. Dix escus pour dix aulnes de gaze blanche rayée d'argent clinquant pour faire ung voille à la Boullonnoise."--_Comptes de la Reine de Navarre._ Arch. Nat. K. K. 170. [407] Regnier, Math., _Ses Satyres._ 1642. [408] The observation was not new. A Remonstrance to Catherine de Médicis, 1586, complains that "leurs moulins, leurs terres, leurs prez, leurs bois et leurs revenuz, se coulent en broderies, pourfilures, passemens, franges, tortis, canetilles, recameurs, chenettes, picqueurs, arrièrepoins, etc., qu'on invente de jour à autre."--_Discours sur l'extrême cherté, etc., presenté à la Mère du Roi, par un sien fidelle Serviteur (Du Haillan)._ Bordeaux, 1586. [409] "1579. Pour avoir remonsté trois fraises à poinct couppé, 15 sols. "Pour avoir monté cinq fraizes à poinct couppé sur linomple, les avoir ourllés et couzeus à la petite cordellière et au poinct noué à raison de 30 sols pour chacune. "Pour la façon de sept rabatz ourllés à double arrièrepoinct et couzu le passement au dessus. "1580. Pour avoir faict d'ung mouchoir ouvré deux rabatz, 20 sols. "Pour deux pieces de poinct couppé pour servir à ladicte dame, VI livres. "Pour dix huict aulnes de passement blanc pour mestre à des fraizes à trois escus l'aulne." 1582. The account for this year contains entries for "passement faict à lesguille," "grand passement," "passement faict au mestier," etc.--_Comptes de la Reine de Navarre._ Arch. Nat. [410] "Vingt trois chemizes de toile fine à ouvrage de fil d'or et soye de plusieurs coulleurs, aux manchettes coulet et coutures. "Ung chemize à ouvrage de soye noire. "Quatre chemizes les trois à ouvrage d'or et d'argent et soye bleu."--_Inv. des meubles qui ont estés portés à Paris._ 1602. Arch. Nat. [411] "1577. A Jehan Dupré, linger, demeurant à Paris, la somme de soixante douze livres tournois à luy or donnée pour son payement de quatre layz d'ouvraige à poinct couppé pour faire une garniture de chemise pour servir à mon dict segneur, à raison de 18 liv. chacune."--_Comptes de la Reine de Navarre._ Arch. Nat. K. K. 162, fol. 655. [412] "This shirt," he adds, "is well attested. It became the perquisite of the king's first valet de chambre. At the extinction of his descendants, it was exposed to sale."--_Memoirs._ A rival shirt turned up (c. 1860) at Madame Tussaud's with "the real blood" still visible. Monsieur Curtius, uncle of Madame Tussaud, purchased it at an auction of effects once the property of Cardinal Mazarin. Charles X. offered 200 guineas for it. [413] "Item, cinq mouchoirs d'ouvrages d'or, d'argent et soye, prisez ensemble cent escuz. "Item, deux tauayelles aussi ouvrage d'or, d'argent et soye, prisées cent escuz. "Item, trois tauayelles blanches de rezeuil, prisées ensemble trente escuz. "Item, une paire de manches de point coupé et enrichies d'argent, prisez vingt escuz. "Item, deux mouchoirs blancz de point coupé, prisez ensemble vingt escuz. "Toutes lesquelles tauayelles et mouchoirs cy dessus trouvez dans un coffre de bahu que la dicte defunte dame faisoit ordinairement porter avec elle a la court sont demeurez entre les mains du S^r de Beringhen, suivant le commandement qu'il en avoit de sa majesté pour les representer à icelle, ce qu'il a promis de faire."--_Inventaire apres le decès de Gabrielle d'Estrées._ 1599. Arch. Nat. K. K. 157, fol. 17. [414] "Item, un lit d'yvoire à filletz noirs de Padoue, garny de son estuy de cuir rouge."--_Ibid._ [415] "Item, une autre tenture de cabinet de carré de rezeau brodurée et montans recouvert de feuillages de fil avec des carrez de thoile plaine, prisé et estimé la somme de cent escus Soleil. "Item, dix sept carrez de thoile de Hollande en broderie d'or et d'argent fait a deux endroictz, prisez et estimez à 85 escus. "Item, un autre pavilion tout de rezeil avec le chapiteau de fleurs et feuillages.... "Item, un autre en neuf fait par carrez de point coupé."--_Ibid._ fols. 46 and 47. [416] "Manchettes et collets enrichys de point couppé."--_Inventaire apres le decès de Messire Philippe Herault, Comte de Cheverny, Chancelier de France._ 1599. Bib. Nat. MSS. F. 11,424. [417] In 1598. Vulson de la Colombière, _Vray Théatre d'Honneur et de Chevalerie_. 1647. [418] _Satyrique de la Court._ 1613. [419] _Histoire de la Mère et du Fils_, from 1616 to 19. Amsterdam, 1729. [420] _Livre nouveau dict Patrons de Lingerie, etc._ _Patrons de diverses Manières, etc._ (Title in rhyme.) _S'ensuyvent les Patrons de Mesire Antoine Belin._ _Ce Livre est plaisant et utile._ (Title in rhyme.) [421] _La Fleur des Patrons de Lingerie._ [422] _Tresor des Patrons._ J. Ostans. [423] _Le Livre de Moresques_ (1546), _Livre de Lingerie_, Dom. de Sera (1584), and _Patrons pour Brodeurs_ (no date), were also printed at Paris. The last book on this kind of work printed at Paris is styled, _Méthode pour faire des Desseins avec des Carreaux, etc._, by Père Dominique Donat, religieux carme. 1722. [424] A point de Venise alb, of rose point, said to be of this period, is in the Musée de Cluny. [425] "Quelques autres de frangez Bordent leur riche cuir, qui vient des lieux estranges."--_Le Gan_, de Jean Godard, Parisien. 1588. [426] "1619. Deux paires de rozes à soulliers garnies de dentelle d'or."--_Inv. de Madame Soeur du Roi._ (Henrietta Maria.) Arch. Nat. [427] _Satyrique de la Court._ [428] The inventory of the unfortunate Maréchal de Marillac, beheaded 1632, has "broderye et poinctz d'Espagnes d'or, argent et soye; rabats et collets de point couppé; taffetas nacarat garnye de dantelle d'argent; pour-poinct passementé de dantelle de canetille de Flandre," etc.--Bib. Nat. MSS. F. Fr. 11,426. [429] 1620, Feb. 8th. "Déclaration portant deffenses de porter des clinquants, passements, broderies," etc.--Arch. Nat. G. G. G. 1623, March 20th. "Déclaration qui defend l'usage des étoffes d'or," etc.--_Recueil des anciennes Lois Françaises._ T. 16, 107. 1625, Sept. 30th. Déclaration prohibits the wearing of "collets, fraizes, manchettes, et autres linges des passements, Point coupez et Dentelles, comme aussi des Broderies et Decoupures sur quentin ou autre toile."--Bib. Nat. L. i. 8. [430] _Consolation des Dames sur la Reformation des passemens._ 1620. [431] Again, 1633, Nov. 18th. Déclaration restricts the prohibition; permits "passements manufacturés dans le royaume qui n'excederont 9 ll. l'aune."--Arch. Nat. G. G. G. 1634, May 30th. "Lettres patentes pour la reformation du luxe des habits," prohibits "dentelles, passements et broderies" on boots, carriages, etc. (British Museum). 1636, April 3rd. "Déclaration contre le Luxe." Again prohibits both foreign and home-made points coupés, etc., under pain of banishment for five years, confiscation, and a fine of 6000 francs.--De la Mare, _Traité de la Police_. 1639, Nov. 24th. Fresh prohibition, points de Gênes specially mentioned. Not to wear on the collar, cuffs, or boots, "autres choses que de la toile simple sans aucune façon."--Arch. Nat. G. G. G. [432] _Le Courtisan Reformé, suivant l'Edit. de l'année 1633_; and again, _Le Jardin de la Noblesse Françoise dans lequel ce peut cueillir leur manière de Vettement_. 1629. [433] April, 1636. [434] 1631. _Trésorerie de la Reine Marie de Médicis._--Arch. Nat. K. K. 191. [435] Vulson de la Colombière, _Pompes qu'on pratique aux obséques des Rois de France_. [436] _Mémoires de Guy Joly_, from 1648 to 1665. [437] About this period a special Act had confirmed the Statutes of the Maîtres Passementiers of Paris. By Article 21, they are privileged to make every sort of passement or lace, "sur l'oreiller, aux fuzeaux, aux épingles, et à la main," on condition the material, gold, silver, thread, or silk, be "de toutes fines ou de toutes fausses." The sale of thread and lace was allowed to the Lingères, but by an Arrêt of the Parliament of Paris, 1665, no one could be a marchande lingère unless she had made profession of the "religion catholique, apostolique, et romaine," a condition worthy of the times. "Il n'y fut," writes Gilles de Felice, in his _Histoire des Protestants de France_, "pas jusqu'à la corporation des lingères qui ne s'en allât remontrer au conseil que leur communauté, ayant été instituée par saint Louis, no pouvait admettre d'hérétiques, et cette réclamation fut gravement confirmée par un arrêt du 21 août, 1665." [438] Dated November 19th, 1653. The letter is given in full by the Marquis de Laborde in _Le Palais Mazarin_. Paris, 1845. [439] _Inv. fait apres la mort du Cardinal Mazarin_, 1661.--Bibl. Nat. MSS. Suite de Mortmart, 37. [440] It is to be found at the Archives National, or in the Library of the Cour de Cassation. In the Archives National is a small collection of ordinances relative to lace collected by M. Rondonneau, extending from 1666 to 1773. It is very difficult to get at all the ordinances. Many are printed in De la Mare (_Traité de la Police_); but the most complete work is the _Recueil général des anciennes Lois françaises, depuis l'an 420 jusqu'à la Révolution de 1789_, par MM. Isambert, Ducrusy, et Taillandier. Paris, 1829. The ordinances bear two dates, that of their issue and of their registry. [441] This "canon," originally called "bas de bottes," was a circle of linen or other stuff fastened below the knee, widening at the bottom so as to fill the enlargement of the boot, and when trimmed with lace, having the appearance of a ruffle. [442] _Dictionnaire des Précieuses._ 1660. Molière likewise ridicules them:-- "Et de ces grands canons, où, comme des entraves, On met tous les matins les deux jambes esclaves." --_L'École des Maris._ And again, in _L'École des Femmes_: "Ils ont de grands canons, force rubans et plumes." [443] _Les Délices de la France_, par M. Savinière d'Alquié. 1670. [444] The fashion of wearing black lace was introduced into England in the reign of Charles II. "Anon the house grew full, and the candles lit, and it was a glorious sight to see our Mistress Stewart in black and white lace, and her head and shoulders dressed with diamonds."--Pepys's _Diary._ "The French have increased among us many considerable trades, such as black and white lace."--_England's Great Happiness_, etc. Dialogue between Content and Complaint. 1677. "Item, un autre habit de grosse moire garny de dantelle d'Angleterre noire."--1691. _Inv. de Madame de Simiane._ Arch. Nat., M. M. 802. [445] "Of this custom, a relic may still be found at the Court of Turin, where ladies wear lappets of black lace. Not many years since, the wife of a Russian minister, persisting to appear in a suit of Brussels point, was courteously requested by the Grand Chamberlain to retire" (1869). [446] _Chroniques de l'Oeil-de-Boeuf._ [447] Madame de Motteville is not complimentary to the ladies of the Spanish Court: "Elles avoient peu de linge," she writes, "et leurs dentelles nous parurent laides."--_Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire d'Anne d'Autriche._ [448] Madame de Sévigné mentions these dresses: "Avez-vous ouï parler des transparens?... de robes noires transparentes ou des belles dentelles d'Angleterre."--_Lettres._ [449] 1690. _Chroniques de l'Oeil-de-Boeuf._ [450] 1661, May 27; 1662, Jan. 1; 1664, May 31, Sept. 18, and Dec. 12. [451] "On fabriquait précédemment ces espèces de dentelles guipures, dont on ornait les aubes des prêtres, les rochets des évêques et les jupons des femmes de qualité."--_Roland de la Platière._ The articles on lace by Roland and Savary have been copied by all succeeding writers on the subject. [452] Mgr. de Bonzy, Dec. 20, 1664. _Correspondance administrative sous Colbert_, vol. 3. [453] Lefébure. [454] "Il y a très longtemps que le point coupé se faict icy, qui a son débit selon le temps; mais qu'une femme nommée La Perrière (sic), fort habile à ces ouvrages, trouva il y a quelques années le moyen d'imiter les points de Venise, en sorte qu'elle y vint à telle perfection que ceux qu'elle faisoit ne devaient rien aux estrangers. Pour faire ces ouvrages il luy falloit enseigner plusieurs petites filles auxquelles elle montroit à faire ce point ... à présent je vous puis asseurer qu'il y a plus de 8,000 personnes qui y travaillent dans Alençon, dans Seèz, dans Argentan, Falaise.... "Monseigneur, c'est une manne, et une vraie bénédiction du ciel qui s'est espandue sur tout ce pays, dans lequel les petitz enfants mesmes de sept ans trouvent moyen de gaigner leur vie. Les vieillards y travaillent et les petites bergerettes des champs y travaillent mêmes."--_Letter from Favier-Duboulay, intendant d'Alençon since 1644._ Correspondance administrative sous le règne de Louis XIV (quoted by Madame Despierres), vol. 3. [455] In 1842 M. Joseph Odolant Desnos, grandson of this author, writes, "Ce fut une dame Gilberte, qui avait fait son apprentissage à Venise, et était native d'Alençon. Dès qu'elle fut à ses ordres, ce ministre (Colbert) la logea dans le magnifique château de Lonrai, qu'il possédait près d'Alençon."--_Annuaire de l'Orne._ [456] _Mémoires historiques sur la ville d'Alençon_, M. Odolant Desnos. Alençon, 1787. [457] "Le château de Lonrai ne passa dans la maison de Colbert que par le mariage de Catherine Thérèse de Matignon, Marquise de Lonrai, avec Jean-Baptiste Colbert, fils ainé du grand Colbert, le 6e septembre 1678" (_i.e._, fourteen years after the establishment of points de France at Alençon) --Madame Despierres, _Histoire de point d'Alençon_. [458] Madame Despierres, after an exhaustive study of the mass of documentary evidence on this point, gives as her opinion that-- "(1) La première personne qui à Alençon imita le point de Venise, et par conséquent créa le point d'Alençon, fut Mme La Perrière, vers 1650, et non Mme Gilbert. "(2) La préposée-directrice des manufactures de point de France des différentes villes du royaume qui a établi les bureaux à Alençon, fut Catherine de Marcq, et non pas une dame Gilbert. "(3) Les préposées mises à la tête de l'établissement d'Alençon étaient Mme Raffy et Marie Fillesae, dont les noms ne répondent pas à celui d'une dame Gilbert."--_Madame Despierres, Histoire de point d'Alençon._ [459] Mrs. Palliser sought in vain for this ordinance in the Library of the Cour de Cassation, where it is stated to be, by the authors of the "Recueil général des anciennes Lois françaises, depuis l'an 420 jusqu'à la Révolution de 1789"; but fortunately it is recited in a subsequent act, dated Oct. 12, 1666 (Arch. Nat., Coll. Rondonneau), by which it appears that the declaration ordered the establishment in "les villes de Quesnoy, Arras, Reims, Sedan, Château-Thierry, Loudun, Alençon, Aurillac, et autres du royaume, de la manufacture de toutes sortes d'ouvrages de fil, tant à l'éguille qu'au coussin, en la manière des points qui se font à Venise, Gennes, Raguse, et autres pays estrangers, qui seroient appellés points de France," by which it would appear the term point de France did not exclusively belong to the productions of Alençon. After the company was dissolved in 1675 the name of point de France was applied to point d'Alençon alone. In a subsequent arrêt it is set forth that the entrepreneurs have caused to be brought in great numbers the best workers from Venice and other foreign cities, and have distributed them over Le Quesnoy and the above-mentioned towns, and that now are made in France "des ouvrages de fil si exquis, qu'ils esgallent, mesme surpassent en beauté les estrangers."--_Bibl. de la Cour de Cassation._ What became of these manufactures at Le Quesnoy and Château-Thierry, of which not a tradition remains? [460] Talon, "secrétaire du cabinet," was one of the first members. We find by an arrêt, Feb. 15, 1667, that this patent had already been infringed. On the petition of Jean Pluymers, Paul, and Catherine de Marcq, "entrepreneurs" of the fabric of points de France, his Majesty confirms to them the sole privilege of making and selling the said points.--Arch. Nat., Coll. Rondonneau. Nov. 17 of the same year appears a fresh prohibition of wearing or selling the passements, lace, and other works in thread of Venice, Genoa, and other foreign countries (British Museum), and March 17, 1668, "Itératives" prohibitions to wear these, either new or "commencé d'user," as injurious to a manufacture of point which gives subsistence to a number of persons in the kingdom.--_Ibid._ Again, Aug. 19, 1669, a fresh arrêt in consequence of complaints that the workers are suborned and work concealed in Paris, etc.--Arch Nat., Coll. Rondonneau. [461] Colbert said to Louis XIV.: "There will always be found fools enough to purchase the manufactures of France, though France should be prohibited from purchasing those of other countries." The King agreed with the minister, whom he made chief director of the trade and manufactures of the kingdom. [462] A favourite saying of Colbert. [463] The artists who furnished designs for all works undertaken for the court of Louis XIV. must have supplied designs for the lace manufactures: "In the accounts of the King's buildings is the entry of a payment due to Bailly, the painter, for several days' work with other painters in making designs for embroideries and points d'Espagne" (Lefébure). [464] The principal centres of lace-making were Aurillac, Sedan, Rheims, Le Quesnoy, Alençon, Arras, and Loudun, and the name "Points de France" was given without distinction to all laces made at these towns; preference was given in choosing these centres to those towns already engaged in lace-making. Alençon produced the most brilliant results, for from the beginning of the seventeenth century the town had been engaged in needle-point lace, and some of the lace-makers earned high wages, and showed great aptitude for the art. In her _Histoire du Point d'Alençon_, Madame Despierres has made some interesting extracts from various marriage contracts and wills:-- "A notable instance is that of a family named Barbot, the mother having amassed 500 livres. Her daughter, Marthe Barbot, married Michel Mercier, sieur de la Perrière, and brought him a wedding-portion of 300 livres, the earnings of her industry; while her sister Suzanne Barbot's wedding-portion, upon her marriage with Paul Ternouillet, amounted to 6,000 livres, earned in making cut-works and works en _velin_ (needle-point lace done on a parchment pattern), which command a high price" (Lefébure). [465] The Venetian Senate, according to Charles Yriarte, regarded this emigration of workers to France as a crime against the State, and issued the following decree:-- "If any artist or handicraftsman practises his art in any foreign land to the detriment of the Republic, orders to return will be sent him; if he disobeys them, his nearest of kin will be put into prison, in order that through his interest in their welfare his obedience may be compelled. If he comes back, his past offence will be condoned, and employment for him will be found in Venice; but if, notwithstanding the imprisonment of his nearest of kin, he obstinately decides to continue living abroad, an emissary will be commissioned to kill him, and his next of kin will only be liberated upon his death." [466] To afford an idea of the importance of the lace trade in France at the beginning of the eighteenth century, and of the immense consumption of lace in France, we give the following statistics:--In 1707, the collection of the duties of lace was under-farmed to one Étienne Nicolas, for the annual sum of 201,000 livres. The duty then was of 50 livres per lb. weight of lace, so that there entered annually into France above 400,000 lbs. of lace, which, estimating at the lowest 1,000 lbs. of lace to be worth 1,000 livres, would represent 4 millions of that epoch. Taking into calculation that fraud was extensively practised, that the points of Venice and Genoa, being prohibited, could not appear in the receipts; and that, on the other part, the under-farmer did not pay the farmer-general the 201,000 livres without the certainty of profit to himself, we must admit that the figure, though high, is far from representing the value of the foreign laces which entered France at that period. We think that 8 millions (£320,000) would be below the true figure.--_Rapport sur les Dentelles fait à la Commission française de l'Exposition Universelle de Londres_, 1851. Felix Aubry. The best history of lace published. [467] "Deux tours de chaire de point de France donnez depuis quelques années par deux dames de la paroisse."--_Inv. de l'église de Saint-Merry, à Paris._ Arch. Nat. L. L. 859. [468] _Inv. de Madame Anne Palatine de Bavière, Princesse de Condé._--_Ibid._ X. 10,065. [469] _Inv. de l'église de Saint-Gervais, à Paris._--_Ibid._ L. L. 854. [470] The saints, too, came in for their share of the booty. "There was St. Winifred," writes a traveller of the day, "in a point commode with a large scarf on and a loup in hand, as tho' she were going to mass. St. Denis, with a laced hat and embroidered coat and sash, like a captain of the guards."--_Six Weeks in France._ 1691. [471] "Toille de Hollande, avec des grands points de France."--_Le Cérémonial de la Nomination de Monseigneur le Dauphin._ 1668. Arch. Nat. K. K. 1431. [472] _Le Mercure Galant._ Juillet, 1688. This periodical, which we shall have occasion so frequently to quote, was begun in 1672, and continued to July, 1716. It comprises, with the _Extraordinaires_, 571 vols. in 12mo. _Le Mercure de France_, from 1717 to 1792, consists of 777 vols.--Brunet. Manuel de Libraire. [473] _Le Mercure Galant._ [474] It was the custom, at the birth of a Dauphin, for the papal nuncio to go to the palace and present to the new-born child "les langes benites," or consecrated layette, on behalf of his Holiness the Pope. The shirts, handkerchiefs, and other linen, were by half-dozens, and trimmed with the richest point. This custom dates as early as the birth of Louis XIII. Mercier describes the ceremony of carrying the layette to Versailles in the time of Louis XV.--_Vie du Dauphin, père de Louis XVI._ Paris, 1858. [475] In the Lancaster state bedroom, at Fonthill, was sold in 1823: "A state bed quilt of Brussels point, for 100 guineas, and a Brussels toilet cover for 30 guineas."--Fonthill. Sale Catalogue. "1694. Une toilette de satin violet picquée garny d'un point d'Espagne d'or à deux carreaux de mesme satin et aussi piqué."--_Inv. de Mgr. de la Vrillière, Patriarche, Archevêque de Bourges._ Bib. Nat. "1743. Une toilette et son bonhomme garnie d'une vieille dentelle d'Angleterre."--_Inv. de la Duchesse de Bourbon._ "1758. Une toilette avec sa touaille de point fort vieux d'Alençon."--_Inv. de Mademoiselle de Charollois._ "1770. Une tres belle toilette de point d'Argentan, en son surtout de 9,000 livres. "Une tres belle toilette d'Angleterre, et son surtout de 9,000."--_Cptes. de Madame du Barry._ [476] "On voit toujours des jupes de point de France."--_Mercure Galant_, 1686. "Corsets chamarrés de point de France."--_Ibid._ [477] Madame de Sévigné describes Mademoiselle de Blois as "belle comme un ange," with "un tablier et une bavette de point de France."--_Lettres._ Paris, 27 Jan., 1674. [478] "Garnis de point de France formant une manière de rose antique."--_Mercure Galant._ 1677. [479] In the Extraordinaire du _Mercure_ for 1678, we have, in "habit d'este," gloves of "point d'Angleterre." [480] _Mercure Galant._ 1672. [481] _Ibid._ 1686. [482] _Mercure Galant._ Fév. 1685. [483] _Ibid._ 1678. [484] At the Mazarin Library there are four folio volumes of engravings, after Bonnard and others, of the costumes of the time of Louis XIV.; and at the Archives Nat. is a large series preserved in cartons numbered M. 815 to 823, etc., labelled "Gravures de Modes." [485] _La Fontange altière._--Boileau. [486] The wife of Trajan wore this coiffure, and her sister Marcina Faustina, wife of Antoninus, much regretted the fashion when it went out. Speaking of this head-dress, says a writer in the _Bibliothèque Universelle_ of 1693, "On regarde quelque fois des certaines choses comme tout à fait nouvelles, qui ne sont que des vieilles modes renouvellées. L'auteur en appelle un exemple dans les coiffures elevées que portent les femmes aujourd'hui, croyant ajouter par là quelque chose à leur taille. Les dames Romaines avaient la même ambition et mettaient des ajustemens de tête tout semblables aux Commodes et aux Fontanges de ce temps. Juvenal en parle expressément dans sa Satire VI." [487] _Galerie de l'ancienne Cour._ [488] "1699. Oct. Le Vendredi 25, il y eut grande toilette chez Madame la Duchesse de Bourgogne où les dames parurent, pour la première fois, en coiffures d'une forme nouvelle, c'est à dire beaucoup plus basses."--_Mercure Galant._ [489] "Corr. de la Duchesse d'Orléans, Princesse Palatine, mère du Régent." [490] Speaking of the Iron Mask, Voltaire writes:--"His greatest passion was for linen of great fineness and for lace."--_Siècle de Louis XIV._ [491] Fought by Marshal Luxembourg--vieux tapissier de Notre-Dame--against William of Orange. [492] Falbala--a deep single flounce of point or gold lace. The _Mercure Galant_, 1698, describing the Duchess of Burgundy "à la promenade," states: "Elle avoit un habit gris de lin en falbala, tout garny de dentelles d'argent." "Femme de qualité en Steinkerke et Falbala."--Engraving of 1693. [493] See ENGLAND.--WILLIAM III. [494] Regnard. [495] Dame du palais to Queen Marie Thérèse, and afterwards first lady of honour to the Duchess of Burgundy. She died 1726. [496] _Mercure Galant._ 1683. Again, in 1688, he says: "Les points de Malines sont fort en regne pour les manches qu'on nomme engageantes. Ou y met des points très-hauts, fort plissés, avec des pieds." "Ladies trimmed their _berthes_ and sleeves with lace; when the sleeves were short they were called _engageantes_; when long, _pagodes_. Upon skirts laces were worn _volantes_ or as flounces, whence the name _volant_ or flounce, which has come into use for all wide laces; these flouncings were draped either in _tournantes_ or _quilles_, the former laid horizontally, the latter vertically upon skirts; but in either case these were stitched down on each edge of the lace, whereas flounces were fastened to dresses by the _engrêlure_ or footing. Lace _barbes_ and _fontanges_ were used as head-dresses." They appear to have been soon introduced into England, for Evelyn, in his _Mundus Muliebris_, 1690, says: "About her sleeves are engageants;" and the _Ladies' Dictionary_ of nearly the same date gives: "Ængageants, double ruffles that fall over the wrist." In the lace bills of Queen Mary II., we find-- £ s. d. "1694. 1¾ yd. Point for a broad pair of Engageants, at £5 10s. 9 12 6 3½ for a double pair of ditto, at £5 10s. 19 5 0 1 pair of Point Engageants 30 0 0" --(B. M., Add. MSS. No. 5751.) "1720. Six pairs d'engageantes, dont quatre à un rang de dentelle, et les autres paires à double rang, l'une de dentelle d'Angleterre à raiseau et l'autre de dentelle à bride."--_Inv. de la Duchesse de Bourbon._ Arch. Nat. "1723. Une paire d'engageantes à deux rangs de point plat à raiseau."--_Inv. d'Anne de Bavière, Princesse de Condé._ "1770. Six rangs d'engageantes de point à l'aiguille," with the same of point d'Argentan and Angleterre, appear in the lace bills of Madame du Barry. [497] "1725. Deux manteaux de bain et deux chemises, aussi de bain, garnis aux manches de dentelle, l'une à bride, et l'autre à raiseau."--_Inv. d'Anne de Bavière, Princesse de Condé._ "1743. Ung Tour de baignoir de bazin garny de vieille dentelle. "Trois linges de baignoire garnis de dentelle."--_Inv. de la Duchesse de Bourbon._ [498] Describing the duties of the "critic of each bright ruelle," Tickell says:-- "Oft with varied art, his thoughts digress On deeper themes--the documents of dress; With nice discernment, to each style of face Adapt a ribbon, or suggest a lace; O'er Granby's cap bid loftier feathers float, And add new bows to Devon's petticoat."--_Wreath of Fashion._ [499] In the spring of 1802, Mr. Holcroft, when in Paris, received a polite note from a lady at whose house he visited, requesting to see him. He went, and was informed by her maid the lady was in her warm bath, but she would announce his arrival. She returned, and led him to a kind of closet, where her mistress was up to her chin in water. He knew the manners of the place, and was not surprised.--_Travels._ [500] Mercier also mentions, in his _Tableau de Paris_, la poupée de la rue Saint-Honoré: "C'est de Paris que les profondes inventions en modes donnent des loix à l'univers. La fameuse poupée, le mannequin precieux, affublé des modes les plus nouvelles ... passe de Paris à Londres tous les mois, et va de là répandre ses graces dans toute l'Europe. Il va au Nord et du Midi, il pénètre à Constantinople et à Petersbourg, et le pli qu'a donné une main françoise se répète chez toute les nations, humbles observatrices du goût de la rue Saint-Honoré." [501] The practice was much more ancient. M. Ladomie asserts that in the Royal expenses for 1391, figure so many livres for a doll sent to the Queen of England; in 1496 another, sent to the Queen of Spain; and in 1571 a third, to the Duchess of Bavaria. Henry IV. writes in 1600, before his marriage to Marie de Médicis: "Frontenac tells me that you desire patterns of our fashion in dress. I send you, therefore, some model dolls."--Miss Freer's _Henry IV._ It was also the custom of Venice, at the annual fair held in the Piazza of St. Mark, on the day of the Ascension (a fair which dates from 1180), to expose in the most conspicuous place of the fair a rag doll, which served as a model for the fashions for the year.--Michiel, _Origine delle Feste Veneziani._ [502] _Tableau de Paris._ 1782. [503] "The French nation are eminent for making a fine outside, when perhaps they want necessaries, and indeed a gay shop and a mean stock is like the Frenchman with his laced ruffles without a shirt."--_The Complete English Tradesman._ Dan. Defoe. Lond., 1726. Foote, in his Prologue to the _Trip to Paris_, says, "They sold me some ruffles, and I found the shirts." [504] _Souvenirs de la Marquise de Créquy._ 1710-1802. [505] Clement X. was in the habit of making presents of Italian lace, at that time much prized in France, to M. de Sabière. "He sends ruffles," said the irritated Frenchman who looked for something more tangible, "to a man who never has a shirt." [506] "M. de Vendôme, at his marriage, was quite astonished at putting on his clean shirt a-day, and fearfully embarrassed at having some point lace on the one given him to put on at night. Indeed," continues she, "you would hardly recognise the taste of the French. The men are worse than the women. They wish their wives to take snuff, play, and pay no more attention to their dress." The exquisite cleanliness of Anne of Austria's court was at an end. [507] In the old Scotch song of Gilderoy, the famous highwayman, we have an instance:-- "For Gilderoy, that luve of mine, Gude faith, I freely bought A wedding sark of Holland fine, Wi' silken flowers wrought." And in an account quoted in the _Reliquary_, July, 1865, is the charge on Feb. 16, of "six shillings for a cravat for hur Vallentine." [508] _Inv. après le decès de Mgr. C. de Saint-Albin, Archevesque de Cambray._ (Son of the Regent.) 1764. Arch. Nat. M. M. 718. Louis XVI. had 59 pairs the year before his death: 28 of point, 21 of Valenciennes, and 10 of Angleterre.--_Etat des Effets subsistant et formant le fond de la garderobe du Roi au 1^{er} Janvier, 1792._ Arch. Nat. K. 506, No. 30. [509] _Etat d'un Trousseau._ Description des Arts et Métiers. Paris, 1777. [510] "Deux aunes trois quarts d'Angleterre à bride pour deux paires de manchettes tournantes, à 45 livres l'aune."--_Garderobe de S. A. S. Mgr. le Duc de Penthièvre._ 1738. Arch. Nat. K. K. 390. [511] _Ibid._ The laces for ruffles were of various kinds: point brodé, point à bride, point à raiseau, point à bride à écaille, point superfin, point brillant, Angleterre à bride à raiseau, and one pair of point d'Argentan; Valenciennes pour manchettes de nuit à 42 livres l'aune. The Duke's wardrobe accounts afford a good specimen of the extravagance in the decoration of night attire at this period:-- 4 au. de point pour collet et manchettes de la chemise de nuit et garnir la coëffe, à 130 ll. 520 ll. 3 au. ¾ dito pour jabot et fourchettes de nuit et garnir le devant de la camisole, à 66 ll. 247 ll. 10s. Sept douze de point pour plaquer sur les manches de camisolle, à 55 ll. 32 ll. 1s. Then for his nightcaps:-- 3 au. Toile fine pour Coëffes de Nuit 27 ll. 4 au. Dentelles de Malines pour les tours de Coëffes, à 20 ll. 80 ll. 5 au. ½ Valenciennes, à 46 ll. 253 ll. 52 au. dito petit point, pour garnir les Tours, à 5 ll. 5s. 273 ll. Pour avoir monté un bonnet de nuit de point 1 l. 5s. 7 au. de campanne de point pour chamarrer la camisolle et le bonnet de nuit, à 10 ll. 10s. 73 ll. 10s. The Marquise de Créquy speaks of a night-cap, "à grandes dentelles," offered, with la robe de chambre, to the Dauphin, son of Louis XV., by the people of the Duke de Grammont, on his having lost his way hunting, and wandered to the Duke's château. [512] "Le Parisien qui n'a pas dix mille livres de rente n'a ordinairement ni draps, ni lit, ni serviettes, ni chemises; mais il a une montre à repetition, des glaces, des bas de soie, des dentelles."--_Tableau de Paris._ [513] _Histoire de Paris._ [514] "Ordinairement un laquais de bon ton prend le nom de son maître, quand il est avec d'autres laquais, il prend aussi ses moeurs, ses gestes, ses manières.... Le laquais d'un seigneur porte la montre d'or ciselée, des dentelles, des boucles à brillants," etc.--_Tableau de Paris._ [515] _Amusemens des Eaux de Spa._ Amsterdam, 1751. "Les manches qu'à table on voit tâter la sauce."--_École des maris._ [516] The state liveries of Queen Victoria were most richly embroidered in gold. They were made in the early part of George II.'s reign, since which time they have been in use. In the year 1848, the servants appeared at the royal balls in gold and ruffles of the richest gros point de France, of the same epoch as their dresses. In 1849, the lace no longer appeared--probably suppressed by order. Queen Anne, who was a great martinet in trifles, had her servants marshalled before her every day, that she might see if their ruffles were clean and their periwigs dressed. [517] _Tableau de Paris._ [518] _Mémoires._ [519] "1723. Un couvrepied de toile blanche, picqure de Marseille, garni autour d'un point en campane de demie aune de hauteur."--_Inv. d'A. de Bavière, Princesse de Condé._ "1743. Un couvrepied de toile picquée, brodée or et soye, bordé de trois côtés d'une grande dentelle d'Angleterre et du quatrième d'un moyen dentelle d'Angleterre à bords. "Un autre, garni d'une grande et moyenne dentelle de point d'Alençon. "Un autre, garni d'un grand point de demie aune de hauteur, brodé, garni d'une campane en bas. "Un autre, 'point à bride,'" and many others.--_Inv. de la Duchesse de Bourbon._ [520] "1704. Deux taies d'oreiller garnies de dentelle, l'une à raiseau, et l'autre à bride."--_Inv. de F. P. Loisel._ Bib. Nat. MSS. F. Fr. 11,459. "1723. Quatre taies d'oreiller, dont trois garnies de differentes dentelles, et l'autre de Point."--_Inv. d'Anne de Bavière, Princesse de Condé._ "1755. Deux taies d'oreiller garnies de point d'Alençon."--_Inv. de Mademoiselle de Charollais._ "1761. Trois taies d'oreiller de dentelle de point à brides."--_Inv. de la Duchesse de Modène._ "1770. 7 au. 1/8 vraie Valenciennes pour garnir une taie d'oreiller, à 60 ll. 427 10."--_Comptes de Madame du Barry._ "1707. 7 au. tournante d'Angleterre pour garnir des plottes (pincushions) à 50 350 00."--_Comptes de Madame du Barry._ "1788. 12 Pelottes garnies de dentelle."--_Ibid._ "6 trousses à peigne garnies de dentelle."--_Fourni pour Mgr. le Dauphin._ Arch. Nat. "1792. 6 Pelottes garnies de dentelle."--_Linge du çi-devant Roi. Ibid._ [521] Souvenirs. [522] _Mémoires du Due de Luynes._ [523] 1786. _Courts of Europe._ [524] It may be amusing to the reader to learn the laces necessary for l'État d'un Trousseau, in 1777, as given in the _Description des Arts de Métiers_: "Une toilette de ville en dentelle; 2 jupons garnis du même. Une coiffure avec tour de gorge, et le fichu plissé de point d'Alençon. Un idem de point d'Angleterre. 1 id. de vraie Valenciennes. Une coiffure dite 'Battant d'oeil' de Malines brodée, pour le negligé. 6 fichus simples en mousseline à mille fleurs garnis de dentelle pour le negligé. 12 grands bonnets garnis d'une petite dentelle pour la nuit. 12 à deux rangs, plus beaux, pour le jour, en cas d'indisposition. 12 serres-tête garnis d'une petite dentelle pour la nuit. 2 taies d'oreiller garnies en dentelle. 12 pièces d'estomach garnies d'une petite dentelle. 6 garnitures de corset. 12 tours de gorge. 12 paires ce manchettes en dentelle. Une toilette; les volants, au nombre de deux, sont en dentelle; ils ont 5 aunes de tour. Dessus de pelotte, en toile garnie de dentelle, etc. La Layette: 6 paires de manches pour la mère, garnies de dentelle. 24 bonnets ronds de 3 ages en dentelle. 12 bavoirs de deux ages, garnis en dentelle." The layette was furnished together with the trousseau, because, says a fabricant, "les enfans se font plus vite que les points." [525] "1787. Pour achat de 11 au. blonde noire, à 6 10 71 livres 10 sous."--_Comptes de Monsieur Hergosse._ Bib. Nat. MSS., F. Fr. 11,447. [526] When the Empress Joséphine was at Frankfort-on-the-Maine, a masked ball was given on the occasion. The ladies, says Mademoiselle Avrillion, wore short dominoes with their faces covered with a mask, "le tour des yeux garni d'une petite dentelle noire."--_Mém. de Mademoiselle Avrillion, première femme de chambre de l'Impératrice._ Paris, 1833. [527] A few extracts from Madame du Barry's lace accounts will furnish an idea of her consumption of point d'Angleterre:-- Une toilette d'Angleterre complette de 8823 livres. Une parure composée de deux barbes, rayon et fond, 6 rangs de manchettes, 1 ½ au. de ruban fait exprès, 1/3 jabot pour le devant de tour. Le tout d'Angleterre superfin de 7000 ---- Un ajustemente d'Angleterre complet de 3216 ---- Une garniture de peignoir d'Angleterre de 2342 livres. Une garniture de fichu d'Angleterre 388 ---- 8 au. d'Angleterre pour tayes d'oreiller 240 9 ½ au. dito pour la tête 76 14 au. pied dito pour la tête 140 ---- 456 livres. [528] "Les dentelles les plus précieuses pour chaque saison."--(Duchesse d'Abrantès.) [529] _Mémoires._ [530] _Mém. de la Princesse Palatine, veuve de Monsieur._ [531] "Cuisinières et Tourières." The joke formed the subject of some clever verses from the Chevalier de Boufflers. [532] _Marli_, which takes its name from the village between Versailles and St. Germain, is tulle dotted with small square spots. See page 225. [533] The _barbe_, or lappet, of whatever form it be, has always, in all ages and all countries, been a subject of etiquette. At the interment of Queen Mary Tudor, December 14th, 1558, it is told how the ladies in the first and second chariots were clad in mourning apparel, according to their estates, "their barbes above their chynes." "The 4 ladies on horseback in like manner had their barbes on their chynes." In the third chariot, "the ladies had their barbes under their chynes."--State Papers, Domestic, Eliz., vol. 32. See also the curious extract from Madame de Campan's _Mémoires_:-- "Madame de Noailles était remplie de vertus; mais l'etiquette était pour elle une sorte d'atmosphère. Un jour je mis, sans le vouloir, cette pauvre dame dans une angoisse terrible; la reine recevait je ne sais plus qui. Tout était bien, au moins je le croyais. Je vois tout-à-coup les yeux de Madame de Noailles attachés sur les miens, et puis ses deux sourcils se levent jusqu'au haut de son front, redescendent, remontent. L'agitation de la Comtesse croissait toujours. La reine s'aperçut de tout ceci ... et me dit alors à mi-voix: 'Detachez vos barbes, où la comtesse en mourra.' L'etiquette du costume disait: 'Barbes pendentes.'" [534] Only in her last lace bill, 1773: "Une paire de barbes plattes longues de ¾ en blonde fine à fleurs fond d'Alençon, 36. "Une blonde grande hauteur à bouquets détachés et à bordure riche. "6 au. de blonde de grande hauteur façon d'Alençon à coquilles à mille poix, à 18. "Une paire de sabots de comtesse de deux rangs de tulle blonde à festons, fond d'Alençon."--_Comptes de la Comtesse du Barry._ Bib. Nat. F. Fr. 8157. Madame du Barry went to the greatest extravagance in lace ajustements, barbes, collerettes, volants, quilles, coëffes, etc., of Argentan, Angleterre, and point à l'aiguille. [535] The great fashion. The shoes were embroidered in diamonds, which were scarcely worn on other parts of the dress. The back seam, trimmed with emeralds, was called "venez-y-voir." [536] _Souvenirs du Marquis de Valfons_, 1710-1786. A "chat," tippet or Palatine, so named after the mother of the Regent. [537] In the National Archives, formerly preserved with the _Livre Rouge_ in the Armorie de Fer, is the _Gazette pour l'année_, 1782, of Marie Antoinette, consisting of a list of the dresses furnished for the Queen during the year, drawn up by the Comtesse d'Ossune, her dame des atours. We find--grands habits, robes sur le grand panier, robes sur le petit panier, with a pattern of the material affixed to each entry, and the name of the couturière who made the dress. One "Lévite" alone appears trimmed with blonde. There is also the _Gazette_ of Madame Elizabeth, for 1792. [538] _Mémoires sur la Cour de Louis XVI._ [539] Among these were Sedan, Charleville, Mézières, Dieppe, Havre, Pont-l'Évêque, Honfleur, Eu, and more than ten neighbouring villages. The points of Aurillac, Bourgogne, and Murat disappeared; and worst of all was the loss of the manufacture of Valenciennes. Laces were also made in Champagne, at Troyes and Domchéry, etc. [540] 1649. Anne Gohory leaves all her personals to Madame de Sévigné except her "plus beau mouchoir, le col de point fin de Flandres, et une juppe de satin à fleurs fond vert, garnye de point fin d'or et de soie." 1764. Geneviève Laval bequeaths to her sister "une garniture de dentelle de raiseau à grandes dents, valant au moins quinze livres l'aune."--Arch. de Nat. Y. 58. 1764. Anne Challus leaves her "belle garniture de dentelle en plein, manchettes, tour de gorge, palatine et fond."--_Ibid_. 1764. Madame de Pompadour, in her will, says, "Je donne à mes deux femmes de chambre tout ce qui concerne ma garderobe ... y compris les dentelles." [541] _Mém. de Mademoiselle d'Avrillion_. [542] _Mémoires sur la Restauration_, par Madame la Duchesse d'Abrantès. [543] _Ibid._ T. v., p. 48. [544] After the Peace of Amiens, 1801. [545] _Mémoires de Madame la Duchesse d'Abrantès._ [546] The revival first appeared in the towns which made the cheaper laces: Caen, Bayeux, Mirecourt, Le Puy, Arras, etc. [547] "Fil de mulquinerie." [548] The name _point Colbert_, adopted in memory of the great Minister, is applied to point laces in high relief. "La brode a toujours existé dans le point d'Alençon, aussi que dans le point de Venise, seulement dans le point d'Alençon les reliefs étaient moins énlevés. On ne mettait pas seulement un fil, mais trois, cinq, huit ou dix fils, suivant l'épaisseur du relief que l'on voulait obtenir puis, sur ce bourrage, se faisaient des points bouclés très serrés de façon que la boucle fut presque sous les fils formant le relief. C'est ce point que certains fabricants nomment point Colbert."--Madame Despierres, _Histoire du Point d'Alençon_.--Page 228, _post_. [549] In 1673, July, we read in the _Mercure_:--"On fait aussi des dentelles à grandes brides, comme aux points de fil sans raiseau, et des dentelles d'Espagne avec des brides claires sans picots; et l'on fait aux nouveaux points de France des brides qui en sont remplies d'un nombre infini." [550] _Mémoire concernant le Généralité d'Alençon_, dressé par M. de Pommereu. 1698. Bib. Nat. MSS. Fonds Mortemart, No. 89. [551] Vilain, velin, vellum, from the parchment or vellum upon which it is made. "La manufacture des points de France, appelés dans le pays velin."--Savary, Vol. I., p. 108. "The expression is still used. When the author inquired at Alençon the way to the house of Mr. R., a lace manufacturer, she was asked in return if it was 'Celui qui fait le velin?'"--Mrs. Palliser. [552] In 1788 Arthur Young states the number of lace-makers at and about Alençon to be from 8,000 to 9,000."--_Travels in France._ Madame Despierres, however, states that only 500 or 600 lace-workers left Alençon on the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, _as there were not 4,000 lace-workers then in the town_. [553] He deducts 150,000 livres for the raw material, the Lille thread, which was used at prices ranging from 60 to 1,600 livres per pound; from 800 to 900 livres for good fine point; but Lille at that time fabricated thread as high as 1,800 livres per pound. [554] In 1705 there were ten processes:--(1) Le dessin; (2) le picage; (3) la trace; (4) les fonds; (5) la dentelure ou bride à picots; (6) la brode; (7) l'enlevage; (8) l'éboulage; (9) le régalage; (10) l'assemblage. Mrs. Palliser gives eighteen processes, and states that this number is now reduced to twelve. The workwomen were:--(1) The piqueuse; (2) traceuse; (3) réseleuse; (4) remplisseuse; (5) fondeuse; (6) modeuse; (7) brodeuse; (8) ébouleuse; (9) régaleuse; (10) assembleuse; (11) toucheuse; (12) brideuse; (13) boucleuse; (14) gazeuse; (15) mignonneuse; (16) picoteuse; (17) affineuse; (18) affiquese. [555] "The origin of this name Argentella is obscure, but it was presumed to imply that the lace was worked in Genoa or Venice. There is, however, no evidence of this type of lace being made there. Another theory is that Argentella is an Italianised title for the more delicate examples of point d'Argentan. The character of the lace and the style of the floral patterns worked upon mesh grounds are those of Alençon laces." In Specimen 1,373-74 in the Victoria and Albert Museum collection the cordonnet is done in buttonhole stitches closely cast over a thread which outlines various forms in the design--a distinctive mark of point d'Alençon. And the hexagonal wheel device in this example is often to be seen introduced into flounces of point d'Alençon, of which other portions are composed of the ordinary Alençon ground or réseau.--A. S. Cole. Fig. 88 and Plate LVII. [556] _Dictionnaire du Citoyen_, Paris, 1761. [557] Madame Despierres writes on this head that entries of point d'Alençon occur as early as 1663:-- "1663, 9 juin--contrat entre Georges Rouillon, Greffier, et Marie Leroy.... "1900 liv. gagnées par son industrie à faire des ouvrages de point d'Alençon." [558] _Inv. de Madame Anne Palatine, Princesse de Condé_. See chap. x. note 468. [559] In the Inventory of the Duc de Penthièvre, 1738. See chap. xi. [560] "Une coiffure de point d'Alençon à raiseau."--_Inv. de decès de Mademoiselle de Clermont_, 1741. Again, 1743, _Inv. de la Duchesse de Bourbon_. Bib. Nat. [561] Among the objects of religious art exhibited in 1864 at the General Assembly of the Catholics of Belgium at Malines was a "voile de bénédiction," the handkerchief used to cover the ciborium, of point d'Alençon, with figures of the Virgin, St. Catherine, St. Ursula, and St. Barbara. It belonged to the Church of St. Christopher at Charleroi. [562] Séez has now no records of its manufacture. [563] _Descr. du Dép. de l'Orne_. An IX. Publiée par ordre du ministre de l'intérieur. [564] _Illustrated News_, March 22, 1856. [565] It only requires to compare Figs. 74, 75, 76, and 80, with Figs. 82 and 83 to see the marked difference in the character of the lace. [566] "Sous Louis XIV. il y avaient de magnifiques rinceaux, guirlandes, et cornes d'abondance d'où s'échappent de superbes fleurs. Sous Louis XV. les fabricants changèrent encore leurs dessins pour prendre les fleurs qui s'épanouent et s'ensoulent capricieusement les unes aux autres. "Le style de Louis XVI. n'a rien de l'ampleur ni de l'élégance des styles précédents. Les formes sont arrondies; des guirlandes et des fleurettes sont la base des dessins de cette époque. "Sous la république et le premier empire, les dessins deviennent raides" (Madame Despierres.) [567] This effect is produced by varying the application of the two stitches used in making the flowers, the _toilé_, which forms the close tissue, and the _grillé_, the more open part of the pattern. The system has been adopted in France, Belgium, and England, but with most success in France. "Li boen citean de Roem, E la Jovante de Caem, E de Falaise e d'Argentoen." --_Roman de Rou._ [569] Henry founded a chapel at Argentan to St. Thomas of Canterbury. [570] "The average size of a diagonal, taken from angle to angle, in an Alençon or so-called Argentan hexagon was about 1/6 of an inch, and each side of the hexagon was about 1/10 of an inch. An idea of the minuteness of the work can be formed from the fact that a side of a hexagon would be overcast with some nine or ten buttonhole stitches" (A. S. Cole). "So little is the beautiful workmanship of this ground known or understood, that the author has seen priceless flowers of Argentan relentlessly cut out and transferred to bobbin net, 'to get rid of the ugly, old, coarse ground'" (Mrs. Palliser, 1869). [571] "Les trois sortes de brides comme champ sont exécutées dans ces deux fabriques, et les points ont été et sont encore faits par les mêmes procédés de fabrication, et avec les mêmes matières textiles," writes Madame Despierres. Mrs. Palliser, on the other hand, was of opinion that the two manufactures were distinct, "though some lace-makers near Lignères-la-Doucelle worked for both establishments. Alençon made the finest réseau; Argentan specially excelled in the bride. The flowers of Argentan were bolder and larger in pattern, in higher relief, heavier and coarser than those of Alençon. The toilé was flatter and more compact. The workmanship differed in character. On the clear bride ground this lace was more effective than the minuter workmanship of Alençon; it more resembled the Venetian. Indeed, so close is its resemblance that many of the fine garnitures de robe, aprons, and tunics that have survived the revolutionary storm would be assigned to Venice, did not their pedigree prove them to be of the Argentan fabric" (Mrs. Palliser, 1869). [572] Letter of September 19th, 1744. [573] "Burgoigne, the first part of the dress for the head next the hair."--_Mundus Muliebris._ 1609. "Burgoigin, the part of the head-dress that covers up the head."--_Ladies' Dictionary._ 1694. In Farquhar's comedy of "Sir Harry Wildair," 1700, Parley, when asked what he had been about, answers, "Sir, I was coming to Mademoiselle Furbelow, the French milliner, for a new Burgundy for my lady's head." [574] The offenders, manufacturers and workwomen, incurred considerable fines. [575] Nov. 12th, 1745. [576] In 1765, under the name of Duponchel. [577] 1772. Un ajustement de point d'Argentan-- Les 6 rangs manchettes. 1/3 pour devant de gorge. 4 au. 1/3 festonné des deux costés, le fichu et une garniture de fichu de nuit 2,500 livres. 1 au ¾ ruban de point d'Argentan, à 100 175 ---- Une collerette de point d'Argentan 360 ---- --(_Comptes de Madame du Barry._) 1781. "Une nappe d'autel garnie d'une tres belle dentelle de point d'Argentan."--_Inv. de l'Eglise de St. Gervais._ Arch. Nat. L. 654. 1789. "Item, un parement de robe consistant en garniture, deux paires de manchettes, et fichu, le tout de point d'Argentan." (Dans la garderobe de Madame.)--_Inv. de decès de Mgr. de Duc de Duras._ Bib. Nat. MSS. F. Fr. 11,440. [578] "Une coiffure bride à picot complete."--_Inv. de decès de Mademoiselle de Clermont_, 1741. [579] These details on the manufacture of Argentan have been furnished from the archives of Alençon through the kindness of M. Léon de la Sicotière, the learned archæologist of the Department of the Orne (Mrs. Palliser, 1869). [580] Embroidery has replaced this industry among the workers of the town and the hand-spinning of hemp among those of the country. [581] _Légende du point d'Argentan_, M. Eugène de Lonlay. [582] _Nouveau Réglement Général sur toutes sortes de Marchandises et Manufactures qui sont utiles et necessaires dans ce Royaume_, etc., par M. le Marquis de la Gomberdière. Paris, 1634. In 8vo. [583] M. Fournier says that France was at this time tributary to Flanders for "passemens de fil," very fine and delicately worked. Laffemas, in his _Réglement Général pour dresser les Manufactures du Royaume_, 1597, estimates the annual cost of these "passemens" of every sort, silk stockings, etc., at 800,000 crowns. Montchrestien, at above a million. [584] This was established by Colbert, and there they made, as well as at Aurillac, the finest pillow lace in the style of point d'Angleterre. This manufacture was encouraged by the King and the Court, and its productions were among the choicest of the points de France. [585] Youngest son of the Comte d'Harcourt. [586] Vie de J.-Bap. Colbert. (Printed in the _Archives Curieuses_.) [587] "Livre commode ou les Adienes de la Ville de Paris" for 1692. [588] For the introduction of the gold point of Spain into France, see SPAIN. The manufacture of gold lace in Paris was, however, prior to Colbert. "1732, un bord de point d'Espagne d'or de Paris, à fonds de réseau."--_Garderobe de S. A. S. Mgr. le Duc de Penthièvre._ Arch. Nat. K. K. 390-1. [589] In _Statistique de la France_, 1800, the finest silk lace is said to be made at Fontenay, Puisieux, Morges, and Louvres-en-Parisis. The coarse and common kinds at Montmorency, Villiers-le-Bel, Sarcelles, Écouen, Saint-Brice, Groslay, Gisors, Saint-Pierre-les-Champs, Etrepagny, etc. Peuchet adds: "Il s'y fait dans Paris et ses environs une grande quantité de dentelles noires dont il se fait des expéditions considérables." It was this same black silk lace which raised to so high a reputation the fabrics of Chantilly. [590] _Inv. de decés de la Duchesse de Modène._ 1761. [591] _Inv. de decés du Duc de Duras._ 1789. [592] "Une fraise à deux rangs de blonde tres fine, grande hauteur, 120 l. "Une paire de sabots de la même blonde, 84 l. "Un fichu en colonette la fraise garnie à deux rangs d'une tres belle blonde fond d'Alençon, 120 l. "Un pouff bordé d'un plissé de blonde tournante fond d'Alençon, à bouquets tres fins et des bouillons de même blonde." This wonderful coiffure being finished with "Un beau panache de quatre plumes couleurs impériales, 108 l." [593] See preceding note. [594] "The bourgoin is formed of white, stiffly-starched muslin, covering a paste-board shape, and rises to a great height above the head, frequently diminishing in size towards the top, where it finishes in a circular form. Two long lappets hang from either side towards the back, composed often of the finest lace. The bourgoins throughout Normandy are not alike."--_Mrs. Stothard's Tour in Normandy._ [595] This must have included Honfleur and other surrounding localities. By a paper on the lace trade (_Mém. concernant le Commerce des Dentelles_, 1704. Bib. Nat. MSS. F. Fr. 14,294), we find that the making of "dentelles de bas prix," employed at Rouen, Dieppe, Le Havre, and throughout the Pays de Caux, the Bailliage of Caen, at Lyons, Le Puy, and other parts of France, one quarter of the population of all classes and ages from six to seventy years. These laces were all made of Haarlem thread. See HOLLAND. "The lace-makers of Havre," writes Peuchet, "work both in black and white points, from 5 sous to 30 francs the ell. They are all employed by a certain number of dealers, who purchase the produce of their pillows. Much is transported to foreign countries, even to the East Indies, the Southern Seas, and the islands of America." [596] _Dictionnaire Géographique._ T. Corneille. 1707. [597] _Gravures de Modes._ Arch. Nat. M., 815-23. [598] "1683. Deux housses de toille piquée avec dentelle du Havre deux camisolles de pareille toille et de dentelle du Havre."--_Inv. fait après le decedz de Monseigneur Colbert._ Bib. Nat. MSS. Suite de Mortemart, 34. [599] "1651. Un tour d'autel de dentelle du Havre."--_Inv. des meubles de la Sacristie de l'Oratoire de Jesus, à Paris._ Bib. Nat. MSS. F. F. 8621. "1681. Une chemisette de toile de Marseille picquée garnye de dentelle du Havre."--_Inv. d'Anne d'Escoubleau de Sourdis, veuve de François de Simiane._ Arch. Nat. M. M. 802. [600] "Les ouvriers n'étant apparemment rappelés par aucune possession dans cette ville, lorsqu'elle fut rétablie, ils s'y sont établis et ont transmis leur travail à la postérité."--Peuchet. [601] Point de Dieppe appears among the already-quoted lace boxes of 1688. [602] _Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire de la Ville de Dieppe_, composés en l'année 1761, par Michel-Claude Gurbert. P. 99. [603] _Mémoires Chronologiques pour servir à l'Histoire de Dieppe_, par M. Desmarquets. 1785. [604] _Notices sur Dieppe, Arques_, etc., par P. J. Feret. 1824. [605] Peuchet, of Dieppe, says: "On ne fait pas la dentelle en roulant les fuseaux sur le coussin, mais en l'y jetant." [606] _Almanach de Dieppe pour 1847._ The Author has to express her thanks to Soeur Hubert, of the École d'Apprentissage de Dentelle, and M. A. Morin, Librarian at Dieppe, for their communications. [607] Arch. Nat. X. 10,086. [608] "The silk came from Nankin by way of London or the East, the black silk called 'grenadine' was dyed and prepared at Lyons, the thread was from Haarlem."--Roland de la Platière. [609] Page 213. [610] Letter from Edgar McCulloch, Esq., Guernsey. [611] Blondes appear also to have been made at Le Mans:-- "Cette manufacture qui etoit autrefois entretenue à l'hôpital du Mans, lui rapportoit un benefice de 4,000 à 5,000 fr. Elle est bien tombée par la dispersion des anciennes soeurs hospitalières."--_Stat. du Dép. de la Sarthe_, par le Citoyen L.-M. Auvray. An X. [612] The handkerchief of "Paris net" mentioned by Goldsmith. [613] In the Dép. du Nord, by Jean-Ph. Briatte. "Its fall was owing to the bad faith of imitators, who substituted a single thread of bad quality for the double twisted thread of the country."--Dieudonné, _Statistique de Dép. du Nord_. In the _Mercure Galant_ for June, 1687, we find the ladies wear cornettes à la jardinière "de Marly." [614] _L'Industrie Française depuis la Révolution de Février et l'Exposition de 1848_, par M. A. Audiganne. M. Aubry thus divides the lace-makers of Normandy:-- Department of Calvados-- Arrondissement of Caen 25,000 Arr. of Bayeux 15,000 Arr. of Pont-l'Evêque, Falaise,* and Lisieux 10,000 Departments of La Manche and Seine-Inférieure 10,000 ------ 60,000 The women earn from 50 sous to 25 sous a day, an improvement on the wages of the last century, which, in the time of Arthur Young, seldom amounted to 24 sous. Their products are estimated at from 8 to 10 millions of francs (£320,000 to £400,000). * "Falaise, dentelles façon de Dieppe."--Peuchet. [615] He had run away with the rich heiress of Coadelan. [616] _Chants populaires de la Bretagne_, par Th. Hersart de la Villemarqué. [617] The bringing home of the wedding dress is an event of solemn importance. The family alone are admitted to see it, and each of them sprinkles the orange blossoms with which it is trimmed with holy water placed at the foot of the bed whereon the dress is laid, and offers up a prayer for the future welfare of the wearer. [618] French Hainault, French Flanders and Cambrésis (the present Dép. du Nord), with Artois, were conquests of Louis XIII. and Louis XIV., confirmed to France by the treaties of Aix-la-Chapelle (1668) and Nimeguen (1678). [619] Photographed in the _Album d'Archéologie Religieuse_. It is supposed to have been made towards the end of the seventeenth century. [620] Founded 1630. [621] "1772. 15 aunes 3-16^{mes} jabot haut de vraie Valencienne, 3,706 livres 17 sous"; and many other similar entries. [622] "5/8 Bâtarde dito à bordure, à 60 ll., 37 ll. 10 s."--_Comptes de Madame du Barry._ [623] _Statistique du Dép. du Nord_, par M. Dieudonné, Préfet en 1804. [624] "Among the various fabrics having the same process of manufacture, there is not one which produces exactly the same style of lace. The same pattern, with the same material, whether executed in Belgium, Saxony, Lille, Arras, Mirecourt, or Le Puy, will always bear the stamp of the place where it is made. It has never been possible to transfer any kind of manufacture from one city to another without there being a marked difference between the productions."--Aubry. "After the French Revolution, when so many lace-makers fled to Belgium, Alost, Ypres, Bruges, Ghent, Menin, and Courtrai became the centres of this industry, and the lace produced in each town has a distinctive feature in the ground. That made in Ghent is square-meshed, the bobbins being twisted two and a half times. At Ypres, which makes a better quality of Valenciennes, the ground is also square-meshed, but the bobbins are twisted four times. In Courtrai and Menin the grounds are twisted three and a half times, and in Bruges, where the ground has a circular mesh, the bobbins are twisted three times." [625] In the already quoted _Etat d'un Trousseau_, 1771, among the necessary articles are enumerated: "Une coëffure, tour de gorge et le fichu plissé de vraie Valencienne." The trimming of one of Madame du Barry's pillowcases cost 487 fr.; her lappets, 1,030. The ruffles of the Duchesse de Modène and Mademoiselle de Charollais are valued at 200 livres the pair. Du Barry, more extravagant, gives 770 for hers. [626] "2 barbes et rayon de vraie valencienne; 3 au. ¾ collet grande hauteur; 4 au. grand jabot; le tout de la même main, de 2,400 livres."--_Comptes de Madame du Barry._ 1770. [627] Arthur Young, in 1788, says of Valenciennes: "Laces of 30 to 40 lines' breadth for gentlemen's ruffles is from 160 to 216 livres (£9 9s.) an ell. The quantity for a lady's headdress from 1,000 to 24,000 livres. The women gain from 20 to 30 sous a day. 3,600 persons are employed at Valenciennes, and are an object of 450,000 livres, of which the flax is not more than 1/30. The thread costs from 24 to 700 livres the pound." [628] The "barbes pleines" consisted of a pair of lappets from 3 to 5 inches wide each, and half an ell (20 inches) long, with a double pattern of sprigged flowers and rounded at the ends. A narrow lace 1 ½ ell long, called the _Papillon_, with the bande or passe, and the fond de bonnet, completed the suit. [629] The fault of the old Valenciennes lace is its colour, never of a clear white, but inclining to a reddish cast. [630] "Les dentelières avaient adopté un par-dessus de calamande rayée, un bonniquet de toile fine plissé à petits canons. Une médaille d'argent, pendue au cou par un petit liseré noir, complétait leur costume, qui est arrivé jusqu'à nous; car nous l'avons vu, il n'y a pas trente ans."--_Hist. de Lille_, par V. Derode. Paris et Lille, 1848. [631] _Mémoires sur l'Intendance de Flandre._--MS. Bib. de Lille. [632] Period of the peace of Utrecht when Lille, which had been retaken by Prince Eugène, was again restored to France. [633] _Histoire Populaire de Lille._ Henri Brunet. Lille, 1848; and _Histoire de Lille._ V. Derode. [634] _Report of the Commissioners for 1851._ [635] As late as 1761 Lille was considered as "foreign" with respect to France, and her laces made to pay duty according to the tariff of 1664. In 1708 (31st of July) we have an Arrest du Conseil d'Estat du Roy, relative to the seizure of seventeen cartons of lace belonging to one "Mathieu, marchand à l'Isle." Mathieu, in defence, pretends that "les dentelles avoient esté fabriquées à Haluin (near Lille), terre de la domination de Sa Majesté."--Arch. Nat. Coll. Rondonneau. [636] See FLANDERS (WEST), _treille_. [637] In 1789, thread was 192 francs the kilogramme. [638] Describing her trousseau, every article of which was trimmed with Angleterre, Malines, or Valenciennes, she adds: "A cette époque (1800), on ignorait même l'existence du tulle, les seules dentelles communes que l'on connût étaient les dentelles de Lille et d'Arras, qui n'étaient portées que par les femmes les plus ordinaires."--_Mém. de Madame la Duchesse d'Abrantès._ T. iii. Certainly the laces of Lille and Arras never appear in the inventories of the "grandes dames" of the last century. [639] Dieudonné. [640] Peuchet states much "fausse Valenciennes, très rapprochée de la vraie," to have been fabricated in the hospital at Lille, in which institution there were, in 1723, 700 lace-workers. [641] A piece of Lille lace contains from 10 to 12 ells. [642] "L'Abbaye du Vivier, etablie dans la ville d'Arras," Poëme par le Père Dom Martin du Buisson, in _Mémoires et Pièces pour servir a l'Histoire de la Ville d'Arras_.--Bib. Nat. MSS., Fonds François, 8,936. [643] Bib. Nat. MSS., Fonds François, 8,936. [644] We find in the Colbert Correspondence (1669), the directors of the General hospital at Arras had enticed lace-workers of point de France, with a view to establish the manufacture in their hospital, but the jealousy of the other cities threatening to overthrow their commerce, they wrote to Colbert for protection. [645] Gt. Ward. Acc. Geo. I. 1714-15 (P. R. O.), and Acc. of John, Duke of Montagu, master of the Great Wardrobe, touching the expenses of the funeral of Queen Anne and the coronation of George I. (P.R.O.) In 1761 an Act was passed against its being counterfeited, and a vendor of "Orrice lace" (counterfeit, we suppose) forfeits her goods. [646] _Statistique des Gens de Lettres._ 1808. Herbin. T. ii. [647] A museum of lace has been established at Bailleul. [648] In 1788, Bailleul, Cassel, and the district of Hazebrouck, had 1351 lace-makers. In 1802 the number had diminished; but it has since gradually increased. In 1830 there were 2,500. In 1851 there were already 8,000, dispersed over twenty communes. [649] Haute-Loire, Cantal, Puy-de-Dôme, and Loire. [650] 1640. [651] 1833 and 1848. [652] By Médecis. [653] They represent to the king that the laces of the "diocèse du Puy, du Vélay et de l'Auvergne, dont il se faisait un commerce très considérable dans les pays étrangers, par les ports de Bordeaux, La Rochelle et Nantes," ought not to pay the import duties held by the "cinq grosses fermes."--_Arrest du Conseil d'Estat du Roy_, 6 August, 1707. Arch. Nat. Coll. Rond. They ended by obtaining a duty of five sous per lb., instead of the 50 livres paid by Flanders and England, or the ten livres by the laces of Comté, Liège, and Lorraine. [654] 1715 and 1716. [655] See MILAN. [656] Roland de la Platière. [657] Three-fourths were consumed in Europe in time of peace:--Sardinia took 120,000 francs, purchased by the merchants of Turin, once a year, and then distributed through the country: Florence and Spain, each 200,000; Guyenne exported by the merchants of Bordeaux 200,000; 500,000 went to the Spanish Indies. The rest was sold in France by means of colporteurs.--Peuchet. [658] In Auvergne lace has preserved its ancient names of "passement" and "pointes," the latter applied especially to needle-made lace. It has always retained its celebrity for passements or guipures made in bands. The simplicity of life in the mountains has doubtless been a factor in the unbroken continuity of the lace-trade. [659] Le Puy in recent years has named some of its coarse patterns "guipure de Cluny," after the museum in Paris--a purely fanciful name. [660] Savinière d'Alquie. [661] Savary. Point d'Aurillac is mentioned in the _Révolte des Passemens_. [662] _Histoire du point d' Alençon_, Madame Despierres. [663] "Voile de toile d'argent, garni de grandes dentelles d'or et argent fin, donné en 1711 pour envelopper le chef de S. Gaudence."--_Inventaire du Monastère des Bénédictines de St. Aligre._ [664] In the convents are constantly noted down "point d'Espagne d'or et argent fin," while in the cathedral of Clermont the chapter contented itself with "dentelles d'or et argent faux." [665] "1773. 6 au. de grande entoilage de belle blonde à poix." [666] "16 au. entoilage à mouches à 11 l., 1761."--_Comptes de Madame du Barry._ [667] "7 au. de tulle pour hausser les manchettes, à 9 l., 63 l."--1770. _Cptes. de Madame du Barry._ [668] _Souvenirs de la Marquise de Créquy._ [669] In an old geography we find, "Tulle, Tuille three hundred years ago." The word Tule or Tuly occurs in an English inventory of 1315, and again, in "Sir Gawayn and the Green Knight"; but in both cases the word seems not to indicate a stuff but rather a locality, probably Toulouse.--Francisque Michel. In Skelton's _Garland of Lawrell_, we find, "A skein of tewly silk"; which his commentator, the Rev. A. Dyce, considers to be "dyed of a red colour." [670] As early as 1615 there appears to have been a traffic with Italy in laces, the painter Claude Lorraine being taken to Italy in that year by his uncle, a carrier and dealer in laces. [671] Neufchâteau. [672] The trader who purchases the lace is called "peussemotier." [673] The Lorraine laces could only enter France by the bureau of Chaumont, nor could they leave the country without a formal permit delivered at Monthureux-le-Sec.--Arch. Nat., Coll. Rondonneau. [674] In a catalogue of the collection of objects of religious art, exhibited at Mechlin in 1864, we find noticed, "Dentelle pour rochet, point de Nancy," from the church of St. Charles at Antwerp, together with various "voiles de bénédiction," laces for rochets and altar-cloths, of "point de Paris." [675] The _Tableau Statistique du Dép. des Vosges_, by Citoyen Desgoulles, An X, says: "Mirecourt is celebrated for its lace fabrics. There are twenty lace merchants; but the workers are not attached to any particular house. They buy their own thread, make the lace, and bring it to the merchants of Mirecourt to purchase. The women follow this occupation when not engaged in field work; but they only earn from 25 to 40 centimes a day. Before the Revolution, 7/8 of the coarse lace was exported to Germany towards Swabia. Of the fine qualities, France consumed 2/3. The remainder went to the colonies." [676] So are those of Courseulles (Calvados). [677] Savary. Sedan was ceded to Louis XIII. in 1642. [678] "Eidem pro 6 divi[=t] Sedan et Itali[=e] colaris opere scis[=s] et pro 62 purles opere acuo pro 6 pa[=r] mani[=c] lintea[=r] eisdem, £116 6s."--Gt. Ward. Acc. Car. I., ix. to xi. P. R. O. [679] "Eidem pro 6 divi[=t] Pultenarian Sedan de opere scis[=s] colaris et pro 72 purles divi[=t] opere acuo pro mani[=c] lintea[=r] eisdem, £106 16s."--Gt. Ward. Acc. Car. I., xi. to xii. [680] In 1700 there were several lace manufacturers at Charleville, the principal of whom was named Vigoureux.--_Hist. de Charleville._ Charleville, 1854. [681] Savary. Ed. 1726. [682] _Description de la France._ Ed. 1752. [683] Savary. [684] John Roberts, of Burgundy, eight years in England, "a knitter of knotted wool." Peter de Grue, Burgundian, "knitter of cauls and sleeves." Callys de Hove, "maker of lace," and Jane his wife, born in Burgundy.--State Papers, Dom., Eliz. Vol. 84. P.R.O. [685] M. Joseph Garnier, the learned Archiviste of Dijon, informed Mrs. Palliser that "les archives de l'hospice Sainte-Anne n'ont conservé aucune trace de la manufacture de dentelles qui y fut établie. Tout ce qu'on sait, c'est qu'elle était sous la direction d'un sieur Helling, et qu'on y fabriquait le point d'Alençon." [686] _Descr. du Dép. de la Vienne_, par le Citoyen Cochon. An X. [687] "Ce n'est pas une grande chose que la manufacture de points qui est établie dans l'hôpital de Bourdeaux."--Savary. Edit. 1726. [688] Table of the Number of Lace-workers in France in 1851. (From M. Aubry.) Manufacture of Chantilly and Alençon:-- Orne } Seine-et-Oise } Eure } 12,500 Seine-et-Marne } Oise } Manufacture of Lille, Arras, and Bailleul:-- Nord } Pas-de-Calais } 18,000 Manufacture of Normandy, Caen, and Bayeux:-- Calvados } Manche } 55,000 Seine-Inférieure } Manufacture of Lorraine, Mirecourt:-- Vosges } Meurthe } 22,000 Manufacture of Auvergne, Le Puy:-- Cantal } Haute Loire } 130,000 Loire } Puy-de-Dôme } Application-work at Paris} and Lace-makers } 2,500 ------- Total 240,000 ------- In his _Report on the Universal Exhibition of 1867_, M. Aubry estimates the number at 200,000--their average wages from 1 to 1½ francs a day of ten hours' labour; some earn as much as 3½ francs. Almost all work at home, combining the work of the pillow with their agricultural and household occupations. Lace schools are being founded throughout the northern lace departments of France, and prizes and every kind of encouragement given to the pupils by the Empress, as well as by public authorities and private individuals. [689] In the Census of 1571, giving the names of all strangers in the city of London, we find mention but of one Dutchman, Richard Thomas, "a worker of billament lace." [690] In 1689 appears an "Arrest du Roi qui ordonne l'exécution d'une sentence du maître de poste de Rouen, portant confiscation des dentelles venant d'Amsterdam."--Arch. Nat. Coll. Rondonneau. [691] 1685. [692] We have frequent mention of dentelle à la reine previous to its introduction into Holland. 1619. "Plus une aulne ung tiers de dentelle à la reyne."--_Trésorerie de Madame, Soeur de Roi._ Arch. Nat. K. K. 234. 1678. "Les dames mettent ordinairement deux cornettes de Point à la Reyne ou de soie écrue, rarement de Point de France, parce que le point clair sied mieux au visage."--_Mercure Galant._ 1683. "Deux Aubes de toille demie holande garnis de point à la Reyne."--_Inv. fait apres le decedz de Mgr. Colbert._ Bib. Nat. MSS. Suite de Mortemart, 34. [693] C. Weisse. _History of the French Protestant Refugees from the Edict of Nantes._ Edinburgh, 1854. [694] Grandson of Simon Châtelain. See Chap. VI. [695] In the paper already referred to (see NORMANDY) on the lace trade, in 1704, it is stated the Flemish laces called "dentelles de haut prix" are made of Lille, Mons and Mechlin thread, sent to bleach at Haarlem, "as they know not how to bleach them elsewhere." The "dentelles de bas prix" of Normandy and other parts of France being made entirely of the cheaper thread of Haarlem itself, an Act, then just passed, excluding the Haarlem thread, would, if carried out, annihilate this branch of industry in France.--_Commerce des Dentelles de Fil._ Bib. Nat. MSS. F. Fr. 14,294. [696] And. Yarranton. 1677. [697] "Flax is improved by age. The saying was, 'Wool may be kept to dust, flax to silk.' I have seen flax twenty years old as fine as a hair."--_Ibid._ [698] _Commerce de la Hollande._ 1768. [699] _Edinburgh Amusement._ [700] _Six Weeks in the Court and Country of France._ 1691. [701] Treillis d'Allemagne is early mentioned in the French inventories:-- 1543. "Pour une aulne deux tiers trillist d'Allemagne."--_Argenterie de la Reine_ (_Eléonore d'Autriche_). Arch. Nat. K. K. 104. 1557. "Pour une aulne de treilliz noir d'Allemagne pour garnir la robbe de damars noir ou il y a de la bizette."--_Comptes de l'Argentier du Roi_ (_Henry II._). Arch. Nat. K. K. 106. [702] "At a meeting of the Society of Polite Arts, premiums were given to a specimen of a new invention imitating Dresden work. It is done with such success as to imitate all the various stitches of which Dresden work is composed, with such ingenuity as to surpass the finest performance with the needle. This specimen, consisting of a cap and a piece for a long apron, the apron, valued by the inventress at £2 2s., was declared by the judges worth £56."--_Annual Register._ 1762. [703] "Smash go the glasses, aboard pours the wine on circling laces, Dresden aprons, silvered silks, and rich brocades." And again, "Your points of Spain, your ruffles of Dresden."--_Fool of Quality._ 1766. [704] _Caledonian Mercury._ 1760. [705] Letter from Koestritz. 1863. [706] In 1713. [707] Weisse. [708] Dated Oct. 29, 1685. [709] Anderson. [710] Arch. Nat. Coll. Rondonneau. [711] "Commissions and Privileges granted by Charles I., Landgrave of Hesse, to the French Protestants, dated Cassel, Dec. 12, 1685." [712] Peuchet. [713] Anderson. [714] _La France Protestante_, par M. M. Haag. Paris 1846-59. [715] "Item. Dix carrez de tapisserye a poinctz de Hongrye d'or, d'argent et soye de differends patrons."--1632. _Inv. après le decès du Maréchal de Marillac._ Bib. Nat. MSS. F. Fr. 11,424. [716] Hungary was so styled in the seventeenth century. In a _Relation of the most famous Kingdoms and Common Weales through the World_, London, 1608, we find "Hungerland." [717] "City Madam." Massinger. [718] _Pictures of German Life in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries_, by Gustaf Freytag. [719] _Merveilleux Amusements des Bains de Bade._ Londres, 1739. [720] Bishop of Salisbury. "Letters." 1748-9. [721] _Modelbuch in Kupfen gemacht._ Nürnberg, 1601. [722] Poppenreuth is about a German mile from Nuremberg. [723] "Austria."--_Report of the International Exhibition of 1862._ [724] As quoted in Lefébure's _Embroidery and Lace_. [725] Haag. _La France Protestante._ [726] The Neufchâtel trade extended through the Jura range from the valley of Lake Joux (Vaud) to Porentruy, near Bâle. [727] _Statistique de la Suisse._ Picot, de Genève. 1819. [728] A curious pattern-book has been sent to us, belonging to the Antiquarian Society of Zurich, through the kindness of its president, Dr. Ferd. Keller. It contains specimens of a variety of narrow braids and edgings of a kind of knotted work, but only a few open-work edgings that could be called lace. [729] On her marriage, 1515. [730] "1619. Sept. 11. Paid for a lace, 63 rixd. 11 skillings. "1620. Oct. 11. Paid to a female lace-worker, 28 rixd. "Nov. 4. Paid 10 rixd. to a female lace-worker who received her dismissal. "Nov. 11. Paid 71 specie dollars to a lace-seller for lace for the use of the children. "Paid 33 specie dollars and 18 skill. Lubec money, to the same man for lace and cambric. "1625. May 19. Paid 21 rixd. for lace. "Dec. 20. Paid 25 specie dollars 15 skill. Lubec money, for taffetas and lace." [731] 1639. [732] _Rawert's Report upon the Industry in the Kingdom of Denmark._ 1848. [733] "The Great Recess." [734] Two-thirds of a yard. [735] Dated 1643. [736] "Tönder lace, fine and middling, made in the districts of Lygum Kloster, keeps all the peasant girls employed. Thereof is exported to the German markets and the Baltic, it is supposed, for more than 100,000 rixdollars (£11,110), and the fine thread must be had from the Netherlands, and sometimes costs 100 rixdollars per lb."--_Pontoppidan. Economical Balance._ 1759. [737] "In the Victoria and Albert Museum collection, Denmark is represented by a few skilful embroideries done on and with fine linen, muslin and suchlike, which are somewhat similar in appearance to lace fabrics of Mechlin design."--(A. S. Cole.) [738] "The lace fabric in North Sleswick in 1840 was divided into two districts--that of Tönder and Lygum Kloster on the western coasts, and that of Haderslaben and Apenraade on the east. The quality of the lace from these last localities is so bad that no Copenhagen dealers will have it in their shops."--_Report of the Royal Sleswick-Holstein Government._ 1840. [739] Mr. Jens Wulff, an eminent lace-dealer, Knight of the Danebrog, who has made great exertions to revive the lace industry in Denmark. [740] Tönder lace was celebrated for its durability, the best flax or silk thread only being used. [741] "A lace-maker earns from 3½d. to 4½d. per day of sixteen hours."--_Rawert's Report._ 1848. [742] The Tönder lace-traders enjoy the privilege of offering their wares for sale all over Denmark without a license (concession), a privilege extended to no other industry. [743] The early perfection of Bridget herself in this employment, if we may credit the chronicle of the Abbess Margaretha, 1440-46, may be ascribed to a miraculous origin. When, at the age of twelve, she was employed at her knitted lace-work, a fear came over her that she should not finish her work creditably to herself, and in her anxiety she raised her heart above. As her aunt came into the chamber she beheld an unknown maiden sitting opposite to her niece, and aiding her in her task; she vanished immediately, and when the aunt asked Bridget who had helped her she know nothing about it, and assured her relation she had seen no one. All were astonished at the fineness and perfection of the work, and kept the lace as of miraculous origin. [744] _Wadstena Past and Present_ (Förr och Nu). [745] The letter is dated March 20th, 1544. [746] In the detailed account of the trousseau furnished to his daughter, there is no mention of lace; but the author of _One Year in Sweden_ has seen the body of his little granddaughter, the Princess Isabella, daughter of John III., as it lies in the vault of Strengnäs, the child's dress and shoes literally covered with gold and silver lace of a Gothic pattern, fresh and untarnished as though made yesterday. [747] In the Victoria and Albert Museum there is a collection of Norwegian cut-work of the eighteenth century. [748] Weber. _Bilberbuch._ Leipzig, 1746. _Handbok for unga Fruntimmer_, by Ekenmark. Stockholm, 1826-28. [749] Some are twice the width of Fig. 117. [750] For this information, with a collection of specimens, the author has to thank Madame Petre of Gefle. [751] The Russian bobbins are interesting by reason of their archaic simplicity. Lacking any trace of decoration, whether suggested by sentimental fancy or artistic taste, they are purely utilitarian, mere sticks of wood, more or less straight and smooth, and six or seven inches long. [752] A depôt has been opened in London, where Russian laces and embroidery of all kinds are shown. [753] _Rot. Parl. 37 Edw. III._ Printed. P. 278, Col. 2, No. 26. [754] See her monument in Westminster Abbey.--Sandford's _Genealogical History_. [755] "Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster, wife of John of Gaunt, wears a quilted silk cap with a three-pointed border of broad lace network." (Sandford. St. Paul's monument, after Dugdale.) "Elizabeth, Duchess of Exeter, died 1425 (Sandford, p. 259), wore also a caul of network with a needlework edging." [756] In the Statute 2 Rich. II. = 1378, merchant strangers are allowed to sell in gross and in retail "gold wire or silver wire" and other such small ware. Neither in this nor in the Treaty 13 Rich. II. = 1390, between England, the Count of Flanders, and "les bonnes Gentz des Trois bonnes villes de Flandres Gand, Brugges et Ipre" (see Rymer), is there any mention of lace, which, even if fabricated, was of too little importance as an article of commerce to deserve mention save as other "small wares." [757] Pins not yet being in common use, any lace would be called "work of the needle." [758] 3 Edw. IV., cap. iv. [759] "1463. John Barett bequeaths to 'My Lady Walgrave, my musk ball of gold with [=p]le and lace. "'Item, to John Eden, my o gr. of tawny silk with poynts of needle work--_opus punctatum_.'"--_Bury Wills and Inventories._ [760] Bib. Harl. 2,320. [761] Such as "Lace Bascon, Lace endented, Lace bordred on both syde, yn o syde, pykke Lace bordred, Lace Condrak, Lace Dawns, Lace Piol, Lace covert, Lace coverte doble, Lace compon coverte, Lace maskel, Lace cheyne brode, Las Cheveron, Lace Oundé, Grene dorge, Lace for Hattys," etc. Another MS. of directions for making these same named laces is in the possession of the Vicar of Ipsden, Oxfordshire, and has been examined by the author through the kindness of Mr. W. Twopenny. [762] Bows, loops. [763] Additional MSS. No. 6,293, small quarto, ff. 38. It contains instructions for making various laces, letters and "edges," such as "diamond stiff, fly, cross, long S, figure of 8, spider, hart," etc., and at the end:-- "Heare may you see in Letters New The Love of her that honoreth you. My love is this, Presented is The Love I owe I cannot showe, The fall of Kings Confusion bringes Not the vallyou but the Love When this you see Remember me." In the British Museum (Lansdowne Roll, No. 22) is a third MS. on the same subject, a parchment roll written about the time of Charles I., containing rules and directions for executing various kinds of sampler-work, to be wrought in letters, etc., by means of coloured strings or bows. It has a sort of title in these words, "To know the use of this Booke it is two folkes worke," meaning that the works are to be done by two persons. Probably of this work was the "Brede (braid) of divers colours, woven by Four Ladies," the subject of some verses by Waller beginning:-- "Twice twenty slender Virgins' Fingers twine This curious web, where all their fancies shine. As Nature them, so they this shade have wrought, Soft as their Hands, and various as their Thoughts," etc. [764] 1 Rich. III. = 1483. Act XII. [765] _Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth of York,_ and _Wardrobe Accounts of King Edward IV._, by Sir H. Nicolas. [766] 1 Rich. III. renews 3 Edw. IV. for ten years, and that of Richard is continued by 19 Henry VII. for twenty years more. [767] 4 Hen. VII. = 1488-9. [768] P.R.O. The same Warrant contains an order to deliver "for the use and wearing of our right dere daughter the Lady Mary," together with a black velvet gown, scarlet petticoat, etc., "a nounce of lace for her kyrtel," and a thousand "pynnes." [769] In the list of the late King Henry's plate, made 1543, we have some curious entries, in which the term lace appears:-- "Item, oone picture of a woman made of erthe with a carnation Roobe knitt with a knott in the lefte shoulder and bare hedid with her heere rowlid up with a white lace sett in a boxe of wodde. "Item, oone picture of a woman made of erthe with a carnac[=o]n garment after the Inglishe tyer and bareheddid with her heare rowled up with a white lace sett in a boxe of wodde."--P. R. O. [770] 19 Hen. VII. = 1504. [771] Sir H. Nicolas. [772] Statute 1 Hen. VIII. = 1509-10. An act agaynst wearing of costly Apparell, and again, 6 Hen. VIII. = 1514-15. "Gard, to trim with lace."--Cotgrave. "No less than crimson velvet did him grace, All garded and regarded with gold lace."--Samuel Rowlands, _A Pair of Spy-Knaves._ "I do forsake these 'broidered gardes, And all the fashions new."--_The Queen in King Cambisis_, circ. 1615. [774] Under forfeiture of the same shirt and a fine of 40 shillings. [775] 7 Hen. VIII. = 1515-16.--"Thacte of Apparell." [776] 24 Hen. VIII. = 1532-33.--"An Act for Reformation of excess in Apparel." [777] In 1539. [778] Lisle. _Corr._ Vol. i., p. 64. P.R.O. Lord Lisle was Governor of Calais, whence the letter is dated. Honor. Lylle to Madame Antoinette de Sevenges, à Dunkerke. "Madame,--Je ne vous eusse vollu envoier ceste demi dousaine pour changier nestoit que tous celles que menvoiez dernierement sont trop larges, et une dousaine estoit de cestuy ouvrage dont jestis esmerveillé, veu que je vous avois escript que menvoissiez de louvrage aux lozenges, vous priant que la demy dousaine que menvoierez pour ceste demy dousaine soient du dict ouvrage de lozenge, et quil soient plus estroictes mesmement par devant nonobstant que lexemple est au contraire." [779] Among the marriage clothes of Mary Neville, who espoused George Clifton, 1536, is:-- "A neyge of perle, £1 4s. 0d." In the pictures, at Hampton Court Palace, of Queens Mary and Elizabeth, and another of Francis II., all as children, their ruffs are edged with a very narrow purl. [780] 1538. Lisle. _Corr._ (P.R.O.) [781] See Note 776. [782] Privy Purse Ex. Hen. VIII. 1529-32. Sir H. Nicolas. [783] Father of Lord Burleigh. There are other similar entries:--"8 pieces of yellow lace, 9s. 4d." Also, "green silk lace." 1632, "green silk lace" occurs again, as trimming a pair of French shoes in a "Bill of shoes for Sir Francis Windebank and family."--State Papers Dom. Vol. 221. P.R.O. [784] "Inv. of Hen. VIII. and 4 Edw. VI." Harl. MS. 1419, A and B. [785] 38 Hen. VIII. = 1546. Rymer's _Foedera_. Vol. xv., p. 105. [786] Harl. MS. 1419. _Passim._ [787] See Holbein's portraits. [788] "The old cut-work cope."--Beaumont and Fletcher. _The Spanish Curate._ [789] We read, too, of "3 kyrcheys y^t was given to the kyrk wash," large as a woman's hood worn at a funeral, highly ornamented with the needle by pious women, and given to be sold for the good of the impoverished church, for which the churchwardens of St. Michael, Spurr Gate, York, received the sum of 5s. [790] 1 and 2 Ph. and Mary. [791] "White work" appears also among Queen Elizabeth's New Year's Gifts:-- "1578. Lady Ratcliff. A veil of white work, with spangles and small bone lace of silver. A swete bag, being of changeable silk, with a small bone lace of gold. "1589. Lady Shandowes (Chandos). A cushion cloth of lawne wrought with whitework of branches and trees, edged with bone work, wrought with crowns."--Nichols' _Royal Progresses_. [792] Roll of New Year's Gifts. 1556. [793] Stowe, _Queen Mary_. An. 1554. [794] It is not known when brass wire pins were first made in England, but it must have been before 1543, in which year a Statute was passed (35 Hen. VIII.) entitled, "An Act for the True Making of Pynnes," in which the price is fixed not to exceed 6s. 8d. per 1,000. By an Act of Rich. III. the importation of pins was prohibited. The early pins were of boxwood, bone, bronze or silver. In 1347 (_Liber Garderobæ_, 12-16 Edw. III. P. R. O.) we have a charge for 12,000 pins for the trousseau of Joanna, daughter of Edward III., betrothed to Peter the Cruel. The young Princess probably escaped a miserable married life by her decease of the black death at Bordeaux when on her way to Castille. The annual import of pins in the time of Elizabeth amounted to £3,297.--State Papers, Dom., Eliz. Vol. viii. P. R. O. In Eliz., Q. of Bohemia's Expenses, we find: "Dix mille espingles dans un papier, 4 florins."--Ger. Corr. No. 41. P. R. O. "In Holland pillow-lace is called Pinwork lace--Gespelde-werkte kant."--_Sewell's Eng. and Dutch Dict._ [795] An elderly woman informed the author that she recollects in her youth, when she learned to make Honiton point of an ancient teacher of the parish, bone pins were still employed. They were in use until a recent period, and renounced only on account of their costliness. The author purchased of a Devonshire lace-maker one, bearing date 1829, with the name tatooed into the bone, the gift of some long-forgotten youth to her grandmother. These bone or wood bobbins, some ornamented with glass beads--the more ancient with silver let in--are the calendar of a lace-worker's life. One records her first appearance at a neighbouring fair or May meeting; a second was the first gift of her good man, long cold in his grave; a third the first prize brought home by her child from the dame school, and proudly added to her mother's cushion: one and all, as she sits weaving her threads, are memories of bygone days of hopes and fears, of joys and sorrows; and, though many a sigh it calls forth, she cherishes her well-worn cushion as an old friend, and works away, her present labour lightened by the memory of the past. [796] Surtees' _Wills and Inv._ "Hearing bone lace value 5s. 4d." is mentioned "in y^e shoppe of John Johnston, of Darlington, merchant." [797] 1578. "James Backhouse, of Kirby in Lonsdale. Bobbin lace, 6s. per ounce." 1597. "John Farbeck, of Durham. In y^e Shoppe, 4 oz. & ½ of Bobbing lace, 6s. 4d."--_Ibid._ "Bobbin" lace is noted in the Royal Inventories, but not so frequently as "bone." "Laqueo ... fact. super lez bobbins."--G. W. A. Eliz., 27 and 28. P. R. O. "Three peces teniar bobbin."--_Ibid._ Car. I., vi. "One pece of bobin lace, 2s.," occurs frequently in the accounts of Lord Compton, afterwards Earl of Northampton, Master of the Wardrobe of Prince Charles.--Roll, 1622-23, Extraordinary Expenses, and others. P. R. O. [798] In the Ward. Acc. of his brother, Prince Henry, 1607, and the Warrant to the G. Ward., on his sister the Princess Elizabeth's marriage, 1612-13, "bone" lace is in endless quantities. Bobbin lace appears invariably distinguished from bone lace, both being mentioned in the same inventory. The author one day showed an old Vandyke Italian edging to a Devonshire lace-worker, asking her if she could make it. "I think I can," she answered; "it is bobbin lace." On inquiring the distinction, she said: "Bobbin lace is made with a coarse thread, and in its manufacture we use long bobbins instead of the boxwood of ordinary size, which would not hold the necessary quantity of this thread, though sufficient for the quality used in making Honiton flowers and Trolly lace."--Mrs. Palliser. [799] Randle Holme, in his enumeration of terms used in arts, gives: "Bone lace, wrought with pegs." The materials used for bobbins in Italy have been already mentioned. [800] Lord Compton. "Extraordinary Expenses of the Wardrobe of K. Charles, before and after he was King."--Roll, 1622-26. P. R. O. [801] An. 1635. [802] A miniature of Old Hilliard, now in the possession of his Grace the Duke of Hamilton. [803] 1614. [804] Massinger. 1612. [805] Beaumont and Fletcher. [806] "The things you follow and make songs on now, should be sent to knit, or sit down to bobbins or bone-lace."--_Tatler._ [807] "We destroy the symmetry of the human figure, and foolishly combine to call off the eye from great and real beauties to childish gewgaw ribbands and bone-lace."--_Spectator._ [808] It is used in Walpole's _New British Traveller_. 1784. [809] Haliwell gives compas as "a circle; Anglo-Norman." [810] Partlet, a small ruff or neck-band. [811] "Eidem pro 4 pec' de opera Rhet' bon' florat' in forma oper' sciss' ad 24s., £4 16s."--G. W. A. Eliz., 43 to 44. 1578-79. New Year's Gifts. Baroness Shandowes. "A vail of black network flourished with flowers of silver and a small bone-lace."--Nichols. [812] _Encyclopædia Britannica._ Art. _Costume._ Sixteenth Century. [813] _Encyclopædia Britannica._ Art. _Costume._ Sixteenth century. [814] Crown lace--so called from the pattern being worked on a succession of crowns sometimes intermixed with acorns or roses. A relic of this lace may still be found in the "faux galon" sold by the German Jews, for the decoration of fancy dresses and theatrical purposes. It is frequently mentioned. We have:-- "12 yards laquei, called crown lace of black gold and silk."--G. W. A. Eliz. 4 & 5. "18 yards crown lace purled with one wreath on one side."--_Ibid._ 5 & 6. [815] "11 virgis laquei Byas."--_Ibid._ 29 & 30. [816] Hemming and edging 8 yards of ruff of cambric with white lace called hollow lace, and various entries of Spanish lace, Fringe, Black chain, Diamond, knotted, hollow, and others, are scattered through the earlier Wardrobe Accounts of Queen Elizabeth. The accounts of the Keepers of the Great Wardrobe, which we shall have occasion so frequently to cite, are now deposited in the Public Record Office, to which place they were transferred from the Audit Office in 1859. They extend from the 1 Elizabeth = 1558 to Oct. 10, 1781, and comprise 160 volumes, written in Latin until 1730-31, when the account appears in English, and is continued so to the end. 1748-49 is the last account in which the items are given. [817] Eliz. 30 & 31. Billament lace occurs both in the "shoppes" and inventories of the day. Among the list of foreigners settled in the City of London in 1571 (State Papers, Dom., Eliz. Vol 84. P.R.O.), are: William Crutall, "useth the craft of making byllament lace"; Rich. Thomas, Dutch, "a worker of Billament lace." In 1573 a country gentleman, by his will deposited in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury (Brayley and Britton's _Graphic Illustrations_), bequeaths: "To my son Tyble my short gown faced with wolf skin and laid with Billements lace." In John Johnston's shop we have: "3 doz. of velvet Billemunt lace, 12s." In that of John Farbeck, 9 yards of the same. (Surtees' _Wills and Inv._) Widow Chapman of Newcastle's inventory, 1533, contains: "One old cassock of broad cloth, with billements lace, 10s." (_Ibid._) [818] 95 dozen rich silver double diamond and cross laces occur also in the _Extraordinary Expenses for Prince Charles's Journey to Spain_. 1623.--P. R. O. [819] 1571. "In y^e Great Shop, 8 peces of 'waborne' lace, 16d."--_Mr. John Wilkinson's Goods, of Newcastle, Merchant._ 1580. "100 Gross and a half of 'waborne' lace."--_Inv. of Cuthbert Ellyson._ 1549. John de Tronch, Abbot of Kilmainham Priory, is condemned to pay 100 marks fine for detaining 2 lbs. of Waborne thread, value 3s., and other articles, the property of W. Sacy. [820] G. W. A. Eliz. 16 & 17. [821] "Eidem pro 6 manuterg' de camerick operat' cum serico nigra trustich," etc.--G. W. A. Eliz. 41 & 42, and, again, 44. [822] 1572. Inventory of Thomas Swinburne of Ealingham, Esq. "His Apparell." "A wellwett cote layd with silver las. "A satten doullet layd with silver las. "A payr of wellwett sleeves layd with silver las."--Surtees' _Wills and Inv._ [823] New Year's Gifts. Lady Mary Sidney. "A smock and two pillow beres of cameryck wrought with black-work and edged with a broad bone-lace of black sylke." [824] "Eidem pro 6 caules alb' nodat opat' cu' le chainestich et ligat' cu' tape de filo soror, ad 14s., 4l. 4s."--G. W. A. Eliz. 41 & 42. Also in the last year of her reign (1602) we find:-- "Six fine net caules flourished with chaine stitch with sister's thread."--Wardrobe Accounts. B. M. Add. MSS. No. 5751. [825] In 1583. [826] G. W. A. Eliz. 38 & 39. We have it also on ruffs. "Eidem pro 2 sutes de lez ruffs bon' de la lawne operat' in le laid work et edged cum ten' bon' ad 70s. per pec', 7l."--G. W. A. Eliz. 43 & 44. [827] G. W. A. Eliz., last year of her reign. Again-- 1600. "Drawing and working with black silk drawne worke, five smocks of fine holland cloth."--B. M. Add. MSS. No. 5751. "These Holland smocks as white as snow, And gorgets brave with drawn-work wrought." --_Pleasant Quippes for Upstart Newfangled Gentlewomen._ 1596. [828] As early as 1485 we have in the inventory of St. Mary-at-Hill, "An altar cloth of diaper, garnished with 3 blue Kays (St. Peter's) at each end." All the church linen seems to have been embroidered in blue thread, and so appears to have been the smocks and other linen. Jenkin, speaking of his sweetheart, says: "She gave me a shirt collar, wrought over with no counterfeit stuff." GEORGE: "What! was it gold?" JENKIN: "Nay, 'twas better than gold." GEORGE: "What was it?" JENKIN: "Right Coventry blue."--_Pinner of Wakefield._ 1599. "It was a simple napkin wrought with Coventry blue."--_Laugh and Lie Downe, or the Worlde's Folly._ 1605. "Though he perfume the table with rose cake or appropriate bone-lace and Coventry blue," writes Stephens in his _Satirical Essays_. 1615. In the inventory of Mary Stuart, taken at Fotheringay, after her death, we have: "Furniture for a bedd of black velvet, garnished with Bleue lace. In the care of Rallay, _alias_ Beauregard." This blue lace is still to be found on baptismal garments which have been preserved in old families on the Continent and in England. [829] The widow of the famous clothier, called Jack of Newbury, is described when a bride as "led to church between two boys with bride laces and rosemary tied about their sleeves." [830] "Tawdry. As Dr. Henshaw and Skinner suppose, of knots and ribbons, bought at a fair held in St. Audrey's Chapel; fine, without grace or elegance."--_Bailey's Dict._ 1764. Southey (_Omniana._ Vol. i., p. 8) says:-- "It was formerly the custom in England for women to wear a necklace of fine silk called Tawdry lace, from St. Audrey. "She had in her youth been used to wear carcanets of jewels, and being afterwards tormented with violent pains in the neck, was wont to say, that Heaven, in his mercy, had thus punished her for her love of vanity. She died of a swelling in her neck. Audry (the same as Ethelrede) was daughter of King Anna, who founded the Abbey of Ely." Spenser in the _Shepherd's Calender_, has:-- "Bind your fillets faste And gird in your waste For more fineness with a tawdry lace;" and in the _Faithful Shepherdess_ of Beaumont and Fletcher, Amaryllis speaks of "The primrose chaplet, tawdry lace and ring." [831] A passage already quoted in _Much Ado about Nothing_ shows us that, in Shakespeare's time, the term "to lace" was generally used as a verb, denoting to decorate with trimming. Margaret, the tiring woman, describes the Duchess of Milan's gown as of "Cloth o' gold, and cuts, and laced with silver." [832] _Much Ado about Nothing._ [833] New Year's Gifts of Mrs. Wyngfield, Lady Southwell, and Lady Willoughby.--_Nichols' Royal Progresses._ [834] "Mrs. Edmonds. A cushion cloth of lawn cutwork like leaves, and a few owes of silver."--New Year's Gifts. "Eidem pro le edginge unius panni vocat' a quishion cloth de lawne alb' operat' cum spaces de opere sciss' et pro viii. virg' de Laquei alb' lat' operat' sup' oss' 33s. 4d."--G. W. A. Eliz. 31 & 32. [835] "Mistress Twist, the Court laundress. Four toothcloths of Holland wrought with black silk and edged with bone lace of silver and black silk."--New Year's Gifts. [836] "Lady Ratcliffe. A night coyf of white cutwork flourished with silver and set with spangles."--_Ibid._ [837] "Cropson. A night coyf of cameryk cutwork and spangells, with a forehead cloth, and a night border of cutwork with bone lace."--_Ibid._ 1577-8. [838] "Eidem pro emenda[=c] lavacione et starching unius par' corpor' (stays) et manic' de lawne alb' bon' deorsum operat' in diversis locis cum spaciis Lat' de operibus Italic' scis[=s] 20_sh._"--G. W. A. Eliz. 26-27. [839] _Ibid._ [840] _Ibid._ 28-29. [841] G. W. A. Eliz. 29-30. [842] _Ibid._ 35-36. [843] _Ibid._ 43-44. "A round kyrtle of cutwork in lawne."--B. M. Add. MSS. No. 5751. [844] "One yard of double Italian cutwork a quarter of a yard wide, 55s. 4d."--G. W. A. Eliz. 33 and 34. "Una virga de opere sciss' lat' de factura Italica, 26s. 8d."--_Ibid._ 29 & 30. [845] "For one yard of double Flanders cutwork worked with Italian purl, 33s. 4d."--_Ibid._ 33 & 34. [846] "3 suits of good lawn cutwork ruffs edged with good bone lace 'operat' super oss',' at 70s., 10l. 10s."--_Ibid._ 43 & 44. [847] "7 virg' Tenie lat' operis acui, ad 6s. 8d., 46s. 8d."--_Ibid._ 37-38. [848] "Eidem pro 2 pectoral' de ope' sciss' fact' de Italic' et Flaundr' purle, ad 46s."--_Ibid._ 42 & 43. "Eidem pro 1 virg' de Tenie de opere acuo cum le purle Italic' de cons' ope' acuo 20s."--G. W. A. Eliz. 40 & 41. [849] Eliz. 44 = 1603. [850] "3 yards broad needlework lace of Italy, with the purls of similar work, at 50s. per yard, 8l. 15s."--_Ibid._ 41-42. Bone lace varies in price from 40s. the dozen to 11s. 6d. the yard. Needle-made lace from 6s. 8d. to 50s.--G. W. A. _Passim._ [851] Lace is always called "lacqueus" in the Gt. Wardrobe Accounts up to 1595-6, after which it is rendered "tænia." Both terms seem, like our "lace" to have been equally applied to silk passements. "Galons de soye, de l'espèce qui peuvent être dénominés par le terme latin de 'tæniola.'" "Laqueus, enlassements de diverses couleurs, galons imitation de ces chaînes qui les Romains faisoient peindre, dorer et argenter, pour les rendre plus supportables aux illustres malheureux que le sort avoit réduit à les porter."--_Traité des Marques Nationales._ Paris, 1739. [852] "Fine white or nun's thread is made by the Augustine nuns of Crema," writes Skippin, 1631. From the Great Wardrobe Accounts the price appears to have been half a crown an ounce. "Eidem pro 2 li. 4 unc.' fili Sororis, ad 2s. 6d. per unciam, 4l. 10s."--Eliz. 34 & 35. [853] State Papers Domestic. Eliz. Vol. 84. The sum total amounts to 4,287. [854] See BURGUNDY. "The naturalized French residing in this country are Normans of the district of Caux, a wicked sort of French, worse than all the English," writes, in 1553, Stephen Porlin, a French ecclesiastic, in his _Description of England and Scotland_. [855] 1559. Oct. 20. Proclamation against excess of apparel.--State Papers Dom. Eliz. Vol. vii. 1566. Feb. 12.--_Ibid._ Vol. xxxix. 1579. Star Chamber on apparel. [856] State Papers Dom. Eliz. Vol. xxiii. No. 8. [857] _Ibid._ Vol. xlvii. No. 49. [858] _Ibid._ Vol. viii. No. 31. [859] The value of thread imported amounts to £13,671 13s. 4d. [860] Walsingham writes: In opening a coffer of the Queen of Scots, he found certain heades which so pleased certain ladies of his acquaintance, he had taken the liberty to detain a couple. [861] "A mantel of lawn cutwork wrought throughout with cutwork of 'pomegranettes, roses, honeysuckles, cum crowns.'" "A doublet of lawn cutwork worked with 'lez rolls and true loves,' &c."--G. W. A. Eliz. Last year. [862] New Year's Gifts. By the Lady Shandowes. 1577-8. [863] Marquis of Northampton. [864] Lady Carew. "A cushyn of fine cameryk edged with bone lace of Venice sylver." [865] "Laqueus de serico Jeano"--(Genoa). G. W. A. Eliz. 30-1. [866] 1571. _Revels at Court._ Cunningham. Some curious entries occur on the occasion of a Masque called "The Prince" given at court in 1600:-- "For the tooth-drawer: "To loope leace for his doublet and cassacke, 8s. "For leace for the corne-cutters suite, 7s. "For green leace for the tinkers suite, 2s. "For the mouse-trapp-man: "6 yards of copper leace to leace _is_ cloake, at 1s. 8d., 10s. "The Prophet merely wears fringe, 2 Ruffes and cuffes, 3s. 10d." The subject of the Masque seems lost to posterity. [867] Lady Chandos, jun. "A cushyn cloth of lawne, wrought with white worke of branches and trees edged with white bone worke wrought with crownes."--New Year's Gifts. 1577-8. [868] 1572. _Revels at Court._ [869] In the possession of Mrs. Evans of Wimbledon. [870] Sir Gawine Carew. "A smock of cameryke wrought with black work and edged with bone lace of gold." Lady Souche. "A smock of cameryke, the ruffs and collar edged with a bone lace of gold." The Lady Marquis of Winchester. "A smock of cameryke wrought with tanny silk and black, the ruffs and collar edged with a bone lace of silver."--New Year's Gifts. 1578-9. [871] "A bearing cloth," for the Squire's child, is mentioned in the _Winter's Tale_. [872] Many of these Christening robes of lace and point are preserved as heirlooms in old families; some are of old guipure, others of Flanders lace, and later of Valenciennes, or needle-point. The bib formed of guipure padded, with tiny mittens of lace, were also furnished to complete the suit. [873] In 1584-5 Queen Elizabeth sends a most wonderful apron to be washed and starched, of cambric, edged with lace of gold, silver, and in-grain carnation silk, "operat' super oss'," with "pearl buttons pro ornatione dict' apron."--G. W. A. Eliz. 26 & 27. "A handkerchief she had, All wrought with silke and gold, Which she, to stay her trickling tears, Before her eyes did hold." --"Ballad of George Barwell." [875] New Year's Gift of Lady Radcliffe. 1561. [876] New Year's Gift of Lady St. Lawrence. [877] Surtees' Wills and Inv. "Though the luxury of the court was excessive, the nation at large were frugal in their habits. Our Argentine of Dorset was called 'Argentine the Golden,' in consequence of his buckles, tags, and laces being of gold. Such an extravagance being looked on as a marvel in the remote hamlets of the southern counties." [878] Hence ruffles, diminutive of ruffs. "Ruff cuffs" they are called in the G. W. A. of James I., 11 & 12. [879] Stowe's Chron. [880] Endless are the entries in the Gt. W. Acc. for washing, starching and mending. The court laundress can have had no sinecure. We find "le Jup de lawne operat' cum stellis et aristis tritici Anglice wheateares" (Eliz. 42 & 43), sent to be washed, starched, etc. A network vail "sciss' totum desuper cum ragged staves." (Leicester's device. _Ibid._ 29 & 30.) A diploid' (doublet) of cut-work flourished "cum auro et spangles" (_Ibid._), and more wonderful still, in the last year of her reign she has washed and starched a toga "cum traine de la lawne operat' in auro et argento in forma caudarum pavorum," the identical dress in which she is portrayed in one of her portraits. [881] "Eidem pro un ruff bon pynned sup' le wier Franc' c[=u] rhet' aur' spangled, 70s."--Eliz. 42 & 43. [882] Gt. W. Acc. Eliz. 33 & 34. [883] "B.: Where's my ruff and poker?" "R.: There's your ruff, shall I poke it?" "B.: So poke my ruff now."--Old Play by P. Dekker. 1602. Autolycus, among his wares, has "poking-sticks of steel." "Poked her rebatoes and surveryed her steel."--_Law Tricks._ 1608. [884] Middleton's Comedy of _Blurt, Master Constable_. [885] _Or, the World's Folly._ 1605. [886] Stowe. [887] _Ibid._ [888] Therefore she wore "chin" ruffs. "Eidem pro 2 sutes de lez chinne ruffs edged cu' arg., 10s."--Eliz. 42 & 43. [889] Ben Jonson. _Every Man Out of His Humour._ 1599. [890] Lady Cromwell. "Three sutes of ruffs of white cutwork edged with a passamayne of white." Lady Mary Se'm'. "3 ruffs of lawne cutwork of flowers." [891] "They are either clogged with gold, silver, or silk laces of stately price, wrought all over with needleworke, speckeled and sparkeled here and there with the sunne, the moone, the starres and many other antiques strange to beholde. Some are wrought with open worke donne to the midst of the ruffe, and further some with close worke, some with purled lace so closed and other gewgawes so pestered, as the ruff is the leest parte of itself."--Stubbe's Description of the Cut-work Ruff. [892] _Anatomie of Abuses._ 1583. [893] "Eidem pro 3 dozin laquei fact' de crine brayded cum lez rising puffs de crine, ad 36s. le dd., £5 8s."--Eliz. 31 & 32. The entry occurs frequently. In _Ibid._ 87 & 38 is a charge "pro 4 pirrywigges de crine," at 16s. 8d. each. [894] In the G. W. A. of the last year of her reign, Elizabeth had a variety of devices in false hair. We have:-- "Eidem pro 200 invencionibus factis decrine in forma lez lowpes et tuftes," at 6d. each; the like number in the form of leaves at 12d.; 12 in form of "lez Peramides," at 3s. 4d.; 24 of Globes, at 12d., with hair by the yard, made in lowpes, "crispat' curiose fact'," curle rotund', and other wonderful "inventions." [895] "Your trebble-quadruple Dædalian ruffes, nor your stiffe necked Rebatoes that have more arches for pride to row under than can stand under five London Bridges."--_The Gul's Hornebooke_, by T. Deckar. London, 1609. [896] Beaumont and Fletcher. _Nice Valour._ [897] _Ibid._ _The Blind Lady._ 1661. [898] 1641. [899] Called by James I. "the King of Preachers." Ob. 1621 [900] In the _Dumb Knight_, 1608, a woman, speaking of her ruff, says:-- "This is but shallow. I have a ruff is a quarter deep, measured by the yard." [901] See the portraits in the National Portrait Gallery of Sir Dudley and Lady Carleton, by Cornelius Janssens, of the Queen of Bohemia, by Mirevelt, and of the Countess of Pembroke, by Mark Geerards. In Westminster Abbey, the effigies of Queen Elizabeth and Mary Queen of Scots, on their tombs. [902] _Every Man Out of His Humour_, 1599. Again, in his _Silent Woman_, he says:-- "She must have that Rich gown for such a great day, a new one For the next, a richer for the third; have the chamber filled with A succession of grooms, footmen, ushers, And other messengers; besides embroiderers, Jewellers, tire-women, semsters, feather men, Perfumers; whilst she feels not how the land Drops away, nor the acres melt; nor foresees The change, when the mercer has your woods For her velvets; never weighs what her pride Costs, Sir." [903] "Second Acc. of Sir John Villiers, 1617-8." P. R. O. "150 yards of fyne bone lace for six extraordinary ruff's provided against his Majesty's marriage, at 9s., 67s. 10d."--Extraordinary Expenses. 1622-6. P. R. O. [904] State Papers Dom., Jac. I. Vol. iii., No. 89. P. R. O. [905] Jasper Mayne. 1670. [906] "Mistris Turner, the first inventresse of yellow starch, was executed in a cobweb lawn ruff of that color at Tyburn, and with her I believe that yellow starch, which so much disfigured our nation and rendred them so ridiculous and fantastic, will receive its funerall."--_Howel's Letters._ 1645. [907] State Papers Dom., James I. Vol. cxiii. No. 18. [908] We read that in 1574 the Venetian ladies dyed their lace the colour of saffron. The fashion may therefore be derived from them. "He is of England, by his yellow band."--_Notes from Black Fryers._ Henry Fitzgeffery. 1617. "Now ten or twenty eggs will hardly suffice to starch one of these yellow bandes."--Barnaby Rich. _The Irish_ _Hubbub, or the English Hue and Cry._ 1622. Killigrew, in his play called _The Parson's Wedding_, published in 1664, alludes to the time when "yellow starch and wheel verdingales were cried down"; and in _The Blind Lady_, a play printed in 1661, a serving-man says to the maid: "You had once better opinion of me, though now you wash every day your best handkerchief in yellow starch." [909] _La Courtisane à la Mode, selon l'Usage de la Cour de ce Temps._ Paris, 1625. [910] Carlo, in _Every Man Out of His Humour._ 1599. [911] "Eidem pro 29 virg' le opere sciss' bon' Italic', ad 35s., £68 5s."--Gt. W. A. Jac. I. 5 & 6. [912] _The New Inn._ [913] _Advice to Sir George Villiers._ [914] See _Parliamentary History of England._ Sir Giles was proceeded against as "a monopolist and patentee," and sentenced to be degraded and banished for life. [915] Speech in Parliament. _Rushout Papers._ Vol. xi., p. 916. [916] "The office or grant for sealing bone lace was quashed by the King's proclamation, 1639, dated from his manour of York."--_Verney Papers._ [917] B. M. _Bib. Lands._ 172, No. 59. [918] 1604. Sept. 27. Patent to Ric. Dike and others to make Venice gold and silver thread for 21 years.--State Papers Dom., Jas. I. Vol. ix. 48. 1604. Dec. 30. Lease of the customs on gold and silver thread.--_Ibid._ Vol. x. 1605. Feb. 2. The same. _Ibid._ Vol. xii. 1611. May 21. Patent to Ric. Dike renewed.--_Ibid._ Vol. lxiii. 9. In the same year (June 30) we find a re-grant to the Earl of Suffolk of the moiety of all seizures of Venice gold and silver formerly granted in the fifth year of the King.--_Ibid._ Vol. lxiv. 66. In 1622 a lease on the customs on gold and silver thread lace is given to Sir Edward Villiers.--_Ibid._ Vol. cxxxii. 34. [919] _Ibid._ Vol. cxxi. 64. [920] _Ibid._ Vol. cxxxii. 34. [921] In 1624 King James renews his prohibition against the manufacture of "gold purles," as tending to the consumption of the coin and bullion of the kingdom.--_Foedera_, Vol. xvii., p. 605. [922] Petition. April 8, 1623.--State Papers, Vol. cxlii. 44. See Chap. xxx. [923] "Twoe payer of hande rebayters," _i.e._, cuffs. [924] In the P. R. O. (State Papers Dom., James I. 1603, Sept. Vol. iii. No. 89) is "A Memorandum of that Misteris Jane Dru[=m]onde her recyte from Ester Littellye, the furnishinge of her Majesties Linen Cloth," a long account, in which, among numerous other entries, we find:-- "It. at Basinge. Twenty four yeardes of small nidle work, at 6s. the yearde, £7 4s. "More at Basinge. One ruffe cloth, cumbinge cloth and apron all shewed with white worke, at 50s. the piece, £7 10s. "It. one pece of fine lawin to bee a ruffe, £5. "Item, for 18 yeards of fine lace to shewe the ruffe, at 6s. the yearde, £5 8s. "Item, 68 purle of fair needlework, at 20 pence the purle, £5 15s. 4d. "Item, at Winchester, the 28th of September, one piece of cambrick, £4. "Item, for 6 yards of fine purle, at 20s., £6. "Item, for 4 yards of great bone lace, at 9s. the yard, 36s. Queen Anne has also a fair wrought sark costing £6, and a cut-work handkerchief, £12, and 2 pieces of cut-work, ell wide and 2 yards long, at £2. the length, etc. [925] _Lady Audrye Walsingham's Account._ 1606.--P. R. O. [926] Mary, her third daughter, died 1607, not two years of age. Mrs. Greene quotes from the P. R. O. a note of the "necessaries to be provided for the child," among which are six large cambric handkerchiefs, whereof one is to be edged with "fair cut-work to lay over the child's face"; six veils of lawn, edged with fair bone lace; six "gathered bibs of fine lawn with ruffles edged with bone lace," etc. The total value of the lace and cambric required for the infant's garments is estimated at £300.--_Lives of the Princesses of England._ Vol. vi., p. 90. [927] England is rich in monumental effigies decorated with lace--too many to enumerate. Among them we would instance that of Alice, Countess of Derby, died 1636, in Harefield Church, Middlesex, in which the lace is very carefully sculptured.--Communicated by Mr. Albert Hartshorne. [928] 1620-1. We have entries of "falling bands" of good cambric, edged with beautiful bone lace, two dozen stitched and shagged, and cut-work nightcaps, purchased for James I., in the same account, with 28s. for "one load of hay to stuff the woolsacks for the Parliament House."--G. W. Acc. Jac. I. 18 to 19. In the same year, 1620, an English company exported a large quantity of gold and silver lace to India for the King of Golconda. [929] _Malcontent._ 1600. [930] Extraordinary expenses, 1622-26. P. R. O. [931] "2nd Acc. of Sir J. Villiers. 1617-18." P. R. O. [932] Gt. W. A. Jac. I. 6 to 7. [933] Taylor. 1640:-- "The beau would feign sickness To show his nightcap fine, And his wrought pillow overspread with lawn."--Davies. _Epigrams._ [934] "Acc. of Sir Lyonell Cranfield (now Earl of Middlesex), late Master of the Great Wardrobe, touching the funeral of Queen Anne, who died 2nd March, 1618 (_i.e._ 1619 N. S.). P. R. O. [935] About this time a complaint is made by the London tradesmen, of the influx of refugee artizans, "who keepe theire misteries to themselves, which hath made them bould of late to device engines for workinge lace, &c., and such wherein one man doth more among them than seven Englishmen can doe, soe as theire cheape sale of those commodities beggareth all our English artificers of that trade and enricheth them," which becomes "scarce tolleruble," they conclude. Cecil, in consequence, orders a census to be made in 1621. Among the traders appears "one satten lace maker." Colchester is bitterly irate against the Dutch strangers, and complains of one "Jonas Snav, a Bay and Say maker, whose wife selleth blacke, browne, and white thredde, and all sorts of bone lace and vatuegardes, which they receive out of Holland. One Isaac Bowman, an Alyen born, a chirurgeon and merchant, selleth hoppes, bone lace, and such like, to the great grievance of the free burgesses." A nest of refugee lace-makers, "who came out of France by reason of the late 'trobles' yet continuing," were congregated at Dover (1621-2). A list of about five-and-twenty "widows, being makers of Bone lace," is given, and then Mary Tanyer and Margarett Le Moyne, "maydens and makers of bone lace," wind up the catalogue of the Dover "Alyens." The Maidstone authorities complain that the thread-makers' trade is much decayed by the importation of thread from Flanders.--_List of Foreign Protestants resident in England._ 1618-88. Printed by the Camden Society. [936] Jasper Mayne. [937] Beaumont and Fletcher. [938] "Valuables of Glenurquhy, 1640." Innes' _Sketches of Early Scotch History_. [939] Collars of Hollie worke appear in the Inventories of Mary Stuart. [940] "Thomas Hodges, for making ruffe and cuffes for his Highness of cuttworke edged with a fayre peake purle, £7."--2nd Account of Sir J. Villiers. Prince Charles. 1617-18. P. R. O. "40 yards broad peaked lace to edge 6 cupboard cloths, at 4s. a yard, £8."--_Ibid._ [941] "Seaming" lace and spacing lace appear to have been generally used at this period to unite the breadths of linen, instead of a seam sewed. We find them employed for cupboard cloths, cushion cloths, sheets, shirts, etc., throughout the accounts of King James and Prince Charles. "At Stratford-upon-Avon is preserved, in the room where Shakspeare's wife, Anne Hathaway, was born, an oaken linen chest, containing a pillow-case and a very large sheet made of homespun linen. Down the middle of the sheet is an ornamental open or cut-work insertion, about an inch and a half deep, and the pillow-case is similarly ornamented. They are marked E. H., and have always been used by the Hathaway family on special occasions, such as births, deaths, and marriages. This is still a common custom in Warwickshire; and many families can proudly show embroidered bed linen, which has been used on state occasions, and carefully preserved in old carved chests for three centuries and more."--_A Shakspeare Memorial._ 1864. [942] _The Truth of the Times._ W. Peacham. 1638. [943] State Papers Dom. Jas. I. Vol. lxxii. No. 28. [944] Warrant on the Great Wardrobe. 1612-13. Princess Elizabeth's marriage. [945] Frankfort fair, at which most of the German princes made their purchases. [946] German Correspondence. 1614-15.--P. R. O. We find among the accounts of Col. Schomberg and others:-- "To a merchant of Strasbourg, for laces which she had sent from Italy, 288 rix-dollars." And, in addition to numerous entries of silver and other laces:-- "Pour dentelle et linge karé pour Madame, 115 florins." "Donné Madame de Caus pour des mouchoirs à point couppée pour Madame, £4." "Une petite dentelle à point couppé, £3," etc. Point coupé handkerchiefs seem to have been greatly in fashion. Ben Jonson, "Bartholomew Fair," 1614, mentions them:-- "A cut-work handkerchief she gave me." [947] See _Snelling's Coins._ Pl. ix. 8, 9, 10. [948] _Ibid._ Pl. ix. 5, 6, 11. [949] Evelyn, describing a medal of King Charles I., struck in 1633, says he wears "a falling band, which new mode succeeded the cumbersome ruff; but neither did the bishops or the judges give it up so soon, the Lord Keeper Finch being, I think, the very first." [950] In 1633, the bills having risen to £1,500 a year, a project is made for reducing the charge for the King's fine linen and bone lace, "for his body," again to £1,000 per annum, for which sum it "may be very well done."--State Papers, Chas. I. Vol. ccxxxiv. No. 83. [951] "Paid to Smith Wilkinson, for 420 yards of good Flanders bone lace for 12 day ruffes and 6 night ruffes 'cum cuffes eisdem,' £87 15s. "For 6 falling bands made of good broad Flanders lace and Cuttworks with cuffs of the same, £52 16s."--Gt. W. A. Car. I. 6 = 1631. [952] See G. W. A., Mich., 1629, to April, 1630. [953] _Twelfth-Night._ [954] G. W. A. Car. I. The Annunciation 9 to Mich. 11. [955] _Ibid._ 8 and 9. [956] State Papers Dom. Charles I. Vol. cxlix. No. 31. [957] In a letter to Mr. Edward Nicholas, Sec. of the Admiralty, March 7th, 1627 (afterwards Sec. of State to Chas. II.).--St. P. D. Chas. I. Vol. cxxiii. 62. Among the State Papers (Vol. cxxvi. 70), is a letter from Susan Nicholas to her "loveing Brother," 1628. About lace for his band, she writes: "I have sent you your bootehose and could have sent your lase for your band, but that I did see these lasees which to my thought did do a greddeale better then that wh you did bespeake, and the best of them will cost no more then that which is half a crowne a yard, and so the uppermost will cost you, and the other will cost 18 pence; I did thinke you would rather staye something long for it then to pay so deare for that wh would make no better show; if you like either of these, you shall have it sone desptch, for I am promise to have it made in a fortnight. I have received the monie from my cousson Hunton. Heare is no news to wright of. Thus with my best love remembred unto you, I rest your very loving sister, "SUSANNE NICHOLAS. "I have sent ye the lase ye foyrst bespoke, to compare them together, to see which ye like best." [958] In 1620 an English company exported a large quantity of gold and silver lace to India for the King of Golconda. [959] W. Peacham, _Truth of the Times_. 1638. Hamlet says there are "Two Provençal roses on my regal shoes." "When roses in the gardens grow, And not in ribbons on a shoe; Now ribbon-roses take such place, That garden roses want their grace." --"Friar Bacon's Prophesie." 1604. "I like," says Evelyn, "the boucle better than the formal rose."--_Tyrannus, or the Mode._ [960] This proclamation is dated from "our Honour of Hampton Court, 30th April, 1635."--Rymer's _Foedera_. T. 19, p. 690. [961] When Anne of Austria was suspected of secret correspondence with Spain and England, Richelieu sent the Chancellor to question the Abbess of the Val-de-Grâce with respect to the casket which had been secretly brought into the monastery. The Abbess (_Vie de la Mère d'Arbouse_) declared that this same casket came from the Queen of England, and that it only contained lace, ribbons, and other trimmings of English fashion, sent by Henrietta Maria as a present to the Queen.--_Galerie de l'Ancienne Cour._ 1791. [962] State Papers Dom. Vol. cxxiii. No. 65. [963] "Rhodon and Iris, a Pastoral." 1631. [964] "Ornatus Muliebris Anglicanus." 1645. [965] "You must to the Pawn (Exchange) to buy lawn, to St. Martin for lace."--_Westward Ho._ 1607. "A copper lace called St. Martin's lace."--Strype. [966] Taylor, "Whip of Pride." 1640. [967] In _Eastward Ho_, 1605, proud Gertrude says: "Smocks of three pound a smock, are to be born with all." [968] "Bartholomew Fair." 1614. "She shewed me gowns and head tires, Embroidered waistcoats, smocks seam'd thro' with cut-works." --Beaumont and Fletcher, "Four Plays in One." 1647. "Who would ha' thought a woman so well harness'd, Or rather well caparison'd, indeed, That wears such petticoats, and lace to her smocks, Broad seaming laces." --Ben Jonson, _The Devil is an Ass_. 1616. [971] A suite of russet "laced all over with silver curle lace."--"Expenses of Robt. Sidney, Earl of Leicester. Temp. Chas. I." "This comes of wearing Scarlet, gold lace and cut-works; your fine gartering With your blown roses." --_The Devil is an Ass._ [973] _Notes from Black Fryers._ [974] Jasper Mayne. "Amorous War." 1659. [975] "The Little French Lawyer." [976] _Memoirs._ [977] _The Cromwell Family._ [978] Sir Philip Warwick. 1640. [979] At the Restoration, it was removed from the Abbey and hung out of the window at Whitehall, and then broken up and destroyed. [980] 1661, Nov. 20. State Papers. Dom. Charles II. Vol. xliv. P. R. O. [981] "To William Briers, for making the Colobium Sindonis of fine lawn laced with fine Flanders lace, 33s. 4d. "To Valentine Stucky, for 14 yards and a half of very fine Flanders lace for the same, at 18s. per yard, £12 6s. 6d."--"Acc. of the E. of Sandwich, Master of the G. W. for the Coronation of King Charles II. 23 April, 1661." P. R. O. [982] In the G. W. A. for 29 and 30 occurs a curious entry by the Master of the Great Wardrobe:--"I doe hereby charge myself with 5,000 Livres by me received in the realm of France for gold and silver fringes by me there sold, belon^g to a rich embroidered Bed of his said Majesty, which at one shilling and sevenpence [per] lib. English. Being the value of the Exchange at that time, amounts to £395 16s. 8d. "(Signed) R. MONTAGUE. "May 28, 1678." [983] 14 Car. II. c. 13. Statutes at large. The Acts of Charles II. date from the death of his father; so the year of the Restoration, 1660, is counted as the thirteenth of his reign. [984] 1662. State Papers Dom. Charles II. Vol. lv., No. 25. P. R. O. [985] He pays £194 to his Laceman (Tenentori) for 3 Cravats "de poynt de Venez," and 24s. per yard for 57 yards of narrow point "teniæ poynt augustæ," to trim his falling ruffles, "manicis cadentibus," etc.--G. W. A. Car. II. 24 and 25. Later (1676-7) we find charged for "un par manicarum, le poynt, £14." [986] When it was replaced by a black ribbon and a bow. [987] London, 1680. [988] Authors, however, disagree like the rest of the world. In a tract called _The Ancient Trades Decayed Repaired Again_, by Sir Roger L'Estrange (1678), we read: "Nay, if the materials used in a trade be not of the growth of England, yet, if the trade be to employ the poor, we should have it bought without money, and brought to us from beyond the seas where it is made as 'Bone lace.'" [989] Swift. _Baucis and Philemon._ [990] _Intelligencer_, 1665, June 5. "Lost, six handkerchers wrapt up in a brown paper, two laced, one point-laced set on tiffany; the two laced ones had been worn, the other four new." _London Gazette._ 1672, Dec. 5-9. "Lost, a lawn pocket handkercher with a broad hem, laced round with a fine Point lace about four fingers broad, marked with an R in red silk." [991] Evelyn. It was the custom, at a Maiden Assize, to present the judge with a pair of "laced gloves." Lord Campbell in 1856, at the Lincoln Lent Assizes, received from the sheriff a pair of white gloves richly trimmed with Brussels lace and embroidered, the city arms embossed in frosted silver on the back. [992] _London Gazette._ 1677, Jan. 28-31. Again, Oct. 4-8, in the same year. "Stolen or lost out of the Petworth waggon, a deal box directed to the Lady Young of Burton in Sussex; there was in it a fine Point Apron, a suit of thin laced Night clothes," etc. [993] _London Gazette._ 1675, June 14-17. "A right Point lace with a long musling neck laced at the ends with a narrow Point about three fingers broad, and a pair of Point cuffs of the same, worn foul and never washt, was lost on Monday last." _Ibid._ 1677, Oct. 22-25. "Found in a ditch, Four laced forehead cloths. One laced Pinner, one laced Quoif, one pair of laced ruffels.... Two point aprons and other laced linen." _Intelligencer._ 1664, Oct. 3. "Lost, A needle work point without a border, with a great part of the loups cut out, and a quarter of it new loupt with the needle. £5 reward." [994] _London Gazette._ 1677, Oct. 8-11. [995] _Tyrannus, or the Mode._ 1661. [996] It is written Colberteen, Colbertain, Golbertain, Colbertine. [997] Colberteen, a lace resembling network, being of the manufacture of M. Colbert, a French statesman. [998] A writer in _Notes and Queries_ says: "I recollect this lace worn as a ruffle fifty years ago. The ground was square and coarse, it had a fine edge, with a round mesh, on which the pattern was woven. It was an inferior lace and in every-day wear." [999] _Cadenus and Vanessa._ See also Young, p. 111. [1000] _Way of the World._ [1001] _Six Weeks in France._ 1691. [1002] Gt. W. A. Car. II. 35-36 = 1683-4. [1003] _Gazette_, July 20, 1682. Lost, a portmanteau full of women's clothes, among which are enumerated "two pairs of Point d'Espagne ruffles, a laced night rail and waistcoat, a pair of Point de Venise ruffles, a black laced scarf," etc.--_Malcolm's Anecdotes of London._ The lace of James II.'s cravats and ruffles are of point de Venise. Sex prælant cravatts de lacinia Venetiarum, are charged £141, and 9 yards lace, for six more cravats, £45. £36 10s. for the cravat of Venice lace to wear on the day of his Coronation," etc.--G. W. A. Jac. II. 1685-6. [1004] A writer in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, (October, 1745), mentions: "In the parlour of the monastery of English Benedictines at Paris, I was shown the mask of the king's face, taken off immediately after he was dead, together with the fine laced nightcap he died in." The cap at Dunkirk is trimmed with Flemish lace (old Mechlin). It must have passed from Paris to the convent of English Benedictines at Dunkirk, who left that city in 1793. There is no record how it became deposited in the Museum.--Communicated by M. de Forçade, Conservator of the Museu la Dunkirk. [1005] 9 & 10 Will. III. = 1697-8. [1006] 11 & 12 Will. III. = 1698-9. [1007] Smith's _Wealth of Nations_. [1008] See LOUIS XIV. [1009] See LOUIS XIV. [1010] _Spectator_, No. 129. 1711. "Lost, from behind a Hackney coach, Lombard Street, a grounded lace night rail."--_London Gazette._ Aug. 8, 1695. "Lost, two loopt lace Pinners and a pair of double laced ruffles, bundled up together."--_Ibid._ Jan. 6-10, 1697. "Taken out of two boxes in Mr. Drouth's waggon ... six cards of piece lace looped and purled, scolopt heads to most of them ... a fine Flanders lace head and ruffles, groundwork set on a wier," etc.--_Ibid._ April 11-14, 1698. "Furbelows are not confined to scarfs, but, they must have furbelow'd gowns, and furbelow'd petticoats, and furbelow'd aprons; and, as I have heard, furbelow'd smocks too."--_Pleasant Art of Money-catching._ 1730. [1011] B. M. Add. MSS. No. 5751. [1012] "Bought of John Bishop & Jer. Peirie, att y^e Golden Ball, in Ludgate Hill, 26 April, 1693: "3 yards ½ of Rich silver rufl'd scollop lace falbala, with a Rich broad silver Tire Orris at the head, at 7s. 3d. a yard, £25 0s. 6d. "8 yards of broad scollopped thread lace, at 25s. "3 yards Rich Paigning (?) Lace, 48s. 8d., £8 14s." [1013] "9 ½ Fine purle to set on the pinner, at 3s." [1014] "5 ¾ of fine broad cattgutt border, at 20_s_." [1015] "1 yard 7/16 Raised Point to put on the top of a pair of sleeves, at 30s." [1016] "8 yards of Broad Needlework Lace, at 30s." [1017] "3 yards of lace to Mazzarine y^e pinners, at 25s." Probably the same as the French "campanner." [1018] The Milliner, in Shadwell's _Bury Fair_. 1720. [1019] G. W. A. Will. III. 1688 to 1702. P. R. O. [1020] _Ibid._ vii. & viii. [1021] "I hope your Lordship is pleased with your Steinkerk."--Sir John Vanbrugh. _The Relapse._ In Colley Cibber's _Careless Husband_, Lady Easy takes the Steinkirk off her neck and lays it on Sir Charles's head when he is asleep. In _Love's Last Shift_, by the same author (1695), the hero speaks of being "Strangled in my own Steinkerk." In _Love for Love_, by Congreve, Sir Novelty enumerates the Steinkirk, the large button, with other fashions, as created by him. "I have heard the Steinkirk arrived but two months ago."--_Spectator_, No. 129. The "modish spark" wears "a huge Steinkirk, twisted, to the waist."--1694. _Prologue to First Part of Don Quixote._ Frank Osbaldeston, in _Rob Roy_, is deprived by the Highlanders of his cravat, "a Steinkirke richly laced." At Ham House was the portrait of a Countess of Dysart, temp. Anne, in three-cornered cocked hat, long coat, flapped waistcoat, and Mechlin Steinkirk. In the Account Book of Isabella, Duchess of Grafton, daughter of Lord Arlington, Evelyn's "sweet child"--her portrait hangs in Queen Mary's Room, Hampton Court--we have: "1709. To a Stinkirk, £1 12s. 3d." They appear to have been made of other stuffs than lace, for in the same account, 1708, we have entered: "To a green Steenkirk, £1 1s. 6d." [1022] _The Volunteers, or the Stock Jobbers._ [1023] "The Tombs in Westminster Abbey," sung by the Brothers Popplewell. Broadside, 1775.--B. M. Roxburgh Coll. [1024] King Charles II.'s lace is the same as that of Queen Mary. The Duchess of Buckingham (the "mad" Duchess, daughter of James II.) has also very fine raised lace. [1025] Venice, Bib. St. Mark. Contarini Miscellany. Communicated by Mr. Rawdon Brown. [1026] _Weekly Journal._ March, 1717. [1027] _The Modern Warrior._ 1756. [1028] Acc. of Ralph, Earl of Montague, Master of the G. W., touching the Funeral of William III. and Coronation of Queen Anne. P. R. O. [1029] Statutes at large.--Anne 5 & 6. [1030] This edict greatly injured the lace trade of France. In the _Atlas Maritime et Commercial_ of 1727, it states: "I might mention several other articles of French manufacture which, for want of a market in England where their chief consumption was, are so much decayed and in a manner quite sunk. I mean as to exportation, the English having now set up the same among themselves, such as bone lace." [1031] _History of Trade._ London, 1702. [1032] "Pro 14 virgis lautæ Fimbr' Bruxell' laciniæ et 12 virgis dict' laciniæ pro Reginæ persona, £151."--G. W. A. 1710-11. [1033] _Letters of the Countess of Hartford to the Countess of Pomfret._ 1740. [1034] _Memoirs of Lady R. Russell._ "My high commode, my damask gown, My laced shoes of Spanish leather." --D'Urfey. _The Young Maid's Portion._ [1036] No. 98. 1711. [1037] After fifteen years' discontinuance it shot up again. Swift, on meeting the Duchess of Grafton, dining at Sir Thomas Hanmer's, thus attired, declared she "looked like a mad woman." [1038] Statutes at large. [1039] In 1712 Mrs. Beale had stolen from her "a green silk knit waistcoat with gold and silver flowers all over it, and about 14 yards of gold and silver thick lace on it"; while another lady was robbed of a scarlet cloth coat so overlaid with the same lace, it might have been of any other colour.--_Malcolm's Anecdotes of the Manners and Customs of London in the Eighteenth Century._ [1040] _Post Boy._ Nov. 15, 1709. Articles Lost. [1041] _A Discourse on Trade_, by John Cary, merchant of Bristol. 1717. Again: "What injury was done by the Act 9-10 Will. III. for the more effectual preventing of importation of foreign bone lace, doth sufficiently appear by the preamble to that made 10-12 of the same reign for repealing it three months after the prohibition of our woollen manufactures in Flanders (which was occasioned by it) should be taken off; but I don't understand it be yet done, and it may prove an inevitable loss to the nation." [1042] _Lover._ No. 10. 1714. [1043] The ornamental ribbons worn about the dress: "His dress has bows, and fine fallals."--Evelyn. Sometimes the term appears applied to the Fontanges or Commode. We read (1691) of "her three-storied Fladdal." [1044] _Tunbridge Wells._ 1727. [1045] In _The Recruiting Officer_ (1781), Lucy the maid says: "Indeed, Madam the last bribe I had from the Captain was only a small piece of Flanders lace for a cap." Melinda answers: "Ay, Flanders lace is a constant present from officers.... They every year bring over a cargo of lace, to cheat the king of his duty and his subjects of their honesty." Again, Silvio, in the bill of costs he sends in to the widow Zelinda, at the termination of his unsuccessful suit, makes a charge for "a piece of Flanders lace" to Mrs. Abigail, her woman.--Addison, in _Guardian_, No. 17. 1713. [1046] "In the next reign, George III. and Queen Charlotte often condescended to become sponsors to the children of the aristocracy. To one child their presence was fatal. In 1778 they 'stood' to the infant daughter of the last Duke and Duchess of Chandos. Cornwallis, Archbishop of Canterbury, officiated. The baby, overwhelmed by whole mountains of lace, lay in a dead faint. Her mother was so tender on the point of etiquette, that she would not let the little incident trouble a ceremony at which a king and queen were about to endow her child with the names of Georgiana Charlotte. As Cornwallis gave back the infant to her nurse, he remarked that it was the quietest baby he had ever held. Poor victim of ceremony! It was not quite dead, but dying; in a few unconscious hours it calmly slept away."--"A Gossip on Royal Christenings." _Cornhill Magazine._ April, 1864. [1047] "Furniture of a Woman's Mind." [1048] "Dean Swift to a Young Lady." [1049] Cowley. [1050] 1731. _Simile for the Ladies, alluding to the laces worn at the last Birthday and not paid for._ "In Evening fair you may behold The Clouds are fringed with borrowed gold, And this is many a lady's case Who flaunts about in borrowed lace." [1051] Jenyns. "The Modern Fine Lady." [1052] Crown. _Sir Courtly Nice, or It Cannot Be_, a Comedy. 1731. [1053] "1748. Ruffles of twelve pounds a yard."--_Apology for Mrs. T. C. Philips._ 1748. Lace, however, might be had at a more reasonable rate:-- "'I have a fine lac'd suit of pinners,' says Mrs. Thomas, 'that was my great-grandmother's! that has been worn but twice these forty years, and my mother told me cost almost four pounds when it was new, and reaches down hither.'"--"Miss Lucy in Town." Fielding. [1054] _Dictionary of Commerce._ 1766. [1055] He was a martinet about his own dress, for his biographer relates during the last illness of Queen Caroline (1737), though the King was "visibly affected," remembering he had to meet the foreign ministers next day, he gave particular directions to his pages "to see that new ruffles were sewn on his old shirt sleeves, whereby he might wear a decent air in the eyes of the representatives of foreign majesty." [1056] "By a list of linen furnished to the Princesses Louisa and Mary, we find their night-dresses were trimmed with lace at 10s. per yard, and while their Royal Highnesses were in bibs, they had six suits of broad lace for aprons at from £50 to £60 each suit."--_Corr. of the Countess of Suffolk, Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Caroline._ Observe also the lace-trimmed aprons, ruffles, tuckers, etc., in the pretty picture of the family of Frederick, Prince of Wales, at Hampton Court Palace. [1057] The laws regarding the introduction of lace during this reign continued much the same until 1749, when the royal assent was given to an Act preventing the importation or wear of gold, silver, and thread lace manufactured in foreign parts. [1058] In the meeting of Nov. 10, 1752, at the "Crown, behind the Royal Exchange," the Hon. Edward Vernon, grand president, in the chair, it was agreed that the following premiums should be awarded: "For the best pair of men's needlework ruffles, to be produced to the committee in the first week of May next, five guineas; to the second, three guineas; to the third, two guineas. And for the best pair of English bone lace for ladies' lappets, to be produced to the committee in August next, fifteen guineas; to the second, ten guineas; to the third, five guineas."--_Gentleman's Magazine._ [1059] "Cardinal," a loose cloak after the fashion of a cardinal's "_trollopée_," a loose flowing gown open in the front, worn as a morning dress.--Fairholt. "Slammerkin," a sort of loose dress. This ugly word, in course of time, was used as an adjective, to signify untidy. Fortunately it is now obsolete. [1060] "Don't read history to me, for that I know to be false," said Sir R. Walpole to his son Horace, when he offered to read to him in his last illness. [1061] Lady M. W. Montagu. "Letter to Lord Harvey on the King's Birthday." "The working apron, too, from France, With all its trim appurtenance." --"Mundus Muliebris." [1063] Goldsmith. _Life of Richard Nash, of Bath._ London, 1762. [1064] 1764. [1065] _Gentleman's Magazine._ [1066] 1767. "An officer of the customs seized nearly £400 worth of Flanders lace, artfully concealed in the hollow of a ship's buoy, on board a French trader, lying off Iron Gate."--_Annual Register._ 1772. "27,000 ells of French (Blois?) lace were seized in the port of Leigh alone."--_Gentleman's Magazine._ [1067] The turbulent Bishop of Rochester, who was arraigned for his Jacobite intrigues, and died in exile at Paris. 1731. [1068] If imported in smaller quantities than twelve yards, the duty imposed was £2 per yard. "Let the ruffle grace his hand, Ruffle, pride of Gallic land." --"The Beau." 1755. "And dip your wristbands (For cuffs you've none) as comely in the sauce As any courtier." --Beaumont and Fletcher. [1071] He had retired to the country to be out of the way. [1072] August, 1776. [1073] The wardrobe of George IV. was estimated at the same sum. [1074] Cowper. [1075] 1757. [1076] "Monsieur à la Mode." 1753. "Let of ruffles many a row Guard your elbows white as snow." --"The Belle." 1755. "Gone to a lady of distinction with a Brussels head and ruffles."--_The Fool of Quality._ 1766. [1078] "Receipt for Modern Dress." 1753. [1079] _Recollections of Madame d'Arblay._ [1080] Beaumont and Fletcher. _The Knight of Malta._ [1081] In coffins with glass tops. Some of them date from 1700. [1082] In the vault of the Schleswig-Holstein family at Sonderburg. [1083] In the church of Revel lies the Duc de Croÿ, a general of Charles XII., arrayed in full costume, with a rich flowing tie of fine guipure; not that he was ever interred--his body had been seized by his creditors for debt, and there it still remains. The author of _Letters from a Lady in Russia_ (1775), describing the funeral of a daughter of Prince Menzikoff, states she was dressed in a nightgown of silver tissue, on her head a fine laced mob, and a coronet; round her forehead a ribbon embroidered with her name and age, etc. [1084] Alluding to this custom of interring ladies of rank in full dress, Madame de Sévigné writes to her daughter:--"Mon Dieu, ma chère enfant, que vos femmes sont sottes, vivantes et mortes! Vous me faites horreur de cette fontange; quelle profanation! cela sent le paganisme, ho! cela me dégoûteroit bien de mourir en Provence; il faudroit que du moins je fusse assuré qu'on ne m'iroit pas chercher une coëffeuse en même temps qu'un plombier. Ah! vraiment! fi! ne parlez plus de cela."--Lettre 627. Paris, 13 Déc, 1688. [1085] Laborde. _Itin. de l'Espagne._ Again, the Duc de Luynes says: "The Curé of St. Sulpice related to me the fashion in which the Duke of Alva, who died in Paris in 1739, was by his own will interred. A shirt of the finest Holland, trimmed with new point lace, the finest to be had for money; a new coat of Vardez cloth, embroidered in silver; a new wig; his cane on the right, his sword on the left of his coffin."--_Mémoires._ [1086] That grave-clothes were lace-trimmed we infer from the following strange announcement in the _London Gazette_ for August 12th to 15th, 1678: "Whereas decent and fashionable lace shifts and Dressings for the dead, made of woollen, have been presented to his Majesty by Amy Potter, widow (the first that put the making of such things in practice), and his Majesty well liking the same, hath upon her humble Petition, been graciously pleased to give her leave to insert this advertisement, that it may be known she now wholly applies herself in making both lace and plain of all sorts, at reasonable prices, and lives in Crane Court in the Old Change, near St. Paul's Church Yard." Again, in November of the same year, we find another advertisement:--"His Majesty, to increase the woollen manufacture and to encourage obedience to the late act for burying in woollen, has granted to Amy Potter the sole privilege of making all sorts of woollen laces for the decent burial of the dead or otherwise, for fourteen years, being the first inventor thereof." [1087] Betterton's _History of the English Stage_. Her kindness to the poet Savage is well known. [1088] This seems to have been a spécialité of Gibbons; for we find among the treasures of Strawberry Hill: "A beautiful cravat, in imitation of lace, carved by Gibbons, very masterly."--_Hist. and Antiquities of Twickenham._ London, 1797. [1089] Mrs. Piozzi's _Memoirs_. [1090] A lady, who had very fine old lace, bequeathed her "wardrobe and lace" to some young friends, who, going after her death to take possession of their legacy, were surprised to find nothing but new lace. On inquiring of the old faithful Scotch servant what had become of the old needle points, she said: "Deed it's aw there, 'cept a wheen auld Dudds, black and ragged, I flinged on the fire." Another collection of old lace met with an equally melancholy fate. The maid, not liking to give it over to the legatees in its coffee-coloured hue, sewed it carefully together, and put it in a strong soap lye on the fire, to simmer all night. When she took it out in the morning, it was reduced to a jelly! Medea's caldron had not been more effectual! [1091] Cowper. "The Winter Evening." [1092] Bishop Berkeley, in _A Word to the Wise_, writes of the English labourers in the South of England on a summer's evening "sitting along the streets of the town or village, each at his own door, with a cushion before him, making bone lace, and earning more in an evening's pastime than an Irish family would in a whole day." [1093] "Wells, bone lace and knitting stockings."--Anderson. [1094] "Launceston, where are two schools for forty-eight children of both sexes. The girls are taught to read, sew, and make bone lace, and they are to have their earnings for encouragement."--_Magna Britannia._ 1720. Welsh lace was made at Swansea, Pont-Ardawe, Llanwrtyd, Dufynock, and Brecon, but never of any beauty, some not unlike a coarse Valenciennes. "It was much made and worn," said an aged Wesleyan lady, "by our 'connexion,' and as a child I had all my frocks and pinafores trimmed with it. It was made in the cottages; each lace-maker had her own pattern, and carried it out for sale in the country." [1095] At what period, and by whom the lace manufactory of Ripon was founded, we have been unable to ascertain. It was probably a relic of conventual days, which, after having followed the fashion of each time, has now gradually died out. In 1842 broad Trolly laces of French design and fair workmanship were fabricated in the old cathedral city; where, in the poorer localities near the Bond and Blossomgate, young women might be seen working their intricate patterns, with pillows, bobbins, and pins. In 1862 one old woman alone, says our informant, sustains the memory of the craft, her produce a lace of a small lozenge-shaped pattern (Fig. 132), that earliest of all designs, and a narrow edging known in local parlance by the name of "fourpenny spot." [1096] Till its annexation to the Crown, the Isle of Man was the great smuggling depôt for French laces. The traders then removed en masse to the Channel Isles, there to carry on their traffic. An idiot called "Peg the Ply" in Castletown (in 1842) was seen working at her pillow on a summer's evening, the last lace-maker of the island. Isle of Man lace was a simple Valenciennes edging. [1097] Isle of Wight lace was honoured by the patronage of Queen Victoria. The Princess Royal, reports the _Illustrated News_ of May, 1856, at the drawing-room, on her first presentation, wore a dress of Newport lace, her train trimmed with the same. The weariness of incarceration, when at Carisbrook, did not bring on Charles I. any distaste for rich apparel. Among the charges of 1648, Sept. and Nov., we find a sum of nigh £800 for suits and cloaks of black brocade tabby, black unshorn velvet, and black satin, all lined with plush and trimmed with rich bone lace. Some bobbin lace was made in the island, but what is known as "Isle of Wight" resembles "Nottingham" lace. It is made in frames on machine net, the pattern outlined with a run thread and filled in with needle-point stitches. Queen Victoria had several lace tippets made of Isle of Wight lace for the Royal children, and always chose the Mechlin style of rose pattern. Now (1901) there are only two or three old women workers left. [1098] Lace-making was never the staple manufacture of the Channel Islands; stockings and garments of knitted wool afforded a livelihood to the natives. We have early mention of these articles in the inventories of James V. of Scotland and of Mary Stuart. Also in those of Henry VIII. and Queen Elizabeth, in which last we find (Gt. Ward. Acc., 28 & 29) the charge of 20s. for a pair of "Caligarum nexat' de factura Garneseie," the upper part and "lez clocks" worked in silk. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, when the island was inundated with French refugees, lace-making was introduced with much success into the Poor-House of St. Heliers. It formed the favourite occupation of the ladies of the island, some of whom (1863) retain the patterns and pillows of their mothers, just as they left them. Of late years many of the old raised Venetian points have been admirably imitated in "Jersey crochet work." [1099] The Puritans again, on their part, transferred the fabric to the other side of the Atlantic, where, says a writer of the eighteenth century, "very much fine lace was made in Long Island by the Protestant settlers." [1100] See Chap. XXII. [1101] The richly-laced corporax cloths and church linen are sent to be washed by the "Lady Ancress," an ecclesiastical washerwoman, who is paid by the churchwardens of St. Margaret's, Westminster, the sum of 8d.; this Lady Ancress, or Anchoress, being some worn-out nun, who, since the dissolution of the religious houses, eked out an existence by the art she had once practised within the convent. [1102] In 1753 prizes were awarded for 14 pairs of curious needlework point ruffles. [1103] One society confers a prize of ten guineas upon a "gentlewoman for an improvement in manufacture by finishing a piece of lace in a very elegant manner with knitting-needles." [1104] The lace of the three counties is practically equal--that is, it is all made in a similar fashion, and the same patterns are met with in each county. The "point" or "net" ground is met with in all, and worked level with the pattern in the same way with bobbins. [1105] Who fled from the Alva persecutions, and settled, first at Cranfield in Bedfordshire, then at Buckingham, Stoney Stratford, and Newport-Pagnel, whence the manufacture extended gradually over Oxford, Northampton, and Cambridge. Many Flemish names are still to be found in the villages of Bedfordshire. [1106] Queen Katherine died 1536. [1107] She retired to Ampthill early in 1531 while her appeal to Rome was pending, and remained there till the summer of 1533. [1108] Lace of the heavy Venetian point was already used for ecclesiastical purposes, though scarcely in general use. The earliest known pattern-books date from fifteen years previous to the death of Katherine (1536). [1109] Dr. Nicolas Harpsfield. Douay, 1622. (In Latin.) Again we read that at Kimbolton "she plied her needle, drank her potions, and told her beads."--_Duke of Manchester. Kimbolton Papers._ [1110] A lady from Ampthill writes (1863): "The feast of St. Katherine is no longer kept. In the palmy days of the trade both old and young used to subscribe a sum of money and enjoy a good cup of Bohea and cake, which they called 'Cattern' cake. After tea they danced and made merry, and finished the evening with a supper of boiled stuffed rabbits smothered with onion sauce." The custom of sending about Cattern cakes was also observed at Kettering, in Northamptonshire. [1111] _Tour through the whole Island of Great Britain_, by a Gentleman. 3 vols. 1724-27. Several subsequent editions of Defoe were published, with additions, by Richardson the novelist in 1732, 1742, 1762, 1769, and 1778. The last is "brought down to the present time by a gentleman of eminence in the literary world." [1112] _Magna Britannia et Hibernia, or a New Survey of Great Britain, collected and composed by an impartial hand_, by the Rev. Thos. Owen. Lond. 1720-31. [1113] State Papers Dom. Jac. I. Vol. 142. P. R. O. [1114] Savary and Peuchet. [1115] _Worthies._ Vol. i., p. 134. [1116] _Magna Britannia_, Daniel and Samuel Lysons. 1806-22. [1117] Describing the "lace and edgings" of the tradesman's wife, she has "from Stoney Stratford the first, and Great Marlow the last."--_The Complete English Tradesman_, Dan. Defoe. 1726. [1118] Edition 1762. [1119] In _Sheahan's History of Bucks_, published in 1862, the following places are mentioned as being engaged in the industry:--"Bierton (black and white lace), Cuddington, Haddenham, Great Hampden, Wendover, Gawcott (black), Beachampton, Marsh Gibbon, Preston Bisset, Claydon, Grendon, Dorton, Grandborough, Oving (black and white), Waddesdon, Newport-Pagnell, Bletchley, Hopton, Great Horwood, Bon Buckhill, Fenny Stratford, Hanslope (where 500 women and children are employed--about one-third of the population), Levendon, Great Sandford, Loughton, Melton Keynes, Moulsoe, Newton Blossomville, Olney, Sherrington, and the adjoining villages, Stoke Hammond, Wavendon, Great and Little Kimble, Wooleston, Aston Abbots, Swanbourne, Winslow, Rodnage." [1120] _The Voyage to Great Britain of Don Manuel Gonzales, late Merchant of the City of Lisbon._--"Some say Defoe wrote this book himself; it is evidently from the pen of an Englishman."--_Lowndes' Bibliographers' Manual._ Bohn's Edition. [1121] _Annual Register._ [1122] See _Britannia Depicta_, by John Owen, Gent. Lond. 1764, and others. [1123] In 1785 there appears in the _Gentleman's Magazine_* "An essay on the cause and prevention of deformity among the lace-makers of Bucks and North Hants," suggesting improved ventilation and various other remedies long since adopted by the lace-working population in all countries. * In 1761 appeared a previous paper, "to prevent the effects of stooping and vitiated air," etc. [1124] _Dict. of Commerce._ [1125] In Flanders also these glasses were made and used. The "mediæval 'ourinals' are alike the retorts of the alchemist and the water-globes of the poor Flemish flax-thread spinners and lace makers." _Old English Glasses._ A. Hartshorne. [1126] The larger pins had heads put to them with seeds of _galium_ locally called Hariffe or goose-grass; the seeds when fingered became hard and polished. [1127] Bobbins are usually made of bone, wood or ivory. English bobbins are of bone or wood, and especially in the counties of Bedford, Bucks, and Huntingdon, the set on a lace pillow formed a homely record of their owner's life. The names of her family, dates and records, births and marriages and mottoes, were carved, burnt, or stained on the bobbin, while events of general interest were often commemorated by the addition of a new bobbin. The _spangles_, _jingles_ (or _gingles_) fastened to the end of the bobbin have a certain interest; a waistcoat button and a few coral beads brought from overseas, a family relic in the shape of an old copper seal, or an ancient and battered coin--such things as these were often attached to the ring of brass wire passed through a hole in the bobbin. The inscriptions on the bobbins are sometimes burned and afterwards stained, and sometimes "pegged" or traced in tiny leaden studs, and consist of such mottoes as "Love me Truley" (_sic_), "Buy the Ring," "Osborne for Ever," "Queen Caroline," "Let no false Lover win my heart," "To me, my dear, you may come near," "Lovely Betty," "Dear Mother," and so forth.--R. E. Head. "Some notes on Lace-Bobbins." _The Reliquary_, July, 1900. [1128] Too much stress cannot be laid on the importance of using fine linen thread. Many well-meant efforts are entirely ruined by the coarse woolly cotton thread used for what ought to be a fine make of lace. That good thread can be got in Great Britain is evident from the fact that the Brussels dealers employ English thread, and sell it to Venice for the exquisite work of Burano. Needless to say, no Englishman has attempted to make a bid for the direct custom of the 8,000 lace-workers there employed. [1129] Catalogue of lace (Victoria and Albert Museum). [1130] _The Conversion and Experience of Mary Hurll', or Hurdle, of Marlborough, a maker of bone lace in this town_, by the Rev. ---- Hughes, of that town. [1131] Waylen's _History of Marlborough_. [1132] "At Bland, on the Stour, between Salisbury and Dorchester, they made the finest lace in England, valued at £30 per yard."--_Universal Dict. of Trade and Commerce._ 1774. [1133] "Much bone lace was made here, and the finest point in England, equal, if not superior, to that of Flanders, and valued at £30 per yard till the beginning of this century."--_Hutchins' Hist. of the County of Dorset._ 2nd Edition, 1796. [1134] What this celebrated point was we cannot ascertain. Two samplars sent to us as Blandford point were of geometric pattern resembling the samplar, Fig. 5. [1135] In 1752. [1136] Roberts' _Hist. of Lyme Regis_. [1137] Burd, Genest, Raymunds, Brock, Couch, Gerard, Murck, Stocker, Maynard, Trump, Groot, etc. [1138] "We may rather infer that laces of silk and coarse thread were already fabricated in Devonshire, as elsewhere; and that the Flemings, on their arrival, having introduced the fine thread, then spun almost exclusively in their own country, from that period the trade of bone-lace-making flourished in the southern as well as in the midland counties of England" (Mrs. Palliser, 1869). [1139] Ker's _Synopsis_, written about the year 1561. Two copies of this MS. exist, one in the library of Lord Haldon at Haldon House (Co. Devon), the other in the British Museum. This MS. was never printed, but served as an authority for Westcote and others. [1140] "She was a daughter of John Flay, Vicar of Buckrell, near Honiton, who by will in 1614 bequeaths certain lands to Jerom Minify (_sic_), son of Jerom Minify, of Burwash, Sussex, who married his only daughter."--Prince's _Worthies of Devon_. 1701. Up to a recent date the Honiton lace-makers were mostly of Flemish origin. Mrs. Stocker, _ob._ 1769; Mr. J. Stocker, + 1788, and four daughters; Mrs. Mary Stocker, + 179-; Mr. Gerard, + 1799, and daughter; Mrs. Lydia Maynard (of Anti-Gallican celebrity), + 1786; Mrs. Ann Brock, + 1815; Mrs. Elizabeth Humphrey, + 1790, whose family had been in the lace manufacture 150 years and more. The above list has been furnished to the author by Mrs. Frank Aberdein, whose grandfather was for many years in the trade. Mrs. Treadwin, of Exeter, found an old lace-worker using a lace "Turn" for winding sticks, having the date 1678 rudely carved on the foot, showing how the trade was continued in the same family from generation to generation. [1141] _View of Devon._ T. Westcote. [1142] Her bequest is called "Minifie's Gift." [1143] Here follows the numbers of the people in a few places who get their living by making lace. Among those quoted in Devonshire as interesting to compare with the present day are:-- "Coumbraligh 65, Sidmont 302, Axmouth 73, Sidbury 321, Buckerall 90, Farway 70, Utpotery 118, Branscombe Beare and Seaton 326, Honyton 1341, Axminster 60, Otery St. Mary, 814." [1144] Church Book of the Baptist Chapel of Lyme Regis. [1145] Colyton and Ottery St. Mary were among the first. Wherever the say or serge decayed, the lace trade planted itself. In the church of Colyton, under a fine canopied tomb, repose back to back in most unsociable fashion the recumbent figures of Sir John and Lady Pole. "Dame Elizabeth, daughter of Roger How, merchant of London, ob. 1623," wears a splendid cape of three rows of bone lace descending to the waist. Her cap is trimmed with the same material. As this lace may be of Devonshire fabric, we give a wood-cut of the pattern (Fig. 150). Sundry Flemish names may still be seen above the shop-windows of Colyton similar to those of Honiton--Stocker, Murch, Spiller, Rochett, Boatch, Kettel, Woram, and others. [1146] Don Manuel Gonzales mentions "bone lace" among the commodities of Devon. [1147] The lace manufacture now extends along the coast from the small watering-place of Seaton, by Beer, Branscombe, Salcombe, Sidmouth, and Ollerton, to Exmouth, including the Vale of Honiton and the towns above mentioned. [1148] 1753. [1149] _Complete System of Geography._ Emanuel Bowen, 1747. This extract is repeated verbatim in _England's Gazetteer_, by Philip Luckombe. London, 1790. [1150] Died 1398. [1151] The best _réseau_ was made by hand with the needle, and was much more expensive. [1152] Mrs. Aberdein, of Honiton, informed Mrs. Palliser that her father often paid ninety-five guineas per lb. for the thread from Antwerp (1869). [1153] The manner of payment was somewhat Phoenician, reminding one of Queen Dido and her bargain. The lace ground was spread out on the counter, and the worker herself desired to cover it with shillings; and as many coins as found place on her work she carried away as the fruit of her labour. The author once calculated the cost, after this fashion, of a small lace veil on real ground, said to be one of the first ever fabricated. It was 12 inches wide and 30 inches long, and, making allowance for the shrinking caused by washing, the value amounted to £20, which proved to be exactly the sum originally paid for the veil. The ground of this veil, though perfect in its workmanship, is of a much wider mesh than was made in the last days of the fabric. It was the property of Mrs. Chick. [1154] "The last specimen of 'real' ground made in Devon was the marriage veil of Mrs. Marwood Tucker. It was with the greatest difficulty workers could be procured to make it. The price paid for the ground alone was 30 guineas" (1869). [1155] With the desire of combining the two interests, her Majesty ordered it to be made on the Brussels (machine-made) ground. [1156] _A_MARANTH, _D_APHNE, _E_GLANTINE, _L_ILAC, _A_URICULA, _I_VY, _D_AHLIA, _E_GLANTINE. [1157] The workers of Beer, Axmouth, and Branscombe, have always been considered the best in the trade. [1158] Exposition Universelle de 1867. Rapport du Jury International, "Dentelles," par Felix Aubry. [1159] For the encouragement of Agriculture, Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce. The prizes were offered for the best Sprigs, Nosegays, Borders for shawls, veils, or collars, Lappets, collars and cuffs, Pocket-handkerchiefs, etc., "of good workmanship and design, worked either in Flowers, Fruits, Leaves, or Insects, strictly designed from nature." Three prizes were awarded for each description of article. The Society also offered prizes for small application sprigged veils, and for the best specimens of braidwork, in imitation of Spanish point. [1160] _Honiton Lace_, by Mrs. Treadwin. London, 1874. _Honiton Lace-making_, by Devonia, London, 1874. [1161] Lappets and scarfs were made of trolly lace from an early date. Mrs. Delarey, in one of her letters, dated 1756, speaks of a "trolly head." Trolly lace, before its downfall, has been sold at the extravagant price of five guineas a yard. [1162] "Fifty years since Devonshire workers still make a 'Greek' lace, as they termed it, similar to the 'dentelles torchons' so common through the Continent. The author has seen specimens of this fabric in a lace-maker's old pattern-book, once the property of her mother" (Mrs. Palliser, 1869). [1163] Though no longer employed at lace-making, the boys in the schools at Exmouth are instructed in crochet work (1869). [1164] Of Otterton. [1165] In Woodbury will be found a small colony of lace-makers who are employed in making imitation Maltese or Greek lace, a fabric introduced into Devon by order of her late Majesty the Queen Dowager on her return from Malta. The workers copy these coarse geometric laces with great facility and precision. Among the various cheap articles to which the Devonshire workers have of late directed their labours is the tape or braid lace, and the shops of the country are now inundated with their productions in the form of collars and cuffs (1869.) [1166] The Honiton pillows are rather smaller than those for Buckinghamshire lace, and do not have the multiplicity of starched coverings--only three "pill cloths," one over the top, and another on each side of the lace in progress; two pieces of horn called "sliders" go between to take the weight of the bobbins from dragging the stitches in progress; a small square pin-cushion is on one side, and stuck into the pillow is the "needle-pin"--a large sewing needle in a wooden handle, and for picking up loops through which the bobbins are placed. The pillow has to be frequently turned round in the course of the work, so that no stand is used, and it is rested against a table or doorway; and formerly, in the golden days, in fine weather there would be rows of workers sitting outside their cottages resting their "pills" against the back of the chair in front. The bobbins used in Honiton lace-making are delicately-fashioned slender things of smooth, close-grained wood, their length averaging about three and a half inches. They have no "gingles," and none of the carving and relief inlayings of the Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire bobbins; but some of them are curiously stained with a brown pigment in an irregular pattern resembling the mottlings of clouded bamboo or those of tortoise-shell. [1167] "The author has visited many lace-schools in Devon, and though it might be desired that some philanthropist would introduce the infant school system of allowing the pupils to march and stretch their limbs at the expiration of every hour, the children, notwithstanding, looked ruddy as the apples in their native orchards; and though the lace-worker may be less robust in appearance than the farm-servant or the Cheshire milkmaid, her life is more healthy far than the female operative in our northern manufactories" (1875). [1168] "A good lace-maker easily earns her shilling a day, but in most parts of Devonshire the work is paid by the truck system, many of the more respectable shops giving one-half in money, the remaining sixpence to be taken out in tea or clothing, sold often considerably above their value. Other manufacturers--to their shame, be it told--pay their workers altogether in grocery, and should the lace-maker, from illness or any other cause, require an advance in cash, she is compelled to give work to the value of fourteen-pence for every shilling she receives. Some few houses pay their workers in money" (1875). [1169] Medals were won at the Chicago World's Fair for Devonshire lace by Mrs. Fowler and Miss Radford, of Sidmouth. The latter has also received the freedom of the City of London for a beautiful lace fan, her sprigs being the finest and most exquisite models of flowers and birds it is possible to produce in lace. A third medal was won by the Italian laces at Beer. [1170] Those held at Sidbury and Sidford are very successful, and the children, ranging in age from, nine to fifteen, come regularly for their "lace." It is interesting to watch the improvement in the work of the "flys," the first lesson, and as a rule each child makes forty to fifty before going on to anything further. [1171] At Beer, where fishing is the staple industry, in bad fish seasons the women can earn more than the men; and at Honiton in the hard winter of 1895 the lace-makers kept themselves and their families, and were spared applying for relief--all honour to their skill and self-helpfulness. [1172] "1539. Ane uther gowne of purpour satyne with ane braid pasment of gold and silver," etc. "Twa Spanye cloikis of black freis with ane braid pasment of gold and silver." "1542. Three peces of braid pasmentes of gold and silver."--_Inventories of the Royal Wardrobe and Jewel House._ 1488-1606. Edinb. 1815. [1173] 1542. Same Inv. [1174] In the Inv. of the Earl of Huntley, 1511-12, there is mention of dresses "passamenté d'or." [1175] Chap. X., note. 1537. James V. and Lord Somerville at Holyrood:--"Where are all your men and attendants, my Lord?" "Please, your Majesty, they are here"--pointing to the lace which was on his son and two pages' dress. The King laughed heartily and surveyed the finery, and bade him "Away with it all, and let him have his stout band of spears again." [1176] Croft's _Excerpta Antiqua_. The Countess of Mar, daughter of the first Duke of Lennox and granddaughter by her mother's side to Marie Touchet. She was daughter-in-law to the preceptress of James VI., and in 1593 had the honour, at the baptism of Prince Henry, of lifting the child from his bed and delivering him to the Duke of Lennox. A portrait of this lady, in the high Elizabethan ruff, and with a "forepart" and tucker of exquisite raised Venice point, hung (circ. 1870) in the drawing-room of the late Miss Katherine Sinclair. [1177] "Une robe de velours vert couverté de Broderies, gimpeures, et cordons d'or et d'argent, et bordée d'un passement de même. "Une robe veluat cramoisi bandée de broderie de guimpeure d'argent. "Une robe de satin blanc chamarrée de broderie faite de guimpeure d'or. "Id. de satin jaune toute couverte de broderye gumpeure, etc. "Robe de weloux noyr semée de geynpeurs d'or."--_Inv. of Lillebourg._ 1561. [1178] "Chamarrée de bisette."--_Inv. of Lillebourg._ 1561. "Ane rabbat of wolvin thread with passmentet with silver." [1179] Chap. III. [1180] See LACIS, Chap. II. [1181] See NEEDLEWORK, Chap. I. [1182] Her lace ruffs Mary appears to have had from France, as we may infer from a letter written by Walsingham, at Paris, to Burleigh, when the Queen was captive at Sheffield Castle, 1578: "I have of late granted a passport to one that conveyeth a box of linen to the Queen of Scots, who leaveth not this town for three or four days. I think your Lordship shall see somewhat written on some of the linen contained in the same, that shall be worth the reading. Her Majesty, under colour of seeing the fashion of the _ruffes_, may cause the several parcels of the linen to be held to the fire, whereby the writing may appear; for I judge there will be some such matter discovered, which was the cause why I did the more willingly grant the passport." [1183] In 1575. [1184] There was some demur about receiving the nightcaps, for Elizabeth declared "that great commotions had taken place in the Privy Council because she had accepted the gifts of the Queen of Scots. They therefore remained for some time in the hands of La Mothe, the ambassador, but were finally accepted."--Miss Strickland. [1185] "Inventaire of our Soveraine Lord and his dearest moder. 1578."--Record Office, Edinburgh. [1186] _Records of Life_, by Miss H. Pigott. 1839. [1187] Similar to the New Year's Gift of the Baroness Aletti to Queen Elizabeth:-- "A veil of lawn cutwork flourished with silver and divers colours."--Nichols' _Royal Progresses._ [1188] "Twa quaiffs ane of layn and uther of woving thread. Ane quaiff of layn with twa cornettes sewitt with cuttit out werk of gold and silver. Twa pair of cornettes of layn sewitt with cuttit out werk of gold. Ane wovin collar of thread passementit with incarnit and blew silk and silver."--_Inv. of 1578._ [1189] "Ane rabbat of cuttit out werk and gold and cramoisie silk with the handis (cuffs) thereof. Ane rabbat of cuttit out werk of gold and black silk. Ane rabbat of cuttit out werk with purpure silk with the handis of the same."--_Ibid._ [1190] "Twa towell claiths of holane claith sewitt with cuttit out werk and gold. Four napkinnes of holane claith and cammaraye sewitt with cuttit out werk of gold and silver and divers cullours of silk."--_Ibid._ [1191] Published by Prince Labanoff. "Recueil de Lettres de Marie Stuart." T. vii., p. 247. [1192] _Marriage Expenses of James VI._, 1589. Published by the Bannatyne Club. [1193] _Accounts of the Great Chamberlain of Scotland._ 1590.--Bannatyne Club. [1194] In 1581, 1597, and 1621. [1195] The same privilege was extended to their wives, their eldest sons with their wives, and their eldest daughters, but not to the younger children. [1196] 1633. In the _Account of Expenses for the young Lord of Lorne_, we find:-- "2 ells Cambridg' at 8s. the ell for ruffles, 16s. "2 ells of Perling at 30s., the uther at 33s. 4d., £3 3s. 4d."--Innes' _Sketches of Early Scotch History._ [1197] January, 1686. [1198] "In 1701, when Mistress Margaret, daughter of the Baron of Kilravock, married, 'flounced muslin and lace for combing cloths,' appear in her outfit."--Innes' _Sketches_. [1199] In a pamphlet published 1702, entitled, _An Accompt carried between England and Scotland_, alluding to the encouragement of the yarn trade, the author says: "This great improvement can be attested by the industry of many young gentlewomen that have little or no portion, by spinning one pound of fine lint, and then breaking it into fine flax and whitening it. One gentlewoman told me herself that, by making an ounce or two of it into fine bone lace, it was worth, or she got, twenty pounds Scots for that part of it; and might, after same manner, five or eight pounds sterling out of a pound of lint, that cost her not one shilling sterling. Now if a law were made not to import any muslin (her Grace the Duchess of Hamilton still wears our finest Scots muslin as a pattern to others--she who may wear the finest apparel) and Holland lace, it would induce and stir up many of all ranks to wear more fine 'Scots lace,' which would encourage and give bread to many young gentlewomen and help their fortunes." Then, among the products of Scotland by which "we may balance any nation," the same writer mentions "our white thread, and making laces." "On Tuesday, the 16th inst., will begin the roup of several sorts of merchants' goods, in the first story of the Turnpyke, above the head of Bells Wynd, from 9 to 12 and 2 till 5. 'White thread lace.'"--_Edinburgh Courant._ 1706. [1200] See Chap. XXV., Queen Anne. [1201] _Edinburgh Advertiser._ 1764. [1202] 1745. The following description of Lady Lovat, wife of the rebel Simon, is a charming picture of a Scotch gentlewoman of the last century:-- "When at home her dress was a red silk gown with ruffled cuffs and sleeves puckered like a man's shirt, a fly cap of lace encircling her head, with a mob cap laid across it, falling down on the cheeks; her hair dressed and powdered; a lace handkerchief round the neck and bosom (termed by the Scotch a _Befong_)--a white apron edged with lace.... Any one who saw her sitting on her chair, so neat, fresh, and clean, would have taken her for a queen in wax-work placed in a glass case."--_Heart of Midlothian._ Sir Walter Scott, whose descriptions are invariably drawn from memory, in his _Chronicles of the Canongate_, describes the dressing-room of Mrs. Bethune Balliol as exhibiting a superb mirror framed in silver filigree-work, a beautiful toilet, the cover of which was of Flanders lace. [1203] _Heart of Midlothian._ [1204] _Statistical Account of Scotland._ Sir John Sinclair. Edinburgh, 1792. Vol. ii., 198. [1205] _Edinburgh Amusement._ [1206] 1755. Premium £2 offered. "For the whitest, best, and finest lace, commonly called Hamilton lace, and of the best pattern, not under two yards in length and not under three inches in breadth." [1207] The Edinburgh Society did not confine their rewards to Hamilton lace; imitation of Dresden, catgut lace, gold, silver, and even livery lace, each met with its due reward. 1758. For imitation of lace done on catgut, for ruffles, a gold medal to Miss Anne Cant, Edinburgh. For a piece of livery lace done to perfection to J. Bowie, 2 guineas. To W. Bowie for a piece of gold and silver lace, 2 guineas. [1208] 1769. Pennant, in his _Tour_, mentions among the manufactures of Scotland thread laces at Leith, Hamilton and Dalkeith. [1209] In 1762, Dec. 9, a schoolmistress in Dundee, among thirty-one accomplishments in which she professes to instruct her pupils, such as "waxwork, boning fowls without cutting the back," etc., enumerates, No. 21, "True point or tape lace," as well as "washing Flanders lace and point." Again, in 1764, Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell advertise in their boarding-school "lacework and the washing of blonde laces; the pupils' own laces washed and got up at home. Terms £24." At Miss Glen's boarding-school in the Trunk Close, 1768, young ladies are taught "white and coloured seam and washing of lace"--gratis. These lady-teachers were not appointed in Scotland without giving due proofs of their capacity. In 1758 the magistrates and council of Aberdeen, being unanimous as to the "strict morality, Dresden work, modesty, and catgut lace-making," etc., of Miss Betsey Forbes, elected her to the office of schoolmistress of the city. In _The Cottagers of Glenburnie_ a lady, Mrs. Mason, tells a long story of the young laird having torn a suit of lace she was busied in getting up. [1210] _Edinburgh Advertiser._ [1211] 1774. "Several punds of badly-spun yarn was burnt by the stamp master in Montrose." This announcement constantly occurs. [1212] About this period a Mr. Brotherton, of Leith, seems to have made a discovery which was but a prelude to the bobbin net. It is thus described in the _Weekly Magazine_ of 1772:--"A new invention has lately been discovered by Mr. Brotherton, in Leith, for working black silk lace or white thread lace on a loom, to imitate any pattern whatever, and the lace done in this way looks fully as well as if sewed, and comes much cheaper. It is done any breadth, from three inches to three-quarters of a yard wide." [1213] In 1775 Dallas, Barclay & Co., advertise a selling off of fine point, Brussels thread, blond, and black laces of all kinds, silver double edged lace, etc.--_Edinburgh Advertiser._ 1775. "Black blonde and thread laces, catguts of all sorts, just arrived from the India House in London in the Canongate."--_Caledonian Mercury._ "Fashions for January; dresses trimmed with Brussels point or Mignonette."--_Ibid._ Same year. [1214] "Madame Puteau carries on a lace manufacture after the manner of Mechlin and Brussels. She had lately twenty-two apprentices from the Glasgow Hospital.... Mrs. Puteau has as much merit in this branch as has her husband in the making of fine thread. This he manufactures of such a fineness as to be valued at £10 the pound weight."--_Essays on the Trade, Commerce, Manufactures, Fisheries, etc., of Scotland._ David Loch. 1778. [1215] "If you look at the wardrobes of your grandmother, you will perceive what revolutions have happened in taste of mankind for laces and other fineries of that sort. How many suits of this kind do you meet with that cost amazing sums, which are now, and have long since been, entirely useless. In our own day did we not see that in one year Brussels laces are most in fashion and purchased at any price, while the next perhaps they are entirely laid aside, and French or other thread laces, or fine sewings, the names of which I know not, highly prized."--_Observations on the National Industry of Scotland._ Anderson. 1778. [1216] Lace-making at Hamilton is now a thing of the past, replaced in the nineteenth century by a tambour network for veils, scarfs and flounces. [1217] _Essay on the Dress of the Early Irish._ J. C. Walker. 1788. [1218] _The Image of Irelande_, by Jhon Derricke. 1578. [1219] In 1562. See Camden. _Hist. Eliz._ [1220] Henry VIII. 1537. Against Irish fashions. Not "to weare any shirt, smock, kerchor, bendel, neckerchour, mocket, or linen cappe colored or dyed with saffron," and not to use more than seven yards of linen in their shirts or smocks. [1221] 4 Edw. IV., Harl MSS. No. 1419. _b.-g._ 494. [1222] That lace ruffs soon appeared in Ireland may be proved by the effigy on a tomb still extant in the Abbey of Clonard, in which the Dillon arms are conspicuous, and also by paintings of the St. Lawrence family, _circ._ 1511, preserved at Howth Castle. In the portrait at Muckruss of the Countess of Desmond she is represented with a lace collar. It was taken, as stated at the back of the portrait, "as she appeared at the court of King James, 1614, and in y^e 140th year of her age." Thither she went to endeavour to reverse the attainder of her house. [1223] At the end of the last century there lived at Creaden, near Waterford, a lady of the name of Power, lineal descendant of the kings of Munster, and called the Queen of Creaden. She affected the dress of the ancient Irish. The border of her coif was of the finest Irish-made Brussels lace; her jacket of the finest brown cloth trimmed with gold lace; her petticoat of the finest scarlet cloth bordered with a row of broad gold lace; all her dress was of Irish manufacture. [1224] _Gentleman's and Citizen's Almanack_, by G. Watson. Dublin, 1757. [1225] "The freedom of the city of Dublin was also conferred upon her, presented in due form in a silver box as a mark of esteem for her great charities and constant care of the Foundling children in the city workhouse."--_Dublin Freeman's Journal_, July 30th, 1765. [1226] _Gentleman's and Citizen's Almanack_, by Samuel Watson. 1773. [1227] "The Lady Arabella Denny died 1792, aged 85; she was second daughter of Thomas Fitzmaurice, Earl of Kerry. The Irish Academy, in acknowledgment of her patriotic exertions, offered a prize of 100 guineas for the best monody on her death. It was gained by John Macaulay, Esq."--_Dublin Freeman's Journal_, July 20th, 1766. [1228] Wakefield writes in 1812: "Lace is not manufactured to a large extent in Ireland. I saw some poor children who were taught weaving by the daughters of a clergyman, and Mr. Tighe mentions a school in Kilkenny where twelve girls were instructed in the art. At Abbey-leix there is a lace manufacture, but the quantity made is not of any importance."--_Account of Ireland. Statistical and Political._ Edw. Wakefield. 1812. [1229] _Pall Mall Gazette_, May 8th, 1897. [1230] Walker was a man of literary and artistic tastes, and educated for the Church, but, marrying the daughter of a lace-manufacturer, he set up in that business in Essex, working for the London wholesale trade. He removed next to Limerick, where he continued till 1841, when he sold the business, but his successor becoming bankrupt, he never received the purchase money, and died 1842, his ingenuity and industry ill-rewarded. In some work (we have lost the reference) it is stated that "Coggeshall, in Essex, made a tambour lace, a sort of medium between lace and embroidery." Could this be Walker's manufacture? [1231] In 1855 the number of workers employed numbered 1,500. In 1869 there were less than 500. In 1869 Mrs. Palliser writes of the tambour lace industry: "The existing depression of the trade has been partly caused by the emigration of girls to America and the colonies, while glove-making and army clothing employ the rest; and indeed the manufacture aiming only at cheapness had produced a lace of inferior quality, without either novelty or beauty of design, from which cause Limerick lace has fallen into disrepute." [1232] No account of Limerick lace would be complete which does not make some reference to the work of the Sisters of Mercy at Kinsale, Co. Cork, where so much is now being done to revive those industries which were originally started with the object of coping with the famine of 1846. This revival is largely due to Mr. A. S. Cole, who originally suggested the establishment of an art class in connection with South Kensington, with Mr. Brennar, of the Cork School of Art, as its master. The studio is in connection with the workroom, which secures constant touch between the designing, alteration, and adaptation of patterns and their execution. (_Pall Mall Gazette_, May 8th, 1897.) [1233] Various schools have been established throughout Ireland. Lady de Vere taught the mistress of a school on her own demesne at Curragh, Co. Limerick, the art of making application flowers, giving her own Brussels lace as patterns. The work was so good as soon to command a high price, and the late Queen of the Belgians actually purchased a dress of it at Harding's, and took it back with her to Brussels, The fabric is known by the name of "Irish" or "Curragh point." The school set up at Belfast by the late Jane Clarke exhibited in 1851 beautiful imitations of the old Spanish and Italian points; amongst others a specimen of the fine raised Venetian point, which can scarcely be distinguished from the original. It is now in the Vict. and Albert Museum (1869). [1234] From the tradition that a Jesuit procured the first Venetian lace pattern used in Ireland. [1235] It was in the famine period that the Rector of Headford, Co. Galway, brought about a revival of the pillow lace, which was known to a few women in the county--taught, according to the tradition, by a soldier from foreign parts at some unknown date. This work is now reviving, thanks to the energetic care of Mrs. Dawson. [1236] Mr. A. S. Cole gives the following classification of Irish laces:-- There are seven sorts of Irish lace. 1. Flat needle-point lace. 2. Raised needle-point lace. 3. Embroidery on net, either darning or chain-stitch. 4. Cut cambric or linen work in the style of guipure or appliqué lace. 5. Drawn thread-work in the style of Reticella, and Italian cut points. 6. Pillow lace in imitation of Devon lace. 7. Crochet. [1237] _History of Machine-Wrought Hosiery and Lace Manufacture._ W. Felkin. London, 1867. [1238] See GERMANY. [1239] An open stitch on stockings, called the "Derby rib," had been invented by Jedediah Strutt, in 1758. [1240] By Rev. William Lee, of Calverton (Nottinghamshire). The romantic story is well known; but whether actuated, as usually stated, by pique at the absorbing attention paid to her knitting by a lady, when he was urging his suit--or, as others more amiably affirm, by a desire to lighten the labour of his wife, who was obliged to contribute to their joint support by knitting stockings--certain it is that it was he who first conceived the idea of the stocking-frame, and completed it about 1589. His invention met with no support from Queen Elizabeth, so Lee went to France, where he was well received by Henry IV.; but the same year Henry was assassinated, and the Regent withdrawing her protection, Lee died of grief and disappointment. The arms of the Framework Knitters' Company (Fig. 162) are a stocking-frame, having for supporters William Lee in full canonicals and a female holding in her hand thread and a knitting-needle. After Lee's death his brother returned to England, where Lee's invention was then appreciated. Stocking-making became the fashion, everyone tried, it, and people had their portraits taken with gold and silver needles suspended round their necks. [1241] Vandyke had also appended the chain to his stocking-frame, and the zigzags formed by the ribs of his stockings were called "Vandyke," hence the term now generally applied to all indented edges. [1242] Mechlin net was disused in 1819 from its too great elasticity. [1243] The "bobbins" on which the thread is wound for the weft consist of two circular copper plates riveted together, and fixed upon a small carriage or frame which moves backwards and forwards like a weaver's shuttle. [1244] The Old Loughboro' employed sixty movements to form one mesh--a result now obtained by twelve. It produced 1,000 meshes a minute--then thought a wonderful achievement, as by the pillow only five or six can be obtained. A good circular machine now produces 30,000 in the same time. The quality of bobbin net depends upon the smallness of the meshes, their equality in size, and the regularity of the hexagons. [1245] Bobbin net is measured by the "rack," which consists of 240 meshes. This mode of counting was adopted to avoid the frequent disagreements about measure which arose between the master and the workmen in consequence of the elasticity of the net. The exchange of linen to cotton thread was the source of great regret to the Roman Catholic clergy, who by ecclesiastical law can only wear albs of flax. [1246] This association was formed by Ludlam, or General Ludd, as he was called, a stocking-frame worker at Nottingham in 1811, when prices had fallen. The Luddites, their faces covered with a black veil, armed with swords and pistols, paraded the streets at night, entered the workshops, and broke the machines with hammers. A thousand machines were thus destroyed. Soon the net-workers joined them and made a similar destruction of the bobbin net machines. Although many were punished, it was only with the return of work that the society disappeared in 1817. [1247] Heathcoat represented Tiverton from 1834 to 1859, colleague of Lord Palmerston. Steam power was first introduced by Mr. J. Lindley in 1815-16, but did not come into active operation till 1820; it became general 1822-23. [1248] McCulloch. [1249] The most extraordinary changes took place in the price of the finished articles. Lace which was sold by Heathcoat for 5 guineas a yard soon after the taking out of his patent can now be equalled at eighteenpence a yard; quillings, as made by a newly-constructed machine in 1810, and sold at 4s. 6d., can now be equalled and excelled at 1½d. a yard; while a certain width of net which brought £17 per piece 20 years ago is now sold for 7s. (1843). Progressive value of a square yard of plain cotton bobbin net: £ s. s. d. 1809 5 0 1830 2 0 1813 2 0 1833 1 4 1815 1 10 1836 0 10 1818 1 0 1842 0 6 1821 0 12 1850 0 4 1824 0 8 1856 0 3 1827 0 4 1862 0 3 _Histoire du Tulle et des Dentelles mécaniques en Angleterre et en France_, par S. Ferguson fils. Paris, 1862. "Bobbin net and lace are cleaned from the loose fibres of the cotton by the ingenious process of gassing, as it is called, invented by the late Mr. Samuel Hall, of Nottingham. A flame of gas is drawn through the lace by means of a vacuum above. The sheet of lace passes to the flame opaque and obscured by loose fibre, and issues from it bright and clear, not to be distinguished from lace made of the purest linen thread, and perfectly uninjured by the flame."--_Journal of the Society of Arts._ Jan., 1864. [1250] In 1826 Mr. Huskisson's reduction of the duty on French tulle caused so much distress in Leicester and Nottingham, that ladies were desired to wear only English tulle at court; and in 1831 Queen Adelaide appeared at one of her balls in a dress of English silk net. [1251] John Hindres, in 1656, first established a stocking-frame in France. [1252] The net produced was called "Tulle simple et double de Lyon et de Vienne." The net was single loops, hence the name of "single press," given to these primitive frames. [1253] In 1801 George Armitage took a "point net" machine to Antwerp, and made several after the same model, thus introducing the manufacture into Belgium. He next went to Paris, but the wholesale contraband trade of Hayne left him no hope of success. He afterwards went to Prussia to set up net and stocking machines. At the age of eighty-two he started for Australia, where he died, in 1857, aged eighty-nine. [1254] The great difficulty encountered by the French manufacturers consisted in the cotton. France did not furnish cotton higher than No. 70; the English ranges from 160 to 200. The prohibition of English cotton obliged them to obtain it by smuggling until 1834, when it was admitted on paying a duty. Now they make their own, and are able to rival Nottingham in the prices of their productions. A great number of Nottingham lace-makers have emigrated to Calais. [1255] The Caen blond first suggested the idea. [1256] The first net frame was set up at Brussels in 1801. Others followed at Termonde, 1817; Ghent, 1828; Sainte Fosse, etc. [1257] D. Wyatt. [1258] Mr. Ferguson, the inventor of the bullet-hole, square net (tulle carré), and wire-ground (point de champ ou de Paris), had transferred his manufacture, in 1838, from Nottingham to Cambrai, where, in partnership with M. Jourdan, he made the "dentelle de Cambrai," and in 1852 the "lama" lace, which differs from the Cambrai inasmuch as the weft (_trame_) is made of mohair instead of silk. Mr. Ferguson next established himself at Amiens, where he brought out the Yak, another mixed lace. [1259] The first patents were:-- 1836. Hind and Draper took out one in France, and 1837 in England. 1838. Ferguson takes a patent at Cambrai under the name of his partner Jourdan. 1839. Crofton. 1841. Houston and Deverill, for the application of the Jacquard to the Leaver machine. The great manufactures of Nottingham and Calais are made on the Leaver Jacquard frame. The first patterned net was produced, 1780, by E. Frost, the embroidery made by hand. [1260] Cantor Lectures on the Art of Lace-Making. A. S. Cole. 1880. [1261] "The machines now in use are the Circular, Leaver, Transverse Warp and Pusher. Out of 3,552 machines computed to be in England in 1862 2,448 were at Nottingham."--_International Exhibition, Juror's Report._ [1262] _Daphne lagetta._ [1263] He makes a paste of the plant which is the usual food of the caterpillar, and spreads it thinly over a stone or other flat substance; then with a camel's-hair pencil dipped in olive oil he draws upon the coating of paste the pattern he wishes the insects to leave open. The stone being placed in an inclined position, the caterpillars* are laid at the bottom, and the animals eat and spin their way up to the top, carefully avoiding every part touched by the oil, but devouring the rest of the paste.--_Encyclopædia Britannica._ * _Phalæna pandilla._ [1264] Two interesting papers were published in the _Gazette des Beaux Arts_ for 1863 and 1864, entitled, "Essai bibliographique sur les anciens dessins de dentelles, modèles de tapisseries, patrons de broderies et publiés le xvi. et le xvii. siècle," &c, by the Marquis Girolamo d'Addo, of Milan. [1265] Cambridge University Library. [1266] Paris, Bibliothèque Nat. Gravures, L. h. 13 d.* [1267] Bib. Nat. V. 1897.*--Genoa. Cav. Merli, 1528 (?). [1268] Paris, Bib. de l'Arsenal. 11,952.* [1269] Oxford, Bib. Bodleian. [1270] Milan, Cavaliere Bertini. [1271] Venice, Library of St. Mark. [1272] Bib. Nat. Grav. L. h. 13. e.* [1273] Bib. de l'Arsenal. 11,951.* [1274] Silvestre, _Marques Typographiques des Imprimeurs en France, depuis 1470_. Paris, 1853-61. [1275] Quoted in Cat. Cappi, of Bologna, 1829. [1276] Quoted in Cat. Cappi, of Bologna, 1829. [1277] _Ibid._ [1278] _Ibid._ [1279] Cat. Bib. Heber., part vi., p. 258. No. 3,514. [1280] Paris, Bib. Sainte-Geneviève. V. 634.* Bound in one volume with the three following. (Nos. 16, 17, and 18.)--Catalogue de Livres provenant de la Bibliothèque de M. L. D. D. L. V. (Duke de La Vallière). Paris, 1763. T. xi., No. 2,204. [1281] Bib. Ste. Geneviève. V. 634.*--Bib. de l'Arsenal. No. 11,953.*--Cat. d'Estrées. Paris, 1740-46. No. 8,843.3. [1282] Bib. Ste. Geneviève. V. 634.*--Bib. de l'Arsenal. No. 11,953.*--Cat. d'Estrées. No. 8,843. 1. [1283] Bib. Ste. Geneviève. V. 634.*--Bib. de l'Arsenal. No. 11.953.* [1284] Paris, Bib. Baron Jérôme Pichon.* [1285] Bib. Nat. Grav. L. h. 4.* [1286] Bib. Nat. Grav. L. h. 4. a.*--Catalogo ragionato dei libri posseduti dal Conte di Cicognara. Pisa, 1821. No. 1,818. [1287] Library V. and A. Museum.--Venice, Lib. St. Mark,--Milan, Bib. Marquis d'Adda. [1288] Milan, Bib. Marquis G. d'Adda. [1289] Rome, Bib. Prince Massimo. [1290] Bib. de l'Arsenal. 11,954 (with D. de Sera).* [1291] Genoa, Cav. Merli. [1292] Quoted by Cav. Merli. [1293] Florence. M. Bigazzi. [1294] Paris, Bib. Nat. Milan, Bib. Belgiosa and Marquis d'Adda. [1295] Bib. de l'Arsenal. 11,953.*--Bologna, Bib. Comm.--Cat. d'Estrées. 8843. No. 2. [1296] Mr. E. Arnold. [1297] Royal Library, Munich. [1298] Cat. Cicognara. 1583. No. 4. [1299] Bib. de l'Arsenal. No. 11,953.*--Mr. E. Arnold. [1300] Florence, M. Bigazzi. [1301] Cat. Cicognara. 1583. No. 1. Bound in one volume, with six others. [1302] _Ibid._ 1583. No. 5. [1303] Cat. Cicognara. 1583. No. 6. [1304] _Ibid._ 1583. No. 7. [1305] Cat. Cicognara. No. 17 [1306] _Ibid._ 1583. No. 3. [1307] Bib. de l'Arsenal. 11,953.* [1308] Bib. de l'Arsenal. 11,953.*--Mrs. Stisted. Bagni di Lucca. [1309] Bib. Nat. V. 1901.*--Bib. de l'Arsenal. 11,973.*--Cat. d'Estrées. [1310] Bib. Nat. V. 1901.*--Bib. de l'Arsenal. 11,973.*--Cat. d'Estrées. [1311] Trezola, in the Riviera dialect, signifies a plait-tresse. "Porta i capei in trezola." ("She wears her hair plaited.") [1312] Bib. de l'Arsenal. 11,955 _bis_,* with _Vera Perfettione_ and _Fiori_ of F. Franceschi, and _Corona_ of Vecellio. [1313] Quoted by Willemin. [1314] Quoted in Art. "Tricot et Travaux des Dames." [1315] Bib. M. d'Adda. [1316] Dresden, New Museum for Art and Industry. Communicated by Mr. Gruner. [1317] Bib. de l'Arsenal. 11,954.* [1318] Milan. Bib. Marquis Girolamo d'Adda. [1319] Bib. Rouen. No. 1313. Both Parts in one vol.* [1320] We have received notice of there being a copy of the original edition at Turin, in the Library of the University. [1321] Bib. Nat. Grav. L. h. 2.* (with Part I.): "Ex Bibliotheca illustrissimi Johannis d'Estrées Cameracensis Archiepiscopi designati quam Monasterio St. Germani à Pratis legavit. Anno 1718." [1322] Brussels, Bib. Roy. M. Alvin, Conservateur en Chef. [1323] Bib. Ste. Geneviève. V. 634.*--Bib. Nat. Grav. L. h. 2. b.* [1324] Bib. Ste. Geneviève (with 1st Part).*--Bib. Nat. Grav. L. h. 2. b. (with 1st Part).* [1325] Bib. de l'Arsenal. 11,954 _bis._* [1326] British Museum. Grenville Lib. 2584.* [1327] Bib. Nat. Grav. L. h. 1. a.* [1328] Brussels, Bib. Roy.--Cat. Cicognara. No. 1822. [1329] Quoted in Watt's Bibliographia Britannica. [1330] Bib. de l'Arsenal. No. 11,954 _ter._* [1331] Bib. de l'Arsenal. 11,955 _bis._*--Bib. Bodleian. [1332] _Ibid._ [1333] Bib. de l'Arsenal. 11,955* (with Books 2 and 3). _Mazzette_ means detached bouquets--sprigs. [1334] Rouen, Bib. Bound in one vol. with the three parts of the _Corona_.* [1335] Communicated by Mr. Gruner. [1336] Note of M. Leber, who gives the dates of the dedication of the Rouen copy as follows:--B. 1, 20 Jan.; B. 2, 24 Jan.; B. 3, 15 June, all 1591. The _Gioiello_, 10 Nov., 1592. The vol. containing the two works has 101 plates, in addition to 10 leaves of titles, dedications, etc. [1337] Victoria and Albert Museum. [1338] Brussels, Bib. Royale. Jean de Glen is also author of a work entitled _Des Habits, Moeurs, Ceremonies, Façons de faire, anciennes & modernes du Monde, par J. de Glen, Linger_. Liége. J. de Glen. 1601. In-8. [1339] Lyon. M. Yemenis. [1340] Turin, Count Manzoni. [1341] Berlin, Royal Library. [1342] Dresden, New Museum of Art and Industry. [1343] Bib. Nat. V. 1902,* and Grav. L. h. 3.*--Bib. de l'Arsenal. 11,956.*--Bib. Ste. Geneviève.* [1344] Victoria and Albert Museum. [1345] Bib. Nat. Grav. B. c. 22. Vinciolo.* [1346] Catalogue des Livres de feu M. Picard. 1780. No. 455. [1347] Brussels, Bib. Royale. [1348] Nuremberg, German Museum. [1349] Jew's stitch is given both by Sibmacher and Latomus. (No. 95.) We do not know what it is. [1350] Cited by Cav. Merli, in his _Origine delle Trine_. [1351] Cat. Evans, Strand. [1352] Paris, Musée de Cluny.* [1353] Bib. Nat. Grav. L. h. 4. b*.--Nuremberg, German Museum. [1354] Stockholm. Royal Library. (Communicated by the librarian, Mr. H. Wieselgren.) In the same library is a work, without title-page or date, for "broderies et de tous autres besongnant à l'aiguille," by Hieronymus Cock, containing, with designs of every description, a few patterns for Spanish point of great beauty. [1355] Bib. Baron J. Pichon, 2 copies.*--Cat. d'Estrées.--Bib. Nat. Grav. B. c. 22.* (Title-page wanting.) [1356] Bib. Rouen. No. 1,314.*--Bib. Baron J. Pichon.* [1357] Florence, Bib. Prof. Santerelli.--Rome, Bib. Prince Massimo. [1358] Cat. Evans, Strand. [1359] Hesse-Cassel, Public Library. Communicated by Mr. N. R. Bernhardi, the head Librarian. [1360] Lowndes, _Bibliographer's Manual_. New edit. by Henry Bohn. [1361] Victoria and Albert Museum. [1362] Vienna, Imperial Library. [1363] Brussels, Bib. Roy. [1364] Bib. Imp. Grav. L. h. 2. a.*--Brussels, Bib. Roy.--Cat. d'Estrées 8847. [1365] In the possession of Mrs. Marryat. "Maes y dderwen."--Bib. Bodleian. [1366] Quoted by Mr. Douce (_Illustrations of Shakspeare_). [1367] S. Marino. M. P. Bonella. [1368] Berlin, Roy. Library. [1369] Bib. de l'Arsenal. 11,956 _bis_.* [1370] Victoria and Albert Museum. [1371] Victoria and Albert Museum. [1372] _Ibid._ [1373] _A History of Hand-made Lace._ Mrs. Nevill Jackson and E. Jesurum, 1900. [1374] _A History of Hand-made Lace._ Mrs. Nevill Jackson and E. Jesurum. 1900. [1375] _A History of Hand-made Lace._ Mrs. Nevill Jackson and E. Jesurum. 1900. [1376] _A History of Hand-made Lace._ Mrs. Nevill Jackson and E. Jesurum. 1900.